erceptibly, lowered her eyelashes as a sign of consent, and,
when she again raised them, Platonov, who almost without looking had
seen this silent dialogue, was struck by that expression of malice and
menace in her eyes which she sped the back of the departing Ramses.
Having waited for five minutes she got up, said "Excuse me, I'll be
right back," and went out, swinging her short orange skirt.

"Well, now? Is it your turn, Lichonin?" asked the reporter banteringly.

"No, brother, you're mistaken!" said Lichonin and clacked his tongue.
"And I'm not doing it out of conviction or on principle, either ... No!
I, as an anarchist, proclaim the gospel that the worse things are, the
better ... But, fortunately, I am a gambler and spend all my
temperament on gaming; on that account simple squeamishness speaks
louder within me than this same unearthly feeling. But it's amazing our
thoughts coincided. I just wanted to ask you about the same thing."

"I--no. Sometimes, if I become very much tired out, I sleep here over
night. I take from Isaiah Savvich the key to his little room and sleep
on the divan. But all the girls here are already used to the fact that
I am a being of the third sex."

"And really ... never? ..."

"Never."

"Well, what's right is right!" exclaimed Nhira. "Sergei Ivanich is like
a holy hermit."

"Previously, some five years ago, I experienced this also," continued
Platonov. "But, do you know, it's really too tedious and disgusting.
Something on the nature of these flies which the actor gentleman just
represented. They're stuck together on the window sill, and then in
some sort of fool wonder scratch their backs with their little hind
legs and fly apart forever. And to play at love here? ... Well, for
that I'm no hero out of their sort of novel. I'm not handsome, am shy
with women, uneasy, and polite. While here they thirst for savage
passions, bloody jealousy, tears, poisonings, beatings, sacrifices,--in
a word, hysterical romanticism. And it's easy to understand why. The
heart of woman always wants love, while they are told of love every day
with various sour, drooling words. Involuntarily one wants pepper in
one's love. One no longer wants words of passion, but
tragically-passionate deeds. And for that reason thieves, murderers,
souteners and other riff-raff will always be their lovers."

"And most important of all," added Platonov, "that would at once spoil
for me all the friendly relations which ha