good, the true: but I do not only believe--I have faith now, yes, I have
faith, faith. Listen, you know I write verses; there is no poetry in
them, but there is truth. I will read you aloud my last poem; I have
expressed my truest convictions in it. Listen." Mihalevitch fell to
reading his poem: it was rather long, and ended with the following
lines:

"I gave myself to new feelings with all my heart,
And my soul became as a child's!
And I have burnt all I adored
And now adore all that I burnt."

As he uttered the two last lines, Mihalevitch all but shed tears; a
slight spasm--the sign of deep emotion--passed over his wide mouth, his
ugly face lighted up. Lavretsky listened, and listened to him--and
the spirit of antagonism was aroused in him; he was irritated by
the ever-ready enthusiasm of the Moscow student, perpetually at
boiling-point. Before a quarter of an hour had elapsed a heated argument
had broken out between them, one of these endless arguments, of which
only Russians are capable. After a separation of many years spent in two
different worlds, with no clear understanding of the other's ideas or
even of their own, catching at words and replying only in words, they
disputed about the most abstract subjects, and they disputed as
though it were a matter of life and death for both: they shouted and
vociferated so that every one in the house was startled, and poor
Lemm, who had locked himself up in his room directly after Mihalevitch
arrived, was bewildered, and began even to feel vaguely alarmed.

"What are you after all? a pessimist?" cried Mihalevitch at one o'clock
in the night.

"Are pessimists usually like this?" replied Lavretsky. "They are usually
all pale and sickly--would you like me to lift you with one hand?"

"Well, if you are not a pessimist you are a scepteec, that's still
worse." Mihalevitch's talk had a strong flavour of his mother-country,
Little Russia. "And what right have you to be a scepteec? You have had
ill-luck in life, let us admit; that was not your fault; you were born
with a passionate loving heart, and you were unnaturally kept out of the
society of women: the first woman you came across was bound to deceive
you."

"She deceived you too," observed Lavretsky grimly.

"Granted, granted; I was the tool of destiny in it--what nonsense I
talk, though--there is no such thing as destiny; it is an old habit of
expressing things inexactly. But what does that prove?"