3. Beauty will save the world
Life became unbearable, but it was necessary to live, and not only to live, but also to finish the novel he had begun, although the very thought of this now seemed blasphemous to him: what do all his words mean in the face of the death of only a small creature infinitely dear to him?
It is said: "God hid from the wise and prudent that which He revealed to infants." His prince Myshkin, the earthly "Christ" will also think about this ("prince" - "Christ" - Dostoevsky reminds himself again and again in his notes to the novel). No, in the novel itself he will not call him that anywhere, but he will let his hero let it slip more than once about his awareness of his mission. “Now I am going to people,” the prince will think, almost literally repeating many of the sayings of the religious teacher. But to an even greater extent Dostoevsky will give him his own cherished convictions and, of course, about children in the first place: now he constantly thought about them and was convinced that the soul is healed through children - after all, children (Raskolnikov already knew about this) - image of Christ: “These is the kingdom of God. He ordered them to be honored and loved, they are the future of mankind...” But can children remain children in a world of evil, despair, injustice? Perhaps he will make his Myshkin an adult child, preserving the childish innocence of perceiving the world.
But the novel demanded not only general, albeit passionately experienced ideas - living facts of reality, everyday life were needed, and he felt himself cut off from his native soil. “It’s like a fish without water,” he wrote to Maikov. One support is the newspapers and even the life of Russia and his own life, of course, kept in the memory. No, as always, he remained aloof from the idea of writing a hero from himself, but Myshkin, as he foresaw him, is still very close to him in spirit, and therefore much of his own experience, re-feeling, re-seeing, it seemed to him, would not turn out to be alien to Prince Myshkin.
Arriving in Russia, the hero ends up in the house of General Epanchin, mentally approaches his wife Elizaveta Prokofievna and their three daughters, especially Aglaya, who, in the course of working on the novel, more and more absorbed the features of Anyuta, Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya, as well as Elizaveta Prokofievna - features of Anyuta's mother - the general's wife Elizaveta Feodorovna. Gradually, in Myshkin's stories, in his gestures, in his manner of speaking, holding on, and finally, in the very content of his conversations with the wife and daughters of General Yepanchin, Dostoevsky's own impressions of being in the Korvin-Krukovsky family definitely sounded. True, Prince Myshkin himself cannot tell, as Dostoevsky once did, about the experience of a death sentence, but Lev Nikolayevich is familiar with “one person” who stood on the scaffold and therefore can survive the same state according to the law of compassion. Even with his illness, epilepsy, he decided to endow the hero - and not at all for the sake of external resemblance to himself and not in order to set off the prince's painful peculiarity, which distinguishes him from the environment of the “normal” people around him. No, in his very illness, Dostoevsky saw not pathology, but something even symbolic: the state of his personality seemed to concentrate in itself, as in a nerve knot, the state of the whole world.
Yes, the whole world is now in a fit, in convulsions terrible disease, but this disease itself sharpens the consciousness, focuses it on resistance to the state of decline, the absence of beauty multiplies the need for it of mankind, the dominance of ugliness in the end gives rise to a thirst for the reorganization of the world on new principles, giving it a new, more worthy of a man image.
So it is in his personal illness: “... amid sadness, spiritual darkness, pressure, for moments, his brain seemed to ignite, and with an unusual impulse all his vital forces were strained at once. The feeling of life, of self-consciousness almost multiplied tenfold in those moments... The mind and heart were illumined with an extraordinary light; all his worries, all his doubts, worries seemed to be appeased at once, resolved into some kind of higher calm, full of clear, harmonious joy and hope, full of reason and final reason ... "
“Yes, one can give one’s whole life for this moment,” Prince Myshkin also thinks, because he knows from experience that such moments, at the cost of subsequent torment, still at the same time give “an unheard-of and hitherto unforeseeable feeling of fullness, proportion, reconciliation and enthusiastic prayerfulness.” merging with the highest synthesis of life.
Catastrophic eras - Dostoevsky constantly carried this feeling in himself - the eras of Cleopatra and Nero, the times of permissiveness and the collapse of the moral foundations of society, these same eras became the times of prophets and ascetics, martyrs of a new enlightening idea - these are the ideologists of the apocalyptic XIX century and his hero of the spirit, Prince Myshkin, who appeared at the very fantastic city, Petersburg, to announce to people the truth revealed to him: "By beauty the world will be saved."
And the rumors about him began to circulate - did not Dostoevsky himself happen to hear the same kind of opinions about himself - an eccentric, holy fool, a fool, a penny, an idiot ... Well, why not an idiot? "Beauty will save the world!"
And now the prince sees Nastasya Filippovna for the first time.
“Nastasya Filippovna,” Dostoevsky brings into notebook the idea of the image that is to unfold in the novel - beauty and disorder ... ”This is also beauty that has suffered in a loveless and sympathetic world, touched by corruption, ready to“ lick the blood.
Having finished dictating the next chapter, Fyodor Mikhailovich immediately sat down to develop plans for the next parts. Anna Grigorievna rewrote the completed ones. and they hurried to the post office - they sent the novel to the Russky Vestnik, where it had already begun to be published. Dostoevsky looked forward to the first responses. In the evenings they walked by Lake Geneva, Fyodor Mikhailovich, as never before, had teeth that were getting sick, and he seriously convinced his wife: why are you laughing, I myself read about this in a very learned book - Lake Geneva has the property of causing toothache. Anna Grigorievna guessed: her husband was tired of Switzerland, he needed a change of scenery.
In September they moved to Milan and in November to Florence.
They worked without rest: according to the conditions of the magazine, the novel had to be completed by the end of 1968.
And how can beauty not rush about if the spirit and the flesh are torn apart as if for some terrible universal ritual, unprecedented in scope?
He already clearly saw the outcome: not to save Myshkin, the poor knight, Don Quixote of the XIX century, Nastasya Filippovna, and he, like the dreamer from the old, almost youthful "Mistress", will not be given this. Neither the spirit of the almost incorporeal Myshkin, nor the dark Rogozhin passion can give itself all, without splitting in two, without perishing, the beauty of this world, embodied for both in such a fatal opposite way in this woman. And another decomposing corpse will look at them with its indifferent glassy eye - from a copy of Hans Holbein Jr. ... But it will not be soon, and yet it will, it will be, - he dreamed, with this passionate dream, and completed the novel, - although man still has many temptations and sufferings to endure, his eyelids will be opened, and he will finally see the true face of this world, for a person turns glass under the glassy gaze of a dead man, a false ideal.
But how else will they meet the novel? Will they understand the idea, will they accept it? Wouldn’t the novel be considered too fantastic - Apollon Nikolayevich wrote back in March: “There is an awful lot of power, brilliant lightning, but in all the action there is more possibility and plausibility than truth. Everyone seems to be living in a fantasy world. It is read voraciously, and at the same time - it is not believed. But what strength! .. ”Strakhov also responded, enthusiastically even writing about the wonderful idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel - wisdom, the open infantile soul of Prince Myshkin, inaccessible to the“ wise and reasonable ”, threatened to write an article about“ Idiot ”, but, it seems, with he was in no hurry to fulfill his promise, and then he seemed to have completely forgotten about him. Although not directly, roundly - as he knew how to do - he nevertheless spoke about the novel publicly, in an article about "War and Peace": Tolstoy's epic was contrasted here with works with intricate plots, with descriptions of dirty and terrible scenes, terrible mental anguish.
Burenin in the "Saint Petersburg Vedomosti" reduced all criticism to a feuilleton. Calling the novel "the most unfortunate" of all Dostoevsky's writings, he concluded that the characters in The Idiot "are the purest fruits of the novelist's subjective fantasy... of course, one has only to regret the unhappy mood of this fantasy."
