Or how his gray outrunner began to talk?
He even goes that far."
And Ganya suddenly rocked with laughter.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked the prince.
"It surprises me that you laugh so genuinely.
You really have a childlike laugh.
When you came in to make peace with me and said:
'If you want, I'll kiss your hand,' it was like children making peace.
Which means you're still capable of such words and gestures.
Then suddenly you start reading a whole lecture about all this darkness and the seventy-five thousand.
Really, it's all somehow absurd and cannot be."
"What do you want to conclude from that?"
"Mightn't it be that you're acting too light-mindedly, that you ought to look around first?
Varvara Ardalionovna may have spoken rightly."
"Ah, morality!
That I'm still a little boy, I know myself," Ganya interrupted him hotly, "if only in that I've started such a conversation with you.
I'm not going into this darkness out of calculation, Prince," he went on, giving himself away like a young man whose vanity has been wounded. "Out of calculation I'd surely make a mistake, because my head and character aren't strong yet.
I'm going out of passion, out of inclination, because I have a major goal.
You must think I'll get the seventy-five thousand and right away buy a carriage and pair.
No, sir, I'll go on wearing my two-year-old frock coat and drop all my club acquaintances.
There are few people of self-control among us, and they're all usurers, but I want to show self-control.
The main thing here is to carry it through to the end—that's the whole task!
When he was seventeen, Ptitsyn slept in the street, peddled penknives, and started with a kopeck; now he's got sixty thousand, but after what gymnastics!
Well, I'm going to leap over all the gymnastics and start straight off with capital; in fifteen years people will say: 'There goes Ivolgin, the king of the Jews.'36 You tell me I'm an unoriginal man.
Note for yourself, dear Prince, that nothing offends a man of our time and tribe more than to be told that he's unoriginal, weak of character, with no special talents, and an ordinary man.
You didn't even deign to consider me a good scoundrel, and, you know, I wanted to eat you for that just now!
You insulted me more than Epanchin, who considers me (and without any discussion, without any provocation, in the simplicity of his soul, note that) capable of selling him my wife!
That, my dear, has long infuriated me, and I want money.
Having made money, be it known to you—I'll become an original man in the highest degree.
The meanest and most hateful thing about money is that it even gives one talent.
And so it will be till the world ends.
You'll say it's all childish or maybe poetry—so what, it's the more fun for me, but the main thing will be done all the same.
I'll carry it through to the end and show self-control.
Rira bien qui rira le dernier* Why does Epanchin offend me so?
Out of spite, is it?
Never, sir.
Simply because I'm so insignificant.
Well, sir, but then .. . Enough, however, it's late.
Kolya has already poked his nose in twice: he's calling you to dinner.
And I'm clearing out.
I'll wander in to see you some time.
It'll be nice for you here; they'll take you as one of the family now.
Watch out, don't give me away.
I have a feeling that you and I will either be friends or enemies.
And what do you think, Prince, if I had kissed your hand earlier (as I sincerely offered to do), would it have made me your enemy afterwards?"
"It certainly would have, only not forever, later you would have been unable to keep from forgiving me," the prince decided after some reflection, and laughed.
"Aha!
One must be more careful with you.
Devil knows, you poured in some poison there, too.
And, who knows, maybe you are my enemy?