TMOP: Chapter 7

[Bekah]

Matryona

[Page 66 -   D. doesn't return from the island to the house with Anna  
and Matryona.  He wanders, declines a card game at the inn.

(he's switched obsessions perhaps?)

[ And he feels lonely.  Aware that he  may be wearing out his welcome  
with Anna.  Aware that he is growing physically older - aware of  
haemorrhoids - dry skin, dental plates.

*Dostoevsky really had dentures, hemorrhoids but perhaps not so early.]

**********

[ Page 67 -  He wonders what Matryona thinks about this "spectacle of  
decay."    He flinches at the idea of being an object of pity,   
remembering Anna's comment "You were pleading." (Line 7) (from pg 59)  
and D. turns to Pavel, kneeling against the bed.  "... tries to find  
his way to Yelagin Island and to Pavel in his cold grave."  ]

* There's an abundance of self-pity here  but he's  also really in  
deep turmoil.  As has been said,  this is total fiction - in  
Dostoevsky's life, Pavel outlived his step-father and Yelagin Island  
has never been a cemetery.

http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804008886

Mentions "a Finnish-Swedish cemetery at Elagin (Aptekarsky) Island  
(abolished in 1756)."   - That's only missing the "Y" and I think  
they're the same place. Many, many other cemeteries listed at the  
above site.  "In 1738, the Synod affirmed five places where burials  
were to take place, of which only the cemetery on Vasilievsky Island  
has survived. "  Mostly cemetery plots were free and located near the  
churches. http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804010103 (but I  
can't find the source for the info.)  Meanwhile, Elagin/Yelagin  
Island has no church actually on it.   ???

View on Yelegin Island
http://www.oilpaintinghk.com/art/oil_paintings_24317.html
http://www.nlr.ru/petersburg/spbpcards/photos/lo000000377_1_m.jpg

[line  14  "The father faded copy of the son.  How can he expect a  
woman who beheld the son in the pride of his days to look with favour  
on the father?"]

* That is such an incredible line.   To me it describes this whole  
part of the plot.  D. is trying to become son but he is only a weak  
version and a copy at that.  He's comparing his manliness and life- 
force with that of Pavel's.

[line 17 -  Remembering the quote of a fellow-prisoner in Siberia - "  
' Why are we given old age, brothers? So that we can grow small  
again, small enough to crawl through the eye of a needle.' Peasant  
wisdom." ]

* It was in Siberia that Dostoevsky experienced his life-changing  
conversion to Russian Orthodox Christianity - he was disgusted by the  
class hatred, the  filth and lack of moral fiber of the peasants he  
came in contact with there but was mightily impressed by their  
spirituality.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazo/bio04.html

* The eye of the needle is from Matthew 19: 23 - 26 and Mark 10:25
http://biblecc.com/matthew/19-24.htm
http://bible.cc/mark/10-25.htm

The reference probably means that old men grow very humble.  In the  
Biblical references it refers to wealth and possibly to  Needle's  
Eye,  one of many gates into Jerusalem, which is so small  only an  
unencumbered camel on its knees can pass through - any excess wealth  
(treasure boxes) can't fit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle


[line 23  He wakes the next day full of life.  He feels resurrected  
and wants to shout  "Christ is risen!"  And he wants to dance with  
Anna and Matryona and painted eggs. ]

* This is October,  not spring,  but October is not really cold in  
St. Petersburg (mid 40s  F. for a high) and there isn't much rain  
then.   hat has brought this sudden lift of spirits about?  (Grief is  
a mysterious process, there are moments or days of joy interspersed  
with the heavy gloom.)

* One of Dostoevsky's Siberian spiritual experiences occurred at Easter.
 From  http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/diagnosing- 
dostoyevskys-epilepsy/   :
> On Easter night, during his exile in Siberia, Dostoyevsky was  
> visited by an old friend, to whom he described the almost prophetic  
> vision he had experienced during the aura preceding one of his  
> attacks:
>
> The air was filled with a big noise and I tried to move. I felt the  
> heaven was going down upon the earth, and that it had engulfed me.  
> I have really touched God. He came into me myself; yes, God exists,  
> I cried, You all, healthy people, have no idea what joy that joy is  
> which we epileptics experience the second before a seizure.  
> Mahomet, in his Koran, said he had seen Paradise and had gone into  
> it. All these stupid clever men are quite sure that he was a liar  
> and a charlatan. But no, he did not lie, he really had been in  
> Paradise during an attack of epilepsy; he was a victim of this  
> disease as I am. I do not know whether this joy lasts for seconds  
> or hours or months, but believe me, I would not exchange it for all  
> the delights of this world.
>

*****************

[page 68  But this "...joy breaking like a dawn"  lasts only an  
instant.  An "anti-sun" appears and the word "omen" crosses his mind  
to reveal the idea that there will be 'an eclipse;  joy shines out  
only to reveal what the annihilation of joy will be like. ' " ]

* This uplift of spirits often precedes a seizure - see my next post -

[ D fears this and the accompanying shame so he leaves the house to  
deal with it privately.  In the dark staircase there is a loud cry  
but although the neighbors wake up,  D. doesn't hear it.  ]

  "Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental disturbances  
following a seizure (This is also called the 'post-ictal 'state) It  
took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief complaint was  
that his 'head did not clear up' for several days and symptoms  
included, "heaviness and even pain in the head, disorders of the  
nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"

http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

* Did D. yell?  I suppose so.

