Notes from the Underground, and The Gambler by Dostoevsky Fyodor

Author:Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 1991-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3

HOWEVER, yesterday she did not say a word to me all day long about gambling. Indeed, she avoided talking to me altogether yesterday. Her former manner to me has not altered. The same completely offhand behaviour when we meet, even something contemptuous and hostile about it. She has no wish to conceal her loathing for me; I can see that. In spite of this, neither does she hide from me the fact that she needs me for something and that she is sparing me for some reason. A peculiar kind of relationship has developed between us, much of which is incomprehensible to me—taking into account her pride and arrogance towards everyone. She knows, for instance, that I love her to distraction, and even allows me to talk about my passion—and of course she could not make her contempt for me more apparent than by allowing me to talk freely and without censorship of my love. It is like saying, ‘I have so little regard for your feeling that I really couldn’t care what you talk to me about and what your feelings for me are.’ As for her own affairs, she used to talk to me about them a lot before, but was never entirely open. And what is more, her indifference to me bore certain subtleties, like this, for example: she knows, let us suppose, that I am aware of some circumstance of her life, or something that worries her greatly; she will even tell me something about her circumstances if she needs to use me in some way for her purposes, like a slave, or an errand-boy; but she only tells me as much as someone who is employed to run errands need know, and—if I still do not know the whole chain of events, if she herself can see how tormented and worried I am by her torments and worries, she never favours me with the full reassurance of her open friendship, although by using me on frequent errands that are not only a nuisance but also dangerous, she is, in my opinion, obliged to be open with me. But is it worth troubling about my feelings, about the fact that I am also worried, and may be three times as anxious and concerned about her troubles and misfortunes as she is herself?!

For three weeks I have known of her intention to play roulette. She even warned me that I would have to play on her behalf because it would be unseemly for her to do so. It was then that I noticed, from the tone of her speech, that she had some kind of serious worry, and not just a desire to win some money. What does she care about money in itself? There is a purpose here, there are some circumstances about which I can guess, but which I do not yet know. Of course, this position of humiliation and slavery in which she keeps me can offer me (and very often does) the possibility of questioning her candidly and directly.

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