Unhopeful of any turn for the better, they regarded
every change as capable only of increasing their burden.
And the workingmen of the suburb tacitly avoided people who spoke
unusual things to them. Then these people disappeared again, going
off elsewhere, and those who remained in the factory lived apart, if
they could not blend and make one whole with the monotonous mass in
the village.
Living a life like that for some fifty years, a workman died.
Thus also lived Michael Vlasov, a gloomy, sullen man, with little
eyes which looked at everybody from under his thick eyebrows
suspiciously, with a mistrustful, evil smile. He was the best
locksmith in the factory, and the strongest man in the village. But
he was insolent and disrespectful toward the foreman and the
superintendent, and therefore earned little; every holiday he beat
somebody, and everyone disliked and feared him.
More than one attempt was made to beat him in turn, but without
success. When Vlasov found himself threatened with attack, he
caught a stone in his hand, or a piece of wood or iron, and
spreading out his legs stood waiting in silence for the enemy. His
face overgrown with a dark beard from his eyes to his neck, and his
hands thickly covered with woolly hair, inspired everybody with
fear.
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