"I pity myself above all men that I did not lose my arm at Sevastopol, not having been there at all, but served all the campaign delivering paltry provisions, which I look on as a degradation. You are a goddess of antiquity, and I am nothing, but have had a glimpse of infinity. Look on it as a poem and no more, for, after all, poetry is nonsense and justifies what would be considered impudence in prose. Can the sun be angry with the infusoria if the latter composes verses to her from the drop of water, where there is a multitude of them if you look through the microscope? Even the club for promoting humanity to the larger animals in tip-top society in Petersburg, which rightly feels compassion for dogs and horses, despises the brief infusoria making no reference to it whatever, because it is not big enough. I'm not big enough either. The idea of marriage might seem droll, but soon I shall have property worth two hundred souls through a misanthropist whom you ought to despise. I can tell a lot and I can undertake to produce documents that would mean Siberia. Don't despise my proposal. A letter from an infusoria is of course in verse. "Captain Lebyadkin your most humble friend. "And he has time no end." "That was written by a man in a drunken condition, a worthless fellow," I cried indignantly. "I know him." "That letter I received yesterday," Liza began to explain, flushing and speaking hurriedly. "I saw myself, at once, that it came from some foolish creature, and I haven't yet shown it to maman, for fear of upsetting her more. But if he is going to keep on like that, I don't know how to act. Mavriky Nikolaevitch wants to go out and forbid him to do it. As I have looked upon you as a colleague," she turned to Shatov, "and as you live there, I wanted to question you so as to judge what more is to be expected of him." "He's a drunkard and a worthless fellow," Shatov muttered with apparent reluctance. "Is he always so stupid?" "No, he's not stupid at all when he's not drunk." "I used to know a general who wrote verses exactly like that," I observed, laughing. "One can see from the letter that he is clever enough for his own purposes," Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who had till then been silent, put in unexpectedly. "He lives with some sister?" Liza queried. "Yes, with his sister." "They say he tyrannises over her, is that true?" Shatov looked at Liza again, scowled, and muttering, "What business is it of mine?" moved towards the door. "Ah, stay!" cried Liza, in a flutter. "Where are you going? We have so much still to talk over...." "What is there to talk over? I'll let you know to-morrow."