from
Verhovensky. Without even raising his eyes, however, he went on cutting
his nails with perfect nonchalance.

"Why is it rot?" The lame man took it up instantly, as though he had
been lying in wait for his first words to catch at them. "Why is it
rot? Mr. Shigalov is somewhat fanatical in his love for humanity, but
remember that Fourier, still more Cabet and even Proudhon himself,
advocated a number of the most despotic and even fantastic measures. Mr.
Shigalov is perhaps far more sober in his suggestions than they are. I
assure you that when one reads his book it's almost impossible not to
agree with some things. He is perhaps less far from realism than anyone
and his earthly paradise is almost the real one--if it ever existed--for
the loss of which man is always sighing."

"I knew I was in for something," Verhovensky muttered again.

"Allow me," said the lame man, getting more and more excited.
"Conversations and arguments about the future organisation of society
are almost an actual necessity for all thinking people nowadays. Herzen
was occupied with nothing else all his life. Byelinsky, as I know on
very good authority, used to spend whole evenings with his friends
debating and settling beforehand even the minutest, so to speak,
domestic, details of the social organisation of the future."

"Some people go crazy over it," the major observed suddenly.

"We are more likely to arrive at something by talking, anyway, than by
sitting silent and posing as dictators," Liputin hissed, as though at
last venturing to begin the attack.

"I didn't mean Shigalov when I said it was rot," Verhovensky mumbled.
"You see, gentlemen,"--he raised his eyes a trifle--"to my mind all
these books, Fourier, Cabet, all this talk about the right to work,
and Shigalov's theories--are all like novels of which one can write a
hundred thousand--an aesthetic entertainment. I can understand that in
this little town you are bored, so you rush to ink and paper."

"Excuse me," said the lame man, wriggling on his chair, "though we are
provincials and of course objects of commiseration on that ground, yet
we know that so far nothing has happened in the world new enough to be
worth our weeping at having missed it. It is suggested to us in various
pamphlets made abroad and secretly distributed that we should unite
and form groups with the sole object of bringing about universal
destruction. It's urged that, however much you tinker with the world