“Anyway, that can’t be done at the present time,” sighed Tikhon Ilitch.
“Well, times are the same as they always were. It is still possible to fleece people. I’ll do my managing properly, but my leisure I shall devote to self-development. That is to say, to reading.”
“Okh, bear in mind: Too much poking in books is bad for the poke!” said Tikhon Ilitch, shaking his head, and making a grimace. “However, that’s no affair of ours.”
“Well, that’s not the way I look at it,” retorted Kuzma. “I, brother—how shall I put it to you?—I’m a strange Russian type.”
“I’m a Russian man myself, bear that in mind,” interposed Tikhon Ilitch.
“But another sort. I don’t mean to say that I’m better than you, but—I’m different. Now here are you, I see, priding yourself on being a Russian, while I, brother, okh! am very far from being a Slavophil! It’s not proper to jabber much, but one thing I will say: for God’s sake, don’t brag of being a Russian! We’re an uncivilized people and an extremely unreliable one—neither candle for God nor oven-fork for the devil. But we will discuss this as time goes on.”
Tikhon Ilitch contracted his brows, drummed on the table with his fingers. “That’s right, probably,” he said, and slowly filled his glass. “We’re a savage lot. A crackbrained race.”
“Well, and that’s precisely the point. I have, I may say, roamed about the world a good bit. Well, and what then? Absolutely nowhere have I seen more tiresome and lazy types. And those who are not lazy”—here Kuzma shot a sidelong look at his brother—“have no sense at all. They toil and strive and acquire a nest for themselves; but where’s the sense in it, after all?”
“What do you mean by that? What’s sense?” asked Tikhon Ilitch.