All were at a loss. They shouted at him but he made no reply.
"Stiepan, are you ill?" asked the other soldier with the bandaged hand. "Perhaps we'd better call the priest, eh?"
"Stiepan, drink some water," said the sailor. "Here, mate, have a drink."
"What's the good of breaking his teeth with the jug," shouted Goussiev angrily. "Don't you see, you fatheads?"
"What."
"What!" cried Goussiev. "He's snuffed it, dead. That's what! Good God, what fools!..."
III
The rolling stopped and Pavel Ivanich cheered up. He was no longer peevish. His face had an arrogant, impetuous, and mocking expression. He looked as if he were on the point of saying: "I'll tell you a story that will make you die of laughter." Their port-hole was open and a soft wind blew in on Pavel Ivanich. Voices could be heard and the splash of oars in the water.... Beneath the window some one was howling in a thin, horrible voice; probably a Chinaman singing.
"Yes. We are in harbour," said Pavel Ivanich, smiling mockingly. "Another month and we shall be in Russia. It's true; my gallant warriors, I shall get to Odessa and thence I shall go straight to Kharkhov. At Kharkhov I have a friend, a literary man. I shall go to him and I shall say, 'now, my friend, give up your rotten little love-stories and descriptions of nature, and expose the vileness of the human biped.... There's a subject for you.'"
He thought for a moment and then he said: