Notes from the Underground
laugh to look at them; eyes that look as if they understand everything.
And while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its little hand,
plays. When its father comes up, the child tears itself away from the
bosom, flings itself back, looks at its father, laughs, as though it
were fearfully funny, and falls to sucking again. Or it will bite its
mother’s breast when its little teeth are coming, while it looks
sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, ‘Look, I am
biting!’ Is not all that happiness when they are the three together,
husband, wife and child? One can forgive a great deal for the sake of
such moments. Yes, Liza, one must first learn to live oneself before
one blames others!”
“It’s by pictures, pictures like that one must get at you,” I thought
to myself, though I did speak with real feeling, and all at once I
flushed crimson. “What if she were suddenly to burst out laughing, what
should I do then?” That idea drove me to fury. Towards the end of my
speech I really was excited, and now my vanity was somehow wounded. The
silence continued. I almost nudged her.
“Why are you—” she began and stopped. But I understood: there was a
quiver of something different in her voice, not abrupt, harsh and
unyielding as before, but something soft and shamefaced, so shamefaced
that I suddenly felt ashamed and guilty.
“What?” I asked, with tender curiosity.
“Why, you...”
“What?”
“Why, you ... speak somehow like a book,” she said, and again there was
a note of irony in her voice.
That remark sent a pang to my heart. It was not what I was expecting.
I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony, that
this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when
the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that
their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and
shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you. I ought to
have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly
approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with
an effort. But I did not guess, and an evil feeling took possession of
me.
“Wait a bit!” I thought.
VII
“Oh, hush, Liza! How can you talk about being like a book, when it
makes even me, an outsider, feel sick? Though I don’t look at it as an
outsider, for, indeed, it touches me to the heart.... Is it possible,
is it possible that you do not feel sick at being here yourself?
Evidently habit does wonders! God knows what habit can do with anyone.
Can you seriously think that you will never grow old, that you will
always be good-looking, and that they will keep you here for ever and
ever? I say nothing of the loathsomeness of the life here.... Though
let me tell you this about it—about your present life, I mean; here
though you are young now, attractive, nice, with soul and feeling, yet
you know as soon as I came to myself just now I felt at once sick at
being here with you! One can only come here when one is drunk. But if
you were anywhere else, living as good people live, I should perhaps be
more than attracted by you, should fall in love with you, should be
glad of a look from you, let alone a word; I should hang about your
door, should go down on my knees to you, should look upon you as my
betrothed and think it an honour to be allowed to. I should not dare to
have an impure thought about you. But here, you see, I know that I have
only to whistle and you have to come with me whether you like it or
not. I don’t consult your wishes, but you mine. The lowest labourer
hires himself as a workman, but he doesn’t make a slave of himself
altogether; besides, he knows that he will be free again presently. But
when are you free? Only think what you are giving up here? What is it
you are making a slave of? It is your soul, together with your body;
you are selling your soul which you have no right to dispose of! You
give your love to be outraged by every drunkard! Love! But that’s
everything, you know, it’s a priceless diamond, it’s a maiden’s
treasure, love—why, a man would be ready to give his soul, to face
death to gain that love. But how much is your love worth now? You are
sold, all of you, body and soul, and there is no need to strive for
love when you can have everything without love. And you know there is
no greater insult to a girl than that, do you understand? To be sure, I
have heard that they comfort you, poor fools, they let you have lovers
of your own here. But you know that’s simply a farce, that’s simply a
sham, it’s just laughing at you, and you are taken in by it! Why, do
you suppose he really loves you, that lover of yours? I don’t believe
it. How can he love you when he knows you may be called away from him
any minute? He would be a low fellow if he did! Will he have a grain of
respect for you? What have you in common with him? He laughs at you and
robs you—that is all his love amounts to! You are lucky if he does not
beat you. Very likely he does beat you, too. Ask him, if you have got
one, whether he will marry you. He will laugh in your face, if he
doesn’t spit in it or give you a blow—though maybe he is not worth a
bad halfpenny himself. And for what have you ruined your life, if you
come to think of it? For the coffee they give you to drink and the
plentiful meals? But with what object are they feeding you up? An
honest girl couldn’t swallow the food, for she would know what she was
being fed for. You are in debt here, and, of course, you will always be
in debt, and you will go on in debt to the end, till the visitors here
begin to scorn you. And that will soon happen, don’t rely upon your
youth—all that flies by express train here, you know. You will be
kicked out. And not simply kicked out; long before that she’ll begin
nagging at you, scolding you, abusing you, as though you had not
sacrificed your health for her, had not thrown away your youth and your
soul for her benefit, but as though you had ruined her, beggared her,
robbed her. And don’t expect anyone to take your part: the others, your
companions, will attack you, too, win her favour, for all are in
slavery here, and have lost all conscience and pity here long ago. They
have become utterly vile, and nothing on earth is viler, more
loathsome, and more insulting than their abuse. And you are laying down
everything here, unconditionally, youth and health and beauty and hope,
and at twenty-two you will look like a woman of five-and-thirty, and
you will be lucky if you are not diseased, pray to God for that! No
doubt you are thinking now that you have a gay time and no work to do!
Yet there is no work harder or more dreadful in the world or ever has
been. One would think that the heart alone would be worn out with
tears. And you won’t dare to say a word, not half a word when they
drive you away from here; you will go away as though you were to blame.
You will change to another house, then to a third, then somewhere else,
till you come down at last to the Haymarket. There you will be beaten
at every turn; that is good manners there, the visitors don’t know how
to be friendly without beating you. You don’t believe that it is so
hateful there? Go and look for yourself some time, you can see with
your own eyes. Once, one New Year’s Day, I saw a woman at a door. They
had turned her out as a joke, to give her a taste of the frost because
she had been crying so much, and they shut the door behind her. At nine
o’clock in the morning she was already quite drunk, dishevelled,
half-naked, covered with bruises, her face was powdered, but she had a
black-eye, blood was trickling from her nose and her teeth; some cabman
had just given her a drubbing. She was sitting on the stone steps, a
salt fish of some sort was in her hand; she was crying, wailing
something about her luck and beating with the fish on the steps, and
cabmen and drunken soldiers were crowding in the doorway taunting her.
You don’t believe that you will ever be like that? I should be sorry to
believe it, too, but how do you know; maybe ten years, eight years ago
that very woman with the salt fish came here fresh as a cherub,
innocent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every word. Perhaps she
was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like the others;
perhaps she looked like a queen, and knew what happiness was in store
for the man who should love her and whom she should love. Do you see
how it ended? And what if at that very minute when she was beating on
the filthy steps with that fish, drunken and dishevelled—what if at
that very minute she recalled the pure early days in her father’s
house, when she used to go to school and the neighbour’s son watched
for her on the way, declaring that he would love her as long as he
lived, that he would devote his life to her, and when they vowed to
love one another for ever and be married as soon as they were grown up!
No, Liza, it would be happy for you if you were to die soon of
consumption in some corner, in some cellar like that woman just now. In
the hospital, do you say? You will be lucky if they take you, but what
if you are still of use to the madam here? Consumption is a queer
disease, it is not like fever. The patient goes on hoping till the last
minute and says he is all right. He deludes himself And that just suits
your madam. Don’t doubt it, that’s how it is; you have sold your soul,
and what is more you owe money, so you daren’t say a word. But when you
are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away from you, for then
there will be nothing to get from you. What’s more, they will reproach
you for cumbering the place, for being so long over dying. However you
beg you won’t get a drink of water without abuse: ‘Whenever are you
going off, you nasty hussy, you won’t let us sleep with your moaning,
you make the gentlemen sick.’ That’s true, I have heard such things
said myself. They will thrust you dying into the filthiest corner in
the cellar—in the damp and darkness; what will your thoughts be, lying
there alone? When you die, strange hands will lay you out, with
grumbling and impatience; no one will bless you, no one will sigh for
you, they only want to get rid of you as soon as may be; they will buy
a coffin, take you to the grave as they did that poor woman today, and
celebrate your memory at the tavern. In the grave, sleet, filth, wet
snow—no need to put themselves out for you—‘Let her down, Vanuha; it’s
just like her luck—even here, she is head-foremost, the hussy. Shorten
the cord, you rascal.’ ‘It’s all right as it is.’ ‘All right, is it?
Why, she’s on her side! She was a fellow-creature, after all! But,
never mind, throw the earth on her.’ And they won’t care to waste much
time quarrelling over you. They will scatter the wet blue clay as quick
as they can and go off to the tavern ... and there your memory on earth
will end; other women have children to go to their graves, fathers,
husbands. While for you neither tear, nor sigh, nor remembrance; no one
in the whole world will ever come to you, your name will vanish from
the face of the earth—as though you had never existed, never been born
at all! Nothing but filth and mud, however you knock at your coffin lid
at night, when the dead arise, however you cry: ‘Let me out, kind
people, to live in the light of day! My life was no life at all; my
life has been thrown away like a dish-clout; it was drunk away in the
tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind people, to live in the world
again.’”
And I worked myself up to such a pitch that I began to have a lump in
my throat myself, and ... and all at once I stopped, sat up in dismay
and, bending over apprehensively, began to listen with a beating heart.
I had reason to be troubled.
I had felt for some time that I was turning her soul upside down and