Dostoevsky
[35] Bienstock, p. 100. Letter to his brother Michael, from the
fortress, August 27, 1849.
[36] Bienstock, p. 101. Letter to his brother Michael, from the
fortress, September 14, 1849.
[37] Bienstock, p. 103. Letter to his brother Michael, from the
fortress, December 22, 1849.
[38] A. P. Miliukov in his _Reminiscences_, 1881.
[39] See Mayne, pp. 51 sqq.
[40] The _Decembrists_.
[41] Mayne, pp. 51-65.
[42] Bienstock, pp. 104-105. Letter to his brother Michael,
Semipalatinsk, July 30, 1854.
[43] Bienstock, p. 106. Letter to his brother Andrey, Semipalatinsk,
November 6, 1854.
[44] Bienstock, p. 107. Letter to his brother Andrey, Semipalatinsk,
November 6, 1854.
[45] Bienstock, pp. 233-235. Letter to Baron Alexander Wrangel,
Petersburg, March 31, 1865.
[46] Bienstock, p. 239. Letter to Baron Alexander Wrangel, Petersburg,
April 14, 1865.
[47] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 492.
[48] _The Idiot_, pp. 217-220.
[49] See _Nouvelle Revue Française_, June-July, 1922, and _Stavrogin’s
Confession_, translated, with introductory and explanatory notes, by
_S. S. Koteliansky_ and _Virginia Woolf_, 1922. (_Translator’s note._)
[50] _The Possessed_, p. 172.
[51] _The Possessed_, p. 175.
[52] _The Possessed_, p. 175.
[53] _A Raw Youth_, p. 327.
[54] _Notes from Underground_, pp. 86-87.
[55] _Notes from Underground_, pp. 88-89.
[56] “However adventurous the Russian genius,” wrote Boris de
Schloezer in the _Nouvelle Revue Française_, February, 1922, “it
characteristically chooses a firm foundation in concrete fact and
living reality: this basis once assured, it launches out into
speculation of the most abstract and daring nature, returning in the
end, rich with the gathered spoils of thought, to the fact and reality
from which it started and in which it is perfected.”
[57] E.g. Lebedyev in _The Idiot_. See Appendix (2), the admirable
chapter describing Lebedyev’s enjoyment in torturing General Ivolgin.
[58] _The Possessed_, p. 495.
[59] _A Raw Youth_, p. 507.
[60] _The Possessed_, pp. 489-490.
[61] _A Raw Youth_, p. 215.
[62] See the _Journal_.
[63] Garnett, Vol. XI.
[64] Garnett, Vol. X.
[65] Bienstock and Nau, pp. 99-100.
[66] Bienstock and Nau, pp. 176-181.
[67] Bienstock and Nau, pp. 294 et seq., 450-452.
[68] Nietzsche, _The Twilight of the Idols_, translated by Anthony M.
Ludovici, 1911, p. 104.
[69] Nietzsche, _The Twilight of the Idols_, translated by Anthony M.
Ludovici, 1911, pp. 64-65.
[70] Bienstock, p. 367. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, March 24,
1870.
[71] Bienstock, p. 374. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Dresden, March 25, 1870.
[72] _Nouvelle Revue Française_, February, 1922, pp. 176-177.
[73] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 369.
[74] _A Raw Youth_, pp. 205-206.
[75] _A Raw Youth_, p. 503. Compare this other passage (_ibid._, p.
548) dealing with one of these pathological cases I mentioned a little
space ago. “Versilov can have had no definite aim, and I believe,
indeed, he did not reflect on the matter at all, but acted under the
influence of a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. But the theory of
actual madness I cannot accept, especially as he is not in the least
mad now. But the ‘second self’ I do accept unquestionably. What is a
second self exactly? The second self, according to a medical book,
written by an expert, which I purposely read afterwards, is nothing
else than the first stage of serious mental derangement, which may lead
to something very bad.”
