d upon me--I always fancied this--with a
sort of loathing. I sometimes wondered why it was that nobody except
me fancied that he was looked upon with aversion? One of the clerks
had a most repulsive, pock-marked face, which looked positively
villainous. I believe I should not have dared to look at anyone with
such an unsightly countenance. Another had such a very dirty old
uniform that there was an unpleasant odour in his proximity. Yet not
one of these gentlemen showed the slightest self-consciousness--either
about their clothes or their countenance or their character in any way.
Neither of them ever imagined that they were looked at with repulsion;
if they had imagined it they would not have minded--so long as their
superiors did not look at them in that way. It is clear to me now
that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for
myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged
on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone.
I hated my face, for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even
suspected that there was something base in my expression, and so every
day when I turned up at the office I tried to behave as independently
as possible, and to assume a lofty expression, so that I might not be
suspected of being abject. "My face may be ugly," I thought, "but let
it be lofty, expressive, and, above all, EXTREMELY intelligent." But I
was positively and painfully certain that it was impossible for my
countenance ever to express those qualities. And what was worst of
all, I thought it actually stupid looking, and I would have been quite
satisfied if I could have looked intelligent. In fact, I would even
have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have
been thought strikingly intelligent.

Of course, I hated my fellow clerks one and all, and I despised them
all, yet at the same time I was, as it were, afraid of them. In fact,
it happened at times that I thought more highly of them than of myself.
It somehow happened quite suddenly that I alternated between despising
them and thinking them superior to myself. A cultivated and decent man
cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself,
and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
But whether I despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes
almost every time I met anyone. I even made experiments whether I
could face so an