“A man’s whole life is barely enough to think out a single idea properly.”
“You mean to say that each should choose for himself but a single idea.”
“Yes. If people could but grasp this fact human knowledge would take an unprecedented step forward. But we are afraid to venture.”
And coarse life already hovered near them behind their backs, and was about to intrude upon them. Elisaveta gave a sudden faint outcry at the unexpectedness of an unseemly apparition. A dirty, rough-looking man, all in tatters, was almost upon them; he had approached them upon the mossy ground as softly as a wood fairy. He stretched out a dirty, horny hand, and asked, not at all in a begging voice:
“Give a hungry man something to buy bread with.”
Trirodov frowned in annoyance, and without looking at the beggar took a silver coin out of the pocket of his waistcoat. He always kept a trifle about him to provide for unexpected meetings. The ragged one smiled, turned the coin, threw it upward, caught it, and hid it adroitly in his pocket.
“I thank your illustrious Honour most humbly,” he said. “May God give you good health, a rich wife, and assured success. Only I want to say something to you.”
He grew silent, and assumed a grave, important air. Trirodov frowned even more intensely than before, and asked stiffly:
“What is it you wish to tell me?”
The ragged one said with frank derision in his voice: