Capitol Latino

As translated by Constance Garnett —

I am a sick man … I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course I can’t explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot “pay out” the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than any one that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well — let it get worse!

Tags: Constance Garnett, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground