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Updated: May 14, 2025
Laevsky got in with Kirilin, the zoologist with Samoylenko, the deacon with the ladies, and the party set off. "You see what the Japanese monkeys are like," Von Koren began, rolling himself up in his cloak and shutting his eyes. "You heard she doesn't care to take an interest in beetles and ladybirds because the people are suffering. That's how all the Japanese monkeys look upon people like us.
"Don't worry yourself; there's nothing dangerous," said Samoylenko; "it's the usual fever." "I don't mean that." Laevsky frowned impatiently. "Have you got the money?" "My dear soul, forgive me," he whispered, looking round at the door and overcome with confusion. "For God's sake, forgive me!
I would live with her in my vineyard and . . ." Samoylenko caught himself up and said: "And she might get the samovar ready for me there, the old hag." After parting with Laevsky he walked along the boulevard.
"But what ought society to do?" "Society? That's its affair. To my thinking the surest and most direct method is compulsion. Manu militari she ought to be returned to her husband; and if her husband won't take her in, then she ought to be sent to penal servitude or some house of correction." "Ouf!" sighed Samoylenko.
"'Show her respect, consider her wishes," Laevsky mimicked him. "As though she were some Mother Superior! . . . You are a poor psychologist and physiologist if you think that living with a woman one can get off with nothing but respect and consideration. What a woman thinks most of is her bedroom." "Vanya, Vanya!" said Samoylenko, overcome with confusion.
"Not in the least," answered the zoologist, laying out over the table slips of paper covered with small writing. "We are busy copying." "Ah! . . . Oh, my goodness, my goodness! . . ." sighed Samoylenko.
Samoylenko, who had never read Tolstoy and was intending to do so every day of his life, was a little embarrassed, and said: "Yes, all other authors write from imagination, but he writes straight from nature." "My God!" sighed Laevsky; "how distorted we all are by civilisation!
"That's reasonable . . ." thought Samoylenko, but remembering his conversation with Von Koren, he looked down and said sullenly: "I can't agree with you. Either go with her or send her first; otherwise . . . otherwise I won't give you the money. Those are my last words. . ."
"He sits from morning till night, he's always at work. He works to pay off his debts. And he lives, brother, worse than a beggar!" Half a minute of silence followed. The zoologist, the doctor, and the deacon stood at the window and went on looking at Laevsky. "So he didn't get away from here, poor fellow," said Samoylenko. "Do you remember how hard he tried?"
It seemed as though he only liked to be in people's company because there was a ridiculous side to them, and because they might be given ridiculous nicknames. He had nicknamed Samoylenko "the tarantula," his orderly "the drake," and was in ecstasies when on one occasion Von Koren spoke of Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna as "Japanese monkeys."
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