Jackson RL Ed Dostoevsky New Perspectives

DOSTOEVSKY
NEW PERSPECTIVES
Edited by
Robert Louis Jackson
Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N J . 07632

Library o f Congress C ataloging in P ublication D ata
Main entry under title:

Dostoevsky: new perspectives.
(Twentieth century views)
“A Spectrum Book.”
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 1621-1861—Criticism and
interpretation—Addresses, essays, lectures. 1. Jackson,
Robert Louis. II. Series.
PG3328.Z6D629 1984 891.73'S 83-17737
ISBN 0-13-218586-5
ISBN 0-13-218578-4 (pbk.)
To the memory o f my mother,

Ella Fred Jackson
Quotations from The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky are from Dostoyevsky’s Notesfrom
the UndergroundlThe Double, translated by Jessie Coulson (Penguin Classics, 1972),
copyright ©Jessie Coulson, 1972. They are reprinted by permission of Penguin Books
Ltd.
Quotations from Dostoyevsky’s The Devils—translated by David Magarshack (Penguin
Classics, revised edition. 1971), copyright © David Magarshack, 1953, 1971—are re
printed by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Quotations from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky are from the Random
House, Inc., edition, which was translated by Constance Garnett.
Editorial/production supervision by Elizabeth Toijussen

Wood engraving © 1984 by Vivian Berger
Manufacturing buyer: Edward J. Ellis
© 1984 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. A SPECTRUM BOOK.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of
America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN D-13-21fl5ab-5
ISBN 0-13-51fi57fl-4 {PBK.}
P r e n t ic e - H a l l I n t e r n a t i o n a l , I n c . (London)
P r e n t ic e - H a l l o f A u s t r a l i a P t y . L i m i t e d (Sydney)
P r e n t ic e - H a l l C a n a d a I n c . (Toronto)
P r e n t ic e - H a l l o f I n d i a P r i v a t e L i m i t e d (New Delhi)
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(Singapore)
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Contents
Introduction
by Robert Louis Jackson 1
The Dismantled Consciousness:

An Analysis of The Double
by Mikhail M. Bakhtin 19
The Petersburg Feuilletons

by Joseph Frank 35
Reading Between the Genres:

Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer
as Metafiction
by Gary Saul Morson 56
Aristotelian Movement
and Design in Part Two
of Notes from the Underground
by Robert Louis Jackson 66
Dostoevsky and Rousseau:

The Morality of Confession
Reconsidered
by Robin Feuer Miller 82
Raskolnikov’s City
and the Napoleonic Plan
by Adele Lindenmeyr 99
Dostoevsky:
The Idea of The Gambler
by D. S. Savage 111
The Gaps in Christology:.
The idiot
.by -Michael Holquist 126
The Narrator in The Devils

by V. A. Tunfmanov 145
Stepan Verkhovensky
and the Shaping Dialectic
of Dostoevsky’s Devils
by Gordon Livermore 176
The Art of Fiction

as a Theme in
The Brothers Karamazov
by Victor Terras 193
Alyosha Karamazov
and the Hagiographie Hero
by Valentina A. Vetlovskaya 206
Memory in The Brothers Karamazov

by Robert L. Belknap 227
The Paradox of
the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor
in The Brothers Karamazov
by Jacques Catteau 243
Chronology of Important Dates 255

Notes on the Editor and Authors 257
Selected Studies on Dostoevsky 259
Index 263
Introduction
by Robert Louis Jackson
The French critic E. Halpe'rine-Kaminsky wrote in 1888 that

Dostoevsky “will only be truly understood when the rising nerve-
storm of our century has reached its apogee.” The twentieth century
has given us ample opportunity to ponder Dostoevsky’s art and his
special appeal to our disjointed times. To speak of Dostoevsky’s rele
vance to our century has become a cliche'. Indeed, the notion of the
contemporaneity of Dostoevsky has been a constant refrain in litera
ture and criticism almost from the time of his death in 1881. Few are
the important writers or works that have not felt the impact of Dos
toevsky’s images, ideas, the very forms and rhythms of his artistic
processes. Thomas Mann’s D r. F au stu s, Kafka’s T he T r ia l , Gide’s T he
Im m oralist, Faulkner’s T h e S o u n d a n d the F u ry, Zamyatin’s W e, Gorky’s
L ife o f K lim S a m g in , Bulgakov’s M a ster a n d M a rg a rita —to mention only
a few—all bear witness to the presence of Dostoevsky. For the writer
as for the reader, what is at issue is not only the specific opinions or
conclusions of Dostoevsky as they may be culled from his writings, but
also the manner in which he managed to focus on and dramatize,
through literary types and images, fundamental moral, psychological,
social, and philosophical questions that have become insistent in the
life of both individual and society in the one hundred or so years that
followed his death. These questions, of course, are not confined to the
nineteenth or twentieth centuries, nor are they exclusively posed in
Dostoevsky’s works; but they find special application to these times
and attest to the capacity of the great artist, in Dostoevsky’s words, “to
guess a type on tim e and present him in tim e."
In his seminal study, D ostoevsky’s L eg en d o f the G ra n d In q u isito r
(1894), the Russian critic and philosopher V. V. Rozanov sought to
define the specifically historical as well as universal grounds for the
surge of interest in Dostoevsky. His emphases are broadly psychohis-
torical but with an important aesthetic dimension. Commenting on
the “strange disharmony of life” that has characterized human exis
tence for thousands of years, Rozanov argued that in all of world
1
2 Robert Louis Jackson
literature no writer had examined “so penetratingly the causes of this

disharmony” as had Dostoevsky. He did so with “a passionate love for
everything that suffered.” His works speak of the “unbearable suffer
ings of human nature and of the absolute impossibility of enduring
them and of the need to find some way of escaping them. Hence the
febrile tone of all his works, the absence of external harmony of parts
in them .. . . ” All this, Rozanov observed, imbues Dostoevsky’s works
with “their eternal meaning, and undying significance.”1
The story is different, he maintained, with Turgenev’s art. Declar
ing it an anachronism to analyze the characters in that writer’s works,
Rozanov argued:
[These characters] responded to the interests of their moment,
were understood in their time and now have left behind an
exclusively artistic attractiveness. We like them as living images,
but we find nothing left to puzzle out in them. It is quite the
opposite with Dostoevsky. The anxiety and doubts that flood his
works are our anxieties and doubts, and they will remain such
for all times. In those epochs when life flows along particularly
smoothly or when people are not conscious of its problematic
nature, this writer may even be quite forgotten or not read. But
whenever anything on the paths of human history arouses a
sense of distress, when the people moving along these paths find
themselves stunned or thrown into confusion, then the name
and image of the writer who thought so much about these paths
of life will awaken with unabated force.2
It is the unhealthy custom to praise one Russian writer at the expense
of another. We may in any case firmly dissociate ourselves from
Rozanov’s dismissal of the extraordinary Turgenev, a writer who, for
complex cultural and historical reasons, has been vastly underesti
mated. Nonetheless, Rozanov’s invidious comparison of Turgenev
with Dostoevsky was, and continues to be, characteristic of the domi
nant trend in Russian and Western criticism; it is therefore of great
interest in any assessment of the psychology and taste of both the late
nineteenth-century and twentieth-century readers of Dostoevsky and
Turgenev. It was neither the artistry of Dostoevsky nor the feeling
'V. V. Rozanov, Legenda o velikom inkvizitore F. M. Dostoevskogo (Berlin,
1924), pp. 39, 40.
Introduction 3
that his characters were living images in a strictly aesthetic sense that
drew the reader to Dostoevsky. Indeed, the cliche' of Dostoevsky as an
inferior artist, but a profound writer, and of Turgenev as a “pure
artist," but lacking in depth or universal relevance, has been one of
the most tenacious and (at least as far as Turgenev is concerned)
largely unchallenged notions in criticism. Yet Rozanov’s observations
with respect to the special appeal of Dostoevsky are entirely to the
point: the twentieth century reader of Dostoevsky identifies with and
is drawn to a tragic literary world whose inhabitants are “stunned or
thrown into confusion,” are without moral pivot, and obsessed with
destruction and apocalypse.
“In our times,” Dostoevsky wrote as the editor of ajournai in the
early 1860s, “all is in confusion : . . everywhere people are quarreling
over foundations, principles.” “Skepticism and the skeptical view are
killing everything, even the very view itself in the final analysis.” “Who
among us in all honesty knows what is evil and what is good ?” These
issues are at the center of the important works Dostoevsky wrote after
he returned from his Siberian exile: N otes fr o m the H ouse o f the D ead
(1860-1862), W in te r R em arks o n S u m m er Im pressions (1863), N otes fr o m
the U nderground (1864), Crim e a n d P u n ish m en t (1866), and T h e G am bler
(1866). The “crisis of nihilism,” of which Nietzsche was to speak so
brilliantly nearly a quarter of a century later, was already apparent to
Dostoevsky. And like Nietzsche, though without the latter’s dissent
from the specifically Christian values of European civilization, Dos
toevsky’s works are filled with ominous forebodings and prophesies
about the future of Russian and European society.
Both T he Id io t and T h e D evils are apocalyptic works. A spirit of
confusion and madness seeks to dominate in the worlds of these two
novels. Dostoevsky’s macabre tale, “Bobok” (1873), is a grim admoni
tion, a warning of total disintegration of the moral and social fabric. It
was his critics, Dostoevsky wrote in his notebook to T he R a w Youth
(March 22, 1875), who were
. . . ignoring facts. They do not observe. There are no citizens,
and nobody wants to make an effort and compel himself to think
and observe. I cannot tear myself away, and all the cries of the
critics that I am not depicting real life have not dissuaded me.
There are nofo u n d a tio n s to our society, no principles of conduct
that have been lived through, because there have been none in
life even. A colossal eruption and all is crumbling, falling, being

negated, as though it had not even existed. And not only exter
nally, as in the West, but internally, morally.
These notes of warning echo throughout Dostoevsky’s D iary o f a
W riterin 1876-1877. “Everybody is in a state of suspense,” he writes in
connection with the “Eastern Question” in the September 1876 issue
of D iary o f a W riter. “Everybody is alarmed; some kind of general
madness is moving upon us.” Europe is changing from hour to hour,
he writes in November 1877: “The fact is that we are just now on the
eve of the greatest and most shocking events and upheavals in
Europe, and this is said w ithout any exaggeration." He writes again in
1877,
The point is, that, to my way of thinking, the present age, too,
will end in old Europe with something colossal, that is, with
something perhaps not literally identical with the events which
brought to an end the eighteenth century, nevertheless just as
colossal—elemental and dreadful, and also entailing a change in
the face of the whole world, or, at least, in the West, of old
Europe.
Writing his novels in Russia in the 1860s and 1870s—a tumultuous
period of social and economic transition when Russia was experienc
ing its own rationalist and materialist “Enlightenment” and the birth
of its own uncertain forms of revolutionary Socialism—Dostoevsky
grasped the inner content and movement of a vast historical epoch, its
critical tensions and, above all, its potential for catastrophe and
change. The drama of the eighteenth century culminating in the ex
plosion of the French Revolution and the apocalyptic drama of the
nineteenth century (one ultimately “entailing a change in the face of
the whole world”)—here is the grand, epic historical frame for Dos
toevsky’s extraordinary art and intuition.
Intuition in Dostoevsky (at least as a political thinker) often went
hand in hand with idiosyncratic and even grotesque conceptions and
formulations. Much that he anticipated, however, came to pass,
though much that he hoped for did not occur; and what came to pass
did not always occur when and where he expected it. Dostoevsky was
an artist. He painted what he saw, but he saw in depth. It is notewor
thy that he conceived of art as concerned with “ends and beginnings,”
Introduction 5
as a guessing or divining of the “subsurface, unexpressed future

Word.” Indeed, few artists have been more preoccupied than Dos
toevsky with the future in the sense of mankind’s general destiny. The
Russian writer and satirist M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, a contemporary
of Dostoevsky, noted this special facet of that writer’s genius:
In the profoundly of his intent, in the breadth of the moral
problems contained within his vision, this writer occupies a place
apart in our literature. He does not only admit the right to
existence of those interests which most concern contemporary
society, but goes even further and enters into that sphere of
foresight and premonition that constitutes the aim not of our
immediate, but of mankind’s most distant quests.3
Yet with Dostoevsky the problems of mankind are never pre
sented abstracdy (it is the fate of his heroes, not the novels they in
habit, to be swallowed up in the abstract or purely intellectual dimen
sion). Life in Dostoevsky’s novels is almost always disclosed and ex
perienced in the cross-section of the moment, and with an acute sense
of social and historical specificity and detail. The glass through which
the most universal and timeless moral and philosophical concerns are
refracted is always the sufferings, crises, spiritual strivings, and fate of
human beings in his own time—in the first instance, those of his
fellow Russians. It is surely Dostoevsky’s own concern we sense when,
speaking of cruel and debasing exploitation in factories, Father
Zosima cries out: “There must be no more of this, monks, there must
be no more torturing of children, rise and begin preaching this, and
make haste, make haste!” Wholly characteristic of Dostoevsky’s con
cerns arë his remarks in Diary of a Writer in 1876: “I do not want to
think and live other than with the faith that all o f the ninety millions
of us, Russians (or however many there will be) will some day all be
educated, humanized and happy.”
The special place of Dostoevsky in any confrontation with Russian
history and consciousness is indisputable. His art engages some of the
most problematic aspects of Russian historical life just as it embodies
some of the most lofty and transcendent qualities of the Russian spirit.
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), whose life and work m irror in an
exemplary way the tortuous complexities of Russian history and cul-
aSahykov-Shchedrin in F. M . Dostoevskii v russkoi kritike, ed. A. A. Belkin
(Moscow, 1956), p. 231.
ture in the first half of the twentieth century, was obsessed with the
psychohistoricai character of Dostoevsky’s art. He emphasized the
Shakespearean dimensions of Dostoevsky’s art. But Dostoevsky, for
him, was above all Russia’s “memory,” the painful record of all the
cruelties and humiliations endured by the Russian people and history
from the time of the Mongol invasions. “A man had to appear who
embodied in his soul the memory of all those human sufferings and
gave expression to that fearful memory,” Gorky wrote in 1909. “That
man was Dostoevsky.”4 Dostoevsky, in Gorky’s view, was an intimate
part of that fearful memory—the evil genius of Russian culture. Read
ing him “you feel his endless fright at the dark depths of his own
‘soul’.”5 Gorky reproached Dostoevsky for emphasizing only the
“negative aspects” of life. He “fixes them in the memory of man,
always depicting him as helpless in the chaos of dark forces.” All this
“can lead man to pessimism, mysticism, etc.”6
Gorky was deeply responsive to. Dostoevsky’s anguish over evil and
suffering, and his contribution to an understanding of Dostoevsky
should not be underestimated. The negative and pedagogical aspects
of his reaction to Dostoevsky at the same time represent a despairing
effort to find a way out of the morass of Russian life (and out of the
dark depths of his own soul). He wished to cultivate in the Russian
masses a healthy and positive attitude toward life. But the impact of
Gorky’s Dostoevsky criticism on the Soviet cultural scene of the 1930s
and 1940s was not a positive one. Limited in its emphases, it encour
aged suspicion and hostility toward Dostoevsky. As Soviet power
under Stalin sank to some of the worst excesses of violence in Russian
history, his establishment quite naturally (though for motives very
different from Gorky’s) sought to distance itself from Russia’s “mem
ory,” Dostoevsky. Yet memory and Dostoevsky, as Gorky rightly per
ceived, are joined indissolubly in Russian cultural consciousness. The
recovery of the first, in the post-Stalin period, inevitably led to the
rehabilitation of the second.
Dostoevsky was at no time a forgotten figure in Soviet literary
consciousness. The Russian Marxist scholar V. F. Pereverzev, whose
4Gor’kii, Istoriia russkoi literatury. ArkMv A. M . Gor’kogo (Moscow, 1938) I,

251.
5Gor’kii, 0 literature (Moscow, 1953), pp. 511-12.
eOp. cit., p. 250.
Introduction 7
pioneering sociological study of Dostoevsky’s art first appeared in

1912, observed in 1922 that all of modern literature “follow[s] in the
footsteps of Dostoevsky.” He spoke, too, of the special relevance of
Dostoevsky for contemporary revolutionary Russia:
Dostoevsky remains a contemporary writer. Our times have by
no means outlived the problems he takes up in his work. For us
to speak about Dostoevsky still means to speak about the most
painful and rooted problems of our contemporary life. Caught
up in the whirlwind of a great revolution, buffeted about amid
the problems posed by it, passionately and painfully responding
to all of the revolutionary tragedy, we find in Dostoevsky our
very own selves; we find in the way he poses the problems of
revolution the kind of passion and intensity we might expect to
find in a writer who was passing through the revolutionary
storm with us.7
Pereverzev had in mind specifically Dostoevsky’s novel, The Devils, a
work whose relation to the revolution he examines from a sociological
point of view. Pereverzev, of course, was only one of many Russian
writers, critics, and thinkers—both in Russia and in exile—who felt
that in his fictional works Dostoevsky had anticipated the “revo
lutionary tragedy.” Dostoevsky is a “prophet of the revolution in the
most exact sense of the word,” the Russian philosopher Nicholas Ber
dyaev wrote in his study of Dostoevsky in 1923. Berdyaev continues:
“The revolution took place the way he said it would [po Dostoevskomu].
He disclosed its ideological foundations, its inner dialectic and gave it
form. He grasped the character of the Russian revolution from the
depths of the spirit, from internal processes, and not from the out
ward circumstances of empirical reality around him.”8
Early Soviet literature—the works of Leonov, Olesha, Zamyatin,
Fedin, Platonov, Ehrenburg, Pilnyak, Bulgakov, and many others—
was saturated with Dostoevsky and made use of his imagery and ideas
to define the problematic nature of revolutionary experiences and
transformations and to explore the intelligentsia’s own complex and
very often ambiguous relationship to Soviet power. Many of the
characters in these works seem to emerge from Dostoevsky’s novels.
“Whenever he read Dostoevsky he felt ill,” Ilya Ehrenburg writes of
7V. F. Pereverzev, Tvorchestvo Dostoevskogo, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1922), p. 4.
8N. Berdiaev, Mirosozertsanie Dostoevskogo (Paris, 1923), pp. 134-35.
his anti-hero Volodya Safonov in his novel The Second Day (translated
as Out of Chaos, 1934). “Those were not books, but letters from a man
intimately related to him.”
At the same time that many Soviet writers in the 1920s and early
1930s were trying to assess Soviet reality pardy with the aid of a
Dostoevsky lens (he was not the sole Russian writer, of course, who
made his presence felt), scholars from various schools of criticism
were producing a rich crop of writing on Dostoevsky. Apart from
ideologically oriented criticism, important critical, stylistic, and histor
ical studies were written by such outstanding scholars as M. P. Alek
seev, M. M. Bakhtin, Arkadi Dolinin, Leonid Grossman, V. L.
Komarovich, A. S. Skaftymov, V. V. Vinogradov, and others.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s some important scholarly work was
accomplished and the heritage of Dostoevsky, his significance to the
new revolutionary society, was the object of debate in ideologically
oriented criticism. But the works of Dostoevsky were published in
very small numbers. After a brief period of rehabilitadon during
World War II, the name and work of Dostoevsky were sharply as
sailed. The lowest level of the attack on Dostoevsky in these last years
of Stalin’s rule was reached, no doubt, by the party stalwart, D. I.
Zaslavski who stigmatized Dostoevsky as the “spiritual father” of
“double-dealers and traitors.” The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor
was dubbed by Zaslavski (not without some literary astuteness) “The
Legend of the Grand-Agent Provocateur.”9
Yet as one Soviet scholar righdy observed many years later, “even
in quarrelling with Dostoevsky, even in refuting him, even in re
nouncing him, Soviet writing could not get away from him.” “The
relations between F. M. Dostoevsky and Soviet literature,” the writer
concluded with considerable understatement, “have always been
dramatic.”10 That drama has lost none of its intensity or interest,
though its nature has changed radically.
“Zaslavski’s comments are cited by Vladimir Seduro in his study, Dostoyevski
in Russian Literary Criticism 1846-1954 (New York, Columbia University Press,
1957), pp. 279, 280.
,UE. V. Starikova, “Dostoevskii i sovetskaia literatura (k postanovke voprosa),” in
Dostoevskii: Khudozhnik i myslitel’ (Moscow, 1972), pp. 603, 615. For an earlier
discussion in English of Dostoevsky and Soviet literature, see Robert L.
Jackson’s Dostoevsky's Underground M an in Russian Literature (’S-Gravenhage:
Mouton and Co., 1958; 2nd ed., Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981),
pp. 127-216.
Introduction 9
The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a striking increase in interest in

Dostoevsky on the part of readers, scholars, and Soviet publishing
houses. “Today we read Dostoevsky, we read him as we never read
him before,” wrote B. Bursov (Voprosy literatury, No. 11, 1971), the
author of a book on Dostoevsky, on the one hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth. “A real renascence is taking place,”
wrote the critics T. Guralnik and S. Dmitrenko in a review of Dos
toevsky scholarship in the literary journal Voprosy literatury (No. 5) in
1982. The output of Soviet scholars has been large and fruitful.
Noteworthy in the twenty-five years following Stalin’s death was the
scholarly, critical, and editorial work of numerous writers: M. S.
Altman, S. V. Belov, B. Bursov, A. V. Chicherin, F. I. Evnin, G. M.
Fridlender, Yu. F. Karyakin, V. Kirpotin, V. V. Kozhinov, D. S.
Likhachev, Yu. M. Lotman, V. S. Nechaeva, L. M. Rozenblium, V.
Shklovsky, V. A. Tunimanov, V. E. Vetlovskaya, and I. S. Zilber-
stein—to mention only a few. Publication of a monumental thirty-
volume edition of the complete works of Dostoevsky’s belles lettres,
notebooks, journalism, critical writings, and letters under the
direction of the doyen of Dostoevsky scholars, G. M. Fridlender, has
provided an important impetus to the development of Dostoevsky
scholarship, not only in the Soviet Union but throughout the world.
While Dostoevsky’s religious and philosophical outlook stand in
sharp contrast to the ideology of Soviet Marxism, Dostoevsky schol
arship “in the field” enjoys a surprising degree of independence. It
has begun to reexamine and reevaluate many of the larger issues that
aroused so much anguish in Stalinist-oriented criticism: Dostoevsky’s
political conservatism (particularly as manifested in his journalism);
his critical attitude toward revolution and socialism; his rejection of
materialism; his deeply Christian outlook; his tragic (though not pes
simistic) view of human nature. In an effort to overcome the excesses
and crudities that marked quasi-official attitudes toward Dostoevsky
in the Stalin period, one notes here and there a tendency on the part
of some publicists to harmonize or smooth over problematic and
sometimes disagreeable aspects of Dostoevsky’s writing, such as anti-
Semitism and chauvinism. Efforts to popularize Dostoevsky or to en
list him in new causes (whether an all-purpose bland humanism or
Russian neo-Slavophilism) account for some of these tendencies.
On the whole, Soviet scholars tend to be as polyphonic on most of
the complex questions in Dostoevsky’s work as scholars in any other
part of the world. Dostoevsky’s novel, The Devils, for example, has
been variously viewed as a lampoon on the revolution (Gus), an
“anatomization and criticism of ultra-left extremism” (Suchkov), and
as the “tragedy of a whole people.. . . In The Devils we are on the eve or
at the beginning of the Apocalypse” (Karyakin). The increasingly in
tense interest in The Devils, moreover, has been a mark of the deepen
ing post-Stalin ferment in Soviet Russian intellectual consciousness.
As Guralnik and Dmitrenko noted in Voprosy literatury, the interest in
The Devils was further stimulated by the “difficult fate of a novel which
reached the reader after years of biased presentation and at times
complete rejection.”
Soviet criticism and scholarship after Stalin’s death underwent a
process not only of reassessment but rediscovery of earlier Russian
and Soviet interpretations of Dostoevsky (for example, the work of
M. M. Bakhtin and N. M. Chirkov). Although the Dostoevsky studies
of such important and provocative émigré Russian thinkers as
Leo Shestov, N. Berdyaev, and V. I. Ivanov have never been pub
lished in the Soviet Union, their works have been the subject of criti
cism and discussion.11 The republication in 1963 of a revised and
expanded edition of M. M. Bakhtin’s major study, Problems of Dos
toevsky’s Poetics (originally published in 1929) was a signal event. This
study, with its focus on the “dialogical nature of the word” and the
“polyphonic character of the text,” constituted, as in 1929, an impor
tant widening of horizons for the general reader as well as for the
specialist. Bakhtin’s criticism, in particular his theory of the
polyphonic novel, continues to carry with it a certain extra-literary
significance. Thus, the Soviet critic Pyotr Palievsky, in his introduc
tion to a round-table discussion of Dostoevsky (Soviet Literature, No.
12, 1981) finds the key to an understanding of Dostoevsky in the
latter’s “capacity to recognize truth wherever he came across it,” and,
most importantly, in the “polemical technique” he used to reach truth,
that is, “the way he would suddenly begin to argue not against, but for
an idea which had been declared alien to him.” In this sense, Palievsky
“ Apart from these thinkers, Russian emigre' culture has been rich in Dos
toevsky scholarship. Here one may mention, in the early post-revolutionary
period, Yury Nikolsky, A. Steinberg, A. L. Bern, 1.1. Lapshin, and Fyodor A.
Stepun; in the post-World War II period Konstantin Mochulsky, Nikolai
Lossky, and Lev Zander, among others, have made important contributions
to the development of Dostoevsky studies.
Introduction 11
concludes, no figure is more suited than Dostoevsky “to inaugurate

real communication between people, I mean the modern kind of
communication where you get so many differing opinions.” Palievsky
does not mention Bakhtin, but his point of reference is clear.
Bakhtin’s book, drawing in important ways upon Russian and
Soviet studies of Dostoevsky, surely represents a major achievement
in Dostoevsky scholarship in the realm of literary theory. It has stimu
lated fruitful argument and counterargument. As Bakhtin himself
acknowledged in a letter to his disciple and colleague, V. V. Kozhinov,
in 1961, his position on the polyphonic novel “has more than anything
else given rise to objections and misunderstanding.”12 One of the
crucial areas of uncertainty for many scholars has been Bakhtin’s
exact understanding of the relation of Dostoevsky the author to “the
plurality of independent and unmerged voices,” those “free people
who are capable of standing beside their creator, of disagreeing with
him and even rebelling against him.” Responding to this critical in
quiry, Bakhtin insisted in his notes “Toward a Reworking of the Dos
toevsky Book” (1961) that “our point of view in no way asserts a
passivity on the part of the author, who would then do no more than
assemble others’ points of view, others’ truths, completely refusing his
own point of view.” Bakhtin affirms
a completely new and special interrelationship between the au
thor’s and the other’s truth. The author is profoundly active, but
his activity is of a special dialogic sort. [This is the] activity of God
in His relation to man, a relation allowing man to reveal himself
utterly (in his immanent development), to judge himself, to re
fute himself. This is activity of a higher quality. It surmounts not
the resistance of dead material, but the resistance of another’s
consciousness, another’s truth.13
Polyphony in the Dostoevsky novel clearly did not imply for
Bakhtin passivity, indifference, or absence of judgment on the part of
the author. Yet his major emphasis is not upon the nature of Dos
toevsky’s judgment or the way it is concretely manifested throughout
the play of voices, but upon the relative independence of the voices in
the Dostoevsky text. The “misunderstanding” of the reader with re
spect to Bakhtin’s position on the polyphonic novel is surely rooted in
12M. M. Bakhtin, Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva (Moscow, 1979), p. 404.
i3Ibid., p. 310.
Bakhtin’s unwillingness (or inability for political reasons) to integrate

his discussion of the poetics of the Dostoevsky novel with a detailed
consideradon of authorial acdvity and point of view (and authorial
“point of view,” as Dostoevsky once insisted in some remarks on the
improvisation in Pushkin’s story “Egyptian Nights” “is the main
thing”). A more holistic approach to the Dostoevsky text or novel
would not only have clarified Bakhtin’s position, but quite possibly
would also have led to important modifications in some of his formu
lations. In any case, polyphony for Dostoevsky is not so much a ruling
principle as a problem to be solved in the interrelated realms of con
sciousness, ideology, and aesthetics. The problem was posed in N otes
fr o m the U nderground. “In the confession of the Underground Man,”
Bakhtin writes in Problems o f D ostoevsky’s Poetics, “we are struck by an
extreme and sharp internal dialogizing: there is in it literally not a
single monologically firm, undisintegrated word.”14 Such is the “dis
ease of consciousness” (Dostoevsky’s words in his notebook in 1864)
with which the Underground Man is afflicted and of which he gives
such eloquent account in N otes fr o m the U nderground:
Where are my primal causes on which I can rest, where are my
foundations? Where can I find them? I exercise myself in
thought, and consequently with me every primary cause imme
diately draws another one after itself, even more primary, and so
on into infinity. Such is precisely the essence of all consciousness
and thought. (1,5)
Such is precisely the essence of all truth or reality in the world of
dismantled consciousness. Such would be the essence of truth in a
statically conceived polyphonic novel. But in his great novels Dos
toevsky not only explores the “disease of consciousness,” that is, dis
closes its social, psychological, and spiritual causes, but he also masters
it aesthetically in the dramatic form of the controlled polyphonic
novel. Truth in the Dostoevsky novel, as in the Tolstoy novel, is always
multivalent. But here we are not involved with truths spinning inde
pendently in a void. These truths are embedded in an artistic struc
ture, constitute a dialectical unity, and give expression in their interac
tion to the author’s highest vision of human experience.
One must distinguish, then, between the endless sense of life’s
14Bakhtin, Problemy poetiki Dostoevskogo (Moscow, 1963), p. 306.
Introduction 13
complexities, contradictions, and ambiguities that works of art like

The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina arouse in the reader, and the
vision or focal point of view that the work itself constitutes as art; that
is, as a living aesthetic form giving movement and design to reality.
Here is the “activity of a higher quality” or the “work of God in His
relation to man” of which Bakhtin spoke in his notes “Toward a
Reworking of the Dostoevsky Book.” Interpretation that ignores this
level of higher activity at which the artist’s point of view ultimately
manifests itself, that gets mired in the bog of dismanded conscious
ness, that confuses the constructive task of criticism with dismanding
literary consciousness “and so on into infinity”; such interpretadon
not only ignores the work of art, but systematically denies its essence.
This was not the direcdon of Bakhtin’s Dostoevsky criticism, to say
nothing of his personal philosophy. He had to exclude much from his
criticism that was anathema to official Soviet ideology. But he in no
way shared the crisis of consciousness and culture that Dostoevsky so
brilliandy depicted in his novels and that he, Bakhtin, so acutely per
ceived to be a major shaping factor in the development of that great
writer’s novel-form.
Bakhtin’s discussion of The Double, the first chapter in this volume,
provides important insight into “the dialogical nature of the word” in
Dostoevsky’s work. The Double, though not entirely successful by the
standards of Dostoevsky’s later work, anticipated some of the most
important developments in his art. The polyphonic novel, or impor
tant aspects of it, may be perceived here in embryonic form. “This is
not yet polyphony,” rem arks Bakhtin, "but it is no longer
homophony.”
No form, perhaps, was more congenial to Dostoevsky than that
of first person narration. The feuilleton, a genre popularized in
France in the 1830s and in Russia in the 1840s, afforded Dostoevsky a
freedom for play and paradox, for dialogues with himself and the
reader, and a possibility for merging fiction and reality. But as Joseph
Frank also points out in his fine discussion, “The Petersburg Feuille
tons,” the genre afforded Dostoevsky an opportunity for oblique so
cial criticism, broad historical meditations, the exploration of certain
social and psychological types, such as the dreamer, as well as a chance
for commentary on his literary work in progress.
So congenial was the feuilleton form that Dostoevsky returned to it
in the beginning of the 1860s and, most importantly, in his Diary of a

Writer (1873, 1876-1877, 1881). In his important essay, “Reading be
tween the Genres: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer as metafiction, Gary
Saul Morson projects Dostoevsky’s work as challenging our definition
of literature: “A self-conscious anomaly, it violates the conventions of
literature to make us aware of what those conventions a re .. . . The
Diary does not exist on the boundaries of art: it dramatizes them.”
Morson’s discussion opens up broad questions of literary theory with
respect to both Dostoevsky’s work and the literary tradition that he
responded to in Diary of a Writer.15
Few works in Dostoevsky are more resistant to one-sided interpre
tation than Notes from the Underground. Set in the field of moral and
spiritual coordinates that dominate Dostoevsky’s work at large, the
Christian design of Notes is clear and evident; but perceived in the
blindingly paradoxical terms of its narrator, this same work—much
like Tolstoy’s later Kreutzer Sonata—leaves the reader with a disturbing
sense of unresolved authorial tensions. In our essay “Aristotelian
Movement and Design," we define the inner movement toward catas
trophe in Part Two o f Notes as Aristotelian. Yet we ultimately perceive
this Aristotelian element as in tension with Dostoevsky’s Christian
design.
The elusiveness of the narrator is nowhere more clearly observed
than in the confessional form. “In Dostoevsky’s work the truth will out
in various ways,” Robin Feuer Miller observes in her thoughtful essay
on Dostoevsky and Rousseau, “but rarely finds unadorned release
through the mode inherently concerned with the utterance of tnith:
the confession.” This is true of the Underground Man through whom
Dostoevsky explores, among other things, the dynamics of confes
sional deception and self-deception. In her essay Miller explores the
use of the confessional form in Dostoevsky’s work at large and con
tributes to an understanding of Dostoevsky’s complex relationship to
Rousseau.
In the Dostoevsky novel, what appears as background is always
relevant foreground. Petersburg in his novels, for example, is not the
setting for tragedy; Petersburg, as Dostoevsky himself once observed,
lsFor a further elaboration of these questions, see Morson’s The Boundaries
o f Genre: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer and the Traditions o f Literary Utopia
(Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1981).
Introduction 15
is a tragedy. The city in all its aspects is part and parcel of the life and
drama of Raskolnikov. In “Raskolnikov’s City in the Napoleonic
Plan,” Adele Lindenmeyr deftly brings out the manner in which the
problems of urban reforms and city planning—in the “background”
the Napoleonic plan for Paris’s renovation—enters into the dialectic
of consciousness of Raskolnikov in the last moments preceding his
murder of the pawnbroker.
Among the works of Dostoevsky that have received the least atten
tion is one of the most brilliant and rewarding: The Gambler. As with
the important Notes from the House of the Dead with which it is closely
related on the philosophical plane, for example, the problem of fate
and freedom,16 the tendency has been to discuss it as a simple exten
sion of Dostoevsky’s own personal experiences. But as D. S. Savage
points out in his fine essay on Dostoevsky’s novel, “behind The Gambler
is no mere scandalous revelation of personal history but, as is usual
with Dostoevsky’s work, a dominating and shaping idea, to which ev
erything in the action is related.” Savage’s examination of this idea
places The Gambler directly in the ideological context of Notesfrom the
Underground and Crime and Punishment.
In his provocative essay, “Gaps in Christology: The Idiot," Michael
Holquist argues convincingly that the central metaphors of The Idiot,
in contrast to those of Crime and Punishment (the Lazarus story, re
birth) are execution and apocalypse; not a sudden beginning of life,
but rather its abrupt end. He perceives The Idiot not in the usual terms
of characterological likenesses between Myshkin and Jesus, but as
tragedy, as a “pattern for failed epiphanies.” Holquist’s excellent essay
is of particular interest for its integration of questions of interpreta
tion with issues involving the theory of the novel.
The two essays devoted to The Devils constitute a stimulating intro
duction to a complex and much-debated novel. V. A. Tunimanov’s
“The Narrator in Dostoevsky’s The Devils," excerpted here from a
larger study under the same tide, is a fine close-to-the-text analysis of
narrative techniques in The Devils. Tunimanov, one of the leading
Soviet Dostoevsky scholars, sensitively and patiently foregrounds the
'"For a discussion of the works and the problem content that joins them,
see Robert Louis Jackson, The A rt o f Dostoevsky. Deliriums and Nocturnes
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), particularly chapters V
and VIII.
elusive narrator-chronicler and the manner in which Dostoevsky uses

him to dramatize and develop action and character in the novel.
Tunimanov convincingly concludes that T he D evils “is one of the
strongest and most artistic works of Dostoevsky.”
In a Finely worded and persuasive essay, “Stepan Verkhovensky
and the Shaping Dialectic of Dostoevsky’s D evils ,” Gordon Livermore
argues for the artistic unity of Dostoevsky’s novel. He locates the
central dramatic conflict in the novel in Stepan’s idealist sensibility
and his consistent impulse to leap from “lower” to “higher” reality, a
realibus a d realiora (Livermore employs Vyacheslav I. Ivanov’s terms).
Stepan’s fatal tendency to negate reality is matched by his son Pyotr.
In the final pages of this rewarding essay, one marked by a dose
attention to the interaction of language, imagery, and idea, Livermore
reminds us that the novel’s two moments of epiphany, given to the
two idealists Stepan Verkhovensky and Shatov, constitute “moments
of renewed contact with reality, experiences in which realiora and
realia are at least briefly united.”
T h e Brothers K ara m a zo v turned out to be the last and, in the view of
many, the crowning achievement of Dostoevsky’s artistic career. Yet
as V. A. Vetlovskaya reminds us in her fine discussion, “Alyosha
Karamazov and the Hagiographie Hero,” Dostoevsky conceived of T h e
Brothers K a ra m a zo v, as we know it now, as only the first of two parts. It
was in the second volume that Alyosha Karamazov was to occupy the
position of central hero of the novel. Vedovskaya carefully shows how
Dostoevsky anticipated in the first novel the subsequent development
of Alyosha in the second. Yet the main contribution of Vedovskaya’s
fine essay is her thorough exploradon of the hagiographie dimension
of Alyosha as a character. Again and again, Dostoevsky links his hero
Alyosha with the central figure of one of Russia’s most popular v ita ,
that of Aleksey Man of God. Vedovskaya’s discussion contributes
much to our understanding of Dostoevsky’s intendons in T h e Brothers
K a ra m a zo v. Her work as a whole, like Tunimanov’s, attests to the
continuation in the Soviet Union today of the best tradidons of Rus
sian and Soviet Dostoevsky scholarship.
Dostoevsky wrote direedy about literature, art, and aesthedcs as a
cridc and journalist. At the same time, his art is rich in literary and
aesthetic subtext. This is the focus of Victor Terras’ fine and ranging
discussion, “The Art of Ficdon as a Theme in T he B rothers K a ra m a zo v ."
Introduction 17
“Throughout T h e Brothers K a ra m a zo v , aesthetic categories are un

hesitatingly applied to the phenomena of life.” Terras shows, for
example, how each main character in the novel is a “different type of
homo aestheticus," but also explores Dostoevsky’s rich and paradoxical
play with fact and fiction in the novel. Terras’s discussion of the duel
between the prosecutor Ippolit and the defense attorney Fetyukovich
is particularly provocative. Apropos of Fetyukovich, Terras remarks:
“Dostoevsky assigns the voice of truth to the man with the greatest
imagination . . . and he does so regardless of the man’s moral qual
ities.”
In his perceptive and informative contribution, “Memory in T he
Brothers K a ra m a zo v," Robert L. Belknap foregrounds a phenomenon
and device in Dostoevsky’s art of enormous philosophical, moral, and
psychological importance. Belknap not only brings out the central
role of memory in Dostoevsky’s last novel, but also gives considerable
attention to the literary and scientific context in the eighteenth and
nineteenth century of Dostoevsky’s thought on memory (Diderot,
Taine, Claude Bernard, and others).
In the final essay of the volume, “The Paradox of the Legend of
the Grant Inquisitor,” the noted French Slavist and Dostoevsky
scholar Jacques Catteau explores the complex dialectic of the Legend
of the Grand Inquisitor in T he B rothers K ara m a zo v. Catteau poses the
question of his essay as follows: "Could the Legend of the Grand
Inquisitor be the eclipse of hope, the imprisonment of hope, or does it
leave the door open to some ray of hope?” He analyzes the Legend
against the background of the literary tradition in which it finds itself
and in the light of various readings. The conclusion of his metaphysi
cally informed essay is that at the conclusion o f the Legend “all is
tragically renewed, all becomes possible again in a new legend: hope is
both extended and released.”
The present volume brings together only a sampling of Dostoev
sky scholarship in the East and the West. Soviet Russian scholarship, as
we have noted, is abundant. In the United States the work of Robert
L. Belknap, Roger L. Cox, Donald Fanger, Joseph Frank, George Gi-
bian, Robert Louis Jackson, Ralph Matlaw, Robin Feuer Miller, Gary
Saul Morson, Nadine Natov, Nathan Rosen, Ellis Sandoz, Vladimir
Seduro, Victor Terras, and Edward Wasiolek, among many others,
attests to the leap of American scholarship in the past twenty-five
years. It is an advance matched in other parts of the world by such

scholars as Jacques Catteau and Dominique Arban (France), Sven
Linne'r (Finland), Sigurd Fasting (Norway), Richard Peace and
Malcolm Jones (England), Horst-Jurgen Gerigk, Hans Rothe, and
Wolf Schmidt (West Germany), Ettore Lo Gatto and Anna Maver Lo
Gatto (Italy), Ryszar Przybylski (Poland), Gyula Kiraly (Hungary),
Konrad Onasch (German Democratic Republic), Slobodanka Vladiv
(Australia), Toyofusa Kinoshita (Japan), Rudolf Neuhauser (Au
stria), Carl Stief (Denmark), and Jan van der Eng (the Netherlands),
to mention only a few. Taken together with the resurgence of Dos
toevsky scholarship in the Soviet Union, one can justly speak of a real
renascence in Dostoevsky studies. It is hoped that this volume will
provide further impetus to the development of interest in Dostoevsky
throughout the world.
To facilitate reference to Dostoevsky’s work for readers using any

of the available texts or translations, I have followed quotations with
parenthetical notes indicating the part (uppercase Roman numeral),
chapter (Arabic numeral) and, if any, subchapter (lowercase Roman
numeral) in which the passage occurs.
The Dismantled Consciousness:
An Analysis o f The Double
by Mikhail M . Bakhtin
In The Double, the characteristic feature of consciousness and

speech that we have examined in Dostoevsky’s first novel, Poor Folk—
the anticipation of another person’s word—achieves extremely sharp
and clear-cut expression, more so than in any other work by Dos
toevsky. The tendencies already imbedded in Makar Devushkin are
developed here with extraordinary boldness and consistency, carried
to their conceptual limits, on the basis of the same deliberately primi
tive, simple and crude material.
We cite below the semantic structure and speech profile of Golyad-
kin’s discourse in a parodie stylization done by Dostoevsky himself, in
a letter written to his brother while working on The Double. As in any
parodie stylization, there is an obvious and crude emphasis upon the
basic characteristics and tendencies of Golyadkin’s discourse.
Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin holds his own completely. He’s a terri
ble scoundrel and there’s no approaching him; he refuses to
move forward, pretending that he’s not ready yet, that for the
present he’s on his own, he’s all right, nothing is the matter, but
that if it comes to that, then he can do that too, why not, what’s to
prevent it? He’s just like everyone else, he’s nothing special, just
like everyone else. What’s it to him! A scoundrel, a terrible
scoundrel! He’ll never agree to end his career before the middle
of November. He’s just now spoken with his Excellency, and he
just may (and why shouldn’t he) be ready to announce his re
tirement.1
“The Dismantled Consciousness: An Analysis of The Double" [editor’s title],
by Mikhail M. Bakhtin. From Bakhtin’s Problems o f Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Caryl
Emerson, trans., (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Copyright ©
1983 by the University o f Minnesota.
'A letter to Mikhail Dostoevsky, October 8, 1845 (translator’s note).
19
20 M ikhail M . Bakhtin
As we shall see, The Double itself is narrated in this same style,

parodying the hero.
The influence of another person’s words on Golyadkin’s speech is
absolutely obvious. We immediately sense that his speech, like De-
vushkin’s, gravitates neither toward itself nor toward its referential
object. Golyadkin’s interrelationships with the other’s speech and the
other’s consciousness are, however, quite different from Devushkin’s.
And for this reason the traits in Golyadkin’s style produced by the
other’s discourse are of a different sort.
Golyadkin’s speech seeks, above all, to simulate total independence
from the other’s words: “He’s on his own, he’s all right.” This simula
tion of independence and indifference also leads to endless repeti
tions, reservations and long-windedness, but here they are directed
not outward, not toward another, but toward Golyadkin’s own self: he
persuades himself, reassures and comforts himself, plays the role of
another person vis-à-vis himself. Golyadkin’s comforting dialogues
with himself are the most prominent trait of the whole story. Along
with a simulation of indifference, however, goes another attitude to
ward the other’s discourse: the desire to hide from it, to avoid attract
ing attention to himself, to bury himself in the crowd, to go
unnoticed—after all, “He’s just like everyone else, he’s nothing spe
cial, just like everyone else.” But in this he is trying to convince not
himself, but another. Finally, there is a third attitude toward the
other’s discourse: concession, subordination to it, a submissive assimi
lation of it, as if Golyadkin thought the same way himself and sin
cerely agreed with it: “If it comes to that, then he can do that too, why
not, what’s to prevent it?”
Such are Golyadkin’s three general lines of orientation, and they
are complicated by other secondary but rather important ones. Each
of these three lines in itself gives rise to very complex phenomena in
Golyadkin’s consciousness and discourse.
We shall concentrate primarily on his simulation of independence
and composure.
The pages of The Double are filled, as we have said, with the hero’s
dialogues with himself. It could be said that Golyadkin’s entire inner
life develops dialogically. We quote two examples of such dialogue:
“Will it be all right, though?” went on our hero, stepping out of
his carriage at the porch of a five-storey house on Liteiny Street,
The Dismantled Consciousness 21
beside which he had ordered the vehicle to stop; “will it be all

right? Is it a proper thing to do? Will this be the right time?
However, does it really matter?” he continued as he mounted
the stairs, breathing hard and trying to control the beating of his
heart, which always seemed to beat hard on other people’s stairs;
“does it matter? I’ve come about my own business, after all, and
there’s nothing reprehensible in th a t.. . . It would be stupid to
try to keep anything from him. So I’ll just make it appear that it’s
nothing special, I just happened to be driving past.. . . He will
see that’s how it must have been.” (I)2
The second example of interior dialogue is considerably more

complex and pointed. Golyadkin conducts it after the appearance of
the double, that is, after the second voice has already become objec
tified for him within his own field of vision.
Thus Mr. Golyadkin’s delighted mood expressed itself, but all

the time something went on nagging away at the back of his
mind, a kind of ache, which sometimes so drained his spirits that
Mr. Golyadkin did not know where to turn for consolation.
“However, we’ll wait a day, and then we can be happy. Still, what
does it amount to, after all? Well, we’ll think about it, and we’ll
see. Well, let’s think it over, my young friend, let’s discuss it.
Well, he’s a man like you, to begin with, exactly the same. Well,
what of that? If that’s what he is, ought I to weep over it? What’s
it got to do with me? I’m outside it; I just whistle, that’s all! Let
him work! Well, it’s something strange and queer; just like the
Siamese twins, as they call them. . . . Well, why them, the
Siamese twins?—all right, they’re twins, but even the very
greatest people have seemed a bit queer sometimes. Why, even
in history, it’s well known the famous Suvorov crowed like a
cock. .. . Well, but that was all for political reasons; and great
generals. . . but why talk about generals? I go my own way,
that’s all, and I don’t want to know anybody, and in my inno
cence I scorn my enemies. I am no intriguer, and I’m proud to
say it. Honest, straightforward, orderly, agreeable, mild. .. .”
(VI).
2Passages from The Dmible cited from Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notesfrom Under
ground and The Double, translated by Jessie Coulson (Penguin Books, 1972).
The translation has been slightly amended where necessary for accuracy or
tone (translator’s note).
The first question that arises concerns the function of this dialogue
with the self in Golyadkin’s spiritual life. The question can be briefly
answered thus: The dialogue allows him to substitute his own voice
for the voice of another person.
This substituting function of Golyadkin’s second voice is felt in
everything. Without understanding it we cannot understand his inte
rior dialogues. Golyadkin addresses himself as if addressing another
person (“my young friend”), he praises himself as only another per
son could, and he verbally caresses himself with tender familiarity:
“Yakov Petrovich, my dear fellow, you little Golyadka you, what a nice
little name you have!”3 He reassures and encourages himself with the
authoritative tone of an older, more self-confident person. But this
second voice of Golyadkin’s, confident and calmly self-satisfied, can
not possibly merge with his first voice, the uncertain timid one; the
dialogue cannot be transformed into the integral and confident
monologue of a single Golyadkin. Moreover, that second voice is to
such a degree unable to merge with the first, it feels so threateningly
independent, that in place of comforting and encouraging tones there
begin to appear teasing, mocking, and treacherous ones. With as
tonishing tact and artistry Dostoevsky transfers—almost impercepti
bly to the reader—Golyadkin’s second voice from his interior dialogue
to the narration itself: it begins to sound like an outside voice, the
voice of the narrator.
Golyadkin’s second voice must compensate for the inadequate rec
ognition he receives from the other person. Golyadkin wants to get by
without such recognition, wants to get by, so to speak, on his own. But
this “on his own” inevitably takes the form of “you and I, my friend
Golyadkin,” that is, it takes dialogic form. In actual fact Golyadkin
lives only in another, lives by his reflection in another: “Will it be all
right? Is it a proper thing to do?” And this question is always an
swered from the possible and presumed point of view of another
person: Golyadkin will pretend that nothing is the matter, that he just
happened to be driving by, and the other person will see that “that’s
how it must have been.” In the reaction of the other person, in his
discourse and his response, the whole matter lies. There is no way that
the confidence of Golyadkin’s second voice can rule all of him, nor
^ h e name in Russian suggestsgolyada, “tramp” or “beggar,” derived from
the adjective golyi, “naked, bare” (translator’s note).
can it actually take the place of another real person. For him,
another’s words are the most important thing.
Although Mr. Golyadkin had said all this [about his
independence—M.B.] with the utmost possible distinctness and
clarity, confidently, weighing his words and calculating their
probable effect, nevertheless it was now with anxiety, with the
utmost anxiety, that he gazed at Christian Ivanovich. Now he
had become all eyes, and awaited Christian Ivanovich’s answer
with sad and melancholy impatience (II).
In this second excerpt of interior dialogue, the substituting func
tions of the second voice are absolutely clear. But here there appears
in addition a third voice, the direct voice of the other, interrupting the
second merely substitute voice. Thus elements appear here that are
completely analogous to those we analyzed elsewhere in Devushkin’s
speech—words of the other, words partially belonging to the other,
and the corresponding accentual interruption:
Well, it’s something strange and queer; just like the Siamese
twins, as they call them. . . . Well, why them, the Siamese
twins?—all right, they’re twins, but even the very greatest people
have seemed a bit queer sometimes. Why, even in history, it’s
well known the famous Suvorov crowed like a cock. . . . Well, but
that was all for political reasons; and great generals . . . but why
talk about generals? (II).
Everywhere here, but especially where ellipses appear, the anticipated
responses of others wedge themselves in. This passage too could be
unfolded in the form of a dialogue. But here it is more complex.
While in Devushkin’s speech a single integrated voice polemicized with
the “other person,” here there are two voices: one confident, even too
confident, and the other too timid, giving in to everything, capitulat
ing totally.4
Golyadkin’s second voice (the voice substituting for another per
son), his first voice hiding away from the other’s word (“I’m like
everyone else”; “I’m all right”) and then finally giving in to that other
word (“in that case, I’m ready”) and, finally, that genuinely other voice
forever resounding in him, the three voices are so complexly interre
lated that they provide adequate material for the entire intrigue and
4There were, as well, rudiments of interior dialogue already in Devushkin.
24 M ikhaïl M . Bakhtin
permit the entire novel to be constructed on them alone. The actual

event, namely the unsuccessful courting of Klara Olsufievna and all
the circumstances accompanying it, is in fact not represented in the
novel at all; they serve only as the stimulus setting inner voices in
motion, they make immediate and intensify that inner conflict which
is the real object of representation in the novel.
Except for Golyadkin and his double, no other characters take any
actual part whatsoever in the intrigue, which unfolds entirely within
the bounds of Golyadkin’s self-consciousness; the other characters
merely provide raw material, add, as it were, the fuel necessary for the
intense work of that self-consciousness. The external, intentionally
obscure intrigue (everything of importance has already taken place
before the novel begins) serves also as a firm, barely discernible frame
for Golyadkin’s inner intrigue. The novel tells the story of Golyadkin’s
desire to do without the other’s consciousness, to do without recogni
tion by another, his desire to avoid the other and assert his own self,
and what resulted from this. Dostoevsky intended The Double as a
“confession”5 (not in the personal sense, of course), that is, the repre
sentation of an event that takes place within the bounds of self-
consciousness. The Double is the first dramatized confession in Dos
toevsky’s work.
At the base of the intrigue, therefore, lies Golyadkin’s attempt—in
view of the total non-recognition of his personality on the part of
others—to find himself a substitute for the other. Golyadkin plays at
being an independent person; his consciousness plays at confidence
and self-sufficiency. The new and acute experience of collision with
another person, at the dinner party where Golyadkin is publicly
humiliated, intensifies the split in his personality. Golyadkin’s second
voice overexerts itself in a desperate simulation of self-sufficiency, in
order to save Golyadkin’s face. It is impossible for this second voice to
merge with Golyadkin; on the contrary, treacherous tones of ridicule
grow louder and louder in it. It provokes and teases Golyadkin; it
casts off its mask. The double appears. T he inner conflict is
dramatized; Golyadkin’s intrigue with the double begins.
The double speaks in Golyadkin’s own words, bringing with him no
5In a letter to Michael Dostoevsky, January or February 1847, Dostoevsky
writes to his brother: “But soon you shall read Netochka Nezvanova. It will be a
confession, like Golyadkin, although of a different tone and sort.”
The Dismantled, Consciousness 25
new words or tones. At first he pretends to be a cringing Golyadkin,

Golyadkin surrendering. When Golyadkin brings the double home
with him, the latter looks and behaves like the first and uncertain
voice in Golyadkin’s internal dialogue: “Will it be all right, is it a
proper thing to do,” and so on.
The visitor [the double—M.B.] evidently felt highly embarrassed
and extremely shy; he humbly followed his host’s every move
ment and caught his every look, apparently trying to guess his
thoughts from them. All his gestures expressed something meek,
downtrodden, and cowed, so that at that moment he was, if the
comparison is permissible, like a man who for want of his own
clothes is wearing somebody else’s; the sleeves have crept half
way up his arms, the waist is almost round his neck, and he is
either constandy tugging at the too-short waistcoat, or sliding
away somewhere out of the way, or striving to find somewhere to
hide, or looking into everybody’s eyes and straining to hear
whether people are talking about his plight and laughing at him
or ashamed of him; and the poor man blushes, he loses his
presence of mind, his pride suffers.. . . (VII).
This is a characterization of the cringing and self-effacing Golyad
kin. The double speaks, too, in the tones and style of Golyadkin’s first
voice. The part of the second voice—confident and tenderly reassur
ing in its relation to the double—is played by Golyadkin himself, who
this time seems to have merged totally with that voice:
“Well, you know, Yakov Petrovich, you and I are going to get on
well together,” said our hero; “you and I, Yakov Petrovich, will
get on like a house on fire, we’ll live together like brothers; the
two of us will be very clever, old chap, very clever we’re going to
be; we’ll be the ones to intrigue against them . . . intrigue against
them, that’s what we’ll do. After all, I know you, Yakov Pet
rovich, I understand what you’re like; you blurt out everything
straight away, like the honest soul that you are. You just keep
away from all of them, old man.” (VII).6
But later on the roles change: the treacherous double takes over
the tone of Golyadkin’s second voice, parodically exaggerating its af-
*Not long before Golyadkin had said the same thing to himself: “That’s
just like you!. .. You go plunging in, you’re delighted! You guileless crea
ture.”
fectionate familiarity. At their very next meeting in the office, the

double has already assumed this tone, and he sustains it until the end
of the story., now and then himself emphasizing the identity between
expressions from his own speech and Golyadkin’s words (the words
spoken by him during their first conversation). During one of their
meetings at the office the double, familiarly poking Golyadkin, said
to him:
. . . with a smile full of the most venomous and far-reaching
implications: “Oh no, you don’t, Yakov Petrovich, my little
friend, oh no, you don’t. We’ll dodge you, Yakov Petrovich, we’ll
dodge you.” (VIII).
Or a little later, before their face to face confrontation in the coffee
house:
“You’ve talked me over, my dear boy,” said Mr. Golyadkin
junior, climbing down from the cab and shamelessly clapping
him on the shoulder, “you’re such a good sort; for you, Yakov
Petrovich, I’m willing to take a side-street (as you so righdy re
marked that time, Yakov Petrovich). You’re a sly one, you know,
you do whatever you like with a man” (XI).
This transferral of words from one mouth to another, where the
content remains the same although the tone and ultimate meaning is
changed, is a fundamental device of Dostoevsky’s. He forces his
heroes to recognize themselves, their idea, their own words, their
orientation, their gesture in another person, in whom all these
phenomena change their integrated and ultimate meaning and take
on a different sound, the sound of parody or ridicule. In Crime and
Punishment, for example, there is one such literal repetition by Svid-
rigailov (Raskolnikov’s partial double) of Raskolnikov’s most intimate
words, spoken by him to Sonya, a repetition with a meaningful wink.
Here is the passage:
“Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigailov. “I told you I
had no need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s simply
done from humanity? She wasn’t ‘a louse’, you know” (he
pointed to the corner where the dead woman lay), “was she, like
some old pawnbroker woman? Come, you’ll agree, is Luzhin to
go on living, and doing wicked things or is she to die? And if I
didn’t help them, Polenka would go the same way.”
He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keep

ing his eyes fixed on Raskolnikov, who turned white and cold,
hearing his own phrases, spoken to Sonya. (V, 5)
Almost all of Dostoevsky’s major heroes have their partial double in
another person or even in several other people (Stavrogin and Ivan
Karamazov). In his last work Dostoevsky again returned to the device
of fully embodying the second voice, this time, to be sure, on deep and
more subde grounds. In its externally formal plan Ivan Karamazov’s
dialogue with the devil is analogous to those interior dialogues that
Golyadkin conducts with himself and with his double; for all the dis
similarity in situation and in ideological content, essentially one and
the same artistic task is being solved here.
Such is the manner in which Golyadkin’s intrigue with his double
unfolds—as the dramatized crisis of his self-consciousness, as a
dramatized confession. The action cannot go beyond the bounds of
self-consciousness, since the dramatis personae are no more than iso
lated elements of that self-consciousness. The actors here are the
three voices into which Golyadkin’s voice and consciousness have been
dismanded: his “I for myself,” which cannot manage without another
person and without that person’s recognition; his ficütious “I for the
other” (reflection in the other), that is, Golyadkin’s second substitut
ing voice; and finally, the genuinely other voice which does not rec
ognize Golyadkin and yet is not actually depicted as exisdng outside
Golyadkin, since there are no other autonomous characters in the
work.7 What results is a peculiar sort of mystery play or, rather, mor
ality play, in which the actors are not whole people but rather the
spiritual forces batding within them, a morality play, however,
stripped of any formalism or abstract allegorizing.
But who tells the story in The Double? What is the positioning of the
narrator and what sort of voice does he have?
In the narration too we do not find a single element that exceeds
the bounds of Golyadkin’s self-consciousness, a single word or a single
tone that could not have been part of his interior dialogue with him
self or his dialogue with his double. The narrator picks up on Golyad
kin’s words and thoughts, intensifies the teasing, mocking tones em
bedded in them, and in these tones portrays Golyadkin’s every act,
7Other autonomous consciousnesses appear only in the novels.
every gesture, every movement. We have already said that Golyad-

kin’s second voice, through imperceptible transitions, merges with
with the voice of the narrator; one gets the impression that the narra
tion is dialogically addressed to Golyadkin himself; it rings in Golyad-
kin’s own ears as another’s voice taunting him, as the voice of his
double, although formally the narration is addressed to the reader.
This is how the narrator describes Golyadkin’s behavior at the most
fateful moment in his escapades, when he tries, uninvited, to gain
entrance to the ball at Olsufy Ivanovich’s:
Let us rather turn to Mr. Golyadkin, the real and sole hero of
our true to life story.
The fact is that he is now in a position that is, to say the least,
extremely strange. He is here too, ladies and gentlemen, that is
to say not at the ball, but almost at the ball; he is all right, ladies
and gentlemen; he may be on his own, but at this moment he
stands upon a path that is not altogether straight; he stands
now—it is strange even to say it—he stands now in the passage
from the back entrance of Olsufy Ivanovich’s flat. But that he is
standing there means nothing; he is all right. He is standing,
though, ladies and gendemen, in a corner, lurking in a much
darker, if no warmer, place, half concealed by an enormous
cupboard and an old screen, among every kind of dusty rubbish,
trash, and lumber, hiding until the proper time and meanwhile
only watching the progress of the general business in the capac
ity of casual looker-on. He is only watching now, ladies and gen
demen; but, you know, he may also go in, ladies and gende
men . . . why not? He has only to take a step, and he is in, and in
very neady (IV).
In the structure of this narration we observe two voices interrupt
ing each other, and the same merging of two rejoinders that we had
earlier observed in the utterances of Makar Devushkin. But here the
roles have changed: here it is as if the other person’s rejoinder has
swallowed up the rejoinder of the hero.
The narration [in the text at large] glitters with Golyadkin’s own
words: “He is all right,”; “He’s on his own,” and so on. But these
words are uttered by the narrator with ridicule and somewhat with
reproach, directed at Golyadkin himself and constructed in a form
meant to touch his sore spots and provoke him. The mocking narra-
tion imperceptibly passes over into the speech o f Golyadkin himself.

The question “Why not?” belongs to Golyadkin himself, but is given in
the teasing, aggressive intonation of the narrator. Even this intona
tion, however, is not in essence alien to the consciousness of Golyad
kin himself. All this could ring in his own head, as his second voice. In
fact the author could at any point insert quotation marks without
changing the tone, voice, or construction of the sentence.
Somewhat further he does exactly that:
So there he is now, ladies and gendemen, waiting for the chance
to do things quietly, and he has been waiting for exacdy two and
a half hours. Why not wait? Villèle himself used to wait. “But
what’s Villèle got to do with this?” thought Mr. Golyadkin.
“Who’s Villèle, anyhow? And what if I were to . . . just go
through . . . ? Oh, you bit player, you!” (IV).
But why not insert quotation marks two sentences earlier, before
the words “Why not wait?”—or even earlier, changing the words “So
there he is now, ladies and gentlemen” to “Golyadka, old boy,” or
some other form of address by Golyadkin to his own self? O f course,
the quotation marks are not inserted at random. They are inserted in
such a way as to make the transition especially subde and impercepti
ble. Villèle’s name appears in the narrator’s last sentence and in the
hero’s first. Golyadkin’s words seem to continue the narration unin
terruptedly and answer it in an interior dialogue: “Villèle himself
used to wait. ‘But what’s Villèle got to do with this!’ ” These are, in
fact, detached rejoinders in Golyadkin’s interior dialogue with him
self: One side entered the narration, the other remained with Gol
yadkin. A phenomenon has occurred that is quite the reverse of what
we had observed earlier, when we witnessed the interruption-prone
merging of two rejoinders. But the result is the same: a double-voiced,
interruption-prone construction with all the accompanying
phenomena. The field of action is the same, too: a single self-
consciousness. Authority in that consciousness, however, has been
seized by the other’s discourse, which has made its home in it.
We shall quote another example with the same vacillating borders
between the narration and the hero’s discourse. Golyadkin has made
up his mind and has at last entered the hall where the ball is going on,
and finds himself before Klara Olsufievna:
30 Mikhail M . Bakhtin
There is not the slightest doubt he could most gladly have sunk
through the floor at that moment without so much as blinking;
but what’s done can’t be undone . . . no, indeed it can’t. What
was he to do? “If things go wrong, stand your ground, if all goes
well, stand firm.” Mr. Golyadkin, of course, was “not an in
triguer, nor was he good at polishing the parquet with his
shoes.. . . ” Well, now the worst had happened. And besides, the
Jesuits were mixed up in it somehow.. . . However, Mr. Golyad
kin had no time for them now! (IV).
The passage is interesting because it contains no grammatically
direct discourse belonging to Golyadkin himself, and thus there is no
justification for setting off words in quotation marks. The portion of
the narration in quotation marks here was set that way, apparently,
through a mistake of the editor. Dostoevsky probably set off only the
proverb: “If things go wrong, stand your ground; if all goes well,
stand firm.” The next sentence is given in the third person, although,
of course it belongs to Golyadkin himself. Further on, the pauses
marked by ellipses also belong to Golyadkin’s inner speech. The sen
tences preceding and following these ellipses, judging by their accent,
relate to each other as do rejoinders in an interior dialogue. The two
adjacent sentences with the Jesuits are completely analogous to the
above-quoted sentences on Villèle, set off from each other by quota
tion marks.
Finally, one more excerpt, where perhaps the opposite mistake was
committed: quotation marks were not inserted where grammatically
they should have been. Golyadkin, driven from the ball, rushes home
through a snowstorm and meets a passerby who later turns out to be
his double:
It was not that he feared this might be some bad character, he
was simply afraid. “And besides, who knows?”—the thought
came unbidden into Mr. Golyadkin’s mind—“perhaps this
passer-by is—he, himself, perhaps he is here and, what matters
most, he is not here for nothing, he has a purpose, he is crossing
my path, he will brush against me.” (V).
Here the ellipsis serves as a dividing line between the narration and
Golyadkin’s direct inner speech, which is structured in the first person
(“my path,”; “brush against me"). But they are merged so closely here
that one really does not want to insert quotation marks. For this sen
tence, after all, must be read with a single voice, albeit an internally
dialogized one. Stunningly successful here is the transition from the
narration to the hero’s speech: We feel, as it were, the wave of a single
speech current, one that carries us without dams or barriers from the
narration, into the hero’s soul, and out again into the narration; we
feel that we are moving essentially within the circle of a single con
sciousness.
One could cite many more examples proving that the narration is a
direct continuation and development of Golyadkin’s second voice and
that it is addressed dialogically to the hero, but even the above exam
ples are sufficient. The whole work is constructed, therefore, entirely
as an interior dialogue of three voices within the limits of a single
dismantled consciousness. Every essential aspect of it lies at a point of
intersection of these three voices, at a point where they abruptly,
agonizingly interrupt one another. Invoking our image, we could say
that this is not yet polyphony, but no longer homophony. One and the
same word, idea, or phenomenon is passed through three voices and
in each voice sounds different. The same set of words, tones, and
inner orientations is passed through the outer speech of Golyadkin,
through the speech of the narrator and through the speech of the
double, and these three voices are turned to face one another, they
speak not about each other but with each other. Three voices sing the
same line, but not in unison; rather, each carries its own part.
But these voices have not become fully independent real voices,
they are not yet three autonomous consciousnesses. This occurs only
in Dostoevsky’s novels. In The Double there is no monologic discourse
gravitating solely toward itself and its referential object. Each word is
dismantled dialogically, each word contains an interruption of voices,
but there is not yet an authentic dialogue of unmerged con
sciousnesses such as will later appear in the novels. Already, the rudi
ments of counterpoint are here: it is implied in the very structure of
the discourse. The analyses of the sort we have offered here are
already, as it were, contrapuntal analyses (speaking figuratively, of
course). But these new connections have not yet gone beyond the
bounds of monologic material.
Relentlessly ringing in Golyadkin’s ears are the provocative and
mocking voice of the narrator and the voice of the double. The nar
rator shouts into Golyadkin’s ear Golyadkin’s own words and
32 M ikhaü M . Bakhtin
thoughts, but in another, hopelessly alien, hopelessly censuring and

mocking tone. This second voice is present in every one of Dostoev
sky’s heroes, and in his final novel, as we have said, it again takes on an
independent existence. The devil shouts into Ivan Karamazov’s ear
Ivan’s very own words, commenting mockingly on his decision to
confess in court and repeating in an alien tone his most intimate
thoughts. We shall not take up here the actual dialogue between Ivan
and the devil. But we shall quote the passage immediately following
this dialogue, Ivan’s agitated story to Alyosha. Its structure is analo
gous to the structure of The Double. The same principle obtains for
combining voices, although to be sure everything here is deeper and
more complex. In this story Ivan passes his own personal thoughts
and decisions simultaneously through two voices, he transmits them
in two different tonalities. In the quoted excerpt we omit Alyosha’s
side of the dialogue, for his real voice does not yet fit into our scheme.
What interests us now is only the intra-atomic counterpoint of voices,
their combination solely within the bounds of a single dismantled
consciousness (that is, a microdialogue).
“He’s been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly,
so cleverly. ‘Conscience! What is conscience! I make it up for
myself. Why am I tormented by it? From habit. From the univer
sal habit of mankind for seven thousand years. So let us give it
up, and we shall be gods.’ It was he who said that, it was he who
said that!”
“Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent,
Alyosha,” Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. “But he was
unfair to me, unfair to me about lots of things. He told lies about
me to my face. ‘Oh, you are going to perform an act of heroic
virtue: to confess you murdered your father, that the lackey
murdered him at your instigation.’ ”
“That’s what he says, he, and he knows it. ‘You are going to
perform an act of heroic virtue, and you don’t believe in virtue;
that’s what tortures you and makes you angry, that’s why you are
so vindictive.’ He said that to me about me and he knows what he
says.. . . ”
“Yes, he knows how to torment one. He’s cruel,” Ivan went
on, unheeding. “I had an inkling from the first what he came
for. ‘Granting that you go through pride, still you had a hope
that Smerdyakov might be convicted and sent to Siberia, and
Mitya would be acquitted, while you would only be punished

with moral condemnation’ (‘Do you hear?’ he laughed then)—
‘and some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov’s dead,
he has hanged himself, and who’ll believe you alone? But yet you
are going, you are going, you’ll go all the same, you’ve decided to
go. What are you going for now?’ That’s awful, Alyosha. I can’t
endure such questions. Who dare ask me such questions?” (IV,
11, x).
All the loopholes in Ivan’s thoughts, all his sideward glances at
another’s words and another’s consciousness, all his attempts to get
around the other’s words and to replace them in his soul with an
affirmation of his own self, all the reservations of his conscience that
serve to interrupt his every thought, his every word and experience,
condense and thicken here into the completed replies of the devil.
Ivan’s words and the devil’s replies do not differ in content but only in
tone, only in accent. But this change of accent changes their entire
uldmate meaning. The devil, as it were, transfers to the main clause
what had been for Ivan merely a subordinate clause, uttered under
his breath and without independent accent, and the content of the
main clause he makes into an unaccented subordinate clause. Ivan’s
reservation concerning the main motive for his decision is trans
formed by the devil into the main motive, and the main motive be
comes merely a reservation. What results is a combination of voices
that is highly intense and maximally eventful, which at the same time
is not dependent on any opposition in content or plot.
But of course this full dialogization of Ivan’s consciousness is—as is
always the case with Dostoevsky—prepared for in a leisurely fashion.
The other’s discourse gradually, stealthily penetrates the conscious
ness and speech of the hero: now in the form of a pause where one
would not be appropriate in monologically confident speech; now in
the form of someone else’s accent breaking up the sentence; now in
the form of an abnormally heightened, exaggerated, or anguished
personal tone, and so on. From Ivan’s first words and from his entire
inner orientation in Zosima’s cell, through his conversations with
Alyosha, with his father, and especially with Smerdyakov before his
departure to Chermashnya, and finally through his three meetings
with Smerdyakov after the murder, this process of gradual dialogic
dismantling of Ivan’s consciousness stretches out, a process more pro
34 M ikhaïl M . Bakhtin
found and ideologically complicated than was the case with Golyad-
kin, but structurally fully analogous to it.
Someone else’s voice whispering into the ear of the hero his own
words with a displaced accent and the resulting unrepeatably unique
combination of varidirectional words and voices within a single word,
a single speech, the intersection of two consciousnesses in a single
consciousness—in one form or another, to one degree or another, in
one ideological direction or another—all this is present in every work
of Dostoevsky’s.
The Petersburg Feuilletons
by Joseph Frank
Dostoevsky’s chronic indebtedness in the 1840s not only forced

him to write more rapidly than he would have liked, and to hurry the
completion of work that should have matured; it also impelled him to
keep a sharp eye on the literary marketplace, and to snap up any
assignments that could bring a little extra cash. In the winter of 1847, we
find him doing editorial work for an encyclopedia and complaining
about the difficulty of correcting in galley proof an article about the
Jesuits. Dostoevsky evidently had a special interest in the history and
character of this Roman Catholic order, whose worldwide influence
was later to become one of his persistent obsessions. Earlier, in the
spring of the same year, he had picked up a more important assign
ment from the St. Petersburg Gazette. The writer who regularly
supplied the feuilletons for this newspaper died unexpectedly; and
the editor hastily filled the gap by appealing to some of the young St
Petersburg literati to furnish him with copy. Aleksey Pleshcheev wrote
one for the issue of April 13, and it was perhaps through him that
Dostoevsky learned of this journalistic opportunity. The next four
feuilletons, signed F. D., were written by Dostoevsky himself.
These feuilletons completely vanished from sight after their
ephemeral appearance, and were only unearthed and republished in
the 1920s. Why Dostoevsky did not later himself reprint these four
extremely interesting specimens of his early journalism is difficult to
say; we shall offer a possible reason farther on. It could not have been,
however, that the mature novelist was ashamed of having once turned
his hand to a demeaning journalistic task. All the up-and-coming
young talents of the Natural School—Grigorovich, Panaev, Turgenev,
“The Petersburg Feuilletons” by Joseph Frank. From Dostoevsky: The Seeds

o f Revolt, 1 8 2 1 -1 8 4 9 . Copyright © 1976 by Princeton University Press,
Princeton, N. J. Reprinted in slightly abridged form by permission.
35
36 Joseph Frank
Goncharov, Sollogub, Pleshcheev—also wrote feuilletons, and Dos

toevsky was simply joining a general literary trend. He had already
written one such article for the ill-fated Jester, and had compared his
own sprightliness and humor with Balzac’s Lucien de Rubempré, who
became the toast of Paris overnight after dashing off a brilliant piece
that became the prototype of the new genre. Balzac’s Illusions perdues,
published in 1843, had glorified the feuilleton as a form created to
capture all the glitter, excitement and variety of Parisian social-
cultural life. Eagerly on the alert for the latest literary novelties, the
younger Russian writers immediately adopted it as a vehicle for their
own self-expression.
The invention of the feuilleton in France had been stimulated by a
new, popular mass-circulation press which served as a medium of
publicity and could influence the success or failure of books, plays,
operas, and public spectacles of all kinds. Originally, the feuilleton
had been simply a column of information about all such cultural
novelites; but it quickly developed into the form of the modern book
or theater review. Lucien de Rubempre”s famous column was a scintil
lating account of a new play in which a young actress, his future
mistress, was making her first important appearance. The feuilleton,
however, in branching out to describe urban types and social life, also
gave birth to the physiological sketch. Once the taste for such sketches
had caught on, it occurred to Fre'de'ric Soulie' to unite them week by
week with a loose narrative line; and this was the origin of the
feuilleton-novel.
It is difficult to distinguish the feuilleton from the physiological
sketch in any clear-cut fashion. One can say that the former is less
marked by the ambition to portray the life of a particular social envi
ronment, and allows more freedom for the writer to roam wherever
his fancy pleases and to display his personality. A lesser French prac
titioner, Nestor Roqueplan, spoke of “ce droit de bavardage” that, in
his view, gave the feuilleton its special charm.1 The writer of feuille
tons ordinarily used this privilege to indulge in lyrical effusions and
pseudo-personal “confessions”; and these created an atmosphere of
intimacy between writer and reader that became a stylistic convention.
Indeed, as we learn from Belinsky, the persona of the feuilletonist was
'Cited in V. L. Komarovich, “Peterburgskie feletony Dostoevskogo,” in
Feletony sorokovykh godov, ed. Iu. Oksman (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), p. 93.
The Petersburg Feuilletons 37
always understood to be highly conventional and stylized. The writer

