Chapter VI: Dostoievsky (3)

The other convicts in the prison disliked him, distrusted him, and ended by hating him. Dostoievsky’s own experience of convict life enables him in a short space to give us a striking picture of Raskolnikov’s relations with the other convicts. He gradually becomes aware of the vast gulf which there is between him and the others. The class barrier which rises between him and them, is more difficult to break down than that caused by a difference in nationality. At the same time, he noticed that in the prison there were political prisoners, Poles, for instance, and officers, who looked down on the other convicts as though they were insects, ciphers of ignorance, and despised them accordingly. But he is unable to do this, he cannot help seeing that these ‘ciphers’ are far cleverer in many cases than the men who look down on them. On the other hand, he is astonished that they all love Sonia, who has followed him to the penal settlement where his prison is, and lives in the town. The convicts rarely see her, meeting her only from time to time at their work; and yet they adore her, because she has followed Raskolnikov. The hatred of the other convicts against him grows so strong that one day at Easter, when he goes to church with them, they turn on him and say: “You have no right to go to church: you do not believe in God, you are an atheist, you ought to be killed.” He had never spoken with them of God or of religion, and yet they wished to kill him as an atheist. He only narrowly escaped being killed by the timely interference of a sentry. To the truth of this incident I can testify by personal experience, as I have heard Russian peasants and soldiers say that such and such a man was religious and that such and such a man was “godless,” although these men had never mentioned religion to them; and they were always right.

Then Raskolnikov fell ill and lay for some time in delirium in the hospital. After his recovery he learns that Sonia has fallen ill herself, and has not been near the prison, and a great sadness comes over him. At last she recovers, and he meets her one day at his work. Something melts in his heart, he knows not how or why; he falls at her feet and cries; and from that moment a new life begins for him. His despair has rolled away like a cloud: his heart has risen as though from the dead.

_Crime and Punishment_, the best known of all Dostoievsky’s works, is certainly the most powerful. The anguish of mind which Raskolnikov goes through tortures the reader. Dostoievsky seems to have touched the extreme limit of suffering which the human soul can experience when it descends into hell. At the same time, he never seems to be gloating over the suffering, but, on the contrary, to be revealing the agonies of the human spirit in order to pour balm upon them. There is an episode earlier in the story, when Raskolnikov kneels down before Sonia, and speaks words which might be taken as the motto of this book, and indeed of nearly all of Dostoievsky’s books: “It is not before you that I am kneeling, but before all the suffering of mankind.”

It is in this book more than in any of his other books that one has the feeling that Dostoievsky is kneeling down before the great agonies that the human soul can endure: and in doing this, he teaches us how to endure and how to hope. Apart from the astounding analysis to be found in the book, and the terrible network of details of which the conflict between Raskolnikov and his obsession consists: apart from the duel of tongues between the examining magistrate, who is determined that the criminal shall be condemned, not on account of any circumstantial evidence, but by his own confession, and who drives the criminal to confession by playing upon his obsession: apart from all this main action, there is a wealth of minor characters, episodes and scenes, all of which are indispensable to the main thread of tragedy which runs through the whole. The book, as has been pointed out, did not receive anything like its full recognition in 1866 when it appeared, and now, in 1909, it stands higher in the estimation of all those who are qualified to judge it than it did then. This can be said of very few books published in Europe in the sixties. For all the so-called psychological and analytical novels which have been published since 1866 in France and in England not only seem pale and lifeless compared with Dostoievsky’s fierce revelations, but not one of them has a drop of his large humanity, or a breath of his fragrant goodness.

VI

_THE IDIOT_

Although _Crime and Punishment_ is the most powerful, and probably the most popular of Dostoievsky’s books, I do not think it is the most characteristic; that is to say, I do not think it possesses in so high a degree those qualities which are peculiar to his genius. More characteristic still is _The Idiot_, in the main character of which the very soul and spirit of Dostoievsky breathe and live. The hero of _The Idiot_, Prince Mwishkin, is the type of Ivan Durak, the simple fool who by his simplicity outwits the wisdom of the wise.

We make his acquaintance in a third-class railway carriage of the train which is arriving at St. Petersburg from Warsaw. He is a young man about twenty-six years old, with thick fair hair, sloping shoulders, and a very slight fair beard; his eyes are large, light-blue, and penetrating; in his expression there is something tranquil but burdensome, something of that strange look which enables physicians to recognise at a first glance a victim of the falling sickness. In his hand he is carrying a bundle made of old _foulard_, which is his whole luggage. A fellow-traveller enters into conversation with him. He answers with unusual alacrity. Being asked whether he has been absent long, he says that it is over four years since he was in Russia, that he was sent abroad on account of his health--on account of some strange nervous illness like St. Vitus’ dance. As he listens, his fellow-traveller laughs several times, and especially when to the question, “Did they cure you?” the fair-haired man answers, “No, they did not cure me.” The dark-haired man is Rogozhin, a merchant. These two characters are the two figures round which the drama of the book centres and is played.

