se. I rebuked
him. 'You are not behaving humanely to God's creatures that are a jolly
sight more estimable than yourself,' I said. I can't bear to see any
tyranny, Kirylo Sidorovitch. Upon my word I can't. He didn't take it in
good part at all. 'Who's that impudent puppy?' he begins to shout. I
was in excellent form as it happened, and he went through the closed
window very suddenly. He flew quite a long way into the yard. I raged
like--like a--minotaur. The women clung to me and screamed, the fiddlers
got under the table.... Such fun! My dad had to put his hand pretty
deep into his pocket, I can tell you." He chuckled.

"My dad is a very useful man. Jolly good thing it is for me, too. I do
get into unholy scrapes."

His elation fell. That was just it. What was his life? Insignificant;
no good to anyone; a mere festivity. It would end some fine day in his
getting his skull split with a champagne bottle in a drunken brawl. At
such times, too, when men were sacrificing themselves to ideas. But he
could never get any ideas into his head. His head wasn't worth anything
better than to be split by a champagne bottle.

Razumov, protesting that he had no time, made an attempt to get away.
The other's tone changed to confidential earnestness.

"For God's sake, Kirylo, my dear soul, let me make some sort of
sacrifice. It would not be a sacrifice really. I have my rich dad behind
me. There's positively no getting to the bottom of his pocket."

And rejecting indignantly Razumov's suggestion that this was drunken
raving, he offered to lend him some money to escape abroad with. He
could always get money from his dad. He had only to say that he had
lost it at cards or something of that sort, and at the same time promise
solemnly not to miss a single lecture for three months on end. That
would fetch the old man; and he, Kostia, was quite equal to the
sacrifice. Though he really did not see what was the good for him to
attend the lectures. It was perfectly hopeless.

"Won't you let me be of some use?" he pleaded to the silent Razumov,
who with his eyes on the ground and utterly unable to penetrate the real
drift of the other's intention, felt a strange reluctance to clear up
the point.

"What makes you think I want to go abroad?" he asked at last very
quietly.

Kostia lowered his voice.

"You had the police in your rooms yesterday. There are three or four of
us who have heard of that. Never mind how we know. It is sufficient