An Evening in Spring

On St. Thomas’ week, on a clear evening barely tinged with rose, at that enchanting time when the earth has just been freed from the snow, when, in the little hollows upon the steppes, underneath the young bare oaks, some gray, hardened snow still lingers, an old beggar was going from house to house in a certain village in the Eletz province⁠—of course, he had no hat, and there was a long linen wallet slung over his shoulder.

This village was a large one, but quiet, lying far out among the fields. And besides, it happened to be a quiet evening. There was nobody near the flooded, clayey pond, that one could not see the limits of; nor upon the level common where, in the shade of the huts and hayricks, this old man was walking. His head was bald, yet still black-haired; he held a long walnut staff in his hand, and looked like a primitive bishop. The common was of a clear, vivid green; the air was freshening; the pond, concavely-full, its tone that of a flashing flesh colour, was slightly crimson, and there was a certain beauty about it, despite a bottle-green block of ice, covered with rusty manure, that still floated about in it. Somewheres on the other side, warmly and caressingly lit up against the low-lying sun⁠—somewhere far-off, it seemed⁠—a child, strayed behind some corn-kiln or storehouse, was crying, and its plaintive, monotonous wailing was not unpleasant to the ear in the evening glow.⁠ ⁠… But the folk thereabouts were none too generous of alms.

There, at the entrance to the village, near an old, well-to-do farm, where age-old oaks covered with the nests of rooks stood beyond the three-roomed izba of dark-red brick, a young gray-eyed married woman had given something, but even that had been a trifle. She had been standing near the stone threshold amid the drying spring mire upon a hard-beaten path, holding a pretty little girl, whose little eyes did not show any glimmer of intelligence, perched in her arms; the child had on a little patchwork cap, and, pressing her close against her, the woman was dancing, stamping her bare feet, and, as she turned, her cotton skirt would swell out.

“There’s an old man; I’ll give you to him to put in his little wallet,” she was saying through her teeth, her lips feasting on the little girl’s cheeks:

“I’m a-goin’ to dance
So’s the floor will creak.⁠ ⁠…”

And, turning, completely around, she changed her voice to a ringing, coquettish tone, evidently imitative of someone:

“Old man, old man⁠—don’t you need a little girl?”

The girl was not a bit frightened; she was calmly sucking a round cracknel, and the mother began coaxing the little girl, in all sorts of ways, to give it to the smiling beggar who had come up:

“Give it to him, my little babe, give it to him; for you and I are all, all alone on this whole farm; so we have nothing to give alms with.⁠ ⁠…”

And the little girl stolidly stretched out her short little arm, with the saliva-moistened cookie clenched in her little fist. And the beggar, smilingly shaking his head at other folks’ happiness, took it and munched it as he went on his way.

He held his stick lightly, in readiness, as he went; now it would be a wicked, snarling watchdog that would roll up in a ball underneath your feet⁠—and having rolled right up to you, would suddenly become quiet; or else a yellow, downy hound would ferociously tear the ground and throw it up with his hind feet, standing near a hay rick and growling, growling and gasping, with fiery eyes.⁠ ⁠… Upon approaching the little window of a hut, the beggar would make a humble bow and would tap lightly against the frame with his staff. But often no one would respond to this tap; many were still finishing up their sowing, finishing up their plowing, many were out in the fields. And his soul, the soul of a peasant from of old, even rejoiced in secret: the folks are out in the field⁠ ⁠… this is the time that feeds the whole year⁠ ⁠… no time for beggars.⁠ ⁠… And at times, on the other side of the panes upon which the beggar tapped, a fair-faced peasant woman carrying a child at breast in her arms, would lean over as she sat on a bench. Through the sorry little window, she appeared very big. Not at all abashed because the beggar could see her soft breast, as white as wheat-flour, she would wave him away with her large hand, covered with silver rings, while the infant, without letting the sweet nipple out of its mouth, lay back and looked up at her with its dark, clear eyes, scratching hard its bare little outspread legs, all dotted with pink from flea-bites. “God will give you alms⁠—don’t be angry with us,” the peasant woman would say calmly. As for the old women, each one of them would wrinkle up her face painfully, inevitably leaning out and complaining for a long time, constantly reiterating that she’d be glad as glad could be to give alms, but there wasn’t anything⁠ ⁠… everybody was out in the fields⁠ ⁠… and to give without asking she was afraid⁠—she, being an old woman, had had her head bitten off long ago, as it was.⁠ ⁠… The beggar would agree with her, would say, “Well, forgive me, for the love of God,” and would go on farther.

He had done thirty versts9 that day, and was not a bit fatigued; only his legs had grown benumbed, dulled, and had begun to wobble. His long bag was half-filled with crusts and some odds and ends; while under the patched long coat, narrow belted and long skirted, under the sheepskin jacket and the much worn blouse, under the shirt next his skin, there had long been hanging upon his crucifix an amulet wherein were sewn ninety-two roubles in bills. And his soul was at rest. Of course, he was old, thin, all weather-beaten⁠—his mouth contracted, parched, until it was all black; his nose was like a bone; his neck all in wrinkles resembling cracks, crisscrossing one another, as though his neck were made of cork. But he was still spry. His eyes, which once upon a time had been black, were now rheumy and dimmed by thin cataracts; but still they could see not only the full-flooded pond, but, as well, the roseate tint upon its farther side, and even the clear, pale sky. The air was getting fresher; more loudly, but seemingly from a still greater distance, came the receding cry of the child; there was a scent of the chilling grass in the air.⁠ ⁠… Two pigeons soared together over the roofs, fell to the clayey little bank of the pond, and, raising their little heads, began to drink.⁠ ⁠… Just a little before, in a lonely farm near the great road, some women had grown generous and had given him a big piece of calico and a pair of good trousers⁠—oh, good as new, you might say; a young fellow that belonged to their farm had made them for himself, but he had been crushed in a pit, in the quarry where the muzhiks had been digging for clay. Now the beggar was walking along and deliberating: should he dispose of them, or put them on himself, and throw away those he had on⁠—which, by now, were really none too presentable⁠—near the edge of some field?

Having come to the end of the village, he entered a short little lane that led out into the steppe. And into his eyes glanced the many-rayed, fair-weather sun of April, sinking far beyond the plain, beyond the gray fallow-lands and the newly tilled fields of spring-corn. At the very end of the village, at a turn of the well-beaten, glistening road, leading to that distant, humble hamlet where the beggar was thinking of passing the night, stood a new hut, not large, well-roofed with new thatch, which was lemon-coloured and resembled a well-combed head. Keeping aloof from everybody, a man and his wife had settled here a year ago⁠—there were shavings and chips still knocking about here and there. They were a thrifty, hardworking, agreeable couple, and sold vodka on the sly. And so the beggar went straight toward this hut⁠—there was a possibility of selling the new trousers to its owner⁠—and besides, he liked just to enter it; he liked it because it seemed to be living some especial life, all its own, quiet and steadfast, standing at the end leading out of the village and gazing with its clear little windows upon the setting of the sun, while the skylarks were finishing their song in the chilling air. Near the blind wall that gave out upon the by-lane lay a shadow, but its front wall was gay. Last fall its owner had planted three acacia bushes beneath the little windows. Now they had taken root and were already downy with a yellowish verdure tender as that of a willow. Having skirted them, the beggar walked in through the entry into the main room.

At first, after the sunlight, he could not see anything, although the sun was looking in here as well, lighting up the blue transparent smoke floating over the table, that stood underneath a hanging tin lamp. To gain time while his eyes grew accustomed, he bowed and crossed himself for a long time in the direction of the new tinselled icon hanging in a corner. Then he laid down his bag and his staff on the floor near the door, and made out a large-bodied muzhik in bast shoes and a tattered short sheepskin coat, sitting with his back to the door, on a stool near the table; the well-dressed mistress he saw sitting on a bench.

“The Lord’s blessing be with you,” said he, in a low voice, bowing once more. “Greetings of the holiday just past.”

He wanted to sing the paschal “Christ Is Risen,” but felt that it would be out of place, and reflected:

“Well, I guess the master is not at home.⁠ ⁠… What a pity.”

The mistress was not at all bad-looking, with a very shapely waist, with white hands⁠—just as though she were no mere peasant woman. She was in a gala-dress, as always; in a pearl necklace, in a blouse of coarse calico, with thin puffed-out sleeves, with an apron broidered in red and blue, in a skirt of indigo wool with terracotta checks, and in half-boots, rough but well-sewn and made to fit the foot, their heels shod with steel. With her neat head and clear face bent down, she was embroidering a blouse for her husband. When the beggar had greeted her, she raised her steady but unglittering eyes, threw an intent glance upon him, and nodded amiably. Then, with a light sigh, she laid her work aside, deftly stuck her needle in it, went toward the oven, her half-boots clacking over the wooden floor and her flanks swaying, and took a small bottle of vodka and a thick cup with blue stripes out of a little cupboard.

“I have gotten tired, though⁠ ⁠…” said the beggar, as if he were talking to himself⁠—both in apology for the vodka and because he was confused by the silence of the muzhik, who had not turned around toward him.

Stepping softly in his bast-shoes, humbly walking around him, the beggar sat down upon another stool, at an opposite corner of the table. As for the mistress, she put the cup and the small bottle before him, and went back to her work. Then this stalwart, tattered son of the steppes raised his head heavily⁠—there was a whole greenish demijohn standing before him⁠—and, narrowing his eyes, he fixed his gaze upon his humble bottle-companion. He may have been pretending just a trifle; but still, his face was inflamed; his eyes were drunken, filled with the dull glitter of tipsiness; the lips, grown soft and flabby, were half-open, as in a fever⁠—evidently, this was not the first day of his spree. And the beggar grew a little more wary, and carefully began filling his cup. “After all, now, he’ll drink his and I’ll drink mine.⁠ ⁠… This is a tavern, and we don’t bother one another,” he was thinking. He raised his head, and his mistily-black eyes, the colour of ripe sloe-thorn, as well as his whole visage, made rough and weather-beaten by the steppe, were void of all expression.

“Where was you tramping?” asked the muzhik, roughly and crazily. “Have you come to steal, seeing as how all the folks are out in the fields?”

“Why should I be stealing?” the beggar replied, evenly and meekly. “I’ve had six children of my own, and my own house and goods.⁠ ⁠…”

“You’re blind and you’re blind, but, never fear, many’s the feather and the twig you’ve carried to your nest!”

“Why should you be saying that? I’ve worked hard as could be for ten years in the quartz mines.⁠ ⁠…”

“That ain’t work. That’s.⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t you be saying anything out of the way,” said the mistress, without elevating her voice, without raising her lashes, and bit off the thread. “I don’t listen to anything unseemly. I ain’t heard it from my husband yet.”

“Well, that will do; I won’t do it any more⁠ ⁠… lady!” said the muzhik. “ ’Scuse me⁠ ⁠… I’m after asking you,” said he to the beggar, frowningly, “what can you get out of the ground, now, when it ain’t been ploughed nor sown?”

“Well, now, of course.⁠ ⁠… Whoever has the land, for example.⁠ ⁠…”

“Wait⁠—I’m smarter than you be!” said the muzhik slapping the table with his palm. “Answer what you’re asked; did you serve for a soldier?”

“I was a noncommissioned officer of the Tenth Grenadiers Regiment of Little Russia, under Count Rumiyantzev-Zadunaisky.⁠ ⁠… What else should I be doing but serving for a soldier?”

“Keep still, don’t gabble more’n you’re asked! What year was you took?”

“In ’seventy six, in the month of November.”

“Wasn’t you ever at fault?”

“Never.”

“Did you obey the officers?”

“There was no way of my doing otherwise. I had taken an oath.”

“But what’s that scar doing on your neck? Do you understand what I’m driving at now? I am testing him,” said the muzhik, with his eyebrows working surlily, but changing his commanding voice for a more simple one, and turning toward the mistress his crazed face, aureately illumined through the tobacco smoke by the sunset; “I may be poor, all right, but I’ve caught more than one fellow like that! I know enough to come in out of the rain!”

And again he put on a frown, looking at the beggar:

“Did you bow down before the Holy Cross and the Gospel?”

“That I have,” answered the beggar, who had managed to take a drink, to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, to sit up straight again, and to impart to his face and his misty eyes a dispassionate expression.

The muzhik surveyed him with glazed eyes.

“Stand up before me!”

“Don’t raise any fuss. Am I talking to you, or am I not?” the mistress quietly intervened.

“Wait, for the love of God,” the muzhik waved her away in vexation. “Stand up before me!”

“Honest to God, what are you up to.⁠ ⁠…” the beggar began to mumble.

“Stand up, I’m telling you!” yelled the muzhik. “I’m a-going to examine you.”

The beggar stood up and shifted from foot to foot.

“Hands at the sides! So. Got a passport?”

“But are you an inspector, or something?”

“Keep still⁠—don’t you dare to jaw back at me like that! I’m smarter than you be! I went all through this myself. Show it to me this minute!”

Hastily unhooking his long overcoat, then his sheepskin jacket, the beggar submissively rummaged within the bosom of his shirt for a long time. Finally he pulled out a paper wrapped up in a red handkerchief.

“Give it here,” said the muzhik abruptly.

And, unwrapping the little handkerchief, the beggar handed him a small frayed gray book, with a large wax seal. The muzhik awkwardly opened it with his gnarled fingers and pretended to read it, putting it at a distance from him, leaning back, and looking at it for a long time through the tobacco smoke and the red light of the evening glow.

“So. I see now. Everything shipshape. Take it back,” he said, his parched lips moving with difficulty. “I am poor as poor can be; it’s the second spring, you might say, that I’m neither ploughing nor sowing; folks have done for me.⁠ ⁠… I fell down at his feet, the dog that he is.⁠ ⁠… And yet I’m beyond a price, you might say.⁠ ⁠… But you just tell me all that you’ve stolen, or else I’ll kill you right off!” he yelled ferociously. “I know everything; I’ve gone through all sorts of things.⁠ ⁠… I’ve been boiled in pitch, you might say⁠—that’s how I’ve suffered.⁠ ⁠… It is the Lord that gives us life, but any vermin can take it away.⁠ ⁠… Give the bag here, and that’s all there is to it!”

The mistress merely shook her head, and leaned back from her embroidery, contemplating it. The beggar went toward the door and gave the muzhik the bag, just as he had given him the passport. The muzhik took it, and, as he laid it near him on the stool, he said:

“That’s right. Now sit down⁠—let’s chat a bit. I’ll get to the bottom of all this here. I’ll make an inspection of my own, don’t you fret!”

And he became silent, staring at the table.

“Spring⁠ ⁠…” he muttered. “Ah, but what a sorrowful sabbath-day it is, that a man may not work in the fields.⁠ ⁠… Go on!” he cried out to some imagined person, trying to snap his fingers:

“Oh, the lady starts to dance,
And her fingers is all blue.⁠ ⁠…”

And he relapsed into silence. The mistress was smoothing down the embroidery with her thimble.

“I’m going out to milk the cow,” said she, getting up from her seat. “Don’t blow up the fire whilst I am out, or else you’ll burn us out in your drunkenness.”

The muzhik came to with a start.

“Lordy!” he exclaimed, in hurt tones. “Little mistress! How can youse say that.⁠ ⁠… You’ve grown aweary for your husband, never fear?”

“That’s none of your worry,” said the mistress. “He’s in town, on business.⁠ ⁠… He don’t go traipsing around no inns.”

“You’d go traipsing, too!” said the muzhik.

“Well, what would you have me do, now⁠—go out on the wayside, or what? You rich devils are all right.⁠ ⁠…”

The mistress, picking up a milk-pail, went out. It was growing dark in the hut; everything was quiet, and the roseate light was suffused in the soft, spring obscurity. The muzhik, with his elbows on the table, was dozing, as he pulled at an extinguished, crudely made cigarette. The beggar was sitting peacefully, with never a sound, leaning against the dark partition, and his face was almost invisible.

“Do you drink beer?” asked the muzhik.

“I do,” came the low answer out of the dusk.

The muzhik was silent for a while.

“We are vagabones, you and me,” said he, morosely and meditatively. “Poor wayside rubbish.⁠ ⁠… Beggar-men.⁠ ⁠… I feel weary in your company!”

“That’s right.⁠ ⁠…”

“But as for beer⁠—I like it,” said the muzhik loudly, after another silence. “She don’t keep it, the carrion! Otherwise I would have drunk some beer⁠ ⁠… and would have had a snack of something.⁠ ⁠… My tongue’s all soaked⁠—I want to eat.⁠ ⁠… I would have had a snack and drunk something.⁠ ⁠… Yes.⁠ ⁠… But she, the mistress, ain’t got such a bad face! If I was harnessed up with one like her, I would.⁠ ⁠… All right, never mind, sit down, sit down⁠ ⁠… I got respect for the blind. Whenever a grand holiday used to come around, I would take twenty of these here blind men, now, and seat them at table⁠—you would have had to look and look to find another household like ours! And they would sing a stave for me, and make me a bow to boot.⁠ ⁠… Do you know how to sing staves? About Alexei, the Man of God? I do take to that stave. Pick up your cup⁠—I’ll treat you to some of mine.”

Having taken the cup from the beggar’s hands, he held it up to the faint light of the evening glow and half-filled it. The beggar got up, made a low bow, drained the cup to the bottom, and again sat down. The muzhik dragged the beggar’s bag upon his knees, and, untying it, began to mutter:

“I sized you up at once⁠ ⁠… I’ve got enough money of my own, brother; you’re no mate for me.⁠ ⁠… I go through my money in cold blood⁠ ⁠… I drink it away⁠ ⁠… I drink away a horse a year, and send a good ram up in smoke.⁠ ⁠… Aha! So you’ve run up against a bit of a muzhik⁠—do you understand who I am? But still, I feel sorry for you. I understand! There’s thousands of the likes of you roaming about in springtime.⁠ ⁠… There’s mire, and sloughs, and never a path or a road⁠—but you’ve got to keep on going, bowing before everybody.⁠ ⁠… And you can’t never tell whether they’ll give you anything or no.⁠ ⁠… Eh, brother! Don’t I understand you?” asked the muzhik with bitter sorrow, and his eyes filled with tears.

“No, this time of the year is not so bad, it’s all right,” said the beggar quietly. “You walk along a field, over a big, abandoned tract that had once been planned for a road.⁠ ⁠… All alone, with never another soul nigh.⁠ ⁠… Then, too, there’s the dear sun, and the warm weather.⁠ ⁠… True, there’s many a thousand of the likes of me roaming about. Half of Russia is roaming so.”

“I’ve drunk away two horses,” said the muzhik, raking the crusts out of the bag, pulling out a waistcoat, the calico, the trousers, and a bast shoe. “I’m goin’ to go all through all your miserable pickings, and old rags.⁠ ⁠… Hold on! Pants! I must buy them from you, soon as I come into a little money.⁠ ⁠… How much?”

The beggar thought for a while.

“Why, I’d let it go for two.⁠ ⁠…”

“I’ll give you three!” said the muzhik, getting up, placing the trousers under him, and sitting down upon them. “They’re mine! But where’s the other shoe? It will pass for new⁠—that means you must have stolen it, for sure. But then, it’s better to be thieving, than to be grieving your heart out in the springtime, the way I am a-doing now; to be perishing from hunger, to be coming to the end of your rope⁠—when you take the very least of the shepherds, and you’ll find him at work.⁠ ⁠… I have drunk a horse away⁠—but a beastie like that is worth more nor any man.⁠ ⁠… But am I no ploughman, no reaper?⁠ ⁠… And now you sing a stave, or I’ll kill you right off!” he cried out. “I feel weary in your company!”

In a quavering, modest, but a practiced voice the beggar began to sing out of the obscurity:

“Once upon a time there lived and were two brethren⁠—
Two blood-brethren, two brethren in God and Christ⁠ ⁠…”

“Eh, two brethren in God and Christ!” the muzhik chimed in, in a high-pitched and piteous tone, straining his voice.

The beggar, with even churchly chanting, continued:

“One dwelt in cold and poverty,
Rotting in his leprosy.⁠ ⁠…”

“And the o-other was rich!” out of tune, drowning out the beggar, with tears in his voice, the muzhik caught up the song. “Put more heart in it!” he cried out, as his voice broke. “Grief has swallowed me up; all men are having a holiday, all men are sowing⁠—but here I be, biting the earth; it’s the second spring that my mother earth has been barren.⁠ ⁠… Let me have your cup, or I’ll kill you right off! Open the window for me!”

And again the beggar submissively gave him his cup. Then he started to open the window. Being new, it had swollen and would not yield for a long while. Finally it did yield, and flew open. A fresh, pleasant odour of the fields floated in. It was completely dark out there now, the roseate night glow had become extinguished, barely shimmering over the soft darkness of the quiet, joyous, fecundated field. One could hear the half-drowsy skylarks finishing their very last songs.

“Sing, Lazarus⁠—sing, my own brother!” said the muzhik, extending a full cup to the beggar. “We’re two of a kind, you and me.⁠ ⁠… Only what are you alongside of me? A vagabone! Whereas I am a working man, that gives food and drink to all those that suffer.⁠ ⁠…”

He sat down suddenly, losing his balance, and again dug into the bag.

“And what might you have here?” he asked, examining the calico, which had turned the faintest pink in the barely perceptible light of the evening glow.

“Oh, that’s just so.⁠ ⁠… Some women gave it to me,” said the beggar quietly, feeling everything floating before him from tipsiness, and that it was time to be going, and that it was necessary to extricate the trousers from underneath the muzhik somehow.

“How can that be! You lie!” cried out the muzhik, banging the table with his fist. “It’s a shroud⁠—I can see! It’s a grave-shroud!” he cried out with tears in his voice, and was silent for a while, hearkening to the abating songs of the skylarks. Then he shoved the bag away from him, and, shaking his tousled head, began to cry: “I have risen in my pride against God!” said he bitterly, weeping.

And then, straining himself, he began to sing loudly, keeping good time:

“Oh my mother gave me birth and she guarded me,
Though I now a sinner be, unforgivable!
All the torments have I borne,
All the sorrows have I borne⁠—
Nowheres found I joy for me.
Oh, my mother spoke to me
And she cautioned me;
If she only knew, if she only saw,
She could never bear
Such calamity.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, my soul is a sinner and a creeping thing!” he cried out wildly, weeping, and suddenly started clapping his palms with an eldritch laughter: “Beggar-man, give me your money! I know you through and through; I feel you through and through⁠—give it to me! I know you have it! It can’t be otherwise⁠—give it to me for love of the Lord God Himself!”

And, swaying, he arose, and the beggar, who had also arisen, felt his legs giving away from fear, felt a dull ache start in his thighs. The tear-stained face of the muzhik, barely discernible in the twilight, was insane.

“Give it to me!” he repeated, in a voice suddenly grown hoarse. “Give it to me, for the Love of the Queen of Heaven! I can see, I can see⁠—you’re grabbing at your bosom, at your undershirt; that means you’ve got it⁠—all your kind has! Give it to me⁠—it ain’t of no use to you, anyway, whereas it will set me on my feet forever! Give it to me of your own will⁠—brother, don’t lead me into sin!”

“Can’t do it,” said the beggar, quietly and dispassionately.

“What?”

“Can’t do it. I’ve been saving for twenty years. Can’t bring myself to do it.”

“You ain’t goin’ to give it to me?” asked the muzhik hoarsely.

“No⁠ ⁠…” said the beggar, barely audible but unshaken.

The muzhik was silent for a long while. The beating of their hearts could be heard in the darkness. “Very well,” said the muzhik, with an insane submissiveness. “I will kill you; I’ll go and find me a stone and then kill you.”

And, swaying, he went toward the threshold.

The beggar, standing erect in the darkness, made a sweeping and slow sign of the cross. As for the muzhik, he, with his head lowered like a bull, was already walking about under the windows.

Then there came a crunching sound⁠—evidently he was pulling a stone out of the foundation.

And a minute later the door slammed again⁠—and the beggar drew himself up still more.

“For the last time I’m a-telling you⁠ ⁠…” the muzhik mumbled out with his cracked lips, walking up to him with a big white stone in his hands. “Brother.⁠ ⁠…”

The beggar was silent. His face could not be seen. Swinging back with his left arm and catching the beggar by his neck, the muzhik struck hard his shrinking face with the chill stone. The beggar tore away, backward, and, as he fell, catching the table with his bast-shoe, he struck the back of his head against a stool, and then against the floor. And falling upon him, the muzhik, squeezing the breath out of his chest, frenziedly began to batter in his throat with the stone.

Ten minutes later he was already far out in the dark, even field. There were many stars out; the air was fresh; the earth gave forth a metallic odour. Completely sobered up, he was walking so rapidly and lightly that he seemed capable of covering a hundred versts more. The amulet, torn off the beggar’s crucifix, he was holding tightly clenched in his hand. Later, he flung it from him into a dark, freshly ploughed field. His eyes were staring fixedly like an owl’s; his teeth were tightly clenched, like a lobster’s claws. Although he had looked for his cap for a long while, he had been unable to find it in the darkness; the chillness beat upon his bared head. His head seemed to him to be of stone.