“Then do mind me! If my mind should be added to your youthful strength, a good victory might be won. Your father was a great man, but he did not look far before him and he could not take my advice. He gained success in life not with his mind, but more with his head. Oh, what will become of you? You had better move into my house, for you will feel lonesome in yours.” “Aunt is there.” “Aunt? She is sick. She will not live long.” “Do not speak of it,” begged Foma in a low voice. “And I will speak of it. You need not fear death--you are not an old woman on the oven. Live fearlessly and do what you were appointed to do. Man is appointed for the organisation of life on earth. Man is capital--like a rouble, he is made up of trashy copper groshes and copecks. From the dust of the earth, as it is said; and even as he has intercourse with the world, he absorbs grease and oil, sweat and tears--a soul and a mind form themselves in him. And from this he starts to grow upward and downward. Now, you see his price is a grosh, now a fifteen copeck silver piece, now a hundred roubles, and sometimes he is above any price. He is put into circulation and he must bring interests to life. Life knows the value of each of us and will not check our course before time. Nobody, dear, works to his own detriment, if he is wise. And life has saved up much wisdom. Are you listening?” “I am.” “And what do you understand?” “Everything.” “You are probably lying?” Mayakin doubted. “But, why must we die?” asked Foma in a low voice. Mayakin looked into his face with regret, smacked his lips and said: “A wise man would never ask such a question. A wise man knows for himself that if it is a river, it must be flowing somewhere, and if it were standing in one place, it would be a swamp.” “You’re simply mocking me at random,” said Foma, sternly. “The sea is not flowing anywhere.” “The sea receives all rivers into itself, and then, powerful storms rage in it at times. Then the sea of life also submits on agitation, stirred up by men, and death renovates the waters of the sea of life, that they might not become spoiled. No matter how many people are dying, they are nevertheless forever growing in number.” “What of it? But my father is dead.” “You will die as well.” “Then what have I to do with the fact that people are growing in number?” Foma smiled sadly. “Eh, he, he!” sighed Mayakin. “That, indeed, concerns none of us. There, your trousers probably reason in the same way: what have we to do with the fact that there are all sorts of stuff in the world? But you do not mind them--you wear them out and throw them away.” Foma glanced at his godfather reproachfully, and noticing that the old man was smiling, he was astonished and he asked respectfully: “Can it be true, father, that you do not fear death?”