Raskolnikov Quotes

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.

Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.

People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so, in fact.

In a morbid condition, dreams are often distinguished by their remarkably graphic, vivid, and extremely lifelike quality. The resulting picture is sometimes monstrous, but the setting and the whole process of the presentation sometimes happen to be so probable, and with details so subtle, unexpected, yet artistically consistent with the whole fullness of the picture, that even the dreamer himself would be unable to invent them in reality, though he were as much an artist as Pushkin or Turgenev. Such dreams, morbid dreams, are always long remembered and produce a strong impression on the disturbed and already excited organism of the person.Raskolnikov had a terrible dream.

Life [had] replaced logic.

I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere!

Dostoyevsky knew a lot but not everything. He, for instance, thought that if you kill a human you'll turn into Raskolnikov. But we know now that one can kill five - ten, one hundred people - and go to the theatre in the evening.

A literary creation can appeal to us in all sorts of ways-by its theme, subject, situations, characters. But above all it appeals to us by the presence in it of art. It is the presence of art in Crime and Punishment that moves us deeply rather than the story of Raskolnikov's crime.

She said nothing, she only looked at me without a word. But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don't blame!

Crime? What crime? ... My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman ... and you call that a crime?

Maybe it’s not, in the end, the virtues of others that so wrenches our hearts as it is the sense of almost unbearably poignant recognition when we see them at their most base, in their sorrow and gluttony and foolishness. You need the virtues, too—some sort of virtues—but we don’t care about Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina or Raskolnikov because they’re good. We care about them because they’re not admirable, because they’re us, and because great writers have forgiven them for it.

So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear. Raskolnikov

It was dark in the corridor; they were standing near a light. For a minute they looked silently at each other. Razumikhin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov's burning and fixed look seemed to grow more intense every moment, penetrating his soul, his consciousness. All at once Razumikhin gave a start. Something strange seemed to pass between them . . . as if the hint of some idea, something horrible, hideous, flitted by and was suddenly understood on both sides . . . Razumikhin turned pale as a corpse. "You understand now?

Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for company. He was so weary after a whole month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a moment, in some other world, whatever it might be; and, in spite of the filthiness of the surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern.

His malice was aimed at himself; with shame and contempt he recollected his "cowardice.

Raskolnikov realised in that moment that it was no longer possible for him to talk to anyone about anything, ever.

Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust.

Raskolnikov at that moment felt and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him.

Raskolnikov had been listening intently, but with a sense of unhealthy discomfort.

ah o Sonya! Ne güzel bir hazine bulmuşlar! Güzel güzel yararlanıyorlar! Alışmışlar. Önce biraz ağladılar, ama alıştılar şimdi. Aşağılık insanoğlu her şeye alışır! Düşüncelere dalmıştı Raskolnikov. elinde olmadan haykırdı birden: Ya yanılıyorsam, ya gerçekte aşağılık değise insanoğlu, genelde yani, tümü, bütün insanlık soyu demek istiyorum... Geri kalan her şey önyargıdan başka bir şey değilse, abartılmış birer korkuysa, hiçbir sınırlama yoksa, ki öyle olması da gerekir!..

If you can show a person logical proof that essentianlly he's got nothing to cry about, he'll stop crying. That seems clear. Don't you think he'd stop crying?' "That would make life too easy," Raskolnikov replied.

But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now?" "I am doing..." Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly. "What are you doing?" "Work..." "What sort of work?" "I am thinking," he answered seriously after a pause.

وإني لأعلم الآن يا صونيا أنه من كان قوي النفس والعقل, فذلك هو سيدهم, ذلك هو مولاهم! من كان يملك جرأة كبيرة, فذلك هو الذي له الغلبة عليهم! من كان يبصق على الأشياء أكثر من غيره, فذلك هو عندهم المشرِّع! من كان يتمتع بأكبر جسارة, فذلك هو الذي يهبون له جميع الحقوق! هذا ما كان من قديم الزمن, وهذا ما سيبقى إلى آخر الدهر! الأعمى وحده لا يبصر هذه الحقيقة!

