By Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé
Part Two.
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Dostoevsky in 1847. Sketch by Konstiantyn Trutovsky.
WE HAVE ALREADY SHOWN what kind of spirit animated the bands of students who after 1840 clubbed together to discuss Fourier, Louis Blanc and Proudhon. About the year 1847 these societies opened their doors to journalists and to officers of the Army. They were all united into one general association under the presidency of Petrashevsky, one of the “old boys,” the author of the Dictionary of Foreign Terms, and an “agitator.”
Of the true story of the conspiracy that passes under his name, like all other history of that period, little is known. This much is certain, however, that the members were divided into two parties. One party united itself to its predecessors, the Decembrists of 1825, whose ambitions were limited to the emancipation of the serfs and to a Liberal constitution. The other party was in advance of its successors, the present Nihilists, and desired nothing less than the complete abolition of existing social conditions, however much hallowed by antiquity.
DOSTOYEVSKI’S SOUL, AS FAR as we know it, seemed predestined to be the victim of the movements now in progress. They appealed to his generous sympathies as well as to his offended and rebellious temperament. Years after he tells us, in the Notes of a Scribe, how Belinsky, his literary patron, had corrupted him, drawn him towards socialism, and had attempted to make him an Atheist. Those pages, penned in 1873, are written in a bitter and exaggerated vein, and were in so far a mistake that they were published too late – after death had sealed the lips that might have moved in protest.
Mikhail Petrashevsky
The author of Poor Folks soon became an assiduous member of the meetings inspired by Petrashevsky. It is beyond dout that he took his place among the moderates, or to be more correct, the “independent visionaries.” The only political matters that interested him were those connected with mysticism and compassion. His incapacity for any active participation made him a mere harmless metaphysician. The specific offenses with which he was afterwards charged were : participation in meetings, discussing “the severity of censorship,” the “reading of or listening to” unlawful pamphlets, the “promise” of future contributions to a proposed newspaper. These crimes, at most mere errors of judgments, appear very light, especially if they are placed in the balance against the rigorous punishment which they provoked. The police at that time were so imperfect that for two years they ignored what was going on in these assemblies of “malcontents.” Eventually a “false friend” betrayed them. Petrashevsky and his comrades finally committed themselves at a banquet given in honour of Fourier.
On this occasion speeches were made in the style current at the time, on the destruction of the family tie, of property, of kings, and the gods – but this did not prevent the same people meeting again at other banquets where the teachings of the “Founder of Christianity” would be extolled. Dostoyevsky never joined in any of these “love-feasts.”
This banquet took place – and it is important to remember this in view of what follows – soon after those days in June which had terrified Europe, and just a year after those similar banquets which had led to the overthrow of a throne.
Nicholas I
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS WAS a sensible and humane man. He did violence to himself when he had to refrain from being merciful. He was fully persuaded on religious grounds that God had chosen him for the sole purpose of saving a crumbling world. As sovereign, he was already contemplating the emancipation of the serfs, and it was a strange irony that through misunderstanding it was to be his fate to have to punish severely the men, of whom some had only committed the crime of wishing the same beneficent thing he himself had in view. History can only be just by looking into every conscience to verify the motives, and to test the springs, that actuate them.
But the time when these struggles just mentioned took place was not propitious for making explanations, or for arriving at a calm judgment.
On the 23rd of April, 1849, at five in the morning, thirty-four suspects were arrested. The two brothers Dostoyevsky were among them. The prisoners were taken to the Citadel at St. Petersburg and secreted in the casemates of the Ravelin Alexis, a lugubrious place, haunted by sad memories. They remained there eight months, without any other distraction than that afforded by the interrogations of members of the Court of Inquiry. Only towards the end were they allowed some religious books. Later Feodor Dostoyevsky wrote to his brother, who had been promptly released at the time, for want of sufficient incriminating evidence: “For five months I have lived on my own substance, that is to say on my own brain, and on nothing else…. Perpetually thinking, and thinking only, and that without a single impression from the outside to renew or sustain the thoughts – it was hard to bear…. I felt like being under an exhauster where all the air is pumped out.” This vivid simile applies with equal justice to places beyond the glacis of the Russian citadel! Hyppolyte Debout, one of the prisoners, recorded the only consolation they experienced. A young soldier of the garrison, on duty in the passage, had been much affected by the lonely isolation of the prisoners. From time to time he slipped the cover of the peephole to be found in every casemate door, and whispered, saying: “Do you find it very trying? Suffer in patience: Christ also suffered.” It was perhaps when listening to the words of this soldier that Dostoyevsky conceived some of his characters, which so well represent the pious resignation of the Russian people.
