Notes from Underground, Part One. A Novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky

[Music] Notes from Underground a novel by Fodor dostoevski part one underground 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 doctor 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 side note 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 end author's note I have been going on like that for a long time 20 years now I am 40 I used to be in the government service but I'm 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 Gest 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 always did succeed for the most part they were all timid people of 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 18 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 gentleman what was the chief point about my spite why the whole point the real sting of it delay 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 warming 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 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 19th century must and morally ought to be preeminently a characterless creature a man of character an active man is preeminently a limited creature that is my conviction of 40 years I am 40 years old now and you know 40 years is a whole lifetime You know it is Extreme old age to live longer than 40 years is Bad Manners is vulgar immoral who does live beyond 40 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 60 myself to 70 to 80 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 am I 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 6,000 rubles in his will I immediately retired From the service and settled down in 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 countrywoman 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 count and monitors but I am remaining in Petersburg I am not going away from Petersburg I am not going away because 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 two I want now to tell you gentlemen whether you care to hear it or not why I could not even become an insect I tell you solemnly that I have many times tried to Become an insect but I was not equal even to that I swear gentlemen that to be too conscious is an illness a real thoroughgoing illness for man's everyday needs it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness that is half or a quarter of the amount which

falls to the lot of a cultivated man of our unhappy 19th century especially one who has the Fatal ill luck to inhabit Petersburg the most theoretical and intentional town on the Whole terrestrial Globe there are intentional and unintentional towns it would have been quite enough for instance to have the Consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and Men of action live I bet you think I am writing all this from affectation to be witty at the expense of men of action and what is more that from ill-bred affectation I am clanking a sword like my

officer but gentlemen whoever whoever can Pride himself on his diseases and Even Swagger over them though after all everyone does do that people do Pride themselves on their diseases and I do may be more than anyone we will not dispute it my contention was absurd but yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of Consciousness every sort of a Consciousness in fact is a disease I stick to that let us leave that too for a minute tell me this why does it happen that at the very yes at the very moments when I am

most capable of feeling every Refinement of all that is good and beautiful as they used to say at one time it would as though of design happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things such that well in short actions that all perhaps commit but which as though purposely occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed the more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was good and beautiful the more deeply I sank into my Mire and the more

ready I was to sink in it altogether but the chief point was that all this was as it were not accidental in me but as though it were bound to be so it was as though it were my most normal condition and not in the least disease or depravity so that at last all desire in me to struggle against this depravity pasted it ended Ed by my almost believing perhaps actually believing that this was perhaps my normal condition but at first in the Beginning what agonies I endured in that struggle I did not believe it

was the same with other people and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret I was ashamed even now perhaps I am ashamed I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting in Petersburg night acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again that what was done could never be undone and Secretly inwardly Goring Goring at myself for it tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness

and at last into positive real enjoyment yes into enjoyment into enjoyment I insist upon that I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment I will explain the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of One's Own Degradation it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier that it was horrible but that it could not be otherwise that there was no Escape for you that you never could become a different man that even if time and Faith were still left you

to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change or if you did wish to even then you would do nothing because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into and the Worst of it was and the root of it all that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over acute Consciousness and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing thus it would follow as the result of acute

Consciousness that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realize That he actually is a scoundrel but enough H I have talked a lot of nonsense but what have I explained how is enjoyment in this to be explained but I will explain it I will get to the bottom of it that is why I have taken up my pen I for instance have a great deal deal of a more proper I am as suspicious and prone to take offense as a

humpback or a dwarf but upon my word I sometimes have had moments when if I had happened to be slapped in the face I should perhaps Have been positively glad of it I say in Earnest that I should probably have been able to discover even in that A peculiar sort of enjoyment the enjoyment of course of Despair but in despair there are the most intense enjoyments especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hope lessness of one's position and when one is slapped in the face why then the consciousness of being rubbed into a

pulp would positively overwhelm one the worst of it is look at It which way one will it still turns out that I was always the most to blame in everything and what is most humiliating of all to blame for no fault of my own but so to say through the laws of nature in the first place to blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me I have always considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding me and sometimes would you believe it have been positively ashamed of it at any rate

I have all my life as It were turned my eyes away and never could look people straight in the face to blame finally because even if I had had magnanimity I should only have had more suffering from the sense of its uselessness I should certainly have never been able to do anything from being magnanimous neither to forgive for my as salant would perhaps have slapped me from the laws of nature and one cannot forgive the laws of nature nor to forget for even if it were owing to the Laws of nature it is insulting all

the same finally even if I had wanted to be anything but magnanimous had desired on the contrary to Revenge myself on my as salant I could not have revenged myself on anyone for anything because I should certainly never have made up my mind to do anything even if I had been able to why should I not have made up my mind about that in particular I want to say a few words three with people who know how to Revenge themselves and to stand up For themselves in general how is it done why when they are

possessed let us suppose by the feeling of Revenge then for the time there is nothing else but that feeling left in their whole being such a gentleman simply dashes straight for his object like an infuriated Bull with its horns down and nothing but a wall will stop him by the way facing the wall such gentlemen that is the direct persons and Men of action are genuinely nonplused for them a wall is not an Evasion as for us people who think and consequently do nothing it is not an excuse for turning aside an excuse for which

