Notes from the Underground

Purchase one of 1st World Librarys Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. 1st World Library-Literary Society is a non-profit educational organization. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However I know nothing at all about my disease and do not know for certain what ails me. I dont consult a doctor for it and never have though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides I am extremely superstitious sufficiently so to respect medicine anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious but I am superstitious). No I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well I understand it though. Of course I cant explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot pay out the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still if I dont consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad well - let it get worse! I have been going on like that for a long time - twenty years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes you see so I was bound to find a recompense in that at least. (A poor jest but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable way I will not scratch it out on purpose!)