the
prosecuting attorney's and the executioner's doing."

"Superbly said and partly true, Gavrila Petrovich. But to us,
precisely, this comparison may not even apply. One cannot, you see,
treat some malignant disease while absent, without seeing the sufferer
in person. And yet all of us, who are now standing here in the street
and interfering with the passers-by, will be obliged at some time in
our work to run up against the terrible problem of prostitution, and
what a prostitution at that--the Russian! Lichonin, I, Borya
Sobashnikov and Pavlov as jurists, Petrovsky and Tolpygin as medicos.
True, Veltman has a distinct specialty--mathematics. But then, he will
be a pedagogue, a guide of youth, and, deuce take it, even a father!
And if you are going to scare with a bugaboo, it is best to look upon
it one's self first. And finally, you yourself, Gavrila
Petrovich--expert of dead languages and future luminary of grave
digging--is the comparison, then, of the contemporary brothels, say,
with some Pompeian lupanaria, or the institution of sacred prostitution
in Thebes and Nineveh, not important and instructive to you? ..."

"Bravo, Ramses, magnificent!" roared Lichonin. "And what's there to
talk so much about, fellows? Take the professor under the gills and put
him in a cab!"

The students, laughing and jostling, surrounded Yarchenko, seized him
under the arms, caught him around the waist. All of them were equally
drawn to the women, but none, save Lichonin, had enough courage to take
the initiative upon himself. But now all this complicated, unpleasant
and hypocritical business was happily resolved into a simple, easy joke
upon the older comrade. Yarchenko resisted, and was angry, and
laughing, trying to break away. But at this moment a tall,
black-moustached policeman, who had long been eyeing them keenly and
inimically, walked up to the uproarious students.

"I'd ask you stewdent gents not to congregate. It's not allowed! Keep
on going!"

They moved on in a throng. Yarchenka was beginning to soften little by
little.

"Gentlemen, I am ready to go with you, if you like ... Do not think,
however, that the sophistries of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses have
convinced me ... No, I simply would be sorry to break up the party ...
But I make one stipulation: we will drink a little there, gab a little,
laugh a little, and so forth ... but let there be nothing more, no
filth of any kind ... It is shameful and painful to think t