Читать книгу The Autobiographical Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Страница 14

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The labour my father had to perform in prison was very hard, but it did him good by developing his body. He was no longer a sick creature, or an adolescent whose development had been arrested. He had become a man, and he longed for love. Any woman rather more adroit than the rustic beauties of Semipalatinsk could have won his heart. Such an one was to appear a few months after his release. But what a terrible woman fate had allotted to my poor father !

Among the officers of the Semipalatinsk regiment there was a certain Captain Issaieff, a good fellow not overburdened with brains. He was in wretched health, and had been given up by all the doctors in the town. He was charming to my father, and often invited him to his house. Maria Dmitrievna, his wife, received Dostoyevsky with much grace, and exerted herself to please him and to tame him. She knew that she would soon be a widow and would have no means beyond the meagre pension which the Russian Government gave to the widows of officers, a sum barely sufficient to feed her and her son, a boy of seven years old. Like a good woman of business, she was already looking about for a second husband. Dostoyevsky seemed to her the most eligible parti in the town; he was a writer of great talent, he had a rich aunt in Moscow, who had again begun to send him money from time to time. Maria Dmitrievna played the part of a poetic soul, misunderstood by the society of a small provincial town, and yearning for a kindred spirit, a mind as lofty as her own. She soon took possession of the ingenuous heart of my father, who, at the age of thirty-three, fell in love for the first time.

This sentimental friendship was suddenly interrupted. The captain was ordered to Kusnetzk, a little Siberian town where there was another regiment belonging to the same division as that of Semipalatinsk. He took away his wife and child, and died a few months afterwards at Kusnetzk of the phthisis from which he had long been suffering. Maria Dmitrievna wrote to announce her husband's death to Dostoyevsky, and kept up a lively correspondence with him. While waiting for the Government to grant her little pension she was living in great poverty, and complained bitterly to my father. Dostoyevsky sent her nearly all the money he received from his relatives. He pitied her sincerely and wished to help her, but his feeling for her was rather sympathy than love. Thus when Maria Dmitrievna wrote that she had found a suitor at Kusnetzk and was about to marry again, he rejoiced; far from being heartbroken, he was delighted to think that the poor woman had found a protector. He even made interest with his friends to procure for his rival some coveted appointment. In fact, Dostoyevsky did not look upon Maria Dmitrievna's future husband as a rival. At this period my father was not very sure that he should ever be able to marry, and considered himself in some degree an invahd. The epilepsy which had so long been latent in him began to declare itself. He had strange attacks, sudden convulsions which exhausted him and made him incapable of work. The regimental doctor who was treating him hesitated to diagnose the malady; it was not until much later that it was pronounced to be epilepsy. Meanwhile everybody—doctors, comrades, relatives, his friend Baron Wrangel, his brother Mihail—advised him not to marry, and Dostoyevsky resigned himself sadly to celibacy. He accepted the part of Prince Mishkin, who, though he loves Nastasia Philip-ovna, allows her to go away with Rogogin and keeps up amicable relations with his rival.

Meanwhile Maria Dmitrievna quarrelled with her lover, and left the town of Kusnetzk. She had at length received her pension, but this pittance was quite insufficient for a capricious, idle and ambitious woman. My father was now an officer, and she came back to her first idea of a marriage with him. In the letters she now wrote with increasing frequency, she exaggerated her poverty, declared that she was weary of the struggle, and threatened to put an end to herself and to her child. Dostoyevsky became very uneasy; he wanted to see her, talk to her, and make her listen to reason. As a former political prisoner he had no right to quit Semipalatinsk.48

48 Dostoyevsky, however, was often detailed to escort scientific missions travelling in Siberia by order of the Government. Thus in one letter my father describes a visit to Barnaoul, a small town between Semipalatinsk and Kusnetzk, which he made in the company of M. P. Semenov and his friends, members of the Geographical Society. On hearing of their arrival, General Gerngross, governor of the town, invited all the mission to a ball at his house, and was particularly polite to my father. In the sight of this Baltic general Dostoyevsky, who had only just left a prison, was not a convict but a famous writer.

His brother-officers, to whom he confided his desire to go to Kusnetzk, arranged to send him thither " on regimental business." The division which had its headquarters at Semipalatinsk dispatched to its regiment at Kusnetzk a wagon-load of ropes, which was bound by law to be escorted by armed soldiers and officers. It was not customary to send Dostoyevsky on such expeditions—he was always secretly protected by his officers—but this time he was glad enough to take advantage of the pretext, and he travelled some hundreds of versts seated upon the ropes which he was supposed to be guarding. Maria Dmitrievna received him with open arms and quickly regained her old influence over him, which had been somewhat weakened by a long separation. Touched by her complaints, her misfortunes, and her threats of suicide, Dostoyevsky forgot the counsels of his friends; he asked her to marry him, promising to protect her and to love her little Paul. Maria Dmitrievna accepted his offer eagerly. My father returned to Semipalatinsk in his wagon, and asked his commanding officer's permission to get married. It was granted, together with leave for a few weeks. He returned to Kusnetzk more comfortably, in a good post-chaise this time, meaning to bring back in it the new Madame Dostoyevsky and his future stepson. My father's leave was limited—the Government did not like to have its political prisoners circulating freely in the country—and he was obliged to be married a few days after his arrival at Kusnetzk. How joyful he was as he went to church ! Happiness seemed at last about to smile on him, fate was about to compensate him for all his sufferings by giving him a gentle and loving wife, who would perhaps make him a father. While Dostoyevsky was dreaming thus, of what was his bride thinking? The night before her marriage Maria Dmitrievna had spent with her lover, a handsome young tutor, whom she had discovered on her arrival at Kusnetzk, and whose mistress she had long been in secret.49

49 It is probable that the Kusnetzk suitor, whose name I do not know, had broken off his engagement with Maria Dmitrievna on discovering her clandestine intrigue with the tutor. My father, who had only paid two short visits to Kusnetzk and knew no one there, had no opportunity of discovering the liaison, more especially as Maria Dmitrievna always played the part of the serious and virtuous woman in his presence.

This woman was the daughter of one of Napoleon's Mamelukes, who had been taken prisoner during the retreat from Moscow, and brought to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, where he changed his name and his rehgion in order to marry a young girl of good family who had fallen desperately in love with him. She made him join the Russian army; he eventually became a colonel, and commanded a regiment in some provincial town. My father never knew him. By some freak of Nature, Maria Dmitrievna inherited only the Russian type of her mother. I have seen her portrait. Nothing about her betrayed her Oriental origin. On the other hand, her son Paul, whom I knew later, was almost a mulatto. He had a yellow skin, black glossy hair, rolled his eyes as negroes do, gesticulated extravagantly, and was malicious, stupid and insolent.

At the time of his mother's second marriage he was a pretty, lively little boy whom my father petted to please Maria Dmitrievna. Dostoyevsky had no suspicion of the African origin of his wife, who concealed it carefully; he only discovered it much later. Cunning like all the women of her race, she played the model wife, gathered all the lettered society of Semipalatinsk round her and organised a kind of literary salon. She passed herself off as a Frenchwoman, spoke French as if it had been her mother-tongue, and was a great reader. She had been well educated, in a Government establishment for the daughters of the nobility. The society of Semipalatinsk took the newly married Madame Dostoyevsky for a woman of high character. Baron Wrangel speaks of her with respect in his memoirs, and says she was charming. And she continued to pay secret evening visits to her little tutor, who had followed her to Semipalatinsk. It amused her vastly to deceive the world and her poor dreamer of a husband. Dostoyevsky knew the young man, as one knows every one in a small town. But the handsome youth was so perfectly insignificant that it never entered my father's head to suspect a rival in him. He thought Maria Dmitrievna a faithful wife, entirely devoted to him. She had, however, a terrible temper, and gave way to sudden paroxysms of fury. My father attributed these to her bad health—she was somewhat consumptive—and forgave the violent scenes she was constantly making. She was a good housekeeper, and knew how to make a home comfortable. After the horrors of his prison, his house seemed a perfect paradise to Dostoyevsky. In spite of the forebodings of his friends and relatives, marriage suited him. He put on flesh, became more cheerful, and seemed happy. The Semipalatinsk photograph mentioned above shows us a man full of strength, life and energy. It is not in the least like the portrait of Prince Mish-kin in The Idiot, nor that of the convict-prophet in Nekrassov's poem. My father's epilepsy, which had*at last declared itself, had calmed his nerves. He suffered greatly during his attacks, but on the other hand his mind was calmer and more lucid when they passed off. The sharp, dry, healthy air of Siberia, military service, which took the place of gymnastics, the peaceful life of a little provincial town, all combined to improve Dos-toyevsky's health. As always, he was absorbed by his novels. He performed his military duties conscientiously, but his heart was not in them. My father was longing for the moment when he might resign his commission and become a free and independent writer once more. During his sojourn at Semipalatinsk, Dostoyevsky wrote two books, The Uncle's Dream and Selo Stepant-chikovo. The heroes of these new novels are no longer cosmopolites, as in his earlier works. They bear no resemblance to the pallid citizens of Petersburg; they inhabit the country or small provincial towns, they are very Russian and very vital. Reading these first works written after his release, we see that Dostoyevsky had finally broken with the tradition of Gogol, and had returned to the idea of The Double. In these new novels he paints abnormal types; Prince K , a degenerate, who becomes imbecile, and Foma Opiskin, an adventurer who possesses a great hypnotic power. The books are gay and ironical, whereas those written before the author's imprisonment are nearly all melodramatic. It is evident that Dostoyevsky had arrived at that period of his existence when man no longer takes a tragic view of life, when he can jest a little at it, when he can look at it with a certain detachment, beginning to understand that it is but an episode in the long series of existences which the soul has to pass through. This irony increases as Dostoyevsky's talent matures, and as he learns to know men and life more fully. It never becomes bitter or malicious, for love of humanity, and admiration for the Christian fraternity of the Gospel grows stronger and ever stronger in his heart.

My father received permission to publish these two novels, but he was obliged to leave the manuscript of The House of the Dead in his portfolio. He had been working at it for a long time, fully conscious of its value, but it was impossible to publish it on account of the Censorship, which was very strict in all matters relating to the prisons. He was now at liberty to live in any town in Siberia^ but not to go back to Russia. Nevertheless, my father's one idea was to return to Petersburg, a place he hated. The nomad intellectuals of Lithuania have this strange peculiarity; they cannot live in the country or in the provinces; they must be on the spot where they can feel the pulses of civilisation beating most strongly. The great reforms which shed lustre on the reign of Alexander II were in preparation at Petersburg. My father longed to be there amongst the other Russian writers. He feared that if he remained in Siberia he would not be in touch with the new ideas which were agitating our country. He sought feverishly for means of obtaining permission to return to Russia. He wrote innumerable letters, applied to all his former friends, and at last discovered a protector. The Crimean War had just come to an end. Everybody was talking of General Todleben, who had greatly distinguished himself, and had been created a Count. My father remembered the brothers Todleben, whom he had known at the School of Engineers. He wrote to them, begging them to intercede with the Government on his behalf. The Todlebens remembered their former comrade very well. He had never seemed so strange to them as to his Russian schoolfellows; they came from Courland, and their ancestors must have often encountered those of Dostoyevsky on the banks of the Niemen. They begged their distinguished brother to plead my father's cause. The Russian Government could refuse nothing to Count Todleben, whom every one called " The Defender of Sebastopol." Dostoyevsky soon received permission to live anywhere in Russia, with the exception of the two capital cities. My father chose the town of Tver on the Volga, a station on the railway line between Petersburg and Moscow. He resigned his commission joyfully, said farewell to his comrades and to the kindly people of Semipalatinsk who had received him so hospitably, and set out for Russia with his wife and stepson. To make this long journey Dostoyevsky bought a carriage which he sold on arriving at Tver; this was the way in which people travelled in those days. How happy he was as he traversed, free and independent, the road which ten years before he had passed along in custody of a police officer. He was about to see his brother Mihail again, to return to that literary world where he would be able to exchange ideas with his friends, to present his dear wife, who loved him, to his family. While Dostoyevsky was dreaming thus in his post-chaise, the handsome tutor, whom his mistress was bringing along with her Hke a pet dog, was following them in a britshka one stage behind. At every halt she left him a hasty love-letter, informing him where they were to stay for the night, and ordering him to halt at the preceding station and not to overtake them. She must have been immensely amused on the way to note the naive delight of her poor romantic husband.

