preceding papers. After each one I have felt there was something I had
forgotten to tell you. At our last meeting, for example, I wanted to
make plain the meaning of my two “proverbs”: “_Fine feelings are the
stuff bad literature is made on_,” and “_The Fiend is party to every
work of art._” What to me seems transparent may appear a paradox to
you, and as such to call for elucidation. I loathe paradoxes and never
seek effect in surprises, but had I nothing new to suggest I should
not attempt these papers; and remember, a new idea wears invariably
the guise of a paradox. To help you acknowledge the truth of what
I am saying, I proposed to call your attention to two figures, St.
Francis of Assisi and Fra Angelico. If it was vouchsafed the latter
to be a great artist (the better to prove my contention I choose as
my example the most shiningly pure figure in the whole history of
art), it was because, in spite of his purity, his art permitted of
demonic collaboration. There is no work of art to which the Demon is
not a co-signatory. The true saint is not Fra Angelico, but Francis of
Assisi. There are no artists amongst the saints, no saints amongst the
artists.
Creative art may be likened to the box of sweet spices which Mary
Magdalene brake not. I have already quoted that strange dictum of
Blake’s: “_The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels
and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a
true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it._”
There are three threads in the loom on which every work of art is
woven, the three lusts pointed out by the apostle: “... _the lust of
the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life_.”
Remember Lacordaire’s remark when congratulated upon an admirable
sermon he had just delivered: “The Devil has forestalled you.” The
Devil would not have told him his sermon was fine, indeed, he would
have been there to speak, had he not been party to it.
After citing lines from Schiller’s _Hymn to Joy_, Dmitri Karamazov
exclaims: “And the awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as
terrible. God and the Devil are fighting there and the battlefield is
the heart of man.”[113]
No artist, I am sure, has given the demonic so large a share in his
work as Dostoevsky, unless Blake himself, who concluded his admirable
little book, _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, with these words:
“_This Angel who is now become a Devil is my particular friend. We
often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense,
which the world shall have if they behave well._”
After leaving you, I realized that in quoting the strangest of
William Blake’s _Proverbs of Hell_, I had omitted to read to you the
entire passage from _The Possessed_ which had called forth these very
quotations. May I atone for my omission? In this one page from _The
Possessed_ you will marvel at the fusion--not to say confusion--of the
divers elements I sought to point out in my previous papers: optimism
first and foremost, the wild love of life we come across again and
again in Dostoevsky’s works, love of life and all the world, Blake’s
vast delectable world wherein dwells the tiger as well as the lamb.
“Are you fond of children?”
“I am,” answered Kirillov, though rather indifferently.
“Then you’re fond of life?”
“Yes, I’m fond of life! What of it?”
“Though you’ve made up your mind to shoot yourself?”
“What of it? Why connect it? Life’s one thing, and that’s another. Life
exists, but death doesn’t at all....”[114]
We saw too Dmitri Karamazov ready to take his life in a fit of
optimism, beside himself with enthusiasm.
“You seem to be very happy, Kirillov?”
“Yes, very happy,” he answered, as though making the ordinary reply.
“But you were distressed so lately, angry with Liputin?”
“H’m!... I’m not scolding now. I did not know then that I was
happy.”[115]
Do not draw a mistaken conclusion from this seeming ferocity which is
frequent in Dostoevsky. It is an integral part of his quietism, as of
Blake’s. You remember my saying that Dostoevsky’s Christianity had
closer affinities with Asia than with Rome? Yet his acceptance of the
doctrine of energy, a doctrine positively glorified by Blake, is rather
of the West than of the East.
But for Blake and Dostoevsky both, the truth of New Testament teaching
is too radiantly clear for them to deny this ferocity as but a
transitory phase, the short-lived consequence of a passing blindness.
And to reveal to you only the vision of his cruelty would be an act
of treachery towards Blake. I wish I could counter my quotations from
his terrible _Proverbs of Hell_ by reading one of the loveliest of his
_Songs of Innocence_--alas! its aëry form eludes translation--the poem
where he foretells the time when the lion in his strength will lie down
with the lamb and watch over the fold.
But let us continue with our reading from _The Possessed_.
“They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good; when they find out
they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good
and they’ll all become good, every one of them,” declares Kirillov.[116]
And so the conversation continues until we stumble across the singular
conception of the man-God.
