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- Herausgeber: Seven Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
The Brothers Karamazov, also translated as The Karamazov Brothers, is the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880. Dostoevsky died less than four months after its publication. It has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature. Set in 19th-century Russia, The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel that discusses questions of God, free will, and morality. It has also been described as a theological drama dealing with problems of faith, doubt, and reason in the context of a modernizing Russia, with a plot that revolves around the subject of patricide. Dostoevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which inspired the main setting.
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Seitenzahl: 1783
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The Brothers Karamazov
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SEVEN BOOKS
Copyright, 2024
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ISBN: 978-368-9954-06-2
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* * * * *
The Brothers Karamazov
Translated from the Russian of
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
by Constance Garnett, 1912
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Preface to Book
About the Author: Dostoyevsky
Part I
Book I. The History of a Family
Chapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov
Chapter II. He Gets Rid of His Eldest Son
Chapter III. The Second Marriage and the Second Family
Chapter IV. The Third Son, Alyosha
Chapter V. Elders
Book II. An Unfortunate Gathering
Chapter I. They Arrive at the Monastery
Chapter II. The Old Buffoon
Chapter III. Peasant Women Who Have Faith
Chapter IV. A Lady of Little Faith
Chapter V. So Be It! So Be It!
Chapter VI. Why Is Such a Man Alive?
Chapter VII. A Young Man Bent On a Career
Chapter VIII. The Scandalous Scene
Book III. The Sensualists
Chapter I. In the Servants' Quarters
Chapter II. Lizaveta
Chapter III. The Confession of a Passionate Heart—In Verse
Chapter IV. The Confession of a Passionate Heart—In Anecdote
Chapter V. The Confession of a Passionate Heart—"Heels Up"
Chapter VI. Smerdyakov
Chapter VII. The Controversy
Chapter VIII. Over The Brandy
Chapter IX. The Sensualists
Chapter X. Both Together
Chapter XI. Another Reputation Ruined
Part II
Book IV. Lacerations
Chapter I. Father Ferapont
Chapter II. At His Father's
Chapter III. A Meeting With the Schoolboys
Chapter IV. At the Hohlakovs'
Chapter V. A Laceration In the Drawing-Room
Chapter VI. A Laceration In the Cottage
Chapter VII. And In the Open Air
Book V. Pro and Contra
Chapter I. The Engagement
Chapter II. Smerdyakov With a Guitar
Chapter III. The Brothers Make Friends
Chapter IV. Rebellion
Chapter V. The Grand Inquisitor
Chapter VI. For Awhile a Very Obscure One
Chapter VII. “It's Always Worth While Speaking to a Clever Man”
Book VI. The Russian Monk
Chapter I. Father Zossima and His Visitors
Chapter II. The Duel
Chapter III. Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima
Part III
Book VII. Alyosha
Chapter I. The Breath of Corruption
Chapter II. A Critical Moment
Chapter III. An Onion
Chapter IV. Cana of Galilee
Book VIII. Mitya
Chapter I. Kuzma Samsonov
Chapter II. Lyagavy
Chapter III. Gold-Mines
Chapter IV. In The Dark
Chapter V. A Sudden Resolution
Chapter VI. “I Am Coming, Too!”
Chapter VII. The First and Rightful Lover
Chapter VIII. Delirium
Book IX. The Preliminary Investigation
Chapter I. The Beginning of Perhotin's Official Career
Chapter II. The Alarm
Chapter III. The Sufferings of a Soul, The First Ordeal
Chapter IV. The Second Ordeal
Chapter V. The Third Ordeal
Chapter VI. The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
Chapter VII. Mitya's Great Secret. Received With Hisses
Chapter VIII. The Evidence of the Witnesses. The Babe
Chapter IX. They Carry Mitya Away
Part IV
Book X. The Boys
Chapter I. Kolya Krassotkin
Chapter II. Children
Chapter III. The Schoolboy
Chapter IV. The Lost Dog
Chapter V. By Ilusha's Bedside
Chapter VI. Precocity
Chapter VII. Ilusha
Book XI. Ivan
Chapter I. At Grushenka's
Chapter II. The Injured Foot
Chapter III. A Little Demon
Chapter IV. A Hymn and a Secret
Chapter V. Not You, Not You!
Chapter VI. The First Interview With Smerdyakov
Chapter VII. The Second Visit to Smerdyakov
Chapter VIII. The Third and Last Interview With Smerdyakov
Chapter IX. The Devil. Ivan's Nightmare
Chapter X. “It Was He Who Said That”
Book XII. A Judicial Error
Chapter I. The Fatal Day
Chapter II. Dangerous Witnesses
Chapter III. The Medical Experts and a Pound Of Nuts
Chapter IV. Fortune Smiles On Mitya
Chapter V. A Sudden Catastrophe
Chapter VI. The Prosecutor's Speech. Sketches of Character
Chapter VII. An Historical Survey
Chapter VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov
Chapter IX. The Galloping Troika. The End of the Prosecutor's Speech
Chapter X. The Speech for the Defense. An Argument That Cuts Both Ways
Chapter XI. There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery
Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either
Chapter XIII. A Corrupter of Thought
Chapter XIV. The Peasants Stand Firm
Epilogue
Chapter I. Plans for Mitya's Escape
Chapter II. For a Moment the Lie Becomes Truth
Chapter III. Ilusha's Funeral. The Speech at the Stone
Footnotes
Preface to Book
The Brothers Karamazov,is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880. Dostoyevsky intended it to be the first part in an epic story titled The Life of a Great Sinner, but he died less than four months after its publication.
The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th century Russia, that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia. Dostoyevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which inspired the main setting. Since its publication, it has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in literature.
Context and background:
Optina Monastery, one of the few remaining such monasteries at the time, served as a spiritual center for Russia in the 19th century and inspired many aspects of The Brothers Karamazov.
Although Dostoyevsky began his first notes for The Brothers Karamazov in April 1878, he had written several unfinished works years earlier. He would incorporate some elements into his future work, particularly from the planned epos The Life of a Great Sinner, which he began work on in the summer of 1869. It eventually remained unfinished after Dostoyevsky was interested in the Nechaev affair, which involved a group of radicals murdering one of their former members. He picked up that story and started with The Possessed. The unfinished Drama in Tobolsk (Драма. В Тобольске) is considered the first draft of the first chapter of The Brothers Karamazov. Dated 13 September 1874, it tells about a fictional murder in Staraya Russa committed by a praporshchik named Dmitry Ilynskov (based on a real soldier from Omsk), who is thought to have murdered his father. It goes on noting that his body was suddenly discovered in a pit under a house. The similarly unfinished Sorokoviny (Сороковины), dated 1 August 1875, is reflected in book IX, chapter 3–5 and book XI, chapter nine.
In the October 1877 A Writer's Diary article "To the Reader", Dostoyevsky mentioned a "literary work that has imperceptibly and involuntarily been taken shape within me over these two years of publishing the Diary". His Diary, a collection of numerous articles, had included similar themes The Brothers Karamazov would later borrow from. These include parricide, law and order and social problems. Though Dostoyevsky was influenced by religion and philosophy in his life and the writing of The Brothers Karamazov, a personal tragedy altered the work. In May 1878, Dostoyevsky's three-year-old son Alyosha died of epilepsy, a condition inherited from his father. The novelist's grief is apparent throughout the book; Dostoyevsky named the hero Alyosha, as well as imbuing him with qualities which he sought and most admired. His loss is also reflected in the story of Captain Snegiryov and his young son Ilyusha.
The death of his son brought Dostoevsky to the Optina Monastery later that year. There, he found inspiration for several aspects of The Brothers Karamazov, though at the time he intended to write a novel about childhood instead. Parts of the biographical section of Zosima's life are based on "The Life of the Elder Leonid", a text he found at Optina and copied "almost word for word".
Structure
Dostoyevsky's notes for Chapter 5 of The Brothers Karamazov
Although written in the 19th century, The Brothers Karamazov displays a number of modern elements. Dostoyevsky composed the book with a variety of literary techniques. Though privy to many of the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists, the narrator is a self-proclaimed writer; he discusses his own mannerisms and personal perceptions so often in the novel that he becomes a character. Through his descriptions, the narrator's voice merges imperceptibly into the tone of the people he is describing, often extending into the characters' most personal thoughts. There is no voice of authority in the story (see Mikhail Bakhtin's Problems of Dostoyevsky's Poetics for more on the relationship between Dostoyevsky and his characters). In addition to the principal narrator there are several sections narrated by other characters entirely, such as the story of the Grand Inquisitor and Zosima's confessions. This technique enhances the theme of truth, making many aspects of the tale completely subjective.
