[Illustration: FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY]
In certain respects Dostoevsky is the most characteristically national
of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his work does not
appeal to so wide a circle outside of his own country as does the work
of Turgenieff and Count L.N. Tolstoy. This result flows not only from
the natural bent of his mind and temperament, but also from the
peculiar vicissitudes of his life as compared with the comparatively
even tenor of their existence, and the circumstances of the time in
which he lived. These circumstances, it is true, were felt by the
writers mentioned; but practically they affected him far more deeply
than they did the others, with their rather one-sided training; and
his fellow-countrymen--especially the young of both sexes--were not
slow to express their appreciation of the fact. His special domain was
the one which Turgenieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and have
touched not at all, or only incidentally,--the great middle class of
society, or what corresponds thereto in Russia.
Through his father, Mikhail Andreevitch Dostoevsky, Feodor
Mikhailovitch belonged to the class of "nobles,"--that is to say, to
the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable, well-to-do
merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and was even
more so during the first half of the present century; and in personal
appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. The father
was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in Moscow,
having entered the civil service at the end of the war of 1812, during
which he had served as a physician in the army. In the very contracted
apartment which he occupied in the hospital, Feodor was born--one of a
family of seven children, all of whom, with the exception of the
eldest and the youngest, were born there--on October 30th (November
11th), 1821. The parents were very upright, well-educated, devoutly
religious people; and as Feodor expressed it many years later to his
elder brother, after their father died, "Do you know, our parents
were very superior people, and they would have been superior even in
these days." The children were brought up at home as long as possible,
and received their instruction from tutors and their father. Even
after the necessity of preparing the two elder boys for a government
institution forced the parents to send them to a boarding-school
during the week, they continued their strict supervision over their
associates, discouraged nearly all friendships with their comrades,
and never allowed them to go into the street unaccompanied, after the
national custom in good families, even at the age of seventeen or
more.
Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives, was
always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother Mikhail
spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott and James
Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors; though Russian
writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. During many of these
years the mother and children passed the summers on a little estate in
the country which the father bought, and it was there that Feodor
Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with the beauties of nature, to
which he eloquently refers in after life, and especially with the
peasants, their feelings and temper, which greatly helped him in his
psychological studies and in his ability to endure certain trials
which came upon him. There can be no doubt that his whole training
contributed not only to the literary tastes which the famous author
and his brother cherished throughout their lives, but to the formation
of that friendship between them which was stronger than all others,
and to the sincere belief in religion and the profound piety which
permeated the spirit and the books of Feodor Mikhailovitch.
In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest sons to
St. Petersburg to enter them in the government School of Engineers.
But the healthy Mikhail was pronounced consumptive by the doctor,
while the sickly Feodor was given a certificate of perfect health.
Consequently Mikhail was rejected, and went to the Engineers' School
in Revel, while Feodor, always quiet and reserved, was left lonely in
the St. Petersburg school. Here he remained for three years, studying
well, but devoting a great deal of time to his passionately beloved
literary subjects, and developing a precocious and penetrating
critical judgment on such matters. It is even affirmed that he began
or wrote the first draft of his famous book 'Poor People,' by night,
during this period; though in another account he places its
composition later. After graduating well as ensign in 1841, he studied
for another year, and became an officer with the rank of
sub-lieutenant, and entered on active service, attached to the
draughting department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.
A little more than a year later he resigned from the service, in order
that he might devote himself wholly to literature. His father had died
in the mean time, and had he possessed any practical talent he might
have lived in comfort on the sums which his guardian sent him. But
throughout his life people seemed to fleece him at will; he lost large
sums at billiards with strangers, and otherwise; he was generous and
careless; in short, he was to the end nearly always in debt, anxiety,
and difficulties. Then came the first important crisis in his life. He
wrote (or re-wrote) 'Poor People'; and said of his state of mind, as
he reckoned up the possible pecuniary results, that he could not sleep
for nights together, and "If my undertaking does not succeed, perhaps
I shall hang myself." The history of that success is famous and
stirring. His only acquaintance in literary circles was his old
comrade D.V. Grigorovitch (also well known as a writer), and to him he
committed the manuscript. His friend took it to the poet and editor
Nekrasoff, in the hope that it might appear in the 'Collection' which
the latter was intending to publish. Dostoevsky was especially afraid
of the noted critic Byelinsky's judgment on it: "He will laugh at my
'Poor People,'" said he; "but I wrote it with passion, almost with
tears."
