"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 not want?" 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."
The laughter was increasing more and more, but it was mostly the young and, so to speak, less initiated guests who laughed. The faces of the hostess, Liputin, and the lame teacher expressed a certain vexation.
"If you yourself weren't able to hold your system together, and arrived at despair, what are we supposed to do?" one officer observed cautiously.
"You're right, mister active officer," Shigalyov turned abruptly to him, "and most of all in having used the word 'despair.' Yes, I kept arriving at despair; nevertheless, everything expounded in my book is irreplaceable, and there is no other way out; no one can invent anything. And so I hasten, without wasting time, to invite the whole society, having heard my book in the course of ten evenings, to state its opinion. And if the members do not want to listen to me, let us break up at the very beginning—the men to occupy themselves with state service, the women to go to their kitchens, for, having rejected my book, they will find no other way out. None what-so-ever! And by losing time, they will only harm themselves, because later they will inevitably come back to the same thing."
People began to stir. "Is he crazy, or what?" voices asked.
"So it all comes down to Shigalyov's despair," Lyamshin concluded, "and the essential question is whether he is to be or not to be in despair?"
"Shigalyov's proximity to despair is a personal question," the high-school boy declared.
"I suggest we vote on how far Shigalyov's despair concerns the common cause, and along with that, whether it's worth listening to him or not," the officer gaily decided.
"That's not the point here," the lame man finally mixed in. Generally, he spoke with a certain mocking smile, as it were, so that it might have been difficult to tell whether he was speaking sincerely or joking. "That's not the point here, gentlemen. Mr. Shigalyov is all too seriously devoted to his task, and, what's more, is 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 is granted freedom of person and unlimited rights over the remaining nine tenths.[150] These must lose their person and turn into something like a herd, and in unlimited obedience, through a series of regenerations, attain to primeval innocence, something like the primeval paradise—though, by the way, they will have to work. The measures proposed by the author for removing the will from nine tenths of mankind and remaking them into a herd, by means of a re-educating of entire generations—are quite remarkable, based on natural facts, and extremely logical. One may disagree with certain conclusions, but it is difficult to doubt the author's intelligence and knowledge. It's a pity the stipulation of ten evenings is totally incompatible with the circumstances, otherwise we might hear a great many interesting things."