u don't stop those fools, if
you let them go on making more, they will cover the whole earth with
stone, and then all will suffocate--all.

KONDRATY

The poor people will have a hard time of it.

SAVVA

All will be poor then. What is it that makes a man rich? His having
a house and money, and the fact that he has surrounded himself with a
fence. But when there are no houses, no money, and no fences--

KONDRATY

That's so. And there won't be any legal papers either, no stocks, no
bonds, no title-deeds. They will all have been burnt up.

SAVVA

No, there will be no legal papers. It's work then--you'll have to go
to work even if you are a nobleman.

KONDRATY _(laughing)_

It's funny. All will be naked as when coming out of a bath.

SAVVA

Are you a peasant, Kondraty?

KONDRATY

Yes, I am a peasant, sure enough.

SAVVA

I am a peasant also. We have nothing to lose, brother. We can't fare
worse than we do now.

KONDRATY

How could it be worse? But a great many people will perish, Mr.
Tropinin.

SAVVA

It makes no difference. There'll be enough left. It is the
good-for-nothings that will perish, the fools to whom this life is
like a shell to a crab. Those who believe will perish, because their
faith will be taken away from them. Those who love the old will
perish, because everything will be taken away from them. The weak,
the sick, those who love quietness. There will be no quietness in the
world, brother. There will remain only the free and the brave, those
with young and eager souls and clear eyes that can embrace the whole
universe.

KONDRATY

Like yours? I am afraid of your eyes, Savva Yegorovich, especially in
the dark.

SAVVA

Yes, like mine. And emancipated from everything, naked, armed only
with their reason, they will deliberate; discuss, talk things over,
and build up a new life, a good life, Kondraty, where every man may
breathe freely.

KONDRATY

It's interesting. But men are sly creatures. Something of the old
will be left over. They'll hide it, or try some other trick, and then
behold! back they slide to the old again, everything just as it was,
just as of old. What then?

SAVVA

Just as of old? _(Gloomily)_ Then they will have to be wiped clean off
the face of the earth. Let there be no living human being on earth.
Enough of it!

KONDRATY _(shaking his head)_

But--

SAVVA _(putting his hand on his shoulder)_

Believe me, monk, I have been in many cities and i