However, most newspapers testified to the huge success of the new novel with readers, and this is the main thing that really pleased Dostoevsky. Absolutely not inclined to exaggerate what was done, he himself was deeply worried that "he did not express even a 10th share of what ... he wanted to express," as he wrote to Sofya Ivanova. But he resolutely rebelled against attempts, even if they were quite friendly, to divert him from the path along which - he was convinced of this - he was destined to go from above by his very fate:
“Ah, my friend! - he responds to Maykov's reproaches. - I have completely different ideas about reality and realism than our realists and critics. My idealism is more real than theirs. God! To tell sensibly what all of us, Russians, have experienced in the last 10 years in our spiritual development- won't the realists scream that this is a fantasy! Meanwhile, this is primordial, real realism! This is what realism is, only deeper, and they swim shallowly ... Their realism cannot explain a hundredth of the real, really happened facts. And we even prophesied the facts with our idealism. It happened ... "
And Strakhov: “I have my own special view of reality (in art), and what most people call almost fantastic ... sometimes for me is the very essence of reality. The commonness of phenomena and the bureaucratic view of them, in my opinion, is not yet realism, but even the opposite. In every issue of the newspapers you come across an account of the most real facts and the most intricate ones. For our writers they are fantastic; Yes, they do not deal with them; meanwhile they are reality, because they are data. Who will notice them, explain them?.. Isn't my fantastic Idiot real, and even the most ordinary! Yes, it is precisely now that such characters should exist ... I am not for the novel, but I stand for my idea. Write, write me your opinion, and as candidly as possible. The more you scold, the more I appreciate your sincerity…”
“I stand for my idea ...” But is it really possible to express it all in one novel, - while writing The Idiot, a new idea formed in my head: the poem-parable "Atheism" in the form of a novel - maybe it will be possible to express it here the idea is complete, but for this you need to be in Russia, by all means to see and hear Russian life; participate more directly. No, this will not be a denunciation of morals. Here the whole spiritual history of mankind should fit into a poem, the whole essence of medieval civilization in its main key moments, and Russia as an outcome: to reveal a new, still unknown to the world, Russian Christ - this is the vocation, this is the purpose of the poem. Oh, how great are needed now national books that can serve to the revival of the Russian people! “In my literary work,” he admitted in a letter to his niece Sonechka, “there is one solemn side for me, my goal and hope - and not in achieving fame and money, but in achieving a synthesis of my artistic and poetic ideas, that is, in wanting to say something completely before I die. Here I cannot do this, and therefore I must write something else. All this makes my life abroad more and more restless... I need Russia; without Russia, I will lose my last strengths and talents. I can feel it". Now, if the "Idiot" dispersed in order to pay off the most enslaving debts, he would not have stayed here for a day or an hour. Although he lived in Florence and not bad. amazing city- it seems that he never sleeps: until four in the morning, he sings and dances all night, and by five his market hubbub begins. The morbidly nervous Fyodor Mikhailovich was now concerned, however, not with his own peace, and not even with the almost complete unsuitability of such conditions for work - Anna Grigorievna did not sleep well under the screams, and she was again pregnant, now for the eighth month she had suffered. Somehow it will all work out this time...
They lived quietly, the owners almost did not disturb them, but one day - what a commotion suddenly arose! Both maids, led by the hostess herself, suddenly burst into their bedroom with screams and began to push back chairs, look under the table, under the bed - it turned out that Piccola bestia ran into the room (they just saw it with their own eyes) - a poisonous spider, tarantula. Searched in bed, in the linen closet - to no avail.
Just the thought that somewhere here, next to you, maybe very close, invisible to you, but seeing you, this little disgusting creature spends the night, evoked a feeling of disgust, and in fact - your life, the life of a loved one. of a person, the fate of a creature not yet born, only preparing for life, now depends on instincts or even the whims of a petty but poisonous reptile that are not even amenable to the logic of human consciousness.
Meanwhile, the term of Anna Grigorievna's homeland was approaching, and it was necessary to think about moving to a new place where one could freely explain herself in German or French, since neither Fyodor Mikhailovich nor Anna Grigoryevna spoke Italian. Dostoevsky liked the idea of Prague.
After a ten-day journey, we finally reached the city, as if emerging from a children's fairy tale about princesses and wonderful castles - Prague. Alas, furnished rooms were rented here only to single people, while family people had to rent apartments, which still needed to be furnished, they would have to acquire a whole household, linen, utensils - you never know what is needed, especially bearing in mind the imminent appearance of the baby, and where take the money for all this? So, sadly, but I had to leave the dream of Prague, the possibility of rapprochement with the leaders of the Slavic revival movement and go to the places they had already lived in - to Dresden.
Here, on September 14, 1869, their second daughter was born - they named her Love. "... Everything went well," Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote to Maikov, "and the child is big, healthy and beautiful." The beauty, however, was only three days old, but her father is experiencing the event enthusiastically, even the convinced bachelor Strakhov reproaches: “Ah, why are you not married, and why do you not have a child, dear Nikolai Nikolayevich? I swear to you that this is three-fourths of the happiness of life, and the rest is only one quarter. Troubles, of course, have increased, but many of them just brought the main joy: to redeem, to lull their little creature, their own child, in their arms; Anna Grigoryevna saw that she had finally given her husband real happiness again.
Disturbing news was carried from Russia by Russian and especially German newspapers: rumors were vaguely transmitted about a revolution allegedly ripening in the depths of society, about a country covered with a network of secret societies, preparing for an explosion, about a ferment of minds, a shaking moral foundations. In mid-October, Anna Grigorievna's brother, a student at the Moscow Agricultural Academy, who came to Dresden for a vacation, confirmed many of the rumors, at least those relating to the student environment. All the more decisive was the need to return to Russia - to see everything with your own eyes, you won’t go far on rumors. And then I finally finished reading "War and Peace" - I was excited to the extreme: after all, I myself was thinking about a poem in the form of a novel, and here it is, already created, and brilliantly. I felt in Tolstoy the only, perhaps, in modern literature, a worthy rival-competitor. And yet, Tolstoy's epic recreates a life that has departed - now a completely different life, who dares to write a poem about the present and in forms that correspond to laws and spirit new reality? No, this is not a heroic past, this is modern chaos; not stale, harmonized forms of the past need to be recreated and contrasted with the chaos of the present, but in this chaos and decay itself, seeing the germs of a new creation is what is now the main thing for the artist. Will only strength and talent be enough for that?.. Maybe "Atheism" will solve such a problem? The more he thought about a new, haunting idea, the more he became convinced that it was unrealistic, and not quite his: the idea of "Atheism", as he thought, required rather a historical epic, and he always felt history not so much lasting as gathered in a tight the knot of modernity: here is all the past, here is the future, like bread in a grain, like an oak in a stomach - eternity is concentrated in every moment, you just need to guess, see it. Now he saw the idea of "Atheism" somewhat differently: to present the entire history of mankind as the history of man, the history of his spiritual struggles, searches, falls, abysses, unbelief, denials and the rebirth of the human soul. All his life he will be tormented by the main question, the main secret of being - the question that tormented Dostoevsky himself: is there a God or not? Hence the answers to all other questions - both about the meaning of life, and about the purpose of a person on earth, and about all values, and about the nature of conscience ... He will guide the hero from birth, from angelic innocence, the primordial infantile harmony of the inner world to the first temptations hearts, minds and bodies, through passions, all forms of the temptations of life, through debauchery, finally, through monstrous deviations of consciousness, bookish dreams and arrogance, reaching contempt and disgust for other people, through the idea - the passion of dominion, immeasurable and unquestioning over people, over all mankind and the world. His hero will be possessed by a demonic passion - to become the greatest and foremost of all people, by any means - exorbitant pride, the accumulation of wealth: he will meet the Usurer, the Eternal Usurer, who will become his ideal, his god.