The purpose of Prince Mwishkin in coming to St. Petersburg is to find a distant relation of his, the wife of a General Epanchin. He has already written to her from Switzerland, but has received no answer. He presents himself at the general’s house with his bundle. A man in livery opens the door and regards him with suspicion. At last, after he has explained clearly and at some length that he is Prince Mwishkin, and that it is necessary for him to see the general on important business, the servant leads him into a small front-hall into which the anteroom (where guests are received) of the general’s study opens. He delivers him into the hands of another servant who is dressed in black. This man tells the prince to wait in the anteroom and to leave his bundle in the front-hall. He sits down in his armchair and looks with severe astonishment at the prince, who, instead of taking the suggestion, sits down beside him on a chair, with his bundle in his hands.

“If you will allow me,” said the prince, “I would rather wait here with you. What should I do there alone?”

“The hall,” answered the servant, “is not the place for you, because you are a visitor, or in other words, a guest. You wish to see the general himself?” The servant obviously could not reconcile himself with the idea of showing in such a visitor, and decided to question him further.

“Yes, I have come on business,” began the prince.

“I do not ask you what is your business. My business is simply to announce you. But without asking the secretary I said I would not announce you.” The suspicions of the servant continually seemed to increase. The prince was so unlike the ordinary run of everyday visitors. “... You are, so to speak, from abroad?” asked the servant at last, and hesitated as if he wished to say, “You are really Prince Mwishkin?”

“Yes, I have this moment come from the train. I think that you wished to ask me whether I am really Prince Mwishkin, and that you did not ask me out of politeness.”

“H’m!” murmured the astonished servant.

“I assure you that I was not telling lies, and that you will not get into trouble on account of me. That I am dressed as I am and carrying a bundle like this is not astonishing, for at the present moment my circumstances are not flourishing.”

“H’m! I am not afraid of that. You see I am obliged to announce you, and the secretary will come to see you unless ... the matter is like this: You have not come to beg from the general, may I be so bold as to ask?”

“Oh no, you may rest assured of that. I have come on other business.”

“Pardon me. Please wait for the secretary; he is busy....”

“Very well. If I shall have to wait long I should like to ask you whether I might smoke. I have a pipe and some tobacco.”

“Smoke!” The servant looked at him with contempt, as if he could not believe his ears. “Smoke? No, you cannot smoke here. And what is more, you should be ashamed of thinking of such a thing. Well, this is queer!”

“I did not mean in this room, but I would go somewhere if you would show me, because I am accustomed to it, and I have not smoked now for three hours. But as you like.”

“Now, how shall I announce you?” murmured the servant as though almost unwillingly to himself. “In the first place you ought not to be here, but in the anteroom, because you are a visitor, that is to say, a guest, and I am responsible. Have you come to live here?” he asked, looking again at the prince’s bundle, which evidently disturbed him.

“No, I don’t think so; even if they invited me, I should not stay. I have simply come to make acquaintance, nothing more.”

“How do you mean, to make acquaintance?” the servant asked, with trebled suspicion and astonishment. “You said at first that you had come on business.”

“Well, it’s not exactly business; that is to say, if you like, it _is_ business,--it is only to ask advice. But the chief thing is that I have come to introduce myself, because I and the general’s wife are both descendants from the Mwishkins, and besides myself there are no Mwishkins left.”

“So, what’s more you are a relation!” said the frightened servant.

“No, not exactly a relation,--that is to say, if you go back far enough, we are, of course, relations; but so far back that it doesn’t count! I wrote to the general’s wife a letter from abroad, but she did not answer me. All the same, I considered it necessary to make her acquaintance as soon as I arrived. I am explaining all this to you so that you should not have any doubts, because I see that you are disquieted. Announce that it is Prince Mwishkin, and that will be enough to explain the object of my visit. If they will see me, all will be well. If they do not, very likely all will be well too. But I don’t think they can help receiving me, because the general’s wife will naturally wish to see the oldest, indeed the only representative of her family; and she is most particular about keeping up relations with her family, as I have heard.”

