But one day the soldier came to us a little intoxicated, seated himself and began to laugh, and when we asked him what he was laughing at he explained:  “Two had a fight on account of me. . . .  Lidka and Grushka. . . .  How they disfigured each other!  Ha, ha!  One grabbed the other by the hair, and knocked her to the ground in the hallway, and sat on her. . . .  Ha, ha, ha!  They scratched each other’s faces. . . .  It is laughable!  And why cannot women fight honestly?  Why do they scratch?  Eh?”

He sat on the bench, strong and clean and jovial; talking and laughing all the time.  We were silent.  Somehow or other he seemed repulsive to us this time.

“How lucky I am with women, Eh?  It is very funny!  Just a wink and I have them!”

His white hands, covered with glossy hair, were lifted and thrown back to his knees with a loud noise.  And he stared at us with such a pleasantly surprised look, as though he really could not understand why he was so lucky in his affairs with women.  His stout, red face was radiant with happiness and self-satisfaction, and he kept on licking his lips with relish.

Our baker scraped the shovel firmly and angrily against the hearth of the oven and suddenly said, sarcastically: 

“You need no great strength to fell little fir-trees, but try to throw down a pine.” . . .

“That is, do you refer to me?” asked the soldier.

“To you. . . .”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. . . .  Too late!”

“No, wait!  What’s the matter?  Which pine?”

Our baker did not reply, quickly working with his shovel at the oven.  He would throw into the oven the biscuits from the boiling kettle, would take out the ready ones and throw them noisily to the floor, to the boys who put them on bast strings.  It looked as though he had forgotten all about the soldier and his conversation with him.  But suddenly the soldier became very restless.  He rose to his feet and walking up to the oven, risked striking his chest against the handle of the shovel, which was convulsively trembling in the air.

“No, you tell me—­who is she?  You have insulted me. . . .  I? . . .  Not a single one can wrench herself from me, never!  And you say to me such offensive words.” . . .  And, indeed, he looked really offended.  Evidently there was nothing for which he might respect himself, except for his ability to lead women astray; it may be that aside from this ability there was no life in him, and only this ability permitted him to feel himself a living man.

There are people to whom the best and dearest thing in life is some kind of a disease of either the body or the soul.  They make much of it during all their lives and live by it only; suffering from it, they are nourished by it, they always complain of it to others and thus attract the attention of their neighbors.  By this they gain people’s compassion for themselves, and aside from this they