Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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charming to my father, and often invited him to his house. Maria Dmitrievna, his wife, received Dostoyevsky with much grace, and exerted herself to please him and to tame him. She knew that she would soon be a widow and would have no means beyond the meagre pension which the Russian Government gave to the widows of officers, a sum barely sufficient to feed her and her son, a boy of seven years old. Like a good woman of business, she was already looking about for a second husband. Dostoyevsky seemed to her the most eligible parti in the town; he was a writer of great talent, he had a rich aunt in Moscow, who had again begun to send him money from time to time. Maria Dmitrievna played the part of a poetic soul, misunderstood by the society of a small provincial town, and yearning for a kindred spirit, a mind as lofty as her own. She soon took possession of the ingenuous heart of my father, who, at the age of thirty-three, fell in love for the first time.
This sentimental friendship was suddenly interrupted. The captain was ordered to Kusnetzk, a little Siberian town where there was another regiment belonging to the same division as that of Semipalatinsk. He took away his wife and child, and died a few months afterwards at Kusnetzk of the phthisis from which he had long been suffering. Maria Dmitrievna wrote to announce her husband's death to Dostoyevsky, and kept up a lively correspondence with him. While waiting for the Government to grant her little pension she was living in great poverty, and complained bitterly to my father. Dostoyevsky sent her nearly all the money he received from his relatives. He pitied her sincerely and wished to help her, but his feeling for her was rather sympathy than love. Thus when Maria Dmitrievna wrote that she had found a suitor at Kusnetzk and was about to marry again, he rejoiced; far from being heartbroken, he was delighted to think that the poor woman had found a protector. He even made interest with his friends to procure for his rival some coveted appointment. In fact, Dostoyevsky did not look upon Maria Dmitrievna's future husband as a rival. At this period my father was not very sure that he should ever be able to marry, and considered himself in some degree an invahd. The epilepsy which had so long been latent in him began to declare itself. He had strange attacks, sudden convulsions which exhausted him and made him incapable of work. The regimental doctor who was treating him hesitated to diagnose the malady; it was not until much later that it was pronounced to be epilepsy. Meanwhile everybody—doctors, comrades, relatives, his friend Baron Wrangel, his brother Mihail—advised him not to marry, and Dostoyevsky resigned himself sadly to celibacy. He accepted the part of Prince Mishkin, who, though he loves Nastasia Philip-ovna, allows her to go away with Rogogin and keeps up amicable relations with his rival.
Meanwhile Maria Dmitrievna quarrelled with her lover, and left the town of Kusnetzk. She had at length received her pension, but this pittance was quite insufficient for a capricious, idle and ambitious woman. My father was now an officer, and she came back to her first idea of a marriage with him. In the letters she now wrote with increasing frequency, she exaggerated her poverty, declared that she was weary of the struggle, and threatened to put an end to herself and to her child. Dostoyevsky became very uneasy; he wanted to see her, talk to her, and make her listen to reason. As a former political prisoner he had no right to quit Semipalatinsk.48
48 Dostoyevsky, however, was often detailed to escort scientific missions travelling in Siberia by order of the Government. Thus in one letter my father describes a visit to Barnaoul, a small town between Semipalatinsk and Kusnetzk, which he made in the company of M. P. Semenov and his friends, members of the Geographical Society. On hearing of their arrival, General Gerngross, governor of the town, invited all the mission to a ball at his house, and was particularly polite to my father. In the sight of this Baltic general Dostoyevsky, who had only just left a prison, was not a convict but a famous writer.
His brother-officers, to whom he confided his desire to go to Kusnetzk, arranged to send him thither " on regimental business." The division which had its headquarters at Semipalatinsk dispatched to its regiment at Kusnetzk a wagon-load of ropes, which was bound by law to be escorted by armed soldiers and officers. It was not customary to send Dostoyevsky on such expeditions—he was always secretly protected by his officers—but this time he was glad enough to take advantage of the pretext, and he travelled some hundreds of versts seated upon the ropes which he was supposed to be guarding. Maria Dmitrievna received him with open arms and quickly regained her old influence over him, which had been somewhat weakened by a long separation. Touched by her complaints, her misfortunes, and her threats of suicide, Dostoyevsky forgot the counsels of his friends; he asked her to marry him, promising to protect her and to love her little Paul. Maria Dmitrievna accepted his offer eagerly. My father returned to Semipalatinsk in his wagon, and asked his commanding officer's permission to get married. It was granted, together with leave for a few weeks. He returned to Kusnetzk more comfortably, in a good post-chaise this time, meaning to bring back in it the new Madame Dostoyevsky and his future stepson. My father's leave was limited—the Government did not like to have its political prisoners circulating freely in the country—and he was obliged to be married a few days after his arrival at Kusnetzk. How joyful he was as he went to church ! Happiness seemed at last about to smile on him, fate was about to compensate him for all his sufferings by giving him a gentle and loving wife, who would perhaps make him a father. While Dostoyevsky was dreaming thus, of what was his bride thinking? The night before her marriage Maria Dmitrievna had spent with her lover, a handsome young tutor, whom she had discovered on her arrival at Kusnetzk, and whose mistress she had long been in secret.49
49 It is probable that the Kusnetzk suitor, whose name I do not know, had broken off his engagement with Maria Dmitrievna on discovering her clandestine intrigue with the tutor. My father, who had only paid two short visits to Kusnetzk and knew no one there, had no opportunity of discovering the liaison, more especially as Maria Dmitrievna always played the part of the serious and virtuous woman in his presence.
This woman was the daughter of one of Napoleon's Mamelukes, who had been taken prisoner during the retreat from Moscow, and brought to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, where he changed his name and his rehgion in order to marry a young girl of good family who had fallen desperately in love with him. She made him join the Russian army; he eventually became a colonel, and commanded a regiment in some provincial town. My father never knew him. By some freak of Nature, Maria Dmitrievna inherited only the Russian type of her mother. I have seen her portrait. Nothing about her betrayed her Oriental origin. On the other hand, her son Paul, whom I knew later, was almost a mulatto. He had a yellow skin, black glossy hair, rolled his eyes as negroes do, gesticulated extravagantly, and was malicious, stupid and insolent.
At the time of his mother's second marriage he was a pretty, lively little boy whom my father petted to please Maria Dmitrievna. Dostoyevsky had no suspicion of the African origin of his wife, who concealed it carefully; he only discovered it much later. Cunning like all the women of her race, she played the model wife, gathered all the lettered society of Semipalatinsk round her and organised a kind of literary salon. She passed herself off as a Frenchwoman, spoke French as if it had been her mother-tongue, and was a great reader. She had been well educated, in a Government establishment for the daughters of the nobility. The society of Semipalatinsk took the newly married Madame Dostoyevsky for a woman of high character. Baron Wrangel speaks of her with respect in his memoirs, and says she was charming. And she continued to pay secret evening visits to her little tutor, who had followed her to Semipalatinsk. It amused her vastly to deceive the world and her poor dreamer of a husband. Dostoyevsky knew the young man, as one knows every one in a small town. But the handsome youth was so perfectly insignificant that it never entered my father's head to suspect a rival in him. He thought Maria Dmitrievna a faithful wife, entirely devoted to him. She had, however, a terrible temper, and gave way to sudden paroxysms of fury. My father attributed these to her bad health—she was somewhat consumptive—and forgave the violent scenes she was constantly making. She was a good housekeeper, and knew how to make a home comfortable. After the horrors of his prison, his house seemed a perfect paradise to Dostoyevsky. In spite of the forebodings of his friends and relatives, marriage suited him. He put on flesh, became more cheerful, and seemed happy. The Semipalatinsk photograph mentioned above shows us a man full of strength, life and energy. It is not in the least like the portrait of Prince Mish-kin in The Idiot, nor that of the convict-prophet in Nekrassov's poem. My father's epilepsy, which had*at last declared itself, had calmed his nerves. He suffered greatly during his attacks, but on the other hand his mind was calmer and more lucid when they passed off. The sharp, dry, healthy air of Siberia, military