Elisaveta said reproachfully:
“What a word—Kham!”
Piotr smiled in a nervous and aggrieved manner, and asked:
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t like it,” said Elisaveta calmly.
With her habitual subjection to the thoughts and moods of her elder sister, Elena said:
“It is a rude word. I feel a reminiscence of a once helpless serfdom in it.”
“Nevertheless this word is now sufficiently literary,” said Piotr, with a vague smile. “And why shouldn’t one use it? It’s not the word that matters. We have seen countless instances with our own eyes of the progress of the spiritual bossiak[4] who is savagely indifferent to everything, who is hopelessly wild, malicious, and drunken for generations to come. He will crush everything—science, art, everything! A good characteristic specimen of a kham is your Stchemilov, with whom, Elisaveta, you sympathize so strongly. He’s a familiar young fellow, a handsome flunkey.”
Piotr fixed his eyes on Elisaveta. She replied calmly:
“I think you very unjust to him. He is a good man.”