ess--"

"He did not hide his convictions," Mashurina put in gloomily. "It is not
for us to sit in judgment upon him!"

"Quite so; only he might have had a little more consideration for
others, who are likely to be compromised through him now."

"What makes you think so?" Ostrodumov bawled out in his turn. "Basanov
has plenty of character, he will not betray anyone. Besides, not every
one can be cautious you know, Mr. Paklin."

Paklin was offended and was about to say something when Nejdanov
interrupted him.

"I vote we leave politics for a time, ladies and gentlemen!" he
exclaimed.

A silence ensued.

"I ran across Skoropikin today," Paklin was the first to begin. "Our
great national critic, aesthetic, and enthusiast! What an insufferable
creature! He is forever boiling and frothing over like a bottle of sour
kvas. A waiter runs with it, his finger stuck in the bottle instead of
a cork, a fat raisin in the neck, and when it has done frothing and
foaming there is nothing left at the bottom but a few drops of some
nasty stuff, which far from quenching any one's thirst is enough to
make one ill. He's a most dangerous person for young people to come in
contact with."

Paklin's true and rather apt comparison raised no smile on his
listeners' faces, only Nejdanov remarked that if young people were
fools enough to interest themselves in aesthetics, they deserved no pity
whatever, even if Skoropikin did lead them astray.

"Of course," Paklin exclaimed with some warmth--the less sympathy he met
with, the more heated he became--"I admit that the question is not
a political one, but an important one, nevertheless. According to
Skoropikin, every ancient work of art is valueless because it is old. If
that were true, then art would be reduced to nothing more or less than
mere fashion. A preposterous idea, not worth entertaining. If art has
no firmer foundation than that, if it is not eternal, then it is utterly
useless. Take science, for instance. In mathematics do you look upon
Euler, Laplace, or Gauss as fools? Of course not. You accept their
authority. Then why question the authority of Raphael and Mozart? I must
admit, however, that the laws of art are far more difficult to define
than the laws of nature, but they exist just the same, and he who fails
to see them is blind, whether he shuts his eyes to them purposely or
not."

Paklin ceased, but no one uttered a word. They all sat with tightly
closed mouths as if fee