On the Bright Shore
a falsehood, what is to be done in face of that fact? Return to nature? Begin some sort of life half savage, half peasant? Break with people and become a reformer right away? Svirski felt too old for this, and too sceptical. For such a course one needs to have the dogmatism of Kresovich, and to feel evil as a spur to battle and reform, not as a mere impression which may grow faint to-morrow! But another thought came to Svirski's mind as a recompense. The man who does not feel in himself power to reform the world, may flee from it, for a time, at least, and draw breath. For instance, he could go to Marseilles the next day, and a couple of days later somewhere else, out on the open ocean, hundreds of miles from the shore, from sickly life, from lies and deceptions. In this way all would be settled immediately, or rather cut off as if with a knife.
And in one moment he was seized by such a desire to turn that idea into action that he gave command to return to Nice.
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