Ranzanın bir ucuna Meursault'yu oturttum, onun yanına, aralarında Fransızca konuşsunlar diye Jean Valjean'ı yerleştirdim. Biraz ötede Katyuşa ile Raskolnikov fıfıl fısıl Rusça konuşuyorlardı, herhalde Nehludov'un ziyaretinden söz ediyorlardı. Keşanlı Ali duvarın dibine ilişmişti, Dr. B ise zihninden satranç oynuyordu.

—No, no le dije una palabra de eso; de cualquier manera, no habría comprendido. Pienso que, si con la ayuda de la lógica se puede convencer a alguien de que no hay razón para llorar, dejará de llorar de inmediato. Está claro. ¿No le parece que estoy en lo cierto? —En ese caso, la vida sería demasiado fácil —replicó Raskolnikov.

Možda je tada samo po snazi svojih želja i ocijenio sebe kao čovjeka kome je dozvoljeno više nego drugima.

I am doing things … ,’ replied Raskolnikov, reluctantly and sternly. ‘Like what?’ ‘Work …’ ‘What work?’ ‘Thinking,’ he said seriously, after a pause.

Raskolnikov once said: “When reason fails, the devil helps!

To be a Raskolnikov — without the excuse of murder.

Russia - the country of Tolstoy, Stanislavski, Raskolnikov, and other great and good men.

I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject—“I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings—they must be damp—when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind—you know what I mean? and the street lamps shine through it ….

. . . generally it was painful for him at that moment to think about anything at all. He would have liked to become totally oblivious, oblivious of everything, and then wake up and start totally anew . . .

But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.… But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!

But what I say is, that if you con­vince a per­son lo­gic­ally that he has noth­ing to cry about, he’ll stop cry­ing. That’s clear. Is it your con­vic­tion that he won’t?” “Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered Raskolnikov.

Een kunstwerk kan ons op velerlei manieren aanspreken: door zijn thema, zijn thesen, zijn onderwerp of zijn helden. Maar het meest van alles spreekt het ons toch aan door de aanwezigheid van kunst, want die aanwezigheid van kunst op de bladzijden van 'Misdaad en Straf' brengt de lezer in groter beroering dan de misdaad van Raskolnikov zelf. De primitieve kunst, de Egyptische kunst, de Griekse kunst, onze kunst, -dat alles is in een tijdsbestek van vele duizenden jaren één en dezelfde, enkelvoudige kunst. Daar ben ik van overtuigd. Zij houden een bepaalde gedachte in, een bepaalde bevestiging van het leven die zo allesomvattend is, dat zij niet in afzonderlijke woorden ontleed kan worden. Als een korrel van deze kracht in een gecompliceerder mengsel terechtkomt, krijgt dit bijmengsel van kunst op de betekenis van al het overige de overhand en blijkt het de kern, de ziel en de grondslag van het uitgebeelde te zijn.

Look to society, and look to the crapshoot of the way any given set of parents’ genes line up. How was Raskolnikov created? How about the “patriots” who assaulted the Capitol Building? We live in our own private realities, and sometimes—too often—those private realities have nothing to do with the larger world around us. I speak from the point of view of a novelist, a profession to which only the delusional are called.

There are two people in the waiting room. One is an extremely thin old man, a retired teacher of French who still gives tuition by correspondence, and who whilst waiting his turn is correcting a pile of scripts with a pencil sharpened to a fine point. On the script he is about to examine, the essay title can be read: In Hell, Raskolnikov meets Meursault (“The Outsider”). Imagine a dialogue between them using material from both novels.

The Dingy Playing Cards” by Robert Bly Friends, it’s time to give up our hope for Rapture. Saucers will not carry us away. Raskolnikov Had to depend on the police to help him sleep. Our soul loves the dingy cards that have been dealt To the ne’er-do-wells. The old men put the old Queens down with their smoke-stained fingers. In the Cirque Du Soleil, when the acrobats Sweep out over the crowd, babies are being Born who know much more than we ever did. The yellow teeth of old jackrabbits explains a lot About the shortage of mercy; the caterpillar’s walk Reminds us of the Mongols galloping toward Khorakhan. After the funeral, once they are safe, the dead begin To miss losing at cards. We know that Cain and Abel Want to meet each other again on the plowed field. Robert, there’s not a single humiliation we could Have done without. We are still perched on a pole. What will happen to us depends a lot on the wind.

Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever might come of it! ... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the еleventh chapter of St. John.

Lying alone in bed in New York City, an anxious Goldman decided she could get the money Berkman needed to buy a weapon and clothing suitable to get him close to Frick by taking a page from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. When she had read the novel, Goldman had been especially moved by the story of Sonia, the woman driven by economic desperation into prostitution who hears Raskolnikov’s confession and accompanies him to Siberia, where he is sent to prison. “If sensitive Sonya could sell her body,” Goldman said, “why not I?

It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov's burning and intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides.... Razumihin turned pale. "Do you understand now?" said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. "Go back, go to them," he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went out of the house. I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies, how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come every day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be irritated, that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening Razumihin took his place with them as a son and a brother.

He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting withing plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

Murderer!" he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice. Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence. The man did not look at him. "What do you mean... what is... Who is a murderer?" muttered Raskolnikov hardly audibly. "You are a murderer," the man answered still more articulately and emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes.

Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!” he repeated with gloomy insistence. “I know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all over to myself, lying there in the dark.… I've argued it all over with myself, every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how sick I was then of going over it all! I kept wanting to forget it and make a new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And you don’t suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn't suppose that I didn't know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether I had the right to gain power—I certainly hadn't the right—or that if I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn't so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his goal without asking questions.… If I worried myself all those days, wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly of course that I wasn't Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn't to help my mother I did the murder—that’s nonsense—I didn't do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider, catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn't have cared at that moment.… And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.… I know it all now.… Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right …” “To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands. “Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort, but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I've come to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to try. … You may be sure of that!” “And you murdered her!” “But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.… But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!” he cried in a sudden spasm of agony, “let me be!

Become yourself: an injunction addressed only to a few, and which to an even smaller number appears redundant. One can see now how problematic is the very point that has hitherto seemed fixed: fidelity to oneself, the absolute, autonomous law based on one’s own “being,” when it is formulated in general and abstract terms. Everything is subject to debate—a situation accurately exemplified by characters in Dostoyevsky, like Raskolnikov or Stavrogin. At the moment when they are thrown back on their own naked will, trying to prove it to themselves with an absolute action, they collapse; they collapse precisely because they are divided beings, because they are deluded concerning their true nature and their real strength. Their freedom is turned against them and destroys them

For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t “Is this a potential friend for me?” but “Is this character alive?” Perhaps, then, unlikable characters, the ones who are the most human, are also the ones who are the most alive. Perhaps this intimacy makes us uncomfortable because we don’t dare be so alive.

Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly… . No, it's nonsense, it's rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!—and for a whole month I've been… ." But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became clear.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting within plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and distracted step mother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever might come of it! ... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St. John.

Zamyotov.” “Zamyotov?… The clerk?… What for?” Raskolnikov quickly turned and fixed his eyes on Razumikhin. “But what’s wrong with … Why be so worried? He wanted to make your acquaintance; he wanted it himself, because I talked about you a lot with him … Otherwise, who would have told me so much about you? He’s a nice fellow, brother, quite a wonderful one … in his own way, naturally. We’re friends now; we see each other almost every day. Because I’ve moved into this neighborhood. You didn’t know yet? I’ve just moved. We’ve called on Laviza twice. Remember Laviza, Laviza Ivanovna?” “Was I raving about something?” “Sure enough! You were out of your mind, sir.” “What did I rave about?” “Come now! What did he rave about? You know what people rave about … Well, brother, let’s not waste any more time. To business!” He got up from his chair and grabbed his cap. “What did I rave about?” “You just won’t let go! Afraid about some secret, are you? Don’t worry, you didn’t say anything about the countess. But about some bulldog, and about

how an intention becomes reality, how theory is enfleshed, how abstract reasoning ends in a sensitive, compassionate man slipping in ‘sticky, warm blood’. What state of mind is needed for this to happen? Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) responded to this quandary in his late essay ‘Why Do People Stupefy Themselves?’ (1890), where he sought to explain the state of mental automatism in which Raskolnikov carried out his crime. But Tolstoy, an aggressive teetotaller by this stage in his life, was surely exaggerating when he implies that the glass of beer Raskolnikov consumes at the end of the first chapter ‘silences the voice of conscience’. Raskolnikov’s utter passivity, which makes him succumb to ‘ideas in the air’ and to gamble everything on one desperate act, reaches back far further than the glass of beer, deeper even than the question of ‘conscience’. Nor can it be reduced to the verdict of insanity, as Raskolnikov himself is aware (even when others are not). This passivity is a state of spiritual death and it is this that enables the crime.

