No More Learning

Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to
tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make
four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant
that!



IX

Gentlemen, I am joking, and I know myself that my jokes are not
brilliant, but you know one can take everything as a joke. I am,
perhaps, jesting against the grain. Gentlemen, I am tormented by
questions; answer them for me. You, for instance, want to cure men of
their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and
good sense. But how do you know, not only that it is possible, but also
that it is DESIRABLE to reform man in that way? And what leads you to
the conclusion that man's inclinations NEED reforming? In short, how
do you know that such a reformation will be a benefit to man? And to
go to the root of the matter, why are you so positively convinced that
not to act against his real normal interests guaranteed by the
conclusions of reason and arithmetic is certainly always advantageous
for man and must always be a law for mankind? So far, you know, this
is only your supposition. It may be the law of logic, but not the law
of humanity. You think, gentlemen, perhaps that I am mad? Allow me to
defend myself. I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal,
predestined to strive consciously for an object and to engage in
engineering--that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads,
WHEREVER THEY MAY LEAD. But the reason why he wants sometimes to go
off at a tangent may just be that he is PREDESTINED to make the road,
and perhaps, too, that however stupid the "direct" practical man may
be, the thought sometimes will occur to him that the road almost always
does lead SOMEWHERE, and that the destination it leads to is less
important than the process of making it, and that the chief thing is to
save the well-conducted child from despising engineering, and so giving
way to the fatal idleness, which, as we all know, is the mother of all
the vices. Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact
beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction
and chaos also? Tell me that! But on that point I want to say a
couple of words myself. May it not be that he loves chaos and
destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it)
because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and
completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only
loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it
at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want
to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, for the use of LES
ANIMAUX DOMESTIQUES--such as the ants, the sheep, and so on. Now the
ants have quite a different taste. They have a marvellous edifice of
that pattern which endures for ever--the ant-heap.

With the ant-heap the respectable race of ants began and with the
ant-heap they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to
their perseverance and good sense. But man is a frivolous and
incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the
process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no
saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind
is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other
words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must
always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four,
and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of
death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical
certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing
but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices
his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I
assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing
for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at
least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to
the police-station--and there is occupation for a week. But where can
man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when
he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but
does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very
absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind
of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all,
something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a
piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands
with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice
two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything
its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the
normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to
welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as
regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides
well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering
is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes
extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a
fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that;
only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all. As far as
my personal opinion is concerned, to care only for well-being seems to
me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very
pleasant, too, to smash things. I hold no brief for suffering nor for
well-being either. I am standing for . . . my caprice, and for its being
guaranteed to me when necessary. Suffering would be out of place in
vaudevilles, for instance; I know that. In the "Palace of Crystal" it
is unthinkable; suffering means doubt, negation, and what would be the
good of a "palace of crystal" if there could be any doubt about it?
And yet I think man will never renounce real suffering, that is,
destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole origin of
consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that
consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes
it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for
instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you
have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to
understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five
senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to
consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at
least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up.
Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing.



X

You believe in a palace of crystal that can never be destroyed--a
palace at which one will not be able to put out one's tongue or make a
long nose on the sly. And perhaps that is just why I am afraid of this
edifice, that it is of crystal and can never be destroyed and that one
cannot put one's tongue out at it even on the sly.

You see, if it were not a palace, but a hen-house, I might creep into
it to avoid getting wet, and yet I would not call the hen-house a
palace out of gratitude to it for keeping me dry. You laugh and say
that in such circumstances a hen-house is as good as a mansion. Yes, I
answer, if one had to live simply to keep out of the rain.

But what is to be done if I have taken it into my head that that is not
the only object in life, and that if one must live one had better live
in a mansion? That is my choice, my desire. You will only eradicate
it when you have changed my preference. Well, do change it, allure me
with something else, give me another ideal. But meanwhile I will not
take a hen-house for a mansion. The palace of crystal may be an idle
dream, it may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and
that I have invented it only through my own stupidity, through the
old-fashioned irrational habits of my generation. But what does it
matter to me that it is inconsistent? That makes no difference since
it exists in my desires, or rather exists as long as my desires exist.
Perhaps you are laughing again? Laugh away; I will put up with any
mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry. I
know, anyway, that I will not be put off with a compromise, with a
recurring zero, simply because it is consistent with the laws of nature
and actually exists. I will not accept as the crown of my desires a
block of buildings with tenements for the poor on a lease of a thousand
years, and perhaps with a sign-board of a dentist hanging out. Destroy
my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will
follow you. You will say, perhaps, that it is not worth your trouble;
but in that case I can give you the same answer. We are discussing
things seriously; but if you won't deign to give me your attention, I
will drop your acquaintance. I can retreat into my underground hole.

But while I am alive and have desires I would rather my hand were
withered off than bring one brick to such a building! Don't remind me
that I have just rejected the palace of crystal for the sole reason
that one cannot put out one's tongue at it. I did not say because I am
so fond of putting my tongue out. Perhaps the thing I resented was,
that of all your edifices there has not been one at which one could not
put out one's tongue. On the contrary, I would let my tongue be cut
off out of gratitude if things could be so arranged that I should lose
all desire to put it out. It is not my fault that things cannot be so
arranged, and that one must be satisfied with model flats. Then why am
I made with such desires? Can I have been constructed simply in order
to come to the conclusion that all my construction is a cheat? Can
this be my whole purpose? I do not believe it.

But do you know what: I am convinced that we underground folk ought to
be kept on a curb. Though we may sit forty years underground without
speaking, when we do come out into the light of day and break out we
talk and talk and talk. . . .



XI

The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to do
nothing! Better conscious inertia! And so hurrah for underground!
Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my
bile, yet I should not care to be in his place such as he is now
(though I shall not cease envying him). No, no; anyway the underground
life is more advantageous. There, at any rate, one can . . . Oh, but
even now I am lying! I am lying because I know myself that it is not
underground that is better, but something different, quite different,
for which I am thirsting, but which I cannot find! Damn underground!

I will tell you another thing that would be better, and that is, if I
myself believed in anything of what I have just written. I swear to
you, gentlemen, there is not one thing, not one word of what I have
written that I really believe. That is, I believe it, perhaps, but at
the same time I feel and suspect that I am lying like a cobbler.

"Then why have you written all this? " you will say to me. "I ought to
put you underground for forty years without anything to do and then
come to you in your cellar, to find out what stage you have reached!
How can a man be left with nothing to do for forty years? "

"Isn't that shameful, isn't that humiliating? " you will say, perhaps,
wagging your heads contemptuously. "You thirst for life and try to
settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how persistent,
how insolent are your sallies, and at the same time what a scare you
are in! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say impudent
things and are in continual alarm and apologising for them. You
declare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to
ingratiate yourself in our good opinion. You declare that you are
gnashing your teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as to
amuse us. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are
evidently well satisfied with their literary value. You may, perhaps,
have really suffered, but you have no respect for your own suffering.
You may have sincerity, but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest
vanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. You
doubtlessly mean to say something, but hide your last word through
fear, because you have not the resolution to utter it, and only have a
cowardly impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are not sure
of your ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkened
and corrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness without
a pure heart. And how intrusive you are, how you insist and grimace!
Lies, lies, lies! "

Of course I have myself made up all the things you say. That, too, is
from underground. I have been for forty years listening to you through
a crack under the floor. I have invented them myself, there was
nothing else I could invent. It is no wonder that I have learned it by
heart and it has taken a literary form. . . .

But can you really be so credulous as to think that I will print all
this and give it to you to read too? And another problem: why do I
call you "gentlemen," why do I address you as though you really were my
readers? Such confessions as I intend to make are never printed nor
given to other people to read. Anyway, I am not strong-minded enough
for that, and I don't see why I should be. But you see a fancy has
occurred to me and I want to realise it at all costs. Let me explain.

Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but
only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would
not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in
secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even
to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored
away in his mind. The more decent he is, the greater the number of such
things in his mind. Anyway, I have only lately determined to remember
some of my early adventures. Till now I have always avoided them, even
with a certain uneasiness. Now, when I am not only recalling them, but
have actually decided to write an account of them, I want to try the
experiment whether one can, even with oneself, be perfectly open and
not take fright at the whole truth. I will observe, in parenthesis,
that Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility,
and that man is bound to lie about himself. He considers that Rousseau
certainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and even
intentionally lied, out of vanity. I am convinced that Heine is right;
I quite understand how sometimes one may, out of sheer vanity,
attribute regular crimes to oneself, and indeed I can very well
conceive that kind of vanity. But Heine judged of people who made
their confessions to the public. I write only for myself, and I wish
to declare once and for all that if I write as though I were addressing
readers, that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that
form. It is a form, an empty form--I shall never have readers. I have
made this plain already . . .

I don't wish to be hampered by any restrictions in the compilation of
my notes. I shall not attempt any system or method. I will jot things
down as I remember them.

But here, perhaps, someone will catch at the word and ask me: if you
really don't reckon on readers, why do you make such compacts with
yourself--and on paper too--that is, that you won't attempt any system
or method, that you jot things down as you remember them, and so on,
and so on? Why are you explaining? Why do you apologise?

Well, there it is, I answer.

There is a whole psychology in all this, though. Perhaps it is simply
that I am a coward. And perhaps that I purposely imagine an audience
before me in order that I may be more dignified while I write. There
are perhaps thousands of reasons. Again, what is my object precisely
in writing? If it is not for the benefit of the public why should I
not simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting them
on paper?

Quite so; but yet it is more imposing on paper. There is something
more impressive in it; I shall be better able to criticise myself and
improve my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from
writing. Today, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by one memory
of a distant past. It came back vividly to my mind a few days ago, and
has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get rid
of. And yet I must get rid of it somehow. I have hundreds of such
reminiscences; but at times some one stands out from the hundred and
oppresses me. For some reason I believe that if I write it down I
should get rid of it. Why not try?

Besides, I am bored, and I never have anything to do. Writing will be
a sort of work. They say work makes man kind-hearted and honest.
Well, here is a chance for me, anyway.

Snow is falling today, yellow and dingy. It fell yesterday, too, and a
few days ago. I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of that
incident which I cannot shake off now. And so let it be a story A
PROPOS of the falling snow.




PART II

A Propos of the Wet Snow

When from dark error's subjugation
My words of passionate exhortation
Had wrenched thy fainting spirit free;
And writhing prone in thine affliction
Thou didst recall with malediction
The vice that had encompassed thee:
And when thy slumbering conscience, fretting
By recollection's torturing flame,
Thou didst reveal the hideous setting
Of thy life's current ere I came:
When suddenly I saw thee sicken,
And weeping, hide thine anguished face,
Revolted, maddened, horror-stricken,
At memories of foul disgrace.
NEKRASSOV
(translated by Juliet Soskice).



I

AT THAT TIME I was only twenty-four. My life was even then gloomy,
ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. I made friends
with no one and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and
more in my hole. At work in the office I never looked at anyone, and
was perfectly well aware that my companions looked upon me, not only as
a queer fellow, but even looked upon me--I always fancied this--with a
sort of loathing. I sometimes wondered why it was that nobody except
me fancied that he was looked upon with aversion? One of the clerks
had a most repulsive, pock-marked face, which looked positively
villainous.
I believe I should not have dared to look at anyone with
such an unsightly countenance. Another had such a very dirty old
uniform that there was an unpleasant odour in his proximity. Yet not
one of these gentlemen showed the slightest self-consciousness--either
about their clothes or their countenance or their character in any way.
Neither of them ever imagined that they were looked at with repulsion;
if they had imagined it they would not have minded--so long as their
superiors did not look at them in that way. It is clear to me now
that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for
myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged
on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone.
I hated my face, for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even
suspected that there was something base in my expression, and so every
day when I turned up at the office I tried to behave as independently
as possible, and to assume a lofty expression, so that I might not be
suspected of being abject. "My face may be ugly," I thought, "but let
it be lofty, expressive, and, above all, EXTREMELY intelligent. " But I
was positively and painfully certain that it was impossible for my
countenance ever to express those qualities. And what was worst of
all, I thought it actually stupid looking, and I would have been quite
satisfied if I could have looked intelligent. In fact, I would even
have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have
been thought strikingly intelligent.

Of course, I hated my fellow clerks one and all, and I despised them
all, yet at the same time I was, as it were, afraid of them. In fact,
it happened at times that I thought more highly of them than of myself.
It somehow happened quite suddenly that I alternated between despising
them and thinking them superior to myself. A cultivated and decent man
cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself,
and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
But whether I despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes
almost every time I met anyone. I even made experiments whether I
could face so and so's looking at me, and I was always the first to
drop my eyes. This worried me to distraction. I had a sickly dread,
too, of being ridiculous, and so had a slavish passion for the
conventional in everything external. I loved to fall into the common
rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of eccentricity in
myself. But how could I live up to it? I was morbidly sensitive as a
man of our age should be. They were all stupid, and as like one
another as so many sheep. Perhaps I was the only one in the office who
fancied that I was a coward and a slave, and I fancied it just because
I was more highly developed. But it was not only that I fancied it, it
really was so. I was a coward and a slave. I say this without the
slightest embarrassment. Every decent man of our age must be a coward
and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly
persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only
at the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at
all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave. It is the
law of nature for all decent people all over the earth. If anyone of
them happens to be valiant about something, he need not be comforted
nor carried away by that; he would show the white feather just the same
before something else. That is how it invariably and inevitably ends.
Only donkeys and mules are valiant, and they only till they are pushed
up to the wall. It is not worth while to pay attention to them for
they really are of no consequence.

Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no
one like me and I was unlike anyone else. "I am alone and they are
EVERYONE," I thought--and pondered.

From that it is evident that I was still a youngster.

The very opposite sometimes happened. It was loathsome sometimes to go
to the office; things reached such a point that I often came home ill.
But all at once, A PROPOS of nothing, there would come a phase of
scepticism and indifference (everything happened in phases to me), and
I would laugh myself at my intolerance and fastidiousness, I would
reproach myself with being ROMANTIC. At one time I was unwilling to
speak to anyone, while at other times I would not only talk, but go to
the length of contemplating making friends with them. All my
fastidiousness would suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, vanish. Who
knows, perhaps I never had really had it, and it had simply been
affected, and got out of books. I have not decided that question even
now. Once I quite made friends with them, visited their homes, played
preference, drank vodka, talked of promotions. . . . But here let me
make a digression.

We Russians, speaking generally, have never had those foolish
transcendental "romantics"--German, and still more French--on whom
nothing produces any effect; if there were an earthquake, if all France
perished at the barricades, they would still be the same, they would
not even have the decency to affect a change, but would still go on
singing their transcendental songs to the hour of their death, because
they are fools. We, in Russia, have no fools; that is well known.
That is what distinguishes us from foreign lands. Consequently these
transcendental natures are not found amongst us in their pure form.
The idea that they are is due to our "realistic" journalists and
critics of that day, always on the look out for Kostanzhoglos and Uncle
Pyotr Ivanitchs and foolishly accepting them as our ideal; they have
slandered our romantics, taking them for the same transcendental sort
as in Germany or France. On the contrary, the characteristics of our
"romantics" are absolutely and directly opposed to the transcendental
European type, and no European standard can be applied to them. (Allow
me to make use of this word "romantic"--an old-fashioned and much
respected word which has done good service and is familiar to all. )
The characteristics of our romantic are to understand everything, TO
SEE EVERYTHING AND TO SEE IT OFTEN INCOMPARABLY MORE CLEARLY THAN OUR
MOST REALISTIC MINDS SEE IT; to refuse to accept anyone or anything,
but at the same time not to despise anything; to give way, to yield,
from policy; never to lose sight of a useful practical object (such as
rent-free quarters at the government expense, pensions, decorations),
to keep their eye on that object through all the enthusiasms and
volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to preserve "the sublime
and the beautiful" inviolate within them to the hour of their death,
and to preserve themselves also, incidentally, like some precious jewel
wrapped in cotton wool if only for the benefit of "the sublime and the
beautiful. " Our "romantic" is a man of great breadth and the greatest
rogue of all our rogues, I assure you. . . . I can assure you from
experience, indeed. Of course, that is, if he is intelligent. But
what am I saying! The romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant
to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't
count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they
degenerated into Germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more
comfortably, settled somewhere out there--by preference in Weimar or
the Black Forest.

I, for instance, genuinely despised my official work and did not openly
abuse it simply because I was in it myself and got a salary for it.
Anyway, take note, I did not openly abuse it. Our romantic would
rather go out of his mind--a thing, however, which very rarely
happens--than take to open abuse, unless he had some other career in
view; and he is never kicked out. At most, they would take him to the
lunatic asylum as "the King of Spain" if he should go very mad. But it
is only the thin, fair people who go out of their minds in Russia.
Innumerable "romantics" attain later in life to considerable rank in
the service. Their many-sidedness is remarkable! And what a faculty
they have for the most contradictory sensations! I was comforted by
this thought even in those days, and I am of the same opinion now.
That is why there are so many "broad natures" among us who never lose
their ideal even in the depths of degradation; and though they never
stir a finger for their ideal, though they are arrant thieves and
knaves, yet they tearfully cherish their first ideal and are
extraordinarily honest at heart. Yes, it is only among us that the
most incorrigible rogue can be absolutely and loftily honest at heart
without in the least ceasing to be a rogue. I repeat, our romantics,
frequently, become such accomplished rascals (I use the term "rascals"
affectionately), suddenly display such a sense of reality and practical
knowledge that their bewildered superiors and the public generally can
only ejaculate in amazement.

Their many-sidedness is really amazing, and goodness knows what it may
develop into later on, and what the future has in store for us. It is
not a poor material! I do not say this from any foolish or boastful
patriotism. But I feel sure that you are again imagining that I am
joking. Or perhaps it's just the contrary and you are convinced that I
really think so. Anyway, gentlemen, I shall welcome both views as an
honour and a special favour. And do forgive my digression.

I did not, of course, maintain friendly relations with my comrades and
soon was at loggerheads with them, and in my youth and inexperience I
even gave up bowing to them, as though I had cut off all relations.
That, however, only happened to me once. As a rule, I was always alone.

In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried
to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of
external impressions. And the only external means I had was reading.
Reading, of course, was a great help--exciting me, giving me pleasure
and pain. But at times it bored me fearfully. One longed for movement
in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark,
underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. My wretched passions
were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had
hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource
except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I
could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with
depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for
contrast, and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify
myself. . . . But, no! I am lying. I did want to justify myself. I
make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't
want to lie. I vowed to myself I would not.

And so, furtively, timidly, in solitude, at night, I indulged in filthy
vice, with a feeling of shame which never deserted me, even at the most
loathsome moments, and which at such moments nearly made me curse.
Already even then I had my underground world in my soul. I was
fearfully afraid of being seen, of being met, of being recognised. I
visited various obscure haunts.

One night as I was passing a tavern I saw through a lighted window some
gentlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown out
of the window. At other times I should have felt very much disgusted,
but I was in such a mood at the time, that I actually envied the
gentleman thrown out of the window--and I envied him so much that I
even went into the tavern and into the billiard-room. "Perhaps," I
thought, "I'll have a fight, too, and they'll throw me out of the
window. "

I was not drunk--but what is one to do--depression will drive a man to
such a pitch of hysteria? But nothing happened. It seemed that I was
not even equal to being thrown out of the window and I went away
without having my fight.

An officer put me in my place from the first moment.

I was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignorance blocking up
the way, and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without
a word--without a warning or explanation--moved me from where I was
standing to another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me.
I could have forgiven blows, but I could not forgive his having moved
me without noticing me.

Devil knows what I would have given for a real regular quarrel--a more
decent, a more LITERARY one, so to speak. I had been treated like a
fly. This officer was over six foot, while I was a spindly little
fellow. But the quarrel was in my hands. I had only to protest and I
certainly would have been thrown out of the window. But I changed my
mind and preferred to beat a resentful retreat.

I went out of the tavern straight home, confused and troubled, and the
next night I went out again with the same lewd intentions, still more
furtively, abjectly and miserably than before, as it were, with tears
in my eyes--but still I did go out again. Don't imagine, though, it
was cowardice made me slink away from the officer; I never have been a
coward at heart, though I have always been a coward in action. Don't
be in a hurry to laugh--I assure you I can explain it all.

Oh, if only that officer had been one of the sort who would consent to
fight a duel! But no, he was one of those gentlemen (alas, long
extinct! ) who preferred fighting with cues or, like Gogol's Lieutenant
Pirogov, appealing to the police. They did not fight duels and would
have thought a duel with a civilian like me an utterly unseemly
procedure in any case--and they looked upon the duel altogether as
something impossible, something free-thinking and French. But they
were quite ready to bully, especially when they were over six foot.

I did not slink away through cowardice, but through an unbounded
vanity. I was afraid not of his six foot, not of getting a sound
thrashing and being thrown out of the window; I should have had
physical courage enough, I assure you; but I had not the moral courage.
What I was afraid of was that everyone present, from the insolent
marker down to the lowest little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy
collar, would jeer at me and fail to understand when I began to protest
and to address them in literary language. For of the point of
honour--not of honour, but of the point of honour (POINT
D'HONNEUR)--one cannot speak among us except in literary language. You
can't allude to the "point of honour" in ordinary language. I was fully
convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism! ) that
they would all simply split their sides with laughter, and that the
officer would not simply beat me, that is, without insulting me, but
would certainly prod me in the back with his knee, kick me round the
billiard-table, and only then perhaps have pity and drop me out of the
window.

Of course, this trivial incident could not with me end in that. I
often met that officer afterwards in the street and noticed him very
carefully. I am not quite sure whether he recognised me, I imagine
not; I judge from certain signs. But I--I stared at him with spite and
hatred and so it went on . . . for several years! My resentment grew
even deeper with years. At first I began making stealthy inquiries
about this officer. It was difficult for me to do so, for I knew no
one. But one day I heard someone shout his surname in the street as I
was following him at a distance, as though I were tied to him--and so I
learnt his surname. Another time I followed him to his flat, and for
ten kopecks learned from the porter where he lived, on which storey,
whether he lived alone or with others, and so on--in fact, everything
one could learn from a porter. One morning, though I had never tried
my hand with the pen, it suddenly occurred to me to write a satire on
this officer in the form of a novel which would unmask his villainy. I
wrote the novel with relish. I did unmask his villainy, I even
exaggerated it; at first I so altered his surname that it could easily
be recognised, but on second thoughts I changed it, and sent the story
to the OTETCHESTVENNIYA ZAPISKI. But at that time such attacks were
not the fashion and my story was not printed. That was a great
vexation to me.

Sometimes I was positively choked with resentment. At last I
determined to challenge my enemy to a duel. I composed a splendid,
charming letter to him, imploring him to apologise to me, and hinting
rather plainly at a duel in case of refusal. The letter was so
composed that if the officer had had the least understanding of the
sublime and the beautiful he would certainly have flung himself on my
neck and have offered me his friendship. And how fine that would have
been! How we should have got on together! "He could have shielded me
with his higher rank, while I could have improved his mind with my
culture, and, well . . . my ideas, and all sorts of things might have
happened. " Only fancy, this was two years after his insult to me, and
my challenge would have been a ridiculous anachronism, in spite of all
the ingenuity of my letter in disguising and explaining away the
anachronism. But, thank God (to this day I thank the Almighty with
tears in my eyes) I did not send the letter to him. Cold shivers run
down my back when I think of what might have happened if I had sent it.

And all at once I revenged myself in the simplest way, by a stroke of
genius! A brilliant thought suddenly dawned upon me. Sometimes on
holidays I used to stroll along the sunny side of the Nevsky about four
o'clock in the afternoon. Though it was hardly a stroll so much as a
series of innumerable miseries, humiliations and resentments; but no
doubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along in a most
unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for
generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies.
At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I
used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the
wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my
little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual,
intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant
and direct sensation, that I was a mere fly in the eyes of all this
world, a nasty, disgusting fly--more intelligent, more highly
developed, more refined in feeling than any of them, of course--but a
fly that was continually making way for everyone, insulted and injured
by everyone. Why I inflicted this torture upon myself, why I went to
the Nevsky, I don't know. I felt simply drawn there at every possible
opportunity.

Already then I began to experience a rush of the enjoyment of which I
spoke in the first chapter. After my affair with the officer I felt
even more drawn there than before: it was on the Nevsky that I met him
most frequently, there I could admire him. He, too, went there chiefly
on holidays, He, too, turned out of his path for generals and persons
of high rank, and he too, wriggled between them like an eel; but
people, like me, or even better dressed than me, he simply walked over;
he made straight for them as though there was nothing but empty space
before him, and never, under any circumstances, turned aside. I
gloated over my resentment watching him and . . . always resentfully made
way for him. It exasperated me that even in the street I could not be
on an even footing with him.

"Why must you invariably be the first to move aside? " I kept asking
myself in hysterical rage, waking up sometimes at three o'clock in the
morning. "Why is it you and not he? There's no regulation about it;
there's no written law. Let the making way be equal as it usually is
when refined people meet; he moves half-way and you move half-way; you
pass with mutual respect. "

But that never happened, and I always moved aside, while he did not
even notice my making way for him. And lo and behold a bright idea
dawned upon me! "What," I thought, "if I meet him and don't move on
one side? What if I don't move aside on purpose, even if I knock up
against him? How would that be? " This audacious idea took such a hold
on me that it gave me no peace. I was dreaming of it continually,
horribly, and I purposely went more frequently to the Nevsky in order
to picture more vividly how I should do it when I did do it.