Chapter V: The Religion of Endurance.―dostoyevski (2)

This was but one of those fleeting thoughts which cross the brain like a nightmare, and which only assume a distinct form through the assent of the will. This idea becomes fixed in the man’s brain, growing and increasing on every page, until he is perfectly possessed by it. Every hard experience of his outward life appears to him to bear some relation to his project; and by a mysterious power of reasoning, to work into his plan and urge him on to the crime. The influence exercised upon this man is brought out into such distinct relief that it seems to us itself like a living actor in the drama, guiding the criminal’s hand to the murderous weapon. The horrible deed is accomplished; and the unfortunate man wrestles with the recollection of it as he did with the original design. The relations of the world to the murderer are all changed, through the irreparable fact of his having suppressed a human life. Everything takes on a new physiognomy and a new meaning to him, excluding from him the possibility of feeling and reasoning like other people, or of finding his own place in life. His whole soul is metamorphosed and in constant discord with the life around him. This is not remorse in the true sense of the word. Dostoyevski exerts himself to distinguish and explain the difference. His hero will feel no remorse until the day of expiation; but it is a complex and perverse feeling which possesses him; the vexation at having derived no satisfaction from an act so successfully carried out; the revolting against the unexpected moral consequences of that act; the shame of finding himself so weak and helpless; for the foundation of Raskolnikof’s character is pride. Only one single interest in life is left to him: to deceive and elude the police. He seeks their company, their friendship, by an attraction analogous to that which draws us to the extreme edge of a dizzy precipice; the murderer keeps up interminable interviews with his friends at the police office, and even leads on the conversation to that point, when a single word would betray him; every moment we fear he will utter the word; but he escapes and continues the terrible game as if it were a pleasure.

The magistrate Porphyre has guessed the student’s secret; he plays with him like a tiger with its prey, sure of his game. Then Raskolnikof knows he is discovered; and through several chapters a long fantastic dialogue is kept up between the two adversaries; a double dialogue, that of the lips, which smile and wilfully ignore; and that of the eyes which know and betray all. At last when the author has tortured us sufficiently in this way, he introduces the salutary influence which is to break down the culprit’s pride and reconcile him to the expiation of his crime. Raskolnikof loves a poor street-walker. The author’s clairvoyance divines that even the sentiment of love was destined in him to be modified, like every other, to be changed into a dull despair.

Sonia is a humble creature, who has sold herself to escape starvation, and is almost unconscious of her dishonor, enduring it as a malady she cannot prevent. She wears her ignominy as a cross, with pious resignation. She is attached to the only man who has not treated her with contempt; she sees that he is tortured by some secret, and tries to draw it from him. After a long struggle the avowal is made, but not in words. In a mute interview, which is tragic in the extreme, Sonia reads the terrible truth in her friend’s eyes. The poor girl is stunned for a moment, but recovers herself quickly. She knows the remedy; her stricken heart cries out:―

“We must suffer, and suffer together … we must pray and atone … let us go to prison!…”

Thus are we led back to Dostoyevski’s favorite idea, to the Russian’s fundamental conception of Christianity: the efficacy of atonement, of suffering, and its being the only solution of all difficulties.

To express the singular relations between these two beings, that solemn, pathetic bond, so foreign to every pre-conceived idea of love, we should make use of the word _compassion_ in the sense in which Bossuet used it: the suffering with and through another being. When Raskolnikof falls at the feet of the girl who supports her parents by her shame, she, the despised of all, is terrified at his self-abasement, and begs him to rise. He then utters a phrase which expresses the combination of all the books we are studying: “It is not only before thee that I prostrate myself, but before all suffering humanity.” Let us here observe that our author has never yet once succeeded in representing love in any form apart from these subtleties, or the simple natural attraction of two hearts toward each other. He portrays only extreme cases; either that mystic state of sympathy and self-sacrifice for a distressed fellow-creature, of utter devotion, apart from any selfish desire: or the mad, bestial cruelty of a perverted nature. The lovers he represents are not made of flesh and blood, but of nerves and tears. Yet this realist evokes only harrowing _thoughts_, never disagreeable _images_. I defy any one to quote a single line suggestive of anything sensual, or a single instance where the woman is represented in the light of a temptress. His love scenes are absolutely chaste, and yet he seems to be incapable of portraying any creation between an angel and a beast.

You can imagine what the _dénouement_ will be. The nihilist, half conquered, prowls for some time around the police office; and finally he acknowledges his guilt, and is condemned. Sonia teaches him to pray, and the wretched creatures go to Siberia. Dostoyevski gladly seizes the opportunity to rewrite, as a sort of epilogue, a chapter of his “Recollections of a Dead House.”

Apart from the principal characters of this book, there are secondary characters and scenes which are impossible to forget, such is the impression they leave upon you after one reading. There is one scene where the murderer, always mysteriously attracted back to the fatal spot, tries to recall every detail of his crime; he even goes to pull the cracked bell of the apartment, in order to recall more vividly by this sound the impression of the terrible moment. Detached fragments of this work seem to lose their signification, and if you skip a few pages the whole thing becomes unintelligible. One may feel impatient with the author’s prolixity, but if he omits anything the magnetic current is interrupted. This I have been told by those who have tried the experiment. The reader requires as much of an effort of concentration and memory as for a philosophical treatise. This is a pleasure or a penalty according to the reader. Besides, a translation, however good, cannot possibly render the continuous smooth course of the original text, or give its under-currents of meaning.

We cannot but pity the man who has written such a book, so evidently drawn from the substance of his own brain. To understand how he was led so to write, we must note what he once said to a friend in regard to his mental condition, after one of his severe attacks of illness:―“The state of dejection into which they plunge me makes me feel in this way: I seem to be like a criminal who has committed some terrible deed which weighs upon his conscience.” The review which published Dostoyevski’s novels often gave but a few pages at a time, followed by a brief note of apology. Every one understood that Feodor Mikhailovitch had had one of his severe attacks of illness.

“Crime and Punishment” established the author’s popularity. Its appearance was the great literary event of the year 1866. All Russia was made ill by it, so to speak. When the book first appeared, a Moscow student murdered a pawnbroker in almost precisely the way described by the novelist; and I firmly believe that many subsequent attempts, analogous to this, may have been attributable to the influence of this book. Dostoyevski’s intention, of course, was undoubtedly to dissuade men from such acts by representing their terrible consequences; but he did not foresee that the intensity of his portrayals might act in an opposite sense, and tempt the demon of imitation existing in a certain type of brain. I therefore hesitate to pronounce upon the moral value of the work. Our writers may say that I am over-scrupulous. They may not admit that the moral value of a work of art is a thing to be taken into account in regard to the appreciation of it as a work of art. But does anything exist in this world wholly independent of a moral value?

The Russian authors claim that they aim to nourish souls, and the greatest offence you could offer them would be to accuse them of making a collection of purposeless words. Dostoyevski’s novels will be judged either as useful or harmful according as one decides for or against the morality of public executions and sentences. It is an open question. For myself, I should decide against them.

IV.

In this work Dostoyevski’s talent had reached its culminating point. In “The Idiot,” “The Possessed,” and especially in “The Karamazof Brothers,” many parts are intolerably tedious. The plot amounts to nothing but a framework upon which to hang all the author’s favorite theories, and display every type of his eccentric fancy. The book is nearly filled with conversations between two disputants, whose ideas are continually clashing, each trying to worm out the other’s secrets with the most cunning art, and expose some secret intrigue either of crime or of love. These interviews recall the terrible trials under Ivan the Terrible, or Peter the First; there is the same combination of terror, duplicity, and obstinacy still existing in the race. Sometimes the disputants attempt to penetrate the labyrinth of each other’s religious or philosophical beliefs. They vie with each other in the use of arguments, now fine-spun, now eccentric, like a pair of scholastic doctors of the Sorbonne. Some of these conversations recall Hamlet’s dialogues with his mother, Ophelia, or Polonius. For more than two hundred years critics have discussed the question whether Hamlet was mad when he thus spoke. When that question has been settled, the decision may be applied to Dostoyevski’s heroes. It has been said more than once that this writer and the heroes of his creation are simply madmen. They are mad in the same degree that Hamlet was. For my own part, I consider this statement neither an intelligent nor reasonable one. Such an opinion must be held only by those very short-sighted people who refuse to admit the existence of states of mind different from those they know from personal experience.

In studying Dostoyevski and his work, we must keep in mind one of his favorite phrases, which he often repeats: “Russia is a freak of nature.” A strange anomaly exists in some of these lunatics he describes. They are absorbed in the contemplation of their own minds, intent upon self-analysis. If the author leads them into action, they throw themselves into it impetuously, obedient to the irregular impulses of their nerves, giving free rein to their unbridled wills, which are uncontrollable as are elementary forces. Observe how minutely he describes every physical peculiarity. The condition of the body explains the perturbation of the soul. Whenever a character is introduced to us, he is never by any chance sitting comfortably by a table or engaged in any occupation. “He was extended upon a divan, with his eyes closed, although he was not asleep…. He walked along the street without having any idea where he was…. He was motionless, his eyes absently fixed upon space.”…

These people never eat; they drink tea through the night. Many are given to strong drink. They rarely sleep, and when they do they dream. There are more dreams described in Dostoyevski’s works than in the whole of our classic literature. They are nearly always in a “feverish condition.” Whenever any of these creatures come into relations with their fellow-beings, you meet with such expression as these in almost every line:―“He shuddered … he sprang up with a bound … his features contracted … he became ashy pale … his lower lip trembled … his teeth chattered….” Sometimes there are long pauses in a conversation, when the disputants look fixedly into each other’s eyes.

The writer’s most elaborate creation, and evidently his favorite one, the analysis of which fills a large volume, is “The Idiot.” Feodor Mikhailovitch has described himself in this character, in the way that many authors do: certainly not as he was, but what he wished to be considered. In the first place, “The Idiot” is subject to epilepsy; his attacks furnish a most convenient and effective climax for all emotional scenes. The author evidently greatly enjoys describing these; he assures us that the whole being is bathed in an ecstasy, for a few seconds preceding the attack. We are quite willing to take his word for this. The nickname “Idiot” becomes fixed upon the hero, Prince Myshkin, because his malady produced such an effect upon his faculties in childhood that he has always been eccentric. Starting with this pathological idea, this fictitious character is persistently developed with an astonishing consistency.

Dostoyevski at first had the idea of producing another Don Quixote, the ideal redresser of wrongs. Occasionally you feel the impress of this idea; but soon the author is carried away by his own creation; his aim is loftier, he creates in the soul in which he sees himself mirrored the most sublime, Christ-like qualities, he makes a desperate effort to elevate the character to the moral proportions of a saint. Imagine, if you can, an exceptional being, possessing the mind and reasoning faculties of a man, while his heart retains the simplicity of a child, who, in short, can personify the gospel precept: “Be as little children.” Such a character is Prince Myshkin, the “Idiot.” The nervous disease has, by a happy chance, produced this phenomenon; it has destroyed that part of the intellect which is the seat of all our defects: irony, arrogance, selfishness, avarice; while the noble qualities are largely developed. On leaving the hospital, this extraordinary young man is thrown into the current of ordinary life. It would seem that he must perish in such an atmosphere, not having the weapons of defence that others are armed with. Not so; his simple straightforwardness is stronger than any of the malicious tricks practised upon him; it carries him through every difficulty, saves him from every snare. His innocent wisdom has the last word in all discussions; he utters phrases proceeding from a profound asceticism, such as this, addressed to a dying man:―“Pass on before us, and forgive us our happiness.”―Elsewhere he says: “I fear I am unworthy of my sufferings―” and many similar expressions. He lives among a set of usurers, liars, and rascals. These people treat him as they would an idiot, but respect and venerate him; they feel his influence, and become better men. The women also laugh at the idiot at first, but they all end by falling desperately in love with him; while he responds to their adoration only by a tender pity, a compassionate love, the only sort that Dostoyevski permits his favorite characters to indulge in.

The writer constantly returns to his ruling idea, the supremacy of the suffering and poor in spirit. Why do all the Russian idealists, without exception, cry out against prosperity in life? What I believe to be the secret, unconscious solution of this unreasonable feeling is this: they feel the force of that fundamental truth, that the life of a living, acting, thinking being must perforce be a mixture of good and evil. Whoever acts, creates and destroys at the same time, makes for himself a place in the world at the expense of some other person or thing. Therefore, if one neither acts nor thinks, this fatality must naturally be suppressed,―this production of evil as well as of good; and, as the evil he does has more effect than the good, he takes refuge in a non-existence. So these writers admire and sanctify the idiot,―the neutral, inactive being. It is true, he does no good, but then he can do no evil: therefore, from the point of view of pessimists, in their conception of the world, he is the most admirable.

