A few days ago I finished Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment. I thought this was an unbelievable novel and I’m so glad I finally read it. It has become one of my favorites with its strong themes of salvation and redemption. There are so many dialogues that I found myself reading multiple times because I found them so compelling and to contain great depth and human insight.One of my favorite dialogues is in the middle of the novel between the lead character who commits the “crime”, Rodion Romanovich (Raskolnikov), and Porfiry Petrovich, the inspector on the case who is carefully pursuing him as a suspect. Here a couple pieces from the conversation that I loved.
“Well, I will proceed: wit, in my opinion, is a wonderful thing; it is, so to speak, the ornament of nature and the solace of life, and what riddles it can set sometimes!–so that a poor devil of an investigator is quite baffled, especially when his own fancy is liable to lead him astray as well, as always happens, since he is only human after all! But the criminal’s own nature comes to the rescue of the poor investigator, that’s the point!….He will come of his own accord and begin asking why he hasn’t been arrested long since, he, he, he !–and this happens with the sharpest-witted of men, versed in psychology and literature. Nature is a mirror, the very clearest of mirrors! Look into it and admire!”-Porfiry Petrovich to Rodion Romanovich
It might be hard to appreciate this without the context of the book, but this is an example of the fairly complex psychological insight Dostoevsky weaves throughout the book.This above interaction resonated deeply with something my wife says frequently and that is, “People give themselves away.” I agree. Despite clever attempts to conceal and hide, we have a strong psychological drive to be known and somehow get out what is going on inside to the world outside somehow – consciously or unconsciously. We all give ourselves away, but often only those who are paying attention or have specialized skill sets pick up on it.In leadership, discipleship, and even just friendship – it pays to learn how to pay attention to what people are revealing about what is going on internally for them because often the information is available if we are wanting to learn how to serve and care for them. It also pays to learn about what we are communicating from the core of our own being through what we say and do, especially those things that we might not be initially totally aware of.
Our nature is a mirror – we give ourselves away! But like Porfiry Petrovich does so well in this novel, are we paying attention?
If you’ve read the novel, do have any additional reflections on some of these themes?
