human
My God, how slow it is! she said, stretching.
gpt
How insipid and empty life is! I don't know what to do with myself, and you are wasting your best years in goodness knows what. Like some alchemist, you are rummaging in old rubbish that nobody wants. My God!
human
It's depressing to look at you! said his sister.
gpt
Wagner in 'Faust' dug up worms, but he was looking for a treasure, anyway, and you are looking for worms for the sake of the worms.
human
That's vague!
gpt
Yes, Volodya; all these days I've been thinking, I've been thinking painfully for a long time, and I have come to the conclusion that you are hopelessly reactionary and conventional. Come, ask yourself what is the object of your zealous, conscientious work? Tell me, what is it? Why, everything has long ago been extracted that can be extracted from that rubbish in which you are always rummaging. You may pound water in a mortar and analyse it as long as you like, you'll make nothing more of it than the chemists have made already. . . .
human
Indeed! drawled Vladimir Semyonitch, getting up.
gpt
Yes, all this is old rubbish because these ideas are eternal; but what do you consider new, then?
human
You undertake to work in the domain of thought; it is for you to think of something new. It's not for me to teach you.
gpt
Me--an alchemist! the critic cried in wonder and indignation, screwing up his eyes ironically.
human
Art, progress--all that is alchemy?
gpt
You see, Volodya, it seems to me that if all you thinking people had set yourselves to solving great problems, all these little questions that you fuss about now would solve themselves by the way. If you go up in a balloon to see a town, you will incidentally, without any effort, see the fields and the villages and the rivers as well. When stearine is manufactured, you get glycerine as a by-product. It seems to me that contemporary thought has settled on one spot and stuck to it. It is prejudiced, apathetic, timid, afraid to take a wide titanic flight, just as you and I are afraid to climb on a high mountain; it is conservative.