Early in the morning he was already standing in the corner of a large yard at a yellow hovel with a cross over the roof. A grey humpbacked watchman said as he opened the door:

"There are two of them here. One was recognized, the other not. The unidentified one will soon be taken to the grave."

Then Yevsey saw the sullen face of Zarubin. The only change it had undergone was that it had grown a little blue. The small wound in place of the scar had been washed, and had turned black. The little alert body was naked and clean. It lay face upward, stretched like a cord, with the tanned hands folded over the bosom, as if Zarubin were sullenly asking:

"Well, what?"

Beside him lay the other dark body, all rent, swollen, with red, blue, and yellow stains. Someone had covered its face with blue and white flowers. But under them Yevsey could see the bones of the skull, a tuft of hair glued together with blood, and the torn shell of the ear.

Leaning his hump against the wall, the old man said:

"This one cannot be recognized. He has almost no head. Yet he was identified. Two ladies came yesterday with these flowers and covered up human outrage. As for the other one, he's remained unidentified."

"I know who he is," said Yevsey firmly. "He's Yakov Zarubin. He served in the Department of Safety."

The watchman looked at him, and shook his head in negation.

"No, it's not he. The police told us he was Zarubin, and our office inquired of the Department of Safety, but it appeared it wasn't he."

"But I know," Yevsey exclaimed quietly, in an offended tone.

"In the Department of Safety they said, 'We don't know such a person. A man by that name never served here.'"

"It's not true," exclaimed Yevsey, grieved and dumfounded.

Two young fellows came in from the court, one of whom asked the watchman:

"Which is the unidentified man?"

The humpback pointed his finger at Zarubin, and said to Yevsey:

"You see?"

Klimkov walked out into the court, thrust a coin into the watchman's hand, and repeated with impotent stubbornness:

"It's Zarubin, I tell you."

"As you please," said the old man, shrugging his hump. "But if it is so, others would have recognized him. An agent came here yesterday in search of someone who had been killed. He didn't recognize your man either, though why shouldn't he admit it if he did?"

"What agent?"

"A stout man, bald, with an amiable voice."

"Solovyov," guessed Yevsey, observing dully that Zarubin's body was being laid in a white unpainted coffin.

"It doesn't go in," mumbled one of the fellows.

"Bend his legs, the devil!"

"The lid won't close."

"Sidewise, lay him in sidewise, eh?"

"Don't make such a fuss, boys," said the old man calmly.

The fellow who held the head of the body snuffled, and said:

"It's a spy, Uncle Fiodor."

"A dead man is nobody," observed the humpback didactically, walking up to them. The fellows grew silent, continuing to squeeze the springy tawny body into the narrow short coffin.

"You fools, get another coffin," said the humpback, angrily.

"It's all the same," said one, and the other added grimly, "He's not a great gentleman."

Yevsey left the court carrying in his soul a bitter humiliating feeling of insult in behalf of Zarubin. Behind him he clearly heard the hump-back say to the men as they bore off the body:

"Something wrong there, too. He came here, and says 'I know him.' Maybe he knows all about this affair."

The two men answered almost simultaneously:

"Seems to be a spy, too."

"What's the difference to us?"

Klimkov quickly jumped into a cab, and shouted to the driver:

"Hurry!"

"Where to?"

Yevsey answered quietly and not at once:

"Straight ahead."

The insulting thoughts dully knocked in his head.

"They bury him like a dog—no one wants him—and me, too—"

The streets came to meet him. The houses rocked and swayed, the windows gleamed. People walked noisily, and everything was alien.

"To-day I'm going to make an end of Sasha. I'll go there at once and shoot him." In a moment he was already compelled to persuade himself: "It's got to be done. As for me, nothing matters to me any more."

Dismissing the cabman he walked into a restaurant, to which Sasha came less frequently than to the others. He stopped in front of the door of the room where the spies gathered.

"The instant I see him, I'll shoot him," he said to himself.

He knocked at the door tremulously, and felt the revolver in his hand. His soul was congealed in cold expectation.

