Russian dolls

Everybody is familiar with those famous "Russian dolls", the "matriochkas" (or, more correctly, matriochki)… figures of decreasing size, which fit into each other. Obviously they are subject to multiple symbolic meanings. I personally see in them an image of the various levels of consciousness which exist in the human being. Inner unity is seldom reached in a man; his will is often divided, his consciousness obscured or torn. Dostoevsky has made of this complexity of the human heart one of the essential features of his novels. It is particularly evident in the figure of the "double", whether in a single character – like Goliadkin, in The Double – or in two characters who are like flip sides of the same being – like Mychkin and Rogozin, in The Idiot.

But it seems to me that the brilliant Fyodor has made use of another literary device to express the interlocking nature that can characterize human consciousness. This is particularly the case of souvenirs buried in the memory, souvenirs that an event or a word can trigger and bring to life. When opened, a Russian doll reveals another; so it is with Dostoevsky – the heart of a character, once opened, shows him in a new light. The attentive reader of Dostoevsky's great novels will no doubt have noticed how often the author begins to tell a "story in the story." It may be narratives spoken by one of his characters, or a revealing dream, or still a vast digression, as a close-up shot of an event whose detailed account is not essential to the coherence of the novel, but which opens it up to new meanings.

After a long period during which I "abandoned" my favorite author, I wish to return to those "Russian dolls" concealed in Dostoevsky’s novels. To open the series, here is a remarkable passage^(*) from the first of the "great" novels of his maturity, Crime and Punishment.

In the hours preceding his crime, Raskolnikov is agitated. He walks randomly. The idea of going home disgusts him. He enters a tavern, grabs something to eat and drinks a glass of vodka, something he has not done in a long time. He finally decides to go back home, but on the way, completely exhausted, he leaves the road, enters the bushes, and falls asleep on the grass. Then, he "has a frightful dream."

The narrative of this dream covers seven or eight pages. Rodia Raskolnikov sees himself, at seven years old, in a small town walking with his father. They go to the cemetery where his grandmother and his younger brother, who died at the age of six months, lie. On their way, they pass a tavern where people celebrate and get drunk. In front of the tavern, there is a large cart, to which powerful draft horses are usually harnessed.

 

Raskolnikov, by Ilya Glazounov

But it is a puny, old mare that is harnessed here. Drunken peasants come out of the tavern and the whole gang pile into the cart, with a barrage of shouting and laughter, then of whips on the back of the poor animal, by three raging men. The child sees it all. “Father, father, he cried, father, what are they doing? Father, they are beating the poor horse!” The father exhorts him not to look at these drunkards and tries to draw him away, “but the boy broke free from his hand, and ran over to the little horse”. But the relentless abuse of the frail mare that falls and tries to rise again continues mercilessly, with the ongoing outburst and laughter and with a kind of murderous hatred. The executioners eventually complete their deadly play wielding iron bars. “… the poor boy is beside himself, he cries out and fights his way through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head and kisses it, kisses the eyes and kisses the lips…. Then he jumps up and flies in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka [the driver]”. But his father seizes him and takes him far from the crowd. “Father! Why did they… kill… the poor horse! he sobbed, but his voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest”.

It is then that Raskolnikov wakes up. It is as if the dream has stirred his consciousness. While for several weeks he had planned the murder of the usurer, whom he considered a worthless being, he is now "broken". “Good God! he cried, can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open… that I shall (…) steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood… with the axe… Good God, can it be?” And he persuades himself that he “will not do it”.

Basically, by recounting Raskolnikov's dream, Dostoevsky wants us to understand that this man is neither some kind of beast nor a monster. His crime will be the result of an ideological fit. Rodia would be the victim of this monstrous cynicism which had developed within a fringe of the Russian intelligentsia, engendered by nihilistic notions that Dostoevsky would depict in The Demons.

After his dream, Raskolnikov was convinced that he would not be capable of murder: “I knew that I could never bring myself to it, No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it!” But everything changed after the chance meeting with Lizaveta, the sister of the usurer, a few words of whom with a merchant catch him by surprise. “He had learnt, he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only companion, would be away from home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old woman would be left alone (…) he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably decided”. Here then is the man, however capable of compassion and to whom violence is repugnant, who in a flash will become an assassin. Mystery of the human heart...

Fiodor

(*) Crime and Punishment, 1^st part, chapter 5. English translation by Constance Garnett, on www.planetpdf.com.

Gentle and compassionate Sonia

Alexei Alexeievitch Harlamoff (1840-1925) – Girl with a red scarf

At the end of last year – with the figure of Makar Dolgoruky – I opened what could be a gallery of characters from Dostoevsky evoking the deified humanity. It's time to continue, because there is work to be done...

Today, I would like to evoke Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, or Sonia, the young woman who is going to lead Raskolnikov, the murderer of Crime and Punishment, on the path of redemption.

Sonia is a young girl with a childish aspect. “She had a thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but her blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such a kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help being attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed, had another peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked almost a little girl, almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this childishness seemed almost absurd” (III, iv) ⁽¹⁾.

