"Yes," said the baron, "and therefore we make a certain proposition. Perhaps you would take upon yourself to be one of our agents."
He presented in detail a plan of the enterprise—to carry out this there would be agents disposed through the whole country to discover and purchase.
"We need aesthetic persons, a company of developed men, and it is difficult, very difficult to find them. In this country sterility reigns throughout the whole region of gray matter in the brain—it is sterility in the great gray substance—if you wish—"
Kranitski was silent. It was not long since he had desired this position, perhaps, and something which might attach him to people and to life. But now—during this discourse with his two friends—an increasing disgust had seized hold of him. The sarcasm of the baron about shirtless parents who kissed him with lips suffering from hunger before harvest pierced his heart cruelly. In his mind hovered the words "departure, death!" and before his imagination rose the vision of a flock of birds flying in every direction.
To buy cheap to sell dear! That was vile! At the same time he felt that the pains in his side and his heart had grown keener, and a feeling of faintness possessed him. After a moment's thought, he said:
"No, my dear friends; it seems that I shall not be able to serve you. I am sick—I am growing old—besides, my dears, I must tell you openly—"
He hesitated, and took from the table his gold case, which he had opened before the guests. He meditated a moment, and then said:
"Your undertaking has sides which wound my sense of propriety somewhat. This business will always be buying in a temple, even in temples, I might say, for art is sacred, and so is the fatherland. You are both too clever to require explanation on this point. The loneliness in which I shall be when you are gone frightens and pains me—pains me immensely, but I am forced to say that I shall not be with you in this matter; no, decidedly, I shall not be of your company."
By nature Kranitski was averse to disputes, and for various reasons unused to them, hence he had begun to speak with hesitation and dislike; but afterward he rested his shoulder against the arm of the sofa, and with head somewhat raised, twirling the cigarette-case in his hand, he had the look of a great lord, especially if compared with the baron, who always seemed somewhat like a mosquito preparing to bite. And this time he began with a sneering smile:
"You are always painted in the color of romantic poetry of sacred memory. While you were speaking I seemed to be listening to 'a postillion, playing under the windows of incurable patients,' and—"