there probably lay hid a well-grounded reason, humiliated him and
enervated him, and unable to stand up against it, he said in a
propitiatory tone:

"I am passionately fond of nature, and I regret that I'm not a
naturalist. I envy you."

"Well, I don't envy you, and don't regret it," said Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna. "I don't understand how any one can seriously interest
himself in beetles and ladybirds while the people are suffering."

Laevsky shared her opinion. He was absolutely ignorant of natural
science, and so could never reconcile himself to the authoritative
tone and the learned and profound air of the people who devoted
themselves to the whiskers of ants and the claws of beetles, and
he always felt vexed that these people, relying on these whiskers,
claws, and something they called protoplasm (he always imagined it
in the form of an oyster), should undertake to decide questions
involving the origin and life of man. But in Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's
words he heard a note of falsity, and simply to contradict her he
said: "The point is not the ladybirds, but the deductions made from
them."

VIII

It was late, eleven o'clock, when they began to get into the carriages
to go home. They took their seats, and the only ones missing were
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Atchmianov, who were running after one
another, laughing, the other side of the stream.