Notes Concerning Underground

…But it also seems to us that we may as well stop here.

And now, what do you think of our find, my friend? You expressed in your last letter the belief that there could be no worse fate than to be poor, uneducated, and surrounded by brothers and sisters in the same condition. Let us now consider, you and I, that misfortune or sadness in general is as much a condition of mind as one of class. This mole is, after all, well-educated (according to his own account, one written by a man who lies even to himself I grant you, but the style is sophisticated enough) and very solitary. Whether or not he has money is his own fault, I suppose. Or maybe the whole world is filled with men walking around warm, cold, fed, hungry, feeling sorry for themselves. At the very least, if we feel, we can have life…

My conscience prods me to admit that Henri has not received this season's shipment of oranges, and I am devastated. If only I could will an orange into existence.

I will send along copies of more of the mole-man's diary as Doctor S—makes the manuscript available to me. In the meantime, tell me what you think. He is rather a funny fellow, isn't he? Also, you will keep me informed about your dear mother's health and your brother's new wife.

Until we meet again, I remain your current friend and former research assistant,

Boris Iosevich

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My Dear Boris Iosevich,

I wonder what circumstances brought the good Dr S— and you, my friend, into contact with such a man, or even his thoughts. I fear I cannot agree with your observation, determining the subject to be "funny." I found the reading difficult and at times disturbing, as if I were walking a maze with windows to a foggy field at every corner. I can see far enough out until I become afraid. Isn't he a bit too convincing, too perceptive? I only smiled once in reading his determination that all "men of action" are stupid. Perhaps it was only in my childhood, but do you remember the least intelligent boy in your class also being the best at tag? He never thought too long about who to chase or where to run. But this is only physical action. I wonder if the Great Men of history were daring, or only simple. And should we be glad that the course of history is in the hands of men who only reached their positions by not considering every side of every action?

And now I really must believe that there can never be a classless society. We're all too envious of one another; once the titles and wages disappear, each man would be the equal of his neighbor, and I think that would only heighten our other jealousies. I think that I am better than my office supervisor because he must have been a crook to get his position. Making us equal in station, I would have to find some other way to value myself next to him. I would choose something more permanent or essential to compare unfavorably to myself. I would hate his nose or his voice, and then my disapproval would be personal.

You've warned me about this in the past, I know. Your "philosophers" have decreed that we should avoid "coveting" anything which is not ours already, and my discovery of faults in others for the sake of my own esteem is only a symptom of wishing I had their good traits. But how else do you measure a man? If it is not using other men as a ruler. Show me the scales that can determine my worth without any counterweight- you know I've always been pleased to find a more accurate way to measure anything. It's so useful in my science.

And speaking of accuracy, there's this two times two is four question. I mean, his question, of course. Two times two is certainly four, and this has always been very atrractive to me. Not in those terms, numbers have no spark, but proven results. When I discovered that vinegar and sodium bicarbonate would always yield a foam, I felt very comfortable with the universe- as if I could discover the cause and effect of every action and reaction, so that finding a reason for everything in the natural world has been the reason for my life.

Boris Iosevich, my friend, (and the best lab technician I have ever fired) you may think I am writing to reach a word quota, telling you these stories you already know, but the truth is, I am beginning to wish two times two would equal three or five.

My mother, the most clever, kind woman on earth, as you know, is dying. It is scientifically impossible to cure her illness now, and so I must accept that it will only end when her organ stops working. There is no comfort in the inevitability of it, and knowing the biological facts only frustrates me more. As the Underground man would say, one can divide four by two and get two back again, but there is no operation to reverse the facts in this case. I will not even find solace in the knowledge that I can resist this fact with my will until the end. To "bang my head against this wall" not only hurts me and not the wall, but it hurts Mama as well, because she worries that there will be no one to comfort me when she is gone.

There is no comfort in anything when faced with the death of some one you love, and theoretical discussions of determination seem almost vulgar. I do agree that it is true that no one who thinks too much can really live, because in the physical world, he would come across so many exceptions to theories developed mentally, that all he believed would crumble. He would be a babbling idiot in no time. The Underground man mentioned love; I wonder if he ever knew it. I cannot decide if it would be a good thing or not at this time, if the pain must always rival the joy.

