comfortable, unsure of what to say. These visits would temper his love of mankind for awhile.
             One day, in the midst of one of his better moods, the UM decides to visit Simonov, his only friend from his school days. He did not have any other friends from school, having deliberately disassociated himself from what that painful period in his lif e. He expected Simonov to despise him, but this expectation only made him more intent on the visit. The chapter ends with him stepping into Simonov's apartment.
             For the first time, with the officer, we see the UM's self-described masochism in action. He feels insulted by the officer in the bar, and ashamed of his own cowardice. The UM is rarely capable of dealing with things actively. He goes back to his hole and broods for a matter of years. There is a very long stretch of time during which the UM was obsessed with the officer, from the moving in the bar to the push on the street. And all of this is just as the UM described--he becomes angry and insulted, a nd begins to find pleasure in his painful brooding.
             The UM's description of his workplace is very revealing. We have been wondering what experiences led the UM to his antisocial views, and here we begin to get some answers. His vacillation between arrogance and fear is very evident--he either feels above his coworkers (more intelligent, more thoughtful), or beneath, like a coward or a slave. His arrogance makes them despise him more.
             Lastly, the UM's delusions of grandeur further evidence his insecurity and obsession with being accepted by society. The officer comes to him and begs for acceptance. He has a flash of the "sublime" and wants to befriend his coworkers. He becomes a mil lionaire and donates all his money to various charities. Although these fantasies disgust him, he finds them to be "romantic" dreams which, despite his defense of the Russian Romantic in Chapter 1 of Part II, are pathetic to him. Here we find another de ...