hard physical labour, and I see
no reason why I should be an exception."

"It is foolish and trivial of you to talk of physical labour," said my
father with some irritation. "Do try to understand, you idiot, and get
it into your brainless head, that in addition to physical strength you
have a divine spirit; a sacred fire, by which you are distinguished from
an ass or a reptile and bringing you nigh to God. This sacred fire has
been kept alight for thousands of years by the best of mankind. Your
great-grandfather, General Pologniev, fought at Borodino; your
grandfather was a poet, an orator, and a marshal of the nobility; your
uncle was an educationalist; and I, your father, am an architect! Have
all the Polognievs kept the sacred fire alight for you to put it out?"

"There must be justice," said I. "Millions of people have to do manual
labour."

"Let them. They can do nothing else! Even a fool or a criminal can do
manual labour. It is the mark of a slave and a barbarian, whereas the
sacred fire is given only to a few!"

It was useless to go on with the conversation. My father worshipped
himself and would not be convinced by anything unless he said it
himself. Besides, I knew quite well that the annoyance with which he
spoke of unskilled labour came not so much from any regard for the
sacred fire, as from a secret fear that I should become a working man
and the talk of the town. But the chief thing was that all my
schoolfellows had long ago gone through the University and were making
careers for themselves, and the son of the director of the State Bank
was already a collegiate assessor, while I, an only son, was nothing! It
was useless and unpleasant to go on with the conversation, but I still
sat there and raised objections in the hope of making myself understood.
The problem was simple and clear: how was I to earn my living? But he
could not see its simplicity and kept on talking with sugary rounded
phrases about Borodino and the sacred fire, and my uncle, and the
forgotten poet who wrote bad, insincere verses, and he called me a
brainless fool. But how I longed to be understood! In spite of
everything, I loved my father and my sister, and from boyhood I have had
a habit of considering them, so strongly rooted that I shall probably
never get rid of it; whether I am right or wrong I am always afraid of
hurting them, and go in terror lest my father's thin neck should go red
with anger and he should have an apoplecti