Читать книгу The Autobiographical Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Страница 22

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The wedding journey of my parents is described in detail in my mother's journal. I refer my readers to this book, which will be published at no distant date, and I will say but a few words concerning their Hfe abroad.

After resting at Vilna and Berlin, my parents went to Dresden, and stayed there for two months. They left Petersburg in one of those snow-storms which are so frequent in Russia in April; at Dresden they found the spring awaiting them. Here the trees were in blossom, the birds were singing, the sky was blue, all Nature seemed in holiday mood. This sudden change of climate made a great impression on my parents. They dined in the open air on the verandah at Bruhl's, listened to the music in the Grossen Garten, and explored the picturesque landscape of Saxon Switzerland. Their hearts expanded. Now that there were no longer any schemers to come between them, they understood each other much better than before. The sympathy they had felt for each other before marriage soon became love, and their real honeymoon began at last. My mother never forgot those enchanted months. Later, in her widowhood, when she was often obliged to go to Karlsbad or Wiesbaden to take the waters, she always completed her " cure " by spending a few weeks in Dresden. She visited all the places where she had been with my father, went to look at the pictures he had admired in the famous gallery, dined at the restaurants where they had taken their meals, and dreamed of the past, listening to the music in the Grossen Garten. She said that the weeks at Dresden were the happiest of all those she spent in Europe.

I could never understand this love of a young girl of nineteen for a man of forty-five, and I often asked my mother how she could have loved a husband more than double her age. " But he was young ! " she replied, smiling. " You can't imagine how young your father still was ! He would laugh and joke, and find amusement in everything, like a boy. He was much gayer, much more interesting than the yotmg men of that period, among whom it was the fashion to wear spectacles and to look like old professors of zoology."

It is true that the Lithuanians preserve their youth-fulness of mind till late in hfe. When they are past fifty they will often amuse themselves hke children; looking at them one says that in spite of years they will never grow old. This was the case with Dostoyevsky. He was fifty-nine when he died, but he was yoimg to the end. His hair never turned grey, but always kept its light brown colour. On the other hand, my mother inherited the Swedish character of her ancestors. Now Swedish women have one quality which distinguishes them from all the other women of Europe : they cannot criticise their husbands. They see their faults and try to correct them, but they never judge them. It seems to me that the Swedish women are, so far, the only ones who have realised the beautiful ideal of S. Paul, that husband and wife are one flesh. " How can one criticise one's husband ? " Swedes have answered indignantly, when I have discussed this national peculiarity. " He is too dear to be criticised." This was just my mother's point of view; her husband was too dear to be criticised. She preferred to love him, and after all this was the surest way of being happy with him. All her life she spoke of Dostoyevsky as an ideal man, and when she became a widow she brought her children up to worship their father.

In July, when it began to get very hot in Dresden, my parents left for Baden-Baden. It was an unfortunate idea; no sooner did my father see the roulette-tables again, than the gambling fever seized him like a disease. He played, lost, went through crises of exultation and of despair. My mother was greatly alarmed. When she had transcribed The Gambler she had not known that her husband had depicted himself in it. She wept and implored him to leave Baden-Baden; finally she succeeded in getting him away to Switzerland. When they arrived at Geneva the madness left my father, and he cursed his unhappy passion. My parents liked Geneva, and decided to spend the winter there. They did not wish to return to Petersburg; they were happy abroad, and they thought with horror of the intrigues of their relatives. My mother, moreover, was no longer able to take long journeys; she was enceinte, and this first pregnancy was not easy. She took a dislike to noisy hotels, and my father rented a small flat from two old maids, who were very kind to my mother. She spent most of her time in bed, only getting up to go and dine at the restaurant. After the meal she would come home and go to bed again, while her husband stayed to read the Russian and foreign newspapers. Now that he was living in Europe, he took a passionate interest in all European questions.62

62 His favourite newspaper was L'Indipendance Belge, which he often mentions in his works.

My parents led a very solitary life in Geneva. At the beginning of their stay in Switzerland they met a Russian friend, who often came to see them. When he left for Paris they did not seek any further acquaintances; they were preparing for the great event which was to transform their hves.

My little sister was born in February, and was named Sophie after my father's favourite niece, my Aunt Vera's daughter. Dostoyevsky was very happy; at last he tasted the delights of fatherhood, of which he had so long dreamt. " It is the greatest joy a man can know here on earth," he wrote to a friend. He was immensely interested in the baby, observed the soul which looked at him through the child's dim eyes, and declared that she recognised him and smiled at him. Alas ! his joy was short-lived.

