“Tell me, then: do you really want me to run away?” the prisoner, smiling, ventured to ask.
“Ah, you! You are terribly good! What will come of it? You’ll run away, and in your place some one else will have to go to jail. And that one will be me. No, I’m simply making conversation.”
“You are a blessed fool—otherwise you seem a good sort of fellow,” said Efimushka’s companion, uttering a sigh. Efimushka quite agreed with him.
“It is true I am called blessed by some people; and that I’m a good fellow is also true. I am a simple man—that’s at the bottom of it. Other people say things with cunning, in an underhand sort of way, but why should I? I am alone in the world. Deal wrongly—and you die; deal rightly—you die also. And so I’ve kept straight, mostly.”
“That is the right way,” remarked the prisoner indifferently.
“How else should it be? Why should I let my soul go wrong when I am alone here? I am a free man, brother. As I wish, so I live. I have my own idea of life, and live according to it. So it goes. By the way, how are you called?”
“How? Well, you may call me Ivan Ivanov.”
“So! Are you of the priesthood?”
“N-no.”
“Well! And I thought you were——”