Notes From Underground Page #15

"Notes from Underground" is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1864. The work is presented as the ramblings of an unnamed narrator, often referred to as the Underground Man, who is a retired, bitter civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The Underground Man reflects on his life, society, and the nature of free will, revealing deep existential angst and a profound disdain for the rationalism of his time. The novella explores themes of isolation, morality, and the complexities of human psychology, ultimately challenging the reader to confront the contradictions of modern existence. Its innovative structure and intense philosophical inquiries have made it a cornerstone of existential literature.

• Novel

								

these German beavers soon grow shabby and look wretched, yet at first
they look exceedingly well, and I only needed it for one occasion. I
asked the price; even so, it was too expensive. After thinking it over
thoroughly I decided to sell my raccoon collar. The rest of the money--a
considerable sum for me, I decided to borrow from Anton Antonitch
Syetotchkin, my immediate superior, an unassuming person, though grave
and judicious. He never lent money to any one, but I had, on entering
the service, been specially recommended to him by an important personage
who had got me my berth. I was horribly worried. To borrow from Anton
Antonitch seemed to me monstrous and shameful. I did not sleep for two
or three nights. Indeed, I did not sleep well at that time, I was in a
fever; I had a vague sinking at my heart or else a sudden throbbing,
throbbing, throbbing! Anton Antonitch was surprised at first, then he
frowned, then he reflected, and did after all lend me the money,
receiving from me a written authorization to take from my salary a
fortnight later the sum that he had lent me.

In this way everything was at last ready. The handsome beaver replaced
the mean-looking raccoon, and I began by degrees to get to work. It
would never have done to act off-hand, at random; the plan had to be
carried out skilfully, by degrees. But I must confess that after many
efforts I began to despair: we simply could not run into each other. I
made every preparation, I was quite determined--it seemed as though we
should run into one another directly--and before I knew what I was doing
I had stepped aside for him again and he had passed without noticing me.
I even prayed as I approached him that God would grant me determination.
One time I had made up my mind thoroughly, but it ended in my stumbling
and falling at his feet because at the very last instant when I was six
inches from him my courage failed me. He very calmly stepped over me,
while I flew on one side like a ball. That night I was ill again,
feverish and delirious.

And suddenly it ended most happily. The night before I had made up my
mind not to carry out my fatal plan and to abandon it all, and with that
object I went to the Nevsky for the last time, just to see how I would
abandon it all. Suddenly, three paces from my enemy, I unexpectedly made
up my mind--I closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt, shoulder to
shoulder, against one another! I did not budge an inch and passed him on
a perfectly equal footing! He did not even look round and pretended not
to notice it; but he was only pretending, I am convinced of that. I am
convinced of that to this day! Of course, I got the worst of it--he was
stronger, but that was not the point. The point was that I had attained
my object, I had kept up my dignity, I had not yielded a step, and had
put myself publicly on an equal social footing with him. I returned home
feeling that I was fully avenged for everything. I was delighted. I was
triumphant and sang Italian arias. Of course, I will not describe to you
what happened to me three days later; if you have read my first chapter
you can guess that for yourself. The officer was afterwards transferred;
I have not seen him now for fourteen years. What is the dear fellow
doing now? Whom is he walking over?

II

But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt very sick
afterwards. It was followed by remorse--I tried to drive it away: I felt
too sick. By degrees, however, I grew used to that too. I grew used to
everything, or rather I voluntarily resigned myself to enduring it. But
I had a means of escape that reconciled everything--that was to find
refuge in "the good and the beautiful," in dreams, of course. I was a
terrible dreamer, I would dream for three months on end, tucked away in
my corner, and you may believe me that at those moments I had no
resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbation of his chicken
heart, put a collar of German beaver on his great coat. I suddenly
became a hero. I would not have admitted my six-foot lieutenant even if
he had called on me. I could not even picture him before me then. What
were my dreams and how I could satisfy myself with them--it is hard to
say now, but at the time I was satisfied with them. Though, indeed, even
now, I am to some extent satisfied with them. Dreams were particularly
sweet and vivid after a spell of dissipation; they came with remorse and
with tears, with curses and transports. There were moments of such
positive intoxication, of such happiness, that there was not the
faintest trace of irony within me, on my honour. I had faith, hope,
love. I believed blindly at such times that by some miracle, by some
external circumstance, all this would suddenly open out, expand; that
suddenly a vista of suitable activity--beneficent, good, and, above all,
ready made (what sort of activity I had no idea, but the great thing
was that it should be all ready for me)--would rise up before me--and I
should come out into the light of day, almost riding a white horse and
crowned with laurel. Anything but the foremost place I could not
conceive for myself, and for that very reason I quite contentedly
occupied the lowest in reality. Either to be a hero or to grovel in the
mud--there was nothing between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the
mud I comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a
hero, and the hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was
shameful to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly
defiled, and so he might defile himself. It is worth noting that these
attacks of the "good and the beautiful" visited me even during the
period of dissipation and just at the times when I was touching the
bottom. They came in separate spurts, as though reminding me of
themselves, but did not banish the dissipation by their appearance. On
the contrary, they seemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only
sufficiently present to serve as an appetizing sauce. That sauce was
made up of contradictions and sufferings, of agonizing inward analysis
and all these pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a
significance to my dissipation--in fact, completely answered the purpose
of an appetizing sauce. There was a certain depth of meaning in it. And
I could hardly have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, direct
debauchery of a clerk and have endured all the filthiness of it. What
could have allured me about it then and have drawn me at night into the
street? No, I had a lofty way of getting out of it all.

And what loving-kindness, oh Lord, what loving-kindness I felt at times
in those dreams of mine! in those "flights into the good and the
beautiful;" though it was fantastic love, though it was never applied to
anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love that one
did not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality; that
would have been superfluous. Everything, however, passed satisfactorily
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