“Don’t know,” answered Platonov, dully and downcast; but he paled, and his fingers underneath the table convulsively clenched into fists, “Perhaps I would kill him...”

“Not ‘perhaps,’ but certainly!  I know you, I sense you.  Well, and now think:  every one of us has been abused so, when we were children! ...  Children! ...” passionately moaned out Jennka and covered her eyes for a moment with her palm.  “Why, it comes to me, you also spoke of this at one time, in our place—­wasn’t it on that same evening before the Trinity? ...  Yes, children—­foolish, trusting, blind, greedy, frivolous...And we cannot tear ourselves out of our harness...where are we to go? what are we to do? ...  And please, don’t you think it, Sergei Ivanovich—­that the spite within me is strong only against those who wronged just me, me personally...No, against all our guests in general; all these cavaliers, from little to big...Well, and so I have resolved to avenge myself and my sisters.  Is that good or no? ...”

“Jehnechka, really I don’t know...I can’t...I dare not say anything...I don’t understand.”

“But even that’s not the main thing...For the main thing is this:  I infected them, and did not feel anything—­no pity, no remorse, no guilt before God or my fatherland.  Within me was only joy, as in a hungry wolf that has managed to get at blood...But yesterday something happened which even I can’t understand.  A cadet came to me, altogether a little bit of a lad, silly, with yellow around his mouth...He used to come to me from still last winter...And then suddenly I had pity on him...  Not because he was very handsome and very young; and not because he had always been very polite—­even tender, if you will...No, both the one and the other had come to me, but I did not spare them:  with enjoyment I marked them off, just like cattle, with a red-hot brand ...But this one I suddenly pitied...I myself don’t understand—­why?  I can’t make it out.  It seemed to me, that it would be all the same as stealing money from a little simpleton, a little idiot; or hitting a blind man, or cutting a sleeper’s throat...if he only were some dried-up marasmus or a nasty little brute, or a lecherous old fellow, I would not have stopped.  But he was healthy, robust, with chest and arms like a statue’s...and I could not...  I gave him his money back, showed him my disease; in a word, I acted like a fool among fools.  He went away from me...burst into tears...And now since last evening I haven’t slept.  I walk around as in a fog...Therefore—­I’m thinking right now—­therefore, that which, I meditated; my dream to infect them all; to infect their fathers, mothers, sisters, brides—­even all the world—­therefore, all this was folly, an empty fantasy, since I have stopped? ...  Once again, I don’t understand anything ...Sergei Ivanovich, you are so wise, you have seen so much of life—­help me, then, to find myself now! ...”

“I don’t know, Jennechka!” quietly pronounced Platonov.  “Not that I fear telling you, or advising you, but I know absolutely nothing.  This is above my reason... above conscience...”