“I didn’t mean physically, but morally, that is, with the heart and soul,” Markelov interrupted him. He was obviously displeased with Nejdanov’s exclamation. “She couldn’t have done better. As for my sister, she didn’t, of course, wish to hurt me. It can make no difference to her, but she no doubt hates you and Mariana too. She did not tell me anything untrue ... but enough of her!”
“Yes,” Nejdanov thought to himself, “she does hate us.”
“It’s all for the best,” Markelov continued, still sitting in the same position. “The last fetters have been broken; there is nothing to hinder me now! It doesn’t matter that Golushkin is an ass, and as for Kisliakov’s letters, they may perhaps be absurd, but we must consider the most important thing. Kisliakov says that everything is ready. Perhaps you don’t believe that too.”
Nejdanov did not reply.
“You may be right, but if we’ve to wait until everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never make a beginning. If we weigh all the consequences beforehand we’re sure to find some bad ones among them. For instance, when our forefathers emancipated the serfs, do you think they could foresee that a whole class of money-lending landlords would spring up as a result of the emancipation? Landlords who sell a peasant eight bushels of rotten rye for six roubles and in return for it get labour for the whole six roubles, then the same quantity of good sound rye and interest on top of that! Which means that they drain the peasants to the last drop of blood! You’ll agree that our emancipators could hardly have foreseen that. Even if they had foreseen it, they would still have been quite right in freeing the serfs without weighing all the consequences beforehand! That is why I have decided!”
Nejdanov looked at Markelov with amazement, but the latter turned to one side and directed his gaze into a corner of the room. He sat with his eyes closed, biting his lips and chewing his moustache.
“Yes, I’ve decided!” he repeated, striking his knee with his brown hairy hand. “I’m very obstinate.... It’s not for nothing that I’m half a Little Russian.”
He got up, dragged himself into his bedroom, and came back with a small portrait of Mariana in a glazed frame.
“Take this,” he said in a sad, though steady voice. “I drew it some time ago. I don’t draw well, but I think it’s like her.” (It was a pencil sketch in profile and was certainly like Mariana.) “Take it, Alexai; it is my bequest, and with this portrait I give you all my rights.... I know I never had any ... but you know what I mean! I give you up everything, and her.... She is very good, Alexai—”
Markelov ceased; his chest heaved visibly.