Bab Bab 1 · 第1章

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.