Notes From Underground Page 12

give her a taste of the frost because she had been crying so much, and

  they shut the door behind her. At nine o'clock in the morning she was

  already quite drunk, dishevelled, half-naked, covered with bruises, her

  face was powdered, but she had a black-eye, blood was trickling from her

  nose and her teeth; some cabman had just given her a drubbing. She was

  sitting on the stone steps, a salt fish of some sort was in her hand; she was

  crying, wailing something about her luck and beating with the fish on the

  steps, and cabmen and drunken soldiers were crowding in the doorway

  taunting her. You don't believe that you will ever be like that? I should be

  sorry to believe it, too, but how do you know; maybe ten years, eight

  years ago that very woman with the salt fish came here fresh as a cherub,

  innocent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every word. Perhaps she

  was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like the others; perhaps she

  looked like a queen, and knew what happiness was in store for the man

  who should love her and whom she should love. Do you see how it

  ended? And what if at that very minute when she was beating on the filthy

  steps with that fish, drunken and dishevelled--what if at that very

  minute she recalled the pure early days in her father's house, when she

  used to go to school and the neighbour's son watched for her on the way,

  declaring that he would love her as long as he lived, that he would devote

  his life to her, and when they vowed to love one another for ever and be

  married as soon as they were grown up! No, Liza, it would be happy for

  you if you were to die soon of consumption in some corner, in some

  cellar like that woman just now. In the hospital, do you say? You will be

  lucky if they take you, but what if you are still of use to the madam here?

  Consumption is a queer disease, it is not like fever. The patient goes on

  hoping till the last minute and says he is all right. He deludes himself

  And that just suits your madam. Don't doubt it, that's how it is; you have

  sold your soul, and what is more you owe money, so you daren't say a

  word. But when you are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away

  from you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. What's more,

  they will reproach you for cumbering the place, for being so long over

  dying. However you beg you won't get a drink of water without abuse:

  'Whenever are you going off, you nasty hussy, you won't let us sleep with

  your moaning, you make the gentlemen sick.' That's true, I have heard

  such things said myself. They will thrust you dying into the filthiest

  corner in the cellar--in the damp and darkness; what will your thoughts

  be, lying there alone? When you die, strange hands will lay you out, with

  grumbling and impatience; no one will bless you, no one will sigh for

  you, they only want to get rid of you as soon as may be; they will buy a

  coffin, take you to the grave as they did that poor woman today, and

  celebrate your memory at the tavern. In the grave, sleet, filth, wet snow--

  no need to put themselves out for you--'Let her down, Vanuha; it's just

  like her luck--even here, she is head-foremost, the hussy. Shorten the

  cord, you rascal.' 'It's all right as it is.' 'All right, is it? Why, she's

  on her side! She was a fellow-creature, after all! But, never mind, throw the

  earth on her.' And they won't care to waste much time quarrelling over

  you. They will scatter the wet blue clay as quick as they can and go off to

  the tavern ... and there your memory on earth will end; other women

  have children to go to their graves, fathers, husbands. While for you

  neither tear, nor sigh, nor remembrance; no one in the whole world will

  ever come to you, your name will vanish from the face of the earth--as

  though you had never existed, never been born at all! Nothing but filth

  and mud, however you knock at your coffin lid at night, when the dead

  arise, however you cry: 'Let me out, kind people, to live in the light of

  day! My life was no life at all; my life has been thrown away like a dish-

  clout; it was drunk away in the tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind

  people, to live in the world again.'"

  And I worked myself up to such a pitch that I began to have a lump in

  my throat myself, and ... and all at once I stopped, sat up in dismay and,

  bending over apprehensively, began to listen with a beating heart. I had

  reason to be troubled.

  I had felt for some time that I was turning her soul upside down and

  rending her heart, and--and the more I was convinced of it, the more

  eagerly I desired to gain my object as quickly and as effectually as

  possible. It was the exercise of my skill that carried me away; yet it was not

  merely sport ....

  I knew I was speaking stiffly, artificially, even bookishly, in fact, I

  could not speak except "like a book." But that did not trouble me: I

  knew, I felt that I should be understood and that this very bookishness

  might be an assistance. But now, having attained my effect, I was

  suddenly panic-stricken. Never before had I witnessed such despair! She

  was lying on her face, thrusting her face into the pillow and clutching it

  in both hands. Her heart was being torn. Her youthful body was

  shuddering all over as though in convulsions. Suppressed sobs rent her

  bosom and suddenly burst out in weeping and wailing, then she pressed

  closer into the pillow: she did not want anyone here, not a living soul, to

  know of her anguish and her tears. She bit the pillow, bit her hand till it

  bled (I saw that afterwards), or, thrusting her fingers into her dishevelled

  hair, seemed rigid with the effort of restraint, holding her breath and

  clenching her teeth. I began saying something, begging her to calm

  herself, but felt that I did not dare; and all at once, in a sort of cold

  shiver, almost in terror, began fumbling in the dark, trying hurriedly to

  get dressed to go. It was dark; though I tried my best I could not finish

  dressing quickly. Suddenly I felt a box of matches and a candlestick with

  a whole candle in it. As soon as the room was lighted up, Liza sprang

  up, sat up in bed, and with a contorted face, with a half insane smile,

  looked at me almost senselessly. I sat down beside her and took her

  hands; she came to herself, made an impulsive movement towards me,

  would have caught hold of me, but did not dare, and slowly bowed her

  head before me.

  "Liza, my dear, I was wrong ... forgive me, my dear," I began, but

  she squeezed my hand in her fingers so tightly that I felt I was saying the

  wrong thing and stopped.

  "This is my address, Liza, come to me."

  "I will come," she answered resolutely, her head still bowed.

  "But now I am going, good-bye ... till we meet again."

  I got up; she, too, stood up and suddenly flushed all over, gave a

  shudder, snatched up a shawl that was lying on a chair and muffled

  herself in it to her chin. As she did this she gave another sickly smile,

  blushed and looked at me strangely. I felt wretched; I was in haste to get

  away--to disappear.

  "Wait a minute," she said sudden
ly, in the passage just at the doorway,

  stopping me with her hand on my overcoat. She put down the candle in

  hot haste and ran off; evidently she had thought of something or wanted

  to show me something. As she ran away she flushed, her eyes shone, and

  there was a smile on her lips--what was the meaning of it? Against my

  will I waited: she came back a minute later with an expression that

  seemed to ask forgiveness for something. In fact, it was not the same face,

  not the same look as the evening before: sullen, mistrustful and obstinate.

  Her eyes now were imploring, soft, and at the same time trustful,

  caressing, timid. The expression with which children look at people they

  are very fond of, of whom they are asking a favour. Her eyes were a light

  hazel, they were lovely eyes, full of life, and capable of expressing love as

  well as sullen hatred.

  Making no explanation, as though I, as a sort of higher being, must

  understand everything without explanations, she held out a piece of

  paper to me. Her whole face was positively beaming at that instant with

  naive, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter to her from

  a medical student or someone of that sort--a very high-flown and

  flowery, but extremely respectful, love-letter. I don't recall the words

  now, but I remember well that through the high-flown phrases there was

  apparent a genuine feeling, which cannot be feigned. When I had

  finished reading it I met her glowing, questioning, and childishly

  impatient eyes fixed upon me. She fastened her eyes upon my face and

  waited impatiently for what I should say. In a few words, hurriedly,

  but with a sort of joy and pride, she explained to me that she had been

  to a dance somewhere in a private house, a family of "very nice people,

  WHO KNEW NOTHING, absolutely nothing, for she had only come here

  so lately and it had all happened ... and she hadn't made up her

  mind to stay and was certainly going away as soon as she had paid her

  debt..." and at that party there had been the student who had danced

  with her all the evening. He had talked to her, and it turned out that he

  had known her in old days at Riga when he was a child, they had played

  together, but a very long time ago--and he knew her parents, but ABOUT THIS

  he knew nothing, nothing whatever, and had no suspicion! And the

  day after the dance (three days ago) he had sent her that letter through

  the friend with whom she had gone to the party ... and ... well, that

  was all."

  She dropped her shining eyes with a sort of bashfulness as she finished.

  The poor girl was keeping that student's letter as a precious treasure,

  and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to

  go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved;

  that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter was destined

  to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less, I am certain

  that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and

  justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and

  brought it with naive pride to raise herself in my eyes that I might see,

  that I, too, might think well of her. I said nothing, pressed her hand and

  went out. I so longed to get away ... I walked all the way home, in spite

  of the fact that the melting snow was still falling in heavy flakes. I was

  exhausted, shattered, in bewilderment. But behind the bewilderment the

  truth was already gleaming. The loathsome truth.

  VIII

  It was some time, however, before I consented to recognise that truth.

  Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and

  immediately realising all that had happened on the previous day, I was

  positively amazed at my last night's SENTIMENTALITY with Liza, at all those

  "outcries of horror and pity." "To think of having such an attack of

  womanish hysteria, pah!" I concluded. And what did I thrust my address

  upon her for? What if she comes? Let her come, though; it doesn't

  matter .... But OBVIOUSLY, that was not now the chief and the most

  important matter: I had to make haste and at all costs save my reputation

  in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov as quickly as possible; that was the

  chief business. And I was so taken up that morning that I actually forgot

  all about Liza.

  First of all I had at once to repay what I had borrowed the day before

  from Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure: to borrow fifteen

  roubles straight off from Anton Antonitch. As luck would have it he was

  in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, on the

  first asking. I was so delighted at this that, as I signed the IOU with a

  swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before "I had been

  keeping it up with some friends at the Hotel de Paris; we were giving a

  farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might say a friend of my childhood,

  and you know--a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt--of course, he belongs

  to a good family, and has considerable means, a brilliant career; he is

  witty, charming, a regular Lovelace, you understand; we drank an extra

  'half-dozen' and ..."

  And it went off all right; all this was uttered very easily,

  unconstrainedly and complacently.

  On reaching home I promptly wrote to Simonov.

  To this hour I am lost in admiration when I recall the truly gentlemanly,

  good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. With tact and good-

  breeding, and, above all, entirely without superfluous words, I blamed

  myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, "if I really may be

  allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterly unaccustomed

  to wine, I had been intoxicated with the first glass, which I said, I had

  drunk before they arrived, while I was waiting for them at the Hotel de

  Paris between five and six o'clock. I begged Simonov's pardon especially;

  I asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially to

  Zverkov, whom "I seemed to remember as though in a dream" I had

  insulted. I added that I would have called upon all of them myself, but

  my head ached, and besides I had not the face to. I was particularly

  pleased with a certain lightness, almost carelessness (strictly within the

  bounds of politeness, however), which was apparent in my style, and

  better than any possible arguments, gave them at once to understand that

  I took rather an independent view of "all that unpleasantness last night";

  that I was by no means so utterly crushed as you, my friends, probably

  imagine; but on the contrary, looked upon it as a gentleman serenely

  respecting himself should look upon it. "On a young hero's past no

  censure is cast!"

  "There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!" I thought

  admiringly, as I read over the letter. "And it's all because I am an

  intellectual and cultivated man! Another man in my place would not have

  known how to extricate himself, but here I have got out of it and am as

  jolly as ever again, and all because I am 'a cultivated and educated man

  of our day.' And, indeed, perhaps
, everything was due to the wine

  yesterday. H'm!" ... No, it was not the wine. I did not drink anything at

  all between five and six when I was waiting for them. I had lied to

  Simonov; I had lied shamelessly; and indeed I wasn't ashamed now ....

  Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was rid of it.

  I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to take it

  to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in the letter, Apollon

  became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towards evening I went out

  for a walk. My head was still aching and giddy after yesterday. But as

  evening came on and the twilight grew denser, my impressions and,

  following them, my thoughts, grew more and more different and confused.

  Something was not dead within me, in the depths of my heart and

  conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in acute depression. For

  the most part I jostled my way through the most crowded business streets,

  along Myeshtchansky Street, along Sadovy Street and in Yusupov Garden.

  I always liked particularly sauntering along these streets in the dusk,

  just when there were crowds of working people of all sorts going home

  from their daily work, with faces looking cross with anxiety. What I liked

  was just that cheap bustle, that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling

  of the streets irritated me more than ever, I could not make out what was

  wrong with me, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up

  continually in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned

  home completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on

  my conscience.

  The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed

  queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented me, as

  it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everything else I had quite

  succeeded in forgetting by the evening; I dismissed it all and was still

  perfectly satisfied with my letter to Simonov. But on this point I was not

  satisfied at all. It was as though I were worried only by Liza. "What if she

  comes," I thought incessantly, "well, it doesn't matter, let her come!

  H'm! it's horrid that she should see, for instance, how I live. Yesterday I

  seemed such a hero to her, while now, h'm! It's horrid, though, that I have

  let myself go so, the room looks like a beggar's. And I brought myself to go

  out to dinner in such a suit! And my American leather sofa with the

  stuffing sticking out. And my dressing-gown, which will not cover me,

  such tatters, and she will see all this and she will see Apollon. That beast

  is certain to insult her. He will fasten upon her in order to be rude to me.

  And I, of course, shall be panic-stricken as usual, I shall begin bowing

  and scraping before her and pulling my dressing-gown round me, I shall

  begin smiling, telling lies. Oh, the beastliness! And it isn't the

  beastliness of it that matters most! There is something more important, more

  loathsome, viler! Yes, viler! And to put on that dishonest lying mask

  again! ..."

  When I reached that thought I fired up all at once.

  "Why dishonest? How dishonest? I was speaking sincerely last night. I

  remember there was real feeling in me, too. What I wanted was to excite

  an honourable feeling in her .... Her crying was a good thing, it will

  have a good effect."

  Yet I could not feel at ease. All that evening, even when I had come

  back home, even after nine o'clock, when I calculated that Liza could

  not possibly come, still she haunted me, and what was worse, she came

  back to my mind always in the same position. One moment out of all that

  had happened last night stood vividly before my imagination; the moment

  when I struck a match and saw her pale, distorted face, with its look

  of torture. And what a pitiful, what an unnatural, what a distorted smile