What It Is
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 the room of Alexei Kirillov, the one Kirillov himself lights when she has no time, the one Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky orders lit as an alibi, the one that burns before the image of the Savior on the night of the suicide. Beside it is the violated icon: the Nativity of the Virgin, at the gate of a church in town, with its glass broken and its pearls torn off, before which only one person kneels. The book treats the sacred as an object passed from hand to hand, and what each person does with it says more than what each one declares.
Where It Appears
In Chapter III of Part One, the chronicler enters the wing where Kirillov lives and describes the poor and clean room: an icon, before which a deaf old woman has already lit the lamp, and two dark portraits, of Nicholas I and of a bishop. The lamp comes before any word Kirillov says about God.
In Chapter I of Part Two, Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin asks Kirillov whether he was the one who lit it. Kirillov says yes, explains that the old woman likes it and that today she had no time, and refuses the name of faith: he says he prays to everything, even to the spider that climbs the wall. In Chapter II of Part Two, the room of Marya Timofeyevna Lebyadkina in the new house has, as the old one did, its own icon with a lit lamp, and no one comments on it.
In Chapter V of Part Two, in the church square, the icon of the Nativity is found violated in the morning, with a live rat behind the glass. The town laughs.
Four months later the crime is attributed to the convict Fedka, but the town's gossip also adds the name of Liamshin, with no proof at the time of the events.
Among the onlookers, Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina arrives on horseback, outraged at the coin of contempt a young man tosses onto the plate, takes off her hat and gloves, and kneels on the dirty sidewalk.
Румянец негодования залил ее щеки; она сняла свою круглую шляпу, перчатки, упала на колени пред образом, прямо на грязный тротуар, и благоговейно положила три земных поклона, the flush of indignation covered her cheeks; she took off her round hat and gloves, fell on her knees before the icon, right onto the filthy sidewalk, and devoutly made three prostrations to the ground.
When the monk answers her that every gift is good, she has already given her earrings. The question she asks before that is the question of someone who asks permission for a rite she does not understand.
Можно, можно? На украшение ризы?, may I, may I? For the adornment of the icon's vestment?
In Chapter IX of Part Two, after the search of Stepan's house, the maid climbs onto a chair and lights a lamp before the icon, which had never been there before. He himself says why.
Это я давеча распорядился, только что те ушли, — пробормотал Степан Трофимович, хитро посмотрев на меня, — quand on a de ces choses-là dans sa chambre et qu’on vient vous arrêter, то это внушает, и должны же они доложить, что видели, I ordered that a little while ago, just after they left, murmured Stepan Trofimovich, looking at me craftily, quand on a de ces choses-là dans sa chambre et qu'on vient vous arrêter, that makes an impression, and they must report what they saw.
On the threshold, as he leaves to go to the governor, he reaches out to the lamp, says he never believed in such things but so be it, and makes the sign of the cross.
In Chapter II of Part Three, on the morning after the fire, the small house of the Lebyadkins appears with its three residents killed by knife. Whoever robbed them emptied the captain's wallet and left Marya Timofeyevna's trunk and the silver cover of the icon untouched.
In Chapter IV of Part Three, in Kirillov's kitchen, Fedka, who took the pearls from icons, demands from Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky the money promised to him and the faith he has lost.
что в самого бога, творца истинного, перестал по разврату своему веровать, that because of your debauchery you stopped believing in God himself, the true Creator.
In Chapter VI of Part Three, on the night Kirillov kills himself, he points to the image of the Savior before the lit lamp, and Pyotr notes that he still believes, more than a priest does, and asks whether he lit the lamp just in case. The answer is the idea of the three crosses.
если законы природы не пожалели и Этого, даже чудо свое же не пожалели, а заставили и Его жить среди лжи и умереть за ложь, то, стало быть, вся планета есть ложь и стоит на лжи и глупой насмешке. Стало быть, самые законы планеты ложь и диаволов водевиль. Для чего же жить, отвечай, если ты человек, if the laws of nature did not spare even Him, did not spare even his own miracle, but forced Him too to live amid lies and die for a lie, then, it follows, the whole planet is a lie and stands on a lie and a stupid mockery. It follows that the very laws of the planet are a lie and the devil's vaudeville. Why live, then, answer me, if you are a man?
What It Means
The lamp has no owner and no fixed meaning. For the old woman it is custom; for Kirillov, a courtesy he does not call belief; for Stepan, a proof of good conduct that the police may verify; for Marya Timofeyevna, a fixed item in the room, which moves house with her; for Kirillov on the last night, the point of light before an image from which he draws, instead of faith, a sentence against the planet. The violated icon is the other pole. The town laughs at it, the group she rides with takes it as one joke among others, and the only gesture without an audience is hers, kneeling in the mud, giving her earrings, and asking whether she may.
Those who light the lamp in the book deny that they believe: Kirillov refuses the name of faith, Stepan says he never believed in that. And whoever prays without calculation, Lizaveta Nikolaevna on the sidewalk, is knocked down by an anonymous hand in the crowd in Chapter III of Part Three and dies. The object outlives the one who uses it, and the novel leaves two readings open. In one, the lamp is the remnant of a faith the unbeliever cannot put out, and that is why he lights it without knowing why. In the other, it is a stage prop, like everything else in a town that has grown used to seeing everything as spectacle, and only Lizaveta Nikolaevna's act stands outside this. The ambiguity extends even to Fedka, who tears the pearls from the icons and who, all the same, charges Pyotr for the faith he lost.
Relationships
- Standard themes: God and the divine, Truth and lies, Individual and society.
- Themes in the work: God and the divine, Truth and lies, Individual and society.
- Characters: Alexei Kirillov, Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina, Fedka, Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, Marya Timofeyevna Lebyadkina.
- Neighboring symbols: The spider, which Kirillov says he prays to in the same conversation in which he speaks of the lamp, and The pigs and the epigraph, the reading of the sacred that the book puts in Stepan's mouth.