Part 13

“Europe has created a noble type of Frenchman, of Englishman, and of German, but of the man of the future she scarcely knows at present. And, I fancy, so far she does not want to know. And that one can well imagine; they are not free, and we are free. I, with my Russian melancholy, was the only one free in Europe.... Take note, my dear, of a strange fact: every Frenchman can serve not only his France, but humanity, only on condition that he remains French to the utmost possible degree, and it’s the same for the Englishman and the German. Only to the Russian, even in our day, has been vouchsafed the capacity to become most of all Russian only when he is most European, and this is true even in our day, that is, long before the millennium has been reached.”[133]

But, to offset this declaration and show how acutely conscious Dostoevsky was of the danger to any country in too marked europeanization, I must read you this remarkable passage from _The Possessed_:

“‘Science and reason have, from the beginning of time, played a secondary and subordinate part in the life of nations; so it will be till the end of time. Nations are built up and moved by another force which sways and dominates them, the origin of which is unknown and inexplicable; that force is the force of an insatiable desire to go on to the end, though at the same time it denies that end. It is the force of persistent assertion of one’s own existence, and a denial of death. It’s the spirit of life, as the Scriptures call it, the river of living water, the drying up of which is threatened in the Apocalypse. It’s the æsthetic principle, as the philosophers call it, the ethical principle with which they identify it, “the seeking for God,” as I call it more simply. The object of every national movement, in every people and at every period of its existence, is only the seeking for its God, who must be its own God, and the faith in Him as the only true one. God is the synthetic personality of the whole people, taken from its beginning to its end. It has never happened that all, or even many, peoples have had one common god, but each has always had its own. It’s a sign of the decay of nations when they begin to have gods in common. When gods are common to several nations the gods are dying and the faith in them, together with the nations themselves. The stronger a people, the more individual their God. There never has been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of good and evil. Every people has its own conception of good and evil, and its own good and evil. When the same conception of good and evil become prevalent in several nations, then these nations are dying, and then the very distinction between good and evil is beginning to disappear.[134]... These are your own words, Stavrogin.... I haven’t altered anything of your ideas, or even of your words, not a syllable.’

“‘I don’t agree that you’ve not altered anything,’ Stavrogin observed cautiously. ‘You accepted them with ardour, and in your ardour have transformed them unconsciously. The very fact that you reduce God to a simple attribute of nationality....’

“He suddenly began watching Shatov with intense and peculiar attention, not so much his words as himself.

“‘I reduce God to an attribute of nationality?’ cried Shatov. ‘On the contrary, I raise the people to God. And has it ever been otherwise? The people is the body of God. Every people is only a people so long as it has its own God and excludes all other gods on earth irreconcilably, so long as it believes that by its God it will conquer and drive out of the world all other gods. Such, from the beginning of time, has been the belief of all great nations, all, anyway, who have been specially remarkable, all who have been leaders of humanity. There is no going against facts. The Jews lived only to await the coming of the true God and left the world the true God. The Greeks deified nature and bequeathed the world their religion, that is, philosophy and art. Rome deified the people in the State, and bequeathed the idea of the State to the nations. France throughout her long history was only the incarnation and development of the Roman God....

“‘If a great people does not believe that the truth is only to be found in itself (in itself alone and in it exclusively), if it does not believe that it alone is fit and destined to raise up and save all the rest by its truth, it would at once sink into being ethnographical material, and not a great people. A really great people can never accept a secondary part in the history of humanity, nor even one of the first, but will have the first. A nation which loses this belief ceases to be a nation.’”[135]

And by the way of corollary, we have Stavrogin’s reflection which might be a fitting conclusion: “An individual out of touch with his country has lost God.”

What would Dostoevsky think of Russia to-day and of her people? It is a painful speculation.... Did he apprehend, was he able to foresee her ghastly torments?

In _The Possessed_ we find all the seeds of Bolshevism. You need only listen to Shigalev’s exposition of his theory and the admission he makes at its close:

“I am perplexed by my own data and my conclusion is a direct contradiction to the original idea with which I start. Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.”[136] And that loathsome Pyotr Stepanovitch Verhovensky exults: “There’s going to be such an upset as the world has never seen before.... Russia will be overwhelmed with darkness, the earth will weep for its old gods.”[137]

Imprudent, dishonest even, I admit, to impute to the author himself the thoughts expressed by the characters in his novels or tales. But we know this was Dostoevsky’s medium of expression, often utilizing a colourless individual to formulate one of his cherished truths. We seem to hear him speak from the lips of a secondary character in _The Eternal Husband_ when the “malady of the age” is mentioned.

“To be a good citizen is better than being in aristocratic society. I say that because in Russia, nowadays, one doesn’t know whom to respect. You’ll agree that it’s a serious malady of the age, when people don’t know whom to respect, isn’t it?”[138]

I am sure that beyond the darkness enveloping tortured Russia to-day Dostoevsky would still see the light of hope. Perhaps too he would think (the idea appears several times in his novels and in his letters) that Russia is offering herself in sacrifice like Kirillov, and for the salvation, perhaps, of the rest of Europe, and of humanity.

FOOTNOTES

[31] _House of the Dead_, p. 240.

[32] Bienstock, p. 449. Letter to Mlle. Guérassimov, Petersburg, March 7, 1877.

[33] Bienstock, p. 94. Letter to his brother Michael, spring of 1847.

[34] Bienstock, p. 98. Letter to his brother Michael, from the fortress, July 18, 1849.

[35] Bienstock, p. 100. Letter to his brother Michael, from the fortress, August 27, 1849.

[36] Bienstock, p. 101. Letter to his brother Michael, from the fortress, September 14, 1849.

[37] Bienstock, p. 103. Letter to his brother Michael, from the fortress, December 22, 1849.

[38] A. P. Miliukov in his _Reminiscences_, 1881.

[39] See Mayne, pp. 51 sqq.

[40] The _Decembrists_.

[41] Mayne, pp. 51-65.

[42] Bienstock, pp. 104-105. Letter to his brother Michael, Semipalatinsk, July 30, 1854.

[43] Bienstock, p. 106. Letter to his brother Andrey, Semipalatinsk, November 6, 1854.

[44] Bienstock, p. 107. Letter to his brother Andrey, Semipalatinsk, November 6, 1854.

[45] Bienstock, pp. 233-235. Letter to Baron Alexander Wrangel, Petersburg, March 31, 1865.

[46] Bienstock, p. 239. Letter to Baron Alexander Wrangel, Petersburg, April 14, 1865.

[47] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 492.

[48] _The Idiot_, pp. 217-220.

[49] See _Nouvelle Revue Française_, June-July, 1922, and _Stavrogin’s Confession_, translated, with introductory and explanatory notes, by _S. S. Koteliansky_ and _Virginia Woolf_, 1922. (_Translator’s note._)

[50] _The Possessed_, p. 172.

[51] _The Possessed_, p. 175.

[52] _The Possessed_, p. 175.

[53] _A Raw Youth_, p. 327.

[54] _Notes from Underground_, pp. 86-87.

[55] _Notes from Underground_, pp. 88-89.

[56] “However adventurous the Russian genius,” wrote Boris de Schloezer in the _Nouvelle Revue Française_, February, 1922, “it characteristically chooses a firm foundation in concrete fact and living reality: this basis once assured, it launches out into speculation of the most abstract and daring nature, returning in the end, rich with the gathered spoils of thought, to the fact and reality from which it started and in which it is perfected.”

[57] E.g. Lebedyev in _The Idiot_. See Appendix (2), the admirable

## chapter describing Lebedyev’s enjoyment in torturing General Ivolgin.

[58] _The Possessed_, p. 495.

[59] _A Raw Youth_, p. 507.

[60] _The Possessed_, pp. 489-490.

[61] _A Raw Youth_, p. 215.

[62] See the _Journal_.

[63] Garnett, Vol. XI.

[64] Garnett, Vol. X.

[65] Bienstock and Nau, pp. 99-100.

[66] Bienstock and Nau, pp. 176-181.

[67] Bienstock and Nau, pp. 294 et seq., 450-452.

[68] Nietzsche, _The Twilight of the Idols_, translated by Anthony M. Ludovici, 1911, p. 104.

[69] Nietzsche, _The Twilight of the Idols_, translated by Anthony M. Ludovici, 1911, pp. 64-65.

[70] Bienstock, p. 367. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, March 24, 1870.

[71] Bienstock, p. 374. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Dresden, March 25, 1870.

[72] _Nouvelle Revue Française_, February, 1922, pp. 176-177.

[73] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 369.

[74] _A Raw Youth_, pp. 205-206.

[75] _A Raw Youth_, p. 503. Compare this other passage (_ibid._, p. 548) dealing with one of these pathological cases I mentioned a little space ago. “Versilov can have had no definite aim, and I believe, indeed, he did not reflect on the matter at all, but acted under the influence of a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. But the theory of actual madness I cannot accept, especially as he is not in the least mad now. But the ‘second self’ I do accept unquestionably. What is a second self exactly? The second self, according to a medical book, written by an expert, which I purposely read afterwards, is nothing else than the first stage of serious mental derangement, which may lead to something very bad.”

[76] _The Possessed_, p. 635.

[77] _Journaux Intimes_, p. 57.

[78] André Gide, _Morceaux Choisis_, pp. 102-103.

[79] _The Idiot_, pp. 587-588.

[80] _The Idiot_, p. 519.

[81] _A Raw Youth_, p. 253.

[82] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 492.

[83] _The Idiot_, p. 616.

[84] Bienstock, pp. 319-320.

[85] Bienstock, p. 343. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Dresden, October 27, 1869.

[86] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 2.

[87] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 35-36.

[88] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 75.

[89] _Vauvenargues_, Maxim xxxix; _Œuvres_, p. 377.

[90] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 65-66.

[91] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 116-117.

[92] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 117-118.

[93] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 124.

[94] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 124-126.

[95] Schopenhauer, _The World as Will and Idea_, translated by Haldane and Kemp; Bk. IV, p. 457.

[96] _A Raw Youth_, p. 68.

[97] _A Raw Youth_, p. 130.

[98] _The Idiot_, p. 225.

[99] _The Possessed_, p. 219.

[100] _The Possessed_, pp. 220, 221.

[101] _The Possessed_, p. 580.

[102] _Crime and Punishment_, pp. 236, 237.

[103] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 238.

[104] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 377.

[105] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 378.

[106] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 467.

[107] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 272.

[108] _The Possessed_, pp. 492, 493.

[109] _The Possessed_, pp. 498, 499.

[110] Mayne, p. 198. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, October 9, 1870.

[111] _The Possessed_, pp. 634, 635.

[112] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 14.

[113] _The Brothers Karamazov_, p. 110.

[114] _The Possessed_, p. 219.

[115] _The Possessed_, p. 220.

[116] _The Possessed_, p. 221.

[117] _The Possessed_, p. 221.

[118] _The Possessed_, p. 133.

[119] _The Idiot_, p. 225.

[120] _The Possessed_, p. 219.

[121] _The Possessed_, pp. 554-5.

[122] _The Possessed_, p. 555.

[123] André Gide, _Morceaux Choisis_, p. 101, §1.

[124] Dr. Binet-Sanglé is the author of a blasphemous work to which he has given the title _La Folie de Jésus-Christ_: he attempts to deny the importance of Christ and of Christianity by showing that Christ was mad and a degenerate.

[125] _The Possessed_, p. 577.

[126] _The Possessed_, pp. 383, 385.

[127] _The Possessed_, p. 540.

[128] _The Possessed_, p. 275.

[129] _The Possessed_, pp. 579, 580.

[130] _The Possessed_, p. 580.

[131] _The Possessed_, pp. 582, 583.

[132] Bienstock, pp. 540-2.

[133] _A Raw Youth_, pp. 462-4.

[134] Reclus, _Geography_, XIV, 931. “The island populations of Oceania are fast dying out, for they have lost the body of ideas which governed their actions, and lack a common measure to judge good and evil.”

[135] _The Possessed_, pp. 232-234.

[136] _The Possessed_, p. 376.

[137] _The Possessed_, p. 395.

[138] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 128.

APPENDIX

I

“And now I will tell two anecdotes to wind up my account of the ‘_idea_,’ that it may not hinder my story again.

