By Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé
Part Four.
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Ron Arad's plex-boxed limited edition of The Idiot (2006).
AFTER THIS BOOK HIS talents rose no higher. He gave a few more strokes of his mighty wings, but always in a circle among the mists of a darkening sky – like a huge bat in the twilight. The Idiot
These generally relate to a plot for committing some crime or to a love affair. The conversations recall the proceedings of the Inquisition under Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great; it is the same mingling of terror, duplicity and loyalty still remaining in the race. At other times, the disputants try to penetrate the maze of their philosophic and religious beliefs, and, like two doctors of divinity at the Sorbonne, assail each other with dialectics, at times subtle, or rude. Some of the words spoken also call to mind the dialogues between Hamlet and his mother, or with Ophelia and Polonius. For two hundred years socialists have been discussing the question as to whether Hamlet was really made when he spoke as he did, but whichever way the question is answered, the reply in either case is applicable to Dostoyevsky’s heroes. It has often been said that the author and the characters who reflect him were simply as mad as Hamlet.
FOR MYSELF I THINK that way of putting it stupid and wrong. Only very simple-minded people can refuse to admit the existence of psychological conditions other than those experienced by themselves. When studying Dostoyevsky and his works we have to remember one of his favourite phrases which frequently flowed from his pen: “Russia is a freak of nature.” We find curious anomalies among the lunatics conceived by this romancer. They are absorbed in self-contemplation and furiously intent on analysing their innermost thoughts. When the author calls on them to take some action, they immediately rush to perform it blindly, obedient to the disordered impulses of their uncontrolled nerves and unreasoning minds, or one might say with wills set at liberty, and actuated by the most elemental forces.
Note the kind of acting in the play reproduced ad nauseam. The attitudes taken up by the body enable us to guess to what extent the mind had been perturbed. A character is hardly ever introduced to us seated at a table and occupied with something. “He was extended on the divan, eyes closed but not asleep…. He walked the street unconscious of where he was going…. He was motionless, his eyes intently fixed on some distant object….” These people never eat, they drink tea, and only at night. Many are drunkards. They seldom sleep, and when they do, they dream. There are more dreams in Dostoyevsky’s books than in all our standard works put together. They nearly always have fever. In every twenty pages we come across the expression “feverish state” at least once. Whenever these creatures come on, or come in contact with any of their kind, their “acting” as shown by every new paragraph, is invariably, “He shivered… he made one bound… his features contracted… he became as pale as wax… his lower lip trembled… his teeth chattered….” Or else there are long pauses in the conversation and the two speakers glare at each other. Of the innumerable people invented by Dostoyevsky I do not know one whom Charcot, the famous alienist, could not have claimed as his own under some guise or another.
Derek Jacobi as Myshkin. National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, 15 July 1970.
The Idiot is the most laboured of the author’s characters; his favourite child who takes up a whole volume all to himself. Dostoyevsky describes himself in this character, as all authors do, certainly not as he really was, but such as he would like to be. To begin with, “The Idiot” is an epileptic. These attacks provide the means for permitting all emotional scenes to find their climax in the most unexpected manner. The author feels an unbounded joy in describing them. He assures us that for a few seconds previous to the attack the soul is flooded with a sense of extreme ecstasy. We can take his word for it. The nickname of “The Idiot” was given to Muishkin, because, as a young man, that special illness so altered his faculties that he had been somewhat queer ever since. Taking the soundness of his pathology for granted, this imagined character is enlarged upon with astonishing verisimilitude.
Dostoyevsky had evidently at first intended to adapt Don Quixote – the ideal type of a “redresser of wrongs” – to contemporary literature. Here and there we find signs of such an attempt. Soon, however, carried away by his own creations, he takes a higher flight and brings into that soul – in which he sees and admires himself – the most sublime Gospel teachings, and makes despairing efforts to enlarge the character by implanting into it the moral qualities of a saint.
