Текст книги "Demons"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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"Here."
Again silence.
"Perhaps I was indeed heaping lies on myself," Stavrogin repeated insistently once more. "However, what of it if I'm challenging them by the coarseness of my confession, since you did notice the challenge? I'll make them hate me even more, that's all. And so much the easier for me."
"That is, their hatred will evoke yours, and, hating, it will be easier for you than if you were to accept their pity?"
"You're right. You know," he suddenly laughed, "I may well be called a Jesuit and a pious hypocrite, ha, ha, ha! Right?"
"Of course, there will be such an opinion. And how soon do you hope to carry out this intention?"
"Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, how do I know? Only very soon. You're right: I think what's precisely going to happen is that I'll make it public unexpectedly and precisely at some vengeful, hateful moment, when I'm hating them most of all."
"Answer one question, but sincerely, for me alone, only me: if someone forgave you for that" (Tikhon pointed to the pages), "and not someone of those you respect or fear, but a stranger, a man you will never know, silently, reading your terrible confession to himself, would this thought make it easier for you, or would it make no difference?"
"Easier," Stavrogin replied in a soft voice, lowering his eyes. "If you were to forgive me, it would be much easier for me," he added unexpectedly and in a half-whisper.
"And you me, as well," Tikhon said in a deeply moved voice.
"What for? what have you done to me? Ah, yes, it's a monastery formula?"
"For my sins both voluntary and involuntary. [223]In sinning, each man sins against all, and each man is at least partly guilty for another's sin. There is no isolated sin. And I am a great sinner, perhaps more than you are."
"I'll tell you the whole truth: I wish you to forgive me, and another with you, and a third, but the rest—the rest had better hate me. But I wish it in order to endure with humility..."
"And universal pity you would not be able to endure with the same humility?"
"Perhaps I wouldn't. You picked that up very nicely. But. . . why are you doing this?"
"I feel the degree of your sincerity and, of course, am much to blame for not knowing how to approach people. I've always felt it to be my greatest failing," Tikhon said sincerely and feelingly, looking straight into Stavrogin's eyes. "It's only because I fear for you," he added, "there is an almost impassible abyss before you."
"That I won't endure? that I won't endure their hatred with humility?"
"Not only their hatred."
"And what else?"
"Their laughter," escaped from Tikhon, almost as if despite himself and in a half-whisper.
Stavrogin became embarrassed; uneasiness showed in his face.
"I anticipated that," he said. "So, then, I appeared as a very comical character to you on reading my 'document,' in spite of the whole tragedy? Don't worry, don't be put out ... I did anticipate it."
"There will be horror on all sides, and, of course, more false than sincere. People fear only what directly threatens their personal interests. I'm not speaking of the pure souls: they will be horrified and will blame themselves, but they will not be noticeable. The laughter, however, will be universal."
"Add to that the thinker's observation that there is always something pleasing in another man's calamity."
"A correct thought."
"You, however ... you yourself... I'm surprised at how badly you think of people, with what loathing," Stavrogin said, looking somewhat resentful.
"And yet, believe me, I said it judging more by myself than about other people," Tikhon exclaimed.
"Really? Can there indeed be at least something in your soul that finds amusement here in my calamity?"
"Who knows, perhaps there is. Oh, perhaps there is!"
"Enough. Show me, then, precisely what makes me ridiculous in my manuscript? I know what, but I want you to point your finger to it. And say it nice and cynically, say it with all the sincerity you're capable of. And I'll also tell you again that you are a terribly odd man."
"Even the form of this truly great repentance has something ridiculous in it. Oh, do not believe that you will not win!" he suddenly exclaimed almost in ecstasy. "Even this form will win" (he pointed to the pages), "if only you sincerely accept the beating and the spitting. [224] In the end it has always been that the most disgraceful cross becomes a great glory and a great power, if the humility of the deed is sincere.
It may even be that you will be comforted in your own lifetime! ..."
"So, in the form alone, in the style, you find something ridiculous?" Stavrogin persisted.
"And in the essence. The uncomeliness will kill it," Tikhon whispered, lowering his eyes.
