"What a rotten boat this is!"
"But you are not steering it."
"How can I?" he grumbled. "When there are two people in a boat, one always rows while the other steers. There—look! There's the Chinese block."
I knew the market through and through; I knew that comical-looking block of buildings with the ridiculous roofs on which sat, with crossed legs, figures of Chinamen in plaster of Paris. There had been a time when I and my playfellow had thrown stones at them, and some of the Chinamen had had their heads and hands broken off by me. But I no longer took any pride in that sort of thing.
"Rubbish!" said my master, pointing to the block. "If I had been allowed to build it—"
He whistled and pushed his cap to the back of his head.
But somehow I thought that he would have built that town of stone just as dingily, on that low-lying ground which was flooded by the waters of two rivers every year. And he would even have invented the Chinese block.
Throwing his cigar over the side of the boat, he spat after it in disgust, saying:
"Life is very dull, Pyeshkov, very dull. There are no educated people—no one to talk to. If one wants to show off one's gifts, who is there to be impressed? Not a soul! All the people here are carpenters, stonemasons, peasants—"
He looked straight ahead at the white mosque which rose picturesquely out of the water on a small hill, and continued as if he were recollecting something he had forgotten: