"Why do you provoke him?" He does not love either discussion or
noise, and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a
sickly grimace, and he endeavours quietly and reasonably to
reconcile each with the other, and if he does not succeed in this
he leaves the company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not
very drunk, controls himself, not wishing to lose, in the person
of the teacher, one of the best of his listeners.

"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life in
the hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of
everything good, avaricious and incapable of adorning existence
in any way."

"But all the same," says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak,
created Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants,
merchants from England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants . . ."

"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff,
who is one of them. . . ."

"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher,
quietly.

"But do you think that I do not live? Aha! I do live, but I
suppose I ought not to be angry at the fact that life is
desecrated and robbed of all freedom by these men."

"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a man
living in retirement?" says Abyedok, teasingly.