“You’re a goose!” said the major.
“And you are a fool!”
“You can call me names!”
“Excuse me, Kapiton Maximitch, you told me yourself you don’t believe in God,” Liputin piped from the other end of the table.
“What if I did say so—that’s a different matter. I believe, perhaps, only not altogether. Even if I don’t believe altogether, still I don’t say God ought to be shot. I used to think about God before I left the hussars. From all the poems you would think that hussars do nothing but carouse and drink. Yes, I did drink, maybe, but would you believe it, I used to jump out of bed at night and stood crossing myself before the images with nothing but my socks on, praying to God to give me faith; for even then I couldn’t be at peace as to whether there was a God or not. It used to fret me so! In the morning, of course, one would amuse oneself and one’s faith would seem to be lost again; and in fact I’ve noticed that faith always seems to be less in the daytime.”
“Haven’t you any cards?” asked Verhovensky, with a mighty yawn, addressing Madame Virginsky.
“I sympathise with your question, I sympathise entirely,” the girl-student broke in hotly, flushed with indignation at the major’s words.
“We are wasting precious time listening to silly talk,” snapped out the lady of the house, and she looked reprovingly at her husband.
The girl pulled herself together.
“I wanted to make a statement to the meeting concerning the sufferings of the students and their protest, but as time is being wasted in immoral conversation …”