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246 carefully about them. But to think carefully about a fact and understand its causes is almost one and the same thing for a person of such a turn of mind as Lopukhóf. Lopukhóf found that his theory affords unerring means for analyzing the motions of the human heart, and I confess I agree with him in this respect. In those long years since I have accepted it as true, it has never once led me into error, and it has never refused to reveal the truth to me, no matter how deep the truth, in regard to some human action, might have been hidden. It is also true that the theory itself is not easily acquired; it is necessary to have lived and thought to be able to understand it.

Half an hour's thinking was sufficient for Lopukhóf to understand the relations of Kirsánof to Viéra Pavlovna. But still he sat long thinking about the same thing; further explanation was needless, but it was interesting; the discovery was made with complete fulness of details, but it was so interesting that long he refrained from going to sleep.

However, what is the good of straining your nerves with sleeplessness? It is already three o'clock. "If I can't fall asleep, I shall have to take morphine." He took two pills. "I will just look at Viérotcha [sic] once more." But instead of walking over to her and looking at her, he removed his chair over to her sofa, took her hand and kissed it.

"Mílenki, you have been working too hard, and all for my sake; how kind you are, and how I love you!" said she, half asleep. No shipwreck of the spirit can resist morphine in sufficient quantity; at this time, two pills proved to be enough; he is overcome by sleep. Consequently, the shipwreck of the soul by itself is approximately equal, according to Lopukhóf's materialistic views, to four glasses of strong coffee, to overcome which one pill would not have been enough in Lopukhóf's case; but three pills would have been too much. He fell asleep laughing at this comparison.

the following day, Kirsánof had just thrown himself down like a sybarite, with a cigar, intending to read and rest after his late dinner upon returning from the hospital, when Lopukhóf came in.