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How it came to pass that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those vigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all called him, I won’t attempt to explain.
why do I get such warm cozy feelings whenever I read Dostoyevsky?
Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place.
lol
It is known for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife, but rumor had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was beaten by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-browed, impatient woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength.
:)
It is quite possible that both versions were true, that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who released him.
the essential dostoevsky
Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna’s death the general’s widow suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a great deal. It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen for those eight years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good, resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down.
so many characters and all are flavorful
He was simply an early lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love.
I can only imagine him looking like jesus christ.
More than that, much that soldiers have no knowledge or conception of is familiar to quite young children of our intellectual and higher classes. There is no moral depravity, no real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is the appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as something refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation.
the generation gap pattern keeps repeating
But this strange trait in Alyosha’s character must not, I think, be criticized too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with him any one would have perceived that Alyosha was one of those youths, almost of the type of religious enthusiast, who, if they were suddenly to come into possession of a large fortune, would not hesitate to give it away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue.
jesus he is then
It’s impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then I wonder—hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the monastery probably believe that there’s a ceiling in hell, for instance. Now I’m ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is. And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn’t? But, do you know, there’s a damnable question involved in it? If there’s no
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I can see the parts that got Kafka inspired. Dostoevsky does this from time to time. His characters describe their 'Lutheran' dreams and contemplate their salvation, or lack thereof.
The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he loved him.
hi Kafka, I can see you reading this
He had a high opinion of his own insight, a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty, an age at which a clever man of the world of established position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously.
lol
Indeed, I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon. So I say, ‘Let me really play the buffoon. I am not afraid of your opinion, for you are every one of you worse than I am.’That is why I am a buffoon. It is from shame, great elder, from shame; it’s simply over-sensitiveness that makes me rowdy. If I had only been sure that every one would accept me as the kindest and wisest of men, oh, Lord, what a good man I should have been then!
manipulation
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing….”
nice one. also good on him to see through the manipulation.
You knew nothing of it, but I went home with my faith shaken, and I have been getting more and more shaken ever since. Yes, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you were the cause of a great fall.
this guy's a seasoned manipulator. and what he's doing now is smoke. He's setting up a bait-and-switch
But later on I learnt with astonishment from medical specialists that there is no pretense about it, that it is a terrible illness to which women are subject, specially prevalent among us in Russia, and that it is due to the hard lot of the peasant women. It is a disease, I was told, arising from exhausting toil too soon after hard, abnormal and unassisted labor in childbirth, and from the hopeless misery, from beatings, and so on, which some women were not able to endure like others.
sins of the past
Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound.
how do you know so much, fed?
He was a great saint and he could not have spoken falsely.
is there such a thing as white hat in manipulation?
“It is Rachel of old,” said the elder, “weeping for her children, and will not be comforted because they are not. Such is the lot set on earth for you mothers. Be not comforted. Consolation is not what you need. Weep and be not consoled, but weep. Only every time that you weep be sure to remember that your little son is one of the angels of God, that he looks down from there at you and sees you, and rejoices at your tears, and points at them to the Lord God; and a long while yet will you keep that great mother’s grief. But it will turn in the end into quiet joy, and your bitter tears will be
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the dark ages were hard times
Your little one will see from heaven that you have forsaken his father, and will weep over you.
toeing a fine line there, zos
‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s
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this could have been written by Sartre.
dostoyevsky the philosopher speaking through his characters.
“Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself.
mindfulness
“Yes, but you know, in reality it is so now,” said the elder suddenly, and all turned to him at once. “If it were not for the Church of Christ there would be nothing to restrain the criminal from evil-doing, no real chastisement for it afterwards; none, that is, but the mechanical punishment spoken of just now, which in the majority of cases only embitters the heart; and not the real punishment, the only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.”
yep. *nods*
This individual was not precisely a detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment of political detectives—a rather powerful position in its own way.
It's the KGB!!
As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Miüsov completely recovered his self-complacency, and all traces of his former irritation disappeared. He fully and sincerely loved humanity again.
some people only feel comfortable in a position of power
The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally—that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring herself.
she briefly reminded me of auri. now I'm sad.
At Mokroe I was talking to an old man, and he told me: ‘There’s nothing we like so much as sentencing girls to be thrashed, and we always give the lads the job of thrashing them. And the girl he has thrashed today, the young man will ask in marriage tomorrow. So it quite suits the girls, too,’ he said.
doing a rumi on me, are you fed? or is the father meant to be hated unequivocally
But if he particularly insisted on those words, if he particularly told you not to forget to repeat them to me, then perhaps he was in excitement, beside himself. He had made his decision and was frightened at it. He wasn’t walking away from me with a resolute step, but leaping headlong. The emphasis on that phrase may have been simply bravado.”
hi Katerina Ivanovna. welcome to the rabbit hole. you'll find there's plenty of rope around here to hang yourself with.
“Yes, yes!” cried Alyosha warmly. “I believe that is it.”
and if there's any short, I see this idiot is happy to supply you some more
No, she really was fascinated by Grushenka, that’s to say, not by Grushenka, but by her own dream, her own delusion—because it was her dream, her delusion! Alyosha, darling, how did you escape from them, those women? Did you pick up your cassock and run? Ha ha ha!”
this guy's gonna take a very hard fall
“Yes, perhaps, I really did tell Grushenka about that ‘fatal day,’ as Katya calls it. Yes, I did tell her, I remember! It was that time at Mokroe. I was drunk, the gypsies were singing…. But I was sobbing. I was sobbing then, kneeling and praying to Katya’s image, and Grushenka understood it. She understood it all then. I remember, she cried herself…. Damn it all! But it’s bound to be so now…. Then she cried, but now ‘the dagger in the heart’! That’s how women are.”
yep. fed's going to deconstruct him
Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it’s not true and that it’s blushing just as I am now, all over. Dear Alyosha, I love you, I’ve loved you from my childhood, since our Moscow days, when you were very different from what you are now, and I shall love you all my life. My heart has chosen you, to unite our lives, and pass them together till our old age. Of course, on condition that you will leave the monastery.
run Alyosha, run!!!
suddenly laughed a soft, sweet laugh. He started. That laugh seemed to him sinful. But a minute later he laughed again just as softly and happily.
dude
The agitation in his heart passed at once. “God, have mercy upon all of them, have all these unhappy and turbulent souls in Thy keeping, and set them in the right path. All ways are Thine. Save them according to Thy wisdom. Thou art love. Thou wilt send joy to all!” Alyosha murmured, crossing himself, and falling into peaceful sleep.
note to self
Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to the little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and slander you.
if by rudyard kipling
What made him formidable was that a number of monks fully shared his feeling, and many of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although they had no doubt that he was crazy. But it was just his craziness attracted them.
*chuckles*
The wenches won’t come to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up more and more, simply for myself, my dear son Alexey Fyodorovitch. You may as well know. For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so simple. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you that; and it’s not the proper place for a gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists. I believe that I fall asleep
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pure reason is a terrible thing
“If I send the ruffian to prison, she’ll hear of it and run to see him at once. But if she hears that he has beaten me, a weak old man, within an inch of my life, she may give him up and come to me…. For that’s her way, everything by contraries. I know her through and through!
I actually laughed. this guy's cuckoo.
“But you can’t consider me as a child, a little girl, after that silly joke! I beg your pardon for that silliness, but you must bring me the letter, if you really haven’t got it—bring it today, you must, you must.”
russian Far From the Madding Crowd
She loves your brother, Ivan, and she is doing her utmost to persuade herself she loves your brother, Dmitri. It’s appalling! I’ll go in with you, and if they don’t turn me out, I’ll stay to the end.”
the fuck's going on around here
During the preceding month it had been several times suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love with Katerina Ivanovna, and, what was more, that he meant “to carry her off” from Dmitri.
russian The Importance of Being Earnest?
