The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories | Page 4

This shall not occur again. Sentimental
out-breaks are like liquorice; when first you suck it, it's not bad, but
afterwards it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. I will set to work
simply and serenely to tell the story of my life. And so, we moved to

Moscow....
But it occurs to me, is it really worth while to tell the story of my life?
No, it certainly is not.... My life has not been different in any respect
from the lives of numbers of other people. The parental home, the
university, the government service in the lower grades, retirement, a
little circle of friends, decent poverty, modest pleasures, unambitious
pursuits, moderate desires--kindly tell me, is that new to any one? And
so I will not tell the story of my life, especially as I am writing for my
own pleasure; and if my past does not afford even me any sensation of
great pleasure or great pain, it must be that there is nothing in it
deserving of attention. I had better try to describe my own character to
myself. What manner of man am I?... It may be observed that no one
asks me that question--admitted. But there, I'm dying, by Jove!--I'm
dying, and at the point of death I really think one may be excused a
desire to find out what sort of a queer fish one really was after all.
Thinking over this important question, and having, moreover, no need
whatever to be too bitter in my expressions in regard to myself, as
people are apt to be who have a strong conviction of their valuable
qualities, I must admit one thing. I was a man, or perhaps I should say a
fish, utterly superfluous in this world. And that I propose to show
to-morrow, as I keep coughing to-day like an old sheep, and my nurse,
Terentyevna, gives me no peace: 'Lie down, my good sir,' she says, 'and
drink a little tea.'... I know why she keeps on at me: she wants some tea
herself. Well! she's welcome! Why not let the poor old woman extract
the utmost benefit she can from her master at the last ... as long as there
is still the chance?
March 23.
Winter again. The snow is falling in flakes. Superfluous, superfluous....
That's a capital word I have hit on. The more deeply I probe into myself,
the more intently I review all my past life, the more I am convinced of
the strict truth of this expression. Superfluous--that's just it. To other
people that term is not applicable.... People are bad, or good, clever,
stupid, pleasant, and disagreeable; but superfluous ... no. Understand

me, though: the universe could get on without those people too... no
doubt; but uselessness is not their prime characteristic, their most
distinctive attribute, and when you speak of them, the word
'superfluous' is not the first to rise to your lips. But I ... there's nothing
else one can say about me; I'm superfluous and nothing more. A
supernumerary, and that's all. Nature, apparently, did not reckon on my
appearance, and consequently treated me as an unexpected and
uninvited guest. A facetious gentleman, a great devotee of preference,
said very happily about me that I was the forfeit my mother had paid at
the game of life. I am speaking about myself calmly now, without any
bitterness.... It's all over and done with! Throughout my whole life I
was constantly finding my place taken, perhaps because I did not look
for my place where I should have done. I was apprehensive, reserved,
and irritable, like all sickly people. Moreover, probably owing to
excessive self-consciousness, perhaps as the result of the generally
unfortunate cast of my personality, there existed between my thoughts
and feelings, and the expression of those feelings and thoughts, a sort
of inexplicable, irrational, and utterly insuperable barrier; and
whenever I made up my mind to overcome this obstacle by force, to
break down this barrier, my gestures, the expression of my face, my
whole being, took on an appearance of painful constraint. I not only
seemed, I positively became unnatural and affected. I was conscious of
this myself, and hastened to shrink back into myself. Then a terrible
commotion was set up within me. I analysed myself to the last thread,
compared myself with others, recalled the slightest glances, smiles,
words of the people to whom I had tried to open myself out, put the
worst construction on everything, laughed vindictively at my own
pretensions to 'be like every one else,'--and suddenly, in the midst of
my laughter, collapsed utterly into gloom, sank into absurd dejection,
and then began again as before--went round and round, in fact, like a
squirrel on its wheel. Whole days were spent in this harassing,