we are always very glad though we scarcely believe in it ourselves as a rule no they are nonplused in all sincerity the wall has for them something tranquilized ing morally soothing final maybe even something mysterious but of the wall later well such a direct person I regard as the real normal man as his tender Mother Nature wished to see him when she graciously brought him into being on the earth I envy such a man till I am Green in the face he is stupid I am not disputing that but perhaps the normal man should be

stupid how do you know Perhaps it is very beautiful in fact and I am the more persuaded of that suspicion if one can call it so by the fact that if you take for instance the antithesis of the normal man that is the man of acute Consciousness who has come Of course not out of the lap of nature but out of a retort this is almost mysticism gentlemen but I suspect this too this retort made man is sometimes so nonplused in the presence of his antithesis that with all his exaggerated Consciousness he genuinely thinks of

himself as a mouse and not a man it may be an acutely conscious Mouse yet it is a mouse while the other is a man and therefore etet etet and the worst of it is he himself his very own self looks on Himself as a mouse No One asks him to do so and that is an important point now let us look at this mouse in action let us suppose for instance that it feels insulted too and it almost always does feel insulted and wants to Revenge itself too there may even be a greater accumulation

of spite in it than in Lum de the base and nasty desire to vent that Spite on its as salant rankles perhaps even more nastily in it than in for through his innate stupidity the Latter looks upon his revenge as Justice pure and simple while in consequence of his acute consciousness the mouse does not believe in the Justice of it to come at last to the deed itself to the very Act of Revenge apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastiness in the form of doubts

and questions adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of Fatal brew a stinking mess made up of its doubts emotions and of the contempt F upon it by the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators laughing at it till their healthy sides ache of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss all that with a wave of its poor and with a smile of assumed contempt in which it does not even itself believe creep ignominiously into its

mouse hole there in its nasty stinking underground home Are insulted crushed and ridiculed fued Mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold malignant and above all Everlasting spite for 40 years together it will remember its injury down to the smallest most ignominious details and every time will add of itself detail still more ignominious spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own imagination it will itself be ashamed of its imaginings but yet it will recall it all it will go over and over every Detail it will invent unheard of things against itself pretending that those things might happen

and will forgive nothing maybe it will begin to Revenge itself too but as it were peace meal in Trivial ways from behind the stove Incognito without believing either in its own right to Vengeance or in the success of its revenge knowing that from all its efforts at Revenge it will suffer a hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself while he I dare Say will not even scratch himself on its deathbed it will recall it all over again with interest accumulated over all the years and but it is just in that cold abominable

half despair half belief in that conscious burying oneself alive for grief in the Underworld for 40 years in that acutely recognized and yet partly doubtful hopelessness of one's position in that hell of unsatisfied desires turned inward in that fever of oscillations of resolutions determined Forever and repented of again a minute later that the Savor of that strange enjoyment of which I have spoken lies it is so subtle so difficult of analysis that persons who are a little limited or even simply persons of strong nerves will not understand a single atom of it possibly you will

add on your own account with a grin people will not understand it either who have never received a slap in the face and in that way you will politely hint to me that I Too perhaps have had the experience of a slap in the face in my life and so I speak as one who knows I bet that you are thinking that but set your minds at rest gentlemen I have not received a slap in the face though it is absolutely a matter of indifference to me what you may think about it possibly I even

regret myself that I have given so few slaps in the face during my life but enough not another word on that subject of such extreme interest to you I will Continue calmly concerning persons with strong nerves who do not understand a certain refinement of enjoyment though in certain circumstances these gentlemen Bellow their loudest like Bulls though this let us suppose does them the greatest credit yet as I have said already confronted with the impossible they subside at once the impossible means the stone wall what stone wall why of course the laws of nature the deductions

of Natural Science Mathematics as soon as they prove to you for instance that you are descended from a monkey then it is no use scowling except it for a fact when they prove to you that in reality one drop of your own fat must be dearer to you than a 100,000 of your fellow creatures and and that this conclusion is the final solution of all so-called virtues and duties and all such prejudices and fancies then you have just to accept it there is no help for it for twice too is a law of Mathematics just

try refuting it upon my word they will shout at you it is no use protesting it is a case of twice two makes four nature does not ask your permission she has nothing to do with your wishes and whether you like her laws or dislike like them you are bound to accept her as she is and consequently all her conclusions a wall you see is a wall and so on and so on merciful Heavens but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic when for some Reason I dislike those laws and the

fact that twice two makes four of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength as though such a stone wall really were a consolation and really did contain some word of consilio two makes four oh absurdity of absurdities how much better it is to Understand it all to recognize it all all the impossibilities and the stone wall not

to be reconciled to one of those impossibilities and stone walls if it disgusts you to be reconciled to it by the way of the most inevitable logical combinations to reach the most revolting conclusions on the Everlasting theme that even for the stone wall you are yourself somehow to blame though again it is as clear as day you are not to blame in the least and therefore Grinding your teeth in silent impotence to sink into luxurious inertia brooding on the fact that there is no one even for you to feel vindictive against that you have not

and perhaps never will have an object for your spite that it is a slight of hand a bit of juggling a card sharp as trick that it is simply a mess no knowing what and no knowing who but in spite of all these uncertainties and juggling still there is an ache in you and the more you do not know the worse The ache four haa you you will be finding enjoyment in toothache next you cry with a laugh well even in toothache there is enjoyment I answer I had toothache for a whole month and I

know there is in that case of course people are not spiteful in silence but moan but they are not candid moans they are malignant moans and the malignancy is the whole point the enjoyment of the sufferer finds Expression in those moans if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan it is a good example gentlemen and I will develop it those moans Express in the first place all the aimlessness of your pain which is so humiliating to your Consciousness the whole legal system of nature on which you spit disdainfully of course but

from which you suffer all the same while she does not they express the Consciousness that you have no enemy to punish but that you Have pain the Consciousness that in spite of all possible vagenheim you are in complete slavery to your teeth that if someone wishes it your teeth will leave off aching and if he does not they will go on aching another 3 months and that finally if you are still contumacious and still protest all that is left you for your own gratification is to thrash yourself or beat your wall with your fist as

hard as you can and absolutely nothing more well These mortal insults these jeers on the part of someone unknown end at last in an enjoyment which sometimes reaches the highest degree of voluptuousness I ask you gentlemen listen sometimes to the moans of an educated man of the 19th century suffering from toothache on the second or third day of the attack when he's beginning to moan not as he moaned on the first day that is not simply because he has toake not just as any coarse Peasant but as a man affected by progress and European Civ

civilization a man who is divorced from the soil and the national elements as they express it now a days his moans become nasty disgustingly malignant and go on for whole days and nights and of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans he knows better than anyone that he is only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing he knows that even The audience before whom he is making his efforts and his whole family listen to him with loathing do not put a Hao of faith in him

and inwardly understand that he might moan differently more simply without trills and flourishes and that he is only amusing himself like that from ill humor from malignancy well in all these recognitions and disgraces it is that there lies a voluptuous pleasure as though he would say I am worrying you I Am lacerating your hearts I am keeping everyone in the house awake well stay awake then you too feel every minute that I have toothache I'm not a hero to you now as I tried to seem before but simply a nasty person an impostor well so

be it then I am very glad that you see through me it is nasty for you to hear my despicable moans well let it be nasty here I will let you have a nastier flourish in a minute you do not understand even now gentlemen no it Seems our development and our Consciousness must go further to understand all the intricacies of this pleasure you laugh delighted my gests gentlemen are of course in bad taste jerky involved lacking self-confidence but of course that is because I do not respect myself can a man of perception respect himself at

all five come can a man who attempts to find enjoyment in the very feeling of his own degradation possibly have a spark of of respect for Himself I'm not saying this now from any morish kind of remorse and indeed I could never endure saying forgive me Papa I won't do it again not because I'm incapable of saying that on the contrary perhaps just because I've have been too capable of it and in what a way too as 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 it is loathsome to remember it all but it was loathsome even then of course a minute or so later I would realize wrathfully that it

was all a lie a revolting lie an affected lie that is all this penitence This emotion these vows of Reform you will ask why did I worry myself with such Antics answer because it was very dull to sit with one's hands folded and so one began cutting Capers that is really it observe yourselves more carefully gentlemen then you will understand that it is so I invented Adventures for myself and made up a life so as at least to live in some way how many times it has happened to me well for instance to take offense

simply on Purpose for nothing and one knows oneself of course that one is offended at nothing that one is putting it on but yet one brings oneself at last to the point of being really offended all my life I've 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 I was jealous beside myself and it was all from Oni gentlemen all from onui inertia overcame me you know the Direct legitimate Fruit Of Consciousness is inertia that is conscious sitting with the hands folded I have referred to this already I repeat I repeat with emphasis all direct persons and Men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited how explain that I will tell you in Consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones and in that way persuade themselves

more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing to begin to act you know you must first have your mind completely at ease and no trace of Doubt left in it why how am I for example to set my mind at rest where are the Primary causes on which I am to build where are my foundations where am I to get them from I exercise myself in reflection and consequently with me every primary

cause at once draws after itself another still more primary and so on to Infinity that is just the essence of every sort of Consciousness and reflection it must be a case of the laws of nature again what is the result of it in the end why just the same remember I Spoke just now of Vengeance I'm sure you did not take it in I said that a man revenges himself because he sees Justice in it therefore he has found a primary cause that is Justice and so he is at rest on all sides and consequently

he carries out his revenge calmly and successfully being persuaded that he is doing a just and honest thing but I see no justice in it I find no sort of virtue in it either and consequently if I attempt to Revenge myself it is only Out of spite spite of course might overcome everything all my doubts and so might serve quite successfully in place of a primary cause precisely because it is not a cause but what is to be done if I have not even spite I began with that just now you know in consequence again

of those accursed laws of Consciousness anger in me is subject to chemical disintegration you look into it the object flies off into air your reasons evaporate the criminal is not to be Found the wrong becomes not a wrong but a phantom something like the toothache for which no one is to blame and consequently there is only the same Outlet left again that is to beat the Wall as hard as you can so you give it up with a wave of the hand because you have not found a fundamental cause and try letting yourself be carried

away by your feelings blindly without reflection without a primary cause repelling Consciousness at least for a Time hate Or love if only not to sit with your hands folded the day after tomorrow at the latest you will begin despising yourself for having knowingly deceived yourself result a soap bubble and inertia oh gentlemen do you know perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything granted I am a babbler a harmless vexatious babbler like all of us but what is to be done

if the direct And sole vocation of every intelligent man is Babble that is the intentional pouring of water through a seeve six oh if I had done nothing simply from laziness Heavens how I should have respected myself then I should have respected myself because I should at least have been capable of being lazy there would at least have been one quality as it were positive in me in which I could have believed myself question what is he answer a Slugged how very pleasant it would have been to hear that of oneself it would mean that

