“Why not? Work is not like a bear; it doesn’t run off into the woods,” said the deacon, smiling and thrusting his hands into the very deep pockets of his white cassock.

“There’s no one to whip you!” sighed the zoologist.

Another fifteen or twenty minutes passed and they were not called to dinner, and they could still hear the orderly running into the kitchen and back again, noisily treading with his boots, and Samoylenko shouting:

“Put it on the table! Where are your wits? Wash it first.”

The famished deacon and Von Koren began tapping on the floor with their heels, expressing in this way their impatience like the audience at a theatre. At last the door opened and the harassed orderly announced that dinner was ready! In the dining-room they were met by Samoylenko, crimson in the face, wrathful, perspiring from the heat of the kitchen; he looked at them furiously, and with an expression of horror, took the lid off the soup tureen and helped each of them to a plateful; and only when he was convinced that they were eating it with relish and liked it, he gave a sigh of relief and settled himself in his deep arm-chair. His face looked blissful and his eyes grew moist.… He deliberately poured himself out a glass of vodka and said:

“To the health of the younger generation.”

After his conversation with Laevsky, from early morning till dinner Samoylenko had been conscious of a load at his heart, although he was in the best of humours; he felt sorry for Laevsky and wanted to help him. After drinking a glass of vodka before the soup, he heaved a sigh and said:

“I saw Vanya Laevsky to-day. He is having a hard time of it, poor fellow! The material side of life is not encouraging for him, and the worst of it is all this psychology is too much for him. I’m sorry for the lad.”

“Well, that is a person I am not sorry for,” said Von Koren. “If that charming individual were drowning, I would push him under with a stick and say, ‘Drown, brother, drown away.’…”

“That’s untrue. You wouldn’t do it.”

“Why do you think that?” The zoologist shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just as capable of a good action as you are.”

“Is drowning a man a good action?” asked the deacon, and he laughed.

“Laevsky? Yes.”

“I think there is something amiss with the soup …” said Samoylenko, anxious to change the conversation.

“Laevsky is absolutely pernicious and is as dangerous to society as the cholera microbe,” Von Koren went on. “To drown him would be a service.”

“It does not do you credit to talk like that about your neighbour. Tell us: what do you hate him for?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, doctor. To hate and despise a microbe is stupid, but to look upon everybody one meets without distinction as one’s neighbour, whatever happens—thanks very much, that is equivalent to giving up criticism, renouncing a straightforward attitude to people, washing one’s hands of responsibility, in fact! I consider your Laevsky a blackguard; I do not conceal it, and I am perfectly conscientious in treating him as such. Well, you look upon him as your neighbour—and you may kiss him if you like: you look upon him as your neighbour, and that means that your attitude to him is the same as to me and to the deacon; that is no attitude at all. You are equally indifferent to all.”