Yes, a lot can be achieved with the power of money, but he will go further, by inquisitorial self-affirmation - he will want to replace God himself, he will become an atheist fanatic in the name of affirmation new religion self-deification. Oh, it will be a great sinner...
The poem was now conceived in the form of "Life", the most appropriate to the new idea. But life is eternal life, great life, righteous life, which has become an ideal, sanctified by the recognition of contemporaries and descendants - a holy life. "The Life of a Great Sinner"37 - this is how the inner idea of the plan has now been determined, and this is how I decided to call the future epic. Life required the transfiguration of the sinner, his spiritual victory over sin, over himself, as it were, a second birth.
He will be a passionate person, which is why he is restless, without a firm spiritual support: without faith, a person cannot, what should he believe in? In money? He needs a moral, firm foothold, and if there is no "God", then he needs to be invented - from here, perhaps, he will go into Khlystism - also, after all, a form of nihilism, Jesuitism, even worse: everyone has the right to declare himself Christ or Sabaoth, and one of their guardians - the Khlystov Mother of God - here you have “I myself am a god”, and not only for myself, but everyone is obliged to honor you as a god. This is where the philosophy of modern positivism of Herr Comte, this peculiar atheistic religion for the masses, will come in handy for him; for themselves - the religion of self-deification, for mankind - positivism: the masses are obliged to live according to this philosophical program, the main thing is that they should not have more knowledge than they need for their own good, so that they do not reason too much. A person from the very cradle must systematically turn into an automaton who will not only act, but even feel and think exclusively as the new gods of society organized according to Comte's system require - then humanity will finally become happy and forever ... It seems that this is how Pisarev characterized this latest idea social reorganization, while noting that not a single theoretician of despotism in the whole world has ever risen to such a level ... Dostoevsky remembered the articles of a young critic who argued with the author of a new project to make mankind happy.
Yes, it will not be easy for the hero to overcome all these temptations in himself. Here a meeting is needed, a meeting with true holiness, or rather, with a holy man, well, at least with the same Tikhon Zadonsky, who from the fact that he lived in the last century, it will even be possible to collect Chaadaev and Belinsky, Granovsky, Pushkin to him - let they will talk among themselves, argue - there will be something ... The main thing is that it is necessary to be majestic, positive a figure - the antithesis of the Usurer, the Khlyst Sabaoth, such that he has the right and power to say: "Conquer yourself and then conquer the world." It is difficult, because the temptations of a lost soul that has lost its foothold in the world are great, but win and you will feel the universal joy of life in yourself ...
Yes, here, perhaps, one novel is not enough, here is a plan for a lifetime. If there is still enough life...
Breaking away from the records and coping - how is Lyubochka? - Fyodor Mikhailovich, out of habit, ran to a cafe to read newspapers. One of the Moscow correspondence particularly interested him:
“In Razumovsky, in the Peter and Paul Academy, a student Ivanov was found murdered. The details of the villainy are terrible. His legs are entangled in a hood, in which bricks are laid ... He was a scholar of the Academy; he gave most of his money to his mother and sister.” Gradually, more ominous details of the mysterious murder began to arrive: student Sergei Nechaev, according to Bakunin’s plan, whom he met in Geneva, organized a terrorist group in Moscow - the “Committee of People’s Reprisal” (an ax was chosen as the emblem). The purpose of the committee is to prepare a nationwide indignation, a political coup, the transformation of the Russian Empire into a union of small free communities. Dostoevsky remembered Bakunin's speech with this program at a meeting of the Peace League in 1968. One of the members of the committee, student Ivanov, who did not fully accept the Bakunin-Nechaev program, decided to openly argue with Nechaev, for which he was secretly sentenced "to be eliminated": he was lured into the park, brutally killed, and his body was thrown into the hole of a frozen pond.
German newspapers these days also wrote a lot about the "nihilistic revolution" in Russia and its Genevan leader, Mikhail Bakunin.
And these are socialists? revolutionaries?38 - an ax, blood, confusion... Renew the world with an ax? It’s a good idea: they are counting on raising the masses, but the people, precisely the people, their needs and hopes, they don’t care at all. These gentlemen will stop at nothing: here is nihilism, the fantastic idea of universal denial, all-destruction, and the revolution is not confusion, not denial, but renewal, rebirth, here is not an ax, but an idea resurrecting the world is needed, so that for it - not under fear of reprisal , and humanity went with a free heart. No, nihilism does not bring renewal to humanity, but even greater stupefaction - this is demonism, not socialism.
Dostoevsky was aware that the non-Chaev case gives him a living, born of reality itself, a concrete plot in which they can transform general ideas his "Life". Enters in a notebook the first sketches of the future novel, the character traits of the main characters, the general outline of their ideas:
“... We looked over Russia. We cannot recognize our peculiarity, and we cannot relate to the West on our own. It's all about the final results of the Petrine reform... The Student appears (as he calls Nechaev for the time being, then he will find a name for him: Pyotr Verkhovensky) - for proclamations and triples. Rebuild the world... Shaposhnikov (that's how Ivanov was called) ardently replies that he considers himself unbound by anything. The student persuades the troika to kill Shaposhnikov. They kill ... " Soon Ivanov-Shaposhnikov acquires a more accurate name - Shatov, Ivan ... No, he is not one of the nihilists - he already new person, who feels his connection with the people's Russia, but he is still shaky in his convictions. Dostoevsky decided to make him come from serfs. The figure of the “father” of the young nihilist Pyotr Verkhovensky is also outlined: the modern nihilism of the “children” grew out of a misunderstanding and denial of anything positive in Russia, and most importantly, from the disbelief of the “fathers” and its people’s forces, Dostoevsky believed, and therefore the figure was required the elder Verkhovensky - "to meet two generations of all the same nihilists," he writes. Gradually emerges and common task novel: reveal key aspects modern nihilism, alien and hostile to a truly social and socialist reorganization of the world, as Dostoevsky himself understood it. Yes, and he is not alone: even the socialist Herzen did not accidentally define such figures of the Genevan emigration as “Sobakeviches and Nozdrevs of nihilism” - Dostoevsky remembered this place from “The Past and Thoughts”. And in a recent article, Herzen, as it were, even pushed Dostoevsky, without, of course, having him in mind, but still: “Our Sobakevichi of nihilism do not constitute the strongest expression of the aspirations younger generation, but they are too extreme ... The arrogant youths in question deserve study, because they also express a temporary type, a transitional form of the disease of our development from the previous stagnation. To reveal, to show the very root of all forms, all manifestations of this disease - demonism, as Dostoevsky dubbed it, - a fanatical all-destructive idea, hiding behind the masks of revolutionism, socialism, and the universal good - this task is worth a novel. There is no willingness to sacrifice in the name of improving society, on the contrary: the ability and willingness to sacrifice at least the whole world for the sake of implementing their theories. Here, as if demons entered a herd of pigs, as in one of the parables of the Evangelist Luke. So I finally decided to name the future novel - "Demons".
