Summary
The narration is told in the first person. The narrator is Arkady Dolgoruky, the main character of the work. He writes his confession because he cannot help but share his thoughts and feelings, he was so shocked by what happened.
Part 1
Arkady Dolgoruky graduated from high school and is twenty years old. His legal father is Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, a servant on the Versilov estate. His real father was the landowner Versilov. He is a widower and has two legitimate children, a son and a daughter, who are being raised by the relatives of his wife Phanariotov.
Having once visited his estate, Versilov met and fell in love with Arkady’s mother Sofya Andreevna, who by that time was already married to Dolgoruky. Versilov bought her from her husband for three thousand and took her with him. He could not marry her because she did not belong to a noble family. Their relationship continued. They had three children, the last child died in infancy.
Makar Ivanovich kept in touch with his wife, they corresponded regularly. He himself turned into a wanderer and lived for a long time in monasteries.
Arkady grew up and was raised outside the home, and at the age of 19 he decided to break with his family altogether, notifying his mother about this in a letter. After this message, Versilov summoned him to St. Petersburg. Arriving at his mother, whom he had only seen a few times before, Arkady found them in distress. Mother and sister earned money by sewing, but there was not enough money. Arkady gave his mother the sixty rubles he had saved for his maintenance.
Versilov was busy trying to win a trial against the Sokolsky princes. The inheritance was estimated at seventy thousand.
Versilov had a scandalous reputation in society. In Germany, an unpleasant incident happened to him, for which he received a slap in the face from Sokolsky. Versilov did not respond to the slap, as if admitting his guilt. Arkady wanted to know the truth.
Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, his father arranged for Arkady to serve with Prince Nikolai Semenovich Sokolsky, the namesake of those with whom Versilov was suing. The prince had the rank of privy councilor and was very rich. The service was not burdensome and consisted of entertaining the prince with conversations and, if necessary, drawing up some papers. At the prince's house, Arkady met his paternal sister Anna Andreevna.
Having received his first salary, Arkady decided to put it into action. He bought the album for two rubles and sold it for ten. It must be said that the young man had a dream of getting rich, but he wanted to do it honestly. Rothschild served as his ideal.
The hero went to Yegor Zverev, with whom they went to Dergachev, where they hoped to meet with Kraft. Dergachev had conversations about the future of Russia, about the importance of the Russian people.
Then Arkady went to Kraft, who was handling Versilov’s affairs and was supposed to give Arkady some paper. It turned out to be Stolbeev’s letter, because of which the litigation was now going on. The letter said that the Sokolsky princes are the heirs of the first line.
Kraft shed light on the story that happened in Ems. Katerina Ivanovna Akhmakova, the daughter of old man Sokolsky, was the wife of a general. The general's daughter from his first marriage, Lydia, a weak, sick girl, was inflamed with feelings for Versilov and wanted to become his wife. Versilov did not object, but Akhmakova was against it. This caused a quarrel between them. Subsequently, Versilov accused Katerina Nikolaevna that she was opposed to his marriage because she was in love with him. She, on the contrary, claimed that he was crazy about her. As a result, the general's daughter was poisoned. This was the reason for the slap in the face and the fact that society turned away from Versilov.
Six months ago, old Sokolsky had a seizure, from which he successfully recovered. When he was sick, Katerina Nikolaevna wrote a letter to Andronnikov, asking if it was possible to obtain guardianship over her father. Now this letter could play a bad role in her fate if Nikolai Semenovich became aware of it. Kraft believed that the letter was with Versilov. In fact, the owner of this letter turned out to be Arkady.
Versilov won the case in court and was in a good mood. The mother was afraid that Arkady would conflict with his father. The teenager told him everything that had accumulated in his soul over all these years. After this difficult conversation, he went home.
Versilov followed him up and spoke about his mother, about Dolgoruky, about the merits of these people. Arkady did not believe the sincerity of his words and said that he did not need money from him, he needed his father.
In the evening, having thought over everything he had heard during the day, Arkady decided to shoot with Prince Sergei Sokolsky. In the morning he went to Zverev to ask him to be his second, but he refused.
Arkady went to Tatyana Pavlovna and accidentally overheard her conversation with Katerina Nikolaevna, from which he learned that Kraft had shot himself.
At home, the young man found the girl Olya, who accused Versilov of dishonest intentions. He just wanted to help her with money, since she was in straitened circumstances.
