Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

a bad way, and that the police had paid him visits. All this alarmed my mother, and she implored my father to return to Russia. She no longer feared the machinations of his relatives; she knew that she had now her husband's entire confidence. Her character, moreover, had changed greatly; her school-friends scarcely recognised their gay companion. Privations, exile, the influence of Europe, where life is more serious and difficult than the childish life of Russia, had prematurely aged her.

      Dostoyevsky was not home-sick, and felt very comfortable abroad; his health had improved, his epileptic attacks occurred only at long intervals. Yet he, too, wanted to return to Petersburg; he feared that he would cease to understand Russia if he stayed any longer in Dresden. All his life he had this fear, in Germany as in Siberia. Probably Dostoyevsky was conscious that there was very little of the Russian in him. Turgenev and Count Alexis Tolstoy spent their whole Uves abroad, yet this did not prevent them from giving their readers admirable types of Great Russia. They nearly always spoke French, yet they wrote most excellent Russian. These writers carried Russia with them in their blood, and remained eternally Russian, though they naively accounted themselves perfect Europeans. My father, who, on the other hand, gloried in being a Russian, was really much more European than they. He was capable of being absorbed by Europe; it was therefore more dangerous for him to go away from Russia. His mastery of the Russian language was also imperilled. It has often been made a reproach to my father that his style is heavy, incoherent and careless; this has been explained by the fact that he was obliged to work for his daily bread, and had not time to correct his manuscripts. But those who have a good style know that it is easy to write well at the first attempt. I think Dostoyevsky's faulty style may rather be accounted for as follows: he wrote Russian badly because it was not his ancestral tongue.

      During the second part of her stay in Dresden my mother became enceinte for the third time. She proposed at first to stay at Dresden for her confinement; then, fearing illness might keep her another year in Germany, she changed her mind, and made her husband start for home at once. We arrived at Petersburg a few days before the birth of my brother Fyodor.

       XIX

      THE RETURN TO RUSSIA

       Table of Contents

       It was the month of July, and my parents found the city deserted; all their friends had left for the country. The first to return was my father's stepson, Paul Issaieff, who had lately married a pretty middle-class girl. As my mother was still weak after her recent confinement, and could not run about looking for a flat, he offered his services. In the evening he would come and show my mother sketch-plans of the various places he had inspected during the day.

      " But why do you look at such large flats ? " she said to him, " Until our debts are paid, we must be content with four or five rooms at most."

      " Four or five rooms ! Then where will you put me and my wife? "

      " Were you thinking of Uving with us ? " asked my mother, greatly surprised.

      " Of course. Would you have the heart to separate father and son ? "

      My mother was exasperated. "You are not my husband's son," she said severely. " You are not even related to him, as a fact. My husband took care of you when you were a child, but his duty now is to look after his own children. You are old enough now to work and to earn your own living."

      Paul Issaieff was overwhelmed by this plain speaking. He was not to consider himself the son of the famous Dostoyevsky ! Others had better claims than he on his " papa " ! What an infamous plot had been hatched against him! He was furious, and so was his young wife.

      " He promised me," she told my mother ingenuously, " that we should all hve together, that you would keep house, and that I should have nothing to do. If I had known that he was deceiving me, I certainly would not have married him."

      This selfish little creature became, under the disciphne of years and sorrows, an excellent wife and mother, respected by all who knew her. Poor woman ! her married life was a long martyrdom.

      Seeing that nothing could shake my mother's determination, and that Dostoyevsky was of one mind with his wife on the subject, Paul Issaieff turned for sympathy to my father's relatives, complaining bitterly of the dark intrigues of his " stepmother," and her efforts to separate "father and son," Dostoyevsky's family had more sense than he. They realised that my mother's character had developed, that the timid girl-bride had become the energetic wife, able to protect her home from intruders. They made a virtue of necessity, and ceased to harass her. Their position, moreover, had greatly unproved during the past four years. The sons had grown up and were able to work for their Uving; the girls had married, and their husbands helped their mother. My aunt Alexandra, now a widow, married a rich man. The only members of the family dependent on my father were my unhappy uncle Nicolai and the worthless Paul Issaieff.

      As soon as my mother's health was restored, she took a small flat and furnished it cheaply. Her own pretty furniture had all been sold. Paul Issaieff, who had undertaken to pay the interest of the loan on the furniture during my grandmother's absence, spent the money my parents had sent him for this purpose on himself. Another disappointment, of a more serious nature, awaited my mother on her return to Petersburg. My grandmother's house-property was sold by auction by order of the poUce, and changed owners several times. Thanks to a badly worded lease, the agent had been able to pass it off as his own. The only hope was in a lawsuit, and lawsuits are very expensive in Russia. My mother preferred to give up her share of the inheritance; my grandmother followed her example, although she was now utterly ruined as a result of her unlucky sojourn in Europe. Fortunately, her son had made a rich marriage at Dresden. With his wife's fortune he bought a fine estate in the Government of Kursk, and set to work to apply the theories he had learnt at the Academy of Agriculture. My grandmother went to live with him and his family, and soon became absorbed in his agricultural experiments. Now that her favourite daughter was dead, she rarely came to Petersburg. Her relations with Dostoyevsky were always cordial, but she played a very small part in his life.

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       When my uncle Mihail's creditors heard that Dostoyevsky had returned to Petersburg, they at once presented themselves, and again threatened him with imprisonment. My mother then entered upon the struggle, for which she had been bracing herself at Dresden. She lectured them and argued with them, and borrowed from money-lenders to pay off the most rapacious. Dostoyevsky was amazed at the facility with which his wife manipulated figures and talked the jargon of notaries. When pubHshers came to make proposals to him, he listened to them quietly, and said : " I cannot decide anything for the moment. I must consult my wife." People soon began to understand who it was that managed the business of the Dostoyevsky household, and they addressed themselves directly to her. Thus my father was relieved of all wearisome details, and was able to devote himself entirely to his works.

      With a view to paying off the debts quickly, my mother introduced a rigid economy in her home. For many years we had to live in very modest dwellings; we had only two servants, and our meals were extremely frugal. My mother made her own dresses and her children's frocks. She never went into society, and very rarely to the theatre, in which she deUghted. This austere life was unnatural at her age, and made her unhappy. She was often in tears; her melancholy disposition, which painted the future in the darkest colours, conjured up visions of an old, infirm husband, sick children, a poverty-stricken household.66 She could not understand my father's serenity. " We shall never be without money," he would say, in tones of conviction. " But where is it to come from ? " she would ask, vexed at his confidence. My mother was still young. There are certain truths we only grasp after the age of forty. My father knew that we are all God's workers, and that if we perform our task faithfully, the Heavenly Master will not forsake us. Dostoyevsky had perfect faith in God, and never feared for the future of his family. He was right, for after his death we lacked nothing.

      66 My father's Aunt Kumanin could no longer help him. She died while we were in Europe, leaving her affairs in great disorder. Her heirs quarrelled over her property for years. We did not receive our share till after ray father's death.

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