Ivan Turgenev

“ At dinner they began talking about bribes.
'"I know," he said, "that in many cases the man who accepts a bribe is not to blame; he cannot do otherwise. Still, if he is found out, he must be punished without mercy."' I cried, "Punish an innocent man!" '"Yes; for the sake of principle." '"What principle?" asked Shubin. Kurnatovsky seemed annoyed or surprised, and said, "That needs no explanation." ”

“ It's time for her to drop her mistiness, to get out of the society of all these artists, scholars, and Montenegrins, and do like everybody else.'
'How am I to understand you?' asked Anna Vassilyevna.
'Well, if you will kindly listen,' answered Nikolai Artemyevitch, still with the same dropping of the corners of his lips, 'I will tell you plainly, without beating about the bush. I have made acquaintance, I have become intimate with this young man, Mr. Kurnatovsky, in the hope of having him for a son-in-law. ”

“ Kurnatovsky did not at all deny the utility of science, universities, and so on, but still I understood Andrei Petrovitch's indignation. The man looks at it all as a sort of gymnastics. Shubin came up to me after dinner, and said, "This fellow here and some one else (he can never bring himself to utter your name) are both practical men, but see what a difference; there's the real living ideal given to life; and here there's not even a feeling of duty, simply official honesty and activity without anything inside it." Shubin is clever, and I remembered his words to tell you ”