MY NECESSARY EXPLANATION.

"Apres moi le deluge.

"Yesterday morning the prince came to see me. Among other things

he asked me to come down to his villa. I knew he would come and

persuade me to this step, and that he would adduce the argument

that it would be easier for me to die' among people and green

trees,'--as he expressed it. But today he did not say 'die,' he

said 'live.' It is pretty much the same to me, in my position,

which he says. When I asked him why he made such a point of his

'green trees,' he told me, to my astonishment, that he had heard

that last time I was in Pavlofsk I had said that I had come 'to

have a last look at the trees.'

"When I observed that it was all the same whether one died among

trees or in front of a blank brick wall, as here, and that it was

not worth making any fuss over a fortnight, he agreed at once.

But he insisted that the good air at Pavlofsk and the greenness

would certainly cause a physical change for the better, and that

my excitement, and my DREAMS, would be perhaps relieved. I

remarked to him, with a smile, that he spoke like a materialist,

and he answered that he had always been one. As he never tells a

lie, there must be something in his words. His smile is a

pleasant one. I have had a good look at him. I don't know whether

I like him or not; and I have no time to waste over the question.

The hatred which I felt for him for five months has become

considerably modified, I may say, during the last month. Who

knows, perhaps I am going to Pavlofsk on purpose to see him! But

why do I leave my chamber? Those who are sentenced to death

should not leave their cells. If I had not formed a final

resolve, but had decided to wait until the last minute, I should

not leave my room, or accept his invitation to come and die at

Pavlofsk. I must be quick and finish this explanation before

tomorrow. I shall have no time to read it over and correct it, for

I must read it tomorrow to the prince and two or three witnesses

whom I shall probably find there.

"As it will be absolutely true, without a touch of falsehood, I

am curious to see what impression it will make upon me myself at

the moment when I read it out. This is my 'last and solemn'--but

why need I call it that? There is no question about the truth of

it, for it is not worthwhile lying for a fortnight; a fortnight

of life is not itself worth having, which is a proof that I write

nothing here but pure truth.

("N.B.--Let me remember to consider; am I mad at this moment, or

not? or rather at these moments? I have been told that

consumptives sometimes do go out of their minds for a while in

the last stages of the malady. I can prove this tomorrow when I

read it out, by the impression it makes upon the audience. I must

settle this question once and for all, otherwise I can't go on

with anything.)

"I believe I have just written dreadful nonsense; but there's no

time for correcting, as I said before. Besides that, I have made

myself a promise not to alter a single word of what I write in

this paper, even though I find that I am contradicting myself

every five lines. I wish to verify the working of the natural

logic of my ideas tomorrow during the reading--whether I am

capable of detecting logical errors, and whether all that I have

meditated over during the last six months be true, or nothing but

delirium.

"If two months since I had been called upon to leave my room and

the view of Meyer's wall opposite, I verily believe I should have

been sorry. But now I have no such feeling, and yet I am leaving

this room and Meyer's brick wall FOR EVER. So that my conclusion,

that it is not worth while indulging in grief, or any other

emotion, for a fortnight, has proved stronger than my very

nature, and has taken over the direction of my feelings. But is

it so? Is it the case that my nature is conquered entirely? If I

were to be put on the rack now, I should certainly cry out. I

should not say that it is not worth while to yell and feel pain

because I have but a fortnight to live.

"But is it true that I have but a fortnight of life left to me? I

know I told some of my friends that Doctor B. had informed me

that this was the case; but I now confess that I lied; B. has not

even seen me. However, a week ago, I called in a medical student,

Kislorodoff, who is a Nationalist, an Atheist, and a Nihilist, by

conviction, and that is why I had him. I needed a man who would

tell me the bare truth without any humbug or ceremony--and so he

did--indeed, almost with pleasure (which I thought was going a

little too far).

"Well, he plumped out that I had about a month left me; it might

be a little more, he said, under favourable circumstances, but

it might also be considerably less. According to his opinion I

might die quite suddenly--tomorrow, for instance--there had been

such cases. Only a day or two since a young lady at Colomna who

suffered from consumption, and was about on a par with myself in

the march of the disease, was going out to market to buy

provisions, when she suddenly felt faint, lay down on the sofa,

gasped once, and died.

"Kislorodoff told me all this with a sort of exaggerated devil-

may-care negligence, and as though he did me great honour by

talking to me so, because it showed that he considered me the

same sort of exalted Nihilistic being as himself, to whom death

was a matter of no consequence whatever, either way.

"At all events, the fact remained--a month of life and no more!

That he is right in his estimation I am absolutely persuaded.

"It puzzles me much to think how on earth the prince guessed

yesterday that I have had bad dreams. He said to me, 'Your

excitement and dreams will find relief at Pavlofsk.' Why did he

say 'dreams'? Either he is a doctor, or else he is a man of

exceptional intelligence and wonderful powers of observation.

(But that he is an 'idiot,' at bottom there can be no doubt

whatever.) It so happened that just before he arrived I had a

delightful little dream; one of a kind that I have hundreds of

just now. I had fallen asleep about an hour before he came in,

and dreamed that I was in some room, not my own. It was a large

room, well furnished, with a cupboard, chest of drawers, sofa,

and my bed, a fine wide bed covered with a silken counterpane.

But I observed in the room a dreadful-looking creature, a sort of

monster. It was a little like a scorpion, but was not a scorpion,

but far more horrible, and especially so, because there are no

creatures anything like it in nature, and because it had appeared

to me for a purpose, and bore some mysterious signification. I

looked at the beast well; it was brown in colour and had a shell;

it was a crawling kind of reptile, about eight inches long, and

narrowed down from the head, which was about a couple of fingers

in width, to the end of the tail, which came to a fine point. Out

of its trunk, about a couple of inches below its head, came two

legs at an angle of forty-five degrees, each about three inches

long, so that the beast looked like a trident from above. It had

eight hard needle-like whiskers coming out from different parts

of its body; it went along like a snake, bending its body about

in spite of the shell it wore, and its motion was very quick and

very horrible to look at. I was dreadfully afraid it would sting

me; somebody had told me, I thought, that it was venomous; but

what tormented me most of all was the wondering and wondering as

to who had sent it into my room, and what was the mystery which I

felt it contained.

"It hid itself under the cupboard and under the chest of drawers,

and crawled into the corners. I sat on a chair and kept my legs

tucked under me. Then the beast crawled quietly across the room

and disappeared somewhere near my chair. I looked about for it in

terror, but I still hoped that as my feet were safely tucked away

it would not be able to touch me.

"Suddenly I heard behind me, and about on a level with my head, a

sort of rattling sound. I turned sharp round and saw that the

brute had crawled up the wall as high as the level of my face,

and that its horrible tail, which was moving incredibly fast from

side to side, was actually touching my hair! I jumped up--and it

disappeared. I did not dare lie down on my bed for fear it should

creep under my pillow. My mother came into the room, and some

friends of hers. They began to hunt for the reptile and were more

composed than I was; they did not seem to be afraid of it. But

they did not understand as I did.