Her father, Semyon Zakharytch Marmeladov, a former state employee, inveterate alcoholic fallen into the worst of decays, wastes the scarce resources of his family: his second wife, Katerina Ivanovna and the three children born of this marriage, Polya, Kolya and Lyda. It is to bring to them some money that Sonia is engaged in prostitution. But beyond her sordid everyday life, she preserves a pure heart and she is livened up by a simple but profound Christian faith. Raskolnikov does not manage to understand how she can bear that situation: “What held her up? surely not depravity? All that infamy had obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her heart…” (IV, iv).

But what impresses most is her strength of mind and her self-abnegation. She gives herself entirely for her loved ones. After the murder, in a bout of fever and frenzy, Raskolnikov mumbles: “Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes… Dear women! Why don’t they weep? Why don’t they moan? They give up everything… their eyes are soft and gentle… Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!” (III, vi).

Sonia cannot imagine that the depreciation on which she agrees for herself can impose upon others. When Rodia Raskolnikov comes to speak about the girl Polya, Sonia’s half-sister, suggesting that she too will be forced into prostitution, she reacts strongly: “– It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt, he said suddenly. – No, no! It can’t be, no! Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though she had been stabbed. God would not allow anything so awful!” As he does it on several occasions, Dostoevsky introduces – here briefly – doubt and temptation against faith. Rodia answers indeed: “– He lets others come to it. – No, no! God will protect her, God! She repeated beside herself. – But, perhaps, there is no God at all, Raskolnikov answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her. Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked at him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not speak…” (IV, iv).

Actually, it is faith that allows Sonia to stand firm. Rodia is still unable to understand it, and he looks at her in a condescending and mocking way: “– So you pray God a great deal, Sonia? he asked her. Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer. – What should I be without God? she whispered rapidly, forcibly, glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand. ‘Ah, so that is it!’ he thought. – And what does God do for you? he asked, probing her further. Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her weak chest kept heaving with emotion. – Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve! she cried suddenly, looking sternly and wrathfully at him. ‘That’s it, that’s it’ he repeated to himself. – He does everything, she whispered quickly, looking down again” (IV, iv).

Later, Rodia notices a book lying on the table, a New Testament. Despite Sonia’s reluctance: “– What for? You don’t believe?...”, Raskolnikov insists so that she reads the passage of the raising of Lazarus in the Gospel of John.  With excitement, but inwardly convinced that she had to read: “– He, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At once, now”, Sonia runs and reads the whole passage. Then: “– That is all about the raising of Lazarus, she whispered severely and abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely been reading together the eternal book” (IV, iv). In a footnote, the translator of the French version rightly points out that, by saying “That is all about the raising of Lazarus”, Sonia means that this chapter of the Gospel story is completed, but also that everything (that is the entire novel, the entire life) is only about one thing: resurrection.

It is indeed to a resurrection that Sonia is going to lead Raskolnikov. It is to her that he will first confess his crime. The reaction of the girl is amazing: “– What have you done, what have you done to yourself? she said in despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him, and held him tightly (...) There is no one, no one in the whole world now so unhappy as you!, she cried…” The path of the redemption opens for Rodia: “A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes and hung on his eyelashes.” (V, iv).

Raskolnikov is still reluctant to surrender to the police, but Sonia has these powerful words: “– Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again.” After much hesitation and questions Rodia is finally ready to give up himself. “– Will you come and see me in prison when I am there? – Oh, I will, I will (...) – Have you a cross on you?, she asked, as though suddenly thinking of it. He did not at first understand the question. No, of course not. Here, take this one (…) Take it... it's mine! It's mine, you know, she begged him. We will go to suffer together, and together we will bear our cross! (…) – Not now, Sonia. Better later, he added to comfort her. – Yes, yes, better, she repeated with conviction, when you go to meet your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I'll put it on you, we will pray and go together.” (V, iv).

This dialogue is like a prelude to the genuinely Christlike attitude of Sonia accompanying Rodia in the penal colony, in Siberia. Very concretely, she bears his cross to lead him up to the end of salvation. And remarkably, this attitude produces a saving effect on other convicts: “And when she visited Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they all took off their hats to her. ‘Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you are our dear, good little mother’, coarse branded criminals said to that frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was delighted when she smiled. (Epilogue, ii).

Rodia himself, who had withdrawn into himself for a long time, is eventually touched by Sonia's love. The last lines of the novel evoke this transformation: “… that is the beginning of a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.” (Epilogue, ii). Sonia, the wretched girl, degraded but inhabited by a divine love, has been the instrument of a resurrection. That is all about the raising of Raskolnikov…

Fiodor (the other one…)

(1) All the quotations from Crime and Punishment are from the English translation by Constance Garnett on http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2554/pg2554.txt

The numbers in brackets refer to Part and chapter.

Dostoevsky peering into hearts

Ivan Nikolaevitch Kramskoy (1837-1887), portrait of an old man.

Dostoevsky experienced humiliating infirmities, such as epilepsy or addiction to gambling. His life was marked by terrible trials: a father murdered by his peasants, a death sentence followed by a mock execution, the penal colony, debts, etc. It was probably his own experience of suffering that shaped the way he glances at the marginalized, the humiliated, the rejected.

