You feel a pity for everybody, and you are alarmed
for everybody! And the heart is different. The soul has opened its
eyes, it looks on, and is sad and glad at the same time. There's
much I do not understand, and I feel so bitter and hurt that you do
not believe in the Lord God. Well, I guess I can't help that! But
I see and know that you are good people. And you have consecrated
yourselves to a stern life for the sake of the people, to a life of
hardship for the sake of truth. The truth you stand for, I comprehend:
as long as there will be the rich, the people will get nothing,
neither truth nor happiness, nothing! Indeed, that's so, Andriusha!
Here am I living among you, while all this is going on. Sometimes
at night my thoughts wander off to my past. I think of my youthful
strength trampled under foot, of my young heart torn and beaten,
and I feel sorry for myself and embittered. But for all that I
live better now, I see myself more and more, I feel myself more."
The Little Russian arose, and trying not to scrape with his feet,
began to walk carefully up and down the room, tall, lean, absorbed
in thought.
"Well said!" he exclaimed in a low voice.
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