Book: Demons
Quotes of Book: Demons
the purpose of 'systematically shaking the foundations, systematically undermining society and all principles; for the purpose of demoralizing everyone and throwing everything into chaos, and then, once society had begun to totter as a result - and was sick and weakened, cynical and devoid of beliefs, yet still yearning for some guiding idea and self-preservation - they would suddenly take it into their hands, raising the banner of rebellion and relying on a complete network of groups of five, which would all be active at the same time, recruiting and making practical efforts to search out all the means and all the weak spots that could be exploited'. He concluded that here, in our town, Pyotr Stepanovich had organized only the first experiment in such systematic disorder, book-quoteOf course, she won't figure it out,' Pyotr Stepanovich responded like a perfect fool, 'because legally, you see… Oh, you! And what if she did figure it out! All this kind of thing is so easily erased from the minds of women; you don't know women yet! Besides, it's to her full advantage to marry you because she's the one who's disgraced herself; and besides, I was the one who gave her all that stuff about the "barque": I saw right away that one could have an effect on her with the "barque" business, and so that's the calibre of girl she is. Don't worry, she'll step across those bodies tra-la-la, the more so since you're completely, completely innocent, isn't that so? Except that she'll save up those corpses to needle you with later on, maybe in the second year of your marriage. Every woman, when she goes to the altar, stores up something of this sort from her husband's past, but then, you know - what can happen in a year or so? Ha, ha, ha! book-quote24. you would rather remain with Christ than with the truth: The same sentiments are expressed in Dostoyevsky's letter of late January-February 1854 to Natalya Fonvizina {1805–69}, wife of the Decembrist Ivan Fonvizin, who followed her husband into exile. She visited Dostoyevsky and other members of the Petrashevsky Circle in the transit prison in Tobolsk, an act of kindness he remembered ever afterwards. Dostoyevsky wrote: 'That credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, more profound, more attractive, more wise, more courageous and more perfect than Christ, and what's more, I tell myself jealous with love, there cannot be. Moreover, if someone proved to me that Christ were outside the truth, and it really were that the truth lay outside Christ, I would prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth' {Complete Letters, tr. D. Lowe and R. Meyer, vol. 1, p. 195}. book-quote
