remained angrily and contemptuously silent and would not answer him.
When we left school he made advances to me; I did not rebuff them, for I
was flattered, but we soon parted and quite naturally. Afterwards I heard
of his barrack-room success as a lieutenant, and of the fast life he was
leading. Then there came other rumours--of his successes in the service.
By then he had taken to cutting me in the street, and I suspected
that he was afraid of compromising himself by greeting a personage as
insignificant as me. I saw him once in the theatre, in the third tier of
boxes. By then he was wearing shoulder-straps. He was twisting and
twirling about, ingratiating himself with the daughters of an ancient
General. In three years he had gone off considerably, though he was still
rather handsome and adroit. One could see that by the time he was thirty
he would be corpulent. So it was 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 privately they did not consider themselves
on an equal footing with him, I am convinced of that.
Of Simonov's two visitors, one was Ferfitchkin, a Russianised 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 lower
forms--a vulgar, impudent, swaggering fellow, who affected a most sensitive
feeling of personal honour, though, of course, he was a wretched
little coward at heart. He was one of those worshippers of Zverkov who
made up to the latter from interested motives, and often borrowed money
from him. Simonov's other visitor, Trudolyubov, was a person in no way
remarkable--a tall young fellow, in the army, with a cold face, fairly
honest, though he worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable
of thinking of promotion. He was some sort of distant relation of
Zverkov's, and this, foolish as it seems, gave him a certain importance
among us. He always thought me of no consequence whatever; his
behaviour to me, though not quite courteous, was tolerable.
"Well, with seven roubles each," said Trudolyubov, "twenty-one
roubles between the three of us, we ought to be able to get a good dinner.
Zverkov, of course, won't pay."
"Of course not, since we are inviting him," Simonov decided.
"Can you imagine," Ferfitchkin interrupted hotly and conceitedly, like
some insolent flunkey boasting of his master the General's decorations,
"can you imagine that Zverkov will let us pay alone? He will accept from
delicacy, but he will order half a dozen bottles of champagne."
"Do we want half a dozen for the four of us?" observed Trudolyubov,
taking notice only of the half dozen.
"So the three of us, with Zverkov for the fourth, twenty-one roubles, at
the Hotel de Paris at five o'clock tomorrow," Simonov, who had been
asked to make the arrangements, concluded finally.
"How twenty-one roubles?" I asked in some agitation, with a show of
being offended; "if you count me it will not be twenty-one, but
twenty-eight 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 no appearance of
pleasure, seeming to avoid looking at me. He knew me through and through.
It infuriated me that he knew me so thoroughly.
"Why not? I am an old schoolfellow of his, too, I believe, and I
must own I feel hurt that you have left me out," I said, boiling over again.
"And where were we to find you?" Ferfitchkin put in roughly.
"You never were on good terms with Zverkov," Trudolyubov added, frowning.
But I had already clutched at the idea and would not give it up.
"It seems to me that no one has a right to form an opinion upon that," I
retorted in a shaking voice, as though something tremendous had happened.
"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?" Ferfitchkin 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 it's a private thing, between us friends," Ferfitchkin said crossly,
as he, too, picked up his hat. "It's not an official gathering."
"We do not want at all, perhaps ..."
They went away. Ferfitchkin did not greet me in any way as he went
out, Trudolyubov barely nodded. Simonov, with whom I was left TETE-A-TETE,
was in a state of vexation and perplexity, and looked at me queerly.
He did not sit down and did not ask me to.
"H'm ... yes ... tomorrow, then. Will you pay your subscription
now? I just ask so as to know," he muttered in embarrassment.
I flushed crimson, 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 no idea when I came
here .... I am very much vexed that I have forgotten ...."
"All right, all right, that doesn't matter. You can pay tomorrow after the
dinner. 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 stamp with his heels.
"Am I keeping you?" I asked, after two minutes of silence.
"Oh!" he said, starting, "that is--to be truthful--yes. I have to go and
see someone ... not far from here," he added in an apologetic voice,
somewhat abashed.
"My goodness, why didn't you say so?" I cried, seizing my cap, with an
astonishingly free-and-easy air, which was the last thing I should have
expected of myself.
"It's close by ... not two paces away," Simonov repeated, accompanying
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
wondered, grinding my teeth as I strode along the street, "for a scoundrel,
a pig like that Zverkov! Of course I had better not go; of course, I must
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 should go,
that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more
unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go.
And there was a positive obstacle to my going: I had no money. All I
had was nine roubles, I had to give seven of that to my servant, Apollon,
for his monthly wages. That was all I paid him--he had to keep himself.
<
br /> 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 should go and should not pay him his wages.
That night I had the most hideous dreams. No wonder; all the evening
I had been oppressed by memories of my miserable days at school, and I
could not shake them off. I was sent to the school by distant relations,
upon whom I was dependent and of whom I have heard nothing since--
they sent me there a forlorn, silent boy, already crushed by their reproaches,
already troubled by doubt, and looking with savage distrust at
everyone. My schoolfellows 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 with the ignoble readiness with which 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
figure; and yet what stupid faces they had themselves. In our school the
boys' faces seemed in a special way to degenerate and grow stupider. How
many fine-looking boys came to us! In a few years they became repulsive.
