As I arrive at the esplanade in front of Christ the Saviour I feel ridiculous. Who the fuck am I kidding with such a big bouquet of flowers. The twenty-five yellow roses feel heavy and treacherous.
I turn towards the river and throw the bouquet of flowers into the air, over the balustrade, with all the strength and anger I can muster, and I try to project them far into the river, but the bouquet spins clumsily, loses one rose in the air, and drops into the water, making a pitiful splash, like an injured bird. The water is black and the yellow roses floating on the Moskva river make me think of death.
PART SIX. Sonya’s Faith
53
WHILE OLYA, MASHA AND Irina, Chekhov’s three sisters, spend their idle existence hoping for things to get better, Sonya Marmeladova holds no such illusions. Forced into prostitution as a teenager, living in misery at the very bottom of Peter society, she knows her life is, and will always be, nothing but shit.
In Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Sonya stands as a powerful symbol of universal suffering. With Christian resignation, she has accepted that her existence will be a long road of martyrdom. If she expects any reward, an end to her suffering, it’s not something that will come in this life. For Sonya, it’s not a choice between happiness and meaning — it’s all sudba, God’s will. Put on Earth to suffer for others, she leaves it up to her creator to judge after death.
With Sonya, Fyodor Mikhailovich created the antithesis of Raskolnikov. Although she is — like Raskolnikov — a sinner, her sins do serve a purpose and, in the end, hurt no one but herself. Sonya sostradaet, co-suffers. She’s a whore because she needs to feed her family. She endures pain for the sake of others. It’s part of the cross she bears — the burden of humanity. Yet, Sonya — the whore, the social outcast — is, from a moral point of view, the purest and most honest character in the novel.
We find out, early in the story, that Sonya’s occupation is not a temporary thing; she holds a yellow ticket, which makes her an official prostitute. She has crossed a threshold of sin and social stigma with no return. Unlike the three sisters, who can still dream about a better future — if only they could go back to Moscow — for Sonya, becoming a whore is not something that can be undone.
For Sonya Marmeladova there is no Moscow to go back to.
Still, she finds purpose in life. When Sonya meets Raskolnikov, soon after he has committed his crime, she becomes his maternal whore, the figure who will nurse him and wrestle him onto the path of salvation. In a famous scene, Sonya opens her New Testament and reads aloud to Raskolnikov. What she reads is the story of Lazarus, from the Gospel of John. Lazarus’s resurrection, four days after his death, is proof of Christ’s divinity. In a similar manner, Sonya aims to resurrect Raskolnikov’s soul, which, in her eyes, has been dead ever since his crime.
When Raskolnikov, who’s now losing it with the psychological burden of his crime, confesses the murders to Sonya, the first thing she says is, you’ve done this to yourself. For her, Raskolnikov’s crime is not a question of man’s law and order. It amounts to spiritual suicide.
Sonya will be able to forgive Raskolnikov though, because all men are equal before God — and God forgives.
Knowing that redemption must start with repentance, Sonya asks Raskolnikov to confess his crime to the authorities. Carrying her New Testament, she pesters Raskolnikov with ideas about God and forgiveness. Raskolnikov challenges her religious convictions and goes as far as questioning the very existence of God. Sonya does not consider it necessary to argue. All she says: I believe in God. Sonya’s faith is unshakeable, the source of her strength.
And so, Raskolnikov, whose soul can no longer bear the anguish of his guilt, finally decides to give himself up. Sonya hands him her small wooden cross, the cross that she had been wearing all along, the cross of Christ, the Saviour. On the way to the police station, where he is to confess his crime, Raskolnikov follows Sonya’s advice and stops at the Hay Market, where — in the pivotal scene of the novel — he kisses the ground and asks the world for forgiveness.
Facing a final test, Raskolnikov finds out at the police station that he could easily get away with the murders. But, thanks to Sonya’s spiritual guidance, he knows that, even if he is never caught by men, in the eyes of God he will not get away with his crime. Raskolnikov has understood that in order to be saved he needs to pay: he must endure his punishment. He must carry the cross.
In the epilogue, we see Raskolnikov a year and a half later, serving his sentence in a prison in Siberia. Sonya has moved to the city nearby and visits him often. It’s only in Siberia that Raskolnikov’s spiritual resurrection can take place, in the vastness of nature, under God, far from the infested streets of the city.
For Dostoyevsky, our existence is a lifelong struggle. In a life with no bright future, Sonya embraces spirituality as a way to cope with suffering. Without that blind acceptance of her own destiny, without her unwavering faith — without the existence of God, really — Sonya’s life would have no meaning whatsoever.
54
‘WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE to be in five years?’ I asked.
It was a warm summer day and Tatyana and I were strolling along the shaded alleys of Novodevichy cemetery. We had spent the morning visiting the adjacent convent, an impressive citadel with ancient churches that Tatyana had been wanting to see. Now we were wandering among trees and tombstones — map in hand — searching for the VIPs of recent Russian history.
‘Five years,’ Tatyana said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Like, if you could choose your dream life, your perfect job, the best city to live in, everything. Where would you like to be?’
‘Why five years?’
‘Just because.’
‘What’s happening in five years?’ Tatyana was wearing bright red lipstick and a silvery top that sparkled every time we crossed a sunny patch.
‘Forget about the five years,’ I said as we stepped onto a gravel path. ‘That’s not the point. What I’m asking is where do you want to be in the future? What do you want to do with your life?’
‘That’s a serious question,’ she said. ‘If we keep going in circles, in five years we might be stuck in Novodevichy, still looking for Chekhov’s grave.’ She laughed and took hold of my arm. A fresh breeze shook the trees above our heads, releasing a snowfall of white blossom.
‘In five years I’ll be almost thirty,’ Tatyana said. ‘I want to have children before I’m thirty.’
‘What about work?’
‘I don’t care about work. That’s less important.’
‘Why so?’
‘Family is the most important thing,’ she said, brushing the little flowers off her shoulders. ‘A woman cannot be a woman without children.’
‘But professionally,’ I said, ‘would you continue to work in real estate or would you rather do something else?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care, really. You know work is not the most important thing for me. I’m not a man.’
I picked some petals from Tatyana’s curls, then brushed my hand over my own hair. ‘Women also care about work,’ I said.
We walked in silence for a couple of minutes, then came across a large memorial of someone who must have been a famous soviet pilot, an aviation pioneer perhaps, a life-size statue of the man resting his hand on an aeroplane propeller. A group of older Russians — tourists from the provinces, I guessed — were taking pictures of each other in front of the memorial.