[Footnote B:  The top of the stove forms the sleeping place in a Russian peasant’s hut.]

“But what has shown you that I lie idle?” insisted Lavretsky.  “Why do you suppose I have such ideas?”

“—­And, besides this, all you people, all your brotherhood,” continued Mikhalevich without stopping, “are deeply read marmots.  You all know where the German’s shoe pinches him; you all know what faults Englishmen and Frenchmen have; and your miserable knowledge only serves to help you to justify your shameful laziness, your abominable idleness.  There are some who even pride themselves on this, that ’I, forsooth, am a learned man.  I lie idle, and they are fools to give themselves trouble.’  Yes! even such persons as these do exist among us; not that I say this with reference to you; such persons as will spend all their life in a certain languor of ennui, and get accustomed to it, and exist in it like—­like a mushroom in sour cream” (Mikhalevich could not help laughing at his own comparison).  “Oh, that languor of ennui! it is the ruin of the Russian people.  Throughout all time the wretched marmot is making up its mind to work—­”

“But, after all, what are you scolding about?” cried Lavretsky in his turn.  “To work, to do.  You had better say what one should do, instead of scolding, O Demosthenes of Poltava."[A]

[Footnote A:  Poltava is a town of Little Russia.  It will be remembered that Mikhalovich is a Little Russian.]

“Ah, yes, that’s what you want!  No, brother, I will not tell you that.  Every one must teach himself that,” replied Demosthenes in an ironical tone.  “A proprietor, a noble, and not know what to do!  You have no faith, or you would have known.  No faith and no divination."[A]

[Footnote A:  Otkrovenie, discovery or revelation.]

“At all events, let me draw breath for a moment, you fiend,” prayed Lavretsky.  “Let me take a look round me!”

“Not a minute’s breathing-time, not a second’s,” replied Mikhalevich, with a commanding gesture of the hand.  “Not a single second.  Death does not tarry, and life also ought not to tarry.”

“And when and where have people taken it into their heads to make marmots of themselves?” he cried at four in the morning, in a voice that was now somewhat hoarse, “Why, here!  Why, now!  In Russia!  When on every separate individual there lies a duty, a great responsibility, before God, before the nation, before himself!  We sleep, but time goes by.  We sleep—­”

“Allow me to point, out to you,” observed Lavretsky, “that we do not at all sleep at present, but rather prevent other persons from sleeping.  We stretch our throats like barn-door cocks.  Listen, that one is crowing for the third time.”

This sally made Mikhalevich laugh, and sobered him down.  “Good night,” he said with a smile, and put away his pipe in its bag.  “Good night,” said Lavretsky also.  However, the friends still went on talking for more than an hour.  But their voices did not rise high any longer, and their talk was quiet, sad, kindly talk.