Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (848 page)

You will ask: ‘ What social and political ideals of our own can we have to save Europe? ‘ Why, social ideals better than the European, stronger than the European, stronger than yours and even — oh, horror — more liberal than yours! Yes, more liberal because they spring directly from the organism of our people and are not a servile and bloodless im-

 portation from the West. I cannot of course say-much upon this subject, if only because this paper is already too long. But in this connection, remember what was the ancient Christian Church and what it aspires to be. It began immediately after the death of Christ, with a handful of people, and instantly, almost in the very first days after the death of Christ, it attempted to discover its ‘ civic formula,’ which was wholly based upon the moral expectation of satisfying the spirit by the principles of personal self-perfection. Then arose the Christian communities — Churches; then speedily began to be created a new and hitherto unheard-of nationality, a nationality of universal brotherhood and humanity, in the shape of the catholic oecumenical Church. But the Church was persecuted, and the ideal grew beneath the earth, and above it, on the face of the earth, an immense building was also being formed, a huge ant-hill, the old Roman empire, which was also the ideal and the outcome of the moral aspirations of the whole ancient world. But the ant-hill did not fortify itself; it was undermined by the Church. Then occurred the collision of the two most opposite ideas that could exist in the world. The Man-God met the God-Man, the Apollo Belvedere met the Christ. A compromise arose: the Empire accepted Christianity, and the Church accepted Roman law and the Roman state. A small part of the Church went into the desert and began to continue its former work. Christian communities once more appeared, then monasteries; and there were only attempts, attempts that have lasted even unto our day. The large remaining part of the Church was subsequently divided, it is well known, into two halves. In the Western half the State ultimately completely overcame the Church. The Church was destroyed and finally transformed into the State. The Papacy appeared — the continuation of the ancient Roman Empire in a new incarnation. In the Eastern half the State was subdued and destroyed by the sword of Mahomet, and there remained Christ alone, already separated from the Church. And the State, which had accepted and exalted Christ anew, suffered such terrible and unending sufferings at the hands of its enemies, from the Tartar kingdoms, from disorganisation, from serfdom, from Europe and Europeanism, and endures so much until this day, that a real social formula in the sense of the spirit of love and Christian self-perfection has not yet been evolved in it. You, M. Gradovsky, mercilessly reproach Russia with her disorganisation. But who was it that hindered her from organising herself well during the whole of the last two centuries and especially during the last fifty years? Just such people as yourself, M. Gradovsky, Russian Europeans who were always with us for the two centuries and now have settled upon us particularly. Who is the enemy of Russia’s organic and independent development upon her own national principles? Who sneers and will not admit even the existence of those principles and does not even want to see them? Who wanted to remake our people, by fantastically ‘ raising them up to himself’ — simply in order to manufacture little Europeans, like themselves, by occasionally breaking off from the mass of the people a single individual and corrupting him into a European, if only by virtue of the revcrs of his uniform?   By that I do not mean that a European is corrupt; I say only that to remake a Russian into a European in the way in which the Liberals do, is often real corruption. Yet in this lies the whole ideal of their programme of activity, in just paring off single individuals from the general mass. What absurdity! Did they really want to tear off and remake in exactly this way all the eighty millions of our people? Do you seriously believe that all our people, as a whole, in its great mass, will consent to become such an impersonality as these gentlemen, these Russian Europeans?

§ 4

TO ONE — HUMBLE THYSELF, AND TO ANOTHER — BE PROUD.    A  STORM  IN  A  TEA-CUP

Hitherto I have only been debating with you, M. Gradovsky; but now I wish to accuse you for your deliberate distortion of my thought, of the chief point of my ‘ Speech.’ You write:

‘ There is still too much untruth, the residue of long years of slavery, in our people, for it to demand worship for itself, and to pretend, moreover, to the task of converting all Europe to the true path, as M. Dostoyevsky predicts. . . .

‘ A strange phenomenon! The man who punishes pride in the persons of individual wanderers invites a whole people to be proud, because he sees in them a universal apostle. To the one he says, “Humble thyself! “; to the other he says,” Exalt thyself! “‘

And further:

‘ Not yet having become a nation, suddenly to dream of a universal role! Is it not too early? M. Dostoyevsky is proud of the fact that we have served Europe for two hundred years. We must confess that the thought of this “ service “ excites no feelings of pleasure in us. Can the time of the Congress of Vienna and the age of Congresses in general be an object of pride to us? Is it by chance the time when we, serving Metternich, suppressed the national movement in Italy and Germany and looked askance even at our co-religionists, the Greeks? What undying hatred we have gained in Europe for that very “ service “!’

First, I will dwell for a moment on this last, almost innocent, little misrepresentation. Did I, when I said that k we had served Europe during the last two hundred years perhaps even more than we served ourselves,’ — did I praise the manner of our service? I only wanted to point to the fact of our service, and the fact is true. But the fact of our service and the manner of our service are two utterly different things. We may have made many political blunders, as the Europeans make them every day, but it was not our blunders which I praised. I only pointed to the fact of our almost always disinterested service. Do you really not understand that these are two different things?

‘ M. Dostoyevsky is proud because we served Europe,’ you say. I was not priding myself at all when I said that. I was only pointing out a characteristic of our national spirit, a very significant characteristic. Does it mean that one is proud if he should find an admirable and healthy characteristic in the national spirit? And why do you talk of Metternich and the Congresses?   Are you going to give, me instruction in history? When you were still a student I spoke of our service to Metternich in language much stronger than yours, and for my words concerning our ill-omened service to Metternich (among other words, of course) — I paid, as you know now, thirty years ago. Why did you distort my words? To show everybody: ‘ See what a Liberal I am, and now listen to the poet, the enthusiastic lover of the people, and hear what reaction he is babbling, priding himself on our service to Metternich!’   That is conceit, M. Gradovsky.

This is of course a trifle, but what follows is no trifle at all.

So, to say to the people, ‘ Exalt thy spirit! ‘ is the same as to say ‘ Be proud!’; is the same as inciting to pride, as teaching pride. Imagine, M. Gradovsky, that you should say to your own children: ‘ My children, exalt your spirit, be noble!’ — does it indeed mean that you teach them pride, or that you, in teaching them, are proud? And what did I say? I spoke of the hope of ‘ at the last becoming brothers of all men,’ begging that my hearers should underline the words ‘ at the last.’ Is the bright hope that some day brotherhood will be realised in our suffering world, and that we may be allowed to become brothers of all men — is that hope pride, and an incitement to pride? But I said directly, in so many words, at the conclusion of my ‘ Speech’:

‘ Do I speak of economic glory, of the glory of the sword or of science? I speak only of the brotherhood of man; I say that to this universal omni-human union the heart of Russia, perhaps more than all other nations, is predestined.’

 These were my words. And do they contain an incitement to pride? Immediately after the words I have quoted from my ‘ Speech ‘ I added:

‘ Let our eountry be poor, but this poor land “ Christ traversed with blessing in the guise of a serf.” Why then should we not contain his final word?’

Does this word of Christ imply an incitement to pride; and is the hope of containing this word, pride? You write indignantly: ‘ It is too early for us to demand worship for ourselves.’ But where, pray, is the demand for worship? Is it the desire for universal service, the desire to beeome servants and brothers of all men and to serve them with love — does that mean to demand worship from all? If there be here any demand for worship, then the sacred, disinterested desire for universal service instantly becomes an absurdity. One does not bow down to servants, and a brother does not want his brother to kneel before him.

Imagine to yourself, M. Gradovsky, that you have done or are about to do a good deed, and on your way in the elation of your good feelings you think to yourself: ‘ How glad the poor fellow will be at the unexpected help I am bringing him; how his spirits will be raised, how he will revive, how he ‘11 tell of his good fortune to his friends and his children, how he ‘11 weep with them. . . .’ As you think all this to yourself, you will naturally have a feeling of elation, and sometimes tears will even eome to your eyes — have you really never experienced that? — and then eomes a clever voiee beside you, whispering into your ear: ‘ You are being proud of yourself, thinking all this to yourself.

