At lunch: "They came both so strong and fleshy; says one: 'Well, we've come uninvited,' and the other says: 'With God's help we shall leave unbeaten,'" and he broke out into child-like laughter, shaking all over.
"We shall soon cease completely to understand the language of the people. Now we say: 'The theory of progress,' 'the role of the individual in history,' 'the evolution of science and a peasant says: 'You can't hide an awl in a sack,' and all theories, histories, evolutions become pitiable and ridiculous, because they are incomprehensible and unnecessary to the people.' But the peasant is stronger than we; he is more tenacious of life, and there may happen to us what happened to the tribe of Atzurs, of whom it was reported to a scholar:
'All the Atzurs have died out, but there is a parrot here who knows a few words of their language.'"
"With her body woman is more sincere than man, but with her mind she lies. And when she lies, she does not believe herself; but Rousseau lied and believed his lies."
"Dostoevsky described one of his mad characters as living and taking vengeance on himself and others because he had served a cause in which he did not believe. He wrote that about himself; that is, he could have said the same of himself."
"Some of the words used in church are amazingly obscure: what meaning is there, for instance, in the words: 'The earth is God's and the fulness thereof'? That is not Holy Scripture, but a kind of popular scientific materialism."
"But you explained the words somewhere," said Suler.
"Many things are explained.... 'An explanation does not go up to the hilt.'"
He likes putting difficult and malicious questions:
Once he asked: "Are you fond of me, Alexey Maximovitch?"
This is the maliciousness of a "bogatyr"[2]: Vaska Buslayev played such pranks in his youth, mischievous fellow. He is experimenting, all the time testing something, as if he were going to fight. It is interesting, but not much to my liking. He is the devil, and I am still a babe, and he should leave me alone.
[Footnote 1: A hero in Russian legend, brave, but wild and self-willed like a child.]
Perhaps peasant to him means merely--bad smell. He always feels it, and involuntarily has to talk of it.