Fyodor Dostoevsky. Diary of a writer (№ 423410)

This joy about the failures of Russia and the frivolous squeal of delight that Russia was suddenly "weak, without finances, with a frustrated army, with a disgruntled and grumbling people, with nihilism that undermined society" - all these fables are undoubtedly carried a seal of such a well-known origin. Oh, it is impossible that Russian pens were not found, ready to write in unison with the clerics, but these correspondences abroad, it seems, cannot be written by the Russians: it would be too vile. Nevertheless, the clerics, perhaps not trying very hard, undoubtedly even direct the Russian feathers in our home. They may not even persuade them at all, and they do not enter into relations with them, direct and proper, because these lively liberal feathers sometimes belong to the most honest people who, having listened to a direct proposal from the cleric, perhaps would have let him down even with stairs. But on the other hand, a cleric, especially one who has settled down with us, knows perfectly well that he does not even need to go to a brisk pen, because a brisk Russian pen will write everything for him for nothing - only imagining (oh, dear ones!) That this is both honest and liberal ... A lively pen is outraged, for example, by the clerics who stuck around MacMahon in France, and writes menacing articles against them. But at the same time, he will not only not notice the Russian Roman clerical, but sometimes he will sing to him in the fullest unison. There are such, there are. And our cunning Roman clerics may even marvel at them: “After all, they want to flop between two chairs like that,” they nod with their heads. - And how disinterested! True, one must be liberal to the end. After all, they are shouting that Russia does not even have the right to free the Slavs: why, it’s not enough to give them a hundred thousand for this! And all this is between two chairs, minute by minute, but minute by minute. How does it not hurt them only? Heals, or something, they have it so soon ... "