On the 22nd of December the prisoners were brought out without being informed of the sentence passed on them by the Court-martial in their absence. Their number was now reduced to twenty-one – some having been released. They were conducted into the open space of Semenovsky, where a scaffold had been erected. During the short time they stood together on the platform after having recognized each other and fraternized, Dostoyevsky communicated to one of them – Monbelli by name, who afterwards mentioned the fact – the outline of a novel at which he had worked while in prison. With the thermometer at 16 degrees Fahr., the State criminals were made to undress, and in their shirt sleeves had to listen to the reading of the judgments, which lasted half an hour. After the clerk of the court had begun to read, Feodor Dostoyevsky said to Duroff, standing beside him, “Is it possible we are going to be executed?” It was evidently the first time such a thought had entered his mind. Duroff only answered with a gesture, pointing to a cart filled with things hidden under a tarpaulin, which looked like coffins. The proclamation ended with the words:
The mock execution, Petrashevsky on the right.
“…are condemned to death and sentenced to be shot.” The clerk descended and a priest mounted the scaffold, crucifix in hand, and exhorted the doomed to make their confession. Only one, a man belonging to the shopkeeper class, accepted the invitation. All the others, however, kissed the cross. Petrashevsky and two of the leading conspirators were then tied to the posts. The officer ordered the company facing them to load, and gave the preliminary words of command.
As the soldiers raised their muskets, as white flag was hoisted in front of them. Then only did the twenty-one prisoners learn that the Emperor had revised the sentence of the Military Court, and had commuted the punishment. Country carts were at hand near the scaffold to take them to Siberia. The leaders were unroped, but one of them, Grigorieff, went mad and never recovered.
ON THE OTHER HAND, Dostoyevsky since then often affirmed, with every show of sincerity, that he would certainly have gone mad had he returned to normal life, if this test of endurance, and others to follow, had been spared him.
During his last year of freedom (before going to prison) the obsession of imaginary maladies, trouble with his nerves, and a “mystic fright,” were driving him straight into a state of mental derangement, and we can believe him. He assures us that he was only saved by the sudden change in his manner of life, for it compelled him to brace himself against the misfortunes which had hitherto mastered him. I accept this statement, for the secrets of the soul are unassailable; and it is certain that there is nothing better to cure an imaginary illness than real misfortune. At the same time I am inclined to think that this statement may also have been biased by a sense of false pride. On a careful perusal of all his subsequent work, passages are constantly met with, in which the effects of the mental shock received during those few awful moments are unmistakably in evidence. There is not a single book in which a similar scene of an execution is not reproduced, either as a definite occurrence, or as a vision, described in a manner which absorbs his whole mind in the psychological study of the individual on the point of death. Note the intenseness of such pages, which make one suspect the existence of the hallucinations of a nightmare harboured in some sad corner of his brain.
The Imperial warrant, less severe on the author than on the others, reduced his sentence to four years’ penal servitude; to be followed by service in the ranks of the army, loss of “nobility,” and all civil rights.
The prisoners were forthwith placed in the carts and the procession started for Siberia. On arriving at Tobolsk they spent the night for the last time together before being dispersed.
Yekaterina Trubetskaya, first of the Decembrists' wives.
THEY WERE PUT IN irons, their heads were shaved, and they were sent to different stations. It was here in the locals prison that they met the “wives of the Decembrists.” The courageous example given by these women is notorious. Though belonging to the highest social circles, they had all forsaken the gay life to follow their husbands into exile. For twenty-five years they haunted the prison doors. On learning that their native country was sending out a new generation of the proscribed, these noble women came to visit them in the prisons. Themselves past-mistresses in suffering and courage, they began with innate motherly instinct to teach the young men – all under thirty years of age – what they were to expect and how to bear up against the disgrace. They did even more; they offered each one of them all they could give, all they possessed – a New Testament. Dostoyevsky accepted one, and during the four years in Siberia it remained under his pillow. He read it himself every night by the dormitory night light, and made others read it also. After the hard day’s work, whilst his comrades were recuperating their physical strength for the morrow’s toil by sleeping, he drew from this book the more needed nourishment for the thoughtful man, and the moral recuperation necessary to enable him to bear his trials nobly.