As I read, I am overwhelmed by the number of these moral giants and monsters around me; but I cannot pass by one of the most striking of them, Rogozhin, the merchant, a very forcibly drawn figure. The twenty pages descriptive of the workings of passion in the heart of this man are written by the hand of a great master. Passion, in this strange nature, has developed to such intensity, and bestows upon the man such a gift of fascination, that the woman he loves accepts, in spite of herself, this savage whom she abhors, and moreover with the certainty that he will murder her. So he does; and, throughout an entire night, beside the bed where lies the body of his strangled victim, he calmly discusses philosophy with his friend. There is nothing melodramatic about this scene. It is simple as possible; to the author, at least, it appears quite natural; and this is why it makes us shiver with terror. I must also mention,―there are so few such touches in the work―the little drunken money-lender who “offers a prayer every night for the repose of the soul of Mme. du Barry.” Do not suppose that Dostoyevski means to enliven us with anything approaching a joke. Through the lips of this character, he seriously indulges in compassionate sympathy for the martyrdom endured by Mme. du Barry during the long passage of the cart through the streets and the struggle with the executioner. He evidently has always before him that half-hour of the 22d December, 1849.

“Les Possédés” is a description of the revolutionary world of the Nihilists. This title is a slight modification of the Russian title, “The Demons,” which is too obscure. All Dostoyevski’s characters might be said to be _possessed_, as the word was understood in the Middle Ages. A strange, irresistible will urges them on, in spite of themselves, to commit atrocious deeds. Natasha, in “The Degraded and Insulted,” is an example; as also Raskolnikof, in “Crime and Punishment,” and Rogozhin, in “The Idiot,” besides all the conspirators who commit murder or suicide without any definite aim or motive. The history of the origin of “Les Possédés” is rather curious. Dostoyevski was always opposed to Turgenef in politics and even more seriously through literary jealousy. At this time, Tolstoï had not yet established his reputation; and the other two were the only competitors in the field ready to dispute empire over the imaginations of their countrymen. The inevitable rivalry between them amounted, on Dostoyevski’s part, to hatred. He was always the wronged party; and into this volume he most unjustifiably introduced his brother author under the guise of a ridiculous actor. But his secret, unpardonable grievance was that Turgenef was the first to take up and treat the subject of Nihilism, introducing it into his celebrated novel, “Fathers and Sons.” Since 1861 Nihilism had, however, developed from a metaphysical doctrine into practical action. Dostoyevski wrote “Les Possédés” out of revenge; three years after, Turgenef accepted the challenge, by publishing “Virgin Soil.” The theme of both romances is the same―a revolutionary conspiracy in a small provincial town.

The prize in this tilting match must be adjudged to the dramatic psychologist rather than to the gentle artist who created “Virgin Soil.” Dostoyevski lays bare the inmost recesses of those intricate natures more completely; the scene of Shatof’s murder is rendered with a diabolical power which Turgenef was utterly incapable of. Still, it must be admitted that Bazarof, the cynic in “Fathers and Sons,” was the imperishable prototype of all Nihilists who came after him. Dostoyevski felt this, and keenly regretted it. His book, however, may be called a prophecy as well as an explanation. It was truly prophetic; for in 1871, when anarchy was still in the process of fermentation, he looked deeply enough into the future to relate facts precisely analogous to what we have since seen developed. I attended the trials of the Nihilists and can testify that many of the men and the conspiracies that were judged at that time were exact reproductions of those the novelist had previously created.

