r
to give them expression, it is necessary to use a vast number of
high-sounding and empty words. When such a man speaks I say to myself:
'There goes a well-fed, but over-watered mare, all decorated with bells;
she's carting a load of rubbish out of the town, and the miserable
wretch is content with her fate.'"

"They are superfluous people, then," said Foma. Yozhov stopped short in
front of him and said with a biting smile on his lips:

"No, they are not superfluous, oh no! They exist as an example, to show
what man ought not to be. Speaking frankly, their proper place is
the anatomical museums, where they preserve all sorts of monsters and
various sickly deviations from the normal. In life there is nothing that
is superfluous, dear. Even I am necessary! Only those people, in whose
souls dwells a slavish cowardice before life, in whose bosoms there are
enormous ulcers of the most abominable self-adoration, taking the places
of their dead hearts--only those people are superfluous; but even they
are necessary, if only for the sake of enabling me to pour my hatred
upon them."

All day long, until evening, Yozhov was excited, venting his blasphemy
on men he hated, and his words, though their contents were obscure to
Foma, infected him with their evil heat, and infecting called forth in
him an eager desire for combat. At times there sprang up in him distrust
of Yozhov, and in one of these moments he asked him plainly:

"Well! And can you speak like that in the face of men?"

"I do it at every convenient occasion. And every Sunday in the
newspaper. I'll read some to you if you like."

Without waiting for Foma's reply, he tore down from the wall a few
sheets of paper, and still continuing to run about the room, began to
read to him. He roared, squeaked, laughed, showed his teeth and looked
like an angry dog trying to break the chain in powerless rage. Not
grasping the ideals in his friend's creations, Foma felt their daring
audacity, their biting sarcasm, their passionate malice, and he was as
well pleased with them as though he had been scourged with besoms in a
hot bath.

"Clever!" he exclaimed, catching some separate phrase. "That's cleverly
aimed!"

Every now and again there flashed before him the familiar names of
merchants and well-known citizens, whom Yozhov had stung, now stoutly
and sharply, now respectfully and with a fine needle-like sting.

Foma's approbation, his eyes burning with satisfaction, and his