The Gentle Spirit by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Can too much love be fatal? You are about to find out in this exquisite psychological drama between the owner of a pawnshop and his wife. The narrator's marriage started out cordially enough, but his miserly and reserved ways are taxing to his young wife. A dearth of communication and disagreements about how the pawnshop should be run result in arguments, though the narrator insists that they never quarrelled. One fine morning the narrator opens his eyes to see that his wife is standing over him with the revolver pointed at his temple.Born in Moscow in 1821, Foydor Dostoyevsky is considered to be one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature. Dostoyevsky was incarcerated in 1849 for being part of the liberal intellectual group the Petrashevsky Circle. He also suffered from an acute gambling compulsion. Crime and Punishment was completed in a mad hurry because he was in urgent need of an advance from his publisher. Motivated by the dual wish to escape his creditors at home and to visit the casinos abroad, Dostoyevsky travelled to Western Europe in 1862. He visited France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and England. In London he attended the 1862 World's Fair and had a first-hand look at the Crystal Palace, the architectural wonder of the age. The image of the Crystal Palace, which for progressive critics symbolized the dawning of a new age of reason and harmony, was to loom large in Dostoevsky's works to come, especially Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment.Dostoyevsky, love, relationship, marriage, provocative, psychological, self, philosophical, psychic, human nature, classic
Publisher: Sovereign Classic
Published: 2014-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Part II

Chapter I

The Dream of Pride

Lukerya has just announced that she can’t go on living here and that she is going away as soon as her lady is buried. I knelt down and prayed for five minutes. I wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking and thinking, and always sick thoughts, and my head aches — what is the use of praying? — it’s only a sin! It is strange, too, that I am not sleepy: in great,too great sorrow, after the first outbursts one is always sleepy. Men condemned to death, they say, sleep very soundly on the last night. And so it must be, it si the law of nature, otherwise their strength would not hold out . I lay down on the sofa but I did not sleep.

. . . For the six weeks of her illness we were looking after her day and night — Lukerya and I together with a trained nurse whom I had engaged from the hospital. I spared no expense — in fact, I was eager to spend my money for her. I called in Dr. Shreder and paid him ten roubles a visit. When she began to get better I did not show myself so much. But why am I describing it? When she got up again, she sat quietly and silently in my room at a special table, which I had bought for her, too, about that time. . . Yes, that’s the truth, we were absolutely silent; that is, we began talking afterwards, but only of the daily routine. I purposely avoided expressing myself, but I noticed that she, too, was glad not to have to say a word more than was necessary. It seemed to me that this was perfectly normal on her part: “She is too much shattered, too completely conquered,” I thought, “and I must let her forget and grow used to it.” In this way we were silent, but every minute I was preparing myself for the future. I thought that she was too, and it was fearfully interesting to me to guess what she was thinking about to herself then.

I will say more: oh! of course, no one knows what Iwent through, moaning over her in her illness. But Istifled my moans in my own heart, even from Lukerya. Icould not imagine, could not even conceive of her dyingwithout knowing the whole truth. When she was out ofdanger and began to regain her health, I very quickly andcompletely, I remember, recovered my tranquillity. Whatis more, I made up my mind to defer out future as long aspossible, and meanwhile to leave things just as they were.Yes, something strange and peculiar happened to me then,I cannot call it anything else: I had triumphed, and themere consciousness of that was enough for me. So thewhole winter passes. Oh! I was satisfied as I had neverbeen before, and it lasted the whole winter.

You see, there had been a terrible external circumstance in my life

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