“The conversation of the prince seemed as simple as possible, but the simpler it was, the more absurd it became under the circumstances; and the experienced footman could not help feeling something which was perfectly right between man and man, and utterly wrong between man and servant. Servants are generally far cleverer than their masters think, and this one thought that two things might be possible; either the prince had come to ask for money, or that he was simply a fool without ambition,--because an ambitious prince would not remain in the front-hall talking of his affairs with a footman, and would he not probably be responsible and to blame in either the one case or the other?”

I have quoted this episode, which occurs in the second chapter of the book, in full, because in it the whole character of the prince is revealed. He is the wise fool. He suffers from epilepsy, and this “sacred” illness which has fallen on him has destroyed all those parts of the intellect out of which our faults grow, such as irony, arrogance and egoism. He is absolutely simple. He has the brains of a man, the tenderness of a woman and the heart of a child. He knows nothing of any barriers, either of class or character. He is the same and absolutely himself with every one he meets. And yet his unsuspicious _naïveté_, his untarnished sincerity and simplicity, are combined with penetrating intuition, so that he can read other people’s minds like a book.

The general receives him, and he is just as frank and simple with the general as he has been with the servant. He is entirely without means, and has nothing in the world save his little bundle. The general inquires whether his handwriting is good, and resolves to get him some secretarial work; he gives him 25 roubles, and arranges that the prince shall live in his secretary’s house. The general makes the prince stay for luncheon, and introduces him to his family. The general’s wife is a charming, rather childish person, and she has three daughters, Alexandra, Adelaide and Aglaia. The prince astonishes them very much by his simplicity. They cannot quite understand at first whether he is a child or a knave, but his simplicity conquers them. After they have talked of various matters, his life in Switzerland, the experiences of a man condemned to death, which had been related to him and which I have already quoted, an execution which he had witnessed, one of the girls asks him if he was ever in love.

“No,” he says, “I have never been in love ... I was happy otherwise.”

“How was that?” they ask.

Then he relates the following: “Where I was living they were all children, and I spent all my time with the children, and only with them. They were the children of the village; they all went to school. I never taught them, there was a schoolmaster for that.... I perhaps did teach them too, in a way, for I was more with them, and all the four years that I spent there went in this way. I had need of nothing else. I told them everything, I kept nothing secret from them. Their fathers and relations were angry with me because at last the children could not do without me, and always came round me in crowds, and the schoolmaster in the end became my greatest enemy. I made many enemies there, all on account of the children. And what were they afraid of? You can tell a child everything--everything. I have always been struck by the thought of how ignorant grown-up people are of children, how ignorant even fathers and mothers are of their own children. You should conceal nothing from children under the pretext that they are small, and that it is too soon for them to know. That is a sad, an unhappy thought. And how well children themselves understand that their fathers are thinking they are too small and do not understand anything--when they really understand everything. Grown-up people do not understand that a child even in the most difficult matter can give extremely important advice. Heavens! when one of these lovely little birds looks up at you, confiding and happy, it is a shame to deceive it. I call them birds because there is nothing better than birds in the world. To go on with my story, the people in the village were most angry with me because of one thing: the schoolmaster simply envied me. At first he shook his head, and wondered how the children understood everything I told them, and almost nothing of what he told them. Then he began to laugh at me when I said to him that we could neither of us teach them anything, but that they could teach us. And how could he envy me and slander me when he himself lived with children? Children heal the soul.”

Into the character of the hero of this book Dostoievsky has put all the sweetness of his nature, all his sympathy with the unfortunate, all his pity for the sick, all his understanding and love of children. The character of Prince Mwishkin reflects all that is best in Dostoievsky. He is a portrait not of what Dostoievsky was, but of what the author would like to have been. It must not for a moment be thought that he imagined that he fulfilled this ideal: he was well aware of his faults: of the sudden outbursts and the seething deeps of his passionate nature; his capacity for rage, hatred, jealousy and envy; none the less Dostoievsky could not possibly have created the character of Prince Mwishkin, the Idiot, had he not been made of much the same substance himself.

All through Dostoievsky’s books, whenever children are mentioned or appear, the pages breathe a kind of freshness and fragrance like that of lilies-of-the-valley. Whatever he says about children or whatever he makes them say, has the rare accent of truth. The smile of children lights up the dark pages of his books, like spring flowers growing at the edge of a dark abyss.

