conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a plot for a book about Razumov, Natalia, Haldin entitled Under Western Eyes?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Under Western Eyes (novel): The narrator, an English teacher of languages living in Geneva, is narrating the personal record of Kyrilo Sidorovitch Razumov.\nRazumov is a student in the University of st Petersburg in the early 1910s.\nRazumov never knew his parents and has no family ties.\nHe is trusted by his fellow students, many of whom hold revolutionary views, but Razumov takes no clear position on any of the great questions of his time because he considers all of Russia his family.\n(A better view, perhaps, would be to say that Razumov has no family to fall back on, feels isolated from his contemporaries, takes no interest in the "great issues" of the day, and merely seeks a middle-class secure position within the Czarist system - thus, very ironically, he sees "all Russia" as his "family".\n) mr de P—, the brutal Minister of State, is assassinated by a team of two, but the bombs used also claim the lives of his footman, the first assassin and a number of bystanders.\nRazumov enters his rooms to find Victor Haldin, a fellow student.\nHaldin tells Razumov that he was the one who murdered mr de P—, but that he and his accomplice did not make a proper escape plan.\nHe requests Razumov\'s help because he trusts him, even though he realises that they do not quite belong in the same camp.\nRazumov agrees to help, if only to get Haldin out of his flat.\nHaldin tasks him with finding Ziemianitch, who was supposed to help Haldin escape.\nHaldin\'s request launches Razumov into a deep identity crisis.\nHe feels that his life will be destroyed by the authorities simply because of his association with Haldin.\nConsequently he becomes intensely aware of his social isolation and lack of family ties.\nHarbouring no sympathy for Haldin\'s actions or his ideals, Razumov is brought closer to conservatism out of the simple fear to survive.\nHe seeks out Ziemianitch and, when he finds him, drunk and incapacitated, beats him.\nAfterwards he makes up his mind to betray Haldin to save his own life and turns to his university sponsor, Prince They go to the chief of police, General T—.\nThen a trap is laid for Haldin.\nRazumov returns to his apartment and attempts to explain his predicament to Haldin while concealing the fact that he has just betrayed him.\nHaldin leaves and, later that night, is caught.\nRazumov is distressed for days after Haldin\'s capture.\nFinally, he receives a summons to the police headquarters and meets Privy Councillor Mikulin.\nIn a scene reminiscent of Crime and Punishment, Razumov is highly paranoid that Mikulin suspects him of being a revolutionary.\nMikulin reveals that Haldin was interrogated, sentenced and hanged the same day without implicating Razumov.\nMikulin also reveals that he supervised a search of Razumov\'s quarters and is interested in Razumov\'s future plans.\nThe narrative shifts to Haldin\'s sister, Natalia, and their mother, Mrs Haldin, who live in Switzerland after Haldin persuaded them to sell their house in Russia and move.\nHaving lived in Zurich for a while, they then settle in Geneva, which has a vibrant Russian community.\nThere, they wait for Haldin.\nNatalia has been friendly with the narrator for some time from whom she receives English lessons.\nOne day, the narrator chances upon the news of Haldin\'s arrest and execution in an English newspaper, and tells Natalia and her mother.\nNatalia takes the news stoically but her mother is deeply distressed.\nPeter Ivanovitch, a leader in the revolutionary movement, having learnt of Haldin\'s execution, meets with Natalia and attempts to recruit her, but Natalia is sceptical and noncommittal.\nHe also tells her that Razumov is about to arrive in Geneva, which excites Natalia, as Haldin had described him in glowing terms in his letters.\nNatalia is invited to the Chateau Borel, a big, neglected house that Madame de S— rents from the widow of an Italian banker, and meets Tekla, the abused companion of Madame de S— and secretary to Peter Ivanovitch.\nTekla recounts her life story.\nAfterwards, they come upon Peter Ivanovitch and Razumov.\nTekla, like most of the characters whom Razumov encounters, misinterprets his taciturn cynicism - which is in fact motivated by his hatred for the entire situation he has fallen into - as the expression of a true revolutionist, and pledges her help to him, even to the point of leaving Madame de S- and Peter Ivanovitch.\nThe narrative shifts back to a few weeks earlier and describes how Razumov arrived in Geneva, having first stayed in Zurich for three days with Sophia Antonovna, the right hand of Peter Ivanovitch.\nRazumov did not further seek Peter Ivanovitch after their first meeting but instead took long walks with Natalia, where she took him into her confidence and asked about her brother\'s last hours, to which Razumov gave no definite answer.\nRazumov is abrasive towards the narrator, who detects a deep distress under Razumov\'s exterior.\nHe is invited to the Chateau Borel, where he is received on friendly terms, as Madame de S— and Peter Ivanovitch think that he was a collaborator of Haldin.\nIn fact, Razumov has gone to Geneva, working as a spy for the Russian government.\nHis taciturnity and reserve are interpreted by each character in their own way.\nThe revolutionaries reveal some of their plans to Razumov and he is given his first assignment: to bring Natalia to Peter Ivanovitch so he can convert her, as Peter Ivanovitch cherishes female followers above everything else.\nRazumov then meets Sophia Antonovna and comes to see her as his most dangerous adversary because of her single-mindedness and perception.\nSuppressing his distress, he manages to deceive her.\nSophia Antonovna reveals that Ziemianitch hanged himself soon after Haldin\'s execution, which makes the revolutionaries believe that he was the one who betrayed Haldin.\nThe narrative shifts back to Razumov\'s initial interview with Mikulin.\nMikulin admits having read Razumov\'s private notes but reassures him that he is not suspicious of him.\nAfter telling Razumov that some of the best Russian minds ultimately returned to them (referring to Dostoevsky, Gogol and Aksakov), he lets him go.\nRazumov spends the next few weeks in an increasing state of malaise where he alienates his fellow students and professors.\nIn the meantime, Mikulin has received a promotion and sees an opportunity to use Razumov.\nHe summons him to further interviews where he recruits him, with the blessings of Prince, to act as a secret agent for the Czarist authorities of the Russian Empire.\nThe narrative shifts to Geneva, where Razumov is writing his first report to Mikulin.\nOn his way to the post office, the narrator comes upon him, but Razumov takes no notice of him.\nThe narrator goes to Natalia\'s flat, only to learn that Natalia must find Razumov urgently and bring him to her distraught mother, as she needs to meet the only friend of Haldin that she knows.\nThe professor and Natalia go to the Cosmopolitan Hotel to ask Peter Ivanovitch where Razumov stays.\nThere, they find the revolutionaries preparing an insurgency in the Baltic provinces.\nThey visit Razumov\'s lodgings but do not find him.\nThey then return to Natalia\'s quarters where Razumov has unexpectedly visited her mother.\nAfter a long conversation with Natalia in which Razumov makes several obscure and cryptic remarks, and Natalia asks how her brother spent his last hours, Razumov implies that he was the one who betrayed him.\nRazumov retires to his quarters where he writes his record.\nHe explains to Natalia that he fell in love with her as soon as she took him into her confidence, that he had never been shown any kind of love before, and that he felt he had betrayed himself by betraying her brother.\nHe mails the record to Natalia and goes to the house of Julius Laspara where a social gathering of revolutionaries is taking place.\nRazumov declares to the crowd that Ziemianitch was innocent and explains his motives only partially, but confesses that he was the one who betrayed Haldin.\nSome revolutionaries, led by Necator, attack him and smash his eardrums.\nA deaf Razumov is crushed by a tramcar and crippled.\nTekla finds him and stays by his side at the hospital.\nA few months pass and Mrs Haldin has died.\nNatalia has returned to Russia to devote herself to charity work after giving Razumov\'s record to the narrator.\nTekla has taken the invalid Razumov to the Russian countryside, where she looks after him.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about \nPeter, Ivanovitch, Natalia.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Under Western Eyes (novel): The narrator, an English teacher of languages living in Geneva, is narrating the personal record of Kyrilo Sidorovitch Razumov. \nRazumov is a student in the University of st Petersburg in the early 1910s. \nRazumov never knew his parents and has no family ties. \nHe is trusted by his fellow students, many of whom hold revolutionary views, but Razumov takes no clear position on any of the great questions of his time because he considers all of Russia his family. \n(A better view, perhaps, would be to say that Razumov has no family to fall back on, feels isolated from his contemporaries, takes no interest in the "great issues" of the day, and merely seeks a middle-class secure position within the Czarist system - thus, very ironically, he sees "all Russia" as his "family". \n) mr de P—, the brutal Minister of State, is assassinated by a team of two, but the bombs used also claim the lives of his footman, the first assassin and a number of bystanders. \nRazumov enters his rooms to find Victor Haldin, a fellow student. \nHaldin tells Razumov that he was the one who murdered mr de P—, but that he and his accomplice did not make a proper escape plan. \nHe requests Razumov\'s help because he trusts him, even though he realises that they do not quite belong in the same camp. \nRazumov agrees to help, if only to get Haldin out of his flat. \nHaldin tasks him with finding Ziemianitch, who was supposed to help Haldin escape. \nHaldin\'s request launches Razumov into a deep identity crisis. \nHe feels that his life will be destroyed by the authorities simply because of his association with Haldin. \nConsequently he becomes intensely aware of his social isolation and lack of family ties. \nHarbouring no sympathy for Haldin\'s actions or his ideals, Razumov is brought closer to conservatism out of the simple fear to survive. \nHe seeks out Ziemianitch and, when he finds him, drunk and incapacitated, beats him. \nAfterwards he makes up his mind to betray Haldin to save his own life and turns to his university sponsor, Prince They go to the chief of police, General T—. \nThen a trap is laid for Haldin. \nRazumov returns to his apartment and attempts to explain his predicament to Haldin while concealing the fact that he has just betrayed him. \nHaldin leaves and, later that night, is caught. \nRazumov is distressed for days after Haldin\'s capture. \nFinally, he receives a summons to the police headquarters and meets Privy Councillor Mikulin. \nIn a scene reminiscent of Crime and Punishment, Razumov is highly paranoid that Mikulin suspects him of being a revolutionary. \nMikulin reveals that Haldin was interrogated, sentenced and hanged the same day without implicating Razumov. \nMikulin also reveals that he supervised a search of Razumov\'s quarters and is interested in Razumov\'s future plans. \nThe narrative shifts to Haldin\'s sister, Natalia, and their mother, Mrs Haldin, who live in Switzerland after Haldin persuaded them to sell their house in Russia and move. \nHaving lived in Zurich for a while, they then settle in Geneva, which has a vibrant Russian community. \nThere, they wait for Haldin. \nNatalia has been friendly with the narrator for some time from whom she receives English lessons. \nOne day, the narrator chances upon the news of Haldin\'s arrest and execution in an English newspaper, and tells Natalia and her mother. \nNatalia takes the news stoically but her mother is deeply distressed. \nPeter Ivanovitch, a leader in the revolutionary movement, having learnt of Haldin\'s execution, meets with Natalia and attempts to recruit her, but Natalia is sceptical and noncommittal. \nHe also tells her that Razumov is about to arrive in Geneva, which excites Natalia, as Haldin had described him in glowing terms in his letters. \nNatalia is invited to the Chateau Borel, a big, neglected house that Madame de S— rents from the widow of an Italian banker, and meets Tekla, the abused companion of Madame de S— and secretary to Peter Ivanovitch. \nTekla recounts her life story. \nAfterwards, they come upon Peter Ivanovitch and Razumov. \nPeter Ivanovitch leaves and Natalia introduces herself to Razumov, who feel compassion for her. \nTekla, like most of the characters whom Razumov encounters, misinterprets his taciturn cynicism - which is in fact motivated by his hatred for the entire situation he has fallen into - as the expression of a true revolutionist, and pledges her help to him, even to the point of leaving Madame de S- and Peter Ivanovitch. \nThe narrative shifts back to a few weeks earlier and describes how Razumov arrived in Geneva, having first stayed in Zurich for three days with Sophia Antonovna, the right hand of Peter Ivanovitch. \nRazumov did not further seek Peter Ivanovitch after their first meeting but instead took long walks with Natalia, where she took him into her confidence and asked about her brother\'s last hours, to which Razumov gave no definite answer. \nRazumov is abrasive towards the narrator, who detects a deep distress under Razumov\'s exterior. \nHe is invited to the Chateau Borel, where he is received on friendly terms, as Madame de S— and Peter Ivanovitch think that he was a collaborator of Haldin. \nIn fact, Razumov has