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In reply to Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground.
I
A glorious day was dawning over Saint Petersburg. That thick blanket of fog, common in the early light, was gradually burning off to reveal that most unappreciated of friends, whose radiating warmth fell upon my cheeks as I walked along the paths of the Neva. On my way somewhere, the destination is unimportant to our story, I admired the vitality of the streets. Well, of course, we know that the streets of Petersburg are made only of dirt and cobble, and that women must hike up their dresses ever so slightly to keep the dirt at bay, and on occasion, some out-of-place, sordidly-dressed bugger initiates trouble amongst the peace, but this is beside the point. Peace reigned for the moment. People went about their business. Friends acknowledged one another, cordially and most appropriately, across the grand boulevards of Peter’s great city. Smiles were about. And one young man thought that he saw a smile, ever so slight, but noticeable nonetheless, emerging on the face of the horseman himself. Except, his horse was not in its usual triumphant pose, but rather his horse grazed contently while the horseman enjoyed his morning cup of tea. Yes, all was quite peaceful in Petersburg that morning.
As I was walking purposefully, but not with too much haste, towards my destination, my gaze suddenly shifted downwards towards the gentleman walking ahead of me. Why, it might be too much of a compliment to acknowledge him as a gentleman, with such a shabby looking coat and most ridiculous pair of gloves, I will acknowledge him as a gentleman anyhow, seeing that we must all be cordial to one another in such a great city.
More to the point, I found myself studying this gentleman. Before I could pass my initial judgment on him, however, the most striking thing occurred that I must say, now, looking back upon this event, explained everything. A brash younger officer of our most honorable army, why we might say all officers are brash, but that is again beside the point, this young officer walked indifferently as most officers do along Nevsky Prospect, the cleanest street of our great city, on this, what was a most splendid day.
Rather than giving way, as is the custom on all civilized boulevards of great western cultures, the gentleman in front of me, this character, convulsed ever so slightly, but most offensively, and tripped right down in front of the young officer walking towards him. Being a most honorable citizen of Petersburg, the young officer continued walking, stepping gracefully around the character, not allowing this accident of sorts to disrupt the cheerful air about him. As he walked past me, he nodded ever so slightly. I returned the pleasantry. The officer most certainly did not think of this accident ever again.
Had I not been studying this character, this perpetrator, right at that very moment that his sensibility lurched about inside of him, I may not have noticed that this was no accident, but an incident, an offense against not just the brash young officer, but against the entire peace that reigned that morning and on every other splendid time of the year in this great city of ours. This event struck to the very bottom of my heart, so much that I was convinced that I had to decipher the reasoning behind such a vicious, though ultimately unrecognized offense.
Perhaps the horseman sensed the slight himself when his horse paused, and, even with the most delicious of grasses within its mouth, stopped chewing and raised its head in a most alert manner. And just maybe the horse prepared to forgo its snack in order to rise up on its hind legs, forever prepared to defend the civility that its master had ordained. We cannot be certain. But one thing is certain, the horseman calmed his fine partner, and magically, if by decree, I found the clue that I thought might solve this most important of mysteries.
After nodding nobly to the young officer, my sight returned to view, with continued astonishment, the scene of the crime. The character crawled about on all fours; one could almost hear his sneers, his pants, his whimpers. I slowed my pace, not wanting to get ahead of him. He gradually stood up. Of course, the offense that I had seen moments earlier was viewed by the rest of the promenade as a simple accident. No one took notice. Except for me.
II
The writing was more of a scribble than script. The parchment was wrinkled, not folded neatly. And it was blackened by smoke. I found the document at the scene of the crime, shortly after the perpetrator had stood up and stumbled off down the avenue. On the ground, it was crumpled into a compressed ball, as if the author had squeezed it thousands of times. Of course, I knew exactly whom the author was. I picked it up as a matter of civility. Why, it could have been an important document, whose owner would fret over losing it. My intention was to make haste and return it to its owner. Holding it in the palm of my hand, however, I felt that I beheld the key to understanding the most awkward, but perhaps most dangerous of moments that I have ever witnessed.
III
Months later, I still could not grasp the meaning of the clue I had found. It seemed to offer only more questions than answers to the altercation on Nevsky Prospect. Summer turned into fall. And fall into winter. While peace continued over Petersburg, the city upon the frozen Neva became still, silent. No longer was the horseman in the flesh, now he had returned to a cold metal, which when touched, stole the warmth from the human hand, nay, it stole the warmth from the human heart. And I felt that this clue might just very well be at the root of this shift. It is then, while sitting curled up close to the dying embers, the remains of a fire that had burned for generations, that I decided to seek out the gentleman who had written the powerful words that I had read so many times without relief.