"What, sir? Uncomeliness? The uncomeliness of what?"
"Of the crime. There are crimes that are truly uncomely. With crimes, whatever they may be, the more blood, the more horror there is, the more imposing they are, the more picturesque, so to speak; but there are crimes that are shameful, disgraceful, all horror aside, so to speak, even far too ungracious..."
Tikhon did not finish.
"That is," Stavrogin picked up in agitation, "you find I made quite a ridiculous figure when I was kissing the dirty little girl's foot... and all that I said about my temperament and... well, and all the rest ... I understand. I understand you very well. And you despair of me precisely because it is uncomely, vile, no, not really vile, but shameful, ridiculous, and you think it's this, rather than anything else, that I won't be able to endure?"
Tikhon was silent.
"Yes, you do know people, that is, you know that I, precisely I, will not be able to endure ... I understand why you asked about the young lady from Switzerland, whether she was here."
"You're not prepared, not tempered," Tikhon whispered timidly, with lowered eyes.
"Listen, Father Tikhon: I want to forgive myself, and that is my chief goal, my whole goal!" Stavrogin said suddenly, with grim rapture in his eyes. "I know that only then will the apparition vanish. That is why I am seeking boundless suffering, seeking it myself. So do not frighten me."
"If you believe that you can forgive yourself and can attain to this forgiveness in this world, then you believe everything!" Tikhon exclaimed rapturously. "How is it that you say you do not believe in God?"
Stavrogin made no reply.
"God will forgive your unbelief, for you venerate the Holy Spirit without knowing him."
"Christ, incidentally, will not forgive," Stavrogin asked, and a light shade of irony could be heard in the tone of the question, "for it is said in the book: 'Whoso shall offend one of these little ones'—remember? According to the Gospel, there is not and cannot be any greater crime. [225]In this book!"
He pointed to the Gospel.
"I have glad tidings for you about that," Tikhon spoke with tender feeling. "Christ, too, will forgive, if only you attain to forgiving yourself ... Oh, no, no, do not believe that I have spoken a blasphemy: even if you do not attain to reconciliation with yourself and forgiveness of yourself, even then He will forgive you for your intention and for your great suffering... for there are no words or thoughts in human language to express allthe ways and reasons of the Lamb, 'until his ways are openly revealed to us.' [226]Who can embrace him who is unembraceable, who can grasp the wholeof him who is infinite!"
The corners of his mouth twitched as before, and a barely noticeable spasm again passed over his face. He restrained himself for a moment and then, unable to stand it, quickly lowered his eyes.
Stavrogin took his hat from the sofa.
"I'll come again sometime," he said with an air of great fatigue, "you and I ... I appreciate only too well the pleasure of the conversation and the honor... and your feelings. Believe me, I understand why there are some who love you so. I ask your prayers from Him whom you love so much ..."
"And you're leaving already?" Tikhon also rose quickly, as though not at all expecting such a speedy farewell. "And I..." he was as if at a loss, "I was about to present you with a request of my own, but ... I don't know how... and now I'm afraid."
"Ah, kindly do." Stavrogin sat down at once, his hat in his hand. Tikhon looked at this hat, at this pose, the pose of a man suddenly turned worldly, both agitated and half crazy, who was granting him five minutes to finish his business—and became still more abashed.
"My whole request is merely that you... now you must admit, Nikolai Vsevolodovich (that is your name, I believe?), that if you make your pages public, you will spoil your fate ... in the sense of a career, for example, and ... in the sense of all the rest."
"Career?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich scowled unpleasantly.
"Why should you spoil it? Why, as it seems, such inflexibility?" Tikhon concluded almost pleadingly, obviously aware of his own awkwardness. A pained impression showed on the face of Nikolai Vsevolodovich.
"I have already asked you and will ask you again: all your words will be superfluous... and in general all our talk is beginning to be unbearable."
He turned significantly in his chair.
"You don't understand me, hear me out and don't be annoyed. You know my opinion: your deed, if done in humility, would be the greatest Christian deed, if you could endure it. Even if you were unable to endure it, all the same the Lord would count your initial sacrifice. Everything will be counted: not a word, not a movement of the soul, not a half thought will be in vain. But I am offering you, instead of this deed, another still greater one, something unquestionably great..."
Nikolai Vsevolodovich was silent.
"You are in the grip of a desire for martyrdom and self-sacrifice; conquer this desire as well, set aside your pages and your intention– and then you will overcome everything. You will put to shame all your pride and your demon! You will win, you will attain freedom..."
His eyes lit up; he pressed his hands together pleadingly.
"You quite simply want very much to avoid a scandal, and you are setting a trap for me, good Father Tikhon," Stavrogin mumbled casually and with vexation, making as if to get up. "In short, you would like me to settle down, perhaps get married, and end my life as a member of the local club, visiting your monastery on every feast day. What a penance! Although, being a reader of human hearts, you may even foresee that this will undoubtedly be so, and the only thing now is to beg me nicely, for the sake of decency, since this is what I myself am longing for—right?"
He laughed contortedly.
"No, not that penance, I am preparing a different one!" Tikhon continued ardently, not paying the least attention to Stavrogin's laughter or remark. "I know an elder, not here, but not far from here, a hermit and monk, and of such Christian wisdom as you and I cannot even understand. He will heed my requests. I will tell him all about you. Put yourself under obedience to him, under his orders, for some five or seven years, for as long as you yourself find necessary afterwards. Make a vow to yourself, and with this great sacrifice you will buy everything that you long for, and even what you do not expect, for you cannot understand now what you will receive!"
Stavrogin heard out his last suggestion seriously, even very seriously.
"You are quite simply suggesting that I become a monk in that monastery? Much though I respect you, that is precisely what I should have expected. Well, I shall even confess to you that the thought has already flashed in me at moments of faintheartedness: to hide away from people in a monastery, at least for a time, once I had made these pages public. But I immediately blushed at such baseness. But to take monastic vows—that never entered my head even in moments of the most fainthearted fear."
"You needn't be in a monastery, you needn't take vows, just be a novice secretly, unapparently, it may even be done so that you live entirely in the world..."
"Stop it, Father Tikhon," Stavrogin interrupted squeamishly and rose from the chair. Tikhon rose, too.
"What's the matter with you?" he suddenly cried out, peering at Tikhon almost in fright. The man stood before him, his hands pressed together in front of him, and a painful spasm, as if from the greatest fear, passed momentarily over his face.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" Stavrogin repeated, rushing to support him. It seemed to him that the man was about to fall over.
"I see ... I see as in reality," Tikhon exclaimed in a soul-penetrating voice and with an expression of the most intense grief, "that you, poor, lost youth, have never stood so close to the most terrible crime as at this moment!"
"Calm yourself!" Stavrogin kept repeating, decidedly alarmed for him. "I may still put it off... you're right, I may not be able to endure it, and in my spite I'll commit a new crime ... all that is so... you're right, I'll put it off."
"No, not after the publication, but before the publication of the pages, a day, maybe an hour before the great step, you will throw yourself into a new crime as a way out, only to avoidpublishing these pages!"
Stavrogin even trembled with wrath and almost with fear.
"Cursed psychologist!" he broke off suddenly in a rage and, without looking back, left the cell.
Notes
For many details in the following notes we are indebted to the commentaries in the Soviet Academy of Sciences edition, volume a(Leningrad, 1975).
[i]"They treated me like an old cotton bonnet!"
[ii]"can break my existence in two"
[iii]"in every land, [even] in the land of Makar and his calves"
[iv]"I am a [mere sponger] and nothing more! Yes, nothing more!"
[v]"among these seminarians"
[vi]"for our holy Russia."
[vii]"but let us distinguish"
[viii]"Just between us"
[ix]"These interminable Russian words!"
[x]"You know, with us ... In a word"
[xi]"in order to show you his power."
[xii]"no, it's very curious"
[xiii]"you know that singing and the book of Job"
[xiv]"and he showed his power"
[xv]"what an idea, red!" or"what a red idea!"
[xvi]"you know"
[xvii]"with such pomposity"
[xviii]"Really?"
[xix]"Charming child!"
[xx]"And then, since one always finds more monks than reason"
[xxi]"My word, dear"
[xxii]"Oh, it's a very stupid story! I was waiting for you, my good friend, in order to tell you..."
[xxiii]"AII men of genius and progress in Russia were, are and always will be [card players] and [drunkards] who drink in zapoï[bouts]"
[xxiv]"But, just between us"
[xxv]"But she's a child!"
[xxvi]"Yes, I mistook one word for another. But... it's all the same"
[xxvii]"Yes, yes, I'm incapable."
[xxviii]"this dear son"
[xxix]"he's such a poor mind!"
[xxx]"he's a poor specimen all the same"
[xxxi]"And finally, the ridicule"
[xxxii]"I am a galley slave, a Badinguet, a"
[xxxiii]"I don't give a damn!"
[xxxiv]“I don't give a damn and I proclaim my freedom. To the devil with Karmazinov! To the devil with the Lembke woman!"
[xxxv]"You will second me, won't you, as friend and witness."
[xxxvi]"that's the word"
[xxxvii]"something of that sort."
[xxxviii]"I remember it. Finally"
[xxxix]"he was like a little idiot."
[xl]"How's that!"
[xli]"of this poor friend"
[xlii]"our irascible friend"
[xliii]"our holy Russia"
[xliv]"But that will pass."
[xlv]"to the accident. You will accompany me, won't you?"
[xlvi]"O God who is so great and so good!"
[xlvii]"and I am beginning to believe."
[xlviii]"In God? In God who is on high and who is so great and so good?"
[xlix]"He does everything I want."
[l]"God! God! ... at last a minute of happiness."
[li]"You and happiness, you arrive at the same time!"
[lii]"I was so nervous and sick and then ..."
[liii]"He's a local dreamer. He's the best and most irascible man in the world..."
[liv]"and you will do a good deed..."
[lv]"Anyhow, it's ridiculous."
[lvi]"a worthy man all the same"
[lvii]"this Liputin, which I do not understand"
[lviii]"I am an ungrateful man!"
[lix]"all has been said... it's terrible."
[lx]"She's an angel"
[lxi]"Twenty years!"
[lxii]"He's a monster; and anyhow"
[lxiii]"These people imagine that nature and human society are otherwise than God made them and than they actually are."
[lxiv]"but let's speak of other things"
[lxv]"it was stupid, but what can be done, all has been said."
[lxvi]"if miracles exist?"
[lxvii]"and let all be said!"
[lxviii]"what is known as the"
[lxix]"leave me, my friend"
[lxx]"you see"
[lxxi]"But what is the matter with you, Liza!"
[lxxii]"But, my dear and excellent friend, in what agitation..."
[lxxiii]"anyhow, he is a depraved man and something like an escaped convict..."
[lxxiv]"He is a dishonest man and I believe he is even an escaped convict or something of the kind"
[lxxv]"And you are right"
[lxxvi]"He laughs."
[lxxvii]"that's it exactly."
[lxxviii]"to cause a sensation around his name"
[lxxix]"He laughs. He laughs a lot, he laughs too much ... He laughs all the time."
[lxxx]"So much the better."
[lxxxi]"I wanted to convert."
[lxxxii]'This poor [auntie,] she's going to hear some pretty things!"
[lxxxiii]"There's something blind and shifty [or cross-eyed] in him."
[lxxxiv]"They are quite simply lazybones"
[lxxxv]”You're lazy. Your banner is a rag, an impotence."
[lxxxvi]"some stupidity of the sort."
[lxxxvii]"You don't understand."
[lxxxviii]'insatiable activity"
[lxxxix]"benevolent curmudgeon"
[xc]"That impure blood should flood our furrows!"
[xci]"Not an inch of our ground, not a stone of our fortresses!"
[xcii]"Yes, the comparison is permissible. It was like a little Don Cossack, jumping upon his own grave."
[xciii]"I've forgotten."
[xciv]"informality"
[xcv]"without letting it show!"
[xcvi]"Reader take notice."
[xcvii]"At last a friend!"
[xcviii]"You understand?"
