Notes From The Underground 45

They took rank for intelligence; even at sixteen they were already talking about a snug berth. Of course, a great deal of it was due to their stupidity, to the bad examples with which they had always been surround-ed in their childhood and boyhood. They were monstrously depraved. Of course a great deal of that, too, was superfi-cial and an assumption of cynicism; of course there were glimpses of youth and freshness even in their depravity; but even that freshness was not attractive, and showed itself in a certain rakishness. I hated them horribly, though per-haps I was worse than any of them. They repaid me in the same way, and did not conceal their aversion for me. But by then I did not desire their affection: on the contrary, I con-tinually longed for their humiliation. To escape from their derision I purposely began to make all the progress I could with my studies and forced my way to the very top. This im-pressed them.

Moreover, they all began by degrees to grasp that I had already read books none of them could read, and understood things (not forming part of our school curricu-lum) of which they had not even heard. They took a savage and sarcastic view of it, but were morally impressed, espe-cially as the teachers began to notice me on those grounds. The mockery ceased, but the hostility remained, and cold and strained relations became permanent between us. In the end I could not put up with it: with years a craving for society, for friends, developed in me. I attempted to get on friendly terms with some of my schoolfellows; but somehow or other my intimacy with them was always strained and soon ended of itself. Once, indeed, I did have a friend. But I was already a tyrant at heart; I wanted to exercise unbound-ed sway over him; I tried to instil into him a contempt for his surroundings; I required of him a disdainful and com-plete break with those surroundings. I frightened him with my passionate affection; I reduced him to tears, to hyster-ics. He was a simple and devoted soul; but when he devoted himself to me entirely I began to hate him immediately and repulsed him—as though all I needed him for was to win a victory over him, to subjugate him and nothing else. But I could not subjugate all of them; my friend was not at all like them either, he was, in fact, a rare exception. The first thing I did on leaving school was to give up the special job for which I had been destined so as to break all ties, to curse my past and shake the dust from off my feet .... And good-ness knows why, after all that, I should go trudging off to Simonov’s!

to be contd...