He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of times—generally on his way home—stood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely cold; this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him… so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now—all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all…. He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment.

He closed his hand on the twenty kopecks, walked on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was cloudless and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The dome of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash eased off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite definite idea now occupied him completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of times—generally on his way home—stood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marveled at a vague and mysterious emotion it aroused in him. It left him strangely cold; for him, this gorgeous picture was blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his somber and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding an explanation for it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him . . . so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now—all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all . . . He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from every one and from everything at that moment.

Benim düşüncem," diye düşünüyordu, "dünya kuruldu kurulalı birbiriyle çarpışmakta olan öteki düşünce ve teorilerden hangi bakımdan, hangi bakımdan daha aptalca, daha budalaca? Olaya gündelik hayat açısından değil, özgürce ve geniş bir açıdan bakılacak olursa, benim düşüncelerimin hiç de o kadar... tuhaf olmadığı görülecektir. Ey inkarcılar, ey beş paralık bilgeler, ne diye yan yolda duruyorsunuz! Ve benim davranışım hangi bakımdan onlara böylesine çirkin görünüyor ? Bir cinayet olduğu için mi ? Ne demek, cinayet ? Benim vicdanım rahat. Hiç kuşkusuz ortada ağır bir suç var ve yine hiç kuşkusuz yasalar çiğnenmiş ve kan dökülmüştür... Madem öyle, çiğnenen yasalarınıza karşılık siz de benim başımı alın, olsun bitsin! Ama o zaman saltanat yoluyla değil de, iktidarı zorla ele geçirerek insanlığa iyilikte bulunanların da, hem de daha ilk adımlarında, kafalarını kesmek gerekmez miydi?

Ergenlik suçlamaları,boyutları ne olursa olsun,insanlığın çektiği acıların karmaşıklığını bir anda ortadan kaldırı veriyordu.Eğer ergenlik suçlamasını edebiyat yapıtlarına uyarlayacak olsaydık,dünya üzerindeki bütün edebiyat eleştirmenleri işlerinden olurdu.Hamlet'in,Raskolnikov'un ve Genç Werther'in sırrı neydi?Erganlik bunalımları tabi.Peki ya Don Quixote veya Humbert Humbert?Onda ne var canım,yanıt:Orta yaş bunalımları.Öyleyse zavallı Anna Karenina'yı nasıl açıklamalıydı?Yanıt gayet baitti: regl öncesi sendromu,bir de fazla salgılanan hormonlar.

¿Mi crímen? ¿Qué crímen? ¿El haber matado a un bicho venenoso repugnante y malo; a una vieja usurera perjudicial a todo el mundo , a un vampiro que le chupaba la sangre a los pobres? ¡Un asesinato así debiera obtener la indulgencia para cuarenta pecados! ¡No pienso en mi delito ni trato de borrarlo!" -- Raskolnikov

He rapped on the glass. She looked up from the board, put the iron aside, hesitated, then came forward slowly, uncertain, peering to see who it might be. (This is the Student Raskolnikov.) He tapped again to reassure her.

But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically that he has nothing to cry about, he'll stop crying. That's clear. Is it your conviction that he won't?" "Life would be too easy if it were so," answered Raskolnikov.

