When I announced in the workroom that I was leaving, most of the workmen showed a flattering regret. Pavl, especially, was upset.
"Think," he said reproachfully; "how will you live with men of all kinds, after being with us? With carpenters, house-painters—Oh, you—It is going out of the frying-pan into the fire."
Jikharev growled:
"A fish looks for the deepest place, but a clever young man seeks a worse place!"
The send-off which they gave me from the workshop was a sad one.
"Of course one must try this and that," said Jikharev, who was yellow from the effects of a drinking bout. "It is better to do it straight off, before you become too closely attached to something or other."
"And that for the rest of your life," added Larionich softly.
But I felt that they spoke with constraint, and from a sense of duty. The thread which had bound me to them was somehow rotted and broken.
In the loft drunken Golovev rolled about, and muttered hoarsely:
"I would like to see them all in prison. I know their secrets! Who believes in God here? Aha-a—!"