ace. To look facts straight in the face is only possible to Russians of
this generation. No, in Europe they are not yet so bold; it is a realm
of stone, there there is still something to lean upon. So far as I see
and am able to judge, the whole essence of the Russian revolutionary
idea lies in the negation of honour. I like its being so boldly and
fearlessly expressed. No, in Europe they wouldn't understand it yet, but
that's just what we shall clutch at. For a Russian a sense of honour is
only a superfluous burden, and it always has been a burden through all
his history. The open 'right to dishonour' will attract him more than
anything. I belong to the older generation and, I must confess, still
cling to honour, but only from habit. It is only that I prefer the old
forms, granted it's from timidity; you see one must live somehow what's
left of one's life."

He suddenly stopped.

"I am talking," he thought, "while he holds his tongue and watches me.
He has come to make me ask him a direct question. And I shall ask him."

"Yulia Mihailovna asked me by some stratagem to find out from you what
the surprise is that you are preparing for the ball to-morrow," Pyotr
Stepanovitch asked suddenly.

"Yes, there really will be a surprise and I certainly shall
astonish..." said Karmazinov with increased dignity. "But I won't tell
you what the secret is."

Pyotr Stepanovitch did not insist.

"There is a young man here called Shatov," observed the great writer.
"Would you believe it, I haven't seen him."

"A very nice person. What about him?"

"Oh, nothing. He talks about something. Isn't he the person who gave
Stavrogin that slap in the face?"

"Yes."

"And what's your opinion of Stavrogin?"

"I don't know; he is such a flirt."

Karmazinov detested Stavrogin because it was the latter's habit not to
take any notice of him.

"That flirt," he said, chuckling, "if what is advocated in your
manifestoes ever comes to pass, will be the first to be hanged."

"Perhaps before," Pyotr Stepanovitch said suddenly.

"Quite right too," Karmazinov assented, not laughing, and with
pronounced gravity.

"You have said so once before, and, do you know, I repeated it to him."

"What, you surely didn't repeat it?" Karmazinov laughed again.

"He said that if he were to be hanged it would be enough for you to
be flogged, not simply as a compliment but to hurt, as they flog the
peasants."

Pyotr Stepanovitch took his hat and got up