“Go, leave me alone!” said Foma, waving him off with his hand.
“He who gives not when he may, when he fain would, shall have nay,” said the barefooted man, and stepped aside.
Foma looked at him as he departed, and said to himself:
“There is a ruined man and yet how bold he is. He asks alms as though demanding a debt. Where do such people get so much boldness?”
And heaving a deep sigh, he answered himself:
“From freedom. The man is not fettered. What is there that he should regret? What does he fear? And what do I fear? What is there that I should regret?”
These two questions seemed to strike Foma’s heart and called forth in him a dull perplexity. He looked at the movement of the working people and kept on thinking: What did he regret? What did he fear?
“Alone, with my own strength, I shall evidently never come out anywhere. Like a fool I shall keep on tramping about among people, mocked and offended by all. If they would only jostle me aside; if they would only hate me, then—then—I would go out into the wide world! Whether I liked or not, I would have to go!”
From one of the landing wharves the merry “dubinushka” [“Dubinushka,” or the “Oaken Cudgel,” is a song popular with the Russian workmen.] had already been smiting the air for a long time. The carriers were doing a certain work, which required brisk movements, and were adapting the song and the refrain to them.
“In the tavern sit great merchants
Drinking liquors strong,”