Dostoevsky

by Frank, Joseph

  Dostoevsky had always relished predicting the downfall of European civilization, and he now adds some new touches to the usual evocation of merciless class warfare. “Let people understand that when Europe, because of overcrowding alone, establishes the inevitable and humiliating communism, which she herself will loathe, when whole crowds of people will have to press around a single hearth and, little by little, individual households will be destroyed and families will abandon their own homes and start living collectively in communes, when children (three-quarters of them foundlings) are raised in institutions, then—then we shall still have broad expanses, fields, and forests, and our children will grow up with their own fathers, not in cramped stone prisons, but amid orchards and cultivated fields, seeing the pure, blue sky above them” (27: 38). Presumably, Asiatic expansion will drain off enough of the Russian population to avoid the “overcrowding” that will stifle Europe. And so he concludes: “Long live Skobelev and his good lads, and eternal memory to the heroes who were ‘struck off the rolls’ ” (27: 40). Three days after editing this celebratory elegy, Dostoevsky’s name itself vanished from the rolls of the living.

  It is regrettable that the last words from his pen should glorify imperial conquest, and perhaps we can alleviate their dispiriting effect by citing some others, written at approximately the same time, that provide a more adequate picture of the full scope of his complex and self-conflicted personality. In his last notebooks, he wrote: “With total realism, to find the man in mankind. This is primarily a Russian trait, and in this sense I am really in the last analysis of the people [naroden] (for my tendency flows from the depths of the Christian soul of the people)—although I am unknown to the Russian people at present, I will be known in the future” (27: 65). This is the Dostoevsky who has become an important part of the patrimony of world culture, not the misguided patriot waving the banner of imperial domination, though it is part of the mystery of the human personality with which he struggled that both could coexist in his breast.

  On the twenty-fifth of January, Dostoevsky was visited by two of his oldest friends, Apollon Maikov and Nikolay Strakhov. Conversation turned on the January issue of the Diary, as well as his plans for the February number, and then Orest Miller arrived. Miller had his own business to transact about the Pushkin evening. Posters for the event listing Dostoevsky were already on display, but Dostoevsky decided against his first choice and wished to read some of Pushkin’s shorter poems. Miller, understandably, became quite exasperated. Aside from the problem of the posters, it could lead to endless bother with the censorship and the other authorities whose consent would be required for any alteration. Dostoevsky’s annoyance in turn changed to genuine anger. Matters were settled when Miller agreed to the change, but there is no doubt that, on the afternoon of January 25, Dostoevsky had been subjected to severe nervous strain.

  After the unfortunate disaccord, Dostoevsky departed for the printing plant to hand in the final corrections for the last pages of the Diary. Returning home at 7:30, the usual time for the family dinner, he joined Anna and the children, who had been to the theater and seen a play taken from The Pickwick Papers. “And all through the dinner,” Anna writes, “we spoke of the Pickwick club, recalling every particularity, telling him about them, and then I asked who that actor was. ‘Mr. Jingle,’ answered Feodor Mikhailovich.”19 There is something extremely touching about this image of Dostoevsky, on one of the last days of his life, talking lightheartedly with his wife and children about Dickens, an author whom he loved both for his gaiety and for his Christian compassion—a compassion so much less tortured and tormented than his own. Extremely touching, but, as it turns out, entirely fictional.

  In a letter written in 1883 to Strakhov, who shared with Miller the task of putting together the first biography of her husband, Anna tells the truth. “During the day,” she wrote, “it happened that [Dostoevsky] had an angry exchange and almost a quarrel with his sister Vera Mikhailovna, who had arrived from Moscow (of course this should not be mentioned in print).” The quarrel, whose details we learn from Lyubov, concerned the Kumanina estate and took place at the dinner table. The issue of the estate arose because, despite having renounced his claims to a share in 1844, Dostoevsky had succeeded in being reinstated and now owed money to his sisters. Vera Mikhailovna, speaking for her sister Alexandra as well, thought his reinstatement had been unfair. Tempers rose as these matters came to the fore, with Vera finally breaking into tears. “Dostoevsky lost patience,” his daughter writes, “and in order to cut short these painful recriminations, rose from the table before the meal was finished. At the same time as my mother tried to detain her sister-in-law, continuing to weep and preparing to return home as quickly as possible, my father shut himself in his room.” Sitting down at his writing table, he passed his hand over his mouth and moustaches, and then withdrew it in a fright—it was covered with blood! There are some discrepancies of detail in these two versions (“during the day”; “at dinner”), but the main facts are clear enough, and Lyubov’s account is more extensive.20

