§1
THE dulness and monotony of our house became more intolerable with every year. But for the prospect of University life, my new friendship, my interest in politics, and my lively turn of character, I must either have run away or died of the life.
My father was seldom cheerful; as a rule he was dissatisfied with everyone and everything. He was a man of unusual intelligence and powers of observation, who had seen and heard a great deal and remembered it; he was a finished man of the world and could be exceedingly pleasant and interesting; but he did not choose to be so, and sank deeper and deeper into a state of morbid solitude.
What precisely it was that infused so much bile and bitterness into his blood, it is hard to say. No period of passion, of great misfortunes, mistakes, and losses, had ever taken place in his life. I could never fully understand the source of that bitter scorn and irritation which filled his heart, of his distrust and avoidance of mankind, and of the disgust that preyed upon him. Perhaps he took with him to the grave some recollection which he never confided to any ear; perhaps it was merely due to the combination of two things so incongruous as the eighteenth century and Russian life; and there was a third factor, the traditional idleness of his class, which had a terrible power of producing unreasonable tempers.