"We shall await the critical moment," said the captain, walking along with them. "When we get the sack there will be time enough to look out for another shelter. Meanwhile, what's the use of spoiling life with troubles like that? It is at critical moments that man rises to the occasion, and if life as a whole were to consist of nothing but critical moments, if one had to tremble every minute of one's life for the safety of one's carcass, I'll be hanged if life wouldn't be more lively, and people more interesting!"
"Which would mean that people would fly at each other's throats more savagely than they do now," explained "Scraps," smiling.
"Well, what of that?" struck in the captain, who did not care to have his ideas enlarged on.
"Nothing! nothing! It's all right—when one wants to get to one's destination quickly, one thrashes the horse, or one stokes up one's machine."
"Yes, that's it; let everything go full speed to the devil. I should be only too glad if the earth would suddenly take fire, burst up, and go to pieces, only I should like to be the last man left, to see the others."
"You're a nice one!" sneered "Scraps."
"What of that? I'm an outcast, am I not? I'm freed from all chains and fetters; therefore I can spit at everything. By the very nature of the life I lead now, I am bound to drop everything to do with the past—all fine manners and conventional ideas of people who are well fed, and well dressed, and who despise me because I am not equally well fed and dressed. So I have to cultivate in myself something fresh and new—don't you see—something you know which will make people like Judah Petounnikoff, when they pass by me, feel a cold shudder run down their backs!"
"You have a bold tongue!" sneered "Scraps."
"You miserable wretch!" Kouvalda scanned him disdainfully. "What do you understand, what do you know? You don't even know how to think! But I have thought much, I have read books of which you would not have understood a word."
"Oh, I know I'm not fit to black the boots of such a learned man! But though you have read and thought so much, and I have done neither the one nor the other, yet we are not after all so far apart."