I was positively defined it would mean that there was something to to say about me sluggard why it is a calling and vocation it is a career do not justest it is so I should then be a member of the best club by right and should find my occupation in continually respecting myself I knew a gentleman who prided himself all his life on being a connoisseur of lafit he considered this As his positive virtue and never doubted himself he died not simply with a tranquil but with a triumphant conscience and he was quite right too

then I should have chosen a career for myself I should have been a slugged and a glutton not a simple one but for instance one with sympathies for everything good and beautiful how do you like that I have long had visions of it that good and beautiful weighs heavily on my mind at 40 but that is at 40 then Oh then it would have been different I should have found for myself a form of activity in keeping with it to be precise drinking to the health of everything good and beautiful I should have snatched at

every opportunity to drop a tear into my glass and then to drain it to all that is good and beautiful I should then have turned everything into the good and the Beautiful in the nastiest unquestionable trash I should have sought out the good And the Beautiful I should have exuded Tears like a wet sponge and ask artist for instance paints a picture worthy of gay at once I drink to the health of the artist who painted the picture worthy of gay because I love all that is good and beautiful an author has written as you

will at once I drink to the health of anyone you will because I love all that is good and beautiful I should claim respect for doing so I should persecute anyone who would not show me respect I Should live at I should die with dignity why it is charming perfectly charming and what a good round belly I should have grown what a treble chin I should have established what a ruby nose I should have colored for myself so that everyone would have said looking at me here is an asset here is something real and solid

and say what you like it is very agreeable to hear such remarks about oneself in this negative age seven but These are all all golden dreams oh tell me who was it first announced who was it first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests and that if he were enlightened if his eyes were open to his real normal interests man would at once cease to do nasty things would at once become good and Noble because being enlightened and understanding his real Advantage he would see his own advantage

in the good and nothing else and we all Know that not one man can consciously act against his own interests consequently so to say through necessity he would begin doing good oh the Babe oh the pure innocent child why in the first place when in all these thousands of years has there been a time when man has acted only from his own interest what is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men consciously that is fully understanding their real interests have left them in the Background and have rushed headlong on

another path to meet Peril and danger compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing but as it were simply disliking the Beaten Track and have obstinately willfully struck out another difficult absurd way seeking it almost in the darkness so I suppose this obstinacy and perversity were pleasanter to them than any advantage Advantage what is advantage and will you take it upon yourself to Define with perfect Accuracy in what the advantage of man consists and what if it so happens that a man's Advantage sometimes not only may but even must consist in his Desiring in

certain cases what is harmful to himself and not advantageous and if so if there can be such a case the whole principle falls into dust what do you think are there such cases you laugh laugh away gentlemen but only answer me have man's advantages been reckoned up with perfect certainty are there not some which not Only have not been included but cannot possibly be included under any classification you see you gentlemen have to the best of my knowledge taken your whole register of human advantages from the averages of statistical figures and Politico economical formulas your

advantages are Prosperity wealth Freedom peace and so on on and so on so that the man who should for instance go openly and knowingly in opposition to all that list would to your thinking and indeed Mine too of course be an obscurantist or an absolute madman would not he but you know this is what is surprising why does it so happen that all these statisticians sages and lovers of humanity when they reckon up human advantages invariably leave out one they don't don't even take it into their Reckoning in the form in which it should be

taken and the whole Reckoning depends upon that it would be no great matter they would simply have to take it this Advantage and add it to the list but the trouble is that this strange Advantage does not fall under any classification and is not in place in any list I have a friend for instance gentleman but of course he is your friend too and indeed there is no one no one to whom he is not a friend when he prepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to you elegantly and clearly exactly how he must

act in accordance with the laws of Reason and Truth what is more he will talk to you with excitement and passion of the true normal interests of man with irony he will up braid the shortsighted fools who do not understand their own interests nor the true significance of virtue and within a quarter of an hour without any sudden outside provocation but simply through something inside him which is stronger than all his interests he will go off on quite a different tack that is act in direct opposition to what He has just been saying about himself

in opposition to the laws of Reason in opposition to his own advantage in fact in opposition to everything I warn you that my friend is a compound personality and therefore it is difficult to blame him as an individual the fact is gentlemen it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages or not to be illogical there is a most advantageous Advantage the very one Omitted of which we spoke just now which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages for the sake of which a

man if necessary is ready to act in opposition to all laws that is in opposition to reason honor peace prosperity in fact in opposition to all those excellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental most advantageous Advantage which is dearer to him than all yes but it's Advantage all the same You will retort but excuse me I'll make the point clear and it is not a case of playing upon words what matters is that this Advantage is remarkable from the very fact that it breaks down all our classifications and continually shatters every

system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind in fact it upsets everything but before I mention this advantage to you I want to compromise myself personally and therefore I boldly declare that all These fine systems all these theories for explaining to mankind their real normal interests in order that inevitably striving to pursue these interests they may at once become good and Noble ah in my opinion so far mere logical exercises yes logical exercises why to maintain this theory of the Regeneration of mankind by means of the pursuit of his own Advantage is

