.dt Stavrogin’s Confession and The Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner,\
by F. M. Dostoevsky-A Project Gutenberg eBook
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STAVROGIN’S CONFESSION||AND||THE PLAN OF||THE LIFE OF A GREAT SINNER
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F. M. DOSTOEVSKY
STAVROGIN’S CONFESSION
AND
THE PLAN OF
THE LIFE OF A GREAT SINNER
WITH INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
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TRANSLATED BY
S. S. KOTELIANSKY AND VIRGINIA WOOLF
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PUBLISHED BY LEONARD & VIRGINIA WOOLF AT
THE HOGARTH PRESS, PARADISE ROAD, RICHMOND
1922
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All rights reserved
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TRANSLATORS’ NOTE
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The Russian Government has recently published
a small paper-covered book containing Stavrogin’s
Confession, unpublished chapters of Dostoevsky’s
novel The Possessed, and Dostoevsky’s plan or
sketch of a novel which he never actually wrote
but which he called The Life of a Great Sinner.
The circumstances in which these MSS. were
discovered are described in the note of the
Russian Government which we give below. Our
translation of Stavrogin’s Confession and of the
plan is from the text as published by the Russian
Government. We have added translations of
introductory or explanatory notes upon the two
MSS. by V. Friche, V. Komarovich, and N.
Brodsky. The notes by Friche and Komarovich
are given in the book published by the Russian
Government, that by M. Komarovich appeared
in Builoe (No. 18, 1922).
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It should be added that there are two different
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versions of the unpublished chapters of The
Possessed in existence, and they have both been
published for the first time this year. The second
version, which is in the Pushkin Department of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, was published
in Builoe. We have not included it, since it
appears to be an earlier version than that published
by the Russian Government. It should be noted
that M. Komarovich’s note refers to this version
in the Academy of Sciences.
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CONTENTS
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| PAGE
Translators’ Note | #5#
New MSS. of F. M. Dostoevsky: Note by the Russian Government | #9#
Stavrogin’s Confession. By F. M. Dostoevsky | #17#
The Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner.\
By F. M. Dostoevsky | #85#
Stavrogin’s Meeting with Tikhon. By V. Friche | #115#
Introduction to the Unpublished Chapter of The Possessed.\
By V. Komarovich | #125#
The Unfulfilled Idea: Note on The Life of a Great Sinner.\
By N. Brodsky | #145#
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Footnotes | #171#
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NEW MSS. OF F. M. DOSTOEVSKY
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Note by the Russian Government
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On November 12, 1921, in the presence of A. V.
Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education, and M. N.
Pokrovsky, Assistant Commissar of Education,
in the Central Archive Department of the Russian
Socialist Federative Soviet Republic there was
opened a white tin case numbered 5038 from the
State Archives containing F. M. Dostoevsky’s
papers.
.pi
In the case were twenty-three articles: note-books,
bags, and bundles of letters and other
documents. On one of these note-books, which
is bound (187 numbered pages), is written: “en
cas de ma mort ou une maladie grave”; these
are business papers and instructions of Anna
Grigorevna Dostoevsky, the writer’s wife. On
pages 53-55 she has written: “List of note-books
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in which Fedor Mikhailovich wrote the
plans of his novels and also some biographical
notes, copies of letters, etc.” Madame A. G.
Dostoevsky gives a list of fifteen such note-books
with a short description of their contents and
disposal: Nos. 1 and 2, Crime and Punishment;
No. 3, Crime and Punishment and The Idiot;
Nos. 4-5, Journal, 1876; No. 6, Journal, 1881;
Nos. 7 and 8, The Raw Youth; No. 9, Brothers
Karamazov; No. 10, The Idiot; No. 11, The
Eternal Husband; Nos. 12-15, The Possessed.
Of these fifteen note-books enumerated by A. G.
Dostoevsky the following were deposited on her
instructions in the Historical Museum: No. 7,
No. 12, and No. 13. Note-book No. 8 was in
1901 “transferred to Lubov Fedorovna Dostoevsky”
(Dostoevsky’s daughter), and No. 9 was
deposited elsewhere. The other note-books of
Dostoevsky given in A. G. Dostoevsky’s list,
with the exception of No. 11, i.e. Nos. 1-6, 10,
14, and 15, were found in the white case when
it was opened on November 12 at the Central
Archive Department.
On the first page of these note-books A. G.
Dostoevsky has, in her own handwriting, given a
brief list of their contents, as follows:
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No. 1
(147 numbered pages)
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1. Variant of the novel Crime and Punishment, under
the title On Trial. (Raskolnikov tells his story.)
2. Materials for the novel Crime and Punishment.
3. Draft of letter to Katkov.
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No. 2
(152 pages)
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1. Variant of the novel Crime and Punishment.
2. Materials for the novel Crime and Punishment.
3. Materials for the tale The Crocodile.—Answers to
Sovremennik.—Notes.
4. Letter to Katkov (1865) explaining the fundamental
idea of Crime and Punishment.
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No. 3
(154 pages)
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1. Materials for the novel Crime and Punishment.
2. Materials for the novel The Idiot.
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No. 4
(Pages not numbered)
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Journal, 1876. January, February, March.
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No. 5
(84 pages)
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Journal, 1876. April, December.
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No. 6
(58 pages)
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Journal, 1881.
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No. 10
(136 pages)
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The Idiot.
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No. 14
(56 pages)
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The Possessed. Notes for the end of the novel.
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No. 15
(62 pages)
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The Possessed.
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In addition to these note-books which were
in A. G. Dostoevsky’s list, there were also found
in the white case three other note-books not
mentioned by her, namely, (1) containing materials
for The Raw Youth, in a linen binding, 204 pages;
(2) unbound, 33½ folios, also containing material
for The Raw Youth (one of these may be either
No. 7 or No. 8 above); (3) containing materials
for The Idiot, 144 pages.[#]
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This is almost certainly No. 11 above, since it contains, besides
notes for The Idiot, notes for The Eternal Husband.
.pm fn-end
Everything of value in these note-books will
be published in a book, now being prepared,
which will include Dostoevsky’s letters found in
the case; they cover the period 1839-1855,
mostly to his brother, as well as the period 1866-1880,
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the latter being to his fiancée and future
wife, A. G. Dostoevsky. The new note-books
will make it possible to understand with some
accuracy and completeness the method of work
by which Dostoevsky produced such masterpieces
as Crime and Punishment, The Raw Youth, and
The Possessed. Besides these, there are scattered
through the note-books subjects of stories (The
Crank), long tales (The Seekings), poems (Imperator),
which were planned but not written.
In addition to the list which Madame Dostoevsky
gives in the note-book marked “en cas de
ma mort, etc.,” she also mentions one other
note-book in which fifteen proof-sheets of The
Possessed had been pasted. This note-book was
also found in the white case. On the first page
of it A. G. Dostoevsky has written: “In this
note-book (in proof-sheets) are a few chapters
of the novel The Possessed, which were not included
in it by F. M. Dostoevsky, when it was published
in Russkìi Vèstnik. The first chapter (proof-sheets
1-5) was first published in the eighth
volume of the jubilee edition of the Complete
Works in the section ‘Materials for the novel
The Possessed.’” (This last statement is not quite
correct. In the “Materials,” to which A. G.
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Dostoevsky refers, the first chapter is not published
in full, the first twenty lines not being included.)
“The other chapters,” A. G. Dostoevsky continues,
“have never been published.”
Below the reader will find the text of these
two hitherto unpublished chapters of The Possessed.
We have thought it necessary also to republish the
first chapter, because all these chapters form a
whole and should be given together, and also
because the beginning of the first chapter was
not published in the Supplement to Vol. VIII. of
the jubilee edition. The fifteen proof-sheets
pasted in the note-book—particularly after the
first chapter—are covered, in the margins and
the text itself, with a vast number of corrections,
insertions, and additions in Dostoevsky’s handwriting.
We give below the text of the proofs with
only a few of the author’s corrections. We have
omitted passages which Dostoevsky struck out
without substituting a variant, though we give
such passages in the footnotes. We have made
a few corrections about which there could be no
doubt. All the other corrections and additions,
which are extremely numerous, will be given in
a book of new materials on Dostoevsky which
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is under preparation. It is clear that the author
himself did not consider that these marginal
corrections and additions were final. This is
shown by the fact that there are several mistakes
in the text and the punctuation is not always
correct, while often there are several different
corrections of the text in the margin and it is not
clear which correction is to be preferred; other
passages are incompletely corrected, and, lastly,
several corrections inserted in the text give a
rough version in which the same idea is expressed
more than once in different words.
The plan of The Life of a Great Sinner,
which we give below, is taken from F. M.
Dostoevsky’s note-book which is in the Historical
Museum. This plan has recently been published
by L. P. Grossman in his book on Dostoevsky,[#]
but not in full nor accurately, with such important
omissions that the text given below can alone be
considered accurately to reproduce the original.
.pm fn-start
Dostoevsky’s Genius, Odessa, 1921.
.pm fn-end
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STAVROGIN’S CONFESSION
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THREE HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED CHAPTERS OF THE NOVEL
THE POSSESSED
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PART SECOND[#]
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Originally “Chapter IX.”
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CHAPTER I
AT TIKHON’S
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I
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Nikolai Vsevolodovich did not sleep that night,
and all the time he sat on the sofa, often gazing
fixedly at a particular point in the corner near
the chest of drawers. All night long the lamp
burnt in his room. About seven o’clock in the
morning he fell asleep where he sat, and, when
Alexei Egorovich, according to invariable custom,
came into his room at half-past nine precisely
with a cup of coffee and, by coming in, woke
him, he seemed unpleasantly surprised that he
should have slept so long and that it was already
so late. He hastily drank his coffee, hastily
dressed himself, and hurriedly left the house.
To Alexei Egorovich’s hesitating question “Any
orders?” he made no reply. He walked along
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the street looking at the ground, deep in thought,
save that now and then he looked up for a moment,
raised his head, showing a certain vague but
violent uneasiness. At one crossing, not far
from the house, a crowd of peasants, about fifty
or more, crossed the road; they walked orderly,
almost silently, in deliberate order. At the
little shop, where he had to wait a moment,
some one said that these were “Shpigulin’s
workmen.” He hardly paid any attention to
them. At last, about half-past ten, he approached
the gate of Our Lady Spasso-Efimev Monastery,
on the outskirts of the town, by the river. Here
only he suddenly seemed to remember something
alarming and troublesome, stopped, hastily
fumbled for something in his side pocket and—smiled.
Upon entering the enclosure he asked
the first youth he met how to find Bishop Tikhon,
who was living in retirement in the Monastery.
The youth began bowing, and immediately
showed the way. Near the little flight of steps,
at the end of the long two-storied Monastery
buildings, he was taken over from the youth,
authoritatively and promptly, by a fat grey-haired
monk, who took him through a long
narrow corridor, also bowing all the time (though
because of his fat he could not bow low, but
only twitched his head frequently and abruptly),
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and all the time begging him to follow, though
Nikolai Vsevolodovich followed without being
told to. The monk asked questions incessantly
and spoke of the Father Archimandrite, but,
receiving no answers, he became more and more
deferential. Stavrogin observed that he was
known here, although, so far as he remembered,
he had only been here as a child. When they
reached the door at the very end of the corridor
the monk opened it, as if he had authority, and
enquired familiarly of the lay-brother, who
instantly appeared, whether they might go in;
then, without waiting for a reply, he threw the
door wide open, and, bending down, let the
“dear” visitor enter. On receiving a gratuity
he quickly disappeared, as if in flight. Nikolai
Vsevolodovich entered a small room, and almost
at that very moment there appeared in the door
of the adjoining room a tall thin man, aged
about fifty-five, in a simple cassock, looking
rather ill, with a vague smile and with a strange,
somewhat shy expression. This was that very
Tikhon of whom Nikolai Vsevolodovich had
heard for the first time from Shatov, and about
whom he had since managed to collect in passing
certain information.
.pi
The information was varied and contradictory,
but there was something common to it all,
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namely, that those who liked Tikhon and those
who did not like him (there were such) both
kept back something of their opinion. Those
who did not like him probably did it out of
contempt for him; and his adherents, even the
ardent ones, from a sort of modesty, as though
wishing to conceal something about him—some
weakness, some craziness perhaps. Nikolai
Vsevolodovich had found out that Tikhon had
been living in the Monastery for about six years,
and that the humblest people as well as the most
distinguished were in the habit of going to him
there; that even in far-distant Petersburg he
had ardent admirers amongst men, but chiefly
among women. Again he had also heard from
one stately-looking old man belonging to our
“Club,” a pious old man too, this opinion, that
“that Tikhon is almost a madman[#] and, undoubtedly,
given to drink.” For my own part,
I shall add, although this is anticipating, that
the last statement is complete rubbish, but that
he is afflicted with a chronic rheumatic affection
in his legs and suffers at times from nervous
tremors. Nikolai Vsevolodovich also learnt that
the Bishop who lived in retreat in the Monastery
had not managed to inspire a particular respect
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for himself in the Monastery itself, either through
weakness of character or through absentmindedness
unforgivable and improper in one
of his rank. It was also said that the Father
Archimandrite, a stern man, conscientious in
the discharge of his duties as Father Superior,
and famous too for his scholarship, even cherished
a certain hostility against him and condemned
him (not to his face, but indirectly) for his
slovenly mode of life, and almost accused him
of heresy. The monks, too, treated the sick
Bishop not exactly with neglect, but with a sort
of familiarity. The two rooms which composed
Tikhon’s cell were also rather strangely furnished.
Side by side with clumsy old pieces of furniture,
covered with shabby leather, were three or four
elegant things: a superb easy-chair, a large
writing-table of excellent workmanship, a daintily
carved bookcase, little tables, shelves, all of which
had, of course, been given to him as presents.
There was an expensive Bokhara carpet, and also
mats. There were engravings of a “worldly”
nature and of mythological subjects, and alongside
with these in the corner there was a large
shrine glittering with gold and silver icons, one
of which was of very ancient date and contained
relics. His library also, it was said, was of a
too varied and contradictory character: side by
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side with the works of the great ecclesiastics
and Christian Fathers there were works “of
drama and fiction, and perhaps something even
worse.”
.pm fn-start
After “madman” is struck out: “and at any rate, a perfectly
talentless creature.”
.pm fn-end
After the first greetings, uttered with an
evident awkwardness on both sides, hurriedly
and even indistinctly, Tikhon led his visitor to
his study, and, as if all the while in a hurry,
made him sit on the sofa, in front of the table,
and sat down himself nearby in a wicker chair.[#]
To his surprise Nikolai Vsevolodovich was completely
at a loss. It looked as if he was making
up his mind with all his might on a step extraordinary
and inevitable, and yet at the same time
almost impossible for him. For a minute he
looked about the study, evidently without seeing
what he looked at;[#] he was thinking but,
perhaps, without knowing of what. He was
roused by the stillness, and suddenly it appeared
to him that Tikhon cast down his eyes with a
kind of shyness, with a quite unnecessary[#]
smile. This instantly roused in him disgust
and reaction; he wanted to get up and go;
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in his opinion, Tikhon was decidedly drunk.
But the latter suddenly raised his eyes and looked
at him with such a firm and thoughtful gaze,
and at the same time with such an unexpected
and enigmatical expression, that he nearly
shuddered. And now it suddenly seemed to
him something absolutely different: that Tikhon
already knew why he had come, that he was
already warned (although nobody in the whole
world could know the reason), and that if he
did not speak first, it was because he was sparing
his feelings, was afraid of his humiliation.
.pm fn-start
After the words “wicker chair” there stood originally:
“Nikolai Vsevolodovich was still much distracted by some inner
overpowering agitation.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After the words “looked at” originally stood: “he thought
and, certainly, did not know of what.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
There is struck out “ridiculous.”
.pm fn-end
“Do you know me?” he suddenly asked
abruptly. “Did I introduce myself when I
came in or not? Pardon me, I am so absent-minded....”
“You did not introduce yourself, but I had
the pleasure of seeing you once about four years
ago, here in the Monastery ... by chance.”
Tikhon spoke unhurriedly and evenly, in a
soft voice, pronouncing his words clearly and
distinctly.
“I was not in this Monastery four years ago,”
Nikolai Vsevolodovich replied with unnecessary
rudeness. “I was here only as a child, when
you were not yet here.”
“Perhaps you have forgotten?” Tikhon
observed guardedly and without insisting upon it.
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“No, I have not forgotten; it would be
ridiculous if I did not remember,” Stavrogin on
his part insisted rather too hotly. “Perhaps
you have merely heard about me and formed
some idea, and thus made the mistake that you
had seen me.”
Tikhon remained silent. Nikolai Vsevolodovich
now noticed that a nervous shudder sometimes
passed over his face, a symptom of chronic
nervous exhaustion.
“I see only that you are not well to-day,”
he said. “I think it would be better if I went.”
He even began to rise from his seat.
“Yes, to-day and yesterday I have had violent
pains in my legs and I slept little during the
night....”
Tikhon stopped. His visitor suddenly fell
into a vague reverie. The silence lasted long,
about two minutes.
“You were watching me?” he suddenly
asked with anxiety and suspicion.
“I looked at you, and was reminded of the
expression on your mother’s face. Externally
unlike, there is much inner, spiritual resemblance.”
“There is no resemblance at all, certainly
no spiritual—absolutely none!” Nikolai
Vsevolodovich grew again uneasy for no reason
and too persistent without knowing why. “You
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say this just ... out of pity for my state,”[#]
he said without thinking. “Ah! does my
mother come and see you?”
.pm fn-start
There is struck out “and rubbish.”
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“She does.”
“I didn’t know. She never told me. Does
she come often?”
“Nearly every month, sometimes oftener.”
“I never, never heard of that. I did not
know.” He seemed terribly alarmed by that
fact. “And she, of course, told you that I am
mad,” he broke out again.
“No, not exactly that you are mad—though,
I’ve heard that notion too, but from others.”
“You must have a very good memory, if
you can remember such trifles. And did you
hear about the slap in the face?”
“I heard something about that.”
“You mean everything. You must have a
great deal of time on your hands. And about
the duel too?”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “And about the duel” there followed originally: “You
did hear a great deal here.”
.pm fn-end
“And about the duel.”
“You don’t need newspapers here. Shatov
warned you against me?”
“No, I know Mr. Shatov, though; but I
haven’t seen him for a long time.”
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“Hm.... What’s that map you have got
there? Ah, the map of the last war! What
do you want with it?”
“I wanted to refer to it in reading this book.
It’s a most interesting description.”
“Let me see. Yes, the account is not bad.[#]
Yet what strange reading for you.”
.pm fn-start
Originally “This is not a bad account.”
.pm fn-end
He drew the book towards him and gave it
a cursory glance. It was a full and able account
of the circumstances of the last war, not so much
from the military point of view, however, as
from the purely literary. Having turned the
book over, he suddenly put it down impatiently.
“I positively do not know why I came here,”
he said with aversion, looking straight into
Tikhon’s eyes, as though he expected him to
reply.
“You, too, are not feeling well!”
“No, not altogether.”[#]
.pm fn-start
Originally “No, I am not well.”
.pm fn-end
And suddenly he related, in the shortest and
most abrupt manner so that certain words could
hardly be understood, that he was subject,
especially at nights, to a kind of hallucinations,
that he sometimes saw or felt near him a
spiteful being, mocking and “rational,” “in
various forms and in various characters, but it
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is always one and the same and I always fly
into a rage.”
Wild and confused were these revelations,
as if indeed they came from a madman. And
yet Nikolai Vsevolodovich spoke with such
strange frankness, never seen in him before,
with such a simplicity, quite unnatural to him,
that it seemed as if suddenly and unexpectedly
his former self had completely disappeared. He
was not in the least ashamed of showing the fear
with which he spoke of his apparition. But all
this was momentary and went as suddenly as it
had come.
“It’s all nonsense,” he said, drawing back
with awkward irritation. “I’ll go and see a
doctor.”
“You should, certainly,” Tikhon assented.
“You speak so confidently.... Have you
seen people, like me, with such apparitions?”
“I have, but very rarely. Indeed I remember
only one such case in my life. He was a military
officer; it was after he had lost his wife, his life
companion. The other case was mere hearsay.
Both men then went to a cure abroad.[#] Have
you been subject to this for long?”
.pm fn-start
Originally “were cured.”
.pm fn-end
“For about a year, but it’s all nonsense.
I’ll see a doctor. This is all nonsense, utter
.bn 030.png
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nonsense. It is myself in various aspects, and
nothing else. But even as I use that phrase,
you certainly think that I am still doubtful and am
not sure that it is myself, and not really the devil.”
Tikhon gave him a questioning look.
“And ... you actually see him?” he
asked, dismissing, in fact, any question of its
being a false and morbid hallucination. “Do
you actually see a certain image?”
