Even in my underground dreams I did not imagine love except as a struggle. I began it always with hatred and ended it with moral subjugation8, and afterwards I never knew what to do with the subjugated9 object. And what is there to wonder at in that, since I had succeeded in so corrupting10 myself, since I was so out of touch with “real life,” as to have actually thought of reproaching her, and putting her to shame for having come to me to hear “fine sentiments”; and did not even guess that she had come not to hear fine sentiments, but to love me, because to a woman all reformation, all salvation11 from any sort of ruin, and all moral renewal12 is included in love and can only show itself in that form.
I did not hate her so much, however, when I was running about the room and peeping through the crack in the screen. I was only insufferably oppressed by her being here. I wanted her to disappear. I wanted “peace,” to be left alone in my underground world. Real life oppressed me with its novelty so much that I could hardly breathe.
But several minutes passed and she still remained, without stirring, as though she were unconscious. I had the shamelessness to tap softly at the screen as though to remind her . . . . She started, sprang up, and flew to seek her kerchief, her hat, her coat, as though making her escape from me . . . . Two minutes later she came from behind the screen and looked with heavy eyes at me. I gave a spiteful grin, which was forced, however, to KEEP UP APPEARANCES, and I turned away from her eyes.
“Good-bye,” she said, going towards the door.
I ran up to her, seized her hand, opened it, thrust something in it and closed it again. Then I turned at once and dashed away in haste to the other corner of the room to avoid seeing, anyway . . . .
I did mean a moment since to tell a lie — to write that I did this accidentally, not knowing what I was doing through foolishness, through losing my head. But I don’t want to lie, and so I will say straight out that I opened her hand and put the money in it . . . from spite. It came into my head to do this while I was running up and down the room and she was sitting behind the screen. But this I can say for certain: though I did that cruel thing purposely, it was not an impulse from the heart, but came from my evil brain. This cruelty was so affected13, so purposely made up, so completely a product of the brain, of books, that I could not even keep it up a minute — first I dashed away to avoid seeing her, and then in shame and despair rushed after Liza. I opened the door in the passage and began listening.
“Liza! Liza!” I cried on the stairs, but in a low voice, not boldly. There was no answer, but I fancied I heard her footsteps, lower down on the stairs.
“Liza!” I cried, more loudly.
No answer. But at that minute I heard the stiff outer glass door open heavily with a creak and slam violently; the sound echoed up the stairs.
She had gone. I went back to my room in hesitation14. I felt horribly oppressed.
I stood still at the table, beside the chair on which she had sat and looked aimlessly before me. A minute passed, suddenly I started; straight before me on the table I saw . . . . In short, I saw a crumpled15 blue five- rouble note, the one I had thrust into her hand a minute before. It was the same note; it could be no other, there was no other in the flat. So she had managed to fling it from her hand on the table at the moment when I had dashed into the further corner.
Well! I might have expected that she would do that. Might I have expected it? No, I was such an egoist, I was so lacking in respect for my fellow-creatures that I could not even imagine she would do so. I could not endure it. A minute later I flew like a madman to dress, flinging on what I could at random16 and ran headlong after her. She could not have got two hundred paces away when I ran out into the street.
It was a still night and the snow was coming down in masses and falling almost perpendicularly17, covering the pavement and the empty street as though with a pillow. There was no one in the street, no sound was to be heard. The street lamps gave a disconsolate18 and useless glimmer19. I ran two hundred paces to the cross-roads and stopped short.
Where had she gone? And why was I running after her?
Why? To fall down before her, to sob20 with remorse21, to kiss her feet, to entreat22 her forgiveness! I longed for that, my whole breast was being rent to pieces, and never, never shall I recall that minute with indifference23. But — what for? I thought. Should I not begin to hate her, perhaps, even tomorrow, just because I had kissed her feet today? Should I give her happiness? Had I not recognised that day, for the hundredth time, what I was worth? Should I not torture her?
I stood in the snow, gazing into the troubled darkness and pondered this.
“And will it not be better?” I mused24 fantastically, afterwards at home, stifling25 the living pang26 of my heart with fantastic dreams. “Will it not be better that she should keep the resentment27 of the insult for ever? Resentment — why, it is purification; it is a most stinging and painful consciousness! Tomorrow I should have defiled28 her soul and have exhausted29 her heart, while now the feeling of insult will never die in her heart, and however loathsome30 the filth31 awaiting her — the feeling of insult will elevate and purify her . . . by hatred . . . h’m! . . . perhaps, too, by forgiveness . . . . Will all that make things easier for her though? . . . ”
And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted32 sufferings? Well, which is better?
So I dreamed as I sat at home that evening, almost dead with the pain in my soul. Never had I endured such suffering and remorse, yet could there have been the faintest doubt when I ran out from my lodging33 that I should turn back half-way? I never met Liza again and I have heard nothing of her. I will add, too, that I remained for a long time afterwards pleased with the phrase about the benefit from resentment and hatred in spite of the fact that I almost fell ill from misery34.
. . . . .
Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but . . . hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling35 spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are EXPRESSLY gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing36 for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately37 agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume38 sometimes? Why are we perverse39 and ask for something else? We don’t know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant40 prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie41 our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we . . . yes, I assure you . . . we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries42 in your underground holes, and don’t dare to say all of us — excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying43 myself with that “all of us.” As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway44, and what’s more, you have taken your cowardice45 for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don’t even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men — men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive46 to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten47, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don’t want to write more from “Underground.”
[The notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, however. He could not refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop here.
Feodor Dostoevsky]
The End
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
frenzied
|
|
| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
impatience
|
|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
humiliation
|
|
| n.羞辱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
subjugation
|
|
| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
subjugated
|
|
| v.征服，降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
corrupting
|
|
| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
renewal
|
|
| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
hesitation
|
|
| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
crumpled
|
|
| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
random
|
|
| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
perpendicularly
|
|
| adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
disconsolate
|
|
| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
glimmer
|
|
| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
sob
|
|
| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
remorse
|
|
| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
entreat
|
|
| v.恳求，恳请 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
indifference
|
|
| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
stifling
|
|
| a.令人窒息的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
pang
|
|
| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
defiled
|
|
| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
exhausted
|
|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
loathsome
|
|
| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
filth
|
|
| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
exalted
|
|
| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
lodging
|
|
| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
rankling
|
|
| v.（使）痛苦不已，（使）怨恨不已( rankle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
loathing
|
|
| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
privately
|
|
| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
fume
|
|
| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
perverse
|
|
| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
petulant
|
|
| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
untie
|
|
| vt.解开，松开；解放 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
miseries
|
|
| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
justifying
|
|
| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
halfway
|
|
| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
cowardice
|
|
| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
contrive
|
|
| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
begotten
|
|
| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |