"No, they're not."
For a while they walked in silence. Yakov sniffed meditatively, and gave a hasty look into his cousin's face. Yevsey felt he had not succeeded in shoving away the unpleasant and dangerous theme.
"These leaflets are a precious matter. It's necessary for us to read them. All the slaves of labor ought to read them," Yakov began heartily, but in a modulated voice. "We, cousin, are slaves, chained to everlasting work. They have made us captives of capitalists, and we live poor in body and in soul. Isn't it so? Now the leaflets eat at our chains, the way rust eats iron, and they liberate our human minds."
Klimkov walked more quickly. He did not want to hear the smooth talk. The desire even darted through his mind to say:
"Don't speak to me about such things, please."
But Yakov himself interrupted his speech.
"There's the zoo!"
They drank a bottle of beer in the bar-room, and listened to the playing of a military band.
"Good?" Yakov asked, nudging Yevsey's side with his elbow. On the cessation of the playing Yakov sighed. "That was Faust they played. An opera. I saw it three times. Beautiful, very! The story is stupid, but the music is good. And the songs, too. Come, let's look at the monkeys."
On the way to the monkey-house he told Yevsey the story of Faust and the devil Mephistopheles. He even attempted to sing something, but not succeeding he burst out laughing. "I can't," he declared. "It's hard. Besides I've forgotten it. Do you know—the singer who plays the devil gets a thousand rubles every time he sings. The devil take him, let him get ten thousand rubles, because it's good. When it's good, I don't grudge anybody anything. I'd give my life,—there, take it, eat! Isn't it so?"