It ended by my almost

believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal

condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that

struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my

life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now,

perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret

abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on

some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had

committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be

undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing

and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of

shameful accursed sweetness, and at last--into positive real enjoyment!

Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of

this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel

such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too

intense consciousness of one's own degradation; it was from feeling

oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that

it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never

could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left

you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to

change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because

perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.

And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord

with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and

with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that

consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely

nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness,

that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were

any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he

actually is a scoundrel. But enough. ... Ech, I have talked a lot of

nonsense, but what have I explained? How is enjoyment in this to be

explained? But I will explain it. I will get to the bottom of it! That is why

I have taken up my pen. ...

I, for instance, have a great deal of AMOUR PROPRE. I am as suspicious

and prone to take offence as a humpback or a dwarf. But upon my word I

sometimes have had moments when if I had happened to be slapped in

the face I should, perhaps, have been positively glad of it. I say, in

earnest, that I should probably have been able to discover even in that a

peculiar sort of enjoyment--the enjoyment, of course, of despair; but in

despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is

very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. And when

one is slapped in the face--why then the consciousness of being rubbed

into a pulp would positively overwhelm one. The worst of it is, look at it

which way one will, it still turns out that I was always the most to blame

in everything. And what is most humiliating of all, to blame for no fault

of my own but, so to say, through the laws of nature. In the first place, to

blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me. (I

have always considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding

me, and sometimes, would you believe it, have been positively

ashamed of it. At any rate, I have all my life, as it were, turned my eyes

away and never could look people straight in the face.) To blame, finally,

because even if I had had magnanimity, I should only have had more

suffering from the sense of its uselessness. I should certainly have never

been able to do anything from being magnanimous--neither to forgive,

for my assailant would perhaps have slapped me from the laws of nature,

and one cannot forgive the laws of nature; nor to forget, for even if it were

owing to the laws of nature, it is insulting all the same. Finally, even if I

had wanted to be anything but magnanimous, had desired on the

contrary to revenge myself on my assailant, I could not have revenged

myself on any one for anything because I should certainly never have

made up my mind to do anything, even if I had been able to. Why

should I not have made up my mind? About that in particular I want to

say a few words.

III

With people who know how to revenge themselves and to stand up for

themselves in general, how is it done? Why, when they are possessed, let

us suppose, by the feeling of revenge, then for the time there is nothing

else but that feeling left in their whole being. Such a gentleman simply

dashes straight for his object like an infuriated bull with its horns down,

and nothing but a wall will stop him. (By the way: facing the wall, such

gentlemen--that is, the "direct" persons and men of action--are genuinely

nonplussed. For them a wall is not an evasion, as for us people who

think and consequently do nothing; it is not an excuse for turning aside,

an excuse for which we are always very glad, though we scarcely believe

in it ourselves, as a rule. No, they are nonplussed in all sincerity. The

wall has for them something tranquillising, morally soothing, final--

maybe even something mysterious ...