"I venture to make a question," the lame teacher, who had hitherto been silent and was sitting especially decorously, gently said. "I should like to know whether we here and now constitute some sort of meeting, or are a gathering of ordinary mortals who have come as guests? I ask more for the sake of order, and so as not to be in ignorance."
This "cunning" question produced its effect; everyone exchanged glances, each apparently expecting another to answer, and suddenly, as if on command, they all turned their eyes to Verkhovensky and Stavrogin.
"I simply suggest we vote on how to answer the question: 'Are we a meeting, or not?’“ said Madame Virginsky.
"I join fully in the suggestion," echoed Liputin, "though it is somewhat vague."
"I join, too." "So do I," came other voices.
"And it seems to me there would indeed be more order," Virginsky clinched.
"So, then, let's vote!" the hostess announced. "Lyamshin, I ask that you sit down at the piano: you can give your vote from there, when the voting starts."
"Again!" cried Lyamshin. "I've banged enough for you."
"I urgently ask you, sit down and play; don't you want to be of use to the cause?"
"But I assure you, Arina Prokhorovna, no one is eavesdropping. It's just your fantasy. And the windows are high, and, besides, who'd understand anything even if he was eavesdropping?"
"We don't understand what it's about ourselves," someone's voice grumbled.
"And I tell you that precaution is always necessary. It's in case there are spies," she turned to Verkhovensky with her interpretation, "let them hear from the street that we're having a party and music."
"Eh, the devil!" Lyamshin swore, sat down at the piano, and started banging out a waltz, striking the keys randomly and all but with his fists.
"I suggest that those who wish it to be a meeting raise their right hand," Madame Virginsky suggested.
Some raised their hand, others did not. There were some who raised it and then took it back. Took it back and then raised it again.
"Pah, the devil! I didn't understand a thing," one officer shouted.
"I don't either," shouted another.
"No, I understand," a third one shouted, "hand up if it's yes.”
"Yes, but what does yesmean?"
"It means a meeting."
"No, not a meeting."
"I voted a meeting," the high-school boy shouted, addressing Madame Virginsky.
"Then why didn't you raise your hand?"
"I kept looking at you, you didn't raise yours, so I didn't either."
"How stupid, it's because I made the suggestion, that's why I didn't raise mine. Gentlemen, I suggest we do it again the other way round: whoever wants a meeting can sit and not raise his hand, and whoever doesn't, raise his right hand."
"Whoever doesn't?" the high-school boy repeated.
"Are you doing it on purpose, or what?" Madame Virginsky shouted wrathfully.
"No, excuse me, is it whoever wants or whoever doesn't—because it needs to be defined more precisely," came two or three voices.
"Whoever does not, does not.”
"Very well, but what should one do, raise it or not raise it, if one does notwant?" shouted an officer.
"Ehh, we're not really used to a constitution yet," the major observed.
"Mr. Lyamshin, if you don't mind, you're pounding so that no one can hear anything," observed the lame teacher.
"But, by God, Arina Prokhorovna, nobody's eavesdropping," Lyamshin jumped up. "I simply don't want to play! I came here as a guest, not a banger on pianos!"
"Gentlemen," Virginsky suggested, "answer by voice: are we a meeting, or not?"
"A meeting, a meeting!" came from all sides.
"If so, there's no point in voting, it's enough. Is it enough, gentlemen, or need we also vote?"
"No need, no need, we understand!"
"Maybe there's someone who doesn't want a meeting?"
"No, no, we all want it."
"But what is a meeting?" shouted a voice. It went unanswered.
"We must elect a president," the shout came from all sides.
"Our host, certainly, our host!"
"If so, gentlemen," the elected Virginsky began, "then I suggest my original suggestion from earlier: if anyone wished to begin on something more pertinent, or has something to state, let him set about it without wasting time."
General silence. The eyes of all again turned to Stavrogin and Verkhovensky.
"Verkhovensky, do you have anything to state?" the hostess asked directly.
"Precisely nothing," he stretched himself, yawning, on his chair. "I would like a glass of cognac, though."
"Stavrogin, what about you?"
"Thanks, I don't drink."
"I'm asking whether or not you wish to speak, not about cognac."
"Speak? About what? No, I don't wish to."
"You'll get your cognac," she answered Verkhovensky.
The girl student stood up. She had already tried to jump up several times.
"I came to declare about the sufferings of the unfortunate students and about arousing them everywhere to protest ..."
But she stopped short; at the other end of the table another competitor had appeared, and all eyes turned to him. Long-eared Shigalyov, with a gloomy and sullen air, slowly rose from his seat and melancholically placed a fat notebook, filled with extremely small writing, on the table. He remained standing and was silent. Many looked at the notebook in bewilderment, but Liputin, Virginsky, and the lame teacher seemed pleased with something.
"I ask for the floor," Shigalyov declared sullenly but firmly.
"You have it," Virginsky permitted.
The orator sat down, was silent for about half a minute, then said in an important voice:
"Gentlemen..."
"Here's the cognac!" the relative who had been pouring tea chopped off squeamishly and scornfully, returning with the cognac and now setting it in front of Verkhovensky, along with a glass which she brought in her fingers without a tray or plate.
The interrupted orator paused with dignity.
"Never mind, go on, I'm not listening," cried Verkhovensky, filling his glass.
"Gentlemen, addressing myself to your attention," Shigalyov began again, "and, as you will see further on, requesting your assistance on a point of paramount importance, I must pronounce a preface."
"Arina Prokhorovna, have you got scissors?" Pyotr Stepanovich suddenly asked.
"What do you want scissors for?" she goggled her eyes at him.
"I forgot to cut my nails, it's three days now I've been meaning to cut them," he uttered, serenely studying his long and none-too-clean nails.
Arina Prokhorovna flushed, but Miss Virginsky seemed to like something.
"I think I saw them here on the windowsill earlier." She got up from the table, went, found the scissors, and brought them back with her at once. Pyotr Stepanovich did not even glance at her, took the scissors, and began pottering with them. Arina Prokhorovna realized that this was actually a method, and was ashamed of her touchiness. The gathering silently exchanged glances. The lame teacher spitefully and enviously watched Verkhovensky. Shigalyov began to go on:
"Having devoted my energy to studying the question of the social organization of the future society which is to replace the present one, I have come to the conclusion that all creators of social systems from ancient times to our year 187 - have been dreamers, tale-tellers, fools who contradicted themselves and understood precisely nothing of natural science or of that strange animal known as man. Plato, Rousseau, Fourier, aluminum columns [149]—all this is fit perhaps for sparrows, but not for human society. But since the future social form is necessary precisely now, when we are all finally going to act, so as to stop any further thinking about it, I am suggesting my own system of world organization. Here it is!" he struck the notebook. "I wanted to explain my book to the gathering in the briefest possible way; but I see that I will have to add a great deal of verbal clarification, and therefore the whole explanation will take at least ten evenings, according to the number of chapters in my book." (Laughter was heard.) "Besides that, I announce ahead of time that my system is not finished." (More laughter.) "I got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion directly contradicts the original idea from which I start. Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that apart from my solution of the social formula, there can be no other."