The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky (Modern Library Classics)
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And—I did find that little girl.… And I shall go on! I shall go on!
COMMENTARY
STEFAN ZWEIG
ANDRÉ GIDE
STEFAN ZWEIG
For Dostoeffsky, as for all his characters, “I am,” “I exist,” is the greatest triumph of life, the superlative sensation of belonging to the universe. Dmitri Karamazoff, in his prison cell, sings a hymn of praise on the subject of this “I exist,” on the voluptuous pleasure of “existing”; and it is for the sake of this love of life that so much suffering is necessary. We see, therefore, that it is only on the surface of things that the sum total of suffering appears to be greater in Dostoeffsky’s works than in those of any other author. For, if ever there was a world where nothing is inexorably fixed, where, from the deepest chasm, a path leads up to safety, where every misfortune culminates in ecstasy, where every despair is crowned with hope, then that world is Dostoeffsky’s world.…
Each one of Dostoeffsky’s heroes is asking himself the questions that are occupying the mind of all Russians: “Who am I? What am I worth?” He seeks himself, or, rather, the superlative essence of himself, in the unstable, in the spaceless, in the timeless. He wishes to see himself as God sees him; he wishes to acknowledge himself. Truth is more than a mere need to him; it is an excess, a voluptuousness, an avowal of the most intimate of his pleasures; it is his spasm, his orgasm.… It is here, in these combats for the revelation of the genuine ego, that Dostoeffsky reaches his greatest intensity. Here, in the arena of the inner man, the big tournaments take place. These are mighty epics of the heart, wherein what is purely Russian is purged away, and the tragedy broadens to include all mankind. The symbolical destiny of Dostoeffsky’s figures then becomes explicit and staggering. Again and again, we live through the mystery of self-birth, of the myth created by Dostoeffsky himself: the birth of the new man from the universal humanity which resides in every pilgrim here below.
From “Dostoeffsky,” in Master Builders, an Attempt at the Typology of the Spirit:
Three Masters: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoeffsky, vol. 1,
translated by Eden Paul and Cedar Paul (translation copyright © 1930,
copyright renewed © 1957, by the Viking Press, Inc.;
reprinted by permission of the Estate of Stefan Zweig;
originally published as Drei Meister: Balzac, Dickens, Dostojewski,
Insel-Verlag, 1922), Viking Penguin Inc., 1930
ANDRÉ GIDE
Despite the extraordinarily rich diversity of his Comédie Humaine, Dostoevsky’s characters group and arrange themselves always on one plane only, that of humility and pride. This system of grouping discomfits us; indeed, at first, it appears far from clear, for the very simple reason that we do not usually approach the problem of making a diversion at such an angle and that we distribute mankind in hierarchies.
[It] is not according to the positive or negative quality of their virtue that one can hierarchize (forgive me this horrible word!) his characters: not according to their goodness of heart, but by their degree of pride.
Dostoevsky presents on one side the humble (some of these are humble to an abject degree, and seem to enjoy their abasement); on the other, the proud (some to the point of crime). The latter are usually the more intelligent. We shall see them, tormented by the demon of pride, ever striving after something higher still.
His women, even more so than his characters of the other sex, are ever moved and determined by considerations of pride.
In all Dostoevsky we have not a single great man. “But what about that splendid Father Zossima in [The Brothers Karamazov]?” you may say. Yes, he is certainly the noblest figure the Russian novelist had drawn; he far and away dominates the whole tragedy.… At the same time we shall realize what in Dostoevsky’s eyes constitutes his real greatness. Father Zossima is not of the great as the world reckons them. He is a saint—no hero! And he has reached saintliness by surrender of will and abdication of intellect.
His heroes’ determination, every particle of cleverness and will-power they possess, seem but to hurry them onward to perdition, and if I seek to know what part mind plays in Dostoevsky’s novels, I realize that its power is demonic.
His most dangerous characters are the strongest intellectually, and not only do I maintain that the mind and the will of Dostoevsky’s characters are active solely for evil, but that, when urged and guided towards good, the virtue to which they attain is rotten with pride and leads to destruction. Dostoevsky’s heroes inherit the Kingdom of God only by the denial of mind and will and the surrender of personality.
From Dostoevsky, translated by Arnold Bennett (translation copyright © 1961 by
New Directions Publishing Corporation; all rights reserved; reprinted by
permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation; originally published as
Dostoïevsky, Plon-Nourrit et Cie, 1923), New Directions, 1961
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that Dostoevsky was the “only psychologist” from whom he ever learned anything. Discuss the psychological dimensions of Dostoevsky’s stories: in what ways does he illuminate human personality, passion, motivation, and character, and the role of the irrational in the human psyche?
