They no sooner had succeeded in marking themselves in with the magic line than the dead began to pass down the Navii path. The throng of the dead, submitting to some evil malediction, walked towards the town. The spectres walked in the nocturnal silence and the traces they left behind them were light, curious, and hardly distinguishable. Whispered conversations were heard--lifeless words. The dead walked at random, without any defined order. At the beginning the voices merged into a general drone, and only afterwards, by straining one’s ears, it was possible to distinguish separate words and whole phrases. “Be good yourself, that’s the chief thing.” “For mercy’s sake--what perversion, what immorality!” “Plenty of food and plenty of clothes--what more can one want?” “I haven’t sinned much.” “That’s what they deserve. Kisses are not for them.” In the beginning all the dead fused into one dark, grey mass. But gradually, if one looked intently one could distinguish the separate corpses. One nobleman who passed by had a cap with a red band on his head; he was saying with calm and deliberation: “The divine right of ownership should be inviolable. We and our ancestors have built up the Russian land.” Another of the same class, who walked beside him, remarked: “My motto--autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality. My credo--a strong redeeming power.” A priest in a black vestment swung a censer, and cried in a tenor voice: “Every soul should submit to sovereign dominion. The hand that gives will not grow poorer.” A wise muzhik passed by muttering: “We know everything, but are not saying anything just yet. When you don’t know anything they leave you alone. Only you can’t cover up your mouth with a handkerchief.” Several soldiers walked past together. They bawled their indecorous songs. Their faces were grey-red in colour. They stank of sweat, putrescence, bad tobacco, and vodka. “I have laid down my stomach for my faith, my Tsar, and my Fatherland,” a smart young colonel was saying. After him came a thin man with the face of a Jesuit and cried out loudly: “Russia for the Russians!” A stout merchant kept on repeating: “If you don’t cheat you can’t sell your goods. Even a fur coat might be turned inside out. Your penny makes you well thought of anywhere.” An austere, freckled woman was saying: “Beat me, seeing that I’m your woman, but there’s no law that’ll let you tie up with a girl so long as you’ve got a wife living.” A muzhik walked at her side, a dirty, ill-smelling fellow, who said nothing and hiccuped. Once more there was a nobleman, large, stout, bristling, savage-looking. He ranted: “Hang them! Flog them!” Trirodov turned to Kirsha: “Don’t be afraid, Kirsha--these are dead words.” Kirsha silently nodded his head. A mistress and her servant-maid walked together and exchanged quarrelsome words.