Notes from Underground: Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The underground man’s story takes place when he is 24, living a very solitary life. He doesn’t even really look at other people in his office and feels that his coworkers dislike him. He hates his coworkers, but sometimes thinks of them as superior to him. He calls himself “a coward and a slave,” and says that “a decent man must be a coward and a slave.” He tells his readers he felt completely alone, and thought no one at the office was like him.

At times, the underground man would try to talk with those in his office and make friends, but at other times he would remain aloof. He would often criticize himself for being overly Romantic, and digresses about Romanticism. He says that Russian Romantics have more common sense than those in Germany or France, who he sees as foolish, impractical, and overly idealistic. He says that as an example of how he was different from other Romantics, he didn’t quit his job, because he needed the money.

The underground man says that he spent most of his time at home reading, but “sank into dark, subterranean, loathsome depravity.” He says he did this because of depression and “a hysterical craving for contradictions and contrasts.” First he tells his readers that he is not trying to justify his behavior, but then he says he is. He says that he was “carrying around the underground in my soul.”

One night, the underground man sees a man get kicked out of a bar for fighting. He goes into the bar thinking that he could also get into a fight. He gets in an officer’s way, but the man simply moves him without saying anything, as if he didn’t even notice him. Instead of the fight he was hoping for, the underground man says he was treated “as if I were a fly.” He thinks of challenging the officer to a duel, but goes home and says he retreated because he was afraid that everyone at the bar would laugh at him when he spoke in literary Russian about duels and honor.

The underground man would frequently see the officer on the street after this event, and would often stare at him “with malice and hatred.” He writes a story about the officer and sends it to a journal, but it is not published. He thinks again of challenging the officer to a duel, and writes a letter to him. He says that if the officer had “even the smallest understanding of the ‘beautiful and sublime,’” they would become friends as a result of his well-written letter. But ultimately he does not send the letter.

The underground man describes how he used to stroll along a particular street sometimes, and “darted in and out like a fish among the strollers,” constantly stepping out of people’s ways. This made him feel humiliated, like “a fly in the eyes of society,” forced to get out of everyone else’s way. He occasionally sees the officer on this street, and steps aside whenever he and the officer walk into each other’s paths. He devises a plan to walk into the officer, not change his path, and bump into him.

First, though, the underground man wants to get nice clothes, ones that would make him look respectable. He buys all new clothes, and even has to borrow money from his office chief, Anton Antonych Setochkin, to pay for them, which is embarrassing for him. The underground man sets out to bump into the officer, but finds he kept stepping out of the way at the last second.

One time, the underground man trips and falls, and the officer merely steps over him. Finally, he carries out his plan, and bumps into the officer. The officer acts as if he didn’t notice anything, but the underground man says he is sure the officer was simply pretending. He feels as though he has kept his dignity and feels “avenged for everything.”