WE HAVE TO IMAGINE the exceptional case of a being, a full-grown man by virtue of his matured intelligence and highest good sense, but retaining the simple heart of a child – who, in a word, personified the evangelical concept, “Be ye as little children.” Such is Muishkin, “The Idiot.” The aforesaid nervous complaint happily lends itself towards bringing about this desired phenomenon. The disease is made to abolish that portion of the brain which harbours one’s defects, such as irony, arrogance, egoism, concupiscence, and has liberally developed all the other and nobler parts. On leaving the lunatic asylum this extraordinary young man is plunged into the current of ordinary life. It looks as if, not being equipped with the villainous weapons we possess for defending ourselves, he was going to drown there. Far from it. His simple uprightness is stronger than all the wiles used against him; it solves all difficulties and brings him triumphant out of every ambush. His simple words of wisdom end all discussions. They are as the profound words of an ascetic who, when addressing a dying man, says: “Pass on before us, and forgive us our happiness.” In another place he says: “I am afraid I am not accounted worthy of my sufferings.” There are hundreds of other sayings all in the same strain. He lives in a world of usurers, liars, and scoundrels who, whilst they treat him as an idiot, respect and venerate him, and eventually submit to his influence and become better men. The women also begin by laughing at him, but they, too, end by loving him. His response to their adoration is limited to the expressions of tender pity and of that compassionate love which is the only feeling Dostoyevsky allows his heroes.
The writer incessantly returns to his one obstinate idea of the supremacy of the “simple mind,” and of the sufferer. I would nevertheless like to probe this dogma to the bottom. Why this envenomed attack by all Russian idealists against thought and against the fullness of life? The meaning of this hidden and unconscious unreasonableness I think is this: That their instincts tell them to believe as a fundamental truth that to live, to act, to think, is to attempt the inextricable task of separating good and evil.
Glazunov's Myshkin (1956).
All action “creates and destroys” at the same time, and is entirely dependent on somebody or on something. Therefore not to think, not to act, is to escape the fatality of producing evil alongside of the good; and as the bad affects them more than the goods, they take refuge in doing nothing. They admire and sanctify “The Idiot” – the neuter, the inactive. He does no good, it is true, but he does no harm, consequently according to their conception of the world his is the better part.
I go boldly against these giants and monsters, who appeal to me, but how can I pass over in silence such a one as the shopkeeper, Rogokin, a very realistic figure, one of the more powerful the artist has ever drawn? The twenty pages in which he shows us the tortures of love this man’s heart had to endure are by the hand of a great master. The passion is so intense and acquires such a power of fascination that the woman he loves comes to this savage whom she hates, against her will, well knowing that will kill her. This actually happens, and standing by the bedside of the strangled woman he calmly discusses philosophy with a friend, the whole night long. There is not a trace of the melodramatic. The scene is quite simple, at least it appears so to the author, and that is the very reason why it makes one icy cold with horror.
Rare as the occasions are for enlivening these studies, I must also notice the drunken little pawnbroker who “every evening prays for the peaceful repose of the soul of Madame la Comtesse du Barry.” But do not think that Dostoyevsky wishes to enliven us. No, it is in all seriousness that – by the words of the character personifying himself – he is moved to pity by the tortures of Madame du Barry undergone during her long journey on the tumbril and in her struggles with the executioner. Always recalling that fateful half-hour on the 22nd of December 1849!
IN THE POSSESSED WE have the world of the revolutionary Nihilist before us. I have slightly modified the Russian title of The Demons, for it seemed rather obscure. The author had made his own meaning quite clear, by taking St. Luke’s text referring to the exorcising of the one “possessed” of the devil as his epigram. He had put aside the real title, which applies, not only to this book, but to all his others. Dostoyevsky’s characters are all in the state of being “possessed,” using the word in the sense as understood in the Middle Ages. An outside and irresistible power compels them against their wills to commit monstrous acts. Such “possessed” are Natasha in Humbled and Outraged; Raskolnikoff in Crimes and Punishment; Rogojin in The Idiot, and all those conspirators who commit murder and self-murder without a motive and without a definite object. The history of this novel is curious enough. Dostoyevsky was always separated from Turgeneff by differences of political opinion, and alas! by literary jealousy. At the time Tolstoy had not yet established his own power, and the two novelists had the field to themselves wherein to dispute for the leadership of the Russian mind. The inevitable rivalry between them in Dostoyevsky almost amounted to hatred. He placed himself entirely in the wrong; and in the novel before us he took the unpardonable step of ridiculing his fellow author on the stage, in the garb of an absurd character.
Ivan Turgenev (Vasily Perov, 1872).
The secret grievance which he would not forgive was that Turgeneff had been the first to discover Nihilism and to write about it in his famous book, Fathers and Sons 
And yet his part is quite good, for his book is a prophecy and an explanation. A prophecy because in 1871, at which time the leaven of anarchy was still brooding, the visionary gives us facts on all points analogous to those which have since come to pass. I have myself attended Nihilistic prosecutions. I can testify to the fact that many of the accused and many of the murders committed were precisely those depicted and predicted by the novelist.
