Oh, I understand him perfectly! Tell me: why is he wasting his
substance here? What does he want here?"

"He is studying the marine fauna."

"No, no, brother, no!" Laevsky sighed. "A scientific man who was
on the steamer told me the Black Sea was poor in animal life, and
that in its depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric hydrogen,
organic life was impossible. All the serious zoologists work at the
biological station at Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is
independent and obstinate: he works on the Black Sea because nobody
else is working there; he is at loggerheads with the university,
does not care to know his comrades and other scientific men because
he is first of all a despot and only secondly a zoologist. And
you'll see he'll do something. He is already dreaming that when he
comes back from his expedition he will purify our universities from
intrigue and mediocrity, and will make the scientific men mind their
p's and q's. Despotism is just as strong in science as in the army.
And he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town
because he would rather be first in a village than second in a town.
Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under
his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He has appropriated
every one, he meddles in other people's affairs; everything is of
use to him, and every one is afraid of him. I am slipping out of
his clutches, he feels that and hates me. Hasn't he told you that
I ought to be destroyed or sent to hard labour?"

"Yes," laughed Samoylenko.

Laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine.