his _own personal_ safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to
accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly
because his heart was too good--or possibly because his 'cottonwool'
education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was
quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no.
'There's no making him out,' his comrades said of him; 'he's a flabby
creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect
madman!' I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit
drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so
on. He always had one answer--'wretchedness.'

'But why are you wretched?'

'Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one's self, begins to
feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well,
it's all over with me! ... one's so wretched at once--one wants to put a
bullet through one's head! One's forced to start drinking.'

'Why ever do you drag Russia in?'

'How can I help it? Can't be helped! That's why I'm afraid to think.'

'It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.'

'But I don't know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one's
life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I
ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I'll ...'

'But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?'