"Yes, go to the devil! I know without you that they are tracking me. What's the matter? Is business going badly among you? Did you think you'd buy me? And betray people behind my back? Or did you want to throw a sop to your conscience? Go to hell! I say, go, or else I'll give you a black eye."
Yevsey started from his leaning posture, and walked off.
"Vermin!" he heard breathed behind him contemptuously.
Klimkov stopped, turned around, and for the first time swore at anybody with the whole power of his voice:
"Vermin yourself! You —— —— cur!"
Zimin did not rejoin. His steps were inaudible. Somewhere Yevsey heard the snow crunching under the runners of a cab and the grinding of iron on stone.
"He went back there," thought Klimkov, walking slowly along the pavement. "He will tell. Masha will curse me." He spat out, then hummed:
"Oh, garden, garden mine!" He stopped at a lamp-post, feeling he had to calm himself.
"Here I am, and I can sing if I want to. If a policeman hears it and asks, 'What are you bawling there?' I'll show him my ticket from the Department of Safety. 'Oh, excuse me!' he'll say. But if the joiner should sing, he'll be hustled off to the station-house, and they'll give him a cudgelling. 'Don't disturb the peace!'" Klimkov smiled, and peered into the darkness. "Well, brother, won't you strike up a song?"
However this failed to calm him as he had expected. His heart was sad, and a bitter soapy saliva seemed to be glued in his mouth, making tears well up in his eyes.