A Wild Night in Mokroye

It is a bit like Chichikov's wild ride and there is even a reference to Gogol's Dead Souls in Dostoevsky's marvelous chapter on Mitya. At 80 pages it reads like a novella, beautifully crafted from beginning to end. Of course, it helps having the preceding chapters to capture the full impact of Mitya's wild night where he finally connects with his beloved Grushenka.

At first you get the sense of Don Quixote chasing after his Dulcinea. You figure there isn't much chance for the impetuous Mitya who stakes everything on a carriage full of champagne and foodstuffs to recreate a previous wild night at the inn in Mokroye. When he arrives at the inn and sizes up the situation, his hopes at first seem dashed, but over a game of cards his luck turns and the two Poles are revealed to be little more than hucksters, and the officer that Grushenka had harbored her love for a total dud. Mitya dismisses with them both, but not in the way you would imagine. The pair of guns remain in the carriage.

Mitya breaks out the champagne and the party begins in full force. Grushenka is taken by Mitya all over again as he and Maximov dance with the girls while a Jewish band plays. Maximov had earlier regaled everyone in a story where he was the subject of one of Gogol's parochial land owners. A self-deprecating gesture as Maximov seems to like to play himself as a fool to appeal to Mitya, who is flush with cash.

The inn keeper tries to keep a tight rein on Mitya, but it is impossible. It is this sense of abandon which Grushenka loves most. Eventually, she leads him behind a curtain where Dostoevsky has them revel in each other's sex before the police arrive early in the morning to issue a warrant for his arrest. Mitya doesn't seem to mind as he heard what he had so desperately wanted to hear -- Grushenka declare her unconditional love for him.

Above is the scene depicted in the 1931 film by Fyodor Otsep.

Comments

Ward No. 6

Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892. It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921. In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town. He introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster. It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin. Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.

Light and Dark

I'm still trying to sort out the ending. The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double . He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul. Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul. This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage. Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage. I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece. In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating event...

The Morning of Our Motherland

I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery . The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right. To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union. Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence. It is also known as Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years. The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance. He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide. Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin fo...

Chekhov's Gun

Search This Blog