Crime and Punishment

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The old woman was just an illness … I wanted to get my stepping-over done as quickly as possible … It wasn't a person but a principle that I killed! I killed the principle, but I didn't step over it, I remained on this side of it … All I was able to do was to kill. And the way it's turning out, it seems I didn't even manage to do that … The principle? Why was that imbecile Razumikhin calling the socialists such rude names just now? They're hardworking, businesslike people; they occupy themselves with the “common happiness” … No, life has been given me once and it won't come along again: I don't want to wait for “universal happiness”. I want to live my own life, too, otherwise I'd do better not to live at all. I mean, look, all I want is not to have to walk past a hungry mother, clutching my rouble in my pocket as I await the advent of “universal happiness”, as though to say: “J'apporte ma pierre à l'édifice nouveau1 of ‘universal happiness’, and that gives me peace of mind!” Ha, ha! Why have you let me slip past? I mean, I'm only going to live once, and I also want to … Oh, I'm an aesthetic louse, that's what!’ he added suddenly, bursting into laughter like a crazy man. ‘Yes, that's what I am, a louse,’