That very evening, on my return from the Lyapinsky house, I related
my impressions to a friend. The friend, an inhabitant of the city,
began to tell me, not without satisfaction, that this was the most
natural phenomenon of town life possible, that I only saw something
extraordinary in it because of my provincialism, that it had always
been so, and always would be so, and that such must be and is the
inevitable condition of civilization. In London it is even worse.
Of course there is nothing wrong about it, and it is impossible to be
displeased with it. I began to reply to my friend, but with so much
heat and ill-temper, that my wife ran in from the adjoining room to
inquire what had happened. It appears that, without being conscious
of it myself, I had been shouting, with tears in my voice, and
flourishing my hands at my friend. I shouted: "It's impossible to
live thus, impossible to live thus, impossible!" They made me feel
ashamed of my unnecessary warmth; they told me that I could not talk
quietly about any thing, that I got disagreeably excited; and they
proved to me, especially, that the existence of such unfortunates
could not possibly furnish any excuse for imbittering the lives of
those about me.

I felt that this was perfectly just, and held my peace; but in the
depths of my soul I was conscious that I was in the right, and I
could not regain my composure.

And the life of the city, which had, even before this, been so
strange and repellent to me, now disgusted me to such a degree, that
all the pleasures of a life of luxury, which had hitherto appeared to
me as pleasures, become tortures to me. And try as I would, to
discover in my own soul any justification whatever for our life, I