2. What attitudes toward an analysis of religion—one of Dostoevsky’s great themes—can you discern in the short works contained in this volume? Are his ideas about or insights into religion consistent from story to story? Do they vary?
3. “Notes from the Underground,” Dostoevsky’s most important and influential short novel, was in part inspired by distaste for a novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky entitled What Is to Be Done?, a utopian work that embraces notions of human rationality, scientific determinism, and human progress. In what ways does “Notes from the Underground” respond to or critique such notions? What kinds of insights into human nature and its workings does this crucial work provide?
4. Why does the protagonist in “Notes from the Underground” describe himself as “spiteful”? Why does the protagonist in “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” consider himself “ridiculous”?
5. Many of Dostoevsky’s short works—particularly “A Gentle Creature”—were inspired by events in his own life (see David Magarshack’s introduction to this volume). In what ways, in your view, does Dostoevsky put personal experience to work in his art?
6. As David Magarshack notes, “lack of sympathy,” or the “failure to realize what is passing in another human being’s heart,” is a central theme for Dostoevsky, one rendered in an especially poignant way in “A Gentle Creature.” How is this theme articulated in the various stories in this collection?
7. Many of Dostoevsky’s main characters could be described as dreamers (the protagonists of “White Nights,” “Notes from the Underground,” and “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” for instance). Why is dreaming important for Dostoevsky’s protagonists?
8. Would you say that Dostoevsky offers a realistic portrayal of Russian life and society?
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FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Great thinkers of the modern age from Nietzsche to Freud and Sartre have recognized Dostoevsky as a preeminent analyst of the human condition in the post-Enlightenment age. His pathbreaking novels, such as Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–80)—his last and crowning achievement—depicted the often devastating personal consequences of new political and social ideas by exploring his characters’ internal struggles with the rapidly changing moral, social, economic, and religious order of the time. The remarkable depth of his analysis with respect both to individual psychology and to the complex fabric of human interaction has secured Dostoevsky his place as one of the greatest and most widely read masters of the novel.
Dostoevsky was born in Moscow on October 30, 1821. His father, an army surgeon, was granted noble status in 1828 and purchased a small estate. In 1837, he sent his son to be educated at the Military Engineering Academy in St. Petersburg, where the latter remained even after his father’s death to finish his education and receive his officer’s rank. However, after just a year in government service, Dostoevsky retired to devote himself full-time to literature. His first work of fiction, Poor Folk, was published in 1846 to great acclaim and praised by one critic as the first “social novel” in Russia. Dostoevsky’s early commitment to social problems was not limited to his fiction. He was a participant in several politically subversive groups that called for radical changes such as the emancipation of the serfs and reform of the judicial system. In 1849, he was arrested along with other members of the so-called Petrashevsky circle and condemned to death. Though the sentence was commuted, the prisoners were not informed of this until after they had been led in front of the firing squad. The anticipation of certain death left an indelible impression on Dostoevsky and he wrote about the experience at length in later works, such as The Idiot (1868–69).
Dostoevsky served four years of hard labor in Omsk followed by six years as a soldier in another Siberian town before being allowed to return to St. Petersburg, where he revived his literary reputation with the publication of his fictionalized prison memoir, Notes from the Dead House (1861–62). Two years later he published Notes from Underground, a work that proved seminal in its use of an alienated anti-hero who anticipates Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov. Although he enjoyed literary success, Dostoevsky was continually plagued by a variety of personal troubles—worsening epilepsy, an unhappy marriage, a failed affair abroad, and the deaths of his wife and brother in the mid-sixties. In addition, there were great financial difficulties (compounded by gambling), at one point forcing him to complete his novel The Gambler (1866) in a mere twenty-six days. To flee his creditors, he went abroad again, where he remained with his second wife until 1871, writing The Idiot and much of Demons (1871–72).
Upon his return to Russia, Dostoevsky lived a largely retiring life in a small town with his wife and young children. His growing conservatism, religious focus, and scathing repudiation of the new generation of radicals had estranged some of his former associates. However, he was reconciled to his critics in June of 1880, when he delivered a rousing speech at the commemoration ceremonies of Russia’s national poet, Alexandr Pushkin. The speech declared the Russian character to have a unique genius for universality and affirmed Russia as the unifying force of Western civilization. In the wake of his electrifying proclamation of Russia’s world mission, Dostoevsky was hailed as a prophet. When he died the following year, just two months after the completion of The Brothers Karamazov, his funeral was attended by fifty thousand mourners.