"Oh, so they are the adventurer's opinions? Then you should have made a foot-note stating that they are not the author's views, and that the offender will atone for them later on. But listen again: 'He' (that is, the citizen) 'basely sells his freedom, bows his head to the dust before his fetich, and by his importunity wrests from it gold and fetters!' Now, is it permissible to put this in black and white? What 'freedom' does he sell? and to whom does he sell it? No one in Russia has freedom; consequently neither can he sell it to any one! It is a revolutionary appeal. An incitement to anarchy! A proclamation! And then, 'bows his head to the dust before his fetich.' Who is this fetich? The Czar or the holy images? Do you want to provoke the people to iconoclasm? But it is worse than blasphemy. In former times you would have had your tongue torn out for such words. And again: 'By importunity wrests gold and fetters.' A calumny upon our thirteen official grades! Fetters! Thorough Jacobin heresy! So the fetters offend you? Without them you were wolves and no men! Nor do you need to importune for them; they are conceded without it, of grace! You must have fetters--_must_, I say! It is in vain to versify against them! Did not my red pencil strike out those three lines, I should deserve to have it bored through my nose!" And, upon this awful possibility, he began applying the said fateful pencil with dire force to expunge the offending lines. "But I do not permit you to strike those lines out of my poem. I would rather withdraw it from publication." "But I will not give it back!" returned the death's-head, placing a hand upon the manuscript. "What is once presented to my censure can no more be withdrawn! It must receive the deserved castigation!" "And I protest against the striking out of any single letter of it! The manuscript is mine; it is as much my individual property as is that red pencil yours. You are at liberty to reject my writings, but not to deface them with your confounded chalk!" "Deface! Confounded chalk!" screamed the death's-head, rigid with horror. "Audacity like this has no superlative." "By heavens, it has!" shouted Pushkin, on his side; and to substantiate his words, snatching the red pencil from the Censor's hand he threw it so violently to the ground that the precious relic was shattered to a thousand pieces; at which awful result Pushkin himself was so terrified that he took to flight, leaving the terrible man alone with the pieces. The Censor was aghast with rage and horror at the deed. His all-powerful pencil shattered to atoms! He could scarce believe it. Such a thing had never before happened in civilized Europe. What would men leave sacred and untouched in future, when even that hallowed implement could be dashed to the ground? Herr Sujukin did not call his servant, but himself, kneeling down, began collecting the precious fragments, weeping so bitterly as he did so that his chin trembled.