Indeed, there is nothing more vexing, for example, than to be wealthy, of decent family, of decent appearance, not badly educated, not stupid, even kind-hearted, and at the same time to possess no talent, no special quality, nor even any eccentricity, not a single idea of one's own, to be decidedly 'just like everyone else'. Wealth, perhaps, but not the wealth of a Rothschild; an honourable family, but not one that has ever distinguished itself in any way; a decent appearance, but really not very expressive; a decent education, but no idea about how to put it to use; intelligence, but an absence of one's own ideas; a heart, but a lack of generosity, etcetera, etcetera, in every respect. There is an extremely large number of such people in the world, and even far more than it may seem; they are divided, like all human beings, into two main categories: those who are limited and those who are 'far more intelligent'. The first category is the happier one. For the limited 'ordinary' person there is, for example, nothing easier than to imagine himself to be an unusual and original person, and to take enjoyment in this without hesitation. Some of our young ladies need only have their hair cut short, put on blue spectacles and call themselves nihilists in order to be instantly persuaded that, having donned the spectacles, they have at once begun to possess their own 'convictions'. Some men need only feel a drop of some universally human and good-natured feeling within their hearts in order to be instantly persuaded that no one feels as they do, that they are in the vanguard of public enlightenment. Others need only accept some idea by word of mouth or read a page of something without beginning or end in order instantly to believe that this is 'their own idea' and has been conceived within their own brains. In such cases, the insolence of naivety, if one may be permitted to express it thus, attains an astonishing dimension; it is all of it incredible, but is constantly encountered . . .
One of the dramatis personae of our narrative, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin, belonged to the second category; he belonged to the category of men who are 'far more intelligent', though completely inflamed, from head to toe, with the desire to be original. As we noted above, however, this category is far more unhappy than the first. The fact of the matter is that the intelligent ordinary man, even though he may imagine himself in passing (and, indeed, throughout the whole of his life) to be a man of genius, and most original, none the less retains within his heart a worm of doubt, which sometimes leads to the intelligent man ending in total despair; for if he submits, it is not until he has been entirely poisoned by a vanity that has been driven inward. However, we have in any case taken an extreme instance: for the overwhelming majority of this intelligent category of men, matters do not proceed at all so tragically; their livers may deteriorate towards the sunset of their lives, perhaps, but that is all. Even so, before surrendering and resigning themselves, these men sometimes continue to play the fool for an extremely long time, all the way from their youth to the age of submission, and all from a desire to be original. Strange instances are even encountered: from a desire for originality an honest man may be prepared to resolve upon a base action; it sometimes even happens that one of these unfortunates is not only honest, but is kind, the Provider of his household, maintaining and nourishing by his toils not only his own family, but others, too, and what do we see? All through his life he can have no rest! For him, the thought that he has performed his duties as a human being so well is not at all a calming or consoling one; even the contrary -- it is this thought that irritates him: 'This,' he says, 'is what I have wasted all my life on, this is what has bound me hand and foot, this is what has prevented me from discovering gunpowder! Had it not been for this, I would certainly have discovered either gunpowder or America -- I don't really know which, but I would certainly have discovered one of them!' Most typical of all for these gentlemen is that throughout their lives they can never ascertain for certain just what it is they need to discover and just what it is that, all their lives, they are on the point of discovering: gunpowder or America? While their sufferings, their longing for discovery, would truly have been enough for Columbus or Galileo.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