However, for some reason, the work did not go well, although, it would seem, there was enough material, and the creative impulse did not fade away - something went wrong: Pyotr Verkhovensky, the Nechaev type, nevertheless came out as a figure rather comic, pamphlet, petty demon; and the whole novel, it seemed to him, was turning too much into a direct, almost feuilleton response to the topic of the day. He also dreamed of a tragedy, a worldwide action, a mystery played out in Russia. Really lacked central hero. Obviously, there was not enough - the main demon, a deeply tragic figure, a kind of demon - not romantic, but a living contemporary. And little by little such a hero began to emerge for him - the type of a truly “great sinner” with a great mind, a thirst for achievement, but who had lost the point of reference for good and evil, and therefore ready for anything: for any, even the most monstrous extreme.
“So, the whole pathos of the novel is in the prince,” Dostoevsky decided to call him Stavrogin, “he is a hero. Everything else moves around him like a kaleidoscope…”
Now the novel has already taken on a more real shape, so it was quite possible to think about submitting it to a magazine. In which? There was no problem of choice: even after The Idiot, Dostoevsky still remained in monetary dependence from Katkov. He wrote to him:
“If you decide to publish my essay, then it seems to me necessary that I inform you in advance, at least in a nutshell, about what, in fact, the matter will be.
One of the biggest incidents will be the well-known in Moscow murder of Ivanov by Nechaev. I hasten to make a reservation: I did not know either Nechaev, or Ivanov, or the circumstances of that murder, and I do not know at all, except from the newspapers. Yes, if I knew, I would not copy. I'm just taking a fait accompli. My fantasy may differ in the highest degree from the former reality, and my Pyotr Verkhovensky may not at all resemble Nechaev; but it seems to me that in my astonished mind there has been created that face, that type, which corresponds to this villainy. No doubt it is not useless to expose such a person, but he alone would not seduce me. In my opinion, these pathetic deformities are not worth literature. To my own surprise, this face comes out half comic in me. And therefore, the incident is only the setting for the actions of another person who could really be called the main person of the novel.
This other face (Nikolai Stavrogin) is also a gloomy face, also a villain. But it seems to me that this face is tragic. I took it from my heart. Of course, this is a character that rarely appears in all its typicalness, but it is a Russian character ...
It took me a very long time to start a novel. I redid it several times, stopped work for weeks. I've barely started the intrigue yet. In general, I am afraid that a lot of things are beyond my power. For the first time, for example, I want to touch upon one category of persons who have not yet been touched by literature. I take Tikhon Zadonsky as the ideologist of such a person. With him I compare and reduce for a while the hero of the novel. Now about another subject. I have absolutely nothing to exist, and I have a wife and a child ... I know that I owe you a lot. But on this novel, I get even with the editors. Now I ask you for 500 rubles ... "
New, 1871 met with Anna Grigorievna at the Russian consul in Dresden. We also talked about European events, alarming, no one knows what else threatening the future: since the summer of last year, Europe has been engulfed in the Franco-Prussian war. The capital of France is besieged by Bismarck's troops. There is an uprising in Paris. The monarchy has been overthrown. Power is in the hands of the Republicans. Over Paris - a red flag ... Elections to the Council of the Commune. Paris on fire...
Newspapers accuse the Communards of terrible vandalism, cruelty, unleashing civil war in the face of a common national enemy, with cold curiosity watching the split in the camp of the enemy. Government troops storm the stronghold of the revolutionary Commune. Parisian streets are littered with the corpses of Parisians, although the Prussian troops do not waste even shells for nothing - they wait. After weeks of fighting, the heroic Commune fell. Paris is in the blood. Prussian newspapers demand the destruction of the capital of France, the rejection of Alsace and Lorraine. France is crushed. Dostoevsky saw the solemn return of the winners - the executors of the will of the iron Bismarck ...
Of course, he could only know about the Commune from the newspapers, which for the most part describe events incorrectly, deliberately distorting the facts. But he followed these events with bated breath: what if, suddenly, the people win? Yes, even now he was an enemy of revolutions through blood and violence, but who knows, maybe all this horror of the bloody conflagration of Paris will eventually be redeemed by the triumph of Victory? No, the shame and humiliation of France - this is the result: the people are drained of blood, and all the burdens are again thrown on them, and the power is still with the bankers, with the bourgeois ...
And then Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov added fuel to the fire: “What can you say about the French events? - asks. - Here's a "guardian" for you - too, after all, go, my heart sank: what if ?! “According to custom, many ardent adherents of the Commune have appeared among us. What do you think? Doesn't it start new era? Is it not the dawn of the next day? .. "
No, answers Dostoevsky: the idea of the Parisian uprising is based on the same old fantasy about a phalanstere, with which one can supposedly regenerate the world, and no truly new positive word was said here. And therefore, "The fire of Paris is a monstrosity," although it seems to many to be "beauty."
No, not by the sword, but by the spirit, the world will be reborn, and Russia will find the strength to say to the world this great word - Revival.
On July 5, in the evening, they finally boarded the Dresden-Berlin train. From Berlin there was already a direct route to Russia. When they crossed the border, only the consciousness that they were already traveling along native land that there, outside the window, at the stations - Russian people, this alone made them happy, and they joked, laughed, as if in a hurry to a dinner party, and everyone asked each other: is it really true, are we really finally home? author Sadovskoy Boris Alexandrovich
BEAUTY You, broad eagles, call me from the mountain with a scream, And from below the steep cliffs threaten me. I look: a sky-high pile is rising, - Ledges of snowy rocks. - I'm not looking for a miracle in salvation And I didn't look for it. You ascended to the pink rocks Under the call of the eagles of the saints, And you draw me into
From the book by A. S. Ter-Oganyan: Life, Fate and Contemporary Art author Nemirov Miroslav Maratovich"Beauty" A concept that does not appear in any way in contemporary art- completely at the mercy of mass culture. Well, except that Koshlyakov, ashamed and not uttering this word, God forbid, out loud, he actually achieves in his works - Well, maybe - barbaric and
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Will beauty save the world?
1. "Beauty will save the world"
This is a quote from The Idiot. In the context of the novel we are talking it's about strength inner beauty. In the drafts of the novel there is an entry: “The world will be saved by beauty. Two examples of beauty. Nastasya Fillipovna, as a model of the external, and Myshkin - of the internal.
In the plot of The Idiot, however, we find a refutation of this quote: the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna, like the purity of Prince Myshkin, does not make the life of other characters better and does not prevent tragedy.
2. "Am I a trembling creature or have the right"
This is Raskolnikov's phrase. She is the key to understanding why he still failed the old pawnbroker. No matter how he justifies himself with noble impulses and difficult circumstances, he confesses to Sonechka Marmeladova that he killed for himself. Check whether he belongs to the category of "Napoleons" and "Mohammedans" or to the category of the lowest.
3. "Will the light fail, or should I not drink tea"
This is part of the monologue of the nameless hero of Notes from the Underground, which he utters in front of a prostitute who unexpectedly came to his house. The phrase about tea sounds like proof of the insignificance and selfishness of the underground man.
tea in tsarist Russia was a really expensive product. In 1845, in the Chinese tea shop of the merchant Piskarev, prices per pound (0.45 kg) ranged from 5 to 6.5 rubles. A pound of first-class beef at the same time cost 6-7 rubles.
4. "If there is no God, then everything is allowed"
Dostoevsky's fantasy on the topic of what humanity will do without God shows that there is nothing good. Ivan Karamazov waives moral laws and allows the murder of his father. Unable to bear the consequences, he goes mad. Having allowed himself everything, Ivan does not stop believing in God - his theory does not work, even he could not prove it to himself.
By the way, no one pronounces this phrase in The Brothers Karamazov. It will later be constructed from different replicas literary critics and readers.
5. “Masha lies on the table. Will I see Masha?
