Built like a giant, handsome and not at all stupid, he was one of
those people whom luck always follows everywhere--not because
they are gifted and industrious, but rather because, having an
enormous stock of energy at their command, they cannot stop to
think over the choice of means when on their way toward their
aims, and, excepting their own will, they know no law. Sometimes
they speak of their conscience with fear, sometimes they really
torture themselves struggling with it, but conscience is an
unconquerable power to the faint-hearted only; the strong master
it quickly and make it a slave to their desires, for they
unconsciously feel that, given room and freedom, conscience would
fracture life. They sacrifice days to it; and if it should happen
that conscience conquered their souls, they are never wrecked,
even in defeat--they are just as healthy and strong under its
sway as when they lived without conscience.

At the age of forty Ignat Gordyeeff was himself the owner of
three steamers and ten barges. On the Volga he was respected as a
rich and clever man, but was nicknamed "Frantic," because his
life did not flow along a straight channel, like that of other
people of his kind, but now and again, boiling up turbulently,
ran out of its rut, away from gain-- the prime aim of his
existence. It looked as though there were three Gordyeeffs in
him, or as though there were three souls in Ignat's body. One of
them, the mightiest, was only greedy, and when Ignat lived
according to its commands, he was merely a man seized with
untamable passion for work. This passion burned in him by day and
by night, he was completely absorbed by it, and, grabbing
everywhere hundreds and thousands of roubles, it seemed as if he