Crime and Punishment (76 page)

4
.
the plucking of a string
: An allusion to the delirious final paragraph of Nikolai Gogol's story ‘Notes of a Madman' (
1835
): ‘a bluish mist spreads itself out beneath my feet; in the mist, the plucking of a string'. Noting the possible parallel between Raskolnikov, a would-be Napoleon, and Gogol's ‘mad' narrator Poprishchin, who fancies himself the King of Spain, Tikhomirov also cites a letter Dostoyevsky wrote to Ivan Turgenev in December
1863
, where he employs this motif, endowing it with his own meaning and artistic credo. After criticizing utilitarian currents in contemporary culture, Dostoyevsky observes that Turgenev's fantastical tale ‘Phantoms' paradoxically expresses the
real
condition of the soul of contemporary man: ‘This reality
is the anguish of an educated and conscious creature of our times
[...] It's “a string being plucked in the mist”, and thank
goodness for that.' According to Tikhomirov, ‘it is precisely “the anguish of an educated and conscious creature” [...] that is the source of everything that happens to the hero of Dostoyevsky's novel' (
BT
).

5
.
umsonst!
: ‘To no avail!' (German).

6
.
the final pillars
: An unusual idiom inspired by the labours of Hercules, meaning ‘to reach the limit', ‘the furthest point' (
BT
).

7
.
a child
: Mikolka is, in fact, twenty-two (see Part Two, Chapter
IV
).

8
.
schismatic . . . ‘Runners' . . . Elder
: The causes and effects of the mid-seventeenth-century schism (
raskol
) in Russian Orthodoxy, between those who accepted the reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon (
1605–81
) and those who would henceforth be known as the Old Believers or schismatics, preoccupied Dostoyevsky throughout his life, as reflected in the name he gave to the hero of this novel. One of the most radical sects attached to the Old Belief was that of the Runners (
beguny
), for whom the earth was already in the grip of the Antichrist, and who ‘ran' from all worldly authority into forests and remote places. Their tendency to admit to crimes they hadn't committed and to seek out suffering for themselves as a path to holiness was much discussed in the Russian journals of the mid-
18
60s (
PSS
). The symbolic relationship – in terms both of contrast and of possible affinity – between Raskolnikov and the
raskolnik
Mikolka is further underlined by the fact that both men seem to hail from the province of Ryazan (where the district of Zaraisk is located) and are of similar age (twenty-three and twenty-two). The
starets
(Elder) is a charismatic, often controversial holy man who offers spiritual direction and ministry to Orthodox believers, as depicted most famously in the character of Zosima in Dostoyevsky's
Brothers Karamazov
.

9
.
old, ‘true' books
: Religious books that were especially valued by the Old Believers and contained, for example, the sayings of St John Chrysostom (
347–407
). Published before the Schism, in the mid-seventeenth century, they were republished in Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and circulated among Old Believers throughout the nineteenth century (
BT
).

1
0
.
new courts
: A reference to the legal reforms of
1864
, not yet implemented at the time in which the novel is set (summer
1865
).

1
1
.
‘renewal' through bloodshed
: A possible reference to the ideas expounded in Proudhon's
La Guerre et la Paix
(see Part Three, note
20
), as well as to those putatively set out in Raskolnikov's article on crime (
BT
).

1
2
.
Seek and ye will find
: See Matthew
7
:
7
: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'

1
3
.
warrant officer
: A reference to a character in Gogol's play
Marriage
(
1842
) – called Petukhov, though misremembered by Porfiry (or Dostoyevsky) as the offstage warrant officer Dyrka – who, ‘even if you just show him a finger will suddenly laugh out loud, by God, and laugh till the cows come home' (
BT
). The reference echoes Porfiry's characterization of Mikolka earlier in the chapter.

1
4
.
——sky Prospect
: Obukhovsky (now Moskovsky) Prospect.

1
5
.
must be a seminarian
: See Part Two, note
11
.

1
6
.
cher ami
: ‘Dear friend' (French).

1
7
.
La nature et la vérité
: A variation of Heinrich Heine's description of Rousseau as ‘
L'homme de la vérité et de la nature
' (‘The man of truth and nature'), which, in turn, paraphrased Rousseau's pledge in the first book of his
Confessions
to show man ‘in all the truth of his nature'. In a notebook entry written shortly before he began work on
Crime and Punishment
Dostoyevsky described the ideal of ‘the man of truth and nature' as nothing but ‘a puppet that doesn't exist' (
BT
). Through Svidrigailov,
la nature
receives an even more critical (and cynical) interpretation.

1
8
.
Sistine Madonna
: According to the memoirs of Dostoyevsky's second wife, Anna Grigoryevna, Dostoyevsky spoke of the ‘sorrow in the smile' of the
Sistine Madonna
, which he considered ‘the greatest manifestation of human genius' (
BT
). The comparison with a ‘holy fool' drawn by Svidrigailov is more fanciful, though it continues a motif of the novel, linking the Virgin Mary with Lizaveta and Sonya, both compared to holy fools earlier in the novel; see Part Four, note
14
.

1
9
.
Où va-t-elle
la vertu se nicher?
: ‘Where does virtue make its nest?' (French). An almost exact quotation from Voltaire's
Vie de Molière
: ‘He [Molière] had just given alms to a beggar; the next moment, the beggar ran after him and said: “Sir, perhaps you did not intend to give me a gold coin: here, have it back.” “Keep it, my friend,” said Molière, “and have another”; then he exclaimed: “See where virtue makes its nest!”'

2
0
.
assez causé!
: ‘Enough talk!' (French); see Part Two, note
32
.

2
1
.
adieu, mon plaisir
: ‘Farewell, the pleasure was all my mine' (French).

2
2
.
orphanages
: Dating to the times of Catherine the Great (
1729–96
), such orphanages took in children aged seven to eleven, after which they were handed over to schools or factories, or to be apprenticed to private individuals (
SB
).

2
3
.
get yourself off to America
: In Chernyshevsky's novel
What Is to Be Done?
one of the characters, the medical student and ‘rational egoist' Lopukhov,
emigrates to America in order not to impede his wife's new romantic attachment. There is also a historical backdrop to Svidrigailov's injunction: the emigration of Russians to America was frequently reported and debated in the Russian press of the
1860
s and
1870
s, as was the exile of convicts to North America by the British Empire (
SB
,
PSS
). Furthermore, Napoleon was said to have rejected the chance to flee to America after his defeat at Waterloo (see Part Three, note
31
).

2
4
.
a citizen and a man
: ‘A man and a citizen' was a stock phrase in nineteenth-century Russian discourse, which Tikhomirov traces to the translated title of a school textbook on morals and civic duty by the educational reformer Johann Ignaz von Felbiger (
1724–88
), used from the era of Catherine the Great onwards. Variations on the formula make numerous ironic appearances in Dostoyevsky's fiction and the phrase will reappear in a later chapter (see
BT
, p.
417
).

2
5
.
robbed a mail coach
: See Part Two, note
23
.

2
6
.
une théorie comme une autre
: ‘A theory like any other' (French).

2
7
.
no truly sacred traditions . . . Chronicles
: Svidrigailov's comments on the lack of strong traditions and memories in Russian civilized society echo the thoughts expressed in the ‘First Philosophical Letter' (
1836
) of Pyotr Chaadayev (
1794–1856
) (
BT
). In this letter, for which he was declared insane, Chaadayev lambasted Russian culture's dependence on foreign models and ideas, and wrote of how, in consequence, Russian civilization failed to develop a sense of a past. The Russian chronicles, dating back as far as the ninth century, began to be collected and published in the mid-nineteenth century, with the first ten volumes appearing between
1841
and
1863
; this scholarly labour continues today.

2
8
.
a ‘Vauxhall'
: Taking its name from the famous pleasure gardens on the south bank of the Thames, the first
vokzal
opened in St Petersburg in
1793
on the site apparently described here (and known in the mid-nineteenth century as Demidov Gardens). This and other ‘Vauxhalls' in the city hosted concerts, dances, masquerades, circuses and other entertainments (
BT
). In modern usage, a
vokzal
is a railway station.

2
9
.
the Vladimirka
: The dirt road leading from Moscow to the ancient city of Vladimir,
110
miles to the east, along which convoys of shackled prisoners began their long journey to penal exile. It was later portrayed by Isaak Levitan (
1860–1900
) in a celebrated landscape painting of the same name.

3
0
.
——kov
Bridge
: Tuchkov Bridge.

3
1
.
——oy Prospect
: Bolshoi Prospect on Petersburg (now Petrograd) Side.

3
2
.
Adrianopolis
: Noting that there was no such hotel in
1860
s St Petersburg, Boris Tikhomirov seeks the symbolic significance of this name in the figure of Hadrian, the Roman Emperor (
AD
117–38
). Paganism and the eventual ‘collapse of the pagan, anti-Christian idea', Tikhomirov argues, is thereby associated with Svidrigailov and his subsequent fate (
BT
).

3
3
.
some café-chantant or other
: The
café-chantant
was a new phenomenon in Moscow and St Petersburg, offering not just music but also magicians, gymnasts and cancan dancing (
BT
).

3
4
.
Trinity Day
: Celebrated on Pentecost Sunday (fifty days after Easter), this religious holiday marks the descent of the Holy Spirit to Christ's disciples and followers, and the miracle of the divine Trinity. An important date in the Russian Orthodox calendar, it is also known as the ‘green' holiday and is accompanied by popular and pagan customs that include the decoration of homes and churches with branches, flowers and grass. (The reflection of this and other popular traditions in Svidrigailov's dream stands in ironic counterpoint to his previous comment to Dunya about the lack of native traditions in Russia.)

3
5
.
The girl was a suicide – she'd drowned
: Tikhomirov notes that in popular tradition Trinity Sunday comes at the end of a series of designated days for burying and remembering those who have died an unnatural death (suicides, victims of violence and drowning, and so forth). It coincides with the ‘week of the
rusalki
', the
rusalka
of Slavic mythology being a water nymph, ghost or mermaid-like creature, often imagined as the soul of a stillborn or unbaptized child or of an unmarried girl who met a watery grave by suicide or otherwise. Many other features of the girl in Svidrigailov's dream recall the
rusalki
, such as the white clothes and wreath of roses. Tikhomirov interprets the vision as a kind of belated funeral rite for the girl Svidrigailov once violated, an attempt ‘somehow to mitigate his guilt'. The absence of candles and prayers reflects the Church's view of suicide as a sin on a par with murder; voluntary suicides were denied church burial and kept outside the cemetery (
BT
).