“You see, mates, towards the last he went off his head altogether,” said one of the black silhouettes, whom, from the glittering of his badge when he moved, one could guess to be the railway watchman. “He tried to do it five times before ... but he always got frightened. He’d run up to the train and then begin to yell.... The train would come thundering along, and he’d just scream with terror, and yet he’d run on, throwing up his hands. ‘Ah!—ah!—ah!—ah!’ and yet he’d run at it.... He was mortally scared, and yet he couldn’t let it alone!... God always saved him; the good Christian people didn’t want to let him die; ... they’d catch him and take him home by force; ... they put him in the hospital.... Well, it seems this time he was too sharp for them.”... “Did he call out? Did any one hear?” “They said afterwards that somebody yelled like a wild thing. They say they heard something crying and screaming.... But, you see, it was night-time; it was quite dark that’s plain!”... “The devil’s will, you mean. In such business as that, it’s the devil that’s lord and master, not God!” said a voice from the group of silhouettes. “True! true!” muttered several voices; and a short silence followed. The conversation was an unpleasant one; the subject under discussion was gloomy and fearful, and the people seemed ill at ease in talking of it. But maybe for that very reason they were unable to free themselves from the haunting idea, and enter into the ordinary small talk of chance-met passengers. Unpleasant as it was to think and talk of a suicide, the conversation about it started afresh. “They do say it was all his wife’s doing that he got like that; he took to drinking because of her.” “Did the silly fellow care more for his wife than his soul?” “Ah! but then, you know, ... she ran away from him—and he got lonely without her—and so——” “Ran away! Why, the devil take her, let her run away as far as she likes; there are plenty of women to be got!” “Plenty of women, but only one soul!” “He’ll have to answer for his soul to God in the next world!”... “Ah! the soul! the soul!”... said the watchman, with a sigh; and the conversation would probably have broken off if the young assistant-stationmaster had not suddenly appeared beside the group. No one had heard him come up on account of his indiarubber galoshes. He was a very cheerful young man; he had just got his situation, just got married, just put on his new uniform, and naturally felt that now he was “decently set up.” He stopped, as he was sauntering past, to smoke a cigarette with the group, and, for want of anything to do, cheerfully threw in a word. “What’s the talk about? What soul?” He had accidentally caught, in passing, the word “soul”; his thoughts were altogether at the other end of the earth from any stray conversations; he was going merrily home to his young wife and his boiling samovar, and was altogether thoroughly contented with himself.