When he was settled at Tver, my father soon became intimate with Count Baranov, the Governor. His wife, nSe Vassiletchikov, was a cousin of Count SoUohub, the writer, who had formerly had a literary salon in Petersburg. My father, who had been one of the habitues of this salon, had been presented to Mile. Vassiletchikov at the time of the success of his Poor Folks. She had never forgotten him, and when he arrived at Tver, she hastened to renew their acquaintance. She often invited him to her house, and induced her husband to interest himself in my father's affairs. Count Baranov did his utmost to obtain permission for Dostoyevsky to live at Petersburg. Having heard that the Minister of Police, Prince Dolgoruky, was opposed to this, the Count advised my father to write a letter to the Emperor. Like many other enthusiasts, Dostoyevsky was at this time full of admiration for Alexander II. He composed some verses on the occasion of his coronation, and hoped great things from his reign. He wrote a simple and dignified letter to the Emperor, recounting the miseries of his life, and asked his leave to return to Petersburg. The letter pleased the Emperor and he granted my father's request. Happy at the thought of being able at last to live in the literary world near his brother Mihail, Dostoyevsky at once set out for Petersburg with his wife and his stepson, whom he placed in a cadet school. He soon obtained permission to publish The House of the Dead. The times of Nicolas I were at an end. Those in power no longer feared the light; on the contrary, they sought it. The book had an immense success, and placed Dostoyevsky in the first rank of Russian writers. He never lost this proud position; each new work tended to confirm it. Life began to smile on my father. But fate had a new and cruel trial in store for him.

The change of climate had not suitedMariaDmitrievna. The damp, marshy climate of Petersburg developed the disease which had long been lying in wait for her. In great alarm, she returned to Tver, which is healthier. It was too late; the malady followed its normal course, and in a few months she had become unrecognisable. This woman, coughing and spitting blood, soon disgusted her young lover, who had hitherto followed her everywhere. He fled from Tver, leaving no address. This desertion infuriated Maria Dmitrievna. My father had remained at Petersburg, busy with the pubUcation of his novel, but he often went to visit his wife at Tver. In one of the scenes she made for his benefit, she confessed everything, describing her love-affair with the young tutor in great detail. With a refinement of cruelty she told Dostoyevsky how much it had amused them to laugh at the deceived husband, and declared that she had never loved him and had married him for mercenary motives. " No self-respecting woman," said this hussy, " could love a man who had worked for four years in a prison as the companion of thieves and murderers."

My poor father listened with anguish to the outpourings of his wife. This, then, was the love and happiness in which he had been beheving for years ! It was this fury whom he had cherished as a loving and faithful wife ! He turned from Maria Dmitrievna with horror, left her, and fled to Petersburg, seeking consolation from his brother, and among his nephews and nieces. He had arrived at the age of forty without having ever been loved. " No woman could love a convict," he said to himself, remembering the ignoble words of his wife. It was a thought worthy of the daughter of a slave, which could find no echo in the heart of a noble-minded European. But Dostoyevsky knew little of women at this period of his life. The thought that he would never have children or a home made him very unhappy. He put all his bitterness as a betrayed husband into the novel The Eternal Husband, which he wrote later. It is curious to note that he painted the hero of this story as a contemptible creature, old, ugly, vulgar and ridiculous. It is possible that he despised himself for his credulity and simplicity, for not having discovered the intrigue and punished the treacherous lovers. In spite of his sufferings and despair, Dostoyevsky continued to send money to Maria Dmitrievna, placed confidential servants with her, wrote to his sisters at Moscow, begging them to visit her at Tver, and later went himself several times to see if his wife had all she needed. Their marriage was shattered, but the sense of duty towards her who bore his name remained strong in Dostoyevsky's Lithuanian heart. Maria Dmitrievna was not softened by this generosity. She hated my father with the rancour of a true negress. Those who nursed her told later how she would pass long hours motionless in an arm-chair, lost in painful meditation. She would get up and walk feverishly through her rooms. In the drawing-room she would stand in front of Dostoyevsky's portrait, staring at it, shaking her fist at it, and exclaiming : " Convict, miserable convict 1 " She hated her first husband too, and spoke of him contemptuously. She hated her son Paul and refused to see him. She had always been very ambitious, and she had greatly desired to place her son in the most aristocratic school in Petersburg. My father did what he could, but only succeeded in obtaining a nomination for the Cadet Corps, to which the boy was entitled as the son of an officer. Seeing that Paul was idle and would not work, Maria Dmitrievna was deeply mortified, and this mortification changed to hatred. Dostoyevsky interceded in vain for the child; his mother refused to see him, and my father was obliged to send him to spend his holidays with my uncle Mihaiil's family.