Though my inscription was not entirely unworthy of attention, especially as the first production of a young versifier, I nevertheless felt that I was not born to be a poet, and satisfied myself with this first experience. But my creative endeavors so attached me to literary pursuits that I could no longer part with the notebook and the inkpot. I wanted to descend to prose. First off, not wishing to busy myself with doing preliminary research, laying out a plan, putting parts together, and so on, I conceived the idea of writing down separate thoughts, with no connection, with no order, just as they presented themselves to me. Unfortunately, thoughts did not enter my head, and in two whole days all I came up with was the following observation:
A man who does not obey the laws of reason and is used to following the promptings of passion, often errs and subjects himself to later remorse.
A correct thought, of course, but no longer a new one. Abandoning thoughts, I took up stories, but, having no habit of organizing fictional events, I chose some remarkable anecdotes I had heard formerly from various persons, and tried to adorn the truth by lively storytelling, and occasionally also by the flowers of my own imagination. In putting these stories together, I gradually formed my style and grew accustomed to expressing myself correctly, pleasantly, and freely. But my store soon ran out, and again I began to seek a subject for my literary activity.
The thought of abandoning trivial and dubious anecdotes for the recounting of true and great events had long stirred my imagination. To be the judge, observer, and prophet of epochs and nations seemed to me the greatest height a writer could attain. But what sort of history could I write with my pitiful education, where would I not have been preceded by men of great learning and conscientiousness? What genre of history have they not yet exhausted? I might start writing world history—but does the immortal work of the Abbé Millot not exist already? Should I turn to the history of our fatherland? But what can I say after Tatishchev, Boltin, and Golikov?8 And is it for me to rummage in chronicles and delve into the secret meaning of an obsolete language, when I could not even learn Slavonic numerals? I thought of a less voluminous history, for instance, the history of our provincial capital; but here, too, I faced so many insurmountable obstacles! The trip to the city, visits to the governor and the bishop, requests for admission to the archives and monastery storerooms, and so on. The history of our district town would have been more suitable for me, but it was of no interest either for the philosopher or for the pragmatist, and offered little food for eloquence: the village * * * was renamed a town in the year 17––, and the only remarkable event preserved in its chronicles was a terrible fire that had occurred ten years earlier and had destroyed the marketplace and the government buildings.
An unexpected event resolved my perplexity. A peasant woman who was hanging laundry in the attic found an old basket filled with woodchips, litter, and books. The whole house knew my love of reading. At the very time when I was sitting over my notebook, chewing my pen and thinking of experimenting with country preaching, my housekeeper triumphantly lugged the basket into my room, exclaiming joyfully:
“Books! Books!”
“Books!” I repeated in rapture and rushed to the basket.
