Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part One, Chapter 2 commentary
100 Days of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment September 1 - December 10, 2024
100 Days of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment
September 1 - December 10, 2024
September 24
Crime and Punishment Part One, Chapter 2, 17 pages
Next passage:
September 26
Crime and Punishment Part One, Chapter 3, 14 pages
Ah, our young man, filled with “concentrated anguish” and “gloomy excitement” meets a “crumpled, spoiled, and stained” low ranking official with “puffy eyelids” - and a “flicker of madness” in them… And a loquacious and ornate harrowing tale follows - without any moderating or modest attempts to preserve any modicum of human dignity… Second wife, from a good home, with a gold medal and a boarding school certificate, who danced at a governor’s ball, married for love to a man who gambled away her money, beat her, and died - leaving her with three small children… Their description is harrowing - sobbing tiny emancipated bodies lacking food, clothing, and human dignity… And Sonya… The saint… The savior… Living on a “yellow ticket” - permit to practice prostitution - with “needs” for appropriate clothing and rouge… And need for funds for medical exams - “cleanliness” checks that certified her free of STDs - in order to receive “yellow ticket” renewals… Sonya, who walked into the night and sold the only thing she had… Put money into the hands of her step mother:
“She came in, went straight to Katerina Ivanovna, and silently laid thirty roubles on the table in front of her. Not a word with it, not even a glance; she just took our big green flannel shawl (we have this one flannel shawl for all of us), covered her head and face with it completely, and lay down on her bed, face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her whole body kept twitching ... And I was lying there in the same aspect as previously, sir... And then I saw, young man, after that I saw Katerina Ivanovna go over to Sonechka's bed, also without saying a word, and for the whole evening she stayed kneeling at her feet, kissing her feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell asleep together, embracing each other... both ... both...”
Now that she has “fallen,” she can’t live in the human anthill of the apartment building her parents occupy… has to rent her own quarters… at the tongue tied tailor’s - and his numerous family…
Please note the description of the rental house - a veritable Tower of Babel, filled with human beings whose aspirations have been dashed and thwarted by the unyielding inhumanity of the great metropolis that lured them in with bright lights, imposing monuments, and a promise of boundless opportunities - bound to yield guaranteed success…
“Poverty is no vice,” Marmeladov insists, for this is the ludicrous name of this most unheroic of characters who consciously and methodically acts AGAINST his rational self interest… And should society have compassion for such undeserving humans?
“Say, for example, you know beforehand and thoroughly well that this man, this most well-intentioned and most useful citizen, will under no circumstances give you any money—for why should he, may I ask? He knows I won't repay it. Out of compassion? But Mr. Lebezyatnikov, who follows all the new ideas, explained the other day that in our time compassion is even forbidden by science, as is already happening in England, where they have political economy. Why, then, should he give, may I ask? And so, knowing beforehand that he will not give any-thing, you still set out on your way and..."
The reverberations of the Underground haunt the pages of Crime and Punishment…
But what about the unwanted unfortunates of this world?… Can anyone love and forgive them?…
“On that day He will come and ask, 'Where is the daughter who gave herself for a wicked and consumptive stepmother, for a stranger's little children? Where is the daughter who pitied her earthly father, a foul drunkard, not shrinking from his beastliness?' And He will say, 'Come! I have already forgiven you once ... I have forgiven you once... And now, too, your many sins are forgiven, for you have loved much's ..? And He will forgive my Sonya, He will forgive her, I know He will ... Today, when I was with her, I felt it in my heart! And He will judge and forgive all, the good and the wicked, the wise and the humble...”
These words will reverberate on the pages of Brothers Karamazov in 13-14 years… Dostoevsky will still be searching for an answer…
In the meantime, our hapless student - or is he a former student?! - empties his pockets and leaves all he has for the pathetic family… Why? God only knows…
“Bravo, Sonya! What a well they've dug for them-selves, however! And they use it! They really do use it! And they got accustomed to it. Wept a bit and got accustomed. Man gets accustomed to everything, the scoundrel!"
He fell to thinking.
"But if that's a lie," he suddenly exclaimed involuntarily, "if man in fact is not a scoundrel-in general, that is, the whole human race-then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers, and that's just how it should be! ..."
If this misery exists and human beings use each other without shame or moral scruples, then to hell of barriers - and everything is permitted?! How did Raskolnikov come to this conclusion at the end of Chapter 2?! How indeed… 550 pages to find an answer… Forward...
Sennaya Square - or Haymarket Square - with a view of the Savoir Church, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1840s.
