Lebedev’s information

Who is Nastasya Filippovna? Rogozhin is the first character in the novel to mention her name, but it is Lebedev — offering proof of his knowledge to Rogozhin — who provides information about her:

It’s the same Nastasya Filippovna on account of whom your parent wanted to admonish you with a blackthorn stick, and Nastasya Filippovna is Barashkov, she’s even a noble lady, so to speak, and also a sort of princess, and she keeps company with a certain Totsky, Afanasy Ivanovich, exclusively with him alone . . . (12)

What sort of information is this? The narrator calls Lebedev a “Mr. Know-it-all.” This type (that, of course, does not define Lebedev) takes great pains to practice the “seductive science” of who’s who (14). Rogozhin disdains the type, but takes the “pencil pusher” with him all the same. Lebedev has good information. He is an exemplar of the type. He “knows everything.” (How many times in The Idiot does someone say that they “know everything” or that someone else doesn’t know everything?) He goes beyond the mere recitation of Nastasya’s entry in the book containing this sort of knowledge. In fact, not a step is taken in her (and not only hers) ambit “without Lebedev.” Of course, Rogozhin is not truly interested in this sort of information even as he turns pale and trembles at hearing it. He trembles as Lebedev’s information mingles with his own knowledge regarding Nastasya Filippovna, namely, that which was imparted when she “burned [him] right through” (12). He is alternately infuriated and amused by the presence of potential suitors who are incapable of being so burned — incapable precisely because their entry in Lebedev’s book is not only superficial, but also entirely sufficient. But any sort of information about those who are in the light of the sun reminds the listener of its warmth.

Talk of “information” is usually talk of Jane Austen’s novels rather than Dostoevsky’s. Austen’s novels reveal that information, even superficial information, is almost necessary for the preservation of tradition and community and can be an introduction to true education. The reign of the superficial is merciful to her locally great-souled characters as well as to a real reverence for England. Though there is always something sinister or tragic in the way information is given, acquired, misplaced, or withheld in his novels, Dostoevsky is similarly concerned with the work of knowing. In conversation with General Epanchin, Prince Myshkin appears to lament the practice of knowing that is so essential for Jane Austen:

. . . it seems to me that we’re such different people, by the look of it . . . in many ways, that we perhaps cannot have many points in common, only, you know, I personally don’t believe in that last notion, because it often only seems that there are no points in common, when there really are a lot . . . it comes from people’s laziness, that they sort themselves out by looks and can’t find anything . . . (27)

When we think of 18th-19th Century British society (if that’s the appropriate stretch of time, but you know what I mean) it is easy to reply: “This very laziness is the ground of our civilization, my dear Prince! It is social man’s humble recognition of his limits and his wish for real, lasting love. What you call laziness we call the celebration of nuptial love. To recognize the worth or beauty of another is to set them apart from the common and, at the same time, to set the common apart from oneself. This setting apart need not be tragic. In fact, we can love our neighbors all the more when we appreciate the sacrifice of knowing that we have all made together. ‘That whereof we cannot speak, we must lovingly consign to silence.’”

It should go without saying that it is impossible to know everyone to the fullest extent. It may even be wrong to attempt to do so. (Is that even what Myshkin is attempting?) The risk is not only that one cannot be responsible to so many people, but also that one simply might not have the ability and may be burdening the world with just another kind of sorting.

