Chapter Five
I
MY IDEA IS—to become Rothschild. I invite the reader to calmness and seriousness.
I repeat: my idea is to become Rothschild, to become as rich as Rothschild; not simply rich, but precisely like Rothschild. Why, what for, precisely what goals I pursue—of that I shall speak later. First, I shall merely prove that the achievement of my goal is mathematically assured.
The matter is very simple, the whole secret lies in two words: persistence and continuity.
“We’ve heard all that,” I’ll be told, “it’s nothing new. Every Vater in Germany repeats it to his children, and yet your Rothschild” (that is, the late James Rothschild, the Parisian, he’s the one I’m speaking of ) “was only one, while there are millions of Vaters.”
I would answer:
“You assure me that you’ve heard it all, and yet you haven’t heard anything. True, you’re also right about one thing: if I said that this was a ‘very simple’ matter, I forgot to add that it’s also the most difficult. All the religions and moralities in the world come down to one thing: ‘We must love virtue and flee from vice.’ What, it seems, could be simpler? So go and do something virtuous and flee from at least one of your vices, give it a try —eh? It’s the same here.”
That’s why your countless Vaters in the course of countless ages can repeat these two astonishing words, which make up the whole secret, and yet Rothschild remains alone. Which means it’s the same and not the same, and the Vaters are repeating quite a different thought.
No doubt they, too, have heard about persistence and continuity; but to achieve my goal, it’s not Vater persistence and Vater continuity that are needed.
Already this one word, that he’s a Vater—I’m not speaking only of Germans—that he has a family, that he lives like everybody else, has expenses like everybody else, has duties like everybody else—here you don’t become Rothschild, but remain only a moderate man. I understand all too clearly that, having become Rothschild, or even only wishing to become him, not in a Vater-like way, but seriously—I thereby at once step outside of society.
A few years ago I read in the newspapers that on the Volga, on one of the steamboats, a certain beggar died, who had gone about in tatters, begging for alms, and was known to everybody there. After his death, they found as much as three thousand in banknotes sewn into his rags. The other day I again read about a certain beggar, from the nobility, who went around the taverns hat in hand. They arrested him and found as much as five thousand roubles on him. Two conclusions follow directly from this: first, persistence in accumulating, even by kopecks, produces enormous results later on (time means nothing here); and, second, that the most unsophisticated but continuous form of gain mathematically assures success.
And yet there are people, perhaps quite a few of them, who are respectable, intelligent, and restrained, but who (no matter how they try) do not have either three or five thousand, but who nevertheless want terribly much to have it. Why is that so? The answer is clear: because, despite all their wanting, not one of them wants to such a degree, for instance, as to become a beggar, if there’s no other way of getting money; or is persistent to such a degree, even having become a beggar, as not to spend the very first kopecks he gets on an extra crust for himself or his family. And yet, with this method of accumulation, that is, with begging, one has to eat nothing but bread and salt in order to save so much money; at least that’s my understanding. That is surely what the two above-mentioned beggars did, that is, ate nothing but bread and lived all but under the open sky. There is no doubt that they had no intention of becoming Rothschild: these were Harpagons or Plyushkins22 in the purest form, nothing more; but conscious money-making in a completely different form, and with the goal of becoming Rothschild, will call for no less wanting and strength of will than with these two beggars. A Vater won’t show such strength. There is a great diversity of strengths in the world, strengths of will and wanting especially. There is the temperature of boiling water, and there is the temperature of red-hot iron.
Here it’s the same as a monastery, the same ascetic endeavor. Here’s it’s a feeling, not an idea. What for? Why? Is it moral, and is it not ugly, to go about in sackcloth and eat black bread all your life, while carrying such huge money on you? These questions are for later, but now I’m only talking about the possibility of achieving the goal.
When I thought up “my idea” (and it consists of red-hot iron), I began testing myself: am I capable of the monastery and asceticism? To that end I spent the whole first month eating nothing but bread and water. It came to no more than two and a half pounds of black bread a day. To carry it out, I had to deceive the clever Nikolai Semyonovich and the well-wishing Marya Ivanovna. I insisted, to her distress and to a certain perplexity in the most delicate Nikolai Semyonovich, that dinner be brought to my room. There I simply destroyed it: the soup I poured out the window into the nettles or a certain other place, the beef I either threw out the window to the dog, or wrapped in paper, put in my pocket, and took out later, well, and all the rest. Since they served much less than two and a half pounds of bread for dinner, I bought myself more bread on the sly.
I held out for that month, only I may have upset my stomach somewhat; but the next month I added soup to the bread, and drank a glass of tea in the morning and evening—and, I assure you, I spent a whole year that way in perfect health and contentment, and morally—in rapture and continuous secret delight. Not only did I not regret the meals, I was in ecstasy. By the end of the year, having made sure that I was able to endure any fast you like, I began to eat as they did and went back to having dinner with them. Not satisfied with this test, I made a second one: apart from my upkeep, which was paid to Nikolai Semyonovich, I was allocated a monthly sum of five roubles for pocket money. I decided to spend only half of it. This was a very hard test, but in a little over two years, when I came to Petersburg, I had in my pocket, apart from other money, seventy roubles saved up solely by this economy. The result of these two experiments was tremendous for me: I learned positively that I was able to want enough to achieve my goal, and that, I repeat, is the whole of “my idea.” The rest is all trifles.
II
HOWEVER, LET US examine the trifles as well.
I have described my two experiments; in Petersburg, as is already known, I made a third—went to the auction and, at one stroke, made a profit of seven roubles, ninety-five kopecks. Of course, that wasn’t a real experiment, but just a game, for fun: I wanted to steal a moment from the future and experience how I would go about and behave. But generally, still at the very beginning, in Moscow, I postponed the real setting out in business until I was completely free; I understood only too well that I at least had, for instance, to finish high school first. (I sacrificed the university, as is already known.) Indisputably, I went to Petersburg with repressed wrath: I had just finished high school and become free for the first time, when I suddenly saw that Versilov’s affairs would again distract me from starting business for an unknown period! But though I was wrathful, I still went completely at ease about my goal.
True, I knew nothing of practical life; but I had been thinking it over for three years on end and could not have any doubts. I had imagined a thousand times how I would set about it: I suddenly turn up, as if dropped from the sky, in one of our two capitals23 (I chose to begin with our capitals, and namely with Petersburg, to which, by a certain reckoning, I gave preference), and so, I’ve dropped from the sky, but am completely free, not dependent on anybody, healthy, and have a hundred roubles hidden in my pocket for an initial working capital. It’s impossible to begin without a hundred roubles, otherwise the very first period of success would be delayed for too long.
Besides a hundred roubles, I have, as is already known, courage, persistence, continuity, total solitude, and secrecy. Solitude is the main thing: I terribly disliked till the very last minute any contact or association with people; generally speaking, I decided absolutely to begin the “idea” alone, that was sine qua. People are a burden to me, and I would be troubled in spirit, which would harm my
