Chapter 44

ZUCHIN AND SEMENOFF

Although I do not know what class of society Zuchin belonged to,
I know that, without the help either of means or social position,
he had matriculated from the Seventh Gymnasium. At that time he
was eighteen--though he looked much older--and very clever,
especially in his powers of assimilation. To him it was easier to
survey the whole of some complicated subject, to foresee its
various parts and deductions, than to use that knowledge, when
gained, for reasoning out the exact laws to which those
deductions were due. He knew that he was clever, and of the fact
he was proud; yet from that very pride arose the circumstance that
he treated every one with unvarying simplicity and good-nature.
Moreover, his experience of life must have been considerable,
for already he had squandered much love, friendship, activity,
and money. Though poor and moving only in the lower ranks of
society, there was nothing which he had ever attempted for
which he did not thenceforth feel the contempt, the indifference,
or the utter disregard which were bound to result from his
attaining his goal too easily. In fact, the very ardour with
which he applied himself to a new pursuit seemed to be due
to his contempt for what he had already attained, since his
abilities always led him to success, and therefore to a certain
right to despise it. With the sciences it was the same. Though
little interested in them, and taking no notes, he knew
mathematics thoroughly, and was uttering no vain boast when he
said that he could beat the professor himself. Much of what he
heard said in lectures he thought rubbish, yet with his peculiar
habit of unconsciously practical roguishness he feigned to
subscribe to all that the professors thought important, and every
professor adored him. True, he was outspoken to the authorities,
but they none the less respected him. Besides disliking and
despising the sciences, he despised all who laboured to attain
what he himself had mastered so easily, since the sciences, as he
understood them, did not occupy one-tenth part of his powers. In
fact, life, as he saw it from the student's standpoint, contained
nothing to which he could devote himself wholly, and his
impetuous, active nature (as he himself often said) demanded life
complete: wherefore he frequented the drinking-bout in so far as
he could afford it, and surrendered himself to dissipation
chiefly out of a desire to get as far away from himself as
possible. Consequently, just as the examinations were
approaching, Operoff's prophecy to me came true, for Zuchin
wasted two whole weeks in this fashion, and we had to do the
latter part of our preparation at another student's. Yet at the
first examination he reappeared with pale, haggard face and
tremulous hands, and passed brilliantly into the second course!

The company of roisterers of which Zuchin had been the leader
since its formation at the beginning of the term consisted of
eight students, among whom, at first, had been numbered Ikonin
and Semenoff; but the former had left under the strain of the
continuous revelry in which the band had indulged in the early
part of the term, and the latter seceded later for reasons which
were never wholly explained. In its early days this band had been
looked upon with awe by all the fellows of our course, and had
had its exploits much discussed. Of these exploits the leading
heroes had been Zuchin and, towards the end of the term,
Semenoff, but the latter had come to be generally shunned, and to
cause disturbances on the rare occasions when he attended a
lecture. Just before the examinations began, he rounded off his
drinking exploits in a most energetic and original fashion, as I
myself had occasion to witness (through my acquaintanceship with
Zuchin). This is how it was. One evening we had just assembled at
Zuchin's, and Operoff, reinforcing a candlestick with a candle
stuck in a bottle, had just plunged his nose into his notebooks
and begun to read aloud in his thin voice from his neatly-written
notes on physics, when the landlady entered the room, and
informed Zuchin that some one had brought a note for him . .
.[The remainder of this chapter is omitted in the original.]