My desires are too weak; they are not enough to guide me.
On a log one may cross a river but not on a chip.
I say this that you may not believe that I am going to Uri with hopes of any sort.
"As always I blame no one.
I've tried the depths of debauchery and wasted my strength over it. But I don't like vice and I didn't want it.
You have been watching me of late.
Do you know that I looked upon our iconoclasts with spite, from envy of their hopes?
But you had no need to be afraid. I could not have been one of them for I never shared anything with them.
And to do it for fun, from spite I could not either, not because I am afraid of the ridiculous—I cannot be afraid of the ridiculous—but because I have, after all, the habits of a gentleman and it disgusted me.
But if I had felt more spite and envy of them I might perhaps have joined them.
You can judge how hard it has been for me, and how I've struggled from one thing to another.
"Dear friend! Great and tender heart which I divined!
Perhaps you dream of giving me so much love and lavishing on me so much that is beautiful from your beautiful soul, that you hope to set up some aim for me at last by it?
No, it's better for you to be more cautious, my love will be as petty as I am myself and you will be unhappy.
Your brother told me that the man who loses connection with his country loses his gods, that is, all his aims.
One may argue about everything endlessly, but from me nothing has come but negation, with no greatness of soul, no force.
Even negation has not come from me.
Everything has always been petty and spiritless.
Kirillov, in the greatness of his soul, could not compromise with an idea, and shot himself; but I see, of course, that he was great-souled because he had lost his reason.
I can never lose my reason, and I can never believe in an idea to such a degree as he did.
I cannot even be interested in an idea to such a degree.
I can never, never shoot myself.
"I know I ought to kill myself, to brush myself off the earth like a nasty insect; but I am afraid of suicide, for I am afraid of showing greatness of soul.
I know that it will be another sham again—the last deception in an endless series of deceptions.
What good is there in deceiving oneself? Simply to play at greatness of soul?
Indignation and shame I can never feel, therefore not despair.
"Forgive me for writing so much.
I wrote without noticing.
A hundred pages would be too little and ten lines would be enough.
Ten lines would be enough to ask you to be a nurse.
Since I left Skvoreshniki I've been living at the sixth station on the line, at the stationmaster's.
I got to know him in the time of debauchery five years ago in Petersburg.
No one knows I am living there.
Write to him.
I enclose the address.
"Nikolay Stavrogin."
Darya Pavlovna went at once and showed the letter to Varvara Petrovna.
She read it and asked Dasha to go out of the room so that she might read it again alone; but she called her back very quickly.
"Are you going?" she asked almost timidly.
"I am going," answered Dasha.
"Get ready!
We'll go together."
Dasha looked at her inquiringly.
"What is there left for me to do here?
What difficulty will it make?
I'll be naturalised in Uri, too, and live in the valley.... Don't be uneasy, I won't be in the way."
They began packing quickly to be in time to catch the midday train.
But in less than half an hour's time Alexey Yegorytch arrived from Skvoreshniki.
He announced that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had suddenly arrived that morning by the early train, and was now at Skvoreshniki but "in such a state that his honour did not answer any questions, walked through all the rooms and shut himself up in his own wing...."
"Though I received no orders I thought it best to come and inform you," Alexey Yegorytch concluded with a very significant expression.