"Suddenly the monster reappeared; it crawled slowly across the

room and made for the door, as though with some fixed intention,

and with a slow movement that was more horrible than ever.

"Then my mother opened the door and called my dog, Norma. Norma

was a great Newfoundland, and died five years ago.

"She sprang forward and stood still in front of the reptile as if

she had been turned to stone. The beast stopped too, but its tail

and claws still moved about. I believe animals are incapable of

feeling supernatural fright--if I have been rightly informed,--but

at this moment there appeared to me to be something more than

ordinary about Norma's terror, as though it must be supernatural;

and as though she felt, just as I did myself, that this reptile

was connected with some mysterious secret, some fatal omen.

"Norma backed slowly and carefully away from the brute, which

followed her, creeping deliberately after her as though it

intended to make a sudden dart and sting her.

"In spite of Norma's terror she looked furious, though she

trembled in all her limbs. At length she slowly bared her

terrible teeth, opened her great red jaws, hesitated--took

courage, and seized the beast in her mouth. It seemed to try to

dart out of her jaws twice, but Norma caught at it and half

swallowed it as it was escaping. The shell cracked in her teeth;

and the tail and legs stuck out of her mouth and shook about in a

horrible manner. Suddenly Norma gave a piteous whine; the reptile

had bitten her tongue. She opened her mouth wide with the pain,

and I saw the beast lying across her tongue, and out of its body,

which was almost bitten in two, came a hideous white-looking

substance, oozing out into Norma's mouth; it was of the

consistency of a crushed black-beetle. just then I awoke and the

prince entered the room."

"Gentlemen!" said Hippolyte, breaking off here, "I have not done

yet, but it seems to me that I have written down a great deal

here that is unnecessary,--this dream--"

"You have indeed!" said Gania.

"There is too much about myself, I know, but--" As Hippolyte said

this his face wore a tired, pained look, and he wiped the sweat

off his brow.

"Yes," said Lebedeff, "you certainly think a great deal too much

about yourself."

"Well--gentlemen--I do not force anyone to listen! If any of you

are unwilling to sit it out, please go away, by all means!"

"He turns people out of a house that isn't his own," muttered

Rogojin.

"Suppose we all go away?" said Ferdishenko suddenly.

Hippolyte clutched his manuscript, and gazing at the last speaker

with glittering eyes, said: "You don't like me at all!" A few

laughed at this, but not all.

"Hippolyte," said the prince, "give me the papers, and go to bed

like a sensible fellow. We'll have a good talk tomorrow, but you

really mustn't go on with this reading; it is not good for you!"

"How can I? How can I?" cried Hippolyte, looking at him in

amazement. "Gentlemen! I was a fool! I won't break off again.

Listen, everyone who wants to!"

He gulped down some water out of a glass standing near, bent over

the table, in order to hide his face from the audience, and

recommenced.

"The idea that it is not worth while living for a few weeks took

possession of me a month ago, when I was told that I had four

weeks to live, but only partially so at that time. The idea quite

overmastered me three days since, that evening at Pavlofsk. The

first time that I felt really impressed with this thought was on

the terrace at the prince's, at the very moment when I had taken

it into my head to make a last trial of life. I wanted to see

people and trees (I believe I said so myself), I got excited, I

maintained Burdovsky's rights, 'my neighbour!'--I dreamt that one

and all would open their arms, and embrace me, that there would

be an indescribable exchange of forgiveness between us all! In a

word, I behaved like a fool, and then, at that very same instant,

I felt my 'last conviction.' I ask myself now how I could have

waited six months for that conviction! I knew that I had a

disease that spares no one, and I really had no illusions; but

the more I realized my condition, the more I clung to life; I

wanted to live at any price. I confess I might well have resented

that blind, deaf fate, which, with no apparent reason, seemed to

have decided to crush me like a fly; but why did I not stop at

resentment? Why did I begin to live, knowing that it was not

worthwhile to begin? Why did I attempt to do what I knew to be

an impossibility? And yet I could not even read a book to the

end; I had given up reading. What is the good of reading, what is

the good of learning anything, for just six months? That thought

has made me throw aside a book more than once.

"Yes, that wall of Meyer's could tell a tale if it liked. There

was no spot on its dirty surface that I did not know by heart.

Accursed wall! and yet it is dearer to me than all the Pavlofsk

trees!--That is--it WOULD be dearer if it were not all the same

to me, now!

"I remember now with what hungry interest I began to watch the

lives of other people--interest that I had never felt before! I

used to wait for Colia's arrival impatiently, for I was so ill

myself, then, that I could not leave the house. I so threw myself

into every little detail of news, and took so much interest in

every report and rumour, that I believe I became a regular

gossip! I could not understand, among other things, how all these

people--with so much life in and before them--do not become RICH--

and I don't understand it now. I remember being told of a poor

wretch I once knew, who had died of hunger. I was almost beside

myself with rage! I believe if I could have resuscitated him I

would have done so for the sole purpose of murdering him!

"Occasionally I was so much better that I could go out; but the

streets used to put me in such a rage that I would lock myself up

for days rather than go out, even if I were well enough to do so!

I could not bear to see all those preoccupied, anxious-looking

creatures continuously surging along the streets past me! Why are

they always anxious? What is the meaning of their eternal care

and worry? It is their wickedness, their perpetual detestable

malice--that's what it is--they are all full of malice, malice!

"Whose fault is it that they are all miserable, that they don't

know how to live, though they have fifty or sixty years of life

before them? Why did that fool allow himself to die of hunger

with sixty years of unlived life before him?

"And everyone of them shows his rags, his toil-worn hands, and

yells in his wrath: 'Here are we, working like cattle all our

lives, and always as hungry as dogs, and there are others who do

not work, and are fat and rich!' The eternal refrain! And side by

side with them trots along some wretched fellow who has known

better days, doing light porter's work from morn to night for a

living, always blubbering and saying that 'his wife died because

he had no money to buy medicine with,' and his children dying of

cold and hunger, and his eldest daughter gone to the bad, and so

on. Oh! I have no pity and no patience for these fools of people.

Why can't they be Rothschilds? Whose fault is it that a man has

not got millions of money like Rothschild? If he has life, all

this must be in his power! Whose fault is it that he does not

know how to live his life?

"Oh! it's all the same to me now--NOW! But at that time I would

soak my pillow at night with tears of mortification, and tear at

my blanket in my rage and fury. Oh, how I longed at that time to

be turned out--ME, eighteen years old, poor, half-clothed, turned

out into the street, quite alone, without lodging, without work,

without a crust of bread, without relations, without a single

acquaintance, in some large town--hungry, beaten (if you like),

but in good health--and THEN I would show them--

"What would I show them?

