Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  II

  But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt very sickafterwards. It was followed by remorse--I tried to drive it away; Ifelt too sick. By degrees, however, I grew used to that too. I grewused to everything, or rather I voluntarily resigned myself to enduringit. But I had a means of escape that reconciled everything--that wasto find refuge in "the sublime and the beautiful," in dreams, ofcourse. I was a terrible dreamer, I would dream for three months onend, tucked away in my corner, and you may believe me that at thosemoments I had no resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbationof his chicken heart, put a collar of German beaver on his great-coat.I suddenly became a hero. I would not have admitted my six-footlieutenant even if he had called on me. I could not even picture himbefore me then. What were my dreams and how I could satisfy myselfwith them--it is hard to say now, but at the time I was satisfied withthem. Though, indeed, even now, I am to some extent satisfied withthem. Dreams were particularly sweet and vivid after a spell ofdissipation; they came with remorse and with tears, with curses andtransports. There were moments of such positive intoxication, of suchhappiness, that there was not the faintest trace of irony within me, onmy honour. I had faith, hope, love. I believed blindly at such timesthat by some miracle, by some external circumstance, all this wouldsuddenly open out, expand; that suddenly a vista of suitableactivity--beneficent, good, and, above all, READY MADE (what sort ofactivity I had no idea, but the great thing was that it should be allready for me)--would rise up before me--and I should come out into thelight of day, almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel.Anything but the foremost place I could not conceive for myself, andfor that very reason I quite contentedly occupied the lowest inreality. Either to be a hero or to grovel in the mud--there wasnothing between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the mud Icomforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, andthe hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was shamefulto defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly defiled, andso he might defile himself. It is worth noting that these attacks ofthe "sublime and the beautiful" visited me even during the period ofdissipation and just at the times when I was touching the bottom. Theycame in separate spurts, as though reminding me of themselves, but didnot banish the dissipation by their appearance. On the contrary, theyseemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only sufficientlypresent to serve as an appetising sauce. That sauce was made up ofcontradictions and sufferings, of agonising inward analysis, and allthese pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a significanceto my dissipation--in fact, completely answered the purpose of anappetising sauce. There was a certain depth of meaning in it. And Icould hardly have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, directdebauchery of a clerk and have endured all the filthiness of it. Whatcould have allured me about it then and have drawn me at night into thestreet? No, I had a lofty way of getting out of it all.

  And what loving-kindness, oh Lord, what loving-kindness I felt at timesin those dreams of mine! in those "flights into the sublime and thebeautiful"; though it was fantastic love, though it was never appliedto anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love thatone did not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality;that would have been superfluous. Everything, however, passedsatisfactorily by a lazy and fascinating transition into the sphere ofart, that is, into the beautiful forms of life, lying ready, largelystolen from the poets and novelists and adapted to all sorts of needsand uses. I, for instance, was triumphant over everyone; everyone, ofcourse, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously torecognise my superiority, and I forgave them all. I was a poet and agrand gentleman, I fell in love; I came in for countless millions andimmediately devoted them to humanity, and at the same time I confessedbefore all the people my shameful deeds, which, of course, were notmerely shameful, but had in them much that was "sublime and beautiful"something in the Manfred style. Everyone would kiss me and weep (whatidiots they would be if they did not), while I should go barefoot andhungry preaching new ideas and fighting a victorious Austerlitz againstthe obscurantists. Then the band would play a march, an amnesty wouldbe declared, the Pope would agree to retire from Rome to Brazil; thenthere would be a ball for the whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese onthe shores of Lake Como, Lake Como being for that purpose transferredto the neighbourhood of Rome; then would come a scene in the bushes,and so on, and so on--as though you did not know all about it? Youwill say that it is vulgar and contemptible to drag all this intopublic after all the tears and transports which I have myselfconfessed. But why is it contemptible? Can you imagine that I amashamed 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 nomeans badly composed.... It did not all happen on the shores of LakeComo. And yet you are right--it really is vulgar and contemptible.And most contemptible of all it is that now I am attempting to justifymyself to you. And even more contemptible than that is my making thisremark now. But that's enough, or there will be no end to it; eachstep will be more contemptible than the last....

  I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a timewithout feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. Toplunge into society meant to visit my superior at the office, AntonAntonitch Syetotchkin. He was the only permanent acquaintance I havehad in my life, and I wonder at the fact myself now. But I only wentto see him when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reachedsuch a point of bliss that it became essential at once to embrace myfellows and all mankind; and for that purpose I needed, at least, onehuman being, actually existing. I had to call on Anton Antonitch,however, on Tuesday--his at-home day; so I had always to time mypassionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on aTuesday.

  This Anton Antonitch lived on the fourth storey in a house in FiveCorners, in four low-pitched rooms, one smaller than the other, of aparticularly frugal and sallow appearance. He had two daughters andtheir aunt, who used to pour out the tea. Of the daughters one wasthirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and I wasawfully shy of them because they were always whispering and gigglingtogether. The master of the house usually sat in his study on aleather couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman,usually a colleague from our office or some other department. I neversaw more than two or three visitors there, always the same. Theytalked about the excise duty; about business in the senate, aboutsalaries, about promotions, about His Excellency, and the best means ofpleasing him, and so on. I had the patience to sit like a fool besidethese people for four hours at a stretch, listening to them withoutknowing what to say to them or venturing to say a word. I becamestupefied, several times I felt myself perspiring, I was overcome by asort of paralysis; but this was pleasant and good for me. On returninghome I deferred for a time my desire to embrace all mankind.

  I had however one other acquaintance of a sort, Simonov, who was an oldschoolfellow. I had a number of schoolfellows, indeed, in Petersburg,but I did not associate with them and had even given up nodding to themin the street. I believe I had transferred into the department I wasin simply to avoid their company and to cut off all connection with myhateful childhood. Curses on that school and all those terrible yearsof penal servitude! In short, I parted from my schoolfellows as soonas I got out into the world. There were two or three left to whom Inodded in the street. One of them was Simonov, who had in no way beendistinguished at school, was of a quiet and equable disposition; but Idiscovered in him a certain independence of character and even honestyI don't even suppose that he was particularly stupid. I had at onetime spent some rather soulful moments with him, but these had notlasted long and had somehow been suddenly clouded over. He wasevidently uncomfortable at these reminiscences, and was, I fancy,always afraid that I might take up the same tone again. I suspectedthat he had an aversion for me, but still I went on going to see him,not being quite certain of it.

  And so on one occasion, un
able to endure my solitude and knowing thatas it was Thursday Anton Antonitch's door would be closed, I thought ofSimonov. Climbing up to his fourth storey I was thinking that the mandisliked me and that it was a mistake to go and see him. But as italways happened that such reflections impelled me, as though purposely,to put myself into a false position, I went in. It was almost a yearsince I had last seen Simonov.