prompt:
Chapter: 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 sluggard; 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 say about me. "Sluggard"--why, it is a calling and
vocation, it is a career.  Do not jest, 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 Lafitte.  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 sluggard and a glutton, not a simple one, but, for
instance, one with sympathies for everything sublime and beautiful.
How do you like that?  I have long had visions of it.  That "sublime
and beautiful" weighs heavily on my mind at forty But that is at forty;
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 "sublime 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 "sublime and beautiful."  I should then have
turned everything into the sublime and the beautiful; in the nastiest,
unquestionable trash, I should have sought out the sublime and the
beautiful.  I should have exuded tears like a wet sponge.  An 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 "sublime 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 "sublime and beautiful."

I should claim respect for doing so.  I should persecute anyone who
would not show me respect.  I should live at ease, 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 coloured 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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Here, the Underground Man sidetracks himself, explaining how if he were a sluggard then he would truly respect himself. He muses about how his life would be different if only he could call himself a lazy drunk who devoted his life to the "beautiful and sublime. In fact, he mentions and quotes the words "beautiful and sublime" so often in this chapter that the words quickly become a sardonic attack on the utopian ideals Dostoevsky and his UM so despised


prompt:
Chapter: But these are 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 opened 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, wilfully,
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, 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 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 greater 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 ...  Ech! gentlemen, 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 upbraid the short-sighted 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,
honour, 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--are, 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 to affirm, for instance, following Buckle,
that through civilisation 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 nineteenth century in which Buckle lived.  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
civilisation softens in us?  The only gain of civilisation 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 has already
happened to him.  Have you noticed that it is the most civilised
gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers, to whom the Attilas
and Stenka Razins could not hold a candle, and if they are not so
conspicuous as the Attilas and Stenka Razins it is simply because they
are so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar to
us.  In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more
bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely 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-girls' 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 learnt 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 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
stop 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 108,000, and
entered in an index; or, better still, there would be published certain
edifying works of the nature of encyclopaedic 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 halcyon 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 PROPOS 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 akimbo, say to us all: "I say, gentleman, 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 is 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 wiseacres 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 simply INDEPENDENT choice,
whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.  And
choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The UM more clearly focuses his assault on Chernyshevsky's "golden dreams" in this chapter, where he asserts that man is an inherently irrational creature , and therefore does not always act in his own self-interest. Indeed, the Underground Man asks, "And what if it turns out that man's advantage sometimes not only may, but even must in certain circumstances, consist precisely in his desiring something harmful to himself instead of something advantageous. Freedom to act against the laws of nature, against the crystal palace of reason, is the advantage the UM sees above all others. The UM goes on: "Man needs only one thing-his own independentdesire, whatever that independence might cost and wherever it might lead


prompt:
Chapter: "Ha! ha! 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 analysing man that we know 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 some day
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'm!" 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 some day 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, some day
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 thirty 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
unwearyingly 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 forty years underground!
Allow me to indulge my fancy.  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 one twentieth 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 advantageous 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 Rhodes, for instance, that's
worth something.  With good reason Mr. Anaevsky 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-coloured?  May be it
is many-coloured, 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 undress uniforms you will never get to the end of
it; no historian would be equal to the job.  Is it monotonous? May be
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 neighbours 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 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 introduce 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 are 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 by 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), may
be 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!

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Next, he confronts the counter-argument that man's "free will" is just an illusion-just a scientific formula of biological chemicals. The UM says that if this were ever the case, man would cease being human altogether and become an organ stop. Later, he even suggests that this liberty of choice, this freedom to be stupid, is a right


prompt:
Chapter: Gentlemen, I am joking, and I know myself that my jokes are not
brilliant, but you know one can 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
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 pre-eminently 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 he 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 likes 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
ANIMAUX DOMESTIQUES--such as the ants, the sheep, and so on.  Now the
ants have quite a different taste.  They have a marvellous edifice of
that pattern which endures for ever--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
incongruous 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, 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 comical creature; there seems to be a kind
of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all,
something insufferable.  Twice two makes four seems to me simply a
piece of insolence.  Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands
with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting.  I admit that twice
two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything
its due, twice two 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, love 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
vaudevilles, 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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Next, the UM uses the analogy of the road to present his conclusion that man is afraid of completing his goal. Man, he argues, loves the act of building, or constructing the road, but not the final product of the finished road. It then follows that humans fear the law of determinism-that two and two makes four. The UM dreads the prospect that humans will find this reason-this crystal palace, because then there will be nothing left for mankind to seek, nothing else for which to strive, nothing else for which to live


prompt:
Chapter: 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
it 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, through the
old-fashioned 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 am 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 consistent with the laws of nature
and actually exists.  I will not accept as the crown of my desires a
block of buildings with tenements for the poor on a lease of a thousand
years, and perhaps with a sign-board 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.  We are discussing
things seriously; but if you won't deign 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 am
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 forty years underground without
speaking, when we do come out into the light of day and break out we
talk and talk and talk....

