taken aback by this unexpected question that at first I could make no reply.

“Yes, I DO think so,” I said at length in a faltering voice, and colouring at the thought that at last the moment had come when I could show him that I was clever. “I think that EVERYBODY is egotistic, and that everything we do is done out of egotism.”

“But what do you call egotism?” asked Nechludoff — smiling, as I thought, a little contemptuously.

“Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than any one else,” I replied.

“But how can we ALL be filled with this conviction?” he inquired.

“Well, I don’t know if I am right or not —