Notes from Underground

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!"

"Yes!" she agreed, abruptly and hastily. I was even surprised by the hastiness of this "yes." So perhaps the same thought was wandering through her mind as she was peering at me just now? So she, too, is already capable of certain thoughts?… "Devil take it, that's curious, it's - akin" I reflected, almost rubbing my hands. "No, how can I fail to get the better of such a young soul?…"

It was the game that fascinated me most of all.

She turned her head closer to me and, it seemed to me in the darkness, propped it with her hand. Perhaps she was peering at me. How sorry I was that I couldn't make out her eyes. I heard her deep breathing.

"Why did you come here?" I began, now with a sense of power. I just…

"And how good it would be to be living in your father's house! Warm, free; your own nest."

"And what if it's worse than that?"

A thought flashed in me: "I must find the right tone; sentimentality may not get me far."

However, it merely flashed. I swear she really did interest me. Besides, I was somehow unnerved and susceptible. And knavery goes so easily with feeling.

"Who can say!" I hastened to reply. "All sorts of things happen. Now, I'm sure someone wronged you, and it's rather they who are guilty before you than you before them. I know nothing of your story, but a girl of your sort certainly wouldn't come here of her own liking…"

"What sort of girl am I?" she whispered, barely audibly; but I heard it.

"Devil take it," I thought, "I'm flattering her. This is vile. Or maybe it's good…" She was silent.

"You see, Liza - I'll speak about myself! If I'd had a family in my childhood, I wouldn't be the same as I am now. I often think about it. No matter how bad things are in a family, still it's your father and mother, not enemies, not strangers. At least once a year they'll show love for you. Still you know you belong there. I grew up without a family: that must be why I turned out this way… unfeeling."

I bided my time again.

"Maybe she just doesn't understand," I thought, "and anyway it's ridiculous - this moralizing."

"If I were a father and had a daughter, I think I'd love my daughter more than my sons, really," I began obliquely, as if talking about something else, to divert her. I confess I was blushing.

"Why is that?" she asked.

Ah, so she's listening!

"I just would; I don't know, Liza. You see: I knew a father who was a stern, severe man, but he was forever on his knees before his daughter, kept kissing her hands and feet, couldn't have enough of admiring her, really. She'd be dancing at a party, and he'd stand for five hours in the same spot, unable to take his eyes off her. He was mad about her; I can understand that. She'd get tired at night and go to sleep, and he would wake up and start kissing her and making the sign of the cross over her while she slept. He himself went around in a greasy jacket, was niggardly with everybody, but for her he'd have spent his last kopeck, he kept giving her rich presents, and what a joy it was for him if she liked the present. A father always loves his daughters more than a mother does. It's a delight for some girls to live at home! And I don't think I'd even give my daughter in marriage."

"Why not?" she said, with a slight chuckle.

"I'd be jealous, by God. How could she kiss another man? Or love a stranger more than her father? It's even painful to imagine it. Of course, that's all nonsense; of course, everyone will finally see reason. But I think, before giving her away, I'd wear myself out just with worry: I'd reject one suitor after another. But in the end I'd marry her to the one she herself loved. To a father, the man his daughter falls in love with herself always seems the worst. That's how it is. Much harm is done in families because of it."

"Some are glad to sell their daughter, and not give her away honorably," she suddenly said.

Ah! That's what it is!

"That happens, Liza, in those cursed families where there is neither God nor love," I picked up heatedly, "and where there is no love, there is no reason. Such families do exist, it's true, but I'm not talking about them. Evidently you saw no goodness in your family, since you talk that way. You're one of the truly unfortunate ones. Hm… It all comes mainly from poverty."

"And is it any better with the masters? Honest people have good lives even in poverty."

"Hm… yes. Perhaps. Then there's this, Liza: man only likes counting his grief, he doesn't count his happiness. But if he were to count properly, he'd see that there's enough of both lots for him. Well, and what if everything goes right in the family, God blesses it, your husband turns out to be a good man, who loves you, pampers you, never leaves your side! It's good in this family! Oftentimes even half mixed with grief it's still good; and where is there no grief? Perhaps, once you get married, you'll find out for yourself. But take just the beginning, after you've married someone you love: there's such happiness at times, so much happiness! I mean, day in and day out. In the beginning, even quarrels with a husband end well. Some women, the more they love, the more they pick quarrels with their husbands. It's true; I knew such a woman: 'You see,' she all but said, 'I love you very much, and torment you out of love, and you ought to feel it.' Do you know that one can deliberately torment a person out of love? Women, mainly. And she thinks to herself: 'But afterwards I'll love him so much for it, I'll caress him so, that it's no sin to torment him a bit now.' And at home everyone rejoices over you, and it's good, and cheery, and peaceful, and honest… Then, too, there's the jealous sort. He goes out somewhere - I knew one like this - she can't help herself, she jumps out at night and runs on the sly to see: is he there, is he in that house, is he with that woman? Now, that is bad. And she knows herself that it's bad, and her heart is sinking, and she blames herself, and yet she loves him; it's all from love. And how good to make peace after a quarrel, to own up to him, or to forgive! And how good, how good they both suddenly feel - as if they were meeting anew, getting married anew, beginning to love anew. And no one, no one ought to know what goes on between a husband and wife if they love each other. And whatever quarrel they may have - they shouldn't call even their mother to be their judge or hear them tell about each other. They are their own judges. Love - is God's mystery, and should be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens. It's holier that way, and better. They respect each other more, and so much is founded on respect. And if there was love once, if they were married out of love, why should love pass? Can't it be sustained? It rarely happens that it can't be. Well, and if the husband proves to be a kind and honest man, how can love pass? The first married love will pass, true, but then an even better love will come. Then their souls will grow close; they'll decide all their doings together; they'll have no secrets from each other. And when children arrive, then all of it, even the hardest times, will look like happiness; one need only love and have courage. Now even work brings joy, now even if you must occasionally deny yourself bread for the children's sake, still there is joy. For they will love you for it later; so you're laying aside for yourself. The children are growing - you feel you're an example to them, a support for them; that even when you die, they'll bear your thoughts and feelings upon themselves as they received them from you, they'll take on your image and likeness. 16 So it is a great duty. How can a father and mother fail to grow closer? People say it's hard having children. Who says so? It's a heavenly happiness! Do you love little children, Liza? I love them terribly. You know - there's this rosy little boy sucking at your breast, now what husband's heart could turn against his wife, looking at her sitting with his child! The baby is rosy, plump, pampered, sprawling; his little hands and feet are pudgy; his nails are so clean and small, so small it's funny to see; his eyes seem to understand everything already. He's sucking and clutching at your breast with his little hand, playing. The father comes up - he'll tear himself away from the breast, bend back, look at his father, laughing - as if it really were God knows how funny - and then again, again start sucking. Or else he'll up and bite his mother's breast, if he's already cutting teeth, while giving her a sidelong look: 'See how I bit you!' Isn't this the whole of happiness, when they're all three together, husband, wife, and child? A lot can be forgiven for those moments. No, Liza, one must first learn how to live, and only then accuse others!"

"With pictures," I thought to myself, "I'll get you with these pictures!" - though, by God, I had spoken with feeling - and suddenly blushed. "What if she suddenly bursts out laughing, what will I do with myself then?" The idea infuriated me. I had indeed become excited towards the end of my speech, and now my vanity somehow suffered. The silence continued. I even wanted to nudge her.

"It's like you…" she began suddenly, and stopped.

But I already understood everything: something different was trembling in her voice now, not sharp, not rude, not unyielding as before, but something soft and bashful, so bashful that I myself felt abashed, felt guilty before her.

"What?" I asked, with tender curiosity.

"But you…"

"What?"

"It's as if you… as if it's from a book," she said, and again something like mockery suddenly sounded in her voice.

I was painfully twinged by this remark. It was not what I was expecting.

I did not even understand that she was purposely assuming a mask of mockery, that this is the usual last device of a bashful and chaste-hearted person whose soul is being rudely and importunately pried into, and who will not surrender till the last minute out of pride, and is afraid of showing any feeling before you. I should have guessed it from the very timidity with which she ventured, haltingly, upon her mockery, before she finally brought herself to express it. But I did not guess, and a wicked feeling took hold of me. "You just wait," I thought.

VII

Eh, come now, Liza, what have books got to do with it, if I myself feel vile for your sake. And not only for your sake. It all just rose up in my soul… Can it be, can it be that you don't find it vile here? No, habit evidently counts for a lot! Devil knows what habit can't make of a person. But can it be that you seriously think you'll never get old, that you'll be forever good-looking, and they'll keep you here forever and ever? It's foul enough even here, needless to say… However, this is what I can tell you about that, I mean, about your present life: granted you're young, attractive, nice, with a soul, with feelings; well, but do you know that when I came to my senses just now, I immediately felt vile for being here with you! One has to be drunk to end up here. But if you were in a different place, living as good people live, I might not just dangle after you, but simply fall in love with you, and be glad if you merely glanced at me, let alone spoke. I'd watch for you by the gate, I'd stay forever on my knees before you; I'd look upon you as my fiancee, and regard it as an honor. I wouldn't dare even think anything impure about you. While here I know I just have to whistle and, like it or not, you'll go with me, and it's no longer I who ask your will, but you mine. The merest peasant hires himself out to work - yet his bondage isn't total; besides, he knows there's a term to it. But where is your term? Just think: what is it you're giving up here? What are you putting in bondage? It's your soul, your soul, over which you have no power, that you put in bondage along with your body! You give your love to be profaned by any drunkard! Love! - but this is everything, it's a diamond, a maiden's treasure, this love! To deserve this love a man would be ready to lay down his soul, to face death. And what is the value of your love now? You're all bought, bought outright, and why try to obtain love if everything is possible without love? There's no worse offense for a girl, do you understand that? Now, I've heard that they humor you, fools that you are - they allow you to have lovers here. That's only an indulgence, only a deception, only a mockery of you, yet you believe it. What, does he really love you, this lover? I don't believe it. How can he love you, when he knows that you'll be called away from him any moment. He's a rotter in that case! Does he have even a drop of respect for you? What do you have in common with him? He's laughing at you while he steals from you - that's what his love amounts to! You can be thankful if he doesn't beat you. But maybe he does. Ask yours, if you have one: will he marry you? He'll burst out laughing in your face, if he doesn't spit, or give you a beating -and meanwhile his total worth is maybe two broken kopecks. And for the sake of what, one wonders, have you ruined your life here? For having coffee to drink, and being well fed? But what do they feed you for? Another woman, an honest one, would choke on it, because she'd know what they're feeding her for. You're in debt here, so you'll stay in debt, and you'll be in debt till the final end, till the time when the clients start spurning you. And that will come soon, don't count on your youth. It all flies by posthaste here. So they'll kick you out. And not simply kick you out, but first start picking on you long beforehand, reproaching you, abusing you - as if it wasn't you who gave her your health, destroyed your youth and soul for her in vain, but as if it was you who ruined her, beggared her, robbed her. And don't look for any support: the other girls will also attack you, to get in good with her, because everyone here is a slave and has long since lost all conscience and compassion. They're sunk in meanness, and no abuse in the world is more foul, mean, or offensive than that. And you'll lay down everything here, everything without stint - health, and youth, and beauty, and hopes - and at twenty-two you'll look like you're thirty-five, and you'll be lucky if you're not sick, pray to God for that. You must be thinking now that it's a picnic and not work at all! But there is not and never has been any harder or harsher work in the world than this. One would think your heart alone would simply pour itself out in tears. And you won't dare say a word, not half a word, when they throw you out of here; you'll go as if you were the one to blame. You'll go to another place, then to a third, then somewhere else, and finally you'll reach the Haymarket. And there they'll give you the routine beating; it's a courtesy of the place; there a client can't even be nice to a girl without beating her first. You don't believe it's so disgusting there? Go and look someday, maybe you'll see with your own eyes. I once saw a girl there, alone, by the door, on New Year's day. Her own people had kicked her out for the fun of it, to cool her off a bit, because she was howling too much, and locked the door behind her. At nine o'clock in the morning she was already completely drunk, disheveled, half-naked, all beaten up. Her face was powdered white, and her eyes were black-and-blue; blood was flowing from her nose and teeth: some coachman had just given her a pasting. She sat down on the stone stairs, holding some kind of salted fish; she was howling and wailing something about her 'miserble lot,' beating her fish against the steps. And coachmen and drunken soldiers crowded around the steps, teasing her. You don't believe you'll be the same? I wouldn't want to believe it either, but how do you know, maybe this same girl, the one with the salted fish, came here from somewhere ten or, say, eight years ago, fresh as a little cherub, innocent, pure, knowing no evil, and blushing at every word. Maybe she was just like you - proud, touchy, different from the rest; she had the look of a princess, and knew that complete happiness awaited the one who would love her, and whom she would love. See where it ended up? And what if at the same moment as she sat there, drunk and disheveled, beating her fish on the dirty steps, what if at that moment she recalled all her former pure years in her father's house, when she was still going to school, and the neighbor's son used to watch for her on the way, assured her he would love her all his life, that he would make his fate hers, and they made a vow together to love each other forever and to be married as soon as they got bigger! No, Liza, it will be lucky, lucky for you if you die quickly of consumption, someplace in a corner, in a basement, like that girl. In a hospital, you say? If they take you there, fine, but what if your madam still needs you? Consumption is that sort of illness; it's not a fever. A person goes on hoping till the last moment, saying he's well. It's just self-indulgence. But there's profit in it for the madam. Don't worry, it's true; you've sold your soul, you owe money besides, so you don't dare make a peep. And when you're dying, they'll all abandon you, they'll all turn away from you - because what good are you then? They'll even reproach you for uselessly taking up space and not dying quickly enough. You'll have a hard time getting a drink of water, they'll give it to you with a curse: 'Hurry up and croak, you slut; you're moaning, people can't sleep, the clients are disgusted.' It's true; I've overheard such words myself. They'll shove you, on the point of croaking, into the stinkingest corner of the basement - dark, damp; what will you go over in your mind then, lying there alone? You'll die - they'll lay you out hurriedly, strangers' hands, grumblingly, impatiently - and no one will bless you, no one will sigh over you, all they'll think is how to get you off their backs quickly. They'll buy a pine box, take you out as they did that poor girl today, and go to a pot-house to commemorate you. There's slush, muck, wet snow in the grave - they won't go to any trouble over you. 'Lower her in, Vanyukha; look at this "miserble lot" going legs up even here - the so-and-so. Shorten the ropes, you rascal.' 'It'll do as it is.' 'What'll do? She's lying on her side. You got a human being here, don't you? Well, that'll do, fill it in.' They won't even want to argue long because of you. They'll cover you up quickly with wet blue clay and go to the pothouse… That's the end of your memory on earth; other people's graves are visited by children, fathers, husbands, but at yours -not a tear, not a sigh, not a prayer, and no one, no one in the whole world will ever come to you; your name will disappear from the face of the earth - as if you'd never existed, as if you'd never been born! Mud and swamp, go ahead and knock on your coffin lid at night, when dead men rise: 'Let me out, good people, to live in the world! I lived - but saw nothing of life, my life was used up like an old rag; it got drunk up in a pothouse on the Haymarket; let me out, good people, to live in the world one more time!

I waxed pathetic, so much so that I myself was about to have a spasm in my throat, when… suddenly I stopped, raised myself in alarm, and, inclining my head fearfully, with pounding heart, began to listen. I indeed had reason to be troubled.

For a long time already I'd sensed that I had turned her whole soul over and broken her heart and the more convinced of it I was, the more I wished to reach my goal quickly and as forcefully as possible. It was the game, the game that fascinated me; not just the game, however…

I knew I'd been speaking stiffly, affectedly, even bookishly; in short, I couldn't speak any other way than "as if from a book." But that didn't trouble me; I knew, I sensed that I'd be understood, and that this very bookishness might even help things along. But now, having achieved my effect, I suddenly turned coward. No, never, never before had I witnessed such despair! She was lying prone, her face buried deep in her pillow, which she embraced with both arms. Her breast was bursting. Her whole young body was shuddering as in convulsions. Suppressed sobs were straining, tearing her breast, and would suddenly burst out in wails and cries. Then she'd cling to her pillow even more: she did not want anyone there, not a living soul, to learn of her torment and tears. She bit the pillow, she bit into her hand till it bled (I saw it later), or, clutching her loosened braids, she would go stiff with effort, holding her breath and clenching her teeth. I started to say something to her, to beg her to calm down, but felt I didn't dare, and suddenly, all in a sort of fever myself, almost horrified, I rushed gropingly, in haphazard haste, to get myself ready to go. It was dark: no matter how I tried, I couldn't finish quickly. Suddenly I touched a box of matches and a candlestick with a whole, unused candle. As soon as light shone in the room, Liza suddenly rose, sat up, and looked at me almost senselessly, with a somehow distorted face and a half-crazed smile. I sat down next to her and took her hands; she recovered herself, made a quick move as if to embrace me, but did not dare, and quietly bowed her head before me.

"Liza, my friend, I shouldn't have… forgive me," I tried to begin, but she squeezed my hands in her fingers with such force that I realized I was saying the wrong thing and stopped.

"Here's my address, Liza, come to me."

"I will…" she whispered resolutely, still without raising her head.

"And now I'll go, good-bye… till then."

I got up, she got up as well, and suddenly blushed all over, gave a start, grabbed a shawl that was lying on a chair, and wrapped her shoulders in it all the way to the chin. Having done so, she again smiled somehow painfully, blushed, and glanced at me strangely. I felt pained; I was in a hurry to leave, to efface myself.

"Wait," she said suddenly, already in the entryway and right at the door, stopping me with a hand on my overcoat, and in a flurry she set down the candle and ran off - she must have remembered something or wanted to bring something to show me. As she ran off, she blushed all over, her eyes shone, a smile appeared on her lips - what could it mean? Like it or nor, I had to wait; she came back in a minute, her eyes as if apologizing for something. Generally, this was no longer the same face, the same look as before - sullen, mistrustful, and obstinate. Now her eyes were soft, pleading, and at the same time trustful, tender, timid. Children look that way at someone they love very much, when they're asking for something. She had light brown eyes, beautiful eyes, alive, capable of reflecting both love and sullen hatred.

Without explaining anything - as if, like some higher being, I must know everything without explanations - she handed me a piece of paper. Her whole face simply lit up at that moment with the most naive, childlike triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter to her from some medical student or the like - a very grandiloquent, flowery, but extremely respectful declaration of love. I don't remember the expressions now, but I remember very well that through the high-flown style one caught glimpses of true feeling, which cannot be feigned. When I finished reading, I met her ardent, curious, and childishly impatient gaze on me. Her eyes were riveted to my face, and she waited impatiently - what would I say? In a few words, haphazardly, but somehow joyfully and as if proudly, she explained to me that she had been at a dancing party somewhere, in a family home, the home of some "very, very nice people, family people, and where they still know nothing, nothing at all," because she's still quite new here and just… and hasn't at all decided to stay yet, and will certainly leave as soon as she's paid her debt… "Well, and there was this student, dancing and talking with her all evening, and it turned out he had known her still in Riga, still as a child, they had played together, only very long ago - and he knew her parents, but he knows nothing, nothing, nothing about this and doesn't even suspect! And so, the next day after the dance (three days ago), he sent her this letter through a girlfriend with whom she'd gone to the party… and… well, that's all."

She lowered her flashing eyes somehow shyly as she finished telling me.

Poor little thing, she was keeping this student's letter as a treasure, and had run to fetch her only treasure, not wishing me to leave without knowing that she, too, was loved honestly and sincerely, that she, too, was spoken to respectfully. Most likely the letter was doomed simply to lie in a box without consequences. But what matter; I'm sure she would keep it all her life as a treasure, as her pride and justification, and now, at such a moment, she remembered the letter and brought it out to take naive pride before me, to restore herself in my eyes, so that I, too, should see, and I, too, should praise. I said nothing, pressed her hand, and walked out. I wanted so much to leave… I went the whole way on foot, in spite of the wet snow still falling in thick flakes. I was worn out, crushed, perplexed. But the truth was already shining through my perplexity. The nasty truth!

VIII

It took me a while, however, to consent to recognize this truth. Having awakened in the morning after several hours of deep, leaden sleep, and having come at once to a realization of the whole day yesterday, I was even amazed at my yesterday's sentimentality with Liza, at all of "yesterday's horrors and pities." "Now there's a real fit of womanish nerves, pah!" I decided. "And why on earth did I shove my address at her? What if she comes? However, why not, let her come; it's no matter…" But, obviously, that was not the main and most important thing now: I had to make haste and, whatever the cost, quickly save my reputation in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov. That was the main thing. And I even quite forgot about Liza that morning, what with all the bustle.

First of all, I had immediately to return yesterday's debt to Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure: borrowing a whole fifteen roubles from Anton Antonovich. As luck would have it, he was in the most wonderful spirits that day, and handed me the money at once, at my first request. I was so glad that, as I signed the receipt, with a sort of bravado, I casually told him that yesterday I had done "a bit of carousing with some friends at the Hotel de Paris; a farewell party for a schoolmate, even, one might say, a childhood friend - a big carouser, you know, a spoiled fellow - well, naturally, from a good family, a considerable fortune, a brilliant career, witty, charming, intrigues with all those ladies, you understand; we drank a 'half-dozen' too many, and…" And nothing to it; it was all spoken very lightly, easily, and smugly.

Having come home, I wrote at once to Simonov.

To this day I'm filled with admiration as I recall the truly gentlemanly, good-natured, frank tone of my letter. Adroitly, nobly, and, above all, with not a word too many - I blamed myself for everything. I excused myself, "if I may still be permitted to excuse myself," with being quite unaccustomed to wine, and thus becoming drunk at the first glass, which I (supposedly) drank before them, while waiting for them from five to six in the Hotel de Paris. I mainly begged pardon of Simonov; and I asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially Zverkov, whom, "I recall as in a dream," I seemed to have insulted. I added that I would have gone to them all myself, but I had a headache and, above all, was ashamed. I remained especially pleased with the "certain lightness," even all but casual (though perfectly decent), that suddenly reflected itself in my pen and at once gave them to understand, better than any possible reasons, that I looked upon "all that nastiness yesterday" quite independently; in no way, by no means, was I killed on the spot, as you good sirs probably think, but on the contrary I looked upon it as befits a calmly self-respecting gentleman. "The errors of youth are soon forgotten," as they say.

"And that certain marquisian playfulness, even?" I admired, rereading the note. "And all because I'm a developed and educated man! Others in my place wouldn't know how to extricate themselves, and here I've wriggled out of it and can go on carousing, and all because I'm 'an educated and developed man of our times.' Besides, maybe it really did all come from the wine yesterday. Hm… well, no, not from the wine. And I didn't drink any vodka between five and six, while I was waiting for them. I lied to Simonov; lied shamelessly; and even now I'm not ashamed…

"Ah, spit on it, however! I'm out of it, that's the main thing."

I put six roubles into the letter, sealed it, and prevailed upon

Apollon to take it to Simonov. On learning that there was money inside, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to go. Towards evening I went out for a stroll. My head was still aching and dizzy from yesterday. But the more evening advanced and the twilight thickened, the more my impressions and, after them, my thoughts as well, kept changing and tangling. Something within me, deep in my heart and conscience, would not die, refused to die, and betrayed itself in a burning anguish. I loitered about mainly on the most crowded business streets -Meshchanskaya, Sadovaya, around the Yusupov Garden. I had always liked especially to stroll along those streets at twilight, precisely when the crowd thickens with all sorts of passers-by, merchants, and tradesmen, their faces preoccupied to the point of anger, going home from their daily work. I precisely liked this twopenny bustle, this insolent prosiness. But now all this street jostling only irritated me the more. I simply could not get hold of myself, could not find the loose ends. Something in my soul was rising, rising, ceaselessly, painfully, and refused to be still. I returned home thoroughly upset. Like as if some crime lay on my soul.

I was constantly tormented by the thought that Liza would come. What I found strange was that, of all those memories from yesterday, the memory of her tormented me somehow specially, somehow quite separately. By evening I had already quite successfully forgotten all the rest, brushed it aside, and I was still perfectly pleased with my letter to Simonov. But with this I was somehow not so pleased. It was like as if I were tormented over Liza alone. "What if she comes?" I thought ceaselessly. "Well, no matter, let her come. Hm. The only bad thing is that she'll see, for example, how I live. Yesterday I showed myself to her as such a… hero… and now, hm! It's bad, however, that I've gone so much to seed. Sheer poverty in the apartment. And I dared go to dinner yesterday in such clothes! And this oilcloth sofa of mine, with the stuffing hanging out of it! And this dressing gown that doesn't even cover me! Such tatters… And she'll see all this; and she'll see Apollon. The brute is sure to insult her. He'll pick on her in order to be rude to me. And I, of course, as is my custom, will turn coward, start mincing before her, covering myself with the skirts of my dressing gown, start smiling, start lying. Ohh, vileness! And that's not even the chief vileness! There's something chiefer in it, viler, meaner! Yes, meaner! And again, again to put on that dishonorable, lying mask!…"

Having arrived at this thought, I simply flared up:

"Why dishonorable? What's dishonorable? I spoke sincerely yesterday. I remember there was also true feeling in me. I precisely wanted to evoke noble feelings in her… if she cried a bit, that's good, it'll have a good effect…"

But all the same I just could not calm down.

That whole evening, when I'd already returned home, when it was already past nine and by my reckoning Liza simply could not come, I still kept imagining her, and I recalled her, mostly, in one and the same position. Namely, of all that had happened yesterday, I pictured one moment especially vividly: it was when I lighted up the room with a match and saw her pale, distorted face with its tormented eyes. And how pathetic, how unnatural, how twisted her smile was at that moment! But I did not know then that even after fifteen years I would still be picturing Liza precisely with the pathetic, twisted, needless smile she had at that moment.

The next day I was again prepared to regard it all as nonsense, frazzled nerves, and, above all - exaggeration. I was always aware of this weak link in me, and at times was very afraid of it: "I'm forever exaggerating; that's where I'm lame," I repeated to myself at all hours. But nevertheless, "nevertheless, Liza may still come" - this was the refrain with which all my reasonings at that time concluded. I worried so much that I sometimes became furious. "She'll come! She's sure to come!" I'd exclaim, running up and down my room. "If not today, then tomorrow, but she'll find me! That's the cursed romanticism of all these pure hearts! Oh, the vileness, oh, the stupidity, oh, the narrowness of these 'rotten, sentimental souls'! How can one not understand, how indeed can one not understand…" But here I myself would stop, and even in great confusion.

"And it took so little, so little talk," I thought in passing, "such a little idyll (an affected idyll besides, a contrived, a bookish one), to succeed in turning a whole human soul the way I wanted. There's virginity for you! There's the freshness of the soil!"

At times the thought occurred to me of going to her myself, "to tell her everything" and prevail upon her not to come to me. But here, at this thought, such spite rose up in me that I think I would simply have squashed this "cursed" Liza if she'd suddenly happened to be there, insulted her, spat upon her, driven her out, struck her!

A day passed, however, then another, then a third - she did not come, and I began to calm down. I especially took heart and let myself go after nine o'clock, I sometimes even began to dream, and that quite sweetly: "I save Liza," for example, "precisely through her coming to me, and my telling her… I develop her, educate her. I finally notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend; probably just for the beauty of it). At last, all confused, beautiful, trembling and weeping, she throws herself at my feet and says that I am her savior, and that she loves me more than anything in the world. I am amazed, but… 'Liza,' I say, 'can you really think I haven't noticed your love? I saw everything, I guessed, but I dared not presume first upon your heart, because I had influence over you and feared lest you, out of gratitude, might deliberately make yourself return my love, might call up by force a feeling that perhaps is not there, and I did not want that, because that is… despotism… It is indelicate'" (well, in short, here I let my tongue run away with me in some such European, George-Sandian, ineffably noble refinement…). 17 "'But now, now - you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, beautiful, you are - my beautiful wife.

And now, full mistress of the place, Come bold and free into my house.' 18

"And then we begin living happily ever after, go abroad, etc., etc." In short, I felt vile and would end by sticking my tongue out at myself.

"They won't even let the 'slut' come!" I thought. "They don't seem to allow them out much, especially in the evening" (for some reason it seemed certain to me that she must come in the evening, and precisely at seven o'clock). "Though she said she's not completely bound to them yet, she has some special privileges there; so - hm! Devil take it, she'll come, she's sure to come!

It was a good thing Apollon diverted me at that time with his rudeness. Drove me out of all patience! He was my thorn, a scourge visited upon me by Providence. He and I had been in constant altercation for several years on end, and I hated him. My God, how I hated him! I think I've never in my life hated anyone as I did him, especially at certain moments. He was an elderly, imposing man, who occupied himself part of the time with tailoring. I don't know why, but he despised me even beyond all measure and looked at me with an insufferable haughtiness. But then he looked at everyone with haughtiness. One glance at that pale-haired, slicked-down head, at the quiff he fluffed up on his forehead and oiled with vegetable oil, at that serious mouth forever pursed in a V - and you immediately sensed before you a being who never doubted himself. He was in the highest degree a pedant, and the most enormous pedant of any I've ever met on earth; and this was accompanied by a vanity perhaps befitting only Alexander of Macedon. He was in love with his every button, his every fingernail - absolutely in love, and he looked it! He treated me quite despotically, spoke extremely little with me, and if he chanced to let his eyes rest on me, he did so with a firm, majestically self-confident, and permanently mocking look, which sometimes drove me to fury. He fulfilled his duties with such an air as if he were bestowing the highest favor upon me. However, he did almost exactly nothing for me, and did not even consider himself obliged to do anything. There was no doubting that he considered me the most complete fool in the whole world, and if he "kept me around," it was solely because he could get his wages from me every month. He agreed to "do nothing" in my service for seven roubles a month. Many sins will be forgiven me for him. It sometimes reached such hatred that I'd be all but thrown into convulsions by his gait alone. But I loathed his lisp especially. His tongue was a bit longer than it should have been, or something like that, which caused him to be forever lisping and sissing, and he was apparently terribly proud of it, imagining that it lent him a great deal of dignity. He spoke softly, measuredly, placing his hands behind his back and looking down. He especially infuriated me when he'd start reading the Psalter behind his partition. I endured many a battle on account of that reading. But he liked terribly much to read in the evenings, in a soft, even voice, chanting as over a dead body. Curiously, that's how he ended up: he now hires himself out to read the Psalter over the deceased, and along with that he exterminates rats and makes shoe polish. But at the time I was unable to throw him out, as though he had combined chemically with my existence. Besides, he would not have agreed to leave me for anything. It was impossible for me to live in chambres garnies: 19 my apartment was my mansion, my shell, my case, in which I hid from all mankind, and Apollon, it seemed to me -devil knows why - belonged to that apartment, and for a whole seven years I was unable to throw him out.

To withhold his wages, for example, for as little as two or three days, was impossible. He'd make such a to-do that I wouldn't even know where to hide. But in those days I was so embittered against everyone that I resolved, who knows why or what for, to punish Apollon and not give him his wages for another two weeks. I had long been intending to do this, for two years or so - solely to prove to him that he dared not get so puffed up over me, and that if I wished I could always not give him his wages. I decided not to tell him about it and even to maintain a deliberate silence, in order to vanquish his pride and make him be the first to speak of his wages. Then I would take all seven roubles from the drawer, to show him that I had them and had deliberately set them aside, but that I "did not, did not, simply did not want to give him his wages, did not want to because that's how I wanted it, because such was 'my will as the master,' because he was irreverent, because he was a boor; but that if he asked reverently, perhaps I would relent and pay him; otherwise he'd have to wait another two weeks, wait three weeks, wait a whole month…"

But, angry though I was, the victory still went to him. I didn't even hold out for four days. He began with what he always began with on such occasions - for there had already been such occasions, or attempts (and, I will note, I knew it all beforehand, I knew his mean tactics by heart) - that is, he usually began by fixing me with an extremely stern look, not taking it off me for several minutes at a time, following me with his eyes especially when I came in or was leaving the house. If, for example, I held out and pretended not to notice these looks, he would proceed, silently as ever, to further tortures. Suddenly, for no reason at all, he would come softly and smoothly into my room while I was pacing about or reading, stop by the door, put one arm behind his back, thrust out one hip, and fix me with his eyes, no longer so much stern as altogether contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make no reply, and go on staring at me point-blank for several seconds more; then, pressing his lips together in some special way, with a significant air, he would turn slowly on his heel and suddenly go to his room. About two hours later he would suddenly emerge again, and again appear before me in the same way. Sometimes, in my fury, I would no longer ask what he wanted, but simply raise my head abruptly and imperiously, and also begin staring point-blank at him. And so we'd stare at each other like that for about two minutes; finally, he would turn, slowly and pompously, and go away for another two hours.

If I refused to be brought to reason by all this and continued my rebellion, he would suddenly begin to sigh as he looked at me, sigh long and deeply, as if measuring with each sigh the full depth of my moral fall, and, of course, it would end at last with him overcoming me completely: I'd get furious, I'd shout, but with that which had been the whole point I'd be forced to comply.

This time, however, as soon as the usual "stern look" maneuvers began, I immediately lost my temper and fell on him in a fury. I was all too irritated to begin with.

"Stop!" I yelled in a frenzy, as he was turning, slowly and silently, one arm behind his back, to go to his room. "Stop! Come back! Come back, I tell you!" And I must have bellowed so unnaturally that he turned and began to study me even with a certain surprise. However, he still did not say a word, and it was this that infuriated me.

"How dare you come in here without permission and stare at me like that! Answer!"

But he, having looked at me calmly for about half a minute, again began to turn around.

"Stop!" I roared, running up to him, "don't move! So. Now answer: what did you come in here and stare for?"

"If there's something you want done direckly, it's my duty to see to it," he replied, again after some silence, lisping softly and measuredly, raising his eyebrows, and calmly shifting his head from one side to the other - and all that with horrifying composure.

"That's not it, that's not what I'm asking you, hangman!" I shouted, shaking with anger. "I'll tell you myself, hangman, why you keep coming here: you see I'm not giving you your wages, in your pride you don't want to bow and beg, and for that you come with your stupid staring to punish me, to torture me, and you don't even r-r-realize, hangman, how stupid it is, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!"

He again began to turn silently, but I grabbed him.

"Listen," I was shouting at him. "Here's the money, see, here it is!" (I took it out of the drawer.) "All seven roubles, but you won't get it, you will not get it, until such time as you come respectfully, with a guilty head, to ask my forgiveness. Do you hear!"

"That can never be!" he replied, with a sort of unnatural self-assurance.

"It will be!" I was shouting. "I give you my word of honor, it will be!"

"And there's nothing for me to ask your forgiveness about," he went on, as if not noticing my shouts at all, "seeing as you yourself have abused me with 'hangman,' on which offense I can always apply against you at the precinct."

"Go! Apply!" I roared. "Go now, this minute, this second! And you're still a hangman! hangman! hangman!" But he just looked at me, then turned and, no longer listening to my appeals, went smoothly to his place without a backward glance.

"There wouldn't be any of this if it weren't for Liza!" I decided to myself. Then, after a moment's pause, pompously and solemnly, but slowly and with a pounding heart, I myself proceeded behind his screen.

"Apollon!" I said softly and measuredly, though I was suffocating, "go for the police chief at once, without the slightest delay!"

He had managed meanwhile to sit down at his table, put on his spectacles, and begin some sewing. But hearing my order, he suddenly snorted with laughter.

"Go now, this minute! Go, or you can't even imagine what will happen!"

"Truly, you're not in your right senses," he observed, without even raising his head, with the same slow lisp, and continuing to thread his needle. "Who's ever seen a man go to the authorities against himself? And as to scaring me - you're exerting yourself in vain, because - nothing will happen."

"Go!" I shrieked, grabbing him by the shoulder. I felt I was about to strike him.

And I did not even hear how the outer door opened at that moment, softly and slowly, and some figure entered, stopped, and began gazing at us in perplexity. I looked, died of shame, and rushed to my room. There, clutching my hair with both hands, I leaned my head against the wall and stood frozen in that position.

About two minutes later I heard the slow steps of Apollon.

" Some… one is asking for you out there," he said, looking at me with particular sternness, then stepped aside and let in - Liza. He did not want to leave, and stared at us mockingly.

"Get out! Get out!" I ordered repeatedly, quite lost. At that moment my clock strained, hissed, and struck seven.

IX

And now, full mistress of the place, Come bold and free into my house.

From the same poetry

I stood before her, destroyed, branded, disgustingly embarrassed, and, I think, smiling, trying as hard as I could to wrap myself in my ragged old quilted dressing gown - well, exactly as I had pictured to myself recently in fallen spirits. Apollon hovered around us for about two minutes and then left, but that made it no easier for me. Worst of all was that she, too, suddenly became embarrassed, much more so than I would even have expected. From looking at me, of course.

"Sit down," I said mechanically, and moved a chair out for her at the table, while I myself sat on the sofa. She sat down at once and obediently, staring at me all eyes, apparently expecting something from me right then. The naivety of this expectation infuriated me, but I restrained myself.

The thing to do here would have been to try not to notice anything, as if it were all quite ordinary, but she… And I sensed vaguely that she was going to pay dearly for it all…

"You find me in an odd situation, Liza," I began, stammering, and knowing that this was precisely not how I should have begun.

"No, no, don't think anything of the sort!" I cried, seeing her suddenly blush. "I'm not ashamed of my poverty… On the contrary, I look upon my poverty with pride. I'm poor, but noble… One can be poor and noble," I went on mumbling. "However… would you like some tea?"

"No…" she tried to begin.

"Wait!"

I jumped up and ran to Apollon. I really had to vanish somewhere.

"Apollon," I whispered in a feverish patter, flinging down before him the seven roubles, which had remained in my fist all the while, "here's your wages; see, I'm giving it to you; but for that you must save me: go at once and bring some tea and ten rusks from the tavern. If you refuse to go, you'll ruin a man's happiness. You don't know what this woman is… This is -everything. You're perhaps having certain thoughts… But you don't know what this woman is!…"

Apollon, who had already sat down to work, and had already put his spectacles back on, at first, without abandoning his needle, silently cast a sidelong glance at the money; then, paying no attention to me and not answering me at all, he went on fussing with his thread, which he was still trying to put through the needle. I waited for about three minutes, standing before him, my arms folded a la Napoleon. My temples were damp with sweat; I was pale, I could sense it. But, thank God, he must have felt sorry looking at me. Having finished with his needle, he slowly rose from his seat, slowly moved the chair aside, slowly took off his spectacles, slowly counted the money, and at last, having asked me over his shoulder: should he get a full portion? - slowly walked out of the room. As I was returning to Liza, it occurred to me on the way: why don't I flee, just as I am, in my wretched old dressing gown, wherever my feet take me, and come what may?

I sat down again. She looked at me anxiously. For several minutes we said nothing.

"I'll kill him!" I suddenly cried, banging my fist so hard on the table that the ink splashed out of the inkstand.

"Ah! What is it!" she cried with a start.

"I'll kill him, I'll kill him!" I was shrieking, pounding on the table, in a perfect frenzy, and at the same time with a perfect understanding of how stupid it was to be in such a frenzy.

"You don't know, Liza, what this hangman is for me. He's my hangman… He's just gone to get some rusks; he…"

And I suddenly broke down in tears. It was a fit. Oh, how ashamed I was between sobs; but I could no longer hold them back.

She was frightened. "What is it! What's the matter!" she kept crying out, bustling around me.

"Water, give me water, over there!" I murmured in a weak voice, conscious, however, within myself, that I was quite well able to do without water and not to murmur in a weak voice. But I was putting on a show, as they say, to preserve decency, though the fit was a real one.

She gave me water, looking at me as if lost. At that moment Apollon brought in the tea. It suddenly seemed to me that this ordinary and prosaic tea was terribly indecent and measly after all that had happened, and I blushed. Liza looked at Apollon even fearfully. He went out without glancing at us.

"Liza, do you despise me?" I said, looking at her point-blank, trembling with impatience to find out what she thought.

She became embarrassed, and was unable to reply.

"Drink your tea!" I said spitefully. I was angry with myself, but, naturally, she was going to bear the brunt of it. A terrible spite against her suddenly boiled up in my heart; I think I could simply have killed her. To be revenged on her, I swore mentally not to speak even one word to her from then on. "It's she who caused it all," I thought.

Our silence had already lasted some five minutes. The tea sat on the table; we didn't touch it: it went so far that I purposely refused to begin drinking, so as to make it still harder for her; and it would have been awkward for her to begin. Several times she glanced at me in sad perplexity. I was stubbornly silent. The chief martyr, of course, was myself, because I was fully conscious of all the loathsome baseness of my spiteful stupidity, and at the same time I simply could not restrain myself.

"I want… to get out of there… for good," she tried to begin, in order to break the silence somehow, but, poor thing! she precisely ought not to have started with that at such a moment, stupid as it was to begin with, or to such a man, stupid as I was to begin with. Even my heart ached from pity for her ineptness and unnecessary candor. But something ugly immediately suppressed all pity in me; it even egged me on still more: perish the whole world! Another five minutes passed.

"Perhaps I've disturbed you?" she began timidly, in a barely audible voice, and started to get up.

But as soon as I saw this first flash of injured dignity I simply trembled with anger and at once burst out.

"What did you come to me for, do tell me, please?" I began, suffocating, and not even considering the logical order of my words. I wanted to speak everything out at once, in one shot; I didn't even care where I began.

"Why did you come? Answer! Answer!" I kept exclaiming, all but beside myself. "I'll tell you why you came, my dear. You came because of the pathetic words I used with you then. So you went all soft, and you wanted more 'pathetic words.' Know, then, know that I was laughing at you that time. And I'm laughing now. Why do you tremble? Yes, laughing! I'd been insulted earlier, at dinner, by the ones who came there ahead of me. I came there to give a thrashing to one of them, the officer; but I didn't succeed, he wasn't there; I needed to unload my offense on someone, to get my own back, and you turned up, so I poured out my spite and laughed at you. I'd been humiliated, so I, too, wanted to humiliate; they'd ground me down like a rag, so I, too, wanted to show my power… That's what it was, and you thought I came then on purpose to save you, right? That's what you thought? That's what you thought?"

I knew she might perhaps get confused and not understand the details; but I also knew she'd understand the essence perfectly well. And so it happened. She turned white as a sheet, tried to utter something, her mouth twisted painfully; but, as if cut down with an axe, she sank onto the chair. And all the rest of the time she listened to me with open mouth, with wide open eyes, and trembling in terrible fear. The cynicism, the cynicism of my words crushed her…

"To save you!" I went on, jumping up from my chair and running back and forth in front of her, "to save you from what! But maybe I'm worse than you are. Why didn't you fling it in my mug when I started reading you my oration: And you, what did you come here for? To teach us morals, or what?' Power, power, that's what I wanted then, the game was what I wanted, I wanted to achieve your tears, your humiliation, your hysterics - that's what I wanted then! But I couldn't stand it myself, because I'm trash, I got all scared and, like a fool, gave you my address, devil knows why. And afterwards, even before I got home, I was already cursing you up and down for that address. I already hated you, because I'd lied to you then. Because I only talk a good game, I only dream in my head, but do you know what I want in reality? That you all go to hell, that's what! I want peace. I'd sell the whole world for a kopeck this minute, just not to be bothered. Shall the world go to hell, or shall I not have my tea? I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea. Did you know that or not? Well, and I do know that I'm a blackguard, a scoundrel, a self-lover, a lazybones. I spent these past three days trembling for fear you might come. And do you know what particularly bothered me all these three days? That I had presented myself to you as such a hero then, and now you'd suddenly see me in this torn old dressing gown, abject, vile. I just told you I was not ashamed of my poverty, know, then, that I am ashamed, I'm ashamed of it most of all, afraid of it more than anything, more than of being a thief, because I'm so vain it's as if I'd been flayed and the very air hurts me. But can you possibly not have realized even now that I will never forgive you for having found me in this wretched dressing gown, as I was hurling myself like a vicious little cur at Apollon? The resurrector, the former hero, flinging himself like a mangy, shaggy mutt at his lackey, who just laughs at him! And those tears a moment ago, which, like an ashamed woman, I couldn't hold back before you, I will never forgive you! And what I'm confessing to you now, I will also never forgive you! Yes - you, you alone must answer for all this, because you turned up here, because I'm a scoundrel, because I'm the most vile, the most ridiculous, the most petty, the most stupid, the most envious of all worms on earth, who are in no way better than I, but who, devil knows why, are never embarrassed; while I will just go on being flicked all my life by every nit - that's my trait! Besides, what do I care if you won't understand a word of it! And what, tell me, what, what do I care about you and whether you're perishing there or not? Do you understand, now that I've spoken it all out to you, how I'm going to hate you for being here and listening? Because a man speaks out like this only once in his life, and then only in hysterics!… What more do you want? Why, after all this, do you still stick there in front of me, tormenting me, refusing to leave?"

But here a strange circumstance suddenly occurred.

I was so used to thinking and imagining everything from books, and to picturing everything in the world to myself as I had devised it beforehand in my dreams, that at first I didn't even understand this strange circumstance. What occurred was this: Liza, whom I had insulted and crushed, understood far more than I imagined. She understood from it all what a woman, if she loves sincerely, always understands before anything else - namely, that I myself was unhappy.

The frightened and insulted feeling in her face first gave way to rueful amazement. And when I began calling myself a scoundrel and a blackguard, and my tears poured down (I had spoken the entire tirade in tears), her whole face twisted in a sort of convulsion. She wanted to get up, to stop me; and when I came to the end, she paid no attention to my cries: "Why are you here, why don't you leave!" but only to how very hard it must have been for me to speak it all out. Besides, she was so downtrodden, poor thing; she considered herself infinitely beneath me; how could she be angry or offended? She suddenly jumped from her chair on some irrepressible impulse, and, all yearning towards me, but still timidly, not daring to move from the spot, stretched out her arms to me… Here my heart, too, turned over in me. Then she suddenly rushed to me, threw her arms about my neck, and burst into tears. I, too, could not help myself and broke into such sobbing as had never happened to me before…

"They won't let me… I can't be… good!" I barely articulated, then went to the sofa, fell face down, and sobbed for a quarter of an hour in real hysterics. She leaned towards me, embraced me, and remained as if frozen in that embrace.

But still, the hitch was that the hysterics did have to end. And so (I am writing the loathsome truth), lying prone on the sofa, my face buried hard in the wretched leather cushion, I began little by little, remotely, involuntarily, but irresistibly, to feel that it would be awkward now to raise my head and look straight into Liza's eyes. What was I ashamed of? I don't know, but I was ashamed. It also came into my agitated head that the roles were now finally reversed, that she was now the heroine, and I was the same crushed and humiliated creature as she had been before me that night - four days ago… And all this came to me during those minutes when I was still lying prone on the sofa!

My God! but can it be that I envied her then?

I don't know, to this day I cannot decide, and then, of course, I was even less able to understand it than now. For without power and tyranny over someone, I really cannot live… But… but reasoning explains nothing, and consequently there's no point in reasoning.

I mastered myself, however, and raised my head; indeed, I had to raise it sometime… And then - I am convinced of it even to this day - precisely because I was ashamed to look at her, another feeling suddenly kindled and flared up in my heart… the feeling of domination and possession. My eyes gleamed with passion, and I squeezed her hands hard. How I hated her and how drawn I was to her at that moment! One feeling intensified the other. This was almost like revenge!… At first, a look as if of perplexity, even as if of fear, came to her face, but only for a moment. She embraced me rapturously and ardently.

X

A quarter of an hour later I was running up and down my room in furious impatience, going to the screen every other minute and peeking at Liza through a crack. She was sitting on the floor, her head leaning against the bed, and was probably crying. But she wouldn't leave, and that was what irritated me. This time she knew everything. I had given her the final insult, but… no use talking about it. She guessed that my burst of passion was precisely revenge, a new humiliation for her, and that to my previous, almost pointless hatred there had now been added a personal, envious hatred of her… I do not insist, by the way, that she understood it all clearly; but on the other hand she fully understood that I was a loathsome man and, above all, incapable of loving her.

I know I shall be told that all this is inconceivable, that it is inconceivable to be as wicked, as stupid, as I was; perhaps it will also be added that it was inconceivable not to love her, or at least not to appreciate her love. But why inconceivable? First, I was no longer able to love, because, I repeat, for me to love meant to tyrannize and to preponderize morally All my life I've been incapable even of picturing any other love, and I've reached the point now of sometimes thinking that love consists precisely in the right, voluntarily granted by the beloved object, to be tyrannized over. In my underground dreams as well, I never pictured love to myself otherwise than as a struggle; for me it always started from hatred and ended with moral subjugation, and afterwards I couldn't even picture to myself what to do with the subjugated object. And how is it inconceivable, if I had managed so to corrupt myself morally, had grown so unaccustomed to "living life," that I had dared just before to reproach and shame her for coming to me to hear "pathetic words"; and I myself never guessed that she had come to me not at all to hear pathetic words, but to love me, because for a woman it is in love that all resurrection, all salvation from ruin of whatever sort, and all regeneration consists, nor can it reveal itself in anything else but this. However, I did not hate her all that much as I was running about my room and peeking behind the screen through a crack. I simply felt it unbearably burdensome that she was there. I wanted her to disappear. I longed for "peace," I longed to be left alone in the underground. "Living life" so crushed me, unaccustomed to it as I was, that it even became difficult for me to breathe.

But several more minutes passed and she still did not get up, as if she were oblivious. I was shameless enough to tap softly on the screen to remind her… She suddenly roused herself, started up from her place, and rushed to look for her scarf, her hat, her fur coat, as if to escape from me somewhere… Two minutes later she came slowly from behind the screen and gave me a heavy look. I grinned spitefully, though forcedly, for decency's sake, and turned away from her look.

"Good-bye," she said, making for the door.

I suddenly ran to her, seized her hand, opened it, put… and closed it again. Then I turned at once and quickly sprang away to the opposite corner, so as at least not to see…

I was going to lie right now - to write that I did it accidentally, in distraction, at a loss, out of foolishness. But I don't want to lie, and so I'll say directly that I opened her hand and put… in it out of malice. The thought of doing it occurred to me while I was running up and down my room and she was sitting behind the screen. But this much I can say with certainty: although I did this cruelty on purpose, it came not from my heart, but from my stupid head. This cruelty was so affected, so much from the head, so purposely contrived, so bookish, that I myself could not bear it even for a minute - first I sprang away to the corner so as not to see, then in shame and despair I rushed after Liza. I opened the door to the landing and began to listen.

"Liza! Liza!" I called out to the stairway, but timidly, in a low voice…

There was no answer; I thought I could hear her footsteps down below.

"Liza!" I called more loudly.

No answer. But at that moment I heard from below the tight glass outer door to the street creak open heavily and slam tightly shut again. The bang echoed up the stairway.

She was gone. I went back to my room, pondering. I felt terribly heavy.

I stopped by the table next to the chair on which she had been sitting, and stared senselessly before me. About a minute passed; suddenly I gave a great start: there before me, on the table, I saw… in short, I saw a crumpled blue five-rouble bill, the very one I had pressed into her hand a moment before. It was that bill; it couldn't have been any other; there wasn't any other in the house. So she had managed to fling it from her hand onto the table just as I jumped away to the opposite corner.

Well, then? I could have expected her to do that. Could have expected? No. I was so great an egoist, I had in fact so little respect for people, that I could scarcely imagine she, too, would do that. I couldn't bear it. A second later I rushed like a madman to get dressed, threw on in a flurry whatever I could find, and raced headlong after her. She couldn't have gone more than two hundred steps before I ran out to the street.

It was still, and the snow was falling heavily, almost perpendicularly, laying a pillow over the sidewalk and the deserted roadway. Not a single passer-by, not a sound to be heard. The street-lamps flickered glumly and uselessly. I ran about two hundred steps to the intersection and stopped.

"Where did she go? And why am I running after her? Why? To fall down before her, to weep in repentance, to kiss her feet, to beg forgiveness! I wanted it; my whole breast was tearing apart, and never, never will I recall this moment with indifference. But - why?" came the thought. "Won't I hate her, maybe tomorrow even, precisely for kissing her feet today? Will I bring her happiness? Haven't I learned again today, for the hundredth time, just how much I'm worth? Won't I torment her to death!"

I stood in the snow, peering into the dull darkness, and thought about that.

"And won't it be better, yes, better," I fancied later, back at home, stifling the living pain in my heart with fantasies, "won't it be better if she now carries an insult away with her forever? An insult - but this is purification; it's the most stinging and painful consciousness! By tomorrow I'd have already dirtied her soul with myself and worn out her heart. But now the insult will never die in her, and however vile the dirt that awaits her - the insult will elevate and purify her… through hatred… hm… maybe also forgiveness… Though, by the way, will all that make it any easier for her?" And in fact I'm now asking an idle question of my own: which is better - cheap happiness, or lofty suffering? Well, which is better?

Such were my reveries as I sat at home that evening, barely alive from the pain in my soul. Never before had I endured so much suffering and repentance; but could there have been even the slightest doubt, as I went running out of the apartment, that I would turn back halfway? Never have I met Liza again, or heard anything about her. I will also add that for a long time I remained pleased with the. phrase about the usefulness of insult and hatred, even though I myself almost became sick then from anguish.

Even now, after so many years, all this comes out somehow none too well in my recollection. Many things come out none too well now in my recollections, but… shouldn't I just end my Notes here? I think it was a mistake to begin writing them. At least I've felt ashamed all the while I've been writing this story: so it's no longer literature, but corrective punishment. Because, for example, to tell long stories of how I defaulted on my life through moral corruption in a corner, through an insufficiency of milieu, through unaccustom to what is alive, and through vainglorious spite in the underground - is not interesting, by God; a novel needs a hero, and here there are purposely collected all the features for an anti-hero, and, in the first place, all this will produce a most unpleasant impression, because we've all grown unaccustomed to life, we're all lame, each of us more or less. We've even grown so unaccustomed that at times we feel a sort of loathing for real "living life," and therefore cannot bear to be reminded of it. For we've reached a point where we regard real "living life" almost as labor, almost as service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book. And why do we sometimes fuss about, why these caprices, these demands of ours? We ourselves don't know why. It would be the worse for us if our capricious demands were fulfilled. Go on, try giving us more independence, for example, unbind the hands of any one of us, broaden our range of activity, relax the tutelage, and we… but I assure you: we will immediately beg to be taken back under tutelage. I know you'll probably get angry with me for that, shout, stamp your feet: "Speak just for yourself and your miseries in the underground, and don't go saying 'we all.'"

Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am not justifying myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves. So that I, perhaps, come out even more "living" than you. Take a closer look! We don't even know where the living lives now, or what it is, or what it's called! Leave us to ourselves, without a book, and we'll immediately get confused, lost - we won't know what to join, what to hold to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. It's a burden for us even to be men - men with real, our own bodies and blood; we're ashamed of it, we consider it a disgrace, and keep trying to be some unprecedented omni-men. We're stillborn, and have long ceased to be born of living fathers, and we like this more and more. We're acquiring a taste for it. Soon we'll contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write any more "from Underground"…

However, the "notes" of this paradoxalist do not end here. He could not help himself and went on. But it also seems to us that this may be a good place to stop.

NOTES

part one: underground i. Collegiate assessor was the eighth of the fourteen ranks in the Imperial Russian civil service, equivalent to the military rank of major. The narrator had attained this rank by the time he quit the service, a year before writing his "notes" (1864), not at the time of the episodes he describes in Part Two (1848-50).

2. The language here is biblical, reminiscent of many passages in the Psalms, the Book of Job, and the Gospels in which the righteous man is confronted by skeptical critics. Isaiah 19:11 refers specifically to the "wise counsellors" of Pharaoh; "waggers of heads" are mentioned in Matthew 27:39 and Mark 15:29.

3. This combination of terms goes back to such eighteenth-century treatises as A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), by the Anglo-Irish writer and statesman Edmund Burke (1729-97), and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764), by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The Russian phrase, replacing "sublime" with the less rhetorical "lofty," became a critical commonplace in the 1840s, but acquired an ironic tone in the utilitarian and anti-aesthetic 1860s.

4. "The man of nature and truth" (French), Dostoevsky's mocking distortion of a sentence from the prefatory note of Confessions by the French philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques

Rousseau (1712-78): "Here is the only portrait of a man, painted exactly from nature and in all its truth, that exists and probably ever will exist."

5. Glancing references are made here to "Darwinism" and to the theory of "enlightened self-interest" put forward by the English utilitarians in the 1830s and -40s. Darwin avoided the question of human evolution from other animals in his Origin of Species (1859); not so T. H. Huxley (1825-95), whose book Man's Place in Nature (1863) openly stated the case. A Russian translation of this book was published early in 1864, just as Dostoevsky was writing Notes from Underground.

6. According to the General Address Book of Petersburg, there were eight dentists named Wagenheim practicing in the city at the time.

7. In fact, the phrase was characteristic of articles published in Time and Epoch, magazines edited by Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail in 1861-65.

8. A "no-account" or "rascal" (French), from the German Schnapphahn, a pilferer.

9. The Russian genre painter N. N. Ge (1831-94) exhibited a painting entitled The Last Supper at the Academy of Art in 1863. Dostoevsky detested the painting, and here takes advantage of the fact that the artist's name (pronounced almost like the English word "gay") sounds the same as the first letter - often used as a genteel euphemism - of the Russian word govno, "shit." Hence the odd structure of the sentence.

10. Dostoevsky's ideological opponent M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-89) published an article with this title in the liberal monthly The Contemporary (1863, no. 7). Dostoevsky pokes fun at him by taking the title literally. Saltykov-Shchedrin had written an article praising Ge's Last Supper for the same journal (1863, no. 11).

11. The English historian Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-62), in his History of Civilization in England (1807-61), formulated the idea that the development of civilization leads to the cessation of war between nations.

12. The wars of the "great" Napoleon (1769-1821) are well known. His nephew Napoleon III (1808-73; emperor 1852-70) started the Crimean War against Russia (1854-56), took Cochin China for France (1859-62), intervened in Mexico on the losing side of the emperor Maximilian, and finally declared war on Prussia (1870), which led to his capitulation and removal from power. At the time that Dostoevsky was writing Notes from Underground, the North American union was enduring the test of the Civil War, and Prussia was at war with Denmark over possession of the province of Schleswig-Holstein, which had been under Danish hegemony since 1773.

13. Attila (406?-53), "the Scourge of God," king of the Huns, led devastating military campaigns against the Eastern Roman Empire, Persia, and Gaul, before he was defeated near Chalons in 451 and driven back across the Danube. Stepan Timofeevich ("Stenka") Razin (?-1671), a Don Cossack, led a peasant uprising in Russia (1667-71), which made him a popular hero.

14. The metaphor of the piano key may go back to the French materialist philosopher and writer Denis Diderot (1713-84), who wrote in his Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot (1769): "We are instruments endowed with sense and memory. Our senses are piano keys upon which surrounding nature plays, and which often play upon themselves."

15. The "crystal palace" is an allusion to "The Fourth Dream of Vera Pavlovna" from the novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), by N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828-89), one of Dostoevsky's main ideological enemies and the target of much of the satire in Notes from Underground. Chernyshevsky's thought combined the humanitarian socialism of the 1840s with the utilitarianism of the 1860s. This chapter of Notes attacks the theory of "rational egoism" set forth in Chernyshevsky's The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy (1860); the episodes of the "bumped officer" and the "rescued prostitute" in Part Two of Notes are to some extent reversed parodies of episodes from What Is to Be Done? Chernyshevsky's "crystal palace," a vision of the ideal living space for the future Utopian communist society, based on the "phalanstery" defined by the French Utopian socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837), drew its physical details from the cast-iron and glass pavilion designed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the London Exposition of 1851.

16. Dostoevsky first heard of the bird Kagan, a folkloric bringer of happiness, during his imprisonment in Omsk (1849-53).

17. The Colossus of Rhodes, a 100-foot-high statue of Helios, the sun god, made in 280 B.C., stood in the harbor of the Greek island of Rhodes; it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. A. E. Anaevsky (1788-1866), a hackwriter, was the object of much mockery in the press of the 1840S-60S.

18. "To domestic animals" (French).

19. The "fig" (referred to in chapter VIII by the narrator's supposed listeners) is a rude gesture made by inserting the thumb between the closed fingers of the fist. The "fig in the pocket" is a covert form of the same gesture, widely used in Russia, especially by intellectuals during the Soviet period, as an expression of dissent.

20. See Psalm 137:5: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!" (Revised Standard Version).

21. In his book On Germany, the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) wrote: "The composition of one's own character description would be not only an awkward task but quite simply impossible… However strong his wish to be sincere, no man is capable of telling the truth about himself." In the same book, Heine insists that Rousseau, in his Confessions, "makes false avowals, in order to hide his real doings behind them."

22. In his Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865, Joseph Frank, drawing attention to an 1849 article in which the Russian critic P. V. Annenkov points to "wet snow" as a common meteorological condition in descriptions of Petersburg by writers of the natural school, suggests that Dostoevsky uses the same "wet snow" here to evoke both the atmosphere of the period he is going to write about (the late 1840s) and the naive assumptions of its literature, which he himself had shared. part two: apropos of the wet snow

1. Dostoevsky's relations with N. A. Nekrasov (1821-78), poet, liberal social critic, and editor of The Contemporary, were respectful but often strained. The poem quoted here, written in 1845, tells the story of a rescued prostitute.

2. Kostanzhoglo, an exemplary manager and landowner, appears in the unfinished second part of Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol (1809-52). Pyotr Ivanovich Aduyev, from the novel

An Ordinary Story (1847) by Ivan Goncharov (1812-91), is distinguished by his common sense and practicality.

3. Weimar, in the German province of Thuringia, became an important intellectual center in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries owing to the influence of its most famous citizen, the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-183 2). The Schwarzwald, or Black Forest, in southwestern Germany, is a "romantic" region of hills and woodlands separated from France by the Rhine valley.

4. Poprishchin, hero of Gogol's Diary of a Madman (1835), is a petty clerk who finally goes mad and imagines he is the king of Spain.

5. Lieutenant Pirogov, one of the heroes of Gogol's Nevsky Prospect (1835), after being whipped by an irate German husband, wants to complain against him to the authorities.

6. The expose (Dostoevsky ironically distorts the spelling here) became a common journalistic phenomenon only in the 1860s; thus the narrator was somewhat precocious in his wish to "expose" his officer. Fatherland Notes, a liberal monthly founded in Petersburg in 1818, published during the sixty-six years of its existence some of the most important writers of the age, including Lermontov, Nekrasov, Ostrovsky, and Dostoevsky himself.

7. The French superfu, meaning "in excess," "unnecessary," or "useless," is here taken to mean "ultra-refined." Nozdryov in Gogol's Dead Souls uses the word in the same sense.

8. A covered shopping area in the center of Petersburg, still in existence and still so called.

9. That is, suggestive of the gloomy, proud, world-weary hero of the verse drama Manfred (1817) by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824).

10. In 1805, Napoleon defeated a joint Austrian-Russian army at Austerlitz in Moravia. However, in Voyage to Icaria (1840), a Utopian communist novel by the French publicist Etienne Cabet (1788-1856), a philanthropic reformer also defeats a coalition of retrograde kings at Austerlitz.

11. The narrator's further imaginings also have Napoleonic touches: Pope Pius VII excommunicated Napoleon in 1809, after which the emperor held him virtually captive until 1814; the Villa Borghese, built by Scipione Borghese in 1615 as a summer house on the outskirts of Rome, belonged in 1806 to Camillo Borghese, who married Napoleon's sister Paulina. Lake Como is normally situated in the Italian Alps, near the Swiss border.

12. An intersection in Petersburg, still so called, where four streets come together to form five corners.

13. Before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, Russian estates were evaluated in terms of the number of "souls" (adult male serfs) living on them.

14. "Right as a lord" (French), referring to the right of the feudal lord, when one of his serfs married, to spend the first night with the bride.

15. Silvio, hero of "The Shot" (1830), a short story by the poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), devotes his life to the idea of revenge and finally triumphs over his adversary. A similar role is played by the character Incognito in Masquerade, a drama by Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41).

16. In his enthusiasm, the narrator begins to speak in the words of the biblical Creator: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26).

17. In the 1840s, the French novelist George Sand (1804-76) was particularly admired in Russia for her social and humanitarian concerns.

18. The last lines of the Nekrasov poem quoted as epigraph to Part Two.

19. 'Furnished rooms" (French), which, while making a servant unnecessary, would expose the narrator to the presence of other lodgers.

Table of Contents

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND CONTENTS

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

INTRODUCTION

LEV SHESTOV

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHRONOLOGY

1821

1823-31

1825 1830

1831

1833-7

1834

1835

1836

1837

1839

1840

1841

1842

1843). 1844

1845

1846

1847

1848

1849

1850

1851 1852

1853-6 1854

1855 1856

1857

1859

1860

1861

1862.

1863

1864

1865

1865-9

1866

1867

1868

1869

1870

1871

1871-2

1872

1875

1875-8

1876 1877

1878

1879 1879-80

1880

1881

I*

II

III

IV

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

PART TWO

I

II

III

IV

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

NOTES

18. "To domestic animals" (French).