"Look, what a dress! Ha! If you were to put such a thing on our Olya, she'd get tangled up in it. Books--that little one there, yellow, you see it? I've read it. 'Primitive Man.' Interesting. Read it, and you'll see how people grew up. Books are very interesting. They at once open up to you all the cunning of life. Those thick books are awkward to read. By the time you get to the middle you forget what happened at the beginning, and at the end you forget the beginning also. The devil take them! Why don't they write shorter books?" The next minute he pointed out a gun, and cried ecstatically: "Revolvers, eh? Just like toys." Giving himself over to Yakov's mood, Yevsey looked at the various articles with the wandering look of empty eyes, and smiled, astounded, as if for the first time seeing the pretty, alluring multitude of brilliant materials and vari-colored books, the blinding gleam of colors and metals. He was pleased to hear the young voice still in the state of change; the rapid talk steeped in the joy of life was agreeable to him. It lightly penetrated the dark void of Klimkov's soul, and allowed him to forget himself for a moment. "You're a jolly fellow," he said approvingly. "Very. I learned to dance from the Cossacks. A score of Cossacks are stationed in our factory. Did you hear that the men in our factory wanted to rise? You didn't? How's that? The newspapers wrote about it. Yes, so I learned to dance from the Cossacks. Wait, you'll see. Nobody can beat me." "Why did they want to rise?" asked Yevsey, provoked by the simplicity with which Yakov spoke of a revolt. "Why? They wrong us workingmen. What, then, are we to do?" "And you would have done it, too?" "What? Rebel? Of course. What else? Our people are good, they're solid." "And how about the Cossacks?" "The Cossacks? So, so. They are people, too. At first they thought they would officer it over us, but then they said, 'Comrades, give us leaflets.'" Yakov suddenly broke off and looked into Yevsey's face. For a minute he walked in silence with knit brows. The mention of the leaflets recalled his duty to Yevsey. He wrinkled his forehead painfully. Wishing to push something away from himself and his cousin, he said quietly: "I read those leaflets." "Well?" asked Yakov, slackening his gait. "I don't understand them. What are they for?" "You read some more." "I don't want to." "Why not?" "Just so." "They're not interesting to you?" "No, they're not." For a while they walked in silence. Yakov sniffed meditatively, and gave a hasty look into his cousin's face. Yevsey felt he had not succeeded in shoving away the unpleasant and dangerous theme.