and female--for instance, of the fact that the female spider,
after fertilisation, devours the male--his eyes glow with curiosity,
his face brightens, and the man revives, in fact. All his thoughts,
however noble, lofty, or neutral they may be, they all have one
point of resemblance. You walk along the street with him and meet
a donkey, for instance. . . . 'Tell me, please,' he asks, 'what
would happen if you mated a donkey with a camel?' And his dreams!
Has he told you of his dreams? It is magnificent! First, he dreams
that he is married to the moon, then that he is summoned before the
police and ordered to live with a guitar . . ."

The deacon burst into resounding laughter; Samoylenko frowned and
wrinkled up his face angrily so as not to laugh, but could not
restrain himself, and laughed.

"And it's all nonsense!" he said, wiping his tears. "Yes, by Jove,
it's nonsense!"

IV

The deacon was very easily amused, and laughed at every trifle till
he got a stitch in his side, till he was helpless. It seemed as
though he only liked to be in people's company because there was a
ridiculous side to them, and because they might be given ridiculous
nicknames. He had nicknamed Samoylenko "the tarantula," his orderly
"the drake," and was in ecstasies when on one occasion Von Koren
spoke of Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna as "Japanese monkeys."
He watched people's faces greedily, listened without blinking, and
it could be seen that his eyes filled with laughter and his face
was tense with expectation of the moment when he could let himself