Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Virginsky, a local civil servant, who bore a certain resemblance to Shatov, even though to all appearances he was his complete opposite in every respect.

They took everything out of books,

Remember this characterisation of Virginsky

Virginsky himself was a man of a rare purity of heart, and I have rarely met a soul that burned more brightly and honestly. ‘I shall never, ever forsake these radiant hopes,’ he would tell me with shining eyes.

Oh gosh

‘None of you has sat long enough to hatch anything,’

Nice to remember for developing the revolution's philosophies. None of thesee men had ay concrete ideas,only hatchlings, and Verkhovensky (the son) took advantage of that.

‘And what about me?’ Liputin would ask. ‘Oh, you’re just the golden mean48

More characterisation of Liputin

she preferred Lebyadkin. This Lebyadkin, who was just passing through, later turned out to be a highly suspicious character

That took me off guard lmao. So just remember that Mlle Virginskaya preferred Lebyadkin over Virginsky; those men probably have beef. This MAY be relevant to the fact that Stavrogin married Lebyadkin's sister

a little Jew named Lyamshin came,

Another one

it was also necessary to have someone to drink champagne with, and to exchange, over the wine, cheerful thoughts of a certain kind about Russia and ‘the Russian spirit’, about God in general and the ‘Russian God’ in particular,

Oh gosh

The muzhiks are coming with axes in hand,

Raskolnikov lmao

Without heads on our shoulders there is no way we can organize anything, despite the fact that it is our heads that are the greatest impediment to our understanding of things.’

Good quote

‘We, as people in a hurry, have acted too hastily with our muzhiks’,

Here's a conversation between Liputin and Stepan about the newly-emancipated muzhiks.

happened that immediately after rumours about the Anton Petrov affair60 began to circulate, a certain misunderstanding occurred in our own province,

Just a side note about how much Russian history is in this novel and the background of the chaotic era then is prefect for such a plot as the one in Demons.

‘I do believe in God, mais distinguons,65 in God as a being that is conscious of himself only in me.

He's worse than an atheist lol.

‘Neither Russia nor the people!’ Shatov also began to shriek, his eyes flashing. ‘It’s impossible to love what you don’t know, and they had no understanding of the Russian people!

YES SHATOV SERVE

And anyone who has no people has no God either!

OOH.

her only son, Nikolay Vsevolodovich Stavrogin.

Haiii

He was the one whose upbringing had been entrusted to Stepan Trofimovich.

Yea no wonder he was fucked (/hj)

Stepan Trofimovich knew how to reach into his young friend’s heart and pluck the deepest chords and evoke in him the first, still vague sense of that eternal, sacred anguish which some elected souls, once having tasted and known it, would never again exchange for some cheap gratification.

May be good to remember

others positively liked the fact that he was a murderer.

Called me out ngl

you might say that he was a picture of beauty, but at the same time there was also something repellent about him.

He was related to the governor on his father’s side,

Should probably remember

Nikolay Vsevolodovich shrugged his shoulders and walked out.

LMAO???

none of us, in the entire town, attributed this savage act to insanity.

OH? This feel like it foreshadows the final sentence of the novel

Liputin turned up. He appeared at Nikolay Vsevolodovich’s immediately after the young man’s talk with his mother, and entreated him to do him the honour of coming to his house that very evening to celebrate the occasion of his wife’s birthday.

Maybe remember

kissed her on the lips, some three times in a row, with genuine gusto. The terrified young woman fainted.

HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THIS? He made out with Liputin's wife at the guy's own party D:

Nicolas, instead of confiding some interesting secret to him in a whisper, had suddenly seized the upper part of his ear in his teeth, and clamped down on it rather firmly.

HAHAHAHA I REMEMBER THIS

the monster took pity and released the ear.

Narrator doesn't say Nikolay or Nicolas, but 'the monster.' That's what impels him.

he proved to be in the throes of an acute attack of brain fever;

Brain fever is brought on by alcohol withdrawal.

it turned out that Liputin had guessed the truth sooner than anyone else.

To ask for his health, that is.

‘As a highly intelligent and highly sensible man, and I only gave the impression that I believed you were not in your right mind…

Ofc Liputin the 'local liberal' ad soon-to-be part of Verkhovensky's circle would say that lmao

‘Ugh! The Devil with it, why, no such language as that exists!’ Nicolas continued laughing.

He doesn't actually believe in all this 'mankind's universal social harmony' shit that the circle does believe in. That's prolly a reason why Pyotr never got to recruit him.

Our prince

Idk how I haven't mentioned it before but the Narrator calling Nikolay 'the prince' alludes further than just Shakespeare. Satan was called the prince of this world. But anyway it dos perfectly align with the whole vib of high society that Part I keeps up. Similar to 'our prince' Myshkin, 'our prince' Nicolas is detached, delirious, and idealogically different from their society. But their difference is that in all the places our prince Myshkin is vulnerable and good-hearted; we have no idea what our prince Nicolas does believe in, his 'delirium' is kept incredibly vague to the reader, and he remains somehow unknown to us as a person despite being a main subject of the narration. I couldn't help but bring up Myshkin when he was the prince and metaphorically the 'Christ-like man,' and Nikolay is the prince in a book called Devils.

She was making some plans in secret,

Maybe remember

Nikolay Vsevolodovich had become an intimate of her family and had formed a close friendship with Liza

Oh this was her (Lizaveta Nikolayevna (?) Tushina)

Praskovya Ivanovna had gone abroad with her daughter, among other things to take the grape cure,

Should probably remember that Mlle Tushina is sick

He was tormented by a certain very considerable monetary obligation of long standing,

The timber thing?

the arrival of our new superior, Andrey Antonovich von Lembke, occurred, and with it began a perceptible change of attitude towards Varvara Petrovna on the part of practically our entire provincial society, and consequently, towards Stepan Trofimovich as well.

she was a proud woman, nonetheless she was a real aristocrat, and not ‘someone like our poor unfortunate Varvara Petrovna’.

So there's already beef between them bc Yulia Lembke is considered a 'better Varvara Stavrogina.' Also now, Nikolay has no relation to the governor.

Ces interminables mots russes!…

'The interminable Russian words' ?

Vous savez, chez nous…

'You know, among us' ????i think. Why don't they just translate this

En un mot,

'In a word'

pour vous montrer son pouvoir.

'For him to show his power' ????? WHY DON'T THEY TRANSLATE THE FRENCH >:(

for them this reaches the point of administrative ecstasy… En un mot,

so these governors and town rulers are a parody of russian rulers. we'll see how they do

mais c’est tres curieux

'And it is very curious' my gosh im so multilingualcore ;)))

les dames charmantes,

'The charming dames'

vous savez ces chants et le livre de Job…

'You know the songs and the life of Job' ???

et il a montre son pouvoir…’ 12

'And he showed his power' btw NOW i see the footnote translating the french… whoops

quelle idee rouge!

'What a rogue idea' IM SO GOOD AT FRENCH FR FR

‘Vraiment?’

'Really?' I still remember what vraiment means bc this bitch says it so much.

She is related to the Drozdovs.’

YULIA LEMBKE is related to the Drozdovs... Should prolly remember