II
But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt very sick
afterwards. It was followed by remorse--I tried to drive it away; I felt too
sick. By degrees, however, I grew used to that too. I grew used to
everything, or rather I voluntarily resigned myself to enduring it. But I
had a means of escape that reconciled everything--that was to find
refuge in "the sublime and the beautiful," in dreams, of course. I was a
terrible dreamer, I would dream for three months on end, tucked away in
my corner, and you may believe me that at those moments I had no
resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbation of his chicken
heart, put a collar of German beaver on his great-coat. I suddenly
became a hero. I would not have admitted my six-foot lieutenant even if
he had called on me. I could not even picture him before me then. What
were my dreams and how I could satisfy myself with them--it is hard to
say now, but at the time I was satisfied with them. Though, indeed, even
now, I am to some extent satisfied with them. Dreams were particularly
sweet and vivid after a spell of dissipation; they came with remorse and
with tears, with curses and transports. There were moments of such
positive intoxication, of such happiness, that there was not the faintest
trace of irony within me, on my honour. I had faith, hope, love. I
believed blindly at such times that by some miracle, by some external
circumstance, all this would suddenly open out, expand; that suddenly a
vista of suitable activity--beneficent, good, and, above all, READY MADE
(what sort of activity I had no idea, but the great thing was that it should
be all ready for me)--would rise up before me--and I should come out
into the light of day, almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel.
Anything but the foremost place I could not conceive for myself, and for
that very reason I quite contentedly occupied the lowest in reality. Either
to be a hero or to grovel in the mud--there was nothing between. That
was my ruin, for when I was in the mud I comforted myself with the
thought that at other times I was a hero, and the hero was a cloak for the
mud: for an ordinary man it was shameful to defile himself, but a hero
was too lofty to be utterly defiled, and so he might defile himself. It is
worth noting that these attacks of the "sublime and the beautiful" visited
me even during the period of dissipation and just at the times when I was
touching the bottom. They came in separate spurts, as though reminding
me of themselves, but did not banish the dissipation by their appearance.
On the contrary, they seemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only
sufficiently present to serve as an appetising sauce. That sauce was made
up of contradictions and sufferings, of agonising inward analysis, and all
these pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a significance to
my dissipation--in fact, completely answered the purpose of an appetising
sauce. There was a certain depth of meaning in it. And I could hardly
have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, direct debauchery of a clerk
and have endured all the filthiness of it. What could have allured me
about it then and have drawn me at night into the street? No, I had a lofty
way of getting out of it all.
And what loving-kindness, oh Lord, what loving-kindness I felt at
times in those dreams of mine! in those "flights into the sublime and the
beautiful"; though it was fantastic love, though it was never applied to
anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love that one did
not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality; that would have
been superfluous. Everything, however, passed satisfactorily by a lazy
and fascinating transition into the sphere of art, that is, into the beautiful
forms of life, lying ready, largely stolen from the poets and novelists and
adapted to all sorts of needs and uses. I, for instance, was triumphant over
everyone; everyone, of course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced
spontaneously to recognise my superiority, and I forgave them all. I was a
poet and a grand gentleman, I fell in love; I came in for countless
millions and immediately devoted them to humanity, and at the same
time I confessed before all the people my shameful deeds, which, of
course, were not merely shameful, but had in them much that was
"sublime and beautiful" something in the Manfred style. Everyone
would kiss me and weep (what idiots they would be if they did not), while
I should go barefoot and hungry preaching new ideas and fighting a
victorious Austerlitz against the obscurantists. Then the band would play
a march, an amnesty would be declared, the Pope would agree to retire
from Rome to Brazil; then there would be a ball for the whole of Italy at
the Villa Borghese on the shores of Lake Como, Lake Como being for
that purpose transferred to the neighbourhood of Rome; then would
come a scene in the bushes, and so on, and so on--as though you did not
know all about it? You will say that it is vulgar and contemptible to drag
all this into public after all the tears and transports which I have myself
confessed. But why is it contemptible? Can you imagine that I am
ashamed of it all, and that it was stupider than anything in your life,
gentlemen? And I can assure you that some of these fancies were by no
means badly composed .... It did not all happen on the shores of Lake
Como. And yet you are right--it really is vulgar and contemptible. And
most contemptible of all it is that now I am attempting to justify myself to
you. And even more contemptible than that is my making this remark
now. But that's enough, or there will be no end to it; each step will be
more contemptible than the last ....
I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time
without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To plunge
into society meant to visit my superior at the office, Anton Antonitch
Syetotchkin. He was the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my
life, and I wonder at the fact myself now. But I only went to see him when
that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point
of bliss that it became essential at once to embrace my fellows and all
mankind; and for that purpose I needed, at least, one human being,
actually existing. I had to call on Anton Antonitch, however, on
Tuesday--his at-home day; so I had always to time my passionate desire
to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a Tuesday.
This Anton Antonitch lived on the fourth storey in a house in Five
Corners, in four low-pitched rooms, one smaller than the other, of a
particularly frugal and sallow appearance. He had two daughters and
their aunt, who used to pour out the tea. Of the daughters one was
thirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and I was
awfully shy of them because they were always whispering and giggling
together. The master of the house usually sat in his study on a leather
couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman, usually a
colleague from our office or some other department. I never saw more
than two or three visitors there, always the same. They talked about the
excise duty; about business in the senate, about salaries, about promotions,
about His Excellency, and the best means of pleasing him, and so
on. I had the patience to sit like a fool beside these people for four hours at
a stretch, listening to them without knowing what to say to them or
venturing to say a word. I became stupefied, several times I felt myself
perspiring, I was overcome by a sort of paralysis; but this was pleasant and
good for me. On returning home I deferred for a time my desire to
embrace all mankind.
I had however one other acquaintance of a sort, Simonov, who was an
old schoolfellow. I had a number of schoolfellows, indeed, in Petersburg,
but I did not associate with them and had even given up nodding to them
in the street. I believe I had transferred into the department I was in
simply to avoid their company and to cut off all connection with my
hateful childhood. Curses on that school and all those terrible years of
penal servitude! In short, I parted from my schoolfellows as soon as I got
out into the world. There were two or three left to whom I nodded in the
street. One of them was Simonov, who had in no way been distinguished
at school, was of a quiet and equable disposition; but I discovered in him
a certain independence of character and even honesty I don't even
suppose that he was particularly stupid. I had at one time spent some
rather soulful moments with him, but these had not lasted long and had
somehow been suddenly clouded over. He was evidently uncomfortable
at these reminiscences, and was, I fancy, always afraid that I might take
up the same tone again. I suspected that he had an aversion for me, but
still I went on going to see him, not being quite certain of it.
And so on one occasion, unable to endure my solitude and knowing
that as it was Thursday Anton Antonitch's door would be closed, I
thought of Simonov. Climbing up to his fourth storey I was thinking that
the man disliked me and that it was a mistake to go and see him. But as it
always happened that such reflections impelled me, as though purposely,
to put myself into a false position, I went in. It was almost a year since I
had last seen Simonov.
