[97] a Russian soldier . . .: an actual event, which Dostoevsky wrote about in his Diary of a Writer (1877).
[98] Jesuits: popularly considered masters of casuistry.
[99] my fine young Jesuit: in wording and rhythm, an ironic paraphrase of a line from Pushkin’s Tale of Tsar Saltan (1831): “Greetings, my fine young prince.”
[100] in the Scriptures . . .: see Matthew 17:20,21:21; Mark 11:23; Luke 17:6.
[101] For as you measure ...: see Matthew 7:2, Mark 4:24, Luke 6:38. Fyodor Pavlovich misquotes.
[102] Tout cela c’est de la cochonnerie: “That’s all swinishness.”
[103] Best of all . . .: after the emancipation of 1861, peasants had their own courts, along-side the official courts, and often used whipping as a punishment.
[104] il y a du Piron là-dedans: “there’s a bit of the Piron in him’ Alexis Piron (1689-1773), French poet, the author of many songs, satires, and epigrams; witty, but often licentious.
[105] Arbenin: protagonist of Mikhail Lermontov’s play Masquerade; the protagonist of A Hero of Our Time (1840) is Pechorin.
[106] all five: Dmitri confuses the number of cardinal points with the number of continents, considered to be five in the nineteenth century.
[107] the rite of holy unction, in the Orthodox Church, a sacrament of healing, consisting of anointing with oil and remission of sins, administered to the sick and the dying.
[108] on behalf of all and for alclass="underline" a liturgical formula often repeated or alluded to in B.K.
[109] falling asleep: in Orthodox understanding, death is a “falling asleep in the Lord.”
[110] prosphora: a small, round yeast bread specially prepared for the sacrament of the Eucharist; the Greek word means “offering.”
[111] blessed: the Russian word blazhennyi can mean either “blessed” or “silly, odd,” as in the English phrase “blessed idiot.”
[112] Holy Week: the last week of Lent, between Palm Sunday and Easter; each of the days is called “Great and Holy.”
[113] Laodicea: a council of the Church held in Laodicea (modern Latakia, Syria) in the mid fourth century a.d.
[114] Pentecost: the feast celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles (Acts 2:1-4), fifty days after Easter.
[115] in the form of a dove: the Holy Spirit appeared “like a dove” only once, at Christ’s baptism in the Jordan (see Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22).
[116] Elijah: Luke 1:17 (Revised Standard Version).
[117] the gates of hell: Matthew 16:18.
[118] Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht: “Madame, I want no thanks.” From Schiller’s ballad “The Glove” (1797).
[119] And in all nature . . .: lines from Pushkin’s poem “The Demon” (1823).
[120] Chernomazov: Arina Petrovna inadvertently brings out the implicit meaning of Alyosha’s surname: cherny is Russian for “black”; however, in the Turkish and Tartar languages, kara also means “black” (the root, maz, in Russian conveys the idea of “paint” or “smear”).
[121] Now I’m like Famusov ...: Famusov, Chatsky, and Sophia are characters in A. S. Griboyedov’s celebrated comedy Woe from Wit (1824), in which the last scene takes place on a stairway.
[122] An invincible power . . .: the Russian original was heard and written down by Dostoevsky in Moscow ca. 1839. Smerdyakov sings the last stanza a bit further on.
[123] You opened her matrix: a biblical expression (see Exodus 13:2, 12; 34:19); Grigory often uses such language, and Smerdyakov has picked up some of it, e.g., “nativity” just before.
[124] father of the present one: Napoleon 1 was the uncle, not the father, of Napoleon III.
[125] Petrovka: a street in the center of Moscow.
[126] sticky little leaves . . .: allusion to Pushkin’s poem “Chill Winds Still Blow” (1828).
[127] professions de foi: “professions of faith.”
[128] a tinge of nobility: a borrowing from Pushkin’s epigram “A tsar was once told . . .” (1825): “Flatterers, flatterers, try to preserve / A tinge of nobility even in your baseness.”
[129] And how believest thou ...: this first half of Ivan’s question comes from the Orthodox order for the consecration of a bishop; in response the bishop-elect recites the Creed.
[130] an old sinner . . .: Voltaire. The quotation comes from his Epistles, 111, “To the Author of a New Book on the Three Impostors” (1769); cf. note 3 to page 24 in section 1.1.4.
[131] the Word . . .: see John 1:1-2.
[132] John the Mercifuclass="underline" a saint, patriarch of Alexandria (611-19). The episode comes, however, from Flaubert’s “La Légende de Saint-Julien - l’Hospitalier” (1876), “Saint Julian the Merciful” in Turgenev’s Russian translation (1877). Ivan significantly substitutes the name John (Ioann, in Russian, i.e., Ivan) for Julian: Flaubert’s Julian is a parricide.
[133] they ate ...: see Genesis 3:5.
[134] as Polonius says ... .Hamlet, 1.3.129 (we have substituted an appropriate line from the passage Dostoevsky quotes in Russian translation).
[135] image and likeness: here, as just earlier, Ivan plays perversely on Genesis 1:26 (“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”).
[136] on its meek eyes: from “Before Evening,” a poem from the cycle About the Weather (1859) by Nikolai Nekrasov.
[137] Tartars: see note 5 to page 27 in section 1.1.5.
[138] A little girl ...: this and the preceding story are both based on actual court cases. Dostoevsky discussed the first at length in Diary of a Writer (1876); the defense attorney there, V. D. Spassovich, is thought to be a possible model for Fetyukovich in B.K.
[139] I even forget where I read it: the story actually appeared in the Russian Herald (1877, no. 9), where B.K. was also published serially The article was entitled “Memoirs of a Serf.“
[140] the liberator of the people: Alexander II, tsar from 1855 to 1881; the emancipation of the serfs was the most important of his many reforms.
[141] paradise ... fire from heaven: Ivan combines biblical and Greek motifs, the paradise of Genesis with the revolt of Prometheus, who “stole fire from heaven” against the will of Zeus.
[142] the hind lie down with the lion: a variation on Isaiah 11:6,65:25.