LEBEDIEFF. [To SHABELSKI] You are an extraordinary person, Matthew! You have mounted this misanthropic hobby of yours, and you ride it through thick and thin like a lunatic You are a man like any other, and yet, from the way you talk one would imagine that you had the pip, or a cold in the head. SHABELSKI. Would you have me go about kissing every rascal and scoundrel I meet? LEBEDIEFF. Where do you find all these rascals and scoundrels? SHABELSKI. Of course I am not talking of any one here present, nevertheless----- LEBEDIEFF. There you are again with your "nevertheless." All this is simply a fancy of yours. SHABELSKI. A fancy? It is lucky for you that you have no knowledge of the world! LEBEDIEFF. My knowledge of the world is this: I must sit here prepared at any moment to have death come knocking at the door. That is my knowledge of the world. At our age, brother, you and I can't afford to worry about knowledge of the world. So then--[He calls] Oh, Gabriel! SHABELSKI. You have had quite enough already. Look at your nose. LEBEDIEFF. No matter, old boy. I am not going to be married to-day. ZINAIDA. Doctor Lvoff has not been here for a long time. He seems to have forgotten us. SASHA. That man is one of my aversions. I can't stand his icy sense of honour. He can't ask for a glass of water or smoke a cigarette without making a display of his remarkable honesty. Walking and talking, it is written on his brow: "I am an honest man." He is a great bore. SHABELSKI. He is a narrow-minded, conceited medico. [Angrily] He shrieks like a parrot at every step: "Make way for honest endeavour!" and thinks himself another St. Francis. Everybody is a rascal who doesn't make as much noise as he does. As for his penetration, it is simply remarkable! If a peasant is well off and lives decently, he sees at once that he must be a thief and a scoundrel. If I wear a velvet coat and am dressed by my valet, I am a rascal and the valet is my slave. There is no place in this world for a man like him. I am actually afraid of him. Yes, indeed, he is likely, out of a sense of duty, to insult a man at any moment and to call him a knave. IVANOFF. I am dreadfully tired of him, but I can't help liking him, too, he is so sincere. SHABELSKI. Oh, yes, his sincerity is beautiful! He came up to me yesterday evening and remarked absolutely apropos of nothing: "Count, I have a deep aversion to you!" It isn't as if he said such things simply, but they are extremely pointed. His voice trembles, his eyes flash, his veins swell. Confound his infernal honesty! Supposing I am disgusting and odious to him? What is more natural? I know that I am, but I don't like to be told so to my face. I am a worthless old man, but he might have the decency to respect my grey hairs. Oh, what stupid, heartless honesty! LEBEDIEFF. Come, come, you have been young yourself, and should make allowances for him.