"Is it possible that what he says is true?"
Sofya answered aloud:
"Yes, it's true. The newspapers tell about such gifts. It happened in Moscow."
"And the man wasn't executed for it?" asked Rybin dully. "But he should have been executed, he should have been led out before the people and torn to pieces. His vile, dirty flesh should have been thrown to the dogs. The people will perform great executions when once they arise. They'll shed much blood to wash away their wrongs. This blood is theirs; it has been drained from their veins; they are its masters."
"It's cold," said the sick man. Yakob helped him to rise, and led him to the fire.
The wood pile burned evenly and glaringly, and the faceless shadows quivered around it. Savely sat down on a stump, and stretched his dry, transparent hands toward the fire, coughing. Rybin nodded his head to one side, and said to Sofya in an undertone:
"That's sharper than books. That ought to be known. When they tear a workingman's hand in a machine or kill him, you can understand—the workingman himself is at fault. But in a case like this, when they suck a man's blood out of him and throw him away like a carcass—that can't be explained in any way. I can comprehend every murder; but torturing for mere sport I can't comprehend. And why do they torture the people? To what purpose do they torture us all? For fun, for mere amusement, so that they can live pleasantly on the earth; so that they can buy everything with the blood of the people, a prima donna, horses, silver knives, golden dishes, expensive toys for their children. You work, work, work, work more and more, and I'll hoard money by your labor and give my mistress a golden wash basin."
The mother listened, looked, and once again, before her in the darkness, stretched the bright streak of the road that Pavel was going, and all those with whom he walked.
When they had concluded their supper, they sat around the fire, which consumed the wood quickly. Behind them hung the darkness, embracing forest and sky. The sick man with wide-open eyes looked into the fire, coughed incessantly, and shivered all over. The remnants of his life seemed to be tearing themselves from his bosom impatiently, hastening to forsake the dry body, drained by sickness.
"Maybe you'd better go into the shanty, Savely?" Yakob asked, bending over him.