Notes from the Underground

I am a sick man, I tell myself. Not because I cough, but because I often hurt myself on purpose. Like holding your hand too long over a warm pot just to feel that you can. I have lived in a tiny, dirty room on the edge of Petersburg for many years. Outside it is cold and wet; inside it smells of old dust. I am forty, but inside I sometimes feel like an angry child and other times like a stone. I used to work in an office. I was rude and mean to people who asked for help, not for money, but because it gave me a small, dark pleasure. An officer used to carry his sword so it clinked. I hated the sound. I decided he should stop. I spent a year and a half scheming, waiting, and glaring. Finally, it clinked no more. It was a victory only I knew about. Such things made me proud and sick at the same time.

I envy the straightforward people who walk straight ahead like oxen. They bump their head against a wall, and when they feel it is hard, they just say: a wall is a wall, and then they move on or give up. They are calm inside. I am not like that. I am like a mouse in the wall that gnaws and gnaws and never gets out. I know that two times two is four. It is as true as a wall. But sometimes I want to shout two times two is five, just to feel that I am free. Is that stupid? Yes. But sometimes a person would rather do something stupid than be ruled by tables and rules that tell everything in advance.

When I was twenty-four, I lived as if in a dark cellar even though I had an apartment. At the office, I looked down. I was sure everyone hated me. It was I who hated myself, but I did not know it. In the evenings, I went places where no one knew me. Once I stood and watched a man thrown out a tavern window. It was awful, but deep inside I was jealous. At least that man felt alive. I went in to be thrown out too. Instead, a tall officer moved me gently aside, as if I were a fly in his way. He did not even look at me. If he had hit me, maybe I could have lived with it. But being moved aside like nothing, I never forgot.

When I could not bear living, I dreamed of being great, brave, and good. The dreams were like a set table in an empty room. They kept me going for a while. When I got too excited by all the grand things, I would go for tea at my boss's house. There we talked about salaries, winter boots, and the new fireplace. Such evenings put a cold lid on me, and I stopped wanting to embrace all of humanity for a while.

The wine came on the table. They toasted to Zverkov, to his future, to youth. I refused to drink. I stood up and said I hated phrases and snobbery, and that I loved justice. Then I toasted anyway, for Zverkov to charm ladies and to shoot the fatherland's enemies. It was all stupid. They looked at each other, not at me. Ferfitschkin laughed. I went wild. I wanted a duel, but I remained seated. I paced back and forth in the room, dizzy with pride and shame. They talked about their things and laughed, and it hurt more than if they had scolded me. At eleven o'clock they were to go on to Olympia. On the stairs, I asked Simonov for six rubles. He threw them at me, like to a beggar.

She entered quietly. She was about my age. Her eyes were clear in a way that made me look down for a moment. We did not say much. I asked where she came from. Riga, she said. Her parents were merchants. She had been in the house for two weeks. She answered shortly, but honestly. Then the hard voice in me wanted to talk at length, as I sometimes do when I want to steer others' thoughts. I told her about once seeing a coffin carried out of a cellar brothel. Slush gathered on the lid. Grim, I said. She asked why weather matters to the dead. I said it is worse to be lowered into black, wet earth than into dry. She looked at me. Why should she die, she asked. Not now, I said. But someday. I began to paint a terrible future for her, as if I owned it. I said she would sink house by house, that men and madams would use her up, that she might die of sickness in a hospital. I said it all with a cold certainty I did not really have.

Next morning everything shrank in my head. I sent Apollon with six rubles and a note to Simonov pretending I had been too drunk. That calmed me for a while. Then came a new worry: Liza might come. I saw my room through her eyes. The brown sofa with white stuffing poking out. My robe that did not meet at the waist. The yellow spot on my trousers. My lies. My servant. Apollon is my servant. He likes to read psalms, kill rats, and stare coldly. He works slowly, as if each step is a favor he grants me out of grace. I had tolerated him for long. Now I decided to punish him. I would not pay him on the day as usual. I would wait. He would ask first. I dreamed of it for two years. Now I would do it. I waited for him to bow his head. I also waited, without saying it aloud, for Liza to knock.

Liza came. First Apollon entered the room and stood staring at me without saying anything. Then he left. Then he came again and almost adjusted his needle to show he despised me. I cracked early. I shouted at him, threatened police, grabbed his arm. Then the outer door opened slowly. I did not hear footsteps. I only saw a shadow in the doorway. Then I realized Liza had come in the middle of my tantrum. I ran in and pressed my forehead against the wall. I wanted to tear out my shame with my hands. Apollon came in and said calmly that a woman was asking for me. I went out. Liza stood there. Her eyes were both scared and brave. We sat down. I began to talk in a hurry. That she must excuse me. That I was poor but honest. That I was almost proud of my poverty. With each word I sank deeper in my chair. I offered tea. I jumped into the hallway and gave Apollon seven rubles just to get him to go buy some food. He took the money slowly, counted it, and asked coldly if I wanted the full portion. He knew he had power. I felt like a prisoner trying to bribe a guard.