A RECKLESS CHARACTER[1]

(1881)




I


There were eight of us in the room, and we were discussing contemporary
matters and persons,

"I do not understand these gentlemen!" remarked A.--"They are fellows of
a reckless sort.... Really, desperate.... There has never been anything
of the kind before."

"Yes, there has," put in P., a grey-haired old man, who had been born
about the twenties of the present century;--"there were reckless men in
days gone by also. Some one said of the poet Yázykoff, that he had
enthusiasm which was not directed to anything, an objectless enthusiasm;
and it was much the same with those people--their recklessness was
without an object. But see here, if you will permit me, I will narrate
to you the story of my grandnephew, Mísha Pólteff. It may serve as a
sample of the recklessness of those days."