"What goes swiftly?"
"Everything. A week ago it was impossible to speak with you about
Taras, while now--"
"'Tis need, my girl! Need is a power, it bends a steel rod into a
spring. And steel is stubborn. Taras, we'll see what he is! Man
is to be appreciated by his resistance to the power of life; if
it isn't life that wrings him, but he that wrings life to suit
himself, my respects to that man! Allow me to shake your hand,
let's run our business together. Eh, I am old. And how very brisk
life has become now! With each succeeding year there is more and
more interest in it, more and more relish to it! I wish I could
live forever, I wish I could act all the time!" The old man
smacked his lips, rubbed his hands, and his small eyes gleamed
greedily.
"But you are a thin-blooded lot! Ere you have grown up you are
already overgrown and withered. You live like an old radish. And
the fact that life is growing fairer and fairer is
incomprehensible to you. I have lived sixty-seven years on this
earth, and though I am now standing close to my grave I can see
that in former years, when I was young, there were fewer flowers
on earth, and the flowers were not quite as beautiful as they are
now.
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