“It is strange that you should lay such stress
upon this, when I have already told you that I
do see it.” Stavrogin again began to grow
more and more irritated with each word. “Of
course I see it; I see it as plainly as I see you
... and sometimes I see it and I’m not sure
that I see it, although I do see it ... and sometimes[#]
I do not know what is real: I or it ...
it’s all nonsense. And can’t you possibly believe
that this is indeed the devil?” he added, breaking
into a laugh and passing too abruptly into
derision. “Surely that would be more in keeping
with your profession.”
.pm fn-start
After “although I do see it ... and sometimes” there
originally followed “I am not sure that I see.”
.pm fn-end
“It is more likely a disease, although....”
“Although what?”
“Devils certainly exist, but one’s conception
of them may be very various.”
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
“And you have again just looked down,”
Stavrogin broke in with an irritating laugh,
“because you were ashamed that I should believe
in the devil; but I made out that I did not
believe and cunningly put the question to you:
does he or does he not really exist?”
Tikhon gave a vague smile.[#]
.pm fn-start
After “smile” there is struck out: “And do you know, it
does not suit you at all to cast your eyes down: it is unnatural,
ridiculous, and affected.”
.pm fn-end
“Well, know then that I am not at all ashamed,
and to make up for my rudeness I will tell you,
seriously and unblushingly: I do believe in
the devil, I believe canonically, in a personal,
not allegorical, devil, and I do not in the least
want to extort an answer from any one; now
that’s all.”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “all” there is struck out: “You must be awfully glad.”
.pm fn-end
He gave a nervous, unnatural laugh. Tikhon
looked at him with curiosity, with a rather
timorous, yet gentle look.
“You believe in God?” Nikolai Vsevolodovich
suddenly burst out.
“I do.”
“It is said, if you believe and bid a mountain
move, it will move ... though, pardon me
this nonsense. Yet I am curious to know:
could you move a mountain or not?”
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
“If God will, I could,” Tikhon uttered
quickly and calmly, again beginning to look
down at the ground.
“Well, it’s just the same as saying that God
Himself could move it. But you, you, as a
reward for your belief in God?”
“Perhaps I could move it.”
“‘Perhaps.’[#] Well, that is not bad, either.
But you are still doubtful?”
.pm fn-start
After “perhaps” there is struck out: “That’s not bad. Why
do you have doubts, then?”—“I believe imperfectly.”
.pm fn-end
“Through the imperfection of my belief I
have doubts.”
“Why, do you believe incompletely?”
“Yes ... perhaps; I do believe and not
perfectly,” Tikhon replied.
“That is what I should not think, looking
at you!”—he suddenly gave him a look of some
surprise, a perfectly simple look which did not
at all harmonize with the mocking tone of the
preceding questions.
“Well, at any rate you do believe that, even
if it be with God’s help, you could move it, and
that is something, after all. At least, you wish
to believe. And you take the mountain literally.
It is a good principle. I observed that the
progressives among our Levites are greatly
inclined towards Lutheranism. Anyhow it is
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
better than the très peu of the Archbishop, it
is true, under the threat of the sword. You
are, certainly, a Christian too.” Stavrogin spoke
quickly, his words now serious, now mocking.
“May I not be ashamed, Lord, of Thy Cross.”
Tikhon almost whispered it, with a passionate
whisper, and bowed his head still lower.[#]
.pm fn-start
After “his head still lower” there is struck out: “the corners
of his lips suddenly began twitching, quickly and nervously.”
.pm fn-end
“And can one believe in the devil, without
believing in God?” Stavrogin laughed.
“Oh, there are such people everywhere.”
Tikhon raised his eyes and smiled.
“And I am sure that you find such belief more
respectable after all than complete unbelief....”[#]
Stavrogin began to laugh.
.pm fn-start
After “unbelief” is struck out: “Oh, parson!”
.pm fn-end
“On the contrary, complete atheism is more
respectable than worldly indifference,” Tikhon
answered, with visible gaiety and good-nature.
“Oho, that’s how you get round it!”
“A complete atheist stands on the last rung
but one before absolute faith (he may or may not
step higher), but an indifferent man has no longer
any faith at all, nothing but an ugly fear, and that
only on rare occasions, if he is a sentimental man.”
“Hm ... you have read the Apocalypse?”
“I have.”
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
“Do you remember, ‘Write to the Angel of
the Laodicean Church’?”
“I do.”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “I do” is struck out: “They are fascinating words.”—“‘Fascinating,’
these are strange words for a bishop; you are
altogether a queer fellow.”
.pm fn-end
“Where is the book?” Stavrogin began with
a strange hurry and anxiety, searching with his
eyes for the book on the table. “I want to read
to you ... you have a Russian translation?”
“I know the passage, I remember it,” Tikhon
murmured.
“Do you know it by heart? Read it....”
He at once looked at the ground, rested both
his hands on his knees, and impatiently prepared
to listen. Tikhon repeated word for word:
“Write to the Angel of the Laodicean Church:
The true and authoritative witness of the beginning
of the creations of God says Amen. I
know thy works; thou art neither cold nor hot.
Would that thou wert cold or hot. But in so far
as thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold,
I shall spew thee out from my lips. For thou
sayest: I am rich; I have everything and need
nothing; but thou knowest not that thou art
miserable, and poor and beggarly and blind and
naked....”
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
“Enough,” Stavrogin cut him short.[#] “Do
you know, I love you very much.”
.pm fn-start
After “Stavrogin cut him short” is struck out: “this is for
those in the middle, this is for the indifferent ones, isn’t it?”
.pm fn-end
“I love you too,” Tikhon replied in a low
voice.
Stavrogin fell silent and suddenly lapsed again
into his old reverie. This came as though in fits
and now for the third time. And the “I love”
he said to Tikhon was also said almost in an
impulse, at any rate unexpectedly to himself.
More than a minute passed.
“Do not be angry,” Tikhon whispered,
touching his arm very lightly with his finger and
as though his courage failed him.
Stavrogin shuddered and frowned angrily.
“How did you know that I was angry?” he
said hastily. Tikhon was about to reply, when he
suddenly interrupted him in inexplicable alarm:
“Why did you think that I must necessarily
become angry? Yes, I was angry; you are
right; and just because I had said to you ‘I love.’
You are right, but you are a crude cynic, you
think slightingly of human nature. There might
have been no anger, had it been any one else but
myself.... Though, it does not matter about
others; it concerns me. After all, you are a
queer fellow and crazy.”
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
He grew more and more irritated, and,
strangely, made no attempt to restrain his
language:
“Listen, I do not like spies and thought-readers,
at any rate those who creep into my soul.
I do not invite any one into my soul; I need no
one; I am able to shift for myself. You think
I am afraid of you,” he raised his voice and looked
up defiantly; “you are quite convinced that I
have come to confide to you some ‘terrible’
secret, and you are waiting for it with all the
hermit curiosity of which you are capable. Understand
then that I will confide nothing to you,
no secret, because I can perfectly well do without
you....”[#]
.pm fn-start
Instead of “perfectly, etc.,” the original had “I don’t need
you in the least.”
.pm fn-end
Tikhon looked at him firmly.
“It surprised you that the Lamb prefers a cold
man to a merely lukewarm one,” he said. “You
don’t want to be merely lukewarm. I have a
foreboding that you are possessed by an extraordinary
intention, perhaps a terrible one. I
implore you, don’t torment yourself and tell me
everything.”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “tell everything” there is struck out: “for which you
came here.”
.pm fn-end
“And you knew for certain that I had come
with something.”
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
“I ... guessed it,”[#] Tikhon replied in a
whisper, looking down.
.pm fn-start
After “guessed” there is struck out: “from your face.”
.pm fn-end
Nikolai Vsevolodovich was rather pale; his
hands shook a little. For a few seconds he looked
motionlessly and silently, as though coming to a
final decision. At last he took out of the side
pocket of his coat a few printed sheets and put
them on the table.
“These sheets are meant for circulation,” he
said in a tremulous voice. “If only one man
reads them, then understand that I shall keep them
back no longer, and they will be read by every
one. That is settled. I don’t need you at
all, for I have settled it. But read them ...
while you are reading them, say nothing; but
after you have read them—say everything....”
“Shall I read them?” Tikhon asked irresolutely.
“Do; I am calm.”
“No; I shall not be able to read them without
glasses; the printing is pale, foreign.”
“Here are your glasses.” Stavrogin took them
from the table and handed them to him, and leant
on the back of the sofa. Tikhon did not look
at him, and plunged straight into the reading.
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.h3
II
.sp 2
The printing was in fact foreign: three little
sheets of ordinary small-sized writing-paper
printed and stitched together. It must have been
printed secretly at a Russian press abroad, and the
sheets at the first glance looked very much like
a political pamphlet. The title read: “From
Stavrogin.”
I insert the document literally in my chronicle.[#]
I have allowed myself to correct the spelling, for
the mistakes are rather numerous and have surprised
me a little, considering after all that the
author was a man of education and even well-read
(of course, relatively speaking). But in the style
I have made no alterations whatever, in spite of
its irregularities. It is at any rate clear that the
writer was above all not a man of letters.[#]
.pm fn-start
After “chronicle” there is struck out: “it must be supposed
that it is now known to many.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After the words “above all not a man of letters” there is written
in Dostoevsky’s hand on the proofs “one remark, only one.” In
the text of the opening of Chapter I., published as a Supplement to
Vol. VIII. of the Jubilee Edition of 1906 of Dostoevsky’s Works,
there is the following passage, which is not in the proofs:
“I shall allow myself one more remark, although I am straying
in advance of my story. This document is, in my opinion, a morbid
work, a work of the devil who took hold of that gentleman. It
is like this: as if a man were suffering from acute pain and tossing
about in bed, trying to find a position to relieve his pain even for a
moment. Not even to relieve the pain, but only to change it,
momentarily, for another. In a situation like that, one of course
does not bother about the becomingness or good sense of the position.
The fundamental idea of the document is a terrible, undisguised
craving for self-punishment, the need for the cross, for immolation
in the eyes of all. And yet this need for the cross in a man who does
not believe in the cross, does not this in itself form ‘an idea,’ as
Stepan Trofimovich expressed himself once, on a different occasion
though. On the other hand, the document is at the same time
something wild and random, although evidently written with a
different intention. The author declares that he could not help
writing it, that he was ‘compelled,’ and this is quite likely; he
would have been glad to let that cup pass him by, if only he could;
but he indeed, so it seems, could not do so, and he merely snatched
at a convenient excuse for a fresh outburst. Yes, the sick man tosses
about in his bed and wishes to exchange one pain for another, and
now the struggle with society appears to him the easiest position, and
he throws out a challenge to it.
“Indeed, in the very fact of such a document is implied a new,
unexpected, and unforgivable defiance of society—only to find some
enemy to pick a quarrel with!
“And who can say? perhaps all this, the sheets and their intended
publication, are but the same as the Governor’s bitten ear, only in
a different shape. But why this should come into my mind now,
when so much has already been explained, I can’t understand. I
bring forward no proof, nor do I at all assert that the document is
false, that is, completely made up and fabricated. Most likely the
truth ought to be sought somewhere midway. However, I have
already wandered too far in advance; it is safer to turn to the
document itself. This is what Tikhon read.”
Here ends the first chapter in the Supplement to Vol. VIII. of
Dostoevsky’s Works, Jubilee Edition, 1906.
.pm fn-end
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
“From Stavrogin.
“I, Nikolai Stavrogin, retired officer, lived
in the year 186.. in Petersburg, abandoned to
vice, in which I found no pleasure. For a
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
certain period at that time I rented three lodgings.
In one of them I lived myself and boarded and
lodged, and there at that time lived Marya
Lebiadkin, now my lawful wife. My other two
lodgings I rented by the month for the purpose
of an intrigue: in one I received a certain lady
who loved me, and in the other her maid, and
for a time I was much engrossed with the notion
of contriving that both the lady and the maid
should meet each other at my lodging.[#] Knowing
the characters of both, I anticipated for
myself great pleasure from that joke.
.pm fn-start
After “should meet, etc.,” there is struck out: “in the presence
of my friends and of her husband.”
.pm fn-end
“While I was gradually preparing for this
meeting, I had to go more often to one of the
two lodgings in a large house in Gorokhovaya
Street, since that was the place where the maid
and I met. I had only one room there, on the
fifth floor, which I rented from some Russian
working-class people. They themselves fitted
themselves into the adjoining room, which was
smaller than mine and so much so that the door
dividing my room from theirs always stood open,
which was what I wanted. The husband, a
clerk in some office, used to be out from early
morning till night. His wife, a woman of about
forty, was occupied in cutting down old clothes
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
and making them up into new, and she also
frequently left the house to deliver her work.
I remained alone with their daughter,[#] who was
quite a child to look at. They called her
Matryosha. Her mother loved her, but often
beat her, and, as is the custom of these people,
shouted at her horribly. This little girl waited
on me and tidied up after me behind the screens.
I declare I have forgotten the number of the
house. Now, upon enquiry, I find that the old
house has been demolished, and, where there
were then two or three houses, there is now one
very large new house. I have also forgotten my
landlord’s name (or perhaps I never knew it
even at the time). I remember that the woman
was called Stepanida, I believe, Mikhailovna.
Him I do not remember.[#] I suppose that if
a search were started and all possible enquiries
made by the Petersburg police, they could be
traced. The flat was in a courtyard, in the corner.
All happened in June. The house was painted
a bright sky-blue.
.pm fn-start
After “with their daughter” is struck out: “I think her age
was about fourteen.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “I do not remember” is struck out: “who they are,
from where they come, and where they are now, I don’t know in
the least.”
.pm fn-end
“One day I missed from my table a penknife
which I did not need in the least, and which lay
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
there for no particular reason. I told my landlady,
without thinking that she would thrash
her daughter for it. But the landlady had just
been scolding the little girl[#] for the loss of some
rag, suspecting that she had stolen it, and had
even pulled her hair. When that rag was found
under the tablecloth, the little girl did not utter
a single word of complaint, and just looked in
silence. I noticed that, and then for the first
time I observed the face of the little girl, which
until then I had hardly noticed properly. She
had fair hair, and a freckled ordinary face, but
there was much in it that was childish and quiet,
extraordinarily quiet. The mother did not like
it that the daughter made no complaint for having
been beaten for nothing, and she raised her fist,
but did not strike; and just at that moment the
subject of the penknife came up. Besides the
three of us, there was in fact nobody, and only
the little girl went behind my screen. The
woman flew into a rage at having for the first
time punished her unjustly, and she rushed for
the broom, tore twigs from it, and thrashed the
little girl in my presence until her body was
covered with scars, although the child was already
in her twelfth year. Matryosha did not cry at
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
the thrashing, probably because I was there, but
she gave a strange sob at each blow. And
afterwards she sobbed very much for a whole
hour.
.pm fn-start
After “girl” is struck out: “(I lived with them on familiar
terms, and they stood on no ceremonies with me).”
.pm fn-end
“But there was just this before that happened:
at the very moment when the landlady rushed
for the broom to pull out twigs, I found the
penknife on my bed, where it had somehow or
other fallen from the table. Instantly it occurred
to my mind not to say so, in order that she should
be thrashed. I decided on it instantaneously;
in such moments my breathing always stops.
But I mean to tell the whole thing in the plainest
language, so that there can no longer remain
anything concealed.
“Every unusually disgraceful, utterly degrading,
dastardly, and, above all, ridiculous situation,
in which I ever happened to be in my life, always
roused in me, side by side with extreme anger,
an incredible delight. I felt exactly this in
moments of committing crimes and in moments
when life was in danger. If I stole, I would
feel, while committing the theft, a rapture from
the consciousness of the depth of my vileness.
It was not the vileness that I loved (here my
mind was perfectly sound), but I enjoyed rapture
from the tormenting consciousness of the baseness.
In the same way each time when, standing
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
at the barrier, I waited for my opponent to fire,
I experienced just the same disgraceful and wild
sensation; and once I did so with extraordinary
vividness. I confess that I often myself looked
out for it, because it is to me the strongest of
sensations of the kind. When I received a slap
in the face (and I received two in my life), it
was there too, in spite of my terrible anger.
But if the anger is checked by it, then the delight
surpasses anything that can be imagined. I
never spoke of this to any one, even by a hint,
and I concealed it as a shame and disgrace.
But when I was once soundly beaten in a public-house
in Petersburg and was dragged by the
hair, I did not experience that sensation, but
only an incredible anger, not being intoxicated,
and I put up a fight. But had I been seized
by my hair and forced down by the French
Viscount abroad who slapped me on the cheek
and whose lower jaw I shot away for it, I should
have felt a rapture and, perhaps, should not have
felt anger. So it seemed to me then.
“I tell all this in order that every one may know
that the feeling never absorbed the whole of me
absolutely, but there always remained the most
perfect consciousness (on that consciousness indeed
it was all based). And although it would take
hold of me to the pitch of madness, or, so to say,
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
obstinacy, it would never reach the point of
making me forget myself. It reached in me the
point of a perfect fire, but I could at the same
time overcome it completely, even stop it at its
climax; only I never wished to stop it. I am
convinced that I could live all my life as a monk,
in spite of the brutal voluptuousness with which
I am gifted and which I always called forth.[#]
I am always master of myself when I want to
be. And so let it be understood that I do not
claim irresponsibility for my crimes, either on
account of environment or of disease.
.pm fn-start
After “always called forth” there is struck out: “Having
indulged up to the age of sixteen with extraordinary immoderation
in the vice to which J. J. Rousseau confessed, I stopped it at the
very moment which I had fixed, at the age of seventeen.”
.pm fn-end
“The thrashing over, I put the penknife in
my waistcoat pocket and, without saying a single
word, left the house and threw it away in the
street, a long distance from the house, so that
nobody should ever discover it. Then I waited
two days. The little girl, after she had cried,
became even more silent; against me, I am convinced,
she had no spite. Though she was,
certainly, ashamed that she had been punished
in that way in my presence.[#] But for the shame
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
she, like the child she was, assuredly blamed no
one but herself.[#]
.pm fn-start
After “presence” is struck out: “she did not cry, but only
sobbed under the blows, certainly because I stood there and saw
everything.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “herself” is struck out: “up till now she perhaps only
feared me, not personally, but as a lodger, a stranger, and, I believe,
she was very timid.”
.pm fn-end
“It was precisely during those two days that I
once put to myself the question, could I go away
and give up the plan I had invented, and I
immediately felt that I could, that I could at any
moment and at once. About that time I wished
to kill myself from the disease of indifference; or
rather I don’t know the reason, but during those
two or three days (for it was necessary to wait
till the little girl forgot it all) I, probably in order
to divert myself from the idea which obsessed me,
or for fun, committed a theft in the rooms. This
was the only theft of my life.
“There were many people crowded in those
rooms. Amongst others there lived there a
minor official with his family in two rooms; he
was about forty, not altogether a fool, and had a
decent appearance, but was poor. I did not make
friends with him, and he was afraid of the company
that surrounded me there. He had only
just received his salary—thirty-five roubles. What
chiefly influenced me was that I at that moment
needed money (although four days later I received
money by post), so that I stole, as though out of
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
want, and not for fun. It was done impudently
and obviously: I simply entered his room, when
he, his wife, and children were dining in the other
little room. There on the chair by the door lay
his folded uniform. The idea suddenly occurred
to me when I was in the corridor. I put my
hand into the pocket and took the purse. But
the official heard a movement and looked out of
his room. He, it seems, actually saw, at any rate,
something, but as he did not see it all, he, of
course, did not believe his eyes. I said that, as
I was passing down the corridor, I had come in to
see the time by his clock. ‘It has stopped,’ he
said, and I went out.
“At that time I drank a great deal, and in my
rooms was a whole crowd, Lebiadkin amongst
them. I threw away the purse and the small
coins, but kept the notes. There were thirty-two
roubles, three red notes and two yellow. I
immediately changed one red note and sent for
champagne; then I sent the second red note, and
the third. About four hours later towards evening
the official was waiting for me in the corridor.
“‘Nikolai Vsevolodovich, when you came in
just now, did you by any chance let my uniform
fall off the chair ... it was by the door?’
“‘No, I don’t remember; was your uniform
there?’
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
“‘Yes, it was.’
“‘On the floor?’
“‘First on the chair, and then on the floor.’
“‘Did you pick it up?’
“‘I did.’
“‘Well, what more do you want?’
“‘In that case, it’s all right....’
“He dared not finish, nor did he dare tell anybody
in the rooms—so timid are those people.
In the lodgings every one was extremely afraid of
me and respected me. After that I liked to
catch his eye a couple of times in the corridor.
Soon I got bored with it.
