Darya Pavlovna alone seemed to me calm.
"All that is nonsensical allegory," said Varvara Petrovna, getting angry at last.

"You haven't answered my question, why?
I insist on an answer." "I haven't answered, why?
You insist on an answer, why ?" repeated the captain, winking.

"That little word 'why' has run through all the universe from the first day of creation, and all nature cries every minute to it's Creator, 'why ?' And for seven thousand years it has had no answer, and must Captain Lebyadkin alone answer?
And is that justice, madam ?" "That's all nonsense and not to the point!" cried Varvara Petrovna, getting angry and losing patience.

"That's allegory; besides, you express yourself too sensationally, sir, which I consider impertinence." "Madam," the captain went on, not hearing, "I should have liked perhaps to be called Ernest, yet I am forced to bear the vulgar name Ignat--why is that do you suppose?
I should have liked to be called Prince de Monbart, yet I am only Lebyadkin, derived from a swan.* Why is that?
I am a poet, madam, a poet in soul, and might be getting a thousand roubles at a time from a publisher, yet I am forced to live in a pig pail.

Why?
Why, madam?
To my mind Russia is a freak of nature and nothing else." * From Lebyed, a Swan.
"Can you really say nothing more definite ?" "I can read you the poem, 'The Cockroach,' madam." "Wha-a-t ?" "Madam, I'm not mad yet! I shall be mad, no doubt I shall be, but I'm not so yet.