er or later,
trouble will come for him--disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see
or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no
man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily
cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree--and all goes
well.

"That night I realized that I, too, was happy and contented," Ivan
Ivanovitch went on, getting up. "I, too, at dinner and at the hunt liked
to lay down the law on life and religion, and the way to manage the
peasantry. I, too, used to say that science was light, that culture was
essential, but for the simple people reading and writing was enough
for the time. Freedom is a blessing, I used to say; we can no more do
without it than without air, but we must wait a little. Yes, I used to
talk like that, and now I ask, 'For what reason are we to wait?'" asked
Ivan Ivanovitch, looking angrily at Burkin. "Why wait, I ask you? What
grounds have we for waiting? I shall be told, it can't be done all at
once; every idea takes shape in life gradually, in its due time. But who
is it says that? Where is the proof that it's right? You will fall back
upon the natural order of things, the uniformity of phenomena; but is
there order and uniformity in the fact that I, a living, thinking man,
stand over a chasm and wait for it to close of itself, or to fill up
with mud at the very time when perhaps I might leap over it or build
a bridge across it? And again, wait for the sake of what? Wait till
there's no strength to live? And meanwhile one must live, and one wants
to live!

"I went away from my brother's early in the morning, and ever since then
it has been unbearable for me to be in town. I am oppressed by its peace
and quiet; I am afraid to look at the windows, for there is no spectacle
more painful to me now than the sight of a happy family sitting round
the table drinking tea. I am old and am not fit for the struggle; I am
not even capable of hatred; I can only grieve inwardly, feel irritated
and vexed; but at night my head is hot from the rush of ideas, and I
cannot sleep.... Ah, if I were young!"

Ivan Ivanovitch walked backwards and forwards in excitement, and
repeated: "If I were young!"

He suddenly went up to Alehin and began pressing first one of his hands
and then the other.

"Pavel Konstantinovitch," he said in an imploring voice, "don't be calm
and contented, don't let yourself be put to sleep! While you are young,
st