how perilous your years!: from Ivan Dmitriev’s fable, The Cat, the Cockerel, and the Mouse (1802).
or Curative Foolery: a translation from the French, published in Russia in 1785. It recounts the amorous adventures of a Frenchman in Constantinople.
sine qua non: condicio sine qua non, an indispensable condition.
an instrument of police repression: Count Dmitry Tolstoy (1823–89), who was Minister of Education, 1865–80, was responsible for a whole series of reactionary enactments, which included general maintenance of a rigorous disciplinary regime in schools and an intensive concentration on the classics, with a particular emphasis on the study of language and the rules of grammar, to the detriment of other subjects and wider educational aims. It must be remembered that Dostoevsky, who had himself received a technical education, was a fervent advocate of mathematics and classical education in schools (see CW 15. 582–3; KC 348, n. 108).
it would be necessary to invent him: see note to p. 294. Candide: satirical-philosophical novel by Voltaire (1759).
old Belinsky: Vissarion Belinsky (1810–48), founder of the sociological school of Russian literary criticism.
Tatiana … Onegin: principal characters in Pushkin’s novel in verse, Evgeny Onegin.
Les femmes tricottent: ‘women knit’.
Section Three … Chain Bridge: Section Three was the Imperial Secret Police, which, from 1838 onwards, was based by the Chain Bridge in St Petersburg.
The Bell: Russian subversive émigré magazine, published in London by Aleksander Herzen (1812–1870), for illegal distribution in Russia. The couplet quoted by Kolya did not appear in the Bell, but in another émigré magazine, the Northern Star.
If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave: cf. ‘If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy’: Psalms 137: 6.
pickthank: one who curries favour with another.
Fenya and her mother, Grushenka’s cook: elsewhere we are told that Grushenka’s cook was Fenya’s grandmother, one of Dostoevsky’s extremely rare lapses; see Book 8, Ch. 3, ‘Prospecting for gold’, p. 491.
cette charmante personne: ‘this charming person’.
Skotoprigonyevsk: a composite name from the Russian words for ‘cattle’ and ‘to drive’. Vladimir Nabokov renders it into English as ‘Oxtown’ (see Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1981), 132). Dostoevsky must have modelled the name on some such Western original as Cattleville, or Oxenford, or even Oxford, but, because there is no tradition in Russia of naming towns in association with droving, the end result is comical in the extreme, suggesting a ‘dump’ of a town in the back of beyond, and, of course, totally fictitious.
Dainty little foot in pain: see note to p. 100.
They want to erect a monument to your Pushkin for his ‘women’s feef’: the proposal to erect a Pushkin monument was first put forward in 1862. An appeal for funds was launched in 1871, as a result of which a number of articles appeared in newspapers and magazines. The monument was unveiled on 6 June 1880. Two days later, on 8 June, Dostoevsky made his famous Pushkin speech at a public meeting of the Society for the Appreciation of Russian Literature.
the new courts: very far-reaching legal reforms were instituted in Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century. On 20 Nov. 1864 four separate and independent legal codes were introduced. Court proceedings were made public, the judiciary was separated from the administrative authorities, the appointment of judges was made permanent, the jury system was established, universal equality of rights of all subjects in the eyes of the law was recognized, certain categories of mental derangement—to wit, diminished responsibility—were accepted as valid defence pleas. Although Dostoevsky the publicist looked upon these reforms with a measure of scepticism, particularly in view of the numerous instances of abuse that they engendered, he himself argued in favour of diminished responsibility while supporting a defence case, which proved to be successful, of one Kornilova, a young woman who was tried for the murder of her step-daughter (CW 5. 587).
vous contprenez, cette affaire et la mort terrible de votre papa: ‘you know, this business and the terrible death of your father’.
Claude Bernard: Claude Bernard (1813–78) was an eminent French physiologist. Amongst other things, he demonstrated the role of the pancreas in the human digestive system, and the existence of nerve centres independent of the central spinocerebellar system. His Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865) laid the foundations of experimental physiology. His works were translated into Russian, and were widely read in scientific circles. To Mitya, however, he was just a trumped-up confidence trickster, no doubt reflecting Dostoevsky’s own healthy disrespect for all men of science and so-called experts.
De opinibus non est disputandum: Mitya’s own version of de gustibus non disputandum, ‘there is no disputing about tastes’.
Dainty little foot a little bent: Rakitin’s poem is in the style of Dmitry Minayev (1835–99), a Russian satirical poet who sniggered at Pushkin’s fascination for women’s feet or legs (in everyday Russian usage, the same word stands for both). Putting the poem into Rakitin’s mouth was, of course, Dostoevsky’s own way of getting back at Minayev and poets of his ilk.
to the uttermost farthing: cf. ‘Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing’: Matthew 5: 23–6.
he’d lose all his hereditary rights: even in present-day Britain, persons who are convicted of a crime suffer a considerable loss of civil rights, i.e. their right to vote, freedom of association, and, of course, freedom of movement.
your faithful servant Lichard: Smerdyakov had already referred to himself as the faithful Lichard, but that was with regard to Mitya (see note to p. 337). The irony is that Smerdyakov’s literary progenitor, Lichard, was as faithful to King Gvidon as he was to his evil wife, when she decided to murder her husband.
The Sermons of St Isaac the Syrian: Isaac the Syrian, known as Isaacus Ninivita in the West, an anchorite and bishop towards the end of the sixth century, was popular in Muscovite Russia. See also p. 122 (KC n. 257).
qui frisait la cinquantaine: ‘who was touching fifty’.
c’est charmant: ‘that’s charming’.
c’est noble, c’est charmant: ‘that’s noble, that’s charming. c’est chevaleresque: ‘that’s gallant’.
I donated ten roubles towards our Slav brethren!: the reference is to the protracted Russo-Turkish conflict, which resulted in six officially declared wars in the period 1768–1878 (reverberations still wreaking mayhem two centuries later, in the Balkans). The rallying cry for the Russians was liberation from the yoke of Islam. The devil coming down on the side of the Orthodox Christians to the tune of ten imperial roubles (approx. £20) reveals Dostoevsky at his most ironic.
Satanas sum et nihil humani a me alienum puto: a ‘diabolically’ clever inversion of a line from Terence’s (Publius Terentius Afer, c.190–159 BC) Heauton timorumenos (‘The Self-Tormentor’), I. 1, 25, Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, (‘I am a man and think nothing appertaining to mankind foreign to me’). Cf. ‘For nothing human foreign was to him’, James Thomson (1700–48), To the Memory of the Lord Talbot. It is significant that the devil should pick on Terence, a great wit and profound psychologist of the ancient world, another of his famous sayings being, Ego meorum solus sum meus (‘Of my friends, I am the only one I have left’), Phormio, IV. i. 21.
C’est du nouveau, n’est-cepas?: ‘that’s a new one, isn’t it?’
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Leo Tolstoy: people will always be divided as to who is the greater novelist, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. There is, in fact, a fascinating book drawing a parallel between the two authors: Dmitry Merezh-kovsky’s Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (a far more penetrating analysis than George Steiner’s Tolstoy or Dostoevsky). What makes Dostoevsky stand out is his riotous sense of humour. The fun that Dostoevsky must have had in writing the above reference to Tolstoy could only have been exceeded by Tolstoy’s pleasure in reading it.
waters above the firmament: cf. ‘And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament…’: Genesis 1: 7.
Quelle idée!: ‘what an idea!’
Gatsouk: in Moscow in the 1870s and 1880s, A. Gatsouk (1832–91) published Gatsouk’s Politico-Literary, Artistic and Trade Gazette, as well as a Baptismal Calendar with an illustrated weekly supplement.
Count Matter. Count Cesare Mattei (1809–96), famous Italian homeopath, began his career as a politician, but, after suffering a serious financial set-back, he took up homeopathy. To him belongs the invention of some pills, very much sought-after at the time, which he called white, blue, and green electricity. Count Mattei spent great sums of money exporting them as contraband to neighbouring countries. On his death, he left a fortune of about 20 m. francs, most of which he donated to charity (see Encyclopaedia, Brockhaus & Efron, 1896).
le diable n’existe point: ‘the devil does not exist’.
to vaudeville and that sort of thing: excerpt from Khlestakov’s (see note below) speech in Act 3, Sc. 6 of Gogol’s The Inspector-General (1836): ‘Yes, I’m already known all over. I’m friends with some pretty actresses. I’ve also turned my hand to vaudeville and that sort of thing … I get to see various writers a lot, and I’m on first name terms with Pushkin.’
Khlestakov: the charlatan hero of Gogol’s comedy, The Inspector-General, see note above.
Je pense donc je suis: ‘I think, therefore I am’: René Descartes (1596–1650), Discours de la méthode, 1673.
anchorite fathers and the women without sin: a quotation from Pushkin’s poetic rendering of a prayer by the fourth-century saint Ephraim the Syrian.
the actor Gorbunov: Ivan Gorbunov (1831–96), talented actor, writer, and storyteller, whom Dostoevsky knew personally and admired.
Ah, mon père: ‘Oh, father’.
et àmoi si peu de peine!: Tendre Gaussain, quoi! si jeune et si belle, | Et votre cèeur cede au premier aveu! | Que voulez-vous, cela leur fait, dit-elle, | Tant de plaisir et me coûte si peu.
(‘What was that, sweet Gaussain? So young and so pretty, | Yielding your heart at the first supplication! | Well, what can I do, I know ‘tis a pity, | But it costs me so little to relieve his frustration’). An epigram on the French actress Jeanne-Catherine Gaussain (1711–67).
Belinsky: see note to p. 695.
Star of the Lion and the Sun … the Pole Star or Sirius: one must not forget that this is a nightmare; the devil’s (Ivan’s) reasoning powers are somewhat disjointed and non-sequiturs are to be expected. The Star of the Lion and the Sun was a Persian order sometimes awarded to Russian officials who had served in the Caucasus. The Pole Star was a Swedish order, as well as the name of the Decembrists’ almanac, published 1823–5; and a separate cultural and political periodical, ‘The Polar Star’, was published abroad in 1855–62 and in 1869.
