The deacon was very easily amused, and laughed at every trifle till
he got a stitch in his side, till he was helpless. It seemed as
though he only liked to be in people's company because there was a
ridiculous side to them, and because they might be given ridiculous
nicknames. He had nicknamed Samoylenko "the tarantula," his orderly
"the drake," and was in ecstasies when on one occasion Von Koren
spoke of Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna as "Japanese monkeys."
He watched people's faces greedily, listened without blinking, and
it could be seen that his eyes filled with laughter and his face
was tense with expectation of the moment when he could let himself
go and burst into laughter.

"He is a corrupt and depraved type," the zoologist continued, while
the deacon kept his eyes riveted on his face, expecting he would
say something funny. "It is not often one can meet with such a
nonentity. In body he is inert, feeble, prematurely old, while in
intellect he differs in no respect from a fat shopkeeper's wife who
does nothing but eat, drink, and sleep on a feather-bed, and who
keeps her coachman as a lover."

The deacon began guffawing again.

"Don't laugh, deacon," said Von Koren. "It grows stupid, at last.
I should not have paid attention to his insignificance," he went
on, after waiting till the deacon had left off laughing; "I should
have passed him by if he were not so noxious and dangerous. His
noxiousness lies first of all in the fact that he has great success
with women, and so threatens to leave descendants--that is, to
present the world with a dozen Laevskys as feeble and as depraved
as himself. Secondly, he is in the highest degree contaminating. I
have spoken to you already of _vint_ and beer. In another year or
two he will dominate the whole Caucasian coast. You know how the
mass, especially its middle stratum, believe in intellectuality,
in a university education, in gentlemanly manners, and in literary
language. Whatever filthy thing he did, they would all believe that
it was as it should be, since he is an intellectual man, of liberal
ideas and university education. What is more, he is a failure, a
superfluous man, a neurasthenic, a victim of the age, and that means
he can do anything. He is a charming fellow, a regular good sort,
he is so genuinely indulgent to human weaknesses; he is compliant,
accommodating, easy and not proud; one can drink with him and gossip
and talk evil of people. . . . The mas