"i’ll just tell you one fact, ladies and gentlemen," continued the latter, with apparent seriousness and even exaltation of manner, but with a suggestion of "chaff" behind every word, as though he were laughing in his sleeve at his own nonsense "a fact, the discovery of which, i believe, i may claim to have made by myself alone. at all events, no other has ever said or written a word about it; and in this fact is expressed the whole essence of russian liberalism of the sort which i am now considering.