"Every necessity may be satisfied," answered he, "in various ways. I help myself in my own way. I have said that I do not look on stupid things as great. I am sober, God knows, more sober than at this moment. But I have seen many men who have broken their lives, or snarled them up, like a thread, for one woman; so I say that it is not worth while to put all one's life in that. I say that there are better things, loftier objects, and that love is a trifling matter. To the health of sobriety!"
"To the health of women!" shouted Selim.
"Very good; let us have that," answered our master. "They are agreeable creatures, only take them not too seriously. To the health of women!"
"To the health of Yozia!" cried I, touching Selim's glass.
"Wait! Now is my turn," answered he. "To the health of thy Hania! one deserves the other."
The blood began to play in me, and sparks flashed from my eyes.
"Be silent, Selim," cried I. "Do not mention that name before me in this shop!"
Then I threw my glass to the floor, and it broke into a thousand bits.
"Hast gone mad?" cried our master.
I had not gone mad at all, but anger had sprung up in me and was blazing like a flame. I could listen to everything which the master said about women; I could even take pleasure in it; I could ridicule them with others. I could do that because I did not connect the words and the ridicule with any one of my own, and because it did not even come to my mind that the general theory was to be applied to persons dear to me. But when I heard the name of my purest orphan bandied about frivolously in that room, amid smoke, dirt, empty bottles, corks, and cynical conversation, I thought that I had heard some abominable sacrilege, some defilement, some wrong wrought against Hania, and from anger I almost lost self-control.