to my mind almost the same thing as as to affirm for Instance following Buckle that through civilization mankind becomes softer and consequently less bloodthirsty and less fitted for Warfare logically it does seem to follow from his arguments but man has such a predilection for systems and Abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic I take this example because it is the most glaring instance of it only look about you blood Is being spilt in streams and in the

merriest way as though it were champagne take the whole of the 19th century in which Buckle lived take take Napoleon the great and also the present one take North America the Eternal Union take the farce of schleswig Holstein and what is it that Civilization softens in us the only gain of civilization for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of Sensations and absolutely nothing more and through the development of this many Sidedness man may come to finding enjoyment in Bloodshed in fact this is already happened to him have you noticed that it is the most

civilized gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers to whom the atillas and stenar razin could not hold a candle and if they are not so conspicuous as the atillas and stenar razin it is simply because they are so often met with are so ordinary and have become so familiar to us in any case civilization has made mankind if Not more bloodthirsty at least more VY more loathsom bloodthirsty in old days he saw Justice in Bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper now we do think Bloodshed abominable and yet we engage

in this Abomination and with more energy than ever which is worse decide that for yourselves they say that Cleopatra excuse an instance from Roman history was fond of sticking gold pins into her slave girl's breasts and derived Gratification from their screams and writhings you will say that that was in the comparatively barbarous times that these are barbarous times too because also comparatively speaking pins are stuck in even now that though man has now learned to see more clearly than in barbarous ages he is still far from having leared to act as reason and science would

dictate but yet you are fully convinced that he will be sure to learn when he gets rid of certain old Bad habits and when common sense and science have have completely re-educated human nature and turned it in a normal Direction you are confident that then man will cease from intentional error and will so to say be compelled not to want to set his will against his normal interests that is not all then you say science itself will teach man though to my mind it's a Superfluous luxury that he never has really had any Caprice or

will of his own and that he himself is Something of the nature of a piano key or the top of an organ and that there are besides things called the laws of nature so that everything he does is not done by his willing it but is done of itself by the laws of nature consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature and man will no longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him all human actions will then of course be tabulated according to these Laws mathematically like

tables of logarithms up to one 108,000 and entered in an index or better still there would be published certain edifying works of the nature of encyclopedic lexicons in which everything will be so clearly calculated and explained that there will be no more incidents or adventures in the world then this is all what you say New Economic relations will be established all ready made and worked out with Mathematical exactitude so that every possible question will vanish in the twinkling of an eye simply because every possible answer to it will be provided then the Palace of Crystal

will be built then in fact those will be healthy in days of course there is no guaranteeing this is my comment that it will not be for instance frightfully dull then for what will one have to do when everything will be calculated and tabulated but on the other hand everything will be Extraordinarily rational of course boredom may lead you to anything it is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people but all that would not matter what is bad this is my comment again is that I dare say people will be thankful for the gold

pins then man is stupid you know phenomenally stupid or rather he is not at all stupid but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another Like Him in all creation I for instance would not be in the least Surprised if all of a sudden a propo of nothing in the midst of General Prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble or rather with a reactionary and ironical countenance were to arise and putting his arms a Kimbo say to us all I say gentlemen hadn't we better kick over the whole show and Scatter rationalism to the

winds simply to send these logarithms to the devil and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will that again would not matter But what is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers such as the nature of man and all that for the most foolish reason which one would think was hardly worth mentioning that is that man everywhere and at all times whoever he may be has Preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and Advantage dictated and one may choose what is

contrary to one's own interests and sometimes one positively ought that is my idea one's own free unfettered Choice one's own Caprice however wild it may be one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy is that very most advantageous Advantage which we have overlooked which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms and how do these wise Acres know that man wants a normal a virtuous Choice what has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous Choice what man Wants is a simply independent Choice

whatever that Independence May cost and wherever it may lead and choice of course the devil only knows what choice eight ha but you know there is no such thing as choice in reality say what you like you will interpose with a chuckle science has succeeded in so far analyzing man that we know all already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than stay Gentlemen I meant to begin with that myself I confess I was rather frightened I was just going to say that the devil only knows what choice depends on

and that perhaps that was a very good thing but I remembered the teaching of Science and pulled myself up and here you have begun upon it indeed If there really is someday discovered a formula for all our desires and Caprices that is an explanation of what they depend upon by what laws they arise how they develop What they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on that is a real mathematical formula then most likely man will at once cease to feel desire indeed he will be certain to for who would want

to choose by rule besides he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ stop or something of the sort for what is a man without desires without free will and without choice if not a stop in an organ what do you think let us reckon the chances can Such a thing happen or not H you decide our choice is usually mistaken from a false view of our advantage we sometimes choose absolute nonsense because in our foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining a supposed Advantage but when all

that is explained and worked out on paper which is perfectly possible for it is contemptible and senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never understand then certainly so-called Desires will no longer exist for if a desire should come into conflict with reason we shall then reason and not desire because it will be impossible retaining our reason to be senseless in our desires and in that way knowingly act against reason and desire to injure ourselves and as all choice and reasoning can be really calculated because there will someday be discovered the laws of

our so-called Free Will so joking apart there may one day be Something like a table constructed of them so that we really shall choose in accordance with it if for instance someday they calculate and prove to me that I made a long nose at someone because I could not help making a long nose at him and that I had to do it in that particular way what freedom is left me especially if I am a learned man and have taken my degree somewhere then I should be able to calculate my whole life for 30 years

Beforehand in short if this could be arranged there would be nothing left for us to do anyway we should have to understand that and in fact we ought unwearying to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave that we have got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy and if we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules and well even to the chemical retort there's no Help for it we must accept the retort too

or else it will be accepted without our consent yes but here I come to a stop gentlemen you must excuse me for being over philosophical it's the result of 40 years underground allow me to indulge my fancy you you see gentlemen reason is an excellent thing there's no disputing that but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature while will is a Manifestation of the whole life that is of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses and although our life in this manifestation of it is often

worthless yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots here I for instance quite naturally want to live in order to satisfy all my capacities for life and not simply my capacity for reasoning that is not simply 12th of my capacity for Life what does reason know reason only knows what It has succeeded in learning some things perhaps it will never learn this is a poor Comfort but why not say so frankly and human nature acts as a whole with everything that is in it consciously or unconsciously and even if it goes wrong it

lives I suspect gentlemen that you are looking at me with compassion you tell me again that an enlightened and developed man such in short as the future man will be cannot consciously desire anything disadvantageous to Himself that that can be proved mathematically I thoroughly agree it can by mathematics but I repeat for the hundredth time there is one case one only when man May consciously purposely desire what is injurious to himself what is stupid very stupid simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid and not to be

bound by an obligation to desire only what is sensible of course this very stupid thing this Caprice of ours may be In reality gentlemen more advantageous for us than anything else on Earth especially in certain cases and in particular it may be more advantage agous than any advantage even when it does US obvious harm and contradicts the soundest conclusions of our reason concerning our advantage for in any circumstances it preserves for us what is most precious and most important that is our personality our individuality some you see maintain that This really is the most precious

thing for mankind Choice can of course if it chooses be in agreement with reason and especially if this be not abused but kept within bounds it is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy but very often and even most often choice is utterly and stubbornly opposed to reason and and do you know that that too is profitable sometimes even praiseworthy gentlemen let us suppose that man is not stupid indeed one cannot Refuse to suppose that if only from the one consideration that if man is stupid then who is wise but if he is not stupid he is

monstrously ungrateful phenomenally ungrateful in fact I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped but that is not all that is not his worst defect his worst defect is his Perpetual moral obliquity Perpetual from the days of the flood to the schleswig Holstein period moral obliquity and consequently lack of Good sense for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than moral obliquity put it to the test and Cast Your Eyes Upon the history of mankind what will you see is it a grand spectacle

Grand if you like take the Colossus of roads for instance that's worth something with good reason Mr Anvi testifies of it that some say that it is the work of man's hands While others maintain that it has been created by Nature herself is it many colored Maybe it is many colored too if one takes the dress uniforms military and civilian of all peoples in all ages that alone is worth something and if you take the undressed uniforms you will never get to the end of it no historian would be equal to the job is it

monotonous maybe it's monotonous too it's fighting and fighting they are fighting now they fought first and they fought last you will admit that it is almost too monotonous in short one may say anything About the history of the world anything that might enter the most disordered imagination the only thing one can't say is that it's rational the very word sticks in one's throat and indeed this is the odd thing that is continually happening there are continually turning up in life moral and rational persons sages and lovers of humanity who make it their object to live

all their lives as morally and rationally as possible to be so to speak a light to their neighbors Simply in order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally in this world and yet we all know that those very people sooner or later have been false to themselves playing some queer trick often a most unseemly one now I ask you what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with such strange qualities shower upon him every Earthly blessing drown him in a sea of Happiness so that nothing but

bubbles of bliss can be seen on the Surface give him economic Prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species and even then out of sheer ingratitude sheer spite man would play you some nasty trick he would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish the most uneconomical absurdity simply to intr roduce into all this positive Good Sense his fatal fantastic element it is just his fantastic dreams His vulgar Folly that he will desire to retain simply in

order to prove to himself as though that were so necessary that men still a men and not the keys of a piano which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but buy the calendar and that is not all even if man really were nothing but a piano key Even If This Were proved to him by Natural Science and Mathematics even then he would not become reasonable But would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude simply to gain his point and if he does not

find means he will contrive destruction and Chaos will contrive sufferings of All Sorts only to gain his point he will launch a curse upon the world and as only man can curse it is his privilege the primary distinction between him and other animals Maybe by his curse alone he will attain his object that is convince himself that he Is a man and not a piano key if you say that all this too can be calculated and tabulated chaos and darkness and curses so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all

and reason would reassert itself then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point I believe in it I answer for it for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man And not a piano key it may be at the cost of his skin it may be by cannibalism and this being so can one help being tempted to Rejoice that it has not yet come off and that desire still depends on something we don't know

you will scream at me that is if you condescend to do so that no one is touching my free will that all they are concerned with is that my will should of itself of its own free will coincide with my own normal interests with the Laws of nature and arithmetic good Heavens gentlemen what sort of Free Will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic when it will all be a case of twice two make four twice two makes four without my will as if Free Will meant that nine gentlemen I am joking and

