What is it?
Why is it so ?" Mayakin looked at his daughter with alarm.

She was silent.
"Tell me," he asked her, "what do you need?
How, in your opinion, is it proper to live?
What do you want?
You have studied, read, tell me what is it that you need ?" The questions fell on Lubov's head quite unexpectedly to her, and she was embarrassed.

She was pleased that her father asked her about this matter, and was at the same time afraid to reply, lest she should be lowered in his estimation.

And then, gathering courage, as though preparing to jump across the table, she said irresolutely and in a trembling voice: "That all the people should be happy and contented; that all the people should be equal, all the people have an equal right to life, to the bliss of life, all must have freedom, even as they have air.

And equality in everything!" At the beginning of her agitated speech her father looked at her face with anxious curiosity in his eyes, but as she went on hastily hurling her words at him his eyes assumed an altogether different expression, and finally he said to her with calm contempt: "I knew it before--you are a gilded fool!" She lowered her head, but immediately raised it and exclaimed sadly: "You have said so yourself--freedom." "You had better hold your tongue!" the old man shouted at her rudely.
"You cannot see even that which is visibly forced outside of each man.
How can all the people be happy and equal, since each one wants to be above the other?
Even the beggar has his pride and always boasts of something or other before other people.