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Prestupleniye i Nakazaniye/ Crime and Punishment (1866)
is a psychological novel (almost the entire action of the first two sections
takes place in the protagonist's mind - even the scene after the murder, when people find the dead body, is told through his imagination)
but also a message-oriented novel (against "ideological intoxication" as caused
by manic depression and as a cause of crime)
The plot roughly resembles the stereotype made popular by
Honore de Balzac's Rastignac and Stendhal's Julien Sorel (the innocent soul
corrupted by the city). However, the tone is much darker.
There are frequent Biblical references, notably the role of Sonja, who is
basically the equivalent of Mary Magdalene (Sonja pledges to follow Rodja
to prison the same way that Mary Magdalene followed Jesus who was carrying
the cross), and Rodja might indeed die to save the rest of humankind (or at
least his immediate relatives and friends, who can now live a happier life),
with Porfiry being the Pilate who judges him in the name of the establishment.
Dostoevsky's novels pioneer the "stream of consciousness" and psychological
introspection three decades before Freud. The novel frequently uses dreams to
analyze the soul's torment; and one of the leitmotifs is the psychological
chess game between the murderer and the inspector.
Rodion "Rodja" Raskolnikov is a poor young man who moved to the city to study but has
since dropped off school and now lives a secluded life. In a tavern he meets
a middle-age drunkard, Marmeladov, whose daughter Sonja has become a prostitute
after her stepmother Katerina (Marmeladod's second wife) accused her of not
helping feed the three little children. The drunkard has been missing from home
for five days, has squandered all his money in alcohol, and has certainly lost his job, thus making things even worse.
Rodja takes the man to his wife and then leaves them a little money,
even though he probably needs it more than them. When he returns to his
humble flat, the landlady Praskovja demands that he pays the outstanding rent,
but Rodja has no money. He receives a letter from his mother, who relates
how Rodja's good and beautiful sister Avdotya or "Dunja" went to work for the wealthy
Svidrigailov but became the object of his lust and was publicly accused by
Svidrigailov's wife Marfa of being a whore. When Marfa found out the truth,
she publicly apologized to Marfa. Dunja in the meantime found a fiance, a
wealthy middle-aged lawyer who works in the city, Luzin. His mother tells him
that Luzin might even hire him as his partner some day. Rodja, sensing that
his sister is basically "selling" herself to support his studies, is disgusted,
and determined to derail the marriage. Ultimately he is disgusted by himself,
by how precious his family thinks he is and by what a failure he is.
While taking a stroll in the street, Rodja notices a drunk girl who is being
followed by a depraved man and alerts a police officer. The cop, however, is
not very interested in saving the girl's reputation.
Rodja has been living off his valuables by pawning them with Alyona, the
old pawnbroker.
After a terrible dream, Rodja has a premonition that he will kill the old
woman. He interprets it as a sign that he accidentally overhears a conversation
telling him at what time Alyona's sister Lizaveta, a simple-minded spinster,
will leave their flat. Another sign is that he accidentally overhears a
conversation in which one of Alyona's angry customer states that Alyona does
not deserve to live.
At the time when Lizaveta is supposed to leave the flat, Rodja walks there with
an axe and kills Alyona. He then steals a few things but is interrupted by
Lizaveta, who has returned earlier. Rodja kills her too. At this point he is
almost found by two men who come to visit Alyona. Luckily they both walk
downstairs to warn the concierge that something is wrong (the door is clearly
locked from the inside). Rodja gets out and briefly stops in an empty flat that
is being painted. He walks outside the building and into a courtyard where he
hides the stolen goods. Then he returns home.
The following day Rodja is alarmed by a notice to appear at the police station,
where he meets officer Ilya and clerk Zametov, a friend of Rodja's friend Razumikin.
He fears that the police have already found out that he is the murderer.
Instead, it's about his landlady's intimation to pay overdue rent.
Rodja visits his best friend, Dimitri Razumikin, whom he has not seen in four
months. But Rodja's behavior is so erratic and unfriendly that he only manages
to upset his generous and caring friend. On his way back home Rodja is almost
run over by a coach.
Back home he gets delirious, and his landlady's faithful servant Nastasja
takes care of him. His conditions get quickly worse. He doesn't recognize his
friend Razumikin, who comes to visit him in the company of Zametov, and
resents Razumikin's help when he pays his debt with some money sent by his mother (the money increases his depression).
Razumikin calls a doctor, Zosimov. When Rodja gets better,
Razumikin invites him to a party, but Rodja rudely declines.
Rodja learns that the police have arrested one of the two painters, Nikolaj, who was working in the
empty flat where he briefly stopped. The evidence is an object belonging to the
murdered woman that Rodja must have dropped while hiding there.
Razumikin, however, has guessed the truth: that the painter is innocent and the
real murderer got away undisturbed. He also guesses correctly that the murderer
is an amateur, a beginner.
Luzin visits Rodja while Razumikin and Zosimov are still there. Rodja offends
him and then kicks everybody out of his flat.
When he meets Zametov again, Rodja plays cat and mouse with him, hinting that
he himself might be the murderer of Alyona. He laughs hysterical at his own
recklessness.
Later he witnesses a police officer saving the life of a girl who tried
to drown herself. He is indifferent to the event. He has decided to surrender
himself to the police and confess his crime.
On his way to the police station, however, another extraordinary event changes
his mind. He witnesses the accident in which the drunkard
Marmeladod is killed by a coach. He has him carried to his family's place and
personally pays for a doctor, and then leaves some money for the funeral.
Now Rodja wants to live. He walks to Razumikin's party, where the friend gets
drunk. They walk together back to Rodja's apartment where they are surprised
to find Rodja's mother Pulcheria and Rodja's sister Dunja, just arrived to the
city for the engagement. They haven't seen him in three years and are shocked
to find him so ill.
Razumikin is drunk but manages to reassure them that a doctor is taking care
of Rodja. He also falls in love with Dunja, and gets extremely jealous when
the doctor, a notorious womanizer, makes a comment on her beauty.
Razumikin, instead, tries to set up Zosimov with Rodja's landlady,
Praskovja, except that she shows no desire for male company.
Razumikin visits Dunja and Pulcheria and learns that Luzin has sent a letter
demanding not to see Rodja ever again. Luzin has also learned that Rodja gave
money to a prostitute, Marmeladod's daughter Sonja, and points out that the money
was painfully saved for him by his mother: clearly the son is ungrateful.
Razumikin tells Dunja and Pulcheria the story of how Rodja almost got married to Praskovja's daughter before the girl died.
However, Razumikin believes that Rodja is not capable of loving.
Mother and sister,
always escorted by Razumikin,
visit Rodja again in the morning. They tell him that
Marfa has died and that she gave an expensive watch to Dunja.
Rodja feels a lot better, and they hope that he changed his mind about Luzin.
Instead, he coldly threatens his sister that he will repudiate her if she goes
ahead with this wedding. Nonetheless, the women invite him to attend the
meeting with Luzin, and Dunja invites
Razumikin too.
While they are still in Rodja's flat,
Marmeladod's daughter Sonja walks in. Humble and ashamed, she thanks Rodja for
the money and invites him to the funeral.
As Sonja walks back home, she doesn't realize that a middle-aged man is
following her. Coincidentally, he lives next door to her family's flat, and
tells her that he just arrived in town.
Rodja, who is now much calmer and more lucid, asks Razumikin for a favor
(after teasing him for being madly in love with Dunja).
He confesses that he had pawned objects that are dear to his mother (his
father's watch and her sister's ring) and now would like to file a claim with
the detective in charge of the murder, Porfirij,
who happens to be a relative of Razumikin.
Razumikin gladly escorts him to Portifij's place, where they also find Zametov.
Rodja quickly realizes that he is the object of Portifij's investigation.
Porfirij already knows that Rodja was pawning objects with the old lady,
and
Porfirij is also familiar with an article that Rodja wrote, in which he
basically claimed that extraordinary men can bypass the law and commit
a crime in the superior interest of humankind. Porfirij is not particularly
subtle in insinuating that Rodja might have decided to follow that principle
and kill the pawnbroker.
Razumikin himself is shocked when he understands what is going on: they
suspect Rodja.
Later a stranger shows up at Rodja's building and asks the concierge if Rodja
lives there. But then he leaves before the concierge can call Rodja.
Rodja chases him to find out what it was about. The man, a craftsman, stares
and him and simply tells him: "murderer". Rodja is paralyzed by terror and
lets the stranger walk away. Rodja returns home: he is delirious again.
When he wakes up a new stranger is standing in his flat. He introduces
himself as Svidrigailov, the man who tried to seduce his sister, Marfa's
widower. He claims that his love for Dunja is sincere and that he would like
to elope with her to another country. He is aware of Luzin's marriage proposal
and thinks lowly of the man. He intends to donate quite a bit of
money to her, although he is not rich himself.
He just doesn't want Dunja to marry Luzin.
Svidrigailov seems to have no moral scruples. He almost admits that he has led
his wife to commit suicide, but feels no remorse whatsoever. His wife rescued
him from jail when he had lost all his money with his gambling activities,
and then he felt that he had become her "prisoner" because she owned his debt.
He became very angry at his wife when he learned that she was the one who
had arranged the marriage between Dunja and Luzin.
Now he sees apparitions of Marfa's ghost, but is not scared.
He is a corrupt and lazy man but at least he is honest and does not try to
deny it.
In a sense, he is the "extraordinary" (i.e., amoral)
man that Rodja described in his article.
He also informs Rodja that Marfa in her will left a sum of money for Dunja.
Finally, he reveals that he is planning to get married soon with another woman,
and therefore he is no threat to Dunja's reputation.
Rodja and Razumikin attend the meeting between Luzin and Rodja's mother and
sister. Luzin knows that Svidrigailov has come to the city looking for Dunja.
Luzin relates some terrible stories of this scoundrel's past: a deaf and mute
teenager hanged herself after being raped by
Svidrigailov and so did a servant who was psychologically abused by him.
Rodja then calmly tells them that Svidrigailov has just visited him, and also
tells them that Marfa has left money for Dunja.
Rodja and Luzin then get into an argument about Sonja: Luzin has insinuated
that Rodja left money to Sonja (Rodja left it to the whole family for the
funeral of Marmeladod) and Rodja replies that he respects Sonja. In fact he
admits that he introduced her to his mother and his sister. His mother and
his sister are shocked, but Luzin's arrogant attitude eventually gets on their
nerves and they too turn against him. Dunja kicks him out and breaks the
engagement. After he has left, Rodja informs Dunja that the depraved
Svidrigailov wants to leave her an even greater amount of money than Marfa
did.
Razumikin, who is devoted as usual to Dunja, has an idea: they could put
all their money together and start a publishing house. Rodja likes the idea
and encourages Dunja to accept, but then suddenly his mood collapses and he
leaves them rudely, asking to be left alone.
Rodja visits Sonja, who is surprised and ashamed. He gets more evidence
of Sonja's good heart. She is not angry at her stepmother for forcing her
into prostitution. On the contrary, Sonja feels pity for her. Rodja informs
her that most likely the stepmother will die soon of tuberculosis. She
immediately worries about the three children. Rodja cynically suggests that
the little girl, Polecka, will probably become a prostitute too.
He then kisses Sonja's feet.
Sonia has a copy of the Bible that Lizaveta (the murdered pawnbroker) gave her.
Rodja asks her to read the episode of Lazarus.
Before leaving Rodja tells Sonja in a sinister tone that he knows who killed Lizaveta.
Rodja and Sonja do not know that Svidrigailov has taken a room in the same
building and has eavesdropped on their conversation.
Rodja walks into Porfiry's police office with the excuse of delivering
the certificate that he pawned a watch with Lizaveta. Rodja is less and less
sure about what is reality and what is hallucination.
Always speaking in a pleasant and friendly tone, as if he was trying to become
a friend,
Porfiry plays cat and mouse again, hinting that he knows everything about
Rodja and describing the behavior of a typical murderer in a way that mimics
precisely what Rodja is doing. Rodja understands (or thinks he understands)
Porfify's strategy for making him confess and eventually loses his temper,
screaming that Porfiry only has conjectures against him and challenging him
to find any evidence (and de-facto admitting
that he committed the murder). Rodja insults Porfiry and is about to run out of
his office when Porfiry asks him to wait for a surprise. However, the one to
be surprised is Porfiry himself, because Nikolaj, the painter who has been
arrested for the murder, bursts into the office and confesses he is indeed
the murderer. Porfiry is annoyed by the confession, that he understands not
being honest, and Rodja smiles realizing that Nikolaj is simply a victim of
Portify's psychological torture, the same torture that Porfiry has been
using against Rodja. Rodja walks home without knowing what was the surprise
that Porfiry had for him, but such surprise shows up at his flat: it's
the craftsman who had called him "murderer". This mysterious man had seen
and heard Rodja when he went back to the murder scene, and deducted his guilt
and reported it to Porfiry. He was in the room next to Porfiry's office
just when Rodja walked in. Now that he has heard Nikolaj's confession he has
come to apologize to Rodja for suspecting him.
