Dostoevsky's Elijah: Where Did It Begin?
In tracing the leitmotif of Elijah the Prophet through a dozen major works of Dostoevsky, the late Yuri Marmeladov suggests that the biblical prophet first enters Dostoevsky's fiction in "Mr. Prokharchin" (1846) and The Landlady (1847).[1] The fact that Christian symbols play a prominent role in the writer's early years before his arrest is itself of great interest. The Elijah motifs elucidated by Marmeladov bring into sharper focus Christian themes that continued throughout Dostoevsky's later fiction, culminating in "The Grand Inquisitor" and the dying boy Ilyusha in The Brothers Karamazov. The prominence of Elijah in two of the early works belies the opinion of scholars such as Sergei Belov, who casually refers to the young Dostoevsky of the 1840's as an atheist.[2] The writer's participation in the activities of the Petrashevsky Circle also tends to color the views of more careful scholars, who in the early fiction sometimes see more dissent and protest than Christian love and submissiveness. In light of Marmeladov's discovery, many studies of the early fiction will have to be modified.
Although there will always be disagreement over Marmeladov's treatment of various details and turns of speech (he is prone to see hidden allusions where wise men fear to tread), at least the major outlines of his theory seem valid and, judging by the first reviews of his book, Slavists will agree that Elijah's role in Dostoevsky is far more prominent than anyone had formerly suspected. After all, before Marmeladov's study Elijah had gone almost entirely unnoticed as a major symbol in Dostoevsky's fiction.[3] But in arguing that the Elijah allusions begin with "Mr. Prokharchin," Marmeladov was somewhat mistaken. I will try to show that Elijah is already present in the first work that made Dostoevsky famous — Poor Folk (1846) and, although faintly drawn, he looms between the lines of "An Honest Thief" (1848) and White Nights (1848). First, however, we should briefly review the major points of Tainyi kod Dostoevskogo as a larger framework for our discussion of the Elijah theme.
Marmeladov begins his study of Dostoevsky with a brief survey of the religious and folkloric beliefs about Elijah the Prophet which were current in Dostoevsky's time and which are part of the cultural background for Dostoevsky's fiction. The reader will recall from the Book of Kings that Elijah was given power over rainfall and rose to heaven in a whirlwind of flame on a chariot drawn by fiery horses. Christians expect Elijah to return as a harbinger of the Last Judgment — a belief which seems to echo similar messianic expectations among the Jews. When Christianity was introduced to the pagan Russians in the tenth century, Elijah gradually inherited many of the functions of the pagan thunder god Perun, doubtless due to his similar dominion over lightning, fire and rain. After the conversion to Christianity, thunder and lightning — formerly the provenance of Perun — came to be attributed to Elijah as he rumbles across the stormclouds in his fiery chariot.
Eager to incorporate indigenous Russian spiritual beliefs into the rather nationalistic fabric of his fiction, Dostoevsky elevates Elijah the Prophet to a special place of honor as a quintessential symbol of God's Judgment, of a cruel universe where sin and suffering are ever-present. Marmeladov begins with Crime and Punishment, focussing on the assistant police superintendent Il'ia Petrovich, to whom Raskol'nikov eventually confesses. This stern and fiery-tempered policeman is portrayed with abundant imagery pertaining to thunder and lightning. His name Il'ia points directly to the Biblical prophet (Il'ia-prorok), and his nickname, Porokh ('Gunpowder'), alludes to the explosions of Elijah's thunder and to the Petersburg Church of Elijah the Prophet, located at the powderworks. The novel's action covers roughly fifteen days until Raskol'nikov's confession. Because the action begins "in the beginning of July," the confession comes on or near the holiday of Elijah, July 20 (O.S.), when the Russian people always expected a thunderstorm. Before confessing, Raskol'nikov wanders around Petersburg all night during a spectacular thunderstorm beneath flashes of lightning that last nearly five seconds. Elijah's lightning serves as a frightful reminder of one's transgressions and of the hellfire which awaits