In each of the great novels of maturity – that Svetlana Geier calls nicely the “five elephants” – Dostoevsky depicts one or the other figure of drunkard, of madman, of sick or disabled person. Take for instance Marmeladov, in Crime and Punishment, Hippolyte Terentyev and General Ivolgin, in The Idiot, the poor Olia, in The Adolescent, Maria Timofeevna, in Demons, or “Stinking” Lizaveta , in The Brothers Karamazov.

During the next few weeks (or months...), I will try to depict some of these figures. As usually, I shall do it appealing mostly to the text itself. My main purpose is to awaken the desire to read – or read again – these wondeful books of the great Fyodor. Those who do it will come forth grown, matured, called for more respect and compassion for their fellow human. Some will even find seeds of the Gospel and assurance that their thirst for redemption is not unfounded.

Christian Bobin – another writer that I love – has subtly expressed the feeling experienced by the reader of the great Russian: “I never met worshipers of Dostoevsky, but people who had been burned by that reading. He speaks of souls as the issue of a battle (...) Dostoevsky is a living. It's a burst of pure life, like a spark jumping from the fire. This pure life of fire sends a spark which jumps into the book. Then, it becomes a mere instrument for living”.

But, if you are looking for readings in which the characters are clearly identified as “good” or “bad”, Dostoevsky is not for you. In his books, you find very dark characters, as Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky, in Demons, or Svidrigaïlov, in Crime and Punishment. But even the most radiant figures, such as Prince Myshkin, Sonya Marmeladov, Alyosha Karamazov, or Makar Dolgoruky have their dark side and their imperfections. They are human beings...

Semyon Zaharovytch Marmeladov

To initiate the topic, I would like to mention again the soul-stirring drunkard of Crime and Punishment, Semyon Zaharovytch Marmeladov. On 15 January 2011, in the French version of this blog, I posted an article called “La plus belle prière” (here). I quoted a large section of the novel in which Marmeladov, mocked by the customers of the tavern where he gets drunk, starts a heartbreaking declaration of faith. Faith in the mercy of a God who does not turn away from the “drunkards” and the “weak ones”.

Marmeladov is a fallen clerk. He wastes the scarce household resources in taverns, forcing his daughter Sonia into prostitution to support the family. However, despite his decline, Marmeladov manages to “maintain a moral sensibility of heartbreaking depth”, as written by Joseph Frank, author of a masterly biography of Dostoevsky⁽¹⁾.

In a dialog with Raskolnikov, Marmeladov does not hesitate to recognize his ignominy. He explains that Sonia, his eldest daughter, is engaged in prostitution. He also mentions his wife, Katerina Ivanovna, that poverty and tuberculosis grow to hysteria. He goes on: “Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart(...) Do you know, Sir, do you know, I have sold her very stockings for drink? Not her shoes – that would be more or less in the order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink! Her mohair shawl I sold for drink(...) We live in a cold room and she caught cold this winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too(...) But her chest is weak and she has a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don't feel it? And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink. I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!” (2).

I do not think that it is through masochism that Marmeladov delights in a suffering fueled by drink. It is rather a kind of self-punishment, like a penance he inflicts to himself, aware as he is of his decay and of the responsibility he bears.

A few chapters later, the reader learns that Marmeladov was run over by a cab. In blood, covered with wounds, he is carried home. “Marmeladov was in the last agony; he did not take his eyes off the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending over him again. He kept trying to say something to her; he began moving his tongue with difficulty and articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, called peremptorily to him: ‘Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!’ And the sick man was silent, but at the same instant his wandering eyes strayed to the doorway and he saw Sonia. Till then he had not noticed her: she was standing in the shadow in a corner. ‘Who's that? Who's that?’ he said suddenly in a thick gasping voice, in agitation, turning his eyes in horror towards the door where his daughter was standing, and trying to sit up. ‘Lie down! Lie do-own!’ cried Katerina Ivanovna. With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping himself on his elbow. He looked wildly and fixedly for some time on his daughter, as though not recognising her. He had never seen her before in such attire. Suddenly he recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation and gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say good-bye to her dying father. His face showed intense suffering. ‘Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!’ he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on the floor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on the sofa; but he was dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained so without moving. He died in her arms.”⁽³⁾.

In this striking picture, a drunkard, a prostitute and a hysterical woman are gathered by the same tragedy. But it is with the invisible presence of the God of mercy, and under His gaze – captured by the pen of the writer – that transfigures their misery. Let us listen again to Joseph Frank: “A world that would be completely devoid of meaning is intolerable and appears as a supreme humiliation to the human spirit.” By peering into the heart of the most wounded and the most miserable people, Dostoevsky endorsed that belief and he conveys it to us with irresistible power.

Fiodor (the other one)

(1) Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky. The Miraculous Years,1865-1871, Princeton University Press, 1996.

(2) Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part I, Chapter 2.

(3) Ibid., Part II, Chapter 7.