"No opportunity, brother. You know people like us don't get much time."
"You could come if you wanted to."
"Don't be cross. You're always saying I ought to come, and for all that, you've never asked me where I live, much less thought of paying me a visit."
"You're right; it's a fact!" said Ilya, laughing. "But tell me now."
Pavel looked at him, laughed too, and went on more cheerfully:
"I live for myself. I've no friends, can't find any who can put up with me. I've been ill—three months in hospital. Not a soul came to see me all the time."
"What was wrong?"
"Caught cold once, when I was drunk. Typhus it was. When I was better, that was the worst. I lay alone all day and all night. You feel dumb and blind, like a puppy they throw into a pond. Thanks to the doctor, I had some books at least, else I should have been bored to death."
"Were they nice books?" asked Ilya.
"Ye-es, they were jolly good, mostly poems—Lermontov, Nekrassov, Pushkin. Lots of times, reading was like drinking milk. Verses, brother! To read verses is like your sweetheart kissing you. A line sometimes goes through your heart and makes the sparks fly—you feel on fire."