Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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money to those who came to tell him of their misfortunes and beg him to help them. The tips he gave to servants for the smallest services were fabulous and exasperated my poor mother.
It is obvious that living in this manner my father spent more than his guardian could send him from Moscow. He got into debt, and, wishing to escape from the importunities of his creditors, he proposed to his guardian to barter his birthright for a comparatively small sum of ready money. Knowing nothing of newspapers or of publishers, Dostoyevsky ingenuously hoped to make a living by his pen. His guardian agreed to the bargain, which he ought never to have entertained. My aunts argued that their brother Fyodor knew nothing of business, and that he could be made to accept the most disadvantageous terms. They tried to repeat the process later on, when the Dostoyevsky family inherited some further property, and the struggle on which my father was forced to enter with his sisters darkened the close of his life. I shall speak of this business more fully in the final chapters of my book.
Having paid his debts, Dostoyevsky soon spent the little money he had left. He tried to make translations,28 but of course this brought in very little. At this juncture his aunt Kumanin came to his assistance and made him an allowance. She was a sister of his mother's, who had made a rich marriage, and hved in a fine house in Moscow, surrounded by a horde of devoted servants, and waited on and amused by a number of lady companions, poor women who trembled before her, and gave way to all the caprices of their wealthy despot. She patronised her nephews and nieces, and was particularly well disposed to my father, who was always her favourite. She alone of all the family appreciated his powers, and was always ready to come to his aid. My father was very fond of his old aunt Kumanin, though he made fun of her a little, like all her young nephews. He painted her in The Gambler, in the person of the old Moscow grandmother, who arrives in Germany, plays roulette, loses half her fortune and goes back to Moscow as suddenly as she came. At the time when roulette was flourishing in Germany, my great-aunt was too old to travel. It may be, however, that she played cards at Moscow, and lost large sums of money. When he depicted her as coming to Germany and playing roulette at his side, Dostoyevsky perhaps meant to show us whence came his passion for gaming.
28 It was at this time that he made an excellent translation of Eugenie Grandet.
It must not be supposed, however, that because my father spent a good deal of money he was leading a profligate life. Dostoyevsky's youth was studious and industrious. He went out very Uttle, and would sit all day at his writing-table, talking to his heroes, laughing, crying, and suffering with them. His friend Grigoro-vitch, more practical than he, while working at his writing, tried to make acquaintances useful to his future career, got himself introduced into literary society, and then introduced his friend Dostoyevsky. Grigorovitch was handsome, gay and elegant; he made love to the ladies, and charmed every one. My father was awkward, shy, taciturn, rather ugly; he spoke little, and hstened much. In the drawing-rooms they frequented the two friends met the young Turgenev, who had also come to embark upon the career of a novelist at Petersburg. My father admired him greatly. " I am in love with Turgenev," he wrote ingenuously to his brother Mihail, who, having completed his military studies was serving at Reval as an officer. " He is so handsome, so graceful, so elegant! " Turgenev accepted my father's homage with an air of condescension. He considered Dostoyevsky a nonentity.
Grigorovitch succeeded in making the acquaintance of the poet Nekrassov, who proposed to start a literary review. Grigorovitch was eager to be connected with this review in one way or another. His first works were not quite finished—he was rather too fond of society— but he knew that my father had written a novel and was perpetually correcting it, fearing he had not been very successful. Grigorovitch persuaded him to entrust the manuscript to him and took it to Nekrassov. The latter asked Grigorovitch if he were famihar with the work of his comrade, and hearing that he had not yet foimd time to read it, proposed that they should go through two or three chapters together, to see if it were worth anything. They read this first novel of my father's through at a sitting.29 Dawn was stealing in at the windows when they finished it. Nekrassov was astounded. "Let us go and see Dostoyevsky," he proposed; "I want to tell him what I think of his work." " But he is asleep, it is not yet morning," objected Grigorovitch. " What does it matter? This is more important than sleep ! " And the enthusiast set off, followed by Grigorovitch, to rouse my father at five o'clock in the morning, and inform him that he had an extraordinary talent.
