{"product_id":"2940012352255","title":"The Brothers Karamazov","description":"Book I. The History Of A Family\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch\u003cbr\u003eKaramazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and\u003cbr\u003estill remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which\u003cbr\u003ehappened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper\u003cbr\u003eplace. For the present I will only say that this “landowner”—for so we\u003cbr\u003eused to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own\u003cbr\u003eestate—was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a\u003cbr\u003etype abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of\u003cbr\u003ethose senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their\u003cbr\u003eworldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch,\u003cbr\u003efor instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest;\u003cbr\u003ehe ran to dine at other men’s tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet\u003cbr\u003eat his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard\u003cbr\u003ecash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless,\u003cbr\u003efantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not\u003cbr\u003estupidity—the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and\u003cbr\u003eintelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of\u003cbr\u003eit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first\u003cbr\u003ewife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch’s first\u003cbr\u003ewife, Adelaïda Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble\u003cbr\u003efamily, also landowners in our district, the Miüsovs. How it came to pass\u003cbr\u003ethat an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those\u003cbr\u003evigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes\u003cbr\u003ealso to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny\u003cbr\u003eweakling, as we all called him, I won’t attempt to explain. I knew a young\u003cbr\u003elady of the last “romantic” generation who after some years of an\u003cbr\u003eenigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have\u003cbr\u003emarried at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and\u003cbr\u003eended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid\u003cbr\u003eriver from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to\u003cbr\u003esatisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Indeed, if\u003cbr\u003ethis precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less\u003cbr\u003epicturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most\u003cbr\u003elikely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and\u003cbr\u003eprobably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or\u003cbr\u003ethree generations. Adelaïda Ivanovna Miüsov’s action was similarly, no\u003cbr\u003edoubt, an echo of other people’s ideas, and was due to the irritation\u003cbr\u003ecaused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her\u003cbr\u003efeminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of\u003cbr\u003eher family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for\u003cbr\u003ea brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic\u003cbr\u003eposition, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive\u003cbr\u003eepoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more.\u003cbr\u003eWhat gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement,\u003cbr\u003eand this greatly captivated Adelaïda Ivanovna’s fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch’s\u003cbr\u003eposition at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for\u003cbr\u003ehe was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To\u003cbr\u003eattach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring\u003cbr\u003eprospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the\u003cbr\u003ebride or in him, in spite of Adelaïda Ivanovna’s beauty. This was,\u003cbr\u003eperhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who\u003cbr\u003ewas always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on\u003cbr\u003ethe slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who\u003cbr\u003emade no particular appeal to his senses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImmediately after the elopement Adelaïda Ivanovna discerned in a flash\u003cbr\u003ethat she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage\u003cbr\u003eaccordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinary rapidity.\u003cbr\u003eAlthough the family accepted the event pretty quickly and apportioned the\u003cbr\u003erunaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most\u003cbr\u003edisorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069338992880,"sku":"2940012352255","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012352255_p0.jpg?v=1763567742","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012352255","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}