How, how can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God's sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!"---Raskolnikov

With means, if more than a little diminished means, of his own Ethan had done what his father before him, likewise a lawyer, had done, and had once in days past counselled him to do before it was too late, before this might spell an irrevocable retirement. He made a Retreat. (To be sure he had not been bidden so far afield as had his father, who’d spent the last year of peace before the First World War as a legal adviser on international cotton law in Czarist Russia, whence he brought back to his young son in Wales, or so he announced, lifting it whole out of a mysterious deep-Christmas-smelling wooden box, a beautiful toy model of Moscow; a city of tiny magical gold domes, pumpkin- or Christmas-bell-shaped, sparkling with Christmas tinsel-scented snow, bright as new silver half-crowns, and of minuscule Byzantine chimes; and at whose miniature frozen street corners waited minute sleighs, in which Ethan had imagined years later lilliputian Tchitchikovs brooding, or corners where lurked snow-bound Raskolnikovs, their hands stayed from murder evermore: much later still he was to become unsure whether the city, sprouting with snow-freaked onions after all, was intended to be Moscow or St. Petersburg, for part of it seemed in memory built on little piles in the water, like Eridanus; the city coming out of the box he was certain was magic too—for he had never seen it again after that evening of his father’s return, in a strange astrakhan-collared coat and Russian fur cap—the box that was always to be associated also with his mother’s death, which had occurred shortly thereafter; the magic bulbar city going back into the magic scented box forever, and himself too afraid of his father to ask him about it later—though how beautiful for years to him was the word city, the carilloning word city in the Christmas hymn, Once in Royal David’s City, and the tumultuous angel-winged city that was Bunyan’s celestial city; beautiful, that was, until he saw a city—it was London—for the first time, sullen, in fog, and bloodshot as if with the fires of hell, and he had never to this day seen Moscow—so that while this remained in his memory as nearly the only kind action he could recall on the part of either of his parents, if not nearly the only happy memory of his entire childhood, he was constrained to believe the gift had actually been intended for someone else, probably for the son of one of his father’s clients: no, to be sure he hadn’t wandered as far afield as Moscow; nor had he, like his younger brother Gwyn, wanting to go to Newfoundland, set out, because he couldn’t find another ship, recklessly for Archangel; he had not gone into the desert nor to sea himself again or entered a monastery, and moreover he’d taken his wife with him; but retreat it was just the same.)

Early in his life, Dostoevsky underwent a virtual resurrection. He had been arrested for belonging to a group judged treasonous by Tsar Nicholas I, who, to impress upon the young parlor radicals the gravity of their errors, sentenced them to death and staged a mock execution. A firing squad stood at the ready. Bareheaded, robed in white burial shrouds, hands bound tightly behind them, they were paraded through the snow before a gawking crowd. At the very last instant, as the order, “Ready, aim!” was heard and rifles were cocked and lifted, a horseman galloped up with a message from the tsar: he would mercifully commute their sentences to hard labor. Dostoevsky never recovered from this experience. He had peered into the maw of death, and from that moment life became for him precious beyond all calculation. “Now my life will change,” he said; “I shall be born again in a new form.” As he boarded the convict train toward Siberia, a devout woman handed him a New Testament, the only book allowed in prison. Believing that God had given him a second chance to fulfill his calling, Dostoevsky pored over that New Testament during his confinement. After ten years he emerged from exile with unshakable Christian convictions, as expressed in a letter to the woman who had given him the New Testament, “If anyone proved to me that Christ was outside the truth … then I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth.” Prison offered Dostoevsky another opportunity, which at first seemed a curse: it forced him to live at close quarters with thieves, murderers, and drunken peasants. His shared life with these prisoners later led to unmatched characterizations in his novels, such as that of the murderer Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky’s liberal view of the inherent goodness in humanity could not account for the pure evil he found in his cell mates, and his theology had to adjust to this new reality. Over time, though, he also glimpsed the image of God in the lowest of prisoners. He came to believe that only through being loved is a human being capable of love.

I am Raskolnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita. I am you. If you read these pages and think I’m the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can’t feel my pain. If you believe you’re not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you’re unable to empathize. Like the bullet, I too stray. Forgive me.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.

here you are offended at my making too little account of you." Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it. "Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to outweigh your love for your brother," he pronounced sententiously

Dunya!’ Raskolnikov stopped her, getting up and walking towards her. ‘This Razumikhin, Dmitry Prokofich, is a very good man.’ Dunya coloured slightly. ‘And?’ she asked after waiting a minute or so. ‘He’s a business-like, hard-working, honest man, capable of great love … Goodbye, Dunya.

