Chapter XX: Appendix (3)

In 1863 Dostoyevsky’s wife died; and in the following year he lost his beloved brother, whose journal, “The Times,” passed into his hands. But he was entirely unused to business, and was placed in a very embarrassing situation, which was intensified by a strange public impression that it was the novelist who was dead. Consequently its circulation was greatly reduced, and Feódor Mikhaïlovitch had to give it up. As a distraction for all these tribulations, Dostoyevsky devoted himself to literary work, and wrote his great story, “Crime and Punishment,” which established his reputation as a psychological analyst. In 1867 he married again, and lived abroad for four years. He also, looking from the “beautiful distance” upon the pitiful side of Russian social life, wrote his two stories, “Idiot” and “Devils.” After he came back he wanted to analyze the abnormal relationship between the rising generation and the older writers; and he founded a new journal, and wrote a novel entitled “Podrostok” (The Adult). The journal was given up at the end of 1877; but Dostoyevsky, who had new novels in view, promised ultimately to continue the journal at some future time. He died on the 9th of February, 1881; and on the day of his funeral the first number of the long-looked-for journal, which he did not live to see, was issued. All Petersburg escorted the beloved remains to the tomb; tens of thousands of people were counted in the procession. Dostoyevsky’s faith in humanity is summed up in his own words: “I never could understand the reason why one-tenth part of our people should be cultured, and the other nine-tenths must serve as the material support of the minority and themselves remain in ignorance. I do not want to think or to live with any other belief than that our ninety millions of people (and those who shall be born after us) will all be some day cultured, humanized, and happy. I know and I firmly believe that universal enlightenment will harm none of us. I also believe that the kingdom of thought and light is possible of being realized in our Russia, even sooner than elsewhere maybe, because with us, even now, no one defends the idea of one part of the population being enlisted against the other, as is found everywhere in the civilized countries of Europe.’

NOTE TO P. 203.

The _Banya_ (from “The Recollections of a Dead-House”).

“In the whole city, there were only two public baths. The first, which was kept by a Hebrew, was numbered, with an entrance-fee of fifty _kopeks_ for each number, and was designed for high-toned people. The other _banya_ was pre-eminently common, old, filthy, small; and to this _banya_ our prisoners were going. It was cold and sunny. The men were already rejoicing because they were going to get out of prison, and have a glimpse of the city. Jests, laughter, did not cease during the walk. A whole squad of soldiers escorted us with loaded guns, to the wonder of the whole city. At the _banya_ they immediately divided us into two detachments. The second had to wait in the cold ante-room while the first detachment soaped themselves, and this was necessary on account of the smallness of the _banya_; but, notwithstanding this fact, the _banya_ was so small, that it was hard to imagine how our half could find accommodation in it. But Petrof did not leave me: he himself, without my asking him, hurried to help me, and even offered to wash me. Bakliushin, as well as Petrof, offered me his services. He was a prisoner from a special cell, and was known among us as the pioneer, and him I remembered as the gayest and liveliest of the _arestants_, as indeed he was. We had already become somewhat well acquainted. Petrof helped me undress myself, because, as I was not used to it, it took me long; and the dressing-room was cold, almost as cold as the street. By the way, it is very hard for a prisoner to undress if he has not had some practice. In the first place, it is necessary to know how to unfasten quickly the shin-protectors.[63] These shin-protectors are made of leather, about seven inches long; and they are fastened to the underclothes directly under the iron anklet which encircles the leg. A pair of shin-protectors are worth not less than sixty kopeks; but, nevertheless, every prisoner gets himself a pair, at his own expense of course, because without them it is impossible to walk. The iron ring does not encircle the leg tightly, and it is easy to thrust a finger between the ring and the leg. Thus the iron strikes the leg, chafes it; and a prisoner without shin-protectors would in a single day have bad wounds. But to take off the shin-protectors is not the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to learn to get off the clothes when one wears the rings (_kandalui_). This is the whole trick: Suppose you are taking off the drawers from the left leg, it is necessary first to let the garment slip through between the leg and the ring. Afterwards you have to put it on again the same way. The same process must be gone through with when you put on clean clothes. For a newcomer it is even hard to guess how it is accomplished. The first one who ever taught us how to do it was the prisoner Kóryenef in Tobolsk, who had once been atamán of a gang of cut-throats, and had been fastened to a chain five years. But the prisoners get used to it, and do it without any difficulty. I gave several kopeks to Petrof to get soap and scrubbers. To be sure, the authorities furnished the prisoners with soap. Every one would get a little piece about the size of a two-kopek coin, and as thick as the slice of cheese served at evening lunch by middle-class people. Soap was sold here in the dressing-room, together with _sbiten_ [a kind of mead], twists, and hot water. Every prisoner would get, according to the agreement made with the proprietor of the _banya_, a single pail of hot water. Whoever wanted to wash himself cleaner could get for a _grosh_, or half kopek, an extra pail, which was handed into the _banya_ itself through a window made for that purpose from the dressing-room. After helping me to undress, Petrof led me by the hand, observing that it was very hard for me to walk in the rings. “Pull them up a little higher over the calf,” he added, supporting me as though he were my uncle (_dyadka_). “Be a little careful here, there is a door-sill.” I even felt a little ashamed. I wanted to assure Petrof that I could get along by myself, but he would not have believed me. He treated me just like a young and incapable child, whom everybody was obliged to help. Petrof was far from being a servant, by no means was he a servant. Had I insulted him, he would have understood how to behave to me. I did not offer him any money for his services, and he did not ask for any. What, then, prompted him to take such care of me?

