Clavis Libri
Plans Sign in

Demons · With Tikhon

The suppressed confession

GuiltTruth and LiesGod and the DivineThe Individual and Society

Analysis

Dostoevsky wanted this chapter to follow Chapter VIII of the Second Part, but the editor of the magazine in which the novel was running as a serial, Mikhail Katkov, refused it flatly; the author read it to Pobedonostsev, the czar's trusted man, and to the critics Maikov and Strakhov, who found it too real, and he tried to rewrite it several times (the meeting with Tikhon alone went through eight drafts) without departing from its essence; the text was not published in his lifetime. Editions therefore usually print it as an appendix, at the end of the book.

On the morning after the night of Chapter VIII, Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin crosses the town, passes a column of workers and enters a monastery with three printed leaflets in his pocket. He hands them to the retired bishop Tikhon to read: it is a confession of something he did in Petersburg years earlier, written without sparing anything. What follows is neither absolution nor condemnation. Tikhon reads, says there is no greater crime than that, says the text has a flaw, the tone of defiance that goes with it, names the risk Stavrogin did not measure, the laughter, proposes exchanging the publication for a long, secret obedience and, when Stavrogin refuses, foresees that he will commit another crime so as not to have to confess. The question the chapter leaves open is the one the rest of the novel answers without saying so: what is done with a true confession when the world knows only how to receive it as a spectacle, through hatred or laughter.

Unlock with a subscription

Subscription

The complete analysis of every part of Demons comes with a subscription, along with the explanation of each quote, the quiz, the PDF guide, and the study workbook.

See the plansAlready subscribed? Sign in

Reading of the part

Analysis

Unlock with a subscription