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. 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
anyone 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!
-- Notes from the Underground