“After three days[#] I returned to Gorokhovaya
Street. The mother was just going out with a
bundle; the man, of course, was not at home;
Matryosha and myself were left alone. The
windows were open. The house was all inhabited
by artisans, and all day long from every
floor was heard the knocking of hammers or of
singing. About an hour passed. Matryosha
sat in her room, on a bench, with her back to me,
and occupied with her needle. At last, she
suddenly began to sing softly, very softly, as was
sometimes her way. I took out my watch and
looked at the time; it was two o’clock. My
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
heart began beating.[#] I got up and began
approaching her stealthily. On their window-sill
stood pots of geranium, and the sun shone very
brightly. I quietly sat down near her on the
floor. She started, and at first was terribly
frightened and jumped up. I took her hand and
kissed it quietly, sat her down again on the little
bench, and began looking into her eyes. My
kissing her hand made her suddenly laugh like a
baby, but only for one second, because she impetuously
jumped up for the second time and was
in such a fright that a spasm passed across her
face. She looked at me with eyes motionless
with terror, and her lips began to twitch as if she
were about to cry, but she did not cry. I kissed
her hand again, and took her on my knee.[#] Then
she suddenly pulled herself away and smiled as if
ashamed, with a wry smile. All her face flushed
with shame. I was whispering to her all the
time, as though drunk. At last, all of a sudden,
such a strange thing happened, which I shall
never forget and which bewildered me: the little
girl flung her arms round my neck and suddenly
began to kiss me passionately. Her face expressed
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
perfect ecstasy. I almost got up to go
away—so unpleasant was this to me in the little
creature from the sense of pity that I suddenly
felt.[#]...
.pm fn-start
Originally “As soon as the three days were over.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “beating” is struck out: “but then I suddenly asked
myself: can I stop now, and I instantly answered that I can.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Originally “I kissed her face and legs: when I kissed her
legs.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Originally “I wished to get up and go away—so unpleasant
was this to me in such a tiny child, from a sense of pity. But I
overcame the sudden sense of my fear and remained.”
.pm fn-end
“When all was over, she was confused. I did
not try to reassure her and no longer fondled her.
She looked at me, smiling timidly. Her face
suddenly appeared to me stupid. The confusion
rapidly with each minute took an increasing hold
over her. At last she covered her face with her
hands and stood in the corner with her face to the
wall motionless. I was afraid that she might be
frightened again, as she had been just before, and
silently I left the house.
“I think that all that happened must have
seemed to her, in the end, infinitely horrible,
a deadly horror. Notwithstanding the Russian
swear words and all sorts of queer conversations
that she must have heard from her very cradle, I
am completely convinced that she did not yet
know anything. For indeed it appeared to her
in the end that she had committed an immense
crime, and was guilty of a mortal sin. ‘She had
killed God.’
“That night I had the row in the bar which I
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
mentioned in passing. But I woke up in my
rooms in the morning; Lebiadkin took me home.
My first thought when I awoke was whether she
had told or not. It was a minute of real fear,
although as yet not very intense. I was very gay
that morning and extremely good-natured with
every one, and the whole company was very
pleased with me. But I left them all and went to
Gorokhovaya Street. I met her downstairs in
the passage. She was coming in from the grocer’s
shop where she had been sent for chicory. On
seeing me she dashed off in a terrible fright
upstairs. When I entered, her mother had
just given her a cuff[#] for bursting in ‘like a
maniac,’ and thus the real reason of her fright
was concealed. So far then all was safe. She
hid in a corner and did not come out while I
was there. I stayed about an hour and then
went away.
.pm fn-start
After “cuff” is struck out: “twice on her cheek.”
.pm fn-end
“Towards evening I again felt the fear, but
incomparably more intense. Of course I could
deny all knowledge, but might be given the lie.
Penal servitude glimmered for me in the distance.
I had never felt fear, and all my life, except in
this one case, I never before nor after was afraid
of anything—particularly of Siberia, although I
might have been deported there more than once.
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
But this time I was frightened and really felt fear,
I don’t know why, for the first time in my life—a
very tormenting sensation. Besides, that evening
in my rooms, I got to hate her to such an
extent that I decided to kill her. My chief hatred
was at the recollection of her smile. I began
to feel contempt and immense loathing for her
having, after the whole thing was over, rushed off
to the corner and covered her face with her hands;
an inexplicable rage seized me, and then cold
shivering, and, when towards the morning I
began to feel feverish, I was again seized with
fear, but such an intense fear that I never knew
any torment more violent. Yet I no longer
hated the little girl—at any rate it did not reach
such a paroxysm as on the previous evening. I
realized that intense fear completely drives away
hatred and the feeling of revenge.
“I woke about mid-day, feeling well and surprised
even at the force of yesterday’s sensations.
Yet I was in a bad humour and was again compelled
to go to Gorokhovaya Street, in spite of
all my aversion. I remember that I wished intensely
at that minute to pick a quarrel on the way
with any one, so long as it was a violent quarrel.
But when I reached Gorokhovaya Street, I suddenly
found Nina Savelevna, the maid, in my room,
where she had been waiting for an hour already.
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
I did not like the girl altogether, so that she had
come half afraid that I should be angry with her
for coming unasked. But I suddenly felt very
glad to see her. She was not bad-looking, but
unassuming, with those manners of which
common people are very fond, so that my landlady
had for long sung her praises to me. I
found them both drinking coffee together, and
the landlady highly pleased with the polite conversation.
In the corner of their room I saw
Matryosha. She stood looking at her mother
and at the visitor without stirring. When I
came in she did not hide as before and did not
run away. It only appeared to me that she had
grown very thin and was in a fever. I was
cordial to Nina, and locked my door against the
landlady, which I had not done for a long time,
so that Nina left perfectly delighted. We left
together and for two days I did not return to
Gorokhovaya Street. I was already bored with
it. I resolved to put an end to it all, to give up
my rooms and leave Petersburg.
“But when I came to give notice to my landlady,
I found her much worried and distressed:
Matryosha had been ill for three days, had a high
temperature, and was delirious every night. Of
course I asked what she said in her delirium (we
spoke in whispers in my room); she whispered
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
back that she raved of ‘horrors’: ‘“I killed
God,” she says.’ I offered to have a doctor at my
own expense, but she did not wish it. ‘By God’s
will it will pass without doctors; she is not in
bed all the time; during the day she gets up;
she has just run round to the grocer’s shop.’ I
determined to see Matryosha alone, and, as the
landlady let out that she had to go to the Petersburg
Road about five o’clock, I decided to come
back in the evening.
“I had a meal in a public-house. Exactly
at a quarter past five I returned. I always let
myself in with my key. There was no one there
but Matryosha. She lay on her mother’s bed
behind a screen, and I saw her peep out; but
I pretended not to have seen her. All the
windows were open. The air outside was warm,
and even hot. I walked up and down and then
sat down on the sofa. I remember everything
up to the last moment. It decidedly gave me
pleasure not to speak to Matryosha, but to keep
her in suspense; I don’t know why. I waited
a whole hour, when suddenly she sprang from
her bed behind the screen. I heard both her
feet thud upon the floor and then fairly quick
steps, and she stood on the threshold of my
room. She stood and looked silently. I was
so mean that my heart thrilled with joy that
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
I had kept up my character and waited for her
to come first. During these days, when I had
not once seen her close, she had grown very thin.
Her face had shrunk, and her head, I was sure,
was hot.
“Her eyes had grown large and gazed at
me without moving, with a dull curiosity, as I
thought at first. I sat still and looked and did
not move. And then suddenly I felt hatred for
her again. But I very soon noticed that she
was not in the least afraid of me, but was perhaps
rather delirious. But she was not delirious
either. She suddenly began shaking her head
repeatedly at me, as simple uneducated people
without manners do when they find fault with
you. And suddenly she raised her tiny fist and
began threatening from where she stood. The
first moment her gesture seemed to me ridiculous,
but then I could stand it no longer.[#] On her
face was such despair as was unendurable to
see on a child’s face. She shook her tiny fist
at me all the while threateningly, and nodded
her head reproachfully. I rose and moved
towards her in fear, and warily began saying
something softly and kindly, but I saw that she
would not understand. Then suddenly she
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
covered her face impulsively with both hands,
as she had done before, and moved off and stood
by the window with her back to me. I returned
to my room and sat by the window. I cannot
possibly make out why I did not leave then,
but remained as though waiting for something.
Soon I again heard her quick steps; she came
out of the door on to the wooden landing which
led to the stairs. I hastily ran to my door,
opened it, and had just time to see that Matryosha
went into the tiny box-room, which was like a
hen-roost and was next door to the water-closet.
A very curious idea shot through my mind. To
this day I can’t make out why all of a sudden
this idea came into my head—everything turned
upon it. I half closed the door and sat down
again by the window. Of course, it was still
impossible to believe in this sudden idea:—‘but
after all....’ (I remember everything,
and my heart beat violently).
.pm fn-start
After “no longer” is struck out: “I rose and moved close to
her.”
.pm fn-end
“After a minute I looked at my watch and
noted the time with perfect accuracy. Why I
should need to know the time so precisely I don’t
know, but I was able to do it, and altogether
at that moment I wanted to notice everything.
So that I remember now what I noticed and see
it as if it were before me. The evening drew
on. A fly buzzed about my head and settled
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
continually on my face. I caught it, held it in
my fingers, and put it out of the window. Very
loudly a van entered the courtyard below. Very
loudly (and for some time before) a tailor, sitting
at his window in the corner of the courtyard,
sang a song. He sat at his work, and I could
see him there. It struck me that, as nobody
had met me when I passed through the gate
and came upstairs, it was also, of course, not
necessary that I should be seen now when I
should be going downstairs; and I moved my
chair from the window purposely so that I could
not be seen by the lodgers. I took a book,
but threw it away, and began looking at a tiny
reddish spider on the leaf of a geranium, and I
fell into a trance. I remember everything up to
the last moment.
“Suddenly I took out my watch. Twenty
minutes had passed since she went out of the
room. The conjecture was assuming the shape
of a probability. But I determined to wait
precisely fifteen minutes more. It also crossed
my mind that perhaps she had come back, and
that I perhaps had not heard her. But that was
impossible: there was a dead silence, and I
could hear the hum of every small fly. Suddenly
my heart began bounding again. I looked at
my watch: it was three minutes short of the
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
quarter. I sat them out, though my heart beat
so as to hurt me. Then I got up, put on my
hat, buttoned my overcoat, and looked round the
room[#]—had I left any traces of my visit? I
moved the chair closer to the window just as
it had been before. At last I gently opened the
door, locked it with my key, and went to the little
box-room. It was closed, but not locked; I
knew that it did not lock, but I did not want
to open it, and I stood on tiptoe and began looking
through the chink. At that moment, standing
on tiptoe, I remembered that, when I sat by the
window and looked at the little red spider and
fell into a trance, I had been thinking of how
I should stand on tiptoe and peer through this
very chink. I mention this detail because I
wish to prove fully to what an extent I was
obviously in possession of my mental faculties
and I hold myself responsible for everything.
For a long time I peered through the chink,
but it was dark there, but not absolutely, so
that at last I saw what I wanted....[#]
.pm fn-start
After “room” is struck out: “to see if everything was in its
place as before.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “what I wanted” is struck out: “I wanted all the while
to be completely sure.”
.pm fn-end
“At last I decided to leave.[#] I met no one
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
on the stairs. Three hours later we were all
drinking tea in our shirt-sleeves in our rooms
and playing with a pack of old cards; Lebiadkin
recited poetry. Many stories were told, and,
as if on purpose, they were good and amusing,
and not as foolish as usual. Kirillov too was
there. No one drank, although there was a
bottle of rum, but only Lebiadkin took a pull
at it now and then.
.pm fn-start
Instead of “at last, etc.,” originally stood: “I finally decided
that I could leave and I went downstairs.”
.pm fn-end
“Prokhor Malov once said that ‘when Nikolai
Vsevolodovich is pleased to be cheerful and does
not sulk, the whole lot of us are happy and talk
cleverly.’ I remembered this at that time;
consequently I was merry, cheerful, and not
sulky. This was how it looked. But I remember
being conscious that I was simply a
low and despicable coward for my joy at having
escaped and that I should never be an honest
man.
“About eleven o’clock the doorkeeper’s little
daughter came from the landlady at Gorokhovaya
Street, with a message to me that Matryosha
had hanged herself. I went with the little girl
and saw that the landlady herself did not know
why she had sent for me. She wailed aloud
and beat her head[#]; there was a crowd and
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
policemen. I stood about for a time[#] and went
away.
.pm fn-start
After “beat her head” is struck out: “there was a commotion.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “stood” is struck out: “in the lobby.”
.pm fn-end
“I was scarcely disturbed all that time, yet I
was asked the usual questions. But all I said
was that the girl had been ill and delirious, so
that I had offered to call a doctor at my own
expense. They also questioned me about the
penknife, and I said that the landlady had thrashed
her, but that there was nothing in that. Nobody
knew about my having been there that evening.[#]
.pm fn-start
There is struck out “I heard nothing of the result of the
medical evidence.”
.pm fn-end
“For about a week I did not call there. I
went at last[#] to give notice about the room.
The landlady was still crying, although she was
already messing about with her rags and sewing
as usual. ‘It was for your penknife that I
wronged her,’ she said to me, but without much
reproach. I settled my account with her, and
gave as an excuse for going that I could not
remain in a house like that to receive Nina
Savelevna. At parting, she again praised Nina
Savelevna to me. When I left, I gave her five
roubles over and above what was due for the
room.
.pm fn-start
The words “after she had been long buried” are struck out.
.pm fn-end
“In the main I was sick of life, to the verge
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
of madness. The incident in Gorokhovaya Street,
after the danger was over, I would have completely
forgotten, just as I forgot all the other
events of that time, had I not for a certain time
remembered with anger what a coward I had been.
“I vented my anger on any one I could find.
About that time, altogether for no definite reason,
I took it into my head to cripple my life, but only
in as disgusting a way as possible. Already for
about a year I had been thinking of shooting
myself; but something better presented itself.
“One day, as I looked at the lame Marya
Timofeevna Lebiadkin, the woman who in a
sense tidied up the rooms, and at that time was
not yet mad, but simply an exalted idiot, in
secret madly in love with me (which my friends
had discovered), I suddenly determined to marry
her. The idea of the marriage of Stavrogin with
that lowest of creatures excited my nerves.
Anything more monstrous it was impossible to
imagine.[#] At any rate I married her, not simply
because of ‘a bet made after dinner in one’s
cups.’ The witnesses were Kirillov and Peter
Verkhovensky, who happened to be in Petersburg;
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
and lastly, Lebiadkin himself and Prokhor Malov
(who is now dead). No one else ever knew of
it, and those who did swore to keep silence.
That silence always seemed to me a kind of
meanness, but it has not been broken up till now,
although I intended to make it public; now I
make it public as well as the rest.
.pm fn-start
After the word “imagine” is struck out: “I will not decide
one way or another whether into my resolution there entered even
unconsciously (of course, unconsciously) anger for the wild cowardice
which had possessed me after the affair with Matryosha. Really,
I do not think so.”
.pm fn-end
“The wedding over, I went to the country to
stay with my mother. I went to distract myself.[#]
In our town I had left behind me the idea that I
was mad—which idea still persists even now and
undoubtedly does me harm, as I shall explain
later. After that I went abroad and remained
there four years.
“I was in the East in the monastery on Mount
Athos and attended religious services which
lasted eight hours; I was in Egypt, lived in
Switzerland, travelled even in Iceland; spent a
whole year at Göttingen University. During
the last year I became very friendly with a distinguished
Russian family in Paris, and with two
Russian girls in Switzerland. About two years
ago, in Frankfort, passing a stationer’s shop, I
noticed amongst the photographs for sale a
portrait of a little girl, dressed in an elegant
childish dress, but very much like Matryosha.
.pm fn-start
After “distract” is struck out: “and because it had become
intolerable.”
.pm fn-end
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
I bought the portrait at once, and when I returned
to my hotel I put it on the mantelpiece of my
room. There it lay for a week untouched, and
I did not once look at it; and when I left Frankfort
I forgot to take it with me.
“I mention this fact only to prove to what
an extent I could master my memories and had
become indifferent to them. I dismissed the
whole lot of them at one go en masse, and the
whole mass obediently disappeared, each time,
directly I wished it to disappear. To recall the
past always bored me, and I never could talk about
the past, as nearly all people do, the more so that
it was, like everything else concerning me, hateful
to me. As for Matryosha, I even forgot to
take her picture from the mantelpiece. About
a year ago, in the spring, travelling through
Germany, I forgot absentmindedly to get out at
the station where I had to change, and so went
on the wrong line. At the next station I had to
get out; it was past two o’clock in the afternoon
and a fine bright day. It was a tiny German
town. I was shown to a hotel. I had to wait, for
the next train did not arrive until eleven o’clock
at night. I was even pleased with my adventure,
as I was in no hurry to get anywhere. The hotel
turned out a wretched little place, but it was all
wooded and surrounded with flower-beds. I
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
was given a very small room. I made a large
meal, and, as I had been travelling all night, I
fell sound asleep after lunch at about four o’clock
in the afternoon.
“In my sleep I had a dream which was completely
new to me, for I had never had one like
it. In the Dresden gallery there is a picture by
Claude Lorraine, called in the catalogue, I think,
‘Acis and Galatea,’ but I always called it ‘The
Golden Age,’ I don’t know why. I had seen
it before, but about three days ago, as I passed
through Dresden, I saw it again. I even went
on purpose to have a look at it, and possibly for
this alone I stopped at Dresden. It was that
picture I dreamt of, but not as of a picture, but
as of a reality.
“A corner of the Greek Archipelago; blue
caressing waves, islands and rocks; fertile shore,
a magic vista on the horizon, the appeal of the
setting sun—no words could describe it. Here
was the cradle of European man, here were the
first scenes of the mythological world, here its
green paradise.... Here had once lived a
beautiful race. They rose and went to sleep
happy and innocent; they filled the woods with
their joyful songs; the great abundance of their
virgin powers went out into love and into simple
happiness. The sun bathed these islands and
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
sea in its beams, rejoicing in its beautiful children.
Wonderful dream, splendid illusion! A dream
the most incredible of all that had ever been
dreamt, but upon it the whole of mankind has
lavished all its powers throughout history; for
this it has made every sacrifice, for this men have
died on the cross and their prophets have been
killed; without this, nations will not live and
are unable even to die. I lived through all these
feelings in my dream; I do not know what exactly
I dreamt about, but the rocks, the sea, and the
slanting rays of the setting sun—all these seemed
to be still visible to me, when I woke and opened
my eyes and, for the first time in my life, found
them full of tears. A feeling of happiness, until
then unfamiliar to me, went through my whole
heart, even painfully. It was now evening;
through the window of my tiny room, through
the green leaves of the flowers standing on the
sill, poured a shaft of bright slanting rays from
the setting sun, and bathed me in their light. I
quickly shut my eyes again, as if longing to
bring back the vanished dream, but suddenly, in
the middle of the bright, bright light, I saw a
tiny point. The point began suddenly to take
a definite form, and all of a sudden I distinctly
pictured to myself a tiny reddish spider. At
once I remembered it on the leaf of the geranium,
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
upon which, too, had poured the rays of the
setting sun. It was as though something were
plunged through me; I raised myself and sat
on my bed.
“(That’s all how it happened then!)
“I saw before me! (Oh, not in the flesh!
Would that the vision had been true!) I saw
before me Matryosha, emaciated, with feverish
eyes, in every point exactly as she was when she
stood on the threshold of my room and, shaking
her head at me, threatened me with her tiny fist.
Nothing has ever been so agonizing to me!
The pitiable despair of a helpless creature[#] with
an unformed mind, threatening me (with what?
what could she do to me, O Lord?), but blaming,
of course, herself alone! Nothing like that has
ever happened to me. I sat, till night came,
without moving, having lost count of time. Is
this what they call remorse or repentance? I
do not know, and even now cannot say.[#] But it
was intolerable to me, that image of her standing
on the threshold with her raised and threatening
little fist, merely that vision of her then, that
moment ‘then,’ that shaking of her head. It is
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
precisely that which I cannot endure, because
since then it has come to me almost every day.
Not that it comes itself, but that I bring it before
myself and cannot help bringing it, although I
can’t live with it. Oh, if I could ever see her
in the flesh, even though it were an hallucination![#]
.pm fn-start
After “creature” is struck out: “of ten years.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “even now” is struck out: “The recollection of the
deed itself is perhaps not even now loathsome to me. Perhaps the
memory of it even now contains something which is gratifying to
my passions.”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “hallucination” is struck out: “I have other old memories,
perhaps, worse than this. There was a woman whom I treated
worse, and she died of it. I killed two men in a duel who had done
me no harm. I was once mortally insulted, and did not avenge
myself. I have it to my account that I poisoned some one, deliberately
and successfully, without being found out. If necessary, I will
confess it all.”
.pm fn-end
“Why, then, do no other of the memories of
my life rouse in me anything like this?—and I had
indeed many memories, perhaps much worse in
the judgment of men. They rouse merely hatred
in me, and that only because they are stimulated
by my present state; but formerly I forgot them
callously and dismissed them from my mind.
“I wandered after that for nearly the whole of
the following year, and tried to find some occupation.
I know I can dismiss the thought of
Matryosha even now whenever I want to. I am
as completely master of my will as ever. But
the whole point is that I never wanted to do it;
I myself do not want to, and never shall.[#] So it
will go on until I go mad.
