said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, somewhat more amiably. "It
seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is usually
made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first
half."

"Grand words! You solve the riddle of life!" said the captain, half
cunningly, half in genuine and unfeigned admiration, for he was a
great lover of words. "Of all your sayings, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, I
remember one thing above all; you were in Petersburg when you said it:
'One must really be a great man to be able to make a stand even against
common sense.' That was it."

"Yes, and a fool as well."

"A fool as well, maybe. But you've been scattering clever sayings all
your life, while they... Imagine Liputin, imagine Pyotr Stepanovitch
saying anything like that! Oh, how cruelly Pyotr Stepanovitch has
treated me!"

"But how about yourself, captain? What can you say of your behaviour?"

"Drunkenness, and the multitude of my enemies. But now that's all over,
all over, and I have a new skin, like a snake. Do you know, Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, I am making my will; in fact, I've made it already?"

"That's interesting. What are you leaving, and to whom?"

"To my fatherland, to humanity, and to the students. Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, I read in the paper the biography of an American. He
left all his vast fortune to factories and to the exact sciences, and
his skeleton to the students of the academy there, and his skin to be
made into a drum, so that the American national hymn might be beaten
upon it day and night. Alas! we are pigmies in mind compared with the
soaring thought of the States of North America. Russia is the play of
nature but not of mind. If I were to try leaving my skin for a drum, for
instance, to the Akmolinsky infantry regiment, in which I had the honour
of beginning my service, on condition of beating the Russian national
hymn upon it every day, in face of the regiment, they'd take it for
liberalism and prohibit my skin... and so I confine myself to the
students. I want to leave my skeleton to the academy, but on the
condition though, on the condition that a label should be stuck on the
forehead for ever and ever, with the words: 'A repentant free-thinker.'
There now!"

The captain spoke excitedly, and genuinely believed, of course, that
there was something fine in the American will, but he was cunning too,
and very anxious to entertain Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, with whom he had
played the part of a