"Thank God!" sighed Malva.
To their left, behind a chain of sandy hills, the moon rose, flooding them with its silvery light. Large and soft it rose slowly in the blue sky, and the sparkling light of the stars paled, and was lost in its mellow, dreamy light.
"You think too much.... That's what's the matter!" said Sereja in a convinced tone of voice, tossing away his cigarette. "And when one thinks, one becomes disgusted with life.... One must be always moving, always in the midst of people ... who must be made to feel that one is really alive. One must knock life about, or it will become mouldy. Move about in life, here and there, as long as you are able, and then you won't be bored." Malva grew gay.
"It's perhaps true what you say. Sometimes I think that if one set fire one night to one of the huts ... that might make things lively!" "That's a capital idea!" cried the other one, tapping her on the shoulder. "Do you know what I would advise you ... we might have some fun together if you would like?"
"What is it?" asked Malva, interested.
"Have you warmed up Jakoff well?"
"He bums like a clear fire," she said delighted.
"Is it possible? Set him on to his father. Wouldn't it be a queer sight?... They would go for each other like two bears ... Warm the old fellow up a little, and this other one still more ... and then we will set them on each other." Malva looked hard into his freckled face, as he smiled gaily. Lighted up by the moon it seemed less ugly than by daylight It expressed neither hatred nor anything but good humour and vivacity, in the expectation of a reply.
"Why do you hate them?" Malva asked suspiciously.
"I? Vassili is a good sort of fellow for a peasant. But Jakoff is not worth anything. Generally speaking, you see, I don't like peasants; they are all knaves. They know how to pretend to be unfortunate, get bread and everything given to them. And all the time they have a municipality which looks after them. They have land and cattle. I was coachman to a municipal doctor—and I saw something of those peasants then! Then for a long time I was a tramp. When I got to a village and asked for bread—'Oh! Oh! Who are you? what are you doing? show your passport!...' I was beaten more than once; sometimes they took me for a horse-thief; sometimes without any reason they put me in prison.... They groan and pretend that they can't live, although they have land of their own. And I, what could I do against them?"