  At six that evening Anna sent an imploring letter to Dr. von Bretsall, who finally arrived. After he had auscultated the patient, a strong new flow of blood began that caused Dostoevsky to lose consciousness for a brief time. Dr. von Bretsall thought it wise to send for a noted specialist, Professor Koshlakov, who did not disturb the patient with another examination. Since the flow of blood had diminished, he speculated that perhaps a “clot” had developed and that “the case was going in the direction of recovery.”21 After recommending that Dostoevsky speak and move as little as possible, the specialist left, but von Bretzell was less sanguine and advised Anna to send for a priest. One came from the nearby Vladimirsky church to administer communion to Dostoevsky and listen to his confession.

  On the night of the twenty-fifth—the night his nosebleed occurred—other events were also taking place in the very building where the Dostoevskys occupied apartment 10. Apartment 11 was actually a small rooming house where individuals could rent single accommodations. Sometime before midnight on the twenty-fifth, the police entered that apartment and carried out a search of one of the rooms in the presence of witnesses. Its inhabitant, Alexander Barannikov, had been arrested elsewhere earlier that day, and, although he carried a false passport, there was a well-founded suspicion that he was a member of the executive committee of the terrorist People’s Will. Barannikov enjoyed a considerable reputation with the police as one of the most dangerous of their opponents, having been involved in all the attempts so far made to assassinate Alexander II. He was best known as the accomplice of Kravchinsky in the murder of General Mezentsev, having distracted attention from the assassination by firing a shot and then driving the carriage in which both men escaped. That Dostoevsky had been living side-by-side, for two and a half months, with one of the most sought-after terrorists in his country was noticed by Victor Shklovsky, who made their neighborliness the subject of a short story in 1933, and he also discussed the incident in his short book on Dostoevsky years later.22

  The name of Dostoevsky is not mentioned in any of the police reports, but there is a suggestive remark in the memoirs of another revolutionary, M. F. Frolenko, one of Barannikov’s comrades. He remembers Barannikov’s surprising calm in face of the possibility of capture, and attributes this both to the quietness of the neighborhood in which he resided and to the fact that he lived in “the apartment” of Dostoevsky (presumably meaning “apartment house”).23 The writer’s presence was thus far from being unknown to his neighbor; and he felt it to be an additional protection against suspicion and discovery. Whether Dostoevsky, who liked to chat with people in the street, and especially with young men, ever exchanged a word with the well-mannered Barannikov can only remain a matter for conjecture.

  As we know from the unpleasant incidents at Bad Ems, Dostoevsky needed absolute silence while writing, and would not hesitate to attempt to end any disturbing commotion. Is it possible that he was upset by the disruptiv
e noises next door and, on going out to inquire, became terribly upset when he discovered what was taking place? Or might the police, still trying to establish the identity of their prisoner, have come to his flat and questioned him about his next-door neighbor? None of these speculations is beyond the realm of possibility, and if they had occurred, they could well have contributed to Dostoevsky’s fatal illness.