Let us try and imagine this man of lofty ideas, with delicate nerves, devouring pride, and naturally timid, with a quick imagination, subjected to course treatment. Imagine him among that crowd of vulgar scoundrels, doomed to a monotonous convict life, dragged every morning to hard labour, and, at the least negligence, or the least whim of the keeper, threatened to be put under the lash! He was admitted to the “second category,” reserved for the worst criminals and all political offenders. They were housed in the citadel under constant military supervision, and were daily employed in turning the millstones in the lime kilns and in breaking up the old barrack buildings. In winter they were taken down to the frozen river and put to hard and useless occupations. He has ably described the effects of the additional fatigue derived from working for mere work’s sake as a mere physical hardship. He also declares, and I quite believe it, that the heaviest part of the punishment was the absolute deprivation of privacy year after year – not a moment alone! But the greatest mental torture of all which this young penman in his prime, full of ideas and plans, had to undergo was the inability to put pen to paper, and in that way to alleviate the cravings for literary work. His talent was being stifled.
Nevertheless he survived, purified and fortified. We have no occasion to imagine his tale, for it is before us, though under an assumed name, in all its details written down after leaving jail, under the title of “Recollections” from the House of the Dead 
Oh, what a matter of chance, after all, is literary success, often so unjust!
THE NAME AND WORK of Silvio Pellico has made the round of the whole civilized world. They have classic fame in France, and yet this same France, the highway for all that is renowned and of large ideas, was until yesterday ignorant of the very title of that cruel yet superb book which, on account both of its consummate art and for the horrors it describes, is far superior to that of the Lombard prisoner. Are Russian tears less human than Italian tears?
The writing of this book offered great difficulties. In describing that yet mysterious country, the name “Siberia” had to be used, a name at this time not voluntarily pronounced. Even the judicial language employed a euphemism to avoid its use. The courts sentenced the condemned to transportation “to distant territories,” and it was left to an erstwhile political convict to risk further persecution by defying the censor. And he won. The fundamental condition for success was seemingly to ignore the fact of the existence of such people as political convicts. It was nevertheless necessary to describe the special nature of the sufferings which men of a superior class in life had to undergo, when suddenly thrust into these infamous surroundings.
Cover image from a modern edition of Memoirs from the House of the Dead (Oxford).
The writer introduces us to a manuscript written by one Alexander Gorianchikoff, who died in Siberia after having been set at liberty. A short biography tells us that this dummy was an honest fellow, well educated, belonging to the upper classes. The crime for which he was condemned to ten years’ penal servitude was, God knows, nothing – less than nothing, a mere accident, one of those small things that cast no stain on either heart or honour. Gorianchikoff had merely killed his wife in a fit of justifiable jealousy. You do not think less of him, do you? Our judges would have acquitted him. Moreover, you will, no doubt, have guessed that he merely intended us to realize that the offence for which he was committed was no more than an error of judgment. This effected, he now makes us follow an innocent man, wrongly condemned, into the infernal regions.
A barrack within the fortifications, containing three or four hundred convicts brought together from all points of the compass, is a microscopic but faithful image of Russia, that wonderful mosaic of nationalities. There were Tartars, Kirghis, Poles, men from the Baltic provinces, and one Jew. During ten years of dreary boredom, Gorianchikoff’s – read, Dostoyevsky’s – sole occupation is the study of these unfortunate people. The result is an unequalled work of psychological interest. From under the uniform garb of these wretches and their fierce and taciturn faces, we see character sketches gradually developed which show a profound analysis of the human instinct. His sympathies extend to all these “unfortunates” (malheureux) about him. This is the term applied everywhere in Russia to any victims of justice. The writer willingly uses the same term, and we realize how he, too, does not let his mind dwell on the crime, but on the need of greater compassion for the “sufferings of expiation,” and to keep alight – for that is his object right through – the “divine spark” which is ever present amongst even the most degraded.
Some of the convicts tell him their histories. These form the material for dramatic bits, masterpieces of realism and feeling. The best as the stories of two murderers, moved by jealousy; one is the soldier Baklushin, and the other Akulina’s husband. The philosopher does not pry into the past of the other convicts, and is satisfied with depicting their moral natures as he observes them, but in that general shadowy, vague manner affected by all Russian writers, who always see their characters in the dim light of dawn on a grey day, and whose outlines, always uncertain and undefined, invariably end in nebulous possibilities. They are the paintings of Henner, compared with those of our Ingres.
