‘I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on my soul,’ retorted Pigasov. ‘As for my condition, there’s not much amiss with it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might go to the deuce, I shouldn’t look for it!’
‘But that means—pardon the expression—to prefer the gratification of your own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ cried Pigasov, ‘pride—that I understand, and you, I expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is truth? Where is it, this truth?’
‘You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,’ remarked Darya Mihailovna.
Pigasov shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, where’s the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the philosophers don’t know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but Hegel—no, you’re wrong, it’s something else.’
‘And do you know what Hegel says of it?’ asked Rudin, without raising his voice.
‘I repeat,’ continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, ‘that I cannot understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn’t exist at all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing itself.’
‘Fie, fie!’ cried Darya Mihailovna, ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to say so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world after that?’
‘Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,’ retorted Pigasov, in a tone of annoyance, ‘that it would be much easier for you, in any case, to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me? you can’t trim a bonnet with it!’