Yevsey's attitude toward people changed. He remained as obliging as before, but became more self-assertive, and began to look upon others condescendingly, with the eyes of a man who understands the secret of life and can point out where the road lies to peace and calm. He felt the need for boasting of his knowledge; so once, when lunching in the café with Yakov Zarubin, he proudly expounded everything he had heard from the old man and his hunchback friend. Zarubin's narrow eyes flashed. He fidgetted in his seat, and for some reason rumpled his hair by thrusting the fingers of both hands through it. "That's true, by golly!" he exclaimed in an undertone. "What the devil--really! He has thousands of millions, and we are perishing here. Who taught you all that?" "Nobody," said Yevsey firmly. "I thought it out myself." "No, tell me the truth. Where did you hear it?" "I tell you, I came to the conclusion myself." Yakov looked at him with satisfaction. "If that's so," he said, "you haven't a bad head. But you're lying." Yevsey felt affronted. "It's all the same to me whether you believe me or not. It's the worse for you if you don't." "For me?" asked Yakov, and for some reason burst out laughing, merrily and vigorously rubbing his hands. Two days later the assistant captain Komov and a grey-eyed gentleman with a round close-cropped head and a bored yellow face, came up to Yevsey's table. "Klimkov, betake yourself to the Department of Safety," said the captain clearly and ominously. "Is your desk locked?" "No." Yevsey rose, but his legs trembled, and he dropped into his chair again. The crop-haired man drew nearer. "Permit me," he said drily, then pulled out the table drawer and took out the papers. Weak and uncomprehending Klimkov recovered his senses in a half dark room at a desk covered with green felt. A wave of anguish rose and fell in his breast. The floor heaved and billowed under his feet, and the walls of the room, filled, as it were with green dusk, turned around steadily. Over the table rose a man's white face framed in a thick black beard and spotted by gleaming blue eye-glasses. Yevsey kept his eyes fastened on the glass of the spectacles, on the blue bottomless darkness, which drew him like a magnet and seemed to suck the blood from his veins. Without waiting for a question Klimkov quietly told about the Smokestack and his hunchback friend. He had understood their talks well, and now spoke connectedly in great detail. He seemed to be removing a thin layer of skin from his heart. A high voice, which cut the ear, interrupted him. "So? So these jackasses say the emperor the Czar is the fault of everything?" "Yes." The man with the blue glasses slowly stretched out his hand, put the telephone receiver to his ear, and asked in a sportive tone: