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 wrong; but in your case the wrong is external, while in his the wrong is inward."

"Ha, ha! Do you understand it? do you understand it?" cried Nikolaï, with an expression of joy.

"But if you would like to know, personally I value your friendship higher because .... "

"Why? why?"

Konstantin could not say that it was because Nikolaï was wretched, and needed his friendship; but Nikolaï understood that that was the very thing he meant, and, frowning darkly, he betook himself to the vodka.

"Enough, Nikolaï Dmitritch!" cried Marya Nikolayevna, laying her great pudgy hand on the decanter.

"Let me alone! don't bother me, or I'll strike you," he cried.

Marya Nikolayevna smiled with her gentle and good-natured smile, which pacified Nikolaï, and she took the vodka.

"There! Do you think that she does not understand things?" said Nikolaï. "She understands this thing better than all of you. Is n't there something about her good and gentle?"

"Have n't you ever been in Moscow before?" said Konstantin, in order to say something to her.

"There now, don't say vui [you] to her. It frightens her. No one said vui to her except the justice of the peace, when they had her up because she wanted to escape from the house of ill-fame where she was. My God! how senseless everything is in this world!" he suddenly exclaimed. "These new institutions, these justices of the peace, the zemstro, what abominations!"

And he began to relate his experiences with the new institutions.

Konstantin listened to him; and the criticisms on the absurdity of the new institutions, which he had himself often expressed, now that he heard them from his brother's lips, seemed disagreeable to him.

"We shall understand it all in the next world," he said jestingly.

"In the next world? Och! I don't like your next