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In this chapter, the Underground Man explains his refusal to accept the crystal palace, for the very reason that he wouldn't be able to stick his tongue out at it. He would much rather live in his self-acclaimed underground


prompt:
Chapter: The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to do
nothing! Better conscious inertia!  And so hurrah 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 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 forty 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 forty 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 sallies, 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 apologising 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
gnashing 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 forty 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....

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 realise 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 have 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 Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility,
and that man is bound to lie about himself.  He considers that Rousseau
certainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and even
intentionally lied, out of vanity.  I am convinced that Heine 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 Heine 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 apologise?

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 criticise 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 some one 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
PROPOS of the falling snow.

PART II

A Propos of the Wet Snow

  When from dark error's subjugation
  My words of passionate exhortation
    Had wrenched thy fainting spirit free;
  And writhing prone in thine affliction
  Thou didst recall with malediction
    The vice that had encompassed thee:
  And when thy slumbering conscience, fretting
    By recollection's torturing flame,
  Thou didst reveal the hideous setting
    Of thy life's current ere I came:
  When suddenly I saw thee sicken,
    And weeping, hide thine anguished face,
  Revolted, maddened, horror-stricken,
    At memories of foul disgrace.
            NEKRASSOV
            (translated by Juliet Soskice).

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The UM begins this chapter by proclaiming: "The final result, gentlemen, is that it's better to do nothing. Conscious inertia is better. And so, long live the underground. Yet quickly he admits that he's lying, that he doesn't truly prefer the underground, but "something different, altogether different, something that I long for, but I'll never be able to find. He also says that he doesn't believe a word that he has just said, which makes the reader wonder about the man's sanity. Yet this is all part of the psychology of the underground, and with some personal musings about why he has just written this "speech" down on paper, the Underground Man launches into part two-Apropos of Wet Snow


prompt:
Chapter: AT THAT TIME I was only twenty-four.  My life was even then gloomy,
ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage.  I made friends
with no one and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and
more in my hole.  At work in the office I never looked at anyone, and
was perfectly well aware that my companions looked upon me, not only as
a queer fellow, but even looked upon me--I always fancied this--with a
sort of loathing.  I sometimes wondered why it was that nobody except
me fancied that he was looked upon with aversion?  One of the clerks
had a most repulsive, pock-marked face, which looked positively
villainous.  I believe I should not have dared to look at anyone with
such an unsightly countenance.  Another had such a very dirty old
uniform that there was an unpleasant odour in his proximity.  Yet not
one of these gentlemen showed the slightest self-consciousness--either
about their clothes or their countenance or their character in any way.
Neither of them ever imagined that they were looked at with repulsion;
if they had imagined it they would not have minded--so long as their
superiors did not look at them in that way.  It is clear to me now
that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for
myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged
on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone.
I hated my face, for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even
suspected that there was something base in my expression, and so every
day when I turned up at the office I tried to behave as independently
as possible, and to assume a lofty expression, so that I might not be
suspected of being abject.  "My face may be ugly," I thought, "but let
it be lofty, expressive, and, above all, EXTREMELY intelligent."  But I
was positively and painfully certain that it was impossible for my
countenance ever to express those qualities.  And what was worst of
all, I thought it actually stupid looking, and I would have been quite
satisfied if I could have looked intelligent.  In fact, I would even
have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have
been thought strikingly intelligent.

Of course, I hated my fellow clerks one and all, and I despised them
all, yet at the same time I was, as it were, afraid of them.  In fact,
it happened at times that I thought more highly of them than of myself.
It somehow happened quite suddenly that I alternated between despising
them and thinking them superior to myself.  A cultivated and decent man
cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself,
and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
But whether I despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes
almost every time I met anyone.  I even made experiments whether I
could face so and so's looking at me, and I was always the first to
drop my eyes.  This worried me to distraction.  I had a sickly dread,
too, of being ridiculous, and so had a slavish passion for the
conventional in everything external.  I loved to fall into the common
rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of eccentricity in
myself.  But how could I live up to it?  I was morbidly sensitive as a
man of our age should be.  They were all stupid, and as like one
another as so many sheep.  Perhaps I was the only one in the office who
fancied that I was a coward and a slave, and I fancied it just because
I was more highly developed.  But it was not only that I fancied it, it
really was so. I was a coward and a slave.  I say this without the
slightest embarrassment. Every decent man of our age must be a coward
and a slave.  That is his normal condition.  Of that I am firmly
persuaded.  He is made and constructed to that very end.  And not only
at the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at
all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave.  It is the
law of nature for all decent people all over the earth.  If anyone of
them happens to be valiant about something, he need not be comforted
nor carried away by that; he would show the white feather just the same
before something else.  That is how it invariably and inevitably ends.
Only donkeys and mules are valiant, and they only till they are pushed
up to the wall.  It is not worth while to pay attention to them for
they really are of no consequence.

Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no
one like me and I was unlike anyone else.  "I am alone and they are
EVERYONE," I thought--and pondered.

From that it is evident that I was still a youngster.

The very opposite sometimes happened.  It was loathsome sometimes to go
to the office; things reached such a point that I often came home ill.
But all at once, A PROPOS of nothing, there would come a phase of
scepticism and indifference (everything happened in phases to me), and
I would laugh myself at my intolerance and fastidiousness, I would
reproach myself with being ROMANTIC.  At one time I was unwilling to
speak to anyone, while at other times I would not only talk, but go to
the length of contemplating making friends with them.  All my
fastidiousness would suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, vanish.  Who
knows, perhaps I never had really had it, and it had simply been
affected, and got out of books.  I have not decided that question even
now.  Once I quite made friends with them, visited their homes, played
preference, drank vodka, talked of promotions....  But here let me
make a digression.

We Russians, speaking generally, have never had those foolish
transcendental "romantics"--German, and still more French--on whom
nothing produces any effect; if there were an earthquake, if all France
perished at the barricades, they would still be the same, they would
not even have the decency to affect a change, but would still go on
singing their transcendental songs to the hour of their death, because
they are fools.  We, in Russia, have no fools; that is well known.
That is what distinguishes us from foreign lands.  Consequently these
transcendental natures are not found amongst us in their pure form.
The idea that they are is due to our "realistic" journalists and
critics of that day, always on the look out for Kostanzhoglos and Uncle
Pyotr Ivanitchs and foolishly accepting them as our ideal; they have
slandered our romantics, taking them for the same transcendental sort
as in Germany or France.  On the contrary, the characteristics of our
"romantics" are absolutely and directly opposed to the transcendental
European type, and no European standard can be applied to them.  (Allow
me to make use of this word "romantic"--an old-fashioned and much
respected word which has done good service and is familiar to all.)
The characteristics of our romantic are to understand everything, TO
SEE EVERYTHING AND TO SEE IT OFTEN INCOMPARABLY MORE CLEARLY THAN OUR
MOST REALISTIC MINDS SEE IT; to refuse to accept anyone or anything,
but at the same time not to despise anything; to give way, to yield,
from policy; never to lose sight of a useful practical object (such as
rent-free quarters at the government expense, pensions, decorations),
to keep their eye on that object through all the enthusiasms and
volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to preserve "the sublime
and the beautiful" inviolate within them to the hour of their death,
and to preserve themselves also, incidentally, like some precious jewel
wrapped in cotton wool if only for the benefit of "the sublime and the
beautiful."  Our "romantic" is a man of great breadth and the greatest
rogue of all our rogues, I assure you....  I can assure you from
experience, indeed.  Of course, that is, if he is intelligent.  But
what am I saying!  The romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant
to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't
count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they
degenerated into Germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more
comfortably, settled somewhere out there--by preference in Weimar or
the Black Forest.

I, for instance, genuinely despised my official work and did not openly
abuse it simply because I was in it myself and got a salary for it.
Anyway, take note, I did not openly abuse it.  Our romantic would
rather go out of his mind--a thing, however, which very rarely
happens--than take to open abuse, unless he had some other career in
view; and he is never kicked out.  At most, they would take him to the
lunatic asylum as "the King of Spain" if he should go very mad.  But it
is only the thin, fair people who go out of their minds in Russia.
Innumerable "romantics" attain later in life to considerable rank in
the service.  Their many-sidedness is remarkable!  And what a faculty
they have for the most contradictory sensations!  I was comforted by
this thought even in those days, and I am of the same opinion now.
That is why there are so many "broad natures" among us who never lose
their ideal even in the depths of degradation; and though they never
stir a finger for their ideal, though they are arrant thieves and
knaves, yet they tearfully cherish their first ideal and are
extraordinarily honest at heart.  Yes, it is only among us that the
most incorrigible rogue can be absolutely and loftily honest at heart
without in the least ceasing to be a rogue.  I repeat, our romantics,
frequently, become such accomplished rascals (I use the term "rascals"
affectionately), suddenly display such a sense of reality and practical
knowledge that their bewildered superiors and the public generally can
only ejaculate in amazement.