The language used is in itself very remarkable. It is that of the common people, always preferred by Dostoyevsky for its indefiniteness and easy flow, which make it marvellously adaptable to his purpose.
THE GREATER PORTION OF these natures may be brought into one type, applicable to all – representing an excess of impulse – ochainie, a state of mind for which I try in vain to find an equivalent in French. Dostoyevsky analyses it thus:
It is the sensations experienced by a man who, standing at the top of a high tower, looks down into the depths below and is thrilled with ecstasy at the thought of plunging down head-foremost. The sooner the better – he says to himself – and all is over! Often it is the most dull-witted, and most ordinary people who think thus…. Man finds a pleasure in horrifying others…. He allows his soul to fall into a state of frantic despair, and he looks upon the consequent chastisement as a solution, as something that will make a ‘decision’ for him.
In a novel we shall presently refer to, The Idiot 
“Two peasants, of middle age, friends of long standing, both sober, arrived at an inn. They ordered tea and a single room, in which they passed the night.
“One of them had, for the last two days, observed that his friend was wearing a silver watch hanging by a string of glass beads, which he had not before noticed. This man was no thief, he was honest, and, for a peasant, quite well off. But the watch had such an attraction for him, that it made him furiously desirous of becoming its possessor. He seized a knife and, as soon as his friend’s back was turned, he crept up to him like a wolf, selected the spot, lifted his eyes to heaven, signed the cross, and devoutly murmured this prayer: ‘Lord, forgive me, for Christ’s sake.’ He cut his friend’s throat, as if he were a sheep, and took the watch.”
Frequently during his periods of madness we come across strong doses of asceticism. See, for instance, the episode of that “Old Saint,” a convict of exemplary behaviour, who throws a stone at the Commandant, solely for the purpose of “suffering affliction” under the strokes of the flogging that naturally followed. It made such an impression on Dostoyevsky that he brings the incident into his Crime and Punishment
HERE WE SEE THE idea of the Antichrist, who, for a great part of the people, especially among the innumerable sects of “the Raskol,” is inseparably connected with the Temporal Power.
The scene of the “Old Saint” deserves being quoted in full, for it explains the writer’s method and enables us to understand the country we are studying.
“He was small, white, emaciated, sixty years of age. I was struck with him the first time we met. He was in every way different from the other convicts, his look so calm and peaceful! I remember the pleasure it gave me to look at his clear, bright eyes surrounded by fine wrinkles. I often conversed with him. In all my life I seldom came across such a good creature, or a soul so frank…. He was sent to Siberia for an unpardonable crime. Following some conversions to Orthodoxy, due to a religious movement amongst the ‘Primitive Saints’ of Starodub, the Government, desirous of furthering the good work there, erected a church of the Orthodox faith. This old man, in company with other fanatics, had decided to ‘resist in the name of “The Truth,”’ as they said, and set fire to the building. The instigators were all sentenced to transportation for life, the old man one of the first. He had been a well-to-do tradesman directing a flourishing concern. He left behind him at home a wife and children, but went into exile unflinchingly. In his blindness he considered his trials as ‘witnessing to the Faith.’ After spending some time in his company, one could not help asking oneself the question, ‘How is it possible for a man as gentle as an infant thus to rebel?’ I frequently discussed matters of ‘faith’ with him, but he never once wavered in his convictions. His arguments never contained the least trace of rancour or resentment. It gave me pleasure to study him, for he never showed the least sign of pride of boastfulness.
“The old man was respected by everybody in the settlement without its making him at all vain. The convicts named him ‘Our little uncle,’ and never annoyed him, and I can well understand what ascendancy this gave him over his fellow-religionists. Notwithstanding the appearance of firmness with which he met his lot, his heart seemed to contain some secret, incurable sorrow, which he was determined to keep hidden from all eyes.
“We both slept in the same dormitory. One night, lying awake at four in the morning, I heard a muffled, timid sob. The old man was seated on the stove reading his Greek Church formulary manuscript. He was weeping and, from time to time, praying in a low voice, ‘Lord, do not forsake me! Lord, strengthen me! My poor children, my dear little ones, I shall never see you again!’ I cannot tell you how sad I felt.”
