"We are more likely to arrive at something by talking, anyway, than by sitting silent and posing as dictators," Liputin hissed, as though at last venturing to begin the attack. "I didn't mean Shigalov when I said it was rot," Verhovensky mumbled. "You see, gentlemen,"--he raised his eyes a trifle--"to my mind all these books, Fourier, Cabet, all this talk about the right to work, and Shigalov's theories--are all like novels of which one can write a hundred thousand--an æsthetic entertainment. I can understand that in this little town you are bored, so you rush to ink and paper." "Excuse me," said the lame man, wriggling on his chair, "though we are provincials and of course objects of commiseration on that ground, yet we know that so far nothing has happened in the world new enough to be worth our weeping at having missed it. It is suggested to us in various pamphlets made abroad and secretly distributed that we should unite and form groups with the sole object of bringing about universal destruction. It's urged that, however much you tinker with the world, you can't make a good job of it, but that by cutting off a hundred million heads and so lightening one's burden, one can jump over the ditch more safely. A fine idea, no doubt, but quite as impracticable as Shigalov's theories, which you referred to just now so contemptuously." "Well, but I haven't come here for discussion." Verhovensky let drop this significant phrase, and, as though quite unaware of his blunder, drew the candle nearer to him that he might see better. "It's a pity, a great pity, that you haven't come for discussion, and it's a great pity that you are so taken up just now with your toilet." "What's my toilet to you?" "To remove a hundred million heads is as difficult as to transform the world by propaganda. Possibly more difficult, especially in Russia," Liputin ventured again. "It's Russia they rest their hopes on now," said an officer. "We've heard they are resting their hopes on it," interposed the lame man. "We know that a mysterious finger is pointing to our delightful country as the land most fitted to accomplish the great task. But there's this: by the gradual solution of the problem by propaganda I shall gain something, anyway--I shall have some pleasant talk, at least, and shall even get some recognition from government for my services to the cause of society. But in the second way, by the rapid method of cutting off a hundred million heads, what benefit shall I get personally? If you began advocating that, your tongue might be cut out." "Yours certainly would be," observed Verhovensky.