The newly born Nihilists, pretending to be Vaska Buslayeffs, looked at everything with contempt and shouted:
"Oh, you vegetables, try and think what place is best, and we will help you to spit on it."
And they spat and spat.
They all seemed bored and irritable with one another; and they were covered with mud.
Just at that time Mitya Korofyshkin, nicknamed "Steel Claw," who was playing truant from school, passed by. He was a pupil in the second class of the Miamlin Gymnasium, and was known as a collector of foreign stamps. As he passed he saw the people sitting in a puddle and spitting, deep in thought.
"Grown-ups, and they bespatter themselves like that!" thought Mitya contemptuously; which was natural in one of his tender years.
He peeped to see if there was not a teacher in their midst, and not noticing one he inquired:
"What are you doing in the puddle, uncles?"
One of the citizens, resenting the question, immediately began to argue:
"Where do you see a puddle? It is simply a reflection of the primordial chaos."