en the two friends, one
of those endless disputes of which only Russians are capable. They
two, after a separation which had lasted for many years, and those
passed in two different worlds, neither of them clearly understanding
the other's thoughts, not even his own, holding fast by words, and
differing in words alone, disputed about the most purely abstract
ideas--and disputed exactly as if the matter had been one of life and
death to both of them. They shouted and cried aloud to such an extent
that every one in the house was disturbed, and poor Lemm, who had shut
himself up in his room the moment Mikhalevich arrived, felt utterly
perplexed, and even began to entertain some vague form of fear.

"But after all this, what are you? _blase_!"[A] cried Mikhalevich at
midnight.

[Footnote A: Literally, "disillusioned."]

"Does a _blase_ man ever look like me?" answered Lavretsky. "He is
always pale and sickly; but I, if you like, will lift you off the
ground with one hand."

"Well then, if not _blase_, at least a sceptic,[A] and that is still
worse. But what right have you to be a sceptic? Your life has not been
a success, I admit. That wasn't your fault. You were endowed with a
soul full of affection, fit for passionate love, and you were kept
away from women by force. The first woman you came across was sure to
take you in."

[Footnote A: He says in that original _Skyeptuik_ instead of
_Skeptik_, on which the author remarks, "Mikhalevich's accent
testified to his birth-place having been in Little Russia."]

"She took you in, too," morosely remarked Lavretsky.

"Granted, granted. In that I was the tool of fate. But I'm talking
nonsense. There's no such thing as fate. My old habit of expressing
myself inaccurately! But what does that prove?"

"It proves this much, that I have been distorted from childhood."

"Well, then, straighten yourself. That's the good of being a man.
You haven't got to borrow energy. But, however that may be, is it
possible, is it allowable, to work upwards from an isolated fact, so
to speak, to a general law--to an invariable rule?"

"What rule?" said Lavretsky, interrupting him. "I do not admit--"

"No, that is your rule, that is your rule," cried the other,
interrupting him in his turn.

"You are an egotist, that's what it is!" thundered Mikhalevich an hour
later. "You wanted self-enjoyment; you wanted a happy life; you wanted
to live only for yourself--"

"What is self-enjoyment?"