Before I repented, I had put the question thus: "What activity should I choose, I, the man with the education and talents I have acquired? How can I compensate by this education and these talents for what I have been taking away from the people?" This question was a false one, because it included the wrong idea of my not being like other men, but a peculiar man, called to serve other men with those talents and that education which I had acquired in forty years. I had put the question to myself, but in reality I had already answered it in advance by having determined beforehand that I was called upon to serve men by the kind of activity agreeable to myself. I really asked myself, "How can I, so fine a writer, one so very well informed, and with such talents, how can I utilize those talents for the benefit of mankind?" But the question ought to have been put thus,--as it would have to be put to a learned rabbi who had studied all the Talmud, and knew the exact number of letters in the Holy Scripture, and all the subtleties of his science:--"What can I do, who, from unlucky circumstances, have lost my best years in study instead of accommodating myself to labour,--in learning the French language, the piano, grammar, geography, law, poetry; in reading novels, romances, philosophical theories, and in performing military exercises? what can I do, who have passed the best years of my life in idle occupations, depraving the soul? what can I do, notwithstanding these unlucky conditions of the past, in order to requite those men, who, during all this time, have fed and clothed me, and who still continue to feed and to clothe me?" If the question had been put thus, after I had repented, "What can I, so ruined a man, do?" the answer would have been easy: First of all, I must try to get my living honestly,--that is, learn not to live upon the shoulders of others; and while learning this, and after I have learned it, to try on every occasion to be of use to men with my hands and with my feet, as well as with my brain and my heart, and with all of me that is wanted by men. Therefore I say that for one of my own circle, besides avoiding lying to others and ourselves, it is further necessary to repent, to lay aside pride about our education, refinement, and talents, not considering ourselves to be benefactors of the people, advanced men, who are ready to share our useful acquirements with the people, but acknowledging ourselves to be entirely guilty, ruined, good-for-nothing men, who desire to turn over a new leaf, and not to be benefactors of the people, but to cease to offend and to humiliate them. Very often good young people, who sympathise with the negative part of my writings, put to me the question, "What must I do then? What have I, who have finished my study in the university or in some other high establishment,--what have I to do in order to be useful?"