Who He Is
Ferfichkin is the other school friend whom the underground man meets at Simonov's house. He is Russian of German origin, small, with a monkey's face, and the narrator presents him as a fool who laughs at everything and everyone, his worst enemy since the first grades, insolent, a braggart, who puts on touchiness about honor and is, at heart, a coward (ch. III of Part Two). He belongs to the group of those who surround Zverkov out of interest, borrowing money from him, and speaks of him like a lackey who boasts of his master's decorations.
Trajectory
In ch. III of Part Two it is he who insists, vehemently, that Zverkov will not let his friends pay alone: he will accept out of courtesy, but will put half a dozen bottles of his own. When the narrator offers to join the list, he is the first to answer that no one knew where to find him, whispers about money with Simonov, and on leaving adds, angrily, that it is a circle of friends and that perhaps they do not even want the narrator there. He leaves without greeting him.
In ch. IV of Part Two the tone loosens with the wine. Ferfichkin accompanies Zverkov's laugh, a thin, almost doglike laugh, when it becomes clear that the narrator waited an hour alone, and then throws out that one does not lunch in a restaurant on that salary. The narrator's reply, that he dines there with his own money and not with that of others, opens the fight between the two: Ferfichkin retorts by asking who there is dining for free, whether he intends to show off his intelligence, and whether he has lost his mind in his department; and it is he who, during the toast, asks for silence with a mocking air to hear so much intelligence, and who says that for words like those one is struck in the face. The narrator then challenges him for the next day, and Ferfichkin accepts; but the challenge turns out so ridiculous in the figure of the man that the whole table, and Ferfichkin with them, burst out laughing. Later, when the narrator asks everyone's pardon, Ferfichkin insinuates, venomously, that it was the duel that frightened him, and the narrator answers that he will fight him the next day, once they are reconciled, and will fire into the air. In ch. V of Part Two the narrator, on his way to the brothel, imagines him grabbing him by the hair at the moment of the fight.
Themes Embodied
Ferfichkin is the measure of Pride turned inside out. The narrator says he plays with the most sensitive honor and that, inside, he is a coward; the text never tests this, because the duel that is set does not happen, and what is seen is that he accepts the challenge, laughs with the table when the narrator makes a fool of himself, and insinuates fear when the narrator asks for peace. In this way he occupies the same place as the narrator, on a smaller scale: a man who draws close to Zverkov and makes use of his brilliance, and who is not taken seriously by the group, only with the advantage of being on the side of laughter. What he wants, as far as one can see, is to please Zverkov and look good before the others; what he knows, in each scene, is which side the table is on. Where he is mistaken, if he is, is in treating as pose what in the narrator comes from distress, and this costs him little, because the table is on his side. Two readings: the comic contrast the text uses to put the narrator in ridicule, or the mirror in which he sees what the dinner would make of him, a satellite that laughs with the strong because it has no way to shine on its own. The narrator calls him an insect ("козявка") on the morning of the dinner, when he imagines him, and the word echoes a Part One in which he did not manage to be even an insect.
Relationships
- The underground man: the enemy since the first grades, whom he challenges over a phrase and who makes him the target of the table's laughter (ch. III of Part Two, ch. IV of Part Two).
- Zverkov: the friend who flatters and from whom he borrows money (ch. III of Part Two, ch. IV of Part Two).
- Trudolyubov and Simonov: the two colleagues with whom he decides on the dinner and sits at the table (ch. III of Part Two, ch. IV of Part Two).