Their many-sidedness is really amazing, and goodness knows what it may
develop into later on, and what the future has in store for us.  It is
not a poor material!  I do not say this from any foolish or boastful
patriotism. But I feel sure that you are again imagining that I am
joking.  Or perhaps it's just the contrary and you are convinced that I
really think so.  Anyway, gentlemen, I shall welcome both views as an
honour and a special favour. And do forgive my digression.

I did not, of course, maintain friendly relations with my comrades and
soon was at loggerheads with them, and in my youth and inexperience I
even gave up bowing to them, as though I had cut off all relations.
That, however, only happened to me once.  As a rule, I was always alone.

In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading.  I tried
to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of
external impressions.  And the only external means I had was reading.
Reading, of course, was a great help--exciting me, giving me pleasure
and pain.  But at times it bored me fearfully.  One longed for movement
in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark,
underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind.  My wretched passions
were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had
hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions.  I had no resource
except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I
could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with
depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for
contrast, and so I took to vice.  I have not said all this to justify
myself....  But, no!  I am lying.  I did want to justify myself.  I
make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen.  I don't
want to lie.  I vowed to myself I would not.

And so, furtively, timidly, in solitude, at night, I indulged in filthy
vice, with a feeling of shame which never deserted me, even at the most
loathsome moments, and which at such moments nearly made me curse.
Already even then I had my underground world in my soul.  I was
fearfully afraid of being seen, of being met, of being recognised.  I
visited various obscure haunts.

One night as I was passing a tavern I saw through a lighted window some
gentlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown out
of the window.  At other times I should have felt very much disgusted,
but I was in such a mood at the time, that I actually envied the
gentleman thrown out of the window--and I envied him so much that I
even went into the tavern and into the billiard-room.  "Perhaps," I
thought, "I'll have a fight, too, and they'll throw me out of the
window."

I was not drunk--but what is one to do--depression will drive a man to
such a pitch of hysteria?  But nothing happened.  It seemed that I was
not even equal to being thrown out of the window and I went away
without having my fight.

An officer put me in my place from the first moment.

I was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignorance blocking up
the way, and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without
a word--without a warning or explanation--moved me from where I was
standing to another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me.
I could have forgiven blows, but I could not forgive his having moved
me without noticing me.

Devil knows what I would have given for a real regular quarrel--a more
decent, a more LITERARY one, so to speak.  I had been treated like a
fly.  This officer was over six foot, while I was a spindly little
fellow.  But the quarrel was in my hands.  I had only to protest and I
certainly would have been thrown out of the window.  But I changed my
mind and preferred to beat a resentful retreat.

I went out of the tavern straight home, confused and troubled, and the
next night I went out again with the same lewd intentions, still more
furtively, abjectly and miserably than before, as it were, with tears
in my eyes--but still I did go out again.  Don't imagine, though, it
was cowardice made me slink away from the officer; I never have been a
coward at heart, though I have always been a coward in action.  Don't
be in a hurry to laugh--I assure you I can explain it all.

Oh, if only that officer had been one of the sort who would consent to
fight a duel!  But no, he was one of those gentlemen (alas, long
extinct!) who preferred fighting with cues or, like Gogol's Lieutenant
Pirogov, appealing to the police.  They did not fight duels and would
have thought a duel with a civilian like me an utterly unseemly
procedure in any case--and they looked upon the duel altogether as
something impossible, something free-thinking and French.  But they
were quite ready to bully, especially when they were over six foot.

I did not slink away through cowardice, but through an unbounded
vanity.  I was afraid not of his six foot, not of getting a sound
thrashing and being thrown out of the window; I should have had
physical courage enough, I assure you; but I had not the moral courage.
What I was afraid of was that everyone present, from the insolent
marker down to the lowest little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy
collar, would jeer at me and fail to understand when I began to protest
and to address them in literary language. For of the point of
honour--not of honour, but of the point of honour (POINT
D'HONNEUR)--one cannot speak among us except in literary language.  You
can't allude to the "point of honour" in ordinary language. I was fully
convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism!) that
they would all simply split their sides with laughter, and that the
officer would not simply beat me, that is, without insulting me, but
would certainly prod me in the back with his knee, kick me round the
billiard-table, and only then perhaps have pity and drop me out of the
window.

