When they had all gone, he still remained lying on the ground. He lay on his stomach, and his shoulders were all shivering--no doubt he was weeping--and he kept on coughing and hawking. Presently, very cautiously, as if fearing to fall to pieces, he slowly began to raise himself from the ground, leaning heavily on his left arm, then bending one leg beneath him, and whining like a sick dog, sat down on the ground. "You're pretending!" screeched the red-haired man in a threatening voice. Then Zazubrina made an effort, and quickly stood on his feet. Then he tottered to one of the walls of the prison. One arm was pressed close to his breast, with the other he groped his way along. There he now stood, holding on to the wall with his hand, his head hanging down towards the ground. He coughed repeatedly. I saw how dark drops were falling on to the ground; they also glistened quite plainly on the grey ground of the prison wall. And so as not to defile with his blood the official place of detention, Zazubrina kept on doing his best to make it drip on the ground, so that not a single drop should fall on the wall. How they did laugh and jeer at him to be sure.... From henceforth the kitten vanished. And Zazubrina no longer had a rival to divide with him the attention of the prisoners. VI.--COMRADES. I. The burning sun of July shone blindingly down on Smolkena, Hooding its old huts with liberal streams of bright sunshine. There was a particularly large quantity of sunlight on the roof of the Starosta's[1] hut, not so long ago re-roofed with smoothly-planed, yellow, fragrant, boards. It was Sunday, and almost the whole population of the village had come out into the street thickly grown over with grass and spotted here and there with lumps of dry mud. In front of the Starosta's house, a large group of men and women were assembled; some were sitting on the mound of earth round the hut, others were sitting on the bare ground, others were standing. The little children were chasing each other in and out of the groups, to an accompaniment of angry rebukes and slaps from the grown-ups. [1] Chief of a village community.