“You are musing too much. Look out—no good will come of it to you. I cannot tell you anything about yourself. It is impossible to say anything true about a man. Who can understand him? Man does not know himself. Well, here, I’ll tell you—you are better than others. But what of it?”
“And in what way am I better?” asked Foma, thoughtfully.
“So! When one sings a good song—you weep. When one does some mean thing—you beat him. With women you are simple, you are not impudent to them. You are peaceable. And you can also be daring, sometimes.”
Yet all this did not satisfy Foma.
“You’re not telling me the right thing!” said he, softly. “Well, I don’t know what you want. But see here, what are we going to do after they have raised the barge?”
“What can we do?” asked Foma.
“Shall we go to Nizhni or to Kazan?”
“What for?”
“To carouse.”
“I don’t want to carouse any more.”