Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Von Lembke was shouting and gesticulating as he faced the smaller building, and kept issuing orders, which no one obeyed. It occurred to me that he had simply been abandoned there and was being utterly ignored.

He's over; he was not able to control the fire in the beginning and now here it is blazing, and he is being ignored.

It’s those four scoundrels, four and a half. Arrest that scoundrel! He’s here alone, and the four and a half have been slandered by him. He worms his way into the honour of families. He used the governesses to set the houses on fire.

He's saying this about Pyotr

But there were tenants in the house — a captain who was well known in the town, his sister and an aged servant of theirs; and these tenants — the captain, his sister and the servant — all three of them had had their throats cut during the night, and had evidently been robbed.

Marya Timofeyevna, had been ‘stabbed all over’ with a knife, and was lying on the floor in the doorway, so that she probably had been awake and had struggled and fought back with her killer.

Definitely Pyotr's doing because he offered to get rid of Marya for Nikolay and bring him Liza to 'make up'. Now Marya is dead and Liza and Nikolay are together somewhere.

From the great hall at Skvoreshniki (the same one in which the final meeting between Varvara Petrovna and Stepan Trofimovich had taken place)

You're really going to juxtasupose this with THAT

Do you remember Khristofor Ivanovich?’ ‘No, I don’t,’ he frowned. ‘Khristofor Ivanovich, in Lausanne? You found him a dreadful bore. He would open your door and always say: “I’m here for just a minute”, and then he’d stay all day. I don’t want to be like Khristofor Ivanovich and stay all day.’

I understand what she means, but this does imply that Nikolay has done this with a man. Obviously goes to show how sexually amoral he is.

Do you know what it’s cost me, this fresh hope? I’ve paid for it with a life.’ ‘Yours or someone else’s?’ He stood up quickly.

'A life.' Liza is right to have asked what she did.

‘A bad dream and delirium… We’ve been talking about two different things.’

HE KNEW ABOUT MARYA BEING KILLED. He let it happen while he fucked Liza. Maybe he even let it happen while he was with Liza in Skvoryeshniki, on purpose, for an alibi. Liza did not know and was just speaking out of guilt for ruining her engagement and his marriage.

He included himself here as well; he insisted that the three of us should be in it together, and said the most fantastic things, about a boat and maple oars, from some Russian folk song.

Pyotr… at least try not to be so obvious (I read Pyotr as being in love with Nikolay, even if it is only out of idolatry).

‘Liza, you poor thing, what have you done to yourself?’

He's distressed. Does she remind him of Matryosha?

It always seemed to me that you would carry me off to some place where a huge evil spider as big as a man lives, and we would spend our entire lives looking at him and being afraid of him.2 That’s how our mutual love would pass.

I recognised the Crime and Punishment reference. This is a good quote.

Well, I’m not going into… it’s your business… you gallant knight…

Another direct juxtaposition with Myshkin. I have noticed that this situation with Liza is awfully similar but a complete antonym to what Myshkin had with Nastasya Filippovna. [Later]

No, this democratic riff-raff with their groups of five is a poor foundation. What’s needed is one single magnificent, despotic will, like an idol, that rests on something fundamental yet external…

This is the biggest reason he needs Ivan Tsarevich. Anyway, he revealed all of that in that chapter.

You are the light and the sun… I’m the one who’s deathly afraid of you, not you of me!

Real

‘And if that’s the case, then why did you let her stay when she came in yesterday, and, as an honourable man, why didn’t you let her know straightaway that you didn’t love her? That’s horribly vile of you; and how utterly vile you make me look in her eyes.’

He really thinks Nikolay is some saint. I don't remember how he reacted to finding out about Matryosha.

Stavrogin suddenly began to laugh. ‘I’m laughing at my monkey,’ he promptly explained. ‘Ah! You guessed that I was clowning around.’ Pyotr Stepanovich also burst into terribly bright laughter. ‘I did it to amuse you!

Pyotr is really so pathetic for this man.

‘What do you mean “not true”?’ Pyotr Stepanovich shuddered. ‘What do you mean by that?’ ‘Lord, I’m going to lose my mind!’ Liza exclaimed.

He's playing with them both. They're at his mercy in exactly the same way right now

‘So that’s how it’s to be? So that’s how it’s to be? So you’re not afraid of anything?’ He fell upon Stavrogin in an absolute fury, muttering incoherently, almost incapable of finding words and foaming at the mouth.

This is when Pyotr realised he will not have Savrogin

‘I am indeed a buffoon, but I don’t want you, as my better half, to be a buffoon! Do you understand me?’

He would let him be a buffoon to let Stavrogin lead what he has built. He is swearing himself to Stavrogin. That was what Stavrogin understood, I think.

‘Well, maybe it’s for the best,’ Pyotr Stepanovich muttered to himself as he put away the revolver.

The title of the chapter is 'The End of a Romance.' I think the primary 'romance' that ended here was the one between between Nikolay and Pyotr.

You know, Lizaveta Nikolayevna, have you read Polinka Saks?’

The shade lmao

But where are you going anyway, where are you going? Oh, she can run!

HAHAHAHA IT'S SUCH A DRAMATIC SCENE BUT THIS IS SUCH A FUNNY MENTAL IMAGE

I’m going to die, I’m going to die very soon, but I’m afraid, I’m afraid of dying,’ she whispered, squeezing his hand tightly.

I wonder if what Liza is saying means anything . Remember for now

in turn you should pray for “poor” Liza9

IS SHE GONNA KILL HERSELF??? (the 'poor Liza' character drowned herself after her lover abandoned her)

she supposedly had deceived him, Pyotr Stepanovich, because he himself was in love with the hapless Liza, and meanwhile he’d been ‘twisted round’ to the point where he’d almost escorted her to Stavrogin’s carriage.

He's good at twisting truths; he was in love w someone but not Liza. Pyotr deceived Yuliya.

Stavrogin, about whom there had been so much talk, had abruptly left for Petersburg on the afternoon train. This proved very interesting; many people frowned. Pyotr Stepanovich was so stunned that they say his face even lost colour and he cried out strangely: ‘Why, who could possibly have let him go?’

Pyotr is really scared of what Stavrogin can do now.

It was just that he worshipped Pyotr Stepanovich, having met him not too long before. If he had encountered some prematurely depraved monster who, on some social and romantic pretext, put him up to forming a band of robbers and ordered him as a test to kill and rob the first muzhik he came across, he wouldn’t have hesitated to obey and would have gone and done it. He had an ailing mother somewhere, to whom he sent half of his meagre pay — and how she must have kissed this poor little blond head, worried about it, prayed for it!

Erkel </3

The events of the previous night had astonished them, and they seemed to have lost their nerve. The simple, albeit well-planned scandal in which they had been so eagerly taking part hadn’t turned out as they’d expected. The night fire, the murder of the Lebyadkins, the violence of the crowd towards Liza — those were all surprises for which their plan of action had made no provision.

[Later]

we have already seen scandals, we have seen the dissatisfaction of the population, we have been present at and taken part in the fall of the local administration, and finally, we have seen the fire with our own eyes. What, then, are you dissatisfied with? Isn’t this your programme? What can you blame us for?’ ‘For self-will!’ Pyotr Stepanovich shouted savagely.

'For self-will' is important [Later]

They felt that they had suddenly fallen like flies into a huge spider’s web; they were angry, but they shook with fear.

'They' are the group. Obviously the spider is Pyotr. This is very good imagery, [Later]

Pyotr Stepanovich had no time to dredge up the Romans: he himself had been thrown off balance. Stavrogin’s flight had stunned and crushed him.

His dependence on Stavrogin, losing him, and being crushed by that event is important in light of what happens in these next chapters, I think.

Pyotr Stepanovich suddenly remembered that not too long ago he had had to pick his way through the mud in the same fashion in order to keep up with Stavrogin, who was striding down the middle, as he was now, taking up the entire pavement. He remembered this whole scene, and was gasping with rage.

Pyotr realised how pathetic he made himself for Stavrogin. I'm sure he seethed at 'You are a beauty… I love beauty… Without you I am nothing… You are the sun and I am your worm,' too. Not because he denounes himself; Stavrogin is stil his 'sun,' but because he's so lost now that the 'sun' is not here.

Liputin ended up hating him so much that he hadn’t the strength to tear himself away. It was something like an attack of nerves. He counted every piece of beefsteak that Pyotr Stepanovich directed into his mouth, hated him for the way he opened it, the way he chewed, the way he savoured and smacked his lips over the pieces that had a bit more fat; he hated the beefsteak itself.

I imagine something like this happened to Pyotr with Stavrogin, abroad only that he did not hate him; for Pyotr I think this moment would have been enrapturous.

It flashed like lightning through Liputin’s mind: ‘I’ll turn around and go back: if I don’t turn around now, I’ll never go back.’ This thought occupied him for exactly ten steps, but on the eleventh, a new and desperate thought blazed in his mind: he didn’t turn around and didn’t go back.

[Later]

‘There’s only one thing I feel very bad about, that at that moment I’ll have a reptile like you beside me.’

Pyotr as a serpent imagery coming back

‘Oh, you drunken slob! He’s the one who strips an icon, and yet preaches about God!’

There are many such criminals. I don't have anything to say about Fedka because I truly can't understand these sentiments.

‘Did you see what Fedka was drinking in the kitchen?’ ‘What he was drinking? He was drinking vodka.’ ‘Well, you should know that he was drinking vodka for the last time in his life.

SHETTTT

‘Marie! Is that you?’

Oh shit I remember this chapter

this stupid street and this idiotic house

I love this detail of her hating Bogoyavlenska street - a name with religious derivation

Three years of separation, three years of a broken marriage

It's interesting how both Shatov and Stavrogin had fucked up marriages, both wives named Marya. Shatov was the one who pointed out to Stavrogin that he had his marriage out of moral carnality. I guess it's because Shatov can sympathise - because he wanted his marriage to be good and normal. They have another similarity: Pyotr couldn't have them.

‘I’ll go and sell this revolver right now… or pawn it…’

He had that revolver because he was sure Pyotr was out to kill him; now he's pawning it for his wife. There's some significance there

‘Kirillov! If only… if only you could give up your dreadful fantasies and drop your atheistic ravings… oh, what a man you’d be, Kirillov!’

REAL

‘Erkel,’ the young man introduced himself. ‘You saw me at Virginsky’s.’

Oh shit. Erkel is there on Pyotr's order, to lure Shatov out.

‘You stupid little fool!’ Shatov couldn’t help shouting after him from the top of the stairs.

Shatov probably got involved when he was young by a similar experience to Erkel's - probably Shatov's Verkhovensky was Stavrogin, whom he sees as so much higher a being than Verkhovensky. That's why Shatov's so furious.

What did they have? Senility, the golden mean, the most philistine and vile mediocrity, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as a lackey conceives it or as it was conceived by a Frenchman in 17933…

REALEST

‘I preach God, Marie.’ ‘In whom you yourself don’t believe. I never could understand such an idea.’

I don't understand the idea either - that's why I understand neither Fedka nor Shatov. I do remember that Shatov eventually believes in God, which settles his earlier conversation with Stavrogin in the 'Night' chapter, when he said 'I will believe in God.'

‘Why, can’t you really see, when all is said and done, that I’m having labour pains?’

I knew she was pregnant but I'm still surprise that Shatov never noticed lmao

‘May he be cursed beforehand, this child!’

Dw you become a single mother in just a few more hundred words

‘For the midwife! I’ll sell my revolver; what’s needed now is money first and foremost!’

Shatov is just such a good man. He doesn't falter; nevermind that it is impossible for the baby to be his, he is getting help for his wife to deliver this child.

‘And am I mute or what? You don’t think I’ll shout for the police? Who has more to fear from the police, you or me?’

HAHAHAHAHA