The fundamental traits of my character I consider to be cowardice, malice, and pride. As it turned out, this triumvirate had at its disposal a certain talent, which concealed it and ostensibly transformed it, and intelligence assisted in this — intelligence is one of life’s most effective instruments for masking inborn traits, once it decides that such a course is desirable. For forty-odd years I have been an obliging, modest individual, devoid of any sign of professional arrogance, because for a very long time and most persistently I schooled myself in precisely this behavior. But as far back into childhood as I can recall, I sought out evil, though of course I was unaware of it.

My evil was isotropic, unbiased, and totally disinterested. In places of veneration, such as churches, or in the company of particularly worthy persons, I liked to think forbidden thoughts. That the content of these thoughts was ludicrously puerile does not matter in the least. I was simply conducting experiments on a scale practically accessible to me. I do not remember when I began these experiments. I remember only the deep sense of injury, the anger, and the disappointment that came upon me some years later, when it turned out that a head filled with wickedness would never, not in any place nor in any company, be struck by lightning; that breaking free of and not participating in the Proper brought with it no — absolutely no — punishment.

If it is at all possible to speak thus of a child of less than ten, I wanted that lightning or some other form of dire retribution; I summoned it, challenged it, and grew to despise the world, the place of my existence, because it had demonstrated the futility of all action and thought, evil included. Thus I never tormented animals, or hurt even the grass underfoot; on the other hand, I lashed out at stones, the sand, I abused furniture, subjected water to torture, and mentally smashed the stars to pieces, to punish them for their indifference to me, and as I did so my fury became more and more helpless, for my understanding increased, of how ridiculous were the things I did.