"Oh, don't think that I have no sense of my own humiliation! I

have suffered already in reading so far. Which of you all does

not think me a fool at this moment--a young fool who knows

nothing of life--forgetting that to live as I have lived these

last six months is to live longer than grey-haired old men. Well,

let them laugh, and say it is all nonsense, if they please. They

may say it is all fairy-tales, if they like; and I have spent

whole nights telling myself fairy-tales. I remember them all. But

how can I tell fairy-tales now? The time for them is over. They

amused me when I found that there was not even time for me to

learn the Greek grammar, as I wanted to do. 'I shall die before I

get to the syntax,' I thought at the first page--and threw the

book under the table. It is there still, for I forbade anyone to

pick it up.

"If this 'Explanation' gets into anybody's hands, and they have

patience to read it through, they may consider me a madman, or a

schoolboy, or, more likely, a man condemned to die, who thought

it only natural to conclude that all men, excepting himself,

esteem life far too lightly, live it far too carelessly and

lazily, and are, therefore, one and all, unworthy of it. Well, I

affirm that my reader is wrong again, for my convictions have

nothing to do with my sentence of death. Ask them, ask any one of

them, or all of them, what they mean by happiness! Oh, you may be

perfectly sure that if Columbus was happy, it was not after he

had discovered America, but when he was discovering it! You may

be quite sure that he reached the culminating point of his

happiness three days before he saw the New World with his actual

eves, when his mutinous sailors wanted to tack about, and return

to Europe! What did the New World matter after all? Columbus had

hardly seen it when he died, and in reality he was entirely

ignorant of what he had discovered. The important thing is life--

life and nothing else! What is any 'discovery' whatever compared

with the incessant, eternal discovery of life?

"But what is the use of talking? I'm afraid all this is so

commonplace that my confession will be taken for a schoolboy

exercise--the work of some ambitious lad writing in the hope of

his work 'seeing the light'; or perhaps my readers will say that

'I had perhaps something to say, but did not know how to express

it.'

"Let me add to this that in every idea emanating from genius, or

even in every serious human idea--born in the human brain--there

always remains something--some sediment--which cannot be expressed

to others, though one wrote volumes and lectured upon it for

five-and-thirty years. There is always a something, a remnant,

which will never come out from your brain, but will remain there

with you, and you alone, for ever and ever, and you will die,

perhaps, without having imparted what may be the very essence of

your idea to a single living soul.

"So that if I cannot now impart all that has tormented me for

the last six months, at all events you will understand that,

having reached my 'last convictions,' I must have paid a very

dear price for them. That is what I wished, for reasons of my

own, to make a point of in this my 'Explanation.'

"But let me resume.

VI.

"I WILL not deceive you. 'Reality' got me so entrapped in its

meshes now and again during the past six months, that I forgot my

'sentence' (or perhaps I did not wish to think of it), and

actually busied myself with affairs.

"A word as to my circumstances. When, eight months since, I

became very ill, I threw up all my old connections and dropped

all my old companions. As I was always a gloomy, morose sort of

individual, my friends easily forgot me; of course, they would

have forgotten me all the same, without that excuse. My position

at home was solitary enough. Five months ago I separated myself

entirely from the family, and no one dared enter my room except

at stated times, to clean and tidy it, and so on, and to bring me

my meals. My mother dared not disobey me; she kept the children

quiet, for my sake, and beat them if they dared to make any noise

and disturb me. I so often complained of them that I should think

they must be very fond, indeed, of me by this time. I think I

must have tormented 'my faithful Colia' (as I called him) a

good deal too. He tormented me of late; I could see that he

always bore my tempers as though he had determined to 'spare the

poor invalid.' This annoyed me, naturally. He seemed to have

taken it into his head to imitate the prince in Christian

meekness! Surikoff, who lived above us, annoyed me, too. He was

so miserably poor, and I used to prove to him that he had no one

to blame but himself for his poverty. I used to be so angry that

I think I frightened him eventually, for he stopped coming to see

me. He was a most meek and humble fellow, was Surikoff. (N.B.--

They say that meekness is a great power. I must ask the prince

about this, for the expression is his.) But I remember one day in

March, when I went up to his lodgings to see whether it was true

that one of his children had been starved and frozen to death, I

began to hold forth to him about his poverty being his own fault,

and, in the course of my remarks, I accidentally smiled at the

corpse of his child. Well, the poor wretch's lips began to

tremble, and he caught me by the shoulder, and pushed me to the

door. 'Go out,' he said, in a whisper. I went out, of course, and

I declare I LIKED it. I liked it at the very moment when I was

turned out. But his words filled me with a strange sort of

feeling of disdainful pity for him whenever I thought of them--a

feeling which I did not in the least desire to entertain. At the

very moment of the insult (for I admit that I did insult him,

though I did not mean to), this man could not lose his temper.

His lips had trembled, but I swear it was not with rage. He had

taken me by the arm, and said, 'Go out,' without the least anger.

There was dignity, a great deal of dignity, about him, and it was

so inconsistent with the look of him that, I assure you, it was

quite comical. But there was no anger. Perhaps he merely began to

despise me at that moment.

"Since that time he has always taken off his hat to me on the

stairs, whenever I met him, which is a thing he never did before;

but he always gets away from me as quickly as he can, as though

he felt confused. If he did despise me, he despised me 'meekly,'

after his own fashion.

"I dare say he only took his hat off out of fear, as it were, to

the son of his creditor; for he always owed my mother money. I

thought of having an explanation with him, but I knew that if I

did, he would begin to apologize in a minute or two, so I decided

to let him alone.

"Just about that time, that is, the middle of March, I suddenly

felt very much better; this continued for a couple of weeks. I

used to go out at dusk. I like the dusk, especially in March,

when the night frost begins to harden the day's puddles, and the

gas is burning.

"Well, one night in the Shestilavochnaya, a man passed me with a

paper parcel under his arm. I did not take stock of him very

carefully, but he seemed to be dressed in some shabby summer

dust-coat, much too light for the season. When he was opposite

the lamp-post, some ten yards away, I observed something fall out

of his pocket. I hurried forward to pick it up, just in time, for

an old wretch in a long kaftan rushed up too. He did not dispute

the matter, but glanced at what was in my hand and disappeared.

"It was a large old-fashioned pocket-book, stuffed full; but I

guessed, at a glance, that it had anything in the world inside

it, except money.

"The owner was now some forty yards ahead of me, and was very

soon lost in the crowd. I ran after him, and began calling out;

but as I knew nothing to say excepting 'hey!' he did not turn

round. Suddenly he turned into the gate of a house to the left;

and when I darted in after him, the gateway was so dark that I

could see nothing whatever. It was one of those large houses

built in small tenements, of which there must have been at least

a hundred.

"When I entered the yard I thought I saw a man going along on the

far side of it; but it was so dark I could not make out his

figure.

"I crossed to that corner and found a dirty dark staircase. I

heard a man mounting up above me, some way higher than I was, and

thinking I should catch him before his door would be opened to

him, I rushed after him. I heard a door open and shut on the

fifth storey, as I panted along; the stairs were narrow, and the

steps innumerable, but at last I reached the door I thought the

right one. Some moments passed before I found the bell and got it

to ring.

