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 ....

XI

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.