[He speaks of his wife’s condition and of business matters.]
I have grown quite stupid from sheer hard work, and my head feels as if it were in pieces. I await your letters always as one awaits Heaven. What is there more precious than a voice from Russia, the voice of my friend? I have nothing to tell you, no news of any kind, I get duller and stupider every day that I’m here, and yet I daren’t do anything until the novel’s finished. Then, however, I intend in any event to go back to Russia. To get the book done, I must sit at my desk for at least eight hours daily. I have now half worked off my debt to Katkov. I shall work off the rest. Write to me, my friend — write, for Christ’s sake….
In the four chapters that you will read in the June number (perhaps there may be only three, for the fourth probably arrived too late), I have depicted some types of the modern Positivist among the highly “extreme” young men. I know that I have presented them truthfully (for I understand the gentry from experience; no one but me has thus studied and observed them), and I know too that everyone will abuse me and say: “Nonsensical, naïve, stupid, and false.”
XLIII. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov
MILAN,
October 7 [19], 1868.
Above all, I must declare that I never have been in the least degree offended with you, and I say it sincerely and honestly; on the contrary — I supposed that you were angry with me for some reason or another. In the first place, you had ceased to write to me; though every one of your letters is to me, here, a great event — a breath from Russia, a real festival. But how could you ever have thought that
I considered myself offended by anything you may have written? No; my heart is not like that. And moreover, think of this: twenty-two years ago (it was at Bielinsky’s, do you remember?) I made your acquaintance.
Since then life has properly rattled me about, and sometimes given me amazing surprises; and in short and in fine I have at the present moment no one but you: you are the only man on whose heart and disposition I rely, whom I love, and whose thoughts and convictions I share. How then should I not love you, almost as much as I loved my brother who is dead? Your letters have always rejoiced and encouraged me, for I was in dejected mood.
My work, more than anything else, has frightfully weakened and broken me. For almost a year now I have written three and a half printed sheets every month. That is very stiff. Also I miss the Russian way of life; its impressions were always essential to my work. Finally, though you praise the idea of my novel, the execution has not hitherto been distinguished. I am chiefly distressed by the thought that if I had got the novel written in a year, and then had had two or three months to devote to rewriting and re-touching, it would have been quite a different thing; I can answer for it. Now, when I can take a bird’s-eye view, as it were, of the whole, I see that very clearly….
I have become totally alienated from your way of life, though my whole heart is with you; that is why your letters are like heavenly manna to me. The tidings of the new paper greatly rejoiced me…. What more can Nikolay Nikolayevitch now desire? The chief point is that he should be absolute master of the paper. It is very desirable that it be edited in the Russian spirit, as we both conceive it, if it is not to become purely Slavophil.
I hold, my friend, that it is no part of our duty to woo the Slavs too ardently. They must come to us of their own accord. After the Pan-Slavist Congress at Moscow, some individual Slavs made insolent mock of the Russians, because they had taken on themselves to lead others, and even aspired to dominate them, while they themselves had so little national consciousness, and so on.
Believe me: many Slavs, for instance those in Prague, judge us from a frankly Western, from a French or German, point of view; I daresay they wonder that our Slavophils trouble themselves so little about the generally accepted formulas of West-European civilization. Thus we have no motive at all for running after them and paying court. It is a different thing for us merely to study them; we could then help them in time of need; but we should not pursue them with fraternal sentiment, although we must very assuredly regard them as brothers and treat them so.
I hope too that Strachov will give the paper a definite political tone, to say nothing at all of national consciousness. National consciousness is our weak spot; it lacks more than anything else. In every case, Strachov will make a brilliant thing of it, and I look forward to the great delight that his articles will afford me; I have read nothing of his since the failure of the Epoch….
The book about which you write I had shortly before read, and I must confess that it enraged me terribly. I can imagine nothing more impudent. Of course one should spit upon such stuff, and so I was ready to do at first. But I am oppressed by the thought that if I don’t protest against it, I shall thus seem, as it were, to acknowledge the vile fabrication. Only, where is one to protest? In the Nord? But I can’t write French well, and I should like to proceed with all tact. I have an idea of going to Florence, and there getting advice from the Russian Consulate. Of course that is not the only reason why I wish to go to Florence….
XLIV. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna
MILAN,
October 26 [November 7], 1868.
MY DEAR GOOD FRIEND SONETCHKA, It is a very long time since I have written to you. I can say only one thing in excuse: I am still busy with my novel. Believe me, dear, I literally toil day and night; if I am not precisely writing, I am walking up and down the room, smoking and thinking of my work. I can scarcely myself believe that I can’t find a free hour in which to write to you. But it really is so. Of myself and my life I can give you the following information: I live on the best of friendly terms with my wife.
She is patient, and my interests are more important to her than aught else; but I see that she is pining for her friends and relations in Russia. This often grieves me, but my position is still so perplexed that for the next few months we dare not make any plans at all. My affairs have turned out sadly worse than I had calculated.
In two months, you see, the year will be at an end, but of the four parts of my novel only three are finished; the fourth and longest I have not even begun. And as it is quite impossible (working uninterruptedly through the whole year) to write more than three and a half sheets a month (I say this from actual experience), I shall be in arrears by six sheets — that is, the end of the novel cannot appear in the December number of the Roussky Viestnik.
This puts me in a most awkward and painful position; in the first place, I cause the staff much inconvenience, and even loss, for they will have to give their subscribers the conclusion of the novel as a supplement (which, quite apart from anything else, is attended with great expense); in the second place, I myself lose thereby’900 roubles, for I proposed to the staff that I should indemnify them by claiming no fee for the six sheets by which I am in arrears. Finally, this fourth part, and particularly its conclusion, are the most important things in the whole book, which was, strictly speaking, conceived and written for its conclusion alone.
Of our personal life I’ll tell you as follows. After we had buried Sonia in Geneva, we went, as you already know, to Vevey. Anna Grigorovna’s mother came to her, and stayed with us a long time. In tiny, picturesque Vevey we lived like hermits, our only pastime being many mountain-walks. Of the beauty of the scenery I’ll say nothing at all; it’s like a dream; yet Vevey is most enervating: all the doctors in the world know this, but I did not.
I suffered much from epileptic and other nervous attacks. My wife was ill too. So we crossed the Simplon (the most ardent imagination could not depict the beauty of the Simplon Pass) into Italy, and settled down in Milan; our means prevented us from
