He understood that they were inviting him to share the meal, but he felt uneasy about that, and though his stomach seemed to have shrunk, and the sausage-skins and bones which they had thrown away lay quite close to him, he could not make up his mind to move and pick them up.
'Come on!'
The soldier beckoned to him. 'Come here!'
The old man felt that he was weakening, the savoury smell took possession of him.
But 'I shan't go,' he thought. The soldier, gnawing a bone, repeated,
'Come on!'
'I shan't go,' thought Yakob, and spat into the fire, to assure himself that he was not going. All the same…the terribly tempting smell made him more and more feeble.
At last two of them got up, took him under the arms, and sat him down between them.
They made signs to him, they held the sausage under his nose; the tea was steaming, the brandy smelt delicious.
Yakob put his hands on the table, then put them behind him. Black shadows were gesticulating on the walls. He felt unhappy about sharing a meal with people without knowing what they were, never having seen or known them before. They were Russians, thus much he knew. He had a vision of something that happened long ago, he could not distinctly remember what it was, for it happened so very long ago; his grandfather had come home from the fair that was held in the town, shivering and groaning. There had been outcries and curses.
'They are going to poison me like a dog,' he thought.