“Here you’ve found it out! So you’ve become good then?”
“I am good.”
“That I agree with, though,” muttered Stavrogin, frowning.
“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”
“He who taught it was crucified.”
“He will come, and his name will be the man-God.”
“The God-man?”
“The man-God! That’s the difference.”[117]
The notion of a man-God succeeding the God-man brings us round again
to Nietzsche. À propos of the _superman_ theory, I should like to
contribute one emendation in protest against an opinion which is only
too current and too easily accepted. Nietzsche’s _superman_ (observe,
pray, wherein he differs from the _superman_ of Raskolnikov’s or
Kirillov’s vision), though _ruthlessness_ is his motto, is ruthless not
to others but to himself. The humanity he aspires to outstrip is his
own. In short: to one and the same problem Nietzsche and Dostoevsky
propose different, radically opposed solutions. Nietzsche advocates the
affirmation of the personality--for him it is the one possible aim in
life: Dostoevsky postulates its surrender. Nietzsche presupposes the
heights of achievement where Dostoevsky prophesies utter ruin.
At the darkest hour of the War, I read in the letters of a Red Cross
orderly (his modesty forbids me to name him), living in the midst of
agonizing sufferings and hearing but the voice of despair, “Ah, if
only they could make a sacrifice of their sufferings!”--a thought so
luminous that all commentary were a matter for reproach. I shall only
compare it with this sentence from _The Possessed_:
“Every earthly woe and every earthly tear is a joy for us. And when
you water the earth with your tears a foot deep, you will rejoice at
everything at once, and your sorrow will be no more, such is the
prophecy.”[118] Are not we very near to Pascal’s “_sweet and perfect
resignation_” and his cry of “_Joy! Joy! Tears of joy!_”?
Is not this state of bliss depicted by Dostoevsky the very one exalted
by the Gospel, a state into which we are born anew, the joy whose
fulfilment is possible only through renunciation of self, for it
is love of self which prevents us from leaping into Eternity, from
entering into the Kingdom of God and communing in the mystery of life
universal?
The first consequence of such regeneration is that man becomes as a
little child. “_Except ye be converted, and become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven._” In the words of La
Bruyère, “_Little children have neither past nor future, for they live
in the present_,” which man has lost the power to do.
“At that moment,” said Prince Myshkin to Rogozhin--“at that moment I
seem somehow to understand the extraordinary saying that _there shall
be no more time_.”[119]
This direct participation is, as I have earlier indicated, taught by
the Gospel, unwearying in its insistence upon these words, “_Et nunc_”
... “_And now_.” The perfect joy Christ means is not of the future, but
of the immediate present.
“You’ve begun to believe in future eternal life?”
“No, not in a future eternal life, but in eternal life here. There are
moments, you reach moments, and time suddenly stands still and it will
become eternal.”[120]
And towards the end of _The Possessed_ Dostoevsky reverts once more to
Kirillov’s uncanny rapture. Let us read the passage in question. It
will help us to appreciate Dostoevsky’s idea, and prepare the way for
one of the most essential truths I have left to discuss.
“There are seconds--they come five or six at a time--when you
suddenly feel the presence of the eternal harmony perfectly attained.
It’s something not earthly--I don’t mean in the sense that it’s
heavenly--but in that sense that man cannot endure it in his earthly
aspect. He must be physically changed or die. This feeling is clear and
unmistakable; it’s as though you apprehend all nature and suddenly say,
‘Yes, that’s right.’ God, when He created the world, said at the end of
each day of creation, ‘Yes, it’s right, it’s good.’ It--it’s not being
deeply moved, but simply joy. You don’t forgive anything, because there
is no more need of forgiveness. It’s not that you love--oh, there’s
something in it higher than love--what’s most awful is that it’s
terribly clear and such joy. If it lasted more than five seconds, the
soul could not endure it and must perish. In those five seconds I live
through a lifetime, and I’d give my whole life for them, because they
are worth it. To endure ten seconds one must be physically changed.
I think man ought to give up having children--what’s the use of
children, what’s the use of evolution when the goal has been attained?
In the Gospel it is written that there will be no child-bearing in the
resurrection, but that man will be like the angels of the Lord....”[121]
“‘Kirillov, does this often happen?’
“‘Once in three days, or once a week.’