But he had rigorously examined himself, and in all conscience he could find no no. particularly terrible guilt in his past, nothing beyond a simple blunder, which could have happened to anyone. What made him ashamed was the fact that he, Raskolnikov, had come to grief so blindly, hopelessly, obtusely, stupidly, through some decree of blind fate; and now, if he wanted to find any peace whatsoever, he must reconcile himself to the 'absurdity' of that decree, and humble himself before it

Raskolnikov kalabalığa alışkın değildi, daha önce de söylendiği gibi, özellikle son zamanlarda her tür topluluktan kaçıyordu. Ama şimdi bir şey birdenbire onu insanlara doğru çekmiş, insanlarla bir arada olmaya susamıştı. Tam bir aydır içinde biriken can sıkıntısından ve gelgitli ruh halinden çok bunalmıştı; ne olursa olsun başka bir ortamda bulunmak, bir dakikalığına da olsa nefes almak istediği için, şu anda bütün pisliğine rağmen bu meyhanede olmaktan memnuniyet duyuyordu.

God would not allow anything so awful!” “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.

A Raskol`nikov parve che il segretario fosse diventato più negligente e sprezzante con lui dopo la sua confessione, ma, stranamente, a un tratto non gli importò più nulla dell'opinione di chicchessia, e questo cambiamento avvenne in un attimo. Se avesse voluto riflettere un po', naturalmente si sarebbe meravigliato di aver potuto parlare così con loro, un minuto prima, e perfino esternare i suoi sentimenti. E da dove saltavano fuori quei sentimenti? Ora, al contrario, gli pareva che se la stanza si fosse riempita non di poliziotti, ma dei suoi migliori amici, neppure in quel caso avrebbe trovato una sola parola umana per loro, tanto il suo cuore si era di colpo svuotato. A un tratto fu cosciente di una cupa sensazione di angoscioso, infinito isolamento ed estraneità. [...] Che gli importava adesso della propria viltà, di tutte quelle ambizioni, di tenenti, tedesche, ingiunzioni, commissariati eccetera eccetera! Se anche l'avessero condannato al rogo in quell'istante, neppure allora avrebbe mosso un dito, forse non avrebbe nemmeno ascoltato attentamente la sentenza. Gli stava accadendo qualcosa di totalmente sconosciuto, nuovo, improvviso e mai sperimentato prima. Non che capisse, ma percepiva chiaramente, con tutta la forza dei sensi, che non poteva più comunicare con quelle persone, lì in commissariato, non solo con confidenze sentimentali, come poco prima, ma in nessun modo, e se fossero stati tutti suoi fratelli e sorelle, anziché tenenti della polizia, anche allora non avrebbe avuto modo di comunicare con loro, in nessuna circostanza della vita; prima di quel momento non aveva mai provato una sensazione così strana e terribile. E, cosa particolarmente angosciosa, quella era più una sensazione che una consapevolezza, o un concetto; una sensazione immediata, la sensazione più tormentosa che avesse mai provato in vita sua.

Where was it,’ thought Raskolnikov, as he walked onward, ‘where was it I read about a man who's been sentenced to die,3 saying or thinking, the hour before his death, that even if he had to live somewhere high up on a rock, and in such a tiny area that he could only just stand on it, with all around precipices, an ocean, endless murk, endless solitude and endless storms – and had to stand there, on those two feet of space, all his life, for a thousand years, eternity – that it would be better to live like that, than to die so very soon! If only he could live, live and live! Never mind what that life was like! As long as he could live! … What truth there is in that! Lord, what truth! Man is a villain. And whoever calls him a villain because of it is one himself!’ he added a moment later.

Where was it,’ thought Raskolnikov, as he walked onward, ‘where was it I read about a man who's been sentenced to die, saying or thinking, the hour before his death, that even if he had to live somewhere high up on a rock, and in such a tiny area that he could only just stand on it, with all around precipices, an ocean, endless murk, endless solitude and endless storms – and had to stand there, on those two feet of space, all his life, for a thousand years, eternity – that it would be better to live like that, than to die so very soon! If only he could live, live and live! Never mind what that life was like! As long as he could live! … What truth there is in that! Lord, what truth! Man is a villain. And whoever calls him a villain because of it is one himself!’ he added a moment later.

What is that which cannot be contained by volume,for it has neither height, nor breadth, nor length, nor width? It constantly weighs on us, but its weight cannot be determined. It is a liquid, but it's viscosity is ever changing. Although we measure it, it cannot be measured.

