Notes from the Underground - Penn State University

Notes from the Undergroundphant and sang Italian arias. Of course, I will not describe toyou what happened to me three days later; if you have readmy first chapter you can guess for yourself. The officer wasafterwards transferred; I have not seen him now for fourteenyears. What is the dear fellow doing now? Whom is he walkingover?IIDostoyevskyBUT THE PERIOD of my dissipation would end and I alwaysfelt very sick afterwards. It was followed by remorse—I triedto drive it away; I felt too sick. By degrees, however, I grewused to that too. I grew used to everything, or rather I voluntarilyresigned myself to enduring it. But I had a means ofescape that reconciled everything—that was to find refugein “the sublime and the beautiful,” in dreams, of course. Iwas a terrible dreamer, I would dream for three months onend, tucked away in my corner, and you may believe me thatat those moments I had no resemblance to the gentlemanwho, in the perturbation of his chicken heart, put a collar ofGerman beaver on his great-coat. I suddenly becamea hero. I would not have admitted my six-foot lieutenanteven if he had called on me. I could not even picture himbefore me then. What were my dreams and how I couldsatisfy myself with them—it is hard to say now, but at thetime I was satisfied with them. Though, indeed, even now, Iam to some extent satisfied with them. Dreams were particularlysweet and vivid after a spell of dissipation; they camewith remorse and with tears, with curses and transports. There47