Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  Now to end my Baden adventures: we agonized in that hell for seven weeks. Directly after my arrival there, I met Gontscharov at the railway-station. At first Ivan Alexandrovitch was cautious before me. That State-Councillor — or State-Councillor that ought-to-be — was also occupied in gambling. But when he realized that it could not be kept a secret, and as I myself was playing with gross publicity, he soon ceased to pretend to me. He played with feverish excitement (though only for small stakes). He played during the whole fortnight that he spent in Baden, and lost, I think, quite a good deal. But God give this good fellow health; when I had lost everything (he had, however, seen me with large sums in my hands), he gave me, at my request, 60 francs. Certainly he lectured me terribly at the same time, because I had lost all, and not only half, like him!

  Gontscharov talked incessantly about Turgenev; I kept putting off my visit to him — still, eventually I had to call. I went about noon, and found him at breakfast. I’ll tell you frankly — I never really liked that man. The worst of it is that since 1857, at Wiesbaden, I’ve owed him 50 dollars (which even to-day I haven’t yet paid back!). I can’t stand the aristocratic and Pharisaical sort of way he embraces one, and offers his cheek to be kissed. He puts on monstrous airs; but my bitterest complaint against him is his book “Smoke.” He told me himself that the leading idea, the point at issue, in that book, is this: “If Russia were destroyed by an earthquake and vanished from the globe, it would mean no loss to humanity — it would not even be noticed.” He declared to me that that was his fundamental view of Russia. I found him in irritable mood; it was on account of the failure of “Smoke.” I must tell you that at the time the full details of that failure were unknown to me. I had heard by letter of Strachov’s article in the O. Z., but I didn’t know that they had torn him to pieces in all the other papers as well, and that in Moscow, at a club, I believe, people had collected signatures to a protest against “Smoke.” He told me that himself. Frankly, I never could have imagined that anyone could so naïvely and clumsily display all the wounds in his vanity, as Turgenev did that day; and these people go about boasting that they are atheists. He told me that he was an uncompromising atheist. My God! It is to Deism that we owe the Saviour — that is to say, the conception of a man so noble that one cannot grasp it without a sense of awe — a conception of which one cannot doubt that it represents the undying ideal of mankind. And what do we owe to these gentry — Turgenev, Herzen, Utin, Tchernychevsky? In place of that loftiest divine beauty on which they spit, we behold in them such ugly vanity, such unashamed susceptibility, such ludicrous arrogance, that it is simply impossible to guess what it is that they hope for, and who shall take them as guides. He frightfully abused Russia and the Russians. But I have noticed this: all those Liberals and Progressives who derive chiefly from Bielinsky’s school, find their pleasure and satisfaction in abusing Russia. The difference is that the adherents of Tchernychevsky merely abuse, and in so many words desire that Russia should disappear from the face of the earth (that, first of all!). But the others declare, in the same breath, that they love Russia. And yet they hate everything that is native to the soil, they delight in caricaturing it, and were one to oppose them with some fact that they could not explain away or caricature — any fact with which they were obliged to reckon — they would, I believe, be profoundly unhappy, annoyed, even distraught. And I’ve noticed that Turgenev — and for that matter all who live long abroad — have no conception of the true facts (though they do read the newspapers), and have so utterly lost all affection and understanding for Russia that even those quite ordinary matters which in Russia the very Nihilists no longer deny, but only as it were caricature after their manner — these fellows cannot so much as grasp. Amongst other things he told me that we are bound to crawl in„the dust before the Germans, that there is but one universal and irrefutable way — that of civilization, and that all attempts to create an independent Russian culture are but folly and pigheadedness. He said that he was writing a long article against the Russophils and Slavophils. I advised him to order a telescope from Paris for his better convenience. “What do you mean?” he asked. “The distance is somewhat great,” I replied; “direct the telescope on Russia, and then you will be able to observe us; otherwise you can’t really see anything at all.” He flew into a rage. When I saw him so angry, I said with well-simulated naïveté: “Really I should never have supposed that all the articles derogatory to your new novel could have discomposed you to this extent; by God, the thing’s not worth getting so angry about. Come, spit upon it all!”

  “I’m not in the least discomposed. What are you thinking of?” he answered, getting red.

  I interrupted him, and turned the talk to personal and domestic matters. Before going away, I brought forth, as if quite casually and without any particular object, all the hatred that these three months have accumulated in me against the Germans. “Do you know what swindlers and rogues they are here? Verily, the common people are much more evil and dishonest here than they are with us; and that they are stupider there can be no doubt. You are always talking of civilization; with what has your ‘civilization’ endowed the Germans, and wherein do they surpass us?” He turned pale (it is no exaggeration), and said: “In speaking thus, you insult me personally. You know quite well that I have definitely settled here, that I consider myself a German and not a Russian, and am proud of it.” I answered: “Although I have read your ‘Smoke,’ and have just talked with you for a whole hour, I could never have imagined that you would say such a thing. Forgive me, therefore, if I have insulted you.”

  Then we took leave of one another very politely, and I promised myself that I would never again cross Turgenev’s threshold. The next day, Turgenev came at exactly ten o’clock in the morning to my abode, and left his card with the landlady. But as I had told him the day before that I never saw anyone till noon, and that we usually slept till eleven, I naturally took his ten-o’clock call as a hint that he doesn’t wish to see any more of me. During the whole seven weeks, I saw him only once more, at the railway-station. We looked at one anothér, but no greeting passed. The animosity with which I speak of Turgenev, and the insults we offered one another, will perhaps strike you unpleasantly. But, by God, I can no other; he offended me too deeply with his amazing views. Personally, I really feel little affected, though his uppish manners are quite disagreeable enough in themselves;-but I simply can’t stand by and listen when a traitor who, if he chose, could be of service to his country, abuses Russia in the way he does. His tail-wagging to the Germans, and his hatred for the Russians, I had noticed already — four years ago. But his present rage and fury against Russia arises solely, solely, from the failure of “Smoke,” and from the fact that Russia has dared refuse to hail him as a genius. It is nothing but vanity, and therefore all the more repulsive.

  Hear now, my friend, what I have in view. Of course it was vile in me to gamble away so much. But I have lost a relatively small sum of my own actual money. Still, it would have lasted us for two months — in our present mode of living, even for four.

  I have already told you that I can’t resist winning. If, right at the beginning, I had lost the ten louis-d’or that I chose to stake, I should certainly have played no more, and gone away at once. But the gain of 4,000 francs destroyed me. The temptation of winning more (which appeared so easy) and in that way paying all my debts, and being able to provide for myself and mine — Emilie Fyodorovna, Pasha, and the others... it was too much for me, I could not resist it. But even this is no excuse, for I was not alone. I had with me a young, warmhearted, pretty creature who trusted me, whom I should have protected and sheltered, and whom consequently I ought not to have dragged down with myself to destitution,.by setting my entire, though certainly not very great, possessions upon the turn of a game. My future appears to me very dark; above all, I cannot, for the reasons I have mentioned, return to Russia; and most heavily am I oppressed by the question: What is to become of those who depend on my
help? All these thoughts murder me....

  You alone, my dear friend, are kind to me; you are my Providence. Help me in the future, too. For in all my great and small matters, I shall call upon your aid.

  You well understand the basis of all my hopes: it is clear that only under one condition can everything be arranged so as to bring forth fruit — namely, that my novel really succeeds. To that I must devote all my powers. Ah, my dear fellow, how grave, how unendurably grave it was for me, three years ago, to yield to the crazy hope that I should be able to pay all those debts, and therefore to sign the many bills of exchange. Whence shall I draw the needful energy and vitality? Experience indeed has shown that I can make a success; but what are the conditions? These alone: that every one of my works so succeeds as to awaken the keenest public interest; else all goes crash. And is that really possible? Is there any use in reckoning on it?...

