“But I have told you that I am not going.”
“Well, then, stay here and prove it to the diplomat, and he can tell us all about it when we return.”
“Yes, that’s what I will do,” said Nechludoff with boyish obstinacy, “so hurry up with your return.”
“Well, do you think I am egotistic?” he continued, seating himself beside me.
True, I had a definite opinion on the subject, but I felt so taken aback by this unexpected question that at first I could make no reply.
“Yes, I do think so,” I said at length in a faltering voice, and colouring at the thought that at last the moment had come when I could show him that I was clever. “I think that everybody is egotistic, and that everything we do is done out of egotism.”
“But what do you call egotism?” asked Nechludoff—smiling, as I thought, a little contemptuously.
“Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than any one else,” I replied.
“But how can we all be filled with this conviction?” he inquired.
“Well, I don’t know if I am right or not—certainly no one but myself seems to hold the opinion—but I believe that I am wiser than any one else in the world, and that all of you know it.”