A good fellow
Posdnicheff starts telling the narrator the story of his life, and to make it as vivid as possible he goes back to the time when he was sixteen years old – it was the time when he experienced his first physical contact with a woman. His brother’s classmate, “one of those who are called good fellows,” brought them to a brothel. Posdnicheff calls him a good fellow but right after that he calls him “the greatest of scamps” “who had taught us to drink and play cards”. The irony is that what one considers good traits of a person, the other might consider them as completely unacceptable.
Broken illusions
The bitter truth of matrimonial life and duties is given much attention in the story. Posdnicheff tells of the example of his younger sister that for a pure girl it is awful to find out all the truth of the way children are conceived: “a pure young girl wants one thing — children. Children, yes, not a lover.” But there is no way to get one thing without the other.
Proud
When Posdnicheff caught his wife with her lover he was terrible in his rage, and blinded by jealousy, though he fully understood that he wanted to kill her, and was fair with himself. But Posdnicheff portrays the situation rather ironically, especially when Troukhatchevsky ran out of the room. “I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible.” Even in the state of being a murderer Posdnicheff thinks about his pride.
