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The Brothers Karamazov
Book III. 4.
How 19th century Russian (I wish it was just that). This reminds me of one of Marianne’s more reflective lines in Sense & Sensibility, “What strange creatures men are. What do they want from us? Perhaps they see us not as people but as playthings...” (This is a line from the mini-series screenplay, not from the novel, I think.)
p121 [Dmitri] "...Ladies used to be fond of me; not all of them, but it happened, it happened. But I always liked side paths, little dark back alleys behind the main road -- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, Alyosha... I loved vice, I loved the dishonor of vice. I loved cruelty. Am I not a bug, am I not a poisonous insect? In fact I'm a Karamazov!... You're blushing. Enough of this filth with you... I never bragged of one of them. But that's enough... I'm going to tell you something curious. And don't be surprised that I'm glad to tell you, instead of being ashamed."
p122 "You say that because I blushed," Alyosha said suddenly. "I wasn't blushing at what you were saying or at what you've done. I blushed because I am the same as you are."
"You? That's going a little too far!"
"No, it's true," insisted Alyosha (obviously the idea was not a new one). "The ladder's the same. I'm at the bottom step, and you're above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That's how I see it. But it's all the same. Absolutely the same. Anyone on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top one"
So, presumably, their father is at the top. "Thirteenth" step seems a bit random here; does it have some special significance?
"Then one should not step on the first rung at all."
"Anyone who can help it had better not."
"But can you?"
"I don't think so."
The story of Dmitri and Katerina. Dmitri is in a position to "save" Katerina's disgraced father.
p127 " 'My sister told me,' she began, 'that you would give me 4,500 roubles if I came to you for it -- myself. I have come . . . give me the money!'
"She couldn't keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth quivered...
"...My first idea was a -- Karamazov one. Once I was bitten by a centipede and laid up for two weeks with fever. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then -- a poisonous insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You've seen her? She's a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a cad; she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I -- a bug! And scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul. [Mephistopheles?] She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly that thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that I was almost overcome. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it; as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I would have gone the next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honorably, so to speak, and so that nobody would or could know. For though I'm a cad, I'm honest [and thus not at the top of the ladder?]. And at that very second some voice seemed to whisper in my ear, 'But when you come tomorrow to make your proposal, that girl won't even see you; she'll order her coachman to kick you out of the yard. "Publish it through all the town," she will say, "I'm not afraid of you." ' I looked at Katerina... I became spiteful, I wanted to play the nastiest swinish trick; to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use. I wanted to say: 'Four-thousand-five-hundred! What do you mean? I was joking. You've been counting your chickens too easily. Two hundred, if you like, with all my heart. But Four-thousand-five-hundred is not a sum to throw away. You've gone to a lot of trouble for nothing.' But I did not say these words.
p128 "I would have lost out, of course. She'd have run away. But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all. . . . Would you believe it, it has never happened to me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred... that hate which is only a hairsbreadth from love, from the maddest love!
"I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long, don't be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was lying in a French dictionary). Then I showed it to her in silence, folded it, handed it to her, opened the door into the hall and stepped back, I bowed. I bowed most respectfully, a most impressive bow, believe me! She trembled all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribly pale -- white as a sheet, in fact -- and all at once, not impetuously but softly, gently, bowed down to my feet -- not a boarding-school curtsy, but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the floor. Then she jumped up and ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot; why, I don't know. It would have been stupid, of course. I suppose it was from pleasure. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from pleasure? ... I only kissed my sword and put it back in the scabbard -- which I didn't have to tell you, by the way...."
Curiously, what most strikes me about this passage, given the "human" themes Dostoevsky is dealing with here and how little human nature changes over time, is that people -- even officers not on parade -- were wearing swords so recently as this.
Book III. 5.
Yes, the doomed soap opera quality of this reminds me of Anna Karenina. The Russians really love this stuff and the rest of the world can’t turn away. Isn’t this part of what fascinated Hans Castorp and appalled Settembrini about the Slavic “East.” These characters make Willoughby and Wickham look quite tame, like a vicar’s daughter’s boogeyman.
p130 [Katerina's father is saved but then dies of disease. Katerina returns to Moscow where she suddenly falls into a fortune. Dmitri continues the story,] "Well, suddenly I receive by mail four-thousand-five-hundred rubles. I was speechless. Three days later came the promised letter... She offers to be my wife, offers herself to me. 'I love you madly,' she says, 'even if you don't love me, never mind. Be my husband. Don't be afraid. I won't hinder you in any way. I will be your chattel. I will be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you forever. I want to save you from yourself.' Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlasting vulgar tone, that I can never cure myself of. That letter stabs me even now... Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could about it in a six-page letter and I asked him to go to see her. . . . Why do you look like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her; he's in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in the world's opinion; but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of us all now. Oh! Don't you see how much she thinks of Ivan, how she respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like me, especially after all that has happened here?"
p131 "But I'm convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like him."
"She loves her own virtue, not me." ...
This is all so Christian. This desire for self-abasement. Dmitri and Katerina are really so similar. Dmitri is about to talk about free will, but really they all -- including the monks and fathers and women with religious leanings (perhaps) -- want to give away their will to anyone or anything that will take it. Naphtha would be at home and very comfortable here.
"I swear, Alyosha," he cried, with intense anger at himself, "as God is holy and as Christ is God, I swear that though I smiled at her lofty sentiments just now, I know that I am a million times baser in soul than she. I swear that these lofty sentiments of hers are as sincere as a heavenly angel's. That's the tragedy of it... As for Ivan, I can understand how he must be cursing nature now -- with his intellect, too! To see the preference given -- to whom, to what? To a monster who, though he is engaged and all eyes are fixed on him, can't control his vices -- and before the very eyes of his fiancee. A man like me is preferred while he is rejected. And why? Because the girl wants to sacrifice her life and destiny out of gratitude. It's ridiculous! ... But destiny will win and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back alley forever -- his filthy back alley, his beloved back alley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench through his own free will and with pleasure...
p133 "... Damn it, I have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I stopped being engaged and I stopped being an honest man... You see, I went to see Grushenka the first time to beat her. I had heard, and I know for a fact now, that that captain, Father's agent, had given Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine so that she could sue me, so that she could put an end to me. Father wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had a glimpse of her before... I knew , too, that she was fond of money, that she hoarded it, and lent it out at a cruel rate of interest, that she's a merciless cheat and swindler [A bourgeoisie]. I went to beat her, and I stayed. The storm broke. It struck me down like the plague. I'm still plague-stricken and I know that everything is over, that there will never be anything more for me. The cycle of the ages is accomplished... 'I'll marry you if you like,' she said, 'you're a beggar you know. Say that you won't beat me, and will let me do anything I choose, and perhaps I will marry you.' She laughed, and she's laughing still!"
...
p134 "I'll be her husband if she will have me, and when lovers come, I'll go into the next room. I'll clean her friend's galoshes, light their samovar, run their errands." [How many characters in this book have this same fantasy! Or at least like to talk like this.]
p135 "Katerina will understand it all," Alyosha said solemnly. "She'll understand how great this trouble is and will forgive. She has compassion, and no one could be more unhappy than you. She'll see that herself."
October
The weather is still lovely but the leaves at the top of the Japanese maple tree out my window are turning and the potted tree in our alley is down to its last few leaves. And I’m officially shut down for the year when it comes to event greening. Another year is drifting towards its end.
Beyond the tragic life of leaves, this is also the season when I do a variety of errands to keep my life running smoothly. I take my shoes to the cobbler to have the heels repaired. I schedule my yearly haircut. I schedule my yearly doctor appointment and skin cancer hunt. If I darned socks, I'd be looking to the heels of my socks, but, as it happens, my socks are in fine fettle this year.
I consider what projects or trips I might take in my slack time between now and next March -- not much this year, though if we really do get the El Nino winter we are being teased with, I may want to finally take the train to Truckee for a weekend (or at least for a couple days) when the snow is good and deep.
Deeper thoughts about what I still want to do with my life will come later. A good, rainy, El Nino winter should be ideal for reflection as well as plowing through my next book subject which I currently believe will be Faust.
Today I took advantage of what is supposed to be our last day this week of unusually hot weather to have lunch out and sit at a table on the sidewalk (in the shade). Then I read a couple chapters of my book while drinking my iced tea. Finally, I put down the book and took in the sidewalk and street traffic and some quite handsome buildings across the way. At this point I was distressed to notice flaws in my vision that I thought might be indications that my peripheral vision might be getting worse... Then I remembered I still had on my reading glasses.
Good news: my eyes aren't noticeably worse. Bad news: my brain may be failing.
Jump to Next: The Brothers K. Bk III. 6-11.
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