. Episode 1
I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an
unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However,
I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know
for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and
never have, though I have a respect for medicine and
doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently
so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated
enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious).
No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you
probably will not understand. Well, I understand it,
though. Of course, I can’t explain who it is precisely that I
am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well
aware that I cannot ‘pay out’ the doctors by not consulting
them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only
injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t consult
a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well—let it get
worse!
I have been going on like that for a long time—twenty
years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government
service, but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was
rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes,
you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it
thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have
seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable
way, I will not scratch it out on purpose!)
When petitioners used to come for information to the
table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them, and
felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making
anybody unhappy. I almost did succeed. For the most part
they were all timid people—of course, they were
petitioners. But of the uppish ones there was one officer in
particular I could not endure. He simply would not be
humble, and clanked his sword in a disgusting way. I
carried on a feud with him for eighteen months over that
sword. At last I got the better of him. He left off clanking
it. That happened in my youth, though. But do you
know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my
spite? Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the
fact that continually, even in the moment of the acutest
spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not
only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man, that I
was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself
by it. I might foam at the mouth, but bring me a doll to
play with, give me a cup of tea with sugar in it, and maybe
I should be appeased. I might even be genuinely touched, though probably I should grind my teeth at myself
afterwards and lie awake at night with shame for months
after. That was my way.
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
swarming 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 am 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 nineteenth century must and morally ought to be
pre-eminently a characterless creature; a man of character,
an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature. That is
my conviction of forty years. I am forty years old now,
and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it
is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad
manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty?
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 sixty
myself. To seventy! To eighty! ... Stay, let me take breath
. To be continued..
Watch out for Episode 2