A wild and nonsensical idea crossed my mind.

“Stepan Trofimovitch, tell me as a friend,” I cried, “as a real friend, I will not betray you: do you belong to some secret society or not?”

And on this, to my amazement, he was not quite certain whether he was or was not a member of some secret society.

“That depends, voyez-vous .”

“How do you mean ‘it depends’?”

“When with one’s whole heart one is an adherent of progress and⁠ ⁠… who can answer it? You may suppose you don’t belong, and suddenly it turns out that you do belong to something.”

“Now is that possible? It’s a case of yes or no.”