Nor can I understand wherein the guilt lies. To me it is all a
mystery. When you sent me those thirty kopecks, and thereafter
those two grivenniks, my heart sank within me as I looked at the
poor little money. To think that though you had burned your hand,
and would soon be hungry, you could write to me that I was to buy
tobacco! What was I to do? Remorselessly to rob you, an orphan,
as any brigand might do? I felt greatly depressed, dearest. That
is to say, persuaded that I should never do any good with my
life, and that I was inferior even to the sole of my own boot, I
took it into my head that it was absurd for me to aspire at all--
rather, that I ought to account myself a disgrace and an
abomination. Once a man has lost his self-respect, and has
decided to abjure his better