[76] _The Possessed_, p. 635.
[77] _Journaux Intimes_, p. 57.
[78] André Gide, _Morceaux Choisis_, pp. 102-103.
[79] _The Idiot_, pp. 587-588.
[80] _The Idiot_, p. 519.
[81] _A Raw Youth_, p. 253.
[82] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 492.
[83] _The Idiot_, p. 616.
[84] Bienstock, pp. 319-320.
[85] Bienstock, p. 343. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Dresden, October 27,
1869.
[86] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 2.
[87] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 35-36.
[88] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 75.
[89] _Vauvenargues_, Maxim xxxix; _Œuvres_, p. 377.
[90] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 65-66.
[91] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 116-117.
[92] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 117-118.
[93] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 124.
[94] _The Eternal Husband_, pp. 124-126.
[95] Schopenhauer, _The World as Will and Idea_, translated by Haldane
and Kemp; Bk. IV, p. 457.
[96] _A Raw Youth_, p. 68.
[97] _A Raw Youth_, p. 130.
[98] _The Idiot_, p. 225.
[99] _The Possessed_, p. 219.
[100] _The Possessed_, pp. 220, 221.
[101] _The Possessed_, p. 580.
[102] _Crime and Punishment_, pp. 236, 237.
[103] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 238.
[104] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 377.
[105] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 378.
[106] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 467.
[107] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 272.
[108] _The Possessed_, pp. 492, 493.
[109] _The Possessed_, pp. 498, 499.
[110] Mayne, p. 198. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, October 9, 1870.
[111] _The Possessed_, pp. 634, 635.
[112] _Crime and Punishment_, p. 14.
[113] _The Brothers Karamazov_, p. 110.
[114] _The Possessed_, p. 219.
[115] _The Possessed_, p. 220.
[116] _The Possessed_, p. 221.
[117] _The Possessed_, p. 221.
[118] _The Possessed_, p. 133.
[119] _The Idiot_, p. 225.
[120] _The Possessed_, p. 219.
[121] _The Possessed_, pp. 554-5.
[122] _The Possessed_, p. 555.
[123] André Gide, _Morceaux Choisis_, p. 101, §1.
[124] Dr. Binet-Sanglé is the author of a blasphemous work to which he
has given the title _La Folie de Jésus-Christ_: he attempts to deny the
importance of Christ and of Christianity by showing that Christ was mad
and a degenerate.
[125] _The Possessed_, p. 577.
[126] _The Possessed_, pp. 383, 385.
[127] _The Possessed_, p. 540.
[128] _The Possessed_, p. 275.
[129] _The Possessed_, pp. 579, 580.
[130] _The Possessed_, p. 580.
[131] _The Possessed_, pp. 582, 583.
[132] Bienstock, pp. 540-2.
[133] _A Raw Youth_, pp. 462-4.
[134] Reclus, _Geography_, XIV, 931. “The island populations of Oceania
are fast dying out, for they have lost the body of ideas which governed
their actions, and lack a common measure to judge good and evil.”
[135] _The Possessed_, pp. 232-234.
[136] _The Possessed_, p. 376.
[137] _The Possessed_, p. 395.
[138] _The Eternal Husband_, p. 128.
APPENDIX
I
“And now I will tell two anecdotes to wind up my account of the
‘_idea_,’ that it may not hinder my story again.