You are weeping tears of pride.’ But now, the mere hope that we Russians may have some small significance for mankind, and that we may ultimately be worthy of doing it brotherly service — this mere hope roused enthusiasm, and enthusiastic tears, in the thousands who listened to me. I do not recall this for boasting’s sake, or for pride; I only wish to mark the seriousness of the moment. There was given only the bright hope that we too may be something for mankind if only as brothers to other men, and that passionate hint alone sufficed to unite all in one thought and one feeling. Strangers embraced and vowed to be better men. Two old men came up to me and said, ‘ For twenty years we were enemies and did each other wrong. Your words have reconciled us.’ A certain newspaper made haste to remark that all this enthusiasm meant nothing. The mood was already there, and it was idle for the orators to speak and make perorations. Whatever they said the enthusiasm would be the same, for the benign mood was prevalent in Moscow. The journalist should himself have come to Moscow and have made a speech. Would men rush to hear him, as they rushed to me, or not? Why was it that when speeches were made three days before, great ovations were given to the speakers, but to none of them happened what happened to me? That was the only moment in the Pushkin celebrations, and it was not repeated. God is my witness that I tell this not to my own praise. But the moment was too serious to be passed by in silence. Its seriousness consisted exactly in that new elements in society were brightly and clearly revealed; there appeared new men who long for heroic action, for the consolation of an idea, for a labour of devotion. It meant that society is no longer ready to be satisfied with our liberal sniggering at Russia. It meant that the doctrine of Russia’s perpetual impotence already stinks in the nostrils. Only a hope, only a hint, and men’s hearts were kindled by the sacred longing for an omni-human task, for a service and an action of universal brotherhood. Were those tears the tears of pride? Was that an incitement to pride? Ah, you!

You see, M. Gradovsky, the seriousness of the moment suddenly terrified a great many people in our liberal tea-cup, the more so, seeing it was so unexpected. ‘ What! Hitherto wc sniggered at and bespattered everything — so pleasantly and profitably — and then comes this speech. . . . But it’s a riot. . . . Call the police! ‘ Several frightened gentlemen sprang up: ‘ What will happen to us now? We used to write, too . . . what are we to do now? We must smother all this as quickly as we can, so that not a trace shall be left, and we must instantly proclaim to the four corners of Russia that it was only due to a benign mood that happened to be prevalent in hospitable Moscow, a pleasant little moment after a series of dinners, no more than that — and as for the riot, well, we ‘11 have the police in!’

And they have begun. They say I am a coward and a poet, and a mere nobody. My speech is quite valueless. In a word, in the heat of their passion they have even acted imprudently. The public might not believe them. The thing ought to be done skilfully.   It should be taken in colder blood.

 Something in my ‘ Speech’ ought even to be praised. ‘ Still,’ they should say,’ there is a sequence of ideas in his “ Speech,”’ and then little by little they should spit on it all, and smother it to the general satisfaction. In brief, they have not been so very clever. There was a blank space: it had to be filled quickly, and then and there appeared a solid, serious critic who combines a recklessness in attack with the proper blend of cmnme il faut. You were that critic, M. Gradovsky. You wrote: every one read: and all was quiet. You have at least served a common and an admirable cause. You were reprinted everywhere: ‘ The poet’s speech will not bear serious criticism. Poets are poets, but wise men are on their guard and at the appointed time will always pour cold water on the dreamer.’ At the very end of your article you ask me to forgive such expressions as I may consider hard in your article. As I finish my article, I will not offer you an apology for my sharp expressions, M. Gradovsky, if there are any in my article. I am not speaking personally to A. D. Gradovsky, but to the publicist A. Gradovsky. Personally I have not the least reason for not respecting you. But if I do not respect your opinions, and insist upon it, how can I smooth matters by apologising? It gave me pain to see that a very serious and critical moment in the life of our society was misrepresented and wrongly explained. It gave me pain to see the idea which I serve dragged about the street. It was you who dragged it there.