“All?”
“With us Russians everybody is an artist. They use the chisel, paint, strum, write poetry, as you and your like do. Others drive in the mornings to the courts or the government offices, others sit before their stalls playing draughts, and still others stick on their estates—Art is everywhere.”
“Do you feel no desire to enter any of these categories.”
“I have tried, but don’t know how to. What brought you here?”
“I don’t know myself. It is all the same to me where I go. I had a letter summoning me here from my Aunt, and I came.”
Mark busied himself in his thoughts, and took no further interest in Raisky. Raisky on the other hand examined the extraordinary person before him attentively, studied the expression of his face, followed his movements, and tried to grasp the outline of a strong character. “Thank God,” he said to himself, “that I am not the only idle, aimless person here. In this man there is something similar; he wanders about, reconciles himself to his fate, and does nothing. I at least draw and try to write my novel, while he does nothing. Is he the victim of secret discord like myself? Is he always struggling between two fires? Imagination striving upward to the ideal lures him on on the one hand—man, nature and life in all its manifestations; on the other he is attracted by a cold, destructive analysis which allows nothing to live, and will forget nothing, an analysis that leads to eternal discontent and blighting cold. Is that his secret?” He glanced at Mark, who was already drowsing.
“Good-bye, Leonti,” he said, “it’s time I was going home.”
“What am I to do with him?”
“He can stay here all right.”
“Think of the books. It’s leaving the goat loose in the vegetable garden.”