“We don’t want moderates,” Markelov said angrily.
“The moderates have so far been working among the upper classes,” Solomin remarked, “and we must go for the lower.”
“We don’t want it! damnation! We don’t want it!” Golushkin bawled out furiously. “We must do everything with one blow! With one blow, I say!”
“What is the use of extreme measures? It’s like jumping out of the window.”
“And I’ll jump too, if necessary!” Golushkin shouted. “I’ll jump! and so will Vasia! I’ve only to tell him and he’ll jump! eh, Vasia? You’ll jump, eh?”
The clerk finished his glass of champagne.
“Where you go, Kapiton Andraitch, there I follow. I shouldn’t dare do otherwise.”
“You had better not, or I’ll make mincemeat of you!”
Soon a perfect babel followed.
Like the first flakes of snow whirling round and round in the mild autumn air, so words began flying in all directions in Golushkin’s hot, stuffy dining-room; all kinds of words, rolling and tumbling over one another: progress, government, literature, the taxation question, the church question, the woman question; the law-court question, realism, nihilism, communism, international, clerical, liberal, capital, administration, organisation, association, and even crystallisation! It was just what Golushkin wanted; this uproar seemed to him the real thing. He was triumphant. “Look at us! out of the way or I’ll knock you on the head! Kapiton Golushkin is coming!” At last the clerk Vasia became so tipsy that he began to giggle and talk to his plate. All at once he jumped up shouting wildly, “What sort of devil is this progymnasium?”