To express the singular relations between these two beings, that solemn, pathetic bond, so foreign to every pre-conceived idea of love, we should make use of the word compassion in the sense in which Bossuet used it: the suffering with and through another being. When Raskolnikof falls at the feet of the girl who supports her parents by her shame, she, the despised of all, is terrified at his self-abasement, and begs him to rise. He then utters a phrase which expresses the combination of all the books we are studying: “It is not only before thee that I prostrate myself, but before all suffering humanity.” Let us here observe that our author has never yet once succeeded in representing love in any form apart from these subtleties, or the simple natural attraction of two hearts toward each other. He portrays only extreme cases; either that mystic state of sympathy and self-sacrifice for a distressed fellow-creature, of utter devotion, apart from any selfish desire: or the mad, bestial cruelty of a perverted nature. The lovers he represents are not made of flesh and blood, but of nerves and tears. Yet this realist evokes only harrowing thoughts, never disagreeable images. I defy any one to quote a single line suggestive of anything sensual, or a single instance where the woman is represented in the light of a temptress. His love scenes are absolutely chaste, and yet he seems to be incapable of portraying any creation between an angel and a beast.

You can imagine what the dénouement will be. The nihilist, half conquered, prowls for some time around the police office; and finally he acknowledges his guilt, and is condemned. Sonia teaches him to pray, and the wretched creatures go to Siberia. Dostoyevski gladly seizes the opportunity to rewrite, as a sort of epilogue, a chapter of his “Recollections of a Dead House.”

Apart from the principal characters of this book, there are secondary characters and scenes which are impossible to forget, such is the impression they leave upon you after one reading. There is one scene where the murderer, always mysteriously attracted back to the fatal spot, tries to recall every detail of his crime; he even goes to pull the cracked bell of the apartment, in order to recall more vividly by this sound the impression of the terrible moment. Detached fragments of this work seem to lose their signification, and if you skip a few pages the whole thing becomes unintelligible. One may feel impatient with the author’s prolixity, but if he omits anything the magnetic current is interrupted. This I have been told by those who have tried the experiment. The reader requires as much of an effort of concentration and memory as for a philosophical treatise. This is a pleasure or a penalty according to the reader. Besides, a translation, however good, cannot possibly render the continuous smooth course of the original text, or give its under-currents of meaning.

We cannot but pity the man who has written such a book, so evidently drawn from the substance of his own brain. To understand how he was led so to write, we must note what he once said to a friend in regard to his mental condition, after one of his severe attacks of illness:—“The state of dejection into which they plunge me makes me feel in this way: I seem to be like a criminal who has committed some terrible deed which weighs upon his conscience.” The review which published Dostoyevski’s novels often gave but a few pages at a time, followed by a brief note of apology. Every one understood that Feodor Mikhailovitch had had one of his severe attacks of illness.

“Crime and Punishment” established the author’s popularity. Its appearance was the great literary event of the year 1866. All Russia was made ill by it, so to speak. When the book first appeared, a Moscow student murdered a pawnbroker in almost precisely the way described by the novelist; and I firmly believe that many subsequent attempts, analogous to this, may have been attributable to the influence of this book. Dostoyevski’s intention, of course, was undoubtedly to dissuade men from such acts by representing their terrible consequences; but he did not foresee that the intensity of his portrayals might act in an opposite sense, and tempt the demon of imitation existing in a certain type of brain. I therefore hesitate to pronounce upon the moral value of the work. Our writers may say that I am over-scrupulous. They may not admit that the moral value of a work of art is a thing to be taken into account in regard to the appreciation of it as a work of art. But does anything exist in this world wholly independent of a moral value?

The Russian authors claim that they aim to nourish souls, and the greatest offence you could offer them would be to accuse them of making a collection of purposeless words. Dostoyevski’s novels will be judged either as useful or harmful according as one decides for or against the morality of public executions and sentences. It is an open question. For myself, I should decide against them.

IV.

In this work Dostoyevski’s talent had reached its culminating point. In “The Idiot,” “The Possessed,” and especially in “The Karamazof Brothers,” many parts are intolerably tedious. The plot amounts to nothing but a framework upon which to hang all the author’s favorite theories, and display every type of his eccentric fancy. The book is nearly filled with conversations between two disputants, whose ideas are continually clashing, each trying to worm out the other’s secrets with the most cunning art, and expose some secret intrigue either of crime or of love. These interviews recall the terrible trials under Ivan the Terrible, or Peter the First; there is the same combination of terror, duplicity, and obstinacy still existing in the race. Sometimes the disputants attempt to penetrate the labyrinth of each other’s religious or philosophical beliefs. They vie with each other in the use of arguments, now fine-spun, now eccentric, like a pair of scholastic doctors of the Sorbonne. Some of these conversations recall Hamlet’s dialogues with his mother, Ophelia, or Polonius. For more than two hundred years critics have discussed the question whether Hamlet was mad when he thus spoke. When that question has been settled, the decision may be applied to Dostoyevski’s heroes. It has been said more than once that this writer and the heroes of his creation are simply madmen. They are mad in the same degree that Hamlet was. For my own part, I consider this statement neither an intelligent nor reasonable one. Such an opinion must be held only by those very short-sighted people who refuse to admit the existence of states of mind different from those they know from personal experience.

In studying Dostoyevski and his work, we must keep in mind one of his favorite phrases, which he often repeats: “Russia is a freak of nature.” A strange anomaly exists in some of these lunatics he describes. They are absorbed in the contemplation of their own minds, intent upon self-analysis. If the author leads them into action, they throw themselves into it impetuously, obedient to the irregular impulses of their nerves, giving free rein to their unbridled wills, which are uncontrollable as are elementary forces. Observe how minutely he describes every physical peculiarity. The condition of the body explains the perturbation of the soul. Whenever a character is introduced to us, he is never by any chance sitting comfortably by a table or engaged in any occupation. “He was extended upon a divan, with his eyes closed, although he was not asleep…. He walked along the street without having any idea where he was…. He was motionless, his eyes absently fixed upon space.”…

These people never eat; they drink tea through the night. Many are given to strong drink. They rarely sleep, and when they do they dream. There are more dreams described in Dostoyevski’s works than in the whole of our classic literature. They are nearly always in a “feverish condition.” Whenever any of these creatures come into relations with their fellow-beings, you meet with such expression as these in almost every line:—“He shuddered … he sprang up with a bound … his features contracted … he became ashy pale … his lower lip trembled … his teeth chattered….” Sometimes there are long pauses in a conversation, when the disputants look fixedly into each other’s eyes.