“When we opened the door of the _banya_, I thought that we were going into Gehenna. Imagine a room about twelve feet long, and as wide, stuffed with probably a hundred men at once, and, at the very least, surely eighty, because the prisoners were divided into two detachments, and the whole number of us who went to the _banya_ were two hundred men; the steam blinding our eyes, the sweat, the filth, such a crowd that there was no room to get a leg in. I was alarmed, and wanted to go back, but Petrof immediately encouraged me. Somehow, with the greatest difficulty, we squeezed ourselves through to the benches, over the heads of those who were sitting on the floor, asking them to bend down so that we could pass. But all the places on the benches were occupied. Petrof told me that it was necessary to buy a place, and immediately entered into transactions with a prisoner who had taken a place near the window. For a kopek the prisoner surrendered his place, immediately took the money from Petrof, who had it tight in his fist, having foreseen that it would be necessary to bring it with him into the _banya_. The man threw himself under the bench, directly under my place, where it was dark, filthy, and where the slimy dampness was almost half a finger in thickness. But the places under the benches were also taken; even there, the crowd clustered. On the whole floor, there was not a free place as large as the palm of the hand where the prisoners would not be sitting doubled up, washing themselves in their pails. Others stood upright among these, and, holding their pails in their hands, washed themselves as best they could. The dirty water ran down directly on the shaven heads of those who sat beneath them. On the platform, and on all the steps leading to it, were men washing themselves, bent down and doubled up. But precious little washing they got. Plebeians wash themselves very little with hot water and soap: they only steam themselves tremendously, and then pour cold water over them, and that’s their whole bath. Fifty brooms or so on the platform were rising and falling in concert: they all broomed themselves into a state of intoxication. Every instant steam was let in. It was not merely heat, it was hell let loose. It was all one uproar and hullaballoo (_gogotalo_), with the rattling of a hundred chains dragging over the floor.... Some, trying to pass, entangled themselves with the chains of others, and they themselves bumped against the heads of those sitting below, and they tumbled over, and scolded, and dragged into the quarrel those whom they hit. The filth was streaming on every side. All were in an excited, and as it were intoxicated, state of mind. Shrieks and cries were heard. At the dressing-room window, where the water was handed through, there was a tumult, a pushing, even fighting. The hot water ordered was spilt on the heads of those sitting on the floor, before it reached its destination. Now and then, at the window or in the half-opened door, a soldier with mustachioed face would show himself, with gun in hand, ready to quell any disorder. The shaven heads and red, parboiled bodies of the prisoners seemed uglier than ever. On their parboiled shoulders clearly appeared, oftentimes, the welts caused by the strokes and lashes which they may have received in days gone by; so that now all these backs seem to be freshly wounded. Horrid welts! A chill went through my skin at seeing them. “Give us more steam;” and the steam would spread in a thick hot cloud over the whole _banya_. From under the cloud of steam gleamed scarred backs, shaven heads, disfigured arms and legs. And as a fit climax Isaï Fomitch (the Jew) would roar with all his throat, from the top of the platform. He steams himself into insanity, but it seems as if no heat could satisfy him. For a _kopek_ he hires a washer (_parilshchik_); but at last it gets too warm for him, and he throws down the broom, and runs to pour cold water on him. Isaï Fomitch does not give up hope, but hires a second, a third: he makes up his mind, on such occasions, not to grudge any expense, and he has as many as half a dozen washers. “You are tough, Isaï Fomitch, you are a fine fellow,” shout the prisoners from below. And Isaï Fomitch himself feels that at this moment he stands above them all, and could thrust them all under his belt; he is in a glory; and with a sharp, crazy voice he shouts out his aria _lya-lya-lya-lya_, drowning all other voices.[64] The thought entered my mind, that, if we were ever to be all in hell, then it would look very much like this place. I could not refrain from imparting this thought to Petrof: he only looked around, but said nothing.”

