of pencil or paper; he understood finance and railway business thoroughly, and the machinery of Russian administration had no secrets for him; he was a most skilful pleader in civil suits, and it was not easy to get the better of him at law.  But that exceptional intelligence could not grasp many things which are understood even by some stupid people.  For instance, he was absolutely unable to understand why people are depressed, why they weep, shoot themselves, and even kill others; why they fret about things that do not affect them personally, and why they laugh when they read Gogol or Shtchedrin . . . .  Everything abstract, everything belonging to the domain of thought and feeling, was to him boring and incomprehensible, like music to one who has no ear.  He looked at people simply from the business point of view, and divided them into competent and incompetent.  No other classification existed for him.  Honesty and rectitude were only signs of competence.  Drinking, gambling, and debauchery were permissible, but must not be allowed to interfere with business.  Believing in God was rather stupid, but religion ought be safeguarded, as the common people must have some principle to restrain them, otherwise they would not work.  Punishment is only necessary as deterrent.  There was no need to go away for holidays, as it was just as nice in town.  And so on.  He was a widower and had no children, but lived on a large scale, as though he had a family, and paid thousand roubles a year for his flat.

The second visitor, Kukushkin, an actual civil councillor though a young man, was short, and was conspicuous for his extremely unpleasant appearance, which was due to the disproportion between his fat, puffy body and his lean little face.  His lips were puckered up suavely, and his little trimmed moustaches looked as though they had been fixed on with glue.  He was a man with the manners of a lizard.  He did not walk, but, as it were, crept along with tiny steps, squirming and sniggering, and when he laughed he showed his teeth.  He was a clerk on special commissions, and did nothing, though he received a good salary, especially in the summer, when special and lucrative jobs were found for him.  He was a man of personal ambition, not only to the marrow of his bones, but more fundamentally—­to the last drop of his blood; but even in his ambitions he was petty and did not rely on himself, but was building his career on the chance favour flung him by his superiors.  For the sake of obtaining some foreign decoration, or for the sake of having his name mentioned in the newspapers as having been present at some special service in the company of other great personages, he was ready to submit to any kind of humiliation, to beg, to flatter, to promise.  He flattered Orlov and Pekarsky from cowardice, because he thought they were powerful; he flattered Polya and me because we were in the service of a powerful man.  Whenever I took off his fur coat he tittered and asked me: