p What are these features?—They are best shown by comparison. Is our raznochinets like the old "liberal idealist" extolled by N. A. Nekrasov, for example?

p Dialectician always charming,
Pure in thought, in heart as chaste,
Eyes of one forever dreaming,
Liberal idealist,
Fighting shy of grim reality,
Treating lightness as your duty,
Disillusioned—yet you wandered
Everywhere adoring beauty....^^4^^

p The only thing that our raznochinets has in common with such a liberal is that he too is no less "pure in thought, in heart as chaste" than the latter. In everything else he is the direct opposite. He cannot "treat lightness as his duty" and wander around idly “disillusioned”, if only for the fact that he is not a landowner, but a proletarian, albeit of noble origin. He must earn his living by the sweat of his brow. Our raznochinets is primarily a specialist: 39 a chemist, mechanic, physician, veterinary surgeon, etc. True, under the present system in Russia he also often, almost always, “fights shy of grirn reality”, if he does not want to strike shameful bargains with his conscience. This is the tragedy of his position, this is why his head is full of "cursed questions".^^6^^ But he is no longer daunted by the obstacles around him, he laughs at sterile disillusion, seeks a practical solution and strives to alter the social relations. Therefore in his case social interests dominate all else. Purely literary questions are of relatively little concern to him. Until recently he was even formally at loggerheads with art. He wanted to "destroy aesthetics" once and for all, believed that "a good shoemaker is better than any Raphael" and despised Pushkin because he did not study natural science and write tendentious novels. Now he realises that this was an extreme view on his part. Now he readily pays proper tribute to art, takes pride in Pushkin and Lermontov and admires Tolstoy and Turgenev. But now also he does this in passing, as it were, putting "first things first”, as the saying goes. After reading some Anna Karenina with great enjoyment, he again buries himself in articles on social questions, again starts arguing about the commune, observing and studying popular life. In foreign literatures he also looks not so much for belles-lettres as for works on social questions. For him Saint-Simon or Louis Blanc is far more interesting than George Sand or Balzac, and as for Corneille or Racine he is quite unfamiliar with them, whereas, albeit from Mr. Shcheglov’s poor history, he knows what Thomas More and Campanella wrote about.^^6^^ Those who regard him as a "crude materialist”, however, are gravely mistaken. He is very far indeed from moral materialism. His morals are those of a pure-blooded idealist, but his idealism bears a special imprint due to the specific features of his social and historical position. The well-known Marlinsky once said in one of his critical articles that "the age of Peter had no time to engage in literature, its poetry revealed itself in great deeds, not in words”. Such an explanation of the literary paucity of the "age of Peter" is rather one-sided, of course, but we mention it because Marlinsky’s words are perfectly applicable to our raznochinets. He is a protester and fighter by virtue of his very position. His attention is totally absorbed by struggle—be it peaceful or revolutionary, legal or “criminal”—and he simply "has no time to engage in literature" for literature’s sake, to "adore beauty”, to enjoy art. He is interested in the poetry that "reveals itself in great deeds, not in words”. And his social activity abounds in examples of what can be called the "poetry of the great deed”.

p If our raznochinets is little attracted by the inner beauty of a literary work, he is even less liable to be seduced by its outer appearance, for example, beauty of style, to which the French still attach such importance. He is ready to say to any writer: 40 “Don’t talk prettily, please, ray friend”, as Bazarov advised the young Kirsanov.^^7^^ Contempt for externals is obvious in the raznochinets’ own speech. His somewhat rough and awkward language is far inferior to the refined, fluent and brilliant language of the "liberal idealist" of the good old days. Occasionally it shuns not only “beauty” but, alas, even grammatical correctness. In this respect things have gone so far that when the revolutionary raznochinets addressed the public in order to arouse it with his written or spoken word, because of his poor command of language he proved, for all his sincerity, to be not eloquent, but verbose. All organs grow weak from inactivity, as we know.

p Since, in addition to all this, our raznochinets has always shown the greatest contempt for philosophy, which he called metaphysics, one can also hardly say that he was a "charming dialectician”. Hegel would probably not have attributed any great merit to him in this sphere. Many of the raznochinets’ grave theoretical errors are explained by his lack of philosophical development.

Finally, do not forget that his knowledge of foreign languages is very weak: his parents were too poor for him to be taught them as a child, they were badly taught at school, and at a more mature age he had no time for them. Therefore he has only a sketchy, second-hand, knowledge of foreign literatures, from translations. Here also we find the direct opposite to the "liberal idealist”; the latter spoke almost all the European languages and knew the main foreign literatures like the back of his hand.