Notes from the Underground
hysteria—that was what I wanted then! Of course, I couldn’t keep it up
then, because I am a wretched creature, I was frightened, and, the
devil knows why, gave you my address in my folly. Afterwards, before I
got home, I was cursing and swearing at you because of that address, I
hated you already because of the lies I had told you. Because I only
like playing with words, only dreaming, but, do you know, what I really
want is that you should all go to hell. That is what I want. I want
peace; yes, I’d sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so
long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go
without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I
always get my tea. Did you know that, or not? Well, anyway, I know that
I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist, a sluggard. Here I have been
shuddering for the last three days at the thought of your coming. And
do you know what has worried me particularly for these three days? That
I posed as such a hero to you, and now you would see me in a wretched
torn dressing-gown, beggarly, loathsome. I told you just now that I was
not ashamed of my poverty; so you may as well know that I am ashamed of
it; I am more ashamed of it than of anything, more afraid of it than of
being found out if I were a thief, because I am as vain as though I had
been skinned and the very air blowing on me hurt. Surely by now you
must realise that I shall never forgive you for having found me in this
wretched dressing-gown, just as I was flying at Apollon like a spiteful
cur. The saviour, the former hero, was flying like a mangy, unkempt
sheep-dog at his lackey, and the lackey was jeering at him! And I shall
never forgive you for the tears I could not help shedding before you
just now, like some silly woman put to shame! And for what I am
confessing to you now, I shall never forgive you either! Yes—you must
answer for it all because you turned up like this, because I am a
blackguard, because I am the nastiest, stupidest, absurdest and most
envious of all the worms on earth, who are not a bit better than I am,
but, the devil knows why, are never put to confusion; while I shall
always be insulted by every louse, that is my doom! And what is it to
me that you don’t understand a word of this! And what do I care, what
do I care about you, and whether you go to ruin there or not? Do you
understand? How I shall hate you now after saying this, for having been
here and listening. Why, it’s not once in a lifetime a man speaks out
like this, and then it is in hysterics! ... What more do you want? Why
do you still stand confronting me, after all this? Why are you worrying
me? Why don’t you go?”
But at this point a strange thing happened. I was so accustomed to
think and imagine everything from books, and to picture everything in
the world to myself just as I had made it up in my dreams beforehand,
that I could not all at once take in this strange circumstance. What
happened was this: Liza, insulted and crushed by me, understood a great
deal more than I imagined. She understood from all this what a woman
understands first of all, if she feels genuine love, that is, that I
was myself unhappy.
The frightened and wounded expression on her face was followed first by
a look of sorrowful perplexity. When I began calling myself a scoundrel
and a blackguard and my tears flowed (the tirade was accompanied
throughout by tears) her whole face worked convulsively. She was on the
point of getting up and stopping me; when I finished she took no notice
of my shouting: “Why are you here, why don’t you go away?” but realised
only that it must have been very bitter to me to say all this. Besides,
she was so crushed, poor girl; she considered herself infinitely
beneath me; how could she feel anger or resentment? She suddenly leapt
up from her chair with an irresistible impulse and held out her hands,
yearning towards me, though still timid and not daring to stir.... At
this point there was a revulsion in my heart too. Then she suddenly
rushed to me, threw her arms round me and burst into tears. I, too,
could not restrain myself, and sobbed as I never had before.
“They won’t let me ... I can’t be good!” I managed to articulate; then
I went to the sofa, fell on it face downwards, and sobbed on it for a
quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics. She came close to me, put her
arms round me and stayed motionless in that position. But the trouble
was that the hysterics could not go on for ever, and (I am writing the
loathsome truth) lying face downwards on the sofa with my face thrust
into my nasty leather pillow, I began by degrees to be aware of a
far-away, involuntary but irresistible feeling that it would be awkward
now for me to raise my head and look Liza straight in the face. Why was
I ashamed? I don’t know, but I was ashamed. The thought, too, came into
my overwrought brain that our parts now were completely changed, that
she was now the heroine, while I was just a crushed and humiliated
creature as she had been before me that night—four days before.... And
all this came into my mind during the minutes I was lying on my face on
the sofa.
My God! surely I was not envious of her then.
I don’t know, to this day I cannot decide, and at the time, of course,
I was still less able to understand what I was feeling than now. I
cannot get on without domineering and tyrannising over someone, but ...
there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to
reason.
I conquered myself, however, and raised my head; I had to do so sooner
or later ... and I am convinced to this day that it was just because I
was ashamed to look at her that another feeling was suddenly kindled
and flamed up in my heart ... a feeling of mastery and possession. My
eyes gleamed with passion, and I gripped her hands tightly. How I hated
her and how I was drawn to her at that minute! The one feeling
intensified the other. It was almost like an act of vengeance. At first
there was a look of amazement, even of terror on her face, but only for
one instant. She warmly and rapturously embraced me.
X
A quarter of an hour later I was rushing up and down the room in
frenzied impatience, from minute to minute I went up to the screen and
peeped through the crack at Liza. She was sitting on the ground with
her head leaning against the bed, and must have been crying. But she
did not go away, and that irritated me. This time she understood it
all. I had insulted her finally, but ... there’s no need to describe
it. She realised that my outburst of passion had been simply revenge, a
fresh humiliation, and that to my earlier, almost causeless hatred was
added now a _personal hatred_, born of envy.... Though I do not
maintain positively that she understood all this distinctly; but she
certainly did fully understand that I was a despicable man, and what
was worse, incapable of loving her.
I know I shall be told that this is incredible—but it is incredible to
be as spiteful and stupid as I was; it may be added that it was strange
I should not love her, or at any rate, appreciate her love. Why is it
strange? In the first place, by then I was incapable of love, for I
repeat, with me loving meant tyrannising and showing my moral
superiority. I have never in my life been able to imagine any other
sort of love, and have nowadays come to the point of sometimes thinking
that love really consists in the right—freely given by the beloved
object—to tyrannise over her.
Even in my underground dreams I did not imagine love except as a
struggle. I began it always with hatred and ended it with moral
subjugation, and afterwards I never knew what to do with the subjugated
object. And what is there to wonder at in that, since I had succeeded
in so corrupting myself, since I was so out of touch with “real life,”
as to have actually thought of reproaching her, and putting her to
shame for having come to me to hear “fine sentiments”; and did not even
guess that she had come not to hear fine sentiments, but to love me,
because to a woman all reformation, all salvation from any sort of
ruin, and all moral renewal is included in love and can only show
itself in that form.
I did not hate her so much, however, when I was running about the room
and peeping through the crack in the screen. I was only insufferably
oppressed by her being here. I wanted her to disappear. I wanted
“peace,” to be left alone in my underground world. Real life oppressed
me with its novelty so much that I could hardly breathe.
But several minutes passed and she still remained, without stirring, as
though she were unconscious. I had the shamelessness to tap softly at
the screen as though to remind her.... She started, sprang up, and flew
to seek her kerchief, her hat, her coat, as though making her escape
from me.... Two minutes later she came from behind the screen and
looked with heavy eyes at me. I gave a spiteful grin, which was forced,
however, to _keep up appearances_, and I turned away from her eyes.
“Good-bye,” she said, going towards the door.
I ran up to her, seized her hand, opened it, thrust something in it and
closed it again. Then I turned at once and dashed away in haste to the
other corner of the room to avoid seeing, anyway....
I did mean a moment since to tell a lie—to write that I did this
accidentally, not knowing what I was doing through foolishness, through
losing my head. But I don’t want to lie, and so I will say straight out
that I opened her hand and put the money in it ... from spite. It came
into my head to do this while I was running up and down the room and
she was sitting behind the screen. But this I can say for certain:
though I did that cruel thing purposely, it was not an impulse from the
heart, but came from my evil brain. This cruelty was so affected, so
purposely made up, so completely a product of the brain, of books, that
I could not even keep it up a minute—first I dashed away to avoid
seeing her, and then in shame and despair rushed after Liza. I opened
the door in the passage and began listening.
“Liza! Liza!” I cried on the stairs, but in a low voice, not boldly.
There was no answer, but I fancied I heard her footsteps, lower down on
the stairs.
“Liza!” I cried, more loudly.
No answer. But at that minute I heard the stiff outer glass door open
heavily with a creak and slam violently; the sound echoed up the
stairs.
She had gone. I went back to my room in hesitation. I felt horribly
oppressed.
I stood still at the table, beside the chair on which she had sat and
looked aimlessly before me. A minute passed, suddenly I started;
straight before me on the table I saw.... In short, I saw a crumpled
blue five-rouble note, the one I had thrust into her hand a minute
before. It was the same note; it could be no other, there was no other
in the flat. So she had managed to fling it from her hand on the table
at the moment when I had dashed into the further corner.
Well! I might have expected that she would do that. Might I have
expected it? No, I was such an egoist, I was so lacking in respect for
my fellow-creatures that I could not even imagine she would do so. I
could not endure it. A minute later I flew like a madman to dress,
flinging on what I could at random and ran headlong after her. She
could not have got two hundred paces away when I ran out into the
street.
It was a still night and the snow was coming down in masses and falling
almost perpendicularly, covering the pavement and the empty street as
though with a pillow. There was no one in the street, no sound was to
be heard. The street lamps gave a disconsolate and useless glimmer. I
ran two hundred paces to the cross-roads and stopped short.
Where had she gone? And why was I running after her?