Uncle's Dream; and The Permanent Husband. Fyodor DostoyevskyЧитать онлайн книгу.
and its effect is unique in fiction. It is realism, but such realism as M. Zola and his followers do not dream of. The reader knows the personages—strange grotesque, terrible personages they are—more intimately than if he had been years with them in the flesh. He is constrained to live their lives, to suffer their tortures, to scheme and resist with them, exult with them, weep and laugh and despair with them; he breathes the very breath of their nostrils, and with the madness that comes upon them he is afflicted even as they. This sounds extravagant praise, no doubt; but only to those who have not read the volume. To those who have, we are sure that it will appear rather under the mark than otherwise.”—The Athenæum.
VIZETELLY'S RUSSIAN NOVELS.
Uncle's Dream;
AND
The Permanent Husband.
By FEDOR DOSTOIEFFSKY,
AUTHOR OF “CRIME AND PUNISHMENT,” “INJURY AND INSULT,” “THE IDIOT,” “THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY; AND THE GAMBLER.”
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY FREDERICK WHISHAW.
LONDON:
VIZETELLY & CO., 16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1888.
Uncle's Dream.
Footnotes
The Permanent Husband
UNCLE'S DREAM.
CHAPTER I.
Maria Alexandrovna Moskaleva was the principal lady of Mordasoff—there was no doubt whatever on that point! She always bore herself as though she did not care a fig for anyone, but as though no one else could do without her. True, there were uncommonly few who loved her—in fact I may say that very many detested her; still, everyone was afraid of her, and that was what she liked!
Now, why did Maria Alexandrovna, who dearly loves scandal, and cannot sleep at night unless she has heard something new and piquant the day before,—why, or how did she know how to bear herself so that it would never strike anyone, looking at her, to suppose that the dignified lady was the most inveterate scandal-monger in the world—or at all events in Mordasoff? On the contrary, anyone would have said at once, that scandals and such-like pettiness must vanish in her presence; and that scandal-mongers, caught red-handed by Maria Alexandrovna, would blush and tremble, like schoolboys at the entrance of the master; and that the talk would immediately be diverted into channels of the