good institutions, and there's an end of the matter. One may
even conform to the existing national life; that is our business, the
business of men ..." (he came near saying: "of statesmen") "who are in
the service; but, in case of need, be not uneasy: the institutions will
transform that same existence." Marya Dmitrievna, with emotion, backed
up Panshin. "What a clever man this is,"--she thought,--"talking in my
house!" Liza said nothing, as she leaned against a window-frame;
Lavretzky also maintained silence; Marfa Timofeevna, who was playing
cards in the corner with her friend, muttered something to herself.
Panshin strode up and down the room, and talked eloquently, but with a
secret spite: he seemed to be scolding not the whole race, but certain
individuals of his acquaintance. In the Kalitins' garden, in a large
lilac-bush, dwelt a nightingale, whose first evening notes rang forth in
the intervals of this eloquent harangue; the first stars lighted up in
the rosy sky, above the motionless crests of the lindens. Lavretzky
rose, and began to reply to Panshin; an argument ensued. Lavretzky
defended the youth and independence of Russia; he surrendered himself,
his generation as sacrifice,--but upheld the new men, their convictions,
and their desires; Panshin retorted in a sharp and irritating way,
declared that clever men must reform everything, and went so far, at
last, that, forgetting his rank of Junior Gentleman of the Imperial
Bedchamber, and his official career, he called Lavretzky a "laggard
conservative," he even hinted,--in a very remote way, it is true,--at his
false position in society. Lavretzky did not get angry, did not raise
his voice (he remembered that Mikhalevitch also had called him a
laggard--only, a Voltairian)--and calmly vanquished Panshin on every
point. He demonstrated to him the impossibility of leaps and supercilious
reforms, unjustified either by a knowledge of the native land or actual
faith in an ideal, even a negative ideal; he cited, as an example, his
own education, and demanded, first of all, a recognition of national
truth and submission to it,--that submission without which even boldness
against falsehood is impossible; he did not evade, in conclusion, the
reproach--merited, in his opinion--of frivolous waste of time and
strength.

"All that is very fine!"--exclaimed the enraged Panshin, at last:--"Here,
you have returned to Russia,--what do you intend to do?"

"Till the soil,"--repl