t.

"Behave yourself, barberry!" Lichonin threatened him with his finger.
"Well, well, go on," he begged the reporter; "all that you're saying is
so interesting."

"No, I'm not gathering anything," continued the reporter calmly and
seriously. "But the material here is in reality tremendous, downright
crushing, terrible ... And not at all terrible are the loud phrases
about the traffic in women's flesh, about the white slaves, about
prostitution being a corroding fester of large cities, and so on, and
so on ... an old hurdy-gurdy of which all have tired! No, horrible are
the everyday, accustomed trifles, these business-like, daily,
commercial reckonings, this thousand year old science of amatory
practice, this prosaic usage, determined by the ages. In these
unnoticeable nothings are completely dissolved such feelings as
resentment, humiliation, shame. There remains a dry profession, a
contract, an agreement, a well-nigh honest petty trade, no better, no
worse than, say, the trade in groceries. Do you understand, gentlemen,
that all the horror is in just this, that there is no horror! Bourgeois
work days--and that is all. And also an after taste of an exclusive
educational institution, with its NAIVETE, harshness, sentimentality
and imitativeness."

"That's right," confirmed Lichonin, while the reporter continued,
gazing pensively into his glass:

"We read in the papers, in leading articles, various wailings of
anxious souls. And the women-physicians are also endeavouring in this
matter, and endeavouring disgustingly enough. 'Oh, dear, regulation!
Oh, dear, abolition! Oh, dear, live merchandise! A condition of
slavery! The mesdames, these greedy haeterae! These heinous degenerates
of humanity, sucking the blood of prostitutes!' ... But with clamour
you will scare no one and will affect no one. You know, there's a
little saying: much cry, little wool. More awful than all awful
words--a hundredfold more awful--is some such little prosaic stroke or
other as will suddenly knock you all in a heap, like a blow on the
forehead. Take even Simeon, the porter here. It would seem, according
to you, there is no sinking lower--a bouncer in a brothel, a brute,
almost certainly a murderer, he plucks the prostitutes, gives them
"black eyes," to use a local expression--that is, just simply beats
them. But, do you know on what grounds he and I came together and
became friendly? On the magnificent details of the divine service of
the