had believed in God, he would have been a sectarian."
"But you said he was a Tula writer and had no talent."
He drew his shaggy brows down over his eyes and said: "He wrote badly. What kind of language does he use? There are more punctuation marks than words. Talent is love. One who loves is talented. Look at lovers, they are all talented."
Of Dostoevsky he spoke reluctantly, constrainedly, evading or repressing something: "He ought to have made himself acquainted with the teaching of Confucius or the Buddhists; that would have calmed him down. That is the chief thing which everyone should know. He was a man of rebellious flesh; when angry, bumps would suddenly rise on his bald head; and his ears would move. He felt a great deal, but he thought poorly; it is from the Fourierists, from Butashevitch and the others, that he learnt to think. And afterwards all his life long he hated them. There was something Jewish in his blood. He was suspicious without reason, ambitious, heavy and unfortunate. It is curious that he is so much read. I can't understand why. It is all painful and useless, because all those Idiots, Adolescents, Raskolnikovs, and the rest of them, they are not real; it is all much simpler, more understandable. It's a pity people don't read Lieskov, he's a real writer—have you read him?"
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