What has it given us about the moujik save odious, false, nationalistic pastorals? One, altogether but one, but then, in truth, the greatest work in all the world—a staggering tragedy, the truthfulness of which takes the breath away and makes the hair stand on end. You know what I am speaking of ...”
[7] The reference here is most probably to Chekhov.—TRANS.
[8] The heroine of Dostoievsky’s “Crime and Punishment.”—Trans.
“‘The little claw is sunk in...’”[9] quietly prompted Lichonin.
[9] “The little claw is sunk in, the whole bird is bound to perish”—a folk proverb used by Tolstoi as a sub-title to his “The Power of Darkness.”—Trans.
“Yes,” answered the reporter, and looked kindly at the student with gratefulness.
“But as regards Sonechka—why, this is an abstract type,” remarked Yarchenko with assurance. “A psychological scheme, so to speak...”
Platonov, who up to now had been speaking as though unwillingly, at a slow rate, suddenly grew heated:
“A hundred times have I heard this opinion, a hundred times! And it is entirely an untruth. Underneath the coarse and obscene profession, underneath the foulest oaths—about one’s mother—underneath the drunken, hideous exterior—Sonechka Marmeladova still lives! The fate of the Russian prostitute—oh, what a tragic, piteous, bloody, ludicrous and stupid path it is! Here everything has been juxtaposed: the Russian God, Russian breadth and unconcern, Russian despair in a fall, Russian lack of culture, Russian naivete, Russian patience, Russian shamelessness. Why, all of them, whom you take into bedrooms,—look upon them, look upon them well,—why, they are all children; why, each of them is but eleven years old. Fate has thrust them upon prostitution and since then they live in some sort of a strange, fairy-like, toy existence, without developing, without being enriched by experience, naive, trusting, capricious, not knowing what they will say and do half an hour later—altogether like children. This radiant and ludicrous childishness I have seen in the very oldest wenches, fallen as low as low can be, broken-winded and crippled like a cabby’s nags. And never does this impotent pity, this useless commiseration toward human suffering die within them ... For example...”
Platonov looked over all the persons sitting with a slow gaze, and suddenly, waving his hand despondently, said in a tired voice: