Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/271

Rh 'Spiteful! malignant!' his friends began to say of the fool. 'But what a brain!'

'And what a tongue!' others would add, 'Oh, yes, he has talent!'

It ended in the editor of a journal proposing to the fool that he should undertake their reviewing column.

And the fool fell to criticising everything and every one, without in the least changing his manner, or his exclamations.

Now he, who once declaimed against authorities, is himself an authority, and the young men venerate him, and fear him.

And what else can they do, poor young men? Though one ought not, as a general rule, to venerate any one. .. but in this case, if one didn't venerate him, one would find oneself quite behind the times!

Fools have a good time among cowards.

April 1878.

in Bagdad knows not Jaffar, the Sun of the Universe?

One day, many years ago (he was yet a youth), Jaffar was walking in the environs of Bagdad.