is only one thing that can hinder him in his search for an
issue,--an erroneously lofty idea of himself and of his position. This
was the case with me; and then another, arising from the first answer to
the question: "What is to be done?" consisted for me in this, that it was
necessary for me to repent, in the full sense of that word,--i.e., to
entirely alter my conception of my position and my activity; to confess
the hurtfulness and emptiness of my activity, instead of its utility and
gravity; to confess my own ignorance instead of culture; to confess my
immorality and harshness in the place of my kindness and morality;
instead of my elevation, to acknowledge my lowliness. I say, that in
addition to not lying to myself, I had to repent, because, although the
one flows from the other, a false conception of my lofty importance had
so grown up with me, that, until I sincerely repented and cut myself free
from that false estimate which I had formed of myself, I did not perceive
the greater part of the lie of which I had been guilty to myself. Only
when I had repented, that is to say, when I had ceased to look upon
myself as a regular man, and had begun to regard myself as a man exactly
like every one else,--only then did my path become clear before me.
Before that time I had not been able to answer the question: "What is to
be done?" because I had stated the question itself wrongly.

As long as I did not repent, I put the question thus: "What sphere of
activity should I choose, I, the man who has received the education and
the talents which have fallen to my shame? How, in this fashion, make
recompense with that education and those talents, for what I have taken,
and for what I still take, from the people?" This question was wrong,
because it contained a false representation, to the effect that I was not
a man just like them, but a peculiar man called to serve the people with
those talents and with that education which I had won by the efforts of
forty years.

I propounded the query to myself; but, in reality, I had answered it in
advance, in that I had in advance defined the sort of activity which was
agreeable to me, and by which I was called upon to serve the people. I
had, in fact, asked myself: "In what manner could I, so very fine a
writer, who had acquired so much learning and talents, make use of them
for the benefit of the people?"

But the question should have been put as it would have stood for a
learn