"
said the latter, suddenly stopping his laughter, and starting like a
schoolboy caught at mischief. "But, I assure you, I am listening to you
with extreme gratification."

So saying, he almost panted with agitation, and a cold sweat stood upon
his forehead. These were his first words since he had entered the house;
he tried to lift his eyes, and look around, but dared not; Evgenie
Pavlovitch noticed his confusion, and smiled.

"I'll just tell you one fact, ladies and gentlemen," continued the
latter, with apparent seriousness and even exaltation of manner, but
with a suggestion of "chaff" behind every word, as though he were
laughing in his sleeve at his own nonsense--"a fact, the discovery
of which, I believe, I may claim to have made by myself alone. At all
events, no other has ever said or written a word about it; and in this
fact is expressed the whole essence of Russian liberalism of the sort
which I am now considering.

"In the first place, what is liberalism, speaking generally, but an
attack (whether mistaken or reasonable, is quite another question) upon
the existing order of things? Is this so? Yes. Very well. Then my 'fact'
consists in this, that RUSSIAN liberalism is not an attack upon the
existing order of things, but an attack upon the very essence of things
themselves--indeed, on the things themselves; not an attack on the
Russian order of things, but on Russia itself. My Russian liberal
goes so far as to reject Russia; that is, he hates and strikes his own
mother. Every misfortune and mishap of the mother-country fills him with
mirth, and even with ecstasy. He hates the national customs, Russian
history, and everything. If he has a justification, it is that he does
not know what he is doing, and believes that his hatred of Russia is the
grandest and most profitable kind of liberalism. (You will often find
a liberal who is applauded and esteemed by his fellows, but who is in
reality the dreariest, blindest, dullest of conservatives, and is not
aware of the fact.) This hatred for Russia has been mistaken by some of
our 'Russian liberals' for sincere love of their country, and they
boast that they see better than their neighbours what real love of one's
country should consist in. But of late they have grown, more candid and
are ashamed of the expression 'love of country,' and have annihilated
the very spirit of the words as something injurious and petty and
undignified. This is the truth, and I hold by