The centenarian

Dostoevsky in 1879

The centenarian ( Russian Столетняя Stoletnjaja ) is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky , which appeared in the March 1876 issue of the collection of a writer's diary .

Death as it afflicts the family is depicted in a memorable image.

action

In the middle of the city, a hundred and four year old woman is dragging herself from seat to seat on the way to meet her relatives. She wants to have lunch with the grandchildren. The narrator is not sure: it could also be her great-grandchildren. Although the great-grandmother is not a beggar, she takes a dime from a lady on the street.

At lunch, with her children, the great-grandmother turns pale and her lips are white. She looks at her loved ones, "but strangely blurred". When the woman dies at the table, she holds the penny in one hand and she has put her free arm around the shoulder of one of her great-grandchildren. Her last words are: "I thought ... for the penny ... the children gingerbread ..."

German-language editions

• Eleonore Gerstengarbe (Ed.): Everyone has their time. Small reader (contains: Michael Ende : Motto . Johnson Gnanabaranam : In the jungle. A bundle of hay . Heinz Czechowski : A visit to Claire Goll . Fyodor Dostoevsky: The centenarian . Stefan Zweig : Heroic moment. Georg Friedrich Handel's resurrection . Theodor Fontane : Forty years later. Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland . Stefan Heym : Clown Theobald . Johannes Bobrowski : De homine publico tractatus . Klaus-Peter Hertzsch : The story of Jonah and the beautiful city of Nineveh. The story of Daniel and the lions in the pit . Jochen Klepper : Who you have the time in your hands . Hanns Cibulka : Swantow - The records of Andreas Flemming . Eva Strittmatter : Snow light ). 112 pages. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-374-00796-1

Used edition

• The centenarian . German by Werner Creutziger . S. 260–266 in: Fjodor Dostojewski: The dream of a ridiculous man. Little prose . Epilogue: Ralf Schröder . (Also contains: Notes from the underground . The crocodile . Bobok . The boy with the Lord Jesus at Christmas . The gentle one . The dream of a ridiculous person ). 349 pages, RUB vol. 600 (2nd edition), Reclam, Leipzig 1985

Web links

• The text
  • Столетняя (Достоевский) (Russian),
  • anno 1888: La Centenaire (French) Translator: Ely Halpérine-Kaminsky
  • online at RVB.ru (Russian)
  • online at e-reading.club (Russian)
• Entry in the list of works Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian)
• Entry at fantlab.ru (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The online text from the March edition of a writer's diary at Lib.ru / Klassiker
2. ↑ Edition used, p. 264, 8th Zvu
3. ↑ Edition used, p. 264, 6th Zvu
4. ↑ Werner Creutziger in the German biography
5. ↑ French Ely Halpérine-Kaminsky