Notes from the Underground

Constance Garnett, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Publisher: E-Kitap Projesi & Cheapest Books

Summary

Underground*

*The author of the diary and the diary itself are, of course, imaginary. Nevertheless it is clear that such persons as the writer of these notes not only may, but positively must, exist in our society, when we consider the circumstances in the midst of which our society is formed. I have tried to expose to the view of the public more distinctly than is commonly done, one of the characters of the recent past. He is one of the representatives of a generation still living. In this fragment, entitled "Underground," this person introduces himself and his views, and, as it were, tries to explain the causes owing to which he has made his appearance and was bound to make his appearance in our midst.

In the second fragment there are added the actual notes of this person concerning certain events in his life.-

-AUTHOR'S NOTE.

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.

Available since: 01/19/2024.

Print length: 250 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Bullet-proof - From their pens...

Bernard Capes

Bernard Edward Joseph Capes was born on the 30th August 1854 in London.  He was one of 11 children. 
His early work was as a journalist and this developed into writing many short stories for the periodicals of the time including Blackwood's, Cassell's, Cornhill Magazine, Illustrated London News, Macmillan's Magazine, Mall Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, The Idler, and The Queen. 
It took him many years to decide that writing full-time could be a sustainable career path.  His initial success came with ‘The Mill of Silence’.  As well as being published it garnered second prize at a competition sponsored by the Chicago Record.  He exceeded that by winning it the following year with ‘The Lake of Wine’.   
Capes quickly became both prolific and popular.  As well as his stories and articles for the periodicals he wrote around 40 volumes across novels, poetry, history as well as romance and mystery novels. 
Bernard Capes died on 2nd November 1918 in the flu epidemic.

Show book

The Man Without a Body - From...

Edward Page Mitchell

Edward Page Mitchell was born in Bath, Maine on 24th March 1852 into a wealthy family. When he was eight the family moved to a house on New York’s famed Fifth Avenue.
In 1863 he witnessed the Draft Riots and in the aftermath Mitchell's father moved the family to Tar River, North Carolina. It was there, at the age of fourteen, that his letters were first published in the local newspaper The Bath Times.
In 1872, at age twenty, whilst on a train journey to Bath, Maine, a hot cinder from the engine's smokestack flew in through the window blinding his left eye. After several weeks, while doctors attempted to restore his sight, his uninjured right eye underwent sympathetic blindness. He was now completely blind. His burnt left eye eventually regained its sight, but his uninjured right eye remained blind and was later replaced with a prosthetic glass eye. While recovering from this surgery, Mitchell wrote his dazzling story ‘The Tachypomp’.
Mitchell’s influence on science fiction writing is incredible and pre-dated many major themes. He wrote about a man made invisible, a time-travel machine, a thinking computer, teleportation, superior mutants and mind transfer. Add to this other stories which predicted travel by pneumatic tube, electrical heating, newspapers printed at home, food-pellet concentrates, international broadcasts, and suspended animation through cryogenics and they amount to talents that are not as publicly lauded as they should be.
Edward Page Mitchell died of a cerebral hemorrhage in New London, Connecticut on 22nd January 1927. He was 76.

Show book

Around the World in Eighty Days

Jules Verne

One wager. One extraordinary journey. Eighty days to circle the globe.

Around the World in Eighty Days is one of the most famous adventure novels by Jules Verne.

The story follows Phileas Fogg, a precise and wealthy English gentleman who makes a bold wager that he can travel around the world in just eighty days. Accompanied by his loyal servant Passepartout, he embarks on a fast-paced journey across continents, facing unexpected obstacles, changing transportation methods, and thrilling encounters along the way.

Blending adventure, travel, and early imagination of global connectivity, the novel captures the excitement of exploration and the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

A timeless classic of adventure literature, it continues to inspire readers with its spirit of determination, curiosity, and discovery.

Show book

He Knew He Was Right Volume 2

Anthony Trollope

"He Knew He Was Right" by Anthony Trollope unfolds the tragic tale of Louis Trevelyan, a man whose obsessive jealousy unravels his marriage and his life. Confident in his suspicion about his wife Emily's fidelity, Trevelyan's relentless pursuit of control and vindication leads him down a path of emotional turmoil and isolation. Set against a rich tapestry of Victorian society, the novel explores themes of trust, power, and the destructive nature of unwarranted suspicion, offering a deep psychological portrait within a compelling family drama.

Show book

The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar

Edgar Allan Poe

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is a short story by the American author Edgar Allan Poe about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death. An example of a tale of suspense and horror, it is also to a certain degree a hoax, as it was published without claiming to be fictional, and many at the time of publication (1845) took it to be a factual account. Poe admitted it to be a work of pure fiction in letters to his correspondents.
The narrator presents the facts of the extraordinary case of his friend Ernest Valdemar, which have incited public discussion. He is interested in mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnagogic state by the influence of animal magnetism, a process that later developed into hypnotism. He points out that as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He considers experimenting on Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis).

Show book

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - A...

L. Frank Baum

A Kansas cyclone drops Dorothy and her dog into a country of witches, and the only way home runs along a yellow brick road to a wizard who turns out to be a man behind a curtain. Baum announced in his preface that he wanted a fairy tale with the moralising and the horrors left out, and wrote the first American one children kept rather than outgrew. The scarecrow wants a brain, the woodman a heart, the lion courage — and each spends the journey proving he already has it. Its 137 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.

Show book