be a noble, an expressive, and, above all, an extremely intelligent one.' Yet I knew, with certainty and suffering, that I would never be able to express all those perfections with the face I had. The most terrible thing was that I found it positively stupid. And I would have been quite satisfied with intelligence. Let's even say I would even have agreed to a mean expression, provided only that at the same time my face be found terribly intelligent.
Of course, I hated them all in our office, from first to last, and despised them all, but at the same time I was also as if afraid of them. It happened that I would suddenly set them above myself. Things were somehow sudden with me in those days: now I despised them, now I set them above me. A developed and decent man cannot be vain without a boundless exactingness towards himself and without despising himself at moments to the point of hatred. But whether I despised them or set them above me, I used to drop my eyes before almost everyone I met. I even made experiments: will I be able to endure so-and-so's glance on me? - and I was always the first to drop my eyes. This tormented me to the point of fury.
I was also afraid to the point of illness of being ridiculous, and therefore slavishly worshiped routine in everything to do with externals; I loved falling into the common rut, and feared any eccentricity in myself with all my soul. But how could I hold out? I was morbidly developed, as a man of our time ought to be developed. And they were all dull-witted and as like one another as a flock of sheep. Perhaps to me alone in the whole office did it constantly seem that I was a coward and a slave; it seemed so to me precisely because I was developed. But it not only seemed, in fact it really was so: I was a coward and a slave. I say it without any embarrassment. Every decent man of our time is and must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. I am deeply convinced of it. He's made that way, and arranged for it. And not in the present time, owing to some sort of chance circumstances, but generally in all times a decent man must be a coward and a slave. That is the natural law of all decent people on earth. If one of them does happen to get up a bit of pluck in something, let him not be eased or pleased by that: he'll still quail before something else. Such is the sole and everlasting outcome. Only asses and their mongrels show pluck, and even then only up to that certain wall. It's not worth paying any attention to them, because they mean precisely nothing.
One other circumstance tormented me then: namely, that no one else was like me, and I was like no one else. 'I am one, and they are all,' thought I, and - I'd fall to thinking.
Which shows what a young pup I still was.
Contraries also occurred. It was sometimes so disgusting to go to the office: it reached the point that I would often come home from work sick. Then suddenly, for no reason at all, comes a spell of skepticism and indifference (everything came in spells with me), and here I am laughing at my own intolerance and fastidiousness, reproaching myself with romanticism. One moment I don't even want to speak with anyone, and the next I go so far that I'm not only chatting away, but am even deciding to become close with them. All fastidiousness would suddenly disappear at once, for no reason at all. Who knows, maybe
I never had any, maybe it was just an affectation, out of books? To this day I haven't resolved this question. Once I even became quite friendly with them, began visiting their homes, playing preference, drinking vodka, discussing promotions… But allow me a digression here.
We Russians, generally speaking, have never had any stupid, translunary German, and more especially French, romantics, who are not affected by anything; let the earth crumble under them, let the whole of France perish on the barricades - they are what they are, they won't change even for the sake of decency, and they'll go on singing their translunary songs till their dying day, so to speak, because they're fools. But we, in our Russian land, have no fools; that is a known fact; that's what makes us different from all those other German lands. Consequently, we have no translunary natures in a pure state. It was our 'positive' publicists and critics of the time, hunting after Kostanzhoglos and Uncle Pyotr Ivanoviches, 2 and being foolish enough to take them for our ideal, who heaped it all on our romantics, holding them to be of the same translunary sort as in Germany or France. On the contrary, the properties of our romantic are utterly and directly opposite to those of the translunary European, and no little European yardstick will fit here. (Do permit me the use of this word 'romantic' - a venerable word, respectable, worthy, and familiar to all.) The properties of our romantic are to understand everything, to see everything, and to see often incomparably more clearly than our very most positive minds do; not to be reconciled with anyone or anything, but at the same time not to spurn anything; to get around everything, to yield to everything, to be politic with everyone; never to lose sight of the useful, practical goal (some nice little government apartment, a little pension, a little decoration or two) - to keep an eye on this goal through all enthusiasms and little volumes of lyrical verses, and at the same time also to preserve 'the beautiful and lofty' inviolate in himself till his dying day, and incidentally to preserve himself quite successfully as well, somehow in cotton wool, like some little piece of jewelry, if only, shall we say, for the benefit of that same
'beautiful and lofty.' He's a broad man, our romantic, and the foremost knave of all our knaves, I can assure you of that… even from experience. Naturally, all this is so if the romantic is intelligent. That is - what am I saying! - the romantic is always intelligent; I merely wished to observe that, while we do happen to have had some fool romantics, that doesn't count, for the sole reason that while still in the bloom of life they regenerated definitively into Germans and, to preserve their little piece of jewelry more comfortably, settled somewhere rather in Weimar or the Schwarzwald. 3 I, for example, sincerely despised my service employment, and if I didn't go around spitting, it was only out of necessity, because I was sitting there getting money for it. The result being - you will note - that I still didn't go around spitting. Our romantic would sooner lose his mind (which, however, happens very seldom) than start spitting, unless he's got his eye on some other career, and he will never be kicked out, except perhaps that he might be carted off to the madhouse as 'the king of Spain,' 4 and that only if he loses his mind very much. But among us only the weaklings and • towheads lose their minds. While the countless number of romantics go on to achieve considerable rank. Remarkable versatility! And what capacity for the very most contradictory feelings! I took comfort in that even then, and am of the same mind now. That is why we have so many 'broad natures' who even with the ultimate fall never lose their ideal; and though they wouldn't lift a finger for their ideal, though they are inveterate bandits and thieves, all the same they respect their original ideal to the point of tears and are remarkably honest in their souls. Yes, sirs, only among us can the most inveterate scoundrel be perfectly and even loftily honest in his soul, while not ceasing in the least to be a scoundrel. Time and again, I repeat, such practical rogues come out of our romantics (I use the word 'rogue' lovingly); they suddenly display such a sense of reality and such knowledge of the positive that the amazed authorities and public can only stand dumbfounded, clucking their tongues at them.
The versatility is indeed amazing, and God knows what it will turn and develop into in subsequent circumstances, and what it promises us for our times to come. It's not bad material, sirs! I don't say this out of any ridiculous or home-brewed patriotism. However, I'm sure you again think I'm laughing. Or, who knows, maybe contrariwise - that is, you're quite sure I really think so. In any event, gentlemen, I shall regard both your opinions as an honor and a special pleasure. And do forgive me my digression.
Of course, I could not sustain this friendliness with my colleagues; I'd spit in their eyes and, as a result of my still youthful inexperience, even stop greeting them, as if I'd cut them off. However, this happened to me only once. Generally, I was always alone.
At home, to begin with, I mainly used to read. I wished to stifle with external sensations all that was ceaselessly boiling up inside me. And among external sensations the only one possible for me was reading. Reading was, of course, a great help - it stirred, delighted, and tormented me. But at times it bored me terribly. I still wanted to move about, and so I'd suddenly sink into some murky, subterranean, vile debauch - not a great, but a measly little debauch. There were measly little passions in me, sharp, burning, because of my permanent, morbid irritability. I was given to hysterical outbursts, with tears and convulsions. Apart from reading I had nowhere to turn
