The bride of her bridegrooms, the sister of her sisters, takes Viérotchka by the hand. "Viérotchka, I always wanted to be kind to you because I am kind and I am just as the person is with whom I speak. But now you are melancholy, so you see I too am melancholy. Look! do I make a good appearance being melancholy?"
"You look better than any one else in the world."
"Kiss me, Viérotchka. We both of us are sad; and yet your mother spoke the truth. I do not like your mother, but I need her help."
"Can't you get along without her?"
"By and by I shall be able to get along without her, when people will not need to be ill-tempered; but now it is impossible. You see, kind people cannot get to their feet alone. It is the ill-tempered who alone are strong. They are keen. But you see, Viérotchka, that there are different degrees of ill-temper: some of them want everything in the world to go to the bad; others, who are just as ill-tempered, want things to improve, because it would be better for their interests. You see it was necessary for your mother's plans to have you educated. She took your money which you got by giving lessons, because she wanted her daughter to capture a rich son-in-law for her; and for that same reason she wanted you to be educated. You see she had bad thoughts, and yet they brought forth good for mankind. Haven't you been benefited? But many bad people act otherwise. If your mother had been Anna Petróvna, would you have studied so as to become educated? Would you have learned what was good, and loved it? No; you would not have been allowed to learn about the good; you would have been made a doll. Isn't it so? Such a mother must have a doll in her daughter, because she herself is a doll, and she is always playing dolls with dolls. But your mother was a bad woman; yet she was a character. It was necessary for her that you should not be a doll. Don't you see how the wicked vary? Others are hindering me, because I want men to be men, and not dolls; they want men to be dolls. And other bad people are helping me. They do not consciously help me, but they give ample chance for men to be men; they gather the means for men to be men, and this is all that I want. Yes, Viérotchka, now I cannot get along without such bad people, since they work against the other kind of bad. My bad people are bad, but under their cruel hands the good is growing. Yes, Vié-
