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

The underground man’s happiness wears off soon after this, though. He seeks escape into “all that was beautiful and sublime,” in his dreams, and says he dreams for three months straight. In his dreams, he is a hero. The happiness he finds in his dreams makes him optimistic that something will “suddenly appear” in the world and allow him to leave his isolation. Since this never happens, he instead becomes the worst person he can, because he wants to be “either a hero or dirt.”

The underground man alternates between feeling like a hero and feeling in “the lowest depths.” Nonetheless, he finds “fantastic love” in his dreams. He says he is a hero in his dreams, like Manfred (a Romantic hero in a work by Lord Byron), and everyone loves him. He guesses that his readers think it is repugnant of him to describe his tasteless dreams, but he insists he is not ashamed of his dreams.

After three months of such dreams, though, the underground man feels “an irresistible urge to plunge into society.” He says that he would normally alleviate this urge by going to see his office chief, Anton Antonych, who entertained guests at his home on Tuesdays. The underground man found conversation with these guests boring and each time after visiting Anton Antonych he says he would “postpone for some time my desire to embrace all of humanity.”

The underground man describes another acquaintance, a former schoolmate named Simonov. He absolutely hated school, but still knows of a few former schoolmates, including Simonov. One night, “unable to endure” his isolation, the underground man pays a visit to Simonov’s apartment. It has been a year since they have last seen each other.