Rodja feels relieved that Porfiry does not have any evidence against him.
Rodja's mood keeps swinging between self-destructive (an impulse to turn
himself in and end the torture) and fight (the desire to stand up to the
powerless investigators), two poles that are manifestations of his view of
himself, one pathetic and one heroic, that compete for control of his mind.
Luzin regrets the end of his engagement with the pretty Dunja (we hear his
stream of consciousness). He also regrets that he spent money on a new
home and its furniture, money that will be wasted if there is no wedding.
He is staying in the flat of his old pupil Lebeziatnikov, that happens to be
located in the same building as the Marmeladov's. Luzin has been invited by
the widow, Katerina, to attend the memorial after the funeral, but has
already declined like most of the neighbors because of Sonja's bad
reputation.
Luzin decided to stay with Lebeziatnikov because this young man is a
liberal, affiliated with the anarchists and nihilists, and Luzin is anxious
to find out what exactly they want, whether they have power, how they could
harm him or how he could benefit from them. However, Luzin soon realizes that
Lebeziatnikov is a mediocre man who dreams of unrealistic and childish communes.
Lebeziatnikov has even tried to redeem Sonja and educate her by lending her
books. In his commune there will be no prostitutes because there will be no
marriages, only free unions among men and women.
Lebeziatnikov explains that virginity is an obsolete value.
Luzin asks Lebeziatnikov to summon Sonja. Luzin behaves like a generous man:
he offers to organize a charity for the family and gives Sonja some money.
Sonja is grateful and Lebeziatnikov, who thought Luzin was a heartless miser,
is pleasantly surprised.
Later the reception in Katerina's flat is a disaster, as Katerina is humiliated
that so many people declined her invitation and blames
their German landlady Amalia, when in fact Amalia has nothing to do with it
and the cause is obviously Sonja's profession. The two women eventually start
yelling at each other, and Amalia, insulted, asks Katerina (who still hasn't
paid rent) to move out. At that moment Luzin enters the apartment, claiming
that Sonja stole money. Sonja protests her innocence, but her own mother finds
the stolen bill in her pockets. Luzin has humiliated Sonja in front of
everybody, but suddenly Lebeziatnikov stands up and tells everybody what he saw:
he saw Luzin putting that bill into Sonja's pocket, and thought Luzin was being
generous and didn't want to embarrass Sonja with his generosity. Now it's Luzin
who is humiliated in front of everybody. Rodja, who has watched silently,
explains that Luzin was probably trying to humiliate him, Rodja, knowing that
Rodja had befriended the girl.
The result of the fracas is that Amalia evicts Katerina and her children
while Lebeziatnikov evicts Luzin.
Rodja meets Sonja and confesses his crime, and even tells her where the loot
is hidden. Although terrified, Sonja is ready to follow him anywhere.
They are distracted by another fracas: Katerina is gone mad. They find her
in the streets, where she makes a scene until she collapses. She dies after
a brief agony in Sonja's room.
Svidrigailov tells Rodja that he overheards enough of his conversation with
Sonja that he knows Rodja's secret. However,
Svidrigailov does not seem to have any evil intention towards Rodja.
In fact, he reveals his good side by donating his money to Katerina's orphans
(the money that he wanted to give to Dunja).
Porfiry comes to visit Rodja. This time he doesn't play games, or he plays the
mother of all games: he admits that he suspects Rodja of the murder, despite
Nikolaj's confession. He has analyzed the murderer and analyzed Nikolaj, and
Nikolaj does not match. Rodja, on the other hand, is the perfect match.
However, Rodja regains his will to fight whenever he has to deal with the
authority, and therefore insists he is innocent. Porfiry even hints that
Rodja might be considering suicide, in which case Porfify begs Rodja to leave
a note revealing where he hid the loot.
Rodja suspects that Svidrigailov might be planning to blackmail Dunja now that
he knows Rodja's secret, so Rodja meets Svidrigailov to threaten him with death
if he ever tries that strategy with his sister.
Svidrigailov is a degenerate man but he doesn't sound proud at all of his life.
He admits that he lusts for young girls and confesses that he plans to marry
a 16-year old girl.
Rodja realizes that Svidrigailov is still fantasizing about his sister Dunja,
and is determined to prevent him from haunting her.
But Svidrigailov outsmarts Rodja. He lures Dunja to his apartment with the
promise of revealing her brother's secret. Then he does precisely what Rodja
feared: he shows her how he eavesdropped on the conversations between Rodja
and Sonja, he tells her what he heard (Rodja's confession), and he offers to
use his influential connections to save Rodja if Dunja accepts to be his
mistress. Dunja tries to run away but
Svidrigailov has locked the door, and he shows to her how desperate her
situation is: she voluntarily entered his apartment, she cannot call the
police because he would immediately turn her brother in, and there is nobody
in the building to defend her. Dunja accuses him of being a murderer (she
knows that he poisoned his wife Marfa) and pulls out a pistol.
As he moves towards her, she shoots but misses him. Then she pulls the trigger
again but the pistol fails.
Now Svidrigailov could easily rape her but suddenly he wants her to want him,
or at least to give him a chance. When she firmly rejects him,
his conscience wakes up after a long hybernation and he lets her go.
Svidrigailov puts the pistol in his pocket and spends the rest of the night
getting drunk in horrible dives. He gives money to Sonja, who would like to
refuse it butunderstands she might need it if she really wants to follow
Rodja when he gets sentenced to a prison in Siberia (the usual sentence for
murderers). When he falls asleep, Svidrigailov has a nightmare in which a
little girl turns into a prostitute. When he wakes up, he walks out, pulls out
the pistol from his pocket and shoots himself.
Rodja visits his mother telling her (who probably already understood the truth)
that he is leaving on a trip. His mother is devastated and seems to go mad.
He then finds Dunja waiting for him and tells her
that he has decided to confess. Dunja thinks that he is feeling guilty, but
instead Rodja screams that he did not commit any crime, that he killed a vile
being who deserved to die. Rodja is ashamed of himself only because he is not
strong enough to live with his belief.
Lastly, Rodja visits Sonja to tell her that he is heading towards
the police station. Sonja pledges to follow him in his trip to Siberia, which
will be Rodja's Calvary.
At the police station Rodja almost changes his mind but then learns that
Svidrigailov shot himself and somehow the shocking news does it: Rodja admits
to both murders.
Rodja is sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Siberia.
Sonja follows him, as promised.
Razumikin marries Dounia, but Rodja's mother never recovers from her delirious
and eventually dies.
In Siberia neither the physical nor the mental health of Rodja improve. He is
still a nihilist at heart, who does not look forward to his future. He will
still be young when he gets out of prison. When Sonja falls sick, though, he
finally finds a reason to live: he realizes how much he loves her. They are
now both waiting together for those seven years to go by and for their life
to begin. Rodja opens the copy of the Gospel that Sonja gave him, the one
from which she read him the resurrection of Lazarus.
The Idiot (1868) is the parable of a naive man who only sees good but
is surrounded by evil, a sort of Jesus who has to sacrifice himself to
redeem the rest of humankind. It is his simple, caste and pure love that
redeems the female sinner.
The simpler his view of the world, the thicker
and more twisted the world is, an orgy of duplicity and deception.
The society that Dostoevsky depicts is greedy
and narrow-minded; materialistic and amoral. At the same time, though,
the protagonist of this allegory is indeed an idiot (a man of little
intelligence who can hardly express himself and control himself), whereas the
people around him are mostly very intelligent, so the novel also feels like
exposing the inevitable evil that follows from human intellect. Goodness is
to be found only in simpler, dumber people. Humankind is doomed to self-destroy
because it is doomed to be so intelligent.
Human intelligence begets greed, envy and revenge, which are the recurring
themes of the story; while the idiot's limited intelligence begets love and
compassion.
The novel overflows with characters, as if as huge crowd were needed to show
how derelict an innocent being can be. The plot thickens and shifts all the
time, as a result of the continuous deception and intrigue carried out
by each of them.
The irony of this savior is that he causes the unhappiness (even the death)
of both the women he likes, of both Mary Magdalene and the divine angel.
On a very long train ride from Poland to St Petersburg, three passengers share
a crowded car.
One is the decayed prince Lev Myshkin, an epileptic who is returning
to Russia after spending four years in a Swiss sanatorium that restored a bit
of sanity. As a child he was almost an idiot.
The second one is Parfyon Rogozhin, a young man who is returning home after
running away.
The third one is a middle-aged civil servant, Lebedev.
The prince is coming back because the man who was paying for his expenses,
Pavlishtchev, has died, and now he hopes to get some aid from a distant
relative, the rich wife of general Yepanchin.
The civil servant knows the family well.
Parfyon Rogozhin, on the other hand, is the son of a rich man who just died,
and therefore probably the heir to a fortune.
The civil servant know the story of Rogozhin's father too.
A few weeks earlier, Rogozhin had fallen in love with
Nastasya Filippovna. The civil servant knows everything about her too.
She lives with an older and very rich man, Afanasy Totsky, who also happens
to be a friend of the general.
When his father charged Rogozhin with cashing some money, the young man used
the money to buy expensive ear-rings for Nastasya. When his father found out,
he personally went to beg Nastasya to return the rings.
Rogozhin, ashamed and afraid of the coming punishment, took the first train out
of town. Now that his father died, he is returning home to take possession of
part of the inheritance. He invites the poor prince to join him when he pays
his visit to Nastasya. The prince candidly confesses that he is still a virgin,
having been sick all his life.
The general Yepanchin has three beautiful daughters, ranging from Alexandra
to Adelaida to the youngest, Aglaya, of whom everybody is fond. The prince has a long
discussion with the valet who is supposed to announce him. The valet gets
suspicious because the prince does not behave like a prince at all, and is
dressed quite poorly, and candidly admits being poor. The prince even
befriends the poor servant, narrating stories and explaining his opinions
on a number of subjects.
The wife of the general, Lisaveta,
and Lev are the last Myshkin princes left, although
not closely related.
The price meets the general and does not hesitate to admit that he is penniless
and has no idea how to survive in the capital.
The prince tells the story of his life and admits that he, being an orphan
since childhood, has no idea why
his benefactor Pavlishtchev wsa paying for his sanatorium.
The prince is introduced yet again to the name of
Nastasya. The general and his secretary and friend Ganya
are getting ready for her birthday party.
The general seems much more excited about the event than Ganya, who seems to
merely obey the general's orders.
The general is kind to the prince. After seeing his skills at calligraphy,
the general promises a job. He sends the prince to Ganya's mother, who rents
rooms from her house to make ends meet. The other room is rented to a
certain Ferdyshchenko, who (adds the general towards Ganya) pretends to be
a relative of Nastasya.
At the same time the general discourages the prince from associating with
Rogozhin. The news of Rogozhin's return annoy both the general and Ganya.
The general's fortune were growing exponentially. His daughters were therefore
both beautiful and rich. This attracted the attention of the 55-year old
Afanasy Totsky,
who asked to marry the elder, Alexandra. The general viewed favorably the
union of their fortunes. There were two problems, though, and they both
related to Nastasya. The first one was that the wife of the general, Lisaveta,
disapproved of Totsky living with Nastasya. The other one was that Totsky was
afraid of Nastasya's reaction to the engagement.
Totsky had adopted Nastasya when she was a child and a poor orphan. He had
paid for her education. She had grown to become not only a gorgeous woman but
also a very independent mind. He had seduced the teenager.
When she became a woman, upon hearing that
he was about to marry, she travelled to the capital to prevent the marriage.
She had spent the next five years living with Totsky, both seducer and seduced.
Totsky had become fearful of her motives. She was proud and jealous.
She had a few friends: the civil servant Ferdyshchenko, the moneylender Pritsyn,
and Ganya. The general and Totsky had worked out a plan to get rid of Nastasya:
she would be married to Ganya. Totsky was willing to give her quite a bit
of money. Nastasya had accepted the deal. Ganya had reacted with mixed emotion,
feeling that they were "buying" him to marry a fallen woman, albeit a very
beautiful one. His mother and sister disapproved. To further complicate
the matter, the general himself had fallen in love with Nastasya.
His wife Lisaveta was aware of his infidelities and was aware that he had just
spent a fortune to buy a birthday present for Nastasya.
That's why the general was being so nice to the prince: the general wanted to
distract his wife with the news of this destitute relative of hers.
Lisaveta and her three daughters meet the prince.
Lisaveta Yepanchin is conquered by the innocent who can be so perspicacious.
The prince describes a painting that struck him in Switzerland (Holbein's
"Christ"). He then tells them the story of a man sentenced to death but reprieved at the
last moment and the story of a poor village girl, Marie, who had been shunned
by everybody after being seduced by a traveller (the prince helped restore her
reputation so that, when she died, she was surrounded by all the children of
the village).
The prince is struck by how similar Aglaya is to the portrait he has seen of
Nastasya.
Ganya begs the prince to deliver a love letter to Aglaya. Aglaya asks the prince
to read it aloud. Ganya is begging Aglaya to accept him, so that he can refuse
the hand of Nastasya. Aglaya is offended that Ganya would first make sure he
has one rich bride before he gives up the other, and realizes that Ganya is a
vile and greedy young man who puts money first. Her reply is to ask the prince
to return the letter with no reply.
Aglaya also warns the prince that Ganya is a dangerous man.
And in fact Ganya immediately displays envy at the prince who has already
managed to become such a close and trusted friend of the family after only
two hours.
However, the general himself has advised the prince to stay at Ganya's place.
Ganya introduceds him to his unhappy mother, to his sister Varya (who is busy
being romanced by Ivan Ptitsyn) and to his brother Kolya.
The prince meets a fellow boarder, Ferdyshtchenko, who warns him not to lend him money, and then Ganya's father, a retired general and an old fool
who spins the most implausible stories pretending to know everybody.
Ganya's mother asks the prince to pay his rent directly to her, not to her
husband, who is obviously not trusted by the family. They have to rent rooms
to boarders because he failed in life.
There is tension between Ganya and his family about his marriage with the
fallen woman, Nastasya. His parents and his sister Varya think it's
a disgrace.
Suddenly Nastasya appears in person, mistaking the prince for a servant.
She has come to invite the family to
her party. Ganya's father starts his routine, trying to impress her with
a story that she recognizes is simply a paraphrase of an article published
in a magazine. Just then Rogozhin and Lebedev break into the house with
some friends, all of them drunk.
Rogozhin has just hear the rumour that Ganya is engaged to Nastasya and is
furious. It is Ganya who ruined him, and now it is the same Ganya who
steals his love from him. But now Rogozhin has money and offers it to
Nastasya in front of everybody. He basically tries to buy her, increasing
the sum of money. Varya is disgusted by the scene, that proves what kind of
woman Nastasya is. She argues with her brother and she spits in his face.
When the prince tries to protect her, Ganya slaps him in the face.
Everybody consoles the prince and Ganya is ashamed of his action.
The prince makes Nastasya feel ashamed too. Before leaving, she does apologize
to Ganya's mother.
Both Varya and Kolya are conquered by the prince's meek manners.
Ganya himself apologizes to the prince. He dreams of becoming rich and
powerful.
Ganya's father sends a note to the prince inviting him to a meeting.
The drunkard wants money and promises to take the prince to Nastasya's place.
The truth is that he has no idea where Nastasya lives.
When the prince runs into Kolya, Kolya tells him the correct address.
Kolya wants the prince to meet his friend Ippolit, a chronically sick young man
who is ashamed of his mother: Kolya's mother and Kolya's sister Varya give
Ippolit money because they know that his mother neglects him and his siblings.
Kolya would like that the prince, Ippolit and himself moved together into a flat.
Kolya accepts to show the prince where Nastasya lives.
The prince has decided to show up at her birthday party even though he was
not invited and even though he does not have clothes to dress adequately.
Nastasya is kind enough to welcome the uninvited guest. The guests are asked
to confess the worst crime they ever committed. Ferdyshtchenko confesses that
he stole money. General Yepanchin confesses that he stole from a woman.
Totsky caused the death of a friend with a cruel joke.
Nastasya abruptly asks the prince whether she should marry Ganya or not.
The prince begs her not to, and Nastasya so decided, shocking everybody by
trusting the advice of a complete stranger.
She vows to start a new life: for the first time in her life she will become
her own mistress.
Rogozhin enters the apartment followed by his rowdy friends and carrying the
huge some of money he had promised, more than the dowry that
Totsky had promised for her marriage to Ganya.
Nastasya tells Ganya openly how much she detests him: she is a shameless woman,
but he is even more shameless when he sacrifices his honor and his family's
honor for money.
Ferdyshtchenko then realizes that the prince is more hurt than anyone else
by what is going on. The prince in fact is willing to marry Nastasya, as she
is, and for zero money. Then he reveals what he has been waiting to announce:
that he has received a huge inheritance, a sum to dwarf Rogozhin's.
Nastasya initially seems to accept his offer, but she's just mocking the
audience: she has no intention of ruining the innocent soul of the prince the
way Totsky ruined hers. She is also convinced that eventually the prince would
come to regret having married such a courtisan. She admits publicly that she
has been Totsky's concubine.
She tells the prince that he should marry the good Aglaya instead.
Nastasya chooses her kind: Rogozhin. She belongs to the streets and she resigns
herself to that company. She doesn't want the money though, so she challenges
Ganya: she throws the money in the fire and tells Ganya he can have it if he
grabs it with his naked hands. Ganya walks out, although he faints before he
can leave the place. The money is rescued from the fire and, before exiting with
Rogozhin, she tells everybody that Ganya can still have it and do what he likes
with it. She has started a new independent life, maybe the life of a low-class
prostitute, but at least it will be her own life.
The prince stays in Moskow for six months to take care of the business
related to the inheritance.
Varya marries Ptitsyn. Ganya returns the gift of money to Nastasya.
The marriage between Totsky and Alexandra is called off.
Ferdyshtchenko disappears.
Nastasya and Rogozhin get together, then part, then get together again,
then almost get married, but she leaves him again.
A newly arrived aristocrat, Prince Sh, falls in love with Adelaida and proposes.
Another young man, Yevgeny, falls in love with Aglaya.
Ganya's father is jailed for debt.
