People were accustomed to the fact that life always oppressed them with the same power.

Unhopeful of any turn for the better, they regarded every change as capable only of increasing their burden.
And the workingmen of the suburb tacitly avoided people who spoke unusual things to them.

Then these people disappeared again, going off elsewhere, and those who remained in the factory lived apart, if they could not blend and make one whole with the monotonous mass in the village.
Living a life like that for some fifty years, a workman died.
Thus also lived Michael Vlasov, a gloomy, sullen man, with little eyes which looked at everybody from under his thick eyebrows suspiciously, with a mistrustful, evil smile.

He was the best locksmith in the factory, and the strongest man in the village.

But he was insolent and disrespectful toward the foreman and the superintendent, and therefore earned little; every holiday he beat somebody, and everyone disliked and feared him.
More than one attempt was made to beat him in turn, but without success.