Tikhon. On humility (how mighty humility is).
All about humility and free will.
—Of forgiving the unforgivable sinner (that this torment is the most tormenting).
The Main Idea.
May 3/15.
After the Monastery and Tikhon the Great Sinner comes out into the world in order to be the greatest of men. He is sure that he will be the greatest of men. And in that way he behaves: he is the proudest of the proud and behaves with the greatest haughtiness towards people. The vagueness as to the form of his future greatness coincides perfectly with his youth. But he (and this is cardinal) has through Tikhon got hold of the idea (conviction) that in order to conquer the whole world one must conquer oneself only. Conquer thyself and thou shalt conquer the world. Does not choose a career, but neither has he the time: he begins to watch himself profoundly. But along with this there are also certain contradictions:
(1) Gold (amassing) (a family on his hands); amassing money was suggested to him by a usurer, a terrible man, the antithesis of Tikhon. (2) Education (Comte—Atheism—Friends). Education—He is tormented by ideas and philosophy but he masters that which is essential.
Suddenly youth and debauchery. A martyr’s act and terrible crimes. Self-renunciation. But out of mad pride he becomes an ascetic and pilgrim. Travels in Russia. (Romance of love. Thirst for humiliation), etc., etc., and so on.
(The canvas is rich.)
Fallings and risings.
Extraordinary man—but what has he done and achieved.
Traits.—Out of pride and infinite haughtiness towards people he becomes meek and charitable to all because he is already higher than all.
He wanted to shoot himself (a child was exposed at his door).
He ends with establishing a Foundling Hospital and becomes a Haase.[81] Everything is becoming clear.
He dies confessing a crime.
STAVROGIN’S MEETING WITH TIKHON, BY V. FRICHE
From Dostoevsky’s Note-books
Bishop Tikhon, to whom Stavrogin makes his “Confession,” was conceived by Dostoevsky as one of the principal characters in the great—unnamed—novel in five books, the plan of which he communicated in 1870 to A. N. Maikov. The action of the second book, on which Dostoevsky rested all his hopes, was to take place in a monastery to which a boy, who had committed a criminal offence, had been sent by his parents. He was “fully developed and depraved” (a type, as Dostoevsky says, well known to him), “a little wolf and a nihilist,” who comes in the end to feel the beneficent influence of Bishop Tikhon. “I want to make Tikhon Sadonsky in the second book the central figure,” Dostoevsky wrote, “of course under a different name, but he is also a bishop and will live in a monastery in retirement…. It is no longer a Konstanjhoglo, nor the German (I forget his name) in Oblomov, nor the Lopukhovs and Rakhmetovs. True, I shall not create anything, but shall only reveal the actual Tikhon whom I have long since taken to my heart with rapture.”
When Dostoevsky later conceived the idea of The Life of a Great Sinner, the hero of The Life, “sometimes a believer, sometimes an atheist,” had indeed to be spiritually reborn in a monastery under the influence of the “holy and grand” figure of Tikhon, and to issue into life as “the greatest of men.”
When Dostoevsky finally decided on his conception of The Possessed, his intention was to give a conspicuous place to Tikhon, to whom Stavrogin (the prince) was to give his Confession, and this Confession adds considerably to Peter Stepanovich Verkhovensky’s story about the Petersburg period of Nikolai Vsevolodovich’s life (The Possessed, Part I. chap. v.).
In the notes published by L. P. Grossman in his book on Dostoevsky (notes taken from the Dostoevsky Note-books in the Historical Museum), there are hints as to Stavrogin’s (prince) meeting with Tikhon, and also as to the subject of their conversation and the crime of which Stavrogin repents in his Confession.
Thus Dostoevsky intended the following words to appear in Stavrogin’s “document”: “And I did all this as an aristocrat, an idler, a man uprooted from the ground. I admit, though, that the chief factor was my own wicked will, and had nothing to do with my environment; of course nobody commits such crimes. But all, who are uprooted from the ground, do the same kind of things, although more feeble and watery. Many people do not even notice their nasty acts and think themselves honest.”
Tikhon, who in the note appears under the name of “Bishop,” advises that this passage shall be struck out, and Stavrogin replies in a grumbling tone: “I am not a man of letters.”
This passage is not in Stavrogin’s Confession. The idea that many people sin in the same way, yet go on living (“in peace and quiet with their conscience”), is expressed there not by Stavrogin, but by Tikhon. And it is Tikhon, not Stavrogin, who says that the latter’s moral fall is a result of his being uprooted from the ground (words inserted by Dostoevsky in the text of the proofs while correcting them).
In these published notes there is also some indication of the motive which decided Stavrogin to make his “document” public:
“Tikhon says: On earth people must be happy.
“(Prince): I am an idler and I am bored. I know that on earth one can be happy (and must be happy) and that there is something which gives happiness, but I do not know what it is. No, I am not one of the disappointed. I think I am one of the corrupt and idle.
“The Prince says to him: I want to test my strength and I will tell you about the little girl.”
As can be seen from Stavrogin’s Confession, he did commit his crime from “boredom.” Not satisfied with Stavrogin’s admission of this in the text, Dostoevsky tried to heighten the motive by adding the following words in the margin: “I say frankly, I was sometimes by no means far from thinking that I should be exiled to Siberia. The main thing is—I am bored. I was so bored that I could have hanged myself, I think. I remember, at that time I was much taken up with theology. That, it is true, diverted me a bit, but later I felt still more bored.”
Finally, in one of the notes published by Grossman the reason is indicated why Stavrogin, when it comes to the point, gives up the idea of publishing his “document”: “the Bishop says that the confession of faith is all right, but that faith without deeds is dead, and he demands a still higher deed, a still more difficult act, a moral labour, as if he said: ‘Well, Prince, are you capable of this?’ And the Prince admits that he is a Prince, he confesses that he has lied and takes back his words: in the end—Uri.”[82]
To these notes of Dostoevsky, which are already known, we are now able to add a series of new notes taken from Dostoevsky’s Note-book which is in the Central Archives (No. 15 in A. G. Dostoevsky’s list).
On page 30 we find:
“Lisa[83] pays attention to Nechaev.[84]
He kills Shatov.
Lisa is convinced that he (Stavrogin) had killed him.
She hurries off to him.
(Meanwhile the Prince[85] and Tikhon; before that the Prince and Shatov. Everything as before.)
Lisa runs away with Nechaev. St. Tr.[86] And the book-pedlar. He dies. The Prince hanged himself. Everything as before.”
This, clearly, is quite a different version of the end of the novel so far as it relates to Lisa. Another indication as to the meeting of Tikhon and Stavrogin is found on page 37:
“Sum total. Stavrogin as a character.
All noble impulses to a monstrous degree.
(Tikhon) and all passions (with unfailing boredom).
He throws himself on the girl[87] and on the beauty.[88]
He did not really love the beauty but despised her, but flared up with passion (illusory and momentary, but infinite) and, as soon as he has committed the crime, he is disappointed. He escaped punishment, but hanged himself.”
There is also a hint with regard to one detail in the supposed conversation between Tikhon and Stavrogin. On page 38 we find: “He confesses to Tikhon that he gets fun out of making game of the beauty.” But actually Stavrogin does not make game of Elisabeth Nikolaevna, and she is scarcely mentioned in the Confession and in the conversation with Tikhon.
There is also a hint with regard to the crime committed by Stavrogin on page 37: “No one knows the secret of the marriage[89] except Dasha and the beauty. Only Tikhon knows about the little girl.”
Finally, on page 36 there is a hint with regard to the passage in the novel to which Stavrogin’s meeting must be referred: “Stavrogin advises Dasha to give up S. T. and run away with him to Switzerland, to Uri. He had already done this before. Here there is a misunderstanding with S. T., who, to spite her, tells her he is a cuckold … and Dasha goes to her brother. At the same time (the beauty showed jealousy) she warns him that Stavrogin is married to the lame girl. The beauty is in despair, since all her hopes are lost (for she suspects that the prince is in love with her, and she herself is madly in love with him); she laughs at Dasha; she runs and gives herself to the prince. Immediately after this the murder of the lame girl.
(He went to Tikhon).”[90]
Such are the hints and notes out of which eventually grew the chapters of “At Tikhon’s,”