Dostoyevsky uses individual styles of speech to express the inner personality of each person. For example, the attorney Fetyukovich (based on Vladimir Spasovich) is characterized by malapropisms(e.g. 'robbed' for 'stolen', and at one point declares possible suspects in the murder 'irresponsible' rather than innocent). Several plot digressions provide insight into other apparently minor characters. For example, the narrative in Book Six is almost entirely devoted to Zosima's biography, which contains a confession from a man whom he met many years before. Dostoyevsky does not rely on a single source or a group of major characters to convey the themes of this book, but uses a variety of viewpoints, narratives and characters throughout.
Translation
The diverse array of literary techniques and distinct voices in the novel makes its translation difficult, although The Brothers Karamazov has been translated from the original Russian into a number of languages. In English, the first translation was by Constance Garnett in 1912, and this book focused on this translation.
Major characters
Fyodor Karamazov is the father, a 55-year-old "sponger" and buffoon who sires three sons during his two marriages. He is rumored to have fathered an illegitimate son, Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov, whom he employs as his servant. Fyodor takes no interest in any of his sons, who are, as a result, raised apart from each other and their father. The relationship between Fyodor and his adult sons drives much of the plot in the novel.
Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov (a.k.a. Mitya, Mitka, Mitenka, Mitri) is Fyodor Karamazov's eldest son and the only offspring of his first marriage, with Adelaida Ivanovna Miusov. Dmitri is considered to be a sensualist, much like his father, spending large amounts of money on nights filled with champagne, women, and whatever entertainment and stimulation money can buy. Dmitri is brought into contact with his family when he finds himself in need of his inheritance, which he believes is being withheld by his father. He was engaged to be married to Katerina Ivanovna, but breaks that off after falling in love with Grushenka. Dmitri's relationship with his father is the most volatile of the brothers, escalating to violence as he and his father begin fighting over the same woman, Grushenka. While he maintains a good relationship with Ivan, he is closest to his younger brother Alyosha, referring to him as his "cherub".
Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov (a.k.a. Vanya, Vanka, Vanechka) is the middle son and first from Fyodor's second marriage to Sofia Ivanovna. He is a 24-year-old rationalist, disturbed especially by the apparently senseless suffering in the world, depicted as highly intelligent. He says to Alyosha in the chapter "Rebellion" (Bk. 5, Ch. 4), "It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket." From an early age, Ivan is sullen and isolated. His father tells Alyosha that he fears Ivan more than Dmitri. Some of the most memorable and acclaimed passages of the novel involve Ivan, including the chapter "Rebellion", his "poem" "The Grand Inquisitor" immediately following, and his nightmare of the devil (Bk. 11, Ch. 9). Ivan's relationship with his father and brothers are rather superficial in the beginning. He is almost repulsed by his father, and had no positive affection towards Dmitri. While he doesn't dislike Alexei, he didn't have any deep affection for him either. But towards the end of the novel, his relationship with his siblings get more complicated. Ivan falls in love with Katerina Ivanovna, who was Dmitri's betrothed. But she doesn't start to return his feelings until the end.
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov (a.k.a. Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alexeichik, Lyosha, Lyoshenka) at age 20 is the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, the youngest child by Karamazov's second wife and thus Ivan's full brother. The narrator identifies him as the hero of the novel in the opening chapter, as does the author in the preface. He is described as immensely likable. At the outset of the events, Alyosha is a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery. His faith is in contrast to his brother Ivan's atheism. His Elder, Father Zosima, sends him into the world, where he becomes involved in the sordid details of his family. In a secondary plotline, Alyosha befriends a group of school boys, whose fate adds a hopeful message to the conclusion of the novel.
Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov, the widely rumored to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Karamazov, is the son of "Reeking Lizaveta", a mute woman of the street who died in childbirth. His name, Smerdyakov, means "son of the 'reeking one'". He was brought up by Fyodor Karamazov's trusted servant Grigory Kutuzov Vasilievich and his wife Marfa. Smerdyakov grows up in the Karamazov house as a servant, working as Fyodor's lackey and cook. He is morose and sullen, and, like Dostoyevsky, suffers from epilepsy. The narrator notes that as a child, Smerdyakov collected stray cats to hang and bury them. Generally aloof, Smerdyakov admires Ivan and shares his atheism.
Agrafena Alexandrovna Svetlova (a.k.a. Grushenka, Grusha, Grushka), a beautiful 22-year-old, is the local Jezebel and has an uncanny charm among men. In her youth she was jilted by a Polish officer and subsequently came under the protection of a tyrannical miser. The episode leaves Grushenka with an urge for independence and control of her life. Grushenka inspires complete admiration and lust in both Fyodor and Dmitri Karamazov. Their rivalry for her affection is one of the most damaging factors in their relationship. Grushenka seeks to torment and then deride both Dmitri and Fyodor as a wicked amusement, a way to inflict upon others the pain she has felt at the hands of her ‘former and indisputable one’. However, after she begins a friendship with Alyosha, and as the book progresses, she begins to tread a path of spiritual redemption through which emerges hidden qualities of gentleness and generosity, though her fiery temper and pride are ever present.
Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva (a.k.a. Katya, Katka, Katenka) is Dmitri's beautiful fiancée, despite his open forays with Grushenka. Her engagement to Dmitri is chiefly a matter of pride on both their parts, Dmitri having bailed her father out of a debt. Katerina is extremely proud and seeks to act as a noble martyr, suffering as a stark reminder of everyone's guilt. Because of this, she cannot bring herself to act on her love for Ivan, and constantly creates moral barriers between him and herself. By the end of the novel, she too, begins a real and sincere spiritual redemption, as seen in the epilogue, when she asks Mitya and Grushenka to forgive her.
Father Zosima, the Elder Father Zosima is an Elder and spiritual advisor (starets) in the town monastery and Alyosha's teacher. He is something of a celebrity among the townspeople for his reputed prophetic and healing abilities. His popularity inspires both admiration and jealousy amidst his fellow monks. Zosima provides a refutation to Ivan's atheistic arguments and helps to explain Alyosha's character. Zosima's teachings shape the way Alyosha deals with the young boys he meets in the Ilyusha storyline.
The character of Father Zosima was to some extent inspired by that of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk.
Ilyusha, Ilyushechka, or simply Ilusha in some translations, is one of the local schoolboys, and the central figure of a crucial subplot in the novel. His father, Captain Snegiryov, is an impoverished officer who is insulted by Dmitri after Fyodor Karamazov hires him to threaten the latter over his debts, and the Snegiryov family is brought to shame as a result. The reader is led to believe that it is partly because of this that Ilyusha falls ill, possibly to illustrate the theme that even minor actions can touch heavily on the lives of others, and that we are "all responsible for one another".
Synopsis
Book One: A Nice Little Family The opening of the novel introduces the Karamazov family and relates the story of their distant and recent past. The details of Fyodor's two marriages as well as his indifference to the upbringing of his three children is chronicled. The narrator also establishes the widely varying personalities of the three brothers and the circumstances that have led to their return to Fyodor's town. The first book concludes by describing the mysterious religious order of Elders to which Alyosha has become devoted.
Book Two: An Inappropriate Gathering Book Two begins as the Karamazov family arrives at the local monastery so that the Elder Zosima can act as a mediator between Dmitri and his father Fyodor in their dispute over Dmitri's inheritance. It was the father's idea apparently as a joke to have the meeting take place in such a holy place in the presence of the famous Elder. Dmitri arrives late and the gathering soon degenerates and only exacerbates the feud between Dmitri and Fyodor. This book also contains a scene in which the Elder Zosima consoles a woman mourning the death of her three-year-old son. The poor woman's grief parallels Dostoyevsky's own tragedy at the loss of his young son Alyosha.
