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    Gentle Spirit: A Fantastic Story
    Gentle Spirit: A Fantastic Story
    Gentle Spirit: A Fantastic Story
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    Gentle Spirit: A Fantastic Story

    By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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    "A Gentle Creature" is a 1876 short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Inspired by a real story of a seamstress who committed suicide in 1876, it chronicles the relationship between a girl and a pawnbroker whose shop she visits frequently. When a 16-year-old girl frequently pawns her belongings so that she can advertise as a governess in the newspaper, her dire financial situation is made apparent to the shop owner and narrator, who resolves to give her as much as he can for the things she brings. After some investigating, our narrator learns that she answers to two greedy aunts who have arranged a marriage for her that promises to be abusive. In an attempt to save her from that fate, he himself proposes to the young woman, who accepts. However, perhaps things would have gone better if he had never proposed at all. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821 – 881) was a Russian novelist, essayist, short story writer, journalist, and philosopher. His literature examines human psychology during the turbulent social, spiritual and political atmosphere of 19th-century Russia, and he is considered one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. A prolific writer, Dostoevsky produced 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories and numerous other works. This volume is not to be missed by fans of Russian literature and lovers of Dostoevsky's seminal work. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateFeb 8, 2019
    ISBN9781528786232
    Gentle Spirit: A Fantastic Story
    Author

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian novelist and philosopher whose works examined the human psyche of the nineteenth century. Dostoyevsky is considered one of the greatest writers in world literature, with titles such as Crime and Punishment; Notes from Underground, one of the first existential novellas ever written; and Poor Folk, Russia’s first “social novel.”

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    • 3/5
      This bleak and puzzling story, originally published in 1876, is a tale of love gone wrong. Its narrator is a former army officer turned pawnbroker, who resigned from the army in disgrace to find that his brother-in-law had squandered the family's meagre fortune. Having clawed his way back to a semi-respectable style of living, he's embittered by the world and seeks to take his revenge on it. He decides to marry a quiet and put-upon orphaned teenager who comes to him trying to sell trinkets from a happier past; but he resolves to be stern with her. When she rushes to him, brimming over with affection, he puts her off; he encourages contemplation and silence; all the time thinking that he's creating a rational and deep connection between them - never realising that he is making her life so miserable that, one day, suicide may be the only option for her.Dostoyevsky is not renowned for being a laugh a minute and, based on this story, it's a reputation that's well-deserved. At first I loathed the narrator, whose cold and clinical approach to love seems designed to torment his young wife - to make her, in microcosm, the butt of all the resentment he feels against the world at large. Then I began to feel for him: his tragic misunderstanding, his cowardice and his desperate attempts to revive a love that he has already crushed into ashes ('You don't know with what paradise I would have surrounded you. The paradise was in my soul; I would have planted it all around you!'). No, he isn't a straightforward villain. He's cruel without understanding the human heart, selfish, tyrannical and supercilious; but he's also a deeply wounded man whose claim to hate the world belies the fact that he cares deeply about rank and success. His determination to make money through business, and to retire to a life of comfortable wealth, has blinded him to the more delicate emotions and will, ultimately, deprive him of the chance of real happiness. No. It isn't exactly upbeat.I should point out that this story is also often translated as A Gentle Creature. In fact, Penguin Classics published it by that title in their Penguin 60s Classics series, in a 1989 translation by David McDuff. This current version is translated by Ronald Meyer. 
    • 3/5
      Misogynistic man is surprised when his young wife commits suicide after he has treated her like crap for a year. Then he realises he loved her.
    • 4/5
      Dostoevsky is one of my favourite writers. I discovered him in my teenage years, read as many of his books as I could get my hands on, and to be honest haven't read anything else by him in a long time. I still count him as one of my favourite writers, though, more on memory than anything else. His writing is so urgent and immediate, and began to open up a world for me beyond 1990s South London.The Gentle Spirit is very short - longer than a short story, but barely long enough to be called a novella. Because of this, it doesn't have the grand scale of Dostoevsky's longer works. But it does succeed in its aim - to get inside the head of a pawnbroker as he watches his dead wife laid out on the table in front of him, the wife that he has recently driven to suicide.The language reflects the disordered state of the character's mind as he tries to understand what has happened. He asks questions, changes his mind, berates himself for going too fast or too slow or missing the point, and is always alternating between self-justification and self-flagellation. It's a convincing portrait.The wife's character is not so clear, but in a way that's the point. The pawnbroker did not understand her - still doesn't, really. Because we see the world entirely through his eyes, our view is very limited and distorted. His wife is the "gentle spirit" of the book's title, much younger than he is and perhaps a little naive in her expectations of him, but beyond that we discover little about her.Even the pawnbroker's own motives are not very clear - he decided from the start of the marriage to be "stern" with her and to withhold love and affection, but the only reason given for this is that it's what he was used to from his job - a pawnbroker has to be stern with his customers, and not allow himself to be emotionally involved in their plight. Perhaps Dostoevsky is saying that after cutting himself off from people in this way for so many years, he was unable to achieve intimacy with another human being. By the time he does realise his mistake and declare his love for her, it is too late and too extreme - after months of not speaking to her at all, he suddenly throws himself at her feet and tells her everything. Whereas at the beginning she would have welcomed this display of love, after everything she's been through it just frightens her and drives her away from him.This was a quick and enjoyable read, and was probably the right length - because of the limitations of the pawnbroker's perspective, it might be tough to read a whole novel based inside his head. In this short book, though, the style worked very well, and although I didn't really understand either character very well, they felt real to me. Now I feel inspired to go back and re-read some of those novels I loved all those years ago.
    • 2/5
      I was disappointed. It is far away from Dosteoyevsky’s classics... In a way I had the feeling that he was retracing some of the major elements common in his novels…women’s struggle in a society where men are the big deciders… Women are not so weak and absolutely not that vulnerable to commit suicide at every obstacle they encounter.

    Book preview

    Gentle Spirit - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    1.png

    GENTLE SPIRIT

    A FANTASTIC STORY

    BY

    FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

    TRANSLATION BY

    CONSTANCE GARNETT

    First Published in 1876

    This edition published by Read Books Ltd.

    Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available

    from the British Library

    Contents

    FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

    PART I

    CHAPTER I - WHO I WAS AND WHO SHE WAS

    CHAPTER II - THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE

    CHAPTER III - THE NOBLEST OF MEN,

    THOUGH I DON’T BELIEVE IT MYSELF

    CHAPTER IV - PLANS AND PLANS

    CHAPTER V - A GENTLE SPIRIT IN REVOLT

    CHAPTER VI - A TERRIBLE REMINISCENCE

    PART II

    CHAPTER I - THE DREAM OF PRIDE

    CHAPTER II - THE VEIL SUDDENLY FALLS

    CHAPTER III - I UNDERSTAND TOO WELL

    CHAPTER IV - I WAS ONLY FIVE MINUTES TOO LATE

    Fyodor Dostoevsky

    Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a former army doctor. Raised within the grounds of the Mariinsky hospital, at an early age he was introduced to English, French, German and Russian literature, as well as to fairy-tales and legends. He was educated at home and at a private school, but shortly after the death of his mother in 1837, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College.

    In 1839 Dostoevsky's father died. A year later, Dostoevsky graduated as a military engineer, but resigned in 1844 to devote himself to writing. While earning money from translations, he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which appeared in 1846. It was followed by The Double (1846), which depicted a man who was haunted by a look-alike who eventually usurps his position.

    In 1846, Dostoevsky joined a group of utopian socialists. He was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death. After a mock execution, his sentence was reduced to imprisonment in Siberia. Dostoevsky spent four years in hard labour – ten years later, he would turn these experiences into The House of the Dead (1860). Upon his release, he joined the army in Semipalatinsk (North-East Kazakhstan), where he remained for a further four years.

    Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1854. Three years later, he married Maria Isaev, a 29-year old widow. He resigned from the army in 1859, and focussed once more on writing. Between the years 1861 and 1863 he served as editor of the monthly periodical Time, which was later suppressed because of an article on the Polish uprising.

    In 1864-65 his wife and brother died and Dostoevsky was burdened with debts. The situation was made worse by his own lifelong gambling addiction. From the turmoil of the 1860s emerged his classic Notes from the Underground (1864), a psychological study of a social outcast seeking spiritual rebirth. The novel marked a watershed in Dostoevsky's artistic development.

    Notes from the Underground (1864) was followed by Dostoevsky's most famous work, Crime and Punishment (1866). An account of an individual's fall and redemption, and an implicit critique of nihilism, it is now regarded as one of the greatest works of Russian literature. Two years later The Idiot (1868) was published, and three years after that came The Possessed, (1871) an exploration of philosophical nihilism.

    In 1867 Dostoevsky married Anna Snitkin, his 22-year old stenographer. They travelled abroad and returned in 1871. By the time the The Brothers Karamazov was published, between 1879-80, Dostoevsky was recognized in his own country as one of its great writers. However, having suffered from a fragile mental disposition his whole life, Dostoevsky began to succumb to larger periods of mania and rage. After a particularly bad epileptic fit, he died in St. Petersburg in early 1881, aged 59.

    Together with Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is now regarded as one of the greatest and most influential novelists in all of Russian literature. His books have been translated into more than 170 languages and have sold around 15 million copies.

    Part I

    Chapter I

    WHO I WAS AND WHO SHE WAS

    Oh, while she is still here, it is still all right; I go up and look at her every minute; but tomorrow they will take her away — and how shall I be left alone? Now she is on the table in the drawing-room, they put two card tables together, the coffin will be here tomorrow — white, pure white gros de Naples — but that’s not it . . .

    I keep walking about, trying to explain it to myself. I have been trying for the last six hours to get it clear, but still I can’t think of it all as a whole.

    The fact is I walk to and fro, and to and fro.

    This is how it was. I will simply tell it in order. (Order!)

    Gentlemen, I am far from being a literary man and you will see that; but no matter, I’ll tell it as I understand it myself. The horror of it for me is that I understand it all!

    It was, if you care to know, that is to take it from the beginning, that she used to come to me simply

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