"It is wrong to watch people so much. Each one lives for himself. To be sure, now you are alone, but when you will have your own family, you will need no one and you will live like the rest, for yourself, in your own house and home. As for my father, don't judge him. I see that no one loves him, but I can't see wherein he is worse than the rest. Where does one see love anyway?" Her words consoled me. I always did everything impetuously, and so here, too, I burst forth: "Would you marry me?" She turned and whispered: "Yes." CHAPTER V It was done. The next day I told Titoff, just the way it happened. He smiled, stroked his mustache and began again to torture me. "You want to become my son. The way is open for you, Matvei; it is the will of God and I make no objections. You're a serious, modest, healthy young man. You pray for us, and in every way you are a treasure. I say that without flattery. But in order to have enough to live on, one must understand business, and your leanings that way are very weak. That's the first thing. The second, you will be called to military service in two years and you will have to go. Should you have some money saved up by then, say some five hundred rubles, you might buy yourself off. I could manage that for you. But without money you will have to go and Olga will remain here, neither wife nor widow." He struck me in the heart with these dull words. His mustache trembled and a green fire burned in his eyes. I pictured military life to myself. It was terrible and antipathetic to me. What kind of a soldier would I make? The very fact that I would have to live with others in the barracks was enough, and then the drinking and the swearing and the brawls! Everything about the service seemed inhuman to me. Titoff's words crushed me. "That means," I said to him, "that I become a monk." Titoff laughed. "It is too late. They don't make you a monk right away, and novices are recruited as well as laymen. No, Matvei, there is no way to bribe fate but with money." "Then give me the money," I said to him; "you have enough." "Aha," he said, "what a lucky thought of yours! Only, how would I fare by it? Perhaps I earned my money by heavy sins; perhaps I even sold my soul to the devil for it? While I wallow in sin you lead a righteous life. And you want to continue it at the expense of my sinning. It is easy for a righteous one to attain heaven if a sinner carry him in on his back. However, I refuse to be your horse. Better do your own sinning. God will forgive you, for you have already merited it." I looked at Titoff and he seemed to have suddenly grown yards taller than I, and I was crawling somewhere at his feet. I understood that he was making fun of me, and I stopped the discussion.