and
looked at him mockingly and said:

"Even in Siberia people live. L-i-v-e!"

On Brains's face was a triumphant expression as if he were proving
something, as if pleased that things had happened just as he thought
they would. The unhappy, helpless look of the man in the fox-fur coat
seemed to give him great pleasure.

"The roads are now muddy, Vassili Andreich," he said, when the horses
had been harnessed on the bank. "You'd better wait a couple of weeks,
until it gets dryer.... If there were any point in going--but you know
yourself that people are always on the move day and night and there's no
point in it. Sure!"

Vassili Andreich said nothing, gave him a tip, took his seat in the
coach and drove away.

"Look! He's gone galloping after the doctor!" said Simeon, shivering in
the cold. "Yes. To look for a real doctor, trying to overtake the wind
in the fields, and catch the devil by the tail, plague take him! What
queer fish there are! God forgive me, a miserable sinner."

The Tartar went up to Brains, and, looking at him with mingled hatred
and disgust, trembling, and mixing Tartar words up with his broken
Russian, said:

"He good ... good. And you ... bad! You are bad! The gentleman is a good
soul, very good, and you are a beast, you are bad! The gentleman is
alive and you are dead.... God made man that he should be alive, that he
should have happiness, sorrow, grief, and you want nothing, so you are
not alive, but a stone! A stone wants nothing and so do you.... You are
a stone--and God does not love you and the gentleman he does."

They all began to laugh: the Tartar furiously knit his brows, waved his
hand, drew his rags round him and went to the fire. The ferrymen and
Simeon went slowly to the hut.

"It's cold," said one of the ferrymen hoarsely, as he stretched himself
on the straw with which the damp, clay floor was covered.

"Yes. It's not warm," another agreed.... "It's a hard life."

All of them lay down. The wind blew the door open. The snow drifted into
the hut. Nobody could bring himself to get up and shut the door; it was
cold, but they put up with it.

"And I am happy," muttered Simeon as he fell asleep. "God give such a
life to everybody."

"You certainly are the devil's own. Even the devil don't need to take
you."

Sounds like the barking of a dog came from outside.

"Who is that? Who is there?"

"It's the Tartar crying."

"Oh! he's a queer fish."

"He'll get used to it!" sa