"What was the use of pitying you? You are like a stone."
Yaakov laughed good-naturedly.
"Funny fellow! A stone, you say? Well, one may feel for stones. A stone also serves in its proper place; streets are paved with stones. One ought to pity all kinds of materials; nothing is in its place by chance. What is soil? Yet little blades of grass grow in it."
When the stoker spoke like this, it was quite clear to me that he knew something more than I could grasp.
"What do you think of the cook?" I asked him.
"Of Medvyejenok?" said Yaakov, calmly. "What do I think of him? There is nothing to think about him at all."
That was true. Ivan Ivanovich was so strictly correct and smooth that one's thoughts could get no grip on him. There was only one interesting thing about him: he loved the stoker, was always scolding him, and yet always invited him to tea.
One day he said to him:
"If you had been my serf and I had been your master, I would have flogged you seven times each week, you sluggard!"
Yaakov replied in a serious tone: