- Project Runeberg -  Sónya Kovalévsky. Her recollections of childhood with a biography of Anna Carlotta Leffler /
127

(1895) [MARC] Author: Sofja Kovalevskaja, Anne Charlotte Leffler, Ellen Key
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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD 127

" All you healthy people," he contiuued, " have 110
conception of the bliss which we epileptics feel a
second before the fit comes on. Mahomet asserts in the
Koran that he had seen heaven and been there. All
clever fools are convinced that he is simply a liar and
a fraud. But no! he does not lie! He really was in
paradise during a fit of epilepsy, from which he
suffered, as I suffer. I do not know whether this bliss
lasts seconds, or hours, or months, but you may take
my word for it, I woidd not exchange it for all the
joys which life can give!"

Dostoévsky uttered the last words in the
passionate, broken whisper which was peculiar to him. We
all sat as if we had been magnetized, wholly under
the influence of his words. All at once the same
thought occurred to all of us — is he going to have a
fit now ?

His mouth was twitching nervously; his whole face
was distorted.

Dostoévsky probably read our alarm in our eyes.
He suddenly broke off, drew his hand across his face,
and smiled bitterly.

" Don’t be afraid," he said; " I always know
beforehand when it is coming on."

We felt awkward and conscience-stricken that he
should have divined our thought, and we knew not
what to say. Feodor Mikhåilovitch took his
departing soon after, and told us afterward that he really
did have a severe attack that night.

Sometimes Dostoévsky was very realistic in his
speech, quite forgetting that he was speaking in the
presence of ladies. He sometimes horrified my
mother. For example: One day he began to tell about
a scene in a romance which he had invented while
he was still very young. The hero, a middle-aged

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