Of course, this trivial incident could not with me end in that.  I
often met that officer afterwards in the street and noticed him very
carefully.  I am not quite sure whether he recognised me, I imagine
not; I judge from certain signs.  But I--I stared at him with spite and
hatred and so it went on ... for several years!  My resentment grew
even deeper with years.  At first I began making stealthy inquiries
about this officer.  It was difficult for me to do so, for I knew no
one.  But one day I heard someone shout his surname in the street as I
was following him at a distance, as though I were tied to him--and so I
learnt his surname.  Another time I followed him to his flat, and for
ten kopecks learned from the porter where he lived, on which storey,
whether he lived alone or with others, and so on--in fact, everything
one could learn from a porter.  One morning, though I had never tried
my hand with the pen, it suddenly occurred to me to write a satire on
this officer in the form of a novel which would unmask his villainy.  I
wrote the novel with relish.  I did unmask his villainy, I even
exaggerated it; at first I so altered his surname that it could easily
be recognised, but on second thoughts I changed it, and sent the story
to the OTETCHESTVENNIYA ZAPISKI.  But at that time such attacks were
not the fashion and my story was not printed.  That was a great
vexation to me.

Sometimes I was positively choked with resentment.  At last I
determined to challenge my enemy to a duel.  I composed a splendid,
charming letter to him, imploring him to apologise to me, and hinting
rather plainly at a duel in case of refusal.  The letter was so
composed that if the officer had had the least understanding of the
sublime and the beautiful he would certainly have flung himself on my
neck and have offered me his friendship.  And how fine that would have
been!  How we should have got on together!  "He could have shielded me
with his higher rank, while I could have improved his mind with my
culture, and, well ... my ideas, and all sorts of things might have
happened."  Only fancy, this was two years after his insult to me, and
my challenge would have been a ridiculous anachronism, in spite of all
the ingenuity of my letter in disguising and explaining away the
anachronism.  But, thank God (to this day I thank the Almighty with
tears in my eyes) I did not send the letter to him.  Cold shivers run
down my back when I think of what might have happened if I had sent it.

And all at once I revenged myself in the simplest way, by a stroke of
genius!  A brilliant thought suddenly dawned upon me.  Sometimes on
holidays I used to stroll along the sunny side of the Nevsky about four
o'clock in the afternoon.  Though it was hardly a stroll so much as a
series of innumerable miseries, humiliations and resentments; but no
doubt that was just what I wanted.  I used to wriggle along in a most
unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for
generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies.
At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I
used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the
wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my
little scurrying figure.  This was a regular martyrdom, a continual,
intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant
and direct sensation, that I was a mere fly in the eyes of all this
world, a nasty, disgusting fly--more intelligent, more highly
developed, more refined in feeling than any of them, of course--but a
fly that was continually making way for everyone, insulted and injured
by everyone. Why I inflicted this torture upon myself, why I went to
the Nevsky, I don't know.  I felt simply drawn there at every possible
opportunity.

Already then I began to experience a rush of the enjoyment of which I
spoke in the first chapter.  After my affair with the officer I felt
even more drawn there than before: it was on the Nevsky that I met him
most frequently, there I could admire him.  He, too, went there chiefly
on holidays, He, too, turned out of his path for generals and persons
of high rank, and he too, wriggled between them like an eel; but
people, like me, or even better dressed than me, he simply walked over;
he made straight for them as though there was nothing but empty space
before him, and never, under any circumstances, turned aside.  I
gloated over my resentment watching him and ... always resentfully made
way for him.  It exasperated me that even in the street I could not be
on an even footing with him.

"Why must you invariably be the first to move aside?" I kept asking
myself in hysterical rage, waking up sometimes at three o'clock in the
morning.  "Why is it you and not he?  There's no regulation about it;
there's no written law.  Let the making way be equal as it usually is
when refined people meet; he moves half-way and you move half-way; you
pass with mutual respect."

But that never happened, and I always moved aside, while he did not
even notice my making way for him.  And lo and behold a bright idea
dawned upon me!  "What," I thought, "if I meet him and don't move on
one side?  What if I don't move aside on purpose, even if I knock up
against him?  How would that be?" This audacious idea took such a hold
on me that it gave me no peace.  I was dreaming of it continually,
horribly, and I purposely went more frequently to the Nevsky in order
to picture more vividly how I should do it when I did do it.  I was
delighted.  This intention seemed to me more and more practical and
possible.

