Artsybashev is a Russian. I am an American. Let us wonder, my townspeople, if Artsybashev tends his own fires as I do, gets himself cursed for the baby’s failure to thrive, loosens windows for the woman who cleans his parlor— or has he neat servants and a quiet library, an intellectual wife perhaps and no children—an apartment somewhere in a back street or lives alone or with his mother or sister—
I wonder, my townspeople, if Artsybashev looks upon himself the more concernedly or succeeds any better than I in laying the world.
I wonder which is the bigger fool in his own mind.
These are shining topics my townspeople but— hardly of great moment.