“Oh, I don’t know!  These women lie like the very devil.  You just go and talk with her a bit about her first fall.  She’ll spin you such a yarn!”

“Well, don’t you ask then.  What business is that of yours?  But even if they do lie, they lie altogether like children.  But then, you know yourself that children are the foremost, the most charming fibsters, and at the same time the sincerest people on earth.  And it’s remarkable, that both they and the others—­that is, both prostitutes and children—­lie only to us—­men—­and grown-ups.  Among themselves they don’t lie—­they only inspiredly improvise.  But they lie to us because we ourselves demand this of them, because we clamber into their souls, altogether foreign to us, with our stupid tactics and questionings, because they regard us in secret as great fools and senseless dissemblers.  But if you like, I shall right now count off on my fingers all the occasions when a prostitute is sure to lie, and you yourself will be convinced that man incites her to lying.”

“Well, well, we shall see.”  “First:  she paints herself mercilessly, at times even in detriment to herself.  Why?  Because every pimply military cadet, who is so distressed by his sexual maturity that he grows stupid in the spring, like a wood-cock on a drumming-log; or some sorry petty government clerk or other from the department of the parish, the husband of a pregnant woman and the father of nine infants—­why, they both come here not at all with the prudent and simple purpose of leaving here the surplus of their passion.  He, the good for nothing, has come to enjoy himself; he needs beauty, d’you see—­aesthete that he is!  But all these girls, these daughters of the simple, unpretentious, great Russian people—­how do they regard aesthetics?  ’What’s sweet, that’s tasty; what’s red, that’s handsome.’  And so, there you are, receive, if you please, a beauty of antimony, white lead and rouge.

“That’s one.  Secondly, his desire for beauty isn’t enough for this resplendent cavalier—­no, he must in addition be served with a similitude of love, so that from his caresses there should kindle in the woman this same ‘fa-hire of in-sane pahass-ssion!’ which is sung about In idiotical ballads.  Ah!  Then that is what you want?  There y’are!  And the woman lies to him with countenance, voice, sighs, moans, movements of the body.  And even he himself in the depths of his soul knows about this professional deception, but—­ go along with you!—­still deceives himself:  ’Ah, what a handsome man I am!  Ah, how the women love me!  Ah, into what an ecstasy I bring them ...’  You know, there are cases when a man with the most desperate brazenness, in the most unlikely manner, is flattered to his face, and he himself sees and knows it very plainly, but—­the devil take it!—­despite everything a delightful feeling of some sort lubricates his soul.  And so here.  Query:  whose is the initiative in the lie?