“Why give way to such despair?” I said.
“Because I am vile; this life has destroyed me; all that was in me has perished. I no longer suffer proudly, but basely; I have no dignité dans le malheur . I am insulted every moment, and I bear it all, and go to meet insults halfway. The mud a déteint sur moi. I have become coarse myself, have forgotten what I knew, I can’t even speak French now, and I feel that I am base and despicable. I can’t fight in these surroundings; it is impossible! I might perhaps have been a hero: give me a regiment, gold epaulets, and trumpeters; but to march side by side with some uncivilized Antonov Bondarenko or other, and to think there is no difference between him and me, it is all the same whether I get killed or he does—that is the thought that is killing me. You understand how terrible it is that some ragamuffin may kill me—a man who thinks and feels, and that he might as well kill Antonov by my side, a creature indistinguishable from a brute; and it is quite likely to happen that it is I who will be killed and not Antonov—it is always so, une fatalité for all that is lofty or good. I know they call me a coward. Granted that I am a coward. It is true I am a coward and cannot help it; but it is not enough that I am a coward, according to them I am also a beggar and a contemptible fellow. There, I have just begged money from you, and you have a right to despise me. No, take back your money,” and he held out to me the crumpled note; “I want you to respect me.” He covered his face with his hands and began to cry, and I did not in the least know what to say or do.
“Don’t go on like that,” said I; “you are too sensitive; you should not take things so much to heart: don’t analyse but look at things simply. You say yourself that you are a man of character; face your task, you have not much longer to suffer,” I said to him very incoherently, for I was excited both by feelings of pity and by a feeling of repentance at having allowed myself to condemn a man who was truly and deeply suffering.