It's even very--it is interesting. Peasants, labourers, to look at them plainly, they are just like horses. They carry burdens, they puff and blow.""They carry our life on their backs," exclaimed Yozhov with irritation. "They carry it like horses, submissively, stupidly.
And this submissiveness of theirs is our misfortune, our curse!"And Foma, carried away by his own thought, argued:
"They carry burdens, they toil all their life long for mere trifles. And suddenly they say something that wouldn't come into your mind in a century. Evidently they feel. Yes, it is interesting to be with them."Staggering, Yozhov walked in silence for a long time, and suddenly he waved his hand in the air and began to declaim in a dull, choking voice, which sounded as though it issued from his stomach:
"Life has cruelly deceived me, I have suffered so much pain.""These, dear boy, are my own verses," said he, stopping short and nodding his head mournfully. "How do they run? I've forgotten.
There is something there about dreams, about sacred and pure longings, which are smothered within my breast by the vapour of life. Oh!""The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again.""Brother! You are happier than I, because you are stupid. While I--""Don't be rude!" said Foma, irritated. "You would better listen how they are singing.""I don't want to listen to other people's songs," said Yozhov, with a shake of the head. "I have my own, it is the song of a soul rent in pieces by life."And he began to wail in a wild voice:
The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again. . .
How great their number is!"
"There was a whole flower garden of bright, living dreams and hopes. They perished, withered and perished. Death is within my heart. The corpses of my dreams are rotting there. Oh! oh!"Yozhov burst into tears, sobbing like a woman. Foma pitied him, and felt uncomfortable with him. He jerked at his shoulder impatiently, and said:
"Stop crying! Come, how weak you are, brother!" Clasping his head in his hand Yozhov straightened up his stooping frame, made an effort and started again mournfully and wildly:
"How great their number is!
Their sepulchre how narrow!
I clothed them all in shrouds of rhyme And many sad and solemn songs O'er them I sang from time to time!""0h, Lord!" sighed Foma in despair. "Stop that, for Christ's sake! By God, how sad!"In the distance the loud choral song was rolling through the darkness and the silence. Some one was whistling, keeping time to the refrain, and this shrill sound, which pierced the ear, ran ahead of the billow of powerful voices. Foma looked in that direction and saw the tall, black wall of forest, the bright fiery spot of the bonfire shining upon it, and the misty figures surrounding the fire. The wall of forest was like a breast, and the fire like a bloody wound in it. It seemed as though the breast was trembling, as the blood coursed down in burning streams. Embraced in dense gloom from all sides the people seemed on the background of the forest, like little children; they, too, seemed to burn, illuminated by the blaze of the bonfire. They waved their hands and sang their songs loudly, powerfully.
And Yozhov, standing beside Foma, spoke excitedly:
"You hard-hearted blockhead! Why do you repulse me? You ought to listen to the song of the dying soul, and weep over it, for, why was it wounded, why is it dying? Begone from me, begone! You think I am drunk? I am poisoned, begone!"Without lifting his eyes off the forest and the fire, so beautiful in the darkness, Foma made a few steps aside from Yozhov and said to him in a low voice:
"Don't play the fool. Why do you abuse me at random?""I want to remain alone, and finish singing my song."Staggering, he, too, moved aside from Foma, and after a few seconds again exclaimed in a sobbing voice:
"My song is done! And nevermore Shall I disturb their sleep of death, Oh Lord, 0h Lord, repose my soul!
For it is hopeless in its wounds, Oh Lord, repose my soul."Foma shuddered at the sounds of their gloomy wailing, and he hurried after Yozhov; but before he overtook him the little feuilleton-writer uttered a hysterical shriek, threw himself chest down upon the ground and burst out sobbing plaintively and softly, even as sickly children cry.
"Nikolay!" said Foma, lifting him by the shoulders. "Cease crying; what's the matter? 0h Lord. Nikolay! Enough, aren't you ashamed?"But Yozhov was not ashamed; he struggled on the ground, like a fish just taken from the water, and when Foma had lifted him to his feet, he pressed close to Foma's breast, clasping his sides with his thin arms, and kept on sobbing.
"Well, that's enough!" said Foma, with his teeth tightly clenched. "Enough, dear."And agitated by the suffering of the man who was wounded by the narrowness of life, filled with wrath on his account, he turned his face toward the gloom where the lights of the town were glimmering, and, in an outburst of wrathful grief, roared in a deep, loud voice:
"A-a-ana-thema! Be cursed! Just wait. You, too, shall choke! Be cursed!"
