Demons

'I voted a meeting,' the high-school boy shouted, addressing Madame Virginsky.

'Then why didn't you raise your hand?'

'I kept looking at you, you didn't raise yours, so I didn't either.'

'How stupid, it's because I made the suggestion, that's why I didn't raise mine. Gentlemen, I suggest we do it again the other way round: whoever wants a meeting can sit and not raise his hand, and whoever doesn't, raise his right hand.'

'Whoever doesn't?' the high-school boy repeated.

'Are you doing it on purpose, or what?' Madame Virginsky shouted wrathfully.

'No, excuse me, is it whoever wants or whoever doesn't—because it needs to be defined more precisely,' came two or three voices.

'Whoever does not, does not.”

'Very well, but what should one do, raise it or not raise it, if one does not want?' shouted an officer.

'Ehh, we're not really used to a constitution yet,' the major observed.

'Mr. Lyamshin, if you don't mind, you're pounding so that no one can hear anything,' observed the lame teacher.

'But, by God, Arina Prokhorovna, nobody's eavesdropping,' Lyamshin jumped up. 'I simply don't want to play! I came here as a guest, not a banger on pianos!'

'Gentlemen,' Virginsky suggested, 'answer by voice: are we a meeting, or not?'

'A meeting, a meeting!' came from all sides.

'If so, there's no point in voting, it's enough. Is it enough, gentlemen, or need we also vote?'

'No need, no need, we understand!'

'Maybe there's someone who doesn't want a meeting?'

'No, no, we all want it.'

'But what is a meeting?' shouted a voice. It went unanswered.

'We must elect a president,' the shout came from all sides.

'Our host, certainly, our host!'

'If so, gentlemen,' the elected Virginsky began, 'then I suggest my original suggestion from earlier: if anyone wished to begin on something more pertinent, or has something to state, let him set about it without wasting time.'

General silence. The eyes of all again turned to Stavrogin and Verkhovensky.

'Verkhovensky, do you have anything to state?' the hostess asked directly.

'Precisely nothing,' he stretched himself, yawning, on his chair. 'I would like a glass of cognac, though.'

'Stavrogin, what about you?'

'Thanks, I don't drink.'

'I'm asking whether or not you wish to speak, not about cognac.'

'Speak? About what? No, I don't wish to.'

'You'll get your cognac,' she answered Verkhovensky.

The girl student stood up. She had already tried to jump up several times.

'I came to declare about the sufferings of the unfortunate students and about arousing them everywhere to protest ...'

But she stopped short; at the other end of the table another competitor had appeared, and all eyes turned to him. Long-eared Shigalyov, with a gloomy and sullen air, slowly rose from his seat and melancholically placed a fat notebook, filled with extremely small writing, on the table. He remained standing and was silent. Many looked at the notebook in bewilderment, but Liputin, Virginsky, and the lame teacher seemed pleased with something.

'I ask for the floor,' Shigalyov declared sullenly but firmly.

'You have it,' Virginsky permitted.

The orator sat down, was silent for about half a minute, then said in an important voice:

'Gentlemen...'

'Here's the cognac!' the relative who had been pouring tea chopped off squeamishly and scornfully, returning with the cognac and now setting it in front of Verkhovensky, along with a glass which she brought in her fingers without a tray or plate.

The interrupted orator paused with dignity.

'Never mind, go on, I'm not listening,' cried Verkhovensky, filling his glass.

'Gentlemen, addressing myself to your attention,' Shigalyov began again, 'and, as you will see further on, requesting your assistance on a point of paramount importance, I must pronounce a preface.'

'Arina Prokhorovna, have you got scissors?' Pyotr Stepanovich suddenly asked.