Notes from Underground — Part II A Propos the Wet Snow — Chapter IX

Liza arrives to the narrator’s shabby room, finding him disheveled and agitated. He stalls by sending Apollon for tea, then erupts into hysterics, sobbing and declaring hatred for his servant. Ashamed before Liza, he grows spiteful and resolves to punish her for witnessing his humiliation.

In a venomous outburst, the narrator confesses he sought power over Liza at the brothel, mocked her sentiments, and only wanted to wring tears and humiliation. He admits his crushing vanity and fear of poverty, raging that he wants peace even at the world’s expense, and demands she leave.

Instead of fleeing, Liza recognizes his misery beneath the abuse. She rises, reaches for him, and when he collapses into deeper hysterics, she holds him while he weeps. As his sobbing subsides, he feels shame and a reversal of roles: Liza now seems the stronger, compassionate “heroine,” and he the humiliated one.

That shame ignites a possessive, vindictive passion. He seizes her hands, torn between hatred and desire; Liza is briefly frightened, then responds with warmth. They embrace rapturously, the scene closing on their fraught yielding to emotion.