December 8th.
I had quite made up my mind to go to the Department, but was prevented by various causes and meditations. I could not get the affairs of Spain out of my head. How is it possible that a woman should become sovereign? It will not be permitted. To begin with, England will not allow it. And then the diplomatic affairs of all Europe; the Emperor of Austria.... I acknowledge that these matters have so upset and unnerved me that I have been utterly unable to settle to anything the whole day. Mavra remarked to me that I was extremely absent-minded at table. And indeed I believe that, while absorbed in meditation, I threw two plates on to the floor and smashed them. After dinner I went for a walk by the hill. I couldn’t find out anything worth knowing. Most of the time I lay on my bed and meditated on the affairs of Spain.
Year 2000, April 48th.
This day is a day of great solemnity! There is a king in Spain. He has been found. I am the king. It was only to-day that I found it out. It suddenly flashed across me like lightning. I cannot conceive how I could imagine that I was a clerk! How could such a crazy notion get into my head? It’s a good thing that nobody thought of putting me into a madhouse. Now all is open before me. I see all as from a mountain summit. But formerly—I can’t understand it—formerly everything was in a sort of fog before me. It seems to me that all this results from people imagining that the human brain is situated in the head; that is not the case: it travels on the wind from the direction of the Caspian Sea. First of all, I announced my identity to Mavra. When she heard that before her stood the King of Spain she clasped her hands and half died of terror. The foolish woman had never seen a Spanish king before. However, I did my best to quiet her; and told her that I am not at all angry with her for sometimes cleaning my boots badly. Of course she is one of the common people, and you cannot talk to them of high matters. The reason she was so terrified was because she is quite convinced that all Spanish kings must be like Philip II. But I explained to her that there is no resemblance between me and Philip II. I did not go to the Department. The devil take the Department! No, my friends, you won’t catch me now; I am not going to copy your nasty papers.
Marchober 86th,
Between Day and Night.
To-day our usher came to me to insist that I should go to the Department; he said it was more than three weeks since I had been there. I went, just for a joke. The chief of the section thought that I should bow to him and make excuses; but I glanced at him with indifference, neither too sternly nor too graciously, and sat down at my place as if I observed nothing. I looked round at all the rag-tag-and-bob-tail, and thought, “Oh! if you knew who is sitting with you.... Good heavens! what a fuss there would be! And the chief of the section himself would begin bowing and scraping to me just as he does now to the director.” They laid some papers before me, telling me to make an extract; but I did not so much as touch them with a finger. A few minutes afterwards they all began bustling about, saying that the director was coming. Several of the officials hurried out, one after another, to present themselves to him; but I never moved. When he passed through our section they all buttoned up their coats; but I took no notice whatsoever. The director! What’s he? Do they think I’m going to stand up before him? Never! What sort of director is he? He’s a dummy, not a director; an ordinary, common dummy, like a dummy in a barber’s shop, and nothing else at all. The most amusing thing of all was when they handed me a paper to sign. They thought I was going to write at the very bottom of the sheet, “Clerk So-and-so.” I daresay! I signed, in the most conspicuous place, just where the Director of the Department signs, “Ferdinand VIII.” It was worth while to see what a reverential silence there was! However, I just waved my hand to them and said, “You needn’t trouble about tokens of allegiance,” and went away. I went straight to the director’s house. He was not at home, and the footman did not want to let me in, but I said something to him that made him just collapse. I went straight into her dressing-room. She was sitting before the looking-glass, but started up and shrank away from me. I did not tell her, however, that I am the king of Spain; I only told her that there lies before her such happiness as she cannot even imagine; and that, in spite of the snares of our foes, we shall be together. I did not want to say any more than that, and therefore went away. Oh! what a wily being is woman! It is only now I have fully understood what woman really is. Up till now no one has ever known with whom she is in love. I am the first to discover it. Woman is in love with the devil. Yes, it is a fact. Physiologists write all sorts of nonsense; but really she loves no one and nothing but the devil. There, you see, she sits in the dress-circle with her opera-glass; do you think she’s looking at that fat man with the star on his breast? Not a bit of it! She’s looking at the devil behind his back. The devil is hidden in the fat man’s coat. There! he is beckoning to her with his finger! And she’ll marry him—she’ll certainly marry him! All that comes from ambition; and the cause of ambition is a little blister under the tongue with a tiny worm inside it no bigger than a pin’s head; and all that is the doing of a certain hairdresser who lives in the Goròkhovaya. I can’t remember his name; but I know positively that he and a certain midwife are trying to spread Mahometanism throughout the whole world; and it is said that in France the greater part of the population has already accepted the Mahometan faith.
“I SAID, ‘YOU NEEDN’T TROUBLE ABOUT TOKENS OF ALLEGIANCE,’ AND WENT AWAY.”
No date at all; the day was