Finishing the semester, he fell passionately in love with his current one … what’s her name? … the married one … and was compelled to run off with her here, to the Caucasus, chasing after a would-be ideal … Either today or tomorrow he’ll fall out of love with her and will go running back to Petersburg, chasing his ideals.”

“And why do you know all this?” grumbled Samoylenko, glaring angrily at the zoologist. “It’d be better if you just ate.”

Stewed gray mullet with Polish sauce was served. Samoylenko placed a whole fish before each diner and poured the sauce himself by hand. A minute or two passed in silence.

“Women play an essential role in the lives of every man,” said the deacon. “There’s nothing to be done about it.”

“Yes, but to what extent? A woman is a mother, a sister, a wife, a friend for each of us, but Laevsky only has her—that’s all, and she’s nothing more than a lover at that. She—that is, cohabitation with her is the joy and entirety of his life. He is happy, sad, bored, disappointed—all because of women. Life is vexing—a woman is to blame. The dawn of a new life is fading, ideals are discovered—you’ll find a woman here as well. He is only satisfied by stories or paintings in which you can find women. In his opinion, our era is bad and worse than the forties and sixties only because we don’t know how to give ourselves over to the ecstasy and passion of love with abandon. These sensualists must have some extra lining in their brains akin to sarcoma that puts pressure on the brain and regulates all pathologies. Observe Laevsky, when he is out sitting in society. You’ll notice, when some random question is raised in his presence, for instance, about the cell or instincts, he’ll sit to the side, stay shut and not listen. He’ll have a languid and disappointed look to him, there’s nothing of interest for him, everything is banal and insignificant, but as soon as you turn the conversation to females and males, about, for instance, how female spiders will eat the males of the species after fertilization, his eyes light up with curiosity, his face is invigorated, and the man fills with life all because of one word. All of his thoughts, no matter how honorable, esteemable or indifferent they may be, always gather at one and the same place. If you’re walking down the street with him and you happen to come across a jackass, for instance … ‘Please tell me, if you don’t mind,’ he’ll say, ‘what would be the product of a jenny bred with a camel?’ And his dreams! Has he told you about his dreams? They’re incredible! Either he dreams that he’s married the moon or that he’s been called in by the police and mandated to live with a guitar …”

The deacon burst into uproarious laughter. Samoylenko scowled, furrowing his brows angrily, so as not to laugh, but couldn’t contain himself and burst into laughter.

“And he lies about everything!” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “My God, he lies!”

IV

The deacon was easily tickled and laughed at every foible until his sides split, until he fell over. It seemed he enjoyed being in the company of people only because they had humorous attributes and he could assign humorous nicknames to them. He called Samoylenko “the tarantula,” his valet “duck drake,” and was in a state of rapture when Von Koren once called Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna “macaques.” Hungrily staring one in the face, he would listen without blinking, and it was evident, as his eyes filled with mirth and his face grew tense, that he was in anticipation of when he could allow himself free reign to fall over laughing.

“He is a corrupt and warped subject,” continued the zoologist, while the Deacon locked onto his face anticipating funny words. “It’s rare to come across such a nothing of a man. His flesh is bloodless, stunted and useless while his intellect is indistinguishable from that of some corpulent monger’s wife who only stuffs her face, drinks, sleeps on a featherbed and takes the coachman for a lover.”

The deacon burst into laughter again.

“Don’t laugh, Deacon,” Von Koren said, “this is foolish, after all. I would not pay attention to his nothingness,” he continued, waiting for the deacon to stop laughing. “I would walk right past him, if only he were not so menacing and dangerous. His being a menace primarily consists of his success with women and for that reason there is the threat of progeny, what a gift to the world a dozen Laevskys would be, all just as stunted and useless as he is himself. Second, he is highly contagious. I’ve already told you about the Vint and beer. Another couple of years and he’ll overtake the entire Caucasus shoreline. You know the extent to which the masses, especially the middle class, believe in the intelligentsia, in a university education, in gentlemanly manners and a literary tongue.