"He kept silent even in the hospital, where one may cry out.
"He kept silent when the doctor would not come to his bedside without being paid fifteen kopeks, and when the attendant demanded another five—for changing his linen.
"He kept silent in the death-struggle—silent in death.
"Not a word against God; not a word against men!
"Dixi!"
———
Once more Bontzye trembled all over, he knew that after the advocate comes the prosecutor. Who knows what he will say?
Bontzye himself had remembered nothing of his life.
Even in the other world he forgot every moment what had happened in the one before. The advocate had recalled everything to his mind. Who knows what the prosecutor will not remind him of?
"Gentlemen," begins the prosecutor, in a voice biting and acid as vinegar—but he breaks off.