“You are not right, Mykhailo,” Skovoroda said, after they had passed the gate. “One should not be ashamed of one’s joy, one’s earthly happiness.”
The youth turned around, spread his arms apart and smiled: “I don’t seem to see anything happy around us.”
“What about me? And you?”
Mykhailo burst out laughing.
“Happy is our colonel, Lord Kulykivsky!” he said after a while. “But we are forsaken by God, perhaps even damned.”
“Kulykivsky admitted as much to you?”
“I know it anyway. If I had his baton, his estates, villages, and more than a thousand bonded people, I would be happy too!”
“That’s foolishness, lad,” Hryhoriy said sharply. “Is happiness really to be found there?”
Mykhailo did not relent: “In expensive clothes, replete food and drink and in various pleasures!”
“Tell me, who is
