IX
But as Europeans among Chinamen are all of one face and one way of acting, only so far as the Chinamen are concerned, but in reality, among the Europeans there are incomparably wider differences than among the Chinese; so in this apparently monotonous type, the variety of individualities is developed into more classes and are more distinguishable from each other than among all the varieties of all the different types that are separate from each other. Here you find all sorts of people—sybarites, ascetic, severe, and tenderhearted, and every other kind. But, as the sternest of Europeans is very kind, the most cowardly is very brave, the most passionate is very moral in comparison with the Chinaman, so it is with these; the most ascetic of them deems it more necessary for all men to be more comfortable than is imagined by the people not of this type; the most passionate are more stern in their moral rules than the greatest moralizers not of this type. But all this they interpret according to their own fashion; and morality, comfort, and sensuality and goodness, they understand in a peculiar way; and they all understand them in the same way, and not only do they all understand them in one way, but this one way is such a way that morality, comfort, goodness, and passion are all regarded as one and the same thing. But all this, again, is only when it comes into comparison with the understanding of the Chinamen; among themselves a great deal of difference is found in understanding these things, according to the differences of their nature. But how now to bring into harmony this conflict of nature and understanding among themselves?
In conversations about their own affairs among themselves, and only among themselves, and not among Chinamen, European natures give expression to their characteristics. Thus, among the people of this type, apparently there is a very great variety of natures when they are among themselves, and only among themselves and not with strangers.
We have had before us two people of this type, Viéra Pavlovna and Lopukhóf, and we have seen how their relations were arranged between them. Now there comes in a third person. Let us see what difference will be shown now that we have the possibility of comparing the other two with this one. Viéra Pavlovna sees before her Lopukhóf and Kirsánof. Hitherto she has had no choice; now she has.