and yet on the other hand he felt that something stirred within him which gave him wings, just as if he sped in flashing skiff along the Moldau, and just as if he felt a joyous sense of boundless freedom. Malka looked at him as at a man completely new—just as if it was not Poldik, and said:
“They do you cruel wrong, Poldik: they say of you that you are an eccentricity, and that you don’t want anyone to scavenge. Oh! what a cruel wrong they do you!”
These words confirmed in Poldik the sensation of having acquired wings, although they told him that he was about to undertake something wholly repugnant to his habits of thought.
Well, and so Poldik became once more a scavenger, and I think that in thus doing he reached the highest summit to which his capacities could aspire. For the sake of a fair and noble deed—to take care of a deserted child, the son of a detested father, and of a mother equally detested—for the sake of the same fair and noble deed to tear to pieces and fling to the winds all theories, personal crotchets, hatred and distastes—name to me anything more sublime and more honourable—I know of none, and let your heroes rant and declaim from the boards I know not how far to your satisfaction—Poldik the scavenger can boldly place himself beside any of them, and stand on a level even with the most favoured.
