"No!" he thought. "It doesn't matter if it's death, or Siberia, but get
away from here I must! Yet, where shall I go? Everywhere it's the same
thing, and there's no escaping from one's self. When once a man sets
himself above life, then life in any form can never satisfy him,
whether he lives in a hole like this, or in St. Petersburg."
"As I take it," cried Schafroff, "man, individually, is a mere
nothing."
Yourii looked at the speaker's dull, unintelligent countenance, with
its tired little eyes behind their glasses, and thought that such a man
as that was in truth nothing.
"The individual is a cypher. It is only they who emerge from the
masses, yet are never out of touch with them, and who do not oppose the
crowd, as bourgeois heroes usually do--it is only they who have real
strength."
"And in what does such strength consist, pray?" asked Ivanoff
aggressively, as he leant across the table. "Is it in fighting against
the actual government? Very likely. But in their struggle for personal
happiness, how can the masses help them?"
"Ah! there you go! You're a super-man, and want happiness of a special
kind to suit yourself. But, we men of the masses, we think that in
fighting for the welfare of others our own happiness lies. The triumph
of the idea--that is happiness!"
"Yet, suppose the idea is a false one?"
"That doesn't matter. Belief's the thing!" Schafroff tossed his head
stubbornly.
"Bah!" said Ivanoff in a contemptuous tone, "every man believes that
his own occupation is the most important and most indispensable thing
in the whole world. Even a ladies' tailor thinks so. You know that
perfectly well, but apparently you have forgotten it; therefore, as a
friend I am bound to remind you of the fact."
With involuntary hatred Yourii regarded Ivanoff's flabby, perspiring
face, and grey, lustreless eyes.
"And, in your opinion, what constitutes happiness, pray?" he asked, as
his lips curled in contempt.
"Well, most assuredly not in perpetual sighing and groaning, or
incessant questionings such as, 'I sneezed just now. Was that the right
thing to do? Will it not cause harm to some one? Have I, in sneezing,
fulfilled my destiny?'"
Yourii could read hatred in the speaker's cold eyes, and it infuriated
him to think that Ivanoff considered himself his superior
intellectually, and was laughing at him.
"We'll soon see," he thought.
"That's not a programme," he retorted, striving to let his face express
intense disdain, as well as reluctance to pursue the discussion.