Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (615 page)

I was listening indeed with painful wonder; that old expression of Versilov’s, which I should have liked not to meet that evening after what had been said, was strongly marked.  Suddenly I exclaimed:

“My God!  You’ve received something from her . . . at five o’clock this afternoon?”

He looked at me intently, and was evidently struck at my exclamation: and, perhaps, at my expression: “from her.”

“You shall know all about it,” he said, with a dreamy smile, “and, of course, I shall not conceal from you anything you ought to know; for that’s what I brought you here for; but let us put that off for a time.  You see, my dear boy, I knew long ago that there are children who brood from their earliest years over their family through being humiliated by the unseemliness of their surroundings and of their parents’ lives.  I noticed these brooding natures while I was still at school, and I concluded then that it all came from their being prematurely envious.  Though I was myself a brooding child, yet . . . excuse me, my dear, I’m wonderfully absent-minded.  I only meant to say that almost all this time I have been continually uneasy about you.  I always imagined you one of those little creatures doomed to solitude, though conscious of being gifted.  Like you, I was never fond of my schoolfellows.  It is sad for those natures who are flung back on their own resources and dreams, especially when they have a passionate, premature and almost vindictive longing for ‘seemliness’ — yes, ‘vindictive.’  But enough, dear boy, I’m wandering from the point.  Before I had begun to love you, I was picturing you and your solitary wild dreams. . . . But enough; I’ve actually forgotten what I had begun to speak about.  But all this had to be said, however.  But what could I have said to you before?  Now I see your eyes looking at me, and I feel it’s my SON looking at me.  Why, even yesterday I could not have believed that I should ever be sitting and talking to my boy as I am to-day.”

He certainly did seem unable to concentrate his mind, and at the same time he seemed, as it were, softened.

“I have no need to dream and brood now; it’s enough for me, now, that I have you!  I will follow you!” I said, dedicating myself to him with my whole heart.

“Follow me?  But my wanderings are just over, they have ended to- day: you are too late, my dear boy.  To-day is the end of the last act, and the curtain has gone down.  This last act has dragged on long.  It began very long ago — the last time I rushed off abroad.  I threw up everything then, and you must know, my dear, I broke off all relations for good with your mother, and told her I was doing so myself.  That you ought to know.  I told her then I was going away for ever; that she would never see me again.  What was worst of all, I even forgot to leave her any money.  I did not think of you either, not for one minute.  I went away meaning to remain in Europe and never to return home, my dear.  I emigrated.”

“To Herzen?  To take part in the revolutionary propaganda abroad?  Probably all your life you have been taking part in political conspiracies?” I cried, unable to restrain myself.

“No, my dear, I’ve never taken part in any conspiracy.  But how your eyes sparkle; I like your exclamations, my dear.  No, I simply went away then from a sudden attack of melancholy.  It was the typical melancholy of the Russian nobleman, I really don’t know how to describe it better.  The melancholy of our upper class, and nothing else.”

“Of the serf-owner . . . the emancipation of the serfs,” I was beginning to mutter, breathless.

“Serf-owner?  You think I was grieving for the loss of it?  That I could not endure the emancipation of the serfs.  Oh no, my boy; why, we were all for the emancipation.  I emigrated with no resentful feeling.  I had only just been a mediator, and exerted myself to the utmost, I exerted myself disinterestedly, and I did not even go away because I got very little for my liberalism.  We none of us got anything in those days, that is to say again, not those that were like me.  I went away more in pride than in penitence, and, believe me, I was far from imagining that the time had come for me to end my life as a modest shoemaker.  Je suis gentilhomme avant tout et je mourrai gentilhomme!  Yet all the same I was sad.  There are, perhaps, a thousand of my sort in Russia, no more perhaps really, but you know that is quite enough to keep the idea alive.  We are the bearers of the idea, my dear boy! . . . I am talking, my darling, in the strange hope that you may understand this rigmarole. I’ve brought you here acting on a caprice of the heart: I’ve long been dreaming of how I might tell you something . . . you, and no one else.  However . . . however . . .”

“No, tell me,” I cried:  “I see the look of sincerity in your face again. . . .  Tell me, did Europe bring you back to life again?  And what do you mean by the ‘melancholy of the nobleman!’  Forgive me, darling, I don’t understand yet.”

“Europe bring me back to life?  Why, I went to bury Europe!”

