Demons

[218] Stavrogin specifies Russian tradespeople because many of the tradespeople living in Petersburg at that time were German.

[219] That is, masturbation; see Book Three of Rousseau's posthumously published Confessions (1782).

[220] A section of Petersburg between the Little Neva and the Nevka rivers, opposite the main part of the city, which is on the south bank of the Neva.

[221] See Part One, Chapter Four, note 5.

[222] Claude Gellée, called Le Lorrain (1600-1682), a master of sun and light, is one of the greatest French painters of landscape. Acis was a Sicilian shepherd who was loved by the nymph Galatea and whom the Cyclops Polyphemus, out of jealousy, crushed under a huge rock. The Cyclops in the picture makes it a bit less "golden" than Stavrogin thinks.

[223] This formula occurs in all Orthodox prayers for the forgiveness of sins.

[224] Treatment suffered by Christ at the hands of the high priest Caiaphas and the scribes and elders of Jerusalem, and/or from the Roman soldiers, before his crucifixion (see Matthew 26:67, 27:30; Mark 15:19).

[225] Christ's words in Matthew 18:6 (King James Version): "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

[226] No source for these words is known; they sound like a paraphrase from Revelation.