In strong contrast to the character of the prince is the merchant Rogozhin. He is the incarnation of the second type, that of the obdurate spirit, which I have already said dominates Dostoievsky’s novels. He is, perhaps, less proud than Raskolnikov, but he is far stronger, more passionate and more vehement. His imperious and unfettered nature is handicapped by no weakness of nerves, no sapping self-analysis. He is undisciplined and centrifugal. He is not “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” but it is his passions and not his ideas which are too great for the vessel that contains them. Rogozhin loves Nastasia, a _hetaira_, who has likewise unbridled passions and impulses. He loves her with all the strength of his violent and undisciplined nature, and he is tormented by jealousy because she does not love him, although she cannot help submitting to the influence of his imperious personality. The jealous poison in him takes so complete a possession of his body and soul that he ultimately kills Nastasia almost immediately after she has married him and given herself to him, because he feels that she is never his own, least of all at the moment when she abandons herself to him for ever. So great is his passion, that this woman, even while hating him, cannot resist going to him against her will, knowing well that he will kill her.

The description of the night that follows this murder, when Rogozhin talks all night with the prince in front of the bed where Nastasia is lying dead, is by its absence of melodrama and its simplicity perhaps the most icily terrible piece of writing that Dostoievsky ever penned. The reason why Nastasia does not love Rogozhin is that she loves Prince Mwishkin, the Idiot, and so does the third daughter of the general, Aglaia, although he gives them nothing but pity, and never makes love to them. And here we come to the root-idea and the kernel of the book, which is the influence which the Idiot exercises on everybody with whom he comes in contact. Dostoievsky places him in a nest of rascals, scoundrels and villains, a world of usurers, liars and thieves, interested, worldly, ambitious and shady. He not only passes unscathed through all this den of evil, but the most deadly weapons of the wicked, their astuteness, their cunning and their fraud, are utterly powerless against his very simplicity, and there is not one of these people, however crusted with worldliness, however sordid or bad, who can evade his magical influence. The women at first laugh at him; but in the end, as I have already said, he becomes a cardinal factor in the life of both Nastasia the unbridled and passionate woman, and Aglaia the innocent and intelligent girl: so much so that they end by joining in a battle of wild jealousy over him, although he himself is naïvely unconscious of the cause of their dispute.

This book, more than any other, reveals to us the methods and the art of Dostoievsky. This method and this art are not unlike those of Charlotte Brontë. The setting of the picture, the accessories, are fantastic, sometimes to the verge of impossibility, and this no more matters than the fantastic setting of _Jane Eyre_ matters. All we see and all we feel is the white flame of light that burns throughout the book. We no more care whether a man like General Epanchin could or could not have existed, or whether the circumstances of his life are possible or impossible than we care whether the friends of Mr. Rochester are possible or impossible. Such things seem utterly trivial in this book, where at every moment we are allowed to look deep down into the very depths of human nature, to look as it were on the spirit of man and woman naked and unashamed. For though the setting may be fantastic if not impossible, though we may never have seen such people in our lives, they are truer than life in a way: we seem to see right inside every one of these characters as though they had been stripped of everything which was false and artificial about them, as though they were left with nothing but their bared souls, as they will be at the Day of Judgment.

With regard to the artistic construction of the book, the method is the same as that of most of Dostoievsky’s books. In nearly all his works the book begins just before a catastrophe and occupies the space of a few days. And yet the book is very long. It is entirely taken up by conversation and explanation of the conversation. There are no descriptions of nature; everything is in a dialogue. Directly one character speaks we hear the tone of his voice. There are no “stage directions.” We are not told that so and so is such and such a person, we feel it and recognise it from the very first word he says. On the other hand, there is a great deal of analysis, but it is never of an unnecessary kind. Dostoievsky never nudges our elbow, never points out to us things which we know already, but he illuminates with a strong searchlight the deeps of the sombre and tortuous souls of his characters, by showing us what they are themselves thinking, but not what he thinks of them. His analysis resembles the Greek chorus, and his books resemble Greek tragedies in the making, rich ore mingled with dark dross, granite and marble, the stuff out of which Æschylus could have hewn another _Agamemnon_, or Shakespeare have written another _King Lear_.

_The Idiot_ may not be the most artistic of all his books, in the sense that it is not centralised and is often diffuse, which is not the case with _Crime and Punishment_, but it is perhaps the most characteristic, the most personal, for none but Dostoievsky could have invented and caused to live such a character as Prince Mwishkin, and made him positively radiate goodness and love.

VII

_THE POSSESSED_

_The Possessed_, or _Devils_, which is the literal translation of the Russian title, is perhaps inferior to Dostoievsky’s other work as a whole, but in one sense it is the most interesting book which he ever wrote. There are two reasons for this: in the first place, his qualities and his defects as a writer are seen in this book intensified, under a magnifying glass as it were, at their extremes, so that it both gives you an idea of the furthest range of his powers, and shows you most clearly the limitations of his genius. Stevenson points out somewhere that this is the case with Victor Hugo’s least successful novels. In the second place, the book was far in advance of its time. In it Dostoievsky shows that he possessed “a prophetic soul.”

