“A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some serious social problems contained in its central idea,” said Kostya, looking wrathfully at Yartsev.  “If there is in the work a protest against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable.  The novels that are taken up with ‘Ach!’ and ‘Och!’ and ’she loved him, while he ceased to love her,’ I tell you, are worthless, and damn them all, I say!”

“I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch,” said Yulia Sergeyevna.  “One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, meeting again after separation.  Are there no other subjects?  Why, there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom reading all that must be distasteful.”

It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, speaking so seriously and coldly about love.  He understood why this was so.

“If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important,” said Yartsev, “you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets.  What need is there to discuss in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ liberty of speech, or the disinfecting of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special articles and textbooks?”

“That’s pushing it to the extreme,” Kostya interrupted.  “We are not talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses.”

Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling the story of a novel he had lately been reading.  He spoke circumstantially and without haste.  Three minutes passed, then five, then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more blank.

“Kish, do be quick over it,” Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist saying; “it’s really agonizing!”

“Shut up, Kish!” Kostya shouted to him.

They all laughed, and Kish with them.

Fyodor came in.  Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study.  Of late he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at once.

“Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here,” he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from the lamp.  “It’s a long time, my dear brother, since we’ve seen each other.  How long is it since you were at the warehouse?  I think it must be a week.”

“Yes, there’s nothing for me to do there.  And I must confess that the old man wearies me.”

“Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, but one must have some occupation.  ’In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread,’ as it is written.  God loves work.”