Impressed and strengthened by _Luka's_ wonderful faith and vision, the unfortunates make an attempt to rise from the social swamp. But he has come too late into their lives. They have been robbed of energy and will; and conditions always conspire to thrust them back into the depths. When _Natasha_ and _Vaska_ are about to start out on the road to a new life, fate overtakes them. The girl, during a scene with her heartless sister, is terribly scalded by the latter, and _Vaska_, rushing to the defense of his sweetheart, encounters her brutal brother-in-law, whom he accidentally kills. Thus these "superfluous ones" go down in the struggle. Not because of their vicious or degrading tendencies; on the contrary, it is their better instincts that cause them to be swept back into the abyss. But though they perish, the inspiration of _Luka_ is not entirely lost. It is epitomized in the words of one of the victims. _Sahtin._ The old man--he lived from within.... He saw everything with his own eyes.... I asked him once: "Grandfather, why do men really live?" ... "Man lives ever to give birth to strength. There live, for example, the carpenters, noisy, miserable people ... and suddenly in their midst is a carpenter born ... such a carpenter as the world has never seen: he is above all, no other carpenter can be compared to him. He gives a new face to the whole trade ... his own face, so to speak ... and with that simple impulse it has advanced twenty years ... and so the others live ... the locksmiths and the shoemakers, and all the rest of the working people ... and the same is true of other classes--all to give birth to strength. Everyone thinks that he for himself takes up room in the world, but it turns out that he is here for another's benefit--for someone better ... a hundred years ... or perhaps longer ... if we live so long ... for the sake of genius.... All, my children, all, live only to give birth to strength. For that reason we must respect everybody. We cannot know who he is, for what purpose born, or what he may yet fulfill ... perhaps he has been born for our good fortune ... or great benefit." No stronger indictment than "A Night's Lodging" is to be found in contemporary literature of our perverse civilization that condemns thousands--often the very best men and women--to the fate of the Vaskas and Anyas, doomed as superfluous and unnecessary in society. And yet they are necessary, aye, they are vital, could we but see beneath the veil of cold indifference and stupidity to discover the deep humanity, the latent possibilities in these lowliest of the low. If within our social conditions they are useless material, often vicious and detrimental to the general good, it is because they have been denied opportunity and forced into conditions that kill their faith in themselves and all that is best in their natures.