At the meeting in Copenhagen he confirmed that saying. I had never believed that Dostoevsky would find happiness in that marriage. Every kind of torment — the whole grievous burden that he fastened on himself by that connection — robbed him of all peace of mind for long and long…. At Semipalatinsk I had often tried to reason him out of his morbid passion for Maria Dmitryevna, but he would listen to nothing. Maria Dmitryevna was invested with a radiant halo in his eyes.
Among other things, he expounded his views on women in general, and gave me corresponding advice.
Once, in talking of our Siberian acquaintances, I mentioned a frivolous and insidious lady of Semipalatinsk; Dostoevsky thereupon remarked: “We should be eternally grateful to a woman whom we have loved, for every day and hour of joy which she has given us. We may not demand from her that she think of us only all her life long; that is ugly egoism, which we should subdue in ourselves.”
As I have said, Dostoevsky looked very ill during his stay at Copenhagen; before that, he had complained in his letters of his state of health: “Besides the epilepsy, I am a martyr to violent fever; every night I have shivering fits and fever, and lose ground day by day.”
Even a perfectly sound man could not have borne the harassed life that Dostoevsky was then leading! Eternally in want of money, anxious not only for his own family, but also for that of his brother Michael, pursued by creditors, in constant fear of being clapped in prison, he knew no rest day nor night; by day he was running from one newspaper-office to the other, and by night he was writing, as he said himself, “to order, under the lash.” Naturally all that was bound to have a hurtful effect on his health as well as his character.
He told me of one incident, among others, which will show how nervous and irritable he sometimes was. When in Paris, it had occurred to him to pay a visit to Rome. To do this, he had to have his passport signed by the Papal Nuncio in Paris. Dostoevsky went twice to the Nuncio’s, but on neither occasion found him. When he went for the third time, he was received by a young abbé, who asked him to wait a while, as Monsignor was just breakfasting, and would take his coffee first.
Dostoevsky leaped up as though gone suddenly crazy, and cried: “Dites à votre Monseigneur, que je crache dans son café — qu’il me signe mon passeport, ou je me précipiterai chez lui avec scandale!” The young abbé stared at him in consternation; he rushed into his chief’s apartment, came back with another abbé, and requested our Fyodor Michailovitch to clear out at once, and let the porter of his hotel come and see about the passport.
“Yes — I was too hot-tempered that time!” concluded Dostoevsky, with a shy smile. But evidently this irritability long endured; for in one of his later letters he writes: “I have become frightfully nervous and irritable; my character gets worse every day, and I can’t imagine what it will end in.”
FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF SOPHIE KOVALEVSKY 1866
ANYUTA was so delighted by her first literary success that she at once began another story. The hero of this tale was a young man who had been brought up far away from home in a monastery by his uncle, a monk. The hero, whose name was Michael, had some resemblance to Alyosha in the “Brothers Karamazov.” When I read that novel, some years afterwards, I was instantly struck by the resemblance; I spoke of it to Dostoevsky, whom I very often met at that time.
“I believe you are right!” said he, striking his forehead. “But I give you my word of honour that I never once thought of this Michael, when I created my Alyosha…. Perhaps he was unconsciously in my memory,” he added, after a pause.
When this second story of Anyuta’s appeared in print, the catastrophe arrived; a letter of Dostoevsky’s fell into my father’s hands, and there was a great fuss. We had hardly returned to Petersburg from the country before Anyuta wrote to Dostoevsky asking him to call. And he came — on the very day she fixed. I can still remember with what feverish impatience we awaited his arrival, and how, for a whole hour before he could be expected, we jumped at every tingle of the bell. But this first visit of Dostoevsky’s was a complete failure.
Our father had a great prejudice against all literary men. It is true that he allowed my sister to make acquaintance with Dostoevsky, but it was not without secret anxiety. When we were going back to town (he stayed in the country), he said, on parting, to my mother:
“Do reflect, Lisa, on the great responsibility you are undertaking. Dostoevsky does not belong to our circles. What do we know of him, after all? Only that he is a journalist, and has been in prison. A nice recommendation! We shall have to be very cautious about him.”
Father especially enjoined on mother that she should never leave Anyuta a moment alone with Dostoevsky. I begged for permission to be present at this first meeting. Our two old German aunts came into the room every minute on one pretext or another, and stared at our guest as if he were some strange animal; finally they both sat down on the sofa and stayed there till he went.
Anyuta was furious that her first meeting with Dostoevsky, on which she had set such high hopes, should be taking place in such circumstances; she looked cross, and would not speak. Dostoevsky too was very uncomfortable in the presence of the two old ladies. It was clear that he was sharply annoyed. He looked ill and old that day, as he always did when he was in a bad temper. He pulled nervously at his short blonde beard, bit his moustache, and made dreadful faces.
Mama did her very best to get up an interesting conversation. With the friendliest conventional smile on her lips, but evidently in the greatest perplexity, she tried to say all sorts of pleasant and flattering things to him, and to ask him intelligent questions.
Dostoevsky answered monosyllabically and discourteously. At last Mama was au bout de ses ressources, and said no more. Dostoevsky sat with us half-an-hour; then he took his hat, bowed hastily and awkwardly to us all, but shook hands with none of us — and went.
As soon as he was gone, Anyuta ran to her room, threw herself on the bed, and began to cry. “You always spoil everything!” she said, over and over again.
Yet, some days later, Dostoevsky reappeared, and his visit this time was very opportune, for Mama and the aunts were out, and only my sister and I at home. He thawed at once. He took Anyuta by the hand, sat down beside her on the divan and instantly they began to talk as if they were two old friends. The conversation did not, as on his first visit, drag itself with difficulty from one uninteresting theme to another. Anyuta and he had to make the best use of their time, and say as much as they possibly could to one another, so on they gabbled, joked, and laughed.
I was sitting in the same room, but taking no part in their conversation; I stared unwinkingly at Dostoevsky, and devoured every single word he said. This time he looked different from what he had at his first visit — young, frank, clever, and attractive. ‘ “Can he really be forty-three years old?” thought I.
“Can he really be three-and-a-half times as old as I am, and twice as old as Anyuta? They say he’s a great writer, and yet one can talk to him like a chum!” And all at once he seemed to me such a dear. Three hours went by in no time. Suddenly there was a noise in the ante-room: Mama had come back from town. She did not know that Dostoevsky was there, and came in with her hat on, laden with parcels.
When she saw Dostoevsky with us, she was surprised and a little alarmed. “What would my husband say?” was probably her first thought. We rushed to meet her, and when she saw we were in such high spirits, she thawed in her turn, and asked Dostoevsky to stay for lunch.
From that day forward he came to-our house as a friend. As our stay in Petersburg was not to be very long, he came frequently, say three or four times in the week.
It was particularly agreeable when he came on evenings when we had no other visitors. On such occasions he was remarkably vivacious and interesting. Fyodor Michailovitch did not like general conversation; he could only talk as a monologuist, and even then only when all those present were sympathetic to him, and prepared to listen with eager attention. When this condition was fulfilled, he talked most beautifully — eloquent and convincing as no one else could be.
Often he told us the story of the novels he was planning, often episodes and scenes of his own life.
I can still remember clearly how, for example, he described the moment when he, condemned to death, stood with eyes blindfolded before the company of soldiers, and waited for the word “Fire!” and how instead there came the beating of drums, and they heard that they were pardoned.
Dostoevsky was often very realistic in his conversation, and quite forgot that young girls were