The book deals with the Nihilists who played a prominent part in the sixties. The explanation of the title is to be found in a quotation from the 8th chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel.

“And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain; and they besought Him that He would suffer them to enter into them. And He suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.

“Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind; and they were afraid. They also which saw it, told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils, was healed.”

The book, as I have said, undoubtedly reveals Dostoievsky’s powers at their highest pitch, in the sense that nowhere in the whole range of his work do we find such isolated scenes of power; scenes which are, so to speak, white hot with the fire of his soul; and characters in which he has concentrated the whole dæmonic force of his personality, and the whole blinding strength of his insight. On the other hand, it shows us, as I added, more clearly than any other of his books, the nature and the extent of his limitations. It is almost too full of characters and incidents; the incidents are crowded together in an incredibly short space of time, the whole action of the book, which is a remarkably long one, occupying only the space of a few days, while to the description of one morning enough space is allotted to make a bulky English novel. Again, the narrative is somewhat disconnected. You can sometimes scarcely see the wood for the trees. Of course, these objections are in a sense hypercritical, because, as far as my experience goes, any one who takes up this book finds it impossible to put it down until he has read it to the very end, so enthralling is the mere interest of the story, so powerful the grip of the characters. I therefore only suggest these criticisms for those who wish to form an idea of the net result of Dostoievsky’s artistic scope and achievement.

With regard to the further point, the “prophetic soul” which speaks in this book is perhaps that which is its most remarkable quality. The book was some thirty years ahead of its time: ahead of its time in the same way that Wagner’s music was ahead of its time,--and this was not only on account of the characters and the state of things which it divined and foreshadowed, but also on account of the ideas and the flashes of philosophy which abound in its pages. When the book was published, it was treated as a gross caricature, and even a few years ago, when Professor Brückner first published his _History of Russian Literature_, he talked of this book as being a satire not of Nihilism itself, but of the hangers-on, the camp-followers which accompany every army. “Dostoievsky,” he says, “did not paint the heroes but the Falstaffs, the silly adepts, the half and wholly crazed adherents of Nihilism. He was indeed fully within his rights. Of course there were such Nihilists, particularly between 1862 and 1869, but there were not only such: even Nechaev, the prototype of Petrushka, impressed us by a steel-like energy and a hatred for the upper classes which we wholly miss in the wind-bag and intriguer Petrushka.”

There is a certain amount of truth in this criticism. It is true that Dostoievsky certainly painted the Falstaffs and the half-crazy adherents of Nihilism. But I am convinced that the reason he did not paint the heroes was that he did not believe in their existence: he did not believe that the heroes of Nihilism were heroes; this is plain not only from this book, but from every line which he wrote about the people who played a part in the revolutionary movement in Russia; and so far from the leading personage in his book being merely a wind-bag, I would say that one is almost more impressed by the steel-like energy of the character, as drawn in this book, than by the sayings and doings of his prototype--or rather his prototypes in real life. The amazing thing is that even if a few years ago real life had not furnished examples of revolutionaries as extreme both in their energy and in their craziness as Dostoievsky paints them, real life has done so in the last four years. Therefore, Dostoievsky not only saw with prophetic divination that should circumstances in Russia ever lead to a general upheaval, such characters might arise and exercise an influence, but his prophetic insight has actually been justified by the facts.

As soon as such circumstances arose, as they did after the Japanese War of 1904, characters such as Dostoievsky depicted immediately came to the front and played a leading part. When M. de Vogüé published his book, _La Roman Russe_, in speaking of _The Possessed_, he said that he had assisted at several of the trials of Anarchists in 1871, and he added that many of the men who came up for trial, and many of the crimes of which they were accused, were identical reproductions of the men and the crimes imagined by the novelist. If this was true when applied to the revolutionaries of 1871, it is a great deal truer applied to those of 1904-1909. That Dostoievsky believed that this would happen, I think there can be no doubt. Witness the following passage:

“Chigalev,” says the leading character of _The Possessed_, speaking of one of his revolutionary disciples, a man with long ears, “is a man of genius: a genius in the manner of Fourier, but bolder and cleverer. He has invented ‘equality.’ In his system, every member of society has an eye on every one else. To tell tales is a duty. The individual belongs to the community and the community belongs to the individual. All are slaves and equal in their bondage. Calumny and assassination can be used in extreme cases, but the most important thing is equality. The first necessity is to lower the level of culture science and talent. A high scientific level is only accessible to superior intellects, and we don’t want superior intellects. Men gifted with high capacities have always seized upon power and become despots. Highly gifted men cannot help being despots, and have always done more harm than good. They must be exiled or executed. Cicero’s tongue must be cut out, Copernicus’ eyes must be blinded, Shakespeare must be stoned. That is Chigalevism. Slaves must be equal. Without despotism, up to the present time, neither liberty nor equality has existed, but in a herd, equality should reign supreme,--and that is Chigalevism.... I am all for Chigalevism. Down with instruction and science! There is enough of it, as it is, to last thousands of years, but we must organise obedience: it is the only thing which is wanting in the world. The desire for culture is an aristocratic desire. As soon as you admit the idea of the family or of love, you will have the desire for personal property. We will annihilate this desire: we will let loose drunkenness, slander, tale-telling, and unheard-of debauchery. We will strangle every genius in his cradle. We will reduce everything to the same denomination, complete equality. ‘We have learnt a trade, and we are honest men: we need nothing else.’ Such was the answer which some English workman made the other day. The indispensable alone is indispensable. Such will thenceforth be the watchword of the world, but we must have upheavals. We will see to that, we the governing class. The slaves must have leaders. Complete obedience, absolute impersonality, but once every thirty years Chigalev will bring about an upheaval, and men will begin to devour each other: always up to a given point, so that we may not be bored. Boredom is an aristocratic sensation, and in Chigalevism there will be no desires. We will reserve for ourselves desire and suffering, and for the slaves there will be Chigalevism.... We will begin by fermenting disorder; we will reach the people itself. Do you know that we are already terribly strong? those who belong to us are not only the men who murder and set fire, who commit injuries after the approved fashion, and who bite: these people are only in the way. I do not understand anything unless there be discipline. I myself am a scoundrel, but I am not a Socialist. Ha, ha! listen! I have counted them all: the teacher who laughs with the children whom he teaches, at their God and at their cradle, belongs to us; the barrister who defends a well-educated assassin by proving that he is more educated than his victims, and that in order to get money he was obliged to kill, belongs to us; the schoolboy who in order to experience a sharp sensation kills a peasant, belongs to us; the juries who systematically acquit all criminals, belong to us; the judge who at the tribunal is afraid of not showing himself to be sufficiently liberal, belongs to us; among the administrators, among the men of letters, a great number belong to us, and they do not know it themselves. On the other hand, the obedience of schoolboys and fools has reached its zenith. Everywhere you see an immeasurable vanity, and bestial, unheard-of appetites. Do you know how much we owe to the theories in vogue at present alone? When I left Russia, Littré’s thesis, which likens crime to madness, was the rage. I return, and crime is already no longer considered even as madness: it is considered as common sense itself, almost a duty, at least a noble protest. ‘Why should not an enlightened man kill if he has need of money?’ Such is the argument you hear. But that is nothing. The Russian God has ceded his place to drink. The people are drunk, the mothers are drunk, the children are drunk, the churches are empty. Oh, let this generation grow: it is a pity we cannot wait. They would be drunk still. Ah, what a pity that we have no proletariat! But it will come, it will come. The moment is drawing near.”

In this declaration of revolutionary faith, Dostoievsky has concentrated the whole of an ideal on which thousands of ignorant men in Russia have acted during the last three years. All of the so-called Hooliganism which came about in Russia after the war, which although it has greatly diminished has by no means yet been exterminated by a wholesale system of military court-martials, proceeds from this, and its adepts are conscious or unconscious disciples of this creed. For the proletariat which Dostoievsky foresaw is now a living fact, and a great part of it has been saturated with such ideas. Not all of it, of course. I do not for a moment mean to say that every ordinary Russian social-democrat fosters such ideas; but what I do mean to say is that these ideas exist and that a great number of men have acted on a similar creed which they have only half digested, and have sunk into ruin, ruining others in doing so, and have ended by being hanged.

Thus the book, _Devils_, which, when it appeared in 1871, was thought a piece of gross exaggeration, and which had not been out long before events began to show that it was less exaggerated than it appeared at first sight--has in the last three years, and even in this year of grace, received further justification by events such as the rôle that Father Gapon played in the revolutionary movement, and the revelations which have been lately made with regard to Azev and similar characters. Any one who finds difficulty in believing a story such as that which came to light through the Azev revelations, had better read _The Possessed_. It will throw an illuminating light on the motives that cause such men to act as they do, and the circumstances that produce such men.

The main idea of the book is to show that the whole strength of what were then the Nihilists and what are now the Revolutionaries,--let us say the Maximalists,--lies, not in lofty dogmas and theories held by a vast and splendidly organised community, but simply in the strength of character of one or two men, and in the peculiar weakness of the common herd. I say the peculiar weakness with intention. It does not follow that the common herd, to which the majority of the revolutionary disciples belong, is necessarily altogether weak, but that though the men of whom it is composed may be strong and clever in a thousand ways, they have one peculiar weakness, which is, indeed, a common weakness of the Russian character. But before going into this question, it is advisable first to say that what Dostoievsky shows in his book, _The Possessed_, is that these Nihilists are almost entirely devoid of ideas; the organisations round which so many legends gather, consist in reality of only a few local clubs,--in this particular case, of one local club. All the talk of central committees, executive committees, and so forth, existed only in the imagination of the leaders. On the other hand, the character of those few men who were the leaders and who dominated their disciples, was as strong as steel and as cold as ice. And what Dostoievsky shows is how this peculiar strength of the leaders exercised itself on the peculiar weakness of the disciples. Let us now turn to the peculiar nature of this weakness. Dostoievsky explains it at the very beginning of the book. In describing one of the characters, Chatov, who is an unwilling disciple of the Nihilist leaders, he says:

“He is one of those Russian Idealists whom any strong idea strikes all of a sudden, and on the spot annihilates his will, sometimes for ever. They are never able to react against the idea. They believe in it passionately, and the rest of their life passes as though they were writhing under a stone which was crushing them.”

The leading figure of the book is one Peter Verkhovensky, a political agitator. He is unscrupulous, ingenious, and plausible in the highest degree, as clever as a fiend, a complete egotist, boundlessly ambitious, untroubled by conscience, and as hard as steel. His prototype was Nachaef, an actual Nihilist. The ambition of this man is to create disorder, and disorder once created, to seize the authority which must ultimately arise out of any disorder. His means of effecting this is as ingenious as Chichikov’s method of disposing of “dead souls” in Gogol’s masterpiece. By imagining a central committee, of which he is the representative, he organises a small local committee, consisting of five men called “the Fiver”; and he persuades his dupes that a network of similar small committees exists all over Russia. He aims at getting the local committee entirely into his hands, and making the members of it absolute slaves to his will. His ultimate aim is to create similar committees all over the country, persuading people in every new place that the network is ready everywhere else, and that they are all working in complete harmony and in absolute obedience to a central committee, which is somewhere abroad, and which in reality does not exist. This once accomplished, his idea is to create disorder among the peasants or the masses, and in the general upheaval to seize the power. It is possible that I am defining his aim too closely, since in the book one only sees his work, so far as one local committee is concerned. But it is clear from his character that he has some big idea at the back of his head. He is not merely dabbling with excitement in a small local sphere, for all the other characters in the book, however much they hate him, are agreed about one thing; that in his cold and self-seeking character there lies an element of sheer enthusiasm. The manner in which he creates disciples out of his immediate surroundings, and obtains an unbounded influence over them, is by playing on the peculiar weakness which I have already quoted as being the characteristic of Chigalevism. He plays on the one-sidedness of the Russian character; he plays on the fact that directly one single idea takes possession of the brain of a certain kind of Russian idealist, as in the case of Chatov, or Raskolnikov, for instance, he is no longer able to control it. Peter works on this. He also works on the vanity of his disciples, and on their fear of not being thought advanced enough.

“The principal strength,” he says on one occasion, “the cement which binds everything, is the fear of public opinion, the fear of having an opinion of one’s own. It is with just such people that success is possible. I tell you they would throw themselves into the fire if I told them to do so, if I ordered it. I would only have to say that they were bad Liberals. I have been blamed for having deceived my associates here in speaking of a central committee and of ‘innumerable ramifications.’ But where is the deception? The central committee is you and me. As to the ramifications, I can have as many as you wish.”