He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the
fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four
o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early
summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell rang,
and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekrasoff, who flung themselves upon
his neck. They had begun to read his story in the evening, remarking
that "ten pages would suffice to show its quality." But they had gone
on reading, relieving each other as their voices failed them with
fatigue and emotion, until the whole was finished. At the point where
Pokrovsky's old father runs after his coffin, Nekrasoff pounded the
table with the manuscript, deeply affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take
him!" Then they decide to hasten to Dostoevsky: "No matter if he is
asleep--we will wake him up. _This_ is above sleep."
This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed sort
which Dostoevsky had longed for. When Nekrasoff went to Byelinsky with
the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A new Gogol has made
his appearance!" the critic retorted with severity, "Gogols spring up
like mushrooms among us." But when he had read the story he said,
"Bring him hither, bring him quickly;" and welcomed Dostoevsky when he
came, with extreme dignity and reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do
you understand yourself what sort of a thing this is that you have
written?" From that moment the young author's fame was assured, and he
became known and popular even in advance of publication in a wide
circle of literary and other people, as was the fashion of those days
in Russia. When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the
judgment of the critics.
The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dostoevsky
was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence upon
Dostoevsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Byelinsky
was an atheist and a socialist, and Dostoevsky was brought into
relations with persons who shared those views, although he himself
never wavered, apparently, in his religious faith, and was never in
harmony with any other aspirations of his associates except that of
freeing the serfs. Notwithstanding this, he became involved in the
catastrophe which overtook many visitors, occasional or constant, of
the "circles" at whose head stood Petrashevsky. The whole affair is
known as the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky. During the '40's the students
at the St. Petersburg University formed small gatherings where
sociological subjects were the objects of study, and read the works of
Stein, Haxthausen, Louis Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon, and other similar
writers. Gradually assemblies of this sort were formed outside of the
University. Petrashevsky, an employee of the Department of Foreign
Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and the University, and who
was ambitious of winning power and a reputation for eccentricity,
learned of these little clubs and encouraged their growth. He did not
however encourage their close association among themselves, but
rather, entire dependence on himself, as the centre of authority, the
guide; and urged them to inaugurate a sort of propaganda. Dostoevsky
himself declared, about thirty years later, that "the socialists
sprang from the followers of Petrashevsky; they sowed much seed." He
has dealt with them and their methods in his novel 'Demons'; though
perhaps not with exact accuracy. But they helped him to an elucidation
of the contemporary situation, which Turgenieff had treated in 'Virgin
Soil.' The chief subject of their political discussions was the
emancipation of the serfs, and many of Petrashevsky's followers
reckoned upon a rising of the serfs themselves, though it was proved
that Dostoevsky maintained the propriety and necessity of the reform
proceeding from the government. This was no new topic; the Emperor
Nicholas I. had already begun to plan the Emancipation, and it is
probable that it would have taken place long before it did, had it not
been for this very conspiracy. From the point of view of the
government, the movement was naturally dangerous, especially in view
of what was taking place in Europe at that epoch. Dostoevsky bore
himself critically toward the socialistic writings and doctrines,
maintaining that in their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds
with reciprocal bonds there existed surer and more normal foundations
than in all the dreams of Saint-Simon and all his school. He did not
even visit very frequently the circle to which he particularly
belonged, and was rarely at the house of Petrashevsky, whom many
personally disliked.
But on one occasion, as he was a good reader, he was asked to read
aloud Byelinsky's famous letter to Gogol, which was regarded as a
victorious manifest of "Western" (_i. e._, of socialistic) views.
