Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  I meant to answer other of your reproaches, and show you that you have misunderstood me. About other things besides I wanted to speak; but as I write this letter, so many sweet remembrances and dreams come over me that I can talk of nothing else. Only one reproach will I refer to — namely, that those great poets whom, according to you, I do not know at all, I have nevertheless sought to compare closely with one another. I never drew such a parallel as one between Pushkin and Schiller. I can’t imagine how you came to think so; pray cite me the passage in my letter; it is just possible that I may have happened to mention the names of Pushkin and Schiller in immediate juxtaposition, but I believe that you will find a comma between them. They have no smallest point of resemblance. Now between Pushkin and Byron one might speak of a likeness. But as to Homer and Victor Hugo, I positively believe that you have chosen to misunderstand me! This is what I meant: Homer (a legendary figure, who was perhaps sent to us by God, as Christ was) can only be placed with Christ; by no means with Victor Hugo. Do try, brother, to enter truly into the Iliad; read it attentively (now confess that you never have read it). Homer, in the Iliad, gave to the ancient world the same organization in spiritual and earthly matters as the modern world owes to Christ. Do you understand me now? Victor Hugo is a singer, clear as an angel, and his poetry is chaste and Christian through and through; no one is like him in that respect — neither Schiller (if Schiller is a Christian poet at all), nor the lyric Shakespeare, nor Byron, nor Pushkin. I have read his Sonnets in French. Homer alone has the same unshakable belief in his vocation for poetry and in the god of poetry whom he serves — in that sole respect his poetry is like Victor Hugo’s, but not in the ideas with which Nature gifted him, and which he succeeded in expressing — I never meant the ideas at all, never. I even think that Dershavin stands higher as a lyricist than either of those two. Fare well, my dear fellow.

  P.S. — I must give you one more scolding. When you talk about form in poetry, you seem to me quite crazy. I mean it seriously. I noticed a long time ago that in this respect you are not wholly normal. Lately you let fall a remark of the kind about Pushkin; I purposely did not take it up. Of your own forms I’ll speak at length in my next letter; now I have neither room nor time. But do tell me how, when you were talking about forms, you could advance the proposition that neither Racine nor Corneille could please us, because their forms were bad? You miserable wretch! And then you add with such effrontery: “Do you think; then, that they were both bad poets?” Racine no poet — Racine the ardent, the passionate, the idealist Racine, no poet! Do you dare to ask that? Have you read his “Andromaque” — eh? Have you read his “Iphigénie”? Will you by any chance maintain that it is not splendid? And isn’t Racine’s Achilles of the same race as Homer’s? I grant you, Racine stole from Homer, but in -what a fashion! How marvellous are his women! Do try to apprehend him. You say “Racine was no genius; how could he possibly (?) produce a drama? He could only imitate Corneille.” What about “Phèdre?” Brother, if you won’t agree that “Phèdre” is the highest and purest poetry, I don’t know what I shall think of you. Why, there’s the force of a Shakespeare in it, if the medium is plaster of Paris instead of marble.

  Now about Corneille. Listen again, brother! I really don’t know how to talk to you; perhaps, like Ivan Nikiforovitch, (The hero of a novel by Gogol.) I ought to eat a substantial portion of herbs first. I cannot believe that you’ve read him at all; that’s why you talk such nonsense. Why, don’t you know that Corneille, with his titanic figures and his romantic spirit, nearly approaches Shakespeare? You miserable wretch! Do you happen to know that it was not until fifty years later than the inept miserable Jodelle (author of that disgusting’” Cléopâtre”) and Ronsard, who was a forewarning of our own Trediakovsky, that Corneille made his appearance, and that he was almost a contemporary of the insipid poetaster Malherbe? How can you demand form from him? It was as much as one could expect that he should borrow his form from Seneca. Have you read his “Cinna”? What, before the divine figure of Octavius, becomes of Karl Moor, of Fiesco, of Tell, of Don Carlos? That work would have done honour to Shakespeare. You wretch! If you haven’t read it yet, read now at least the dialogue between Augustus and Cinna, where he forgives him for his treachery. Good Heavens! You will see that only offended seraphs could so speak. Particularly the passage where Augustus says: “Soyons amis, Cinna.” Have you read his “Horace”? Decidedly only in Homer can you find such figures. Old Horace is another Diomedes; young Horace an Ajax, son of Telamon, but with the spirit of an Achilles; Curias is Patrocles and Achilles in one person; he is the very consummation of conflicting love and duty. It’s all so lofty! Have you read “Le Cid”? Read it, unhappy man, and fall in the dust before Corneille. You have blasphemed him. Anyhow, read him. What does the romantic stand for, if it doesn’t reach its highest development in the “Cid”? How wonderful are the figures of Don Rodrigo, of his son, and of that son’s beloved — and then, the end!

