[48]holy gifts:the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist.
[49]timesand seasons:see Acts 1:7,1 Thessalonians 5:1-2.
[50]Pope Gregory the Seventh: pontificate 1073-85; canonized. One of the greatest and most powerful of the popes of Rome, known for his struggle against the emperor Henry IV, whom he humbled at Canossa.
[51]thirdtemptation of the deviclass="underline" the devil’s third temptation of Christ; see Matthew 4:1-11. A foreshadowing of Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor.
[52]December revolution:the coup d’état in 1851 that ended the French Second Republic; a year later Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was made emperor.
[53]to set. . . in heaven:a conflation of Colossians 3:2 and Philippians 3:20.
[54]regierender Graf von Moor:“reigning Count von Moor.” Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) wrote his historical drama The Robbersin 1781. There are references to Schiller’s plays and poetry and to the notion from The Robbers of “the great and beautiful” all through B.K.
[55]Annawith swords:the medal of the Order of St. Anne, a military and civil distinction; the swords indicate the colonel’s military status. Decorations worn on the neck were not as “high” as decorations worn on the breast.
[56]across a handkerchief:alludes to Schiller’s play Cabal and Love(1784), in which such a challenge is made.
[57]her who loved much: see Luke 7:47. The passage is grotesquely misinterpreted by Fyodor Pavlovich.
[58]the Church calendar:a yearly listing of saints’ and feast days; in this case it would not prove anything.
[59]obedience: the term for a task imposed on a monk by his superior or spiritual director.
[60]what’s the meaning of this dream:a journalistic commonplace of the 1860s and 1870s, used by Dostoevsky’s ideological adversary M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin among others; a paraphrase of a line from Pushkin’s “The Bridegroom”. “Well then, what is your dream about?” It betrays Rakitin as a “liberal.”
[61]Pushkin . . .: several of Pushkin’s poems celebrate women’s “little feet,” for which the liberals of the 1860s censured him. Rakitin himself will soon “sing” of a woman’s feet (B.K. 4.11.2 and4.11.4).
[62]On the one hand . . .:Rakitin borrows this phrase from Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Unfinished Conversations, pt.1 (1873);again he labels himself (see Terras, p. 162).
[63]archimandrite: superior of a monastery; now often honorary.
[64]your noble reverence: an absurdly incorrect way to address the superior of a monastery.
[65] von Sohn:see note 2 to page 36 in section 1.2.1.
[66]plus de noblesse que de sincérité:“more nobility than sincerity.” And vice versa.
[67]the Holy Fathers. Fyodor Pavlovich apparently believes that “secret confession” was instituted by the early fathers of the Church, which it was not.
[68]flagellationism: the practice of self-flagellation as a way of purification from sin; never accepted by the Church.
[69]Synod:a council of bishops instituted (contrary to canon law) by Peter the Great (1672-1725) to administer the Russian Orthodox Church, answerable to the tsar himself, who thus became the de facto head of the Church.
[70]Robbers: see note 2 to page 71 in section 1.2.6.
[71]Eliseyev Brothers: famous Petersburg provisioners. The shop has survived intact, is still a provisioners’, and is often still referred to as Eliseyevs’.
[72]seven councilsa hyperbolic reference to the seven “ecumenical councils” that were held between 325 and 787 A.D.
[73]six fingers:such malformations, to some minds, implied the work or even the presence of “unclean spirits.” Hence Grigory later calls the child a “dragon.”
[74]the Book of Job: references to the Book of Job appear frequently in B.K. and are a key to one of its themes: the “justification of suffering,” i.e., theodicy.
[75]Isaac the Syrian:see note 7 to page 27 in section 1.1.5.
[76]Flagellants: see note 5 to page 88 in section 1.2.8.
[77]state councillor:rank of the fifth grade in the civil service, corresponding to the military rank of colonel.
[78]Smerdyashchaya:“Stinking [woman]” in Russian. Smerdyakov’s name thus means roughly “(son) of the stinking one.”
[79]Glory ...: the verses are by Dmitri Fyodorovich himself.
[80]Do not believe . . .:from “When from the Darkness of Error”(1865) by Nikolai Nekrasov (1821-78); one of Dostoevsky’s favorite poems, about a rescued prostitute.
[81]the golden fish...: allusion to the well-known folktale about the magic fish, of which Pushkin made a poetic version, “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish” (1833).
[82]Oman . . .:the line is Goethe’s, from “The Divine” (1783).
[83]An die Freude:Schiller’s famous ode “To Joy” (1785), from which Dmitri will quote a little further on.
[84]And a ruddy-muggedSilenus: from “Bas-relief” (1842) by Apollon Maikov (1821-79), a friend of Dostoevsky’s.
[85]Darkly hid in cave and cleft...: stanzas 2-4 from Schiller’s “Eleusinian Festival” (1798). The version here is adapted from an anonymous English translation of 1843, as is the version of the ode “To Joy” that follows.
[86]That men to man . . .:from “Eleusinian Festival, ‘ stanza 7.
[87]Joy is the mainspring . . .: Schiller’s “Tojoy,” stanzas 4 and 3.
[88]Paul de Koch(1794-1871), French writer, author of innumerable novels depicting petit bourgeois life, some of which were considered risqué.
[89]There was sweet confusion...: verses of unknown origin, possibly by Dostoevsky himself (Terras, p. 176).
[90]bringup my life from thePit: Jonah 2:6 (Revised Standard Version).
[91]Balaam’s ass:Numbers 22:30. The ass of the false prophet Balaam suddenly speaks to its master.
[92]The Lord God created ...:see Genesis 1:3-5,14-17.
[93]falling sickness:Dostoevsky prefers this old term for epilepsy.
[94]Evenings on a Farm near Dikanha:the first book of tales by Nikolai Gogol (1809-52).
[95]Smaragdov’sUniversal History: a common Russian textbook of the earlier nineteenth century.
[96]Kramskoy:I. N. Kramskoy (1837-87), well-known Russian painter. The Contem-platorwas first exhibited in 1878.
[97]aRussian soldier . . .: an actual event, which Dostoevsky wrote about in his Diaryof 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 ya 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.