Nasanski got up, wrapped his cloak round him with a slight shiver, and remarked in a weary voice:
“I’m cold—let’s go home.”
Romashov rowed out of the rushes. The sun was setting behind the roofs of the distant town, the dark outlines of which were sharply defined against the red evening sky. Here and there the sunrays were reflected by a gleaming window-pane. The greater part of the river’s surface was as even as a mirror, and faded away in bright, sportive colours; but behind the boat the water was already dark, opaque, and curled by little light waves.
Romashov suddenly exclaimed, as if he were answering his own thoughts:
“You are right. I’ll enter the reserves. I do not yet know how I shall do it, but I had thought of it before.”
Nasanski shivered with the cold and wrapped his cloak more closely round him.
“Come, come,” replied he in a melancholy and tender tone. “There’s a certain inward light in you, Georgi Alexievich; I don’t know what to call it properly; but in this bear-pit it will soon go out. Yes, they would spit at it and put it out. Then get away from here! Don’t be afraid to struggle for your existence. Don’t fear life—the warm, wonderful life that’s so rich in changes. Let’s suppose you cannot hold yourself up; that you sink deep—deep; that you become a victim to crime and poverty. What then? I tell you that the life of a beggar or vagrant is tenfold richer than Captain Sliva’s and those of his kidney. You wander round the world here and there, from village to village, from town to town. You make acquaintance with quaint, careless, homeless, humorous specimens of humanity. You see and hear, suffer and enjoy; you sleep on the dewy grass; you shiver with cold in the frosty hours of the morning. But you are as free as a bird; you’re afraid of no one, and you worship life with all your soul. Oh, how little men understand after all! What does it matter whether you eat vobla[24] or saddle of buck venison with truffles; if you drink vodka or champagne; whether you die in a police-cell or under a canopy? All this is the veriest trifle. I often stand and watch funeral processions. There lies, overshadowed by enormous plumes, in its silver-mounted coffin, a rotting ape accompanied to the grave by a number of other apes, bedizened, behind and before, with orders, stars, keys, and other worthless finery. And afterwards all those visits and announcements! No, my friend, in all the world there is only one thing consistent and worth possessing, viz, an emancipated spirit with imaginative, creative force, and a cheerful temperament. One can have truffles or do without them. All that sort of thing is a matter of luck; it does not signify anything. A common guard, provided he is not an absolute beast, might in six months be trained to act as Tsar, and play his part admirably; but a well-fattened, sluggish, and stupid ape, that throws himself into his carriage with his big belly in the air, will never succeed in grasping what liberty is, will never feel the bliss of inspiration, or shed sweet tears of enthusiasm.
“Travel, Romashov. Go away from here. I advise you to do so, for I myself have tasted freedom, and if I crept into my dirty cage again, whose fault was it? But enough of this. Dive boldly into life. It will not deceive you. Life resembles a huge building with thousands of rooms in which you will find light, joy, singing, wonderful pictures, handsome and talented men and women, games and frolic, dancing, love, and all that is great and mighty in art. Of this castle you have hitherto seen only a dark, narrow, cold, and raw cupboard, full of scourings and spiders’ webs, and yet you hesitate to leave it.”
Romashov made fast the boat and helped Nasanski to land. It was already dusk when they reached Nasanski’s abode. Romashov helped him to bed and spread the cloak and counterpane over him.
Nasanski trembled so much from his chill that his teeth chattered. He rolled himself up like a ball, bored his head right into his pillow, and whimpered helplessly as a child.