Interesting, because it shows what wicked people there are in this world. Harmless, because the reader can say: "This was not written about me."
Others, more considerate toward the author, are of the opinion that the Peredonovstchina portrayed in this novel is a sufficiently widespread phenomenon.
Others go even further and say that if every one of us should examine himself intently he would discover unmistakable traits of Peredonov.
Of these two opinions I give preference to the one most agreeable to me, namely, the second. I did not find it indispensable to create and invent out of myself; all that is episodic, realistic, and psychologic in any novel is based on very precise observation, and I found sufficient "material" for my novel around me. And if my labours on this novel have been rather prolonged, it has been in order to elevate to necessity whatever is here by chance; so that the austere Ananke should reign on the throne of Aisa, the prodigal scatterer of episodes.
It is true that people love to be loved. They are pleased with the portrayal of the nobler, loftier aspects of the soul. Even in villains they want to see a spark of nobility, "the divine spark," as people used to say in the old days. That is why they do not want to believe the picture that confronts them when it is true, exact, gloomy, and evil. They say: "It is not about me."
No, my dear contemporaries, it is of you that I have written my novel, about the Little Demon and his dreadful Nedotikomka, about Ardalyon and Varvara Peredonov, Pavel Volodin, Darya, Liudmilla, and Valeria Routilov, Aleksandr Pilnikov and the others. About you.
This novel is a mirror—very skilfully made. I have spent a long time in polishing it, I have laboured over it zealously.
The surface of my mirror is pure. It has been remeasured again and again, and most carefully verified; it has not a single blemish.
The monstrous and the beautiful are reflected in it with equal precision.