“But for her you would not see a single button on my clothes,” continued Leonti. “I eat and sleep comfortably, and our household goes on evenly and placidly. However small my means are she knows how to make them provide for everything.” She raised her eyes, and looked at them, for the last statement was true. “It’s a pity,” continued Leonti, “that she does not care about books. She can chatter French fast enough, but if you give her a book, she does not understand half of it. She still writes Russian incorrectly. If she sees Greek characters, she says they would make a good pattern for cotton printing, and sets the book upside down. And she cannot even read a Latin title.” “That will do. Not another word about the books. Only on that condition, I don’t send them to the Gymnasium. Now let us sit down to table, or I shall go to my Grandmother’s, for I am famished.” “Do you intend to spend your whole life like this?” asked Raisky as he was sitting after dinner alone with Leonti in the study. “Yes, what more do I need?” “Have you no desires, does nothing call you away from this place, have you no longings for freedom and space, and don’t you feel cramped in this narrow frame of hedge, church spire and house, under your very nose?” “Have I so little to look at under my nose?” asked Leonti, pointing to the books. “I have books, pupils, and in addition a wife and peace of heart, isn’t that enough?” “Are books life? This old trash has a great deal to answer for. Men strive forwards, seek to improve themselves, to cleanse their conceptions, to drive away the mist, to meet the problems of society by justice, civilisation, orderly administration, while you instead of looking at life, study books.” “What is not to be found in books is not to be found in life either, or if there is anything it is of no importance,” said Leonti firmly. “The whole programme of public and private life lies behind us; we can find an example for everything.” “You are still the same old student, Leonti, always worrying about what has been experienced in the past, and never thinking of what you yourself are.” “What I am! I am a teacher of the classics. I am as deeply concerned with the life of the past, as you with ideals and figures. You are an artist. Why should you wonder that certain figures are dear to me? Since when have artists ceased to draw water from the wells of the ancients?” “Yes, an artist,” said Raisky, with a sigh. He pointed to his head and breast. “Here are figures, notes, forms, enthusiasm, the creative passion, and as yet I have done almost nothing.” “What restrains you? You are now painting, you wrote me, a great picture, which you mean to exhibit.”