“Fathers and Sons,” etc., to say nothing of more distant years; and the public knows that well); critical articles are rare (but often very remarkable, particularly when it is not a question of so-called fine literature); but then there appear annually, as every subscriber knows, three or four strikingly able, apt, individual, and in these days most necessary articles, such as one finds nowhere else. The public knows that, too. Therefore I believe that the paper, even if it is dry and addressed to a particular section of the public, cannot possibly lose ground.
In the year 1867, Katkov told me, in the presence of Lyubimov and the editorial secretary, that the paper had five hundred more subscribers than the year before, which was to be attributed entirely to the success of my “Raskolnikov.” I hardly think that “The Idiot” will have obtained fresh subscribers for the paper; therefore I am doubly glad that, despite the manifest failure of the story, they still depend on me. The editors beg me to excuse them for being unable to bring out the conclusion in the December number, and propose to send it to subscribers as a supplement. This is quite peculiarly painful for me. Have you had the conclusion? Do write and tell me. I get the Roussky Viestnik here, however; perhaps the supplement will come with the February number.
From Petersburg I am told quite frankly that “The Idiot” has certainly many shortcomings, and is generally regarded as a falling off; but nevertheless has been followed with great interest by those who read at all. And that is really the utmost I aimed at. As to the shortcomings, I perfectly discern them myself; I am so vexed by my errors that I should like to have written a criticism of the book. Strachov means to send me his article on “The Idiot”; I know that he is not among my partisans.
I clearly perceive that I am writing only about myself to-day; but as I am now in that vein, I’ll go on, and I beg you to hear me patiently. On all these literary matters depends now my whole future, and my return to Russia. My dearest wish is to embrace you all, and ever to remain with you; perhaps it will really come true some day! I needn’t emphasize the fact, dear friend (and you will be sure to understand me), that my whole literary activity has embodied for me but one definite ideal value, but one aim, but one hope — and that I do not strive for fame and money, but only and solely for the synthesis of my imaginative and literary ideals, which means that before I die I desire to speak out, in some work that shall as far as possible express the whole of what I think.
At the moment I am meditating a novel. It will be called “Atheism”; I think that I shall succeed in saying all that I wish to say. But think, my dear: I cannot possibly write here. I must absolutely be in Russia, I must see and hear everything, I must take my own part in Russian life; and besides; the work would take at least two years. I can’t do it here, and must therefore write something else in the meantime.
On this account, life abroad becomes more unbearable to me every day. You must know that I should have 6,000, or at the very least 5,000, roubles before I can think of returning to Russia. I reckoned originally on the success of “The Idiot.” If it had been equal to that of “Raskolnikov,” I should have had those 5,000 roubles. Now I must set all my hopes on the future. God knows when I shall be able to return. But return I must.
You write of Turgenev and the Germans. Turgenev, however, has lost all his talent in this foreign sojourn, as already the Golos has declared. Certainly no such danger threatens me as that of succumbing to Germanic influence, for I do not like the Germans. But I must contrive to live in Russia, for here I shall lose the last vestiges of my talent and my powers. I feel that, in all my being. Therefore I must talk to you still more about those literary matters upon which depend my present, my future, and my return to Russia. So I continue.
The Sarya sent me, through Strachov, a second letter with an official request to contribute. This invitation comes from Strachov, from the editor Kachpirev, and some other contributors whom I do not personally know (Granovsky is not among them); Danilevsky also (whom I have not seen for twenty years) is of the number — this is not the novelist Danilevsky, but another very remarkable man of the same name. I perceive that a set of new coadjutors of great distinction, and of thoroughly Russian and national tendency, have clustered round this journal. The first number impressed me deeply with its very frank and outspoken tone, but especially the two long articles by Strachov and Danilevsky. You must be sure to read Strachov’s. It is quite certain that you have never read any critical writing that can compare with it. Danilevsky’s article, “Europe and Russia,” is to be very long and run through several numbers. This Danilevsky is a most unusual phenomenon. Once upon a time he was a Socialist and Fourierist; twenty years ago, even, when he was involved in our affair, he struck me as most remarkable; from his banishment he returned a thorough Russian and Nationalist. This article (which I very particularly recommend to you) is his maiden effort. The paper seems to me, in general, to have a great future before it; but will the contributors continue to pull together? Again, Strachov, the real editor, strikes me as little fitted for a continuous task. But I may be mistaken. I answered the invitation to collaborate thus: I was most willing (I said) to contribute to the paper; but as my situation obliged me always to demand payment in advance, which, moreover, Katkov had always allowed me to do, I now begged for an advance of a thousand roubles. (It is not too much: what am I to live on while I’m doing the work? I can’t possibly ask Katkov for money, while I’m working for another paper.) I sent this letter some days ago, and am now awaiting the answer. All I know is this: if they have money, they’ll send it me at once; but I must reckon with the possibility that they have none, for I know from experience what difficulties a new journal has to encounter in its first year. Even if they do send me the thousand roubles, that will be no particular advantage to me. From Katkov I could have got quite as much, even a great deal more. The only advantage would be that I should at once have a large sum of money (which I urgently need) to dispose of; I could then lay aside 400 roubles for Pasha and Emilie Fyodorovna, and besides that pay a peculiarly worrying debt that I owe in Petersburg: it is a debt of honour without any promissory note. It’s only on account of this debt that I’ve asked for the advance. —
Again, I think it would be to my advantage to appear successfully before the public in another paper; for then the Roussky Viestnik would esteem me more highly still. I fear only that the Viestnik people may be offended, although I never promised them an exclusive collaboration, and consequently have a right to work for other papers. But I don’t quite like the fact that I still owe the R.V. about 2,000 roubles, for I’ve gradually obtained from them as much as 7,0 — roubles. It’s just on that ground that they may take it ill of me. But three months ago, I wrote and told them that the novel I had promised them could not appear this year, but only in the course of next (1870). For the Sarya I want to write a story which would take about four months to do, and to which I propose to devote the hours that I had reserved to myself for walks and recreation after my fourteen months of labour. But I am afraid that the affair will get talked about, and that this may injure me with the Roussky Viestnik....
