I
Vladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even 'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in complete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this happened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive. Apparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a prophet—he was too eagle-eyed for that—at least thought it right that all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness the tone of The Journal of an Author, no less than the questions upon which he generally touches therein. The Journal of an Author began to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad, and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest period of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family, a man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole series of novels known to all: The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The Possessed. He has everything which can be required from life, or, more truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You remember Tolstoi's deliberations in his Confession? 'Finally, I shall be as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare—and what shall come after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer than Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question, 'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further perfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself in the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or in spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly the beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet is greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not always a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as Tolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than once were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected of them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even more readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they promised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would put away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true Christians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi prophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no other writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes. For the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole series of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present revolution[1]—armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down, bombs—the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far East!
And this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and prophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the greatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not effect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer in the army; the other writes in the Novoïe Vremya, as though he were Souvorin's[2] son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift of prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee nothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow bring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to the Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and struck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in the magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever striking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd still runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for a sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there is no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing presupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet who has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world and to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer, nor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the actual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of record and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia and Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician, for whom everything is reduced to Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and Tolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more remarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction: more than half of his Journal consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So often did he commit his prophetic genius.
[1] This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.
[2] The famous editor of the Novoïe Vremya.