ked:

"How do you feel after yesterday?"

"Very well indeed," said Laevsky, flushing. "It really was nothing
much. . . ."

"Until yesterday I thought it was only ladies who had hysterics,
and so at first I thought you had St. Vitus's dance."

Laevsky smiled ingratiatingly, and thought:

"How indelicate on his part! He knows quite well how unpleasant it
is for me. . . ."

"Yes, it was a ridiculous performance," he said, still smiling.
"I've been laughing over it the whole morning. What's so curious
in an attack of hysterics is that you know it is absurd, and are
laughing at it in your heart, and at the same time you sob. In our
neurotic age we are the slaves of our nerves; they are our masters
and do as they like with us. Civilisation has done us a bad turn
in that way. . . ."

As Laevsky talked, he felt it disagreeable that Von Koren listened
to him gravely, and looked at him steadily and attentively as though
studying him; and he was vexed with himself that in spite of his
dislike of Von Koren, he could not banish the ingratiating smile
from his face.

"I must admit, though," he added, "that there were immediate causes
for the attack, and quite sufficient ones too. My health has been
terribly shaky of late. To which one must add boredom, constantly
being hard up . . . the absence of people and general interests
. . . . My position is worse than a governor's."

"Yes, your position is a hopeless one," answered Von Koren.

These calm, cold words, implying something between a jeer and an
uninvited prediction, offended Laevsky. He recalled the zoologist's
eyes the evening before, full of mockery and disgust. He was silent
for a space and then asked, no longer smiling:

"How do you know anything of my position?"

"You were only just speaking of it yourself. Besides, your friends
take such a warm interest in you, that I am hearing about you all
day long."

"What friends? Samoylenko, I suppose?"

"Yes, he too."

"I would ask Alexandr Daviditch and my friends in general not to
trouble so much about me."

"Here is Samoylenko; you had better ask him not to trouble so much
about you."

"I don't understand your tone," Laevsky muttered, suddenly feeling
as though he had only just realised that the zoologist hated and
despised him, and was jeering at him, and was his bitterest and
most inveterate enemy.

"Keep that tone for some one else," he said softly, unable to speak
aloud for the hatred with which his