“No,” said Yourii with emphasis, delighted to observe Sina Karsavina looking at him, “No, I don’t agree with you.” He then proceeded to expound his own views on the subject, and the more he spoke, the more he strove to win Sina’s approval, mercilessly attacking Schafroff’s scheme, and even those points with which he himself was in sympathy. The burly Goschienko now gave his views on the subject. He considered himself the cleverest, most eloquent and most cultured of them all; moreover in a little club like this, which he had organized, he expected to play first fiddle. Yourii’s success annoyed him, and he felt bound to go against him. Being ignorant of Svarogitsch’s opinions, he could not oppose them _en bloc_, but only fixed upon certain weak points in his argument with which he stubbornly disagreed. Thereupon a lengthy and apparently interminable discussion ensued. The Polytechnic student, Ivanoff, and Novikoff all began to argue at once, and through clouds of tobacco-smoke hot, angry faces could be seen, while words and phrases were hopelessly blent in a bewildering chaos devoid at last of all meaning. Dubova gazed at the lamp, listening and dreaming. Sina Karsavina paid no attention, but opened the window facing the garden, and, folding her arms, leaned over the sill and looked out at the night. At first she could distinguish nothing, but gradually out of the gloom the dark trees emerged, and she saw the light on the garden-fence and the grass. A soft, refreshing breeze fanned her shoulders and lightly touched her hair. Looking upwards, Sina could watch the swift procession of the clouds. She thought of Yourii and of her love. Her mood, if pleasurably pensive, was yet a little sad. It was so good to rest there, exposed to the cool night wind, and listen with all her heart to the voice of one man which to her ears sounded clearer and more masterful than the rest. Meanwhile the din grew greater, and it was evident that each person thought himself more cultivated and intelligent than his neighbours and was striving to convert them. Matters at last became so unpleasant that the most peaceable among them lost their tempers. “If you judge like that,” shouted Yourii, his eyes flashing, for he was anxious not to yield in the presence of Sina, though she could only hear his voice, “then we must go back to the origin of all ideas….” “What ought we, then, in your opinion to read?” said the hostile Goschienko. “What you ought to read? Why, Confucius, the Gospels, Ecclesiastes …” “The Psalms and the Apocrypha,” was the Polytechnic student’s mocking interruption. Goschienko laughed maliciously, oblivious of the fact himself had never read one of these works. “Of what good would that be?” asked Schafroff in a tone of disappointment. “It’s like they do in church!” tittered Pistzoff. Yourii’s face flushed. “I am not joking. If you wish to be logical, then …” “Ah! but what did you say to me just now about Christ?” cried Von Deitz exultantly.