Kabanata Kabanata 11 · 第11章

The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to do

nothing! Better conscious inertia! And so hurrah for underground!

Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my

bile, yet I should not care to be in his place such as he is now

(though I shall not cease envying him). No, no; anyway the underground

life is more advantageous. There, at any rate, one can ... Oh, but even

now I am lying! I am lying because I know myself that it is not

underground that is better, but something different, quite different,

for which I am thirsting, but which I cannot find! Damn underground!

I will tell you another thing that would be better, and that is, if I

myself believed in anything of what I have just written. I swear to

you, gentlemen, there is not one thing, not one word of what I have

written that I really believe. That is, I believe it, perhaps, but at

the same time I feel and suspect that I am lying like a cobbler.

“Then why have you written all this?” you will say to me. “I ought to

put you underground for forty years without anything to do and then

come to you in your cellar, to find out what stage you have reached!

How can a man be left with nothing to do for forty years?”

“Isn’t that shameful, isn’t that humiliating?” you will say, perhaps,

wagging your heads contemptuously. “You thirst for life and try to

settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how persistent,

how insolent are your sallies, and at the same time what a scare you

are in! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say impudent

things and are in continual alarm and apologising for them. You declare

that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate

yourself in our good opinion. You declare that you are gnashing your

teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as to amuse us. You

know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are evidently well

satisfied with their literary value. You may, perhaps, have really

suffered, but you have no respect for your own suffering. You may have

sincerity, but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest vanity you

expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. You doubtlessly mean

to say something, but hide your last word through fear, because you

have not the resolution to utter it, and only have a cowardly

impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are not sure of your

ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkened and

corrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness without a

pure heart. And how intrusive you are, how you insist and grimace!

Lies, lies, lies!”

Of course I have myself made up all the things you say. That, too, is

from underground. I have been for forty years listening to you through

a crack under the floor. I have invented them myself, there was nothing

else I could invent. It is no wonder that I have learned it by heart

and it has taken a literary form....

But can you really be so credulous as to think that I will print all

this and give it to you to read too? And another problem: why do I call

you “gentlemen,” why do I address you as though you really were my

readers? Such confessions as I intend to make are never printed nor

given to other people to read. Anyway, I am not strong-minded enough

for that, and I don’t see why I should be. But you see a fancy has

occurred to me and I want to realise it at all costs. Let me explain.

Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but

only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would

not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in

secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even

to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored

away in his mind. The more decent he is, the greater the number of such

things in his mind. Anyway, I have only lately determined to remember

some of my early adventures. Till now I have always avoided them, even

with a certain uneasiness. Now, when I am not only recalling them, but

have actually decided to write an account of them, I want to try the

experiment whether one can, even with oneself, be perfectly open and

not take fright at the whole truth. I will observe, in parenthesis,

that Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility,

and that man is bound to lie about himself. He considers that Rousseau

certainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and even

intentionally lied, out of vanity. I am convinced that Heine is right;

I quite understand how sometimes one may, out of sheer vanity,

attribute regular crimes to oneself, and indeed I can very well

conceive that kind of vanity. But Heine judged of people who made their

confessions to the public. I write only for myself, and I wish to

declare once and for all that if I write as though I were addressing

readers, that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that

form. It is a form, an empty form—I shall never have readers. I have

made this plain already ...

I don’t wish to be hampered by any restrictions in the compilation of

my notes. I shall not attempt any system or method. I will jot things

down as I remember them.

But here, perhaps, someone will catch at the word and ask me: if you

really don’t reckon on readers, why do you make such compacts with

yourself—and on paper too—that is, that you won’t attempt any system or

method, that you jot things down as you remember them, and so on, and

so on? Why are you explaining? Why do you apologise?

Well, there it is, I answer.

There is a whole psychology in all this, though. Perhaps it is simply

that I am a coward. And perhaps that I purposely imagine an audience

before me in order that I may be more dignified while I write. There

are perhaps thousands of reasons. Again, what is my object precisely in

writing? If it is not for the benefit of the public why should I not

simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting them on

paper?

Quite so; but yet it is more imposing on paper. There is something more

impressive in it; I shall be better able to criticise myself and

improve my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from

writing. Today, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by one memory

of a distant past. It came back vividly to my mind a few days ago, and

has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get rid

of. And yet I must get rid of it somehow. I have hundreds of such

reminiscences; but at times some one stands out from the hundred and

oppresses me. For some reason I believe that if I write it down I

should get rid of it. Why not try?

Besides, I am bored, and I never have anything to do. Writing will be a

sort of work. They say work makes man kind-hearted and honest. Well,

here is a chance for me, anyway.

Snow is falling today, yellow and dingy. It fell yesterday, too, and a

few days ago. I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of that

incident which I cannot shake off now. And so let it be a story _à

propos_ of the falling snow.