f the point where it stands; and since it loves
authority, it loves to have over it an autocratic force, for its
control. Always can it be seen seeking such a force."

Then, bending forward, and infusing into each softly uttered word a
perfect lusciousness of falsity, Virubov had added to his neighbour:

"Take, for example, the working-woman who stands free of every tie."

"How do I stand free of anything?" the neighbour had retorted, in
complete readiness for a quarrel.

"Oh, I am not speaking in your despite, Pavlushka, but to your credit,"
hastily Virubov had protested.

"Then keep your blandishments for that heifer, your 'niece,'" had been
Madame Ezhov's response.

Upon this Virubov had risen heavily, and remarked as he moved away
towards the courtyard:

"All folk need to be supervised by an autocratic eye."

Thereafter had followed a bout of choice abuse between his neighbour
and his "niece," while Virubov himself, framed in the wicket-gate, and
listening to the contest, had smacked his lips as he gazed at the pair,
and particularly at Madame Ezhov. At the beginning of the bout Dikanka
had screeched:

"It is my opinion, it is my opinion, that--"

"Don't treat me to any of YOUR slop!" the long-fanged Pavla had
interrupted for the benefit of the street in general. And thus had the
affair continued....

Lieutenant Khorvat blew the fag-end of his cigarette from his
mouthpiece, glanced at me, and said with seemingly, a not over-civil,
twitch of his bushy moustache:

"Of what are you thinking, if I might inquire?"

"I am trying to understand you."

"You ought not to find that difficult," was his rejoinder as again he
doffed his hat, and fanned his face with it. "The whole thing may be
summed up in two words. It is that we lack respect both for ourselves
and for our fellow men. Do you follow me NOW?"

His eyes had grown once more young and clear, and, seizing my hand in
his strong and agreeably warm fingers, he continued:

"Why so? For the very simple reason that I cannot respect myself when I
can learn nothing, simply nothing, about my fellows."

Moving nearer to me, he added in a mysterious undertone:

"In this Russia of ours none of us really knows why he has come into
existence. True, each of us knows that he was born, and that he is
alive, and that one day he will die; but which of us knows the reason
why all that is so?"

Through renewed excitement, its colour had come back to the
Lieutenant