Nastasya’s riddle, part I

Totsky observes that Nastasya values nothing, “least of all herself” (43). She is capable of “leaping too eccentrically beyond measure” and “of ruining herself, irrevocably and outrageously” (44). These are psychological descriptions that demonstrate, according to the narrator, Totsky’s “great intelligence and perception.” It is worthwhile to compare Totsky’s perception with Myshkin’s. Totsky uses his insight to maintain a form of life that is called “beautiful” because it provides the stylistic maximum of pleasure and comfort without breaching social norms. The opposite of this form of life is one in which the “extremely improper, ridiculous, and socially unacceptable” can happen. Nastasya’s arrival in Petersburg is therefore extremely “ungratifying” (45). Totsky is afraid of “this new Nastasya Filippovna.” But his perception is again on display because, in the midst of his fear, he also cannot forgive himself for having “looked for four years and not seen” the contrasting ellipsis that is the only adequate description of her beauty: “Formerly she had been merely a very pretty girl, but now . . . For a long time Totsky could not forgive himself.” [Notice that this is precisely that failure over which Totsky cannot forgive himself. You could almost imagine him bringing up this failure as his contribution to the petit jeu at Nastasya's. Which is almost exactly what he does as far as she is concerned. His story is nothing but a moment in a "beautiful" life. By not telling the story of "Delight," Totsky is telling the story of his failure to recognize.]  These two thoughts happen together. He is afraid but he is also amazed by her almost categorically different beauty. This brings him to reflect on what might have been and to find in his own memory a hint of what was to come:

[H]e recalled moments, even before, when strange thoughts had come to him, for instance, while looking into those eyes: it was as if he had sensed some deep and mysterious darkness in them. Those eyes had gazed at him — and seemed to pose a riddle. (44)

When Totsky reflects on this riddle he is reflecting on the question of whether this “deep and mysterious darkness” can somehow be brought into the controlled atmosphere of his aesthetic and used to his advantage. “God,” he says to Ptitsyn after Nastasya goes away with Rogozhin, “what might have come from such a character and with such beauty! But, despite all my efforts, even education — all is lost!” (175) We don’t have to imagine what “might have come,” to what grand heights Totsky would have transported the ideal Nastasya: Totsky would have liked to “show [her] off and even boast of her in a certain circle” (45).

Myshkin also comes face-to-face with Nastasya’s riddle:

It was as if he wanted to unriddle something hidden in that face which had also struck him earlier. The earlier impression had scarcely left him, and now it was as if he were hastening to verify something. That face, extraordinary for its beauty and for something else, now struck him still more. There seemed to be a boundless pride and contempt, almost hatred, in that face, and at the same time something trusting, something surprisingly simple-hearted; the contrast even seemed to awaken some sort of compassion as one looked at those features. That dazzling beauty was even unbearable, the beauty of the pale face, the nearly hollow cheeks and burning eyes — strange beauty! (79-80)

During his first meeting with the Epanchins he says that he may “have a thought of teaching.” The content of that teaching is indicated in Adelaida’s request that the prince teach her “how to look” and in Aglaya’s mocking of his “praiseworthy thoughts” about finding an “immense life” in prison (59) and about living while “keeping a reckoning” (61). Myshkin is concerned, like Totsky — though of course in a totally different way –, with maintaining a “beautiful form of life.” The riddle that Nastasya presents to the prince, her “strange beauty” (80), is not a matter of incorporating beauty into a social aesthetic (i.e., making it socially acceptable) in order to make use of it; but it is a matter of the potentially disruptive appearance of beauty. If a student asked the prince, “how can I become as perceptive as you are,” it is possible to imagine him saying, “you must pay attention to the riddle of double thoughts.” Similarly, the riddle that must be thought through in this context is the simultaneous concentration of beauty and innocence, on the one hand, and hatred and suffering, on the other, in one countenance. It is possible to read many things in Nastasya’s eyes, but not only are these different readings drawn from the same countenance (Totsky is remembering a certain look; Myshkin is looking at a portrait), they also belong to a beautiful face. How can the appearance of the beautiful — which both Totsky and Myshkin seek, though in different ways — be so mixed? How can one teach anything about beauty if it already appears to everyone? How can one teach anything about beauty and goodness together if hatred and suffering can undeniably augment beauty? This is related to that other thematic question: how can one “keep a reckoning” if one is condemned to death? And to the question of double thoughts. (Does the undeniable fact of double thoughts mean that one cannot be truly good? Or that one is somehow fated to take the opposite of what one knows to be the proper course?)

Totsky gives Ptitsyn the answer to his riddle. Myshkin, on the other hand, responds to Nastasya’s decision to reject his “proposal” and rush out with Rogozhin with: “It can’t be!”

monks

And perhaps — Have I any right to say so? Perhaps a handful of monks living always together, day and night, can create unconsciously their own very favorable atmosphere. . . . I know something of monasteries myself. I’ve seen monks bowed to the ground, humbly accept without a murmur, the unjust rebuke of a superior, bent on breaking their pride. But within those walls, untroubled by all outside echoes, silence attains the rarest quality, a truly miraculous perfection, and ears grown exquisitely sensitive are conscious of the slightest rustle of sound. The very stillness of a chapter-house is as good as any burst of noisy applause.

(Whereas a bishop’s reprimand–)

The Cure d’Ambricourt is explaining why anecdotes about the “past masters of the inner life . . . won’t stand transport.” The shift he has noticed in “official eloquence” encourages parish priests to build themselves up through “monastic obedience and simplicity.” But the cure’s main observation about “Christianity in decay” is that the decay is in the atmosphere itself. Monks are not unaffected. Furthermore, the humiliation of a monk is not very similar to the humiliation of a parish priest. A bishop’s reprimand is devastating for the priest. (This is still the first half of the 20th Century.) A monk has the opportunity to revel in his own humiliation, to hear “noisy applause” in the silence. Unlike the parish priests, their actions are “untroubled by all outside echoes.” In other words, the monk does not appear in the same way as the parish priest; his actions do not reverberate in the village. A monk’s duty is to obey and his humiliation is effected by his superiors almost tactically. The parish priest, on the other hand, must concern himself with how he is received in his village. He is a kind of “transport.” A bishop’s reprimand is authoritative. If that reprimand impedes the priest’s ability to expose or “challenge” decay, he cannot perform his most basic task — he cannot care for his parish. More importantly, however, the humiliation of a parish priest — whether the product of an official reprimand or not — is visible. Anecdotal praise of the “stillness of a chapter-house” does not comprehend the stillness in which this visibility takes place.

the appearance of a priest

The Diary of a Country Priest begins with the Cure d’Ambricourt’s observation that the world is “eaten up by boredom. . . . It is like dust. You go about and never notice . . . but stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands” (2). His own parish is “bored stiff” and he “can’t do anything about it.” One day while making his rounds he looked out over his village:

What an insignificant thing a village is. And this particular village was my parish? My parish, yes, but what could I do? I stood there glumly watching it sink into the dusk, disappear. . . . In a few minutes I should lose sight of it. I had never been so horribly aware of both my people’s loneliness and mine. I thought of the cattle which I could hear coughing somewhere in the mist, and of the little lad on his way back from school clutching his satchel, who would soon be leading them over sodden fields to a warm sweet-smelling byre. . . . And my parish, my village seemed to be waiting too — without much hope after so many nights in the mud — for a master to follow towards some undreamed-of, improbable shelter. (2-3)

It is one thing to stand still and feel the dust of boredom and insignificance in one’s own nose and throat. And to notice that it is everywhere, that it belongs to one’s age. It is another thing entirely to believe in the responsibilities of the parish priest, to take them seriously, and then to have to say “mine” as you watch your village sink nightly into the mud. This is the main drama of the novel. A parish priest has “admitted once and for all into each moment of [his] puny life the terrifying presence of God.” The question that permeates the Cure d’Ambricourt’s diary, then, is not about the absence of God. God is not a “terrifying presence” because He is disappearing but because His presence on the lips of the parish priest disrupts the weighing of “pros and cons” by which the “worldling” (who can also, simultaneously, be the priest) sums up his chances (5-6). That is not as simple as it sounds. Later in his diary the cure describes how he is received when he makes his rounds:

However cautious I may be, even when my lips avoid the sound of it, still God’s name seems to shine out suddenly in the midst of the thick stifling atmosphere, and faces that were just awakening close in once again. More precisely, they darken, they cloud over. (95)

It is not difficult to hear in these words the voices of Prince Myshkin and Alyosha Karamazov. Dostoevsky’s characters often chastise themselves for their failure to present the knowledge they indubitably possess in an appropriate manner according to the situation and interlocutor. But their reflections do not bear the same burden as the priest’s. Myshkin or Alyosha’s interlocutors sometimes dramatically resist finalizing definitions of their own personalities (even if they are not really finalizing) and may suffer as a consequence, but neither Myshkin nor Alyosha have real authority (in the sense I am about to talk about).

The priest’s reflection on his own failure, on the other hand, includes the understanding that his very appearance will, in the end, cause God’s name to “shine out” in some fashion. His position is such that — among both believers and those who have not yet announced their unbelief — he must be heeded even when he is wrong or even when his rightness is poorly presented. Of course this does not mean that every bit of advice received from a priest must be followed. What it means is that even in the midst of a priest’s failure the parishioner still must receive what is most important from his hand. This is at the root of the contagion of boredom. The rich man, the genius, the beautiful woman, the poet, the doctor — these are all the same before the parish priest. No weighing up of success or failure can change that. (The problem is not too far different from Ippolit’s complaint in The Idiot that his illness means that suicide is the only activity he can begin and end in his own time.) But what a burden for the priest as well!

A priest looks at his parish and knows that of old a saint might have roused it. But is the priest not a servant of that same Church? Is the contemporaneity of Christ not as real today as in the past? Is “today” — a markedly different age than “the past” — enough to prevail against the Church and its ancient authority? What is it about today?

I wonder if man has ever before experienced this contagion, this leprosy of boredom; an aborted despair, a shameful form of despair in some way like the fermentation of a Christianity in decay. (3)

The cure’s superiors mark the difference by somehow shifting the “themes which inspire official eloquence.” Some still “teach optimism,” but the force of habit is easily recognized in their “knowing self-deprecating smiles.” Bishops used to end sermons with a “prudent hint — full of conviction, indeed, yet prudent — of coming persecution and the blood of martyrs.” Now they mouth “front-line slogans.” Seminary lecturers offer “telling sallies” extolling the virtues of “monastic obedience and simplicity.” The cure objects to this counsel:

We can all of us manage to peel potatoes and feed pigs, provided we are given the orders to do so. But it is less easy to edify a whole parish with acts of obedience, than a mere community of monks. More especially since the parish would always be unaware of them, and the parish would never understand. (4)

Whether God is present or absent, the priest must still appear in his parish.

Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest

Since I haven’t been able to complete my comments about Nastasya Filippovna as a “dreamer,” I am going to try to comment on another book along with The Idiot — Georges Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest. Remy Rougeau writes in his introduction that as a youth he thought the novel “nothing more than an account of an awkward, sick, and despondent pastor not very well liked by his people.” “Surely,” he imagined, “every parish priest is miserable and lonely.” In the same vein as the sixteen-year-old Rougeau,  John Zmirak has written that Bernanos’ Gnostic tendency “to make a fetish of the Cross and exult unduly in suffering” obscures a truly Catholic faith. (Since fetishes are his fetish, he ought to know.) Those aren’t superficial readings. But I can’t help thinking the same as when I read complaints about nihilism in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: misery and loneliness  happen, and, since they happen within earshot of God, surely in a post-Enlightenment age they can happen as beginnings, middles, and endings. Zmirak’s use of the word fetish is interesting, however, because, as Rougeau goes on to write, Bernanos depicts the “almost beneficial” aspect of suffering, namely, that “precisely at moments of suffering, people turn to God for help.” In both the erotic and magical senses, the word bespeaks an effective history. It may be that The Diary of a Country Priest is a novel for those ignored by the Chestertonian gustonians, for those who lack self-confidence, for the poor in spirit; maybe daily suffering and its dramatization are the charms they grasp, hoping that grace will, in the end, “be everywhere.”