retchedness! And
men--these stupid, miserable men."

Yozhov paused, and, clasping his head with his hands, stood for awhile,
staggering.

"Yes!" drawled out Foma. "They are very much unlike one another.
Now these men, how polite they are, like gentlemen. And they reason
correctly, too, and all that sort of thing. They have common sense. Yet
they are only labourers."

In the darkness behind them the men struck up a powerful choral song.
Inharmonious at first, it swelled and grew until it rolled in a huge,
powerful wave through the invigorating nocturnal air, above the deserted
field.

"My God!" said Yozhov, sadly and softly, heaving a sigh. "Whereby are
we to live? Whereon fasten our soul? Who shall quench its thirsts for
friendship brotherhood, love, for pure and sacred toil?"

"These simple people," said Foma, slowly and pensively, without
listening to his companion s words, absorbed as he was in his own
thoughts, "if one looks into these people, they're not so bad! It's even
very--it is interesting. Peasants, labourers, to look at them plainly,
they are just like horses. They carry burdens, they puff and blow."

"They carry our life on their backs," exclaimed Yozhov with irritation.
"They carry it like horses, submissively, stupidly. And this
submissiveness of theirs is our misfortune, our curse!"

And Foma, carried away by his own thought, argued:

"They carry burdens, they toil all their life long for mere trifles.
And suddenly they say something that wouldn't come into your mind in a
century. Evidently they feel. Yes, it is interesting to be with them."

Staggering, Yozhov walked in silence for a long time, and suddenly he
waved his hand in the air and began to declaim in a dull, choking voice,
which sounded as though it issued from his stomach:

"Life has cruelly deceived me, I have suffered so much pain."

"These, dear boy, are my own verses," said he, stopping short and
nodding his head mournfully. "How do they run? I've forgotten. There is
something there about dreams, about sacred and pure longings, which are
smothered within my breast by the vapour of life. Oh!"

"The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again."

"Brother! You are happier than I, because you are stupid. While I--"

"Don't be rude!" said Foma, irritated. "You would better listen how they
are singing."

"I don't want to listen to other people's songs," said Yozhov, with
a shake of the head. "I have my own, it is the