Book Three: Sensualists
An original page of book 3, chapter 3 of The Brothers Karamazov
The third book provides more details of the love triangle that has erupted between Fyodor, his son Dmitri, and Grushenka. Dmitri's personality is explored in the conversation between him and Alyosha as Dmitri hides near his father's home to see if Grushenka will arrive. Later that evening, Dmitri bursts into his father's house and assaults him while threatening to come back and kill him in the future. This book also introduces Smerdyakov and his origins, as well as the story of his mother, Reeking Lizaveta. At the conclusion of this book, Alyosha is witness to Grushenka's bitter humiliation of Dmitri's betrothed Katerina, resulting in terrible embarrassment and scandal for this proud woman.
Book Four: Lacerations/Strains This section introduces a side story which resurfaces in more detail later in the novel. It begins with Alyosha observing a group of schoolboys throwing rocks at one of their sickly peers named Ilyusha. When Alyosha admonishes the boys and tries to help, Ilyusha bites Alyosha's finger. It is later learned that Ilyusha's father, a former staff-captain named Snegiryov, was assaulted by Dmitri, who dragged him by the beard out of a bar. Alyosha soon learns of the further hardships present in the Snegiryov household and offers the former staff captain money as an apology for his brother and to help Snegiryov's ailing wife and children. After initially accepting the money with joy, Snegiryov throws the money back at Alyosha out of pride and runs back into his home.
Book Five: Pro and Contra
Here, the rationalist and nihilistic ideology that permeated Russia at this time is defended and espoused passionately by Ivan Karamazov while meeting his brother Alyosha at a restaurant. In the chapter titled "Rebellion", Ivan proclaims that he rejects the world that God has created because it is built on a foundation of suffering. In perhaps the most famous chapter in the novel, "The Grand Inquisitor", Ivan narrates to Alyosha his imagined poem that describes a leader from the Spanish Inquisition and his encounter with Jesus, Who has made His return to earth. Here, Jesus is rejected by the Inquisitor who puts Him in jail and then says,
Why hast Thou come now to hinder us? For Thou hast come to hinder us, and Thou knowest that... We are working not with Thee but with him [Satan]... We took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar, and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth... We shall triumph and shall be Caesars, and then we shall plan the universal happiness of man.
The Grand Inquisitor says that Jesus should not have given humans the "burden" of free will. At the end of all these arguments, Jesus silently steps forward and kisses the old man on his lips. The Grand Inquisitor, stunned and moved, tells Him he must never come there again, and lets Him out. Alyosha, after hearing this story, goes to Ivan and kisses him softly, with an unexplainable emotion, on the lips. Ivan shouts with delight, because Alyosha's gesture is taken directly from his poem. The brothers then part.
Book Six: The Russian Monk The sixth book relates the life and history of the Elder Zosima as he lies near death in his cell. Zosima explains he found his faith in his rebellious youth, in the middle of a duel, consequently deciding to become a monk. Zosima preaches people must forgive others by acknowledging their own sins and guilt before others. He explains that no sin is isolated, making everyone responsible for their neighbor's sins. Zosima represents a philosophy that responds to Ivan's, which had challenged God's creation in the previous book.
Book Seven: Alyosha The book begins immediately following the death of Zosima. It is a commonly held perception in the town, and the monastery as well, that true holy men's bodies do not succumb to putrefaction. Thus, the expectation concerning the Elder Zosima is that his deceased body will not decompose. It comes as a great shock to the entire town that Zosima's body not only decays, but begins the process almost immediately following his death. Within the first day, the smell of Zosima's body is already unbearable. For many this calls into question their previous respect and admiration for Zosima. Alyosha is particularly devastated by the sullying of Zosima's name due to nothing more than the corruption of his dead body. One of Alyosha's companions in the monastery named Rakitin uses Alyosha's vulnerability to set up a meeting between him and Grushenka. However, instead of Alyosha becoming corrupted, he is able to earn fresh faith and hope from Grushenka, while Grushenka's troubled mind begins the path of spiritual redemption through his influence: they become close friends. The book ends with the spiritual regeneration of Alyosha as he embraces, kisses the earth outside the monastery (echoing, perhaps, Zosima's last earthly act before his death) and cries convulsively until finally going back out into the world, as Zosima instructed, renewed.
Book Eight: Mitya This section deals primarily with Dmitri's wild and distraught pursuit of money so he can run away with Grushenka. Dmitri owes money to his fiancée Katerina and will believe himself to be a thief if he does not find the money to pay her back before embarking on his quest for Grushenka. This mad dash for money takes Dmitri from Grushenka's benefactor to a neighboring town on a fabricated promise of a business deal. All the while Dmitri is petrified that Grushenka may go to his father Fyodor and marry him because he already has the monetary means to satisfy her. When Dmitri returns from his failed dealing in the neighboring town, he escorts Grushenka to her benefactor's home, but quickly discovers she deceived him and left early. Furious, he runs to his father's home with a brass pestle in his hand, and spies on him from the window. He takes the pestle from his pocket. Then, there is a discontinuity in the action, and Dmitri is suddenly running away off his father's property, knocking the servant Gregory in the head with the pestle with seemingly fatal results.
Dmitri is next seen in a daze on the street, covered in blood, with a pile of money in his hand. He soon learns that Grushenka's former betrothed has returned and taken her to a lodge near where Dmitri just was. Upon learning this, Dmitri loads a cart full of food and wine and pays for a huge orgy to finally confront Grushenka in the presence of her old flame, intending all the while to kill himself at dawn. The "first and rightful lover", however, is a boorish Pole who cheats the party at a game of cards. When his deception is revealed, he flees, and Grushenka soon reveals to Dmitri that she really is in love with him. The party rages on, and just as Dmitri and Grushenka are making plans to marry, the police enter the lodge and inform Dmitri that he is under arrest for the murder of his father.
Book Nine: The Preliminary Investigation Book Nine introduces the details of Fyodor's murder and describes the interrogation of Dmitri as he is questioned for the crime he maintains he did not commit. The alleged motive for the crime is robbery. Dmitri was known to have been completely destitute earlier that evening, but is suddenly seen on the street with thousands of rubles shortly after his father's murder. Meanwhile, the three thousand rubles that Fyodor Karamazov had set aside for Grushenka has disappeared. Dmitri explains that the money he spent that evening came from three thousand rubles Katerina gave him to send to her sister. He spent half that at his first meeting with Grushenka—another drunken orgy—and sewed up the rest in a cloth, intending to give it back to Katerina in the name of honor, he says. The lawyers are not convinced by this. All of the evidence points against Dmitri; the only other person in the house at the time of the murder was Smerdyakov, who was incapacitated due to an epileptic seizure he apparently suffered the day before. As a result of the overwhelming evidence against him, Dmitri is formally charged with the patricide and taken away to prison to await trial.
Book Ten: BoysBoys continues the story of the schoolboys and Ilyusha last referred to in Book Four. The book begins with the introduction of the young boy Kolya Krasotkin. Kolya is a brilliant boy who proclaims his atheism, socialism, and beliefs in the ideas of Europe. He seems destined to follow in the spiritual footsteps of Ivan Karamazov; Dostoyevsky uses Kolya's beliefs especially in a conversation with Alyosha to poke fun at his Westernizer critics by putting their beliefs in what appears to be a young boy who doesn't exactly know what he is talking about. Kolya is bored with life and constantly torments his mother by putting himself in danger. As part of a prank Kolya lies between railroad tracks as a train passes over and becomes something of a legend for the feat. All the other boys look up to Kolya, especially Ilyusha. Since the narrative left Ilyusha in Book Four, his illness has progressively worsened and the doctor states that he will not recover. Kolya and Ilyusha had a falling out over Ilyusha's maltreatment of a dog: Ilyusha had fed it bread in which there was a pin on Smerdyakov's suggestion. But thanks to Alyosha's intervention the other schoolboys have gradually reconciled with Ilyusha, and Kolya soon joins them at his bedside. It is here that Kolya first meets Alyosha and begins to reassess his nihilist beliefs.
Book Eleven: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich Book Eleven chronicles Ivan Karamazov's destructive influence on those around him and his descent into madness. It is in this book that Ivan meets three times with Smerdyakov, the final meeting culminating in Smerdyakov's dramatic confession that he had faked the fit, murdered Fyodor Karamazov, and stolen the money, which he presents to Ivan. Smerdyakov expresses disbelief at Ivan's professed ignorance and surprise. Smerdyakov claims that Ivan was complicit in the murder by telling Smerdyakov when he would be leaving Fyodor's house, and more importantly by instilling in Smerdyakov the belief that in a world without God "everything is permitted." The book ends with Ivan having a hallucination in which he is visited by the devil, who torments Ivan by mocking his beliefs. Alyosha finds Ivan raving and informs him that Smerdyakov killed himself shortly after their final meeting.
Book Twelve: A Judicial Error This book details the trial of Dmitri Karamazov for the murder of his father Fyodor. The courtroom drama is sharply satirized by Dostoyevsky. The men in the crowd are presented as resentful and spiteful, and the women are irrationally drawn to the romanticism of Dmitri's love triangle between himself, Katerina, and Grushenka. Ivan's madness takes its final hold over him and he is carried away from the courtroom after recounting his final meeting with Smerdyakov and the aforementioned confession. The turning point in the trial is Katerina's damning testimony against Dmitri. Impassioned by Ivan's illness which she believes is a result of her assumed love for Dmitri, she produces a letter drunkenly written by Dmitri saying that he would kill Fyodor. The section concludes with the impassioned closing remarks of the prosecutor and the defense, and the verdict that Dmitri is guilty.
Epilogue The final section opens with discussion of a plan developed for Dmitri's escape from his sentence of twenty years of hard labor in Siberia. The plan is never fully described, but it seems to involve Ivan and Katerina bribing some guards. Alyosha approves, first, because Dmitry is not emotionally ready to submit to such a harsh sentence, secondly, because he is innocent, and, third, because no guards or officers would suffer for aiding the escape. Dmitry and Grushenka plan to escape to America and work the land there for several years, and then to return to Russia under assumed American names, because they both cannot imagine living without Russia. Dmitri begs for Katerina to visit him in the hospital, where he is recovering from an illness before he is due to be taken away. When she does, Dmitry apologizes for having hurt her; she in turn apologizes for bringing up the implicating letter during the trial. They agree to love each other for that one moment, and say they will love each other forever, even though both now love other people. The novel concludes at Ilyusha's funeral, where Ilyusha's schoolboy friends listen to Alyosha's "Speech by the Stone." Alyosha promises to remember Kolya, Ilyusha, and all the boys and keep them close in his heart, even though he will have to leave them and may not see them again until many years have passed. He implores them to love each other and to always remember Ilyusha, and to keep his memory alive in their hearts, and to remember this moment at the stone when they were all together and they all loved each other. In tears, the twelve boys promise Alyosha that they will keep each other in their memories forever, join hands, and return to the Snegiryov household for the funeral dinner, chanting, "Hurrah for Karamazov!"
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About the Author: Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky(Russian: 11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the context of the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. He began writing in his 20s, and his first novel, Poor Folk, was published in 1846 when he was 25. His major works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His output consists of eleven novels, three novellas, seventeen short novels and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature.
Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoyevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors. His mother died in 1837, when he was 15, and around the same time he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn extra money. In the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into St. Petersburg's literary circles.
In 1849 he was arrested for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle, a secret society of liberal utopians that also functioned as a literary discussion group. He and other members were condemned to death, but at the last moment, a note from Tsar Nicholas I was delivered to the scene of the firing squad, commuting the sentence to four years' hard labour in Siberia. His seizures, which may have started in 1839, increased in frequency there, and he was diagnosed with epilepsy. On his release, he was forced to serve as a soldier, before being discharged on grounds of ill health.
In the following years, Dostoyevsky worked as a journalist, publishing and editing several magazines of his own and later A Writer's Diary, a collection of his writings. He began to travel around western Europe and developed a gambling addiction, which led to financial hardship. For a time, he had to beg for money, but he eventually became one of the most widely read and highly regarded Russian writers. His books have been translated into more than 170 languages. Dostoyevsky influenced a multitude of writers and philosophers, from Anton Chekhov and Ernest Hemingway to Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.
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Part I
Book I. The History of a Family
Chapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov
Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner”—for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate—was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity—the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.
He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife, Adelaïda Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our district, the Miüsovs. 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. I knew a young lady of the last “romantic” generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. 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. This is a fact, and probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or three generations. Adelaïda Ivanovna Miüsov's action was similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more. What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement, and this greatly captivated Adelaïda Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelaïda Ivanovna's beauty. This was, perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who made no particular appeal to his senses.