Wholly yours,
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.
XLIX. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov
FLORENCE,
March 18 [30], 1869.
... Danilevsky’s article seems to me more and more important and valuable. It will assuredly be for many a day the “Household Companion” of every Russian. Quite apart from its content, the clear language, the “popular,” lucid manner of presentation, joined to his uncompromising knowledge of his subject — all combines for success. How I should like to talk with you about this article — with you, precisely you, Nikolay Nikolayevitch. I should have so much to say to you on the subject! The article is so in harmony with my own views and convictions that here and there I stand amazed at the identity of our conclusions; as long as two years ago, I began to jot down certain of my reflections, for I had proposed to write an article with a very similar title, and with th
e same tendency and the same conclusions. How great was my joy and amazement when I beheld this plan, which I had hoped to carry out in the future, already carried out, and that so harmoniously and logically, and with such knowledge as I, with the best will in the world, could never have brought to the task. I await so eagerly the continuation of that article that I daily hurry to the post, and am always making elaborate calculations as to when the next number of the Sarya will be likely to arrive. My impatience is the greater because I have some misgivings about the final summing-up; I am not quite sure that Danilevsky will dwell with sufficient emphasis upon what is the inmost essence, and the ultimate destiny, of the Russian nation: namely, that Russia must reveal to the world her own Russian Christ, whom as yet the -peoples know not, and who is rooted in our native Orthodox faith. There lies, as I believe, the inmost essence of our vast impending contribution to civilization, whereby we shall awaken the European peoples; there lies the inmost core of our exuberant and intense existence that is to be. I cannot in the least express it in these few words; indeed, I regret that I have touched on it at all. I will only say this much more; after our paltry, hypocritical, angry, one-sided, and barren attitude of negation, such a journal as yours, with its grave, its thoroughly Russian, its statesmanlike and vital, tone, must undoubtedly have a great success.
[Dostoevsky goes on to praise an article by Strachov, and then enlarges on the purely business details of his proposed collaboration on the Sarya.]
L. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna
DRESDEN,
August 29 [September 10], 1869.
At last I have arrived at writing to you, my dear and only woman-friend Sonetchka. What can you have thought of my long silence?... I’ll tell you in a few words all that is worth knowing about myself; I am only writing to link up our broken chain of communication. But I will say besides that my thoughts of you and yours have not been broken. Anya and I always talk of you, whenever we think of our Russian home, and that is many times a day.
I remained stuck so long at Florence only because I had not the money to leave it. The staff of the Roussky Viestnik left my urgent request for money unanswered for more than three months (I have — but this between ourselves! — grounds for supposing that they had no money in the till, and that that was the only reason why they did not answer for so long). At last they sent me (five weeks ago) seven hundred roubles to Florence. Well, dear friend, call upon your whole powers of imagination, and try to depict for yourself what we in Florence, during the whole of June and July, and half of August, were going through! In my whole life I’ve never experienced anything like it! The guide-books may say that Florence, by reason of its position, is the coldest town in winter of all Italy (they mean the actual Italy — that is to say, the whole peninsula); but in summer, it is the hottest town in the whole peninsula, and even in the whole Mediterranean region — only some parts of Sicily and Algiers can touch Florence for heat. Well, and so it was as hot as hell, and we bore it like true Russians, who notoriously can bear anything. I may add that for the last six weeks of our stay there, we were very hard-up. We had not, it is true, to suffer actual privation in any respect, nor did we deny ourselves anything, but our abode was thoroughly uncomfortable. We had been obliged, for unforeseen reasons, to leave the house where we had spent the winter; while we were waiting for that money, we went to a family with whom we are friendly, and rented provisionally a tiny dwelling. But as the money delayed to come, we had to stay in that hole (where we caught two beastly tarantulas) three whole months.
Our windows gave on a market-square with arcades and splendid granite-pillars; in the square was a municipal fountain in the form of a gigantic bronze boar from whose throat the water flowed (it is a classic masterpiece of rare beauty). Well, now reflect that all those arcades and the masses of stone by which the whole square is surrounded, drank in and accumulated all the heat of the sun, and got as scorching as a stove-pipe in a vapour-bath — and that was the atmosphere we had to live in. The real heat, that is, the real hell-heat, we had to groan under for six weeks (earlier, it was just in a sort of way endurable); it was nearly always 34 and 35 degrees Reaumur in the shade. You must know that the air, despite this heat and drought (it never once rained), was wonderfully light; the green in the gardens (of which there are astonishingly few in Florence; one sees hardly anything but stones) — the green neither withered nor faded, but seemed brighter and fresher every day; the flowers and lemon-trees had apparently only waited for the heat; but what astonished me most — me, who was imprisoned in Florence by untoward circumstance — was that the itinerant foreigners (who are nearly all very rich) mostly remained in Florence; new ones even arrived every day. Usually the tourists of all Europe throng, at the beginning of the hot weather, to the German spas. When I saw in the streets well-dressed Englishwomen and even Frenchwomen, I could not conceive why these people, who had money to get away with, could voluntarily stay in such a hell. I was sorriest of all for poor Anya. The poor thing was then in her seventh or eighth month, and so suffered dreadfully from the heat. Moreover, the population of Florence spends the whole night on its feet, and there’s a terrible deal of singing. Of course we had our windows open at night; then about five o’clock in the morning, the people began to racket in the market, and the donkeys to bray, so that we never could close an eye.
The distance from Florence to Prague (by Venice and then by boat to Trieste; there’s no other way) is more than a thousand versts; I was therefore very anxious about Anya; but the renowned Dr. Sapetti of Florence examined her and said that she could undertake the journey without any risk. He was right too, and the journey went off well. On the way we stopped two days in Venice; when Anya saw the Piazza of St. Mark’s and the palaces, she almost screamed with delight. In St. Mark’s (the church is a wonderful, incomparable building!) she lost her carved fan which I had bought her in Switzerland, and which was particularly dear to her; she has so few trinkets, you see. My God, how she did cry over it! We liked Vienna very much too; Vienna is decidedly more beautiful than Paris. In Prague we spent three days looking for a place of abode, but found none. One can, in fact, only get unfurnished rooms there, as in Petersburg or Moscow; then one has to get one’s own furniture, and a servant-maid, and set up house, and so forth. Nothing else is to be had. Our means did not permit of it, and therefore we left Prague.
Now we have been three months in Dresden; Anya’s confinement may happen at any moment. For the present we are not doing so badly; but I am badly “sold,” for it seems now that the hot, dry air in Florence was extraordinarily beneficial to my health, and even more so to my nerves (nor had Anya anything to complain of, rather the contrary). It was precisely on the hottest days that the epilepsy was least perceptible, and my attacks in Florence were much slighter than anywhere else. But here I’m always ill (perhaps it may be only the effect of the journey). I don’t know if I’ve caught cold, or if the feverish attacks come from the nerves. These last three weeks I have had two; both very vicious ones. Yet the weather is glorious. I ascribe it all to the fact of coming suddenly from the Italian to the German climate. I have fever at the actual moment, and think that in this climate I shall write feverishly — that is, incoherently.
Now I have given you a lot of information about myself. Of course it is only the hundredth part; besides illness, many things oppress me, of which I can give no idea at all. Here is an example: I must absolutely deliver the beginning of my novel in time for the January number of the Roussky Viestnik (to be sure I am bound to admit that they do not press me in any way; they behave remarkably well to me and never refuse advances, though I already owe them a very great deal; but I am tormented by pangs of conscience, and so feel just the same as if they did press me). Moreover, I took an advance of 300 roubles from the Sarya early in the year, and that with a promise to send them this very year a story of at least three sheets. At the present moment I have not begun either the one or the other of these tasks; at Florence I could not work on
account of the heat. When I undertook the obligation, I reckoned on going from Florence to Germany early in the new year, and there setting to work at once. But what can I do when people make me wait three months for money, and thus remove from me the possibility of doing anything at all? Anya will, in about ten days, present me with a child, probably a boy, and this will further delay my endeavours. She will certainly have to keep her bed for three weeks, and so will not be able either to do shorthand or to copy for me. Of my own health, I need not speak. And then the work itself! Must I, to carry out my commissions punctually, tumble over my own feet, as it were, and so spoil all? I am now utterly possessed by one idea; yet I dare not take any steps to carry it out, for I am not sufficiently prepared to do so — I still have much to ponder, and I must collect material. Thus I have to force myself to write, meanwhile, some new stories. And to me that is terrible. What lies before me, and how I shall arrange my affairs, is to me an enigma!...
Till the next time, my dear friend. Write me a great deal about yourself. And above all as many facts as possible.
I embrace you.
Your ever devoted
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.
LI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov
DRESDEN,
October 16 [28], 1869.
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 692