lost sinners after the Last Judgment. Svidrigailov commits suicide during the thunderstorm beneath the watchtower of a fire station. The watchtower is suggestive of a divine presence with dominion over fire — God and Elijah the Prophet once again. Raskol'nikov's landlady (as Georgii Meier noted before Marmeladov) is a symbolic emanation of Raskol'nikov's conscience — of a spiritual awareness of right and wrong — as her late husband's "assessor" title hints. Her last name is Zarnitsyna, derived from zarnitsa ('sheet lightning'), suggestive of the quiet illuminations of conscience and of a close bond with the lightning-wielding prophet. Her first name, Praskov'ia, is a russified variant of Paraskeva (St. "Friday") the female saint whose Friday celebration ushered in the holiday of Elijah in late July. In Petersburg, huge throngs sometimes numbering nearly 100,000 would gather near the Church of Elijah the Prophet at the Powderworks and at the Chapel of St. Paraskeva, which stood alongside the Church of Elijah. Marmeladov proceeds to show how Dostoevsky weaves his Elijah symbolism into many of the novel's nooks and crannies, including details such as Zosimov's giving Raskol'nikov a "powder" as a remedy for his ailment. Marmeladov's observations cast much light on the various dreams and delirious visions experienced by Raskol'nikov before and after the murder.
Marmeladov then turns to The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants, a light, farcical work of the 1850's which has received little attention in Dostoevsky studies. This is a serious oversight, according to Marmeladov, because Stepanchikovo is the only work in which the hidden Elijah leitmotif comes out into the open clearly and explicitly. Marmeladov shows that the story is an allegorical portrayal of the struggle between God and the Devil. The main hero, Yegor Il'ich Rostanev, is endowed with traits linking him with both God and Elijah. He is man in the likeness of God. The malicious, spiteful Foma Fomich, who lives as a sponger in Rostanev's home, is man in the likeness of the Devil. The goodhearted Yegor Il'ich meekly endures a long series of outrages from the despicable Foma before finally exploding and ejecting him from his house during a dramatic thunderstorm on the nameday of Rostanev's son Il'ia — the holiday of Elijah the Prophet. Although the denouement of many of Dostoevsky's plots comes on the background of a thunderstorm, Stepanchikovo is the only work in which the storm is attributed explicitly to Elijah.
Marmeladov argues that the enigmatic Il'ia Murin in the early story The Landlady is not a satanic figure as he tends to be viewed by many readers, but rather another incarnation of the stern prophet Elijah. The name Il'ia Murin evokes associations with the epic hero Il'ia Muromets (who is possibly a secularized transformation of Elijah the Prophet) or with the village of Murino, situated on the Okhta a few miles upstream from the Church of Elijah in Petersburg.[4] Murin looms before the story's young hero Ordynov as a symbol of God's imperfect, unjust universe filled with sin and suffering — a universe against which Ordynov rebels, much like Raskol'nikov in Crime and Punishment. Abundant storm, fire and lightning imagery create a portrait of Murin that is unmistakably inspired by the folkloric image of Elijah the Prophet. Ordynov endures spiritual torment at the sight of Katerina, his beautiful young landlady who willingly and totally submits to the gruff old Murin. The landlady, in Marmeladov's view, has a spiritual significance much like that of Raskol'nikov's landlady in Crime and Punishment. She is an emanation of Ordynov's soul, that part of himself which he must surrender to God and Elijah but which he struggles to wrest from Elijah's hands. She is ideal love and happiness — which are impossible to possess in this world. At the beginning of the story, Ordynov has formulated his own "system" — an alternative to the painful, unjust world of God's creation — but by story's end we find him kneeling in fervent prayer in church. This, one should note, is the work of the "young Dostoevsky," commonly supposed to have been more radical or liberal in his political orientation than after his arrest and exile. Yet the religious allegory, the hero's spiritual path from rebellion to Christian resignation, is much the same as in the later works of the 60's and 70's.
