Bobok (Dostoevsky)

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Bobok ( Russian : Бобок, bean (little bean)) is a fantastic-philosophical story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky , which appeared in February 1873 in a writer's diary in the St. Petersburg magazine Graschdanin .

Dostoevsky in 1879

action

The novellas and feature pages of the first-person narrator Ivan Ivanytsch are rejected by the editorial staff because they lack the flavor. This writer does not give up. Now he has written the notes of a stranger that he wants to bring to the Grahdanin :

After this stranger had carried the coffin of an uncle, the Real Privy Councilor Tarasevich, from the church to the grave, he dodged the funeral meal and remained sitting all alone on one of the gravestones for a while. Some of them talk like pillows in front of their mouths. The voices undoubtedly come from the graves. Two of them talk about certain préférence strategies: "We absolutely have to take a fool as the third man and sometimes give it the wrong way." At some point, the unknown eavesdropper learns, everyone who has just been buried breaks his silence. Some only open their mouths after a week. Privy Councilor Tarasevich, who has just been buried, speaks at once; responds as a newcomer to the address of someone who has been lying down for a long time, but is interrupted by the latter: the newcomer had embezzled public funds up there, intended for widows and orphans, around four hundred thousand rubles.

A dead person asks the group of the buried how most of those around can talk from their graves. You are dead. The answer is quickly available. An explanation like this could be expected from a doctor of philosophy who has been in the cemetery for three months: death up there in the world is not real death, but the body below in the pit comes to life again for almost three months. Not much more can be expected from that dead philosopher. However, there are exceptions to the rule. An already decomposed person would mumble "Bobok" once every six weeks and nothing more. "Right nonsense," throws in an even fresher dead man. In view of the depressing quarterly period, a proposal comes from a grave that is met with lively applause from all the dead who can still articulate themselves: everyone should take turns talking about their worst mess up there in life, but not be ashamed of anything. And lying is taboo.

The conversations never end. A dead engineer does not understand what the rapier means and is explained by the dead general: "The rapier, sir, is the honor!" The stranger who is listening has to sneeze. The dead fall silent.

The writer ponders: should he really publish this protocol of the unknown? After all, the decaying corpses want to abuse their last remnants of awareness for reports of their debauchery during their lifetime. Anyway - it has to be written.

The first-person narrator Ivan Ivanytsch wants to send the unknown eavesdropper to other graves.

Quote

  • A dead person says: "To live on earth and not lie is impossible."
  • In dialogues among the dead, rank in life loses its value: “There he was a general; but here he is a carrion! ... you only have six brass buttons left. "

Adaptations

German-language editions

  • Bobok in: The player. Late novels and short stories. Translated from Russian and given an afterword by EK Rahsin. 790 pages, Piper, Munich 1991 (13th edition). ISBN 3-492-10408-8

Used edition

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 342, 1. Zvo
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 239, 7. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 249, 12. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 251, 21. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 250, 16. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 251, 4th Zvu