cannot begin living until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning vainly. " Why should I try to live life when I do not know what life is?" he objects when Mayákin strives with him to return and manage his business. Why should men fetch and carry for him? be slaves to him and his money?
"Work is not everything to a man," he says; "it is not true that justification lies in work . . . . Some people never do any work at all, all their lives long — yet they live better than the toilers. Why is that? And what justification have I? And how will all the people who give their orders justify themselves? What have they lived for? But my idea is that everybody ought, without fail, to know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible that a man is born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget children, and — die? No; life means something in itself . . . . A man has been born, has lived, has died — why? All of us must consider why we are living, by God, we must! There is no sense in our life — there is no sense at all. Some are rich they have money enough for a thousand men all to themselves — and they live without occupation;
