drivel here!  While I, while I!  Look at me. . . .  No elasticity, no boldness, no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I should be flogged for it.  I am timid before nonentities, idiots, brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes.  I am afraid of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . .  You and I will do well to have no children.  Oh, God, grant that this distinguished merchant family may die with us!”

Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table.

“Are you arguing about something here?” she asked.  “Am I interrupting?”

“No, little sister,” answered Fyodor.  “Our discussion was of principles.  Here, you are abusing the family,” he added, turning to his brother.  “That family has created a business worth a million, though.  That stands for something, anyway!”

“A great distinction—­a business worth a million!  A man with no particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular greed for money.  He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of itself, without his going to meet it.  He sits all his life at his work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get the better of his customers.  He’s a churchwarden because he can domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he’s the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his subordinate and enjoys lording it over him.  The merchant does not love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber!  And for a business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of individual character and personal life—­and you make them such by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, and you’ve trained them from childhood to believe that you are their benefactors.  No fear of your taking a university man into your warehouse!”

“University men are not suitable for our business.”

“That’s not true,” cried Laptev.  “It’s a lie!”

“Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you drink yourself,” said Fyodor, and he got up.  “Our business is hateful to you, yet you make use of the income from it.”

“Aha!  We’ve spoken our minds,” said Laptev, and he laughed, looking angrily at his brother.  “Yes, if I didn’t belong to your distinguished family—­if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living.  But in your warehouse you’ve destroyed all character in me from a child!  I’m your product.”

Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye.  He kissed Yulia’s hand and went out, but instead of going into the hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom.