At times they awakened in him a sad yearning to find among them some sort of resistance to his wicked feeling, to meet a worthy and courageous man who would cause him to blush with shame by his burning reproach.

This yearning became clearer--each time it sprang up in him it was a longing for assistance on the part of a man who felt that he had lost his way and was perishing.
"Brethren!" he cried one day, sitting by the table in a tavern, half-intoxicated, and surrounded by certain obscure and greedy people, who ate and drank as though they had not had a piece of bread in their mouths for many a long day before.
"Brethren! I feel disgusted.

I am tired of you! Beat me unmercifully, drive me away! You are rascals, but you are nearer to one another than to me.

Why?
Am I not a drunkard and a rascal as well?
And yet I am a stranger to you! I can see I am a stranger.

You drink out of me and secretly you spit upon me.