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 - that is, there was nothing I could then respect in my surroundings, nothing I would be drawn to. What's more, anguish kept boiling up; a hysterical thirst for contradictions, contrasts, would appear, and so I'd set out on debauchery. It is not at all to justify myself that I've been doing all this talking… But no! that's a lie! I precisely wanted to justify myself. I make this little note for myself, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I've given my word.
My debauchery I undertook solitarily, by night, covertly, fearfully, filthily, with a shame that would not abandon me at the most loathsome moments, and at such moments even went so far as a curse. I was then already bearing the underground in my soul. I was terribly afraid of somehow being seen, met, recognized. I used to frequent various rather murky places.
Once, passing at night by some wretched little tavern, I saw through the lighted window some gentlemen fighting with their cues around the billiard table and one of them being chucked out the window. At another time I would have been filled with loathing; but one of those moments suddenly came over me, and I envied this chucked-out gentleman, envied him so much that I even went into the tavern, into the billiard room: "Perhaps I, too, will have a fight," I thought, "and get chucked out the window myself."