"Of course I shall not really push him," I thought, already more
good-natured in my joy.  "I will simply not turn aside, will run up
against him, not very violently, but just shouldering each other--just
as much as decency permits.  I will push against him just as much as he
pushes against me."  At last I made up my mind completely.  But my
preparations took a great deal of time.  To begin with, when I carried
out my plan I should need to be looking rather more decent, and so I
had to think of my get-up.  "In case of emergency, if, for instance,
there were any sort of public scandal (and the public there is of the
most RECHERCHE: the Countess walks there; Prince D. walks there; all
the literary world is there), I must be well dressed; that inspires
respect and of itself puts us on an equal footing in the eyes of the
society."

With this object I asked for some of my salary in advance, and bought
at Tchurkin's a pair of black gloves and a decent hat.  Black gloves
seemed to me both more dignified and BON TON than the lemon-coloured
ones which I had contemplated at first.  "The colour is too gaudy, it
looks as though one were trying to be conspicuous," and I did not take
the lemon-coloured ones.  I had got ready long beforehand a good shirt,
with white bone studs; my overcoat was the only thing that held me
back.  The coat in itself was a very good one, it kept me warm; but it
was wadded and it had a raccoon collar which was the height of
vulgarity.  I had to change the collar at any sacrifice, and to have a
beaver one like an officer's.  For this purpose I began visiting the
Gostiny Dvor and after several attempts I pitched upon a piece of cheap
German beaver.  Though these German beavers soon grow shabby and look
wretched, yet at first they look exceedingly well, and I only needed it
for the occasion.  I asked the price; even so, it was too expensive.
After thinking it over thoroughly I decided to sell my raccoon collar.
The rest of the money--a considerable sum for me, I decided to borrow
from Anton Antonitch Syetotchkin, my immediate superior, an unassuming
person, though grave and judicious.  He never lent money to anyone, but
I had, on entering the service, been specially recommended to him by an
important personage who had got me my berth.  I was horribly worried.
To borrow from Anton Antonitch seemed to me monstrous and shameful.  I
did not sleep for two or three nights.  Indeed, I did not sleep well at
that time, I was in a fever; I had a vague sinking at my heart or else
a sudden throbbing, throbbing, throbbing!  Anton Antonitch was
surprised at first, then he frowned, then he reflected, and did after
all lend me the money, receiving from me a written authorisation to
take from my salary a fortnight later the sum that he had lent me.

In this way everything was at last ready.  The handsome beaver replaced
the mean-looking raccoon, and I began by degrees to get to work.  It
would never have done to act offhand, at random; the plan had to be
carried out skilfully, by degrees.  But I must confess that after many
efforts I began to despair: we simply could not run into each other.  I
made every preparation, I was quite determined--it seemed as though we
should run into one another directly--and before I knew what I was
doing I had stepped aside for him again and he had passed without
noticing me.  I even prayed as I approached him that God would grant me
determination. One time I had made up my mind thoroughly, but it ended
in my stumbling and falling at his feet because at the very last
instant when I was six inches from him my courage failed me.  He very
calmly stepped over me, while I flew on one side like a ball.  That
night I was ill again, feverish and delirious.

And suddenly it ended most happily.  The night before I had made up my
mind not to carry out my fatal plan and to abandon it all, and with
that object I went to the Nevsky for the last time, just to see how I
would abandon it all.  Suddenly, three paces from my enemy, I
unexpectedly made up my mind--I closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt,
shoulder to shoulder, against one another!  I did not budge an inch and
passed him on a perfectly equal footing!  He did not even look round
and pretended not to notice it; but he was only pretending, I am
convinced of that.  I am convinced of that to this day!  Of course, I
got the worst of it--he was stronger, but that was not the point.  The
point was that I had attained my object, I had kept up my dignity, I
had not yielded a step, and had put myself publicly on an equal social
footing with him.  I returned home feeling that I was fully avenged for
everything.  I was delighted.  I was triumphant and sang Italian arias.
Of course, I will not describe to you what happened to me three days
later; if you have read my first chapter you can guess for yourself.
The officer was afterwards transferred; I have not seen him now for
fourteen years.  What is the dear fellow doing now? Whom is he walking
over?

