I + 

A watch lying on the writing-table was hurriedly, and with wearying repetition, singing two notes. It was difficult even for a quick ear to distinguish between the two sounds, but to the owner of the watch, the wretched man sitting near this table, the ticking of the watch seemed a whole song. + 

“It is a joyless and disconsolate song,” said he to himself. “It is the song of time itself, and it is being sung apparently for my benefit. It is for my edification that it is singing with such surprising monotony. Three, four, ten years ago the watch ticked as now, and in ten years’ time will be ticking in just the same manner⁠ ⁠… exactly as now.” + 

He threw a troubled glance at the watch, but immediately turned his eyes back to where he had been vacantly gazing. + 

“To the time of its ticking all life with its seeming variety is passing⁠—its sorrows, joys, heartbreakings, and triumphs, hate and love. And only now, at night, when all and everything in this huge town and this huge house is asleep, and when there are no sounds other than the beating of my heart and the ticking of the watch⁠—only now I perceive that all these sorrows, joys, and triumphs which go to make up life⁠—all are unrealities, for some of which I have striven, and from others have fled without, in either case, knowing why. I did not know then that life holds only one reality⁠—time. Time marching forward, passionless, pitiless, not halting where hapless man, living by minutes, would fain dwell, and not increasing its pace by one iota, even when reality is so grievous that it is desirable to make it a past dream; time⁠—conscious only of one refrain⁠—that which I hear now with such painful clearness.” + 

Thus thought this miserable man whilst the watch ticked on, maliciously repeating the eternal song of time, a song fraught with many memories for him. + 

“Truly it is strange! I know that a certain scent, subject of conversation, or striking refrain will recall to memory a whole picture of the long, long past. I remember I was with a dying man, when an Italian organ-grinder stopped before the open window, and at the very moment the sick man was uttering his last disjointed words, and with bowed head was breathing in hoarse agony, there rang out an air from Martha, and ever since, when I chance to hear this air⁠—and I sometimes hear it: trivialities die hard⁠—there immediately rises before my eyes a rumpled pillow, and on it a pale face. Whenever I see a funeral, the air which the little organ played immediately rings in my ears. Horrible!⁠ ⁠… But all this is apropos of what? I began to think. Ah! I know⁠—why should a watch, the sound of which, it would seem, should have long ago become familiar, remind me of so much?⁠—all my life! + 

“ ‘Do you remember, remember, remember?’ I remember! Too well! I even remember what it would be better not to remember. From these memories my face becomes distorted, my fist clenches and strikes the table a furious blow.⁠ ⁠… Ah, now! that blow deadened the song of the watch, and for a moment I do not hear it; but only for one moment, after which it again resounds insolently, evilly, and persistently. + 

“ ‘Do you remember, remember, remember?’⁠ ⁠… Oh yes, I remember! There is no need for me to recall it. All my life! It is all in front of me. Is there anything in it of which to be proud?” + 

He shouted this aloud in a hoarse, choking voice. He imagined he saw before him all his life. He recalled a series of ugly and sombre pictures in which he was the principal figure. He recalled all that was worst in his life, turned it all over in his mind, but failed to find one clean or bright spot in it, and was convinced that none remained. “Not only none remained, but had never existed,” he added in self-correction. + 

A weak, timid voice from some remote corner of his soul murmured: “Enough; did it really never exist?” + 

He did not hear this voice⁠—or, at least, made pretence that he had not heard it, and continued to pull himself to pieces. + 

“I have thoroughly overhauled my memory, and it seems to me that I am right⁠—there is nothing to stand on, no footing whence to make the first step forward. Forward!⁠—whither? I do not know, only out of this vicious circle. + 

“There is no support in the past, because all is false, all is deception. I have lied, and deceived, and deluded even myself. Just as a swindler borrows money right and left, deceiving people with fictitious stories of his wealth⁠—of wealth he has never received, but nevertheless declares to exist⁠—so I all my life have lied to myself. Now the day of reckoning has arrived, and I am bankrupt⁠—a fraudulent bankrupt.” + 

He dwelt on these words with a perverted sense of enjoyment. He appeared to be almost proud of them. He did not perceive that in designating his whole life a fraud, and in besmearing himself, he was telling lies at that very moment⁠—the worst possible description of lie⁠—a self-lie, because he did not in reality place anything like so low an estimate on himself. Had anyone charged him with even a tenth part of what he had accused himself of during that long evening, his face would have flushed, but not with the flush of shame and recognition of the truth of such reproaches, but with the flush of anger. He would have known how to answer the offender who had touched the pride which he was himself now apparently trampling on so pitilessly. + 

Was he himself? + 

He had arrived at such a state that he could not even say of himself, “I am myself.” In his soul voices were speaking. They were speaking differently, and which of these voices was his own, his “ego,” he himself could not tell. The first voice, full and clear, flayed him with well-defined, even eloquent, phrases. The second voice, vague but quarrelsome and persistent, sometimes drowned the first: “Why condemn yourself?” it said. “Better deceive yourself to the end; deceive all. Make yourself out to others what you are not, and all will be well.” There was yet a third voice⁠—that voice which had said: “Enough; did it really never exist?” But this voice spoke timidly, and was scarcely audible. Moreover, he did not attempt to hear it. + 

“Deceive all.⁠ ⁠… Make yourself out what you are not.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But, surely, have I not endeavoured to do this all my life? Have I not deceived others? Have I not played this farcical role? And has it really turned out well? It has resulted in my failure as an actor. Even now I am not what I am in reality. But do I really know what I actually am? I am too much confused to know. But never mind, I have felt for some hours that I have broken down, and am uttering words which I do not myself believe, even now, when on the threshold of death.” + 

“Surely I am not really face to face with death?” + 

“Yes, yes, yes!” he shouted, viciously driving each word home with his fist against the table. “It is necessary once and for all to get out of this tangle. The knot is tied. It cannot be unloosed; it must be cut. Only why prolong matters and lacerate my soul already torn to tatters? Why, when once I have decided, do I sit like a statue from eight o’clock in the evening until now?” + 

And he hastily commenced to pull a revolver from out of a side-pocket of his shuba. + 