"An old peasant woman opened the door; she was busy lighting the

'samovar' in a tiny kitchen. She listened silently to my

questions, did not understand a word, of course, and opened

another door leading into a little bit of a room, low and

scarcely furnished at all, but with a large, wide bed in it, hung

with curtains. On this bed lay one Terentich, as the woman called

him, drunk, it appeared to me. On the table was an end of candle

in an iron candlestick, and a half-bottle of vodka, nearly

finished. Terentich muttered something to me, and signed towards

the next room. The old woman had disappeared, so there was

nothing for me to do but to open the door indicated. I did so,

and entered the next room.

"This was still smaller than the other, so cramped that I could

scarcely turn round; a narrow single bed at one side took up

nearly all the room. Besides the bed there were only three common

chairs, and a wretched old kitchen-table standing before a small

sofa. One could hardly squeeze through between the table and the

bed.

"On the table, as in the other room, burned a tallow candle-end

in an iron candlestick; and on the bed there whined a baby of

scarcely three weeks old. A pale-looking woman was dressing the

child, probably the mother; she looked as though she had not as

yet got over the trouble of childbirth, she seemed so weak and

was so carelessly dressed. Another child, a little girl of about

three years old, lay on the sofa, covered over with what looked

like a man's old dress-coat.

"At the table stood a man in his shirt sleeves; he had thrown off

his coat; it lay upon the bed; and he was unfolding a blue paper

parcel in which were a couple of pounds of bread, and some little

sausages.

"On the table along with these things were a few old bits of

black bread, and some tea in a pot. From under the bed there

protruded an open portmanteau full of bundles of rags. In a word,

the confusion and untidiness of the room were indescribable.

"It appeared to me, at the first glance, that both the man and

the woman were respectable people, but brought to that pitch of

poverty where untidiness seems to get the better of every effort

to cope with it, till at last they take a sort of bitter

satisfaction in it. When I entered the room, the man, who had

entered but a moment before me, and was still unpacking his

parcels, was saying something to his wife in an excited manner.

The news was apparently bad, as usual, for the woman began

whimpering. The man's face seemed tome to be refined and even

pleasant. He was dark-complexioned, and about twenty-eight years

of age; he wore black whiskers, and his lip and chin were shaved.

He looked morose, but with a sort of pride of expression. A

curious scene followed.

"There are people who find satisfaction in their own touchy

feelings, especially when they have just taken the deepest

offence; at such moments they feel that they would rather be

offended than not. These easily-ignited natures, if they are

wise, are always full of remorse afterwards, when they reflect

that they have been ten times as angry as they need have been.

"The gentleman before me gazed at me for some seconds in

amazement, and his wife in terror; as though there was something

alarmingly extraordinary in the fact that anyone could come to

see them. But suddenly he fell upon me almost with fury; I had

had no time to mutter more than a couple of words; but he had

doubtless observed that I was decently dressed and, therefore,

took deep offence because I had dared enter his den so

unceremoniously, and spy out the squalor and untidiness of it.

"Of course he was delighted to get hold of someone upon whom to

vent his rage against things in general.

"For a moment I thought he would assault me; he grew so pale that

he looked like a woman about to have hysterics; his wife was

dreadfully alarmed.

"'How dare you come in so? Be off!' he shouted, trembling all

over with rage and scarcely able to articulate the words.

Suddenly, however, he observed his pocketbook in my hand.

"'I think you dropped this,' I remarked, as quietly and drily as

I could. (I thought it best to treat him so.) For some while he

stood before me in downright terror, and seemed unable to

understand. He then suddenly grabbed at his side-pocket, opened

his mouth in alarm, and beat his forehead with his hand.

"'My God!' he cried, 'where did you find it? How?' I explained in

as few words as I could, and as drily as possible, how I had seen

it and picked it up; how I had run after him, and called out to

him, and how I had followed him upstairs and groped my way to his

door.

"'Gracious Heaven!' he cried, 'all our papers are in it! My dear

sir, you little know what you have done for us. I should have

been lost--lost!'

"I had taken hold of the door-handle meanwhile, intending to

leave the room without reply; but I was panting with my run

upstairs, and my exhaustion came to a climax in a violent fit of

coughing, so bad that I could hardly stand.

"I saw how the man dashed about the room to find me an empty

chair, how he kicked the rags off a chair which was covered up by

them, brought it to me, and helped me to sit down; but my cough

went on for another three minutes or so. When I came to myself he

was sitting by me on another chair, which he had also cleared of

the rubbish by throwing it all over the floor, and was watching

me intently.

"'I'm afraid you are ill?' he remarked, in the tone which doctors

use when they address a patient. 'I am myself a medical man' (he

did not say 'doctor'), with which words he waved his hands

towards the room and its contents as though in protest at his

present condition. 'I see that you--'

"'I'm in consumption,' I said laconically, rising from my seat.

He jumped up, too.

"'Perhaps you are exaggerating--if you were to take proper

measures perhaps--"

"He was terribly confused and did not seem able to collect his

scattered senses; the pocket-book was still in his left hand.

"'Oh, don't mind me,' I said. 'Dr. B-- saw me last week' (I

lugged him in again), 'and my hash is quite settled; pardon me-'

I took hold of the door-handle again. I was on the point of

opening the door and leaving my grateful but confused medical

friend to himself and his shame, when my damnable cough got hold

of me again.

"My doctor insisted on my sitting down again to get my breath. He

now said something to his wife who, without leaving her place,

addressed a few words of gratitude and courtesy to me. She seemed

very shy over it, and her sickly face flushed up with confusion.

I remained, but with the air of a man who knows he is intruding

and is anxious to get away. The doctor's remorse at last seemed

to need a vent, I could see.

"'If I--' he began, breaking off abruptly every other moment, and

starting another sentence. 'I-I am so very grateful to you, and I

am so much to blame in your eyes, I feel sure, I--you see--' (he

pointed to the room again) 'at this moment I am in such a

position-'

"'Oh!' I said, 'there's nothing to see; it's quite a clear case--

you've lost your post and have come up to make explanations and

get another, if you can!'

"'How do you know that?' he asked in amazement.

"'Oh, it was evident at the first glance,' I said ironically, but

not intentionally so. 'There are lots of people who come up from

the provinces full of hope, and run about town, and have to live

as best they can.'

"He began to talk at once excitedly and with trembling lips; he

began complaining and telling me his story. He interested me, I

confess; I sat there nearly an hour. His story was a very

ordinary one. He had been a provincial doctor; he had a civil

appointment, and had no sooner taken it up than intrigues began.