Another emanation of Elijah the Prophet in the early stories is the policeman Yaroslav Il'ich in "Mr. Prokharchin" who arrives to expose the sins of a deceased miser.[5] A multitude of allusions to the Last Judgment give this exposé the hues and tones of a final Retribution. A delirious dream about a housefire serves as an apocalyptic vision of a fiery Judgment Day. The feverish old miser imagines that he has caught fire together with his mattress, in which he has stowed away a sizeable cache. Prokharchin has accumulated his wealth partly by deceiving his landlady. His debt to his landlady is associated with his debt to his own conscience, a symbolic pattern that foreshadows the role of the landladies in both Crime and Punishment and The Landlady. "Mr. Prokharchin" is the earliest of Dostoevsky's works in which Marmeladov finds the figure of Elijah.
Turning to The Humiliated and the Injured, Marmeladov focusses on the climactic thunderstorm which accompanies the return of the prodigal daughter Natasha Ikhmeneva to her father's home. Like the storm that is unleashed in Crime and Punishment and so many other works of Dostoevsky, the storm from which Natasha emerges is a reminder of Elijah's wrath, of man's fall from grace and of a fiery Day of Reckoning to come. Marmeladov ascribes similar Elijah associations to the thunderstorm near the end of The Eternal Husband, to the rainstorms in The Idiot and The Little Hero, and to the rain which comes during the Zarech'e fire in The Possessed. He argues that Il'ia Il'ich, the police and fire chief who directs the firefighters, is another earthly emanation of Elijah the Prophet, and that Liza Tushina's last name, associated with tushit' ('to extinguish'), is interconnected with Elijah and the rain which helps to extinguish the fire.
Marmeladov's chapter about The Brothers Karamazov was never entirely completed before his untimely death, but the surviving notes and fragments suggest that Marmeladov wished to focus on the dying boy Ilyusha as a living embodiment of the theme of the suffering children, of God's imperfect world of sin, suffering and redemption — the cruel cosmic order that is policed by the wrathful Elijah with his thunderbolts. It is against this cosmic order of random, incomprehensible pain and sorrow that Ivan Karamazov rebels (along with other personae of Dostoevsky's major works). The arrest of Dmitrii during a rainstorm in a village called Mokroye ('Wet') appears to conform to the author's frequent pattern of introducing Elijah's rain as a symbol of divine vengeance and grace precisely at the story's climax. Marmeladov points out that Dmitrii had passed through a village known as Sukhoi poselok ('Dry Settlement'), accompanied by a priest from a Church of Elijah (Il'inskii batiushka), not long before the fateful night when old Karamazov was murdered.[6]
Although the main goal of this essay is to point to symmetries in plot and theme that unite Poor Folk, The Landlady and White Nights, we should first turn to the short and simple story "An Honest Thief" because its central figure is one of the many "sons of Elijah" (Il'ichi) who lurk in the wings of Dostoevsky's fiction and he makes an episodic appearance in Poor Folk as well. Yemel'ian Il'ich is the "honest thief" in this early story (first published in 1848). A simple, goodhearted soul but also a hopeless drunkard, he yields to temptation and steals a pair of pants from his friend who has given him refuge under his roof. He pawns the pants for alcohol in order to get thoroughly drunk. At first he does not admit his transgression, but he feels so uneasy and guilt-ridden that he eventually returns to the streets as a kind of self-imposed exile. Then he takes ill from the bad weather and returns to his friend, whose pants he previously stole. Soon thereafter he dies, but not before confessing his theft of the pants. Like so many of Dostoevsky's sinners and criminals, Yemel'ian Il'ich preserves a nobility of soul — a deep-seated meekness and faith — despite his miserable, fallen condition. He epitomizes the "Russian soul" and mankind in general: eternally steeped in sin but worthy of the hope of redemption. His friend refers to him as chelovek Bozhii ('man of God') in his narration — a term that evokes immediate associations with the holy simpletons and fools in Christ (iurodivye) who have been revered in Russian spiritual