"I took the General's words very seriously, and proceeded to ask myself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I may not care actually to take part in the game, I need not waste my whole existence through a disinclination to learn the best use to which that existence can be put.'" With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued: "So, brother, I set myself to WATCH the game in question; with the result that soon I discovered that the majority of men live surrounded with a host of superfluous commodities which do but burden them, and have in themselves no real value. What I refer to is books, pictures, china, and rubbish of the same sort. Thought I to myself: 'Why should I devote my life to tending and dusting such commodities while risking, all the time, their breakage? No more of it for me! Was it for the tending of such articles that my mother bore me amid the agonies of childbirth? Is it an existence of THIS kind that must be passed until the tomb be reached? No, no--a thousand times no! Rather will I, with your good leave, reject altogether the game of life, and subsist as may be best for me, and as may happen to be my pleasure.'" Now, as Kalinin spoke, his eyes emitted green sparks, and as he waved his hands over the fire, as though to lop off the red tongues of flame, his fingers twisted convulsively. "Of course, not all at a stroke did I arrive at this conclusion; I did so but gradually. The person who finally confirmed me in my opinion was a friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom, through his saying to me: 'With nothing at all ought a man to fetter his soul. Neither with bond-service, nor with property, nor with womankind, nor with any other concession to the temptations of this world ought he to constrain its action. Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ. Only this is true. Only this will be for ever lasting.' "And," added Kalinin with animation and inflated cheeks and flushed, suppressed enthusiasm, "many lands and many peoples have I seen, and always have I found (particularly in Russia) that many folk already have reached an understanding of themselves, and, consequently, refused any longer to render obeisance to absurdities. 'Shun evil, and you will evolve good.' That is what the friar said to me as a parting word--though long before our encounter had I grasped the meaning of the axiom. And that axiom I myself have since passed on to other folk, as I hope to do yet many times in the future." At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous anxiety. "Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed. True enough, that luminary, large and round, was declining into--rather, towards--the sea, while suspended between him and the water were low, dark, white-topped cumuli. "Soon nightfall will be overtaking us," continued Kalinin as he fumbled in his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when darkness is come."