Then she asked him
uneasily:
"And you will not do him any ill for it?"
"I? I will--bite his head off! Fool! What can I do to him? They,
these writers, are not a foolish lot and are therefore a power--a
power, the devils! And I am not the governor, and even he cannot
put one's hand out of joint or tie one's tongue. Like mice, they
gnaw us little by little. And we have to poison them not with
matches, but with roubles. Yes! Well, who is it?"
"Do you remember, when I was going to school, a Gymnasium student
used to come up to us. Yozhov? Such a dark little fellow!"
"Mm! Of course, I saw him. I know him. So it's he?"
"Yes."
"The little mouse! Even at that time one could see already that
something wrong would come out of him. Even then he stood in the
way of other people. A bold boy he was. I should have looked
after him then. Perhaps, I might have made a man of him."
Lubov looked at her father, smiled inimically, and asked hotly:
"And isn't he who writes for newspapers a man?"
For a long while, the old man did not answer his daughter.
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