it!
l'm not to read it?
Has anyone got a twenty-kopeck piece?
Here you are.
l read it!
But what?
Can l really have tossed up?
You must make a note, prince,
l believe you're collecting facts
relating to capital punishment.
Oh, my God, what senseless absurdity!
lf you'd only read it without a preface.
lt's affectation!
lt's not the way to set about this business,
lad,
it's not the way.
Gentlemen,
l'll break a seal of my envelope.
An essential explanation!
Motto:
After us the Deluge.
The idea
that it's not worth while to live a few weeks
took complete possession of me
when l came from that evening from Pavlovsk.
The first moment
l fully directly grasped that thought
was on the prince's verandah,
at the instant when l dreamed
that they would all fling wide their arms,
and beg my forgiveness,
and l theirs.
ln short,
l behaved like a stupid fool.
And it was at that time a ''hot conviction''
sprang up in me.
l wondered how l could have lived
for six months
without that conviction!
l knew for a fact l had consumption
and it was incurable.
l clutched at life,
l wanted to live whatever happened.
l couldn't understand, for instance, why people
who had so much life before them
did not become rich.
And, l don't understand it now.
l knew one poor fellow,
who died of hunger.
lf it had been possible to bring that poor devil back to life
l believe l'd have had him executed.
l was sometimes better
and able to go out of doors
but the street exasperated me at last
to such a degree
that l purposely sat indoors
couldn't endure the scurrying, bustling people, ever lastingly dreadly
worried and preoccupied.
Whose fault is it that they're miserable
and don't know how to live
they've sixty years of life before them?
lf they're alive
they have everything in their power!
Whose fault is it
they don't understand that?
Oh God, Oh, how l used to dream then,
how l longed to be turned out into the street at eighteen,
almost without clothing, without coveging,
to be deserted and utterly alone,
without work, without lodging,
without a crust of bread, without relations,
hungry, beaten but healthy
and then l would show them
l had a little
pocket-pistol.
A month ago l looked at it,
and got it ready.
l decided to die at Pavlofsk
at sunrise,
and l meant to go into the park,
so as not to upset anyone in the villa.
My ''Explanation'' will explain things
sufficiently to the police.
l beg the prince to keep
one copy for himself,
and to give another to
Aglaya lvanovna Epanchin.
Such is my will.
l bequeath my skeleton to the
Medical Academy
for the good of science.
l don't admit the right of any man to judge me
and l know that l am now beyond the reach of judgement.
lf the fancy suddenly took me to kill
ten people at once,
what a predicament my judges would be in
with me having only a fortnight to live,
now that corporal punishment
and torture is abolished.
What is it to anyone
that l should not only
be condemned,
but should conscientiously
my sentence,
in a shade of the
Pavlofsk's trees.
What is there for me in this beauty
when, every minute,
every second, l'm obliged to recognise
even the tiny fly,
buzzing in the sunlight beside me
has its banquet and the chores,
knows its place, loves it
and is happy.
l alone am an outcast,
and only my cowardice
has made me refuse to realize it!
When l reach these lines
the sun will rise.
l'll die, looking straight at the source of power
and life
l do not want this life.
The sun has risen!
The sun has risen!
Why, did you think it wasn't
going to rise?
lt'll be baking hot again, all day.
What it there's a month
of this drought!
Are we going or not, Ptitsin?
You act your indifference
very awkwardly
to insult me.
You're cur!
Well, that's beyond anything,
to let oneself go like!
What phenomenal feebleness!
He's simply a fool
Ech, we've been sitting too long - my bones ache.
Goodbye, prince.
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