Arkady gave his father the letter he received from Kraft. Then he went to Vasin, who added new facts to the story of Versilov and Akhmakova. Lydia gave birth to a child from Sergei Sokolsky. The teenager stayed overnight with Vasin. At night, the neighbor's girl Olya hanged herself. The mother said that they came to Moscow to pick up the money that a merchant owed her husband. Their efforts were unsuccessful. Olya advertised private lessons. According to the advertisement, a woman came and lured the girl into a nasty house. Olya escaped from there, and committed suicide at night.
Waking up, Arkady learned from his mother that Versilov had abandoned the litigation for the inheritance. He took it as a feat.
Later, the teenager met Sergei Sokolsky at the prince’s house, with whom Versilov had a conflict.
Part 2
Two months have passed. Arkady lives large. He spends a lot of time with Sergei Sokolsky. He is going to allocate a third of the inheritance, which will go to Versilov. To offset this money, Arkady borrowed three thousand from him. Arkady admits to himself that he has deviated from the idea. And yet these two months he was happy.
From Stebelkov, friends learned that Katerina Nikolaevna was marrying Bjoring. Arkady tells the woman that he saw Kraft burning a letter incriminating her. He decided to destroy it himself.
Arkady went to his mother for lunch. He asked Lisa to return Sokolsky the three hundred rubles that he had taken from him.
His father came to Arkady’s apartment. The young man was waiting for this visit. A frank conversation took place between father and son. Versilov was delighted by the purity of Arkady's soul. Since then, his visits have become regular. My father always behaved delicately during them. He always entered carefully, as if he was shy.
They talked a lot, there were many topics for conversation, but it seemed to Arkady that his father had some kind of secret. This is what attracted the teenager to him. Versilov had an unusual view of the world; conversations with him fascinated the young man. Silence is always beautiful, Versilov believed. Wealth constitutes happiness. He warns his son against mistakes because he loves him. About religion, he said that you need to believe in God. A Russian atheist is the best person; he is kind because he is an atheist. This is the support of the Fatherland. The father respects his son because he has an idea.
Arkady is going to play roulette. He won three times in a row and went to the prince to repay the debt. He admitted to him that Lisa was pregnant from him. Sokolsky thought that Arkady knew about this and therefore took money from him.
In the morning, Lisa told Arkady that the prince had proposed to her. The second daughter Anna agreed to become the wife of old Sokolsky.
Sergei Sokolsky admitted to Arkady that Stebelkov involved him in a scam with railway shares. Now he owes him part of his inheritance.
The father wrote a letter to Katerina Nikolaevna in which he accused Arkady of molestation. Her attitude towards the young man changed. He said that the incriminating letter had not been destroyed. Bjoring's attorney, who came to Versilov to explain himself, did not find a common language with him. Arkady, in despair, goes to play roulette. He wins, but is accused of theft and kicked out. After Arkady left, Zerschikov discovered the allegedly stolen money and sent it to him with an apology.
Arkady loses consciousness on the way. Lambert picks him up and tries to revive him. In delirium, the young man reveals all his secrets to him. He lay unconscious for about nine days.
Summary: Teenager
F. M. Dostoevsky Teenager
Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky, also known as the Teenager, talks in his notes about himself and recent events in which he was one of the main participants. He is twenty years old, he has just graduated from a gymnasium in Moscow, but he decided to postpone entering the university so as not to be distracted from the implementation of his cherished idea, which he had been nurturing almost since the sixth grade.
His idea is to become a Rothschild, that is, to accumulate a lot of money, and with the money gain power and privacy. Arkady, as he admits, finds it difficult with people, he gets lost, it seems to him that they are laughing at him, he begins to assert himself and becomes too expansive. It was not by chance that the idea crept into his soul. Arkady is the illegitimate son of the well-born nobleman Andrei Petrovich Versilov and his servant, which gives rise to an inferiority complex in him, a proud and proud teenager. He bears a different surname - his formal father, also a servant of Versilov, Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, but this is just another reason for humiliation - when meeting him, they often ask him again: Prince Dolgoruky?
Before the gymnasium, he was brought up in the boarding school of the Frenchman Touchard, where he suffered many humiliations due to his illegitimacy. All this made him especially impressionable and vulnerable. One day, coming to his half-brother, the legitimate son of Versilov, to receive money sent by his father, he was not received, although his brother was at home, the money was transferred through a footman, which caused a storm of indignation in Arcadia. His pride is constantly on guard and is easily wounded, but, kind and enthusiastic by nature, with a friendly and friendly attitude towards him, he quickly moves from resentment and hostility to love and adoration.
He comes to St. Petersburg at the invitation of his father to enter the service. In addition, his mother, the meek and pious Sofya Andreevna, and his sister Liza live there, and most importantly, his father, Andrei Petrovich Versilov, who belongs to the highest Russian cultural type of “worldwide pain for everyone.” Versilov professes the idea of spiritual nobility, the highest aristocracy of the spirit, and considers “all-reconciliation of ideas” and “world citizenship” to be the highest Russian cultural thought.
He occupies a huge place in the Teenager's heart. Raised by strangers, Arkady saw his father only once, and he made an indelible impression on him. “Every dream of mine, from childhood, responded to him: it hovered around him, came down to him in the final result. I don’t know whether I hated or loved him, but he filled my entire future, all my plans for life.” He thinks a lot about him, trying to understand what kind of person he is, he collects rumors and opinions of different people about him. Versilov is an ideal for him: beauty, intelligence, depth, aristocracy... And especially nobility, which nevertheless is constantly questioned by Arkady.
Arkady arrives in St. Petersburg wary and aggressive towards Versilov. He wants to crush slander against him, crush his enemies, but at the same time he suspects him of low and dishonest actions. He wants to know the whole truth about him. He has heard a lot about his piety and passion for Catholicism, something is known about his proposal to Lydia Akhmakova, as well as about the slap in the face of Prince Sergei Sokolsky, to which Versilov did not respond. After some scandalous act, Versilov is expelled from high society, but everything is shrouded in fog and mystery.
Arkady is appointed secretary to Versilov's former friend, the old prince Nikolai Ivanovich Sokolsky, who becomes attached to the intelligent and impetuous young man. However, he soon refuses the position out of pride, especially since the prince’s daughter, the beautiful Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakova, who is in a long-standing hostile relationship with Versilov, accuses Arkady of espionage.
By chance, two important letters end up in the hands of Arkady: from one it follows that the inheritance case won by Versilov with the Sokolsky princes may be revised not in his favor. The second, written by Katerina Nikolaevna, talks about the dementia of her father, the old Prince Sokolsky, and the need to take him into custody. The letter is capable of arousing the wrath of the old prince with dire consequences for his daughter, namely deprivation of his inheritance. This “document,” around which the main intrigue revolves, is sewn into the lining of Arkady’s coat, although he tells everyone, including Katerina Nikolaevna, that the letter was burned by his acquaintance Kraft (he gave it to Arkady), who soon shot himself.
The first explanation with Versilov leads to a temporary reconciliation, although Arkady's attitude towards his father remains wary. He acts as a demon-tempter, giving Versilov a letter about the inheritance, believing that he will hide it, and justifying him in advance. In addition, in order to defend his father’s honor, he decides to challenge the same Prince Sergei Sokolsky, who once slapped Versilov, to a duel.
Arkady goes to his acquaintance Vasin to ask to be a second, and there he meets his stepfather, the swindler Stebelkov, from whom he learns about Versilov’s infant child from Lydia Akhmakova. Immediately in the next room a scandal plays out, also somehow mysteriously connected with Versilov. Soon Arkady will find the continuation of this scandal at his mother’s apartment, where he accidentally arrives at the same time as a young girl, Olya, who angrily accuses Versilov of meanness and throws away the money he gave him, and a little later commits suicide. There is turmoil in the Teenager's soul. Versilov appears as a secret corrupter. After all, Arkady himself is the fruit of Versilov’s sinful passion for someone else’s wife, whom he takes away from her lawful husband. Where is the honor? Where is the debt? Where is the nobility?..
Arkady finally expresses to his father everything that has accumulated in his soul over the years of humiliation, suffering and reflection, and announces his break with Versilov, in order to then proudly retire to his corner and hide there. He does not give up the thought of a duel with Prince Sergei Sokolsky and challenges him, but he expresses his deep repentance and no less deep respect for Versilov himself. They part as great friends. It immediately becomes known that Versilov renounced the inheritance in favor of the princes. It turns out that he was not to blame for Olya’s suicide: he gave her the money completely disinterestedly, as help, but she, who had already become the object of vile attacks several times, misunderstood his act.
Two months pass, Arkady dresses up like a dandy and leads the most secular lifestyle, taking money from Prince Sergei Sokolsky on account of what Versilov supposedly owes. His main hobby is playing roulette. He loses often, but that doesn't stop him. Versilov comes to talk to Arkady from time to time. The closest and most trusting relationship is established between father and son. Arkady also develops friendly relations with Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakova.
Meanwhile, it becomes known that Versilov’s legitimate daughter, Arkady’s half-sister Anna Andreevna, intends to marry the old Prince Sokolsky and is extremely concerned about the issue of inheritance. The document discrediting the prince's daughter Akhmakova is important to her, and she is extremely interested in it.
One day, Katerina Nikolaevna makes an appointment for Arkady to visit his aunt Tatyana Pavlovna Prutkova. He flies inspired and, finding her alone, becomes even more inspired, dreaming that he has a love date. Yes, he suspected her of treachery, of wanting to find out about the document, but now, bewitched by her innocence and cordiality, he admiringly composes a hymn to her beauty and chastity. She slightly removes the overly excited young man, although she does not at all seek to extinguish the fire that has flared up in him.
In a semi-feverish state, Arkady plays roulette and wins a lot of money. During a hysterical explanation with Prince Seryozha, who offended Arkady because he turned away from him in the gambling hall, he learns that his sister Lisa is pregnant with the prince’s child. Stunned, Arkady gives him everything he won. Arkady tells Versilov in every detail about his meeting with Akhmakova, and he sends her an angry, insulting letter. Arkady, having learned about the letter, in anguish strives to explain himself to Katerina Nikolaevna, but she avoids him. Arkady plays roulette again and wins again, but he is unfairly accused of stealing other people's money and is pushed out of the gambling hall.
Under the impression of the humiliations he has experienced, he falls asleep in the cold, he dreams of a boarding house where he was insulted by both Tushar and his friend Lambert, he wakes up from someone’s blows and sees... Lambert. An old friend brings him to his place, gives him wine, and Arkady, in a fit of frankness, tells him about the fatal document. From this moment on, the scoundrel Lambert begins to weave his vile intrigues, trying to use Arkady.
In turn, Prince Sergei Sokolsky, a kindly but weak-willed person, turns out to be somehow involved in the counterfeiting of shares, which is carried out by the swindler Stebelkov, who also weaves his networks around the hero. Not devoid of conscience and honor, the prince goes to the police and confesses everything. Arrested, he, however, commits another mean thing - out of jealousy, he denounces Vasin, who owns a certain seditious manuscript, which he gave to Liza and from her has already reached Sokolsky. As a result, Vasin was also arrested.
During these same days, Arkady, who was seriously ill, met his legal father Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, a handsome and pious old man, who on his travels collected money for the construction of a temple, and now, due to illness, stayed with Arkady’s mother. During their conversations, the wise old man sheds light into his soul.
The arrival of the old Prince Sokolsky with Anna Andreevna is expected, and they intend to place the prince in the same apartment where Arkady lives - in the hope that he will not stand it when he sees the prince in a state of fear and depression, and will show him Akhmakova’s letter. Meanwhile, Makar Ivanovich dies, as a result of which Versilov gets the opportunity to enter into a legal marriage with Arkady’s mother. But a frenzied passion for Akhmakova flares up in him again, driving him to the point of insanity. In front of the whole family, he splits an icon that was especially dear to Sofia Andreevna, bequeathed to him by Makar Ivanovich, and leaves. Arkady looks for him and overhears Versilov's explanation with Akhmakova. He is shocked by his father's passion, in which love and hatred fight. Akhmakova admits that she once loved him, but now she definitely doesn’t love him, and she marries Baron Bjoring because she will feel safe with him.
Having compassion for his father and wanting to save him, hating and at the same time jealous of Akhmakova, confused in his own feelings, Arkady runs to Lambert and discusses with him actions against Akhmakova - in order to disgrace her. Lambert gets the Teenager drunk and at night, with the help of his mistress Alfonsinka, steals the document, sewing up a blank piece of paper in its place.
The next day, old Prince Sokolsky arrives. Anna Andreevna is trying in every possible way to influence her brother, but Arkady, having repented after desperate frankness with Lambert, categorically refuses to act against Akhmakova. Meanwhile, Bjoring bursts into the apartment and forcibly takes the prince away. Now defending the honor of Anna Andreevna, Arkady tries to fight, but to no avail. He is taken to the station.
Soon he is released, and he learns that Lambert and Versilov lured Katerina Nikolaevna to Arkady's aunt Tatyana Pavlovna. He hurries there and arrives at the most critical moments: Lambert, threatening with a document and then with a revolver, extorts money from Akhmakova. At this moment, Versilov, who was hiding, runs out, takes away the revolver and stuns Lambert with it. Katerina Nikolaevna faints in horror. Versilov picks her up and carries her senselessly in his arms, and then lays his victim on the bed and, suddenly remembering the revolver, wants to shoot first at her, and then at himself. During the fight with Arkady and Trishatov, who came to his aid, he tries to commit suicide, but is hit not in the heart, but in the shoulder.
After the crisis, Versilov remains with Sofya Andreevna, Akhmakov breaks up with Bjoring, and the Teenager, who never renounced his idea, now, however, “in a completely different form,” is persuaded to enter the university. These notes, according to the hero, served his re-education - “precisely the process of remembering and recording.”
