Page:Chernyshevsky.whatistobedone.djvu/94

74 written by other people, who find that these ideas are excellent, that there is nothing wonderful in them; and, Viérotchka, these ideas are floating in the air like a perfume from the fields in flower-time; they penetrate everywhere; you have heard them even from your tipsy mother, who told you that it was necessary to live and why it was necessary to live by deceit and theft; she wanted to speak against your ideas, but she herself gave them greater development; you heard them from the cynical, ruined French girl, who drags her lover after her like a chambermaid, does whatever she pleases with him, yet as soon as she comes to her senses, she finds that she has no will of her own, that she must please, compel herself—though it is very hard for her—and yet, it would seem, would it not, that her life with the kind, refined, and complaisant Sergei is easy and pleasant? and yet she says: "Even for me, bad woman as I am, such relations are detestable." Nowadays it is not difficult to adopt such ideas as you have. But others do not take them to heart as you have. This is good, but there is nothing strange about it. Is there anything strange in the fact that you want to be free and happy? Now such a desire—God knows what a head-splitting discovery this is; God knows what a step forward it is towards heroism!

But here is something strange, Viérotchka, that there are some people who have no such desire, who have other desires, and it may probably seem strange to such people that on the first evening of your love, you fell asleep with such thoughts; that from the thought of yourself, of your sweetheart, of your love, you turned to the thoughts that all people must be happy, and that it is necessary to bring about its accomplishment as soon as possible. And do you not know that it is strange, and I do know that it is not strange, that it is both natural and human. "I feel joy and happiness; consequently, I want all people to feel joyful and happy." But humanely speaking, both thoughts are the same. You are a good girl; you are not a stupid girl; but excuse me if I do not find anything wonderful in you; maybe half the girls whom I have known and whom I know, and maybe more than half—I have not counted them; they are too many to count—are not worse than you, and some of them are even better. Excuse me.

It seems to Lopukhóf that you are a wonderful girl. So it is; but it is not wonderful that it seems to him so, because he has fallen in love with you! And there is nothing