ss. Aha! Mr. Grushnitski, your wiles will not
succeed!... We shall exchange roles: now it is I who shall have to seek
the signs of latent terror upon your pallid countenance. Why have you
yourself appointed these fatal six paces? Think you that I will tamely
expose my forehead to your aim?...

No, we shall cast lots... And then--then--what if his luck should
prevail? If my star at length should betray me?... And little wonder if
it did: it has so long and faithfully served my caprices.

Well? If I must die, I must! The loss to the world will not be great;
and I myself am already downright weary of everything. I am like a guest
at a ball, who yawns but does not go home to bed, simply because
his carriage has not come for him. But now the carriage is here...
Good-bye!...

My whole past life I live again in memory, and, involuntarily, I ask
myself: 'why have I lived--for what purpose was I born?'... A purpose
there must have been, and, surely, mine was an exalted destiny, because
I feel that within my soul are powers immeasurable... But I was not able
to discover that destiny, I allowed myself to be carried away by the
allurements of passions, inane and ignoble. From their crucible I
issued hard and cold as iron, but gone for ever was the glow of noble
aspirations--the fairest flower of life. And, from that time forth, how
often have I not played the part of an axe in the hands of fate! Like an
implement of punishment, I have fallen upon the head of doomed victims,
often without malice, always without pity... To none has my love brought
happiness, because I have never sacrificed anything for the sake of
those I have loved: for myself alone I have loved--for my own pleasure.
I have only satisfied the strange craving of my heart, greedily draining
their feelings, their tenderness, their joys, their sufferings--and
I have never been able to sate myself. I am like one who, spent with
hunger, falls asleep in exhaustion and sees before him sumptuous viands
and sparkling wines; he devours with rapture the aerial gifts of the
imagination, and his pains seem somewhat assuaged. Let him but awake:
the vision vanishes--twofold hunger and despair remain!

And to-morrow, it may be, I shall die!... And there will not be left on
earth one being who has understood me completely. Some will consider me
worse, others, better, than I have been in reality... Some will say:
'he was a good fellow'; others: 'a villain.' And both epithets will b