Demons (Penguin Classics)

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Stavrogin has received an extraordinarily insulting letter from Artemy Gaganov, the son of a respected landowner—Pavel Gaganov—whose nose he pulled as a joke some years earlier, and has been left with no choice but to challenge him to a duel. She tries to ignore this however, and Pyotr Stepanovich is able to further ingratiate himself by subtly presenting her son's inexplicable behaviour in a favourable light. Dostoevsky considered the chapter to be essential to an understanding of the psychology of Stavrogin, and he tried desperately but unsuccessfully to save it through revisions and concessions to Katkov. He tells the story of the conspiracy in great detail, and the rest of the crew, with the exception of Pyotr Stepanovich who left for Petersburg after Kirillov's suicide, are arrested.

To Gaganov's intense anger, Stavrogin appears to deliberately miss, as if to trivialize the duel and insult his opponent, although he says it is because he doesn't want to kill anyone any more. His magnetic personality influences his tutor, the liberal intellectual poseur Stepan Verkhovensky, and the teacher’s revolutionary son Pyotr, as well as other radicals.Varvara Petrovna is elated and almost triumphant to hear that her son's actions had a noble foundation rather than a shameful one. He focused on the group organized by young agitator Sergey Nechayev, particularly their murder of a former comrade—Ivan Ivanov—at the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy in Moscow.

He is quickly followed by the literary genius Karmazinov who is reading a farewell to his public entitled " Merci". Pyotr Stepanovich, on his arrival in the town, is quick to take advantage of her resentment towards his father. Constance Garnett's 1916 translation popularized the novel and gained it notoriety as The Possessed, but this title has been disputed by later translators. The political polemic and parts of the philosophical novel were merged into a single larger scale project, which became Demons. They then discuss philosophical issues arising out of Kirillov's firm intention to commit suicide in the near future.She has become ambiguously involved with Stavrogin after their encounter in Switzerland and seems to oscillate between deep love and profound hatred for him. Matters are further complicated by the arrival of a mysterious "crippled woman", Marya Lebyadkina, to whom Nikolai Vsevolodovich is also rumoured to be connected, although no-one seems to know exactly how. By the time of the events in the novel Shatov has completely rejected his former convictions and become a passionate defender of Russia's Christian heritage. In the following years he published his most enduring and successful books, including Crime and Punishment (1865). Dostoevsky seeks to show how the Russian intellectuals of the first half of the century, with their delegitimisation of Russian culture, history and traditions in favour of Western ideas, paved the way for the nihilistic horrors that would be perpetrated by the following generations.