The Autobiographical Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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СКАЧАТЬ words; that it was permissible to refuse a suitor who made an offer without knowing how it would be taken, but that to refuse an offer after actually inviting it was to insult a worthy man who by no means deserved such treatment; that Maria Anna was twenty-seven years old, that her brothers could not keep her indefinitely with them, and that it was time to think seriously of her future. My grandmother saw that her sisters-in-law had laid a trap for her, and resigned herself to the inevitable. Fortunately, " poor M. Snitkin " was not antipathetic to her.

      The marriage of these two dreamers did not turn out badly. My grandfather never forgot the famous Asen-kova, and my grandmother cherished the memory of her fair-haired lover who had fallen on the field of honour; notwithstanding, they had several children. Their characters suited each other; my grandmother was masterful, her husband was timid; she ordered, he obeyed. Nevertheless, in matters he considered really important, he managed to enforce his will. He wished his wife to change her religion, for he thought their children could not be brought up as good Christians if their parents professed different creeds. My grandmother became Orthodox, but continued to read the Gospel in Swedish. Later, when the children began to talk, my grandfather forbade his wife to teach them her native tongue. "It is unpleasant to me to hear you talking Swedish together, when I can't understand it," he said. This embargo was very disagreeable to my grandmother, who could never learn to speak Russian correctly. AU her life she expressed herself in a picturesque idiom which made her friends smile. When something important had to be said, she preferred to speak German to her children.

      After their marriage my grandparents lived at first in lodgings, as people often did in Petersburg. But this manner of life did not please my grandmother, who had been accustomed to a more spacious existence in Finland. She persuaded her husband to buy a piece of land which was for sale on the other side of the Neva, in a lonely quarter not far from the Smolny monastery. There she had a large house built, and surrounded it with a garden. In the middle of Petersburg she lived as if she were in the country. She had her own flowers, fruit and vegetables. She did not Uke her husband's Ukrainian relatives, and received them only on family festivals. On the other hand, all the Swedes who came to Petersburg, and who were acquainted with one or the other of her numerous cousins in Finland, came to see her, lunched, dined, and sometimes stayed the night. The house was large and contained several guest-chambers. When they returned to Sweden, my grandmother's friends invoked her good offices for their children, whom they had placed in the various Crown establishments : sons who were to become officers in the Russian army. On the festivals of Christmas and Easter the house and garden echoed with the laughter and the Swedish chatter of little schoolgirls, pupils of the Cadet Schools, and shy young officers who could not as yet speak Russian fluently and were happy to find a bit of Finland in the strange capital. Like all the women of Germanic origin, my grandmother cared very little for her new country, and thought only of the interests of those of her own race.

      This Finland which invaded the house of her parents found no favour with my mother. The Swedish ladies, with their severe profiles, stiff, ceremonious manners and unknown language, frightened her. The little Anna would take refuge with her father, whom she resembled, and whose favourite she was. He took her to church, and visited the reUgious houses of Petersburg with her. Every year she accompanied him on a pilgrimage to the famous monastery of Valaam, on the islands of Lake Ladoga. My mother had all her life tender memories of this kind, simple, sentimental soul. She became religious like him, and remained faithful to the Orthodox Church. The new religious ideas, which her friends eagerly adopted, gained no hold over her; my mother thought more highly of the wisdom of the early Fathers than of the fashionable writers. Like her father, she loved Russia passionately, and could never forgive her mother the indifference, verging on scorn, displayed by her towards her husband's country. My mother considered herself a thorough Russian. And yet she was but half a Slav; her character was much more Swedish. The dreamy idleness of the Russian woman were unknown to my mother; she was very active all her life; I never saw her sitting with folded hands. She was always taking up fresh occupations, becoming absorbed in them and generally turning them to good account. She had nothing of the large-minded-ness of Russian women, which they generally increase by wide reading; but she had the practical mind which most of her countrywomen lack. This disposition made a great impression upon her women friends; later, during her widowhood, they habitually consulted her in difficulties, and the advice she gave them was generally good. Together with the good qualities of her Swedish ancestors, my mother had inherited some of their faults. Her self-esteem was always excessive, almost morbid; a trifle would offend her, and she easily fell a victim to those who flattered her. She was something of a mystic, believed in dreams and presentiments, and had to some extent the curious gift of second sight possessed by many Normans. She was always predicting in a jesting manner, without attaching any importance to what she was saying, and was the first to be astonished and almost alarmed when her predictions, often of a fantastic and improbable kind, were realised, as if by magic. This second sight left her completely towards her fiftieth year, together with the hysteria which ravaged her girlhood. Her health was always poor; she was anasmic, nervous and restless, and often had hysterical attacks. This neuroticism was aggravated by the characteristic indecision of the Ukrainians, which makes them hesitate between half a dozen possible courses, and leads them to transform the most trivial circumstances into dramas, and sometimes into melodramas.

       XIV

       MY mother's GIRLHOOD

       Table of Contents

       As their children grew up, two hostile camps were established in the house of my grandparents, as often happens when the father and the mother are of different races. The Swedish camp was composed of my grandmother and her elder daughter, Maria, a very overbearing young person; the Ukrainian camp contained my grandfather and his favourite child, Anna. The Swedes commanded and the Ukrainians obeyed grudgingly. My uncle Jean served as a Hnk between the opponents. He had inherited the Norman beauty of his mother with the Ukrainian character of his father, and was equally beloved by both parents.

      My aunt Maria was a beautiful creature, tall and slender, with blue eyes and magnificent golden hair. She had a great success in society and innumerable suitors. She made a love-match in marrying Professor Paul Svatkovsky, to whom the Grand-Duchess Maria had confided the education of her orphan children, the Dukes of Leuchtenberg. At the time of my aunt's marriage the young princes had finished their studies, but M. Svatkovsky continued to live in the palace of the Grand Duchess as a friend. My aunt made her home there; she had aristocratic friends, beautiful dresses and fine carriages. When she visited her relations, her tone was more arrogant than ever. She treated her younger sister as a little schoolgirl, which was, perhaps, not to be wondered at, for my mother was still at the High School. Her morbid self-esteem was wounded by the authoritative tone of her elder sister. She was proud, and resented patronage, dreaming of independence. A great wave of Uberahsm was passing over Russia at the time. Young Russian girls, who had hitherto been brought up more or less on French lines, now refused to accept the husbands their parents chose for them, and to go into society. Their mothers had danced to excess; the daughters despised balls, and preferred literary gatherings or scientific lectures. They laughed at novels and were full of enthusiasm for the works of Darwin. They became careless in their dress, cut their hair short to save time, put on spectacles, and wore black dresses and men's blouses. It was their dream to go and study at the University. When parents opposed this wish, they ran away with idealistic students, who married them in order to save them from " the odious despotism of parents." These marriages were generally platonic; the couple lived apart and rarely met. But by way of compensation, the young wife would choose a lover among the students of the University and live with him in " civil marriage." Free love seemed the ideal love to these reckless young creatures. Some of them even went farther. Male and female students subscribed to hire large dwellings and found communes in which all the women belonged indiscriminately to all the men. They were very proud of this grotesque institution, which they ingenuously assumed to be the last word in human civilisation. They were not aware that they were, in fact, retrograding СКАЧАТЬ