Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (885 page)

But, on the other hand, the relations between Dostoevsky and Anyuta were completely altered from that evening. He lost all influence over her, at that one blow; she now continually took it into her head to contradict and tease him. He showed, on his side, great irritation and intolerance; he would demand an account from her of every day on which he had not been with us, and displayed much hostility to everybody whom she at all liked. He did not visit us less frequently, indeed he came oftener even than before, and stayed longer every time, though he never ceased quarrelling with my sister during his whole visit.

In the beginning of their intimacy, Anyuta used to refuse many invitations and gaieties if she knew Dostoevsky was coming on those days. Now that, too, was quite changed. When he came to us on an evening when we had other visitors, Anyuta calmly devoted herself to the other guests. And if she were invited anywhere on one of “his” evenings, she would write and put him off.

The next day, Dostoevsky was always in a bad temper. Anyuta would pretend not to notice, and take a piece of sewing. This would make him worse; he would go into a corner and sit silent. My sister would say nothing either.

“Do stop sewing!” says Dostoevsky at last, and takes her work away from her.

My sister crosses her arms on her breast, and says not a word.

“Where were you last night?” asks Dostoevsky crossly.

“At a ball,” says my sister carelessly.

“And did you dance?”

“Naturally.”

“With your cousin?”

“With him and others.”

“And that amuses you?’.’ Dostoevsky further inquires.

Anyuta shrugs.

“For want of anything better, it does,” she answers, and begins to sew again.

Dostoevsky regards her in silence for some moments.

“You are a shallow, silly creature,” he suddenly declares.

That was the tone of most of their conversations. They had their bitterest quarrels when the subject of Nihilism came up. The debates on this theme would often last till late into the night; and each would express far extremer views than either held.

“The whole younger generation is stupid and uncultured!” Dostoevsky was wont to say. “A pair of country boots is more precious to them than the whole of Pushkin.”

“Pushkin
is
out-of-date,” my sister would calmly maintain. She knew that nothing put him out so thoroughly as a disrespectful remark about Pushkin.

Dostoevsky would often spring up in a rage, seize his hat, and depart with a solemn asseveration that he did not want to have anything more to do with a Nihilist, and would never again cross our threshold. But next evening he would come again, as if nothing had happened.

The more strained became the relations between Dostoevsky and my sister, the more friendly did I grow with him. I was more fascinated by him every day, and more subject to his influence. Of course he could see how I adored him, and he evidently liked it. He often told my sister that she should take example by me.

When Dostoevsky uttered some profound idea or some clever paradox, my sister frequently chose to pretend that she did not understand him; I would be quite carried away, while she, to torment him, would make some insipid rejoinder.

“You are a poor, insignificant thing!” Dostoevsky would then exclaim. “How different your sister is! She is still a child, but how wonderfully she understands me!
Hers
is a delicate, sensitive soul!”

I would get crimson all over with delight; I would gladly have let myself be cut in pieces to show how well I understood him. In the depths of my soul I was well pleased with this change in the relation of Dostoevsky to my sister; but I was ashamed of the feeling. I accused myself of treachery to my sister, and took great pains to make up for my secret sin by being very nice to her. But despite all pangs of conscience, I was always glad of every fresh quarrel between Dostoevsky and Anyuta. He called me his friend, and I, in my simplicity, believed that I — was really dearer to him than my sister, and understood him better. Even my looks he praised to the detriment of hers.

[Finally Dostoevsky made a proposal of marriage to the elder sister, but it was not accepted.]

Dostoevsky came once more, to take leave. He stayed only a short time, but was simple and friendly in his manner to Anyuta; they promised to write to one another. He said good-bye to me very tenderly. He even kissed me, but had no idea, I am sure, of the feelings that he had awakened in me.

After about six months, Dostoevsky wrote to my sister to say that he had learned to know and love a wonderful girl, who had consented to marry him. This girl, Anna Grigorevna Snitkin, became later his second wife. “My word of honour: if anyone had prophesied this to me half a year ago, I should not have believed it!” remarks Dostoevsky naïvely at the end of this letter.

Dostoevsky in the Judgment of his Contemporaries

I. R. P. Pobyedonoszev to I. S. Aksakov

“January
30, 1881.

MY DEAR FRIEND IVAN SERGEYEVITCH!

“When you wrote to me that you felt so sick at heart, you as yet knew nothing of Dostoevsky’s death. But I stand by his bier, and my heart is doubly sick. I knew this man well. I had reserved for him my Saturday evenings, and he often came to talk alone with me. I even furnished him with many hints for his ‘Zosima’; we talked of that often and intimately. The time when he was editing
Grajdanin
was that of our intimacy. I pitied him in his desperate state, and worked together with him through a whole summer; in such a way we quickly made friends. In these times, he was the very man for our cause. He cannot be replaced, for he stood entirely alone....”

II. I. S. Aksakov to R. P. Pobyedonoszev

“Moscow,

“
February,
1881.

“The death of Dostoevsky is a real chastisement from God. “Now for the first time it is fully felt what value he had as a teacher of the younger generation. Even those who did not know him personally must perceive it. Those noble ideals which many a youth cherishes unconsciously in his soul, found in him an upholder. For ‘ injured and insulted’ is, in very truth, only the religious and moral sense of the Russian intelligence....”

III. TURGENEV ON DOSTOEVSKY

Letter to Slutchevsky of December 26, 1861

“My Bazarov, or to speak more precisely, my intentions, only two men have comprehended: Dostoevsky and Botkin.”

Letter to Dostoevsky of December 26, 1861

“I am reading with great enjoyment your ‘ House of the Dead.’ The description of the
bath
is worthy of a Dante; in several figures (for example, in Petrov) there are many most authentic psychological subtleties. I am truly rejoiced at the success of your journal, and repeat that I shall always be glad to give it a helping hand.”

Letter to Polonsky of April 24, 1871

“I am told that Dostoevsky has immortalized me in his novel; I don’t mind, if he likes to do that sort of thing....”

[Turgenev goes on to tell of his meeting with Dostoevsky at Baden-Baden, and says more than once that he considers Dostoevsky to be mad.]

Letter to Mme. Milyutin of December 3, 1872

“MY DEAR MARIA AGGEYEVNA,

“I thank you from my heart for the friendly feelings which dictated your last letter. I was not in the least surprised by Dostoevsky’s proceeding: he began to hate me when we were both young and at the commencement of our literary activities, although I did nothing to call forth that hatred. But unreasoned passions are, it is said, the strongest and most persistent of all. Dostoevsky has permitted himself something worse than a parody: he has shown me, under the mask of Karmasinov, as a secret partisan of Netchayev. It is worthy of remark that he selected for this parody the only story which I published in the journal at one time conducted by him — a story for which he overwhelmed me in his letters with thanks and praise. I still have his letters. It would certainly be rather amusing to make them public now. But he knows that I shall never do so.

I am sorry that he should use his undoubtedly great talent for the satisfaction of such unlovely feelings; evidently he does not himself prize his gifts very highly, since he degrades them to a pamphlet.”

Letter to Saltykov of November 25, 1875

“The theme of Goncourt’s novel is very daring. As he says himself, the book is the fruit of a close scientific study of the life of prostitutes. But at all events, it’s something very different from Dostoevsky’s ‘Hobbledehoy.’ I glanced at that chaos in the last number of the
Otetschestvennia Zapiski;
my God, what a welter of hospital stinks! What a vain and incomprehensible stuttering; what a psychological rubbish-heap!...”

Letter to Saltykov of September 24, 1882

“I also read Michailovsky’s article on Dostoevsky. He has rightly divined the characteristic mark of Dostoevsky’s creative work. In French literature, too, there was a like case — namely, the famous Marquis de Sade. This latter depicts in his ‘Tourments et Supplices’ the sensual pleasure afforded by the infliction of refined tortures. And Dostoevsky, in one of his books, enlarges on the same sort of delights.... And when one thinks that all the Russian Bishops said masses for the soul of
this
Marquis de Sade, and even preached sermons about his great love for all mankind! Truly, we live in a remarkable age.”

IV. LEO TOLSTOY ON DOSTOEVSKY

From Tolstoy’s Letters to A. N. Strachov

“
September 26,
1880.

‘ Lately I was ill, and read Dostoevsky’s ‘House of the Dead.’ I have read much, and forgotten much; but I do not know in all modern literature, Pushkin included, any better book. Not the manner, but the point of view, is what is so remarkable; it is so frank, natural, and Christ-like. A fine, edifying book. Yesterday, when I read it, I knew such pleasure as I have not had for a long time. If you see Dostoevsky, tell him that I love him.”

At the beginning of 1881:

“I wish I had the power to say all that I think of Dostoevsky! When you inscribed your thoughts, you partly expressed mine. I never saw the man, had no sort of direct relations with him; but when he died, I suddenly realized that he had been to me the most precious, the dearest, and the most necessary of beings. It never even entered my head to compare myself with him. Everything that he wrote (I mean only the good, the true things) was such that the more he did like that, the more I rejoiced. Artistic accomplishment and intellect can arouse my envy; but a work from the heart — only joy. I always regarded him as my friend, and reckoned most confidently on seeing him at some time. And suddenly I read that he is dead. At first I was utterly confounded, and when later I realized how I had valued him, I began to weep — I am weeping even now. Only a few days before his death, I had read with emotion and delight his ‘ Injury and Insult.’”

This essay on Dostoyevsky’s life and work is taken from Phelps’ famous collection of essays on Russian writers, first published in 1911.  Phelps was an American critic, whose scholarly works explored many areas of world literature.