I found that my wish to become a good and virtuous man, whenever the aspiration was in any way expressed, simply exposed me to ridicule; while I instantly gained praise for any vicious behaviour.  Even my excellent aunt declared that she wished two things for me.  One was that I should form a liaison with some married lady; the other that I should become an adjutant to the Tsar.

I look back with horror on the years of my young manhood, for I was guilty of slaying men in battle, of gambling, of riotous squandering of substance gained by the toil of serfs, of deceit, and of profligacy.  That course of life lasted ten years.  Then I took to writing, but the motive was grovelling, for I aimed at gaining money and flattery.

My aims were gratified, for, coming to St. Petersburg at the age of 26, I secured the flattering reception I had coveted from the authors most in repute.  The war, about which I had written much from the field of conflict, had just closed.  I found that a theory prevailed amongst the “Intelligentia” that the function of writers, thinkers, and poets was to teach; they were to teach not because they knew or understood, but unconsciously and intuitively.  Acting on this philosophy, I, as a thinker and poet, wrote and taught I knew not what, received large remuneration for my efforts with the pen, and lived loosely, gaily, and extravagantly.

Thus I was one of the hierarchs of the literary faith, and for a considerable time was undisturbed by any doubts as to its soundness; but when three years had been thus spent, serious suspicions entered my mind.  I noted that the devotees of this apparently infallible principle were at variance amongst themselves, for they disputed, deceived, abused, and swindled each other.  And many were grossly selfish, and most immoral.

Disgust supervened, both with myself and with mankind in general.  My error now was that though my eyes were opened to the vanity and delusion of the position, yet I retained it, imagining that I, as thinker, poet, teacher, could teach other men while not at all knowing what to teach.  To my other faults an inordinate pride had been added by my intercourse with these litterateurs.  That period viewed retrospectively seems to me like one of a kind of madness.  Hundreds of us wrote to teach the people, while we all abused and confuted one another.  We could teach nothing, yet we sent millions of pages all over Russia, and we were unspeakably vexed that we seemed to gain no attention whatever, for nobody appeared to listen to us.

II.—­Groping in Darkness

I travelled in Europe at this period, before my marriage, still cherishing in my mind the idea of general perfectibility, which was so popular at that time with the “Intelligentia.”  Cultured circles clung to the theory of what we call “progress,” vague though are the notions attaching to the term.  I was horrified with the spectacle of an execution in Paris, and my eyes were opened to the fallacy underlying the theory of human wisdom.  The doctrine of “progress” I now felt to be a mere superstition, and I was further confirmed in my conviction by the sad death of my brother after a painful illness of a whole year.