Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  Dostoevsky had a quite large, but very low and badly-lit room. The mud-walls had once been white; on both sides stood broad benches. On the walls hung fly-spotted picture-sheets. To the left of the doorway was a large stove. Behind the stove stood a bed, a little table, and a chest of drawers, which served as a dressing-table. All this corner was divided from the rest of the room by a calico curtain. In the windows were geraniums, and curtains hung there which had once been red. Walls and ceiling were blackened by smoke, and it was so dark in the room that in the evenings one could scarcely read by the tallow candle (wax candles were then a great luxury, and petroleum lamps not known at all). I can’t even imagine how Dostoevsky contrived to write for whole nights by such illumination. The lodgings had yet another great attraction: on the tables, walls, and bed there were always perfect flocks of beetles, and in summer the place swarmed with fleas.

  Every day made us greater friends. Dostoevsky visited me several times a day, as often as his military and my official duties permitted; he often lunched with me, and particularly enjoyed an evening at my house, when he would drink a vast quantity of tea, and smoke endless cigarettes.

  My intercourse with Dostoevsky soon attracted attention in the circle most concerned. I noticed that my letters were delayed for some days in transmission to me. My enemies, and I had not a few among the venal officials, often asked me ironical questions about Dostoevsky, and expressed their surprise at my consorting with a private. Even the Governor warned me, and said that he was afraid of the evil influence which the revolutionary Dostoevsky might have on one of my youth and inexperience.

  The Military Governor, Spiridonov, was an uncommonly pleasant, humane, and unaffected man, and noted for his unusual hospitality. Being of such high rank, he was naturally the most important person in the town. I lunched with him every other day, and enjoyed his fullest confidence. I wanted him to have the opportunity of knowing Dostoevsky better, and begged for permission to bring the exile to his house. He pondered this a while, and said: “Well, bring him some time, but tell him that he is to come quite without ceremony in his uniform.”

  Spiridonov very soon grew to like Dostoevsky; he helped him in every way he could. After the Military Governor had set the example, the better families of Semipalatinsk opened their doors to Dostoevsky.

  There were no amusements of any sort in the town. During the two years of my stay, not a single musician came to the place; the one piano was regarded more as a rarity than anything else. Once the regimental clerks got up amateur theatricals in the riding-school. Dostoevsky was very useful in giving them advice, and persuaded me to be present on the night. The whole town assembled in the riding-school. The fair sex was particularly well represented. This performance ended in a great scandal. In the pause between two acts, some regimental clerks appeared as soloists, and offered such indecent ditties for the company’s amusement that the ladies took flight, though the officers, led by the commander of the battalion, one Byelikov, roared with laughter.

  I can’t remember a single dance, picnic, or organized excursion. Every one lived for himself. The men drank, ate, played cards, made scandals, and visited the rich Tartars of the neighbourhood; the women busied themselves chiefly with gossip.

  In Semipalatinsk there were other political offenders — Poles and whilom Hungarian officers of Russian-Polish origin. When Gorgey in 1848 surrendered with his army to Russia, Tsar Nicholas I. treated the officers who had been taken prisoners in the war as though they had been formerly his subjects, and sent them to Siberia. The Poles kept to themselves, and held no intercourse with others. The rich ones looked after the poor, and there prevailed in general great solidarity among them. Fyodor Dostoevsky did not like these Poles, and usually avoided them; we became acquainted with only one, the engineer Hirschfeld, who often visited us, and brought a certain variety into our monotonous life.

  I grew fonder and fonder of Dostoevsky; my house was open to him day and night. When I returned from duty, I often found him there already, having come to me from the drill-ground or the regimental office. He would be walking up and down the room with his cloak unfastened, smoking a pipe, and talking to himself; his head was always full of new ideas. I can still remember distinctly one such evening; he was then occupied with “Uncle’s Dream” and “Stepanchikovo Village.”

  He was in an infectiously cheerful mood, laughing, telling me of his “Uncle’s” adventures, singing operatic airs; when my servant Adam brought in some amber-coloured sturgeon soup, he declared that lie was hungry, and urged Adam to hurry up with the rest of the meal. He greatly liked this Adam — always stood up for him, and would give him money, which afforded my Leporello, a terrible drunkard quite superfluous opportunities for “one more.”

