Notes from Underground

In Part 2, Chapter 5, The Underground Man imagines the terrible fate that will befall him if he duels Zverkov, conceding that he would lose the duel and ruin his life in a parody of fictional stories he's read before. Everyone has left him after he embarrasses himself at the dinner, and he imagines a terrible fate for himself because of this:

Fifteen years later when they let me out of jail, a beggar in rags, I’ll drag myself off to see [Zverkov]. I’ll find him in some provincial town. He’ll be married and happy. He’ll have a grown daughter. . . . I’ll say, "Look, you monster, look at my sunken cheeks and my rags. I’ve lost everything—career, happiness, art, science, a beloved woman—all because of you. Here are the pistols. I came here to load my pistol, and . . . and I forgive you." Then I’ll fire into the air, and he’ll never hear another word from me again. . . .

I was actually about to cry, even though I knew for a fact at that very moment that all this was straight out of Silvio and Lermontov’s Masquerade.

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