I did not want to go away from him, but I understood that it was necessary. My thoughts troubled me. I was agitated to the very depths and my soul was furrowed as with a plow.
"Why have you become thoughtful?" he asked me. "Go to the factory. Work there and mix with my friends. It will be no loss to you, I assure you. The people are intelligent. I learned from them, and you see I am no fool."
He wrote a little note and gave it to me.
"Go there. I wish you no harm, believe me. The people are new-born and alive. Don't you believe me?"
"Our small eyes can see much," I answered, "but is that when they see the truth?"
"Look with all your might," he cried, "with all your heart, with all your soul! Did I tell you to believe? I told you to learn and know."
We kissed and he went away. He walked lightly, like a youth of twenty, and as if some happiness awaited him. I became sad when I looked back at this bird flying away from me, Heaven knows where, to sing his song in new parts. My head was heavy; my thoughts raced like Little Russians at market in the early morning, sleepy, awkward, slow, and in no way able to make order. Everything became strangely confused. To my thoughts there was another's conclusion and to this other's conclusion my own beginning. It hurt me, yet it was funny, and I seemed all changed within.
When I went away from Verkhotour, I asked where the road led to, and they answered to the Isetsky factory. That was where the old man had wanted me to go, but I took a side road; I did not wish to go there. I wanted to go to the villages and look around me.
The people were gloomy and haughty and seemed to wish to speak with no one. They looked about cautiously, as if they were afraid some one would rob them.
"Here are the God-creators," I said to myself, looking at some pock-marked peasants. "I will ask them where this road leads to."