__COPYRIGHT__
NOVOSTI PRESS
To Commemorate
the 150th
Anniversary
of the Birth
of
Dostoyevsky
Y. Karyakin
__TITLE__ Re-reading ``I am not good at singing lullabies,
though I have tried that too.''
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ F. Dostoyevsky
Translated by S. Chulaki
Edited by S. Kotlobye and L. Tetskaya
[4]To my parents
[5] Contents ``My Whole Heart Is Bleeding..... 13 ``There Appeared a New Strain of Trichinae.. ." 32 ``I Myself Wanted To Benefit Men" .... 37 ``Power Over All! That Is the Goal!" ... 45 The "Wise Men" and the ``Weaklings'' ... 57 ``A Percentage!" ......... 62 ``Accidental Murder"........ 66 ``I Did Not Prostrate Myself Before You. .." . . 71 ``It's My Sin! I'm the Killer!"..... 78 ``You're the Killer!"........ 84 ``She Will. Either Die or Go Out of Her Mind" . 87 ``Out of One Pod" ........ 90 ``Two Separate Personalities"...... 99 ``We Take a Lesson From the Jesuits" ... 107 ``A Brick to Contribute to the Common Weal" . 113 ``I Am an Aesthetic Louse!"...... 118 ``Coffin"........... 125 ``Why Had He Not Killed Himself?" .... 138 ``Surely It's Not Good-Bye Forever?" . . . 144 ``Oh, If Only I Were Alone..."..... 148 ``Is There Such a Law?"....... 152 ``I Went There Only to Test Myself" ... 159 ``Sincere Remorse" ........ 166 ``You Deserve To Be Killed!"..... 175 ``Love Has Raised Them From the Dead" . . 179 ``Something Else"......... 185 ``You Want a Fortune Straight Off?" . . . 190 Towards the Sun of Pushkin...... 200 ``I Started All Anew. .."....... 211 ``Narrated by the Author, Not by the Hero" . . 220 ``The Last Line of the Novel"...... 227 ``He Does Not Calculate"....... 231 ``Remember That He Is Twenty-Three" ... 240 Foreword [6] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ForewordThere have been few writers whose works have excited such profound interest throughout the world as the works of Dostoyevsky. Much of this has to do with what is known as dostoyevshchina-a masochistic wallowing in suffering, a pathological acceptance of the ugly in the world and at the same time a pathological protest against it; a sick conscience which derives comfort from the belief that there can be no easy conscience; a soul of such ``complexity'' that wickedness is its essential element (the 7 more ``complex'', the more wicked); a consciousness in whose ``depth'' will and a sense of responsibility cease to have existence; a sinking into the unconscious so that there is no place for the conscious; a justification of the worst in oneself, a rejoicing in one's insoluble inner conflicts, self-admiration and self-analysis as an end in itself; in short, despair and the running into a dead end.
With Dostoyevsky, however, all this was a subject for artistic exploration rather than something that one should justify. There was less dostoyeushchina in Dostoyevsky than some of his admirers would like to think, at any rate much less than there is to be found in themselves.
But, of course, Dostoyevsky without dostoyevshchina... This would not be Dostoyevsky. A ``cleaned-up'' Dostoyevsky can never be part of world culture.
On the other hand, Dostoyevsky is definitely not to be equated with dostoyeushchina. Dostoyevsky was not like that, either. He would not have survived if he were.
The real Dostoyevsky, without being made ``better'' or ``worse'' is an embodiment of intense and irreconcilable contradictions. But the more closely one looks into them, the more clearly one sees that the overriding impulse behind these contradictions is something stronger than the contradictions themselves. This is not pointless self-analysis, but the search of a way out, a happy and down-to-earth way.
N. Berdyaev, whose book Dostoyevsky's World View (Berlin, 1925) has largely set the tone of bourgeois writings on Dostoyevsky, once 8 explained, more clearly than many others, why he was attracted, not to Dostoyevsky, but to dostoyevshchina. "My religion of negation of the world,'' he wrote, "rose from a pathological and complete revulsion from life, from a disgust with life, with myself. . . I have spent my life with half-closed eyes and nose because of this revulsion. . . The thought of being rooted in this world is alien to me.'' In this remarkable comment by Berdyaev on his own views, one detects the process of decay and putrefaction.
Here is what Dostoyevsky wrote nine years before his death: "Despite all the waste, I love life intensely, I love it for its own sake, and I am seriously thinking of beginning my life anew... This is the main thing about my character, and probably also about my work.''
Dostoyevsky would never have endorsed Berdyaev's words. And Berdyaev would not have found Dostoyevsky's sentiments expressed here congenial, which are against his very nature.
Another ``heir'' to dostoyevshchina, not to Dostoyevsky, was V. V. Rozanov, who is still regarded by many critics in the West as an ``authority'' on Dostoyevsky. While praising Dostoyevsky, Rozanov nevertheless reproached him for "returning the ticket to God" in protest against the ill-deserved and unvindicated sufferings of children. Rozanov wrote: "But it only seems that children are without sin and therefore innocent. .. It did not occur to Dostoyevsky that such an explanation is possible.'' (Rozanov is here referring to the new heredity theory). The possibility of such an explanation, however, did occur to Dostoyevsky. In The Brothers __PRINTERS_P_9_COMMENT__ 1B---707 9 Karamazov he wrote of the eight-year-old boy hunted to his death by dogs before his mother's eyes: "Some joker might say that the child would have grown up and would have sinned anyway. But the point is that the child did not have a chance to grow up.'' It is quite possible that this ``joker'' had the same kind of outlook as Berdyaev for whom everything was for the worst in the worst of possible worlds, for whom life was disgusting, and who infected others with his sense of disgust. In a moment of candour Rozanov said about himself: "A cesspool with gold fish swimming on its surface.'' This is a splendid definition of the lovers of dostoyeushchina, although the gold fish would surely not survive in such a medium.
It is doubtful that Dostoyevsky, were he alive today, would be pleased to find himself identified with dostoyevshchina or with some of his characters, or to know that whole schools of thought (whole ``isms'') have been created on the strength of some remarks made by his heroes, that some of his minor characters have been elevated to the position of sole spokesmen of his ideas and views.~^^*^^
It would be fitting to observe the 150th birthday of Dostoyevsky not by praising his greatness but by thinking about the questions he raised. One somehow has the feeling that it would be inappropriate to consider his anniversary a " _-_-_
^^*^^ In his book Existentialism and Scientific Cognition ( Moscow, 1966) E. Soloviev makes an important comment on the existentialist interpretation of Dostoyevsky: " Dostoyevsky knew everything which existentialism has `discovered' about man. Few writers would be so vehemently opposed to the spirit of this philosophy as Dostoyevsky.''
10 holiday" (one feels the same about the dates associated with the discovery of nuclear energy).Dostoyevsky may be said to have constructed a microscope of tremendous power with which one comes to see many things previously invisible to the human eye, but which often refracts and distorts their image. Thus one should calculate accurately the index of this ``refraction'' in order to be able to use (and develop) the insights attained by Dostoyevsky, to use them against his own delusions and against any attempt to make capital out of them. And Dostoyevsky's insights are indeed profound and invaluable.
Our approach to Dostoyevsky is based on the Marxist attitude to world culture; Marxism upholds all that is progressive in world culture, and is alien to all that is reactionary in it. The opportunistic call for supplementing Marx with Dostoyevsky is no better than the nihilistic attempt to "do away with Dostoyevsky.'' Such attitudes can only appeal to those undesirous or incapable of understanding either Marx or Dostoyevsky.
The purpose of this book is to consider how Dostoyevsky as an artist interprets the motives behind man's actions. The discussion is centred around Crime and Punishment and Dostoyevsky's notes for the novel, though references are made to nearly all his other works.
By 1866, when Crime and Punishment was published, Dostoyevsky had written Poor Folk, The Double, Notes from the Dead House, and Notes from Underground. He was still to write The Idiot, The Possessed, A Raw Youth, The Dream of a Queer Fellow, and The Tale of Pushkin. The earlier works placed Dostoyevsky
1B* 11 among the leading writers of Russia. Crime and Punishment made him a world literary figure. Crime and Punishment, which ranks with The Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Faust, is probably one of the most widely read novels of our time. [12] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``My Whole Heart ``I suddenly found myself alone and
frightened... And yet, it still seems
that I'm just beginning to live. Funny,
isn't it? A kind of feline tenacity for
life!"
``To be able to write well, one has to suffer!" said Dostoyevsky. And he could have added: "and to overcome one's suffering.'' For every one of his works is an attempt to overcome suffering. Sometimes the attempt is successful, but often the effort is doomed.
What Dostoyevsky means by suffering is not only, and not so much his personal suffering as the suffering of his people, of humanity at large. But while putting into Raskolnikov's mouth the words: "I prostrate myself not before you but before all human suffering,'' the writer himself could not 13 accept such contraposition. He wished that the time would come when it would be possible to " prostrate oneself" before every man, when mind and conscience would stop destroying each other. And in prostrating himself before the suffering humanity he dreamed of prostrating himself before a happy humanity.
While in Russia and abroad Dostoyevsky was haunted by the question: "Will there ever be a time when strife will cease and men will come together?''
Indivisibility of mind and conscience, indivisibility of all men on earth, of all people in the past, present and future-such was his belief, which became all the stronger and more passionate, the less corroboration it found in reality.
In a letter to his brother dated October 9, 1859, Dostoyevsky wrote: "You remember I told you about a confession-novel which I wanted to write after I had written all the others, and which I myself had yet to live through. Now I decided to start working on it without delay. The novel will be impressive and passionate; my whole bleeding heart will be put into it. I conceived the idea back in my prison days, lying on a plankbed, at a moment of bitterness and sadness, when both my mind and body seemed to be falling apart. .. This `Confession' will finally establish me as a writer.''~^^*^^
Things turned out exactly as Dostoyevsky had hoped except that he finished the novel later than _-_-_
^^*^^ Dostoyevsky realized the idea in both Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment. The former anticipated the latter in many respects.
14 he had planned, and that the writing involved much greater physical and moral suffering than he had expected, or wanted.Having come to know the Russia of penal servitude Dostoyevsky now took a fresh look at the Russia of St. Petersburg, "the most premeditated city on earth,'' St. Petersburg with its Sennaya Square and government offices. He saw that in his home country, too. Mammon held sway, and brothels and taverns were taking the place of the church.
He began his long war with the socialists, and he was quite right in exposing those among them whom Marx called ``drill-ground'' socialists. It was they who proclaimed through their leader Nechayev: "Poison, the dagger, the noose-the revolution sanctifies them all.'' It was they who called themselves "Jesuits whose mission is not to enslave but to emancipate people.'' Marx and Engels described this approach as "bourgeois immorality driven to the extreme.''
At the same time Dostoyevsky was grossly mistaken when he ascribed to all revolutionaries the views and motives, the aims and tactics of these quasi-socialists, when he identified social protest with crime. And the main thing is that, as a former member of the revolutionary circle of Petrashevsky,~^^*^^ he could not but feel that here he was wrong, and this feeling tormented him. For he knew that many young people turned to the ideals of socialism and revolution "with a sense of dedication, inspired by a genuine love _-_-_
^^*^^ M. V. Petrashevsky was the leader of a group of Russian revolutionary democrats and Utopian socialists in the late 1840's.
15 for humanity, in the name of honour, truth and real good.'' And whatever his later attitude to socialism, that is, Utopian socialism, one must not overlook the role of the socialist "prime impulse" in shaping him as a writer. It was this "prime impulse" that made him an implacable foe of the "grand prince Rothschild" (i.e., the bourgeoisie) and a passionate believer in the possibility that mankind would attain happiness on earth. Dostoyevsky knew little about scientific socialism which regards the all-round development of the individual as the only "aim of history" (Capital) and which holds that "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" (Manifesto of the Communist Party). It is a striking fact, which reflects the contradictory nature of the time, that Marx (1818-- 1883) and Dostoyevsky (1821--1881), who were nearly of the same age, most likely had not read the works of one another.~^^*^^ Those writers whose works Dostoyevsky did read (for example, Hertzen, Shchedrin, and Chernyshevsky) he attacked and subjected to cruel ridicule _-_-_^^*^^ It is possible that Marx and Engels knew about Dostoyevsky from the Russian magazines which they kept in their library (for instance, Otechestvenniye Zapiski which carried Shchedrin's reviews of Dostoyevsky's works). But thus far no mention of Dostoyevsky has been found in the works of Marx and Engels. As for Dostoyevsky, he mentioned Marx once (and probably the only time) in October 1873. Speaking about the Pope's attempt to capture the souls of men with the aid of an army of Jesuits, Dostoyevsky said: "Would Marx and Bakunin be able to stand up to these fighters? Most unlikely.'' This remark shows that Dostoyevsky did not regard Marx and Bakunin as antagonists, and that he did not know, or did not wish to know, the difference between Marxism and Bakuninism.
16 although they exposed the ``drill-ground'' socialists with as much conviction as Dostoyevsky and with greater fervour. Dostoyevsky's lack of objectivity and his castigating tone, especially in The Possessed, have nothing in common, for instance, with Pushkin's attitude to the Decembrists. Pushkin had never taken upon himself the role of spiritual chastiser of the revolutionaries despite the profound differences which divided them. Dostoyevsky, in his crusade against the revolution, often openly identified his position with that of the officialdom. All this surprised and angered both the revolutionary socialists and the radical democrats.For example, Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: "Mr. Dostoyevsky, without the slightest qualms, is hacking away at his own cause by heaping shame on people whose efforts are bent in the direction to which, it seems, the most cherished thoughts of the author himself aspire.''
While in Europe~^^*^^ Dostoyevsky was shocked by the new creed of the bourgeoisie: "One must accumulate money and acquire as many things as possible. Only in this way can one hope to be respectable. Otherwise one can have no respect from others, and not even self-respect.'' Dostoyevsky describes Luzhin, one of the characters in Crime and Punishment, as follows: "But more than anything in the world he loved and prized his money, got together laboriously and by every means in his power; it raised him to the level of everything that had been superior to him.''
_-_-_^^*^^ During his visits in June 1862, in August-October 1863 and in July-October 1865.
17In London, Dostoyevsky visited the Crystal Palace which housed the World Fair of 1862. "The fair is truly magnificent,'' he wrote. "You feel the tremendous power which has attracted here this mass of people from all over the world into one herd. . . And no matter how free and independent you might have felt before, here you are seized with an unknown fear.. . There is something biblical about the scene, something Babylonian, as if the prophecy from the Apocalypse has come true. You become suddenly aware that it would take much spiritual resistance and denial over centuries to withstand the pressure and not to succumb completely to the awesome impression, not to bow to the fact and not to worship Mammon, in other words, not to accept the existing for the ideal. . .''
Here is another scene from the existing reality: "In Hay Market I saw mothers who brought their young daughters to `work'. Girls of twelve or so would catch you by the hand and ask you to go with them. . .'' This far-off Hay Market differed little from Sennaya Square where " children cannot remain children,'' as Raskolnikov would say.
In her memoirs A. P. Suslova described the following scene: "Once when we were having dinner, he {Dostoyevsky] looked at a girl who was taking 'a lesson' and said: 'Just imagine, a girl like this going with an old man, and then some Napoleon suddenly saying: 'Smash the whole town.' It has always been that way.' "
Unexpected as it may appear, this outburst is nevertheless characteristic of Dostoyevsky who was obsessed with his ideas.
In Europe he was also surprised to find how 18 much freedom there was for vain and ambitious men. One of them, Napoleon III, wrote The Story of Julius Caesar in which he claimed that a ``genius'', especially a political ``genius'' like himself, was entitled to do whatever he wished. The example of Napoleon I had already conjured up visions of another Toulon in some young hotheads, and now the example of his nephew seemed to put the Napoleonic ideal within reach of the young impatients. A wave of Napoleonic fever had gripped society. Pushkin had noted this too:
``We've stamped out prejudice.
And everyone is naught to us,
As 'number one' but ourselves we see,
We all Napoleons would be.
And all the countless million bipeds
As just so many tools we see.''
Dostoyevsky had still more reasons for asking: "Who among us in Russia does not now think himself a Napoleon?" (This is Porfiry's question in Crime and Punishment).
One may also recall that Napoleon and Napoleonomania are a dominant theme in Leo Tolstoi's War and Peace which appeared in RussKii Vestnik in 1865 (Crime and Punishment began to be published in the same magazine in January 1866).
Why had Rousseau lost ground to Robespierre, Robespierre to Napoleon, and Napoleon again to the Bourbons? Why had the Great French Revolution failed to escape what Hegel called "the irony of history'', and led to the victory of ideals that were opposed to those which it had proclaimed and in which it had sincerely believed? What must be done so that Russia 19 would avoid the fate of the French Revolution?~^^*^^
Dostoyevsky approached the question of means and ends, a question which he regarded as having tremendous importance, from the positions of ethical maximalism. He posed ideological questions as ethical questions and ethical questions as ideological ones.
He wrote: "Voluntary, fully conscious and entirely unforced sacrifice of oneself for the benefit of all is, in my view, a mark of the highest development of an individual, the highest development of one's moral power, the highest development of one's self-command, the highest form of freedom of one's will. Only an individual with a highly developed personality can lay down his life for the benefit of all, only he can carry the cross or go to the stake. One with a highly developed personality, who is fully convinced of his right to be an individual and is free from any fear for himself, can find no other purpose in life than giving himself to all others, so that they can also develop into independent and happy individuals. This is the law oi nature. Every normal person is inclined toward this.''
But Dostoyevsky is fully aware of the danger inherent in false, self-deceiving pledges to serve the cause of "universal happiness": "Here is one little hair which, if it gets into a machine, will cause the whole thing to shake and break _-_-_
^^*^^ "The Revolution was Number One, and Napoleon Number Two, but then Napoleon became Number One and the Revolution Number Two. Isn't that so?" (A Raw Youth}. In his book, The Disappointment and Collapse of Rodion Raskolnikov (Moscow, 1970), V. Kirpotin writes: "The defeat [of the revolutionary forces in Russia] in the 1860's was, in Dostoyevsky's view, analogous to the defeat of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century.''
20 down. This little hair is personal interest: woe to him who has an axe to grind.. . For example: I want to sacrifice the whole of myself for the good of all, so it is necessary that I should sacrifice myself completely, without any thought about personal gains, or any secret hope that if I sacrifice myself for society it will in return give all of itself to me.~^^*^^ One has to sacrifice oneself in such a way as to give everything of oneself, and to act in such a way as to preclude even the remotest chance, the slightest possibility of one's getting anything out of it. But how is this to be done? It is like trying not to think about the white bear. You say to yourself: `Don't think about the white bear,' and you'll be thinking about the accursed beast every minute. So how is this to be done? There is no way of doing it; it must come about oi itself, it must be part ol yourself, and be unconsciously part of the whole human race. In short, there must be a fraternal, loving principle; one must love. . .''The concerns of the world must be treated as personal concerns.
And how about personal concerns? Dostoyevsky went abroad in order not to fall into the hands of his creditors. There he gambled, lost all the money he had and begged his mistress, Apollinaria Suslova, to send him some money (his dying wife stayed behind in Russia). He tried to justify himself before his brother: "I need money. For me, for you, for my wife, for the novel I am writing... Here one can easily win tens of _-_-_
^^*^^ Perhaps it was this "little hair" that spoiled Raskolnikov's apparently faultless ``arithmetic''?
21 thousands of roubles. Yes, I came here in order to save us all, and to get myself out of trouble.'' His brother was indignant: "I don't see how you can gamble while travelling with a woman you love.''Dostoyevsky was oppressed by a sense of guilt before his wife. He was also haunted by the fear of losing the young Suslova, a ``demonic'' woman. The latter explained the reasons for her break with Dostoyevsky in a conversation with Rozanov:
``He did not want to divorce his wife, who was a consumptive, 'because she was dying.' "
``Was she dying?''
``Yes. She was dying. She died six months later. But I no longer loved him then.''
Suslova left Dostoyevsky for a foreign student, and when he jilted her she decided to kill him. Dostoyevsky asked her: "How can you settle problems of human relations by bloodshed?" It seemed that she had planned to turn her revenge into some kind of heroic act. She said: "It does not matter which man will pay for the outrage committed against me. But if one decides to avenge oneself, one should do it in such a way that the whole world would be talking about a unique, unprecedented, inimitable act of revenge.'' She had the thought of assassinating the czar: "It is such a challenge. Just think, the immensity of the step. And it's so simple: a mere gesture, a flip of the hand-and you find yourself among celebrities, men of genius, great people, the saviours of humanity...''
``But glory is earned by hard work.''
"Or with dauntless courage.. .''
"But think about the punishment.''
``That was what stopped me. I suddenly realized that I might be executed. To live to the age of eighty in a quiet place, somewhere near the sea in the south, enjoying the warm sunshine, would be much better.''
``. . .it's so simple: a mere gesture, a flip of the hand-and you find yourself among celebrities. ..'' Do these words not remind us of Raskolnikov with his desire to get "a fortune straight off?''
Dostoyevsky spent the year 1864 in Russia.
On April 15, his wife died. The next day he wrote a confession unparalleled in emotional strength: "April 16. Masha is dead. Shall I ever see Masha again? It is impossible to love another person as one loves oneself, as our Lord teaches us. The law of the individual binds us here on earth, and the ego stands in the way. . . When a person has failed to observe the law of striving for the ideal, i.e., if he has not through love sacrificed his ego for the good of people or even of one human being (Masha and I), he suffers pains and calls this condition a sin. . . Man must always be in a state of suffering which is balanced by the heavenly joy of the fulfilment of his destiny through self-sacrifice. Therein lies the earthly balance. Otherwise our earthly life would be senseless.'' It seems that Dostoyevsky used this personal experience in describing Raskolnikov's inner struggle, and that this is what gives Crime and Punishment its confessional tone. For the hero in the novel also tries to solve the ``eternal'' questions for himself and to overcome his ego.
On June 10, the writer suffered another blow: the death of his brother Mikhail who had been his helper and adviser.
23Soon after, on September 25, Apollon Grigoriev, Dostoyevsky's close friend, died.
In a letter to A. E. Vrangel, dated March 31, 1865, Dostoyevsky wrote: "I suddenly found myself alone and frightened. My whole life has fallen to pieces. Oh, my friend, I would gladly serve another sentence in a penal camp for as many years in order to be able to pay my debts and feel free again. Now I am going to write a novel under the lash, that is, for sheer want of money, and I must make a quick job of it. . . And yet, it still seems that I'm just beginning to live. Funny, isn't it? A kind of feline tenacity for life!''
He wrote later: "I had hoped to find a responsive heart, but I failed.'' For a short time Dostoyevsky was close to Marfa Braun (Panina). Later he proposed to A. V. Korvin-Krukowska, the elder sister of Sofia Kowalewska, but was rejected. The lonely writer found solace in his work.
On June 8, he wrote to A. Krayevsky, the editor of Otechestvenniye Zapiski, to ask for an advance, but was refused.
Also in June, to meet his debts, Dostoyevsky sold the copyright of all his works to the profiteering publisher Stellovsky and promised to complete a new novel by November 1, 1866. Should he fail to meet the deadline, all his works, including those he would write in the future, were to become Stellovsky's property.
In July, Dostoyevsky went abroad again to escape his creditors. And again he gambled and lost. All his requests for loans were refused. Like Marmeladov, the jobless civil servant in Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky knew what 24 it was like "to plead without hope for a loan''.
Dostoyevsky began Crime and Punishment in Wiesbaden. There, early in August, Suslova visited him. After she left he wrote to her: "The next morning.. . I was told that I would be served neither dinner, nor tea, nor coffee... And although I still go without dinner and have been living on morning and evening tea for the third day now, I somehow don't feel very hungry. What is annoying, though, is that they don't give me candles in the evening. My affairs are in a mess. .. I cannot go on like this any longer.'' Hertzen's refusal to lend money hurt him deeply. "He could not doubt that I would pay him back: he has my letter. After all, I am not a lost soul,'' he complained. And again a desperate cry for help: "Polia, my friend, help me out, save me. Get 150 guldens somewhere... I shall pay you back. I won't leave you in the lurch. That would be unthinkable. ..''
He began writing the novel at a most critical moment in his life, when there seemed to be no way out. (In similarly desperate circumstances he started work on The Idiot. He had again lost all his money gambling and was forced to ask Katkov for an advance on his new work. On April 4, 1868, he wrote to his wife that the idea of turning to Katkov "struck me at nine o'clock or so when I had lost heavily at cards and went wandering about the town. It was just like this in Wiesbaden where, after losing the game, I plotted Crime and Punishment and then thought of making contact with Katkov.'')
It seems that misfortune and illness only served to generate in Dostoyevsky an enormous capacity for work. Some of his worshippers 25 almost feel inclined to bless these blows of fate, calling his illness (epilepsy) "the holy malady.'' This sounds romantic, indeed, but then one cannot help wondering why, when his circumstances had somewhat improved, Dostoyevsky continued to produce remarkable works such as The Meek, The Dream ot a Queer Fellow and The Brothers Karamazov.
In September, Dostoyevsky received an advance from Katkov (the money went to the creditors) for a story which would be about 130 pages long and which was to be completed early next year. The story was not to be about the down-and-out (as planned earlier) but about a student who committed a crime.
On October 15, Dostoyevsky returned to Russia and plunged into his work. The story grew into a novel.
On November 2, he met Suslova for the last time. She wrote in her memoirs: "Today I saw Fyodor Mikhailovich. We argued a lot and contradicted each other. He has long been offering me his hand and heart and this only makes me angry.''
After a few weeks Dostoyevsky changed the entire pattern of the novel. "By the end of November a lot had been written,'' he wrote to A. E. Vrangel on February 18, 1866, "but I burned it. I did not like it. A new form, a new plot came to me and I started afresh.'' As will be shown later, Dostoyevsky burned the manuscript because he felt he had not found the real motives for Raskolnikov's crime.
The year 1866 was a crucial one for Dostoyevsky.
26In January, Russkii Vestnik began to publish Crime and Punishment. "My whole future depends on my finishing this novel well,'' Dostoyevsky wrote to I. L. Yanishev on April 29, 1866.
On April 4, Karakozov shot at the czar but missed. Dostoyevsky called him "a hapless blind suicide.''
In the summer of that year Dostoyevsky lived in Lyublino, near Moscow, where a warm friendship developed between him and E. P. Ivanova, his sister's distant relative. But their relations were clouded by the fatal illness of her husband and by their involuntary expectation of his death.
On September 3, Karakozov was executed.
The book Dostoyevsky had promised Stellovsky had not yet been finished, but the deadline was soon approaching. To finish it in time Dostoyevsky dictated his new novel. The Gambler, to a stenographer, A. G. Snitkina.
This is what she wrote about their first meeting: "No words can convey the dismal impression Fyodor Mikhailovich made on me when I first met him. He looked perplexed, extremely worried, lonely and helpless, irritated and almost sick. It seemed he was so depressed that he could not even see my face and was unable to carry on a coherent conversation.''
In twenty-six days Dostoyevsky wrote more than 200 pages. His duel with Stellovsky was won. The Gambler was painfully autobiographical. A farewell to his love for Suslova, it was also an attempt to say quits to his passion for gambling (he was able to rid himself of it only seven years later, in 1873). But the main thing was that 27 it depicted "the inferno'', as Dostoyevsky put it, stripping naked all the passions born of the mad desire to get "a fortune straight off'', and showed by artistic means the process of "poisoning oneself with one's own fantasy'', the ``self-poisoning'' that brought the Gambler to his ruin and death.
In November and December, Dostoyevsky worked on the last part of Crime and Punishment. He wrote nearly a thousand pages in just one year. At that time he was very sick and every day expected an epileptic fit or a visit or a letter from his creditors. "I am convinced,'' he wrote to A. V. Korvin-Krukowska on July 17, 1866, "that none of our writers, living or dead, ever worked in such conditions. Turgenev would have died at the very thought of it.'' The following words apply to Crime and Punishment and to most of his other works: "It happened very often in my literary career that the beginning of a chapter or a story had already been sent to the printers while the rest was still in my head and had to be written by the next day.'' (Which makes all the more amazing the balance and consistency of the novel in all its parts).
On November 8, 1866, Dostoyevsky said to Snitkina: "If I should confess my love for you and ask you to be my wife, what would be your answer?" Snitkina recalled: "I looked at Fyodor Mikhailovich's face which was so dear to me, and said: 'My answer would be that I love you and will love you all my life.' " And soon he was to write about the love of Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova in the Epilogue to Crime and Punishment: "Love had raised them from the dead, and the heart of each held endless springs of life for the heart of the other.'' These words 28 were also about himself. The hopeful ending of the novel marked a stage when a new life was beginning for him (Mrs. Dostoyevsky was to write many years after her husband's death: "The sun of my life, Fyodor Dostoyevsky'').
In those years, as never before or afterwards, the most petty everyday questions were entangled in Dostoyevsky's mind with the most general, ``eternal'' problems. All his energies were concentrated on his novel: either he won, or he must surrender. And he won. His victory was over himself, over his creditors (not all of them by far), over his ill fate. Work, for Dostoyevsky, was not an escape from the tormenting problems, but meant a confrontation with them; it was not an escape from hostile reality, but a desperate and, paradoxically, well-calculated single combat with it.
Crime and Punishment is a fusion, in artistic terms, of Dostoyevsky's tormenting and courageous reflections about himself, about his people, and about the destinies of mankind. In this novel Dostoyevsky carries on the search of Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe, among whom he must be considered an equal.
The Divine Comedy (1307--1321) signalled the end of medievalism, the approach of a renaissance and the possible advent of a new inferno on earth.
Don Quixote (1605--1615) tells the funny and moving story about a man who tries to oppose the cynical and the calculating world with feelings of honour, truth and beauty, to triumph over the epoch of cold-blooded pursuit of money with the help of old dreams, to fight the battle with his eyes shut.
29The hero of Hamlet (1601) says that " Denmark's a prison,'' but he tries to break the prison and free his country from the rotten state it is in.
Faust (1808--1831) is an artistic interpretation of the mankind's struggle for emancipation; it treats defeat in the only correct way, that is, as a reason for continuing the struggle.
And then came Crime and Punishment.
It is especially clear today that the significance of this novel can be assessed only against the background of the history of world literature and, of course, in the context of Russian literature.
Back in the 1830's Rastignac became known to Russian readers (Balzac's works were widely read in Russia and many of them were translated into Russian). Still earlier, in 1824, Pushkin created Aleko, a character with a non-Russian name, whose "experiment in life" was limited to a Gypsy camp, away from St. Petersburg. In 1833, appeared Pushkin's The Queen ot Spades whose hero Hermann was the son of a Russianborn German, and the action took place in St. Petersburg. In the same year Pushkin created another character, Yevgeni, who was too weak, however, to stand up to the Bronze Horseman. And finally, came Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov, the new hero of new times.
It seems that the key to an understanding of Crime and Punishment lies in juxtaposing its beginning and its end, its first pages and its last. Such a juxtaposition gives us an insight into its magnitude, the time and meaning of the action. It also helps us realize why the crime does not begin with the murder, nor does it end with the 30 hero's confession at the police station; why Raskolnikov's confession does not mean his repentance; why Raskolnikov is tormented not by pangs of remorse, but by his wounded pride; why the action of the story lasts not two weeks, but two years and then enters the realm of infinity, a future which will bring either disaster or salvation to the world; and, finally, why one is as concerned about ' the fate of an obscure student from Carpenter's Lane in St. Petersburg as if it were one's own fate and the fate of humanity.. .
[31] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``There Appeared ``I have an amateur's passion for such
fiery, young, first literary efforts. Mist,
haze, and a chord vibrating through
the mist."
In the beginning was the Word. And this word was Raskolnikov's article about "two categories" of people. It was the first fiery, young effort, as Porfiry put it. "Mist, haze, and a chord vibrating through the mist. . . It was conceived in sleepless nights and in a state of ecstasy, with the lifting and thumping of the heart, with suppressed enthusiasm. But that proud, suppressed enthusiasm of youth is dangerous!''
After the word came the scheme-, to kill the money-lender! "One death, and a hundred lives 32 in exchange---why, it's simple arithmetic! What is the life of that stupid, spiteful, consumptive old woman weighed against the common good? No more than the life of a louse or a cockroachless, indeed, because she is actively harmful.''
After the scheme-the ``rehearsal''. Raskolnikov goes to the old woman to "try it out''. "I wonder what men are most afraid of. . . Any new departure and especially a new word-that is what they fear most of all. . .''
After the ``rehearsal''-the act itself. Besides the money-lender who is killed "according to plan" Raskolnikov ``accidentally'' kills Lizaveta, who is said to be pregnant and who has `` accidentally'' exchanged crosses with Sonia. (Would he have killed Sonia had she turned up at that moment? or the girl Polenka?) Also by ``accident'' the responsibility for his crime is assumed by Mikolka-another human life. . .
Also by ``accident'' his mother goes out of her mind and dies. . . He is thus an accidental matricide, too.
One act sets off a chain reaction over which he has no control.
One suddenly realizes that his mother's words which reveal her complete trust in her son have another, horrifying meaning, other than the literal one: "Look, Rodya, I have been reading your article in the magazine for the third time; Dmitry Prokofich brought it for me. Well, I was astonished when I saw it. See how foolish I am, I thought; this is what he is busy with, this is the answer to the riddle! [If she could only know the truth.] He has new ideas, perhaps, in his head just now; he is thinking them over, and I worry and disturb him. I am reading it, my dear, and __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 2--707 33 of course there is a lot that I don't understand; but that must be so: how could I?" In saying these words she is actually reading her own death warrant-and other people's. She is glad but does not understand why she is glad. Having lost her mind "she declared rapturously that her son would in time be a man of state which his article and his brilliant literary talent had proved. She was reading and re-reading that article and all but slept with it. . . She was always talking about it and even beginning conversations in the street... In public vehicles or in shops, wherever she could find a hearer, she led the conversation round to her son, his article. ..''
And finally, also by ``accident'', when he is ill, Raskolnikov has ``accidental'' dreams. (It is as if the writer had broken the test tube in which he was doing his experiment and spilled its lethal contents). People crush one another like lice, like cockroaches. The apocalypse of one man grows into an apocalypse of universal proportions, dwarfing the biblical one. This is even more terrible than the scene where the lemurs are digging a grave for the blind yet happy Faust, more terrifying than the modern anti-- utopias: "The whole world was condemned to fall victim to a terrible, unknown plague which was moving on Europe out of the depths of Asia. . . There had appeared a new strain of trichinae, microscopic creatures parasitic in men's bodies. But these creatures were endowed with intelligence and will. People who were infected immediately became like men possessed and went out of their minds. All were full of anxiety, and none could understand another; they did not know how or whom to judge and could not agree 34 what was evil and what good. They did not know whom to condemn or whom to acquit. Men killed one another in senseless rage. . . In towns, the tocsin sounded all day long, and called out all the people, but who had summoned them and why nobody knew, and everybody was filled with alarm. . . In places men congregated in groups, agreed together on some action, swore not to disband-and immediately began to do something quite different from what they themselves had proposed, accused one another, fought and killed each other. Conflagrations were started, famine set in. The plague grew and spread wider and wider. . .''
One can almost hear the chord vibrating in the soul of the youth who was planning his article with a ``suppressed'' and ``dangerous'' enthusiasm. In this dump of squirming millions, one can see the Raskolnikovs holding the article in one hand and the axe in the other. And each one of them kills his money-lender, his Lizaveta, and his mother. Each one of them is trying to rise to the ``higher'' category and push all the others into the ``lower'' one.
``The first effort" has been made, but there is no one to check his ``arithmetic'', and no one to weigh "against the common good''.
It seems that Raskolnikov's mad dreams are made up of little pieces of real life, and that this real life is one big terrible dream. Raskolnikov's dreams remind one of the inferno in The Divine Comedy, a revelation and at the same time an extension of life on earth.
``The whole world was condemned to fall victim to a terrible, unknown plague. ..'' This may mean that the death of the money-lender, __PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 2* 35 Lizaveta, and the mother, and in general all those nameless millions who are included in the ``lower'' category, is a sacrifice to the ideas contained in Raskolnikov's article, to "something new''. (``This is the answer to the riddle".)
``There had appeared a new strain of trichinae, microscopic creatures.. .'' Could it be that Dostoyevsky set out to study these ``trichinae'' under a microscope in order to dissect the ideas and the very soul of the suicidal murderer, the originator of universal murder and suicide, and, to find an antidote for the ``trichinae''?
[36] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``I Myself Wanted``My conscience is easy."
What led Raskolnikov onto the road to hell? What was Raskolnikov trying to achieve? His intentions seem good, at first glance. The crux of the problem seems to be the wrong means he used to achieve his aim, which debased his aim and led to unforseen and undesirable consequences.
Six months before he committed his crime, Raskolnikov made his "first effort": he wrote an article in which he tried to prove that ``extraordinary'' people could and must "transgress laws'', but only for the sake of an 37 idea which was "salutary for all mankind''.
Six weeks before the murder, he accidentally overheard a conversation between a student and an officer, and he recognized "exactly the same ideas" as those which had been "brewing in his head.'' (``One death, and a hundred lives in exchange-why, it's simple arithmetic!'')
Two days before he committed his act, Raskolnikov ``rehearsed'' his project and later, quite accidentally, met Marmeladov whoss life reminded him of his own and of the life of his mother and sister with whom, thank goodness, he had lost all contact. He decided to "cross the barrier" and carry out his project : "and that is as it should be''!
The day before he took his fateful step, Raskolnikov received a letter from his mother (``like a bolt from the blue''). He learned that his sister Dunya, with their mother's consent, had decided to marry Luzhin whom she did not love, and that both mother and daughter would soon leave for St. Petersburg. Raskolnikov felt that his sister took the step in order to provide for him and he rejected this sacrifice: "It shall not be, while I live, it shall not, it shall not!" At the same time he felt that what happened to Marmeladov might well happen to his own family. He decided that he "must do something now, now, without delay''. After reading the letter he went out into the street and there, by fatal coincidence, met a drunken girl, a variant of "Sonechka the eternal" (or it might well be Dunya, his sister. ..) Minutes later, again by sheer accident, he learned that the next day, at seven in the evening, the money-lender would be home, quite alone, with her sister Lizaveta away.
The day of the murder comes. Raskolnikov 38 leaps out of bed when the clock chimes. Someone shouts downstairs: "The clock struck six long ago.'' Raskolnikov goes to the porter's room. .. Nobody around, and the axe is in its usual place.. . Glancing casually into a shop, he sees from the clock that it is already ten minutes past seven. But he has arrived; here is the house and the gate. Somewhere a clock strikes once. "What, can it possibly be half past seven? Surely not; time is really flying!''
Everything, everything including time itself which now seems to Raskolnikov to be rushing headlong at reckless speed, drives him into a blind alley which he has mistaken for his only way out. Everything is pushing him on "to cross the barrier''. And he finally does so, convinced that his ``project'' is not a crime.
Several days after the murder, Raskolnikov, with more vehemence than ever before, defends his idea before Porfiry, for the sake of which ``extraordinary'' people have the right to cross conventional barriers. "It is in that sense only that I speak in my article of their right to commit crime,'' he says.
An hour before he goes to the police station, he tells Dunya: "Crime? What crime? Killing a foul, noxious louse, that old money-lender, no good to anybody, who sucked the life-blood of the poor, so vile that killing her ought to bring absolution for forty sins-was that a crime? That is not what I am thinking of, and I do not think of atoning for it. . . I myself wanted to benefit men, and I would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity-not even stupidity, but simple clumsiness, since it has failed. .. [Failure makes 39 anything seem stupid.] By that act of stupidity I meant only to put myself in an independent position, to take the first step, to acquire means, and then everything would have been expiated by immeasurably greater good. ..''
Five months later, at the trial, he testifies that "the motive of the whole thing lay in his wretched position, his poverty and helplessness, his desire to furnish for the first steps of his career. . .'' The judges take into account the fact that the defendant did not act for "mercenary ends''.
And finally, eighteen months later, in a hardlabour camp, Raskolnikov still believes his ``arithmetic'' is valid. "But although he judged himself severely, his lively conscience could find no particularly terrible guilt in his past, except a simple blunder that might have happened to anybody. . . But he did not feel remorse for his crime.'' He reflects: "My conscience is easy. Of course, an illegal action has been committed; of course, the letter of the law has been broken and blood has been spilt; well, take my head to satisfy the letter of the law. . . and let that be all!" "This was the sole sense in which he acknowledged his crime, that he had not succeeded and that he had confessed.''
For two years Raskolnikov remains convinced that he is right. With time this conviction becomes even stronger.
``A fire occurred at a theatre. The audience could not see it because it was in the wings. The clown came upon the stage to inform the audience about it. Everybody thought it was a joke and began to applaud. He repeated the announcement, and the applause grew louder. I think the 40 world will perish to loud general applause" (Kirkcgor).
In Raskolnikov's last dreams the world perishes, with everyone convinced of his own righteousness, in the name of this righteousness. Nobody admits to being a criminal. Everyone is a fighter for truth and a martyr to it. Everyone is prepared, like Raskolnikov, to swear that were everything to start anew his truth would be the only genuine one. And so would be his means to defend it. Let the world perish but justice shall prevail: "Each thought he was the sole repository of truth. . . Never, never had any men thought themselves so wise and so unshakable in the truth. . . Never had they considered their judgements, their scientific deductions, and their moral convictions and creeds more infallible.'' These words from the Epilogue, like the finale of a symphony, sum up one of the leading themes of the novel. They recall Raskolnikov's outburst about his righteousness immediately before his confession: "Never, never have I realized this more clearly than now, and I understand less than ever why what I did is a crime! Never have I been stronger, never have I held my convictions more firmly, than now. . .''
``Never, never had any men. . .'', "Never, never have I. . .''
But can one speak of "a good aim" with results like this? Would anyone who has set himself such an aim have the courage to say: "This is what I wanted?" No, he would say with disgust: "I didn't want this! It wasn't this I wanted!"--- the usual refrain of all those who have "crossed the barrier" and have got a different result from what they expected.
__PRINTERS_P_41_COMMENT__ 2B---707 41But maybe Raskolnikov's last dreams are mere visions, a kind of mirage (and for Dostoyevsky and the reader they are only an artistic fantasy), while Lizaveta, the mother, the trial, etc.-the whole thing is just a ``blunder'', a "mere blunder''?
And if someone were to tell Raskolnikov that had it not been for this particular ``blunder'' there might be others, that had it not been for these chance happenings there might still be others, Raskolnikov would be unmoved. For him the mistake is in the practice and not in the theory,- and if life fails to conform to the theory, so much the worse for life. It means that life must be destroyed.
When Raskolnikov is on his way to the `` rehearsal'', a drunk shouts: "Hi, you in the German hat!" Raskolnikov mutters: "A piece of stupidity like this, an insignificant trifle might wreck the whole affair. Yes, the hat is too noticeable. ..'' And a moment later he makes an almost philosophical conclusion-. "Trifles are important. . . Trifles like this can bring disaster. . .'' When he goes to the police station to confess he says that he is ruined by his " stupidity and even clumsiness.''
Life itself turns out to be an ``accident'', a ``trifle'', something ``clumsy'', ``stupid'', ``base'', a ``blunder'', "needless aesthetics''.
Raskolnikov is driven to a kind of frantic conviction that he is right. Certainly nobody could accuse him of greed, venality, or a passion for an "easy life''. He is not the acquisitive type, and he has given money and even his blood when necessary.
Raskolnikov, like Ivan Karamazov, "has no 42 use for millions''; for him it is far more important "to put the idea through''. But what idea? And what are the means for carrying it out? That is the question. The steps taken by Ivan suggest that he is Raskolnikov's spiritual brother. (The action of The Brothers Karamazov and of Crime and Punishment takes place at the same time, approximately in 1865).
And the more disinterested this idealistic ``creed-bearer'' is, the more sincerely and with greater conviction will he defend his method of "trial and error" until. . . until his "terrible dreams" become a reality and until we finally come to doubt the purity of his motives and stop believing his words.
And does he himself really believe in what he says? The words he utters are gloomy, hysterical words. His convictions are joyless, as if they had some inherent flaw. He protests too much about the ``righteousness'' of his aims. But things that are "as clear as daylight" are not talked about in this way. One may talk about them with energy and enthusiasm, but never in a gloomy, hysterical way.
Why does Raskolnikov call his idea `` accursed''? Why does Dostoyevsky depict Raskolnikov in such gloomy colours, as in the scene where he tells Sonya about his ``idea''? "He felt a sort of sombre ecstasy.. . Sonya understood that this gloomy creed had become his faith and his law.''
To his mother's words "Yes, Rodya, I'm sure that everything you are doing is right!" Raskolnikov replies with a wry smile: ``Don't be so sure!''
After his explanation (which sounded "as though he was repeating a lesson'') of the 43 motive for killing the money-lender (``to furnish for the first steps''), Sonya exclaims in anguish: "Oh, you're wrong, you're wrong! How could you? No, things are not like that!" And he suddenly admits: "But I am not telling the truth, Sonya. It is a long time since I have told or known the truth. . . This was all wrong; your judgement is sound there. There were quite, quite, quite, different reasons!''
What kind of ``truth'', what kind of ``justice'' is this when their pursuit leads, at every step, to bloodshed, death, disaster, and finally wholesale murder? What is meant by this infanticidal, matricidal and suicidal ``justice''? Can it be a healthy seed the fruit of which is death? Does it not contain the germ of destruction? Why is it that what has been started with the pen ends with the axe? What is this iron-clad, unassailable logic which treats human lives as mere ``material'' for building syllogisms? What kind of a person is he who wants always to be right? What kind of "easy conscience" is it which protests so much about how ``easy'' it is? And finally, what kind of ``disinterestedness'' is it which spells death for others? Can it really be disinterestedness?
If Raskolnikov wants to kill the money-lender in order to avenge all the Lizavetas, and to help them later, why then does he have to kill this Lizaveta? Is it for her good? Or for the good of all the other Lizavetas? Why does he calmly accept the possibility that Mikolka may go to prison instead of him? Is it in the name of all the other Mikolkas or what? Whom does he sacrifice, and tor whom"?
Is the road to hell really paved with good intentions?
[44] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "Power Over All! ``I did not commit murder to help my
mother---that's rubbish! I did not
commit murder in order to use the profit
and power I gained to make myself a
benefactor to humanity. Rubbish!"
Raskolnikov is a monomaniac, a person obsessed by one idea. "There are bookish dreams here, and a heart troubled by theories,'' says Porfiry when discussing Raskolnikov's crime. Raskolnikov's "bookish dreams" call to mind the dreams of a character from Notes from Underground. "We are all still-born, and in fact have for a long time been born of fathers who are not living men. The idea appeals to us more and more. . . We're getting a taste for it. And soon we shall think of some way of being born of an idea.'' Raskolnikov is born of an idea. 45 He, like Kirillov in The Possessed, is ``eaten'' by an idea. "Ideas can kill a man just as savagely as a villain can with an axe.''
``He was sceptical, he was young, he had an abstract and consequently cruel mind,'' Dostoyevsky wrote about Raskolnikov.^^*^^
It is clear that Raskolnikov, who in his article divides all people into two categories, includes himself in the "higher category''. How can such a division, such a fantastic claim, accord with ``righteous'' aims?
``Two categories"-"higher" and ``lower'', the "people proper" and the ``material'' And where do Raskolnikov's mother, sister and other relatives belong? In the ``lower'' category? And what about children? How should they be divided? Raskolnikov is afraid to pursue further the question he himself has raised.
He tells Porfiry when he first meets him: "In short, for me all men have completely equivalent rights, and-uiue la guerre eternelle. . ." " Perpetual war" as an expression of supreme love for mankind?
Raskolnikov reflects on the idea after his first visit to Porfiry: "No, those people are not made like this; the real ruler, to whom everything is permitted, destroys Toulon, butchers in Paris, forgets an army in Egypt, expends half a million men in a Moscow campaign, shakes himself free with a pun in Wilno, and when he is _-_-_
^^*^^ In his notes for Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky wrote: "In depicting the man, remember that he is twentythree.''
46 dead they put up monuments to him; everything is permitted to him. No! Such people are plainly not made of flesh, but of bronze!. . . He is right, he is right, the `prophet', when he establishes a mar-vell-ous battery across a street somewhere and mows down the innocent and the guilty, without deigning to justify himself. Obey, trembling creature and-do not will, because-that is not your affair!''``A mar-vell-ous battery" as a salutary idea?
Here is another admission: "Freedom and power, but above all, power! Power over all trembling creatures, over the whole ant-heap! . . . That is the goal! Remember this!" Those were Raskolnikov's parting words to Sonya.
Later he explains the meaning of those words: '"Sonya, I have an evil heart, note that; it explains many things. . . This is it: I wanted to make myself a Napoleon, and that is why I killed her. . . I. . . I wanted to have the courage, and I killed. . . I only wanted to dare, Sonya, that was the only reason!" It turns out that he longs to become one of those ``prophets'' to whom everything is permitted. "The man who dares much is right in their eyes. The man who tramples on the greatest number of things is their lawgiver, and whoever can dare the most is the most right. I would not lie about it even to myself! I did not commit murder to help my mother-that's rubbish! I did not commit murder in order to use the profit and power I gained to make myself a benefactor to humanity. Rubbish! I simply murdered for myself, for myself alone, and whether I should become a benefactor to anybody else, -or, like a spider, spend the rest of my life catching everybody in my web and sucking 47 the life-blood out of them, would have been a matter of complete indifference to me at that moment! . . . And, most important, it was not money that I needed, Sonya, when I killed; it was not money, so much as something else. . . I needed to experience something different, something else was pushing me along: what I needed to find out then, and find out as soon as possible, was whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man, whether I was capable of stepping over the barriers or not. . . Was I a trembling creature or had I the right. . .''
Raskolnikov speaks about his crime in different ways to different peoples, and tells the truth only to himself, and to Sonya.
``Pride'', ``conceit'', ``hatred'', ``self-reliance'', ``arrogance'', ``disgust'', "malicious contempt for people"-such are the words Dostoycvsky used to describe each step taken by Raskolnikov in pursuit of his idea.
``He really does not love anyone; perhaps he never will,'' says Razumikhin.
``Monomaniac'', "exceptional, lunatic vanity'',--- such is the first impression Zosimov, a doctor, has of Raskolnikov. "And here, perhaps, lies the point of departure of the illness!''
``Exorbitant ambition. . . Above all vanity, vanity and pride. . . Napoleon had a terrible fascination for him,'' says the cynical and discerning Svidrigaylov about Raskolnikov.
And Dostoyevsky adds: "It should be noted that Raskolnikov had scarcely any friends at the university. He held himself aloof, never went to see anyone and did not welcome visitors. Very soon, however, he found himself left alone. He 48 took no part in the usual assemblies, discussions, or amusements. He worked hard, not sparing himself, and for this he was respected, but he was not liked. He was very poor and excessively proud and unsociable. It seemed to some of his fellow students that he looked down on them all as children, as if he had outdistanced them in knowledge, development, and ideas, and that he considered their interests and convictions beneath him.'' (Raskolnikov was still more contemptuous of his comrades-in-misfortune in the prison camp.)
."It was not money so much that I needed,'' Raskolnikov lets slip. But without money, without ``vulgar'' money one cannot even begin to make "a fortune straight off'', to obtain power. As Porfiry points out: "Suppose somebody, some young man, fancies he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet-a future one, of course-and starts removing all obstacles to that end. . . I have in front of me, he says, a long campaign, and money is necessary for it. Well, he begins to acquire supplies for the campaign. . . You know what I mean?''
What will remain of the "righteous aim" if the ``prophet'' with his "mar-vell-ous battery" is right, and if our ``idealist'' wants to become a Napoleon?
Such motives predetermine the outcome of the whole project. The unforseen, the ``accidental'' proves to be the regular course of things. Raskolnikov reaps what he himself has sown. The slogan "long live perpetual war" can only invite universal destruction (like that Raskolnikov saw in his mad dreams). And if he who is the most daring, the most arrogant, is the most righteous, then everyone will want to dare all things, to show 49 contempt for each and all. This is what Raskolnikov's logic leads to. "Perpetual war" thus becomes the aim, the means, and the result. And it would be too late to say afterwards "I did not want it, this is not what I wanted!" Porfiry's question: "How can you distinguish between ' ordinanary' and `extraordinary' people?" is unanswerable. For people would fight one another for the right to be in the ``higher'' category. Moreover, among them there would inevitably be some ambitious swellheads who would claim an exclusive place even among the ``extraordinary''. And the only means of achieving this goal, this `` extraordinary'' position, this right to "bloodshed as a matter of conscience'', would be this very right, which is its own judge and its own creator. Could it be that this right is an end in itself, something that is exercised for its own sake? Raskolnikov is forced to accept this logic, but he does not take the trouble to question its soundness. He praises and defends it tooth and nail. He admits " proudly and with confidence": "Strength, strength is what I need; nothing can be done without strength; and strength must be gained by strength.. .''
That is the kind of apple Raskolnikov ate.~^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ There is a striking resemblance between Raskolnikov and Andrei Bolkonsky in Tolstoi's War and Peace, who dreams of his own ``Toulon'': "And later. . . I don't know what will happen later. I cannot and don't want to know! But if I want it, if I want to be famous and be known to people, if I want to be loved by them, why, it's not my fault that I want this, it's not my fault that this is the only thing I want and live for. Yes, for this alone! I shall never tell this to anyone, but, Lord, what can I do if I crave for nothing but glory and people's love. Death, wounds, loss of my family---all that does not frighten me. And no __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 51. 50
``It's a good thing that you only killed an old woman. If you had invented a different theory you might perhaps have done something a hundred million times as monstrous!" says Porfiry to Raskolnikov. But Dostoyevsky in fact shows the possibility, even the inevitability, of such a denouement on the basis of the theory formulated by Raskolnikov. Dostoyevsky does it subtly, tactfully and convincingly, in his descriptions of Raskolnikov's last dreams. The artistic logic of the novel here fully agrees with its psychological motivation: these are the dreams, the mad dreams of a sick man, the very dreams which a man like Raskolnikov can and must dream; these are the dreams of a man consumed by gnawing questions which he has whispered to himself thousands of times before he commits murder. . . But it is only in his fitful sleep that Raskolnikov finally receives the answer. In a dream he witnesses a deed "a hundred million times as monstrous''. "It distressed Raskolnikov that this crazy fantasy lingered so painfully and sadly in his memory, and that he could not shake off for so long the impressions of his delirious visions.''
It is "for so long" because the visions bring out the same motives which he fostered on many a long night when he was planning his article: "I had no light at night, and I lay in the dark, because I wouldn't earn the money for candles. I should have been studying, but I had sold my _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 50. matter how dear, how close to me are many people, my father, sister and wife, the dearest ones I know on earth, I would---no matter how dreadful and unnatural this might sound---give them up now, all of them, for just one moment of glory, of triumph over people, for the love of people whom I don't know and shall never know. . .''
51 books, and the dust is still lying inches thick on the note-books and papers on my table. I preferred to lie and think. I spent all the time thinking. . . And all the time I had such dreams, all sorts of strange dreams,- no need to tell you what they were! But it was only then that I began to fancy that. . . I had a thought then, for the first time in my life, that nobody had ever had before me! Nobody! It was suddenly as clear as daylight to me : how strange it is that not a single person passing through this nonsensical world has the courage, has ever had the courage, to seize it all by the tail just like that and fling it to the devil!. . .''``As clear as daylight"-and this about the " accursed idea" born in the darkness of the night! The dark, "accursed idea" seemed radiant to him. . .
Dostoyevsky shows that a man who has committed a criminal act is to be held responsible not only for the consequences of his act, not only for the criminal means he has used, but, mainly for his criminal intentions. What Dostoyevsky is saying is that a person is responsible even for his desires, of which he may not be fully conscious. "Did I know about the terrible consequences of my collusion with Lambert?" wonders the hero of A Raw Youth, and answers: "No, I did not.'' But then he adds: "This is the truth, but is it the whole truth? No, it is not; I knew something, I know I did. In fact I knew quite a lot, but how? Let the reader recall the dream I had! If such a dream could visit me, if it could come out of my heart and take shape, this could only mean that I knew an awful lot, or that rather I had a presentiment about it. . . I had no clear knowledge of 52 it, but my heart was full of forebodings and the evil spirits had become the masters of my dreams.'' It was the dream in which he and Lambert tried to blackmail Madame Akhmakova. It anticipated what actually happened later: "This means that everything has long been germinating in my depraved heart, in my desires, but my heart was ashamed of the truth and my mind was yet unable to make a conscious effort to face anything as terrible as that. But in my sleep my soul conjured up and expressed all that was in my heart, in all particulars and in the fullest form possible, in the form of a prophecy.'' Raskolnikov, too, "had a presentiment about it''.
If Dostoyevsky had written a mere murder story he would have failed to achieve a main goal-to secure the maximum participation of the reader. He would not have been able to stir the reader, burn his soul, and make him look into himself, but, on the contrary, would have confirmed him in his complacent attitude that he is not involved in the doings of others.
But Dostoyevsky "is not good at singing lullubies'', although he tried to do it at times. He is not good at lulling to sleep either himself or the reader.
``This story is also about you,'' Dostoyevsky seems to say to his readers, "about you if you have evil aims which are concealed from you by a veil of self-deception, if you shrink from fully identifying yourself with them. For any man may have his own old money-lender, his own Lizaveta, his own Mikolka, whatever their real names might be.'' Moreover, Crime and Punishment contains a ``hidden'' confession which concerns not only Raskolnikov or the reader, but also the 53 author himself, which is evident from his notes for the novel (April 16, 1865).
Thus the results and the means are not in keeping with the lofty aims. Is this, then, a question of contradiction between them? It seems so, but it is not so, says Dostoyevsky with his characteristic ethical maximalism. It follows that there is something wrong with the aims. There is no contradiction here but a deep, hidden and often elusive conformity. Dostoyevsky seems to be breaking up the apparently impenetrable nucleus of Raskolnikov's mentality. In his own way he discovers and interprets the Marxist thesis: "A goal which calls for unrighteous means is not a righteous goal.''
Chernyshevsky discussed the same idea in a letter to his son in 1876: "The aim justifies the means' is a questionable proposition. A good aim achieved by bad means?.. . No, it cannot justify them because they do not suit the purpose for which they are used. A good aim cannot be achieved by bad means. The nature of the means used must be the same as the nature of the aim. Only then can the means lead to a good aim. Bad means can serve only a bad aim, and good means serve good aims. . . Yes, my dear, historians and, following them, all sorts of people, scholars and nonscholars, are too often mistaken, in a most foolish and disgusting way, when they think it is possible to use bad means to achieve a good aim. This idea is nonsensical and absurd. It is like saying 'an even number is an odd number,' or 'a triangle has four angles,' or 'iron has roots, stem and leaves,' or 'man is a creature of the feline family,' etc.-mere words that convey no meaning. They are good only for scoundrels who seek to confuse 54 the minds of serious people or to fascinate fools. The means must be just as good as the aim.''
Talk about achieving lofty aims by base means testifies at best to a vague conception of the aims. But more often this talk is a means for achieving and concealing wrong ends.
It was not for a righteous aim that Raskolnikov committed his crime; he committed it for unjust ends. Here the aim does not justify but determines both the means and the results, while the means and the results reveal the real aim. To use improper means to achieve a lofty aim may still be considered a mistake, though an irreparable one. But to have evil aims, evil motives is, in Dostoyevsky's view, a crime.
The ``plague'' is an embodiment of Raskolnikov's "accursed idea'', an acting out of what he expounded in his article.
Raskolnikov, like Ivan Karamazov, is the "principal killer'', the ``brains'' behind the crime, because he has inspired universal death and destruction. He could have applied to himself the words spoken by the main character in The Dream oi a Queer Fellow. "I know that I have brought about my own fall.'' He compares himself to "a loathesome trichina'', "an atom of plague which infects whole countries'', where, as a result, the "wise ones" seek to destroy all the ``weaklings'' (those who have failed to understand the idea) so that they will not stand in its way. These are the same dreams dreamed by Raskolnikov but in a condensed form.
And the ``millions'', which Ivan Karamazov, like Raskolnikov, found he had no use for, are mere pennies compared with the idea that 55 ``everything is permissible'', with the idea of "bloodshed as a matter of conscience''. But this idea cannot be realized without a good deal of money, if not exactly ``millions''.
The intentions with which the road to hell is paved are not as good as they seem.
[56] __ALPHA_LVL1__ The "Wise Men"``There are no real barriers."
What Raskolnikov says and does can be understood only by keeping in mind his "accursed idea''. It has become part of him; it has engulfed him and affects all his feelings and thoughts, his words and actions.
``The mistakes and perplexities of the mind disappear sooner and more completely than the mistakes of the heart. The former are overcome not so much by argument and reasoning as by the inexorable logic of events in real life, which often suggest the necessary and correct way out and point to the straight road, if 57 not at the moment they arise, at least quite soon. .. But mistakes of the heart are a different matter. A mistake of the heart is a very grave thing: it is a poisoned spirit which clouds vision and turns people blind, so blind that they are beyond cure, even when the facts before them clearly point to the straight road. It distorts the facts to suit its end and assimilates them with its poisoned spirit.''
Raskolnikov's idea has penetrated not only his mind but also his heart (``I am evil at heart''). That is his misfortune and his crime.
Raskolnikov listens to Marmeladov after his ``rehearsal''. He has been listening to him for a long time, nearly an hour. He listens in silence, feeling no pity for the man. And as he listens he thinks about his problem (how to "cross the barrier'') which cuts deeper and deeper into his mind especially after his ``rehearsal'', especially after Marmeladov has repeated three times his words: "There's nowhere to go!" Perhaps Marmeladov and others like him have nowhere to go, but he, Raskolnikov, knows where to go, and Marmeladov's story confirms him in his final choice (so far everything has pointed to the correctness of his choice). Let Marmeladov squirm like a crushed worm. This is his lot: he belongs to the category of ``material''. Raskolnikov is another matter; he is of the ``higher'' category.
But he realizes, or at least cannot help feeling, that Marmeladov, in his own way, rebels against the theory of "two categories''. Marmeladov does so like a slave, on his knees, humbly, but still he rebels: "But He will pity us. He who pitied all men and understood all men and all things. He alone is the judge... And He shall 58 judge all men, and forgive them, the good and the evil, the wise and the humble. .. And when He has done with all men, then shall He summon us also: 'Come forth' He will say, 'also, ye drunkards, ye weaklings, ye infamous, come forth'! And we shall come forth without shame and stand before Him. And He will say: 'Ye are swine! ye are made in the image of the beast and bear his mark; yet come, ye also unto Me!' And the wise and learned shall say: 'Oh Lord, why do you receive them?' And He will say: 'I receive them, oh ye wise men, I receive them, oh ye learned ones, inasmuch as not one of these has deemed himself worthy. . .' "
After taking Marmeladov home (where he quietly puts on the window-sill what is left of his money) Raskolnikov says to himself: "And this Sonya, too! What a little gold-mine they've managed to get hold of to profit from. Oh yes, they wept at first, but now they are used to it. Men are wretches; they can get used to anything!" And he adds enigmatically: "Well, and if I am wrong, if men are not really wretches, men in general, the whole human race, I mean, then all the rest is just prejudice, imaginary fears, and there are no real barriers, and that is as it should be!''
What is he talking about? About the same thing. "Wretches get used to it.'' But mankind is not made up of wretches alone, but of "two categories''. And Raskolnikov will not "get used to it'', and will ``transgress'' because he belongs to the ``higher'' category; he is not a ``wretch'', but one of the ``wise''.
And who are the wretches, then? Raskolnikov's slip of the tongue provides the answer. They are the people whom Marmeladov calls ``weaklings''.
59This ``slip'' is not accidental here. This mixing up of ``weaklings'' with ``wretches'', this imperceptible change from the first to the second is ominous: it is like saying that people of the `` lower'' category are ``lice'', "trembling creatures''. It means that Raskolnikov has passed from his idea to "do good for men" to the " accursed idea" of taking power and holding sway over "the trembling creatures'', and of doing it as soon as possible, and not for the good of these ``creatures'' but for his own good.
Raskolnikov's idea is anti-popular. The ``lower'' category, the ``material'', the ``weaklings''-such are the terms Raskolnikov uses in describing the people. But it is to be kept in mind that the last judgement of the ``wise'' Raskolnikov is meted out by the people, by the ``weaklings''. Dostoyevsky often returned to the subject of the theory of "two categories''. He wrote: "I could never accept the idea that only one-tenth of the people are destined to develop on a higher plane, while the remaining nine-tenths should serve as material for this. .. and languish in the dark.''
On the morning after his meeting with Marmeladov Raskolnikov was reproached by Nastasya for "not doing anything''.
``I am doing. . .'' began Raskolnikov grimly and reluctantly.
``Work?''
``Work.. .''
``What sort of work?''
``Thinking,'' he replied seriously, after a moment's pause.
Nastasya fairly shook with laughter. ..
The ``work'' the ``wise'' Raskolnikov is doing also has to do with Nastasya; he thinks of her as 60 a ``weakling'', though he has not yet included her in his ``arithmetical'' calculations. He is still ``counting'' by ``categories'', by millions. He is still rounding up figures. . .
A day later Nastasya learns about the murder, but she will probably never know that she is on the same list as the money-lender and Lizaveta; it is just that her turn has not come yet.
[61] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "A Percentage!" ``Let them eat one another alive---
what is it to
After reading his mother's letter Raskolnikov goes out into the street. The ``idea'' is still in his head, not in the form of a dream, "but in a new, unfamiliar and terrible form''. He is thinking about his sister, about Svidrigaylov. .. .Suddenly he notices a drunken girl of about sixteen, or maybe only fifteen. A few paces away stands an overdressed fop. The situation is obvious.
All that has constantly been in Raskolnikov's mind and heart now surges forth in a violent, outburst: "Hey, you Svidrigaylov, what do you want here?" And as he shouts these words he 62 clenches his fists and grins, his lips trembling from rage. (He calls the stranger ``Svidrigaylov''. He seems to be rehearsing a meeting with the real Svidrigaylov.)
The interference of a policeman stops the fight. Raskolnikov begs him: "There, look. Heaven knows who she is, but she can hardly be a professional. More likely somebody made her drunk and abused her. . . for the first time. .. and then turned her out into the street like this. Look, her dress is torn; look how it is put on; clearly she didn't dress herself, she was dressed by somebody else, and dressed by unskilful hands, masculine hands. That is plain. How are we to keep her out of his hands?" He shoves the last twenty kopecks he has into the police officer's hand. The latter says plaintively: "Oh, what shameful things there are in the world now. .. Maybe she belongs to decent people, poor ones, perhaps.. .''
At this moment an instantaneous revulsion of feeling seems to sting Raskolnikov. "No, listen!" he cries after the moustached policeman. "Sto^i! What is it to you? Drop it! Let him amuse himself! What business is it of yours?" The policeman stands dumbfounded by such ``dialectics'', while Raskolnikov laughs right into his face. . . "Eh!" says the officer, and with a gesture of his hand follows the girl and the man, evidently taking Raskolnikov for a lunatic or worse. And Raskolnikov says bitterly: "He's gone off with my twenty kopecks. Now he can take something from the other as well, and let the girl go with him, and that will be the end of it... Is it for me to try to help? Have I any right to help? 63 Let them eat one another alive-what is it to me?''
But a moment later: "Poor girl!" And again: "Pah! Let it go. They say it must be so. Such and such a percentage they say, must go every year. . . somewhere or other. . . to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may be left in peace and quiet.'' (This is Lu/hin's theme and also the theme of Raskolnikov's article).
Raskolnikov's thoughts undergo another change but not for the last time: "A percentage! They have some capital words: they are so soothing and scientific. Once you've said 'a percentage' there is no need to worry any more. If you used a different word, why then perhaps. . . it might be disturbing... And what if Dunya becomes part of the percentage?. . . If not in one then in another?.
Here we have two absolutely different men. The changes are instantaneous. Indeed they are not mere changes but a metamorphosis which foreshadows a terrible answer to the terrible question: What would happen if this girl came then instead of Lizaveta? It would make no difference in the long run who would turn up. And perhaps Lizaveta could be in this girl's place, why not.
And if everyone acts according to the principle "let them eat each other alive,'' then Raskolnikov's last dreams threaten to become a reality.
But while Raskolnikov's desire to help the girl is sincere and unfeigned, and as his anguish for those who have become part of the ``percentage'' is genuine, his words "What is it to me?" take 64 on an ominous ring and his curt "Let it go" sounds callous and unnatural.
This little passing scene, like many others in Dostoyevsky's stories and novels, is rooted in what has already been and what is yet to come.
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 3-707 [65] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Accidental Murder" ``Poor Lizaveta! Why had she to turn
up? It is strange though; I wonder
why I hardly ever think of her, as
though I had not killed her..."
Raskolnikov does not think of Lizaveta mainly because the very thought of her frightens him.
He tells the court that he did not mean to kill Lizaveta, that he killed her by ``accident''. And in sentencing him the judges take into consideration Raskolnikov's long-standing hypochondria. But if Raskolnikov committed his crime by ``accident'', and at a moment of temporary insanity, there would be little cause for pondering over the case.
Let's go back to our ``naive'' question: to which of Raskolnikov's two ``categories'' does 66 Lizaveta belong? To the ``lower'' one, it would seem; for obviously she is incapable of saying "something new''. And if so, then she could be dispensed with and even disposed of. "No,'' Raskolnikov would say. But supposing he dispenses with her only in order to say that "something new'', then the answer would obviously be "yes.'' To be sure, this "something new" must be of a certain scope, and Raskolnikov's "something new" is precisely of the required scope. This means that although the murder of Lizaveta is accidental, it is nevertheless logical, i. e., it is in keeping with Raskolnikov's ``theory''. For if she is not killed, the world will never learn about Raskolnikov's "something new''.
And one more question: what would have happened if it was Sonya who turned up, and not Lizaveta? Would Raskolnikov have killed Sonya? After all he knew Lizaveta (she had mended his shirts and he had heard someone say that she had a kind smile, and was ill-treated by her sister, the old money-lender). As for Sonya, he had heard her spoken of but had never met her. Perhaps he would have tried, before deciding her fate, to find out if she was ``ordinary'' or `` extraordinary''? But he had decided this question a long time before, or at least he thought he had.
After helping to save Sonya from Luzhin Raskolnikov thinks: "Well, Sofya Semyonovna, let us see what you will have to say now!" He believes that he has now a new argument to support his theory, and he even hopes that Sonya will agree with him. "Suppose, Sonya, you had known Luzhin's intentions beforehand, and known for a certainty that they meant the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children, and of yourself into __PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 3* 67 the bargain (I put it that way, because you consider yourself of no account). Polenka as well. .. because she is destined to take the same road. Well, then: suppose you were allowed to decide that either one or the other should go on living, that is, either that Luzhin should live and go on doing evil, or that Katerina Ivanovna should die. How would you decide? Which of them should die? That is my question.'' That question is full of Jesuitical cunning.
But his violent arguments are annihilated by the reply of the quiet, unbending Sonya. "A human being a louse?" she exclaims. She does not argue with him; she does not even say he is wrong. She just does not understand him. And this absence of understanding proves to be stronger than any ``cunning''.
Instead of asking Sonya whether "Luzhin should live and go on doing evil, or Katerina Ivanovna should die" Raskolnikov could well put another question, not to Sonya, but to himself: whether he should be able to say "something new" or whether Lizaveta should die. In a reallife situation this question proves to be still simpler: whether Raskolnikov should go to prison (for the first murder), or whether Lizaveta should die? He would draw a maximum of twenty years of penal servitude, but Lizaveta would remain alive. But his ``arithmetic'' works infallibly, and he calculates in a trice (in fact this was calculated a long time ago) that it would be better for her to die, than for him to go to a prison camp. The ``trichina'' has done its job.
The theory of "two categories" is not merely a justification for crime but a crime itself. From the very beginning, even before it is precisely 68 formulated, it foreshadows and decides the question as to who should live and who should die. Basically it is also the theory of those who want to "sit in judgement of the whole world and to execute those who look just a little different from them"(The Gambler).
Any hypothetical list of people divided into Raskolnikov's "two categories" (the list would be drawn up by the ``extraordinary'', of course) inevitably turns into an actual list of those who are destined to live and those who are destined to die.
Once the "two categories" are defined, the rest is predictable. The old woman is the most useless, the most harmful ``louse'' and therefore die she must. The whole thing begins, but does not end with her.
Raskolnikov did not kill Lizaveta by accident; it was Sonya whom he ``accidentally'' did not kill.
It is possible, someone might argue, that at the moment of the crime Raskolnikov was not motivated by his ``theory'' but rather driven by `` instinct''. Of course, ``instinct'' was there. It was ``instinct'', for example, that told Raskolnikov, when he was at the police station, that nobody had suspected him of the crime. "Triumphant satisfaction in his safety, his escape from imminent looming danger, filled for the time his whole being, to the exclusion of all forebodings, all doubts and questions, all critical analysis, all riddles about the future. It was a moment of full, spontaneous, and purely animal rejoicing.'' And there were other moments of such ``cunning'' and `` rejoicing'' on Raskolnikov's part. But does this not mean that unjust aims had corrupted him and 69 turned him into a coward? Does this not mean that the whole idea of ``arithmetic'' was nothing but animal instincts, that, in fact, it released them?
The question of instinct and sickness aside (the whole crime and the article as part of it could be put down to sickness), let us recall Porfiry's words: "Why is it, old chap, that you see just these dreams in your sick delirium, and not others?''
[70] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``I Did Not Prostrate Myself ``Suddenly and unexpectedly a bitter
hatred for Sonya seemed to flood his
heart."
Hatred for Sonya? For "Sonechka the eternal"? For the ``gentle'' Sonya who wants to save Raskolnikov and who is ready to go with him to the end of the world? This comes as a shock to the reader, as something inexplicable, or pathological.
The story continues: "Surprised and almost terrified by this feeling, he lifted his head and gazed at her, meeting her eyes fixed on him with a look of anxiety and anguished care. There was love in that look; his hatred vanished like a shadow. It had not been real; he had taken one feeling for another.''
71What can one expect from an ``extraordinary'' man who has come to ask an ``ordinary'' person for help? He will inevitably despise himself for his ``weakness'' and will hate that other person for his ``humiliation''. And what does someone from the ``higher'' category fear most of all when he opens up before the ``lower''? It is disgrace that he fears, disgrace in his own eyes: "you succumbed, you could not hold out, you bankrupt Napoleon. ..''
Raskolnikov's momentary hatred for Sonya is understandable. But what accounts for the bitterness of his feelings which surprised even Raskolnikov himself? What did he expect to see in her eyes?
Dostoyevsky shows here a new facet in the character of an excessively proud man. Raskolnikov is haunted by suspicion; he is mistrustful of people and imagines that all they think about is how to humiliate him, to cast him out of the ``higher'' category. For Raskolnikov life becomes one bitter struggle to realize his ambitions, a struggle in which sincerity and frankness are ``weaknesses'' which others will inevitably take advantage of. And since, for Raskolnikov, all people must have the same view of life, he has reasons for despising himself for his `` weakness'', and still more, for fearing that others might hold him in contempt. The logic here is remarkable although it eludes Raskolnikov himself: he, a ``chosen'' and an ``extraordinary'' one, ascribes his own features to all people, including the ``ordinary'' ones, thereby revealing the essential falseness of his theory and the groundlessness of his claims.
72But does Raskolnikov suspect Sonya of all that too? Is he afraid of her? Evidently he is.
The moment when this sudden feeling of bitter hatred appeared is carefully planned by Dostoyevsky. It appeared at the very last moment before Raskolnikov's dreaded confession. This feeling was to hold him back from making his confession. And if he had seen in Sonya's eyes even the slightest hint of what he had expected to see he would not have made it. But "there was love in that look; his hatred vanished like a shadow. It had not been real; he had taken one feeling for another. All that it meant was that the moment had come.''
This feeling appeared immediately after Sonya rejected his logic (``either that Luzhin should live and go on doing evil, or that Katerina Ivanovna should die''). For he had hoped that she would support him, that she would shoulder some of his burden and agree with him in everything. But she did not agree. One of the most humiliating things for a ``wise'' man, for someone who wants to have his way at all costs, is to see his syllogism smashed by the elementary logic of life. Sonya, this ``weakling'', suddenly refuted a ``wise'' man, a thinker. . . How dared she? For disagreeing with him was the same as humiliating him. Hence the ``outburst'' of suspicion which turned into hatred. But Sonya, who did not agree with him, and who did not want to humiliate him either, loved him and was prepared to shoulder his burden. "His hatred vanished like a shadow.''
Nevertheless, after he had confessed the murder, his old suspicion suddenly reappeared: "And what would it matter to you, what could it matter to you if I confessed now that I had done __PRINTERS_P_73_COMMENT__ 33---707 73 wrong? What could you find in such a meaningless triumph over me? Oh, Sonya, was it for that I came to you?" These are the key words-" meaningless triumph''. That was what he sought in her eyes and feared to find. Yes, more than anything else he feared Sonya's "meaningless triumph" over him. Only one person-he himself-has the right to ``triumph''' (not a ``meaningless'' one, of course).
Sonya had begun walking the streets only five weeks before; and Raskolnikov had committed his crime only a few days before. Their paths crossed at the most critical point of their lives. Their souls met at a time when they were still sensitive to pain, their own and others, when they had not yet grown accustomed to it. Raskolnikov fully realized the significance of this coincidence. That was why he had chosen Sonya, had chosen her for himself.
And although that was his first visit to Sonya (he came for his own sake, not for hers), Raskolnikov tortured her with his cruel questions:
``You don't get money every day?" The question could have been asked by "the man from underground'', another of Dostoyevsky's heroes.
``Polenka will probably go the same way?''
``No! No! That can't be! No!" Sonya almost shrieked in desperation, as if someone had plunged a knife into her. "God, God will not allow such a terrible thing!...''
``He lets it happen to others.''
``No, no! God will protect her! God will protect her!" she repeated beside herself.
``Perhaps God does not exist,'' answered Raskolnikov, with malicious enjoyment. He looked at her and laughed. Sonya began to sob.
74``Some five minutes passed. He went on walking up and down the room in silence, without looking at her. At last he went up to her; his eyes were glittering. He took her by the shoulders with both hands and looked into her weeping face. His piercing eyes were dry and inflamed, his lips twitched violently. . . With a sudden swift movement he stooped, fell to the ground, and kissed her foot...
`` 'Why, why do you do that? To me!'
`` T prostrated myself not before you, but before all human suffering,' he said wildly, and walked away to the window.''
What is this? The supreme expression of human kindness (and this is perhaps what Raskolnikov himself thought)? Or an exalted expression of anguish for the sufferings of the human race?
``.. .not before you, but before all human suffering''. But why not "before you''?
The ultimate meaning of this phrase, interpreted in terms of Raskolnikov's ``arithmetic'', is cruel. He is saying, in effect, that Sonya, too can and should be sacrificed to "all human kind''. It is not so difficult to exclaim "Sonechka the eternal'', but it is much more difficult, and so far impossible, for Raskolnikov to release her from the "lower category'', indeed to cast off the `` categories'' altogether.
The scene of Raskolnikov's prostration before Sonya is an extremely important and powerful scene. It is indeed an exalted symbol. . . but of what? A symbol of anguish? Yes, but not pure anguish. It is a symbol of pain vitiated by the ``trichinae''. It is an image of human kindness, but it is the sort of kindness which, like any abstract __PRINTERS_P_75_COMMENT__ 33* 75 humaneness, goes together with cruelty towards a particular person.
Dostoyevsky wrote: "To love man in general most likely means to despise, or even to hate the man who is standing next to you.''
``Anyone who loves humanity in general almost always loves only himself,'' says Nastasya Philippovna (The Idiot). "The more I love humanity as a whole, the less I love people in particular, that is individuals taken one by one. I can never understand how it is possible to love those who are close to you. The ones who are close to you are the very people whom it is impossible to love,'' says Ivan Karamazov.
``.. .not before you but before all human suffering.'' These words are pronounced by a tongue that is ``sinful'', ``idle'', and ``cunning''. Raskolnikov wants to tell one ``truth'' but has given away another. Without the cruel questions asked in a malicious, bitter tone, and without this "not before you'', the whole scene would become too ``elevated'' and sickly sweet, and would fail to reveal fully Raskolnikov's character.
Raskolnikov's prostration before Sonya here is different from his prostration before her at the end of the novel, when this terrible contradiction (``not before you, but before all'') is resolved, and no words are necessary.
But we are still a long way from the end. Meanwhile Raskolnikov would yet say many times: "Oh, we are such different people!. . . We don't match. And why, why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that!" He would still feel that "he really hated Sonya, especially now when he had made her more unhappy.'' And this after 76 he prostrated himself before all human suffering!
He would still wonder, on his way to the police station: "Do I love her? No, surely I don't? Why, I drove her away just now like a dog. Well, did I, in fact, need to get the crosses from her? Oh, how low I have fallen! No, I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, and watch her heart being torn and tormented! I wanted something, anything, to cling to, some excuse for delay, some human being to look at! I, who had such confidence in myself, such visions of what I would do! I am a beggarly, worthless wretch, I am a miserable wretch!''
Here one feels that a different outcome is finally possible. But Raskolnikov would still torment Sonya, even in the prison camp. Even there he would feel ashamed.
Ashamed? But before whom? Before Sonya? But Sonya was afraid of him, and was it before her that he should be ashamed?
And still he was ashamed even before Sonya, and tormented her on account of this, treating her roughly and with contempt. On the other hand he was not ashamed of his shaven head and his manacles. His pride had been hurt, and as a result he fell ill. "She always stretched out her hand to him timidly, sometimes even half withdrawing it, as if she feared he would repulse her. He always grasped it reluctantly, always greeted her with a kind of irritation, sometimes remained obstinately silent all through her visit. There had been occasions when she had quailed before him and gone away deeply hurt.''
That is the meaning of "not before you but before all human suffering.''
77 __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``It's My Sin! ``No, Rodion Romanovich, my dear
chap, Mikolka isn't in this at all."
And if Raskolnikov "for some reason" does not think of Lizaveta, there can surely be no reason why he should think of some Mikolka who for some unknown reason has confessed the murders. Thank God he has! For he has thus saved an ``extraordinary'' man and given him a chance to say his "something new''. And if Raskolnikov has thought of Lizaveta once or twice, he has never thought of Mikolka at all.
Mikolka for Raskolnikov is one of those who "live in obedience and like it''. "In my opinion they ought to obey because that is their 78 destiny, and there is nothing at all degrading to them in it.'' Such a ``destiny'' even gives them a sense of purpose in life.. . It must be a pleasant and joyous feeling to know that "you are the material" to be used by ``extraordinary'' men, who will model out of you something they alone know (or maybe don't know yet). Such is Raskolnikov's attitude to people, an attitude dictated by his theory.
At first there is an imperceptible connection between Mikolka and Raskolnikov. But gradually this connection becomes more tangible. One of them murders, robs and sneaks away. The other (the lad Mikolka) is with his friends: "Down below someone tore out of a flat shouting and did not so much run as tumble down the stairs, yelling at the top of his voice: 'Mitka! Mitka! Mitka, Mitka! Blast your eyes!' "
The connection grows stronger: Raskolnikov is being hunted and Mikolka quite accidentally saves him. Raskolnikov hides in the unlocked apartment from which the boisterous lad has run a minute before.
The connection becomes more explicit as the plot unfolds. As Raskolnikov leaves the scene of his crime he accidentally drops a pair of earrings. Mikolka picks them up. .. Later Raskolnikov lies on his couch and listens to Razumikhin telling how Mikolka sold the earrings for two roubles and "when he got the note he changed it at once, drank two glasses of vodka, took his change, and went.''
After the news about the murder had spread Mikolka was detained "at the toll-gate, at an inn. He had gone in, taken off his silver cross and 79 asked for a glass of vodka for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes later a woman went into the cowshed, and saw him through a crack, in the cart-shed next door. He had tied his girdle to a beam and made a noose in it; he was standing on a block of wood and was just about to put his neck in the noose; the woman yelled blue murder, and people ran in: 'So that's it!'-'Take me/ said he, 'to such-and-such a police station; I will confess everything.' "
If Mikolka had hanged himself he would have saved Raskolnikov for the second time. As things turned out he was to save Raskolnikov again, but now he was saying:
``I hadn't the least idea! I heard of it two days later.''
``Why didn't you come forward before this?''
``From fear.''
``Why did you try to hang yourself?''
``Thinking.''
``Thinking what?''
``That they would pin it on me.''
But presently Mikolka pleaded guilty. By the way, he did not forget Mitka: "Mitka is innocent, he had nothing to do with any of it.''
But Mikolka's story does not end here. This is what Porfiry tells Raskolnikov: "First of all, he is still a lad, not grown up yet, and he is confessing now not because he is scared but because he believes his own inventions, since in his own way he's an artist. He is innocent, impressionable, and emotional, and his imagination runs away with him. He can sing and dance and he tells stories so well that, they say, people come from miles round to hear him. He has been to school, too, 80 and he is ready to die of laughing over nothing at all, and every now and then he drinks himself silly with vodka, not really for the sake of getting drunk so much as because somebody plies him with drink-like a child again. And when he stole that time he didn't know it was stealing, because 'if I pick it up from the ground, why is that stealing?'"
It also turns out that some members of his family are dissenters, followers of a religious sect. "It is not long since he himself spent two years under the obedience of some elder in his village. . . And what's more, he was once all for becoming a hermit himself! He was a regular zealot, used to get up in the night to pray, and read himself silly with old books, what they consider the `genuine' ones. St. Petersburg had a very powerful effect on him, especially the female sexand the vodka, too. He is impressionable, and he forgot the village elder and everything else. I have been told that a painter here got quite attached to him and Mikolka used to go and see him sometimes, and then this affair came along!" (That is an ``ordinary'' Mikolka, a living refutation of the theory of "two categories'', Mikolka who is regarded by some critics, together with Lizaveta and Raskolnikov's mother, as a mere "artistic detail".)
``Well, he felt afraid, he tried to hang himself. He tried to run away. What can be done about the way the common people think of our justice? Some of them find the mere word `trial' terrifying. Whose fault is that? Well, apparently he has remembered the good elder now that he is in prison: the bible has made its appearance again, too. Do you, Rodion Romanovich, know what some 81 of these people mean by suffering? It is not suffering for somebody's sake, but simply ' suffering is necessary'-the acceptance of suffering, and if it is at the hands of the authorities, so much the better.. . What, can't you admit that such fantastic creatures are to be found among people of his kind? They often crop up. I have taken a fancy to Mikolka and I am investigating him thoroughly. . . No, Rodion Romanovich, my dear chap, Mikolka isn't in this at all. . . It's somebody else, somebody who committed murder, yet he thinks of himself as an honourable man, despises other people and goes about like a martyred angel. No, what has Mikolka to do with all this, my dear Rodion Romanovich? There's no Mikolka in it.''
Raskolnikov is listening but hears nothing. He is debating with himself whether he should say his "something new" or whether Mikolka should go to prison. Not exactly ``debating'' of course. For he made his decision long ago, and it seems to him that he will abide by it all his life.
It is not the earrings that fasten Mikolka to Raskolnikov, but something which is invisible and cannot be torn asunder: he is doomed by Raskolnikov as one of the ``lower'' category. It is not the earrings, and not only St. Petersburg, but the article by the ``trichinae-affected'' Raskolnikov that brings down disaster on him. For this article regiments the lives of all the Mikolkas (even those yet to be born) for thousands of years to come, although they (odd fellows!) suspect nothing and go on doing whatever they are doing: painting walls, some of them even trying to make their way as artists, pleading guilty to 82 crimes they have not committed, praying to God and drinking themselves silly with vodka ( incidentally, the muzhik who beat his horse to death in Raskolnikov's early dream is also called Mikolka).
[83] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``You're the Killer!" ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ``I'm guilty."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ``Of what?"
``Of evil thoughts."
Dostoyevsky finally gets down to Raskolnikov's real motives, and shows that the motives themselves are criminal. He develops this idea with great artistry, by creating a kind of "mirror image'', a "man from underground''.
This is not Pushkin's "man in black" who commissioned Mozart to write a requiem, nor Lermontov's Unknown from The Masquerade. He is a real, down-to-earth type which makes him all the more frightening. "He was wearing a sort of long robe and a waistcoat, from a 84 distance he resembled a peasant woman. His head, in a greasy cap, hung down, and his whole figure seemed to stoop. From his flabby wrinkled face he seemed to be over fifty; his sunken little eyes looked hard, morose, and discontented.''
The stranger looks for Raskolnikov and, not finding him, leaves the house. Raskolnikov dashes after him as if driven by an irresistible force. At first they walk in silence, side by side, neither of them saying a word. .. Suddenly the stranger turns to Raskolnikov. . . "The killer,'' he says in a low, but clear and distinct voice. Raskolnikov keeps on walking, his knees feeling terribly weak and a chill running up his spine. They walk another hundred paces. Then he mutters hardly audibly: "But why do you... what.. . who is a killer?" And hears: ``You're the killer!''
``Who is he? Who is this man who seems to have sprung up from nowhere? Where was he and what did he see? Everything, doubtless. Why has he risen out of the ground only now? And how could he see-can it be possible?''
But there is nothing mystical about the scene. "That tradesman, that scoundrel is well known as a heavy drinker,'' Porfiry later explains to Raskolnikov. The man saw Raskolnikov go to the place of his crime, and he heard him ask about "the blood''. "I was annoyed that they left you alone, thinking you were drunk. I was so annoyed that I couldn't sleep.'' Heavy drinkers often have a remarkable sense of discernment. Burdened with a guilty conscience, they are quick to spot others like themselves. This "bleary-eyed tradesman" guessed not only and not so much about what Raskolnikov had done as about Raskolnikov's thoughts which he could read as plain as print. 85 Raskolnikov's face was an open target.. .
After this attempt by Porfiry to spring a " little surprise" on Raskolnikov, Raskolnikov senses that something is going to happen...
``He was on the point of opening the door when it began to open of itself. He started and recoiled. The door was opening slowly and quietly, and suddenly he saw a figure-yesterday's stranger from underground. .. 'What do you want?' asked Raskolnikov, terror-struck.
``The man said nothing, but suddenly bowed very low, almost to the ground, low enough at least to touch it with one finger of his right hand.
`` 'Who are you?' cried Raskolnikov.
`` `I'm guilty,' said the man quietly.
`` 'Of what?'
`` 'Of evil thoughts.' "
One man begs forgiveness of the other only because he has had "evil thoughts''. Ironically he asks it of a man whose thoughts are still more evil, and who has already put them into action. One of them begs forgiveness and the other replies: "God will forgive you.'' And after that he "was in better spirits than ever before''. " 'Now we shall fight again' he said with a bitter smile, as he went down the stairs... But the bitterness was directed against himself; he remembered his own `cowardice' with scorn and shame.''
[86] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``She Will Either Die ``Even the news of his mother's death
did not touch him very deeply."
If his mother or sister (one chance in a million) were in Lizaveta's place, would Raskolnikov have killed them? Would his "instinct of selfpreservation" work then, too? And if it did not work, then the theory would have to be readjusted to make an exception for one's relatives.
Ideas often have tremendous power and implacable logic. And if people are to be divided into "two categories'', these could first be tentatively designated as the ``higher'' and the ``lower'' categories. It could also be added that the word ``lower'' has nothing humiliating attached to it 87 (Raskolnikov says so). Words and designations aside, the idea remains that all human beings, according to this theory, are divided into " people proper" and ``non-people'', that this division grants or takes away the right to live. This logic is frightening, but it cannot be dismissed out of hand.
Raskolnikov is being inconsistent when he is afraid to say outright that, according to his `` theory'' Sonya, Lizaveta, his sister, and, of course, his mother are mere ``insects''. But why does not he begin with his mother, if he wants to put his ``theory'' to the final test? "Whoever can dare the most is the most right!''
And could people not "change places" in life and go from one ``category'' to the other? Could Raskolnikov's mother be the money-lender, and the money-lender Raskolnikov's mother? What would happen then?
``Then,'' Raskolnikov might say, "others would have to do what he has not the courage to carry out.'' He did say so, though he put it in a different way: "Of course, many benefactors of mankind who did not inherit power but seized it for themselves, should have been punished at their very first steps. But the first steps of those men were successfully carried out, and therefore they were right, while mine failed, which means I had no right to permit myself that step.''
A son who has to kill his mother in order to test himself, a son who is sorry because he could not bring himself to perform the act-such is the outcome to which the logic of Raskolnikov's "accursed idea" inexorably leads to. But to accept this logic would be suicidal to Raskolnikov. That is why he dreads admitting the very possibility 88 of it. He foresees that his mother will either die of grief or go out of her mind, and when Sonya, months later, breaks the terrible news to him, she sees to her amazement that even this does not touch him very deeply, so far, at least, as she can judge from his outward appearance. He instinctively shuts out any thoughts about his mother (just as he did earlier about Lizaveta), because the thoughts are unbearable to him.
In a curt, matter-of-fact manner Dostoyevsky describes, not Raskolnikov's inborn cruelty, but the ruthlessness of his ``idea'' which has "turned him inside out" and brutalized him.
If Raskolnikov were to act according to his own theory, he would have to repudiate those for whom he surfers, to despise, hate and murder those whom he loves. And he just cannot bear this.
[89] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Out of One Pod" ``I am always glad to meet young
people: you learn from them what is new."
It would seem that Raskolnikov's hatred for Luzhin and Svidrigaylov is a redeeming feature. But is it really so?
Svidrigaylov has good reasons for saying to Raskolnikov: ``Didn't I say we had something in common, eh?" And later: ``Wasn't I right when I said we were out of one pod?" And he has good reasons for repeating: "Here you have come to me now, not only with a definite object, but for something new. That's true, isn't it? Isn't it? Well, then, imagine that I, while I was still on my way here, was counting on you too 90 to tell me something new, and on managing to borrow something from you! You see what we rich men are!''
Svidrigaylov's talk about "something new" reminds us of Raskolnikov's article in which Raskolnikov wrote: "In a word, I deduce that all of them, not only the great ones, but also those who diverge ever so slightly from the beaten track, those, that is, who are just barely capable of saying something new, must, by their nature, inevitably be criminals.''
Raskolnikov is to see himself reflected in Svidrigaylov and that is why he hates him all the more (and that's why he gravitates to him at the same time).
And he also sees his reflection in Luzhin who has come to St. Petersburg not only on business but also to see "something new": "I am always glad to meet young people: you learn from them what is new.'' Luzhin then proceeds to expound his theory of "advance or, as they say now, progress": "If, for example, in earlier times it was said to me: 'Love your neighbour' and I acted on it, what was the result? The result was that I divided my cloak with my neighbour and we were both left half-naked, for according to the Russian proverb: 'If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.' Science, however, says: love yourself first of all, for everything in the world is based on personal interest. If you love yourself alone, you will conduct your affairs properly, and your cloak will remain whole. Economic truth adds that the more private enterprises are established, and the more, so to speak, whole cloaks there are in a society, the firmer will be its foundations and the more will be undertaken for the 91 common good. That is to say, that by the very act of devoting my gains solely to myself, I am at the same time benefiting others with something better than half a torn cloak, and that not by private, isolated bounty, but as a consequence of the general economic advancement.'' When Luzhin comments on the murder of the moneylender: "And what about morals? And principles?" Raskolnikov interposes: "What are you making so much fuss about? It has worked out in accordance with your own theory!" "What do you mean?" "Carry to its logical conclusion what you were preaching just now, and it emerges that you can cut people's throats. ..''
Raskolnikov says "in accordance with your own theory'', but he knows very well that he could have said "in accordance with my theory'', or "in accordance with our theory''.
The most unnatural of ``sins'' is greed, the accumulation of money as an end in itself. Money was still unknown when all the other ``sins'' had appeared. But with money it became possible to buy all the other ``sins'' and to atone for them also with money. People became tempted to buy everything they did not yet have in this life, and in the life hereafter. Luzhin, for example, loved and prized money beyond anything in the world, "his money which he got together laboriously and by every means in his power; it raised him to the level of everything that had been superior to him.'' The old money-lender also sought to rise to that ``superior'' level. But she knew she did not have a chance to do so in this world and willed all her money to a monastery in memory of her soul. There is no one else that Raskolnikov hates more than the money-lender 92 and Luzhin. But curiously enough, although Luzhin needs ``millions'' and Raskolnikov wants to "work out his idea'', both the ``idea'' and the ``millions'' (even the old woman's ``thousands'') are got at one and the same price, and those who pay for them are the ``weaklings''. By killing Lizaveta Raskolnikov finishes up what the old money-lender has left undone. And Luzhin suddenly becomes his competitor, disgusting and untalented as he is, but not his enemy. Luzhin's very existence caricatures Raskolnikov's theory and reveals its true meaning. And this, more than anything else, maddens Raskolnikov.
Luzhin and Svidrigaylov are Raskolnikov's doubles, for they have what is the worst in Raskolnikov. They are like a mirror which reflects his own image. He knows this and wants to smash the mirror. But Luzhin is his small, paltry double, a little mirror. He is a worthless man, petty and boring, and is unaware of his kinship with Raskolnikov. By contrast, Svidrigaylov, a cynic and at the same time a romantic, the last of his kind, is a talented man in his own way; he is endowed with a keen power of observation, and he sees through Raskolnikov at a glance.
It turns out, then, that in order to hate and despise even such people as Luzhin and Svidrigaylov, in order to fight with them, one must first have the right to hate and despise, to have the moral right to engage in such a fight. As a murderer, and an over-ambitious person, Raskolnikov has no such right. For he may at any moment be asked the murderous question: "And what about you?" In fact this question is put to him.
It is significant that, in trying to reason out the motives of his crime Raskolnikov is on the 93 offensive all the time (out of his moral weakness, of course). Once, after the murder, he attacks Svidrigaylov with "They say that you drove Marfa Petrovna to her grave; is that so?" Svidrigaylov does not yet know that this question is asked by a murderer. But when Raskolnikov again attacks Svidrigaylov accusing him of eavesdropping, he receives a sensible reply: "If you are so sure that one can't listen at doors, but that one can bump off any old woman for one's fancy, then you'd better be off at once to America somewhere.'' Svidrigaylov has good grounds for telling Raskolnikov: ``You're a pretty fair cynic yourself. At any rate, you have all the makings of a very considerable one. There are many things you know how to recognize, many. . . and, indeed, you are capable of doing many things, too.'' And shortly before his suicide he again thinks: "What a rascal that Raskolnikov is, though! He has brought a lot on himself. He may become a great rogue in time, when the nonsense has left him, but now he wants to live too much.''
One can imagine Raskolnikov in his delirious sleep listening to Svidrigaylov speaking to him from the other world: "You drove your own mother to her grave, you `first-born'.. . Under what category did you write her off, 'Rodya, my precious Rodya?'. .. Don't listen at doors...''
And Luzhin could, in all justice, ask Raskolnikov: "You say it's wrong to frame Sonya. But is it right to kill and rob?''
One can imagine Luzhin's sincere and diabolical joy when he learns at last who the murderer is.
But why should he be worse than Raskolnikov in his own eyes (even from the point of view of 94 Raskolnikov's article) ? For he is sincerely convinced that Raskolnikov is an idler, and that Sonya is an immoral woman who corrupts society and that if she has not stolen today she definitely will do so tomorrow. And why not, once she has got used to it? And she could just as well get used to her ``profession''. The same idea has occurred to Raskolnikov, too: " 'Three ways are open to her--- to throw herself into the canal, to end in a madhouse, or. . . or, finally, to abandon herself to debauchery that will numb her mind and turn her heart to stone.' The last idea was repulsive to him, but he was sceptical, he was young, he had an abstract and consequently cruel mind, and therefore he could not but believe that the last course, of yielding to corruption, was the most likely.'' And Luzhin most likely thinks about himself as a man who has restored justice by slipping that banknote to her. He also "accelerates the progress of history'', he also "moves the world"! He has included Raskolnikov and Sonya in the category of the ``material'', while Raskolnikov has done exactly the same thing with him and Sonya. Sonya is thus part of the ``material'' both in Raskolnikov's and Luzhin's view. Her only place is in that category. And then comes that outburst: " Sonechka, Sonechka Marmeladova, Sonechka the eternal, while the world lasts!''
Luzhin will probably rejoice still more, though pretending to be shocked, when he learns why Raskolnikov's mother died. He has not killed, as Raskolnikov has, and he is not guilty of lechery, as Svidrigaylov is, and he is not the type that commits suicide. But all that does not make him any better than the other two. In fact, he is more repulsive because of his callousness and lack of 95 compassion, and more dangerous in his routine, ``useful'' occupation, in his methodical, cold-- blooded pursuit of his career. He is more business-like, more efficient, than the other two, and it is he, and others like him, who eventually become "the masters of life''.
Is the future envisioned by Svidrigaylov any different from the future in Raskolnikov's dreams? One sees it as something drab and loathesome"a country bathhouse full of spiders''; to the other the future means universal and ``perpetual'' war. One speaks about the future with a sardonic grin; while the other talks about it with an animation which is equally cheerless. . . With all their differences, they see the future as something hopeless and inhuman. "But can't you imagine anything more pleasant and more just than that!" Raskolnikov protests against Svidrigaylov's "country bathhouse''. But the remark equally applies to his own anticipation of a "perpetual war''.
And how does Luzhin's idea of the future differ from Raskolnikov's? "Die, dogs, if you are not happy,'' is the creed of this ``progressive'' man, the keynote of his talks about "the whole cloak''. We know nothing about Luzhin's dreams, but we know very well what he does in waking life. "Carry to its logical conclusion what you were preaching just now, and it emerges that you can cut people's throats,'' Raskolnikov tells Luzhin. With Raskolnikov, however, wholesale massacre, "blood as a matter of conscience'', is not even the outcome but the starting point.
What Raskolnikov sees in his last dreams is what all the Raskolnikovs, Luzhins, Svidrigaylovs and many others say and think about. 96 Raskolnikov's dreams reflect not only what the Raskolnikovs are thinking, but also what the Luzhins and the Svidrigaylovs are doing: the former counting their money, and the latter driving children to suicide.
The devil in Luzhin is greed, in Svidrigaylov it is lust, and in Raskolnikov-ambition. Filled with hatred, fear and contempt for one another, they have one common point. It is: "Love yourself first of all.'' It is: "I want to have my own life, or else it is better not to live at all.'' It is: "The aim justifies the means.'' It is: "Everything is permitted.'' It is contempt for the people. It is Raskolnikov's ``arithmetic''. This is their wealth, their ``capital''; this is what makes them ``rich''. `` Trichina'', in short, is what they have in common.
This device of giving different characters a common point which unexpectedly but sharply shows up the wrongness of their aims is found in other works by Dostoyevsky (for example, Arkady Dolgorukov and Lambert in A Raw Youth, Ivan and Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazou). The device is artistically convincing being in accord with situations in real life, and at the same time enables the author to give the reader a deeper insight into reality.
There is a curious coincidence between Crime and Punishment and The Divine Comedy. In the first canto of Dante's work the author recalls that "in the middle of the journey of his life" he got lost in a dark forest and barely escaped death at the claws of a lion, a she-wolf and a leopard. The forest symbolizes the sinful life of man on earth, and the three beasts stand for the three most widespread vices: the lion for pride, the she-wolf 97 for greed, and the leopard for lust. Raskolnikov, Luzhin and Svidrigaylov embody the same vices. Raskolnikov, according to his own theory, must love those whom he hates, must be an ally of his enemies. That he cannot bear.
[98] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "Two Separate Personalities" ``At this moment an instantaneous
revulsion of feeling seemed to sting
Raskolnikov."
Raskolnikov sounds strained when he speaks about the "good aims" for which he committed his crime. But does he not sound equally strained, when he confesses his "wrong aims"? To be sure, one cannot identify Raskolnikov completely with Luzhin and Svidrigaylov, to reduce him to "the point in common" which they share. The problem is much more complicated, for it is not a matter of exposing Raskolnikov as a criminal but of understanding his tragedy.
"And how could you, you, the man you are... bring yourself to do this?" asks Sonya. "I __PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 4* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1971/RRD247/20070826/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.08.26) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ understand what questions are occupying your mind-moral ones, aren't they?" says Svidrigaylov. "Questions appropriate to a man and a citizen? But let them be; why should they concern you now? Ha, Ha! Because you are still a man and a citizen? But if so, you shouldn't have got yourself into this; don't thrust yourself into other people's affairs.'' So it seems that Raskolnikov has thrust himself into "other people's affairs''.
Everything which Raskolnikov encounters in life calls forth its opposite in his consciousness. Raskolnikov is not a "single personality''.
Myshkin in The Idiot says that in olden times people were "single personalities'', while his contemporaries are "multiple personalities''. Shigalev (The Possessed) begins with "unbounded freedom" and arrives at "unbounded despotism''. Arkady Dolgorukov (A Raw Youth) craves " respectability. . . in its highest form; but how it could go together with the Lord knows what other cravings. . . is a mystery. .. To cultivate the highest ideal and at the same time to stoop to meanness, and to do this quite sincerely.. .'' "Two abysses at onoe"-the abyss of goodness and the abyss of evil-open before the heroes of The Brothers Karamazov. The split of man is the subject of an earlier novel by Dostoyevsky, entitled The Double (1846). Many years later the writer noted that although the artistic conception of the novel was far from perfect, the idea underlying it was valid. He wrote: "Why should I lose an excellent idea, a type whose social significance is so great, whom I have discovered and given to the world. . . No other idea I have worked on in my writings is more serious than this one.''
Raskolnikov is of the type Dostoyevsky speaks 100 of here, and in the character of Raskolnikov is successfully realized the idea which the writer considered to be the most serious he had ever worked on.
Razumikhin's words explain a good deal: "I have known Rodion for a year and a half; he is moody, melancholy, proud, and haughty. . . He is kind and generous. . . Really, it is as if he had two separate personalities, each dominating him alternately.''
In ``transgressing'' Raskolnikov does violence to himself. But when he is moved to magnanimous acts, for which Razumikhin loves him so much, he carries them out naturally and without strain.
There are two Raskolnikovs, one being the opposite of the other. And these two opposite personalities are in constant clash. This is revealed in the very first paragraph of the novel where Raskolnikov is described as going to his ``rehearsal'' somewhat irresolutely. This is not a weakness but part of an unceasing struggle between the hero's "two personalities''. This clash is felt in every word he utters, in everything he does-in his relations with his mother and sister, with Sonya, Razumikhin, even in his sufferings and in his sickness. It is in his words and actions, in his thoughts and feelings, in his conscious and subconscious mind, both when he is awake and when asleep. Even his dreams clash. Some are an outcry of human nature against murder,^^*^^ _-_-_
^^*^^ Here is how the dream in which Raskolnikov sees himself as a boy was originally conceived in Dostoyevsky's notes for the novel: "It may be that there is a law of nature operating in us of which we are ignorant, but which cries out in every one of us. Dream.''
101 others re-enact murder. There is that "accursed vision" of which he speaks with "gloomy rapture''. But the best summary of this clash, of this split, is found in Razumikhin's assessment of Raskolnikov's article: "blood as a matter of conscience''.``Blood as a matter of conscience"-this phrase sums up Raskolnikov, a split man.~^^*^^
Let's recall that scene on the boulevard where Raskolnikov steps in to help a drunken girl and then turns away from her: "At this moment an instantaneous revulsion of feeling seemed to sting Raskolnikov.''
What stung him? Why is that revulsion of feeling? The answer is the ``trichina'', the " accursed idea'', this sudden change of aims. One aim calls for certain means; another aim requires other means. This change is almost physically tangible.
The clash of Raskolnikov's "two personalities" comes to a dramatic point when, after seeing the crippled and bleeding Marmeladov home and giving Katerina Ivanovna the money his mother has sent him, he leaves the Marmeladovs' flat.
``But what is this? You are soaked with blood,'' remarks the district chief of police.
`` 'Yes, I am. .. I am all blood-stained!' said Raskolnikov, with a peculiar look; then he smiled, nodded his head, and turned down the stairs.''
``I am all blood-stained'."-Raskolnikov feels that he can atone for the blood he has spilt by helping others in misfortune. He seems to think that Marmeladov's blood can wash off the money-lender's and Lizaveta's blood. Marmeladov's blood and their blood are mixed together. And _-_-_
^^*^^ "RaskoF means ``split''.
102 now Raskolnikov can speak of his crime with a smile, because he feels he can atone for it, that he has already begun to do so.. .``He went down quietly, without hurry; he was in a fever again, but unconscious of the fact, and full of a strange new feeling of boundlessly full and powerful life welling up in him, a feeling which might be compared with that of a man condemned to death and unexpectedly reprieved.''
He is overtaken by the girl Polenka who thanks him for his help. "He laid both hands on her shoulders, finding a certain happiness in looking at her. It seemed to him a very pleasant thing to do, though he did not know why.''
But this feeling of the fullness of life lasts but a moment. The reprieved criminal is again trying to convince himself that he is right.
``'Enough!' he said decidedly and solemnly. 'Away with illusions, away with imaginary terrors, away with spectres!...'" Here the note of "imaginary terrors" recalls Raskolrukpv's first meeting with Marmeladov.
And then he exclaims: "There is life! Was I not living just now?" Yes, but at that moment he lived because he was helping the "weak ones''.
Here is a superimposition of one wave upon another, a clash between the bright waves of full vigorous life with the dark, ``trichinous'' ones. And in the whirlpool thus formed Raskolnikov sinks in "gloomy rapture'', mistaking drowning for rescue: " 'My life did not die with the old woman ! May she rest in peace and enough, old woman, your time has come! Now comes the reign of reason and light and... and freedom and power. . . now we shall see! Now we shall measure our strength!' he added arrogantly, as though he 103 were addressing some dark power and challenging it. 'And could it be that I almost resigned myself to living on two hands' breadth of ground?' "
Light and dark became mixed again.
``His pride and self-confidence grew with every minute; each succeeding minute he was a different man from what he had been in the preceding one. But what had happened that was so special? What had so transformed him? He himself did not know.''
Raskolnikov seems to have two motives for his crime, the right one and the wrong one: "to do good for people'', and to have power over others as an end in itself. It also seems that his crime has been impelled by poverty and his feeling of despair over the future of his mother and sister, and therefore it can be justified, at least partly.
The struggle that rages in Raskolnikov is not only between lofty aims and base means. There is another, mostly unconscious struggle, a struggle between right and wrong aims. This is where the real split begins.
It is true that two motives clash in Raskolnikov's mind, but they only seem to be the motives for his crime. Actually the struggle is between motives for the crime and motives against it. For Dostoyevsky the question is not how to justify a crime but whether a crime can be justified at all. "It is better,'' Dostoyevsky wrote, "to believe that happiness cannot be bought at the price of wrongdoing than to feel happy knowing that wrongdoing has been committed.. . What is good about a fortune gained at the price of injustice and even murder? What is truth for man as an individual should be truth for a nation as a whole.
``Two personalities'', two aims.
104Raskolnikov has a righteous aim. It is to be found not in his crime, and not in his `` arithmetic'', and not in his ``calculations'', but in his earlier belief in universal happiness, in his selfless rescue of children from a blazing house, in his ``unarithmetical'' assistance to people, in his `` unarithmetical'' readiness to give himself up to the authorities in order to save his sister from Svidrigaylov. It is in his last words to his mother: "Your son loves you now more than himself.'' And this righteous aim is achieved by righteous means (the aim determines the means), and in the final analysis leads to righteous results (the results reveal the aim). But there is another, unjust and criminal aim, which temporarily dominates all the others-it is to test one's ``extraordinary'' qualities at the expense of other people. There is also the self-deceptive conviction that one may and must sacrifice others for oneself and comfort oneself (and them) with something like ``I'll make up for it sometime'', or offer no comfort at all. So let them, these others, consider their sacrifice as the greatest honour and happiness, let them regard this as a lato of nature. ``I'll make amends! I'll compensate for it yet, . . with some sort of good deed. . . I still have another fifty years ahead of me!" says Arkady Dolgorukov (A Raw Youth) in justification for his wrongdoing.
This supersession of righteous aims with wrong ones, the gradual transformation of the first into the second, takes place amidst a ruthless moral struggle. But the struggle does not end with the transformation. For the transformation is not final; it is not irreversible. The defeat of the righteous aims, though disastrous, is temporary and incomplete. Raskolnikov's tragedy is in his __PRINTERS_P_105_COMMENT__ 4B-707 105 moral defeat. But if this defeat were the result of a surrender, instead of the result of an arduous, ceaseless struggle, Raskolnikov's resurrection would be impossible.
Dostoyevsky's exploration of the tragic struggle of aims in man reaches great depths in The Brothers Karatnazou (the conversation between Ivan and the devil). Raskolnikov does not only conceive his crime but also carries it out. By contrast, Ivan ``only'' gives Smerdyakov the idea of a crime; he ``only'' prods the latter towards committing murder. Dostoyevsky's point is: the instigator and inspirer of a crime is just as responsible for it as its actual perpetrator. Raskolnikov's "two personalities" follow up the idea of A Raw Youth and, at the same time, anticipate the dual personality of Ivan Karamazov. This calls to mind what Raskolnikov said of Lizaveta's murderer, that is of himself: "He is a great friend of mine.'' And also: "But it was the devil who killed the old hag, not I.. .'' "It's not I but the devil.. .'' thought Raskolnikov about his invisible helper. Raskolnikov also has his ``double'' and his ``devil''.
[106] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``We Take a Lesson ``This casuistry had the cutting edge
of a razor."
``I myself wanted to benefit men,'' says Raskolnikov to Dunya. "I murdered for myself, for myself alone,'' says he to Sonya. Why such contradiction? One recalls his words: "But I am not telling the truth, Sonya. It's a long time since I have told the truth.'' So Raskolnikov is... a mere liar and a hypocrite? But who can be satisfied with such an answer?
``I myself wanted to benefit men"-this is the truth.
__PRINTERS_P_107_COMMENT__ 43* 107``I murdered for myself, for myself alone"--- this is also the truth.
``But I am not telling the truth. . . It's a long time since I have told the truth"-this is yet another truth.
What is this? A vicious circle?
Paradoxically, Raskolnikov is sincerely hypocritical. He lies, but does so to himself. He deceives himselt first of all, for he hides from himself the wrong aims of his crime. "This casuistry had the cutting edge of a razor,'' Dostoyevsky wrote about Raskolnikov, in whom operates a most sophisticated mechanism of self-deception.
``Arithmetic" is the main part of this mechanism.
Here Svidrigaylov finds a point in common with Raskolnikov: "Every man for himself, and that man has the gayest life who is most successful in deceiving himself. Ha, ha!" Svidrigaylov's ``trick'' is also worked out ``arithmetically'': "A single piece of wrongdoing is allowable, if the chief aim is good. One single evil and a hundred good deeds!''
Ivan Karamazov explains his unwillingness to live more than thirty years in this way: "To live until seventy is unfair. It's better to live until you are only thirty: you can at least cheat yourself into thinking you still have that 'shade of nobleness'.''
The fantasies that give the Gambler strength for a time are what kills him at the end.
The hero of A Raw Youth also speaks about his "sincere lies" and about his "Jesuitical cunning towards oneself": "The main thing is to have a convenient excuse always ready. How many times 108 I have tormented my mother and shamelessly neglected my sister. 'Oh, I have my idea, and the rest is just trifles,' I used to say to myself. I was often insulted and this gave me great pain. I would walk off in a huff and then suddenly say to myself: 'Oh, I'm a base fellow, but I still have my idea, and they don't know about it.' The idea was a solace in my disgrace and in moments when I was oppressed by a sense of my unimportance; but all my wrongdoings seemed to find justification in my idea: it relieved me but at the same time clouded my vision.. .''
Right from the beginning Raskolnikov feels that he is deceiving himself. He says concerning his sister's decision to marry Luzhin: "We invent casuistical arguments, we take a lesson from the Jesuits,~^^*^^ and, for a time, contrive to allay our own doubts and convince ourselves that what we are doing is necessary, absolutely necessary, for a good cause. That is the way we are; it is all as clear as day-light.'' But even at a moment when he recognizes his self-deception his ``casuistry'' does not leave him: "That is the way we are.'' By ``we'' he means his mother and sister, and also himself. But while they are "stepping over the barrier" for his sake, he decided, long before he received his mother's letter, to do it for his own sake.
He later tells Sonya: ``Haven't you done the same? You too have stepped over the barrier. .. you were able to do it. You laid hands on yourself, you ruined a life. . . your own (that makes no difference!).'' But he feels that it does make a _-_-_
^^*^^ Ivan Karamazov also speaks about learning from the Jesuits.
109 difference. For she has transgressed for others, and he has done it for himself. In her transgression her soul has escaped injury, while Raskolnikov's transgression has warped his soul. Sonya regards her sacrifice as a crime, while Raskolnikov would like to make his crime look like a heroic deed. "I would not lie about it even to myself!" But he does lie, for the truth is more than he can bear.Since Raskolnikov wants to carry out his project, he looks, consciously and unconsciously, for a chance to do so, and he finally finds it. But since, deep down in his heart, he feels his project is wrong, he looks, again consciously and unconsciously, for some anonymous instigator on whom he can later put the blame, and he finally finds one. "His reactions during this last day, which had come upon him so unexpectedly and settled everything at one stroke, were almost completely mechanical, as though someone had taken his hand and pulled him along irresistibly, blindly, with supernatural strength and without objection. It was as if a part of his clothing had been caught in the wheel of a machine and he was being dragged into it.''
Here "the wheel of a machine" is not outside, but inside him. The ``someone'' is Raskolnikov himself who fears the responsibility for his crime and deliberately deceives himself by shifting it onto "someone else''. And when Raskolnikov calls the murderer ``he'', "a great friend of mine'', "the devil'', he clearly recognizes the unrighteous aims of his crime and is seeking to deceive himself, to put the blame on the ``devil''.
This seemingly desperate situation which Raskolnikov has created for himself conceals from 110 him, for a time, the true motives for his act.
``The urge to lie to ourselves is much more deeply entrenched in us than the urge to lie to others,'' Dostoyevsky wrote. And in The Brothers Karamazov we read: "He who lies to himself and believes in his lies can rqach a point where he becomes incapable of seeing the truth either in himself or in others.''
When Raskolnikov lies to himself he inevitably begins to lie to others. Self-deception leads to deception. When a person deceives himself, that is, when a person convinces himself that he is right although he knows he is wrong, then his deception of others will no longer appear to him as deception, but as supreme truth.
In his article Raskolnikov writes about the Newtons and the Keplers, but he actually has in mind the Napoleons. And he writes in this way not for reasons of censorship: he just finds it easier to deceive himself by writing in this manner.
Raskolnikov even convinces himself that if a criminal feels pain and suffers this is a sure sign of his greatness and Tightness. But this again is nothing but a subtle form of self-deception. Here Raskolnikov anticipates the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. The Inquisitor who acts in the name of Christ has long stopped believing in Christ: "We shall say that we are obedient to Thee and rule in Thy name. . . This deception dooms us to suffering, because we shall have to lie. .. For it is only we, who are the custodians of the secret, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy infants, and a hundred thousand sufferers who will take upon themselves the curse of knowing good and evil.'' This 111 is no ordinary ``arithmetic'', but the ``algebra'', the "higher mathematics" of Jesuitry.
The sole purpose of ``casuistry'' is to invent excuses, to bamboozle oneself, in order to "have a gay life'', that is, in order to allay pangs of remorse. And this is achieved by changing the names of things, by calling a crime a ``non-crime'' or even a great deed.
To call a crime by its real name is unbearable, but calling it something else is a tempting and even inspiring proposition.
When Raskolnikov decides against helping the drunken girl, he exclaims: "A percentage! They have some capital words: they are so soothing and scientific. Once you've said 'a percentage' there is no need to worry any more.''
But it is not only ``they'' who have soothing capital words. He also has such words: "the higher" and the ``lower'' category, ``arithmetic'', "weighing against the common good'', "salutary idea'', etc. He has his own ``percentage''. And once he has pronounced such words as `` arithmetic'' and the "common good'', there are no more reasons for feeling uneasy-or so it would seem. But Raskolnikov does feel uneasy.
[112] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``A Brick to Contribute ``I do not want to wait for the
common weal."
But what explains Raskolnikov's firmness and conviction? From whence come his confidence and assuredness which are so disarming and at times even infectious? From whence comes this curious incorruptibility which makes people trust him? Why, even when he confesses that he killed for his own sake, he still considers himself right and does it with apparent sincerity?
The point here is that Raskolnikov has lost faith in the "common weal'', and this loss of faith is accompanied by pain. And indeed, who 113 has ever seen that "common weal" ? Who has ever lived under a state of "common weal"? Raskolnikov could give only a'negative answer to these questions. And such an answer is entirely understandable against the historical background of that time. The choice between the "common weal" and absolute egocentricity appears in Raskolnikov's mind as a choice between Utopia and reality. He is trying to replace one aim (``the common weal'') by another, opposite aim (self-assertion at any price), not because the first aim does not appeal to him, but because he thinks this aim is unattainable. And his earlier unselfish actions now appear in his consciousness as a powerful argument justifying his present crime.
Raskolnikov has ``discovered'' that there can be no justice in the world, and this ``discovery'' leads him to believe that whatever he thinks or does must be ``right'' and that what he thinks is ``right'' is also ``just''. To him, there has never been, nor will there ever be, a "common weal'', but there is, now, Raskolnikov. This is the meaning of his words: "I do not want to wait for the common weal. I want to have my own life, or else it is better not to live at all.'' Universal perpetual war instead of the "common weal''. Raskolnikov's theory is not merely non-socialist; it is anti-- socialist. "I, they say, contribute a brick to the building of the common weal and that gives me full satisfaction. Ha, ha! But what about me? After all, I shall only live once, and after all I also want...''
Having cast aside his dreams about rebuilding the world according to the laws of the "common weal,'' Raskolnikov acknowledges the ``rightness'' of another, opposite law: "Then I realized that if 114 we have to wait for everybody to become clever it will take too long. Then I saw that it will never happen, that people don't change, and nobody can change them and it's not worth the trouble of trying. Yes, that's it. That's the law of their nature...''
At first "it will take too long,'' and then "it will never happen" and "it's not worth the trouble of trying'', and finally, he does want to (but cannot) live according to the "law of their nature''.
Raskolnikov's going over from the ideal of "the common weal" to the ideal of absolute self-- assertion may be said to be the price he pays for his earlier confused notions about this "common weal'', notions which consist of Utopian dreams combined with mental images of a strictly regimented life. At first he wanted people to worship him for the good which he intended to bestow upon them, but later he wanted them to worship him for his strength alone. The thirst for worship has remained, but it has been modified. The trichina would not be a trichina if it did not poison the best intentions of man. The distance between the messianic idea and the Napoleonic ambition is much shorter than it seems.
The almost imperceptible changing of namesthe replacement of what is ``just'' by what he considers to be ``right''-makes possible the replacement of crime by ``non-crime'', ``weaklings'' by ``lice'' and ``wretches'', and facilitates the transition from a desire to give to a desire to take, from compassion to contempt and hatred, from the idea of power in the name of good to power as an end in itself. But there can be no rightness without justice and that is why Raskolnikov's `` rightness'' is so cheerless, that is why his rapture is so 115 gloomy, and his idea is an "accursed idea''.
Raskolnikov is convinced, sincerely and bitterly convinced, that the "common weal" is unattainable. On this rests his entire theory, and from this stems his self-deception.
In Pushkin's poem Saglieri used this very premise for winding up his mechanism of selfdeception :
``They all do say that there's no truth on earth.
But there's no truth in Heaven either.''
The realization that his aims are egocentric, that he is a criminal, and that there is nothing lofty or noble about the crime he has committed, is more than Raskolnikov can bear. A person who has reached such a level of self-consciousness must (if he does not go out of his mind) either immolate himself, like Svidrigaylov, or renounce his crime. Self-deception is something real, not illusory, but it brings forth illusory ideas about reality and about oneself. Self-deception is a defensive mechanism against truth. It is like a slight indisposition which has a tranquilizing, soothing and even stimulating effect on the mind, because it distracts attention from the main disease which one has no strength to acknowledge, to treat and cure.
Dostoyevsky wrote: "Duplicity, mask, the other side of the truth-all this is bad enough, I agree. But if all people should come forth now as they really are, then I say to you it would be much worse.'' What this means, apparently, is the following : to ask someone who practices deception to acknowledge it when he is unable to get rid of it is like asking a drug-addict to stop taking narcotics. In both cases it can bring on neurosis and even shock. In his story, Bobok, Dostoyevsky 116 deals with people "as they really are'', and shows how things turn out much worse. The dead, which have come back to life for two months, decide to tell no more lies, at least in their graves, and to cast away all feeling of shame: "It is impossible to live and not to tell lies while on earth, because life and lies are synonymous; but here we shall not lie, for a change, or rather for fun. .. Up there everything is tied up with rotten strings. Down with the strings, and let's live these two months truthfully and utterly without shame! Let's strip ourselves naked and shed all our clothes!. . . " And the result? "Corruption at such a place, corruption of the last hopes and aspirations, corruption of the shrunken rotting corpses, corruption to the last moment of their waning consciousness!...'' ``Bobok'' means to utter shameless and nonsensical ``truth'', to be cynical and absurd even on the brink of death. ``Bobok'' is Svidrigaylov's way out of the situation, one totally unacceptable to Raskolnikov.
[117] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``I Am an Aesthetic Louse!'' ``It was to escape the shame that I
wanted to drown myself."
Unable to bear the strain of being a criminal Raskolnikov exclaims: "I am an aesthetic louse!" This means that Raskolnikov is still a human being, but one who is sorry he is a human being.
For him aesthetics means pangs of remorse. It turns out that even ``arithmetic'' is too much of an "aesthetic theory" for him, for it requires validation of the crime and its justification in his own and other people's eyes. But here no validation is called for! No self-deception is needed! (``I've been importuning all-gracious 118 Providence for a whole month, calling on it to witness that it was not for my own selfish desires and purposes that I proposed to act, but for a noble and worthy end.. . ha, ha!'')
``Blood as a matter of conscience" is an unbearable proposition, so it is either blood or conscience. And if conscience is killing you, then it is necessary to kill conscience.
The devil, Ivan Karamazov's ``double'', says: "Conscience! What about it? I make conscience myself. Why am I suffering then? By force of habit, by force of universal human habit formed over these seven thousand years. So, let's throw away the habit and become gods.'' Raskolnikov cannot make conscience himself, he cannot throw it away, although he would like to.~^^*^^
Actually Raskolnikov's ``aesthetics'' is another name for love, conscience and life. He calls them by different names in order to repudiate them. "The fear of aesthetics is the first sign of weakness"-this is what for a while Raskolnikov believes. But his ``aesthetics'' is actually the strongest part of his personality,- it cannot be eradicated. And it is this ``aesthetics'' that will eventually help save and resurrect him. It is incompatible with crime.
``Ugliness will kill,'' says one of Dostoyevsky's _-_-_
^^*^^ Some fascist ideologists extolled Raskolnikov's theory of the "two categories'', giving it a racist slant. But at the same time they denounced Raskolnikov as a man who did not measure up to his ``idea'', asserting that the Russian type, as different from the German, ``masculine'' type, was too soft and ``feminine'' to be able to "see it through''. According to them, the chief characteristic of the German type was that it considered conscience to be a "humiliating absurdity''. The absence of conscience was regarded as the principal quality of the "master race''.
119 heroes. And another: "The world will be saved by beauty.''All of Raskolnikov's self-denunciations, all his calls for putting an end to ``arithmetic'' and ``aesthetics'', his envy of the ``prophets'', of "men of bronze'', may seem illogical but are actually quite consistent with his own logic and come to take on a purely ``aesthetical'' note after "the style of Schiller''. "Lizaveta! Sonya! Poor, meek, gentle creatures, with meek eyes!. . . Why do they not weep? Why do they not groan?. . . They give up everything. . . they look at you meekly and gently. . . Sonya, Sonya, gentle Sonya!. . .''
Man cannot live without ``aesthetics''.
``Genius and evil never go together,'' says Mozart in Pushkin's Mozart and Saglieri. But there are other words, Saglieri's words, which are just as significant:
``Oh Mozart,
You will take a long and never-ending
sleep!
But could it be that he is right
and there's no genius in me?''
``Could it be that I am not a genius, not a Napoleon ?"-this is the doubt that tormented Raskolnikov. For him a crime is an adjunct of genius; this means that only a man of genius can commit crime "as a matter of conscience''. Since he cannot bear the burden of his crime Raskolnikov comes to think that he has failed the test of a genius. Though his ``idea'' is infallible, he is too weak to carry it out. For Raskolnikov, the implementation of an idea does not constitute the final test of its validity. He thinks of all people as either "men of genius" or ``lice''. "Either a hero or dirt, there is nothing in between"---is the credo 120 of "the man from underground''. The "raw youth" has something similar to say: "I just could not imagine myself not being the first in everything and everywhere.''
Dostoyevsky said about Raskolnikov: "His pride was deeply wounded, and it was the wound to his pride that made him fall ill.'' Raskolnikov himself admits: "It was to escape the shame that I wanted to drown myself.''
Svidrigaylov is right when he says about Raskolnikov: "He seems to have persuaded himself that he too is a man of genius, that is to say, he was convinced of it for a period. He suffered, and still suffers, greatly from the thought that, although he was capable of conceiving the theory, it was not in his nature to overstep the bounds of the law, without pausing to reflect, and that it follows that he is not a man of genius. Well, that, for a young man with a due share of self-esteem, is humiliating, especially in our day.''
It is not so much his conscience that makes Raskolnikov suffer, as the thought that he has not been able to kill it; he tried to crush it, but failed. Crime is not born of conscience, but of an attempt to kill it.
Raskolnikov suffers mostly from his shame, mostly but not solely. One part of him suffers from the realization that he has not killed his conscience; the other part from the thought that he has wanted to kill it. The suffering of one is due to the existence of the other. The tension caused by this inner struggle reaches the breaking point. But this is what finally clears away confusion and disentangles the threads of Raskolnikov's conflicting feelings and thoughts.
In such a fierce struggle of contradictory and 121 equally powerful motives there is no room for compromise. The clash of opposite aims in Raskolnikov is so violent that the question of which one of them triumphs in the end becomes a question of life and death, a question of the final choice of path. Under circumstances where motives of the same nature but of less intensity are involved, where the struggle between them is less fierce and less passionate, compromise is the inevitable and permanent condition of existence. This is what we call spinelessness.
The complexity and the entanglement of Raskolnikov's motives, which Dostoyevsky analyzes and portrays with great mastery, show what a painful process his self-consciousness undergoes. Of the real underlying motives of his crime Raskolnikov is not totally conscious. They are reflected in his consciousness not directly, not clearly, but indirectly, as a blurred image. But Dostoyevsky is able, through his fine analysis, to go beyond the apparent and disclose the essence and the real (and terrible) meaning of what is apparent. He splits the nucleus of his hero's self-- consciousness and discovers in it self-deception: most often and most of all man tends to deceive himself, by making his wrong aims appear as right aims, by hiding from himself the clash within him of opposite aims, convincing himself that the struggle is between right aims and wrong means and justifying means that are clearly wrong by pointing to aims that are supposedly right.
It is not in the name of a "pure idea" that Raskolnikov tries to carry out his ``experiment''. The ``idea'' only serves to hide and justify his personal interest.
Raskolnikov's ``arithmetic'' is of a dual nature. 122 ``One hundred is more than one" is what he says, but actually the ``one'' (``I!'') is more than a hundred, more than a thousand or even a million because this is not any ``one'', but an "extraordinary one'', and the hundreds, thousands and millions are mere ``lice''. It is not easy to see through the logic of this ``arithmetic''. But Dostoyevsky is saying that in order that we will become more human, in order that "men will come together" and end the strife among them, we must clearly understand this "double book-keeping" technique.
To understand the complicated pattern of Raskolnikov's consciousness one must understand its main component which is self-deception.
It has been said that Dostoyevsky's hero is all self-consciousness. We may add that Raskolnikov's self-consciousness is constantly striving to be consistent with his thoughts and actions, and that this is what eventually reveals and eliminates self-deception.
Dostoyevsky wrote: "They call me a psychologist. That is not correct. I am a realist in the full sense of the word, that is, I try to portray the depths of the human soul. . . As a realist I seek the human being in man.'' This means that, firstly, according to Dostoyevsky, the artist is not a psychologist (as art is not science); secondly, the subject of Dostoyevsky's realism is "the depths of the human soul''; and thirdly (and most important of all), Dostoyevsky's realism is of a social and humanistic nature: his exploration of "the depths of the human soul" is not an end in itself but a means of discovering "the human being in man''.
And the discovery of "the human being in man" begins with the analysis of self-- 123 consciousness, the exposure of its inconsistencies, the getting rid of self-deception.
Dostoyevsky is primarily a novelist, and not a philosopher, a sociologist or a psychologist. His hero, Raskolnikov, is not a convenient source of quotations and maxims for researchers who often cite them out of context, thus distorting the character. Dostoyevsky's hero is a man obsessed by an idea, a man in whom Dostoyevsky looks for and finds a human being wounded by an idea, killed by an idea or resurrected by it. That is why it is impossible to understand Dostoyevsky from the philosophical, sociological or psychological point of view without understanding him as an artist.~^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Literary works like Crime and Punishment often provide sociologists and social psychologists with more information and insights concerning the problem of the individual, of man's self-consciousness, motives, etc., than tests and polls (whose usefulness is undeniable). The material to be found in such works can be regarded as a crystallization of the tremendous experience accumulated by mankind, analyzed and portrayed by great writers, and tested by time.
[124] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "Coffin''``Air, air, air!"
Svidrigaylov once addressed Raskolnikov with these strange words: "Ah, Rodion Romanovich, every man needs air, air, air!. . . More than anything!''
What kind of ``air''? Raskolnikov thinks that there is ``air'' which one can breathe freely even if one carries the burden of a crime in his soul: "Yesterday somebody said to me that a man needed air, air, air! I must go to him at once and find out what he means by that.''
Raskolnikov sets out to find Svidrigaylov but runs into Porfiry in the doorway. In the 125 conversation that follows Porfiry says: "Plunge straight into life, without deliberation; don't be uneasy-it will carry you direct to the shore and set on your feet. What shore? How should I know? I simply believe that there is still much life before you. . . I know you do not believe me, but it is the sacred truth that life will sustain you. Afterwards you will regain your self-esteem. Now you need only air, air, air!''
Raskolnikov begins shouting at Porfiry, and this is understandable. For Svidrigaylov's words about ``air'' have made a deep impression on him and he has just repeated them to Rasumikhin, and is on his way to Svidrigaylov to find out what he meant by them when he suddenly hears them from.. . Porfiry!
In putting the same words into the mouths of different characters Dostoyevsky achieves an almost telepathic effect. There is not enough ``air'' in the world-this idea cuts across the whole book.
There is not enough air for Katerina Ivanovna who is dying of consumption: "Oh, accursed life!''
This is what Marmeladov shouts about in the tavern: "Do you understand, young man, do you understand what it means to have nowhere left to turn to? No, you do not understand that yet.''
With time Raskolnikov comes to understand this, too, and cries: "I turned nasty.. . Then I lurked in a corner like a spider. But do you know, Sonya, that low ceilings and cramped rooms crush the mind and the spirit? Oh, how I hated that hole.''
It is in his small room that Raskolnikov's ideas took shape. ``Cubbyhole'', ``cupboard'', ``cabin'', 126 ``chest'', ``corner'', ``den'', ``coffin''-this is where he lives and thinks, this is where he breathes. His small room with yellowish wallpaper is an image of the world in which he lives, a world which "crushes the mind and the spirit'', a world where "children cannot remain children'', where there is not enough ``air'' to breathe. (Many of Dostoyevsky's heroes conceived their ideas, similar to Raskolnikov's, in a ``hole'' like this, in a ``corner'', in the ``underground''.)
Thus it is out of feelings of despair and revolt that Raskolnikov wants to "seize it all by the tail just like that and fling it to the devil!" But this world cannot be changed "just like that''. Raskolnikov's ``cure'' is even more dangerous than the sickness itself. And it is not a cure, but poison. In his anarchistic revolt against the hated world Raskolnikov not only uses the means of this world, but also borrows its aims. That is why he is not Luzhin's enemy but only his social rival (another proof of the close kinship between anarchism and bourgeois individualism). Raskolnikov's revolt only perpetuates the old order and serves to intensify all that is abominable in it. Moreover, this order needs such revolts and such crimes, for in hypocritically condemning them it preserves its moral image. Crimes such as that committed by Raskolnikov help the Luzhins to maintain their position as the "pillars of society''.
It is not this world that does not suit Raskolnikov, but his place in this world. He is not trying to stop a bad play but is only trying hopelessly to play a different part in it, in fact the part of the principal hero. His revolt against the world turns into a reconciliation with it on condition that he will have the main role in it. This leads, 127 at best, to renaming things instead of changing them fundamentally.
In showing the absurdity of anarchistic revolt Dostoyevsky sought to discredit all social protest, which he identified with crime. He wanted to reconcile all the contradictions of a sick society. But the picture which he himself had drawn of these contradictions shows that they could not be reconciled, that there was need for a fundamental, essentially revolutionary, and not anarchistic, change of the world. In the words of Rosa Luxemburg, Dostoyevsky hurled a bitter accusation at bourgeois society: "You are the real murderer, the real destroyer of human souls.''
Although Dostoyevsky was against violence, he often committed violence against himself. At times the volcano of his pent-up hatred erupted and hot lava dripped from his pen. There is hardly anything as tense and concentrated in world literature as the conversation between Ivan Karamazov and Alyosha over a bowl of fish soup and a cup of tea in a cheap tavern in the provincial town of Skotoprigonievsk. Here we have in a nutshell the Poem of the Grand Inquisitor, and Ivan's revolt, and Alyosha's revolt; here Alyosha, to the question of what to do with the murderer who hunted a child to his death with dogs right under the eyes of the child's mother, answers in a whisper: "Shoot him!" And this whisper of a monk (who in Dostoyevsky's conception is a future revolutionary) is much more powerful than any sermon on humility. If from a serene cloud like this such lightning could strike, one can only imagine what storms Russia and the whole world were yet to see. "I looked round me, and my soul was stung by human suffering.'' These words were 128 written by Radishchev, the first Russian revolutionary, and Dostoyevsky followed in his wake when he wrote: "I can assure you that I don't like the look of this world.'' And even at moments when he regarded the revolution with extreme hostility Dostoyevsky did not renounce Radishchev. It may be recalled here that Dostoyevsky also opposed Tolstoi's thesis that evil should not be countered by violence. Parodying Levin in Anna Kaienina Dostoyevsky wrote: "No, how can you kill! No, you should not kill the wrongdoer. No, better let him put out the eyes of a child, let him torture the child to death, and as for me I shall go to Kitty.'' Dostoyevsky rejected the idea of practicing nonviolence in the face of evil. "But this surely is a perversion of all notions, this is sentimental gush, this is mindless uprightness; this is a distortion of nature itself.''~^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ It should be noted that the same Dostoyevsky put the case for the unjust wars waged by czarist Russia, using the kind of ``arithmetical'' arguments which he himself so vehemently denounced in his earlier and later works. He advocated the reactionary, Utopian idea that "our czar is a true peacemaker. . . he is against the spilling of human blood,'' that "the war will clear the air we breathe.'' In 1854, Dostoyevsky wrote a patriotic ode entitled On European Events, which contains the following lines:
"So shame on ye, betrayers of the Cross
Who would the light divine conceal!
But God's with us! Hurrah! Our cause is blessed on high,
And who for Christ will not be glad to die?"
In the spring of 1856 he wrote a poem on the coronation of Alexander II:
"His heart with prayer purified,
Our Czar receives his crown today;
And Russia's millions cry in chorus:
0 Lord, do bless our Czar, we pray!"
For this poem Dostoyevsky was given an officer's rank.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 5-707 129Reading these words one cannot but wonder what Dostoyevsky would say about the crimes committed in our time, crimes which have surpassed in cruelty the worst of his forebodings.
Raskolnikov is filled with an unceasing hatred for oppression and oppressors, a hatred which may be called ``sacred''. At the same time he is poisoned with a contempt for those whom he at first sought to emancipate.
As has been said earlier, the ``someone'' onto whom Raskolnikov unconsciously wants to shift his guilt is none other than he himself, and the ``machine'' which is dragging him into self-- deception is inside himself. But here, without absolving Raskolnikov, one cannot but see that this `` someone'' is above all else the split and divided world, and the ``machine'' is, in the final analysis, the social ``machine''.
On close study one can also see that the sentence, "In the beginning was the Word,'' refers only to the ideas behind Raskolnikov's crime, which are contained in his article. But of course the article is not a fruit that has grown without roots, or without soil. The true origin of Raskolnikov's crime is therefore social. And in this sense the sentence, "In the beginning was the Word,'' should be changed to "In the beginning was the Deed'', the deed committed by the entire society of that time.
Raskolnikov is young. He has his whole life ahead of him. He is capable of loving but does not. He is capable of learning, but he does not do that either. And living as he does in a corrupt society he turns all his energy and will-power towards one goal-to attain power at any price, 130 and he finds himself a slave to his "accursed idea''. "Mere existence had always meant little to him; he had always desired more. Perhaps it was just because his desires were so strong that he had considered himself a man to whom more was permitted than to others,'' Dostoyevsky wrote in the Epilogue. But these desires, pure as they might be, were up against a hostile and corrupt world and they soon lost their purity.
The acute contradictions in life become still more acute when reflected in Raskolnikov's contradictory mind. And life with all its confusions appears to Raskolnikov still more confused. The whole question of existence becomes distorted, so that one is either a man of genius or a ``louse'', so that one should either commit a crime or " renounce life altogether, submit obediently, once for all, to destiny, as it is, and stifle everything within oneself, renouncing every right to act, to live, or to love!" To live without killing, to assert oneself without despising or humiliating others, to say "something new" without committing a crime seems impossible to Raskolnikov.
Of course, Raskolnikov is, in a sense, a " product of his time''. To understand this does not mean to forgive, much less to justify his crime. And whose product is "his time"? Who has created it? Why do people in the same epoch act differently from one another? And why does one and the same person act the same way in different conditions? Why does one and the same person solve the same problems in different ways on different occasions? Why is it that when the times, conditions, environments remain essentially unchanged a person can draw lessons from his defeats? The fact that the times are guilty does not __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 5* 131 exonerate Raskolnikov. And Dostoyevsky did not relieve his hero from his personal responsibility; but he went further than any other writer had done before him and discovered that this responsibility could not be measured with other than social standards and that Raskolnikov had to accept these standards whether he liked it or not.
If there is a character in the novel whose offence can be justified on account of the times and environment, it is Sonya, and not Raskolnikov. It is the unbearable social conditions that are responsible for her fall, her sin. This Russian Magdalene began walking the streets for reasons quite different from those of the biblical Magdalene. Sonya is more like Antigone.^^*^^ And if there is to be anything that likened her to Magdalene, it is the stones thrown at both of them, except that the number of these stones that came to Sonya's share is much greater.
Of all Dostoyevsky's novels Crime and Punishment is the most socially significant. Here Dostoevsky relates the ``poisoned'' mind and heart, the ``poisoned'' thoughts and feelings of his characters directly to society which is corrupt, which is itself ``poisoned''.
The murderers and mentally ill people who crowd Dostoyevsky's books are portrayed as social types, whose sickness cannot be divorced from their world outlook. But the subject of Dostoyevsky's study is not mentally ill people, but people who are sick in their spirit, in their _-_-_
^^*^^ Soviet literary critic L.~Grossman writes that Dostoyevsky found in Sonya "such profound and self-sacrificing love which placed her next to Antigone, a heroine of unrivaled spiritual beauty and courage.''
132 thinking, in other words, people who are sick socially, and not mentally.His heroes surfer and go mad not from any "tubercles in the brain" but from the ``trichinae'', from "accursed,'' false ideas, while the ideas themselves are born not of themselves but of the ``accursed'' society. It is this society that supplies people with everything it has: its aims, its means, its falsehoods, so that in the end they are all of one pod. . .
``All that great might has gone to waste,'' Dostoyevsky writes in Notes horn the Dead House. "It has died an unnatural death, contrary to the law of reason. It has gone forever. And who is to blame? Who is to blame?" "I cannot be kind, they just won't let me be a kind person,'' says one of the characters in Notes from Underground. On the one hand, Dostoyevsky believes that "evil lies hidden in mankind much deeper than the socialist doctors think, that whatever its setup, society will not rid itself of evil, that human soul will remain the same, that abnormality and sin emanate from the human soul itself.'' On the other hand, he wrote: "People can be beautiful and happy without losing their ability to live on earth. I don't want to believe that evil is the normal condition of man" (The Dream of a Queer Fellow). He also wrote: "There is still a lot of brutality in people, but don't hold them responsible for this. This brutality is the scum of the ages, and it will get cleaned out sometime.''
This society is rent by antagonisms and strife. There is division between states, armies, nations, classes, social groups and individuals. There is even division within man.
This society is "poisoned with its own fantasy'', 133 and dominated by false consciousness. Individuals and society as a whole judge themselves according to their vague feelings and vaguely conceived ideas, according to their words, and according to their self-consciousness which proves to be a false, a non-adequate self-consciousness but which is at the same time an inevitable and necessary element of the realities of life.
The prevalence of self-deception makes it appear as a universal truth. The abnormal seems normal; disease is regarded as health, and vice versa. Illusions are treated as reality and act as if they were real, and reality itself seems to be an illusion. Marx said: "Every thing seems to have been turned into its opposite. Even the pure light of knowledge, it seems, does not shine except against the dark background of ignorance.'' Everything is alienated from its own essence. Everything is turned upside down. Everything is renamed so that it will not be recognized. Everybody wears a mask, and the masks themselves seem to have become part of their faces. All is one hideous masked ball which its participants take for real life. All that is the best in man becomes the worst, and the worst in him is passed off for the best. Low cunning is regarded as ``wisdom'', and conscience as ``stupidity''. Love for man turns into hatred. A smatterer teaches, and a son unwittingly kills his mother. A bridegroom rejoices over his bride's death. It is only by accident that a young man does not kill a woman who will love him and who will save him, and with whom he will also fall in love (and how long he will yet spurn her!. . .)
Dostoyevsky wrote: "I maintain that awareness of one's total inability to help suffering 134 humanity, or to be of any use to it, while one is fully convinced that humanity suffers, may turn one's love for humanity into a hatred for it.'' Hegel had the same thing in mind when he wrote: "The beating of the heart for the good of mankind turns into.. . a frenzy of self-conceit.''
But perhaps such powerless love for mankind implies a hatred for it and this "beating of the heart for the good of mankind" conceals the germ of arrogance and self-conceit. For the "beating of the heart" cannot be accepted as a precise, or even a satisfactory, definition of a truly positive ideal. It is too abstract and full of contradictions; what it consists in is an inability to understand and change the world, an inability which has assumed the form of a Utopia, which carries with it the demand that mankind be made happy by force, an impatience to see the world made happy as quickly as possible. This seemingly salutary impatience proves to be calamitous. The unreality of the paradise where people are driven by force inevitably leads to a silent acceptance of the realities of life, an acceptance which is a tacit admission that there is no way out of hell. Idealization of the world turns into a curse upon it. The contradiction between "the beating of the heart for the good of mankind" and "the frenzy of selfconceit'', between altruism and egocentricity, between messianism and Napoleonism, is actually imaginary. For the opposite elements in this seeming contradiction do not exclude but presuppose each other, and as such tend to be, and in fact turn out to be, identical. And although this contradiction might exist in the mind and consciousness of man and cause much pain, there is no such contradiction between messianism and 135 Napoleonism, for both presuppose similar patterns of social consciousness, born of similar social conditions.
If Raskolnikov were defeated in a struggle against the hostile outside world, waged in the name of righteous aims, his defeat would be a social tragedy. An element of such a tragedy is present in the novel, but only as a point of departure for a still deeper tragedy. Raskolnikov tries to do good to people, he does not spare himself, and even sacrifices himself, but all his efforts go to waste. And here begins his deeper tragedy. He suffers another, still more terrible defeat, the most terrible of all, for it is a spiritual defeat: he becomes infected by the hated, hostile world which first poisons his best intentions while they are still germinating in his mind, and then transforms them into dark designs of a most reprehensible kind.
Hamlet hesitated at killing the king, but not out of any considerations as regards the latter, but because Hamlet was not sure whether he should interfere in the affairs of this world, and still more, whether this world could be changed or whether it was immutable by its very nature. Earlier he said: "The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!" He seems to have discovered the essence of the problem: Is social evil irradicable or not? The burden he carried was formidable, for it was the burden of the whole world. But he shouldered it unflinchingly and began his struggle, first in his mind and then in his actions. Three and a half centuries later a student from St. Petersburg, Rodion Raskolnikov, answers Hamlet's question: "People don't change, and nobody can change 136 them. It is not worth the trouble of trying. Yes, that's it. This is the law of their nature.'' For Raskolnikov, the question "To be or not to be?" would mean whether one should "be the master or a louse''.
Powerless love turns into a violent hatred; it leads to an inability to give oneself to people, into an unquenchable desire to take everything from them. The righteous aims are replaced by unjust aims, condemnation of the world is replaced by a reconciliation with it, and self-deception becomes a way of life, a way of survival in this ugly world. But eventually the moment comes when self-deception is repudiated, and this repudiation saves the world and man from self-destruction.~^^*^^
The social and artistic logic of the novel confirms, in spite of Dostoyevsky's intentions, the Marxist thesis that "to demand the rejection of one's illusions about one's position is to demand the rejection of this position based on these illusions''.
_-_-_^^*^^ Maurice Beebe suggests the following motives for Raskolnikov's actions: the motive of the body, the motive of the mind and the motive of the spirit, that is, the idea of the ``arithmetic'', the idea of the ``superman'' and, most important of all, a masochistic wish to ``suffer''. This neoFreudian interpetation boils down to the idea that neither a criminal nor a criminal society is to be held responsible for his or its crimes. In using a blueprint which he himself has invented for analyzing the novel, Beebe blots out its artistic merits as well as its social content.
__PRINTERS_P_137_COMMENT__ 55---707 [137] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Why Had He Not Killed ``Only to live, to live! No mater how---
only to live!.., How base men are!
And he is worse who decries them
on that account!"
We read in the Epilogue: "Another thought added to his suffering: why had he not killed himself? Why, when he stood on the bank of the river had he chosen rather to confess? Was there really such strength in the will to live, and was it so difficult to overcome it? Had not Svidrigaylov, who feared death, overcome it?.. . He preferred to see in all this only the dull bondage of instinct, which he could not shake off, and which he was still not strong enough to break (because of his weakness and worthlessness)...''
138If Raskolnikov wants to kill himself, it is mostly because of shame: after all he has not acted as Napoleon would have acted. This is not a very laudable motive.
Raskolnikov thinks that he has not killed himself because of the "dull bondage of instinct'', because of his ``worthlessness''. This motive is no more commendable than the other one.
Raskolnikov is thus being torn by two motives, one being no better than the other. There seems to be no way out of the situation. And although for eighteen months he has been trying to convince himself that his conscience is easy, he cannot but feel that he is a ``wretch''. Thus it is base to kill himself, and equally base not to do so. Life is humiliating, and so is death. What is this, then, but a blind alley?
Yes, this is a blind alley, and it exists in his perverted consciousness. His consciousness is real, so real that Raskolnikov is unable to bear it. And at moments when his inner struggle is acute, this realness has a physical effect on him. This was what happened when he fell ill in the prison camp. His long illness followed three days of unconsciousness and repeated fainting fits which were "medically authentic" in their symptoms. (The medical element in the book is not emphasized and therefore does not weaken the artistic effect of the Epilogue.)
In this situation Raskolnikov has only two ways out. The first is suicide, which would be a surrender in the face of physical and moral strain. The other is madness, which would be a violent eruption of spiritual and physical energy, and which would also mean death, at least spiritual death.
139The only true way out is to break the circle of perverted consciousness.
Why is Raskolnikov's consciousness perverted? First of all, his motive for killing himself and his motive for rejecting suicide are fallacious. And then, he wants to die and to live at the same time. His ideas about life and death, about himself and other people, about what is possible and what is impossible, about what is base and what is upright-everything is perverted in his mind.
Raskolnikov's attempt at suicide proves the essential falsehood of his theory, and is evidence of the unjustness of his aims. For if his theory were correct, and if his aims were just, Raskolnikov would want to live, and even if he were to die, it would be a different kind of death, not the release he sought in the River Neva. Then he would be conscious of his Tightness and would die for a righteous cause.
The fact that Raskolnikov finally rejects the idea of suicide is proof that he has lofty aims capable of defeating his unjust aims, proof that his will to live is stronger than his desire for death. He wants to live because he is still capable of living, of loving people for their sake and not just for his, and because there are people who love him and who have faith in him.
The meaning which Raskolnikov gives to such words as ``life'', ``death'', ``baseness'', ``justice'' is the opposite of their true meaning. Raskolnikov thinks he is right but at the same time he feels, or rather has a premonition, that he is wrong. Sometimes, for a few short moments he is acutely aware of this.
Behind the perverted reality of his consciousness is another, genuine reality. His theory is like 140 a pair of blinkers which prevent him from seeing this other reality. To be more exact, one may say that Raskolnikov's vision is impaired: he looks but does not see. But at times his dark world is pierced by a ray of light, which remains for a short moment and then leaves him in the dark again.
In the Epilogue, immediately after the question "Was there really such strength in the will to live?" we read: "He tortured himself with these questions, unable to realize that perhaps even while he stood by the river he already felt in his heart that there was something profoundly false in himself and his beliefs. He did not understand that that feeling might have been the herald of a coming crisis in his life, of his coming resurrection, of a future new outlook on life. .. He looked at his fellow convicts and marvelled how all of them also loved life and cherished it.''
Raskolnikov has felt it since the day his " accursed idea" was born.
He goes to his ``rehearsal'' somewhat irresolutely and feels disgusted afterwards: "What vileness my heart seems capable of! The point is that it is vile, filthy, horrible, horrible!" Also after the ``rehearsal'' he exclaims: "No, I shall not do it, I will not do it! Grant that there is no element of doubt in all those calculations of mine, grant that all the conclusions I have come to during the past month are as clear as daylight, as straightforward as arithmetic, all the same I shall never summon up enough resolution to do it. Of course I shall not carry it out, I shall not!...''
After his dream in which he saw himself as a child he "felt that he had thrown off terrible burden that had weighed him down for so long, and 141 his heart was light and tranquil. 'Lord!' he prayed, 'show me the way that I may renounce this accursed fantasy of mine!' "
``Disastrous! Disastrous!" is what he says after the murder. He "would not live like this"---is his first reaction to his experiment, his ``victory'', his ``Toulon''.
He listens to a song sung by a young girl, accompanied on a barrel-organ, and asks a passerby: "Do you like street singing?" Then he gives a prostitute some money for a drink and hears her friend's comment: "Well, really, what sort of behaviour is that? I simply don't know how she can ask for money like that! I'm sure I should sink through the ground with shame. ..''
As he walks on Raskolnikov thinks: "Where was it, where was it that I read of a condemned man, just before he died, who said, or thought, that if he had to live on some high crag, on a ledge so small that there was no more than room for his two feet, with all about him the abyss, the ocean, eternal night, eternal solitude, eternal storm, and there he must remain, on a hand's breadth of ground, all his life, a thousand years, through all eternity-it would be better to live so, than die within the hour. Only to live, to live! No matter how-only to live!. . . How true! Lord, how true! How base men are!. .. And he is worse who decries them on that account!" he adds a minute later.
``Only to live, to live! No matter how-only to live!"-this is an exorcism of death. "How base men are!"- these words reveal Raskolnikov's perverted consciousness. Raskolnikov's attempt to break through the circle of perverted consciousness is seen in these words: "And he is worse 142 who decries them on that account!''
Ivan Karamazov has a similarly perverted will to live. When he confides his plans to Alyosha about going to the Jesuits, he says: "All I want is to hold out until I am thirty, and then be through with it all!''
``And what about the moist leaves, and the graves of the dear ones, and the blue sky, and the woman you love? How can you live, then? How will you be able to love?" Alyosha exclaims ruefully. "With such hell in your heart and mind you won't last. No, no. You are going there in order to join them. . . and if not, you will kill yourself. You won't be able to bear all that.''
``There is a force that will withstand everything!" says Ivan with a cheerless chuckle.
``What force?''
``The force of the Karamazovs.. . the force of the Karamazovs' baseness.. .''
Raskolnikov's desire to live on "a hand's breadth of ground" (just like the "force of the Karamazovs' baseness'') is in essence a perverted desire to live on whole ground, which is proof of the baseness of the entire system of life.
[143] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Surely It's Not Good-Bye ``Although you will be unhappy, you
must be sure that your son loves you
more now than himself."
The scene where Raskolnikov parts with his mother is as masterfully depicted as the scenes of Raskolnikov's meetings with Sonya, Porfiry and Svidrigaylov. Dostoyevsky depicts the eternal image of a mother who suffers for the sins of her son, who expiates these sins and who finally saves him.
``At first Pulkheria Alexandrovna was dumb with joyful amazement, then she seized his hand and drew him into the room. " 'Well, here you are!' she began stammering with joy. 144 `Don't be angry, Rodya, because my welcome was so foolish and tearful; I am laughing really, not crying. Do you think I am crying? No, I am happy, but it is a foolish way I have; the tears come. It has been like this since your father's death; I cry for everything.' "
She is happy about his article-"the answer to the riddle''. "But Rodya, however foolish I may be, all the same I can tell that in a very short time you will be one of the first, if not the very first, among our men of learning.. . Your poor father twice sent something to a magazine-first a poem (I have the manuscript still, I will show it to you some time), and then a whole novel (I copied it out for him, at my own request), and how we both prayed that they would be accepted-but they weren't! A few days ago, Rodya, I was terribly grieved to think of your clothes, the way you live, and what you have to eat. But now I see that I was just being foolish again, because you could get anything you wanted tomorrow, with your brains and talents. It is just that for the moment you have more important things to occupy you and don't want.. . You mustn't spoil me too much, Rodya: if you can, come, if not, it can't be helped; I shall wait. Whatever happens, I know you love me and, I can be content with that. I shall read your writings, I shall hear about you from everybody, and from time to time you will come to see me-what could be better? You have come now, haven't you, to comfort your mother? I can see. ..'' Here Pulkheria Alexandrovna suddenly bursts into tears.
Raskolnikov then asks her a question, the answer to which could mean life or death for him:
``Mama, whatever happens, whatever you hear 145 about me, whatever anybody says about me, will you love me just as you do now?''
And he hears the answer which only a mother can give:
``Rodya, Rodya, what is wrong? How can you ask such a thing? Who will say anything to me about you? And I shouldn't believe anybody, no matter who it was; I should simply send them packing.''
And here he says the words which may be seen as an earnest of his salvation:
``I came to assure you that I have always loved you, and now, and now I am glad that we are alone, glad even that Dunya is not here. I came to tell you plainly that although you will be unhappy you must be sure that your son loves you more now than himself, and that all you have been thinking about my being cruel and not loving you is false. I shall never cease to love you... Well, that's enough. . .''
``.. .loves you now...'' He could not say that before. This ``now'' has been bought at the highest price; it is his main discovery.
This motif is later developed in The Idiot (in the Epilogue, Kolya Ivolgin makes up with his mother) and in A Raw Youth (Arkady's mother, in reply to his facetious remark about "the immortality and gratuitousness of the love of one's relatives,'' says: "You will yet have to earn it, and here you are lo.ved for no reason at all.''), and in The Brothers Karamazov (Alyosha's memories about his mother were to him "like a ray of sunshine in the dark.'')
In the Epilogue to Crime and Punishment Dostoyevsky tells about Raskolnikov's insane mother wandering about St. Petersburg with her son's 146 article in her hands. He treats this part in a deliberately matter-of-fact way. Of course, he could have dramatized this scene as he did with the scene showing the madness of Katerina Ivanovna. But two such emotionally charged scenes in one novel would only have weakened each other. It is the contrast between them, the contrast between the loud imprecations of Katerina Ivanovna and the quiet joy of Raskolnikov's insane mother that enhances the effectiveness of each.
A man who wants to save his mother kills her. A matricide is blessed by his mother. . . Can one find a more laconic, a more dramatic picture in world literature?
[147] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "Oh, If Only I Were Alone..." ``The man who dares much is right in
their eyes and whoever can dare the
most is the most right."
After saying good-bye to his mother and sister, on his way to Sonya, an hour before he gives himself up to the police, Raskolnikov thinks: "I am cruel, I know. But why should they love me so much, when I am not worthy of it? Oh, if only I were alone and nobody loved me, and if I had never loved anyone! All this would never have happened!''
What "would never have happened?" He would not have turned himself over to the authorities, he would not have suffered, and, of course, he would not have repented. He would have 148 ``stepped over the barrier" without hesitation.
Raskolnikov's words, "Oh, if only I were alone,'' can be interpreted in terms of his " accursed idea" urging him to dare and trample on everything, and also as an admission that this ``idea'' will never become reality. Kill he could, but he could not "step over the barrier" and remained "on this side of it''.
``Oh, if only I were alone" also means that since he is not alone, either all the others would have to be sacrificed for his sake or he would have to become one with them.''~^^*^^
Here Raskolnikov enunciates the indispensable condition which would allow a criminal to consider himself a non-criminal: not to love anybody, not to depend on anybody for anything, to sever all links with relatives and friends so that no human feelings will ever reveal their presence in him, to sever them in such a way as to make him blind and deaf to human messages coming from the outside, to shut out all that is human, to destroy his conscience. And then "that would never have happened'', for he would be blind and deaf to all that "romantic rubbish,'' those ``morals'' and all those ``Schillers''. He would be a "strong man'', a "man of genius" to whom everything is premitted.
Raskolnikov, who began by trying to substantiate the principle of "blood as a matter of conscience'', ends by exclaiming "Oh, if only I were alone" and calling himself "an aesthetic louse''. But to be ``alone'' means to be without a _-_-_
^^*^^ The first "unbearable sensation" the hero of A Raw Youth experienced in his prophetic dream which anticipated his crime was "Oh, if only I were alone!''
149 conscience, and by cursing ``aesthetics'' he curses conscience in general.Raskolnikov had discussed his affairs with his fiancee who was then living. ``Don't distress yourself, she did not agree with me, any more than you do, and I am glad she is no more,'' he says to Dunya.
He tells one truth but lets slip another, a still more monstrous one. He is glad that his fiancee is dead, and that she died without "agreeing with him" any more than Dunya. If this logic were carried further, it would mean that he would be glad if his sister "were no more" either. However, logic is not enough to make him crush the natural human element in him. His logic breaks down, and he lets out that desperate cry, the cry of a human being: "Oh, if only I were alone!''
But Raskolnikov was once alone, and he was happy when he spent nights writing his article "with the lifting and thumping of the heart'', when there were "mist, haze, and a chord vibrating through the mist. ..'' On those nights everything was as clear to him as daylight: he had a theory, a concept of humanity as something abstract that could be turned any way he pleased. There were the ``ordinary'' people, and there was he-an ``extraordinary'' man. The ``ordinary'' people were one faceless mass, mere pawns in a chess game of which he was a great master who had at last found a winning move and a new opening. He did not care into which of the two categories his relatives and the children would fall. That he would decide later, for the main thing now was to make his first move, to say his "something new''. But suddenly all these nameless pawns began to assume the form of human beings, of 150 living men and women-Mikolkas, Lizavetas, Sonyas. And now he realizes that one of the pawns he is about to move is his sister, another his mother, and still another the woman he loves. And that is when he exclaims: "Oh, if only I were alone. . .'' But in the end he cannot deceive himself with "soothing capital words''. He cannot live "the gayest life of all'', for he is not alone, he is loved, and he loves, too.
[151] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Is There Such a Law?'' ``And what about conscience?" "Any
man who has one must suffer if he is
conscious of error. That is his
punishment---in addition to hard labour."
According to Dostoyevsky, conscience consists in an awareness of one's thoughts and sentiments and in a feeling that these are known to all, that whatever happens to one takes place in full view of other people, that all that is hidden and secret in one will become known to everyone. In other words, conscience is an awareness of one's unity, of one's kinship with all people, relatives and strangers alike, those who are dead and those who are yet to be born, and also an awareness of one's responsibility before them.
152This is an awareness of oneself as part of the human race; this is self-control whose criterion and guide is this link with humanity. The unity of the human race has disappeared and there is growing strife between people. But at the same time grows the need for such unity, for its restoration, and more and more people are coming to reject strife. A person feels all this primarily through his links with people who are close and dear to him, and also through his links with the people as a whole. And if a ``transgressor'' is tormented by the question: "What will the near of kin say?" he is sure to ask another question: "What will people say?" Is that not the reason why Raskolnikov cannot bear seeing his mother and sister, why he turns them away and declares that he does not want to see them any more? Is that not the reason why he exclaims: "Oh, if only I were alone"? Is that not why he feels as if he had "cut off" all people with "a pair of scissors"? As if he were on "another planet"? Is that not why the hero of The Dream ot a Queer Fellow thinks about "another planet"? Is that not why Ivan Karamazov, who has a "deep conscience'', finally becomes insane?
Conscience is a "human habit" that has existed as long as man himself. It is the memory of the unity of men in primitive society, a memory which is now fading. It is anguish over this loss and the hope for its restoration. Seeing no hope for such a restoration Dostoyevsky tries to overcome his despair by turning to religion, to God. The close bonds that united people have been broken, and people may not even know that there is a ``transgressor'' in their midst. But someone must know, and that is the all-seeing, all-knowing God.
153If there is no God, then everything is permitted, Dostoyevsky would say. But at the same time he knew that even if God were recognized, everything would still be permitted.
There would be no conscience without God, according to Dostoyevsky, although he knew that among those who worshipped God many were without a conscience.
God, for Dostoyevsky, means conscience. And if he had doubts, they were about God and never about conscience.
At first glance, conscience is a most asocial notion, and one of the most elusive since it has often been distorted. This distortion, however, is largely due to the fact that conscience is actually one of the most social of concepts, one which is communistic in essence. Hence the irradicability of this concept-undefinable, elusive, but living. Hence the instinctive hostility and hatreda truly social hatred-which all ``transgressors'' feel towards it. Hence the urge of the `` transgressor'' to make a deal with conscience., when he wishes to rename his crime ``non-crime''.
There is no such thing as abstract truth, or abstract conscience. Conscience, like truth, is concrete. And as such it is determined by social, class and historical factors. And although Dostoyevsky denied this on many occasions his works, paradoxically enough, confirm it.
Behind all his appeals to conscience is his desire to understand the laws of human behaviour which are independent of man's will and consciousness, the laws governing human feeling, will and consciousness.
``There is a law in us which we don't understand and which cries out in us against murder," 154 we read in The Idiot. "Compassion is a principal, if not the only, law of existence of the entire human race.''
There is probably no other writer who rebelled so vehemently against the subjugation of living men to dead laws as Dostoyevsky did. None so passionately sought to penetrate the laws of "the new life''. And none so heartily detested the word ``law'' (or used it so often).
In speaking about different laws, positive and negative, the laws of ``destruction'' and the laws of ``conservation'', Dostoyevsky was sometimes inclined to consider them all equal while on other occasions he rejected the laws of `` destruction'' and declared that only the laws of `` conservation'' were normal.
No writer had so seriously raised the question of the objective nature of moral laws, or investigated it so deeply as Dostoyevsky who, despite his subjectivism, tried to treat it in terms of concrete reality, since he was an essentially social writer and thinker.
According to Dostoyevsky there exist laws of morality which cry out against murder and suicide of individuals and of humanity, laws which have become an eternal habit and which cannot be ignored or rejected with impunity. Here the art of Dostoyevsky as a writer comes closest to science. For in science the main criterion of objectivity of a law consists in that it punishes those who violate it, that it avenges itself sooner or later, and claims its recognition at any cost, even that of a catastrophe.
The questions raised by Dostoyevsky in his works all lead to one answer which can be put in this way: if mankind chooses to ignore the laws 155 of morality as a special type of social laws, it runs the risk of bringing upon itself catastrophic consequences. This is what Dostoyevsky shows in his works, in spite of the mysticism in them.
Marx once said that the time would come when human progress would no longer be likened to the pagan idol that refused to drink nectar except from the skulls of the killed. Today this old law of historical progress (``drinking nectar from the skulls of the killed'') is threatening not only to slow down but to stop completely the advance of humanity. The "pagan idol" is faced with the surrealistic prospect of drinking nectar out of its own skull.
Dostoyevsky thought it was immoral that people should unite only in the face of mortal danger. Paradoxically, it was Dostoyevsky who stated with great forcefulness the following alternative : either one must understand and observe the laws which "cry out" in every person, or accept the fact that these laws, if violated, will avenge themselves upon mankind by destroying it, just as they avenge themselves upon an individual by destroying him. Dostoyevsky knew that no homilies would make stupid people less stupid or turn scoundrels into honest men. And his final argument is: "or else you shall die!" This is desperate moralizing which actually means a refusal to consider moral issues and reveals the need to investigate socio-ethical relations, those seemingly undefinable, unpredictable and subjective areas of research which can be pursued only through the joint efforts of science and art.
Science freed from morals does not automatically become immoral. Not at all. The 156 separation of science from moral issues is a historically necessary condition for the advance of science, the ultimate goal of which includes the study of moral issues.
Science is thus separated from moral questions only in order to go back to them again. It establishes the recurrence of certain phenomena and on the basis of this discovers laws. And it moves from the abstract to the concrete.
By contrast, art begins with the concrete, in fact with the most concrete object which is man himself. It seeks to make the individual as concrete as possible, shows the qualities peculiar to him and reveals his relation to people, to society. The best works of art, including those created thousands of years ago, continue to excite our imagination because there is something objective and permanent about them.
``A phenomenon is more vivid than a law. . . The most vivid is the most concrete and most subjective.'' This idea which Lenin derived from Hegel provides the key to an understanding of the relationship between art and science.
Art deals with what is the most subjective, while science deals with what is objective. But the subjective and the objective, the concrete and the abstract, phenomena and law, in the long historical process of their cognition by man through the medium of art and science, have tended increasingly to influence one another, to converge. Science is moving towards art, while art is moving towards science, and the crossing point of these two converging streams of knowledge is man as an individual, the motives for his actions, and the socio-ethical relations between people. It is at this crossing point, where the forces of art 157 and science meet, that major discoveries may be expected which in their importance may well compare with those made in physics, biology, etc. Could this be the reason why Einstein was interested in Dostoyevsky?
Let us now go back to Raskolnikov, an embodiment of alienation owing to which all human qualities are transformed into their opposite.
[158] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "I Went There ``~`It was not I who murdered her',
whispered Raskolnikov like a frightened
small child caught red-handed in some
misdeed."
Reading these lines about a murderer, a criminal who looks like a frightened child caught redhanded, one may well ask: how can a murderer be likened to a child? And whom did he murder?
``He flung himself forward with the axe; her lips writhed pitifully, like those of a young child when it is just beginning to be frightened. ..'' A child kills a child. A child an infanticide? And to whom does he confess that? To Sonya, with her childlike face, like that of Lizaveta, with her 159 childish fear which "suddenly communicated itself to him: the same terror showed in his face and he gazed at her with the same fixity and almost with the same childish smile." (Dostoyevsky very rarery underlined words in his writings).
``I did not kill her on purpose/' Raskolnikov will tell Sonya, as a child who has done something he should not do would tell an adult.
A child-murderer confessing to another child whom he could have killed (or whom he might have been forced to kill)? To a child who has become a street-walker in order to save other children from starvation.
``The candle-end had long since burned low in the twisted candlestick, dimly lighting the poverty-stricken room and the murderer and the harlot who had come together so strangely to read the eternal book.''
The murderer and the harlot are children.
And whom else has he killed? His mother.
A child-matricide?. . .
A matricide is always a child. The idea is a frightening and painful one.
A happy mother reads her son's article. A weeping son reads his mother's letter written in her "dear small sloping hand'', and then a bitter angry smile plays over his lips.
What does all this invoke-a feeling of horror or a feeling of pity? One finds that one does not want to believe this, but something else-the words: "It was not I who murdered her.''
Raskolnikov is only twenty-three years old. On his way to the ``rehearsal'' he thinks: "And why have I come out now? Can I really be capable of that? Am I really serious? No, of course I'm not serious. So I am just amusing myself with 160 fancies, children's games. Yes, perhaps I am only playing a game.''
``Listen,'' he says to Sonya, "when I went to the old woman's that time, it was only to test myself. . . Understand that?''
``And you committed murder, murder!" exclaims Sonya.
``I wanted to make myself a Napoleon, and that is why I killed her. . .''
One suddenly becomes aware that there are many children in the novel.
There are the children about whom Raskolnikov tells Sonya: "Have you never seen children at the corner of the street, who have been sent out by their mothers to beg? I know where and how such mothers live. Children cannot remain children there. There a seven-year-old child is depraved and a thief. And yet children are the image of Christ. 'Theirs is the kingdom of God.' He commanded us to love them and cherish them, they are the future of mankind. . .''
There are Marmeladov's children forced by their insane mother to sing and dance in the street: "Lyonya, Kolya! hands on hips, quickly, quickly! Glissez, glissez, pas-de-Basque!''
There is Mikolka who is "not quite grown up yet''.
There is Alyoshka who, as he puts up new wallpaper in the flat of the murdered money-lender, listens with rapture to his friend telling about life in the capital: "The things there are in this St. Petersburg! There is everything you could possibly think of.''
There is Lizaveta who "was pregnant every once in a while''.
There is the drunken girl on the boulevard.
__PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 6---707 161Another girl, fifteen or so, sings to the accompaniment of a barrel-organ, near Sennaya.
Another girl who drowned herself and whom Svidrigaylov saw in his dream.
And yet another girl with flushed cheeks and a shameless look in her eyes, who also appeared in Svidrigaylov's dream.
``Theirs is the kingdom of God... Be like children. . .''
And the money-lender, too, was a child once. She surely has not been a ``louse'' from birth?
And Luzhin was a child.
And so was Svidrigaylov.
Again reality looks like a delirium, and the delirium looks like reality.
And suddenly, the whole novel becomes crowded with children, with children only, and everything in it is done by children.
``They are the future of mankind. ..''
Do they know what they are doing?
And even in Raskolnikov's last dreams children are playing a bloody game-they are killing one another.
Could it be that the ``trichinae'' have got into the children too, that the ``plague'' also affects children? Could it be that the girl who drowned herself suddenly becomes the five-year-old child with flushed cheeks, so that Svidrigaylov could find at least something to atone for his sins? Or is that a blind alley again?
But even in his dream Svidrigaylov cannot see himself as a child. He sees the girl whom he drove to death, and another girl. . . the kind of dream he ``deserves'' to have. He gets what he asked for. His last dream is very similar to 162 Raskolnikov's: he sees only the finale of what he set in motion years ago.
There is Raskolnikov who sees himself as a child in his first dream.
There is the girl Polenka who embraces Raskolnikov.
There is Raskolnikov who says incoherenty: "I have just been kissed by a creature who, even if I had killed anybody, would still... still. ..''
In another scene he says to his mother at parting: "Although you will be unhappy, you must be sure that your son loves you more now than himself.''
There is his mother who revives the child in her son, and who says sobbing: "Now you are just like the little boy you used to be. ..''
Children feature prominently in Dostoyevsky's books and thoughts.
It is because of the undeserved and unavenged sufferings of children that Ivan Karamazov decides to return his "ticket to God''.
There is the child Netochka Nezvanova.
Another girl, Matryosha, who hanged herself because of Stavrogin and who "kept shaking her little fists at him in reproach.''
The children from a Swiss hamlet (in the story told by Prince Myshkin) who at first molested the ostracized Marie, and then came to love her and help her despite the objections of their parents, the local teacher and the pastor.
There is the "raw youth''.
There is the girl from The Dream of a Queer Fellow: the hero hurts her, then sees her in his dream and later finds her.
There is the boy hunted to his death with dogs __PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 6* 163 right under the eyes of his mother.
There is the infant in Dmitry Karamazov's dream: a starving baby clutching the dry breast of his mother who stands with other women by the road amidst the smouldering ruins of their village (this scene is very similar to the ruined world in Raskolnikov's last dreams).
Dmitry, we may recall, ripped out the beard of Capitan Snegiryov before the latter's small son and other children. But the child in Dmitry suddenly comes to life, and that is why he has that dream, that is why he asks: "Who are these mothers from the doomed village? Why are people so poor, why is that child starving, and why is it so cold in that desert? Why don't they embrace and kiss one another? Why don't they sing cheerful songs? Why do they look so grieved as if some great misfortune has befallen them? Why don't they feed that child?.. .''
There is Ilyusha Snegiryov kissing the hand of the drunken, enraged Dmitry Karamazov and begging him: "Forgive my father, forgive my father!" Ilyusha falls ill after that and asks his father never to make up with the offender: "When I grow up I'll kill him!" Ilyusha's schoolmates at first tease him, and later vie with one another in doing something to help the sick boy, and after his death, take an oath at his grave. Alyosha says to them: ``You've often heard people talk about your upbringing. The thing is that a beautiful, sacred memory retained from childhood can be the best kind of upbringing. If a man has many such memories, he is saved for the rest of his life. And even if you have only one such good memory. . .
164Do children also fall into "two categories'', and must those who belong to the "lower category" be drowned like kittens or crushed like lice?
Raskolnikov's theory is infanticidal, although Raskolnikov is himself a child.
The shortest, the most horrifying and at the same time the most hope-inspiring of Dostoyevsky's aphorisms is: "All is child" (said by Dmitry Karamazov).
According to Dostoyevsky, to find "a human being in man" also means to find "the child in him''. And when Prince Myshkin makes all those around him better if only for one short moment, it is because he sees a child in every one of them. When Alyosha discovers an immature lad in his rebellious brother Ivan, the latter says: "Listen, Alyosha, if I have enough room left in my heart for those moist leaves, I shall love them only because I'll be thinking about you. ..''
All of Dostoyevsky's nightmares are born of the world "where children cannot remain children''. One wonders what Dostoyevsky would say about Auschwitz with its piles of children's shoes? To whom would he appeal? To whom would he return "the ticket''?
[165] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Sincere Remorse"``He's had a drop too much!"
Raskolnikov gives himself up to the police on the eleventh day after the murder. "When he was asked what had induced him to volunteer a confession, he answered that it was sincere remorse.'' The court believed him and even commuted the sentence.
The judges would be very much surprised if they knew the following: "This was the sole sense in which he acknowledged his crime, that he had not succeeded and that he had confessed.'' And they would be still more surprised if they knew about the conspiracy between the criminal and 166 the investigator. "And I, I give you my solemn word, will so arrange matters there that your appearance shall seem utterly unexpected. We'll do away with all this psychology completely,'' says Porfiry.
Raskolnikov cannot, owing to his character, feel immediately contrite. After all he has been nursing his ``idea'' for a long time, and has spent so much effort, and made so many sacrifices for its sake. It is unthinkable that he should become penitent on the eleventh day. Such a "happy end" would kill the whole idea of the novel and would indeed have done away with "all this psychology completely.'' Raskolnikov is more likely to commit another crime than feel "sincere remorse" on the eleventh day.
His confession is not penitence but rather anti-penitence. Raskolnikov is once again torn between his conflicting aims.
His short trip to the police station seems to be a repetition of his long ordeal of the past few months.
On the previous night he wandered along the Neva embankment but could not bring himself to follow Svidrigaylov's cynical advice or Porfiry's casual suggestion. All that night he suffered, not from pangs of remorse but from an awareness that he was confronted with a choice between a humiliating confession and suicide from shame.
Even when parting with his mother he is as hard as ever. " 'That's enough, mama,' said Raskolnikov, bitterly regretting that he had ever thought of coming.''
And to his sister he says: "I am going to give myself up immediately, although I don't know why I'm going to do it.'' She replies: "Surely, by 167 advancing to meet your punishment you are half atoning for your crime''. "Crime? What crime?" he cried, in a sudden access of rage. "That is not what I am thinking of, and I do not think of atoning for it. And why are you all pressing in on me from all sides with your 'crime, crime'? It is only now that I clearly realize the full absurdity of my faint-heartedness, now when I have made up my mind to face this unnecessary shame! It was simply my own baseness and incompetence that made me reach my decision, and perhaps the thought of benefit to myself, as that. . . Porfiry. . . suggested. . . But I, I failed even to accomplish the first step, because I am a miserable wretch! That's what it all amounts to! All the same, I shan't look at it with your eyes: if I had succeeded, I should have been crowned, but now I shall fall into the trap!" But, as he uttered these words, his eyes unexpectedly met Dunya's, and he read so much anguished feeling for him in her look that he involuntarily stopped short. "He felt that whatever else, he had made two poor women unhappy, that he was, in any case, responsible for that. . .''
A victor is not judged, and he who is defeated is wrong. . . Raskolnikov does not yet realize that his defeat is the defeat of his "accursed idea'', his theory, his unjust aims, that this defeat opens the way to the triumph of the righteous aims.
After parting with his sister he says: "I wonder if my spirit will really grow so humble in the next fifteen or twenty years that I shall whine and whimper before people, branding myself a criminal with every word I utter. Yes, exactly, exactly! That is just why they are deporting me now, that is what they want. . . Look at all these 168 scurrying about the streets, and every one of them is a wretch and a criminal by his very nature, and worse still, an idiot! But try to save me from exile and they would all go mad with righteous indignation! Oh, how I hate them all!" So this is the beginning of "sincere remorse"! Here Raskolnikov makes a cruel parody of his future repentance so as to make sure he will never repent.
And to Sonya he says: "You see, Sonya, I have decided that perhaps it will be better this way.. . Do you know what annoys me, though? It makes me angry that all those stupid, bestial faces will soon be crowding round me, gaping and goggling at me, asking stupid questions I shall be forced to answer, pointing their fingers at me. . . Pah! You know, I am not going to Porfiry; I am sick of him. I would rather go to my friend the Squib. How I shall surprise him, what a sensation I shall produce!''
As he set out for the police station, he was bitter and unrepentant: "But am I doing right, is all this the right thing? Is it really impossible to stop now and revise all my intentions again.. . and not go?''
But some ten or fifteen minutes later he comes close to "sincere remorse''.
``He suddenly remembered Sonya's words: 'Go to the cross-roads; bow down before the people, and kiss the ground, because you are guilty before them, and say aloud to all the world: I am a murderer!' A shudder shook his whole body at the remembrance. He was so crushed by the weight of all the inescapable misery and anxiety of all this time, and especially of these last hours, that he almost flung himself on the __PRINTERS_P_169_COMMENT__ 66-707 169 possibility of this new, complete, integral sensation. It had come down on him like a clap of thunder; a single spark was kindled in his spirit and suddenly, like a fire, enveloped his whole being. Everything in him softened on the instant and the tears gushed out. He fell to the ground where he stood. . . He knelt in the middle of the square, bowed to the ground, and kissed its filth with pleasure and joy. He raised himself and then bowed down a second time.''
Is this the way Dostoyevsky intends to end Raskolnikov's struggle? Would that not be too beautiful to be true? Would that not be too easy a way to earn universal forgiveness?
No, we are still far from the end of the story.
`` 'Look, here's a chap who's had a drop too much/ remarked a youth near him. Laughter answered him. 'It's because he's going to Jerusalem, lads, and he's saying good-bye to his family and his country. He's bowing down to the whole world and kissing the famous city of St. Petersburg and the soil he stands on,' added a workman who was slightly drunk. 'He's still quite a young lad!' put in a third. 'Respectable, too!' said someone else soberly. 'Nowadays you can't tell who is respectable and who isn't.' "
One wonders if that last remark reminded Raskolnikov of his own theory of ``extraordinary'' and ``ordinary'' people, or of Porfiry's words: "How do you distinguish these extraordinary people from the ordinary? Do signs and portents appear when they are born?" One thing is certain: all those remarks which sounded so brutally outrageous to Raskolnikov could not but reawaken all his former thoughts about ``wretches'', `` robbers'', ``idiots'' with their "poking fingers" and 170 ``protruding paunches" and "stupid, bestial faces''. Thus we read: "All these exclamations and observations acted as a check on Raskolnikov and stilled the words 'I am a murderer' which had perhaps been on the tip of his tongue.''
He kneels on Sennaya Square because he has lost all hope in life, because he feels desperate and inhumanly tired, and not because he wants to repent, although this act holds out the promise that he might repent in the future. This act of public repentance fails because Raskolnikov does not feel repentant, not yet. People laugh at him. A tragedy turns into a farce, which shows the gulf that separates Raskolnikov from the people. Instead of forgiving him people ridicule him. But their laughter is not mockery of any sacred feelings (since Raskolnikov has no such feelings) but a punishment which he fully deserves. The reaction of the passersby is not a demonstration of mob vulgarity but the intuition of the people who can tell truth from untruth, an intuition which Dostoyevsky understood and artistically portrayed.
When Raskolnikov, possessed by his idea, set out for the ``rehearsal'' he heard the mocking cry of a drunkard: "Hi, you in the German hat.'' The next day, when he felt still more determined to carry out his idea, Nastasya "rolled with laughter" on hearing his words about ``work'' and ``thinking''. And finally when he knelt on Sennaya Square he heard laughter again. Laughter haunted him everywhere, even in his dream when, for the second time, he killed the old money-lender-a laughing old witch. And somewhere on the stairs people also laughed. The Soviet literary critic M. Bakhtin has noted that __PRINTERS_P_171_COMMENT__ 6B* 171 Raskolnikov's dream is "an image of public ridicule poured on an impostor-king.'' He also points to the similarity between Raskolnikov's dream and the thrice-repeated prophetic dream of the Impostor in Pushkin's Boris Godunov -.
``I dreamed I climbed a steep staircase,
that led me
Into a tower; from its lofty height
All Moscow spread before me, like an ant-hill;
And in the square beneath me surged
the crowd.
And pointing up at me, it mocked
and jeered me;
And I was overcome with shame and terror---
And, falling headlong like a stone, awoke. . .''
In a way Raskolnikov is also an impostor, a false Napoleon.
This is what Raskolnikov feels as he enters the police station: "He stopped for a moment to regain his breath and pull himself together, so that he might go in like a man. 'But why? What for?' he thought, when he suddenly became conscious of his action. 'If I must drink this cup does it make any difference? The viler the better. . . If I must drink, let it be all at once.' "
He walks in and runs into the Squib, as he expected. '"Your humble servant, sir!' suddenly exclaimed a familiar voice. Raskolnikov started. The Squib stood before him. 'It is fate,' thought Raskolnikov. 'Why is he here?' "
The Squib will tell him about civic duty and human kindness, about art and literature, about his wife and Livingstone's Journals, and about the outrageous practice of women doctors treating men in hospitals: "Hee, hee! They push 172 themselves into the Academy and study anatomy; well, tell me, if I fall ill am I going to call in a girl to cure me? Hee, hee!" He will also tell Raskolnikov about his high regard for intelligent people. "The hat, well, what does a hat signify, after all? Hats are as common as blackberries; I can go and buy one at Zimmermann's, but what is under the hat, what is covered by the hat, that I can't buy...'' Suddenly Raskolnikov hears that some gentleman by the name of Svidrigaylov shot himself the night before.
``Raskolnikov started. 'Svidrigaylov! Svidrigaylov has shot himself!' he cried. . . Raskolnikov felt as though a crushing weight had descended on him.'' At this point he makes for the exit.
What is that "crushing weight" that Raskolnikov feels has descended on him? It is the news about the suicide of Svidrigaylov. Only the day before Svidrigaylov put the mocking question to him: "Well, shoot yourself, or don't you want to?" and told him: "I confess to an unpardonable weakness, but I can't help it: I am afraid of death and don't like to hear it spoken of.'' Only several days before he replied to Raskolnikov's question about his trip to America: "Well, that's a far-reaching question. .. But if only you knew what you are asking about!" Svidrigaylov has shot himself! So that's his trip? So that's his America! And now Raskolnikov hears the fatal news, the same Raskolnikov who has long been nursing plans of suicide, and whom Porfiry asked to leave "a few lines. . . just in case,'' who spent the whole of the previous night on the banks of the Neva and who only an hour before said to Dunya: "And you don't think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water?" That is the crushing 173 weight which has descended on him: " Svidrigaylov could do it, but I. . .''
Raskolnikov walks out of the station and meets Sonya. "She stood in the courtyard deadly pale; she looked at him wildly, desperately. He stopped before her. Her face expressed pain, weariness, and despair. She threw up her hands. He forced himself to smile, a lost, hideous smile. He stood there for a moment, smiled again, and turned back to the office.''
Should we expect Raskolnikov to repent now? His repentance at this point would be implausible artistically, psychologically, and, if one likes, physically. With Dostoyevsky, the ``artistic'', the ``psychological'' and the ``physical'' come together as one single entity.
Raskolnikov's physical and moral strength has given out. Exhausted and unable to control himself he says, quietly, and brokenly, but distinctly: "It was I who killed the old woman and her sister Lizaveta, with an axe, and robbed them.''
These words contain nothing but a forced confession of a man drained of all strength, and at the same time they contain everything. All his previous struggle has ceased, and its flames are snuffed out, at least temporarily. For they will yet be rekindled and will again rage in his troubled mind and soul.
And five months later Raskolnikov will hear his sentence of "penal servitude of the second category for a term of eight years. . .''
[174] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "You Deserve To Be Killed!' ``It was as if lie and they belonged to
different races."
Raskolnikov's confession at the police station is, in fact, fraught with a new crime, as is shown in the Epilogue. In the prison camp he repents of his confession to the authorities, but not of his crime. "He was ashamed precisely because he, Raskolnikov, had perished so blindly and hopelessly, with such dumb stupidity, by some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to the absurdity of that decree, if he wished to find any degree of peace.'' The same is true of Stavrogin's confession.
175Tikhon tells him: ''. . .It is as if you hate and despise ahead of time all those who might read what is written here, and challenge them to a fight. But if you are not ashamed to admit that you have committed a crime, why should you be ashamed of repentance?. . . What is this but a proud challenge thrown by a guilty man to the judge? Even this great repentance of yours has something ludicrous about it.'' Raskolnikov, too, has made a "proud challenge'', and in his "great repentance" on Sennaya Square there is also "something ludicrous''.
In the prison camp the chasm between him and other people becomes still wider, so wide, in fact, that it holds out no hope of being closed. "It was as if he and they belonged to different races. In time they even began to hate him. Why, he did not know.'' On Sennaya Square Raskolnikov was ridiculed by people; now he is hated by them.
It seems that his crime should bring Raskolnikov closer to the other convicts. But actually the convicts hate him, and not only because he is an atheist. None of them have read his article or know about his theory of the "two categories'', but they instinctively feel that Raskolnikov considers himself superior to all of them, and has put all the others (including Sonya) in a ``lower'' category and treats them as ``material'', `` nonpeople'', "trembling creatures'', ``lice'', in other words, rabble. Such is his attitude towards his fellow-convicts. And it is precisely for this that they want to kill him. His challenge to the infuriated men who threaten to kill him is his last and hopeless attempt to withdraw from the game "in style'', with an air of dignity and righteousness. But at the same time this challenge is an 176 admission that he is wrong,- for although he has not committed suicide he is not afraid of death, since death will release him from the problems that torment him. His heroism is therefore farcical and tragi-comical: in pursuing his "accursed idea" he has to adopt a pose, even in the face of death. But on the whole the scene is profoundly tragic, as it reveals the gulf that divides Raskolnikov from the people, who have put a curse on his "accursed idea''.
This is what Dostoyevsky said about Pushkin's Aleko, who may be considered Raskolnikov's precursor: "The hapless dreamer was useless not only for achieving world harmony but also for the Gypsies, and they drive him away feeling no vengeance or malice, but in a quiet, dignified way.''
Dostoyevsky liked to see the Russian people as a God-fearing people. And it is not accidental that Raskolnikov is attacked and beaten in a church, during a service. For Dostoyevsky, the church, like the square, is a national forum. But actually he did not idealize the people: they are shown as illiterate, downtrodden and brutalized, and at the same time thirsty for truth. And the people judge Raskolnikov, as we have said, not so much for his atheism as for his inhumane "accursed idea''.~^^*^^
The scenes where the people ridicule Raskolnikov and beat him can be compared, for their artistic merit, to the scenes in Pushkin's Boris Godunov where the muzhiks rub their eyes with onion or moisten them with saliva while _-_-_
^^*^^ Dostoyevsky describes the same kind of people in his Notes from tlie Dead House.
177 beseeching Czar Boris to accept the crown, and where the people fall silent when the False Dmitry takes the throne.All those ``incidental'' remarks which Raskolnikov hears from passersby, from Nastasya, from Sonya, from the convicts (``Hi, you in the German hat!" "Why do you do nothing now?" "And here you want the whole fortune straight off!" "It is blood in you that cries out'', "You think you have the right to kill?" "You are the killer!" "He's had a drop too much!" ``You're an atheist! You don't believe in God! You deserve to be killed!'') grow in intensity to merge into a single leitmotif: the people in judgement of his idea.
[178] __ALPHA_LVL1__ "Love Has Raised Them "They tried to speak, but they could
not."
But everything changed when Raskolnikov did not spurn, as he had done so many times before, Sonya's silently proffered hand, when he silently renounced his "accursed idea'', when Sonya "understood, and she no longer doubted that he loved her, loved her forever, and that now at last the moment had come. .. Love had raised them from the dead, and the heart of each held endless springs of life for the heart of the other''.
The novel is full of boisterous scenes: the quarrel at the funeral repast, the insane Katerina 179 Ivanovna in a crowd of on-lookers, the heart-rending, deafening cries of Raskolnikov even when he does not say anything but only thinks. And there are all those nightmares, with fires, massacres, and tocsin bells. . . And then, at the end of the book comes a quiet scene: "Suddenly he seemed to be seized and cast himself at Sonya's feet. . . They tried to speak, but they could not.'' Silently, with his eyes, he confesses his crime to Sonya, and just as silently he confesses his love.
And just as it is impossible to visualize, out of the context of the whole novel, the picture of a joyful and insane mother running about St. Petersburg with her son's article in her hands, so it is impossible to appreciate this final silence without having read the five hundred odd pages filled with shouts, heated argument and loud tocsin calls.~^^*^^
Raskolnikov's kneeling before Sonya brings to mind Pushkin's The Prophet (Dostoyevsky's favourite poem):
``And then tore out my sinning tongue, So full of empty words, and cunning. . .'' Earlier when Raskolnikov knelt before Sonya he said wildly: "I prostrate myself not before you, but before all human suffering.'' Now this contradiction disappears.
``That day it had even seemed to him that the other convicts, formerly so hostile, were already looking at him differently. He had even spoken to _-_-_
^^*^^ In his notes for Crime and Punishment Dostoyevsky emphasized the importance of this one line: "Not a word of love passed between them. . .'' He considered this moment central to the whole book.
180 them and been answered pleasantly. He remembered this now but, after all, that was how it must be: ought not everything to be changed now?''All these scenes-the ridicule on Sennaya Square, the savage beating in the prison camp and the sudden change in attitude to Raskolnikov on the part of his former enemies-are a continuation of Pushkin's theme: "the destiny of an individual and the destiny of the people,'' and a development of the idea that these destinies are inseparable.
Raskolnikov's silent kneeling was possible only after the irretrievable losses he had suffered, after the death of his mother, after his public humiliation, after the long illness, after the terrible dreams. . . . The truth was bought at a dear price.
``In the desert I lay like a corpse. ..''~^^*^^
Dostoyevsky would have liked to put into Raskolnikov's hands a cross instead of an axe, and the New Testament instead of a magazine article. But Raskolnikov "had not opened the New Testament Sonya had given him. He did not open it even now, but an idea flashed through his mind: 'Could not her beliefs become my beliefs now? Her feelings, her aspirations, at least. . .' "
Thus Raskolnikov accepts Sonya's human truth. But this is not the same as accepting her religious faith.
He rejects his inhuman, anti-popular idea and comes to realize that all people are equal, but he does not associate all this with religion.
Sophocles' Antigone, in interceding with the _-_-_
^^*^^ From Pushkin's The Prophet.
181 gods for her brother, is moved by the most earthly feelings. In the Bible, Martha and Mary plead with Christ to raise their brother from the dead, and it is their love that brings about their brother's resurrection. Sent by Beatrice (love and heavenly wisdom) Virgil (earthly wisdom) leads Dante out of a thick forest. Faust is saved by earthly love and the will of heavenly forces. Raphael's ``Madonna'' (Dostoyevsky's favourite picture a reproduction of which hung in his room) raises earthly love and beauty to heavenly heights. And just as Lazarus was raised from the dead by his sisters' love through the intercession of Christ, so Sonya confesses her love for Raskolnikov through the parable about Lazarus.Marx wrote: "Greek mythology was not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also its soil. .. The prerequisite of Greek art is Greek mythology, i. e., nature and social forms which have become transformed, in an unconscious artistic way, in the imagination of the people.''
The same idea can be applied, to a certain extent, to the relationship between European art and Christianity. Christianity is the arsenal and soil of European art. But just as ancient Greek art rendered mythology less mythological, so did European art render Christianity less mystical. The New Testament contains earthly motifs "which have become transformed, in an unconscious artistic way, in the imagination of the people.'' These motifs had existed long before the advent of Christianity, and became generalized and monopolized by it. In the course of many centuries, European art has released this universally human (in fact profoundly social) content. Even the most conscientious of the theological 182 commentators of the Bible interpret Christian myths as if they were literary creations, being little aware of the fact that by deciphering Christian revelations in this way they strip them of all ``holiness''.
There is a long distance between the biblical parable about the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Raskolnikov. But the role of the religious ``intermediary'', who makes up for the alienation of people in society, is reduced to a minimum.
Marx wrote: "Religion is a recognition of man in an indirect, round-about way.. . Christ is the intermediary onto whom man shifts all his inner divinity, all his religious limitations.'' Art straightens out this "round-about way" and removes all ``intermediaries'', transforming them into artistic conventions.
From the ancient Greeks to Dante, to Cervantes and Shakespeare, and finally to Dostoyevsky, from the combat of the Titans to the cosmic contest between God and the Devil, from the palaces of celestial kings and princes to the dingy cubbyhole in Carpenters' Lane in St. Petersburg, from the fight with the Saracens to the inner struggle of a Russian student-such is the long way by which human problems came to take a more concrete, material form and strip themselves of mysticism.
Crime and Punishment, like many great works of art, lives not because of its religious sentiments, but because of its expression of human passions, the most indestructible of which is the passion for understanding life (with a human mind) and for transforming it (with human hands) according to the laws of beauty.
Dostoyevsky would have liked to say: "God 183 raised them from the dead.'' But instead he said: "Love raised them from the dead.'' There is the love of a son for his mother, and the love of a mother for her son. And if it is true that "the mother is the only deity that knows no atheists" (E. Legouvet), it is also true that a mother's love needs no supernatural sanction.
``Love raised them from the dead, and the heart of each held endless springs of life for the heart of the other"-these words may be taken as the epigraph of an art that has developed in the bosom of Christianity and that has gradually shed its religious wrappings.
[184] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Something Else"``Life has taken the place of dialectics."
Dostoyevsky did not so much use the word `` religion'' to denote ``conscience'', ``love'' and ``life'' as he used the words ``conscience'', ``love'' and ``life'' to denote ``religion''.
``The cross or the axe, there is no third choice"--- such is the dilemma posed in Crime and Punishment. But all his life Dostoyevsky had been looking for the "third choice'', for "something else''. And this "something else" turned out to be life itself. "This living life is something so simple and straightforward, something staring at us with 185 such directness that it almost seems impossible that this is the one thing we have been looking for all along.. . The simplest thing is always understood at the end, when everything else, all that is wise or stupid, has been tested. ..'' (A Raw Youth).
``Life has taken the place of dialectics,'' Dostoyevsky wrote in Crime and Punishment, "and something else had to be worked out in his mind.'' By ``dialectics'' Dostoyevsky means Raskolnikov's ``arithmetic''. In actual fact, as we would say today, life has taken the place not of dialectics, but of metaphysics.
This contraposition of ``life'' to ``dialectics'', ``life'' to the "meaning of life'', the ``heart'' to the ``mind'', cuts across all of Dostoyevsky's works. The real meaning of this contraposition is his rejection of the rational, limited, metaphysical, "Euclidean mind''.
``I think'', says Alyosha, "that all people must first be able to love life!''
``To love life more than its meaning?''
``Exactly. . . to love life more than logic. .. more than logic, only then can one understand the meaning of life.''
The residents of the planet on which the hero of The Dream of a Queer Fellow found himself said: "A knowledge of life is more important than feelings, a consciousness of life is more valuable than life itself. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will enable us to discover laws, and a knowledge of the laws of happiness is more important than happiness.'' "That is what they said and after these words each one of them came to love himself more than all the others, and they just could not do it otherwise.'' The Queer Fellow 186 rebels against such ``wisdom'': "A knowledge of life is more important than life itself?! No! This must be fought against, and I will fight!''
In counterposing ``life'' to the "meaning of life" Dostoyevsky was paying tribute to the widespread prejudice: "The less a person is conscious of life, the more he feels it.'' In other words, consciousness kills life. "The common people,'' he wrote, "will express what we have said about consciousness killing life in a less refined but candid manner: 'Oh, all this is just philosophy.' Crude as this may sound, it contains a certain truth. `Fresh-thinking' people, that is, people whose thoughts are not stultified, may well laugh at attempts to make them regard consciousness as life.'' But such logic can easily lead to the conclusion that "Boots come before Raphael,'' a conclusion which Dostoyevsky himself ridiculed. Thus besides some truth Dostoyevsky's words contain a good deal of hysterical untruth, even as regards himself. The point is that Dostoyevsky could not but know that there are things in the world which one cannot understand except with the help of knowledge, of ideas, of philosophy, and that one wants to understand them in order to have a greater capacity for living. He could not but know that otherwise there would be no point in his writing novels, and he would not have suffered from the nagging thought that " consciousness kills life'', that otherwise the `` freshthinking'' people would have laughed at his works, and he would have been the first to delight in the annihilating ridicule. And we also know that he lost all "Christian humility" when ``fresh-thinking'' people rejected Pushkin or Raphael in the name of life.
187Dostoyevsky sounds much more natural as a non-believer than as a believer. "I am a child of the age, a child of doubts and disbelief and I shall remain one (I know it) until death. This desire to believe has caused me tremendous suffering; it torments my soul all the greater, the more arguments I have against Christianity.'' In Dostoyevsky's works we have one of the first signs of the crisis of Christianity.
What Dostoyevsky said about the painting of the dead Christ by Holbein the Younger (``With a picture like this one can lose all faith'') may well apply to his own works.
Marx said: "Religion is only the illusory sun around which man revolves until he begins to revolve around himself.''
The world portrayed by Dostoyevsky revolves around man and not around God (although this revolving around man is deformed by religion). Man is the sun of Dostoyevsky's world, and this is how it should be.
Porfiry says to Raskolnikov: "What will it matter if nobody sees you perhaps for a very long time? It is not time that matters but you yourself. Become a sun, and everybody will see you. The first duty of the sun is to be the sun.''
At the beginning of the novel Raskolnikov, ready to "step over the barrier" says: "Will the sun be shining then, too?" The world is unthinkable without the sun. But after the murder the sun seems to have stopped shining for him, and he suddenly finds himself immersed in a thick fog, as dark as night.
On the morning of his resurrection there is again the sun (``the boundless steppe flooded with sunlight''), and the sunlight seems to herald a 188 new life for him. The "boundless steppe" symbolizes Raskolnikov's rise from the ``coffin'', and the "accursed idea" which flashed at night like a ray of sunshine finally gives way to the real sun.
[189] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``You Want a Fortune ``But that is the beginning of a new
story, the story of the gradual renewal
of a man. ..''
From the very first line of Crime and Punishment the reader feels that something terrible, something irreparable is going to happen. This ``something'' is on Raskolnikov's mind all the time, day and night.
Nastasya asks Raskolnikov why he has stopped giving lessons.
``Teaching children is very badly paid. What can you do with a few copecks?" he says reluctantly, as if in answer to his own thoughts.
``I suppose you want a fortune straight off?''
He looks at her strangely and pauses for a moment.
190``Yes, I do,'' he answers firmly.
And here are the last lines of the novel:
``He did not even know that the new life would not be his for nothing, that it must be dearly bought, and paid for with great and heroic struggles yet to come...
``But that is the beginning of a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, of his gradual regeneration, of his gradual transition from one world to another, of how he learned to know a hitherto undreamed-of reality. All that might be the subject of a new tale, but our present one is ended.''
And perhaps this ``gradualness'' is the answer to those who would like to get "a fortune straight off'', while the last line shows the tact and honesty of the writer who has the courage to admit that he does not yet know how to pass on to the "new life''.
Many of Dostoyevsky's heroes are fired by the idea of accomplishing a heroic deed "straight off'', "in one day'', ``now''. This idea is actually born of despair.
Dostoyevsky thus describes Alyosha Karamazov: "He was a young man and, like many of his contemporaries, was honest by nature. He demanded the truth, sought it everywhere and believed in it. And when he thought he had found it he demanded immediate participation in it with all the power of his indomitable spirit. He dreamed of doing something heroic, doing it now, sparing nothing, not even his life. What these young men fail to understand is that sacrificing one's life is perhaps the easiest sacrifice of all. To many of them, to spend five or six years of 191 their restless youth in studying, in order that they may become stronger and thus better serve truth and the cause which they love and are prepared to carry out, is too great a sacrifice to make. Alyosha chose the path the others feared to take, but with the same burning, impatient desire for heroism.'' This "impatient desire for heroism" in the name of mankind is alive in Raskolnikov, too. It was only temporarily overshadowed by his desire to get a "fortune straight off''.
It is sometimes said that for Dostoyevsky moral self-education and self-perfection are a mystical process, something that takes place outside the social context and is opposed to perfection in the general, social sense. There is some truth in this.
But it is true only of one aspect of Dostoyevsky's thinking on the subject. There is another, at times dominant aspect, which consists in a demand for strict moral discipline, with regard to himself above all, and to others, particularly those who call themselves ideologists. Dostoyevsky wrote: "In my view, it is possible to correctly sense and comprehend things all at once. But it is impossible to become a man all at once. That requires time and discipline. And disciplinestrict discipline-is what some of our contemporary thinkers would have none of. Instead, they proclaim laws, formulate rules whose application would presumably make everybody happy without their having to make the slightest effort. But even if this ideal could be realized, when people are undisciplined and immature, no rule, not even the most elementary, could be enforced. And it is only through strict self-discipline and constant endeavour to improve oneself can one 192 become a man, a citizen.''
By "some of our contemporary thinkers" Dostoyevsky meant first of all, his enemies, the socialists. However, his criticism applied to only some of them.
It did not, for example, apply to Hertzen who, as a revolutionary and a socialist, opposed thoughtless revolutionarism which could only compromise socialism and the revolution, who knew that "foul means must inevitably leave their imprint on the results'', that "great upheavals cannot be brought about by whipping up base passions'', that "force cannot compensate for immaturity''; who "fostered in himself a revulsion to wanton bloodshed" (this revulsion was part of his dialectics as "the algebra of the revolution''); who called for the repudiation of "abortive attempts at liberation''; and who, like Dostoyevsky, understood the "moral and intellectual immaturity" of people, including many ideologists, and also advocated self-perfection, specifically the self-perfection of the revolutionaries, the socialists (``I have not seen free people anywhere, and therefore I cry out: Stop! Let's begin by liberating ourselves!'').
Nor did Dostoyevsky's criticism apply to Chernyshevsky who, while ridiculing Christian idealization of the people, warned against idealization of the revolution. Chernyshevsky was a sober-minded revolutionary and a passionate socialist thinker, and he pointed to the need to understand and avoid the fatal combination observed by Montaigne: "Frankly, I have often noticed a peculiar combination of high-sounding theories and low morals.''
In speaking about the ``immaturity'' of the __PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 1/2~7---707 193 masses and about the "scurrying thinkers'', Dostoyevsky actually supported rather than rejected the views of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The latter could have told Dostoyevsky about many things of which Dostoyevsky was ignorant, thus making him appear as one of the "scurrying thinkers''. For Shchedrin's knowledge of life was immense, and this at times drove him to despair. His sarcasm was born of the same cause as Dostoyevsky's lamentations, and had no more illusions about the possibility of making people happy without effort or self-discipline than Dostoyevsky.
Dostoyevsky must have known the views and ideas of his contemporaries, and so that his criticism was grossly unfair. Differing with them on some questions he tried to make the differences cover all questions. He was blinded by the same intolerance which he saw in others, and which he exposed so ruthlessly.
Another thinker to be mentioned here, whose ideas were most likely unknown to Dostoyevsky (who would have rejected them anyway even if he had known them, owing to his intolerance) was Karl Marx, who wrote at twenty-five: "Until now philosophers have had on their desks the key to all riddles, and the foolish uninitiated world has had nothing else to do but open its mouth and catch the roasted partridges of absolute science.''
The young revolutionary and thinker began with the question of the relationship between theory and the masses: "... theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. . . 194 Theory is only realized in a people so far as it fulfils the needs of the people. . . .Will theoretical needs be directly practical needs? It is not enough that thought should seek to realize itself; reality must also strive towards thought.'' Marx wrote this in 1843. At that time Dostoyevsky, who was twenty-two years old, was reading Schiller, translating Balzac and planning his future novel Poor Folk. Six years later he was sentenced to penal servitude. And in 1880 he wrote: "Be humble, proud man!. . . The truth is not in things but in yourself, in your self-improvement.'' "Be humble, proud man" was a reactionary exhortation against the revolution. But as a warning to the idlers and smatterers of his time who dreamed of becoming the ``saviours'' and ``teachers'' of humanity, whose pride was akin to that of Aleko or Raskolnikov, it was sober and realistic ( Dostoyevsky borrowed the words "proud man" from Pushkin. "Leave us, proud man" are the words with which the Gypsies drove Aleko from their camp.)
Dostoyevsky laid emphasis on "individual good'', often opposing it to "common good''. His Utopian and reactionary views consist not so much in a defence of "individual good" as in a contraposition of individual good" to "common good" and thus also to social revolutionary practice. On the other hand, his defence of "individual good" was sincere and basically humanistic: "some kind, magnanimous and really intelligent people will tell you that doling out help by a lonely hand is a sad and thankless business, that it is important to destroy the roots of evil by disseminating good. Then there are others who are also good people but too much involved with theory. __PRINTERS_P_195_COMMENT__ 1/2~7* 195 They will bring you whole volumes of proof, quite genuine, too, that the good one person does is of no help to society, forgetting that it does help in individual cases, that it makes you better and sustains love among people. Well, fools and rascals will at once jump to the conclusion that there is no point in helping anybody, that this is progress, their sole idea being to line their own pockets with money. This is how they think...''~^^*^^ The same idea is expressed by Prince Myshkin in The Idiot: "He who repudiates individual charity repudiates the very nature of man and deprives him of human dignity. However, the question of individual freedom and the question of public charity are not mutually exclusive. There will always be individuals doing good because doing good is what any individual needs, because this is how he can influence other individuals.'' These words are all the more significant since the speaker is often a prey to misanthropic feelings (his illness is partly responsible for this). Prince Myshkin talks about "individual charity" after he has saved a man who was a total stranger to him. And then he tells the story of an old general who spent much of his life helping convicts and who thus earned their love: "You never know what seed was sown in the minds of those convicts by that old general whom they never forgot afterwards! You never know what role a man can play in the life of a person to whom he has endeared himself. . . By planting a seed, by giving your charity and your good name you also give part of your own personality in exchange for a part of another man's _-_-_
^^*^^ Razumikhin's words from the notes for Crime and Punishment.
196 personality: in this way you enter into a communion with each other. . . On the other hand, all your thoughts, all the seeds you have sown, which you may forget afterwards, will take root in someone else who will then pass them on to the next man. How can you know what part you will play in the future destinies of mankind? But if the knowledge and experience of this work finally enable you to plant a seed of tremendous importance and to leave behind great ideas for the benefit of the world, then. . .''This participation in "common good" begins with "individual charity'', according to Dostoyevsky. Expressed in general terms and in an exhortational tone, this idea might seem trite and even repulsive. But in his writings Dostoyevsky was able to express this thought in such a way that it comes to his heroes and his readers alike as a revelation. Among the questions to which Raskolnikov at first had no answer when he was in the prison camp was this one: Why did the convicts like Sonya so much? It turned out that they grew to like her for her human feelings (just as the convicts came to like the old general). And when Raskolnikov had finally rid himself of his "accursed idea'', he was rewarded with "the most unexpected discoveries" and his former enemies ceased to be enemies.
In the works of Dostoyevsky we find many sermons which he himself did not always follow. At times he was acutely aware of their naivete, their powerlessness to uproot evil and implant good. What is self-improvement but a greenhouse for raising ``clean-cut'', ``elect'' people? But how can they change the ``dirty'' world without interfering in its affairs, and without themselves __PRINTERS_P_197_COMMENT__ 7B---707 197 getting ``mucked''? Dostoyevsky found no answer to this question although he put a spotlight on it.
His thought that neither the individual nor humanity as a whole can become perfect all at once, can get a "fortune straight off'', is not an empty or naive one. It is rooted in a concrete and active, and, what is most important, sober and stern humanism which was alive in Dostoyevsky not thanks to, but in spite of his sermons. Above all else he advocated man's self-improvement for the sake of earthly life.
Raskolnikov's picture of the plague that brought death and ruin to the world ends with these words: "In the whole world only a few could save themselves, a chosen handful of the pure, who were destined to found a new race of men and a new life, and to renew and cleanse the earth; but nobody had ever seen them anywhere, nobody had heard their voices or their words.'' One could, if one wished, read into these words the miracle of the immaculate conception and the birth of a new breed of people. But it would be more correct to interpret them as an admission of the groundlessness and utopianism of such a hope. Dostoyevsky knew only too well that `` cleancut'' people came from ``unclean'' ones. He ardently wished that all people would be included in the "new race'', that there would be neither the ``elect'' nor the ``unprivileged'', that the "new race of men'', all mankind, would be happy here on earth.
The religious ``anti-trichinae'' failed to provide an antidote to the evils of the world. Such an antidote is to be sought only in man's work to " recreate himself''.
198This process of re-creation and of overcoming self-deception is examined in detail in A Raw Youth. There the hero, Arkady Dolgorukov, speaks about his desire to learn to tell the truth and about the great efforts he exerts to achieve this end, and tells how by writing down his past experiences he succeeds in re-creating himself and becoming a different man.
__PRINTERS_P_199_COMMENT__ 7B [199] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1971/RRD247/20070826/247.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.08.26) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ALPHA_LVL1__ Towards the Sun of Pushkin``Pushkin died at the height of his creative powers and he took to his grave a great secret. And now we are trying to unravel this secret without him."
Crime and Punishment is possibly the most Pushkinian of Dostoyevsky's works.
Alexander Blok wrote: "Since early childhood we have kept in our memory a cheerful name: Pushkin.''
It may also be said that from the days of our youth our mind and conscience have been troubled by a gloomy name: Dostoyevsky.
But a most remarkable (and insufficiently noted) fact is that our most diseased genius, Dostoyevsky, all his life felt drawn to our most healthy genius, Pushkin. Dostoyevsky disliked and scoffed 200 at many writers, often unjustly, and he often changed his opinions about some of them. But his affection for Pushkin remained unchanged. In fact it is impossible to understand Dostoyevsky without understanding his love for Pushkin.
In the West the key to the "Russian soul" is often sought in Dostoyevsky alone. This is not a correct approach for the simple reason that one person, even the most talented, cannot be the spiritual representative of a whole nation. At any rate, one cannot understand the soul of the Russian people without reading Pushkin.
Dostoyevsky once said: "Had Pushkin lived longer he might have created great and immortal images explaining the Russian soul to our European brethren, he could have brought them nearer to us than they are now, and could have told them the whole truth about our aspirations, and they would understand us better than they do now, and might have stopped regarding us with mistrust and arrogance, as they still do today. Had Pushkin lived longer there might be less misunderstanding and dispute between us than we see today.''
Versilov in A Raw Youth says: "The loftiest element in Russian thinking is a striving towards a conciliation of ideas.'' Dostoyevsky' himself had long been possessed by this idea, and this is understandable. In the 19th century Russia was the battlefield of a multitude of ideas. Being somewhat behind in social development compared with other European countries with which it nevertheless maintained close ties, and being well informed about the ideas which were floating in the West at the time, Russia lived through theoretically almost everything the world was to 201 experience actually in the twentieth century. Everywhere in Russia, in small towns, as well as in the capital, St. Petersburg, "Russian boys" like Ivan and Alyosha, Raskolnikov and the "raw youth'', the "man from underground" and the "queer fellow" argued in words what was yet to be argued in action. Dostoyevsky, who always took part in such discussions and, in fact, started them, often found himself on the wrong side of the argument mainly because of his bias and intolerance. His dream of a "conciliation of ideas" was a mixture of a benign albeit reactionary Utopia and a faint awareness of the need for an alliance with those whom he had denounced; a hidden wish to assert the supremacy of his own ideas over all others and an awareness of the necessity of reckoning with the ideas of the revolutionary democrats to whom he owed the "prime impulse" of his creative work; forebodings about the impending clash of ideas in its most tangible material form and the fear of this clash. The conciliation of ideas-this is like the dream of the "queer fellow" about a planet which has not yet been infested with ``trichinae'', a dream which was later followed by Raskolnikov's last dreams. However, Dostoyevsky had some points in common with the revolutionary democrats and socialists. There were even short periods of cooperation between them which Dostoyevsky himself had called ``prophetic''. Let us recall once more the wise and bitter words of Saltykov-Shchedrin: "Mr. Dostoyevsky, without the slightest qualms, is hacking away at his own cause by heaping shame on people whose efforts are bent in the direction to which, it seems, the most cherished thoughts of the author himself aspire.''
202That was Dostoyevsky's tragedy which he tried to escape but could not. In his fight against his enemies, the socialists, Dostoyevsky often resorted to the same means which he himself condemned and which were incompatible with his realism. At times he seemed to be possessed by `` demons'' or stung by ``trichinae'', and then he fomented the ``strife'' the cessation of which was his "cherished dream''. As an artist, and especially as a political writer, Dostoyevsky could hardly have applied to himself the words of his beloved poet:
``And long in people's memory shall I be
cherished
Because I with my muse their nobler feelings
roused...''
In his works Dostoyevsky sometimes aroused base and evil feelings. He knew this and suffered from the knowledge. An awareness that he had done an injustice to those on whom he "heaped shame" and without whom his very existence as a writer would have been unthinkable gave rise to a desire to justify himself and expiate his guilt.
In The Tale oi Pushkin Dostoyevsky again tells about his dream: "It is our destiny to build a world community through brotherly love and a brotherly desire to unite all people, and not by force of arms.''
As said earlier, Dostoyevsky regarded the Russian people as "God-fearing and a "nation of the elect''. What he meant was not that the Russian people were ``superior'' or endowed with divine powers, but that they had a mission to perform in the world. This attitude shows Dostoyevsky's awareness of his personal responsibility as a writer, 203 of the great responsibility of Russian literature to its people, and of the responsibility of Russia to mankind.
Both Dostoyevsky and Pushkin had a good deal of feelings about people, and about the unity of mankind. Dostoyevsky evidently realized this. At any rate it could hardly have been a secret to him. What was his secret was that he did not always measure up to his own expectations: "It has happened all my life, everywhere and in everything, that when I come to the end of my tether I step over the barrier.''
Excessive inteference with life may result in violence against life. But does it mean that there should be no interference with life at all? It would be incorrect to say that everything depends on the environment. But would it be correct to say that nothing depends on it? Knowledge may lead to passiveness. But does it mean that knowledge is unnecessary and even dangerous? There can be no absolute harmony between aims, means and results. But does it mean that there can be no harmony between them at all?
In terms of logic, the answers to these questions would obviously be negative. It is easy to say: "This is one thing and that is another.'' But ideas do not live in books-they live in people, in their passions, and it cannot be otherwise. And herein the consciousness and soul of people-ideas undergo remarkable, illogical transformations. Logic suddenly breaks down, and it appears that these imaginary contradictions become dangerously real. The very fact that the poles of these imaginary contradictions exclude each other brings them into being, giving rise to an endless movement, though essentially within a closed 204 circuit. The positive absolute needs the negative absolute: God is unthinkable without the Devil, just as Paradise is unthinkable without Hell.
Dostoyevsky is an unsurpassed master in focusing and laying bare such contradictions, in carrying them to the point of absurdity and then showing both their imaginary character and their real danger. He was able to do that because life itself had rendered them absurd. And he became a great master because he was able to put these contradictions to the test of life, to "latch them on" to the fate of man and mankind and make the question of the solution of each one of them a matter of life and death. The fate of his heroes is inextricably linked with the fate of humanity as a whole, and their personal tragedy with that of the whole world.
Dostoyevsky knew that it would be irrational, unwise, even dishonest to see only the good and bright side of life. He also knew that it would be still more irrational, stupid and dishonest not to see what was good and bright in life. What he did not know or what he often lacked was a sense of proportion and harmony. By contrast, Pushkin had the rare gift for perceiving the balance between the bright and dark sides of life and the ability to find the living, natural harmony between his knowledge of the noble and his knowledge of the base in man. Pushkin did not suffer from imaginary contradictions, or rather he solved them without carrying them to the point of absurdity.
What made Pushkin and Dostoyevsky so different (and at times appear even opposite to each other) was not only their personalities but primarily the difference in the epochs which brought 205 forth these two great writers and the problems which they set out to solve.
``Pushkin... took to his grave a great secret. ..,'' said Dostoyevsky.
This secret could be the discovery of a new balance and a new harmony as regards our knowledge of the dark and bright sides of life. Pushkin was the first to say: "May sunshine come and may all darkness vanish!" His secret was his ability to discover and express this idea in such a way that he himself believed in it and made others believe in it, too.
Dostoyevsky saw more clearly than any other writer of his time that life, society and the human personality were inevitably and of necessity becoming more complex. Much as he feared this trend, it held an irresistible fascination for him. And he felt drawn towards Pushkin because the poet symbolized for him a wholeness which did not reject complexity, and sunshine which did not shut out darkness. To him it was love of life after being sentenced to death, an adieu to life on the way to the execution block and the lastsecond reprieve and acquittal, the sweet gift of life given when the axe was raised over his head. That was what Dostoyevsky himself had lived through, together with the other members of the Petrashevsky circle, on December 22, 1849. He described the experience in a letter to his brother written on that fateful winter day:
``Never before have I been filled with so much vigour and spiritual strength as now... For today I was in the hands of death a whole three quarters of an hour, lived with the thought of death up to the very last, and now I am alive again. ... Life is the most precious of all gifts, 206 life is happiness, and each minute can be a whole century of happiness... Brother, I swear that I shall not lose hope and shall keep a pure heart and spirit.''
This experience had a much greater impact on Dostoyevsky's life as an artist than epilepsy which is a favorite subject with some of his biographers. Its effect can be felt in practically every one of Dostoyevsky's books and especially in The Idiot which contains a description of the experience of a man condemned to death: "There was a church nearby, and its gilded roof glittered in the sun. He remembered later that his gaze was fixed on this roof and on the sunbeams; he just could not tear his eyes away from them. It seemed to him that these sunbeams were now his, that in three minutes he would merge with them.... The thought of the unknown that was soon to come filled him with terror. But still more unbearable was the thought: 'What would happen if I did not die? What would I do if life could be mine again-an infinity! All, all this would be mine, mine! I would then turn every minute of it into a century, and would lose nothing, I would count off every minute, so that not one of them would go to waste!' "
``Life is the most precious of all gifts. Life is happiness, every minute can be a whole century of happiness.'' That is what Dostoyevsky wrote, that is how he once felt. Later, however, he violated his own precepts. His whole life was one of mistakes and insights, of wasted days and expiating hours. Every book he wrote was a rediscovery of one and the same truth-that it is impossible to achieve the desired result all at once, that no courage or impulsive act can 207 substitute for hard, though joyous work, with regard both to his writings and to his life, which for him were the same thing.
Pushkin loved life for its own sake, whereas Dostoyevsky frenziedly called for love of life. He exhorted, remonstrated and pleaded, insisting that love alone could save mankind from self-destruction, that in love of life alone lay mankind's salvation.
``Let life anew come into being
There, at the entrance to the tomb. . .''
These are Pushkin's words.
``But if it does not come?" exclaims Dostoyevsky in horror.
For the hero of The Meek even the sun appears dead after the suicide of the woman he loved. "Why did she die?" he cries, "... O we could have solved everything... Why, why couldn't we come together again and start a new life? Only a few words, two days, no more, and she would have understood everything. What hurts most is that all this is an accident, a simply barbarous, stupid accident! That's what hurts. Five minutes, just think, I was only five minutes too late! . . . Too late!!!... 'People, love one another'-who said that? Who said we must love one another? How unfeelingly the clock ticks on. It's now two o'clock in the morning. Her shoes lie there by the bed as if they are waiting for her... No, really, when they've carried her out tomorrow, what will become of me?''
To understand Pushkin's attraction for Dostoyevsky, we must understand Dostoyevsky as one who had discovered the meaning of a "life reborn" which should never be sacrificed for anybody or anything, but which was nevertheless sacrificed 208 and, after this sacrificial suicide, or under the threat of suicide, became truly blessed and infinitely dearer than ever before. And the description of universal death in the Epilogue to Crime and Punishment (like the "dead sun" in The Meek) was an expression of the rejection of death and an unquenchable desire to live; it was a warning against, rather than an advocacy of, pessimism, a warning not to be too late.
Dostoyevsky could never have accepted the ideas of the Apocalypse attributed to him by Berdyaev, Rozanov, the existentialist critics, etc. In any case, he did not regard Armageddon as some kind of "divine retribution" (or as an artistic metaphor) but as a real, tangible threat which might be carried out one day but which might be forestalled. He ridiculed those who exhorted people not to wish, much less do, the world any good, because "it is said to be coming to grief anyway.'' Dostoyevsky was wrong when he insisted that it was impossible to build a "crystal palace" because there was the ``underground'', but he was right when he said that "factories will be surrounded by gardens. . .''
``The unified plan of the Inferno is a product of a great genius,'' said Pushkin in reference to Dante. These words can equally well be applied to Crime and Punishment with its original and carefully worked-out plot-from "the first literary efforts" through unforeseen ``accidents'' and ``slips'' to the death of a mother and the great Apocalypse; from a ``coffin'' (a dingy little cubbyhole) to a universal graveyard; from a scorching day in July to a world-wide conflagration; from "a chord vibrating through the mist" to a tocsin call. But the most important theme of all 209 is the clash between two opposite inner motives; and on this plane the movement of the plot may be seen as follows: from a suicidal murder to the discovery of a human being in oneself and in others; from strife and alienation (``Oh, if only I were alone'') to a reunion with people; from a split personality to a complete whole individual, to the oneness of mankind; from a random, gloomy inspiration to a silent, free confession and a search for truth; from a feverish impatience to get "a fortune straight off" to a gradual renewal; from Jesuitical self-deception to self-consciousness and ``self-creation'', from futile evasions to a fearless recognition of facts and things as they are; from ``arithmetic'' to life; from a hideous nightmare to an all-saving awakening; from darkness to sunshine, from suffocation to ``air'', ``air'', ``air''.
This plan may serve as a guide for future translators of Dostoyevsky into the language of music, art, theatre and cinematography.
[210] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``I Started All Anew...''``// is necessary to put an end to uncertainly, to explain the whole murder one way or another."
It is strange that we often know more about works of art than about their creators. For example, we know Don Quixote better than Cervantes, Hamlet better than Shakespeare and Raskolnikov better than Dostoyevsky. "But this is not at all strange, this is only natural!" one might say. But is it really so? Without knowing the price paid for works of art by their authors-human beings with human passions-we cannot possibly hope to fully understand the works themselves. The creative process proves that man's possibilities are truly inexhaustible, but the creator is more real, more significant and more alive than any of his works.
211When we look at the vast world and the large number of characters Dostoyevsky had created, we cannot help wondering how one person could have produced all that within the short span of human life, and especially a person for whom life was not a bed of roses. But the greatest miracle in artistic creation consists in the fact that the ``unusual'' is born of the ``usual'', the ``clean'' emerges from the ``unclean'', and this cannot be otherwise for it constitutes the essence of the creative process. The best proof of this point is provided by Dostoyevsky's notes for his Crime and Punishment.
As is known, Dostoyevsky burned an almost finished version of Crime and Punishment ( fortunately not all of it was destroyed). The motives for this act are still not quite clear.
In September 1865, Dostoyevsky wrote a letter to M. N. Katkov, editor of Russkii Vestnik (only a draft of this letter has survived):
``May I hope that you would publish my novel in your magazine Russkii Vestnik? The idea of the novel does not in any way run counter to what your magazine stands for.
``This is a psychological account of a crime. A young man expelled from the university, a bourgeois by background, living in dire poverty, decides, out of light-headedness and confused thinking, to free himself from his wretched state with one bold stroke. He succumbs to half-baked ideas which happen to be in the air. The student decides to kill an old money-lender, the wife of a petty official. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy, takes usurious interest rates, is mean, and is ruining the life of another person, her 212 younger sister whom she torments and who works for her. 'She is good for nothing. What purpose does she have in life? Is she useful to anybody?' Those questions drive the young man out of his mind. He decides to kill her, rob her, in order to provide for his mother, who lives in a provincial town, to rescue a sister, who lives with the family of a country landholder as a companion, from the lecherous designs of the head of that family, designs which threaten to ruin her, and to finish his studies, go abroad, and then be honest the rest of his life, firm and unyielding in the fulfillment of his human duty to mankind. Which of course will redeem the crime, if one can call crime the killing of the old, deaf, stupid, mean, and sick woman who has no idea why she is living and who a month later might have died anyway.
``Although such crimes are terribly difficult to carry out, that is, they almost always leave behind some crude evidence and so on, and so much depends on chance which is almost always against the culprit, he, in an entirely accidental way, succeeds in executing his plan, quickly and without too much difficulty.
``Nearly a month went by after that before the final catastrophe; there was no suspicion, nor could there be any against him. And here the whole psychological process of the crime begins. Insoluble problems arise before the murderer; unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth and man-made law got him at the end, and he is forced to denounce himself, forced, even if he should perish in prison, to rejoin people. The feeling of isolation and separation from mankind which seized him immediately after he committed the crime wore him down. The 213 law of truth and human nature began to take effect. The criminal decides on his own to accept the ordeal in order to atone for his act. . . Besides this, my story suggests that the punishment meted out by the law is far less frightening to the criminal than the law-makers think, partly because the criminal himself demands it morally.''
Thus, Crime and Punishment as conceived by Dostoyevsky in September 1865 can be described in terms of the following six points which, of course, do not cover the whole plot:
1) The motives for the crime are entirely noble,- 2) The crime consists solely of the murder of an old woman, a money-lender; 3) The action before the "final catastrophe" covers a period of nearly a month; 4) The voluntary confession and repentance of the student are inseparable; 5) Expiation of the crime is not central to the novel; 6) The plot is conceived as a confession by a criminal.
In the final (published) version these six points have undergone substantial changes:
1) The motives for Raskolnikov's crime include Napoleonomania screened by self-deception about his "lofty aims''; 2) There are other victims besides the old money-lender; they include Lizaveta who was pregnant and Raskolnikov's mother, Mikolka who barely escapes penal servitude; and in his dreams Raskolnikov sees the whole world perish; 3) The plot covers a period of about two years and then seems to extend into infinity; 4) The confession, repentance and expiation of the crime do not take place simultaneously: Raskolnikov confesses on the eleventh day after the murder but repents only eighteen months later; 5) The repentant criminal does not 214 immediately find his way to expiation; 6) The narrative is in the third person.
In the final, published version there are also Raskolnikov's article and the story of the Marmeladovs. A theme which remains unchanged, and which is central to the whole book is "the feeling of isolation and separation from mankind which. .. wore him down''. But one thing is clear: the earlier conception of the novel was replaced by a new one (``I am carried away by the new form and the new plan'').
In the new version there is no speedy return of the sinner to Paradise, and the motive for the crime does not consist solely of a righteous aim.
In the notes for the novel Raskolnikov frantically tries to convince himself and others of the righteousness of his aims, and the aims for which he committed his crime: "My conscience is easy. But is it? Is it?" "Oh, if only I could be sure of what I am saying now!" Here Dostoyevsky wrote "N.B" eleven times. As we have seen, this became one of the main themes in the novel.
In the notes we find the following passage: "When Raskolnikov is told that he will have done so many wicked things before he achieves power that he will not be able to atone for them, he replies with a smirk: 'It's worth doing some good and playing around with pluses and minuses, so that on the balance the good will be on the credit side.' And he adds angrily: 'I don't need to do good. All this is for myself, for myself. ..'"
Dostoyevsky crossed out the following italicized words: "In the novel he epitomizes excessive pride, haughtiness and contempt for our society. His idea is to achieve power in society so as to 215 be able to do it good. Despotism is his main feature.'' Could it be that deletions like this one finally led Dostoyevsky to burn an almost finished novel written according to an earlier plan?
And here is another point, possibly the decisive one.
``C. Chief Anatomy of the Novel.
``After the illness, etc. It is absolutely necessary to establish the course of things firmly and clearly and to eliminate what is vague, that is, to explain the whole murder one way 01 another, and make the nature of the crime and all relations clear.'' On the margin Dostoyevsky wrote: "Pride, individualism, and insolence.'' This recalls Raskolnikov's words also found in the author's notes: ``I've killed not for the good of the people but for power.. . Power is happiness. .. No, that was not an act of stupidity, that was not an act by an immature youth, that was not something accidental, but an act of conviction, a display of lack of respect for human personality.'' Raskolnikov is characterized as having " demoniac pride,'' "devilish pride'', "demoniac strength'', "satanic pride'', "formidable pride'', "inordinate pride"...~^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ We cannot agree with what Alberto Moravia said about Raskolnikov: "Contrary to the Stendhalian Julian Sorel, another admirer of Napoleon, Raskolnikov does not dream of greatness, but rather of justice" (Crime and Punisli?ncnt, New York, 1964, p. 662). Here Moravia is repeating the stock views on the novel. They boil down to the idea that Raskolnikov is to be identified with revolutionaries, notably Marxists, who should then be judged in the same way as Dostoyevsky judges Raskolnikov. This interpretation is designed to show that in the age-long "duel between Marx and Dostoyevsky'', the latter has won. In other words, a quasi-Dostoyevsky wins over a quasi-Marx with the help of a quasi-Raskolnikov.
216Dostoyevsky discovers that this unjust motive penetrates to the very core of Raskolnikov's good intentions: "But why do I want to be the noblest of all?" (the main idea of the novel). "The noblest of all"-this is a thirst for public worship, akin to that of Prince Andrei in The War and Peace.
Another entry in the notes reads: "How vile people are. Dreams about a new crime.'' This "new crime" is carried out by Raskolnikov in the prison camp, when he repudiates his confession.
Thus Dostoyevsky is searching here for the true motives of Raskolnikov's crime. He is trying to clear up the problem in his own mind, and he finally succeeds. The result is a revision of the entire novel.
Having found the key to the secret Dostoyevsky offers the key to the reader. But he does not directly point out the solution to the reader, but leads him to it in a way that enables him to consider the problem himself and to experience what the author has lived through. In this way, by not giving the reader ready answers which he himself has sought and finally found, Dostoyevsky succeeds in making these answers meaningful for the reader.
Dostoyevsky "destroys uncertainty'', overcomes his doubts and achieves "exactitude and certitude'', not by simplifying the problem, but by going more deeply into it, by discovering the complexity of the problem. There is no mechanical coexistence of two opposite motives, but their interaction in which one (right) motive camouflages the opposite motive, an interaction made possible by self-deception. "Oh Lord, what a deal one can make with one's conscience!''
__PRINTERS_P_217_COMMENT__ 8---707 217And here is an entry which reveals the implacable logic of Raskolnikov's "accursed idea": "And tomorrow some other Napoleon will take me for a louse and will expend me at Marengo or will hack me down with an axe in a dark lane somewhere.''
As his notes show, Dostoyevsky had turned over the word ``arithmetic'' in his mind for a long time, and gave it a meaning as deep as that of the ``ticket'' in The Brothers Karamazov (``arithmetic'' symbolizes the inhumaneness of ``temporal'' religion, while the ``ticket'' stands for the inhumaneness of ``pure'' religion).~^^*^^
The notes for the novel show that Dostoyevsky attached great significance to Raskolnikov's article: "A monomaniac. . . this is a good idea. It should be followed up. Maybe it is the article (Porfiry's main evidence) that drives him on.'' In this connection Porfiry tells Raskolnikov: "When you have lived some more, you will see that there is something more to a crime than mere arithmetic. You have your arithmetic but there is also life. God forbid that you may meet with an accident. . . I have gathered this also from your article. . . But all this is theory.. . Either study or write.'' "My project has taken full possession of me, and to see it carried out has become the purpose of my whole life,'' says Raskolnikov. Here _-_-_
^^*^^ One of the pages of the manuscript of The Brothers Karamazov shows Dostoyevsky's excitement over the word ``ticket''. His even handwriting suddenly becomes twitchy, and the word ``ticket'' is written over and between the lines. Like lightning it illuminates the whole page and the serene silhouettes of Gothic cathedrals he drew on its margin.
218 Dostoyevsky introduces the concept of " theoretical crime.''Alter that Dostoyevsky wrote the joyful and therefore tragically ambiguous words spoken by Raskolnikov's mother about her son's article: "This is the key to the riddle." After that he created the scene of an insane, happy mother in the streets of St. Petersburg holding her son's article in her hands (and the words "the key to the riddle" sound even more tragic here).
Dostoyevsky emphasized the social element in his works, and did so deliberately. Belinsky's proposition of "social consciousness or death" underlies all the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, notwithstanding the disagreements between the two men. In his notes for the novel, on the margin opposite the words "in delirium are all the sufferings of people,'' he wrote: "socially this is very important.''
[219] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Narrated by the Author,``If a confession, then in parts it will be somewhat artificial and it will be difficult to imagine why it was written."
If the motives of Raskolnikov's crime are truly noble, if the evil in Raskolnikov is not as deepseated as it appears to be, then the crime would be relatively limited in scope, and the action should unfold at a rapid pace.
The confession, repentance, and expiation would all take place at the same time, and the criminal would want to tell about his troubles, to confess. Such is probably the logic, the structure, of the version of Crime and Punishment which Dostoyevsky destroyed. On the other hand, if the motives of the crime are evil and rooted in social conditions, the crime would inevitably be greater in 220 scope. And if the mechanism of self-deception, if ``casuistry'', is what prevents Raskolnikov from recognizing his wrongdoing, then the action would necessarily extend over a considerable period of time, and repentance could not possibly take place simultaneously with the confession. In this case one must not expect the novel to be a memoirtype confession, especially since the hero, Raskolnikov, even a repentant Raskolnikov, is not someone who freely unburdens his thoughts and worries. Thus content determines form; the what and why determine the how.
It is not surprising, therefore, that we should find Dostoyevsky working on the "Chief Anatomy of the Novel" (for the purpose of "removing uncertainties" regarding the motives of the crime) at the same time that he was trying to decide whether the narrative should be put into the first or third person. He chose the latter, rejecting the form of a memoir-type confession.
According to the earlier plan, Raskolnikov was to begin his diary-confession on the fourth (?!) day after the murder which took place on June 9. "June 16. On the third night I began my diary and spent four hours writing.''
Next we read: "Let it be an account. .. of what? For whom?" Dostoyevsky crossed out these words, for he must have realized that it was impossible for a murderer to turn into a chronicler of his crime on the fourth day after the event (in the version we now have Raskolnikov still lies unconscious on the fourth day).
And further: "This will be a document... Nobody will ever find these sheets. The windowsill is loose and can be lifted. Nobody knows about it.''
221This again sounds unnatural because Raskolnikov was physically unable to write his ``account'' on the fourth day after the murder. But Dostoyevsky tried to prove the contrary and made Raskolnikov explain it this way: "If I had tried to write this on the tenth of June, the day after the murder, I probably would have not been able to write anything, because I could not have remembered how it all happened. I felt giddy, and was that way for three days. But now it all comes back to me.''
He could not write about his crime on the second day after the murder, but he could on the fourth... Apparently aware of the improbability of this, Dostoyevsky crossed out the above-- quoted passage. And yet Raskolnikov continues to write his account of the crime, recalling every detail, as if he had no other care in the world.
Raskolnikov, according to Dostoyevsky's earlier plan, was to be his own ``stenographer'': "Here the story ends and the diary begins.''
But soon the plan was changed, and the story became more plausible: "I will tell everything at the trial. I will write it all down. I am writing for myself, but let others also read it, all my judges, if they want to. This is a confession, a full confession. I will make a clean breast of it and will keep nothing back.'' This is possible, both physically and psychologicaly, but is it possible that he should make the confession so soon after the murder?
Then the author decided on "an account in the form of a diary.''
But half a page later:
``A New Plan
The story of a criminal
222
Eight years ago
(in order to keep it at a distance)''.
This is a more realistic plan. "Eight years" is not an arbitrary number; it is the term of Raskolnikov's prison sentence. And as the hero starts a new chapter in his life, it is natural that he should recall the events of the past.
But the new plan imposed certain difficulties, for it raised the question about the meaning of the new life which Raskolnikov had found. This was a natural question to ask since the time of writing the confession had been extended. The confession itself, however was to remain. But not for long. On the next page we read: "Another Plan.
``The story is narrated by the author, an invisible but omniscient person who does not leave his hero even for a minute.''
Thus the role of ``stenographer'' was finally assumed by Dostoyevsky himself.
After a few pages we find a more detailed description of the new plan:
``Re-consider all questions in this novel. But the plot is such that the story must be narrated by the author, not by the hero. If it is to be a confession, everything must be made absolutely clear. Every moment of the story must be perfectly clear.
``N. B. If a confession, then in parts it will be somewhat artificial and it will be difficult to imagine why it was written.
``But on the part of the author. A good deal of naivete and frankness is needed. The. author should be omniscient and infallible in presenting to the reader a member of the new generation.''
223Thus, from the deleted phrase, "Let it be an account. . . of what? For whom?" Dostoyevsky came to the realization that "it will be difficult to imagine why it was written.'' The task of "re-- considering all the questions" was assigned to the author himself.
This change in plan reflects a struggle of motives: Dostoyevsky wished to resurrect Raskolnikov, to find a human being in him, to give him a new life, and at the same time he was aware of the difficulties involved in realizing this wish. Because he had lived through these difficulties himself, he was able to enter into the feelings of his hero completely. This can be seen in the following incident. In the summer of 1866, when Dostoyevsky was visiting his sister, V. M. Ivanova, at Lyublino, near Moscow, a man who used to stay at her house at night decided not to do so in the future. When Ivanova and her husband insisted on an explanation he said that Dostoyevsky was plotting a murder, because he kept pacing his room and talking about it to himself. (Later Dostoyevsky's wife had to convince some of his more impressionable readers that her husband, the author of Crime and Punishment, had never killed anybody in his life.)
A story about a hero calls for the author's identification with that hero, but a story which is told by the hero requires complete identification on the part of the author. In working on the novel planned as a confession Dostoyevsky came to have a deeper understanding of the true motives for Raskolnikov's crime, and this led him to reject the form of a confession for his novel.
The confession can be the beginning of a new 224 life, or at least of a desire (often hopeless) for a new life. As originally planned by Dostoyevsky, the novel would be in the form of a confession and would involve a radical change in the selfconsciousness of the hero, the same kind of change that took place in the case of Arkady Dolgorukov (A Raw Youth), of the hero of The Dream ot a Queer Fellow and the hero of The Meek (all three are written in the form of a confession). There has not yet been a change in the self-- consciousness of Raskolnikov. He has understood everything ``correctly'' and "all at once'', but the process of ``self-creation'' is yet to begin.
In describing The Meek as ``fantastic'' Dostoyevsky gave this explanation: "If a stenographer had happened to be nearby and had heard and recorded his words, the account would have been less coherent and rougher than in my story, but, it seems to me that the psychological order would have remained the same. It is this idea of a hypothetical stenographer taking down everything (which I later worked over) that I call fantastic in this story. But things like this have happened in literature more than once. Take, for instance, Victor Hugo's The Last Day ol a Condemned Man in which the author employed the same device. Here, although no stenographer appeared on the scene, the author indulged in a still greater act of improbability by assuming that a condemned person was able (and had time) to keep records of his thoughts to his last day, and even in his last hour and last minute. Had it not been for this fantasy, we would not have had this literary masterpiece, indeed the most realistic and true-to-life work Hugo ever wrote.''
This kind of fantasy, however, did not fit in __PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 88-707 225 with Raskolnikov's character.
In the notes for the novel, Dostoyevsky had Raskolnikov say: "No, I am not prepared for it. I am too proud, and too false. I began re-making myself only in the penal camp.'' In the novel the process of ``re-making'' is still more involved and difficult. Raskolnikov does not yet suspect what price he will have to pay for the expiation of his crime.^^*^^
Dostoyevsky thus rejected the form of a confession for his novel, which, however, retains some elements of a confession. It is mentioned several times in the novel that ``afterwards'', "a long time since" Raskolnikov recalled all that had happened (the usual beginning of a confession). There is also a confessionary tone in Raskolnikov's admission of his deed to Sonya, though it is all but lost owing to his "accursed idea" which, in a way, is also confessionary, for a confession may be made in the form of "a challenge by a guilty man to a judge" (Stavrogin in The Possessed) or of a denunciation of others through a denunciation of oneself (The Man from Underground) or in the form of cynical remarks as those of Svidrigaylov and the heroes of Bobok.
_-_-_^^*^^ Edward Wasiolek in his introduction to the English language edition of the notes for Crime and Punishment says that these notes "do not shed light on the ncttlesome problem of Raskolnikov's motives for killing the money-- lender. . . Dostoyevsky seemed unable to decide which was the true set of motives" (The Note-books for "Crime and Punishment''. The University of Chicago Press, ChicagoLondon, 1967, p. 13).
But it is clear that it was not Dostoyevsky who was unable to decide, but Mr. Wasiolek who failed to understand what was decided on by Dostoyevsky.
[226] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``The Last Line of the Novel"``Inscrutable are the ways. . ."
There is a fear of not knowing, but there is also a fear of knowing. Dostoyevsky was familiar with the fear of knowledge, the fear of knowing the truth about oneself and others, when the truth looks like a death sentence, when it is unbearable. Dostoyevsky is like a man who has discovered the secrets of nuclear energy but cannot find any peaceful application of it, and who therefore thinks that he is not only a discoverer, but a criminal, too. Dostoyevsky's greatest fear was that knowledge might kill faith.
__PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 88* 227But in order to strengthen one's faith, one has to put it to the test. The Diary of a Writer contains the following episode: a drunken young peasant, egged on by a friend, shoots at an icon. There is a striking similarity between Dostoyevsky and this young peasant: Dostoyevsky had an irresistible desire "to shoot a gun" in order to test himself and his faith. And then, as if to save himself from sin, he quickly passed the gun to his heroes, and they shot, but with real bullets. And the better they shot the more Dostoyevsky feared that he would lose his faith.
Dostoyevsky took as great pains to write the last chapter of his novel as he did to reveal the motives for Raskolnikov's crime. The two are, of course, inseparable.
The notes, more than the novel, show the inner struggle that went on in Dostoyevsky when he was writing his book, as he sought to reconcile the heresy of his knowledge as an artist with the dogmatic precepts of the Christian faith and saw the futility of his attempts. "The truth of God and the law of nature take their toll,'' he wrote about the repentance of a criminal (in the draft of a letter to Katkov). Dostoyevsky was aware of the deep contradiction between them. This contradiction was never resolved in Dostoyevsky's works but there is a tendency towards solving it on the basis of "the law of nature" rather than the "truth of God''.
The notes for the novel contain the following entry (on the page marked "The Chief Anatomy of the Novel''): "Clash with reality and the logical outcome in accordance with the law of nature and duty.''
Dostoyevsky sought to clarify for himself the 228 meaning of the Orthodox Christian religion: "What is Christian Orthodoxy?''
If he had followed a pre-set scheme, everything would have been clear, and there would have been nothing left to investigate: Raskolnikov forgot God, and that was why he committed a crime; later he returned to God through "a vision of Christ" (this version existed, too), and he repented. But the author preferred a different solution: "He is changed by Sonya and by his love for her.''
In the notes we read: "N.B. The last line of the novel: "Inscrutable are the ways in which God comes to man.''
However, the last line in the final, published version of the novel is different from this one. Here we have an excellent example of how an artist can win over his own preconceived notions. The rejecting of this line is not so much a matter of subtlety in pursuing the religious tendency as an expression of the struggle of conflicts which were tearing the writer.
Besides the religious ending there had been others, all in the planning stage. According to one of them Raskolnikov decides to commit suicide. In another (there are several versions of this) Raskolnikov nearly loses his own life when saving children from a blazing house, and then he repents of his crime and confesses it to his mother and sister. "Pride, arrogance and the assurance of his innocence rise in crescendo, and suddenly, in their highest phase, after the fire, he surrenders to the authorities.'' The crescendo remained and was even enhanced but the version itself was rejected by Dostoyevsky not only because it sounded melodramatic and artificial, but mainly because this ``fire'' might have consumed the most 229 important thing---the inner struggle of Raskolnikov's "two personalities''. For the fire would mean both his confession and his repentance, and would thus be too easy a solution to the complicated problem Dostoyevsky had set out to solve. " Distinguished himself during the fire. Ill after the fire. The fire decided everything.'' And then a note of doubt: "Too soon.'' The way which Dostoyevsky finally found, after rejecting the fire episode, the "vision of Christ'', and "the last line'', is the way of realism in the highest sense of the word.
The novel ends with a reflection on the long and difficult process of Raskolnikov's forthcoming rebirth.
When Laplace was asked why his cosmogonic system left no room for God, he said: "I had no use for this hypothesis.'' Dostoyevsky advanced the ``hypothesis'', tried to make it central to his novel, but actually had no use for it either.
In September 1865, Dostoyevsky wrote to Katkov that "the idea of my novel cannot run counter to what your magazine stands for; on the contrary.'' But in the middle of the following year, he complained that the Russkii Vestnik had found "traces of nihilism" in the novel: "I don't know what will happen later, but this contradiction of views that has appeared with time is beginning to worry me.'' It seems this contradiction was the result of a fundamental (though gradual) change in the plot structure of the novel. The Russkii Vestnik liked the novel when it was `` soothing'', but would probably have liked a religious ending still better.
[230] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``He Does Not Calculate"``Five weeks. Yes!"
Our analysis of Crime and Punishment and the notes for the novel disprove the allegation about the somnambulistic, unconscious nature of the process whereby Dostoyevsky created his novels.
Dostoyevsky can be said to have been one of the most intellectually disciplined writers, one who built up the plot structure of his novels with the utmost care and precision. In saying this we in no way underestimate the role of his intuition as an artist.
In terms of plot construction Crime and Punishment can be compared to The Divine Comedy in 231 which Dante applied the theory about the quadruple meaning of poetry-literal, allegorical, moral and analogical-a theory which he had first applied in The Feast. The literal meaning of the poem consists in a depiction of the after-life, the allegorical-the idea of retribution, the moral-a denunciation of the evil and the praise of the good, the analogical-the glorification of his love for Beatrice (which inspired the poem), glorification of God, who is the love that moves the sun and the stars. In the poem the name of Christ does not rhyme with anything but itself; it is not used in the ``Inferno'', and neither is the name of Mary.
In the development of multiple planes of meaning and in the careful construction of plot Dostoyevsky went even further than Dante. Dostoyevsky knew well that law of art according to which the artist should conceal from the reader the secret he has discovered, but only so far as to enable the reader to discover it for himself, and to experience it as his own.
Dostoyevsky believed that a writer should influence the reader without the latter even noticing it. "Homoeopathic doses,'' he said, "are probably the most effective.'' When planning The Lite of a Great Sinner he wrote :"The dominating idea should not be explained but left enigmatic. Yet the reader must sense that the idea is a noble one.'' In the notes for Crime and Punishment he wrote: "N. B. Not clear but there is already something in it for the reader.''
Everything in the notes is ``louder'', more emphatic, and less restrained than in the novel. For example, the word ``arithmetic'' is mentioned twelve times in the notes, but only three times in the novel. (The word ``ticket'' is repeated many 232 times in the notes for The Brothers Katamazov, and is used only once in the novel, but in a way which leaves an indelible impression in the reader's mind.)
And after Dostoyevsky came to see clearly in his own mind the terrible, but inevitable consequences of Raskolnikov's crime, he wrote at first that in the postmortem examination it was found that Lizaveta had been pregnant with a six-- monthold boy (who happened to be the child of a doctor). But in the final version of the novel there is only a passing mention of Lizaveta's pregnancy.
Or take the story of Sonya. In the notes she had been "plying her trade" for nearly a year, but in the novel the period is cut to five weeks. The sentence, "Five weeks. Yes!" sounds almost casual in the novel.
Or take the thrice-repeated "Air, air, air'', said by different people, and the short commentary that follows:"Raskolnikov started.'' Or that childlike smile of Lizaveta, of Sonya, and Raskolnikov's own childishness when he said:"It wasn't I who killed her.'' Or the two occasions when he kneels before Sonya. Or that moment when Raskolnikov wakes up from his dream about a laughing old woman (at the time of Svidrigaylov's visit) and lies in bed for a long time without opening his eyes, and listening to a buzzing fly. Or when Svidrigaylov, an hour before his death, also tries for a long time to catch a fly with his right hand... Could Dostoyevsky have created these scenes unconsciously?
In a letter to his brother in which Dostoyevsky described the first variant of the Notes from Underground he compared writing with musical composition: "The story is divided into three 233 chapters. The first chapter consists of some 1.5 signatures. .. .But could it be published separately? It would be laughed at, all the more since it loses all colour without the other two (main) chapters. You see, it is like composing music. The first chapter seems to be just talk. But suddenly this talk ends in a catastrophe in the other two chapters.''
Here are some more notes relating to Crime and Punishment.
``All facts without reservation...''
At first Raskolnikov "must appear to the reader as if he were out of his mind" (some of the more ``discerning'' readers attribute everything Raskolnikov did to his ``insanity'').
``His love for Marmeladov's daughter throws him off.''
The author emphasizes the fact that Raskolnikov was only twenty-three years old and had all the traits of a young man of that age. The notes contain references to Raskolnikov's meeting with Zametov in the tavern where Raskolnikov teases him (`` typical of a twenty-three-year-old man''), and his conversation with Sonya about her ``trade'' (``haughty, proud, typical of a twenty-three year old'').
``N.B. See to it that minor details, superfluous and unexpected as they may seem, crop up here and there.''
Concerning Raskolnikov's dream in which he saw himself as a child, Dostoyevsky wrote: "Could it be that there is a law of nature in us which we don't know and which cries out in us? (Dream).'' In the novel Raskolnikov's dream takes place after he has received his mother's letter which awakens the son in him: Raskolnikov was sleeping not in his ``coffin'' but under a bush, and on 234 awakening tries to renounce the "accursed idea''.
Another entry about Sonya and Raskolnikov anticipates the scene where Raskolnikov kneels silently before her. It reads: "N.B. Not a word of love passes between them. This is sine qua non."
It is remarkable how Dostoyevsky abandoned none, or almost none of his numerous mutually exclusive variants, but included nearly all of them in the novel, in new, at times, unexpected contexts. For example, the fire episode is used to reveal one side of Raskolnikov's character (long before he commits the crime). The scene where Raskolnikov kneels on Sennaya Square is also retained in the book, except that instead of resolving the contradictions, it deepens them.
There are many more examples that one can cite to show Dostoyevsky's tireless search for precision, realism and authenticity of every detail and of the novel as a whole.
We can hardly agree with Stephan Zweig who said:"Dostoyevsky's power of artistic observation is nothing short of supernatural. And whereas to some people art is science, to him it is black magic. He is engaged not in experimental chemistry but in the alchemy of reality, not in astronomy, but in the astrology of the human soul. . . . He does not collect, but he has everything. He does not calculate, but his measurements are faultless.''
If Dostoyevsky were guided by "black magic'', ``alchemy'' and ``astrology'', he would have finished his novel with the vision of Christ, the fire, the kneeling on Sennaya Square. If he had not collected he would not have gone beyond the six points listed in his letter to Katkov. And if he had not calculated, he would not have produced the novel he did.
235Dostoyevsky, purportedly a mystic, was actually the most rationalistic of writers. For exactitude and precision, his experiments in art can be compared to experiments in science, while the emotional power of his writing can be compared to that of music.
Crime and Punishment, for example, very much resembles a great symphony, with its development, modulations, conflicts of leitmotifs, the carefully planned ``movement'', ``measure'', chord and note, the unity of its beginning and its end, its freedom and at the same time its discipline. It is possible to experience different emotions while listening to such a symphony, but in performing it one must strictly follow the notes. The reader, as distinguished from a listener, is in a way also a performer, and it is possible that he may hear something the author never wrote and miss something which the author has written. Because of this, there is no way one can be sure that one's interpretation is correct except by reading again and again.
``Reality,'' Dostoyevsky wrote, "is not limited to what we are familiar with. For it contains an enormous portion of something in the form of the unsaid future Word.'' And his search for the " unsaid future Word'', for an art that would be a means of prophesying the future of mankind-this was what he consciously ``calculated''. And his goal was to answer through the medium of art, the simple, and at the same time difficult, question: What would a man do, any man anywhere in the world, if he had full freedom of action? Dostoyevsky was convinced that today's exception would become tomorrow's rule. He was interested in red-hot situations-he wanted to use such 236 situations to illuminate the future. "I have my own view of reality (in art),'' he wrote, "and what most people call fantastic and exceptional is to me the very essence of the real. The commonplace side of events and conventional views on them are not yet realism, but rather its opposite.'' He wanted to know what would happen when the content of certain ideas was completely exhausted, when the spiritual power of man came to full bloom. He was fascinated by the most mysterious dialectics of the soul and by the most profound dialectics of ideas. In his works, realism does not disappear but penetrates to greater depths. What disappears is the line marking the limits of man's knowledge of himself. "One's portrayal of things is far weaker than the things themselves.. . My views about reality and realism differ from those of our realists and critics.. . Their realism is incapable of explaining a fraction of real, actual facts, but we even attempt to prophesy facts at times.''
Dostoyevsky took various ideas and planted them, like seeds, in the hearts and minds of men, and watched to see what harvest he could reap. But he wanted mainly to find out what would become of the man, not of the idea.
Dostoyevsky liked to argue about his ideas. He would give his ideas to his heroes, sometimes even to his adversaries, to see what would become of both the idea and the man. And he liked to take up, for the sake of argument, ideas that were repugnant to him. This method promised great discoveries (Dostoyevsky made such discoveries) but at the same time it led to fantastic aberrations (and he had a great deal of them).
Dostoyevsky concentrated on what he was going to write about and not on how he was going to do 237 it. The ``how'' was of secondary importance to him. He had little time to spend on the form of his novels; he complained about this in his letters. But when he did have time, he found to his great surprise and satisfaction that the form of the novel was practically there already. Dostoyevsky was aware of this peculiarity of his creative process and made full use of it. Evidence of this is the large number of plans he worked out for every book he wrote. To him a plan meant the plot structure of a book and its main concept. The plan answered the questions of "what?" and "why?" Out of many plans finally emerged the ``right'' one; in the meantime all details would automatically fall into place.
``We have completely forgotten the axiom,'' Dostoyevsky wrote, "that truth is the most poetical thing in life, especially in its purest form; and it is also more fantastic than anything a clever human mind can invent. Indeed, people have reached a stage where the lies they invent are much more understandable to them than truth, and it is the same the world over. Truth has been staring in people's face but they do not take it. Instead, they chase after some figments of their imagination because they dismiss truth as something fantastic and Utopian.''
Dostoyevsky wrote in the desperate hope of discovering for himself and for others something that would enable people to save themselves at once and to remake the world. Without such hopes he would not have written. At the same time he was consumed by doubts and apprehensions that nothing would be changed, that everything would remain exactly as it was. The hope that he might discover something important 238 inspired him, while the fear of not being understood made him work with redoubled energy for the contemporary and future readers. He worked without sparing himself. He had so much to tell people and he felt it his duty to speak in spite of everything, to do all he could for people.
``The reader will not understand, the censor will not let it through"-Dostoyevsky did not recognize such reasons for giving up writing (although he never idealized the reader and had no illusions about the censors); to give up writing for such reasons would be a sign of laziness and lack of ability. "The reader understands nothing?" This means that there is nothing to understand and that you, the writer, must work hard to make yourself understood. "The censors will not let anything through?" That is only your excuse for having nothing to say. Such was Dostoyevsky's firm conviction.
[239] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``Remember That He Is``Out of adolescents come whole generations."
It is possible that Dostoyevsky got the idea for his novel from Balzac in the 1830's-1840's, when he was devouring the works of the French writer and even translated Eugenie Grandet into Russian.
In Balzac's Le Pete Goriot, a student from Paris toys with the idea of becoming rich and famous by killing a Chinese prince (``Just imagine: he will die and you will get it all''). But the student turns out to be a humane person or perhaps he sees that his idea is not very sound, and the 240 Chinese prince remains alive. . . Out of this joke came a tragedy-at first in art, and then in real life.
In those far-off days it probably never occurred to any Chinese student to concern himself with the fate of any Frenchman, at any rate, he probably did not undertake to decide the fate of any Frenchman, not even in his thoughts. But by an "irony of history" the fate of Dostoyevsky and Balzac is being decided in present-day China, and not only in thought. The works of both have been banned, condemned as ``bourgeois'' and `` reactionary''. In China today they would have nothing against deciding the fate of the French, the Germans, of all the nations of the world.
But by a still greater "irony of history'', certain French (and other Western) students today seek inspiration in present-day China, and in left extremism in general.
Is this naivete? In the light of Dostoyevsky's painstaking analysis of the soul of a St. Petersburg student, one would answer "no.'' One would be naive indeed to believe in such ``naivete''. One can well imagine today's Raskolnikovs repeating the words: "My conscience is easy. Isn't it? Isn't it?. . . Oh, if I could only be sure of what I am saying now?" (Dostoyevsky had eleven N.B.'s for this passage.) What Dostoyevsky said about Raskolnikov can also be said about today's ultraleft students in the West: "He is young, already sceptical, with an abstract, and consequently cruel mind.'' Are not the leaders of such students filled with a ridiculous and cowardly, but at the same time dangerous vanity for the sake of which they are prepared to sacrifice everything? Are they not flirting with the youth, flattering the latter out of selfish motives? Does not all this 241 indicate a great deception and self-deception?
It is possible to overcome one's fear for one's career, or even for one's own life. One can be proud of such courage and altruism. But if this courage becomes a condition for arbitrary manipulation of the lives of others, if behind it lies not a concern for the lives of others but a hope for a monument to oneself (after one is dead, or better still while one is alive), if this courage blunts and kills the desire for truth, then it is worse than any cowardice. Or rather it would be more correct to say that such courage is actually cowardice: a fear of testing and testing again the truth of one's convictions, a fear of learning, of studying, and studying anew if necessary; it is heroism based on ignorance and courage that arises from dishonesty, from a lack of integrity.
Let us recall once again what Dostoyevsky wrote in his notes about Raskolnikov: "In depicting the man, remember that he is twenty-three.'' Dostoyevsky never forgot that his heroes were young men. This choice of young heroes is not accidental, but dictated by a basic principle of his art-the search for "the unsaid future Word''. And this ``word'' was to be said and translated into life by youngsters out of whom "come whole generations''.
We must not forget that the proportion of young people in the world today is greater than it has ever been before; and the world will continue to grow younger. It is not surprising that many of today's readers of Dostoyevsky are as young as his principal characters, and that among the rebellious youth, leftist irresponsibility is being replaced by a feeling of responsibility for society and for themselves.
242Dostoyevsky exhorted, entreated and remonstrated with young people, urging them not to link their life to the revolution and socialism. Nevertheless, he, more than anyone else of his time, sensed that such a link was inevitable.
Dostoyevsky was absolutely right when he rejected the "right to dishonour''. But he was wrong when he identified this ``right'' with revolution in general. His Pyotr Verkhovensky (The Possessed) was based on Nechayev, but he ascribed Verkhovensky's views to all revolutionaries: " Listen, we are going to create a disturbance. Don't you believe that we are going to create a disturbance ? We shall create such a disturbance that everything will have to start anew. .. And how do you like the idea of razing the mountains? Nothing funny about it... We don't need education! We don't need science! Enough material for a thousand years. What we need is obedience! This is one thing the world does not have! The desire for knowledge is an aristocratic desire. Let someone have a bit of family life or love, and immediately he wants to be rich.. . We shall nip genius in the bud... Everything will be reduced to one common denominator. .. All shall be equal. . . Each shall belong to all, and all to each. Everyone will be a slave and in their slavery they will be equal. Slander and murder will be resorted to only in extreme cases, but the main thing is equality. The first step is to lower the level of education, science and knowledge. A high level of science and knowledge is accessible only to people of a high intellectual order. Down with high intellectual order! Our Ciceros shall have their tongues cut out, any new Copernicus shall be blinded, any future Shakespeare stoned. . . Everywhere 243 there is immense vanity, everywhere people have inordinate appetites, unheard-of appetites! Do you realize how much we can achieve with such ready-made ideas. . . Oh, when this generation grows up!... We shall proclaim destruction... But why, why is this little idea so fascinating? We must limber up a little. We shall start conflagrations. . . We shall invent legends. .. Here every scabby little gang will come in handy. And they will provide us with such volunteers who will gladly do the shooting for you, and be grateful for the honour. This is how the disturbance will begin! There will be such a hubbub as the world has never known!''
Dostoyevsky himself could not have thought that all revolutionaries, all socialists believed in such a revolution. Otherwise he would not have made Verkhovensky admit cynically: "I am a fraud, not a socialist, ha-ha... I am a fraud, a fraud.. .'' And one of Verkhovensky's followers later cried: "This is not it, no, no, this is not it!''
The point is that Dostoyevsky, as said earlier, knew very well that many young people longed for revolution and socialism, "selflessly, with true love for mankind, in the name of honour and truth, and real good.''
If, as Nechayev claimed, revolution meant the "right to dishonour'', why then did two such different revolutionaries and socialists as Marx and Hertzen both call Nechayev a Jesuit and a " revolutionary careerist"? Why did Marx warn: "Now we know what role stupidity plays in revolutions and how scoundrels can exploit it"? Why did Lenin copy out and underline these words? And why did Lenin, shortly before his death, stress the need to select and train people who 244 would not "take the word for the deed, and would not utter a single word against their conscience.'' We may say that Dostoyevsky, like Pushkin, "took a great secret to his grave.'' He died as he was going to carry out the most ambitious and the boldest of his plans: Alyosha Karamazov was to leave the monastery for the ``world'', for politics, for the revolution; a monk was to become a socialist.
Alyosha the revolutionary, Alyosha the socialist, would not have been a bitter caricature of the socialist and revolutionary.
Dostoyevsky wrote in his notebooks: "An idea. About holding aloft the banner of honour in literature. Imagine what would happen if people like Leo Tolstoi turned out to be scoundrels. What temptation, what cynicism this would give rise to. . . And people would say: 'If such men dared, etc. etc. . .' " May we not think that Doctoyevsky would have wanted to "hold aloft the banner of honour" in revolution, too?
Alyosha and Verkhovensky are incompatible. This means that there can be a socialism without the Verkhovenskys, in fact a socialism opposed to them. This is what Dostoyevsky wanted, but feared to believe. He wanted to believe this because he was, above all else, for the earthly happiness of earthly people. He feared to believe this because he would then have had to readjust his entire world outlook, something which even the very great are not always capable of doing.
Our story of Dostoyevsky is drawing to a close. The celebration of the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth will no doubt reveal the whole spectrum of views that has formed around 245 Dostoyevsky in nearly a century of controversy over his works. There will be those who, like some of Dostoyevsky's raving characters, dream of "nipping genius in the bud'', of razing mountains, of tearing out Cicero's tongue, stoning Shakespeare and even destroying Dostoyevsky himself. There will also be those who, like his ``underground'' characters, will engage in excessive introspection and self-flagellation (and always in public, for some reason), who, while singing the praises of "the teacher" and "the prophet'', will play variations on the theme of "all is for the worst in this worst of possible worlds" and who will undoubtedly try to ignore Dostoyevsky's unquenchable desire for a "life that is alive''. Some will continue the vain attempt to turn the great heretic into a dull preacher. Others will try to make political capital out of Dostoyevsky's deeply tragic relations with socialism and revolution. Here, too, the aims will determine the means, and the results will reveal the aims.
But, mainly, the Dostoyevsky anniversary celebration will show the strength of those who truly cherish the treasures of world culture and who are prepared to fight for them, who seek to understand Dostoyevsky through an understanding of the complex contradictions that tormented him. Here, again, the aims, the means and the results are closely interconnected. Many non-Marxists have conceded that the Marxist school of researchers has a deeper understanding of Dostoyevsky, that it treats his works more conscientiously and objectively than all those who made dostoyevshchina into a fad. To make dostoyevshchina into a fad is indeed possible, but not Dostoyevsky himself. One can, like Berdyaev, flaunt one's 246 pathological revulsion from life, but one cannot flaunt real anguish.
The achievements of Dostoyevsky are recognized throughout the world. May this recognition mean "dostoyevshchina overcome'', the ``ticket'' returned to the gods and the idols, the search for a human being in man, the search for the "unsaid future Word''. May it mean the "banner of honour" which he dropped several times, but which he picked up again and again. May it mean his rejection of self-deception and death, his thirst for a "life that is alive'', his hope for overcoming ``strife'' and for "gathering all men together'', his simple words which he came by after much suffering: "Despite all the waste, I love life intensely, I love it for its own sake, and I am seriously thinking of beginning my life anew. ..''
Perhaps the best way to understand the significance of Dostoyevsky in world literature, to understand what he means to us is to imagine for a moment that he never existed-and with him his search and discoveries, his fear and courage, his hopes and despair, his ``ticket'' and his love of "life that is alive'', and, finally his question which has since disturbed many others: "Perhaps this coachman is a Shakespeare, that blacksmith a Rafael, and that peasant an actor. Is it always only the small group at the top that reveals itself, while the rest must perish?. . .''
People like Dostoyevsky "reveal themselves" in order that all others might "reveal themselves''. His words express not a primitive, but a profound democracy and humanism.
We shall end by expressing our deep conviction that only that community where "the free development of each is the condition for the free 247 development of all" (Manifesto of the Communist Party) is called upon not only to transform the world, but also to save it. And in this, Dostoyevsky and world culture as a whole, are our allies. These words from the Manifesto form a logical basis for an alliance between all true communists, all true democrats, and all true humanists (religious and non-religious alike). And the author of this book cannot conceal, nor does he wish to conceal, the fact that in writing it he was pursuing a definite ideological and political aim-that of promoting, establishing and strengthening such an alliance. The frankness with which he states this aim is not a personal characteristic of the author, but a demand of the Marxist world outlook which he upholds.
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[248] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] ~ [249]