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.

 In Part II, the narrator gives a flashback to his past, when he was twenty-four years old. Because he felt inferior, he lived a lonely life with no friends. At work, he felt self-conscious and believed his peers looked down on him. He worried about his appearance and began to hate the look of his own face, for he believed others judged him as ugly even though they were unconcerned about their own appearance. As time passed, he both feared and hated his co- workers. Since he had no companions, the young narrator spent a lot of time reading in solitude. When he longed for excitement, he would go out and indulge in some "filthy vice," usually at a house of prostitution; afterwards, he would always feel ashamed of his behavior. One night as he traveled towards home after one of his forays, he saw a man being tossed out the window of a tavern. He entered the tavern to see what was happening. When an officer pushed him out of the way, he felt greatly insulted and believed he had not been treated like a human being. He wanted to protest, but instead he sneaked away, for he lacked the moral courage to challenge the officer. Although the narrator longed to return to the tavern and settle the insult, he could not do it, for he feared others would laugh at him. Instead, he stewed about it for years. To retaliate, he wrote a satire about the officer and tried unsuccessfully to have it published. He then composed a letter to the officer asking for an apology, but he never mailed it. He then came up with a plan to make the officer step aside for him on the street. Since the officer always stepped aside in respect for important people, the narrator decided to dress himself up. He took an advance from work and borrowed money in order to buy some appropriate clothing. Then dressing himself as a person of importance, he went to Nevsky Street, where the officer worked; but when the narrator met the officer, he found himself stepping aside for the uniformed man. Horrified at his own behavior, he decided he would try again. Every time he dressed up and encountered the officer, the same thing would happen. The narrator would loose courage and step aside for the officer. After each failure, he would literally feel sick. One day the narrator saw the officer, closed his eyes, and did not step aside. As a result, the two of them bumped into each other. The narrator was delighted that he had held his ground and went home feeling triumphant.