My mother's first accouchement had caused her unusual suffering, and her anaemia had been much aggravated by it. She was unable to nurse the baby herself, and it was not possible to find a wet nurse at Geneva. The peasant women would not leave their homes, and ladies who wished to have their infants nursed were obUged to send them up into the mountains. My mother refused to part with her treasure, and determined to bring up little Sophie by hand. Like many first-born children, Sophie was very fragile. My mother knew little about the rearing of infants; the kind old maids who helped her with her charge knew even less. The poor baby vegetated for three months, and then left this troublous world for another.

The grief of my parents was overwhelming. My grandmother, who had just arrived from Petersburg to make the acquaintance of her new grandchild, comforted them as far as she could. Seeing that my mother spent all her time in the cemetery, sobbing on the little grave, my grandmother proposed that she should be taken away to Vevey. There the three spent a most melancholy summer. My mother was constantly escaping from the house, and going by steamer to Geneva, to take flowers to her little lost one. She would come back in tears; her health becametworse and worse. My father, for his part, was uneasy in Switzerland, A denizen of the plains, he was accustomed to vast horizons; the mountains round Lake Leman oppressed him. " They crush me, they dwarf my ideas," he would say; " I cannot write anything of value in this country."

My parents accordingly decided to spend the winter in Italy; they hoped the southern sun might restore my mother's health. They went away alone; my grandmother remained in Switzerland with her Svatkov-sky grandchildren, who were to spend the winter in Geneva by the doctor's orders.

My parents travelled across the Simplon by the diligence. My mother always recalled this journey with pleasure. It was the month of August and the weather was magnificent. The diligence went up slowly; the passengers preferred to walk, taking short cuts. My mother walked, leaning on my father's arm; it seemed to her that she had left her sorrow on the other side of the Alps, and that in Italy life would smile upon her once again. She was barely twenty-one, and at that age the thirst for happiness is so great that the loss of a baby of three months old cannot darken one's days for very long.

My parents' first sojourn in Italy was at Milan. My father was anxious to see the famous cathedral which had so greatly impressed his imagination on his first visit to Europe. He examined it thoroughly, stood lost in admiration before the fa9ade, and even went up on the roof to see the view which extends over the wide Lombard plain. When the autumn rains began, my parents left for Florence, and settled there for the winter. They knew no one in the city, and spent several months tete-d-tete. Dostoyevsky never cared for casual acquaintanceship which leads no further. When a man pleased him, he gave him his heart, and remained his friend for life, but he could not offer his friendship to every passer-by.

My father was busily occupied in Florence; he was writing his novel. The Idiot, which he had begun at Geneva. My mother helped him, taking down the scenes he dictated to her in shorthand. She was careful, however, not to disturb him in his hours of meditation, and set herself to make a thorough study of Florence, its beautiful churches and its magnificent art collections. She habitually arranged to meet her husband in front of some famous picture; when he had finished his writing, Dostoyevsky would join her in the Pitti Palace. He did not like to study pictures Baedeker in hand; on his first visit to a gallery he would single out certain pictures which pleased him, and would often come back to admire them, without looking at any others. He would stand for a long time before his favourites, explaining to his young wife the ideas these pictures evoked in him. Then they would take a walk along the Arno. On their way home they would often make a ditour to see the doors of the Baptistry, which enchanted my father. In fine weather they would stroll in the Cascine or the Boboli Gardens. The roses blooming there in the month of January struck their northern imaginations. At that time of the year they were accustomed to see rivers covered with ice, streets full of snow, and passers-by muffled in furs; the January blossoms seemed to them incredible. My father speaks of the Boboli roses in his letters to his friends, my mother speaks of them in her reminiscences.

My parents were very happy in Florence; I think this was the most perfect moment of their wedding journey. Dostoyevsky loved Italy; he said the Italians reminded him of the Russians. There is, indeed, a good deal of Slav blood in Northern Italy. The Venetii who built Venice were of Slav origin and belonged to the same Slav tribe as the Russians, a tribe whose home was in the Carpathians. Intermarrying with Italians, the Venetii gave their Slav blood to the inhabitants of northern Italy. This blood flowed all over the plain of the Po, and descended along the Apennines. Russians travelling in Italy are often surprised to find in the depths of Tuscany or Umbria peasant-women of the same type as those they have seen at home. They have the same soft and patient look, the same endurance in work, the same sense of self-denial. The costume and the manner of knotting the handkerchief about the head are similar. Thus the Russians love Italy, and look upon it as to some extent their second country.