“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't say God ought to be shot. I used to think about God before I left the hussars. From all the poems you would think that hussars do nothing but carouse and drink. Yes, I did drink, maybe, but would you believe it, I used to jump out of bed at night and stood crossing myself before the images with nothing but my socks on, praying to God to give me faith; for even then I couldn't be at peace as to whether there was a God or not. It used to fret me so! In the morning, of course, one would amuse oneself and one's faith would seem to be lost again; and in fact I've noticed that faith always seems to be less in the daytime.”
“Haven't you any cards?” asked Verhovensky, with a mighty yawn, addressing Madame Virginsky.
“I sympathise with your question, I sympathise entirely,” the girl-student broke in hotly, flushed with indignation at the major's words.
“We are wasting precious time listening to silly talk,” snapped out the lady of the house, and she looked reprovingly at her husband.
The girl pulled herself together.
“I wanted to make a statement to the meeting concerning the sufferings of the students and their protest, but as time is being wasted in immoral conversation ...”
“There's no such thing as moral or immoral,” the schoolboy brought out, unable to restrain himself as soon as the girl began.
“I knew that, Mr. Schoolboy, long before you were taught it.”
“And I maintain,” he answered savagely, “that you are a child come from Petersburg to enlighten us all, though we know for ourselves the commandment 'honour thy father and thy mother,' which you could not repeat correctly; and the fact that it's immoral every one in Russia knows from Byelinsky.”
“Are we ever to have an end of this?” Madame Virginsky said resolutely to her husband. As the hostess, she blushed for the ineptitude of the conversation, especially as she noticed .smiles and even astonishment among the guests who had been invited for the first time.
“Gentlemen,” said Virginsky, suddenly lifting up his voice, “if anyone wishes to say anything more nearly connected with our business, or has any statement to make, I call upon him to do so without wasting time.”
“I'll venture to ask one question,” said the lame teacher suavely. He had been sitting particularly decorously and had not spoken till then. “I should like to know, are we some sort of meeting, or are we simply a gathering of ordinary mortals paying a visit? I ask simply for the sake of order and so as not to remain in ignorance.”
This “sly” question made an impression. People looked at each other, every one expecting some one else to answer, and suddenly all, as though at a word of command, turned their eyes to Verhovensky and Stavrogin.
“I suggest our voting on the answer to the question whether we are a meeting or not,” said Madame Virginsky.
“I entirely agree with the suggestion,” Liputin chimed in, “though the question is rather vague.”
“I agree too.”
” And so do I,” cried voices. “I too think it would make our proceedings more in order,” confirmed Virginsky.
“To the vote then,” said his wife. “Lyamshin, please sit down to the piano; you can give your vote from there when the voting begins.”
“Again!” cried Lyamshin. “I've strummed enough for you.”
“I beg you most particularly, sit down and play. Don't you care to do anything for the cause?”
“But I assure you, Arina Prohorovna, nobody is eavesdropping. It's only your fancy. Besides, the windows are high, and people would not understand if they did hear.”
“We don't understand ourselves,” some one muttered. “But I tell you one must always be on one's guard. I mean in case there should be spies,” she explained to Verhovensky. “Let them hear from the street that we have music and a name-day party.”
“Hang it all!” Lyamshin swore, and sitting down to the piano, began strumming a valse, banging on the keys almost with his fists, at random.
“I propose that those who want it to be a meeting should put up their right hands,” Madame Virginsky proposed.
Some put them up, others did not. Some held them up and then put them down again and then held them up again. “Poo! I don't understand it at all,” one officer shouted. “I don't either,” cried the other.
“Oh, I understand,” cried a third. “If it's yes, you hold your hand up.”
“But what does 'yes' mean?”
“Means a meeting.”
“No, it means not a meeting.”
“I voted for a meeting,” cried the schoolboy to Madame Virginsky.
“Then why didn't you hold up your hand?”
“I was looking at you. You didn't hold up yours, so I didn't hold up mine.”
“How stupid! I didn't hold up my hand because I proposed it. Gentlemen, now I propose the contrary. Those who want a meeting, sit still and do nothing; those who don't, hold up their right hands.”
“Those who don't want it?” inquired the schoolboy. “Are you doing it on purpose?” cried Madame Virginsky wrathfully.
“No. Excuse me, those who want it, or those who don't want it? For one must know that definitely,” cried two or three voices.
“Those who don't want it — those who don't want it.”
“Yes, tat what is one to do, hold up one's hand or not hold it up if one doesn't want it?” cried an officer.
“Ech, we are not accustomed to constitutional methods yet!” remarked the major.