Notes From The Underground 83

Notes From The Underground 83

2 mins
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‘Stay!’ I roared, running up to him, ‘don’t stir! There. An-swer, now: what did you come in to look at?’

‘If you have any order to give me it’s my duty to carry it out,’ he answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp, raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to another, all this with exasperating composure.

‘That’s not what I am asking you about, you torturer!’ I shouted, turning crimson with anger. ‘I’ll tell you why you came here myself: you see, I don’t give you your wages, you are so proud you don’t want to bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid stares, to worry me and you have no sus-pic-ion how stupid it is— stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! ...’

He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him.

‘Listen,’ I shouted to him. ‘Here’s the money, do you see, here it is,’ (I took it out of the table drawer); ‘here’s the seven roubles complete, but you are not going to have it, you ... are ... not ... going ... to ... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. Do you hear?’

‘That cannot be,’ he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

‘It shall be so,’ I said, ‘I give you my word of honour, it shall be!’

‘And there’s nothing for me to beg your pardon for,’ he went on, as though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. ‘Why, besides, you called me a ‘torturer,’ for which I can summon you at the police-station at any time for insulting behaviour.’

to be contd..


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