Pushkin, still in flush of imitating Byron and Chénier, suddenly found
what Dostoevsky calls the “Russian note,” a note “fresh and sincere.”
Replying to the question (which he describes as “accursed”) “What faith
can we have in the Russian people and in its worth?” Pushkin exclaimed,
“Humble thyself, thou son of arrogance, and first conquer thy pride.
Humble thyself and before the people, bend thy neck towards thy mother
earth.”
Never perhaps are ethnic differences more clearly marked than when the
manner of interpreting _honour_ is involved. The hidden mainspring
of civilized man’s conduct seems to me to be less a matter of
amour-propre, as La Rochefoucauld would have said, than a feeling for
what we call the “point of honour.” This feeling for personal honour,
this sensitive spot, is not exactly alike for Frenchman, Englishman,
Italian, and Spaniard. But contrasted with the Russian conception, the
codes of honour of all Western nations seem to fuse practically into
one. When we appreciate the Russian’s idea of honour, we see at once
how often the code of the Western world is opposed to the teaching of
the Gospels. And the Russian idea of honour is as much closer to the
Gospels by virtue of its remoteness from Western nations; in other
words, Christian feeling is predominant in the Russians, and often
takes precedence of “honour” as we Westerners interpret the idea.
Faced with the choice of seeking revenge or asking pardon by admitting
himself in the wrong, the Westerner will often consider the second
alternative lacking in dignity, the attitude of a coward or a
nonentity. The Westerner tends to esteem unwillingness to forgive,
forget, or remit offences a mark of strength of character, and
certainly he tries never to put himself in the wrong; but, should he
have done so, it would appear that the most unpleasant thing that could
befall him would be the necessity for admitting the fact! The Russian,
on the other hand, is ever ready to admit himself in the wrong--and
even before his enemies--equally willing to humble himself and seek
forgiveness.
The Greek Orthodox religion, no doubt, is only encouraging a national
inclination by tolerating, nay, approving, public confession. The
notion of confession, not murmured low into priestly ears, but made
openly, before any and all, comes up again and again, almost with the
quality of an obsession, in Dostoevsky’s novels. When Raskolnikov has
confessed his crime to Sonia, in _Crime and Punishment_, she advises
him, as the one means of unburdening his soul, at once to prostrate
himself in the public street and cry aloud, “I have the blood of a
fellow-being on my hands.” Most of Dostoevsky’s characters are seized
at certain moments--and almost invariably in unexpected and ill-advised
fashion--with the urgent desire to make confession, to ask pardon of
some fellow-creature who often has not a notion what it is all about,
the desire to place themselves in a posture of inferiority to the
person addressed.
You remember, I am sure, the extraordinary scene in _The Idiot_, in
the course of an evening party at Nastasya Filippovna’s house. To pass
the time someone suggested in place of parlour games or charades that
each guest should confess the vilest act he ever committed; and the
wonderful part is that the suggestion was not scouted, and that each
one present commenced his or her confession, with varying degree of
sincerity, no doubt, but almost without a vestige of shame.
And more curious still, an anecdote from Dostoevsky’s own life, which
I have from a Russian in his intimate circle. I was imprudent enough
to tell it to several individuals and already it has been made use
of; but in the form I found it retailed, it was fast approaching
unrecognizability. Hence my anxiety to give the exact facts here.
There are, in Dostoevsky’s life, certain extremely obscure episodes.
One, in particular, already alluded to in _Crime and Punishment_ and
which seems to have served as theme for a certain chapter in _The
Possessed_. This chapter does not figure in the novel, having been
so far withheld in Russia even. It has, I believe, been printed in
Germany, but in an edition for private circulation only.[49] It deals
with the rape of a young girl. The child victim hangs herself, and in
the next room, Stavrogin, the guilty man, knowing that she is hanging
herself, waits until life has left her little body. What measure of
truth is there in this sinister tale? For the moment, it is not for
me to say. The fact remains that Dostoevsky, after an adventure of
this nature, was moved to what one must needs describe as remorse.
This remorse preyed upon him for a while, and doubtless he said to
himself what Sonia said to Raskolnikov. The need for confession became
urgent, but confession not merely to a priest. He sought to find the
person before whom confession would cause him the acutest suffering.
Turgeniev, without the shadow of a doubt! Dostoevsky had not seen him
for long, and was on uncommonly bad terms with him. M. Turgeniev was
a respectable man, rich, famous, and held in wide esteem. Dostoevsky
summoned up all his courage, or rather, he succumbed to a kind of
giddiness, to a mysterious and awful attraction. Picture Turgeniev’s
comfortable study: the author himself at his desk.--The bell rings.--A
manservant announces Fyodor Dostoevsky.--What is his business?--He is
shown in, and at once begins to tell his tale.--Turgeniev listens, dumb
with stupefaction. What business of his is all this? No doubt the other
man is mad!--After the confession, a great silence. Dostoevsky waits
for some word or sign from Turgeniev, believing no doubt that like in
his own novels, Turgeniev will take him in his arms, kiss him and weep
over him, and be reconciled ... but nothing happens:
“Monsieur Turgeniev, I must tell you how deeply I despise myself....”
He pauses again.... The silence remains unbroken until Dostoevsky,
unable to contain himself any longer, bursts out in wrath: “But _you_ I
despise even more! That’s all I wanted to say to you,” and off he goes,
slamming the door behind him.
Here we see how humility is suddenly displaced by a very different
feeling. The man who in his humility was abasing himself, draws up
in revolt at the humiliation. Humility opens the gates of Heaven:
humiliation the gates of Hell. Humility implies a measure of free-will
submission; it is accepted without constraint and proves the truth of
the Gospel teaching: “_For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased:
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted._” Humiliation, on the
other hand, degrades the soul, warping and deforming it; it irritates,
impoverishes, and blights, inflicting a moral hurt most ill to heal.
There is not, I believe, one single deformation or deviation of
character--these kinks that make so many of Dostoevsky’s characters so
strangely morbid and disturbing--but which has its beginning in some
humiliation.
_Insulted and Injured_ is the title of one of his first books, and
his work as a whole is obsessed without ceasing by the idea that
humiliation damns, whereas humility sanctifies. Heaven, as Alyosha
Karamazov dreams and describes it to us, is a world where there will be
no injured, neither insulted.
The strangest, most disturbing figure of these novels, the terrible
Stavrogin in _The Possessed_, whose character at first is so different
from all others, is explained, and his demoniac nature accounted for,
by certain passages in the book:
“Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin,” says one of the other characters,
“was leading at that time in Petersburg a life, so to say, of mockery.
I can’t find another word to describe it, because he is not a man who
falls into disillusionment, and he disdained to be occupied with work
at that time.”[50]
And Stavrogin’s mother, to whom these remarks were addressed, says a
little farther on:
“No, it was something more than eccentricity, and I assure you,
something sacred even! A proud man who has suffered humiliation early
in life and reached the stage of ‘mockery,’ as you so subtly called
it.”[51]
And later:
“And if Nikolay had always had at his side (Varvara Petrovna almost
shouted) a gentle Horatio, great in his humility--another excellent
expression of yours, Stepan Trofimovitch!--he might long ago have been
saved from the sad and sudden demon of irony, which has tormented him
all his life.”[52]
It happens that some of Dostoevsky’s characters, whose natures have
been profoundly warped by humiliation, find as it were delight and
satisfaction in the resultant degradation, loathsome though it be.
“Was there resentment in my heart?” says the hero of _A Raw Youth_ just
when his amour-propre had been cruelly wounded, “I don’t know. Perhaps
there was. Strange to say, I always had, perhaps from my earliest
childhood, one characteristic; if I were ill-treated, absolutely
wronged and insulted to the last degree, I always showed at once an
irresistible desire to submit passively to the insult, and even to
accept more than my assailant wanted to inflict on me, as though I
would say: ‘All right, you have humiliated me, so I will humiliate
myself even more; look and enjoy it.’”[53]
For if humility be a surrender of pride, humiliation, on the other
hand, but serves to strengthen it.
Listen to the tale told by the wretched hero of the _Notes from
Underground_:
“One night, as I was passing a tavern, I saw through a lighted window
some gentlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown
out of the window. At other times, I should have felt very much
disgusted, but I was in such a mood at the time, that I actually envied
the gentleman thrown out of the window--and I envied him so much that
I even went into the tavern and into the billiard-room. ‘Perhaps,’
I thought, ‘I’ll have a fight, too, and they’ll throw me out of the
window.’
“I was not drunk--but what is one to do?--depression will drive a man
to such a pitch of hysteria! But nothing happened. It seemed that I
was not even equal to being thrown out of the window, and I went away
without having my fight.
“An officer put me in my place from the first moment. I was standing
by the billiard-room tables and in my ignorance blocking up the way,
and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without a word,
without warning or explanation, moved me from where I was standing to
another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me. I could
have forgiven blows, but I could not forgive his having moved me
without noticing me.
“Devil knows what I would have given for a real, regular quarrel--a
more decent, a more literary one, so to speak. I had been treated like
a fly. This officer was over six foot, while I was a spindly little
fellow. But the quarrel was in my hands. I had only to protest and I
certainly would have been thrown out of the window. But I changed my
mind, and preferred to beat a resentful retreat.”[54]
But if we carry the story further, we shall soon see the excess of
hatred to be nothing other than love inverted.