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Underground Man flashes back to when he was only twenty-four years old. He explains that even at that early age his life was "gloomy, disordered, and solitary to the point of savagery. Speaking about his work environment, he admits that he hated all of his co-workers, though he probably despised himself even more so. The attack against the man of action in part one is resurrected in this chapter, when the UM explains that "only asses and their mongrels are brags, and even then, only until they come up against a wall. Though he wishes to interact with others and perhaps even have normal relations with his fellow human beings, the UM's hyperconsciousness, as in part one, makes this impossible. He spends most of his time reading, hoping it will keep his mind busy working on external problems. One night he passes a tavern, only to see some men quarreling and one even being tossed out of the window. Though he meekly tries to get into a fight himself, hoping to be thrown out in the same way, he isn't successful and leaves the establishment unsatisfied. But he takes great pains to explain that he left not out of cowardice, but out of vanity. He wasn't afraid of being physically humiliated, indeed he longed for it. What he feared was that he wouldn't be understood, that his supreme "literary" genius wouldn't be recognized or respected, and that he would be treated as the insignificant little fly that he considers himself. He remembers the officer who ignored his presence when he tried to start the fight, however. He stalks this man, finding out all about him, hoping to challenge him to a duel. Every day he imagines that as the two of them pass each other on the street, he will intentionally bump the man, instead of yielding to him as he always does. One day the UM finally does find the resolve to carry out his mission, and the two bump shoulders. Though the officer pretends that he doesn't notice the incident, the UM knows that he does notice, and he declares victory for having "publicly placed on an equal social footing with him


prompt:
Chapter: But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt very sick
afterwards.  It was followed by remorse--I tried to drive it away; I
felt too sick.  By degrees, however, I grew used to that too.  I grew
used to everything, or rather I voluntarily resigned myself to enduring
it.  But I had a means of escape that reconciled everything--that was
to find refuge in "the sublime and the beautiful," in dreams, of
course.  I was a terrible dreamer, I would dream for three months on
end, tucked away in my corner, and you may believe me that at those
moments I had no resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbation
of his chicken heart, put a collar of German beaver on his great-coat.
I suddenly became a hero.  I would not have admitted my six-foot
lieutenant even if he had called on me.  I could not even picture him
before me then.  What were my dreams and how I could satisfy myself
with them--it is hard to say now, but at the time I was satisfied with
them.  Though, indeed, even now, I am to some extent satisfied with
them.  Dreams were particularly sweet and vivid after a spell of
dissipation; they came with remorse and with tears, with curses and
transports.  There were moments of such positive intoxication, of such
happiness, that there was not the faintest trace of irony within me, on
my honour.  I had faith, hope, love.  I believed blindly at such times
that by some miracle, by some external circumstance, all this would
suddenly open out, expand; that suddenly a vista of suitable
activity--beneficent, good, and, above all, READY MADE (what sort of
activity I had no idea, but the great thing was that it should be all
ready for me)--would rise up before me--and I should come out into the
light of day, almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel.
Anything but the foremost place I could not conceive for myself, and
for that very reason I quite contentedly occupied the lowest in
reality.  Either to be a hero or to grovel in the mud--there was
nothing between.  That was my ruin, for when I was in the mud I
comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and
the hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was shameful
to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly defiled, and
so he might defile himself.  It is worth noting that these attacks of
the "sublime and the beautiful" visited me even during the period of
dissipation and just at the times when I was touching the bottom.  They
came in separate spurts, as though reminding me of themselves, but did
not banish the dissipation by their appearance. On the contrary, they
seemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only sufficiently
present to serve as an appetising sauce.  That sauce was made up of
contradictions and sufferings, of agonising inward analysis, and all
these pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a significance
to my dissipation--in fact, completely answered the purpose of an
appetising sauce.  There was a certain depth of meaning in it.  And I
could hardly have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, direct
debauchery of a clerk and have endured all the filthiness of it.  What
could have allured me about it then and have drawn me at night into the
street?  No, I had a lofty way of getting out of it all.

