Dresden Madonna? You mean the Sistine Madonna? _Chere_ Varvara
Petrovna, I spent two hours sitting before that picture and came away
utterly disillusioned. I could make nothing of it and was in complete
amazement. Karmazinov, too, says it's hard to understand it. They all
see nothing in it now, Russians and English alike. All its fame is just
the talk of the last generation."

"Fashions are changed then?"

"What I think is that one mustn't despise our younger generation either.
They cry out that they're communists, but what I say is that we must
appreciate them and mustn't be hard on them. I read everything now--the
papers, communism, the natural sciences--I get everything because, after
all, one must know where one's living and with whom one has to do. One
mustn't spend one's whole life on the heights of one's own fancy. I've
come to the conclusion, and adopted it as a principle, that one must be
kind to the young people and so keep them from the brink. Believe me,
Varvara Petrovna, that none but we who make up good society can by our
kindness and good influence keep them from the abyss towards which they
are brought by the intolerance of all these old men. I am glad though to
learn from you about Stepan Trofimovitch. You suggest an idea to me:
he may be useful at our literary matinee, you know I'm arranging for a
whole day of festivities, a subscription entertainment for the benefit
of the poor governesses of our province. They are scattered about
Russia; in our district alone we can reckon up six of them. Besides
that, there are two girls in the telegraph office, two are being trained
in the academy, the rest would like to be but have not the means. The
Russian woman's fate is a terrible one, Varvara Petrovna! It's out of
that they're making the university question now, and there's even been a
meeting of the Imperial Council about it. In this strange Russia of ours
one can do anything one likes; and that, again, is why it's only by the
kindness and the direct warm sympathy of all the better classes that we
can direct this great common cause in the true path. Oh, heavens, have
we many noble personalities among us! There are some, of course, but
they are scattered far and wide. Let us unite and we shall be stronger.
In one word, I shall first have a literary matinee, then a light
luncheon, then an interval, and in the evening a ball. We meant to begin
the evening by living pictures, but it would involve a great deal