Word: versilov
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Dostoevsky's most brilliant creations. One is aged Prince Sokolsky, a kindly, nutty, wealthy widower who loves to toy with the idea of marrying again-and is dumfounded to learn that his rapacious heirs are plotting to have him shut up in an asylum. The other is Versilov, Arkady's father, a shrewd but patient man who well comprehends the feelings of insult and injury that seethe inside his illegitimate...
...Versilov, calm and complex, also represents the resilient man who, in an age of chaos, manages somehow not to be destroyed, protecting himself and his ideals of honor and love with a hotchpotch armory of friendly tolerance, extreme reserve, silence, outbursts of passion and generosity, unyielding pride and unexpected humbleness. Like Dostoevsky himself, Versilov desires to love God and his neighbor-and is suspicious of such desires ("Very proud people like to believe in God, especially those who despise other people. . . . They turn to God to avoid doing homage to man [because] to do homage...
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