Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Incidentally, here’s an example for you: I always speak a lot, I mean, a lot of words, and I rush, and it always comes out wrong. And why is it that I speak a lot of words and it comes out wrong? Because I don’t know how to speak. Those who know how to speak well, speak briefly. So, there you have my giftlessness—isn’t it true? But since this gift of giftlessness is natural to me, why shouldn’t I use it artificially? And so I do. True, as I was preparing to come here, I first had the thought of being silent; but to be silent is a great talent, and is therefore not fitting for me, and, second, it’s dangerous to be silent, after all; well, so I finally decided that it would be best to talk, but precisely in a giftless way, I mean, a lot, a lot, a lot, to be in a great rush to prove something, and towards the end to get tangled up in one’s own proofs, so that the listener throws up his hands, or, best of all, just spits and walks away without any end. The result will be, first, that you’ve convinced him of your simpleheartedness, have been very tiresome, and haven’t been understood—all three profits at once! For pity’s sake, who is going to start suspecting you of mysterious designs after that? No, there’s not one of them who wouldn’t be personally offended with anybody who said I had mysterious designs. And, what’s more, I sometimes make them laugh—and that is priceless. No, they’ll forgive me everything for this alone, that the wise man who published tracts there has turned...