Kissing the Earth

  Dostoevsky Final (Russian 141, 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak)
 
  “Go at once...stand at the crossroads, bow down, [and] kiss the earth,” instructed Sonya (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 433, 1866, tr. David Magarshack, 1951). It was a command heavy with implications, and at first Raskolnikov refused to comply.  What was she asking?
 
  First, to stand at the crossroads implied that he was to stand at the center of Haymarket Square, the busiest part of the busiest city in Russia.  There he would be where the whole world could see him, making himself completely vulnerable to whatever reaction his confession would bring.  They might laugh, they might scorn and jeer, they might attack him there, or even stone him; they might just pick him up and take him away, never to return again.  But he would have no way of knowing their reaction until he carried out the instruction.
 
  At the crossroads he would be at St. Petersburg’s point of orientation,  where there would be street signs and mileage and direction signs; and this would also be his own orientation point.   There, based on all the resulting changes in perspective, he would be able to sort things out.
 
  And he would be able to determine the path before him, for it is at the crossroads that one decides direction.  As much as one tries to plan such decisions ahead of time, it is only at the crossroads that the choices are actually made and the steps actually taken for the journey’s continuation.
 
 After Sonya spoke these words she offered Raskolnikov a cyprus cross to hang around his neck.  “We’ll suffer together, so let us also bear our cross together,” she said (435).  Here then was another implication of “crossroads.”  Confessing and asking the world for forgiveness is a praiseworthy religious act and a testimony of faith, and yet it is not an easy step to take.  The cross to bear along this road is heavy and entails a deep humiliation; it conjures no magic remedy before the symbolic  crucifixion, no preview of the resurrection.  Yet, Sonya inferred, it was a necessary step for the sinner to take.
 
  Thus Raskolnikov was to stand at the crossroads: he was to bear his cross of repentance, stand in front of all people, recognize where he stood, and determine his future.

  And he was to kiss the earth: “...the earth which you have defiled,” Sonya said in full (433), implying that at the crossroads he would be making his apology directly to the world.  By murdering, he had not only wronged his particular victims, who now lay under the soil, he had also sinned against all humankind across the globe.
 
  Furthermore, kissing the earth was a demonstration of the deepest humility.  He was to bow down and prostrate to the world as low as he possibly could, showing with face to the ground that he deferred to everyone.
 
  By touching the soil this way he would also atune himself with “Holy Mother Earth,” from whence he came, upon which he walked, and whither he was going.  Thus, in one action he would recognize his origin, his existence and his mortality, acknowledging his defilement with respect to all three.
 
 But finally, kissing the earth is more than a humble, atoning apology.  It is experiencing a purgatory cleansing by bringing sensuality to its fullest: the taste, the smell, the feel of city dirt next to one’s nose and on one’s lips would stir the soul.  And indeed, when Raskolnikov put Sonya’s directions into practice, his sensuality was so dramatic that one observer remarked that he was drunk.  “He simply plunged... into this new and overwhelming sensation... tears gushed from his eyes... and [he] kissed the earth with joy and rapture” (537).