The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  to bind and to loose: ‘And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’: Matthew 16: 19.

  tempted You: ‘Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil’: Matthew 4: 1–11; see also Luke 4: 1–13.

  He maketh fire come down from heaven: ‘And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?’: Revelation 13: 4.

  your Father: Matthew 4: 6. Ivan paraphrases the Biblical text.

  for man seeks not so much God as miracles: cf. Pascal’s thoughts on miracles: ‘Miracles are more important than you imagine …’ (Pensées).

  and we shall believe that it is you: ‘If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him’: Matthew 27: 42.

  from each of the twelve tribes of Israel: see Revelation 7: 4–8.

  living on locusts and roots: ‘And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey’: Matthew 3: 4; see also Mark 1: 6.

  already eight centuries ago: in 756 Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, had laid the foundations for secularizing papal power by increasing the territorial dominions of Pope Stephen II, and given credence to the view that the Church of Rome had effectively begun to turn its back on Christ.

  and on it will be written ‘Mystery’: see Revelation 13; 17: 3–17.

  It is said and prophesied: Matthew 24: 30; Revelation 12: 7–11; 17: 14; 19: 19–21; 20: 1–3.

  It is said that the whore: ‘The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire’: Revelation 17: 15–16.

  Dixi: ‘I have spoken’.

  your Pater Seraphicus: an explicit echo from Act V of Goethe’s Faust, pt. II, where Pater Seraphicus leads a chorus of blessed boys to even higher awareness of God’s presence and eternal love; also a name by which St Francis of Assisi was known (KC 239, n.331).

  servant Lichard: Lichard (corruption of ‘Richard’) is King Gvidon’s faithful servant in The Tale of Prince Bova, a Russian rendering of a medieval French romance (see note to p. 782).

  Schemahieromonk: a monk under a stricter order of monastic discipline than a hieromonk.

  There was a man in the land of Uz: Job 1: 1. ‘I am reading the Book of Job and it is driving me out of my mind: sometimes I have to stop and will spend up to an hour at a time pacing up and down in my room, almost in tears … This book, Anya—it may sound strange—has been one of the first in my life to make an impression upon me …’ (Dostoevsky, letter to his wife, 10 June 1875).

  Thy servant will cry out and curse Thy name: here and in subsequent passages from the Book of Job, Zosima quotes from memory. Cf. ‘put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face’: Job 1: 11.

  Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever: cf. ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’: Job 1: 21.

  of Abraham and Sarah: Genesis 11: 29–31; 12–18, 20–23. of Isaac and Rebecca: Genesis 24–7.

  of how Jacob: Genesis 28–32.

  and in his sleep wrestled with the Lord: Genesis 32: 24–32.

  How dreadful is this place: Genesis 28: 17.

  Joseph: Genesis 37–50.

  Esther and the haughty Vashti: Book of Esther.

  Jonah in the belly of the whale: Jonah.

  ‘Chety-Miney … Aleksei the man of God: (see notes to pp. 55 and 63).

  Mary of Egypt: a fifth-century saint.

  for the month and the year: Revelations 9: 15.

  a prominent event at the time: most likely the Decembrist uprising, 14 Dec. 1825.

  he trembles at the thought of losing his money: cf. Quas dederis, solas semper habebis opes (‘The wealth you give away is the only wealth you will ever truly possess’): Martial (CBQ).

  the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven: Matthew 24: 30 (‘And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory’).

  the Russian version: the Bible was translated into Russian from Old Church Slavonic c.1860.

  cursed be their anger, for it was fierce: ‘Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel…’: Genesis 49: 7.

  two centuries of slavery: Tatar yoke. See note to p. 34.

  as is laid down in the Gospels: ‘And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant…’: Matthew 20: 27; see also 23: 11; ‘If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all’: Mark 9: 35; ‘And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all’: Mark 10: 44.

  the head of the corner: Psalm 118: 22; see also Matthew 21: 42.

  shall perish by the sword: ‘for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’: Matthew 26: 52.

  come to pass: cf. ‘And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened’: Matthew 24: 22.

  Love children in particular: ‘Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’: Matthew 18: 1–10; see also 19: 13–15.

  sit in judgement over anyone: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged …’: Matthew 7: 1–5.

  What is hell?: argument drawn from the writings of Isaac the Syrian (see note to p. 122) (CW 15. 569–70).

  the rich man and Lazarus: Luke 16: 19–31.

  to suck blood from his own body: image derived from Isaac the Syrian (CW 15. 570).

  it is his finger: cf. ‘And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast. Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God …’: Exodus 8: 18–19.

  It’s only a fable: in a letter to his publisher N. Lyubimov (16 Sept. 1879), Dostoevsky wrote: ‘please make sure you edit the legend of the spring onion properly. It’s a gem; I wrote it down from the words of a peasant woman, surely for the first time ever. I at least have never heard it before until now.’ Evidently Dostoevsky was not familiar with Russian National Folk Legends, a collection in Russian compiled by A. Afanasyev (Moscow, 1859; London, 1859), which contains a similar story, ‘Christ’s Friend’ (pp. 30–2), though the difference is worth noting. The initial elements are the same: a wicked woman is burning in a lake of pitch, but the person who throws her a lifeline is her own son, and it is him she upbraids for not being careful enough in pulling her out. She shouts at him: ‘You clumsy oaf, you nearly killed me!’ Whereupon the rope snaps, and she falls back into the burning pitch.

  cast seven devils out of her: ‘Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils’: Mark 16: 9; see also Luke 8: 1–2.

  Cana of Galilee: ‘And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there …’: John 2: 1–11.

  Historians: Dostoevsky probably had Renan’s Life of Jesus in mind, in which there are numerous references to the poverty of the population amongst which Jesus preached (CW 15. 572).

  Turgenev: Dostoevsky parodies Enough: From the Notes of a Deceased Writer, one of Turgenev’s short stories.

  the holy martyr Varuara’: St Barbara (the Roman b becomes Russian v). According to the legend, she was shut up in a tower by her father, who killed her for having converted to Christianity, whereupon he was struck dead by lightning. She was, u
ntil the cult was suppressed in 1969, the patron saint of pyrotechnicians, artillerymen, architects, founders, stonemasons, gravediggers, fortifications, and magazines, and a protectress against lightning, fire, sudden death, and impenitence, i.e. those who have died before having made a confession. In artistic depictions, she is normally represented holding a tower, with a palm of martyrdom, or a chalice or feather, and trampling on a Saracen (BS). (During the First World War, there was a tendency amongst gunners to put themselves under the patronage of St Joan of Arc, since it was believed that the latter excelled in the tactical disposition of artillery.)

  the author Shchedrin: Dostoevsky engaged in literary polemics with Mikhail Saltykov, pen-name Schedrin (1826–89).

  The Modernist: generally known in English as the Contemporary, of which Saltykov was a co-editor, it was banned by the authorities in 1866 for its progressive views.

  And just the hushed breath of silence: an aptly chosen line from Pushkin’s fairy tale in verse, Ruslan and Ludmila. Russians are familiar with Pushkin from childhood, and if, earlier on, Mitya could quote Schiller at length, which is a little far-fetched, he could certainly be expected to know his Pushkin. Mitya alters the wording slightly to fit the context, a point which cannot be successfully demonstrated in translation, of course.

  the eternally youthful Phoebus, praising and glorifying God: Mitya lumps together paganism and Christianity. Phoebus, a name given to Apollo, personifies the sun and its brightness; the phrase ‘glorifying and praising God’ occurs in Luke 2: 20 and in the Acts 3: 8.

  Mastryuk: a character in a folk ballad who was stripped of his clothes and all he had while he lay asleep.

  Unreliable, deceitful: a quotation from Tyutchev’s translation of Schiller’s Das Siegesfest (‘Victory Banquet’), referring to the unfaithful Clytemnestra.

  poddyovka: a kind of sleeveless coat, worn by peasants and tradesmen.

  armyak: a peasant’s overcoat of coarse, heavy fabric.

  Thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart: Shakespeare, Hamlet, v. ii.

  Alas! poor Yorick: Hamlet, v. i.

  One last tale I’ll tell: from Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, the opening line of Pimen’s monologue.

  and went straight to hell: derived from the folk legend ‘The Dream of the Most Holy Mother of God’, of which there are several published versions (CW 15. 575).

  Panie: this chapter is peppered with Polish words and phrases. Because of the relative similarity between Polish and Russian, much of what was said would have been immediately comprehensible to Russian ears. This is certainly true of the forms of address. Panie, sir, is the vocative case of pan, meaning ‘Mr’, the plural of panie is panowie, gentlemen. Strictly speaking, pani means ‘Mrs’, but, colloquially, it also stands for ‘Miss’ and also for ‘madam’, i.e. the vocative of address. Dostoevsky subjects the rest of the Polish dialogue to quite a lot of mutilation, and it may be of interest to the English-speaking reader to see the tricks he has got up to, as the effect cannot be reflected in translation. Quite apart from presenting the Poles as a couple of stuck-up idiots, he transliterates their Polish into Cyrillic—a provocative gesture, to say the least, seeing that the Polish people, along with other Catholic Slavs, use the Roman alphabet—Cyrillic being tantamount to anathema for them. It should be noted that Dostoevsky makes no attempt to transliterate the French or German text into Cyrillic. Furthermore, the Polish that the Poles use is frequently distorted and Russified, and, as if to rub salt into the wound, Dostoevsky provides the Russian translation in brackets in the text, even where the meaning of the Polish would be readily comprehensible to any Russian.

  Agrippina: Polish for ‘Agrafena’.

  that Gogol wrote his Dead Souls with him in mind: Nikolai Gogol’s novel Dead Souls (1842) features a landowner by the name of Maksimov.

  Fenardi: a famous juggler of the period.

  Piron: see note to p. 170.

  Is that you Boileau? What a ridiculous attire!: the Russian fabulist Krylov’s parody on an inept translation of Boileau’s Art poétique (1674).

  You’re as clueless as the rest: from an epigram by Konstantin Batyushkov (1787–1855). Sapho or Sappho (630–570 BC), renowned poetess of antiquity, is said to have conceived such a passion for a youth named Phaon that, upon his refusal to gratify her desires, she threw herself into the sea. Batyushkov parodies a failed woman poet who would have been well advised to follow Sapho’s example.

  Pas meme académicien: ‘Here lies Piron who was nothing, / Not even a member of the Académie’; Piron’s sarcastic epigraph on not being elected to the Académie française.

  To Russia inside her pre-1772 borders!: the Bar Confederation of 1768, a union of Polish patriots to promote the independence of Poland, led, in 1772, to the First Partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and was much hated by the Poles.

  szlachcic: member of the Polish nobility.

  la sabotière: a country clog-dance (sabot, French for ‘clog’).

  Let this terrible cup pass from me!: cf. ‘O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me …’: see also Mark 14: 36 and Luke 22: 42.

  Judicial investigation: three persons are involved in the initial investigation of Dmitry: the chief of police, investigative magistrate, and prosecutor. In the English system, only the police would question the suspect; in the French system, the police would carry out an initial investigation. After the suspect is charged, the juge d’instruction (examining magistrate) semi-formally interrogates the accused, and then decides if there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial. From a modern, Western viewpoint, it seems very odd that the chief of police is accompanied not only by the investigative magistrate, but also by the person who will prosecute at the trial.

  The confusion of investigative, prosecuting, and judicial functions increases as one moves from West to East. In the Soviet system, which took matters further, the Prokuror’s office worked parallel to the militia (police) in the investigative process. The office also decided whether there was sufficient evidence for a full trial, and also prosecuted at the trial. The difference between the tsarist system and the Soviet was that, under the tsarist system, (i) the judges and defence counsel were usually independent of the prosecution process, and (ii) there was a jury (post-1840 reforms). Under the Soviet system, the judge sat with two nominal ‘assessors’, and acquittal was a rarity.

  yeralash: a card game of the whist variety.

  independent observers: members of the public co-opted by the police to act as independent witnesses during all police inquiries and investigations following a crime.

  A soul’s journey through torments: according to Russian Orthodox eschatology, souls of the departed are subjected to torments (twenty in all) by evil spirits, in preparation for the Day of Judgement. Souls of saints are left unmolested.

  Diogenes with his lantern: Diogenes of Sinope (420–C.324 BC). The ancient Greek Cynic philosopher was observed to be walking in the street at noon with a lighted lantern in his hands, and in reply to questions, said: ‘I am looking for a true human being.’ Another of his appurtenances was his famous tub, which he was wont to carry about on his head and which served him as a house and a place of repose. His fame spread far and wide and even reached Alexander the Great’s ears, who condescended to visit the philosopher in his tub. He asked Diogenes if there was anything in which he could gratify or oblige him. ‘Yes, get out of my sunshine,’ was the only answer which the philosopher gave. Such an independence of mind so pleased the monarch that he turned to his courtiers, and said: ‘Were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes’ (CD). Dostoevsky introduces the incident with the lantern into his earlier novel, The Village of Stepanchikovo.

  Surrender, suffer and be still: see F. Tyutchev’s poem ‘Silentium!’

  passons: ‘let’s move on’.

  c’est fini: ‘that’s enough’.

  civil servant of the twelfth grade: in 1722 Peter the Great introduced his Table o
f Ranks, assigning to each civil servant and member of the armed forces a grade in a table of fourteen grades, fourteen being the lowest. Most of the grades remained in force until 1917.

  zipun: a peasant coat of coarse fabric, usually having no collar.

  But the thunder has crashed: the Russian proverb goes: Not until he hears the clap of thunder, will the muzhik cross himself. In a letter of 16 Nov. 1879 to his publisher Lyubimov, Dostoevsky was at pains to explain that the trait fits Mitya’s character rather accurately.

  a wind ‘dry and sharp’: Dostoevsky quotes a phrase from Nekrasov’s poem ‘Before the Rain’ (1846).

  Smaragdov: in A Short Outline of General History for Schools by S. Smaragdov (St Petersburg, 1845) (several editions), the founders of Troy are not mentioned. In another textbook by the same author, A Guide to Ancient History for High Schools (St Petersburg, 1840), which also went through several editions, two names, Tros and his son Ilus, are given.