They give him gifts, but their simple minds can imagine no other than those they might give to their own children.

Razumov's record is connected with an event characteristic of modern Russia in the actual fact: the assassination of a prominent statesman--and still more characteristic of the moral corruption of an oppressed society where the noblest aspirations of humanity, the desire of freedom, an ardent patriotism, the love of justice, the sense of pity, and even the fidelity of simple minds are prostituted to the lusts of hate and fear, the inseparable companions of an uneasy despotism.