All the speakers said the same thing: the political agents must serve more zealously, must work more, must be cleverer, because the revolutionists were growing more and more powerful. Sometimes they told about the Czars, how good and wise they were, how the foreigners feared them and envied them because they had liberated various nations from the foreign yoke. They had freed the Bulgarians and the Servians from the oppression of the Turkish Sultan, the Khivans, the Bokharans, and the Turkomans from the Persian Shah, and the Manchurians from the Chinese Emperor. As a result, the Germans and the English along with the Japanese, who were bribed by them, were dissatisfied. They would like to get the nations Russia had liberated into their own power. But they knew the Czar would not permit this, and that was why they hated him, why they wished him all evil, and endeavored to bring about the revolution in Russia. Yevsey listened to these speeches with interest, waiting for the moment when the speakers would begin to tell about the Russian people, and explain why all of them were unpleasant and cruel, why they loved to torture one another, and lived such a restless, uncomfortable life. He wanted to hear what the cause was of such poverty, of the universal fear, and the angry groans heard on all sides. But of such things no one spoke. After one of the meetings Viekov said to Yevsey as the two were walking in the street: "So it means that they are getting into power. Did you hear? It's impossible to understand what it signifies. Just see--here you have secret people who live hidden, and suddenly they cause general alarm, and shake everything up. It's very hard to comprehend. From where, I'd like to know, do they get their power?" Melnikov, now even more morose and taciturn, grown thin and all dishevelled, once hit his fist on his knee, and shouted: "I want to know where the truth is!" "What's the matter?" asked Maklakov angrily. "What's the matter? This is the matter: I understand it this way: One class of officials has grown weak, our class. Now another class gets the power over the people, that's all." "And the result is--fiddlesticks!" said Maklakov, laughing. Melnikov looked at him, and sighed: "Don't lie, Timofey Vasilyevich. You lie out and out. You are a wise man, and you lie. I understand."