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    A Faint Heart
    A Faint Heart
    A Faint Heart
    Ebook66 pages1 hour

    A Faint Heart

    By Fyodor Dostoevsky

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    About this ebook

    “A Faint Heart” is a fantastic short story by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881), a Russian novelist, essayist, short story writer, journalist, and philosopher. His literature examines human psychology during the turbulent social, spiritual and political atmosphere of 19th-century Russia, and he is considered one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. A prolific writer, Dostoevsky produced 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories and numerous other works. This volume will appeal to lovers of the short story form, and it is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Dostoyevsky's marvellous work. Other notable works by this author include: “Crime and Punishment” (1866), “Notes from the Underground” (1864), and “The Idiot” (1869).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateFeb 8, 2019
    ISBN9781528786317
    A Faint Heart
    Author

    Fyodor Dostoevsky

    With his sympathetic portrayals of the downtrodden of 19th-century Russian society, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) exercised immense influence on modern writers. His novels featured profound philosophical and psychological insights that anticipated the development of psychoanalysis and existentialism.

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      Book preview

      A Faint Heart - Fyodor Dostoevsky

      1.png

      A FAINT HEART

      BY

      FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

      FROM THE RUSSIAN BY

      CONSTANCE GARNETT

      This edition published by Read Books Ltd.

      Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available

      from the British Library

      Contents

      FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

      A FAINT HEART

      Fyodor Dostoevsky

      Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a former army doctor. Raised within the grounds of the Mariinsky hospital, at an early age he was introduced to English, French, German and Russian literature, as well as to fairy-tales and legends. He was educated at home and at a private school, but shortly after the death of his mother in 1837, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College.

      In 1839 Dostoevsky's father died. A year later, Dostoevsky graduated as a military engineer, but resigned in 1844 to devote himself to writing. While earning money from translations, he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which appeared in 1846. It was followed by The Double (1846), which depicted a man who was haunted by a look-alike who eventually usurps his position.

      In 1846, Dostoevsky joined a group of utopian socialists. He was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death. After a mock execution, his sentence was reduced to imprisonment in Siberia. Dostoevsky spent four years in hard labour – ten years later, he would turn these experiences into The House of the Dead (1860). Upon his release, he joined the army in Semipalatinsk (North-East Kazakhstan), where he remained for a further four years.

      Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1854. Three years later, he married Maria Isaev, a 29-year old widow. He resigned from the army in 1859, and focussed once more on writing. Between the years 1861 and 1863 he served as editor of the monthly periodical Time, which was later suppressed because of an article on the Polish uprising.

      In 1864-65 his wife and brother died and Dostoevsky was burdened with debts. The situation was made worse by his own lifelong gambling addiction. From the turmoil of the 1860s emerged his classic Notes from the Underground (1864), a psychological study of a social outcast seeking spiritual rebirth. The novel marked a watershed in Dostoevsky's artistic development.

      Notes from the Underground (1864) was followed by Dostoevsky's most famous work, Crime and Punishment (1866). An account of an individual's fall and redemption, and an implicit critique of nihilism, it is now regarded as one of the greatest works of Russian literature. Two years later The Idiot (1868) was published, and three years after that came The Possessed, (1871) an exploration of philosophical nihilism.

      In 1867 Dostoevsky married Anna Snitkin, his 22-year old stenographer. They travelled abroad and returned in 1871. By the time the The Brothers Karamazov was published, between 1879-80, Dostoevsky was recognized in his own country as one of its great writers. However, having suffered from a fragile mental disposition his whole life, Dostoevsky began to succumb to larger periods of mania and rage. After a particularly bad epileptic fit, he died in St. Petersburg in early 1881, aged 59.

      Together with Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is now regarded as one of the greatest and most influential novelists in all of Russian literature. His books have been translated into more than 170 languages and have sold around 15 million copies.

      A FAINT HEART

      A Story

      Under the same roof in the same flat on the same fourth storey lived two young men, colleagues in the service, Arkady Ivanovitch Nefedevitch and Vasya Shumkov.... The author of course, feels the necessity of explaining to the reader why one is given his full title, while the other's name is abbreviated, if only that such a mode of expression may not be regarded as unseemly and rather familiar. But, to do so, it would first be necessary to explain and describe the rank and years and calling and duty in the service, and even, indeed, the characters of the persons concerned; and since there are so many writers who begin in that way, the author of the proposed story, solely in order to be unlike them (that is, some people will perhaps say, entirely on account of his boundless vanity), decides to begin straightaway with action. Having completed this introduction, he begins.

      Towards six o'clock on New Year's Eve Shumkov returned home. Arkady Ivanovitch, who was lying on the bed, woke up and looked at his friend with half-closed eyes. He saw that Vasya had on his very best trousers and a very clean shirt front. That, of course, struck him. Where had Vasya to go like that? And he had not dined at home either! Meanwhile, Shumkov had lighted a candle, and Arkady Ivanovitch guessed immediately that his friend was intending to wake him accidentally. Vasya did, in fact, clear his throat twice, walked twice up and down the room, and at last, quite accidentally, let the pipe, which he had begun filling in the

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