A modern etching by Jack Coughlin.

I MUST REPEAT THAT, owing to Dostoyevsky’s method of gradually increasing the agony, it would materially detract from their force if any passages were taken singly. What is most remarkable is the way the dialogues are woven together as if by the thinnest of electric wires through which we may have left unnoticed, or the slightest fact, mentioned in one line, has its significance fifty pages further on. One had to go back to them to understand the transformations of a soul in which these germs, fallen there as if by chance, have developed in the dark. This is so true that is one skips a few pages the rest become quite unintelligible. One feels angry with the author for being so prolix, one runs on ahead of him, and, all of a sudden, he is no longer understood – the electric current has been interrupted. That, at least, is what everybody tells me who has tried it. How about our excellent novels which may indifferently be begun at either end? This one never bores, but it tires one, as does a thoroughbred always on the prance; add to this the necessity of finding one’s way among the crowd of cunning people who, like shadows, glide about in the background. All this compels the reader’s closest attention, and to have as good a memory as is required for the study of a philosophic work. It is a pleasure or an inconvenience, according to the quality of the reader. Moreover, a translation, however good it may be, seldom succeeds in giving the continuous vibrations underlying the text of the original.

The man who could write such a book, evidently based on his own experiences, can but be pitied. To understand how he came to write it, one has to remember what he said to a friend – holding the same opinions – after one of these fits of madness: “The depths into which I am plunged on those occasions may be described thus: I feel myself a great criminal, as if a great unknown sin, the deed of a scoundrel, weighed heavily on my conscience.”

The periodical which published Dostoyevsky’s serial stories, frequently stopped short after a few pages, ending abruptly in the middle, followed by a few brief words of excuse. It was common knowledge that he was passing through one of his “attacks.”

Crime and Punishment assured the writer of his popularity. In 1866 this literary event was on every lip. All Russia was affected by it. As soon as the book appeared a Moscow student attacked and murdered a pawnbroker, in every detail exactly as imagined by the novelist. Statistics would show that since then many similar murders had taken place suggested by the reading of that book. Of course there is no doubt about the fact that Dostoyevsky’s intention was to prevent such crimes by the forbidding consequences that would follow, but he failed to perceive that the extreme exaggeration of his description would also have the opposite effect in tempting the demon of imitation who lurks in the cells of a demented brain.

I, also, find myself very much embarrassed when passing judgment on the moral value of such a work. Sour writers will tell me that I give myself needless anxiety. I know they do not admit that this element should be dragged in when considering a work of art. As it anything can exist in this world without considering its moral value! The Russian authors are not so high and mighty; they, at least, profess to be “feeding souls,” and the greatest injustice that can be done to them is to accuse them of scraping words together without furthering a cause. Dostoyevsky’s novel will be considered useful or useless in accordance with one’s belief in the efficacy, or not, of public trials and punishments. The question is the same. As for myself, my answer is in the negative.

Note: This is part three 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. To obtain the unedited text, please see the copyright page for instructions. Please note The Fortnightly Review [New Series] and fortnightlyreview.co.uk in citations based on this transcription.