though he had prepared himself for the question. “I was thinking of that on the way here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all just the same as he is? For you know we are just the same, no better. If we are better, we should have been just the same in his place. … I don’t know about you, Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid soul in many ways, and his soul is not sordid; on the contrary, full of fine feeling. … No, Lise, I have no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise, my elder told me once to care for most people exactly as one would for children, and for some of them as one would for the sick in hospitals.”
“Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would for the sick!”
“Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in