own comparison.--"Oh,
that stupor of tedium is the ruin of the Russians! The repulsive trifler,
all his life long, is getting ready to work...."

"Come, what art thou calling names for?"--roared Lavretzky, in his
turn.--"Work ... act ... Tell me, rather, what to do, but don't call
names, you Poltava Demosthenes!"

"Just see what a freak he has taken! I'll not tell thee that, brother;
every one must know that himself," retorted Demosthenes, ironically.--"A
landed proprietor, a nobleman--and he doesn't know what to do! Thou hast
no faith, or thou wouldst know; thou hast no faith--and there is no
revelation."

"Give me a rest, at any rate, you devil: give me a chance to look around
me,"--entreated Lavretzky.

"Not a minute, not a second of respite!"--retorted Mikhalevitch, with an
imperious gesture of the hand.--"Not one second!--Death does not wait,
and life ought not to wait."...

"And when, where did men get the idea of becoming triflers?"--he shouted,
at four o'clock in the morning, but his voice had now begun to be rather
hoarse: "among us! now! in Russia! when on every separate individual a
duty, a great obligation is incumbent toward God, toward the nation,
toward himself! We are sleeping, but time is passing on; we are
sleeping...."

"Permit me to observe to thee,"--said Lavretzky,--"that we are not
sleeping at all, now, but are, rather, preventing others from sleeping.
We are cracking our throats like cocks. Hark, isn't that the third
cock-crow?"

This sally disconcerted and calmed down Mikhalevitch. "Farewell until
to-morrow,"--he said, with a smile,--and thrust his pipe into his
tobacco-pouch. "Farewell until to-morrow," repeated Lavretzky. But the
friends conversed for an hour longer. However, their voices were no
longer raised, and their speeches were quiet, sad, and kind.

Mikhalevitch departed on the following day, in spite of all Lavretzky's
efforts to detain him. Feodor Ivanitch did not succeed in persuading
him to remain; but he talked with him to his heart's content. It came
out, that Mikhalevitch had not a penny in the world. Already, on the
preceding evening, Lavretzky, with compassion, had observed in him all
the signs and habits of confirmed poverty; his boots were broken, a
button was missing from the back of his coat, his hands were guiltless of
gloves, down was visible in his hair; on his arrival, it had not occurred
to him to ask for washing materials, and at supper he ate like a shark,