While nothing else can lift my spirits, your solicitude stirs them, and I am grateful for your letters. My brother and his wife are well, only slightly less distraught than I am (being very much occupied with their preparations to move into the city.) I hope your "new research" is going well and that you are happy. I will be looking for your reply-

Your friend, always,

Andrey Romanovich

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To my Brave Friend Andrey Romanovich,

I am composing an inquiry about your mother to pass along to my Superior. I know you imagine that it won't do much good, but it can't hurt, and in fact, is the most valuable thing I can think to do. I wish I had known that her condition had grown so serious: I would have sent a less bleak diversion. Dr. S— has also come into the possession of the diary of a man who believed himself to be Napoleon. I have more to say and more to send concerning our mole-man, and I continue to do so only in the hopes that it will be some distraction to your tired soul, or perhaps even edifying. But please, do not let him talk you into feeling worse about the human condition than you already have a right to at the moment. He hardly believes what he says himself.

To respond to your initial concern, neither Dr. S— nor I have come into contact with the mole-man, and it is not likely that anyone else ever will (so do not trouble yourself if ever you are walking on Nevsky Prospect, and a small, ugly man bumps into you.) His diary came into the doctor's possession via a colleague, a hepatologist actually, who is familiar with the former's amateur interest in psychology. Dr. S— shared the manuscript with me for the same reason. The following excerpt was "given" to the aforementioned hepatologist from the writer's own hands. The doctor was hesitant to pass it along, for propriety's sake you see, but then decided that any real damage had already been done.

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She is a dungeon master. At least I have outlived Apollon, I only wished he could be here to see how tenaciously I've held on. I am writing from such depths that I have reached bedrock, and here my hooks are set into stone. I know I am a weak man. I only have strength from spite. My suffering must be making me popular: the longer I am dying, the braver I am, the more character I possess. Oh, what they would think if only they knew what I endure every minute that the idiot peasant spends in my home! I was prepared for my decline in every way until I realized that my strength was failing me. I am too frail even to walk and in too precarious a state to be alone, so the torturess is always with me, reminding me of my weakness. And she is impatient to see it end! I see in her eyes, she would cover my face with the pillow this moment if she weren't reveling in my helplessness. I do not even know how to revenge myself on her, if she is anticipating my death and savoring my suffering equally. How am I the inhuman one, if my own servant can enjoy watching a man die with such relish? She should be more like the others; they all think I am a hero.

Only yesterday, I remembered how it would be when Zverkov's fat old wife answers the door and sees my decrepit, rickety body, shaking in the cold on her step. She would be horrified at first, naturally; my face has become more repulsive since this illness consumed the body fat that had kept my cheeks from hanging off my bones. Once recovered from her initial shock, the lady Zverkov would invite me in, perhaps put on some tea, and gently drape a quilt over my shoulders. Upon entering his parlor, Zverkov would gasp to see me there: first out of horror, and again from surprise. How had I found him? What could I want? And, summoning all my strength, I would stand and face him.

"Captain Zverkov," I would address him in the most formal manner possible, of course, "I stand before you, not a man, but only the barely breathing detritus of one, prepared to offer you my hand before I can no longer move it on my own. But first, I ask you to reflect upon your life and how you've treated me. Think of the man you've become, and the thing I have degraded to. Was it too much for you to show some kindness to another creature while there was still time? And now, who would an observer say is the most noble of the two of us? You, with your comfortable home, family, and pins on your coat, or I, with nothing and no one, failing strength, and crumbling rags on my back, come here on my own, to offer you forgiveness, and look you straight in the eye?" His gaze would falter, and I would turn triumphantly to leave on my own feet. I would not even turn to acknowledge his wife's plea that I stay long enough to warm my skeletal hands. Yes, it is so easy to be a hero when you are dying! I accept this pain stoically, like a soldier on the battlefield, telling the others to go on without him, holding his flag aloft for his heart and eyes alone, until the dark end. I apologize that I cannot avoid clichés: death is full of them. I only wish some one could see how brave I am. Of course, no one has any idea that I am dying, except my stupid servant woman, who insists on contacting a doctor only to rub my weakness in my face.

He will come this afternoon, gentlemen! A so-called specialist to tell me exactly what my own body is doing to destroy me, and he will tell me that I will die, that I should have seen him sooner, and what for! So he could examine me like an amoeba in a petri dish that can't possibly understand how it moves or eats or why, and so he could successfully diagnose me and feel pride in his skills as a physician. I will strangle him with his stethoscope first. At the moment he tells me that I will be too weak to leave my bed ever again, I will jump up and twist his stethoscope around his neck! I will stop writing to conserve my strength.

Unless it would be better not to say or do anything. I will not answer any of his questions, I will not move so he can examine me better (Examine! His will be the first hands other than my own to touch my skin in years.) I hope I disgust him. I hope I am contagious. What will I do if he only says, "This case is very typical"? Mine might be the first incident of a new disease. It has troubled me for years. I'll be taken from here to a research hospital and die in a sterile white room…no it's common, I know. I'm a textbook case, and I'll die and the doctor will only remember my stained bedclothes. I haven't had my hair cut in so long.

