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Novels and Novelists

Some Aspects of Dostoevsky

Some Aspects of Dostoevsky

An Honest Thief: and Other Stories. — By Fyodor Dostoevsky. Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett

If we view it from a certain angle, it is not at all impossible to see in Dostoevsky's influence upon the English intellectuals of to-day the bones of a marvellously typical Dostoevsky novel. Supposing we select London for his small provincial town and his arrival for the agitating occurrence—could he himself exaggerate the discussions he has provoked, the expenditure of enthusiasm and vituperation, the mental running to and fro, the parties that have been given in his honour, the added confusion of several young gentlemen-writers declaring (in strict confidence) that they were the real Dostoevsky, the fascinating arguments as to whether or no he is greater than Jane Austen (what would Jane Austen have said to the bugs and the onions and the living in corners?), the sight of our young egoists puffing up like undismayed frogs, and of our superior inner circle who are not unwilling to admit that he has a considerable amount of crude strength before returning to their eighteenth-century muttons?

Ohè Dostoevsky! Où est Dostoevsky?

As-tu vu Dostoevsky?

Few indeed have so much as caught a glimpse of him. What would be the end of such a novel? His disappearance without doubt, leaving no trace but a feeling of, on page 112 the whole, very lively relief. For if we do not take him superficially, there is nothing for us to do but to take him terribly seriously, but to consider whether it is possible for us to go on writing our novels as if he never had been. This is not only a bitterly uncomfortable prospect; it is positively dangerous; it might very well end in the majority of our young writers finding themselves naked and shivering, without a book to clothe themselves in.

However, the danger is not a real one. There are signs that the fashion for him is on the wane. How otherwise can we interpret the avidity with which opinion seizes upon the less important, extravagant side of Dostoevsky, making much of it, making much of that and ignoring all else, than that it has had its fright, as it were, but now has been assured that the monster at the fair will not remain? But a remarkable feature of this parade of intellectual snobbishness, this laughing at the Russian giant, is that the writers appear to imagine that they laugh alone—that Dostoevsky had no idea of the exquisite humour of such a character as Stepan Trofimo-vitch, with his summer sickness, his breaking into French and his flight from civilization in a pair of top-boots, or that he regarded the super-absurdities of Prince K. as other than quite normal characteristics. It is true that especially in some of the short stories we may find his sense of humour terribly jars on us, but that is when the humour is ‘false’; it is exasperation disguised, an overwhelming nostalgia and bitterness disguised or an attempt at a sense of fun, in which never was man more wanting. Then, again, to laugh with Dostoevsky is not always a comfortable exercise for one's pride. For he has the—surely unpardonable—habit of describing at length, minutely, the infinitely preposterous state of mind of some poor wretch, not as though he were ‘showing us a star,’ but with many a familiar nod and look in our direction, as much as to say: ‘But you know yourself from your own experience what it is to feel like this.’

There is a story, ‘An Unpleasant Predicament,’ in this page 113 collection which is a terrible example of this. It relates how a young general, exasperated by an evening with two elder colleagues whom he suspects of treating him like a schoolboy and laughing at him because of his belief in the new ideas, in humanity and sympathy with the working classes, yields to the temptation on the way home of putting himself to the test, of proving to his Amour Propre that he really is the fine fellow she thinks him to be. Why should he do anything so dangerous? He knows in his heart that he does not believe in any of these things, and yet isn't it possible for him to impose this idea of himself on anybody he chooses? And why should he not slay reality as an offering to his goddess? The revenge that reality takes upon Ivan Ilyitch Pralinsky is wild and violent and remote enough from our experience, and yet who can read it and not be overcome by the feeling that he understands only too well….

Perhaps Dostoevsky more than any other writer sets up this mysterious relationship with the reader, this sense of sharing. We are never conscious that he is writing at us or for us. While we read, we are like children to whom one tells a tale; we seem in some strange way to half-know what is coming and yet we do not know; to have heard it all before, and yet our amazement is none the less, and when it is over, it has become ours. This is especially true of the Dostoevsky who passes so unremarked—the childlike, candid, simple Dostoevsky who wrote ‘An Honest Thief’ and ‘The Peasant Marly’ and ‘The Dream of a Queer Fellow.’ These three wonderful stories have all the same quality, a stillness, a quiet that takes the breath. What have they to do with our time? They are full of the tragic candour of love. There is only one other man who could have written the death of Emelyanouska, as described by the poor little tailor:

I saw Emelyanouska wanted to tell me something: he was trying to sit up, trying to speak, and mumbling page 114 something. He flushed red all over suddenly, looked at me … then I saw him turn white again, whiter and whiter, and he seemed to sink away all in a minute. His head fell back, he drew one breath and gave up his soul to God.

(November 28, 1919.)