'What do you want scissors for?' she goggled her eyes at him.
'I forgot to cut my nails, it's three days now I've been meaning to cut them,' he uttered, serenely studying his long and none-too-clean nails.
Arina Prokhorovna flushed, but Miss Virginsky seemed to like something.
'I think I saw them here on the windowsill earlier.' She got up from the table, went, found the scissors, and brought them back with her at once. Pyotr Stepanovich did not even glance at her, took the scissors, and began pottering with them. Arina Prokhorovna realized that this was actually a method, and was ashamed of her touchiness. The gathering silently exchanged glances. The lame teacher spitefully and enviously watched Verkhovensky. Shigalyov began to go on:
'Having devoted my energy to studying the question of the social organization of the future society which is to replace the present one, I have come to the conclusion that all creators of social systems from ancient times to our year 187 - have been dreamers, tale-tellers, fools who contradicted themselves and understood precisely nothing of natural science or of that strange animal known as man. Plato, Rousseau, Fourier, aluminum columns[149] —all this is fit perhaps for sparrows, but not for human society. But since the future social form is necessary precisely now, when we are all finally going to act, so as to stop any further thinking about it, I am suggesting my own system of world organization. Here it is!' he struck the notebook. 'I wanted to explain my book to the gathering in the briefest possible way; but I see that I will have to add a great deal of verbal clarification, and therefore the whole explanation will take at least ten evenings, according to the number of chapters in my book.' (Laughter was heard.) 'Besides that, I announce ahead of time that my system is not finished.' (More laughter.) 'I got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion directly contradicts the original idea from which I start. Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that apart from my solution of the social formula, there can be no other.'
The laughter was increasing more and more, but it was mostly the young and, so to speak, less initiated guests who laughed. The faces of the hostess, Liputin, and the lame teacher expressed a certain vexation.
'If you yourself weren't able to hold your system together, and arrived at despair, what are we supposed to do?' one officer observed cautiously.
'You're right, mister active officer,' Shigalyov turned abruptly to him, 'and most of all in having used the word 'despair.' Yes, I kept arriving at despair; nevertheless, everything expounded in my book is irreplaceable, and there is no other way out; no one can invent anything. And so I hasten, without wasting time, to invite the whole society, having heard my book in the course of ten evenings, to state its opinion. And if the members do not want to listen to me, let us break up at the very beginning—the men to occupy themselves with state service, the women to go to their kitchens, for, having rejected my book, they will find no other way out. None what-so-ever! And by losing time, they will only harm themselves, because later they will inevitably come back to the same thing.'
People began to stir. 'Is he crazy, or what?' voices asked.
'So it all comes down to Shigalyov's despair,' Lyamshin concluded, 'and the essential question is whether he is to be or not to be in despair?'
'Shigalyov's proximity to despair is a personal question,' the high-school boy declared.
'I suggest we vote on how far Shigalyov's despair concerns the common cause, and along with that, whether it's worth listening to him or not,' the officer gaily decided.
'That's not the point here,' the lame man finally mixed in. Generally, he spoke with a certain mocking smile, as it were, so that it might have been difficult to tell whether he was speaking sincerely or joking. 'That's not the point here, gentlemen. Mr. Shigalyov is all too seriously devoted to his task, and, what's more, is too modest. I know his book. He suggests, as a final solution of the question, the division of mankind into two unequal parts. One tenth is granted freedom of person and unlimited rights over the remaining nine tenths.[150] These must lose their person and turn into something like a herd, and in unlimited obedience, through a series of regenerations, attain to primeval innocence, something like the primeval paradise—though, by the way, they will have to work. The measures proposed by the author for removing the will from nine tenths of mankind and remaking them into a herd, by means of a re-educating of entire generations—are quite remarkable, based on natural facts, and extremely logical. One may disagree with certain conclusions, but it is difficult to doubt the author's intelligence and knowledge. It's a pity the stipulation of ten evenings is totally incompatible with the circumstances, otherwise we might hear a great many interesting things.'
'Are you really serious?' Madame Virginsky turned to the lame man even somewhat alarmed. 'If this man, not knowing what to do about the people, turns nine tenths of them into slavery? I've long suspected him.'
'Your own dear brother, you mean?' the lame man asked.
'Family ties? Are you laughing at me or not?'
'And, besides, to work for the aristocrats and obey them as if they were gods is vileness!' the girl student observed furiously.
'What I propose is not vileness but paradise, earthly paradise, and there can be no other on earth,' Shigalyov concluded imperiously.
'Instead of paradise,' Lyamshin shouted, 'I'd take these nine tenths of mankind, since there's really nothing to do about them, and blow them sky-high, and leave just a bunch of learned people who would then start living happily in an educated way.'[151]
'Only a buffoon could talk like that,' the girl student flared up.
'He is a buffoon, but he's useful,' Madame Virginsky whispered to her.
'And that might be the best solution of the problem,' Shigalyov turned hotly to Lyamshin. 'You, of course, don't even know what a profound thing you've managed to say, mister funny fellow. But since your idea is almost unrealizable, we must limit ourselves to the earthly paradise, if that's what we're calling it.'
'That's a lot of nonsense, however!' escaped, as it were, from Verkhovensky. Nevertheless he went on cutting his nails with complete indifference and without raising his eyes.
'Why nonsense, sir?' the lame man picked up at once, as if he had just been waiting for his first word in order to seize upon it. 'Why nonsense precisely? Mr. Shigalyov is somewhat of a fanatic in his love of mankind; but remember that in Fourier, in Cabet, and even in Proudhon himself,[152] there are many quite despotic and fantastic pre-resolutions of the problem. Mr. Shigalyov perhaps resolves the matter even far more soberly than they do. I assure you that after reading his book, it is almost impossible to disagree with some things. He is perhaps least distant of all from realism, and his earthly paradise is almost the real one, the very one mankind
