Ivan Ilyich was getting excited and in the heat of the imagined dispute sampled from his glass more often than he should have. Then Stepan Nikiforovich would take the bottle and top up his glass at once, which, for no apparent reason, suddenly began to offend Ivan Ilyich, the more so in that Semyon Ivanych Shipulenko, whom he particularly despised and, moreover, even feared on account of his cynicism and malice, was most perfidiously silent just beside him, and smiled more often than he should have. “They seem to take me for a mere boy,” flashed in Ivan Ilyich’s head.

“No, sir, it’s time, it’s long since time,” he went on with passion. “We’re too late, sir, and, in my view, humaneness is the first thing, humaneness with subordinates, remembering that they, too, are people. Humaneness will save everything and keep it afloat…”

“Hee, hee, hee, hee!” came from Semyon Ivanovich’s direction.

“But, anyhow, why are you scolding us so?” Stepan Nikiforovich finally objected, smiling amiably. “I confess, Ivan Ilyich, so far I’m unable to get the sense of what you’re so kindly explaining. You put forward humaneness. That means the love of mankind, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, if you wish, the love of mankind. I…”

“Excuse me, sir. As far as I’m able to judge, the point is not just in that. Love of mankind is always proper. But the reform is not limited to that. Questions have come up about the peasants, the courts, management, tax-farming,7 morality, and… and… and there’s no end to them, these questions, and all together, all at once, they may produce great, so to speak, upheavals. That’s what we’re worried about, not just humaneness…”

“Yes, sir, the thing goes a bit deeper,” Semyon Ivanovich observed.

“I understand very well, sir, and allow me to observe, Semyon Ivanovich, that I shall by no means agree to lag behind you in the depth of my understanding of things,” Ivan Ilyich observed caustically and much too sharply. “However, even so I shall make so bold as to observe that you, Stepan Nikiforovich, also have not quite understood me…”

“No, I haven’t.”

“And yet I precisely hold to and maintain everywhere the idea that humaneness, and precisely humaneness with subordinates, from clerk to scrivener, from scrivener to household servant, from servant to peasant—humaneness, I say, may serve, so to speak, as the cornerstone of the forthcoming reform and generally toward the renewal of things. Why? Because. Take the syllogism: I am humane, consequently they love me. They love me, therefore they feel trust. They feel trust, therefore they believe; they believe, therefore they love… that is, no, I mean to say, if they believe, they will also believe in the reform, understand, so to speak, the very essence of the matter, will, so to speak, embrace each other morally and resolve the whole matter amicably, substantially. Why are you laughing, Semyon Ivanovich? Is it not clear?”

Stepan Nikiforovich silently raised his eyebrows; he was surprised.

“I think I’ve had a bit too much to drink,” Semyon Ivanych observed venomously, “that’s why I’m hard of understanding. A certain darkening of the mind, sir.”

Ivan Ilyich winced.

“We won’t hold out,” Stepan Nikiforovich said suddenly, after slight reflection.

“That is, how is it we won’t hold out?” asked Ivan Ilyich, surprised at Stepan Nikiforovich’s sudden and fragmentary observation.

“Just so, we won’t hold out.” Stepan Nikiforovich obviously did not wish to expand further.

“You don’t mean about new wine in new bottles?”8 Ivan Ilyich objected, not without irony. “Ah, no, sir; I can answer for myself.”

At that moment the clock struck half past eleven.

“They sit and sit, then up and go,” said Semyon Ivanych, preparing to get up from his place. But Ivan Ilyich forestalled him, rising from the table at once and taking his sable hat from the mantelpiece. He looked as if offended.

“Well, then, Semyon Ivanych, you’ll think?” said Stepan Nikiforovich, seeing his guests off.

“About the apartment, you mean? I’ll think, I’ll think, sir.”

“And let me know quickly once you decide.”

“Still business?” Mr. Pralinsky observed amiably, fawning somewhat and playing with his hat. It seemed to him that he was being forgotten.

Stepan Nikiforovich raised his eyebrows and said nothing, as a sign that he was not keeping his guests. Semyon Ivanych hastily took his leave.

“Ah… well… as you wish, then… since you don’t understand simple amiability,” Mr. Pralinsky decided to himself, and somehow with particular independence offered his hand to Stepan Nikiforovich.

In the front hall Ivan Ilyich wrapped himself in his light, expensive fur coat, trying for some reason to ignore Semyon Ivanych’s shabby raccoon, and they both started down the stairs.

“Our old man seemed offended,” Ivan Ilyich said to the silent Semyon Ivanych.

“No, why?” the other replied calmly and coldly.

“The flunky!” Ivan Ilyich thought to himself.

They came out on the porch, and Semyon Ivanych’s sleigh with its homely gray stallion drove up.

“What the devil! Where has Trifon gone with my carriage!” Ivan Ilyich cried, not seeing his equipage.

They looked this way and that—no carriage. Stepan Nikiforovich’s man had no idea about it. They turned to Varlaam, Semyon Ivanych’s coachman, and received the answer that he had been standing there all the while, and the carriage had been there, too, but now they were no more.

“A nasty anecdote!” said Mr.