d why cannot women fight
honestly? Why do they scratch? Eh?"

He sat on the bench, strong and clean and jovial; talking and
laughing all the time. We were silent. Somehow or other he seemed
repulsive to us this time.

"How lucky I am with women, Eh? It is very funny! Just a wink and I
have them!"

His white hands, covered with glossy hair, were lifted and thrown
back to his knees with a loud noise. And he stared at us with such a
pleasantly surprised look, as though he really could not understand
why he was so lucky in his affairs with women. His stout, red face
was radiant with happiness and self-satisfaction, and he kept on
licking his lips with relish.

Our baker scraped the shovel firmly and angrily against the hearth of
the oven and suddenly said, sarcastically:

"You need no great strength to fell little fir-trees, but try to
throw down a pine." . . .

"That is, do you refer to me?" asked the soldier.

"To you. . . ."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. . . . Too late!"

"No, wait! What's the matter? Which pine?"

Our baker did not reply, quickly working with his shovel at the oven.
He would throw into the oven the biscuits from the boiling kettle,
would take out the ready ones and throw them noisily to the floor, to
the boys who put them on bast strings. It looked as though he had
forgotten all about the soldier and his conversation with him. But
suddenly the soldier became very restless. He rose to his feet and
walking up to the oven, risked striking his chest against the handle
of the shovel, which was convulsively trembling in the air.

"No, you tell me--who is she? You have insulted me. . . . I? . . .
Not a single one can wrench herself from me, never! And you say to
me such offensive words." . . . And, indeed, he looked really
offended. Evidently there was nothing for which he might respect
himself, except for his ability to lead women astray; it may be that
aside from this ability there was no life in him, and only this
ability permitted him to feel himself a living man.

There are people to whom the best and dearest thing in life is some
kind of a disease of either the body or the soul. They make much of
it during all their lives and live by it only; suffering from it,
they are nourished by it, they always complain of it to others and
thus attract the attention of their neighbors. By this they gain
people's compassion for themselves, and aside from this they have
nothing. Ta