"
"Eh!" sighed Foma, heavily, rising from the lounge. "What is my
life? It is something meaningless. I live alone. I understand
nothing. And yet there is something I long for. I yearn to spit
on all and then disappear somewhere! I would like to run away
from everything. I am so weary!"
"That's interesting!" said Yozhov, rubbing his hands and turning
about in all directions. "This is interesting, if it is true and
deep, for it shows that the holy spirit of dissatisfaction with
life has already penetrated into the bed chambers of the
merchants, into the death chambers of souls drowned in fat
cabbage soup, in lakes of tea and other liquids. Give me a
circumstantial account of it. Then, my dear, I shall write a
novel."
"I have been told that you have already written something about
me?" inquired Foma, with curiosity, and once more attentively
scrutinized his old friend unable to understand what so wretched
a creature could write.
"Of course I have! Did you read it?"
"No, I did not have the chance."
"And what have they told you?"
"That you gave me a clever scolding.
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