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 conversations. They had no understanding of such essential things,
they took no interest in such striking, impressive subjects, that I could
not help considering 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 had an understanding of 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 at that time
were accustomed to respect success. Everything that was just, but oppressed
and looked down upon, they laughed at heartlessly 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 with which they had always been surrounded
in their childhood and boyhood. They were monstrously depraved.
Of course a great deal of that, too, was superficial and an
assumption of cynicism; of course there were glimpses of youth and
freshness even in their depravity; but even that freshness was not attractive,
and showed itself in a certain rakishness. I hated them horribly,
though perhaps I was worse than any of them. They repaid me in the
same way, and did not conceal their aversion for me. But by then I did not
desire their affection: on the contrary, I continually longed for their
humiliation. 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 by degrees to grasp that I
had already read books none of them could read, and understood things
(not forming part of our school curriculum) of which they had not even
heard. They took a savage and sarcastic 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 became permanent between us. In the end I could not
put up with it: 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 unbounded sway over him; I tried to
instil into him a contempt for his surroundings; I required of him a
disdainful and complete break with those surroundings. I frightened him
with my passionate affection; I reduced him to tears, to hysterics. He was
a simple and devoted soul; but when he devoted himself to me entirely I
began to hate him immediately and repulsed 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 shake the dust from
off my feet .... And goodness knows why, after all that, I should go
trudging off to Simonov's!
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
were at hand. I went to the office, however, as usual, but sneaked away
home two hours earlier to get ready. The great thing, I thought, is not to
be the first to arrive, or they will think I am overjoyed at coming. But
there were thousands of such great points to consider, and they all
agitated and overwhelmed me. 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, being
careful he should not detect it, for fear of his contempt. Then I minutely
examined my clothes and thought that everything looked old, worn and
threadbare. I had let myself get too slovenly. My uniform, perhaps, was
tidy, but I could not go out to dinner in my uniform. The worst of it was
that on the knee of my trousers was a big yellow stain. I had a foreboding
that that stain would deprive me of nine-tenths of my personal dignity. I
knew, too, that it was very poor to think so. "But this is no time for
thinking: now I am in for the real thing," 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 was
already shaking with fever. With despair I pictured to myself how coldly
and disdainfully that "scoundrel" Zverkov would meet me; with what
dull-witted, invincible contempt the blockhead Trudolyubov would look
at me; with what impudent rudeness the insect Ferfitchkin would snigger
at me in order to curry favour with Zverkov; how completely Simonov
would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the abjectness of
my vanity and lack of spirit--and, worst of all, how paltry, UNLITERARY,
commonplace it would all be. Of course, the best thing would be not to
go at all. But that was most impossible of all: if I feel impelled
to do
anything, I seem to be pitchforked into it. I should have jeered at myself
ever afterwards: "So you funked it, you funked it, you funked the REAL
THING!" On the contrary, I passionately longed to show all that "rabble"
that I was by no means such a spiritless creature as I seemed to myself.
What is more, even in the acutest paroxysm of this cowardly fever, I
dreamed of getting the upper hand, of dominating them, carrying them
away, making them like me--if only for my "elevation of thought and
unmistakable wit." They would abandon Zverkov, he would sit on one
side, silent and ashamed, while I should crush him. Then, perhaps, we
would be reconciled and drink to our everlasting friendship; but what was
most bitter and humiliating for me was that I knew even then, knew fully
and for certain, that I needed nothing of all this really, that I did not really
want to crush, to subdue, to attract them, and that I did not care a straw
really for the result, even if I did achieve it. Oh, how I prayed for the day
to pass quickly! In unutterable anguish I went to the window, opened the
movable pane and looked out into the troubled darkness of the thickly
falling wet snow. At last my wretched little clock hissed out five. I seized
my hat and, trying not to look at Apollon, who had been all day
expecting his month's wages, but in his foolishness was unwilling to be
the first to speak about it, I slipped between him and 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 been certain the day before that I should be the first to arrive. But it
was not a question of being the first to arrive. Not only were they not
there, but I had difficulty in finding our room. The table was not laid
even. What did it mean? After a good many questions I elicited from the
waiters that the dinner had been ordered not for five, but for six o'clock.
This was confirmed at the buffet too. I felt really ashamed to go on
questioning them. It was only twenty-five minutes past five. If they
changed the dinner hour they ought at least to have let me know--that is
what the post is for, and not to have put me in an absurd position in my
own eyes and ... and even before the waiters. I sat down; the servant
began laying the table; I felt even more humiliated when he was present.
Towards 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 further
away; one could hear the laughter of a crowd of people, and nasty little
shrieks in French: there were ladies at the dinner. It was sickening, in fact.
I rarely passed more unpleasant moments, so much so that when they did
arrive all together punctually at six I was overjoyed to see them, as though
they were my deliverers, and even forgot that it was incumbent upon me
to show resentment.
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 a little, walked up to me deliberately with a slight, rather jaunty
bend from the waist. He shook hands with me in a friendly, but not over-
friendly, fashion, with a sort of circumspect courtesy like that of a General,
as though in giving me his hand he were warding off something. I had
imagined, on the contrary, that on coming in he would at once break into
his habitual thin, shrill laugh and fall to making his insipid jokes and
Notes From Underground Page 8