She held my head while I wept, and knew there was more inside my body than disease, I hope she is dead and rotting in a flooded coffin! My grave will be wet too. She is in the room with me, sweeping. For what? The doctor? I won't ask her when he is coming, although it must be soon. Everyone has tormented and ignored me my whole life. What if the doctor can see inside me as well? If he sees me as an insect, a corpse, it's all fine, as long as he thinks I have chosen this for myself. Oh, why couldn't there be a fire in my room today? What if some one reads my diary?

I hope you enjoy laughing at a dead man, doctor! Only know that I always respected your profession while you deride me to your fellows; know that I was the better man.

Oh, gentlemen! I am so afraid! I do not know what will become of me when I stop writing and thinking. Who will remember me? What else could I have done? No decision in life was clear! There was no reason for any of it? You know, I could not even say why I made that last statement a question. I am so frightened…

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It is rather sensational, isn't it, my friend? I sense that I am in danger of appearing rather tasteless, to send you such a thing at such a time. How am I supposed to distract you from your current heartbreak when this poor fellow was absorbed in the very same thing at the time he wrote these last words? By now, you've gathered that the doctor the man was so dreading is none other than Dr. S—'s colleague, and so this is how we've inherited his diary. And you see the moral dilemma the hepatologist encountered, having read these notes and passed them on. Although, I must say, that in the end, he would probably be glad that we are remembering him, even if we are also studying him. Even until the very end, he was afraid of being studied, judged, or measured I suppose.

This thought brings me back to you, Andrey Romanovich. You expressed distress in your last letter over your general sympathizing with our mole-man, and I imagine this last excerpt will only have the same effect initially, but allow me to talk about myself for a while, as the mole man says and "decent man" will do with "greatest pleasure."

I too have thought about science, about the ascension of man, the crystal palace, you know, (or perhaps I should write Ascension of Man, if I'm going to bother using such pompous terms.) You know that my soul was in tumult after Professor Solvinsky's lecture on subparticles- for years after it, in fact. What is life if we are only made of tiny bits of inorganic matter, like everything else in the universe? What is the use of free will if sociologists can predict how far a man will go from how hungry, ignorant, and crowded he was as a child? What if I didn't even have a soul to be in tumult? Imagine if it were only indigestion? How lonely and grim that would be! Well, I wanted to ignore science, myself. Who wouldn't, learning that there is no way for man to fly, to eradicate mental illness, to live forever- in other words, what is the point of life if all we can ever do is wish for more? And to make matters worse, hope for more, and inevitably be disappointed. Retreating into novels sounds like a reasonable enough solution. Since there's no good reason to do anything, and you always know how paper characters will treat you. But this would be a retreat, and not a solution. We need to believe that life has meaning, that there's something valuable to be gained from learning and trying, especially at a time like yours, my friend.

You see, in the end it was logic and reason that brought me to the seminary. If there is a reason in nature for everything, the grass feeds the rabbit, the rabbit feeds the wolf, the wolf dies and feeds the microbes, and they help feed grass, there must be a reason for man to feel, to love, and live. To walk around and try to do more than feel sad about our lot in life. How different it would have been if the Underground Man could have looked up to heaven! An afterlife is a good enough "primary cause" for any action! So the mouse cannot decide when or how to take revenge. Well, when he listens to his conscience and finds that taking revenge at all makes his soul uneasy, he leaves the plot behind! And how free we can become, finding the most primary of all primary causes (to borrow the mole-man's rhetoric yet again)! We have free will in life so that we may have free will at the gates to the afterlife. Even if none of it is true, we won't be conscious by the time we find out, so it can't hurt.

To answer your concerns about envy and measurement, the scriptures give us a scale to stand upon, and a model to look up to without resentment. No man can equal Christ, so we are all equal in our imperfection. This is greater than class equality. And we are working towards something so much more brilliant than the crystal palace that it simply cannot exist on earth.

The mole-man died miserably, without ever looking beyond the underside of the earth. Know that your mother's thoughts will not be so frenzied, that her life has been so much more fulfilling. And in the end, he was still afraid of men judging him; your mother can rest knowing that the only judgment that matters belongs to One. Take comfort in reason beyond science, dear Andrey Romanovich. There must be something more, and so there is.

My prayers for you and your family are ever-flowing, and I patiently await a reply. Know that you will always have a deacon at your service, even if that deacon is only the humble

Boris Iosevich