“To bury?” I repeated in surprise.

He smiled.

“Arkady dear, my soul was weary then, and I was troubled in spirit.  I shall never forget my first moments in Europe that time.  I had stayed in Europe before, but this was a special time, and I had never gone there before with such desperate sadness, and . . . with such love, as on that occasion.  I will tell you about one of my first impressions, one of the dreams I had in those days, a real dream.  It was when I was in Germany, I had only just left Dresden, and in absence of mind I passed the station at which I ought to have got out, and went off on to another line.  I had to get out at once to change, it was between two and three in the afternoon, a fine day.  It was a little German town: I was directed to an hotel.  I had to wait; the next train was at eleven o’clock at night.  I was quite glad of the adventure, for I was in no particular haste to get anywhere, and was simply wandering from place to place, my dear.  The hotel turned out to be small and poor, but all surrounded by green trees and flower-beds, as is always the case in Germany.  They gave me a tiny room, and as I had been travelling all night I fell asleep, after dinner, at four o’clock in the afternoon.

“I dreamed a dream that was a complete surprise to me, for I had never had any dreams of the sort before.  In the gallery at Dresden there is a picture by Claude Lorraine, called in the catalogue ‘Acis and Galatea,’ but I used to call it ‘The Golden Age,’ I don’t know why.  I had seen it before, but I had noticed it again in passing three days earlier.  I dreamed of this picture, but not as a picture, but, as it were, a reality.  I don’t know exactly what I did dream though: it was just as in the picture, a corner of the Grecian Archipelago, and time seemed to have gone back three thousand years; blue smiling waves, isles and rocks, a flowery shore, a view like fairyland in the distance, a setting sun that seemed calling to me — there’s no putting it into words.  It seemed a memory of the cradle of Europe, and that thought seemed to fill my soul, too, with a love as of kinship.  Here was the earthly paradise of man: the gods came down from the skies, and were of one kin with men. . . .  Oh, here lived a splendid race! they rose up and lay down to sleep happy and innocent; the woods and meadows were filled with their songs and merry voices.  Their wealth of untouched strength was spent on simple-hearted joy and love.  The sun bathed them in warmth and light, rejoicing in her splendid children . . .  Marvellous dream, lofty error of mankind!  The Golden Age is the most unlikely of all the dreams that have been, but for it men have given up their life and all their strength, for the sake of it prophets have died and been slain, without it the peoples will not live and cannot die, and the feeling of all this I lived through, as it were, in that dream; rocks and sea, and the slanting rays of the setting sun — all this I seemed still to see when I woke up and opened my eyes, literally wet with tears.  I remembered that I was glad, a sensation of happiness I had never known before thrilled my heart till it ached; it was the love of all humanity.  It was by then quite evening; through the green of the flowers that stood in the windows of my little room, broke slanting rays that flooded me with light.  And then, my dear — that setting sun of the first day of European civilization which I had seen in my dream was transformed for me at once on waking, into the setting sun of the last day of civilization!  One seemed to hear the death-knell ringing over Europe in those days.  I am not speaking of the war and the Tuileries; apart from that, I knew that all would pass away, the whole face of the old world of Europe — sooner or later, but I, as a Russian European, could not accept it.  Yes, they had only just burnt the Tuileries. . . .

“Oh, rest assured, I know it was logical; I quite understand the irresistible force of the idea, but as the bearer of the idea of the highest Russian culture, I could not accept it, for the highest Russian thought is the reconciliation of ideas, and who in the whole world could understand such a thought at that time; I was a solitary wanderer.  I am not speaking of myself personally — it’s the Russian idea I’m speaking of.  There all was strife and logic; there the Frenchman was nothing but a Frenchman, the German was nothing but a German, and this more intensely so than at any time in their whole history; consequently never had the Frenchman done so much harm to France, or the German to Germany, as just at that time!  In those days in all Europe there was not one European: I alone among all the vitriol-throwers could have told them to their face that their Tuileries was a mistake.  And I alone among the avenging reactionists could have told them that the Tuileries, although a crime, was none the less logical.  And that, my boy, was because I, as a Russian, was the ONLY EUROPEAN in Russia.  I am not talking of myself, I am talking of the whole Russian idea.  I have been a wanderer, my boy.  I was a wanderer, and I knew well that I must wander and be silent.  But yet I was sad.  I cannot help respecting my position as a Russian nobleman.  My boy, I believe you are laughing?”

“No, I’m not laughing,” I said in a voice full of feeling, “I’m not laughing at all; you thrilled my heart by your vision of ‘The Golden Age,’ and, I assure you, I’m beginning to understand you.  But, above all, I’m glad that you have such a respect for yourself.  I hasten to tell you so.  I never expected that of you!”

“I’ve told you already that I love your exclamations, dear boy,” he smiled again at my naïve exclamation, and getting up from his chair, began unconsciously walking up and down the room.  I, too, got up.  He went on talking in his strange language which was yet so deeply pregnant with thought.

3

“Yes, boy, I tell you again, I cannot help respecting my position as a Russian nobleman.  Among us has been created by the ages, a type of the highest culture never seen before, and existing nowhere else in the world — the type of world-wide compassion for all.  It is a Russian type, but since it is taken from the most highly cultured stratum of the Russian people, I have the honour of being a representative of it.  That type is the custodian of the future of Russia.  There are, perhaps, only a thousand of us in Russia, possibly more, possibly less — but all Russia has existed, so far, only to produce that thousand.  I shall be told with indignation that the result is poor, if so many ages and so many millions of people have been spent to produce only this thousand.  I don’t think it little.”

I listened with strained attention.  A conviction, the guiding principle of a whole life, was emerging.  That “thousand men” made his personality stand out in such strong relief!

I felt that his expansiveness with me was due to some external shock.  He talked so warmly to me because he loved me; but the reason he had suddenly begun to talk, and the reason he so wanted to talk to me especially, I could not guess.

“I emigrated,” he went on; “and I regretted nothing I had left behind.  I had served Russia to the utmost of my abilities as long as I was there; when I went away I went on serving her, too, but in a wider sense.  But serving her in that way I served her far more than if I had remained only a Russian, just as the Frenchman at that time was a Frenchman, and a German only a German.  In Europe they don’t understand that yet.  Europe has created a noble type of Frenchman, of Englishman, and of German, but of the man of the future she scarcely knows at present.  And, I fancy, so far she does not want to know.  And that one can well imagine; they are not free and we are free.  I, with my Russian melancholy, was the only one free in Europe. . . .

“Take note, my dear, of a strange fact: every Frenchman can serve not only his France, but humanity, only on condition that he remains French to the utmost possible degree, and it’s the same for the Englishman and the German.  Only to the Russian, even in our day, has been vouchsafed the capacity to become most of all Russian only when he is most European, and this is true even in our day, that is, long before the millennium has been reached.  That is the most essential difference between us Russians and all the rest, and in that respect the position in Russia is as nowhere else.  I am in France a Frenchman, with a German I am a German, with the ancient Greeks I am a Greek, and by that very fact I am most typically a Russian.  By that very fact I am a true Russian, and am most truly serving Russia, for I am bringing out her leading idea.  I am a pioneer of that idea.  I was an emigrant then, but had I forsaken Russia?  No, I was still serving her.  What though I did nothing in Europe, what if I only went there as a wanderer (indeed, I know that was so) it was enough that I went there with my thought and my consciousness.  I carried thither my Russian melancholy.  Oh, it was not only the bloodshed in those days that appalled me, and it was not the Tuileries, but all that was bound to follow it.  They are doomed to strife for a long time yet, because they are still too German and too French, and have not yet finished struggling in those national characters.  And I regret the destruction that must come before they have finished.  To the Russian, Europe is as precious as Russia: every stone in her is cherished and dear.  Europe is as much our fatherland as Russia.  Oh, even more so.  No one could love Russia more than I do, but I never reproached myself that Venice, Rome, Paris, the treasures of their arts and sciences, their whole history, are dearer to me than Russia.  Oh, those old stones of foreign lands, those wonders of God’s ancient world, those fragments of holy marvels are dear to the Russian, and are even dearer to us than to the inhabitants of those lands themselves! They now have other thoughts and other feelings, and they have ceased to treasure the old stones. . . .  There the conservative struggles only for existence; and the vitriol-thrower is only fighting for a crust of bread.  Only Russia lives not for herself, but for an idea, and, you must admit, my dear, the remarkable fact that for almost the last hundred years Russia has lived absolutely not for herself, but only for the other States of Europe!  And, what of them!  Oh, they are doomed to pass though fearful agonies before they attain the Kingdom of God.”