Even his wife was dragged into these. He was proud, and flew into

a passion; there was a change of local government which acted in

favour of his opponents; his position was undermined, complaints

were made against him; he lost his post and came up to Petersburg

with his last remaining money, in order to appeal to higher

authorities. Of course nobody would listen to him for a long

time; he would come and tell his story one day and be refused

promptly; another day he would be fed on false promises; again he

would be treated harshly; then he would be told to sign some

documents; then he would sign the paper and hand it in, and they

would refuse to receive it, and tell him to file a formal

petition. In a word he had been driven about from office to

office for five months and had spent every farthing he had; his

wife's last rags had just been pawned; and meanwhile a child had

been born to them and--and today I have a final refusal to my

petition, and I have hardly a crumb of bread left--I have nothing

left; my wife has had a baby lately--and I-I--'

"He sprang up from his chair and turned away. His wife was crying

in the corner; the child had begun to moan again. I pulled out my

note-book and began writing in it. When I had finished and rose

from my chair he was standing before me with an expression of

alarmed curiosity.

"'I have jotted down your name,' I told him, 'and all the rest of

it--the place you served at, the district, the date, and all. I

have a friend, Bachmatoff, whose uncle is a councillor of state

and has to do with these matters, one Peter Matveyevitch

Bachmatoff.'

"'Peter Matveyevitch Bachmatoff!' he cried, trembling all over

with excitement. 'Why, nearly everything depends on that very

man!'

"It is very curious, this story of the medical man, and my visit,

and the happy termination to which I contributed by accident!

Everything fitted in, as in a novel. I told the poor people not

to put much hope in me, because I was but a poor schoolboy myself--

(I am not really, but I humiliated myself as much as possible in

order to make them less hopeful)--but that I would go at once

to the Vassili Ostroff and see my friend; and that as I knew

for certain that his uncle adored him, and was absolutely devoted

to him as the last hope and branch of the family, perhaps the old

man might do something to oblige his nephew.

"'If only they would allow me to explain all to his excellency!

If I could but be permitted to tell my tale to him!" he cried,

trembling with feverish agitation, and his eyes flashing with

excitement. I repeated once more that I could not hold out much

hope--that it would probably end in smoke, and if I did not turn

up next morning they must make up their minds that there was no

more to be done in the matter.

"They showed me out with bows and every kind of respect; they

seemed quite beside themselves. I shall never forget the

expression of their faces!

"I took a droshky and drove over to the Vassili Ostroff at once.

For some years I had been at enmity with this young Bachmatoff,

at school. We considered him an aristocrat; at all events I

called him one. He used to dress smartly, and always drove to

school in a private trap. He was a good companion, and was always

merry and jolly, sometimes even witty, though he was not very

intellectual, in spite of the fact that he was always top of the

class; I myself was never top in anything! All his companions

were very fond of him, excepting myself. He had several times

during those years come up to me and tried to make friends; but I

had always turned sulkily away and refused to have anything to do

with him. I had not seen him for a whole year now; he was at the

university. When, at nine o'clock, or so, this evening, I arrived

and was shown up to him with great ceremony, he first received me

with astonishment, and not too affably, but he soon cheered up,

and suddenly gazed intently at me and burst out laughing.

"'Why, what on earth can have possessed you to come and see ME,

Terentieff?' he cried, with his usual pleasant, sometimes

audacious, but never offensive familiarity, which I liked in

reality, but for which I also detested him. 'Why what's the

matter?' he cried in alarm. 'Are you ill?'

"That confounded cough of mine had come on again; I fell into a

chair, and with difficulty recovered my breath. 'It's all right,

it's only consumption' I said. 'I have come to you with a

petition!'

"He sat down in amazement, and I lost no time in telling him the

medical man's history; and explained that he, with the influence

which he possessed over his uncle, might do some good to the poor

fellow.

"'I'll do it--I'll do it, of course!' he said. 'I shall attack my

uncle about it tomorrow morning, and I'm very glad you told me

the story. But how was it that you thought of coming to me about

it, Terentieff?'

"'So much depends upon your uncle,' I said. 'And besides we have

always been enemies, Bachmatoff; and as you are a generous sort

of fellow, I thought you would not refuse my request because I

was your enemy!' I added with irony.

"'Like Napoleon going to England, eh?' cried he, laughing. 'I'll

do it though--of course, and at once, if I can!' he added, seeing

that I rose seriously from my chair at this point.

"And sure enough the matter ended as satisfactorily as possible.

A month or so later my medical friend was appointed to another

post. He got his travelling expenses paid, and something to help

him to start life with once more. I think Bachmatoff must have

persuaded the doctor to accept a loan from himself. I saw

Bachmatoff two or three times, about this period, the third time

being when he gave a farewell dinner to the doctor and his wife

before their departure, a champagne dinner.

"Bachmatoff saw me home after the dinner and we crossed the

Nicolai bridge. We were both a little drunk. He told me of his

joy, the joyful feeling of having done a good action; he said

that it was all thanks to myself that he could feel this

satisfaction; and held forth about the foolishness of the theory

that individual charity is useless

"I, too, was burning to have my say!

"'In Moscow,' I said, 'there was an old state counsellor, a civil

general, who, all his life, had been in the habit of visiting the

prisons and speaking to criminals. Every party of convicts on its

way to Siberia knew beforehand that on the Vorobeef Hills the

"old general" would pay them a visit. He did all he undertook

seriously and devotedly. He would walk down the rows of the

unfortunate prisoners, stop before each individual and ask after

his needs--he never sermonized them; he spoke kindly to them--he gave

them money; he brought them all sorts of necessaries for the

journey, and gave them devotional books, choosing those who could

read, under the firm conviction that they would read to those who

could not, as they went along.

"'He scarcely ever talked about the particular crimes of any of

them, but listened if any volunteered information on that point.

All the convicts were equal for him, and he made no distinction.

He spoke to all as to brothers, and every one of them looked upon

him as a father. When he observed among the exiles some poor

woman with a child, he would always come forward and fondle the

little one, and make it laugh. He continued these acts of mercy

up to his very death; and by that time all the criminals, all

over Russia and Siberia, knew him!

"'A man I knew who had been to Siberia and returned, told me that

he himself had been a witness of how the very most hardened

criminals remembered the old general, though, in point of fact,

he could never, of course, have distributed more than a few pence

to each member of a party. Their recollection of him was not

sentimental or particularly devoted. Some wretch, for instance,

who had been a murderer--cutting the throat of a dozen fellow-

creatures, for instance; or stabbing six little children for his

own amusement (there have been such men!)--would perhaps, without

rhyme or reason, suddenly give a sigh and say, "I wonder whether

that old general is alive still!" Although perhaps he had not

thought of mentioning him for a dozen years before! How can one

say what seed of good may have been dropped into his soul, never

to die?'

"I continued in that strain for a long while, pointing out to

Bachmatoff how impossible it is to follow up the effects of any

isolated good deed one may do, in all its influences and subtle

workings upon the heart and after-actions of others.

"'And to think that you are to be cut off from life!' remarked

Bachmatoff, in a tone of reproach, as though he would like to

find someone to pitch into on my account.

