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"No!" Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat; "the

emancipation of the serfs was a different matter. There

self-interest did come in. One longed to throw off that yoke that

crushed us, all decent people among us. But to be a town

councilor and discuss how many dustmen are needed, and how

chimneys shall be constructed in the town in which I don't

live-to serve on a jury and try a peasant who's stolen a flitch

of bacon, and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of

jabber from the counsel for the defense and the prosecution, and

the president cross-examining my old half-witted Alioshka, 'Do

you admit, prisoner in the dock, the fact of the removal of the

bacon?' 'Eh?'"

Konstantin Levin had warmed to his subject, and began mimicking

the president and the half-witted Alioshka: it seemed to him that

it was all to the point.

But Sergey Ivanovitch shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, what do you mean to say, then?"