The doctor thought a moment and began: 

“A lot of mistakes; but the most important of them, in my opinion, was the general spirit that prevailed on all your estates.  You see, I don’t know how to express myself.  I mean chiefly the lack of love, the aversion for people that was felt in absolutely everything.  Your whole system of life was built upon that aversion.  Aversion for the human voice, for faces, for heads, steps . . . in fact, for everything that makes up a human being.  At all the doors and on the stairs there stand sleek, rude, and lazy grooms in livery to prevent badly dressed persons from entering the house; in the hall there are chairs with high backs so that the footmen waiting there, during balls and receptions, may not soil the walls with their heads; in every room there are thick carpets that no human step may be heard; every one who comes in is infallibly warned to speak as softly and as little as possible, and to say nothing that might have a disagreeable effect on the nerves or the imagination.  And in your room you don’t shake hands with any one or ask him to sit down—­ just as you didn’t shake hands with me or ask me to sit down. . . .”

“By all means, if you like,” said the princess, smiling and holding out her hand.  “Really, to be cross about such trifles. . . .”

“But I am not cross,” laughed the doctor, but at once he flushed, took off his hat, and waving it about, began hotly:  “To be candid, I’ve long wanted an opportunity to tell you all I think. . . .  That is, I want to tell you that you look upon the mass of mankind from the Napoleonic standpoint as food for the cannon.  But Napoleon had at least some idea; you have nothing except aversion.”

“I have an aversion for people?” smiled the princess, shrugging her shoulders in astonishment.  “I have!”

“Yes, you!  You want facts?  By all means.  In Mihaltsevo three former cooks of yours, who have gone blind in your kitchens from the heat of the stove, are living upon charity.  All the health and strength and good looks that is found on your hundreds of thousands of acres is taken by you and your parasites for your grooms, your footmen, and your coachmen.  All these two-legged cattle are trained to be flunkeys, overeat themselves, grow coarse, lose the ’image and likeness,’ in fact. . . .  Young doctors, agricultural experts, teachers, intellectual workers generally—­think of it!—­are torn away from their honest work and forced for a crust of bread to take part in all sorts of mummeries which make every decent man feel ashamed!  Some young men cannot be in your service for three years without becoming hypocrites, toadies, sneaks. . . .  Is that a good thing?  Your Polish superintendents, those abject spies, all those Kazimers and Kaetans, go hunting about on your hundreds of thousands of acres from morning to night, and to please you try to get three skins off one ox.  Excuse me, I speak disconnectedly, but that doesn’t matter.  You don’t look upon the simple people as human beings.  And even the princes, counts, and bishops who used to come and see you, you looked upon simply as decorative figures, not as living beings.  But the worst of all, the thing that most revolts me, is having a fortune of over a million and doing nothing for other people, nothing!”