your rotten little
love-stories and descriptions of nature, and expose the vileness of the
human biped.... There's a subject for you.'"

He thought for a moment and then he said:

"Goussiev, do you know how I swindled them?"

"Who, Pavel Ivanich?"

"The lot out there.... You see there's only first and third class on the
steamer, and only peasants are allowed to go third. If you have a decent
suit, and look like a nobleman or a bourgeois, at a distance, then you
must go first. It may break you, but you have to lay down your five
hundred roubles. 'What's the point of such an arrangement?' I asked. 'Is
it meant to raise the prestige of Russian intellectuals?' 'Not a bit,'
said they. 'We don't let you go, simply because it is impossible for a
decent man to go third. It is so vile and disgusting.' 'Yes,' said I.
'Thanks for taking so much trouble about decent people. Anyhow, bad or
no, I haven't got five hundred roubles as I have neither robbed the
treasury nor exploited foreigners, nor dealt in contraband, nor flogged
any one to death, and, therefore, I think I have a right to go
first-class and to take rank with the intelligentsia of Russia.' But
there's no convincing them by logic.... I had to try fraud. I put on a
peasant's coat and long boots, and a drunken, stupid expression and went
to the agent and said: 'Give me a ticket, your Honour.'

"'What's your position?' says the agent.

"'Clerical,' said I. 'My father was an honest priest. He always told the
truth to the great ones of the earth, and so he suffered much.'"

Pavel Ivanich got tired with talking, and his breath failed him, but he
went on:

"Yes. I always tell the truth straight out.... I am afraid of nobody and
nothing. There's a great difference between myself and you in that
respect. You are dull, blind, stupid, you see nothing, and you don't
understand what you do see. You are told that the wind breaks its chain,
that you are brutes and worse, and you believe; you are thrashed and you
kiss the hand that thrashes you; a swine in a raccoon pelisse robs you,
and throws you sixpence for tea, and you say: 'Please, your Honour, let
me kiss your hand.' You are pariahs, skunks.... I am different. I live
consciously. I see everything, as an eagle or a hawk sees when it hovers
over the earth, and I understand everything. I am a living protest. I
see injustice--I protest; I see bigotry and hypocrisy--I protest; I see
swine triumphant--I protest, and I am uncon