(1864)

(Ralph E. Matlaw Translation)

　　　　　　　　　　　　PART ONE

　　　　　　　UNDERGROUND


I


I am a sick man . . I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think
my liver is diseased. However, I don't know beans about my disease, and I
am not sure what is bothering me. I don't treat it and never have, though
I respect medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, let's
say sufficiently so to respect medicine. (I am educated enough not to be
superstitious, but I am.) No, I refuse to treat it out of spite. You prob-
ably will not understand that. Well, but I understand it. Of course, I can't
explain to you just whom I am annoying in this case by my spite. I am per-
fectly well aware that I cannot "get even" with the doctors by not cons
sulting them. I know better than anyone that I thereby injure only myself
and no one else. But still, if I don't treat it, it is out of spite. My liver is
bad, well then--let it get even worse!

I have been living like that for a long time now--twenty years. I am forty
now. I used to be in the civil service, but no longer am. I was a spiteful
official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. After all, I did not
accept bribes, so I was bound to find a compensation in that, at least.
(A bad joke but I will not cross it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound
very witty; but now that I see myself that I only wanted to show off in
a despicable way, I will purposely not cross it out! When petitioners would
come to my desk for information I would gnash my teeth at them, and feel
intense enjoyment when I succeeded in distressing some one. I was almost
always successful. For the most part they were all timid people--of course,
they were petitioners. But among the fops there was one officer in partic-
ular I could not endure. He simply would not be humble, and clanked his
sword in a disgusting way. I carried on a war with him for eighteen months
over that sword. At last I got the better of him. He left off clanking it.
However, that happened when I was still young. But do you know, gentlemen,
what the real point of my spite was? Why, the whole trick, the real vile-
ess of it lay in the fact that continually, even in moments of the worst
spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not only not spite-
ul but not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows
at random and amusing myself by it. I might foam at the mouth, but bring
me some kind of toy, give me a cup of tea with sugar, and I would be ap-
peased. My heart might even be touched, though probably I would gnash my
teeth at myself months after. That is the way I am.

I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official. I was ly-
ing out of spite. I was simply indulging myself with the petitioners and
with the officer, but I could never really become spiteful. Every moment
I was conscious in myself of many, very many elements completely opposite
to that. I felt them positively teeming in me, these opposite elements. I
knew that they had been teeming in me all my life, begging to be let out,
but I would not let them, would not let them, purposely would not let
them out They tormented me till I was ashamed; they drove me to convul-
sions, and finally, they bored me, how they bored me! Well, are you not
imagining, gentlemen, that I am repenting for something now, that I am
asking your forgiveness for something? I am sure you are imagining that.
However, I assure you it does not matter to me if you are.

Not only could I not become spiteful, I could not even become anything:
neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither
a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunt-
ing myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelli-
gent man cannot seriously become anything and that only a fool can be-
come something. Yes, an intelligent man in the nineteenth century must
and morally ought to be preeminently a characterless creature; a man
of character, an active man, is pre-eminently a limited creature. That
is the conviction of my forty years. I am forty years old now, and
forty years, after all, is a whole lifetime; after all, that is extreme
old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners; it is vulgar,
immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honest-
ly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless people do. I tell all
old men that to their face, all those respectable old men, all those
silver-haired and reverend old men! I tell the whole world that to its
face. I have a right to say so, for I'll go on living to sixty myself.
I'll live till seventy! Till eighty! Wait, let me catch my breath.

No doubt you think, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are mis-
taken in that, too. I am not at all such a merry person as you imagine,
or as you may imagine; however, if irritated by all this babble (and
I can feel that you are irritated) you decide to ask me just who I am--
then my answer is, I am a certain low-ranked civil servant. I was in
the service in order to have something to eat (but only for that rea-
son), and when last year a distant relation left me six thousand rou-
bles in his will immediately retired from the service and settled down
in my corner. I used to live in this corner before, but now I have
settled down in it. My room is a wretched, horrid one on the out-
skirts of town. My servant is an old country-woman, spiteful out of
stupidity, and, more-over, she always smells bad. I am told that the
Peters-burg climate is bad for me, and that with my paltry means it
is very expensive to live in Petersburg. I know all that better than
all these sage and experienced coun-sellors and monitors. But I am
going to stay in Petersburg. I will not leave Petersburg! I will
not leave because . . . Bah, after all it does not matter in the
least whether I leave or stay.

But incidentally, what can a decent man speak about with the great-
est pleasure?

Answer: About himself.

Well, then, I will talk about myself.



II



Now I want to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not,
why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly that I want-
ed to become an insect many times. But I was not even worthy of that.
I swear to you, gentlemen, that to be hyperconscious is a disease, a
real positive disease. Ordinary human consciousnesswould be too much
for man's everyday needs, that is, half or a quarter of the amount
which falls to the lot of a cultivated man of our unfortunate nine-
teenth century, especially one who has the particular misfortune to
inhabit Petersburg, the most abstract and intentional city in the
whole world. (There are intentional and un-intentional cities.) It
would have been quite enough, for instance, to have the consciousness
by which all so-called straightforward persons and men of action live.
I'll bet you think I am writing all this to show off, to be witty at
the expense of men of action; and what is more, that out of ill-bred
showing-off, I am clanking a sword, like my officer. But, gentlemen,
whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even show off with them?

However, what am I talking about? Everyone does that. They do pride
themselves on their diseases, and I, perhaps, more than any one. There
is no doubt about it: my objection was absurd. Yet just the same, I
am firmly convinced not only that a great deal of consciousness, but
that any consciousness is a disease. I insist on it. Let us drop that,
too, for a minute. Tell me this: why did it happen that at the very,
yes, at the very moment when I was most capable of recognizing every
refinement of "all the sublime and beautiful," as we used to say at
one time, I would, as though purposely, not only feel but do such hid-
eous things, such that--well, in short, such as everyone probably does
but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when
I was most conscious that they ought not to be done. The more con-
scious I was of goodness, and of all that "sublime and beautiful," the
more deeply I sank into my mire and the more capable I became of sink-
ing into it completely. But the main thing was that all this did not
seem to occur in me accidentally, but as though it had to be so. As
though it were my most normal condition, and not in the least disease
or depravity, so that finally I even lost the desire to struggle a-
gainst this depravity. It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actual-
ly believing) that probably this was really my normal condition. But
at first, in the beginning, that is, what agonies I suffered in that
struggle! I did not believe that others went through the same things,
and therefore I hid this fact about myself as a secret all my life. I
was ashamed (perhaps I am even ashamed now). I reached the point of
feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning
home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, and being acute-
ly conscious that that day I had again done something loathsome, that
what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnaw, gnaw
at myself for it, nagging and consuming myself till at last the bitter-
ness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and finally
into real positive enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I
insist upon that. And that is why I have started to speak, be-cause I
keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such an en-
joyment. Let me explain: the enjoyment here consisted precisely in the
hyperconsciousness of one's own degradation; t was from feeling oneself
that one had reached the last barrier, that it was nasty, but that it
could not be otherwise; that you no longer had an escape; that you could
never become a different person; that even if there remained enough
time and faith for you to change into something else you probably would
not want to change; or if you did want to, even then you would do no^
thing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change
into. And the worst of it, and the root of it all, was that it all pro-
ceeded according to the normal and fundamental laws of hyperconscious-
ness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws,
and that consequently one could not only not change but one could do
absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of hyper-con-
sciousness, that one is not to blame for being a scoundrel, as though
that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he himself has come to
realize that he actually is a scoundrel. But enough. Bah, I have talk-
ed a lot of nonsense, but what have I explained? Can this enjoyment
be explained? But I will explain it! I will get to the bottom of it!
That is why I have taken up my pen.

To take an instance, I am terribly vain. I am as suspicious and touchy
as a hunchback or a dwarf. But to tell the truth, there have been mo-
ments when if someone had happened to slap my face I would, perhaps,
have even been glad of that. I say, very seriously, that I would prob-
ably have been able to discover a peculiar sort of enjoyment even in
that--the enjyment, of course, of despair; but in despair occur the
most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious
of one's hopeless position. As for the slap in the face--why then the
consciousness of being beaten to a pulp would positively overwhelm one.
The worst of it is, no matter how I tried, it still turned out that I
was always the most to blame in everything, and what is most humiliat-
ing of all, to blame for no fault of my own but, so to say, through
the laws of nature. In the first place, to blame because I am cleverer
than any of the people surrounding me. (I have always considered my-
self cleverer than any of the people surrounding me and sometimes,
would you believe it, I have even been ashamed of that. At any rate,
all my life, I have, as it were, looked away and I could never look peo-
ple straight in the eye.) To blame, finally, because even if I were mag-
nanimous, I would only have suffered more from the consciousness
of all its uselessness. After all, I would probably never have been
able to do anything, with my magnanimity neither to forgive, for my as-
sailant may have slapped me because of the laws of nature, and one can-
not forgive the laws of nature; nor to forget, for even if it were the
laws of nature, it is insulting all the same. Finally, even if I had
wanted to be anything but magnanimous, had desired on the contrary to
revenge myself on the man who insulted me, I could not have revenged
myself on anyone for anything because I would certainly never have made
up my mind to do ailything, even if I had been able to. Why would I not
have made up my mind? I want to say a few words about that in particular.



III



After all, people who know how to revenge themselves and to take care
of themselves in general, how do they do it? After all, when they are
possessed, let us suppose, by the feeling of revenge, then for the time
there is nothing else but that feeling left in their whole being. Such
a man simply rushes straight toward his object like an infuriated bull
with its horns down, and nothing but a wall will stop him. (By the way:
facing the wall, such people--that is, the straightforward persons and
men of action--are genuinely nonplussed. For them a wall is not an e-
vasion, as for example for us people who think and consequently do no-
thing; it is not an excuse for turning aside, an excuse for which our
kind is always very glad, though we scarcely believe in it ourselves,
usually. No, they are nonplussed in all sincerity. The wall has for
them something tranquilizing, morally soothing, final--maybe even
something mysterious . . . but of the wall later.) Well, such a direct
person I regard as the real normal man, as his tender mother nature
wished to see him when she graciously brought him into being on the
earth. I envy such a man till I am green in the face. He is stupid. I
am not disputing that, but perhaps the normal man should be stupid,
how do you know? Perhaps it is very beautiful, in fact. And I am all
the more convinced of that suspicion, if one can call it so, by the
fact that if, for instance, you take the antithesis of the normal man,
that is, the hyperconscious man, who has come, of course, not out of
the lap of nature but out of a retort (this is almost my msticism,
gentlemen, but I suspect this, too), this retort-made an is sometimes
so nonplussed in the presence of his antithesis that with all his hyper-
consciousness he genuinely thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man.
It may be a hyperconscious mouse, yet it is a mouse, while the other
is a man, and therefore, etc. And the worst is, he himself, his very
own self, looks upon himself as a mouse. No one asks him to do so. And
that is an important point. Now let us look at this mouse in action.
Let us suppose, for instance, that it feels insulted, too (and it al-
most always does feel insulted), and wants to revenge itself too.
There may even be a greater accumulation of spite in it than in l'homme
de la nature et de la verite. The base, nasty desire to repay with
spite whoever has offended it, rankles perhaps even more nastily in
it than in l'homme de la nature et de la verite, because l'homme de
la nature et de la verite through his innate stupidity looks upon his
revenge as justice pure and simple; while in consequence of his hyper-
consciousness the mouse does not believe in the justice of it. To come
at last to the deed itself, to the very act of revenge. Apart from the
one fundamental nastiness the unfortunate mouse succeeds in creating
around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and ques-
tions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions, that there
inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess,
made up of its doubts, agitations and lastly of the contempt spat upon
it by the straightforward men of action who stand solemnly about it as
judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their healthy sides ache.
Of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss all that with a
wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt in which it
does not even believe itself, creep ignominiously into its mouse-hole.
There, in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed
and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant and,
above all, everlasting spite. For forty years together it will remember
its injury down to the smallest, most shameful detail, and every time
will add, of itself, details still more shameful, spitefully teasing
and irritating itself with its own imagination. It will be ashamed of
its own fancies, but yet it will recall everything, it will go over it
again and again, it will invent lies against itself pretending that
those things might have happened, and will forgive nothing. Maybe it
will begin to revenge itself, too, but, as it were, piecemeal, in tri-
vial ways, from behind the stove, incognito, without believing either
in its own right to vengeance, or in the success of its revenge, know-
ing beforehand that from all its efforts at revenge it will suffer a
hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself, while he, prob-
ably will not even feel it. On its deathbed it will recall it all over
again, with interest accumulated over all the years. But it is just in
that cold, abominable half-despair, half-belief, in that conscious bur-
ying oneself alive for grief in the underworld for forty years, in that
hyperconsciousness and yet to some extent doubtful hopelessness of
one's position, in that hell of unsatisfied desires turned inward, in
that fever of oscillations, of resolutions taken for ever and regretted
again a minute later—that the savor of that strange enjoyment of which
I have spoken lies. It is so subtle, sometimes so difficult to analyze
consciously, that somewhat limited people, or simply people with strong
nerves, will not understand anything at all in it. "Possi-bly," you
will add on your own account with a grin, "people who have never receiv-
ed a slap in the face will not understand it either," and in that way
you will politely hint to me that I, too, perhaps, have been slapped in
the face in my life, and so I speak as an expert. I'll bet that you are
thinking that. But set your minds at rest, gentlemen, I have not receiv-
ed a slap in the face, though it doesn't matter to me at all what you
may think about it. Possibly, I even myself regret that I have given so
few slaps in the face during my life. But enough, not another word on
the subject of such extreme interest to you.

I will continue calmly about people with strong nerves who do not under-
stand a certain refinement of enjoyment. Though in certain circumstances
these gentlemen bellow their loudest like bulls, though this, let us sup-
pose, does them the greatest honor, yet, as I have already said, con-
fronted with the impossible they at once resign themselves. Does the im-
possible mean the stone wall? What stone wall? Why, of course, the laws
of nature, the conclusions of natural science, of mathematics. As soon as
they prove to you, for instance, that you are descended from a monkey,
then it is no use scowling, accept it as a fact. When they prove to you
that in reality one drop of your own fat must be dearer to you than a
hundred thousand of your fellow creatures, and that this conclusion
is the final solution of all so-called virtues and duties and all such
ravings and prejudices, then you might as well accept it, you can't do
anything about it, because two times two is a law of mathematics. Just
try refuting it.

"But really," they will shout at you, "there is no use protesting; it
is a case of two times two makes four! Nature does not ask your permi-
ssion, your wishes, and whether you like or dislike her laws does not
concern her. You are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently
also all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall—etc. etc." Good
God! but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmetic, when,
for some reason, I dislike those laws and the fact that two times two
makes four? Of course I cannot break through a wall by battering my
head against it if I really do not have the strength to break through
it, but I am not going to resign myself to it simply because it is a
stone wall and I am not strong enough.

As though such a stone wall really were a consolation, and really did
contain some word of conciliation, if only because it is as true as
two times two makes four. Oh, absurdity of absurdities! How much
better it is to understand it all, to be conscious of it all, all the
impossibilities and the stone walls, not to resign yourself to a sin-
gle one of those impossibilities and stone walls if it disgusts you to
resign yourself; to reach, through the most inevitable, logical combi-
nations, the most revolting conclusions on the everlasting theme that
you are yourself somehow to blame even for the stone wall, though a-
gain it is as clear as day you are not to blame in the least, and
therefore grinding your teeth in silent impotence sensuously to sink
into inertia, brooding on the fact that it turns out that there is
even no one for you to feel vindictive against, that you have not,
and perhaps never will have, an object for your spite, that it is a
sleight-of-hand, a bit of juggling, a cardsharper's trick, that it
is simply a mess, no knowing what and no knowing who, but in spite of
all these uncertainties, and jugglings, still there is an ache in you,
and the more you do not know, the worse the ache.



IV



"Ha, ha, hal Next you will find enjoyment in a toothache," you cry with
a laugh.

"Well? So what? There is enjoyment even in a tooth-ache," I answer. I
had a toothache for a whole month and I know there is. In that case,
of course, people are not spiteful in silence, they moan; but these are
not sincere moans, they are malicious moans, and the ma liciousness is
the whole point. The sufferer's enjoyment finds expression in those
moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan. It is
a good example, gentlemen, and I will develop it. The moans express
in the first place all the aimlessness of your pain, which is so hum-
iliating to your consciousness; the whole legal system of Nature on
which you spit disdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all
the same while she does not. They express the consciousness that you
have no enemy, but that you do have a pain; the consciousness that in
spite of all the dentists in the world you are in complete slavery to
your teeth; that if someone wishes it, your teeth will leave off ach-
ing, and if he does not, they will go on aching another three months;
and that finally if you still disagree and still protest, all that is
left you for your own gratification is to thrash yourself or beat your
wall with your fist as hard as you can, and absolutely nothing more.
Well then, these mortal insults, these jeers on the part of someone
unknown, end at last in an enjoyment which sometimes reaches the high-
est degree of sensuality. I beg you, gentlemen, to listen sometimes to
the moans of an educated man of the nineteenth century who is suffer-
ing from a toothache, par-ticularly on the second or third day of the
attack, when he has already begun to moan not as he moaned on the first
day, that is, not simply because he has a toothache, not just as any
coarse peasant might moan, but as a man affected by progress and Eur-
opean civilization, a man who is "divorced from the soil and the nati-
onal principles," as they call it these days. His moans become nasty,
disgustingly spiteful, and go on for whole days and nights. And, after
all, he himself knows that he does not benefit at all from his moans;
he knows better than anyone that he is only lacerating and irritating
himself and others in vain; he knows that even the audience for
whom he is exerting himself and his whole family now listen to him
with loathing, do not believe him for a second, and that deep down
they understand that he could moan differently, more simply,
without trills and flourishes, and that he is only indulging himself
like that out of spite, out of malice. Well, sensuality exists preci-
sely in all these consciousnesses and infamies. "It seems I am troub-
ling you, I am lacerating your hearts, I am keeping everyone in the
house awake. Well, stay awake then, you, too, feel every minute that
I have a toothache. I am no longer the hero to you now that I tried
to appear before, but simply a nasty person, a scoundrel. Well, let
it be that way, then! I am very glad that you see through me. Is it
nasty for you to hear my foul moans? Well, let it be nasty. Here I
will let you have an even nastier flourish in a minute. . . ." You
still do not understand, gentlemen? No, it seems our development and
our consciousness must go further to understand all the intricacies
of this sensuality. You laugh? I am delighted. My jokes, gentlemen,
are of course in bad taste, uneven, involved, lacking self-confidence.
But of course that is because I do not respect myself. Can a man with
consciousness respect himself at all?



V



Come, can a man who even attempts to find enjoyment in the very feel-
ing of self-degradation really have any respect for himself at all?
I am not saying this now from any insipid kind of remorse. And, indeed,
I could never endure to say, "Forgive me, Daddy, I won't do it again,"
not because I was incapable of saying it, but, on the contrary, perhaps
just because I was too capable of it, and in what a way, too! As though
on purpose I used to get into trouble on occasions when I was not to
blame in the faintest way. That was the nastiest part of it. At the
same time I was genuinely touched and repentant, I used to shed tears
and, of course, tricked even myself, though it was not acting in the
least and there was a sick feeling in my heart at the time. For that
one could not even blame the laws of nature, though the laws of nature
have offended me continually all my life more than anything. It is
loathsome to remember it all, but it was loathsome even then. Of
course, in a minute or so I would realize with spite that it was all
a lie, a lie, an affected, revolting lie, that is, all this repentance,
all these emotions, these vows to reform. And if you ask why I worried
and tortured myself that way, the answer is because it was very dull
to twiddle one's thumbs, and so one began cutting capers. That is real-
ly it. Observe yourselves more carefully, gentlemen, then you will un-
derstand that that's right! I invented adventures for myself and made
up a life, so as to live at least in some way. How many times it has
happened to me--well, for instance, to take offence at nothing, simply
on purpose; and one knows oneself, of course, that one is offended at
nothing, that one is pretending, but yet one brings oneself, at last,
to the point of really being offended. All my life I have had an im-
pulse to play such pranks, so that in the end, I could not control it
in myself. Another time, twice, in fact, I tried to force myself to
fall in love. I even suffered, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth
of my heart I did not believe in my suffering, there was a stir of
mockery, but yet I did suffer, and in the real, regular way I was jeal-
ous, I was beside myself, and it was all out of boredom, gentlemen,
all out of boredom; inertia overcame me. After all, the direct, legit-
imate, immediate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious
thumb twiddling. I have referred to it already, I repeat, I repeat it
emphatically: all straightforward persons and men of action are active
just because they are stupid and limited. How can that be explained?
This way: as a result of their limitation they take immediate and sec-
ondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves
more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an
infallible basis for their activity, and their minds are at ease and
that, you know, is the most important thing. To begin to act, you know,
you must first have your mind completely at ease and without a trace
of doubt left in it. Well, how am I, for example, to set my mind at
rest? Where are the primary causes on which I am to build? Where are
my bases? Where am I to get them from? I exercise myself in the pro-
cess of thinking, and consequently with me every primary cause at once
draws after itself another still more primary, and so on to infinity.
That is precisely the essence of every sort of consciousness and think-
ing. It must be a case of the laws of nature again. In what does it fi-
nally result? Why, just the same- Remember I spoke just now of vengeance.
(I am sure you did not grasp that.) I said that a man revenges himself
because he finds justice in it. Therefore he has found a primary cause,
found a basis, to wit, justice. And so he is completely set at rest,
and consequently he carries out his revenge calmly and successfully, as
he is convinced that he is doing a just and honest thing. But, after all,
I see no justice in it, I find no sort of virtue in it either, and con-
sequently if I attempt to revenge myself, it would only be out of spite.
Spite, of course, might overcome everything, all my doubts, and could
consequently serve quite successfully in a place of a primary cause, pre-
cisely because it is not a cause. But what can be done if I do not even
have spite (after all, I began with that just now)? Again, in consequence
of those accursed laws of consciousness, my spite is subject to chem-
ical disintegration. You look into it, the object flies off into air, your
reasons evaporate, the criminal is not to be found, the insult becomes
fate rather than an insult, something like the toothache, for which no
one is to blame, and consequently there is only the same outlet left a-
gain--that is, to beat the wall as hard as you can. So you give it up as
hopeless because you have not found a fundamental cause. And try let-
ting yourself be carried away by your feelings, blindly, without reflection,
without a primary cause, repelling consciousness at least for a time;
hate or love, if only not to sit and twiddle your thumbs. The day after
tomorrow, at the latest, you will begin despising yourself for having
knowingly deceived yourself. The result--a soap-bubble and inertia. Oh,
gentlemen, after all, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man only
because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish any-
thing. Granted, granted I am a babbler, a harmless annoying babbler,
like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation
of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of
water through a sieve?



VI



Oh, if I had done nothing simply out of laziness! Heavens, how I would have
respected myself then. I would have respected myself because I would at
least have been capable of being lazy; there would at least have been in
me one positive quality, as it were, in which I could have believed myself.
Question: Who is he? Answer: A loafer. After all, it would have been plea-
sant to hear that about oneself! It would mean that I was positively de-
fined, it would mean that there was some-thing to be said about me. "Loaf-
er"--why, after all, it is a calling and an appointment, it is a career,
gentlemen. Do not joke, it is so. I would then, by rights, be a member of
the best club, and would occupy myself only in continually respecting my-
self. I knew a gentleman who prided himself all his life on being a con-
noisseur of Lafitte. He considered this as his positive virtue, and never
doubted himself. He died, not simply with a tranquil but with a triumphant
conscience, and he was completely right. I should have chosen a career
for myself then too: I would have been a loafer and a glutton, not a simple
one, but, for instance, one in sympathy with everything good and beautiful.
How do you like that? I have long had visions of it. That "sublime and beau-
tiful" weighs heavily on my mind at forty. But that is when I am forty,
while then--oh, then it would have been different! I would have found myself
an appropriate occupation, namely, to drink to the health of everything sub-
lime and beautiful. I would have seized every opportunity to drop a tear
into my glass and then to drain it to all that is sublime and beautiful. I
would then have turned everything into the sublime and the beautiful; I
would have sought out the sublime and the beautiful in the nastiest, most
unquestionable trash. I would have become as tearful as a wet sponge. An
artist, for instance, paints Ge's picture.2 At once I drink to the health
of the artist who painted Ge's picture, because I love all that is "sublime
and beautiful." An author writes "Whatever You Like" 8; at once I drink to
the health of "Whatever You Like" because I love all that is "sublime and
beautiful." I would demand respect for doing so, I would persecute anyone
who would not show me respect I would live at ease, I would die triumphant-
ly--why, after all, it is charming, perfectly charming! And what a belly
I would have grown, what a triple chin I would have established, what a red
nose I would have produced for myself, so that every passer-by would have
said, looking at me: "Here is an asset! Here is something really positive!"
And, after all, say what you like, it is very pleasant to hear such remarks
about oneself in this negative age, gentlemen.



VII



But these are all golden dreams. Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first
proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own
real interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to
his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would
at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding
his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing
else, and we all know that not a single man can knowingly act to his own
disadvantage. Consequently, so to say, he would begin doing good through nec-
essity. Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child! 'Why, in the first place,
when in all these thousands of years has there ever been a time when man has
acted only for his own advantage? What is to be done with the millions of
facts that bear witness that men, knowingly, that is, fully understanding
their real advantages, have left them in the background and have rushed head-
long on another path, to risk, to chance, compelled to this course by nobody
and by nothing, but, as it were, precisely because they did not want the beat-
en track, and stubbornly, wilfully, went off on another difficult, absurd way
seeking it almost in the darkness. After all, it means that this stubbornness
and willfulness were more pleasant to them than any advantage. Advantage! What
is advantage? And will you take it upon yourself to define with perfect accu-
racy in exactly what the advantage of man consists of? And what if it so hap-
pens that a man's advantage sometimes not only may, but even must, consist ex-
actly in his desiring under certain conditions what is harmful to himself and
not what is advantageous. And if so, if there can be such a condition then the
whole principle becomes worthless. What do you think--are there such cases?
You laugh; laugh away, gentlemen, so long as you answer me: have man's advan-
tages been calculated with perfect certainty? Are there not some which not
only have been included but cannot possibly be included under any classifica-
tion? After all, you, gentlemen, so far as I know, have taken your whole reg-
ister of human advantages from the average of statistical figures and scien-
tific-economic formulas. After all, your advantages are prosperity, wealth,
freedom, peace--and so on, and so on. So that a man who, for instance, would
openly and know-ingly oppose that whole list would, to your thinking, and in-
deed to mine too, of course, be an obscurantist or an absolute madman, would
he not? But, after all, here is something amazing: why does it happen that
all these statisticians, sages and lovers of humanity, when they calculate
human advantages invariably leave one out? They don't even take it into their
calculation in the form in which it should be taken, and the whole reckoning
depends upon that. There would be no great harm to take it, this advantage,
and to add it to the list. But the trouble is, that this strange advantage
does not fall under any classification and does not figure in any list. For
instance, I have a friend. Bah, gentlemen! But after all he is your friend,
too; and indeed there is no one, no one, to whom he is not a friend! When he
prepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to you, pom-
pously and clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance with the laws of
reason and truth. What is more, he will talk to you with excitement and pas-
sion of the real normal interests of man; with irony he will reproach the
short-sighted fools who do not understand their own advantage, for the true
significance of virtue; and, within a quarter of an hour, without any sudden
outside provocation, but precisely through that something internal which is
stronger than all his advantages, he will go off on quite a different tack--
that is, act directly opposite to what he has just been saying himself, in
opposition to the laws of reason, in opposition to his own advantage--in fact,
in opposition to everything. I warn you that my friend is a compound persona-
lity, and therefore it is somehow difficult to blame him as an individual. The
fact is, gentlemen, it seems that something that is dearer to almost every man
than his greatest advantages must really exist, or (not to be illogical) there
is one most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just
now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages,
for which, if necessary, a man is ready to act in opposition to all laws, that
is, in opposition to reason, honor, peace, prosperity--in short, in opposition
to all those wonderful and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental,
most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all.

"Well, but it is still advantage just the same," you will retort. But excuse
me, I'll make the point clear, and it is not a case of a play on words, but
what really matters is that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact
that it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters all the
systems evolved by lovers of mankind for the happiness of mankind. In short,
it interferes with everything. But before I mention this advantage to you, I
want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldly declare that all
these fine systems--all these theories for explaining to mankind its real nor-
mal interests, so that inevitably striving to obtain these interests, it may
at once become good and noble--are, in my opinion, so far, mere logical exer-
cises! Yes, logical exercises. After all, to maintain even this theory of the
regeneration of mankind by means of its own advantage, is, after all, to my
mind almost the same thing as--as to claim, for instance, with Buckle, that
through civilization mankind becomes softer, and consequently less blood-thir-
sty, and less fitted for warfare. Logically it does not seem to follow from
his arguments. But man is so fond of systems and abstract deductions that he
is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny what he can
see and hear just to justify his logic. I take this example because it is the
most glaring instance of it. Only look about you: blood is being spilled in
streams, and in the merriest way, as though it were champagne. Take the whole
of the nineteenth century in which Buckle lived. Take Napoleon--both the Great
and the present one. Take North America--the eternal union. Take farcical
Schleswig-Holstein. And what is it that civilization softens in us? Civiliza-
tion only produces a greater variety of sensations in man--and absolutely no-
thing more. And through the development of this variety, man may even come
to find enjoyment in bloodshed. After all, it has already happened to him.
Have you noticed that the subtlest slaughterers have almost always been the
most civilized gentlemen, to whom the various Attilas and Stenka Razins could
never hold a candle, and if they are not so conspicuous as the Attilas and
Stenka Razins it is precisely because they are so often met with, are so or-
dinary and have become so familiar to us. In any case if civilization has not
made man more bloodthirsty, it has at least made him more abominably, more
loathsomely bloodthirsty than before. Formerly he saw justice in bloodshed
and with his conscience at peace exterminated whomever he thought he should.
And now while we consider bloodshed an abomination, we nevertheless engage in
this abomination and even more than ever before. Which is worse? Decide that
for yourselves. It is said that Cleopatra (pardon the example from Roman his-
tory) was fond of sticking gold pins into her slave-girls' breasts and deriv-
ed enjoyment from their screams and writhing. You will say that that occurred
in comparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too, because
(also comparatively speaking) pins are stuck in even now; that even though
man has now learned to see more clearly occasionally than in barbarous times,
he is still far from having accustomed himself to act as reason and science
would dictate. But all the same you are fully convinced that he will inevita-
bly accustom himself to it when he gets completely rid of certain old bad hab-
its, and when common sense and science have completely re-educated human
nature and turned it in a normal direction. You are confident that man will
then refrain from erring intentionally, and will, so to say, willy-nilly, not
want to set his will against his normal interests. More than that: then, you
say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind that is a luxury) that
he does not really have either caprice or will of his own and that he has
never had it, and that he himself is something like a piano key or an organ
stop, and that, moreover, laws of nature exist in this world, so that every-
thing he does is not done by his will at all, but is done by itself, accord-
ing to the laws of nature. Consequently we have only to discover these laws
of nature, and man will no longer be responsible for his actions and life
will become exceedingly easy for him. All human actions will then, of course,
be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like tables of logari-
thms up to 108,000, and entered in a table; or, better still, there would
be published certain edifying works like the present encyclopedic lexicons,
in which everything will be so clearly calculated and designated that there
will be no more incidents or adventures in the world.

Then--it is still you speaking--new economic relations will be established,
all ready-made and computed with mathematical exactitude, so that every pos-
sible question will vanish in a twinkling, simply because every possible an-
swer to it will be provided. Then the crystal palace will be built. Then--
well, in short, those will be halcyon days. Of course there is no guarantee-
ing (this is my comment now) that it will not be, for instance, terribly bor-
ing then (for what will one have to do when everything is calculated accord-
ing to the table?) but on the other hand everything will be extraordinarily
rational. Of course boredom may lead you to anything. After all, boredom even
sets one to sticking gold pins into people, but all that would not matter.
What is load (this is my comment again) is that for all I know people will
be thankful for the gold pins then. After all, man is stupid, phenomenally
stupid. Or rather he is not stupid at all, but he is so ungrateful that you
could not find another like him in all creation. After all, it would not sur-
prise me in the least, if, for instance, suddenly for no reason at all, gen-
eral rationalism in the midst of the future, a gentleman with an ignoble, or
rather with a reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, put-
ting his arms akimbo, say to us all: "What do you think, gentlemen, hadn't
we better kick over all that rationalism at one blow, scatter it to the winds,
just to send these logarithms to the devil, and to let us live once more ac-
cording to our own foolish will!" That again would not matter; but what is
annoying is that after all he would be sure to find followers--such is the
nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would
think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhere and always,
whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he wished and not in the least
as his reason and advantage dictated. Why, one may choose what is contrary
to one's own interests, and sometimes one positively ought (that is my idea).
One's own free unfettered choice, one's own fancy, however wild it may be,
one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy--why that is that very "most
advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no
classification and through which all systems and theories are continually
being sent to the devil. And how do these sages know that man must neces-
sarily need a rationally advantageous choice? What man needs is simply in-
dependent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may
lead. Well, choice, after all, the devil only knows . . .



VIII



"Ha! ha! ha! But after all, if you like, in reality, there is no such thing
as choice," you will interrupt with a laugh. "Science has even now succeeded
in analyzing man to such an extent that we know already that choice and
what is called freedom of will are nothing other than--"

Wait, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself. I admit that I was even
frightened. I was just going to shout that after all the devil only knows
what choice depends on, and that perhaps, that was a very good thing, but
I remembered the teaching of science--and pulled myself up. And here you
have begun to speak. After all, really, well, if some day they truly dis-
cover a formula for all our desires and caprices--that is, an explanation
of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, just how they develop,
what they are aiming at in one case or another and so on, and so on, that
is, a real mathematical formula--then, after all, man would most likely
at once stop to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would
want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a hu-
man being into an organ stop or something of the sort; for what is a man
without desire, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an
organ? What do you think? Let us consider the probability--can such a thing
happen or not?

"H'm!" you decide. "Our choice is usually mistaken through a mistaken no-
tion of our advantage. We some-times choose absolute nonsense because in
our stupidity we see in that nonsense the easiest means of attaining an ad-
vantage assumed beforehand. But when all that is explained and worked
out on paper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and sense-
less to assume in advance that man will never understand some laws of na-
ture), then, of course, so-called desires will not exist. After all, if
desire should at any time come to terms completely with reason, we shall
then, of course, reason and not desire, simply because, after all, it will
be impossible to retain reason and desire something senseless, and in that
way knowingly act against reason and desire to injure ourselves. And as
all choice and reasoning can really be calculated, because some day they
will discover the laws of our so-called free will--so joking aside, there
may one day probably be something like a table of sires sires so that we
really shall choose in accordance with it. After all, if, for instance,
some day they calculate and prove to me that I stuck my tongue out at
someone because I could not help sticking my tongue out at him and that
I had to do it in that particular way, what sort of freedom is left me,
especially if I am a learned man and have taken my degree somewhere? Af-
ter all, then I would be able to calculate my whole life for thirty years
in advance. In short, if that comes about, then, after all, we could do
nothing about it. We would have to accept it just the same. And, in fact,
we ought to repeat to ourselves incessantly that at such and such a time
and under such and such circumstances, Nature does not ask our leave;
that we must accept her as she is and not as we imagine her to be, and
if we really aspire to tables and indices and well, even--well, let us
say to the chemical retort, then it cannot be helped. We must accept the
retort, too, or else it will be accepted without our consent."

Yes, but here I come to a stop! Gentlemen, you must excuse me for phil-
osophizing; its the result of forty years underground! Allow me to in-
dulge my fancy for a minute. You see, gentlemen, reason, gentlemen, is
an excellent thing, there is no disputing that, but reason is only rea-
son and can only satiny man's rational faculty, while will is a mani-
festation of all life, that is, of all human life including reason as
well as all impulses. And al-though our life, in this manifestation of
it, is often worthless, yet it is life nevertheless and not simply ex-
tracting square roots. After all, here I, for instance, quite naturally
want to live, in order to satisfy all my faculties for life, and not
simply my rational faculty, that is, not simply one-twentieth of all
my faculties for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what
it has succeeded in learning (some things it will perhaps never learn;
while this is nevertheless no comfort, why not say so frankly?) and
human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, con-
sciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives. I
suspect, gentlemen, that you are looking at me with compassion; you
repeat to me that an enlightened and developed man, such, in short,
as the future man will be, cannot knowingly desire anything disadvan-
tageous to himself, that this can be proved mathematically. I tho-
roughly agree, it really can--by mathematics. But I repeat for the
hundredth time, there is one case, one only, when man may purposely,
consciously, desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid,
very stupid--simply in order to have the right to desire for himself
even what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to de-
sire only what is rational. After all, this very stupid thing, after
all, this caprice of ours, may really be more advantageous for us,
gentlemen, than anything else on earth, especially in some cases. And
in particular it may be more advantageous than any advantages even
when it does us obvious harm, and contradicts the soundest conclusions
of our reason about our advantage--because in any case it preserves
for us what is most precious and most important--that is, our person-
ality, our individuality. Some, you see, maintain that this really is
the most precious thing for man; desire can, of course, if it desires,
be in agreement with reason; particularly if it does not abuse this
practice but does so in moderation, it is both useful and sometimes
even praiseworthy. But very often, and even most often, desire com-
pletely and stubbornly opposes reason, and . . . and . . . and do you
know that that, too, is useful and sometimes even praiseworthy? Gen-
tlemen, let us suppose that man is not stupid. (Indeed, after all, one
cannot say that about him anyway, if only for the one consideration
that, if man is stupid, then, after all, who is wise?) But if he is
not stupid, he is just the same monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally
ungrateful. I even believe that the best definition of man is--a crea-
ture that walks on two legs and is ungrateful. But that is not all,
that is not his worst defect; his worst defect is his perpetual immor-
ality, perpetual--from the days of the Flood to the Schleswig-Holstein
period of human destiny. Immorality, and consequently lack of good
sense; for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to
no other cause than immorality. Try it, and cast a look upon the his-
tory of mankind. Well, what will you see? Is it a grand spectacle? All
right, grand, if you like. The Colossus of Rhodes, for instance, that
is worth something. Mr. Anaevsky may well testify that some say it is
the work of human hands, was created by Nature herself. Is it var-
iegated? Very well, it may be variegated too. If one only took the
dress uniforms, military and civilian, of all peoples in all ages--
that alone is worth something, and if you take the undress uniforms
you will never get to the end of it; no historian could keep up with
it. Is it monotonous? Very well. It may be monotonous, too; they fight
and fight; they are fighting now, they fought first and they fought
last--you will admit that it is almost too monotonous. In short, one
may say anything about the history of the world--anything that might
enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one cannot say
is that it is rational. The very word sticks in one's throat. And, in-
deed, this is even the kind of thing that continually happens. After
all, there are continually turning up in life moral and rational peo-
ple, sages, and lovers of humanity, who make it their goal for life to
live as morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light
to their neighbors, simply in order to show them that it is really pos-
sible to live morally and rationally in this world. And so what? We
all know that those very people sooner or later toward the end of their
lives have been false to themselves, playing some trick, often a most
indecent one. Now I ask you: What can one expect from man since he is
a creature endowed with such strange qualities? Shower upon him every
earthly blessing, drown him in bliss so that nothing but bubbles would
dance on the surface of his bliss, as on a sea; give him such economic
prosperity that he would have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes
and busy himself with ensuring the continuation of world history and
even then man, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer libel, would play you
some loathsome trick. He would even risk his cakes and would delibe-
rately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity,
simply to introduce into all this positive rationality his fatal fan-
tastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly,
that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself (as
though that were so necessary) that men still are men and not piano
keys, which even if played by the laws of nature themselves threaten
to be controlled so completely that soon one will be able to desire
nothing but by the calendar. And, after all, that is not all: even if
man really were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to
him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become
reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of sheer in-
gratitude, simply to have his own way. And if he does not find any
means he will devise destruction and chaos, will devise sufferings of
all sorts, and will thereby have his own way. He will launch a curse
upon the world, and, as only man can curse (it is his privilege the
primary distinction between him and other animals) then, after all,
perhaps only by his curse will he attain his object, that is, really
convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key! If you say
that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated, chaos and
darkness and curses, so that possibility of calculating it all before-
hand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself--then man
would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and have his
own way! I believe in that, I vouch for it, because, after all, the
whole work of man seems really to consist in nothing but proving to
himself continually that he is a man and not an organ stop. It may be
at the cost of his skin! But he has proved it; he may become a caveman,
but he will have proved it. And after that can one help sinning, re-
joicing that it has not yet come, and that desire still depends on the
devil knows what!

You will shout at me (that is, if you will still favor me with your
shout) that, after all, no one is depriving me of my will, that all
they are concerned with is that my will should somehow of itself, of
its own free will, coincide with my own normal interests, with the
laws of nature and arithmetic.

Bah, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when a we come to ta-
bles and arithmetic, when it will all be case of two times two makes
four? Two times two makes four even without my will. As if free will
meant that!



IX



Gentlemen, I am joking, of course, and I know myself that I'm joking
badly, but after all you know, one can't take everything as a joke. I
am, perhaps, joking with a heavy heart. Gentlemen, I am tormented by
questions; answer them for me. Now you, for instance, want to cure
men of their old habits and reform their will in accordance with sci-
ence and common sense. But how do you know, not only that it is pos-
sible, but also that it is desirable, to reform man in that way? And
what leads you to the conclusion that it is so necessary to reform
man's desires? In short, how do you know that such a reformation will
really be advantageous to man? And to go to the heart of the matter,
why are you so sure of your conviction that not to act against his
real normal advantages guaranteed by the conclusions of reason and a-
rithmetic is always advantageous for man and must be a law for all
mankind? After all, up to now it is only your supposition. Let us as-
sume it to be a law of logic, but perhaps not a law of humanity at all.
You gentlemen perhaps think that I am mad? Allow me to defend myself.
I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal, predestined to
strive consciously toward a goal, and to engage in engineering; that
is, eternally and incessantly, to build new roads, wherever they may
lead. But the reason why he sometimes wants to swerve aside may be pre-
cisely that he is forced to make that road, and perhaps, too, because
however stupid the straightforward practical man may be in general, the
thought nevertheless will sometimes occur to him that the road, it
would seem, almost always does lead somewhere, and that the destina-
tion it leads to is less important than the process of making it, and
that the chief thing is to save the well-behaved child from despising
engineering, and so giving way to the fatal idleness, which, as we all
know, is the mother of all vices. Man likes to create and build roads,
that is beyond dispute. But why does he also have such a passionate
love for destruction and chaos? Now tell me that! But on that point I
want to say a few special words myself. May it not be that he loves
chaos and destruction (after all, he sometimes unquestionably likes it
very much, that is surely so) because he is instinctively afraid of at-
taining his goal and completing the edifice he is constructing? How do
you know, perhaps he only likes that edifice from a distance, and not
at all at close range, perhaps he only likes to build it and does not
want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, aux animaux do-
mestiques--such as the ants, the sheep, and so on, and so on. Now the
ants have quite a different taste. They have an amazing edifice of that
type, that endures forever--the anthill.

With the anthill, the respectable race of ants began and with the an-
thill they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to their
perseverence and staidness. But man is a frivolous and incongruous
creature, and perhaps, like a chessplayer, loves only the process of
the game, not the end of it. And who knows (one cannot swear to it),
perhapsthe only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in
this incessant process of attaining, or in other words, in life itself, and
not particularly in the goal which of course must always be two times
two makes four, that is a formula, and after all, two times two makes
four is no longer life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Any-
way, man gentlemen, always been somehow afraid of this two times two
makes four, and I am afraid of it even now. Granted that man does no-
thing but seek that two times two makes four, that he sails the oceans,
sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it--he
is somehow afraid, I assure you. He feels that as soon as he has found
it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finish-
ed their work they at least receive their pay, they to the tavern, then
they wind up at the police station go andthere is an occupation for a
week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkward-
ness about him every time he attains such goals. He likes the process
of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of
course, is terribly funny. In short, man is a comical creature; there
seems to be a kind of pun in it all. But two times two makes four is,
after all, something insufferable. Two times two makes four seems to
me simply a piece of insolence. Two times two makes four is a fop
standing with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that
two times two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are going to
praise every-thing, two times two makes five is sometimes also a very
charming little thing.

And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly convinced that only the nor-
mal and the positive--in short, only prosperity--is to the advantage
of man? Is not reason mistaken about advantage? After all, perhaps man
likes something besides prosperity? Perhaps he likes suffering just as
much? Perhaps suffering is just as great an advantage to him as pros-
perity? Man is sometimes fearfully, passionately in love with suffering
and that is a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to
prove that; only ask yourself, if only you are a man and have lived at
all. As far as my own personal opinion is concerned, to care only for
prosperity seems to me somehow even ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad,
it is sometimes very pleasant to smash things, too. After all, I do not
really insist on suffering or on prosperity either. I insist on my ca-
price, and its being guaranteed to me when necessary. Suffering would
be out ofplace in vaudevilles, for instance; I know that. In the crys-
tal palace it is even unthinkable; suffering means doubt, means negation,
and what would be the good of a crystal palace if there could be any
doubt about it? And yet I am sure man will never renounce real suffer-
ing, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, after all, suffering is the
sole origin of consciousness. Though I stated at the beginning that
consciousness, in my opinion, is the greatest misfortune for man, yet
I know man loves it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Con-
sciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to two times two makes
four. Once you have two times two makes four, there is nothing left to
do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your
five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to con-
sciousness, even though you attain the same result, you can at least
flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. It
may be reactionary, but corporal punishment is still better than no-
thing.



X



You believe in a crystal edifice that can never be destroyed; that is,
an edifice at which one would neither be able to stick out one's tongue
nor thumb one's nose on the sly. And perhaps I am afraid of this edi-
fice just because it is of crystal and can never be destroyed and that
one could • not even put one's tongue out at it even on the sly.

You see, if it were not a palace but a chicken coop and rain started, I
might creep into the chicken coop to avoid getting wet, and yet I would
not call the chicken coop a palace out of gratitude to it for shelter-
ing me from the rain. You laugh, you even say that in such circumstances
a chicken coop is as good as a mansion. Yes, I answer, if one had to
live simply to avoid getting wet.

But what is to be done if I have taken it into my head that this is not
the only object in life, and that if one must live one may as well live
in a mansion. That is my choice, my desire. You will only eradicate it
when you have changed my desire. Well, do change it, tempt me with some-
thing else, give me another ideal. But in the meantime, I will not take
a chicken coop for a palace. Let the crystal edifice even be an idle
dream, say it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have
invented it only through my own stupidity, through some old-fashioned
irrational habits of my generation. But what do I care if it is inconsis-
tent? Does it matter at all, since it exists in my desires, or rather
exists as long as my desires exist? Perhaps you are laughing again? Laugh
away; I will put up with all your laughter rather than pretend that I am
satisfied when I am hungry. I know, anyway, that I will not be appeased
with a compromise, with an endlessly recurring zero, simply because it
is consistent with the laws of nature and really exists. I will not ac-
cept as the crown of my desires a block of buildings with apartments for
the poor on a lease of a thousand years and, to take care of any contin-
gency, a dentist's shingle hanging out. Destroy my desires, eradicate my
ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. You may say,
perhaps, that it is not worth your getting involved in it; but in that
case, after all, I can give you the same answer. We are discussing things
seriously; but if you won't deign to give me your attention, then, after
all, I won't speak to you, I do have my underground.

But while I am still alive and have desires I would rather my hand were
withered than to let it bring one brick to such a building! Don't remind
me that I have just rejected the crystal edifice for the sole reason that
one cannot put out one's tongue at it. I did not say it at all because I
am so fond of putting my tongue out. Perhaps the only thing I resented
was that of all your edifices up to now, there has not been a single one
at which one could not put out one's tongue. On the contrary, I would
let my tongue be cut off out of sheer gratitude if things could be so
arranged that I myself would lose all desire to put it out. What do I
care that things cannot be so arranged, and that one must be satisfied
with model apartments? Why then am I made with such desires? Can I have
been made simply in order to come to the conclusion that the whole way
I am made is a swindle? Can this be my whole purpose? I do not believe
it.

But do you know what? I am convinced that we underground folk ought to
be kept in tow. Though we may be able to sit underground forty years
without speaking, when we do come out into the light of day and break
out we talk and talk and talk.



XI



The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to do no-
thing! Better conscious inertia! And so hurrah for underground!

Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the point of exasper-
ation, yet I would not care to be in his place as he is now (though I
will not stop envying him. No, no; anyway the underground life is more
advantageous!) There, at any rate, one can-- Bah! But after all, even
now I am lying! I am lying because I know myself as surely as two times
two makes four, that it is not at all underground that is better, but
something different, quite different, for which I long but which I can-
not find! Damn underground!

I will tell you another thing that would be better, and that is, if I
myself believed even an iota of what I have just written. I swear to
you, gentlemen, that I do not really believe one thing, not even one
word, of what I have just written. That is, I believe it, perhaps, but
at the same time, I feel and suspect that I am lying myself blue in
the face.

"Then why have you written all this?" you will say to me.

"I ought to put you underground for forty years without anything to do
and then come to you to find out what stage you have are How can a man
be left alone with nothing to do for forty years?"

"Isn't that shameful, isn't that humiliating?" you will say, perhaps,
shaking your heads contemptuously. "You long for life and try to settle
the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how tiresome, how insolent
your outbursts are, and at the same time, how scared you are! You talk
nonsense and are pleased with it; you say impudent things and are con-
stantly afraid of them and apologizing for them. You declare that you
are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate yourself
with us. You declare that you are gnashing your teeth and at the same
time you try to be witty so as to amuse us. You know that your witti-
cisms are not witty, but you are evidently well satisfied with their
literary value. You may perhaps really have suffered, but you have no
respect whatsoever for your own suffering. You may be truthful in what
you have said but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest vanity you
bring your truth to public exposure, to the market place, to ignominy.
You doubtlessly mean to say something, but hide your real meaning for
fear, because you lack the resolution to say it, and only have a cow-
ardly impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are unsure of your
ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is corrupted by de-
pravity, and you cannot have a full, genuine consdousness with a pure
heart. And how tiresome you are, how you thrust yourself on people and
grimace! Lies, lies, liesl"

Of course I myself have made up just now all the things you say. That,
too, is from underground. For forty years I have been listening to your
words there through a crack under the floor. I have invented them my-
self. After all there was nothing else I could invent. It is no wonder
that I have learned them by heart and that it has taken a literary form.

But can you really be so credulous as to think that I will print all
this and give it to you to read too? And another problem; why do I real-
ly call you "gentlemen," why do I address you as though you really were
my readers? Such declarations as I intend to make are never printed nor
given to other people to read. Any-way, I am not strong-minded enough
for that, and I don't see why I should be. But you see a fancy has oc-
curred to me and I want to fulfill it at all costs. Let me explain.

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone,
but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even
to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally
there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and
every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away.
That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the
number of such things in his mind. Anyway, I have only lately decided
to remember some of my early adventures. Till now I have always avoided
them, even with a certain uneasiness. Now, however, when I am not only
recalling them, but have actually decided to write them down, I want to
try the experiment whether one can be perfectly frank, even with oneself,
and not take fright at the whole truth. I will observe, parenthetically,
that Heine maintains that a true autobiography is almost an impossibil-
ity, and that man is bound to lie about himself. He considers that Rous-
seau certainly told lies about himself in his confess sions, and even
intentionally lied, out of vanity. I am convinced that Heine is right;
I understand very well that sometimes one may, just out of sheer vanity,
attribute regular crimes to oneself, and indeed I can very well conceive
that kind of vanity. But Heine judged people who made their confessions
to the public. I, however, am writing for myself, and wish to declare
once and for all that if I write as though I were addressing readers,
that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that way. It is
merely a question of form, only an empty form --I shall never have reade-
rs. I have made this plain already.

I don't wish to be hampered by any restrictions in compiling my notes.
I shall not attempt any system or method. I will jot things down as I
remember them.

But here, perhaps, someone will take me at my word and ask me: if you
really don't count on readers, why do you make such compacts with your-
self--and on paper too--that is, that you won't attempt any system or
method, that you will jot things down as you remember them, etc., etc.?
Why do you keep explaining? Why do you keep apologizing?

Well, there it is, I answer.

Incidentally, there is a whole psychological system in this. Or, perhaps,
I am simply a coward. And perhaps also, that I purposely imagine an au-
dience before me in order to conduct myself in a more dignified manner
while I am jotting things down. There are perhaps thousands of reasons.

And here is still something else. What precisely is my object in writing?
If it is not for the public, then after all, why should I not simply re-
call these incidents in my own mind without putting them down on paper?

Quite so; but yet it is somehow more dignified on paper. There is some-
thing more impressive in it; I will be able to criticize myself better
and improve my style. Besides, perhaps I will really get relief from
writing. Today, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by a certain
memory from the distant past. It came back to my mind vividly a few
days ago, and since then, has remained with me like an annoying tune
that one cannot get rid of. And yet I must get rid of it. I have hun-
dreds of such memories, but at times some single one stands out from
the hundreds and oppresses me. For some reason I believe that if I write
it down I will get rid of it. Why not try?

Besides, I am bored, and I never do anything. Writing will really be a
sort of work. They say work makes man kindhearted and honest. Well, here
is a chance for me, anyway.

It is snowing today. A wet, yellow, dingy snow. It fell yesterday too
and a few days ago. I rather think that I remembered that incident
which I cannot shake off now, apropos of the wet snow. And so let it
be a story apropos of the wet snow.




　　　　　　　　　　　　PART TWO

　　　APROPOS OF THE WET SNOW




　　　When from the gloom of corruption
　　　I delivered your fallen soul
　　　With the ardent speech of conviction;
　　　And, full of profound torment,
　　　Wringing your hands, you cursed
　　　The vice that ensnared you;
　　　When, with memories punishing
　　　Forgetful conscience
　　　You told me the tale
　　　Of all that happened before me,
　　　And suddenly, covering your face,
　　　Full of shame and horror,
　　　You tearfully resolved,
　　　Outraged, shocked. . . .
　　　Etc., etc., etc.
　　　　　　　　　　　　From the poetry of N. A. Nekrasov.


I


At that time I was only twenty-four. My life was even then gloomy, disorgan-
ized, and solitary to the point of savagery. I made friends with no one and
even avoided talking, and hid myself in my corner more and more. At work in
the office I even tried never to look at anyone, and I was very well aware
that my colleagues looked upon me, not only as a crank, but looked upon me--
so I always thought--seemed to look upon me with a sort of loathing. I some-
times wondered why no one except me thought that he was looked upon with
loathing. One of our clerks had a repulsive, pock-marked face, which even
looked villainous. I believe I would not have dared to look at anyone with
such an unsightly face. Another had a uniform so worn that there was an un-
pleasant smell near him. Yet not one of these gentlemen was disconcerted
either by his clothes or his face or in some moral sense. Neither of them
imagined that he was looked at with loathing, and even if he had imagined
it, it would not have mattered to him, so long as his superiors did not look
at him in that way. It is perfectly clear to me now that, owing to my un-
bounded vanity and, probably, to the high standard I set for myself, I very
often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing,
and so I inwardly attributed the same view to everyone. For instance, I hate-
d my face; I thought it disgusting, and even suspected that there was some-
thing base in its expression and therefore every time I turned up at the of-
fice I painfully tried to behave as independently as possible so that I might
not be suspected of being base, and to give my face as noble an expression
as possible. "Let my face even be ugly," I thought, "but let it be noble,
expressive, and, above all, extremely intelligent." But I was absolutely and
painfully certain that my face could never express those perfections; but
what was worst of all, I thought it positively stupid-looking. And I would
have been quite satisfied if I could have looked intelligent. In fact, I
would even have put up with looking base if, at the same time. my face could
have been thought terribly intelligent.

Of course, I hated all my fellow-clerks, one and all, and I despised them
all, yet at the same time I was, as it were, afraid of them. It happened at
times that I even thought more highly of them than of myself. It somehow
happened quite suddenly then that I alternated between despising them and
thinking them superior to myself. A cultivated and decent man cannot be
vain without setting an inordinately high standard for himself, and without
despising himself at certain moments to the point of hatred. But whether I
despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes almost every time
I met anyone. I even made experiments whether I could face So-and-So's look-
ing at me, and I was always the first to drop my eyes. This tormented me to
the point of frenzy. I was also morbidly afraid of being ridiculous, and so
I slavishly worshipped the conventional in everything external. I loved to
fall into the common rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of ec-
centricity in my-self. But how could I live up to it? I was morbidly culti-
vated as a cultivated man of our age should be. They were all dull, and as
like one another as so many sheep. Perhaps I was the only one in the office
who constantly thought that I was a coward and a slave, and I thought it
precisely because I was cultivated. But I did not only think it, in actual-
ity it was really so. I was a coward and a slave. I say this without the slight-
est embarrassment. Every decent man in our age must be a coward and a
slave. That is his normal condition. I am profoundly convinced of that. He
is made that way and is con-structed for that very purpose. And not only at
the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at all
times, a decent man must be a coward and a slave. That is the law of nature
for all decent people on the earth. If any one of them happens to be brave
about something, he need not be comforted or carried away by that; he will
funk out just the same before something else. That is how it invariably and
inevitably ends. Only asses and mules are brave, and even they are so only
until they come up, against the wall. It is not even worth while to pay at-
tention to them. Because they don't mean anything at all.

Still another circumstance tormented me in those days: that no one resembled
me and that I resembled no one else. "I am alone and they are every one," I
thought--and pondered.

From that it can be seen that I was still an absolute child.

The very opposite sometimes happened. After all, how vile it sometimes seemed
to have to go to the office; things reached such a point that I often came
home ill. But all at once, for no rhyme or reason, there would come a phase
of skepticism and indifference (everything happened to me in phases), and I
would myself laugh at my intolerance and fastidiousness. I would reproach my-
self with being romantic. Sometimes I was unwilling to speak to anyone, while
at other times I would not only talk, but even think of forming a friendship
with them. All my fastidiousness would suddenly vanish for no rhyme or reason.
Who knows, perhaps I never had really had it, and it had simply been affected,
and gotten out of books. I have still not decided that question even now.
Once I quite made friends with them, visited their homes, played preference,
drank vodka, talked of promotion s .. . But here let me make a digression.

We Russians, speaking generally, have never had those foolish transcendental
German, and still more, French, romantics on whom nothing produces any effect;
if there were an earthquake, if all France perished at the barricades, they
would still be the same, they would not even change for decency's sake, but
would still go on singing their transcendental songs, so to speak, to the
hour of their death, because they are fools. We, in Russia, have no fools;
that is well known. That is what distinguishes us from foreign lands. Con-
sequently those transcendental natures do not exist among us in their pure
form. We only think they do because our "positivistic" journalists and crit-
ics of that time, always on the hunt for Kostanzhoglos and Uncle Peter Ivan-
iches1 and foolishly accepting them as our ideal, slandered our romantics,
taking them for the same transcendental sort that exists in Germany or France.
On the contrary, the characteristics of our romantics are absolutely and dir-
ectly opposed to the transcendental European type, and not a single European
standard can be applied to them. (Allow me to make use of this word "romantic"
--an old-fashioned and much-respected word which has done good service and
is familiar to all.) The characteristics of our romantics are to understand ever-
ything, to see everything and often to see it incomparably more clearly than
our most positivistic minds see it; to refuse to accept anyone or anything,
but at the same time not to despise anything; to give way, to yield, from pol-
icy; never to lose sight of a useful practical goal (such as rent-free govern-
ment quarters, pensions, decorations), to keep their eye on that object through
all the enthusiasms and volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to pre-
serve "the sublime and the beautiful" inviolate within them to the hour of
their death, and also, incidentally, to preserve themselves wrapped in cotton,
like some precious jewel if only for the benefit of "the sublime and the beau-
tiful." Our romantic is a man of great breadth and the greatest rogue of all
our rogues, I assure you. I can even assure you from experience. Of course all
that occurs if he is intelligent. But what am I saying! The romantic is always
intelligent, and I only meant to observe that although we have had foolish ro-
mantics they don't count, and they were only so because in the flower of their
youth they degenerated completely into Germans, and to preserve their precious
jewel more comfortably, settled somewhere out there--by preference in Weimar
or the Black Forest. I, for instance, genuinely despised my official work and
did not openly abuse it simply through necessity because I was in it myself
and got a salary for it. And, as a result, take note, I did not openly abuse
it. Our romantic would rather go out of his mind (which incidentally happened
very rarely) than abuse it, unless he had some other career in view; and he is
never kicked out, unless, of course, he is taken to the lunatic asylum as "the
King of Spain" and then only if he went very mad. But after all, it is only
the thin, fair people who go out of their minds in Russia. Innumerable roman-
tics later in life rise to considerable rank in the service. Their versatility
is remarkable! And what a faculty they have for the most contradictory sensa-
tions! I was comforted by those thoughts even in those days, and I am so still.
That is why there are so many "broad natures" among us who never lose their
ideal even in the depths of degradation; and though they never lift a finger
for their ideal, though they are arrant thieves and robbers, yet they tearful-
ly cherish their first ideal and are extraordinarily honest at heart. Yes,
only among us can the most arrant rogue be absolutely and even loftily honest
at heart without in the least ceasing to be a rogue. I repeat, our romantics,
after all, frequently become such accomplished rascals (1 use the term "ras-
cals" affectionately), suddenly display such a sense of reality and practical
knowledge, that their bewildered superiors and the public can only gape in
amazement at them.

Their many-sidedness is really astounding, and goodness knows what it may
turn itself into under future circumstances, and what lies in store for us
later on. They are good stuff! I do not say this out of any foolish or boast-
ful patriotism. But I feel sure that you are again imagining that I am joking.
Or perhaps it's just the con-trary, and you are convinced that I really think
so. Any-way, gentlemen, I shall welcome both views as an honor and a special
favor. And do forgive my digression.

I did not, of course, maintain a friendship with my comrades and soon was at
loggerheads with them, and in my youthful inexperience I even gave up bowing
to them, as though I had cut off all relations. That, how-ever, only happened
to me once. As a rule, I was always alone.

In the first place, at home, I spent most of my time reading. I tried to sti-
fle all that was continually seething within me by means of external sensa-
tions. And the only source of external sensation possible for me was reading.
Reading was a great help, of course, it excited, delighted and tormented me.
But at times it bored me terribly. One longed for movement just the same, and
I plunged all at once into dark, subterranean, loathsome--not vice but petty
vice. My petty passions were acute, smarting, from my continual sickly irri-
tability. I had hysterical fits, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource
except reading--that is, there was then nothing in my sur-roundings which
I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depres-
sion, too; I had an hysterical craving for contradictions and for contrast,
and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify myself, after all
--but no, I am lying. I did want to justify myself. I make that little obser-
vation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I vowed to myself
I would not.

I indulged my vice in solitude at night, furtively, timidly, filthily, with a feel-
ing of shame which never deserted me, even at the most loathsome moments,
and which at such moments drove me to curses. Even then I already had
the underground in my soul. I was terribly afraid of being seen, of being met,
of being recognized. I visited various completely obscure places.

One night as I was passing a tavern, I saw through a lighted window some gen-
tlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown out of the win-
dow. At another time I would have felt very much disgusted, but then I was
suddenly in such a mood that I actually envied the gentleman thrown out of the
window, and I envied him so much that I even went into the tavern and into the
billiard-room. "Perhaps," I thought, "I'll have a fight, too, and they'll throw
me out of the window."

I was not drunk, but what is one to do--after all, depression will drive a
man to such a pitch of hysteria. But nothing happened. It seemed that I was not
even equal to being thrown out of the window and I went away without having
fought.

An officer put me in my place from the very first moment.

I was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignor-ance blocking up the way,
and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without a word--without
a warning or an explanation--moved me from where I was standing to another spot
and passed by as though he had not noticed me. I could even have forgiven blows,
but I absolutely could not forgive his having moved me and so completely fail-
ing to notice me.

Devil knows what I would then have given for a real regular quarrel--a more de-
cent, a more literary one, so to speak. I had been treated like a fly. This of-
ficer was over six feet, while I am short and thin. But the quarrel was in my
hands. I had only to protest and I certainly would have been thrown out of the
window. But I changed my mind and preferred to beat a resentful retreat.

I went out of the tavern straight home, confused and troubled, and the next
night I continued with my petty vices, still more furtively, abjectly and mis-
erably than before, as it were, with tears in my eyes--but still I did con-
tinue them. Don't imagine, though, that I funked out on the officer through
cowardice. I have never been a coward at heart, though I have always been a
coward in action. Don't be in a hurry to laugh. There is an explanation for
it. I have an explanation for everything, you may be sure.

Oh, if only that officer had been one of the sort who would consent to fight
a duel! But no, he was one of those gentlemen (alas, long extinct!) who pre-
ferred fighting with cues, or, like Gogol's Lieutenant Pirogov, appealing to
the police. They did not fight duels and would have thought a duel with a
civilian like me an utterly unseemly procedure in any case--and they looked
upon the duel altogether as something impossible, something free-thinking
and French, but they were quite ready to insult people, especially when they
were over six feet.

I did not funk out through cowardice here but through unbounded vanity. I
was not afraid of his six feet, not of getting a sound thrashing and being
thrown out of the window; I would probably have had sufficient physical cou-
rage; but I lacked sufficient moral courage. What I was afraid of was that
everyone present, from the insolent marker down to the lowest little stink-
ing pimply clerk hanging around in a greasy collar, would jeer at me and
fail to understand when I began to protest and to address them in literary
language. For even now we cannot, after all, speak of the point of honor--
not of honor, but of the point of honor (point d'honneur) except in literary
language. You cannot allude to the "point of honor" in ordinary language.
I was fully convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all romanticism!)
that they would all simply split their sides with laughter and that the
officer would not simply, that is, not uninsultingly, beat me, but would
certainly prod me in the back with his knee, kick me round the billiard-
table that way and only then perhaps have pity and throw me out of the
window. Of course, this trivial incident could not have ended like that
with me. I often met that officer afterward in the street and observed him
very carefully. I am not quite sure whether he recognized me, I imagine
not; I judge from certain signs. But I--I stared at him with spite and
hatred and so it went on--for several years! My resentment even grew
deeper with the years. At first I began making stealthy inquiries about
this officer. It was difficult for me to do so, for I knew no one. But
one day I heard someone call him by his name in the street when I was fol-
lowing him at a distance, just as though I were tied to him--and so I
learned his surname. Another time I followed him to his flat, and for a
few pennies learned from theporter where he lived, on which floor, whether
he lived alone or with others, and so on--in fact, everything one could
learn from a porter. One morning, though I had never tried to write any-
thing before, it suddenly occurred to me to describe this officer in the
form of an exposé, in a satire, in a tale. I wrote the tale with relish.
I did expose him. I slandered him; at first I so altered his name that
it could easily be recognized but on second thought I changed it, and sent
the story to the Annals of the Fatherland. But at that time such exposes
were not yet the fashion and my story was not printed. That was a great
vexation to me. Sometimes I was positively choked with resentment. At
last I decided to challenge my enemy to a duel. I composed a splendid,
charming letter to him, imploring him to apologize to me, and hinting ra-
ther plainly at a duel in case of refusal. The letter was so composed that
if the officer had had the least understanding of the "sublime and the
beautiful" he would certainly have rushed to me to fling himself on my
neck and to offer me his friendship. And how fine that would have been!
How we would have gotten along! How we would have gotten along! "He
could have shielded me with his higher rank, while I could have improved
his mind with my culture, and, well--my ideas, and all sorts of things might
have happened." Just think, this was two years after his insult to me,
and my challenge was the most ridiculous anachronism, in spite of all the
ingenuity of my letter in disguising and explaining away the anachronism.
But, thank God (to this day I thank the Almighty with tears in my eyes),
I did not send the letter to him. Cold shivers run down my back when I
think of what might have happened if I had sent it. And all at once I re-
venged myself in the simplest way, by a stroke of genius! A brilliant
thought suddenly dawned upon me. Sometimes on holidays I used to stroll
along the sunny side of the Nevsky between three and four in the after-
noon. That is, I did not stroll so much as experience innumerable tor-
ments, humiliations and resentments; but no doubt that was just what I
wanted. I used to wriggle like an eel among the passers-by in the most
unbecoming fashion, continually moving aside to make way for generals,
for officers of the Guards and the Hussars, or for ladies. In those min-
utes I used to feel a convulsive twinge at my heart, and hot all the way
down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my dress, of the
wretchedness and vulgarity of my little wriggling figure. This was a reg-
ular martyrdom, a con-tinual, intolerable humiliation at the thought,
which passed into an incessant and direct sensation, that I was a fly in
the eyes of this whole world, a nasty, disgusting fly--more intelligent,
more cultured, more noble than any of them, of course, but a fly that was
continually making way for everyone, insulted and humiliated by everyone.
Why I inflicted this torment upon myself, why I went to the Nevsky, I
don't know. I felt simply drawn there at every possible opportunity.

