My brief acquaintance with this man finished curiously.
I met him in the spring, in the fields near the camp. He was walking like a camel, moving his head from side to side, solitary, bloated-looking.
"Going for a walk?" he asked hoarsely. "Let us go together. I also am taking a walk. I am ill, Brother; yes."
We walked some yards without speaking, when suddenly we saw a man in a pit which had been made under a tent. He was sitting in the bottom of the pit, leaning on one side, his shoulder resting against the side of the trench. His coat was drawn up on one side above his ear, as if he had been trying to take it off and had not succeeded.
"Drunk," decided the singer, coming to a standstill.
But on the young grass under the man's arm lay a large revolver, not far from him lay a cap, and beside it stood a bottle of vodka, hardly begun. Its empty neck was buried in the long grass. The face of the man was hidden by his overcoat, as if he were ashamed.
For a moment we stood in silence. Then Mitropolski, planting his feet wide apart, said:
"He has shot himself."
Then I understood that the man was not drunk, but dead, but it came upon me so suddenly that I could not believe it. I remember that I felt neither fear nor pity as I looked at that large, smooth skull, visible above the overcoat, and on that livid ear. I could not believe that a man would kill himself on such a pleasant spring day.
The singer rubbed his unshaven cheeks with his hand, as if he were cold, and said hoarsely: