How I pity that such a man isn’t in military service. He’d reveal himself to be a superb, ingenious commander. One who’d know how to drown his own cavalry in a river and build bridges using their corpses, this sort of boldness is paramount to any fortification or strategy in wartime. Oh, I understand him perfectly well! Tell me: why is he corroding here? What does he expect to gain?”

“He is researching marine fauna.”

“No. No, brother, no!” sighed Laevsky. “On the liner to here, a passenger who was a man of science told me that the Black Sea is fauna poor and that its depths, thanks to the abundance of hydrogen sulfide, are inhospitable to organic life. All serious zoologists work at biological research in Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is independent and pigheaded: he must work on the Black Sea, because there is no one else working here; he’s severed ties with the university, he doesn’t want to associate with scientists or his colleagues, because first and foremost he is a despot, then he is a zoologist. You’ll see that something will come of him yet. Right now, he’s dreaming of returning from the expedition, he’ll rid our universities of intrigue and mediocrity, replacing them with scientists who knuckle under. Despotism is as prevalent in science as it is in war. This is the second summer that he’s lived in this stinking boondock because it’s better to be first in the village than second in the city. Here, he’s both king and eagle; he pigeonholes all who reside here, oppressing them with his authority. He’s got his hands in everything, involves himself in the affairs of others, he finds a use for everyone and everyone fears him. I’ve slipped from his grasp, he senses this and hates me for it. Hasn’t he told you that I should either be annihilated or sent to hard labor?”

“Yes,” Samoylenko said, beginning to laugh.

Laevsky also began to laugh and took a drink of wine.

“His ideals are despotic as well,” he said, still laughing and took the peach. “All ordinary mortals, if their profession benefits the common good, keep their fellow man in their sights: myself, yourself—in a word, all people. But for Von Koren, people are puppies and nominal, too irrelevant to comprise the whole of his life. He works, he’ll go on his expedition and he’ll break his own neck there, not for love of his fellow man, but in the name of abstractions such as humanity, progeny, an ideal race of people. He fusses over the improvement of the human race. In these terms we are nothing but slaves to him, cannon fodder, beasts of burden; some he’d annihilate or stick in hard labor, others he’d put to the screws of discipline, and as Arakcheyev forcing them to rise and retire to the beat of a drum, he’d station eunuchs to guard our chastity and morality, ordering anyone that falls outside the narrow circle of our conservative morals to be shot, and all this in the name of improving the human race … And what is the human race anyway … An illusion, a mirage … Despots have always been illusionists. I understand him perfectly, brother. I appreciate and do not refute his significance; the world is upheld by those like him, and if the world were left in our hands, then we, for all our kindness and good intentions, would do the very same thing to it as those flies have to that painting. Yes.”

Laevsky sat close to Samoylenko and aflame with sincerity said:

“I am an empty, insignificant, fallen man! The air that I breathe is made up of wine, of love, in a word my life up to now has been the purchasing of over-priced nothingness, merriment and cowardice. Up to now I have deceived other people and myself, I have suffered as a result of this, and my sufferings have been cheap and vulgar. I bend over cowering before Von Koren’s hatred because there are times when I hold myself in contempt and hate myself.”

In his excitement, Laevsky once again crossed the room from one corner to the other and said:

“I am happy, that I clearly see my shortcomings and own up to them. It will help me to be reborn and to become a different man. My good man, if you only knew how passionately and with what despondence I thirst for my renewal. And I swear to you, that I will become a real man! I will! I don’t know if it’s the wine talking or if it’s just the way things are, but it seems to me that it has been a long time since I have experienced such bright, pure moments as I have here with you.”

“It’s time for bed, little brother,” Samoylenko said.

“Yes, yes. Pardon me.