Notes from the Underground - Penn State University

Notes from the Undergroundme now that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to thehigh standard I set for myself, I often looked at myself withfurious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardlyattributed the same feeling to everyone. I hated myface, for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even suspectedthat there was something base in my expression, and so everyday when I turned up at the office I tried to behave asindependently as possible, and to assume a lofty expression,so that I might not be suspected of being abject. “My facemay be ugly,” I thought, “but let it be lofty, expressive, and,above all, extremely intelligent.” But I was positively and painfullycertain that it was impossible for my countenance everto express those qualities. And what was worst of all, I thoughtit actually stupid looking, and I would have been quite satisfiedif I could have looked intelligent. In fact, I would evenhave put up with looking base if, at the same time, my facecould have been thought strikingly intelligent.Of course, I hated my fellow clerks one and all, and I despisedthem all, yet at the same time I was, as it were, afraidof them. In fact, it happened at times that I thought morehighly of them than of myself. It somehow happened quiteDostoyevskysuddenly that I alternated between despising them and thinkingthem superior to myself. A cultivated and decent mancannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard forhimself, and without despising and almost hating himself atcertain moments. But whether I despised them or thoughtthem superior I dropped my eyes almost every time I metanyone. I even made experiments whether I could face soand so’s looking at me, and I was always the first to drop myeyes. This worried me to distraction. I had a sickly dread,too, of being ridiculous, and so had a slavish passion for theconventional in everything external. I loved to fall into thecommon rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind ofeccentricity in myself. But how could I live up to it? I wasmorbidly sensitive as a man of our age should be. They wereall stupid, and as like one another as so many sheep. PerhapsI was the only one in the office who fancied that I was acoward and a slave, and I fancied it just because I was morehighly developed. But it was not only that I fancied it, itreally was so. I was a coward and a slave. I say this withoutthe slightest embarrassment. Every decent man of our agemust be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition.37