Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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service, which took the place of gymnastics, the peaceful life of a little provincial town, all combined to improve Dos-toyevsky's health. As always, he was absorbed by his novels. He performed his military duties conscientiously, but his heart was not in them. My father was longing for the moment when he might resign his commission and become a free and independent writer once more. During his sojourn at Semipalatinsk, Dostoyevsky wrote two books, The Uncle's Dream and Selo Stepant-chikovo. The heroes of these new novels are no longer cosmopolites, as in his earlier works. They bear no resemblance to the pallid citizens of Petersburg; they inhabit the country or small provincial towns, they are very Russian and very vital. Reading these first works written after his release, we see that Dostoyevsky had finally broken with the tradition of Gogol, and had returned to the idea of The Double. In these new novels he paints abnormal types; Prince K , a degenerate, who becomes imbecile, and Foma Opiskin, an adventurer who possesses a great hypnotic power. The books are gay and ironical, whereas those written before the author's imprisonment are nearly all melodramatic. It is evident that Dostoyevsky had arrived at that period of his existence when man no longer takes a tragic view of life, when he can jest a little at it, when he can look at it with a certain detachment, beginning to understand that it is but an episode in the long series of existences which the soul has to pass through. This irony increases as Dostoyevsky's talent matures, and as he learns to know men and life more fully. It never becomes bitter or malicious, for love of humanity, and admiration for the Christian fraternity of the Gospel grows stronger and ever stronger in his heart.
My father received permission to publish these two novels, but he was obliged to leave the manuscript of The House of the Dead in his portfolio. He had been working at it for a long time, fully conscious of its value, but it was impossible to publish it on account of the Censorship, which was very strict in all matters relating to the prisons. He was now at liberty to live in any town in Siberia^ but not to go back to Russia. Nevertheless, my father's one idea was to return to Petersburg, a place he hated. The nomad intellectuals of Lithuania have this strange peculiarity; they cannot live in the country or in the provinces; they must be on the spot where they can feel the pulses of civilisation beating most strongly. The great reforms which shed lustre on the reign of Alexander II were in preparation at Petersburg. My father longed to be there amongst the other Russian writers. He feared that if he remained in Siberia he would not be in touch with the new ideas which were agitating our country. He sought feverishly for means of obtaining permission to return to Russia. He wrote innumerable letters, applied to all his former friends, and at last discovered a protector. The Crimean War had just come to an end. Everybody was talking of General Todleben, who had greatly distinguished himself, and had been created a Count. My father remembered the brothers Todleben, whom he had known at the School of Engineers. He wrote to them, begging them to intercede with the Government on his behalf. The Todlebens remembered their former comrade very well. He had never seemed so strange to them as to his Russian schoolfellows; they came from Courland, and their ancestors must have often encountered those of Dostoyevsky on the banks of the Niemen. They begged their distinguished brother to plead my father's cause. The Russian Government could refuse nothing to Count Todleben, whom every one called " The Defender of Sebastopol." Dostoyevsky soon received permission to live anywhere in Russia, with the exception of the two capital cities. My father chose the town of Tver on the Volga, a station on the railway line between Petersburg and Moscow. He resigned his commission joyfully, said farewell to his comrades and to the kindly people of Semipalatinsk who had received him so hospitably, and set out for Russia with his wife and stepson. To make this long journey Dostoyevsky bought a carriage which he sold on arriving at Tver; this was the way in which people travelled in those days. How happy he was as he traversed, free and independent, the road which ten years before he had passed along in custody of a police officer. He was about to see his brother Mihail again, to return to that literary world where he would be able to exchange ideas with his friends, to present his dear wife, who loved him, to his family. While Dostoyevsky was dreaming thus in his post-chaise, the handsome tutor, whom his mistress was bringing along with her Hke a pet dog, was following them in a britshka one stage behind. At every halt she left him a hasty love-letter, informing him where they were to stay for the night, and ordering him to halt at the preceding station and not to overtake them. She must have been immensely amused on the way to note the naive delight of her poor romantic husband.
