thirty years Chigalev will bring about an upheaval, and men will begin to devour each other: always up to a given point, so that we may not be bored. Boredom is an aristocratic sensation, and in Chigalevism there will be no desires. We will reserve for ourselves desire and suffering, and for the slaves there will be Chigalevism.... We will begin by fermenting disorder; we will reach the people itself. Do you know that we are already terribly strong? those who belong to us are not only the men who murder and set fire, who commit injuries after the approved fashion, and who bite: these people are only in the way. I do not understand anything unless there be discipline. I myself am a scoundrel, but I am not a Socialist. Ha, ha! listen! I have counted them all: the teacher who laughs with the children whom he teaches, at their God and at their cradle, belongs to us; the barrister who defends a well-educated assassin by proving that he is more educated than his victims, and that in order to get money he was obliged to kill, belongs to us; the schoolboy who in order to experience a sharp sensation kills a peasant, belongs to us; the juries who systematically acquit all criminals, belong to us; the judge who at the tribunal is afraid of not showing himself to be sufficiently liberal, belongs to us; among the administrators, among the men of letters, a great number belong to us, and they do not know it themselves. On the other hand, the obedience of schoolboys and fools has reached its zenith. Everywhere you see an immeasurable vanity, and bestial, unheard-of appetites. Do you know how much we owe to the theories in vogue at present alone? When I left Russia, Littré’s thesis, which likens crime to madness, was the rage. I return, and crime is already no longer considered even as madness: it is considered as common sense itself, almost a duty, at least a noble protest. ‘Why should not an enlightened man kill if he has need of money?’ Such is the argument you hear. But that is nothing. The Russian God has ceded his place to drink. The people are drunk, the mothers are drunk, the children are drunk, the churches are empty. Oh, let this generation grow: it is a pity we cannot wait. They would be drunk still. Ah, what a pity that we have no proletariat! But it will come, it will come. The moment is drawing near.”