Notes from the Underground

  XI

  The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to donothing! Better conscious inertia! And so hurrah for underground!Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of mybile, 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 undergroundlife is more advantageous. There, at any rate, one can ... Oh, buteven now I am lying! I am lying because I know myself that it is notunderground 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 Imyself believed in anything of what I have just written. I swear toyou, gentlemen, there is not one thing, not one word of what I havewritten that I really believe. That is, I believe it, perhaps, but atthe 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 toput you underground for forty years without anything to do and thencome 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 tosettle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how persistent,how insolent are your sallies, and at the same time what a scare youare in! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say impudentthings and are in continual alarm and apologising for them. Youdeclare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try toingratiate yourself in our good opinion. You declare that you aregnashing your teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as toamuse us. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you areevidently 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 pettiestvanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. Youdoubtlessly mean to say something, but hide your last word throughfear, because you have not the resolution to utter it, and only have acowardly impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are not sureof your ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkenedand corrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness withouta 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, isfrom underground. I have been for forty years listening to you througha crack under the floor. I have invented them myself, there wasnothing else I could invent. It is no wonder that I have learned it byheart and it has taken a literary form....

  But can you really be so credulous as to think that I will print allthis and give it to you to read too? And another problem: why do Icall you "gentlemen," why do I address you as though you really were myreaders? Such confessions as I intend to make are never printed norgiven to other people to read. Anyway, I am not strong-minded enoughfor that, and I don't see why I should be. But you see a fancy hasoccurred 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, butonly to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he wouldnot reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that insecret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell evento himself, and every decent man has a number of such things storedaway in his mind. The more decent he is, the greater the number of suchthings in his mind. Anyway, I have only lately determined to remembersome of my early adventures. Till now I have always avoided them, evenwith a certain uneasiness. Now, when I am not only recalling them, buthave actually decided to write an account of them, I want to try theexperiment whether one can, even with oneself, be perfectly open andnot 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 Rousseaucertainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and evenintentionally 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 wellconceive that kind of vanity. But Heine judged of people who madetheir confessions to the public. I write only for myself, and I wishto declare once and for all that if I write as though I were addressingreaders, that is simply because it is easier for me to write in thatform. It is a form, an empty form--I shall never have readers. I havemade this plain already ...

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

  But here, perhaps, someone will catch at the word and ask me: if youreally don't reckon on readers, why do you make such compacts withyourself--and on paper too--that is, that you won't attempt any systemor 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 simplythat I am a coward. And perhaps that I purposely imagine an audiencebefore me in order that I may be more dignified while I write. Thereare perhaps thousands of reasons. Again, what is my object preciselyin writing? If it is not for the benefit of the public why should Inot simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting themon paper?

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

  Besides, I am bored, and I never have anything to do. Writing will bea 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 afew days ago. I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of thatincident which I cannot shake off now. And so let it be a story APROPOS of the falling snow.