Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (858 page)

Filippov, before he left for Sebastopol, gave me twenty-five roubles. He left them with the Commandant, Nabokov, and I knew nothing about it beforehand. He thought that I should have no money. A kind soul! All our lot are doing not so badly in banishment. Toll has done his time, and now lives quite tranquilly in Tomsk. Yastrchembsky is in Tara; his time is drawing to an end. Spyechnyov is in the Irkutsk Government; he has won general liking and respect there. That man’s is a curious destiny! Wherever, and in whatever circumstances, he may appear, even the most inaccessible people show him honour and respect. Petrachevsky is now and then not in his right mind; Monbelli and Loov are well; poor Grigoryev has gone clean out of his senses and is in hospital. And how goes it with you? Do you still see a great deal of Mme. Plestcheiev? What is her son doing? From prisoners who passed through here, I heard that he is alive and in the fortress at Orsk, and that Golovinsky has long been in the Caucasus. How goes your literature, and your interest in literature? Are you writing anything? What is Krayevsky about, and what are your relations with him? I don’t care for Ostrovsky; I have read nothing by Pissemsky; Drushinin I loathe. I was enchanted with Eugenie Tur. I like Krestovsky too.

I should like to have written much more; but so much time has gone by that even this letter was somewhat difficult to write. But it really cannot be that our relation is altered in any respect. Kiss your children. Can they remember Uncle Fedya at all? Greet all acquaintances — but keep this letter a dead secret. Farewell, farewell, dear fellow! You shall hear from me again, and perhaps even see me. Yes — we shall most certainly see one another again! Farewell. Read attentively all that I write to you. Write to me as often as possible (even if officially). I embrace you and all yours more times than I can count.

Thy

DOSTOEVSKY.

P.S. — Have you received my children’s story, (He means “The Little Hero.” The story did not appear till 1857 (in the
O. Z.,
under the pseudonym “M — y.”).) that I wrote in the fortress? If it is in your hands, don’t do anything with it, and show it to no one. Who is Tschernov, that wrote a “Double” in 1850?

Till next time!

Thy

DOSTOEVSKY.

XXII. To Mme. N. D. Fonvisin

(
Wife of the Decembrist M. A. Fonvisin. Dostoevsky had met her in Tobolsk in 1850. During his captivity, when he himself was not allowed to correspond with his brother, she was his only medium of communication with the outside world.)

OMSK,

Beginning of March,
1854.

At last I am writing to you, my kind N. D., after leaving my former place of abode. When I last wrote, I was sick in body and soul. I was consumed with longings, and I daresay my letter was quite senseless. That long, colourless, physically and morally difficult life had stifled me. It is always grievous to me to write letters at such times; and I regard it as cowardice to force one’s sorrow on others, even when they are very fond of one. I send you this letter indirectly, and I am glad to be able to speak with you quite unconstrainedly at last; all the more because I have been transferred to Semipalatinsk to the seventh battalion, and therefore don’t at all know in what way I may be able to correspond with you in future.

[Dostoevsky further discusses the question of how he may most safely correspond with his brother and with Mme. Fonvisin.]

With what delight I read your letter, dearest N. D. You write quite admirable letters, or, more precisely, your letters flow easily and naturally from your good kind heart. There are reserved and embittered natures, which only in very rare moments are expansive. I know such people. They are not necessarily bad people — quite the contrary, indeed.

I don’t know why, but I guess from your letter that you returned home in bad spirits. I understand it; I have sometimes thought that if ever I return home, I shall get more grief than joy from my impressions there. I have not lived your life, and much in it is unknown to me, and indeed, no one can really know exactly his fellow-mortal’s life; still, human feeling is common to us all, and it seems to me that everyone who has been banished must live all his past grief over again in consciousness and memory, on his return home. It is like a balance, by which one can test the true gravity of what one has endured, gone through, and lost. God grant you a long life! I have heard from many people that you are very religious. But not because you are religious, but because I myself have learnt it and gone through it, I want to say to you that in such moments, one does, “like dry grass,” thirst after faith, and that one finds it in the end, solely and simply because one sees the truth more clearly when one is unhappy. I want to say to you, about myself, that I am a child of this age, a child of unfaith and scepticism, and probably (indeed I know it) shall remain so to the end of my life. How dreadfully has it tormented me (and torments me even now) — this longing for faith, which is all the stronger for the proofs I have against it. And yet God gives me sometimes moments of perfect peace; in such moments I love and believe that I am loved; in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple; here it is: I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Saviour; I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one. I would even say more: If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.

