ent on sadly:

"Books do not contain what the heart needs most, and there's much I
cannot understand in them. And then, I feel weary to be reading all the
time alone, alone! I want to speak to a man, but there is none to speak
to! I feel disgusted. We live but once, and it is high time for me to
live, and yet there is not a soul! Wherefore shall I live? Lipa tells
me: 'Read and you will understand it.' I want bread and she gives me
a stone. I understand what one must do--one must stand up for what he
loves and believes. He must fight for it."

And she concluded, uttering something like a moan:

"But I am alone! Whom shall I fight? There are no enemies here. There
are no men! I live here in a prison!"

Foma listened to her words, fixedly examining the fingers of his hand;
he felt that in her words was some great distress, but he could not
understand her. And when she became silent, depressed and sad, he found
nothing to tell her save a few words that were like a reproach:

"There, you yourself say that books are worthless to you, and yet you
instruct me to read."

She looked into his face, and anger flashed in her eyes.

"Oh, how I wish that all these torments would awaken within you, the
torments that constantly oppress me. That your thoughts, like mine,
would rob you of your sleep, that you, too, would be disgusted with
everything, and with yourself as well! I despise every one of you. I
hate you!"

All aflush, she looked at him so angrily and spoke with so much
spitefulness, that in his astonishment he did not even feel offended by
her. She had never before spoken to him in such manner.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked her.

"I hate you, too! You, what are you? Dead, empty; how will you live?
What will you give to mankind?" she said with malice, in a low voice.

"I'll give nothing; let them strive for it themselves," answered Foma,
knowing that these words would augment her anger.

"Unfortunate creature!" exclaimed the girl with contempt.

The assurance and the power of her reproaches involuntarily compelled
Foma to listen attentively to her spiteful words; he felt there was
common sense in them. He even came nearer to her, but she, enraged and
exasperated, turned away from him and became silent.

It was still light outside, and the reflection of the setting sun lay
still on the branches of the linden-trees before the windows, but the
room was already filled with twilight, and the sideboard, the