29 It was called Poor Folks. Before writing it my father began a tragedy, Mary Stuart, which he laid aside in order to write a drama, Boris Godunov. The choice of these subjects is very significant. It is probable that in Dostoyevsky's early youth, the Norman blood of his paternal ancestors was at war in his heart with the MongoUan blood of his Moscow ancestors. But the Slav strain was the strongest and overcame the Norman and Mongolian atavisms. Dostoyevsky abandoned Mary Stuart and Boris Godunov, and gave us Poor Folks, which is fuU of the charming Slav sentiment of pity.
Later on the manuscript was submitted to the famous critic Belinsky, who, after reading it, desired to see the young author. Dostoyevsky entered his presence trembling with emotion. Belinsky received him with a severe expression. " Young man," he said, " do you know what you have just written? No, you do not. You cannot understand it yet."
Nekrassov published Poor Folks in his Review, and it had a great success. My father found himself famous in a day. Everybody wished to know him. " Who is this Dostoyevsky ? " people were asking on every side. My father had only recently began to frequent literary society, and no one had noticed him particularly. The timid Lithuanian was always retiring into a corner, or the embrasure of a window, or lurking behind a screen. But he was no longer allowed to hide himself. He was surrounded and complimented; he was induced to talk, and people found him charming. In addition to the literary salons, where those who aspired to be novelists, or those who were interested in literature were received, there were other more interesting salons in Petersburg where only famous writers, painters and musicians were admitted. Such were the salons of Prince Odoevsky, a distinguished poet, of Count SoUohub, a novelist of much taste, who has left us very penetrating descriptions of Russian life in the first half of the nineteenth century, and of his brother-in-law. Count Vieillegorsky, a russian-ised Pole. All these gentlemen hastened to make Dostoyevsky's acquaintance, invited him to their houses and received him cordially. My father enjoyed himself more especially with the Vieillegorsky, where there was excellent music. Dostoyevsky adored music. I do not think, however, that he had a musical ear, for he distrusted new compositions, and preferred to hear the pieces he knew already. The more he heard them, the more they delighted him.
Count Vieillegorsky was a passionate lover of music; he patronised musicians, and was accustomed to hunt them out in the most obscure corners of the capital. It is probable that some strange type, some poor, drunken, ambitious, jealous violinist, discovered by Count Vieillegorsky in a garret, and induced to play at his receptions, struck my father's imagination, for Count Vieillegorsky's house is the scene of his novel Netotchka Nesvanova. In this Dostoyevsky achieved a true masterpiece of feminine psychology, though, in his youthful inexperience, he may not have sufficiently explained it to his public. It is said that Countess Vieillegorsky was born Princess Biron. Now the Princes Biron, natives of Courland, always claimed to belong to the sovereigns, rather than to the aristocracy of Europe. If we read Netotchka Nesvanova attentively, we shall soon see that Prince S., who had offered hospitality to the poor orphan girl, is merely a man of good education and good society, whereas his wife is very haughty, and gives the air of a palace to her home. All those around her speak of her as of a sovereign. Her daughter Katia is a regular little " Highness," spoilt and capricious, now terrorising her subjects, now making them her favourites. Her affection for Netotchka becomes at once very passionate, even slightly erotic. The Russian critics rebuked Dostoyevsky very severely for this suggestion of eroticism. Now my father was perfectly truthful, for these poor German princesses, who can never marry for love, and are always sacrificed to interests of State, often suffer from such passionate and even erotic feminine friendships. The disease is hereditary among them, and might well have declared itself in their descendant, the little Katia, a precocious child. The Vieillegorsky had no daughter; the type of Katia was entirely created by my father, who depicted it after studying the princely household. In the portrait of this little neurotic Highness Dostoyevsky shows a knowledge of feminine psychology very remarkable in a shy young man, who scarcely dared to approach women. His talent was already very great