The Brothers Karamazov

[347]Udolpho: refers to The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), a gothic novel by the English writer A

[348]the power to bind and to loose: see Matthew 16:19,18:18; rather loosely applied by Fetyukovich.

[349]The crucified lover of mankind . .: the quotation is a conflation of John 10:11,14-15, with the last phrase added by Fetyukovich. On the epithet “lover of mankind,” see note 1 to page 18 in section 1.1.4.

[350]Fathers, provoke not ...: cf. Colossians 3:21. Fetyukovich “adulters” by what he omits (see Colossians 3:20).

[351]vivosvoco!:  “I call the living.” From the epigraph to Schiller’s “Song of the Bell,” used in turn as an epigraph by the radical journal The Bell (see note 5 to page 555 in section 4.10.6).

[352]With what measure ye mete ... : see note 1 to page 133 in section 1.3.8; Fetyukovich goes on to reverse the meaning of this “precept.”

[353]’metal and ‘brimstone’: refers to a passage from the play Hard Days (1863) by Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-86), in which a merchant’s wife is afraid to hear these biblical words.

[354]Drivenature out the door . . .: quotation from a Russian translation of La Fontaine’s “La Chatte métamorphosée en femme” (The cat changed into a woman), Fables 2.18.

[355] These people . . .: see Matthew 25:35-43.

[356]It is better . . .: the majestic voice is Peter the Great’s; the words are a slightly altered quotation from his Military Code (1716).

[357]For Thou art our God ...: the phrase appears in many Orthodox prayers, particularly in the Hymn of the Resurrection sung at Matins.

[358]Thou art angry, Jupiter . . .: a well-known saying in Russia. Its ultimate source is unknown, but a somewhat similar phrase occurs in a dialogue by the Greek satirist Lucian. See N.S. Ashukin and M. G. Ashukina, Krylatye Slova (Winged words) (Moscow, 1986), pp. 721-22.

[359]I will break the sword . . .: a sword was broken over the condemned man’s head in the ceremony known as “civil execution” (see Terras, p. 436). Dostoevsky underwent such an “execution” on 22 December 1849, and described it in a letter to his brother Mikhail written that same day.

[360]Good God, gentlemen ...: refers to an actual case, involving the actress A. B. Kairova, which Dostoevsky wrote about in his Diary of a Writer (May 1876).

[361]to the last Mohicans: James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826) was very popular in Russia; Dostoevsky owned a French translation of it.

[362]fillet: a narrow band with a prayer of absolution written on it, customarily placed on the head of the deceased in Russian funeral services.

[363]may his memory ... ages of ages: liturgical language echoing the service they have all just attended; the prayer “Memory Eternal,” sung at the very end of the funeral service, refers to God’s memory.