One could never see his full face, but his profile showed an aquiline nose, projecting underlip, and bushy grey eyebrows. He was the captain's first lodger, and it was rumoured that he possessed large sums of money hidden somewhere about him. It was for this money that two years ago he had had his throat cut, since when he had been forced to keep his head so strangely bent. He denied having any money, and said that he had been struck with a knife for fun; and this accident had made it convenient for him to become a rag and bone picker, as his head was always necessarily bent forward towards the ground. When he walked about with his swaying, uncertain gait, and without his stick and bag, the badges of his profession, he seemed a being absorbed with his own thoughts, and Kouvalda, pointing at him with his finger, would say, "Look out! there is the escaped conscience of Judah Petounnikoff, seeking for a refuge! See how ragged and dirty this fugitive conscience looks!"
Tiapa spoke with such a hoarse voice that it was almost impossible to understand him, and that was perhaps why he spoke little, and always sought solitude. Each time, when a new-comer, driven from the village, arrived at the doss-house, Tiapa at sight of him would fall into a state of angry irritation and restlessness. He would persecute the miserable being with sharp, mocking words, which issued from his throat in an angry hiss; and he would set on him one of the most savage amongst the tramps, and finally threaten to beat and rob him himself in the night. He nearly always succeeded in driving out the terrified and disconcerted peasant, who never returned.
When Tiapa was somewhat appeased, he would hide himself in a corner to mend his old clothes or to read in a Bible, as old, as tom, as dirty as himself. Tiapa would come out of his corner when the schoolmaster brought the newspaper to read. Generally Tiapa listened silently to the news, sighed deeply, but never asked any questions. When the schoolmaster closed the newspaper, Tiapa would stretch out his bony hand and say—
"Give it here."
"What do you want it for?"
"Give it; perhaps there is something written concerning us."
"Concerning whom?"
"The village."
They laughed at him, and threw the paper at him. He would take it and read those parts which told of corn beaten down by the hail; of thirty holdings being destroyed by fire, and of a woman poisoning a whole family; in fact, all those parts about village life which showed it as miserable, sordid, and cruel. Tiapa read all these in a dull voice, and emitted sounds which might be interpreted as expressing either pity or pleasure. On Sunday he never went out rag-picking, but spent most of his day reading his Bible, during which process he moaned and sighed. His book he always held resting on his chest, and he was angry if anyone touched it or interrupted his reading.
"Hullo, you magician!" Kouvalda would say; "you don't understand anything of that; leave the book alone!"