rybody's phiz
that you can rub off. But some people, when beaten with a hammer, turn
into gold. And if the head happens to crack--what can you do? It merely
shows it was weak."

"He also spoke about toil. 'Everything,' he says, 'is done by machinery,
and thus are men spoiled."'

"He is out of his wits!" Mayakin waved his hand disdainfully. "I am
surprised, what an appetite you have for all sorts of nonsense! What
does it come from?"

"Isn't that true, either?" asked Foma, breaking into stern laughter.

"What true thing can he know? A machine! The old blockhead should have
thought--'what is the machine made of?' Of iron! Consequently, it need
not be pitied; it is wound up--and it forges roubles for you. Without
any words, without trouble, you set it into motion and it revolves.
While a man, he is uneasy and wretched; he is often very wretched. He
wails, grieves, weeps, begs. Sometimes he gets drunk. Ah, how much there
is in him that is superfluous to me! While a machine is like an arshin
(yardstick), it contains exactly so much as the work required. Well, I
am going to dress. It is time."

He rose and went away, loudly scraping with his slippers along the
floor. Foma glanced after him and said softly, with a frown:

"The devil himself could not see through all this. One says this, the
other, that."

"It is precisely the same with books," said Lubov in a low voice.

Foma looked at her, smiling good-naturedly. And she answered him with a
vague smile.

Her eyes looked fatigued and sad.

"You still keep on reading?" asked Foma.

"Yes," the girl answered sadly.

"And are you still lonesome?"

"I feel disgusted, because I am alone. There's no one here to say a word
to."

"That's bad."

She said nothing to this, but, lowering her head, she slowly began to
finger the fringes of the towel.

"You ought to get married," said Foma, feeling that he pitied her.

"Leave me alone, please," answered Lubov, wrinkling her forehead.

"Why leave you alone? You will get married, I am sure."

"There!" exclaimed the girl softly, with a sigh. "That's just what I
am thinking of--it is necessary. That is, I'll have to get married. But
how? Do you know, I feel now as though a mist stood between other people
and myself--a thick, thick mist!"

"That's from your books," Foma interposed confidently.

"Wait! And I cease to understand what is going on about me. Nothing
pleases me. Everything has become strange to me. Nothing i