s me
ache all over! Don't wriggle about!" he shouted to the girl, who
was leaping up from her chair. "No, it's my turn to speak, I've been
insulted."

"You can't say anything yourself, and only hinder other people talking,"
the lady of the house grumbled indignantly.

"No, I will have my say," said the major hotly, addressing Stavrogin. "I
reckon on you, Mr. Stavrogin, as a fresh person who has only just come
on the scene, though I haven't the honour of knowing you. Without men
they'll perish like flies--that's what I think. All their woman question
is only lack of originality. I assure you that all this woman question
has been invented for them by men in foolishness and to their own hurt.
I only thank God I am not married. There's not the slightest variety in
them, they can't even invent a simple pattern; they have to get men to
invent them for them! Here I used to carry her in my arms, used to dance
the mazurka with her when she was ten years old; to-day she's come,
naturally I fly to embrace her, and at the second word she tells me
there's no God. She might have waited a little, she was in too great a
hurry! Clever people don't believe, I dare say; but that's from their
cleverness. But you, chicken, what do you know about God, I said to
her. 'Some student taught you, and if he'd taught you to light the lamp
before the ikons you would have lighted it.'"

"You keep telling lies, you are a very spiteful person. I proved to
you just now the untenability of your position," the girl answered
contemptuously, as though disdaining further explanations with such a
man. "I told you just now that we've all been taught in the Catechism
if you honour your father and your parents you will live long and have
wealth. That's in the Ten Commandments. If God thought it necessary to
offer rewards for love, your God must be immoral. That's how I proved it
to you. It wasn't the second word, and it was because you asserted your
rights. It's not my fault if you are stupid and don't understand even
now. You are offended and you are spiteful--and that's what explains all
your generation."

"You're a goose!" said the major.

"And you are a fool!"

"You can call me names!"

"Excuse me, Kapiton Maximitch, you told me yourself you don't believe in
God," Liputin piped from the other end of the table.

"What if I did say so--that's a different matter. I believe, perhaps,
only not altogether. Even if I don't believe altogether, still I don'