Symbols

The pigs and the epigraph The book opens with two epigraphs, and the second gives the novel its title. The first is verses by Pushkin about travelers lost in a storm, carried around in circles by a demon, who see a band pass by in lament and ask whether it is the burial of a goblin or... The Leaf and the Five Seconds Those are two images with which Alexei Kirillov tries to prove that man is already happy and does not know it. The first is a tree leaf. Kirillov saw one, yellowed and rotten at the edges, carried off by the wind, and it reminded him of the green, shining... The icon and the lamp The corner icon with the lit lamp, which in the Russian home marks the place of prayer, appears in the novel in hands that do not know whether they believe. It is the lamp the deaf old woman lights in Alexei Kirillov's room, the one Kirillov himself lights... The fire at Zarechye On the night of Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke's ball, the district of Zarechye, on the other side of the river, catches fire in three places at once, and an entire street burns until dawn. The fire had been announced: Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky counts it... The spider A spider runs through the novel in four mouths and three sizes. For Alexei Kirillov, it is the little spider that climbs the wall, and he says he is grateful to it for climbing. For Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina, it is an enormous, evil spider, the size of a... The leaflets Printed sheets circulate in the novel in two directions that never meet. On one side are the anonymous proclamations: of foreign printing, thrown at night into factories and houses, some with an ax drawn at the top, others in verse, which the governor has... The main road The road is the last setting of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky. After more than twenty years living with Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, he leaves on foot, with an umbrella and a cane, a bag over his shoulder, without a passport and with no destination that...