The bluish
whites of his eyes were threaded with thin red fibers, as if he had
gone without sleep for a long time. His nose, less fleshy than
formerly, had acquired a rapacious crook. His open, tar-saturated
collar, attached to a shirt that had once been red, exposed his dry
collar bones and the thick black hair on his breast. About his whole
figure there was something more tragic than before. Red sparks
seemed to fly from his inflamed eyes and light the lean, dark face
with the fire of unconquerable, melancholy rage. Sofya paled and
was silent, her gaze riveted on the peasant. Ignaty shook his head
and screwed up his eyes, and Yakob, standing at the wall again,
angrily tore splinters from the boards with his blackened fingers.
Yefim, behind the mother, slowly paced up and down along the length
of the table.
"The other day," continued Rybin, "a government official called me
up, and, says he, 'You blackguard, what did you say to the priest?'
'Why am I a blackguard?' I say. 'I earn my bread in the sweat of my
brow, and I don't do anything bad to people.' That's what I said.
He bawled out at me, and hit me in the face. For three days and
three nights I sat in the lockup.
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