"Why not?"
"Because I know in advance that—"
Breaking off short, he turned his head upon his shoulder, and sat listening to some shouting that was going on across the river. Everyone in that quarter was drunk, and, in particular, someone could be heard bawling in a tone of challenge:
"Oh? I, you say? A-a-ah! Then take that!"
Silantiev, stepping lightly from stone to stone, crossed the river. Then he mingled—a conspicuous figure (owing to his apparent handlessness)—with the crowd. Somehow, on his departure, I felt ill at ease.
Twitching his fingers as though performing a conjuring trick, the old man continued to sit with his hands stretched over the embers. By this time his nose had swollen over the bridge, and bruises risen under his eyes which tended to obscure his vision. Indeed, as he sat there, sat mouthing with dark, bestreaked lips under a covering of hoary beard and moustache, I found that his bloodstained, disfigured, wrinkled, as it were "antique" face reminded me more than ever of those of great sinners of ancient times who abandoned this world for the forest and the desert.
"I have seen many proud folk," he continued with a shake of his hatless head and its sparse hairs. "A fire may burn up quickly, and continue to burn fiercely, yet, like these embers, become turned to ashes, and so lie smouldering till dawn. Young man, there you have something to think of. Nor are they merely my words. They are the words of the Holy Gospel itself."
Ever descending, ever weighing more heavily upon us, the night was as black and hot and stifling as the previous one had been, albeit as kindly as a mother. Still the two fires on the opposite bank of the rivulet were aflame, and sending hot blasts of vapour across a seeming brook of gold.
Folding his arms upon his breast, the old man tucked the palms of his hands into his armpits, and settled himself more comfortably. Nevertheless, when I made as though to add more twigs and shavings to the embers he exclaimed imperiously:
"There is no need for that."