This is a quote from diary entry writer, made after the news of the death of his first wife Maria. They lived at that time in different cities and communicated little. The death of Maria Dmitrievna struck him. He immediately wrote down his thoughts about love and marriage in his diary.
Their essence boiled down to the fact that a person is too selfish and is not able to love his neighbor as himself. Therefore, all marriages are doomed to failure. Only Christ was the ideal (he was portrayed by Dostoevsky in the hero of Myshkin), and an ordinary person is rather an individualist and egoist Raskolnikov.
Idiot (film, 1958).
The pseudo-Christianity of this statement lies on the surface: this world, together with the spirits of the "world-rulers" and the "prince of this world," will not be saved, but condemned, and only the Church, the new creation in Christ, will be saved. The whole New Testament, the whole Holy Tradition is about this.
“Renunciation of the world precedes the following of Christ. The second has no place in the soul, if the first is not accomplished in it first ... Many read the Gospel, enjoy, admire the loftiness and holiness of his teaching, few dare to direct their behavior according to the rules that legislate the Gospel. The Lord declares to all who approach Him and wish to assimilate Him: If anyone comes to Me and does not renounce the world and himself, My disciple cannot be. This word is cruel, even such people spoke about the teachings of the Savior, who outwardly were His followers and were considered His disciples: who can listen to Him? This is how carnal wisdom judges the word of God from its distressful mood ”(St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov). Ascetic experiences. On following our Lord Jesus Christ / Full collection of creations. M .: Palomnik, 2006. T. 1. S. 78 -79).
We observe an example of such “carnal wisdom” in the philosophy that Dostoevsky put into the mouth of Prince Myshkin as one of his first “Christs”. “Is it true, prince, that you once said that “beauty” would save the world? - Gentlemen ... the prince claims that the world beauty will save! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love ... Do not blush, prince, I will feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world?... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says you call yourself a Christian” (D., VIII.317). So, what kind of beauty will save the world?
At first glance, of course, Christian, "for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). But, as it was said, “come to save the world” and “the world will be saved” are completely different positions, for “he who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge for himself: the word that I spoke, it will judge him on the last day” (John 12:48). Then the question is whether the hero of Dostoevsky, who considers himself a Christian, rejects or accepts the Savior? What is Myshkin in general (as Dostoevsky's concept, because Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin is not a person, but an artistic mythologeme, an ideological construction) in the context of Christianity and the Gospel? - This is a Pharisee, an unrepentant sinner, namely, a fornicator, cohabiting with another unrepentant harlot Nastasya Filippovna (prototype - Apollinaria Suslova) out of lust, but assuring everyone and himself that for missionary purposes (“I love her not with love, but with pity” (D., VIII, 173)). In this sense, Myshkin is almost no different from Totsky, who also at one time “felt sorry” for Nastasya and even did good deeds (he sheltered an orphan). But at the same time, Totsky in Dostoevsky is the embodiment of debauchery and hypocrisy, and Myshkin is at first directly referred to in handwritten materials novel "PRINCE CHRIST" (D., IX, 246; 249; 253). In the context of this sublimation (romanticization) of sinful passion (lust) and mortal sin (fornication) into “virtue” (“pity”, “compassion”), it is necessary to consider famous aphorism Myshkin “beauty will save the world”, the essence of which lies in a similar romanticization (idealization) of sin in general, sin as such, or the sin of the world. That is, the formula “beauty will save the world” is an expression of the attachment to sin of a carnal (worldly) person who wants to live forever and, loving sin, sin forever. Therefore, the “world” (sin) for its “beauty” (and “beauty” is a value judgment, meaning the sympathy and passion of the person making this judgment for this object) will be “saved” as it is, for it is good (otherwise such an All-Man , like Prince Myshkin, he would not love him).
“So you appreciate such and such beauty? - Yes ... such ... In this face ... there is a lot of suffering ... ”(D., VIII, 69). Yes, Nastasya suffered. But is suffering in itself (without repentance, without changing one's life according to God's commandments) a Christian category? Another change of concept. “Beauty is difficult to judge ... Beauty is a mystery” (D., VIII, 66). Just as Adam who sinned hid from God behind a bush, so romantic thought, loving sin, hastens to hide in the fog of irrationalism and agnosticism, wrapping its ontological shame and decay with veils of inexpressibility and mystery (or, as the soil-dwellers and Slavophiles used to say, “living life”). , naively believing that then no one would solve her riddles.
“He would like to unravel something hidden in this face [Nastasya Filippovna] and struck him just now. The previous impression had hardly left him, and now he was in a hurry, as it were, to check something again. This face, unusual in its beauty and for something else, struck him even more strongly now. As if immense pride and contempt, almost hatred, were in this face, and at the same time something trusting, something surprisingly simple-hearted; these two contrasts even aroused, as it were, some kind of compassion when looking at these features. This dazzling beauty was even unbearable, the beauty of the pale face, almost sunken cheeks and burning eyes; strange beauty! The prince looked for a minute, then suddenly caught himself, looked around, hastily brought the portrait to his lips and kissed it ”(D., VIII, 68).
Everyone sinning with sin unto death is convinced that his case is special, that he is “not like other people” (Luke 18:11), that the strength of his feelings (passion for sin) is an irrefutable proof of their ontological truth (according to the principle "what is natural is not ugly"). So it is here: “I already explained to you before that I “love her not with love, but with pity.” I think that I define it precisely” (D., VIII, 173). That is, I love, like Christ, the gospel harlot. And this gives Myshkin a spiritual privilege, a legal right to fornicate with her. “His heart is pure; is he a rival to Rogozhin? (D., VIII, 191). great person has the right to small weaknesses, it is “difficult to judge” him, because he himself is an even greater “mystery”, that is, the highest (moral) “beauty” that will “save the world”. “Such beauty is power, with such beauty you can turn the world upside down!” (D., VIII, 69). This is exactly what Dostoevsky does, turning the opposition of Christianity and the world upside down with his “paradoxical” moral aesthetics, so that the sinful becomes holy and the lost of this world - saving it, as always in this humanistic (neognostic) religion, allegedly saving itself, amusing itself such illusion. Therefore, if “beauty saves”, then “ugliness will kill” (D, XI, 27), because “the measure of all things” is man himself. “If you believe that you can forgive yourself and achieve this forgiveness for yourself in this world, then you believe in everything! Tikhon exclaimed enthusiastically. - How did you say that you do not believe in God? ... Honor the Holy Spirit, without knowing it yourself ”(D, XI, 27-28). Therefore, “it always ended with the most disgraceful cross becoming great glory And great power if the humility of achievement was sincere” (D, XI, 27).
Although formally the relationship between Myshkin and Nastasya Filippovna in the novel is the most platonic, or chivalrous on his part (Don Quixote), they cannot be called chaste (that is, Christian virtue as such). Yes, they simply “live” together for some time before the wedding, which, of course, may exclude carnal relations (as in Dostoevsky’s stormy romance with Suslova, who also offered her to marry him after the death of his first wife). But, as was said, it is not the plot that is being considered, but the ideology of the novel. And here the point is that even marrying a harlot (as well as a divorced woman) is, canonically, adultery. In Dostoevsky, however, Myshkin, by marriage to himself, must “restore” Nastasya, make her “clean” of sin. In Christianity, on the contrary: he himself would become a fornicator. Therefore, this is the hidden goal-setting here, the true intention. “Whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Luke 16:18). “Or do you not know that he who copulates with a harlot becomes one body [with her]? for it is said, The two shall be one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:16). That is, the marriage of a harlot with the Prince-Christ has, according to Dostoevsky's plan (in the Gnostic religion of self-salvation), the "alchemical" power of a kind of church sacrament, being the usual adultery in Christianity. Hence the duality of beauty (“the ideal of Sodom” and “the ideal of the Madonna”), that is, their dialectical unity, when sin itself is internally experienced by the gnostic (“higher man”) as holiness. The concept of Sonya Marmeladova has the same content, where her prostitution itself is presented as the highest Christian virtue (sacrifice).
Since this aestheticization of Christianity, typical of romanticism, is nothing more than solipsism ( extreme form subjective idealism, or "carnal sophistication" - in terms of Christianity), or simply because there is one step from exaltation to depression of a passionate person, the poles in this aesthetics, and in this morality, and in this religion are so widely spaced, and one ( beauty, holiness, deity) turns into the opposite (ugliness, sin, the devil) so rapidly (or "suddenly" - Dostoevsky's favorite words). “Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing! Terrible, because it is indefinable... Here the shores converge, here all the contradictions live together... another person, even higher in heart and with a lofty mind, begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom... It is even more terrible, who already with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not deny and the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart burns from it ... What seems to the mind a shame, then the heart is entirely beauty. Is beauty in sodom? Believe that she sits in Sodom for the vast majority of people ... Here the devil is fighting with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people ”(D, XIV, 100).
In other words, in all this “holy dialectics” of sinful passions, there is also an element of doubt (the voice of conscience), but very weak, at least in comparison with the all-conquering feeling of “hellish beauty”: “He often said to himself: why are all these lightning bolts and glimpses of a higher sense of self and self-consciousness, and therefore of a “higher being”, nothing but a disease, a violation of the normal state, and if so, then this is not a higher being at all, but, on the contrary, should be ranked among the lowest . And yet, nevertheless, he nevertheless finally reached an extremely paradoxical conclusion: “What is it that this is a disease? he finally decided. - What does it matter that this tension is abnormal, if the very result, if a minute of sensation, remembered and considered already in a healthy state, turns out to be in the highest degree harmony, beauty, gives an unheard-of and hitherto unexplained feeling of fullness, proportion, reconciliation and enthusiastic prayerful fusion with the highest synthesis of life?” These vague expressions seemed to him very understandable, though still too weak. In the fact that this is really “beauty and prayer”, that this is really “the highest synthesis of life”, he could no longer doubt this, and he could not allow any doubts ”(D., VIII, 188). That is, with Myshkin's (Dostoevsky's) epilepsy - the same story: that others have a disease (sin, disgrace), he has the seal of being chosen from above (virtue, beauty). Here, of course, a bridge is also thrown over to Christ as the highest ideal of beauty: “He could reasonably judge this after the end of the painful state. These moments were just one extraordinary intensification of self-consciousness - if it were necessary to express this state in one word - self-consciousness and at the same time self-sensation in the highest degree of directness. If at that second, that is, at the very last conscious moment before the seizure, he happened to have time to clearly and consciously say to himself: “Yes, one can give his whole life for this moment!” - then, of course, this moment in itself was worth the whole life "(D., VIII, 188). This “strengthening of self-consciousness” to an ontological maximum, to “enthusiastic prayerful merging with the highest synthesis of life”, according to the type of spiritual practice, is very reminiscent of the “transformation into Christ” by Francis of Assisi, or the same “Christ” by Blavatsky as “The Divine principle in every human chest." “And according to Christ you will receive… something much higher… This is to be the ruler and master even of yourself, your self, to sacrifice this self, to give it away to everyone. There is something irresistibly beautiful, sweet, inevitable and even inexplicable in this idea. It's inexplicable." “HE [Christ] is the ideal of mankind… What is the law of this ideal? A return to immediacy, to a mass, but free, and not even by will, not by reason, not by consciousness, but by a direct, terribly strong, invincible feeling that this is terribly good. And a strange thing. Man returns to the mass, to immediate life,<овательно>, into a natural state, but how? Not authoritatively, but, on the contrary, in the highest degree arbitrarily and consciously. It is clear that this highest self-will is at the same time the highest renunciation of one's own will. This is my will, not to have a will, for the ideal is beautiful. What is the ideal? To achieve the full power of consciousness and development, to fully realize one's self - and to give it all arbitrarily for everyone. Indeed: what would a better person do, who has received everything, is conscious of everything and is omnipotent? (D., XX, 192-193). “What to do” (an age-old Russian question) - of course, to save the world, what else and who else, if not you, who has reached the “ideal of beauty”.
Why, then, did Myshkin end so ingloriously at Dostoevsky's and did not save anyone? – Because so far, in this age, this achievement of the “ideal of beauty” is given only the best representatives humanity and only for a moment or in part, but in the next century this "heavenly brilliance" will become "natural and possible" for everyone. “Man ... goes from diversity to Synthesis ... But the nature of God is different. It is a complete synthesis of all being, self-examining itself in diversity, in Analysis. But if a person [in future life] not a man - what will be his nature? It is impossible to understand on earth, but its law can be foreseen both by all mankind in direct emanations [of the origin of God] and by every individual” (D., XX, 174). This is the “deepest and fatal secret of man and mankind”, that “the greatest beauty of a person, his greatest purity, chastity, innocence, gentleness, courage and, finally, the greatest mind - all this is often (alas, so often even ) turns into nothing, passes without benefit to mankind and even turns into a ridicule by mankind solely because all these noblest and richest gifts, with which even a person is often awarded, lacked only one last gift - namely: a genius to manage all the wealth of these gifts and all their power - to manage and direct all this power to the true, and not the fantastic and crazy path of activity, for the benefit of mankind! (D.,XXVI,25).
Thus, the “ideal beauty” of God and the “greatest beauty” of Man, the “nature” of God and the “nature” of Man are, in Dostoevsky’s world, different modes of the same beauty of a single “being”. Because "beauty" and "save the world" that the world (humanity) - this is God in "diversity".
It is also impossible not to mention the numerous paraphrases of this aphorism of Dostoevsky and the planting of the very spirit of this “soteriological aesthetics” in E. Roerich’s “Agni Yoga” (“Living Ethics”), among other theosophies condemned at the Council of Bishops in 1994. Compare: “ The miracle of the ray of beauty in the adornment of life will uplift humanity” (1.045); “we pray with sounds and images of beauty” (1.181); “the beauty of the spirit will enlighten the temper of the Russian people” (1.193); “whoever said “beauty” will be saved” (1.199); “say: “beauty”, even with tears, until you reach the appointed one” (1.252); “be able to reveal the expanse of Beauty” (1.260); “through beauty you will approach” (1.333); “happy are the ways of beauty, the need of the world must be satisfied” (1.350); “by love kindle the light of beauty and by action show the world the salvation of the spirit” (1.354); "the consciousness of beauty will save the world" (3.027).
Alexander Buzdalov
It would be necessary to find out once and for all what is really happening with this false quote, but it is unlikely to succeed: our people are stubborn. Who said that beauty will save the world? Dostoevsky? Or one of his heroes? We open the beginning of the 5th chapter of the third part of the novel "The Idiot".
“Is it true, prince, that you once said that “beauty” would save the world? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that beauty will save the world! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love. Gentlemen, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Do not blush, prince, I will feel sorry for you ... "
This monologue belongs to Ippolit Terentyev, a 17-year-old youth mortally ill with tuberculosis, who, following this scene, tries to shoot himself and generally stands out for his extravagance among the already extraordinary heroes of The Idiot. We didn’t hear anything like this from the prince, and in general, there is no connection between these words of Ippolit and the previous content of the novel, with the exception of annoying reminders of the unique female virtues of Nastasya Filippovna, because of which the prince subsequently loses his mind, and she herself loses her life .
