is too much devoted to his task and is also too modest.
I know his book. He suggests as a final solution of the question the
division of mankind into two unequal parts. One-tenth enjoys absolute
liberty and unbounded power over the other nine-tenths. The others
have to give up all individuality and become, so to speak, a herd, and,
through boundless submission, will by a series of regenerations attain
primaeval innocence, something like the Garden of Eden. They'll have
to work, however. The measures proposed by the author for depriving
nine-tenths of mankind of their freedom and transforming them into a
herd through the education of whole generations are very remarkable,
founded on the facts of nature and highly logical. One may not agree
with some of the deductions, but it would be difficult to doubt the
intelligence and knowledge of the author. It's a pity that the time
required--ten evenings--is impossible to arrange for, or we might hear a
great deal that's interesting."

"Can you be in earnest?" Madame Virginsky addressed the lame gentleman
with a shade of positive uneasiness in her voice, "when that man doesn't
know what to do with people and so turns nine-tenths of them into
slaves? I've suspected him for a long time."

"You say that of your own brother?" asked the lame man.

"Relationship? Are you laughing at me?"

"And besides, to work for aristocrats and to obey them as though they
were gods is contemptible!" observed the girl-student fiercely.

"What I propose is not contemptible; it's paradise, an earthly
paradise, and there can be no other on earth," Shigalov pronounced
authoritatively.

"For my part," said Lyamshin, "if I didn't know what to do with
nine-tenths of mankind, I'd take them and blow them up into the air
instead of putting them in paradise. I'd only leave a handful of
educated people, who would live happily ever afterwards on scientific
principles."

"No one but a buffoon can talk like that!" cried the girl, flaring up.

"He is a buffoon, but he is of use," Madame Virginsky whispered to her.

"And possibly that would be the best solution of the problem," said
Shigalov, turning hotly to Lyamshin. "You certainly don't know what a
profound thing you've succeeded in saying, my merry friend. But as it's
hardly possible to carry out your idea, we must confine ourselves to an
earthly paradise, since that's what they call it."

"This is pretty thorough rot," broke, as though involuntarily,