.pm fn-start
After “shall” is struck out: “of this I am perfectly sure.”
.pm fn-end
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
“In Switzerland two months later I was seized
with a fit of the same passion and one of the same
furious impulses which I used to have before.[#]
I felt a terrible temptation to commit a new crime,
namely, to commit bigamy (for I was already
married). But I fled on the advice of another
girl to whom I had confided almost everything,
even that I had no love for her whom I desired
so much, and that I could never love any one.
Moreover, the fresh crime would not in any way
rid me of Matryosha.
.pm fn-start
Originally “In Switzerland I was able two months after that
to fall in love with a girl, or, to speak more accurately, I experienced
a fit, etc.”
.pm fn-end
“Thus I decided to have these little sheets
printed and three hundred copies sent to Russia.
When the time comes, I shall send some of them
to the police and to the local authorities;
simultaneously I shall send them to the editors
of all newspapers with a request that they shall
be published; I shall also send them to a number
of people in Petersburg and in Russia who know
me. They will also come out in a translation
abroad. I know that I shall, perhaps, not be
worried by the law, at any rate not to any considerable
extent. It is I who am informing
against myself and I have no accuser; besides,
the evidence is extraordinarily slight or non-existent.
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
Finally, the rooted idea that I am
mentally unbalanced and, certainly, the efforts
of my family, who will make use of that idea,
will quash any legal prosecution that might
threaten me. By the way, I make this statement
in order to prove that I am now of sound mind
and understand my situation. But there will
remain those who will know everything and will
look at me, and I at them.[#] I want every one
to look at me. Will it relieve me? I don’t
know. I come to this as to my last resource.
.pm fn-start
Originally “And the more of those, the better.”
.pm fn-end
“Once more: if a good search be made by
the Petersburg police, perhaps something might
be discovered. The landlady and her husband
might be living even now in Petersburg. The
house, of course, must be remembered. It was
painted a bright sky-blue. For myself, I shall
not go anywhere, and for a certain length of
time (a year or two) I shall always be found at
Skvoreshniki, my mother’s estate. If required,
I will appear anywhere.
.ti 10
“Nikolai Stavrogin.”
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
CHAPTER IX[#]
.nf-
.pm fn-start
This is how the chapter is numbered in the original.
.pm fn-end
.sp 2
.ni
The reading lasted for about an hour. Tikhon
read slowly, and, possibly, read certain passages
twice over. All the time Stavrogin had sat
silent and motionless.[#] Tikhon took off his
glasses, paused, and, looking up at him, was the
first to begin to speak rather guardedly.
.pm fn-start
After “motionless” the following is struck out: “It is strange
that the signs of impatience, absentmindedness, and even of delirium,
that had been in his face all that morning, almost disappeared, and
gave place to calmness and a kind of sincerity, that gave him an air
almost of dignity.”
.pm fn-end
.pi
“Can’t certain corrections be made in this document?”
“Why should there? I wrote sincerely,”
Stavrogin replied.
“Some corrections in the style should....”
“I forgot to warn you,” he said quickly and
peremptorily, pulling himself up, “that all you
say will be useless; I shall not postpone my
intention; don’t try to dissuade me. I shall
publish it.”
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
“You did not forget to tell me that, before I
began to read.”
“Never mind,” Stavrogin interrupted peremptorily,
“I repeat it again: however great
the force of your objections may be, I shall not
give up my intention. And observe that, by this
clumsy or clever phrase—think of it what you
like—I am not trying to get you at once to start
arguing and coaxing me.”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “coaxing” is struck out: “he added, as though he could
no longer keep it up, and suddenly fell again for a moment into his
former tone, but he immediately smiled sadly at his words.”
.pm fn-end
“I shall not argue with you, still less coax you,
to give up your intention, nor could I do it either.
Your idea is a great idea, and it would be impossible
to express more perfectly a Christian idea.
Repentance cannot go further than the wonderful
deed which you have conceived, if only....”
“If only what?”
“If it were indeed repentance and indeed a
Christian idea.”
“I wrote sincerely.”[#]
.pm fn-start
Before the words “I wrote sincerely” there is struck out:
“This seems to me a subtlety; does this really matter....”
.pm fn-end
“You seem deliberately to wish to make
yourself out coarser than your heart would
desire....” Tikhon gradually became bolder.
Evidently “the document” made a strong impression
on him.
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
“‘Make myself out’? I repeat to you, I
did not ‘make myself out,’ still less did I
‘pose.’”[#]
.pm fn-start
The phrase “Make myself out, etc.,” is struck out.
.pm fn-end
Tikhon quickly cast his eyes down.
“This document comes straight from the
needs of a heart which is mortally wounded,—am
I not right in this?” he said emphatically
and with extraordinary earnestness. “Yes, it
is repentance and natural need of repentance
that has overcome you, and you have taken the
great way, the rarest way. But you, it seems,
already hate and despise beforehand all those
who will read what is written here, and you
challenge them. You were not ashamed of
admitting your crime; why are you ashamed of
repentance?”
“Ashamed?”
“You are ashamed and afraid!”
“Afraid?”
“Mortally. Let them look at me, you say;
well, and you, how will you look at them?
Certain passages in your statement are emphasized;
you seem to be luxuriating in your own psychology
and clutch at each detail, in order to surprise the
reader by a callousness which is not really in
you. What is this but a haughty defiance of the
judge by the accused?”
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
“Where is the defiance? I kept out all
personal discussion.”
Tikhon was silent. His pale cheeks flushed.
“Let us leave that,” Stavrogin said peremptorily.
“Allow me to put to you a question
on my side: we have now been talking for five
minutes since you read that” (he nodded at the
pages), “and I do not see in you any expression
of aversion or shame.... You don’t seem to
be squeamish....”
He did not finish.[#]
.pm fn-start
After “he did not finish” is struck out: “You mean you
would like me immediately to express to you my contempt,” Tikhon
said firmly.
.pm fn-end
“I shall not conceal anything from you: I
was horrified at the great idle force that had
been deliberately wasted in abomination. As
for the crime itself, many people sin like that,
but they live in peace and quiet with their conscience,
even considering it to be the inevitable
delinquency of youth. There are old men, too,
who sin in the same way—yes, lightly and
indulgently. The world is full of these horrors.
But you have felt the whole depth to a degree
which is extremely rare.”
“Have you come to respect me after these
pages?” Stavrogin said, with a wry smile.
“I am not going to answer that straight off.
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
But there certainly is not, nor can there be, a
greater and more terrible crime than your
behaviour towards the girl.”
“Let us stop this measuring by the yard.[#]
Perhaps I do not suffer so much as I have made
out, and perhaps I have even told many lies
against myself,” he added suddenly.
.pm fn-start
There is struck out: “I am somewhat surprised at your opinion
about other people and about the ordinariness of such a crime.”
.pm fn-end
Tikhon once more let this pass in silence.[#]
.pm fn-start
After the sentence “Tikhon, etc.,” is struck out: “Stavrogin
had no thought of going away; on the contrary he began again
for some minutes to fall into a reverie.”
.pm fn-end
“And the young lady,”[#] Tikhon began
again, “with whom you broke off in Switzerland;
where, if I may ask, is she ... at this moment?”
.pm fn-start
After “lady” is struck out: “very timidly.”
.pm fn-end
“Here.”
There was silence again.
“Perhaps I did lie much against myself,”
Stavrogin persisted once more. “Well, what
does it matter that I challenge them by the
coarseness of my confession, if you noticed the
challenge? I shall make them hate me still
more, that’s all. Surely that will make it easier
for me.”[#]
.pm fn-start
All this passage, from “Well” to “easier for me,” is struck
out.
.pm fn-end
“That is, anger in you will rouse responsive
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
anger in them, and, in hating, you will feel easier
than if you accepted their pity.”
“You are right. You understand.” He
laughed suddenly. “They may perhaps call me
a Jesuit and sanctimonious hypocrite after the
document, ha, ha, ha! Yes?”
“Certainly there is sure to be some such
opinion. And do you expect to carry out your
intention soon?”
“To-day, to-morrow, the day after to-morrow,
how do I know? But very soon. You are
right: I think, indeed, it will in the end happen
that I shall publish it unexpectedly, and, indeed,
in a revengeful, hateful moment, when I hate
them most.”
“Answer me one question, but sincerely, to
me alone, only to me,” Tikhon said in quite a
different voice; “if some one forgave you for
this” (Tikhon pointed at the pages), “and not
one of those whom you respect or fear, but a
stranger, a man whom you will never know,
if, reading your terrible confession, he forgave
you, in the privacy of his heart—would you feel
relieved, or would it be just the same to you?”
“I should feel easier,” Stavrogin said in an
undertone. “If you forgave me, I should feel
very much relieved,” he added, casting his eyes
down.
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
“Provided that you forgive me too,” Tikhon
murmured in a penetrating voice.[#]
.pm fn-start
After the words “Tikhon murmured, etc.,” there is struck
out: “For what? What have you done to me? Ah, yes, it is the
monastic formula!”—“For voluntary and involuntary sin. Every
man who commits a sin has already sinned against all, and every
man is in some way guilty for another’s sin. There is no solitary
sin. As for me I am a great sinner, and perhaps worse than you.”
.pm fn-end
“It is false humility. All these monastic
formulas, you know, are not fine in the least.
I will tell you the whole truth: I want you to
forgive me. And besides you—one or two more,
but as for the rest—let the rest rather hate me.
But I want this, so that I may bear it with
humility....”
“And universal pity for you—could you not
bear it with the same humility?”
“Perhaps I could not.[#] Why do you....”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “I could not” is struck out: “You understand very
finely, but....”
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
After “Why do you” is struck out: “do this.”
.pm fn-end
“I feel the extent of your sincerity and am,
of course, very much to blame, but I am not
good at approaching people. I have always felt
it a great fault in myself,” Tikhon said sincerely
and intimately, looking straight into Stavrogin’s
eyes. “I just say this, because I am afraid for
you,” he added; “there is an almost impassable
abyss before you.”
“That I shan’t be able to bear it? Not
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
able to endure[#] their hatred?” Stavrogin gave
a start.
.pm fn-start
After “endure” is struck out: “with humility.”
.pm fn-end
“Not their hatred alone.”
“What else?”
“Their laughter.” Tikhon half whispered
these words, as if it were more than he had
strength for.
Stavrogin blushed; his face expressed alarm.
“I foresaw it,” he said; “I must have appeared
to you a very comic character after your reading
of my ‘document.’[#] Don’t be uncomfortable.
Don’t look disconcerted. I expected it.”
.pm fn-start
After the word “document” is struck out: “in spite of all the
tragedy.”
.pm fn-end
“The horror will be universal and, of course,
more false than sincere. People fear only what
directly threatens their personal interests. I am
not talking of pure souls: they will be horrified
in themselves and will blame themselves, but no
notice will be taken of them—besides they will
keep silent. But the laughter will be universal.”[#]
.pm fn-start
After “the laughter will be universal” is struck out: “and
add to it the remark of the philosopher that in other people’s misfortune
there is always something gratifying to us.”—“That is
true.”—“Yet ... you ... yourself.”
.pm fn-end
“I am surprised what a low opinion you have
of people and how they disgust you.” Stavrogin
spoke with some show of anger.
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
“Believe me, I judged rather by myself than
by other people!” Tikhon exclaimed.
“Indeed? but is there also something in
your soul that makes you amused at my
misery?”
“Who knows, perhaps there is? oh, perhaps
there is!”
“Enough. Tell me, then, where exactly am
I ridiculous in my manuscript? I know myself,
but I want you to put your finger on it.
And tell it as cynically as possible, tell me
with all the sincerity of which you are capable.
And I repeat to you again that you are a terribly
queer fellow.”
“In the very form of this great penance
there is something ridiculous. Oh, don’t let
yourself think that you won’t conquer!” he
suddenly exclaimed, almost in ecstasy. “Even
this form will conquer” (he pointed to the pages),
“if only you sincerely accept the blows and the
spitting. It always ended in the most ignominious
cross becoming a great glory and a great strength,
if the humility of the deed was sincere. Perhaps
even in your lifetime you will be comforted!...”
“So you find something ridiculous in the
form itself?”[#] Stavrogin insisted.
.pm fn-start
After “form” is struck out: “in the style.”
.pm fn-end
“And in the substance. The ugliness of it
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
will kill it,” Tikhon said in a whisper, looking
down.
“Ugliness! what ugliness?”
“Of the crime. There are truly ugly crimes.
Crimes, whatever they be, the more blood, the
more horror in them, the more imposing they
are, so to say, more picturesque. But there are
crimes shameful, disgraceful, past all horror, they
are, so to say, almost too inelegant....”
Tikhon did not finish.
“You mean to say,” Stavrogin caught him
up in agitation, “you find me a very ridiculous
figure when I kissed the hands of the dirty little
girl....[#] I understand you very well, and
that is why you despair for me, that it is ugly,
revolting—not precisely revolting, but shameful,
ridiculous, and you think that that is what I
shall least of all be able to bear.”
.pm fn-start
After “dirty little girl” is struck out: “and all that I said
about my temperament and, well, all the rest ... I see.”
.pm fn-end
Tikhon was silent.[#]
.pm fn-start
After “Tikhon was silent” is struck out: “Yes, you know
people, that is, you know that I shan’t bear this.”
.pm fn-end
“I understand why you asked about the
young lady from Switzerland, whether she was
here.”
“You are not prepared, not hardened,”
Tikhon said timidly in a whisper, casting his
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
eyes down; “you are uprooted, you do not
believe.”
“Listen, Father Tikhon: I want to forgive
myself, and that is my object, my whole object!”
Stavrogin suddenly said with gloomy ecstasy in
his eyes. “Then only, I know, that vision will
disappear. That is why I seek boundless suffering.
I seek it myself. Don’t make me afraid,
or I shall die in anger.”
The sincerity was so unexpected that Tikhon
got up.
“If you believe that you can forgive yourself
and attain that forgiveness in this world
through your suffering; if you set that object
before you with faith, then you already believe
completely!” Tikhon exclaimed rapturously.
“Why did you say, then, that you did not
believe in God?”
Stavrogin made no answer.
“For your unbelief God will forgive you, for
you respect the Holy Spirit without knowing
Him.”
“Christ will forgive too?” asked Stavrogin,
with a wry smile and in a quickly changed tone;
and in the tone of his question a suspicion of
irony could be heard.
“It says in the Book: ‘And whosoever shall
offend one of these little ones,’ you remember.
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
According to the Gospel there is no greater
crime....”[#]
.pm fn-start
The fourteenth proof-sheet ends here—there appears to be
something missing.
.pm fn-end
“Quite plainly, you don’t want a row, and
you are laying a trap for me, venerable Father
Tikhon,” Stavrogin muttered scornfully and with
annoyance, making as if to get up; “in a word,
you want me to settle down, to marry, perhaps,
and end my life as a member of the local club,
and visit your monastery on holidays. Why,
that’s penance! isn’t it so? though as a reader
of hearts you, perhaps, foresee that it will certainly
be so, and all that is needed now is for me to
be nicely wheedled into it for form’s sake, since
I am only too eager for that,—isn’t it so?”
He gave a wry smile.
“No, not that penance, I am preparing
another for you!” Tikhon went on earnestly,
without taking the least notice of Stavrogin’s
smile and remark.
“I know an old man, a hermit and ascetic,
not here, but not far from here, of such great
Christian wisdom that he is even beyond your
and my understanding. He will listen to my
request. I will tell him about you. Go to him,
into retreat, as a novice under his guidance, for
five years, for seven, for as many as you find
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
necessary. Make a vow to yourself, and by this
great sacrifice you will acquire all that you long
for and don’t even expect, for you cannot possibly
realize now what you will obtain.”
Stavrogin listened gravely.
“You suggest that I enter the monastery as
a monk.”[#]
.pm fn-start
After the word “monk” is struck out: “However much I
respect you, I ought to have expected this. Well, I must confess to
you, that in moments of cowardice this idea has occurred to me—once
having made these pages universally known, to hide from
people in a monastery, be it only for a time. But I blushed at the
meanness of it. But to take orders as a monk, that did not occur to
me even in moments of most cowardly fear.”
.pm fn-end
“You must not be in the monastery, nor
take orders as a monk; be only a lay-brother,
a secret, not an open one; it may be that, even
living altogether in society....”
“Enough, Father Tikhon.” Stavrogin interrupted
him with aversion and rose from his
chair. Tikhon also rose.
“What is the matter with you?” he suddenly
exclaimed almost in fear, staring at Tikhon.
Tikhon stood before him, with his hands clasped,
and a painful convulsion seemed to pass for a
moment across his face as if from the greatest
fear.
“What’s the matter with you? What’s the
matter?” Stavrogin repeated, rushing to him in
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
order to support him. It seemed to him that
Tikhon was going to fall.
“I see ... I see, as if it stood before me,”
Tikhon exclaimed in a voice which penetrated
the soul and with an expression of the most
violent grief, “that you, poor, lost youth, have
never been so near another and a still greater
crime than you are at this moment.”
“Calm yourself!” pleaded Stavrogin, decidedly
alarmed for him. “Perhaps I shall still postpone
it.... You are right....”
“No, not after the publication, but before
it, a day, an hour, perhaps, before the great step,
you will throw yourself on a new crime, as a way
out, and you will commit it solely in order to
avoid the publication of these pages.”
Stavrogin shuddered with anger and almost
with fear.[#] “You cursed psychologist!”—he
suddenly cut him short in fury and, without
looking round, left the cell.
.pm fn-start
The words “Stavrogin, etc.,” are struck out and several
variants substituted, none of which, evidently, satisfied Dostoevsky.
.pm fn-end
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
PLAN OF THE NOVEL||THE LIFE OF A GREAT SINNER
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
THE LIFE OF A GREAT SINNER
.nf-
.rj
Page 8.
20/8 December.
—Accumulation of wealth.
—The birth of strong passions.
—Strengthening of the will and of the inner powers.
—Measureless pride and struggle with ambition.
—The prose of life and a passionate belief that incessantly overcomes it.
—That all should plead; I only demand.
—Not to be afraid of anything. The sacrifices of life.
—The influence of vice; the horror and coldness from it.
—A desire to defile every one.
—The romance of the years of childhood. Maccary.[#]
.pm fn-start
This is in Roman letters in Dostoevsky’s MS.
.pm fn-end
—Schooling and first ideals.
—Gets to know everything secretly.
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
—Alone, to prepare himself for anything.
(He is incessantly
preparing himself for
something, although he
does not know for what,
and—what is strange—he
does not care about
the what, as though perfectly
sure that it will
come of itself.)
—Either slavery or domination. He believes.
And that only. Unbelief for the first time—strangely
springing up and taking shape only in
the monastery. The little lame girl. Katya.
Brother Misha. The Stolen Money. Underwent
punishment. Fearlessness. A Cornfield.
Do not kill me, Uncle. Love of Kulikov.
John. Brutilov. The Frenchman Pougot.
Upbraids Brutilov. Goes on with his studies.
The diver. Albert.[#] Shibo. Receiving the
communion. Albert does not believe in God.
The old people. Loves a great many things
secretly and keeps them to himself. They call
him a brute and thus he behaves like a brute.
Passionate desire to surprise all by unexpectedly
impertinent tricks? But not from ambition.
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
By himself. The old people. Songs, Therese-Philosophe
John, Brin, Brutilov—Brother, Albert.
Friends, and yet they torture a friend; disgusting.
A meek, good and pure friend before whom
he blushes. Training himself by hardships and
accumulating money. Humboldt.
.pm fn-start
Throughout the MS. Dostoevsky writes this name and Lambert
(see below) in Roman characters.
.pm fn-end
They immediately inform him that he is not
their brother.
He makes friends with Kulikov. The lady
doctor. He sees her in a halo. A passionate
desire to foul himself, to degrade himself in her
eyes, but not to please her. A theft took place.
They accuse him, he exculpates himself, but the
affair becomes clear. The step-brother committed
the theft.
.rj
Page 7.
.sn A strong and permanent trait.
Disrespect for the
people round him, but
this is not yet based
on reason, but solely on a repulsion for them.
Much repulsion. I eat grapes. He is beaten
and flogged for his repulsion. He only shuts
himself up in himself and hates still more.
Haughty contempt for his persecutors, and
rapidity of judgment. Extraordinary quickness
of judgment signifies a strong passionate individuality.
He begins to feel that he ought
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
not to make quick judgments and for this he
must strengthen his will.
.sn First signs of expansiveness.
.sn The mother’s boys are at Sushar’s and at Chermak’s. (Their repulsion comes from\
stupidity.)
—It is a lie, mon Mushvar.
Arkashka and French conversations.
Arkashka, Brutilov and himself keep together.
At Sushar’s—only
Brutilov and his history;
altogether two
chapters—
All up. Because he slapped Sushar. The
beginning of Albert.
The boarding-school. An unjust punishment
takes place in the house. Exams. In the
country. Self-renunciation. Katya. In the town
and in the boarding-school he surprises by
his brutality. Lambert. Heroic acts—to run
away with Katya. Kulikov, with him. Murder.