  Fyodor Dostoevsky’s favourite authors were Gogol and Victor Hugo. When he was in a good temper he liked to declaim poetry, and especially Pushkin’s; his favourite piece was “The Banquet of Cleopatra,” from the “Egyptian Nights.” He would recite it with glowing eyes and ardent voice.

  I must observe that at that time I was little interested in literature; I had devoted myself wholly to dry erudition, and this often made Dostoevsky angry. More than once he said to me: “Do throw away your professorial text-books!” He often sought to convince me that Siberia could have no future, because all the Siberian rivers run into the Arctic Sea.

  At that time Muravyov’s achievements on the Pacific Coast were unknown to the world, and of the great Siberian Railway no one had so much as dared to dream; such a plan would have been taken for the delirium of a madman. I myself could not help laughing when Bakunin, whose acquaintance I made in 1858, unfolded the idea to me.

  More and more I grew to care for Dostoevsky. How highly I esteemed him is evident from my letters to my relatives; these I have at hand to-day. On April 2, 1856, I wrote from Semipalatinsk: “Destiny has brought me into contact with a man of rare intellect and disposition — the gifted young author Dostoevsky. I owe him much; his words, counsels, and ideas will be a source of strength to me throughout all my life. I work daily with him; at the moment we think of translating Hegel’s ‘Philosophy’ and the ‘Psyche’ of Carus. He is deeply religious; frail of body, but endowed with iron will. Do try, my dear papa, to find out if there is any idea of an amnesty.”

  In a letter to one of my sisters I read: “I beg of you to persuade papa to find out, through Alexander Veimarn, whether any prisoners are to be pardoned on the occasion of the Coronation festivities, and whether one could do anything for Dostoevsky with Dubelt, or Prince Orlov. Is this remarkable man to languish here for ever as a private? It would be too terrible. I am sorely distressed about him; I love him like a brother, and honour him like a father.”

  Dostoevsky’s indulgence for everyone was quite extraordinary. He found excuses for even the worst of human traits, and explained them all by defective education, the influence of environment, and inherited temperament.

  “Ah, my dear Alexander Yegorovitch, God has made men so, once for all!” he used to say. He sympathized with all who were abandoned by destiny, with all the unhappy, ill, and poor. Everyone who knew him well knows of his extraordinary goodness of heart. How pathetic is his solicitude, for instance, about his brother Michael’s family, about little Pasha Issayev, and many others besides!

  We often spoke of politics too. Of his trial he did not care to talk, and I never alluded to it of my own accord. All I heard from him was that he had never liked Petrachevsky or approved his plans; he had always been of opinion that there should be no thought of a political upheaval in Russia at that period, and that the idea of a Russian Constitution on the model of those of West-European States was, considering the ignorance of the great mass of the people, nothing less than ridiculous.

  He often thought of his comrades, Dourov, Plechtcheyev, and Grigoryev. He corresponded with none of them, though; through my hands went only his letters to his brother Michael, once in a way to Apollon Maikov, to his Aunt Kamanina, and to young Yakuchk
in.

  And now I must relate what I know of his epileptic fits. I never, thank God, saw one of them. But I know that they frequently recurred; his landlady usually sent for me at once. After the fits he always felt shattered for two or three days, and his brain would not work. The first fits, as he declared, had overtaken him in Petersburg; but the malady had developed in prison. At Semipalatinsk he would have one every three months. He told me that he could always feel the fit coming on, and always experienced beforehand an indescribable sense of well-being. After each attack he presented a woefully dejected aspect.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky led a more sociable life than I did; he went particularly often to the Issayevs’. He would spend whole evenings at that house, and among other things gave lessons to the only son, Pasha, an intelligent boy of eight or nine. Maria Dmitryevna Issayev was, if I am not mistaken, the daughter of a schoolmaster, and had married a junior master. How he had come to be in Siberia I cannot say. Issayev suffered from pulmonary consumption, and was, moreover, a great drunkard. Otherwise he was a quiet, unpretentious person. Maria Dmitryevna was about thirty, an extremely pretty blonde of middle height, very thin, passionate, and exaltée. Even then one often saw a hectic flush on her cheek; some years later she died of consumption. She was well read, not unaccomplished, witty and appreciative of wit, very good-hearted, and uncommonly vivacious and romantic. She took a warm interest in Fyodor Michailovitch. I do not think that she highly esteemed him; it was more that she pitied him. Possibly she was attached to him also; but in love with him she most decidedly never was. She knew that he had epileptic attacks, and that he suffered dire poverty; she often said he was “a man without a future.” But Fyodor Michailovitch took her compassion and sympathy for love, and adored her with all the ardour of his youth. He would spend whole days at the Issayevs’, and tried to induce me to go there too, but the family did not attract me.

  In the beginning of March, Squadron-Adjutant Achmatov came to Omsk (he had done the journey from Petersburg in ten days) with news of the decease of Tsar Nicholas I. The news reached us in Semipalatinsk on March 12.

  Rumours of the clemency and mildness of the new Tsar had already penetrated to Semipalatinsk. I went with Dostoevsky to the Requiem Mass. The general demeanour was grave enough, but one saw not a single tear; only some old officers and soldiers so much as sighed. Dostoevsky now began to hope for a change in his fate, for an amnesty. Most of all we discussed the question of whether the Crimean War would go on.

  In the summer I went into the country with Dostoevsky to the so-called “Kasakov Gardens.” The place lay on the high bank of the Irtich. We built a bathing-box close to the bank among bush, underwood, and sedge, and began bathing as early as May. We also worked hard in the flower-garden. I can see Dostoevsky now, watering the young plants; he would take off his regimental cloak, and stand among the flower-beds in a pink cotton shirt. Round his neck hung a long chain of little blue glass beads — probably a keepsake from some fair hand. On this chain he carried a large bulbous silver watch. He was quite fascinated with gardening, and took great delight in it.

  The summer was extraordinarily hot. The two daughters of Dostoevsky’s landlady in the town often helped us with our gardening. After some hours of work we would go to bathe, and then drink tea up above. We read newspapers, smoked, talked about our Petersburg friends, and abused Western Europe. The Crimean War still lasted, and we were both in a gloomy frame of mind.

  I passionately loved riding; one day I succeeded in persuading Dostoevsky to try a mount, and placed one of the gentlest of my horses at his disposal; for this was the first time in his life that he had ever been on horseback. Comical and awkward as he looked in the saddle, he soon grew to like riding, and thenceforth we began to take long canters over the steppes.

  Dostoevsky’s love for Mme. Issayev was by no means cooling all this time. He went to her house as often as he could, and would come back in a perfect ecstasy. He could not understand why I failed to share his enchantment.

  Once he returned in utter despair and told me that Issayev was to be transferred to Kusnezk, a town five hundred versts distant from Semipalatinsk. “And she is quite calm, appears to see nothing amiss with it.... Isn’t that maddening?” he said bitterly.

  Issayev was really transferred soon after that to Kusnezk. Dostoevsky’s despair Was immeasurable; he nearly went out of his mind; he regarded the impending good-bye to Maria Dmitryevna as a goodbye to life. It turned out that the Issayevs were heavily in debt; when they had sold all they had in payment of these obligations, they had nothing left over for the journey. I helped them out, and at last they started.

  I shall never forget the leave-taking. Dostoevsky wept aloud like a little child. Many years afterwards in a letter to me of March 31, 1865, he alluded to that scene.

  Dostoevsky and I decided to go part of the way with the Issayevs. I took him in my carriage, the Issayevs sat in an open diligence. Before the departure, they all turned in to drink a glass of wine at my house. So as to enable Dostoevsky to have one last talk undisturbed with Maria Dmitryevna before she went, I made her husband properly drunk. On the way I gave him some more champagne, thus getting him wholly into my power — then took him into my carriage, where he forthwith fell asleep. Fyodor Michailovitch went into Maria Dmitryevna’s. It was a wonderful clear moonlight night in May; the air was filled with soft perfume. Thus we drove a long way. At last we were obliged to part. Those two embraced for the last time, and wiped the tears from their eyes, while I dragged the drunken and drowsy Issayev over to the carriage; he at once went off again, and never knew in the least what had been done with him. Little Pasha was fast asleep too. The diligence set off, a cloud of dust arose, already we could see it no more and the sound of the little bells was dying away in the distance; but Dostoevsky stood stark and dumb, and the tears were streaming down his cheeks. I went up to him, took his hand — he awoke from his trance and, without saying a word, got into the carriage. We did not get back till dawn. Dostoevsky did not lie down and try to sleep, but kept walking to and fro in his room, talking to himself. After that sleepless night, he went to camp for drill. Home again, he lay there the whole day, neither eating nor drinking, and smoking pipe after pipe.

