“And what about the peasants?”
“The peasants? There are a good many sweaters and money-lenders among them now, and there are likely to be more in time. This kind only look to their own interests, and as for the others, they are as ignorant as sheep.”
“Then where are we to turn to?”
Solomin smiled.
“Seek and ye shall find.”
There was a constant smile on his lips, but the smile was as full of meaning as the man himself. With Nejdanov he behaved in a very peculiar manner. He was attracted to the young student and felt an almost tender sympathy for him. At one part of the discussion, where Nejdanov broke out into a perfect torrent of words, Solomin got up quietly, moved across the room with long strides, and shut a window that was standing open just above Nejdanov’s head.
“You might catch cold,” he observed, in answer to the orator’s look of amazement.
Nejdanov began to question him about his factory, asking if any cooperative experiments had been made, if anything had been done so that the workers might come in for a share of the profits.
“My dear fellow!” Solomin exclaimed, “I instituted a school and a tiny hospital, and even then the owner struggled like a bear!”
Solomin lost his temper once in real earnest on hearing of some legal injustice about the suppression of a workman’s association. He banged his powerful fist on the table so that everything on it trembled, including a forty-pound weight, which happened to be lying near the ink pot.