“Do you comprehend, young man, all the truth that you have described? No! at your age, that is quite impossible. This is a revelation of art, an inspiration, a gift from on high. Reverence, preserve this gift! and you will become a great writer!”
A few months later “Poor People” appeared in periodical review, and Russia ratified the verdict of its great critic. Bielinski’s astonishment was justifiable; for it seems incredible that any person of twenty could have produced a tragedy at once so simple and so heart-rending. In youth, happiness is our science, learned without a master, and we invent grand, heroic, showy misfortunes, and anguish which blazons its own sublimity. But how had this unhappy genius learned the meaning of that hidden, dumb, wearing misery before his time?
It is but an ordinary story, told in a correspondence between two persons. An inferior clerk in a court of chancery, worn with years and toil, is passing on toward the decline of life, in a continual struggle with poverty and the accompanying tortures of wounded self-love. This ignorant and honest clerk, the butt of his comrades’ ridicule, ordinary in conversation, of only medium intelligence, whose whole ambition is to be a good copyist, possesses, under an almost grotesque exterior, a heart as fresh, open, and affectionate as that of a little child; and I might almost say, sublimely stupid, indifferent to his own interests, in his noble generosity. This is the chosen type of all the best Russian authors, the one which exemplifies what is noblest in the Russian character; as, for example, Turgenef’s Lukeria in the “Living Relics,” and the Karatayef of Tolstoï in “War and Peace.” But these are of the peasant class, whereas the character of Dievushkin, in “Poor People,” is raised some degrees higher in the intellectual and social scale.
In this life, dark and cold as the long December night in Russia, there is one solitary ray of light, one single joy. In another poor lodging, just opposite the loft where the clerk copies his papers, lives a young girl, a distant relative, a solitary waif like himself, who can claim nothing in the world but the feeble protection of this friend. Both isolated, crushed by the brutal pressure of circumstances, these two unfortunates depend upon each other for mutual affection, as well as aid to keep them from starving. In the man’s affection there is a tender self-sacrifice, a delicacy, so much the more charming in that it accords not at all with the habitual bungling awkwardness of his ways and ideas; like a flower growing in sterile soil, among brambles, and betrayed only by its perfume. He imposes upon himself privations truly heroic, for the sake of comforting and gladdening the existence of his dear friend. These are, moreover, so well concealed that they are only discovered through some awkwardness on his part; as for him, they seem to him a matter of course. His sentiments are by turns those of a father, a brother, a good faithful dog. He would define them thus himself if called upon to analyze them. But although we well know a name for this feeling, let us not even whisper it to him; he would be overcome with shame at the mere mention of it.
The woman’s character is drawn with marvellous art. She is very superior to her friend in mind and education; she guides him in all intellectual things, which are quite new to him. She is weak by nature, and tender-hearted, but less faithful and resigned than he. She has not wholly given up a desire for the good things of life. She continually protests against the sacrifices which Dievushkin imposes upon himself, she begs him not to trouble himself for her; but sometimes a longing cry for something she feels the deprivation of escapes her, or perhaps a childish desire for some trifle or finery. The two neighbors can only see each other occasionally, that they may give no occasion for malicious gossip, and an almost daily correspondence has been established between them. In these letters we read of their past, the hard lives they have lived, the little incidents of their every-day life, their disappointments; the terrors of the young girl, pursued by the vicious, who try to entrap her; the agonies of the poor clerk, working for his daily bread, trying so pitifully to preserve the dignity of his manhood through the cruel treatment of those who would strip him of it.
Finally, the crisis comes; Dievushkin loses his only joy in life. You think, perhaps, that a young lover comes to steal her from him, that love will usurp in her heart the place of sisterly affection. Oh, no! the tale is much more human, far sadder.
A man who had once before sought out this young girl, with possibly doubtful intentions, offers her his hand. He is middle-aged, rich, of rather questionable character; but his proposition is an honorable one. Weary of wrestling against fate, persuaded perhaps also that she may thereby lighten some of the burdens of her friend, the unfortunate girl accepts the offer. Here the study of character is absolutely true to nature. The young girl, going suddenly from extreme poverty to luxury, is intoxicated for a moment by this new atmosphere, fine dresses, and jewels! In her cruel ingenuousness, she fills the last letters with details upon these grave subjects. From force of habit, she asks this kind Dievushkin, who always made all her purchases, to do an errand at the jeweller’s for her. Can her soul be really base, unworthy of the pure sentiment she had inspired? Not for a moment does the reader have such an impression, the writer knows so well how to maintain true harmony in his delineation of character. No, it is only that a little of youth and human nature have come to the surface in the experience of this long repressed soul. How can we grudge her such a trifling pleasure?
Then this cruelty is explained by the complete misapprehension of their reciprocal feelings. With her it is only a friendship, which will ever be faithful, grateful, if perhaps a little less single; how can she possibly understand that for him it is nothing short of despair?
It had been arranged that the wedded pair should start immediately after the marriage for a distant province. Up to the very last hour, Dievushkin replies to her letters, giving her the most minute details of the shopping that he has done for her, making great efforts to become versed in the subject of laces and ribbons. He only occasionally betrays a hint of the terror which seizes him at the thought of the near separation; but finally, in the last letter, his wounded heart breaks; the unhappy man sees before him the blank desolation of his future life, solitary, empty; he is no longer conscious of what he writes; but, in spite of all, his utter distress is kept back; he himself seems hardly yet to realize the secret of his own agony. The drama ends with an agonizing wail of despair, when he is left standing alone, behind the departing train.
I should like to quote many passages; I hesitate, and find none. This is the highest eulogium that can be bestowed upon a romance. The structure is so solid, the materials so simple, and so completely sacrificed to the impression of the whole, that a detached fragment quite loses its effect; it means no more than a single stone torn from a Greek temple, whose beauty consists in its general lines. This is the peculiar attribute of all the great Russian authors.