Understanding now the gentleman ever so slightly, it was obvious how I should meet him. His actions were almost predictable. It took only a dozen attempts walking down the main thoroughfares of the streets before I spotted the gentleman. I knew, of course, that he preferred to hunt in the dark, which was more common now under the blackness of winter nights.
I followed him as he stuttered about along the streets of Petersburg. He seemed confused as his way was not clear. The gentleman, whose coat seemed even more ridiculous than before, with its collar nearly devoid of fur, rambled up one street only to wander down another. His route, if he had been accompanied by a close friend, locked elbows with her as they discussed a francais the latest ideas to arrive, then it would have made sense. But perhaps, I should have known better. While no shadows were cast by this close friend as the two of them passed under each of the gas lamps lining the avenues, he was most certainly not alone. I knew that they were deep in conversation. And it is into this tête-à-tête that I most desperately wanted to interject.
Finally, long pauses must have begun to hover over their conversation, for they left the main streets in favor of side streets and ever darker and smaller alleys. At a distance, I followed. Occasionally, it was difficult to make out in which direction they had scurried, but mercifully, I persevered until the end. My very soul rested on my success. And seeing the gentleman disappear into the main entrance of a dark building, I felt that the answers would be forthcoming.
IV
The building was absolutely wretched. That it was dilapidated was understandable, being where it was. Being where I was! Oh, how ever did I manage to end up there! The darkness was anything but soothing, it was smothering, suffocating, and only what stood behind the entrance could release me from the grip of the dark night.
I knocked.
There was no answer, not even the slightest hint of an answer. The number of times I rehearsed, went over and over in my mind, what would happen once I passed through the entrance, before the entrance actually opened!
I would not have noticed that I was being welcomed through the entrance into the building had a short, well-dressed man not beckoned me in with a quiet whisper. That the door had opened was not perceptible. No welcoming light shown forth, as is the case in most of our homes during the cold, winter nights. Only a small candle burned in the corner of the entrance. The man whispered to me, questioned what my business was. I said that I was so-and-so, that this was a most urgent matter, that no, it could not wait, and that I would not leave, even if he was not seeing visitors, I must speak with him immediately. He vanished as quietly as his whisper, and again, I was alone.
An argument erupted in the next room. The man returned, arriving upon much louder footsteps than he had departed, was noticeably startled, but said that I would be seen, even though it was a great burden upon the host, and that I should proceed, this was the shaken man’s own opinion, only if my conscience could bear doing so. Of course, my conscience could not bear anything more, but the possibility of all burdens being lifted from it hurtled me into the next room, which was no more illuminated than the entrance.
Though my eyes had by now had much time to adjust to the darkness, I could not make out any human beings in the room.
A match was struck in the corner. Candles were lit, one by one, each casting a new shadow upon the wall of a body moving slowly towards me, though as if flanking me on the left, rather than approaching me directly. He stopped.
“Sit,” he said. As I had been peering into the darkness for my host, I had not noticed anything else in the room. Now, I searched frantically for a place to sit. But should I sit, I wondered. Why me, before him? Should we not sit together, as gentlemen do, and have our exchange?
He motioned to the middle of the room where a sofa stood, behind which he himself stood. Mirroring his earlier manner, I flanked his left and sat. We stared at one another for many moments, each of us studying the other, already conversing, not by sound, but by vision. It was already clear that he knew why I was there and we both thought that we knew what the result would be.