The book is also an explanation; for the world will understand from it the true face of the problem, which is even to-day imperfectly understood, because its solution is sought only in politics. Dostoyevski presents to us the various classes of minds from which the sect is recruited. First, the simple unbeliever, who devotes all his capacity for religious fervor to the service of atheism.―The author illustrates this type by the following anecdote (in every Russian’s bedroom stands a little altar, with its holy images of the saints): “Lieutenant Erkel, having thrown down the images and broken them in pieces with an axe, arranged upon the tablets three atheistic books; then he lighted some church tapers and placed one before each volume.”―Secondly, there is the weak class, who feel the magnetism of the strong, and blindly follow their chiefs. Then the logical pessimists, among whom the engineer Kirilof is an example. These are inclined toward suicide, through moral inability to live. Their party takes advantage of these yielding natures; for a man without principles, who decides to die because he can settle upon no principles, is one who will easily lend himself to whatever is exacted of him. Finally, the worst class: those who will not hesitate to commit murder, as a protest against the order of the world, which they do not comprehend, and in order to make a singular and novel use of their will power, to enjoy inspiring terror in others, and satisfy the animal cravings within them.

The greatest merit of this confusing book, which is badly constructed, often ridiculous, and loaded with doubtful theories, is that it gives us, after all, a clear idea of what constitutes the real power of the Nihilists. This does not lie in the doctrines in themselves, nor in the power of organization of this sect, which is certainly overrated; it lies simply and only in the character of a few men. Dostoyevski thinks, and the revelations brought to light in the trials have justified his opinion, that the famous organization may be reduced to only a few local circles, badly organized; and that all these phantoms, central committees and executive committees, exist only in the imaginations of the adepts. On the other hand, he brings into bold relief those iron wills, those souls of frozen steel, in striking contrast with the timidity and irresolution of the legal authorities. Between these two poles he shows us the mass of weak natures, attracted toward that pole which is most strongly magnetized. It is, indeed, the force of character of these resolute men, and not their ideas, which has acted upon the Russian people; and here the piercing eye of the philosopher is keener than that of Russia herself. Men become less and less exacting in regard to ideas, and more and more skeptical as to the way of carrying them out. Those who believe in the absolute virtue of doctrines are becoming every day more rare; but what is seductive to them is force of character, even if its energy be applied to an evil cause,―because it promises to be a guide, and guarantees a strong leadership, the very first requisition of any association of men. Man is the born slave of every strong will which he comes in contact with.

The last period of Dostoyevski’s life, after the publication of this book, and his return to Russia, was somewhat easier and less melancholy. He had married an intelligent and courageous woman, who helped him out of his pecuniary embarrassments. His popularity increased, while the success of his books freed him from debt. Taking up journalism again, he established a paper in St. Petersburg, and finally an organ peculiarly his own, which he conducted quite by himself. It was called the “Note-book of an Author” (Carnet d’un Ecrivain), and it appeared―whenever he chose. It did not at all resemble what we call a journal or review, but might have been called something similar to the Delphic oracle. Into this encyclopædia, the principal work of his latter years, he poured all the political, social, and literary ideas which beset him, and related anecdotes and reminiscences of his life. I have already stated what his politics were; but the obscure productions of this period can neither be analyzed nor controverted. This periodical, which first appeared just before the war with Turkey, reflected the states of enthusiasm and discouragement of Russia through those years of feverish patriotism. Everything could be found in this summary of dreams, in which every question relating to human life was mooted. Only one thing was wanting: a solid basis of doctrine that the mind could take hold of. There were occasionally some touching episodes and artistic bits of composition recalling the great novelist. The “Note-book of an Author” was in fact a success, although the public now really cared less for the ideas than for the person, and were, besides, so accustomed to and fond of the sound of his voice. His last book, “The Karamazof Brothers,” was so interminably long that very few Russians had patience to read it to the end. But it contains some scenes equal to his best of early days, especially that of the death of the child. The French novel grows ever smaller, is easily slipped into a travelling-bag, to while away a few hours on a journey; but the heavy Russian romance reigns long upon the family table in country homes, through the long winter evenings. I well remember seeing Dostoyevski entering a friend’s house, on the day his last novel appeared, with the heavy volumes under his arm; and his saying with pride: “They weigh, at least, five pounds”;―a fact he should rather have regretted than have taken pride in.