And what loving-kindness, oh Lord, what loving-kindness I felt at times
in those dreams of mine!  in those "flights into the sublime and the
beautiful"; though it was fantastic love, though it was never applied
to anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love that
one did not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality;
that would have been superfluous.  Everything, however, passed
satisfactorily by a lazy and fascinating transition into the sphere of
art, that is, into the beautiful forms of life, lying ready, largely
stolen from the poets and novelists and adapted to all sorts of needs
and uses.  I, for instance, was triumphant over everyone; everyone, of
course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously to
recognise my superiority, and I forgave them all.  I was a poet and a
grand gentleman, I fell in love; I came in for countless millions and
immediately devoted them to humanity, and at the same time I confessed
before all the people my shameful deeds, which, of course, were not
merely shameful, but had in them much that was "sublime and beautiful"
something in the Manfred style.  Everyone would kiss me and weep (what
idiots they would be if they did not), while I should go barefoot and
hungry preaching new ideas and fighting a victorious Austerlitz against
the obscurantists.  Then the band would play a march, an amnesty would
be declared, the Pope would agree to retire from Rome to Brazil; then
there would be a ball for the whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese on
the shores of Lake Como, Lake Como being for that purpose transferred
to the neighbourhood of Rome; then would come a scene in the bushes,
and so on, and so on--as though you did not know all about it?  You
will say that it is vulgar and contemptible to drag all this into
public after all the tears and transports which I have myself
confessed.  But why is it contemptible?  Can you imagine that I am
ashamed of it all, and that it was stupider than anything in your life,
gentlemen?  And I can assure you that some of these fancies were by no
means badly composed....  It did not all happen on the shores of Lake
Como.  And yet you are right--it really is vulgar and contemptible.
And most contemptible of all it is that now I am attempting to justify
myself to you.  And even more contemptible than that is my making this
remark now.  But that's enough, or there will be no end to it; each
step will be more contemptible than the last....

I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time
without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society.  To
plunge into society meant to visit my superior at the office, Anton
Antonitch Syetotchkin.  He was the only permanent acquaintance I have
had in my life, and I wonder at the fact myself now.  But I only went
to see him when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached
such a point of bliss that it became essential at once to embrace my
fellows and all mankind; and for that purpose I needed, at least, one
human being, actually existing.  I had to call on Anton Antonitch,
however, on Tuesday--his at-home day; so I had always to time my
passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a
Tuesday.

This Anton Antonitch lived on the fourth storey in a house in Five
Corners, in four low-pitched rooms, one smaller than the other, of a
particularly frugal and sallow appearance.  He had two daughters and
their aunt, who used to pour out the tea.  Of the daughters one was
thirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and I was
awfully shy of them because they were always whispering and giggling
together.  The master of the house usually sat in his study on a
leather couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman,
usually a colleague from our office or some other department.  I never
saw more than two or three visitors there, always the same.  They
talked about the excise duty; about business in the senate, about
salaries, about promotions, about His Excellency, and the best means of
pleasing him, and so on. I had the patience to sit like a fool beside
these people for four hours at a stretch, listening to them without
knowing what to say to them or venturing to say a word.  I became
stupefied, several times I felt myself perspiring, I was overcome by a
sort of paralysis; but this was pleasant and good for me.  On returning
home I deferred for a time my desire to embrace all mankind.

I had however one other acquaintance of a sort, Simonov, who was an old
schoolfellow.  I had a number of schoolfellows, indeed, in Petersburg,
but I did not associate with them and had even given up nodding to them
in the street.  I believe I had transferred into the department I was
in simply to avoid their company and to cut off all connection with my
hateful childhood.  Curses on that school and all those terrible years
of penal servitude!  In short, I parted from my schoolfellows as soon
as I got out into the world.  There were two or three left to whom I
nodded in the street.  One of them was Simonov, who had in no way been
distinguished at school, was of a quiet and equable disposition; but I
discovered in him a certain independence of character and even honesty
I don't even suppose that he was particularly stupid.  I had at one
time spent some rather soulful moments with him, but these had not
lasted long and had somehow been suddenly clouded over.  He was
evidently uncomfortable at these reminiscences, and was, I fancy,
always afraid that I might take up the same tone again.  I suspected
that he had an aversion for me, but still I went on going to see him,
not being quite certain of it.

And so on one occasion, unable to endure my solitude and knowing that
as it was Thursday Anton Antonitch's door would be closed, I thought of
Simonov.  Climbing up to his fourth storey I was thinking that the man
disliked me and that it was a mistake to go and see him.  But as it
always happened that such reflections impelled me, as though purposely,
to put myself into a false position, I went in.  It was almost a year
since I had last seen Simonov.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Dreaming is the only method the UM now finds to escape his life of "debauchery" and enter the world of the "beautiful and sublime. He says that he dreamt for three months straight, and this dreaming was quite satisfying and even intoxicating, he admits. He explains that he would go from considering himself to be a hero , to believing himself to be nothing but dirt, shifting from dominating over others to being dominated by them. In these fantasies, he finds a love for humanity, and soon he wants to exhibit this love in the real world. So growing restless of this dream-life, he decides to enter society, meaning he plans to visit an old schoolmate named Simonov