“What’s this?” asked Samoylenko, in astonishment.

“If you have no money,” Laevsky went on, raising his voice and shifting from one foot to the other in his excitement, “don’t give it; refuse it.  But why spread abroad in every back street that my position is hopeless, and all the rest of it?  I can’t endure such benevolence and friend’s assistance where there’s a shilling-worth of talk for a ha’p’orth of help!  You can boast of your benevolence as much as you please, but no one has given you the right to gossip about my private affairs!”

“What private affairs?” asked Samoylenko, puzzled and beginning to be angry.  “If you’ve come here to be abusive, you had better clear out.  You can come again afterwards!”

He remembered the rule that when one is angry with one’s neighbour, one must begin to count a hundred, and one will grow calm again; and he began rapidly counting.

“I beg you not to trouble yourself about me,” Laevsky went on.  “Don’t pay any attention to me, and whose business is it what I do and how I live?  Yes, I want to go away.  Yes, I get into debt, I drink, I am living with another man’s wife, I’m hysterical, I’m ordinary.  I am not so profound as some people, but whose business is that?  Respect other people’s privacy.”

“Excuse me, brother,” said Samoylenko, who had counted up to thirty-five, “but . . .”

“Respect other people’s individuality!” interrupted Laevsky.  “This continual gossip about other people’s affairs, this sighing and groaning and everlasting prying, this eavesdropping, this friendly sympathy . . . damn it all!  They lend me money and make conditions as though I were a schoolboy!  I am treated as the devil knows what!  I don’t want anything,” shouted Laevsky, staggering with excitement and afraid that it might end in another attack of hysterics.  “I shan’t get away on Saturday, then,” flashed through his mind.  “I want nothing.  All I ask of you is to spare me your protecting care.  I’m not a boy, and I’m not mad, and I beg you to leave off looking after me.”

The deacon came in, and seeing Laevsky pale and gesticulating, addressing his strange speech to the portrait of Prince Vorontsov, stood still by the door as though petrified.

“This continual prying into my soul,” Laevsky went on, “is insulting to my human dignity, and I beg these volunteer detectives to give up their spying!  Enough!”

“What’s that . . . what did you say?” said Samoylenko, who had counted up to a hundred.  He turned crimson and went up to Laevsky.

“It’s enough,” said Laevsky, breathing hard and snatching up his cap.

“I’m a Russian doctor, a nobleman by birth, and a civil councillor,” said Samoylenko emphatically.  “I’ve never been a spy, and I allow no one to insult me!” he shouted in a breaking voice, emphasising the last word.  “Hold your tongue!”

The deacon, who had never seen the doctor so majestic, so swelling with dignity, so crimson and so ferocious, shut his mouth, ran out into the entry and there exploded with laughter.