With much fortitude, I began, “Your father was a tyrant. He was brutal and his methods were infectious. You grew into his shoes, until one day, you saw where those shoes were headed. You promised yourself never to give into fate. Never to leave power unchallenged, but likewise, swore to never wield power against another. At school, the other children played childishly amongst themselves, but you played in your mind over and over again how much you resented their happiness. They never knew why you kept your distance from them, why you were always circling them. To them, you were part of the scene, the background. But they were your toys. Ever so slightly, you resumed walking in those shoes, and tried to exert your dominance over your classmates. You flanked them with witty comments, fired upon them with your superior intellect, and bayoneted them with the praise you won from your teachers. Your aim was perfect, yet they did not play according to your rules. All of your maneuvers, all of your superior weapons, they were nothing against their indifference. You will not admit it now, but this is the truth. In jest, a boy teased you as he teased any other of your classmates, right? While the others would have smiled and laughed as if it were a joke, that jest pierced your heart like any sword through flesh. Oh, the pain you felt! But that was nothing compared to the pain of having your heart turned into stone. That was your greatest loss, and it is something you will never forgive them for! But, don’t you see, it is your own fault that your heart turned into stone. For it is not they who pierced your heart, but you yourself who drove a dagger through it. It was not their jokes or jeers that upset you, it was that your war had no effect on them, that you were powerless, that their armor was superior to yours. And in your heart you found your weakness, the bloody organ that kept you from reigning over them. So you turned it to stone. Mind you, you eventually realized that they cared not if their jokes hurt you. It was this indifference that pained you. Isn’t this the truth? Of course, you never told them the pain they caused you. For all that you have, what you hid away from them was your pride, your airs. You promised that they would never touch that. Nobody would. Now all you have is your pain, and in it, you revel, you rejoice, because they stole your pride, too. No, not your classmates, though you blame them still today. You blame humanity. You questioned your pride, your superiority, after reasoning to death how you were dealt such a petty deal in life. You sought answers in the new ideas of our age, to explain why you are what you had become. You read about reason, how mathematics destined you to be where you found yourself, alone, pained, destitute. You simply could not accept that, that reason! You could not! It was wrong! Not just the argument that your father and his shoes led you to such suffering, but all of reason! It didn’t take into account particulars, your will, your superiority. So, twice two does not equal four, you say! That’s not how you figure the equation, you say! Well, I say that it does. Twice two does produce four, just as you are the product of your past. But the difference, you see, is that unlike numbers in an equation, you could have changed the result! Fate produces the future only so far as we allow it to do so! But you allowed it to happen. All of this. You made this, the present. You won’t disagree, though, will you! Because you are so very proud that you are suffering. It means that you beat reason, you have triumphed! Oh, glorious day, how proud you are. But of what? That you defeated reason once and for all? Where has this left you? And have you really destroyed reason? Certainly, by all means, I concede that we all choose paths that are not in our best interests. We often choose the tainted over the pure, the rotten over the ripe, the bad over the good. And yes, it is often because of desire. It stands to reason, though, that you have ended up here, as you are, because of a lack of desire. A lack of compassion. A lack of diligence. Why, you haven’t destroyed reason at all! How does that make you feel? The entire time, while you thought you were driving reason out of your life and out of the world, all the way back to France, unaware of it yourself, you were just reasoning why you sit idle, alone, stagnant, suffering from your own hyper-conscious awareness, as you put it. You scoff at reason, but is it not reason that drives the productive men among us to do, whether that is to create or to destroy? Men might create and destroy in the same day only to build anew the next morning. That does not seem reasonable to you, but that does not mean reason is not at work. It is not their desires that liberate them from the power of reason, just as you my dear friend, will never liberate yourself from the future reason has ordained for you, unless you find your own reason to do so! I admit a draw. There, at last, maybe we find our common-ground, though I doubt you will at this moment, or ever, admit it. You will never change. Ah-ha! There is my reasoning coming to the forefront. You will never change because you are too proud. You’ve been boiled down to that thick, putrid stock of a formula! But, maybe, just maybe, a girl should come along, a most beautiful girl, a most tender girl, and she will warm your heart. Your love for her will overpower you, control you. And in that challenge, that challenge for power, you will return to how you are, miserable and suffering. You will never be controlled! Even if it is by the very desires you say can stand up to reason. Your desires to love and be loved will never overcome the reasonable assumption, formulated by your past, that you will never acquiesce to something controlling you, even if it is love.”
For the entire while, the underground man had stood behind the sofa, behind me, looking at me with the most stern of faces. But suddenly, and at this I was forced to pause in my tirade, he began to sink, he covered his face, and he gasped for air. It was most unexpected. Just as quickly as he sank to the ground, he stood up, as if an idea had entered his mind, and ran out the entrance, leaving behind his coat and hideous-looking gloves.
A moment later, the man whom I had met at the entrance upon my arrival entered the room in great haste. He looked at me – perplexed – and at the door – even more confused. I stood up, walked over to him, and said, “When he returns, and it might not be for quite some time, do not ask him where he has been or whom he has seen, for he will not admit it to you, nor to himself.”
V
The man looked at me, nodded, but continued to wear a confused look upon his face. My face, on the other hand, grew a small grin, and my mind grew clear. I exited the building into the cold night of our grand city. The streets were as quiet and still as ever. Above me, the most marvelous of night skies spread out to the horizon. Millions of stars flickered. I walked along, destined for my own home. Under my boots, the snow cracked and squealed. My toes froze. As I emerged from the winding alleys of the poor, dark neighborhoods onto the gas-lit thoroughfares and into the beauty and wealth of our great city, the stars disappeared. |