But as Peter’s plans advance, this cement, consisting of vanity and the fear of public opinion, is not sufficient for him; he wants a stronger bond to bind his disciples together, and to keep them under his own immediate and exclusive control; and such a bond must be one of blood. He therefore persuades his committee that one of their members, Chatov, to whom I have already alluded, is a spy. This is easy, because Chatov is a member of the organisation against his will. He became involved in the business when he was abroad, in Switzerland; and on the first possible occasion he says he will have nothing to do with any Nihilist propaganda, since he is absolutely opposed to it, being a convinced Slavophil and a hater of all acts of violence. Peter lays a trap for him. At a meeting of the committee he asks every one of those present whether, should they be aware that a political assassination were about to take place, they would denounce the man who was to perform it. With one exception all answer no, that they would denounce an ordinary assassin, but that political assassination is not murder. When the question is put to Chatov he refuses to answer. Peter tells the others that this is the proof that he is a spy, and that he must be made away with. His object is that they should kill Chatov, and thenceforth be bound to him by fear of each other and of him. He has a further plan for attributing the guilt of Chatov’s murder to another man. He has come across an engineer named Kirilov. This man is also possessed by one idea, in the same manner as Raskolnikov and Chatov, only that, unlike them, his character is strong. His idea is practically that enunciated many years later by Nietzsche, that of the Superman. Kirilov is a maniac: the single idea which in his case has taken possession of him is that of suicide. There are two prejudices, he reasons, which prevent man committing suicide. One of them is insignificant, the other very serious, but the insignificant reason is not without considerable importance: it is the fear of pain. In exposing his idea he argues that were a stone the size of a six-storied house to be suspended over a man, he would know that the fall of the stone would cause him no pain, yet he would instinctively dread its fall, as causing extreme pain. As long as that stone remained suspended over him, he would be in terror lest it should cause him pain by its fall, and no one, not even the most scientific of men, could escape this impression. Complete liberty will come about only when it will be immaterial to man whether he lives or not: that is the aim.

The second cause and the most serious one that prevents men from committing suicide, is the idea of another world. For the sake of clearness I will here quote Kirilov’s conversation on this subject with the narrator of the story, which is told in the first person:

“... That is to say, punishment?” says his interlocutor.

“No, that is nothing--simply the idea of another world.”

“Are there not atheists who already disbelieve in another world?”

Kirilov was silent.

“You perhaps judge by yourself.”

“Every man can judge only by himself,” said Kirilov, blushing. “Complete liberty will come about when it will be entirely immaterial to man whether he lives or whether he dies: that is the aim of everything.”

“The aim? Then nobody will be able or will wish to live.”

“Nobody,” he answered.

“Man fears death, and therefore loves life,” I remarked. “That is how I understand the matter, and thus has Nature ordained.”

“That is a base idea, and therein lies the whole imposture. Life is suffering, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Everything now is in pain and terror. Man loves life now, because he loves pain and terror. Thus has he been made. Man gives his life now for pain and fear, and therein lies the whole imposture. Man is not at present what he ought to be. A new man will rise, happy and proud, to whom it will be immaterial whether he lives or dies. That will be the new man. He who vanquishes pain and fear, he will be God, and the other gods will no longer exist.”

“Then, according to you, the other God does exist?”

“He exists without existing. In the stone there is no pain, but in the fear of the stone there is pain. God is the pain which arises from the fear of death. He who vanquishes the pain and the fear, he will be God. Then there will be a new life, a new man, everything new. Then history will be divided into two parts. From the gorilla to the destruction of God, and from the destruction of God to....”

“To the gorilla...?”

“To the physical transformation of man and of the world. Man will be God, and will be transformed physically.”

“How do you think man will be transformed physically?”

“The transformation will take place in the world, in thought, sentiments, and actions.”

“If it will be immaterial to men whether they live or die, then men will all kill each other. That is perhaps the form the transformation will take?”

“That is immaterial. The imposture will be destroyed. He who desires to attain complete freedom must not be afraid of killing himself. He who dares to kill himself, has discovered where the error lies. There is no greater liberty than this: this is the end of all things, and you cannot go further. He who dares to kill himself is God. It is at present in every one’s power to bring this about: that God shall be no more, and that nothing shall exist any more. But nobody has yet done this.”

“There have been millions of suicides.”

“But they have never been inspired with this idea. They have always killed themselves out of fear, and never in order to kill fear. He who will kill himself simply in order to kill fear, he will be God.”

In this last sentence we have the whole idea and philosophy of Kirilov. He had made up his mind to kill himself, in order to prove that he was not afraid of death, and he was possessed by that idea, and by that idea alone. In another place he says that man is unhappy because he does not know that he is happy: simply for this reason: that is all. “He who knows that he is happy will become happy at once, immediately.” And further on he says: “Men are not good, simply because they do not know they are good. When they realise this, they will no longer commit crimes. They must learn that they are good, and instantly they will become good, one and all of them. He who will teach men that they are good, will end the world.” The man to whom he is talking objects that He who taught men that they were good was crucified.

“The man will come,” Kirilov replies, “and his name will be the Man-God.”

“The God-Man?” says his interlocutor.

“No, the Man-God,--there is a difference.”

Here we have his idea of the Superman.[20]