In connection with this, I will give a translation of the death of Michailoff, a piece of terrible realism:
“I knew little of this Michailoff. He was a young man, barely twenty-five; tall, thin, and with a remarkably good figure. He was a convict in the special division (reserved only for great criminals), extremely silent, and the whole time plunged in mournful abstraction. He had literally ‘dried up’ whilst in prison. So, at least, the other convicts, who always spoke well of him, described it. I only remember that he had beautiful eyes, and, for the life of me, I do not know why he so persistently comes into my mind….
“He died one afternoon at three o’clock, on a fine, bright day when it was freezing hard outside. I remember that the sun was shining and sending its oblique rays through the greenish frosted window-panes into the hospital ward, straight on to this poor wretch. He was unconscious, and took a long time to die. The death agonies lasted several hours. Since the morning he had not been able to recognize any one of those about him. Efforts were made to alleviate his pain, for it was evident that he was suffering a good deal. He breathed with difficulty, taking deep breaths, each accompanied with rattling noises. His chest heaved as if in want of air. He threw off the bed-coverings, then his clothes, and finally tore up his shirt as if it were an insupportable burden. It was frightful to see his long, attenuated body, with the skin of the arms and legs clinging to the bones, a cave-like stomach and a raised chest, with ribs sticking out – like those of a skeleton. The only thing to be seen on that body was a small wooden cross and the convict’s chains. Certainly it looked as if his emaciated feet could easily have slipped the irons. For half an hour before his death all noise ceased in the room, and all conversation was in whispers. Those who had to move walked softly. The convicts spoke little and of nothing in particular; now and then they glanced towards the dying man, who was slowly passing away. Finally his unsteady hand searched for, and at least found, the wooden cross, and tried to tear it away as if even that was too heavy for him and stifled him. The cross was removed; ten minutes later he was dead.
“We knocked at the door to call the orderly on duty and informed him of what had happened. A warder entered the room and looked at the dead man in a stupid manner, and went to call the medical officer, who came at once. He was a good young fellow, rather a fop, with quite a pleasing exterior. His footfalls rang through the silent room as he quickly stepped up to the corpse. With an air of indifference, no doubt assumed for the occasion, he felt the pulse, tapped the chest, indicated by a gesture that all was over, and left the room. The Commandant was at once notified, for the criminal was of importance, he belonged to the special division, and special formalities were required for identifying the deceased. Whilst waiting for the guard, one of the convicts in a low voice suggested that it might be as well to close the dead man’s eyes. Another, who heard him, noiselessly approached the dead man and lowered the eyelids. Seeing the glittering cross on the pillow, the man picked it up, looked at it, and then placed it around Michailoff’s neck, and crossed himself. Meanwhile the face stiffened; a ray of light touched the surface; the mouth was half opened, showing two rows of good white teeth shining between the thin lips that clung to the gums.
“At last the sergeant of the guard appeared, fully equipped, helmet on head, followed by two hospital orderlies. He came forward with noisy step, looked suspiciously at the convicts, who, now in a circle round him, glared at him.
“When close to the body he stopped abruptly as if glued to the spot. It seemed as if he were frightened. This skeleton, stark and naked, with nothing on but the irons, seemed to overawe him. The sergeant loosened his chin-strap, took off his helmet – a thing no one present would have thought possible – and crossed himself slowly and ostentatiously. He was a fine-looking, grizzled old veteran. I recall that at that moment old Chekunoff’ss white head was close to that of the Sergeant. Chekunoff kept his fixed on the man, looking straight into the whites of his eyes and taking in every fleeting expression. Their eyes met. All of a sudden Chekunoff’s lower lip was seen to tremble, it then contracted, showing the teeth, and the convict, pointing with a quick movement to the dead man, murmured as he turned away: ‘After all, he also had a mother!’“I remember how those words pierced me like an arrow. Why did he say that?… The corpse was removed on the camp bed on which it lay. The crumpled straw mattress creaked and the chains rattled on the floor amidst the general silence. They were taken up, and the corpse was removed. Forthwith the convicts began to talk noisily. The sergeant was overheard ordering some one to fetch the armourer. The dead had to be unchained….”
Here we see his method laid bare, with all its merits and its defects, its insistence, and the minuteness of the details of every action.
BETWEEN SUCH TRAGIC SCENES we also find the more agreeable instances of kind-hearted devotion to the convicts. Such a one is that of the widow who came every day to the door of the citadel with small presents, or to give them any news or gossip, and never without a smile of encouragement. She could do very little, for she was very poor herself, “but we prisoners all felt that close by, on the other side of the prison wall, there was one at least who loved us, and that was already a good deal.”
I select one more page, one of the most terse and touching, the story of an eagle set at large by the convicts “that he may die at liberty.” One day, returning from work, they had captured one of those large Siberian birds, having a broken wing. He was kept within the ramparts some months, was well fed, and kindly treated in the hope of taming him, but he crouched in the corner of his shelter, and flew at any one approaching too close, looking fiercely at the men who had made him share their prison, so that he was then left alone and neglected.
“He seemed to be proudly awaiting death, trusting nobody, hating everybody. At last, one day, the convicts quite by chance remembered him. After completely neglecting him for two months it seemed as if all had suddenly agreed to be kind to him. It was decided to set him free. ‘If he has to die, let it be at liberty,’ said some of them.
“’Agreed,’ said others; ‘a bird of freedom, wild… cannot be made to live in prison.’
“’That means, that he is not the same as we are,’ hazarded some one.
“’What rot! he is a bird and we are men. The eagle, comrades, is the King of the forests…!’ began Skutaroff, that florid speaker; but no one heeded him this time. After the mid-day meal, when the drums had called ‘to work,’ the eagle was seized – beak carefully held at a distance, for he bravely defended himself – and was taken outside the palisade. Arrived on the glacis, the dozen or so of men who had formed the escort loitered awhile, curious to see what the bird would do. Strange! For no apparent reason they all seemed as happy as if they were in some way to share that promised freedom.
“’The brute! we wanted to do him good, and there is biting away like mad!’ said the man who was holding him, and at the same time looking at him pityingly.
“’Let him go, Mikitka!’
“’Yes, poor devil, he is not made to live in a fort. Give him his freedom! beloved freedom!’
“The bird was thrown over the parapet into the open. It happened late on a cold autumn afternoon. The wind was howling over the barren steppe among the tall grass, already yellow and dried up. The eagle flew off with difficult, owing to his lame wing, straight into the horizon, as if anxious to get out of sight. The convicts watched his head as it disappeared through the long grass.
“’Look at the blackguard!’ said one of them thoughtfully.
“’He has not come back,’ said another. ‘Not once has he looked round, brothers. He only thinks of his own freedom.’
“A third said, ‘Well, I never! Did you think he would come back to thank you for your kindness?’
“’Right. He is now free! he knows what liberty means!’
“’Let us rather say – independence!’
“’He is out of sight, brothers.’
“’What are you a-loafing there?’ shouted roughly the guard. ‘Quick march!’
“And all returned sorrowfully to their labour.”
ON OPENING THE BOOK we find that it at once commences in such a heartrending strain that one wonders how the writer will manage the climax. How will he apply his habitual method of gradually accumulating his dark touches to obtain the culminating point of harrowing terror?
He has succeeded, however, as those will learn who have the courage to read further to the chapter on corporal punishment, and the description of what takes place in the hospital ward where the convicts are laid out after their scourging. I doubt if it is possible to describe any sufferings more horrifying, or in surroundings more revolting. It is enough to discourage our vivisectors, for I defy them to do better in their descriptions of surgical operations.
And yet Dostoyevsky is not of that school. The difference is difficult to define, but it is felt. The man who visits a hospital to see special diseases out of mere curiosity is severely commented upon, but he who goes there to study the diseases deserves respect. It all rests with the motive actuating the writer, and the reader is not to be deceived, however cleverly the intentions may be disguised. When his realism is merely fantastical he may awake some morbid curiosity, but in our hearts we condemn him, as I do myself, and we do not like the author any the better for it. If, on the contrary, it is manifest that these æsthetic details serve to illustrate an idea, that they may contain an object lesson which we wish to propagate, we may disagree about the æstheticism, but our sympathies will be with the author. The disgusting will become ennobled, as does the ulcer under the fingers of the Sisters of Mercy.