"We were leaning over the balustrade of the bridge, looking into

the Neva at this moment.

"'Do you know what has suddenly come into my head?' said I,

suddenly--leaning further and further over the rail.

"'Surely not to throw yourself into the river?' cried Bachmatoff

in alarm. Perhaps he read my thought in my face.

"'No, not yet. At present nothing but the following

consideration. You see I have some two or three months left me to

live--perhaps four; well, supposing that when I have but a month

or two more, I take a fancy for some "good deed" that needs both

trouble and time, like this business of our doctor friend, for

instance: why, I shall have to give up the idea of it and take to

something else--some LITTLE good deed, MORE WITHIN MY MEANS, eh?

Isn't that an amusing idea!'

"Poor Bachmatoff was much impressed--painfully so. He took me all

the way home; not attempting to console me, but behaving with the

greatest delicacy. On taking leave he pressed my hand warmly and

asked permission to come and see me. I replied that if he came to

me as a 'comforter,' so to speak (for he would be in that

capacity whether he spoke to me in a soothing manner or only kept

silence, as I pointed out to him), he would but remind me each

time of my approaching death! He shrugged his shoulders, but

quite agreed with me; and we parted better friends than I had

expected.

"But that evening and that night were sown the first seeds of my

'last conviction.' I seized greedily on my new idea; I thirstily

drank in all its different aspects (I did not sleep a wink that

night!), and the deeper I went into it the more my being seemed

to merge itself in it, and the more alarmed I became. A dreadful

terror came over me at last, and did not leave me all next day.

"Sometimes, thinking over this, I became quite numb with the

terror of it; and I might well have deduced from this fact, that

my 'last conviction' was eating into my being too fast and too

seriously, and would undoubtedly come to its climax before long.

And for the climax I needed greater determination than I yet

possessed.

"However, within three weeks my determination was taken, owing to

a very strange circumstance.

"Here on my paper, I make a note of all the figures and dates

that come into my explanation. Of course, it is all the same to

me, but just now--and perhaps only at this moment--I desire that

all those who are to judge of my action should see clearly out of

how logical a sequence of deductions has at length proceeded my

'last conviction.'

"I have said above that the determination needed by me for the

accomplishment of my final resolve, came to hand not through any

sequence of causes, but thanks to a certain strange circumstance

which had perhaps no connection whatever with the matter at

issue. Ten days ago Rogojin called upon me about certain business

of his own with which I have nothing to do at present. I had

never seen Rogojin before, but had often heard about him.

"I gave him all the information he needed, and he very soon took

his departure; so that, since he only came for the purpose of

gaining the information, the matter might have been expected to

end there.

"But he interested me too much, and all that day I was under the

influence of strange thoughts connected with him, and I

determined to return his visit the next day.

"Rogojin was evidently by no means pleased to see me, and hinted,

delicately, that he saw no reason why our acquaintance should

continue. For all that, however, I spent a very interesting hour,

and so, I dare say, did he. There was so great a contrast between

us that I am sure we must both have felt it; anyhow, I felt it

acutely. Here was I, with my days numbered, and he, a man in the

full vigour of life, living in the present, without the slightest

thought for 'final convictions,' or numbers, or days, or, in

fact, for anything but that which-which--well, which he was mad

about, if he will excuse me the expression--as a feeble author who

cannot express his ideas properly.

"In spite of his lack of amiability, I could not help seeing, in

Rogojin a man of intellect and sense; and although, perhaps,

there was little in the outside world which was of. interest to

him, still he was clearly a man with eyes to see.

"I hinted nothing to him about my 'final conviction,' but it

appeared to me that he had guessed it from my words. He remained

silent--he is a terribly silent man. I remarked to him, as I rose

to depart, that, in spite of the contrast and the wide

differences between us two, les extremites se touchent ('extremes

meet,' as I explained to him in Russian); so that maybe he was

not so far from my final conviction as appeared.

"His only reply to this was a sour grimace. He rose and looked

for my cap, and placed it in my hand, and led me out of the

house--that dreadful gloomy house of his--to all appearances, of

course, as though I were leaving of my own accord, and he were

simply seeing me to the door out of politeness. His house

impressed me much; it is like a burial-ground, he seems to like

it, which is, however, quite natural. Such a full life as he

leads is so overflowing with absorbing interests that he has

little need of assistance from his surroundings.

"The visit to Rogojin exhausted me terribly. Besides, I had felt

ill since the morning; and by evening I was so weak that I took

to my bed, and was in high fever at intervals, and even

delirious. Colia sat with me until eleven o'clock.

"Yet I remember all he talked about, and every word we said,

though whenever my eyes closed for a moment I could picture

nothing but the image of Surikoff just in the act of finding a

million roubles. He could not make up his mind what to do with

the money, and tore his hair over it. He trembled with fear that

somebody would rob him, and at last he decided to bury it in the

ground. I persuaded him that, instead of putting it all away

uselessly underground, he had better melt it down and make a

golden coffin out of it for his starved child, and then dig up

the little one and put her into the golden coffin. Surikoff

accepted this suggestion, I thought, with tears of gratitude, and

immediately commenced to carry out my design.

"I thought I spat on the ground and left him in disgust. Colia

told me, when I quite recovered my senses, that I had not been

asleep for a moment, but that I had spoken to him about Surikoff

the whole while.

"At moments I was in a state of dreadful weakness and misery, so

that Colia was greatly disturbed when he left me.

"When I arose to lock the door after him, I suddenly called to

mind a picture I had noticed at Rogojin's in one of his gloomiest

rooms, over the door. He had pointed it out to me himself as we

walked past it, and I believe I must have stood a good five

minutes in front of it. There was nothing artistic about it, but

the picture made me feel strangely uncomfortable. It represented

Christ just taken down from the cross. It seems to me that

painters as a rule represent the Saviour, both on the cross and

taken down from it, with great beauty still upon His face. This

marvellous beauty they strive to preserve even in His moments of

deepest agony and passion. But there was no such beauty in

Rogojin's picture. This was the presentment of a poor mangled

body which had evidently suffered unbearable anguish even before

its crucifixion, full of wounds and bruises, marks of the

violence of soldiers and people, and of the bitterness of the

moment when He had fallen with the cross--all this combined with

the anguish of the actual crucifixion.

"The face was depicted as though still suffering; as though the

body, only just dead, was still almost quivering with agony. The

picture was one of pure nature, for the face was not beautified

by the artist, but was left as it would naturally be, whosoever

the sufferer, after such anguish.

"I know that the earliest Christian faith taught that the Saviour

suffered actually and not figuratively, and that nature was

allowed her own way even while His body was on the cross.

"It is strange to look on this dreadful picture of the mangled

corpse of the Saviour, and to put this question to oneself:

'Supposing that the disciples, the future apostles, the women who

had followed Him and stood by the cross, all of whom believed in

and worshipped Him--supposing that they saw this tortured body,

this face so mangled and bleeding and bruised (and they MUST have

so seen it)--how could they have gazed upon the dreadful sight

and yet have believed that He would rise again?'