Already then I began to experience a rush of the enjoyment of which I
spoke in the first chapter. After my affair with the officer I felt even
more drawn there than before: it was on the Nevsky that I met him most
frequently, it was there that I could admire him. He, too, went there
chiefly on holidays. He, too, made way for generals and persons of high
rank, and he, too, shifted among them like an eel; but people like me,
or even neater than I, he simply walked over; he made straight for them
as though there was nothing but empty space before him, and never, under
any circumstances, moved aside. I gloated over my resentment watching
him and--resentfully made way for him every time. It tormented me that
even in the street I could not be on an even footing with him. "Why
must you invariably be the first to move aside?" I kept asking myself
in hysterical rage, waking up sometimes at three o'clock in the morning.
"Why precisely you and not he? After all, there's no regulation about it;
after all, there's no written law about it. Let the making way be equal
as it usually is when re-fined people meet; he moves halfway and you
move half-way; you pass with mutual respect." But that never happened,
and I always made way, while he did not even notice I moved aside for
him. And lo and behold the most astounding idea dawned upon me! "What,"
I thought, "if I meet him and--don't move aside? What if I don't move a-
side on purpose, even if I were to bump into him? How would that be?"
This audacious idea little by little took such a hold on me that it
gave me no peace. I dreamt of it continually, terribly, and I purposely
went to the Nevsky more frequently in order to picture more vividly how
I would do it when I did do it. I was delighted. This plan seemed to me
more and more practical and possible. "Of course I will not really bump
him," I thought, already moregood-natured in my joy. "I will simply not
turn aside, will bump against him, not very violently, but just shoul-
dering each other--just as much as decency permits. I will bump him
just as much as he bumps me." At last I made up m mind completely. But
my preparations took a great deal of time. To begin with, when I car-
ried out my plan I would have to look rather more decent, and I had to
think of my clothes. "In any case, if, for instance, there were any sort
of public scandal (and the public there is of the most superflu: the
Countess walks there; Prince D. walks there; the whole literary world is
there), I would have to be well dressed; that inspires respect and of
itself puts us in some way on equal footing in the eyes of high. so-
ciety." With that in mind I asked for my salary in advance, and bought
at Churkin's a pair of black gloves and a decent hat. Black gloves seem-
ed to me both more dignified and bon ton than the lemon-colored ones
which I had contemplated at first. "The color is too gaudy, it looks as
though one were trying to be conspicuous," and I did not take the lemon-
colored ones. I had gotten ready a good shirt, with the bone studs, long
beforehand; but my overcoat very much delayed me. The coat in itself was
a very good one, it kept me warm; but it was wadded and it had a raccoon
collar which was the height of vulgarity. I had to change the collar at
any sacrifice, and to have a beaver one like an officer's. For this pur-
pose I began visiting the Gostiny Dvor and after several attempts I lit on
a piece of cheap German beaver. Though these German beavers very soon
wear out and look shabby, at first, when new, they look exceedingly well,
and after all, I only needed it for one occasion. I asked the price; even
so, it was too expensive. After thinking it over thoroughly I decided to
sell my raccoon collar. The rest of the money--a considerable sum for me,
I decided to borrow from Anton Antonich Syetochkin, my superior, an unas-
suming person, but grave and dependable. He never lent money to anyone,
but I had, on entering the service, been specially recommended to him by
an important personage who had got me my job. I was terribly worried. To
borrow from Anton Antonich seemed to me monstrous and shameful. I did
not sleep for two or three nights, and indeed I did not sleep well in general
at that time, I was in a fever; I had a vague sinking at my heart or sud-
denly it would start to throb, throb, throb! Anton Antonich was at first
surprised, then he frowned, then he reflected, and did after all lend me
the money, receiving from me a written authorization to take from my sal-
ary a fortnight later the sum that he had lent me. In this way everything
was at last ready. The handsome beaver was established in place of the
mean-looking raccoon, and I began by degrees to get to work. It would ne-
ver have done to act offhand, at random; the plan had to be carried out
skillfully, by degrees. But I must confess that after many efforts I al-
most even began to despair; we could not run into each other and that is
all there was to it. I made every preparation, I was quite determined--
it seemed as though we would run into one another directly--and before
I knew what I was doing I had stepped aside for him again and he had pas-
sed without noticing me. I even prayed as I approached him that God would
grant me determination. One time I had made up my mind thoroughly, but
it ended in my stumbling and falling at his feet because at the very last
instant when I was only some six inches from him my courage failed me.
He very calmly stepped over me, while I flew to one side like a ball.
That night I was ill again, feverish and delirious. And suddenly it end-
ed most happily. The night before I had made up my mind not to carry out
my fatal plan and to abandon it all, and with that goal in mind I went
to the Nevsky for the last time, just to see how I would abandon it all.
Suddenly, three paces from my enemy, I unexpectedly made up my mind--I
closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt, shoulder to shoulder, into each
other! I did not budge an inch and passed him on a perfectly equal foot-
ing! He did not even look round and pretended not to notice it; but he
was only pretending, I am convinced of that. I am convinced of that to
this day! Of course, I got the worst of it--he was stronger, but that
was not the point. The point was that I had attained my goal, I had kept
up my dignity. I had not yielded a step, and had put myself publicly on
an equal social footing with him. I returned home feeling that I was
perfectly avenged for everything. I was delighted. I was triumphant and
sang Italian arias. Of course, I will not describe to you what happened
to me three da later; if you have read my first chapter "Underground,"
you can guess for yourself. The officer was afterward transferred; I have
not seen him now for fourteen years. What is the dear fellow doing now?
Whom is he walking over?



II



But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt terribly
sick afterward. It was followed by remorse--I tried to drive it away; I
felt too sick. By degrees, however, I grew used to that, too. I grew
used to everything that is, I did not really grow used to it, but rather
I voluntarily resigned myself to enduring it. But I had a means of es-
cape that reconciled everything--that was to find refuge in "the sublime
and the beautiful," in dreams. Of course I was a terrible dreamer. I
would dream for three months on end, tucked away in my corner, and you
may believe me that at those moments I had no resemblance to the gen-
tleman who, in his chicken-hearted anxiety, put a German beaver collar
on his greatcoat. I suddenly became a hero. I would not have received my
six-foot lieutenant even if he had called on me. I could not even pic-
ture him before me then. What were my dreams and how I could satisfy my-
self with them, it is hard to say now, but at the time I did satisfy my-
self with them, to some extent. Dreams were particularly sweet and vivid
after a little vice; they came with remorse and with tears, with curses
and transports. There were moments of such positive intoxication, of such
happiness, that there was not the faintest trace of irony within me, on
my honor. I had faith, hope, love. That is just it. I believed blindly
at such times that by some miracle, through some external circumstance,
all this would suddenly open out, expand; that suddenly a vista of suit-
able activity--beneficial, good, and above all, ready-made (what sort of
activity I had no idea, but the great thing was that it should be all
ready for me)--would rise up before me, and I should come out into the
light of day, almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel. I
could not conceive of a secondary role for myself, and for that reason I
quite contentedly played the lowest one in reality. Either to be a hero
or to grovel in the mud--there was nothing between. That was my ruin,
for when I was in the mud I comforted myself with the thought that at
other times I was a hero, and I took refuge in this hero for the mud:
for an ordinary man, say, it is shameful to defile himself, but a hero
is too noble to be utterly defiled, and so he might defile himself. It
is worth noting that these attacks of "the sublime and the beautiful"
visited me even during the period of vice and just at the times when I
had sunk to the very bottom. They came in separate spurts, as though
reminding me of themselves, but did not banish the vice by their ap-
pearance. On the contrary, they seemed to add a zest to it by contrast,
and were only sufficiently present to serve as an appetizing sauce. That
sauce was made up of contradictions and sufferings, of agonizing inward
analysis, and all these torments and pin-pricks lent my vice a certain
piquancy, even a significance--in short, completely fulfilled the fun-
ction of a good sauce. There was even a certain depth of meaning in it.
And I could hardly have restrained myself to the simple, vulgar, direct
clerk-like vice and have endured all the filthiness of it. What could
have attracted me about it then and have driven me at night into the
street? No, I had a noble loophole for everything.

And what love, oh Lord, what love I felt at times in those dreams of
mine! In those "flights into the sublime and the beautiful"; though it
was fantastic love, though it was never applied to anything human in
reality, yet there was so much of this love that afterward one did not
even feel the impulse to apply it in reality; that would have been a
superfluous luxury. Everything, however, always passed satisfactorily
by a lazy and fascinating transition into the sphere of art; that is,
into the beautiful forms of life, ready made, violently stolen from
the poets and novelists and adapted to all sorts of needs and uses. I,
for instance, was triumphant over everyone; everyone, of course, lay
in the dust and was forced to recognize my superiority spontaneously,
and I forgave them all. I, a famous poet, and a courtier, fell in love;
I inherited countless millions and immediately devoted them to human-
ity, and at the same time I confessed before all the people my shame-
ful deeds, which, of course, were not merely shameful, but contained
an enormous amount of "the sublime and the beautiful," something in
the Manfred style. Everyone would weep and kiss me (what idiots they
would be if they did not), while I would go barefoot and hungry preach-
ing new ideas and fighting a victorious Austerlitz against the react-
ionaries. Then a march would sound, an amnesty would be declared, the
Pope would agree to retire from Rome to Brazil; then there would be a
ball for the whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese on the shores of
Lake Como, Lake Como being for that purpose transferred to the neigh-
borhood of Rome; then would come a scene in the bushes, etc., etc.--
as though you did not know all about it! You will say that it is vul-
gar and base to drag all this into public after all the tears and rap-
tures I have myself admitted. But why is it base? Can you imagine that
I am ashamed of it all, and that it was stupider than anything in your
life, gentlemen? And I can assure you that some of these fancies were
by no means badly composed. Not everything took place on the shores
of Lake Como. And yet you are right--it really is vulgar and base.
And what Is most base of all is that I have now started to justify my-
self to you. And even more base than that is my making this remark now.
But that's enough, or, after all, there will be no end to it; each
step will be more base than the last.

I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time
without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To
plunge into society meant to visit my superior, Anton Antonich Sye-
tochkin. He was the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my life,
and I even wonder at the fact myself now. But I even went to see him
only when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached
such a point of bliss that it became essential to embrace my fellows
and all mankind immediately. And for that purpose I needed at least
one human being at hand who actually existed. I had to call on Anton
Antonich, however, on Tuesday--his at-home day; so I always had to
adjust my passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall
on a Tuesday. This Anton Antonich lived on the fourth floor in a house
in Five Corners, in four low-pitched rooms of a particularly frugal
and sallow appearance, one smaller than the next. He had two daugh-
ters and their aunt, who used to pour out the tea. Of the daughters
one was thirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and
I was terribly embarrassed by them because they were always whisper-
ing and giggling together. The master of the house usually sat in his
study on a leather couch in front of the table, with some gray-headed
gentleman, usually a colleague from our office or even some other de-
partment. I never saw more than two or three visitors there, and
those always the same. They talked about the excise duty, about bus-
iness in the senate, about salaries, about promotions, about His Ex-
cellency, and the best means of pleasing him, and so on, and so on.
I had the patience to sit like a fool beside these people for four
hours at a stretch, listening to them without knowing what to say to
them or venturing to say a word. I became stupefied; several times I
felt myself perspiring. I was overcome by a sort of paralysis; but
that was pleasant and useful for me. On returning home I deferred
for a time my desire to embrace all mankind.

I had, however, one other acquaintence of a sort, Simonov, who was
an old schoolfellow. Indeed I had a number of schoolfellows in Pet-
ersburg, but I did not associate with them and had even given up nod-
ding to them in the street. Perhaps I even transferred into the de-
partment I was in simply to avoid their company and to cut off at
one stroke all connection with my hateful childhood. Curses on that
school and all those terrible years of penal servitude! In short, I
parted from my schoolfellows as soon as I got out into the world.
There were two or three left to whom I nodded in the street. One of
them was Simonov, who had been in no way distinguished at school,
was of a quiet and even disposition; but I discovered in him a cer-
tain independence of character and even honesty. I don't even sup-
pose that he was particularly limited. I had at one time spent some
rather soulful moments with him, but these had not lasted long and
had somehow been suddenly clouded over. He was evidently uncomfort-
able at these reminiscences, and was, it seemed, always afraid that
I might take up the same tone again. I suspected that he had an av-
ersion for me, but I still went on going to see him, not being com-
pletely certain of it.

And so on one occasion, on a Thursday, unable to endure my solitude
and knowing that it was Thursday Anton Antonich's door would be
closed, I thought of Simonov. Climbing up four floors to his place, I
was thinking that I made the man uncomfortable and that it was a
mistake to go to see him. But as it always happened that such re-
flections impelled me even more strongly, as though purposely, to
put myself into a false position, I went in. It was almost a year
since I had last seen Simonov.



III



I found two more of my old schoolfellows with him. They seemed to be
discussing an important matter. All of them scarcely took any notice
of my entrance, which was strange, for I had not seen them for years.
Evidently they looked upon me as something on the level of a common
fly. I had not been treated like that even at school, although every-
body hated me there. I knew, of course, that they must despise me now
for my lack of success in the service, and for having let myself sink
so low, going about badly dressed and so on which seemed to them a
sign of my inaptitude and insignificance. But nevertheless I had not
expected such contempt. Simonov even seemed surprised at my turning
up. Even in the old days he had always seemed surprised at my coming.
All this disconcerted me; I sat down, feeling rather miserable, and
began listening to what they were saying.

They were engaged in an earnest and even heated discussion about a
farewell dinner these gentlemen wanted to arrange together the very
next day for their friend Zverkov, an officer in the army, who was
going away to a distant province. Monsieur Zverkov had been all the
time at school with me too. I had begun to hate him par-ticularly in
the upper classes. In the lower classes he had simply been a pretty,
playful boy whom everybody liked. I had hated him, however, even in
the lower classes, just because he was a pretty and playful boy. He
was always consistently poor in his work, and got worse and worse as
he went on; nevertheless he was successfully graduated as influence
was exerted on his behalf. During his last year at school he inherited
an estate of two hundred serfs, and as almost all of us were poor he
even started to boast before us. He was vulgar to the worst degree, but
nevertheless he was a good-natured fellow, even when he boasted. In
spite of superficial, fantastic and rhetorical notions of honor and dig-
nity, all but a very few of us positively grovelled before Zverkov, and
the more so the more he boasted. And they did not grovel for any advan-
tage, but simply because he had been favored by the gifts of nature.
Moreover, we came somehow to accept the idea that Zverkov was a special-
ist in regard to tact and good manners. That particularly infuriated me.
I hated the sharp, self-confident tone of his voice, his admiration for
his own witticisms, which were terribly stupid, though he was bold in
his expressions; I hated his handsome but stupid face (for which I would,
however, have gladly exchanged my intelligent one), and the free-and-
easy military manners in fashion in the 'forties. I hated the way in
which he used to talk of his future conquests of women (he did not ven-
ture to begin with women until he had officer's epaulettes and was look-
ing forward to them with impatience), and boasted of the duels he would
constantly be fighting. I remember how I, invariably so taciturn, sudden-
ly attacked Zverkov, when one day he talked at a leisure moment with his
schoolfellows of the affairs he would have in the future and growing as
sportive as a puppy in the sun, he all at once declared that he would
not leave a single village girl on his estate unnoticed, that that was
his droit de seigneur, and that if the peasants dared to protest he
would have them all flogged and double their taxes, the bearded rascals.
Our servile rabble applauded, but I attacked him, not at all out of com-
passion for the girls and their fathers, but simply because they were
applauding such a beetle. I got the better of him on that occasion, but
though Zverkov was stupid he was lively and impudent, and so laughed it
off, and even in such a way that my victory was not really complete:
the laugh was on his side. He got the better of me on several occasions
afterward, but without malice, somehow just in jest, casually, in fun.
I remained maliciously and contemptuously silent. When we left school
he made advances to me; I did not rebuff them much, for I was flattered,
but we soon parted naturally. Afterward I heard of his barrack-room suc-
cess as a lieutenant, and of the fast life he was leading. Then there
came other rumors--of his successes in the service. By then he no longer
greeted me in the street, and I suspected that he was afraid of comprom-
ising himself by greeting a person as insignificant as I. I also saw him
once in the theatre, in the third tier of boxes. By then he was a staff
officer. He was twisting and twirling about, ingratiating himself with
the daughters of an ancient general. In three years his looks had gotten
considerably worse, though he was still rather handsome and smart. He
had somehow swelled, started to put on weight. One could see that by the
time he was thirty he would be completely fat. So it was, finally, to
this Zverkov that my schoolfellows were going to give a dinner on his
departure. They had kept up with him for those three years, though priv-
ately they did not consider themselves on an equal footing with him, I
am convinced of that.

Of Simonov's two visitors, one was Ferfichkin, a Russianized German--
a little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always
deriding everyone, a very bitter enemy of mine from our days in the low-
er classes--a vulgar, impudent, boastful fellow, who affected a most
sensitive feeling of personal honor, though, of course, he was a wretch-
ed little coward at heart. He was one of those admirers of Zverkov who
made up to the latter out of calculation, and often borrowed money from
him. Simonov's other visitor, Trudolyubov, was a person in no way re-
markable--a military lad, tall with a cold face, quite honest. But he
worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable of thinking of
promotion. He was some distant relation of Zverkov and this, foolish
as it seems, gave him a certain importance among us. He never thought
me of any consequence whatever; while his behavior to me was not quite
courteous, it was tolerable.

"Well then, with seven roubles each," said Trudo-lyubov, "twenty-one
roups from the three of us, we can dine well. Zverkov, of course, won't
pay."

"Of course not, since we are inviting him," Simonov decided.

"Can you imagine," Ferfichkin interrupted hotly and conceitedly, like
some insolent flunky boasting of his master the general's decorations,
"can you imagine that Zverkov will let uspay alone? He will accept from
delicacy, but he will order a half case on his own."

"Why do we need half a case for the four of us?" observed Trudolyubov,
taking notice only of the half case.

"So the three of us, with Zverkov for the fourth, twenty-one roubles,
at the Hotel de Paris at five o'dock tomorrow," Simonov, who had been
asked to make the arrangements, concluded finally.

"How about twenty-one roubles?" I asked in some agitation, even offend-
ed, apparently; "if you count me it will be twenty-eight, not twenty-
one roubles."

It seemed to me that to invite myself so suddenly and unexpectedly
would be positively graceful, and that they would all be conquered at
once and would look at me with respect.

"Do you want to join, too?" Simonov observed, with displeasure, and
seemed to avoid looking at me. He knew me inside out.

It infuriated me that he knew me inside out.

"Why not? After all, I am an old schoolfellow of his too, I believe,
and I must admit I feel offended that you have left me out," I said,
boiling over again.

"And where were we to find you?" Ferfichkin put in roughly.

"You were never on good terms with Zverkov," Trudolyubov added, frown-
ing. But I had already clutched at the idea and would not let go.

"I do not think that anyone has a right to judge that,"

I retorted in a shaking voice, as though God only knows what had hap-
pened. "Perhaps that is just my reason for wishing it now, that I have
not always been on good terms with him."

"Oh, there's no making you out--with these refinements," Trudolyubov
jeered.

"We'll put your name down," Simonov decided, addressing me. "Tomorrow
at five o'clock at the Hotel de Paris."

"What about the money?" Ferfichkin began in an undertone, indicating me
to Simonov, but he broke off, for even Simonov was embarrassed.

"That will do," said Trudolyubov, getting up. "If he wants to come so
much, let him."

"But after all it's a private thing, between us friends," Ferfichkin
said crossly, as he too picked up his hat. "It's not an official meeting.
Perhaps we do not want you at all--"

They went away. Ferfichkin did not salute me in any way as he went out.
Trudolyubov barely nodded. Simonov, with whom I remained alone, was in
some state of vexed perplexity, and looked at me strangely. He did not
sit down and did not ask me to.

"H'm--yes--tomorrow, then. Will you pay your share now? I just ask so as
to know," he muttered in embarrassment.

I blazed up in anger but as I did so I remembered that I had owed Simonov
fifteen roubles for ages--which I had, indeed, never forgotten, though
I had not paid it.

"You will understand, Simonov, that I could have had no idea when I
came here--I am very much vexed that I have forgotten--"

"All right, all right, it doesn't matter. You can pay tomorrow after the
dinner. After all, I simply wanted to know-- Please don't--"

He broke off and began pacing the room still more vexed. As he walked he
began to thump with his heels and stomped even louder.

"Am I keeping you?" I asked, after two minutes of silence.

"Oh, no!" he said, starting, "that is--to be truthful--yes. I have to go
and see someone--not far from here," he added in a sort of apologetic
voice, somewhat ashamed.

"My goodness, but why didn't you say so?" I cried, seizing my cap with,
incidentally, an astonishingly free-and-easy air, which was the last thing
I would have ex-pected of myself.

"After all, it's close by--not two paces away," Simo-nov repeated, accom-
panying me to the front door with a fussy air which did not suit him at
all. "So five o'clock, punctually, tomorrow," he called down the stairs
after me. He was very glad to get rid of me. I was in a fury.

"What possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them?" I
gnashed my teeth, as I strode along the street. "For a scoundrel, a pig like
that Zverkovt Of course, I had better not go; of course, I can just snap
my fingers at them. I am not bound in any way. I'll send Simonov a note by
tomorrow's post--"

But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I would go, that
I would purposely go; and the more tactless, the more ill-mannered my going
would be, the more certainly I would go.

And there was even a positive obstacle to my going: I had no money. All I
had altogether, was nine roubles. But I had to give seven of that to my ser-
vant, Apollon, for his monthly wages. That was all I paid him--he had to
keep himself.

Not to pay him was impossible, considering his character. But I will talk
about that fellow, about that plague of mine, another time.

However, I knew I would go after all and would not pay him his wages.

That night I had the most hideous dreams. No wonder; the whole evening I
had been oppressed by memories of my days of penal servitude at school, and
I could not shake them off. I was sent to the school by distant re-lations,
upon whom I was dependent and of whom I have heard nothing since--they sent
me there, a lonely, silent boy, already crushed by their reproaches, already
troubled by doubt, and looking savagely at everything around him. My school-
fellows met me with spiteful and merciless jibes because I was not like any
of them. But I could not endure their taunts; I could not give in to them as
cheaply as they gave in to one another. I hated them from the first, and shut
myself away from everyone in timid, wounded and disproportionate pride. Their
coarseness revolted me. They laughed cynically at my face, at my clumsy fig-
ure; and yet what stupid faces they themselves had. In our school the boys'
faces somehow degenerated and grew stupider particularly. How many fine-look-
ing boys came to us? In a few years they became repulsive looking. Even at
sixteen I wondered at them morosely; even then I was struck by the pettiness
of their thoughts, the stupidity of their pursuits, their games, their con-
versations. They had no understanding of such essential things, they took no
interest in such striking, impressive subjects, that I could not help con-
sidering them inferior to myself. It was not wounded vanity that drove me to
it, and for God's sake do not thrust upon me your hackneyed remarks, repeated
to nausea, that "I was only a dreamer, while they even then understood real
life." They understood nothing, they had no idea of real life, and I swear that
that was what made me most indignant with them. On the contrary, the most
obvious, striking reality they accepted with fantastic stupidity and even then
had already begun to respect only success. Everything that was just, but op-
pressed and looked down upon, they laughed at cruelly and shamefully. They
took rank for intelligence; even at sixteen they were already talking about
a snug berth. Of course a great deal of it was due to their stupidity, to the
bad examples that constantly surrounded them in their childhood and boyhood.
They were monstrously depraved. Of course much of that, too, was superficial
and much was only affected cynicism; of course there were glimpses of youth
and freshness in them even beneath their depravity; but even that freshness
was not attractive in them, and showed itself in a certain rakishness. I hated
them terribly, though perhaps I was worse than any of them. They repaid me in
kind, and did not conceal their aversion for me. But by then I did not want
them to like me; on the contrary, I continually longed for them to humiliate
me. To escape from their derision I purposely began to make all the progress
I could with my studies and forced my way to the very top. This impressed them.
Moreover, they all began to grasp slowly that I was already reading books none
of them could read, and understood things (not forming part of our school cur-
riculum) of which they had not even heard. They took a savage and sar-castic
view of it, but were morally impressed, especially as the teachers began to
notice me on those grounds. The mockery ceased but the hostility remained,
and cold and strained relations were formed between us. In the end I could not
stand it myself; with years a craving for society, for friends, developed in
me. I attempted to get on friendly terms with some of my schoolfellows; but
somehow or other my intimacy with them was always strained and soon ended
of itself. Once, indeed, I did have a friend. But I was already a tyrant at
heart; I wanted to exercise unlimited power over him; 1 tried to instil into
him a contempt for his surroundings; I required of him a disdainful and com-
plete break with those surroundings. I frightened him with my passionate af-
fection; I reduced him to tears, to convulsions. He was a simple and devoted
soul; but when he submitted to me completely I began to hate him immediately
and rejected him--as though all I needed him for was to win a victory over
him, to subjugate him and nothing else. But I could not subjugate all of them;
my friend was not at all like them either, he was, in fact, a rare exception.
The first thing I did on leaving school was to give up the special job for
which I had been destined so as to break all ties, to curse my past and scat-
ter it to the winds-- And goodness knows why, after all that, I should drag
myself to that Simonov!

Early next morning I roused myself and jumped out of bed with excitement, as
though it were all about to happen at once. But I believed that some radical
change in my life was coming, and would inevitably come that day. Owing to
its rarity, perhaps, any external event, however trivial, always made me feel
as though some radical change in my life would occur immediately. I went to
the office as usual, however, but slipped away home two hours early to get
ready. The important thing, I thought, is not to be the first to arrive, or
they will think I was overjoyed at coming. But there were thousands of such
important points to consider, and they all agitated me to the point of impo-
tence. I polished my boots a second time with my own-hands; nothing in the
world would have induced Apollon to clean them twice a day, as he considered
that it was more than his duties required of him. I stole the brushes to
clean them from the passage, so that he would not detect it and then start
to despise me. Then I minutely examined my clothes, and found that everything
looked old, worn and threadbare. I had let myself get too slovenly. My uni-
form, perhaps, was in good shape, but I could hardly go out to dinner in my
uniform. And the worst thing was that on the knee of my trousers was a big
yellow stain. I had a foreboding that that stain would in itself deprive me
of nine-tenths of my personal dignity. I knew, too, that it was stooping very
low to think so. "But this is no time for thinking: now the real thing is be-
ginning," I thought, and my heart sank. I knew, too, perfectly well even then,
that I was monstrously exaggerating the facts. But how could I help it? I
could not control myself and I was already shaking with fever. With despair
I pictured to myself how coldly and disdainfully that "scoundrel" Zverkov
would greet me; with what dull-witted, absolutely pro-found contempt the
blockhead Trudolyubov would look at me; with what nasty insolence the beetle
Ferfichkin would snigger at me in order to curry favor with Zverkov; how com-
pletely Simonov would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the ab-
jectness of my vanity and faint-heartedness, and worst of all how paltry, un-
literary, commonplace it would all be. Of course the best thing would be not
to go at all. But that was the most impossible of all: once I feel impelled
to do anything, I am completely drawn into it, head first. I would have jeer-
ed at myself ever afterward: "So you funked it, you funked the real thing,
you funked it!" On the contrary, I passionately longed to show all that "rab-
ble" that I was not at all such a coward as I pictured myself. What is more,
even in the acutest paroxysm of this cowardly fever, I dreamed of getting
the upper hand, of over-coming them, carrying them away, making them like me
if only for my "elevation of thought and unmistakable wit." They would aban-
don Zverkov, he would sit on one side, silent and ashamed, while I would
crush Zverkov. Then, perhaps, I would be reconciled to him and toast our cam-
araderie; but what was most spiteful and insulting for me was that I knew even
then, knew completely and for certain, that I needed nothing of all this real-
ly, that I did not really want to crush, to subdue, to attract them, and that
I would be the first not to care a straw, really, for the result, even if I
did achieve it. Oh, how I prayed to God for the day to pass quickly! In inex-
pressible anguish I went to the window, opened a pane and looked out into the
turbid darkness of the thickly falling wet snow.

At last my wretched little wall clock hissed out five. I seized my hat trying
not to look at Apollon, who had been all day expecting his month's wages, but
in his pride was unwilling to be the first to speak about it. I slipped past
him and out the door, and jumping into a high-class sledge, on which I spent
my last half-rouble, I drove up in grand style to the Hotel de Paris.



IV



I had already known the day before that I would be the first to arrive. But it
was no longer a question of precedence.

Not only were they not there, but I even had difficulty finding our room. The
table had still not been completely set. What did it mean? After a good many
questions I finally ascertained from the waiters that the dinner had been or-
dered not for five, but for six o'clock. This was confirmed at the buffet too.
I even felt ashamed to go on questioning them. It was still only twenty-five
minutes past five. If they changed the dinner hour they ought in any case to
have let me know--that is what the post is for, and not to have subjected me
to "shame" both in my own eyes and--well, before the waiters. I sat down: the
servant began to set the table; I felt even more insulted when he was present.
Toward six o'clock they brought in candles, though there were lamps burning
in the room. It had not occurred to the waiter, however, to bring them in at
once when I arrived. In the next room, two gloomy, angry-looking persons were
eating their dinners in silence at two different tables. There was a great
deal of noise, even shouting, in a room farther away; one could hear the laugh-
ter of a crowd of people, and nasty little shrieks in French; there were ladies
at the dinner. In short, it was sickening. I rarely passed a more unpleasant
time, so much so that when they did arrive all together punctually at six I
was for the first moment overjoyed to see them, as though they were my deli-
verers, and almost forgot it was incumbent upon me to look insulted.

Zverkov walked in at the head of them; evidently he was the leading spirit.
He and all of them were laughing; but, seeing me, Zverkov drew himself up,
walked up to me unhurriedly with a slight, rather jaunty bend from the waist,
and shook hands with me in a friendly but not over-friendly fashion, with a
sort of circumspect courtesy almost like a general's as though in giving me
his hand he were warding off something. I had imagined, on the contrary, that
as soon as he came in he would immediately break into his former thin, shriek-
ing laugh and fall to making his insipid jokes and witticisms. I had been
preparing for them ever since the previous day, but I had never expected such
condescension, such high-official courtesy. So, then, he felt himself immea-
surably superior to me in every respect! If he had only meant to insult me by
that high-official tone, it would still not have mattered, I thought--I could
pay him back for it one way or another. But what if, in reality, without the
least desire to be offensive, that sheep's-head had seriously acquired the
notion that he was immeasurably superior to me and could only look at me in
a patronizing way? The very supposition made me gasp.

"I was surprised to hear of your desire to join us," he began, lisping and
drawling, which was something new. "You and I seem to have seen nothing of
one another. You fight shy of us. You shouldn't. We are not such terrible
people as you think. Well, anyway, I am glad to renew our acquaintance."

And he turned carelessly to put down his hat on the window sill.

"Have you been waiting long?" Trudolyubov inquired.

"I arrived punctually at five o'clock as I was informed yesterday," I an-
swered aloud, with an irritability that promised an imminent explosion.

"Didn't you let him know that we had changed the hour?" said Trudolyubov
to Simonov.

"No, I didn't. I forgot," the latter replied, with no sign of regret, and
without even apologizing to me he went off to order the hors d'ouevres.

"So you've been here a whole hour? Oh, you poor fellow!" Zverkov cried i-
ronically, for according to his notions this was bound to be extremely
funny. That scoundrel Ferfichkin followed with his nasty little snigger
like a puppy yapping. My position struck him, too, as extremely ludicrous
and embarrassing.

"It isn't funny at all!" I cried to Ferfichkin, more and more irritated.
"It wasn't my fault, but other people's. They neglected to let me know.
It was--it was--it was simply absurd."

"It's not only absurd, but something else as well," muttered Trudolyubov,
naively taking my part. "You are too complacent about it. It was simply
rudeness--unintentional, of course. And how could Simonov--h'm!"

"If a trick like that had been played on me," observed Ferfichkin, "I
would--"

"But you should have ordered yourself something," Zverkov interrupted,
"or simply asked for dinner without waiting for us."

"You will allow that I might have done that without your permission,"
I rapped out. "If I waited, it was--"

"Let us sit down, gentlemen," cried Simonov, coming in. "Everything is
ready; I can answer for the champagne; it is capitally chilled.--After
all, I did not know your address. Where was I to look for you?" He sud-
denly turned to me, but again he seemed to avoid looking at me. Evident-
ly he had something against me. He must have made up his mind after what
happened yesterday.

Everybody sat down: I did the same. It was a round table. Trudolyubov
was on my left, Simonov on my right. Zverkov was sitting opposite, Fer-
fichkin next to him, between him and Trudolyubov.

"Te-e-ell me, are you--in a government agency?" Zverkov went on, attend-
ing to me. Seeing that I was embarrassed, he seriously thought that he
ought to be friendly to me, and, so to speak, cheer me up. "Does he want
me to throw a bottle at his head or something?" I thought, in a fury. In
my unaccustomed surroundings I was unnaturally quick to be irritated.

"In the N---office,• I answered jerkily, with my eyes on my plate.

"And--ha-ave you a go-od berth? Te-e-ll me, what ma-a-de you leave your
former job?"

"What ma-a-de me was that I wanted to leave my original job," I drawled
twice as much as he, hardly able to control myself. Ferfichkin snorted.
Simonov looked at me ironically. Trudolyubov stopped eating and began
looking at me with curiosity.

Zverkov was jarred but he pretended not to notice it.

"A-a-and the remuneration?"

"What remuneration?"

"I mean, your sa-a-lary?"

"Why are you cross-examining me?"

However, I told him at once what my salary was. I blushed terribly.

"It is not very handsome," Zverkov observed majestically.

"Yes, you can't afford to dine in restaurants on that," Ferfichkin added
insolently.

"I think it's very low," Trudolyubov observed gravely.

"And how thin you have grown! How you have changed!" added Zverkov, with
a shade of venom in his voice, scanning me and my attire with a sort of
insolent compassion.

"Oh, spare his blushes," cried Ferfichkin, sniggering.

"My dear sir, permit me to tell you I am not blushing," I broke out at
last; "do you hear? I am dining here, at this restaurant, at my own ex-
pense, at mine, not at other people's--note that, Monsieur Ferfichkin."

"Wha-at do you mean? Isn't everyone here dining at his own expense? You
seem to be--" Ferfichkin let fly at me, turning as red as a lobster, and
looking me in the face with fury.

"Tha-at's what I mean," I answered, feeling I had gone too far, "and I
imagine it would be better to talk of something more intelligent."

"You intend to show off your intelligence, I suppose?"

"Don't disturb yourself, that would be quite out of place here."

"What are you clacking away like that for, my good sir, eh? Have you
gone out of your wits in your dumbpartment?"

"Enough, gentlemen, enough!" Zverkov cried, authoritatively.

"How stupid it is," muttered Simonov.

"It really is stupid. We have met here, a company of friends, for a fare-
well dinner to a good comrade and you are settling old scores," said Tru-
dolyubov, rudely addressing himself to me alone. "Yesterday you invited
yourself to join us, so don't disturb the general harmony."

"Enough, enough!" cried Zverkov. "Stop it, gentlemen, it's out of place.
Better let me tell you how I nearly got married the day before yesterday
. . ."

And then followed a burlesque narrative of how this gentleman had almost
been married two days before. There was not a word about marriage, howev-
er, but the story was adorned with generals, colonels and high courtiers
while Zverkov practically took the lead among them. It was greeted with
approving laughter; Ferfichkin even squealed.

No one paid any attention to me, and I sat crushed and humiliated.

"Good heavens, these are not the people for me!" I thought. "And what
a fool I have made of myself before them! I let Ferfichkin go too far,
though. The brutes imagine that it is an honor for me to sit down with
them. They don't understand that I do them an honor. I to them and not they
to me! I've grown thinner! y clothes! Oh, damn my trousers! Zverkov long
ago noticed the yellow stain on the knee . . . But what's the use! I must
get up at once, this very minute, take my hat and simply go without a
word--out of contempt! And tomorrow I can send a challenge. The scoun-
drels! After all, I don't care about the seven roubles. They may think
. . . Damn it! I don't care about the seven roubles. I'll go this minute!"

Of course I remained.

I drank sherry and Lafitte by the glassful in my distress. Being unaccus-
tomed to it, I quickly became intoxicated and my annoyance increased with
the intoxication. I longed all at once to insult them all in a most fla-
grant manner and then go away. To seize the moment and show what I
could do, so that they would say, "Though he is absurd, he's clever," and
--and--in short, damn them all!

I scanned them all insolently with my dulled eyes. But they seemed to have
forgotten me altogether. They were noisy, vociferous, cheerful. Zverkov
kept talking. I began to listen. Zverkov was talking about some sumptuous
lady whom he had at last led on to declaring her love (of course, he was
lying like a horse), and how he had been helped in this affair by an in-
timate friend of his, a Prince Kolya, an officer in the Hussars, who had
three thousand serfs.

"And yet, this Kolya, who has three thousand serfs, has not put in an ap-
pearance here tonight at all to see you off," I cut in suddenly. For a
minute everyone was silent.

"You are drunk already." Trudolyubov deigned to notice me at last, glanc-
ing contemptuously in my direction. Zverkov, without a word, examined me
as though I were a little beetle. I dropped my eyes. Simonov made haste
to fill up the glasses with champagne.

Trudolyubov raised his glass, as did everyone else but me.

"Your health and good luck on the journey!" he cried to Zverkov. "To old
times, gentlemen, to our future, hurrah!"

They all tossed off their glasses, and crowded round Zverkov to kiss him.
I did not move; my full glass stood untouched before me.

"Why, aren't you going to drink it?" roared Trudolyubov, losing patience
and turning menacingly to me.

"I want to make a toast separately, on my own account . . . and then I'll
drink it, Mr. Trudolyubov."

"Disgusting crank!" muttered Simonov.

I drew myself up in my chair and feverishly seized my glass, prepared for
something extraordinary, though I did not know myself precisely what I was
going to say.

"Silence!" cried Ferfichkin, in French. "Now for a display of wit!"

Zverkov waited very gravely, knowing what was coming.

"Lieutenant Zverkov," I began, "let me tell you that I hate phrases, phras-
emongers and corseted waists--that's the first point, and there is a second
one to follow it."

There was a general stir.

"The second point is: I hate dirty stories and people who tell dirty stories.
Especially people who tell dirty stories!

"The third point: I love truth, sincerity and honesty," I went on almost mech-
anically, for I was beginning to shiver with horror and had no idea how I came
to be talking like this. "I love thought, Monsieur Zverkov; love true comrade-
ship, on an equal footing and not-h'm--I love--but, however, why not? I will
drink to your health, too, Monsieur Zverkov. Seduce the Circassian girls,
shoot the enemies of the fatherland and--and--to your health, Monsieur Zverkov!"

Zverkov got up from his seat, bowed to me and said "I am very much obliged to
you."

He was frightfully offended and even turned pale.

"Damn the fellow!" roared Trudolyubov, bringing his fist down on the table.

"Well, he ought to be punched in the nose for that," squealed Ferfichkin.

"We ought to turn him out," muttered Simonov.

"Not a word, gentlemen, not a movement!" cried Zverkov solemnly, checking the
general indignation. "I thank you all, but I can show him for myself how much
value I attach to his words."

"Mr. Ferfichkin, you will give me satisfaction tomorrow at the latest for your
words just now!" I said aloud, turning with dignity to Ferfichkin.

"A duel, you mean? Certainly," he answered. But probably I was so ridiculous
as I challenged him and it was so out of keeping with my appearance that ev-
eryone, including Ferfichicin, roared with laughter.

"Yes, let him alone, of course! After all, he is completely drunk," Trudolyu-
bov said with disgust.

"I will never forgive myself for letting him join us," Simonov muttered again.

"Now is the time to throw a bottle at their heads," I thought to myself. I pick-
ed up the bottle . . . and poured myself a full glass.

"No, I had better sit on to the end," I went on thinking; "you would be pleased,
my friends, if I left. Nothing will induce me to go. I'll go on sitting here,
and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that I don't attach the slightest
importance to you. I will go on sitting and drinking, because this is a public-
house and I paid my entrance money. I'll sit here and drink, for I look upon you
as so many pawns, as inanimate pawns. I'll sit here and drink--and sing if I want
to, yes, sing, for I have the right to--to sing--h'm!"

But I did not sing. I simply tried not to look at any of them. I assumed most un-
concerned attitudes and waited with impatience for them to speak first, of their
own accord. But alas, they did not speak! And oh, how I wished, how I wished at
that moment to be reconciled to them! It struck eight, at last nine. They moved
from the table to the sofa. Zverkov stretched himself on a couch and put one foot
on a round table. The wine was brought there. He did, as a matter of fact, order
three bottles on his own account. He didn't, of course, invite me to join them.
They all sat round him on the sofa. They listened to him, almost with reverence.
It was evident that they were fond of him. "For what? For what?" I wondered.
From time to time they were moved to drunken enthusiasm and kissed each other.
They talked of the Caucasus, of the nature of true passion, of advantageous jobs
in the service, of the income of a Hussar called Podkharzhevsky, whom none of
them knew personally and rejoiced that he had a large income; of the extraordi-
nary grace and beauty of a Princess D., whom none of them had ever seen; then it
came to Shakespeare's being immortal.

I smiled contemptuously and walked up and down the other side of the room, oppo-
site the sofa, along the wall, from the table to the stove and back again. I
tried my very utmost to show them that I could do without them, and yet I purpo-
sely stomped with my boots, thumping with my heels. But it was all in vain. They
paid no attention at all. I had the patience to walk up and down in front of
them that way from eight o'clock till eleven, in one and the same place, from the
table to the stove and from the stove back again to the table. "I walk up and
down to please myself and no one can prevent me." The waiter who came into the
room several times stopped to look at me. I was somewhat giddy from turning
round so often; at moments it seemed to me that I was in delirium. During those
three hours I was three times soaked with sweat, and then dry again. At times,
with an intense, acute pang, I was stabbed to the heart by the thought that ten
years, twenty years, forty years would pass, and that even in forty years I would
remember with loathing and humiliation those filthiest, most ludicrous, and most
terrible moments of my life. No one could have gone out of his way to degrade
himself more shamelessly and voluntarily, and I fully realized it, fully, and yet
I went op pacing up and down from the table to the stove. "Oh, if you only knew
what thoughts and feelings I am capable of, how cultured I am!" I thought at mo-
ments, mentally addressing the sofa on which my enemies were sitting. But my en-
emies behaved as though I did not exist in the room. Once--only once--they turned
toward me, just when Zverkov was talking about Shakespeare, and I suddenly gave
a contemptuous laugh. I snorted in such an effected and nasty way that they all
at once broke off their conversation, and silently and gravely for two minutes
watched me walking up and down from the table to the stove, paying no attention
whatsoever to them. But nothing came of it; they said nothing, and two minutes
later they ceased to notice me again. It struck eleven.

"Gentlemen," cried Zverkov, getting up from the sofa, "let us all go there now!"

"Of course, of course," the others said.

I turned sharply to Zverkov. I was so exhausted, so broken, that I would have cut
my throat to put an end to it. I was in a fever; my hair, soaked with perspiration,
stuck to my forehead and temples.

"Zverkov, I beg your pardon," I said abruptly and resolutely. "Ferfichkin, yours
too, and everyone's, everyone's; I have insulted you all!"

"Aha! A duel is not in your line, old man," Ferfichkin hissed venomously.

It sent a deep pang to my heart.

"No, it's not the duel I am afraid of, Ferfichkin! I am ready to fight you tomor-
row, after we are reconciled. I insist upon it, in fact, and you cannot refuse. I
want to show you that I am not afraid of a duel. You will fire first and I will
fire into the air."

"He is comforting himself," remarked Simonov.

"He's simply raving," declared Trudolyubov.

"But let us pass. Why are you barring our way? Well, what do you want?" Zverkov
answered disdainfully. They were all flushed; their eyes were bright; they had
been drinking heavily.

"I asked for your friendship, Zverkov; I insulted you, but--"

"Insulted? You-u insulted me-e-e! Permit me to tell you, sir, that you never,
under any circumstances, could possibly insult me."

"And that's enough of you. Out of the way!" concluded Trudolyubov. "Let's go."

"Olympia is mine, gentlemen, that's agreed!" cried Zverkov.

"We won't dispute your right, we won't dispute your right," the others answered,
laughing.

I stood as though spat upon. The party went noisily out of the room. Trudolyubov
struck up some stupid song. Simonov remained behind for a moment to tip the wait-
ers. I suddenly went up to him.

"Simonov! give me six roubles!" I said, decisively and desperately.

He looked at me in extreme amazement, with dulled eyes. He, too, was drunk.

"You don't mean you are even coming with us there?"

"Yes."

"I've no money," he snapped out, and with a scornful laugh he went out of the room.

I clutched at his overcoat It was a nightmare.

"Simonov! I saw you had money, why do you refuse me? Am I a scoundrel? Beware of re-
fusing me; if you knew, if you knew why I am asking! Everything depends upon it! My
whole future, my whole plans!"

Simonov pulled out the money and almost flung it at me.

"Take it, if you have no sense of shame!" he pro. nounced pitilessly, and ran to o-
vertake them.

I was left alone for a moment. Disorder, the remains of dinner, a broken wineglass
on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette butts, intoxication and delirium in my brain,
an agonizing misery in my heart and finally the waiter, who had seen and heard all
and was looking inquisitively into my face.

"I am going there!" I shouted. "Either they will all fall down on their knees to
beg for my friendship--or I will give Zverkov a slap in the face!"



V



"So this is it, so this is it at last, a clash with reality," I muttered as I ran
headlong downstairs. "This, it seems, is very different from the Pope's leaving
Rome and going to Brazil; this, it seems, is very different from the ball on the
shores of Lake Como!"

"You are a scoundrel," flashed through my mind, "if you laugh at this now."

"No matter!" I cried, answering myself. "Now everything is lost!"

There was no trace of them left, but that made no difference--I knew where they
had gone.

At the steps was standing a solitary night sledge-driver in a rough peasant coat,
powdered over with the wet, and, as it were, warm snow that was still falling
thickly. It was sultry and warm. The little shaggy piebald horse was also powder-
ed with snow and was coughing, I remember that very well. I made a rush for the
roughly made sledge; but as soon as I raised my foot to get into it, the recol-
lection of how Simonov had just given me six roubles seemed to double me up and
I tumbled into the sledge like a sack.

"No, I must do a great deal to make up for all that," I cried. "But I will make
up for it or perish on the spot this very night. Start!"

We set off. There was an absolute whirl in my head.

"They won't go down on their knees to beg for my friendship. That is a mirage, a
cheap mirage, revolting, romantic and fantastical--that is another ball at Lake
Como. And so I have to slap Zverkov's face! It is my duty to. And so it is set-
tled; I am flying to give him a slap in the face. Hurry up!"

