Crime and Punishment (73 page)

1
9
.
everyone oversteps the law . . . to commit crime
: The Russian word for ‘crime',
prestuplenie
, is literally a ‘stepping over', comparable etymologically to the less commonly used English word ‘transgression'. See also Introduction, V.

2
0
.
Vive la guerre éternelle
: ‘Long live eternal war' (French). A possible allusion to a passage in
La Guerre et la Paix
(
1861
) by the socialist and self-professed ‘anarchist' Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (
1809–65
): ‘
la guerre . . . est éternelle. Salut à la guerre
' (‘war . . . is eternal. Welcome, war'). In this treatise, published in Russian translation in
1864
, Proudhon sought ‘to understand war in its innermost idea, its reasoning, its conscience, and even, to put it more boldly, its high morality'. Tikhomirov comments on the ‘fundamental proximity of Raskolnikov's theory and Proudhon's doctrine, which paradoxically couples blood and conscience, war and morality' (
BT
).

2
1
.
the New Jerusalem
: A reference to the image of the world without death or sorrow that would follow Christ's Second Coming and the Day of Judgement: ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband' (Revelation
21
:
1–2
). In line with the characteristic ambivalence of Dostoyevsky's method, however, Raskolnikov may equally be referring to the kind of socialist utopia envisaged by the ‘new Christianity' of Henri de Saint-Simon (
1760–1825
) and his many followers, who reinterpreted such biblical imagery in a strictly secular key. For them, paradise would be achieved on earth by human efforts, without any need for God.

2
2
.
the raising of
Lazarus
: The story of the dead man brought back to life by Christ, as told in John
11
:
1–45
. See note
11
above.

2
3
.
branded in some way
: Here, as elsewhere, the allusive scope of Porfiry's comments is considerable, from stories of the signs that allegedly marked the birth of Muhammad and other historical figures to the ‘Tsar signs' (marks on the body) mentioned in Russian folklore, by which a true ruler or heir to the throne might be identified (
BT
). Of striking relevance to Raskolnikov's drama throughout the novel is a review of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's
Histoire de Jules César
(see note
18
above) translated from the English press for a Russian newspaper in
1865
. The English critic asks how the French emperor would identify ‘who among us is Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon?', and concludes that if Napoleon
III
were to answer honestly, he would say ‘that there is no sign to distinguish a prophet from a false prophet, other than the ungainsayable logic of success. Whoever wins, executing his ideas and achieving success through his genius, is right. From this it follows that humanity can do nothing but wait for events to unfold and obey' (cited in Russian translation in
SB
).

2
4
.
who really are new
: Most likely an ironic reference to the ‘new people' envisaged by Chernyshevsky (
SB
).

2
5
.
Rus . . . Napoleon
: For Russian readers an obvious allusion to Pushkin's novel in verse
Eugene Onegin
(
1823–
31
), Chapter
2
, Stanza
14
. The mention of
Rus
, conjuring an image of a pre-modern and ‘spiritual' Russia, is also noteworthy, and Tikhomirov aptly teases out the target of Porfiry's irony: ‘the ambition of a
Russian
hero “to become a Napoleon” and the impossibility of Western, European principles (“Napoleonism”) taking root in Russian soil (“in Rus”)' (
BT
).

2
6
.
thirty degrees Réaumur
: The equivalent of
37
.
5
° Celsius and nearly
100
° Fahrenheit.

2
7
.
You're the killer
: A particularly striking example of a sudden, unexpected switch to the familiar, second-person singular form of address, especially flagrant given the lowly rank of any ‘tradesman'.

2
8
.
V—
—
Church
: The Church of the Ascension (
Voznesenskaya
), which was located by Voznesensky Bridge and was demolished in
1936
. Its bell tower dominated the surrounding area (
BT
).

2
9
.
Toulon . . . Vilno
: Highlights from the military career of Napoleon: his successful orchestration of the siege of Toulon, held by royalists, in December
1793
; his violent suppression of a royalist uprising in Paris in October
1795
; his desertion of his army in Egypt in August
1799
to return to France (the army suffered great losses and eventually capitulated in
1801
); the March on Moscow in
1812
that cost the French about half
a million soldiers, according to François-René de Chateaubriand (
1768–1848
), whose
Mémoires d'outre-tombe
(
1849–50
) Dostoyevsky kept in his library, in Russian translation; and the quip attributed to Napoleon in Warsaw (not Vilno) on his retreat from Russia: ‘
Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas
' (‘From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step') (
PSS
,
BT
).

3
0
.
idols . . . bronze
: The unusual word chosen by Dostoyevsky to signify monuments (
kumiry
: idols), together with the mention of bronze, sends the reader back to Pushkin and the image in his great narrative poem
The Bronze Horseman
(
1833
) of Peter the Great (
1672–1725
) as ‘The idol on a bronze horse', thus suggesting a parallel between Napoleon and Peter. Dostoyevsky saw Peter the Great as a ‘man of iron, cruel', who ‘as a genius, had just one aim: reform and a new order', sacrificing all moral qualms in the process (cited from
BT
).

