Notes of a Madman (Tolstoy)

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Lev Tolstoy in 1903

Notes of a madman ( Russian Записки сумасшедшего , Sapiski sumasschedschewo ) is a short story by Lev Tolstoy , which began in the spring of 1884, was further edited in 1887, 1888, 1896 and 1903, but was not completed and was published posthumously in Moscow in 1912 . In 1982 the text in Vol. 12 Powesti and Stories 1885–1902 of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition was published by Verlag für Künstlerische Literatur , also in Moscow.

Tolstoy incorporated his own experience. In September 1869 he stayed in Arsamas during a trip to the Penza Governorate .

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The first-person narrator reports on his madness . Fortunately, he wasn't labeled a madman by the provincial court. And that's only because he essentially kept his mouth shut throughout the negotiation. Because he was terrified of the madhouse . In doing so, the narrator knows that he is insane.

It all started after his 35th birthday. To date, he has only had two tangible inexplicable anxiety attacks during his childhood, which he remembered in his notes at the beginning. The rest of the résumé - up to the birthday mentioned - was largely normal: as a bachelor, not despising sensual pleasures - meaning intercourse with women - he studied law , then entered civil service, married, ran an estate, the children educated and had been a justice of the peace.

Things really got going in a hotel room in the city of Arzamas. At night he could no longer understand why he was on his way to Penza and wanted to buy a good there. At the height of the nightly oppression, death reported to the narrator in an inaudible voice: "I am here." The traveller's fear of "dying life" increased. The narrator did not travel any further the next morning because he prayed for hours against his terrible melancholy , which gripped him with "excruciating cold". He had been an atheist for the past twenty years . He refrained from buying the property because there was not enough money.

At home his wife scolded him for his new, unknown piety and lethargy . During a participation in a trial in Moscow that cannot be postponed, the terrible fear - the same as in Arsamas - reappears in his hotel room on Myasnitskaya Street. God, to whom he prays, may please reveal himself about this fear. But he does'nt do it. Because God is silent, the narrator denies Him: "If you were, you would tell me ... But you are not, only one thing is: despair." The narrator asks and asks. In prayer he comes to rest.

The narrator is hardly interested in his agriculture anymore. Because even disgust torments him: How had he bought a good and wanted to enrich himself with the farmer! The madness that was spoken of in front of the provincial court - as indicated above - breaks out again with the narrator when, after a service in front of the church, he gives away money to beggars with full hands.

German-language editions

  • Records of a madman. German by Gisela Drohla . S. 5–20 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Sixth volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian. Посмертные художественные произведения Л. Н. Толстого / под ред. В. Г. Черткова, Т. 3. In German: Legacy Artistic Works of LN Tolstoy. Editor: WG Tschertkow , Vol. 3
  2. ↑ Russian comments on the text
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 11, 3rd Zvu
  4. ↑ ru: Мясницкая улица
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 16, 1. Zvu
  6. ↑ Russian Владимир Яковлевич Линков, entry at istina.msu.ru in 2016