Fyodor Dostoevsky. Diary of a writer (№ 423401)

What surprises me the most is that I could not, even out of twenty-eight of his letters, reveal what direction he was and what, in fact, he was trying to achieve? It's kind of a mess... Next to the rudeness of the receptions, with the cynicism of the red nose and the "upset smell" of the frenzied syllable and torn boots, there is some hidden thirst for tenderness, something perfect, faith in beauty, Sehnsucht for something lost, and all this goes out somehow to the extreme in it disgustingly.