  Please don’t be offended with me for my insulting expressions; don’t bear me ill-will, as Ivan Ivanovitch Pererepenko did to Gogol.

  V. To his Brother Michael

  September 30, 1844.

  [At first he speaks of the translation of Schiller, which the brothers wished to publish.]

  Yes, brother, indeed I know that my position is desperate. I want to lay it before you now, just as it is. I am retiring because I can serve no longer. Life delights me not if I am to spend the best part of it in such a senseless manner. Moreover, I never did intend to remain long in the service — why should I waste my best years? But the chief point is that they wanted to send me to the provinces. Now, tell me, pray, what should I be good for, out of Petersburg? What could I do? You will assuredly understand me there.

  As regards my future life, you really need not be anxious. I shall always find means to support myself. I mean to work tremendously hard. And I am free now. The only question is what I shall do just for the moment. Think of it, brother: I owe eight hundred roubles — five hundred and twenty-five for rent. (I have written home that I owe one thousand five hundred, for I know the gentry there. (His father was now dead, and an uncle-in-law acted as Dostoevsky’s guardian.) They always send me a third of what I ask for.) Nobody knows yet that I am retiring. Now, what shall I do at first, when I am no longer in the service? I haven’t even the money to buy civilian clothes. I retire on October 14. If I don’t receive money from Moscow at once, I am lost. Seriously, they will put me in prison — this is certain. It’s a quaint situation.

  [There is further discussion of how he shall get money from his relatives.]

  You say that my salvation lies in my drama. But it will be a long time before it’s played, and longer still before I get any money for it. Meanwhile, my retirement stares me in the face. (My dear fellow, if I had not already sent in my papers, I should do so now; I in no wise regret that step.) I have one hope more. I am just finishing a novel, (His” Poor Folk.”) about the length of “Eugénie Grandet.” It is most original. I am now making, the fair copy; by the 14th I ought certainly to have an answer from the editor. I want to bring it out in the Otetchestvennia Zapiski. ( “Annals of the Fatherland.) (I am well pleased with my work.) I shall probably get four hundred roubles for it — that is all I hope for. I would have liked to tell you more about the book, but I haven’t time. (I shall certainly produce the play, anyhow. For that is the way I wish to make a living.)

  The Moscovians are incredibly stupid, conceited, and priggish. K. (Dostoevsky’s guardian.) in his last letter advises me, with no apparent relevancy, not to let myself be so carried away by Shakespeare. He says that Shakespeare is only a soap-bubble. I wish you could explain to me this ridiculous hostility against Shakespeare. Why does he suddenly drag him in? You should have seen the answer I sent him! It was a model in the polemic style. I gave him a first-class snubbing. My letters are masterpieces of the “literary art.” Brother, do, for God’s sake, write home at once! My situation is desperate. The 14th i
s the very utmost limit of my time; I sent in my papers six weeks ago. For Heaven’s sake write to them, and tell them to send me the money without delay! It is urgent, for otherwise I shall have no clothes. Chlestakov (in Gogol’s “Revisor”) was ready to go to prison, but only “with all dignity.” Now, how can I, barefoot, go to prison “with all dignity”?...

