scarcely anything. All
he can do is to stride backwards and forwards for days together in
nothing but his underclothes, but, ask him, he is convinced he is
doing his work and honourably performing his duty. I couldn't go
on like that! I should be ashamed to look the clerk in the face."

At that moment Grontovsky, on a chestnut horse, galloped by us with
a flourish. On his left arm the basket bobbed up and down with the
mushrooms dancing in it. As he passed us he grinned and waved his
hand, as though we were old friends.

"Blockhead!" the prince filtered through his teeth, looking after
him. "It's wonderful how disgusting it sometimes is to see satisfied
faces. A stupid, animal feeling due to hunger, I expect. . . . What
was I saying? Oh, yes, about going into the Service, . . . I should
be ashamed to take the salary, and yet, to tell the truth, it is
stupid. If one looks at it from a broader point of view, more
seriously, I am eating what isn't mine now. Am I not? But why am I
not ashamed of that. . . . It is a case of habit, I suppose . . .
and not being able to realize one's true position. . . . But that
position is most likely awful. . ."

I looked at him, wondering if the prince were showing off. But his
face was mild and his eyes were mournfully following the movements
of the chestnut horse racing away, as though his happiness were
racing away with it.

Apparently he was in that mood of irritation and sadness when women
weep quietly for no reason, and men feel a craving to complain of
themselves, of life, of God. . . .

When I got out of the chaise at the gates of the house the prince
said to me:

"A man once said, wanting to annoy me, that I have the face of a
cardsharper. I have noticed that cardsharpers are usually dark. Do
you know, it seems that if I really had been born a cardsharper I
should have remained a decent person to the day of my death, for I
should never have had the boldness to do wrong. I tell you frankly
I have had the chance once in my life of getting rich if I had told
a lie, a lie to myself and one woman . . . and one other person
whom I know would have forgiven me for lying; I should have put
into my pocket a million. But I could not. I hadn't the pluck!"

From the gates we had to go to the house through the copse by a
long road, level as a ruler, and planted on each side with thick,
lopped lilacs. The house looked somewhat heavy, tasteless, like a
facade on the stage. It rose clum