Crossword-Solution: DOSSHOUSE 9 letters, 5 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 13

The Russian novelist, when he describes a dosshouse, says, "Creatures that once were Men." And we are arrested, and regard the facts as a kind of terrible fairy tale.

Take this passage, for instance, from the austere conclusion of "Creatures that once were Men." Petunikoff smiled the smile of the conqueror and went back into the dosshouse, but suddenly he stopped and trembled.

The house itself was of course unoccupied, but this shed, formerly a blacksmith's forge, was now turned into a "dosshouse," kept by a retired Captain named Aristid Fomich Kuvalda.

Sometimes the Captain's former customer, uplifted and unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse, and on the following morning they would again begin treating each other till the Captain's companion would wake up to realise that he had spent all his money in drink.

Thanks to his intellect, he was the nearest in rank to the Captain, and this was probably the cause of his falling so low as dosshouse life, and of his inability to rise again.