Notes From the Underground

They laughed cynically at my face, at my clumsy figure; and yet what stupid faces they had themselves.

As the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness.

Why, do you suppose he really loves you, that lover of yours? I don’t believe it. How can he love you when he knows you may be called away from him any minute? He would be a low fellow if he did! Will he have a grain of respect for you? What have you in common with him? He laughs at you and robs you—that is all his love amounts to! You are lucky if he does not beat you. Very likely he does beat you, too. Ask him, if you have got one, whether he will marry you. He will laugh in your face, if he doesn’t spit in it or give you a blow—though maybe he is not worth a bad halfpenny himself. And for what have you ruined your life, if you come to think of it?

bring me a doll to play with, give me a cup of tea with sugar in it, and maybe I should be appeased

did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect.

my life I have had an impulse to play such pranks, so that in the end I could not control it in myself. Another time, twice, in fact, I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, but yet I did suffer, and in the real, orthodox way;

though of design I used to get into trouble in cases when I was not to blame in any way. That was the nastiest part of it. At the same time I was genuinely touched and penitent, I used to shed tears and, of course, deceived myself, though I was not acting in the least and there was a sick feeling in my heart at the time.... For that one could not blame even the laws of nature, though the laws of nature have continually all my life offended me more than anything.

invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way.

I could never endure saying, "Forgive me, Papa, I won't do it again,"

Come, can a man who attempts to find enjoyment in the very feeling of his own degradation possibly have a spark of respect for himself?