Yevsey sighed painfully.
"Just so. He's a good man, too, a Socialist."
"We are many," observed Olga with assurance.
"If she knew the joiner," Klimkov thought slowly, "I would tell her to ask him about me. Then—"
The chair seemed to be giving way beneath him, the nausea, he thought, would immediately gush into his throat. He coughed, and examined the clean little room, which small and poor though it was, once more gripped at his heart. The moon looked into the room round as Yakov's face, and the light in the lamp seemed irritatingly superfluous.
"More and more people come into being who realize that they are called upon by destiny to order life differently—upon truth and intellect," said Olga dreamily and simply.
Yevsey, yielding more and more to the power of the triumphant feeling the girl and the quiet contracted room inspired in him, thought:
"I'll put out the light, fall on my knees before her, embrace her feet, and tell her everything—and she will give me a kick."
But the fear of ill treatment did not deter him. He raised himself heavily from his chair, and put out his hand to the lamp. Then his hand dropped lazily, drowsily, his legs shook. He started.
"What are you doing?" demanded Olga.