He is surprised at himself, puts himself to the test, and loves to plunge into the abyss—
—The running away with the little girl and the murderer Kulikov immediately after his removal from Sushar’s to Chermak’s. (The fact which produces an overwhelming effect on him and which has even somewhat unsettled him so that he feels a natural need to contract inwardly and to reflect so as to lean on something.) He leans after all on money.
Of God meanwhile he does not think.
His silence ends after a year and a half by his confession about Kulikov.
After Kulikov, he is humble at home and in the boarding-school in order to reflect and
find himself,
to concentrate.
—But he is unsociable and uncommunicative, nor could it be otherwise, remembering and knowing such a horror, and looking at all the other children, for instance, as at something perfectly alien to him, from which he had fled away into another path, into a good path or a bad one—
The blood at times torments him. But the chief thing:
(He is violently carried away by something, by Hamlet, for instance.)
The Inhabitants of the Moon.
It is not this alone that isolates him from everybody, but really his dreams of power and his enormous height above everything.
From that height he is kept back by science, poetry, etc., i.e. in the sense that these are higher things and that it is therefore necessary that he should be higher and better in them too.
Only to prepare oneself, but he is strangely certain that it will all come by itself. Money will solve all questions.
The chief thing. The meaning of the first part—Hesitation, insatiable desire for the ideal, instinctive consciousness of superiority, power and strength. Looking for a fixed point to rest upon. But at any rate an unusual man.[78]
or better:—Not a single dream of what to be and what’s his vocation prevented him from amassing money.
—But doubt is always solved by the necessity of money and the chance of amassing a fortune (he sells himself to the men-servants).
Concerning a horse that went mad, or a fire.
The father gave him a flogging—a rupture between them—I do not consider you my father.
—He sells himself to the men-servants, and for this he is held in general contempt, but
—Finds a pocket-book—the infatuation that possessed him finally on account of his exam.—he nearly yields.
But after this the history of Katya’s disgrace, and then the hellish debauchery with Albert, crime and blasphemy and denouncing himself as accessory to the murder with Kulikov—straight into the abyss. The Monastery.
—Although money concentrates him terribly on a certain firm point and solves all questions, at times the point wavers (poetry and many other things) and he cannot find a way out. This state of wavering forms the novel.
—Strengthening of his will, wounds and burns—feed his pride. He wishes to be ready for anything.
—He made up his mind to make money in an honest way. His hesitation with regard to the pocket-book.
—Since a great many things at times move him sincerely, in a terrible fit of spite and pride he plunges into debauchery.
(This is the chief thing.)
—His estrangement from people was furthered by the fact that they all looked upon him as an eccentric and laughed or feared him.
—A broken head (pantalons en haut), he is ill.
Then Chermak left him alone. (Mango.)
—By the process of thinking he arrived at the conclusion, for instance, that it is not necessary to act dishonestly, because acting honestly he would make money even better, since to the rich all privileges for any evil are granted even without that.
—Albert and he steal a star from the crown and escape successfully (he incited), but when Albert began to blaspheme, he began beating him. And then he declared himself before the court as an atheist.
—Idea: that he could gain a still greater power by flattery, like Von Brin.
But no—he thinks—I want to reach the same end without flattery.
I myself am God, and he makes Katya worship him. (God knows what he does with her. “I shall love you then when you can do everything.”)
—In the vagaries of his imagination he has endless dreams, up to the overthrow of God and putting himself in the place of God. (Kulikov had a strong influence.)
Problem. Memento.
To find the mean proportional. Act 1. Early Childhood, the old man and woman.
” 2. The family, Sushar, the running away and Kulikov—
” 3. Chermak—exams.
” 4. The Country and Katya, debauchery with Albert.
20 Childhood.
20 Monastery.
40 Before deportation.
20 Woman and Satan.
40 Heroic Acts.
—Repulsion for people from the very first consciousness as a child (through the passion of a proud and domineering nature). Out of contempt:
—“I will carry it with a high hand, shan’t degrade myself with the flattery and dexterity of a Brin.”
—And this too is from repulsion for people and from contempt for them from the earliest years of childhood—
—“Oh, if I only took upon myself the rôle of a flatterer like Brin,—what could I not achieve!”