  Time did its work, and Dostoevsky’s morbid despair came to an end. He was in constant communication with Kusnezk, but that did not always bring him happiness. Fyodor Michailovitch had gloomy forebodings. Mme. Issayev, in her letters, complained of bitter poverty, of her own ill-health and the incurable sufferings of her husband, of the joyless future which awaited her; and all this sorely depressed Dostoevsky. He failed more and more in health, became morose, irritable, and looked like the shadow of a man. He even gave up working at “The House of the Dead,” which he had begun with such ardour. Only when, on warm evenings, we lay in the grass and looked up to the star-sown sky, did he know relative well-being. Such moments had a tranquillizing effect on him. We seldom spoke of religion. He was at heart religious, though he rarely entered a church; the popes, and especially the Siberian ones, he could not stand at all. Of Christ he would speak with moving rapture. His manner in speech was most peculiar. In general he did not speak loudly, often indeed in a whisper; but when he grew enthusiastic, his voice would become louder and more sonorous; and when he was greatly excited, he would pour forth words, and enchain his hearers by the passion of his utterance. What wonderful hours I have passed with him! How much I owe to my intercourse with that greatly gifted man! In the whole of our life together there never was a single misunderstanding between us; our friendship was untroubled by one cloud. He was ten years older, and much more experienced, than I. Whenever, in my youthful crudity, I began, terrified by the repellent environment, to lose heart, Dostoevsky would always tell me to take courage, would renew my energies by his counsel and his warm sympathy. I cherish his memory especially on account of the human feeling with which he inspired me. After all this, the reader will understand that I could not be an indifferent witness of the un
happy frame of mind into which his unfortunate relation with Mme. Issayev had brought him.

  I made up my mind to distract him from it in every way I could. On every opportunity, I brought him about with me, and made him known to the engineers of the lead and silver mines that lie near by. But I found it very hard to woo him from his mournful brooding. He had got superstitious all of a sudden, and would often tell me tales of somnambulists, or visit fortune-tellers; and as I, at twenty, had my own romance, he took me to an old man, who told fortunes by beans.

  About this time I heard from Petersburg that the new Tsar was gracious and unusually clement, that people were feeling a new spirit in things, and expecting great reforms. This news had a most encouraging effect on Dostoevsky; he grew more cheerful, and much more rarely refused the distractions that I offered him.

  One day there came tidings from Omsk that in consequence of the political tension on the southern border and the unrest among the Circassians, the Governor of Omsk was coming to Semipalatinsk, to review the troops; it was said that on this occasion he would also review the rest of the Siberian garrisons.

  So Dostoevsky, like the rest, had to prepare for the possible campaign in every way; he had to get boots, a waterproof coat, linen, and other indispensable clothing — in a word, to equip himself afresh from head to foot; for he possessed no clothes but those he had on. Again he needed money, again he racked his brains to think where to get it. These cursed money-worries never left him. From his brother Michael and his aunt he had just then had a small sum; so he could not possibly ask them again. Such anxieties tormented him terribly; and from Kusnezk the news grew more troubling every day. Mme. Issayev was dying of loneliness beside her sick and ever-drunken husband, and complained in all her letters of isolation and want of someone to talk to. In her more recent letters there often occurred the name of a new acquaintance, an interesting young teacher, and colleague of her husband. In each succeeding letter she spoke of him with more enthusiasm and pleasure; she praised his kindness, his fidelity, and his remarkable powers of affection. Dostoevsky was tortured by jealousy; and his dark mood had, moreover, a harmful influence on his state of health.