The Autobiographical Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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СКАЧАТЬ poor worked. The girls of noble families were destined for marriage, and their virginity was carefully guarded. My grandfather never allowed his pretty daughters to go out alone, and accompanied them himself on the rare occasions when they went to visit their country neighbours. The jealous vigilance of their father offended the delicacy of my aunts. Later they remembered with horror how their father used to visit their bedrooms at night to make sure that they had no hidden some lover under the bed. My aunts at this time were pure and innocent children.

      My grandfather's avarice increased as his drinking habits became more confirmed. He sent so little money to his sons that they were in want of everything. My father could not indulge in a cup of tea when he came in from drill, which was often carried on in a down pour of rain; he had no change of boots, and, worst of all, no money to give to the orderlies who waited or the engineer cadets. Dostoyevsky rebelled against the privations and humiliations to which his father's meanness subjected him; a meanness for which there was no excuse, for my grandfather owned land and had money put away for the dowry of his daughters. My father considered that, as my grandfather had chosen a brilliant and distinguished school for him, he ought to have given him enough money to hve in the same manner as his comrades.

      This state of friction between the father and his sons did not long continue. My grandfather had always been very severe to his serfs. His drunkenness made him so savage, that they finally murdered him. One summer day he left his estate Darovoye to visit his other property, Tchermashnia, and never returned. He was found later half-way between the two, smothered under the cushions of his carriage. The coachman had disappeared with the horses; several of the peasants of the village disappeared at the same time. When interrogated by the Court, other serfs of my grandfather's admitted that the crime was one of vengeance.

      My father was not at home at the time of this horrible death. He no longer went to Darovoye, for in summer the pupils of the School of Engineers had to carry out manoeuvres in the neighbourhood of Petersburg. The crime committed by the peasants of Darovoye, of whom he had been so fond as a child, made a great impression upon his adolescent imagination.26 He thought of itall his life, and pondered the causes of this dreadful end deeply. It is very remarkable that the whole of my grandfather's family looked upon his death as a disgrace, never mentioned it, and prevented Dos-toyevsky's literary friends, who knew the details of his life, from speaking of it in their reminiscences of my father. It is evident that my uncles and aunts had a more European idea of slavery than the Russians of the period. Crimes of vengeance committed by peasants were very frequent at the time, but no one blushed for them. The victims were pitied, the murderers denounced with horror. The Russians had a naive belief that masters might treat their serfs hke dogs, and that the latter had no right to revolt. The Lithuanian family of my grandfather looked at the matter from a very different point of view.

      26 According to a family tradition, it was when he heard of his father's death that Dostoyevsky had his first epileptic fit. We can only conjecture what his state of mind must have been, for all the correspondence with his brother Mihall which might have thrown some light on this period of his life has been destroyed. Later, the brothers never mentioned their father in their letters; the subject was probably too painful to both of them. From certain sentences in the last letter before the murder of his father, we may infer that Dostoyevsky knew various circumstances of his life in the country. " Poor father t " he wrote to his brother Mihall, " what an extraordinary character. Ah I what mis-Portimes he has had I What a pity it is that I cannot console liim ! But do you know, our father has no idea of life. He has ived for fifty years, and has still tjie same idea of men as when le was thirty." As always, Dostoievsky's prescience made him Jivine the principal cause of his father's misfortunes. My p-andfather indeed lived all his life as a Lithuanian, and never joubled to study the Russian character. He paid dearly for lis ignorance.

      I have always thought that Dostoyevsky had his father in mind when he created the type of old Kara-mazov. It is not, certainly, an exact portrait. Fyodor Karamazov is a buffoon; my grandfather was always a dignified person. Karamazov was a profligate; Mihail Dostoyevsky loved his wife and was faithful to her. Old Karamazov forsook his sons, and took no interest in them; my grandfather gave his children a careful education. But certain traits are common to both. When creating the type of Fyodor Karamazov, Dostoyevsky perhaps remembered his father's avarice, which caused his young sons so much suffering and indignation at school, his drunkenness, and the physical disgust it provoked in his children. When he says that Aliosha Karamazov did not share this disgust, but pitied his unhappy father, Dostoyevsky probably recalls the moments of pity which succeeded to those of disgust in his own youthful heart. The great psychologist in embryo must have divined at times that his father was, after all, but a diseased and unhappy being. It must be understood that this likeness between my grandfather and the old Karamazov is merely a supposition on my part, for which there is no documentary evidence. Yet it may not be simply a coincidence that Dostoyevsky has given the name of Tchermashnia 27 to the village where old Karamazov sent his son Ivan just before his death. I am the more inclined to think this, because it is a tradition in our family that my father portrayed himself in the person of Ivan Karamazov. Thus did he conceive of himself at the age of twenty. It is curious to note Ivan's religious beliefs, his poem, The Grand Inquisitor, and his immense interest in the Catholic Church. It must not be forgotten that only some three or four generations intervened between Dostoyevsky and the Catholicism of his ancestors. The Catholic faith must have been still alive in his soul. It is still more curious to note that Dostoyevsky gave his own name, Fyodor, to old Karamazov, and made Smerdiakov say to Ivan : " You are the most like your father of all his sons." It is probable that Dostoyevsky was haunted all his life by the bloody spectre of his father, and that he analysed his own actions minutely, fearing that he might have inherited his father's vices. This was far from being the case; Dostoyevsky's character was totally different. He did not like wine, and it disagreed with him, as with all persons of nervous temperament. He was kind and affectionate to every one around him, and far from being suspicious, was rather simple and confiding. Dostoyevsky has often been reproached for his inability to keep money. He could never refuse those who asked him for it, and gave all he possessed to others. He was moved to do so by charity, but also, no doubt, by dread of developing the avarice of his father. He feared this the more, because he saw this vice reproduced in his sister Barbara, and gradually taking the form of a veritable mania. Dostoyevsky, no doubt, said to himself that avarice, that moral malady, was hereditary in his family, and that each of them might be attacked by it if he were not careful.

      27 As we have seen above, it was on his way to his property of Tchennashnia that my grandfather was murdered.

      The alcoholism of my grandfather ravaged the lives of nearly all his children. His eldest son Mihail and his youngest son Nicolai inherited his disease. My uncle Mihail, though he drank, was at least able to work; but the unhappy Nicolai, after a brilliant course of study, was never able to do anything, and remained a burden on his family all his life. My father's epilepsy, which caused him so much suffering, was probably due to the same causq. But the most miserable of the family was certainly my aunt Barbara. She married a well-to-do man, who left her considerable house-property in Moscow. The houses brought in a good income; my aunt's children were comfortably settled in life, and lacked nothing. She had therefore all that was necessary to ensure her comfort in her old age; but the unhappy woman was the victim of a sordid and diseased avarice. She opened her purse with a kind of despair; the smallest expenditure was torture to her. She finally dismissed her servants, to avoid paying their wages. She had no fires in her apartments and spent the winter wrapped in a cloak. She did no cooking; twice a week she went out and bought a httle bread and milk. There was a great deal of gossip in the district where she lived about her inexpUcable avarice. It was said that she must have a great deal of money, and that, Uke all misers, she kept it in her house. This gossip worked upon the mind of a young peasant, who acted as porter to my aunt's tenants. He came to an understanding with a vagabond who was prowhng about in the neighbourhood; one night they got into the poor mad woman's dwelhng and murdered her. The crime was committed long after my father's death.

      I conclude that my grandfather's alcoholism must have been hereditary, for his personal drunkenness could not have caused such disaster in our family. The disease СКАЧАТЬ