The double I

The Double
part I

“The door from the next room suddenly opened with a timid, quiet creak, as if thus announcing the entrance of a very insignificant person...”

The Double (Russian: Двойник, Dvoynik) is a novella written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published on January 30, 1846 in the Fatherland Notes.It was subsequently revised and republished by Dostoevsky in 1866

The Double centers on a government clerk who goes mad. It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist. The motif of the novella is a doppelgänger (Russian "dvoynik"). [ wikipedia ]

Photos from a Greek adaptation of the play directed by Efi Birba.
Starring Aris Servetalis, Drosos Skotis, Giorgos Symeonidis, Simeon Tsakiris, Konstantinos Karvouniaris.

“I mean to say, Krestyan Ivanovich, that I go my own way, a particular way. I'm my own particular man and, as it seems to me, I don't depend on anybody. I also go for walks, Krestyan Ivanovich.”

“Bow or not? Call back or not? Recognize him or not?" our hero wondered in indescribable anguish, "or pretend that I am not myself, but somebody else strikingly like me, and look as though nothing were the matter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simply not I, not I—and that's all," said Mr. Golyadkin, taking off his hat to Andrey Filippovitch and keeping his eyes fixed upon him. "I'm . . . I'm all right," he whispered with an effort; "I'm . . . quite all right. It's not I, it's not I—and that is the fact of the matter.”