However, the author returns to the "thesis about beauty" once again - only once, when the unfortunate prince is already approaching his natural finale. Aglaya Yepanchina, a girl who loves the prince and inspires sympathy and trust in the reader, reminds us of him.
“Listen, once for all,” Aglaya finally could not bear it, “if you talk about something like death penalty, or about the economic state of Russia, or about the fact that "beauty will save the world", then ... I, of course, will rejoice and laugh very much, but ... I warn you in advance: do not appear before my eyes! Listen: I'm serious! This time I'm being serious!
She really seriously uttered her threat, so that even something extraordinary was heard in her words and peeped into her eyes, which the prince had never noticed before and which, of course, was not like a joke.
Let us, too, listen to this serious voice and stop hanging on Dostoevsky the ridiculous canard thrown by one eccentric character against another. I would like to know who owns the initiative; suspicion, of course, falls on his "poor relative" V.V. Rozanov, an unfortunate bigamist who married a second time without getting a divorce from the beloved of the great writer Apollinaria Suslova.
The world is not saved by beauty, Christ saves the world, God crucified and risen and saves with our active participation: “We are co-workers (associates) with God” (1 Cor. 3: 9). But with this, the aesthetes and intellectuals of the era of the "Silver Age" could not agree in any way. That's why they clung to beauty: suddenly they will take it out ... Soft-boiled boots would suit them, if only they themselves were not disturbed with moral standards.
But do not rush to push our classic into the shadows when it comes to beauty. His pen belongs to a judgment much deeper, more serious and mature than the casual phrase of a nervous Hippolytus. It is, of course, well known, but in all kinds of aesthetic writings it is cited much less frequently, and if it is cited, it is evasive, in fits and starts, bashfully, as if they are trying not to reveal, but to hide its content. Rozanov's trail is visible here too, Berdyaev said not without reason: "Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov himself sometimes philosophized through the mouth of Rozanov."
So, Mitya Karamazov - in the preface to his confession to his brother Alyosha: “Insects - voluptuousness! I, brother, this is the very insect, and this is specifically said about me. And we all, Karamazovs, are the same, and in you, angel, this insect lives and will give birth in the blood of your storm. These are storms, because voluptuousness is a storm, more storms! Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing! Terrible, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to determine, because God asked only riddles ...Beauty! Moreover, I can’t bear that a person who is even higher in heart and with a lofty mind begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom. It is even more terrible, who already with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not deny the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart burns from him and truly, truly burns, as in his youthful immaculate years.
No, the man is wide, too wide, I would narrow it down. The devil knows what it even is, that's what! What appears to the mind as a disgrace, then to the heart is entirely beauty. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that in Sodom she sits for the vast majority of people - did you know this secret or not? The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil is fighting with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people.
Beauty, like freedom, is the most complex, incomprehensible philosophical problem- at least in this Mitya Karamazov was not mistaken. And it is important for us, first of all, to realize the subordinate place of beauty in relation to love and to others. moral values. Beauty does not save the world but it can contribute to our salvation - or counteract it.
Nikolai Zabolotsky devoted perhaps his most remarkable poem to beauty. I wish it was learned by heart - only completely, and not in fits and starts, as in the popular book about "what every girl needs to know" - all those parents, teachers and preachers who find it necessary to promise girls hell for earrings and beads , for lipstick, mascara, for a pocket mirror and in general for an interest in one's appearance.
Among other children playing
She resembles a frog.
A thin shirt is tucked into shorts,
Rings of reddish curls
Scattered, the mouth is long, the teeth are crooked,
Facial features are sharp and ugly.
Two little boys, her peers,
Fathers bought a bicycle.
Today the boys, not in a hurry for dinner,
They drive around the yard, forgetting about her,
She runs after them.
Someone else's joy, just like your own,
It torments her and breaks out of the heart,
And the girl rejoices and laughs,
Embraced by the happiness of being.
No shadow of envy, no evil intent
Doesn't know this creature yet.
Everything in the world is so immeasurably new to her,
So alive is everything that is dead to others!
And I don't want to think, watching
What will be the day when she, sobbing,
He will see with horror that among her friends
She's just a poor bastard!
I want to believe that the heart is not a toy,
You can hardly break it all of a sudden!
I want to believe that this flame is pure,
Which burns in the depths of her,
One will hurt all his pain
And melt the heaviest stone!
And let her features are not good
And she has nothing to seduce the imagination -
Infant grace of the soul
Already see through in any of its movements.
And if so, what is beauty
And why do people deify her?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,
Or fire flickering in a vessel?
The poem ends with a question far from rhetorical, urgently demanding an answer. In the figurative context of the poem, it naturally hangs in the air, but we can easily answer it: of course, beauty has both a formal side and a content side. However, take a look at the previous line: deifying beauty in one form or another, we guarantee ourselves a moral catastrophe.
An unforgivable delusion (literally unforgivable: our children will not forgive us for it) would be to identify formal beauty, a vessel that is empty in itself, with its sinful, "worldly" perception, and meaningful, deep - with grace-filled, spiritualized, "church". A terrible and mysterious thing - the Sodomite ideal of beauty, the storm of voluptuousness that Mitya sees in his heart and transfers to "the vast majority of people" and which ultimately ruined Mitya himself - it is this very fire, not so much flickering, how flaming, “and the heart burns from him,” and if we, having forgotten Christ, deify fire, then, like moths, we burn in it.
In support of what has been said, let us call Pushkin to witness. Everyone, of course, remembers the lines from the 8th chapter of "Eugene Onegin" about the poet's youth in Tsarskoe Selo: "In those days when in the gardens of the Lyceum / I bloomed serenely ..." But the years have passed, and the time has come for the poet to reassess the past , and at the same time give the clearest description of the "deified beauty":
At the beginning of my life, I remember school;
There were many of us, careless children;
An uneven and frisky family.
humble, poorly dressed,
But the appearance of a stately wife
She kept strict supervision over the school.
Surrounded by our crowd
With a pleasant, sweet voice, it happened,
She talks to babies.
Her brow I remember the veil
And eyes as bright as heaven
But I delved into her conversations a little.
I was embarrassed by the strict beauty
Her forehead, calm lips and eyes
And full of holy words.
Dychasya her advice and reproaches,
I misinterpreted myself
The clear meaning of truthful conversations,
And often I sneaked away
In the magnificent darkness of someone else's garden,
Under the arch of artificial porphyry rocks.
There the cool shadows did not live me;
I betrayed my dreams young mind,
And idle thinking was a consolation to me.
I loved the light waters and the noise of the leaves,
And white idols in the shade of trees,
And in their faces is the seal of motionless thoughts.
All are marble compasses and lyres,
Swords and scrolls in marble hands
On the heads of laurels, on the shoulders of porphyry -
Everything inspired a sweet kind of fear
in my heart; and tears of inspiration
At the sight of them, they were born before our eyes.
Other two wonderful creations
Attracted me with magical beauty:
Those were two demons of the image.
One (Delphic idol) young face
He was angry, full of terrible pride,
And he breathed all the power of unearthly.
Another effeminate, voluptuous,
Doubtful and false ideal,
Magic demon - deceitful, but beautiful.
Before them I forgot myself;
In the chest, a young heart beat - cold
He ran over me and lifted my curls.
Unknown pleasures dark hunger
I was tormented by despondency and laziness
I was chained - in vain I was young.
Among the youths I am silent all day
Wandered gloomy - all the idols of the garden
They cast a shadow on my soul.