tradition. His first name, Yemelia, is synonymous with the simplemindedness of a village fool, while his patronymic evokes the notions of guilt and the punishing wrath of Elijah. However, although the link with Elijah is clear, it is drawn far more lightly than in The Landlady or later works which present a multitude of allusions to the fiery prophet. A few details seem to be drawn with an eye to Elijah. For example, as Yemel'ian Il'ich lies dying, a doctor suggests that he might be given some powders (poroshki). A powder is also prescribed for Raskol'nikov in Crime and Punishment, where, like Il'ia Petrovich's nickname 'Porokh', it seems to be an authorial allusion to Elijah the Prophet, whose church in Petersburg was strategically located at the powder factory.[7]
Turning now to Poor Folk, in which Yemel'ian Il'ich plays an episodic role, it is first worth noting the chronology of the letters written by Makar and Varvara. They begin in April and continue into September. In their correspondence, there is a hiatus that encompasses the holiday of Elijah, July 20. Makar's letter of July 8 is followed by Varvara's letter of July 27. It appears that Makar goes on his first spree with Yemel'ian Il'ich shortly after the holiday, around July 24. The traditional celebration of the holiday began on the Friday before Elijah's feast day and may have continued for several days after July 20. Regardless whether Makar's first spree is associated directly with the holiday, the timing of Yemel'ian Il'ich's arrival on the scene hardly seems fortuitous in light of his patronymic and his associations with Elijah the Prophet in "An Honest Thief."[8]
But more important than any precise dates is the important role of the autumn and the rain in Poor Folk. The story's central theme is the miraculous resilience of faith, hope and nobility in the human soul despite the unbearable hardships and innocent suffering that are ever present in God's cruel universe. Because the rain brings illness and death again and again, it is an emblem of the incomprehensible suffering endured by mankind. Varvara's first love, Petr Pokrovskii, constantly gets his feet wet in the rain and eventually dies of consumption. His death comes in the autumn and he is buried in the rain. His final request is that the window curtain be opened slightly so that he might see the sunlight, but only dirty rainwater, drabness and gloom can be seen outside. Varvara's father suddenly dies after catching cold. Varvara herself is dying of consumption and Makar repeatedly cautions her about getting wet in the rain. She has a premonition that she will definitely die that autumn. The autumn has a mystical significance for her that is intrinsically bound with the theme of life's inexorable suffering. With autumn come the rain, illness and cold weather. Varvara recalls her childhood summers in the country as an idyllic dream, an innocent Eden, while the autumn brought childhood premonitions of horrible truths. Her account of the onset of autumn is reminiscent of the mean little old man whom Ordynov begins to see in his childhood at the dawn of his consciousness of good and evil:
"Then everything becomes gloomier, the sky clouds over, yellow leaves bestrew the paths on the edge of the bare forest. The forest grows dark and black, especially in the evening when the damp fog descends and the trees emerge from the fog like giants, like unsightly, horrible ghosts. You fall behind the others when you're out for a stroll, and you're all alone as you hurry to catch up — it's awesomely frightful! You tremble like a leaf, and it seems that someone terrible will peer from behind that hole in the tree trunk [...]" [115][9]
Varvara moves to Petersburg in the autumn, and the idyllic summer in the country is contrasted with the rain and gloom of the city, where all her troubles seem to begin:
"We moved to Petersburg in the autumn. When we left the country, the day was so clear, warm and bright. The farm work had ended. The threshing floors were piled high with sheaves of grain and quarrelsome flocks of birds crowded around. All was so clear and happy, while here, as we rode into the city, there was rain, nasty autumn dankness, bad weather, mud and a crowd of new and unfamiliar faces — inhospitable, dissatisfied and angry!" [47]
It is as though Varvara had moved from an innocent Eden to a world of sin and full-blown evil.
