MY DEAR AND KIND BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,—I feel that I am guilty, I feel that I have sinned against you. Yet also I feel, from what you say, that it is no use for me so to feel. Even before I had sinned I felt as I do now; but I gave way to despair, and the more so as recognised my fault. Darling, I am not cruel or hardhearted. To
rend2 your little soul would be the act of a blood-thirsty tiger, whereas I have the heart of a sheep. You yourself know that I am not
addicted3 to bloodthirstiness, and therefore that I cannot really be guilty of the fault in question, seeing that neither my mind nor my heart have participated in it. Nor can I understand wherein the
guilt1 lies. To me it is all a mystery. When you sent me those thirty kopecks, and thereafter those two grivenniks, my heart sank within me as I looked at the poor little money. To think that though you had burned your hand, and would soon be hungry, you could write to me that I was to buy tobacco! What was I to do? Remorselessly to rob you, an
orphan4, as any
brigand5 might do? I felt greatly
depressed6, dearest. That is to say, persuaded that I should never do any good with my life, and that I was inferior even to the sole of my own boot, I took it into my head that it was absurd for me to
aspire7 at all—rather, that I ought to account myself a disgrace and an abomination. Once a man has lost his self-respect, and has
decided8 to
abjure9 his better qualities and human dignity, he falls headlong, and cannot choose but do so. It is decreed of fate, and therefore I am not guilty in this respect. That evening I went out merely to get a breath of fresh air, but one thing followed another—the weather was cold, all nature was looking mournful, and I had fallen in with Emelia. This man had spent everything that he
possessed
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