therefore irritated and angry, and found fault with all that he said.
On the third day Nikolaï began to discuss the question of his brother's reforms, and to criticize them, and in a spirit of contrariety to confound his scheme with communism.
"You have only taken your idea from some one else; and you distort it, and want to apply it to what is not suited to receive it."
"Yes, but I tell you that the two have nothing in common. I have no thought of copying communism, which denies the right of property, of capital, of inheritance; but I do not disregard these stimuli." It went against Levin's grain to use these terms, but since he had begun his treatise he found himself, in spite of him, compelled to use non-Russian words. "All I want is to regulate labor."
"In other words, you borrow a foreign idea; you take away from it all that gives it force, and you pretend to make it pass as new," said Nikolaï, angrily craning his neck in his cravat.
"Yes, but my idea has not the slightest resemblance-...."
"This idea," interrupted Nikolaï, smiling ironically, and with an angry light in his eyes,—"communism,—has at least one attractive feature,—and you might call it a geometrical one—it has clearness and logical certainty. Maybe it is Utopia. But let us agree that it can make a tabula rasa of the past, so that there shall be no property of family, but only freedom of labor. But you don't accept this ...."
"But why do you confound them? I never was a communist."
"But I have been; and I believe that if communism is premature, it is, at least, reasonable; and it is as sure to succeed as Christianity was in the early centuries."
"And I believe that labor must be regarded from the scientific standpoint; in other words, it must be studied. Its constitution must be known and ...."
"Now, that is absolutely idle. This force goes of it-