Kolya delivers a letter from the prince to Aglaya in which the prince tells
her how much he cares for her.
The prince finally returns to St Petersburg.
The first person he meets is Lebedev, and he meets his nephew, a student who
has to work at the railway, as well as his childish daughter.
Lebedev discusses the murder of six people by a mad student.
The prince visits Rogozhin and they discuss Nastasya. The prince tells how
Nastasya came to him begging him to save her from Rogozhin. She was very ill,
both mentally and physically. Rogozhin narrates how Nastasya humiliated him
by cheating on him publicly.
Rogozhin has understood that Nastasya loves the prince, not him, but precisely
because she loves him she does not want to ruin his life.
The prince notices a Holbein painting of Jesus. This painting inspires him to
tell four stories that have to do with religious faith: an atheist, a religious man who robs and kills a friend, a drunken soldier who sells a silver cross, and a nursing mother who compares her happiness with God's happiness when someone sees the light.
Rogozhin invites the prince to exchange their crosses, a gesture that makes
them brothers. Then Rogozhin promises to renounce Nastasya and "gives" her to
the prince. The prince promises that he has no interest in seeing her.
Outside the prince has the feeling that he is being followed.
The prince feels that he is about to have an epileptic fit.
In his delirium he mixes all the people he has met that day, and has visions
of Lebedev's nephew as the murderer of six people that Lebedev mentioned.
And then even suspects Rogozhin himself of the murder.
In a state of confusion the prince and looks for Nastasya but she is not home.
He still feels that someone is following him. When he gets back to his hotel,
those two homicidal eyes confront him: it is
Rogozhin who has been following him the whole time.
Rogozhin pulls out a knife and is about to kill the prince when the prince has an epileptic fit.
Kolya, who was waiting for him, takes care of the prince. Lebedev decides to
take him with his family to the countryside.
Lebedev tells the prince that Nastasya would like
a secret meeting with the prince. According to Lebedev, Nastasya is afraid
of Aglaya.
Aglaya and her sisters come to pay a visit to the prince.
Ptitsyn, Kolya, Ganya and Prince Sh also show up.
It turns out that Prince Sh had met the prince before.
They meet Lebedev's daughter Vera and her siblings, all of them orphans after
their mother died six weeks earlier while giving birth.
Aglaya recites a poem about a poor knight of high moral standards.
General Yepanchin and a young man, Yevgeny, join them just in time to hear
the poem. Aglaya intentionally changes the name of the protagonist to
Nastasya's name to make fun of the prince.
Yevgeny, who likes Aglaya, has just resigned from the army.
Then four insolent young men arrive:
Antip, who claims to the son of Pavlishchev,
Lebedev's nephew Vladimir, Ippolit,
and retired lieutenant Keller.
They claim that the prince is not the son of Pavlishchev, and that
Antip, who is an illegitimate son, should be entitled to half of the inheritance.
Keller has even published a satirical article in which he defames the prince.
The prince, however, has already sent Ganya on a truth-finding mission, and has
the proof that Antip's mother never had a son from Pavlishchev.
The four now appear like scoundrels, but the prince is a meek and generous
man: he still wants to give Antip the same amount of money that
Pavlishchev spent on his stay in Switzerland. The prince believes that Antip
acted in good faith (although he did not hesitate to insult his own mother in
the hope of obtaining some money).
The witnesses are shocked that the prince could be so naive after being
insulted and almost robbed of his inheritance by a bunch of crooks.
Lebedev's nephew Vladimir is still hostile to the prince, suspecting that the
prince pretends to be naive and generous when in fact he is a calculating and
manipulative man.
Ippolit is no less insolent, despite being close to dying.
He also discloses to the crowd that Lebedev in person has contributed to the
article defaming the prince.
The wife of general Yepanchin and Aglaya are particularly upset by the whole
incident. As they are leaving with Yevgeny, they overhear a woman reassure
Yevgeny that Rogozhin has bought his debts.
Yevgeny is surprised and claims he knows nothing of this.
The prince has recognized the voice of Nastasya.
It is obvious that the woman, Nastasya, has tried to ruin
Yevgeny's reputation in front of Aglaya and her mother.
Aglaya's mother is furious with the prince for being so naive and gullible.
Ganya later tells the prince that
Yevgeny owns indeed a fortune but his business is not doing too well.
Keller, the author of the defaming article, goes to visit the prince and
beg for money. The prince not only forgives him but also gives him some money.
Antip redeems himself by writing a letter in which renounces any claim on
the prince's fortune and even refuses the money that the prince offered.
The prince realizes that Lebedev has been part in the scheme to ruin
Yevgeny's reputation, but then refuses to hear Lebedev's motives when he
starts out by uttering Aglaya's name.
Kolya brings news of a major quarrel within the Yepanchin family:
Aglaya fighting with her parents over Ganya and her mother expelling Varya
from the house, and the whole thing having to do with some plot architected
by Ganya and Varya.
After a few days Aglaya's mother visits the prince to make peace. She is still
furious at her daughter Aglaya and inquires about the prince's motives to
send her a letter.
The mother states clearly that she will never allow Aglaya to marry him.
The prince protests that it was simply meant as a brother's letter, not a lover's.
The mother also promises that she will never allow Aglaya to marry
Yevgeny.
The mother tells the prince that Ganya and Varya have been keeping in touch
with Nastasya, and that Varya has introduced Aglaya to Nastasya.
The mother cannot believe how dumb the prince is: everybody is deceiving him.
The prince tells the mother that her daughter Aglaya has sent him a note
asking him not to show up at their house. The mother takes it as a personal
affront and immediately drags the prince to their house.
Yevgeny gives a speech that liberalism is anti-Russian.
Aglaya makes a scene in front of her sisters and her mother, protesting that
she will never marry the prince, as if everybody wanted her to.
The prince, surprised, confesses that he never even thought of proposing,
which is half an insult, but is taken jokingly by the family.
The family and the prince take a walk to the park. While Aglaya is being
romanced by the handsome lieutenant
Molovtsov,
they meet Nastasya and her entourage.
The prince has not seen her in three months.
Nastasya flirts with Yevgeny as if he were an old and intimate acquaintance
and then reveals that his uncle committed suicide after stealing public money.
This further destroys Yevgeny's reputation.
Kurmyshov,
a friend of Yevgeny, tries to hit her, but the prince stops his hand, and
Rogozhin drags her away.
Mother and sisters and their friends leave the park.
At home the general tells the prince that
Yevgeny had proposed to Aglaya but the girl had rejected him.
He also explains to the prince that Nastasya is plotting to disgrace Yevgeny
so that Aglaya will consent to marry him, the prince.
The prince is very surprised, as Aglaya has repeatedly displayed her annoyance
at the prince's meek attitude and has made fun of him in public.
Instead he receives a note by Aglaya who gives her an appointment in the
park. Keller brings him another news: the officer offended by
Nastasya is planning to challenge the prince to a duel because it was the
prince who stopped his hand.
The prince does not want to admit to himself that he is in love with Aglaya,
and that Aglaya is in love with him.
Rogozhin shows up. They haven't met in a long time.
Rogozhin hates the prince because Nastasya loves him. Precisely because she
loves the prince so much she is trying to arrange the marriage with Aglaya:
she has understood very well that the prince is in love.
Rogozhin reveals that Nastasya has been corresponding with Aglaya.
Rogozhin tells him that he has been sent by Nastasya: she
wants to meet with the prince in person.
The prince wants Rogozhin to be his brother and invites him to celebrate:
it's the eve of the prince's birthday.
Nastasya loves the prince but knows that she could ever make him happy.
Therefore she's willing to sacrifice her love, and conspire to make the prince
marry the woman who can make him happy.
At the prince's place in Lebedev's house they find that a crowd of friends
has already assembled to celebrate his birthday.
During a philosophical discussion presided by Ganya's father the talkative
general,
Lebedev warns that the apocalypse is near because of the growing materialism
of society.
Yevgeny himself is there, asking to become a friend of the prince and bringing
the news that Kurmyshov has given up on his homicidal plans.
Even Ferdyshtchenko is there, reappearing after a long time.
Ippolit reads a letter that he has written to all as his intellectual testament.
The prince is interested in capital punishment, and Ippolit feels like a man
sentenced to death. Besides long meditations on life, Ippolit confesses that he
had visions, in particular of
Rogozhin visiting him after he (Ippolit) had visited him and admired the same
Holbein painting of Jesus that had struck the prince.
Somehow this course of events convinced him that the logical thing to do is
to commit suicide, which he intends to do at sunrise.
The prince's birthday party turns into Ippolit's personal show, as he continues
to read his "confession", a self-glorifying meditation on life and death.
His argument is that, having been told by the doctors that he only has a few
weeks to live, he has been de facto sentenced to death: then why wait for the
last breath of life? The wait sounds to him like a torture, an additional
cruelty. He also meditates that he could kill a dozen people, and society
could not punish him adequately, since he only has a few weeks to live.
He bequeaths a copy of his "confession" to the prince and one to Aglaya,
and requests that the manuscript be published.
His "confession" mostly bores and annoys the guests. Ganya is openly indifferent
to the suicide plan. Others laugh.
Rogozhin wants to leave.
Only a few people, starting with Keller,
take his threat seriously. Lebedew, whose house it is, is frightened at the
idea that Ippolit will shoot himself right there.
When the sun rises, Ippolit gets up, pulls out a pistol from his coat and pulls
the trigger... but the pistol is defective and there is no explosion.
Most of the witnesses laugh, thinking it another bluff.
The prince insists that Ippolit stays with him, but
Yevgeny warns the prince that Ippolit is dangerous and advices the prince to
get rid of him as soon as possible.
Later the prince falls asleep in the park and dreams of Nastasya. A gentle hand
wakes him up: it's Aglaya.
The whimsical and hot-tempered girl, who admits that he is the most honest
person she knows, tells him that Ippolit probably wanted
to kill himself in order for her to read his confession; that she has
decided to run away from home and hopes that he, the prince, will help her
settle abroad and study at a university and become a teacher (otherwise she
threatens to marry Ganya);
that she knows how he proposed to Nastasya, how she ran away with Rogozhin,
how he (the prince) lived with Nastasya for a while, how she ran away from
him again with another man, and how she finally returned to Rogozhin;
and that Nastasya writes letters to her almost every day begging her to
marry him (the prince).
The prince tells Aglaya that he does not love Nastasya: he pities her madness
that makes her feel unworthy. He would like to save her from her madness.
Aglaya (like Rogozhin) believes that Nastasya loves him, and (unlike Rogozhin)
thinks that the prince should live with her again.
She seems to test his feelings, first proposing to spend her life with him
and then suggesting he should spend his life with Nastasya.
Aglaya's mother surprises them and Aglaya, who can't stand her oppressive
family anymore, declares that she's going to marry Ganya.
Lebedev tells the prince that someone stole his wallet with a huge sum of
money.
The only possible suspect is Ferdyshtchenko, who left the party early.
Lebedev suspects that Ferdyshtchenko needs money to romance the woman he likes,
the widow of a captain.
At last the prince meets Nastasya. She has come to bid farewell. She is
leaving with Rogozhin. She wanted to see him one last time. She asks him if
he is happy and he doesn't answer her. When Rogozhin asks him the same question,
the prince cries that he is not. Nastasya is now a humbled and generous woman
who is suffering for love, the ghost of the earlier arrogant femme fatale.
And this change has been caused by an idiot who is simply honest and
trustworthy.
Varya, who was still hoping to arrange a marriage between Ganya and Aglaya,
learns that Aglaya has accepted a marriage proposal by the prince and that
the family is throwing a party to announce the engagement.
Ganya is disappointed and feels that their father, the drunkard, might be one
reason why he had no chance: Ganya and Varya know that their father is the
thief who stole Lebedev's money and think that everybody knows. The sick
Ippolit is now Varya's guest and he is quite insolent with them: he assumes
that they have been nice to him because they hope that he can have an influence
on Aglaya's decision.
Ganya still has a chance though: in a secret letter Aglaya has invited him and Varya to a secret
meeting, in the same place where she met the prince.
Ganya cannot stand his father's behavior anymore. After another quarrel, the
old drunkard decides to move out of their house and into Lebedev's.
Lebedev recounts how he found his wallet in his house. The thief had restored
the wallet after one day. Lebedev knows that the thief is the general (Ganya's
father) because they searched the room together and the general kept missing
the wallet. Eventually Lebedev found the wallet inside the pocket of a coat,
but still wouldn't tell the general that the wallet reappeared, so as to
tease and torture the general.
