'It's old hat,' the high-school boy grumbled from the other end of the table.
'What is old hat? To forget prejudices, innocent though they may be, isn't old hat but, on the contrary, to everyone's shame, is so far still new,' the girl student instantly declared, simply lunging forward from her chair. 'Besides, there are no innocent prejudices,' she added bitterly.
'I just wanted to state,' the high-school boy became terribly excited, 'that although prejudices are, of course, old and need to be wiped out, yet concerning name days everybody already knows they're stupid and too old hat to waste precious time on, which has been wasted by the whole world even without that, so as to use one's wits for some object more in need of...'
'Too dragged out, can't understand a thing,' the girl student shouted.
'It seems to me that everybody has the right to speak equally with everybody else, and if I wish to state my opinion, like anybody else, then...'
'No one is taking away your right to speak,' the hostess herself now cut in sharply, 'you are simply being invited to stop maundering, because no one can understand you.'
'Allow me to observe, however, that you do not respect me; if I was unable to finish my thought, it's not from having no thoughts, but rather from an excess of thoughts...' the high-school boy muttered, all but in despair, and became finally confused.
'If you don't know how to talk, shut up,' the girl student swatted.
The high-school boy even jumped on his chair.
'I just wished to state,' he shouted, all burning with shame, and afraid to look around, 'that you just wanted to pop up with your cleverness because Mr. Stavrogin came in—that's what!'
'Your thought is dirty and immoral, and indicates the utter insignificance of your development. I beg you not to advert to me again,' the girl student rattled out.
'Stavrogin,' the hostess began, 'they were shouting about family rights just before you came—this officer here' (she nodded at her relative, the major). 'And I'm most certainly not going to be the one to bother you with such old, long-disposed-of nonsense. All the same, where on earth could family rights and duties have come from, in the sense of the prejudice in which they now appear? That's the question. Your opinion?'
'What do you mean, where on earth?' Stavrogin asked in turn.
'That is, we know, for instance, that the prejudice about God originated in thunder and lightning,' the girl student suddenly ripped out again, all but leaping on Stavrogin with her eyes. 'It is known only too well that original mankind, being scared of thunder and lightning, deified the invisible enemy, feeling their weakness before him. But how did the prejudice about the family arise? Where on earth could the family itself have come from?'
'That is not quite the same...' the hostess tried to stop her.
'I suppose the answer to such a question would be immodest,' Stavrogin answered.
'How's that?' the girl student lunged forward.
But a tittering came from the teachers' group, echoed at once from the other end by Lyamshin and the high- school boy, and followed by the husky guffaw of the major-relative.
'You should write vaudevilles,' the hostess remarked to Stavrogin.
'That adverts all too little to your honor, whatever your name is,' the girl student cut off in decided indignation.
'And you shouldn't pop up!' the major blurted out. 'You are a young lady, you should behave modestly, and it's as if you're sitting on pins.'
'Kindly keep still, and do not dare to address me familiarly with your nasty comparisons. It's the first time I've seen you and I care nothing about our family connection.'
'But I'm your uncle! I used to tote you around in my arms when you were still an infant!'
'What do I care what you used to tote around. I didn't ask you to tote me around, which means, mister impolite officer, that you got pleasure from it. And allow me to remark that you dare not use a familiar tone with me, unless it's from civic feeling, and that I forbid it once and for all.'
'They're all like that!' the major banged his fist on the table, addressing Stavrogin, who was sitting opposite him. 'No, sir, excuse me, I like liberalism and modernity, and I like listening to intelligent conversation, but—mind you—from men. From women, from these modern dithery things—no, sir, it pains me! Don't you fidget!' he cried to the girl student, who was hopping up and down on her chair. 'No, I demand to speak, too; I have been offended, sirs.'
'You only hinder others, and can't say anything yourself,' the hostess grumbled indignantly.
'No, I will have my say,' the excited major addressed Stavrogin. 'I'm counting on you, Mr. Stavrogin, as one who has only just arrived, though I do not have the honor of knowing you. Without men they'll perish like flies—that is my opinion. This whole woman question of theirs is just merely a lack of originality. I assure you that this whole woman question was invented for them by men, out of foolishness, and it has blown up in their faces—thank God I'm not married! Not the least diversity, sir, they cannot even invent a simple pattern; men even invent their patterns for them! Look here, sir, I used to carry her in my arms, danced the mazurka with her when she was ten years old, she came in today, naturally I flew to embrace her, and she announces to me from the second word that there is no God. If it had been from the third word, not from the second—but no, she's in a hurry! Well, suppose intelligent people don't believe, but that's from intelligence, and you, I say, squirt that you are, what do you understand about God? You were taught by some student, and if he'd taught you to light icon lamps, you'd do it.'
'That's all lies, you are a very wicked man, and I conclusively expressed your groundlessness to you just now,' the girl student replied disdainfully, as if scorning too many explanations with such a man. 'I precisely told you just now that we were all taught by the catechesis: 'If you honor your father and your parents, you'll live a long life and be granted wealth.' It's in the ten commandments.[148] If God found it necessary to offer a reward for love, it means your God is immoral. These are the words in which I gave you my proof today, and not from the second word, but because you declared your rights. Whose fault is it if you're dumb and don't understand even now. You feel offended and you're angry—that's the whole clue to your generation.'