I would rather not say anything more about it. And yet I don’t know why certain topics may never be touched on in society, and why, if anyone does introduce them, it makes the others uncomfortable. Still, enough of it. I heard that you were desirous of travelling somewhere in the South. God grant that you may succeed in obtaining permission to do so. But will you please tell me when we shall be quite free, or at any rate as free as other people? Perhaps only when we no longer need freedom? For my part, I want all or nothing. In my soldier’s uniform I am the same prisoner as before. I rejoice greatly that I find there is patience in my soul for quite a long time yet, that I desire no earthly possessions, and need nothing but books, the possibility of writing, and of being daily for a few hours alone. The last troubles me most. For almost five years I have been constantly under surveillance, or with several other people, and not one hour alone with myself. To be alone is a natural need, like eating and drinking; for in that kind of concentrated communism one becomes a whole-hearted enemy of mankind. The constant companionship of others works like poison or plague; and from that unendurable martyrdom I most suffered in the last four years. There were moments in which I hated every man, whether good or evil, and regarded him as a thief who, unpunished, was robbing me of life. The most unbearable part is when one grows unjust, malignant, and evil, is aware of it, even reproves one’s-self, and yet has not the power to control one’s-self. I have experienced that. I am convinced that God will keep you from it. I believe that you, as a woman, have more power to forgive and to endure.

Do write me a line, N. D. I am now going to a veritable desert, to Asia, and there, in Semipalatinsk, it seems to me that all my past, all memories and impressions, will leave me; for the last human beings whom I still had to love, and who were like a shadow of my past, will now have to desert me. I get so dreadfully quickly used to people, and grow into my environment so tenaciously, that I never can tear myself away, when the time comes, without great pain. I wish for
you,
N. D., that you may live as happily and as long as possible! If we ever meet again, we shall learn to know one another afresh, and each of us may perhaps still have many happy days. I live in constant expectancy; I am always rather ill now, and I feel that soon, very soon, something decisive must happen, that I am nearing the crucial moment of my whole life, am ripe for anything that may come — and that perhaps something tranquil and bright, perhaps something menacing, but in any case something inevitable, closely impends. Otherwise my whole life would be a failure. Perhaps it has all been but a sick delirium! Farewell, N. D., or rather au revoir; we’ll hope, won’t we? that we
shall
see one another again!

Your

D.

P.S. — For goodness’ sake forgive this untidy, greasy letter! But, on my sacred honour, I can’t write without erasures. Don’t be cross with me.

XXIII. To Mme. Maria Dmitryevna Issayev

(
Dostoevsky’s future wife. Compare the reminiscences of Baron Vrangel, in the Appendix.)

FROM SEMIPALATINSK TO KUSNEZK

[IN THE TOMSK GOVERNMENT],

June
4, 1855

A thousand thanks for your dear letter on the journey, my dear and unforgettable friend Maria Dmitryevna. I hope that you and Alexander Ivanovitch (The lady’s husband.) will allow me to call you both friends. We certainly were friends here, and I trust we shall remain so. Is mere separation to alter us? I believe not; for the parting from you, my dear friends, lies so heavily upon me that by that alone I can judge how very much I cling to you. Just imagine: this is the second letter I have written to you. I had an answer to your dear cordial letter ready for the earlier post, dear Maria Dmitryevna, but I never sent it. Alexander Yegorovitch, (Baron Vrangel.) who was to have taken it to the post, quite suddenly left for Smyev last Saturday, and I never heard of his departure till Sunday. His servant simultaneously disappeared for two days, and the letter remained in my pocket. Hard luck! I am now writing to you again, but know not if this letter will get off either. Alexander Yegorovitch is not back yet. But they have sent a special messenger after him.

