Ilya laughed aloud.
"What are you laughing at? It's true. You judge every one so harshly. You don't love anybody."
"There you're right," said Ilya, fiercely. "Whom should I love; and why? What good have men done to me? Every one wants to get his bread by some one else's work, and every one cries out: 'love me, respect me, give me a share of your goods; then perhaps I'll love you!' Every one, every where, thinks of nothing but stuffing himself."
"No. I think men don't think only of stuffing themselves," answered Jakov displeased and hurt.
"I know—every one tries to adorn himself with something, but it's only a mask. I see my uncle try and bargain with God, like the shopman with his master. Your papa gives one or two weathercocks to churches. I conclude from that that he either has swindled some one or is going to; and so they all behave, as far as I can see; there's your penny they say, but give me back five. I read the other day in the paper of Migunov the merchant, who gave three hundred roubles to a hospital, and then petitions the town council to knock off the arrears of his taxes, just a thousand roubles—and so they all do, trying to throw dust in one another's eyes and put themselves in the right. My view is, if you've sinned, willingly or unwillingly, take your punishment!"
"You're right there," said Jakov thoughtfully. "What you said of father and the hunchback, that was right too. Ah! we're both born under an evil star. You have your wickedness at any rate, you comfort yourself by judging everybody, but I have not even that. Oh! if only I could go away somewhere, away from here."
His speech ended with a cry of distress.
"Away from here. Where d'you want to go?" asked Ilya with a faint smile.
"It's all the same. I don't know."
They sat at the table opposite one another, gloomy and silent, and there lay the big red-brown book with the steel clasp.