l. Our liberals are not
Russian, nor are our conservatives, and you may be sure that the nation
does not recognize anything that has been done by the landed gentry, or
by the seminarists, or what is to be done either."

"Come, that's good! How can you maintain such a paradox? If you are
serious, that is. I cannot allow such a statement about the landed
proprietors to pass unchallenged. Why, you are a landed proprietor
yourself!" cried Prince S. hotly.

"I suppose you'll say there is nothing national about our literature
either?" said Alexandra.

"Well, I am not a great authority on literary questions, but I
certainly do hold that Russian literature is not Russian, except perhaps
Lomonosoff, Pouschkin and Gogol."

"In the first place, that is a considerable admission, and in the second
place, one of the above was a peasant, and the other two were both
landed proprietors!"

"Quite so, but don't be in such a hurry! For since it has been the part
of these three men, and only these three, to say something absolutely
their own, not borrowed, so by this very fact these three men become
really national. If any Russian shall have done or said anything really
and absolutely original, he is to be called national from that moment,
though he may not be able to talk the Russian language; still he is a
national Russian. I consider that an axiom. But we were not speaking
of literature; we began by discussing the socialists. Very well then,
I insist that there does not exist one single Russian socialist. There
does not, and there has never existed such a one, because all socialists
are derived from the two classes--the landed proprietors, and the
seminarists. All our eminent socialists are merely old liberals of
the class of landed proprietors, men who were liberals in the days of
serfdom. Why do you laugh? Give me their books, give me their studies,
their memoirs, and though I am not a literary critic, yet I will prove
as clear as day that every chapter and every word of their writings has
been the work of a former landed proprietor of the old school. You'll
find that all their raptures, all their generous transports are
proprietary, all their woes and their tears, proprietary; all
proprietary or seminarist! You are laughing again, and you, prince, are
smiling too. Don't you agree with me?"

It was true enough that everybody was laughing, the prince among them.

"I cannot tell you on the instant whether I agree with you or not,