Notes from Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Here it is, here it is at last, the encounter with reality," I muttered, rushing headlong down the stairs. "This is no longer the Pope leaving Rome and going to Brazil; this is no longer a ball on Lake Como!"

  "What a scoundrel you are," raced through my head, "to laugh at that now!"

  "What of it!" I cried, answering myself. "All is lost now!"

  Their trail was already cold; but no matter: I knew where they had gone.

  By the porch stood a lonely jack, a night coachman, in a homespun coat all dusted with the still-falling wet and as if warm snow. It was steamy and stuffy. His shaggy little piebald nag was also all dusted with snow, and was coughing - I very much remember that. I rushed to the bast-covered sled; but as I raised my foot to get in, the recollection of the way Simonov had just given me the six roubles cut me down, and I dropped into the sled like a sack.

  "No! Much must be done to redeem it all!" I cried out, "but I will redeem it, or perish on the spot this very night! Drive!"

  We set off. A whole whirlwind was spinning in my head.

  "Beg for my friendship on their knees - that they won't do. It's a mirage, a vulgar mirage, revolting, romantic, and fantastic; another ball on Lake Como. And therefore I must slap Zverkov's face! It's my duty. And so, it's decided; I'm flying now to slap his face."

  "Faster!"

  The jack started snapping the reins.

  "I'll do it as soon as I walk in. Ought I to say a few words first, as a preface to the slap? No! I'll just walk in and slap him. They'll all be sitting in the drawing room, and he'll be on the sofa with Olympia. Cursed Olympia! She laughed at my face once and refused me. I'll pull Olympia by the hair, and Zverkov by the ears! No, better by one ear, and by that ear I'll lead him around the whole room. They'll probably all start beating me and kick me out. It's even certain. Let them! Still, I slapped' him first: it was my initiative; and by the code of honor - that's everything; he's branded now, and no beating can wash away that slap, but only a duel. He'll have to fight. Yes, and let them beat me now. Let them, ignoble as they are! Trudolyubov especially will do the beating - he's so strong; Ferfichkin will fasten on from the side, and certainly grab my hair, that's sure. But let them, let them! I'm ready for it. Their sheep's noddles will finally be forced to grasp the tragic in it all! As they're dragging me to the door I'll cry out to them that in fact they're not worth my little finger."

  "Faster, coachman, faster!" I shouted to the jack. He even jumped and swung his whip. For I shouted quite wildly.

  "We'll fight at dawn, that's settled. It's all over with the department. Ferfichkin said de pot ment earlier instead of department. But where to get the pistols? Nonsense! I'll take an advance on my salary and buy them. And the powder, and the bullets? That's the second's affair. But how will I manage it all before dawn? And where will I find a second? I have no acquaintances… Nonsense!" I cried, whirling myself up even more, "nonsense! The first passer-by I speak to in the street is duty-bound to be my second, just like pulling a drowning man from the water. The most eccentric situations must be allowed for. Were I to ask even the director himself to be my second tomorrow, he, too, would have to agree out of knightly feelings alone, and keep the secret! Anton Antonych…"

  The thing was that at the same moment I could see, more clearly and vividly than anyone else in the entire world, the whole, most odious absurdity of my suppositions, and the whole other side of the coin, but…

  "Faster, coachman, faster, you rogue!"

  "Eh, master!" said the backbone of the nation.

  I suddenly felt cold all over.

  "And wouldn't it be better… better… to go straight home now? Oh, my God! Why, why did I invite myself to this dinner yesterday! But no, impossible! And that three-hour stroll from table to stove? No, they, they and no one else, must pay me for that stroll! They must wash away that dishonor!"

  "Faster!"

  "And what if they take me to the police? Would they dare? They'd be afraid of a scandal. And what if Zverkov should refuse the duel out of contempt? That's even certain; but then I'll prove to them… Then I'll rush to the posting-house as he's leaving tomorrow, I'll grab him by the leg, I'll tear his overcoat off as he's getting into the coach. I'll fasten my teeth on his hand, I'll bite him. 'See, all of you, what a desperate man can be driven to!' Let him beat me on the head, and the rest of them from behind. I'll cry out to all the public: 'See, here's a young pup going off to charm the Circassian girls with my spit on his face!'

  "After that, of course, everything's over! The department has vanished from the face of the earth. I'll be seized, I'll be taken to court, I'll be thrown out of work, put in prison, sent to Siberia, exiled. Who cares! Fifteen years later I'll drag myself after him, in rags, a beggar, when I'm let out of prison. I'll find him somewhere in a provincial capital. He'll be married and happy. He'll have a grown-up daughter… I'll say: 'Look, monster, look at my sunken cheeks and my rags! I lost everything -career, happiness, art, science, a beloved woman - and all because of you. Here are the pistols. I've come to discharge my pistol, and… and I forgive you.' Here I'll fire into the air, and - no more will be heard of me…"

  I even began to weep, though I knew perfectly well at the same moment that all this came from Silvio and from Lermon-tov's Masquerade. 15 And suddenly I felt terribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sled, and stood in the snow in the middle of the street. The jack watched me with amazement and sighed.

  What was to be done? To go there was impossible - the result would be nonsense; to leave things as they were was also impossible, because the result would then be… "Lord! How can I leave it! After such offenses! No!" I exclaimed, rushing back to the sled, "it's predestined, it's fate! Drive on, drive on - there!"

  And in my impatience I hit the coachman in the neck with my fist.

  "What's with you? Why're you punching?" the little peasant cried, lashing the nag, however, so that she started kicking with her hind legs.

  Wet snow was falling in thick flakes; I uncovered myself, I didn't care about it. I forgot everything else, because I had finally resolved on the slap and felt with horror that it would happen without fail now, presently, and that no power could stop it. Desolate street-lamps flashed sullenly in the snowy haze, like torches at a funeral. Snow got under my overcoat, my jacket, my necktie, and melted there; I didn't cover myself; all was lost in any case! We drove up at last. I jumped out, almost unconscious, ran up the steps, and began knocking at the door with my hands and feet. My legs especially were growing weak, at the knees. The door was opened somehow quickly; as if they knew I was coming. (Indeed, Simonov had forewarned them that there might be one more, and they had to be forewarned there and generally to take precautions. This was one of those "fashion shops" of the time, which have long since been done away with by the police. During the day it was actually a shop; and in the evening those who had references could come and visit.) I walked with quick steps through the dark store into the familiar drawing room, where only one candle was burning, and stopped in perplexity: no one was there.

  "Where are they?" I asked someone.

  But, of course, they had already had time to disperse…

  In front of me stood a person with a stupid smile, the hostess herself, who knew me slightly. A moment later the door opened, and another person came in.

  Paying no attention to anything, I was pacing the room and, I think, talking to myself. It was as if I had been saved from death, and I joyfully sensed it with my whole being: for I would have slapped him, I would certainly, certainly have slapped him! But now they're not here and… everything's vanished, everything's changed!… I kept looking over my shoulder. I still could not grasp it. Mechanically, I glanced at the girl who had come in: before me flashed a fresh, young, somewhat pale face, with straight dark eyebrows and serious, as if somewhat astonished, eyes. I liked it at once; I would have hated her if she'd been smiling. I began to study her more attentively and as if with effort: my thoughts were not all collected yet.
There was something simple-hearted and kind in that face, yet somehow serious to the point of strangeness. I was certain that it was a disadvantage to her there, and that none of those fools had noticed her. However, she could not have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong, well built. She was dressed extremely simply. Something nasty stung me; I went straight up to her…

  By chance I looked in a mirror. My agitated face seemed to me repulsive in the extreme: pale, wicked, mean, with disheveled hair. "Let it be; I'm glad of it," I thought, "I'm precisely glad that I'll seem repulsive to her; I like it…"

  VI

  …Somewhere behind a partition, as if under some strong pressure, as if someone were strangling it, a clock wheezed.

  After an unnaturally prolonged wheeze, there followed a thin, vile, and somehow unexpectedly rapid chiming - as if someone had suddenly jumped forward. It struck two. I came to my senses, though I had not been asleep, but only lying there half-oblivious.

  The room - narrow, small, and low, encumbered by a huge wardrobe, and littered with cartons, rags, and all sorts of castoff clothing - was almost totally dark. The candle-butt burning on the table at the other end of the room was about to go out, barely flickering every now and then. In a few moments it would be quite dark.

  It did not take me long to recover myself; everything came back to me at once, without effort, instantly, as if it had just been lying in wait to pounce on me again. And even in my oblivion there had still constantly remained some point, as it were, in my memory that simply refused to be forgotten, around which my drowsy reveries turned heavily. Yet it was strange: everything that had happened to me that day seemed to me now, on awakening, to have happened long, long ago, as if I had long, long ago outlived it all.

  There were fumes in my head. Something was as if hovering over me, brushing against me, agitating and troubling me. Anguish and bile were again boiling up in me and seeking a way out. Suddenly I saw two open eyes beside me, peering at me curiously and obstinately. Their expression was coldly indifferent, sullen, as if utterly alien; it gave one a heavy feeling.

  A sullen thought was born in my brain and passed through my whole body like some vile sensation, similar to what one feels on entering an underground cellar, damp and musty. It was somehow unnatural that these two eyes had only decided precisely now to begin peering at me. It also occurred to me that in the course of two hours I had not exchanged a single word with this being and had not considered it at all necessary; I had even liked it for some reason. But now, all of a sudden, there appeared before me the absurd, loathsomely spiderish notion of debauchery, which, without love, crudely and shamelessly begins straight off with that which is the crown of true love. We looked at each other like that for a long time, but she did not lower her eyes before mine, nor did she change their expression, and in the end, for some reason, this made me feel eerie.

  "What's your name?" I asked curtly, so as to put a quick end to it.

  "Liza," she replied, almost in a whisper, but somehow quite unpleasantly, and looked away.

  I paused.

  "The weather today… the snow… nasty!" I said, almost to myself, wearily putting my hand behind my head and looking at the ceiling.

  She did not reply. The whole thing was hideous.

  "Do you come from around here?" I asked after a minute, almost exasperated, turning my head slightly towards her.

  "No."

  "Where, then?"

  "From Riga," she said reluctantly.

  "German?"

  "Russian."

  "Been here long?"

  "Where?"

  "In this house."

  "Two weeks." She spoke more and more curtly. The candle went out altogether; I could no longer make out her face.

  "Do you have a father and mother?"

  "Yes… no… I do."

  "Where are they?"

  "There… in Riga."

  "What are they?"

  "Just…"

  "Just what? What are they, socially?"

  "Tradespeople."

  "You were living with them?"

  "Yes."

  "How old are you?"

  "Twenty."

  "Why did you leave them?"

  "Just…"

  This "just" meant: let me alone, this is sickening. We fell silent.

  God knows why I wouldn't leave. I myself felt more and more sickened and anguished. Images of the whole past day began to pass confusedly through my memory, somehow of themselves, without my will. I suddenly recalled a scene I had witnessed that morning in the street, as I was trotting along, preoccupied, to work.

  "They were carrying a coffin out today and almost dropped it," I suddenly said aloud, not at all wishing to start a conversation, but just so, almost accidentally.

  "A coffin?"

  "Yes, in the Haymarket; they were carrying it out of a basement."

  "Out of a basement?"

  "Not a basement, but the basement floor… you know… down under… from a bad house… There was such filth all around… Eggshells, trash… stink… it was vile."

  Silence.

  "A bad day for a burial!" I began again, just not to be silent.

  "Why bad?"

  "Snow, slush…" (I yawned.)

  "Makes no difference," she said suddenly, after some silence.

  "No, it's nasty…" (I yawned again.) "The gravediggers must have been swearing because the snow was making it wet. And there must have been water in the grave."

  "Why water in the grave?" she asked with a certain curiosity, but speaking even more rudely and curtly than before. Something suddenly began egging me on.

  "There'd be water in the bottom for sure, about half a foot. Here in the Volkovo you can never dig a dry grave."

  "Why not?"

  "Why not? Such a watery place. It's swamp all around here. They just get put down in the water. I've seen it myself… many times…"

  (I had never once seen it, and had never been in the Volkovo cemetery, but had only heard people talk.)

  "It makes no difference to you how you die?"

  "But why should I die?" she answered, as if defending herself.

  "You'll die someday, and just the same way as that one today. She was also… a girl… She died of consumption."

  "A jill would have died in the hospital…" (She already knows about that, I thought, and she said jill, not girl.)

  "She owed money to the madam," I objected, egged on more and more by the argument, "and worked for her almost to the end, even though she had consumption. The cabbies around there were talking with the soldiers and told them about it. Probably her old acquaintances. They were laughing. They wanted to go and commemorate her in a pot-house." (Here, too, I was laying it on thick.)

  Silence, deep silence. She did not even stir.

  "So it's better to die in a hospital, is it?"

  "What's the difference… Anyway, who says I'm going to die?" she added irritably.

  "If not now, then later?"

  "Well, and later…"

  "That's easy to say! You're young now, good-looking, fresh -so you're worth the price. But after a year of this life you won't be the same, you'll fade."

  "In a year?"

  "At any rate, in a year you'll be worth less," I went on, gloatingly. "So you'll go from here to somewhere lower, another house. A year later - to a third house, always lower and lower, and in about seven years you'll reach the Haymarket and the basement. That's still not so bad. Worse luck will be if on top of that some sickness comes along, say, some weakness of the chest… or you catch cold, or something. Sickness doesn't go away easily in such a life. Once it gets into you, it may not get out. And so you'll die."

  "Well, so I'll die," she answered, very spitefully now, and stirred quickly.

  "Still, it's a pity."

  "For who?"

  "A pity about life."

  Silence.

  "Did you have a fiance? Eh?"

  "What's it to you!"

  "But I'm not
questioning you. It's nothing to me. Why get angry? Of course, you may have had your own troubles. What's that to me? It's just a pity."

  "For who?" "For you.

  "Don't bother…" she whispered, barely audibly, and stirred again.

  This immediately fueled my anger even more. What! I was trying to be so gentle, and she…

  "But what do you think? Is it a good path you're on, eh?"

  "I don't think anything."

  "And that's what's bad, that you don't think. Wake up while you have time. And you do have time. You're still young, good-looking; you could find love, marry, be happy…"

  "Not all the married ones are happy," she snapped, in the same rude patter.

  "Not all, of course - but even so it's much better than here. A whole lot better. And with love one can live even without happiness. Life is good even in sorrow, it's good to live in the world, no matter how. And what is there here except… stench. Phew!"

  I turned to her with loathing; I was no longer reasoning coldly. I myself began to feel what I was saying, and became excited. I already thirsted to expound my cherished "little ideas," lived out in my corner. Something in me suddenly lit up, some goal "appeared."

  "Never mind my being here, I'm no example for you. Maybe I'm even worse than you. Anyway, I was drunk when I stopped here," I still hastened to justify myself. "Besides, a man is no sort of example for a woman. It's a different thing; I may dirty and befoul myself, but all the same I'm nobody's slave; I'm here, then I'm gone, and that's all. I've shaken it off, and it's no longer me. But let's admit that you're a slave from the first beginning. Yes, a slave! You give up everything, all your will. Later you may want to break these chains, but no: they'll ensnare you more and more strongly. That's how this cursed chain is. I know it. I won't even speak about other things, you perhaps wouldn't understand me, but just tell me: no doubt you're already in debt to the madam? So, you see!" I added, though she did not answer me, but only listened silently, with her whole being; "there's a chain for you! Now you'll never get it paid off. That's how they do it. The same as selling your soul to the devil…

  "… Besides, I… how do you know, maybe I'm just as unfortunate as you are, and so I get into the muck on purpose, from misery. People do drink from grief: well, so I'm here - from grief. Now tell me, where's the good in it: here you and I… came together… tonight, and we didn't say a word to each other all the while, and only afterwards you started peering at me like a wild thing, and I at you. Is that any way to love? Is that any way for two human beings to come together? It's simply an outrage, that's what!"