Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  All this would take long wholly to express, but what I really want to say to you is: If Bielinsky, Granovsky, and all the rest of the gang, had lived to see this day, they would have said: “No, it was not to this that we aspired! No, this is a mistake; we must wait a while, the light will shine forth, progress will win, humanity will build on new and healthier foundations, and be happy at last!” They would never admit that their way can lead at best but to the Commune or to Felix Pyat. That crew was so obtuse that even now, after the event, they would not be able to see their error, they would persist in their fantastic dreaming. I condemn Bielinsky less as a personality than as a most repulsive, stupid, and humiliating phenomenon of Russian life. The best one can say for it is that it’s inevitable. I assure you that Bielinsky would have been moved, to-day, to take the following attitude: “The Commune has accomplished nothing, because before all things it was French — that is to say, was steeped in nationalism. Therefore we must now seek out another people, which will not have the tiniest spark of national feeling, but will be ready, like me, to box its mother’s (Russia’s) ears.” Wrathfully he would continue to foam forth his wretched articles; he would go on reviling Russia, denying Russia’s greatest phenomena (such as Pushkin), so that he might thus make Russia seem to turn into an empty nation, which might take the lead in universal human activities. The Jesuitry and insincerity of our prominent public men, he would regard as great good fortune. And then, for another thing: you never knew him; but I had personal intercourse with him, and now can give his full measure. The man, talking with me once, reviled the Saviour, and yet surely he could never have undertaken to compare himself and the rest of the gentry who move the world, with Christ. He was not capable of seeing how petty, angry, impatient, base, and before all else covetous and vain, they, every one of them, are. He never asked himself the question: “But what can we put in His place? Of a surety not ourselves, so evil as we are?” No; he never reflected in any sort of way upon the possibility that he might be evil; he was to the last degree content with himself, and in that alone is expressed his personal, petty, pitiable stupidity.

  You declare that he was gifted. He was not, in any way. My God, what nonsense Grigoryev did write about him! I can still remember my youthful amazement when I read some of his purely aesthetic efforts (as, for instance, on “Dead Souls”); he treated Gogol’s characters with incredible superficiality and lack of comprehension, and merely rejoiced insanely that Gogol had accused somebody. In the four years of my sojourn here abroad, I have re-read all his critical writings. He reviled Pushkin, when Pushkin dropped his false note, and produced such works as the “Tales of Bielkin,” and “The Negro of Peter the Great.” He pronounced the “Tales of Bielkin” to be entirely valueless. In Gogol’s “Carriage,” he perceived not an artistic creation, but a mere comic tale. “He wholly abjured the conclusion of “Eugène Onegin.” He was the first to speak of Pushkin as a courtier. He said that Turgenev would never make an artist; and he said that after he had read Turgenev’s very remarkable tale of “The Three Portraits.”

  I could give you, on the spur of the moment, countless proofs that he had not an atom of critical sense, nor that “quivering sensibility” of which Grigoryev babbled (simply because he too was a poet).

  We regard Bielinsky and many another of our contemporaries through the still enduring glamour of fantastic judgments.

  Did I really write you nothing about your article on Turgenev? I read it, as I read all your writings, with great delight, but at the same time with some degree of vexation. Once you had admitted that Turgenev has lost grasp, that he has no idea what to say about certain manifestations of Russian life (he jeers at them, every one), you were bound to admit as well that his artistic powers are at ebb in his recent work — for it could not be otherwise. But on the contrary you hold that his recent work is on the same level with his earlier. Can both statements be accepted? Possibly I am myself mistaken (not in my judgment of Turgenev, but in my interpretation of your article). Perhaps you have merely expressed yourself confusedly.... Know this: all that school is no more than “Landed-proprietor’s Literature.” And that kind of literature has said all it had to say (particularly well in the case of Leo Tolstoy). It has spoken its last word, and is exempt from further duty. A new school that may take its place is still to come; we have not had time to produce it. The Reschetnikovs have said nothing. Nevertheless, the works of a Reschetnikov demonstrate the necessity for a new note in literature, which shall replace that of the landed proprietors — however repellently such a writer expresses himself.

  LXVI. To Mme. Ch. D. Altschevsky:

  PETERSBURG,

  April 9, 1876.

  You write that I am squandering and abusing my talents on bagatelles in the Diary. You are not the first from whom I have heard that. And now I want to say this to you and others: I have been driven to the conviction that an artist is bound to make himself acquainted, down to the smallest detail, not only with the technique of writing, but with everything — current no less than historical events — relating to that reality which he designs to show forth. We have only one writer who is really remarkable in that respect: it is Count Leo Tolstoy. Victor Hugo, whom I extraordinarily admire as a novelist (only think: Tchutchev, who is now dead, once got positively angry with me on account of this view of Hugo, and said that my “Raskolnikov” was much greater than Hugo’s “Misérables”) — is certainly prone to be too long-winded in his description of details, but he gives us most marvellous effects of observation, which would have been lost to the world but for him. As I am now purposing to write a very big novel, I must devote myself most especially to the study of actuality: I don’t mean actuality in the literal sense, for I am fairly well versed in that, but certain peculiarities of the present moment. And in this present moment the younger generation particularly interests me, and, as akin to it, the question of Russian family-life, which, to my thinking, is to-day quite a different thing from what it was twenty years ago. Also many other questions of the moment interest me.

