For some reason I believe that if I write it down I should get rid of it.

Why not try?

Besides, I am bored, and I never have anything to do. Writing will be a

sort of work. They say work makes man kind-hearted and honest. Well,

here is a chance for me, anyway.

Snow is falling today, yellow and dingy. It fell yesterday, too, and a few

days ago. I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of that incident

which I cannot shake off now. And so let it be a story A PROPOS of the

falling snow.

PART II

A Propos of the Wet Snow

When from dark error's subjugation

My words of passionate exhortation

Had wrenched thy fainting spirit free;

And writhing prone in thine affliction

Thou didst recall with malediction

The vice that had encompassed thee:

And when thy slumbering conscience, fretting

By recollection's torturing flame,

Thou didst reveal the hideous setting

Of thy life's current ere I came:

When suddenly I saw thee sicken,

And weeping, hide thine anguished face,

Revolted, maddened, horror-stricken,

At memories of foul disgrace.

NEKRASSOV

(translated by Juliet Soskice).

I

AT THAT TIME I was only twenty-four. My life was even then gloomy, ill-

regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. I made friends with no one

and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and more in my

hole. At work in the office I never looked at anyone, and was perfectly

well aware that my companions looked upon me, not only as a queer

fellow, but even looked 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.