pleasure—drinking iced water; and can you seriously assure me that such a life is worth too much to be risked for an instant's pleasure—happiness I won't even talk about.'
'Oh, very well,' remarked Lushin, 'caprice and irresponsibility.. . . Those two words sum you up; your whole nature's contained in those two words.'
Zinaïda laughed nervously.
'You're late for the post, my dear doctor. You don't keep a good look-out; you're behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I 'm in no capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself . . . much fun there is in that!—and as for irresponsibility . . . M'sieu Voldemar,' Zinaïda added suddenly, stamping, 'don't make such a melancholy face. I can't endure people to pity me.' She went quickly out of the room.
'It's bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,' Lushin said to me once more.
XI
On the evening of the same day the usual guests were assembled at the Zasyekins'. I was among them.
The conversation turned on Meidanov's poem.
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