The Three Sisters (Chebutikin)
Chebutikin says
Devil take them all… take them all…. They think I’m a doctor and can cure everything, and I know absolutely nothing, I’ve forgotten all I ever knew, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing. Devil take it. Last Wednesday I attended a woman in Zasip -and she died, and it’s my fault that she died. Yes… I used to know a certain amount five-and-twenty years ago, but I don’t remember anything now. Nothing. Perhaps I’m not really a man, and am only pretending that I’ve got arms and legs and a head; perhaps I don’t exist at all, and only imagine that I walk, and eat, and sleep. Oh, if only I didn’t exist! The devil only knows…. Day before yesterday they were talking in the club; they said, Shakespeare, Voltaire… I’d never read, never read at all, and I put on an expression as if I had read. And so did the others. Oh, how beastly! How petty! And then I remembered the woman I killed on Wednesday… and I couldn’t get her out of my mind, and everything in my mind became crooked, nasty, wretched…. So I went and drank….