They spoke to one another with ecstasy and acute envy of the revelries of the officials, described in detail the bodies of the lewd women known to them, and hotly discussed the various processes of the sexual relation. Most of them were unmarried, almost all were young, and for everyone of them a woman was something in the nature of whiskey—to give him ease and lull him to sleep. Women brought them relief from the anxiety of their dog's work. Almost all kept indecent photographs in their pockets, and looked at them with greed while talking obscenities. Such discussion roused in Yevsey a sharp, intoxicating curiosity, sometimes incredulity and nausea. He soon came to know that some of the spies practised pederasty and sodomy, and that very many were infected with secret diseases. All of them drank much, mixing wine with beer, and beer with cognac, in an effort to get drunk as quickly as possible.
Only a few of them put hot enthusiasm, the passion of the hunter, into their work. These boasted of their skill, swelling with pride as they described themselves as heroes. The majority, however, did their work wearily, with an air of being bored.
Their talks about the people whom they hunted down like beasts were seldom marked by the fierce hatred that boiled in Sasha's conversation like a seething hot-spring. One who was different from the rest was Melnikov, a heavy, hairy man with a thick, bellowing voice, who walked with oddly bent neck and spoke little. His dark eyes were always straining, as if in constant search. The man seemed to Yevsey ever to be thinking of something terrible. Krasavin and Solovyov also contrasted with the others, the one by his cold malice, the other by the complacent satisfaction with which he spoke about fights, blood-shed, and women.
Among the youth the most noticeable was Yakov Zarubin, who was constantly fidgetting about and constantly running up to the others with questions. When he listened to the conversations about the revolutionists he knitted his brows in anger and jotted down notes in his little note-book. He tried to be of service to all the important spies, though it was evident that no one liked him and that his book was regarded with suspicion.
The larger number spoke indifferently about the revolutionists, sometimes denouncing them as incomprehensible men of whom they were sick, sometimes referring to them in fun as to amusing cranks. Occasionally, too, they spoke in anger as one speaks of a child who deserves punishment for impudence. Yevsey began to imagine that all the revolutionists were empty people who were not serious, and did not themselves know what they wanted, but merely brought disturbance and disorder into life.
Once Yevsey asked Piotr:
"There, you said the revolutionists are being bribed by the Germans, and now they say differently."
"What do you mean by 'differently?'" Piotr demanded angrily.
"That they are poor and stupid, and nobody says anything about the Germans."
"Go to the devil, brother! Isn't it all the same to you? Do what you are told to do. Your color is the diamond, and you go with diamonds."