The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began.  Yegorushka looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face against Deniska’s elbow, and wept bitterly.

“Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!” cried Kuzmitchov.  “You are blubbering again, little milksop!  If you don’t want to go, stay behind; no one is taking you by force!

“Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind,” Father Christopher muttered rapidly—­“never mind, my boy. . . .  Call upon God. . . .  You are not going for your harm, but for your good.  Learning is light, as the saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . .  That is so, truly.”

“Do you want to go back?” asked Kuzmitchov.

“Yes, . . . yes, . . .” answered Yegorushka, sobbing.

“Well, you’d better go back then.  Anyway, you are going for nothing; it’s a day’s journey for a spoonful of porridge.”

“Never mind, never mind, my boy,” Father Christopher went on.  “Call upon God. . . .  Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same way, and he became a man famous all over Europe.  Learning in conjunction with faith brings forth fruit pleasing to God.  What are the words of the prayer?  For the glory of our Maker, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of our Church and our country. . . .  Yes, indeed!”

“The benefit is not the same in all cases,” said Kuzmitchov, lighting a cheap cigar; “some will study twenty years and get no sense from it.”

“That does happen.”

“Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains.  My sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she does not understand that with my business I could settle Yegorka happily for the rest of his life.  I tell you this, that if everyone were to go in for being learned and refined there would be no one to sow the corn and do the trading; they would all die of hunger.”

“And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one to acquire learning.”

And considering that each of them had said something weighty and convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious and cleared their throats simultaneously.

Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat, lashed at both the bays.  A silence followed.

Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills lay stretched before the travellers’ eyes.  Huddling together and peeping out from behind one another, these hills melted together into rising ground, which stretched right to the very horizon and disappeared into the lilac distance; one drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins or where it ends. . . .  The sun had already peeped out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly, without fuss, set to its accustomed task.  At first in