tre nous soit dit,_ I
can imagine nothing more comic than the moment when Gogol (the Gogol of
that period!) read that phrase, and... the whole letter! But dismissing
the humorous aspect, and, as I am fundamentally in agreement, I point to
them and say--these were men! They knew how to love their people, they
knew how to suffer for them, they knew how to sacrifice everything for
them, yet they knew how to differ from them when they ought, and did not
filch certain ideas from them. Could Byelinsky have sought salvation
in Lenten oil, or peas with radish!..." But at this point Shatov
interposed.

"Those men of yours never loved the people, they didn't suffer for them,
and didn't sacrifice anything for them, though they may have amused
themselves by imagining it!" he growled sullenly, looking down, and
moving impatiently in his chair.

"They didn't love the people!" yelled Stepan Trofimovitch. "Oh, how they
loved Russia!"

"Neither Russia nor the people!" Shatov yelled too, with flashing eyes.
"You can't love what you don't know and they had no conception of the
Russian people. All of them peered at the Russian people through their
fingers, and you do too; Byelinsky especially: from that very letter to
Gogol one can see it. Byelinsky, like the Inquisitive Man in Krylov's
fable, did not notice the elephant in the museum of curiosities, but
concentrated his whole attention on the French Socialist beetles; he did
not get beyond them. And yet perhaps he was cleverer than any of you.
You've not only overlooked the people, you've taken up an attitude of
disgusting contempt for them, if only because you could not imagine any
but the French people, the Parisians indeed, and were ashamed that the
Russians were not like them. That's the naked truth. And he who has
no people has no God. You may be sure that all who cease to understand
their own people and lose their connection with them at once lose to
the same extent the faith of their fathers, and become atheistic or
indifferent. I'm speaking the truth! This is a fact which will be
realised. That's why all of you and all of us now are either beastly
atheists or careless, dissolute imbeciles, and nothing more. And you
too, Stepan Trofimovitch, I don't make an exception of you at all! In
fact, it is on your account I am speaking, let me tell you that!"

As a rule, after uttering such monologues (which happened to him pretty
frequently) Shatov snatched up his cap and rushed to the