Vassiliev was walking behind his friends. He stared at their backs and thought: “One of two things: either prostitution only seems to us an evil and we exaggerate it, or if prostitution is really such an evil as is commonly thought, these charming friends of mine are just as much slavers, violators, and murderers as the inhabitants of Syria and Cairo whose photographs appear in ‘The Field.’ They’re singing, laughing, arguing soundly now, but haven’t they just been exploiting starvation, ignorance, and stupidity? They have, I saw them at it. Where does their humanity, their science, and their painting come in, then? The science, art, and lofty sentiments of these murderers remind me of the lump of fat in the story. Two robbers killed a beggar in a forest; they began to divide his clothes between themselves and found in his bag a lump of pork fat. ‘In the nick of time,’ said one of them. ‘Let’s have a bite!’ ‘How can you?’ the other cried in terror. ‘Have you forgotten to-day’s Friday?’ So they refrained from eating. After having cut the man’s throat they walked out of the forest confident that they were pious fellows. These two are just the same. When they’ve paid for women they go and imagine they’re painters and scholars.... “Listen, you two,” he said angrily and sharply. “Why do you go to those places? Can’t you understand how horrible they are? Your medicine tells you every one of these women dies prematurely from consumption or something else; your arts tell you that she died morally still earlier. Each of them dies because during her lifetime she accepts on an average, let us say, five hundred men. Each of them is killed by five hundred men, and you’re amongst the five hundred. Now if each of you comes here and to places like this two hundred and fifty times in his lifetime, then it means that between you you have killed one woman. Can’t you understand that? Isn’t it horrible?” “Ah, isn’t this awful, my God?” “There, I knew it would end like this,” said the painter frowning. “We oughtn’t to have had anything to do with this fool of a blockhead. I suppose you think your head’s full of great thoughts and great ideas now. Devil knows what they are, but they’re not ideas. You’re staring at me now with hatred and disgust; but if you want my opinion you’d better build twenty more of the houses than look like that. There’s more vice in your look than in the whole street. Let’s clear out, Volodya, damn him! He’s a fool. He’s a blockhead, and that’s all he is.” “Human beings are always killing each other,” said the medico. “That is immoral, of course. But philosophy won’t help you. Good-bye!”