'You thirst for life, yet you yourself resolve life's questions with a logical tangle. And how importunate, how impudent your escapades, yet at the same time how frightened you are! You talk nonsense, and are pleased with it; you say impudent things, yet you keep being afraid and asking forgiveness for them. You insist that you are not afraid of anything, and at the same time you court our opinion. You insist that you are gnashing your teeth, and at the same time you exert your wit to make us laugh. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are apparently quite pleased with their literary merits. You may indeed have happened to suffer, but you do not have the least respect for your suffering. There is truth in you, too, but no integrity; out of the pettiest vanity you take your truth and display it, disgrace it, in the marketplace… You do indeed want to say something, but you conceal your final word out of fear, because you lack the resolve to speak it out, you have only cowardly insolence. You boast about consciousness, yet all you do is vacillate, because, though your mind works, your heart is darkened by depravity, and without a pure heart there can be no full, right consciousness. And how importunate you are, how you foist yourself, how you mug! Lies, lies, lies!'
To be sure, I myself have just made up all these words of yours. This, too, is from underground. I've spent forty years on end there listening to these words of yours through a crack. I thought them up myself, since this was all that would get thought up. No wonder they got learned by heart and assumed a literary form…
But can it be, can it be that you are indeed so gullible as to imagine I will publish all this and, what's more, give it to you to read? And here's another puzzle for me: why indeed do I call you 'gentlemen,' why do I address you as if you were actually my readers? Such confessions as I intend to begin setting forth here are not published and given to others to read. At least I do not have so much firmness in myself, and do not consider it necessary to have it. But you see: a certain fancy has come into my head, and I want at all costs to realize it. Here's what it is.
In every man's memories there are such things as he will reveal not to everyone, but perhaps only to friends. There are also such as he will reveal not even to friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. Then, finally, there are such as a man is afraid to reveal even to himself, and every decent man will have accumulated quite a few things of this sort. That is, one might even say: the more decent a man is, the more of them he will have. At least I myself have only recently resolved to recall some of my former adventures, which till now I have always avoided, even with a certain uneasiness. Now, however, when I not only recall them but am even resolved to write them down, now I want precisely to make a test: is it possible to be perfectly candid with oneself and not be afraid of the whole truth? I will observe incidentally: Heine insists that faithful autobiographies are almost impossible, and that a man is sure to tell a pack of lies about himself. In his opinion, Rousseau, for example, most certainly told a pack of lies about himself in his confessions, and even did so intentionally, out of vanity. 21 I'm sure Heine is right; I understand very well how one can sometimes slap whole crimes on oneself solely out of vanity, and I even perceive quite well what sort of vanity it might be. But Heine's opinion concerned a man who was confessing before the public. I, however, am writing only for myself, and I declare once and for all that even if I write as if I were addressing readers, that is merely a front, because it's easier for me to write that way. It's a form, just an empty form, and I shall never have any readers. I have already declared as much…
I do not want to hamper myself with anything in preparing my notes. I will not introduce any order or system. Whatever I recall, I will write down.
Now, for example, someone might seize upon a word and ask me: if you really are not counting on any readers, why then do you make such agreements with yourself, and on paper besides, that you will introduce no order or system, that you will write down whatever you recall, etc., etc.? Why these explanations? Why these apologies?
'Well, so it goes,' I reply.
There is, however, a whole psychology here. Maybe it's also that I'm simply a coward. And maybe also that I'm purposely imagining a public before me so as to behave more decently while I write. There may be a thousand reasons.
But here is another thing: for what and to what end, in fact, do I want to write? If not for the public, then why not simply recall everything mentally, without transferring it to paper?
Right, sir; but on paper it will somehow come out more solemnly. There's something imposing in it, there will be more of a judgment on oneself, it will gain in style. Besides: maybe I will indeed get relief from the writing. Today, for example, I'm particularly oppressed by one distant recollection. I recalled it clearly the other day, and it has since stayed with me like a nagging musical tune that refuses to be gotten rid of. And yet one must get rid of it. I have hundreds of such recollections; but some one out of a hundred emerges every now and then and oppresses me. I believe for some reason that if I write it down, I shall then be rid of it. So why not try?
Finally: I'm bored, and I constantly do nothing. And writing things down really seems like work. They say work makes a man good and honest. Well, here's a chance, at least.
Snow is falling today, almost wet, yellow, dull. And it was falling yesterday, and it was falling the other day as well. I think it was apropos of the wet snow that I recalled this anecdote that now refuses to be gotten rid of. And so, let this be a story apropos of the wet snow. 22
PART TWO
When from out of error's darkness With a word both sure and ardent I had drawn the fallen soul, And you, filled with deepest torment, Cursed the vice that had ensnared you And so doing wrung your hands; When, punishing with recollection Forgetful conscience, you then told The tale of all that went before me, And suddenly you hid your face In trembling hands and, filled with horror, Filled with shame, dissolved in tears, Indignant as you were, and shaken… Etc., etc., etc.
From the poetry ofN. A. Nekrasov 1
I
At that time I was only twenty-four years old. My life then was already gloomy, disorderly, and solitary to the point of savagery. I did not associate with anyone, even avoided speaking, and shrank more and more into my corner. At work, in the office, I even tried not to look at anyone, and I noticed very well that my colleagues not only considered me an odd man, but - as I also kept fancying - seemed to look at me with a certain loathing. It used to occur to me: why does no one except me fancy that people look at him with loathing? There was one in our office who had a disgusting and most pockmarked face, even somehow like a bandit's. With such an indecent face, I think I wouldn't even have dared to glance at anyone. Another hadn't changed his uniform for so long that there was a bad smell in his vicinity. And yet neither of these gentlemen was embarrassed - either with regard to his clothes or his face, or somehow morally. Neither the one nor the other imagined that he was looked at with loathing; and even if they had imagined it, it would have been all the same to them, so long as their superiors did not deign to pay heed. It's perfectly clear to me now that it was I who, owing to my boundless vanity, and hence also my exactingness towards myself, very often looked upon myself with furious dissatisfaction, reaching the point of loathing, and therefore mentally attributed my view to everyone else. I hated my face, for example, found it odious, and even suspected that there was some mean expression in it, and therefore every time I came to work I made a painful effort to carry myself as independently as possible, so as not to be suspected of meanness, and to express as much nobility as possible with my face. 'Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, 'but, to make up for that, let it
