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

The narrator explains that each period of dissipation leaves him sick and remorseful, until he becomes accustomed even to that. His remedy is escape into dreams of the “sublime and beautiful,” where he imagines himself a hero beyond shame, which justifies his degradation and intensifies the allure of dissipation by contrast.

He describes these fantasies: triumphant confessions, universal admiration, riches devoted to humanity, and grand, theatrical scenes cribbed from art. Though he recognizes their vulgarity, he admits they satisfied him and supplied meaning to his otherwise sordid habits.

When such dreaming grows too intense, he feels compelled to “embrace mankind,” which for him means Tuesday visits to his office superior, Anton Antonitch. There he sits silently for hours amid drab talk of bureaucratic matters, which dulls his exalted impulses and defers his urge for universal love.

Outside those Tuesdays, he has only one other tenuous acquaintance: his former schoolmate Simonov. On a Thursday, unable to endure isolation and with Anton Antonitch unavailable, he decides to visit Simonov despite believing Simonov dislikes him. He climbs to Simonov’s lodging, noting it has been almost a year since they last met.