Winter again. The snow is falling in flakes. Superfluous,
superfluous.... That's a capital word I have hit on. The more deeply I
probe into myself, the more intently I review all my past life, the
more I am convinced of the strict truth of this expression.
Superfluous--that's just it. To other people that term is not
applicable.... People are bad, or good, clever, stupid, pleasant, and
disagreeable; but superfluous ... no. Understand me, though: the
universe could get on without those people too... no doubt; but
uselessness is not their prime characteristic, their most distinctive
attribute, and when you speak of them, the word 'superfluous' is not
the first to rise to your lips. But I ... there's nothing else one can
say about me; I'm superfluous and nothing more. A supernumerary, and
that's all. Nature, apparently, did not reckon on my appearance, and
consequently treated me as an unexpected and uninvited guest. A
facetious gentleman, a great devotee of preference, said very happily
about me that I was the forfeit my mother had paid at the game of life.
I am speaking about myself calmly now, without any bitterness.... It's
all over and done with! Throughout my whole life I was constantly
finding my place taken, perhaps because I did not look for my place
where I should have done. I was apprehensive, reserved, and irritable,
like all sickly people. Moreover, probably owing to excessive
self-consciousness, perhaps as the result of the generally unfortunate
cast of my personality, there existed between my thoughts and feelings,
and the expression of those feelings and thoughts, a sort of
inexplicable, irrational, and utterly insuperable barrier; and whenever
I made up my mind to overcome this obstacle by force, to break down
this barrier, my gestures, the expression of my face, my whole being,
took on an appearance of painful constraint. I not only seemed, I
positively became unnatural and affected. I was conscious of this
myself, and hastened to shrink back into myself. Then a terrible