When they had concluded their supper, they sat around the fire,
which consumed the wood quickly. Behind them hung the darkness,
embracing forest and sky. The sick man with wide-open eyes looked
into the fire, coughed incessantly, and shivered all over. The
remnants of his life seemed to be tearing themselves from his bosom
impatiently, hastening to forsake the dry body, drained by sickness.
"Maybe you'd better go into the shanty, Savely?" Yakob asked,
bending over him.
"Why?" he answered with an effort. "I'll sit here. I haven't much
time left to stay with people, very little time." He paused, let
his eyes rove about the entire group, then with a pale smile,
continued: "I feel good when I'm with you. I look at you, and
think, 'Maybe you will avenge the wrongs of all who were robbed,
of all the people destroyed because of greed.'"
No one replied, and he soon fell into a doze, his head limply hanging
over his chest. Rybin looked at him, and said in a dull voice:
"He comes to us, sits here, and always speaks of the same thing, of
this mockery of man. This is his entire soul; he feels nothing else."
"What more do you want?" said the mother thoughtfully.
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