From the moment of the arrival of the police she had never looked at the man, betraying him naturally and openly; and this he saw, and was silent and smiled half scoffingly, a strange smile—as a gray stone in the forest, sunk into the ground and mossgrown, might smile.
Half dressed women were crowding about the door, amongst them some of those who had visited them. But they looked at him indifferently, with a dull curiosity, as though this was the first time they had seen him. Apparently they remembered nothing of the night. They were soon hustled away.
It was now daylight, and the room was more bleak and repulsive than ever. Two officers who evidently had not had their full sleep came in, their faces ruffled, but properly dressed and clean.
»It's no good, gentlemen, really,« the superintendent said with a spiteful glance at the man. The officers approached, looked him up and down from his crown to his naked feet with those bent toes, surveyed Liuba, and casually exchanged observations.
»Yes—he's good looking,« said the young one, the one who had invited them all to the cotillion. He had splendid white teeth and silky whiskers and soft eyes with girlish lashes. He looked at the arrested man with disdainful compassion, and wrinkled his eyes as if he were going to cry. There was a corn on the left little toe ... somehow it was horrible and disgusting to see that little yellow mound. And the legs were dirty. »This is a fine pass for you to come to, sir,« he said, shaking his head and painfully contracting his brows.
»So that's how it is, Mr. Anarchist? You're no better than us sinners with the girls? The flesh was weak, eh?« jeered the other, the elder.
»Why did you give up your revolver? You might at least have had a shot for it. I understand that you found yourself here, as anyone might find himself; but why did you give up your revolver? A poor example to set your comrades!« said the little officer, hotly; and then explained to the elder: »He had a Browning with three cartridge clips. Just think of it! Stupid!«
But the man, smiling contemptuously from the height of his new, unmeasured, and terrible truth, looked on the little excited officer and indifferently kept on swinging his leg. The fact of his being nearly naked, of having dirty hairy legs with bent and crooked toes, gave him no sense of shame. Had they taken him just as he was and planted him in the most populous square of the city, in front of all the men and women and children, he would have gone on dangling that hairy leg with the same equanimity, smiling the same disdainful smile.
»Do they know what comradeship is?« said the superintendent. He was savagely looking askance at that swaying leg, and indolently trying to dissuade the officers. »It's no good talking to him, gentlemen, I swear! No good! You know the kind of thing—instructions!«
Other officers entered quite freely, surveyed the scene and chatted together. One of them, evidently an old acquaintance of the superintendent, shook hands with him. Liuba was already coquetting with the officers.