Notes from a Dead House (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The man lives quietly and meekly; he has a hard lot, but he bears it. Suppose he’s a muzhik, or a house serf, a tradesman, a soldier. Suddenly something in him comes unhinged; he can’t control himself and sticks a knife into his enemy and oppressor. It’s here that the strangeness begins: for a while the man suddenly leaps beyond all limits. The first man he killed was an oppressor, an enemy; that is a crime, but understandable; he had a reason; but then he kills not an enemy but the first man he meets, kills him for fun, for a rude word, for a glance, for a trifle, or simply “Out of my way, don’t cross me, I’m coming.” It’s as if the man is drunk, as if he’s in a feverish delirium. As if, having leaped over a line that was sacred to him, he begins to admire the fact that nothing is holy for him anymore; as if he feels an urge to leap over all legality and authority at once, and to revel in the most boundless and unbridled freedom, to revel in this thrill of horror, which it is impossible for him not to feel. He also knows that a terrible punishment awaits him. All this may resemble the sensation when a man on a high tower feels drawn to the depths below him, so that he is finally glad to throw himself down headlong: do it quickly and there’s an end to it! And all this happens even with the most meek and hitherto inconspicuous people. Some of them, when so bedazed, even start prancing. The more downtrodden he was before, the stronger now is his urge to show off, to strike t...