The Age of Suspicion Read Online Free

debasement. And if, as André Gide observes, {5} 'they would not know how, they are incapable of being jealous' and 'all they know about jealousy is suffering,' it is because the rivalry implied by jealousy produces the unbearable antagonism, the break that they seek to avoid at all cost; in consequence, this rivalry, in their case, is continually being destroyed, submerged under a curious kind of tenderness, or under that very special sentiment that can hardly be called hatred, which, with them, is simply a way of approaching one's rival, of grasping, of clasping him to oneself by means of the object of their love.
    This refusal to consider their claim, this 'wise don't understand' that Rilke speaks of, and concerning which he adds that it means 'accepting to be alone, (whereas) struggle and contempt are ways of participating,' in their case, are rarely met with. Contact is inevitably established, the appeal is always heard. Nor does the reply ever fail to come, whether it be in the form of an impulse towards tenderness and forgiveness, or towards struggle and contempt.
    For although for certain privileged characters, such as Aliosha, Father Zossima or the Idiot, the roads that lead to their neighbour are the broad straight roads of love, others, less fortunate, find only muddy, winding roads ahead of them; and some can only walk backwards, stumbling over countless obstacles. All, however, have the same goal.
    They all respond, they all understand. Each one knows that he is nothing but a fortuitous, more or less felicitous assemblage of elements derived from the same common source, that all the others harbour within themselves his own possibilities, his own stray impulses; this explains why each one of them judges the actions of others as he would his own, at close range, and from within, with all their countless shadings and contradictions, which prevent classification and indiscriminate labelling; why no one can ever have the panoramic view of the conduct of others that, alone, makes rancour and blame permissible; it explains the disturbed curiosity with which each one continually scrutinises the soul of others, the astonishing premonitions, the presentiments, the clearsightedness, the supernatural gift of penetration, which are not the sole privilege of those who are enlightened by Christian love, but of all these dubious characters, these parasites with their saccharine, bitter talk, these larvae who continue to dig and stir in the very dregs of the soul and sniff with delight its nauseous slime.
    Crime itself, assassination, which is a sort of ultimate end of all these movements, the bottom of the abyss towards which they all continue to lean, fearful and attracted, is merely, in their case, the supreme embrace, and the only definitive break. But even this supreme break may yet be repaired thanks to public confession, by means of which the criminal deposits his crime in the common patrimony.
    In fact, in Dostoievski's entire works, with perhaps one single exception, no definitive break, no irreparable separation ever occurs.
    If, here and there, one of the two partners permits himself too great a deviation in conduct, or is so bold as to remain aloof and look down upon the other, the way Yeltchaninov does in The Eternal Husband when, 'the game' having been up for a long time, he becomes again the satisfied man of the world he had been formerly, before the game started, a brief call to order suffices (a hand that refuses to be stretched out, four words: 'and what about Lisa?') for the polite varnish to crack and fall away, and contact to be re-established.
    In only one of his stories—and it is also the only one that is really despairing—the Notes from Underground, which is situated, as it were, on the very confines, in the extreme forefront of his entire œuvre, because of the pitiless refusal the man underground meets with on the part of his comrades, narrow-minded, dull little civil servants, and the young officer,