His novels are now translated in France, but what astonishes me is that they are read everywhere with pleasure. It puts me at ease when writing about them.
I should not have believed it if I had tried to describe this strange figure before the resemblance could have been verified by the reading of his novels. But these would be difficult to understand unless one knew the life of the writer who created them – I was going to say experienced them. Never mind – the former word indicates the latter.
In commenting on the labours and life of this man I invite the reader to accompany me on a journey, always sad, often frightful, at times ominous. Those who feel a repugnance on entering hospitals, courts of justice, prisons, and who are afraid to pass through a cemetery at night, had best keep away. I should be a disloyal traveling companion if I tried to enliven a journey which destiny and character had fated to make continuously sad. I am confident that some will follow me, even if the task is heavy; they are of those who believe that the French spirit is burdened with the hereditary duty of knowing all that there is to be known in the world, and of continuing to have the honour of leading the world. And the Russia of the last twenty years will remain an inexplicable enigma if one ignores the books which have made the deepest impression and created the greatest disturbance in that time. Let us examine the works, [1] which have been of such consequence, but first the most dramatic one of all, the life of the man who conceived them.
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