“Not at all,” answered a man’s voice politely, but with emphatic dignity. It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and that the woman was making advances. “I believe the man must be Smerdyakov,” thought Alyosha, “from his voice. And the lady must be the daughter of the house here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wears the dress with a tail and goes to Marfa for soup.” “I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme,” the woman’s voice continued. “Why don’t you go on?” The man sang again: What do I care for royal wealth If but my dear one be in health? Lord have mercy On her and on me! On her and on me! On her and on me! “It was even better last time,” observed the woman’s voice. “You sang ‘If my darling be in health’; it sounded more tender. I suppose you’ve forgotten to-day.” “Poetry is rubbish!” said Smerdyakov curtly. “Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry.” “So far as it’s poetry, it’s essential rubbish. Consider yourself, who ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even though it were decreed by government, we shouldn’t say much, should we? Poetry is no good, Marya Kondratyevna.” “How clever you are! How is it you’ve gone so deep into everything?” The woman’s voice was more and more insinuating. “I could have done better than that. I could have known more than that, if it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up. I would have shot a man in a duel if he called me names because I am descended from a filthy beggar and have no father. And they used to throw it in my teeth in Moscow. It had reached them from here, thanks to Grigory Vassilyevitch. Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for rebelling against my birth, but I would have sanctioned their killing me before I was born that I might not have come into the world at all. They used to say in the market, and your mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said ‘a little bit,’ like every one else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant’s feeling. Can a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an educated man? He can’t be said to have feeling at all, in his ignorance. From my childhood up when I hear ‘a wee bit,’ I am ready to burst with rage. I hate all Russia, Marya Kondratyevna.” “If you’d been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you wouldn’t have talked like that, but would have drawn your saber to defend all Russia.” “I don’t want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what’s more, I should like to abolish all soldiers.” “And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us?”