The book is also an explanation. If it is translated, as I so much wish it to be, Western Europe will be able to learn the real data of the problem of Nihilism, which have hitherto not been known because they have been sought for in the field of politics. Dostoyevsky has shown us the various kinds of minds from which this sect is recruited. First comes the “simple-minded,” the pervert who places his capacity for being led by religious fanaticism at the service of atheism. Our author has a very striking way of using him. It is well know that every Russian peasant’s room contains a small shrine on which stand holy pictures. – “Lieutenant Erkel, after having overturned and smashed the images with a hatchet, using the shelves as pulpits placed on them copies of Vogt, Moleshott and of Büchner; and before each open volume he placed a lighted candle.”
Next to the childlike and simple-minded come the “weak-minded,” those who submit themselves to the magnetic influence of force, and follow their chiefs wherever they may lead. Then come the ‘logical pessimists,’ like the engineer Kirilof – those who destroy themselves because they not the moral courage to live, and who are exploited by the party; for the man who is without moral principles, and is intent on dying because he cannot find such principles, lends himself willingly to what is wanted of him, it being a matter of no consequence to him.
Lastly come the ‘possessed,’ those who deliberately kill as a protest against a world they cannot understand; to make a singular and novel use of their will power; to find a delight in imparting terror, and, lastly, to assuage the ferocity of the brute which is in their nature.
The great merit of this vague and badly constructed book, often ridiculous and encumbered with apocalyptic theories, is that in spite of those blemishes it gives us a clear idea of the force that gives the Nihilists their power. That force is not inherent in their doctrines, which are absent, nor in the power of their organization, which is overrated. It lies only and solely in the character of a few individuals. Dostoyevsky thinks – and the revelations made during the legal proceedings would bear him out – that the worth of the conspirators’ ideas is almost nil, that the vaunted organization is reduceable to that of a few local associations, badly welded together, and that all those phantoms of “central committees,” “executive committees,” only exist in the imagination of the adepts. On the other hand he makes much of those wills stretched to the uttermost, and those souls of ice-cold steel. He contrasts them with the timidity and irresoluteness of the legal authorities as personified in Goverenor von Lembke. Between these two poles he shows us the mass of weaklings attracted to the one possessing the greater magnetic force.
It cannot be repeated too often: it is the characters of those resolute men which take hold of the people, not their ideas; and the philosopher’s piercing eye in this matter looks beyond Russia. Men are everywhere becoming less and less unreasonable as regards ideas, and more and more skeptical as regards cut-and-dried formulas. Those who believe in the virtue of absolute doctrines are now rare to find. What does captivate men is character, even if their energies are put to a wrong purpose, for that guarantees a leader and a guide, the first requirements of an association of human beings. Man is born the “serf” of every will stronger than his own that passes before him.
Dostoevsky (1879).
WITH THE PUBLICATION OF The Possessed, and the return of Dostoyevsky to Russia, commenced the last chapter of his life, from 1871 to 1881. It was less sad and trying than previous ones. He married a second time, a brave and intelligent woman who helped him to get out of his material embarrassments. His popularity increased, and the success of his books enabled him to obtain his discharge. Seized once more by the demon of journalism, he contributed first of all to a newspaper in St. Petersburg, and ended by editing a periodical, all to himself, named The Notebook of a Scribe. This monthly publication appeared occasionally. It had nothing in common with what we understand by a newspaper or a review. Had Apollo started a Delphic “Gazette” for recording the intermittent Pythian oracles, it would have somewhat resembled Dostoyevsky’s publication. It was his chief occupation in later years, into which he poured all the political, social and literary ideas which tormented him. It also contained anecdotes and recollections of his life. I do not know if he had ever heard of the Words of a Believer, by [Félicité Robert de] Lamennais, but he often makes one think he had.
I have already shown that his political belief may be summarized as an everlasting faith in Russia’s destiny, and a glorification of the goodness of heart and intelligence of the Russian people. His mystic hymns escape all analysis or argument.
