“That’s from your books,” Foma interposed confidently.
“Wait! And I cease to understand what is going on about me. Nothing pleases me. Everything has become strange to me. Nothing is as it should be. Everything is wrong. I see it. I understand it, yet I cannot say that it is wrong, and why it is so.”
“It is not so, not so,” muttered Foma. “That’s from your books. Yes. Although I also feel that it’s wrong. Perhaps that is because we are so young and foolish.”
“At first it seemed to me,” said Lubov, not listening to him, “that everything in the books was clear to me. But now—”
“Drop your books,” suggested Foma, with contempt.
“Ah, don’t say that! How can I drop them? You know how many different ideas there are in the world! O Lord! They’re such ideas that set your head afire. According to a certain book everything that exists on earth is rational.”
“Everything?” asked Foma.
“Everything! While another book says the contrary is true.”
“Wait! Now isn’t this nonsense?”
“What were you discussing?” asked Mayakin, appearing at the door, in a long frock-coat and with several medals on his collar and his breast.