I


I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I
believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my
disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor
for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors.
Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine,
anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am
superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you
probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I
can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my
spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not
consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only
injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is
from spite. My liver is bad, well--let it get worse!

I have been going on like that for a long time--twenty years. Now I am
forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. I was a
spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take
bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A
poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound
very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off
in a despicable way, I will not scratch it out on purpose!)

When petitioners used to come for information to the table at which I
sat, I used to grind my teeth at them, and felt intense enjoyment when I
succeeded in making anybody unhappy. I almost did succeed. For the
most part they were all timid people--of course, they were petitioners.
But of the uppish ones there was one officer in particular I could not
endure. He simply would not be humble, and clanked his sword in a
disgusting way. I carried on a feud with him for eighteen months over
that sword. At last I got the better of him. He left off clanking it. That
happened in my youth, though.
But do you know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my spite?
Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the fact that continually,
even in the moment of the acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with
shame that I was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man,
that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself by it. I
might foam at the mouth, but bring me a doll to play with, give me a cup of
tea with sugar in it, and maybe I should be appeased. I might even be
genuinely touched, though probably I should grind my teeth at myself afterwards
and lie awake at night with shame for months after. That was my way.

I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official. I was
lying from spite. I was simply amusing myself with the petitioners and with
the officer, and in reality I never could become spiteful. I was conscious
every moment in myself of many, very many elements absolutely opposite to
that. I felt them positively swarming in me, these opposite elements.
I knew that they had been swarming in me all my life and craving
some outlet from me, but I would not let them, would not let them,
purposely would not let them come out. They tormented me till I was
ashamed: they drove me to convulsions and--sickened me, at last, how
they sickened me! Now, are not you fancying, gentlemen, that I am
expressing remorse for something now, that I am asking your forgiveness
for something? I am sure you are fancying that ... However, I assure you
I do not care if you are. ...

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to
become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest
man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my
corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an
intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool
who becomes anything. Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and
morally ought to be pre-eminently a characterless creature; a man of
character, an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature. That is my
conviction of forty years. I am forty years old now, and you know forty
years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer
than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live
beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do:
fools and worthless fellows. I tell all old men that to their face, all these
venerable old men, all these silver-haired and reverend seniors! I tell the
whole world that to its face! I have a right to say so, for I shall go on
living to sixty myself. To seventy! To eighty! ... Stay, let me
take breath ...

You imagine no doubt, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are
mistaken in that, too. I am by no means such a mirthful person as you
imagine, or as you may imagine; however, irritated by all this babble (and
I feel that you are irritated) you think fit to ask me who I am--then my
answer is, I am a collegiate assessor. I was in the service that I might have
something to eat (and solely for that reason), and when last year a distant
relation left me six thousand roubles in his will I immediately retired
from the service and settled down in my corner. I used to live in this
corner before, but now I have settled down in it. My room is a wretched,
horrid one in the outskirts of the town. My servant is an old country-
woman, ill-natured from stupidity, and, moreover, there is always a nasty
smell about her. I am told that the Petersburg climate is bad for me, and
that with my small means it is very expensive to live in Petersburg. I
know all that better than all these sage and experienced counsellors and
monitors. ... But I am remaining in Petersburg; I am not going away
from Petersburg! I am not going away because ... ech! Why, it is
absolutely no matter whether I am going away or not going away.

But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure?

Answer: Of himself.

Well, so I will talk about myself.
IV "Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next," you cry,with a laugh. "Well, even in toothache there is enjoyment," I answer. I had toothachefor a whole month and I know there is. In that case, of course,people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candidmoans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the wholepoint. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; ifhe did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan. It is a goodexample, gentlemen, and I will develop it. Those moans express in thefirst place all the aimlessness of your pain, which is so humiliating toyour consciousness; the whole legal system of nature on which you spitdisdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all the same while shedoes not. They express the consciousness that you have no enemy topunish, but that you have pain; the consciousness that in spite of allpossible Wagenheims you are in complete slavery to your teeth; that ifsomeone wishes it, your teeth will leave off aching, and if he does not,they will go on aching another three months; and that finally if you arestill contumacious and still protest, all that is left you for your owngratification is to thrash yourself or beat your wall with your fist as hard asyou can, and absolutely nothing more. Well, these mortal insults, thesejeers on the part of someone unknown, end at last in an enjoyment whichsometimes reaches the highest degree of voluptuousness. I ask you,gentlemen, listen sometimes to the moans of an educated man of thenineteenth century suffering from toothache, on the second or third dayof the attack, when he is beginning to moan, not as he moaned on thefirst day, that is, not simply because he has toothache, not just as anycoarse peasant, but as a man affected by progress and European civilisation,a man who is "divorced from the soil and the national elements," asthey express it now-a-days. His moans become nasty, disgustingly malignant,and go on for whole days and nights. And of course he knowshimself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans; he knowsbetter than anyone that he is only lacerating and harassing himself andothers for nothing; he knows that even the audience before whom he ismaking his efforts, and his whole family, listen to him with loathing, donot put a ha'porth of faith in him, and inwardly understand that he mightmoan differently, more simply, without trills and flourishes, and that he isonly amusing himself like that from ill-humour, from malignancy. Well,in all these recognitions and disgraces it is that there lies a voluptuouspleasure. As though he would say: "I am worrying you, I am laceratingyour hearts, I am keeping everyone in the house awake. Well, stay awakethen, you, too, feel every minute that I have toothache. I am not a heroto you now, as I tried to seem before, but simply a nasty person, animpostor. Well, so be it, then! I am very glad that you see through me. Itis nasty for you to hear my despicable moans: well, let it be nasty; here Iwill let you have a nastier flourish in a minute. ..." You do notunderstand even now, gentlemen? No, it seems our development and ourconsciousness must go further to understand all the intricacies of thispleasure. You laugh? Delighted. My jests, gentlemen, are of course inbad taste, jerky, involved, lacking self-confidence. But of course that isbecause I do not respect myself. Can a man of perception respect himselfat all? V Come, can a man who attempts to find enjoyment in the very feeling ofhis own degradation possibly have a spark of respect for himself? I am notsaying this now from any mawkish kind of remorse. And, indeed, I couldnever endure saying, "Forgive me, Papa, I won't do it again," not becauseI am incapable of saying that--on the contrary, perhaps just because Ihave been too capable of it, and in what a way, too. As though of design Iused to get into trouble in cases when I was not to blame in any way. Thatwas the nastiest part of it. At the same time I was genuinely touched andpenitent, I used to shed tears and, of course, deceived myself, though Iwas not acting in the least and there was a sick feeling in my heart at thetime. ... For that one could not blame even the laws of nature, thoughthe laws of nature have continually all my life offended me more thananything. It is loathsome to remember it all, but it was loathsome eventhen. Of course, a minute or so later I would realise wrathfully that it wasall a lie, a revolting lie, an affected lie, that is, all this penitence, thisemotion, these vows of reform. You will ask why did I worry myself withsuch antics: answer, because it was very dull to sit with one's handsfolded, and so one began cutting capers. That is really it. Observeyourselves more carefully, gentlemen, then you will understand that it isso. I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least tolive in some way. How many times it has happened to me--well, forinstance, to take offence simply on purpose, for nothing; and one knowsoneself, of course, that one is offended at nothing; that one is putting iton, but yet one brings oneself at last to the point of being really offended. All my life I have had an impulse to play such pranks, so that in the end Icould not control it in myself. Another time, twice, in fact, I tried hard tobe in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of myheart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, butyet I did suffer, and in the real, orthodox way; I was jealous, beside myself... and it was all from ENNUI, gentlemen, all from ENNUI; inertia overcameme. You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness isinertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referredto this already. I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all "direct" persons andmen of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. Howexplain that? I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they takeimmediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that waypersuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do thatthey have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and theirminds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing. To begin to act,you know, you must first have your mind completely at ease and no traceof doubt left in it. Why, how am I, for example, to set my mind at rest?Where are the primary causes on which I am to build? Where are myfoundations? Where am I to get them from? I exercise myself in reflection,and consequently with me every primary cause at once draws afteritself another still more primary, and so on to infinity. That is just theessence of every sort of consciousness and reflection. It must be a case ofthe laws of nature again. What is the result of it in the end? Why, just thesame. Remember I spoke just now of vengeance. (I am sure you did nottake it in.) I said that a man revenges himself because he sees justice in it. Therefore he has found a primary cause, that is, justice. And so he is atrest on all sides, and consequently he carries out his revenge calmly andsuccessfully, being persuaded that he is doing a just and honest thing. ButI see no justice in it, I find no sort of virtue in it either, and consequentlyif I attempt to revenge myself, it is only out of spite. Spite, of course,might overcome everything, all my doubts, and so might serve quitesuccessfully in place of a primary cause, precisely because it is not acause. But what is to be done if I have not even spite (I began with thatjust now, you know). In consequence again of those accursed laws ofconsciousness, anger in me is subject to chemical disintegration. Youlook into it, the object flies off into air, your reasons evaporate, thecriminal is not to be found, the wrong becomes not a wrong but aphantom, something like the toothache, for which no one is to blame,and consequently there is only the same outlet left again--that is, to beatthe wall as hard as you can. So you give it up with a wave of the handbecause you have not found a fundamental cause. And try letting yourselfbe carried away by your feelings, blindly, without reflection, without aprimary cause, repelling consciousness at least for a time; hate or love, ifonly not to sit with your hands folded. The day after tomorrow, at thelatest, you will begin despising yourself for having knowingly deceivedyourself. Result: a soap-bubble and inertia. Oh, gentlemen, do youknow, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all mylife I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything. Granted I ama babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to bedone if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble,that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve? "H'm!" you decide. "Our choice is usually mistaken from a false viewof our advantage. We sometimes choose absolute nonsense because inour foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining asupposed advantage. But when all that is explained and worked out onpaper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and senseless tosuppose that some laws of nature man will never understand), thencertainly so-called desires will no longer exist. For if a desire should comeinto conflict with reason we shall then reason and not desire, because itwill be impossible retaining our reason to be SENSELESS in our desires, andin that way knowingly act against reason and desire to injure ourselves. And as all choice and reasoning can be really calculated--because therewill some day be discovered the laws of our so-called free will--so, jokingapart, there may one day be something like a table constructed of them,so that we really shall choose in accordance with it. If, for instance, someday they calculate and prove to me that I made a long nose at someonebecause I could not help making a long nose at him and that I had to do itin that particular way, what FREEDOM is left me, especially if I am a learnedman and have taken my degree somewhere? Then I should be able tocalculate my whole life for thirty years beforehand. In short, if this couldbe arranged there would be nothing left for us to do; anyway, we shouldhave to understand that. And, in fact, we ought unwearyingly to repeat toourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstancesnature does not ask our leave; that we have got to take her as she isand not fashion her to suit our fancy, and if we really aspire to formulasand tables of rules, and well, even ... to the chemical retort, there's nohelp for it, we must accept the retort too, or else it will be acceptedwithout our consent ...."