oodnaturedly.

"Why do you provoke him?" He does not love either discussion or noise,
and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a sickly
grimace, and he endeavours quietly and reasonably to reconcile each
with the other, and if he does not succeed in this he leaves the
company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not very drunk, controls
himself, not wishing to lose, in the person of the teacher, one of the
best of his listeners.

"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life in the
hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of everything good,
avaricious and incapable of adorning existence in any way."

"But all the same," says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak, created
Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants, merchants from
England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants ..."

"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff, who is
one of them...."

"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher,
quietly.

"But do you think that I do not live? Aha! I do live, but I suppose I
ought not to be angry at the fact that life is desecrated and robbed of
all freedom by these men."

"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a man
living in retirement?" says Abyedok, teasingly.

"Very well! I agree with you that I am foolish. Being a creature who
was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart all those feelings
that once were mine. You may be right, but then how could I or any of
you defend ourselves if we did away with all these feelings?"

"Now then, you are talking sense," says the teacher, encouragingly.

"We want other feelings and other views on life.... We want something
new ... because we ourselves are a novelty in this life...."

"Doubtless this is most important for us," remarks the teacher.

"Why?" asks Kanets. "Is it not all the same whatever we say or think?
We have not got long to live ... I am forty, you are fifty ... there
is no one among us younger than thirty, and even at twenty one cannot
live such a life long."

"And what kind of novelty are we?" asked Abyedok, mockingly.

"Since nakedness has always existed ..."

"Yes, and it created Rome," said the teacher.

"Yes, of course," says the Captain, beaming with joy. "Romulus and
Remus, eh? We also shall create when our time comes ..."

"Violation of public peace," interrupts Abyedok. He laughs in a
self-satisfied way. His laughte