He did not dare to refuse, but now the woman was no longer able to overcome his enmity to her. She toyed with him a long time, and smiled with an air of having been offended. Then she roughly pushed his bony body from her, uttered an oath, and went away. When Yevsey was left alone he thought in despair. "Now she will ruin me. She'll store this up against me. I am lost." He looked through the window. Something formless and frightened throbbed in the darkness. It wept, lashed the window with a doleful howl, scraped along the wall, jumped on the roof, and fell down into the street moaning and wailing. A cautious seductive thought stole into his mind. "Suppose I tell Kapiton Ivanovich to-morrow that she suffocated the old man!" The question frightened Yevsey, and for a long time he was unable to push it away. "She will ruin me, one way or the other," he answered himself. Yet the question persistently stood before him beckoning to him. In the morning, however, it seemed that Rayisa had forgotten about the tragic, violent incident of the night before. She gave him his bread and coffee lazily and with an indifferent air. As always, she was half sick from the previous day's drinking. By neither word nor look did she hint of her changed relation to him. He left for the office somewhat calmed, and from that day he began to remain in the office for night work. He would walk home very slowly so as to arrive as late as possible, because it was difficult for him to remain alone with the woman. He was afraid to speak to her, dreading lest she remember that night when she had destroyed Yevsey's feeling for her. Feeble though it had been, it had yet been dear to him. Yakov Zarubin and Yevsey's chief, Kapiton Ivanovich, the man with the grey mustache, whom everybody called Smokestack behind his back, remained in the chancery with him for night work more frequently than the others. The chief's shaven face was often covered with little red stubble, which glistened golden from afar, and at close range resembled tiny twigs. From under his grey lashes and the eyelids that drooped wearily spiritless eyes gleamed angrily. He spoke in a grumbling growl, and incessantly smoked thick yellow cigarettes. The clouds of bluish smoke always hovering about his large white head distinguished him from all the others workers, and won him the nickname, Smokestack. "What a grave man he is," Yevsey once said to Zarubin. "He's cracked in the upper story," Zarubin answered, pointing to his head. "He spent almost a whole year in an insane asylum. But he's a quiet man." Yevsey saw that sometimes the Smokestack took a small black book from the pocket of his long grey jacket, brought it close to his face, and mumbled something through his mustache, which moved up and down. "Is that a prayer-book?" "I don't know." Zarubin's swarthy face quivered spasmodically. His little eyes bulged, he swung himself over toward Yevsey, and whispered hotly. "Do you go to girls?" "No."