“In July, two months before I came to St. Petersburg, when my time was all my own, Marie Ivanovna asked me to go to see an old maiden lady who was staying in the Troitsky suburb to take her a message of no interest for my story. Returning the same day, I noticed in the railway carriage an unattractive-looking young man, not very poorly though grubbily dressed, with a pimply face and a muddy dark complexion. He distinguished himself by getting out at every station, big and little, to have a drink. Towards the end of the journey he was surrounded by a merry throng of very low companions. One merchant, also a little drunk, was particularly delighted at the young man’s power of drinking incessantly without becoming drunk. Another person, who was awfully pleased with him, was a very stupid fellow who talked a great deal. He was wearing European dress and smelt most unsavoury--he was a footman, as I found out afterwards: this fellow got quite friendly with the young man who was drinking and, every time the train stopped, roused him with the invitation, ‘It’s time for a drop of vodka,’ and they got out with their arms round each other. The young man who drank scarcely said a word, but yet more and more companions joined him. He only listened to their chatter, grinning incessantly with a drivelling snigger, and only from time to time, always unexpectedly, brought out a sound something like ‘Ture-lure-loo!’ while he put his finger up to his nose in a very comical way. This diverted the merchant, and the footman and all of them, and they burst into a very loud and free and easy laughter. It is sometimes impossible to understand why people laugh. I joined them, too, and I don’t know why, the young man attracted me too, perhaps by his very open disregard for the generally accepted conventions and proprieties. I didn’t see, in fact, that he was simply a fool. Anyway, I got on to friendly terms with him at once, and as I got out of the train, I learnt from him that he would be in the Tverskoy Boulevard between eight and nine. It appeared that he had been a student. I went to the boulevard, and this was the diversion he taught me. We walked together up and down the boulevards, and, a little later, as soon as we noticed a respectable woman walking along the street, if there were no one else near, we fastened upon her. Without uttering a word we walked one on each side of her, and with an air of perfect composure, as though we didn’t see her, began to carry on a most unseemly conversation. We called things by their names, preserving unruffled countenances as though it were the natural thing to do; we entered into such subtleties in our description of all sorts of filth and obscenity as the nastiest mind of the lewdest debauchee could scarcely have conceived. (I had, of course, acquired all this knowledge at the boarding school, before I went to the Grammar School, though I knew only words, nothing of the reality.) The woman was dreadfully frightened, and made haste to try and get away, but we quickened our pace too, and went on in the same way. Our victim, of course, could do nothing; it would be no use to cry out, there were no spectators; besides, it would be a strange thing to complain of. I repeated this diversion for eight days. I can’t think how I can have liked doing it; although, indeed, I didn’t like doing it--I simply did it. At first I thought it original, as something outside everyday conventions and conditions, besides, I couldn’t endure women. I once told the student that in his _Confessions_ Jean Jacques Rousseau describes how, as a youth, he used to behave indecently to women. The student responded with his ‘Ture-lure-loo!’ I noticed that he was extraordinarily ignorant, and that his interests were astonishingly limited. There was no trace of any latent idea such as I hoped to find in him. Instead of originality, I found nothing but a wearisome monotony. I disliked him more and more. The end came quite unexpectedly. One night when it was quite dark, we persecuted a girl who was quickly and timidly walking along the boulevard. She was very young, perhaps sixteen, or even less, very tidily and modestly dressed, possibly a working girl hurrying home to an old widowed mother with other children; there is no need to be sentimental though. The girl listened for some time, and hurried fast as she could with her head bowed and her veil drawn over her face, frightened and trembling. But suddenly she stood still, threw back her veil, showing, as far as I remember, a thin but pretty face, and cried with flashing eyes:

“‘Oh, what scoundrels you are!’

“She may have been on the verge of tears, but something different happened. Lifting her thin little hand, she gave the student a slap in the face which could not have been more dexterously delivered. It did come with a smack! He would have rushed at her, swearing, but I held him back, and the girl had time to run away. We began quarrelling at once. I told him all that I had been saving up against him in those days. I told him that he was the paltriest commonplace fool without the trace of an idea. He swore at me.... (I had once explained to him that I was illegitimate.) Then we spat at each other, and I’ve never seen him since. I felt frightfully vexed with myself that evening, but not so much the next day, and by the day after that had quite forgotten it. And though I sometimes thought of the girl again, it was only casually, for a moment. It was only after I’d been a fortnight in Petersburg I suddenly recalled the whole scene. I remembered it, and I was suddenly so ashamed that tears of shame literally ran down my cheeks. I was wretched the whole evening, and all that night, and I am rather miserable about it now. I could not understand at first how I could have sunk to such a depth of degradation, and still less how I could have forgotten it without feeling shame or remorse. It is only now that I understand what was at the root of it; it was all due to my ‘_idea_.’... The ‘_idea_’ comforted me in disgrace and insignificance. But all the nasty things I did took refuge, as it were, under the ‘_idea_.’ It, so to speak, smoothed over everything, but it also put a mist before my eyes, and such a misty understanding of things and events may, of course, be a great hindrance to the ‘_idea_’ itself, to say nothing of other things.

“Now for another anecdote.

“On the 1st of April last year, Marie Ivanovna was keeping her name day; some visitors, though only a few, came for the evening. Suddenly Agrafena rushed in, out of breath, announcing that a baby was crying in the passage before the kitchen, and that she didn’t know what to do. We were all excited at the news. We went out and saw a bark basket, and in the basket a three- or four-week-old child, crying. I picked up the basket and took it into the kitchen. Then I immediately found a folded note:

“‘Gracious benefactors, show kind charity to the girl christened Arina, and we will join with her to send our tears to the Heavenly Throne for you for ever, and congratulate you on your name day.

“‘Persons unknown to you.’