Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  II

  I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not,why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that Ihave many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even tothat. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness--areal thorough-going illness. For man's everyday needs, it would havebeen quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness, that is,half or a quarter of the amount which falls to the lot of a cultivatedman of our unhappy nineteenth century, especially one who has the fatalill-luck to inhabit Petersburg, the most theoretical and intentionaltown on the whole terrestrial globe. (There are intentional andunintentional towns.) It would have been quite enough, for instance,to have the consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and menof action live. I bet you think I am writing all this fromaffectation, to be witty at the expense of men of action; and what ismore, that from ill-bred affectation, I am clanking a sword like myofficer. But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases andeven swagger over them?

  Though, after all, everyone does do that; people do pride themselves ontheir diseases, and I do, may be, more than anyone. We will notdispute it; my contention was absurd. But yet I am firmly persuadedthat a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, infact, is a disease. I stick to that. Let us leave that, too, for aminute. Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at thevery moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of allthat is "sublime and beautiful," as they used to say at one time, itwould, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to dosuch ugly things, such that ... Well, in short, actions that all,perhaps, commit; but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at thevery time when I was most conscious that they ought not to becommitted. The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was"sublime and beautiful," the more deeply I sank into my mire and themore ready I was to sink in it altogether. But the chief point wasthat all this was, as it were, not accidental in me, but as though itwere bound to be so. It was as though it were my most normalcondition, and not in the least disease or depravity, so that at lastall desire in me to struggle against this depravity passed. It endedby my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this wasperhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, whatagonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the samewith other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as asecret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to thepoint of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment inreturning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night,acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome actionagain, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardlygnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till atlast the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness,and at last--into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, intoenjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keepwanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? Iwill explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousnessof one's own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one hadreached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could notbe otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never couldbecome a different man; that even if time and faith were still left youto change into something different you would most likely not wish tochange; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; becauseperhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.

  And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all inaccord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness,and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and thatconsequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutelynothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness,that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were anyconsolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that heactually is a scoundrel. But enough.... Ech, I have talked a lot ofnonsense, but what have I explained? How is enjoyment in this to beexplained? But I will explain it. I will get to the bottom of it!That is why I have taken up my pen....

  I, for instance, have a great deal of AMOUR PROPRE. I am as suspiciousand prone to take offence as a humpback or a dwarf. But upon my word Isometimes have had moments when if I had happened to be slapped in theface I should, perhaps, have been positively glad of it. I say, inearnest, that I should probably have been able to discover even in thata peculiar sort of enjoyment--the enjoyment, of course, of despair; butin despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when oneis very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. Andwhen one is slapped in the face--why then the consciousness of beingrubbed into a pulp would positively overwhelm one. The worst of it is,look at it which way one will, it still turns out that I was always themost to blame in everything. And what is most humiliating of all, toblame for no fault of my own but, so to say, through the laws ofnature. In the first place, to blame because I am cleverer than any ofthe people surrounding me. (I have always considered myself clevererthan any of the people surrounding me, and sometimes, would you believeit, have been positively ashamed of it. At any rate, I have all mylife, as it were, turned my eyes away and never could look peoplestraight in the face.) To blame, finally, because even if I had hadmagnanimity, I should only have had more suffering from the sense ofits uselessness. I should certainly have never been able to doanything from being magnanimous--neither to forgive, for my assailantwould perhaps have slapped me from the laws of nature, and one cannotforgive the laws of nature; nor to forget, for even if it were owing tothe laws of nature, it is insulting all the same. Finally, even if Ihad wanted to be anything but magnanimous, had desired on the contraryto revenge myself on my assailant, I could not have revenged myself onany one for anything because I should certainly never have made up mymind to do anything, even if I had been able to. Why should I not havemade up my mind? About that in particular I want to say a few words.