"Thanks, brother,"—said Lavrétzky:—"I have had enough of those unearthly beings."
"Shut up, cuinuik!"—exclaimed Mikhalévitch.
"Cynic,"—Lavrétzky corrected him.
"Just so, cuinuik,"—repeated Mikhalévitch, in no wise disconcerted.
Even as he took his seat in the tarantás, to which his flat, yellow, strangely light trunk was carried forth, he continued to talk; wrapped up in some sort of a Spanish cloak with a rusty collar, and lion's paws in place of clasps, he still went on setting forth his views as to the fate of Russia, and waving his swarthy hand through the air, as though he were sowing the seeds of its future welfare. At last the horses started.... "Bear in mind my last three words,"—he shouted, thrusting his whole body out of the tarantás, and balancing himself:—"religion, progress, humanity!... Farewell!" His head, with its cap pulled down to the very eyes, vanished. Lavrétzky remained standing alone on the porch and staring down the road until the tarantás disappeared from his sight. "But I think he probably is right,"—he said to himself, as he reentered the house:—"probably I am a trifler." Many of Mikhalévitch's words had sunk indelibly into his soul, although he had disputed and had not agreed with him. If only a man be kindly, no one can repulse him.
Polish for "gentlewoman."—Translator.