Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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It was not only the Russian soul that my father studied in prison. He also made an earnest study of the Bible. We all profess to be Christians, but how many of us are familiar with the Gospels ? Most of us are content to hear them in church, and to retain some vague idea of their preparation for their first commimion. Possibly my father in his youth knew the Bible after the fashion of the young men of his world—that is to say, very superficially. He says as much in the autobiography of Zossima,42 which is to some extent his own: " I did not read the Bible," says Zossima, speaking of his youthful years, " but I never parted with it. I had a presentiment that I should want it some day." According to his letters to his brother Mihail, Dostoyevsky began the study of the Bible at the Peter-Paul fortress. He continued it in Siberia, where for four years it was his only book. He studied the precious volume the wives of the Dekabrists had presented to him, pondered every word, learned it by heart and never forgot it. No writer of his time had had so profound a Christian culture as Dostoyevsky. All his works are saturated with it, and it is this which gives them their power. " What a strange chance that your father should have had only the Gospels to read during the four most important years of a man's life, when his character is forming definitively," many of his admirers have said to me. But was it a chance ? Is there such a thing as chance in our lives? Is not everything foreseen? The work of Jesus is not finished; in each generation He chooses His disciples, signs to them to follow Him, and gives them the same power over the human heart that He gave of old to the poor fishermen of Galilee.
42 The Brothers Kamarazov.
Dostoyevsky would never be without his old prison Testament, the faithful friend that had consoled him in the darkest hours of his life. He always took it with him on his travels and kept it in a drawer of his writing-table,, within reach of his hand. He acquired a habit of consulting it in important moments of his life. He would open the Testament, read the first lines he saw, and take them as an answer to his doubts.
Dostoyevsky wrote nothing while in his Siberian prison.43 And yet he left Omsk a much greater writer than he had been when he arrived. The young Lithuanian, who certainly loved Russia but understood very little about her, was transformed into a real Russian in prison. It all his life he retained the Lithuanian characteristics and culture of his forefathers, he only loved Russia the more deeply for this. He judged her from the standpoint of a benevolent Slav, conquered by the charm of Russia. Our faults did not alarm him; he saw that they arose from the youthfulness of the nation, and believed they would disappear in time. A son of little Lithuania, which has had her hour of glory, but will probably have no more, Dostoyevsky wished to devote his talents to the service of Great Russia. Perhaps he felt that it was his mother's blood that had given them, and that therefore Russia had more right to them than Lithuania or Ukrainia. Moreover, the idea of breaking Russia up into a number of little countries, which finds so much favour at present, was non-existent then, and in working for Russia Dostoyevsky thought he would also be working for Lithuania and Ukrainia.
43 All he did was to make a few notes of curious words and expressions used by the convicts, which were introduced by him later in The House of the Dead. He wrote them in a little book he made himself, which is now in the Dostoyevsky Museum at Moscow.
A reverent admirer and passionate disciple of Christ, with a beloved country to serve, Dostoyevsky was better equipped for his lofty work than before his imprisonment. It was no longer necessary for him to imitate the European novelists; he had only to draw his subjects from Russian life, and to recall the confessions of the convicts, the ideas and beliefs of our moujiks. This Lithuanian at last understood the Russian ideal, revered the Russian Church, and forgetting Europe, gave himself up wholeheartedly to painting the Slavo-Mongolian manners of our great country.
VIII
DOSTOYEVSKY A SOLDIER
Dostoyevsky's last year in prison was more tolerable than the first three. The brute who commanded the fortress of Omsk and poisoned the convicts was at last superseded. The new Commandant was an educated man of European culture. He took an interest in my father and tried to be of service to him. He was legally empowered to employ the literary convicts on the work of his Chancellory. He sent for my father, who passed through the town escorted by a soldier. The Commandant gave him some easy work to do, ordered good meals to be served to him, brought him books, showed him the newspapers, which my father devoured eagerly.44 He had seen no newspaper for three years, and he knew nothing of what was happening in the world. He seemed to be born anew; he was soon to leave his " House of the Dead." " What a blessed moment! " he exclaims in describing his release in his memoirs.
44 My father never made any public reference to this Commandant, fearing to injure him in the sight of the Government, but he often talked of him to his relations. Though Dostoyevsky hated to speak of the sufferings he had endured during lus captivity, he loved to recall those who had been good to lum m his trials.
Dostoyevsky's political comrade, Durov, was released at the same time. But alas ! the poor fellow had not the strength to rejoice in his liberty. " He went out like a candle," says my father. " He was young and handsome when he went into captivity. He came out half dead, grey-haired, bent, scarcely able to stand." And yet Durov was not an epileptic, like my father, and he was in excellent health at the time of his arrest. How, then, are we to explain the different manner in which these two conspirators faced the world after four years of prison life? We must, I think, look for this explanation in their nationality. Durov was a Russian; he belonged to a nation still young, which soon expends its strength, loses courage at the first obstacle, and cannot sustain a struggle. Dostoyevsky was a Lithuanian, a scion of a much older race, and had Norman blood in his veins. Resistance has always been a joy to the Lithuanians. Vidunas, who knew his people so thoroughly, has spoken thus on this point: " Whatever may befall a Lithuanian, he is not discouraged. This is not to say that he is indifferent to his fate. His sensibility is too lively for this, but it has an elasticity and resilience of a remarkable quality. He can bear the inevitable with courage, and face new experiences steadily. The Lithuanian aspires involuntarily to the mastery of the different elements of life. This becomes very evident when he has to grapple with a difficulty. The tension of his mind is manifested in a very characteristic fashion; the greater the difficulty, the more he is disposed to accept all with serenity, and even with gaiety and jest."
Dostoyevsky probably began this struggle for life on the very first day of his captivity. He struggled against despair by studying with interest the characters of the convicts, their manners, habits, ideas and conversation. Seeing in them the future heroes of his novels, he carefully noted all the precious indications they were able to give him; no foreigner can form any idea of the just, penetrating and observant mind of the Russian peasant. When, on holidays, the convicts got drunk and were reduced to a state of bestiality, Dostoyevsky sought solace for his disgust in the Gospel. " I cannotsee his soul; perhaps it is nobler than mine," he would say to himself, as he looked at some drunken convict reeling about, and shouting obscene songs. He soon realised that hard labour was an excellent remedy for despair. He looked upon it as a kind of sport, and set about it with the passionate energy he brought to bear on everything that interested him. In certain chapters of The House of the Dead we see clearly what pleasure he took in outdoor work or in grinding alabaster.45
45 Speaking of some work allotted to him in prison, he says : " I was obliged to turn the wheel; it was difficult, but it served as an excellent gymnastic." Later he describes how he had to carry bricks on his back, and declares that he liked this work, because it developed his physical strength.
Obliged to conceal from the convicts the anger, contempt and disgust certain of their acts excited in him, Dostoyevsky learned to discipline his nervous temperament. Reality, harsh and implacable, cured him of his imaginary fears. " If you imagine that I am still nervous, irritable and obsessed by the thought of illness, as I used to be at Petersburg, you must get rid of this idea. There is not a vestige of that left," he wrote to his brother Mihaiil shortly after his release.
Another and loftier idea sustained and consoled Dostoyevsky during his sojourn