FOMÁ. [_mockingly_]. What's the use? It will never come out. AST. [_cheerfully_]. Oh, it never does to be discouraged. [_Exeunt Praskóvya, Varvára, and Fomá. Astéryi plays patience. Everything is silent and monotonous again. The clock ticks._] FOMÁ. [_reënters, dancing and singing roguishly to the tune of the Russian folksong, "Vo sadú li v vogoróde"_]: In the shade there walked a maid As fair as any flower, Picking posies all of roses For to deck her bower. AST. Don't make such a noise. FOMÁ. I can't help it. I'm gay. I have a sympathetic soul. I rejoice with Praskóvya Petróvna. I think she is mad, but I rejoice with her. AST. So do I; but I don't disturb others on that account. FOMÁ. Come, old grumbler, have a mouthful of vodka. [_Melodramatically._] A glass of wine with Cæsar Borgia! [_Singing._] As she went adown the bent She met a merry fellow, He was drest in all his best In red and blue and yellow. So he was a saint, was he, that son of hers? Well, well, of what advantage is that? Saints are not so easy to love as sinners. You and I are not saints, are we, Astéryi Ivanovitch? AST. I do not care to parade my halo in public. FOMÁ. Oh, as for me, I keep mine in a box under the bed; it only frightens people. Do you think he would have remained a saint all this time if he had lived? AST. Who can say? FOMÁ. Nonsense! He would have become like the rest of us. Then why make all this fuss about him? Why go on for twenty years sacrificing her own life to a fantastic image? AST. Why not, if it please her to do so? FOMÁ. Say what you please, but all the same she is mad; yes, Praskóvya is mad. AST. We call every one mad who is faithful to their ideas. If people think only of food and money and clothing we call them sane, but if they have ideas beyond those things we call them mad. I envy Praskóvya. Praskóvya has preserved in her old age what I myself have lost. I, too, had ideas once, but I have been unfaithful to them; they have evaporated and vanished. FOMÁ. What ideas were these? AST. Liberty! Political regeneration! FOMÁ. Ah, yes; you were a sad revolutionary once, I have been told. AST. I worshiped Liberty, as Praskóvya worships her Sasha. But I have lived my ideals down in the dull routine of my foolish, aimless life as an office hack, a clerk in the District Council, making copies that no one will ever see of documents that no one ever wants to read.... Suddenly there comes the Revolution; there is fighting in the streets; men raise the red flag; blood flows. I might go forth and strike a blow for that Liberty which I loved twenty years ago. But no, I have become indifferent. I do not care who wins, the Government or the Revolutionaries; it is all the same to me. FOMÁ. You are afraid. One gets timid as one gets older.