At this point Woloda re-entered.

“Are we going?”

“No.”

“What an odd fellow you are!” said Nechludoff.  “Why don’t you say that you have no money?  Here, take my ticket.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“He can go into his cousin’s box,” said Dubkoff.

“No, I’m not going at all,” replied Nechludoff.

“Why?”

“Because I hate sitting in a box.”

“And for what reason?”

“I don’t know.  Somehow I feel uncomfortable there.”

“Always the same!  I can’t understand a fellow feeling uncomfortable when he is sitting with people who are fond of him.  It is unnatural, mon cher.”

“But what else is there to be done si je suis tant timide?  You never blushed in your life, but I do at the least trifle,” and he blushed at that moment.

“Do you know what that nervousness of yours proceeds from?” said Dubkoff in a protecting sort of tone, “D’un exces d’amour propre, mon cher.”

“What do you mean by ’exces d’amour propre’?” asked Nechludoff, highly offended.  “On the contrary, I am shy just because I have too little amour propre.  I always feel as though I were being tiresome and disagreeable, and therefore—­”

“Well, get ready, Woloda,” interrupted Dubkoff, tapping my brother on the shoulder and handing him his cloak.  “Ignaz, get your master ready.”

“Therefore,” continued Nechludoff, “it often happens with me that—­”

But Dubkoff was not listening.  “Tra-la-la-la,” and he hummed a popular air.

“Oh, but I’m not going to let you off,” went on Nechludoff.  “I mean to prove to you that my shyness is not the result of conceit.”

“You can prove it as we go along.”

“But I have told you that I am not going.”

“Well, then, stay here and prove it to the diplomat, and he can tell us all about it when we return.”

“Yes, that’s what I will do,” said Nechludoff with boyish obstinacy, “so hurry up with your return.”

“Well, do you think I am egotistic?” he continued, seating himself beside me.

True, I had a definite opinion on the subject, but I felt so taken aback by this unexpected question that at first I could make no reply.

“Yes, I do think so,” I said at length in a faltering voice, and colouring at the thought that at last the moment had come when I could show him that I was clever.  “I think that everybody is egotistic, and that everything we do is done out of egotism.”

“But what do you call egotism?” asked Nechludoff—­smiling, as I thought, a little contemptuously.

“Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than any one else,” I replied.

“But how can we all be filled with this conviction?” he inquired.

“Well, I don’t know if I am right or not—­certainly no one but myself seems to hold the opinion—­but I believe that I am wiser than any one else in the world, and that all of you know it.”