And so the whole antiphon was chanted; but when Osadchi's turn came to take up the recitation for the last time, he lowered his head like an infuriated bull, the veins in his neck swelled, and as he directed his melancholy, cruel, and threatening glances towards those present, he declaimed in a half-singing tone, and in a voice that resembled the roar of distant thunder-- "Give, O Lord, Thy departed slave, Nikifor, A blessed departure hence and eternal rest." In the midst of this lofty and pious invocation he stopped short, and, to the horror of the bystanders, uttered two words of the most blasphemous, cynical, and disgusting import. Romashov jumped up, and thumped his fist, like a madman, on the table. "Be silent! I forbid this," he roared in a voice trembling with anger and pain. "What are you laughing at, Captain Osadchi? You ought to be ashamed. Your eyes are mocking, but I see and know that remorse, terror, and the tortures of hell are raging in your heart." A hideous silence on the part of all followed this outbreak of temper. Then a voice from the crowd was heard to exclaim-- "Is he drunk?" These three words relaxed all the terrible tension of the situation; but at the same moment let loose afresh--just as a few hours previously in Schleyfer's den of infamy--all the evil spirits of orgy. There was shrieking, hooting, stamping, jumping, and dancing; the whole room was turned in a trice into an indescribable, savage, motley chaos. Viätkin, who jumped on to a table, hit his head against the big hanging lamp, which then swayed in awful zigzag curves, producing for some time a fantastic series of dissolving views on the ceiling and walls, on which drunken, frantic human beings were depicted as marvellous, gigantic shapes, or as huddled, dwarfish figures resembling embryos. The debauch seemed at last to reach its height. All these wretched creatures were possessed, as it were, by a savage, exultant, ruthless fiend who, mocking at all the laws of sense and decency, forced his victims, by blasphemies, oaths, and all kinds of shamelessness, to abdicate the last shreds of their human dignity. Romashov, in the smoke and stuffiness, suddenly caught sight of a person with features distorted by rage and incessant hooting, which for that reason seemed to him, in the first instant, unrecognizable. It was none other than Nikoläiev, who, now foaming with hate and fury, roared to his enemy: "You're a disgrace to the whole regiment, you and Nasanski! Not a word or, by God! I'll----" Romashov felt that some one was pulling him, gently and cautiously, a few paces backwards. He turned round and recognized Agamalov, but at the same instant forgot him, and turned quickly round to Nikoläiev. White with suppressed rage, he answered in a low, hoarse voice and a forced and bitter smile-- "What reason have you to mention Nasanski's name? But perhaps you have some private, secret cause for hating him?"