"Who's there?" asked someone on the other side of the door.

"I."

The door was opened a little. In the chink flashed the eyes and reddish little nose of Solovyov.

"Ah-h-h!" he drawled in amazement. "There was a rumor that you had been killed."

"No, I have not been killed," Klimkov responded sullenly, removing his coat.

"I see. Lock the door. They say you went with Melnikov—"

Solovyov was thoroughly masticating a piece of ham; which interfered with his articulation. His greasy lips smacked slowly and let out the unconcerned words, "So, it isn't true that you went with Melnikov?"

"Why isn't it true?"

"Why, here you are alive, and he's in bad shape. I saw him yesterday."

"Where?"

The spy named the hospital from which Yevsey had just come.

"Why is he there?" Klimkov inquired apathetically.

"That is it: a Cossack struck him a sabre blow on the head, and the horses trampled him. It's not known how it happened, or why. He's unconscious. The physicians say he won't recover."

Solovyov poured some sort of green whiskey into a glass, held it up to the light, and examined it with screwed-up eyes. After which he drank it, and asked:

"Where are you hiding yourself?"

"I'm not hiding."

"You have been hiding all the same."

A plate fell to the floor in the corridor. Yevsey started. He remembered he had forgotten to remove the revolver from his overcoat pocket. He rose to his feet.

"Sasha is fuming at you."

Before Yevsey's eyes swam the sinister red disk of the moon surrounded by a cloud of ill-smelling lilac-colored mist. He recalled the snuffling, ever-commanding voice, the yellow fingers of the bony hands.

"Won't he come here?"

"I don't know. Why?"

Solovyov's face wore a sleek expression. Apparently he was very well satisfied with something. In his voice sounded the careless affability of an aristocrat. All this was repulsive to Yevsey. Incoherent thoughts tossed about in his mind, one breaking the other off.

"You are all rascals—sorry for Melnikov—so this obese fellow didn't want to recognize Yakov—why?"

"Did you see Zarubin?"

"That's who?" asked Solovyov, raising his brows.

"You know. He lay in the hospital there. You saw him."

"Yes, yes, yes. Of course I saw him."

"Why didn't you say there that you knew him?" Yevsey demanded sternly.

The old spy reared his bald head, and exclaimed in astonishment with a sarcastic expression:

"W-w-w-hat?"

Yevsey repeated the question, but this time in a milder tone.

"That's not your business, my dear fellow. I want you to know that. But I'm sorry for your stupidity, so I'll tell you, we have no need for fools, we don't know them, we don't comprehend them, we don't recognize them. You are to understand that, now and forever, for all your life. Remember what I say, and tie your tongue with a string."

The little eyes of Solovyov sparkled cold as two silver coins, his voice bespoke evil and cruelty. He shook his short thick fingers at Yevsey. His greedy bluish lips were drawn sullenly. But he was not horrible.

"It's all the same," thought Yevsey. "They are all one gang—they all ought to be—"

He darted to his overcoat, snatched the revolver from the pocket, aimed at Solovyov, and shouted dully:

"Well!"

The old man crawled from his chair, and grovelled on the floor, looking like a large heap of dirt. He seized the leg of the table with one hand, and stretched the other toward Yevsey.

"Don't—you mustn't," he muttered in a loud whisper. "My dear sir, don't touch me."

Klimkov pressed the trigger more tightly, more tightly. His head chilled with the effort, his hair shook.

"I will go away—I'm going to get married to-morrow—I'll go away—for always—I'll never—" His heavy cowardly words rustled and crept in the air. Grease glistened on his chin, and the napkin over his bosom quivered.

The revolver did not shoot. Yevsey's finger pained, and horror took powerful possession of him from head to foot, impeding his breath.

"I can give you money," Solovyov whispered more quickly. "I will tell nothing—I will keep quiet—always—I understand—"

Klimkov raised his hand and flung the revolver at the spy. Then he caught up his overcoat, and ran off. Two feeble shouts overtook him:

"Ow, ow!"