what a shameful passion our great minds have for clever talk in the higher sense! A great European philosopher, a great scholar, an inventor, a toiler, a martyr — all these people who toil and are heavy laden12 are, for our great Russian genius, nothing more than cooks in his kitchen. He is the master, and they appear before him with toques in hand and await his orders. To be sure, he also mocks Russia superciliously, and he finds nothing more pleasant than to declare to the great minds of Europe that Russia is bankrupt in all respects, but as far as he himself is concerned, no indeed, he has
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