This, technically, was propagating revolution, and was the chief
charge against him when the catastrophe happened, and he, together
with over thirty other "Petrashevtzi," was arrested on April 23d (May
5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was kept for
eight months pending trial, Dostoevsky wrote 'The Little Hero,' two or
three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor People.' At last
he, with several others, was condemned to death and led out for
execution. The history of that day, and the analysis of his sensations
and emotions, are to be found in several of his books: 'Crime and
Punishment,' 'The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Brothers.' At the last
moment it was announced to them that the Emperor had commuted their
sentence to exile in varying degrees, and they were taken to Siberia.
Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three years of age, the man who sent
Byelinsky's letter to Dostoevsky, was banished for a short term of
years to the disciplinary brigade in Orenburg; and when I saw him in
St. Petersburg forty years later, I was able to form a faint idea of
what Dostoevsky's popularity must have been, by the way in which
he,--a man of much less talent, originality, and personal power,--was
surrounded, even in church, by adoring throngs of young people.
Dostoevsky's sentence was "four years at forced labor in prison; after
that, to serve as a common soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility
and his civil rights, being the first noble to retain them under such
circumstances.
The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is to be
found in his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' where, under the
disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the murder of his
wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some respects a
consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own judgment as to
his exile was, "The government only defended itself;" and when people
said to him, "How unjust your exile was!" he replied, even with
irritation, "No, it was just. The people themselves would have
condemned us." Moreover, he did not like to give benefit readings in
later years from his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' lest he might
be thought to complain. Besides, this catastrophe was the making of
him, by his own confession; he had become a confirmed hypochondriac,
with a host of imaginary afflictions and ills, and had this affair not
saved him from himself he said that he "should have gone mad." It
seems certain, from the testimony of his friend and physician, that he
was already subject to the epileptic fits which he himself was wont to
attribute to his imprisonment; and which certainly increased in
severity as the years went on, until they occurred once a month or
oftener, in consequence of overwork and excessive nervous strain. In
his novel 'The Idiot,' whose hero is an epileptic, he has made a
psychological study of his sensations before and after such fits, and
elsewhere he makes allusions to them.
After serving in the ranks and being promoted officer when he had
finished his term of imprisonment, he returned to Russia in 1859, and
lived first at Tver; afterward, when permitted, in St. Petersburg. The
history of his first marriage--which took place in Siberia, to the
widow of a friend--is told with tolerable accuracy in his 'Humbled and
Insulted,' which also contains a description of his early struggles
and the composition of 'Poor People,' the hero who narrates the tale
of his love and sacrifice being himself. Like that hero, he tried to
facilitate his future wife's marriage to another man. He was married
to his second wife, by whom he had four children, in 1867, and to her
he owed much happiness and material comfort. It will be seen that much
is to be learned concerning our author from his own novels, though it
would hardly be safe to write a biography from them alone. Even in
'Crime and Punishment,' his greatest work in a general way, he
reproduces events of his own life, meditations, wonderfully accurate
descriptions of the third-rate quarter of the town in which he lived
after his return from Siberia, while engaged on some of his numerous
newspaper and magazine enterprises.
This journalistic turn of mind, combined in nearly equal measures with
the literary talent, produced several singular effects. It rendered
his periodical 'Diary of a Writer' the most enormously popular
publication of the day, and a success when previous ventures had
failed, though it consisted entirely of his own views on current
topics of interest, literary questions, and whatever came into his
head. On his novels it had a rather disintegrating effect. Most of
them are of great length, are full of digressions from the point, and
there is often a lack of finish about them which extends not only to
the minor characters but to the style in general. In fact, his style
is neither jewel-like in its brilliancy, as is Turgenieff's, nor has
it the elegance, broken by carelessness, of Tolstoy's. But it was
popular, remarkably well adapted to the class of society which it was
his province to depict, and though diffuse, it is not possible to omit
any of the long psychological analyses, or dreams, or series of
ratiocinations, without injuring the web of the story and the moral,
as chain armor is spoiled by the rupture of a link. This indeed is one
of the great difficulties which the foreigner encounters in an
attempt to study Dostoevsky: the translators have been daunted by his
prolixity, and have often cut his works down to a mere skeleton of the
original. Moreover, he deals with a sort of Russian society which it
is hard for non-Russians to grasp, and he has no skill whatever in
presenting aristocratic people or society, to which foreigners have
become accustomed in the works of his great contemporaries Turgenieff
and Tolstoy; while he never, despite all his genuine admiration for
the peasants and keen sympathy with them, attempts any purely peasant
tales like Turgenieff's 'Notes of a Sportsman' or Tolstoy's 'Tales for
the People.' Naturally, this is but one reason the more why he should
be studied. His types of hero, and of feminine character, are peculiar
to himself. Perhaps the best way to arrive at his ideal--and at his
own character, _plus_ a certain irritability and tendency to suspicion
of which his friends speak--is to scrutinize the pictures of Prince
Myshkin ('The Idiot'), Ivan ('Humbled and Insulted'), and Alyosha
('The Karamazoff Brothers'). Pure, delicate both physically and
morally, as Dostoevsky himself is described by those who knew him
best; devout, gentle, intensely sympathetic, strongly masculine yet
with a large admixture of the feminine element--such are these three;
such is also, in his way, Raskolnikoff ('Crime and Punishment').
His feminine characters are the precise counterparts of these in
many respects, but are often also quixotic even to boldness and
wrong-headedness, like Aglaya ('The Idiot'), or to shame, like Sonia
('Crime and Punishment'), and the heroine of 'Humbled and Insulted.'
But Dostoevsky could not sympathize with and consequently could not
draw an aristocrat; his frequently recurring type of the dissolute
petty noble or rich merchant is frequently brutal; and his unclassed
women, though possibly quite as true to life as these men, are painful
in their callousness and recklessness. His earliest work, 'Poor
People,' written in the form of letters, is worthy of all the praises
which have been bestowed upon it, simple as is the story of the
poverty-stricken clerk who is almost too humble to draw his breath,
who pleads that one must wear a coat and boots which do not show the
bare feet, during the severe Russian winter, merely because public
opinion forces one thereto; and who shares his rare pence with a
distant but equally needy relative who is in a difficult position.
As a compact, subtle psychological study, his 'Crime and Punishment'
cannot be overrated, repulsive as it is in parts. The poor student who
kills the aged usurer with intent to rob, after prolonged argument
with himself that great geniuses, like Napoleon I. and the like, are
justified in committing any crime, and that he has a right to relieve
his poverty; and who eventually surrenders himself to the authorities
and accepts his exile as moral salvation,--is one of the strongest in
Russian literature, though wrong-headed and easily swayed, like all
the author's characters.
In June 1880 Dostoevsky made a speech at the unveiling of Pushkin's
monument in Moscow, which completely overshadowed the speeches of
Turgenieff and Aksakoff, and gave rise to what was probably the most
extraordinary literary ovation ever seen in Russia. By that time he
had become the object of pilgrimages, on the part of the young
especially, to a degree which no other Russian author has ever
experienced, and the recipient of confidences, both personal and
written, which pressed heavily on his time and strength. That ovation
has never been surpassed, save by the astonishing concourse at his
funeral. He died of a lesion of the brain on January 28th (February
8th), 1881. Thousands followed his coffin for miles, but there was no
"demonstration," as that word is understood in Russia. Nevertheless it
was a demonstration in an unexpected way, since all classes of
society, even those which had not seemed closely interested or
sympathetic, now joined in the tribute of respect, which amounted to
loving enthusiasm.
The works which I have mentioned are the most important, though he
wrote also 'The Stripling' and numerous shorter stories. His own
characterization of his work, when reproached with its occasional lack
of continuity and finish, was that his aim was to make his point, and
the exigencies of money and time under which he labored were to blame
for the defects which, with his keen literary judgment, he perceived
quite as clearly as did his critics. If that point be borne in mind,
it will help the reader to appreciate his literary-journalistic style,
and to pardon shortcomings for the sake of the pearls of principle and
psychology which can be fished up from the profound depths of his
voluminous tomes, and of his analysis. The gospel which Dostoevsky
consistently preached, from the beginning of his career to the end,
was love, self-sacrifice even to self-effacement. That was and is the
secret of his power, even over those who did not follow his precepts.
[Illustration: Signature (Isabel F. Hapgood)]