," said Semyon, and he laughed. "Now you are
young and foolish, the milk is hardly dry on your lips, and it seems to
you in your foolishness that you are more wretched than anyone; but the
time will come when you will say to yourself: 'I wish no one a better
life than mine.' You look at me. Within a week the floods will be over
and we shall set up the ferry; you will all go wandering off about
Siberia while I shall stay and shall begin going from bank to bank. I've
been going like that for twenty-two years, day and night. The pike and
the salmon are under the water while I am on the water. And thank God
for it, I want nothing; God give everyone such a life."

The Tatar threw some dry twigs on the camp-fire, lay down closer to the
blaze, and said:

"My father is a sick man. When he dies my mother and wife will come
here. They have promised."

"And what do you want your wife and mother for?" asked Canny. "That's
mere foolishness, my lad. It's the devil confounding you, damn his soul!
Don't you listen to him, the cursed one. Don't let him have his way. He
is at you about the women, but you spite him; say, 'I don't want them!'
He is on at you about freedom, but you stand up to him and say: 'I
don't want it!' I want nothing, neither father nor mother, nor wife, nor
freedom, nor post, nor paddock; I want nothing, damn their souls!"

Semyon took a pull at the bottle and went on:

"I am not a simple peasant, not of the working class, but the son of
a deacon, and when I was free I lived at Kursk; I used to wear a
frockcoat, and now I have brought myself to such a pass that I can sleep
naked on the ground and eat grass. And I wish no one a better life. I
want nothing and I am afraid of nobody, and the way I look at it is that
there is nobody richer and freer than I am. When they sent me here from
Russia from the first day I stuck it out; I want nothing! The devil was
at me about my wife and about my home and about freedom, but I told him:
'I want nothing.' I stuck to it, and here you see I live well, and I
don't complain, and if anyone gives way to the devil and listens to him,
if but once, he is lost, there is no salvation for him: he is sunk in
the bog to the crown of his head and will never get out.

"It is not only a foolish peasant like you, but even gentlemen,
well-educated people, are lost. Fifteen years ago they sent a gentleman
here from Russia. He hadn't shared something with his brothers and had
forged something