"No! on my word I didn't; she ate too much pickled herring."
"And I tell you, you did! you poisoned her," "Scraps" repeated, with further assurance.
It was often his way, after having said some absurdity, to continue to repeat it, without bringing forward any grounds of confirmation; and beginning in a pettish, childish tone, he would gradually work himself up into a rage.
The deacon took up the cudgels for his friend.
"He couldn't have poisoned her, he had no reason to do so."
"And I say he did poison her!" screamed "Scraps."
"Shut up!" shouted the captain in a threatening voice.
His sense of boredom was gradually changing into suppressed anger. With savage eyes he glanced round at the company, and not finding anything in their already half-drunken faces that might serve as an excuse for his fury, he dropped his head on his breast, remained sitting thus for a few moments, and then stretched himself full length on the ground, with his face upwards. "The Meteor" was gnawing cucumbers; he would take one in his hand, without looking at it, thrust half of it into his mouth, and then suddenly bite it in two with his large yellow teeth, so that the salt juice oozed out on either side and wetted his cheeks. He was clearly not hungry, but this proceeding amused him. Martianoff remained motionless as a statue in the position he had taken, stretched on the ground and absorbed in gloomily watching the barrel of vodka, which was by this time more than half empty. Tiapa had his eyes fixed on the ground, whilst he masticated noisily the meat which would not yield to his old teeth. "Scraps" lay on his stomach, coughing from time to time, whilst convulsive movements shook all his small body. The rest of the silent dark figures sat or lay about in various positions, and these ragged objects were scarcely distinguishable in the twilight from the heaps of rubbish half overgrown with weeds which were strewn about the yard. Their bent, crouching forms, and their tatters gave them the look of hideous animals, created by some coarse and freakish power, in mockery of man.
"There lived in Sousdal town
A lady of small renown;
She suffered from cramps and pains,
And very disagreeable they were ..."
sang the deacon in a low voice, embracing Alexai Maximovitch, who smiled back stupidly in his face. "Tarass and a half" leered lasciviously.