“‘Don’t you have fits, perhaps?’
“‘No.’
“‘Well, you will. Be careful, Kirillov. I’ve heard that’s just how fits
begin. An epileptic described exactly that sensation before a fit,
word for word as you’ve done. He mentioned five seconds too, and said
that more could not be endured. Remember Mahomet’s pitcher from which
no drop of water was spilt while he circled Paradise on his horse.
That was a case of five seconds too; that’s too much like your eternal
harmony, and Mahomet was an epileptic. Be careful, Kirillov, it’s
epilepsy.’
“‘It won’t have time.’ Kirillov smiled gently.”[122]
In _The Idiot_ we hear Prince Myshkin connect this condition of
euphoria, familiar to him too, with the epileptic attacks to which he
is subject.
So there we have Prince Myshkin an epileptic, Kirillov an epileptic,
Smerdiakov an epileptic. There is an epileptic in each of Dostoevsky’s
great works. We know Dostoevsky himself was thus afflicted, and his
persistence in making epilepsy intervene as a factor in his novels
sufficiently indicates the rôle he assigned this disease in moulding
his ethical conceptions and directing the course of his thought.
If we seek far enough, we shall invariably find the genesis of
every serious moral reform in some physiological enigma, some
non-satisfaction of the flesh, irritation, or anomaly. Forgive me for
quoting myself again, but if I am to express my idea as explicitly as
before, I must use the same phraseology as on that previous occasion.
“It is natural that every important moral change, or, as Nietzsche
would say, _transmutation of values_, should be due to some
physiological disturbance. With physical well-being, mental activity
is in abeyance, and as long as conditions continue to be satisfactory,
no change can possibly be contemplated. By conditions I mean spiritual
circumstance, for where the external and material are implicated,
the reformer’s motive is utterly different: the one readjustment
involved is chemical, the other mechanical. There lies at the root
of every reform a distemper. The reformer is a sick man by reason of
some ill-adjustment in his spiritual balance. Densities, ratios, and
moral values present themselves to him in different perspectives,
so he exerts himself to establish a fresh accord. He aims at a new
co-ordination. His work is nothing but an attempt to reorganize, in the
light of his logic and reasoning, the elements of confusion he senses
within himself, for the unsystematic he cannot tolerate. Of course I
do not suggest that lack of balance is the necessary condition for the
making of a reformer, but I do contend that every reformer starts out
with a lack of balance.”[123]
So far as I know, it would be impossible to find, amongst the reformers
who have held up to humanity a new measure of values, one single
instance where we could fail to discern what Dr. Binet-Sanglé is
pleased to qualify a _hereditary taint_.[124]
Mahomet was an epileptic. Epileptics, too, the Prophets of Israel,
and Luther, and Dostoevsky. Socrates had his demon, Saint Paul his
mysterious “thorn in the flesh,” Pascal his abyss, Nietzsche and
Rousseau their mania.
I can hear you say, “But what is there new in this theory? It belongs
properly to Lombroso and Max Nordau. Genius is a neurosis.” No, not so
fast! I must insist on this point, for it is extraordinarily important.
There do exist geniuses, Victor Hugo for example, sane and whole.
Their perfect spiritual poise precludes the possibility of any fresh
problem. Rousseau, without his leaven of madness, would, I am sure,
be no better than an undigested Cicero. It is pointless to lament the
infirmity but for which he would never have sought to analyse the
problem raised by his own anomaly or find a harmony which would not
reject his discord. Sound and healthy reformers do undoubtedly exist,
but such are lawgivers. The man whose inner balance is perfect can
well contribute reforms--reforms which touch the outer man: he draws up
new constitutions. But the individual who is abnormal refuses to submit
to laws already established.
From knowledge of his own case, Dostoevsky supposes a pathological
condition which, for a space, imposes and suggests to one or other of
his characters a new formula of existence. To take a concrete instance,
let us consider Kirillov, who carries on his shoulders the entire plot
of _The Possessed_. We are aware he intends to take his life, but not
that his suicide is imminent: self-destruction is, however, certainly
in his mind. Why? The motive is withheld almost till the very end of
the book.
“I don’t understand what fancy possesses you to put yourself to death,”
says Pyotr Stepanovitch to him. “It wasn’t my idea; you thought of
it yourself before I appeared, and talked of your intention to the
committee abroad before you said anything to me. And you know, no one
has forced it on you; no one of them knew you, but you came to confide
in them yourself, from sentimentalism. And what’s to be done if a plan
of action here, which can’t be altered now, was founded upon that
with your consent and upon your suggestion?--_your_ suggestion, mind
that!”[125]
Kirillov’s suicide is absolutely gratuitous. I mean to say there is an
absence of outward motivation. We shall presently see what absurdities
are introduced into this world under cover of a _gratuitous act_.
After Kirillov resolves to take his life, everything becomes a matter
of profound indifference to him. His peculiar state of mind which
sanctions and accounts for his suicide (gratuitous, but _not_ without a
motive) will leave him unmoved by the imputation of a crime others will
commit and which he will calmly suffer to be laid at his own door. Such
at least is Pyotr Stepanovitch’s belief.
Pyotr Stepanovitch imagines the crime he is planning will strengthen
the bonds between the conspirators he heads and over whom he feels his
control weakening. He reckons that each individual party to the plot,
having shared in the crime, will feel his complicity and be unable,
indeed will not dare, to break away. Who is to be sacrificed?
Pyotr Stepanovitch is still undecided. It is necessary that the victim
should present himself spontaneously.
The conspirators are met together in a large room; in the course of
conversation, the question is asked, “Can there be, even now, an
informer in our midst?” An extraordinary commotion follows this remark:
everybody begins to talk at once.
“‘Gentlemen, if that is so,’ Verhovensky went on, ‘I have compromised
myself more than anyone, and so I will ask you to answer one question,
if you care to, of course. You are all perfectly free.’
“‘What question? What question?’ every one clamoured.
“‘A question that will make it clear whether we are to remain together,
or take up our hats and go our several ways without speaking.’
“‘The question! The question!’
“‘If any one of us knew of a proposed political murder, would he, in
view of the consequences, go to give information, or would he stay at
home and await events? Opinions may differ on this point. The answer
to the question will tell us clearly whether we are to separate, or to
remain together, and for far longer than this one evening.’
“After which Pyotr Stepanovitch begins to interrogate apart several
members of this secret society. He is interrupted.
“‘It’s an unnecessary question. Every one will make the same answer.
There are no informers here.’
“‘What’s that gentleman getting up for?’ cried the girl student.
“‘That’s Shatov. What are you getting up for?’ cried the lady of the
house.
“Shatov did, in fact, stand up. He was holding his cap in his hand and
looking at Verhovensky. Apparently he wanted to say something to him,
but was hesitating. His face was pale and wrathful, but he controlled
himself. He did not say one word, but in silence walked towards the
door.
“‘Shatov, this won’t make things better for you!’ Verhovensky called
after him enigmatically.
“‘But it will for you, since you are a spy and a scoundrel!’ Shatov
shouted to him from the door as he went out.
“Shouts and exclamations again.
“‘That’s what comes of a test,’ cried a voice.”[126]
Thus the victim is marked, and by his own hand. Haste is imperative:
Shatov’s murder must anticipate his denunciation.
We must admire Dostoevsky’s art in this, because constantly carried
away in my enthusiasm to discuss his ideas, I am afraid I have
neglected all too much his wonderful skill in exposition.
At this juncture in the narrative, an astounding thing comes to pass
which raises a particular artistic problem. It is a commonplace that,
passed a certain point in the evolution of the plot, there must be
nothing to deflect attention: events must move more quickly and lead
straight to the ultimate issue. Well, this is the moment, when the
action has entered on its phase of maximum rapidity, that Dostoevsky
contrives to introduce the most startling interruptions. He is
conscious that so tense is his reader’s attention everything will
assume an importance out of all proportion. With this knowledge, he
does not hesitate to distract attention from the main course of events
by brusque modulations which develop his most cherished ideas. The very
night Shatov is destined to turn informer or be murdered, his wife,
whom he has not seen for years, suddenly reappears at his house. Her
time is at hand, but at first Kirillov does not realize her condition.
Inadequately handled, this scene could become grotesque. It ranks
amongst the finest in the book. In theatrical jargon it would be
described as a _utility_, in literature as a _cheville_, but it is
precisely one of the rarest manifestations of Dostoevsky’s artistry.
Like Pushkin he could say, “I have never treated anything lightly,”
which is the hallmark of a great artist, utilizing everything,
transforming disadvantage into opportunity. At this stage the pace
needs must slacken, and every detail that can arrest events in their
precipitancy becomes of supreme importance. The passages where
Dostoevsky describes the arrival, unannounced, of Shatov’s wife, the
conversation between husband and wife, Kirillov’s interposition, and
the prompt establishment of an intimacy between the two men, constitute
perhaps the most moving chapter in the book. We marvel anew at the
utter absence of jealousy I discussed with you on a previous occasion.
Shatov knows that his wife is going to have a child, but the father of
this child she expects is not even mentioned. Shatov is consumed with
love for this suffering creature who can find none but words that wound.
“It was only that fact [i.e. his wife’s reappearance] that saved the
scoundrels from Shatov’s carrying out his intention, and at the same
time helped them to get rid of him. To begin with, it agitated Shatov,
threw him out of his regular routine, and deprived him of his usual
clear-sightedness and caution. Any idea of his own danger would be the
last thing to enter his head at this moment when he was absorbed with
such different considerations.”[127]
But to come back to Kirillov: the time is at hand when Pyotr
Stepanovitch calculates personal advantage from the other man’s
suicide. What grounds has Kirillov for taking his own life? Pyotr
Stepanovitch questions him: he has no clear idea, and is seeking
clumsily to get at the truth. Up till the last minute, he is in terror
lest Kirillov change his mind and thus escape him. But no!
“I won’t put it off. I want to kill myself now,”[128] says Kirillov.
The conversation between Verhovensky and Kirillov is especially
obscure, obscure even in Dostoevsky’s own mind. As we have earlier
observed, Dostoevsky never expresses his ideas as ideas pure and
simple, but always through the medium of his characters who become
their interpreters. Kirillov is in a highly unusual pathological state,
for in a moment or two he is going to take his own life, and his talk
is agitated and incoherent. We are left to unravel in it the clue to
Dostoevsky’s own thought.
The idea which prompts Kirillov’s suicide is of a mystic nature and
closed to Pyotr Stepanovitch’s comprehension.
“If God exists, all is His will, and from His will I cannot escape. If
not, it’s all my will, and I am bound to show self-will.... I am bound
to show myself because the highest point of my self-will is to kill
myself with my own hands....”
“‘God is necessary and so must exist,’ said Kirillov.
“‘Well, that’s all right then,’ encouraged Pyotr Stepanovitch.
“‘But I know He doesn’t and can’t.’
“‘That’s more likely.’
“‘Surely you must understand that a man with two such ideas can’t go on
living?’
“‘Must shoot himself, you mean?’
“‘Surely you understand that one might shoot oneself for that alone?’
“‘But you won’t be the only one to kill yourself: there are lots of
suicides.’
“‘With good cause! But to do it without any cause at all, simply for
self-will, I am the only one.’
“‘He won’t shoot himself,’ flashed across Pyotr Stepanovitch’s mind
again.
“‘Do you know,’ he observed irritably, ‘if I were in your place, I
should kill someone else to show my self-will, not myself. You might
be of use. I’ll tell you whom, if you are not afraid. Then you needn’t
shoot yourself to-day, perhaps. We may come to terms.’”[129]
For a moment Pyotr Stepanovitch dreams, in the event of Kirillov’s
refusing to carry out his plan of self-destruction, of using him as
the instrument to murder Shatov, instead of merely imputing the crime
to him.
“‘To kill someone else would be the lowest point of self-will, and you
should show your whole soul in that. I am not you; I want the highest
point, and I’ll kill myself.... I am bound to show my unbelief,’ said
Kirillov, walking about the room. ‘I have no higher idea than disbelief
in God. I have all the history of mankind on my side. Man has done
nothing but invent God so as to go on living, and not kill himself:
that’s the whole of universal history up till now. I am the first one
in the whole history of mankind who would not invent God.’”[130]
Do not forget Dostoevsky’s Christianity is real. What he reveals in
Kirillov’s declaration is again a case of moral bankruptcy. Dostoevsky,
I repeat, has visions of salvation only through renunciation. But a
fresh idea has crept in to complicate his theory: to illuminate it, I
must have recourse once more to William Blake’s _Proverbs of Hell_.
“_If others had not been foolish, we should be so._” In order that we
might be spared foolishness, others consented to foolishness before us.