[xcix]"Excuse me, I've forgotten his name. He's not from around here... something stupid and German in his physiognomy. His name is Rosenthal."
[c]You know him? Something dull and very self-satisfied in his face, but at the same time very severe, stiff, and serious."
[ci]"I know the type."
[cii]"yes, I remember it, he used that word."
[ciii]"He kept his distance"
[civ]"anyhow, he seemed to believe I was going to fall on him at once and start beating him to a pulp. All these low-class people are like that"
[cv]"It's twenty years that I've been preparing for it."
[cvi]"I was dignified and calm."
[cvii]"and, anyhow, all that."
[cviii]"and some of my historical, critical, and political sketches."
[cix]"yes, that's right"
[cx]"He was alone, quite alone"
[cxi]"in the entryway, yes, I remember that, and then"
[cxii]"I was overexcited, you see. He talked, he talked ... a pile of things"
[cxiii]"I was overexcited, but dignified, I assure you of it."
[cxiv]"You know, he uttered the name of Telyatnikov"
[cxv]"'who still owes me fifteen roubles from [pinochle], be it said in passing. Anyhow, I didn't understand very well."
[cxvi]"what do you think? Anyhow, he consented."
[cxvii]"and nothing more"
[cxviii]"my enemies ... and then what good is this prosecutor, our pig of a prosecutor, who has been impolite to me twice and who got such a fine thrashing the other year at that charming and beautiful [Natalia Pavlovna's,] when he hid in her boudoir. And then, my friend"
[cxix]"in a friendly way, I am thoroughly pleased."
[cxx]"When one has such things in one's room and they come to arrest you"
[cxxi]"Send her away"
[cxxii]"and besides it annoys me."
[cxxiii]"One must be ready, you see... every moment"
[cxxiv]"This dates from Petersburg"
[cxxv]"You're putting me in with those people!"
[cxxvi]"with those freethinkers of cowardice!"
[cxxvii]"You know... that I'll make some sort of scandal there."
[cxxviii]"My career is finished as of today, I feel it."
[cxxix]"I swear to you"
[cxxx]"What do you know about it"
[cxxxi]"what will she say"
[cxxxii]"She will suspect me all her life"
[cxxxiii]"it's improbable... and then, women"
[cxxxiv]"One must be dignified and calm with Lembke."
[cxxxv]"Oh, believe me, I will be calm!"
[cxxxvi]"at the height of all that is most sacred"
[cxxxvii]"Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds."
[cxxxviii]"my hour has struck."
[cxxxix]"You make nothing but blunders"
[cxl]"and as one finds more monks than reason everywhere"
[cxli]"That's charming, the monks"
[cxlii]"and let's break off there, my dear"
[cxliii]"in full"
[cxliv]"it is stupidity in its purest essence, something like a chemical simple."
[cxlv]"God forgive you, my friend, and God keep you."
[cxlvi]"afterwards"
[cxlvii]"as for me"
[cxlviii]"the sayings of these poor folk are often charming and full of philosophy"
[cxlix]"Oh, they are poor little good-for-nothings and nothing more, little [little fools]– that's the word!"
[cl]"Oh, yesterday he was so witty"
[cli]"what shame!"
[clii]"You will forgive me, charming lady, won't you?"
[cliii]"You are unhappy, aren't you?"
[cliv]"We are all unhappy, but we must forgive them all. Let us forgive, Liza"
[clv]"twenty-two years!"
[clvi]"in this merchant's house, if only this merchant exists"
[clvii]"but do you know what time it is!"
[clviii]"does Russia exist? Hah, it's you, dear captain!"
[clix]"Long live the democratic, social, and universal republic, or death! ... Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death!"
[clx]"de Kirillov, Russian gentleman and citizen of the world."
[clxi]"Russian gentleman-seminarian and citizen of the civilized world!"
[clxii]"that merchant"
[clxiii]"Long live the high road"
[clxiv]"I have forty roubles in all; he will take the roubles and kill me all the same."
[clxv]"this begins to be reassuring... this is very reassuring... this is reassuring to the highest degree."
[clxvi]"I am something else"
[clxvii]"Yes, one could translate it that way."
[clxviii]"That's even better, I have forty roubles in all, but..."
[clxix]"That is to say"
[clxx]"She wanted it"
[clxxi]"a finger of vodka."
[clxxii]“a tiny drop."
[clxxiii]"I am quite sick, but it's not so bad to be sick."
[clxxiv]"a lady and she looked it"
[clxxv]"But I believe this is the Gospel"
[clxxvi]"You are what they call [a book-hawker]"
[clxxvii]"I have nothing against the Gospel, and"
[clxxviii]"It seems to me that everyone is going to Spasov..."
[clxxix]"But she is a lady, and a very respectable one"
[clxxx]"This little lump of sugar is nothing"
[clxxxi]"Pure respectability"
[clxxxii]"you're not thirty years old."
[clxxxiii]"Those worthless fellows, those wretches!"
[clxxxiv]"Bah, I'm turning into an egoist..."
[clxxxv]"But what's gotten into the man"
[clxxxvi]"But, my dear and new friend"
[clxxxvii]"But there's no help for it, and I am delighted!"
[clxxxviii]"won't you?"
[clxxxix]"I love the people, that is indispensable, but it seems to me that I have never seen them up close. Nastasya ... it goes without saying that she is also of the people... but the true people"
[cxc]"Dear and incomparable friend"
[cxci]"dear innocent one. The Gospel... You see, from now on we will preach it together"
[cxcii]"something very new of the sort."
[cxciii]"granted"
[cxciv]"that dear ingrate"
[cxcv]"Dear and incomparable one, for me a woman is all."
[cxcvi]"it's turning too cold. By the way, I have forty roubles in all and here is the money"
[cxcvii]"let's not speak of it any more, because it upsets me"
[cxcviii]"because we have to talk."
[cxcix]"Yes, I have much to say to you, dear friend."
[cc]"What, you already know my name?"
[cci]"Enough, my child ... we have our money, and after that—after that the good Lord... Enough, enough, you're tormenting me"
[ccii]"It's nothing, we shall wait"
[cciii]"You are as noble as a marquise!"
[cciv]"as in your book!"
[ccv]"Enough, enough, my child"
[ccvi]"You know"
[ccvii]"Am I so sick? But it's nothing serious."
[ccviii]"Oh, I remember, yes, the Apocalypse. Read, read"
[ccix]“we will leave together."
[ccx]"those swine"
[ccxi]"Yes, this Russia which I always loved."
[ccxii]"and the others with him"
[ccxiii]"you will understand afterwards... We will understand together."
[ccxiv]"Hah, a lake"
[ccxv]"And I shall preach the Gospel ..."
[ccxvi]"She is an angel... She was more than an angel for me"
[ccxvii]"I loved you."
[ccxviii]"I loved you all my life... twenty years!"
[ccxix]"an hour... some bouillon, tea... anyhow, he is so happy."
[ccxx]Yes, my friends... This whole ceremony"
[ccxxi]"My father, I thank you, and you are very kind, but..."
[ccxxii]"There is my profession of faith."
[ccxxiii]"I have lied all my life"
[ccxxiv]"very little"
[1]"Exile" here means internal exile to the provinces, a measure taken in Russia against politically suspect persons.
[2]Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev (1794?-1856) was the author of eight Philosophical Letters,written in French and circulated in manuscript, which among other things were sharply critical of Russia's intellectual isolation and social backwardness. The publication in 1836 of the first letter (the only one published in Chaadaev's lifetime) has been called the "opening shot" of the Westerner-Slavophil controversy which dominated nineteenth-century Russian social thought. Chaadaev's ideas in fact influenced both the Westerners, who favored various degrees of liberal reform to bring Russia into line with developments in Europe, and the Slavophils, proponents of Russian national culture and Orthodoxy.
Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky (1811-48) was the most influential liberal critic and ideologist of his time, an advocate of socially conscious literature. He championed Dostoevsky's first novel, Poor Folk(1845), but Dostoevsky soon broke with him.
