Notes from Underground, the Double and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
Published: 2009-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Half my story you know already—that is, you know that I have an old grandmother....”

“If the other half is as brief as that ...” I interrupted, laughing. “Be quiet and listen. First of all you must agree not to interrupt me, or else, perhaps I shall get in a muddle! Come, listen quietly.

“I have an old grandmother. I came into her hands when I was quite a little girl, for my father and mother are dead. It must be supposed that grandmother was once richer, for now she recalls better days. She taught me French, and then got a teacher for me. When I was fifteen (and now I am seventeen) we gave up having lessons. It was at that time that I got into mischief; what I did I won’t tell you; it’s enough to say that it wasn’t very important. But grandmother called me to her one morning and said that as she was blind she could not look after me; she took a pin and pinned my dress to hers, and said that we should sit like that for the rest of our lives if, of course, I did not become a better girl. In fact, at first it was impossible to get away from her: I had to work, to read and to study all beside grandmother. I tried to deceive her once, and persuaded Fyokla to sit in my place. Fyokla is our charwoman, she is deaf Fyokla sat there instead of me; grandmother was asleep in her arm-chair at the time, and I went off to see a friend close by. Well, it ended in trouble. Grandmother woke up while I was out, and asked some questions; she thought I was still sitting quietly in my place. Fyokla saw that grandmother was asking her something, but could not tell what it was; she wondered what to do, undid the pin and ran away....”

At this point Nastenka stopped and began laughing. I laughed with her. She left off at once.

“I tell you what, don’t you laugh at grandmother. I laugh because it’s funny.... What can I do, since grandmother is like that; but yet I am fond of her in a way. Oh, well, I did catch it that time. I had to sit down in my place at once, and after that I was not allowed to stir.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that our house belongs to us, that is to grandmother; it is a little wooden house with three windows as old as grandmother herself, with a little upper storey; well, there moved into our upper storey a new lodger.”

“Then you had an old lodger,” I observed casually.

“Yes, of course,” answered Nastenka, “and one who knew how to hold his tongue better than you do. In fact, he hardly ever used his tongue at all. He was a dumb, blind, lame, dried-up little old man, so that at last he could not go on living, he died; so then we had to

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