3
1
.
the pyramids, Waterloo
: References to the so-called Battle of the Pyramids in July
1798
, when Napoleon defeated the Mamluks in Egypt, having told his forces: ‘Men! Forty centuries look down upon you from the height of those pyramids'; and to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in
1815
, after which, according to legends cultivated by Romantic writers, Napoleon ‘rejected the chance to flee to America and intentionally gave himself into the hands of the English, so that, assuming “the martyr's crown”, he could bring his career, the career of “an extraordinary man”, to its “ideal” conclusion' (cited from
BT
).

3
2
.
carrying my little brick for universal happiness
: A reworking of the expression ‘
apporter sa pierre à l'édifice nouveau
' (‘to bring one's stone for the new building'), used by Fourier's follower Victor Considerant (
1808–93
). Having sympathized with the ideals of utopian socialism in his youth, Dostoyevsky was much more critical by the
1860
s, especially in his polemics with Chernyshevsky and other Russian socialists and radicals (
PSS
,
BT
). Tatyana Kasatkina has suggested that the substitution of ‘brick' for ‘stone' may allude to the building of the Tower of Babel (‘And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar' (Genesis
11
:
3
).

3
3
.
O ‘quivering' creature!
: An allusion to Pushkin's cycle ‘Imitations of the Koran' (
1824
), the first poem of which ends with Allah addressing the Prophet Muhammad as follows: ‘Be strong, despise deceit / Vigorously follow the path of truth /Love orphans, and teach / My Koran to every
quivering creature.' As Sergei Bocharov has pointed out, Pushkin was translating ‘into the language of the Koran the Gospel verse addressed by the risen Christ to the apostles: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”' (Mark
16
:
15
). In Raskolnikov's citation, the phrase ‘quivering creature' becomes negatively marked and, as such, a motif of Raskolnikov's perception of others and of himself (see
BT
).

3
4
.
lines up a top-notch battery
: Raskolnikov appears to be eliding two of his ‘extraordinary' men – Muhammad and Napoleon – with particular reference to Napoleon's violent suppression of the royalist uprising in Paris in October
1795
(
BT
).

PART FOUR

1
.
et nihil humanum
: The common misrendering of part of a celebrated quotation from the Roman poet Terence's comedy
Heauton Timorumenos
(
The Self-Tormentor
): ‘
Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto
' (‘I am a man: nothing human is alien to me').

2
.
bonne guerre
: Literally, ‘good war' (French), but in idiomatic usage signifying something like the English ‘All's fair in love and war', or simply ‘Fair enough' (‘
c'est de bonne guerre
').

3
.
beneficent free speech . . . German lass . . . ‘The Scandal of The Age'
: The context of these comments is the relaxation of censorship in the early
1860
s as part of the reforming agenda of Alexander
II
(
1818–81
). ‘Beneficent
glasnost
', as it was sometimes called, brought with it a litany of public shamings and scandals much debated in the press. In
1860
a landowner, A. P. Kozlyainov, beat a German woman in a train; a correspondent in the
Northern Bee
spoke out against the consensus (as Svidrigailov will do), defending the landowner and citing the provocative behaviour of the possibly drunken woman, who had been pestering Kozlyainov's sister. ‘The Scandal of
The Age
' (more literally, ‘The Abominable Act of
The Age
') was the title of an attack in the
St Petersburg Gazette
against a feuilleton published in the weekly journal
The Age
, which objected to an allegedly immoral public reading by Yevgenia Tolmachova, the wife of a prominent provincial official, of an episode from Pushkin's unfinished ‘Egyptian Nights' (
1835
), an improvisation in verse on the theme of ‘Cleopatra and her lovers'. The scandal caused by the reading was a vivid illustration of the ongoing debate on female emancipation (
PSS
,
BT
). Dostoyevsky wrote two essays defending Tolmachova's
reading and Pushkin's text, and appealing to the transformation of sexual material in the artistic process; see Susanne Fusso,
Discovering Sexuality in Dostoevsky
(Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press,
2006
), pp.
3–9
.

4
.
the peasant reforms passed us by
: A reference to the Emancipation of the Serfs in
1861
, when forests and meadows were retained by the old landed gentry.

5
.
Dussot
s
and pointes
: Dussot's was a high-class restaurant just off the Moika Canal; by
pointe
Svidrigailov probably means the spit at the western end of Yelagin Island, a fashionable leisure spot (
PSS
).

6
.
North Pole . . . vin mauvais
: In
1865
the St Petersburg press frequently reported discussions under way in the Royal Geographic Society in London about preparations for an expedition to reach and explore the North Pole (
PSS
,
BT
). The French idiom
avoir le vin mauvais
(literally, ‘to have bad wine') is typically said of someone who becomes aggressive when drunk.

7
.
Berg's
: Wilhelm Berg, a well-known fairground showman and entrepreneur who organized risky and spectacular hot-air balloon rides in the Yusupov Gardens (
BT
).

8
.
pour vous plaire
: ‘Just to please you' (French).

9
.
Vyazemsky's House on Haymarket
: Located just off Haymarket Square, this enormous building was described by Krestovsky in
Petersburg Slums
as ‘thirty houses in one': ‘inhabited by swindlers, thieves, passportless tramps and other such types, whose existence is considered an inconvenience in a well-ordered town' (
BT
).