He does not forgive any lie or falsehood and
without reasoning instantly rushes into a fight.
For a long time he does not believe Katya, then
he put her to the test and at last intimidated her
with the disgrace.
—Strength of will—this he set before himself
as the chief thing.
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
—After Kulikov, he immediately goes to ask
about the lame girl.
Just here they caught him.
—In the country the lady doctor falls in love
with him.
He caught her with a lover.
The lady doctor. Mr. Alfonsky—characters.
.rj
Page 9.
At the house of the old people. With the
old man—reading Karamzin, Arabian tales—On
Suvorov, etc. On interest on money. He
offended the younger old lady. Ask pardon,
I do not want to. He locked them in. Death.
Anna and Vasilissa ran away. They sold Vasilissa.
The last communion. The first confession.
Repulsion. Is there a God? Bible and reading.
.sp 2
.nf c
January 2.
.nf-
He smashed the mirror deliberately.
He decides to keep silent and not to say a
single word—
—St. mother: why do you make a show of yourself
as a sacrifice? (An ideal and strange creature.)
Alfonsky, the father. (His speeches to his
son and aspirations.)
—A feeling of destruction.
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
.sn How many sciences must one know (his conversation with Vanka).
—Voluptuousness (he wants to remain in this state until he has\
money).
—And the enormous
idea of domination (a direct feeling) is hidden
so deep in him that he does not feel able, by
himself, to adjust himself to these people.
He is surprised at himself, puts himself to
the test, and loves to plunge into the abyss—
—The running away with the little girl and the
murderer Kulikov immediately after his removal
from Sushar’s to Chermak’s. (The fact which produces
an overwhelming effect on him and which
has even somewhat unsettled him so that he feels a
natural need to contract inwardly and to reflect so as
to lean on something.) He leans after all on money.
.sn Of God meanwhile he does not think.
.sn His silence ends after a year and a half by his confession about Kulikov.
After Kulikov, he is
humble at home and in
the boarding-school in
order to reflect and
.dv class=box1
find himself,
.dv-
to concentrate.
.sp 2
—But he is unsociable
and uncommunicative,
nor could it be
otherwise, remembering
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
and knowing such a horror, and looking at all
the other children, for instance, as at something
perfectly alien to him, from which he had fled
away into another path, into a good path or a
bad one—
The blood at times torments him. But the
chief thing:
.sn (He is violently carried away by something, by Hamlet, for instance.)\
The Inhabitants of the Moon.
It is not this alone that isolates him from\
everybody, but really his dreams of power and his enormous height\
above everything.
From that height he
is kept back by science, poetry, etc., i.e. in the
sense that these are higher things and that it is
therefore necessary that he should be higher and
better in them too.
Only to prepare oneself, but he is strangely
certain that it will all come by itself. Money
will solve all questions.
The chief thing. The meaning of the first
part—Hesitation, insatiable desire for the ideal,
instinctive consciousness of superiority, power
and strength. Looking for a fixed point to rest
upon. But at any rate an unusual man.
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
.rj
Page 11.[#]
.pm fn-start
At the top of page 11 is the sentence: “Scenes (cows, tigers,
horses, etc.).”
.pm fn-end
or better:—Not a single dream of what to be
and what’s his vocation prevented him from
amassing money.
—But doubt is always solved by the necessity
of money and the chance of amassing a fortune
(he sells himself to the men-servants).
.sn Concerning a horse that went mad, or a fire.
The father gave him a flogging—a rupture between
them—I do not consider you my father.
—He sells himself to the men-servants, and
for this he is held in general contempt, but
—Finds a pocket-book—the infatuation that
possessed him finally on account of his exam.—he
nearly yields.
But after this the history of Katya’s disgrace,
and then the hellish debauchery with Albert,
crime and blasphemy and denouncing himself
as accessory to the murder with Kulikov—straight
into the abyss. The Monastery.
—Although money concentrates him terribly
on a certain firm point and solves all questions,
at times the point wavers (poetry and many other
things) and he cannot find a way out. This
state of wavering forms the novel.
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
—Strengthening of his will, wounds and
burns—feed his pride. He wishes to be ready
for anything.
—He made up his mind to make money in
an honest way. His hesitation with regard to
the pocket-book.
—Since a great many things at times move
him sincerely, in a terrible fit of spite and pride
he plunges into debauchery.
(This is the chief thing.)
—His estrangement from people was furthered
by the fact that they all looked upon him as an
eccentric and laughed or feared him.
—A broken head (pantalons en haut), he is ill.
Then Chermak left him alone. (Mango.)
—By the process of thinking he arrived at
the conclusion, for instance, that it is not necessary
to act dishonestly, because acting honestly he would
make money even better, since to the rich all
privileges for any evil are granted even without
that.
—Albert and he steal a star from the crown
and escape successfully (he incited), but when
Albert began to blaspheme, he began beating
him. And then he declared himself before the
court as an atheist.
—Idea: that he could gain a still greater
power by flattery, like Von Brin.
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
But no—he thinks—I want to reach the same
end without flattery.
.rj
Page 12.
I myself am God, and he makes Katya worship
him. (God knows what he does with her.
“I shall love you then when you can do everything.”)
—In the vagaries of his imagination he has
endless dreams, up to the overthrow of God
and putting himself in the place of God. (Kulikov
had a strong influence.)
Problem. Memento.
.ta l:20 ||h:40
To find the mean proportional. |Act 1. Early Childhood, the old man and woman.
| " 2. The family, Sushar, the running away and Kulikov—
| " 3. Chermak—exams.
| " 4. The Country and Katya, debauchery with Albert.
.ta-
.ta l:22 l:40
| 20 Childhood.
| 20 Monastery.
| 40 Before deportation.
| 20 Woman and Satan.
| 40 Heroic Acts.
.ta-
.sp 2
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
—Repulsion for people from the very first
consciousness as a child (through the passion of
a proud and domineering nature). Out of
contempt:
—“I will carry it with a high hand, shan’t
degrade myself with the flattery and dexterity
of a Brin.”
—And this too is from repulsion for people
and from contempt for them from the earliest
years of childhood—
—“Oh, if I only took upon myself the rôle
of a flatterer like Brin,—what could I not
achieve!”
—And begins at times to reason: “Shall I
not become a flatterer? (he consults the lame girl
about it). This too is a power of the spirit—to
endure oneself as a flatterer. But no, I do not
want it, it is foul—besides I shall have an instrument—money,
so that they, willy-nilly, whether
they choose or not, will all come to me and bow
to me.”
.ta l:30 l:30
|With Kulikov he displays his spiritual power.
|Kulikov does not kill him; but the murderer,\
the runaway soldier, they killed together.
.ta-
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.nf l
13
2
27
12
3
5
—
35 years ago
born in 1835.
.nf-
If any one overheard his dreams, he believes
he would die; but he confesses himself in everything
to the lame girl.
—Whatever he reads, he tells in a peculiar
way of his own to the lame girl.
—“A slap in the face is the greatest offence.”
With blood.—
—The first organized dream of the significance
of money.
—The lame girl keeps everything he is telling
her secret—she does it without thinking, without
his command, having subtly realized it for herself,
so that in most cases he does not remind her of
the necessity of keeping things secret.
The lame girl does not agree to become an
atheist.
He does not beat her for that.
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
.rj
Page 13.
—A single, but detailed psychological analysis
of how writers, for instance, “The Hero of Our
Time” (Lermontov), affect a child.
—The indignation of a child at the guests
as they arrive; at the frankness and impertinence
which they allow themselves. (Uvar) “How
dare they?”—the child thinks.
—The fall of the old couple.
—The theatre. Sit on my knees—
—They flog him for his repulsion.
—When he and the little girl come to
live with the Alfonskys, he tells her not
to say a word about Gogol or about what
concerns us, about travels. She should not say
a word.—
—He has read an immense amount (Walter
Scott, etc.).
—At the Alfonskys—not brothers. He is
made to feel it.
—He pretends to be rude, undeveloped, and
a fool.
—With the men-servants.
—Mrs. Alfonsky suggests the idea that they
should not mix with the children.
—At Sushar’s. Alfonsky flogs him. It
turns out to be for no fault.
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
—Mrs. Alfonsky has invented, the running
away. With Kulikov—Caught.
—A guest: they call him. They examine
him. Candid thoughts.
The guest is surprised.—The house is set on
fire, or something—illness.
—Alfonsky delivers speeches.
—At Chermak’s. Progress in studies, reading.
Exam.
—After Exam. Alfonsky makes some one
fall in love with—Alfonsky questions.
For the lame girl. With Katya. A cornfield.—Family
scenes—Alfonsky, his friend, a
box on the ear.
.nf c
In Moscow, Lambert—
.nf-
About classical education at Chermak’s (Herr Teider).
.hr 20%
.nf c
Jan. 27
.nf-
He is astonished that all these (grown up)
people completely believe in their nonsense, and
are much more stupid and insignificant than
they seem from the outside.
(One of the scholarly guests, falls down intoxicated
and goes with gypsies in the Maryin
Woods.)
A period of unbelief in God. Essential to
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
write how the New Testament had affected him.
He agrees with the Gospel.
The chief thing meantime is his own I and
his interests. Philosophical questions engage
him in so far as they touch him.
.rj
Page 14.[#]
.pm fn-start
On this sheet Dostoevsky noted: To begin to send out on Feb.
22, Jan. 27. Under the name of Lambert stands the name of the
author. On the top are several dates—Feb. 10, 15, 22.
.pm fn-end
Lambert.
The lame girl: and I will tell how you said
that you will be a king (or something ludicrous).
—He wounds her for this—
.ta l:30 l:30
Lambert and he—a complete picture of depravity. But\
Lambert is intoxicated with it and finds nothing higher\
than this. National levity. | Of what does he speak with the lame\
girl? Of all his dreams—
But he plunges into debauchery with an irresistible desire, but\
also with fear. The hollowness, dirt, and absurdity of immorality\
astonish him. He gives it all up and after terrible crimes\
he denounces himself with bitterness. | When I am grown\
up, I shall marry not you. So that it is not necessary to say he\
dreamt of this or that, but he went to the lame girl and said to\
her this or that. Of what he will be and of money. He beat her\
because the money did not increase.
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
| He talked to her about the reading of Karamzin, tales, etc. He\
was taught French and German by the young lady, the old, etc. They\
went for their lessons to other children (there they made fun of him).
| Because the lame girl did not flare into a passion for Karamzin—he\
beat her.
| He knew the whole Bible—he told her.
| —The history of the world—but was weak in geography.
(Dreams of travels, Kul and the lame girl.) They read novels.—He\
is highly developed and knows a great deal about many things.\
He knows Gogol and Pushkin. He never pretends tenderness for\
the lame girl until the time when he carried her in his arms.— | He meets\
Umnov who proves that he knows more than he.\
Coming home he tells the lame girl that Umnov is a fool and knows\
nothing and gave the lame girl a slight beating; after that he pays\
great attention to Umnov.
.ta-
.ni
―――――――――――――――
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
.pi
Do it—cut me off, I don’t want you to study
together with my children.
—When the old couple used to be very drunk
and roll about, the lame girl used to cry over
them. At first he beat her, but then ceased.
—They killed a goose.—
—The Bible. Jacob bowed three times. He gets
muddled with the Bible. The lame girl laughs.
—The habit of beating her; he did not want to
kiss her.
.ta l:30 l:30
| (The lame girl was not frozen to death.
| They found her. But she disappeared from the house of the Alfonskys.)
.ta-
His incessant thinking. From the time he
began to remember himself: What shall I be
and how shall I do it all?
Then doubt: is power alone worth everything
and could one not be the slave of all the strongest.
\_
.dv class=text_box_right
He began training his will power.
He is stung by passions.
.dv-
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
.hr w=20%
.rj
Page 16.
That in each line should be heard: I know
what I am writing and I am not writing in vain.
1. The First Pages.—(1) The tone, (2) ideas
to be artistically and concisely fitted in.
The First N.B.—The Tone (the story is a
life—i.e. although from the author, it must be
concise, without being meagre in explanations,
but also representing by means of scenes. In
this harmony is needed). The concision of the
story is at times that of Gil Blas. As though no
importance is attached (by the author) to dramatic
and scenic passages.
But the dominating idea of the Life should
be seen,—i.e. although the whole dominating idea
is not explained and is always left vague, the
reader should always realize that the idea is
religious, that the Life is of such importance
that it is worth while to begin even from the
years of extreme childhood—also, in the selection
of that in which the story consists, of all facts,
there is continuously displayed (something) and
the man to be is constantly exhibited and set
on a pedestal.
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
\_
.dv class=text_right_box
Chief Nota Bene: He began
saving money from a vague idea,
but that idea was all the time
becoming solid, and showing itself
to him in the further development
of the affair.
But the chief impulse was his coming to live at Alfonsky’s.
.dv-
.in 0
.ta l:30 h:30
| (1) Caught a mouse.
| The lame girl.
| The old couple.
.ta-
.ta r:30 ||h:30
| The nurse, bathing, the badge, and retirement.
| Anna and Vasilissa ran away.
| The last communion (the Italian, money from pocket)—
When I shall be grown up. | The first idea.
| The teacher (drunk).
| The first confession, what has he got there in the little boxes, and in the cup?\
Is there a God?
| To convert the Devil.
.ta-
.ta r:30 h:30
The beating of the lame girl. | The corpse by the hedge. Kilyan.
| Vasilissa was sold—
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
| Interest on money and conversations with the guest.
| Readings. On Suvorov. Arabian tales.
| Dreams.—Umnov and Gogol—(the lame girl laughs).
| —The old couple grow weaker and weaker.
| He locked them in. He got drunk.
| Stole with the boy. Thrashed him.
| Fighting with older boys.
| —Complete depravity.
| He beats the lame girl to make her fight the boys.
| She would like to come out, but she was thrashed and she cried—
| Dreams of power and will. Umnov (looks at naked girls, tries to assault\
the lame girl).
.ta-
When the old couple died—he is eleven
years old, and the lame girl is ten,—Alfonsky—The
old man and woman. Death. He
makes a speech to the lame girl upon how
to behave.
—Before that: They teased the lady—fell
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
on her, they were dragged home, flogging—He
was afraid to complain.
The first fight, he rushed to beat the gentleman
with the badge.
I shall never play the coward.
—I’ll learn not to play the coward. (He was
afraid, but thrashed the boy.)
—He cut himself for a test.
—Instruction from the boy as to fornic...on
(Therese-Philosophe gave him a beating for it).
But the book she took away from him.
He began to save money.
To amass (he tells the lame girl).
The lame girl was taken into the Alfonsky
family before.[#]
.pm fn-start
On the left-hand margin Dostoevsky wrote, beginning at the
words “They caught a mouse” and continuing to this point, “To
squeeze all this into four folios (maximum).”
.pm fn-end
He, directly he arrived, puts her through an
examination. (Advice to her: do not speak of
Gogol and of nothing of ours.)
First part. The boy is wild, but thinks a
tremendous lot of himself.
.hr 20%
.rj
Page 18.
—The man-servant Osip—at first he was
taken into the house to amuse them by telling
stories, by his jovial character. Alfonsky had
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
whipped Osip’s brother to death, then he took
Osip and pressed him for the army. Immediately
Osip escaped (he is also Kulikov). They killed
Orlov. They part. Kulikov (Osip) let him
off.
—In a year and a half’s time the hero’s step-mother
weeps at Alfonsky’s betrayal of her. He
keeps a mistress openly. Osip’s sister (for that
reason he whipped Osip’s brother to death).
Alfonsky is killed by the peasants (?).
The Canvas of the Novel.—The hero’s step-mother,
Alfonsky’s wife (a society lady), when
she pined, becoming an old maid, had a fiancé
(an officer or some one—teacher).
But she married Alfonsky. Unhappy and
offended by Alfonsky (she slapped his mistress
in the face) she renewed relations with her first
lover who happened to turn up at that time.
The boy saw them kissing. “You may report
it to your father,” and then begged him not
to tell. The boy kept silence; but Alfonsky
knows that his son knows that he has horns and
that the step-mother has a lover.
He made a row in the village on account of
the lame girl. He mocked Katya. The mother
was beside herself because of Katya. In town
with Lambert—and so on.
Here (Al——y) who made a row in the village,
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
the peasants might have killed him, which the
boy might witness,—and—
.ta l:30 l:30
|\_(I may make up about the step-mother and her lover, and to what extent\
and degree the boy is involved in that liaison.)
.ta-
—Alfonsky has a benefactor—and indeed his
chief enemy, because he is a benefactor. All
the benefactor’s favours humiliate his pride.
The benefactor does not like to live unless he
can act the part of benefactor, but for one inch
of favour demands three yards of gratitude.
Both humiliate themselves, humiliate each other,
and hate each other to the verge of illness.
.hr 20%
.rj
Page 17.
—The extraordinary pride of the boy has the
result that he can neither pity nor despise these
men.
Nor can he be very indignant with them. He
cannot sympathize either with his father or
mother. At the exam, he distinguished himself
unexpectedly,—he wanted to appear an imbecile.
He despises himself greatly because he could
not restrain himself and distinguished himself.
—The dangerous and uncommon idea that
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
he is to become an extraordinary man possessed
him from his first childhood. He thinks of it
incessantly. Cleverness, skill, learning—all these
he wishes to acquire as a means to being extraordinary
in the future.
Again money seems to him at least not unnecessary,
a power useful on all occasions, and
he decides on money:
Knowledge appears to him terribly difficult.
Now again it seems to him that even if he
is not to be an extraordinary man, but most
ordinary, money will give him everything,—i.e.
power and the right to despise—
And at last he repents and is tormented in
his conscience because he wishes so basely to be
extraordinary.
But he himself does not know what he will be.
The pure ideal of a free man flashes across
him at times; all this when at the boarding
school.
―――――――――――――――――
—He made friends with Osip, about the
Khlysti, they almost sleep together.
—Umnov; he knows Gogol by heart.
.hr 20%
.rj
Page 70.
Monastery—God give us and all animals a good
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
night—(To make a study of Humboldt’s description
of animals, Buffon and the Russians.)
—Science as worship.
—About the bear.
—Of his first love and how he became a
monk—(chastity).
—On the nature of Satan?
—Anikita goes to Chaadaev to exhort him.
He calls Tikhon: the latter comes, argues, and
then asks to be forgiven.
—On little insects and the universal joy of
Living Life, Tikhon’s inspiriting stories.
—His friendship with the boy, who allows
himself to torment Tikhon by pranks. (The
devil is in him.)
—Tikhon learns of Therese-Philosophe—He
blesses him in his downfall and revolt.
—Tikhon’s clear stories about life and happiness
on earth. Of his family, father, mother,
brothers. Extraordinarily simple and therefore
moving stories from Tikhon of his transgressions
against his people, of pride, ambition, mockery
(I wish I could unmake all this again now,
Tikhon says).
This alone is in itself moving, that he has
become friends with the boy.
Tikhon’s story of his first love, of children,
it is lower to live as a Monk; one must
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
have children, and it is higher when one has a
vocation.
—Therese-Philosophe disturbed Tikhon. And
I thought that he had already been hardened.
He vowed obedience to the boy. He obeys him.
(Loftily, vigorously, and movingly.)
Tikhon says to a certain lady that she is a
traitor to Russia as well as a malefactor towards
her children; of how they are deprived of childish
visions even from their very childhood. The
study of them (by Leo Tolstoi and Turgenev),
although they are exact, reveals an alien life.
Pushkin alone is a real Russian.
The boy has at times a low opinion of Tikhon:
he is so funny, he does not know things, he is
so weak and helpless, he comes to me for advice,
but at last he perceives that Tikhon’s mind is as
strong as a babe is pure; that he cannot have
an evil thought, cannot be tempted, and therefore
all his acts are clear and beautiful.
.hr 20%
.rj
Page 71.
Tikhon. On humility (how mighty humility is).
All about humility and free will.
—Of forgiving the unforgivable sinner (that
this torment is the most tormenting).
.rj
Page 19.
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
The Main Idea.
.ti 10
May 3/15.
After the Monastery and Tikhon the Great
Sinner comes out into the world in order to be
the greatest of men. He is sure that he will be
the greatest of men. And in that way he behaves:
he is the proudest of the proud and behaves
with the greatest haughtiness towards people.
The vagueness as to the form of his future
greatness coincides perfectly with his youth.
But he (and this is cardinal) has through Tikhon
got hold of the idea (conviction) that in order
to conquer the whole world one must conquer
oneself only. Conquer thyself and thou shalt
conquer the world. Does not choose a career,
but neither has he the time: he begins to watch
himself profoundly. But along with this there
are also certain contradictions:
(1) Gold (amassing) (a family on his hands);
amassing money was suggested to him by a
usurer, a terrible man, the antithesis of Tikhon.
(2) Education (Comte—Atheism—Friends).
Education—He is tormented by ideas and
philosophy but he masters that which is essential.
