‘You can see—I am digging myself a grave.’
‘Why are you doing so?’
‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’
The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t want to live?’
Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? Aren’t you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you flaying the peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I don’t care for life in Russia!’ And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha’s hands.
‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s positively burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began again: ‘listen. I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me falsely of you.’
Misha went on digging.
‘But why be desperate?’
Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’
‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have some lunch, and rest a bit?’