Faust:
FAUST: … wer bist du denn?
(… ‘so what are you then?’)
MEPHISTOPHELES: Ein Teil von jener Kraft,
Die stets das Böse will und stes das Gute shaft.
(‘A part of that eternal force
Which, wreaking evil, fosters only good’)
(Goethe (1749–1832), Faust, 11. 1335–7)
à la Heine: Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet.
savant: man of learning.
“The Geological Cataclysm”: the devil has, on the whole, been pretty discreet in not showing off his erudition, but this may have been an instance where he could not refrain from giving an oblique reference to his familiarity with the writings of Ernest Renan (1823–92), who had a wide readership in the Europe of the day. His Histoire des origines du christianisme, of which La Vie de Jésus is the first volume, is the work most likely to have aroused the devil’s interest. There Renan comments, in the light of positive science, on the geological cataclysms spoken of by Jesus. See also note on The star will shine forth from the East (p. 83) for yet another indication of the source of ‘The Geological Cataclysm’.
Ah, mais c’est bête enfin!: ‘enough’s enough!’
Luther’s ink-well!: Luther believed in the existence of the devil. He claimed that he had seen the devil in the shape of a pig or flickering lights, and that, at Wartburg, the devil was cracking nuts and throwing the shells into his bed. The apocryphal story of Luther and his ink-well is the most famous of all. Luther was translating the Bible in the Wartburg Castle in Thuringia, and when the devil came to tempt him, he threw an ink-well at the devil. A dark stain on Luther’s wall was, for a long time, held to be where the ink-well had shattered, presumably missing the devil. Luther’s followers and sightseers who subsequently visited the cell, scraped and chipped away the plaster until there was nothing left of the stain. Ivan’s nightmare is very reminiscent of Luther’s hallucinations, dialogus cum diabolo (CW 15. 595–6).
un chien dehors: there is the following entry in Dostoevsky’s notebook for 1876–77: Baptiste, tout de suite ce mot a son adresse. Tout de suite? Madame ignore peut-être le temps qu’il fait, c’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors. Mais Baptiste, vous n’êtes pas un chien. (‘Baptiste, go and deliver this message immediately! Immediately? Madam perhaps is not aware of what the weather is like outside! It’s not fit to put a dog out. But, Baptiste, you’re not a dog’) (CW 15. 596).
“a cherub pure”: a quotation putatively either from Lermontov’s Demon, or from Schiller’s Ode to Joy, in a Russian translation by A. Strugovshchikov (CW 15. 596).
Le mot de l’énigme: ‘the clue to the riddle’.
the exhibits: as exhibits in judicial trials of the 1870s, anything that came to hand was made use of, and that fact was often commented on in the Russian press of the day. In one affair of arson in 1878, it was said that: ‘Among the exhibits was a counter from a haberdasher’s shop, under which counter the fire had been started, and which had burnt. The proportions of the counter were such that it proved impossible to convey the said counter into the courtroom.’
court usher: ‘bailiff’ in America.
titular councillor: a civilian rank of the ninth grade in the Table of Ranks (see note to p. 632).
The last two also appeared as ordinary witnesses for the prosecution: it has been suggested that this is the procedural error constituting the ‘judicial mistake’. Experts who are asked to pronounce upon the fitness, or otherwise, of the accused to stand trial must not act as witnesses for either side (KC, 405, n. 59). V. Rak has drawn attention to the fact that it was against the law for a person to function in this dual capacity in a criminal trial, and that Dostoevsky knew it. In 1877, the case of Ekaterina Kornilova, in which Dostoevsky took a deep interest, had been reopened on account of an analogous technicality. Conceivably, Dostoevsky was creating an opening for a successful appeal by Dmitry in the sequel to the novel. Even today, in Anglo-American procedural praxis, it would be considered highly improper for an expert who has pronounced upon the fitness, or otherwise, of the accused to plead to appear as a non-expert witness in the substantive trial.
Herrnhuter of some kind or a Moravian Brother, the Herrnhutters were a community of Moravian brethren, founded in 1727 by Count von Zinzendorf (1700–60), a German Protestant leader. The Moravian, or Bohemian, Brotherhood was an evangelical sect originating with the Hussites, followers of the Bohemian martyrs, Jan Huss (1371–1415) and Jerome of Prague (1370–1416). There are still communities of such Protestant sects in a number of countries, particularly
Pennsylvania, USA; Saskatchewan, Canada; and Paraguay, where they were also (see note to p. 911) guaranteed exemption from military service by General Stroessner.
Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn und Gott der Heilige Geist!: ‘God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost!’
without having to take the oath: members of the clergy were exempt from swearing an oath, see Matthew 5: 33–6: ‘Thou shalt not forswear thyself…’. The other reason Alyosha did not have to swear an oath was because of his kinship with the accused, as in the case of Ivan, too, of course (see note to p. 859). (In Russian law, winesses testifying when members of their own family were on trial were exempt from taking an oath.)
as an unsworn witness: see note to p. 848.
sarafan: a Russian national dress for women.
panyova: a linen skirt worn by Russian peasant women.
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