figure
Rybnikov
also: Рыбников, Yegor, Егор, the painter, the artist
A pupil at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, one of Vasilyev's two carefree friends on the night tour of S-- Lane's brothels; grows drunk and unnaturally lively, insists on a quadrille, and, in the story's one moment of open decency among the three friends, gets into a scandal and is thrown bodily down a staircase for objecting to a man striking one of the women. Addressed by the medical student as 'Yegor.'
Reading notes
- A Nervous Breakdown §140 Scoundrels! Butchers! Bloodsuckers!
The painter Rybnikov's outburst, after being thrown down the stairs for objecting to the man who struck a woman, is the one moment in the story where a character's stated moral conviction and his actual action align -- in sharp, pointed contrast to the medical and artistic 'humaneness' Vasilyev accuses both friends of merely performing at loc 146-148. The painter dismisses his own outburst as meaningless within minutes (loc 148), which is itself part of the story's larger argument about the gap between feeling and consequence.
Mentioned in 1 work (29 mentions)
A Nervous Breakdown
- §2 Rybnikov
- §6 the painter
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- §136 Yegor
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- §141 Yegor
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- §148 the painter
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