do you mean by asking all these questions? You are very clever
today. Surely you are not drunk?"

"You know that you and I stand on no ceremony, and that sometimes I put
to you very plain questions. I repeat that I am your slave--and slaves
cannot be shamed or offended."

"You talk like a child. It is always possible to comport oneself with
dignity. If one has a quarrel it ought to elevate rather than to
degrade one."

"A maxim straight from the copybook! Suppose I CANNOT comport myself
with dignity. By that I mean that, though I am a man of self-respect, I
am unable to carry off a situation properly. Do you know the reason? It
is because we Russians are too richly and multifariously gifted to be
able at once to find the proper mode of expression. It is all a
question of mode. Most of us are so bounteously endowed with intellect
as to require also a spice of genius to choose the right form of
behaviour. And genius is lacking in us for the reason that so little
genius at all exists. It belongs only to the French--though a few other
Europeans have elaborated their forms so well as to be able to figure
with extreme dignity, and yet be wholly undignified persons. That is
why, with us, the mode is so all-important. The Frenchman may receive
an insult--a real, a venomous insult: yet, he will not so much as
frown. But a tweaking of the nose he cannot bear, for the reason that
such an act is an infringement of the accepted, of the time-hallowed
order of decorum. That is why our good ladies are so fond of
Frenchmen--the Frenchman's manners, they say, are perfect! But in my
opinion there is no such thing as a Frenchman's manners. The Frenchman
is only a bird--the coq gaulois. At the same time, as I am not a woman,
I do not properly understand the question. Cocks may be excellent
birds. If I am wrong you must stop me. You ought to stop and correct
me more often when I am speaking to you, for I am too apt to say
everything that is in my head.

"You see, I have lost my manners. I agree that I have none, nor yet any
dignity. I will tell you why. I set no store upon such things.
Everything in me has undergone a cheek. You know the reason. I have not
a single human thought in my head. For a long while I have been
ignorant of what is going on in the world--here or in Russia. I have
been to Dresden, yet am completely in the dark as to what Dresden is
like. You know the cause of my obsession. I have no hope now, and am a
mere ciphe