I have said t that my friendship with Dimitri ope­ned up for me a new view of my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of that view lay in the con­viction that the destiny of man is to strive for mo­ral improvement and that such improvement is at once easy possible and lasting. Hitherto however I had found pleasure only in the new ideas which I discovered to arise from that conviction and in the forming of brilliant plans for a moral active futu­re while all the time my life had been continuing along its old petty muddled pleasure-seeking cour­se and the same virtuous thoughts which I and my adored friend Dimitri ("my own marvellous Mitia" as I used to call him to myself in a whisper) had been wont to exchange with one another still plea­sed my intellect but left my sensibility untouched.