then will result a dreadful truth, from which the reader, aghast, will forget that his mouth is agape.  People seek the terrible in words, in cries, in gestures.  Well, now, for example, I am reading a description of some pogrom or of a slaughter in jail, or of a riot being put down.  Of course, the policemen are described, these servants of arbitrariness, these lifeguards of contemporaneousness, striding up to their knees in blood, or how else do they write in such cases?  Of course, it is revolting and it hurts, and is disgusting, but all this is felt by the mind, and not the heart.  But here I am walking along Lebyazhia Street, and see that a crowd has collected, a girl of five years in the centre—­she has lagged behind the mother and has strayed, or it may be that the mother had abandoned her.  And before the girl, squatting down on his heels, is a roundsman.  He is interrogating her, how she is called, and where is she from, and how do they call papa, and how do they call mamma.  He has broken out into sweat, the poor fellow, from the effort, the cap is at the back of his neck, the whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle.  At last, what do you think?  As the girl has become all excited, and has already grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody—­he, this same ‘roundsman on the beat,’ stretches out two of his black, calloused fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate nursery rhyme! ...  And so, when I looked upon this charming scene and thought that half an hour later at the station house this same patrolman will be beating with his feet the face and chest of a man whom he had not till that time seen once, and whose crime he is entirely ignorant of—­then—­you understand!—­I began to feel inexpressibly eerie and sad.  Not with the mind, but the heart.  Such a devilish muddle is this life.  Shall we drink some cognac, Lichonin?”

“What do you say to calling each other thou?” suddenly proposed Lichonin.

“All right.  Only, really, without any of this business of kissing, now.  Here’s to your health, old man ...  Or here is another instance ...  I read a certain French classic, describing the thoughts and sensations of a man condemned to capital punishment.  He describes it all sonorously, powerfully, brilliantly, but I read and ... well, there is no impression of any sort; neither emotion nor indignation—­just ennui.  But then, within the last few days I come across a brief newspaper notice of a murderer’s execution somewhere in France.  The Procureur, who was present at the last toilet of the criminal, sees that he is putting on his shoes on his bare feet, and—­the blockhead!—­reminds him:  ’What about the socks?’ But the other gives him a look and says, sort of thoughtfully:  ‘Is it worth while?’ Do you understand, these two remarks, so very short, struck me like a blow on the skull!