fine!" exclaimed Foma, ecstatically, and began to move about
on the lounge. "You're a hero, Nikolay! Oh! Go ahead! Throw it right
into their faces!"

But Yozhov was not in need of encouragement, it seemed even as though he
had not heard at all Foma's exclamations, and he went on:

"I know the limitations of my powers. I know they'll shout at me: 'Hold
your peace!' They'll tell me: 'Keep silence!' They will say it wisely,
they will say it calmly, mocking me, they will say it from the height
of their majesty. I know I am only a small bird, Oh, I am not a
nightingale! Compared with them I am an ignorant man, I am only a
feuilleton-writer, a man to amuse the public. Let them cry and silence
me, let them do it! A blow will fall on my cheek, but the heart will
nevertheless keep on throbbing! And I will say to them:

"'Yes, I am an ignorant man! And my first advantage over you is that
I do not know a single book-truth dearer to me than a man! Man is the
universe, and may he live forever who carries the whole world within
him! And you,'I will say, 'for the sake of a word which, perhaps, does
not always contain a meaning comprehensible to you, for the sake of a
word you often inflict sores and wounds on one another, for the sake of
a word you spurt one another with bile, you assault the soul. For this,
believe me, life will severely call you to account: a storm will break
loose, and it will whisk and wash you off the earth, as wind and rain
whisk and wash the dust off a tree I There is in human language only one
word whose meaning is clear and dear to everybody, and when that word is
pronounced, it sounds thus: 'Freedom!'"

"Crush on!" roared Foma, jumping up from the lounge and grasping Yozhov
by the shoulders. With flashing eyes he gazed into Yozhov's face,
bending toward him, and almost moaned with grief and affliction: "Oh!
Nikolay! My dear fellow, I am mortally sorry for you! I am more sorry
than words can tell!"

"What's this? What's the matter with you?" cried Yozhov, pushing him
away, amazed and shifted from his position by Foma's unexpected outburst
and strange words.

"Oh, brother!" said Foma, lowering his voice, which thus sounded deeper,
more persuasive. "Oh, living soul, why do you sink to ruin?"

"Who? I? I sink? You lie!"

"My dear boy! You will not say anything to anybody! There is no one to
speak to! Who will listen to you? Only I!"

"Go to the devil!" shouted Yozhov, angrily, jumping away from him as