Here we hourly expect the Governor-General; he may perhaps be already arrived. It is said that he will spend about five days here. But enough of that. How did you arrive at Kusnezk? I hope and pray that nothing happened to you on the way. You write that you are depressed and even ill. So I am most anxious about you. The mere move caused you such trouble and such unavoidable discomforts, and now there’s this illness added! How are you to bear it all? I can think of nothing but you. You know how apprehensive I am, so you can picture my anxiety. My God, how little you —
you,
who might be an ornament to any society — deserve this fate with all its petty cares and contrarieties! Accursed destiny! I await your letter with impatience. If only it would come by this post! I went several times to find out if it had; but Alexander Yegorovitch is not back yet. You ask me how I pass the time, and how I arrange my day without you. For a fortnight I have not known what to do with myself, so sad am I. If you only knew how orphaned I now feel! It is just like the time when they arrested me in 1849, put me in prison, and tore me from all that I loved and prized. So very much had I grown to you. I never looked upon our intercourse as an ordinary acquaintanceship, and now, when I no longer have you near me, I begin to understand many things. I have lived for five years entirely without human relations — quite alone, without a creature to whom I could open my heart. But you two treated me like a brother. I remember that from the very first, I felt at home in your house. Alexander Ivanovitch could not have been kinder to his own brother than he was to me. With my unendurable character, I must have caused you much vexation, and yet you both loved me. I recognize it and feel it, for indeed I am not quite heartless. You are a wonderful woman; you have a heart of rare child-like kindliness, and you were like a sister to me. The mere fact that a woman should treat me in so friendly a way was a great event in my life. For even the best man is often, if I may say so, a block. Woman’s heart, woman’s compassion, woman’s sympathy, the endless kindness of which we have no clear perception, and which, in our obtuseness, we often do not even notice — these are irreplaceable. All
that
I found in you; even apart from my many failings, a sister could not have been kinder and more tactful to me than you were, If we did go through some violent upheavals, it was always because I was ungrateful, and you were ill, exacerbated, and wounded; you were wounded because the disgusting society-folk neither prized nor understood you, and anyone with your energy
must
revolt against all injustice, and that revolt is noble and dignified. These are the essential features of your character; suffering and circumstances have naturally distorted much in you — but, by God, with what usurer’s interest was any such failing always redeemed! And since I was not stupid all the time, I saw and treasured it. In one word, I
had
to love your house as my very own home — I could not do otherwise. I shall never forget you both, and shall be ever grateful to you. For I am convinced that neither of you has the least idea of all you did for me, and how very necessary to me were just such people as you. If I had not had you, I should most likely have turned into a block of wood; but now I am a human being again. But enough; it is not to be expressed, least of all in a letter. I curse this letter, because it reminds me of our parting; everything reminds me of that. In the twilight, in those hours when I used to go to you, such grief overwhelms me that I could weep if I were at all prone to do so; and I know you would not laugh at my tears. Once for all, my heart is so constituted that everything it loves and treasures grows deeply rooted in it, and when uptorn, causes wounds and suffering. I live quite solitary here now, and have no idea what to do with myself; everything is spoilt for me. A frightful blank! I have only Alexander Yegorovitch now; but in his company I always feel sad, for always I involuntarily compare myself with him, and you can easily imagine what that results in. In any case, he’s away just at present. During his absence I have been twice in the Kasakov Gardens, and I did feel so sad! When I think of last summer, when
you,
poor dear, had only one wish, to get out into the country so that you might have a breath of fresh air — great grief comes over me, and I feel frightfully sorry for you. Do you remember how we — you, Alexander Ivanovitch, I, and Elena — were once in the Kasakov Gardens? How vivid was the sense of it, when I went there again! In the Gardens nothing is changed, and the seat on which we sat is still standing there.... And I felt so sad. You write suggesting that I should live with Vrangel; but I don’t want to do that, for I have several weighty reasons against it. First, the question of money. If I lived with him, I should of course have to spend much more money on rent, servants, and food, for I wouldn’t live at his expense. Second: my character. Third: his character. Fourth: I have noticed that he is much visited by all sorts of people. I don’t mean to shut myself off from society, but I can’t stand strangers. Finally: I love solitude, I am used to it, and use is second nature. Enough. I have really told you nothing yet. After I had accompanied you to the forest and taken leave of you under a pine-tree (which I’ve marked), I returned arm-in-arm with Vrangel (who was leading his horse by the bridle) to the Pechechonov’s hospitable abode. It was there that I first realized my desolate state. At first I could see your travelling-carriage in the distance, then only hear it, and at last it was quite gone. We got into the droschky, and sat talking of you both and of how you would bear the journey; and it was then that Vrangel told me something that greatly rejoiced me. On the day of your departure, early in the morning, it appears that Pyotr Michailovitch suggested that they should spend the whole evening together somewhere. Vrangel refused the offer, and when Pyotr Michailovitch asked him why, he answered: “Because I must see the Issayevs off.” There were some other people there. Pyotr Michailovitch asked at once: “Then you know that pair very well?” Vrangel answered somewhat stiffly that he had only known you for a short time, but thought your house one of the pleasantest possible, and that its mistress — that is, you — was a woman such as he had seen none to equal since he had been in Petersburg, and probably never would see again; a woman “such as
you
have never seen at all,” he added, “and I consider her acquaintance the greatest honour.”