Notes from the Underground - Penn State University

Notes from the Undergrounddo so, for I knew no one. But one day I heard someoneshout his surname in the street as I was following him at adistance, as though I were tied to him—and so I learnt hissurname. Another time I followed him to his flat, and forten kopecks learned from the porter where he lived, on whichstorey, whether he lived alone or with others, and so on—infact, everything one could learn from a porter. One morning,though I had never tried my hand with the pen, it suddenlyoccurred to me to write a satire on this officer in theform of a novel which would unmask his villainy. I wrote thenovel with relish. I did unmask his villainy, I even exaggeratedit; at first I so altered his surname that it could easily berecognized, but on second thoughts I changed it, and sentthe story to the Otetchestvenniya Zapiski. But at that timesuch attacks were not the fashion and my story was notprinted. That was a great vexation to me. Sometimes I waspositively choked with resentment. At last I determined tochallenge my enemy to a duel. I composed a splendid, charmingletter to him, imploring him to apologize to me, andhinting rather plainly at a duel in case of refusal. The letterwas so composed that if the officer had had the least under-Dostoyevskystanding of the sublime and the beautiful he would certainlyhave flung himself on my neck and have offered me his friendship.And how fine that would have been! How we shouldhave got on together! He could have shielded me with hishigher rank, while I could have improved his mind with myculture, and, well … my ideas, and all sorts of things mighthave happened. Only fancy, this was two years after his insultto me, and my challenge would have been a ridiculousanachronism, in spite of all the ingenuity of my letter indisguising and explaining away the anachronism. But, thankGod (to this day I thank the Almighty with tears in my eyes)I did not send the letter to him. Cold shivers run down myback when I think of what might have happened if I hadsent it. And all at once I revenged myself in the simplest way,by a stroke of genius! A brilliant thought suddenly dawnedupon me. Sometimes on holidays I used to stroll along thesunny side of the Nevsky about four o’clock in the afternoon.Though it was hardly a stroll so much as a series ofinnumerable miseries, humiliations and resentments; but nodoubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along ina most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving43