"Oho!"--the Little Russian shook his head,--"if we could only manage to get a fur coat, or a warm hut in it for the winter, we'd live like lords...." He screwed up one eye, and looked at Konováloff, with a laugh. "We-ell," said the latter abashed,--"winter--is ... a thrice-accursed time. Towns really are needed for the winter ... you can't get along without them.... But the big towns are no good, all the same.... Why cram people into such heaps, when two or three can't get along together?--That's what I was talking about. Of course, when you come to think of it, there's no room for a man either in the town, or in the steppe, or anywhere else. But it's better not to think of such things ... you can't think out anything, and you only harrow your soul...." Up to this point I had thought that Konováloff had been changed by his vagrant life, that the excrescences of sadness which were on his heart during the first period of our acquaintance had fallen away from him, like a husk, from the action of the free air which he had breathed during those years; but the tone of his last phrase rehabilitated before me my friend as still the same man, seeking a point of support for himself, whom I had known before. The same rust of ignorance in the face of life, and venom of thoughts about it, were still corroding that powerful form, which had been born, to its misfortune, with a sensitive heart. There are many such "meditative" people in Russian life, and they are all more unhappy than anyone else, because the heaviness of their meditations is augmented by the blindness of their minds. I gazed with compassion on my friend, but he, as though confirming my thought, exclaimed, sadly: "I have recalled that life of ours, Maxím, and all that--took place there. How much ground I have covered since then in my roamings, how much, of all sorts, I have seen ... No, for me there is nothing suitable on earth! I have not found my place!" "Then why were you born with a neck that no yoke will fit?" inquired the Little Russian indifferently, taking the boiling teapot out of the fire. "No, do you tell me,..." inquired Konováloff,--"why I can't be easy? Hey? Why do people live on, and feel all right, busy themselves with their affairs, have wives, children, and all the rest of it ... they complain of life, but they are easy. And they always want to do this, that, or the other. But I--can't. Why do things disgust me?" "There's that man jawing,"--remarked the Little Russian in surprise.--"Well, will you feel any the easier for your jawing?" "That's so,..." assented Konováloff sadly. "I always say little, but I know what I'm talking about," uttered the stoic, with a consciousness of his own dignity, yet without ceasing to contend with his fever. "Let's drop that subject.... I was born, well, that means, live on, and don't argue...." said Konováloff, this time viciously. The Little Russian considered it necessary to add: