When I came to examine
his life impartially, I found it astonishingly poor and miserable."
"Oh! how can you say that?" cried Soloveitchik. "How was it possible
for you to estimate the wealth of his spiritual emotions?"
"Such emotions were very monotonous. His life's happiness consisted in
the acceptance of every misfortune without a murmur, and its wealth, in
the total renunciation of life's joys and material benefits. He was a
beggar by choice, a fantastic personage whose life was sacrificed to an
idea of which he himself had no clear conception."
Soloveitchik wrung his hands.
"Oh! you cannot imagine how it distresses me to hear this!" he
exclaimed.
"Really, Soloveitchik, you're quite hysterical," said Sanine, in
surprise. "I have not told you anything extraordinary. Possibly the
subject is, to you, a painful one?"
"Oh! most painful. I am always thinking, thinking, till my head seems
as if it would burst. Was all that really an error, nothing more? I
grope about, as in a dark room, and there is no one to tell me what I
ought to do. Why do we live? Tell me that.
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