Lavretsky listened, and listened to him--and the spirit of antagonism was aroused in him; he was irritated by the ever-ready enthusiasm of the Moscow student, perpetually at boiling-point.

Before a quarter of an hour had elapsed a heated argument had broken out between them, one of these endless arguments, of which only Russians are capable.

After a separation of many years spent in two different worlds, with no clear understanding of the other's ideas or even of their own, catching at words and replying only in words, they disputed about the most abstract subjects, and they disputed as though it were a matter of life and death for both: they shouted and vociferated so that every one in the house was startled, and poor Lemm, who had locked himself up in his room directly after Mihalevitch arrived, was bewildered, and began even to feel vaguely alarmed.
"What are you after all?
a pessimist ?" cried Mihalevitch at one o'clock in the night.
"Are pessimists usually like this ?" replied Lavretsky.

"They are usually all pale and sickly--would you like me to lift you with one hand ?" "Well, if you are not a pessimist you are a scepteec, that's still worse." Mihalevitch's talk had a strong flavour of his mother-country, Little Russia.

"And what right have you to be a scepteec?
You have had ill-luck in life, let us admit; that was not your fault; you were born with a passionate loving heart, and you were unnaturally kept out of the society of women: the first woman you came across was bound to deceive you." "She deceived you too," observed Lavretsky grimly.
"Granted, granted; I was the tool of destiny in it--what nonsense I talk, though--there is no such thing as destiny; it is an old habit of expressing things inexactly.