Important Quotations Explained
1. What
was taking place in him was totally unfamiliar, new, sudden, never
before experienced. Not that he understood it, but he sensed clearly,
with all the power of sensation, that it was no longer possible
for him to address these people in the police station, not only
with heartfelt effusions, as he had just done, but in any way at
all, and had they been his own brothers and sisters, and not police
lieutenants, there would still have been no point in this addressing
them, in whatever circumstances of life.
2. I've
known Rodion for a year and a half: sullen, gloomy, arrogant, proud;
recently (and maybe much earlier) insecure and hypochondriac. Magnanimous
and kind. Doesn't like voicing his feelings, and would rather do
something cruel than speak his heart out in words. At times, however,
he's not hypochondriac at all, but just inhumanly cold and callous,
as if there really were two opposite characters in him, changing
places with each other. At times he's terribly taciturn! He's always
in a hurry, always too busy, yet he lies there doing nothing. Not
given to mockery, and not because he lacks sharpness but as if he
had no time for such trifles. Never hears people out to the end.
Is never interested in what interests everyone else at a given moment.
Sets a terribly high value on himself and, it seems, not without
a certain justification.
3. The
old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she's not the point! The old
woman was merely a sickness . . . I was in a hurry to step over
. . . it wasn't a human being I killed, it was a principle! So I
killed the principle, but I didn't step over, I stayed on this side
. . . All I managed to do was kill. And I didn't even manage that,
as it turns out . . .
4. What
is it, to run away! A mere formality; that's not the main thing;
no, he won't run away on me by a law of nature, even if he has somewhere
to run to. Have you ever seen a moth near a candle? Well, so he'll
keep circling around me, circling around me, as around a candle;
freedom will no longer be dear to him, he'll fall to thinking, get
entangled, he'll tangle himself all up as in a net, he'll worry
himself to death! . . . he'll keep on making circles around me, narrowing
the radius more and more, and—whop! He'll fly right into my mouth,
and I'll swallow him, sir, and that will be most agreeable, heh,
heh, heh!
5. How
it happened he himself did not know, but suddenly it was as if something
lifted him and flung him down at her feet. He wept and embraced
her knees. For the first moment she was terribly frightened, and
her whole face went numb. She jumped up and looked at him, trembling.
But all at once, in that same moment, she understood everything.
Infinite happiness lit up in her eyes; she understood, and for her there
was no longer any doubt that he loved her, loved her infinitely,
and that at last the moment had come. . . .
