“No, this one doesn’t seem to me a joker, I think he doesn’t know how to talk, let alone trying to make jokes.”

“Men made of paper! It all comes from flunkeyism of thought,” Shatov observed calmly, sitting down on a chair in the corner, and pressing the palms of both hands on his knees.

“There’s hatred in it, too,” he went on, after a minute’s pause. “They’d be the first to be terribly unhappy if Russia could be suddenly reformed, even to suit their own ideas, and became extraordinarily prosperous and happy. They’d have no one to hate then, no one to curse, nothing to find fault with. There is nothing in it but an immense animal hatred for Russia which has eaten into their organism.⁠ ⁠… And it isn’t a case of tears unseen by the world under cover of a smile! There has never been a falser word said in Russia than about those unseen tears,” he cried, almost with fury.

“Goodness only knows what you’re saying,” I laughed.