eceit, that business is not business, but merely a
plug that we prop up with it the emptiness of our souls; that some work,
while others only give orders and sweat, but get more for that. Why is
it so? Eh?"

"I cannot grasp your idea," announced Taras, when Foma paused, feeling
on himself Lubov's contemptuous and angry look.

"You do not understand?" asked Foma, looking at Taras with a smile.
"Well, I'll put it in this way:

A man is sailing in a boat on the river. The boat may be good, but under
it there is always a depth all the same. The boat is sound, but if the
man feels beneath him this dark depth, no boat can save him."

Taras looked at Foma indifferently and calmly. He looked in silence, and
softly tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. Lubov was uneasily
moving about in her chair. The pendulum of the clock told the seconds
with a dull, sighing sound. And Foma's heart throbbed slowly and
painfully, as though conscious that here no one would respond with a
warm word to its painful perplexity.

"Work is not exactly everything for a man," said he, more to himself
than to these people who had no faith in the sincerity of his words. "It
is not true that in work lies justification. There are people who do not
work at all during all their lives long, and yet they live better
than those that do work. How is that? And the toilers--they are merely
unfortunate--horses! Others ride on them, they suffer and that's all.
But they have their justification before God. They will be asked: 'To
what purpose did you live?' Then they will say: 'We had no time to think
of that. We worked all our lives.' And I--what justification have I? And
all those people who give orders--how will they justify themselves? To
what purpose have they lived? It is my idea that everybody necessarily
ought to know, to know firmly what he is living for."

He became silent, and, tossing his head up, exclaimed in a heavy voice:

"Can it be that man is born merely to work, acquire money, build a
house, beget children and--die? No, life means something. A man is born,
he lives and dies. What for? It is necessary, by God, it is necessary
for all of us to consider what we are living for. There is no sense in
our life. No sense whatever! Then things are not equal, that can be seen
at once. Some are rich--they have money enough for a thousand people,
and they live in idleness. Others bend their backs over their work all
their lives, and yet they have