he platform, there was a regular
block. The ladies screamed, some of the girls began to cry and asked to
go home. Lembke, standing up by his chair, kept gazing wildly about him.
Yulia Mihailovna completely lost her head--for the first time during her
career amongst us. As for Stepan Trofimovitch, for the first moment
he seemed literally crushed by the divinity student's words, but he
suddenly raised his arms as though holding them out above the public and
yelled:

"I shake the dust from off my feet and I curse you.... It's the end, the
end...."

And turning, he ran behind the scenes, waving his hands menacingly.

"He has insulted the audience!... Verhovensky!" the angry section
roared. They even wanted to rush in pursuit of him. It was impossible to
appease them, at the moment, any way, and--a final catastrophe broke
like a bomb on the assembly and exploded in its midst: the third reader,
the maniac who kept waving his fist behind the scenes, suddenly ran
on to the platform. He looked like a perfect madman. With a broad,
triumphant smile, full of boundless self-confidence, he looked round at
the agitated hall and he seemed to be delighted at the disorder. He was
not in the least disconcerted at having to speak in such an uproar, on
the contrary, he was obviously delighted. This was so obvious that it
attracted attention at once.

"What's this now?" people were heard asking. "Who is this? Sh-h! What
does he want to say?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," the maniac shouted with all his might, standing
at the very edge of the platform and speaking with almost as shrill,
feminine a voice as Karmazinov's, but without the aristocratic lisp.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Twenty years ago, on the eve of war with half
Europe, Russia was regarded as an ideal country by officials of all
ranks! Literature was in the service of the censorship; military drill
was all that was taught at the universities; the troops were trained
like a ballet, and the peasants paid the taxes and were mute under the
lash of serfdom. Patriotism meant the wringing of bribes from the quick
and the dead. Those who did not take bribes were looked upon as rebels
because they disturbed the general harmony. The birch copses were
extirpated in support of discipline. Europe trembled.... But never in
the thousand years of its senseless existence had Russia sunk to such
ignominy...."

He raised his fist, waved it ecstatically and menacingly over his head
and suddenly brou