Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part One, Chapter 1 commentary

Days of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment September 1 - December 10, 2024

Days of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment

September 1 - December 10, 2024

September 22

Crime and Punishment Part One, Chapter 1, 9 pages

Next passage:

September 24

Crime and Punishment Part One, Chapter 2, 17 pages

Give us such preconditions that we will only sleep, eat gingerbread, and worry about the continuity of history and it is here, out of sheer ingratitude, out of sheer lampoonery, we will do something nasty…

Why does the Underground Man repel Lisa?! With her understanding and sympathy, he loses his proverbial soap box… And what would he rather - share a lifetime with a human being who loves him and is compassionate towards him - or complain about the unfairness of it all?! What would you do, dear readers?! Choose cheap happiness - OVER lofty suffering?! NEVER!!! Out of sheer spite!!!

And speaking of spite - ANOTHER angry, hungry, PAINFULLY self-conscious, self-aware, AND brooding young man just entered our lives!!! He walked off the pages of Notes from Underground AND out of his rented “closet” in S-y Lane - towards the K-n Bridge!!!

Do you recall my gushing posts from last spring when we were reading Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther together?! When I was suspended for days between the reality of Goethe’s life in Wetzlar and Frankfurt where he wrote his first blockbuster (THE WORLD’S first blockbuster) in 1774 - the fictitious characters he created, Lotte and Werther - AND the reconstruction of the characters’ lives in the Lotte house and the Jerusalem apartment in Wetzlar - down to the clothing described in the novel - exhibited in the dwellings of the real-life humans who inspired the novel?! Well, guess what?! I experienced the same suspension between reality and fiction in 2016 when I roamed through the streets, lanes, squares, and along the canals of Saint Petersburg when the novel turned 150!!! To say it’s an eerie experience is a profound understatement!!! Because S-y Lane AND K-n Bridge ARE STILL THERE!!!

Dostoyevsky lived just around the corner, hungry, sick, destitute, newly widowed, with a stepson to support, and reeling from the death of his brother AND publisher Michail - for whose widow and children he promised to care… Life is MOST DEFINITELY not an incarnation of “the beautiful and the lofty”…

Please see the images below - the photos I took in 2016 - today this area of Saint Petersburg is EXPENSIVE!!! But the five-story rental buildings housing the city’s unfortunates and out-of-luck tradesmen and lower-ranking officials (winking at Gogol here again) were Dostoevsky’s homes of desperation, where he could rent a corner and settle down long enough to write the world’s most explosive psychological thriller - Crime AND Punishment!!!

Yes, we can still walk through the Stolyarny Pereulok (Lane) and cross the Kokushkin Most (Bridge) over the Griboyedov Canal today - head towards the Haymarket Square - and have a cold beer!!! Talking to spiteful pawnbrokers is optional!!!

Our favorite character from last week shouted at the world from the underground - Raskolnikov - for that is his name, and more on the stupendously important meaning of his name soon - observes the trials and tribulations of humanity from above, so to speak - from his 5th floor rented closet - no elevator OR air conditioning, of course!!! Try THAT during the summer months - plus not eating for a couple of days - and you will not be all that reproachful of our handsome hero!!! For he IS handsome!!!

“Incidentally, he was remarkably good-looking, taller than average, slender and trim, with beautiful dark eyes and dark blond hair. But soon he lapsed as if into deep thought, or even, more precisely, into some sort of oblivion, and walked on no longer noticing what was around him, and not wishing to notice.”

But what is this thought that troubles him MORE than hunger and destitution?! Wouldn’t YOU want to know right away?!?!?! I’m not telling!!! There!!! I am even sticking my tongue out at you!!! Incidentally, I learned such unseemly spiteful behavior from the Underground Man!!! But I digress!!!

Yes, he is crushed by powerty, yes, he avoids his landlady and sneaks past her kitchen unnoticed (ANOTHER borrowing from Gogol!!!), yes, his clothes are not fit to be seen in public (SOOOOO Underground Man), AND his hat is conspicuous - from the German manufacturer Zimmerman - Dostoevsky owned one too!!! But what’s even MORE conspicuous are the IDEAS in the head concealed under this hat - all arriving ready-made, quite lofty and sublime, from GERMAN philosophy!!! More soon - ALL shall be revealed!!!

"I want to attempt such a thing, and at the same time I'm afraid of such trifles!" he thought with a strange smile. "Hm ... yes ... man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice... That is an axiom ... I wonder, what are people most afraid of? A new step, their own new word, that's what they're most afraid of ... I babble too much, however. That's why I don't do anything, because I babble. However, maybe it's like this: I babble because I don't do anything. I've learned to babble over this past month, lying in a corner day in and day out, thinking about... cuckooland. Why on earth am I going now? Am I really capable of that? Is that something serious? No, not serious at all.

I'm just toying with it, for the sake of fantasy. A plaything! Yes, a plaything, if you like!"

A deed!!! Our young man is contemplating a deed - but will he be stopped by his own cowardice?! Do you remember all that gushing about cowardice in Notes from Underground - TO BE REVISITED in The Idiot - next fall!!!

How far has he gotten to the implementation of THE deed?! 730 steps!!! He counted!!!

“Once, when he was far gone in his dreaming, he had counted them. At that time he did not yet believe in these dreams of his, and only chafed himself with their ugly but seductive audacity.”

Seductive audacity of a dream!!! Of visiting a pawnbroker?!?!?! Remember the sound of the bell - not brass, but tin… Cheap…

Yellow wallpaper… Yellow wood… No, not Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s - but Edgar Allan Poe’s (1809-1849)!!! Dostoevsky admired him greatly - published his stories with his brother Michail!!! The suspenseful audacity of Poe’s plots and characters were inspirational for Dostoevsky - AND Poe’s usage of dingy yellow tones…

Money, pledges, interest, keys, locks, the promise of a follow-up visit… AND, how’s your sister?!?!?! What’s she to you?! How rude… HOW LOATHSOME!!!

What next?! Cold beer!!! And the unfortunate drunkards - who were the original heroes of the first draft of the novel - “Пьяненькие” - “The Inebriated”… Dostoevsky then added thoughts of Siberian penal labor, German philosophy, AND mania for the Great Men of History - and out came Crime and Punishment!!! See my article I posted a few days ago - with the photo of me and Watson in front of The Bronze Horseman in Saint Petersburg!!! NOW is a good time to reread - the article gives nothing away plot-wise - but gives a sense of the STAGGERING audacity of Dostoevsky’s creative and human vision!!! Forward!!! Chapter 2 comment on Tuesday, September 24!!! Please read the chapter in 2 days - or in one sitting - then my commentary!!! I am not messing with Dostoevsky - just hyperventilating about his genius - for the next 80 days!!! THIS should keep me out of trouble!!! 😂😂😂

Griboyedov Canal, Stolyarny Pereulok (Lane), and Kokushkin Most (Bridge) - the EXACT location where our novel begins in Saint Petersburg - PLUS a plaque on the building in this neighborhood where Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment!!! YES, ALL THIS IS REAL!!!