“I lie?” roars Aristid Kuvalda, crimson with anger.

“Why shout?” comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff. “Why judge others? Merchants, noblemen…what have we to do with them?”

“Seeing that we are neither meat nor fish…” puts in Deacon Taras.

“Be quiet, Bag of Bones,” says the teacher, good-naturedly. “Why turn the sword in the wound?”

He does not love discussion or noise, and when quarrel arises around him his lips fold into a painful grimace, he endeavors quietly and reasonably to reconcile each with the other, and if he does not succeed, leaves the company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not very drunk, controls himself, not wishing to lose, in the person of the teacher, one of his best listeners.

“I repeat,” he continues, in a quieter tone, “that I see life in the hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble class, but of everything fine, acquisitive enemies, incapable of adorning existence in any way.”

“But all the same,” says the teacher, “merchants too created Genoa, Venice, Holland, the merchants of England conquered India; the Stroganoff merchants…”

“What do I care about these? I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff, and Co.…”

“And what do you care about him?” asks the teacher quietly.

“But am I not alive? Aha! I am, so I cannot help being indignant that life is desecrated by these barbarians who have got hold of it.”

“And dare to laugh at the noble anger of the Captain, a man out of office?” says Bag of Bones, teasingly.

“Very well! I agree that this is foolish. Being a creature who was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart all those feelings and thoughts that once were mine. You may be right, but then how could I or any of you defend ourselves if we did away with all these feelings?”

“Now then, you are talking sense,” says the teacher, encouragingly.

“We want other feelings and other views on life.…We want something new because we ourselves are a novelty in this life.…”

“No doubt that is what we need,” remarks the teacher.

“Why?” asks Bad End. “Is it not all the same whatever we say or think? We have not got long to live.…I am forty, you are fifty…there is no one among us younger than thirty, and not even at twenty can one go on for long living such a life.”

“And what kind of novelty are we?” asks Bag of Bones, mockingly. “There have always been beggars!”

“Yes, and they were responsible for Rome,” says the teacher.

“Yes, of course,” says the Captain, beaming with joy. “Romulus and Remus, eh? We also shall do something when our time comes.…”

“Disturb public order and peace,” interupts Bag of Bones. He laughs insolently. His laughter is evil, destructive, it is echoed by Simtsoff, the Deacon, and Taras-and-a-Half. The naïve eyes of young Meteor light up, and his cheeks flush crimson.

Bad End speaks, and it seems as if he were driving nails into their heads.