“I shall allow myself one more remark, although I am straying in advance of my story. This document is, in my opinion, a morbid work, a work of the devil who took hold of that gentleman. It is like this: as if a man were suffering from acute pain and tossing about in bed, trying to find a position to relieve his pain even for a moment. Not even to relieve the pain, but only to change it, momentarily, for another. In a situation like that, one of course does not bother about the becomingness or good sense of the position. The fundamental idea of the document is a terrible, undisguised craving for self-punishment, the need for the cross, for immolation in the eyes of all. And yet this need for the cross in a man who does not believe in the cross, does not this in itself form ‘an idea,’ as Stepan Trofimovich expressed himself once, on a different occasion though. On the other hand, the document is at the same time something wild and random, although evidently written with a different intention. The author declares that he could not help writing it, that he was ‘compelled,’ and this is quite likely; he would have been glad to let that cup pass him by, if only he could; but he indeed, so it seems, could not do so, and he merely snatched at a convenient excuse for a fresh outburst. Yes, the sick man tosses about in his bed and wishes to exchange one pain for another, and now the struggle with society appears to him the easiest position, and he throws out a challenge to it.
“Indeed, in the very fact of such a document is implied a new, unexpected, and unforgivable defiance of society—only to find some enemy to pick a quarrel with!
“And who can say? perhaps all this, the sheets and their intended publication, are but the same as the Governor’s bitten ear, only in a different shape. But why this should come into my mind now, when so much has already been explained, I can’t understand. I bring forward no proof, nor do I at all assert that the document is false, that is, completely made up and fabricated. Most likely the truth ought to be sought somewhere midway. However, I have already wandered too far in advance; it is safer to turn to the document itself. This is what Tikhon read.”
Here ends the first chapter in the Supplement to Vol. VIII. of Dostoevsky’s Works, Jubilee Edition, 1906.
[26]. After “should meet, etc.,” there is struck out: “in the presence of my friends and of her husband.”
[27]. After “with their daughter” is struck out: “I think her age was about fourteen.”
[28]. After “I do not remember” is struck out: “who they are, from where they come, and where they are now, I don’t know in the least.”
[29]. After “girl” is struck out: “(I lived with them on familiar terms, and they stood on no ceremonies with me).”
[30]. After “always called forth” there is struck out: “Having indulged up to the age of sixteen with extraordinary immoderation in the vice to which J. J. Rousseau confessed, I stopped it at the very moment which I had fixed, at the age of seventeen.”
[31]. After “presence” is struck out: “she did not cry, but only sobbed under the blows, certainly because I stood there and saw everything.”