White nights, and other stories
beginning in order to embarrass her further; it was awkward for her to
begin alone. Several times she glanced at me with mournful perplexity. I
was obstinately silent. I was, of course, myself the chief sufferer,
because I was fully conscious of the disgusting meanness of my spiteful
stupidity, and yet at the same time I could not restrain myself.
"I want to ... get away ... from there altogether," she began, to break
the silence in some way, but, poor girl, that was just what she ought
not to have spoken about at such a stupid moment to a man so stupid as I
was. My heart positively ached with pity for her tactless and
unnecessary straightforwardness. But something hideous at once stifled
all compassion in me; it even provoked me to greater venom. I did not
care what happened. Another five minutes passed.
"Perhaps I am in your way," she began timidly, hardly audibly, and was
getting up.
But as soon as I saw this first impulse of wounded dignity I positively
trembled with spite, and at once burst out.
"Why have you come to me, tell me that, please?" I began, gasping for
breath and regardless of logical connection in my words. I longed to
have it all out at once, at one burst; I did not even trouble how to
begin. "Why have you come? Answer, answer," I cried, hardly knowing what
I was doing. "I'll tell you, my good girl, why you have come. You've
come because I talked sentimental stuff to you then. So now you are soft
as butter and longing for fine sentiments again. So you may as well know
that I was laughing at you then. And I am laughing at you now. Why are
you shuddering? Yes, I was laughing at you! I had been insulted just
before, at dinner, by the fellows who came that evening before me. I
came to you, meaning to thrash one of them, an officer; but I didn't
succeed, I didn't find him; I had to avenge the insult on some one to
get back my own again; you turned up, I vented my spleen on you and
laughed at you. I had been humiliated, so I wanted to humiliate; I had
been treated like a rag, so I wanted to show my power.... That's what it
was, and you imagined I had come there on purpose to save you. Yes? You
imagined that? You imagined that?"
I knew that she would perhaps be muddled and not take it all in exactly,
but I knew, too, that she would grasp the gist of it, very well indeed.
And so, indeed, she did. She turned white as a handkerchief, tried to
say something, and her lips worked painfully; but she sank on a chair as
though she had been felled by an axe. And all the time afterwards she
listened to me with her lips parted and her eyes wide open, shuddering
with awful terror. The cynicism, the cynicism of my words overwhelmed
her....
"Save you!" I went on, jumping up from my chair and running up and down
the room before her. "Save you from what? But perhaps I am worse than
you myself. Why didn't you throw it in my teeth when I was giving you
that sermon: 'But what did you come here yourself for? was it to read us
a sermon?' Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was what I wanted,
I wanted to wring out your tears, your humiliation, your 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 realize 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 realized
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 such 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 tyrannizing over some one, 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
realized 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 tyrannizing 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 tyrannize 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