—And begins at times to reason: “Shall I not become a flatterer? (he consults the lame girl about it). This too is a power of the spirit—to endure oneself as a flatterer. But no, I do not want it, it is foul—besides I shall have an instrument—money, so that they, willy-nilly, whether they choose or not, will all come to me and bow to me.”
With Kulikov he displays his spiritual power.
Kulikov does not kill him; but the murderer, the runaway soldier, they killed together.13
2
27
12
3
5
—
35 years ago
born in 1835.
If any one overheard his dreams, he believes he would die; but he confesses himself in everything to the lame girl.
—Whatever he reads, he tells in a peculiar way of his own to the lame girl.
—“A slap in the face is the greatest offence.” With blood.—
—The first organized dream of the significance of money.
—The lame girl keeps everything he is telling her secret—she does it without thinking, without his command, having subtly realized it for herself, so that in most cases he does not remind her of the necessity of keeping things secret.
The lame girl does not agree to become an atheist.
He does not beat her for that.
—A single, but detailed psychological analysis of how writers, for instance, “The Hero of Our Time” (Lermontov), affect a child.
—The indignation of a child at the guests as they arrive; at the frankness and impertinence which they allow themselves. (Uvar) “How dare they?”—the child thinks.
—The fall of the old couple.
—The theatre. Sit on my knees—
—They flog him for his repulsion.
—When he and the little girl come to live with the Alfonskys, he tells her not to say a word about Gogol or about what concerns us, about travels. She should not say a word.—
—He has read an immense amount (Walter Scott, etc.).
—At the Alfonskys—not brothers. He is made to feel it.
—He pretends to be rude, undeveloped, and a fool.
—With the men-servants.
—Mrs. Alfonsky suggests the idea that they should not mix with the children.
—At Sushar’s. Alfonsky flogs him. It turns out to be for no fault.
—Mrs. Alfonsky has invented, the running away. With Kulikov—Caught.
—A guest: they call him. They examine him. Candid thoughts.
The guest is surprised.—The house is set on fire, or something—illness.
—Alfonsky delivers speeches.
—At Chermak’s. Progress in studies, reading. Exam.
—After Exam. Alfonsky makes some one fall in love with—Alfonsky questions.
For the lame girl. With Katya. A cornfield.—Family scenes—Alfonsky, his friend, a box on the ear.
In Moscow, Lambert—
About classical education at Chermak’s (Herr Teider).
Jan. 27
He is astonished that all these (grown up) people completely believe in their nonsense, and are much more stupid and insignificant than they seem from the outside.
(One of the scholarly guests, falls down intoxicated and goes with gypsies in the Maryin Woods.)
A period of unbelief in God. Essential to write how the New Testament had affected him. He agrees with the Gospel.
The chief thing meantime is his own I and his interests. Philosophical questions engage him in so far as they touch him.[79]
Lambert.
The lame girl: and I will tell how you said that you will be a king (or something ludicrous).
—He wounds her for this—
Lambert and he—a complete picture of depravity. But Lambert is intoxicated with it and finds nothing higher than this. National levity. Of what does he speak with the lame girl? Of all his dreams— But he plunges into debauchery with an irresistible desire, but also with fear. The hollowness, dirt, and absurdity of immorality astonish him. He gives it all up and after terrible crimes he denounces himself with bitterness. When I am grown up, I shall marry not you. So that it is not necessary to say he dreamt of this or that, but he went to the lame girl and said to her this or that. Of what he will be and of money. He beat her because the money did not increase.
He talked to her about the reading of Karamzin, tales, etc. He was taught French and German by the young lady, the old, etc. They went for their lessons to other children (there they made fun of him).
Because the lame girl did not flare into a passion for Karamzin—he beat her.
He knew the whole Bible—he told her.
—The history of the world—but was weak in geography.
(Dreams of travels, Kul and the lame girl.) They read novels.—He is highly developed and knows a great deal about many things. He knows Gogol and Pushkin. He never pretends tenderness for the lame girl until the time when he carried her in his arms.— He meets Umnov who proves that he knows more than he. Coming