When he was settled at Tver, my father soon became intimate with Count Baranov, the Governor. His wife, nSe Vassiletchikov, was a cousin of Count SoUohub, the writer, who had formerly had a literary salon in Petersburg. My father, who had been one of the habitues of this salon, had been presented to Mile. Vassiletchikov at the time of the success of his Poor Folks. She had never forgotten him, and when he arrived at Tver, she hastened to renew their acquaintance. She often invited him to her house, and induced her husband to interest himself in my father's affairs. Count Baranov did his utmost to obtain permission for Dostoyevsky to live at Petersburg. Having heard that the Minister of Police, Prince Dolgoruky, was opposed to this, the Count advised my father to write a letter to the Emperor. Like many other enthusiasts, Dostoyevsky was at this time full of admiration for Alexander II. He composed some verses on the occasion of his coronation, and hoped great things from his reign. He wrote a simple and dignified letter to the Emperor, recounting the miseries of his life, and asked his leave to return to Petersburg. The letter pleased the Emperor and he granted my father's request. Happy at the thought of being able at last to live in the literary world near his brother Mihail, Dostoyevsky at once set out for Petersburg with his wife and his stepson, whom he placed in a cadet school. He soon obtained permission to publish The House of the Dead. The times of Nicolas I were at an end. Those in power no longer feared the light; on the contrary, they sought it. The book had an immense success, and placed Dostoyevsky in the first rank of Russian writers. He never lost this proud position; each new work tended to confirm it. Life began to smile on my father. But fate had a new and cruel trial in store for him.
The change of climate had not suitedMariaDmitrievna. The damp, marshy climate of Petersburg developed the disease which had long been lying in wait for her. In great alarm, she returned to Tver, which is healthier. It was too late; the malady followed its normal course, and in a few months she had become unrecognisable. This woman, coughing and spitting blood, soon disgusted her young lover, who had hitherto followed her everywhere. He fled from Tver, leaving no address. This desertion infuriated Maria Dmitrievna. My father had remained at Petersburg, busy with the pubUcation of his novel, but he often went to visit his wife at Tver. In one of the scenes she made for his benefit, she confessed everything, describing her love-affair with the young tutor in great detail. With a refinement of cruelty she told Dostoyevsky how much it had amused them to laugh at the deceived husband, and declared that she had never loved him and had married him for mercenary motives. " No self-respecting woman," said this hussy, " could love a man who had worked for four years in a prison as the companion of thieves and murderers."
My poor father listened with anguish to the outpourings of his wife. This, then, was the love and happiness in which he had been beheving for years ! It was this fury whom he had cherished as a loving and faithful wife ! He turned from Maria Dmitrievna with horror, left her, and fled to Petersburg, seeking consolation from his brother, and among his nephews and nieces. He had arrived at the age of forty without having ever been loved. " No woman could love a convict," he said to himself, remembering the ignoble words of his wife. It was a thought worthy of the daughter of a slave, which could find no echo in the heart of a noble-minded European. But Dostoyevsky knew little of women at this period of his life. The thought that he would never have children or a home made him very unhappy. He put all his bitterness as a betrayed husband into the novel The Eternal Husband, which he wrote later. It is curious to note that he painted the hero of this story as a contemptible creature, old, ugly, vulgar and ridiculous. It is possible that he despised himself for his credulity and simplicity, for not having discovered the intrigue and punished the treacherous lovers. In spite of his sufferings and despair, Dostoyevsky continued to send money to Maria Dmitrievna, placed confidential servants with her, wrote to his sisters at Moscow, begging them to visit her at Tver, and later went himself several times to see if his wife had all she needed. Their marriage was shattered, but the sense of duty towards her who bore his name remained strong in Dostoyevsky's Lithuanian heart. Maria Dmitrievna was not softened by this generosity. She hated my father with the rancour of a true negress. Those who nursed her told later how she would pass long hours