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516 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1907
During that most important stage in life when, under the influence of one’s first encounters with people and nature, a man’s character is formed, Vladimir Sanin had lived apart from his family. No one had looked after him, no hand had borne down on him, and this man’s soul had developed independently and distinctively, like a tree growing in a field.
He was feeling good, relaxed, and radiant. The verdure, the sunshine, and the blue sky cast such brilliant light that his soul opened to receive it with a feeling of complete happiness. Big towns with their noisy hustle and bustle had become loathsome to him. Now he was surrounded by sunlight and freedom; the future didn't concern him because he was ready to accept whatever life had to offer.
Yury came fully to his senses and imagined Sanin together with what seemed to him a woman’s astonishingly delicate and lovely face lit by the flame of a match. Once again he felt unconscious envy, and as a result suddenly recollected that Sanin’s behavior with regard to that young peasant girl must be squalid.
To live and sacrifice! That’s genuine life! Yes… But sacrifice for whom? How? Whatever path I choose, whatever goal I set myself, where’s that pure and unquestionable ideal that would be worth dying for? I’m not the one who’s weak: it’s that life isn’t worth the sacrifice and love. And, if that’s so, then life’s not worth living either!
Now he was surrounded by sunlight and freedom; the future didn't concern him because he was ready to accept whatever life had to offer.
Sparrows were chirping somewhere, both near and far, hastily and furtively communicating about their small, terribly important, but totally incomprehensible little lives.
You're oppressed by the monotony of your own existence; but if someone told you to give it all up and set off into the wide world, you'd be afraid.
…it was tormenting but at the same time intensely pleasurable. It was as if someone's burning hand had taken hold of his heart and given it a gentle squeeze.
"Well then, what do you think a woman should do? Get married? Pursue her studies and let her talents be wasted? Why, that wold constitute a crime against nature, which has endowed her with its finest gifts!"
He lay down on his bed and began thinking about how people wanted to transform the whole world into a kind of monastic barracks, with one set of rules for everyone based on the annihilation of all personality and the subordination of its power to some mysterious group of elders. He began to reflect on the role and fate of Christianity, but that proved so boring that he dozed off and slept until late evening.
"There's nothing more boring in this world than an honest man. What's an honest man? The program of honesty and virtue has long been known to everyone and there can't be anything new in it. As a result of that archaic rubbish a person loses all diversity; life is lived within a single frame of virtue, narrow and tedious. Don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat and don't commit adultery… And the main thing is that all this is innate to people: everyone lies, and everyone cheats, and everyone commits as many 'adulteries' as possible."
"Yes, scoundrels are the most sincere people and the most interesting, because it's impossible even to imagine the boundaries and limits of human vileness. I'll shake hands with a scoundrel with particular pleasure."
"Now you think it's all so very important…what happens in the university or what Bebel says. But I think that when your turn comes to die, like me, and when you know for sure that you're dying, it won't even occur to you to think that some words uttered by Bebel, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, or anyone else have any meaning!… Sometimes I begin thinking that soon I'll be lying in the cold ground surrounded by complete darkness, my nose eaten away, my hands rotting; meanwhile, on earth everything will be exactly as it is now while I'm alive. Why, you'll still be alive…You'll be walking, looking at the moon, breathing; you'll walk past my grave and stop to relieve yourself on it, and I'll be lying there decaying. What do I care about Bebel or Tolstoy or millions of other pompous asses?" ☺.
"…this need for and understanding of gratification is one of the few traits that distinguish a natural man from animals. The more animal an animal is, the less it understands gratification and the less able it is to secure it. It merely satisfies its needs."
"We all agree that man isn't created to suffer and that suffering isn't the goal of human aspirations."