  On the evening of January 26, Dostoevsky had taken confession and communion from the priest of the nearby church. At two in the morning of January 27, Anna wrote a note to Miller, explaining that her husband had become “seriously ill” the night before and could not fulfill his obligation to read on the Pushkin evening. Anna also wrote to Countess Komarovskaya, explaining why Dostoevsky could not come to the Marble Palace on January 29.24

  On the morning of the twenty-seventh, after sleeping soundly, Dostoevsky awoke feeling “cheerful and healthy.” The flow of blood had ceased, and hope thus revived that the worst was over. Suvorin describes him as being “jovial and calm, joking, speaking of the future, of his work, of his children, soothing those around him. ‘Why are you reading my funeral service? I will outlive all of you.’ ”25 Miller and Elena Shtakenshneider came to call, and letters and telegrams began to pile up as friends and acquaintances passed on the word of his illness. Dostoevsky decided to dictate a “bulletin” about his health to Anna, and a draft of a similar one, addressed to Countess Elizaveta Geyden, appears as the last letter in his correspondence. Here Dostoevsky objectively describes what has occurred and the temporary betterment of his condition. “But since the burst vein has not healed, a hemorrhage may start again. And then, of course, death is likely. Now, however, he is fully conscious and vigorous, but afraid that the artery will again burst.”26 He was indeed “fully conscious,” and when the typesetter arrived with the galleys of the Diary for final approval, he was able to participate in a correction.

  Professor Koshlakov, returning about seven in the evening, found the patient much improved, predicting that he would be up and about in a week. Vera Mikhailovna and Dostoevsky’s stepson, Pavel Isaev, also showed up, though Anna hardly welcomed his presence. Dostoevsky slept soundly through most of the night, but when Anna awoke at seven and looked over at him, she found him staring at her fixedly. Speaking in a half-whisper, he said: “You know, Anna, I have not been sleeping for three hours now, and have been thinking all that time; and only now have I clearly realized that I shall die today.”27

  Sweeping aside whatever she may have hastily uttered in reply, he continued: “Light a candle, Anna, and hand me the New Testament.” This was the volume given to him by the Decembrist wives in Siberia, and throughout his life it had never left his possession. Opening its pages at random, as he had often done in the past to divine what the future might hold, he asked Anna to read the first passage he had come across. This was from Saint Matthew, chapter 13, verses 14–15, in which Jesus asks John the Baptist to baptize him, and John replies: “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” The Russian text, translated literally, then reads: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Delay not, for thus it becomes us to fulfill the great truth.’ ” As Anna was reciting this passage in a trembling voice, and with tears in her eyes, he said: “you hear—delay not—that means I will die.”28

  Anna never forgot the next few hours during which her husband tried to console her, “uttering tender and affectionate words, thanking me for the happy life that he had spent with me. He entrusted the children to my care, said that he believed in me, and hoped I would always love and protect them.” One utterance above all was cherished, which, as she writes, not many other husbands could proffer to their wives after fourteen years of marriage: “Remember, Anya, I have always loved you passionately, and never betrayed you once, not even in thought.”29 Clutching her hand, he fell asleep about ten o’clock, but woke suddenly at eleven, sank back on the pillow, and blood began to flow again. He recovered somewhat from this attack, but when Anna tried to console him, “he only sadly shook his head, as if fully convinced that the prediction of his death today would not be gainsaid.”30

  New Time published the first announcement of Dostoevsky’s illness on January 28, and a flood of visitors immediately began to besiege the grief-stricken Anna. Only Maikov, at Dostoevsky’s request, was allowed to come to his bedside. The newspaper story pronounced, in a mixture of sarcasm and eulogy, “Those people who, not long since, reproached him for too often seeking ovations at public readings, may now quiet down: the public will not listen to him again very soon. If only the precious life be preserved for the Russian people of the most profound of our contemporary writers, the direct inheritor of our literary geniuses!”31 When this passage was read to Dostoevsky, who was curious (“What are they saying about me?”), he asked Anna to read it again. In his very last hours he thus had the satisfaction of hearing his enemies mocked, and his own genius celebrated as the continuator of the Russian literary tradition. It is possible that he took communion and confession again, and at five o’clock he dictated the bulletin to Countess Geyden already mentioned.

  Dostoevsky then asked that the children be summoned, and they kissed him while he gave them his final blessing, enjoining them always to love and obey their mother. He requested that his copy of the New Testament be given to his son Fedya and that the parable of the Prodigal Son be read to the children. Lyubov later recalled him telling them that, if they should ever commit a crime (prestuplenie, which has a wider meaning than merely a legal offense) to trust God as their Father, plead with him for forgiveness, and be certain that he would rejoice in their repentance, just as the father had done on the return of the Prodigal Son. It was this parable of transgression, repentance, and forgiveness that he wished to leave as a last heritage to his children, and it may well be seen as his own ultimate understanding of the meaning of his life and the message of his work.