I should say here that the three books which best show the different phases of his talent are: “Poor People,” “Recollections of a Dead House,” and “Crime and Punishment.” As to the criticism of his works as a whole, every one will have to use his own judgment. We must look upon Dostoyevski as a phenomenon of another world, an abnormal and mighty monster, quite unique as to originality and intensity. In spite of his genius, you feel that he lacks both moderation and breadth. The world is not composed of shadows and tears alone. Even in Russia there is light and gayety, there are flowers and pleasures. Dostoyevski has never seen but one half of life; for he has never written any books except either sad or terrible ones. He is like a traveller who has seen the whole universe, and described what he has seen, but who has never travelled except by night. He is an incomparable psychologist when he studies souls either blackened by crime or wounded by sorrow; and as skilful a dramatist, but limited to scenes of terror and of misery. No one has carried realism to such an extreme point as he. He depicts real life, but soars above reality in a superhuman effort toward some new consummation of the Gospel. He possesses a double nature, from whatever side you view him: the heart of a Sister of Charity and the spirit of a Grand Inquisitor. I think of him as belonging to another age, to the time of great sacrifices and intense devotion, hesitating between a St. Vincent de Paul and a Laubardemont, preceding the first in his search for destitute children, lingering behind the other, unwilling to lose the last crackling of the funeral pile.

According as we are affected by particular examples of his talent, we call him a philosopher, an apostle, a lunatic, a consoler of the afflicted, or the torturer of a tranquil mind; the Jeremiah of the prison or the Shakespeare of the mad-house. Every one of these appellations belongs to him; but no one of them, taken alone, will suffice. What he himself said of his race, in “Crime and Punishment,” we may say of him:―

“The soul of the Russian is great, like his vast country; but terribly prone to everything fantastic and excessive; it is a real misfortune to be great without any special genius.”

I subscribe to this; but also to the opinion that I have heard expressed upon this book by one of our masters of psychology: “This author opens up unknown horizons, and discloses souls different from ours; he reveals to us a new world of beings, with stronger natures, both for good and evil, having stronger wills and greater endurance.”

V.

I must apologize for returning to personal recollections in order to make this sketch complete, and must therefore recall the man himself, and give some idea of his extraordinary influence. By chance I met Feodor Mikhailovitch many times during the last three years of his life. The impression he made upon you was as profound as was that of the most striking scenes of his romances; if you had once seen him, you would never forget him. His appearance exactly corresponded with his life and its work. He was short and spare, and seemed to be all nerves; worn and haggard at the age of sixty. He was, in fact, prematurely old, and looked ill, with his long beard and blond hair, but, in spite of all, as vivacious as ever. His face was of the true peasant type of Moscow: the flat nose; the small, twinkling eyes, full of fire and tenderness; the broad forehead, all seamed with wrinkles, and with many indentations and protuberances; the sunken temples, and, most noticeable of all, a mouth of inexpressible sadness. I never saw in any human face such an expression of accumulated sorrow―as if every trial of soul and body had left its imprint upon it. You could read in his face better than in any book his recollections of the dead house, and his long experience of terror, mistrust, and martyrdom. His eyelids, lips, and every fibre of his face quivered with nervous contractions. His features would grow fierce with anger when excited over some subject of discussion, and at another time would wear the gentle expression of sadness you so often see in the saints on the ancient Slavonic altar-pieces, so venerated by the Slav nation. The man’s nature was wholly plebeian, with the curious mixture of roughness, sagacity, and mildness of the Russian peasant, together with something incongruous―possibly an effect of the concentration of thought illumining this beggar’s mask. At first he rather repelled you, before his strange magnetism had begun to act upon you. He was generally taciturn, but when he spoke it was in a low tone, slow and deliberate, growing gradually more earnest, and defending his opinions without regard to any one. While sustaining his favorite theme of the superiority of the Russian lower classes, he often observed to ladies in the fashionable society he was drawn into, “You cannot pretend to compare with the most inferior peasant.”

There was not much opportunity for literary discussion with Dostoyevski. He would stop you with one word of proud disdain. “We possess the best qualities of every other people, and our own peculiar ones in addition; therefore we can understand you, but you are not capable of understanding us.”