  My address: By the Vladimirkirche, care of Pryanischnikof, Grafengasse.—’

  I am extraordinarily pleased with my novel — beside myself with joy. For it I shall certainly get money; but as for anything else:... Forgive this incoherent letter.

  VI. To his Brother Michael

  March 24, 1845.

  You must have been burning with impatience for ever so long, dearest brother. The uncertainty of my situation prevented me from writing. I can give myself up to no employment, when only uncertainty stares me in the face. Not that I have yet succeeded in regulating my affairs in any way; but despite this unsettled state of things, I will write to you, for it is so long since I have sent you a word.

  I got five hundred roubles from the Moscow folk. But I had so many old and new debts that the money did not suffice for the printing. Still, it was not so bad. I could either go on credit for the printing, or else pay only half the household debts; but the novel was not ready. I had finished it in November, but in December I decided to alter it radically. I did so, and wrote it out fair again; then in February I began once more to fiddle at it, polishing, cutting, adding. Towards the middle of March I was ready, and satisfied with my work. But there arose a fresh obstacle: the Censor wanted a whole month for the reading. It couldn’t be done quicker. The officials at the Censorship are said to be loaded down with work. I didn’t know what to do, and asked for the manuscript back. For besides the four weeks for the Censor, I had to reckon on three more for the printing. So at earliest the book would appear in May. That would have been too late! Then people began to urge me from all sides to send the novel to the Otetchestvennia Zapiski. It would have been madness; I should certainly have rued it. In the first place, they wouldn’t have read the manuscript at all, or, if they had, not for at least six months. They have enough manuscripts lying about without getting mine. And if they did print, I shouldn’t get a penny for it; for that paper is a pure oligarchy. What do I want with fame, when I’m writing for daily bread? I took a desperate resolve — to wait a little longer, and in the meantime incur fresh debts. Towards the beginning of September, when everyone will be in Petersburg, sniffing about like bloodhounds for something new, I’ll try with my last kopeck (which probably won’t nearly suffice) to get the book printed. If I published in a magazine, I should come under the yoke of not only the head maître ê’hôtel, but of all the kitchen wenches and urchins who swarm wherever culture is in the making. It’s not a question of one dictator, but twenty. While if I print the novel at my own expense, I may make my way by my own ability; and if the book is good, it won’t be overlooked — it may even get me out of debt, and rescue me from anxiety about the means of subsistence.

  And now to those means of subsistence! You know well, dear brother, that I have been thrown on my own resources in that respect. But I have vowed to myself that, however hard it may go with me, I’ll pull myself together, and in no circumstances will I work to order. Work done to order would oppress and blight me. I want each of my efforts to be incontrovertibly good. Just look at Pushkin and Gogol. Both wrote very little, yet both have deserved national memorials. Gogol now gets a thousand roubles a printed page, while Pushkin had, as you know well, as much as a ducat a line of verse. Both — but particularly Gogol — bought their fame at the price of years of dire poverty. The old school is going to pieces; and the new school doesn’t write — it scribbles. Talent is universally squandered in striving after a “broad conception,” wherein all one can discover is a monstrous inchoate idea and colossal muscular effort. There is hardly any real serious work in the business. Béranger said of the modern French feuilletonists that their work was like a bottle of Chambertin in a bucket of water. And our people are the same. Raphael worked for many years at each picture, and lingered long over every detail, therefore he created masterpieces. Gods grew under his brush! And to-day Vernet gets a picture ready in a month, and each needs a huge room, built expressly. The perspective is grandiose, the conception colossal — but there’s not a ha’porth of serious work in the thing. They are all no better than house-painters.

  I am really pleased with my novel. It is a serious and well-constructed work. But it has terrible shortcomings, too. Seeing it in print will make up to me for everything else. Now, while I have as yet no new ideas, I should rather like to write something that would introduce me to the public, or even for the mere money’s sake; not that I should at all wish to write rubbish, but for anything really serious I need a lot of time.

  It is getting near the time, my dears, that I had hoped to spend with you all. But I shall not have the means, that is the money, for it. I have decided to stay on in my old abode. For here I have, at any rate, a contract with the landlord, and need not worry myself about anything for six months. It’s simply a case of my novel covering all! If I fail in this, I’ll hang myself.

  I should like to have saved at least three hundred roubles by August. I can have the book printed for that. But the roubles run about like crabs in every direction. I had about four hundred worth of debts (including the new expenses and clothes); now I’m decently dressed for at least two years. But I really will come to you, anyhow. Write as soon as possible and say what you think about my staying on here. It is a crucial question. But what else can I do?

  You write that you are terrified of the resourceless future. But Schiller will set right all that, and, besides, my novel may bring in something. Write soon. By the next post I’ll tell you all my decisions.

  Kiss the children from me, and greet Emilie Fyodorovna. (Michael Dostoevsky’s wife.) I often think of you all. Perhaps it will interest you to know what I do when I’m not writing — well, I read. I read a great deal, and it has a curious effect on me. When I re-read anything that I knew years ago, I feel fresh powers in myself. I can pierce to the heart of the book, grasp it entire, and from it draw new confidence in myself. Of the writing of plays I don’t want to know anything. To do one I should need years of repose and hard study. It is easy enough, indeed, to write plays today; the drama is more like melodrama. Shakespeare disappears in the fog. He looks, amid the fumes of our wretched modern drama, like a god, or a spectre of the Brocken. In the summer I shall, nevertheless, perhaps try again to write one. Just let us wait two or even three years! Brother, in literary matters I am not the same person that I was a couple of years ago. Then it was all childishness and folly. These two years of hard study have taken much from me, and brought much to me.

  In the Invalide lately I read in the feuilleton about the German writers who died of hunger, cold, or in a mad-house. They were twenty in all — and what names! Even still it gives me the creeps. It’s better to be a charlatan, really....

  VII. To his Brother Michael

  May 4, 1845.

  DEAREST BROTHER,

  Forgive my not having written for so long. I have, as usual, had such a confounded lot to do. My novel, which I simply can’t break loose from, keeps me endlessly at work. If I had known beforehand how it would be, I should never have begun it at all. I decided to do it all over again, and, by God! that has improved it a lot: Now I’m ready with it once more, and this revision is really the last. I have given myself my word not to touch it again. After all, it’s the fate of all first books to be altered over and over again. I don’t know whether Châteaubriand’s “Atala” was his first book, but I do know that he re-wrote it seventeen times. Pushkin did just the same with quite short poems. Gogol used to polish away at his wonderful works for two years at a time, and if you have read the “Sentimental Journey,” that witty book by Sterne, you’ll very likely remember what Walter Scott, in his article on Sterne, says with reference to Stern
e’s servant, La Fleur. La Fleur declared that his master had filled about two hundred quires of paper with the description of his journey through France. Now, the question is, What became of all that paper? The result was a little book, for writing which a parsimonious person (such as, for example, Plyushkin - A character in Gogol’s “Dead Souls” — the incarnation of avarice.) would have used half a quire. I can’t understand at all how that same Walter Scott could turn out such finished works as “Mannering” in a few weeks. Perhaps only because at that time he was forty years old.

  I don’t in the least know, brother, what will become of me! You judge me falsely when you maintain that my situation doesn’t trouble me a bit. It worries me frightfully, and I often cannot sleep for nights and nights because of my tormenting thoughts. Wise folk tell me that I shall come to the ground if I publish the novel as a book. They admit that the book will be a very good one, but say that I am no business man... and that the booksellers are usurers; that they will rob me as a matter of course, and I, as sure as death, shall let them.

  For these reasons I have resolved to bring out the novel in a journal — for example, the Otetchestvennia Zapiski. That has an edition of 2,500 copies, consequently it is read by at least 100,000 people. If I let the novel appear in this journal, my literary career and my whole future life are assured. I might easily make my fortune by it. And thus I shall gain a firm footing in the paper, and shall always have money; and if my novel appears in the August or September number, I can bring it out as a book on my own account in October, and that with the certain prospect that everyone who buys novels at all will get it. Moreover, the advertisement will cost me nothing. Well, so things stand!