“Of course it’s the devil’s doing, I know that,” said the poultry-farmer; “but what I want to know is, on what pretence this same devil got him to go under the wheels; that’s what I want to know!” “Why, you heard what was said—that he got cut up about his wife,” answered the other speaker. “Got upset about a woman, took to drinking, and of course any sort of thing can come of the drink....” “So that, if you look into the matter, it appears like as if the first cause was trouble?” “I s’pose so....” “Very well, then; now you explain. What part of him did the wheel go over?” “I don’t know; you’d better ask him.... I say! Mikhàilych! where did the wheel go over the publican?” “It cut him right across the body,” answered the watchman—“like this.” “And of course it went over his back and all?” demanded the poultry-farmer, like a regular expert. “Of course it smashed every bit of him that came under it....” “That’s all right! Now, allow me to ask you, When you say that it happened ‘from trouble,’ tell me whereabouts in him was the trouble—was it in his back, or his body, or anywhere in his bones?” This question appeared to the audience so amazingly incongruous, that, after a short silence, several persons went off into fits of laughing; and the interlocutor of the poultry-farmer, evidently not wishing to continue such an idle conversation, remarked— “Eh! friend! if one wants to talk with you, one must hang a cloth tongue in one’s mouth; one’s own would soon get wagged off.... Your head’s so empty, that one can hear the wind whistle through it, even on a close night like this!... The trouble was in his inside.” “Do you mean the trouble about his wife was in his inside?” “There! shut up with your foolery!” exclaimed the other, irritably; “I never heard a fellow rattle off such stuff!...” “All that is because you haven’t got any gift of reflection.” “Reflection be hanged!” “Supposing a soldier’s foot is cut off, that means it was his foot that was bad, not his back or his inside. Supposing my hand is cut off, it must have been my hand that was bad, and not my ear or my nose.... Very well, then; if a man goes and breaks his back under a railway train from grief, I should like to know where was his grief—in his back, or in his inside?” Silence. “Now, you see, that’s just the whole point.... The trouble was in his conscience, in his soul—not in his bones or his ribs.... That’s why you should say: ‘He’s lost his soul,’ instead of saying ‘Twaddle,’ as that grand gentleman said.... It was his soul that was ill; and it was his soul that went to pieces under the train....” “It’s the devil’s work, and nothing else,” obstinately growled the unseen bass in the group of silhouettes. “The devil’s work? Of course it’s the devil’s work! Only, the devil doesn’t pull you under the train by your leg, but by your conscience, by your soul. That’s just the whole thing. No, no, mates! There is a soul, there is indeed!...”