“In July, two months before I came to St. Petersburg, when my time was
all my own, Marie Ivanovna asked me to go to see an old maiden lady
who was staying in the Troitsky suburb to take her a message of no
interest for my story. Returning the same day, I noticed in the railway
carriage an unattractive-looking young man, not very poorly though
grubbily dressed, with a pimply face and a muddy dark complexion. He
distinguished himself by getting out at every station, big and little,
to have a drink. Towards the end of the journey he was surrounded by
a merry throng of very low companions. One merchant, also a little
drunk, was particularly delighted at the young man’s power of drinking
incessantly without becoming drunk. Another person, who was awfully
pleased with him, was a very stupid fellow who talked a great deal. He
was wearing European dress and smelt most unsavoury--he was a footman,
as I found out afterwards: this fellow got quite friendly with the
young man who was drinking and, every time the train stopped, roused
him with the invitation, ‘It’s time for a drop of vodka,’ and they
got out with their arms round each other. The young man who drank
scarcely said a word, but yet more and more companions joined him. He
only listened to their chatter, grinning incessantly with a drivelling
snigger, and only from time to time, always unexpectedly, brought
out a sound something like ‘Ture-lure-loo!’ while he put his finger
up to his nose in a very comical way. This diverted the merchant,
and the footman and all of them, and they burst into a very loud and
free and easy laughter. It is sometimes impossible to understand why
people laugh. I joined them, too, and I don’t know why, the young man
attracted me too, perhaps by his very open disregard for the generally
accepted conventions and proprieties. I didn’t see, in fact, that he
was simply a fool. Anyway, I got on to friendly terms with him at once,
and as I got out of the train, I learnt from him that he would be in
the Tverskoy Boulevard between eight and nine. It appeared that he had
been a student. I went to the boulevard, and this was the diversion he
taught me. We walked together up and down the boulevards, and, a little
later, as soon as we noticed a respectable woman walking along the
street, if there were no one else near, we fastened upon her. Without
uttering a word we walked one on each side of her, and with an air of
perfect composure, as though we didn’t see her, began to carry on a
most unseemly conversation. We called things by their names, preserving
unruffled countenances as though it were the natural thing to do; we
entered into such subtleties in our description of all sorts of filth
and obscenity as the nastiest mind of the lewdest debauchee could
scarcely have conceived. (I had, of course, acquired all this knowledge
at the boarding school, before I went to the Grammar School, though
I knew only words, nothing of the reality.) The woman was dreadfully
frightened, and made haste to try and get away, but we quickened our
pace too, and went on in the same way. Our victim, of course, could
do nothing; it would be no use to cry out, there were no spectators;
besides, it would be a strange thing to complain of. I repeated this
diversion for eight days. I can’t think how I can have liked doing it;
although, indeed, I didn’t like doing it--I simply did it. At first
I thought it original, as something outside everyday conventions and
conditions, besides, I couldn’t endure women. I once told the student
that in his _Confessions_ Jean Jacques Rousseau describes how, as a
youth, he used to behave indecently to women. The student responded
with his ‘Ture-lure-loo!’ I noticed that he was extraordinarily
ignorant, and that his interests were astonishingly limited. There was
no trace of any latent idea such as I hoped to find in him. Instead of
originality, I found nothing but a wearisome monotony. I disliked him
more and more. The end came quite unexpectedly. One night when it was
quite dark, we persecuted a girl who was quickly and timidly walking
along the boulevard. She was very young, perhaps sixteen, or even less,
very tidily and modestly dressed, possibly a working girl hurrying home
to an old widowed mother with other children; there is no need to be
sentimental though. The girl listened for some time, and hurried fast
as she could with her head bowed and her veil drawn over her face,
frightened and trembling. But suddenly she stood still, threw back her
veil, showing, as far as I remember, a thin but pretty face, and cried
with flashing eyes:
“‘Oh, what scoundrels you are!’
“She may have been on the verge of tears, but something different
happened. Lifting her thin little hand, she gave the student a slap in
the face which could not have been more dexterously delivered. It did
come with a smack! He would have rushed at her, swearing, but I held
him back, and the girl had time to run away. We began quarrelling at
once. I told him all that I had been saving up against him in those
days. I told him that he was the paltriest commonplace fool without
the trace of an idea. He swore at me.... (I had once explained to him
that I was illegitimate.) Then we spat at each other, and I’ve never
seen him since. I felt frightfully vexed with myself that evening,