Suddenly youth and debauchery. A martyr’s
act and terrible crimes. Self-renunciation. But
out of mad pride he becomes an ascetic and pilgrim.
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
Travels in Russia. (Romance of love. Thirst
for humiliation), etc., etc., and so on.
.nf c
(The canvas is rich.)
Fallings and risings.
.nf-
Extraordinary man—but what has he done
and achieved.
Traits.—Out of pride and infinite haughtiness
towards people he becomes meek and charitable
to all because he is already higher than all.
He wanted to shoot himself (a child was
exposed at his door).
He ends with establishing a Foundling Hospital
and becomes a Haase.[#] Everything is becoming
clear.
He dies confessing a crime.
.pm fn-start
F. M. Dostoevsky had evidently in mind the famous Russian
doctor and philanthropist Haase.
.pm fn-end
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
STAVROGIN’S MEETING WITH TIKHON
.nf c
BY
V. FRICHE
.nf-
.sp 4
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
STAVROGIN’S MEETING WITH TIKHON
From Dostoevsky’s Note-books
.nf-
.sp 2
.ni
Bishop Tikhon, to whom Stavrogin makes his
“Confession,” was conceived by Dostoevsky as
one of the principal characters in the great—unnamed—novel
in five books, the plan of which
he communicated in 1870 to A. N. Maikov.
The action of the second book, on which Dostoevsky
rested all his hopes, was to take place in a
monastery to which a boy, who had committed a
criminal offence, had been sent by his parents.
He was “fully developed and depraved” (a type,
as Dostoevsky says, well known to him), “a little
wolf and a nihilist,” who comes in the end to feel
the beneficent influence of Bishop Tikhon. “I
want to make Tikhon Sadonsky in the second
book the central figure,” Dostoevsky wrote, “of
course under a different name, but he is also a
bishop and will live in a monastery in retirement....
It is no longer a Konstanjhoglo, nor the
German (I forget his name) in Oblomov, nor the
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
Lopukhovs and Rakhmetovs. True, I shall not
create anything, but shall only reveal the actual
Tikhon whom I have long since taken to my heart
with rapture.”
.pi
When Dostoevsky later conceived the idea
of The Life of a Great Sinner, the hero of The Life,
“sometimes a believer, sometimes an atheist,” had
indeed to be spiritually reborn in a monastery
under the influence of the “holy and grand”
figure of Tikhon, and to issue into life as “the
greatest of men.”
When Dostoevsky finally decided on his conception
of The Possessed, his intention was to give
a conspicuous place to Tikhon, to whom Stavrogin
(the prince) was to give his Confession, and this
Confession adds considerably to Peter Stepanovich
Verkhovensky’s story about the Petersburg period
of Nikolai Vsevolodovich’s life (The Possessed, Part
I. chap. v.).
In the notes published by L. P. Grossman
in his book on Dostoevsky (notes taken from
the Dostoevsky Note-books in the Historical
Museum), there are hints as to Stavrogin’s
(prince) meeting with Tikhon, and also as to the
subject of their conversation and the crime of
which Stavrogin repents in his Confession.
Thus Dostoevsky intended the following words
to appear in Stavrogin’s “document”: “And I
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
did all this as an aristocrat, an idler, a man uprooted
from the ground. I admit, though, that
the chief factor was my own wicked will, and had
nothing to do with my environment; of course
nobody commits such crimes. But all, who are
uprooted from the ground, do the same kind
of things, although more feeble and watery.
Many people do not even notice their nasty acts
and think themselves honest.”
Tikhon, who in the note appears under the
name of “Bishop,” advises that this passage shall
be struck out, and Stavrogin replies in a grumbling
tone: “I am not a man of letters.”
This passage is not in Stavrogin’s Confession.
The idea that many people sin in the same way,
yet go on living (“in peace and quiet with their
conscience”), is expressed there not by Stavrogin,
but by Tikhon. And it is Tikhon, not Stavrogin,
who says that the latter’s moral fall is a result
of his being uprooted from the ground (words
inserted by Dostoevsky in the text of the proofs
while correcting them).
In these published notes there is also some
indication of the motive which decided Stavrogin
to make his “document” public:
“Tikhon says: On earth people must be
happy.
“(Prince): I am an idler and I am bored. I
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
know that on earth one can be happy (and must
be happy) and that there is something which gives
happiness, but I do not know what it is. No, I
am not one of the disappointed. I think I am
one of the corrupt and idle.
“The Prince says to him: I want to test my
strength and I will tell you about the little girl.”
As can be seen from Stavrogin’s Confession,
he did commit his crime from “boredom.” Not
satisfied with Stavrogin’s admission of this in the
text, Dostoevsky tried to heighten the motive by
adding the following words in the margin: “I
say frankly, I was sometimes by no means far
from thinking that I should be exiled to Siberia.
The main thing is—I am bored. I was so bored
that I could have hanged myself, I think. I
remember, at that time I was much taken up with
theology. That, it is true, diverted me a bit,
but later I felt still more bored.”
Finally, in one of the notes published by
Grossman the reason is indicated why Stavrogin,
when it comes to the point, gives up the idea of
publishing his “document”: “the Bishop says
that the confession of faith is all right, but that
faith without deeds is dead, and he demands a
still higher deed, a still more difficult act, a moral
labour, as if he said: ‘Well, Prince, are you
capable of this?’ And the Prince admits that
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
he is a Prince, he confesses that he has lied and
takes back his words: in the end—Uri.”[#]
.pm fn-start
I.e. the idea of Stavrogin’s going away with Dasha to Switzerland
and living there as a Swiss citizen.
.pm fn-end
To these notes of Dostoevsky, which are
already known, we are now able to add a series of
new notes taken from Dostoevsky’s Note-book
which is in the Central Archives (No. 15 in A. G.
Dostoevsky’s list).
On page 30 we find:
.in 8
.ti -4
“Lisa[#] pays attention to Nechaev.[#]
.ti -4
He kills Shatov.
.ti -4
Lisa is convinced that he (Stavrogin) had killed him.
.ti -4
She hurries off to him.
.ti -4
(Meanwhile the Prince[#] and Tikhon; before
that the Prince and Shatov. Everything as
before.)
.ti -4
Lisa runs away with Nechaev. St. Tr.[#] And
the book-pedlar. He dies. The Prince
hanged himself. Everything as before.”
.in 0
.pm fn-start
Lisa, i.e. Elisabeth Nikolaevna Drosdov.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Nechaev became Peter Verkhovensky.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Stavrogin.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Stepan Trofimovich, Peter Verkhovensky’s father.
.pm fn-end
This, clearly, is quite a different version of the
end of the novel so far as it relates to Lisa.
Another indication as to the meeting of Tikhon
and Stavrogin is found on page 37:
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
.in 8
.ti -4
“Sum total. Stavrogin as a character.
.ti -4
All noble impulses to a monstrous degree.
.ti -4
(Tikhon) and all passions (with unfailing
boredom).
.ti -4
He throws himself on the girl[#] and on the
beauty.[#]
.ti -4
He did not really love the beauty but despised
her, but flared up with passion (illusory and
momentary, but infinite) and, as soon as he
has committed the crime, he is disappointed.
He escaped punishment, but hanged himself.”
.in 0
.pm fn-start
Dasha or Darya Pavlovna.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Elisabeth Nikolaevna.
.pm fn-end
There is also a hint with regard to one detail
in the supposed conversation between Tikhon and
Stavrogin. On page 38 we find: “He confesses
to Tikhon that he gets fun out of making game
of the beauty.” But actually Stavrogin does not
make game of Elisabeth Nikolaevna, and she is
scarcely mentioned in the Confession and in
the conversation with Tikhon.
There is also a hint with regard to the crime
committed by Stavrogin on page 37: “No one
knows the secret of the marriage[#] except Dasha
and the beauty. Only Tikhon knows about the
little girl.”
.pm fn-start
Stavrogin’s marriage to the lame girl.
.pm fn-end
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
Finally, on page 36 there is a hint with regard
to the passage in the novel to which Stavrogin’s
meeting must be referred: “Stavrogin advises
Dasha to give up S. T. and run away with him to
Switzerland, to Uri. He had already done this
before. Here there is a misunderstanding with
S. T., who, to spite her, tells her he is a cuckold
... and Dasha goes to her brother. At the
same time (the beauty showed jealousy) she warns
him that Stavrogin is married to the lame girl.
The beauty is in despair, since all her hopes are
lost (for she suspects that the prince is in love
with her, and she herself is madly in love with
him); she laughs at Dasha; she runs and gives
herself to the prince. Immediately after this the
murder of the lame girl.
.nf c
(He went to Tikhon).”[#]
.nf-
.pm fn-start
Below is added: “The prince buries the lame girl, and Kuleshov
(Fedka the murderer) confesses that it was he who did it.... And
the beauty quickly went out of her mind.”
.pm fn-end
Such are the hints and notes out of which
eventually grew the chapters of “At Tikhon’s,”
and we do not know the reason why they were
not included by Dostoevsky in The Possessed.
Some details of Stavrogin’s Confession were
later used by Dostoevsky for the character of
Versilov in The Raw Youth.
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
INTRODUCTION||TO THE UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER||OF||THE POSSESSED
.nf c
BY
V. KOMAROVICH
.nf-
.sp 4
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
THE UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER
OF
THE POSSESSED
.nf-
.sp 2
.ni
The chapter of The Possessed, Stavrogin’s confession
of his terrible crime, excluded from the
completed novel, first became known to Merezhkovsky.
Mrs. F. M. Dostoevsky (Anna
Gregorievna Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky’s widow)
originally intended to invite Merezhkovsky to
edit the 1906 Jubilee Edition of Dostoevsky’s
Works and showed him the precious fragment
in manuscript. In his book, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky,
M. preserved his first impression of that reading
by saying that it surpasses the bounds of the
possible in its concentrated expression of horror.
A. G. Dostoevsky hesitated to publish the
chapter in full, and gave parts of it only in her
edition of 1906 as a supplement to The Possessed.
Her hesitation is understandable: Stavrogin’s
terrible confession was not a complete secret
even to Dostoevsky’s contemporaries. Excluded
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
from the novel at Katkov’s request, the Confession
became known by hearsay, and round these
rumours grew up the dark legend of Dostoevsky
as a Marquis de Sade. It was the doing of his
enemies and of faithless friends.[#] But the feeling
which kept the author’s widow from publishing
the fragment of The Possessed must not restrain
the student of Dostoevsky. Indeed, the dark
legend that Dostoevsky was a sensualist is based
(by N. Strakhov chiefly) either on an obscure
calumny, or on coarse and callous surmises as
to the mystery of that troubled and too exacting
conscience which was the mark of Dostoevsky’s
character. And we believe that the surest way
of freeing Dostoevsky’s memory from those false
accusations is by means of open enquiry and
the fullest understanding of Dostoevsky as an
artist.
.pm fn-start
See Turgenev’s letter of Sept. 24, 1882, to Schedrin; also
N. N. Strakhov’s letter of Nov. 28, 1883, to Leo Tolstoi.
.pm fn-end
.pi
“The scene from Stavrogin (the rape, etc.),”
of which Strakhov speaks in the letter to Tolstoi,
is preserved in the Dostoevsky Archives which
belong to the Pushkin Department of the
Russian Academy of Sciences.[#] It is a note-book
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
of seventy-seven pages carefully executed
in the handwriting of A. G. Dostoevsky, a copy,
although unfinished, of a hitherto unknown
manuscript of Dostoevsky. It is not difficult to
determine the place which had been intended for
that fragment in The Possessed. The manuscript
is headed “Chapter IX. At Tikhon’s.” From
the contents it can be seen that the chapter so
numbered must be referred to Part Second of the
novel. In our fragment the following incidents
are supposed to have already taken place: Shatov’s
box on Stavrogin’s ear (the last chapter of Part I.)
and Stavrogin’s conversation with Shatov in the
night (the first chapter of Part II.). On the
other hand Stavrogin’s public declaration of his
marriage with Maria Timofeevna (Chapter X.
Part II.) is only expected and is still being considered
by Stavrogin and Tikhon. Thus, our
Chapter IX. ought to follow immediately after
Chapter VIII. of Part II. (“Ivan the Tsarevich”),
where the maddened Peter Verkhovensky confesses
in a passionate whisper his incredible love
of Stavrogin, and where Stavrogin—in the highest
state of tension (as was ever the case with
Dostoevsky)—reveals his true self. (Stavrogin as
Ivan Tsarevich, the unknown “he” of all
Russia, is hiding himself, the “beautiful” and
“sun,” but through Verkhovensky’s wiles is
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
already enslaved by the demon of nihilism.)
Yet Stavrogin has two ways and two inclinations
which constitute the basis and centre of the novel
so far as it affects the religious destinies of Russia.
Apart from the temptations of nihilism, he, like
the future Aliosha Karamazov, knows also the
way to the monastery and to religious obedience.
Thus after the embraces of the devil—Verkhovensky
(in Chapter VIII.)—there is the confession
to Tikhon (in our Chapter IX.).
.pm fn-start
The author of this article, published in Builoe, No. 18, 1922,
seems at the time of writing to have been ignorant of the version
of Stavrogin’s Confession published by the Central Archives.—Translators.
.pm fn-end
The question which has to be answered first
by the student of this fragment is the question
of its relation to the text of the finished novel,
The Possessed. Is this Chapter IX. a part of the
artistic whole, which, against the artist’s wish,
has accidentally been omitted, and which therefore
must now be restored to its proper place in that
whole? Or is it one of those numerous fragments
of Dostoevsky’s, which, corresponding to some
early but subsequently altered scheme of the
novel, have been detached from the finished novel,
and have not been included in the final text
by the artist, but are now preserved only
in Dostoevsky’s rough manuscripts as curious
examples of the complex origin of his books?
As to the first of these suppositions, the words
of N. Strakhov, which there is no reason to
distrust, speak quite clearly. “The scene from
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
Stavrogin (the rape, etc.) Katkov did not want to
publish.” Thus the omission of the chapter
“At Tikhon’s” from the novel did not arise
from the artist’s decision, but from an external
cause, the request of the editor of the Russkìi
Vèstnik where The Possessed was appearing.
Strakhov’s evidence is confirmed by the connection
which exists between the omitted Chapter
IX. and Dostoevsky’s creative activity generally,
and also with The Possessed as an artistic whole.
The motif of a cruelly insulted little girl,
developed in Stavrogin’s Confession, is evidently
one of Dostoevsky’s long-standing and enduring
ideas. In the year 1866, at the time of his
friendship with the family of the Korvin-Krukovskys,
Dostoevsky told this idea of his as “a scene
from a novel planned by him in his youth.”
The hero of the novel one morning goes over
all his recollections in memory, and “suddenly
in the very heat ... of pleasant dreams and
bygone experiences begins to feel an awkwardness—something
like an inner pain, an alarm....
It appears to him that he must recollect
something, and he makes efforts, strains his
memory.... And suddenly, he actually called
to mind, as vividly and realistically as if it had
happened yesterday ... whereas for all these
twenty years it had not worried him at all. He
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
remembered how once, after a night of debauchery
and under provocation from his friends, he had
raped a little girl of ten.”[#]
.pm fn-start
Reminiscences of Childhood, by Sophie Kovalevsky.
.pm fn-end
The connection between this idea and Stavrogin’s
Confession is indisputable. The recollection
of a sin after a long forgetfulness leads
straight to the closing scene of Stavrogin’s
Confession and to the last “vision.”
But there are several connecting links between
that idea (which in 1866 he thought of as of
long standing and remote) and Chapter IX. of
The Possessed. Putting aside Crime and Punishment,
where Svidrigailov’s vision before his death
is also an echo of that idea, The Life of a Great
Sinner, which was conceived by him in the years
1869 and 1870, was without doubt to have
developed the theme of the injured girl.
The hero of The Life was meant to show by
the whole course of his existence the religious
consistency of life in general, and the inevitability
of the acceptance of God. The Life in its first
parts was to tell the story of the constant and
increasing immersion of man in sin. To the
artist this utter absorption of the hero in sin was a
necessity. Here Dostoevsky by artistic experiment
tested one of his dearest and most secret
ideas—his belief that each personality and man’s
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
life on earth generally will not desert, nor can
desert, the kingdom of the Grace of the Spirit so
long as it preserves itself entire; that sin has
nothing ontological in itself; that man’s soul is by
its very nature a “Christian.” If the notes of
The Life are read attentively, one sees how Dostoevsky
tries to bring the sin and downfall of his
hero to the utmost limits, to the last boundary—and
this is in order that Dostoevsky’s optimistic
belief in the essential illumination of life through
Grace should be more strikingly justified, and
should prevail in the end of The Life where
“everything is becoming clear,” and the (“great”)
sinner turns to God and dies confessing his crime.
Sin, the deepest sin, is not innate in, but
accidental to, man—this belief of Dostoevsky’s
dominated The Life, and led the artist to contrive
situations in which the extremes of sin could be
shown. To Dostoevsky the violation of the little
girl was an extreme of this sort. This theme was
provided by the writer with a view to the religious
trials of the hero of The Life, for among the notes
of the plan there is the following: “He makes an
attempt on the lame girl....”
It should be plain that Dostoevsky’s interest
in this conception had risen not from personal
recollections, and was not maintained by them,
but by the artist’s desire to find some adequate
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
way of expressing in the plot his religious conception
of the world.
But it is not only the conception of Chapter
IX. that is anticipated by the plan of The Life.
There is a deeper and closer connection between
them.
The note, “he makes an attempt on the lame
girl,” occurring in the plan, is closely connected
as a particular development of the general idea
with the other note, “straight into the abyss.”
But this last is intimately connected with another
and quite different note, brief but of great significance
in the eyes of Dostoevsky, “The Monastery.”
The Great Sinner, the violator of the little
girl, doing penance to Tikhon in the monastery,
was meant to form the second part of The Life,
and in the plan is sketched out by independent
notes.
It is at the same time the artistic skeleton
of our Chapter IX. of The Possessed. The
relations between Tikhon and the Great Sinner
merely anticipate the dialogue between Stavrogin
and Tikhon. “He vowed obedience to the boy”
(i.e. Tikhon to the Great Sinner); “Friendship
with the boy who allowed himself to torture
Tikhon by pranks (The devil is in him).” These
notes are closely related to those passages of the
dialogue of Chapter IX. where Tikhon humbly
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
lowers himself before Stavrogin, asks to be forgiven,
confesses his love for Stavrogin, while
Stavrogin is haughty and mocking.... “The
boy has at times a low opinion of Tikhon, he is so
funny, he does not know things, he is weak and
helpless, comes to me for advice; but at last
he realizes that Tikhon is strong in mind, as a
babe is pure, and that he cannot have an evil
thought.”
This note appears already as a simple
sketch of the dialogue between Stavrogin and
Tikhon, in which the relations of the sinner and
the ascetic are depicted in this double way by
vacillations between suspicious mockery and
adoration.
The close correspondence between Stavrogin’s
Confession and the plan of The Life can be explained
by the history of the logical construction
of The Possessed. That novel grew from the
complicated re-fashioning of the originally simple
idea which, as it grew larger and broader, drew
into itself fragments of The Life, which had been
conceived at the same time, but had not yet been
executed. Stavrogin’s appearance in The Possessed
in the part of the principal hero marks a
comparatively late stage in the conception of that
novel, which coincides with Dostoevsky’s determination
not to write The Life. Stavrogin’s
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
character introduced into the novel the broad
religious and artistic problems of The Life of a
Great Sinner. The Great Sinner’s meeting with
Tikhon and his confession was an organic part
of The Life, foreseen by Dostoevsky even in the
first moments of inspiration.[#]
.pm fn-start
See Dostoevsky’s Biography, Letters, etc., pp. 202, 233, etc., in
the original.
.pm fn-end
In so far as Stavrogin is the Great Sinner,
his meeting with Tikhon and confession (i.e. our
Chapter IX.) are a necessary part of The
Possessed. This conclusion is justified by
Dostoevsky’s direct evidence. There is no doubt
that Dostoevsky had Chapter IX. (At Tikhon’s)
in view when he says to Katkov, in his letter of
October 8, 1870, that in The Possessed, which was
at that time being published in the Russkìi Vèstnik,
he “wants for the first time ... to deal with a
certain group of people which has as yet been
little dealt with in literature. I take Tikhon
Sadonsky to be the ideal of such a character. He
too is a priest living in a monastery in retirement.
With him I confront the hero of my novel and
bring them together for a time.”[#] That is, up
to the end of writing the novel, Dostoevsky himself
considered that Chapter IX. was a necessary,
inseparable, and essential part of it. The relationship between
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
The Life of a Great Sinner and
The Possessed explains that necessity.
.pm fn-start
See “Dostoevsky as contributor to Russkìi Vèstnik” in Builoe,
No. 14, 1919; F. M. D.’s unpublished letters from 1866 to 1873.
.pm fn-end
Turning to the completed text of The Possessed,
we find signs of the seemingly accidental disappearance
of Chapter IX. Without that
chapter certain details of the novel appear to be
incomplete. Stavrogin, when he awoke “looking
stubbornly and curiously at an object in the
corner of the room which had struck him,
although there was nothing new or particular
there....”[#] Shatov, seeing Stavrogin out,
says to him: “Listen, go and see Tikhon ...
Tikhon, the late Bishop, who through ill-health
lives in retirement in this city, in our Yefimev-Bogorodskii
Monastery.”[#] The first two details
(we could indicate others) are, without Chapter
IX., superfluous and have no artistic foundation.
And only Stavrogin’s confession about the devil
who persecutes him, only his meeting and conversation
with Tikhon, only Chapter IX., give
to these details the sense of that anticipation of
motive which Dostoevsky was so fond of using.
.pm fn-start
See The Possessed (original), Edition 1888, vol. vii. pp. 212-213.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
See ibid. p. 238.
.pm fn-end
Finally, by excluding Chapter IX. from the
novel, we violate the characteristic grace of
Dostoevsky’s construction. We violate Dostoevsky’s
aesthetic principle, according to which
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
the action in its early stages advances by motives
concealed from the reader, and only when it
approaches the catastrophe is the hidden cause
immediately made clear by the hero’s lengthy
confession. Such a “belated exposition” is
Raskolnikov’s theory, communicated only after
the murder. “The Revolt” and “The Legend
of the Great Inquisitor”—Ivan Karamazov’s
Confession—are communicated to the reader only
after he already knows that Ivan has consented
in his own mind to patricide (“Voluptuaries”).
There is also the case of Versilov’s confession
to his son—after the absurd letter to Madame
Ahmakov and immediately before the catastrophe.
Stavrogin’s confession before the catastrophe,
together with events in the last chapter of the
second part and the chapters of the third part,
correspond perfectly to this obviously characteristic
principle in the construction of Dostoevsky’s
novels.
Such are the reasons for thinking that Chapter
IX. was accidentally excluded and that it is
necessary to restore it to its proper place in the
novel.
There are, however, reasons leading to an
opposite solution of the question, and they are
the more convincing.
If we compare the character of Stavrogin, as
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
he appears in the novel, with the new material
which our fragment (Chapter IX.) adds to that
character, important and deep-seated contradictions
are at once apparent. A pale mask concealing
behind itself indifference to good and evil—such
is Stavrogin as we know him in the novel.
Chapter IX. ostensibly brings to life that dead
inert force by means of his religious experiences.
Here Stavrogin’s Confession, however absurdly
expressed, is a penance, i.e. the act of a live
religious will. “You have discovered a great
way, an unheard-of way,” Tikhon says to Stavrogin,
“to punish yourself in the eyes of the whole
world by the disgrace which you have deserved;
you submitted to the judgment of the whole
church, without believing in the church.” There
is also a true humility in Stavrogin: “You ...
speak to me exactly as to an equal,” he says to
Tikhon; and Tikhon replies: “Your saying
that I speak to you as to an equal, although involuntary,
is a splendid saying.” And finally,
the last verdict of the confessor: “For your
unbelief God will forgive you, for you truly
respect the Holy Spirit without knowing him.”
If this Confession were included in the novel,
then Stavrogin’s end, his callous—in a religious
sense—suicide, would be perfectly impossible
and artistically unprepared for. A man who
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
“truly respects the Holy Spirit” could not have
written the letters before his death to Darya
Pavlovna; Dostoevsky would have prepared a
completely different end from the end of Stavrogin
for the elect of the Spirit: “the citizen of the
canton of Uri hanged here behind the door, etc.”
This inconsistency in the principal character of
the novel, which arises if Chapter IX. is included,
clearly forbids any such inclusion. Besides, there
are direct proofs that at the time he finished
work on The Possessed, and also later, Dostoevsky
considered that Chapter IX. was excluded from
the novel. The words of the Apocalypse, “And
to the Angel of the Laodicean Church,” would
hardly have been repeated by Dostoevsky at the
end of the novel in the last talk of Stepan
Trofimovich with the “book-pedlar,” if he
had not considered that Chapter IX. was finally
excluded from the text.
Although The Possessed was published more
than once after 1871, Dostoevsky, though no
longer bound by Katkov’s censorship, did not
include Chapter IX. And finally, the following
fact gives us the clearest evidence as to how
Dostoevsky regarded the fragment in relation to
the text of The Possessed: a considerable part of
Stavrogin’s Confession was inserted by Dostoevsky
almost without alteration in the confession of
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
Versilov (The Raw Youth), in 1874.[#] The
artist might have used for the new novel the
material of the rough draft of the preceding novel,
but could not possibly have used a fragment of
the authentic text.
.pm fn-start
Compare the passage in Stavrogin’s Confession from “A year
ago, in the spring, going through Germany, I absentmindedly left
the station behind me,” to the words “A whole shaft of bright
slanting rays from the setting sun rushed out and poured their light
over me,” with the corresponding passage of Chapter VII., Part III.,
of The Raw Youth, third edition, 1888, pp. 461-462.
.pm fn-end
Thus, both the completeness of Stavrogin’s
character and the definitely expressed wish of the
author compel us to conclude that Chapter IX.
was not accidentally omitted, but did not belong
to the novel. It is a variant of the manuscript, but
nothing more. How then are we to reconcile
this conclusion with the one which tells in favour
of the opposite solution? Surely Dostoevsky’s
letter of October 8, 1870, to Katkov clearly
refers to our fragment as a necessary part of
the novel.
The date, although it coincides with the
beginning of the publication of the novel, does
not fix the final moment of the conception of
The Possessed. The autumn of 1870 is the time
when the idea of The Possessed had become closely
related in Dostoevsky’s mind with the idea of
The Life of a Great Sinner. Stavrogin is almost
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
identified with the hero of The Life. And since
the crisis of that Life, as it was planned, was
the repentance of the sinner and his conversion
to God with Tikhon’s help, Dostoevsky had then
planned the same conversion for Stavrogin. At
that moment (the final moment in the creation
of the novel, for the first part was already being
published) Dostoevsky might, indeed, have thought
that Chapter IX.—the story of the meeting of
the sinner with Tikhon and the beginning of
his repentance—was necessary.
The second part of the novel was evidently
written by Dostoevsky with the determination
to show the “great sinner” (Stavrogin) converted.
Our Chapter IX. corresponds to the
“serene” Stavrogin who does not appear in the
novel, and of whom a few hints are preserved in
the rough draft which no doubt issue from the
idea of The Life.
The hesitation and vacillation as to the plan
of the novel spread over so long a time that, when
he was finishing the second part of the novel
(Chapter IX.), Dostoevsky was even nearer to
the plan of The Life of a Great Sinner than to
the form which The Possessed finally took. He
still meant to represent his great sinner, Stavrogin,
in the light of Grace. But, as he worked on the
last chapter of the novel and approached the
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
catastrophe in the third part, Dostoevsky evidently
realized that it was impossible to carry out the
religious and artistic objects which he had in
view. Dostoevsky did not find himself possessed
of the artistic powers needed to convert the
Great Sinner, and everything that was leading
up to the expected conversion (Chapter IX.) was
abandoned. Only an echo of his original intention
is left—not in the novel even, but
on the first page, in the quotation from the
Gospels of the promise to the sinner that he
shall find salvation at the feet of Christ. The
crimes of the hero appeared to the writer at
the end of his work suddenly, and against his
expectation, like a stronghold, enduring and self-sufficient.
And in this sketch of the evolution of the
significant idea of The Possessed is shown, I think,
the usual course of Dostoevsky’s artistic problems
and their solution. The Idiot, The Raw Youth,
and The Brothers Karamazov had all, like The
Possessed, been meant originally to reveal that
desire for “universal harmony” cherished by
Dostoevsky, the universal Hosannah which Dostoevsky,
the thinker, had visualized as the hidden
essence of the universe, clouded, but only
accidentally, by the phantom of sin. But each
time, in the finished work of Dostoevsky, the
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
artist, there triumphed a sterner, but for all that
a more religious, conception of the world as a
world subject to sin, beyond the Grace of the
Spirit, which is granted it as a gift, but not
hidden in the substance of nature.
Stavrogin’s Confession, as it echoed Dostoevsky’s
optimistic view, had inevitably to disappear
in his masterpiece.
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
THE UNFULFILLED IDEA||INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO||THE LIFE OF A GREAT SINNER
.nf c
BY
N. BRODSKY
.nf-
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
THE UNFULFILLED IDEA
.nf-
.sp 2
.ni
Creative ideas and conceptions circled perpetually
round the agitated Dostoevsky like a
whirlwind. His soul knew no rest, he was
always at boiling-point, and he rushed simultaneously
along different roads in different directions.
Artistic visions raced before him in many
streams at the same time. “Ideas were born in
his head like spray in a whirlpool,”—such was
A. E. Risenkampf’s memory of Dostoevsky as a
boy when a pupil in the College of Engineering.
The same impression of a dynamic spirit, saturated
through and through with ideas and visions,
Dostoevsky also produced when he was a mature
man. “Listen, listen,” was his usual beginning
as he entered upon the discussion of a problem
that interested him, so we read in the reminiscences
of Prince V. M. “‘I’ll tell you what,’ he would
add, and then would clutch his head, as though
there immediately rushed into it so many ideas
that he found it difficult to begin. Very often
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
for that reason he began to speak from the end,
from the conclusion, from a few very remote,
very complicated entanglements of his thought;
or he would express the first and principal idea
and then would develop the parentheses, and
begin expressing supplementary and explanatory
ideas or anything that occurred to him à propos
at the moment.... This sudden inspiration
was so strong in him that it was felt not only
in him but around him....”[#]
.pm fn-start
Prince V. M., Reminiscences of F. M. Dostoevsky, “Dobro,”
No. 2-3, 1881.
.pm fn-end
.pi
This intellectual peculiarity of Dostoevsky’s
is easily verified when one listens to his own
confessions. “I have a multitude of ideas,” he
wrote in 1845 to his brother Michael, when he
had just begun his literary career. “There is
so much that is new in my life every day, so
many changes, so many impressions.... I am
always busy, I have a multitude of ideas and I
write incessantly,” he wrote in 1846. In 1849
he writes to his brother: “I do not waste time
in vain; I have thought out three stories and
two novels, one of which I am writing now.”
When he came out from prison in 1856 he wrote
to A. Maikov from Semipalatinsk: “I can’t tell
you what agonies I suffered through not writing
at the galleys. And yet work was boiling
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
within.” ... A few years later we have the same
confession, which proves the incessant, complex,
and many-sided activity of Dostoevsky’s spirit. In
1868 he wrote to A. Maikov from Florence:
“I have a tremendous novel in my head now.”
“I have an idea for a fairly long story of twelve
printed sheets, which attracts me. I have another
idea.” “I have a number of themes,” he writes
to Maikov in 1870. “I have six stories conceived
and planned out,” he writes to N. N.
Strakhov in 1870.
It is no wonder that Dostoevsky, possessed
by a clamorous multitude of visions, could not
arrest them all, and could not fix them in print.
Every instant new subjects occurred to him and
new characters. Somewhere in the subconscious
part of him all this material was melted into
one monolithic whole, but it gushed out so
impetuously and variously on the surface and
overflowed into so many channels that it was
impossible to catch all the details and all the
particulars. N. N. Strakhov, Dostoevsky’s intimate
friend, left a remarkable description which
testifies to the unrestrained overflow of Dostoevsky’s
imagination. “New characters, new schemes
for novels, new problems occurred to him incessantly;
they besieged him. They even
hampered his work.” Strakhov says, “Certainly
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
he only wrote a tenth part of the novels which
he had thought out and carried about with him,
sometimes for many years. Some of them he
told in detail and with great enthusiasm, and he
had endless schemes like this which he had not
time to work out.” Neither Strakhov nor the
other memoir writers (with the exception of
Sophie Kovalevsky) told Dostoevsky’s admirers
about those plans of which he spoke “with great
enthusiasm.”... In Dostoevsky’s note-books
there remain traces of his creative ideas, “ideas
for new stories,” plans of unfinished works,
“memento. For my whole life.” Thus on one
page I found a note: “In 1860, (1) The
Darling, (2) Spring Love, (3) The Double (to
re-write it), (4) Memoirs of a Convict (fragments),
(5) Apathy and Impressions.” “Spring Love”
is the title of a novel of which only the plan is
left.... Under the date Nov. 23, 1859, he
put down the “plan of the tragedy Fatum. Plan
of Comedy: the lady places the married teacher
under arrest because he is married.” Among
the stories of Makar Ivanovich (in The Raw
Youth) there was a story about “a squire who
rebuilt a village that had been destroyed by fire.
Stinking Lizzie. How the Holy Monks killed
a monk, etc.”[#]
.pm fn-start
From unpublished materials.
.pm fn-end
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
On Dec. 11, 1868, Dostoevsky announced
to Apollon Maikov that he had conceived the
idea of a “tremendous novel. Its title is Atheism
(it will not be ready for two years).” The
author attributed great importance to this novel.
“When I have written this last novel, then I can
die—I shall have expressed myself completely.”
“Now I believe that I shall express the whole
of myself in it,” he wrote of the same novel,
in March 1869, to Madame S. A. Ivanov-Khmirov.
The principal character of the novel was
meant to be “a Russian man of our society,
not young, not highly educated, but not uneducated,
of some standing, and suddenly, when
already on in years, he loses his belief in God.
All his life he was occupied with his business,
and never got out of the rut, and distinguished
himself in nothing until the age of forty-five.
(The solution of the problem is psychological:
deep feeling, a man, and a Russian.) The loss
of his belief in God affects him tremendously
(indeed, the action in the novel, the setting, are
huge, Dostoevsky wrote on Dec. 11, 1868, to
A. Maikov). He looks about everywhere
among the younger generation, among atheists,
Slavophils and Westerners, among Russian fanatics
and hermits, among priests; by the way, he
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
gets stuck fast on the hook of a Jesuit propagandist,
a Pole; from him he descends into the abyss
of Khlistovshchina [a fanatical Russian sect],
and at last he finds Christ and Russia, the Russian
Christ and the Russian God.” “Two or three
characters have shaped very well in my head,
among them a Catholic enthusiast, a priest (of
the kind of Fanier’s St. Francis),” Dostoevsky
wrote to Madame S. A. Ivanov-Khmirov on
March 8, 1869, confident that his novel is “a
real poem”; “it must have a great effect on
account of its theme”; “it will attract the
reader involuntarily.” But that novel was not
written—new ideas crowded in.... Yet the
mysterious threads of the creative idea were not
torn. They are combined in other entanglements,
in another novel of which Dostoevsky wrote to
Strakhov on March 24, 1870, that its “idea has
been alive in me for three years.”[#] That new
novel was intended for the magazine Sarya.
The author wrote that the “whole plan of the
novel was ‘ripe.’” “During three years a great
deal has become ripe”; “the idea of the novel
demanded a large volume”; in its bulk at any
rate, the same as Tolstoi’s War and Peace.
“The novel will consist of five very long stories
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
(about fifteen printed folios each). The stories
are quite separate from one another, so that
they could even be sold separately, and published
in various magazines (except the two stories in
the middle),” so he wrote to A. Maikov on
March 25, 1870. “The common title will unite
them into a whole novel.”
.pm fn-start
“This future novel has been tormenting me now for more
than three years.”
.pm fn-end
In his letter to N. N. Strakhov of March 24,
1870, we hear about the title of the novel The
Life of a Great Sinner. Dostoevsky’s letter,
written on the following day to A. Maikov, gives
very valuable particulars about the novel. The
action of the first book takes place as far back
as the forties. “The main question which runs
through all the books is the same which has
tormented me, consciously and unconsciously, all
my life—the existence of God. The hero is at
different times in his life an atheist, a believer, a
fanatic, and sectarian, now again an atheist.
The action of the second book will take place
in a monastery. I place all my hopes on this
second book. Perhaps they will say at last that
I have written not merely trifles. (To you
alone, Apollon Nikolaevich, I make the confession:
I want to make Tikhon Sadonsky in the second
book the central figure, of course under a different
name, but he is also a bishop and will live in a
monastery in retirement.) A thirteen-year-old
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
boy who took part in a criminal offence, highly
developed and depraved (I know that type), the
future hero of the whole novel, is placed in the
monastery by his parents (educated, of our class)
to be educated there. The young wolf and
nihilist of a boy makes friends with Tikhon (you
surely know the character and the whole aspect
of Tikhon.) I shall put Chaadaev also here in
the monastery (also of course under a different
name). Why should not Chaadaev spend a year
in a monastery? Suppose that Chaadaev, after
his first article, for which his mental state was
examined into by doctors every week, could not
bear it any longer and published, let us say,
abroad a pamphlet in French. It is extremely
likely that for this offence he might have been
sent to spend a year in a monastery. Belinsky,
for instance, Granovsky, even Pushkin might
come to Chaadaev as visitors. (It is not
Chaadaev; I only take that as a type in my
novel.) In the monastery are also Pavel Prusky;[#]
Golubov[#] is also there, and the monk Parfeny.[#]
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
(In this world I am an expert, and I know the
Russian monastery from my childhood’s days.)
But the chief thing is—Tikhon and the boy.
For the love of God do not tell any one the
contents of the second part. I never tell my
themes beforehand; it feels awkward; but to
you I confess myself. To others it may not be
worth a farthing, but to me it is a treasure.
Don’t tell them about Tikhon. I wrote to
Strakhov about the monastery, but I did not
write about Tikhon. Perhaps I shall represent
a grand, positive, holy character. It is no longer
a Konstanjhoglo, nor the German (I forget his
name) in Oblomov, nor the Lopukhovs and
Rakhmetovs. True, I shall not create anything,
but shall only reveal the actual Tikhon whom I
have long since taken to my heart with rapture.
But I shall, if I succeed, consider even this
an important deed for myself. Do not then
tell it to any one. But for the second book, for
the monastery, I must be in Russia.[#] Ah, if
only I succeed in it! The first book is the
childhood of the hero. It is understood that
children are not in the scene; there is a love
story.”
.pm fn-start
A sectarian of the old faith, who founded a printing-office
in the ’60’s to print the books of the old faith; later embraced
orthodoxy.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Editor of the journal of the old faith, Istina, in the ’60’s;
embraced orthodoxy under the influence of the monk Pavel.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Author of the book in three volumes, The Story of My Wanderings
in Russia, Moldavia, Turkey, and the Holy Land; Moscow, 1856.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Dostoevsky was at that time in Dresden.
.pm fn-end
Dostoevsky attributed to this novel the importance
of a personal confession and final
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
summing up. “This will be my last novel.”
“I consider this novel as the last word in my
literary career.” Six years had to be spent in
work on it. Interrupted by the idea and plan of
The Possessed, busily engaged in writing for the
Russkìi Vèstnik, Dostoevsky was waiting the
moment when he could sit down to his large
canvas “with pleasure.” But the novel was only
planned out with any distinctness in its first
stage, in the rough draft of the syllabus;
and the individual characters, ideas, and scenes
have been dispersed in a series of subsequent
novels.
Among Dostoevsky’s manuscripts, preserved
by his widow, A. G. Dostoevsky, and handed
over by her to the Russian Historical Museum,
are Dostoevsky’s note-books, and in one of
them is the detailed plan of a novel portraying
the principal hero in the days of his
childhood in the monastery and after he came
out of the monastery. The plot of the
novel changed in the course of writing;
now the boy is with his family, now from the
beginning he is with the Alfonsky family.
The details of the novel were also erratic:
its “canvas” could always be covered with
new patterns. The novelist’s favourite word
“invent” serves to indicate that the plan
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
of the novel in question could by no means be
considered fixed.[#]
.pm fn-start
The original draft gives the following characteristics of the
hero:
—No authority.
—Germs of the most violent physical passions.
—Inclinations towards boundless power and unshakable belief
in his authority. To move mountains. And is glad to test his
power.
—Struggle—his second nature. But quiet, not stormy.
—Despises falsehood with all his strength.
.pm fn-end
We publish the complete text of the plan of
The Life of a Great Sinner, preserving all the
peculiarities of the writing and punctuation of
the original.
The novel was planned during various months
in 1869-70.
The significance of this novel autobiographically
is undeniable. Strakhov has already called
Dostoevsky the most subjective of writers. A
great many things show that in The Life of a
Great Sinner Dostoevsky intended to dissect his
soul, to open its wounds, to free himself from
the tormenting impulses of his ego, to chastise
the outbreaks of his spiteful, vicious thoughts, to
lay bare before himself the secret places of his
soul, and to bring out into the light of day that
darkness, so as to disperse it—like Gogol, who
fought the defects of his own spirit in describing
the characters in his books.
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
The hero of The Life is not of course a portrait
of the writer; the details of the description
are invented,[#] but The Life gives hints of the
most interesting kind for an understanding of
the writer’s character.
.pm fn-start
Evidently Dostoevsky got some material for his “model” in
I. N. Shidlovsky, a friend of his youth, who serves also as the prototype
of Stavrogin in the first stages of work upon him.
