Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Impressions of Russian Literature - VI
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zeal, being carried away by "Père Goriot," which in its
whole intellectual character furnishes one of the theories
of his own novels, and translated “Eugénie Grandet,”
occupied himself in addition very much with George
Sand and Eugène Sue, Dickens and Hoffman, the influence
of all of whom is perceptible in his works. In this
first period of his youth Dostoyevski was still a prey to
varied influences.
He has himself told in his later years how Byelinski
at the close of the forties drew him on to socialism, and,
as he called it, tried to convert him to atheism. The
same hatred and the same ingratitude towards the men
who influenced his youth, Herzen, Byelinski, and others,
which found its expression in the novel “The Demons”
is shown in this bitter and poisonous attempt to cast the
blame of his youthful conviction upon a man who is
dead. We must remember that it is an old re-actionist
who speaks, and in his defence consider that Dostoyevski
was a man abused by life.
On the 23d of April, 1849, at five o’clock in the
morning, he, together with thirty-three other young men, was
arrested.
He had then for some time continuously belonged to
the circle which had established itself around a certain
Petrashevski, an adherent of the system of Fourier; in
the meetings of this circle the talk had been loud and
imprudent. The leader was a genuine Fourierist, an
enemy of gods and kings, an opponent of marriage and
property in the predominant forms. The indictment of
Dostoyevski himself was to this effect: Participation in
the meetings of the circle, observations about the
strictness of the censorship, reading or listening to the
reading of prohibited pamphlets, and finally promises of
possible aid in the establishment of a printing-office.
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