He cautiously took up from the table a dusty book on which there
was lying a dead dried spider, and said: "Only fancy, though; some
little green beetle is going about its business, when suddenly a
monster like this swoops down upon it. I can fancy its terror."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Is poison given it to protect it from its enemies?"

"Yes, to protect it and enable it to attack."

"To be sure, to be sure. . . . And everything in nature, my dear
fellows, is consistent and can be explained," sighed Samoylenko;
"only I tell you what I don't understand. You're a man of very great
intellect, so explain it to me, please. There are, you know, little
beasts no bigger than rats, rather handsome to look at, but nasty
and immoral in the extreme, let me tell you. Suppose such a little
beast is running in the woods. He sees a bird; he catches it and
devours it. He goes on and sees in the grass a nest of eggs; he
does not want to eat them--he is not hungry, but yet he tastes
one egg and scatters the others out of the nest with his paw. Then
he meets a frog and begins to play with it; when he has tormented
the frog he goes on licking himself and meets a beetle; he crushes
the beetle with his paw . . . and so he spoils and destroys everything
on his way. . . . He creeps into other beasts' holes, tears up the
anthills, cracks the snail's shell. If he meets a rat, he fights
with it; if he meets a snake or a mouse, he must strangle it; and
so the whole day long. Come, tell me: what is the use of a beast
like that? Why was he created?"