there was no wager too crazy for him to accept; but do evil to others,
kill, fight, he could not, perhaps because he had a good heart,--and
perhaps because his "cotton-wool" education (as he expressed it) had
enervated him. He was ready to exterminate himself in any sort of way at
any time.... But others--no. "The devil only can make him out," his
comrades said of him:--"he's puny, a rag---and what a reckless fellow he
is--a regular dare-devil!"--I happened afterward to ask Mísha what evil
spirit prompted him, made him indulge in drinking-bouts, risk his life,
and so forth. He always had one answer: "Spleen."

"But why hast thou spleen?"

"Just because I have, good gracious! One comes to himself, recovers his
senses, and begins to meditate about poverty, about injustice, about
Russia.... Well, and that settles it! Immediately one feels such spleen
that he is ready to send a bullet into his forehead! One goes on a
carouse instinctively."

"But why hast thou mixed up Russia with this?"

"What else could I do? Nothing!--That's why I am afraid to think."

"All that--that spleen--comes of thy idleness."

"But I don't know how to do anything, uncle! My dear relative! Here now,
if it were a question of taking and staking my life on a card,--losing
my all and shooting myself, bang! in the neck!--I can do that!--Here
now, tell me what to do, what to risk my life for.--I'll do it this very
minute!..."