***********
[ Page 69 He wakes from the seizure in darkness.]

* This whole page is a great description of a seizure - or so it  
seems to me.  Includes the idea of falling into yourself.

Epilepsy:
> The word epilepsy is derived from the Greek epilepsia, which in  
> turn can be broken into epi- (upon) and lepsis (to take hold of, or  
> seizure)[35] In the past, epilepsy was associated with religious  
> experiences and even demonic possession. In ancient times, epilepsy  
> was known as the "Sacred Disease" because people thought that  
> epileptic seizures were a form of attack by demons, or that the  
> visions experienced by persons with epilepsy were sent by the gods.  
> Among animist Hmong families, for example, epilepsy was understood  
> as an attack by an evil spirit, but the affected person could  
> become revered as a shaman through these otherworldly experiences.[36]
>
> However, in most cultures, persons with epilepsy have been  
> stigmatized, shunned, or even imprisoned; in the Salpêtrière, the  
> birthplace of modern neurology, Jean-Martin Charcot found people  
> with epilepsy side-by-side with the mentally retarded, those with  
> chronic syphilis, and the criminally insane. In Tanzania to this  
> day, as with other parts of Africa, epilepsy is associated with  
> possession by evil spirits, witchcraft, or poisoning and is  
> believed by many to be contagious.[37] In ancient Rome, epilepsy  
> was known as the Morbus Comitialis ('disease of the assembly hall')  
> and was seen as a curse from the gods.
>
> Stigma continues to this day, in both the public and private  
> spheres, but polls suggest it is generally decreasing with time, at  
> least in the developed world; Hippocrates remarked that epilepsy  
> would cease to be considered divine the day it was understood.[38]
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy

*  Although the idea that these fits were evidence of "possession by  
demons"  was pretty well dropped in the 17th century,  epilepsy was  
not studied medically until the late 19th century.  This would have  
been unknown by Dostoevsky and his crowd and they probably still  
called it the "falling sickness" as in Europe during the Middle Ages  
- (and other cultures even today - See "The Spirit Catches You and  
You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman - her best work, imho ).
http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/history
http://library.thinkquest.org/J001619/history.html    ]


* In  Demons, Kirilov  has a kind of frontal lobe epilepsy and in The  
Brothers Karamazov Sverdyakov is so afflicted.   Prince Myshkin in  
the Idiot has it including one seizure induced by looking at  
Holbein's painting "The Dead Christ."
http://www.abcgallery.com/H/holbein/holbein8.html

**********

[ page 70 - D. walks through the snow and hides until he is sure Anna  
and her daughter have gone out.  Then he goes back to the house,  
washes up pretty thoroughly and then snoops around her house.  He  
finds a picture of Anna's deceased husband and "deliberately smudges  
the glass, leaving his thumbprint over the face of the dead man."

* snooping and  jealousy?  Is he looking for evidence of Pavel or  
something else?  Whatever he can find, perhaps.

*****************

  [ page 71 He enjoys sneaking and spying,  "a weakness that he has  
associated till now with a refusal to accept limits to what he is  
permitted to know, with the reading of forbidden books, and thus with  
his vocation.  Today ... he is in thrall to a spirit of petty  
evil ... gives him a voluptuous quiver of pleasure."  ]

* Writing is associated with snooping?   (Yes, I've always thought so.)

*  D. is presented as going from ecstasy to terror to a voluptuous  
quiver of pleasure" within the space of a single morning.  Dostoevsky  
was emotionally unstable,  especially in his later years.  Can't have  
been an easy life what with the the childhood violence, gambling,   
religion,  epilepsy and other things .  ]

[  D.  dons Pavel's white suit and checking the mirror "sees only a  
seedy imposture and, beyond that, something surreptitious and  
obscene, something that belongs behind the locked doors and curtained  
windows of rooms where men in wigs and skirts bare their rumps to be  
flogged."

[Yup, he probably looks pretty bad and imo, he's setting himself up  
for more perversity there. ]

[  He lies down and feels like he's falling into blackness again.   
When he wakes he has "lost all sense of who he is."  He thinks it's a  
dream but then the reality hits him.]

* The reality is that Pavel is dead and D. is wearing the deceased  
son's clothes and lying on the deceased boy's bed - possibly in order  
to become Pavel.

********

[ Page 72    Matryona comes in and thinks D is ill.   He tells her  
the story of Pavel's white suit. ]

*  This story is generally similar to the one which Peter  
Verkhovensky cooks up to assuage Stavrogin's mother in Demons.  One  
difference is that Stavrogin actually marries  the crippled and  
feeble-minded Marya Timofeyevna. - Book 1,  Chapter 5,  Parts V- VII   
Marya's brother was a drunkard who beat her.

*  D. likens Maria (Marya in Demons)  to a dog or a horse - she  
doesn't know any better than to take the abuse whatever abuse is  
handed her.

[  Coetzee does have a thing for animals, especially dogs - see  
Disgrace especially. ]

********

[  Page 73  *  Matryona is horrified  and D. forces totally brutal  
Russian ideas on the good, naive, young Matryovna.

* This is pretty extreme emotional violence done to a young girl.   
Coetzee portrays D. as quite a brute.

D. finishes the story of Marya Lebyatkin (Lebyadkin in Demons),  a  
variation of the as yet unwritten story of Stavrogin's courtship and  
marriage.   (Of course,  Pavel didn't marry Maria as Stavrogin  
married Marya.  I'm not sure if this makes Pavel a bit of a cad or not.

[ Page 74  * - Matryona wiggles and puts her thumb in her mouth!

The effects of such brutality - Matryona is regressing.

Does D present the story of Pavel and the white suit to make Pavel  
look very "chivalrous;"  I'm not sure I buy that - it's kind of  
caddish for Pavel to lead Maria on like that even if D. totally  
invented the story.   *  The "Demons" story of Stavrogin and Marya is  
quite different - (go read it).

But why the white suit - Coetzee's D. didn't invent that and it  
doesn't seem to go with Pavel's station in his Petersburg life.   
(Btw, what was Pavel's situation?)   Were white suits popular in  
Europe ca. 1860?   Mark Twain famously had one.  The War and Peace  
movies always seem to have a guy in a white suit.   ???

Who knows why the fictional Pavel had the white suit?   I doubt it  
was as D. told it - I know the whole thing is fiction but this little  
story from D.'s mouth seems to go beyond D's usual unreliablity  and   
Coetzee's D. is very unreliable - he's between reality and fantasy -  
perhaps between life and death.



* Matryona asks why Pavel killed himself and reveals that her mother  
(Anna) thinks Pavel killed himself.



**********

[ Page 75  D. suggests that one cannot succeed at suicide, only God  
has power over life and death.

  This is another reference to "Demons" where Krillov (Krylov?) is  
going to commit suicide in order have the kind of "free will" which  
goes against God - the  power over life and death - he wants to  
become God.

[ D. goes on to explain that Pavel was giving God an ultimatum of  
sorts,  "If you love me you will save me" and betting that God  
would.  But God didn't.  "Perhaps God does not like to be tempted."  
or "Perhaps God does not hear very well."  ]

* And here's D. and Dostoevsky (and

[ D. motions to Matryona to sit on the bed and puts his arm around  
her.  "He can feel her trembling. He strokes her hair, her temples." ]

**********

[ Page 76.   Finally Matryona balls her fists and sobs freely. ]

* again,  like a small child,

[ Matryona "Why did he have to die?"   D.   wants to say he didn't  
die, that he's here,  "I am he."   But he cannot.]

*  the man is drifting seriously out of reality - he is starting to  
believe he is Pavel but still knows this is not really true, it would  
scare Matryona -  why doesn't he say it?   He's playing more than  
one  dangerous game.

[   "If only the seed could have been taken out of the body, even a  
single seed, and given a home."  And he thinks of the Hindu Shiva's  
seed being drawn out of his dead body.]

  http://www.bhagavadgitausa.com.cnchost.com/KALI.h9.jpg

* If D. is Pavel,  then can he impregnate Matryona?  (is this what  
his thoughts are driving at?)



[Now D. imagines Matryona "in her ecstasy."   and then,  "of a baby,  
dead, buried in an iron coffin beneath the snow-piled earth..."  and  
he stops the "violation," although "she might as well be sprawled out  
naked."  ]

* He takes the ideas as far as he can take them - a baby dead and  
buried - theirs?  And he suddenly abandons the idea of seducing  
Matryona.

[ "She is prostituting the Virgin" as the men who visit child  
prostitutes say.  They see something maidenly beneath the garish  
paint and it outrages them, they need to go so far as to put that  
child's life in danger." ]

Another incredibly compelling visual.

******
[page 77  But D.'s  "vision, the fit, the rictus of the imagination,  
passes."]

* interesting variation of terms;  is this vision a seizure of  
sorts?   Has there been an opening of the imagination?  Are there  
other sorts of visions?

* and is D. cannibalizing the lives of his loved ones for stories?

[ Matryona asks about making a shrine in the room  but D. demurs - he  
is only staying a short time but his mourning for Pavel will go on  
forever. And he may also mourn Matyona forever, but it may be only a  
bit too soon to tell.  ]

************

[Page 78  Matryona asks to light a candle for Pavel and keep it  
burning.  "So he won't be in the dark."   She does this and then  
"returns to the bed and rests her head on his arm."  ... "He can feel  
the soft young bones fold, one over another, as a bird's wing folds." ]

Yes, Mr. D.  she is so very vulnerable,  crushable - don't go there.



Bekah




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