After him, Kanets
appeared from some corner--a dark, sad-looking, silent drunkard:
then the former governor of the prison, Luka Antonovitch
Martyanoff, a man who existed on "remeshok," "trilistika," and
"bankovka,"* and many such cunning games, not much appreciated by
the police. He would throw his hard and oft-scourged body on the
grass beside the teacher, and, turning his eyes round and
scratching his head, would ask in a hoarse, bass voice, "May I?"
Note by translator.--Well-known games of chance, played by the
lower classes. The police specially endeavour to stop them, but
unsuccessfully.
Then appeared Pavel Solntseff, a man of thirty years of age,
suffering from consumption. The ribs of his left side had been
broken in a quarrel, and the sharp, yellow face, like that of a
fox, always wore a malicious smile. The thin lips, when opened,
exposed two rows of decayed black teeth, and the rags on his
shoulders swayed backwards and forwards as if they were hung on a
clothes pole. They called him "Abyedok." He hawked brushes and
bath brooms of his own manufacture, good strong brushes made from
a peculiar kind of grass.
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