"They were no fools, Brother; they knew what was right! To the devil with red tape! Take myself, for instance; what has my life been? I look back on it with shame, everything by snatches, stealthily; my sorrows were my own, but all my joys were stolen. Either my father shouted, 'Don't you dare!' or my wife screamed, 'You cannot!' I was afraid to throw down a ruble. And so all my life has passed away, and here I am acting the lackey to my own son. Why should I hide it? I serve him, Brother, meekly, and he scolds me like a gentleman. He says, 'Father!' and I obey like a footman. Is that what I was born for, and what I struggled on in poverty for—that I should be servant to my own son? But, even without that, why was I born? What pleasure have I had in life?"
I listened to him inattentively. However, I said reluctantly, and not expecting an answer:
"I don't know what sort of a life mine will be."
He burst out laughing.
"Well, and who does know? I have never met any one yet who knew! So people live; he who can get accustomed to anything—"
And again he began to speak in an offended, angry tone:
"One of the men I had was there for assault, a man from Orla, a gentleman, who danced beautifully. He made us all laugh by a song about Vanka:
"Vanka passes by the churchyard,
That is a very simple matter!
Ach! Vanka, draw your horns in
For you won't get beyond the graveyard!
"I don't think that is at all funny, but it is true! As you can't come back, you can't see beyond the graveyard. In that case it is the same to me whether I am a convict, or a warder over convicts."
He grew tired of talking, drank his vodka, and looked into the empty decanter with one eye, like a bird. He silently lighted another cigarette, blowing the smoke through his mustache.