Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Mavriky Nikolayevich, will you be my guide when I’m crippled?’

What the hell does she mean

‘Hysterics!’ Pyotr Stepanovich whispered to me. ‘A glass of water as quickly as possible.’

Hysteria follows Nikolay lmao

‘Pierre!’ Stepan Trofimovich exclaimed. ‘What do you mean “Pierre”?

HAHAHA

and quite by accident at that, and suddenly now, as he enters upon his third marriage, he imagines that he is violating some parental obligations he has towards me, and at a distance of a thousand versts he begs me not to get angry and to give my permission!

Oof (remember that petya has daddy isues. well nikolay has mommy issues so…)

these were his exact words?’ Varvara Petrovna suddenly came up to him; all yellow, her face distorted, her lips quivering.

Oh gosh she figured out that Stepan never wanted to get married to Dasha, and she no doubt knows why

Pyotr Stepanovich, as if alarmed

HE DOESN'T KNOW NIKOLAYS SINS.

Pyotr Stepanovich, who was obviously playing a part (what kind I didn’t know at the time, but the part was obviously a part, and even too crudely played for words).

Remember. He's probably the Wise Serpent here, more so than Nikolay.

For the first time in twenty years my eyes have been opened.

She like Lebyadkin has been 'awakened' by Pyotr.

Stepan Trofimovich, I expect you to do me an extraordinary favour,’ she suddenly turned to him with flashing eyes, ‘be so kind as to leave us at once, and do not set a foot across the threshold of my house in future.’

AY SHET

Stepan Trofimovich bowed to her very low, very low indeed.

Good bc she just found out that he, in talking of Nikolay's sins, called her a whore

And suddenly Shatov swung his long, heavy arm and hit him on the cheek with all his might. Nikolay Vsevolodovich reeled violently.

HAHAHAHAHA OMG I FORGOT ABOUT THIS IT CAUGHT ME BY SURPRISE

That was the sort of person he was, and he would have killed with full awareness of what he was doing, and not because he had lost control of himself.

He killed himself like that

People used to say, for example, of the Decembrist L—

Comparing Nikolay to a Decemberist revolutionist is clever

just as successfully and fearlessly as L—n, yet without any sense of enjoyment, and only out of unpleasant necessity,

He is further than the hedonist in his nihilism

There was more rage in Nikolay Vsevolodovich, perhaps, than in those other two put together, but it was a cold, calm and, if one can put it this way, rational rage, and therefore, the most repellent and most dreadful kind there can be.

But strangely enough, the light in his eyes seemed to be going out. Ten seconds later his eyes had a cold and (I’m sure I’m not lying) calm look to them.

Stavrogin was awakened lol

To this day I can still hear the sound of her head hitting the carpet.

Part 1, the society novel where we dwell in the upper class and only get whispers and glimpses of thhe underground, started in a simmering chaos and ended when it boiled up and spilled over as our revolutionists arrived. It was a long drag, but I’m glad I paid attention to it, because of course exposition is important and this was very good exposition. Now it's time for the anti-nihilist novel of nihilists that is Part 2.

But Lebyadkin, along with his sister, had vanished without a trace the very next day; he wasn’t to be found in Filippov’s house, he had moved somewhere unknown and in effect had vanished.

Was that Pyotr's doing? He did end up killing them, after all.

Then, apparently jumping off his bed, he strode up to the door with heavy steps and shouted to me at the top of his voice: ‘Shatov is not at home.’ With that I left.

HAHAHAHA

we decided that the one responsible for spreading the rumours was none other than Pyotr Stepanovich,

Ofc that fag spread it LMAO

I ran across Liputin, and he already knew everything, every word of it; so he undoubtedly had been one of the first to find out about it.

Pyotr told him; Liputin's his informant from the upper class so he had to tell him

the ancient enmity that our society felt towards Nikolay Vsevolodovich was clearly evident.

Nikolay is hated in society and Pyotr is loved

extremely strange things, the existence of which I mention merely by way of warning readers, and solely in view of the events that lie ahead in my narrative.

Remember!

One segment of society acknowledged her practical sense and tactfulness… but more about that later.

Remember this vague characterisation of Yulia Mikhailovna

It was her protection that partly explained the extremely rapid success of Pyotr Stepanovich in our society

So he somehow has a stake on Yulia Mikhailovna and therefore also on Lembke

Pyotr Stepanovich was also hospitably received at the governor’s, so much so that he immediately found himself in the position of an intimate, or, so to speak, a favoured young man.

Yea Nikolay is hated in high society and they're wary of him but Pyotr is 'favoured'

She even put her husband on an almost familiar footing with Pyotr Stepanovich, which elicited complaints from Mr von Lembke… but more about that later as well.

Remember

by pressing a nihilist to visit him, Mr Karmazinov quite obviously had in mind his relations with the progressive young people of both capitals.

So Pyotr even has connections in the literary circles of society

He had fortified himself with some decisive and extraordinary idea that gave him peace,

Remember about Stepan Trofimovich

‘Cher, I’d crush them!’ This burst forth from him on Thursday evening, after his second meeting with Pyotr Stepanovich,

Stepan Trofimovich is getting really tormented possibly because he knows his son's ideas are so similar to his but Pyotr is an actual revolutionist lol

Il rit. Il rit beaucoup, il rit trop. He has a strange kind of smile. His mother didn’t have a smile like that. Il rit toujours.’7

I remember this gave off a haunting air when I first read it. 'He laughs. He laughs again. He laughs a lot. He has a strange smile. He laughs too much.'

In order to make the truth more plausible, you mustn’t fail to mix a lie in with it.

This is a quote

These carts, or, how do they put it: ‘the rumble of carts bringing bread to mankind’, are more useful than the Sistine Madonna, or however they put it…

Oh em gee. Quote from The Idiot: But I don’t believe in those carts bringing bread to a starving humanity, vile Lebedev that I am! Because those carts bringing bread to all mankind without a moral basis for their action, could in absolute cold blood debar a significant part of humanity from the enjoyment of that which they bring, which has indeed happened before now …’ Dostoevsky, Fyodor; Alan Myers; William Leatherbarrow. The Idiot (Oxford World's Classics) (p. 553).

the Lebyadkins, brother and sister, were both somewhere on the other side of the river, in the suburb of Gorshechnaya.

Remember

Lizaveta Nikolayevna was marrying Mavriky Nikolayevich,

Remember

you’ve convinced people of your simplemindedness, bored them to death and been incomprehensible — all three advantages simultaneously!

Lmao wise serpent

However, Nikolay Vsevolodovich was not smiling at all,

Cmon Mr Govorov let the girl (Pyotr) live his delusions in peace

‘Eh? What’s that? I think you said, “It doesn’t matter”?’ Pyotr Stepanovich chattered away. (Nikolay Vsevolodovich hadn’t said a single word.)

HAHAHAHA

I myself know that it’s not worth my while offering them, isn’t that so? I’m

Kinda foreshdowing because Nikolay really doesn't accept his terms in the future

‘I changed my mind about you the moment you took your hands away after Shatov had struck you.

Well Pyotr made Nikolay up abroad but that strike from Shatov did something to Nikolay, and Pyotr sees it. I saw it as Nikolay getting awakened, even tough it's deliberate irony, because 'the lights in his eyes went dark,' and corpses do that.

‘Have you represented me as some kind of headman to them?’

…Pyotr did. And isteling that he changed the topic lmao

she’d come running from the altar, and all you’d have to do is call her.

The Idiot but Nikolay is the opposite of Myshkin

there are castrates13 in the district here,

These castrates were mentioned in The Idiot as well. I wonder what they signify in here.

Shatov assures me that if we’re going to start a rebellion in Russia, then we absolutely have to begin with atheism.

Ofc, since atheism is ignorant rebellion, or filibustering, or insolence.

The Shpigulins’ factory is interesting.

The Shpigulin factory workers know of the Internationale, which was a foundation started by Karl fucking Marx. No wonder Pyotr was interested in them, and later his thing with Shigulin's factory will make sense to me (it didn't before because I didn't see the significance of this dialogue) if I just remember and pay attention to this thread of events.

from Charmeur’s,

I immediately remembered CNP

here in town and in the vicinity a certain Fedka the Convict is roaming about now, a fugitive from Siberia,

LMAO I REMEMBER HIM AND 'HIS LAST VODKA'

Shatov, for example, had no right to risk his life on Sunday when he went up to you, isn’t that so? I would like you to take note of that.’

I'll remember that lol

She stood over him for a good three minutes, scarcely breathing, and was suddenly gripped by fear. She went out on tiptoe, paused in the doorway, quickly made the sign of the cross over him and withdrew unobserved, with a new heavy feeling and a new anguish.

She reacted like she saw a corpse

But the master, after opening the umbrella, silently went out into the damp and wet old garden, which was as dark as a cellar.

This struck me as the opposite of the gardens at Pavlovsk near the Yepanchins' villa in The Idiot