"What could we have done?"
Meanwhile Ossip had remained lying on the ground with one leg stretched out at full length, and tremulous hands fumbling at his greatcoat as under his breath he muttered:
"Holy Mother, how wet I am! My clothes, though I have only worn them a year, are ruined for ever!"
Moreover, he seemed now to have shrunken again in stature—to have become crumpled up like a man run over. Indeed, as he lay he seemed actually to be melting, so continuously was his bulk decreasing in size.
But suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture, groaned, and exclaimed in high-pitched, wrathful accents:
"May the devil take you all! Be off with you to your washhouses and churches! Yes, be off, for it seems that, as God couldn't keep His holy festival without you, I've had to stand within an ace of death and to spoil my clothes-yes, all that you fellows should be got out of your fix!"
Nevertheless, the men merely continued taking off their boots, and wringing out their clothes, and conversing with sundry gasps and grunts with the bystanders. So presently Ossip resumed:
"What are you thinking of, you fools? The washhouse is the best place for you, for if the police get you, they'll soon find you a lodging, and no mistake!"
One of the townspeople put in officiously:
"Aye, aye. The police have been sent for."