would have it, to set things right, I began telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph:
Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas même académicien.
They seized me and thrashed me.”
“But what for? What for?”
“For my education. People can thrash a man for anything,” Maximov concluded, briefly and sententiously.
“Eh, that’s enough! That’s all stupid, I don’t want to listen. I thought it would be amusing,” Grushenka cut them short, suddenly.
Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upon his feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element, began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back.