(For the twenty-fifth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky's death.)
I
Vladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even
'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in
complete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky
as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this
happened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive.
Apparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a
prophet--he was too eagle-eyed for that--at least thought it right
that all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness
the tone of _The Journal of an Author,_ no less than the questions
upon which he generally touches therein. _The Journal of an Author_
began to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad,
and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest
period of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family,
a man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole
series of novels known to all: _The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The
Possessed._ He has everything which can be required _from_ life, or,
more truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You
remember Tolstoi's deliberations in his _Confession_? 'Finally, I shall
be as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare--and what shall
come after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer
than Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question,
'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or
later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further
perfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself
in the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or
in spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly
the beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet
is greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not
always a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as
Tolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than
once were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected
of them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even
more readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they
promised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi
promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would
put away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true
Christians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi
prophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no
other writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes.
For the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole
series of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present
revolution[1]--armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down,
bombs--the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far
East!
And this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and
prophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the
greatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not
effect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer
in the army; the other writes in the _Novoïe Vremya,_ as though he
were Souvorin's[2] son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift
of prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee
nothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow
bring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to
the Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and
struck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in
the magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever
striking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd
still runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for
a sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict
be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible
to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but
this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind
is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there
is no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing
presupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet
who has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world
and to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer,
nor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the
actual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of
record and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia
and Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician,
for whom everything is reduced to _Deutschland, Deutschland über
alles,_ could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and
Tolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more
remarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction:
more than half of his _Journal_ consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So
often did he commit his prophetic genius.
[Footnote 1: This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.]
[Footnote 2: The famous editor of the _Novoïe Vremya._]