and
listened to him; the spirit of contradiction began to stir within him:
the ever-ready, incessantly-seething enthusiasm of the Moscow student
irritated him. A quarter of an hour had not elapsed, before a dispute
flared up between them, one of those interminable disputes, of which only
Russians are capable. After a separation of many years' duration, spent
in two widely-different spheres, understanding clearly neither other
people's thoughts nor their own,--cavilling at words and retorting with
mere words, they argued about the most abstract subjects,--and argued as
though it were a matter of life and death to both of them: they shouted
and yelled so, that all the people in the house took fright, and poor
Lemm, who, from the moment of Mikhalevitch's arrival, had locked himself
up in his room, became bewildered, and began, in a confused way, to be
afraid.

"But what art thou after this? disillusioned?"--shouted Mikhalevitch at
one o'clock in the morning.

"Are there any such disillusioned people?"--retorted Lavretzky:--"they
are all poor and ill,--and I'll pick thee up with one hand, shall I?"

"Well, if not a _disillusioned_ man, then a _sceptuik_, and that is still
worse." (Mikhalevitch's pronunciation still smacked of his native Little
Russia.) "And what right hast thou to be a sceptic? Thou hast had bad
luck in life, granted; that was no fault of thine: thou wert born with a
passionate, loving soul, and thou wert forcibly kept away from women: the
first woman that came in thy way was bound to deceive thee."

"And she did deceive me,"--remarked Lavretzky, gloomily.

"Granted, granted; I was the instrument of fate there,--but what nonsense
am I talking?--there's no fate about it; it's merely an old habit of
expressing myself inaccurately. But what does that prove?"

"It proves, that they dislocated me in my childhood."

"But set thy joints! to that end thou art a human being, a man; thou hast
no need to borrow energy! But, at any rate, is it possible, is it
permissible, to erect a private fact, so to speak, into a general law,
into an immutable law?"

"Where is the rule?"--interrupted Lavretzky,--"I do not admit...."

"Yes, it is thy rule, thy rule," Mikhalevitch interrupted him in his
turn....

"Thou art an egoist, that's what thou art!"--he thundered, an hour
later:--"thou hast desired thine own personal enjoyment, thou hast
desired happiness in life, thou hast desired to live for thyself
alone...."