The cabby tugged at the reins.

"As soon as I go in give it to him. Ought I to say a few words by way of preface
before giving him the slap? No, I'll simply go in and give it to him. They will
all be sitting in the drawing-room, and he with Olympia on the sofa. That damned
Olympia! She laughed at my looks on one occasion and refused me. I'll pull Olym-
pia's hair, pull Zverkov's ears! No, better one ear, and pull him by it round the
room. Maybe they will all begin beating me and will kick me out. That is even
very likely. No matter! Anyway, I will slap him first; the initiative will be
mine; and according to the code of honor that is everything: he will be branded
and no blows can wipe off the slap, nothing but a duel can. He will be forced to
fight. And let them beat me then. Let them, the ungrateful wretches! Trudolyubov
will beat me hardest, he is so strong; Ferfichkin is sure to catch hold from the
side and tug at my hair. But no matter, no matter! That's what I am going for.
The blockheads will be forced at last to see the tragedy of it all! When they
drag me to the door I shall call out to them that in reality they are not worth
my little finger." "Get on, driver, get on!" I cried to the driver. He started
and flicked his whip, I shouted so savagely.

"We shall fight at daybreak, that's a settled thing. I am through with the De-
partment. Ferfichkin called the Department `Dumbpartmene' before. But where
can I get pistols? Nonsense! I'll call my salary in advance and buy them. And
powder, and bullets? That's the second's business. And how can it all be done
by daybreak? And where am I to get a second? I have no friends. Nonsense!" I
cried, lashing myself more and more into a fury. "Nonsense! the first person
I meet in the street is bound to be my second, just as he would be bound to
pull a drowning man out of water. The strangest things may happen. Even if I
were to ask the Director himself to be my second tomorrow, even he would be
bound to consent, if only from a feeling of chivalry, and to keep the secret!
Anton Antonich--"

The fact is that at that very minute the disgusting absurdity of my plans and the
other side of the question were clearer and more vivid to my imagination than they
could be to anyone on earth, but--

"Get on, driver, get on, you rascal, get on!"

"Ugh, sir!" said the son of toil.

Cold shivers suddenly ran down me.

"Wouldn't it be better . . . wouldn't it be better .. . to go straight home now?
Oh, my God! Why, why did I invite myself to this dinner yesterday? But no, it's im-
possible. And my three hours' walk from the table to the stove? No, they, they and
no one else must pay for my walking up and down! They must wipe out this dishonor!
Drive onl"

"And what if they hand me over to the police? They won't dare! They'll be afraid of
the scandal. And what if Zverkov is so contemptuous that he refuses to fight a duel?
That is even sure to happen, but in that case I'll show them--I will turn up at the
posting station when he is setting off tomorrow--I'll catch him by the leg, I'll
pull off his coat when he gets into the carriage. I'll get my teeth into his hand,
I'll bite him. See to what lengths you can drive a desperate man! He may hit me on
the head and they may pummel me from behind. I will shout to the whole crowd of
spectators: 'Look at this young puppy who is driving off to captivate the Circas-
sian girls after letting me spit in his face!'

"Of course, after that everything will be over! The Department will have vanished
off the face of the earth. I will be arrested. I will be tried, I will be dismiss-
ed from the service, thrown in prison, sent to Siberia, deported. Never mind! In
fifteen years when they let me out of prison I will trudge off to him, a begger in
rags, I shall find him in some provincial city. He will be married and happy. He
will have a grown-up daughter . . . I will say to him: 'Look, monster, at my hol-
low cheeks and my rags! I've lost everything--my career, my happiness, art,
science, the woman I loved, and all through you. Here are pistols. I have come to
discharge my pistol and--and I . . . forgive you.' Then I will fire into the air
and he will hear nothing more of me."

I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that very mo-
ment that all this was out of Pushkin's Silvio and Lermontov's Masquerade. And all
at once I felt terribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the sledge, stepped out
of it and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. The driver sighed
and gazed at me in astonishment.

What was I to do? I could not go on there--that was clearly absurd, and I could not
leave things as they were, because that would seem as though-- "Heavens, how
could I leave things! And after such insults!" "No!" I cried, throwing myself into the
sledge again. "It is ordained! It is fate! Drive on, drive on to that place!"

And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck.

"What are you up to? What are you hitting me for?" the poor man shouted, but he whip-
ped up his nag so that it began to kick out.

The wet snow was falling in big flakes; I unbuttoned myself. I did not care about
it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the slap, and felt with
horror that after all it was going to happen now, at once, that it would happen im-
mediately and that no force could stop it. The deserted street lamps gleamed sullen-
ly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow drifted under my great-
coat, under my coat, under my necktie, and melted there. I did not cover myself up--
after all, all was already lost, anyway. At last we arrived. I jumped out, almost
fainting, ran up the steps and began knocking and kicking at the door. My legs, par-
ticularly at the knee, felt terribly weak. The door was opened quickly as though
they knew I was coming. As a matter of fact, Simonov had warned them that perhaps an-
other would arrive, and this was a place in which one had to give notice and to ob-
serve certain precautions. It was one of the "millinery establishments" which were
abolished by the police a long time ago. By day it really was a shop; but at night,
if one had an introduction, one might visit it for other purposes. I walked rapidly
through the dark shop into the fa-miliar drawing-room, where there was only one can-
dle burning, and stopped in amazement; there was no one there.
con-tradictions

"Where are they?" I asked somebody.

But by now, of course, they had separated.

Before me stood a person with a stupid smile, the "madam" herself, who had seen
me before. A minute later a door opened and another person came in.

Paying no attention to anything, I strode about the room, and, I believe, I talked
to myself. I felt as though I had been saved from death and was conscious of it,
joyfully, all over: after all, I would have given that slap. I would certainly,
certainly have given it! But now they were not here and--everything had vanished
and changed! I looked round. I could not realize my condition yet. I looked mech-
anically at the girl who had come in and had a glimpse of a fresh, young, rather
pale face, with straight, dark eyebrows, and with a grave, as it were, amazed
glance, eyes that attracted me at once. I would have hated her if she had been
smiling. I began looking at her more intently and, as it were, with effort. I had
not fully collected my thoughts. There was something simple and good-natured in
her face, but something strangely serious. I am sure that this stood in her way
here, and that not one of those fools had noticed her. She could not, however,
have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong-looking, and well built.
She was very simply dressed. Something loathsome stirred within me. I went
straight up to her--

I happened to look at myself in the mirror. My harassed face struck me as ex-
tremely revolting, pale, spiteful, nasty, with disheveled hair. "No matter, I am glad
of it," I thought; "I am glad that I shall seem revolting to her; I like that."



VI



. . . Somewhere behind a screen a clock began wheezing, as though under some
great pressure, as though someone were strangling it. After an unnaturally prolonged
wheezing there followed a shrill, nasty and, as it were, unexpectedly rapid chime
--as though someone were suddenly jumping forward. It struck two. I woke up,
though I had not really been asleep but only lay semi-conscious.

It was almost completely dark in the narrow, cramped, low-pitched room, cluttered
up with an enormous wardrobe and piles of cardboard boxes and all sorts of frip-
pery and litter. The candle stump that had been burning on the table was going
out and it gave a faint flicker from time to time. In a few minutes it would be
completely dark.

I was not long in coming to myself; everything came back to my mind at once,
without an effort, as though it had been in ambush to pounce upon me again. And,
indeed, even while I was unconscious, a point continually , seemed to remain in
my memory that could not ever be forgotten, and around it my dreams moved drear-
ily. But strange to say, everything that had happened to me during that day
seemed to me now, on waking, to be in the far, far-away distant past, as though
I had long, long ago lived all that down.

My head was heavy. Something seemed to be hovering over me, provoking me, rous-
ing me and making me restless. Misery and gall seemed to surge up in me again
and to seek an outlet. Suddenly I saw beside me two wide-open eyes scrutinizing
me curiously and persistently. The look in those eyes was coldly detached, sullen,
utterly detached, as it were; it weighed heavily on me.

A grim idea came into my brain and passed all over my body, like some nasty sen-
sation, such as one feels when one goes into a damp and mouldy cellar. It was
somehow unnatural that those two eyes only now thought of beginning to examine
me. I recalled, too, that during those two hours I had not said a single word to this
creature, and had, in fact, considered it entirely unnecessary; it had even for
some reason gratified me before. Now I suddenly realized vividly how absurd, re-
volting as a spider, was the idea of vice which, without love, grossly and shame-
lessly begins directly with that in which true love finds its consummation. For
a long time we gazed at each other like that, but she did not drop her eyes be-
fore mine and did not change her expression, so that at last, somehow, I felt
uncomfortable.

"What is your name?" I asked abruptly, to put an end to it quickly.

"Liza," she answered almost in a whisper, but somehow without any friendliness;
she turned her eyes away. I was silent.

"What weather today--the snow--it's abominable!" I said, almost to myself, put-
ting my arm under my head despondently, and gazing at the ceiling.

She made no answer. This was all outrageous.

"Are you a local girl?" I asked a minute later, almost angprily, turning my head
slightly toward her.

"No."

"Where do you come from?"

"From Riga," she answered reluctantly.

"Are you a German?"

"No, Russian."

"Have you been here long?"

"Where?"

"In this house?"

"A fortnight."

She spoke more and more jerkily. The candle went out: I could no longer disting-
uish her face.

"Have you a father and mother?"

"Yes--no--I have."

"Where are they?"

"There--in Riga."

"What are they?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Nothing? Why, what do they do?"

"Tradespeople."

"Have you always lived with them?"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"Why did you leave them?"

"Oh, for no reason."

That answer meant "Let me alone; I feel wretched." We were silent.

God knows why I did not go away. I felt myself more and more wretched and dreary.
The images of the previous day started to flit through my mind in confusion in-
dependently of my will. I suddenly recalled something I had seen that morning when,
full of anxious thoughts, I was hurrying to the office.

"I saw them carrying a coffin out yesterday and they nearly dropped it," I sudden-
ly said aloud with no desire at all to start a conversation, but just so, almost by
accident.

"A coffin?"

"Yes, in the Haymarket; they were bringing it up out of a cellar."

"From a cellar?"

"Not from a cellar, but from a basement. Oh, you know--down below--from a house
of ill-fame. It was filthy all round--eggshells, litter--a stench. It was loathsome."

Silence.

"A nasty day to be buried," I began, simply to avoid being silent.

"Nasty, in what way?"

"The snow, the wet." (I yawned.)

"It doesn't matter," she said suddenly, after a brief silence.

"No, it's abominable." (I yawned again.) "The grave-diggers must have sworn at get-
ting drenched by the snow. And there must have been water in thegrave."

"Why would there be water in the grave?" she asked, with a sort of curiosity, but
speaking even more harshly and abruptly than before. I suddenly began to feel pro-
voked.

"Why, there must have been water at the bottom a foot deep. You can't dig a dry
grave in Volkovo Cemetery."

"Why?"

"Why? Why, the place is waterlogged. It's a regular marsh. So they bury them in
water. I've seen it myself--many times."

(I had never seen it at all, and I had never even been in Volkovo, but had only
heard stories of it.)

"Do you mean to say it doesn't matter to you whether you die?"

"But why should I die?" she answered, as though de-fending herself.

"Why, some day you will die, and you will die just the same as that dead woman.
She was--a girl like you. She died of consumption."

"The wench would have died in a hospital, too .. (She knows all about it al-
ready; she said "wench," not "girl.")

"She was in debt to her madam," I retorted, more and more provoked by the dis-
cussion; "and went on earning money for her almost up to the very end, though
she was in consumption. Some coachmen standing by were talking about her to
some soldiers and telling them so. No doubt her former acquaintances. They were
laughing. They were going to meet in a pot-house to drink to her memory." (I
lied a great deal here.)

Silence followed, profound silence. She did not even stir.

"And is it better to die in a hospital?"

"Isn't it just the same? Besides, why should I die?" she added irritably.

"If not now, a little later."

"Why a little later?"

"Why, indeed? Now you are young, pretty, fresh, you fetch a high price. But af-
ter another year of this life you will be very different--you will fade."

"In a year?"

"Anyway, in a year you will be worth less," I continued malignantly. You will
go from here to something lower, another house; a year later--to a third, lower
and lower, and in seven years you will come to a basement in the Haymarket. And
that's if you are lucky. But it would be much worse if you got some disease, con-
sumption, say--and caught a chill, or something or other. Its not easy to get
over an illness in your way of life. If you catch anything you may not get rid
of it. And so you would die."

"Oh, well, then I will die," she answered, quite vindictively, and she made a
quick movement. "But after all, it's a pity."

"For whom?"

"Pity for life."

Silence.

"Were you engaged? Eh?"

"What's that to you?"

"Oh, I am not cross-examining you. It's nothing to me.

Why are you so cross? Of course you may have had your own troubles. What is it
to me? I simply felt sorry."

"For whom?"

"Sorry for you."

"No need," she whispered hardly audibly, and again made a faint movement.

That incensed me at once. What! I was so gentle with her, and she--

"Why, what do you think? Are you on the right path, ah?"

"I don't think anything."

"That's what's wrong, that you don't think. Wake up while there is still time.
And there is still time. You are still young, good-looking; you might love, be
married, be happy--"

"Not all married women are happy," she snapped out in the rude, fast way she
had spoken before.

"Not all, of course, but anyway it is much better than the life here. Infinitely
better. Besides, with love one can live even without happiness. Even in sorrow
life is sweet; life is sweet, however one lives. But here you have nothing except
foulness. Phew!"

I turned away with disgust; I was no longer reasoning coldly. I began to feel my-
self what I was saying and warmed to the subject. I was already longing to expound
the cherished little ideas I had brooded over in my corner. Something suddenly
flared up in me. An object had "appeared" before me.

"Never mind my being here. I am not an example for you. I am, perhaps, even worse
than you are. I was drunk when I came here, though," I hastened, however, to say
in self-defense. "Besides, a man is no example for a woman. It's a different thing.
I may degrade and defile myself, but I am not anyone's slave. I come and go, and
there's an end to it. I shake it off, and I am a different man. But you are a slave
from the start. Yes, a slave! You give up everything, your whole freedom. If you
want to break your chains afterward, you won't be able to; you will be caught more
and more in the snares. It is an accursed bondage. I know it. I won't mention any-
thing else, maybe you won't understand it, but tell me: after all, surely you are
in debt to your madam already? There, you see,' I added, though she made no answer,
but only listened in silence, entirely absorbed, "that's bondage for you! You will
never buy your freedom. They will see to that. It's like selling your soul to the
devil---

'And besides--perhaps I, too, am just as unfortunate, how do you know--and wallow
in the mud on purpose, also out of misery? After all, men take to drink out of grief;
well, maybe I am here out of grief. Come, tell me, what good is there here? Here you
and I--were intimate --just now and did not say one word to one another all the time,
and it was only afterward you began staring at me like a wild creature, and I at you.
Is that loving? Is that how human beings are intimate? It's hideous, that's what it
is!"

"Yes!" she assented sharply and hurriedly.

I was even amazed by the eagerness of this "yes." So the same thought may have been
straying through her mind when she was staring at me just before. So she, too, was
capable of certain thoughts? "Damn it all, this was curious, this was kinship?" I thought,
almost rubbing my hands. And indeed how can one fail to manage a young soul like that?

The sport in it attracted me most.

She turned her head nearer to me, and it seemed to me in the darkness that she prop-
ped herself on her arm. Perhaps she was scrutinizing me. How I regretted that 1 could
not see her eyes. I heard her deep breathing.

"Why did you come here?" I asked her, with a note of authority already in my voice.

"Oh, I don't know."

"But after all how nice it would be to be living in your own father's house! It's
warm and free; you have a nest of your own."

"But what if it's worse than this?"

"I must take the right tone," flashed through my mind. "I may not get far with sen-
timentality."

But it was only a momentary thought. I swear she really did interest me. Besides, I
was exhausted and moody. And after all, cunning so easily goes hand in hand with
feeling.

"Who denies it?" I hastened to answer. "Anything may happen. I am, after all, con-
vinced that someone has wronged you and is guiltier toward you than you toward them.
After all, I know nothing of your story, but it's not likely a girl like you has
come here of her own inclination--"

"What kind of girl am I?" she whispered, hardly audible, but I heard it.

Damn it all, I was flattering her. That was abominable.. But perhaps it was a good
thing-- She was silent.

"See, Liza, I will tell you about myself. If I had had a home from childhood, I
shouldn't be what I am now. I often think about that. After all, no matter how bad
it may be at home, at least they are your father and mother, and not enemies,
strangers. Once a year, at least, they'll show their love for you. Anyway, you know
you are at home. I grew up without a home; and perhaps that's why I've turned so--
unfeeling."

I waited again.

"Perhaps she doesn't understand," I thought, "and, indeed, it is absurd, this morali-
zing."

"If I were a father and had a daughter, I believe I should love my daughter more than
my sons, really," I began indirectly, as though talking of something else, in order to
distract her attention. I confess I blushed.

"Why so?" she asked.

Ah! so she was listening!

"I don't know, Liza. I knew a father who was a stern, strict man, but he used to go
down on his knees to his daughter, used to kiss her hands and feet, he couldn't make
enough of her, really. When she danced at parties he used to stand for five hours at a
stretch without taking his eyes off her. He was mad about her; I understand that! She
would fall asleep tired at night, and he would get up to kiss her in her sleep and make
the sign of the cross over her. He would go about in a dirty old coat, he was stingy
to everyone else, but would spend his last penny for her, giving her expensive presents,
and it was a delight to him when she was pleased with what he gave her. Fathers always
love their daughters more than mothers do. Some girls live happily at home! And I be-
lieve I would never let my daughter marry."

"What next?" she said with a faint smile.

"I would be jealous, I really would. To think that she should kiss anyone else! That she
should love a stranger more than her father! It's painful to imagine it. Of course,
that's all nonsense, of course every father would be reasonable at last. But I believe
before I would let her marry, I would worry myself to death; I would find fault with
all her suitors. But I would end by letting her marry whom she herself loved. After
all, the one whom the daughter loves always seems the worst to the father. That is al-
ways so. So many families get into trouble with that."

"Some are glad to sell their daughters, rather than to marry them honorably."

Ah! So that was it!

"Such a thing, Liza, happens in those accursed families in which there is neither love
nor God," I retorted warmly, "and where there is no love, there is no sense either.
There are such families, it's true, but I am not speaking of them. You must have seen
wickedness in your own family, if you talk like that. You must have been genuinely un-
lucky. inni--that sort of thing mostly comes about through poverty."

"And is it any better among the rich? Even among the poor, honest people live happily."

"H'm--yes. Perhaps. Another thing, Liza, man only likes to count his troubles, but he
does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought, he would see that every lot
has enough happiness provided for it. And what if all goes well with the family, if the
blessing of God is upon it, if the husband is a good one, loves you, cherishes you, ne-
ver leaves you! There is happiness in such a family! Sometimes there is happiness even
in the midst of sorrow; and indeed sorrow is everywhere. If you marry you will find out
for yourself. But think of the first years of married life with one you love: what hap-
piness, what happiness there sometimes is in it! And indeed it's the ordinary thing. In
those early days even quarrels with one's husband end happily. Some women get up more
quarrels with their husbands the more they love them. Indeed, I knew a woman like that:
she seemed to say that because she loved him deeply, she would torment him out of love
so that he'd feel it. Did you know that you may torment a man on purpose out of love?
Women are particularly given to that, thinking to themselves, 'I will love him so much
afterward, I will make so much of him, that it's no sin to torment him a little now.'
And everyone in the house rejoices in the sight of you, and you are happy and gay and
peaceful and honorable. Then there are some women who are jealous. the husband goes off
someplace--I knew one such woman, she couldn't restrain herself, but would jump up at
night and would run off on the sly to find out where he was, whether he was with some
other woman. That's already bad. And the woman knows herself it's wrong, and her heart
fails her and she suffers, but, after all, she loves--it's all through love. And how
sweet it is to make up after quarrels, to admit she was wrong, or to forgive him! And
they are both so happy, all at once they become so happy, as though they had met anew,
been married over again; as though their love had begun anew. And no one, no one should
know what passes between husband and wife if they love one another. And no matter how
their quarrels ended they ought not to call in even their own mothers to judge between
them and tell tales of one another. They are their own judges. Love is a holy mystery
and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, no matter what happens. That makes it hol-
ier and better. They respect one another more, and much is built on respect. And if once
there has been love, if they have been married for love, why should love pass away? Sure-
ly one can keep it! It is rare that one cannot keep it. And if the husband is kind and
straightforward, why should not love last? The first phase of married love will pass,
it is true, but then there will come a love that is better still. Then there will be
the union of souls, they will have everything in common, there will be no secrets be-
tween them. And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them
happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny your-
self bread for your children and even that will be a joy. After all, they will love you
for it afterward; so you are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel
that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will
always cherish your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you,
they will take on your semblance and likeness. So you see it is a great duty. How can
it fail to draw the father and mother closer? People say it's a trial to have children.
Who says that? It is heavenly joy! Are you fond of little children, Liza? I am awfully
fond of them. You know--a little rosy baby boy at your bosom, and what husband's heart
is not touched, seeing his wife nursing his child! A plump little rosy baby, sprawling
and snuggling, chubby little hands and feet, clean tiny little nails, so tiny that it
makes one laugh to look at them; eyes that look as if they understand everything. And
while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its little hand, plays. When its father
comes up, the child tears itself away from the bosom, flings itself back, looks at its
father, laughs, as though it were God knows how funny, and falls to sucking again. Or
it will bite its mother's breast when it is cutting its little teeth while it looks
sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, `Look, I am biting!' Is not all
that a joy when they are all three together, husband, wife and child? One can forgive
a great deal for the sake of such moments. Yes, Liza, one must first learn to live one-
self before one blames others!"

"It's by pictures, pictures like that one must get at you," I thought to myself, though
I did not speak with real feeling, and all at once I flushed crimson. "What if she were
suddenly to burst out laughing, what would I do then?" That idea drove me to fury. To-
ward the end of my speech I really was excited, and now my vanity was somehow wounded.
The silence continued. I almost wanted to nudge her.

"Why are you . . ." she began, and stopped. ButI understood: there was a quiver of some-
thing different in her voice, not abrupt, harsh and unyielding as before, but something
soft and shamefaced, so shamefaced that I suddenly felt ashamed and guilty.

"What?" I asked with tender curiosity.

"Why, you . . ."

"What?"

"Why you--speak exactly like a book," she said, and something sarcastic was heard in her
voice.

That remark sent a pang to my heart. It was not what I was expecting.

I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings by sarcasm and that this is usual-
ly the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is
coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that their pride makes them refuse to surrender
till the last moment and shrink from expressing their feelings to you. I ought to have
guessed the truth for the timidity with which she had a number of times attempted her
sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with an effort. But I did not guess,
and a spiteful feeling took possession of me.

"Wait a bit!" I thought.



