“There’s no need of defense. In 1812 there was a great invasion of Russia by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the present one, and it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us. A clever nation would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it. We should have had quite different institutions.” “Are they so much better in their own country than we are? I wouldn’t change a dandy I know of for three young Englishmen,” observed Marya Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words with a most languishing glance. “That’s as one prefers.” “But you are just like a foreigner—just like a most gentlemanly foreigner. I tell you that, though it makes me bashful.” “If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike in their vice. They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears polished boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it. The Russian people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very truly yesterday, though he is mad, and all his children.” “You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch.” “But he said I was a stinking lackey. He thinks that I might be unruly. He is mistaken there. If I had a certain sum in my pocket, I would have left here long ago. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any lackey in his behavior, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn’t know how to do anything, and yet he is respected by every one. I may be only a soup-maker, but with luck I could open a café restaurant in Petrovka, in Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and there’s no one in Moscow, except the foreigners, whose cookery is anything special. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to challenge the son of the first count in the country, he’d fight him. Though in what way is he better than I am? For he is ever so much stupider than I am. Look at the money he has wasted without any need!” “It must be lovely, a duel,” Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly. “How so?” “It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young officers with pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake of some lady. A perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to look on, I’d give anything to see one!” “It’s all very well when you are firing at some one, but when he is firing straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly. You’d be glad to run away, Marya Kondratyevna.” “You don’t mean you would run away?” But Smerdyakov did not deign to reply. After a moment’s silence the guitar tinkled again, and he sang again in the same falsetto: Whatever you may say, I shall go far away. Life will be bright and gay In the city far away. I shall not grieve, I shall not grieve at all, I don’t intend to grieve at all.