The Insulted and Humiliated (also known as The Insulted and the Injured) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1861, is the trigger of the many tragic novels written by Dostoevsky that depict the harshness of human relations with a zest of blind kindness.

Plot introduction

Full of a harsh realism, the book is a strong portrait of human misery. The book has the protagonist Ivan Petrovich fall from fame into poverty and is based on the author's own life experiences. It was very poorly received by literature critics of the time.

Plot summary

Natasha leaves her parents' home and run away with Aleyosha (prince Alexey) – the son of Prince Valkovsky that abuses her father. Her father, Nikolai, in great pain curses her. The only friend that remains by Natasha's side is Ivan – her childhood friend who is deeply in love with her. Prince Valkovsky tries to destroy Alyosha's plans to marry Natasha, and want to make him marry the rich princes Katherina. Alyosha is a childish young man who is easily manipulated by his father.

Characters in "The Insulted and Humiliated"

    * Ivan Petrovich – main protagonist
    * Nikolai Sergueych Ikhmenev – landlord of Ikhmenevka
    * Anna Andreyevna – Nikolai's wife
    * Natasha Nikolayevna – Nikolai's daughter
    * Mavra – Natasha's maid
    * Prince Valkovsky
    * Prince Alexey – Prince Valkovsky's son
    * Mr Smith
    * Elena – Mr Smith's grand daughter
    * Filipp Filippych Masloboyev – Ivan Petrovich's old acquaintance
    * Alexandra Semionovna – Filipp's wife
    * Katerina Fiodorovna – Prince Alexeï's future wife

(From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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The Insulted and Injured by Fyodor Dostoevsky, trnas. Constance Garnett, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.

Cover Design: Jim Manis
Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University

PART I
CHAPTER I

LAST YEAR, on the evening of March 22, I had a very strange adventure. All that day I had been walking about the town trying to find a lodging. My old one was very damp, and I had begun to have an ominous cough. Ever since the autumn I had been meaning to move, but I had hung on till the spring. I had not been able to find anything decent all day. In the first place I wanted a separate tenement, not a room in other people’s lodgings; secondly, though I could do with one room, it must be a large one, and, of course, it had at the same time to be as cheap as possible.

I have observed that in a confined space even thought is cramped; When I was brooding over a future novel I liked to walk up and down the room. By the way, I always like better brooding over my works and dreaming how they should be written than actually writing them. And this really is not from laziness. Why is it?

I had been feeling unwell all day, and towards sunset I felt really very ill. Something like a fever set in. Moreover, I had been all day long on my legs and was tired. Towards evening, just before it got dark, I was walking along the Voznesensky Prospect. I love the March sun in Petersburg, especially at sunset, in clear frosty weather, of course. The whole street suddenly glitters, bathed in brilliant light.

All the houses seem suddenly, as it were, to sparkle. Their grey, yellow, and dirty-green hues for an instant lose all their gloominess, it is as though there were a sudden clearness in one’s soul, as though one were startled, or as though someone had nudged one with his elbow.

There is a new outlook, a new train of thought…. It is wonderful what one ray of sunshine can do for the soul of man! But the ray of sunshine had died away; the frost grew sharper, and began to nip one’s nose: the twilight deepened; gas flared from the shops. As I reached Muller’s, the confectioner’s, I suddenly stood stock-still and began staring at that side of the street, as though I had a presentiment that something extra-ordinary was just going to
happen to me ; and at that very instant I saw, on the opposite side of the street, the old man with his dog. I remember quite well that I felt an unpleasant sensation clutch at my heart, and I could not myself have told what that sensation was.

I am not a mystic. I scarcely believe in presentiments and divinings, yet I have, as probably most people have, had some rather inexplicable experiences in my life. For example, this old man : why was it that at that meeting with him I had at once a presentiment that that same evening something not quite ordinary would happen to me ? I was ill, however, and sensations in illness are almost always deceptive. ...

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