But sympathy in novels need not be simply a matter of the reader’s direct identification with a fictional character. It can also be driven by, say, my admiration of a character who is long on virtues I am short on (the moral courage of Atticus Finch, the limpid goodness of Alyosha Karamazov), or, most interestingly, by my wish to be a character who is unlike me in ways I don’t admire or even like. One of the great perplexities of fiction-and the quality that makes the novel the quintessentially liberal art form-is that we experience sympathy so readily for characters we wouldn’t like in real life. Becky Sharp may be a soulless social climber, Tom Ripley may be a sociopath, the Jackal may want to assassinate the French President, Mickey Sabbath may be a disgustingly self-involved old goat, and Raskolnikov may want to get away with murder, but I find myself rooting for each of them. This is sometimes, no doubt, a function of the lure of the forbidden, the guilty pleasure of imagining what it would be like to be unburdened by scruples. In every case, though, the alchemical agent by which fiction transmutes my secret envy or my ordinary dislike of “bad” people into sympathy is desire. Apparently, all a novelist has to do is give a character a powerful desire (to rise socially, to get away with murder) and I, as a reader, become helpless not to make that desire my own.

Messud, for her part, had a sharp response for her interviewer. For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t “Is this a potential friend for me?” but “Is this character alive?” Perhaps,

In a Publishers Weekly interview with Claire Messud about her novel The Woman Upstairs, which features a rather “unlikable” protagonist, Nora, who is bitter, bereft, and downright angry about what her life has become, the interviewer said, “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you? Her outlook is almost unbearably grim.” And there we have it. A reader was here to make friends with the characters in a book and she didn’t like what she found. Messud, for her part, had a sharp response for her interviewer. For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t “Is this a potential friend for me?” but “Is this character alive?” Perhaps,

Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system. Raskolnikov

His Raskolnikov eyes, like dead coals, were altogether of too fine cast – speaking too much blighted and heroic romanticism – for a poor shivering wretch such as himself.

„Unde am citit oare, se gîndeă Raskolnikov, mergînd mai departe, că un condamnat la moarte, un ceas înainte de execuţie, spunea sau se gândea, că dacă ăr fi silit să trăiască undeva la o mare înălţime, pe piscul unei stânci oarecare, pierdută în ocean, pe un loc atât de îngust, încât abia i-ar fi încăput picioarele, iar jur împrejur ăr fi numai prăpăstii, valuri, întuneric etern, singurătate şi furtună, şi să rămînă pe spaţiul acela de jumătate de metru o viaţa întreagă, o mie de ani, o veşnicie, tot ar fi mai bine decât să moară! Numai să trăieşti, sa trăieşti, să trăieşti! Oricum ar fi viaţa - dar să trăieşti!... Cât adevăr e în asta! Cât de ticălos e omul! Dar şi mai ticălos este acela care pentru asta îl numeşte ticălos", adaugă el după o clipă

Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the fire in Raskolnikov's seemed ready to reduce him to ashes

Seus sentimentos sempre oscilaram entre o complexo de inferioridade e o de superioridade. “Sou um Raskolnikov que jamais encontrou uma Sonia”, era o que Ushikawa costumava pensar. “Vamos deixar esse assunto de lado. Não adianta nada pensar nisso agora. Preciso voltar para o caso Tengo e Aomame.

Nada más humano, en fin, que la fauna sentimental: la gran literatura y el mejor cine –expresiones privilegiadas de lo humano– son el reino de los sentimientos y de las pasiones. No habría Odisea sin amor a Penélope; ni guerra de Troya sin rapto de Helena; ni don Quijote sin Dulcinea; ni Raskolnikov sin Sonia; ni doctor Zivago sin Lara. Y la vida no merecería llamarse vida sin las pasiones.

Raskolnikov thought, "but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so

...İlke mi ? Şu Razumihin denilen ahmak demin sosyalistlere niçin sövüyordu ki? Sosyalistler çalışkan adamlar... ve tüccar kafalı... 'Genel mutluluk' için uğraşıyorlar... Hayır, ben dünyaya bir kez geldim ve bir daha da gelmeyeceğim: 'Genel mutluluk' felan bekleyemem... Ben kendim için yaşamak istiyorum, yoksa hiç yaşamayayım, daha iyi... Ben yalnızca, cebimdeki rubleyi sımsıkı tutup, 'genel mutluluk' bekleyerek aç bir annenin önünden geçmek istemedim. 'Genel mutluluğu kurmak için gerekli tuğlaları taşıyor ve bundan da gönül rahatlığı' duyuyorlarmış! Hah-hah-ha! Beni unuttunuz! Ben bir kez geldim dünyaya ve yaşamak istiyorum.

Where is it,’ thought Raskolnikov. ‘Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that,’ he added a moment later.

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing

It’s my personal view, if you care to know, that something has been accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors. Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great thing...” “He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly.

love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject—”I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings—they must be damp—when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind—you know what I mean?—and the street lamps shine through it...” “I don’t know.... Excuse me...” muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street.

It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov's burning and intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint as it were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides... Razumihin turned pale. "Do you understand now?" said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. "Go back, go to them," he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went out of the house.

So you do believe in the New Jerusalem?’ ‘I do,’ answered Raskolnikov firmly. While saying this, and throughout the course of his long tirade, he’d been staring at the floor, having chosen for himself a particular spot on the rug. ‘And … you believe in God? Please forgive my curiosity.’ ‘I do,’ repeated Raskolnikov, lifting his eyes towards Porfiry. ‘And … you believe in the raising of Lazarus?’22 ‘I … do. But why are you asking?

You’re the killer,’27 uttered the other, articulating each syllable ever more imposingly and half-smiling with triumph and loathing; then, once again, he looked straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and deadened eyes. By now they’d reached the crossroads. The tradesman turned left along the street, without glancing back.

This time the tradesman lifted his eyes and gave Raskolnikov an ominous, dismal look. ‘Killer!’ he suddenly said in a soft, but clear and distinct voice …

Listen, Razumikhin,’ Raskolnikov began quietly, with a semblance of perfect calm, ‘why can’t you see that I don’t want your good deeds? And why this urge to bestow your kindness on people who … spit in reply? For whom this is more than they can bear? I mean, why did you have to look me up when I fell ill? What if I were only too happy to die? Didn’t I make it clear enough to you today that you’re tormenting me, that I’m … sick and tired of you? Why this urge to torment people? It doesn’t help my recovery at all, I assure you. In fact, it’s a constant irritation.

Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards. - Pulcheria Raskolnikov

It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had almost no friends while he was at the university, kept aloof from everyone, visited no one, and had difficulty receiving visitors. . . . General gatherings, conversations, merrymaking - he somehow did not participate in any of it. He was a zealous student . . . and was respected for it, but no one loved him. He was very poor and somehow haughtily proud and unsociable, as though he were keeping something to himself. It seemed to some of his friends that he looked upon them all as children, from above, as though he were ahead of them all in development, in knowledge, and in convictions, and that he regarded their convictions and interests as something inferior.

I am Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a former student, and I live at Shil's house, here in the lane, not far awar, apartment number fourteen. Ask the caretaker... he knows me.

He knows his lines!' said Raskolnikov suddenly. 'I'm sorry?' asked Pyotr Petrovich, unsure of what had been said. He received no reply. 'All perfectly reasonable,' Zosimov hastened to put in. 'Isn't it, though?' Pyotr Petrovich went on, glancing with satisfaction at Zosimov. 'Wouldn't you agree,' he continued, addressing Razumikhin, but with a new, triumphant note of superiority, to the point that he very nearly added 'young man' [...]

Raskolnikov went out of the shed right down to the bank, sat down on the logs that were piled near the shed and began to look out at the wide, lonely river. From the high river-bank a broad panorama opened out. From the far-off opposite bank he could just make out the sound of someone singing. Over there, in the boundless steppe awash with sunlight, he could see the yurts of the nomad tribes-men like barely perceptible black dots. Over there was freedom, over there lived other people, quite different from those to lived here, over there time itself seemed to have stopped, as though the days of Abraham and his flocks had never passed.

But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically that he has nothing to cry about, he'll stop crying. That's clear. Is it your conviction that he won't?' 'Life would be too easy if it were so,' answered Raskolnikov