of a feuilleton, he says, is “a chatterer, apparently good-natured and
sincere, but in truth often malicious and evil-tongued, someone who
knows everything, sees everything, keeps quiet about a good deal but
definitely manages to express everything, stings with epigrams and
insinuations, and amuses with a lively and clever word as well as a
childish joke.”2
These words fit the personality assumed by the young Dostoevsky
to the life. At first sight, his feuilletons may seem little more than
unpretentious familiar essays, leaping from topic to topic solely ac
cording to the whimsical moods of the narrator. Depictions of
Petersburg life and landscape, sketches of various social types, reflec
tions and reminiscences, the stereotyped purveyance of the latest cul
tural tidings—all the standard ingredients are there, thrown together
haphazardly to distract the casual reader. But the moment one reads a
little less casually, it is evident that the feuilletons mean much more
than they appear to say. With all their reticences and sly evasions, they
do “definitely manage to express everything” (or at least a good deal)
of what was preoccupying Dostoevsky—and many others like him—in
the spring of 1847.
Nobody reading Dostoevsky’s first feuilleton could have any doubt

that its author was very much dissatisfied with the existing arrange
ment of social-political life in his fatherland. It is quite evident that he
is smarting under the total lack of freedom in Russia to be informed
about, and to discuss, matters of “public interest” for every thinking
citizen. This point is made immediately in the sketch of two
Petersburgers venturing into the street to welcome the arriving
spring, and greeting each other after the long winter hiatus. The first
question they invariably ask is “What’s the news?”; and at this point
the Petersburg chronicler notes a curious phenomenon. There is, he
says, always “a piercing feeling of desolation in the sound of their
voices, whatever the intonation with which they have begun their
conversation.” No explanation is offered for such a strangely despon
dent mood, which hardly suits the time of year; but Dostoevsky’s
reader, accustomed to the Aesopian language of Russian journalism,
*Cited in V. S. Nechaeva, V. G. Belinskii, 4 vols. (Leningrad, 1949-1962),
vol. 4, p. 298.
38 Joseph Frank
would understand very well that the question was asked hopelessly
because no answer of any interest could possibly be forthcoming:
there was just no “news” of any kind worth talking about. Nonethe
less, the question continues to be asked “as if some sort of propriety
requires [Russians] also to participate in something involving society
and to have public interests.”
This vivid sketch is a good example of one of the techniques of
insinuation that Dostoevsky uses—the device of what may be called
the “unexplained enigma,” to which the knowing reader supplies the
proper solution. To make doubly sure that his readers get the point in
this instance, Dostoevsky also uses hyperbolic irony to satirize the
usual function of a feuilletonist—which was to supply “news” about
public entertainment as a substitute for more substantial and poten
tially dangerous fare. “But I am a feuilletonist, gendemen,” exclaims
the chronicler, “I must tell you about the latest news, the newest, most
thrilling—it is fitting to use this time-honored epithet, no doubt in
vented in the hope that the Petersburg reader will tremble with joy at
some sort of thrilling news, for example, that Jenny Lind has left for
London.” Each time that Dostoevsky refers to his conventional obliga-
dons as a feuilletonist to provide such “news,” his tone is invariably
one of withering scorn.3
Not only does Dostoevsky protest, in his first feuilleton, against the
lack of a free press in Russia; he also alludes in the same fashion to the
lack of free speech, the complete impossibility of any public discussion
of vital social-political issues. “It is well-known,” writes the chronicler,
“that all Petersburg is nothing other than a collection of small circles,
each of which has its statutes, its decorum, its laws, its logic, and its
oracle.” He wonders, with a knowing naivete', why such “circles” are
“so much a product of the [Russian] national character, which is still
somewhat shy of public life and looks homeward.” The answer pro
vided is necessarily evasive, but could hardly have been
misunderstood—life in a “circle” is “more natural, skill is not re
quired, it is more peaceful. In a ‘circle’ you receive a bold answer to
the quesdon— What’s the news?” In other words, one speaks more
3A11 citations from Dostoevsky’s Petersburg feuilletons (1847) are from the
Russian. See Dostoevskii, “Peterburgskaia letopis’,” Polnoe sobranie
khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii, ed. V. Tomashevskii and K. Khalabaev, 13 vols.
(Moscow-Leningrad, 1926-1930), vol. XIII, pp. 8-32.
freely in a circle, one relaxes in relative security without having to

worry about spies and informers.
Life in “circles” is thus a Russian device to carry on some sort of
social-political life in the absence of civil freedoms enjoyed elsewhere;
but it is, at best, only a feeble substitute for the real thing. One type of
“circle”—the chronicler calls it “patriarchal”—exists, in any case,
solely to provide a place where its members can talk cynically and
amusedly, and conversation there never gets past “gossip or a yawn.”
There are, however, other “circles”—evidently those of the progres
sive intelligentsia—in which “a group o f educated and well-
intentioned people . . . with inexplicable enthusiasm interpret various
important matters” and come to general agreement “about several
generally useful questions.” But then, after the first upsurge of ex
citement, “the whole ‘circle’ falls into a kind of irritation, into a kind of
unpleasant enfeeblement,” and gradually sinks into a state of cynicism
much like that of the “patriarchal” assemblage. There is no way for
Russians to participate actively in the social-political affairs of their
country; and this, as the chronicler intimates here for the first time,
helps to explain a good deal about the Russian character.
It explains, for one thing, the kind of person who flourishes in
“circles,” and who is the bane of existence there for others. “You know
this gentleman very well, gentlemen,” the chronicler observes to his
readers. “His name is legion. This is the gentleman with a good heart,
and possessing nothing but a good heart.” Actually, though he spends
his time assuring all and sundry of his sterling moral qualities, this
gendeman is a consummate egotist and perfectly oblivious of the rest
of humanity. The comment of the chronicler about such a type al
ready reveals Dostoevsky’s sharp eye for—and intense dislike of—the
“liberal” affectation of moral compassion that he would later pillory
so brilliantly. Such a man, writes the chronicler, does not even suspect
that “his hidden treasure, his good heart, can be ground and polished
into a precious, sparkling, and genuine diamond” only when he be
gins to identify his interests “with those of society,” only when he
“shows sympathy for society as a whole.”
Dostoevsky’s portrait of the gentleman with “a good heart” is the
first of a series of such derisive character sketches that take up most of
the remainder of this feuilleton. Each deals with a personality who,
behind a façade of virtue, conceals some defect of character or some
40 Joseph Frank
form of vice. At this point Dostoevsky drops the technique of irony he

has been using up to now—the technique of thefaux naif so beloved of
eighteenth century satirists, thenaif whose incomprehension of what
he sees enables the reader to see much more clearly—and shifts to
that of simulated identification with what is being satirized. The
Natural School had devoted itself to delineating much of Russian life
precisely in terms of the contrast between a glittering surface of im
peccable virtue and an underside of vicious corrupdon. What Dos
toevsky now does is to identify himself, as chronicler, with the opponents
of the Natural School, who were furiously protesting against its scan
dalous attempt to expose the injustices of Russian life. And while
pretending to speak in the name and from the point of view of such
cridcs, he cleverly makes his own contribudon to the genre of social
muckraking they were attacking by relying on innuendo and hyper
bole to convey his real meaning.
“Good Lord!” the chronicler exclaims. “Where are the old villains
of the old melodrama and novels, gendemen? How pleasant it was
when they were about in the world! It was pleasant because instandy,
right at hand, was the most kindhearted of all men, who of course
defended innocence and punished wickedness. That villain, that
tiranno ingrato, was born a villain, ready-made in accordance with
some secret and utterly incomprehensible predestination of fate. Ev
erything in him was the personification of evil.” In those happy days,
there was no gap between appearance and reality; good and evil were
clearly delimited, and no confusion between them was possible. But
now, alas, “you are somehow suddenly faced with the fact that the
most virtuous man, a man, besides, who is quite incapable of commit
ting a crime, suddenly appears to be a perfect villain without even
being aware of it himself.” Even more, such a man lives and dies
“honored and exalted” by all who knew him; quite often he is sin
cerely and tenderly mourned even “by his own victims.”
As an example of this type of man, who is unforgivably now being
slandered, the chronicler instances “my good friend Julian Mas-
takovich, a former well-wisher and even to some extent a benefactor
of mine.” Julian Mastakovich is a character in two of Dostoevsky’s
short stories; and he is here given a nonfictional existence, we may
assume, because of the “confessional" convention of the form. Poor
Julian Mastakovich, a high bureaucratic official, is a man with a prob

lem. He is about to marry, at the ripe age of fifty, a charming and
perfectly unspoiled girl of seventeen; but he is troubled by the diffi
culty he may have in continuing to visit the apartment of a handsome
widow, whom for the last two years he has been benevolently helping
to conduct a lawsuit. The chronicler sympathizes with his dilemma,
though he does not conceal his envy. How nice to have found such a
charming young bride to console one’s declining years!
Another example of the same type of eminently respectable per
son, who for some inexplicable reason has begun to be portrayed in
the most unfavorable light, is culled by the chronicler from the pages
of a recent story in the Notes of the Fatherland.4 One episode, which
Dostoevsky singles out for the attention of his readers, recounts the
accidental breaking of a mirror at a children’s party in the absence of
the master of the house, a low-grade Moscow civil servant of unim
peachable respectability. “Ivan Kirilovich is a good man,” the chroni
cler assures us; but he is also a petty family tyrant and a drunkard to
boot, who tortures his ailing and long-suffering wife by his uncon
trollable temper. The broken mirror predictably leads to a storm, and
“a month later [the wife] dies of consumption . . . a kind of Dickensian
charm fills the description of the last moments of the gentle, obscure
life of that woman.”
Biographers have of course seen in Ivan Kirilovich a reminiscence
of Dostoevsky’s father, especially since the chronicler remarks that the
story “brought back many things to my m ind!. . . I personally knew a
man like Ivan Kirilovich. There are lots of them everywhere.”
Whether this assertion means any more than the similar reference to
Julian Mastakovich is difficult to say; such claims of personal acquain
tance in a feuilleton cannot be taken too literally. But even if we
assume that Dostoevsky was struck by this story because he was re
minded of his father, it is more important to note that he sees Ivan
Kirilovich, not so much as an individual, but as a type. His father, that
is, had now become fused in his sensibility with a whole class of similar
4This work has been identified as Sboyev, by A. Nestroyev. The name is a
pseudonym for P. N. Kudryavtsev, a friend of Belinsky, who later became
Professor o f History at the University of Moscow. Belinsky commented on the
same character and scene that Dostoevsky had also singled out. Belinsky,
Selected Philosophical Works (Moscow, 1948), p. 477.
42 Joseph Frank
individuals, whose domestic cruelties were being exposed by the

Natural School as a widespread social abuse. Dostoevsky’s resentment
against his father for having maltreated his mother—if we believe
such resentment to have existed—was no longer a purely personal
trauma festering in the depths of his subconscious; it has now become
part of all the moral-social evils that were being attacked by the liter
ary school to which he belonged.
In closing this first feuilleton, Dostoevsky appends some remarks
on the past literary season which epitomize the procedure he has used
throughout—oblique social criticism, combined with a disparagement
of the traditional function of a Petersburg chronicler. “Gogol’s book
created a great deal of noise at the beginning of the winter,” he
remarks casually. “It’s especially noteworthy that almost all newspa
pers and journals agreed about it, even those whose ideas continually
contradict each other.” The book referred to is Gogol’s ill-starred
Selected Passages from My Correspondence with Friends, which had been
unanimously condemned for its glorification of all the existing institu
tions of Russia (including serfdom) as God-given and sacred. Dos
toevsky thus indicates, by this concluding reference, the underlying
moral-social evil of Russian life infecting all the rest; and he then
shifts into a mockery of his obligation to be informative about the
social season—a mockery whose words take on a special edge just after
the reference to serfdom. “Sorry, I forgot the most important
things . . . Ernst is giving still another concert; this occasion will be a
benefit for the Home Aid Society for the Poor and the German Bene
ficial Society.”
To a large extent, Dostoevsky’s second feuilleton merely picks up

and elaborates certain themes already begun in the first. It opens with
a lengthy—far too lengthy—variation on the topic of the lack of
“news” in Russian life and its deleterious effects on social behavior.
One result is that a person who has “some kind of news in store, not
yet known to anybody, and above all possessing the talent of narrating
it agreeably," is someone of great importance in Petersburg. The most
unlikely people—people who, under ordinary circumstances, would
never get past the lackey at the door—are allowed to penetrate into
closely guarded inner sanctums so long as they have “news.” And the
chronicler portrays the doglike servility of such personages, as well as
the condescending tolerance of those on whom they dance atten

dance; each flatters the vanity of the other quite self-consciously, and
both are perfectly content. “Duplicity, concealment, masks—agreed,
its a nasty affair; but if at the present moment everybody appeared in
public as they really are, my God! it would be even worse.”
This contrast between appearance and reality is then illustrated by
the chronicler in a very daring manner. For Dostoevsky now returns
to the theme he had already alluded to in mentioning Gogol’s book—
the theme of serfdom; and this of course was a very ticldish matter.
To refer to such a subject direcdy was naturally impossible, and the
chronicler takes a very circuitous route to reach his destination. Once
again the technique adopted is that of ironical identification—this
time an identification, not with the opponents of the Natural School,
but with the kind of people who feel no need at all to gather in
“circles,” and who seem perfectly satisfied with things as they are. “I
am sometimes even ready to burst into song from sheer joy,” the
chronicler declares, “when entering some social gathering and seeing
such well-bred and respectable people sitting and discussing some
thing decorously without at the same time losing a jot of their dig
nity.”
For all his ecstasy, however, the chronicler admits that it is often
very difficult for him to grasp what is being discussed by such emi
nently seemly upper-class people. “Goodness only knows what they
talk about! Something, no doubt, quite inexplicably charming, for
they are all such charming and respectable men of the world, but it is
difficult to grasp all the same.. . . Occasionally you get the impression
that they were talking about some highly serious subjects, something
calling for thought; but afterward when you ask yourself what they
were talking about, you simply cannot find an answer: was it about
gloves, the state of agriculture, or about whether ‘a woman’s love is
lasting’? So that, I confess, sometimes I am overcome by a feeling of
melancholy.” To help his reader understand the reason for such a
feeling, apparently so inappropriate in some delightful company, the
chronicler has recourse to an extended comparison—every word of
which, we may be sure, was carefully chosen.
Imagine, he says, that you hear the captivating music of a gay
fancy-dress ball sounding from some stately residence filled with light
and laughter and the bustle of society. You listen “elated, excited, a
44 Joseph Frank
desire for something has stirred in you, an aspiration. You seem to

have heard life; and yet all you carry away with you is only a pale,
colorless motif, an idea, a shadow, almost nothing. And you pass by as
though distrusting something; you are hearing something else, you
hear—sounding through the pale motif of our everyday life—another
note, piercingly alive and sad, like Berlioz’s ball at the Capulets.5
Anguish and misgiving gnaw and tear at your heart like the anguish that
lies in the endless refrain of the despondent Russian song that rings out in such
a native, familiar tone” (italics added). Then follows this quotation from
a poem:
Listen,. .. Others sounds are heard . . .
Sounds of despondent, desperate revelry.
Is it a highwayman singing there,
Or a maiden weeping in the sad hour of parting?
No, it is haymakers homeward bound.. . .
This passage is a superb illustration of Belinsky’s point that a feuil
letonist could “definitely manage to express everything” in the midst
of what seems like inconsequential chatter. For Dostoevsky here is
pointing his finger at the greatest moral-social blight on Russian soci
ety, and scornfully condemning those who nonetheless continue, with
an untroubled conscience, to lead their dignified, civilized, self-
satisfied lives. The juxtaposition of the fancy-dress ball with the peas
ant “revelers” speaks for itself; so does the “anguish and misgiving”
that gnaw at the heart of the chronicler, and the “melancholy” that
overcomes him while attending the festive gatherings of polite society.
For the “reality” of Russian life is to be found, not in the social rituals
of the ruling strata, but in the suffering and heartbreak of the en
slaved peasantry.
Both of the topics so far broached in this second feuilleton are, it is
dear, developments of themes which have already appeared in the
one preceding. But there is also a third theme anticipating what is to
come later—the theme of Petersburg as a symbol of Russian en
lightenment and Russian assimilation of European progress. Descrip
tions of Petersburg, as we have mentioned, were part of the feuil
5Berlioz conducted a number of concerts in St. Petersburg during the late
winter of 1847, and included parts of his new Romeo and Juliet symphony in
the program.
letonist’s stock-in-trade; and Dostoevsky scatters them through his

articles with a fairly liberal hand. Such urban landscapes are invari
ably in the gray and depressing tonality of the Natural School, which
concentrated on the inclemencies of the Petersburg climate and the
shabby squalor in whose midst its poorer inhabitants dwelled. The
architectural glories of the Palmyra of the North (as earlier poets liked
to call the city) are reduced to an image of “huge, damp walls . . .
marbles, bas-reliefs, statues, columns which . . . shivered and chattered
with the damp cold.” What the chronicler picks out for notice is a tired
and hungry cab horse, a funeral procession gloomily making its way
through the streets with “strained, mournful faces” peeping from the
carriages, passersby “looking pale green and stern, terribly angry with
something.” Even the Petersburg spring is compared to a sickly young
girl, ailing and tubercular, whose cheeks suddenly flame into life and
beauty for one moment only to fade the very next day.
At first glance, it might seem as if Dostoevsky would have nothing
good to say for the city, which appears only as an inhuman and op
pressive environment ruled by the crushing might of the Bronze
Horseman and his descendants in the seats of power. But, like other
westerners of the 1840s, Dostoevsky’s attitude toward Petersburg was
ambiguous: the city was not only the nerve center of tyranny and
despotism, it was also, compared to Moscow, the symbol of Russia’s
desire to absorb Western progress and enlightenment; and it is in this
latter guise that it shows up at the end of the second feuilleton. For
here the chronicler compares Petersburg to the young, rather
naughty son of an old-fashioned country gentleman who is himself
quite content to vegetate in his comfortable, patriarchal existence. He
wants his son, however, to “become a young European,” even though
he has heard about “enlightenment” only through rumor. But when
the son throws himself into the process with noticeable enthusiasm,
the old gentleman exhibits alarm at the foreign exterior and
spendthrift ways of his offspring, “grumbles, becomes angry, [and]
condemns both enlightenment and the West.” Petersburg thus ap
pears in a new guise and a much more favorable light; and Dostoevsky
develops this theme at length in the next article.
Dostoevsky’s third feuilleton stands somewhat apart from the

others, and is much less intimately confidential and unbuttoned in
46 Joseph Frank
manner. Abandoning the motley of the amuser and satirist, the

chronicler dons the more dignified garb of the cultural commentator
and makes his own modest contribution to the Western-Slavophil
controversy then raging in Russian culture. Dostoevsky’s little article
can scarcely compete with the much weightier ones written by Be
linsky and Herzen on the same subject at much the same time; but it is
of great interest as the only semi-conceptual formulation of his ideas
at this period. Some of these ideas are so much at variance with his
later convictions that, if he ever went back to read this feuilleton, he
must have regarded it with a shudder of distaste as a glaring example
of the aberrations of his youth. Perhaps this is why he never resur
rected his four pieces, and allowed them to remain buried in the files
of the St. Petersburg Gazette.
The chronicler begins his reflections with a picture of the empty
city vacated for the summer, and filled now only with workmen clean
ing and rebuilding the winter-worn metropolis. "A fine, thick layer of
white dust hangs in the torrid air,” and the pedestrian “flaneur or
spectator,” is advised not to venture into the Nevsky Prospect “if he
does not have the serious desire to resemble the Pierrot of the Roman
carnival who is doused with flour.” How, then, is a person who re
mains in the city to occupy his time? Well, he can, for example, look
around at the architecture, “an important occupation, and even, truly,
an educational one.”
This thought recalls to the mind of the chronicler that, some time
ago, he “had happened to read a French book entirely given over to
contemporary conditions in Russia.” What book is being referred to
has never been satisfactorily established (my own candidate is the
famous work of the Marquis de Custine, La Russie en 1839); but Dos
toevsky culls from its pages some uncomplimentary remarks about
Petersburg architecture. The chronicler recalls this acerbic French
view as being that “there [was] nothing there particularly striking,
nothing national, and the whole city [was] just a ridiculous caricature of
several European capitals.” On the other hand, the cultivated French
tourist “is lavish in his praise of Moscow because of the Kremlin,
utters a few florid, rhetorical phrases about it, and is gratified by how
much nationality he finds in Moscow.”
Waxing merry over this search by the foreign visitor for visible
signs of the Russian soul, the chronicler ridicules his dislike of drosh-
kys “because they diverge from the old, patriarchal wagonette, thus tes
tifying to the manner in which everything indigenous and national in
Russia disappears.” But the chronicler’s target turns out to be, not so
much the visiting tourist himself, as those in Russia who adopt a
similar point of view. For, he notes, such ideas “coincide with
some—we shall not say Russian—but idle ideas of our own, conceived
in the study.” This is of course an allusion to the Slavophils, who are
also delineated as those who search for Russian nationality in “a dead
letter, an outworn idea, a heap of stones [the Kremlin] presumably
recalling ancient Rus, and, finally, in a blind unconditional reversion
to a slumbering native antiquity.”
For the chronicler, this identification of Russian nationality with
the Kremlin may have been true in the past; but it hardly exists any
longer in the present. “It [the Kremlin] is an antiquarian rarity that
you look at with special curiosity and with great reverence; but why it
should be the height of nationality—that is beyond my understand
ing! There are some national monuments which outlive their dme
and cease to be national”;—presumably the Kremlin belongs in this
category. Even going so far as to deny that the Kremlin serves as a
focal point for the religious-national feelings of the Russian people,
he points out that they flock to other monasteries as well, and to
foreign places of devotion such as Mt. Athos and Jerusalem. And do
the Russian people, he asks, really know much more about their his
tory than the names of Dimitry Donskoy, Ivan the Terrible, and Boris
Godunov? Such arguments reveal to what extreme Dostoevsky was
prepared to go in order to counter the Slavophil position.
Like a good Westerner, of course, he takes the opposite tack and
celebrates the new capital over the old. It is no doubt true, the chroni
cler concedes, that Petersburg architecture is a chaos and a medley of
styles, and that “much may furnish nourishment for caricature; but
for all that, everything is life and movement.” Petersburg is full of
dust and plaster because it is still in the process of being built; “its
future is still an idea; but this idea belongs to Peter the Great,” and it is
taking on flesh and blood and growing every day. Indeed, the medley
of architectural styles in the city “all together recall the history of the
European life of Petersburg and of all Russia.” Petersburg is the living
symbol of Peter’s “great idea,” and it supports and activates every
thing vital in the country—“industry, trade, science, literature, civili
48 Joseph Frank
zation, the principle and the organization of social life.” Nor does this
assimilation of Western culture, contrary to the fears of its opponents,
involve any surrender to a foreign principle or way of life. “No, we do
not see the disappearance of nationality in the contemporary effort,
but rather the triumph of nationality, which, in my opinion, will not
succumb so easily to European influence as many believe.”
For all his pro-Westernism, we see that Dostoevsky is by no means
willing to follow Maikov in rejecting nationality as a value. On the
contrary, Dostoevsky’s visceral nationalism is quite evident in the
feuilleton, and sets up a perceptible tension between his ideas and his
feelings. For while his main aim is to belabor the Slavophils, he does
not miss the occasion to take a xenophobic sideswipe against foreign
ers who fail to understand Russia because “we stubbornly have re
fused up to now to be measured by the European standard.” French
men in particular refuse to recognize “anything not-French, either
in art, literature or science, not even in the history of a people, and,
most important, [they are] capable of flying into a rage because there
exists some sort of other people with their own history, their idea,
their national character and their development.” This emphasis on
Russian historical “uniqueness” is very close to Slavophilism, even
though thrown out in the midst of an anti-Slavophil polemic. Her
zen, with his usual aphoristic brilliance, wrote of the Slavophils in My
Past and Thoughts that “like Janus, or the two-headed eagle, they and
we [the Westerners] looked in different directions while one heart
throbbed in us”;6 and this was already beginning to be true in the late
1840s.
Still, in 1847 Dostoevsky differs sharply from the later view he
expressed of the relation between the people and the educated class.
As we have just seen, Dostoevsky desired nothing more fervently than
the liberation of the serfs and was deeply troubled by the suffering of
the people. But, for all his nationalism, he had not yet accepted the
Slavophil view of the Russian people as endowed with any extraordi
nary moral qualities and virtues. “What are the people?” asks the
chronicler. “The people are ignorant and uneducated,” and they look
for leadership “to society, to the educated class." This is exacdy the
reverse of what Dostoevsky would say after Siberia, when he advised
6Alexander Herzen, M y Past and Thoughts, trans. by Constance Garnett,
revised by Humphrey Higgens, 4 vols. (New York, 1968), vol. 2, p. 549.
the educated class to look for guidance to the people. It is thus the
intelligentsia who must lead the people along the path hewn out, with
a giant hand, by Peter the Great, to the fulfillment of “his great idea.”
Finishing off the third feuilleton with a general celebration of the
intellectual and cultural activity of Petersburg in the past winter sea
son, Dostoevsky continues the motif of the “great idea” embodied in
the city and its key role as the crucible of Russian culture. As a foot
note to this survey of the cultural scene, the chronicler praises the
illustrations in a new edition of Dead Souls (also singled out for favor
able comment by Valerian Maikov), and remarks that “in truth, it
would be difficult to find a more auspicious time than the present for
the appearance of a caricaturist-artist.” The italicizing of this last word
is quite significant. For to be an artist, in Dostoevsky’s terminology,
means precisely to transcend caricature in the direction of the
“humanization” that Maikov had declared to be the source of aesthetic
appeal. There can be little doubt that Dostoevsky was defining himself
and his own artistic ambitions in lauding the illustrator who managed
to hold a balance between these two conflicting tendencies.
If Dostoevsky’s first three feuilletons are of great interest because

of the information they supply about his ideas and attitudes in gen
eral, the fourth is of particular significance because it provides a par
tial self-commentary on his literary work. Here Dostoevsky returns to
the important theme he had approached gingerly in his first
feuilleton—the theme of how the oppressive conditions of Russian life
influence the Russian character—and develops it in a very illuminat
ing fashion. For it is these conditions, the chronicler now suggests,
that create the type of characters we find portrayed in Dostoevsky’s
fiction of the same period.
Written in early June, this fourth feuilleton evokes the yearly
exodus from the city of all those who, like the chronicler and his
friends, are able to enjoy the pastoral delights of the countryside. But
the chronicler immediately suggests that true relaxation and dolcefar
niente are not for the likes of himself and his readers (now presumed
to be members of the intelligentsia). For, he says, Russians of this kind
always carry with them the blighting pall of “analysis and comparison,
a skeptical outlook, a secret thought, and always the obligation of
some eternal, never-ending everyday task,” that ubiquitous and ines-
50 Joseph Frank
capable “task” which haunted educated Russians trying to take a rural

holiday in 1847.
This manifest incapacity of Russians—more exactly, a certain kind
of Russian—to benefit emotionally from their sojourn in the bosom of
nature, leads the chronicler to diagnose their situation a little more at
length. Why should Russians have developed this “most unpleasant
characteristic” of continual self-analysis and eternal dissatisfaction
with life? The answer, he suggests, is that they “are tormented by a
desire for external, spontaneous activity which they cannot satisfy.”
Indeed, this passion “for some sort of activity reaches a point of
feverish and uncontrollable impatience; we all long for some serious
occupation, many of us are full of evident desire to do good”; but all
this pent-up emotion leads nowhere. “The trouble is that if anything
has to be done we only become aware of it, as it were, from the
outside.. . . Russians do things badly and sloppily because we do not
really care how they are done.” Why should they care, in other words,
when their lives are completely in the hands of an all-powerful gov
ernment which does not even allow them the right publicly to discuss
its fiats?
As a result, Russian life does not cultivate any sense of inner disci
pline in the individual, or encourage a feeling of personal responsibil
ity. And Dostoevsky then describes, in an extremely important pas
sage, the psychological consequences of this unhappy situation.
“When a man is dissatisfied, when he is unable to express himself and
reveal what is best in him (not out of vanity, but because of the most
natural necessity to become aware of, to embody and to fulfill his Ego
in real life), he at once falls into some quite incredible situation; one, if
I may say so, takes to the botde in a big way; another becomes a
gambler and cardsharp; another a quarrelsome bully; another, fi
nally, goes off his head because of ambition,'' at the same time com
pletely despising ambition and even suffering because he has had to
suffer over such nonsense as ambition.” All this leads Dostoevsky to
“an almost unfair, offensive but seemingly very probable conclusion,”
namely, that Russians “have little sense of personal dignity” and very
little of what he calls “necessary egoism.”
7The Russian word ambitsia does not have the same neutral meaning as its
English synonym. In Russian, the word has the pejorative sense of self-love,
pride, and arrogance.
Such a revaluation of egoism was very much in the foreground of

Russian awareness in 1847; the combined influence of Fourier and
Max Stirner had been working to transform this idea from the nega
tive to the positive. It was in the summer of this year that Belinsky felt
called upon to mull over the lessons of Stirner; and Herzen—whom
Dostoevsky was reading with envy and admiration—had published his
own conclusions a few months before Dostoevsky’s feuilleton. “To
eradicate egoism from a man’s breast,” Herzen wrote, “means to
eradicate his vital principle, his leaven, the salt of his personality . . . I
dare say that a rational acknowledgment of self-will is the highest moral
acknowledgment of human dignity and that all can aspire to it.BDostoevsky’s
remarks on “necessary egoism” spring from a similar conviction; and
this favorable attitude toward personal self-assertion as a manifesta
tion of “human dignity” furnishes an important clue (though by no
means an exclusive one) to the interpretation of Dostoevsky’s early
work.
In the list of psychic malformations given above, we can easily
recognize most of the character-types of Dostoevsky’s fiction in the
1840s. Drunkards (old Pokrovsky, Devushkin in despair, Emelyan
Ilyich in both Poor Folk and An Honest Thief)-, those who go mad out of
“ambition” while despising the very idea (Golyadkin in The Double);
those whose lack of “necessary egoism” leads to a pathological fear
and neurotic insecurity (Mr. Prokharchin in the story by that name,
Vasya Shumkov in A Weak Heart). The remarks in the feuilleton thus
help to clarify the implicit social-psychological presuppositions of
Dostoevsky’s creations. Even though, as we shall see, these pre
suppositions were not understood by most of Dostoevsky’s
contemporaries—and perhaps he did not do enough to make their
presence felt artistically—it is reasonable to assume that he conceived
his characters as instances of the prevailing difficulty for Russians “to
become aware of, to embody, and to fulfill [their] Ego in real life.”
But, it should be stressed, this does not mean that he absolves such
characters from all individual responsibility for whatever lack of “per
sonal dignity” they may exhibit.
Dostoevsky’s fourth feuilleton thus gives us an illuminating glimpse

into the ideological matrix of those works that remain within the
8A. I. Herzen. Sochineniia, 10 vols. (Moscow, 1955), vol. 2. pp. 382-383.
52 Joseph Frank
stylistic orbit of the Natural School. In addition, however, it also fur

nishes insight into a new vein of his production that begins in 1847—a
vein which no longer focuses on a chinovnik of limited mental
capacities but rather on a character-type of the intelligentsia: “the
dreamer.” The appearance of this type, like so much else in Dos
toevsky, has usually been traced exclusively to the peculiarities of his
psyche and seen in narrowly biographical terms; but it is impossible to
accept this view as adequate. For one thing, impractical idealists in the
grip of Romantic vagaries are by no means unknown in earlier Rus
sian literature—Pushkin’s Lensky (in Eugene Onegin) and Gogol’s un
happy artist Piskarev (in Nevsky Prospect) both exemplify a similar
cultural-spiritual dilemma. And, even more important, Dostoevsky’s
“dreamer” emerges exactly at the moment when a general campaign
was being carried on against the dangers of mechtatelnost (dreaming,
reverie) as a congenital malady of the Russian intelligentsia.
Everywhere one turns in Russian culture of the mid-1840s, one
finds evidence of this campaign. High-flown Romantic ideals and
attitudes are denounced as leading to a debilitating withdrawal from
the world and the cultivation of a purely passive and self-satisfied
attitude of exalted contemplation. Herzen published a series of slash
ing articles ridiculing the absurdity of Romantic affectations in the
midst of “this busding age, occupied with material improvement, so
cial questions, science.”9 Belinsky inveighed against those who, model
ing themselves on Schiller’s ideal of “the beautiful soul,” believed they
could transcend the conflicts of ordinary life. Such people, he says,
“know ‘the sublime and the beautiful’ only in books, and then not
always; in life and reality they know neither the one nor the other.”10
The literary sensation of the early spring of 1847 had been Gon
charov’s An Ordinary Story, which contains a devastating portrait of a
typical young provincial Romantic brought down to earth by contact
with life in Petersburg, and by the admonitions of the chief “posidve”
character—a busy, disabused, cool, and hard-headed bureaucrat in
charge of running a very efficient factory for the government.
Dostoevsky is merely echoing this widespread devaluation of
Romantic mechtatelnost when, in a letter to Mikhail at the beginning of
1847, he remarks that while a rich and intense inner life is a spiritual
“Cited in A. G. Tseitlin, I. A. Goncharov (Moscow, 1950), p. 6.
'"Ibid., p. 62.
good, those who live such a life too fervently are also in danger. For,
he explains, “there is a terrible dissonance, a terrible disequilibrium,
that comes to us from society. The external should be balanced with
the internal. Otherwise, in the absence of external events, the internal
acquires a much too threatening supremacy. Nerves and fantasy as
sume a very great place in one’s existence.”11 This has often been
taken as a self-confession; and there is no reason to deny that the
young Dostoevsky who suffered from “hallucinations” may well have
felt threatened by his own propensity to give way to “nerves and
fantasy.” It can scarcely be a hazard, though, that he expresses this
fear only in 1847; nor should we overlook that the blame for the
failure to find any appropriate external oudet is attributed to “soci
ety.” Dostoevsky’s own experience of psychic imbalance was certainly
poured into his imaginative realization of “the dreamer”; but the
significance that he assigns to the type in his feuilleton is inspired by
the dominant social-cultural situation.
Dostoevsky’s letter, indeed, jibes perfectly with the analysis of the
dreamer that we find in his feuilleton. What is a dreamer? He is, we
might say, the cultivated variety of the type of character produced by
the frustrations of Russian life. Like the others, the dreamer too is
“eager for activity, eager for spontaneous life, eager for reality”; but
since this need cannot be satisfied, and because his character is “weak,
womanly, soft,” he is the kind of person who takes refuge in dreams
and fantasies rather than in the more vulgar oudets of the less edu
cated or the more virile. The cultured dreamer develops to an exces
sive degree the typical Russian practice of living completely in the
world of “our illusions, our invented chimeras, our reveries, and all
those extra remedies with which people nowadays try in any way to fill
up all the dull emptiness of their everyday colorless life.” It is in such
natures that “litde by litde develops what is called reverie (mechtatel-
nost), and a man finally becomes something not a man at all but some
kind of strange neuter being—a dreamer." The marvelous portrait
given of this type is too long to quote entire; but it is one of the gems
of Russian prose. To paraphrase lamely, the dreamer is absent-
minded and detached, temperamentally very unstable, solitary and
self-absorbed, incapable of sustained effort even in his favorite occu-
n F. M. Dostoevskii, Pis’ma, ed. and annotated by A. S. Dolinin, 4 vols.
(Moscow, 1928-1959), vol. I, p. 106, January-February, 1847.
54 Joseph Frank
pation of reading. Everything serves to nourish his capacity for living

in an artificial universe of his own creation—a world of imagination
and illusion far surpassing the real in attractiveness. “Sometimes en
tire nights pass imperceptibly in indescribable pleasures; often in a
few hours he [the dreamer] experiences the heavenly joys of love or of
a whole life, gigantic, unheard of, wonderful as a dream, grandiosely
beautiful.”
The cultivation of such delights brings with it an increasing inca
pacity to tolerate reality (“the moments of sobering up are dreadful”),
and the dreamer becomes totally alienated from his real existence,
with all its anxieties and demands. “Little by little our prankster be
gins to shun crowds, to shun general interests, and gradually, imper
ceptibly, his talent for real life begins to dull. Finally, in his delusion,
he completely loses that moral sense which enables a man to ap
preciate all the beauty of the actual.. . . ” And the chronicler ends by
labeling such a life a tragedy, a sin, a caricature; but—“are we not all
more or less dreamers?” Whether or not he considers himself to be (or
to have been) a “dreamer,” Dostoevsky makes clear that the time has
come for the intelligentsia to stop nourishing itself on such dreams
and to turn to the enormous tasks confronting them in Russian life.
Just two years later, he was to try to put such convictions into practice.
Dostoevsky is usually not thought of as a journalist at all, perhaps

because so many of the ideas he expresses are so distasteful to admir
ers of his art. But he was a journalist all the same—and an immensely
successful and influential one during the 1870s, when his Diary of a
Writer, published in monthly installments, was the most widely read
broadsheet ever to have appeared in Russia. Even earlier, during the
1860s, he was an indefatigable contributor of polemical articles to the
two magazines he edited jointly with his brother (Time and Epoch).
This is not the place to discuss his work as a publicist any further; but
it is relevant to note that all his writing in this format bears the stamp
of the feuilleton style.
Dostoevsky evidently found that the easy, casual manner of the
feuilletonist fitted him like a glove; and one never finds him later,
even when presumably expounding ideas, writing anything that can
be considered ordinary expository prose. His stance is always personal
and intimate; his points are made not by logical persuasion but
through sketching character-types, dramatizing attitudes, narrating

experiences and observations. To be sure, the whimsical tone of the
feuilletonist of the 1840s, though never abandoned completely, is
replaced by that of the serious and sometimes choleric social observer;
but his use of irony and persiflage remains the same, and so does the
identification with the reader who becomes an implicit partner in a
dialogue. From this point of view, Dostoe vsky’s five-finger exercises in
the 1840s mark the deljut of an essential aspect of his career.
Reading Between the Genres:
Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer
as Metafiction
by Gary Saul Morson
“Can one perceive as an image that which has no

image?”—Ippolit Terentiev, in The Idiot.
Russian writers are constantly telling us what their works are

not. “What is War and Peace?" asks Tolstoy. “It is not a novel, still less a
poema, still less a historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author
wanted and was able to express in that form in which it was expressed.
Such a declaration of the author’s disregard for the conventional
forms of a creative work in prose might have seemed presumptuous if
it were not deliberate and if it lacked examples. The history of Rus
sian literature from Pushkin’s time not only presents many examples
of such a departure from European form, but does not even give one
example of the opposite. Beginning from Gogol’s Dead Souls and up to
Dostoevsky’s House of the Dead in the modem period of Russian litera
ture there is not a single creative work in prose, at all rising above
mediocrity, which has quite fitted into the form of a novel, a poema, or
a tale.” If Tolstoy is essentially correct—and I believe he is—then a
central problem of Russian literary criticism should be to determine
the poetics of works that deliberately lie in the interstices between
recognized “European” genres. The very tides of Russian works often
point to the genres they lie between—they are poemas in prose and
novels in verse—or insist that they follow no recognized rule at all:
“Reading Between the Genres: Dostoevsky’s Diary o f a Writer as Metafic
tion,” by Gary Saul Morson. From The Yale Review, copyright © Yale Univer
sity, vol. 68 (Winter 1970), pp. 224-234. Reprinted by permission o f The Yale
Review and the editor.
56
Reading Between the Genres 57
“notes” and “diaries” are not so much genres as anti-genres. To read

Russian literature is to learn to read between the genres; we must ask
(to paraphrase Ippolit Terentiev’s question), what are the laws of
works which profess to have no laws?
To extend the argument, we often doubt not only the kind of
literature we are reading, but whether we are reading literature at all.
In the middle of his fiction “Lucerne,” Tolstoy interrupts his narra
tive to tell the reader that “this is not a fiction, but a positive fact,
which can be verified by anyone who likes from the permanent resi
dents at the Hotel Schweizerhof, after ascertaining from the papers
who the foreigners were who were staying at the Schweizerhof on the
7th of July.” Here Tolstoy is claiming more than “realism,” he is
claiming reality; rather than mere fidelity, he insists on literal (not
simply literary) truth. Many of Tolstoy’s direct addresses to the reader
which so disturbed Percy Lubbock and others derive from his attempt
to write what simultaneously is and is not literature, to speak between
“is” and “as if.” And here again Tolstoy is emblematic of his tradition
as a whole; Russian literature is deliberately and self-consciously made
up of forms which have usually been considered to straddle the
boundaries of art—autobiographies, memoirs, notebooks, utopias.
Not only Russian writers but Russian fictions are constantly denying
art—and therefore themselves.
Like Rabelais’s Abbey of Thelème, this order seems to be defined
by simple negation of traditional models, by the quest for paradoxical
and interstitial forms. The reader brought up on European novels
and with a firm sense of the rules and possible variations of fiction is
left to define what these new antirules can be. Or he can, of course,
simply dismiss the best of the Russian tradition as so many loose and
baggy monsters, and so avoid an essential problem for a student of
Russian literature: the poetics of the boundary, the conventions of the
threshold.
Perhaps no work raises these problems more clearly than Dos
toevsky’s Diary of a Writer. We know from external evidence that Dos
toevsky intended his work as a new genre, with strict poedc laws of its
own, and believed that after years of labor “the Diary has at last ma
tured to the point where even the slightest change in its form is
impossible.” Yet when we look at the text we see nothing but the
“image of imagelessness," an icon of chaos.
58 Gary Saul Morson
Whatever our definition of literature may be, this work will proba
bly challenge it. Advertisements are included in the text, as are notices
about subscription rates, missed issues, and the mechanics of publica
tion and distribution. Writer, editor, and publisher—they are one
person, but their roles conflict—all speak to us in the text about their
difficulties in producing the text in which they speak about their diffi
culties, and appeal for understanding from their readers for being
forced to write to readers who do not understand them. Chapter
titles, which presumably should tell us what the articles they introduce
contain, often tell us everything else, including why they cannot fulfill
their normal function. They often seem to entitle only themselves;
and when they do refer to the following article, they may be inde
cipherable, and approach the length of some of the shorter articles.
Above all, there is the vexing problem of the kind of material that
the Diary contains. This work of literature includes a great deal of
apparently nonliterary material. The reason that “The Dream of a
Ridiculous Man” and “The Meek One” are usually excerpted from
the Diary is, of course, that they are mosdy polemical journalism; and
a case against the Diary as a work of literature could rest on Wellek’s
and Warren’s commonsense assertion that “we reject as poetry or
label as mere rhetoric everything which persuades us to a definite
outward action. Art imposes some kind of framework which takes the
statement of the work out of the world of reality. Into our semantic
analysis we thus can reintroduce some of the common conceptions of
aesthetics: ‘disinterested contemplation,’ ‘aesthetic distance,’ ‘fram
ing.’ ” And any defense of the Diary as literature rather than labora
tory would also have to explain the perplexing inclusion of the
notebooks for stories in the same work as their finished text—and, for
that matter, of stories which insist falsely that they are only notebooks
for stories.
I propose to make this defense on the grounds of metafiction. The
Diary’s formal paradoxes function as part of its broader strategy to
define literature. It challenges our definitions in much the same way
that the “anxious objects” of modern art or the anti-fictions of mod
ern literature do: because it is a fiction about the nature of fiction
making. Rigorous artistic laws govern its apparent chaos, and the
Diary's formal paradoxes are as deliberate as those of its metafictional
predecessors—Tristram Shandy, Eugene Onegin, and, above all, Don
Q uixote (which it so often cites). A self-conscious anomaly, it violates

the conventions of literature to make us aware of what those conven
tions are.
Thus the D ia ry does not exist on the boundaries of art: it
dramatizes them. We must not read it as a writer’s notebook, but as
the imitation of such a notebook. We need only glance at the real
notebooks for this published “notebook” to see the difference be
tween real and scripted spontaneity; and we will also read in these real
notebooks the p la n s for the apologies for supposedly spontaneous
digressions. As the tide suggests, this is not a diary but T h e D iary o f a
W riter —and that, to cite Pushkin’s comment on the hybrid form of his
metafiction O n eg in , is “a devil of a difference.” If we miss that diaboli
cal difference, we will mistake author for persona, statement for per
formance; we will be like Smerdyakov, who objects to Gogol’s
Dikanka stories because they are “not true,” or like the readers of
N otes fr o m the H ouse o f the D ead who, the diarist complains, mistook the
narrator for the author and “are even now asserting that I was exiled
for the murder of my wife.”
Like all metafictions, th e D iary does what it says; and what it says is
that it may say anything. Its law, it tells us, is lawlessness. In the
tradition of self-referential literature, the D iary contains numerous
descriptions of itself—we recall Tristram’s labyrinthine diagrams of
his own work—in the form of notes, apologies, digressions, and, one
step further, digressions about digressions (the debt to O negin is obvi
ous). Implicitly or explicitly, all of these self-referential notes refer
back to the “announcement” in the January 1876 issue, which states
the rules of this new work, the contract that obtains between writer
and reader: “This will be a diary in the literal sense of the word, an
account of the impressions I have really lived through each month, an
account of what I have seen, heard, and read. Stories and tales may of
course be included, but it will be preeminently about real events.” All
that I have seen, heard, and read; real events and also stories—it
would be hard to say what these “rules” prohibit. This is a Thélèmite
command—recall that the one rule of Rabelais’s abbey is “Do as you
wish.”
The point of this note, of course, is that the subject of this self-
referential fiction is the conventions of reading—in this case, reading
this work. We learn our expectations by seeing them violated, we
60 Gary Saul Morson
discover how much we rely on an implicit set of conventions by being

forced to read without them. For all ficdon, and each genre within
fiction, depends on a contract that tells us how to take the statements
that follow. Implicitly or explicitly, the work is preceded by what
Gregory Bateson calls a widacommunicative statement, a statement
about how to take future statements. These are warnings of the type:
“this is a joke,” “take this as a metaphor,” or “this is only a story.” The
very word “novel” or “tragedy” defines a set of expectations against
which we are to read the text which follows. We must be able to
understand this language about language, or, like Smerdyakov, and
the readers of N otes fr o m the H ouse o f the D ead, we will not be able to
read at all. They do not, but we must see that all fiction, and each
genre, is framed, as surely as a physical frame surrounds a picture, by
a set of conventions which govern the realm that the frame encloses.
(My use of the word “frame” refers not only to the passage from
Wellek and Warren, but also—and more importantly—to Erving
Goffman’s recent study, F ram e A nalysis: A n Essay on the O rganization o f
E x p e rie n c e . Though neither Bateson nor Goffman is a literary
theoretician, and they rarely discuss literature directly, both are in
dispensable for a study of metaliterature.)
The announcement to the opening issue of the monthly D iary pre
tends to state the conventions of this new genre, but in fact the only
positive information it contains is the price of a subscription. To use
Shklovsky’s terms, the diarist “bares the device” of the “fictional
contract”; this is nôt only a statement about the work, but a statement
in the work. Like most metafiction, the D iary makes art out of the
statement of the conventions of art, literature out of the promise of
literature. We must ask, with Lord Byron, “Who will then explain the
explanation?” Or in the language I prefer to use: the frame itself is
framed.
If the heart of literature, as the formalists have taught us, is in its
“literariness,” then the heart of metaliterature is in its “metaliterari
ness.” To understand the poetics and coherence of the Diary, we must
concentrate on its metacommunicative statements, on its statements
about itself. For the peculiar frame at the beginning of the D iary
promises more than violated promises: it also promises more of such
frames. These frames typically occur as transition passages, as joints
between journalism and fiction, and call attention, usually by the
topos of an apology, to the shift in conventions vve must make in order

to read what is not true, what is “only a story.”
The frame to “The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Party” refers direcdy
to the “announcement” which opens the 1876 Diary (both of these
frames occur within the same issue) as it apologizes, and then retracts
its apology, for violating the promise to write “preeminently about
real events.” “And why did I make up such a story,” the diarist archly
asks at the close of his narrative, “one that conforms so little to an
ordinary, reasonable diary, and still less to a writer’s diary? And after
I have promised to write preeminently about real events! But the
point is that it still seems to me and I still keep fancying that all this
could really happen—that is, what occurred in the basement and be
hind the woodpile; but as for Christ’s Christmas Party, I really don’t
know what to tell you, could that have happened or not? But that is
why I am a novelist, in order to invent things.”
The story’s opening frame also plays on the narrative’s problematic
status between fact and fiction. “But I am a novelist and it seems that I
did make up one ‘story’ myself. Why do I write ‘it seems’ when I know
for certain that I did make it up? But I keep fancying that it happened
somewhere, at some time, precisely on Christmas Eve, in some huge
city during a terrible frost.” Not only does this frame comment on the
boundaries of art, it exists on them. Beginning on a conjunction, it
continues from the preceding article, whose final sentence insists that
everything the diarist says is absolutely true; and it leads into a story
whose narrator constantly reminds us of his role in “inventing” his
fiction. The frame, in other words, self-consciously places itself be
tween fact and artifact. This is the moment when we watch the diarist
shifting from rhetoric of journalism to “the rhetoric of fiction.”
“Reality is transfigured, passing through art," wrote Dostoevsky in an
early essay; the frames of the Diary are structured to dramatize the
paradoxes of the moment of “passing through.” Here is a time of
maximal liminality, a moment when, in Dmitri Karamazov’s words,
“all shores meet, and all contradictions exist side by side." We are
made to pause on the threshold, in a passage—I use the word in its
literal as well as literary sense—between texts that ask to be read with
the conventions of journalism and narratives which insist on those of
fiction.
For what is most problematic about these passages is their own
62 Gary Saul Morson
status. Do we take these metacommunicative statements as part of the

story or are they really mere introductions? Is their denial of their
own fictionality itself a well-wrought literary convention? At what
point can we safely assume that the statements are no longer those of
the diarist but of a fictional persona (“not me,” as he says of the
narrator of “Bobok”), when does he put on his mask? It is a question
that has vexed anthologizers, who have handled the problem in radi
cally different ways. On the one hand, the Soviets have included all of
the preceding articles as part of the story, thus doubling its length; 09
the other, Constance Garnett leaves off the conjunction on which it
begins and the last sentence of the closing frame in a desperate at
tempt to rip text from context and turn metafiction back into simple
fiction.
The point is that the status of the frames is deliberately in question.
Do their directives to read the story as fictive apply to themselves? I
think they do, just as the “announcement” to the January issue of the
Diary is an intrinsic part of the Diary (as the diarist’s frequent play with
it proves). The heart of metafiction is in its metacommentary;
threshold art is defined by its thresholds. What these frames really
frame is the process of framing.
The Diary, in other words, is structured as a pattern of violated
expectations, and its apologies serve to reaffirm rules so that they may
again be violated. The Diary’s wit derives from our knowledge of these
conventions; there is no parody if we do not know what is being
parodied. The Diary is not lawless, but systematically unlawful; it is not
without structure, but intentionally anomalous. The distinction is vi
tal. We can regard it as anomalous only if we come to understand the
tradition it deliberately flouts; and that, in fact, is the point of flouting
it. “When something is firmly classed as anomalous,” observes Mary
Douglas (in Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and
Taboo), “the outline of the set in which it is not a member is clarified.”
Rules can really be honored in the breach.
The reason the Diary includes advertisements, information about
the mechanics of publication, and apologies to readers who have not
received their issues in the very text is simply that they are not sup
posed to be there. These passages work in much the same way as the
ironic “footnotes” to Onegin do. By including imitations of material
that is normally not part of the text, Dostoevsky plays with the per
plexing problem of the boundaries of art. We must not be like the

student I had who read the “editor’s note” which concludes Notesfr o m
U nderground and complained that I had assigned an abridged edition.
These margins are not marginal. They frequently echo themes of the
text; we need only recall that irate misreaders and anonymous letter
writers are the protagonists of several of the D ia ry’s fictions. The
reader is presented with indeterminate boundaries of a work about
literary boundaries, the thresholds of a threshold. And once we have
begun to see the interconnections of these margins with the text, we
reach the point where we do not know how to “take” them for fear we
should “mis-take” them. We are made to experience the lack of, and
the need for, literary conventions and rules for reading; and so we
come to learn what those rules are.
We must learn to read between the genres. It is in this context, I
think, that we must understand a perplexing class of works which
reappear in—and perhaps define—the D iary. I am referring to pieces
which, like the D iary itself, seem to pause deliberately between fiction
and nonfiction, and which I therefore call semifictional. “The ‘Certain
Person’s’ Half-Letter,” “A Plan for a Satirical Story,” “The Centenar
ian,” and a collection of other works all insist that they are not
finished stories, but only plans for stories, mere sketches. They pre
sent themselves, as the D iary presents itself, as notebooks, works in
progress—works which may, in fact, eventually be included in the
D iary itself.
But we must recognize this mode of narration as a well-wrought
artifice; and to do so, we need only remember that Ivan Karamazov
narrates the Grand Inquisitor legend in the same way. It is, he tells us,
only the prose draft of a “poem” he might have written; and he tells us
the whole story in the subjunctive: “that would have been one of the
finest passages of the poem”; “I meant to end it like this.” Both Ivan
and the diarist tell their story and then protest that it is not written.
“In short, it seems to me that the type of an anonymous scolder is not
at all a poor theme for a story,” the diarist apologizes after he has
presented the “plan” for the work. “Of course,” he concedes, “here
Gogol would be needed.” Both Ivan and the diarist have it both ways;
this story, they seem to say, is not a story. The closing frame of “The
Boy at Christ’s Christmas Party” is simply the most obvious of many
such cases.
64 Gary Saul Morson
The semifictions thus dramatize the Diary’s own central paradoxical

status as a published notebook, a “writer’s diary” (the very phrases are
oxymoronic). They insist on being read simultaneously with two op
posing sets of expectations on the part of the reader, those of “jour
nalism” and those of “fiction.” The reader must pause to consider
whether their statements claim literal or artistic “truth,” whether they
are being made in the real world or the world of “as if.” Has Dos
toevsky really received this document, or is he using the literary con
vention of the found manuscript? The Diary relies on our making
errors, and includes irate letters from readers who do. And to extend
the point, while some of these letters are from real readers, others are
from fictitious ones (the narrator of “Bobok,” for instance), and the
ontological status of a third group is almost impossible to determine.
To avoid making mistakes, we try to look for clues in the text, signs of
conventionality; and this again becomes part of our enforced lesson
on the experience of reading. It is certainly no accident that one of the
Diary’s earliest articles, “Mummer,” is a case study in detecting a
forgery, a process that parallels our own attempt to detect fictionality.
Indeed, many of the semifictional pieces are about the kind of fram
ing problems they dramatize, situations where one can mistake per
formance for spontaneous action, fiction for nonfiction. Themselves
duplicitous, these semifictions tell of conspiracies, forgeries, fabrica
tions, hallucinations, seances. Here again, Don Quixote serves as a
central symbol for the diarist. This other knight of the mournful
countenance is the model of the perfect misreader, one who does not
know that the fictions he reads are just that. The form of a diary—a
work in which one looks at oneself—is perhaps the analogue to the
mirror in Don Quixote : both are reflective, both disillusion, both teach
us to look at how we look, and so to see the world aright. But we, the
real readers, must learn the crucial difference between credibility and
credulity, between belief and suspension of disbelief.
The semifictional pieces are, therefore, a threshold genre within
threshold art. If the theme of the writer’s diary is the creative process
itself, then these pieces dramatize the moment when reality is “passing
through” to art, when the plot is being plotted. They are the climax of
the story of the creation of stories, and our sense of the drama of
reading them is in being allowed to watch an artist in the usually
private process of creation. We see him read the press in search of
literary material, observe him limn the outlines of a story; then a

semifictional piece presents its tentative embodiment in literary form;
and, at last, a finished fiction may follow. For “The Meek One,” the
process occurs over many issues; the composition of “The Boy at
Christ’s Christmas Party” takes place within a single number of the
Diary. As readers, we are placed in the ambiguous position of a private
public, watchers of a process of struggle by which the author arrives at
"ïÿs polished result. It is the paradox implicit in reading another’s
diary, and the form takes to an extreme the place of an audience that
John Stuart Mill says obtains in all poetry: it is not so much heard as
overheard.
It should be evident that the semifictions cannot be excerpted from
the Diary without losing their point—to dramatize the midpoint of the
creative process. But the same reasoning applies to the final stories as
well. Read in the Diary, they derive dramatic force from being the
result of the creative process we have witnessed; the pleasure of these
texts is in part our consciousness of the problems the diarist has re
solved before our eyes. Placing the finished story next to its own
notebooks turns the entire Diary into a dramadzation of the process of
creative “deformation” (in the Shklovskian sense of the word), of the
bestrangement of raw material into art. When we read “The Boy at
Christ’s Christmas Party,” we not only read it as a story; we also see the
motifs and fragments which we have just seen in the articles immedi
ately preceding the story reassembled in an ardsdc structure. We read
verdcally as well as horizontally. These stories are the last chapter of
the story of the “quest for form.” Art is made from the making of art,
and what the reader experiences is the experience of reading.
Aristotelian Movement
and Design in Part Two
o f Notes from the Underground
by Robert Louis Jackson
Cause and effect is like a wheel.

JAPANESE BUDDHIST PROVERB
“You know what a transition is in music,” Dostoevsky wrote his

brother Mikhail on April 13, 1864. That’s exactly what we have here.
In the first chapter we have what appears to be chatter,” he writes
with reference to part two of Notesfrom the Underground in its original
tripartite division. “But suddenly this chatter resolves itself in the last
two chapters in unexpected catastrophe.” Of course, there is an or
ganic, indeed causal connection between the seeming chatter and the
unexpected catastrophe. The catastrophe is unexpected only for the
reader; for the author it is as inevitable, from the dramatic and
ideological points of view, as the catastrophe of Sophocles’ Oedipus
or Melville’s Ahab.
The action of part two in Notesfrom the Underground takes place at
least sixteen years before the philosophizing of part one; the Under
ground Man is writing his “notes” in the early 1860s. The whole
romantic and philosophically idealistic atmosphere of the Russian
1840s, moreover, has determined in a literal way the features of the
Underground Man as a social type. Such people as the author of the
notes, Dostoevsky writes in his footnote-preface to Notesfrom the Un
derground, “not only can but even must exist in our society, if we take
into consideration the circumstances which led to the formation of
“Aristotelian Movement and Design in Part Two of Notes from, the Under
ground," by Robert Louis Jackson. From The A rt o f Dostoevsky. Deliriums and
Nocturnes, pp. 171-88. Copyright © 1981 Princeton University Press. Re
printed by permission. The footnotes have been abridged.
66
Notes from, the Underground 67
our society.” The Underground Man, he continues, “is one of the

representatives of a generation still living. In this extract, entitled
‘The Underground,’ this person introduces himself, his oudook, and
as it were seeks to explain those causes that have led, and were bound
to lead to his appearance in our milieu.” The writer of the notes has
undergone an intellectual crisis since his experiences in the 1840s.
Nonetheless, his psychological and philosophical self-exposition in
part one reveal to us fundamental patterns of mind and behavior that
made inevitable his tragic encounter with the prostitute Liza in the
1840s (the central episode in part two).
Dostoevsky’s dominant message in N otes fr o m the U nderground (ex

pressed directly in the penultimate chapter of part one in passages
removed by the censor, and dramatically in the denouement of the
Liza episode) is that only through Christian love and self-sacrifice—
not through self-assertion, caprice, irrational rebellion, “twice two is
five”—can man break the chain of an inwardly binding and blinding
determinism. Only in this way can he escape from the underground
and the deadly dominion of “twice two is four.” Only in this way can
he attain authentic freedom and the"fullest expression of personality.
The solution to man’s problems is ethical, not numerical.
The self-defeating, destructive nature of irrational will philosophy,
of underground “spite,” is already evident in part one of N o tesfro m the
U n d erg ro u n d , though the Underground Man’s polemics with the
rationalist-utilitarians, his tragic stance of revolt, tends to obscure the
main figure in Dostoevsky’s overall design. It is in part two, however,
that the bankruptcy of irrational will philosophy is demonstrated with
devastating force. The action here, taking place in the 1840s, forms
an ironic commentary on the Underground Man’s central notion that
capricious behavior may preserve for us “what is most precious and
important, namely, our personality and our individuality.” The action
begins precipitously on that fateful Thursday afternoon (II) when
the Underground Man, unable to bear his solitude, decides to visit his
old school friend Simonov; it includes the ill-fated dinner at the Hôtel
de Paris, the mad ride to the brothel, the first encounter with Liza, the
duel with Apollon at his flat, the second encounter with Liza, and,
finally, after a moment of reversal and recognition, the catastrophe.
The movement toward catastrophe is singularly linear and Aris
totelian: effect follows cause swiftly and relentlessly. Every attempt by
y
the Underground Man to introduce the irrational into his life only
locks him more firmly into an irreversible course that must end in
catastrophe. Every attempt to affirm his independence and self-
mastery only deepens his sense of psychological dependence and
humiliation. In turn, his suffering arouses in him more frenzied at
tempts to win his freedom, that is, to achieve real self-mastery and
self-determination. But his every bit of demonstrative self-expression,
every flight of imagination or caprice, only further emphasizes the
ineluctable character of the tragic action—his essential impotence in
what appears to be, from his point of view, a closed, meaningless, and
tyrannical universe.
The Underground Man’s “bumping duel” with the officer on

Nevsky Prospect (II, 1)—an episode that lies outside the main course
of events in part two—is paradigmatic for the whole inner drama of
the Underground Man. It exposes vividly to us the mechanism of the
psychological experiment, always irrational in character, and the pro
fo u n d unfreedom of the Underground Man in that experiment.
More than anything the Underground Man craves recognition,
respect, a place in the universe. After periods of moral and spiritual
stagnation he blindly goes out into the world seeking, as he puts it,
“contradictions, contrasts.” He is, in a manner of speaking, a gambler
playing a game with reality; he is seeking identity or a sense of being
in chance encounters with fate. But he himself is the litde black ball.
He goes into a tavern hoping to pick a quarrel and be thrown out of
the window. But he is simply ignored. An officer at a billiard table—
-the game of billiards itself is symbolic—matter-of-factly moves him out
oThis way, simply does not notice him, treats him like “a fly.” The
Underground Man insists, “the quarrel. . . was in my hands”; he had
only to protest and be thrown out of the window. But he tells us that
he “thought the matter over and preferred . . . rancorously to efface
myself.” “Even at that time,” the Underground Man observes at the
beginning of his discussion of his episode, “I carried the underground
in my soul.” “I preferred,” he says; but the exercise of choice is only
apparent; it was for want of “moral courage,” he observes, that he did
not follow through his instinct to protest and suffer the consequences.
What is certain, however, is that the quarrel was precisely not in his
hands. Rather, he was caught up in a hopeless quarrel with reality; he
was a victim of compulsive underground patterns of behavior.
Notes from the Underground 69
The Underground Man’s attempts at a bumping duel with the

offending officer—and the final duel itself on Nevsky Prospect—
form a sequel to the tavern scene. The officer, like all the other great
powers of Nevsky Prospect, is a social embodiment of those laws of
nature that have been humiliating the Underground Man, moving
relentlessly down upon him. Here on Nevsky Prospect the Under
ground Man makes a despairing effort to assert his independence
before the embodied force of history, tqjnjectj.he jrrstipnal into the
everyday rational order or status quo. Through caprice he seeks to
break the chain of necessity that binds him, to rise from a humiliated
nonentity to a self-respecting, free entity, to put himself, as he ex
presses it, on an equal “social footing" with his enemy.
Dostoevsky underscores the unfree character of the Underground
Man’s challenge to Nevsky Prospect: “I was simply drawn there at
every possible opportunity,” the Underground Man observes. After
the incident with the officer, he says, “I felt drawn there more than
ever.” Then, after many failures to engineer a head-on collision with
the army officer—“ ‘Why do you always have to step aside first,’ I
would ask myself over and over again in a state of crazy hysteria . . .
‘there’s no law about it, is there?’ ”—victory finally comes to him,
“suddenly,” “unexpectedly,” accidentally:
The night before I had definitely determined not to carry out
my ruinous intentions and to forget all about it, and with this
goal I went out for the last time onto Nevsky Prospect just in
order to find out how I would forget all about it. Suddenly, three
paces from my enemy, I unexpectedly made up my mind, shut
my eyes and—we knocked solidly against each other shoulder to
shoulder! I did not retreat an inch and passed him by absolutely
on an equal footing! He didn’t even look around and pretended
that he did not notice; but he only pretended, I am certain of
this (II, 1).
Of course, the Underground Man’s sense of victory and self-mastery
is no more substantial or real than the pawnbroker’s sense of victory
in his bedside duel in “A Gentle Creature.” There is only an illusion of
victory, one that in both “duels” is based on a mistaken notion of the
adversary’s state of mind.
The duel with the army officer on Nevsky Prospect (unlike the
bedside duel) has a strong comic, or tragicomic tonality; it does not
end in catastrophe. Yet it serves to illustrate the completely abstract,
psychological, and essentially amoral character of the Underground

Man’s experiments. Indeed, it reveals the wholly compulsive and reac
tive character of his human relations. The army officer—who could
be anybody, who indeed is only one of the “generals, officers of the
guards, hussars, and ladies” before whom the Underground Man
gives way on Nevsky Prospect—only exists to test the lacerated ego of
the Underground Man. The latter moves zombielike, as though in the
grip of some external force; he is drawn to the field of action as
though by a magnet; he goes into action only after he has decided not
to take action, and then he does so unexpectedly and almost blindly.
In all of these psychological details, the Underground Man’s bumping
duel anticipates the manner in which Raskolnikov will be drawn into
his experiment The mental atmosphere of fatality and the role of
accident after a deceptive moment of freedom from obsession are
some of the elements shared by the two experiments.
The irony of the bumping duel episode (like the irony of Raskol
nikov’s experiment) is clear: there are no manifestations of freedom
of will here. Far from being a master of his fate, the Underground
Man in his very efforts to declare his independence from the laws of
nature demonstrates his enslavement to them.
The drama that is played out on the tragicomic plane of Nevsky

Prospect—a Gogolian world where everything has the conventional
and abstract character of a stage, where “all j^jd_eceptiqn”—is then
replayed as tragedy in the Petersburg underground in the series of
interlocking psychological duels that begin with the Underground
Man’s visit to his friend Simonov. In place of Nevsky Prospect, a
relatively harmless testing ground, we have not only the Under
ground Man’s noxious set of friends and the thoroughly obnoxious
Apollon but the prostitute Liza. When the Underground Man
“bumps into” Liza at the end of his descent into the Petersburg
underworld—a descent that is everywhere accompanied by imagery
and reminders of death—he will spiritually destroy her, just as deci
sively as Raskplnikov will physically destroy the old pawnbroker in his
quest for self-définition.
The Underground Man’s power duels with his old schoolmate
Zverkov, deeply rooted in his personal history, result in one catas
trophic humiliation after another. He plunges into the adventure at
the Hôtel de Paris against his better reasoning, and with a premoni
tion of disaster. “Of course, the best thing would have been not to go
altogether,” he observes at the threshold of this new encounter with
“reality.” "But that was now more than ever impossible: once I begin
to be drawn into something, then I find myself totally drawn into it,
head first.'L>l could no longer master mysel£>he recalls, “and I was
shaking with fever.” Dostoevsky repeatedly emphasizes that the Un
derground Man is not in control of his own fate. It is with a feeling
that “after all everything is lost anyway” that he rushes down the stairs
of the Hôtel de Paris in pursuit of his enemies.
As he rides off to the brothel in a sledge, the Underground Man is
tremendously active in his imagination: slapping, biting, shoving, and
spitting at his enemies. But on closer inspection, we recognize that this
is the frenzied action of a man who in hisfiçpmantic drearps^s himself
being beaten and dragged about and who is in the complete control of
his tormentors. Protest here is as impotent as the groans of a man with
a toothache (in the Underground Man’s example in part one), who is
conscious only that he is “completely enslaved” by his teeth.
In the midst of his romanticizing the Underground Man suddenly
feels “terribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the sledge, got out
of it, and stood in the snow in the middle of the road.” But he leaps
back into the sledge again, remarking, “I^L predestined, it’s fate!”
These words fully define his unfreedom. As he rushes on he realizes
that there is no force that can stop the course of events: “All is lost.”
The sense of impending doom manifests itself everywhere. “Solitary
street lamps flickered gloomily in the snowy haze like torches at a
funeral.” Like Euripides’s Hippolytus in his carriage, the Under
ground Man is rushing along out of control—or rather, in the control
of the very laws of nature, the implacable logic of humiliation and
self-humiliation, of which he is victim. “Twice two is four is not
life, gentlemen, but the beginning Of death,” the Underground Man
declares in part one. Not surprisingly, he casts himself early in the
sledge scene in the role of a drowning man. When he arrives at the
brothel and discovers that his old school friends have departed, he
breathes a sigh of relief: “It was as though I had almost been saved
from death.”
References to death accumulate on this journey into the under
ground, defining a psychological syndrome in which the impulses to
destruction and self-destruction are closely interwoven. T he

Petersburg underground, the lower depths of Petersburg that the
Underground Man inhabits and knows so well, is itself a kingdom of
death. The Underground Man repeatedly evokes this funereal atmos
phere in his first encounter with Liza in the brothel. With reference to
a coffin carried up from a basement brothel, for example, he says,
“Some day you too will die, you know, and you’ll die just like that one
died.” He goes on to detail the terrible degradation and death of
prostitutes like Liza: “Your name will disappear from the face of the
earth just as though you had never been born! Filth and swamp, filth
and swamp, and you may knock vainly at your coffin lid at night when
the dead arise, crying, ‘Let me live a bit in the world, good people! I
lived—but I had no life.’ ” At one point he dilates upon the joys of
parenthood, but this sentimental scene is bracketed by the funeral
world of Petersburg. The Underground Man’s preachment to Liza is
outwardly lofty, didactic, detached; inwardly, it is murderous; it is a
deep laceration and self-laceration. He emerges from the brothel ter
ribly upset: “It was as though some kind of crime were weighing on
my spirit.”
's' The episode in which the Underground Man confronts/Apoïîoiï
the servant is central in defining the true nature of the Underground
Man’s universe and his place in it. Here the servant is master—and
master, servant. Apollon is not a symbol of the god of sunlight, but a
kind of plebeian god of death, a rat exterminator who also reads
psalms over the dead. He is the precise embodiment of those deadly
laws of nature that have been humiliating the Underground Man all
his life. "He is my tormentor,” the Underground Man says of Apol
lon. The Underground Man constantly rebels against the suave and
contained servant (for example, by withholding his wages), but he
always capitulates to him in the end. So, too, in the encounter with
Apollon after his visit to the brothel, the Underground Man vainly
tries to best Apollon:
“Listen”—I cried to him—“Here is your money, you see it; there

it is . . . but you won’t get it, you-will-not-get-it until you come
respectfully with bowed head and ask my forgiveness. Do you
hear!” “That will never be!” he answered with a kind of un
natural self-confidence. “It shall be!” I screamed.. . . “I can
lodge a complaint against you at the police station” [Apollon
observes]. “Go and lodge your complaint!” I roared. “Go this

very minute, this second! But all the same you are a tormentor,
tormentor, tormentor!” But he only looked at me, then turned
around and no longer listening to my screams went to his room
with measured step (II, 8).
The Underground Man follows Apollon to his quarters and re
peats his demand. Apollon bursts out laughing and remarks, “Really
you must be off your head.”
This whole scene (II, 6 ) echoes in a parodie form the notion of the
Underground Man (I, 8) that nothing in the world would induce a
man to give up his free will. Even if “chaos and darkness and curses”
could be calculated, “well, man would deliberately go mad in order
not to have reason and to have his own way,” in order to prove that he
was “a man not an organ-stop!” The Underground Man is indeed
mad in this scenq^But is a madness that attests more to the tragic
bankruptcy, of personality than to man’s heroic defense of his inde
pendence., .^ h e theme of this time is self-preservation,” Max Hork
heimer comments in his Eclipse of Reason, “while there is no self to
preserve.” 1 The words might well be applied to the Underground
Man.
“I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him,” the Underground Man shrieks with
reference to Apollon. Madness and murder, of course, are closely
linked in the tragic drama of Dostoevsky’s antihero. The Under
ground Man threatens to kill Apollon in the presence of Liza who has
just arrived on the scene. Even at this moment he senses the outcome
of his humiliation at the hands of Apollon: “I dimly felt that she
would pay dearlyfor all this . . . I was angry at myself, b u t . . . a terrible
anger against her suddenly flared up in my heart; I could almost have
killed her, it seemed.” For the second time, the Underground Man
takes out his humiliation on Liza. Indeed, on the moral-spiritual
plane, he murders Liza. After his cruel tirade, in which he savagely
exposes the motives of his behavior toward her, the Underground
Man remarks: “She turned white as a handkerchief, wanted to say
something, her lips worked painfully, but she collapsed in a chair as
though she had been felled by an ax.” This allusion to murder by ax is
closely linked with the more famous ax murder in Crime and Punish
ment.
’Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse o f Reason (New York, 1947), p. 128.
The Underground Man’s frenzied assault on Liza in this scene is

also a terrible self-laceration in which he exposes and tramples upon
his nature. His violent self-exposure—“I am the most disgusting, most
ridiculous, most petty, most stupid, most envious of all worms on
earth”—arouses in Liza a feeling of pity and compassion: “She sud
denly leapt up from her chair in a kind of irrepressible impulse and
all drawn towards me but still feeling timid and not daring to go
further, extended her arms to m e .. . . It was here that my heart, too,
gave way. Then she suddenly rushed to me, threw her arms around
me and burst into tears. I too could not restrain myself and burst out
sobbing as I never had before. . . . ”
This moment, a kind of “recognition scene” following a classic
peripety or reversal in the drama of the Underground Man, points
-the way out of the underground. In the embrace of the Underground
Man and Liza, all walls of ego and pride are dissolved. It is a moment
of revelation of higher truth, an epiphany, a pietà. Thé fundamental
problem of /reedom posed in N otes fr o m the U nderground is not re-
solved here; it is dissolved. It is not twice two is four, not twice two is
five, but reciprocal love that is the way out of the underground.
The Underground Man ironically affixes as an epigraph to chapter

ix, part two, of his notes the two final lines from Nikolai Nekrasov’s
famous poem, “When from the darkness of error” (K o g d a iz m raka
za bluzhden’ia , 1846): “And my house, fearlessly and freely / As mistress
you can enter now.” (He cites the same lines in chapter viii of part
two.) The narrator in this sentimental poem addresses a prostitute
whom he would save from her fate. For the epigraph to part two of
his notes as a whole, the Underground Man takes the opening four
teen lines from the same poem:
When, from the darkness of error
I saved a fallen soul
With a fervent word of conviction,
And, laden with deep anguish,
Wringing your hands you curses heaped
Upon the vice that ensnared you;
When you related to me the story
O f everything that went before me,
Lashing with memories
An unheeding conscience;
And suddenly, covering your face with your hands,
Full of shame and horror
You burst into tears,
Aroused, shaken,—
Etc. etc. etc.
In the light of the Underground Man’s half-cynical preachment to
Liza on the evils of her way of life and his invitation to her to visit him,
Nekrasov’s words are first perceived by the reader in the sarcastic vein
of the Underground~Mah’s^etcTetc. etc.”—that is, asjnockery of the
romantic and sentimental ethos of the 1840s, an ironical comment on
the tragedy of naive idealism. But the moment of reversal and recog
nition in chapter ix reveals Nekrasov’s poem in another light. These
lines, and in particular the unquoted stanza that immediately follows
the verses cited in the epigraph, now point to the tragedy of the
Underground Man as perceived by Liza, the one character in Notes
from the Underground, who embodies Dostoevsky’s ethical message. The
0 nderground Man’s “etc. etc. etc.” comes at a crucial point in Nek
rasov’s poem—just before the lines:
I shared your torments
I loved you passionately
And I swear that not for a moment did I offend
With the wretched thought of turning away.2
Dostoevsky’s response to Nekrasov’s poem was a complex one. The
sentimental pathos of this poem was not alien to Dostoevsky. The
theme of the “restoration of the fallen man,” as Dostoevsky wrotejn
1861, is “the basic îdeiTof alfart o rtF j^ti^ tëen th centïmÿr... It is a
Christian and supremely moral idea.” There can be no question of
any contempt on his part for the core ideal of Nekrasov’s poem.
Dostoevsky, who later placed Nekrasov as poet alongside of Pushkin
and Lermontov, saw the weak and tragic side of this naive, noble
enthusiasm of the 1840s, an enthusiasm that he himself had shared
with Nekrasov. But he certainly did not relate to the poem in the
sarcastic vein of the Underground Man. The "etc. etc. etc.,” then,
2Nekrasov subsequently replaced this quatrain with the lines: "Believe me: I
listened with sympathy / Greedily I hung on every word . . . I I understood everything,
child o f misfortune! / 1 forgave everything and forgot everything."
comes from the Underground Man, not from Dostoevsky. The whole
epigraph is part of the Underground Man’s notes and cannot be
regarded as an independent authorial comment.
Indeed, Dostoevsky brilliantly undercuts the Underground Man’s
sarcasm. In his final encounter with Liza the Underground Man finds
himself in the role he had cast for her—a person in need of salvation.
Thereader perceives Nekrasov’s poem in a new, tragic-light: it is Liza
who expresses the lofty idealistic ethos of Nekrasov’s poem; it is Liza
who invites the Underground Man—however naively—not into a
bookish romantic realm, but into a contract of reciprocal love in the
very depths of the Petersburg hell. It is the Underground Man, in
contrast, who is full of shame and horror before himself, who, wring
ing his hands and savagely exposing himself, bursts into tears. At this
point, the reader realizes that it is the Underground Man, not Dos
toevsky, who has been savagely parodying Nekrasov and that he has
now been trapped by his own parody. Dostoevsky did not abandon
the idealistic ethos of the 1840s, but reinvested it with a tragic Chris
tian content.
Nekrasov’s poem, in the sarcastic interpretation of the Under
ground Man, thus cannot be viewed as Dostoevsky’s epigraph to part
two of N otes fr o m the U nderground. If there are (or were) any poems
that might possibly be viewed as such an epigraph, they would be the
poems by Apollon Maikov and Yakov P. Polonsky that Dostoevsky as
editor of E pokha (the journal in which parts one and two o f N otes fr o m
the U n derground first appeared) juxtaposed with the opening pages of
“The Underground” and “A Story Apropos of Falling Sleet.”3 On
page 292 of E pokha (no. 4,1864), opposite the tide page of part two of
the Underground Man’s notes (with his epigraph), we find the follow
ing poem by Polonsky:
All that tormented me—all has been long ago
Magnanimously forgiven
Or indifferently forgotten,
And if my heart were not broken,
Were not aching from weariness and wounds,—
I would think: all is a dream, all an illusion, all a deception.
Hopes have perished, tears have dried up—
Passions that sprang up like storms
3These poems appear only in the journal Epokha.
Notes fro m the Underground 77
Have vanished like fog.

And you who in bestowing dreams upon me
Were a comfort to my sick soul—
You have been carried away, like a cloud of rising dew
Disappearing behind a mountain.
Polonsky’s poem, poignant and elegaic, emerges in the context of
part two of N otes fr o m the U nderground as a mournful comment on the
idealism of the 1840s and the tragic drama of the Underground Man
and Liza. Had Dostoevsky adopted the Underground Man’s sarcastic
attitude toward Nekrasov’s poem and its romantic ethos, he would
hardly have juxtaposed it with Polonsky’s poem, a poem that shares
the romantic pathos and emotional tone of Nekrasov’s verse. Polonsky
seems here to converse with Nekrasov: he speaks of lost hopes, of the
illusory, dreamlike, deceptive character of the past; but he does so in
pain, entirely without mockery. Here in Polonsky’s poem, viewed as
an epigraph to part two, we begin to approach Dostoevsky’s most
indmate response to Nekrasov and the idealism of the 1840s—a re
sponse that is echoed later in his moving tributes to Nekrasov and
George Sand on the occasion of their deaths (Diary o f a W riter in June
1876 and December 1877 issues).
The moment of illumination for the Underground Man is a transi

tory one. Immediately he is caught up again in a tragic dialectic of
self-will and humiliation. The sexual encounter that follows his
spiritual reconciliation with Liza turns out to be a fresh insult, a final
testimony—openly acknowledged by the Underground Man—to his
conception of love as the “right to tyrannize” and be “morally
superior.”
The last paragraph of N otes fr o m the U nderground, beginning with
the words, “even now, after all these years, it is with a particularly bad
fe e lin g that I recall all this,” almost has the character of a detached
chorus. Here the disillusioned idealist looks back on his encounter
with Liza through sixteen years of remorse and suffering with a crime
on his conscience: “never, never shall I recall that moment indif
ferently.” The words of the Underground Man are now devoid of
pun or paradox. He distances himself from the events described and
places his own tragedy in a general broadly cultural and social light.
He defines himself as an antihero. His tone seems to approach the
calm objectivity of Dostoevsky’s footnote-preface, or prologue, to

Notesfrom the Underground. A change in the Underground Man’s con
sciousness has taken place in sixteen or more years. (Indeed, we can
not properly analyze the notes of the Underground Man without
taking into account the shift that has occurred in his thinking since the
1840s.) What he failed to achieve in life he has to a considerable
extent gained in his notes: perspective on himself and his dilemma, a
perception of himself as morally and socially bankrupt.
It was, in part, to seek “relief’ from his “oppressive memory,”
perhaps even to “become good and honorable” through the “labor” of
writing, that the Underground Man put down his recollections. And,
indeed, something unexpected happened in the process of writing. “I
made a mistake, I think, in beginning to write,” he remarks at the
conclusion of his notes. “At any rate, I have felt ashamed all the while
I was writing this story [povest’]; consequently this is no longer litera
ture, but a corrective punishment.” The Underground Man gives
ironical emphasis to the word “story”: these are not entertaining or
escapist stories; they are unadorned reality; they are shameful
tragedy. This is not the reader’s kind of literature (the Underground
Man’s irony is plain). This is not a romantic story: the posturing hero
and his play-acting have been brutally exposed. “A novel must have a
hero, but here all the features of an antihero have been deliberately
gathered together, and, chiefly, all this will produce a most unpleas
ant impression because we are all divorced from life . . . so much so
that we sometimes feel a sort of disgust for the real ‘living life’ . . . and
we are all agreed that life in books is better.” (The ironical narrative
voice of Dostoevsky merges with the voice of the Underground Man
in this final passage.) There is, indeed, nothing invented in the Un
derground Man’s reminiscences. The sentimental-romantic “hero” of
the 1840s—in fact, the whole ethos of romanticism—has been pre
sented in the bitter perspective of the disillusioned idealist. What the
Underground Man declares at the end of part one, after admitting
that he made up the concluding speech of his imaginary critics, could
serve as an epigraph to his reminiscences: “But it is really the only
thing I did invent.”
The Underground Man’s impulse to play with the material of his
life and his penchant for the phrase may be felt in the notes. But this
impulse to play, or “tell a story,” to evade the true sense of his life, like
all of the Underground Man’s capricious attempts to escape his un

derground fate, does not succeed. He cannot evade the truth. “I shall
not attempt any order or system,” the Underground Man remarks on
the threshold of part two with characteristic bravado and caprice. “I
shall put down whatever I remember.” Yet his reminiscences, like his
philosophical discourse, are no more free from order or system than
he is free from the laws of nature.
We must not confuse the Underground Man’s subjective rejection
of system, order, evolution, or historicism with the objective condi
tions of his enslavement to order. His impulse to put down his notes
cannot be separated from his recollection of the episode with Liza that
has been oppressing him for “some time.” It cannot be separated
from his broader effort to understand himself and his whole
tragedy—or in the words of Dostoevsky, to “explain those causes
that have led, and were bound to lead to his appearance in our
midst.” The Underground Man, much like the pawnbroker in “A
Gende Creature,” is caught up in a dialectic of guilt that relentlessly
drives him toward the truth. Beneath the surface of his seemingly
casual notes, as beneath the surface of the seemingly random adven
tures of the hero of the 1840s, we observe a strict “psychological
sequence” (a phrase Dostoevsky uses to describe the undercurrent in
the pawnbroker’s ruminations), a tragic system and order.
‘ Within the action,” Aristode remarks in his Poetics, “there must be
nothing irrational.” And again, with respect to plot: “Everything irra
tional should, if possible, be excluded.”4 The irony of the acdon in
part two of Notesfrom the Underground—and, indeed, in the whole life
of the Underground Man—is that the Underground Man himself,
contrary to all his intentions, brings about these model Aristotelian
conditions in the drama of his life. He puts a fatal order into the
episodic plot of his life; he creates his own tragic necessity out of the
accidental matter of his everyday life and encounters. The purely
literary expression of this fatal ordering of the episodic plot of his life
can be found in the notes of the Underground Man—perhaps the
most connected, sequential, and tragically coherent “notes” ever writ
ten in any language.
4See Aristotle’s Theory o f Poetry and Fine Art, trans. and with critical notes by
S. H. Butcher, 4th ed. (New York, 1951), pp. 54, 97.
By the end of his reminiscences we realize what is already evident

from the U nderground Man’s exposition of his irrational will
philosophy in part one: that he has been caught in a master plot that is
historical, linear, and Aristotelian, a plot that he seeks, always vainly,
tôloüT We see Him, in short, as he sees Liza—as entangled in a chain
that grows tighter the more he seeks to escape from it:
Though I may be degrading and defiling myself, still I’m not
anybody’s slave; it’s here for a moment, and then off again, and
you’ve seen the last of me. I shake it off and am a different man.
^ But you are a slave from the very start. Yes, a slave! You give up
everything, your whole freedom. And even if you should want to
break these chains later on you won’t be able to; they will only
entangle you more and more tightly. That’s the kind of cursed
chain it is. I know that kind. And I’m not going to speak of
anything else, for you wouldn’t understand anyway, I dare say
(II, 6).
^ The Underground Man is the embodiment of irrational behavior.
Yet the singularity of his underground is that in it absolute chance is
indistinguishable from absolute necessity. His play with chance only
masks a surrender to the organized force of a self-conceived fate. In
this we find the central message of Dostoevsky. Man, he believed,
renouncing faith in God—that is, faith in a coherent Christian
universe—must inevitably confront the world as blind fate. Never was
a Dostoevsky hero (unless it be Fyodor Karamazov) more railroaded
by fate, by the uncontrollable dynamics of his inner being, than the
Underground Man. As we see him in part two in his own representa
tion of his life—a drama he understands very well—nothing remains
episodic. Every attempt to introduce the irrational into his life and to
bring an illusion of authentic freedom, choice, self-determination;
every attempt to play with the plot of his life only further underscores
his subjection to the power of blind destiny. There is a precipitous
movement toward catastrophe, a moment of reversal, and then disas
ter, followed by a choral response. Borrowing from Aristotle’s Poetics,
we might say that the final reversal, or recognition, arose from the
internal structure of the plot, and that this reversal produced “pity
and fear,” and that “actions producing these effects are those which,
by our definition, tragedy represents.’’5
sIbid., p. 41.
Notes fro m the Underground 81
Yet Notesfrom the Underground is not Aristotelian tragedy any more

than is Crime and Punishment, nor can Raskolnikov and least of all the
Underground Man stand in for heroic Promethean types.6 The Un
derground Man and Raskolnikov conceive of themselves as victims of
fate; but their real tragedy, in Dostoevsky’s explicitly Christian out
look, is their despair. W. H. Auden has written that at the end of a
Greek tragedy we say, “What a pity it had to be this way”; while at the
end of a Christian tragedy we say, “What a pity it had to be this way
when it might have been otherwise.”7 Dostoevsky might have directed
these final words to the tragedy of the Underground Man. But they
would not have prevented him from introducing into his Christian
universe the strict laws of ancient tragedy—odious laws, in his
view—which become operative whenever man fails to discover in his
inner life the governing principles of Christian freedom: love and
self-sacrifice.
After his crucial definition of himself as an antihero and his
critique of society the Underground Man concludes his notes. “But
enough,” he writes, “I do not want to write any more ‘from the Un
derground. . . . ’ ” “However, this is still not the end of the ‘notes’ of
this paradoxicalist,” Dostoevsky observes in a final passage detached
from the body of the notes. “He could not restrain himself and went
on writing.” There is certainly no doubt that the Underground Man
was capable of writing on and on. There is also no doubt that the
notes of the Underground Man—what Dostoevsky has entitled Notes
from the Underground—constitute a unified structure. The drama that
unfolds in part two has a beginning, middle, and end. The author of
this work, though not its protagonist, is Dostoevsky. His final
comment—“But it seems to us, too, that one can also stop here”—
suggests that the Underground Man’s desire to call a halt to his writ
ing represented an intuitive understanding of the inner dynamics of
his own drama. Dostoevsky’s comment signals, as a kind of authorial
punctuation, that on the dramatic and ideological planes this final
chapter of the Underground Man’s notes to all intents and purposes is
terminal.
*“Raskolnikov’s story,” writes Konstantin Mochulsky, “is a new embodi
ment of the myth of Prometheus’ revolt and the tragic hero’s destruction in a
struggle with Fate.” See Mochul’skii. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo (Paris, 1947), p. 255.
7W. H. Auden, “The Christian Tragic Hero,” in New York Times Book Re
view, December 16, 1945.
Dostoevsky and Rousseau:
The Morality o f Confession
Reconsidered
by Robin Feuer M iller
In Dostoevsky’s work the truth will out in various ways, but it

rarely finds unadorned release through the mode inherently con
cerned with the utterance of truth: the confession. (The definition of
confession that will be operative in these pages is the following: a
confession is a statement or written document of some length, which
is narrated to someone else and usually reveals a dark secret or crime.)
Dostoevsky consistently treated the confession as a problematic,
double-edged form. As such, we may expect to see the confession
functioning simultaneously as an expression of pride and an experi
ment in humility. Indeed, the terms become interchangeable. Pride
masquerades as humility and vice versa. Confessions may seek to pro
voke, titillate, or lie; the narrator may expose, disguise, justify, or
lacerate himself. But rarely does the confession consist of a simple,
repentant declaration of wrongdoing or moral weakness. Dostoev
sky’s scrutiny and critique of the literary confession frequendy as
sumed the form of a veiled polemic with Rousseau and with his Con
fessions (1781).
At times Dostoevsky even allowed the veil to drop and, through his
characters, named his adversary. Dostoevsky, whose life-long argu
ment with Rousseau resembled his relationship with Belinsky, reacted
This essay is dedicated to the memory o f Rufus Mathewson.
“Rousseau and Dostoevsky: The Morality of Confession Reconsidered” by

Robin Feuer Miller. From Western Philosophical Systems in Russian Literature, ed.
Anthony A. Mlikotin (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press,
1979), pp. 89-101. Reprinted with slight stylisdc changes by permission of the
author and publisher.
82
Dostoevsky and Rousseau 83
to Rousseau with simultaneous attraction and repulsion.1 Moreover,

Dostoevsky condemned Rousseau’s philanthropy (chelovekoliubie) as
well as his habit of confession. In the notes for A Raw Youth (1875-
1876), for example, Dostoevsky wrote, “He hates Genevan ideas [an
indirect, but clear allusion to Rousseau] (that is, philanthropy; that is,
virtue without Christ). . .” By equating philanthropy with “virtue
without Ghrist,” or, as Joseph Frank has put it, with “the application
of Christian moral-social ideals to worldly existence,”2 Dostoevsky
made the notion of philanthropy a signpost for the political ideas he
detested. Dostoevsky singled out two episodes from the Confessions—
one in which Rousseau describes how he would wander the streets
and haunt dark alleys where he could “expose [him]self to women
from afar off’ and the other in which he recounts his false accusation
of a defenseless girl of the theft of a ribbon—as offering particularly
rich opportunities for parodie variation in his own fiction. Neverthe
less, despite Dostoevsky’s sustained critique—through parody and
polemic—of Rousseau’s Confessions, he felt, throughout his entire
career, a continued attraction to the confessional mode and always
had a predilection for first person narratives both in his short stories
and in his longer fiction.3
In The Insulted and Injured (1861) Valkovsky speculates about the
notion of men confessing their worst acts: “If it were only possible
(which, however, from the laws of human nature it never can be
’Yurii Lotman, “Russo: russkaia kul’tura XVIII-nachala XIX veka,”

Zhan-Zhak Russo. Traktaty (Leningrad, 1969), pp. 603-4. For a more complete
set of my bibliographical references and citations, see the first printed version
o f “Rousseau and Dostoevsky: The Morality of Confession Reconsidered,”
Western Philosophical Systems in Russian Literature, Anthony M. Mlikotin, ed.
(Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1979), pp. 89-101, or
Dostoevsky and The Idiot: Author, Narrator and Reader (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1981), pp. 175-82. For another, and excellent, reading of
the relationship of Notes from Underground to Rousseau’s Confessions see Bar
bara Howard, “The Rhetoric of Confession: Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Un
derground and Rousseau’s Confessions," SEEJ, vol. 25, no. 4, (winter 1981), pp.
16-33. All quotations from Rousseau are from his Confessions. I have indicated
in parentheses the book and section from which I have quoted.
2Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Seeds o f Revolt, 1 8 2 1 -1 8 4 9 (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), p. 193.
“Leonid Grossman, “Stilistika Stavrogina,” Sobranie Sochinenii, II (Moscow,
1928), 143-44.
84 Robin Feuer Miller
possible), if it were possible for every one of us to describe all his own
whole truth, but in such a way that one wouldn’t hesitate to disclose
not only what he is afraid to tell his best friends, but what, indeed, he
is even, at times, afraid to confess to himself; then, the world would be
filled with such a stench that we should all have to gasp for breath”
(III, 10). (Later, in N otes fr o m U nderground [1864], the Underground
Man boasts that the substance of his disclosure will consist of precisely
these worst acts and truths that men are afraid to confess to them
selves.) Nevertheless, Valkovsky creates the opportunity for making
such a confession. He compares the thrill of confession, of suddenly
removing the mask, to the thrill of indecent exposure. He describes a
crazy Paris official who wandered about dressed only in his cloak:
.. whenever he met anyone in a lonely place . . . he silently walked
up to him, with the most serious and profoundly thoughtful air sud
denly stepped before him, threw open his cloak and showed himself
in all the . . . purity of his heart. That would last for a minute, then he
would wrap himself up again, and silendy . . . he would pass by the
petrified spectator, as importantly and majestically as the ghost in
H a m let" (III, 10).
Valkovsky’s metaphor of confession as indecent exposure finds its
ultimate source in Rousseau’s Confessions and thereby marks the be
ginning of Dostoevsky’s long moral critique of this genre as defined
by Rousseau. Early in the Confessions Rousseau wrote, “My distur
bance of mind became so strong that, being unable to satisfy my
desires, I excited them by the most extravagant behaviour. I haunted
dark alleys and lonely spots where I could expose myself to women
from afar off in the condition in which I should have liked to be in
their company. What they saw was nothing obscene, I was far from
thinking of that; it was ridiculous. The absurd pleasure I got from
displaying myself before their eyes is quite indescribable” (I, 3). Dos
toevsky has taken one of Rousseau’s anecdotes and has made Val
kovsky transform it into a symbol for confession in general.
Valkovsky had addressed his confession to the narrator, calling him
throughout, “my poet." Just as Stavrogin is to do later, Valkovsky tries
to make something literary out of his confession. He sprinkles his
narrative with literary allusions: he invokes the Marquis de Sade and,
by relating an anecdote about his affair with a seemingly virtuous
woman, whom he compares to the abbess of a medieval convent, a
secret and profligate sinner, Valkovsky suggests that he has read such
Gothic novels as Matthew Lewis’s T he M o n k (1795) and Charles Matu-
rin’s M elm oth the W anderer (1820), novels which enjoyed significant
popular success in Russia. Despite Valkovsky’s attempts to elevate his
confession to the status of art, however, it remains a form of vanity, of
contemptuous, indecent exposure that depends upon the existence of
an audience to outrage. One cannot expose oneself indecently in
private—or before God. The narrator perceives Valkovsky’s corrupt
use of the confessional genre, “I agree that you could not have ex
pressed your spite and your contempt for me and for all of us better
than by your frankness to me. You were not only not apprehensive
that your frankness might compromise you before me, but you are
not even ashamed before me. You have certainly resembled that
madman in the cloak” (III, 10).
The Underground Man, on the other hand, actually repeats Rous
seau’s solitary indulgences, but he does not consciously create a
metaphor for confession out of these experiences. “I indulged in
debauchery alone, at nights, in secret, fearfully, filthily, with a shame
which never left m e ... . even then I already carried the underground
in my soul. I was terribly afraid lest anyone should see me, recognize
me. I visited various dark places” (II, 1).
Even in T he Possessed (1873) the life style of the young Stavrogin—
the Prince Harry with his Falstaff Lebyadkin—may partially derive
from this same anecdote of Rousseau, although Stavrogin’s roots in
Dostoevsky’s own underground characters are certainly dominant.
Stavrogin shares Rousseau’s fascination with “extravagant behavior”
and “absurd” pleasures. In the notes for T he Possessed, “Nechaev,” who
becomes Pyotr Verkhovensky in the novel, makes a characteristically
cynical passing reference to Rousseau which offers a nice example of
the way in which Dostoevsky permits his less savory characters to
express his own views in outrageous form: “Useful also are drunken
ness, and pederasty, masturbation, as in Rousseau. All this tends to
bring things down to a median level.”
Toward the end of his career, in A R a w Y ou th (1875-76), Dos
toevsky returned again to the theme of Rousseauian “exposure.” One
evening Arkady and a student approach a respectable woman on a
deserted street, and, “preserving unruffled countenances as though it
were the natural thing to do,” they enter into a description of “various
filth and obscenities, which the filthiest imagination of the filthiest

debauchee could hardly have conceived.” Arkady confesses, “I re
peated this diversion for eight days . . . At first I thought it origi
nal . . . I once told the student that Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes
in his ‘Confessions,’ that he, as a youth, loved quietly to display him
self from behind a corner, to uncover the usually covered parts of his
body and lie in wait in this condition for passing women” (III, 6 ).
After more than fifteen years, Dostoevsky has made explicit reference
to this particular episode from the Confessions. But by now, through its
reworkings in T h e In su lted a n d In ju re d and N otes from . U nderground the
source for this passage belongs as much to Dostoevsky himself as it
does to Rousseau.
But it is in the notes for A R a w Y o u th that Dostoevsky again makes
an explicit comparison between the act of confession and indecent
exposure as he had had Valkovsky do a decade and a half earlier. This
time, however, Rousseau is named and he figures in both terms of the
comparison: Dostoevsky equates Rousseau’s solitary vices with his
“literary” ones. “Just as Rousseau found enjoyment in exposing him
self, so did he find voluptuous pleasure in exposing himself to young
people—even corrupting them by his complete frankness (otkroven-
n o st’) . ” Yury Lotman has observed that for Dostoevsky “sincerity”
often became in his fiction synonymous with self-love, and the enjoy
ment of confession—a baring of the soul—became equivalent to the
enjoyment of self-contemplation, of egoism, of voluptuousness, and,
frequently, of crime.4
In N otes from . U nderground Dostoevsky allows his Underground Man
an acute perception of the confession as a contradictory, easily mis
used form. But Dostoevsky does not permit him to escape his addic
tion to the confessional mode. The Underground Klan reasons that a
confession such as his cannot occur without some notion of an audi
ence. Like any other mode of narration, it must be directed toward
someone in order to exist at all, even if that audience never really gets
to read it. He writes to his imagined audience, “Why, in fact, do I call
you ‘gentlemen,’ Why do I address myself to you as though you were
really my readers? Such confessions as I intend to make are not
printed or given to others to read” (I, 11). He writes that he wants to
4Lotman, “Russo . . . , ” p. 604.

try to confess the whole truth, but even as he acknowledges this, he

must deny the possibility of success.
The certain failure of his venture lies in the nature of the confes
sional genre itself: it is impossible simply to express a thing directly
and explicitly without distorting it. By narrating a confession, the one
who confesses inevitably becomes involved in questions of narrative
technique, style, presentation of self, and the effect of his words on his
imagined (or actual) audience. The Underground Man is tortured by
this knowledge. He writes, “I will observe by the way: Heine maintains
that true autobiographies are almost impossible, and that man himself
is bound to lie about himself. In his opinion, Rousseau, for example,
certainly lied to himself in his Confession, and even intentionally lied,
out of vanity. I am certain that Heine is right; I understand very well
how sometimes one may, solely from vanity, attribute whole crimes to
oneself, and I can even very well conceive what sort of vanity that may
be” (I, 1 1 ).
Though the Underground Man represents a repository of the val
ues and beliefs against which Dostoevsky was struggling, Dostoevsky
has given him the same precious understanding with which he later
endowed Myshkin in The Idiot-, both characters see that an attempt to
portray oneself or one’s ideas directly inevitably leads to some degree
of distortion. Myshkin, however, in his role as a confessor (the reci
pient of confessions) seeks to accept all the various motives inherent in
any confession, and to forgive those that are vain or dishonest. Like
the one who actually confesses, the reader or recipient of the confes
sion treads on dangerous ground and may be as quickly distracted
from the purported thrust of the confession as is the narrator of the \
confession. For, as a spectator or reader or listener, the person who
hears or overhears the confession also finds himself inevitably consid
ering such issues as modes of presentation, psychological motivations,
and a host of other concerns that perhaps should be, but are not,
extraneous to the simple act of communication.
The Underground Man unwittingly lays bare his own vanity and
irresistible need to distort. He agrees with Heine’s view of Rousseau in
the Confessions and tries to set himself apart from Rousseau’s stance.
He justifies his own confession by observing, “But Heine had formed
an opinion about a man who confessed before the public. I write only
for myself’ (I, 11). Nevertheless, in narrating his confession only for
88 Robin Feuer M iller
himself, he has found it necessary to postulate an audience; his nar

ration cannot exist without imagined readers.
Always the first to realize his own inconsistency, the Underground
Man sets out to justify why, then, he has had to invent readers:
. . . and I announce once and for all that if I write as if I were
addressing readers, that it is only for show, because it is easier
for me to write that way. It is a form, only an empty form; I shall
never have readers... . But here, for example, someone will
catch at the word and ask me: if you really don’t count on read
ers, then why are you now making such compacts with yourself,
and on paper too.. . . Why are you explaining? Why are you
apologizing?—Well, there it is,—I answer. There is a whole psy
chology here, however. Perhaps it is that I am simply a coward.
And perhaps, it is that I purposely imagine an audience before
me in order that I may conduct myself in a more dignified way
while I write. There are perhaps a thousand reasons (I, II).
Yet to be more “dignified” means, in some sense, to justify one’s acts,

to attribute a worthiness to oneself. The Underground Man goes on
to justify the act of writing:
But again: for what reason, why do I in particular want to write?
If it is not for the sake of the public, then shouldn’t I simply
recall everything in my own mind without putting it on paper?
Quite so, but on paper it comes out, somehow, more imposing.
There is something more inspiring in it; it will be a greater
judgment upon myself; it will augment my style. Besides—
perhaps I will actually receive relief from writing things
down.. . . Finally, I am bored.. . . Writing will actually be a sort
of work. They say that a man becomes good and honest through
work. Well, there is at least a chance (I, 11).
Despite his verbal machinations, the Underground Man has not
escaped the same failings he has just attributed to Rousseau: confes
sion through vanity and self-justification and the inevitable need for
the narrator of a confession to lie. He has put his confession in writing
for the vain reason that it will be more “imposing.” As with Valkovsky
and Stavrogin, the literariness of his work is essential. He feels it to be
important as a way of “augmenting his style.” The very act of confes
sion functions as a cathartic atonement; indulgence in the confes
sional form helps compensate for the content of the confession. He

hopes to obtain relief through writing: the act of writing may itself
make him a better man. But all his explanations and analyses about
the nature of confessions and of their readers cannot bring him closer
to the philosophical purpose of a genuine confession—to complete
honesty, humility, or repentance.
In The Idiot (1868) the confessions told at Nastasya Filippovna’s
nameday party contain the same bracing mix o f vanity, self
justifications, and lies as did the confessions of Valkovsky or the Un
derground Man. Once again Dostoevsky engages in a direct polemic
with Rousseau and his Confessions. But this time he abandons his re-
workings of the “indecent exposure” episode in favor of another
episode from Rousseau’s work.
Ferdyshchenko, who serves as a herald of disorder and of
brutally-arrived-at truths, presides over the uneasy group of guests at
Nastasya Filippovna’s nameday as a mater of ceremonies.5 He is ac
cepted as a court jester—albeit one without wit—with special
privileges to blurt out the truth. Ferdyshchenko proposes thepetit-jeu
in which each person must confess his worst action. It is no surprise
that under Ferdyshchenko’s aegis the confessional form will be hear
tily misused. When Ganya notes that everyone will be certain to lie,
Ferdyschenko answers, “yes, and the entertaining thing is just how a
man will lie.” Moreover, for all his self-avowed lack of “wit,” Ferdysh
chenko perceives a crucial fact which any narrator must take into
account: audiences would rather witness the fall of a hero than the fall
of any ordinary man. “Well, gentlemen, of course I must set a noble
example, but what I regret most at this moment is that I am so worth
less and am in no way remarkable.. . . Well, what in fact is of interest
in the fact that Ferdyshchenko committed a nasty deed?” (I, 13).
The confession becomes a mode of titillation for bored guests who
want “cheering up.” Their desire for originality has decayed into a
sMikhail Bakhtin has written o f the “carnivalized” worlds of “Bobok” and
o f The Idiot, where “People appear for a moment outside the normal situations
o f life, as on the carnival square or in the nether world, and a different—more
genuine—sense of themselves and of their relationships to one another is
revealed.” He designates to Ferdyshchenko the role o f a “petty mystery-play
devil” whose suggestions for the evening’s entertainment help “to create the
carnival-square atmosphere” (Bakhtin, Problems o f Dostoevsky’s Poetics, trans.
R. W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor, Ardis, 1973), p. 120).
hunger for anything provocative. Even Nastasya Filippovna has been

infected. She agrees to Ferdyshchenko’s proposal on the grounds that
it’s “terribly original.” Thus, the confessions narrated by Fer-
dyshchenko, General Epanchin, and Totsky begin in an atmosphere
of cynicism and hunger for the sensational. As Totsky notes, “Truth is
possible here [in this game] only by accident, through a certain kind of
boasting of the worst kind, which is unthinkable and completely inde
cent here [at the party]” (I, 13).
In his narrative Ferdyshchenko confesses to having pocketed a
three-rouble note left on his hostess’ work table. He then showed
much kindness to the house maid who was falsely accused of the deed;
he tried to persuade her to admit to the theft, assuring her that she
could count on the leniency of her mistress. “I felt an extraordinary
pleasure, particularly from the fact that I was preaching while the
note lay in my pocket” (I, 14). He spent the money that evening on a
bottle of wine. When the audience responds with disgust, Fer
dyshchenko shows his malevolent, but accurate understanding of
what is typically most appreciated and expected by the audience of a
confessional narrative, “Bah! You want to hear the worst act of a man
and you demand that there be something shining in it. The worst acts
are always filthy.. . . ” (I, 14).
As a narrator he refuses to give the audience what they want,
although he involuntarily seeks their approval. His contempt for the
confessional genre does not exempt him from wishing that its effect
would be pleasant all the same. The narrator takes wry note of Fer
dyshchenko’s enraged loss of composure when he observes his audi
ence’s disgust, “Strange as it may be, it is very likely that he expected a
completely different success from his story” (I, 14). Ferdyshchenko
has cynically toyed with his audience’s expectations, but he cannot
divorce himself from his need to be accepted. Although Fer
dyshchenko did not openly refer to Rousseau as the Underground
Man had done, his anecdote has been largely inspired by one of the
principal episodes in the Confessions. (Typically, Dostoevsky probably
also used his own previous work as a source here. Ferdyshchenko’s
pleasure at his successful framing of the servant girl and his delight, at
the same time, in pretending to preach to her with dignity and kind
ness resemble Luzhin’s failed attempt to frame Sonya in Crime and
Punishment [1866].)
In this early episode Rousseau describes a crime that had tor

mented him for forty years: he once stole a pink and silver ribbon .6
When it was discovered on him, he falsely accused the young cook of
the household, Marion, saying she had given it to him. Ferdyshchen-
ko’s similar false accusation of the maid-servant has left him singularly
free from remorse (indeed it gave him “extraordinary pleasure”)
while it is remorse for this deed which has activated Rousseau’s need
to write his confessions. Rousseau writes, “The burden, therefore, has
rested till this day on my conscience without any relief; and I can
affirm that the desire to some extent to rid myself of it has greatly
contributed to my resolution of writing these Confessions” (I, 2). (The
Underground Man, for all his alleged rejection of Rousseau, had ad
mitted the same motive—the motive of finding “relief’—for his own
confession.)
But Rousseau’s analysis of his deed reveals a certain self-satisfaction
and unnerving self-confidence. He does not admit the possibility of a
lie:
“I have been absolutely frank in the account I have just given,
and no one will accuse me, I am certain, of palliating the hein
ousness of my offence. But I should not fulfill the aim of this
book if I did not at the same time reveal my inner feelings and
hesitated to put up such excuses for myself as I honestly could.
Never was deliberate wickedness further from my intention at
that cruel moment” (I, 2 ).
In fact, by the end of his account he seems to have become positively
proud of his crime. “So the memory tortures me less on account of the
crime itself than because of its possible evil consequences. I have
derived some benefit from the terrible impression left with me by the
sole offence I have committed. For it has secured me for the rest of
my life against any act that might prove criminal in its results. I think
also that my loathing of untruth derives to a large extent from my
having told that one wicked lie.. . . I have little fear of carrying the sin
on my conscience at death” (I, 2). Here is a unique brand of spiritual
vanity not even dreamed of by Valkovsky or the Underground Man,
6For a particularly compelling interpretation about the underlying motives
for Rousseau’s deed, see Paul deMan, “The Purloined Ribbon,” Glyph, no. 1,
vol. I, 1977, pp. 28-50.
92 Robin Feuer M iller
or even by Ferdyshchenko. Rousseau exonerates himself with unshake-

able impunity. His Confessions provide the model for this genre
throughout the nineteenth century.
The resemblance of Ferdyshchenko’s anecdote to this crucial
episode in the Confessions thus alerts the reader to the presence of a
serious parody and critique of the confessional form. During the
course of Nastasya Filippovna’s party, everyone, from the narrator-
chronicler and the reader to the characters themselves, shares a
knowledge that the typical confession is often a morally bankrupt
form.
General Epanchin, the next participant in the petit-jeu, relates an
incident that occurred thirty-five years earlier when he was a poor
second lieutenant. Late one afternoon he cursed an old woman, his
former landlady, for appropriating his soup bowl as payment for a
broken pot. She sat facing him with no response. Later, he learned
that she had been dying at the very time he’d been swearing at her. To
assuage his guilt, fifteen years ago he had provided for two ill old
women; he is even considering the establishment of a permanent
endowment at the public hospital.
Ferdyshchenko, now no longer a narrator but a member of the
audience, responds, “And instead of your nastiest deed, your Excel
lency, you have told one of the good deeds of your life; you have
cheated Ferdyshchenko!” (I, 14). Certainly the general’s intention
(whether successful or not) in his confession of a “worst deed” has
secretly been to narrate a “best deed.” (Yet the general, contrary to his
intent, has perhaps unknowingly narrated his worst deed after all: he
has related a personal evil deed that he sought to erase by an act of
impersonal good—by establishing “a permanent endowment by pro
viding a capital fund.” Throughout the novel the “author” Dostoevsky
explores the ways in which goodness travels through the world; he
establishes a consistent opposition between effective acts of personal
goodness and the ineffective, even harmful results of institutionalized
beneficience—philanthropy [chelovekoliubie].)
General Epanchin’s confession resembles that same episode from
Rousseau’s Confessions of which Ferdyschchenko made use. But where
Ferdyshchenko’s anecdote reflected the content of Rousseau’s tale
about the stolen ribbon while systematically detaching itself from
Rousseau’s emotional stance of repentance and eventual self
justification, here the general mimics Rousseau’s attitude toward the

deed, his stance of guilty, but lofty sincerity. The general notes that
though the action occurred long ago (thirty-five years, as compared to
Rousseau’s forty), he cannot recall it without experiencing a pang,
.. the more time goes by, the more I think of it.. . . Without doubt,
I am guilty, and, although I have already regarded my deed for a long
time with the passing of years and with the change in my nature as
being the deed of a stranger, I nevertheless feel sorry” (I, 14). Rous
seau had expressed a similar sentiment: “I took away lasting
memories of a crime and the unbearable weight of a remorse which,
even after forty years, still burdens my conscience. In fact, the bitter
memory of it, far from fading, grows more painful with the years” (I,
2). Of course the general’s easy “after-dinner” attitude toward his
crime does not have the ring of sincerity that Rousseau’s lament does:
instead his words both recreate and ridicule the structure of Rous
seau’s confession.
Moreover, both men, Rousseau and General Epanchin, end by
being the ones to bestow forgiveness upon themselves. Rousseau as
sures himself that “really my crime amounted to no more than weak
ness” (I, 2). General Epanchin takes these self-assurances even
further, “So that, I repeat, it seems strange to me, all the more that if I
am guilty, I am not completely guilty... .” (I, 14). He manages finally
to blame the old woman for letting herself die at that unfortunate
moment. Furthermore, each confidently proclaims that the evil deed
has yielded a measure of good. We have already encountered Rous
seau’s insistence that his “sole offense” had “secured for him for the
rest of his life against any act that might prove criminal in its re
sults. . . . Poor Marion finds so many avengers in this world that,
however great my offence against her may have been, I have little fear
of carrying the sin on my conscience at death” (I, 2). In like spirit,
General Epanchin describes his subsequent acts of philanthropy.
T hrough his parodie reworkings of these two episodes from
Rousseau—the incidents of “indecent exposure” and the stolen
ribbon—Dostoevsky has exposed the literary confession as reflecting
alternatively a desire to shock one’s audience or to justify oneself
before it.
Totsky is the last participant in thepetit-jeu. His account of his worst
action arouses interest in the reader and the other characters because
they all know one of his worst deeds already; indeed, the results of his
violation of Nastasya Filippovna have generated the plot of most of the
novel so far. His confession, however, does not have direct roots in
Rousseau’s Confessions but instead derives its style and content from an
unabashed blend of Lermontov and Dumas^z/s (especially his novel La
Dame aux Camélias). Nevertheless, like Valkovsky, the Underground
Man, and Stavrogin, Totsky seeks a kind of moral exoneration
through the fact that the event and its retelling resemble the aesthetic
contours of fictional art. For all these characters, a life that has
come to resemble literature is at the same time absolved from seri
ous moral accountability. At the end of his narrative, Totsky himself
admits that “it came out decidedly like a novel” (I, 14). For Totsky,
there can be no worse deed because, for him, immorality does not
exist. Thus, in his hands the confessional genre becomes, simply,
absurd. Totsky cares only for beauty, taste, and originality ; it is impos
sible for him to make a genuine confession.
In Stavrogin’s “Confession” in The Possessed (1873) we may discover
further echoes of Rousseau’s false accusation of the servant maid
Marion. The crucial chapter, “At Tikhon’s,” which contains Stavro
gin’s confession, was not originally published with the novel because
Katkov, the editor of Russkii Vestnik felt it was too controversial. This
chapter has survived in two versions: the galley proofs of the De
cember 1871 issue of Russkii Vestnik with Dostoevsky’s corrections and
an unfinished copy made later by Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya
from an unknown manuscript.7 In this chapter and particularly in
Stavrogin’s statement itself, Dostoevsky relentlessly explores the
moral implications and voluptuous motivations potentially inherent in
false acc usation (albeit a passively enacted accusation). The more indi
rect modes of parody and ridicule have been abandoned. Stavrogin
allows the child Matryosha to be flogged for the supposed theft of his
penknife. But Stavrogin, while adopting Rousseau’s stance of com
plete honesty, does not adopt Rousseau’s tones of regret or self-
7For a discussion of the complicated history o f this chapter in both its
versions, see F. M. Dostoevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, XII
(Leningrad, 1975), pp. 237-53. I have enclosed in brackets any sentences
from Anna Dostoevsky’s copy. H er version contains essendal variations from
the earlier one. The Russian editors o f the recent complete collection of
Dostoevsky’s works consider her version to have the status of an independent
redaction, although they have presented the earlier version as the main one.
justification. [“I immediately felt that I had done something base, and
at the same time I felt a certain pleasure, because suddenly a sensation
burned through me like an iron, and I began to indulge in it.]. . .
Reaching the point of absolute fire in myself, I could at the same time
completely control it, even stop it at the highest point, only I rarely
wanted to stop” (“At Tikhon’s,” II).
This anecdote, a confession of moral voluptuousness, recalls as
pects of both the episodes from Rousseau’s Confessions under discus
sion here—Rousseau’s episode of indecent exposure and his false
accusation of Marion—and creates a frightening synthesis of them.
The pleasure which Stavrogin experiences in his sadistic torment of
Matryosha resembles the pleasure felt by Rousseau in his lonely ram
bles as well as recalling the other characters in Dostoevsky’s works who
sought out both occasions for voluptuous exposure and occasions to
confess their “indecent” acts. “I want everyone to look at me,” writes
Stavrogin toward the end of his statement. Rousseau’s encounter with
Marion spurred him on to write his Confessions and to seek the good.
Stavrogin’s encounter with Matryosha, whom he initially allows to be
thrashed for taking his penknife (although he sees it lying on the bed),
also “inspired” his confession, but his relations with her end only after
he has precipitated and witnessed her suicide. Indeed, the degree to
which Dostoevsky polemicized with and parodied the Rousseau of The
Confessions in “At Tikhon’s” cannot be overestimated, and Grossman
has aptly observed that Stavrogin “without doubt repeats the
psychological experience (opyt) of Rousseau, just as Dostoevsky repro
duces the style of his brilliant confession (pokaianie).”8
Moreover, Stavrogin actually names Rousseau. The passage quoted
above continues: “I am convinced that I could live my whole life like a
monk, despite the bestial voluptuousness with which I have been en
dowed and which I have always provoked. Abandoning myself with
unusual immoderation until the age of sixteen to the vice which Jean-
Jacques Rousseau confessed to, in my seventeenth year I stopped at
that very moment when I decided to. I am always master of myself
when I want to be. And so . . . I do not want to plead irresponsibility
for my crimes because of my environment or because of illness” (“At
Tikhon’s,” II). Yet even as Stavrogin describes his self-control over
“the vice which Jean-Jacques Rousseau confessed to,” his actual con
gressman, “Stilistika. . . , ” p. 146.
fession, as Tikhon realizes, is inspired by spite and hatred. Tikhon

understands that Stavrogin is not ashamed “to confess” but is
“ashamed of repentance.” Stavrogin’s confession itself constitutes a
further act of the moral voluptuousness to which he is addicted, for it
debases the aim of a genuine confession: to express regret and seek
repentance.
For Stavrogin (as for Valkovsky) the choice of his audience is all-
important. He says to Tikhon, “Listen, I’ll tell you the whole truth: I
want you to forgive me, and along with you a second and a third, but
all the others—absolutely let them hate me” (“At Tikhon’s,” II). (Rous
seau also chose his audience carefully: “My purpose is to display to my
kind a portrait in every way true to natu re. . . ” [II, 1]) As Tikhon
knows, that which most terrifies Stavrogin is the possibility of being
laughed at, of being considered ridiculous. Tikhon’s understanding
of this fear of being thought ridiculous once again evokes the pres
ence of Rousseau who observed, “It is the ridiculous and the shame
ful, not one’s criminal actions, that it is hardest to confess.”9 (I, 2)
Stavrogin bitterly accuses Tikhon, “You find the figure I cut, when I
kissed the foot of the dirty litde girl, ridiculous . . . I understand” (“At
Tikhon’s,” II). Tikhon realizes that Stavrogin wants his crime to be
thought impressive, horrible. If, instead, others were to find it dis
graceful or shameful or “inelegant,” Stavrogin could not bear it.
Stavrogin’s confession, which he has presented to Tikhon on al
ready printed sheets, was judged by both the narrator-chronicler and
by Tikhon himself as a literary document. They each become literary
critics rather than spontaneous listeners or readers. The narrator
comments on the numerous “spelling mistakes” and irregular style in
the document. Tikhon describes Stavrogin’s tendency to intensify his
style and offer details “merely to astound the reader,” and eventually
offers Stavrogin a formal criticism of his “work”: “Even in the very
form behind this great penitence (pokaianie), is contained something
[that to the world is] ridiculous, [seemingly false . . . not to mention
the form which is not firm, vague, and, as if from the weakness of
fear, undignified... .]” (“At Tikhon’s,” II). The written confession
necessarily forces its readers to judge it as a literary document, thus it
can never function simply as the communication of a deed. Instead, it
“The Russian editors cite Tikhon’s indirect allusion to Rousseau as well,
XII, p. 321.
deflects both author and audience away from reacting to straightfor

ward statements and involves them in secondary considerations of
style, form, and even spelling.
Dostoevsky rarely mentioned Rousseau in his writings, but his in
volvement with Rousseau’s Confessions was particularly intense.10 For
Dostoevsky, a character’s use of the confessional mode was always
problematic. On the one hand, ideally, a confession could register and
convey the condition of the inner man, but, on the other, in reality,
the very act of making a confession—the attempt to portray one’s own
inner being—could easily falsify or change the essential idea the au
thor of the confession was initially seeking to express.
Ironically, both Belinsky and Strakhov, two ideologically opposed
critics, compared Dostoevsky to Rousseau, although Dostoevsky him
self so often took issue with him. Belinsky wrote in 1846: “I am now
reading The Confessions—in all my life, few books have acted on me as
powerfully as this one,” but subsequently he remarked, “I have a great
loathing for this man. He so resembles Dostoevsky.” Nearly forty
years later, in 1883, Strakhov wrote to Tolstoy, “I cannot consider
Dostoevsky either a good or a happy man. He was spiteful, envious,
dissolute, and spent all his life in a state of agitation that made him
appear pitiful and would have made him appear ridiculous if he had
not at the same time been so spiteful and so intelligent. Like Rous
seau, however, he considered himself the best and the happiest of
men.” Strakhov’s comments would have especially embittered Dos
toevsky, for it was precisely Rousseau’s habit of self-justification that
Dostoevsky held up to scrutiny time and time again.
One cannot imagine Dostoevsky saying openly, without having as
sumed the guise of a fictional persona, as Rousseau does: “So let the
numberless legion of my fellow men gather round me, and hear my
confessions. Let them groan at my depravities, and blush for my
misdeeds. But let each one of them reveal his heart at the foot of Thy
Throne with equal sincerity, and may any man who dares, say, ‘I was a
better man than he’ ” (I, 1). Without some kind of irony, qualification,
or distance Rousseau’s faith in his own sincerity is unnerving. Dos
toevsky, whom one may tentatively, gingerly equate with Myshkin in
this respect—although it is, of course, always dangerous to make such
’"For a general discussion of the role of Rousseau in Dostoevsky’s works,
see Dostoevskii, Pis’ma, ed. A. S. Dolinin, II (Moscow, 1930), pp. 510-511.
98 Robin Fener Miller
equations between authors and characters—always acknowledged his

“double thoughts”; he never, to use Lionel Trilling’s phrase about
Rousseau, claimed an “uncompromising. . . pre-eminence in sincer
ity.”11
In Dostoevsky’s canon, then, the literary-bookish-written confes
sion most often tends to lie, to seek self-justification, or to aim at
shocking the audience. But Dostoevsky does concede that the choice
of an audience is important, and successful, genuine confessions do
occur—witness Raskolnikov with Sonya, or “the mysterious visitor”
with the elder Zosima, or even the hapless Keller with Myshkin. But in
each case, the confession of one’s transgression before a good soul is
only a first step, as Raskolnikov and the mysterious visitor learn. The
successful confession retains a sacrament, a sacred communication.
Rousseau’s Confession, a confession made to his peers, opens itself up
to charges of self-interest or self-justification. Dostoevsky reconsid
ered this mode—the romantic and literary commonplace of the
confession—he exposed and parodied it. But he ended by restoring
the confession to its original form, that of a confession by man before
God and before the collective manifestation of Him that resides in the
people. Dostoevsky’s characters partake fully of the romantic-realistic
climate surrounding them: they are obsessed with fulfilling their own
destinies, with developing their own individuality. But Dostoevsky
imposed stern moral terms upon this participation. Genuine confes
sions, when they occur, do not further the development of any of
these self-oriented drives. Instead, the genuine confession always
serves to reunite man with other men and with the whole universe;
motives of self-justification or explanation, and especially questions of
literary style, become forever irrelevant.
"Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures,
1969-70 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 58.
Raskolnikov’s City
and the Napoleonic Plan
by Adele Lindenmeyr
Having lived in Petersburg’s Haymarket area in the 1840s and

1860s, Dostoevsky observed at close hand the strains and dislocation
created by unplanned urban growth. In a little noted passage in Crime
and Punishment recounting Raskolnikov’s thoughts just before the
murder (I, 6), Dostoevsky connects these urban problems to Raskol
nikov’s thoughts and subsequent actions. Raskolnikov imagines a re
construction of Petersburg aimed especially at improving the
crowded, wretched conditions of Haymarket. This passage yields in
sights into the character of Raskolnikov and the thematics of the
novel. In it, the city takes two forms, both of which have a powerful
psychological influence on Raskolnikov: the squalid reality of
Haymarket and the ideal of his imagining, modeled after Napoleon
I ll’s reconstruction of Paris. Both cities, real and ideal, support Ras
kolnikov’s motive and justification for the murder. For Dostoevsky,
however, the reality of Haymarket undermines Raskolnikov’s utilitar
ian, Napoleonic scheme of reconstruction and, by extension, his in
tellectual rationale for the murder.
Dostoevsky set the great majority of his works in Petersburg and
made extensive use of the character types and scenes of that city.
Commentators such as Leonid Grossman have pointed out the close
attention he paid to urban reality and the resulting authenticity of his
works for contemporary readers. Donald Fanger has argued that Dos
toevsky’s recreadon of mid-nineteenth-century Petersburg serves suc-
“Raskolnikov’s City and the Napoleonic Plan” by Adele Lindenmeyr. From

The Slavic R e v im , vol. 35 (March 1976), no. 1, pp. 37-47. Reprinted with
slight changes by permission of the editor.
99
100 Adele Lindenmeyr
ceeding generations of readers as “realistic ballast, his way of anchor

ing the feverish improbabilities of the action of his books in real life.”1
The Petersburg that Dostoevsky most often portrays bears a dis
tinct geographical and socioeconomic identity. Fashionable districts
seldom appear in his writings. The classical architecture of
Petersburg, Dostoevsky remarks in “Little Pictures” in the Diary of a
Writer for 1873, “is extremely characteristic and original and what
always struck me was that it expresses all its characterlessness and lack
of individuality throughout its existence.” The Haymarket (Sennaia
Ploshchad’) area, however, and similar quarters of the city fascinated
him. His daughter describes how in the 1840s he roamed “the darkest
and most deserted streets of Petersburg. He talked to himself as he
walked, gesticulating, and causing passers-by to turn and look at
him.”2 He often chose as the setting for a story the middle- and
lower-class parts of the Admiralty district around Voznesensky Pros
pect and Haymarket, which in the mid-nineteenth century had little
in common with the classical buildings and squares of the administra
tive and fashionable parts of the district. The Haymarket neighbor
hood, where in the 1860s Dostoevsky lived on the corner of Carpen
ter’s Lane and Little Tradesmen Street, is especially prominent in
Crime and Punishment.
What exacdy was the urban reality of this part of mid-nineteenth-
century Petersburg? Rapid, unregulated expansion in the 1860s was
changing Peter I’s carefully planned city and creating serious prob
lems unbefitting the capital of a huge and powerful empire. With the
emancipation of the serfs in 1861, peasants migrated in ever greater
numbers to the capital to seek jobs in the city’s growing industries and
services. This influx and the economic and social changes brought on
by the growth of manufacturing strained Petersburg’s already inade
quate facilities—water supply, health and sanitation services (there
were cholera epidemics in the city in 1848 and 1866), and housing.
The consequences for the population were manifest: disease, unem
ployment, crime, prostitution, and drunkenness were widely dis
cussed in the contemporary press of the capital.
Petersburg’s most notorious slum was the area around Haymarket.
The market itself was one of the oldest, largest and busiest centers of
'Donald Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism (Chicago, 1967), p. 134.
2Aimée Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Study (London, 1921), p. 49.
Raskolnikov’s City and the Napoleonic Plan 101
small-scale retail trade in the city. Its transient population and Filth
made it an ideal breeding ground for infectious disease.3 Every avail
able corner of the overcrowded, ill-equipped tenements surrounding
the market was let out at high rents; with 247 people per house the
Haymarket neighborhood had the highest population density in the
city.4 A local landmark nicknamed the “Vyazemsky Monastery” was a
great block of slums owned by Prince Vyazemsky, which served as the
location of the “Crystal Palace” tavern in Crime and Punishment. As a
center of trade for the capital and the surrounding region, Haymar
ket abounded with cheap eating houses and taverns. Raskolnikov’s
own small street, Carpenter’s Lane, housed eighteen taverns.® The
overcrowding, disease, drunkenness, and immorality of Haymarket
finally drew government attention in 1865, when an official commis
sion was established to investigate conditions there.6
This, then, was the Petersburg that Dostoevsky knew well and
chose to depict in Crime and Punishment. Haymarket serves as back
ground to the thoughts and actions of Raskolnikov. These two com
ponents of the novel, Raskolnikov and the city, are closely linked. The
people and conditions of Haymarket are often introduced through
Raskolnikov’s consciousness. For example, the novel opens with Ras
kolnikov’s reaction upon descending from his room onto Carpenter’s
Lane on a July day:
The heat on the street was terrible, and the closeness, crowds,
lime everywhere, scaffolding, bricks, dust and that particular
summer stench so well-known to every Petersburger who did not
have the possibility of renting a summer house—ail this together
shook the young man’s nerves, already unsettled without it. (I,
l )7
This part of Petersburg, to which Dostoevsky immediately gives a
3Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut istorii, Ocherki istorii Leningrada, vol. 2
(Moscow-Leningrad, 1957), p. 147.
"•Reginald E. Zelnik, Labor and Society in Tsarist Russia: The Factory Workers o f
St. Petersburg, 1855-1870 (Stanford, 1971), p. 242; see also James Bater, St.
Petersburg: Industrialization and Change (London, 1976). ^
®E. Sarukhanian. Dostoevskii v Peterburge (Leningrad, 1970), p. 164.
6Zelnik, p. 58.
7F. M. Dostoevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, vol. 6 (Lenin
grad, 1973). All further quotations from Crime and Punishment refer to this
edition.
tangible atmospheric, social, and economic identity, has a powerful

attraction for Raskolnikov. The magnificent panorama of the capital
city along the Neva River left Raskolnikov, like Dostoevsky, “with an
inexplicable coldness” (II, 2). Even though Haymarket’s stifling at
mosphere and drunken crowds revolt him, Raskolnikov is drawn to it
many times throughout the novel (“By force of habit, following the
usual course of his previous walks, he headed straight for Haymar-
ket.. . (II, 6). There Raskolnikov comes face to face with the de
bilitating consequences of nineteenth-century urban reality—the
exploitation of women and children, the drunkenness and destitu
tion. In one of Haymarket’s many taverns, for example, he hears
Marmeladov’s autobiography. These observations support the self-
willed and utilitarian aspects of the theory developed in his article. In
fact, Dostoevsky uses the reality of Petersburg not only as background
but also to influence Raskolnikov’s thoughts and actions and to de
velop his theme.
One passage in part I, chapter 6 of the novel illustrates Dostoev
sky’s sensitivity to the city and his incorporation of it into the themes
and polemics of his writing. This passage records Raskolnikov’s
thoughts as he is walking to the pawnbroker’s house to commit the
crime. It begins with Raskolnikov, distracted from thoughts of the
impending murder, lost in certain “extraneous thoughts”:
Before, when he happened to picture all this in his imagination,
he sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid. But
he was not very afraid now, he was even completely unafraid. He
was even occupied at this moment by certain extraneous
thoughts, though not for long. Passing by the Yusupov Garden
he even began to consider the construction of tall fountains and
how well they would freshen the air in all the squares. Gradually
he came to the conclusion that if the Summer Garden were
extended to the whole Mars Field and even joined with the gar
den of the Mikhailovsky Palace, it would be a beautiful and most
useful thing for the city (I, 6).
These “extraneous thoughts,” reminiscent of Raskolnikov’s other
dreams, derive from contemporary problems in the planning of
Petersburg. Architecture greatly interested Dostoevsky. As a student
at Petersburg’s Main Engineering School in the Mikhailovsky Castle,
he had studied the history of architecture enthusiastically, and this
Raskolnikov’s City and the.Napoleonic Plan 103
interest continued throughout his life. Dostoevsky, then, was no

doubt familiar with the history of architecture and city planning in
Petersburg. Raskolnikov’s own ambitious scheme recalls the monu
mental scale and conception of Petersburg architecture and planning
inaugurated by Peter I. But evén the Admiralty district, the political
and social center of the capital and the empire as well as the location
of Haymarket, revealed the failure of this grand tradition. Although
the district was the focus of much planning and construction in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most of these projects were
aimed at creating a magnificent ensemble of palaces, government
complexes, and vast squares for military drill and parades, modeled
after Western European capitals. Meanwhile, architects and planners
ignored the spontaneous, haphazard growth of the living and work
ing areas of the city such as Haymarket, with the resulting inadequacy
of services and serious social dislocation.
The lack of waterways and parks is one example of the failure to
respond to problems exacerbated by urban expansion. Canals, ponds,
fountains, and gardens were important not only aesthetically but also
practically. Situated on the Neva delta, Petersburg was vulnerable to
flooding. Waterways were essential to lessen the impact of flooding
and to drain the marshy land to make it habitable. Currents of cool air
created by fountains would help alleviate the heat of the Petersburg
summer with which Dostoevsky opens his novel. Fountains and canals
would also help in combatting the frequent fires (there was an espe
cially serious outbreak of fires in 1862, which sparked a polemic be
tween Dostoevsky and Chernyshevsky on politically motivated arson)
and augment the city’s water supply; in the 1860s water had to be
brought to houses from the rivers and canals by water-carriers. Over
crowded housing made parks and landscaping for public recreation^
particularly necessary.
Dostoevsky is referring directly to these needs and the failure to
meet them in the passage quoted above. Petersburg’s waterways, like
the Catherine Canal which Raskolnikov crosses on his way to the
pawnbroker’s house, were dangerously polluted. Despite the cholera
epidemic and fires of the 1860s, little had been done to upgrade the
capital’s water supply. Raskolnikov’s proposal to build tall fountains to
“freshen the air in all the squares” echoed contemporary debates.
Along with the problems of crime and drunkenness, the local press
drew attention to the city’s inadequate water supply; in July 1865

three Petersburg newspapers, Peterburgskii Listok, Invalid, and Golos,
called for the building of more fountains in the city.8 Central
Petersburg also lacked parks. The only park built in the Admiralty
district in the first half of the nineteenth century was K. I. Rossi’s
ensemble of the Mikhailovsky Palace and Garden of 1819-25. Built
for Alexander I’s brother Mikhail, the Garden was closed to the public
in the 1860s. The Yusupov Garden, which Raskolnikov passes on the
way to the pawnbroker’s house, had been privately owned until 1863,
when the city acquired it and turned it into a public park. Hardly
more than an arid field with a small pond and a fountain, the new
park nonetheless drew crowds of Haymarket’s lower-class inhabitants
in summer. Raskolnikov’s plan to extend the Summer Garden to the
Mars Field and the garden of the Mikhailovsky Palace would have
created one great park for the Admiralty district—a “beautiful and
most useful thing for the city.”
The boldest attempt to meet both the aesthetic demands of a capital
city and the physical needs intensified by changing urban conditions
was to be found not in Russia but France during the Second Empire.
The rebuilding of Paris by Napoleon III and his Prefect of the Seine,
Georges Haussmann, was the most prominent example of farsighted
city planning in its day, and provided Dostoevsky with the model for
Raskolnikov’s plan to rebuild Petersburg.
Napoleon III fancied himself a landscape architect and city plan
ner. His uncle Napoleon Bonaparte had made plans to rebuild Paris
during his reign; his nephew, anxious to establish legitimacy by his
link >vith his illustrious predecessor, revived the project and pursued
it enthusiastically. In 1852, at the start of the Second Empire, Paris
was an overgrown medieval city with crowded and disease-ridden
slums, dark, winding streets, primitive water and sewer systems, and
treeless boulevards—conditions similar to those of Haymarket. In less
than twenty years Napoleon and Haussmann had straightened and
widened streets, cleared slums, constructed public buildings and
E d ito rs ’ note in Dostoevskii, Prestuplenie i nakazanie, “Literaturnye
pamiatniki” edition, eds. L. D. Opul’skaia and G. F. Kogan (Moscow, 1970),
p. 741, and in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 7 (Leningrad, 1973), p. 333.
parks, and redesigned the water and sewer systems, thus creating the
modern city of Paris.9
Particular attention was paid to the creation of parks and open
spaces. Napoleon III instructed Haussmann to establish “pocket
parks” wherever building construction presented the opportunity. He
believed that neighborhood parks would beautify the city, improve
public health, and elevate working-class morality. Twenty-two such
parks, planted with trees and flowers and furnished with benches and
fountains, were eventually created. More famous were the major
municipal parks established by Napoleon and Haussmann—the Bois
de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, and three large parks within the
city. The Emperor personally supervised the transformation of the
Bois de Boulogne from a barren promenade into a vast area for
public recreation with lakes, winding paths, cafe's, a grotto, waterfalls,
and a racetrack. Napoleon also directed the creation of a similar park
for the crowded districts of eastern Paris, the Bois de Vincennes. By
1870, Paris had 4,500 acres of municipal parks, compared to the 47
acres of twenty years before. As David Pinkney has concluded:
First among practical planners and builders Napoleon and
Haussmann thought not only of the vistas and facades of a
“parade city,” but also of the needs of traffic, of water supply
and sewers, of slum clearance and open spaces. Here they were
concerned as no planners before them with social utility and .. .
they made to Paris and to city planning sociological contri
butions of the first order.10
Dostoevsky no doubt knew of Napoleon’s ambitious project. Edu
cated Russians in the 1860s followed events in the West closely. Like
most other periodicals of the time, Dostoevsky’s own journals, Vremia
and Epokha, devoted regular columns and articles to reports and in
terpretations of European and American news. The perspective of
the commentaries in Vremia and Epokha reflected Dostoevsky’s at
titude then toward reform and the issue of Russia and the West—
although some positive aspects of European society were noted, the
“See David H. Pinkney, Napoleon 111 and the Rebuilding o f Paris (Princeton,
1972).
'"Ibid., p. 221.
overall evaluation was critical—and cautioned against importing

