What price have I paid for the variety of my life? You
see, Madam, I have not held my convictions like a German doctor of
philosophy, _zierlichmaennerlich_, I have not lived in solitude, but
every conviction I have had has bound my back to the yoke, has torn
my body to pieces. Judge, for yourself. I was wealthy like my
brothers, but now I am a beggar. In the delirium of my enthusiasm
I smashed up my own fortune and my wife's--a heap of other people's
money. Now I am forty-two, old age is close upon me, and I am
homeless, like a dog that has dropped behind its waggon at night.
All my life I have not known what peace meant, my soul has been in
continual agitation, distressed even by its hopes . . . I have been
wearied out with heavy irregular work, have endured privation, have
five times been in prison, have dragged myself across the provinces
of Archangel and of Tobolsk . . . it's painful to think of it! I
have lived, but in my fever I have not even been conscious of the
process of life itself. Would you believe it, I don't remember a
single spring, I never noticed how my wife loved me, how my children
were born. What more can I tell you? I have been a misfortune to
all who have loved me. . . . My mother has worn mourning for me all
these fifteen years, while my proud brothers, who have had to wince,
to blush, to bow their heads, to waste their money on my account,
have come in the end to hate me like poison."

Liharev got up and sat down again.

"If I were simply unhappy I should thank God," he went on without
looking at his listener. "My personal unhappiness sinks into the
background when I remember how often in my enthusiasms I have been
absurd, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! How often I
have hated and despised those whom I ought to have loved, and _vice
versa_, I have changed a thousand times. One day I believe, fall
down and worship, the next I flee like a coward from the gods and
friends of yesterday, and swallow in silence the 'scoundrel!' they
hurl after me. God alone has seen how often I have wept and bitten
my pillow in shame for my enthusiasms. Never once in my life have
I intentionally lied or done evil, but my conscience is not clear!
I cannot even boast, Madam, that I have no one's life upon my
conscience, for my wife died before my eyes, worn out by my reckless
activity. Yes, my wife! I tell you they have two ways of treating
women nowadays. Some measure women's skulls to prove woman is
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