"The thought steps in, whether one likes it or no, that death is

so terrible and so powerful, that even He who conquered it in His

miracles during life was unable to triumph over it at the last.

He who called to Lazarus, 'Lazarus, come forth!' and the dead

man lived--He was now Himself a prey to nature and death. Nature

appears to one, looking at this picture, as some huge,

implacable, dumb monster; or still better--a stranger simile--some

enormous mechanical engine of modern days which has seized and

crushed and swallowed up a great and invaluable Being, a Being

worth nature and all her laws, worth the whole earth, which was

perhaps created merely for the sake of the advent of that Being.

"This blind, dumb, implacable, eternal, unreasoning force is well

shown in the picture, and the absolute subordination of all men

and things to it is so well expressed that the idea unconsciously

arises in the mind of anyone who looks at it. All those faithful

people who were gazing at the cross and its mutilated occupant

must have suffered agony of mind that evening; for they must have

felt that all their hopes and almost all their faith had been

shattered at a blow. They must have separated in terror and dread that

night, though each perhaps carried away with him one great

thought which was never eradicated from his mind for ever

afterwards. If this great Teacher of theirs could have seen

Himself after the Crucifixion, how could He have consented to

mount the Cross and to die as He did? This thought also comes

into the mind of the man who gazes at this picture. I thought of

all this by snatches probably between my attacks of delirium--for

an hour and a half or so before Colia's departure.

"Can there be an appearance of that which has no form? And yet it

seemed to me, at certain moments, that I beheld in some strange

and impossible form, that dark, dumb, irresistibly powerful,

eternal force.

"I thought someone led me by the hand and showed me, by the light

of a candle, a huge, loathsome insect, which he assured me was

that very force, that very almighty, dumb, irresistible Power,

and laughed at the indignation with which I received this

information. In my room they always light the little lamp before

my icon for the night; it gives a feeble flicker of light, but it

is strong enough to see by dimly, and if you sit just under it

you can even read by it. I think it was about twelve or a little

past that night. I had not slept a wink, and was lying with my

eyes wide open, when suddenly the door opened, and in came

Rogojin.

"He entered, and shut the door behind him. Then he silently gazed

at me and went quickly to the corner of the room where the lamp

was burning and sat down underneath it.

"I was much surprised, and looked at him expectantly.

"Rogojin only leaned his elbow on the table and silently stared

at me. So passed two or three minutes, and I recollect that his

silence hurt and offended me very much. Why did he not speak?

"That his arrival at this time of night struck me as more or less

strange may possibly be the case; but I remember I was by no

means amazed at it. On the contrary, though I had not actually

told him my thought in the morning, yet I know he understood it;

and this thought was of such a character that it would not be

anything very remarkable, if one were to come for further talk

about it at any hour of night, however late.

"I thought he must have come for this purpose.

"In the morning we had parted not the best of friends; I remember

he looked at me with disagreeable sarcasm once or twice; and this

same look I observed in his eyes now--which was the cause of the

annoyance I felt.

"I did not for a moment suspect that I was delirious and that

this Rogojin was but the result of fever and excitement. I had

not the slightest idea of such a theory at first.

"Meanwhile he continued to sit and stare jeeringly at me.

"I angrily turned round in bed and made up my mind that I would

not say a word unless he did; so I rested silently on my pillow

determined to remain dumb, if it were to last till morning. I

felt resolved that he should speak first. Probably twenty minutes

or so passed in this way. Suddenly the idea struck me--what if

this is an apparition and not Rogojin himself?

"Neither during my illness nor at any previous time had I ever

seen an apparition;--but I had always thought, both when I was a

little boy, and even now, that if I were to see one I should die

on the spot--though I don't believe in ghosts. And yet NOW, when

the idea struck me that this was a ghost and not Rogojin at all,

I was not in the least alarmed. Nay--the thought actually

irritated me. Strangely enough, the decision of the question as

to whether this were a ghost or Rogojin did not, for some reason

or other, interest me nearly so much as it ought to have done;--I

think I began to muse about something altogether different. For

instance, I began to wonder why Rogojin, who had been in

dressing--gown and slippers when I saw him at home, had now put on

a dress-coat and white waistcoat and tie? I also thought to

myself, I remember--'if this is a ghost, and I am not afraid of

it, why don't I approach it and verify my suspicions? Perhaps I

am afraid--' And no sooner did this last idea enter my head than

an icy blast blew over me; I felt a chill down my backbone and my

knees shook.

"At this very moment, as though divining my thoughts, Rogojin

raised his head from his arm and began to part his lips as though

he were going to laugh--but he continued to stare at me as

persistently as before.

"I felt so furious with him at this moment that I longed to rush

at him; but as I had sworn that he should speak first, I

continued to lie still--and the more willingly, as I was still by

no means satisfied as to whether it really was Rogojin or not.

"I cannot remember how long this lasted; I cannot recollect,

either, whether consciousness forsook me at intervals, or not.

But at last Rogojin rose, staring at me as intently as ever, but

not smiling any longer,--and walking very softly, almost on tip-

toes, to the door, he opened it, went out, and shut it behind

him.

"I did not rise from my bed, and I don't know how long I lay with

my eyes open, thinking. I don't know what I thought about, nor

how I fell asleep or became insensible; but I awoke next morning

after nine o'clock when they knocked at my door. My general

orders are that if I don't open the door and call, by nine

o'clock, Matreona is to come and bring my tea. When I now opened

the door to her, the thought suddenly struck me--how could he have

come in, since the door was locked? I made inquiries and found

that Rogojin himself could not possibly have come in, because all

our doors were locked for the night.

"Well, this strange circumstance--which I have described with so

much detail--was the ultimate cause which led me to taking my

final determination. So that no logic, or logical deductions, had

anything to do with my resolve;--it was simply a matter of

disgust.

"It was impossible for me to go on living when life was full of

such detestable, strange, tormenting forms. This ghost had

humiliated me;--nor could I bear to be subordinate to that dark,

horrible force which was embodied in the form of the loathsome

insect. It was only towards evening, when I had quite made up my

mind on this point, that I began to feel easier.

VII.

"I HAD a small pocket pistol. I had procured it while still a

boy, at that droll age when the stories of duels and highwaymen

begin to delight one, and when one imagines oneself nobly

standing fire at some future day, in a duel.

"There were a couple of old bullets in the bag which contained

the pistol, and powder enough in an old flask for two or three

charges.

"The pistol was a wretched thing, very crooked and wouldn't carry

farther than fifteen paces at the most. However, it would send

your skull flying well enough if you pressed the muzzle of it

against your temple.

"I determined to die at Pavlofsk at sunrise, in the park--so as

to make no commotion in the house.

"This 'explanation' will make the matter clear enough to the

police. Students of psychology, and anyone else who likes, may

make what they please of it. I should not like this paper,

however, to be made public. I request the prince to keep a copy

himself, and to give a copy to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin. This is

my last will and testament. As for my skeleton, I bequeath it to

the Medical Academy for the benefit of science.

