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Stavrogin’s Confession and The Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner
they are paler than his original conceptions.

THE END

Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES

  1. This is almost certainly No. 11 above, since it contains, besides notes for The Idiot, notes for The Eternal Husband.
  2. Dostoevsky’s Genius, Odessa, 1921.
  3. Originally “Chapter IX.”
  4. After “madman” is struck out: “and at any rate, a perfectly talentless creature.”
  5. After the words “wicker chair” there stood originally: “Nikolai Vsevolodovich was still much distracted by some inner overpowering agitation.”
  6. After the words “looked at” originally stood: “he thought and, certainly, did not know of what.”
  7. There is struck out “ridiculous.”
  8. There is struck out “and rubbish.”
  9. After “And about the duel” there followed originally: “You did hear a great deal here.”
  10. Originally “This is not a bad account.”
  11. Originally “No, I am not well.”
  12. Originally “were cured.”
  13. After “although I do see it … and sometimes” there originally followed “I am not sure that I see.”
  14. After “smile” there is struck out: “And do you know, it does not suit you at all to cast your eyes down: it is unnatural, ridiculous, and affected.”
  15. After “all” there is struck out: “You must be awfully glad.”
  16. After “perhaps” there is struck out: “That’s not bad. Why do you have doubts, then?”—“I believe imperfectly.”
  17. After “his head still lower” there is struck out: “the corners of his lips suddenly began twitching, quickly and nervously.”
  18. After “unbelief” is struck out: “Oh, parson!”
  19. After “I do” is struck out: “They are fascinating words.”—“‘Fascinating,’ these are strange words for a bishop; you are altogether a queer fellow.”
  20. After “Stavrogin cut him short” is struck out: “this is for those in the middle, this is for the indifferent ones, isn’t it?”
  21. Instead of “perfectly, etc.,” the original had “I don’t need you in the least.”
  22. After “tell everything” there is struck out: “for which you came here.”
  23. After “guessed” there is struck out: “from your face.”
  24. After “chronicle” there is struck out: “it must be supposed that it is now known to many.”
  25. After the words “above all not a man of letters” there is written in Dostoevsky’s hand on the proofs “one remark, only one.” In the text of the opening of Chapter I., published as a Supplement to Vol. VIII. of the Jubilee Edition of 1906 of Dostoevsky’s Works, there is the following passage, which is not in the proofs:

“I shall allow myself one more remark, although I am straying in advance of my story. This document is, in my opinion, a morbid work, a work of the devil who took hold of that gentleman. It is like this: as if a man were suffering from acute pain and tossing about in bed, trying to find a position to relieve his pain even for a moment. Not even to relieve the pain, but only to change it, momentarily, for another. In a situation like that, one of course does not bother about the becomingness or good sense of the position. The fundamental idea of the document is a terrible, undisguised craving for self-punishment, the need for the cross, for immolation in the eyes of all. And yet this need for the cross in a man who does not believe in the cross, does not this in itself form ‘an idea,’ as Stepan Trofimovich expressed himself once, on a different occasion though. On the other hand, the document is at the same time something wild and random, although evidently written with a different intention. The author declares that he could not help writing it, that he was ‘compelled,’ and this is quite likely; he would have been glad to let that cup pass him by, if only he could; but he indeed, so it seems, could not do so, and he merely snatched at a convenient excuse for a fresh outburst. Yes, the sick man tosses about in his bed and wishes to exchange one pain for another, and now the struggle with society appears to him the easiest position, and he throws out a challenge to it.

“Indeed, in the very fact of such a document is implied a new, unexpected, and unforgivable defiance of society—only to find some enemy to pick a quarrel with!

“And who can say? perhaps all this, the sheets and their intended publication, are but the same as the Governor’s bitten ear, only in a different shape. But why this should come into my mind now, when so much has already been explained, I can’t understand. I bring forward no proof, nor do I at all assert that the document is false, that is, completely made up and fabricated. Most likely the truth ought to be sought somewhere midway. However, I have already wandered too far in advance; it is safer to turn to the document itself. This is what Tikhon read.”

Here ends the first chapter in the Supplement to Vol. VIII. of Dostoevsky’s Works, Jubilee Edition, 1906.

  1. After “should meet, etc.,” there is struck out: “in the presence of my friends and of her husband.”
  2. After “with their daughter” is struck out: “I think her age was about fourteen.”
  3. After “I do not remember” is struck out: “who they are, from where they come, and where they are now, I don’t know in the least.”
  4. After “girl” is struck out: “(I lived with them on familiar terms, and they stood on no ceremonies with me).”
  5. After “always called forth” there is struck out: “Having indulged up to the age of sixteen with extraordinary immoderation in the vice to which J. J. Rousseau confessed, I stopped it at the very moment which I had fixed, at the age of seventeen.”
  6. After “presence” is struck out: “she did not cry, but only sobbed under the blows, certainly because I stood there and saw everything.”
  7. After “herself” is struck out: “up till now she perhaps only feared me, not personally, but as a lodger, a stranger, and, I believe, she was very timid.”
  8. Originally “As soon as the three days were over.”
  9. After “beating” is struck out: “but then I suddenly asked myself: can I stop now, and I instantly answered that I can.”
  10. Originally “I kissed her face and legs: when I kissed her legs.”
  11. Originally “I wished to get up and go away—so unpleasant was this to me in such a tiny child, from a sense of pity. But I overcame the sudden sense of my fear and remained.”
  12. After “cuff” is struck out: “twice on her cheek.”
  13. After “no longer” is struck out: “I rose and moved close to her.”
  14. After “room” is struck out: “to see if everything was in its place as before.”
  15. After “what I wanted” is struck out: “I wanted all the while to be completely sure.”
  16. Instead of “at last, etc.,” originally stood: “I finally decided that I could leave and I went downstairs.”
  17. After “beat her head” is struck out: “there was a commotion.”
  18. After “stood” is struck out: “in the lobby.”
  19. There is struck out “I heard nothing of the result of the medical evidence.”
  20. The words “after she had been long buried” are struck out.
  21. After the word “imagine” is struck out: “I will not decide one way or another whether into my resolution there entered even unconsciously (of course, unconsciously) anger for the wild cowardice which had possessed me after the affair with Matryosha. Really, I do not think so.”
  22. After “distract” is struck out: “and because it had become intolerable.”
  23. After “creature” is struck out: “of ten years.”
  24. After “even now” is struck out: “The recollection of the deed itself is perhaps not even now loathsome to me. Perhaps the memory of it even now contains something which is gratifying to my passions.”
  25. After “hallucination” is struck out: “I have other old memories, perhaps, worse than this. There was a woman whom I treated worse, and she died of it. I killed two men in a duel who had done me no harm. I was once mortally insulted, and did not avenge myself. I have it to my account that I poisoned some one, deliberately and successfully, without being found out. If necessary, I will confess it all.”
  26. After “shall” is struck out: “of this I am perfectly sure.”
  27. Originally “In Switzerland I was able two months after that to fall in love with a girl, or, to speak more accurately, I experienced a fit, etc.”
  28. Originally “And the more of those, the better.”
  29. This is how the chapter is numbered in the original.
  30. After “motionless” the following is struck out: “It is strange that the signs of impatience, absentmindedness, and even of delirium, that had been in his face all that morning, almost disappeared, and gave place to calmness and a kind of sincerity, that gave him an air almost of dignity.”
  31. After “coaxing” is struck out: “he added, as though he could no longer keep it up, and suddenly fell again for a moment into his former tone, but he immediately smiled sadly at his words.”
  32. Before the words “I wrote sincerely” there is struck out: “This seems to me a subtlety; does this really matter….”
  33. The phrase “Make myself out, etc.,” is struck out.
  34. After “he did not finish” is struck out: “You mean you would like me immediately to express to you my contempt,” Tikhon said firmly.
  35. There is struck out: “I am somewhat surprised at your opinion about other people and about the ordinariness of such a crime.”
  36. After the sentence “Tikhon, etc.,” is struck out: “Stavrogin had no thought of going away; on the contrary he began again for some minutes to fall into a reverie.”
  37. After “lady” is struck out: “very timidly.”
  38. All this passage, from “Well” to “easier for me,” is struck out.
  39. After the words “Tikhon murmured, etc.,” there is struck out: “For what? What have you done to me? Ah, yes, it is the monastic formula!”—“For voluntary and involuntary sin. Every man who commits a sin has already sinned against all, and every
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they are paler than his original conceptions. THE END Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. FOOTNOTES This is almost certainly No. 11 above, since it