Anton Chekhov

“ The zoologist shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just as capable of a good action as you are."
"Is drowning a man a good action?" asked the deacon, and he laughed.
"Laevsky? Yes."
"I think there is something amiss with the soup . . ." said Samoylenko, anxious to change the conversation.
"Laevsky is absolutely pernicious and is as dangerous to society as the cholera microbe," Von Koren went on. "To drown him would be a service."
"It does not do you credit to talk like that about your neighbour. Tell us: what do you hate him for?" ”

“ To hate and despise a microbe is stupid, but to look upon everybody one meets without distinction as one's neighbour, whatever happens--thanks very much, that is equivalent to giving up criticism, renouncing a straightforward attitude to people, washing one's hands of responsibility, in fact! ”

“ He only derives enjoyment from books and pictures in which there is woman. Our age is, to his thinking, poor and inferior to the forties and the sixties only because we do not know how to abandon ourselves obviously to the passion and ecstasy of love. ”

“ Woman plays a fatal, overwhelming part in his life. He tells us himself that at thirteen he was in love; that when he was a student in his first year he was living with a lady who had a good influence over him, and to whom he was indebted for his musical education. In his second year he bought a prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level--that is, took her as his kept mistress, and she lived with him for six months and then ran away back to the brothel-keeper, and her flight caused him much spiritual suffering. ”

“ Von Koren hurriedly ate up his soup and gave his plate to the orderly.
"I understood Laevsky from the first month of our acquaintance," he went on, addressing the deacon. "We arrived here at the same time. Men like him are very fond of friendship, intimacy, solidarity, and all the rest of it, because they always want company for vint, drinking, and eating; besides, they are talkative and must have listeners. We made friends--that is, he turned up every day, hindered me working, and indulged in confidences in regard to his mistress. ”

“ Thirdly, in former days, people here made love to other men's wives in secret, from the same motives as thieves steal in secret and not openly; adultery was considered something they were ashamed to make a public display of. Laevsky has come as a pioneer in that line; he lives with another man's wife openly. ”