Scarcely a year and a half have passed, but I’m worse off than the poorest beggar. But what is a beggar anyhow? Who cares about being a beggar? I’ve just ruined myself, that’s all. There’s nothing I could compare my situation to at the moment, and moralizing would serve no purpose in any case. At the present time nothing would be more absurd than moralizing. And as for those self-satisfied people, in their unctuous pride, are always ready, to mouth their maxims, if only they knew how fully I understand the sordidness of my present state they wouldn’t trouble to wave their tongues at me! What can they say to me that I don’t already know. And is that the point in any case? The real point is this – that in a single turn of the roulette wheel, everything changes.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Gambler”, 1866
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