ever to hurt another one's feelings. The terms "brute" or
"swine," when used in this good-natured fashion, only convulsed me, and
gave me cause for inward merriment. In no way did they offend the person
addressed, or prevent the company at large from remaining on the most
sincere and friendly footing. In all their intercourse these youths were
delicate and forbearing in a way that only very poor and very young men
can be. However much I might detect in Zuchin's character and amusements
an element of coarseness and profligacy, I could also detect the fact
that his drinking-bouts were of a very different order to the puerility
with burnt rum and champagne in which I had participated at Baron Z.'s.

XLIV. ZUCHIN AND SEMENOFF

Although I do not know what class of society Zuchin belonged to, I
know that, without the help either of means or social position, he
had matriculated from the Seventh Gymnasium. At that time he was
eighteen--though he looked much older--and very clever, especially in
his powers of assimilation. To him it was easier to survey the whole of
some complicated subject, to foresee its various parts and deductions,
than to use that knowledge, when gained, for reasoning out the exact
laws to which those deductions were due. He knew that he was clever,
and of the fact he was proud; yet from that very pride arose the
circumstance that he treated every one with unvarying simplicity
and good-nature. Moreover, his experience of life must have been
considerable, for already he had squandered much love, friendship,
activity, and money. Though poor and moving only in the lower ranks of
society, there was nothing which he had ever attempted for which he
did not thenceforth feel the contempt, the indifference, or the utter
disregard which were bound to result from his attaining his goal too
easily. In fact, the very ardour with which he applied himself to a
new pursuit seemed to be due to his contempt for what he had already
attained, since his abilities always led him to success, and therefore
to a certain right to despise it. With the sciences it was the
same. Though little interested in them, and taking no notes, he knew
mathematics thoroughly, and was uttering no vain boast when he said
that he could beat the professor himself. Much of what he heard said
in lectures he thought rubbish, yet with his peculiar habit of
unconsciously practical roguishness he feigned to subscribe to all that
the professors though