  At fifty-three, I might easily, were I to slacken at all in this respect, fail to keep pace with the growing generation. Lately I had a chance encounter with Gontscharov, and I asked him whether all the phenomena of the present moment were comprehensible to him; he answered quite frankly that there was much he could not understand at all. (N.B. — This between ourselves.) Of course, I know that Gontscharov, with his remarkable intelligence, not only understands it all, but is competent to instruct the instructors of the day; but in the peculiar sense in which I put the question (and which he at once understood) he does not even desire to grasp these phenomena. “My ideals, and all that I have prized in life, are far too dear to me,” he added; “and for the few years that I have yet to live, I mean to abide by them; it would go too hard with me to study these gentry” (he pointed to the crowd that was flowing past us), “for I should be obliged to use up in so doing the time which is so precious to me....” I don’t know if you’ll understand me, revered Christina Danilovna: I greatly desire to write something more, and to do so with complete knowledge of my subject; for that reason I shall study a while longer and put down my impressions in the Diary of a Writer, so that nothing may be wasted. Of course it’s merely an ideal to which I aspire! You won’t believe me at all, I daresay, when I declare that I haven’t yet discovered the right form for the Diary, and don’t know in the least if I shall ever really succeed in discovering it; the Diary might perfectly well run for two years longer, and yet be a complete failure as a piece of work. For example, imagine this: when I set to work, I always have from ten to fifteen themes available; but those themes which strike me as particularly interesting, I always save up for another time; if I make use of them at once, they take up too much of my space, they demand my whole energy (as, for example, in the case of Kroneberg), and the number turns out a bad one — and so forth. Therefore I write of things that are not at all so near to me.

  On the other hand, the id
ea of making it a genuine Diary was really naïve in me. A genuine Diary is almost impossible; it can only be a work cut about to suit the public taste. Every minute I come upon facts, receive impressions, that often carry me away — but there are some things about which one can’t possibly write....

  The day before yesterday, early, there come to me quite unexpectedly two young girls, both about twenty years old. They come and say: “We have long wanted to make your acquaintance. Everyone laughed at us, and declared that you would not receive us, and that even if you did, you would not care to talk with us. But we determined to make the attempt, and so here we are. Our names are so-and-so.” They were first received by my wife. I came out later.

  They told me that they were students at the Academy of Medicine, that there were at that Academy as many as five hundred women-students, and that they had entered there “to obtain higher education, so as later to be able to do useful work.” I had never before seen girls of that sort (of the earlier Nihilists I know a number, and have studied them thoroughly). Believe me, I have seldom passed my time so agreeably as in the company of those two girls, who remained with me a couple of hours. Such wonderful spontaneity, such freshness of feeling, such purity of heart and mind, such grave sincerity, and such sincere mirth! Through them I came, later, to know many such girls, and must confess that the impression they made on me was powerful and pleasant. But how am I to describe all that? Despite my sincerity, and the delight with which I regard these young people, I cannot possibly do it. The impression was of almost too personal a nature. But then, what impressions am I to put down in my Diary?

  Or another instance: yesterday I heard the following story: A young man, a student at an institution which I do not wish to name (I happened to make his acquaintance), is visiting friends, goes accidentally into the tutor’s room, and sees a forbidden book lying on the table; he instantly tells the master of the house, and the tutor is instantly dismissed. When, in another household, someone told this young man that he had been guilty of a base action, he could not in the least see it. There you have the reverse of the medal. But how am I to write about that? The thing is in one way of a purely personal nature; and yet the processes of reflection, and the temper, of that young man who cannot at all perceive the baseness of his action, about which I should have much of interest to say, are typical wholly, and not personal at all.

  But I have written too much about all this. The truth is, I find it terribly difficult to write letters; I have no talent for it. Forgive me, also, for the bad handwriting; I have a headache, it is la grippe — my eyes have been paining me all day, and I write this almost without seeing my characters.

  LXVII. To Vsevolod Solovyov

  EMS,

  July, 1876.

  On my departure I left several quite personal and even pressing affairs unattended to. But here, at this tedious spa, your letter has literally refreshed me and gone straight to my heart; I was already feeling much troubled — I don’t myself know why it should be so, but every time I come to Ems, I undergo a mood of tormenting, wholly groundless, more or less hypochondriacal, depression. Whether it arises from my isolation in the crowd of 8,000 “patients,” or from the climate of this place, I can’t decide; but I am always in a worse state here than almost anybody else is. You write that you must speak with me, and how dearly I should like to see you!

  The June number of the Diary pleased you, then.

  I am glad of that, and for a special reason. I had never yet permitted myself to follow my profoundest convictions to their ultimate consequences in my public writing — had never said my very last word. A very intelligent correspondent in the provinces once, indeed, reproached me for opening up so many important questions in my Diary, yet never thoroughly discussing them; he encouraged me, and urged me to be more daring. So I decided that I would for once say the last word on one of my convictions — that of Russia’s part and destiny among the nations — and I proclaimed that my various anticipations would not only be fulfilled in the immediate future, but were already partly realized.

  And then there happened precisely what I had expected: even those newspapers and magazines which are friendly to me raised an outcry, saying that my whole article was hopelessly paradoxical; while the others bestowed not the smallest attention on it — and here am I, who believe that I have opened up the most important of all questions! That’s what happens when one attempts to carry an idea to its issue! One may set up any paradox one likes, and so long as one doesn’t carry it to its ultimate conclusion, everyone will think it most subtle, witty, comme il faut; but once blurt out the last word, and quite frankly (not by implication) declare: “This is the Messiah!” why, nobody will believe in you any more — for it was so silly of you to push your idea to its ultimate conclusion! If many a famous wit, such as Voltaire, had resolved for once to rout all hints, allusions, and esotericisms by force of his genuine beliefs, to show the real Himself, he would quite certainly not have had a tithe of the success he enjoyed. He would merely have been laughed at. For man instinctively avoids saying his last word; he has a prejudice against “thoughts said.”

  “Once said, the thought turns lie!”

  Now you can judge for yourself how precious to me are your friendly expressions about the June number. For you have understood my words and taken them exactly as I thought them myself. I thank you for that; for I was already a little disillusioned, and was reproving myself for my precipitancy. If there are but a few members of the public who understand me as you do, I have done what I aimed at doing, and am content — my words have not been in vain.... But the rest at once proclaimed with cries of joy: “He is so frightfully paradoxical!” And the folk who say it are precisely those who never had an idea of their own in their lives....

  I remain here till August 7 (Old Style). I am drinking the waters, and indeed would never be able to make up my mind to endure this place were I not convinced that the cure is really good for me. It’s certainly not worth while to describe Ems! I have promised the public to bring out a double number of the Diary in August; as yet I haven’t written a single line; from sheer boredom I’ve got so apathetic that I regard the work before me with reluctance, as if it were an imminent misfortune. I already feel that the number will be very bad. At any rate, write to me again while I’m here, my dearest fellow....

  LXVIII. To Mlle. Gerassimov

  PETERSBURG,

  March 7, 1877.

  MUCH-HONOURED MLLE. GERASSIMOV!

  Your letter has tormented me terribly, because I could not answer it for so long. What can you have thought of me? In your dejected state, you will perhaps have taken my silence as an affront.

  You must know that I am almost overwhelmed with work. Besides the work for the periodically appearing Diary, I have to get through a quantity of letters. I receive daily several letters of the same kind as yours, which cannot possibly be disposed of in a few lines. Moreover, I have lately suffered from three attacks of epilepsy, and those of such violence and quick recurrence as I have not had for years.

  After each attack, I was bodily and mentally so shattered that for two and three days I could not work or write, or even read. Now you know that, you will forgive my long silence.

  I did not think your letter by any means childish or stupid, as you assume. For that mood is now general, and there are many young girls suffering like you. But I don’t mean to write much on that theme; I shall only lay before you my fundamental ideas upon the subject, both in general; and as it concerns you personally. If I advise you to settle down, to stay in your parents’ house, and take up some intelligent occupation (corresponding to the course of your education), you won’t be much inclined to listen to me. But why are you in such a hurry, why should you so dread any delay? You want to do something useful as soon as possible. And yet, with your ardour (I am taking it for granted that it is genuine), you could — if you don’t act precipitately, but pursue your education a little longer — prepare yourself for activities which
would be a hundred times more useful than the obscure and insignificant rôle of a sick-nurse, midwife, or woman-doctor. You urgently desire to enter the Medical High School for Women here. I should like to advise you decidedly not to do so. You will get no education there, but quite the contrary. And what do you gain, if you actually do become a midwife or woman-doctor? Such a calling — if you really do expect so much from it — you could quite well take up later on; but would it not be better now if you pursued other ends, and took pains with your general education? Do but look at all our specialists (even the University professors); why are they all losing ground, and whence comes the harm that they do (instead of doing good) to their own profession? It is simply because the majority of our specialists are shockingly ill-educated people. In other lands it is quite different: there we find a Humboldt or a Claude Bernard, persons with large ideas, great culture and knowledge outside of their special job. But with us, even highly-gifted people are incredibly uneducated; for example, Syetchenov, who at bottom is uneducated and knows nothing beyond his narrow special subject; of his scientific adversaries (the philosophers) he has no notion whatever; therefore his scientific efforts are more harmful than useful. And the majority of our students — men and women — have no true education. How then can they be useful to humanity! They study only just enough to get paid appointments as soon as may be....