e use of him for food. It's most
offensive. And, on the other hand, how is their life inferior to ours?
And why shouldn't they take themselves seriously, if we are to be
allowed to take ourselves seriously? There now, philosopher, solve that
problem for me! Why don't you speak? Eh?'

'What?' said Bersenyev, starting.

'What!' repeated Shubin. 'Your friend lays his deepest thoughts before
you, and you don't listen to him.'

'I was admiring the view. Look how hot and bright those fields are in
the sun.' Bersenyev spoke with a slight lisp.

'There's some fine colour laid on there,' observed Shubin. 'Nature's a
good hand at it, that's the fact!'

Bersenyev shook his head.

'You ought to be even more ecstatic over it than I. It's in your line:
you're an artist.'

'No; it's not in my line,' rejoined Shubin, putting his hat on the back
of his head. 'Flesh is my line; my work's with flesh--modelling flesh,
shoulders, legs, and arms, and here there's no form, no finish; it's all
over the place.... Catch it if you can.'

'But there is beauty here, too,' remarked Bersenyev.--'By the way, have
you finished your bas-relief?'

'Which one?'

'The boy with the goat.'

'Hang it! Hang it! Hang it!' cried Shubin, drawling--'I looked at the
genuine old things, the antiques, and I smashed my rubbish to pieces.
You point to nature, and say "there's beauty here, too." Of course,
there's beauty in everything, even in your nose there's beauty; but you
can't try after all kinds of beauty. The ancients, they didn't try after
it; beauty came down of itself upon their creations from somewhere or
other--from heaven, I suppose. The whole world belonged to them; it's
not for us to be so large in our reach; our arms are short. We drop our
hook into one little pool, and keep watch over it. If we get a bite, so
much the better, if not----'

Shubin put out his tongue.

'Stop, stop,' said Bensenyev, 'that's a paradox. If you have no sympathy
for beauty, if you do not love beauty wherever you meet it, it will not
come to you even in your art. If a beautiful view, if beautiful music
does not touch your heart; I mean, if you are not sympathetic----'

'Ah, you are a confirmed sympathetic!' broke in Shubin, laughing at the
new title he had coined, while Bersenyev sank into thought.

'No, my dear fellow,' Shubin went on, 'you're a clever person, a
philosopher, third graduate of the Moscow University; it's dreadful
arguing with you, especially