Crime and Punishment & Other Great Novels of Dostoevsky
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Contents
Notes from Underground — Part II A Propos the Wet Snow — Chapter I
Overview
The narrator recounts an old humiliation by a tall officer that fuels years of obsession and schemes for vindication. After elaborate preparations, he finally collides with the officer on the Nevsky without yielding, briefly feeling avenged. The episode exposes his vanity, fear of ridicule, and self-defeating “underground” psychology.
Summary
The narrator recalls being a 24-year-old clerk, isolated, self-loathing, and hypersensitive. He despises coworkers yet fears their judgment, oscillating between arrogance and abasement. Seeking escape, he reads compulsively and furtively indulges in petty vices, all the while cultivating an “underground” consciousness and terror of ridicule.
Drawn to sordid scenes, he enters a tavern hoping for a fight but is silently manhandled aside by a tall officer at a billiard table. The casual slight devastates him; he obsesses for years, stalking the officer, learning his name and address, even writing an unprinted satirical “exposé,” and drafting a belated duel challenge he never sends.
Craving a revenge that proves his dignity, he fixates on meeting the officer on the Nevsky and not stepping aside. He prepares meticulously: buying a better hat and black gloves, replacing his raccoon collar with beaver by selling it and borrowing money from his superior, Anton Antonitch Syetotchkin.
Repeated attempts fail as the narrator instinctively yields or even stumbles before contact. At last, resolved, he closes his eyes and collides shoulder to shoulder with the officer, neither yielding. Though physically outmatched, he deems the act a public restoration of equality and returns home exultant.
His triumph quickly sours in the days after, consistent with his earlier patterns of self-torment. The officer is later transferred, and the narrator never sees him again.
Who Appears
- Unnamed narrator (Underground Man)Twenty-four-year-old clerk; isolated, vain, self-loathing. Obsesses over an officer’s slight and engineers a symbolic street collision for revenge.
- Tall officerSilently moves the narrator aside at a billiard table; later becomes the focus of years-long resentment and the Nevsky shoulder-collision.
- Anton Antonitch SyetotchkinThe narrator’s superior; reluctantly lends money, enabling the narrator’s attire upgrade for the planned confrontation.
- PorterFor ten kopecks, provides the officer’s residence details to the narrator.