European ideas into Russia.11 The May 1862 issue of Vremia, for
example, contained a scathing attack on the adventurism of Napoleon
I ll’s regime:
There are no obstacles on the path of the harmonious develop
ment of the internal and external strengths of the state, prosper
ity, well-being, etc. Is there some deficit of several hundred
million?—nothing to it; posterity will pay the interest on it. Send
a corps of troops across the ocean?—nothing to it; posterity will
pay the interest on the war costs and the glory will be pure
profit. Rebuild the city?—nothing to it; posterity will answer for
everything. Now the city of Paris is taking out a new loan of 125
million francs for new works for the public welfare.. . . For
these “public welfare” things an additional 139 million has been
put into the budget.. . . But what do these millions signify now,
when posterity will pay the interest on them, thanks to the loan
system!12
Just after this article appeared, Dostoevsky visited Europe for the
first time; he traveled there again in the summers of 1863 and 1865.
In letters home he expressed a qualified admiration for Paris. He
wrote his brother Nikolai, a civil engineer, on August 28, 1863:
I liked the appearance of Paris this time, that is the architecture.
The Louvre is an important thing and that whole quay right up
to Notre Dame is an amazing thing. It is a pity, Kolya, that you,
having qualified as an architect, have not gone abroad. An ar
chitect cannot not go abroad. No plan will give the true impres
sion.
To his sister-in-law Varvara Konstant on September 1, however, he
complained:
I do not like Paris, although it is terribly magnificent. There is
much to see, but when you look around, a terrible weariness
comes over you.
Discussing Paris in Winter Remarks on Summer Impressions (1863), Dos-
n For discussion of Dostoevsky’s journalism see V. S. Nechaeva, Z h u m a lM .
M . i F. M . DostoevsMkh “Vrem ia" 1861-1863 (Moscow, 1972) and idem, Zhur-
n a lM . M . i F. M . Dostoevskikh “Epokha,” 1864-1865 (Moscow, 1975).
12“Politicheskoe obozrenie,” Vremia, May 1862, p. 6.
toevsky adopts a sarcastic tone reminiscent of the Vremia article. His

admiration of certain aspects of Parisian architecture does not lessen
his general contem pt for the Second Empire, especially its
bourgeoisie:
Bribri [a bourgeois French husband] is extremely naive at times.
For example, while walking about the fountains he will start to
explain to ma biche [his wife] why fountains spurt upwards, he
explains to her the laws of nature, he expresses national pride to
her in the beauty of the Bois de Boulogne, the play of les grandes
eavx at Versailles, the success of Emperor Napoleon and gloire
militaire, he revels in her curiosity and contentment, and is very
satisfied.13
In early .,1865, a few months before Dostoevsky began Crime and
Punishment, the publication of Napoleon I ll’s History of Julius Caesar
(Histoire de César) created a sensation in Europe and Russia. The pre
face proclaimed Napoleon’s doctrine on the role and significance of
exceptional people:
When extraordinary deeds testify to a high genius what can be
more repulsive to common sense than to attribute to this genius
all the passions and all the thoughts of an ordinary man? What
can be more false than not to recognize the superiority of these
exceptional beings who appear in history from time to time like
shining beacons, dispelling the darkness of their epoch and
lighting up the future?
The leading newspapers in Russia’s two capitals, Sankt-Peterburgskie
Vedomosti and Moskovskie Vedomosti, published translations of Napo
leon’s preface in February; reviews and debates soon filled other
periodicals.14
Dostoevsky drew upon Napoleon III, especially his justification of
Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and himself in his book, for the charac
ter of Raskolnikov and his theory of the exceptional man, standing
above ordinary laws and morality. The third notebook for Crime and
Punishment confirms this influence in the note: “Porfiry, NB. ‘Tell me,
is the article in Vedomosti yours? Did you study it or write it [ili uchit’sia,
13Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5 (Leningrad, 1973), pp. 93-94.
14F. I. Evnin, “Roman Prestuplenie i nakazanie," Tvorchestvo F. M . Dos-
toevskogo, ed. N. Stepanov (Moscow, 1959), p. 154.
ilipisat’]?’ ”15 Dostoevsky also incorporated Napoleon I ll’s reconstruc

tion of Paris into the novel as the source of Raskolnikov’s plan to
rebuild Petersburg, and thus linked Napoleon and Raskolnikov again.
While on his way to commit the murder, which his theory justifies,
Raskolnikov develops the theory further. Emulating Napoleon III, he
devises a plan for a city both beautiful and useful. His plan for re
building Petersburg is based on the assumption that a rational,
superior man can control and change his environment. Thus the plan
and the crime are direcdy related: they share the same ideological
foundation and draw upon the example of Napoleon.
Raskolnikov can rationalize both the murder and his plan to re
build Petersburg in the same terms, for they serve similar ends. The
crime is conceived as a means to improve the lives of himself, his
family, even the whole of mankind, while his plan for a reconstructed
Petersburg has as its object the improvement of the lives of Haymar-
ket’s inhabitants. One probable result of his plan, for example, would
be to channel currents of cooler, fresher air around Haymarket by
building fountains around the city, much in the same way that Napo
leon built his pocket parks. Such fountains could serve other useful
ends, such as supplying water for consumption and fire-fighting, as
well as beautifying the city. Raskolnikov’s plan would also provide
Haymarket’s inhabitants with a large park like Napoleon’s great
municipal parks, a need which the Yusupov Garden failed to meet.
Since Haymarket, with its strange power of attraction, is the center of
Petersburg for Raskolnikov, he not surprisingly devises a plan that
satisfies some of the needs of this most wretched part of the city.
Raskolnikov’s scheme to rebuild Petersburg, based on the same
principles of utilitarianism and superior will that underlie the crime,
should have buttressed his conviction that the murder is justifiable.
But his train of thought suddenly shifts, and the passage continues:
Suddenly here he became interested in just why, in all big cities,
people lived and settled not solely by necessity, but by some
particular inclination, in just those parts of the city where there
was dirt and stench and all kinds of squalor. Then he was re
minded of his own walks around Haymarket, and for a moment
,SI. I. Glivenko, ed., Iz arkhiva F. M . Dostoevskogo: “Prestuplenie i nakazanie,"
Neizdannye m atem ly (Moscow-Leningrad, 1931), p. 196.
he awoke [ochnulsia]. “What nonsense,” he thought. “No, better

not to think of anything at all!”
“So, truly, those being led to execution fix their thoughts on
every object which they meet on the way,” flashed through his
mind, but only flashed like lightning; he himself extinguished
this thought as soon as possible.. . . (I, 6).
The inhabitants of Petersburg and “all big cities” seem indifferent
to the kind of rational improvements in their surroundings that Ras
kolnikov has just been planning for them. Their indifference and
their irrational “inclination” to live in the squalid parts of the city seem
to undermine his plan to rebuild it. Raskolnikov then recalls how he
himself has been drawn many times to Haymarket for no particular
reason. Indeed, the crime he is about to commit is the result not of
rational will but of just such an accidental walk. The previous day,
after dreaming of peasants killing a mare, Raskolnikov renounced his
plan for the murder; but instead of going directly home, he was
drawn again to Haymarket, where Lizaveta’s overheard remarks pro
vided him with the opportunity to commit the crime. The next
words—“and for a moment he awoke”—are elliptical. What they may
represent is Raskolnikov’s momentary realization that he is no Napo
leon, and that if his Napoleonic, utilitarian scheme for rebuilding the
city is undermined by the behavior of Haymarket’s inhabitants and his
own irrational actions, then his Napoleonic, utilitarian rationale for
the murder may be in question as well.
By now, however, Raskolnikov has almost reached the
pawnbroker’s house, and his momentary awakening gives way to the
dominant Napoleonic motive. He emphatically rejects the entire train
of thought, especially the implications that question his original jus
tification for the crime; “ ‘What nonsense,’ he thought. ‘No, better not
to think of anything at all.’ ”
In this interpretation Raskolnikov’s thoughts just prior to the

murder underscore the importance of the Napoleon figure and prin
ciple in his thinking, and the influence upon him of contemporary
developments in Western Europe—in this case, Napoleon’s recon
struction of Paris. He emerges as a young man representative of his
decade, when educated Russians paid close attention to ideas and
changes in Europe, and Russia itself was undergoing fundamental

reforms. The attraction of Europe for Raskolnikov is a basic element
of his character and thought. It leads him to various mistaken ideas,
among them the rebuilding of Petersburg as well as the theory justify
ing the murder.
Moreover, this passage affirms the important role of the city in
Dostoevsky’s novelistic technique, even more important than previous
commentators have suggested. The city serves as more than back
ground. Dostoevsky was highly sensitive to the two forms a city could
take: the grim reality of nineteenth-century urban conditions, like
those of Haymarket, but also the city as an abstraction, like the
Petersburg of Peter I or the Paris of Napoleon III. He uses the dialec
tic of these two forms of the city in the early passage in Crime and
Punishment analyzed here. As an abstraction, the city reinforces Ras
kolnikov’s theory of superior will and utilitarian action. But Raskol
nikov also perceives the irrational reality of Petersburg, which compli
cates his theory and purpose—even leading him to a fleeting realiza
tion of his error. In Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky shows how the city,
working as ideal and reality, has a direct psychological impact upon
ideas and actions.
Dostoevsky:
The Idea o f The Gambler
By D. S. Savage
In June 1866, while still at work on Crime and Punishment, then

appearing serially in the Russkii Vestnik, Dostoevsky wrote to his friend
A. P. Milyukov a letter in which there occurs the following paragraph:
The novel for Stellovsky I haven’t yet begun, but certainly shall
begin. I have a plan for a most decent little novel; there will even
be shadows of actual characters in it. The thought of Stellovsky
torments and disturbs me; it pursues me even in dreams.
Dostoevsky’s disquiet was due to the thought of the heavy penalties
which under the terms of the contract the sharp publisher Stellovsky
would be able to exact if the novel were not written and delivered by 1
November of that year. How the novel came to be written and Dos
toevsky saved from Stellovsky’s clutches through the engagement of
the stenographer who afterwards became his second wife is well
known. This “most decent little novel,” eventually dictated within the
space of twenty-six days, was that minor masterpiece, the most bril-
liantly executed of Dostoevsky’s lesser works, The Gambler.
The story which was to be dictated with such facility to Anna
Grigorievna Snitkin had already been projected three years previ
ously. It is mentioned in a letter of September 1863 addressed to
N. N. Strakhov. Dostoevsky was then in the midst of his troubled
affaire with the tempestuous Apollinaria Suslova among the resorts
and watering-places of Europe. This circumstance, together with Dos
toevsky’s known addiction to the gaming table, has led to the wide
spread and tenacious assumption that the book is directly autobio-
“Dostoevsky: The Idea o f The Gambler" by D. S. Savage. The Sewanee Re
view, vol. LVIII (1950), pp. 281-98. Reprinted with slight stylistic changes by
permission of the editor.Il
Ill
112 D. S. Savage
graphical in character—a misunderstanding which has thrown many a

reader’s vision of the story quite out of focus. “No reader of The
Gambler," asserts E. H. Carr in his Dostoevsky (1931), “will doubt its
autobiographical character,” and he goes on to provide the dramatis
personae with actual counterparts:—“Its much humiliated hero is the
Dostoevsky of 1863: its heroine (her name, too, is Polina) is an
idealized Suslova: the Frenchman De Grieux is a caricature of her
Spanish lover,” and so on. A revealing sentence in J. A. T. Lloyd’s
1946 biography demonstrates the unquestioning continuation of this
identification. “Just at this time,” he lets slip of the events of 1867,
“there seems to be no evidence of demands for moneyfrom the heroine
of the Gambler [italics mine] though she had undoubtedly resumed her
correspondence with the novelist”—a confusion of the actual and the
fictional which is not unique in Dostoevsky criticism.
The sort of misapprehension to which this leads, or which it serves
to perpetuate, is conveniently displayed in C. J. Hogarth’s Introduc
tion to his translation of The Gambler in the popular Everyman series.
“The wretched victim of the gaming craze,” he writes, “moves to his
ruin amid the haunts of the rich and the fashionable or quasi
fashionable. The woman who could have saved him, but does not
(apparently she is too intent upon putting him to the test to be able to
foresee what would happen should he, when tested, be found want
ing), is a curiously indefinite figure. She experiments with her lover,
she eggs him on to gamble, she flouts and derides his affection for
her, she avoids him, she does everything but speak the word in season
which might have arrested his foot on the downward road which he is
treading. Then she betakes herself to the other end of Europe, and
from that safe distance sends him a message when it is too late to
repair what she has permitted to happen. At the close of the story the
-unhappy gambler is seen striving to make a lasrrhotcë~5ëtwëenjhe
-gaming table and the woman whom he hasIong_adored;.and-the
curtain falls upon the enigmatical sentence: ‘Tomorrow all this shall
end!’ ”
According to this view, Dostoevsky’s principal concern is with the
portrayal of that well-worn type of romantic fiction, the femme fatale.
Such, too, is precisely the accredited notion of Suslova, of whom Dos
toevsky himself wrote: “Her egotism and self-love are colossal. She
demands everything from others, and exempts herself from the
Dostoevsky: The Idea o f T h e G a m b ler 113
slightest obligation to others.” If we are to believe E. H. Carr, “It was

she [Suslova] who showed him [Dostoevsky] how intimately hate may
be interwoven with love. She had revealed to him the appetite for
cruelty and the appetite for suffering, the sadistic and the masochistic,
as alternating manifestations of the sexual impulse.” In Suslova’s pub
lished diary there is recorded a comment of Dostoevsky on their rela
tions. He said: “You cannot forgive me for the fact that you once gave
yourself to me, and you are taking your revenge for that: that is a
feminine trait.” And Carr comments: “Such remained Dostoevsky’s
diagnosis of the psychology of his mistress; and in subsequent novels,
beginning with The Gambler, he more than once portrays the woman
who gives a moment of exquisite happiness to her lover and then,
unable to forgive her own weakness, avenges it on him and on her
self.”
And yet there is in reality not the least justification for this naive
identification of characters. Dostoevsky’s creative processes did not
operate in quite that simple manner, and though he certainly drew
upon personal experience for the material of the story and for some of
the traits of his characters, as every novelist is bound to do, behind The
Gambler is no mere scandalous revelation of a personal history but, as
is usual with Dostoevsky’s work, a dominating and shaping imagina
tive idea, to which everything in the action is related.
In the letter to Strakhov already mentioned, Dostoevsky says noth
ing aboutfemmesfatales and the sado-masochistic feelings supposed to
be bound up with the sexual impulse. “My story,” he writes (italics
mine), “will depict a typicalfigure.”
You know of course that last summer there was a great deal of
talk in our journals about the absentee Russian. This will all be
reflected in my story. And the present state of our interior or
ganizations will also (as well as I can do it, of course) be woven
into the narrative. I depict a man of most simple nature, a man
who, while developed in many respects, is yet in every way in
complete, who has lost all faith, yet at the same time does not
dare to be a sceptic, who revolts against all authority and yet at
the same time fears it. He comforts himself with the thought that
in Russia there is nothing that he can do, and therefore con
demns in the harshest manner those who would summon the
absentee Russian back to Russia... . The real idea, though, lies
114 D. S. Savage
in him having wasted all his substance, energies, and talents on

roulette. He is a gambler, but no common gambler, just as the
“miserly knight” of Pushkin is no common miser.. . . He is in his
way a poet, yet he is ashamed of such poetry, for he feels pro
foundly its vulgarity, even though the longing for touch-and-go
ennobles him in his own eyes. The whole story is concerned with
his playing roulette for full three years.. . . The story may be
very good indeed.
This outline will serve authoritatively to correct the distortions of

the usual view; but it fails to indicate the depth of the underlying idea
and the subtlety of its working out which were to appear in the
finished novel.
The basis for the interpretation of Polina as the willful egotist lies
principally in her conversation with Aleksey in the first chapter and the
further conversation of Chapter Five when in response to his incoher
ent and slavish total offer of his life she bids him play a pointless trick
upon a passing German baron and his wife. Aleksey, as tutor, has just
rejoined the General’s household at Roulettenburg, to find Polina, the
General’s stepdaughter, apparently dallying with two rival suitors, De
Grieux, a mannered and insolent Frenchman who is financially in
terested in the General’s affairs, and a decent, quiet English manufac
turer, Mr. Astley. The General’s entourage is awaiting expectantly the
news of the death of his wealthy old aunt when, with the proving of
the will, everything will be settled to everyone’s satisfaction: De
Grieux will receive back the money to obtain which the General has
mortgaged his estates to him; the two children (whose inheritance
their father has dissipated, and whose interests their half-sister Polina
is watching over) will be made once more materially secure, and the
expensive courtesan Mile. Blanche will find it possible to marry the
doting old man. At their first meeting Aleksey cross-questions Polina
as to the situation at large, passing on to speak in a particularly blunt
and open way of her relations with his supposed rivals. She admits
that Mr. Astley who, as Aleksey says, “is shy and given to falling in
love,” is in love with her, but hotly denies that De Grieux has begun to
pay his addresses, although she predicts cynically that he will certainly
do so as soon as he is assured that she has come into something by the
will. Her attitude to De Grieux is throughout that of disenchanted
contempt and aversion. Aleksey advises coarsely:
Dostoevsky: The Idea o f T h e G am b ler 115
“If I were in your place I should certainly marry the En

glishman.”
“Why?” asked Polina.
“The Frenchman is better-looking, but he is nastier; and the
Englishman, besides being honest, is ten times as rich,” I
snapped out.
“Yes, but on the other hand, the Frenchman is a marquis and
clever,” she answered, in the most composed manner.
“But is it true?” I went on, in the same way.
“It certainly is.”
Polina greatly disliked my questions, and I saw that she was
trying to make me angry by her tone and the strangeness of her
answers. I said as much to her at once.
“Well, it really amuses me to see you in such a rage. You must
pay for the very fact of my allowing you to ask such questions
and make such suppositions.”
“I certainly consider myself entitled to ask you any sort of
question,” I answered calmly, “just because I am prepared to pay
any price you like for it, and I set no value at all on my life now.”
Polina laughed.
“You told me last time at the Schlangenberg, that you were
prepared, at a word from me, to throw yourself head foremost
from the rock, and it is a thousand feet high, I believe. Some day
I shall utter that word, solely in order to see how you will pay the
price, and trust me, I won’t give way. You are hateful to me, just
because I’ve allowed you to take such liberties, and even more
hateful because you are so necessary to me. But so long as you
are necessary to me, I must take care of you.”
She began getting up. She spoke with irritation. O f late she
had always ended every conversation with me in anger and irri
tation, real anger. (I)
At their second interview, Aleksey speaks with his usual freedom to
Polina, and to her reproof replies:
“You know that I consider myself at liberty to say anything to
you and sometimes ask you very candid questions. I repeat I’m
your slave and one does not mind what one says to a slave and
cannot take offence at anything he says.”
“And I can’t endure that ‘slave’ theory of yours.”
“Observe that I don’t speak of my slavery because I want to be
your slave. I simply speak of it as a fact which doesn’t depend on
me in the least.” (V)
116 D. S. Savage
The conversation then turns to roulette, and on the reason for Alek
sey’s need of money. He has already declared his conviction that
roulette is his “only escape and salvation.” and he now asserts under
question that his object is “Nothing else but that with money I should
become to you a different man, not a slave.” He then divagates to his
passion for Polina. “Why and how I love you I don’t know. Perhaps
you are not at all nice really, you know. Fancy! I don’t know whether
you are good or not, even to look at. You certainly have not a good
heart: your mind may very well be ignoble.” But to her retort,
“Perhaps that’s how it is you reckon on buying me with money, be
cause you don’t believe in my sense of honor,” he responds with
indignant, though incoherent, protestations.
Those who too readily accept the view of Polina which appears to
be presented in these passages have been misled by Dostoevsky’s de
vice of giving the narration, not to a sympathetic character, as is
customary and expected, nor to a detached observer, but to the villain
of the piece, the ruined man. Not only does this at once purchase the
reader’s unwitting sympathy for him, but it provides an implicit com
ment on the partiality of human judgments by presenting all the facts
necessary for the correct evaluation of the situation, but in such a way
that the reader is obliged to piece them together for himself.
She is fine though; she is: I believe she’s fine. She drives other
men off their heads, too, She’s tall and graceful, only very slen
der. It seems to me you could tie her in a knot or bend her
double. Her foot is long and narrow—tormenting. Tormenting
isjust what it is. Her hair has a reddish tint. Her eyes are regular
cat’s eyes, but how proudly and disdainfully she can look with
them___(VI)
Encountering such a picture of Polina, the temptress, the casual
reader forgets that he is looking at her through the fevered mind of
Aleksey, and that to others in the book—to the old Aunt or to the
quiet Englishman—her qualities make a wholly different impression.
What, then, is the secret of the curious relationship which exists
between the two? “Polina was always an enigma to me,” ponders Alek
sey in the eighth chapter, “such an enigma that now for instance . . . I
was suddenly struck while I was speaking by the fact that there was
scarcely anything positive and definite I could say about our relations.
Everything was, on the contrary, strange, unstable, and, in fact, quite
unique.” Just before the crisis of their relationship, when the Gener
al’s hopes of an inheritance have been demolished and Polina receives
the insulting letter from the retreating De Grieüx who is off to ar
range for the sale of the General’s mortgaged estates, Aleksey reflects
for the first time on the beginnings of this unique and unstable state
of affairs.
Even if she did not care for me in the least, she should not, I
thought, have trampled on my feelings like that and have re
ceived my declarations so contemptuously. She knew that I
really loved her: she admitted me, she allowed me to speak like
that! It is true that it had begun rather strangely. Some time
before, long ago, in fact, two months before, I began to notice
that she wanted to make me her friend, her confidant, and in
deed was in a way testing me. But somehow this did not come off
then; instead of that there remained the strange relations that
existed between us; that is how it was I began to speak to her like
that. But if my love repelled her, why did she not directly forbid
me to speak of it? (XIII)
In the midst of the general crisis Aleksey pens a note to Polina,
asking her whether she needs his life or not, whether he can be of use
“in any way whatever," and begging her to dispose of him as she thinks
fit. Polina comes to his bedroom, shows him De Grieux’s letter, and
asks for counsel in the matter of the General’s IOU for fifty thousand
francs which the Frenchman has insolently returned as an insurance
against what he fears may be Polina’s sentimental claims upon him. In
his excitement he bids her to wait for him while he rushes to the
Casino; there he gambles frantically for some hours, wins an incredi
ble sum, and returns to pile the money on the table before an over
wrought and hysterical Polina.
At last she ceased laughing and frowned; she looked at me
sternly from under her brows.
“I won’t take your money,” she declared contemptuously.
“How? What’s this?” I cried, “Polina, why?”
“I won’t take money for nothing.”
“I offer it you as a friend; I offer you my life."
She looked at me with a long, penetrating look, as though she
would pierce me through with it.
“You give too much,” she said with a laugh; “De Grieux’s
mistress is not worth fifty thousand francs.”
118 D. S. Savage
“Polina, how can you talk to me like that!” I cried, reproach

fully. “Am I a De Grieux?”
“I hate you! Yes. . . yes!. . . I love you no more than De
Grieux,” she cried, her eyes suddenly flashing.
Then she suddenly covered her face with her hands and went
into hysterics. I rushed to her.
I realized that something had happened to her while I was
away. She seemed quite out of her mind.
“Buy me! Do you want to? Do you want to? For fifty thousand
francs, like De Grieux?” broke from her with convulsive sobs.
(XV)
Polina spends the night with him, alternating in her delirium be
tween anxiety mixed with distrust and passionate tenderness for
Aleksey. Waking in the morning, however, she demands with hatred
and anger her fifty thousand francs, swings the money hard against
his face and runs from the room. Following, Aleksey is unable to find
her, but meeting Mr. Asdey he learns from him that Polina is in his
care; that she is ill, and more over, that if she dies, he will answer to
the Englishman for her death. He then bids the gambler to run off to
Paris with his winnings, as “all Russians who have money go to Paris”;
and, in fact, Aleksey is immediately afterwards ensnared by Mile.
Blanche (who is present throughout as a counterpoise to Polina), and
taken off by her to Paris, where she quickly squanders his fortune and
sets him on the downward spiral of his career as an inveterate gambler
and lost soul.
It is not, however, until the final chapter that the true character of
Polina’s feelings for Aleksey are openly stated—two years, that is,
after the main events of the story, when the ruined Aleksey meets Mr.
Astley near the Casino at Homburg and, discussing those events with
him, expatiates upon the attraction of Frenchmen for young Russian
women, hinting that, with such as De Grieux for rival, neither he nor
Mr. Astley “have made any way at all.” The loyal Englishman is pro
voked to indignant speech.
“That’s disgusting nonsense . . . because . . . because . . . let

me tell you!” Mr. Astley, with flashing eyes, pronounced in a
quivering voice, “let me tell you, you ungrateful, unworthy, shal
low and unhappy man, that I am come to Homburg expressly at
her wish, to see you, to have a long and open conversation with
you and to tell her everything—what you are feeling, thinking,
hoping, . .. what you remember!”
“Is it possible? Is it possible?” I cried, and tears rushed in
streams from my eyes.
I could not restrain them. I believe it was the first time it
happened in my life.
“Yes, unhappy man, she loved you, and I can tell you that,
because you are—a lost man! What is more, if I were to tell you
that she loves you to this day—you would stay here just the same!
Yes, you have destroyed yourself. You had some abilities, a lively
disposition, and were not a bad fellow; you might have even
been of service to your country, which is in such need of men,
but—you will remain here, and your life is over. I don’t blame
you. To my mind all Russians are like that, or disposed to be like
that. If it is not roulette it is something similar. The exceptions
are very rare. You are not the first who does not understand the
meaning of work (I am not talking of your peasantry). Roulette
is a game pre-eminendy for the Russians.” (XVII)
But in reality Polina’s true feelings for Aleksey are evident in all her
actions. All that is “unaccountable” in her behavior can be accounted
for in the light of her love for him as it meets and wrestles with his
total lack of love for her—or for anyone.
“I depict a man . . . who has lost all faith, yet at the same time does
not dare to be a sceptic, who revolts against all authority and yet at the
same time fears it.. . . The real idea, though, lies in his having wasted
all his substance, energies, and talents on roulette,” Whatever roulette
means to Aleksey, it is closely related to his feelings for Polina.
Roulette will decide his whole life. “I knew for certain," he writes
concerning his first entry into the Casino, “and had made up my mind
long before, that I should not leave Roulettenburg unchanged, that
some radical and fundamental change would take place in my destiny;
so it must be and so it would be. Ridiculous as it may be that I should
expect so much for myself from roulette, yet I consider even more
ridiculous the conventional opinion accepted by all that it is stupid
and absurd to expect anything from gambling.”
On his initial visit the scene strikes him as “so dirty, somehow,
morally horrid and dirty”; but he adds, “I notice one thing; that of
late it has become horribly repugnant to me to test my thoughts and
120 D. S. Savage
actions by any m o ral stan d ard w hatever. I was gu id ed by som ething

d iffe re n t.”
T h a t “so m eth in g d iffe re n t” is a n a b a n d o n m e n t to F ate, o r to
C hance. Im plicit in Dostoevsky’s tre a tm e n t fro m the b eg in n in g is the
idea th a t to th e m an who, having lost God, is in process o f losing
him self, free a n d responsible choice has been obviated, so th a t he is
left facing a universe which is subject dow n to th e m in u test details to
an irreversible determ inistic law. T o this law, o r Fate, w hich is by
d efin itio n m echanistically ratio n al a n d calculable, n o th in g can be o p
posed except blind, irrational C hance. F or such a one, th e fascination
o f the gam ing table is th a t o f the altern atio n o f the calculable with the
incalculable. W atching th e sp in n in g ro u lette w heel the gam bler is, as
it were, a t th e m etaphysical source o f being, a n d w hat h e sees in fro n t
o f h im is n o th in g o th e r th a n a sym bolic m o d e l o f th e cosm ic
m echanism . T h e seduction w hich draw s his soul is th a t o f an ultim ate
irratio n al a n d groundless freed o m which, containing equally w ithin
itself every possibility, is devoid o f th e pow er to actualize any o f these
possibilities a n d can give b irth only to an ineluctable necessity.
It seem ed to m e th a t calculation m ean t very little, a n d h ad by no

m eans th e im p ortance a ttrib u ted to it by som e players. T hey sit
w ith p ap e rs b efo re th em scraw led o v er in pencil, n o te th e
strokes, re ck o n , d e d u c e th e chances, calculate, finally stake
a n d —lose exactly as we sim ple m ortals who play w ithout calcula
tions. O n th e o th e r h a n d . . . th o u g h th e re is no system , th e re
really is a so rt o f o rd e r in th e sequence o f casual chances—an d
that, o f course, is very strange. . . .
As fo r m e, I lost every fa rth in g very quickly. I staked straight
o ff tw enty friedrichs d ’o r on even a n d won, staked again a n d
again w on, a n d w ent on like th a t two o r th re e times. I im agine I
m ust have h ad ab o u t fo u r h u n d re d friedrichs d ’o r in my h an d s
in ab o u t five m inutes. A t th a t p o in t I o u g h t to have gone away,
b u t a strange sensation rose u p in me, a sort o f defiance o f fa te , a desire
to challenge it, to p u t out my tongue a t it. I laid dow n the largest stake
allowed—fo u r th o u san d gu ld en — a n d lost it. T h e n , g ettin g hot,
I p ulled o u t all I h ad left, staked it on th e sam e n u m b er, a n d lost
again, a fte r w hich I w alked away from the table as th o u g h I w ere
stu n n ed . I could n o t even grasp w hat h ad h a p p e n e d to m e. (IV)
f" O n th e occasion w hen he rushes m adly to th e Casino to win th e fifty

I th o u san d francs n ee d ed by Polina to re tu rn to De G rieux, th e notion
o f w in n in g a p p e a rs to him as “so m eth in g fa te d , inevitable, p re

d estined— as so m ething b o u n d to be a n d b o u n d to h a p p e n . . . n o t
as a chance am o n g o th ers w hich m ig h t o r m ight no t com e to pass, b u t
as som eth in g w hich was absolutely b o u n d to h a p p e n .” All the sam e,
to w ard th e e n d o f his v enture, w hen h e has already w on fa r m ore
th a n th e requisite sum , h e is driven by “strange perversity” to stake on
th e color, re d , w hich h ad already tu rn e d u p seven tim es ru n n in g . “I
w anted to im press th e spectators by taking a m ad risk, a n d —oh, the
stran g e sensation— I re m e m b er distinctly that, quite a p a rt from the
p ro m p tin g s o f vanity, I was possessed by an intense craving fo r risk.
P erh ap s passing th ro u g h so m any sensations my soul was n o t satisfied
b u t only irrita te d by th e m a n d craved still m ore sensation— a n d
stro n g er a n d stro n g e r ones— till utterly ex h au sted .”
Ostensibly his aim in gam bling is to am ass m oney w ith which he
proposes to win Polina’s respect. B u t in ru n n in g o ff to win the fifty
th o u san d francs, h e is d riv en afterw ards to adm it, “m y love had re
trea ted , so to speak, into th e b ac k g ro u n d .” H aving w on a fo rtu n e, he
finds it useless, a n d ab a n d o n in g Polina to M r. Astley h e exchanges
h e r quite fittingly fo r th e w om an w ho can be b o u g h t a n d listlessly
allows h e r to throw it away.
It is Fate (as despair) a n d C hance (expressed as th e irrational)
w hich g overn his life no t only w ithin b u t outside the Casino precincts.
E n sn ared by th e lascivious a n d avaricious Mile. B lanche, he reflects,
“I f it’s to be Paris, let it b e Paris, it seem s it was fated at my b irth ,”
alth o u g h th e fate is m erely a projection o f his in n e r d esp air a n d with
an in n e r change, a com ing to him self, Polina w ould at once be his.
A nd his “m a d ” ex p loit w ith th e B aro n is n o th in g m ore th a n the in ter
jectio n o f th e u n g ro u n d e d irrationality o f p u re possibility into the ra
tional o rd e r o f daily life. “I can’t m ake u p my m ind w hat h ap p e n ed to
m e, w h eth er I really was in a state o f frenzy, o r w h e th e r it was a
m o m en tary ab e rra tio n a n d I behaved disgracefully till I was pulled
up. A t tim es it seem ed to m e th a t m y m ind was giving way. A nd at
tim es it seem s to m e th a t I have n o t o u tg ro w n ch ild h o o d a n d
s c h o o lb o y ish n e ss, a n d t h a t it was sim p ly a c r u d e sc h o o lb o y ’s
p ran k . . . . She h ad told m e to take o ff my hat, b u t I had bowed and
b ehaved like an im p u d e n t schoolboy on my own account. G oodness
knows w hat im pelled m e to! I f e l t as though I were p lu n g in g into space.”
"Gam blers know w hat it is to “p lu n g e”; to gam ble is, indeed, “to
p lu n g e.” T h e sensation o f p lu n g in g is th a t o f vertigo. W hen Aleksey,
122 D. S. Savage
beg in n in g to gam ble on th e n ig h t o f the crisis, loses two th o u san d

florins a n d th e n a fu rth e r eighty friedrichs d ’or: is seized w ith fury
a n d blindly stakes his rem ain in g two h u n d re d florins, “hap h azard , at
ra n d o m , w ithout th in k in g ,” th ere is “an instant o f suspense like,
p erh ap s, th e feeling experienced by M adam e B lanchard w hen she
flew fro m a balloon in Paris to th e e a rth .” Clearly it is avidness fo r this
vertiginous sensation—a sensation o f nothingness—w hich im pels him
to his o ffer on th e S chlangenberg: it is the identical sensation o f
p lu n g in g into space which overcom es him w hen h e walks fo rw ard to th e
u n g ro u n d e d irratio nality o f his g ra tu ito u s a f fro n t to th e B aron.
T u rn e d on itself, this sensationalism is suicidal: tu rn e d on an o th e r it is
m u rd ero u s. “Do you know th a t I shall kill you one day?” Aleksey
asks th e w rath fu l Polina. “I shall kill you n o t because I shall cease to
love you o r be jealo us, I shall sim ply kill you because I have a n im
pulse to d ev o u r you.”
“Do you know, too, th a t it is d an g ero u s fo r us to walk together? I
o ften have an irresistible longing to beat you, to disfigure you, to
strangle you. A nd w hat d o you think—w on’t it com e to that? Y ou
are driv in g m e into b ra in fever. Do you suppose I am afraid o f a
scandal? Y our an g er—why, w hat is your an g e r to m e? I love you
w ithout hope, a n d I know th a t a fte r this I shall love you a
th o u san d tim es m ore th a n ever. I f ever I do kill you I shall have
to kill myself, too. O h, well, I shall p u t o ff killing m yself as long
as possible, so as to go on feeling this insufferable pain o f being
w ith o u t you. Do you know som ething incredible? I love you
m o re every day, an d yet th at is alm ost im possible. A n d how can I
help being a fatalist? . . . ” (V)
Dostoevsky’s psychological insight h e re has n o th in g to d o with th e
cru d e notion o f “th e ap p etite fo r cruelty an d th e appetite fo r su ffe r
ing, th e sadistic a n d the m asochistic, as altern atin g m anifestations o f
th e sexual im pulse.” H e perceives clearly th a t th e “sexual im pulse”
can n o t be considered as a force in itself, th a t it is related to the p ri
m ary spiritual condition o f th e participants in th e sexual relationship,
which is th u s n o t physically b u t m etaphysically d eterm in ed . W hen a
limitless egotism , acknow ledging no authority a n d th e re fo re d eprived
o f m ean in g a n d value, is b ro u g h t into an erotic relationship, th e re
resu lt the convulsive lacerations described by Dostoevsky— th e w rith-
ings o f th e d is in te g ra tin g self in the th ro es o f the know ledge o f its
own nothingness.
“I set no value a t all on my life now,” says Aleksey to Polina in th eir

first discussion, a n d yet it is this valueless life w hich h e is o fferin g her.
T h e o ffe r is itself a n insult, a n d the insult is doubled by th e con
seq u en t inability o f a life w hich sets no value o n itself to a ttrib u te value
to an o th e r—it is because Aleksey despises his own being th a t he d e
spises Polina a n d does in fact suppose, as she accuses, th a t he can buy
h er, o r h e r respect, w ith m o n ey .lln the relationship as d eterm in ed by
Aleksey they m eet, n o t as persons! b u t as u n b o u n d e d egos capable o f
n o th in g betw een total dom ination a n d absorption o f the oth er, o r
total a n d suicidal subm ission. P olina’s “u n acco u n tab le” behavior,
th en , p erfecdy expresses th e dilem m a in w hich she finds h erself
placed, a n d is th e only alternative to com plete severance o f relations
o r to com plicity in m u tu al destruction. I t results, th a t is, from h er
striving tow ard a relationship o f love which is conceivable only w hen
each p arty ceases to be an ego an d becom es a personality in an inw ard
relation to th e au th o rity o f tru th (th ro u g h faith in God).
T h e question o f authority is im plicit in th e conversation concerning
A leksey’s o ffe r to throw h im self fro m th e S ch lan g en b erg a t h er
b id d in g —th e su p posed m easu re o f his limitless devotion. B u t w hat is
she to do w ith this u n b o u n d e d pow er over him which he wishes to
th ru s t into h e r unw illing h ands, how is she to b e a r the b u rd e n o f this
absolute, unco n d itio nal authority over th e life o f another?
“W hat use w ould it be fo r m e to o rd e r you to jum p o ff the

S chlangenberg?” she said in a d ry an d peculiarly insulting m an
n er. “It w ould be absolutely useless to m e.”
“S p len d id ,” I cried; “you said th a t splendid ‘useless’ on p u r
pose to overw helm m e. I see th ro u g h you. Useless, you say? B ut
pleasu re is always o f use, a n d savage, u n b o u n d ed pow er—if only
o v er a fly—is a pleasure in its way, too. M an is a despot by
n a tu re , an d loves to be a to rtu re r. You like it awfully.” (V)
T h e au th o rity w ith w hich h e wishes to overw helm Polina—the

total, despotic pow er w hich can resu lt only in th e personal extinction
o f its object (an extinction in which th e subject too is involved) is the
au th o rity w hich h e refuses to invest in G od. Polina m ust becom e G od
in relation to him o r h e m u st becom e G od in relation to Polina—an d
G od is th e fatal d em iu rg e o f the cosmic Necessity. T h a t th e question
o f au th o rity can be posed in a n o th e r way, th at o f an inw ard relation to
tru th , w hich at once brings into o p eratio n th e obligation o f personal
124 D. S. Savage
decision a n d m oral choice a n d thus th e realization, o u t o f th e abyss o f

freed o m , o f one possibility ra th e r th a n an o th e r—this does n o t e n te r
his m ind. A nd yet it is only such inw ard polarity a n d obedience w hich
can tran sfo rm him from an u n b o u n d ed , ravenous, a n d chaotic ego to
a b o u n d e d personality, a n d m ake possible a relationship o f love in
w hich th e ty ran n y o f subject over object is rep laced by th e m utual
in tercourse o f subject with subject. In asking him , instead o f the sac
rifice o f his life, “such p ranks as th e o n e with th e B aro n ,” a substitu
tion which arouses such fu ry in Aleksey, Polina is attem p tin g to divert
th e im pulse o f absolute destru ctio n to a relatively harm less course.
B u t she does n o t succeed in establishing relations w ith th e n o th in g
ness which is Aleksey; instead, she is m ad e seriously ill. A nd yet even
a fte r two years, w ithdraw n, at a distance, she is w aiting in th e hope
th a t he m ay reg ain him self a n d com e to h e r o f his own volition.
T h e m a n n e r o f his p re sen tatio n effectually disguises the in n e r
likeness o f Aleksey to th e h ero o f N otes fr o m U nderground w ritten b u t
th re e years previously. T h e U n d e rg ro u n d M an, too, is obsessed with
th e ty ran n y o f a universal ratio n al determ inism w hich m ay be o p
posed only by a gratuitous assertion o f the irrational, the absurd; h e
too, unable to act— (“W here are th e p rim ary causes on w hich I am to
b u ild ? W h e re a r e m y fo u n d a tio n s ? W h e re am I to g e t th e m
from ?”)—ro ts away in idleness. H e also conceives love as dom ination,
a n d his relations with the prostitute, Liza, are closely akin to those o f
Aleksey w ith Polina. T h e U n d e rg ro u n d M an confesses;
. . . it m ay be ad d e d th a t it was stran g e I should n o t love h er, o r
at any rate, ap preciate h e r love. W hy is it strange? In th e first
place, by th e n I was incapable o f love, for, I re p eat, w ith m e
loving m ean t tyrannizing a n d show ing my m oral superiority. I
have n ever in my life b een able to im agine any o th e r so rt o f love,
a n d have now adays com e to the p o in t o f som etim es thin k in g th a t
love really consists in th e rig h t— freely given by th e beloved
object—to tyrannize over h er. Even in m y u n d e rg ro u n d dream s
I did n o t im agine love except as a struggle. I began it always with
h a tre d a n d en d e d it w ith m oral subjugation, a n d afterw ards I
n ev er knew w hat to do w ith th e subjugated object. A nd w hat is
th e re to w o n d er at in th at, since I h ad succeeded in so c o rru p t
in g myself, since I was so o u t o f touch w ith ‘real life’, as to have
actually th o u g h t o f re p ro a c h in g her, a n d p u ttin g h e r to sham e
fo r having com e to m e to h e a r ‘fine sentim ents’; a n d did n o t
Dostoevsky: The Idea o f T h e G a m b ler 125
even guess th a t she h ad com e n o t to h e a r fine sentim ents, b u t to

love m e, because to a w om an all re fo rm atio n —all salvation from
any .sort o f ru in , a n d all m oral renew al— is included in love a n d
can only show itself in th a t form . (II, 10)
T h e m etaphysical im potence o f Aleksey w hich afflicts him by re a
son o f his unbelief, thus points backw ard to the U n d e rg ro u n d M an.
M ore, it points fo rw ard to th e condition o f Stavrogin in T he D evils.
T h e incid en t o f Stavrogin’s biting th e G ov ern o r’s e a r in the early
ch ap ters o f th a t novel is a re d u p licatio n o f Aleksey’s unm otivated
insult to th e B aron, a n d its disconcerting effect is th e sam e. In Stavrogin
Dostoevsky was to explore th e in terio r dialectic to u n b elief to the last
limit; b u t th e conclusion, “fro m m e n o th in g has com e b u t nega
tion . . . every th in g has always b een petty a n d spiritless . . .” is antici
p ated in th e sm aller, m ean er, “in every way incom plete” figure o f the
lost h ero o f T he G am bler, th a t “m ost d ec en t litde novel” o f 1866.
The Gaps in Christology:
The Idiot
by Michael Holquist
Crime a n d P u n ish m en t ends with th e w ords: “B u t th a t is th e b e

g in n in g o f a new story, the story o f th e grad u al renew al o f a m an . . .
o f his slow progress from one w orld to an o th er, o f how he learn ed to
know h ith erto u n d re a m t o f reality. All th a t m ight be th e subject o f a
new story, b u t o u r p re sen t story has com e to a n e n d .” Now it is well
known th a t Dostoevsky’s n ex t novel, T he Id io t, was to revolve a ro u n d a
genuinely good,” a “truly beau tifu l” m an. T h e m ain ch aracter was to
be a n exem plary C hristian: indeed, som ething like a C hrist Figure.1
B u t M yshkin’s story is n o t th a t new tale about a tran sfig u red Raskol
nikov alluded to in th e conclusion o f Crime a n d P u n ish m en t. T h a t
novel’s d o m in an t m o tif is th e Lazarus story, w ith its em phasis on
reb irth , rising fro m the dead, w hereas the cen tral m etap h o rs o f T he
Id io t are execution a n d apocalypse, n o t a su d d en beg in n in g o f life b u t
ra th e r its too a b ru p t end.
T h e narrativ e stru ctu re o f Crime a n d P u n ish m en t derives from Dos
toevsky’s variations o n a n d fusion o f two pre-existing plot types, th e
detective story a n d the wisdom tale, each p resu p p o sin g its distinctive
tem porality: w hat we have called horizontal tim e in th e first case, a n d
vertical in th e second. M uch o f the novel’s m ean in g derives fro m its
co n trast betw een th e linear, m erely h u m an , cause-and-effect tim e fo r
which th e detective story is a stru ctu ral m etap h o r, o n th e one han d ,
a n d the m ysterious stasis o f a tran sc en d en t w orld, o n th e o th er, fo r
“The Gaps in Christology: The Idiot” by Michael Holquist. From Dostoevsky

and the Novel. Copyright © 1977 by Princeton University Press, Princeton,
N.J. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
'For Dostoevsky’s own account of his intention to depict “a wholly beauti
ful individual,” see his letters to Maikov (January 12, 1868) and S. A. Ivanova
(January 13, 1868).
126
The Gaps in Christology: T h e Id io t 127
w hich th e wisdom tale stands in as narrativ e m ark er. T h e resolution

in th e epilogue is dram atized as a m ovem ent betw een th e two kinds o f
tim e. Raskolnikov’s conversion experience is bodied fo rth as an ab
r u p t shift to a n o th e r narrativ e strategy, th e significance o f which is to
recap itu late th e d ra m a o f C hristian red em p tio n . T h e im plication is
th a t from now o n fo r Raskolnikov th e re will be a balance betw een the
two tem poralities as he re fers each m o m en t o f the rest o f the linear
progress th a t will be his life back to th a t one second o f epiphany
w hose m ean in g will n o t change, th a t will in su re his fu tu re against
m ere flux.
It is ju s t such a m o m en t th a t all th e characters in T he Id io t will seek,
b u t th at n o n e o f th em will succeed in finding. C hristian redem ptive
history in Crim e a n d P u n ish m en t is used optimistically: the fusion o f
divine a n d h u m an tim e is w hat Dostoevsky featu res in Crime a n d
P u n ish m en t. H ow ever, the split betw een these two tim es constitutes the
ce n te r o f his n ex t novel: in d eed in all the re st o f his novels H eils-
geschichte is tre a te d less as a prom ise th a n as a paradox.
In c o n tra s t to C rim e a n d P u n is h m e n t, th e lo w er la y e r in th e
palim psest o f T he Id io t's narrativ e stru ctu re is a single preexisting plot
type. B u t it is one th a t contains in itself b o th tem poralities p resen t in
th e earlier novel. T h e plot o f T h e Id io t is a series o f n arrative tu rn s on
th e stru ctu re o f C hrist’s execution a n d its relation to tim e before a n d
a fte r his d e a th on th e cross. Several executions are described in the
novel, a n d th e relationship o f this symbol cluster to the crucifixion is
m ade clear in th e key role played by th e y o u n g er H olbein’s painting
o f C h rist’s corpse (1 521).2 T h e execution aspect o f C hrist’s d ea th is
em phasized in reactions to th e painting: “Som e people m ay lose th eir
faith looking a t th a t picture,” R ogozhin says (II, 4), because it shows a
body so b roken, so d ead, th a t no resu rrectio n seem s possible from it.
Ippolit, h im self u n d e r sentence o f p re m a tu re d ea th fro m tu b e r
culosis, will say o f H olbein (III, 4), “H e re o n e cannot help being
stru ck w ith th e id ea th a t if d e a th is so horrible a n d if the laws o f
2Dostoevsky had seen the painting in the Basle Museum in 1867, at the
time he was feverishly attempting to get a conceptual grip on his new novel.
His wife describes his excitement when first he caught sight of it, standing on
a chair better to see it even though he could ill afford the fine that Anna
Grigorievna was sure such a rash act would result in. See Dnevnik A. G.
Dostoevskoi: 1867 goda (Moskva, Novaia Moskva, 1923), p. 366.
128 Michael Holquist
n a tu re a re so pow erful, th e n how can they b e overcom e? How can

they be overcom e w hen even H e did n o t c o n q u e r them . . . ?”
It is fo r this reaso n th a t executions figure so p rom inently in T he
Id io t. In each o f th e fo u r books th a t constitute th e novel a strategic
place is assigned to descriptions o r discussions o f p re o rd a in e d death:
L egros’ d e a th by guillotine in Lyons (I, 2; I, 5); a firin g squad execu
tion, h alted at th e last m o m en t (I, 5); D u b arry ’s b eh e ad in g (II, 2);
speculation on th e irony o f execution as p u n ish m en t fo r Ippolit, w ere
he to com m it m u rd e r since he is soon to die o f his disease anyway (III,
5; H I, 6); referen ces to th e fo u rte e n -h o u r agony o f the noblem an
Glebov, co n d em n ed by P eter I to im palem ent on a stake in R ed
S quare (IV ,-5); a n d to th e decapitation o f Sir T h o m as M ore (IV, 6).
T h e possibility th at C hrist’s m o m en t o f execution was final, th at it did
n o t resu lt in resu rrectio n a n d thus did n o t in su re th e sequence o f
im itatio Christi fo r o th e r m en— as it seem ed to d o fo r Raskolnikov, fo r
instance—is th e p rim ary m etaphysical dilem m a o f T he Id io t.
It is also th e m ajo r stru ctu ral m e ta p h o r fo r th e failure o f M yshkin’s
so jo u rn in Russia, th a t sp ark o f lucidity which in te rru p ts his long
years o f d arkness in th e Swiss asylum , the b rie f six m o n th s whose
events m ake u p th e novel’s m ajo r plot. A n in sp ired m o m en t th a t
subsequendy fails to change anything, th a t fails to u sh e r in an ex
p ected new o rd e r, is n o t only th e d o m in an t p a tte rn o f M yshkin’s
career, b u t o f th e o th e r m ajor characters’ lives as well: G anya’s at
te m p te d e n g a g e m e n t to N astasya F ilipovna; Ip p o lit’s a tte m p te d
suicide; N astasya Filipovna’s several attem pts to b reak with h e r past;
A glaya’s attem p t to m arry th e P rince, h e r conversion to Catholicism ,
etc.
T h u s th e significance o f the C hrist story in T h e Id io t goes beyond
m ere characterological parallels betw een th e saindy progress o f Jesu s
a n d M yshkin, parallels that, in any case, have been re m a rk ed o ften
e n o u g h .3 F ar m o re im p o rta n t are th e differences betw een M yshkin
an d C hrist, th e way Dostoevsky exploits th e ro o t contradictions o f
C hristian h isto rio g raphy as symbols fo r basic conflicts in th e lives o f
his characters. A C h rist whose ap p earan ce d id n o t u n seat th e realities
th a t h ad previously sh ap ed history is invoked as a m e ta p h o r fo r the
3For a reading that takes this approach to an illuminating extreme, see:
Romano Guardini, “Dostoevsky’s Idiot: A Symbol of Christ,” tr. Francis X.
Quinn, Cross Currents, VI (Fall, 1956), pp. 359-82.
sam eness o f lives lived o n th e o th e r side o f epiphanies th a t failed to

change them . J u s t as blood a n d avarice, pow erlust a n d violence, ru led
h u m an history b efo re C hrist, so d o they a p p e a r to do so a fter his
com ing, a n d it is th e possibility o f this failure th at is the highest ex
pression o f all those o th e r ep iphanies—those given an d those sought
fo r—in th e novel th a t in th e e n d leave th e b ru te seriality o f events
u n in te rru p te d .
It is n o t particularly su rp risin g th a t Dostoevsky should tu rn to
C hristology. B u t the p articu lar way in w hich he deploys it in T he Id io t
needs fu rth e r clarification. In his ideologically ch arg ed jo u rn alism he
ex ten d s C hristian salvation history to in terp retatio n s o f particu lar
n in eteen th -cen tu ry political events. H e simply assum es th at the possi
bility fo r th e fu tu re re d e m p tio n o f the w orld coincides w ith a political
b o u n d ary , a n d th e n goes o n to use this d octrine as ajingoistic defense
o f T sarist foreign policy. T h a t is, he m akes a d irect parallel betw een
two abstractions: th e m essiah a n d Russia. B ut in th e fiction—an d we
shall have m o re to say o n this— he relates th e experience o f C hrist to
th e lives o f individuals, a n d th e novels’ necessary em phasis on con
creteness, detail, idiosyncrasy m ake such u n m ed iated analogies im
possible. T h e resu lt, in th e novels, is a radical analysis o f H eilsge-
schichte : n o t salvation in th e fu tu re , b u t as the conceptual fram ew ork
fo r how tim e itself works in C hristian attitudes tow ard history. T h e
p arad o x th a t P rince M yshkin— Dostoevsky’s C hrist figure— is an idiot
is b e tte r u n d ersto o d if we re m e m b e r th a t C hrist’s in terlu d e on e a rth is
also, in C hristian h istoriography, a paradox.
Since C hrist’s com ing did n o t u sh e r in the m illennium fo r all m en,
n o m a tte r w hat it d id fo r th e in n e r lives o f in d iv id u a l m en, his m es
sianic p ro p h ecy created problem s in th e years a fte r his d ea th th at
co n tin u e to p lag u e believers a n d nonbelievers alike. A m ong others,
co n sid er th e claim C hristians m ake “fo r a Galilean p ro p h e t’s activity,
e n d in g with execution u n d e r a R om an g o v ern o r who ru led J u d a e a
u n d e r T ib eriu s, [a claim that] contradicts the m o d e rn historian’s p rin
ciple o f historical w riting.”4 T h e historian conceives tim e as linear,
using b .c . a n d a .d . as m ere conventions fo r d atin g all events, w ithout
assum ing (or at least w ithout in stru m en tin g in his work) the unique-
4Oscar Cullman, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception o f Time
and History, tr. Floyd V. Filson (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, MCML), p.
20.
ness o f th e In carn atio n : w hereas fo r believers, th a t event effected a

qualitative change a t a given m o m en t in history in th e n a tu re o f time
itself, so th a t things a fte r it could n ev er be th e sam e again.
As th e late F ren ch theologian J e a n D anielou, S.J., explains it: “T h e
opposition is fu n d a m e n tal betw een th e [historians’ linear] conception
a n d th e C hristian belief in a unique, irrevocable value belonging to
th e historical In carn ation. In th e E pistle to the H ebrew s, C hrist is said to
have e n te re d ‘once’ . . . into th e holy place, th a t is, w hen h e ascended
into G od’s heaven: som ething was th e re irrevocably gained. N othing
can ever again divide h u m an n a tu re fro m the Divinity; th ere is no
possibility o f a relapse; m an k in d is essentially s a v e d .. . . T h e w ords
‘past’ a n d ‘p re sen t’ have h e re th e ir full m eaning.”5
A basic peculiarity o f th e C hristian attitu d e tow ard tim e, th en , is
th a t in it, “th e ce n te r o f in terest is n eith er at th e beginning, as it was
fo r th e G reeks, n o r at th e e n d as it is in evolutionary theories, b u t in
th e m id d le.”6 C hrist is conceived as an eru p tio n o f etern al o rd e r into
th e tem p o ral sequence. T h e m om entary sim ultaneity o f these two
strata o f time, w hich C hrist m ade possible, resu lted in a c u to ff b e
tw een th e “h orizontal” segm ents o f tim e we designate B.c. a n d a .d .
C onsequendy, C hristian th in k ers very early o n had to m eet the objec
tio n th a t while C h rist’s com ing m ay have altered th e state o f m an
k in d ’s spiritual life, no change was a p p a re n t in th e historical w orld.7 It
is this seem ingly contradictory aspect o f C hristology th a t occupies
Dostoevsky in T he Id io t, w here it is tre a te d as th e dilem m a o f unique
persons, a problem sustained at th e level o f individual psychology
5The Lord o f History: Reflections on the Inner M eaning o f History, tr. Nigel
Abercrombie (Cleveland and New York, Meriden Books, 1968), p. 2. See as
well: R. M. Grant, The Earliest Lives o f Jesus (London, S.P.L.K., 1961), pp.
80-106.
6Danie1ou, The Lord o f History . . . , p. 7.
7It was to counter questions of this sort—questions that were exacerbated
by Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410—that Augustine systematized Christian
historical doctrine in The City o f God. He did not deny the apparent cutoff
between Christ’s coming and historical effect. Indeed, he made it the basis of
his argument: the cutoff was there because of an even more essential division
between Civitas Dei and Civitas Terena. For a treatment of Augustine that fo
cuses on the meaning of this split for later historiography see: Erich Kahler,
The M eaning o f History (New York, George Braziller, 1964). See also Theodore
E. Mommsen, “St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,” The Journal
o f the History o f Ideas, XII Ju n e 1951), 346-74.
The Gaps in Christology: T h e I d io t 131
ra th e r th a n o f system atic theology. T h a t is, h e re-enacts th e life-

d eath -an d -tra n sfig u ratio n o f C hrist, as i f C hrist were not the messiah, but
as i f he were a n in d iv id u a l. W h at in th e Bible is a series o f acts in te r
p re te d according to th eir exterior, universal m eaning, is re h earse d by
Dostoevsky as th e actions o f p ard cu lar m en, w hose m eaning is in n er,
particular.
In its th ru s t against generalization T he Id io t m ost clearly defines

itself as a novel. T h e pow er o f the C hrist story is in its prom ise n o t ju s t
to one m an, to m e, b u t to all m en; th e em phasis m ay be o n individual
salvation, b u t th e m eans o f re d em p tio n have b een system atized. In its
g eneralizing ten d en cy th e C hrist story is m ythic an d th e re fo re stands
a t th e opposite pole to th e novel, w hich is g ro u n d e d in the specific, the
particu lar. T h is is w hat Lévi-Strauss m eans w hen he says o f m yth th a t
it “is th e m ost fu n d a m e n tal fo rm o f inauthenticity,” w here a u th en ti
city is u n d ersto o d “as th e concrete n a tu re o f th e know ledge people
have o f each o t h e r . . . co n trary to w hat m ig h t seem to be the case
th e re is n o th in g m o re abstract th a n m yths.”8*T h e novel, on th e o th e r
h an d , is p reem in en tly anti-system atic. Its discourse m ore th a n any
o th e r is o p en to contingency, th e p articu lar a n d unique.
Lukacs has d efin ed “the in n e r fo rm o f the novel” as “the process o f
[a] problem atic individual’s jo u rn e y in g tow ard him self,”8 as a genre in
which individuality is u n d ersto o d as th e action o f one “who m ust
create an e n tire w orld th ro u g h his experience,”10 o u t o f him self,
since he exists in a w orld w here n o th in g is given by an ex terio r system.
If, in T he Id io t, th e C hrist story is p re sen t less as a characterological
parallel fo r M yshkin th a n as a key to a n im p o rta n t aspect o f the
novel’s in n e r stru ctu re (in this case, th e p a tte rn o f failed epiphanies
th a t characterizes th e whole), the sam e m ay be said o f th e fre q u e n t
allusions th a t are m ad e to D on Q uixote in T he Id io t (Aglaya hides
M yshkin’s letter in a copy o f C ervantes’ novel [II, i]; th e Epanchins,
Kolya a n d R adom sky discuss likenesses betw een the P rince a n d “the
8Georges Charbonnier, Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss, tr. John and

Doreen Weightman (London, Jonathan Cape, 1969 [although the talks were
given originally in 1959]), p. 55.
“George Lukacs, The Theory o f the Novel, tr. Anna Bostock (Cambridge,
Mass., M.I.T. Press, 1971 [originally published in 1920]), p. 80.
'"Ibid., p. 83.
p o o r K n ig h t” [II, vi]; associations betw een P ushkin’s “P oor K night”

frag m en t an d M yshkin are m ad e [II, viii]). A t one level, surely, th ere
is no d o u b t th a t sim ilarities betw een C ervantes’ h ero a n d Prince
M yshkin are b ein g p ointed to: th e ir sh ared idealism , th e ir cham pion
in g o f questionable “ladies,” even th e ir m adness, alth o u g h Dostoevsky
gives this parallel a twist: while the K night finally recovers at the e n d
o f D o n Q uixote , th e Prince relapses into his fo rm e r insanity. M yshkin is
a failed double, alm ost a parody, o f D on Q uixote, m u ch as h e is a
paro d y o f C hrist. B u t the presence o f D o n Q uixote in T h e Id io t is m o re
m ean in g fu l at a d e e p e r level, as it dram atizes th e them atic im portance
w ithin T he Id io t o f th a t book’s status as a novel. Its genre is germ ane to its
theme o f N ovel-ness.
I t has b een w ritten o f D o n Q uixote th a t this “first g re a t novel o f
w orld lite ratu re stands at th e b eg in n in g o f the tim e w hen th e C hris
tian G od beg an to forsake th e w orld; w hen m a n becam e lonely a n d
could find m ean in g a n d substance only in his ow n soul, whose hom e
was n o w h e re .. . .”n C ervantes’ book is a novel in th e d eg ree to w hich
it catalogues individuality m o re exhaustively th a n h ad ever b een d o n e
befo re. It is no accident th a t it constandy u n d ercu ts th e old chivalric
rom ances, since its form al essence as a novel is opposed to the two
form al tendencies o f those rom ances th a t m ilitate against individual
ity: th eir form ulaic plots, m ak in g all stories th e sam e; a n d th eir role-
d eterm in e d characterization (com pletely noble, com pletely vile), m ak
ing all protagonists th e sam e. T h e generic m essage o f D o n Q uixote was
th a t a new form h ad been fo u n d th a t was o p en to previously inex
pressible idiosyncrasy.
M uch as th a t novel d ram atized th e particularity o f its universe
th ro u g h ironic contrasts w ith th e system o f Chivalry, so does T h e Id io t
em phasize th e contingency o f its w orld by no less radically co u n terin g
C hristology. C h rist’s life as a system o f salvation becom es a generality
th a t can have only partial applicability in th e lives o f individuals w hom
novels dep ict in such relentless particularity.12 In so fa r as C hrist is
u Ibid., p. 103. Emphasis added.

12The Christ who appears in the Grand Inquisitor chapter of The Brothers
Karamazov does so as a character in a legend, one of the many narrative forms
that novel encapsulates. For a survey o f other attempts to portray the Christ,
see: Theodore Ziolkowski, Fictional Transfigurations o f Jesus (Princeton, N.J.,
Princeton U.P., 1972).
conceived as a fu n ction o f soteriology, h e ca n n o t fig u re in a novel,

since he th u s partak es o f a n absolute, an d the novel, as D. H. Law
ren ce learn ed th ro u g h his own p ainful experience in w restling with the
g en re, is “incapable o f th e absolute . . . in a novel th ere is always a
tom -cat, a black to m -cat th a t pounces on th e w hite dove o f th e
W o r d .. . .”13
T h a t cat’s n am e is contingency, a n d it counts am o n g its victims n o t
only th e W ord, b u t those w ho w ould speak It a n d only It. T h a t is why
D on Q u ix o te h au n ts all su bsequent novels: ju s t as th e K night o f La
M ancha seeks to su b o rd in ate his life to th e d em an d s o f Chivalry, so, in
m ost la te r works, do th e m ajo r characters th irst fo r a code, an absolute
th a t will release th em from th e ir own contingency, even if the system
is no m o re th a n a biography capable o f knitting to g eth er the discrete
m om ents o f th e ir lives into a continuous identity.14
I t is this insistence on tim e as change, as th a t w hich problem atizes
u n ified identity in th e novel, w hich led Lukacs to focus on tem porality
in his search fo r th e g en re’s essence. F o r Lukacs th e novel is th e epic
form o f a n age from which the Gods have fled. Such a view is particu
larly h elpful, th en , in u n d e rsta n d in g why corrosive tim e is so pow er
ful a constitutive elem en t o f T he I d io t : “. . . th e b o n d w ith the tran s
cen d en tal h om e has b een severed. . . . O nly in th e novel, whose very
m a tte r is seeking a n d failing to find th e essence, is tim e posited to
g e th e r w ith f o r m .. . .”15 I t could in fact be said th at Dostoevsky’s
plots, th e characteristic fo rm o f Dostoevskian tim e, are set u p to do
n o th in g else so relentlessly as to dram atize th e absence o f essence in
chronology, th e separation o f m o m en t a n d sequence. T h u s the basic
u rg e in Dostoevsky tow ard the novel as his d o m in an t m o d e o f expres
sion, since th e tim e Lukacs invokes is one o f becom ing, o f identity in
flux: “T h e greatest discrepancy betw een idea a n d reality is time, the
process o f tim e as d u ra tio n . T h e m ost p ro fo u n d a n d m ost hum iliating
13Quoted in Frank Kermode, D. H. Lawrence (N.Y., Viking, 1973), p. 27.
Kermode adds about his subject, in words that apply with equal force to
Dostoevsky, “It was in the novels that he wrestled with these transcendent
systems. The novels do not have a design upon us; their design is upon the
unqualified, unsuspected dogmas of the treatises and letters, which must be
made to submit to life.”
,4The novel is in its essence radically anti-utopian; perhaps that is why all
novels are, ultimately, Bildungsromane.
I5Lukacs, The Theory o f the Novel, p. 122.
im potence o f subjectivity consists . . . in th e fact th a t it can n o t resist

th e sluggish, yet con stant progress o f time; th a t it m u st slip dow n,
slowly yet inexorably from th e peaks it has laboriously sc a le d .. . .”16
T h e novel insists o n the existence o f the p a rt by exhaustively d em
o n stratin g th e inability o f any w hole to contain it com pletely. A creek
m ay have a m ean d e p th o f only six inches, yet still contain isolated
holes th a t are, say, te n feet deep. T h e novel always tells th e story o f
th a t m an who dro w n ed in a stream w ith a m ean d e p th o f six inches. It
always opts fo r th e exception to th e rules, w h eth er they derive fro m
th e code o f chivalry, from th e code o f society (as in m ost nin eteen th -
cen tu ry English o r F rench novels), or, as in the case o f T he Id io t, from
th e code o f C hristian salvation.
We are now able to speculate fu r th e r as to why Dostoevsky chose
(even b efo re he h ad w ritten it) as a title fo r this novel T he Id io t : he does
so to em phasize th e subjectivity o f his C hrist figure. “Id io t” goes back
th ro u g h Latin idiota to the G reek w ord m eaning private p erson (that
aspect o f a m an separate fro m any collective identity) o r laym an, a m an
w ithout professional know ledge (innocent o f any system o f know ing);
th e ro o t fo r th e w ord m eans “p rivate,” “ow n,” “peculiar.” M yshkin,
th en , as idiot, stands in for th e isolated individual. In o th e r words, he
is alo n e, a would-be C hrist fig u re w ho is d en ied th e systematic tim e o f
Heilsgeschichte, a m essiah who is a laym an. H e can n o t have as an inhab
itan t o f th e novel-w orld th a t w hole-part relationship th a t defines
Christology, in which Jesu s is a particu lar m anifestation o f the u n iv er
sal. Jesu s’ m ean in g is contained in the telos built into his biography; his
life is lived tow ard resu rrectio n , back tow ard his e x tra hu m an , supra-
individualistic state. T h e problem , on the o th e r h an d , fo r M yshkin is
th a t he is only a subjectivity: his task is precisely to f i n d a telos, to achieve
a universality th a t can endow his particularity w ith m eaning. C hrist,
by contrast, always exhibits th e attributes o f his role: h e is th e sam e
yesterday today a n d forever, n o t only in his G odhood, but, fo r a
believer, in his bio g raphy as a m an as well. A Jesu s who m ight, fo r
exam ple, be spiteful on occasion is unthinkable; h e is always the sam e:
suprem ely good. T h u s he can n o t serve as h ero o f a novel, the g en re
th at m o re th a n any o th e r flaunts variety in character, th e rapidly
shifting changes th a t d om inate individual lives. M yshkin is saindy one
ieIbid., pp. 120-21.

The Gaps in Christology: T h e I d io t 135
m o m en t, silly th e next; now he is certain, now confused—a n d w hat is

m ore, h e know s th e re is n o unity in his life.
W hen Keller, w ho has com e to th e Prince to u n b u rd e n his soul, to
confess a n d p u rg e him self, adm its th a t h e has com e as well to borrow
150 roubles, M yshkin recognizes this sincere desire fo r purity th a t is
im m ediately u n d e rc u t by a no less sincere desire to exploit others as a
tra it th a t defines th e h u m a n condition. “Y ou m ig h t have b een telling
m e ab o u t m yself ju s t now . . . in d eed . . . everyone is like t h a t . . . fo r it
is terribly difficult to fight against these double th o u g h ts [dvoinye mys-
li ]” (II, 11). D ouble th o u g h ts m ake u nified sensibility, a non-dualistic
identity particularly difficult to achieve. M yshkin m ay succeed in ex
p erien cin g at one given m o m en t a sense o f wholeness, b u t th e n ext
m o m en t will ro b him o f it. His atte m p t to live a unified existence is
constantly ex posed by th e novel’s relentless insistence on th e m ulti
plicity o f identities th a t are m erely h u m an , m erely personal.
Since th e pro b lem o f identity is to fin d a com m on term fo r conflict

in g m o m en ts o f p len itu d e a n d pettiness, self becom es a function o f
time, tim e th a t keeps going on, th a t will n o t stop, a n d th a t th e re fo re
continues to raise new contradiction, new know ledge o f self, th a t m ust
in its tu rn be in teg rated into a unity. A m ajor expression o f the di
lem m a is fo u n d in M yshkin’s illness, epilepsy. T h e re is a m o m en t
b efo re th e fit actually seizes him , “w hen suddenly am idst sadness,
spiritual darkness a n d depression, his b ra in seem ed to catch fire for
b rie f m o m e n ts .. . . His m in d a n d h e a rt w ere flooded by dazzling
light. . . . ” M yshkin senses n o t only th a t such a m o m en t constitutes
“th e highest m ode o f existence” b u t th a t the special aw areness such a
m o m en t g ran ts him is aw areness precisely o f—self: “. . . the m ost di
re ct sensation o f o n e ’s own existence [rem em ber th a t epilepsy is the
sign o f his idiocy] to th e m ost intense d eg ree” (II, 5).
B u t such a m o m en t is follow ed, o f course, by th e onset o f the fit.
A lth o u g h M yshkin says th at he w ould give th e rest o f his life fo r the
sake o f his ecstatic second, suggesting parallels w ith th e Faustian
tem p tatio n to say “Verweile, dock, d u bist so schon," h e knows th at such
an o p tio n is d en ied him . H e is constantly th ru st back into a low er
state, d ram atized as convulsion. U sing th e parable o f M ahom et’s
(a n o th er epileptic’s) w ater p itch er to illustrate th e m ost im p o rtan t
aspect o f w hat h e feels at th e onset o f a fit, h e adds, . . A t th a t
m o m en t th e e x tra o rd in ary saying th a t there shall be tim e no longer b e

comes, som ehow co m prehensible.” T h ese w ords, taken o f course
from th e A pocalypse o f J o h n , em phasize th a t th e pow er o f th e m o
m e n t expresses itself as tim elessness. A fte r it has passed, w hen th e
Prince lies grovelling o n th e g ro u n d in a helpless fit, w hen th e falling
sickness fells him , he collapses n o t only into epilepsy, b u t falls back
in to tim e again. Like A dam , he is cast o u t o f E d en ’s eternal n o w into th e
flux o f th e w orld’s becom ing, o r like C hrist, who leaves th e eternity o f
his G o d h o o d to fall into tim e as a m ere m an. T h e disease thus p ro
vides a m e ta p h o r fo r b o th aspects o f th e novel’s key problem atic: a
feeling o f w holeness th a t is th e n u n d e rc u t, a n d th e enorm ity o f the
distance betw een th e two states, th e unb rid g eab le space th a t consti
tu tes th e pain o f tim e. T h e co n stan t Collapse o f privileged m o m en t
gives a special m ean in g to th a t o th e r central m e ta p h o r o f th e book,
th e A pocalypse o f St. J o h n . It is p re se n t in Dostoevsky’s tex t n o t
because o f th e flam ing e n d it prophesies. T h e h o rro r consists ra th e r
in th e discovery th a t th e re are no en d s th a t give m eaning, just as th e re
a re no beginnings. T h e te rro r is n o t th a t th e B arb arian s will com e, b u t
th a t they will not.
T h e c u to ff th a t exists betw een m om ents th a t re fu se to resolve
them selves into a sequence is dram atized in T he Id io t at d iffe re n t levels
o f narrativ e a n d in varying ratios o f contradiction. T h e task in each
stratu m o f plot a n d ra n g e o f dissim ilarity is to fin d term s ap p ro p ria te
to p a rticu la r experiences, b u t th a t also, sim ultaneously, co rresp o n d to
a g en eral series. T h e problem is p erh ap s m ost fam iliar to historians,
w ho m u st constantly answ er th e question: w hat is th e p ro p e r perspec
tive fo r ex p lain in g th e relationships betw een events th a t are— in
them selves—discrete, events th a t will seem , w ithout such a view, u n re
lated? “U n fo rtu n ately, no law o f history enjoins th a t only those years
whose d ates e n d w ith th e figures ‘01’ coincide w ith th e critical points
o f h u m an evolution. W hence th e re derive som e curious distortions o f
m e a n in g . . . we a p p e a r to assign an arbitrarily chosen a n d stricdy
p en d u lu m -lik e rh y th m to realities to w hich such a regularity p a tte rn is
entirely alien.”17
T h e problem in the history o f individual lives in T he Id io t is th a t no
essence can be fo u n d th a t will suffice to give sh ap e to sequences th a t
17Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, tr. Peter Putnam (N.Y., Vintage Books,
1953), p. 182-83.
a re th e re fo re m ere chronologies. Lives can n o t b e “periodized” b e

cause th ere is no p o in t o f view outside them to sanction the division o f
biographical eras.
T h e difficulty o f fin d in g a com m on te rm th a t will serve to connect
otherw ise discrete m om ents—conceived as an existential ra th e r th a n
historiographical dilem m a—we have seen d ram atized in the central
m e ta p h o r o f M yshkin’s epilepsy: his inability to jo in health a n d illness,
th e m o m en t o f ecstacy th a t precedes his Fits w ith the aw ful m inutes he
sp en d s w rith in g o n th e g ro u n d in th e g rip o f the epileptic attack itself.
T h e unconsciousness he experiences betw een th e onset o f such fits
a n d th e ir a fte rm a th is an epistem ological as well as physical blackout,
a symbol o f his failure to fin d an identity th a t will connect th e two
experiences. T h e re is no m etaphysical copulative in th e physical syn
tax o f M yshkin’s epilepsy.
T h e sam e p a tte rn is p re se n t in the b ro k e n linearities th a t define
biographical tasks fo r the o th e r characters in T he Id io t. T h e split b e
tw een th e “b efo re” a n d “a fte r” th a t N astasya Filipovna can n o t connect
is m ark e d by h e r seduction. A t th e age o f seven h e r fa th e r goes m ad
a n d she becom es th e w ard o f Totsky, alth o u g h he does n o t m ake any
g re a t changes in h e r life until, re tu rn in g from a lo n g sojourn abroad,
h e notices she has becom e “a lovely child . . . playful, charm ing, a n d
intelligent, w ho p rom ised to becom e a n ex trao rd in arily beautiful
y o u n g w om an” (1 ,4). A t this p o in t T otsky puts the girl in th e hands o f
a Swiss governess who teaches h e r F rench. W hile Swiss governesses
w ere extrem ely com m on at this tim e, th e h in t o f R ousseau should no t
be m issed, especially as the em phasis on a pedagogy o rien ted tow ard
th e sim ple, th e n atu ral, th e Edenic, is taken u p in th e n ex t step o f
Nastasya Filipovna’s ca re e r as she is m oved (after fo u r years o f such
training) to a n o th e r o f T otsky’s p ro p erties “in a m ore rem ote p ro
vince,” w here she lives in a sm all w ood house atte n d e d only by an old
h o u sek eep er a n d a m aid. T h e house is filled w ith all the things to
d elig h t a y o u n g girl, an d , in fact, the estate it is located o n is called “as
if on p u rp o se O tradnoe,” a w ord th a t m ay b e tran slated as jo y o r
consolation, b u t th a t has as well, E denic overtones.18 It is while she is
I8In fact, in some English versions it is translated as Eden, as in Margar-

shack, The Idiot (Penguin Books, 1955), p. 65. It should be added that Otradnoe
was a fairly common name for country estates in nineteenth-century Russia.
In War and Peace, for instance, the provincial seat of the Rostov family is also
called Otradnoe.
in this p aradise th a t “M r. T otsky h im self p u t in an a p p e a ra n c e .. . .

Since th e n he seem ed to have grow n particularly fo n d o f th a t rem ote
little village in th e h e a rt o f the steppes” (I, 4). T h e interval th a t Dos
toevsky h ere m arks w ith “. . .” is a typographical m o m en t betw een
N astasya Filipovna’s Edenic tick a n d th e fallen tock o f th e re m a in d e r
o f h e r life. T h e full m eaning o f th a t b re ak becom es a p p a re n t only
w hen, as T otsky plans to m arry a society w om an, Nastasya Filipovna
leaves th e co u n try a n d confronts h e r sed u cer in P etersburg: “Q uite a
differed* w om an was sitting b efo re him , a w om an who was n o t at all
like the girl he h ad know n a n d h ad left in th e village o f O tra d n o e only
th e previous Ju ly ” (I, 4).
T h e E denic parallel is p o in ted u p la te r in th e sam e c h a p te r w hen it
is said o f T otsky, who is fe arfu l th a t N astasya Filipovna will n o t go
along w ith his schem e to m arry h e r o ff to G anya Ivolgin, th a t h e “d id
n o t quite believe h er, even now, a n d was fo r a long tim e afraid th a t
th ere m ig h t be a snake lu rk in g b en e ath th e flow ers.” T h is projection
is one o f th e several inversions th a t m ark relations betw een p aren ts
a n d ch ild ren in T h e Id io t. T h e snake im age is com plicated fu rth e r
w hen it is recalled th a t the poem N astasya Filipovna read s R ogozhin
ab o u t H en ry IV a n d G regory V II is H ein e’s 1843 H ein rich (one o f the
significantly n am ed series, Zeitgedichte). In th e poem , as th e E m p e ro r
kneels b efo re th e Pope, he dream s o f revenge, “an axe th a t will sm ite
th e serp en t o f m y sufferings.”19 T h e association is d o u b led here: n o t
only is an association o f R ogozhin (and his knife) w ith H en ry (and his
axe) m ade, b u t N astasya Filipovna’s association w ith a lo n g lost O trad
noe is p re sen t as well. T h e two m ajo r them es o f th eir r e la tio n s h ip -
passion conceived as a pow er struggle, a n d th e religious overtones o f
b eing a “fallen w om an” (is she the cause o f h e r own dow nfall, h erself
th e se rp e n t in h e r own G a rd en o f Eden?), are b o th p re se n t in the
H eine poem .
T h e re st o f th e five years re m a in in g to Nastasya Filipovna a fte r she
leaves O tradnoe are sp en t n o t only in revenge, b u t in a frantic e ffo rt as
well to re cap tu re edenic tim e, to start afresh; failing to do so, she
condem ns h erself to death, gives h erself u p to R ogozhin’s knife. T h e
search fo r a new p oint o f origin th a t will efface h e r fall is best ob-
1!lThe source for the quotation has been cited in: V. E. Kholshevnikov, “O
literaturnykh tsitatakh u Dostoevskogo,” Vestnik leningradskogo universiteta,
1960, No. 8 (Seriia istorii, iazyka, i literatury), Vyp. 2, p. 136.
served in th e scandal scene th a t concludes th e novel’s first book. It

occurs significandy o n h e r nam e-day (she will gain the nam e o f h e r
tru e self), celebrated, o f course, as h e r birthday (she will be b o rn
again). W hen M yshkin proposes to h e r she cries, “O h, life is only
b eg in n in g fo r m e now!” A n d th e n a b ju rin g th e sequence in h ere n t in a
fu tu re sh ared w ith th e P rince, she accepts R ogozhin, again stressing
th a t she will start afresh. “I’ve sp en t te n years [since h e r seduction]
b eh in d p riso n bars a n d now it is m y tu rn to b e happy!” T h e scene
en d s as she dashes o ff into th e night, having sloughed o ff h e r house
a n d servants like th e skin o f a n o th e r self, as she scream s she will
becom e a w asherw om an o r streetw alker (I, 16). O f course she, like
M yshkin, finds th at h e r m o m en t o f decision does n o t serve to change
th e logic o f th e life she has so u g h t to b re ak o u t o f (her prison, as she
says).
T h e re are m any o th e r parallels betw een h e r biography a n d th at o f
th e Prince, w hich is why Dostoevsky so laboriously points u p a t each o f
th e ir m eetings th e sense they share o f having know n each o th e r before
th e ir first en co u n ter. B oth are o rp h a n s o f ancient families, b o th have
sp en t tim e in th e co u n try (he in Sw itzerland, she w ith a Swiss gover
ness, b o th in a Rousseauistic state o f innocence), a n d bo th re g re t
b eing d raw n into society. W e learn o f the Prince, as he stands am id
th e schem es th a t circle ab o u t him , th at h e has “an uncontrollable
desire to leave everything h e re a n d go back to w here he h ad com e
fro m , to som e far-aw ay solitary p la c e .. . . H e h ad a feeling th a t if he
stayed h e re even a few days lo n g er h e w'ould irrevocably be draw n
into this w orld, a n d th a t this w orld w ould becom e his w orld th ere af
te r” (II, 11). M yshkin is, in o th e r w ords, afraid o f falling into worldii-
ness, a n d o f course this is w hat hap p en s as he becom es th e center, the
effective cause, o f th e intrigues th a t swirl in th e re st of. the novel, a
condition fo r w hich his epilepsy—as a falling sickness—is the book’s
m ajo r m etap h o r.
N astasya Filipovna’s closeness to th e Prince is u n d e rlin e d by h e r
status as a “fallen w om an,” as, from the faraw ay place o f h e r in n o
cence a n d childhood, she plunges d e e p e r a n d d e e p e r into th e world.
S he sees h erself as a “fallen angel” (IV, 8) a n d constantly looks
back to th e past, an existential nostalgia th a t Dostoevsky em phasizes
by constantly associating h e r w ith history. In th e novel’s m ost sus
tain ed a n d d etailed account o f h e r relations w ith R ogozhin (II, 3, 4)
she tells th e story o f H e n ry IATs struggle w ith Pope G regory V II

(“You, sir haven’t studied universal history, have you?”); th e re is also
fre q u e n t m en tio n o f S. M. Solovyov’s (the fa th e r o f Dostoevsky’s
frie n d , th e p h ilo s o p h e r V. M. Solovyov) h isto ry , th a t N astasya
Filipovna has given R ogozhin to read . T h e significance o f this choice
consists first jof all in its full tide: T h e H istory o f R u ssia fr o m the M o st
A n cien t T im esi T h is is her iconic book ju s t as D o n Q uixote is M yshkin’s; it
seeks to go back to th e m ost prim al origins, as she does. It also points
to th e cru x o f h e rp ro b le m , th e difficulty o f erecting continuous id en
tity; ju s t as Russia is o rp h a n o f th e nations, so N astasya Filipovna
can n o t fin d valid antecedents, as becom es clear in Dostoevsky’s play
w ith th e history book a n d m u rd e r w eapon.
As R ogozhin concludes his account o f w hat h a p p e n e d to N astasya
Filipovna a fte r she ru n s away fro m h e r nam e-day p arty wTith him ,
M yshkin picks u p a knife lying o n th e table b efo re him (II, 3). Tw ice
R ogozhin takes it away from him , a n d yet th e P rince picks it u p a th ird
time:
R ogozhin seized it angrily, p u t it in th e book, a n d threw th e
book [Solovyov’s History] on to a n o th e r table.
“Do you cu t th e pages with it?” asked the Prince, b u t ra th e r
a b s e n t-m in d e d ly as th o u g h still too p re o c c u p ie d w ith his
thoughts.
“Yes, th e pages . . . ”
“It’s a g a rd en knife [sadovii nozh], isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s a g ard en knife. C an’t o n e cu t pages w ith a g ard en ,
knife?”
R ogozhin will kill h e r w ith this g a rd en knife; b u t its first sheath is a
history book—u n fin ished by R ogozhin (he has n o t c u t all its pages).
T h u s it is th a t N astasya Filipovna’s d e a th will com e fro m th e in te r
ru p te d history o f Russia. L ong b efo re th e e n d o f h e r life, its history
h ad been in te rru p te d by T otsky’s seduction. H e r constant attem pts to
“begin life anew ” constitute a p a tte rn o f je rk y biographical gestures
th a t will n o t fall into a connected series, a history. She n ever succeeds
in re c a p tu rin g otradnoe, a n d so the two parts o f h e r life are as m ark ed
o ff from each o th e r as the o p e n e d versus the as-yet-uncut pages o f the
copy o f Solovyov she gives R ogozhin. T h e reason fo r so radical a split
in h e r b iography is th a t she attaches a tran sc en d en t significance to h e r
existence b efo re th e seduction: like th e o p en pages o f th e book, it was
The Gaps in Christo logy: T h e Id io t 141
full o f m ean in g . O n th e o th e r h an d , th e years a fte r the seduction are

as m eaningless as th e still un cu t, still u n re a d pages o f th a t book.
T h e inability to overcom e this g ap drives h e r on to ever m ore
hysterical attem p ts to wipe o u t the otradnoe origin w ith a new begin
n in g u n til, in d e sp a ir, sh e gives h e rs e lf to R o g o zh in ’s k n ife— a
G ard en -o f-E d en knife th a t separates th e o p en a n d closed pages o f a
history book. Like all the o th e r characters, m ajor a n d m inor, in the
novel, Nastasya Filipovna is cu t o ff from the past, a n d as d e T o c
queville, stu d e n t o f th at o th e r co u n try which, like Russia, h ad an
am biguous history, w rote: “Since the past has ceased to throw its light
u p o n th e fu tu re , th e m ind o f m an w onders in obscurity.”20
T h e d ark n ess o f the past is d ram atized in T h e Id io t as th e absence o f
tru e paren ts. T h is is why th e parallel betw een individual biographies
a n d R ussian n ational history is so close in Dostoevsky: in each case the
problem is to create a continuity w ithout the benefit o f antecedents. T h e p ro b
lem o f fo rg in g a co n tinuous identity, connecting past an d p resen t in
any given individual life, is exacerbated by the cu to ff betw een past
a n d p re se n t in th e sequence o f g enerations. T h e th re e m ajor figures
o f th e novel— M yshkin, R ogozhin, a n d N astasya Filipovna—are all
fatherless. T h e o th e r characters m u st all in th e ir ow n way co n fro n t
th e failure o f th e fathers. B urdovsky discovers h e is n o t Pavlishchev’s
son, b u t he is able to be his m o th e r’s son, a consolation d en ied to
Ip polit, w ho d ream s o f disow ning (otkazafsia) his m o th e r (his fa th e r is
d ead) a n d going o ff to live w ith Kolya Ivolgin, who will also give u p his
fam ily (I, xxi).21 Aglaya, th e ce n te r o f th e family fo r all the Epanchins,
disowns h e r p aren ts in th e e n d by ru n n in g o ff w ith a phoney Polish
no b lem an a n d con verting to R om an Catholicism — in Dostoevsky’s
w orld, a fate worse th a n d eath .
2"Quoted in: Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York, Viking
Press, 1961), p. 7.
2‘The old general is the most sustained example of the failure of the
fathers. His constant insistence that he is related to those with whom he shares
no blood, or that he knew other characters when they were still babies (hoping
to signify, as with Myshkin, a connection between the generations), points to
the debasement of such connections. Ivolgin is also important in the degree to
which he points up the parallel between the two levels of past/present cutoff
Dostoevsky is here working with, the generational (personal) and historical
(national): he seeks to create the same specious connections between himself
and Napoleon as he does with Myshkin.
T h e collapse o f b ridges betw een generations is m arked in T h e Id io t

by th e failure o f m aterial inheritance. I t will be re m e m b ered th a t
m oney, which plays so en o rm o u s a role in th e novel, always com es
from th e wills o f a d ead generation. N astasya Filipovna’s fa th e r dies in
poverty, b u t leaves h e r to th e g u ard ian sh ip o f T otsky (who, as s u rro
gate p aren t, leaves a sinister legacy in d eed to his ad o p ted child). B ur-
dovsky seeks to establish the identity o f his fa th e r in o rd e r to gain a
p a rt o f his inh eritance f U r ^ - d i i s problem is th a t o f all the o th e r
characters: to discover th e identity o f his tru e parents. H e differs
fro m th e o th ers only in th a t he succeeds w here they fail. M yshkin
discovers his in h e rita n c e (1 3 5 ,0 0 0 \ru b le s as we le a rn in IV , 5)
am ounts to m u ch less th a n h ad b een anticipated (II, 9). Radom sky,
instead o f receiving his uncle’s en orm ous fo rtu n e, is saddled w ith only
his sham e; th e old m an shoots him self afte r sq u an d e rin g thousands o f
rubles in public fu n d s (III, 2). It is, o f course, at a crucial point in
R adom sky’s ca ree r (he has ju s t resigned his com m ission) th a t the
aw ful tru th is rev ealed—by th a t p ro fo u n d stu d e n t o f th e conse
quences th a t flow from am biguous legacies, N astasya Filipovna.
R ogozhin’s relationship to his d ead fa th e r is especially com plex.
T h e fa th e r “h ad a g reat respect fo r th e Skoptsy," a sect o f fanatical
O rth o d o x C h ristia n s w ho c a stra te th em selv es (II, 3). N astasya
Filipovna (in th e sam e chapter) says o f the son that, “you’d have
settled in this house, like y o u r fa th er, w ith those Skoptsy . . . you’d have
b een co nverted to th eir faith in the e n d . . . ,” a parallel th a t brings o u t
th e sterility o f b o th generations. T h e fa th e r’s sexless passion is the
accum ulation o f w ealth fo r its own sake. A nd w hen at First glance it
w ould a p p e a r th a t the son’s passion fo r N astasya Filipovna is sexual, it
soon becom es clear th a t it is actually a n o th e r genus o f g reed. H e is a
m iser who takes very seriously the grim jo k e o f Nastasya Filipovna’s
sale o f h erself to th e highest b id d er in th e auction th a t concludes the
first book o f th e novel. H aving b o u g h t her, he seeks to h o a rd h er—
because she possesses him . U nlike o th ers in th e novel, R ogozhin com es
into his fa th e r’s m oney, a n d th e sum is as g reat as h ad been anticipated;
b u t its effects are as calam itous as the failure o f the o th ers to collect
th eir inheritance.
All th e attem pts to sm uggle som ething across the b o rd e r o f g en era
tions fail, a n o th e r o f the novel’s symbols fo r the condition o f discon
tinuity. As H a n n a h A re n d t has w ritten in the title essay o f Betw een P ast
The Gaps in Ckristology: T h e I d io t 143
a n d F u tu re , “T h e testam ent telling th e h eir w hat will be rightfully his,

wills past possession fo r a fu tu re . W ithout testam en t or, to resolve the
m etap h o r, w ith o u t trad itio n —w hich selects a n d nam es, w hich h ands
dow n a n d preserves, w hich indicates w here the treasu rers are an d
w h a t th e ir w o rth is— th e re seem s to be n o w illed co n tin u ity in
time. . . .”22 T h e absence o f such a p attern is central to th e whole
fabric o f th e novel, d ram atized in a w ide ra n g e o f discontinuities, each
o f which has its symbolic condition: execution, epilepsy, seduction. T o
this list o f fractu res in identity we m u st now a d d th at o f the failed
inheritance.
M oney plays so im p o rta n t a ro le in th e novel because o f its status as
a m e ta p h o r fo r exchange, a potential m eans o f com m unication, as
so m ething th at passes betw een people—o r in wills—betw een g en era
tions. M oney is significant as a system o f conventional m arkers fo r
value. W hat is m ore, unless th e re is agreem ent as to its value, it is
w orthless. T h e re is a sense in w hich m oney is n o th in g m ore th a n a
symbol o f values th a t can be exchanged betw een people w ho m ay
d iffe r o n all o th e r m atters. T h e re can be no solipsism in economics;
like w ords, m oney brooks no C arollian H um pty D um ptys w ho w ould
insist th at a coin is w orth w hat they say it is. T h is is one o f the reasons
why m oney constandy crops u p in semiotics a n d linguistics. Saussure,
fo r instance, uses it as a m e ta p h o r fo r a fu n d a m e n tal op eratio n o f
language itself:
“T o d eterm in e w hat a five-franc piece is w orth one m u s t . . .
know: (1) th a t it can b e exchanged fo r a fixed quantity o f a
d iffe re n t thing, e.g., b re ad ; a n d (2) th a t it can be co m p ared with
a sim ilar value o f the sam e system, e.g., a one-franc piece, o r
w ith coins o f a d iffe re n t system (a dollar, etc). In the sam e way a
w ord can be exchanged fo r som ething dissim ilar, an idea; b e
sides it can be co m p ared w ith som ething o f the sam e n atu re,
a n o th e r w ord.”23
B u t in T he Id io t th e gen eratio n o f the fath ers has n o t passed on to
th e sons those principles by which th e w orth o f things m ay be d e te r
m ined. T h e re is n o com m on g ro u n d fo r value; th u s m oney has the
22Hannah Arendt, op.cit., p. 5.

23Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, tr. Wade Baskin
(New York, McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 115.
opposite effect fro m th a t o f exchange. I t serves instead as a symbol

fo r th e rupture betw een generations. It m arks th a t bottom less canyon
th a t “in h eritan ce” has failed to bridge. T h e inability o f generations to
tran sm it value fro m past to fu tu re is a n extension o f a p a tte rn we have
seen in th e lives o f the individual characters. T h ey , too, can n o t con
nect th e ir own pasts a n d fu tu res. In the lives o f m ost o f them th ere is a
failu re to sustain any o f those m om ents w hich seem to d efin e identity:
M yshkin ca n n o t will his m o m en t o f h eig h ten e d aw areness to his own
fu tu re ; th u s he falls fro m ecstasy into epilepsy. Nastasya Filipovna
falls fro m E d en into th e w orld; Ip p o lit fro m a suicidal m o m en t th a t
w ould give his life significance to a “b ad d e a th ” fro m a w asting dis
ease. In these a n d o th e r cases th e fu tu re robs o f its significance a past
th a t was felt som ehow to be privileged.
T h e m ajo r symbol clusters o f the novel— execution, th e H olbein

C hrist, epilepsy, D on Q uixote, m oney—swirl a ro u n d a core th a t is
com m on to th em all: the failure o f kairos to effect chronos. T h e re is no
wholeness th a t will rem ain u n sp lin te red th ro u g h o u t its u n fo ld in g in
tim e: th e m an who prom ises to change his life if n o t executed in th e
n ex t second, continues—w hen sp ared — to lead th e sam e existence as
before, th e m eaninglessness o f w hich was clear from th e vantage
p o in t o f th a t exalted m o m en t b efo re th e firin g squad (I, 2). T h e
prom ise o f C hrist’s life is d en ied in the p ain tin g o f his d eath : th e cycle
o f biological tim e is u n b ro k en : the P rince’s m o m en t o f lucid self-
aw areness is w iped o u t in th e epileptic fit th a t follows it. All the
m oney, all th e in h eritances lead to a c u to ff betw een past a n d present.
N o essence can w ithstand th e b atterin g o f the m om ents as they pass
by. T h e stru ctu re o f a single m o m en t’s prom ise b ro k e n u n d e r the
o n slau g h t o f a series o f o th e r such m om ents follow ing u p o n it, consti
tutes th e novel’s cen tral p a tte rn . Its m ost paradigm atic expression is
in th e failu re o f H eilsgeschichte: C hrist did n o t ch ange th e course o f
history; his prom ise o f peace has b een e ro d e d by all th e wars ever
since. It is th e collapse o f this m essianic legacy in th e past th a t u n d e r
lies all th e o th e r failed testam ents from fa th e r to son in th e book.
W ith o u t th e C hristian inheritance, at a tim e w hen th e im itatio C hristi
breaks dow n, each m an m u st fin d his own way, seek his own identity
w ithout th e aid o f p reexisting m odels. H e m ust, in o th e r words, be
com e an id io t in th e ro o t sense o f th a t w ord— som eone o n his own.
The Narrator in The Devils
by V. A. Tunimanov
In th e novel it gradually becom es clear th a t A nton L avrentievich

G------ v is th e ch ronicler-w itness o f th e recen t events w hich took place
in his tow n, a n d h e also reco u n ts this re cen t past. A bout him self
G------ v im p arts very scant inform ation: h e “accidentally” adm its into
th e chronicle certain rem ark s by o th e r people, w hich som ew hat reveal
his “social” position. W e know th a t he works som ew here, b u t it is n o t
precisely indicated w here. L ip u tin caustically introduces him to the
tipsy C aptain L ebyadkin: “ ‘It’s M r. G------ v, a y o ung g entlem an o f
classical ed u catio n a n d in close touch with the highest society’ ” (I, 3,
ix).1 G------ v is a chronicler, a n d his personality is in the back g ro u n d
a n d b eyond th e b o u n d aries o f the chronicle, a fact which also creates
th e necessary conditions fo r a so rt o f d etach ed n arratio n th a t alm ost
com pletely ru les o u t th e “confession” o f the n a rra to r him self.
T h e only p a rt o f G------ v’s personal life th at p en etrates the ch ro n i
cle is his short-lived a n d u n re q u ite d love fo r Liza T u sh in . T h e ch ro n i
cler describes his past feeling fo r Liza retrospectively a n d calmly: th e
story o f th e o rig in a n d dying o f th e feeling is given in “frag m en ts” in
th e chronicle. A t one tim e th e ch ro n icler ru n s e rra n d s fo r Liza, car
ries o u t h e r requests, p erfo rm s services fo r h er. I t is tru e th a t the
em erg in g fu n ctio n o f the chronicler as the faithful servant a n d knig h t
o f th e fo rem o st tow n A m azon som ehow dies o f its own accord an d
“The Narrator in Dostoevsky’s The Devils” by Vladimir A. Tunimanov. Ex

cerpted from a short monograph under the same title in Issledovaniia po poetike
i stilistike, ed. V. V. Vinogradov et al. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1972), pp. 118-41.
Copyright 1972 by Nauka, Leningrad, U.S.S.R. Reprinted by permission of
the author and VAAP (All-Union Association of Author’s Rights) in the
U.S.S.R. Translated from the Russian by Susanne Fusso.
'Quotations from The Devils are from Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Devils (The
Possessed), translated with an introduction by David Magarshack (Penguin
Books: London, 1953).
145
146 V. A. Tunimanov
w ith o u t any m otivation. B u t in tu rn , th e chronicler’s fixed attention,

his precise a n d detailed statem ent o f th e h ero in e’s m ovem ents, o f the
slightest changes in h e r aspect, are m otivated: “Liza, I observed, su d
denly ju m p e d u p fro m h e r chair a n d fo r som e reason as they w ere
going o u t o f th e ro o m followed them w ith a m otionless stare to the
very d o o r. T h e n she sat dow n again in silence, b u t h e r face seem ed to
tw itch spasm odically, as th o u g h she h ad to u ch ed som e h o rrib le
snake” (I, 5, v).
In th e chronicler’s “ideological” b iography the m ain th in g h e dis
closes is his sojourn in S tepan T rofim ovich V erkhovensky’s circle;
this is reco u n ted as a n idle pastim e, from the position o f a m an who
has “m a tu re d ” a n d re n o u n ced his fo rm e r “delusions.” T h e ch ro n i
cler caustically recalls his own p ersonal sojourn in the circle as well. T h e
ch ro n icler’s irony is m ulti-directed, a n d this is one o f the m ain condi
tions b o th o f th e narrative style an d o f the general atm osphere a n d
stru ctu re o f th e novel. T h e irony p ard y affects th e frig h ten e d citizens
as well, a n d ridicules th e ir ab su rd notions:
A t one tim e they used to say in th e town ab o u t o u r circle th a t it

was a ho tb ed o f free-thinking, vice, a n d atheism ; this ru m o r, by
th e way, always persisted. A nd yet all we did in o u r circle was to
indulge in th e m ost innocent, am iable, jolly typically Russian
liberal ch atter (I, 1, ix).
Also rid iculed are th e groundlessness an d abstract c h aracter o f “polit

ical” conversations, th e absurdity a n d irrelevance o f the m em bers o f
th e circle:
W e also discussed problem s o f general concern to m ankind,

talked severely o f th e fu tu re fate o f E u ro p e a n d the h u m an race,
fo reto ld in a d o ctrin aire fashion th a t afte r th e fall o f th e m o n a r
chy in F rance th a t co u n try w ould at once be re d u ced to th e
position o f a secondary pow er, a n d we w ere firm ly convinced
th at th a t w ould h a p p e n very easily an d quite soon. W e h ad long
ago pro p h esied th at the Pope w ould assum e the role o f a sim ple
archbishop in a u n ited Italy, a n d h ad no doubts w hatever th a t
this thousand-year-old problem was a trifling m a tte r in o u r age
o f h u m an itarian ideas, industry, a n d railways. (I, 1, ix)
The Narrator in T h e D evils 147
T h e ch ro n icler h im self is in th e past no m o re th a n an extra, a

claq u er in th e suite o f S tepan, now w ith re g re t (“alas”) recalling th e
p ast im p ersonal (“we”) existence and, fro m a new position, asking:
“B ut, gentlem en, d o n ’t we still h e a r today, a n d very often, too, som e
tim es, th e sam e so rt o f ‘charm ing,’ ‘clever,’ ‘liberal’ old R ussian n o n
sense?” (I, 1, ix). T o be sure, the derision o f th e m em bers o f the circle
a n d th e tow nspeople also includes self-derision; denial bo rd ers o n
denial o f o n e’s own past, censure b o rd e rs o n self-censure.
P articipation in S tepan’s circle places the chronicler in a special
relationship w ith th e h ead o f the tow n “liberals.” G------ v is S tepan’s
confidant. T h is is a comic featu re, a n d Liza T u sh in directly indicates
its comic n a tu re to th e chronicler: “ ‘I have already fo rm ed an am us
ing idea ab o u t you: you’re M r. V erkhovensky’s confidant, a re n ’t
you?’ ” (I, 3, viii). In fact, this is actually the chronicler’s m ain occupa
tion, w hich he carries o u t w ith a certain “anguish” a n d o u t o f “b o re
d o m ,” sim ultaneously opp ressed a n d am used by the lot th a t has fallen
to him : “L et m e observe in passing th a t I h ad to p u t u p with a g re at
deal d u rin g th a t u n h a p p y week—nev er leaving the side o f m y p o o r
affianced frien d , in th e capacity o f his closest confidant” (I, 3, i).
T h e d u ties o f a “closest” co n fid an t rem ove th e question o f the
ch ro n icler’s know ledge of, if n o t all, th e n o f alm ost all the circum
stances o f S tep an ’s external a n d in n e r life, including th e m ost inti
m ate:
It m ay be asked how I could possibly com e to know so delicate a
detail. Well, w hat if I w itnessed it myself? W hat if M r. V er-
khovesky h im self has o n m o re th a n one occasion sobbed on my
sh o u ld er, while describing to m e in lu rid colours th e smallest
detail o f his talk with Mrs. Stavrogin? (T he things h e told m e on
such occasions!) (I, 1, ii).
Such a “sh o rt” distance separating th e chronicler from S tepan perm its
G------ v to pro p h esy a n d guess subde an d fo rb id d e n stirrings o f the
“teach er’s” soul, inaccessible to th e com m on view: “I t goes w ithout
saying th a t I had lo n g since guessed th a t g re at secret o f his a n d seen
th ro u g h it” (1,3, i); “I h ad only b een w aiting fo r th a t w ord. Finally this
secret w ord, h id d e n from m e, h ad b een u tte re d a fte r a w hole week o f
equivocations a n d grim aces;” “I guessed from the way h e looked th at
148 V. A.JTunimanov
h e w anted at last to tell m e som ething o f th e u tm o st im portance,

w hich h e m u st have k ept back till th a t m o m en t” (III,9 ).2
T h e co n fid an t “o u t o f b o re d o m ” som etim es directly accuses a n d
ridicules S tepan, p u rsuing, as a rule, high m oral aims: “ ‘A n d such a
sordid, such a . . . base th o u g h t could occur to you, S tepan V er-
khovesky, in y o u r lucid m ind, in y o u r good h e a rt a n d . . . even b efo re
L ip u tin . . “Be i ng still young, I could n o t h elp bein g in d ig n an t at
th e coarseness o f his feelings a n d the ugly n a tu re o f som e o f his
suspicions” (I, 3, i). T h e ch ro n icler’s penitential little w ords (“O h, I
was ru d e a n d discourteous, a n d I recall it now w ith re g re t”) are fa r
from always sincere, a n d o ften carry m o re venom th a n his d irect
accusations. T h e accusations are som ew hat “n eu tralized ” a n d soft
en ed n o t by th e belated a n d frequently insincere repentances, b u t by
th e universality o f th e atm o sp h ere o f derision, into w hich th e accuser
h im self also falls. H e re the chronicler speaks extrem ely sharply ab o u t
S tep an ’s estra n g em en t fro m th e w orld: “Such com plete, u tte r ig
n o ran ce o f everyday reality was b o th to uching a n d som ehow re p u l
sive” (III, 9). T h e chronicler him self, how ever, while ridiculing his
frie n d ’s alienation fro m fu n d am en tals Pit. “fro m the soil (ot pochvy)”
— ed.] (the re fra in “m y p o o r frie n d ” carries th ro u g h th e novel), has n o t
so very fa r o u tstrip p ed him in know ledge o f th e w orld, a n d is capable
o f the m ost im probable a n d stupid suppositions: “A wild a n d p re p o s
tero u s idea flashed th ro u g h m y m in d ” (III, 9). Caustically depicting
S tep an ’s latest habits, th e chronicler em phasizes that, besides o th e r
things, th e fo rm e r still loves “to d ip into th e cham p ag n e.” It can n o t be
d en ied th a t this is a debasing trait, a n d o n e th a t produces a n u n d e n i
ably dev astatin g effect in a n un ex p ected context. B ut h e re again it
does n o t befit th e ch ronicler to stan d in a pose o f “high m oral stan
d a rd s”; his “p o o r frie n d ” is terribly com m unicative a n d p re fers “to
d ip into th e ch am p ag n e” in com pany, w here th e libation m ay be e n
livened by literary a n d frivolous conversation, o r, in its absence, by the
unv ary in g co n fid an t-d rin k in g p a rtn e r: “As a ru le, w hen we h ad m et
b efo re a n d he h ad b eg u n com plaining to m e, a bottle o f vodka w ould
2To be someone’s confidant almost always presupposes mutuality; such a

“two-sided connection” is indeed formed between Stepan and the chronicler:
“He, too, saw through me; I mean, he realized that I saw through him and
that I was, indeed, angry with him, and he was angry with me for being angry
with him and seeing through him.”
alm ost invariably m ake its a p p e ara n ce a fte r a little tim e a n d every
th in g w ould becom e m ore ch e erfu l” (I, 2, v); “O u t o f sorrow we also
d ra n k a little. H ow ever, he soon fell into a sweet sleep.” S tep an ’s
c h a tte r a n d verbal nonsense a re characterized by one o f his m ost
attentive listeners a n d “pupils.” S tepan T rofim ovich’s speech at th e
celebration is co m m ented on by th e m aster o f cerem onies who ab
su rdly fusses w ith his rosette, a n d b o th these figures are undeniably
comical. T h e su fferings o f his panic-stricken frie n d are described by
th e frig h ten e d chronicler-citizen, stu n n e d by w hat he has seen: “M r.
V erkhovensky a n d I, at any rate, at first sh u t ourselves u p a n d looked
o n with ap p reh en sio n fro m a distance”; “M r. V erkhovensky an d I,
n o t w ithout ap p reh en sio n ab o u t th e boldness o f o u r theory, b u t e n
co u rag in g each o th e r, at last cam e to th e conclusion . . . ” (II, 2, i).
T h e ch ro n icler’s “eulogy” fo r S tepan took sh ape very early an d
clearly in th e notebooks fo r the novel (with th e exception o f only a few
nuances, w hich we om it); th e m ain peculiarity o f G------ v’s tone was
also d eterm in e d : “T h e chronicler p re te n d s th a t he feels C hristian pity
fo r th e d ark en in g o f a g reat character. H e excuses Gr[anovs]ky, say
in g th a t it is all n a tu r a l.. . .”3
T h is ironic, “p re te n d in g ” tone begins at th e very outset o f the
n o vel; a f te r th e excessively re sp e c tfu l e p ith e ts (“ta le n te d ” and
“m u ch -rev ered ”) follows a slow b u t steady increase in irony. A fter the
allusion to S tep an ’s constant histrionics, the ph rase borrow ed from
Gogol, “he was a m ost excellent m an ,” already sounds like a half-
concealed sneer.
T h e sim plest device fo r debasing S tep an ’s im age is th e direct con
trastin g o f tru th w ith fabrication, o f real a n d precise facts with the
“teach er’s” fiction a n d ch atter. T h e m ysterious “w hirlw ind o f concur
re n t events” is com pletely dispelled by the chronicler:
I t tu rn e d o u t afterw ards th at th e re h ad b een n o “w hirlw ind” and
even no “events,” at any ra te at th a t particu lar instant. It was
only th e o th e r day th a t I discovered, to m y g reat astonishm ent,
fro m a highly reliable source, th a t M r. V erkhovensky h ad never
lived in o u r province am ongst us as an exile, as we w ere all led to
3N. E. Ignateva and E. N. Konshina, eds., Zapisnye tetradi F. M . Dostoevskogo
[The Notebooks of F. M. Dostoevsky] (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935), p. 164.
Stepan is conditionally called Granovsky in the preparatory materials for The
Devils.
150 V. A. Tunimanov
suppose, a n d th at h e h ad n ever even b een placed u n d e r police

supervision (I, 2, i).4
O nce again re tu rn in g to th e notorious “w hirlw ind” th a t destroyed th e
career o f th e fre e th in k e r o f the forties, the chronicler mercilessly
contrasts th e fru its o f his “sorrow ful frie n d ” ’s im agination to th e
tru th : “A n d if th e whole tru th is to be told, th e real cause o f the
change in his ca ree r was the . . . proposal th a t h ad b een m ade b efo re
a n d renew ed again by V arvara P etrovna . . . to u n d e rta k e th e educa
tion a n d th e whole intellectual developm ent o f h e r only son” (I, 1, ii).
T h e “civic g r ie f ’ stam ped o n S tep an ’s face d u rin g th e card gam e
p ro m p ts th e ch ro n icler again to appeal to “tr u th ”: “A n d to tell the
tru th he was very fo n d o f a gam e o f cards, which, especially in later
years, led to fre q u e n t a n d u n p leasan t squabbles with M rs. Stavrogin,
particularly as he was always losing” (I, 1, ii).
T h e second device fo r d ebasem ent is also sim ple: a high-flow n a n d
respectful pream ble, th e n a whole system o f qualifications, a certain
hesitation a fte r th em an d finally a full negation o f w hat was said at th e
beginning:
A nd yet he was und o u b ted ly a highly intelligent a n d talented
m an, a m an who was, as it were, even a scholar, th o u g h so fa r as
his scholarship was co ncerned . . . well, h e did n o t really m ake
any im p o rtan t contribution to scholarship, in d eed n o n e at all, I
believe (I, 1, i).
H ere th e deb asem ent is consistently carried to its fu rth e st limit, to
zero. Precisely h e re (and this is characteristic o f the “eulogy”) th e re
follows a partial “rehabilitation” o f S tepan: “B ut, th en , th a t hap p en s
again a n d again in Russia w ith m en o f learn in g ” (I, 1, i).
Still an o th e r (and freq u en t) device fo r the com ic debasem ent o f th e
“teach er” is th e synonym ic com parison o f extrem ely h etero g en eo u s
a n d un eq u al concepts an d nam es. A ccording to th e chronicler’s d e
scription, S tepan “. . . looked alm ost like a p atria rch o r, to be m ore
4Let us note that a second “whirlwind of concurrent events” was destined

to bewilder Virginisky (in general, various sorts of psychological and ideologi
cal parallels appear frequently in The Devils )—an ironic subtext is retained
here as well, although it is impossible to deny the existence of the “whirlwind.”
And, incidentally, the “whirlwind of concurrent events” is one of the main
principles of the chronicle’s system.
The Narrator in T h e D ev ils 151
exact, like th e p o rtra it o f th e playw right K ukolnik” (I, 1, v).5 Yet

a n o th e r tim e, K ukolnik falls into a stran g e synonym ic relationship,
th a t destroys th e pathetically em otional tone o f the chronicler’s ex
clam ations:
T h is m an w hom we h ad looked u p o n as a p ro p h e t fo r tw enty
years, o u r p reach er, teacher, patriarch, the K ukolnik who h ad
b o rn e him self so grandly a n d m ajestically before us all, whom we
re g a rd e d with such adm iration, thin k in g it an h o n o r to do so—
suddenly this m an was sobbing . . . (II, 9).
T h e irony h ere, how ever, is am bivalent—the w orship o f “o u r K ukol
nik” is stran g e a n d absurd.
T h e “p re te n d in g ” G------ v o ften justifies h im self by saying th at he
d id n ’t quite w ant to say w hat he ju s t said, since he was recounting it
n o t in th e usual sense b u t in a quite special one. T h e m ajority o f such
stipulations are insincere a n d p ro d u ce th e reverse im pression:
I used th e expression “flu n g him self into th e arm s,” b u t d o n ’t let
anyone ju m p to any ra sh a n d im p ro p e r conclusions; those arm s
have to be u n d ersto o d only in th e highest possible m oral sense.
T h ese two rem arkable beings w ere jo in e d fo rev er in a u n io n th at
was m ost re fin e d a n d delicate (I, 1, i).
T h e solem n intonations a n d g ran d ilo q u e n t words, m ore th a n any
th in g else h ere, p ro m o te th e ap p earan ce o f “ra sh ” a n d “im p ro p er”
considerations. A n d the “m ost re fin ed a n d delicate u n io n ,” after
th e series o f anecdotes a n d details, ap p ears in a n utterly ironic light.
W e can also d etect an analogous p h en o m en o n in th e chronicler’s
o th e r justifications a n d stipulations: “I d o n ’t claim fo r a m om ent th at
he h ad n ev er su ffered fo r his convictions, b u t I am fully convinced
now th a t he could have gone o n lectu rin g on his A rabs as m uch as he
liked if he h ad only given th e necessary explanations” (I, 1, ii);s “I
sThe “real” reason for such a strange and comic resemblance is specially
explained in parentheses. It appears that, in memory of her childhood love
for the lithograph o f the poet, Varvara Petrovna “kept that picture among
her most intimate treasures, so that it is quite likely that she designed Mr.
Verkhovensky’s clothes in such a style that they somewhat resembled the
clothes worn by the playwright in the picture” (I, 1, 5).
6“Necessary explanations” in reference to Arabs is a further example of
how complicated the chronicler’s irony is.
152 V. A. T u n im a n o v/
wish m erely to p o in t o u t th a t h e was a m an o f a te n d e r conscience

(som etim es, th at is), a n d th at was why h e was so o ften dep ressed ” (I, 1,
ii); “M r. V erkhovensky som etim es talked o f art, a n d very well, th o u g h
a little abstracdy. Occasionally he w ould recall the frien d s o f his
youth— all nam es who had m ad e th eir m ark o n th e history o f R ussian
progress— he recalled them w ith em otion a n d reverence, th o u g h n o t
w ithout envy e ith e r” (I, 1, ix).
Even such an indisputably m ajor a n d sincere fe atu re o f S tepan as
his love fo r a rt a n d re fin em en t ca n n o t avoid the all-penetrating scoff
in g o f his “p u p il”-c o n fid a n t: “So fa r as books a re co n c ern e d , I
should p o in t o u t th a t in la te r years he seem ed to avoid r e a d in g .. . . It
also frequently h a p p e n e d th a t he w ould take De Tocqueville with him
into th e g ard en , while he secretly carried a Paul d e Kock in his
pocket” (I, 1, v).
T h e ch ro n icler’s statem ents (“B ut anyway, these are trifles”; “B u t
th a t too, o f course, is a petty detail”) are sly; it is precisely o n petty
details a n d trifles th a t he concentrates his attention, revealing, so to
speak, th e ch erish ed dom estic secrets o f “o u r p re ach e r,” show ing him
in a m ire o f base details:
O u r frien d h ad certainly acquired n o t a few bad habits, espe
cially d u rin g re cen t m onths. H e let him self ru n to seed visibly
a n d rapidly, a n d it is quite tru e th at he h ad becom e slovenly. H e
d ra n k m ore, he was m o re easily m oved to tears, a n d his nerves
grew w eaker. H e h ad becom e fa r too sensitive to everything o f
artistic value. His face h ad acquired a stran g e faculty fo r ch an g
in g ex trao rd in arily rapidly, from the m ost solem n expression,
fo r instance, to the m ost ridiculous a n d even stu p id (I, 2, v).
A n accent on petty details is thé essential peculiarity o f the ch ro n i
cler’s n arratio n in general, a n d especially w hen he is speaking o f
S tepan. T h e o rien tatio n tow ards “c h a tte rin g ” ab o u t trifles, th e con
cen tratio n o n petty details, are proclaim ed by Dostoevsky in the
notebooks fo r T he D ev ils : “N o m a tte r how superfluous, a n d idle, a n d
verbose it seems, in essence it is in close connection with th e very core
o f events. It is always this way in reality. A n u n suspected thing, a
triflin g thing, suddenly becom es th e m ain thing, a n d everything else
only revolves a ro u n d it as so m eth in g secondary a n d accessory.”7
Tgnateva and Konshina, p. 240.

N . M. C hirkov is correct w hen h e writes: “T h e n a rra to r tirelessly

no tes v ario u s p etty details, various w eaknesses o f old m an V er-
khovensky: his posing, his affected estheticism , his predilection fo r
wine, fo r playing ‘a little cards,’ even his attacks o f choler. W e have
h ere n o t only th e d ebasem ent o f th e h ero, the desire to exhibit him in
th e m ost com ic aspect, b u t even a so rt o f ra p tu re in the exposure o f
his, in th e final analysis, insignificant existence as a m ere han g er-o n .”8*
A n o th e r o f C hirkov’s theses is partially correct: “Dostoevsky con
stantly leaves a n u n e x p la in e d re sid u e in th e ex p lan atio n s o f his
ch aracters’ actions. F rom this arises one o f the w riter’s devices—
reticence in th e d ep iction o f o n e o r a n o th e r o f th e characters’ m ental
m ovem ents. F o r such an e n d the form o f first-person n arratio n is also
very convenient. T h e n a rra to r, unlike th e om niscient au th o r, n a tu r
ally can n o t, know ev erything.”8 B u t C hirkov selects a n unsuccessful
illustration fo r his thesis ab o u t inexplicability a n d reticence. H ere is
w hat he writes ab o u t S tep an ’s fatal rendezvous w ith V arvara P et
rovna: “T h e n a rra to r does n o t in fo rm the re a d e r w hat in fact took
place betw een them . Why, a fte r a friendly p artin g , did V arvara P et
ro v n a suddenly w hisper these words? T h e n a rra to r offers no com
m en tary at all. H e leaves it to th e re a d e r to guess ab o u t everything.
T h e e n tire psychological aspect o f this scene is b uilt on an obviously
in ten tio n al reticence.”10
L et us q u o te th e scene:
T h e n one day, at night-fall, they p a rte d very amicably afte r a
highly an im ated and poetical conversation, pressing each o th e r’s
h a n d s w arm ly at th e steps o f th e c o ttag e w hich M r. V er-
khovensky occupied. Every su m m er h e m oved from the huge
Skvoreshniki m ansion into the little cottage which stood alm ost
in th e g ard en . H e had only ju s t gone in an d , sunk into u n h ap p y
m editation, tak en a cigar a n d w ithout lighting it stopped, weary
a n d m otionless, before th e o p en window, gazing at th e little
w hite clouds, light as fluff, gliding ro u n d th e b rig h t m oon, w hen
suddenly a fain t ru stle m ade him start a n d tu rn ro u n d . Mrs.
Stavrogin, w hom he h ad left only fo u r m inutes earlier, was again
stan d in g b efo re him . H e r yellow face was alm ost blue, h e r lips
8N. M. Chirkov, 0 stile Dostoevskogo (Moscow, 1963), p. 55.

"Ibid., pp. 65-66.
'"Ibid., p. 66.
154 V. A. Tunimanov
w ere pressed tightly to g e th e r a n d tw itching at th e corners. F or

ten full seconds she looked into his eyes in silence w ith a firm ,
im placable gaze, a n d th e n she w hispered rapidly:
“I shall n ev er forgive you fo r this!” (I, 1, iv).
I f o ne considers th a t V arvara P etrova “was sensitive a n d observant”

a n d “soon guessed th e m ean in g o f the strange expression on h e r
frie n d ’s face,” a n d th at “h e was a little too innocent a t tim es,” th e n it is
quite easy to find th e key to this “tragic” (for Stepan) scene. W hat so rt
o f explanatory com m entaries are necessary, w hen th e m ain point is
splendidly revealed, b etter th a n by any explanations, by th e cigar in
th e h ands o f th e “w eary” S tepan. In any case th e cigar a n d the “in n o
cently o p e n ” expression o n S tepan’s face tell V arvara P etrovna n o t
only m uch, b u t everything, a n d this “everything” also becom es evi
d e n t at th e sam e m o m en t to th e “h an g e r-o n ” him self, filling his
fu rth e r existence w ith h o rro r an d th e expectation o f catastrophe. By
th e way, we m ay also find d irec t confirm ation in the novel o f the fact
th a t it was precisely the cigar th a t played such a fatal role. T h e dying
S tepan is spiritedly a n d maliciously re m in d e d o f the past by his old
friend:
“R em em ber th e cigar?”
“My frie n d ,” h e m um bled, h orrified.
“Y o u r cigar—in th e evening—by the window— the m o o n was
shining—a fte r th e little conversation— in Skvoreshniki? Do you
re m e m b er it? Do you re m e m b er it?” she cried, ju m p in g u p from
h e r chair, seizing his pillow by th e two corners a n d shaking it
to g eth er w ith his head. “Do you rem em ber, you futile m an, you
futile, disgraceful, cow ardly, always, always futile m an?” she
hissed in h e r ferocious w hisper, barely restrain in g h e rse lf from
scream ing. ( I ll, 7, iii)
T h e cigar is, o f course, a petty detail, b u t th e sort th a t is shifted o u t
o f th e o rd e r o f secondary signs into th e center, o u t o f the “accessory”
in to th e m ajor, a n d all the em otions a n d the “secret” psychological
process are co n cen trated a ro u n d this supposedly “trifling” detail. It is
th e sam e in o th e r cases. T h u s in Dostoevsky th e principle o f “re ti
cence,” “insufficiency,” “th e incom pletely spoken,” is com bined w ith a
“re d u n d an cy ” o f in form ation. R eticence a n d hold in g back follow
from Dostoevsky’s general anthropological an d philosophical views,
according to which th e essence o f things a n d p h en o m en a is h id d en so
/
deeply th a t n o t even the subtlest scientific analysis is capable o f dis
covering it with m athem atical precision: th e re always rem ains an “ir
ratio n al” a n d inaccessible residue, in which, perhaps, the solution is
also contained. B etw een Kirillov a n d th e chronicler a curious ex
ch an g e takes place:
. . L ip u tin was w eak, o r im p atien t, o r unreliable, o r—
envious.”
T h e last w ord su rp rised m e.
“I’m afraid you’ve used so m any adjectives th a t it w ould be
stran g e if one o f them did n o t apply to him .”
“O r all o f th em to g eth er.”
“Yes, th a t’s tru e too.” (I, 3, viii).
T h e w hole p o in t is th a t it is im possible to place L iputin (or anyone
else) in som e so rt o f category th a t exhausts his essence. H e fits into
m any categories, a n d one can e x p a n d th e n u m b e r o f them alm ost to
infinity. T h is does n o t at all co n trad ict th e presence o f a m ultitude o f
facts a n d “factlets,” everyday details th a t create a n im pression o f “re
d u n d an c y ” a n d “needlessness.” O n th e contrary, the petty details are
good in th a t by th e ir insignificance they countervail the pow er o f
categories a n d m ake th a t pow er illusory.
T h e n a rra to r-c h ro n ic le r is n o t a n om niscient a u th o r but, all the
sam e, his know ledge does n o t so strongly d iffe r from th e om niscience
o f th e a u th o r-d e m iu rg e ; h e knows m uch, even th a t which, in th e
opinion o f Ya. O. Zundelovich, he should n o t a n d cannot know. Z u n
delovich is quite b o th ere d , in particular, by th e fact th a t the chroni
cler, having ad m itted his ow n p o o r state o f inform ation, suddenly
fo rg ettin g ab o u t it, begins to prophesy in th e m a n n e r o f an om nis
cient, all-seeing a u th o r. Z undelovich takes th e chronicler’s reserva
tions a n d adm issions quite seriously, n o t noticing his irony an d
“rev erse” intonation, and, convicting him a n d Dostoevsky o f inconsis
tency, concludes th a t th e re are artistic e rro rs a n d failures o f the “au
tho rial voice” in th e novel. L et us cite som e passages from Dostoevsky
in th e fram ew o rk o f Z undelovich’s com m entary a n d conclusions:
. . . I w ant to em phasize th a t in o th e r cases the chronicler insists
especially sh arply on his lack o f inform ation: “O f course, no one
has a rig h t to expect fro m m e, as th e n a rra to r, too exact an
account co n cerning o n e point: fo r we are dealing w ith a m ystery
h ere, we are d ealing w ith a w om an.”
156 V. A. Tunimanov
T h is affirm atio n o f his re p o rto ria l lim itation seem s sim ply
paradoxical w hen, o n th e o th e r h an d , th e chronicler very o ften
knows things w hich in his capacity it is n o t prescribed fo r him to
know, as fo r exam ple in the narrative o f the n o ctu rn a l conversa
tion betw een th e spouses von Lem bke, w hen th e chronicler—
su d d en ly re m in d in g us o f his existence— declares: “I th in k h e
[Lembke] fell asleep a t ab o u t seven in th e m o rn in g .”
T h is k ind o f u n ex p ected failu re o f th e au th o rial voice attests
again a n d again th at Dostoevsky d id n o t fin d a balanced co rrela
tion am o n g his given m an n ers o f n a rra tio n .11
It is im precise to call th e chronicler’s supposition “know ledge” (it is
his hypothesis—“I th in k ”). O therw ise, th o u g h , it w ould seem h a rd to
object to an y th in g Zundelovich says. All th e sam e h e is in essence
m istaken; th e passage fro m th e novel, in w hich th e chronicler su p
posedly “insists especially sharply” o n his lack o f inform ation, is b ro
k en o ff in th e m iddle o f a sentence, a n d th e th o u g h t is d isto rted
thereby. L et us resto re th e sentence:
O f course, no o ne has a rig h t to expect fro m m e, as th e n a rra to r,
too exact a n account con cern in g o n e point: fo r we are dealing
with a m ystery here, we are dealing w ith a w om an; b u t one th in g
I do know: o n the previous evening she h ad gone into M r.
L em bke’s study a n d stayed w ith him th e re till long a fte r m id
n ig h t (III, 1, ii).
A n d fu rth e r:
M r. Lem bke was forgiven a n d com forted. H u sb an d an d wife
cam e to a com plete u n d ersta n d in g , everything was forgotten,
a n d w hen tow ards th e e n d o f th e interview von Lem bke, in spite
o f everything, w ent dow n on his knees, recalling w ith h o rro r the
m ain a n d final incident o f the previous night, his wife’s exquisite
little h an d , a n d afterw ards h e r lips, checked the passionate o u t
p o u rin g s o f p e n iten t speeches o f th e chivalrously delicate g en
tlem an, re n d e re d pow erless w ith em otion (III, I, ii).
W here is th e re any sh a rp insistence on lack o f in fo rm atio n here?
O n e co u ld ra th e r speak o f a fantastically d etailed (“re d u n d a n t”)
know ledge. H e re th e chronicler does n o t a t all yield to th e om niscient
au th o r: h e knows everything an d , a w orthy rep resen tativ e o f the
n Ia. O. Zundelovich, Romany Dostoevskogo: stat’i (Tashkent, 1963), p. 115.
town, can n o t k eep fro m re co u n tin g these postm idnight conjugal rela
tions in a “h ig h ” a n d “idyllic” style; h e gossips w ith relish, tearin g the
veil fro m family m ysteries. Zundelovich takes th e chronicler’s “rh e to r
ical” d ero g atio n at face value and, having freed G------ v’s speech o f
irony, sets u p a fo rm u la to w hich h e is so rigidly attached th at he is led
to d isto rt th e tex t a n d draw rigid conclusions.
Z undelovich ad o p ts a preju d iced a n d u n ju st attitu d e n o t only to the
chronicler, b u t also to th e “m ost venerable” S tepan T rofim ovich V er-
khovensky. In p articular, Z undelovich ad h eres to th e idea th a t th e
G ogolian th em e o f the ro a d is p aro d ie d in T he D evils (in th e ch a p te r
“S tep an V erkhovensky’s L ast Pilgrim age”). In this d ebasem ent an d
p arodying, a special role, in th e scholar’s opinion, is played by the idea
o f the post-horses, a n d by th e “gallicisms” used by S tepan (“ ‘V ive la
g ra n d e route, a n d w hat h ap p e n s th e n is in th e lap o f the gods’ ”):
By this gallicism (o f w hich S tep an is so fo n d an d which alm ost
com pletely serves as th e m eans fo r his speech characterization)
th e th em e o f th e ro a d is vulgarized once a n d fo r all, a n d the
g ra n d ilo q u e n t in h ab itan t o f ‘o u r tow n’ is once again throw n
dow n from th e ‘poetic heights’ by th e a u th o r.12
A n o th e r stu d e n t o f Dostoevsky, C hirkov, treats S tepan’s last jo u r
ney a n d th e th em e o f the ro a d in an absolutely opposite m an n er:
B u t th e final fate o f this h e ro in tro d u ces a note o f hig h pathos,
w hich sharply contends w ith the n a rra to r’s system adcally debas
in g a n d d eb u n k in g tone. A gainst all expectadons a n d supposi
tions, in defiance o f the n a rra to r’s elucidation, w hich suggests to
th e re a d e r th a t it is im possible to expect any th in g serious o f
S tepan, th e h ero breaks w ith his past an d goes out, according to
Dostoevsky’s th o u g h t, on to th e highway. . . . S tepan is ludicrous
w ith his childish ignorance o f life, his F ren ch language in a
R ussian village, b u t b e h in d this step o f his the w riter forces one
to feel th e b re ath in g o f d eath , a so rt o f h ig h er h u m an neces
sity.”13
L ate r C hirkov passes to b ro a d generalizations a n d su rp risin g p aral
lels: he recalls D on Q uixote, th e attractive elders o f Dostoevsky’s late
novels (M akar D olgoruki a n d Zosima) a n d even Leo Tolstoy (“Ste
12Ibid„ p. 132.
13N. M. Chirkov, 0 stile Dostoevskogo, pp. 55-56.
158 V. A. Tunimanov
p a n ’s d e p a rtu re fro m the house a n d his going o u t onto th e highw ay

involuntarily tu rn e d o u t to be a g re at prototype. In this Dostoevsky,
u n b ek n o w n st to him self, an ticip ated th e finale to the life o f his
co n tem p o rary —‘th e g reat w riter o f the Russian la n d ’ ”).14
C hirkov gets carried away w ith parallels, b u t on the whole his re
m ark s a re m o re j u s t th a n Z u n d elo v ich ’s verdicts. S te p a n ’s “e n
lig h ten m en t,” th e poetic o u tin g o f a liberal o f the 1840s, enters into
th e sp h ere o f th e novel’s central problem s. In general, th e “com ic”
a n d th e “lyric” in S tepan’s im age p re sen ted them selves to th e a u th o r
in an indissoluble unity. In his notebook Dostoevsky observes: “—A nd
yet Gr. som etim es h ad occasion to truly rise to th e lofty (w hen he was
in sorrow a n d was frank) w ith Prince Sh. B u t these w ere only occa
sions;” “Gr.— m u st w ithout fail be m ad e brilliant a n d likable a n d nice,
w ithout at all h id in g his deficiencies.”15
A lth o u g h th e caustic voice o f the chronicler dom inates in th e novel,
o n e ca n n o t speak o f the h e ro ’s su d d e n re b irth b efo re death, in d e
fiance o f his past. Even ea rlier the touchingly naïve a n d pathetic
peeps th ro u g h in th e “p o o r frie n d ” ’s aspect. In S tep an ’s speech a t the
celebration, th e parodie a n d comic does n o t a n n u l the lyric tran sp o rt,
n o r th e sincerity, n o r th e “loftiness” o f th e “teach er” ’s thoughts,
which in m any respects w ere also sh ared by Dostoevsky him self. T h e
ironically parodie a n d debasing are also p re sen t in th e c h a p te r “Ste
p an V erkhovensky’s Last Pilgrim age.” N o a b ru p t violations, o r even
d eform ations, occur in th e h e ro ’s im age as it has tak en shape, n o r any
h o san n as o r glorification; only th e poetic m otifs a re intensified,
splendidly set o ff by th e chronicler’s irony a n d by comic details. In th e
novel, th e chronicler a n d S tepan each has an individual tone an d
vocabulary; to violate w hat has already taken shape w ould m ean d e
stroying th e whole. L et us recall Dostoevsky’s w ords in a letter to N. A.
Lyubim ov o f A u g u st 7, 1879:
I t goes w ith o u t saying th a t m any o f th e teachings o f my eld er
Zosim a (or ra th e r, the m a n n e r o f th eir expression) belong to his
character, th a t is to his artistic re p resen tatio n . A lthough I hold
entirely th e sam e views th a t he expresses, if I w ere to express
th em personally as m yself, I w ould express th em in a d iffe re n t
14Ihid., p. 56.
lsIgnateva and Konshina, p. 164.
fo rm a n d in d iffe re n t language. B u t he could not express him self

in a d iffe re n t language o r in a different spirit th a n th a t which I
im p arted to him . O therw ise an artistic ch aracter w ould n o t have
b een created.
I t is th e sam e in th e case o f S tepan: his th o u g h ts about th e road, his
in terp re tatio n o f th e Gospel, a n d his dying w ords are entirely shared
by th e a u th o r, b u t th e m a n n e r o f expression is personal, individual,
p eculiar to S tepan. Dostoevsky’s h e ro is pitiful, touching a n d ludi
crous at th e tim e o f his last w anderings: in th e half-diffuse senile
stream o f th o u g h ts, F edka an d th e purse, cow a n d cart, a n d peasant
w om an, R ussian a n d F ren ch w ords a re strangely com bined:
I t was P eter Ilyich, th o u g h , w ho talked at th e club ab o u t horse-
b re e d in g a n d I m ulcted him , et puis, b u t th e re is som ething b e
h in d th a t cart an d — yes— I believe th e re ’s a peasant w om an in it.
A p easan t w om an an d a peasant—cela commence â être rassurant.
T h e w om an b eh in d a n d the p easan t in fro n t—c’est très rassurant.
T h e r e ’s a cow tied by th e h orns to th e back o f th e cart, c’est
rassurant au plus haut degré (III, 7, i).
S te p a n ’s c o n v e rs a tio n w ith th e folk, fo r w hom h e is lo rd a n d
fo reig n er, is ab su rd : his p ro fo u n d opinions, giving him away as an
aesthete a n d lover o f the elegant, are absurd; his gestures are inap
p ro p ria te : “H e filled his glass, got u p a n d w ith a certain solem nity,
crossed th e ro o m to th e o th e r co rn e r w here his com panion on the
s a c k . . . h ad seated h e rs e lf’ (III, 7, i); “W ith th e gesture o f a m an
saving him self, h e tu rn e d to h e r a n d o ffered tea.” H e is strangely
absen t-m in d ed a n d continually lapses into oblivion, the course o f his
th o u g h t is b ro k e n a n d capriciously associative; a th o u g h t latches onto
objects th a t casually fall into his field o f vision, a n d slips on by; his
speech is breathless a n d inconsistent:
I feel th a t I ’m speaking well. I shall speak to them very well,
b u t—w hat was it I was going to say? It was som ething im portant.
I k eep losing th e th rea d an d I can n o t re m e m b er . . . I’m awfully,
awfully confused. I can’t re m e m b er w hat I was going to say . . . I
th in k I ’m going to fall asleep. My h ea d ’s swim m ing. It’s going
ro u n d a n d ro u n d a n d ro u n d . ( I ll, 7, ii)
His story, tran sm itte d in a double refractio n (that o f the gospel
w om an a n d o f th e c h ro n ic le r), is a last p itifu l co nfession— th e
160 V. A. Tunimanov
tragicom ic “fan tasia” o f a h a n g e r-o n a n d unsuccessful m an , th e

apotheosis o f th e “sincere” lie, a fte r w hich S tepan, as is prescribed fo r
a m an w ho feels his dying h o u r ap p ro ach in g , confesses his sinful a n d
m endacious life:
My frien d , all m y life I’ve b een lying. E ven w hen I spoke th e
tru th . I n ev er spoke fo r th e sake o f the tru th , b u t fo r my ow n
sake. I knew it before, b u t it is only now th a t I see i t . . . T h e
tro u b le is th a t I believe m yself w hen I am lying. T h e h ard est
th in g in life is to live a n d n o t to lie, an d —a n d n o t believe y o u r
own lie, yes, yes, th a t’s it exacdy! ( I ll , 7, ii).
H aving cleansed him self o f lying, S tepan en d s u p fully p re p a re d

fo r the expression o f the m ain p am p h letee rin g idea o f th e novel,
w ithout, how ever, ch an g in g his favorite m a n n e r o f in tersp ersin g R us
sian w ords w ith F ren ch ones—it w ould be stran g e to suppose th a t the
gallicisms are called u p o n h e re to com prom ise his th o u g h t.
“My frie n d ,” said M r. V erkhovensky in g re a t excitem ent, “savez

vous, this w o n d erfu l a n d ex tra o rd in ary passage [Luke 8:32—
36—ed.] has b een a stum bling-block to m e all my life— dans ce
livre— so th a t I re m e m b ered th a t passage fro m childhood. B ut
now a n idea has occu rred to m e; une comparaison. A n aw ful lot o f
ideas keep o ccuring to m e now. You see, th a t’s ju s t like o u r
Russia. T h ese devils who go o u t o f th e sick m an a n d e n te r the
swine— those are all the sores, all the poisonous exhalations, all
th e im purities, all the big a n d little devils, th a t have accum ulated
in o u r g re at a n d beloved invalid, in o u r Russia, fo r centuries, fo r
centuries! Oui, cette Russie, que j ’aimais toujours. B u t a g re a t idea
an d a g re at will shield h e r from on high, as w ith th a t m ad m an
possessed o f th e devils, a n d all those devils, a n d all those im
p u rities, all th ose ab om inations th a t w ere fe ste rin g o n th e
surface—all o f them will them selves ask to e n te r into th e swine.
A nd, in d eed , they m ay have e n te re d into th em already! T h ey
are we, we a n d th em , a n d P e te r— et les autres avec lui, a n d
p erh ap s I at th e h ead o f them all, a n d we shall cast ourselves
dow n, th e rav in g a n d th e possessed, from the cliff into th e sea
a n d shall all be d ro w n ed , a n d serves us rig h t, fo r th at is all we are
good for. B u t th e sick m an will be healed, a n d ‘will sit at th e feet
o f Jesu s’, a n d all will look at him a n d be am azed. My dear, vous
comprendrez après. Nous comprendrons ensemble. (III 7, ii)
H av in g m ad e his contribution to th e p am p h letee rin g elem ent in

th e novel, S tepan b efo re d e a th u tters a fiery, poetic speech glorifying
a g re a t th o u g h t a n d th e e tern al h u m a n laws (here he actually does n o t
use gallicisms):
T h e m ere presence o f th e everlasting idea o f th e existence o f
so m ething infinitely m o re ju s t a n d happy th a n I, already fills m e
w ith ab id in g ten d ern ess a n d — glory— oh, w hoever I may be a n d
w h atev er I m ay have done! T o know every m om ent, a n d to
believe th a t som ew here th e re exists p erfec t peace a n d happiness
fo r everyone a n d fo r everything, is m uch m o re im p o rta n t to a
m an th a n his own happiness. T h e w hole law o f h u m an existence
consists m erely o f m ak in g it possible fo r every m an to bow dow n
b efo re w hat is infinitely great. I f m an w ere to be deprived o f the
infinitely great, h e w ould re fu se to go o n living, a n d die o f
desp air. T h e infinite a n d the im m easurable is as necessary to
m an as th e little p lan et w hich h e inhabits. My friends—all, all my
frien d s: lo n g live the G reat Idea! T h e eternal, im m easurable
Idea! Every m an, w hosoever h e m ay be, m u st bow dow n b efo re
w hat is th e G reat Idea. Even th e m ost stupid m an m u st have
so m eth in g great. P eter, m y boy— oh, how I wish I could see
th em all again! T h ey d o n o t know — they do n o t know th a t the
sam e etern al G re at Id e a dwells in them too! ( I ll, 7, iii).
T h is is a d ifferen t, h ig h e r philosophic-ideological level o f the novel,
poorly co rrelated w ith th e p am p h let. It is n a tu ra l th a t S tepan, p ro
claim ing th e laws com m on to all m ankind, is “rem o v ed ” from the
com m on course o f the chronicle, cut o ff fro m th e basic tragedies an d
catastrophes, a n d knows n o th in g o f his son’s latest deeds in town an d
o f th e fate o f Shatov. His “g re a t th o u g h t’' is outside these nightm ares
a n d shocks.
S tepan ru n s away fro m th e town tragedies. H e also ru n s away from
his co n fidant-chronicler, th ereb y a ro u sin g in him a w hole w hirlw ind
o f co n tradictory considerations. T h ro u g h o u t practically th e whole
novel S tep an is show n in th e ironically re frac ted light o f the chroni
cler’s “eulogy,” w hich brings him dow n from th e liberal heights into
base reality, a n d ridicules his personal life, creative w ork, a n d conver
sational m an n er; he is, it seems, exam ined from all sides by his “pupil,”
m astered , a n d h id d e n once a n d fo r all u n d e r th e ru b ric “m an o f the
forties.” T h e ch ro n icler’s in fo rm atio n ab o u t th e life a n d habits o f his
162 V. A. Tunimanov
“sorrow ful frie n d ” is un u su al but, it tu rn s out, even such a seemingly

“re d u n d a n t” know ledge is n o t com plete.16 T h e chronicler, in re co u n t
in g S tep an ’s last pilgrim age, unexpectedly tu rn s o u t to b e fa r away
fro m him , a n d reconstructs th e circum stances w hich escaped his view
according to th e testim ony o f others. U n d e r the p ressu re o f new facts,
h e is co m p elled to am en d th e im age th a t h e has d ra w n o f the
“teach er.” T h e chronicler begins the story w ith a firm , o ften re p eated
“I am convinced”:
I am convinced th a t S tepan V erkhovensky was very m u ch afraid
w hen he realized th a t th e tim e he h ad fixed fo r his m ad e n te r
prise was ap p ro aching. I am convinced th a t he su ffe red greatly
from fear, especially on th e n ig h t b efo re he h ad set o ff—th a t
terrib le n i g h t . . . b u t I am convinced th at he could n ev e r b efo re
have im agined him self alone on th e highw ay w ithout h o rro r,
a n d in such a condition, too. ( I ll, 7, i)
W ith this th e ch ronicler’s “conviction,” based on m any years’ ex
p erience a n d know ledge o f his frien d , is exhausted; a n d although
subsequently G------ v goes over th e possible versions th a t could have
d iverted S tepan fro m his “m ad en terp rise,” he him self already doubts
th e ju stn ess o f his own suppositions. H e can n o t fail to ad m it th a t in
S tep an ’s final tra n sp o rt th e re is som ething th a t does n o t yield to the
traditional explanations, som ething o f the so rt th a t w ould have h a p
p en ed “in spite o f everything”:
B u t th a t m ad e no d ifference: how ever clearly he realized th e
h o rro rs aw aiting him , he w ould have gone o u t an d taken to th e
road! T h e re was a feeling o f p rid e in w hat he h ad u n d e rta k e n
th a t fascinated him in spite o f everything. O h, he could have
accepted Mrs. Stavrogin’s m agnificent conditions a n d have re
m ain ed d e p e n d e n t o n h e r charity “comme u n o rd in ary h an g er-
o n!” B u t he h ad n o t accepted h e r charity a n d h ad n o t rem ained.
(H I, 7, i)
I6The chronicler sincerely admits his shortsightedness and mistakes; he

missed the birth of something new behind the usual words and gestures: “But
it was this fastidiousness and sarcasm, which still clung to him in spite of all
shocks, that put my mind at rest at the time: a man who had apparently
changed so litde compared with what he had been, was most certainly not
disposed at that moment to do anything tragic or untoward. T hat was how I
reasoned at the time, and goodness me, how wrong I was! I did not take
enough into consideration . . . ” (Ill, 2:i)
L ater, th e voice o f the chronicler, w hile n o t devoid o f the sincerity

o f lyricism, is constandy b ro k e n in u p o n by th e trad id o n al ironic
notes, w hich at tim es attain th e causticity o f th e first pages o f the
novel. T h e chronicler, fo rced several tim es to ad m it th e fact th a t
S tep an ’s flig h t a n d actions h ad affected him , chooses, w here possible,
th e traditio n al “everyday” explanations fo r th e incom prehensible:
“A n d in d eed I was very su rp rise d to learn from M rs. Stavrogin afte r
w ards, th a t he was n o t afraid o f d ea th at all. P erhaps he sim ply did no t
believe h er, a n d still re g a rd e d his illness as a triflin g o n e” (III, 7, iii).
T h e ch ro n icler is inclined to explain S tep an ’s en lig h ten m en t a n d u n
expectedly aw akening in tere st in religion th ro u g h the fam iliar charac
teristics o f th e h ea d o f th e tow n liberals:
W h e th e r h e was in d e e d co n v erted , o r because th e m ajestic
cerem ony o f the adm inistration o f the sacram ent m oved him
deeply a n d awoke th e artistic sensibilities o f his n atu re , but, I am
told, he u tte re d w ith g re at feeling som e w ords which w ere in
d irec t co n tradiction to his fo rm e r convictions. ( I ll, 7, iii)
S tepan, who has escaped fro m control, p e rfo rm ed un ex p ected acts
a n d “su d d en ly ” said so m uch th a t is unusual, is by all possible m eans
“d riv en ” back into his previous limits by th e chronicler, w ho thereby
saves th e artistic n a tu re o f th e im age. S tépan’s flight is a breakdow n o f
trad itio n , stagnation; it is a n elem ental m ovem ent. T h e “fall from a
h eight,” as ap p lied to m any characters (Stepan, Lem bke, Liza, the
petty bourgeois) is o ne o f th e novel’s central m otifs; various sorts o f
liberation o f th e elem ental, o ften destructive, energy h id d en in m an
are com p ared . T h is energy casts S tepan into th e wide world, onto the
highway; his last pilgrim age purifies th e soul a n d enlightens the m ind
o f the liberal o f th e forties. S tepan (like, by th e way, V arvara P et
rovna) is alm ost entirely w ithin th e chronicler’s field o f vision (of
visibility).
As a m em b er o f th e liberal circle,17 th e chronicler is personally
,7The members o f the liberal circle automatically pass, so to speak, from

the father to the son, into the “organization” of Pyotr. Thus is the connection
of the “revolutionary” generations schematically realized in the novel. The
chronicler does not take part in the “organization” of Pyotr, remains by the
side of the “father” as his loyal confidant and friend, and together with his
“teacher” takes up a negative position towards the “nihilism” of the latest
pattern.
164 V. A. Tunimanov
acq u ain ted w ith th e participants in th e evenings at S tepan’s, bu t, al

th o u g h his relatio n ship w ith them has a ra th e r “general” a n d “p e r
fu nctory” (uslovnyi) ch aracter, he is usually quite opinionated a n d
em otional in his view o f them . T h u s, o u tlin in g the fig u re o f the senior
m em b er o f th e circle, L iputin, the chronicler does n o t re strain him self
o r m ask his personal feelings: . . the insignificant an d alm ost abject
fig u re o f th e little provincial official, a jealous h u sb an d an d coarse
family ty ran t, a m iser a n d a m o n e y l e n d e r . . (I, 2, iii). T h is is no
lo n g er debasem ent, b u t a n unam biguous, unconditional conviction
a n d sentence. T h e chronicler is connected w ith L ip u tin by com plex
relations o f contem pt-curiosity, repulsion-attraction (and also, like
S tepan, th e ch ro n icler openly fears L iputin):
H e talked fo r a q u a rte r o f an h o u r, a n d so am usingly th a t I
could n o t te a r m yself away. T h o u g h I could no t stand him , I
m u st ad m it th a t h e h ad th e gift o f matking people listen to him ,
especially w hen h e was very angry ab o u t som ething. (I, 3, i)18
T h e ch ro n icler’s relationship to V irginsky is m ore com plex: sym
p athy a n d pity are com bined h e re w ith o u trig h t caricature. In the
depiction o f V irginsky, Dostoevsky’s sad irony re g a rd in g his own
F o u rierist enthusiasm s (m em ories o f his fo rm e r brightly b u rn in g
“spiritual fire”) is perceptible:
V irginsky h im self was a m an o f quite rem ark able p urity o f h eart,
an d , in d eed , I rarely m et w ith a m ore honest spiritual fire.
“N ever, n ev e r will I ab a n d o n these b rig h t hopes,” h e used to say
to m e, with sh ining eyes. O f those “b rig h t hopes” he always
spoke quietly, w ith sweetness, in h a lf a w hisper, as th o u g h in
secret. (I, 1, viii)
T h e ch ro n icler perceives Shatov alm ost entirely externally: his
m a n n e rs a n d iso lated o d d itie s (com ic details) a re o u tsid e p a m
p h letee rin g accusation, which is com pletely u n d ersta n d ab le— Shatov
is ju s t as m u ch th e spokesm an fo r the a u th o r’s position in th e novel as
th e ch ro n icler is. T h e latter even lacks Shatov’s “directness”:
W h en ev er I h ad gone to see him b efo re (which was n o t often) he
,8This same “sorcery” conditions Liputin’s success in the circle: “But we

liked his keen intelligence, his inquiring mind, and his peculiar malicious
cheerfulness” (I, 1, viii).
w ould invariably sit scowling in a c o rn er, answ er sullenly, a n d it

was only a fte r a long tim e th a t he grew anim ated an d began
talking w ith pleasure. E ven th e n he always scowled w hen saying
good-bye, a n d o p en ed th e d o o r fo r you as th o u g h h e w ere get
tin g rid o f a personal en e m y (I, 4, iv).19
T h e ch ro n icler also notes, “In o u r com pany h e was always sullen an d
uncom m unicative . . (I, 1, viii). T h e tacitu rn a n d silent Shatov is
nearly th e first o ra to r in the novel w ho spiritedly an d loquaciously sets
fo rth “Slavophile” ideas. Shatov exists in d ep en d en tly o f the ch ro n i
cler. Ideological aim s d em an d e d precisely this presen tatio n o f the
fig u re o f Shatov, a n d such a “fre e ” connection betw een him an d the
chronicler. Shatov’s “freed o m ” is also expressed in his ironic certifica-
dons o f th e chronicler: “ ‘Y ou’re o f course a “m o d erate liberal,” ’
Shatov said, sm iling, too” (I, 4, iv). Shatov’s views are n o t directly
affirm ed in th e novel. I f o n e looks retrospectively at Dostoevsky’s
creative w ork in th e 1870s, one m ay easily n ote th at th e w riter at
tem p ted to co n trast th e new, “dem onic” ideas w ith th e idea o f the
exceptional ch a rac to r o f the R ussian nation in its “populist” variant.
In T h e D evils this ten dency is also perceptible. In the overall stru ctu re
o f the w ork, how ever, Shatov— th e hero-victim o f the nihilist circles
a n d advocate o f th e th eo ry o f th e “G od-bearing p eople”— is n o t p u t on
a pedestal: h e is also a p articip an t in th e ro u n d -d an ce o f the “pos
sessed.” It is tru e, th o u g h , th a t in accordance w ith Dostoevsky’s pam
p h letee rin g conception, m o re space is alloted to Shatov fo r the p ro p
agation o f ideas th a n to th e spokesm en o f o p p osing ideas.
T h e ch ro n icler’s cursory d irec t know ledge fa r from rules o u t the
accuracy a n d precision o f his d eductions a n d conclusions. T h e im age
o f K arm azinov a n d his w ork is alm ost entirely re frac ted th ro u g h th e
ch ro n icler’s “I” n arratio n . T h e brevity o f th e description o f Shigalyov
is m ark e d by aphoristic co n cen tratio n a n d the precisely c a p tu red es
sence o f th e “th eo retician”:
N e v er in m y life have I seen such dejection, gloom , a n d d espon
dency o n th e face o f a m an. H e looked as th o u g h he w ere expect
19Now and then the chronicler reveals an understanding of Shatov’s “in

ner” world: “Knowing Shatov, I can say with certainty that he could never
have allowed himself to dream that a woman might say to him: ‘I love you’ ”
(III, 5, i).
166 V. A . Tunimanov
in g th e e n d o f the w orld n o t at som e indefinite tim e, according

to prophecies which m ig h t n ever com e tru e , b u t w ith absolute
definiteness— say, the day a fte r tom orrow , at exactly twenty-five
m in u tes past ten. W e hardly said a w ord to one a n o th e r o n th a t
occasion, b u t m erely shook h an d s like two conspirators. I was
particularly struck by his ears, w hich w ere o f u n n a tu ra l size,
long, b ro ad , a n d thick, sticking o u t in a m ost peculiar way. His
m ovem ents w ere aw kw ard an d slow. I f L iputin did som etim es
d re am o f th e phalanstery bein g established in o u r province,
Shigalyov m ost certainly knew th e day a n d th e h o u r w hen it
w ould com e to pass. H e m ade a n om inous im pression o n m e . . .
(I, 4, iv).
T h e ch ro n icler’s description o f Shigalyov is a very ra re case o f a n .

exhaustive a n d categorical characterization o f a ch a rac te r at “first
glance.” T h e ideologue-theoretician o f th e h u m a n anthill is th e m ost
“in teg ral” ch aracter in th e novel. In his theoretical constructions ev
ery th in g is straightforw ard, m ethodical an d clear, a n d w ritten all over
th e physiognom y o f th e “p u re ” socialist, a n d fo r this reaso n th e
ch ro n icler’s first glance is so precise a n d true. O n e’s im pression u p o n
m eetin g Shigalyov can only be fo rm u lated in th e m ost general way
(you liked him o r you d id n ’t); th e re is no place h ere fo r indignation o r
pity. Pity p resupposes th e presence o f som e so rt o f h u m a n feelings
a n d ideas, b u t fo r Shigalyov all feelings are killed by th e “p ro g ram .”
T h e ch ro n icler’s relationship to th e m ediocre Erkel is m o re com
plex. T h e ch ro n icler sincerely pities th e y oung m u rd e re r (as do m any
o th ers in th e town): “I speak so m u ch ab o u t him because I am very
sorry fo r him ” (III, 4, i). B u t a t th e sam e tim e, E rkel’s cold energy, his
unqu estio n in g readiness to carry o u t any o rd e r, inspire h o rro r in th e
n a rra to r. T h e stran g e a n d silent “boy”— the m ost loyal a n d devoted
m inion o f Pyotr Stepanovich V erkhovensky—is sim ply destin ed fo r
“punitive” m easures: “T o carry o u t o rd e rs was a n absolute necessity
fo r his petty, u n reaso n in g n atu re , w hich always yearn ed to subm it
itself to som eone else’s will— oh, o f course, only fo r th e sake o f the
‘com m on’ o r ‘g re at’ cause.”
F o r all his simplicity a n d ordinariness, E rkel is illum inated by th e
ch ro n icler in a m o re com plex m a n n e r th a n is Shigalyov. T h e o rd in ary
E rkel is subjected to a detailed, scrupulous a n d co n cen trated analysis,
w h ich co n sists o f a c h a in o f c le a r-c u t d e f in itio n s , re s e m b lin g
aphorism s in form a n d type (in general th e secondary characters o f

th e chronicle a re prim arily described o n a generalized level): “E rkel
b elonged to th at type o f ‘little fools’ who lack only the hig h er form s o f
reaso n in g pow ers; b u t h e h ad plenty o f the o th er, the lesser, reaso n
in g pow ers, even to the p o in t o f c u n n in g ” (III, 5, ii). T h e description
is precise a n d condensed; th e th o u g h t is firm ly fo rm u lated an d rejects
in advance th e possibility o f any o th e r interpretations.
B u t precision o f d escription a n d tru th o f deductions do n o t always
m ark th e ch ro n icler’s “vision.” L et us take one o f the com plex cases:
th e ch ro n icler’s p ercep tio n o f Kirillov. M ost o f the characters in the
chronicle a re know n to A n to n Laventievich G------ v before the start
in g (zero) p o in t o f the n arratio n . Kirillov is a n exception; his closed
way o f life is h ard ly conducive to personal contact, his unsociability
a n d possession by ideas h in d e r a tru e u n d e rsta n d in g o f him . T h e
ch ro n icler sees a n d hears Kirillov, converses w ith him — a n d d oesn’t
u n d e rsta n d him ; he seizes u p o n the external, th a t w hich is intelligible
to th e eye a n d ear, b u t is n o t capable o f p en e tratin g inside. T h e
ch ro n icler m eets Kirillov’s ideas w ith unconcealed m ockery, w hich
does n o t escape even th e m an possessed by th e theory o f th e saving
pow er o f suicide: “ ‘I ’m sorry you seem to be laughing,’ h e ad d e d h a lf
a m in u te later.” G------ v’s reaction to his stran g e conversation with
Kirillov is terse: “ ‘H e ’s m ad as a h atter, o f course,’ I d ecid ed ” (I, 3,
viii); “I m en tio n ed , by the way, my conversation with Kirillov, ad d in g
th a t Kirillov was probably m a d ” (I, 3, x).
Shatov’s ju d g m e n ts ab o u t Kirillov (and n o t only ab o u t him) are
partial a n d consequendy unjust; th e chronicler’s opinion a fte r a first
acquaintance is superficial b u t neu tral. Shatov rejects the chronicler’s
superficial idea th a t Kirillov is insane; in tu rn th e chronicler disagrees
w ith th e u n ju st inclusion o f Kirillov am o n g th e punstèrs:
“R ussian atheism has nev er gone fa rth e r th a n a p u n ,” Shatov
m u tte re d , p u ttin g in a new candle in place o f th e b u rn t-o u t end.
“N o, th a t m an did n o t give m e th e im pression o f a punster. I
d o n ’t th in k h e knows how to talk, let alone m ake p u n s.” (I, 4, iv)
T h e tru e Kirillov reveals him self in his conversations with Stavro-
gin, P yotr V erkhovensky, a n d Shatov. T h e chronicler is absent from
all these conversation scenes.
As a ch aracter th e chronicler is a passive a n d p u p p ed ik e figure,
a n d alth o u g h h e o ften bustles about, in essence h e takes alm ost no

p a rt in th e action; w hat he hears a n d sees is im p o rtan t, a n d signifi-
candy less im p o rta n t is w hat h e says a n d does d u rin g th e events. P a rt
o f his fu n ctio n is th e collection a n d system atization o f m aterial, a n d
this is th e m ost extensive field o f his activity. Finally, p a rt o f the
ch ro n icler’s fu n ctio n is th e in te rp re ta tio n o f w hat he has seen, a n d
h e re he m ay display exceptional subtlety a n d d ep th , o r n o t display it,
o r simply fo reg o a definite decision. T h e ch ro n icler’s inform ation
m ay also fluctuate fro m com plete know ledge (and h e re he resem bles
th e om niscient au th o r) to half-know ledge a n d even in co rrect knowl
edge (and h ere he is a fallible a n d m ortal m an, whose ju d g m e n ts a n d
in terp retatio n s are o ften m istaken). T h e chronicler m ay also displace
th e tem p o ral p o in t o f the story: a later, total know ledge is su p erim
posed on his fo rm e r know ledge; b u t o ften G------ v “confiscates” this
his later u n d e rsta n d in g o f things, tra n sfe rrin g the n a rra tio n entirely
into th e past. T h e total p o in t o f view (after th e catastrophe) is p resen t
in th e novel in th e form o f a ram ified system o f allusions; this projec
tion o f results is carried o u t vaguely (basically re g a rd in g details) a n d
unevenly— th e story o f th e chronicler’s g rad u al learn in g a n d “e n
lig h ten m en t” form an essential aspect o f the dynam ism a n d in terest o f
th e novel’s developm ent. T h is story o f learn in g is n o t em phasized,
a n d in g en eral th e chronicler o ften foregoes explanations; as a result,
th e ch aracters acquire “in d ep en d e n ce” a n d d e p a rt fro m th e im p o rtu
n ate accom panim ent o f th e chronicler’s voice. N a rratio n “from th e
ch ro n icler” recedes, an d scenes w ithout th e chronicler’s participation
at all, o r w ith his m inim al participation, com e to th e fore. T h e condi
tionality an d , to a certain extent, “o u tsid er’s position” o f th e fig u re o f
th e ch ro n icler p erm it the ch an g in g o f th e “scenery” in th e n arratio n
to take place alm ost unnoticeably a n d painlessly fo r th e unity o f the
c h ro n ic le ’s system ; G------ v d isa p p e a rs j u s t as easily a n d u n c o n -
strainedly as he ap p e ars again. Dostoevsky ap p aren tly considered any
special notifications to th e re a d e r ab o u t the change o f “scenery” to be
sup erflu o u s, alth o u g h, ju d g in g by his notebooks, they w ere p lan n ed :
“I sat w ith G r------ fo r the th ird tim e a n d listened to his h ea te d conver
sation w ith Sh. In general, even if I describe conversations tête à tête
\sam drug] — d o n ’t pay any attention: e ith e r I have firm data, or,
The Narrator in T h e D e v ils 169
p erh ap s, I make it up m yself—b u t be assured th a t everything is tru e.

F o r I have ad o p te d th e system o f a chronicle.”20
Is it possible to co ntrast th e scenes “tete-à-ûte” w ith th e scenes th at
have th e ch ro n icler’s presence a n d his “I” n arratio n ? Yes a n d no. T h e
scenes w ith o u t th e ch ro n ic ler (e ith e r based o n d a ta received by
G------ v from oth ers, o r m ade u p by him , o r, p erh ap s m ost freq u en t o f
all, re p re se n tin g a com bination o f fantasy, personal experience a n d
th e in terp re tatio n o f o th ers’ opinions) seldom contradict th e direct
n arra tio n o f th e chronicler, a n d if they do contradict it, it is in accord
w ith th e artistic task. T h e ch am b er conversation scenes a re an indis-
pensible adm ission into the chronicle: th e chronicler’s direct presence
in them w ould, naturally, be very h a rd to m otivate; in som e cases it
w ould be “im m odest,” in o th ers sim ply im possible. T h e chronicler
m u st inevitably tu r n into a sto ry teller a n d co n jectu re substantial
“lacunae” in th e chronicle th ro u g h his im agination. T h e crow d scenes,
in w hich th e ch ro n icler fo r a n u m b e r o f reasons does n o t participate
eith er, are a cross betw een various sources o f inform ation a n d his
im agination. (See in th e d rafts: “In th e discussion o f th e m eetings,
m ake a re m a rk as th e ch ro n ic ler: P erh a p s, they h ad still o th e r
m eetings— a n d surely they did— I d o n ’t know, b u t th e m atter, p ro b a
bly, h a p p e n e d this w a y . . . .”)21
In The Devils th e re are th re e basic form s o f narrative: (a) n arratio n
“fro m th e ch ro n icler,” in w hich th e n a rra to r’s voice dom inates; (b)
scenes w ith th e ch ro n icler’s participation, in any o f which his role may
be m o st d iffe re n t; (c) scenes w ith o u t th e c h ro n ic le r— in tim ate,
ch am b er scenes, w ith th e com plete o r alm ost com plete disappearance
o f G------ v. T h e re is also th e com bined fo rm o f narrative— the crow d
scenes.
T h e establishm ent o f th e tru e p ro p o rtio n s am o n g th e various
form s o f n arrativ e, a n d th e m eth o d s o f linking them , fo rm ed D os
toevsky’s m ain “artistic” concern. T h e vacillations in th e process o f
w ork o n The Devils w ere m ost various, b u t on the w hole one m ay speak
o f a g ra d u al intensification o f a tendency tow ard lim iting th e “ex p lan
20Ignateva and Konshina, p. 137.

2'Ibid„ pp. 136-137.
170 V. A. Tunimanov
atory” a n d “ideological” fun ctio n o f th e chronicler. T h e broadly o u t

lined connection betw een Stavrogin a n d the chronicler was especially
w eakened. In th e original outlines, Stavrogin’s actions a n d w ords
w ere to be m o re o ften accom panied by rejo in d ers a n d explanations
“fro m th e ch ro n icler”:
In th e ch ro n icler’s voice at th e m iddle o r e n d o f his novel: In
g en eral Stavrogin h a d such-and-such an aim ; how ever, th a t is
according to U sh------ v’s22 testim ony. I d o n ’t know w hat th e ir
business th e re in Sw itzerland was, b u t I have correctly d efin ed
th e essence o f th eir m ovem ent, th e ir philosophy, th e sense o f
th e ir actions: I ’ll vouch fo r th a t.23
I t was also assum ed th a t a fte r Stavrogin’s d e a th th e chronicler w ould
sum up, give an analysis o f th e p rin ce’s character, in a special (“indis
pensable”) ch ap ter, “Analysis”:
T h e chronicler, afte r th e p rince’s death, is to m ake an analysis o f
his ch aracter (indispensably, a ch a p te r called A nalysis). Saying
th a t this was a strong, p re d ato ry m an, w ho becam e entangled in
convictions a n d who o u t o f endless p rid e desired an d could
only be convinced o f th a t w hich was com pletely clear . . . etc.24
T h e “Analysis” ch a p te r was n ever realized, a n d the story o f the
ch ro n icler’s g rad u al know ledge o f Stavrogin, b eg u n in such prom is
in g detail in th e first p a rt o f the novel, subsequendy cam e to n au g h t;
th e ch aracter passed into o th e r spheres o f the n arrative, having fallen
o u t o f th e plane o f n a rra tio n “fro m the chronicler.” G------ v avoids
personal explanation o f Stavrogin’s character, leaving th a t fo r the
p rince him self to do in a letter, a n d fo r the o th e r characters in the
chronicle (Kirillov, Shatov, K hrom onozhka [M arya Lebyadkin], Pyotr
V erkhovensky, Liza T ushin). M oreover, n o t only the line from the
ch ro n icler to Stavrogin, b u t also fro m Shatov to Stavrogin, was c u r
tailed; th u s, in th e notebooks a w hole series o f conversations betw een
Stavrogin a n d Shatov was p lanned, b u t in th e final text only a single
conversation rem ains, w hich ends w ith th e p rince’s assurances th a t he
will n o t visit Shatov again.
22This was Dostoevsky’s conditional name for Shigalyov in the notebooks.

23Ignateva and Konshina, p. 138.
24lbid., p. 317.
In th e first p a rt o f th e novel, Stavrogin is th e object o f G------ v’s

intense a n d u n re m ittin g attention; th e latter is interested a n d bewil
d e re d by th e p rin ce’s stran g e a n d rom antic life, an d , like a conscienti
ous chronicler, re n d e rs Stavrogin’s history, relying o n the rum ors,
opinions, a n d legends o f others, fo r w ant o f his own inform ation. O ne
o f G------ v’s functions is to in te rp re t a n d classify opinions. A nother, no
less im p o rta n t role o f the chronicler also com es to the fo re here: the
keen perso n al atten tion o f G------ v as a n observer, who tries to find
o u t th e tru th , th e “essence” o f Stavrogin by m eans o f th e com parison
o f a personal, subjective view to the general view. M arya Lebyadkin,
P yotr V erkhovensky, Liza, Shatov, a n d Kirillov p en e trate to the “es
sence” o f Stavrogin, each in his own way a n d w ith varying degrees o f
precision. T h e ch ro nicler participates especially intensively in th e
g en eral m ovem ent at th e beginning. T h e chronicler’s first personal
im pression is su rp rise: th e legendary Stavrogin o f th e o th ers’ stories
tu rn s o u t to be quite d iffe re n t from th e real Stavrogin. F o r the tim e
b ein g th e ch ro n icler’s su rp rise bears only a reladvely personal charac
te r (he is one o f m any who are surprised); b u t n e ith e r is it tem porary
a n d casual, a n d it has actual, real roots. I t is com pletely u n d e rsta n d a
b le a n d explicable a n d does n o t entirely re fu te Stavrogin’s legendary
b iography, all th e m ore since th a t biography is n o t com pletely legen
d ary (a statem en t th a t has th e force o f proof, since h e re also the
ch ro n icler superim poses la te r know ledge on th e tem p o ral point o f
view):
I was n o t th e only o n e to be surprised: o u r w hole town was
su rp rised , a n d o u r tow n, o f course, knew M r. Stavrogin’s biog
ra p h y , a n d in such detail th a t one could hardly im agine w here
they could have got it from an d , w hat was even m ore surprising,
h a lf o f th e stories ab o u t him w ere quite tru e. (I, 2, i)
T h e chronicler, jo in in g in th e g en eral chorus, is n o t distinguished
fro m it only a t first. H e refuses to explain Stavrogin’s provocative an d
stran g e actions, a n d this in itself is a m a rk e d p erso n al position:
G------ v has a large choice o f in terp retatio n s, b u t h e places them all
u n d e r suspicion, and, w hat is particularly rem arkable, he holds to his
previous o p in io n even “now ,” th a t is, a fte r everything th at has h a p
p en ed : “F or m y p art, I d o n ’t know to this day how to explain it, in
spite o f th e incid en t w hich o ccurred soon afterw ards a n d which a p
172 V. A. Tunimanov
p arently ex p lain ed everything an d , it w ould seem , set everybody’s

m in d at re st” (I, 2, ii). “E verybody”—b u t n o t th e chronicler.25
T h e scene at V arvara P etrovna’s w ith Stavrogin a n d the o th ers is
th e culm ination o f th e first p a rt a n d th e culm ination o f th e n a rra tio n
ab o u t Stavrogin “fro m th e chronicler.” T h e chronicler is th e “lead e r”
in this scene, th e observer a n d com m entator. Stavrogin ap p e ars a n d
th e ch ro n icler’s gaze is im m ediately riveted to him : alterations, w hich
give rise to questions, are noted:
B u t now—now, I d o n ’t know why, h e looked to m e at th e first
glance as quite incontestably handsom e, so m uch so th a t it was
im possible to say th a t his face was like a m ask. Was it because he
was ju s t a litd e p aler th a n before a n d h ad ap p aren tly gone th in
ner? O r was it p erh ap s because som e new idea was now reflected
in his eyes? (I, 5, v)
T h e ch ro n icler draw s atten tio n to Stavrogin’s smile, gestures, walk,
facial expression (and how it changes), a n d vocal intonation. H e d e
scribes th em with th e precision o f a ste n o g ra p h e r w hose atten tio n th e
subtlest m o m en tary m ovem ents d o n o t escape: “h e re he ex ch an g ed a
m o m en tary glance w ith him ,” “h e spoke w ith a certain peculiar twist
to his face.” It is as th o u g h th e chronicler stops tim e o r stretches a n
instant into infinity: “So passed five seconds”; “. . . th e w hole scene
d id n o t last m o re th a n ten seconds. Still, a g re a t deal h a p p e n e d in
those ten seconds” (I, 5, viii). A ro u n d a few seconds, w hich hold so
m uch, th e p ast a n d p re se n t a re concentrated. T h e chronicler’s total
p o in t o f view, achieved as a re su lt o f lo n g searching a n d collecting o f
facts, is sum m arized; a lo n g tirad e ab o u t the heroes o f th e past (L unin
a n d L erm ontov), sim ilar to Stavrogin in som e ways b u t also d iffe re n t
in m any oth ers, is in tro d u ce d ; early a n d late ju d g m e n ts a re persis
tently com bined into a single focus:
I re p e a t again: I th o u g h t him at th e tim e a n d I still th in k him
25Almost nothing is said in the novel about the personal relationship be
tween G------v and Stavrogin, except for a single casual and obscure hint.
Perhaps Dostoevsky contemplated a closer connection, even conversations,
but nothing remained of these plans but a single stroke: “Let me also add that
four years later, in answer to a discreet question from me about that incident
at the club, Stavrogin said, frowning, ‘Yes, I was not quite myself at the time’ ”
(I, 2, ii).
(now th a t every thing is over) the so rt o f m an who, if he received

a blow in th e face o r a sim ilar insult, w ould have killed his a d v er
sary o n th e sp o t a n d w ithout challenging him to a d uel (I, 5, viii).
T h e chro n icler’s h ea rin g a n d vision a re strained a n d sh arp en ed to the
utm ost, his gaze strives to b re ak th ro u g h the o u te r shell a n d p en e trate
to th e inside. O f course th e ch ro n icler sees th e w hole scene “from the
outside,” b u t he sees so keenly a n d p en e trates so deeply th a t his vision
achieves s u p e rn a tu ra l dim ensions, ap p ro ach in g in intensity an d p re
cision th e vision o f th e infallible a n d “om niscent” a u th o r. T h e ch ro n i
cler o f course does n o t sim ply describe w hat he saw th en : h e projects
his w hole experience, a h u g e sum o f facts, a n d his final (by the tim e o f
th e chronicle’s creation) know ledge. T h e chronicler’s reticence is, ob
viously, a p ro p e r m eans fo r p ro m o tin g the carry in g o u t o f an aim th a t
was essential fo r Dostoevsky— th e in tere st o f th e narrative. B ut this is
n o t all; in tere st is already achieved by th e fact th a t the chronicler
limits h im self to a n allusion to o th e r facts know n to him , w hich will be
com m unicated subsequently in th e ir ow n place a n d th eir own time.
S o m eth in g else is m o re im p o rtan t. T h e re a d e r is in fo rm ed th at the
ch ro n icler knows quite a lot ab o u t Stavrogin an d , despite such an
ex trem e a n d com prehensive state o f in fo rm atio n (close to “om nisci
ence”), h e ca n n o t explain S tavrogin’s co nduct w ith com plete assur
ance. In o th e r w ords, it is explained at the o utset th a t th e re will be no
final sum m ation, th e re a d e r will n o t receive com plete solutions an d
m u ch will rem a in obscure at th e very e n d o f th e novel; by this itself
th e re a d e r is invited by th e a u th o r to take w hatever personal partici
p atio n is w ithin his pow ers in th e disen tan g lem en t o f knots a n d the
guessing o f “psychological” rebuses.
B eg in n in g w ith th e second p a rt o f T he D evils, perceptible changes
in th e n a rra tio n take place; th e connection betw een th e chronicler
a n d Stavrogin also u n d erg o es defo rm atio n . Even later the chronicler
observes Stavrogin, b u t his vision loses its keenness; h e sees little a n d
poorly: “I saw th em m eetin g in th e doorw ay: it seem ed to m e th a t
b o th o f th em stood still fo r a m o m en t a n d looked ra th e r strangely at
o n e an o th er. B u t I m ay n o t have seen them p ro p erly fo r the crow d”
(II, 5, ii). E ven w hen G------ v is p re sen ted w ith an o p p o rtu n ity o f
d em o n stratin g his talen t fo r p e n e tra tin g “w ithin,” h e does n o t m ake
use o f th a t o p p o rtu n ity . T h e chronicler also foregoes personal ju d g
m en ts ab o u t th e h ero , w ith o n e sm all exception—th e introduction to
Stavrogin’s letter (in a n arro w sense— a stylistic rem a rk ; in a b ro a d

sense—an accusation): “H e re is the letter, w ord fo r w ord, w ithout th e
correction o f a single m istake, in the style o f a R ussian lan d ed gentle-
m an w ho has n ev er m astered R ussian g ra m m a r in spite o f his E u ro
p ean ed u catio n ” (III, 8).
Stavrogin’s le tte r is a frag m en t o f a h e ro ’s n ever-quite-form ulated
confession—a confession sum m ing u p th e failure o f a life. T h e letter
contains no discoveries, n o th in g specifically new ; it confirm s th e op in
ion o f o th ers ab o u t Stavrogin, freein g these evaluations o f su p erflu
ous em otionalism a n d transience. In th e com bination o f narrativ e
form s chosen fo r th e account o f Stavrogin’s history, the leading one is
objective n arra tio n (cham ber scenes, conversations ûte-à-tete, w ithout
th e presence o f th e chronicler). T h e others (narrative by th e chroni
cler a n d confession) occupy a subordinate, secondary place o n th e
whole, alth o u g h th e p ro p o rtio n s are d iffe re n t in th e first p a rt o f th e
novel— partly, p erh ap s, explainable by th e vacillations,26 w hich con
cluded in th e victory o f objective n arra tio n by a n all-seeing a u th o r
stan d in g outside th e action.
T h e im ages o f Stavrogin a n d Pyotr V erkhovensky d em an d e d a dif
fe re n t style o f n arratio n , d iffe re n t form s, th a n S tepan:
“N echaev a n d th e prince w ithout explanations, b u t in action,
a n d fo r St. T r ------ ch always w ith explanation"-, “T h e tone consists
in n o t elucidating N echaev a n d the prince. N echaev begins from
gossip a n d com m onplaces, a n d th e prince is revealed gradually
[by n arration] in action a n d w ith o u t any explanations”; “T h e
m a in th in g is th a t th ro u g h o u t th e novel it never be fully ex
p lained why N echaev cam e”; “T h e whole situation a n d progress
o f N echaev m ust be th a t the re a d e r sees absolutely n o th in g b u t a
few b u ffo o n ish a n d strange characteristic features. I m ust n o t do
like o th e r novelists, th a t is, tru m p e t fro m th e very beg in n in g th at
h ere is an u n u su al m an. O n th e contrary, I m u st h id e him a n d
only gradually uncover him th ro u g h artistic features (for exam
ple, th e d ifference betw een his intellect a n d c u n n in g a n d his
u tte r ignorance o f reality).”27
T h u s, th e im age o f S tepan is revealed by m eans o f n a rra tio n “from
26The materials in the notebooks convincingly show how strong these vacil
lations were.
27Ignateva and Konshina, pp. 271, 273, 288.
th e ch ro n icler,” th e im ages o f th e p rince a n d P yotr V erkhovensky, in

dialogue a n d in action; these are two basic a n d opposing narrativ e
principles. By th e com bination o f h etero g en eo u s n arrative form s, th e
dynam ic flow o f th e story is achieved, th e problem o f interest is
solved, th e fu n ctio n s a n d b o u n d arie s o f th e ch ro n ic ler’s activity
a n d the variety o f distances betw een chronicler a n d characters are
defined.
Stepan Verkhovensky
and the Shaping Dialectic
o f Dostoevsky’s Devils
by Gordon Livermore
W riting to A pollon M aikov o n M arch 2, 1871, afte r com pleting

P a rt I o f D e v ils,1 Dostoevsky explains th a t S tepan T rofim ovich V er
khovensky, to whose biography th e novel’s in tro d u cto ry ch a p te r is
devoted, is a “secondary ch aracter,” b u t one “whose story is closely
b o u n d u p w ith o th e r (principal) events o f the novel.” T h e re fo re , Dos
toevsky writes, “I took him as th e co rn ersto n e, as it were, o f the
whole.” Dostoevsky’s re m a rk ap p ro p riately suggests S tepan’s “sec
o n d ary ” yet, paradoxically, central role in D evils. N o t only is S tep an ’s
story b o u n d u p w ith th e principal events o f th e plot, b u t in his posi
tion as th e novel’s “co rn ersto n e” h e also in tro d u ces its central th em a
tic conflict. Focused in th e antagonism betw een S tepan a n d his son
Pyotr, this conflict is re p eated in n u m ero u s variations th ro u g h o u t the
novel a n d ultim ately m irro re d in its stru ctu re. Its roots lie in S tepan’s
idealist sensibility a n d p e rsiste n t im pulse to leap, in Vyacheslav
Ivanov’s term s, a realibus a d realiora,2 fro m “low er” to “h ig h e r” reality,
fro m p articu lar to general, fro m fact to idea.
“Stepan Verkhovensky and the Shaping Dialectic of Dostoevsky’s Devils’’
written for this collection by Gordon Livermore. Copyright © 1983 by
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
’I have chosen to translate Dostoevsky’s Besy as Devils, rather than The
Devils, in the belief that the initial definite article inappropriately invites a
narrowly specific interpretation of the author’s suggestive metaphorical title.
2Ivanov uses the phrase a realibiis ad realiora to identify the general direc
tion in which he says Dostoevsky’s “realistic symbolism” leads the reader:
“from reality on a lower plane, a reality of lesser ontological value, to a more
real reality.” Vyacheslav Ivanov, Freedom and the Tragic Life: A Study in Dos
toevsky, trans. from an expanded version of Ivanov’s “Dostoevskii i roman-
tragediia” (1911) by Norman Cameron and ed. by S. Konovalov, 3rd ed. (New
York: Noonday Press, 1960), p. 49.
176
The Shaping Dialectic o f Dostoevsky’s D e v ils 177
A s critics have generally recognized, S tepan, m odeled quite loosely

o n th e liberal H egelian historian T im o fei Granovsky, re p resen ts a
synthetic p o rtra it o f th e progressive, W estern-oriented Russian intel
lectuals who sh ap e d the ethos o f the nascent R ussian intelligentsia in
th e “rem ark ab le d ecad e” o f 1839-1848. Dostoevsky later re fe rre d to
S tepan, in th e Ju ly -A u g u st issue o f his Diary o f a W riter fo r 1876, as a
“type o f th e idealist o f th e F orties.” B efo re his co n fro n tatio n with the
nihilists at th e literary m atinee, S tepan rem ark s th a t he is m aking a
stan d “fo r th e sake o f a g re a t idea” (II, 10, iii).3 E arlier th e n a rra to r
has m en tio n ed S tep an ’s n ee d to believe th at he was fulfilling the
“h ig h er d u ty o f th e p ro p a g a n d a o f ideas” (I, 1, ix). T h e specific idea
th at S tep an d efen d s at th e m atinee is th e necessity o f art. B u t the
sense o f u rgency h e feels ab o u t ideas in general is essential to bo th his
identity a n d his im plicit aesthetic. S tepan n o t only “rep resen ts an
id ea” (predstavliaet ideiu), as h e is identified w hen he visits P etersburg
in 1859-60 (I, 1, vi), he re p resen ts an essentially idealist belief in the
im p o rtan ce, efficacy, a n d “h ig h er” reality o f th e Idea.
Previous critics have n o ted th a t S tep an ’s surnam e, V erkhovensky,
suggests th e ro le o f lead e rsh ip o r suprem acy— verkh o ven stvo — fo r
w hich S tep an co n tends w ith his son P yotr in the novel. B u t in addition
to this co n n otation, the ro o t verkh (“height,” “sum m it”) can also be
tak en to allude to S tepan’s elevated, idealistic view o f h u m a n n a tu re
a n d his p ersonal gravitation tow ard “h ig h e r” reality. U sed fig u ra
tively, th e adjective vysokii (“h ig h ,” “lofty”) a n d its co m p arativ e-
superlative d eg ree, vyshii, are rep eated ly e ith e r associated with S tepan
o r on his lips. T h e w ords suggest th e pull o f his vision away from
m u n d a n e a n d m aterial reality tow ard th e “h ig h e r” w orld o f the idea
an d th e ideal. T h u s th e n a rra to r rem arks, fo r exam ple, th at S tepan
was “noble, w ith h ig h er aspirations” (I, 2, viii); th a t S tep an ’s article o n
m edieval knights ad d u c ed “som e h ig h er a n d exceptionally noble
id ea” (I, 1, i); a n d th a t his epic poem was m ark ed by a “n ote o f h ig h er
h u m o r” (I, 1, i).
T h ro u g h o u t th e novel, o f course, th e association o f th e “lofty” o r
th e “h ig h er” w ith S tepan has ironic overtones. It is repeatedly con
n ected w ith his evasion o ir e a lia , o f b o th th e practical dem an d s o f life
a n d th e practical consequences, o r inconsequence, o f his words an d
3Quotations from the novel are my translations from the text o f Besy as it
appears in F. M. Dostoevskii, Polnoe subranie sochinenii, ed. V. G. Bazanov et
al.,'X (Leningrad: Nauka, 1975).
178 Gordon Livermore
actions. T h u s, w ith re fere n ce to S tepan a n d his circle, th e n a rra to r

speaks ironically o f “h ig h er liberalism ” a n d the “h ig h er liberal, th a t
is,” he says, “the liberal w ithout any p u rp o se w hatsoever” (I, 1, ix).
S tepan’s belief th a t he was fulfilling th e “h ig h er duty o f the p ro p a
g an d a o f ideas” has provided him w ith a n excuse fo r d o in g n o th in g fo r
tw enty years. In stead o f liberating S tepan fro m attach m en t to th e
m u n d a n e a n d th e m aterial, th e u p w a rd cast o f his vision tow ard th e
“h ig h er” has served m ainly to divert his atten tio n from his chronic
irresponsibility a n d indulgence in the pleasures o f card a n d d rin k at
th e expense o f his patroness V arvara P etrovna Stavrogin. W hen V ar
vara co n fro n ts him w ith the re co rd o f his offenses in th e course o f
th e ir lo n g relationship, S tepan concedes: “Yes, I sponged o ff you.”
B u t he d efen d s h im self characteristically: “S ponging was nev er th e
highest principle o f m y actions. T h a t ju s t h a p p e n e d o f itself, I d o n ’t
know how . . . I always th o u g h t th a t th e re rem ain ed som ething b e
tw een us h ig h e r th a n food . . . ” (II, 5, iii).
A ltogether, S tep an ’s life in th e novel— as p re sen ted th ro u g h th e
som ew hat disillusioned eyes o f his fo rm e r confidant, the n a rra to r—
constitutes an ex ten d ed , ironic com m entary o n his gravitation tow ard
th e “h ig h e r” realm o f ideas. T h e vague, abstract a n d allegorical qual
ity o f his own narrative poem , w hich th e n a rra to r identifies as “an
allegory in lyrical-dram atic fo rm th a t recalled th e second p a rt o f
F a u st” (I, 1, i), is sym ptom atic o f his essential m o d e o f perception, his
com pulsion to abstract a n d intellectualize, a n d his inclination to see
reality as idea a n d symbol. I f the tru e form s o f things are obscured fo r
Plato’s cave dw ellers by a n illusory veil o f sensory appearances, one
could say th a t th e concrete a n d p articu lar dim ension o f existence is
o ften obscured fo r S tepan by a n insubstantial yet surprisingly opaque
veil o f form s a n d ideas.
T ellin g o f “S tep an T rofim ovich’s Last W an d erin g ,” th e n a rra to r
mimics his frie n d ’s characteristic sensibility as h e attem pts to p resen t
th e symbolic dim ensions o f setting o u t o n the highway, as S tepan
m ig h t have conceived it: “T h e highway— th a t is som ething long, long,
to w hich no e n d can be seen; th e highw ay is like h u m a n life, like the
h u m a n d ream . In the highw ay th e re is a n i d e a . . ( I ll, 7, i). T h e
n a rra to r suggests, m oreover, th a t S tep an ’s atten tio n to th e symbolic
significance— th e idea—o f his jo u rn e y w ould have p reclu d ed any
co n cern w ith th e p articular, practical details o f travel: “I n th e highway
The Shaping Dialectic o f Dostoevsky’s D ev ils 179
th e re is a n idea; b u t w hat so rt o f idea is th ere in an o rd e r fo r post

horses? In a n o rd e r fo r post horses the idea com es to an end. Vive la
grande route, a n d beyond, w hatever G od provides.”
S tep an ’s habit o f according p recedence to th e abstract over the
concrete, to th e id ea over actuality, fosters a tendency to confuse his
in tentions with actions. As h e suggests in d efen d in g him self to V ar
vara, th e “h ig h e r p rinciple” o r idea o f his actions is m ore com pellingly
real to him th an th e substance. W hen, fo r exam ple, th e n a rra to r asks
him , follow ing his “inventory,” w h e th e r he belongs to som e sort o f
secret society, S tep an confesses th a t he can n o t say fo r sure: “W hen
you belo n g w ith all y our h e a rt to Progress a n d . . . who can be secure:
Y ou th in k you d o n ’t belong, a n d suddenly you take a look, a n d it
tu rn s o u t th a t you do belong to som ething o r o th e r . . .” (II, 9).
T h is sam e sensibility is m anifested in S tep an ’s habitual inclination
to substitute symbolic gesture fo r responsible action, action taken in
full consideration o f the a tte n d a n t circum stances an d probable conse
quences. C haracteristic o f this inclination is th e “beautiful idea” th at
S tep an conceives o f p re sen tin g his son Pyotr w ith the “absolute, hig h
est, maximum price” o f 15,000 rubles fo r the latter’s estate, the value o f
w hich S tepan has sq u an d e red to cover gam bling debts. T h e n a rra to r
tells how S tep an unfolds to V arvara a dram atic “little scene” in which
h e w ould suddenly place the m oney b efo re Pyotr a n d then, w ith tears
in his eyes, press “ce cher fils” to his b reast (I, 2, viii). T h u s S tepan
implicitly h opes to redeem , w ith a single, dram atic gesture, a lifetim e
o f neglecting his son. H e suggests, m oreover, th a t the gesture w ould
have fu rth e r, symbolic significance a n d would vindicate th e ideology
o f his gen eratio n : “H e h in ted th a t this w ould even im p art a certain,
particularly noble lu ster to th e ir am icable b o n d . . . to th eir ‘idea.’ It
w ould exhibit in such a disinterested a n d m agnanim ous light the
fath ers an d , in general, th e people o f the previous generation in
com parison to th e new, frivolous a n d ‘social’ yo u th .” T h o u g h S tepan
supplies th e “idea” fo r this symbolic scene, he d ep e n d s on V arvara to
provide th e m oney. O f course, w hat is w anting fo r th e en actm ent o f
his im agined scene is no t only the substantial m atter o f 15,000 rubles,
b u t also th e existence o f a son w ho has been re a re d in th e role o f “ce
cherfib .”
It is a p p ro p ria te th a t Pyotr, who has b een virtually aban d o n ed by
S tep an as a child a n d is th u s a g laring instance o f his fa th e r’s neglect
o f realia, should em erge in th e novel as a b itte r antagonist o f S tepan’s

idealism a n d in te lle c tu a lisa i a n d a s tr id e n t sp o k e sm a n fo r th e
“re alism ” th a t was b e in g ad v o c ated d u rin g th e 1860s by C h e r-
nyshevsky a n d th e revolutionary dem ocrats. A gainst S tep an ’s gravita
tion to w ard th e idea, P yotr echoes th e revolutionary dem ocrats’ fre
q u e n t appeal to facts as th e touchstone o f tru th w hen h e tauntingly
advises his fa th e r co n cern in g th e lectu re S tep an is p re p arin g : “A n d
try, if you can, to m ake it w ithout nonsense: facts, facts, a n d fa c ts .. .
(II, 4, ii). A gainst S tepan’s proclivity fo r th o u g h t, P yotr em bodies in
an anti-intellectual extrem e th e u rg e tow ard revolutionary action.
P yotr elicits th e com m itm ent to such action at th e m eetin g re
co u n ted in th e c h a p te r “A t O u r P eople’s,” follow ing an abbreviated
d ebate th a t o ffers a variation in a m in o r key o f the conflict betw een
h im self a n d his fa th e r. His o p p o n e n t in th e d eb ate is a local teacher o f
lite ratu re a n d a m ate u r poet—by virtue o f his vocation, a d istan t d o u
ble fo r S tepan—w ho opposes precipitous destructive action in favor
o f fu r th e r “discussions a n d opinions ab o u t th e fu tu re social o rd e r”
a n d th e achievem ent o f g ra d u al change th ro u g h p ro p a g a n d a (II, 7,
ii). B u t according to Pyotr, th e only alternative to im m ediate revo
lutionary action is purely im aginary progress, “th e com position o f
social novels . . . th e clerical p re d eterm in atio n o f h u m an destinies a
th o u san d years in advance on p a p e r . . . slow, p a p e r d ream in g .” P yotr
finally contrives to secure a pledge to revolutionary action a n d to
term in ate d ebate at th e m eetin g w ith a question th a t epitom izes th e
sense o f u rg e n t m o v em ent th at he em bodies in the novel: “I ask all the
h o n o rab le com pany n o t to vote, b u t directly a n d sim ply to declare,
w hat d o you fin d jo llier: a snail’s pace in the swam p, o r full steam
ah ead across th e swam p?”
T h e violent revolutionary action th a t P yotr proposes is figuratively
ex p ressed at th e m eetin g —a t first facetiously—in te rm s o f “o n e
h u n d re d m illion heads.” T h e notion o f decapitation, w hich is also
suggested in th e axe th a t decorates th e revolutionary proclam ations in
D evils, recalls a fe a r fo r th e safety o f his h ead th a t S tepan has ex
pressed on several occasions in th e novel. T h e n a rra to r m entions in
his in tro d u cto ry ch a p te r th a t S tepan w ent ab o u t on th e eve o f the
E m ancipation anxiously m u tte rin g to him self a fra g m e n t o f verse:
“T h e peasants a re com ing a n d ca rry in g th eir axes./ S om ething d re a d
ful is go in g to h a p p e n ” (I, 1, ix). In resp o n se to L ip u tin ’s ta u n tin g
observation th a t th e heads o f fo rm e r s e rf ow ners m ig h t in d eed be in

d an g e r, S tepan has replied: “Cher ami, believe m e, that . . . will be o f no
use e ith er to o u r lan d lords, o r to all o f us in general. Even w ithout o u r
heads we shall n o t be capable o f organizing anything, despite the fact
th a t o u r heads, m o re th a n anything, in terfe re w ith o u r u n d e rsta n d
ing.” S tep an betrays a sim ilar anxiety in his later challenge to his son
Pyotr: “Do you u n d e rsta n d th a t if you have th e guillotine in th e
fo re g ro u n d it is only because ch o p p in g o ff heads is the easiest thing o f
all, w hereas having a n idea is th e m ost difficult th in g o f all” (II, 1, ii).
B oth S tep an ’s anxiety fo r th e security o f his h ead a n d th e decapita
tion th at P yotr th reaten s are symbolic as well as literal. A ssociated with
his idealistic sensibility a n d se lf-d e fin e d vocation as “p o e t a n d
th in k er” (II, 9), th e head is th e symbolic ce n te r o f S tepan’s identity.
C onversely, it is th e symbolic targ e t o f th e anti-idealistic a n d an ti
intellectual co n tem p t th a t P yotr voices in th e novel.
A ccordingly, th e d isru p tio n o f th e lite rary m atin ee by P yotr’s
cohorts, w ith its m ocking ro u t o f th e intellectual a n d literary celeb
rities, re p resen ts a k ind o f com ic-sym bolic decapitation. Significandy,
S tep an ’s abortive d efense o f beauty, with its im plicit ap p eal to the
“h ig h er” o rd e r envisaged by th e artist’s im agination, yields to the
fren zied o ra to r who proclaim s th e senselessness (bestolkovshchina) a n d
d iso rd er (besporiadok) o f R ussian reality (III, 1, iv). His declam ation is
m et with wild app lause an d , am idst th e u p ro a r, an ap p ro v in g sh o u t
fro m th e audience: “T h a t’s th e business! T h a t th e re ’s the business!
\Vot eto delo! Vot tak delo!] H u rra h ! N ossir, th a t’s n o n e o f y o u r aesthe
tics!” T h is sh o u ted opposition o f delo to estetika epitom izes the nihilists’
rallying cry against S tepan a n d th e idealists; it sim ultaneously suggests
th e nihilist’s d e m a n d fo r u n a d o rn e d , concrete reality instead o f the
idealized im ages o f a rt a n d fo r action instead o f speculative thin k in g
a n d visionary d ream ing. Ironically, the cry rings o u t at th e m atinee as
a voice o f app ro v al fo r the m indless chaos th a t sweeps the hall.
Pyotr, how ever, is n o t sim ply th e antithesis o f his idealist father.
T h ese a p p a re n t opposites a re ultim ately b o u n d in dialectical unity.
P yotr’s realism , o f course, is essentially a pose, as Stavrogin first
suggests w hen he rem ark s ironically o f Pyotr: “N o te th a t as a realist he
ca n n o t lie, a n d th a t th e tru th is d e a re r to him th a n success, except fo r
those special cases in w hich success is d e a re r th a n th e tru th ” (I, 5, vii).
P yotr is first a n d fo rem ost a liar. B u t his affinity w ith S tepan is n o t ju s t
th e d istan t kinship betw een the artist a n d the liar, o r betw een the
self-deceived d re a m e r a n d th e cynical m a ste r o f decep tio n . F o r
exam ple, in a conversation w ith Stavrogin, Pyotr echoes w ith a cynical
twist his fa th e r’s tendency to lose sight o f the distinction betw een the
symbolic a n d th e literal: H e com plains th at “the fools,” his local re
cruits, “re p ro ac h m e fo r having deceived them ab o u t th e central
com m ittee a n d its ‘in n u m erab le branches’ . . . B u t w hat so rt o f d ecep
tion is th e re here: T h e central com m ittee is you an d I, a n d th ere will
be as m any b ran ch es as you like” (II, 6, vii). It is ironically ap p ro p ria te
th a t th e final public ju d g m e n t o f P yotr should attrib u te to the son
shortcom ings th at m ight well describe the fa th e r, including “a com
plete ignorance o f reality . . . a n d a terrib le abstractness” (III, 8). I n
d eed , F edka th e convict has re m a rk ed on P yotr’s inclination to o p e r
ate on th e basis o f p rem atu rely concocted schem ata o f reality: “I tell
you, sir, it’s plenty easy fo r P yotr Stepanovich to live in the world,
because h e h im self im agines [predstavit sebe] a p erso n a n d th en lives
with th e one he im agines” (II, 2, i).
Early in th e novel, S tepan evaluates his son a n d finds him w anting
in term s o f ra th e r typical idealistic criteria. H e rem arks th at he has
fo u n d P yotr to lack any “sense . . . o f som ething higher, som ething
fu n d am en tal, any em bryo o f a fu tu re idea” (I, 3, iv). P yotr may, in
d eed , lack a sense o f the “h ig h er” in S tepan’s definition, b u t he shares
his fa th e r’s inclination to sp u rn concrete an d p articu lar reality fo r less
substantial a n d m o re abstract realm s. O n closer exam ination, Pyotr’s
sum m ons fo r m ovem ent “full steam a h e a d ”— th e very appeal to revo
lutionary action th at epitom izes his anti-intellectual an d anti-idealist
opposition to his fa th e r—am ounts to a m ere abstraction, a m etap h o ri
cal idea o f action th a t is no m o re specific th a n th e “highw ay” o n w hich,
as th e n a rra to r conjectures, S tepan later em barks. O r, at the m ost, the
action fo r w hich Pytor appeals is concrete only insofar as it am ounts to
a wholesale, destructive assault on realia. In his early rem arks on
Pyotr, S tepan has com m ented: “I took him fo r a n o th in g [nichto],
quelque chose dans ce genre ” (I, 3, iv). His w ords prove prophetic: Pyotr
em erges in th e novel as a bes o f nothingness, a spirit o f negation. In
th e c h a p te r “Ivan T sarevich,” h e exclaims to Stavrogin: “W e shall
proclaim d estruction—why, oh why is th a t little idea so fascinating!
(II, 8). In effect, P yotr’s “little idea” o f destruction translates into
action th e p u rely intellectual n egation o f concrete a n d particu lar
reality th a t is in h e re n t in che very process o f abstraction a n d is con

stantly im plicit in S tepan’s gravitation tow ard realiora. B ut w hereas
S tep an appeals to a “h ig h e r” o rd e r o f ideas a n d idealized form s,
Pyotr, u n d e r th e b a n n e r o f realia, em bodies the total abstraction o f
p u re negation. H ostile tow ard his fa th e r’s idealism , he sim ultaneously
echoes th e hosdlity tow ard concrete realia th a t is a p p a re n t in such
u tteran ces o f S tep an ’s as his exclam ation th a t “Russians should be
ex term in ated fo r th e good o f h u m an ity ” (II, 1, ii).
I f S tep an ’s tendency to negate realia receives its full dialectical d e
velo p m en t in Pyotr, it is also echoed in n u m ero u s o th e r characters in
Devils. T h e novel offers re p eated exam ples o f characters who, follow
in g S tep an ’s m odel, evade o r deny the concrete a n d particu lar dim en
sion o f reality in th e ir eagerness to affirm th e abstract a n d symbolic.
T h is te n d e n c y m an ifests itse lf m o st distinctly, p e rh a p s, in Iv an
Shatov, w hom th e n a rra to r portrays in th e intro d u cto ry ch ap ter as
“o n e o f those ideal Russian beings w ho are suddenly struck by som e
pow erful id ea a n d are, as it w ere, cru sh ed by it all at once a n d som e
tim es even fo rev er” (I, 1, viii).4 Shatov, o f course, is one o f several
characters in th e novel who insist on tu rn in g Stavrogin into a symbol
an d ca n n o t com e to term s w ith Stavrogin’s specific, contradictory
reality. It is sym ptom adc th at, o n th e occasion o f Stavrogin’s visit to
Shatov in th e “N ig h t” c h a p te r th a t begins P art II o f th e novel, Shatov
rep eatedly attem p ts to evade o r n eg ate th e concrete a n d personal
level o f Stavrogin’s identity a n d o f his own relationship with Stavro
gin, insisting th a t they exist o n som e su p erio r level o f generality.
T h u s, in re fere n ce to th eir conversation som e years earlier in which
Stavrogin sowed th e seeds o f the ideas Shatov now preaches, Shatov
insists: “ ‘O u r’ conversation nev er existed at all: T h e re was a teacher,
p ro p h esy in g trem e n d o u s w ords, a n d th e re was a pupil w ho had risen
from th e d ead. I am th at pupil a n d you are th a t teach er” (II, 1, vii).
J u s t m om ents ea rlier he has elevated th em to an even h ig h er level o f
abstraction: “I ask respect fo r myself, I d em an d it!” he shouts at
Stavrogin. B u t th e n he adds: “n o t respect fo r m y personality—to hell
w ith it—b u t fo r so m ething else . . . W e are two creatu res a n d we have
com e to g e th e r in infinity, fo r th e last tim e in the w orld” (II, 1, vi).
4The narrator’s adjective for Shatov, “ideal’nyi,” suggests “ideal” in the

ironic sense of “existing solely as an idea or mental image.”
Shatov’s w ords h e re to Stavrogin are la te r p aro d ie d w hen G overnor

von Lem bke visits his wife Yulia in h e r bed ro o m to air his com plaints
against h e r. V on Lem bke insists: “W e are n o t in th e b o u d o ir o f an
affected lady b u t a re like two abstract creatu res o n a balloon w ho have
m et in o rd e r to speak th e tru th ” (II, 10, i); th e Russian, vozdnshnyi
shar—“aerial sp h ere”— gives a pretentiously eth erial so u n d to w hat is,
in fact, a balloon).
O ne could say th a t Shatov’s desire to abstract his conversations w ith
Stavrogin from th e circum stances o f th e ir lives a n d locate th em purely
in th e realm o f ideas am ounts to an atte m p t to place them wholely in
th e dim ension o f th e novel th a t E dw ard W asiolek has called th e
“m etaphysical d ra m a .” W asiolek co n trasts this co m p o n e n t o f th e
novel to th a t w hich h e calls th e “political p am p h let,”5 th e dim ension o f
Devils th a t bears th e distinct im p rin t o f Dostoevsky’s original in ten
tions w hen h e set o u t, as h e claim ed in a M arch 24, 1870, letter to
N ikolai Strakhov, to w rite a piece fo r w hich h e an ticipated success “in
a ten d en tio u s ra th e r th an artistic sense,” a n d w hich h e was quite p re
p a re d to see “tu rn o u t to be n o th in g b u t a p am p h let.” In co ntrasting
“m etap h y sical d ra m a ” to “ political p a m p h le t,” W asiolek jo in s a
n u m b e r o f critics who have identified an unresolved conflict in Devils
betw een th e ten d en tio u s “p am p h let” th a t Dostoevsky first began to
w rite a n d th e philosophical dialogue th a t focuses in Stavrogin, Shatov,
a n d Kirillov a n d seem s to have m ig rated to Devils along w ith Stavrogin
from Dostoevsky’s inchoate Life of a Great Sinner, the projected m ag
n u m o p u s which th e a u th o r reluctantly a b a n d o n ed shortly a fte r b e
g in n in g Devils. W asiolek expresses a widely h eld critical opinion w hen
he observes th a t “th e re are two centers o f gravity in the n o v e l . . . th e
political p am p h let a n d the m etaphysical d ram a, a n d they have only
th e w eakest o f stru ctu ral ties.”
B u t th e plainly m isguided n a tu re o f Shatov’s im pulse to locate his
conversation w ith Stavrogin solely in a tim eless a n d abstract realm o f
ideas (and his w ron g headedness is u n d ersco red by von L em bke’s later
parodie echoing o f his w ords) m ight be tak en as a kin d o f signal th a t
th e “h ig h e r” m etaphysical dialogue in Devils is n o t m ean t to be re
g a rd e d in abstraction fro m th e overall context o f the novel. T h is
“Edward Wasiolek, Dostoevsky: The M ajor Fiction (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T.

Press, 1964), pp. 110-111.
provides a clue th a t the tension betw een levels o f plot o r “centers o f

gravity” in D evils is n o t m erely ex tran eo u s to th e novel’s design, n o t
ju s t som e fo rtu ito u s b irth defect th a t can be traced to the circum
stances o f its gestation. O n e n eed n o t claim unqualified aesthetic suc
cess fo r D evils in o rd e r to arg u e th a t th e division betw een the novel’s
satirically tre a te d social a n d political in trig u e, o n th e one hand, a n d
th e philosophical d ra m a th a t centers in Stavrogin an d his satellites, on
th e o th er, can be viewed as a form al correlative to th e novel’s principal
th e m a tic co n flic t, to th e p erv asiv e te n sio n b e tw e e n re a lia a n d
asp ired-to realiora th a t m anifests itself first in the intro d u cto ry story o f
S tep an V erkhovensky.
F a r fro m b ein g dow nplayed o r m u te d in D evils, th e tension b e
tw een levels o f reality a p p e ars to be repeatedly un d ersco red . It is
em phasized, fo r exam ple, by im plicit plays on th e m otifs o f m ystery
a n d revelation. T h e novel’s intrigues develop a ro u n d secrets a n d
enigm as, a n d re p eated referen ces to th e unknow n, the secret, the
m ysterious, th e h id d e n a n d the enigm atic create a th re a t o f related
verbal m otifs th a t is woven th ro u g h o u t th e novel. F o r exam ple, the
w ord ta in a (“secret,” “m ystery”) a n d related w ords derived from the
sam e ro o t are rep eatedly applied to a variety o f realia — persons, ac
tions, a n d circum stances—belonging to th e political a n d social in
trigues. In response to th e novel’s secrets, th e characters u n d erta k e a
series o f investigations a n d inquiries, a n d th eir aspirations to uncover
th e tru th are m ark e d by re p e a te d uses o f the verb otkryt’ (“to discover/
reveal”) a n d th e n o u n otkrytie (“discovery,” “revelation”). T h u s, the
g o v ern o r’s wife Y ulia von L em bke p u rsu es the “discovery” (otkrytie) o f
th e political conspiracy th a t she believes “is m ost certainly concealed”
in th e province (II, 6, i). Liza im plicidy challenges Stavrogin to ac
know ledge his m arriag e to M aria L ebyadkin w hen she m entions C ap
tain L ebyadkin’s o ffe r to “reveal [otkryt’] certain secrets [tainy] about
you” (II, 10, iii).
I n contrast, th e protagonists o f th e m etaphysical d ra m a are m ore
co n cern ed w ith u ltim ate m ysteries a n d revelation— n o t w ith m undane
otkrytiia b u t w ith otkrovenie, a native Slavic caique o n th e borrow ed
G reek w o rd apokalipsis. A ppropriately, th e idea o f ultim ate relevation
is first in tro d u ce d in connection w ith S tepan V erkhovensky, the real
p ro g e n ito r o f th e m etaphysical d ra m a , whose allegorical epic ends
w ith m a n ’s com pletion o f th e T o w e r o f Babel, deposidon o f the
“fo rm e r lo rd ,” a n d com m encem ent “o f a new life w ith a new insight

in to th in g s” (I, 1, i). Kirillov actually read s the Biblical Apocalypse to
F edka th e convict (II, 6, vi), a n d the idea o f apocalypse perm eates
Kirillov’s own thinking. Shatov dedicates h im self to w hat he believes is
th e ultim ate rElevation, the “new w ord, the final w ord, th e sole w ord
o f renew al an d resu rrectio n ” (II, 1, vii). A nd th e n a rra to r associates a
k in d o f rig o ro u sly scientific apocalyptic vision w ith Shigalyov— a
m in o r fig u re in th e m etaphysical d ram a— w hen h e first in tro d u ces
him as a m an who “looked as th o u g h h e w ere expecting th e destru c
tion o f th e w orld, an d n o t ju s t som e tim e, according to the prophesies,
w hich m ig h t n o t be fulfilled, b u t quite definitely like th e day-after-
tom orrow , at precisely 10:25 a .m .” (I, 4, iv).
T h ro u g h o u t th e novel, referen ces to th e “secrets” a n d p u rsu e d
“discoveries” o f th e m u n d a n e intrigues inevitably invite consideration
o f th e c o n tra stin g “m ysteries” a n d p u rsu e d “revelations” o f th e
m etaphysical d ram a. A nd th e converse holds, as well. F o r exam ple,
th e H ouse o f Fillipov, w hich b o th Shatov a n d Kirillov inhabit, Consti
tutes a cen tral p o in t o f conjunction betw een th e two levels o f m ystery
a n d inquiry in th e novel, a k in d o f escalator a realibus ad realiora. A fte r
discovering th e “m ysterious [tainstvennoe] m u rd e r” o f Shatov (III, 6, ii)
a n d th e suicide o f Kirillov, th e investigating authorities conclude th a t
this h ouse has h arb o red th e secrets o f th e political conspiracy, if n o t
th e nucleus o f th e suspected secret society itself. P yotr has earlier told
von Lem bke th a t Kirillov “is h id in g ” (taitsia) th e re (II, 6, iii); a n d the
m u rd e re r F edka has in fact b een h id in g th ere, e n te rin g a n d leaving
by way o f a “secret passage” {tainyi khod; II I, 4, ii). Ironically, how ever,
th e house has fig u red m ost notably in the novel as th e principal set
tin g o f th e m etaphysical d ra m a w ith its focus o n ultim ate m ysteries
a n d ultim ate revelation. Yet th e ultim ate effect o f this ironic contrast
is to u n d ersco re th e collapse o f realiora into realia th a t finally tra n s
pires a t th e H o u se o f Fillipov. T h u s, as h e w rites his suicide note,
Kirillov, whose n o ctu rn al existence in th e house reflects his extrem e
w ithdraw al from realia, twice echoes in an apocalyptic frenzy C hrist’s
avowal th a t “th ere is n o th in g h id d e n \tainoe\ th a t shall n o t be m ade
m anifest” (III, 6, ii). B u t th e suicide n o te’s only dem onstrable service
o f revelation is to p rovide th e first tentative clue in the police investiga
tion o f th e m u rd e rs a n d devastation in w hich th e political a n d social
intrigues culm inate.
O n th e level o f siuzhet, the transitions betw een m u n d an e intrigue

a n d m etaphysical d ra m a in D evils are o ften conspicuously a b ru p t a n d
te n d to accentuate th e incongruity betw een th e two planes o f focus in
th e novel. F or exam ple, the sequences in P a rt I in w hich the n a rra to r
visits Kirillov a n d M aria Lebyadkin, seeking clues re g ard in g the social
in trigue, unexpectedly shift the novel’s focus a realibus a d realtor a.
In stead o f satisfying th e n a rra to r’s curiosity w ith facts about th e
L ebyadkins’ ro le in the m o u n tin g social intrigue, Kirillov exp o u n d s
his m onom aniacal preoccupation w ith suicide a n d the existence o f
G od, a n d M aria L ebyadkin in tro d u ces a n unex p ected a u ra o f o th e r
w o rldly m ystery. As th e Soviet critic V lad im ir T u n im a n o v has
suggested, one n eed n o t agree w ith Vyacheslav Ivanov’s specific, sym
bolist exegesis o f this scene to recognize th e vague am biance o f alle
gory th a t su rro u n d s th e L ebyadkin w om an h ere. T h u s, T un im an o v
observes: “E veryday life h e re gravitates tow ard ‘otherw orldliness,’
a n d objects a re displaced fro m th eir o rd in ary series to a symbolic one;
th e n a rra tio n is sh ifted fro m the q u o tid ian realistic level to a higher,
symbolic o n e.”6
Shortly follow ing these scenes, th e ir a b ru p t transitions a realibus ad
realiora are satirized in th e scene in w hich V arvara Stavrogin in te rro
gates C aptain L ebyadkin in h e r draw ing room . V arvara has pressed
L ebyadkin to explain “why” his sister m ight, as h e has said, accept
charity fro m h e r a n d fro m no one else. L ebyadkin contrives to evade
h e r question by absurdly diverting th e conversation to th e plane o f
th e m etaphysical. “You expect an answ er to ‘why?’ ” h e replies. “T h a t
litd e w o rd ‘why’ has suffused the e n tire universe fro m th e first day o f
creation, m adam , a n d all o f n a tu re cries every m inute to its creator,
‘why?,’ a n d fo r seven th o u san d years now has received no answer.
C ould it be th a t C aptain L ebyadkin alone m u st answer, a n d w ould
th a t be ju st, m adam ?” (I, 5, iv).
A n equally com ic transition, in th e opposite direction, m arks th e
final descen t fro m realiora at the H ouse o f Fillipov: Kirillov, on the
th resh o ld o f th e suicide th a t is supposed to m ark th e advent o f the
m an -g o d , suddenly w ants to draw a carto o n face w ith o u tth ru st
*V. A. Tunimanov, “Rasskazchik vBesakh Dostoevskogo,” in Issledovaniia po

poetike i stüistike, ed. V. V. Vinogradov, V. G. Bazanov, and G. M. Fridlender
(Leningrad: Nauka, 1972), p. 148.
tongue on the note that Pyotr is dictating, but he finally settles for'
signing the note: "Liberté, égalité, fr a te r n ité ou la m ort!, de K irïlo ff,
gentilhom m e-sem inariste russe et citoyen d u m onde civilisé!'’ (III, 6, ii). And
thus, utterly obscuring the professed apocalyptic aim of his suicide, he
plunges absurdly from the pinnacle of the metaphysical drama to the
ridiculous depths of the political pamphlet.
Just as Pyotr Verkhovensky is the product of Stepan’s neglect of
realia, so the wave of destruction that Pyotr instigates and in which the
“political pamphlet” climaxes is at least facilitated by the other intel
lectuals’ preoccupation with the “higher” concerns of the “metaphysi
cal drama.” Pyotr takes advantage of Stavrogin’s noncommittal at
titude, rooted ultimately in the latter’s deep philosophical irresolu
tion, to induce Fedka to murder the Lebyadkins, ostensibly on Stav
rogin’s behalf; the murderer, in turn, evidendy sets the fire in the
river district in an attempt to conceal his victims’ bodies. Shatov’s
desire to resign from the revolutionary society, which he joined be
cause of one theoretical enthusiasm and now quits because of another,
provides the occasion for Pyotr’s attempt to ensure his local quintet’s
allegiance by implicating them in Shatov’s murder. Shigalyov’s indif
ference to all but the integrity of his theory causes him to decline to
participate in the murder “solely because all this business [delo], from
beginning to end, literally contradicts my program” (III, 6, i); but his
exclusive preoccupation with theory also makes him decline to avert
the murder by warning Shatov. Kirillov’s intention to commit suicide
as an apocalyptic proclamation of the man-god makes the murder
possible, since the conspirators act in the belief that he has agreed to
take the blame for the crime.
Ultimately, however, the dimension of D evils that can be called
“metaphysical drama” and that which can be called “political pam
phlet” are not merely antithetical; like Stepan and Pyotr Ver
khovensky, they share a kind of dialectical unity. The severance of
realiora — or, more precisely, would-be realiora —from realia is appar
ent in both metaphysical drama and political pamphlet. What the
reader constantly encounters both in the novel’s political and social
intrigues and in its philosophically oriented drama-dialogue is a dis
junction between realia and the symbolic meanings that people at
tempt to impose on them. Thus, the other characters improbably
elevate Stavrogin to the level of either a religious or a political mes-
siah; Yulia von Lembke construes her provincial fete as “the procla
mation of a great idea” (III, 1, ii), while Pyotr’s cohorts act as though
its disruption were all but the first step in the Russian Revolution; and
the megalomaniacal Kirillov proclaims his suicide as the apocalyptic
inauguration of a new metahistorical era. Time and again the novel
presents such discrepancies between concrete reality and purported
significance, between diminutive fact and improbably portentous in
terpretation. The behavior of characters in both the sociopolitical
intrigue and the philosophical drama of D evils often resembles the
issue of some hypertrophied head that is floating aloft like a gas-filled
vozdushnyi shar: the product of a consciousness, whether nominally
“idealistic” or “materialistic,” that is in danger of losing all touch with
the concrete and particular dimension of reality, the simple realia of
human existence.
Although the novel locates the origins of this consciousness in Ste
pan Verkhovensky’s idealist sensibility and gravitation toward an
imagined “higher” reality, the cumulative indictment of Stepan is only
one liné of a complex dialectical argument in D evils. The counter line
of argument, which is perhaps equally strong and developed with
comparable thoroughness, suggests that people cannot orient them
selves and make their way among realia without seeking the perspec
tive of realiora, without the abstracting and generalizing power of the
intellect and imagination, without some aspiration toward the ideal.
In the final analysis, Dostoevsky vindicates Stepan’s idealist pro
pensities in D evils and finds in him a redeeming potential for rebirth.
Significandy, he allows him to pronounce the key interpretation of
the novel’s Biblical epigraph from Saint Luke, the story of the
Garadene swine. After the Gospel seller Sofia Matveevna Ulitina reads
the passage at Stepan’s request, Stepan remarks: “But now an idea
\mysl’\ has occurred to me, u n e com paraison.” And he goes on to com
pare the devils in the Biblical story to “all the miasmas, all the im
purities” that have accumulated in Russia over the centuries. He
speaks of these impurities and devils as leaving Russia and entering
the swine, who, he says, are “we, we and those, and Petrusha—et les
autres avec lu i, and I perhaps the first one, at their head, and we shall
all throw ourselves, mad and possessed, from the rocks into the sea
and drow n.. . . But the sick man [Russia] will be healed and will ‘sit at
the feet of Jesus’ . . (Ill, 7, ii). One recognizes here Stepan’s familiar
inclination to see reality in terms of ideas and comparaisons. In this

case, however, he draws on his idealist sensibility for real insight.
The two key moments of epiphany or resolution in the novel are
given to the idealists Stepan and Shatov. These are moments of re
newed contact with reality, experiences in which realiora and realm are
at least briefly united. In his interpretation of the Gospel passage,
Stepan, in effect, affirms the potential health of a Russia, a reality,
that has been purged of his own destructive illusions. His interpreta
tion is followed by a lapse into complete delirium and unconscious
ness. But this final delirium and unconsciousness are purgative, and
his subsequent awakening brings a sudden awareness of his immedi
ate physical surroundings: “Tiens, un lac,” he exclaims, “Oh, my God, I
had not even seen it before” (III, 7, ii).
Shatov’s experience of insight occurs when fortuitous circum
stances unexpectedly bring his estranged wTife Marie to his door just as
she is about to bear a child. For Shatov, too, the experience brings a
kind of awakening to reality. Symptomatic of this awakening is the
new thought that dawns on him when the nihilist midwife Arina
Prokhorovna Virginsky proves willing to help in Marie’s childbirth.
“ ‘It seems that convictions and the person,’ Shatov reflects, ‘are two
quite different things’ ” (III, 5, iii). This humble insight is precisely
the one that has been missing in Shatov’s earlier attempt to equate
Stavrogin with his ideas. For Shatov it signals the emergence of
human reality through a veil of ideas and ideals. The birth of Marie
Shatov’s child (juxtaposed, significantly, with the chapter in which
Kirillov expounds the vision of eternal harmony that he believes will
inspire people to cease bearing children) is one of the few unequivo
cally positive moments in D evils and, with Stepan’s experience on his
final journey, one of only two significant counterpoints to the nega
tion of reality that so pervades the novel. Shatov, in his warmly comic
enthusiasm, declares the birth to be “a great joy . . . the mystery \taina\
of the appearance of a new being, a great and inexplicable mystery”
(III, 5, vi). Having previously preached the idea of a God in whom he
admitted he could not yet believe (II, 1, vii), Shatov now acknowledges
God indirecdy, not as an abstract concept but as the implicit source of
this mysterious creation ex n ih ilo : “There were two, and suddenly a
third person, a new spirit, whole and complete, such as cannot come
from human hands; a new thought and a new love; it is even awe
some.” And finally Shatov says of this example of human life in its
most humble and vulnerable state: “There is nothing higher in the
world!” What he affirms, in essence, is the merging of realia and
realiora. Without falsely becoming more than it is, the individual
human infant becomes a general representative of his kind, embody
ing all the wonder, potentiality and contingency of human existence:
“a small, red and wrinkled creature, so helpless it was almost terrify
ing, as precarious as a mote of dust that could be blown away by the
first gust of wind, but crying and announcing itself as though it, too,
had the fullest right to life.” With Shatov, as with Stepan, the impulse
to affirm a “higher” reality comes together here with the simple,
redeeming affirmation of life itself.
In light of Dostoevsky’s own intellectual biography, it is not surpris
ing that he gives the self-styled “poet and thinker” Stepan the co-
authorial role of interpreting the novel’s central metaphor, or that he
should later state, in the July-August issue of his D iary o f a W riter for
1876: “Indeed, I love Stepan Trofimovich and respect him deeply.”
In his defense of art against the nihilists at the literary matinee, Ste
pan echoes ideas from Dostoevsky’s own earlier defense of art against
the nihilists in his 1861 article, “Mr. [Dobrolyu]-bov and the Question
of Art.” But this particular coincidence of Stepan’s views and Dos
toevsky’s merely reflects the more general fact that Stepan embodies
the essence of the idealist aesthetics that Dostoevsky had developed
under Belinsky’s influence in the 1840s, and that he continued to
espouse long after he had renounced many other social, political, and
philosophical views he associated with Belinsky.
Tunimanov has pointed out that Dostoevsky’s professed initial
willingness to sacrifice artistic quality [khndozhestvennost’] for polemical
impact in D evils seems sharply inconsonant with the strong plea for
artistic quality that Dostoevsky had developed earlier—precisely in
“M r.----- bov and the Question of Art.”7 Dostoevsky never entirely
abandoned the polemical intention that had made him willing, at first,
to forego artistic quality in D evils. In fact, he alluded to this aim in a
letter that he wrote about the completed novel to Crown Prince Alex
ander III in February 1873, where he stressed the polemical point
that “our Belinskys and Granovskys” were the “direct fathers of the
7T u nim an o v , op cit., p. 95.

Nechaevists.” But to have sacrificed khudozhestvennost’ in order merely

to excoriate the “Belinskys and Granovskys” for fathering the
Nechaevists and their politics would have belied both Dostoevsky’s
artistic credo and his own indebtedness for that credo to Belinsky and
the intellectual milieu in which Belinsky was the dominant figure. It is
appropriate, then, that the deeply ingrained commitment to
khudozhestvennost’ that ultimately took command in Dostoevsky’s writ
ing of Devils should have led him to a much deeper and more complex
treatment of Stepan Verkhovensky’s intellectual legacy. In this case,
fidelity to artistic truth also meant fidelity to the ambiguities of Dos
toevsky’s own artistic roots.
The Art o f Fiction
as a Theme in
by Victor Terras
We know from Dostoevsky’s theoretical writings that he was a

believer in organic aesthetics who conceived of life and art as an
inseparable unity. He took for granted that art is both a basic human
need and a quintessential manifestation of the life force. Hence he
also saw art as a key to the understanding of life’s riddles. Throughout
The Brothers Karamazov, aesthetic categories are unhesitatingly applied
to the phenomena of life, for instance, when Dmitry thus describes
the story of his romance with Katerina Ivanova: “You understand the
first half: it is a drama and it took place there. But the second half is a
tragedy, and it will happen here” (I, 3, iv).1
The excursions of the Karamazovs into the realm of aesthetics
invariably lead to questions regarding the very essence and meaning
of life. The antinomies and aporiai of the Good and the True encoun
tered in the novel are not only paralleled by similar difficulties as
regards the Beautiful, but actually emerge clearest in the aesthetic
realm. Fyodor’s assertion that it is “not only pleasant, but even beauti
ful at times to be insulted,” so that a man would “feel insulted for the
sake of aesthetics” (I, 2, ii). Dmitry’s discourse on the ideal of the
Madonna and the ideal of Sodom (I, 3, iii), Ivan’s “anecdotes” on the
•delights of child abuse, Liza Khokhlakov’s pleasurable daydreams of
crucified children and pineapple compote—all these examples from
the aesthetic realm show up the problematic nature of man even more
“The Art of Fiction as a Theme in The Brothers Karamazov ,” written for this
collection by Victor Terras. Copyright © 1983 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
lAll quotations from The Brothers Karamazov will be in my own translation.
193
194 Victor Terras
clearly than the respective examples regarding truth and justice, also
present throughout the novel.
The Karamazovs are voluptuaries (sladostrastniki—the tide of Book
Three), aesthetes, and poets, whose true nature is revealed through
the workings of their imagination. Fyodor’s lubricious erotic fantasies,
Dmitry’s ardent declamations and “hymn of praise,” Ivan’s dreams of
power, Alyosha’s serene vision of “Cana of Galilee, and even Smer-
dyakov’s utterly prosaic imagination reveal more about their nature
than their actions or decisions do. Their characters are determined
aesthetically as much as morally, and perhaps more so. Each of them
is a different type of homo aestheticus.
In a sense, what is true of the characters of the novel is true of the
novel as a whole. The impression created by many hundreds of liter
ary digressions, quotations, and allusions is as important as plot line
and philosophic argument. The role of quotations from and allusions
to Pushkin may serve as an example.
The many quotations and reminiscences from the works of
Pushkin draw the Karamazovs into the orbit of Dostoevsky’s Push-
kinian ideal of Russian man. Ivan’s bittersweet confession that in spite
of everything he still loves “those sticky little leaves” of springtime (II,
5, iii) is a reminiscence from Pushkin’s poem “Cold Winds Still Blow”
(Eshche d u iu t kholodnye vetry, 1828).' There are several other remin
iscences from Pushkin in the “Grand Inquisitor” chapter. A quotation
from “The Stone Guest” (“The air is fragrant with laurel and with
lemon,” (II, 5, v) echoes the poet’s nostalgia for the Mediterranean
world. An allusion to the Beast of Revelations 13 and 17 blends into a
reminiscence from Pushkin’s “The Covetous Knight”: “But then the
Beast will crawl up to us, and lick our feet, and wet them with bloody
tears from its eyes” (II, 5, v). Scene ii of Pushkin’s play has: “Submis
sive, timid, bloodspattered crime / Comes crawling to my feet, licking
my hand, / Looking me in the eye.” The last line of the “Grand
Inquisitor” has an explicit quotation from Pushkin: “And he releases
Him ‘into the dark squares of the city’ ” (II, 5, v). Like Pushkin, Ivan
loves and understands Europe, even though—with Herzen, and with
Dostoevsky, of course—he perceives it as a graveyard. But being a
Russian and a Karamazov, Ivan loves life, and it is Pushkin who gives
him the proper words to express his love of life.
Dostoevsky finds a way to connect Pushkin to Alyosha, too. The
The A rt o f Fiction 195
letter which Alyosha receives from Liza Khokhlakov is clearly derived,

perhaps simply cribbed, from Tatyana’s letter. Then, in Book Ten,
Tatyana appears in person—through the back door, as is Dostoevsky’s
habit. Kolya Krasotkin, challenged by Alyosha as to whether he has
actually read anything by “old Belinsky,” says: “The spot about
Tatyana, why she didn’t go with Onegin” (IV, 10, vi). Kolya, who has
read Belinsky, has not read Pushkin, however, and one senses Alyo
sha’s pain as he establishes this fact. The implication is that Alyosha
has read Pushkin and reveres him.
Dmitry is initially dominated by Schiller and that poet’s lofty
humanism. But as Fate strikes him down in Book Eight, he seems to
move into Pushkin’s orbit. His surprising refusal to become jealous of
his Polish rival is explained in terms of an aphorism from Pushkin’s
Table T a lk (III, 8, iii). Then, at a crucial juncture of chapter 4, “In the
Dark,” a line from R u s la n a n d L yu d m ila flashes through his mind
(“And nought but the whispering silence,” (III, 8, iv). Half an hour
later, he quotes Pimen’s E shche odno poslednee skaza n ’e (“One more last
tale”) from B oris G odunov. Dmitry’s transfiguration into a willing mar
tyr is highlighted by a convict’s hymn of praise, which rises heaven
ward from a Siberian underground mine—clearly a reminiscence of
Pushkin’s “In the Depth of Siberian Mines” (“Vo glubine sibirskikh
rud,” 1827).
We know that all three brothers, as well as Fyodor, are great lovers
and quoters of Schiller. All three brothers also quote Pushkin. In
terestingly, Fyodor’s contact with Pushkin coincides with an explicit
quote from Schiller. When Fyodor challenges Dmitry to a duel
“through a handkerchief,” he is quoting—perversely, to be sure—
from Schiller’s C abal a n d L o ve (I, 2, vi). But at the same time, an
elderly Father’s challenge to his son is a strong echo from Pushkin’s
“The Covetous Knight.”
Pushkin was in the 1860s and 1870s a symbol—both rallying point
and target of attack. To the nihilists, he stood for hedonism, l’art pour
l’a rt, and the callous disregard of the upper class for the sufferings of
the common people. To them he was the bard of “little feet,” who
would begin a poem on an apparent civic note, only to return cynically
to these “little feet” (“City of Luxury, City of Poverty,” 1828). The
“civic” satirist D. D. Minaev had parodied this poem, attacking what
he saw as its mindless frivolity. Dostoevsky comes up with a spirited
196 Victor Terras
anti-parody, Rakitin’s “Uzh kakaia zh eta nozhka” (“What a little foot this
is,” [IV, 11, iv]). What do we see in it? Pushkin is properly put down, a
social message is introduced, and there is a touch of “humor,” semina
rian style. The destruction of Rakitin and what he stands for was one
of Dostoevsky’s objectives in The Brothers Karamazov. Presenting him as
utterly unworthy of Pushkin is one of the devices by which Rakitin is
made into a hopeless vulgarian (poshliak). In the semiotic system of
The Brothers Karamazov, to be with Pushkin means to be on the side of
life, hope, and whatever is genuine and Russian. Anything that is
hostile to Pushkin is vulgar, shallow, lacking in life and vigor.
Schiller’s “aesthetic education of mankind,” the romantic concep
tion of the “negative principle” (Goethe’s Mephistopheles and roman
tic Satanism), Gogol’s famous troika passage, and other highlights of
Russian and world literature are taken up, challenged, manipulated,
transformed, and sublated. A literary discourse consisting of quota
tions, allusions, polemic sorties, parody, paraphrase, and interpreta
tion accompanies the plot of the novel and forms a subtext whose
message complements that of the plot. With an erudite reader, it may
in fact claim top attention, pushing the plot down into the position of
a subtext.2
Dostoevsky’s preoccupation with “fact” and “details of fact” is well

known. The power of the simple, concrete fact often becomes appar
ent in The Brothers Karamazov. Dmitry struggles with the facts of life
(he calls them realizm) from beginning to end. But then, too, the
figure of fiction appears just as prominently, and with the same
power.
The first illustration of the power of a “mere” fiction appears as
early as in the first chapter of Book I: a young woman, without any
factual reason, commits suicide only because in her imagination she
sees herself as Ophelia (I, 1, iii). Dostoevsky was fascinated by the
power of fiction no less than by that of a “simple fact.” A notebook
entry suggests that he was delighted to find an example of it in
Tacitus, Annals 1: 22, where the story of one Vibulenus is told, who
successfully incited his fellow soldiers to mutiny with an impassioned
2The role of quotation as a structural device is treated in detail by Nina M.
Perlina, Tsitata kak element poetiki v romane B ra d a Karamazovy (Brown University
dissertation, 1977), to whom I owe some of the observations in this essay.
account of the cruel death of his brother—who later turned out to

have been a mere figment of his imagination. And so it is the fiction of
the open door as much as the fact of the brass pesde in the grass that
convicts Dmitry.
An ironic quid pro quo of fact and fiction runs through the
whole novel. An imaginary 5,000 rubles are as potent a factor in the
plot as a real 3,000 rubles, or rather more so. In a display of ingen
ious as well as painstaking novelistic craftsmanship, Dostoevsky
introduces a whole series of details which implant in the minds of
several witnesses the erroneous notion that Dmitry was in possession
of 3,000 rubles the night of his father’s murder. One actually wonders
if Dostoevsky is not polemicizing with Immanuel Kant’s famous dis
quisition on the difference between an imaginary 100 Thalers and
100 real Thalers.
All this raises the question of what connection—if any—there is
between truth on the one hand and “fact” or “fiction” on the other.
Insofar as Dostoevsky was convinced that art is an avenue to truth,
and art is of course part fact and part fiction, this question becomes
directly relevant to Dostoevsky’s philosophy of art.
In the very introduction to the novel, the narrator asserts that a
strange and somewhat eccentric, rather than a familiar, “average”
character, may carry “within himself the very heart of the whole.”
Then very early on. in the novel, the narrator develops a curious
notion of what makes a man a “realist.” It would seem that a realist is a
person who lives and thinks in terms of an immediately or intuitively
given reality (1,1, v). The opposite is, then, a “theoretician,” who seeks
to create and to realize a rational world of his own making. This
makes Alyosha a “realist” and Rakitin a “theoretician.”
Dmitry, after many trials and tribulations, comes to observe that,
unlike in fiction, little accidents, not great events, destroy men in real
life. He calls this “realism.” Now, the contemporary theory of realism
taught that the typical, rather than the fortuitous, should reign in
fiction. Dostoevsky not only subscribed to this opinion but also be
lieved that it was ultimately true of “real life” as well. So Dmitry is
wrong when he sees himself as a victim of trivial accidents. He will
realize this later in the novel. Similarly, the devil’s suggestion that the
truth is unhappily “almost always banal” (pochti vsegda neostroumna,
[IV, 11, ix]) is another thesis advanced only to be refuted. Likewise,
198 Victor Terras
the notion that human life is a mere dream or illusion appears only as
a warning to those of little faith: Mme. Khokhlakov is the case in point
(I, 2, iii).
One thing is clear: those who pursue the truth rationally, confident
of their human reason, are led into error. The truth will come to men
through intuition or as inspiration. The distance from the truth of
each character in the novel is measured by the power and quality of
his—or her—imagination.
Fyodor’s perverse mind and amoral character would suggest that
he is far from the truth. But with the exception of Smerdyakov, he
intuitively understands everybody and everything very well. In fact,
while he is blind to Smerdyakov’s murderous intentions, he correcdy
recognizes the lackey’s basic flaw: the man lacks imagination (I, 3, vi),
his sharp intelligence being entirely practical. Dostoevsky actually
seems to have aimed at endowing Fyodor with an almost uncanny
clairvoyance. He asks Alyosha to leave the monastery only minutes
after Father Zosima did. He speaks the mysterious and prophetic
words, “Da, Dmitriia Fedorovich eshche ne sushchestvuet” (I, 2, i). As so
often, his verbal clowning (here, “Dmitry Fyodorovich does not exist
as yet” instead of “Dmitry Fyodorovich isn’t here yet”) leads to the
utterance of a deep truth. Fyodor’s assessment of Ivan’s personality is
correct, within the limits of Fyodor’s own mind. He may be predicdng
his own fate when he projects the image of von Sohn, old lecher and
victim of an obscene murder, on the “landowner” Maksimov, clearly a
“double” of Fyodor’s.
Dmitry, a man of the senses and, like his father, a raconteur and
lover of beauty, though of a finer mold, is gifted with intuition, em
pathy, and imagination. He is never too far from the truth. His mar
velous gift of language lets him utter the most profound truths in
palpable poetic form. He also has a sense of humor and a keen ear for
any sort of dissonance. Dmitry intuitively senses the sterility and ugli
ness of Rakitin’s positivism. He senses it immediately when Alyosha
falls into “Jesuit” casuistry, repeating in effect an argument of Smer
dyakov’s, in trying to save his brother (Epilogue 2).
Alyosha is the author of Father Zosima’s Vita. Throughout the
novel he also echoes his teacher’s words and teachings. It is surely
significant that, more than Dmitry, he is susceptible to the temptations
of reason, visited upon him through his brother Ivan and his friend
Rakitin. His teacher’s shining example leads him back to the truth.
Alyosha is a youth of delicate sensitivity and vivid imagination.
Ivan Karamazov, author of “The Grand Inquisitor,” which he calls
a “poem,” also of an earlier poem “A Geological Cataclysm” and other
works, is by far the most literate of the Karamazovs. His destruction as
an author, which goes hand in hand with his downfall as a man, is one
of Dostoevsky’s main concerns in the novel. “The Grand Inquisitor” is
undermined even from within through introduction of false notes,
dissonances, melodrama, and inner contradictions, as well as by some
telltale signs that the Grand Inquisitor is no prince of the Church or
glamorous Miltonic Satan, but a “silly student, who never wrote two
lines of poetry,” as Ivan says himself (II, 5, v). The “poem” is, of
course, totally demolished later by its parody in the ninth chapter of
Book XI. Nor is this development unprepared. Many earlier hints act
as fuses that will eventually explode Ivan’s edifice. When the Grand
Inquisitor develops his concept of a group of “clever people” (umnye
liudi) who rule mankind by giving it bread, mystery, and authority (in
fact, though, an unkept promise, magic, and tyranny), one is re
minded of Fyodor’s cynical comments on “us clever people who’ll sit
snug, drinking their brandy” (I, B, viii). The chapter that concludes
Book V is entided “It’s Always Worthwhile Speaking to a Clever
Man.” We know the definition of a “clever man” in all three instances:
he is someone who has discovered that there is no God and uses his
discovery to his advantage. Ivan, the “clever man,” finds himself in
the company of two other “clever people,” Fyodor and Smerdyakov.
Like the Karamazovs, many characters of lesser importance are
determined very largely by the products of their imagination:
Grushenka by the fiction of her first love and by her tale of the onion,
Katerina Ivanovna by her perverse dream of a life devoted to Dmitry,
Liza by her fantasies, alternately sweet and cruel. Some characters we
know virtually from their fictions only, such as Maksimov or Father
Ferapont.
We know Dmitry’s prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovich, and his defender,
Fetyukovich, almost exclusively through the products of their imag-
inauon. The former, a posidvist and believer in psychology as an exact
science, is an honest man and nobody’s fool. But he has an ordinary
imagination. He quickly creates a plausible account of the crime and
an equally plausible image of the criminal. The prosecutor’s version
200 Victor Terras
of what happened that fateful night is, however, based on two fic
tions: Grigory’s honest mistake about the open door, which was really
closed, and Smerdyakov’s clever insinuations. The prosecutor also
ignores a key fact that speaks in Dmitry’s favor: the discrepancy
between the amount of money found on Dmitry and the balance
between 3000 rubles and the money spent by Dmitry.
Ippolit Kirillovich exposes each statement made by the accused as a
clumsy fiction, which he demolishes by the logic of his own version. In
fact, though, everything Dmitry says is the truth, while the pro
secutor’s version is false. In particular, the prosecutor fails to see that
the screw of psychological analysis can always be given another turn:
Dmitry’s fumbling and “giving himself away” may be evidence of his
guilt, but it also may be evidence of his innocence: an innocent man
might blunder and fall into a trap that a guilty man, who would be on
his guard, would see. Raskolnikov, who does not fall into Porfiry’s
trap, is a case in point. In fact, Dmitry’s vivid imagination creates
evidence against him, for instance, when he blurts out that the money
was under his father’s pillow—which he couldn’t have known unless
he was the murderer (III, 9, vi). Ippolit Kirillovich, a good man,
simply underestimates the complexity of human nature. He is satis
fied when he has proved Dmitry’s story to be absurd, forgetting that
the truth is sometimes absurd (IV, 12, viii).
The narrator’s condescending attitude toward Ippolit Kirillovich
suggests that he is believed by the townspeople to be a nice enough,
but somewhat limited person. Yet, against all expectations, he triumphs
over the redoubtable Fetyukovich. He never suspects that he has con
victed an innocent man, certainly the last thing he would have wanted.
It is somewhat of a surprise that Ippolit Kirillovich expresses many of
the ideas which we know were Dostoevsky’s own, as is readily demon
strated by comparing his speech to passages in Dostoevsky’s Diary of a
Writer. Dostoevsky, like Ippolit Kirillovich, was a believer in Holy
Russia, “her principles, her family, everything she holds sacred” (IV,
12, ix). Ironically, these principles are upheld by the conviction of an
innocent man.
The defender Fetyukovich is the exact opposite of Ippolit Kiril
lovich. He has his facts right. He can see through Smerdyakov. With
perspicacity and intuition he reconstructs almost the entire course of
events as they actually happened. He knows that he is skating on thin
ice and skillfully slurs over the dubious steps in his argument.
Fetyukovich says outright that the prosecutor’s version of the events is
open to the very same charge he had made against Dmitry’s version,
namely that it is a fiction: “What if you’ve been weaving a romance
and about quite a different kind of man?” (IV, 12, xi). Fetyukovich
reminds his opponent that one’s image of another person is necessar
ily a fiction and that the real question is: how close is this fiction to the
truth? He sarcastically calls the prosecutor’s theory by which he had
tried to prove premeditation on Dmitry’s part “a whole edifice of
psychology” (IV, 12, xii) and promptly demolishes it. He will not deny
that his own version is a fiction, too. In fact, he will boldly admit that it.
is just that (IV, 12, xii). But the fact of the matter is that Fetyukovich’s
version happens to be true.
Fetyukovich is called an “adulterer of thought.” His shallow
liberalism is clearly odious to the narrator (and to Dostoevsky).
Moreover, there is reason to believe that he thinks Dmitry is really
guilty. When he swears “by all that is sacred” that he believes in Dmi
try’s innocence (IV, 12, xii), he is probably perjuring himself. And, last
but not least, he loses his case, as the “jury of peasants” chooses to
believe Ippolit Kirillovich.
In many ways the duel between Ippolit Kirillovich and Fetyukovich
may be seen as a allegory of Dostoevsky’s effort in The Brothers
Karamazov. It was his swan song, much as Ippolit Kirillovich’s oration
was his. Like Fetyukovich, Dostoevsky pleads a difficult case in which
the odds seem to be against the accused. The accused is God, the
charge that He has created a world in which injustice and innocent
suffering are allowed to prevail. Like Fetyukovich, Dostoevsky pleads
his case with skill and eloquence, and is not above an occasional ar-
gumentum ad hominem, slurring over inconvenient details, and discred
iting the witnesses for the prosecution. Especially the latter: Dos
toevsky makes sure to destroy the reputation of every atheist in the
novel.
Could it be that Dostoevsky, like Fetyukovich, does not believe in
the truth of his version of the case? This is really immaterial:
Fetyukovich certainly does his best to save Dmitry. Nor is it his fault
that the accused is found guilty. A conscientious and unbiased jury
should have found Dmitry innocent. Similarly, Dostoevsky certainly
wants God to win and does his best to ensure that He does. Still,
202 Victor Terras
Dostoevsky will lose his case with most readers. Like Fetyukovich’s
jury, they are biased, biased against God. Or, also like Fetyukovich’s
jury, they lack the imagination to follow Dostoevsky’s intricate
metaphysical argument.
In any case, Dostoevsky assigns the voice of truth to the man with
the greater imagination, that is, to the artist (there is no question as to
the great powers of Fetyukovich’s imagination), and he does so re
gardless of the man’s moral qualities. He also lets a jury of peasants
reject the truth. The moral of the tale is then that an honest and
well-meaning, but pedestrian man is prone to deep error and acts of
grave injustice. It is Grigory, righteous and devout, but also obtusely
unimaginative man who gives the false evidence that convicts Dmitry.
To attain the truth, requires imagination, empathy, and inspiration.
Ippolit Kirillovich tries to put down Dmitry, saying: “To be sure,
we are poets” (IV, 12, ix). The irony backfires, of course. Not only is
Dmitry a poet, but he also knows more about the truth of life than the
pedestrian prosecutor ever will. In the world of T h e B ro th e rs
K a ra m a zo v, everybody knows his or her measure of facts, and every
body must create his or her own fiction of the world. The poet’s
fiction is closest to the truth. The less a person is a poet, the farther
removed is he or she from the truth. Significantly, it is Smerdyakov
who advances the Russian nihilists’ arguments against poetry, which
Dostoevsky had combated all his life and which are thus denounced as
a lackey’s view of poetry (II, 5, ii). Rakitin’s “polemic” with Pushkin
serves the same purpose. All and sundry nonpoets and antipoets in
T he Brothers K aram azov are hopelessly removed from the truth as Dos
toevsky sees it, as well as from seeing the truth in the Karamazov
murder case.
Throughout T h e B rothers K aram azov we hear comments on the art

of fiction in general, on various pieces of fiction introduced in the
text, and on the novel at hand. The narrator’s prefatory statement is
quite characteristic in this respect. It suggests that “the main novel is
the second,” a novel yet to be written, which will deal with “the action
of my hero in our day.” While there is enough said in the text of T he
Brothers K aram azov to suggest that Dostoevsky did in fact intend to
write a sequel, the reference to the “second novel” is, as far as the
reader of T he Brothers K aram azov is concerned, to an unknown and
unknowable entity, to a fiction yet to be created and in effect as
indeterminate as life itself. And yet the narrator refers to the “essential
unity of the whole,” suggesting that, somehow, the fiction yet to be
created will grow organically from that which exists .
It seems odd that the narrator identifies his work as a “novel”
(rom an), thus abandoning the veracity topos used, for example, by the
chronicler of T he D evils. In fact, the narrator of T he Brothers K aram azov
occasionally presents himself to the reader as a novelist, the author of
a work of fiction. Once in a while he will discuss novelistic strategy
with his reader. His chapter titles, in particular, often remind the
reader that he is reading a piece of fiction.
The narrator also provides the reader with bits and pieces of an
internal commentary regarding the style of his narrative, or more
often, the style of the various narratives introduced by him. Alyosha’s
summary of Father Zosima’s last discourses to his disciples is said to be
“incomplete and fragmentary” (II, 6, ii). Ivan’s judgment of his own
“poem” was quoted earlier. Dmitry’s pathetic and funny effusions are
accompanied by a continuous ironic commentary. Time and again,
the inner commentary may be projected upon the novel as a whole.
When the prosecutor says: “Perhaps I am exaggerating, but it seems
to me that certain fundamental features of our educated class of today
are reflected in this family picture” (IV, 12, vi), this is clearly a com
ment on the novel. In fact, when Ippolit Kirillovich exclaims: “But we,
so far, only have our Karamazovs!” this may be read as a coded self
apotheosis of the novel, its message, and its author.
As the concept of a “novel” or “romance” (in Russian there is only
one term for both: rom an) advances to the foreground of the plot, a
notion begins to emerge that the plot itself is a multiple fiction, be
yond which only faint outlines of the truth are visible. As each and
every step of Book VIII (and a good deal of what happened earlier) is
retraced in Book Nine, Dmitry’s version of the fateful events, which
we know to be substantially true, now seems false, and the inves
tigator’s version, which we know to be false, becomes the “truth.”
Neither version accounts for what has really happened—this we shall
204 Victor Terras
hear from Smerdyakov in Book XI. In Book XII, and even more so in
the Epilogue, the notion emerges that any form of temporal truth
(legal, psychological, empirical) is irrelevant to God’s truth. A flagrant
miscarriage of justice reveals God’s truth to Dmitry. In the Epilogue,
if for a brief moment only, “a lie becomes the truth” even for Katerina
Ivanovna, the person who, of all the main characters in the novel, is
the least gifted to see the truth.
The key issue at hand is: Granted that every human effort to reach
the truth is a work of fiction based on some highly insecure facts,
which is more important in this effort—realistic detail or “grand in
vention as a whole,” as the prosecutor puts it (IV, 12, ix)? The answer
to this question, implicit in the entire text of the novel, is that both
elements are inseparably linked. Fetyukovich states the resulting di
lemma in his summation: “What troubles me and makes me indignant
is that of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against the
defendant, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable” (IV, 12,
xii). According to an organic conception of the work of art—and of
life—the whole is always more than the sum of its parts: thirty rabbits
do not make one horse, as Porfiry puts it in Crime and Punishment.
Dostoevsky certainly was a Firm believer in the organic principle,
which also suggests that if any part of the whole is flawed, the whole
must be faulty, too. The prosecutor, who sincerely believes in this
preconceived theory (or fiction), is an inferior artist. The flawed de
tails of his fiction betray his whole work. Fetyukovich may not have a
sincere belief in anything, but he is a gifted artist whose intuitive grasp
of each detail produces the truth of the whole.
The inevitable corollary of this is that in his search for truth man
needs to be not only sincere, but also gifted with an artist’s imagina
tion as well. The malodorous sinner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov has
imagination and is therefore infinitely closer to the truth of God than
the pedestrian Miusov. What makes Rakitin such a contemptible and
worthless person is first and foremost the fact that he has no imagina
tion and cannot even understand a joke. Katerina Ivanovna stumbles
from one falsehood to another, betrayed by her total absence of real
intuition. It also seems that the power of a person’s imagination is
proportional to his or her capacity for love, erotic or spiritual. But this
is a different question.
I have tried to draw attention to what may be called a literary and
aesthetic subtext of the novel. Analogously, and perhaps more per

suasively, a biblical and religious subtext can be seen in The Brothers
Karamazov. The novel contains literally hundreds of Biblical quota
tions and allusions, many of which form distinct patterns. With a shift
of emphasis upon these elements, the novel might be viewed as a
modern reaction to the challenge of Christian ethics and metaphysics.
Alyosha Karamazov
and the Hagiographie Hero
by Valentina A. Vetlovskaya
“The main narrative is the second,” explains the narrator of The

Brothers Karamazov in his introductory remarks, “—it is the action of
my hero in our day, at the very present time. The first novel takes
place thirteen years ago, and it is hardly even a novel, but only a
period in my hero’s early youth. I cannot do without this first novel,
because much in the second would be unintelligible without it.”1
Clearly Dostoevsky conceived of his work in the form of two novels,
of which the second (not known to us) is the main one. It follows that
without this second novel much in the first cannot be entirely com
prehensible. It is essential, therefore, that we seek out and consider
elements which might provide some clue to the overall structure of
the two novels. In this way the balance of parts in our presentation will
not be upset, and we shall avoid making secondary things primary
and primary ones secondary.
We may note at the outset that Dostoevsky wrote his introductory
remarks in 1878, that is, when beginning his work on The Brothers
Karamazov. The idea of a continuation of the novel, then, was not an
afterthought, the result of work already accomplished; rather, it pre
ceded the writing of the part of the work we know. The elements of
the work’s overall structure, then, its foundation, must certainly be in
“Alyosha Karamazov and the Hagiographie Hero” [editor’s tide] by Valen
tina A. Vedovskaya. From Poetika romana “Brat’ia Karamazovy” (Leningrad:
Nauka, 1977), pp. 163-83. Copyright 1977 by Nauka, Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
Reprinted with slight abridgement of the footnotes by permission of the
author and VAAP (All-Union Association of Author’s Rights) in the U.S.S.R.
Translated from the Russian by Nancy Poliak and Susanne Fusso.
lThe Brothers Karamazov, trans. by Constance Garnett, Modern Library,
1950, p. xviii. All subsequent references are to this edition. (Translator’s
note.)
206
Alyosha Karamazov and the Hagiographie Hero 207
place in the work as we know it—indeed, they must even be partially

visible. Otherwise the reader would not have been informed in the
introduedon that the two novels have the “essential unity of the
whole”; in fact, there would be no question at all of any essential unity.
The introductory remarks provide some indication of the sense of
the whole. The opening phrase of the introduction speaks of a biog
raphy: “In beginning the biography of my hero, Aleksey Fyodorovich
Karamazov,” etc. The narrator continues: “I have two novels and only
one biography.” What is important here, first, is that the narrator-
author conceives of the whole as a biography, and, second, that Alek
sey Fyodorovich Karamazov is the center of this biography. The
preeminence of precisely this hero is emphasized throughout the en
tire story, in spite of the fact that the first novel is called The Brothers
Karamazov.
The first line of the novel, closely related to the introduction, reads
as follows: “Aleksey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son o f . . .
a landowner . . . in our district.” The main hero is singled out.
Further, the introductory story of Alyosha appears in a special chap
ter entitled, “The Third Son, Alyosha.” By contrast, the more laconic
and dry accounts of Dmitry and Ivan appear in chapters that seem to
diminish rather than accentuate the importance of these heroes: “He
Gets Rid of his Eldest Son,” “The Second Marriage and the Second
Family” (here Fyodor Pavlovich is in the foreground).
We may recall at this point that the word used for “biography,”
zhizneopisanie, signifies “vita.” The narrator of The Brothers Karamazov
emerges—not obtrusively, but clearly enough—as the narrator of a
vita, with his “main” hero, Alyosha, as hero-saint.2The point deserves
special emphasis. In this connection I. P. Eryomin has written about
the life of Theodosius of Pechersk:
From his first appearance in Nestor’s Chronicle, Theodosius of
Pechersk is presented to the reader in the “seraphic” image of
the ideally positive Christian hero-saint. And he continues in the
2A. L. Volynsky, in connection with the portrait characterization of
Alyosha in the novel, noted the latter circumstance: “His [Alyosha’s—V. V.]
quiet gaze, the longish . . . oval of his face, the animation of expression—all
this merges into the sort of icon-like image found in old tsarist documents—an
image in which there is nothing provocative, nothing sharply individual.”
A. L. Volynskii, Tsarstvo Karamazovykh (St. Petersburg, 1901), pp. 148-149,
20 8 Valentina A.'Vetlovskaya
same basic image through the entire v ita , accompanied by

prayerfully reverential epithets.. . . Even in early youth, he is
“one of God’s elect,” an “earthly angel” and a “heavenly human
being.” “Drawn to God’s love,” even in childhood he reveals
virtues not usually possessed by an ordinary person in such a
totality; he performs acts that go beyond all norms of everyday
human conduct: these acts—his spiritual exploits—evoke pious
consternation in some people, in others, “unreasoning ones,”
reproaches and even derision.3
The basic modfs and, in part, the tone of the preliminary charac
terization of Alyosha remind the reader of the typical hagiographical
tale. Thus, Alyosha has been living in the monastery “for the past
year,.. . and seemed willing to be cloistered there for the rest of his
life.” “He was . . . an early lover of humanity,” the narrator further
explains, “and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at
that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul,
struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of
love.” The narrator will return to this motif again.
The opposition of the “darkness of earthly malice” and the “light of
love,” and of (earthly) darkness and (heavenly) light in general, is a
metaphor common to the v ita narrative, and one that goes back to the
evangelists’ texts. (This opposition is consistently pursued up to the
end of the novel.)
Like the typical hero of a hagiographie narrative, even in early
youth Alyosha feels the urge to depart from the vain world, because
earthly passions are alien to him.
The complex relations between the ideal hero of the vita and the
surrounding world make this hero strange to ordinary people and
ordinary perception. This is the way Alyosha is presented to the
reader. The narrator speaks right away of a strangeness, a certain
eccentricity in him, but at the same time explains that these qualities
do not, nevertheless, signify isolation: “. . . on the contrary, it happens
sometimes that such a person [the eccentric—V. V.], I dare say, carries
within himself the very heart of the universal, and the rest of the men
of his epoch have for some reason been temporarily torn from it... .”
As a result Alyosha is both set off against other people (this is typical
3Eryomin, I. P., “K kharakteristike Nestora kak pisatelia,” in his Literatura
d revm iR u si (Moscow-Leningrad, 1966), p. 30.
for the hero of a vita), and closely linked to them, because it is impos
sible to go far from the “heart,” impossible to entirely break off from
it. Such a twist is unusual for a vita.
The desire for seclusion, the unchildlike pensiveness and concen
tration of the young Alyosha, his alienation from the playfulness and
joyfulness typical of children, pointed out by the narrator, develop
the same idea of the hero’s “strangeness” and “eccentricity.” Such a
development is also typical of the vita narrative.4 But the “gift for
arousing a special love for oneself,” confirmed many times sub-
sequendy, is a sign of that side of Alyosha’s character that, despite any
strangeness (or, perhaps, because of that strangeness), makes him
dear to all people.
“He never tried to show off among his schoolfellows” is the slighdy
altered expression of the motif of humility, the absence of pride typi
cal of the hero of the vita. This motif is reiterated in the report that
Alyosha “never resented an insult. It would happen that an hour after
the offence he would address the offender or answer some question
with as trustful and candid an expression as though nothing had
happened between them” (I, 1, iv).
The absence of pride, along with the complete indifference to
worldly goods (money, for example, both his own and that of others)
is emphasized by the words: “Another feature characteristic of
him—and very much so—was that he never worried about whose
means he was living on. In this respect he was the complete opposite
of his older brother Ivan Fyodorovich. . . . ” With regard to this lack of
the vain and sensitive pride with which his older brother is endowed,
the narrator considers it necessary to note again the strangeness, the
“apparent” holy-foolery of his “main” and “beloved” hero. (It is im
portant that this holy-foolery comes not from indifference or incivility
in relation to others but, on the contrary, from an extreme and
perhaps naive trustfulness and sympathy toward people.)
Alyosha’s “wild fanatical modesty and chasdty” also belongs to the
obligatory attributes of the hero of the vita—another feature that
makes him strange from an ordinary point of view and that, for
4See, for example, Nestor’s account of the childhood of Theodosius:
“Neither did he draw near to playing children, as is the habit of young people,
but lo he abhorred their games.” Kievo-Pecherskii paterik, introduction and
notes by Prof. Dm. Abramovich (Kiev, 1931), p. 23.
210 Valentina A . Vetlovskaya
example, makes “all his schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top
want to mock at him” and to look upon him “with compassion” (I, 1,
iv).
In general, the motifs that are enumerated here exhaust the pre
liminary characterization of Alyosha. They are all marked and coor
dinated with the usual representation of the hero of the vita, who,
even in childhood, exhibits the uncommon characteristics of the fu
ture great ascetic and saint.
Other motifs, too, are heard, in a very muffled form, but neverthe
less from the beginning—motifs that contrast with those just intro
duced and that are apparendy intended to point not just to the future
great ascetic, but also to the future (perhaps also great) sinner.5
Rather than analyzing them, however, let us merely say that the mo
tives that compel Alyosha to elect the monastery as the lot most con
genial to him also make this choice rather flimsy. The hero aspires to
“truth” and to “great deeds” and wants to achieve these things as
hastily as possible but, starting from this same aspiration, others go
the opposite road. Alyosha “was convinced of the existence of God
and immortality” (I, 1, v), but after some time he could be “convinced”
by something else (after all, he is only beginning to live). Alyosha
encounters an extraordinary elder in the monastery and falls in love
with him (I, 1, iv, v), but this encounter is fortuitous. Moreover, too
strong a feeling of love for the elder alone is not such an uncondition
ally good thing as it might at first appear. These and similar consid
erations all arise in the reader’s mind not at once, but only later, when
the motifs of Alyosha’s preliminary characterization begin to recur.
Acquiring additional hints and associations, they take on an ambigu
ous character, leading the reader to contemplate the idea of turns for
the worse in the fate of the main hero.
For example, the teachings of the elder make it clear that belief in
God, which inspires the young hero, acquires the force of conviction
only when it is the result of “the experience of active love” (I, 2, iv).
This “active” love is “a harsh and dreadful thing,” it is “labor and
fortitude, and thus for some people, perhaps, a whole science.” Such a
love the elder contrasts with “contemplative” love, which “is greedy
“During the last period of his life, as is well known, Dostoevsky was ex
tremely interested in the idea of writing a Life of a Great Sinner,
for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all” (1,2,
iv)*
With the exception of the moment of self-admiration (which is in
no way connected with Alyosha), everything in the characterization of
“contemplative” love corresponds to the feeling with which Alyosha
enters on the “monastic road.” The hero is not yet ready for an “ac
tive” love, for the “harsh and dreadful,” for “labor and fortitude.”
Therefore his choice, despite the fact that it is natural for this essen
tially saintly hero, has as yet the most hasty and preliminary character.
It perhaps serves as a premonitory allusion to the future, but it is not
very important in the present, for the hero begins directly from that
with which he should have ended.
As a result the image of the main hero of the “biography” is pre
sented as mobile, capable of further change, and lacking that schema
tic straightforwardness and fixity of form which burdens the typical
hero of a vita. Let us stress that this changeability and mobility is
indicated not so much in spite of the hagiographie canon, as within
its boundaries, thanks to the ambiguity, created by the narradon, of
certain motifs originating in that canon.
It is precisely because Alyosha is not yet ready to serve God and the
“truth,” as he then imagined it, that the elder sends his “quiet boy” out
of the monastery: “This is not your place for the time. I bless you for
great service in the world. Yours will be a long pilgrimage . .. You will
have to bear all before you come back. There will be much to do. But I
don’t doubt you, and so I send you fo rth . . . Work, work unceas
ingly . . . ” (I, 2, vii). The fact that Alyosha is really still too young,
unstable, and unconfirmed in his (still naive) beliefs, is corroborated
yet again by his reaction to the elder’s words. “Alyosha started, when
the elder said, ‘. .. leave the monastery. Go away for. good.’ ” The
hero is perplexed, confused, frightened. “But how could he be left
without him [the elder—V. V.]? How could he live without seeing and
hearing him? Where should he go? He had told him not to weep, and
to leave the monastery. Good God! It was long since Alyosha had
known such anguish” (I, 2, vii).
The above-cited motifs (on the one hand, the hero’s uncommon
ness even in early youth, his decision to go into a monastery; on the
other, his lack of inner preparation for this exploit, his dispatch into
the world for such preparation) signify that in this case we are dealing
212 Valentina A. Vetlovskaya
with the organic combination in one character of the two usual types
of hagiographie hero. The first type is the hero who senses, almost
from infancy, his lofty calling, and subsequently follows it without
swerving (like Theodosius of Pechersk or Sergius of Radonezh). The
second type is the hero who turns to God and gives himself up to the
same asceticism after many trials, mistakes and errors (Ephraim Si
rin). Alyosha’s dispatch from the monastery does confront him with
this set of trials, for in relation to the hero of the vita, the world can
only appear in its tempting aspect.
After the presentation of the main hero, a motif arises that links his
name with that of Aleksey the Man of God. This motif is at first heard
obliquely. The hero of the vita, widely known in its time, is only
recalled to the reader’s mind. The occasion for this reminder is the
elder’s conversation with one of the devout women, who is wasting
away with grief over her dead boy. To the elder’s question as to what
her son was called, the mother answers:
“Aleksey, Father.”
“A sweet name. After Aleksey, the Man of God?”
“Of God, Father, of God, Aleksey the Man of God!”
“What a saint he was! I will remember him, mother . . . ” (I, 2, iii)
Since the name of the main hero has already been mentioned and he
himself has been presented to the reader in a hagiographie halo, the
reminder of Aleksey the Man of God brings to mind certain details
of the “biography” that support the idea of Alyosha’s closeness to the
hagiographie hero mentioned here.
Aleksey the Man of God was born in Rome; his parents were rich
and distinguished Romans: “Under the emperors Arcadius and Hon-
orius, at the end of the fourth century, there lived in Rome a distin
guished man by the name of Euphimian, and his wife Aglaida.. . .”6
elzbrannye zhitiia sviatykh, kratko idozhennye po rukovodstvu Chetikh Minei, 2nd

ed., revised and supplemented, (Moscow, 1860), March 17. This edition was
in Dostoevsky’s library. See L. Grossman, Biblioteka Dostoevskogo (Odessa,
1919), p. 154. Especially interested in the vita of Aleksey the Man of God,
Dostoevsky undoubtedly did not limit himself to the short exposition of it in
this edition. The Lives of the Saints by Dimitrius of Rostov and the Prologue,
quite authoritative and accessible in their time, were well known to him.
In the version of the life found in the Lives of the Saints by Dimitrius of
Rostov, we read: “There was in ancient Rome a pious man by the
name of Euphimian, at the time of the pious emperors Arcadius and
Honorius, great among the nobles and exceedingly wealthy. . . In
the Prologue version of the life of Aleksey the Man of God we read:
“He was from ancient Rome, the son of Euphimian the patrician, his
mother was Aglaida. .. .”78
Clearly it is not by chance that it is precisely in the chapter, “The
Third Son, Alyosha,” that the portrait of Fyodor Pavlovich is given,
which ends with the words: “He was fond indeed of making fun of his
own face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used
particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large, but very
delicate and conspicuously aquiline. ‘A regular Roman nose,’ he used
to say, ‘with my goitre I’ve quite the countenance of an ancient Roman
patrician of the decadent period’ ” (I, 1, iv). To be sure, the evident
resemblance between Fyodor Pavlovich and the father of the ancient
hero of the vita, who was by habit quite pious, is confined to this casual
remark.
Of course, this remark is important in general as well: it likens the
present to the past, gives the “particular” a broad significance, be
cause the “confusion,” decay, and “fall” of present-day Russian life is
related here to the “fall” of ancient Rome. If the analogy is continued,
however, then a rebirth out of this “fall,” like the rebirth of ancient
(pagan) Rome, must appear on the paths of Christianity. Moreover,
because Rome was unable to deal with this problem in its own time,
since, as Ivan explains, “Rome . . . retained too much of pagan civili
zation and culture” (I, 2, v), then clearly the problem stands now
before the “fallen” and also decaying Russia. All this is in accordance
with Slavophile ideas and the Slavophile conception of the history of
the West and Russia, with which Dostoevsky sympathized. If one be
lieves the testimony of Vladimir Solovyov, these themes should have
been strongly heard in the second novel.6 In the first novel they are
7Both the vita in the edition o f Dimitrius of Rostov and the Prologue redac
tion are cited according to the texts included by V. P. Adrianova-Perets in the
appendix to her Zhitie Alekseia cheloveka bozhiia v drevnei russkoi literature i
narodnoi slovesnosti (Petrograd, 1917), pp. 501, 512.
8V1. Solov’ev, Tri rechi v pamiati Dostoevskogo ( 1881-1883 gg.), (Moscow,
1884), pp. 20-21.
only hinted at, and they are not the themes that are important for us
now. We are interested in Alyosha and his connections with the hero
of the ancient vita. It is likely that Fyodor Pavlovich’s claim to re
semblance to the ancient Roman is, in this respect, a significant detail.
One would think that one of Alyosha’s recollections, which origi
nated in his infancy, has the same significance—a circumstance over
which the narrator lingers with a degree of conscientiousness that is
strange, it would seem, for such a trifle, and to which he subsequently
returns. Alyosha “remembered one still summer evening. . . ; in a
corner of the room the holy image, before it a lighted lamp, and on
her knees before the image his rpother, sobbing hysterically with cries
and moans, snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it
hurt, and praying for him to the Mother of God, holding him out in
both arms to the image as though to put him under the Mother’s
protection .. .” (I, 1, iv).
The mother’s prayer for her son, presented here as Alyosha’s
most vivid recollection, is clearly a modification of a motif in the life
of Aleksey the Man of God, in which the prayer originates either from
the mother alone, as here (and as, for example, in the redaction of
Dimitrius of Rostov), or from both parents (as in the edition in Dos
toevsky’s library), and where it precedes the miraculous birth of the
future saint. Thus in both cases the hero’s later career is linked with
an anticipatory parental supplication, anguish over the son and tears.9
Also important is the fact that the prayer of Alyosha’s pious mother
appeals precisely to the Mother of God and to her protection.
In various redactions of this vita the saint, for whose sake God has
been implored, leaving home, gives himself up to an ascetic life on the
porch (or in the vestibule) of the temple of the Mother of God. After a
certain time the Mother of God orders her servant to bring Aleksey
into this temple, “for his prayer rises to God, and like a crown on the
royal head, so does the Holy Spirit rest upon him.”10
In the sacred poem about Aleksey, which Dostoevsky knew as well
aThis motif is encountered not only in the vita of Aleksey the Man of God.
It is generally diffused in vita literature.
10Izbrannye zhitiia sviatykh . . . , March 17.
as he knew the vita, the Mother of God also sends the saint back to his
former home, to his father, mother, and spouse.11
In the novel, the sending of Alyosha from the monastery back into
the world and also back to his relatives corresponds to this sending of
the saint back to his relatives—by God’s will (in the vita), or by the
command of the Mother of God (in the sacred poem). Alyosha is sent
back into the world by his spiritual father, Father Zosima. It is sub
sequently pointed out by Ivan that this is a “divine” elder, a “Pater
Seraphicus,” and consequently his will is the will of God. Not by
chance, the Mother of God is also linked to the elder from the very
beginning; among the few trifling, briefly noted objects in his elder’s
cell, the icon of the Mother of God is singled out and emphasized
twice: “The cell was not very large and had a faded look. It contained
nothing but the necessary furniture, of course and poor quality.
There were two pots of flowers in the window, and a number of icons
in the corner—among them, one of the Mother of God, of enormous
dimensions and painted, apparently, long before the schism. Before it
a lamp was burning. Near it were two other icons in shining settings,
and, next to them, carved cherubims, china eggs, a Catholic cross of
ivory, and a Mater Dolorosa embracing i t . , . ” (I, 2, ii).
Clearly, the combination of the Orthodox and Catholic images of
the Mother of God in the elder’s cell, like the fact that the elder is at
once a Russian ascetic and a Pater Seraphicus, is accorded particular
11An analysis of the artistic text points definitively to Dostoevsky’s dose

familiarity with this sacred poem. I am grateful to G. M. Fridlender for kindly
drawing my attention to a letter of February 13, 1873, from T. I. Filippov to
Dostoevsky, which contains one of the variants of the sacred poem about St.
Aleksey. Concluding this variant, partly transmitted word for word, partly
retold, Filippov writes: “Here, dear Fyodor Mikhailovich, are the verses you
need, with a litde appendage which won’t bother anything, and which might
even be useful in illuminating the whole epos” (Pushkin Institute of Russian
Literature, 29883.SSXb.12). The composition of the poem has been altered in
T. I. Filippov’s variant. First come the laments of the parents over the de
ceased Aleksey (it was precisely the laments that apparendy interested Dos
toevsky). Then comes the litde “appendage”—the beginning of the poem and
everything that precedes the laments. Filippov’s variant was not complete and
was not the only one known to Dostoevsky.
significance here. After all, the life of Aleksey the Man of God is a
very ancient vita. The events described in it date back to the end of the
fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries, i.e., to the time when the
division of the Christian church had not yet occurred. This life is
familiar to Orthodox and Catholics alike.12 The Mother of God, at
whose temple the saindy youth appears, is, as it were, at once the
Orthodox Mother of God and the Catholic Mater Dolorosa. Father
Zosima, who sends Alyosha into the world, to his relatives, being at
once a Russian Orthodox ascetic and a Pater Seraphicus, reduplicates
this same motif.
Dostoevsky, though not overly concerned with formal matters (the
precise reproduction of the sequence of hagiographical motifs and
their literal transmission), nonetheless has adhered to the hagio
graphie outline in the most important points of Alyosha’s story. The
elder, for example, sends Alyosha back not only to his father and
brothers (Alyosha himself recalls his deceased mother and upon arri
val seeks out her grave), but also to his (here, it is true, future) bride.
The complexity of Alyosha’s relations with Liza Khokhlakova is
noted from the very beginning: Alyosha’s attachment to Liza counter
vails his lofty goals.
“Why do you make fun of him [Alyosha—V. V.] like that,
naughty girl?” the elder says to her. Liza suddenly and quite
unexpectedly blushed. Her eyes flashed and her face became
quite serious. She began speaking quickly and nervously in a
warm and resentful voice:
“Why has he forgotten everything, then?. . . No, now he’s
saving his soul! Why have you put that long gown on him? If he
runs he’ll fall.”
And suddenly she hid her face in her hands and went off into
terrible, uncontrollable . .. laughter. The elder listened to her
with a smile, and blessed her tenderly.. . .
12D. Dashkov gives a detailed exposition, comparative analysis, and criti
cism of several Latin redactions of the vita. See D. Dashkov, “Stikhi i skazaniia
pro Alekseia bozhiia cheloveka,” in Besedy v obshchestve liubitelei rossiiskoi sloves-
nosti pri imp. Moskovskom universitete, No. 2, (Moscow, 1868). Dostoevsky was
possibly familiar with this work. Other sources were probably also known to
him. For example, at the end of the 1870s, the Gesta Romanorum were pub
lished, in Vol. 2 of which (St. Petersburg, 1878) there is one of the redactions
o f the vita of St. Aleksey.
“I will certainly send him,” the elder decided (I, 2, iv).

Let us note that it is hardly by chance that Alyosha’s future bride
and spouse is called Liza. In the Russian versions of the life of Aleksey
the Man of God, the name of the bride and spouse of the saint is not
mentioned, but several variants of the sacred poem speak either of
Katerina or of Lizaveta:
The father permitted him to wed
A princess renowned and promised to him,
Lizaveta by name.13
In the elder’s conversation with the devout women, where the
name of Aleksey the Man of God is heard for the first time, the name
of Lizaveta is heard as well:
“Is that your little girl?”
“My little girl, Father, Lizaveta.”
“May the Lord bless you both, you and your babe Lizaveta . .
He blessed them all and bowed low to them (I, 2, iii).
The chapter “A Lady of Little Faith” (following “Devout Peasant
Women”) involves four characters: elders (Alyosha’s spiritual father,
Father Zosima; Liza’s mother, Mme Khokhlakova) and minors
(Alyosha, Liza). In view of the consistency of motifs, Alyosha’s link
with Aleksey the Man of God and Liza’s with Lizaveta, the bride and
spouse of the saint in the Russian sacred poem, can be assumed, while
the elder’s firm intention to send Alyosha to Liza after her mother’s
words and her own takes on the character of a betrothal. Sub
sequently this betrothal is confirmed. Alyosha says to Liza: “I shall be
leaving the monastery altogether in a few days. If I go into the world,
I must marry. I know that. He [the elder, Dostoevsky’s emphasis—
13Kaliki perekhozhie. Sbomik stikhov i issledovanie P. Bessonova, (Moscow, 1861)
var. No. 28 (hereinafter the variants of the sacred poem about Aleksey the
Man of God from the collections of Kireevsky, Bessonov and Varentsov are
indicated in the text of the book). We basically rely on the texts of Bessonov,
because Dostoevsky could not have missed them: the collection was widely
known. Dostoevsky was apparently also familiar with the editions of P.
Kireevsky (Russkie narodnye pesni sobrannye Petrom Kireevskim, Part 1 (Moscow,
1848) and V. Varentsov (Sbomik russkikh dukhovnykh stikhov, sostavlennyi V.
Varentsovym (St. Petersburg, 1860), in each of which there is also a variant of
the poem that interests us___
2 18 Valentina A. Vetlovskaya
V. V.] told me to marry, too. Whom could I marry better than you—
and who would have me except you? I have been thinking it over” (II,
5, i).
Aleksey the Man of God, the hero of the hagiographie narrative
and of the sacred poem, is mentioned a few more times later in the
novel. Thus, ordering his monks and devotees to read the sacred
writings to the people, the elder also speaks of the Lives of the Saints
and advises them to choose therefrom, at least “the life of Aleksey, the
Man of God” (II, 6, i). Later, in the scene at Grushenka’s, in response
to Alyosha’s request that he not grow angry and condemn others,
Rakitin, in irritation, replies directly: “You were so primed up with
your elder’s teaching last night that now you have to let it off on me,
Alyoshenka, Man of God!” (Ill, 7, iii). The seminarian Rakitin could
not casually call Alyosha by the name of the saint. The diminutive
form used by Rakitin, entirely alien to the vita, is known, however, to
the sacred poem, in which it is, of course, uttered in a different spirit:
He [the father of the saint—V. V.] calls the
holy men to his house
And gives a name to the baby,
He gave him a sacred little name,—
Lekseyushko, little Man of God. (Bessonov, var. no. 32)
The epithet “prince,” which Grushenka accords to Alyosha in the
same scene, comes either from the vita, where this word is encoun
tered extremely rarely, to be sure, or (wrhat is much more likely) from
the sacred poem, where it arises quite naturally against the back
ground of the usual folk appellations, and is to be found pretty much
everywhere.
Later Mitya once again connects his younger brother with Aleksey
the Man of God: “Damn ethics. I am done for, Aleksey, I am, you
Man of God! I love you more than anyone. It makes my heart yearn to
look at you” (IV, 11, iv). Thus a motif (Alyosha-Aleksey the Man of
God) that is introduced at first tentatively and as though in passing, is
heard at the end of the novel in full force.
As for the significance of this chain of motifs in the system of the
entire novel, let us first of all emphasize the fact that, in connecting his
hero with Aleksey the Man of God, Dostoevsky selects the central
figure of the most popular vita. “One may say without exaggeration,”
writes V. P. Adrianova-Perets in her study devoted specifically to this

vita, “that not one of the ascetics of the Russian land provoked such
interest, aroused such sympathy for his life, as did Aleksey the Man of
God.”14 In particular, the scholar sees the reason for such popularity
in the fact that this vita absorbed many beloved motifs of Russian
hagiography (such motifs are also heard in The Brothers Karamazov,
and several of them are enumerated above).
Combined ably into a single artistic story . . . they were as
sociated in the consciousness of the Russian reader with a large
number of familiar images and ideas, and thus they favored the
popularity and the durability of this vita, which gave an impetus
to further treatments both in literature and in popular poetry, in
Russia as well.15
The sacred poem about Aleksey which Dostoevsky had in mind as well
as the vita is just such a popular poetic reworking.
The basic features of the vita of Aleksey the Man of God and of the
sacred poem about him are Aleksey’s departure from home to per
form the exploits customary for the hero of a vita, and his life in his
parents’ home upon his return.16 It is precisely from the time when
the saint, unrecognized, lodges in his parents’ home, that a grave
temptation begins: the saint is faced not with a rejection of the world
14V. P. Adrianova, Zhitie Alekseia cheloveka bozhiia v drevnei russkoi literature i

narodnoi slovesnosti, p. 127.
lsIbid., p. 144.
16In contrast to the vita, the poem sometimes emphasizes Aleksey’s desire,
in his departure from home, to serve not only his own salvadon but that of his
relatives:
. . . I went to an alien land,
to pray for papa’s sins,
to work for mama’s sins! (Var. of Kireevsky)
See also Bessonov, var. Nos. 29, 30. An echo of this motif (which is omitted
by T. I. Filippov’s variant) appears in The Brothers Karamazov, in Fyodor Pav
lovich's reply to his son’s request to allow him to go back to the monastery:
“After all I’ll miss you, Alyosha . . . However, here’s a good opportunity: pray
for us sinners; sitting here, we’ve sinned too much. I’ve been thinking all the
time about this: who’s ever going to pray for me? Is there such a person in the
world?” (I, 1, iv).
in order to save himself and, perhaps, others, but with a sojourn in the
world for those same goals.
! In accordance with the spirit and meaning of the vita and the poem
about Saint Aleksey, Alyosha Karamazov’s rapprochement with the
world and his relations at first turns out to be a trial for him. The
narrative is constructed so that after the scene in the monastery,
which serves as the starting point of the action, Alyosha is sent on
errands by first one, then another character; he listens to others’
stories, usually filled with perturbation and grief, that cast doubt on
the affirmation of God’s endless love, charity, and beneficence. The
tempting character of these encounters, commissions, and confessions
is conveyed through various motifs.
Among these motifs, the indication of Alyosha’s suffering (in con
trast to his joyful sojourn in the monastery and his communion with
the elder) is one of the most constant and important ones. “This
request [of Katerina Ivanovna—V. V.] and the necessity of going had
at once aroused an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had
grown more and more painful all the morning . . . ” (I, 3, iii). So begins
Alyosha’s ascetic life in the world and his “ordeals.” On the way to
Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha’s brother Mitya stops him:
“I might have sent anyone, but I wanted to send an angel.. . . ”
“Did you really mean to send me?” cried Alyosha with a dis
tressed expression (I, 3, iii).
Alyosha’s suffering, which reveals the gravity of others’ appeals
and commissions for this “quiet boy,” is contrasted with the joy of
those who, voluntarily or not, tempt Alyosha: “ ‘Oh, gods,’ exclaims,
again, Mitya, ‘I thank you for sending him to me by the back way, and
he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fishermen in the
fable!’ ” (I, 3, iii). “ ‘Here he is! Here he is!’ yelled Fyodor Pavlovich,
highly delighted at seeing Alyosha. ‘J oin us. Sit down. Coffee is a
lenten dish, but it’s hot and good. I don’t offer you brandy, you’re
keeping the fast. But would you like some? No; I’d better give you
some of our famous liqueur.. . . Now we’ve a treat for you, in your
own line, too. It’ll make you laugh. Balaam’s ass has begun talking to
us here . . . ’ ” (I, 3, vi). “Alyosha left his father’s house,” the narrator
further recounts, “feeling even more exhausted and dejected in spirit
than when he had entered it.. . . He felt something bordering upon
despair, which he had never known till then” (I, 3, x).
The world into which Alyosha is sent by the elder disturbs and
torments the young hero.
Why, why, had he gone forth? Why had he sent him “into the
world”? thinks Alyosha, returning to the monastery the very first
day of his “travels.” Here was peace. Here was holiness. But
there was confusion, there was darkness in which one lost one’s
way and went astray at once . . . (I, 3, xi).
The day after this sorrowful return Father Paisy, again seeing
Alyosha off “into the world,” pronounces unexpected parting words:
“Remember, young man, unceasingly . .. that worldly science, which
has become a great power, has . .. analyzed everything divine handed
down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of
this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old” (II, 4, i).
Hastening to “protect the young soul entrusted to him,” Father Paisy
speaks words that are of the utmost importance for an understanding
of subsequent events: “. .. you are young,” he addresses Alyosha,
“and the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength
to endure” (II, 4, i).
Alyosha’s meeting with his father, then with the schoolchildren,
then the “lacerations,” of which the gravest is the last (the confession
of Captain Snegiryov, in which the theme of the innocendy suffering
child is heard), continues the grave series of “temptations” of Alyosha.
The gloomy impressions from his first days of acquaintance with the
world, even before the conversation with his brother Ivan, behind
whom stands “worldly science,” make Alyosha let slip a phrase ex
pressing something that was “already undoubtedly tormenting him”:
“And perhaps I don’t even believe in God” (II, 5, i).
Alyosha’s sudden confession, on the one hand, and Father Paisy’s
warning, on the other, uttered on the same day as the brothers’ meet
ing in the tavern, both have a very direct relation to that meeting.
Ivan’s tempting speech, which comes along with the other temptations
but is stronger than they are, is addressed to the hero, who is already
disturbed by the world’s “darkness.” Here the suffering child, familiar
to the reader and to Alyosha through the captain’s confession, arises
once more oh the lips of the “learned” Ivan, now as a kind of
“emblem” and basic argument of “worldly science,” which has left
“nothing . . . of all that was sacred of old.” Having told Alyosha about
the general and the persecuted child Ivan asks:
“Well—what did he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the

satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!”
“To be shot,” murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with
a pale, twisted smile.
“Bravo!” cried Ivan, delighted. “If even you say so . . . ” (II, 5,
4).
The delight of the atheist Ivan, in accordance with the author’s con
ception, must not only indicate temptation, as did earlier the delight
of Mitya or Fyodor Pavlovich, but also compromise Alyosha’s words in
the eyes of the reader: this delight signifies that here Alyosha proves
to be too close to his older brother. Ivan continues thus: “You’re a
pretty monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha
Karamazov!” In the author’s opinion, the reader must guess that if
even the atheist Ivan perceives no sanctity in Alyosha’s reaction
(“Shoot him!”), and begins to speak of a “devil,” then it must be that
there is no such sanctity.
Fulfilling others’ requests, listening to others (above all his brother
Ivan), Alyosha gives way to temptation. The “darkness” of the world
does not remain alien to this hero’s heart, and not only because he is
too young, but also because Alyosha, as he himself explains more than
once, is a Karamazov. Notwithstanding his strangeness, Alyosha is the
same sort of man as everyone else (in contrast to the vita and the
poem, in the novel this motif is carried out quite definitely). The very
deep affinity of the “angel” Alyosha for the other “sinners” presumes,
for the young and inexperienced hero, the possibility of committing
the same errors as the others. “Yes, yes, it is he, it is Pater Seraphicus,
he will save me—from him and forever!” (II, 5, v)—races helplessly
through Alyosha’s mind when he hurries to the monastery after the
conversation with Ivan.
The death of Father Zosima and everything that follows it is a trial
that makes Alyosha’s heart overflow with suffering, and provokes his
reproaches and indignation. Speaking of these events, the narrator
distinguishes two circumstances that “exerted a very strong influence
on the heart and soul of the main . .. hero of the story” (III, 7, i). The
first is Ivan’s pernicious influence on Alyosha. “Oh, it was not that
something of the fundamental, elemental, so to speak, faith of his soul
had been shaken.. . . Yet a vague but tormenting and evil impression
left by his conversation with Ivan the day before, suddenly revived
again now in his soul and seemed forcing its way to the surface of his
consciousness” (III, 7, ii). Outraged by the injustice of Heaven in
relation to the deceased elder, Alyosha repeats Ivan’s words: “I am
not rebelling against my God; I simply ‘don’t accept His world.’ ”
The blasphemy of these words on the lips of the young ascetic is
obvious. . . This is a jolly fine chance and mustn’t be missed . .
Rakitin immediately decides (III, 7, ii). The second circumstance that
the narrator emphasizes (both justifying and condemning Alyosha) is
that Alyosha loved his spiritual father, Father Zosima, too much:
“The fact is that all the love that lay concealed in his pure young
heart for everyone and everything had, for the past year, been
concentrated—and perhaps wrongly so—on one being, now de
ceased. It is true that that being had for so long been accepted by him
as his ideal, that all his young strength and energy could not but turn
towards that ideal, even to the forgetting at the moment of everyone
and everything” (III, 7, ii). These explanations by the narrator are
extremely important.
Growing indignant and grumbling, Alyosha, like Ivan, demands
“supreme justice,” which, in the young hero’s opinion, has been “vio
lated.” Instead of the glory and triumph of the deceased righteous
man, whom he loved with an exceptional love, Alyosha sees this righ
teous man “degraded and dishonored” (III, 7, 2). The narrator insis-
tendy strives to show that Alyosha’s error (his grumbling and indigna
tion) is rooted in the exceptional nature of his love, which—in its own
way, of course, but essentially the same as with Ivan—destroys the
living connection between things. Alyosha involuntarily forgets that
his elder belongs entirely to the world, “sinful” and “stinking” in its
sins, and thus bears the guilt for its ugliness along with everyone else.
According to the logic of the narration it emerges that the elder bears
this guilt to an even greater degree than do others: remitting others’
sins, he takes them upon his own soul and, consequently, answers for
them, for it is clearly only under such a condition that he has the right
to forgive others.17 The idea of the connection between each person
17N . K o sto m a r o v r e te lls a le g e n d , c o m m u n ic a te d to h im by F. I. B u slaev
a n d k n o w n h e r e a n d in th e W e st in m a n y varian ts, a b o u t a sin n e r w h o killed
h is fa th e r a n d s e d u c e d h is m o th e r . H e se e k s a p riest w h o c o u ld r e m it his sin:
“T h e s in n e r w e n t to sev era l p riests to b e g fo r g iv e n e ss, b u t since not one could
bring himself to forgive him and take responsibility fo r such a sin, he killed them ___”
and everyone else, and the responsibility of each for everyone, re
peated many times by the elder himself during his life, underlies the
artistic narrative here as well. But it is precisely this idea that Alyosha
has forgotten in his grief.
If Alyosha had loved the elder more “correctly,” that is, not with an
exceptional love but in the same way that he loved others, he would
not have found grounds in the righteous man’s “shame” for the con
demnation of “God’s world.” Everything in this world is connected.
And just as there are none who are completely righteous, so there are
none who are completely sinful. For this reason the scene of Alyosha
and Grushenka, coming after the scene of the young hero’s bitter
suffering, harmoniously complements the story about the righteous
man’s “shame.” Here the sinful woman unexpectedly reveals a degree
of love, reverence for sanctity, and compassion for her dispirited
brother that, considering her “incorrect” view of things, would not be
supposed of her. Thanks to this, Grushenka is able to encourage
Alyosha: the loftiness of her soul, made manifest “at that moment,” is
the essential link in the chain of phenomena that, according to the
author’s conception, makes their entire relationship not frightfully
incongruous but comforting and harmonious.
Alyosha’s dream (“Cana of Galilee”) naturally concludes these
scenes. The boundlessness of God’s love for all people and the joy of
those who are united by this love are manifested here to the young
ascetic as if before his very eyes. The link of everyone with each other,
(N . K o sto m a r o v , “ Iz m o g il’n y k h p r e d a n ii. L e g e n d a o k r o v o sm e site le ,” Sov-

remennik, 1 8 6 0 , V o l. L X X X , S e c tio n I, p . 2 2 3 ). In th e a p o c r y p h a l “V o p r o sy
Io a n n a B o g o slo v a A v r a a m u n a E le o n sk o i g o r e ,” to th e q u e stio n w h e th e r th e
p r ie st tak es th e sin s o f th e c o n fe s s o r u p o n h im se lf, th e fo llo w in g a n sw e r is
g iv en : “I f a so n stea ls w ith h is fa th e r , d o th e y n o t b in d h im to g e th e r w ith his
fa th e r , a n d le a d th e m b o th to trial, a n d d o n ’t th e y b o th pay fo r th a t th eft?
C h ild , those also, the sin o f the confessor and the priest, the sin is common to both, doing
that he answers fo r him and takes his sins upon himself." N . S. T ik h o n r a v o v ,
Pam iatniki starinnoi russkoi literatury, izdavaemye grafom Gr. Kushelevym-
p . 2 1 0 ; c f. “V o p r o sy sv. Io a n n a B o g o slo v a o zh iv y k h i m e r tv y k h . . . , ” in
Pam iatniki starinnoj russkoi literatury, izdavaemye grafom Gr. Kushelevym-
Bezborodko, Issu e 3 (St. P e te r sb u r g , 1 8 6 2 ), p . 1 16. In th e lig h t o f th e se p aral
lels, th e “b rea th o f c o r r u p tio n ” r e v e a le d a fte r Z o sim a ’s d e a th sig n ifie s th a t th e
“stin k o f s in s,” h is o w n a n d o th e r s ’, n o lo n g e r b u r d e n th e e ld e r . T h e italics in
th e q u o ta tio n s are m in e .
salutary and joyful when God is among people (a circumstance which

must be construed in a broad sense), staggers Alyosha’s soul with
ecstasy. The idea of the primordial beauty and purity of “God’s
world,” and of the responsibility of all people for the fact that they
make this beautiful world vicious, is what the author tries to emphasize
in “Cana of Galilee.” It is just this idea that Alyosha suddenly grasps,
“for the rest of his life and forever and ever”: “What was he weeping
over? Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which
were shining to him from the abyss of space . .. He longed to forgive
everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for
himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. ‘And others are
praying for me too,’ echoed again in his soul.. . . He had fallen on the
earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew
and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy” (III, 7, iv).
Thus the young ascetic’s passionate and exceptional love for his
spiritual father yields, at this important moment, to a just as passion
ate love for the world and for all people without exception. “He who
loves everyone alike in compassion and indifferendy,” reasons Isaak
Sirin, mentioned and quoted in The Brothers Karamazov, “has achieved
perfection.”18 Alyosha (not intellectually, but emotionally) finds a way
out of suffering in the joyful acceptance of “God’s world,” and in
union with everything and everyone. This loving union with people,
the intimate inclusion of them all (including the most sinful) in his
soul eliminates the contradiction between love of God and love of
people—the basic contradiction overcome by the hero of the ancient
vita, Aleksey the Man of God. For such an unqualified love, the possi
bility of which is indicated by the moment of Alyosha’s ecstasy, is itself,
in the author’s conception, divine love. “ ‘Someone visited my soul in
that hour,’ Alyosha would say afterwards, with firm faith in his words”
(III, 7, iv). “ ‘Brothers,’ the elder used to teach, ‘have no fear of men’s
18Isaak S irin , Slova podvizhnicheskie (M o sco w , 1 8 5 8 ), p . 6 0 . T h is id ea is

r e p e a te d : “W h e n [a m a n — V . V .] se e s all p e o p le . . as g o o d , a n d n o o n e seem s
to h im im p u r e o r d e file d , th e n h e is tru ly p u r e in h e a r t” {ibid., p . 141). A m o n g
th e su r v iv in g n o te s fo r th e n o v e l w e read : “E ld er: T h e m a in th in g is n o t to lie.
N o t to sto r e u p p o ssessio n s, to lo v e (D a m a sk in , S irin ).’ ” F. M. D o sto ev sk y ,
Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, v o l. X V (L e n in g r a d , 1976), p. 3 2 0 .
H e p ro b a b ly h a d in m in d th e d isc u ssio n s o f g e n u in e lo v e by Io a n n D a m a sk in
a n d Isaak S irin .
22 6 Valentina A. Vetlovskaya
sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine
Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the
whole and every grain of sand in it. . . . Love the animals, love the
plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the
divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to com
prehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the
whole world with an all-embracing love’ ” (II, 6, iii).19
If the moment of Alyosha’s ecstasy is prolonged (as the words of
the elder prophesy) or if this moment really acquires the greatest
significance in the hero’s life (as the narrator foretells), the world will
cease to play its tempting role for the young ascetic. When this world
is revealed to the hero in the beauty and harmony of all its relations,
and not in an ugly conglomeration of absurdities, when it evokes an
ecstatic rapture, then there is no place for the condemnation of its
creator. Dostoevsky clearly tries to carry out this idea.
True, it is possible that the moment of Alyosha’s ecstasy before
“God’s world” is only an anticipation. It is possible that subsequendy
Alyosha will turn from the “correct road” once more. All this is possi
ble. But if Alyosha does turn from this road, then it would certainly be
in order for him to enter onto it later, once and for all. It is precisely
this outcome that the logic of the artistic narrative demands.
A person who joyfully takes into his soul the entire world (“both the
whole, and every grain of sand”) without exception, accepting all
people in spite of their “stinking sin,” loving it all with an equally deep
love, in other words, a person who comprehends the beauty and
blessing of God’s creation and along with it the beauty and blessing of
the creator, is, of course, a “man of God.” The world and God are
harmoniously reconciled in the soul of this hero.
So Alyosha emerges (or must emerge) from the grave trial to which
the “divine” elder sends him. And thus Dostoevsky interprets the
central figure and the central confrontation of the vita of Aleksey the
Man of God against a new background. In the continuation of the
novel about Alyosha this interpretation would, it is likely, appear
more clearly, but even now it is sufficiently obvious.
ls Z o sim a ’s w o rd s, lik e th e c o n c lu d in g s c e n e o f “C an a o f G a lile e ,” p a rticu
larly rely o n Isaak S irin ’s d isc u ssio n o f h ig h e r p e r fe c tio n , in c lu d e d in th e
“p a ssio n o f a m a n ’s h e a r t fo r all c r e a tio n , fo r m e n , fo r b ird s, fo r a n im a ls, fo r
d e m o n s a n d all c r e a tu r e s” (Isaak S irin , Slova podvizhnicheskie, p . 2 9 9 ).
Memory in
Robert L. Belknap
During Dostoevsky’s lifetime, memory became a respectable sub

ject for experimental enquiry, after centuries as the object of religious
or physiological speculation or of practical brochures on how not to
forget names, books, speeches, etc. The new mnemonics came to Rus
sia at the hands of two competing schools of psychology, the
neurologists and the alienists. Each group had its eighteenth-century
antecedents, its nineteenth-century clinical and theoretical
achievements, and its special techniques for investigating the mind.
For Dostoevsky’s purposes, most scholars find the beginnings of the
neurological approach in a famous passage in the D ialogue between
d'Alem bert a n d D id ero t :
D iderot. Could you tell me what is the existence of a sentient being,

with respect to itself?
D ’A lem bert. It is the consciousness of having been itself, from the
first- instant of its thinking to the present moment.
D iderot. And on wrhat is this consciousness based?
D ’Alembert. On the memory of its actions.
D iderot. And without this memory?
D ’Alembert. Without this memory, it would have no self at all, for
feeling its existence only in the moment of the impression, it
would have no account of its life. Its life would be an interrupted
series of sensations linked by nothing.
D iderot. Well, what is memory? Whence comes it?
D ’Alembert. From a certain accretive system which grows strong or
weak and sometimes is altogether lost.
“M e m o r y in The Brothers Karamazov ” by R o b e r t L . B e lk n a p . F rom American
Contributions to the Eighth International Congress o f Slavists, v o l. 2 ., Literature,
e d ite d by V ic to r T e r r a s. (Slavica P u b lish ers, In c., C o lu m b u s, O h io , 1978), pp.
2 4 - 4 0 . R e p r in te d by p e r m issio n o f th e p u b lish e r .
227
22 8 Robert L. Belknap
D iderot. So if a sentient being with this system appropriate for

memory links the impressions it receives, and by this linkage
forms an account which is that of its life, and acquires the con
sciousness of itself, then it denies, affirms, concludes, and
thinks?
D ’Alembert. It seems so to me; I have just one more problem.
D iderot. You’re wrong; you’ve lots more.
D ’Alembert. But one principal one; it seems to me that we can only
think of a single thing at a time and that in order to form a
simple proposition, not to speak of these enormous chains of
reasoning which embrace in their orbit thousands of ideas, it is
necessary to have at least two things present, the object which
seems to fall under the eye of predication, and the quality which
is affirmed or denied with reference to it.
D iderot. I agree; and that has sometimes made me compare the
fibres in our organs to sentient vibrating strings. The sentient
vibrating string oscillates, resounds for a long time after being
plucked. This oscillation, this sort of inevitable resonance is what
keeps the object present while the predicating understanding is
occupied with the qualities appropriate to it. But vibrating
strings have still another quality; they make others tremble and
this is how a first idea recalls a second, the two a third, all three a
fourth, and so on without our being able to set limits to the
awakened, enchained ideas of a philosopher meditating or listen
ing to himself in silence and darkness. This instrument makes
astounding leaps, and an idea once awakened can make an har
monic tremble at an incomprehensible interval from it. If the
phenomenon is observed among sounding strings, inanimate
and separated, how would it fail to occur among points that are
animate and linked, among continuous and sentient fibres.1
Diderot’s generating analogy in this passage resonates through the
history of thought from Pythagoras’s strings to Pavlov’s bells, but in
the 19th century it took on a special connection with positivism and
materialism all over Europe. While T he Brothers K a ra m a zo v was gestat-
ing, Hippolyte Taine published his article on Cerebral Vibrations a n d
T h o u g h t, which can exemplify the approach taken by the many pro
ponents of neurology whom Dostoevsky knew, ranging from Sechenov,
to Chernyshevsky, to Claude Bernard.
•D id e r o t, “E n tr e tie n e n tr e D id e r o t e t d ’A le m b e r t,” in Oeuvres (Paris: B ib
lio th è q u e d e la ple'iade, 1 9 5 1 ), p . 8 7 9 .
Memory in T h e B r o th e r s K aram azov 229
Since m en tal p h en o m en a are only m ore o r less d efo rm ed o r

tra n s fo rm e d sensations, le t us c o m p a re a sen satio n w ith a
m olecular m o vem ent o f th e nervous centres. Let us take the
sensation o f th e yellow o f gold, o f a sound like u t, th a t which the
em anations o f the lily pro d u ce, the taste o f sugar, the pain o f a
cut, th e sensation o f dckling, o f heat, o f cold. T h e necessary an d
sufficient condition o f such a sensation is an intestine m ovem ent
in th e grey substance o f th e an n u la r p rotuberance, o f the tuber-
cula qu ad rig em ina, p erh ap s o f the thalam us opticus— in short,
in th e cells o f a sensory centre; th a t this m ovem ent is unknow n is
o f little consequence; w hatever it be, it is always a displacem ent
o f m olecules, m o re o r less com plicated and p ropagated; n o th in g
m ore. Now w hat relation can we im agine betw een this displace
m en t a n d a sensation. Cells, fo rm ed o f a m em b ran e an d o f one
o r several nuclei, are scattered th ro u g h a g ra n u la r substance, a
sort o f p u lp o r greyishjelly com posed o f nuclei an d innum erable
fibrils. . . ?
W hen ju x ta p o se d to the D iderot passage, th e T ain e passage shows
w hat h ad h ap p e n ed to vibrational neurology in a century an d a half.
F o r D iderot, th e vibrations constitute an elaborated an d illum inating
simile fo r th e reten tive a n d associative pow ers o f the m ind. T aine
realizes th e tro p e; th e m icroscope a n d the scalpel have anatom ized
th e fibers, a n d T a in e is certain th at the m ovem ents are th e re m erely
aw aitin g discovery. D id e ro t is e x p lo rin g th e n a tu re o f th o u g h t
th ro u g h m em ory, w hich distinguishes beings which have a self from
o thers. T a in e is ex p lo rin g it th ro u g h sensation, w hich blurs any such
distinction. M ost im p o rta n t o f all, fro m Dostoevsky’s p o in t o f view,
D id ero t is w orking o n a g enuine puzzle with his intellectual equal.
T a in e ’s unselfconscious scientism is as patronizing as B azarov’s. T h e
c reato r o f F yodor K aram azov could respect th e creato r o f R am eau’s
nephew fo r his psychological insights, alth o u g h F yodor him self m ight
m ock D id ero t as th e em blem atic unbeliever; b u t th e detestation with
w hich th e u n d e rg ro u n d m an ap p ro a c h e d piano keys a n d o rg a n stops,
o r with w hich M itya K aram azov ap p ro ach e d C laude B e rn a rd were
b o rro w ed from Dostoevsky’s own attitu d e tow ards the psychological
2Hippolyte Taine, “Cerebral vibrations and thought,"Journal o f Mental Sci

ence, No. 7101, April 1877, p. 1 (tr. from Revue PhilosophiqueAe la France et de
Fétranger).
230 Robert L. Belknap
reductionism of the neurologists. The purest example of this attitude

is probably his obsessively angry series of references in the 1877
notebooks to the sentence, “He is not a man but a lyre,” which had
been intended as praise for a public speaker.3
When Dostoevsky needed expert advice on a psychological ques
tion, he therefore wrote not to a neurologist, but to an alienist.4 The
eighteenth-century forerunners had also developed the underlying
metaphor for this group, which was hydraulic rather than vibrational,
and which persists in Freudian thinking to this day. By mid-century,
Russian journals were comparing hallucinations to outbursting arte
sian waters, discussing the pressure of unfulfilled needs, and so on.
This way of thinking came more from Mesmer’s thin magnetic fluid
than from the older doctrines of the humors or the still older Epicu
rean flux among the atoms of spirit. In the 1820s James Braid had
divorced the practice of hypnotism from the suspect doctrines of
magnetism, and Eliotson and others in England had begun using
hypnotism for anesthesia and therapy, and accounts of amputations
under hypnosis began to appear in the medical journals until super
seded by ether. By the 1870s, LieTault and Bernheim at Nancy were
working to separate the phenomena of suggestion from those of hyp
notic sleep, or “somnambulism,” as they called it. This distinction
opened the way for Charcot, already a leading neurologist, to adopt
hypnotism as one of his tools, and Charcot’s work helped produce the
Freudian synthesis which eventually drove both reflex conditioning
and hypnotism out of most therapy for half a century. The central
technique of these hypnotists focussed on the direct power of the
repeated word. As one of its best practitioners, Jules Liégeois de
scribed it in the 1890s:
I place myself facing the subject, seated or standing, and I invite
him to look fixedly at me, without any extraordinary effort;
after a few moments, I say to him, “You are going to feel a
drowsiness; and imperious need of sleep is taking possession of
you; your eyelids are becoming heavy. They are coming down.
Your eyes are closing. You are going to sleep, sleep.” Then a
light pressure is brought to bear on the eyeballs, covered by the
3Literatumoe Nasledstvo, V o l. 83 (M oscow , 1 9 7 1 ), p . 4 2 6 a n d passim.

4E .g ., F. M . D o sto e v sk ii, Pis’ma, V o l. IV (M oscow , 1 9 5 9 ), p . 19 0 .
lowered eyelids, and the above suggestion is repeated several

times as needed, or else a similar one.5
These techniques of suggestion through repetition gave the hyp
notists the tool they needed to explore memory through amnesia and
to correct the opinion Diderot had ascribed to d’Alembert, that a
memory may be “altogether lost.” In the 1850s it was already accepted
doctrine that “every sleeper remembers things far more exacdy than
when he is awake. What he has once known he recovers in somnam
bulism.”6 Although these hypnotists and alienists and their intellec
tual descendants have examined and generalized this problem of la
tency up until the present time, their efforts to explain it have tended
to remain in the domain of analogies. In 1919 for example, Henri
Bernheim’s book Automatism and Suggestion contained the following
passage:
In all these states, the amnesia is neither constant nor abso
lute . . . Even in the case of memories apparently erased, one can
always, as I have determined, revive them by verbal suggestion. I
tell the subject to shut his eyes and to recollect: I concentrate his
attention in this way, I say to him “You are going to recollect
everything,” and the memories reappear sometimes instantly or
quickly; other times more slowly, through gradual evocation.
One would say that the impressions from a state of sleep or of
somnambulism, produced in a special state of consciousness
where the attention is concentrated like a nervous light, are no
longer illuminated in the normal state of consciousness, when
the light is no longer concentrated upon them; they have be
come latent; they again become luminous, conscious, if sugges
tion again concentrates on these dim impressions the light of
cerebral attention . . .
[He rejects a neurological explanation, and continues:] The
evocation of a memory would therefore not be the revival of a
localized imprint, but the reproduction of the special cellular
modality which created the impression or the idea in the first
place. The latent memory does not exist as long as it is latent. It
can be awakened by the cellular modality the same way a re
cules Lie'geois, De la suggestion et du somnambulisme (Paris, 1899), p. 89.

6Karl Freiherr von Reichenbach, Der sensitive Mensch (Stuttgart, 1855), II,
693-4.
membered motion does not exist but can be awakened by a

muscular contraction.7
This formulation that in amnesia, natural or hypnotic, memories are
latent, not lost, was available to Dostoevsky long before he undertook
The Brothers Karamazov. In an article on current psychological de
velopments, he would have read the following statement in the Father-
land Notes for 1861, CXXXVI, as a part of his regular reading: “In
somnambulism, memories not only appear with great liveliness; they
even pass from one session of sleep to another, so that somnambulists
sometimes continue in one session activities that were begun in
another; in the waking interval of consciousness, the memory of these
actions is lost.” He need not, however, have read articles on science in
the 1860s to learn about the need to revive a situation in order to
revive a memory. His favorite English author, Dickens, had Jasper
refer to this need in Chapter III of The Mystery of Edwin Drood: “If I
hide my watch when I am drunk, I must be drunk again before I find
it.” Dickens was enormously interested in hypnotism, and his friend
Wilkie Collins made the regeneration of a latent memory the climactic
episode in The Moonstone. In short, long before The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky had as a part of his intellectual background the doctrines
of persistent latency and of recovery triggered by parallel circum
stances in real life or in a state suggested through elaborated repeti
tion.
Quite apart from its current appeal to Dostoevsky’s scientific, liter
ary, and journalistic contemporaries, memory concerned him person
ally for two reasons. The first reason was his worry about his own
memory, his dread of the effect upon it of each epileptic fit. He told
his wife about the lost feeling during the period of recuperation,
before the memories were restored. In short, he went agonizingly
through his own investigation of amnesia many times a year. He
talked about the feeling of rereading Crime and Punishment after hav
ing quite forgotten it, or of unconsciously using the hero of Anna
Korvin-Krukovskaya’s book as a source for Alyosha Karamazov, and
told Vsevolod Solovyov:
Everything that happened to me before this first [epileptic] sei
zure, every minutest event of my life, every face I met, all that I
7Henri Bernheim, Automatisme et suggestion (Paris, 1919), p. 61.
read or heard, I remember down to the most trivial detail. Ev

erything that began after the first seizure I often forget; I some
times quite forget people whom I have known well; I forget
faces. I have forgotten all that I have written after the prison
camp; when I was finished The Possessed, I had to reread it all
from the beginning, because I had forgotten even the names of
the characters.8
Dostoevsky’s second reason for being concerned with memory in
volved his deep personal concern with immortality. In the life of a
man or a nation, he attached great importance to the “opportunity to
utter one’s own word,” not so much to make one’s mark on the world
as to enter into the community of mankind. In his 1863-4 notebook,
he meditates as follows on this problem:
Is there a future life for every “I”? People say a man collapses
and dies altogether. We already know it isn’t altogether, because
just as a person giving physical birth to a son transmits to him a
part of his identity, so in the moral world, he leaves a memory of
himself to people, that is, he enters into the future development
of mankind with a part of his former identity that had been alive
on earth. (N.B. The desire for eternal memory in the funeral
service is indicative of this.)8
This rather trite sense of one’s survival in the memory of others led
later to Dostoevsky’s interest in Fyodorov’s projects for the resurrec
tion of one’s ancestors. In his letter about Fyodorov, however, Dos
toevsky sees a likely contradiction between the church’s teaching and
Fyodorov’s kind of resurrection, whereas in the notebook entry, he
had seen the church’s funeral service of eternal memory as a link
between the two kinds of immortality.10
With this background and these concerns of Dostoevsky’s in mind,

I should like to examine The Brothers Karamazov as an essay on re
membering and forgetting. The book is many other things, of course,
“Vsevolod Solov’ev, “Vospominaniia o Dostoevskom” (St. Petersburg,
1881), p. 10, cited in Literatumoe nasledstvo, Vol. 83, p. 357.
“Ibid., p. 174.
i0Pis’ma, op. cit., p. 10, March 24, 1978. Robert Lord makes the connection
between Fedorov’s teachings and The Brothers Karamazov, in his Dostoevsky,
Essays and Perspectives (Berkeley, 1970), Chapter X.
but the other important ones have received more scholarly attention.
The theme of memory emerges in the first sentence of the first chap
ter with the statement that Fyodor Karamazov’s death was still recol
lected after thirteen years. It recurs until the last chapter of the novel,
which begins with a service of eternal memory for the dead Ilyusha,
and ends with a speech about childhood memories. Book One of the
novel sets up a careful opposition between the way old Fyodor forgets
and the way Alyosha remembers. In Chapter II, Fyodor had cast off
his son Mitya, “not out of cruelty towards him, nor from any insulted
conjugal feelings, but simply because he forgot about him altogether.”
(I, 1, ii)11 A lithe later, the narrator states, “If papa should remember
him (and he couldn’t actually fail to know about his existence) then he
would himself send him off to [Grigory’s] hut.” When Fyodor’s second
wife dies, Alyosha is only four, “but strange though it is, I know he
remembered his mother all his life, as if through a dream, of course.
After her death, it happened with [Ivan and Alyosha] just the same as
with the first child, Mitya. They were altogether forgotten and cast
out by their father” (I, 1, iii). Later Alyosha admits that he has re
turned to his father’s house in order to find his mother’s grave, but his
father has already forgotten where they buried her. (1,1, iv) Later still
in the novel, when Fyodor describes in disgusting detail how he had
reduced Alyosha’s mother to hysterics by spitting on her icon, Dos
toevsky carefully marks a mysterious lapse in Fyodor’s memory:
Something very strange occurred—only for a second, it’s true.
The realization had actually, apparendy, escaped the old fellow’s
mind that Alyosha’s mother was Ivan’s mother too.
“How do you mean, your mother?” he muttered. (I, 3, ix)
For contrast to Fyodor’s forgetting, Alyosha’s remembering appears
most elaborately in another passage:
I have already recalled that although [Alyosha] had lost his
mother when only four, he remembered her from then on, for
his whole life, her face, her caresses, “just as if she stood before
me alive.” Such recollections (as we all know) can be remem
bered from an even earlier age, even from two years, but only
emerging all one’s life as bright spots from the murk, as if they
were corners torn from a great picture which is extinguished1
1‘All quotations from The Brothers Karamazov will be in my own translation.
and lost except for just that corner. Just so it was with him: he
remembered one quiet summer evening, an open window, the
slanting beams of the setting sun (these slanting beams were
what he most remembered), in a room, in the corner, an image,
a lamp lighted before it, and before the image his mother, on
her knees, sobbing as if in hysterics, shrieking and wailing, clasp
ing him in both arms, embracing him tighdy, till it hurt, and
praying to the Virgin for him, stretching him from her embrace
with both hands towards the image as if for the Virgin’s protec
tion. Suddenly the nurse runs in and snatches him from her in
terror. There’s the picture! In that instant Alyosha also remem
bered his mother’s face: he said it was ecstatic but beautiful,
judging by as much as he could remember. But he seldom liked
to confide this memory to anyone. (I, 1, iv)
The passage not only distinguishes Alyosha, the rememberer from
his father the forgetter, but also links remembering with two other
central businesses of Book One, the abandonment and the blessing of
children.
Out of these early encounters with the theme of memory comes a
secondary, moral association with memory. Dostoevsky is condition
ing his reader to connect memory with love, attention, and family,
while forgetting is connected with neglect and debauchery. This par
ticular associative loading of memory is by no means automatic for
Dostoevsky. In The Devils, for example, the vindictive whim of a
spoiled eccentric leads Madame Stavrogina to tell Stepan Ver-
khovensky, “I will never forget this.” But in The Brothers Karamazov,
where this key passage has given memory a rich meaning at the start,
Ivan can later use the established associations to load other elements
with beauty or horror. In discussing those sinners immersed so deeply
in the burning lake that they cannot emerge, Ivan cites “an expression
o f extraordinary profundity and power.” This is the sentence,
“These, God is already forgetting.” (I, 5, v) In contrast to this forget
ting, Ivan has already made a comment that links exploits with mem
ory:I
I treasure that certain human exploit in which you may long
since have even stopped believing, but still honor in your heart
for old memory’s sake. . . . I want to go to Europe, Alyosha; I’ll
leave from here; and I know, of course that I’m just going to a
graveyard, but to the most, the most precious graveyard, that’s

the thing. Precious are the dead that lie there; every stone above
them proclaims such a burning past life, such a passionate belief
in their exploit, in their verity, in their struggle and their science,
that I know in advance I shall fall upon the ground and kiss
those stones and weep over them .. . . ” (I, 5, iii)
This association between ecstatic joy and an exploit whose life resides
not in any validity but merely in being remembered shapes our whole
understanding of the legend of The Grand Inquisitor. At the end of
the legend, when Alyosha says that the Grand Inquisitor does not
believe in God, Ivan portrays the Inquisitor’s whole life as an exploit:
Suppose that should be true. You’ve finally solved the problem.
And actually the whole secret isjust that, but isn’t that suffering,
for such a man as he, who has destroyed his whole life on an
exploit in the desert and not cured his love for humanity.
This double exploit, sacrificing one’s life first for salvation, and then
for humanity, embodies that romantic beauty which Dostoevsky often
ascribed to the great Russian radicals, and makes the tremendous
power and appeal of the Grand Inquisitor in some sense a commen
tary on Herzen, Belinsky, and the others whose beauty and whose
language are incorporated into his makeup. By involving such
exploits with memory earlier, and by involving memory with families
and blessings earlier, Dostoevsky has manipulated his readers’ in
stincts into a sympathy with the Grand Inquisitor which he then sets
about destroying.12
The association of memory with the good things and forgetting
with evil ones prevails when Alyosha mysteriously forgets his brother
Dmitry after the legend, although Ivan has mentioned his name three
times on the preceding page, but the next rich and vivid collection of
memories occurs when Zosima discusses his dying brother Markel:
I remember, once I went into him alone when no one was with
him. It was in the evening, clear; the sun was setting and illumi
nated the whole room with a slanting ray. He beckoned to me; I
saw and went to him; he took me by the shoulders with both
12I have described the manipulative process in “T he Rhetoric o f an
Ideological Novel,” in Wm. Todd, ed. Literature and Society in Imperial Russia,
1880-1914 (Stanford, 1977).
hands, looked me in the face ecstatically, loving; he said nothing,

just looked thus for a moment or so, “So,” he said, “go now, play,
live for me.” I went out and went to play. And since then in my
life I have recollected many times with tears the way he ordered
me to play for him. (II, 6, ii)
This childhood memory of a laying on of hands is followed by
twelve sentences which bracket a chapter break and deal with plot, not
memory. The first two of these sentences treat Markel’s death, and
the next five describe the impact of this death on the neighbors and
on Zosima, immediately and later. The five sentences in the next
chapter begin with Zosima’s mother, who responds to the urging of
neighbors and sends him to the Cadets School in St. Petersburg. The
last of these twelve sentences records her death, and is followed by a
rather abrupt return to the subject of memory.
From my father’s house, I carried only precious memories, for
men have no more precious memories than those from their
first childhood in the parental home, and this is almost always so,
if the family contained even a little bit of love and unity. And
even from the worst of families, precious memories can be pre
served, if only your spirit is willing and able to seek the precious.
Among my memories of home, I reckon also memories about
sacred stories which I was curious to get to know in my parental
home, while still a child. I had books then, sacred stories with
beautiful pictures, called “A Hundred Sacred Stories from the
Old and New Testament,” and I even learned to read from it. It is
still lying now on my shelf; I keep it as a precious memento. But
even before I began to read, I remember how I first was visited
by the influence of the spirit, when I was still eight years old. My
mother took me alone (I don’t remember where my brother was)
into the temple of the Lord, in holy week, on Monday for the
Mass. The day was clear, and recollecting it now, I seem to see
again the way the incense rose from the censer, and from above
in the dome, through a little window, there poured upon us in
the church the rays of God, and rising up to them in waves, the
incense seemed to melt into them. I gazed in holy wonder, and
for the first time in my life, received the seed of God’s Word
consciously into my heart. (II, 6, ii)
This passage reintroduces the theme of memory in its full vivid
ness, with the same collection of associations as in Alyosha’s early
recollections—a mother with a child, a consecration, slanting sunlight,

etc. But here, instead of an icon there are holy scriptures, and instead
of an essay on the dreamlike vividness and isolations of early
memories, there is an essay on their moral importance.
Memory is not confined to passages of high seriousness in the
novel, but its presence as a theme can shape our awareness of senti
mental or misleading comfortable passages. At Mitya’s trial, when Dr.
Herzenstube reminisces about Mitya’s childhood, he clearly remem
bers the lad’s behavior, but takes several lines of text in his effort to
remember the Russian word for “nuts.” He tells of giving Mitya a
pound of nuts and instructing him in the formula of consecration at
baptism, “Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, und Gott der Heilige Geist.” Next
time Mitya sees him, he remembers the beginning of the formula, but
has forgotten the Holy Ghost, and has to be retaught.
Twenty-three years later, I am sitting one morning in my office,
my hair already white, and suddenly a blooming youth comes in
whom I can’t recognize at all, but he raised his finger and said,
“Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, und Gott der Heilige Geist! I’ve
just arrived and came to thank you for a pound of nuts, for no
one had ever bought me a pound of nuts at that time, and you
alone bought me a pound of nuts.” And then I recollected my
happy youth and the poor boy outdoors with no shoes, and my
heart was moved, and I said, “You are a noble young person, for
you have remembered all your life that pound of nuts which I
brought you in your childhood.” And I embraced him and
blessed him. And I wept. He was laughing, but he was weeping
too. (IV, 12, iii)
This passage can be taken as a splendid piece of tear jerking at a
moment in the novel which has been rather dry of emotion, and a
moment when relief is necessary before the catastrophe. But it is more
interesting to treat the passage as a minuet about the themes of re
membering and forgetting. Both Herzenstube and Mitya begin by
forgetting words. Herzenstube begins by reminiscing about Mitya’s
childhood, and ends with a sentence whose crucial word is the con
junction “for.” “You are a noble person, for you have remembered all
your life the pound of nuts which I brought you in your childhood.”
This “for” can mean either that the remembering is evidence of nobil
ity or that the remembering led to the nobility, but in either case, it
enacts the principle which Zosima had enunciated concerning the

importance of even a single precious childhood recollection, if one’s
spirit is willing and able to seek the precious. The themes of child
hood, abandonment and consecration are brought together again,
this time in the mood of sentimental nostalgia rather than of inspira
tional teaching or narrative exposition, but here again the moral im
portance of memory as such emerges centrally.
This collection of passages raises an interesting question—what is
the connection between memory, consecration, and suffering chil
dren? Ivan Karamazov linked the suffering of children to the ques
tion of the theodicy—how does one justify a God who permits inno
cent suffering? Zosima’s answer to this question is ingenious, essen
tially rhetorical and, I believe, original.
My brother used to ask the birds for forgiveness. That, however
mindless it may be, is also true, for everything is like an ocean;
everything is interflowing and in contact; you touch it in one
place and it gives at the opposite end of the world. Suppose it is
insane to ask birds for forgiveness; still it would be better for the
birds and for the child, and for every living thing around you if
you yourself were better than you are now, even just one drop
better. Everything is like an ocean, I say unto you. (II, 6, ii)
Zosima takes the first creature one can think of that is more innocent
than a child, and blames its suffering not on God but on Zosima’s
interlocutors, using the doctrines of universal determinism which the
materialists of Dostoevsky’s day could hardly deny. The argument is
ingenious, but it is abstract and mystical as expressed here, and con
flicts with the evidence of our own experience; we have all done good
deeds that did no visible good to bird, beast, or fish. Zosima must
therefore adduce a second doctrine to handle good deeds that are
lost:
Even if you have given off light but see that people are not saved
even in the presence of your light, still, remain firm in the power
of the light of heaven; believe that even if they have not been
saved now, they will be saved; and if they are not saved, their
sons will be saved, for the light will not die, although you may be
dead. The righteous departs, but his light remains. The salva
tion always comes after the death of the savior. (II, 6, ii)
2 40 Robert L. Belknap
This denial that good deeds are ever lost has nothing of the mysti
cal about it. It relates to the practical efficacy of good on earth. It
therefore is subject to the questions of mechanism which Zosima’s
more mystical insights bypass because they come from direct experi
ence. Dostoevsky had to deal with practical, skeptical readers who
would ask, “Just how does a good deed of mine ever help if it affects a
child who dies, or who later commits murder—and if my good deeds
can be lost, just how can I be guilty of a sparrow’s fall.” In this way a
rational opponent of Dostoevsky’s could challenge only half of the
determinist position and say that every good or evil deed is socially
determined, as is argued at times in Crime a n d P u n ish m en t, but that
while its causes are determined, its moral effects may be lost. Dos
toevsky has to confront this problem of lost good in order to make his
essentially rhetorical attack on the problem of evil cogent among a
rationalist readership. But in saying that good deeds were latent, not
lost, he had to name a repository for good while it is not visible in a
child, or after the child has died. The repository he names is intui
tively acceptable, and anything but original. He could have drawn it
from the fifty-fourth chapter of one of his favorite books, T he O ld
Curiosity Shop.
There is nothing. . . no, nothing innocent or good, that dies,
and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a
pratding child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better
thoughts of those who loved it; and play its part, through them,
in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt
to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea.. .. Forgotten! Oh if the
good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source,
how beautifully would even death appear; for how much char
ity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their
growth in dusty graves.
In this passage, Dickens names the repository of good that appears
to be lost. He makes the same connection between memory and im
mortality on earth, and the same connection between memory and a
dying child. Taking this familiar linkage. Dostoevsky introduced a
series of children into T h e Brothers K a ra m a zo v, including Alyosha,
Markel, Zosima, and Mitya. Each of these went through a consecra
tion in a passage cited in this paper; Markel died, and in each of the
others, the good to which he was consecrated became latent. But
Memory in T h e B r o th e r s K a ram azov 241
latency, as Dostoevsky knew from the psychology of his times, was not
loss, and the memory of Markel, the figure of Zosima appearing in a
dream after death, and Alyosha’s ability to help Ilyusha, Kolya, and
the boys, all are examples of the persistence and indeed the enhanced
contagiousness of good beyond its apparent death. Dostoevsky indi
cated his biblical source for this pattern in his epigraph to The Brothers
Karamazov which equates this good with a seed. “Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit.”
This formula begins with Alyosha’s insemination with grace, and it
ends with his effort to implant a memory in the boys in his funeral
oration after the service of eternal memory:
We are about to part, gentlemen. Let us agree right here at

Ilyusha’s stone, that we shall never forget—first of all,
Ilyushechka, and second, one another. And whatever may hap
pen to us after this in life, though we might not meet for twenty
years after this, we will still remember how we buried this poor
boy at whom we had thrown stones earlier, do you remember by
the bridge, there, and after that all came to love him so. He was a
wonderful boy, a good, brave boy, he had a sense of honor and
of the bitter insult to his father, against which he rebelled. So
first, we will remember him, gentlemen, all our life. And though
you may be busy with the most important matters, may have
attained repute or fallen into the greatest misfortune, never
forget the way it once was well with us here, all in communion.
What I say to you may be unclear, but you still will remember
it, and sometime after this will agree with my words. Know, then,
that there is nothing higher or stronger or healthier, or more
useful for the life ahead than good memories of any sort, and
especially those carried out of childhood, from your parents’
home. People will tell you a lot about your education, but maybe
this sort of beautiful, holy memory is the best education of all. If
a person can take such memories along through life, then he is
saved for life. And even if but one good memory remains with us
in our heart, that may someday serve as our education. We may
grow vicious after this, but still, however vicious we may be,
which God forbid, yet as we remember how we buried Ilyusha . . .
the most savage and mocking person among us will not be able
to laugh inwardly at his kindness and goodness at this current

moment. Moreover, maybe just this memory alone will hold him
back from some great evil (Epilogue 3).
In this Final speech in The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky presents
memory as an actual moral force, latent for years, perhaps, as science,
literature, and personal experience had taught him it could be, but
offering the immortality on earth which had concerned him early in
his career, and at the same time offering a rationally acceptable re
pository for the good whose preservation was indispensible to his
theodicy.
But rational answers never sufficed for Dostoevsky. As a moral and
manipulative novelist, he was not content to describe precious
memories. He was setting out to create them in his readers, and one
technique he used calls to mind the works on hypnotism I have sam
pled earlier. The hypnotists had learned repetition produces sugges
tion, and in the sixty sentences from The Brothers Karamazov in this
paper, Dostoevsky used words direcdy relating to memory, perma-
nance, or clarity sixty times.
The Paradox of
the Legend o f the Grand Inquisitor
in The Brothers Karamazov
by Jacques Catteau
All novelistic techniques refer back to a metaphysical theory.

Thus, our analysis of structures and the creative process in Dostoev
sky’s work has led us to a metaphysical theory of creation.1Starting out
with the central unrealized design of “The Life of a Great Sinner,” we
have defined the metaphysics of Dostoevsky’s creative work as a poe
tics that seeks to reconcile four opposing freedoms that occurs in two
parallel pairs: in writing—the freedom of the character and of the
novelist; in the realm of thought—the freedom of man and of God.2
The latter two constitute the heart of the Legend of the Grand
Inquisitor, one of the high points in The Brothers Karamazov. They had
been central also to the rejected utopia of the Crystal Palace and the
sterile and devitalized utopia of the Golden Age. The debate on
utopia—one which Dostoevsky mounts through his atheistic, or at
least agnostic, characters—is the atheistic side of that supreme reflec
tion on divided freedom. The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, nar
rated by an atheist, paradoxically constitutes a bridge to the Christian
side.
In both cases Dostoevsky deals with a question that is crucial to our
time: the question of Hope. The Crystal Palace seems to him an illus
ory hope; the Golden Age, a hope that has been found again but is
internalized and remains a purely moral one. Could the Legend of
“The Paradox of the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers
Karamozov” was written for this collection by Jacques Catteau. Copyright ©
1983 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. Translated by Françoise Rosset.
‘Jacques Catteau, L a Creation littéraire chez Dostoievski (Paris, Institut
d’études slaves, 1978).
2Ibid., 315-16.
243
244 Jacques Catteau
the Grand Inquisitor be the eclipse of hope, the imprisonment of

hope, or does it leave the door open to some ray of hope?
After th e Eclipse o f G od (Martin Buber), after th e E clipse o f R eason
(Horkheimer) some prophets would place us now on the
threshold of a third great eclipse at the level of civilization, an
eclipse as disquieting and tragic as the two preceding ones: the
Eclipse of Hope.
Thus writes Jacques Le Goff in L e M o n d e, April 3, 1979. Yet more
than a century ago in 1879, in T he B rothers K a ra m a zo v, Dostoevsky
foresaw the three eclipses simultaneously. Placing in parentheses God
and creative human reason, the Grand Inquisitor would imprison the
hopes of men and Jesus Christ himself. Has he not resolved to save
mankind in spite of itself, and without Christ—an interloper come to
disrupt his pious work! “Why have you come to interfere with us
now?” he repeats three times. Everything has been transferred to the
Pope, let us do our work. The prisoner remains silent. If he were to
speak up, he would deprive mankind of the freedom he so defended
while on earth. This divine logic, based on the primacy of freedom,
the freedom to distinguish between good and evil, free choice or free
love, the Grand Inquisitor counters with his own logic, one firmly
grounded in the three forces of miracle, mystery, and authority. Why
imagine Christ’s response? One might as well read the Gospel. Their
two logics work in parallel ways. They do not struggle; they sink into
the infinity of human history: they are the eternal libertarian line of
Christ and the no less eternal authoritarian line that runs through the
Inquisition and proliferates in the totalitarian cancers of the twentieth
century. Yury Dombrovsky, in his D epartm ent o f Useless T h in g s, com
ments on Christ and Dostoevsky in a way that curiously crystallizes
this idea of two parallel categories of logic, the libertarian and the
authoritarian:
—.. . All gentleness [krotost’] is a terrible force. Don’t you re
member who said that?
—Tolstoy, probably?
—No. Dostoevsky. In his last years he often thought of Christ,
only he did not know how to deal with him and he conducted
various experiments. Sometimes he left Christ gentleness and
love and took from him the superflous wrath and sword: this
would produce Lev Nikolaevich, Prince Myshkin, a figure who
from all evidence was not only not viable, but frankly destructive
The Paradox o f the Legend 245
to those who loved him. At other times, he returned the sword to

Christ and threw the rest away: this produced the Grand In
quisitor, or in other words, Christ chastising Christ.3
The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is indeed part of a long tradi
tion where, side by side with those who despise the Inquisition, we
find poets whose natural heresy and powerful love have often re
belled against the Church hierarchy. Let us mention only those which
Dostoevsky may have read. In 1847, the Carmina Burana were pub
lished from an anonymous manuscript discovered in 1803 in the con
vent of Benediktbeuren. A wandering poet, a distant forebear of Ivan
Karamazov, had written in it: “Then the Pope said to the Romans: If
the son of Man comes to our Holy See, ask him: Friend, why have
you come? And if he insists on entering without giving you anything,
cast him out into the darkness.” Some poets of the Reformation imag
ine a new trial of Christ come back to earth and his condemnation by
the Church. In the nineteenth century, Goethe follows in their
footsteps with his Voyage to Italy (1816-1817): if Christ came back to
earth, he would again be crucified. Balzac has a similar motif in his
notes, in addition to his Jésus-Christ en Flandre: a meeting between
Christ and the Pope. Le Christ au Vatican, an anonymous work attrib
uted to Victor Hugo despite his protestations, is a variation on the
same theme. Dostoevsky, a onetime Fourierist, was probably familiar
with the works by the socialists Cabet and Desamy, in which Christ,
come back into the middle of the nineteenth century, is condemned
again by civil or military courts. To this theme of the recrucified
Christ is added that of the Grand Inquisitor, a motif which the Rus
sian author, as a great admirer of Schiller, knew from Don Carlos; he
knew it also from the poem by his friend A. N. Maikov, “The Legend
of the Spanish Inquisition,” published in 1861 in Vremia, the first
journal edited by the Dostoevsky brothers. The same theme was to be
found in W. Prescott’s two-volume History of the Reign of Philip II, King
of Spain, translated in 1858, which occupied a prominent place in
Dostoevsky’s library.4
3Jurii Dombrovskii, Fakultet nenuzhnykh veshchei (Paris, YMCA Press, 1978),
p. 272.
4For the numerous possible sources of the Legend o f the Grand Inquisitor,
see the commentary and bibliographical references in F. M. Dostoevskii, Pol-
noe sobranie sochinenii v 3 0 tomakh (Leningrad: Nauka, 1976), vol. 15, pp.
462-66. [hereafter cited as “Coll. Works”]
24 6 Jacques Catteau
Dostoevsky’s original contribution over that of his predecessors is

the confrontation between Christ and the Grand Inquisitor in six
teenth century Seville. The great dates of Church history are correct,
witness the reference to the year 756 when Stephen II saw his tem
poral power over the church estates confirmed by Pepin le Bref
(“Exactly eight centuries ago, we took from him [Satan] what you had
rejected with indignation, the last gift he offered you as he showed you
all the kingdoms on earth; we accepted Rome and Caesar’s sword ..
[II, 5, v])5 Historical details, however, are treated casually. The Grand
Inquisitor’s face is not veiled, as was the rule. Moreover, Ivan
shamelessly ignores the fact that the Inquisition was carried out
mosdy by Dominicans, and not by the Jesuits, whose motto he cites: Ad
majorem Dei gloriam.
Who is the Grand Inquisitor? For the last century, answers have
varied, interpretations have multiplied. And each man sees in the
parable a weapon to dispatch his own personal enemy. Anything is
possible if one forgets to question Dostoevsky himself. Yet upon ques
tioning Dostoevsky and the witnesses in whom he confided, one finds
that the Russian author’s intent may be illuminated in several ways, all
tied to a central theme.
A first reading and the writer's comment to Putsykovich confirm
that the Legend is directed against Caesaro-papism and Catholicism,
especially against “the dreaded era of the Inquisition, which had such
a nefarious effect on Christianity and on all mankind.”6 This is a
consequence of the battle Dostoevsky waged against the papacy in his
novels The Idiot (1873), The Devils (1876), and particularly in his Diary
of a Writer (1877). The papacy was both arrogant (proclamation of
papal infallibility) and vulnerable in its temporal power (hence the
appeal to France to preserve the Papal Estates, as in 756). It would be
absurd to deny Dostoevsky’s hatred of Catholicism and of the “black
army,” the Jesuits, the spearhead of papism.
A second reading, and letters to Pobedonostsev, Procurator-
General of the Holy Synod, and to Lyubimov, who was in charge of
publishing The Brothers Karamazov, suggest another interpretation.7
5A11 translations are directly from the Russian [ed.].
6Novoe vremia, Jan. 16, 1902, No. 9292.
T etters from Dostoevsky to Lyubimov, May 10, 1879; to Pobedonostsev,
May 19; to Lyubimov, June 11, etc. F .M. Dostoevskii, Pis'ma (Moscow: Gosiz-
dat, 1959), IV, pp. 52-59.
The Legend is a full-scale attack on the “future socialist kingdom”

preached by Russian nihilist youth. This is fully confirmed by the
motifs of “bread” and of the “Tower of Babel.” By enslaving freedom
of conscience, atheists like Ivan and his creature, the Grand In
quisitor, violate human conscience and reduce mankind to the rank of
catde.
A third reading, and a more refined synthesis, was given by Dos
toevsky himself on December 30, 1879, before a student audience.
This is how he presented his Legend of the Grand Inquisitor.
An atheist suffering from his lack of faith goes through one of
his wrenching moments to compose a weird, fantastic poem,
staging a confrontation between Christ and one of the foremost
Catholic prelates, the Grand Inquisitor. The suffering of the
poem’s author comes precisely because in the image of this pre
late of Catholic faith, one so far removed from the true faith of
the first apostles, he really sees a true servant of Christ. Yet his
Grand Inquisitor is at bottom an atheist. The meaning here is
that, once we distort Christ’s faith by tying it to the goals of our
world, the whole significance of Christianity is lost at once, the
spirit inevitably ceases to believe, and instead of Christ’s sublime
ideal, there is erected a new Tower of Babel. Christianity’s lofty
conception of mankind is practically reduced to a view of man
kind as a herd of wild animals, and under the guise of a social
love for mankind we can already detect a hidden contempt for
it.8
There is no contradiction in these three readings if we recognize
that Dostoevsky views materialist socialism as the child of the Roman
idea, perpetrated by Catholicism. One must recall Prince Myshkin in
The Idiot thundering against the infamous temporal power of the Pope
and making a complete amalgam of Catholicism, atheism, and
socialism. One must recall also Shatov’s declarations in The Devils', and
especially the Diary of a Writer where Dostoevsky the publicist re
lentlessly reiterates the blood relationship between Catholicism and
communism and harps on their alliance under the leadership of the
Pope and his Jesuit cohorts, following in the footsteps of Marx and
Bakunin. As early as 1863-1864, Dostoevsky was elaborating his
theme in a piece that has only recently been published: “Catholic
8Coll. Works, vol. 15, p. 198.

248 Jacques Catteau
C h ris tia n ity has g i v e n b i r t h to s o c ia lis m a lo n e , o u r s w ill b e a r b r o t h e r

h o o d .”9
The third reading is without doubt the most fruitful one. Ivan is no
longer a self-assured atheist. He suffers from his “lack of faith.” The
church in question is not just the Catholic Church but a church alien
ated from the true faith of the first aposdes. Even if Dostoevsky seems
to make an exception of the Orthodox Church (in Russian, the church
of the true faith, pravoslavie), nonetheless the fact remains that the
danger he exposes could very well affect the whole Christian church
with its excessive concern with its “social” role in organizing society,
and even the church “in general” (this is what Dostoevsky allegedly
told Lyubimov, though one cannot fully accept the latter’s word).
Here we find ourselves at the heart of the believers’ dilemma. The
issue agitates the souls of those seeking greater equality and justice in
our lowly world. The Inquisition, presented in the Legend more as a
force organizing society than as a guardian of dogma, poses the prob
lem of the church’s authoritarian intervention in the social sphere.
Should it save mankind in spite of itself? Should the church organize
society in an authoritarian manner? One must read between the lines
/fo r Dostoevsky’s answer, as his Christ keeps significandy silent. The
answer is a clear rebuke to the Church and afortiori to any attempt to
impose on man a system of totalitarian organizadon for the sake of his
own happiness.
Dostoevsky’s indictment of his Grand Inquisitor would indeed
seem grave and without appeal. The utopia of human happiness at
any cost rests on three definitive denials that kill all hope: the denial
of man, of human society’s ability to construct itself, and of God. This
ninety-year-old man, despite the wound of his ardent love, drives the
universe back into ice. He has lost all faith in life, liberty, or culture.
He takes the place of God and exhibits all the vices that he gratui
tously and impudently heaps upon God: pride, presumption, heed
lessness. Faith in Christ is too costly for man, he says through Ivan
who shares his belief: the ideal is inaccessible. God, he says, gambled
too heavily, we must lower the stakes. Hope is dead. For the painful,
thorny game of freedom of good and evil, for unacceptable suffering,
sNeizdannyi Dostoevskii, Literatumoe nasledstvo (Moscow, 1971), Vol. 83, p .

176.
we should substitute—and he is in such a hurry, as impatient as

Belinsky10—balsamic care and anesthetizing labor.
To begin with the Grand Inquisitor, descending further than the
Underground Man in his pessimistic analysis of the human creature,
renders man infantile and denies him the status of an adult. Look at
him, he says to Christ, is this God’s image—this puny runt, “weak,”
“depraved,” “rebellious,” “ungrateful”? This is a “scruffy kid,” a
“schoolboy” in need of the discipline of a father who loves and chas
tises him well. Look at him; he keeps asking for his freedom but
prefers the happiness of bread and a peaceful conscience. Give him
his freedom, he will voluntarily put it down at the feet of those before
whom his eternal anxiety leads him to bow. For not only is freedom
too much to bear, though free will is always seductive, but, once sated,
man thirsts for mystery. This is the paradox of love through
contempt—an old theme in Dostoevsky’s work. Murin, a character in
The Landlady (1847), comments ironically: “Man is weak. Alone, he
will never make it. Give the weakling his cherished freedom, he will
bind it himself and bring it back to you.” The Inquisitor says the same
to Christ: “Man has no more tormenting need than the need to find
someone to whom he can hand over the gift of freedom with which
the unfortunate creature was born.” And he adds: “Only to the one
who can appease their conscience and take possession of their free
dom!” The Inquisitor is a thorough pessimist—he does not believe in
man. Let us organize his happiness, he decides.
The Grand Inquisitor, then, detects not the slightest capacity in
social man to organize universal harmony, to construct a society that is
more or less egalitarian and just. Every time he mentions the tower of
Babel, past or future, the implacable old man posits inevitable failure:
Centuries will pass and mankind will proclaim through its men
of wisdom and science that there is no crime, that there is there
fore no sin either, that there are only hungry people. ‘Feed us,
and then ask virtue from us!’—that is what they will write on the
banners which they will raise against Thee and with which they
will destroy Thy temple. In place of Thy temple they will erect a
new edifice, erect anew the terrible tower of Babel, and . . . they
won’t finish this one as they did not finish the one before . . .
10Coll. Works, vol. 21, p. 12.

2 50 Jacques Catteau
After suffering a thousand years with their tower they will come
to us again! They will seek us out again hidden under the earth
in the catacombs.. . . And then we shall finish building their
tower (II, 5, v).
Later in the Legend, the same motif recurs:
Oh, centuries are yet to come, [full of] the disorder of the free
mind, of their science and cannibalism, for having begun the
tower of Babel without us, they will end with cannibalism. But
then the beast will come crawling to us and will lick our feet and
bespatter them with tears of blood from their eyes. And we shall
mount the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written:
‘Mystery!’ (II, 5, v)
The Grand Inquisitor, like his disciple, Shigalyov, the totalitarian
theoretician of The Devils, does not believe in reason, in science, or in
talent. Like the nihilist Pyotr Verkhovensky, he will tear out Cicero’s
tongue, put out Copernicus’s eyes, and stone Shakespeare. He will
replace man’s education and science with mystery, the fear of prisons,
and the dread of autos-da-fé. He will abandon their freedom. He is
essentially echoing Shigalyov who presumably had read the article by
the student Raskolnikov. Shigalyov proposed that
. . . mankind be divided into two unequal parts. One tenth will
receive freedom of person and unlimited power over the other
nine-tenths. The latter will have to give up their individuality
and be turned into something like a herd of animals; through
their boundless obedience and through a series of regenerations
they will attain to a primeval innocence, something like a
primeval paradise, although, of course, they will have to work.
(IL 7, ii)
Shigalyov and the Grand Inquisitor worship these crystal palaces
where the bird Kagan (Man),"which is the absolute Master, reigns
supreme.11 In reading the Grand Inquisitor’s bland and paradisiacal
project for a society, one has failed to notice that it was nothing more
than a picture of a totalitarian universe, one constructed by a
nomenklatura, an elite, who denied the science of economics, concep-
n For a discussion of the path from the crystal palace to the utopia of the
Grand Inquisitor, see Catteau, “Du palais de crista] à l’Age d’or ou les avatars
de l’utopie,” Dostoïevski (Paris, l’Herne, 1973), pp. 176-95. {Cahier No. 24).
tual thinking, and productive intelligence. The Grand Inquisitor de

clares in advance that socialism with a human face, or even liberal
societies, simply cannot be realized. He preaches totalitarian
obscurantism while impudently waving the flag of the mystery of
Christ, though he does not really believe in it and wants to keep the
Messiah in darkness. At this point Christ, who is listening attentively,
must have thought that his church had perhaps followed the Grand
Inquisitor for too long.
At last, having closed all the roads open to man, the Grand In
quisitor rejects God who, rather than gathering the flock, has scat
tered men over unknown byways. He renounces immortality. Can one
ponder enough this dreadful statement near the end of the fanatical
monk’s speech: “And for their happiness we will allure them [men]
with the reward of heavenly eternity. For even if there is something in
that other world, it surely will not be for beings such as these.” In his
mind salvation for all means renunciation of immortality for all. This
terrible confession calls to mind the “Discourse of the dead Christ
from the top of the universe, that there is no God,” in Jean Paul
Richter’s Siebenkas:
Then a tall and noble silhouette of eternal pain
descended from on high upon the altar,
and all the dead cried out:
“Christ! Is there no God?”
He answered, “There is none.. . . ”
“Jesus! Have we no father?”

And he answered, bathed in tears:
“We are all orphans, you and I,
we have no father.”12
Jean Paul Richter’s character wakes from this terrifying nightmare,
but the Grand Inquisitor topples the nightmare into reality. Christ is
supposed to have “invented God”—thus reads a grave comment in the
notebooks to The Brothers Karamazov,'to be spoken by the Grand In-
quistor.13 The image takes on fantastic dimension without parallel.
12Jean Paul [Richter], Siebenkas in Werke (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1959),
vol. 2, p. 269.
I3“Secret—that there is no truth, no god, that is, the god that you
preached.” Coll. Works, vol. 15, p. 320.
252 Jacques Catteau
What if God had indeed died? What if the church was nothing more
than a grand imposture? Never has doubt delved so deeply into Rich
ter’s “eternal midnight.”
Ivan does not have the audacity to follow his own logic nor the
blasphemous grandeur of the Grand Inquisitor. He dares not imagine
a world without God, even a fake one. He does send his ticket back to
God, but he is like Versilov in A Raw Youth. Though Versilov paints a
picture of mankind having lost the great idea of immortality, he
nevertheless ends his evocation with the appearance of Christ on the
Baltic from Heine.14 Similarly, Ivan raises Christ against his Tor-
quemada.
Alyosha, who understands this well, says to Ivan, “The poem is in
praise of Jesus, it is not a disparagement,” adding hesitantly, “as you
had wished.” This is truth itself. Christ stands there, in silence, light
flowing from his eyes; the people recognized him at once, and the
crowd saw miracles follow upon miracles. And what is the meaning of
that kiss of Christ’s on the bloodless lips of the inflexible ninety-year-
old? Forgiveness? Absolution, because the Inquisitor’s sin is motivated
by an excess of love? It could in no way signify approval, as some
nostalgic crusaders seem to hold. But it is certainly a refusal to judge,
to condemn, and thus a brilliant acknowledgment of that freedom of
good and evil which makes men like the gods. Christ seals with a kiss
the freedom he has brought. Alyosha understands this: in a gesture of
spontaneous imitation that is typical of him, he kisses Ivan on the lips.
Doubt, be it a dreadful blasphemy, is a sign of the painful freedom
Christ bestowed upon man. With his Grand Inquisitor, Ivan grips the
world in the cold rings of despair. With his Christ, before whom the
doors to the dungeon open, Ivan creates a breath of hope.
However, what can Christ do? Is he but a witness, silent and
“bathed in tears,” watching as man is being torn apart by his inability
to completely love his neighbor as he, Jesus, knew how to do—a cruel
thought often repeated by Dostoevsky? Will Christ remain the inac
cessible ideal that brought the sword and spread the storm? His si
lence embraces. In the same manner in The Idiot, Myshkin, who is a
Christ figure, as confirmed by Dostoevsky’s letters and notes, remains
speechless in the face of a terrifying revolt by the atheist Ippolit, a
,4[See Heine’s poem, “Frieden” from the cycle D ie Nordsee—ed.]

brother to Ivan Karamazov. The other guests insult the despairing

young man. The Grand Inquisitor spits his bitterness in Christs face.
There is nothing to say. There is nothing to say to an unbeliever,
especially when the denial of God is an ethical one and comes from
the heart, as it does in Ivan who is shattered by the suffering of
children, and in the Grand Inquisitor who burns with love for these
weak human creatures. The only thing to do is to keep on loving
forever, while restoring to the Other his soul and his personality. This
is what Dostoevsky, who could not find a direct rebuttal to Ivan’s
Legend, tried to do in the chapter “A Russian Monk.” Here love for
the Other is no longer domineering, contemptuous, or haughty, but
restores to each being his self, or at least attempts to restore it.
The moral message of the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is none
theless vigorously asserted: man’s freedom is absolute and cannot be
evaded; even misguided, it is sealed by God.
What is difficult is to hope, especially when hope dies in the servant
of Christ and seeks refuge with the atheist. Emmanuel Mounier, a
believer, speaks of tragic optimism. Ernst Bloch, an atheist, proposes a
paradoxical formula in his work Atheism in Christianity: “Only a true
Christian can be a good atheist; only a true atheist can be a good
Christian.” This is not a play on words. Ivan stands on the divide
where the Christian and the atheist sides meet. He decides nothing;
on the contrary, he restores things to what they were at the beginning
of the Legend. The Grand Inquisitor frees Christ, the bearer o f free
dom. All is tragically renewed, all becomes possible again in a new
legend: hope is both extended and released.
Hope, no matter how threatened by “eternal midnight,” is a sign of
spiritual life. In Notes from the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky makes a
curious remark about the character Akim Akimych: “He was not par
ticularly religious either, as the rules of good behavior seemed to have
swallowed up everything else in him, all human talents and idiosyn
crasies, and all passions or desires, good or bad” (I, 10). It is clear that
for the author, a religious spirit necessarily implies the existence of
passions and desires, even of bad ones. Accidie is deadly to spiritual
life. Thus he always grants the gift of faith to those who, atheists or
believers, do not despair of man, and this occasionally leads to as
tounding reversals. An example of this is an experiment attempted
and abandoned by Dostoevsky in the notebooks to A Raw Youth. The
254 Jacques Catteau
novelist creates a character who is unique and original in his thought:

Fyodor Fyodorovich. His name and patronymic mark him as the mes
senger of a secret predilection of Dostoevsky’s. He is a kind of Prince
Myshkin, an “idiot,” a grown-up child, heart full of intuition and
naive shrewdness, soul brimming with a violent love for childhood.
Only, unlike Myshkin, this Christ-like being is an atheist and a fanatic
revolutionary. Another character (later to become Versilov), also an
atheist but a despairing one, tries to prove to him that Christ took
freedom as the foundation of society and that there is no other free
dom than that of Christ. Our atheistic and communist Myshkin,
Fyodor Fyodorovich, contests the argument, but transformed sud
denly by the love of an abandoned child, he becomes a Christian.15
That is a daring conception of Dostoevsky; he entrusts the defense of
Christ’s gift of freedom to an atheist suffering, like Ivan, from lack of
faith, while he bestows upon another atheist, the fanatic socialist
Fyodor Fyodorovich, the privilege of Christian grace!
Hope decided the outcome. Faith in man does not necessarily lead
to faith in God, but faith in God, for Dostoevsky, must absolutely go
through faith in man. Therein lies the paradox of the Legend of the
Grand Inquisitor. Ivan is an atheist first because he has lost his faith in
man, and he subsequently denies human creative reason and God
himself. And yet he invites Christ into his Legend and acknowledges
him. Though he heaps bitter reproaches upon him through the
Grand Inquisitor, Ivan manages ultimately to record man’s essential
freedom and to let Christ go for another experiment— perhaps a
happier one, but at any rate one to be realized through freedom and in
freedom.
15Coll. Works, vol. 16, pp. 14-15.

Chronology o f Important Dates
1821 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky born October 30 (Julian

calendar), in Moscow.
1837 His mother dies.
1838 Enters military engineering school in St.Petersburg.
1839 Father killed by his own serfs.
1843 Finishes the engineering course and enters government
service in a military department in St. Petersburg.
1844 Leaves government service.
1846 Publishes Poor Folk (Bednye liudi) and The Double (Dvoinik).
1847 “The Landlady” (Khoziaika). Petersburg Chronicle
(Petersburgskaia letopis)
1848 “The Faint Heart” (Slaboe sertse), “An Honest T hief’
(Chestnyi vor), “White Nights” (Belye nochi).
1849 Arrested for participation in Petrashevsky Circle; tried and
sentenced; led to execution, but pardoned; sentenced
again to four years of prison and four years in army as a
private; put in irons and taken to Siberia by sled.
1857 “The Little Hero” (Malen’kii geroi) published anony
mously. Marries Marya Dmitrievna Isaeva.
1859 Allowed to resign from Army and return to Russia and St.
Petersburg. Uncle’s Dream (Diadiushkin son). The Friend of the
Family (Selo Stepanchiko i ego obitateli).
1861 Begins publishing Notesfrom the House of the Dead (Zapiski iz
mertvogo doma). The Insulted and Injured. (Unizhennye i os-
korblyennye).
255
256 Chronology o f Important Dates
1862 “An Unpleasant Predicament” (“Skvernyi anekdot”). First

trip abroad.
1863 Winter Remarks on Summer Impressions (Zimnie zametki o letnikh
vpechatleniiakh). Second trip abroad.
1864 Becomes editor oIEpokha, successor to his brother’sjournal
Vremia (Time). Notes from the Underground (Zapiski iz pod-
pol’ia). Death of his wife in Moscow.
1865 Epokha ceases publication. Third trip abroad.
1866 Crime and Punishment (Prestuplenie i nakazanie). The Gambler
(Igrok).
1867 Marries Anna Grigorievna Snitkina. The couple leaves
Russia for Europe where they remain for four years.
1868 The Idiot (Idiot).
1870 The Eternal Husband (Vechnyi muzh).
1871- 72 Publication of The Devils \The Possessed] (Besy).
1873- 74 Editor of The Citizen (Grazhdanin). Begins Diary of a Writer.
1874 Trip to Bad Ems (Germany) and Geneva.
1875 Begins publication of The Raw Youth (Podrostok). Trip to
Ems.
1876 Continuation of Diary of a Writer (Dnevnik pisatelia); in
November number: “A Gentle Creature” (“Krotkaia”).
1877 Diary of a Writer; in April number: “The Dream of a Ridicu
lous Man” (“Son smeshnogo cheloveka”).
1878 Death of son Aleksey (Alyosha). Visits Monastery Optina
with Vladimir Solovyov.
1879 Begins publishing The Brothers Karamazov (Brat’ia
Karamazov). Trip to Ems.
1880 Completion of publication of The Brothers Karamazov.
Pushkin speech in Moscow. Publishes a single number of
The Diary of a Writer.
1881 D ie s J a n u a r y 2 8 in St. P etersb u rg . B u r ie d F eb ru a ry 1 in
c e m e te r y o f A le x a n d e r N e v sk y M on astery .
Notes on the Editor and Authors
R o b e r t L o u is J ackson (born 1923), American scholar, the editor of

this volume, is Professor of Russian Literature at Yale University. He
is the author of Dostoevsky’s Questfor Form: A Study of His Philosophy of
Art; The Art of Dostoevsky: Deliriums and Nocturnes-, and other studies on
Russian and comparative literature.
M ik h a il M. B a k h t in (1895-1975), Russian scholar and critic, is the
author of Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics; Rabelais in the History of
Realism; and numerous other studies on aesthedc and literary themes.
J o seph F rank (born 1918), American scholar and critic, is Professor of
Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is the author of
The Widening Gyre, Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, and other works on
Russian and comparative literature.
G ary S a u l M o rson (born 1948), American scholar, is Professor of
Russian Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author
of The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer and the Tradi
tions of Literary Utopia and other critical essays.
R o b in F eu er M iller (born 1947), American scholar, has taught at
Columbia University and is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Univer
sity Russian Research Center. She is the author of Dostoevsky and The
Idiot.
A dele L indenm eyr (born 1949), American scholar, is an Assistant
Professor of History at Carnegie-Mellon University. She is the author
of essays on various problems in Russian social history.
D. S. S avage (born 1917), British poet, critic, and scholar, is the au
thor of A Time to Mourn (poems), The Withered Branch, Hamlet and the
Pirates, and other works.
M ich a el H o l q u is t (born 1935), American scholar, is Professor of
Russian Literature at Indiana University. He is the author of Dos-
257
258 Notes on the Editor and Authors
toevsky and the Novel and other essays on literature and criticism, as well
as the editor of The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin.
V la d im ir A. T u n im a n o v , (born 1937), Russian scholar, is a senior
research fellow at the Pushkin Institute of Russian Literature in
Leningrad. He is the author of Tvorchestvo Dostoevskogo 1854-1862, a
study on Dostoevsky’s Diary of a 'Writer, as well as other essays on
Russian literature.
G ordon L iverm ore (born 1942), American scholar, taught Russian
literature at Dartmouth and is currently an editor and translator for
the Current Digest of the Soviet Press in Columbus, Ohio.
V ic t o r T erras (born 1917), American scholar, Professor of Russian
Literature at Brown University. He is the author of The Young Dos
toevsky, 1846-1949, The Heritage of Organic Aesthetics: Belinskij and. Rus
sian Literary Criticism, and other essays in Russian and comparative
literatures. He is the editor of A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on
the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky’s Novel.
V a len tin a A. V etlovskaya , Russian scholar, a senior research fellow
at the Pushkin Institute of Russian Literature in Leningrad, is the
author of Poetika romana ’Brat’ia Karamazovy and other essays on Dos
toevsky.
R o b er t L. B elknap (born 1929), American scholar, is Professor of
Russian Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of The
Structure of The Brothers Karamazov and other essays on Russian
literature and criticism.
J acques C a t t e a u(born 1935), French scholar, is Professor of Rus
sian Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. He is the author of La Créa
tion littéraire chez Dostoievski and other essays on Russian literature.
Selected Studies on Dostoevsky
Bibliography
Bulletin of the International Dostoevsky Society, Nos. 1-9 {1972-

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bibliographies put out by PMLA.
Rice, Martin P., F. M. Dostoevsky. A Bibliography of Non-Slavic Critical
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Tennessee, 1984.
Critical and Biographical
Bakhtin, M. M., Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Caryl Emerson, trans.,

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Belknap, Robert L., The Structure of The Brothers Karamazov, The
Hague-Paris, Mouton & Co., 1967.
Berdyaev, N., Dostoevsky, Donald Attwater, trans., New York, 1957.
Catteau, Jacques, La Création littéraire chez Dostoïevski, Paris, Institut
d’e'tudes slaves, 1978.
Cox, Roger L., Between Earth and Heaven: Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and
the Meaning of Christian Tragedy, New York-Chicago, Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1969.
De Lubac, S. J. Henri, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, Edith M. Riley,
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Fanger, Donald L ..Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, Chicago, Liveright,
1967.
259
260 Selected Studies on Dostoevsky
Frank, Joseph, Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1881, Princeton,

N.J., Princeton University Press, 1976.
--------Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1860, Princeton, N.J.,
Princeton University Press, 1983.
Gerigk, Horst-Jürgen, Versuch uber Dostoevskijs “Jüngling”: ein Beitrag
zur Théorie des Romans, Munich, Wilhelm Fink, 1965.
Gibian, George, (ed.), Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, The Coulson
Translation, Backgrounds and Sources, Essays on Criticism, New York,
W. W. Norton, 1964.
Gibson, Boyce A., The Religion of Dostoevsky, London, SCM Press Ltd.,
1973.
Girard, René, Dostoïevski. Du Double à l’unité, Paris, Plon, 1963.
Goldstein, David L, Dostoevsky and theJews, Austin, Tex., University of
Texas, 1981.
Grossman, Leonid, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, Indianapolis-New
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Guerard, Albert J., The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulk
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Holquist, Michael, Dostoevsky and the Novel, Princeton, N.J., Princeton
University Press, 1977.
Ivanov, Vyacheslav, Freedom and the Tragic Life: A Study in Dostoevsky,
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Press, 1960.
Jackson, Robert Louis, The Art of Dostoevsky: Deliriums and Nocturnes,
Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1981.
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------- Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground in Russian Literature,
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Jones, Malcolm V., Dostoevsky: The Novel of Discord, London, T. Elek,
1976.
Selected Studies on Dostoevsky 261
Rabat, Geoffrey C., Ideology and Imagination: The Image of Society in

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of Virtue, Stockholm, Alquist &: Wiksell, 1981.
Magarshack, David, Dostoevsky, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1961.
Matlaw, Ralph E., The Brothers Karamazov: Novelistic Technique, The
Hague, Mouton 8c Co., 1957.
--------(ed.), Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, The Garnett Transla
tion, Background and Sources, Essays in Criticism, New York, W. W.
Norton, 1976.
Miller, Robin Feuer, Dostoevsky and The Idiot: Author, Narrator, and
Reader, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1981.
Mochulsky, Konstantin, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, Michael A.
Minihan, trans., Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1967.
Morson, Gary Saul, The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a
Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia, Austin, Tex., University
of Texas, 1981.
Natova, Nadezhda, Dostoevskij v Bad Emse, Frankfurt am Main, 1971.
Neuhâuser, Rudolf, Das Frühwerk Dostojewskijs: literarische Tradition
und gesellschaftlicher Auspruch, Heidelberg, Wilhelm Fink, 1979.
Peace, Richard A., Dostoevsky: An Examination of the Major Novels, Cam
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trans., Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1972.
Sandoz, Ellis, Political Apocalypse. A Study ofDostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor,
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262 Selected Studies on Dostoevsky
------- Dostoevski’s Image in Russia Today, Belmont, Mass., Nordland

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Shestov, Lev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nietzsche, Bernard Martin and
Spencer Roberts, trans., Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press,
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Terras, Victor, A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis,
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--------The Young Dostoevsky, 1846-1849, The Hague, Mouton & Co.,
1969.
Van der Eng, J., Dostoevskij romancier, The Hague, Mouton & Co.,
1957.
Vladiv, Slobodanka B., Narrative Principles in Dostoevskij’s Besy: A Struc
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Wasiolek, Edward, The Major Fiction, Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press,
1964.
--------(ed.), Crime and Punishment and the Critics, San Francisco,
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Index
Adrianova-Perets, V. P., 219 Carr, E. H., 112, 113

Alexander III, Crown Prince, 191 Catteau, Jacques. 17
Anna Karenina, 13 Cerebral Vibrations and Thought, 228
Annals, 196 Cervantes, 132
Arendt, Hannah, 142, 143 Chernyshevsky, N., 103, 228
Aristotle, 79, 80 Chirkov, N. M., 153, 157, 158
Art of Dostoevsky, The, Deliriums and. Noc Christ au Vatican, Le, 245
turnes, 15 Christology, in The Idiot
Atheism in Christianity, 253 and Chivalric system, 132, 133
Auden, W. H., 81 Christ, supposed effects of on Man,
Automatism and Suggestion, 231 129-30
contingency, 133
Bakhtin, M. M., 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 89 continuity, problems of, 141
Balzac, Honore' de, 36, 245 and Crime and Punishment, 126
Bateson, Gregory, 60 and crucifixion, 127
Belinsky, Vissarion, 34, 44, 52, 82, 97, double thoughts and identity, 135
195, 236 Eden, parallels to, 138-39
Belknap, Robert L., 17 epilepsy, 133, 135, 136, 137
Berdyaev, Nicholas, 7 epiphanies, failures of, 128, 129, 144
Bernard, Claude, 228, 229 estates, country, in novel, 137
Bernheim, Henri, 231 eternity vs. time, 136
Between Past and Future, 143 Filipovna, Nastasya, character
Bloch, Ernst, 253 death of, 140-41
Bloch, Marc, 136 fall from “Eden,” 138
“Bobok,” 3, 62, 64 relations with Myshkin, 139
Brothers Karamazov, The, art of fiction in; restarts of, 138-39
See also Grand Inquisitor; Hero, upbringing of, 137
hagiographie, 16, 17, 32-34, 193-205 generations, bridges between, 142
Alyosha, and truth, 198-99 history, problems of, 136-37
brothers identity, problem of, 135
attitudes of, 193-94 inheritance, failure of, 144
as voluptuaries, 194 Jesus, supposed nature of, 134-35
Dmitry, distance of from truth, 198 money, as metaphor for exchange and
fact vs. fiction, 196-97 continuity, 143
Fetyukovich, 200-201 Myshkin, parallels with Christ, 128-29
Fyodor, distance of from truth, 198 and myths, 131
and Grand Inquisitor, 199 and novels, contrasted to myths, 131
Ivan, and truth, 32-34, 198 and preordained death, in other Dos
Kirillovich, Ippolit, 199-200, 201, 202 toevsky novels, 128
and roman, Russian concept, 203, 204 Rogozhin, inheritance of, 142
truth, search for, 204-205 salvation, in Christianity, 130
Buddhist proverb, Japanese, 66 time, Christian attitudes to, 130
Bulgakov, M., 1, 7 time, linearity of in Crime and Punish
Bursov, B., 9 ment, 126-27
Byron, Lord, 60 title of novel, derivation of, 134
Totsky, character, 137
Cabal and Love, 195 City of God, The, 130
Caprice, 68, 69 Collins, Wilkie, 232
Carmina Burana, 245 Coulson, Jessie, 21
263
26 4 Index
Course in General Linguistics, 143 and literary forms, question of, 56, 57,
Crime and Punishment, 3, 26, 99, 101, 58
108-109, 111, 126-27, 204, 232 material in, 58
Custine, Marquis de, 46 “The Meek One,” 58, 65
metafiction, concept, 58-59
Danielou, Jean, 130 misreading, 63
de Saussure, Fredinand, 143 “Mummer,” 64
Department of Useless Things, 244, 245 problematic pieces, 63
Devils, The, 3. 7, 15, 16, 85, 94, 176-92, self-descriptions of, 59-60
203, 233, 235. 246, 247, 250. See also semifictions, 64-65
Narrator. and Tristram Shandy, 58-59
and abstraction, 179 Dickens, Charles, 232, 240
apocalypse, 185, 186, 187, 188 Diderot, Denis, 228-29
artistic quality, 191-92 Dmitrenko, S., 9, 10
biblical images, 189, 190 Dr. Faustus, 1
dialectic unity, 188, 189 Dombrovsky, Yury, 244, 245
discoveries, 185-86 Don Quixote, 58-59, 64
Dostoevsky, ideas of about, 176 compared to The Idiot, 131, 132, 133
House of Fillipov, 185, 186 Dostoevsky, Fyodor M.
and ideals compared to reality, 190-91 on art and reality, 61
infants, 190, 191 attitudes of in writing, and Marxist
and intelligentsia in Russia, 177 criticism, 9
Kirillov, obsessions of, 186, 187 chronology, 255-56
Lebyadkin, Captain, 187 debts of in 1840s, 35
murders, 185, 186, 188 emigre' scholarship about, 10
mysteries in, 186 epilepsy of, 232
Pyotr, neglected son o f Verkhovensky, on faith in God, 80
179, 180, 181 family of, reflected in fiction, 41
realia, 182, 183 journalistic influence of, 54-55
reality letters of, 19, 24, 53, 66, 106, 126, 158,
avoidance of, 177, 178 230, 233, 246
conflicts between levels of, 184, 185, on moral disintegration, 3-4
186 Rousseau connection, 14, 82-98
Russia, health of, 189-90 as Russia’s memory, 6
secrets, 185, 186 on skepticism, 3
sponging of Verkhovensky, 178 Soviet attacks on, 8
Stepan’s surname, derivation of, travels of to Europe, 106
177-78 truth in novels of, 12-13
Stepan Verkhovensky vs. Pyotr, as anti and artist’s point of view, 13
theses, 181-82, 183 Dostoevsky, Mikhail, 19, 24, 66
symbolic gesture vs. responsible action, Dostoevsky, Nikolai, 106
179 Dostoevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, 1
Dialogue between d’Alembert and Diderot, 227 Double, The, 13, 19-34, 51
Diary of a Writer, 4, 5, 54-65, 111, 191, attacks by second voice, 23, 24, 25, 26
200, 246, 247 contrast to scenes in The Brothers
anomalies of, 62, 63 Karamazov, 31, 32, 33
art, boundaries of, 61 contrast to Svidrigailov, in Crime and
editing of, 62 Punishment, 26
frames devil, Ivan Karamazov’s, 32, 33
action of, 60, 61 Devushkin, contrast to, 23
concept, 60 dialoguing of consciousness, 32, 33-34
Index 265
ejection of Golyadkin from ball, 30 Frank, Joseph, 13, 83

first voice, 25 Freedom, 244-45, 249, 252, 253
Golyadkin, derivation o f name, 22ra. Fridlender, G. M., 9, 215n.
interior dialogues of Golyadkin, 20, 21 Fyodorov, Nicholas F., 233
narration, nature of, 31
party-crashing of Golyadkin, 28 Gambler, The, 3, 15, 112-25
second voice, 21, 22 and absentee Russian, 113-14
and self-consciousness o f Golyadkin, 24 Aleksey, 114, 116, 117, 119, 122, 123
self-sufficiency, 24, 25 Astley, Mr., 114, 118
speeches of Golyadkin, 19-20 Chance, 120, 121
third voice, 22, 23 contrasted to Notes From the Under
ground, 124
Ehrenburg, Ilya, 7-8 DeGrieux, 114, 117, 118
Eryomin, I. P., 207 Fate, 120-21
Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva, 11 feelings, conflicts about, 113, 114-15,
Euripides, 71 116-17
Europe, Dostoevsky’s predictions about, femme fatale in, 112, 113
3-4 and God, 123
marriage, reasons for of characters,
Fatherland Notes, 232 114-15
Faulkner, William, 1 money, search for, 114, 115, 116, 117
Feuilletons, by Dostoevsky, set in other Dostoevsky novels, 125
Petersburg, 13, 35-55 Polina, 112, 114, 116, 117, 122, 123
appearance vs. reality, 42-44 power, urge to, 123-24
and characters, 51 roulette, development of in book,
“circles,” social, in Russian life, 38, 39 118-19,120
contents of, 38-39 sado-masochism, and sexual impulses,
dreaminess (mechiatelnost’), 52-53 122
egoism, Russian, 50 verdgo in, 121-22
good vs. evil, 40, 41 Gide, Andre', 1
intelligentsia, Russian, 52 God. See Brothers Karamazov, Christology;
irony, 39, 40 Grand Inquisitor.
Kremlin, reacuons to, 47 Goethe, J. W. von, 196, 245
nadonalism, 46-49 Goffman, Erving, 60
nature. 36. 37 Gogol, N. V., 42, 43, 56, 63, 196, 197
An Ordinary Story, 52 Goncharov, I. A., 52
Petersburg, Dostoevsky’s views about, Gorky, Maxim, 1
44-45, 46, 47, 48 and Dostoevsky, 5-6
publication of, 35 Grand Inquisitor legend, in The Brothers
and reality, 54 Karamazov. 8, 63. 199, 236, 243-54.
Romande period, 52 See also Brothers Karamazov.
and Russia, lack of freedom in, 37-38 and Alyosha, 252
Sboyev, 41 as attack on socialism, 247, 249, 250
Selected Passages from My Correspondence atdtudes, alteradons of by characters,
with Friends, 42 253-54
society, Russian, 42, 43, 44, 45 Christ, freedom brought by, 252
and Westem/Slavophile controversy, and Church, funedon of, 246, 248
46-47 denial of God, 252, 253
Fillipov, T. I., 215 faith, 246, 247, 248
Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization and freedom, 244-45, 249, 252, 253
o f Experience, 60 and hope, 252, 253
266 Index
Grand Inquisitor legend (cont.) Holbein the Younger, 127

immortality, rejection of, 251 Holquist, Michael, 15
interpretations of, 246, 247 Hope, 252, 253, 254
nature of Grand Inquisitor Hugo, Victor, 245
and conflict with Christ, 244
to Dostoevsky, 248-49 Idiot, The, 3,15, 87, 89,126-44,246, 247,
and other Dostoevsky novels, 247-48 252. See also Christology.
and Papacy, 246 Immoralist, The, 1
rebellion, 249 Intuition, Dostoevsky, on, 4-5
totalitarian predictions of, 249-50, 251 Ivanov, Vyacheslav I., 16, 176
utopias, concepts about, 243-44
Granovsky, T., 177 Jackson, Robert Louis, 15
Guralnik, T., 9, 10 Jésus-Christ en Flandre, 245
Halpe'rine-Eaminsky, E., 1 Kafka, Franz, 1

Heine, Heinrich, 87, 138 Kant, Immanuel, 197
Heinrich. 138 Korvin-Krukovskaya, Anna, 232
Hero, hagiographie, and Alyosha Kozhinov, V. V., 11
Karamazov, 206-26. See also Brothers Kreutzer Sonata, The, 14
Karamazov.
Aleksey the Man of God, 212-14, Landlady, The, 249
217-18 Lawrence, D. H., 133
life of, 212-13 Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, The [in
mother of, 214 The Brothers Karamazov], 8, 63, 199,
and Rome, compared to Russia, 213 236, 243-54
Alyosha Le Goff, Jacques, 244
and father, 221 Lermontov, M. Yu., 75
in monastery, 220 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 131
suffering, 220, 221 Life of Klim Samgin, 1
and world’s temptations, 221 Lindenmeyr, Adele, 15
Alyosha, and death of Father Zosima, Livermore, Gordon, 16
222-23 Lloyd, J.A.T., 112
Cana dream, 224-25 Lubbock, Percy, 57
love of nature of, 223-24 Lukacs, George, 131, 133
Alyosha, quietness of, 208-11 Lyubimov, N. A., 158
in monasteries, 210, 211
other motifs, 210 Maikov, Apollon N., 76, 176, 245
pride, absence of, 209 Maikov, Valerian, 49
and Dostoevsky, concept of about Mann, Thomas, 1
novel, 206-207 Master and Margarita, 1
Ivan, atheism of, 222 Melville, Herman, 66
Khokhlakova, Liza, Alyosha’s relation Memory, and The Brothers Karamazov
ship with, 216-17 Alyosha, memory of, 234-35
love, unqualified, 225-26 associations, 235
and monastic life, urge to, 208, 211 Dr. Herzenstube, memory of about
Mother of God, 215, 216 Mitya, 238
Herzen, Alexander, 48, 51, 236 and Dostoevsky’s epilepsy, 232
History of Julius Caesar, 107 forgiveness and theodicy, 239-40
History of the Reign of Philip II, King of Fyodor, memory of, 234
Spain, 245 good, latency of, 240-41
Hogarth, C .J., 112 good deeds, persistence of, 239-40
Index 267
grace, reception of, 241-42 flight of, 163-64

Grand Inquisitor, 236 nature, 146
and Ivan, 235-36 thoughts of, 159-60
and oceanic nature of reality, 239 Virginsky, 164
and survival of spirit, 233 von Lembke family in, 156
and Zosima, memories of, 236-37 “whirlwind” of events, 149-50
Memory, research about Nechayev, 192
Charcot, work of, 230 Nekrasov, Nikolai, 74-77
discussion, 227 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 3
and Dostoevsky, 230 Nihilists, 191-92
early work, 228, 229 Notes From the House of the Dead, 3, 15, 56,
hypnotism, 230, 231, 232 59, 60, 253
Lie'geois, Jules, 230-31 Notes from the Underground, 3, 12, 66-81,
Mesmer, Franz, 230 86-88, 124
Mill, John Stuart, 65 ambiguity of, 14
Miller, Robin Feuer, 14 antihéros, 78
Mochulsky, Konstantin, 8 In. Apollon, conflict with, 72, 73
Moonstone, The, 232 Aristotelian logic, 79-80
Morson, Gary Saul, 14 brothel, scenes about, 70-71
My Past and Thoughts, 48 bumping duel, 68, 69, 70
Mystery of Edwin Drood, The, 232 causality, 67-68, 80
Christian content, 76, 77
Narrator, in The Devils death, reactions to, 71, 72
chronicler Dostoevsky’s message in, 67
action of, 168ff. drama, parts of, 81
vision of, 173-74 guilt, dialectic of, 79
as confidant of Stepan, 147 héros, 78
conviction, of narrator about Ver- historical background, 66-67
khovensky, 162 Liza, 71, 72, 73, 74
debasement devices, 150 and love, 74
Erkel, obedience of, 166-67 madness, 73, 74
G—------v, Anton Lavrentievich, nature philosophical problems of, 67-68
of, 145ff. recognition, search for, 68-69
irony in, 149, 151, 152 self-criticism in, 77-78
Kirillov, withdrawnness of, 167 tragedy, 80-81
liberal circle, involvement in, 146, 147 Underground Man, nature of, 14, 66,
Liputin, circle member, 164 67, 79-81, 86-88
Liza Tushin, character, 145
moderate liberals, 165 Old Curiosity Shop, The, 240
narrative forms in, 169-70
Petrovna, Varvara, 153-54 Palievsky, Pyotr, 10
puns, 167 Pavlov, Ivan P., 228
reticence, scene about, 153-54 Pereverzev, V. F.,.6, 7
Shatov, 164-65, 167 Petersburg, nineteenth century, effects
Shigalyov, 165, 166 on Dostoevsky
Stavrogfn, 170-73 and architecture, 102-03
theoretician, example, 165-66 cholera outbreaks, 100, 102
trifles, 152 Dostoevsky, walks of through, 100
Verkhovensky, Stepan Trofimovich, Epokha, 105'
146, 148-49, 159-60, 163-64 expansion of, 100
faults of, 148-49 flooding of, 103
268 Index
Petersburg {cent.) disgust, in audiences, 90

fountains in, 103 and God, 97, 98
gardens, 104 and indecent exposure, 84
Haussmann, Georges, rebuilding of Insulted and Injured, The, 83, 86
Paris by, 104, 105 justification, 88
Haymarket, slum area, 99, 100, 101, Notes from the Underground, 84, 85, 86
102-03 Possessed, The, 85, 94
Konstant, Varvara, 106 Raw Youth, A, 83, 85, 86, 87
“Little Pictures,” 100 Rousseau, ribbon theft of, 91-92
Milyukov, A. P., I l l self-portrayal, 87
and Paris, rebuilding of in time of Napo Stavrogin, character, attitudes to self of,
leon III, 104-05 95-96
parks, 104, 105 Strakhov, criticism o f Dostoevsky by, 97
and Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment truth, problem of, 87
character, 99, 101 writing, 88
conversion experience of, 127 Rozanov, V. V., on Dostoevsky and
self-justification of, 108-09 Turgenev, 1-3
slums of, 100-01 Russia, “national character” of, 6
and “superman” theory, effects of on Russie en 1839, La, 46
Dostoevsky and Crime and Punishment, Russkii Vestnik, 94
107, 108
Vremia, 105-06 St. Augustine, 130
waterways, 103 Saltykov-Shchedrin, M. E., 5
Pleshcheev, Aleksey, 35 Savage, D. S., 15
Poetics, 79, 80 Schiller, J. C. F., 52, 195, 245
Polonsky, Yakov P., 76-77 Second Day, The, 8
Polyphony, in Dostoevsky, 10, 11 Shklovsky, Victor, 60
Poor Folk, 19, 57 Siebenhâs, 251
Possessed, The. See The Devils. Sirin, Isaak, 225
Prescott, William H., 245 Snitkin, Anna Grigorievna, 111
Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, discussion Solovyov, Vsevolod, 232
of, 10-13 Sophocles, 66
Pushkin, A. S., connection of to Dos Sound and the Fury, The, 1
toevsky, 12, 52, 59, 75, 194^96, 202 Soviet literature, early, Dostoevsky’s in
fluence on, 7-8
Rabelais, François, 57, 59, 61 Stalin, Josef, 6, 8
Raskolnikov, character in Crime and Starikova, E. V., 8
Punishment, 99, 101, 108-09, 127 Strakhov, N. N., 97, 111, 184
Raw Youth, A, 3-4, 83, 85, 86, 87, 252, 253 Suslova, Apollinaria, 111, 112, 113
Revolution, Russian, Dostoevsky’s pre
monitions about, 7 Tacitus, 196
Richter, Jean Paul, 251 Taine, Hippolyte, 228
Rogozhin, character in Crime and Punish Terras, Victor, 16—17
ment, 127 Theodosius of Pechersk, 207-08
Roqueplan, Nestor, 36 Tolstoy, Leo, novels of, 12, 14, 56, 57
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Dostoevsky’s on fiction vs. fact, 56, 57
conflict with “Toward a Reworking of the Dostoevsky
Belinsky, reactions of to, 97 Book,” 11, 13
confessions, cases of, 89-90, 92-93, 94 Trial, The, 1
confessions, reasons for, 88-89 Trilling, Lionel, 98
Confessions, (Rousseau), 82, 83, 84, 87, Tunimanov, V. A., 9, 15, 187
95 Turgenev, Ivan, 2, 3, 35
Index 269
Underground Man, concept, 14. See also Wasiolek, Edward, 184

Notes from the Underground We, 1
“When from the darkness o f error,” 74ff.
Vetlovskaya, V. A., 16 Winter Remarks on Summer Impressions, 3,
Voprosy literatury, 9, 10 106
Voyage to Italy, 245
Vremia, 245 Zamyatin, Evgeny, 1, 7
Zaslavski, D. I., 8
War and Peace, Tolstoy on, 56 Zundelovich, Ya. O., 155, 156-158

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DOSTOEVSKY

Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N J . 07632

Main entry under title:

To the memory o f my mother,

Editorial/production supervision by Elizabeth Toijussen

© 1984 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. A SPECTRUM BOOK.

The Dismantled Consciousness:

The Petersburg Feuilletons

Reading Between the Genres:

Dostoevsky and Rousseau:

The Narrator in The Devils

The Art of Fiction

Memory in The Brothers Karamazov

Chronology of Important Dates 255

The French critic E. Halpe'rine-Kaminsky wrote in 1888 that

literature no writer had examined “so penetratingly the causes of this

life even. A colossal eruption and all is crumbling, falling, being

as a guessing or divining of the “subsurface, unexpressed future

4Gor’kii, Istoriia russkoi literatury. ArkMv A. M . Gor’kogo (Moscow, 1938) I,

pioneering sociological study of Dostoevsky’s art first appeared in

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a striking increase in interest in

concludes, no figure is more suited than Dostoevsky “to inaugurate

Bakhtin’s unwillingness (or inability for political reasons) to integrate

complexities, contradictions, and ambiguities that works of art like

in the beginning of the 1860s and, most importantly, in his Diary of a

elusive narrator-chronicler and the manner in which Dostoevsky uses

“Throughout T h e Brothers K a ra m a zo v , aesthetic categories are un­

years. It is an advance matched in other parts of the world by such

To facilitate reference to Dostoevsky’s work for readers using any

In The Double, the characteristic feature of consciousness and

As we shall see, The Double itself is narrated in this same style,

beside which he had ordered the vehicle to stop; “will it be all

The second example of interior dialogue is considerably more

Thus Mr. Golyadkin’s delighted mood expressed itself, but all

permit the entire novel to be constructed on them alone. The actual

new words or tones. At first he pretends to be a cringing Golyadkin,

fectionate familiarity. At their very next meeting in the office, the

He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keep­

every gesture, every movement. We have already said that Golyad-

tion imperceptibly passes over into the speech o f Golyadkin himself.

thoughts, but in another, hopelessly alien, hopelessly censuring and

Mitya would be acquitted, while you would only be punished

Dostoevsky’s chronic indebtedness in the 1840s not only forced

“The Petersburg Feuilletons” by Joseph Frank. From Dostoevsky: The Seeds

Goncharov, Sollogub, Pleshcheev—also wrote feuilletons, and Dos­

always understood to be highly conventional and stylized. The writer

Nobody reading Dostoevsky’s first feuilleton could have any doubt

freely in a circle, one relaxes in relative security without having to

form of vice. At this point Dostoevsky drops the technique of irony he

Julian Mastakovich, a high bureaucratic official, is a man with a prob­

individuals, whose domestic cruelties were being exposed by the

To a large extent, Dostoevsky’s second feuilleton merely picks up

the condescending tolerance of those on whom they dance atten­

desire for something has stirred in you, an aspiration. You seem to

letonist’s stock-in-trade; and Dostoevsky scatters them through his

Dostoevsky’s third feuilleton stands somewhat apart from the

manner. Abandoning the motley of the amuser and satirist, the

If Dostoevsky’s first three feuilletons are of great interest because

capable “task” which haunted educated Russians trying to take a rural

“Throughout T h e Brothers K a ra m a zo v , aesthetic categories are un

He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keep

Goncharov, Sollogub, Pleshcheev—also wrote feuilletons, and Dos

Julian Mastakovich, a high bureaucratic official, is a man with a prob

the condescending tolerance of those on whom they dance atten

stylistic orbit of the Natural School. In addition, however, it also fur

Dostoevsky’s dominant message in N otes fr o m the U nderground (ex

The moment of illumination for the Underground Man is a transi

all of the Underground Man’s capricious attempts to escape his un

himself, he has found it necessary to postulate an audience; his nar

In this early episode Rousseau describes a crime that had tor

deflects both author and audience away from reacting to straightfor

ceeding generations of readers as “realistic ballast, his way of anchor

ilipisat’]?’ ”15 Dostoevsky also incorporated Napoleon I ll’s reconstruc