Chapter 3

DREAMS

"To-day I will make my confession and purge myself of every sin,"
I thought to myself. "Nor will I ever commit another one." At
this point I recalled all the peccadilloes which most troubled my
conscience. "I will go to church regularly every Sunday, as well
as read the Gospel at the close of every hour throughout the day.
What is more, I will set aside, out of the cheque which I shall
receive each month after I have gone to the University, two-and-
a-half roubles" (a tenth of my monthly allowance) "for people who
are poor but not exactly beggars, yet without letting any one
know anything about it. Yes, I will begin to look out for people
like that--orphans or old women--at once, yet never tell a soul
what I am doing for them.

"Also, I will have a room here of my very own (St. Jerome's,
probably), and look after it myself, and keep it perfectly clean.
I will never let any one do anything for me, for every one is
just a human being like myself. Likewise I will walk every day,
not drive, to the University. Even if some one gives me a drozhki
[Russian phaeton.] I will sell it, and devote the money to the
poor. Everything I will do exactly and always" (what that
"always" meant I could not possibly have said, but at least I had
a vivid consciousness of its connoting some kind of prudent,
moral, and irreproachable life). "I will get up all my lectures
thoroughly, and go over all the subjects beforehand, so that at
the end of my first course I may come out top and write a thesis.
During my second course also I will get up everything beforehand,
so that I may soon be transferred to the third course, and at
eighteen come out top in the examinations, and receive two gold
medals, and go on to be Master of Arts, and Doctor, and the first
scholar in Europe. Yes, in all Europe I mean to be the first
scholar.--Well, what next?" I asked myself at this point.
Suddenly it struck me that dreams of this sort were a form of
pride--a sin which I should have to confess to the priest that
very evening, so I returned to the original thread of my
meditations. "When getting up my lectures I will go to the
Vorobievi Gori, [Sparrow Hills--a public park near Moscow.] and
choose some spot under a tree, and read my lectures over there.
Sometimes I will take with me something to eat--cheese or a pie
from Pedotti's, or something of the kind. After that I will sleep
a little, and then read some good book or other, or else draw
pictures or play on some instrument (certainly I must learn to
play the flute). Perhaps SHE too will be walking on the Vorobievi
Gori, and will approach me one day and say, 'Who are you?' and I
shall look at her, oh,