"I review my past and I ask myself, Why have I lived? Why was I born? and I think there was a reason, and I think I was called to high things, for I feel in my soul the presence of vast powers; but I did not divine my high calling; I gave myself up to the allurement of shallow and ignoble passions; I emerged from their furnace as hard and as cold as iron, but I had lost for ever the ardour of noble aspirations, the flower of life. And since then how often have I played the part of the axe in the hands of fate. Like the weapon of the executioner I have fallen on the necks of the victims, often without malice, always without pity. My love has never brought happiness, because I have never in the slightest degree sacrificed myself for those whom I loved. I loved for my own sake, for my own pleasure.... And if I die I shall not leave behind me one soul who understood me. Some think I am better, others that I am worse than I am. Some will say he was a good fellow; others he was a blackguard." It will be seen from these passages, all of which apply to Lermontov himself, even if they were not so intended, that he must have been a trying companion, friend, or acquaintance. He had, indeed, except for a few intimate friends, an impossible temperament; he was proud, overbearing, exasperated and exasperating, filled with a savage _amour-propre_; and he took a childish delight in annoying; he cultivated "le plaisir aristocratique de déplaire"; he was envious of what was least enviable in his contemporaries. He could not bear not to make himself felt, and if he felt that he was unsuccessful in accomplishing this by pleasant means, he resorted to unpleasant means. And yet, at the same time, he was warm-hearted, thirsting for love and kindness, and capable of giving himself up to love--if he chose.