house turned severely to Stavrogin as soon as he was seated.

"Stavrogin, will you have tea?"

"Please," he answered.

"Tea for Stavrogin," she commanded her sister at the samovar. "And you,
will you?" (This was to Verhovensky.)

"Of course. What a question to ask a visitor! And give me cream too;
you always give one such filthy stuff by way of tea, and with a name-day
party in the house!"

"What, you believe in keeping name-days too!" the girl-student laughed
suddenly. "We were just talking of that."

"That's stale," muttered the schoolboy at the other end of the table.

"What's stale? To disregard conventions, even the most innocent is not
stale; on the contrary, to the disgrace of every one, so far it's a
novelty," the girl-student answered instantly, darting forward on her
chair. "Besides, there are no innocent conventions," she added with
intensity.

"I only meant," cried the schoolboy with tremendous excitement, "to say
that though conventions of course are stale and must be eradicated, yet
about name-days everybody knows that they are stupid and very stale to
waste precious time upon, which has been wasted already all over the
world, so that it would be as well to sharpen one's wits on something
more useful...."

"You drag it out so, one can't understand what you mean," shouted the
girl.

"I think that every one has a right to express an opinion as well as
every one else, and if I want to express my opinion like anybody
else..."

"No one is attacking your right to give an opinion," the lady of the
house herself cut in sharply. "You were only asked not to ramble because
no one can make out what you mean."

"But allow me to remark that you are not treating me with respect. If
I couldn't fully express my thought, it's not from want of thought
but from too much thought," the schoolboy muttered, almost in despair,
losing his thread completely.

"If you don't know how to talk, you'd better keep quiet," blurted out
the girl.

The schoolboy positively jumped from his chair.

"I only wanted to state," he shouted, crimson with shame and afraid
to look about him, "that you only wanted to show off your cleverness
because Mr. Stavrogin came in--so there!"

"That's a nasty and immoral idea and shows the worthlessness of your
development. I beg you not to address me again," the girl rattled off.

"Stavrogin," began the lady of the house, "they've been discussing the
rights of the family before you came--