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Ten volumes, published by Salaïef, in Moscow: his poetry, in one volume of two hundred and thirty pages, bears no publisher’s imprint, simply the title, Stikhotvoreniya I. S. Turgénieva, S. Peterburg, 1885.

[60] The summer home of his friends the Viardots, at Bougival.

[61] Mr. Henry James, in his Atlantic Monthly article upon Turgénief, says: “He had read a great deal of English, and knew the language remarkably well,--too well I used often to think; for he liked to speak it with those to whom it was native, and, successful as the effort always was, it deprived him of the facility and raciness with which he expressed himself in French.”

[62] Referring to Salammbo.

[63] _Podkandalniki._

[64] At the beginning of the chapter Isaï Fomitch assures Dostoyevsky, “under oath, that this song and the same motive was sung by the six hundred thousand Hebrews, from small to great, when they crossed the Red Sea; and that every Hebrew has to sing this song at the moment of glory and victory over his enemies.”

INDEX.

Aksákof, 142, 144.

Alexander II., Emperor, 148, 151, 152, 326.

Alexander III., Emperor, 151, 152, 156.

“Anna Karénina,” 206, 218, 230, 232;
analysis, 297-323;
quoted, 304-305, 306-307, 309-322;
meaning, 322.

“Annals of a Sportsman,” 121, 129, 158, 190, 394.

Aristophanes, 70.

Arria, 188.

Balzac, 105.

“Banya (bath), The,” 203;
quoted, 433-440.

Bázarof, 145, 173, 174, 186, 388.

Biélinsky, 120, 121 _note_, 424, 426.

“Bulba.” _See_ “Taras Bulba.”

Censorship, The Russian, 122 _note_, 217, 398.

“Childhood and Youth,” 205, 217.

“Confession.” _See_ “My Confession.”

Corneille, 13.

“Cossacks, The” (“Kazaki”), 216, 229, 231;
analysis, 239-267.

“Commentary on the Gospels,” Tolstoï’s, 234.

Daudet, Alphonse, 199 _note_.

“Dead Souls,” 11, 28, 61, 159, 360, 396, 426;
analysis, 86-115.

Devil, The, in Gogol, 30.

Dissenters, 181, 330, 337.

Divorce, according to Tolstoï, 271, 299, 302.

“Dmitri Rudin,” 167, 168.

Dniépr, 15-18, 36.

“Don Quixote,” 133, 158, 170.

Dostoyevsky, 141, 202 _note_, 203, 204 _note_;
biography, 423-432;
faith, 432.

Edgeworth, Maria, 401, 402, 403.

“Evenings at the Farm,” 9, 10, 28, 29, 60.

“Fathers and Sons,” 130, 173, 388;
quoted, 193-198.

Fénelon, 70.

Flaubert, 127, 134, 207, 209, 406.

French novelists, 190, 191.

German education, 172, 386.

Goethe, 343;
quoted by Turgénief, 137.

Gogol, biography, 5-11, 339-362;
professorship, 9, 10, 353, 355-358;
works enumerated, 29, 30, 346, 353;
humor, 80, 346;
as a poet, 6, 13, 47, 114, 191;
as a scholar, 343, 344, 354;
as a painter of women, 186;
influence on Turgénief, 394.

Gontcharóf, 430.

Griboyédof, 238 _note_, 414.

Grigoróvitch, 425, 430.

Hamlet, 126, 158, 170, 179.

Hegel, 120, 168, 172, 386.

Herzen, 428.

Hugo, Victor, 209, 210.

Iskander. _See_ Herzen.

Ivanitsky on Gogol, quoted, 356.

James, Henry, quoted, 403 _note_.

Karakózof, 151.

Katkof, 145, 148, 149, 152, 174, 414.

“Kazaki.” _See_ “The Cossacks.”

Khor and Kalinuitch, 121, 159.

Kulzhinsky on Gogol, quoted, 343.

La Bruyère, 70.

La Rochefoucauld, 220.

Lermontof, 202 and _note_.

“May Night, The,” quoted, 21, 32.

Marvellous, The, in Gogol, 30-34.

Merimée, 4, 48, 192.

Molière, 11, 68, 70, 80.

Muzhik. _See_ Russian Peasantry.

Murillo, comparison with Gogol, 31.

“My Confession” (Tolstoï), 219-228.

“My Religion” (Tolstoï), 228, 322, 420;
quoted, 278, 296;
analysis, 324-338.

Napoleon, Tolstoï’s judgment of, 285.

Nekrásof, 181, 202 _note_, 210 _note_, 391, 426.

“Nest of Noblemen,” 169.

Nicholas, Emperor, 84, 113, 399, 426, 429.

Niézhin, 5, 7, 342.

Nihilism, 148, 173, 176, 179, 180, 329, 389.

Occidentalism, Turgénief’s, 120, 142, 387.

“Old-time Proprietors,” 51-58;
quoted, 24.

“Parasha,” 120.

Pathetic, The, in Turgénief, 199.

Písemsky, 167 _note_.

Pletnef, 9, 385.

Pobyedonovtsof, 152, 414.

Poetry, Nature of, 13.

Pogodin, 142.

Polevoï, 339;
quoted, 424, 429.

Polonsky, 126, 136.

Pushkin, 4, 6, 7, 9, 73, 112, 134, 202, 210, 238, 345, 385, 400, 414;
on Griboyédof’s death, 238;
judgment of Gogol, 58;
as inspiration to Gogol, 345;
festival, 135, 391.

Raskolniks. _See_ Dissenters.

Realism, French and Russian, 25, 189, 193, 199, 286.

“Recollections of a Scorer” (Tolstoï), quoted, 235-237.

“Recollections” (Reminiscences), Turgénief’s, quoted, 120 _note_, 122
_note_, 384, 388.

Renan, funeral discourse on Turgénief, 408.

Resurrection, The, according to Tolstoï, 278.

Revizor, The, 7, 10, 61, 358, 426;
analysis, 63-83.

Rousseau, 70.

Rudin. _See_ Dmitri Rudin.

