"I simply brought it as a fact of interest and because I knew you were so sentimental over Lebyadkin," repeated Pyotr Stepanovitch, taking the letter back. "So it turns out, gentlemen, that a stray Fedka relieves us quite by chance of a dangerous man.
That's what chance does sometimes!
It's instructive, isn't it?"
The members exchanged rapid glances.
"And now, gentlemen, it's my turn to ask questions," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, assuming an air of dignity.
"Let me know what business you had to set fire to the town without permission."
"What's this!
We, we set fire to the town?
That is laying the blame on others!" they exclaimed.
"I quite understand that you carried the game too far," Pyotr Stepanovitch persisted stubbornly, "but it's not a matter of petty scandals with Yulia Mihailovna.
I've brought you here gentlemen, to explain to you the greatness of the danger you have so stupidly incurred, which is a menace to much besides yourselves."
"Excuse me, we, on the contrary, were intending just now to point out to you the greatness of the despotism and unfairness you have shown in taking such a serious and also strange step without consulting the members," Virginsky, who had been hitherto silent, protested, almost with indignation.
"And so you deny it?
But I maintain that you set fire to the town, you and none but you.
Gentlemen, don't tell lies! I have good evidence.
By your rashness you exposed the common cause to danger.
You are only one knot in an endless network of knots—and your duty is blind obedience to the centre.
Yet three men of you incited the Shpigulin men to set fire to the town without the least instruction to do so, and the fire has taken place."
"What three?
What three of us?"
"The day before yesterday, at three o'clock in the night, you, Tolkatchenko, were inciting Fomka Zavyalov at the
'Forget-me-not.'"
"Upon my word!" cried the latter, jumping up, "I scarcely said a word to him, and what I did say was without intention, simply because he had been flogged that morning. And I dropped it at once; I saw he was too drunk.
If you had not referred to it I should not have thought of it again.
A word could not set the place on fire."
"You are like a man who should be surprised that a tiny spark could blow a whole powder magazine into the air."
"I spoke in a whisper in his ear, in a corner; how could you have heard of it?" Tolkatchenko reflected suddenly.
"I was sitting there under the table.
Don't disturb yourselves, gentlemen; I know every step you take.
You smile sarcastically, Mr. Liputin?
But I know, for instance, that you pinched your wife black and blue at midnight, three days ago, in your bedroom as you were going to bed."
Liputin's mouth fell open and he turned pale. (It was afterwards found out that he knew of this exploit of Liputin's from Agafya, Liputin's servant, whom he had paid from the beginning to spy on him; this only came out later.)
"May I state a fact?" said Shigalov, getting up.
"State it."
Shigalov sat down and pulled himself together.
"So far as I understand—and it's impossible not to understand it—you yourself at first and a second time later, drew with great eloquence, but too theoretically, a picture of Russia covered with an endless network of knots.
Each of these centres of activity, proselytising and ramifying endlessly, aims by systematic denunciation to injure the prestige of local authority, to reduce the villages to confusion, to spread cynicism and scandals, together with complete disbelief in everything and an eagerness for something better, and finally, by means of fires, as a pre-eminently national method, to reduce the country at a given moment, if need be, to desperation.
Are those your words which I tried to remember accurately?
Is that the programme you gave us as the authorised representative of the central committee, which is to this day utterly unknown to us and almost like a myth?"
"It's correct, only you are very tedious."
"Every one has a right to express himself in his own way.
Giving us to understand that the separate knots of the general network already covering Russia number by now several hundred, and propounding the theory that if every one does his work successfully, all Russia at a given moment, at a signal..."
"Ah, damn it all, I have enough to do without you!" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, twisting in his chair.
"Very well, I'll cut it short and I'll end simply by asking if we've seen the disorderly scenes, we've seen the discontent of the people, we've seen and taken part in the downfall of local administration, and finally, we've seen with our own eyes the town on fire?
What do you find amiss?
Isn't that your programme?
What can you blame us for?"
"Acting on your own initiative!" Pyotr Stepanovitch cried furiously.
"While I am here you ought not to have dared to act without my permission.
Enough.