the gradual development of human ideas the gradual growth of ideas
of another order is observed. Serfdom is no more, but the capitalist
system is growing. And in the very heyday of emancipating ideas,
just as in the days of Baty, the majority feeds, clothes, and defends
the minority while remaining hungry, inadequately clad, and
defenceless. Such an order of things can be made to fit in finely
with any tendencies and currents of thought you like, because the
art of enslaving is also gradually being cultivated. We no longer
flog our servants in the stable, but we give to slavery refined
forms, at least, we succeed in finding a justification for it in
each particular case. Ideas are ideas with us, but if now, at the
end of the nineteenth century, it were possible to lay the burden
of the most unpleasant of our physiological functions upon the
working class, we should certainly do so, and afterwards, of course,
justify ourselves by saying that if the best people, the thinkers
and great scientists, were to waste their precious time on these
functions, progress might be menaced with great danger."

But at this point my sister arrived. Seeing the doctor she was
fluttered and troubled, and began saying immediately that it was
time for her to go home to her father.

"Kleopatra Alexyevna," said Blagovo earnestly, pressing both hands
to his heart, "what will happen to your father if you spend half
an hour or so with your brother and me?"

He was frank, and knew how to communicate his liveliness to others.
After a moment's thought, my sister laughed, and all at once became
suddenly gay as she had been at the picnic. We went out into the
country, and lying in the grass went on with our talk, and looked