Russian ideal, 182;
language, 98, 110, 192, 395, 414;
mind, 12;
nature, 14, 18, 23, 114;
nobility, 159, 164;
peasantry, 150, 159, 181, 325.

Sand, George, 127, 211.

Sasuluitch, Viéra, 171.

Satirical, The, in Gogol, 7, 12, 60, 347.

Shchedrin. _See_ Soltuikof.

Schiller, 212, 343;
quoted by Turgénief, 154.

Schopenhauer, 172, 228.

Schuyler, Eugene, translation of “The Cossacks,” 416.

Serfage, 166, 326, 397.

Shakspeare, 69, 126, 225.

Skidelsky, quoted, 424.

Slavophilism, 143, 144, 206.

“Smoke,” 175.

Soltuikof, 204, 211.

Swinburne, Turgénief’s opinion of, 210.

“Taras Bulba,” 6, 10, 18, 29, 355;
analysis, 36-49;
Turgénief’s judgment on, 50;
quoted, 19, 23, 363-382.

Tchernuishevsky, 145, 201, 210 _note_, 423.

“Terrible Vengeance, A,” quoted, 15-18.

Tolstoï, Count Lyof N., biography, 215, 222-230, 236 _note_, 414-422;
works enumerated, 216, 416, 417;
talent, 218;
mental and moral transformation, 222-230, 278;
literary life, 224, 231;
marriage, 224, 421;
mysticism, 234;
character revealed in “The Cossacks,” 256-258;
in “War and Peace,” 267, 275, 293, 295;
in “Anna Karénina,” 295, 421;
his ideal of strength, 248;
ideal of life, 227, 275, 299;
as a historian, 283;
as a non-combatant, 293, 299;
as a prophet, 219, 329;
as a communist, 335;
his creed, 332;
appearance in 1862, 418;
criticised by Turgénief, 205.

Turgénief, Ivan, biography, 117-140, 383-408;
works enumerated, 129-139;
method of work, 130, 135, 183, 407;
progress, 157;
talent, 182, 409;
character, 139, 141;
generosity, 139 _note_, 155, 205;
conversation, 140, 149, 405;
as a political prophet, 153, 157;
as a dramatist, 189;
as a poet, 191, 385, 399 _note_;
as a critic on his epoch, 146, 150, 200;
judgment on Alexander III., 152, 156;
on Hugo, 209, 210;
on George Sand, 212;
Flaubert, 209;
Zola, 208;
Swinburne, 210;
Dickens, 407;
Dostoyevsky, 203;
Nekrásof, 201, 202;
Gogol, 50;
Soltuikof, 204;
Tchernuishevsky, 201;
Tolstoï, 205, 231, 284;
letters to Tolstoï, 127, 138;
letter to Mr. King, 183;
homesickness and love of Russia, 123, 127;
personal appearance, 139, 393, 404;
disease, 136.

Turgénief, Nikolaï, 383.

Turner, C. E., on Gogol, quoted, 361.

Ukraïna, 10, 15, 23, 32.

Viardot, 401, 406.

“Vii,” quoted, 30, 358.

“Virgin Soil” (_Nov_), 131, 132, 176, 179, 187.

Vogüé, Count E. Melchior, on Turgénief, quoted, 390-400.

“War and Peace,” 206, 218, 230, 232, 233;
analysis, 267-294.

Woman in Gogol, 109, 187;
in Turgénief, 186, 187;
in Tolstoï, 247, 288, 422.

Zhukovsky, 4, 345.

Zola, 135, 208, 211, 286.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and accentuation errors have been silently corrected.

Spelling of proper names has been standardized in most cases.

Page 228: “to anihilate” changed to “to annihilate”

Page 233: “sem-military” changed to “semi-military”

Page 335: “the millionnaire” changed to “the millionaire”

Page 337: “immedate spread” changed to “immediate spread”

Page 359: “lived the most” changed to “lived most”