My God, there -are so many sour-faced, small-souled, narrow-minded, hoary-headed philosophers, professors of the art of existence, Pharisees, who pride themselves on their “experience of life” — that is to say, their lack of individuality (for they are all cut on the same pattern); and who are good for nothing at all, with their everlasting preachments about contentment with one’s destiny, faith in something or other, modest demands from life, acceptance of the station one finds one’s-self in, and so on — never once thinking about the sense of any of those words; for their contentment is that of cloistered self-castration; they judge with unspeakably paltry animosity the vehement, ardent nature of him who refuses to accept their insipid “daily-task” calendar of existence. Oh, how vulgar are all these preachers of the falseness of earthly joys — how vulgar, every one! Whenever I fall into their hands, I suffer the torments of hell….
[Here follows the description of a visitor who had enraged Dostoevsky with his “vulgarities.”]
I wish so much to see you again. Sometimes a nameless grief possesses me. I can’t help thinking perpetually how moody and “edgey” I was when with you at Reval. I was ill then. I remember still how you once said to me that my behaviour towards you excluded all sense of equality between us. My dear brother, that was unjust. I have indeed, it is true, an evil, repellent character. But I have always ranked you above myself. I could give my life for you and yours; but even when my heart is warm with love, people often can’t get so much as one friendly word out of me. At such times I have lost control of my nerves. I appear ludicrous, repellent, and have to suffer inexpressibly from the misunderstanding of my fellow-creatures. People call me arid and heartless. How often have I been rude to Emilie Fyodorovna, your wife, who is a thousand times my superior! I remember, too, that frequently I was cross with your son Fedya for no reason at all, though at the very time I loved him perhaps even more than I loved you. I can show myself to be a man of feeling and humour only when external circumstances lift me high above the external daily round. When that is not my state, I am always repellent. I account for these disparities by my malady. Have you read “Lucretia Floriani”? Take a look at the “King” too. But soon you’ll be able to read my “Netotschka Nesvanova.” That story, like “Goliadkin,” will be a selfconfession, though different in tone. About “Goliadkin” I often happen to hear such expressions of opinion that I get quite frightened. Many say that it is a veritable, as yet uncomprehended, marvel, that it will have enormous significance in the future, and that by itself alone it is enough to make me famous; some think it more exciting than Dumas. Now I’m beginning again to praise myself. But it is so delightful, brother, to be rightly understood! For what, actually, do you love me so much? I’ll see to it that somehow we meet again very soon. Won’t we love one another, that’s all! Wish me success. I am now working at “The Mistress of the Inn.” It is getting on more easily than “Poor Folk” did. The story is in the same manner. A flow of inspiration, which comes from my inmost soul, is guiding my pen. It is quite different from what it was with “Prochartschin,” from which I suffered the whole summer through. How I wish I could soon help you, brother. Depend, as on a rock, on the money that I promised you. Kiss all your dear ones for me. In the meantime I am
Thy
DOSTOEVSKY.
XVI. To his Brother Michael
[Postscript to a longer business letter, early in the year 1847.]
You will scarcely believe it. Here is the third year of my literary activity, and I am as if in a dream. I don’t see the life about me at all, I have no time to become conscious of it; no time, either, to learn anything. I want to attain to something steadfast. People have created a dubious fame for me, and I know not how long this hell of poverty and constant hurried work will last. Oh, if I could but once have rest!
XVII. To his Brother Michael
[FROM THE FORTRESS],
July 18 1849
Dear Brother,
I was inexpressibly glad of your letter, which I got on July 11. At last you are free, and I can vividly imagine how happy, you were when you saw your family again. How impatiently they must have awaited you! I seem to see that your life is beginning to shape itself differently. With what are you now occupied, and, above all, what are your means of support? Have you work, and of what sort?
Summer is indeed a burden in the town. You tell me only that you have taken a new house; and probably it is much smaller. It is a pity you couldn’t spend the whole summer in the country. I thank you for the things you sent; they have relieved and diverted me. You write, my dear fellow, that I must not lose heart. Indeed, I am not losing heart at all; to be sure, life here is very monotonous and dreary, but what else could it be?
And after all it isn’t invariably so tedious. The time goes by most irregularly, so to speak — now too quickly, now too slowly. Sometimes I have the feeling that I’ve grown accustomed to this sort of life, and that nothing matters very much. Of course, I try to keep all alluring thoughts out of my head, but can’t always succeed; my early days, with their fresh impressions, storm in on my soul, and I live all the past over again. That is in the natural order of things. The days are now for the most part bright, and I am somewhat more cheerful.
The rainy days, though, are unbearable, and on them the casemate looks terribly grim. I have occupation, however. I do not let the time go by for naught; I have made out the plots of three tales and two novels; and am writing a novel now, but avoid over-working. Such labour, when I do it with great enjoyment (I have’ never worked so much con amore as now), has always agitated me and affected my nerves.
While I was working in freedom I was always obliged to diversify my labours with amusements; but here the excitement consequent on work has to evaporate unaided. My health is good, except for the haemorrhoids, and the shattered state of my nerves, which keeps up a constant crescendo. Now and then I get attacks of breathlessness, my appetite is as unsatisfactory as ever, I sleep badly, and have morbid dreams. I sleep about five hours in the daytime, and wake four times at least every night. This is the only thing that really bothers me.
The worst of all are the twilight hours. By nine o’clock it is quite dark here. I often cannot get to sleep until about one or two in the morning, and the five hours during which I have to lie in darkness are hard to bear. They are injuring my health more than anything else. When our case will be finished I can’t say at all, for I have lost all sense of time, and merely use a calendar upon which I stroke out, quite passively, each day as it passes: “That’s over!”
I haven’t read much since I’ve been here: two descriptions of travel in the Holy Land, and the works of Demetrius von Rostov. The latter interested me very much; but that kind of reading is only a drop in the ocean; any other sort of books would, I imagine, quite extraordinarily delight me, and they might be very useful, for thus I could diversify my own thoughts with those of others, or at all events capture a different mood.
There you have all the details of my present existence — I have nothing else to tell you. I am glad that you found your family in the best of health. Have you yet written of your liberation to Moscow? It is a pity that nothing is done here. How I should like to spend at least one day with you! It is now three months since we came to this fortress: what may not still be in store for us! Possibly I shall not, the whole summer through, see so much as one green leaf.
Do you remember how in May they would take us to walk in the little garden? The green was just beginning then, and I couldn’t help thinking of Reval, where I was with you at about that season, and of the garden belonging to the Engineering College. I imagined that you must be making the same comparison, so sad was I. And I should like to see a lot of other people besides. Whom do you see most of now? I suppose everybody’s in the country.
But our brother Andrey must surely be in town? Have you seen Nikolya? Greet them all from me. Kiss all your children for me. Greet your wife, and tell her that I am greatly touched by her thinking of me. Don’t be too anxious on my account. I have but one wish — to be in
