The Insulted and Humiliated by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The story is narrated by a young author, Vanya, who has just released his first novel. It bears an obvious resemblance to Dostoyevsky's own first novel, Poor Folk. Vanya's close friend and former love object, Natasha runs away with prince Alexey, son of Prince Valkovsky, who hopes to gain financially by marrying Alexey off to an heiress, Katya. Meantime we meet another young girl Nellie, whom Vanya saves from an abusive household by taking her into his apartment. Nellie's story is one of Dostoyevsky's most moving creations which inspired Japanese director Akira Kurosawa to produce an adaptation film, Red Beard.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, suffering, provocative, psychological, self, philosophical, psychic, human nature, classic
Publisher: Sovereign Classic
Published: 2014-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter III

SHE got up and began to speak standing, unconscious of doing so in her excitement. After listening for a time, Prince Valkovsky too, stood up. The whole scene became quite solemn.

“Remember your own words on Tuesday.” Natasha began. “You said you wanted money, to follow the beaten track, importance in the world — do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“Well, to gain that money, to win all that success which was slipping out of your hands, you came here on Tuesday and made up this match, calculating that this practical joke would help you to capture what was eluding you.”

“Natasha!” I cried. “Think what you’re saying!”

“Joke! Calculating!” repeated the prince with an air of insulted dignity.

Alyosha sat crushed with grief and gazed scarcely comprehending.

“Yes, yes, don’t stop me. I have sworn to speak out,” Natasha went on, irritated. “Remember, Alyosha was not obeying you. For six whole months you had been doing your utmost to draw him away from me. He held out against you. And at last the time came when you could not afford to lose a moment. If you let it pass, the heiress, the money — above all the money, the three millions of dowry — would slip through your fingers. Only one course was left you, to make Alyosha love the girl you destined for him; you thought that if he fell in love with her he would abandon me.”

“Natasha! Natasha!” Alyosha cried in distress, “what are you saying?”

“And you have acted accordingly,” she went on, not heeding Alyosha’s exclamation, “but — it was the same old story again! Everything might have gone well, but I was in the way again. There was only one thing to give you hope. A man of your cunning and experience could not help seeing even then that Alyosha seemed at times weary of his old attachment. You could not fail to notice that he was beginning to neglect me, to be bored, to stay away for five days at a time. You thought he might get tired of it altogether and give me up, when suddenly on Tuesday Alyosha’s decided action came as a shock to you. What were you to do!”

“Excuse me,” cried Prince Valkovsky, “on the contrary, that fact . ”

“I say,” Natasha went on emphatically, “you asked yourself that evening what you were to do, and resolved to sanction his marrying me not in reality but only in words, simply to soothe him. The date of the wedding could be deferred, you thought, indefinitely, and meanwhile the new feeling was growing; you saw that. And on the growth of this new love you rested all your hopes.”

“Novels, novels,” the prince pronounced, in an undertone, as though speaking to himself, “solitude, brooding, and novel-reading.”

“Yes, on this new love you rested everything,” Natasha repeated, without listening or attending to his words, more and more carried away in a feverof excitement. “And the chances in favour of this new love! It had begun before he knew all the girl’s perfections.

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