people get so much boldness?"

And heaving a deep sigh, he answered himself:

"From freedom. The man is not fettered. What is there that he should
regret? What does he fear? And what do I fear? What is there that I
should regret?"

These two questions seemed to strike Foma's heart and called forth in
him a dull perplexity. He looked at the movement of the working people
and kept on thinking: What did he regret? What did he fear?

"Alone, with my own strength, I shall evidently never come out anywhere.
Like a fool I shall keep on tramping about among people, mocked and
offended by all. If they would only jostle me aside; if they would only
hate me, then--then--I would go out into the wide world! Whether I liked
or not, I would have to go!"

From one of the landing wharves the merry "dubinushka" ["Dubinushka,"
or the "Oaken Cudgel," is a song popular with the Russian workmen.] had
already been smiting the air for a long time. The carriers were doing a
certain work, which required brisk movements, and were adapting the song
and the refrain to them.

"In the tavern sit great merchants
Drinking liquors strong,"

narrated the leader, in a bold recitative. The company joined in unison:

"Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!"

And then the bassos smote the air with deep sounds:

"It goes, it goes."

And the tenors repeated:

"It goes, it goes."

Foma listened to the song and directed his footsteps toward it, on the
wharf. There he noticed that the carriers, formed in two rows, were
rolling out of the steamer's hold huge barrels of salted fish. Dirty,
clad in red blouses, unfastened at the collar, with mittens on their
hands, with arms bare to the elbow, they stood over the hold, and,
merrily jesting, with faces animated by toil, they pulled the ropes,
all together, keeping time to their song. And from the hold rang out the
high, laughing voice of the invisible leader:

"But for our peasant throats
There is not enough vodka."

And the company, like one huge pair of lungs, heaved forth loudly and in
unison:

"Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!"

Foma felt pleased and envious as he looked at this work, which was as
harmonious as music. The slovenly faces of the carriers beamed with
smiles, the work was easy, it went on smoothly, and the leader of the
chorus was in his best vein. Foma thought that it would be fine to work
thus in unison, with good comrades, to the tune of a cheerful song,