tears, poisonings, beatings, sacrifices,—­in a word, hysterical romanticism.  And it’s easy to understand why.  The heart of woman always wants love, while they are told of love every day with various sour, drooling words.  Involuntarily one wants pepper in one’s love.  One no longer wants words of passion, but tragically-passionate deeds.  And for that reason thieves, murderers, souteners and other riff-raff will always be their lovers.”

“And most important of all,” added Platonov, “that would at once spoil for me all the friendly relations which have been so well built up.”

“Enough of joking!” incredulously retorted Lichonin.  “Then what compels you to pass days and nights here?  Were you a writer—­it would be a different matter.  It’s easy to find an explanation; well, you’re gathering types or something ... observing life ...  After the manner of that German professor who lived for three years with monkeys, in order to study closely their language and manners.  But you yourself said that you don’t indulge in writing?”

“It isn’t that I don’t indulge, but I simply don’t know how—­I can’t.”

“We’ll write that down.  Now let’s suppose another thing—­that you come here as an apostle of a better, honest life, in the nature of a, now, saviour of perishing souls.  You know, as in the dawn of Christianity certain holy fathers instead of standing on a column for thirty years or living in a cave in the woods, went to the market places, into houses of mirth, to the harlots and scaramuchios.  But you aren’t inclined that way.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why, the devil take it, do you hang around here?  I can see very well that a great deal here is revolting and oppressive and painful to your own self.  For example, this fool quarrel with Boris or this flunky who beats a woman, and—­, in general, the constant contemplation of every kind of filth, lust, bestiality, vulgarity, drunkenness.  Well, now, since you say so—­I believe that you don’t give yourself up to lechery.  But then, still more incomprehensible to me is your modus VIVENDI, to express myself in the style of leading articles.”

The reporter did not answer at once: 

“You see,” he began speaking slowly, with pauses, as though for the first time lending ear to his thoughts and weighing them.  “You see, I’m attracted and interested in this life by its ... how shall I express it? ... its fearful, stark truth.  Do you understand, it’s as though all the conventional coverings were ripped off it.  There is no falsehood, no hypocrisy, no sanctimoniousness, there are no compromises of any sort, neither with public opinion, nor with the importunate authority of our forefathers, nor with one’s own conscience.  No illusions of any kind, nor any kind of embellishments!  Here she is—­’I!  A public woman, a common vessel, a cloaca for the drainage of the city’s surplus lust.  Come to me any one who wills—­thou shalt meet no denial, therein is my service.  But for a second of this sensuality in haste—­thou shalt pay in money, revulsion, disease and ignominy.’  And that is all.  There is not a single phase of human life where the basic main truth should shine with such a monstrous, hideous, stark clearness, without any shade of human prevarication or self-whitewashing.”