As you can see, Mitya Karamazov had someone to seek help in solving his moral and aesthetic problems. And we need to conclude: to defeat the devil (who fights, of course, not with God, but with man), to distinguish the divine principle from the Sodomite in the ideal of beauty is capable of one and only one who distinguishes truth from lies because the devil is the father of lies, and the truth sets us free.
Beauty - horrible power Because it's impossible to resist her. Beauty always catches the eye, captivates the breath and impresses the imagination. What is beauty? Perhaps it is difficult to answer this question, because real beauty cannot be described in words, it must be felt. Beauty is different. The external beauty of a person, nature or thing is available to everyone, everyone can see it. But there is still inner beauty, the beauty of the soul. Although it is hidden from public view, it is no less important than the external one. If a person is rotten inside, has an evil and envious nature, then his appearance is worthless. Even the most expensive cosmetics and outfits cannot replace the lack of beauty inside.
You can talk a lot about beauty, because it is endless. Wherever you look, everything is beautiful. In this collection, we invite you to get acquainted with statements about beauty. Also here you will find quotes of the fair sex, who in all ages were considered the standard of beauty. In addition, we have prepared for you a selection of beauty quotes on English language. Read quotes, let them multiply your inner beauty. After all, if your inner world is rich in beauty, then your appearance will be beautiful.
Beauty rarely goes hand in hand with wisdom. (Petronius)
Beauty just gets in the way of wisdom...
This is her custom: beauty is always right. (Babur Z.)
Where there is beauty, there is nothing to prove.
Beautiful birds sing worse than others. The same applies to people. In a pretentious style, you should not look for a deep thought. (Lichtenberg G.)
Behind pretentiousness, as a rule, lies uncertainty.
Beauty is like gem: the simpler it is, the more precious it is. ( Francis Bacon)
Beauty lies in simplicity.
Beauty is something that belongs exclusively to taste. (KantImmanuel)
The absence of taste entails the absence of beauty.
Beauty is also a virtue, a beautiful woman cannot have flaws. (Shiller F.)
Beauty is one continuous dignity, that says it all.
Only those who look at you with tenderness have beautiful eyes ...
What is dear to the heart is always beautiful.
Love is the desire to enjoy beauty. Beauty is a kind of radiance that attracts the human soul. ( Marsilio Ficino)
Beauty is not enough to see, it must be felt.
There are many people with beautiful appearance, which, however, have nothing to brag about inside. (Cooper James Fenimore)
If there is no inner beauty, then the price of outer beauty is worthless.
A beautiful woman is heaven for the eyes, hell for the soul, and purgatory for the pocket. (Bernard Fontenel)
Beauty requires investment ...)
It is a sin if a woman looks less beautiful than she could be. (Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra)
How beautiful a woman is depends not on nature, but on herself ...
A young beautiful woman is a miracle of nature. A middle-aged beautiful woman is a miracle of art. (Yanina Ipohorskaya)
The older a woman is, the more she has to work on her beauty.
A beautiful woman should not be too smart - it distracts attention. (Marc Gilbert Sauvageon)
If a woman is both beautiful and smart, then men are simply afraid of her.
A beautiful woman feels free. (Joseph Geyts)
Beauty gives freedom and the right to choose.
A beautiful woman always feels happy. (Joseph Geyts)
At least one thing she is definitely satisfied with her appearance.
There are no beautiful women - there are ugly and well-made. ( Oscar Wilde)
Beauty is the work of hands and no fraud)
The French say: “If a girl is ugly, then nature is to blame, if a woman is ugly, she herself is to blame.”
Nature gives beauty, which then needs to be monitored.
Beauty is a sense of self and it reflects in your eyes. (Sophia Loren)
To see beauty, you need to look into the eyes.
Taking care of beauty, one must start from the heart and soul, otherwise no cosmetics will help! ( )
Beauty must come from within.
Age for a woman is not the most important thing: you can be amazing at 20, charming at 40 and remain irresistible until the end of your days.
A woman looks the way she feels.
Not every woman is born beautiful, but if she has not become so by the age of 30, she is simply simply stupid. (
Today, there are so many technologies that it is a sin not to be beautiful.
Truth and beauty have always been the main thing in human life and on earth in general. (A.P. Chekhov)
Truth and beauty are the greatest treasures in the world.
There are few women in the world whose virtues outlive their beauty. (Francois La Rochefoucauld)
Beauty is so strong that it overshadows other human virtues.
To create beauty, one must be pure soul. (Mikhail Glinka)
All beauty begins with the beauty of the soul.
Beauty is a gift for several years. ( Oscar Wilde)
For beauty to last longer, you need to work hard)
When the lamp is off, all women are beautiful. (Plutarch)
Twilight hides all flaws.
Beautiful women are rarely alone, but often lonely. (Khenrik Jagodzinsky)
Men enjoy beauty, and at the same time do not want to see the soul.
Beauty affects even those who do not notice it. ( Jean Cocteau)
Before beauty, everyone becomes powerless.
Biology surprises us a lot, proving statistically that beautiful women not the dumbest at all. ( Jean Rostand)
If a woman is beautiful, then she is already smart.
Beautiful expressions adorn a beautiful thought and preserve it. ( Victor Hugo)
Beautiful words make the world a better place.
Beauty without kindness dies unclaimed. (Samuel Johnson)
Beauty cannot live without kindness.
Beauty is not in the face, beauty is the light in the heart.
Beauty is a radiance that comes from within.
Beauty does not tolerate pretentiousness.
Clothing is the simplest means of revealing personality. (Sophia Loren)
Clothing can tell a lot about a person.
Character is the most important component of beauty. (Sophia Loren)
If the character is unbearable, then beauty depreciates.
A woman's beauty is not in the shape of her face, not in the clothes she wears and not in her hair. Real female beauty is reflected in her soul, it manifests itself in how passionately a woman gives her love. Women's beauty grows with age. (Nina Ricci)
If a woman is beautiful in her soul, then she is beautiful on the outside.
Makeup can make you beautiful on the outside, but it won't help if you're ugly on the inside. Unless you eat it. (Audrey Hepburn)
Nothing will help bring beauty inside.
There are no ugly women, only lazy ones. (Helena Rubinstein)
There are beautiful women and those who do not know how to take care of themselves.
Nobody comes into the world with perfect eyebrows. (Linda Evangelista)
Every woman should take care of her eyebrows.
A woman should not hide her beauty to such an extent that she loses her human appearance. (Pola Negri)
Hiding beauty, a woman becomes a peasant.
If a man crashes into someone else's car, he first of all looks into his wallet, and a woman into her mirror. (Margaret Turnibull)
A woman thinks that everyone will forgive her for her beauty)
Nondescript women know more about men than beautiful women. (Katherine Hepburn)
Men trust nondescript women, while beautiful women hide their flaws.
Grace is to the body, what good sense is to the mind.
Grace for the body is the same as common sense for the mind. (Francois VI de La Rochefoucauld)
Everyone should have a beautiful body.
Grace is the outcome of inward harmony.
Elegance is the result of inner harmony. (Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach)
External attractiveness is the result of internal beauty.
Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.
Charm is a way of getting a positive response without question asked.(Albert Camus)
Beauty helps to succeed.
What delights us in visible beauty is the invisible.
IN visible beauty we admire the invisible. (Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach)
Beauty fascinates when it is not all exposed.
A look of intelligence in men is what regularity of features is to women: it is a style of beauty to which the most vain may aspire.
A clever facial expression in men is the same as the correctness of features in women; it is a kind of beauty that even the most vain people would like to have. (Jean de La Bruyère).
