talking about a woman, but about a human being;
not about flesh, but about a soul."

"All right, all right, me soul, go on!"

"Futhermore, as I thought, so did I act. I took her to-day from Anna
Markovna's and brought her for the present to me. And later--whatever
God may grant. I'll teach her in the beginning to read, and write; then
open up for her a little cook-shop, or a grocery store, let's say. I
think that the comrades won't refuse to help me. The human heart,
prince, my brother--every heart--is in need of cordiality, of warmth.
And lo and behold! in a year, in two, I will return to society a good,
industrious, worthy member, with a virgin soul, open to all sorts of
great possibilities... For she has given only her body, while her soul
is pure and innocent."

"Tse, tse, tse," the prince smacked his tongue.

"What does this mean, you Tifflissian he-mule?"

"And will you buy her a sewing machine?"

"Why a sewing machine, in particular? I don't understand."

"It's always that way in the novels, me soul. Just as soon as the hero
has saved the poor, but lost, creature, he at once sets up a sewing
machine for her."

"Stop talking nonsense," Lichonin waved him away angrily with his hand.
"Clown!"

The Georgian suddenly grew heated, his black eyes began to sparkle, and
immediately Caucasian intonations could be heard in his voice.

"No, not nonsense, me soul. It's one of two things here, and it'll all
end in one and the same result. Either you'll get together with her and
after five months chuck her out on the street; and she'll return to the
brothel or take to walking the street. That's a fact! Or else you won't
get together with her, but will begin to load her up with manual or
mental labours and will try to develop her ignorant, dark mind; and she
from tedium will run away from you, and will again find herself either
walking the street, or in a brothel. That's a fact, too! However, there
is still a third combination. You'll be vexing yourself about her like
a brother, like the knight Lancelot, but she, secretly from you, will
fall in love with another. Me soul, believe me, that wooman, when she
is a wooman, is always--a wooman. And the other will play a bit with
her body, and after three months chuck her out into the street or into
a brothel."

Lichonin sighed deeply. Somewhere deep--not in his mind, but in the
hidden, almost unseizable secret recesses of his
consciousness--something resembling the thou