onished at one thing, African
Semenitch; your confidence in your convictions; of course you can never
be mistaken.'

'Who says so? I make mistakes; a man, too, may be mistaken. But do you
know the difference between a man's mistakes and a woman's? Don't you
know? Well, here it is; a man may say, for example, that twice two makes
not four, but five, or three and a half; but a woman will say that twice
two makes a wax candle.'

'I fancy I've heard you say that before. But allow me to ask what
connection had your idea of the three kinds of egoists with the music
you have just been hearing?'

'None at all, but I did not listen to the music.'

'Well, "incurable I see you are, and that is all about it,"' answered
Darya Mihailovna, slightly altering Griboyedov's line. 'What do you
like, since you don't care for music? Literature?'

'I like literature, only not our contemporary literature.'

'Why?'

'I'll tell you why. I crossed the Oka lately in a ferry boat with a
gentleman. The ferry got fixed in a narrow place; they had to drag the
carriages ashore by hand. This gentleman had a very heavy coach. While
the ferrymen were straining themselves to drag the coach on to the bank,
the gentleman groaned so, standing in the ferry, that one felt quite
sorry for him.... Well, I thought, here's a fresh illustration of the
system of division of labour! That's just like our modern literature;
other people do the work, and it does the groaning.'

Darya Mihailovna smiled.

'And that is called expressing contemporary life,' continued Pigasov
indefatigably, 'profound sympathy with the social question and so on.
... Oh, how I hate those grand words!'

'Well, the women you attack so--they at least don't use grand words.'

Pigasov shrugged his shoulders.

'They don't use them because they don't understand them.'

Darya Mihailovna flushed slightly.

'You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!' she remarked
with a forced smile.

There was complete stillness in the room.

'Where is Zolotonosha?' asked one of the boys suddenly of Bassistoff.

'In the province of Poltava, my dear boy,' replied Pigasov, 'in the
centre of Little Russia.' (He was glad of an opportunity of changing the
conversation.) 'We were talking of literature,' he continued, 'if I had
money to spare, I would at once become a Little Russian poet.'

'What next? a fine poet you would make!' retorted Darya Mihailovna. 'Do
you know Little Russian?'