The crowd was now beginning to notice something queer about the orator himself. He was glaring intently at some object near him and was shifting his position uneasily. At last he suddenly stopped, his jaw dropped with amazement, and he turned to Poplavski.
“Look here, that man’s alive!” he cried, his eyes starting out of his head with horror.
“Who’s alive?”
“Why, Prokofi Osipitch! There he is now, standing by that monument!”
“Of course he is! It was Kiril Ivanovitch that died, not he!”
“But you said yourself it was the Assessor!”
“I know! And wasn’t Kiril Ivanovitch the Assessor? Oh, you moon-calf! You have got them mixed up! Of course Prokofi Osipitch used to be the Assessor, but that was two years ago. He has been chief of a table in chancery now for two years!”
“It’s simply the devil to keep up with all you chaps!”
“What are you stopping for? Go on! This is getting too awkward!”
Zapoikin turned toward the grave, and continued his oration with all his former eloquence. Yes, and there near the monument stood Prokofi Osipitch, an old civil servant with a clean-shaven face, frowning and glaring furiously at the speaker.