I know myself that my jokes are not brilliant but you know one can't take everything as a joke I am perhaps jesting Against the Grain gentlemen I am tormented by questions Answer them for me you for instance want to cure men of their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and good sense but how do you know not only that it is possible but also so that it is desirable to reform man in that way and what leads you to the conclusion that man's inclinations need reforming in short how do you know

that such a Reformation will be a benefit to man and to go to the root of the matter why are you so positively Convinced that not to act against his real normal interests guaranteed by the conclusions of reason and arithmetic is certainly always advantageous for man and must always be a law for mankind so far you know this is only your supposition it may be the law of logic but not the law of humanity you think gentlemen perhaps that I am mad allow me to defend myself I agree that man is preeminently a creative animal

predestined to strive consciously for an Object and to engage in engineering that is incessantly and eternally to make New Roads wherever they may lead but the reason why he wants sometimes to go off at a tangent may just be that is predestined to make the road and perhaps too that however stupid the direct practical man may be the thought sometimes will occur to him that the road almost always does lead somewhere and that the destination it leads to is less important than the process of Making it and that the chief thing is to save the

well-conducted child from despising engineering and so giving way to the Fatal idleness which as we all know is the mother of all the vices man like to make roads and to create that is a fact Beyond dispute but why has he such a passionate love for Destruction and Chaos also tell me that but on that point I want to say a couple of words myself may it not be that he loves chaos and destruction there can be no Disputing that he does sometimes love it because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing

the edifice he is constructing who knows perhaps he only loves that edifice from a distance and is by no means in love with it at Close Quarters perhaps he only loves building it and does not want to live in it but will leave it when completed for the use of Les Animo domestique such as the ants the sheep and so on now the ants have quite a Different taste they have a marvelous edifice of that pattern which endures forever the ant Heap with the ant Heap the respectable race of ants began and with the ant

Heap they will probably end which does the greatest credit to their perseverance and good sense but man is a frivolous and in congruous creature and perhaps like a chess player loves the process of the game not the end of it and who knows there is no saying with certainty perhaps the only goal on Earth To which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining in other words in life itself and not in the thing to be attained which must always be expressed as a formula as positive as twice two makes four and such

positiveness is not life gentlemen but is the beginning of death anyway man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty and I am afraid of it now granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty he Traverses oceans sacrifices his life in the quest but to succeed really to find it he dreads I assure you he feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for when workmen have finished their work they do at least receive their pay they go to the tavern then they are taken to the

police station and there is occupation for a week but where can man go anyway one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects he Loves the process of attaining but does not quite like to have attained and that of course is very absurd in fact man is a a comical creature there seems to be a kind of Gest in it all but yet mathematical certainty is after all something insufferable twice 2 makes four seems to me simply a piece of insulin twice 2 makes four is a per coxc who stands

with arms a Kimbo barring your path and spitting I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent Thing but if we are to give everything it's due twice 2 makes five is sometimes a very Charming thing too and why are you so firmly so triumphantly convinced that only the normal and the positive in other words only what is conducive to welfare is for the advantage of man is not reason in error as regards Advantage does not man perhaps loves something besides well-being perhaps he is just as fond of suffering perhaps suffering is just as

Great a benefit to him as well-being man is sometimes extraordinarily passionately in love with suffering and that is a fact there is no need to appeal to Universal history to prove that only ask yourself if you are a man and have lived at all as far as my personal opinion is concerned to care only for well-being seems to me positively ill bred whether it's good or bad it is sometimes very pleasant too to smash things I hold no Brief for suffering nor for well-being either I am standing for my Caprice and for its being guaranteed

to me when necessary suffering would be out of place in VVS for instance I know that in the Palace of Crystal it is Unthinkable suffering means doubt negation and what would be the good of a palace of Crystal if there could be any doubt about it and yet I think man will never renounce real suffering that is destruction and Chaos why suffering is the sole origin of Consciousness though I did lay it down at the beginning that Consciousness is the greatest Misfortune for man yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up

for any satisfaction Consciousness for instance is infinitely Superior to twice two makes four Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand there will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation while if you stick to Consciousness even though the same result is attained you can at least flog yourself at times and that will at any rate liven you up reactionary as it is corporal punishment is better than nothing 10 you believe in a palace of Crystal that can never be destroyed a palace at

which one will not be able to put out one's tongue or make a long nose on the sly and perhaps that is just Why I am afraid of this edifice that it is of Crystal and can never be destroyed And that one cannot put one's tongue out at it even on the sly you see if it were not a palace but a hen house I might creep into it to avoid getting wet and yet I would not call the hen house a palace out of gratitude to it for keeping me dry you laugh and say

that in such circumstances a hen house is as good as a mansion yes I answer if one had to live simply to keep out of the rain but what is to be done if I have taken it into my head that that is not The only object in life and that if one must live one had better live in a mansion that is my choice my desire you will only eradicate when you have changed my preference well do change it Allure me with something else give me another ideal but meanwhile I will not take a

hen house for a mansion the Palace of Crystal may be an idle dream it may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have invented it only through my own Stupidity it through the oldfashioned irrational habits of my generation but what does it matter to me that it is inconsistent that makes no difference since it exists in my desires or rather exists as long as my desires exist perhaps you are laughing again laugh away I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I'm satisfied when I am hungry

