What am I? One of four sons of a retired lieutenant-colonel, left an orphan at seven years of age in the care of women and strangers, having received neither a social nor an academic education and becoming my own master at the age of seventeen, without a large fortune, without any social position, and, above all, without any principles; a man who mismanaged his affairs to the last degree, who spent the best years of his life without purpose or pleasure, and who finally banished himself to the Caucasus to escape from his debts and above all his habits, and from there, by seizing on to connections which had existed between his father and the Commander-in-Chief of the army, was transferred to the Danube army at the age of twenty-six as an ensign, almost without means except his pay (because what means he has he must use to pay his outstanding debts), without patrons, without the ability to live in society, without knowledge of the service, without practical talents—but with enormous self-love! Yes, that is my social position. Let us see what sort of person I am.

I am ugly, awkward, untidy and socially uneducated. I am irritable, boring to other people, immodest, intolerant and bashful as a child. I am almost an ignoramus. What I know I have somehow learned myself in snatches, piecemeal, unsystematically, and it amounts to very little. I am intemperate, irresolute, inconstant, stupidly vain and passionate like all people who lack character. I am not brave. I am unmethodical and so lazy that idleness has become for me almost an insuperable habit. I am intelligent but my intelligence has never yet been thoroughly tested by anything. I have neither practical, social nor business intelligence. I am honest, i.e. I love goodness and have made a habit of loving it; and when I deviate from it I am dissatisfied with myself and return to it with pleasure; but there are things which I love more than