“What did I say?…If one wishes to study life, and to form some definite conception of the mutual relationship of man to man, surely the best way is to get a thorough knowledge of the Titanic work of those who, representing the best models of humanity, devoted their lives to the solution of the simplest and most complex problems with regard to human relationships.”
“There I don’t agree with you,” retorted Goschienko.
“But I do,” cried Novikoff hotly.
Once more all was confusion and senseless uproar, during which it was impossible to hear either the beginning or the end of any utterance.
Reduced to silence by this war of words, Soloveitchik sat in a corner and listened. At first the expression on his face was one of intense, almost childish interest, but after a while his doubt and distress were shown by lines at the corners of his mouth and of his eyes.
Sanine drank, smoked, and said nothing. He looked thoroughly bored, and when amid the general clamour some of the voices became unduly violent, he got up, and extinguishing his cigarette, said:
“I say, do you know, this is getting uncommonly boring!”
“Yes, indeed!” cried Dubova.
“Sheer vanity and vexation of spirit!” said Ivanoff, who had been waiting for a fitting moment to drag in this favourite phrase of his.
“In what way?” asked the Polytechnic student, angrily.