“If you don’t know how to talk, you’d better keep quiet,” blurted out the girl.
The schoolboy positively jumped from his chair.
“I only wanted to state,” he shouted, crimson with shame and afraid to look about him, “that you only wanted to show off your cleverness because Mr. Stavrogin came in—so there!”
“That’s a nasty and immoral idea and shows the worthlessness of your development. I beg you not to address me again,” the girl rattled off.
“Stavrogin,” began the lady of the house, “they’ve been discussing the rights of the family before you came—this officer here”—she nodded towards her relation, the major—“and, of course, I am not going to worry you with such stale nonsense, which has been dealt with long ago. But how have the rights and duties of the family come about in the superstitious form in which they exist at present? That’s the question. What’s your opinion?”
“What do you mean by ‘come about’?” Stavrogin asked in his turn.
“We know, for instance, that the superstition about God came from thunder and lightning.” The girl-student rushed into the fray again, staring at Stavrogin with her eyes almost jumping out of her head. “It’s well known that primitive man, scared by thunder and lightning, made a god of the unseen enemy, feeling their weakness before it. But how did the superstition of the family arise? How did the family itself arise?”
“That’s not quite the same thing.…” Madame Virginsky tried to check her.
“I think the answer to this question wouldn’t be quite discreet,” answered Stavrogin.
“How so?” said the girl-student, craning forward suddenly. But there was an audible titter in the group of teachers, which was at once caught up at the other end by Lyamshin and the schoolboy and followed by a hoarse chuckle from the major.