Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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us a large share of his dainties, dividing it between me and my brother. As we grew older he became more severe, but he was very tender to us when we were little. I was a vei'y nervous child, and cried a good deal. To cheer me up, my father would propose that I should dance with him. The furniture in the drawing-room was pushed back, my mother took her son for her partner, and we danced a country dance. As there was no one to play the piano, we all sang a kind of refrain by way of accompaniment. My mother would compliment her husband on the precision with which he executed the complicated steps of the country-dance. " Ah ! " he would reply, mopping his forehead, " you should have seen how I used to dance the mazurka in my youth." 80
79 " Dastarhan " means the refreshment offered to a guest in the East.
80 The mazurka is the national dance of Poles and Lithuanians, o
About four o'clock, my father went out for his daily walk. He always took the same road, and, absorbed in his thoughts, never recognised the acquaintances he met on the way. Sometimes he would pay a visit to a friend, to discuss some literary or political question that interested him. When he had money, he would buy a box of bonbons from Ballet (the best confectioner in Petersburg), or pears and grapes from one of the famous fruiterers. He always chose the best, and had a great aversion from cheap, second-class goods. He would bring home his purchases himself, and have them served for dessert. At this period it was usual to dine at six, and to have tea at nine. Dostoyevsky devoted the interval to reading, and did not begin to work until after tea, when every one had gone to bed. He used to come into our nursery to bid us good-night, give us his blessing, and repeat with us a short prayer to the Virgin which his own parents had taught him to say when he was a child. He would then kiss us, return to his study, and begin to work. He disliked lamps, and wrote by the light of two candles. He smoked a good deal as he worked, and drank very strong tea. I do not think he could have stayed awake for so many hours without these stimulants.
The same regular, monotonous hfe continued at Staraja Russa. My father was no longer able to spend all the summer with us; he had to go to Ems every year for a course of treatment. The waters there did him a great deal of good, but he disliked being in Germany. He counted the days till his return to Russia, and looked forward impatiently to the time when he should be rich enough to take all his family abroad with him. He thought wistfully of us when he saw the little Germans enjoying donkey-rides, and dreamed of giving his own children such pleasures. When he returned to Staraja Russa he would often tell us about the little German donkeys. There are no donkeys in Russia, and this unknown animal, which seemed to be so fond of children, had a mysterious attraction for my brother and me. We were never tired of questioning my father about the moral and physical attributes of the little long-eared beasts.
My father used to bring us charming presents from abroad. These were generally serviceable and expensive things, chosen with much taste. He brought my mother a beautiful pair of opera-glasses, in painted china, an ivory fan very delicately carved, some Chan-tilly lace, a black silk dress, daintily embroidered linen; for me there would be white piqu^ dresses for the summer, and little silk frocks trimmed with lace for the winter. Unlike the generality of parents, who dress their little girls in blue or pink, my father chose pale-green dresses; he was very fond of this colour, and often dressed the heroines of his novels in it.
Dostoyevsky was very hospitable, and on family festivals he loved to collect his own relatives and my mother's round his table. He was always very pleasant to them, talking of things in which they were interested, laughing, jesting, and even playing cards, an amusement he dishked. In spite of his exertions and my mother's amiability, these gatherings generally ended unpleasantly, thanks to that black sheep, Paul Issaieff, who always expected an invitation to such entertainments. He had no idea how to behave in society. Although he was the son of an officer of good family, a member of the hereditary nobility, had been educated in the Corps of Cadets with well-bred boys, and had spent his hoUdays in the house of my uncle Mihail, who received all the most distinguished writers of the day, Paul Issaieff conducted himself much as his maternal forefathers may have done in some oasis of the Sahara; I have rarely encountered such a curious case of atavism. Insolent and malicious, he offended every one by his impertinences. Our relations were indignant and complained to my father. Dostoyevsky would be angry, and would show his stepson the door; but, metaphorically speaking, he always came back by the window. He clung closer than ever to his " papa," continued to live in idleness and to depend upon him for money. Dostoyevsky's friends hated his stepson, and never invited him to their houses. Hoping to rid my father of this parasite, they obtained excellent situations for him in private banks.81 Any sensible man would have tried to keep such situations, and provide for his future, but Paul Issaieff never stayed long anjrwhere. He treated not only his colleagues but his superiors like dirt, was always talking of his step-father, the famous writer, whose friends were Grand Dukes and Ministers, and threatening those who displeased him with his all-powerful vengeance. At first people laughed at his megalomania; when they got tired of it, they turned Paul Issaieff out, and he came back to Dostoyevsky like a bad penny. He was now the father of a munerous family. Faithful to the Mameluke tradition, he increased the population every year. He gave his children our names : Fyodor, Alexey, and Aimee, evidently with the idea of prolonging the imaginary relationship, and making them as it were the grandchildren of Dostoyevsky. A parasite himself, he proposed to make them parasites in their tm-n, but happily he failed here. His children, who were very well brought up by their mother, turned out greatly superior to their father. Russia has absorbed them, and will gradually purge them of their " Mamelukism." Perhaps that African blood which proved so disastrous to Paul Issaieff and his mother may bestow some great gift on one of their descendants and make him a distinguished man. Such a development is not unknown in Russia.
81 As he had never finished a course in any Government school, he could not get a post in a Glovernment ofiice.
My mother always protested hotly against this spurious relationship. She protected our blond Slavo-Norman heads and would not allow that there was anything in common between them and the yellow skin of the unhappy mulatto. She was right, for Russian law recognises no kinship as between stepfather and stepson. On the other hand, the Orthodox Church admits a spiritual relation, and it is possible that Dostoyevsky, who was always a faithful servant of our Church, accepted her ruling on this point.82 But, in any case, he considered that the connection would die with him, for he never exhorted us to treat Paul Issaieft as our brother. We were forbidden to call him by his nickname, or to address him as " thou." But my brother Fyodor and I found him strangely attractive. He was never kind or amiable to us, but he amused us immensely. When he came to see his stepfather we would creep into the study, and, hiding behind the arm-chairs, we would note with delight his extraordinary gestures and strange attitudes, and drink in his extravagant conversation. To us he was a kind of Punch, representing the grotesque comedy that delights children of a certain age.
82 My father thought himself responsible for his stepson's moral conduct more especially. Once when he had been making a long stay abroad, he suspected Paul Issaieff of having attempted a_ forgery. In a letter to Maikov he describes how this had distressed him, and how he had prayed to God that it might not happen. He rejoiced greatly to find that he had been mistaken. I do not, indeed, think that Paul Issaieft had any criminal proclivities. If he had been a rogue, he might easily have provided for himself during my father's lifetime, for Dostoyevsky, always absent-minded and confiding, would sign any paper presented to him without troubling to see to what it committed him. Many others took advantage of this disposition, but Paul Issaieff was not of the niunber. He was idle all his life, but honest after his fashion.
But though we laughed at Paul Issaieff, Dostoyevsky never ridiculed his unhappy stepson. Whenever his friends or relatives had treated Paul with contempt, my father was full of pity for him, and would do all he could to comfort him. He would go to his house, caress his children, discuss their education with Madame Issaieff, and give her good advice by which she profited greatly later on.
Paul Issaieff has been dead many years. On the ground that he poisoned Dostoyevsky's life, the Russian Intellectuals would never do anything for his children. I think myself that they would have shown their admiration for my father better by a little kindness to this family, which was dear to him. After all, Paul Issaieff's children, who were all very young when Dostoyevsky died, never did him any harm. On the contrary, they had to suffer for their father's