If I die, then I die. The loss to this world won’t be great. I run through the memory of my past in its entirety and can’t help asking myself: Why have I lived? For what purpose was I born? There probably was one once, and I probably did have a lofty calling because I feel a boundless strength in my soul. But I didn’t divine this calling I was carried away with the bits of passion, empty and unrewarding.

My love never brought anyone happiness. I loved for myself, for my personal pleasure. And maybe I will die tomorrow. And not one being on this earth will have understood me totally. Some thought of me as worse, some as better, than I actually am. Some will say “he was a good fellow”, others will say I was a swine. Both one and the other will be wrong. (From Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time)