At night I had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn money for candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold my books; and the dust lies an inch thick on the notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and thinking. And I kept thinking.⁠ ⁠… And I had dreams all the time, strange dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only then I began to fancy that⁠ ⁠… No, that’s not it! Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid⁠—and I know they are⁠—yet I won’t be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for everyone to get wiser it will take too long.⁠ ⁠… Afterwards I understood that that would never come to pass, that men won’t change and that nobody can alter it and that it’s not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of their nature, Sonia,⁠ ⁠… that’s so!⁠ ⁠… And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now and so it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it!”