From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergey
Ivanovitch differed on various points. He saw that the Slavonic
question had become one of those fashionable distractions which
succeed one another in providing society with an object and an
occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up
the subject from motives of self-interest and self-advertisement.
He recognized that the newspapers published a great deal that was
superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting
attention and outbidding one another. He saw that in this
general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and
shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting
under a sense of injury--generals without armies, ministers not
in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders
without followers. He saw that there was a great deal in it that
was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognized an
unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which
it was impossible not to sympathize. The massacre of men who
were fellow Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited
sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the
oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins
struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing
to help their brothers not in word but in deed.
But in this there was another aspect that rejoiced Sergey
Ivanovitch. That was the manifestation of public opinion. The
public had definitely expressed its desire. The soul of the
people had, as Sergey Ivanovitch said, found expression. And the
more he worked in this cause, the more incontestable it seemed to
him that it was a cause destined to assume vast dimensions, to
create an epoch.
He threw himself heart and soul into the service of this great
cause, and forgot to think about his book. His whole time now
was engrossed by it, so that he could scarcely manage to answer
all the letters and appeals addressed to him. He worked the
whole spring and part of the summer, and it was only in July that
he prepared to go away to his brother's in the country.
He was going both to rest for a fortnight, and in the very heart
of the people, in the farthest wilds of the country, to enjoy the
sight of that uplifting of the spirit of the people, of which,
like all residents in the capital and big towns, he was fully
persuaded. Katavasov had long been meaning to carry out his
promise to stay with Levin, and so he was going with him.