Yakov Tarasovich burst into bitter laughter.

"What then, did you think to lick away a mountain with your tongue? You
armed yourself with malice enough to fight a bedbug, and you started out
after a bear, is that it? Madman! If your father were to see you now.
Eh!"

"And yet," said Foma, suddenly, loudly, with assurance, and his eyes
again flared up, "and yet it is all your fault! You have spoiled life!
You have made everything narrow. We are suffocating because of you! And
though my truth against you is weak, it is truth, nevertheless! You are
godless wretches! May you all be cursed!"

He moved about in his chair, attempting to free his hands, and cried
out, flashing his eyes with fury:

"Unbind my hands!"

They came closer to him; the faces of the merchants became more severe,
and Reznikov said to him impressively:

"Don't make a noise, don't be bothersome! We'll soon be in town. Don't
disgrace yourself, and don't disgrace us either. We are not going to
take you direct from the wharf to the insane asylum."

"So!" exclaimed Foma. "So you are going to put me into an insane
asylum?"

No one replied. He looked at their faces and hung his head.

"Behave peacefully! We'll unbind you!" said someone.

"It's not necessary!" said Foma in a low voice. "It's all the same. I
spit on it! Nothing will happen."

And his speech again assumed the nature of a delirium.

"I am lost, I know it! Only not because of your power, but rather
because of my weakness. Yes! You, too, are only worms in the eyes of
God. And, wait! You shall choke. I am lost through blindness. I saw much
and I became blind, like an owl. As a boy, I remember, I chased an owl
in a ravine; it flew about and struck against something. The sun blinded
it. It was all bruised and it disappeared, and my father said to me
then: 'It is the same with man; some man bustles about to and fro,
bruises himself, exhausts himself, and then throws himself anywhere,
just to rest.' Hey I unbind my hands."

His face turned pale, his eyes closed, his shoulders quivered. Tattered
and crumpled he rocked about in the chair, striking his chest against
the edge of the table, and began to whisper something.

The merchants exchanged significant glances. Some, nudging one another
in the sides, shook their heads at Foma in silence. Yakov Mayakin's face
was dark and immobile as though hewn out of stone.

"Shall we perhaps unbind him?" whispered Bobrov.

"When we get a little ne