Immediately after the elopement Adelaïda Ivanovna discerned in a flash that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage accordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinary rapidity. Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly and apportioned the runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was said that the young wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her money up to twenty-five thousand roubles as soon as she received it, so that those thousands were lost to her for ever. The little village and the rather fine town house which formed part of her dowry he did his utmost for a long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed of conveyance. He would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by his persistent and shameless importunity. But, fortunately, Adelaïda Ivanovna's family intervened and circumvented his greediness. 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. Finally, she left the house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the house, and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all of Adelaïda Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgraceful for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to gratify him and flatter his self-love most was to play the ridiculous part of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.
“One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow,” scoffers said to him. Many even added that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended to be unaware of his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have been simplicity. At last he succeeded in getting on the track of his runaway wife. The poor woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself have said. He would perhaps have really gone; but having determined to do so he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife's family received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or as another version had it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his wife's death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting with joy, raising his hands to Heaven: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,” but others say he wept without restraint like a little child, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired. 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. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.
Chapter II. He Gets Rid of His Eldest Son
You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how he would bring up his children. His behavior as a father was exactly what might be expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaïda Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him. While he was wearying every one with his tears and complaints, and turning his house into a sink of debauchery, a faithful servant of the family, Grigory, took the three-year-old Mitya into his care. If he hadn't looked after him there would have been no one even to change the baby's little shirt.
It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's side forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living, his widow, Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill, while his daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost a whole year in old Grigory's charge and lived with him in the servant's cottage. But if his father had remembered him (he could not, indeed, have been altogether unaware of his existence) he would have sent him back to the cottage, as the child would only have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a cousin of Mitya's mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, happened to return from Paris. He lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that time quite a young man, and distinguished among the Miüsovs as a man of enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the capitals and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a Liberal of the type common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come into contact with many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in Russia and abroad. He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in his declining years was very fond of describing the three days of the Paris Revolution of February 1848, hinting that he himself had almost taken part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of about a thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our famous monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless lawsuit, almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights of fishing in the river or wood-cutting in the forest, I don't know exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of culture to open an attack upon the “clericals.” Hearing all about Adelaïda Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at one time been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened, in spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor Pavlovitch. He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time, and told him directly that he wished to undertake the child's education. He used long afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch, that when he began to speak of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for some time as though he did not understand what child he was talking about, and even as though he was surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house. The story may have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth.
Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris he, too, forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of February broke out, making an impression on his mind that he remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovitch's firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential facts about him, without which I could not begin my story.
In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was the only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief that he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of age. He spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went to the Caucasus, was promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the ranks, earned promotion again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of money. He did not begin to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovitch until he came of age, and until then got into debt. He saw and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the first time on coming of age, when he visited our neighborhood on purpose to settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked his father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away, having only succeeded in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues and value of which he was unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch remarked for the first time then (this, too, should be noted) that Mitya had a vague and exaggerated idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovitch was very well satisfied with this, as it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that the young man was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient, and dissipated, and that if he could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although only, of course, for a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take advantage of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles, installments. In the end, when four years later, Mitya, losing patience, came a second time to our little town to settle up once for all with his father, it turned out to his amazement that he had nothing, that it was difficult to get an account even, that he had received the whole value of his property in sums of money from Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even in debt to him, that by various agreements into which he had, of his own desire, entered at various previous dates, he had no right to expect anything more, and so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed, suspected deceit and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And, indeed, this circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account of which forms the subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of it. But before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovitch's other two sons, and of their origin.
Chapter III. The Second Marriage and the Second Family
Very shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands Fyodor Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years. He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very young girl, from another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkard and a vicious debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, not over-scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an insufferable tyrant through idleness.
Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an elopement to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time. But she lived in another province; besides, what could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of the river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a penny this time, for the general's widow was furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine beauty.
“Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor,” he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her “from the halter,” he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had “wronged” him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had always hated his first mistress, Adelaïda Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who are said to be “possessed by devils.” At times after terrible fits of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth year, and, strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all his life, like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya. They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sofya's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:
“It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude.”
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. Then, without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing, at the first glance, that they were unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word, and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow and pronounced impressively that, “God would repay her for the orphans.” “You are a blockhead all the same,” the old lady shouted to him as she drove away.
Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to any proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the slaps she had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story.