VII



"Oh, hush, Liza! How can you talk about my speaking like a book when it makes even
me, an outsider, feel sick? Though I don't look at it as an outsider, for, indeed, all that has
touched me to the heart. Is it possible, is it possible that you do not feel sick at being
here yourself? Evidently habit does wonders! God knows what habit can do with anyone. Can
you really and seriously think that you will never grow old, that you will always be good-
looking, and that they will keep you here forever and ever? I say nothing of the filth here.
Though let me tell you this about it; about your present life, I mean; even though you are
young now, attractive, nice, with soul and feeling, yet you know, as soon as I came to my-
self just now, I felt at once sick at being here with you! After all, one can only come
here when one is drunk. But if you were anywhere else, living as decent people live, I
would perhaps be more than attracted by you, I would fall in love with you, would be glad
of a look from you, let alone a word. I would hang about your door, would go down on my
knees to you, we would become engaged and I would even consider it an honor to do so. I
would not dare to have an impure thought about you. But here, after all, I know that I have
only to whistle and you have to come with me whether you like it or not. I don't con-sult
your wishes, but you mine. The lowest laborer hires himself as a workman but he doesn't
make a slave of himself altogether; besides, he knows that he will be free again. But when
will you be free? Only think what you are giving up here! What is it you are making a slave
of? It is your soul, together with your body; you are selling your soul which you have no
right to dispose of! You give your love to be outraged by every drunkard! Love! But after
all, that's everything, but after all, it's a jewel, it's a maiden's treasure, love--why, af-
ter all a man would be ready to give his soul, to face death to gain that love. But how much
is your love worth now? You can be bought, all of you, body and soul, and there is no need
to strive for love when you can have everything without love. And after all, there is no
greater insult for a girl than that, do you understand? To be sure, I have heard that they
comfort you, poor fools, they let you have lovers of your own here. But after all, that's
simply a farce, that's simply a sham, it's just laughing at you, and you are taken in by it!
Why, do you suppose he really loves you, that lover of yours? I don't believe it. How can
he love you when he knows that you may be called away from him any minute? He would be
a vile fellow if he did! Would he have a grain of respect for you? What have you in com-
mon with him? He laughs at you and robs you--that is all his love amounts to! You are lucky
if he does not beat you. Very likely he does beat you, too. Ask him, if you have one, whe-
ther he will marry you. He will laugh in your face, if he doesn't spit in it or give you a
blow--yet he may not be worth a plugged nickel himself. And for what have you ruined your
life, if you come to think of it? For the coffee they give you to drink and the plentiful
meals? But after all, why do they feed you? An honest girl couldn't swallow the food, she
would know why she was being fed. You are in debt here, and, of course, you will always be
in debt, and you will go on in debt to the end, till the visitors here begin to scorn you.
And that will soon happen, don't rely upon your youth--all that flies by, like an express
train here, after all. You will be kicked out. And not simply kicked out; long before that
they will begin to nag you, scold you, abuse you, as though you had not sacrificed your
health for her, had not ruined your youth and your soul for her benefit, but as though you
had ruined her, ravaged her, robbed her. And don't expect anyone to take your part; the
others, your companions, will attack you, too, to win her favor, for all are in slavery
here, and have lost all conscience and pity long ago. They have become utterly vile, and
nothing on earth is viler, more loathsome and more insulting than their abuse. And you are
laying down everything here, everything unconditionally, youth and health and beauty and
hope, and at twenty-two you will look like a woman of thirty-five, and you will be lucky
if you are not diseased, pray to God for that! No doubt you are thinking now after all that
you have a lark and no work to do! Yet there is no harder or more dreadful work in the
world or ever has been. One would think that the heart alone would be worn out with tears.
And you won't dare to say a word, not half a word, when they drive you away from here:
you will go away as though you were to blame. You will change to another house, then to a
third, then somewhere else, till you come down at last to the Haymarket. There you will
be beaten at every turn; that is a courtesy there, the visitors there don't know how to
be friendly without beating you. You don't believe that it is so hateful there? Go and
look for yourself some time, you can see with your own eyes. Once, one New Year's Day, I
saw a woman at a door. Her own kind had turned her out as a joke, to give her a taste of
the frost because she had been howling too much, and they shut the door behind her. At
nine o'clock in the morning she was already completely drunk, dishevelled, half-naked,
covered with bruises, her face was powdered, but she had a black eye, blood was trickl-
ing from her nose and her teeth; some cabman had just beaten her. She was sitting on the
stone steps, a salt fish of some sort was in her hand; she was howling, wailing something
about her 'fate' and beating with the fish on the steps, and cabmen and drunken soldiers
were crowding in the doorway taunting her. You don't believe that you will ever be like
that? I would not like to believe it, either, but how do you know, maybe ten years, eight
years ago that very woman with that salt fish came here fresh as a little cherub, inno-
cent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every word. Perhaps she was like you, proud,
ready to take offence, not like the others; perhaps she looked like a queen, and knew
what happiness was in store for the man who would love her and whom she would love. Do
you see how it ended? And what if at that very minute when she was beating on the filthy
steps with that fish, drunken and dishevelled--what if at that very minute she recalled
the pure early days in her father's house, when she used to go to school and the neigh-
bor's son watched for her on the way, declaring that he would love her as long as he live-
d, that he would devote his life to her, and when they vowed to love one another for ever
and be married as soon as they were grown up! No, Liza, it would be a joy for you, a joy
if you were to die soon of consumption in some corner, in some cellar like that woman
just now. In the hospital, do you say? You will be lucky if they take you, but what if
you are still of use to the madam here? Consumption is a queer disease, it is not like
fever. The patient goes on hoping till the last minute and says he is all right. He de-
ludes himself. And that's just advantageous for your madam. Don't doubt it, that's how it
is; you have sold your soul, and what is more you owe money, so you don't even dare to
say a word. But when you are dying, everyone will abandon you, everyone will turn away
from you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. What's more, they will reproach
you for taking up space, for taking so long to die. You won't even be able to beg for a
drink of water without getting abuse. 'Aren't you going to die, you foul wench; you
won't let us sleep with your moaning, you make the gentlemen sick.' That's true. I have
heard such things said myself. When you are really dying they will push you into the
filthiest corner in the cellar; in the damp and darkness; what will your thoughts be,
lying there alone? When you die, strange hands will lay you out, with grumbling and im-
patience; no one will bless you, no one will sigh for you, they will only want to get
rid of you as soon as possible; they will buy a coffin, take you to the grave as they
did that poor woman today, and celebrate your memory at the tavern. There is slush, filth,
wet snow in the grave--no need to put themselves out for you: 'Let her down, Vanyukha;
it's just like her "fate" after all, here she goes in, head first, the wench. Shorten the
cord, you rascal.' It's all right as it is. "All right, is it? Why, she's on her side!
Wasn't she a human being, too? Well, never mind, cover her up.' And they won't care to
waste much time quarreling over you. They will scatter the wet blue clay as quickly as
they can and go off to the tavern--and there your memory on earth will end; other women
have children who visit their graves, fathers, husbands. While for you there will be nei-
ther tear, nor sigh, nor remembrance; no one, no one in the whole wide world will ever
come to you; your name will vanish from the face of the earth as though you had never ex-
isted, had never been born at all! Nothing but filth and mud, no matter how much you knock
on your coffin lid at night, when the dead arise, however you cry: 'Let me out, kind peo-
ple, to live in the light of day! My life was no life at all; my life has been thrown away
like a dirty rag; it was drunk away in the tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind peo-
ple, to live in the world again!' "

And I worked myself up to such a pitch that I began to have a lump in my throat myself and
--and suddenly I stopped, sat up in dismay, and bending over apprehensively, began to lis-
ten with a beating heart. I had reason to be worried.

I felt for some time that I was turning her soul upside down and breaking her heart, and
the more I was convinced of it, the more I wanted to gain my end as quickly and as effect-
ively as possible. The sport, the sport attracted me; yet it was not merely the sport.

I knew I was speaking stiffly, artificially, even bookishly, in short I did not know how
to speak except "just like a book." But that did not bother me: after all I knew, I felt,
that I would be understood and that this very bookishness would perhaps even be a help. But
now, having achieved my effect, I was suddenly panic-stricken. No, I had never, never be-
fore witnessed such despair! She was lying face down, pressing her face deep into the pil-
low and clutching it in both hands. Her heart was being torn. Her youthful body was shud-
dering all over as though in convulsions. Suppressed sobs rent her bosom and suddenly burst
out in weeping and wailing, then she pressed even deeper into the pillow: she did not want
anyone here, not a single living soul, to know of her anguish and her tears. She bit the
pillow, bit her hand till it bled (I saw that afterward), or, thrusting her fingers into
her dishevelled hair, seemed rigid with the effort to restrain herself, holding her breath
and clenching her teeth. I began to say something to her, to beg her to calm herself, but
felt that I did not dare; and suddenly, all in a sort of chill, almost in terror, began
fumbling in the dark, trying hurriedly to get dressed to go. It was dark: try as I would,
I could not finish dressing quickly. Suddenly I felt a box of matches and a candlestick
with a whole new candle in it. As soon as the room was lighted up, Liza sprang up, sat up
in bed, and with a contorted face, with a half-insane smile, looked at me almost sense-
lessly. I sat down beside her and took her hands; she came to herself, made a movement to-
ward me, would have clasped me, but did not dare, and slowly bowed her head before me.

"Liza, my dear, I was wrong to-- Forgive me," I began but she squeezed my hand in her
fingers so tightly that I felt I was saying the wrong thing and stopped.

"This is my address, Liza, come to me."

"I will come," she whispered resolutely, her head still bowed.

"But now I am going, good-by--till we meet again."

I got up; she, too, stood up and suddenly flushed all over, shuddered, snatched up a shawl
that was lying on a chair and muffled herself in it to her chin. As she did this she gave
another sickly smile, blushed and looked at me strangely. I felt wretched; I was in haste
to get away --to disappear.

"Wait a minute," she said suddenly, in the passage just at the doorway, stopping me with
her hand on my over-coat. She put down the candle hastily and ran off; evi-dently she had
thought of something or wanted to show me something. As she ran away she flushed, her eyes
shone, and a smile appeared on her lips--what was the meaning of it? Against my will I
waited; she came back a minute later with an expression that seemed to ask forgiveness for
something. In fact, it was not the same face, nor the same look it had been before: sullen,
mistrustful and obstinate. Her look was now imploring, soft, and at the same time trustful,
caressing, timid. Children look that way at people they are very fond of, of whom they are
asking a favor. Her eyes were a light hazel, they were lovely eyes, full of life, capable
of expressing love as well as sullen hatred.

Making no explanation, as though I, as a sort of higher being, must understand everything
without explanations, she held out a piece of paper to me. Her whole face was positively
beaming at that instant with naïve, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a let-
ter to her from a medical student or someone of that sort--a very high-flown and flowery,
but extremely respectful, declaration of love. I don't recall the words now, but I remem-
ber well enough that through the high-flown phrases there was apparent a genuine feeling,
which cannot be feigned. When I had finished reading it I met her glowing, questioning,
and childishly impatient eyes fixed upon me. She fastened her eyes upon my face and waited
impatiently for what I would say. In a few words, hurriedly, but with a sort of joy and
pride, she explained to me that she had been to a dance somewhere, in a private house, at
some "very, very nice people's house, a family who still know nothing, absolutely nothing,"
for she had only come here so lately and it had all happened--and she hadn't made up her
mind to stay and was certainly going away as soon as she had paid her debt-- "and at that
party there had been that student who had danced with her the whole evening, had talked
to her, and it turned out that he had known her in the old days at Riga when he was a
child, they had played together, but a very long time ago--and he knew her parents, but
about this he knew nothing, nothing, nothing whatever, and had no suspicion! And the day
after the dance (three days ago) he had sent her that letter through the friend with whom
she had gone to the party--and--well, that was all."

She dropped her shining eyes with a sort of bashfulness as she finished.

The poor girl was keeping that student's letter as a treasure and had run to fetch it, her
only treasure, be-cause she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was
honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that let-
ter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But it doesn't matter, I am certain
that she would guard it as a treasure all her life, as her pride and justification, and now
at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise
herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of her. I said nothing,
pressed her hand and went out. I so longed to get away. I walked home all the way in spite
of the fact that the wet snow was still falling in large flakes. I was exhausted, shattered,
in bewilderment. But behind the bewilderment the truth was already gleaming. The loathsome
truth!



VIII



It was some time, however, before I consented to recognize that truth. Waking up in the
morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and immediately realizing all that had
happened on the previous day, I was positively amazed at my last night's sentimentality
with Liza, at all those "horrors and pity of yesterday." After all, to have such an attack
of womanish hysteria, pah! I concluded. "And why did I force my address upon her? What if
she comes? Let her come, though; it is all right--" But obviously that was not now the
chief and the most important matter: I had to make haste and at all costs save my reputa-
tion in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov as quickly as possible; that was the chief busi-
ness. And I was so taken up that morning that I actually forgot all about Lisa.

First of all I had to repay at once what I had borrowed the day before from Simonov. I
resolved on a desperate course: to borrow fifteen roubles from Anton Antonich. As luck
would have it he was in the best of humors that morning, and gave it to me at once, as
soon as I asked. I was so delighted at this that, as I signed the I 0 U with a swaggering
air, I told him casually that the night before "I had been making merry with some friends
at the Hotel de Paris; we were giving a farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might
say a friend of my childhood, and you know--a desperate rake, spoilt--of course, he be-
longs to a good family, and has considerable means, a brilliant career; he is witty,
charming, carries on affairs with certain ladies, you understand; we drank an extra `
half-a-case' and--" And after all it went off all right; all this was said very lightly,
unconstrainedly and complacently.

On reaching home I promptly wrote to Simonov.

To this hour I am lost in admiration when I recall the truly gentlemanly, good-humored,
candid tone of my letter. With tact and good taste, and, above all, entirely without
superfluous words, I blamed myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, "if
only I may still be allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterly unaccust-
omed to wine, I had been intoxicated by the first glass which (I claimed) I had drunk
before they arrived, while I was waiting for them at the Hotel de Paris between five
and six o'clock. I particularly begged Simonov's pardon; I asked him also to convey my
explanations to all the others, especially to Zverkov whom "I remember as though in a
dream" I seem to have insulted. I added that I would have called upon all of them my-
self, but that my head ached, and that besides, I was rather ashamed. I was especially
pleased with that "certain lightness," almost carelessness (strictly within the bounds
of politeness, however), which was suddenly reflected in my style, and better than any
possiblearguments, gave them at once to understand that I took rather an independent
view of all that unpleasantness last night"; that I was by no means so utterly crushed
as you, gentlemen, probably imagine; but on the contrary that I looked at it as a gen-
tleman serenely respecting himself should. "On a young hero's past no censure is cast!"

"There is, after all, even an aristocratic playfulness about it!" I thought admiringly,
as I read over the letter. "And it's all because I am a cultured and educated man! O-
thers in my place would not have known how to extricate themselves, but here I have
gotten out of it and am as gay as ever again, and all because I am a cultured and ed-
ucated man of our day." And, indeed, perhaps, everything really was due to the wine
yesterday. H'mf---well, no, it was not the wine. I drank nothing at all between five
and six while I was waiting for them. I had lied to Simonov; lied shamelessly; and e-
ven now I wasn't ashamed--

Hang it all, though! The important thing was that I was rid of it.

I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to take it to Simonov.
When he learned that there was money in the letter, Apollon became more respectful and
agreed to take it. Toward evening I went out for a walk. My head was still aching and
giddy, after yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew thicker, my im-
pressions changed and grew more and more confused and, after them, my thoughts. Some-
thing was not dead within me, in the depths of my heart and conscience it would not
die, and it expressed itself as a burning anguish. For the most part I jostled my way
through the most crowded business streets, along Meshchansky Street, along Sadovy
Street and in the Yusupov Garden. I always particularly liked to stroll along these
streets at dusk just when they become more crowded with people of all sorts, merchants
and artisans going home from their day's work, with faces looking malicious out of
anxiety. What I liked was lust that cheap bustle, that bare, humdrum prosaic quality.
On this occasion all that bustling in the streets irritated me more than ever. I could
not make out what was wrong with me, I could not find the clue. Something was rising
up, rising up continually in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned
home completely upset; it was just as though some crime were lying on my con-
science.

The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed queer to me that
of all yesterday's memories, the memory of her tormented me as it were, particularly,
quite separately, as it were. I had succeeded in forgetting everything else by eve-
ning time. I dismissed it all and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to Sim-
onov. But on this point I was not satisfied at all. It was as though I were worried
only by Liza. "What if she comes," I thought incessantly. "Well, so what, it's all
right, let her come! H'ml it's horrid that she should see how I live for instance.
Yesterday I seemed such a--hero to her, while now, h'inl It's horrid, though, that I
have let myself sink so low, the room looks like a beggar's. And I brought myself to
go out to dinner in such a suit! And my oilcloth sofa with the stuffing sticking out.
And my robe, which will not cover me!

What tatters. And she will see all this and she will see Apollon. That beast is cer-
tain to insult her. He will fasten upon her in order to be rude to me. And I, of course,
will be panic-stricken as usual. I will begin to bow and scrape before her and to pull
my robe around me, I will begin to smile, to lie. Oh, how foul! And it isn't the foul-
ness of it that matters most! There is something more important, more loathsome, viler!
Yes, viler! And to put on that 'dishonest lying mask again!"

When I reached that thought I flared up all at once.

"Why dishonest? How dishonest? I was speaking sincerely last night. I remember there
was real feeling in me, too. What I wanted was to awake noble feelings in her. Her
crying was a good thing, it will have a good effect."

Yet I could not feel at ease.

All that evening, even when I had come back home, even after nine o'clock, when I cal-
culated that Liza could not possibly come, she still haunted me, and what was worse,
she always came back to my mind in the same position. One moment out of all that had
happened last night presented itself before me vividly: the moment when I struck a
match and saw her pale, distorted face, with its tortured look. And what a pitiful,
what an unnatural, what a distorted smile she had at that moment! But I did not know
then that even fifteen years later I would still always picture Liza to myself with
that pitiful, distorted, inappropriate smile which was on her face at that minute.

Next day I was ready again to look upon it all as nonsense, due to over-excited
nerves, and, above all, as exaggerated. I always recognized that as a weak point of
mine, and was sometimes very much afraid of it. "I exaggerate everything, that is
where I go wrong," I repeated to myself every hour. But, nevertheless, Liza will
very likely come still, nevertheless, was the refrain with which all my reflections
ended then. I was so uneasy that I sometimes flew into a fury. "She'll come, she is
certain to come!" I cried, running about the room, "if not today, she will come to-
morrow; she'll seek me out! The damnable romanticism of these pure hearts! Oh, the
vileness --oh, the silliness--oh, the stupidity of these 'wretched sentimental
souls'! Why, how could one fail to understand? How could one possibly fail to un-
derstand?"

But at this point I stopped shorts and even in great confusion.

"And how few, how few words," I thought, in passing, "were needed; how little of
the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllic too) had sufficed to
turn a whole human life at once according to my will. That's innocence for you!
That's virgin soil 'for you!"

At times the thought occurred to me to go to her, "to tell her all" and beg her not
to come to me. But this thought stirred such wrath in me that I believed I would
have crushed that "damned" Liza if she had happened to be near me at the time. I
would have insulted her, have spat at her, have turned her out, have struck her!

One day passed, however, a second and a third; she did not come and I began to
grow calmer, I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine o'clock, I even began
sometimes to dream, and rather sweetly: I, for instance, became the salvation of
Liza, simply through her corning to me and my talking to her. I develop her, edu-
cate her. Finally, I notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not
to understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect, perhaps). At
last all confusion, beautiful, trembling and sobbing, she flings herself at my feet
and tells me that I am her savior, and that she loves me better than anything in
the world. I am amazed, but--"Liza," I say, "can you really believe that I have
noticed your love? I saw it all, I divined it, but I did not dare to approach you
first, because I had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force
yourself, out of gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in your
heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that because it
would be--tyranny. It would be indelicate (in short, I launch off at that point
into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties, a la George Sand), but now, now you
are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, you are beautiful, you are my beau-
tiful wife.

　　　　"And into my house come bold and free,
　　　　 Its rightful mistress there to be."

Then we begin to live together happily, go abroad, etc., etc. In short, in the end
it seemed vulgar to me myself, and I began to put out my tongue at myself.

Besides, they won't let her out, "the hussy!" I thought. After all, they don't let
them go out very readily, especially in the evening (for some reason I fancied she
would have to come in the evening, and precisely at seven o'clock). Though she did
say she was not altogether a slave there yet, and had certain rights; so, h'ml Damn
it all, she will come, she is sure to come!

It was a good thing, in fact, that Apollon distracted my attention at that time by
his rudeness. He drove me beyond all patience! He was the bane of my life, the curse
laid upon me by Providence. We had been squabbling continually for years, and I hated
him. My God, how I hated him! I believe I had never hated anyone in my life as I hate-
d him, especially at some moments. He was an elderly, dignified man, who worked part
of his time as a tailor. But for some unknown reason, he despised me beyond all mea-
sure, and looked down upon me insufferably. Though indeed, he looked down upon every-
one. Simply to glance at that flaxen, smoothly brushed head, at the tuft of hair he
combed up on his forehead and oiled with sunflower oil, at that dignified mouth, al-
ways pursed, made one feel one was confronting a man who never doubted himself. He
was an insufferable pedant, the greatest pedant I had met on earth, and with that had a
vanity only befitting Alexander the Great. He was in love with every button on his
coat, every nail on his fingers--absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! In
his behavior to me he was an absolute tyrant, spoke very little to me, and if he
chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically self-confident and invariably
ironical look that sometimes drove me to fury. He did his work with the air of doing
me the greatest favor. Though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed,
consider himself obliged to do anything, there could be no doubt that he looked upon
me as the greatest fool on earth, and that the reason he did not "get rid of me" was
simply that he could get wages from me every month. He consented "to do nothing" for
me for seven roubles a month. Many sins should be forgiven me for what I suffered
from him. My hatred reached such a point that sometimes his very walk almost threw me
into convulsions. What I loathed particularly was his lisp. His tongue must have been
a little too long or something of that sort, for he continually lisped, and seemed to
be very proud of it, imagining that it greatly added to his dignity. He spoke in a
slow, measured tone, with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the ground.
He maddened me particularly when he read the Psalms aloud to himself behind his part-
ition. I waged many a battle over that reading! But he was awfully fond of reading a-
loud in the evenings, in a slow, even, chanting voice, as though over the dead. It is
interesting that he has ended up that way. He hires himself out to read the Psalms
over the dead, and at the same time he kills rats and makes shoe polish. But at that
time I could not getrid of him, it was as though he were chemically combined with my
existence. Besides, nothing would have induced him to consent to leave me. I could not
live in a furnished room: my apartment was my privacy, my shell, my cave, in which I
concealed myself from all mankind, and Apollon seemed to me, God only knows why, an
integral part of that apartment, and for seven whole years I could not get rid of him.

For example, to be two or three days late with his wages was impossible. He would
have made such a fuss, I would not have known where to hide my head. But I was so
exasperated with everyone during that period, that I made up my mind for some reason
and with some object to punish Apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages
I owed him. I had intended to do this for a long time, for the last two years, sim-
ply in order to teach him not to give himself airs with me, and to show him that if
I liked I could withhold his wages. I decided to say nothing to him about it, and
even to be silent purposely in order to conquer his pride and force him to be the
first to speak of his wages. Then I would take the seven roubles out of a drawer,
show him I have the money and have put it aside purposely, but that I don't want, I
don't want, I simply don't want to pay him his wages, I don't want to just because
that is what I want, because "I am master and it is for me to decide," because he
has been disrespectful, because he is a ruffian; but if he were to ask respectful-
ly I might be softened and give it to him, otherwise he might wait another fortnight,
another three weeks, a whole month .. .

