“But it’s your duty to.”
“Why is it my duty?” Laevsky asked irritably.
“Because you took her away from her husband and made yourself responsible for her.”
“But now I tell you in plain Russian, I don’t love her!”
“Well, if you’ve no love, show her proper respect, consider her wishes. . . .”
“‘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.
“You are an elderly child, a theorist, while I am an old man in spite of my years, and practical, and we shall never understand one another. We had better drop this conversation. Mustapha!” Laevsky shouted to the waiter. “What’s our bill?”
“No, no . . .” the doctor cried in dismay, clutching Laevsky’s arm. “It is for me to pay. I ordered it. Make it out to me,” he cried to Mustapha.
The friends got up and walked in silence along the sea-front. When they reached the boulevard, they stopped and shook hands at parting.