In his letters to Varvara, Makar frequently lapses into plaintive tones of protest against the injustice of the world, but his protests are invariably cloaked in apologies for the indecency of questioning God's divine plan. His drunken sprees come as a form of protest against all the misfortunes that beset him and those around him. The first time, in addition to all his real-life woes, he has just read Gogol's "Overcoat" and is depressed by the unhappy ending; he believes that poor Akakii Akakievich's coat should have been returned and that a more just ending is necessary.[10] The sorrows that trouble Makar include the plight of poor, hungry children whom he sees on the street and of the Gorshkov child who dies in the apartments where he rents his tiny corner. Makar's lapsing into drink with Yemel'ian Il'ich has the same metaphysical dimensions as the protest of Ivan Karamazov, who also asks why the innocent children must suffer. Makar's sprees take us into the contradictory realm of original sin, of suffering on the path to redemption and of man's inability to comprehend the ways of God.
The holiday of Elijah is one of the folk markers of autumn's onset, as reflected by Ivan Bunin's "Elijah-esque" novella, Sukhodol:
Iushka arrived — precisely on the terrible night that marks the end of summer, the eve of the holiday of Elijah the Provider, the ancient Fire-thrower. There was no thunder on that night, and there was no sleep for Natashka. She dozed off and suddenly awoke, as though from a shove. [...] She jumped up and looked into one end of the corridor, then the other: the silent sky, full of fire and secrets, was flashing and flaming up from all directions. It flickered and blinded you with its gold and pale blue flashes of heat lightning.[11]
and, of course, Elijah's thunderstorm ushers in the autumn rains. These rains bring life, but they also bring lightning fires, illness and suffering. Both times Makar relates his encounters with Yemel'ian Il'ich, he mentions the rain and the depressing weather:
"Well, it was sad! And just then it was rainy and muddy and terribly depressing!.. I was about to come back... But that's when I fell, little mother. I met Yemelia, Yemel'ian Il'ich, a civil servant — that is, he was a civil servant, but now he isn't because they expelled him." [94]
"[...] nature was so tearful, the weather was so cold and rainy — well, and just then Yemelia turned up." [113]
It is as though the gloomy rain is somehow the usual element of this tipsy "son of Elijah," much as it is the element of the thundering prophet. The second spree comes just after Varvara has burned herself on a hot iron, and Makar mentions this accident as one of the depressing circumstances that led to his spree. Through this motif involving heat, fire and pain, the author evokes the fiery prophet who epitomizes the wrath of God. In responding to Varvara's getting burned among other misfortunes, Makar is responding to an incomprehensible cosmic order that is enforced by the wrathful Elijah. Makar adds that he joins Yemelia the second time more out of "love for mankind" ("iz sostradaniia k chelovechestvu") than from any personal urge.
Makar's neighbor Gorshkov has endured untold suffering: his young son has died and he has been defamed and impoverished. Finally, though, the court rules in his favor. But that very evening, he suddenly and quietly dies. Makar writes to Varvara:
"He died, little mother, Gorshkov died, all of a sudden, as though struck down by lightning! How he died — God only knows." [133]
The timing of Gorshkov's death immediately after a court judgment in his favor seems to underscore the vast difference between the judgments of man and the Judgment of God. The allusion to lightning points in the direction of Elijah, harbinger and fiery enforcer of God's Judgment.
The intimations of Elijah continue in the gruff, middle-aged Bykov who carries Varvara away as his bride at story's end. Among his traits are loud laughter and a fiery temper. He is self-willed, inconsiderate and uncompromising — but he is a kind and generous benefactor to the poor and unfortunate. In light of other Elijah allusions throughout Dostoevsky, his name (derived from byk 'bull') brings to mind the bull, aurochs and similar horned animals that were sacred to the thundergods of the Indoeuropean tribes, including Elijah's pagan predecessor Perun. This is not necessarily to say that Bykov is Elijah descended in the flesh to carry away Varvara's soul, although his pastime of hunting down rabbits sounds a bit like a cryptic allusion to carrying away souls. Perhaps it is safer to suggest that, at least from the point of view of Makar, his carrying Varvara away is the ultimate deprivation, the final blow of a malevolent Providence in the unfortunate old man's life.
A number of parallels between Poor Folk and The Landlady suggest that Bykov should indeed be seen as a fictional predecessor of Il'ia Murin, the gruff old man who holds the young Katerina in total submission. Bykov and Murin are similar bilious and hot-tempered personalities. Both carry off a woman who is much younger, and this seems to add to the woman's misfortune. Most important, both works focus on another man's love for the young woman, who in the end is wrenched from his life. Makar is old, while Ordynov is young — their love is different, but the basic pattern is the same. In the end, we find Ordynov praying in church, having abandoned the utopian "system" on which he had worked previously. His encounter with Katerina has inspired him with hope and faith in a God whose ways are beyond his understanding. Katerina's portrait is repeatedly associated with the sun's rays, a feature that gives her a mystical aura. Similarly, Makar refers to Varvara as a "light of the Lord" [145] who "illuminated all my dark life" [113]. The young woman in each work embodies a happiness that cannot last long in this world of sin and suffering.
Katerina and Murin are reflections of two sides of the godhead. Katerina reflects God's unconditional, maternal love and grace; Murin reflects God's wrath and His uncompromising law of suffering for one's sins. Ordynov wishes to have only Katerina and happiness and be free of the unpleasant old Murin — he accepts unconditional love, but rejects irrational pain and torment which hardly make sense to human understanding. This spiritual theme is already present in Poor Folk, although Bykov's associations with the wrathful Elijah are barely perceptible and, unlike Ordynov, Makar is firmly in the fold of the faithful from the very outset. His protests against injustice are frequent, but they are overshadowed by a deepseated piety and meekness. Poor Folk provides many touching examples of suffering humanity. Although The Landlady provides little material of this sort, it is fair to assume that Ordynov conceives his "system" in response to the kind of suffering that we find in Poor Folk.[12]
The same basic pattern is repeated once again in White Nights: a man dreams of happiness with a young woman, but she is carried off by the man to whom she is engaged. Like Ordynov, the young narrator of White Nights lives as a friendless recluse, neither giving nor receiving love. Like Ordynov, who concocts a social or political "system" to recreate the world, he dreams of freeing a beautiful woman from the clutches of a tyrannical husband — and this rescue is colored with the hues of a palace coup.[13] The similarity between the two works is striking enough to suggest that White Nights is a new attempt to develop the theme of The Landlady, which was received unfavorably by the puzzled critics.
As in both Poor Folk and The Landlady, the young woman in White Nights is associated with light. Her name, Nastas'ia, derived from Anastasiia ('Resurrection'), is later used by the author for its spiritual associations in both Crime and Punishment and The Idiot.[14] After her departure, the memory of Nastya sustains the narrator's faith in salvation and happiness beyond the grave. The narrator's encounter with her during the white nights is a bright interlude that illuminates his dark and gloomy life. Their meetings take place only during clear weather. Nastya's fiancé appears just after the young narrator has pointed to a yellow cloud in the sky, reassuring Nastya that the cloud will pass and the weather will be wonderful.[15] He is buoyed up by the hope that Nastya will be his after all. She has even invited him to move into her grandmother's house, having lost hope that her fiancé will return. But then he does return. She rushes to her fiancé when he appears, but then flits back to the narrator "like the wind, like lightning." She kisses him and quickly runs home with her fiancé. Contrary to the narrator's prediction, the weather the next day is rainy and dreary. The narrator has taken ill with a fever. He likens what has transpired to "a ray of sunlight that suddenly peered out from behind a stormcloud and then hid beneath a raincloud, and everything grew dark in my eyes once again." At story's end we find the narrator in his same gloomy lodgings fifteen years later. His love for Nastya remains pure and true. Like Ordynov in The Landlady, the narrator of White Nights is sustained by the love which Nastya showed him for a few brief moments. He exclaims: "My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really too little, even for a man's whole lifetime?.." [202][16] Nastya is like a ray of spiritual light which shines on the narrator. The celestial imagery is closely akin to that of Poor Folk and The Landlady. The fiancé's arrival is followed by rain. Nastya has called him cruel and inhuman when he continually fails to appear, and the portrait that is drawn of him suggests that he is cold and distant. In carrying Nastya away, he deprives the narrator of happiness. The narrator's happy white nights come to an end and he is cast back into a realm of stormclouds and gloom. Thus, from the narrator's point of view, the fiancé seems to have associations with the inevitable suffering that is enforced by Elijah. Speaking in terms of the implied spiritual imagery, one might say that Nastya has been taken away by Elijah, but her memory inspires the narrator with the light of faith. As she flits back and forth between her fiancé and the narrator, Nastya is compared to lightning because she is a link between the celestial realm of Elijah and the lower realm of man. She illuminates the spirit — something akin to Raskol'nikov's landlady Zarnitsyna (from zarnitsa 'sheet lightning'), who illuminates Raskol'nikov's conscience.[17]
Needless to say, on a more mundane level both Poor Folk and White Nights are stories of a tragic love. That is, they are tales of human emotions. But at the same time they focus on a spiritual theme that is at the center of the writer's later fiction: the cosmic dilemma of suffering ordained by God. This spiritual theme in the early works has not been fully understood because the signposts are written in symbols that nobody has really fathomed. Atmospheric conditions in Dostoevsky's fiction are not simply a backdrop for psychological drama. They have a spiritual significance as well. The onset of the autumn rains is associated with the stormy Elijah and with suffering as expiation for man's fallen state. Consumption is a consequence of Elijah's rain. The young woman's being carried off by Bykov and Murin is an artistic representation of the inevitability of suffering on earth. The Elijah theme — with a direct allusion to Elijah encoded in the patronymic of the drunkard Yemel'ian Il'ich — is present in Dostoevsky's first original work to be published. It was doubtless due to the poignant portrait of suffering humanity that Belinsky so championed Poor Folk, but his total disappointment and consternation in response to The Landlady suggests that he did not really understand either work. At any rate, Marmeladov has underestimated the prominence of the Elijah theme in works written before the writer's exile. It plays a role in at least six, not three, of these works: Poor Folk, "Mr. Prokharchin," The Landlady, "An Honest Thief," White Nights and The Little Hero.
[1] See Iurii Marmeladov, Tainyi kod Dostoevskogo. Il'ia-prorok v russkoi literature, Petrovskaia Akademiia Nauk i Iskusstv, St. Petersburg, 1992.
[2] See Sergei Belov, F.M. Dostoevskii v zabytykh i neizvestnykh vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, Andreev i synov'ia, St. Petersburg, 1993.
[3] Georgii Meier was the first to note the Elijah theme in published criticism. He devotes a page to Il'ia Petrovich's connection with Elijah the Prophet in Raskol'nikov's delirium in Crime and Punishment. See his Svet v nochi (O "Prestuplenii i nakazanii"),YMCA Press, Frankfurt am Main, 1967.
[4] Concerning the connection between Il'ia Muromets and Elijah the Prophet see: Robert Mann, Lances Sing. A Study of the Igor Tale, Slavica, Columbus, 1992; Russian Apocalypse. Songs and Tales About the Coming of Christianity to Russia, Coronado Press, Lawrence, 1986.
[5] See Marmeladov, pp. 54-66.
[6] It is worth adding that in the first notes for The Brothers Karamazov Dmitrii is referred to as Il'inskii. This name belonged to a real-life muderer with whom Dostoevsky was familiar, but its associations with the prophet Il'ia were certainly a major factor in his initial choice of the name. See PSS.
[7] The original narrator at story's outset relates how his coat was stolen by a thief. He remarks that he would have rather seen the coat burn than be stolen. Immediately after this remark, Astafii Ivanych begins to tell his tale about the "honest thief." When he tells how his pants disappeared, he adds that he was so upset that it would have been easier if he had fired up the stove with his whole wardrobe. Two stolen items of clothing — two allusions to fire. This pattern brings to mind the many allusions to fire as a stereotypical misfortune brought by God and His fire-flinging prophet.
[8] In connection with Yemel'ian Il'ich's encore appearance in "An Honest Thief" after making his debut in Poor Folk, it is worthwhile noting that a single Elijah figure appears in two of Dostoevsky's other stories of the 1840's. Yaroslav Il'ich, the policeman who exposes Mr. Prokharchin's sins like Elijah at the Last Judgment, also plays a role in The Landlady, where, according to Marmeladov, he is a minor emanation of the prophet Elijah, secondary to the wrathful old Il'ia Murin. See Marmeladov, pp. 67-87.
[9] All citations of Dostoevsky's fiction are my translations based on the texts in F.M. Dostoevskii, Sobranie sochinenii v piatnadtsati tomakh, Leningrad, Nauka, 1988. Poor Folk and The Landlady are cited from volume 1; White Nights and "An Honest Thief" from volume 2.
[10] Actually, the spree comes over a week after Makar reads "The Overcoat," but his comments on Gogol's story come in the last letters written to Varvara before his encounter with Yemel'ian Il'ich.
[11] I.A. Bunin, Sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh, vol.3 (Povesti i rasskazy 1907-1911), Moscow, 1965, pp.180-81. (My translation.)
[12] Ordynov's dream of a world without death and suffering comes into sharp focus in his dialog with Katerina:
"Yes, I'd like to live for ages, to live a long time," Ordynov replied.
"I don't know," Katerina pondered, "I'd like death, too. It's good to love life and good people, yes... [...]"
[13] In describing his dreams of glorious victory, the narrator alludes to the capture of Kazan, the battle with Napoleon at the Berezina, St. Bartholomew's Eve, Danton etc. [171]
[14] See Georgii Meier, op. cit.; Marmeladov, p. 19.
[15] The color yellow is associated with the bitter cup of bile (zhelch') offered to Christ on the way to Golgotha. It is symbolic of the trials and suffering that are inevitable in the world of God and Elijah. Near the beginning of the story, the narrator states that his "bile nearly overflowed" from horror and indignation when a rose-colored house was painted yellow. The house's bitter fate is a parallel to that of human beings. So, too, is the fate of the house which, in its dialog with the narrator, says that it almost burned down. (The encoded spritual allusion is to the fire of Elijah.) At story's end, the yellow house has grown old and ugly and the yellow color has darkened, like that of the narrator's room and of the narrator himself. Compare the "biliousness" of Il'ia Murin and the cup of yellow water that is offered Raskol'nikov when he goes to see Il'ia Petrovich ("Gunpowder").
[16] The final words (na vsiu zhizn' chelovecheskuiu)are phrased peculiarly. They might also mean "for the whole life of mankind," and, besides the moment of love which the narrator experienced with Nastya, the author's implied referent seems to be Christ's example of love.
[17] The symbolism of Raskol'nikov's landlady was first elucidated by Georgii Meier (Svet v nochi, YMCA Press, Frankfurt am Main, 1967). Marmeladov [pp. 17ff.] developed Meier's observations further. Raskol'nikov's monetary debt to his landlady mirrors the debt owed to his conscience for the murders. The landlady is a reflection of his conscience, or spiritual "mistress" (khoziaika). Katerina lives in Ordynov's memory as a "spiritual mistress," although cohabitation with her (his "landlady," or household "mistress") proves impossible in the earthly realm. The narrator of White Nights contrasts Nastya to "landladies," but is later ready to move into her house. In effect, this would make her his "landlady." But with this spiritual "mistress," too, cohabitation proves to be an unrealizable dream (in the earthly realm, at least). In connection with "landladies" it is worth noting that Varvara's family name in Poor Folk is Dobroselova ('Well-settled').