I suddenly knew that I was afraid of him no longer.

“Now, see, Alexei Petrovitch,” I said, “it isn’t death that we want to talk about now.  It is a much simpler thing.  It is, that you shouldn’t for your own amusement simply go in and spoil the lives of some of my friends for nothing at all except your own stupid pride.  If that’s your plan I’m going to prevent it.”

“Why, Ivan Andreievitch,” he cried, laughing, “this is a challenge.”

“You can take it as what you please,” I answered gravely.

“But, incorrigible sentimentalist,” he went on, “tell me—­are you, English and moralist and believer in a good and righteous God as you are, are you really going to encourage this abominable adultery, this open, ruthless wrecking of a good man’s home?  You surprise me; this is a new light on your otherwise rather uninteresting character.”

“Never mind my character,” I answered him; “all you’ve got to do is to leave Vera Michailovna alone.  There’ll be no wrecking of homes, unless you are the wrecker.”

He put his hand on my arm again.

“Listen, Durward,” he said, “I’ll tell you a little story.  I’m a doctor you know, and many curious things occur within my province.  Well, some years ago I knew a man who was very miserable and very proud.  His pride resented that he should be miserable, and he was always suspecting that people saw his weakness, and as he despised human nature, and thought his companions fools and deserving of all that they got, and more, he couldn’t bear the thought that they should perceive that he allowed himself to be unhappy.  He coveted death.  If it meant extinction he could imagine nothing pleasanter than so restful an aloofness, quiet and apart and alone, whilst others hurried and scrambled and pursued the future....

“And if death did not mean extinction then he thought that he might snatch and secure for himself something which in life had eluded him.  So he coveted death.  But he was too proud to reach it by suicide.  That seemed to him a contemptible and cowardly evasion, and such an easy solution would have denied the purpose of all his life.  So he looked about him and discovered amongst his friends a man whose character he knew well, a man idealistic and foolish and romantic, like yourself, Ivan Andreievitch, only caring more for ideas, more impulsive and more reckless.  He found this man and made him his friend.  He played with him as a cat does with a mouse.  He enjoyed life for about a year and then he was murdered....”

“Murdered!” I exclaimed.

“Yes—­shot by his idealistic friend.  I envy him that year.  He must have experienced many breathless sensations.  When the murderer was tried his only explanation was that he had been irritated and disappointed.

“‘Disappointed of what?’ asked the judge.

“‘Of everything in which he believed....’ said the man.

“It seemed a poor excuse for a murder; he is still, I have no doubt, in Siberia.