I’ve been going over my past, and I can’t help wondering
why I’ve lived, for what purpose I was born. There must have been some purpose,
I must have had some high object in life, for I feel unbounded strength within
me. But I never discovered it and was carried away by the allurements of empty, unrewarding passions. I was tempered in their flames and came out cold and hard
as steel, but I’d lost forever the fire of noble endeavor, that finest flower
of life. How many times since then have I been the axe in the hands of fate?
Like an engine of execution, I’ve descended on the heads of the destined
victims, often without malice, but always without pity. My love has brought no
one happiness, for I’ve never sacrificed a thing for those I’ve loved. I’ve
loved for myself, for my own pleasure, I’ve only tried to satisfy a strange
inner need. I’ve fed on their feelings, love, joys and sufferings, and always
wanted more. I’m like a starving man who falls asleep exhausted and sees rich
food and sparkling wines before him. He rapturously falls on these phantom
gifts of the imagination and feels better, but the moment he wakes up his dream
disappears and he’s left more hungry and desperate than before.
- Pechorin's Corner @ Chelifer's Beach (1840)
