Lucky’s Reviews > A Hero of Our Time > Status Update

"I beg of you quite earnestly—if you should ever take it into your mind to speak ill of me, take a knife instead and kill me. I believe you would not find it too difficult to do."
"Do I look like a murderer?"
"You are worse. . . . "

And what is happiness? Pride gratified. Could I consider myself better and more powerful than anyone else in the world, I should be happy; were everybody to love me, I should find in myself unending well-springs of love. Evil begets evil; the first pain leads to a realization of how great is the pleasure of tormenting another;

I regard the sufferings and joys of others merely in relation to myself, as food to sustain my spiritual strength. Passions no longer are capable of
robbing me of my sanity, my ambition has been crushed by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in new form, for ambition is nothing but greed for power, and my greatest pleasure I derive from subordinating everything around me to my will.

I often ask myself why it is that I so persistently seek to win the love of a young girl whom I do not wish to seduce and whom I shall never marry. Why this feminine coquetry? Vera loves me better than Princess Mary ever will. Were she an unconquerable beauty, the difficulty of the undertaking might serve as an inducement. . . .

I really do not know why she loves me so. Especially since she is the only woman who has ever completely understood me with all my petty frailties and evil passions. . . . Can evil indeed be so attractive?

“If I had the audacity to offend you in any way, will you allow me the greater audacity of asking your forgiveness?”

"She says you have an impudent look and must be
very conceited."
"She is right. . . ."

I keep four horses, one for myself and three for my friends, so as to avoid the boredom of riding out alone through the fields, but though they are pleased to have my horses to ride they never ride with me.

And to think that I still look like a boy; though my face is pale, it is still fresh, my limbs are supple and graceful, my locks thick and curly, eyes flashing, and my blood courses swiftly through the veins. . .

Yes, I have already passed that period of
spiritual life when people seek happiness alone and when the heart must needs love someone passionately; now I only want to be loved, and then only by very few. As a matter of fact, I believe one constant attachment would suffice for me—a wretched sentimental habit!