May I be forgiven, but I shall now attempt to prove the contrary. In spite of his assertion, his views on European life were laughably ingenuous. I remember well one of his tirades against the city of Paris, one evening when the inspiration seized him. He spoke of it with fiery indignation, as Jonah would have spoken concerning Nineveh. I remember the very words:―

“Some night a prophet will appear in the ‘Café Anglais’! He will write on the wall the three words of fire; that will be the signal for the end of the old world, and Paris will be destroyed in fire and blood, in all its pride, with its theatres and its ‘Café Anglais.’” In the seer’s imagination, this inoffensive establishment represented the heart of Sodom, a den of enticing and infernal orgies, which he thought it his duty to call down curses upon. He enlarged long and eloquently upon this theme.

He often reminded me of J. J. Rousseau. That pedantic genius has often come before me since I have studied the character and works of this distrustful philanthropist of Moscow. Both entertained the same notions, had the same combination of roughness and ideality, of sensibility and ill-humor, as well as the same deep sympathy for humanity which compels the attention of their contemporaries. After Rousseau, no man had greater literary defects than Dostoyevski: boundless self-love, over-sensitiveness, jealousy, and spite, none knew better how to win the hearts of his fellow-men by showing them how they filled his heart. This writer, so forbidding in society, was the idol of a large proportion of the young men of Russia, who awaited with feverish impatience the appearance of his novels, as well as his periodical; who consulted him as they would a spiritual adviser and director, and sought his help in all moral questions.

The most important work of the latter years of his life was to reply to the scores of letters which brought to him the echo of strangers’ grievances. One must have lived in Russia during those troublous times, to understand the ascendancy he obtained over the world of “Poor People” in their search for a new ideal, as well as over the class just above the very poor. The influence of Turgenef’s literary and artistic work was most unjustly eclipsed; Tolstoï with his philosophy influenced only the most intellectual minds, but Dostoyevski won all hearts and obtained a most powerful sway over them. In 1880, at the time of the inauguration of the monument to Pushkin, when all the Russian authors assembled in full force to celebrate the fête, Dostoyevski’s popularity entirely obliterated that of all his rivals. The audience sobbed when he addressed them. They bore him in triumph in their arms; the students crowded upon the platform and took possession of it, that they might see and be near him and touch him; and one of these young enthusiasts swooned from emotion when he had succeeded in reaching him. The current of feeling ran so high that had he lived a few years longer he would have found himself in a very difficult position. In the official hierarchy of the empire there is no place for plants of such exuberant growth; no field for the influence of a Goethe or a Voltaire. In spite of his consistency in politics and his perfect orthodoxy, the old exile would have seriously risked being compromised by his blind partisans, and even considered dangerous. They only realized on the day of his death how dangerous he was.

Although I regret to finish this sombre sketch with a funereal scene, I cannot refrain from speaking of the apotheosis accorded to him, and the impression it made upon me, for it will show, more than any extended criticism, what this man was to his native country. On the 10th of February, 1881, some friends of Dostoyevski told me that he had died the preceding night, after a short illness. We went to his house to attend the service which the Russian Church holds twice a day over the remains of the dead, from the time of the decease until the burial. He lived in a populous quarter of St. Petersburg. We found an immense crowd before the door and on the staircase, and with great difficulty threaded our way to the study, where the great author lay. It was a small apartment, strewn with papers and pamphlets, and crowded by the visitors, who filed around the coffin, which rested upon a little table at one end of the room. I saw that face for the first time at peace, utterly free from pain. He seemed to be happily dreaming under the profusion of roses, which quickly disappeared, divided among the crowd as relics. The crowd increased every moment, all the women were in tears, the men boisterously pushing and crowding, eager to see his face. The temperature of the room became suffocating, being closed quite tightly from the air, as Russian rooms are in winter. Suddenly the air seemed to be exhausted, all the candles went out, and only the little flickering lamp before the holy images remained. Just at this moment, in the darkness, there was a terrible rush from the staircase, bringing a new influx of people. It seemed as if the whole crowd outside were mounting the stairs; the first comers were hurled against the coffin, which tottered―the poor widow, crowded, with her two children, between the table and the wall, threw herself over the body of her husband, and held it, screaming with terror. For a few moments we thought the corpse would be crushed under foot by the crowd. It oscillated, pressed upon by this mass of humanity, by the ardent and brutal affection of the rushing throngs below. At this moment there came before me a rapid vision of the author’s whole work, with all the cruelty, terror, and tenderness he tried to portray in it. This throng of strangers seemed to assume names and forms quite familiar to me. Fancy had sketched them in books, but now they stood living before me, taking part in a similar scene of horror. His characters seemed to have come to torment him, even after death, to bring him their rough homage, even to the profanation of the object of it. He would have appreciated just such exaggerated homage.

Two days after, this vision was repeated more completely, and on a larger scale. The 12th February, 1881, was a memorable day in Russia. Except on the occasion of the death of Skobelef, there were never seen in St. Petersburg such significant and imposing obsequies. From an early hour the whole population were standing in the street, one hundred thousand persons along the line where the procession was to pass. More than twenty thousand persons followed it. The government was alarmed, fearing some serious disturbance. They thought the corpse might be seized, and they had to repress the students who wanted to have the chains of the Siberian prisoner carried behind the funeral car. The timorous officials insisted upon preventing all risk of a revolutionary uprising. This was at the time of the most important of the Nihilist conspiracies, only one month previous to that one which cost the Tsar his life, during the time of that experiment of the liberal leader, Loris Melikof. Russia was at this moment in a state of fermentation, and the most trifling incident might produce an explosion. Loris thought it wiser to associate himself with the popular sentiment than to try to crush it out. He was right; the wicked designs of a few men were absorbed in the general grief. Through one of those unexpected combinations, of which Russia alone possesses the secret, all parties, all adversaries, all the disjointed fragments of the empire, now came together, through the death of this man, in a general communion of grief and enthusiasm. Whoever witnessed this funeral procession saw this country of contrasts illustrated in all its phases; the priests who chanted the service, the students of the universities, the school children, the young female students from the medical schools, the Nihilists, easily recognized by their peculiarities of dress and bearing, the men wearing a plaid over the shoulder, the spectacles and closely cut hair of the women; all the literary and scientific societies, deputations from every part of the empire, old Muscovite merchants, peasants, lackeys, and beggars. In the church waited the official dignitaries, the minister of public instruction, and the young princes of the imperial family.

A forest of banners, crosses, and wreaths were borne by that army, which was made up of such various elements, and produced in the spectator such a medley of impressions. To me everything that passed seemed an illustration of the author’s work, formed of elements both formidable and restless, with all their folly and grandeur. In the first rank, and most numerous, were those he loved best, the ‘poor people,’ the ‘degraded,’ the ‘insulted,’ the ‘possessed’ even, glad to take part in leading the remains of their advocate over this path of glory;―but accompanying and surrounding all were the uncertainty and confusion of the national life, as he had painted it, filled with all the vague hopes that he had stirred.

The crowd pressed into the little church, decked with flowers, and into the cemetery around it. Then there was a Babel of words. Before the altar the high-priest discoursed of God and of eternity, while others took the body to carry it to the grave, and discoursed of glory. Official orators, students, _Slavophile_ and liberal committees, men of letters and poets,―every one came there to set forth his own ideal, to claim the departed spirit for his cause, and parade his own ambition over this tomb.

While the winter wind bore away all this eloquence with the rustling leaves and the snow-dust raised by the spades of the grave-diggers, I made an effort to make, in my own mind, a fair estimate of the man’s moral worth and of his life’s work. I felt as much perplexed as when I had to pronounce judgment upon his literary merit. He had sympathized with the people, and awakened sympathy, and even piety, in them. But what excessive ideas and what moral convulsions he engendered! He had given his heart to the cause, it is true; but unaccompanied by reason, that inseparable companion of the heart. I reviewed the whole course of that strange life;―born in a hospital, to a youth of poverty, illness, and trial, exiled to Siberia, then sent to the barracks, ever pursued by poverty and distress, always crushed, and yet ennobled by a labor which was his salvation. I now felt that this persecuted life should not be judged by our standards, which may not apply to his peculiar case, and that I must leave him to Him who judges all hearts according to their true merits. When I bent over his grave, covered with laurel wreaths, the farewell words which came to my lips were those of the student to the poor abandoned girl, and which express Dostoyevski’s entire creed: “It is not only before thee that I prostrate myself, but before all suffering humanity!”

FOOTNOTES:

[J] An English translation was published in 1886, under
the title, “Injury and Insult.”

[K] Published also under the title “Buried Alive.”