“... I often met that officer afterwards in the street, and noticed him
very carefully. I am not quite sure whether he recognized me: I imagine
not, I judge from certain signs. But I--I stared at him with spite and
hatred, and so it went on--for several years! My resentment grew even
deeper with years. At first I began making stealthy inquiries about
this officer. It was difficult for me to do so, for I knew no one. But
one day I heard one shout his name in the street as I was following
him at a distance, as though I was tied to him,--and so I learned his
surname. Another time I followed him to his flat, and for ten kopecks
learned from the porter where he lived, on which storey, whether he
lived alone or with others, and so on--in fact, everything one could
learn from a porter. One morning, though I had never tried my hand
with the pen, it suddenly occurred to me to write a satire on this
officer in the form of a novel which would unmask his villainy; I even
exaggerated it: at first I so altered his surname that it could not
easily be recognized, but on second thoughts I changed it, and sent the
story to the _O.Z._
“But at that time such attacks were not the fashion and my story was
not printed. That was a great vexation to me. Sometimes I positively
choked with resentment. At last I determined to challenge my enemy to a
duel. I composed a splendid, charming little letter to him, imploring
him to apologize to me, and hinting rather plainly at a duel in case
of refusal. The letter was so composed that if the officer had had the
least understanding of the good and beautiful, he would certainly have
flung himself on my neck and offered his friendship. And how fine that
would have been! How we should have got on together!”[55]
So often in Dostoevsky one particular feeling is suddenly supplanted in
this way by its direct opposite! We can find example after example of
it. For instance, that unhappy child (in _The Karamazovs_) biting with
hatred into Alyosha’s finger when the latter holds out his hand to him,
just at the time when the child, though he does not recognize it, is
developing for the same Alyosha a shy, wild affection.
And what, in this young child, could have caused such a warping of
affection?
He had seen Dmitri Karamazov, Alyosha’s brother, come drunk out of an
inn, thrash his father, and pull him insolently by the beard: “Papa,
papa, how he humiliated you!” he cried later.
Thus, over against humility--on the same moral plane, if I may be
permitted to say so, but at the other extreme of the scale--there
is pride, which humiliation exaggerates, exasperates, and deforms,
sometimes hideously.
Certainly, psychological axioms appear to Dostoevsky for what they
really are, special definitions of truth. As novelist (for Dostoevsky
is no mere theoretician, he is an explorer) he steers clear of
induction and realizes how imprudent (on his part, at least) any
attempts to formulate general laws.[56] It is for us, if we choose, to
discover these laws in his books, by cutting, as it were, paths through
the thicket. Here is one of the laws we can establish: the man who has
suffered humiliation seeks to inflict humiliation in his turn.[57]
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 division at such an angle and that we distribute mankind in
hierarchies. Let me explain my idea: in Dickens’s wonderful novels, for
instance, I am often uneasy at the conventionality, childishness even,
of his _hierarchy_, or to use Nietzsche’s phrase, _scale of values_.
While reading him I have the impression that I am contemplating one
of Fra Angelico’s _Last Judgements_ where you have the redeemed, the
damned, and the indeterminate (not too numerous!) over whom angel and
demon struggle. The balance that weighs them all, like in an Egyptian
bas-relief, reckons only the positive or negative quality of their
virtue. Heaven for the just: for the wicked, Hell. Herein Dickens is
true to the opinion of his countrymen and of his time. It does happen
that the evil prosper, while the just are sacrificed--to the great
shame of this earthly existence and of society as we have organized it.
All his novels endeavour to show us and make us realize the shining
superiority of qualities of heart over qualities of head. I have
selected Dickens as a type because of all the great novelists we know
he uses this classification in its simplest form: which--if I may say
in conclusion--is the secret of his popularity.
Now, after reading in close succession practically all Dostoevsky’s
works, I have the impression that there exists in them, too, a similar
classification: less apparent, no doubt, although almost as simple,
and, in my estimation, much more significant. For 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:
“There, I’ll bet anything--that you’ve been sitting side by side in
the drawing-room all night wasting your precious time discussing
something lofty and elevated,” says Stavrogin to the abominable Pyotr
Stepanovitch in _The Possessed_.[58] Or again:
“In spite of the terror which I detected in her myself, Katerina
Nikolaevna has always from the first cherished a certain reverence and
admiration for the nobility of Andrey Petrovitch’s principles and the
loftiness of his mind.... In his letter he gave her the most solemn
and chivalrous promises that she should have nothing to fear--she
responding with the same heroic feelings. There may have been a sort of
chivalrous rivalry on both sides.”[59]
“There is nothing in it to fret your vanity,” said Elizabeth to
Stavrogin: “The day before yesterday when I ‘insulted’ you before
everyone and you answered me so chivalrously, I went home and guessed
at once that you were running away from me because you were married,
and not from contempt for me, which, as a fashionable young lady, I
dreaded more than anything,” adding by way of conclusion, “Anyhow, it
eases our vanity.”[60]
His women, even more so than his characters of the other sex, are ever
moved and determined by considerations of pride. Look at Raskolnikov’s
sister, Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaïa Epantchin in _The Idiot_,
Elizabeth Nikolaïevna in _The Possessed_, and Katerina Ivanovna in _The
Karamazovs_!
But, by an inversion which I make bold to describe as inspired by
the New Testament, the most abject characters are nearer the Kingdom
of Heaven than the noblest. To such a degree is Dostoevsky’s work
dominated by these profound truths. “_God resisteth the proud, but
giveth grace to the humble._”--“_For the Son of man is come to save
that which was lost._”
On the one hand, denial and surrender of the self; on the other,
affirmation of the personality, the _will to power_, an exaggerated
loftiness of sentiment. And take due note of this fact; in Dostoevsky’s
novels, the _will to power_ leads inevitably to ruin.
M. Souday recently accused me of sacrificing, indeed, of immolating
Balzac to Dostoevsky. Need I protest? My admiration of Dostoevsky is
certainly fervent, but I do not think I am blinded by it. I readily
agree that Balzac’s creations surpass the Russian novelist’s in
their diversity, and that his _Comédie Humaine_ is the more varied.
Dostoevsky certainly goes deeper and touches more important points than
any other author, but we can admit that his characters are one and all
cut from the same cloth. Pride and humility! these hidden reagents
never change, although by graduating the doses of them, we obtain
reactions that are infinitely rich and minutely varied in colour.
With Balzac (as invariably in Western society, in French especially,
to which his novels hold a mirror) two factors are active which in
Dostoevsky’s work practically do not exist: first, the intellect,
second, the will. I do not pretend that in Balzac will-power always
urges a man towards what is good, and that his strong-willed
characters are never but virtuous. But at least consider how many of
his characters attain to what is of good repute by effort of will and
open up a glorious career by dint of perseverance, cleverness, and
determination. Think of his David Séchards, his Bianchons, Joseph
Brideaus, and Daniel d’Arthez--and there are twenty such I could name!
In all Dostoevsky we have not a single great man. “But what about
that splendid Father Zossima in _The Karamazovs_?” you may say. Yes,
he is certainly the noblest figure the Russian novelist had drawn;
he far and away dominates the whole tragedy, and once we have entered
into possession of the promised complete version of _The Karamazovs_,
we shall understand still better his importance. 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.
If I examine along with Balzac’s the resolute characters that
Dostoevsky presents, I suddenly realize what terrible creatures they
are, one and all. Look at Raskolnikov, heading the list; in his
beginnings, a miserable worm--with ambitions, who would like to be a
Napoleon, and only attains to being the murderer of an old broker-woman
and of an innocent girl. Look at Stavrogin, Pyotr Stepanovitch, Ivan
Karamazov, the hero of _A Raw Youth_ (the only one of Dostoevsky’s
characters who, from his earliest days, at least since consciousness
dawned, lived with a fixed determination, to wit, in this case, of
becoming a Rothschild, and, by mockery as it were, in all the books
of Dostoevsky nowhere is there a more pithless creature, at the mercy
of his fellow-beings, individually and collectively). 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.
We can without hesitation affirm that Balzac, too, is, to a certain
degree, a Christian author. But only by confronting the two ethical
points of view, the French author’s and the Russian’s, can we realize
the chasm between the former’s Catholicism and the latter’s purely
evangelical doctrine, and how widely the Catholic spirit can differ
from the purely Christian. Or, to offend none, let me express myself
thus: Balzac’s _Comédie Humaine_ sprang from the contact between the
Gospels and the Latin mind: Dostoevsky’s from the contact between the
Gospels and Buddhism, the Asiatic mind.
These are merely preliminary considerations which will help us at our
next meeting to probe deeper into the souls of these strange creations.
III
What we have accomplished so far has been a mere clearing of the
ground. Before attacking the problem of Dostoevsky’s philosophy, I
should like to warn you against a grave misconception. During the last
fifteen years of his life, Dostoevsky busied himself considerably with
the editing of a review. The articles he wrote for this periodical
have been collected in what is known as the _Journal of an Author_.
In these articles Dostoevsky sets forth his ideas. It would seem the
simplest and most natural thing in the world to make constant reference
to this book; but I may as well admit at once that it is profoundly
disappointing. In it we find an exposé of his social theories, which,
however, never emerge from the nebulous state and are most awkwardly
expressed. We find, too, political prophecies not one of which has come
true. Dostoevsky tries to foretell the future state of Europe and goes
far astray in practically every instance.