“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’⁠—all those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is of use to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: useful ! You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!”

Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The “cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute between them. What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his young friend.

“It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his “independence” and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years.