Previous
Nikolai “Kolya” Ivanov Krasotkin
Nicknamed “Stinking Lizaveta,” Lizaveta is “a holy fool” and a mute. The mother of Smerdyakov, Lizaveta (who has no surname) is described as having been very short—“a wee bit under five feet”—with a “healthy, broad, and ruddy” face that looked “completely idiotic.” In the summer and winter, she went barefoot, wearing only “a hempen shift.” In every instance in which others tried to clothe Stinking Lizaveta, she went somewhere, usually to the porch of the cathedral church, and removed the garments they had given her. She had extremely thick hair, as curly as sheep’s wool, that was nearly black and always dirty “with earth and mud,” “little leaves, splinters, and shavings stuck to it,” due to sleeping on the ground. By the time she was twenty years old, her mother had been long dead and her father was a homeless and sickly failed tradesman named Ilya, who drank heavily and worked sparingly for “well-to-do middle-class families as some sort of handyman.” Stinking Lizaveta’s pregnancy resulted from a drunken encounter with Fyodor Pavlovich. She dies soon after giving birth to Smerdyakov.
Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya (“Stinking Lizaveta”) Quotes in The Brothers Karamazov
The The Brothers Karamazov quotes below are all either spoken by Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya (“Stinking Lizaveta”) or refer to Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya (“Stinking Lizaveta”). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 4: Book 12, Chapter 12
Quotes
“I gathered some information: he hated his origin, was ashamed of it, and gnashed his teeth when he recalled that he was ‘descended from Stinking Lizaveta.’ He was irreverent towards the servant Grigory and his wife, who had been his childhood benefactors. He cursed Russia and laughed at her. He dreamed of going to France and remaking himself as a Frenchman. He used to talk about it often and said that he only lacked the means to do so. It seems to me that he loved no one but himself, and his respect for himself was peculiarly high [….] Considering himself (and there are facts to support it) the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich, he might very well detest his position as compared with that of his master’s legitimate children: everything goes to them […] to them all the rights, to them the inheritance, while he is just a cook.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Brothers Karamazov LitChart as a printable PDF.
Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya (“Stinking Lizaveta”) Quotes in The Brothers Karamazov
The The Brothers Karamazov quotes below are all either spoken by Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya (“Stinking Lizaveta”) or refer to Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya (“Stinking Lizaveta”). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 4: Book 12, Chapter 12
Quotes
“I gathered some information: he hated his origin, was ashamed of it, and gnashed his teeth when he recalled that he was ‘descended from Stinking Lizaveta.’ He was irreverent towards the servant Grigory and his wife, who had been his childhood benefactors. He cursed Russia and laughed at her. He dreamed of going to France and remaking himself as a Frenchman. He used to talk about it often and said that he only lacked the means to do so. It seems to me that he loved no one but himself, and his respect for himself was peculiarly high [….] Considering himself (and there are facts to support it) the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich, he might very well detest his position as compared with that of his master’s legitimate children: everything goes to them […] to them all the rights, to them the inheritance, while he is just a cook.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
