Notes from the Underground
rending her heart, and—and the more I was convinced of it, the more
eagerly I desired to gain my object as quickly and as effectually as
possible. It was the exercise of my skill that carried me away; yet it
was not merely sport....
I knew I was speaking stiffly, artificially, even bookishly, in fact, I
could not speak except “like a book.” But that did not trouble me: I
knew, I felt that I should be understood and that this very bookishness
might be an assistance. But now, having attained my effect, I was
suddenly panic-stricken. Never before had I witnessed such despair! She
was lying on her face, thrusting her face into the pillow and clutching
it in both hands. Her heart was being torn. Her youthful body was
shuddering all over as though in convulsions. Suppressed sobs rent her
bosom and suddenly burst out in weeping and wailing, then she pressed
closer into the pillow: she did not want anyone here, not a living
soul, to know of her anguish and her tears. She bit the pillow, bit her
hand till it bled (I saw that afterwards), or, thrusting her fingers
into her dishevelled hair, seemed rigid with the effort of restraint,
holding her breath and clenching her teeth. I began saying something,
begging her to calm herself, but felt that I did not dare; and all at
once, in a sort of cold shiver, almost in terror, began fumbling in the
dark, trying hurriedly to get dressed to go. It was dark; though I
tried my best I could not finish dressing quickly. Suddenly I felt a
box of matches and a candlestick with a whole candle in it. As soon as
the room was lighted up, Liza sprang up, sat up in bed, and with a
contorted face, with a half insane smile, looked at me almost
senselessly. I sat down beside her and took her hands; she came to
herself, made an impulsive movement towards me, would have caught hold
of me, but did not dare, and slowly bowed her head before me.
“Liza, my dear, I was wrong ... forgive me, my dear,” I began, but she
squeezed my hand in her fingers so tightly that I felt I was saying the
wrong thing and stopped.
“This is my address, Liza, come to me.”
“I will come,” she answered resolutely, her head still bowed.
“But now I am going, good-bye ... till we meet again.”
I got up; she, too, stood up and suddenly flushed all over, gave a
shudder, snatched up a shawl that was lying on a chair and muffled
herself in it to her chin. As she did this she gave another sickly
smile, blushed and looked at me strangely. I felt wretched; I was in
haste to get away—to disappear.
“Wait a minute,” she said suddenly, in the passage just at the doorway,
stopping me with her hand on my overcoat. She put down the candle in
hot haste and ran off; evidently she had thought of something or wanted
to show me something. As she ran away she flushed, her eyes shone, and
there was a smile on her lips—what was the meaning of it? Against my
will I waited: she came back a minute later with an expression that
seemed to ask forgiveness for something. In fact, it was not the same
face, not the same look as the evening before: sullen, mistrustful and
obstinate. Her eyes now were imploring, soft, and at the same time
trustful, caressing, timid. The expression with which children look at
people they are very fond of, of whom they are asking a favour. Her
eyes were a light hazel, they were lovely eyes, full of life, and
capable of expressing love as well as sullen hatred.
Making no explanation, as though I, as a sort of higher being, must
understand everything without explanations, she held out a piece of
paper to me. Her whole face was positively beaming at that instant with
naive, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter to her
from a medical student or someone of that sort—a very high-flown and
flowery, but extremely respectful, love-letter. I don’t recall the
words now, but I remember well that through the high-flown phrases
there was apparent a genuine feeling, which cannot be feigned. When I
had finished reading it I met her glowing, questioning, and childishly
impatient eyes fixed upon me. She fastened her eyes upon my face and
waited impatiently for what I should say. In a few words, hurriedly,
but with a sort of joy and pride, she explained to me that she had been
to a dance somewhere in a private house, a family of “very nice people,
_who knew nothing_, absolutely nothing, for she had only come here so
lately and it had all happened ... and she hadn’t made up her mind to
stay and was certainly going away as soon as she had paid her debt...”
and at that party there had been the student who had danced with her
all the evening. He had talked to her, and it turned out that he had
known her in old days at Riga when he was a child, they had played
together, but a very long time ago—and he knew her parents, but _about
this_ he knew nothing, nothing whatever, and had no suspicion! And the
day after the dance (three days ago) he had sent her that letter
through the friend with whom she had gone to the party ... and ...
well, that was all.
She dropped her shining eyes with a sort of bashfulness as she
finished.
The poor girl was keeping that student’s letter as a precious treasure,
and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me
to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely
loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter
was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less,
I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious
treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she
had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise
herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of
her. I said nothing, pressed her hand and went out. I so longed to get
away ... I walked all the way home, in spite of the fact that the
melting snow was still falling in heavy flakes. I was exhausted,
shattered, in bewilderment. But behind the bewilderment the truth was
already gleaming. The loathsome truth.
VIII
It was some time, however, before I consented to recognise that truth.
Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and
immediately realising all that had happened on the previous day, I was
positively amazed at my last night’s _sentimentality_ with Liza, at all
those “outcries of horror and pity.” “To think of having such an attack
of womanish hysteria, pah!” I concluded. And what did I thrust my
address upon her for? What if she comes? Let her come, though; it
doesn’t matter.... But _obviously_, that was not now the chief and the
most important matter: I had to make haste and at all costs save my
reputation in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov as quickly as possible;
that was the chief business. And I was so taken up that morning that I
actually forgot all about Liza.
First of all I had at once to repay what I had borrowed the day before
from Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure: to borrow fifteen
roubles straight off from Anton Antonitch. As luck would have it he was
in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, on the
first asking. I was so delighted at this that, as I signed the IOU with
a swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before “I had been
keeping it up with some friends at the Hôtel de Paris; we were giving a
farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might say a friend of my
childhood, and you know—a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt—of course,
he belongs to a good family, and has considerable means, a brilliant
career; he is witty, charming, a regular Lovelace, you understand; we
drank an extra ‘half-dozen’ and ...”
And it went off all right; all this was uttered very easily,
unconstrainedly and complacently.
On reaching home I promptly wrote to Simonov.
To this hour I am lost in admiration when I recall the truly
gentlemanly, good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. With tact and
good-breeding, and, above all, entirely without superfluous words, I
blamed myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, “if I
really may be allowed to defend myself,” by alleging that being utterly
unaccustomed to wine, I had been intoxicated with the first glass,
which I said, I had drunk before they arrived, while I was waiting for
them at the Hôtel de Paris between five and six o’clock. I begged
Simonov’s pardon especially; I asked him to convey my explanations to
all the others, especially to Zverkov, whom “I seemed to remember as
though in a dream” I had insulted. I added that I would have called
upon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides I had not the
face to. I was particularly pleased with a certain lightness, almost
carelessness (strictly within the bounds of politeness, however), which
was apparent in my style, and better than any possible arguments, gave
them at once to understand that I took rather an independent view of
“all that unpleasantness last night”; that I was by no means so utterly
crushed as you, my friends, probably imagine; but on the contrary,
looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should look
upon it. “On a young hero’s past no censure is cast!”
“There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!” I thought
admiringly, as I read over the letter. “And it’s all because I am an
intellectual and cultivated man! Another man in my place would not have
known how to extricate himself, but here I have got out of it and am as
jolly as ever again, and all because I am ‘a cultivated and educated
man of our day.’ And, indeed, perhaps, everything was due to the wine
yesterday. H’m!” ... No, it was not the wine. I did not drink anything
at all between five and six when I was waiting for them. I had lied to
Simonov; I had lied shamelessly; and indeed I wasn’t ashamed now....
Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was rid of it.
I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to
take it to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in the letter,
Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towards evening I
went out for a walk. My head was still aching and giddy after
yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew denser, my
impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and more
different and confused. Something was not dead within me, in the depths
of my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in
acute depression. For the most part I jostled my way through the most
crowded business streets, along Myeshtchansky Street, along Sadovy
Street and in Yusupov Garden. I always liked particularly sauntering
along these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of working
people of all sorts going home from their daily work, with faces
looking cross with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle,
that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streets irritated
me more than ever, I could not make out what was wrong with me, I could
not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually in my soul,
painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned home completely
upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on my conscience.
The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed
queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented
me, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everything
else I had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening; I dismissed it
all and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to Simonov. But on
this point I was not satisfied at all. It was as though I were worried
only by Liza. “What if she comes,” I thought incessantly, “well, it
doesn’t matter, let her come! H’m! it’s horrid that she should see, for