“He was getting steadily more drunk and maudlin. Masloboyev had always been a fine fellow, level-headed but rather too clever by half; sly, astute, devious and a scallywag from his school days, but deep down quite a softie-a lost soul. There are many amongst the Russians. They’re often endowed with considerable talent, but somehow they always end up barking up the wrong tree, on top of which they are capable of acting deliberately against their own conscience, out of a lack of gumption in certain respects, and not only do they always come to grief, but they know in advance they’re on to a hiding or nothing. Incidentally, drink proved to be Masloboyev’s undoing eventually.”
“Humiliated and Insulted”, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1861
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