It is to be doubted strongly if the average
bourgeois, smug and fat and prosperous, can understand this man Foma
Gordyeeff. The rebellion in his blood is something to which their
own does not thrill. To them it will be inexplicable that this man,
with his health and his millions, could not go on living as his class
lived, keeping regular hours at desk and stock exchange, driving
close contracts, underbidding his competitors, and exulting in the
business disasters of his fellows. It would appear so easy, and,
after such a life, well appointed and eminently respectable, he could
die. "Ah," Foma will interrupt rudely--he is given to rude
interruptions--"if to die and disappear is the end of these money-
grubbing years, why money-grub?" And the bourgeois whom he rudely
interrupted will not understand. Nor did Mayakin understand as he
laboured holily with his wayward godson.
"Why do you brag?" Foma, bursts out upon him. "What have you to
brag about? Your son--where is he? Your daughter--what is she?
Ekh, you manager of life! Come, now, you're clever, you know
everything--tell me, why do you live? Why do you accumulate money?
Aren't you going to die? Well, what then?" And Mayakin finds
himself speechless and without answer, but unshaken and unconvinced.
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