We shall never be capable of organising anything even without our heads, though our heads hinder our understanding more than anything." I may observe that many people among us anticipated that something extraordinary, such as Liputin predicted, would take place on the day of the emancipation, and those who held this view were the so-called "authorities" on the peasantry and the government.

I believe Stepan Trofimovitch shared this idea, so much so that almost on the eve of the great day he began asking Varvara Petrovna's leave to go abroad; in fact he began to be uneasy.

But the great day passed, and some time passed after it, and the condescending smile reappeared on Stepan Trofimovitch's lips.

In our presence he delivered himself of some noteworthy thoughts on the character of the Russian in general, and the Russian peasant in particular.
"Like hasty people we have been in too great a hurry with our peasants," he said in conclusion of a series of remarkable utterances.

"We have made them the fashion, and a whole section of writers have for several years treated them as though they were newly discovered curiosities.