.pm fn-end
The whole background in the first part is
steeped in the raw material of real life, of recollections
of the writer’s actual experiences.
“Brother Misha”—is he not Michael, one of
Dostoevsky’s younger brothers? Sushar is
Nikolai Ivanovich Souchard, the French teacher
who gave lessons to the Dostoevsky children.
Chermak is Leontii Ivanovich Chermak, in whose
boarding-school Fedor Dostoevsky spent the
years 1834-37. Umnov is a playmate of the
Dostoevsky brothers who used to come to their
house, the Vanichka Umnov who brought them
various books and books in manuscript (for
instance The House of the Mad, by Voyekov, etc.).
The list of authors and books known to the
well-read hero of The Life takes us vividly into
the childhood and youth of Dostoevsky himself.
The New Testament, the Bible, Gogol, Pushkin,
Walter Scott, Karamzin, works on history and
geography, Arabian Nights, etc.—all these are
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
confirmed by Dostoevsky’s own accounts of the
early years of his life and in the reminiscences
of him by his brother Andrei Mikhailovich.
The latter, speaking of their family readings,
points out first of all that the father and mother
read aloud the usual books to their children:
The History of the Russian State by Karamzin,
and above all volumes xi. and xii. Karamzin’s
History was Fedor Dostoevsky’s table-book, and
he always read it when he had nothing new to
read. Karamzin’s stories Poor Lisa and Marfa
Possadnitsa were also read aloud, also Letters of
a Russian Traveller. Dostoevsky himself owned
to N. N. Strakhov (December 2, 1870): “I
grew up on Karamzin”; and in The Journal of
a Writer Dostoevsky said that at the age of ten
he “already knew almost all the principal episodes
of Russian history from Karamzin.” Andrei
Mikhailovich Dostoevsky says: “I saw Walter
Scott most often in the hands of my brother
Fedor.” To a correspondent who asked Dostoevsky
to advise him about his daughter’s reading,
Dostoevsky wrote in 1880: “When I was
twelve, during my summer holiday in the country
I read Walter Scott all through. From that
reading I took with me into life so many splendid
and lofty impressions that they certainly formed
a great force in my soul for the struggle against
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
impressions of a tempting, sensual, and corrupting
kind.” According to the recollections of Andrei
Dostoevsky, Pushkin was read many times and
was almost learnt by heart. Gogol, too, was one
of his brother’s favourite writers in boyhood.
Referring to Dostoevsky’s love for Gogol, A. E.
Risenkampf recorded that Dostoevsky as a boy
recited to him by heart whole pages from Dead
Souls. Concerning the New Testament Dostoevsky
wrote: “I come from a Russian and religious
family. We in our family knew the New Testament
almost from early childhood.” As a boy
of eight he was greatly impressed by hearing in
church the Bible story of Job.[#]
.pm fn-start
Madame A. G. Dostoevsky made the following note in the
margin of the title-page of Brothers Karamazov (seventh edition,
p. 308), beside the quotation “A hundred and four sacred stories
from the Old and New Testament.” “Fedor Mikhailovich learnt
to read from this book.” The book is in the F. M. Dostoevsky
Museum. (From unpublished materials.)
.pm fn-end
Relations of F. M. Dostoevsky remember that
the stories from the Arabian Nights were told to
the brothers Dostoevsky by an old woman,
Alexandra Nikolaevna, who used often to visit
the family. She would tell one story after another,
and the children would not leave her side. In
F. M. Dostoevsky’s own words he was very fond
of books of adventure. The Inhabitants of the
Moon is evidently the title of a book which was
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
very popular in the thirties—“Of the Inhabitants
of the Moon and other remarkable discoveries
made by the astronomer Sir John Herschel
during his stay at the Cape of Good Hope,
translated from the German, Petersburg, 1836.”
That infatuation for the theatre, particularly
for Hamlet, which possessed the hero of The
Life finds confirmation also in Dostoevsky’s
biography.[#]
.pm fn-start
See complete edition of F. M. Dostoevsky’s Works, vol. i.,
Petersburg, 1883, p. 11; N. N. von Voght, “To the Biography of
Dostoevsky,” in Istoricheskii Vèstnik, 1901, xii. p. 1028. See also
Dostoevsky’s letter of Aug. 9, 1838, to his brother Michael.
.pm fn-end
The frequency in The Life of details based on
facts taken by the author from his boyhood
inevitably introduces a question as to the right
of the student to look for a personal key in the
author himself to his hero’s character. Indeed,
many of the hero’s spiritual experiences testify to
their subjective character.
He loved to test himself; he trained his
will-power; he accustomed himself to “self-torment.”
This thirst for self-torment, this
anxiety to spend himself in suffering, so as to be
convinced of his ability to “endure,” was characteristic
of Dostoevsky himself. A letter is
brought to him from his brother. “I have
invented a new kind of enjoyment for myself—a
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
most strange one—to make myself suffer,” he
tells his brother Michael, in a letter of January 1,
1840. “I take your letter, turn it over in my
hand for several minutes, feel if it is full
weight, and, having looked at it sufficiently
and admired the closed envelope, I put it in
my pocket.... You won’t believe what a
voluptuous state of soul, feeling, and heart
there is in that! And so I sometimes wait for
a quarter of an hour....”
The hero of The Life is unsociable, “uncommunicative,”
keeps a great many things to
himself, is reserved and avoids people. Michael
Dostoevsky in 1838 calls his brother “reserved,”
not without reason. Fedor Dostoevsky, writing to
him about the “strange and wonderful things”
in his life, says “that he will never tell any
one this long story.” In the College of
Engineering, Dostoevsky, according to the recollection
of his fellow-students, usually sat or
walked alone, and kept himself apart from all.
In 1854 he wrote from Semipalatinsk: “I live
a lonely life here; I hide myself from people
as usual.” That avoidance of human beings in
the hero of The Life was fed by his contempt for
them, by a feeling of repulsion, and sprang from
“a proud, passionate, and domineering nature.”
Let us call to mind a fragment from Dostoevsky’s
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
letter to his brother Michael in 1847: “But,
Lord, what a multitude of disgusting, narrow-minded,
grey-bearded wiseacres, connoisseurs,
Pharisees there are, who pride themselves on their
experience, i.e. on their insignificance (for they
are all made to the same measure), who eternally
preach contentment with one’s lot, belief in
something, sobriety in life, and satisfaction with
one’s place, without having realized the meaning
of those words,—a satisfaction which is like
monastic flagellation and denial,—and with inexhaustible
petty spite they condemn a strong,
fiery soul who cannot endure their banal daily
time-table and calendar of existence. They are
scoundrels with their farcical earthly happiness.
They are scoundrels!”
The hero of The Life had by nature a sharply
defined sense of personality, a consciousness of
his superiority, of inner strength, of his own
uniqueness. Does not the very same tone sound
in the proud and “hyperbolical” admissions of
Dostoevsky himself, when intoxicated by the
success of Poor Folk, his first literary venture?[#]
“A crowd of new writers has appeared. Some
are my rivals. Herzen (Iskander) and Goncharov
are especially remarkable among them.
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
They are highly praised. But the first place is
mine for the time being and, I hope, for ever.”
.pm fn-start
“I am now nearly drunk with my own fame.” (F. D.’s letter
of Nov. 16, 1845.)
.pm fn-end
Much later, when he had served hard labour,
he writes (Oct. 1, 1859) to his brother from
Tver: “Towards the middle of December I
will send (or bring myself) the corrected Double.
Believe me, brother, that the correction, provided
with a preface, will be worth a new novel. They
will at last see what The Double is like. I hope
I shall make them even too deeply interested.
In a word, I challenge them all. And, finally,
if I do not correct The Double now, when shall
I do it? Why should I lose a superb idea,
the greatest type, in its social importance, which
I was the first to discover, and of which I was
the prophet?” The gigantic individualism of
the hero of The Life, stressed more than once
by the author, is to be heard in Dostoevsky’s
characteristic admission to Apollon Maikov:
“Everywhere and in everything I reach the
furthest limit; I have passed beyond the boundaries
of all life” (Aug. 16, 1867).
Certain eccentricities in the character of the
hero of The Life are worth attention. He loved
to “surprise everybody by unexpectedly rude
pranks”; “behaved like a monster”; “offended
an old woman.” Something of the kind, certain
collapses in his spiritual life and in his relation
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
to people, were to be found in Dostoevsky.
Thus on his own admission he was rude to the
officer who taught algebra in the College of
Engineering (1838). In his letter to his brother
(1847) he gives himself the following characteristics:
“I have such a bad repulsive character....
For you and yours I am ready to give my
life, but at times, when my heart is melting with
love, you can’t get a kind word from me. My
nerves do not obey me at such times.... How
often I have been rude to Emily Fedorovna,[#]
the noblest of women, a thousand times better
than myself; I remembered how I used sometimes
to be deliberately cross with Fedya whom at
the same time I loved even better than yourself....”
.pm fn-start
The wife of Michael Dostoevsky.
.pm fn-end
There flared up at times in the hero of The
Life “a feeling of destructiveness,” and the
same feeling showed itself in Dostoevsky’s view
of the world when he was a boy. “Up till now
I did not know what wounded vanity meant,”
he wrote on Oct. 31, 1838. “I should blush
if that feeling possessed me ... but—do you
know?—I should like to crush the whole world
at one go.” Those plunges into “abysses”
and the voluptuousness of the hero of The Life
have their counterpart in certain details which
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
Dostoevsky himself relates of his youth. “Good-bye,”
he ended his letter to his brother of
Nov. 16, 1845; “the little Minnies, Claras,
Mariannes, etc., are enchanting, but they cost
a terrible amount of money. The other day
Turgenev and Belinsky scolded me terrifically
for my disorderly life.”
“The idea of amassing money,” one of the
hidden thoughts of The Great Sinner, had early
engrossed the attention of the greatest martyr
in the ranks of poverty-stricken writers, who all
his life long was in need of money and passionately
awaited the chance of living and working in
conditions of security like Tolstoi and Turgenev.
“Money and security are good things. When
shall I get rid of my debts?” “Money—I
have not one brass farthing.” “It is very
painful.” “If you can save me, do.” “I am
again in such straits as to be ready to hang
myself.” “I am really in an awful state now....
I have not got a farthing.” “All my
life I have worked for money, and all my life
I have been constantly in need.” “How can
I write when I am hungry?... Damn myself
and my hunger. But my wife is nursing, and
she herself has to go and pawn her last woollen
skirt. And it has been snowing now for
two days. And then they ask me for artistry,
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
for purity of poetry, without strain, without
violence, and they point to Turgenev and Goncharov!
Let them only see in what conditions
I work ... ”—that is the cry, echoing like a
groan through Dostoevsky’s letters at various
periods of his life, particularly when he was
abroad, and during the years when The Life of
a Great Sinner was being shaped. We have to
suppose that the religious problem was being
solved by Dostoevsky much in the same way as
it was in the life of the hero of the novel—by
“stretches” of belief and unbelief.
An analysis of The Life which reveals the
autobiographic substratum lets us see with greater
certainty the personal traits in those other novels
of Dostoevsky’s into which The Life of a Great
Sinner split off. Versilov’s son, born Dolgorukov
(The Raw Youth), with his “idea of discipline,”
approaches the character in Dostoevsky’s unwritten
novel who in this respect, by the way,
is akin to Stavrogin. The hero of The Possessed,
with his falls, “abysses,” and depravity, is also
akin to the Great Sinner. The pages about
“Tushar’s” boarding-school, the exposed child,
the figure of Lambert in The Raw Youth, are
taken from The Life. In certain particulars the
Great Sinner approaches Ivan Karamazov and
Dmitri Karamazov. Tikhon of The Life passed
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
into The Possessed and Brothers Karamazov in
the characters of the Bishop and of the old monk
Zosima.[#]
.pm fn-start
A few expressions, typical of Dostoevsky, are found in The
Life and in his later works: thus, the expression “sacrifice of life”
found place there and in Brothers Karamazov (Part I. Book I.
chap. v. p. 33; third edition of F. M. Dostoevsky’s Works).
.pm fn-end
Thus the novel connects the most important
works of Dostoevsky’s later period, and is allied
in certain details with the early experiments,
for instance with Notes from the Underworld.
But much of what he had planned remained
unexecuted and faded in the working out of the
chosen themes. Where is the broad picture of
the people’s religious life, with their world of
sectarians and believers of the Old Faith, into
which the Great Sinner plunged? The pale
figure of Makar Ivanovich Dolgorukov, the
pilgrim, is very far from corresponding with a
great “poem.” The principal character became
much diminished and spiritually toned down in
the “raw youth,” Versilov.
The sketch of the unwritten novel is generally
valuable for the light it throws upon Dostoevsky’s
habits of creation. The novel was not written.
The huge canvas would not have been covered
by the mass of characters that hovered in the
writer’s imagination. The novels Atheism and
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
The Life of a Great Sinner clearly prove that
Dostoevsky could not cope with the swarm of
his creative imagination. He could not tame and
conquer the rush of his elemental visions. His
soul burnt too fiercely to be satisfied with an
inferior light. All in flames, his soul set on fire
and destroyed the flashing visions. And it seems
as if iron necessity alone chained the writer to
the desk and made it possible for us to read his
works. There is something accidental in the
published works of Dostoevsky. They do not
represent the whole creator; they are paler than
his original conceptions.
.sp 4
.nf c
THE END
.nf-
.sp 4
.nf c
Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
.nf-
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
FOOTNOTES
.sp 2
.fm lz=h rend=h
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
THE
HOGARTH PRESS
HOGARTH HOUSE, PARADISE ROAD,
RICHMOND.
.nf-
.sp 1
.nf c
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
.nf-
.in 4
.ti -4
THE GENTLEMAN FROM SAN FRANCISCO,
AND OTHER STORIES. By I. A. Bunin.
Translated from the Russian by D. H. Lawrence,
S. S. Koteliansky, and Leonard Woolf. 4s. net.
.in 0
.pi
I. A. Bunin is a well-known Russian writer, but his short stories
have not hitherto been published in an English translation. Four
stories are included in this volume. The “Times Literary Supplement”
in reviewing a French translation of the first story in this
volume says: “Whatever its faults this is certainly one of the most
impressive stories of modern times.”
.sp 2
.in 4
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DAYBREAK, a Book of Poems. By Fredegond
Shove. 3s. 6d.
.in 0
Mrs. Shove has the distinction of being the only woman poet
whose work has been included in Georgian Poetry, although she has
previously published only one volume, Dreams and Journeys.
.sp 2
.in 4
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KARN. A Poem. By Ruth Manning-Sanders. 3s. 6d. net.
.in 0
This is an ambitious narrative poem by a young writer who has
previously published one book of short poems. Unlike most
narrative poems it is vivid and readable.
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.pb
.sp 4
.in 4
.ti -4
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS
SOPHIE TOLSTOI. With Introduction and
Notes by Vasilii Spiridonov. Translated from
the Russian by S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard
Woolf. 4s. net.
.in 0
This autobiography was written by Tolstoi’s wife in 1913 and
is extraordinarily interesting, not only “as a human document,” but
in the light which it throws upon Tolstoi’s life and teaching and on
those relations with his wife and family which led up to his “going
away.” Countess Tolstoi wrote it at the request of the late S. A.
Vengerov, a well-known Russian critic. He intended to publish
it, but this intention was not carried out owing to the war and his
death. The MS. was discovered recently among his papers and has
just been published in Russia. It deals with the whole of Tolstoi’s
married life, but in particular with the differences which arose
between him and his wife over his doctrines and his desire to put
them into practice in their way of living. It also gives an account
of Tolstoi’s “going away” and death. The book is published with
an introduction by Vasilii Spiridonov and notes and appendices
which contain information regarding Tolstoi’s life and teachings
not before available to English readers.
.bn 173.png
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.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS
.sp 2
.nf-
.in 8
.ti -4
CLIVE BELL
Poems. 2s. 6d. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
T. S. ELIOT
Poems. Out of print.
.sp 1
.ni
.ti -4
E. M. FORSTER
The Story of the Siren. Out of print.
.sp 1
.ti -4
ROGER FRY
Twelve Original Woodcuts. Third impression. 5s. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
MAXIM GORKY
Reminiscences of Tolstoi. Second edition. 5s. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Prelude. 3s. 6d. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
HOPE MIRRLEES
Paris. A Poem. Out of print.
.sp 1
.ti -4
J. MIDDLETON MURRY
The Critic in Judgment. 2s. 6d. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Stories from the Old Testament retold. 4s. 6d. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
The Note-books of ANTON TCHEKHOV, together with Reminiscences of TCHEKHOV by Maxim
Gorky. 5s. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
LEONARD WOOLF
.ni
Stories of the East. 3s. net.
.sp 1
.ti -4
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Monday or Tuesday. With Woodcuts by Vanessa Bell. 4s. 6d. net.
The Mark on the Wall. Second edition. 1s. 6d. net.
Kew Gardens. Out of print.
.sp 1
.ti -4
LEONARD & VIRGINIA WOOLF
Two Stories. Out of print.
.in 0
.bn 174.png
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REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOI
By MAXIM GORKY.
Second Edition. 5s. net.
SOME PRESS OPINIONS
.nf-
“In these few pages Gorky has laid bare, not completely, but yet
mercilessly, the soul of Tolstoi, and one draws back baffled.”—Glasgow
Herald.
“If the purpose of biography is to thrill the reader, Gorky has
succeeded in equalling Cellini and in outdoing Audrey.”—Mr.
Edmund Gosse in The Sunday Times.
“The book did not horrify me; it held me breathless.”—“Wayfarer”
in The Nation.
“... a masterpiece: so long as men are interested in one another
it must live.”—Time and Tide.
“We quote and quote because nearly every line of those brief
reflections or criticisms has its own terrifying clearness.”—The
Observer.
“Sometimes by accident an untouched amateur photograph of
a great personage will drop out of an album or of an old drawer,
and instantly the etchings, the engravings, the portraits by Watts
and Millais seem insipid and lifeless. Such is the effect of Gorky’s
Notes on Tolstoi.”—New Statesman.
“A book of frank and fearless truth.”—Mr. Hamilton Fyfe.
“All Tolstoi is to be found in it.”—The Open Court.
.bn 175.png
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TCHEKHOV’S NOTE-BOOKS
Together with Reminiscences of TCHEKHOV
by MAXIM GORKY.
5s. net.
SOME PRESS OPINIONS
.nf-
“Nothing in this book, we are told, has been translated before,
but it was all worth translating.”—Times Literary Supplement.
“I regret that they have been published.”—J. Middleton
Murry in the Athenaeum.
“What one feels is what wonderful stories he might have made
of them.”—Time and Tide.
“Tchekhov’s Note-books have been admirably translated and
speak for themselves.”—British Weekly.
“To a writer, as one who possibly keeps such note-books himself,
they have the greatest interest. To the general reader they will be
interesting just so far as he or she is concerned with life.”—Daily
Chronicle.
“The charm of this book is that the reader has the sensation of
perfectly intimate, easy intercourse with Tchekhov himself.”—New
Statesman.
“It is, as it were, the rude ore of inspiration and observation,
from which literary metal of a high quality might have come.”—Sheffield
Independent.
“His ‘notes’ are like flashlights which catch human nature off
its guard at critical moments.”—Manchester Guardian.
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MONDAY OR TUESDAY
By VIRGINIA WOOLF.
With Woodcuts by Vanessa Bell.
91 pp. 4s. 6d. net.
PRESS OPINIONS
.nf-
“But here is ‘Kew Gardens’—a work of art, made, ‘created,’ as
we say, finished, four-square; a thing of original and therefore
strange beauty with its own atmosphere, its own vital force....
The more one gloats over ‘Kew Gardens,’ the more beauty shines
out of it ... and the more one likes Mrs. Bell’s Kew Garden
woodcuts.”—The Times.
“‘The Mark on the Wall’ is a wonderful description.”—The
New Statesman.
“No one who values beauty in words should miss ‘The Haunted
House.’”—Daily News.
“And how amazingly it is rendered! No one interested in the
expression of modern thought through modern art should miss
these consummate renderings.... There is imagination here,
insight and honesty. Mrs. Woolf’s style is individual, and so
exquisitely suited to its subject that her pictures do not seem made
with words, but with the very stuff of our mental processes.”—Observer.
“It is a new thing, made up of a new way of using words and a
new way of suggesting emotions.”—Woman’s Leader.
“The beauty—not only of her writing, but of what she sees and
gets through into it—is at times overwhelming. ‘A Haunted
House’ is a little masterpiece; like nothing else one has ever seen
so much as tried in prose.”—Time and Tide.
“In ‘Monday or Tuesday,’ Virginia Woolf has added some fine
examples of her imaginative genius to the two stories already
printed.”—Manchester Guardian.
.sp 4
.pb
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.it Transcriber’s Notes:
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.it Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a\
predominant form was found in this book.
.if t
.it Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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