talented, remarkably honest; perhaps if the sea and the mountains
had not closed him in on all sides, he might have become an excellent
Zemstvo leader, a statesman, an orator, a political writer, a saint.
Who knows? If so, was it not stupid to argue whether it were honest
or dishonest when a gifted and useful man--an artist or musician,
for instance--to escape from prison, breaks a wall and deceives
his jailers? Anything is honest when a man is in such a position.

At two o'clock Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna sat down to dinner.
When the cook gave them rice and tomato soup, Laevsky said:

"The same thing every day. Why not have cabbage soup?"

"There are no cabbages."

"It's strange. Samoylenko has cabbage soup and Marya Konstantinovna
has cabbage soup, and only I am obliged to eat this mawkish mess.
We can't go on like this, darling."

As is common with the vast majority of husbands and wives, not a
single dinner had in earlier days passed without scenes and
fault-finding between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Laevsky; but ever
since Laevsky had made up his mind that he did not love her, he had
tried to give way to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna in everything, spoke to
her gently and politely, smiled, and called her "darling."

"This soup tastes like liquorice," he said, smiling; he made an
effort to control himself and seem amiable, but could not refrain
from saying: "Nobody looks after the housekeeping. . . . If you are
too ill or busy with reading, let me look after the cooking."