ooks into it and analyses all
this hotchpotch, if you will allow me to call it so, it's not life but
more like a fire in a theatre! Any one who falls down or screams with
terror, or rushes about, is the worst enemy of good order; one must
stand up and look sharp, and not stir a hair! There's no time for
whimpering and busying oneself with trifles. When you have to deal with
elemental forces you must put out force against them, be firm and as
unyielding as a stone. Isn't that right, grandfather?" He turned to Ivan
Ivanitch and laughed. "I am no better than a woman myself; I am a limp
rag, a flabby creature, so I hate flabbiness. I can't endure petty
feelings! One mopes, another is frightened, a third will come straight
in here and say: 'Fie on you! Here you've guzzled a dozen courses and
you talk about the starving!' That's petty and stupid! A fourth will
reproach you, Eccellenza, for being rich. Excuse me, Eccellenza," he
went on in a loud voice, laying his hand on his heart, "but your
having set our magistrate the task of hunting day and night for your
thieves--excuse me, that's also petty on your part. I am a little drunk,
so that's why I say this now, but you know, it is petty!"

"Who's asking him to worry himself? I don't understand!" I said, getting
up.

I suddenly felt unbearably ashamed and mortified, and I walked round the
table.

"Who asks him to worry himself? I didn't ask him to.... Damn him!"

"They have arrested three men and let them go again. They turned out not
to be the right ones, and now they are looking for a fresh lot," said
Sobol, laughing. "It's too bad!"

"I did not ask him to worry himself," said I, almost crying with
excitement. "What's it all for? What's it all for? Well, supposing I was
wrong, supposing I have done wrong, why do they try to put me more in
the wrong?"

"Come, come, come, come!" said Sobol, trying to soothe me. "Come! I
have had a drop, that is why I said it. My tongue is my enemy. Come," he
sighed, "we have eaten and drunk wine, and now for a nap."

He got up from the table, kissed Ivan Ivanitch on the head, and
staggering from repletion, went out of the dining-room. Ivan Ivanitch
and I smoked in silence.

"I don't sleep after dinner, my dear," said Ivan Ivanitch, "but you have
a rest in the lounge-room."

I agreed. In the half-dark and warmly heated room they called the
lounge-room, there stood against the walls long, wide sofas, solid and
heavy, the work of Butyg