til next year, for they say it is bad to try one's luck
twice in succession at a table. Moreover, Homburg is where the best
play is carried on.

XVII

It is a year and eight months since I last looked at these notes of
mine. I do so now only because, being overwhelmed with depression, I
wish to distract my mind by reading them through at random. I left them
off at the point where I was just going to Homburg. My God, with what a
light heart (comparatively speaking) did I write the concluding
lines!--though it may be not so much with a light heart, as with a
measure of self-confidence and unquenchable hope. At that time had I
any doubts of myself? Yet behold me now. Scarcely a year and a half
have passed, yet I am in a worse position than the meanest beggar. But
what is a beggar? A fig for beggary! I have ruined myself--that is all.
Nor is there anything with which I can compare myself; there is no
moral which it would be of any use for you to read to me. At the
present moment nothing could well be more incongruous than a moral. Oh,
you self-satisfied persons who, in your unctuous pride, are forever
ready to mouth your maxims--if only you knew how fully I myself
comprehend the sordidness of my present state, you would not trouble to
wag your tongues at me! What could you say to me that I do not already
know? Well, wherein lies my difficulty? It lies in the fact that by a
single turn of a roulette wheel everything for me, has become changed.
Yet, had things befallen otherwise, these moralists would have been
among the first (yes, I feel persuaded of it) to approach me with
friendly jests and congratulations. Yes, they would never have turned
from me as they are doing now! A fig for all of them! What am I? I am
zero--nothing. What shall I be tomorrow? I may be risen from the dead,
and have begun life anew. For still, I may discover the man in myself,
if only my manhood has not become utterly shattered.

I went, I say, to Homburg, but afterwards went also to Roulettenberg,
as well as to Spa and Baden; in which latter place, for a time, I acted
as valet to a certain rascal of a Privy Councillor, by name Heintze,
who until lately was also my master here. Yes, for five months I lived
my life with lacqueys! That was just after I had come out of
Roulettenberg prison, where I had lain for a small debt which I owed.
Out of that prison I was bailed by--by whom? By Mr. Astley? By Polina?
I do not know. At all events, the debt