The general, very distressed by the humiliating episode, meets with the prince
and makes up a story that he met Napoleon in person. His speech becomes more
and more delirious and eventually he has a stroke in front of Kolya.
A flashback explains what has happened before Ganya received
Aglaya's note.
The prince visits Aglaya's family. The family is apprehensive about what is
truly going on between the prince and Aglaya, given that there is so much
gossiping about their meeting and letters. Aglaya, annoyed, asks the prince
to publicly declare if he wants to marry her or not. The prince is forced to
propose in front of everybody and admit that he loves Aglaya and only Aglaya.
The moment he does so Aglaya starts laughing at him: it was all a cruel joke.
She leaves him more humiliated than ever. However, the whimsical behavior of
the girl convinces her parents that she is indeed in love with the prince,
and the parents resign themselves to accept destiny.
Ippolit has moved in with Aglaya's family. When he meets the prince, he is
bitter about the fact that everybody wanted him as a guest when they thought
he was about to die, but now that he is getting better nobody wants him
anymore.
Lebedev, half drunk, informs the prince that he is the secret correspondent
who has kept Aglaya's mother informed of Nastasya's movements. He just now
received a letter addressed by Aglaya to Ganya. He offers to open it and read it
to the prince, but the prince is disgusted that Lebedev would be willing to
do something so mischievious. This is the letter that Ganya boasts about
with her sister. His father has the stroke just when Ganya was so happy.
Back to the present, the prince is escorted by Aglaya's family to a party
with highly influential people. Aglaya warns him not to ruin the evening,
and in particular not to break an expensive Chinese vase. The guests of the
party are very friendly and the prince slowly becomes relaxed and confident.
One of them is a relative of Pavlishchev, the prince's benefactor.
The prince, however, is shocked to learn that
Pavlishchev converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit. The prince hates
Catholicism, which he considers un-Christian, merely a continuation of the
Roman Empire that persecuted real Christians. The prince suddenly explodes
in an ideological tirade about how Russian civilization is the true Christian
embodiment. He gets more and more excited about it, and the guests get more
and more embarrassed. Aglaya's father is about to interrupt him when the prince
accidentally breaks precisely the expensive Chinese vase that Aglaya warned
him about. The guests try to laugh the matter away, but this only increases
the emotional state of the prince, who now goes into a verbose apology.
Suddenly he has an epileptic fit. The party is over and the engagement too:
Aglaya's mother swears she would never let her daughter marry a sick man,
and Aglaya herself declares that she never accepted the prince's proposal.
Ganya's father dies and Ippolit is closer than ever to dying. Ippolit comes
to the prince to tell him what happened between Aglaya and Ganya. Aglaya
had taken him, Ippolit, to the meeting with Ganya and Varya, where Ganya
had been disappointed to hear that Aglaya simply wanted his friendship.
Ippolit has more important news though: he has helped Aglaya secure a
face-to-face meeting with Nastasya. Aglaya actually comes to fetch the prince
on her way to Nastasya: the capricious and impulsive girl wants him to be
present. Aglaya keeps a very hostile attitude against Nastasya from the very
beginning, accusing her of never having loved the prince, of having tortured
him. Nastasya understands that Aglaya is madly jealous, and wants to make sure
that the prince loves her, Aglaya, more than Nastasya. This is the test that
the prince has to pass. Aglaya wants the prince to choose her, Aglaya, over
Nastasya in front of Nastasya, i.e. humiliate Nastasya.
Nastasya is the one who is being tortured. The prince, who has always been
worried about her suffering and her madness,
sees how much Nastasya suffers, out of pride and out of love.
When Aglaya walks out of the house expecting the prince to follow her, the
prince hesitates a few seconds, then tries to follow Aglaya. That move breaks
the heart of both women: Aglaya does not forgive him the hesitation, and
Nastasya is mortally offended that he would follow Aglaya.
Being afraid that Nastasya would go completely mad or even die, the prince
chooses to marry Nastasya. Nastasya, in fact, sends Rogozhin away.
This generates an even bigger scandal in town. People gossip that the prince
might adhere to an ideology that rewards independent women, so that a fallen
woman is worth more than a woman who has not fallen. (Dostoevsky the author
states that he shares the public indignation). However, the prince is marrying
Nastasya only because he is sorry for her. He loves both women, but of a
different kind of love. He's "just getting married" to Nastasya, whereas he
truly loves Aglaya. The prince is torn between primal but impossibly strong
instincts: on one hand he cannot stand Nastasya's face (a face that to him
exudes desperation) and on the other hand he cannot stand the thought that
Aglaya will never know how much he loved her.
The prince is sacrificing his happiness to save Nastasya from suicide,
the way earlier Nastasya was willing to sacrifice her happiness to save him
from an unhappy marriage. Somehow, after meeting with Aglaya in person,
she has become selfish and has no scruples
inducing him into an unhappy marriage.
Keller, that the prince has chosen as best man for the wedding, warns him
that Lebedev is plotting against him, trying to prove that the prince is
not in possession of his faculties (which would result in all his assets to
be confiscated). Ippolit, instead, warns him that Rogozhin will take revenge
on the prince by killing the woman he really loves, Aglaya.
However, the wedding never happens: on the very wedding day, while the prince
is already waiting for her at the church, Nastasya sees Rogozhin in the crowd
and elopes with him, asking him to save her.
The prince chases the couple all the way to
Rogozhin's house but Rogozhin is pretending not to be there.
The prince searches the entire town, but nobody has seen Nastasya. Then
Rogozhin appears and drags the prince to his place, admitting that Nastasya is
there, even though everybody told the prince that neither of them was there.
Rogozhin confesses that he has killed Nastasya. He has used the same knife that
almost used to kill the prince.
He is delirious and the prince just sits lifeless next to him.
That's how the police find them: the prince has regressed to the state of
idiocy in which he was when he went to Switzerland.
Ironically, in order to save Nastasya from killing herself or going mad, the
prince has involuntarily caused her homicide by a jealous lover.
Rogozhin is sentenced to a labor camp in Siberia, while Yevgeny arranges
for the prince to be sent back to the clinic in Switzerland.
Aglaya has a love affair with a Polish (and Catholic) aristocrat in France and is married
in a hurry to him to avoid the scandal. The aristocrat, however, turned out
to be penniless.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx) Se sei interessato a tradurre questo testo, contattami
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