Blessed, none the less, be those who shall find the right path in these circumstances! The breach with environment is bound to be much more decisive than the breach between the society of to-day and to-morrow, which the Socialists prophesy. For if one wants to go to the people and remain with the people, one must first of all learn not to scorn the people; and this it is well-nigh impossible for our upper class to do. In the second place, one must believe in God, which is impossible for Russian Europeans (though the genuine Europeans of Europe do believe in God).
I greet you, gentlemen, and, if you will permit me, grasp your hands. If you want to do me a great pleasure, do not, for God’s sake, regard me as a preacher who sets up to lecture you. You have called upon me to tell you the truth with my soul and conscience, and I have told you the truth as I see it, and as best I can. For no man can do more than his powers and capacities permit him.
Your devoted
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.
LXXIII. To Mlle. N. N.
Petersburg,
April II, 1880.
MUCH-HONOURED AND GRACIOUS LADY, Forgive my having left your beautiful kind letter unanswered for so long; do not regard it as negligence on my part. I wanted to say something very direct and cordial to you, but my life goes by, I vow, in such disorder and hurry that it is only at rare moments that I belong to myself at all. Even now, when at last I have a moment in which to write to you, I shall be able to impart but a tiny fragment of all that fills my heart, and that I should like to touch upon with you.
Your opinion of me is extraordinarily precious to me; your lady-mother has shown me the passage in your letter to her which relates to myself, and your words moved me profoundly, nay! even astonished me: for I know that as a writer I have many faults, and even I myself am never satisfied with myself.
I must tell you that in those frequent and grievous moments wherein I seek to judge myself, I come to the painful conclusion that in my works I never have said so much as the twentieth part of what I wished to say, and perhaps could, actually, have said. My only refuge is the constant hope that God will some day bestow upon me such inspiration and such power as are requisite to bring to full expression all that fills my heart and imagination.
Recently there took place here the public debate by the young philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (a son of the renowned historian) of his thesis for Doctor’s degree; and I heard him make the following profound remark: “I am firmly convinced that mankind knows much more than it has hitherto expressed either in science or art.” Just so it is with me: I feel that much more is contained in me than I have as yet uttered in my writings.
And if I lay all false modesty aside, I must acknowledge that even in what I have written, there is much that came from the very depth of my heart. I swear to you that though I have received much recognition, possibly more than I deserve, still the critics, the literary newspaper critics, who certainly have often (no, rather, very seldom) praised me, nevertheless have always spoken of me so lightly and superficially that I am obliged to assume that all those things which my heart brought forth with pain and tribulation, and which came directly from my soul, have simply passed unperceived. From this you can divine what a pleasant impression must have been made upon me by the delicate and searching comments on my work which I read in your letter to your lady-mother.
But I am writing only of myself, which after all in a letter to the discerning and sympathetic critic whom I perceive in you is natural enough. You write to me of the phase which your mind is just now undergoing. I know that you are an artist — a painter. Permit me to give you a piece of advice which truly comes from my heart: stick to your art, and give yourself up to it even more than hitherto. I know, for I have heard (do not take this ill of me) that you are not happy. To live alone, and continually to reopen the wounds in your heart by dwelling upon memories, may well make your life too drear for endurance. There is but one cure, one refuge, for that woe: art, creative activity.
But do not put it upon yourself to write me your confession: that would assuredly tax you too far. Forgive me for offering you advice; I should very much like to see you and say a few words face to face. After the letter that you have written, I must necessarily regard you as one dear to me, as a being akin to my soul, as my heart’s sister — how could I fail to feel with you? But now to what you have told me of your inward duality. That trait is indeed common to all… that is, all who are not wholly commonplace.
Nay, it is common to human nature, though it does not evince itself so strongly in all as it does in you. It is precisely on this ground that I cannot but regard you as a twin soul, for your inward duality corresponds most exactly to my own. It causes at once great torment, and great delight. Such duality simply means that you have a strong sense of yourself, much aptness for self-criticism, and an innate feeling for your moral duty to yourself and all mankind. If your intelligence were less developed, if you were more limited, you would be less sensitive, and would not possess that duality. Rather the reverse: in its stead would have appeared great arrogance.
Yet such duality is a great torment. My dear, my revered Mlle. N. N., do you believe in Christ and in His commandments? If you believe in Him (or ait least have a strong desire to do so), then give yourself wholly up to Him; the pain of your duality will be thereby alleviated, and you will find the true way out — but belief is first of all in importance. Forgive the untidiness of my letter. If you only knew how I am losing the capacity to write letters, and what a difficulty I find it! But having gained such a friend as you, I don’t wish to lose her in a hurry.
Farewell. Your most devoted and heartfelt friend,
F. DOSTOEVSKY.
LXXIV. To Frau E. A. Stackenschneider
STARAYA-ROUSSA,
July 17, 1880.
MUCH-ESTEEMED ELENA ANDREYEVNA, I must call upon all your humanity and indulgence when I ask you to forgive me for having left your beautiful kind letter of June 19 so long unanswered. But I shall beg you to consider facts; you may then perhaps find it in your power to be indulgent even to me. On June 11 I returned from Moscow to Staraya-Roussa, was frightfully tired, but sat down at once to the “Karamazovs,” and wrote three whole sheets at one blow.
After I had sent off the MS., I applied myself to the reading of all the newspaper articles that dealt with my speech at Moscow (I had been so busy till then that I had had no time for them), and I decided to write a rejoinder to Granovsky; it was to be not so much an answer to him as a manifesto of our faith for all Russia: for the significant and moving crisis in the life of our society which declared itself at Moscow, during the Pushkin celebrations, was deliberately misrepresented by the press, and thrust of set purpose into the background.
Our press, particularly that of Petersburg, was alarmed by this new development, which is indeed without parallel: society has plainly shown that it has had enough of the everlasting jeering and spitting at Russia, and is consequently desirous of something different. But that fact had of course to be distorted, hushed-up, laughed at, misrepresented: “Nothing of the sort! It was but the general beatitude after the opulent Moscow, banquets.
The gentlemen had simply over-eaten themselves.” I had already decided, at Moscow, to publish my speech in the Moskovskoie Viedomosti, and to bring out a number of the Diary immediately afterwards in Petersburg; in that number, which, by-the-bye, will be the only one this year, I thought of printing my speech, with a preamble, moreover, which occurred to me the very instant I had finished speaking — on the platform itself, at the moment when, together with Aksakov and the rest, even Turgenev and Annenkov rushed up to cover me with kisses, and then shook hands with me, protesting over and over again that I had done great things. God grant they’re of the same opinion still!
I can vividly imagine how they now criticize my speech, having recovered from their first enthusiasm — and indeed this is precisely the theme of my preamble. When the speech,
