“Have you no desires, does nothing call you away from this place, have you no longings for freedom and space, and don’t you feel cramped in this narrow frame of hedge, church spire and house, under your very nose?”
“Have I so little to look at under my nose?” asked Leonti, pointing to the books. “I have books, pupils, and in addition a wife and peace of heart, isn’t that enough?”
“Are books life? This old trash has a great deal to answer for. Men strive forwards, seek to improve themselves, to cleanse their conceptions, to drive away the mist, to meet the problems of society by justice, civilisation, orderly administration, while you instead of looking at life, study books.”
“What is not to be found in books is not to be found in life either, or if there is anything it is of no importance,” said Leonti firmly. “The whole programme of public and private life lies behind us; we can find an example for everything.”
“You are still the same old student, Leonti, always worrying about what has been experienced in the past, and never thinking of what you yourself are.”
“What I am! I am a teacher of the classics. I am as deeply concerned with the life of the past, as you with ideals and figures. You are an artist. Why should you wonder that certain figures are dear to me? Since when have artists ceased to draw water from the wells of the ancients?”
“Yes, an artist,” said Raisky, with a sigh. He pointed to his head and breast. “Here are figures, notes, forms, enthusiasm, the creative passion, and as yet I have done almost nothing.”
“What restrains you? You are now painting, you wrote me, a great picture, which you mean to exhibit.”
“The devil take the great pictures. I shall hardly be able to devote my whole energy to painting now. One must put one’s whole being into a great picture, and then to give effect to one hundredth part of what one has put in a representation of a fleeting, irrecoverable impression. Sometimes I paint portraits....”
“What art are you following now?”