"Like the life, eh?"
"Like their life? Well, how shall I put it?—they are not bothered with kids ... they live as they like ... they are free...."
"What do you know about freedom? Do you love it?"
"Why of course. To be your own master ... to go where you like ... to do what you like. Still more, if you know how to keep straight, and have no stone about your neck ... then it's splendid! You may enjoy yourself as you like, if only you don't forget God...."
Chelkash spat contemptuously, ceased from questioning, and turned away from the youth.
"I'll tell you my story," said the other with a sudden burst of confidence. "When my father died he left but little, my mother was old, the land was all ploughed to death, what was I to do? Live I must—but how? I didn't know. I went to my wife's relations—a good house. Very well! 'Will you give your daughter her portion?' But no, my devil of a father-in-law would not shell out I was worrying him a long time about it—a whole year. What a business it was! And if I had had a hundred and fifty roubles in hand I could have paid off the Jew Antipas and stood on my legs again. 'Will you give Marfa her portion?' I said. 'No? Very well! Thank God she is not the only girl in the village.' I wanted to let him know that I would be my own master and quite free. Heigh-ho!" And the young fellow sighed. "And now there is nothing for it but to go to my relations after all. I had thought: look now! I'll go to the Kuban District. I'll scrape together two hundred roubles—and then I shall be a gentleman at large. But it was only so-so! It all ended in smoke. Now you'll have to go back to your relations, I said to myself ... as a day-labourer. I'm not fit to be my own master—no, I'm quite unfit. Alas! Alas!'"
The young fellow had a violent disinclination to go to his relatives. Even his cheerful face grew dark and made itself miserable. He shifted heavily about on the ground, and drew Chelkash out of the reverie in which he had plunged while the other was talking.
Chelkash also began to feel that the conversation was boring him, yet, for all that, he asked a few more questions:
"And now where are you going?"
"Where am I going? Why, home of course."