No More Learning

do you know that that,
too, is profitable, sometimes even praiseworthy? Gentlemen, let us
suppose that man is not stupid. (Indeed one cannot refuse to suppose
that, if only from the one consideration, that, if man is stupid, then
who is wise? ) But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful!
Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of
man is the ungrateful biped. But that is not all, that is not his worst
defect; his worst defect is his perpetual moral obliquity,
perpetual--from the days of the Flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period.
Moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long
been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than
moral obliquity. Put it to the test and cast your eyes upon the history
of mankind. What will you see? Is it a grand spectacle? Grand, if you
like. Take the Colossus of Rhodes, for instance, that's worth something.
With good reason Mr. Anaevsky testifies of it that some say that it is
the work of man's hands, while others maintain that it has been created
by nature herself. Is it many-coloured? May be it is many-coloured, too:
if one takes the dress uniforms, military and civilian, of all peoples
in all ages--that alone is worth something, and if you take the undress
uniforms you will never get to the end of it; no historian would be
equal to the job. Is it monotonous? May be it's monotonous too: it's
fighting and fighting; they are fighting now, they fought first and they
fought last--you will admit, that it is almost too monotonous. In short,
one may say anything about the history of the world--anything that might
enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is
that it's rational. The very word sticks in one's throat. And, indeed,
this is the odd thing that is continually happening: there are
continually turning up in life moral and rational persons, sages and
lovers of humanity who make it their object to live all their lives as
morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their
neighbours simply in order to show them that it is possible to live
morally and rationally in this world. And yet we all know that those
very people sooner or later have been false to themselves, playing some
queer trick, often a most unseemly one. Now I ask you: what can be
expected of man since he is a being endowed with such strange qualities?
Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness,
so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give
him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but
sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species,
and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you
some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately
desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply
to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic
element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will
desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though that
were so necessary--that men still are men and not the keys of a piano,
which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one
will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all:
even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were
proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not
become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of
simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not find
means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive sufferings
of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will launch a curse upon the
world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary
distinction between him and other animals), may be by his curse alone he
will attain his object--that is, convince himself that he is a man and
not a piano-key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and
tabulated--chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility
of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would
reassert itself, then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of
reason and gain his point! I believe in it, I answer for it, for the
whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to
himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! It may be at
the cost of his skin, it may be by cannibalism! And this being so, can
one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that
desire still depends on something we don't know?

You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one
is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my
will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal
interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic.

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't 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, he 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 apologizing 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 realize it at all costs. Let me explain.

Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to every one, 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, some one 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 apologize?

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 criticize myself and improve
my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from writing.
To-day, 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 to-day, 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 _à
propos_ of the falling snow.




PART II

À 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 any one, and I 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 any one 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 every one. 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 any one. 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 any one 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 any one else. "I am alone and they are
_every one_," 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, _à 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 any one, 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 good 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 good 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 recognized. 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
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 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 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 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 every one 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 recognized 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 some one 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 recognized, 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 apologize to me, and hinting rather plainly at
a duel in case of refusal.