All were discussing Petlin’s position and the possible reasons of Neveroff’s suicide.  Only Kryltzoff sat silent and preoccupied, his glistening eyes gazing fixedly in front of him.

“My husband told me that Neveroff had a vision while still in the Petropavlovski prison,” said Rintzeva.

“Yes, he was a poet, a dreamer; this sort of people cannot stand solitary confinement,” said Novodvoroff.  “Now, I never gave my imagination vent when in solitary confinement, but arranged my days most systematically, and in this way always bore it very well.”

“What is there unbearable about it?  Why, I used to be glad when they locked me up,” said Nabatoff cheerfully, wishing to dispel the general depression.

“A fellow’s afraid of everything; of being arrested himself and entangling others, and of spoiling the whole business, and then he gets locked up, and all responsibility is at an end, and he can rest; he can just sit and smoke.”

“You knew him well?” asked Mary Pavlovna, glancing anxiously at the altered, haggard expression of Kryltzoff’s face.

“Neveroff a dreamer?” Kryltzoff suddenly began, panting for breath as if he had been shouting or singing for a long time.  “Neveroff was a man ‘such as the earth bears few of,’ as our doorkeeper used to express it.  Yes, he had a nature like crystal, you could see him right through; he could not lie, he could not dissemble; not simply thin skinned, but with all his nerves laid bare, as if he were flayed.  Yes, his was a complicated, rich nature, not such a—­ But where is the use of talking?” he added, with a vicious frown.  “Shall we first educate the people and then change the forms of life, or first change the forms and then struggle, using peaceful propaganda or terrorism?  So we go on disputing while they kill; they do not dispute—­they know their business; they don’t care whether dozens, hundreds of men perish—­and what men!  No; that the best should perish is just what they want.  Yes, Herzen said that when the Decembrists were withdrawn from circulation the average level of our society sank.  I should think so, indeed.  Then Herzen himself and his fellows were withdrawn; now is the turn of the Neveroffs.”

“They can’t all be got rid off,” said Nabatoff, in his cheerful tones.  “There will always be left enough to continue the breed.  No, there won’t, if we show any pity to them there,” Nabatoff said, raising his voice; and not letting himself be interrupted, “Give me a cigarette.”

“Oh, Anatole, it is not good for you,” said Mary Pavlovna.  “Please do not smoke.”

“Oh, leave me alone,” he said angrily, and lit a cigarette, but at once began to cough and to retch, as if he were going to be sick.  Having cleared his throat though, he went on: 

“What we have been doing is not the thing at all.  Not to argue, but for all to unite—­to destroy them—­that’s it.”

“But they are also human beings,” said Nekhludoff.