第860页 / 共1294页

I should certainly go if there were."

"Then you would sit down at another man's table and insult it and

those who invited you. Eh?"

"Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good

object. I might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and

propaganda. It's a duty of every man to work for enlightenment

and propaganda and the more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might

drop a seed, an idea.... And something might grow up from that

seed. How should I be insulting them? They might be offended at

first, but afterwards they'd see I'd done them a service. You

know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed because

when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to

her father and mother that she wouldn't go on living

conventionally and was entering on a free marriage and it was

said that that was too harsh, that she might have spared them and

have written more kindly. I think that's all nonsense and there's

no need of softness; on the contrary, what's wanted is protest.