  There was again a copious flow of blood at about 6:30, and he fell into a coma from which he never awoke. During the final death throes, which lasted for approximately two hours, he was mercifully unconscious. Anna and the children were “kneeling and crying” all the while, but trying to choke back their sobs because they had been told that the auditory sense was the last to go and that any sound might prolong the suffering of the dying. “I held the hand of my husband in my own,” Anna writes, “and felt the pulse becoming feebler and feebler.”32

  Maikov had sent for another doctor, and when the writer Boleslav Markevich came to the door (he had been dispatched by Countess Tolstaya to inquire after Dostoevsky’s condition), he was mistaken for this personage. With a “heartrending shriek,” the eleven-year-old Lyubov rushed to meet him, shouting: “Doctor, Doctor, for God’s sake, save my father [papashy], he is wheezing.” This was the last death rattle, and when the doctor arrived a few moments later, he could do nothing but certify the decease. Markevich, whose writing was known for its melodramatic effects, pictures Anna and Lyubov in hysterics, with Anna exclaiming, “Oh, whom have I lost! Whom have I lost!” as she sank into a chair. “ ‘Whom has Russia lost’ involuntarily, and at the same time, broke out of Maikov and myself.”33 This final sentence could not have more feelingly expressed the sentiment of all of literate Russia.

  Anna’s brother arrived that evening, two hours after Dostoevsky’s death, and “thanks to [him], I was relieved of all practical problems, and was spared much that was difficult and unpleasant in these sorrowful days.”34 The next morning, the twenty-ninth, Suvorin was in the apartment early and, in an article the next day, described with a shudder how the corpse had been washed and prepared for burial. He dashed off a note to the artist Kramskoy, asking him to come round immediately because Anna had spoken of “photographs and masks” being made.35 Kramskoy did produce a famous drawing of the dead Dostoevsky, with his head lying on a pillow and with what seems to be the beginning of a faint half-smile on his face. All of the many memoirists confirm that Kramskoy had caught the unusual expression they had seen themselves.
The sculptor Bernshtam, instead of beginning on the planned bust of Dostoevsky, took the plaster cast for a death mask.

  Dostoevsky’s friends in high places began to do what they could on behalf of the family. Pobedonostsev informed Loris-Melikov of the death and requested that he inform Alexander II. He also wrote the tsarevich to enlist his aid in obtaining some financial help for the family, urging him to speak to Loris-Melikov as well. An official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs soon arrived to inform Anna that the expenses of the funeral would be borne by the government, but Anna claimed to have proudly refused: “I considered it my moral obligation to bury my husband with the money he had earned.”36 No such refusal is mentioned in the official report, and she is described as having expressed gratitude for the aid.

  30. Dostoevsky on his bier, by I. N. Kramskoy

  The first service for the dead (panikhida) began at one o’clock in the afternoon. It had been announced in the newspapers, and Anna observed that “known and unknown arrived to pray at his coffin, and there were so many that very quickly all the five rooms were filled with a dense crowd, and when the office for the dead was recited the children and I had a hard time pushing through the crowd to stand near the coffin.”37 Pobedonostsev wrote to Katkov the same day, requesting that the money owed Dostoevsky be sent to Anna as speedily as possible, along with the authority to collect it in her name. “Today was the first panikhida,” he added. “He seems as if still alive, with a face of total quietude, as in the best moments of his life.”38 Anna’s brother then went to the Novodeichy monastery, where, at the time of Nekrasov’s funeral, Dostoevsky had expressed a desire to be buried. But the price demanded for a gravesite seemed so exorbitant that it was decided to seek elsewhere. Anna suggested the Okhtinsky monastery, which contained the graves of their son Alyosha and of Anna’s father, and they planned to go there the next morning to buy a plot.