"Let us go, brother," the foreman said. "Go we with the Holy Spirit."
And, omitting even to inquire who had been killed, or even to glance at the corpse, or even to pay it the last salute demanded of custom, the foreman departed down the stream, while in his wake followed the messenger, a man who kept stumbling as he picked his way from stone to stone. Amid the gloom the pair moved as silently as ghosts.
The narrow-chested, fair-headed little muzhik then raked me with his eyes; whereafter he produced a cigarette from a tin box, snapped-to the lid of the box, struck a match (illuminating once more the face of the dead man), and applied the flame to the cigarette. Lastly he said:
"This is the sixth murder which I have seen one thing and another commit."
"One thing and another commit?" I queried.
The reply came only after a pause; when the little muzhik asked: "What did you say? I did not quite catch it."
I explained that human beings, not inanimate entities, murdered human beings.
"Well, be they human beings or machinery or lightning or anything else, they are all one. One of my mates was caught in some machinery at Bakhmakh. Another one had his throat cut in a brawl. Another one was crushed against the bucket in a coal mine. Another one was—"
Carefully though the man counted, he ended by erring in his reckoning to the extent of making his total "five." Accordingly he re-computed the list—and this time succeeded in making the total amount to "seven."
"Never mind," he remarked with a sigh as he blew his cigarette into a red glow which illuminated the whole of his face. "The truth is that I cannot always repeat the list correctly, just as I should like. Were I older than I am, I too should contrive to get finished off; for old-age is a far from desirable thing. Yes, indeed! But, as things are, I am still alive, nor, thank the Lord, does anything matter very much."