This is Dostoyevsky’s case. He writes to cure. He raises with careful hand, but mercilessly, the sheet which hung before the eyes of the Russian people and veiled their own infernal Siberia, that “Dante’s girdle of ice” lost in the distant shadows. The Memories of the House of the Dead became for transportation what the Hunter’s Tales had been for serfdom – the tocsin of reform. To-day, let me hasten to add, these repulsive scenes are only ancient history. Flogging is abolished and the prison system in Siberia is on as humane lines as in our own country. By reason of these results let us forgive this torturer the secret voluptuous delight he finds in unnerving us when holding up this middle-age nightmare to our view, with its thousand, aye, two thousand, strokes on the bleeding back, the facetiousness of the floggers, the nauseous sights in hospital, the men gone made from fright, the diseases caused by this martyrdom!
It is well to overcome one’s squeamishness and to continue the perusal; for it tells us better than any long philosophical discussions of the existing customs, and of the actual character of a country where such things could happen only yesterday, and could be told, as it is in this book – as a mere commonplace occurrence, without the author finding it necessary to intrude with a single remark of astonishment or resentment. I well know that this impartiality is merely a part of styles, a literary method, partly due to the susceptibilities of the censor. But the mere fact that such a method is accepted by the reader, that such horrors can be placed before him as the common events in the social life of the day, shows us that we have been taken out of our own ordinary world and must expect to read only of the extremes of goods and evil, barbarity, courage, and abnegation. Nothing can astonish us about the men who go to the convict cell, Bible in hand! From the quotations I have made we can realize how these fanatics have been impregnated with the ancient spirit of the New Testament which spread over the Near East, but has since changed into a spirit of asceticism and martyrdom. Their errors as well as their virtues spring from the same source.
In truth, I am in despair when I think of trying to explain these people to our own; that is to say, to attempt to bring into a common bond the brains haunted by such different ideas petrified by such diverse hands. Those people come straight from the Acts of the Apostles – whether “raskol” peasants in pursuit of penitential suffering, or an author writing of his own experiences with mild resignation. And this gentleness is not all mere attitude. Dostoyevsky has told us a thousand times, since, that his experiences were good for him, that he had learnt to love his brethren, the people, to discern their innate greatness even down to the worst of criminals: — “Destiny, bringing me up as a stepmother, was in reality my own mother.”
THE LAST CHAPTER MIGHT have been given the title “The Resurrection.” One follows the feelings, developed with rare ability, that come over the prisoner on nearing the time of his release, as also at the very moment of his receiving his freedom. One seems to be witnessing a glorious dawn, and the gradual breaking of the day among the shadows, up to the moment of the sun’s appearing.
During the few remaining weeks, Gorianchikoff (the hero in the novel) is allowed a few books and a back number of a magazine. For ten years he has read only the New Testament, and had heard nothing of the outer world.
After this long interruption, and on once more taking up the threads of life, his emotions are unique. He finds himself a new world, and cannot understand even the simplest words and things. His astonishment is great in seeing what giant strides his generation has been able to take – without him! Doubtless these are the thoughts of one who will take part in “The Great Resurrection.”
Finally the solemn hour had struck. With great emotion he bids his companions farewell. He leaves them almost with feelings of regret. One leaves something one’s heart everywhere, even in a convict prison! He goes to the forge, his irons clang to the ground – he is free!
Note: This is part two of a five-part series. The remaining parts will be published this year in the New Series. This text was first published as an extended chapter in an English-language translation by Col. Herbert Anthony Sawyer in The Russian Novel (Chapman & Hall, 1913). It has been manually transcribed exclusively for the New Series, with very minor edits to track usage.
Eugène-Melchior, vicomte de Vogüé.
THE FIRST FRENCH EDITION of Le roman russe appeared in 1886 and was perhaps one of the most influential books of literary comment of the 19th century, bringing Russian fiction to the attention of French, then English, readers, most of whom were previously unaware of it. Le roman russe, wrote historian Owen Chadwick, “was so critical, and yet so constructive, so personal and yet so objective, so penetrating without being astringent, so prosaic and yet so haunting, that even after so many decades you cannot read it without wanting to go back to read the Russian novelists for themselves. If we say that Vogüé ‘popularized’ Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, that would be true. But the description is very inadequate both to explain what the book achieved and the way it achieved that effect.” Vogüé was an acquaintance of Maupassant’s and other contemporary literary celebrities, a contributor to the Revue des deux Mondes and a friend of Ferdinand Brunetiere’s.
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