The Notebook of a Scribe commenced its life on the eve of the war with Turkey, and appeared regularly during those years of fevered patriotism. It reflected the period of enthusiasm and discouragements which shook “Russia in arms.” I do not know what there exists that is not to be found in this “summary” of Slavonic dreams which deal with every question affecting the human race. There is only one thing missing – a concrete dogma that the understanding can take hold of. Here and there we come across touching episodes, brought before us with consummate art, yet as pearls lost in troubled waters, though agreeably reminding us of the greatness of this romancer. The Notebook was a success among that special class of the public which was less friendly to his ideas than to his person – in other words, the sound of Dostoyevsky’s voice. Meanwhile he composed his last book, The Brothers Karamazoff. – I have not yet mentioned a novel entitled Growth
The entire work of such an author cannot be done justice to in a single chapter of a book on the history a literature. Fancy, fourteen volumes of formidable Russian octavo, each containing a thousand pages of French print! It was not unnecessary to give this detail, because the “material physiognomy” – the outward appearance of the books – affords a good indication of the literary customs of a country. The French novel is becoming lighter and lighter, capable of being slipped into a hand-bag for use on a short railway journey, whilst the heavy Russian is meant to be enthroned for a long time on the drawing-room table in a country house for use during long winter evenings. It encourages thought in connection with patience and eternity!
I CAN STILL SEE Dostoyevsky entering a friend’s room the first day The Brothers Karamazoff was published, carrying the volumes under his arm, saying with pride: “They weigh five pounds!” The unhappy man had actually weighed his novel and he was actually proud of what should have dismayed him!
I really intended to limit my task to calling attention to this writer – so famous over yonder, almost unknown here – and to pointing out the three great portions of his work that best set forth the different qualities of his talent. These are Poor Folk, The House of the Dead, and Crime and Punishment.
Bruce Myers as the Grand Inquisitor in Peter Brook's 2008 production.
The comments I have made will no doubt allow the reader to form his own judgment on the merits of his work as a whole. It is difficult to do so when viewed from the standpoint of our ideas of morality and taste. It is first necessary to look upon Dostoyevsky as a phenomenon belonging to another world, a powerful but incomplete, intense and original monster. The shudder we feel on meeting some of his characters may raise the question whether we are not face to face with a genius. But a literary genius, we know, must be gifted with the two essential attributes of proportion and universality. The former is the art of adjusting, of selecting, and of condensing one’s thoughts, and in a few lightning flashes setting forth the whole of the meaning underlying them. By universality I mean the faculty of being able to grasp things as a whole and to present all their different manifestations in a manner adapted to each other. Even in Russia one can find light, happiness, flowers and joys. Dostoyevsky only saw the one half, judging by his having written but two kinds of books – sad books and terrifying books. He is like a traveler who has been all over the world, seen everything, but has traveled only by night. He is an incomparable psychologist, but only as a student of dismal and mangled souls. He is a clever dramatist, but only amongst scenes of terror and compassion.
No one has brought realism forward so ably. See, for instance, the account of Marmeladoff, in Crime and Punishment, with its portraits of the convicts and the picture of their existence. No one has dared to be so fantastical. And look at the personality of the Idiot. He no doubt painted the realities of life truthfully and harshly, but his pious dreams carried him away and aloft beyond those realities, in a superhuman effort towards a novel rendering of the Gospel. If you wish, it may be called “mystic realism.” Human nature, from whatever point of view it may be looked at, comprises both the compassionate heart of a Sister of Mercy and the spirit of a Great Inquisitor. To me he seemed to be living in another world. Neither Dostoyevsky nor his heroes belong to ours, but rather to that fraction of the Russian peoples drawn from the East.
I see him better suited to the times of great cruelties and of great religious devotion, hesitating between a Saint Vincent de Paul and a Laubardemont, outstripping the dormer in reclaiming waifs and strays, lingering behind the former so as not to miss one spark at the burning stake.
According to the special and peculiar excesses of his talent which touch us most, he may with justice be called a philosopher, an apostle, a madman, a consoler of the afflicted, or the murderer of peaceful minds, the Jeremiah of a convict prison, or the Shakespeare of an asylum – all those appellations are merited; taken separately, not one suffices.
Perhaps we ought to say of him what he himself in a passage of Crime and Punishment said of the whole race: – “The Russian is a great man; vast as his country, terribly inclined to all that is fantastic and chaotic. It is a great misfortune to be great without a talent of a special kind.” I concur. But I also agree with the judgment I heard passed on the book by an expert of modern psychology: “This opens out unknown horizons affecting spirits differing from ours. He reveals to us a new world, with natures more powerful for good or evil, stronger to will and to suffer.”
Note: This is part four 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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