"You have proved nothing."
"Yes, proved nothing," echoed Arkady with the assurance of a chess-player who, having foreseen a dangerous move on the part of his opponent, awaits the attack with expert composure.
"But how have I proved nothing?" muttered Paul Petrovitch, rather taken aback. "Do you mean to say that you are opposed to, not in favour of, the people?"
"Good gracious! Do not the common folk believe, when it thunders, that the Prophet Elijah is going up to Heaven in his chariot? You and I do not agree with that? The point is that the people is Russian, and that I am the same."
"Not after what you have just said! Henceforth must I decline to recognise you as any countryman of mine."
With a sort of indolent hauteur Bazarov replied:
"With his own hand did my grandfather guide the plough. Ask, therefore, of your favourite peasant which of us two—you or myself—he rates most truly as his countryman. Why, you do not know even how to speak to him!"
"And you, while speaking to him, despise him."
"Should he merit contempt, yes. Reprobate, therefore, my views as much as you like, but who told you that they have come to me fortuitously rather than been derived from the very national spirit of which you are so ardent an upholder?"
"Phaugh! We need you Nihilists, do we not?"