“And why is she always so cross?” he complained every minute, like a child. “ Tous les hommes de génie et de progrès en Russie étaient, sont, et seront toujours des gamblers et des drunkards qui boivent in outbreaks⁠ ⁠… and I’m not such a gambler after all, and I’m not such a drunkard. She reproaches me for not writing anything. Strange idea!⁠ ⁠… She asks why I lie down? She says I ought to stand, ‘an example and reproach.’ Mais, entre nous soit dit , what is a man to do who is destined to stand as a ‘reproach,’ if not to lie down? Does she understand that?”