‘Of course, I understand shooting yourself,’ Nikolay Vsevolodovich began again, frowning somewhat, after a long, reflective three-minute silence. ‘I’ve sometimes imagined doing it myself, and then some new thought always comes to me: if one were to commit an evil deed or, more important, a shameful act, that is, something disgraceful, but very base indeed and… absurd, so that people would remember it for a thousand years and hold it in contempt for a thousand years, and suddenly comes the thought: “A single blow in the temple, and after that, nothing”. Then what would I care about people and
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