"That's ridiculous," said Ilya. "It's much better to be your own master."
"What sort of a master should I be?" cried Pavel. "I don't know how to deal with workmen like a master. No, a business of my own, and all that goes with it, is not to my taste. I know the sort of fellow a man must be for that, it isn't in my line. You can't turn a goat into a pig."
Ilya did not understand clearly Pashka's conception of a master, but it pleased him and drew him still nearer to his comrade. He looked at him full of joy and love, and said jestingly:
"True! You are very like a goat. Just about as thin. Do you know whom you remind me of? Perfishka, the cobbler. Well, then, we'll meet to-morrow, and then I'll give you the money to make a start, till you get a job. And now I'll have a look at Jakov."
"Same as before; we can't hit it off," said Gratschev laughing.
"He's an unlucky fellow. It's not easy to deal with him," said Ilya thoughtfully.
"Ah, we've most of us something to put up with," answered Pavel, and shrugged his shoulders. "He always seems to me not quite all there, half silly. Well, I'm off."
And when Ilya had already left him, he called after him once more from the passage:
Ilya nodded to him with a smile. He found Jakov quite sorrowful and cast down. He lay on his bed, his face upturned to the ceiling, looking up with wide-open eyes, and did not notice Ilya's approach.
"Nikita Jegarovitch's gone to another ward," he said gloomily.
"That's a mercy," answered Lunev. "He really looked too terrible, and then he said such odd things! God be with him!" Jakov looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing.
"Ye--es," answered Jakov with a sigh. "I mayn't even be ill as long as I want. Yesterday father was here again. He's bought another house. He says he's going to open another inn, and all that'll be on my head."
Ilya wanted to speak of his own success, but something restrained him.
The spring sun shone gaily through the windows and the yellow walls of the hospital seemed still more yellow. In the bright light, the paint showed many spots and gaps. Two patients were sitting on their beds, silently playing cards, quite absorbed in their game. A tall thin man, with his bandaged head bent down, walked noiselessly up and down the ward. All was quiet, save for an occasional smothered cough, and the shuffling of the patients' slippers as they walked in the corridor.