"I recognize no jurisdiction over myself, and I know that I am

now beyond the power of laws and judges.

"A little while ago a very amusing idea struck me. What if I were

now to commit some terrible crime--murder ten fellow-creatures,

for instance, or anything else that is thought most shocking and

dreadful in this world--what a dilemma my judges would be in,

with a criminal who only has a fortnight to live in any case, now

that the rack and other forms of torture are abolished! Why, I

should die comfortably in their own hospital--in a warm, clean

room, with an attentive doctor--probably much more comfortably

than I should at home.

"I don't understand why people in my position do not oftener

indulge in such ideas--if only for a joke! Perhaps they do! Who

knows! There are plenty of merry souls among us!

"But though I do not recognize any jurisdiction over myself,

still I know that I shall be judged, when I am nothing but a

voiceless lump of clay; therefore I do not wish to go before I

have left a word of reply--the reply of a free man--not one

forced to justify himself--oh no! I have no need to ask

forgiveness of anyone. I wish to say a word merely because I

happen to desire it of my own free will.

"Here, in the first place, comes a strange thought!

"Who, in the name of what Law, would think of disputing my full

personal right over the fortnight of life left to me? What

jurisdiction can be brought to bear upon the case? Who would wish

me, not only to be sentenced, but to endure the sentence to the

end? Surely there exists no man who would wish such a thing--why

should anyone desire it? For the sake of morality? Well, I can

understand that if I were to make an attempt upon my own life

while in the enjoyment of full health and vigour--my life which

might have been 'useful,' etc., etc.--morality might reproach me,

according to the old routine, for disposing of my life without

permission--or whatever its tenet may be. But now, NOW, when my

sentence is out and my days numbered! How can morality have need

of my last breaths, and why should I die listening to the

consolations offered by the prince, who, without doubt, would not

omit to demonstrate that death is actually a benefactor to me?

(Christians like him always end up with that--it is their pet

theory.) And what do they want with their ridiculous 'Pavlofsk

trees'? To sweeten my last hours? Cannot they understand that the

more I forget myself, the more I let myself become attached to

these last illusions of life and love, by means of which they try

to hide from me Meyer's wall, and all that is so plainly written

on it--the more unhappy they make me? What is the use of all your

nature to me--all your parks and trees, your sunsets and

sunrises, your blue skies and your self-satisfied faces--when all

this wealth of beauty and happiness begins with the fact that it

accounts me--only me--one too many! What is the good of all this

beauty and glory to me, when every second, every moment, I cannot

but be aware that this little fly which buzzes around my head in

the sun's rays--even this little fly is a sharer and participator

in all the glory of the universe, and knows its place and is

happy in it;--while I--only I, am an outcast, and have been blind

to the fact hitherto, thanks to my simplicity! Oh! I know well

how the prince and others would like me, instead of indulging in

all these wicked words of my own, to sing, to the glory and

triumph of morality, that well-known verse of Gilbert's:

"'0, puissent voir longtemps votre beaute sacree

Tant d'amis, sourds a mes adieux!

Qu'ils meurent pleins de jours, que leur mort soit pleuree,

Qu'un ami leur ferme les yeux!'

"But believe me, believe me, my simple-hearted friends, that in

this highly moral verse, in this academical blessing to the world

in general in the French language, is hidden the intensest gall

and bitterness; but so well concealed is the venom, that I dare

say the poet actually persuaded himself that his words were full

of the tears of pardon and peace, instead of the bitterness of

disappointment and malice, and so died in the delusion.

"Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which man's

consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which begins

satisfaction in shame? Well, of course humility is a great force

in that sense, I admit that--though not in the sense in which

religion accounts humility to be strength!

"Religion!--I admit eternal life--and perhaps I always did admit

it.

"Admitted that consciousness is called into existence by the will

of a Higher Power; admitted that this consciousness looks out

upon the world and says 'I am;' and admitted that the Higher

Power wills that the consciousness so called into existence, be

suddenly extinguished (for so--for some unexplained reason--it is

and must be)--still there comes the eternal question--why must I

be humble through all this? Is it not enough that I am devoured,

without my being expected to bless the power that devours me?

Surely--surely I need not suppose that Somebody--there--will be

offended because I do not wish to live out the fortnight allowed

me? I don't believe it.

"It is much simpler, and far more likely, to believe that my

death is needed--the death of an insignificant atom--in order to

fulfil the general harmony of the universe--in order to make even

some plus or minus in the sum of existence. Just as every day the

death of numbers of beings is necessary because without their

annihilation the rest cannot live on--(although we must admit

that the idea is not a particularly grand one in itself!)

"However--admit the fact! Admit that without such perpetual

devouring of one another the world cannot continue to exist, or

could never have been organized--I am ever ready to confess that

I cannot understand why this is so--but I'll tell you what I DO

know, for certain. If I have once been given to understand and

realize that I AM--what does it matter to me that the world is

organized on a system full of errors and that otherwise it cannot

be organized at all? Who will or can judge me after this? Say

what you like--the thing is impossible and unjust!

"And meanwhile I have never been able, in spite of my great

desire to do so, to persuade myself that there is no future

existence, and no Providence.

"The fact of the matter is that all this DOES exist, but that we

know absolutely nothing about the future life and its laws!

"But it is so difficult, and even impossible to understand, that

surely I am not to be blamed because I could not fathom the

incomprehensible?

"Of course I know they say that one must be obedient, and of

course, too, the prince is one of those who say so: that one must

be obedient without questions, out of pure goodness of heart, and

that for my worthy conduct in this matter I shall meet with

reward in another world. We degrade God when we attribute our own

ideas to Him, out of annoyance that we cannot fathom His ways.

"Again, I repeat, I cannot be blamed because I am unable to

understand that which it is not given to mankind to fathom. Why

am I to be judged because I could not comprehend the Will and

Laws of Providence? No, we had better drop religion.

"And enough of this. By the time I have got so far in the reading

of my document the sun will be up and the huge force of his rays

will be acting upon the living world. So be it. I shall die

gazing straight at the great Fountain of life and power; I do not

want this life!

"If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should

certainly never have consented to accept existence under such

ridiculous conditions. However, I have the power to end my

existence, although I do but give back days that are already

numbered. It is an insignificant gift, and my revolt is equally

insignificant.

"Final explanation: I die, not in the least because I am unable

to support these next three weeks. Oh no, I should find strength

enough, and if I wished it I could obtain consolation from the

thought of the injury that is done me. But I am not a French

poet, and I do not desire such consolation. And finally, nature

has so limited my capacity for work or activity of any kind, in

allotting me but three weeks of time, that suicide is about the

only thing left that I can begin and end in the time of my own

free will.

"Perhaps then I am anxious to take advantage of my last chance of

doing something for myself. A protest is sometimes no small

thing."