rough a speaking-trumpet, with a
view to preventing a collision between the barge and the stem of the
vessel:

"Put her over! Put her o-o-ove-r!"

Soon the fishing-boat came alongside, and the half-drowned man, with a
form as limp as a half-empty sack, and water exuding from every stitch,
and his hitherto haggard face grown smooth and simple-looking, was
hoisted on board.

Next, on the sailors laying him upon the hatchway of the baggage hold,
he sat up, leaned forward, smoothed his wet hair with the palms of his
hands, and asked dully, without looking at anyone:

"Have they also recovered my cap?"

Someone among the throng around him exclaimed reprovingly:

"It is not about your cap that you ought to be thinking, but about your
soul."

Upon this he hiccuped loudly and freely, like a camel, and emitted a
stream of turgid water from his mouth. Then, looking at the crowd with
lack-lustre eyes, he said in an apathetic tone:

"Let me be taken elsewhere."

In answer, the boatswain sternly bade him stretch himself out, and this
the young fellow did, with his hands clasped under his head, and his
eyes closed, while the boatswain added brusquely to the onlookers:

"Move away, move away, good people. What is there to stare at? This is
not a show.... Hi, you muzhik! Why did you play us such a trick,
damn you?"

The crowd however, was not to be suppressed, but indulged in comments.

"He murdered his father, didn't he?"

"What? THAT wretched creature?"

As for the boatswain, he squatted upon his heels, and proceeded to
subject the rescued man to a course of strict interrogation.

"What is the destination marked on your ticket?"

"Perm."

"Then you ought to leave the boat at Kazan. And what is your name?"

"Yakov."

"And your surname?"

"Bashkin--though we are known also as the Bukolov family."

"Your family has a DOUBLE surname, then?"

With the full power of his trumpet-like lungs the bearded peasant
(evidently he had lost his temper) broke in:

"Though his uncle and his brother have been sentenced to penal
servitude and are travelling together on that barge, he--well, he has
received his discharge! That is only a personal matter, however. In
spite of what judges may say, one ought never to kill, since conscience
cannot bear the thought of blood. Even nearly to become a murderer is
wrong."

By this time more and more passengers had collected as they awakened
from sleep and emerged from the first- an