A Night Conversation by Ivan Bunin

There was a silence. Theodot raised himself up to a sitting posture, and, bending down, spreading his hands, began slowly to unwind the cords with which his old, constantly falling foot-cloths were tied up. And a minute later the schoolboy with horror and repulsion saw that which he had seen so many times before with perfect calmness: a muzhik's bare foot, dead-white, enormous, flat, with a monstrously grown great toe lying crookedly on top of the others, and the thin, hairy skin, which Theodot, having unwound and dropped the footcloth, began to scratch hard in a delectable fury, tearing it with his nails, as strong as those of a beast. Having scratched his fill and wriggled his toes, he took the foot-cloth with both hands -- it was hardened, bent, and blackened at the heel and sole, just as though it had been rubbed with black wax -- and shook it out, spreading an unbearable stench upon the fresh breeze. "Yes, murder means nothing to him! " reflected the student, shivering. "That is the foot of a real murderer! How horribly he killed this beautiful she-goat! And the man that he killed with a whetstone. he must have been sharpening a scythe. and must have struck him straight in the temple, killing him on the stop. But Pashka! . Pashka! . How could he tell about it so gaily and with such enjoyment, too! ‘It came right out at his back!"

Suddenly, without raising his head, Ivan began speaking morosely: