owadays?"

"Gentlemen, what surprises me most of all is that you take it all so
seriously. However... however, you are perfectly right. No one has
greater respect for truth and realism than I have...."

Though he smiled ironically he was tremendously overcome. His face
seemed to express: "I am not the sort of man you think, I am on your
side, only praise me, praise me more, as much as possible, I like it
extremely...."

"Gentlemen," he cried, completely mortified at last, "I see that my poor
poem is quite out of place here. And, indeed, I am out of place here
myself, I think."

"You threw at the crow and you hit the cow," some fool, probably drunk,
shouted at the top of his voice, and of course no notice ought to
have been taken of him. It is true there was a sound of disrespectful
laughter.

"A cow, you say?" Karmazinov caught it up at once, his voice grew
shriller and shriller. "As for crows and cows, gentlemen, I will
refrain. I've too much respect for any audience to permit myself
comparisons, however harmless; but I did think..."

"You'd better be careful, sir," some one shouted from a back row.

"But I had supposed that laying aside my pen and saying farewell to my
readers, I should be heard..."

"No, no, we want to hear you, we want to," a few voices from the front
row plucked up spirit to exclaim at last.

"Read, read!" several enthusiastic ladies' voices chimed in, and at last
there was an outburst of applause, sparse and feeble, it is true.

"Believe me, Karmazinov, every one looks on it as an honour..." the
marshal's wife herself could not resist saying.

"Mr. Karmazinov!" cried a fresh young voice in the back of the hall
suddenly. It was the voice of a very young teacher from the district
school who had only lately come among us, an excellent young man, quiet
and gentlemanly. He stood up in his place. "Mr. Karmazinov, if I had
the happiness to fall in love as you have described to us, I really
shouldn't refer to my love in an article intended for public
reading...." He flushed red all over.

"Ladies and gentlemen," cried Karmazinov, "I have finished. I will omit
the end and withdraw. Only allow me to read the six last lines:

"Yes, dear reader, farewell!" he began at once from the manuscript
without sitting down again in his chair. "Farewell, reader; I do not
greatly insist on our parting friends; what need to trouble you,
indeed. You may abuse me, abuse me as you will if it affords you any