Wer den Feinde will versteh’n
Muss im Feinde’s lande geh’n.
To turn one’s back on one’s enemies, not to try and understand their manner of life, is utterly stupid! Yes, utterly stu-pid! If I want to shoot a wolf in the forest, I must first find out his haunts. You talked of coming in contact with the people just now. My dear boy! In 1862 the Poles formed their revolutionary bands in the forest; we are just about to enter that same forest, I mean the people, where it is no less dark and dense than in the other.”
“Then what would you have us do?”
“The Hindus cast themselves under the wheels of the Juggernaut,” Paklin continued; “they were mangled to pieces and died in ecstasy. We, also, have our Juggernaut—it crushes and mangles us, but there is no ecstasy in it.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Nejdanov almost screamed at him. “Would you have us write preachy novels?”
Paklin folded his arms and put his head on one side.
“You, at any rate, could write novels. You have a decidedly literary turn of mind. All right, I won’t say anything about it. I know you don’t like it being mentioned. I know it is not very exciting to write the sort of stuff wanted, and in the modern style too. ‘“Oh, I love you,” she bounded—’”
“It’s all the same to me,” he replied, scratching himself.
“That is precisely why I advise you to get to know all sorts and conditions, beginning from the very highest. We must not be entirely dependent on people like Ostrodumov! They are very honest, worthy folk, but so hopelessly stupid! You need only look at our friend. The very soles of his boots are not like those worn by intelligent people. Why did he hurry away just now? Only because he did not want to be in the same room with an aristocrat, to breathe the same air—”
“Please don’t talk like that about Ostrodumov before me!” Nejdanov burst out. “He wears thick boots because they are cheaper!”