[87]See Revelation 10:6 (King James Version).
[88]The "God-man" is Christ, "truly God and truly man," in the definition of the council of Chalcedon (451 a.d.). Notions of anthropotheism, or "man-godhood," arrived at in discussions within the Petrashevsky circle (see Part One, Chapter One, note 7) were drawn ultimately from German idealist philosophy, representing an inversion of Christianity which Kirillov carries to its final conclusion.
[89]Russian casement windows normally have one pane, or part of a pane, that can be opened for ventilation when the window is sealed shut for the winter.
[90]The idea of Russia as a "god-bearing" nation can be traced to the thought of the Slavophil Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-95), an idiosyncratic interpretation of the philosophy of history of the German idealists Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854). Danilevsky's treatise in the philosophy of history, Russia and Europe,was published in 1871.
[91]Dostoevsky lends Shatov some of his own ideas about Roman Catholicism. The announcement at the first Vatican council (1870) of the new dogma of papal infallibility deeply shocked him; he saw it as the proclaiming of a "new Christ" who represents earthly power and has thus succumbed to the third temptation of the devil (see Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1—13).
[92]The thought Shatov here attributes to Stavrogin had in fact been Dostoevsky's own, expressed with slightly different wording in his often-quoted letter of 1854 to N. D. Fonvizin, wife of one of the Decembrists, who had met him in Tobolsk in 1850 on his way to prison and given him a copy of the Gospels which was to be his only reading during his four years at hard labor.
[93]Shatov seems to confuse two passages from the New Testament: the "rivers of living water" that appear as a metaphor of the Spirit in John 7:38 are not the same as the waters that dry up in Revelation 16:12.
[94]See note 3 above (Nozdryov claimed that he actually caught a hare by the hind legs with his own hands).
[95]Stepan Timofeevich ("Stenka") Razin (?—1671), a Don Cossack, led a peasant uprising in Russia (1667-71) for which he became a popular hero.
[96]Donatien Alphonse François, marquis de Sade (1740-1814), novelist and theorist of the erotic, accused of practicing what he preached, was tried and sentenced to prison for rape; later he was condemned to death for sodomy and poisoning, but the sentence was lifted.
[97]Fedka's speech throughout is based on Dostoevsky's notes on the language of the convicts he met during his imprisonment in Omsk (1850-54).
[98]Zossima here is a name for a generic hermit, not an actual person.
[99]The poet is Pyotr A. Vyazemsky (1792-1878), a friend of Pushkin's; the lines, slightly adjusted by Lebyadkin, come from Vyazemsky's poem "To the Memory of the Painter Orlovsky" (1838).
[100]In Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,Gogol refers to an as yet unwritten "Farewell Story" of which he says: "I swear, I did not invent or think it up; it sang itself out of my soul..." The story remained unwritten.
[101]Gavriil Derzhavin (1743-1816) was one of the greatest Russian poets of the eighteenth century. Lebyadkin refers to his ode "God" (1784), which contains the line: "I am king—I am slave, I am worm—I am god!"
[102]Grigory ("Grishka") Otrepev, known as "the False Dmitri," was a defrocked monk who claimed the Russian throne by pretending to be the lawful heir, the prince Dmitri, murdered in childhood through the intrigues of Boris Godunov (1551-1605), who thus made himself tsar. In 1605, by order of the patriarch Job, the impostor Grigory Otrepev was anathematized and cursed "in this age and the age to come" in all the churches of Russia. The "seven councils" is a hyperbolic reference to the ecumenical councils of the Church, held between 325 and 787 A.D.
[103]Dostoevsky wrote down these terms for church objects in his Omsk notebook, but without giving definitions of them. The "swinger" is probably a censer; the second item, which we translate as "swatter," remains mysterious; the "deacon's girth" is no doubt a deacon's stole or orarion, often richly decorated. Icons, as of St. Nicholas the Wonder-worker, are often covered with precious casings of silver or gold ornamented with jewels. "Similor" (originally a French word) is a yellow brass used in making cheap jewelry.
[104]There is an excellent short treatise on the classical duel à volonté("at will") in Vladimir Nabokov's commentary to his translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin(abridged edition, Princeton, 1981, volume II, part two, pp. 43-45).
[105]Corporal punishment for all ranks of the population, including clergy and boyars (a privileged order of Russian aristocracy), existed in the Muscovite kingdom from its very beginnings in the fourteenth century.
[106]Dueling was officially outlawed and therefore could be punished by the authorities, though they might choose to overlook it.
[107]This conversation reflects certain skeptical attitudes towards the new courts established by the legal reform of 1864, which replaced the former courts, separate for each rank of society, with general courts for all ranks, open to the public, allowing for trial by jury, the use of lawyers, and free discussion in the press.
[108]See Part One, Chapter One, note 20.
[109]The question of women's equality emerged in Russia at the end of the 1850s. During the 1860s it was much discussed in the press. Dostoevsky saw the emancipation of women as one instance of the restoration of human dignity in general, and regarded it as very important.
[110]See Part One, Chapter One, note 23.
[111]Fra Diavolo(1830) is a comic opera by the French composer Esprit Auber (1782-1871), based on the life of an Italian brigand.
[112]"Foolsbury" (Glupovin Russian) is the subject of The History of a Certain Town,a satirical history of Russia by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-89).
[113]In fact, Dostoevsky based this episode with the book-hawker on an actual incident reported in the press.
[114]The "Marseillaise" (see Part One, Chapter One, note 24) is a marching song, "Mein lieber Augustin" is a beer-hall waltz, in Lyamshin's musical parody symbolizing the triumph of German philistinism over the spirit of the French Revolution. The actual Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) was started and lost by Napoléon III.
[115]Jules Favre (1809-80), French politician and republican, called for the deposing of Napoléon III in 1870, and negotiated the treaty of Frankfurt (10 May 1871), which ended the Franco-Prussian War. For Bismarck, see Part One, Chapter Two, note 4.
[116]Properly, Château-Yquem, the greatest of sauternes.
[117]According to Anna Grigorievna, the visit to Semyon Yakovlevich in Demonsis partly based on Dostoevsky's own visit to a well-known holy fool (yurodivy)in Moscow, Ivan Yakovlevich Koreisha.
[118]The Russian merchant class was divided in its habits of dress; some retained the long-skirted coat and full beard of the traditional Russian merchant, others adopted so-called German fashions (frock coat, waistcoat, tie) and went clean-shaven.
[119]The Senate in Petersburg was the highest judicial as well as legislative body in imperial Russia.
[120]The question "What is the meaning of this dream?" is ultimately a paraphrase of a line from Pushkin's poem "The Bridegroom" (1825). In the 1860s it became a journalistic cliché applied metaphorically to various events of the day. Dostoevsky here restores it to its literal meaning, with very funny effect.