لابد للإنسان من أجل أن تبعث نفسه بعثا جديدا وأن ترتفع بعد سقوط ، لابد أن يقطع للإلهة القديمة "أم الأرض" عهدا إلى الأبد ! ..ولكن الصعوبة هي هذه : ما عساني أفعل من أجل أن أعاهد الأرض ؟ أنا لا أزرع الأرض ، أنا لا أفتح جوف الأرض ؟ هل يجب أن أصبح فلاحا أو راعيا صغيرا ؟ إنني أسير في الليل دون أن أعرف أأنا أغوص في الوحل والعار أم أنا أتقدم نحو الضياء والفرح ؟ ذلك بعينه هو البلاء ..أن كل شئ في هذا العالم لغز ! ..حين كان يتفق لي أن أغوص إلى القرارة من هوة الدناءة والعهر (ولم أكن أفعل شيئا غير هذا على كل حال !) فقد كنت في كل مرة أعيد قراءة تلك القصيدة التي تتحدث عن سيريس وعن الإنسان ، فهل أصلحني ذلك ؟ كلا ثم كلا لأنني كارمازوف ، فحين أسقط في الهوة أتدهور تدهورا تاما ، رأسي في الأمام وقدماي في الفضاء ..حتى لقد أشعر عندئذ بسعادة ، من السقوط على هذا النحو المزري المذل المهين ، إنني أحس عندئذ بنوع من المتعة الفنية ، فإذا بلغت القرارة من هوة الدناءة والخسة طفقت أترنم بنشيد ألا فلأكن ملعونا ! ، ألا فلأكن منحطا سافلا ، ولكنني أريد ، أنا أيضا، أن أقبل ذيل الثوب الذي يتدثر به إلهي ، لئن اتبعت الشيطان يارب فإني أظل ابنك ! لأني أحبك ولأن في نفسي سبيلا إلى الفرح الذي لولاه ما وجد الكون !
In her opinion, all that had happened was ‘unforgivable and even criminal nonsense, a fantastic tableau, stupid and preposterous!’ First of all there was the fact that ‘this wretched little prince was a sickly idiot, secondly, a fool with no knowledge of society and no place in it: to whom could one show him off, even were one to get him in? He was some kind of impossible democrat, didn’t even have a civil service rank, and… and… what would Belokonskaya say? And was this, was this the kind of husband we imagined and intended for Aglaya?
...Может быть, тут всего более имела влияния та особенная гордость бедных, вследствие которой при некоторых общественных обрядах, обязательных в нашем быту для всех и каждого, многие бедняки таращатся из последних сил и тратят последние сбереженные копейки, чтобы только быть «не хуже других» и чтобы «не осудили» их как-нибудь те другие.
I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice. I’ll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his soul from darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our last epoch- that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it. Though
And what did I see? I saw people who are elegant, open-hearted, intelligent; I saw an elder statesman who was kind and attentive to a boy like me; I saw people who are capable of understanding and forgiving, good-natured Russian people, almost as good-natured and warm-hearted as those whom I met back there, almost as good as them. So you may imagine how happily I was surprised! Oh, permit me to say this! I had heard a great deal and was very much of the conviction that in society all is style, all is decrepit formality, while the essence has dried up; but I mean, now I can see for myself that it cannot be so in our country; it may be like that in other countries, but not in ours.
He closed his hand on the twenty kopecks, walked on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was cloudless and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The dome of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash eased off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite definite idea now occupied him completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of times—generally on his way home—stood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marveled at a vague and mysterious emotion it aroused in him. It left him strangely cold; for him, this gorgeous picture was blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his somber and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding an explanation for it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him . . . so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now—all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all . . . He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from every one and from everything at that moment.
the people of that time (I swear to you, this has always struck me) were apparently not at all like we are today, it was a different race from that of our own era,3 truly, almost a different breed… In those days people were carried by a single idea, whereas now they’re more nervous, more developed, more sensitive, as if they were carried along by two or three ideas at the same time… the man of today is broader – and, let me tell you, that’s what prevents him from being the unified individual he was in those times…
At the dawn of my days, when still a little child, I had an older brother who died in his youth, before my eyes, being only seventeen years old. And later, making my way through life, I gradually came to see that this brother was, as it were, a pointer and a destination from above in my fate, for if he had not appeared in my life, if he had not been at all, then never, perhaps, as I think, would I have entered monastic orders and set out upon this precious path. That first appearance was still in my childhood, and now, on the decline of my path, a repetition of him, as it were, appeared before my eyes.