 So, most of these characters in the little band of communists in this story, they have a lot more stupid in them than evil. But there's one who has a lot more evil in him than stupid, Mr. Vladimir, maybe, because he's the puppet master. But even more so, the professor. So, him and comrade Osipin meet in the Silenus restaurant. There's a funny footnote. There's always this contradiction between how they're describing or like they're reacting to this great oppressive evil, but they're surrounded by luxury and by a very, you know, restrained, lenient judicial system and everything else. So, they meet in the restaurant Silenus. The cheerfully self-indulgent old age implied by the name contrasts with the gloomy Osipin and severe professor. So, let's meet the professor. His title to that designation consists of his having been once assistant demonstrator in chemistry at some technical institute. He quarreled with the authorities upon a question of unfair treatment. Afterwards, he obtained a post in the laboratory of a manufactory of dyes. There, too, he had been treated with revolting injustice. His struggles, his privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale had filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice. The standard of that notion depended so much upon the patience of the individualism. So, this horrible little man, the professor, he wears a suicide vest. He's ready to blow himself up should the authorities ever try to put their hands on him. And he also just loves the feeling because the fact that he can commit an act of suicide terrorism by blowing up this vest just gives him a huge feeling of power over people. He beheld all his enemies and fearlessly confronted them. This is just walking down the street with people who don't know anything about them. He beheld all his enemies and fearlessly confronted them all in a supreme satisfaction of his vanity. They stood perplexed before him as if before a dreadful portent. He gloated inwardly over the chance meeting affirming his superiority over all the multitude of mankind. There's a wonderfully tense, they have some of the most tense scenes in this book like of anything I've ever read. He sort of squares off with the chief police inspector and they have a back and forth. The chief inspector didn't want to run into him and he's like, I can arrest you anytime I want. And he says, why don't you do it now? But you may be exposed to the unpleasantness of being buried together with me, though I suppose your friends would make an effort to sort us out as much as possible. Pretty chilling. The last, or three of the last four chapters in this book are also just spectacular. With two characters on completely different sheets of music completely miscommunicating and you just watch and watch and watch and wait for their miscommunication to come to a head and it does. Oh, incidentally, Osipin at that meeting with the professor, he betrays his desire for money just like Mr. Verlach does. It was only when the professor threatened to, I don't know, this connection wasn't clear to me, but the professor told Osipin that he might lose his financial backing for these ridiculous little pamphlets that he prints and that completely changed Osipin's disposition. So both great, you know, haters of the capitalist system are primarily motivated by money. So here, this is another meeting towards the end of a book. Osipin is describing the book of Michaelis. He had divided his biography into three parts entitled Faith, Hope, Charity. That's a biblical reference. That's a religious reference from a guy who doesn't believe in religion. He is elaborating now the idea of a world planned out like an immense and nice hospital with gardens and flowers in which the strong are to devote themselves to the nursing of the weak. The professor paused. Conceive you this folly, Osipin, the weak, the source of all evil on earth. He continued with his grim assurance. I told him that I dreamt of a world like Shambles where the weak would be taken in hand for utter extermination. Do you understand, Osipin, the source of all evil? They are our sinister masters, the weak, the flappy, the silly, the cowardly, the faint of heart, the slavish of mind. They have power. They are the multitude. Theirs is the kingdom of the earth. Another biblical reference. Exterminate. Exterminate. That is the only way of progress. It is, follow me, Osipin. First the great multitude of the weak must go, then only the relatively strong. You see, first the blind, then the deaf and the dumb, then the halt. I'm not sure what that means, the halt and the lame and so on. Every taint, every vice, every prejudice, every conviction, convention must meet its doom. And what remains, asked Osipin in a stifled voice, I remain, if I am strong enough, asserted the sallow little professor whose large ears, thin like membranes and standing far out from the sides of his frail skull, took a suddenly deep red tint. Haven't I suffered enough from the oppression of the weak, he continued forcibly, then tapping his breast pocket, and that's where he keeps his detonator to his suicide vest. Then tapping the breast pocket of his jacket, and yet I am the force. Later on the page, Osipin is the only ladies man among them. The rest are completely pathetic. I can't imagine that a horrible little figure like the professor gets many girls. So then he asks Osipin about women. Tell me Osipin, terrible man, has ever one of your victims killed herself for you? Or are your triumphs so far incomplete? For blood alone puts a seal on greatness, blood, death, look at history. At the very end of the book, the author kind of passes judgment with his description. Until that point there's kind of like a tension where they're described well and they behave in complete contradiction to how they're described. But by the end the author, Joseph Conrad passes judgment. The professor only smiled, his clothes all but falling off him, his boots shapeless with repairs, heavy like lead, let water in at every step. And I'm seriously ill, he muttered to himself with scientific insight. I wonder if that isn't a jab at what started to be called scientific, scientific communes or scientific Marxism? Or maybe that was after Joseph Conrad's time, I'm not certain. But anyway, here it is. And the incorruptible professor walked to averting his eyes from the odious multitude of mankind. He had no future, he disdained it, he was a force. His thoughts caress the images of ruin and destruction. He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. You know, when I read this I like to think that it's describing communism in general. Calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unexpected, unsuspected and deadly like a pest in a street full of men.