The fire blazed up again, but now it was stronger and more vivid. Again the shadows leaped into the woods, and again darted back to the fire, quivering about it in a mute, astonished dance. The wood crackled, and the leaves of the trees rustled softly. Alarmed by the waves of the heated atmosphere, the merry, vivacious tongues of fire, yellow and red, in sportive embrace, soared aloft, sowing sparks. The burning leaves flew, and the stars in the sky smiled to the sparks, luring them up to themselves.
"That's not my song. Thousands of people sing it. But they sing it to themselves, not realizing what a salutary lesson their unfortunate lives hold for all. How many men, tormented to death by work, miserable cripples, maimed, die silently from hunger! It is necessary to shout it aloud, brothers, it is necessary to shout it aloud!" He fell into a fit of coughing, bending and all a-shiver.
"Why?" asked Yefim. "My misery is my own affair. Just look at my joy."
"Don't interrupt," Rybin admonished.
"You yourself said a man mustn't boast of his misfortune," observed Yefim with a frown.
"That's a different thing. Savely's misfortune is a general affair, not merely his own. It's very different," said Rybin solemnly. "Here you have a man who has gone down to the depths and been suffocated. Now he shouts to the world, 'Look out, don't go there!'"
Yakob put a pail of cider on the table, dropped a bundle of green branches, and said to the sick man:
"Come, Savely, I've brought you some milk."
Savely shook his head in declination, but Yakob took him under the arm, lifted him, and made him walk to the table.
"Listen," said Sofya softly to Rybin. She was troubled and reproached him. "Why did you invite him here? He may die any minute."