The Autobiographical Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ combat, again plunges Ludmilla into a magic sleep. While they are fighting, the cunning Farlaff seizes the sleeping maiden and brings her back to Kiev to Prince Vladimir, who had promised her hand to the knight who should rescue her. Farlaff tries in vain to wake Ludmilla; she does not respond to his advances. Russian, having slain Tchernomur, takes his magic ring. Returning to Kiev, he puts it on Ludmilla's finger, and she at once awakes, throws herself into his arms, calls him her dear betrothed, and turns disdainfully away from Farlaff. Seeing that Ludmilla will have nothing to say to him, Farlaff leaves Kiev ignominiously.

      This fine opera, very splendidly put on the stage, delights children. My brother and I admired it greatly, though we were unfaithful to it on one occasion. On a certain evening when we arrived at the theatre we learned that one of the singers had been taken ill, and that Russian and Ludmilla could not be performed. The Bronze Horse, a very popular comic opera, had been substituted. My father was vexed and proposed to go home. We protested and began to cry; he sjmnpathised with our disappointment and allowed us to stay for this Chinese or Japanese spectacle. We were enchanted. There was so much noise, so many little bells jangling, and the great bronze horse, which figured in every act, struck our childish imaginations. Dostoyevsky was not very well pleased at our admiration. He evidently did not wish us to be dazzled by the wonders of the Far East. He wanted us to be faithful to his beloved Ludmilla. . . .

      When Dostoyevsky went to Ems, or was too busy to read to us himself, he begged my mother to read us the works of Walter Scott, and of Dickens, " that great Christian," as he calls him in the Journal of the Writer. During meals, he would question us concerning our impressions, and evoke episodes in the novels. He, who forgot his wife's name and the face of his mistress, could remember all the English names of the characters of Dickens and Scott which had fired his youthful imagination, and spoke of them as if they were his intimate friends.

      My father was very proud of my love of reading. I learned to read in a few weeks, and I devoured all the books I could lay hands on. My mother protested against this inordinate reading, which was, of course, very bad for a little nervous girl, Dostoyevsky, however, was indulgent to it, seeing in it a reflection of his own passion for books. He chose historical novels and the sentimental tales of Karamzin for me from his bookshelves, discussed them with me and explained the things I had not understood. I got into the habit of keeping him company while he breakfasted, and this was the happiest hour of my day. Thus our literary conversations began, but, alas ! they did not continue long.

      The first book my father gave me was the History of Russia, by Karamzin, beautifully illustrated. He explained the pictures, which represented the arrival of Rurik at Kiev, the struggles of his son Igor against the nomad tribes who surrounded what was then the small Slav nation on every side, Vladimir introducing the Christian religion into his principality, Jaroslav promulgating the first European laws, and other descendants of Rurik, who founded Muscovy, defending the infant Great Russia against the invading Tatars. The Slavo-Norman princes became my favourite heroes. I heard their songs and war-cries as in a dream. My favourite heroine was Rogneda, daughter of the Norman prince Rogvolod; I liked to act her part in our childish plays. Later, when I began to travel in Europe, I sought the traces of my dear Normans everjrwhere. I was surprised to find Europeans talking always of Latin and Germanic culture, and forgetting that of the Normans. At the time when Europe was plunged in mediaeval barbarism, the Normans were already protecting liberty of conscience, and allowing the practice of all religions in their realms. Instead of worshipping power and riches they reverenced poets and men of learning, invited them to their courts, and even shared their labours. Thus in Sicily the Norman prince Roger II helped the learned Arab Edrizy to write the first geography under the artless title of The Joy of Him Who Loves to Travel. The civilisation of the Normans was so advanced for their period that it could not find admittance in barbarous Europe; it could only subsist in small forgotten countries such as Lithuania and Sicily. And yet this fine civilisation is not dead; it lives on in souls of Norman descent, and manifests itself from time to time in some great poet or writer.

      One thing which struck me as strange at a later date, when I began to analyse this period of my life, was the fact that my father never gave me any children's books. Robinson Crusoe was the only work of this kind I read, and this my mother gave me. I suppose Dostoyevsky knew nothing about children's books. In his youth they did not exist as yet in Russia, and he must have begun to read the works of the great writers at the age of eight or nine. Another thing, still more curious, strikes me when I recall our conversations. Dostoyevsky, who spoke to me with so much pleasure of literature, never uttered a single word to me about his childhood. My mother told me of the smallest details in her life as a little girl, described her earliest impressions, and her affection for her brother, but I cannot recall a single detail of my father's childhood. He maintained the same reserve as his father before him, who would never tell his sons anything about their grandfather or their Ukrainian uncles.

      Dostoyevsky superintended our religious education, and liked to worship in company with his family. In Russia we communicate once a year, and we prepare for this solemn event by a week of prayer. My father performed his rehgious duties reverently, fasted, went to church twice a day, and laid aside all literary work. He loved our beautiful Holy Week services, especially the Resurrection Mass with its joyful hymns. Children do not attend this mass, which begins at midnight, and ends between two and three in the morning. But my father wished me to be present at this wonderful ceremony when I was barely nine years old. He placed me on a chair, that I might be able to follow it, and with his arms around me, explained the meaning of the holy rites.

       XXIV

      DOSTOYEVSKY AND TURGENEV

       Table of Contents

       Before passing on to my father's last years, I should like to say a few words about his relations with Turgenev and Tolstoy. In talking to Dostoyevsky's European admirers, I have always noticed that they were specially interested in these relations.

      My father's acquaintance with Turgenev began when they were both young, and both full of ambition, as young people beginning life generally are. They were as yet unknown to the Russian public; their talent had hardly developed. They frequented the same Uterary salons, listened to the same critics, and worshipped the same masters—^their favourite poets and novelists. Turgenev attracted my father greatly; Dostoyevsky admired him as one student admires another who is handsomer and more distinguished than himself, is a greater favourite with women, and seems to him an ideal man. However, as Dostoyevsky learned to know Turgenev better, his admiration gradually changed to aversion. Later he called Turgenev " that poseur." This opinion of Dostoyevsky's was shared by most of his hterary colleagues. Later, when I myself questioned the older Russian writers about their relations with Turgenev, I always noted the somewhat contemptuous tone they adopted in speaking of him, which disappeared when they talked of Tolstoy. Turgenev had deserved their contempt to some extent. He was one of those men who cannot be natural, who always want to pass themselves off as something they are not. In his youth he posed as an aristocrat, a pose which had no sort of justification. The Russian aristocracy is very restricted; it is rather a coterie than a class. It is composed of the few descendants of the ancient Russian and Ukrainian boyards, some chiefs of Tatar tribes assimilated by Russia, a few barons of the Baltic Provinces and a few Pohsh counts and princes. All these people are brought up in the same manner, know each other, are nearly all related, and have intermarried with the European aristocracies. They give magnificent entertainments to foreign ambassadors, and enhance the prestige of the Russian Coiu-t. They have very little influence on the politics of their country, which, since the second half of the nineteenth century, have been gradually passing into the hands of our hereditary nobiUty. This is perfectly distinct from the aristocracy, and has nothing in common with the feudal nobility of Europe. I have already explained its origin in describing the Lithuanian Schliahta. This union, primarily a martial one in Poland and Lithuania, was in Russia transformed into an agrarian union of rural proprietors. СКАЧАТЬ