  [The letter ends with a request for a loan and a further description of Dostoevsky’s desperate situation.]

  XXXV. To his Niece, Sofia Alexandrovna

  GENEVA,

  September 29 [October 11], 1867.

  Good-day, my dear friend Sonetchka. Don’t be cross with me for my far too long silence — nor with Anna Grigorovna. A. G. has had a letter to you ready for a week and more, but she will not send it with this, for she wants to add something to it. Frankly, I want to entice an answer from you. We are so frightfully bored here in Geneva that every letter you write to us will be reckoned as a good deed to you in Heaven. Moreover, you know yourself how very much I love you, and how deeply interested I am in everything that happens in your life. We arranged our trip very stupidly. We ought to have had more money, so that we could change our place of abode as often as we wished. We have had to turn our travels into a stay abroad, instead of a tour through Europe.

  Life abroad, wherever it may be, is very tiresome. As it was very expensive and very dusty in Paris, and as the summer in Italy was very hot, and cholera was cropping up there, we have spent this summer in different parts of Germany, which we chose according to the beauty of the scenery and the goodness of the air. Everywhere it was tiresome, everywhere the scenery was fine, and everywhere I had fairly good health. I was most particularly glad that Anna Grigorovna did not feel bored at all, though I am not an over-agreeable companion, and we have lived six months at a time together without friends or acquaintance. In that time we refreshed many of our old memories, and I swear to you that we would have enjoyed ourselves ten times better if we had spent the summer, not in foreign lands, but at Lublin, near you. Anna Grigorovna has developed a great talent for travelling; wherever we went, she discovered everything that was worth seeing, and at once wrote down her impressions; she has filled countless little notebooks and so on with her hieroglyphics; unfortunately she did not see half enough, even so. At last the autumn arrived. Our money no longer sufficed for a trip to Italy, and there were other hindrances besides. We thought of Paris, and later regretted much that we had not gone there, instead of to Geneva. I had already, it is true, been three times at Geneva, but had never stayed there long, and so knew nothing of the climate of the town: the weather changes at least three times a day, and I have had my attacks again, just as in Petersburg. Nevertheless I must work, and must stop at least five months at Geneva. I am very seriously attacking a novel (which I shall give myself the pleasure of dedicating to you, that is, Sonetchka, Sofia Alexandrovna Ivanovna, as I long since decided); I am going to publish it in the Roussky Viestnik. I don’t know whether I shall bring it off; my God, if it weren’t for my poverty, I should never have made up my mind to publish it now — that is, in these days of ours. The sky is so overcast. Napoleon has declared that already he perceives several black marks on his horizon. To settle the Mexican, the Italian, and, chiefest of all, the German questions, he will have to divert public attention by a war, and win the French to himself by the old method — a successful campaign. But though the French of to-day are probably not thus to be beguiled, a war is nevertheless very likely. You will already have seen this yourself (do you, by the way, read some newspapers? For God’s sake, do! Nowadays they must be read, not only because it is the mode, but so as to trace the ever more decisively and strikingly evident connection of great and small events). But if war does break out, artistic wares will fall considerably in price. This is a very important contingency, which of itself makes me thoughtful. With us in Russia, indeed, there has lately been apparent, even without war, a great indifference to artistic things. Most of all I dread mediocrity: a work should either be very good or very bad, but, for its life, not mediocre. Mediocrity that takes up thirty printed sheets is something quite unpardonable.

  I beg you, dear, to write me as fully as possible about everything that has happened to you and yours in these six months. What have you — I mean you, yourself — been doing, and what are your plans? We shall have to make ours very much the same. My passport is good only for six months, but I shall have to stay here six months longer, or perhaps even more. It depends on purely business matters. And yet I should like to get back to Russia, and that for many reasons. In the first place, I should then have a fixed place of abode. Moreover, after my return, I should decidedly like to edit something in the shape of a paper. (I think I have spoken before to you of this; the form and scope of the undertaking I now see quite clearly in my mind’s eye.) Now for that, I must be at home, where I can hear everything with my own ears and see it with my own eyes. For the rest, I’m glad that I now have some work on hand; if I hadn’t, I should die of ennui; whether, when the novel is finished (which it may not be for a long time), I shall begin anything else in these foreign lands, I really don’t know. I simply can’t understand the Russian “tourists,” who often stay here three years. A trip abroad may be useful, and even enjoyable, if it lasts about six months, and if one stays nowhere longer than a fortnight and keeps continually on the go. And one might really get well on such a trip. But there are people who live here long with their families, educate their children here, forget the Russian language, and finally, when they are at the end of their resources, return home, and set up to instruct us, instead of learning from us. Yes; here they stay mouldering, and then need a whole year to get used to things at home and fall into the right groove again. In particular a writer (unless he’s a scholar or a specialist) can’t possibly stay Jong. In our craft, truth is the chief thing; but here one can see only Swiss truth.

  Geneva lies on the Lake of Geneva. The lake is wonderful, its shores are picturesque, but Geneva itself is the essence of tedium. It is an old Protestant town, and yet one sees countless drunken people everywhere. When I arrived here, the Peace Congress was just beginning, to which Garibaldi himself came. He went away immediately afterwards. It was really incredible how these socialist and revolutionary gentlemen whom hitherto I had known only from books, sat and flung down lies from the platform to their audience of five thousand! It’s quite indescribable. One can hardly realize, even for one’s self, the absurdity, feebleness, futility, disunion, and the depth of essential contradictoriness. And it is this rabble which is stirring up the whole unfortunate working-class! It’s too deplorable. That they may attain to peace on earth, they want to root out the Christian faith, annihilate the Great Powers and cut them up into a lot of small ones, abolish capital, declare that all property is common to all, and so forth. And all this is affirmed with no logical demonstration whatever; what they learnt twenty years ago, they are still babbling to-day. Only when fire and sword have exterminated everything, can, in their belief, eternal peace ensue. But enough of this. I shall most certainly answer your letters, dear, by return of post.

  Your very loving

  FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

  XXXVI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

  GENEVA,

  October 9 [21], 1867.

  [At first he talks of his want of money.]

  As far as I personally am concerned, I don’t care at all where I spend the next five months, for I intend to w
ork for at least that time. But though t that is so, Geneva is nevertheless detestable, and I deceived myself grossly in regard to it. My attacks recur every week here; and also I sometimes have a peculiar, very troublesome fluttering of the heart. It isrt a horrible town, like Cayenne. There are storms that last for days, and even on the most normal days the weather changes three and four times. And this I have to endure — I, with my haemorrhoids and epilepsy! And then, it’s so gloomy, so depressing! And the people are so selfsatisfied and boastful! It is the mark of quite peculiar stupidity to be so self-satisfied. Everything is ugly here, utterly rotten, and expensive. The people are always drunk! Even in London there are not so many rowdies and “drunks.” Every single thing, every post in the street, they regard as beautiful and majestic. “Where is such-and-such a street?” one asks. “Voyez, monsieur, vous irez tout droit, et quand vous passerez près de cette majestueuse et élégante fontaine en bronze, vous prendrez,” etc. The “majestueuse et élégante fontaine” is an insignificant and tasteless object in the rococo style; but a Genevese must always boast, even if you only ask him the way. They’ve made a little garden out of a few bushes (there’s not a single tree in it), about as big as two of the front gardens that one sees in Sadovaya Street in Moscow; but they must needs photograph it, and sell the pictures as a view of “the English Garden at Geneva.” The devil run away with the humbugs! And all the while there lies, only two and a half hours from Geneva on the same lake, the town of Vevey, where, I am told, the climate in winter is very healthy and even pleasant. Who knows — perhaps we shall move over there, one of these days. Nothing depends on me now. Let come wliat come will.