When such a man speaks I say to myself: 'There goes a well-fed, but over-watered mare, all decorated with bells; she's carting a load of rubbish out of the town, and the miserable wretch is content with her fate.'" "They are superfluous people, then," said Foma.

Yozhov stopped short in front of him and said with a biting smile on his lips: "No, they are not superfluous, oh no! They exist as an example, to show what man ought not to be.

Speaking frankly, their proper place is the anatomical museums, where they preserve all sorts of monsters and various sickly deviations from the normal.

In life there is nothing that is superfluous, dear.

Even I am necessary! Only those people, in whose souls dwells a slavish cowardice before life, in whose bosoms there are enormous ulcers of the most abominable self-adoration, taking the places of their dead hearts--only those people are superfluous; but even they are necessary, if only for the sake of enabling me to pour my hatred upon them." All day long, until evening, Yozhov was excited, venting his blasphemy on men he hated, and his words, though their contents were obscure to Foma, infected him with their evil heat, and infecting called forth in him an eager desire for combat.