Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 11 cay, due to misunderstanding and gratuitous adoption of
European ideas, from which his elder brother is suffering.’
Two or three people clapped their hands at the mention
of chauvinism and mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been,
indeed, carried away by his own eloquence. All this had lit-
tle to do with the case in hand, to say nothing of the fact of
its being somewhat vague, but the sickly and consumptive
man was overcome by the desire to express himself once in
his life. People said afterwards that he was actuated by un-
worthy motives in his criticism of Ivan, because the latter
had on one or two occasions got the better of him in argu-
ment, and Ippolit Kirillovitch, remembering it, tried now to
take his revenge. But I don’t know whether it was true. All
this was only introductory, however, and the speech passed
to more direct consideration of the case.
‘But to return to the eldest son,’ Ippolit Kirillovitch went
on. ‘He is the prisoner before us. We have his life and his ac-
tions, too, before us; the fatal day has come and all has been
brought to the surface. While his brothers seem to stand for
‘Europeanism’ and ‘the principles of the people,’ he seems
to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not all Russia, not all! God
preserve us, if it were! Yet, here we have her, our mother
Russia, the very scent and sound of her. Oh, he is sponta-
neous, he is a marvellous mingling of good and evil, he is
a lover of culture and Schiller, yet he brawls in taverns and
plucks out the beards of his boon companions. Oh, he, too,
can be good and noble, but only when all goes well with
him. What is more, he can be carried off his feet, positively
carried off his feet by noble ideals, but only if they come of