Timofei Nikolaevich Granovsky (1813-55), liberal historian and professor at Moscow University, is generally regarded as the founder of the Westerners. Stepan Trofimovich was first called "Granovsky" in the early drafts of Demons;Dostoevsky has given him Granovsky's general intellectual profile, his love of letter writing and card playing, his taste for champagne, his tearfulness, and his religious position ("Leave me God and art. I yield Christ up to you").
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-70) was a novelist, publicist, and radical social critic. Self-exiled from Russia in 1847, he lived in London, where he edited the influential journal The Bell (Kolokol).He was one of an unofficial triumvirate of revolutionary émigrés, along with the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76) and the poet and propagandist Nikolai Ogaryov (1813-77).
[3]This phrase is probably a deliberate echo of an even clumsier phrase ("a whirlwind of emerged entanglements") in Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends(1847), the last published work of Nikolai Gogol (1809-52).
[4]"Hanseatic," pertaining to the Hansa, a medieval German merchant guild, later a trading league of free German cities. These details of Stepan Trofimovich's career are all ironic allusions to the activities of T. N. Granovsky (see note 2 above).
[5]That is, "lovers of the Slavs" (see note 2 above).
[6]The journal Dostoevsky has in mind is Fatherland Notes,where his own first novel was published, and which in the 1840s, under the editorship of Andrei An-tonovich Kraevsky (1810-89), became a major forum for the Westerners. Kraevsky published the first Russian translations of Charles Dickens (1812-70) and George Sand (pen name of the French writer Aurore Dupin, baronneDudevant, 1804-76).
[7]There were a number of such secret societies in nineteenth-century Russia. Dostoevsky most likely has in mind the Petrashevsky circle, which he himself frequented from 1847 until its suppression in 1849, when he and other members were arrested. The Petrashevists were particularly interested in the ideas of the French Utopian socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837). His system, known as "Fourierism," envisaged the organization of individuals into "phalansteries," or social-economic groups harmoniously composed with the aim of securing the well-being of each member through the freely accepted labor of all.
[8]The second part of the grand verse drama Faustby the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1740-1832) is characterized by its mystical and allegorical choruses.
[9]The poet and liberal journalist Nikolai A. Nekrasov (1821-77), Dostoevsky's sometime friend and frequent ideological opponent, was referred to as a "people's poet" in his own lifetime, by Dostoevsky among others. The quotation here, somewhat rearranged, is from Nekrasov's poem "The Bear Hunt."
[10]The phrase "civic grief," meaning an acute suffering over social ills and inequities, was widely used in the Russia of the 1860s; the disease itself became fashionable in Petersburg, where the deaths of some high-school students and cadets were even ascribed to it.
[11]Rumors of the government's intention to liberate the serfs began to emerge as early as the 1840s. Their emancipation was finally decreed by the emperor Alexander II on 19 February 1861.
[12]In 1836, the famous artist K. P. Briullov (1799-1852), leader of the Russian romantic school, made an engraving of the mediocre poet N. V. Kukolnik (1809-68), which was used as a frontispiece in editions of his poems.
[13]Alexis Clérel de Tocqueville (1805-59), French politician and writer, was the author of two classic works, Democracy in America(1835-40) and The Ancien Régime and the Revolution(1856). The French writer Paul de Kock (1794-1871) was the author of innumerable novels depicting petit bourgeois life, some of them considered risqué.
[14]Alexander Radishchev (1749-1802), author of A Journey from Petersburg to Moscow,was exiled to Siberia by the empress Catherine the Great because of his outspoken attacks on social abuses.
[15]Protests against "outrageous acts" were symptomatic of the radical press of the 1860s, for instance the polemical article entitled "The Outrageous Act of The Age, "published in the St Petersburg Gazette(3 March 1861), protesting against an attack on the movement for women's emancipation in the journal The Age,referred to by Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment.
[16]All these issues were discussed in the radical press of the 1860s. The apparent hodgepodge of points from "dividing Russia" through "women's rights" was in fact the program spelled out in one of the tracts of the time. "The Passage" was and is a shopping arcade in Petersburg which also housed a public auditorium. For Kraevsky, see note 6 above.