But no matter how angry I was, he always got the better of me. I could not even
hold out for four days. He began as he always did begin such cases, for there had
been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it may be observed I knew all
this beforehand, I knew his nasty tactics by heart), to wit: he would begin by fix-
ing upon me an exceedingly severe stare, keeping it up for several minutes at a
time, particularly on meeting me or seeing me out of the house. If I held out and
pretended not to notice these stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to fur-
ther tortures. All at once, for no reason at all, he would softly and smoothly walk
into my room when I was pacing up and down, or reading, stand at the door, one hand
behind his back and one foot forward, and fix upon me a stare more than severe, ut-
terly contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would not answer,
but continue to stare at me persistently for some seconds longer, then, with a pe-
culiar compression of his lips and a very significant air, deliberately turn round
and deliberately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out again and
again present himself before me in the same way. It has happened that in my fury I
did not even ask him what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperi-
ously and began staring back at him. So we stared at one another for two minutes;
at last he turned with deliberation and dignity and went back again for two hours.

If I were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in my revolt, he
would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long, deep sighs as though mea-
suring by them the depths of my moral devadation, and, of course, it ended at last
by his triumphing completely: I raged and shouted, but was still forced to do what
he wanted.


This time the usual maneuvers of "severe staring" had scarcely begun when I lost
my temper and flew at him in a fury. I was irritated beyond endurance even without
him.

"Wait," I shouted in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning with one hand
behind his back, to go to his room. "Wait! Come back, come back, I tell you!' and
I must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned round and even looked at me with
a certain amazement. However, he persisted in saying nothing, and that infuriated
me.

"How dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for? Answer!"

After looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round again.

"Wait!" I roared, running up to him. "Don't stir! There. Answer, now: what did
you come in to look at?"

"If you have any order to give me at the moment, it is my duty to carry it
out," he answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp,
raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to another,
all this with exasperating composure.

"That's not it, that is not what I am asking you about, you torturer!" I shouted,
shaking with anger. "I'll tell you myself, you torturer, why you came here: you
see, I don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want to bow down and
ask for it, and so you have come to punish me with your stupid stares, to torture
me, and you have no sus-pic-ion, you torturer, how stupid it is--stupid, stupid,
stupid, stupid!"

He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him.

"Listen," I shouted to him. "Here's the money, do you see, here it is" (I took it
out of the table drawer) "here's the whole seven roubles but you are not going to
have it, you . . . are . . . not ... going . . . to . . . have it until you come
respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. Do you hear?"

"That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

"It will be so," I said. "I give you my word of honor, it will be!"

"And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as though he had
not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, you called me a 'torturer,'
for which I can summon you at the police station at any time for insulting beha-
vior."

"Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very second! You
are a torturer all the same! A torturer! A torturer!" But he merely looked at me,
then turned, and regardless of my loud calls to him, he walked to his room with
an even step and without looking round.

"If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," I decided in-
wardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I myself went behind the screen with a dig-
nified and solemn air, though my heart was beating slowly and violently.

"Apollon," I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless, "go at once
without a minute's delay and fetch the police officer."

He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and taken up
something to tailor. But, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw.

"At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can't imagine what will happen."

"You are certainly not in your right mind," he observed, without even raising his
head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle. "Whoever heard of
a man sending for the police against himself? And as for being frightened--you are
upsetting yourself about nothing, for nothing will come of it."

"Go! I shrieked, grabbing him by the shoulder. I felt that in another minute I
would hit him.

But I did not notice that suddenly the door from the passage softly and slowly o-
pened at that instant and a figure came in, stopped short, and began staring at us
in amazement. I glanced, nearly died with shame, and rushed back to my room. There,
clutching at my hair with both hands, I leaned my head against the wall and stood
motionless in that position.

Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate foot-steps.

"There is some woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiar severity.
Then he stood aside and let in--Liza. He would not go away, but stared at us sarcas-
tically.

"Go away, go away,"- I commanded in desperation. At that moment my clock began whir-
ring and wheezing and struck seven.



IX



　　　　　And into my house come bold and free,
　　　　　Its rightful mistress there to be.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　From the same poetic work


I stood before her crushed, crestfallen, revoltingly embarrassed, and I believe I
smiled as I did my utmost to wrap myself in the skirts of my ragged wadded robe-- just
exactly as I had imagined the scene not long before in a fit of depression. After stand-
ing over us for a couple of minutes Apollon went away, but that did not make me more
comfortable. What made it worse was that suddenly, she, too, became embarrassed, more
so, in fact, than I would have expected. At the sight of me, of course.

"Sit down," I said mechanically, moving a chair up to the table, and I sat down on the
sofa. She obediently sat down at once and gazed at me open-eyed, evidently expecting
something from me at once. This naiveté of expectation drove me to fury, but I restrain-
ed myself.

She ought to have tried not to notice, as though everything had been as usual, while
instead she . . and dimly felt that I would make her pay dearly for all this.

"You have found me in a strange position, Liza," I began, stammering and knowing that
this was the wrong way to begin.

"No, no, don't imagine anything," I cried, seeing that she had suddenly flushed. "I am
not ashamed of my poverty. On the contrary, I look on my poverty with pride. I am poor
but honorable. One can be poor and honorable," I muttered. "However--would you like
tea?"

"No--" she was beginning.

"Wait a minute."

I leapt up and ran to Apollon. I had to get out of the room somehow.

"Apollon," I whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the seven roubles which
had remained all the time in my clenched fist, "here are your wages. You see I give them
to you; but for that you must come to my rescue: bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the
restaurant. If you won't go, you'll make a man miserable! You don't know what this woman
is. This is--everything! You may be imagining something; but you don't know what a woman
she is!"

Apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles again, at first
glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting down his needle; then, without
paying the slightest attention to me, or making any answer, he went on busying himself
with his needle, which he had not yet threaded. I waited before him for several minutes
with my arms crossed a la Napoleon. My temples were moist with sweat. I was pale, I
felt it. But, thank God, he must have been moved to pity, looking at me. Having thread-
ed his needle, he deliberately got up from his seat, deliberately moved back his chair,
deliberately took off his spectacles, deliberately counted the money, and finally ask-
ing me over his shoulder: "Shall I get a whole pot?" deliberately walked out of the
room. As I was going back to Liza, the thought occurred to me on the way: shouldn't I
run away just as I was in my robe, no matter where, and let come what may?

I sat down again. She looked at me uneasily. For some minutes we were silent.

"I will kill him," I shouted suddenly, striking the table with my fist so that the ink
spurted out of the inkstand.

"What are you saying!" she cried, starting.

"I will kill him! kill him!" I shrieked, suddenly striking the table in absolute fren-
zy, and at the same time fully understanding how stupid it was to be in such a frenzy.

"You don't know, Liza, what that torturer is to me. He is my torturer. He has gone now
to fetch some rusks; he--"

And suddenly I burst into tears. It was an hysterical attack. How ashamed I felt in the
midst of my sobs; but still I could not restrain them.

She was frightened. "What is the matter? What is wrong?" she shrieked, fussing around
me.

"Water, give me water, over there!" I muttered in a faint voice, though I was inwardly
conscious that I could easily have done without water and without muttering in a faint
voice. But I was what is called putting it on, to save appearances, though the attack
was a genuine one.

She gave me water, looking at me in bewilderment. At that moment Apollon brought in the
tea. It suddenly seemed to me that this commonplace and prosaic tea was terribly undig-
nified and paltry after all that had happened, and I blushed. Liza even looked at Apo-
llon with alarm. He went out without a glance at us.

"Liza, do you despise me?" I asked, looking at her fixedly, trembling with impatience to
know what she was thinking.

She was embarrassed and did not know what to answer.

"Drink your tea," I said to her angrily. I was angry with myself, but, of course, it was
she who would have to pay for it. A horrible spite against her suddenly surged up in my
heart; I believe I could have killed her. To revenge myself on her I swore inwardly not
to say a word to her all the time. "She is the cause of it all," I thought.

Our silence lasted for five minutes. The tea stood on the table; we did not touch it. I
had got to the point of purposely refraining from beginning to drink in order to embar-
rass her further; it was awkward for her to begin alone. Several times she glanced at
me with mournful perplexity. I was obstinately silent. I was, of course, myself the
chief sufferer, because I was fully conscious of the disgusting meanness of my spiteful
stupidity, and yet at the same time I absolutely could not restrain myself.

"I want to--get away--from there altogether," she began, to break the silence in some
way, but, poor girl, that was just what she ought not to have spoken about at such a mo-
ment, stupid enough even without that to a man so stupid as I was. My heart positively
ached with pity for her tactless and unnecessary straightforwardness. But something hid-
eous at once stifled all compassion in me: it even provoked me to greater venom. Let the
whole world go to pot. Another five minutes passed.

"Perhaps I am in your way?" she began timidly, hardly audibly, and was getting up.

But as soon as I saw this first impulse of wounded dignity I positively trembled with
spite, and at once burst out.

"Why did you come to me, tell me that, please?" I began, gasping for breath and regard-
less of all logical connection in my words. I longed to have it all out a t once, at
one burst: I did not even trouble how to begin.

"Why did you come? Answer, answer," I cried, hardly knowing what I was doing. "I'll tell
you, my good girl, why you came. You came because I talked fine sentiments to you then.
So now you are soft as butter and longing for fine sentiments again. So you may as well
know, know that I was laughing at you then. And I am laughing at you now. Why are you
shuddering? Yes, I was laughing at you! I had been insulted just before, at dinner, by
the fellows who came that evening before me. I came to you, meaning to thrash one of
them, an officer; but I didn't succeed. I didn't find him; I had to avenge the insult on
someone to get my own back again; you turned up, I vented my spleen on you and laugh-
ed at you. I had been humiliated, so I wanted to humiliate; I had been treated like a rag,
so I wanted to show my power. That's what it was, and you imagined I had come there
on purpose to save you, didn't you? Did you imagine that? Did you imagine that?"

I knew that she would perhaps get muddled and not grasp all the details, but I knew, too,
that she would grasp the gist of it very well. And so, indeed, she did. She turned white
as a handkerchief, tried to say something, and distorted her mouth painfully but she sank
on a chair as though she had been felled by an ax. And all the time afterward she listen-
ed to me with her lips parted and her eyes wide open, shuddering with awful terror. The
cynicism, the cynicism of my words overwhelmed her--

"Save you!" I went on, jumping up from my chair and running up and down the room before
her. "Save you from what? But perhaps I am worse than you myself. Why didn't you throw it
in my teeth when I was giving you that sermon: 'But you, what did you come here for your-
self? Was it to read us a sermon?' Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was what I
wanted, I wanted to wring out your tears, your humiliation, your hysteria--that was what
I wanted then! After all, I couldn't keep it up then, because I am a wretch, I was fright-
ened, and, the devil knows why, gave you my address in my folly. Afterward, before I got
home, I was cursing and swearing at you because of that address. I hated you already be-
cause of the lies I had told you. Because I only like to play with words, to dream in my
mind, but, do you know, what I really want is that you would all go to hell, that is what
I want. I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing right now, so long
as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say
let the world go to pot as long as I get my tea every time. Did you know that, or not?
Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egotist, a sluggard. Here I
have been shuddering for the last three days at the thought of your coming. And do you
know what has worried me particularly for these three days? That I posed as such a hero
to you then, and now you would see me in a wretched torn robe, a beggar, an abomination.
I told you just now that I was not ashamed of my poverty; you may as well know that I am
ashamed of it; I am more ashamed of it than of anything, more afraid of it than of being
found out if I were a thief, because I am as vain as though I had been skinned and the
very air blowing on me hurt. Surely by now even you must have realized that I will never
forgive you for having found me in this wretched robe, just as I was flying at Apollon
like a spiteful sheep-dog at his lackey, and the lackey was jeering at him! And I shall
never forgive you for the tears I could not help shedding before you just now, like some
silly woman put to shame! And for what I am confessing to you now, I shall never forgive
you, either! Yes--you must answer for it all because you turned up like this, because I
am a blackguard, because I am the nastiest, stupidest, pettiest, absurdest and most en-
vious of all worms on earth, none of whom is a bit better than I am, but who, the devil
only knows why, are never embarrassed; while I will always be insulted by every louse,
that is my doom! And what is it to me that you don't understand a word of this! And what
do I care, what do I care about you, and whether you go to ruin there or not? Do you un-
derstand how I will hate you now after saying this, for having been here and listening?
After all, a man speaks out like this once in a lifetime and then it is in hysterics!
What more do you want? Why, after all, do you still stand there in front of me? Why do
you torment me? Why don't you go?"

But at this point a strange thing happened.

I was so accustomed to think and imagine everything from books, and to picture every-
thing in the world to myself just as I had made it up in my dreams beforehand, that I
could not even take in this strange circumstance all at once. What happened was this:
Liza, wounded and crushed by me, understood a great deal more than I imagined. She un-
derstood from all this what a woman understands first of all, if she feels genuine
love, that is, that I was myself unhappy.

The frightened and wounded expression on her face was followed first by a look of sor-
rowful perplexity. When I began to call myself a scoundrel and a blackguard and my
tears flowed (that tirade was accompanied throughout by tears) her whole face worked
convulsively. She was on the point of getting up and stopping me; when I finished she
took no notice of my shouting: "Why are you here, why don't you go away?" but realized
only that it must have been very bitter to me to say all this. Besides, she was so
crushed, poor girl; she considered herself infinitely beneath me; how could she feel
anger or resentment? Suddenly she leapt up from her chair with an irresistible impulse
and held out her hands, yearning toward me, though still timid and not daring to stir.
At this point there was an upheaval in my heart too. Then she suddenly rushed to me,
threw her arms round me and burst into tears. I, too, could not restrain myself,' and
sobbed as I never had before.

"They won't let me--I can't be--good!" I managed to say, then I went to the sofa, fell
on it, face downward and sobbed on it for a quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics.
She knelt near me, put her arms round me and stayed motionless in that position.

But the trouble was that the hysterics could not go on for ever. And (after all, I am
writing the loathsome truth) lying face downward on the sofa with my face thrust into
my nasty leather pillow, I began by degrees to be aware of a far-away, involuntary but
irresistible feeling that after all it would be awkward for me to raise my head now
and look Liza straight in the face. Why was I ashamed? I don't know, but I was ashamed.
In my over-wrought brain the thought also occurred that our parts were after all com-
pletely reversed now, that she was now the heroine, while I was just a crushed and hum-
iliated creature as she had been before me that night--four days before . . . And all
this came into my mind during the minutes I was lying face down on the sofa!

My God! surely I was not envious of her then?

I don't know, to this day I cannot decide, and at the time, of course, I was still less
able to understand what I was feeling than now. I cannot get on without domineering
and tyrannizing over someone, after all, but--but, after all, there is no explaining any-
thing by reasoning and consequently it is useless to reason.

I conquered myself, however, and raised my head--I had to do so sooner or later--and I
am convinced to this day that it was just because I was ashamed to look at her that an-
other feeling was suddenly kindled and flamed up in my heart--a feeling of mastery and
possession. My eyes gleamed with passion, and I gripped her hands tightly. How I hated
her and how I was drawn to her at that minute! The one feeling intensified the other.
It was almost like an act of vengeance! At first there was a look of amazement, even
of terror, on her face, but only for one instant. She warmly and rapturously embraced
me.



X



A quarter of an hour later I was rushing up and down the room in frenzied impatience,
from minute to minute I went up to the screen and peeped through the crack at Liza. She
was sitting on the floor with her head leaning against the bed, and must have been cry-
ing. But she did not go away, and that irritated me. This time she understood it all.
I had insulted her once and for all, but--there's no need to describe it. She realized
that my outburst of passion had been simply revenge, a new humiliation for her and
that to my earlier, almost generalized hatred was added now a personal, envious hatred
--though I do not maintain positively that she understood all this distinctly; but she
certainly did fully understand that I was a despicable man, and what was worse, incap-
able of loving her.

I know I shall be told that this is incredible; that it is incredible to be as spiteful
and stupid as I was; it may be added it was strange that I would not love her, or at any
rate, appreciate her love. Why is it strange? In the first place, by then I was inca-
pable of love, for, I repeat, with me loving meant tyrannizing and showing my moral su-
periority. I have never in my life ever been able to imagine any other sort of love, and
have nowadays come to the point of sometimes thinking that love really consists in the
right--freely given by the beloved object--to be tyrannized over. Even in my underground
dreams I did not imagine love in any form except as a struggle. I always began it with
hatred and ended it with moral subjugation, and afterward I could never imagine what to
do with the subjugated object. And what is there incredible in that, since I had so
succeeded in corrupting myself morally, since I was so out of touch with "real life,"
that I had just thought of reproaching her and putting her to shame for having come to
me to hear "fine sentiments," and I did not even guess that she had come not at all to
hear fine sentiments, but to love me, because to a woman true resurrection, true salva-
tion from any sort of ruin, and true moral regeneration is contained in love and can
only show itself in that form. I no longer hated her so much, however, when I was run-
ning about the room and peeping through the crack in the screen. I was only insufferably
oppressed by her being here. I wanted her to disappear. I wanted "peace," I wanted to
be left alone in my underground world. "Real life" oppressed me with its novelty so much
that I could hardly breathe.

But several minutes passed and she still remained with• out stirring, as though she
were unconscious. I had the shamelessness to tap softly at the screen as though to
remind her. She started, sprang up, and flew to seek her shawl, her hat, her coat,
just as though she were making her escape from me. Two minutes later she came from
behind the screen and looked with heavy eyes at me. I gave a spiteful grin, which was
forced, however, to keep up appearances, and I turned away from her look.

"Good-by," she said, going toward the door.

I ran up to her, seized her hand, opened it, thrust something in it--and closed it
again. Then I turned immediately and hurriedly rushed to the other corner of the
room, to avoid seeing, anyway--

I meant to lie a moment ago--to write that I did this accidentally, not knowing what
I was doing, through foolishness, through losing my head. But I don't want to lie,
and so I will say straight out that I opened her hand and put the money in it--from
spite. It came into my head to do so while I was running up and down the room and
she was sitting behind the screen. But I can say this for certain: though I did that
cruel thing purposely, it was not an impulse from the heart, but came from my evil
brain. This cruelty was so affected, so purposely made up, so completely a product
of the brain, of books, that I could not even keep it up for a minute--first I rush-
ed to the corner to avoid seeing her, and then in shame and despair rushed after
Liza. I opened the door in the passage and began listening.

"Liza! Liza!" I cried on the stairs, but in a low voice, not boldly.

There was no answer, but it seemed to me I heard her footsteps, lower down on the
stairs.

"Liza!" I cried, more loudly.

No answer. But at that minute I heard the stiff outer glass door open heavily with
a creak and slam violently. The roar echoed up the stairs.

She had gone. I went back to my room in hesitation. I felt horribly oppressed.

I stood still at the table beside the chair on which she had sat and looked aim-
lessly before me. A minute passed. Suddenly I started; straight before me on the
table I saw --in short, I saw a crumpled blue five-rouble note, the one I had
thrust into her hand a minute before. It was the same note; it could be no other,
there was no other in the apartment. So she had managed to fling it from her hand
on the table at the moment when I had rushed into the farther corner.

So what? I might have expected that she would do that. Might I have expected it?
No, I was such an egotist, I was so lacking in respect for people in actuality,
that I could not even imagine she would do so. I could not endure it. A moment
later I flew like a madman to get dressed, flinging on what I could at random and
ran headlong after her. She could not have got two hundred paces away when I ran
out into the street.

It was a still night and the snow was coming down in masses and falling almost
perpendicularly, blanketing the pavement and the empty street. There was no one
in the street, no sound was to be heard. The street lamps gave a disconsolate and
useless glimmer. I ran two hundred paces to the intersection and stopped short.
Where had she gone? And why was I running after her?

Why? To fall down before her, to sob with remorse, to kiss her feet, to beg her
forgiveness! I longed for that. My whole heart was being rent to pieces, and never,
never will I recall that minute with indifference. But--what for? I thought.
Would I not begin to hate her, perhaps, even tomorrow, just because I had kissed
her feet today? Would I give her happiness? Had I not again recognized that day,
for the hundredth time, what I was worth? Would I not torment her?

I stood in the snow, gazing into the troubled darkness and pondered this.

"And will it not be better? Will it not be better?" I fantasied afterward at home,
stifling the living pang of my heart with fantastic dreams. "Will it not be better
that she carry the outrage with her forever? Outrage--why, after all, that is pur-
ification: it is the most stinging and painful consciousness! Tomorrow I would have
defiled her soul and have exhausted her heart, while now the feeling of humiliation
will never die in her, and however loathsome the filth awaiting her, that outrage
will elevate and purify her--by hatred--h'm!--perhaps by forgiveness also. But will
all that make things easier for her, though? . . ."

And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is
better--cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

So I dreamed as I sat at home that evening, almost dead with the pain in my soul.
Never yet had I endured such suffering and remorse, but could there possibly have
been the faintest doubt when I ran out from my lodging that I would turn back half-
way? I never met Liza again and I have heard nothing about her. I will add, too,
that for a long time afterward I remained pleased with the phrase about the utility
of outrage and hatred, in spite of the fact that I almost fell ill from misery.

Even now, many years later, I somehow remember all this as very bad. I have many
bad memories now, but I better end my "Notes" here? I believe I made a mistake in
beginning to write this story; so it's hardly literature so much as corrective punish-
ment. After all, to tell long stories, for example, showing how I have ruined my
life by morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through
divorce from reality, and vainglorious spite in my underground world, would certain-
ly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits of an anti-hero are
expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unplea-
sant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one
of us, more or less. We are so far divorced from it that we immediately feel a sort
of loathing for actual "real life," and so cannot even stand to be reminded of it.
After all, we have reached the point of almost looking at actual "real life" as an
effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books.
And why do we sometimes fret, why are we perverse and ask for something else?
We don't know why ourselves. It would be worse for us if our capricious requests
were granted. Come, try, come give anyone of us, for instance, a little more in-
dependence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the controls
and we--yes, I assure you--we would immediately beg to be under control again. I
know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin to shout
and stamp your feet. "Speak for yourself," you will say, "and for your miseries in
your underground holes, but don't dare to say 'all of us.' " Excuse me, gentlemen,
after all I do not mean to justify myself with that "all of us." As for what concerns
me in particular I have only, after all, in my life carried to an extreme what you
have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for
good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after
all, there is more "life" in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! After
all, we don't even know where living exists now, what it is, and what it is called!
Leave us alone without books and we will be lost and in a confusion at once--we will
not know what to join, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to re-
spect and what to despise. We are even oppressed by being men--men with real indivi-
dual body and blood. We are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive
to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are still-born, and for many years
we have not been begotten by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We
are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall somehow contrive to be born from an idea.
But enough; I don't want to write more from "underground"...

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　---------

The "notes" of this paradoxalist do not end here, how- ever. He could not resist and
continued them. But it also seems to me that we may stop here.

　　　　　　Richest Passages

1　　2　　3　　4　　5　　6　　7　　8　　9　　10

11　　12　　13　　14　　15　　16　　17　　18

19　　20　　21　　22　　23　　24　　25　　26

27　　28　　29　　30　　31　　32　　33　　34

35　　36　　37　　38　　39　　40　　41　　42

43　　44　　45　　46