An Honest Thief and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: One day, a stranger enters the apartment and asks for someone who does not live there. He leaves when told to do so but returns the following day and boldly steals a coat from the front hallway. But there is more to it in the Honest Thief than meets the eye. Other stories in this collection include: A Novel in Nine Letters, An Unpleasant Predicament, Another Man's Wife.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, Dostoyevskiy, Dostoevsky, idealism, rationalism, empiricism, materialism, utilitarianism, positivism, socialism, anarchism, nihilism and atheism, family, relationships, society, psychological, nihilism, symbolism, classic, world lit
Publisher: Sovereign
Published: 2014-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

“Tu-tu!”

Ivan Ilyitch stopped. Pseldonimov got up from his chair and began trying to see who had shouted. Akim Petrovitch stealthily shook his head, as though admonishing the guests. Ivan Ilyitch saw this distinctly, but in his confusion said nothing.

“Humanity!” he continued obstinately; “and this evening ... and only this evening I said to Stepan Niki-ki-foro-vitch ... yes ... that ... that the regeneration, so to speak, of things....”

“Your Excellency!” was heard a loud exclamation at the other end of the table.

“What is your pleasure?” answered Ivan Ilyitch, pulled up short and trying to distinguish who had called to him.

“Nothing at all, your Excellency. I was carried away, continue! Con-ti-nue!” the voice was heard again.

Ivan Ilyitch felt upset.

“The regeneration, so to speak, of those same things.”

“Your Excellency!” the voice shouted again.

“What do you want?”

“How do you do!”

This time Ivan Ilyitch could not restrain himself. He broke off his speech and turned to the assailant who had disturbed the general harmony. He was a very young lad, still at school, who had taken more than a drop too much, and was an object of great suspicion to the general. He had been shouting for a long time past, and had even broken a glass and two plates, maintaining that this was the proper thing to do at a wedding. At the moment when Ivan Ilyitch turned towards him, the officer was beginning to pitch into the noisy youngster.

“What are you about? Why are you yelling? We shall turn you out, that’s what we shall do.”

“I don’t mean you, your Excellency, I don’t mean you. Continue!” cried the hilarious schoolboy, lolling back in his chair. “Continue, I am listening, and am very, ve-ry, ve-ry much pleased with you! Praisewor-thy, praisewor-thy!”

“The wretched boy is drunk,” said Pseldonimov in a whisper.

“I see that he is drunk, but....”

“I was just telling a very amusing anecdote, your Excellency!” began the officer, “about a lieutenant in our company who was talking just like that to his superior officers; so this young man is imitating him now. To every word of his superior officers he said ‘praiseworthy, praiseworthy!’ He was turned out of the army ten years ago on account of it.”

“Wha-at lieutenant was that?”

“In our company, your Excellency, he went out of his mind over the word praiseworthy. At first they tried gentle methods, then they put him under arrest.... His commanding officer admonished him in the most fatherly way, and he answered, ‘praiseworthy, praiseworthy!’ And strange to say, the officer was a fine-looking man, over six feet. They meant to court-martial him, but then they perceived that he was mad.”

“So ... a schoolboy. A schoolboy’s prank need not be taken seriously. For my part I am ready to overlook it....”

“They held a medical inquiry, your Excellency.”

“Upon my word, but he was alive, wasn’t he?”

“What! Did they dissect him?”

A loud and almost universal roar of laughter resounded among the guests, who had till then behaved with decorum. Ivan Ilyitch was furious.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted, at first scarcely stammering, “I am fully capable of apprehending that a man is not dissected alive.

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