I know anyway that I will not be put off with a compromise with a recurring zero simply because it Is Con consistent with the laws of nature and actually exists I will not accept as the crown of my desires a block of buildings with tenaments for the poor on a lease of a thousand years and perhaps with a signboard of a dentist hanging out destroy my desires eradicate my ideals show me something better and I will follow you you will say perhaps that it is not worth your trouble but in that case I can give

you the same answer when we are discussing Things seriously but if you won't Dain to give me your attention I will drop your acquaintance I can Retreat into my underground hole but while I am alive and have desires I would rather my hand were withered off than bring one brick to such a building don't remind me that I have just rejected the Palace of crystal for the sole reason that one cannot put out one's tongue at it I did not say because I'm so fond of putting my tongue out perhaps the thing I Resented was

that of all your edifices there has not been one at which one could not put out one's tongue on the contrary I would let my tongue be cut off out of gratitude if things could be so arranged that I should lose all desire to put it out it is not my fault that things cannot be so arranged and that one must be satisfied with model Flats then why am I made with such desires can I have been constructed simply in order to come to the Conclusion that all my construction is a cheat can this be

my whole purpose I do not believe it but do you know what I am convinced that we underground folk ought to be kept on a curb though we may sit 40 years underground without speaking when we do come out into the light of day and break out we talk and talk and talk 11 the long and the short of it is gentlemen that it is better to do nothing better conscious inertia and so Harrah for underground though I have Said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my bile yet I should

not care to be in his place such as he is now though I shall not cease envying him no no anyway the underground life is more advantageous there at any rate one can oh but even now I am lying I am lying because I know myself that it is not underground that is better but something different quite different for which I am thirsting but which I Cann cannot find damn underground I will tell You another thing that would be better and that is if I myself believed in anything of what I have just written I

swear to you gentlemen there is not one thing not one word of what I have written that I really believe that is I believe it perhaps but at the same time I feel and suspect that I am lying like a cobbler then why have you written all this you will say to me I ought to put you underground for 40 years without anything to do and then come to you in Your Cellar to find out what stage you have reached how can a man be left with nothing to do for 40 years isn't that shameful

isn't that humiliating you will say perhaps wagging your heads contemptuously you thirst for life and try to settle the problems of Life by a logical tangle and how persistent how insolent are your sallyes and at the same time what a scare you are in you talk nonsense and are pleased with it you say impudent things and are in Continual alarm and apologizing for them you declare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate yourself in our good opinion you declare that you are nashing your teeth and at the same

time you try to be witty so as to amuse us you know that your witticisms are not witty but you are evidently well satisfied with their literary value you may perhaps have really suffered but you have no respect for your own suffering you may have Sincerity but you have no modesty out of the pettiest vanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy you doubtlessly mean to say something but hide your last word through fear because you have not the resolution to utter it and only have a cowardly impudence you boast of Consciousness but you

are not sure of your ground for though your mind works yet your heart is darkened and corrupt and you cannot have a full genuine Consciousness without a pure Heart and how intrusive you are how you insist and Grimace lies lies lies of course I have myself made up all the things you say that too is from underground I have been for 40 years listening to you through a crack under the floor I have invented them myself there was nothing else I could invent it is no wonder that I have learned it by heart and it

has taken a literary form form but can you really be so credulous as to think that I will print all this And give it to you to read too and another problem why do I call you gentlemen why do I address you as though you really were my readers such confessions as I intend to make are never printed nor given to other people to read anyway I am not strong-minded enough for that and I don't see why I should be but you see a fancy has occurred to me and I want to realize it at

all costs let me explain every man has Reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only to his friends he has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends but only to himself and that in secret but there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind the more decent he is the greater the number of such things in his mind anyway I've only lately determined to Remember some of my

Early Adventures till now I have always avoided them even with a certain uneasiness now when I am not only recalling them but have actually decided to write an account of them I want to try the experiment whether one can even with oneself be perfectly open and not take fright at the whole truth I will observe in parenthesis that H says that a true autobiographer Y is almost an impossibility and that man is bound to Lie about himself he considers that rouso certainly told lies about himself in his confessions and even intentionally lied out of vanity

I am convinced that Hine is right I quite understand how sometimes one may out of Sheer Vanity attribute regular crimes to oneself and indeed I can very well conceive that kind of vanity but H judged of people who made their confessions to the public I write only for myself and I wish to declare once And for all that if I write as though I were addressing readers that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that form it is a form an empty form I shall never have readers I have made this

plain already I don't wish to be hampered by any restrictions in the compilation of my notes I shall not attempt any system or method I will jot things down as I remember them but here perhaps someone will catch at the word and ask me if you really don't reckon on Readers why do you make such compacts with yourself and on paper too that is that you won't attempt any system or method that you jot things down as you remember them and so on and so on why are you explaining why do you apologize well there

it is I answer there is a whole psychology in all this though Perhaps it is simply that I am a coward and perhaps that I purposely imagine an audience before me in order that I may be more dignified while I Write there are perhaps thousands of reasons again what is my object precisely in writing if it is not for the benefit of the public why should I not simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting them on paper quite so but yet it is more imposing on paper there is something more impressive in

it I shall be better able to criticize myself and improve my style besides I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from writing today for instance I Am particularly oppressed by one memory of a distant past it came back vividly to my mind a few days ago and has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get rid of and yet I must get rid of it somehow I have hundreds of such reminiscences but at times someone stands out from the hundred and oppresses me for some reason I believe that if I write it down

I should get rid of it why not try besides I am bored and I never have anything to Do writing will be a sort of work they say work makes man kind-hearted and honest well here is a chance for me anyway snow is falling today yellow and dingy it fell yesterday too and a few days ago I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of that incident which I cannot shake off now and so let it be a story a of the falling [Music] snow