I will not say that I have therein expressed my whole self: that would be nonsense. I have much more to say. And there is, in this story, far too little of the human, that is, the passionate, element (as exemplified, for instance, in “A House of Gentlefolk “); but on the other hand it shows forth two colossal types, which I have been working at and polishing for five whole years; they are (as I believe) faultlessly drawn; wholly Russian types, and such as have been hitherto insufficiently studied in Russian literature. I know not whether Katkov will be able to appreciate the book, but if it is coldly received by the public I shall really despair. On this novel I build my highest hopes, and, above all, that of the certainty of my literary vocation.
[Henceforth the topic again is money.]
XXX. To Frau Stackenschneider
[PETERSBURG],
May 3, 1860.
HONOURED AND DEAR FRAU ST.
I have now been back in Petersburg three months, and have taken up my work again. The whole visit to Moscow seems like a dream to me now; here I am again amid the damp, the dirt, the ice from Ladoga Lake, (In the early part of the year the ice from Lake Ladoga comes floating down the Neva.) the tedium, and so on. Yes — back again, and I feel as if I were in a fever. That’s because of my novel. (“Injury and Insult.”) I want it to come off. I feel that there is poetry in it, and I know that on it depends my whole literary career. I shall have to work night and day for the next three months. But what a reward awaits me, when I’ve finished! Rest, a clear outlook on my surroundings, and the knowledge that I have done and attained what I wished. Perhaps I shall give myself, as a treat, a few months’ travel; but first of all I shall in any event come again to Moscow.
… Ambition is a good thing, but I think that one may take it as one’s aim only in things which one has set one’s-self to achieve, has made the reason for one’s existence. In anything else it’s nonsense. The only essential is to live with ease; and moreover one must sympathize with one’s fellow-creatures, and strive to win their sympathy in return. And if, indeed, one had no other determined aim, this would by itself more than suffice.
But I’m beginning to philosophize again. I have heard little or no news. Pissemsky is ill, suffering from rheumatism. I’ve been to see Apollon Maikov. He told me that Pissemsky rages, sulks, takes it very badly; that’s no wonder; such sufferings are great torment. By-the-bye, didn’t you know one Snitkin? He published some comic verses under the pseudonym of Ammos Schichkin. Only think: he fell ill suddenly, and died within six days.
The Literary Relief Fund has undertaken to look after his family. It is very sad. But perhaps you didn’t know anything of him. I had a talk with Krestovsky lately. I like him very much. He wrote a poem the other day, and read it aloud to us with much pride. We told him with one voice that the poem was atrocious; it is our custom always to speak the truth. And what do you think? He wasn’t in the least offended. He is such a dear, noble youth! I like him better and better, and on some drinking-bout or other I mean to drink brotherhood with him. One often has such odd impressions! I always have this one — that Krestovsky must soon die. But whence it comes, I can’t possibly say.
We are thinking of starting a serious literary enterprise. We are all very busy about it. (The reference is to the journal Vremya (The Times).) Perhaps it will come off. All these plans are but the first step, but at any rate they indicate vitality. I know very well what “the first step” means, and I love it. It is better than any leap.
I have a frightful character, but not always — only at times. That’s my solace.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.
XXXI. To Mme. V. D. Constantine
Paris, September 1, 1862.
MY DEAR AND MUCH – HONOURED VARVARA DMITRYEVNA!
You have perhaps learnt from my letter to Pasha that I arrived happy and well in Paris, and have settled down here, though I hardly think I shall stay long. I don’t like Paris, though it’s frightfully grand. There’s a lot to see here, but when one undertakes the seeing, terrible boredom ensues. It would have been very different if I had come here as a student, to learn something: very different, for I should have had plenty to do, and should have had to see and hear a great deal; while for a tourist, who is merely observing customs, the French are disgusting, and the town as such is wholly unknown to me. The best things here are the wine and the fruit: the only things that in the long run don’t pall on one. Of my private affairs I won’t write you anything. “Letters are nonsense; only apothecaries write letters.” I will write only of a certain business matter. I have in fact a request to make of you, my dear Varvara Dmitryevna. You must know that on the way I stopped four days at Wiesbaden, and of course played roulette. And what do you think? I did not lose, but won; not, certainly, as much as I could have wished, no hundred thousand, but still a nice little sum.
N.B.: Tell this to no one, dear Varvara Dmitryevna. You can’t, it is true, tell it to anyone, for you don’t meet anyone; but I really mean Pasha; he is still a little goose, and would perhaps imagine that one can make a living out of play. He took it into his head lately to be a shop-boy, and earn money that way: “and so I needn’t learn anything,” he informed me. “And so” he needn’t know that Papa frequents gaming-halls. Therefore tell him not a word about it. During those four days I watched the gamblers closely. Several hundred persons took part in the play, and only two knew really how to gamble — my word of honour! They were a Frenchwoman and an English Lord; they knew how, and lost nothing: indeed they nearly broke the bank. But please don’t think that, in my joy at having won and not lost, I am swaggering, and imagining that I know the secret of play. I do know the secret, and it is extremely stupid and simple: it consists in controlling one’s-self the whole time, and never getting excited at âny phase of the game. That is all; in that way one can’t possibly lose and must win. The whole point is that the man who knows this secret should have the power and capacity to turn it rightly to account. One may be ever so intelligent, one may have a character of pure iron, and yet one may come to! Quotation from Gogol’s Memoirs of a Madman,” grief. Even that philosopher Strachov would lose. Blessed therefore are they who do not gamble, who detest roulette and look upon it as the height of folly.
But to the point. I have, dear Varvara Dmitryevna, won 5,000 francs; or rather, I had won, at first, 10,400 francs, taken the money home, put it in my wallet, and resolved to depart next day and not go into the gaming-rooms again. But I did not hold out, and played away half the money again. So only 5,0 — francs are left. A part of these winnings I have reserved to myself in case of accidents, and the rest I am sending to Petersburg: half to my brother, that he may put it by till my return, and the other half to you, to give or send to Maria Dmitryevna.
[He then discusses how the money may best be sent from” abroad, and changed in Russia.]
XXXII. To N. N. Strachov
ROME,
September 18 [30], 1863.
[Dostoevsky begins by begging Strachov to settle his accounts at the office of the Booklover’s Library.]
And Boborykin may as well know what is known already to the Sovremennik and the Otetschestvennia Zapiski: that I never in my life have sold a work (with the exception of “Poor Folk “) for which I have not been paid in advance. I am a proletarian among the authors, and if anyone wants my work, he must pay me for it beforehand. I myself condemn this system. But I have established it once for all, and will never abandon it. So now I’ll go on: —
At the moment I have nothing ready. But I have (what seems to me) a very good idea for a story. The greater part of it is already jotted down on scraps of paper. I have even begun the actual execution, but in the first place it’s too hot here, and in the second I don’t want to spend more than a week in Rome; how could anyone, staying
