is he saying? Why--are you in your senses?"

"I don't insist on the death penalty," said Von Koren. "If it is
proved that it is pernicious, devise something else. If we can't
destroy Laevsky, why then, isolate him, make him harmless, send him
to hard labour."

"What are you saying!" said Samoylenko in horror. "With pepper,
with pepper," he cried in a voice of despair, seeing that the deacon
was eating stuffed aubergines without pepper. "You with your great
intellect, what are you saying! Send our friend, a proud intellectual
man, to penal servitude!"

"Well, if he is proud and tries to resist, put him in fetters!"

Samoylenko could not utter a word, and only twiddled his fingers;
the deacon looked at his flabbergasted and really absurd face, and
laughed.

"Let us leave off talking of that," said the zoologist. "Only
remember one thing, Alexandr Daviditch: primitive man was preserved
from such as Laevsky by the struggle for existence and by natural
selection; now our civilisation has considerably weakened the
struggle and the selection, and we ought to look after the destruction
of the rotten and worthless for ourselves; otherwise, when the
Laevskys multiply, civilisation will perish and mankind will
degenerate utterly. It will be our fault."

"If it depends on drowning and hanging," said Samoylenko, "damnation
take your civilisation, damnation take your humanity! Damnation