"Gentlemen! If we have met here, we have met to seek in rest itself the remembrance of bitter moments. ["Very well."] Some one will say that we meet here every night. ["Very well."] I come here nightly, and I do not dream of denying it; I do not deny, either, that I am here on this occasion! [Applause; the speaker brightens and continues.] Silence! Were I forced to conclude that every effort of mine which is directed toward giving a practical turn to our meetings is shattered by general frivolousness, for I can call it general ["You can, you can!"], not directed by the current of universal agreement which breaks up in its very beginning ["Consider, gentlemen, in its very beginning"] the uniform efforts of individuals--if efforts marked by the regular object of uniting disconnected thoughts into some organic whole, will never issue from the region of imagination to the more real field of action, then, gentlemen, I am the first, and I say that there are many others with me who will agree to oppose the sense of the methods of our existence so far [Applause], and will take other methods ["Yes, yes!"] obliging, if not all, at least the chosen ones [Applause]." "What does this mean?" asked Yosef. "A speech," answered Gustav, shrugging his shoulders. "With what object?" "But how does that concern any one?" "What kind of person is he?" "His name is Augustinovich. He has a good head, but at this moment he is drunk, his words are confused. He knows, however, what he wants, and, as God lives, he is right." "What does he want?" "That we should not meet here in vain, that our meetings should have some object. But those present laugh at the object and the speech. Of necessity the change would bring dissension into the freedom and repose which thus far have reigned in these meetings." "And what object does Augustinovich wish to give them?" "Literary, scientific." "That would be well." "I have told him that he is right. If some one else were to make the proposal, the thing would pass, perhaps." "Well, but in his case." "On everything that he touches he leaves traces of his own ridiculousness and humiliation. Have a care, Yosef! Thou in truth art not like him in anything so far as I know, but here any man's feet may slip, if not in one, in another way." Gustav looked with misty eyes on Augustinovich, shrugged his shoulders, and continued,-- "Fate fixed itself wonderfully on that man. I tell thee that he is a collection of all the capacities, but he has little character. He has lofty desires, but his deeds are insignificant, an eternal dissension. There is no balance between his desires and his strength, hence he attains no result." A number of Yosef's acquaintances approached; at the glass conversation grew general. Yosef inquired about the University. "Do all the students live together?" "Impossible," answered one of the Lithuanians. "There are people here of all the most varied conceptions, hence there are various coteries."