gone to Geneva, working as a spy for the Russian government. \nHis taciturnity and reserve are interpreted by each character in their own way. \nThe revolutionaries reveal some of their plans to Razumov and he is given his first assignment: to bring Natalia to Peter Ivanovitch so he can convert her, as Peter Ivanovitch cherishes female followers above everything else. \nRazumov then meets Sophia Antonovna and comes to see her as his most dangerous adversary because of her single-mindedness and perception. \nSuppressing his distress, he manages to deceive her. \nSophia Antonovna reveals that Ziemianitch hanged himself soon after Haldin\'s execution, which makes the revolutionaries believe that he was the one who betrayed Haldin. \nThe narrative shifts back to Razumov\'s initial interview with Mikulin. \nMikulin admits having read Razumov\'s private notes but reassures him that he is not suspicious of him. \nAfter telling Razumov that some of the best Russian minds ultimately returned to them (referring to Dostoevsky, Gogol and Aksakov), he lets him go. \nRazumov spends the next few weeks in an increasing state of malaise where he alienates his fellow students and professors. \nIn the meantime, Mikulin has received a promotion and sees an opportunity to use Razumov. \nHe summons him to further interviews where he recruits him, with the blessings of Prince, to act as a secret agent for the Czarist authorities of the Russian Empire. \nThe narrative shifts to Geneva, where Razumov is writing his first report to Mikulin. \nOn his way to the post office, the narrator comes upon him, but Razumov takes no notice of him. \nThe narrator goes to Natalia\'s flat, only to learn that Natalia must find Razumov urgently and bring him to her distraught mother, as she needs to meet the only friend of Haldin that she knows. \nThe professor and Natalia go to the Cosmopolitan Hotel to ask Peter Ivanovitch where Razumov stays. \nThere, they find the revolutionaries preparing an insurgency in the Baltic provinces. \nThey visit Razumov\'s lodgings but do not find him. \nThey then return to Natalia\'s quarters where Razumov has unexpectedly visited her mother. \nAfter a long conversation with Natalia in which Razumov makes several obscure and cryptic remarks, and Natalia asks how her brother spent his last hours, Razumov implies that he was the one who betrayed him. \nRazumov retires to his quarters where he writes his record. \nHe explains to Natalia that he fell in love with her as soon as she took him into her confidence, that he had never been shown any kind of love before, and that he felt he had betrayed himself by betraying her brother. \nHe mails the record to Natalia and goes to the house of Julius Laspara where a social gathering of revolutionaries is taking place. \nRazumov declares to the crowd that Ziemianitch was innocent and explains his motives only partially, but confesses that he was the one who betrayed Haldin. \nSome revolutionaries, led by Necator, attack him and smash his eardrums. \nA deaf Razumov is crushed by a tramcar and crippled. \nTekla finds him and stays by his side at the hospital. \nA few months pass and Mrs Haldin has died. \nNatalia has returned to Russia to devote herself to charity work after giving Razumov\'s record to the narrator. \nTekla has taken the invalid Razumov to the Russian countryside, where she looks after him.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Under Western Eyes
  The various figures playing their part in the story also owe their existence to no special experience but to the general knowledge of the condition of Russia and of the moral and emotional reactions of the Russian temperament to the pressure of tyrannical lawlessness, which, in general human terms, could be reduced to the formula of senseless desperation provoked by senseless tyranny. What I was concerned with mainly was the aspect, the character, and the fate of the individuals as they appeared to the Western Eyes of the old teacher of languages. He himself has been much criticized; but I will not at this late hour undertake to justify his existence. He was useful to me and therefore I think that he must be useful to the reader both in the way of comment and by the part he plays in the development of the story. In my desire to produce the effect of actuality it seemed to me indispensable to have an eye-witness of the transactions in Geneva. I needed also a sympathetic friend for Miss Haldin, who otherwise would have been too much alone and unsupported to be perfectly credible. She would have had no one to whom she could give a glimpse of her idealistic faith, of her great heart, and of her simple emotions.
  Razumov is treated sympathetically. Why should he not be? He is an ordinary young man, with a healthy capacity for work and sane ambitions. He has an average conscience. If he is slightly abnormal it is only in his sensitiveness to his position. Being nobody's child he feels rather more keenly than another would that he is a Russian—or he is nothing. He is perfectly right in looking on all Russia as his heritage. The sanguinary futility of the crimes and the sacrifices seething in that amorphous mass envelops and crushes him. But I don't think that in his distraction he is ever monstrous. Nobody is exhibited as a monster here—neither the simple-minded Tekla nor the wrong headed Sophia Antonovna. Peter Ivanovitch and Madame de S. are fair game. They are the apes of a sinister jungle and are treated as their grimaces deserve. As to Nikita—nicknamed Necator—he is the perfect flower of the terroristic wilderness. What troubled me most in dealing with him was not his monstrosity but his banality. He has been exhibited to the public eye for years in so-called "disclosures" in newspaper articles, in secret histories, in sensational novels.
  The most terrifying reflection (I am speaking now for myself) is that all these people are not the product of the exceptional but of the general—of the normality of their place, and time, and race. The ferocity and imbecility of an autocratic rule rejecting all legality and in fact basing itself upon complete moral anarchism provokes the no less imbecile and atrocious answer of a purely Utopian revolutionism encompassing destruction by the first means to hand, in the strange conviction that a fundamental change of hearts must follow the downfall of any given human institutions. These people are unable to see that all they can effect is merely a change of names. The oppressors and the oppressed are all Russians together; and the world is brought once more face to face with the truth of the saying that the tiger cannot change his stripes nor the leopard his spots.
  To begin with I wish to disclaim the possession of those high gifts of imagination and expression which would have enabled my pen to create for the reader the personality of the man who called himself, after the Russian custom, Cyril son of Isidor—Kirylo Sidorovitch—Razumov.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know four more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Unable to forget—or even to forgive—the bass-toned expansiveness of Peter Ivanovitch, the Arch-Patron of revolutionary parties, I said that I took this for a favourable trait of character. It was associated with sincerity—in my mind.
  In fact, I thought the Bastions a very convenient place, since the girl did not think it prudent as yet to introduce that young man to her mother. It was here, then, I thought, looking round at that plot of ground of deplorable banality, that their acquaintance will begin and go on in the exchange of generous indignations and of extreme sentiments, too poignant, perhaps, for a non-Russian mind to conceive. I saw these two, escaped out of four score of millions of human beings ground between the upper and nether millstone, walking under these trees, their young heads close together. Yes, an excellent place to stroll and talk in. It even occurred to me, while we turned once more away from the wide iron gates, that when tired they would have plenty of accommodation to rest themselves. There was a quantity of tables and chairs displayed between the restaurant chalet and the bandstand, a whole raft of painted deals spread out under the trees. In the very middle of it I observed a solitary Swiss couple, whose fate was made secure from the cradle to the grave by the perfected mechanism of democratic institutions in a republic that could almost be held in the palm of one's hand. The man, colourlessly uncouth, was drinking beer out of a glittering glass; the woman, rustic and placid, leaning back in the rough chair, gazed idly around.
  There is little logic to be expected on this earth, not only in the matter of thought, but also of sentiment. I was surprised to discover myself displeased with that unknown young man. A week had gone by since they met. Was he callous, or shy, or very stupid? I could not make it out.
  Mrs. Haldin had not made the slightest allusion to her son for the last week or more. She sat, as usual, in the arm-chair by the window, looking out silently on that hopeless stretch of the Boulevard des Philosophes. When she spoke, a few lifeless words, it was of indifferent, trivial things.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I accepted her conclusion in silence. Who would care to question the grounds of forgiveness or compassion? However, it appeared later on, that there was some compunction, too, in the charity extended by the revolutionary world to Razumov the betrayer. Sophia Antonovna continued uneasily—
  Then Sophia Antonovna, after mastering the angry trembling of her lips, told me a very queer tale. It went that Councillor Mikulin, travelling in Germany (shortly after Razumov's disappearance from Geneva), happened to meet Peter Ivanovitch in a railway carriage. Being alone in the compartment, these two talked together half the night, and it was then that Mikulin the Police Chief gave a hint to the Arch-Revolutionist as to the true character of the arch-slayer of gendarmes. It looks as though Mikulin had wanted to get rid of that particular agent of his own He might have grown tired of him, or frightened of him. It must also be said that Mikulin had inherited the sinister Nikita from his predecessor in office.
  And this story, too, I received without comment in my character of a mute witness of things Russian, unrolling their Eastern logic under my Western eyes. But I permitted myself a question—
  Sophia Antonovna got up and wished me good-bye, as though she had not heard a word of my impious hope; but, in the very doorway, where I attended her, she turned round for an instant, and declared in a firm voice—
  He was calmed by his self-communion; that dread which had kept him for days from facing Miss Haldin was gone. He felt nothing of it, perhaps simply for the reason that now he had a story to tell. It had been settled for him; there was nothing to do but to have it over and done with. The fact that these were women he was going to meet did not trouble him especially. As a matter of fact, he did not recognize women as women. There had been literally no feminine influence in his life. Women were human beings for him and nothing more, somewhat in the background, not to be thought of in any special way. He simply knew nothing of them in any relation; no woman had ever influenced a dream of his, taken up a moment of his time, or awakened any of his dormant feelings; no thought of woman had enriched his life by a touch of amenity, of color, of revery. It may be said that, in a manner, he had never seen a woman, for even Sophia Antonovna was a conspirator, a revolutionist, a dangerous person with whom he must be on his guard more than with anybody else—nothing more.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I accepted her conclusion in silence. Who would care to question the grounds of forgiveness or compassion? However, it appeared later on, that there was some compunction, too, in the charity extended by the revolutionary world to Razumov the betrayer. Sophia Antonovna continued uneasily—
  Then Sophia Antonovna, after mastering the angry trembling of her lips, told me a very queer tale. It went that Councillor Mikulin, travelling in Germany (shortly after Razumov's disappearance from Geneva), happened to meet Peter Ivanovitch in a railway carriage. Being alone in the compartment, these two talked together half the night, and it was then that Mikulin the Police Chief gave a hint to the Arch-Revolutionist as to the true character of the arch-slayer of gendarmes. It looks as though Mikulin had wanted to get rid of that particular agent of his own He might have grown tired of him, or frightened of him. It must also be said that Mikulin had inherited the sinister Nikita from his predecessor in office.
  And this story, too, I received without comment in my character of a mute witness of things Russian, unrolling their Eastern logic under my Western eyes. But I permitted myself a question—
  Sophia Antonovna got up and wished me good-bye, as though she had not heard a word of my impious hope; but, in the very doorway, where I attended her, she turned round for an instant, and declared in a firm voice—
  He was calmed by his self-communion; that dread which had kept him for days from facing Miss Haldin was gone. He felt nothing of it, perhaps simply for the reason that now he had a story to tell. It had been settled for him; there was nothing to do but to have it over and done with. The fact that these were women he was going to meet did not trouble him especially. As a matter of fact, he did not recognize women as women. There had been literally no feminine influence in his life. Women were human beings for him and nothing more, somewhat in the background, not to be thought of in any special way. He simply knew nothing of them in any relation; no woman had ever influenced a dream of his, taken up a moment of his time, or awakened any of his dormant feelings; no thought of woman had enriched his life by a touch of amenity, of color, of revery.