XIII
Loskutnaya, Room 33****Moscow, June 8, 1880, 8 p.m.
My dear Anya, to-day I sent you yesterday’s letter of the 7th, but now I can’t help sending you also these few lines, although I am awfully tired out morally and physically. So perhaps you will receive this letter together with the preceding one.
This morning was the reading of my speech at the ‘Lovers.’[^2] The hall was packed. No, Anya, no, you can never present to yourself nor imagine the effect it produced! What are my Petersburg successes? Nothing, nothing at all, compared to this! When I came out, the hall thundered applause, and for a long, very long time, they would not let me speak. I bowed, made gestures, asking them to let me read — nothing was of any avail: raptures, enthusiasm (all because of the Karamazovs). At last I began reading: I was interrupted positively at each page, and at moments at each phrase, by a thunder of applause. I read loudly, with fire. All that I wrote about Tatyana was received with enthusiasm. (This is a great victory for our idea over the twenty-five years of delusions!) When at the end I proclaimed the universal union of people, the hall was as though in hysterics, and when I finished, — I cannot tell you about the roar, about the wail of ecstasy: strangers among the public cried, wept, embraced one another, and swore to one another to be better, not to hate one another from henceforth, but to love. The order of the session was upset; all rushed to me to the platform — grand ladies, students, Secretaries of State, students — all embraced, kissed me. All the members of our Society who were on the platform embraced me and kissed me, and all, literally all, cried for ecstasy. The calls for me lasted half an hour; they waved their handkerchiefs; suddenly, for instance, two old men, strangers to me, stopped me: ‘We have been enemies for twenty years, we have not spoken to one another, and now we have embraced and made peace. It is you who have reconciled us. You are our saint, you are our prophet!’ ‘Prophet, prophet!’ the crowd shouted. Turgenev, about whom I had put in a good word in my speech, threw himself at me to embrace me with tears. Annenkov ran up to press my hand and kiss my shoulder. ‘You are a genius, you are more than a genius!’ they both said to me. Ivan Aksakov ran up to the platform and declared to the public that my speech — is not a mere speech, but a political event! A cloud had been hiding the horizon, and now Dostoevsky’s words, like the sun, have driven it away, have shed their light upon all. From this moment begins true brotherhood, and there will be no more misunderstanding. ‘Yes, yes!’ they all cried, and embraced again, and wept again.
The sitting was closed. I tried to escape behind the scenes, but everybody forced their way in there from the hall, mostly women. They kissed my hands, would not let me be. The students rushed in. One of them, in tears, fell down before me on the floor in hysterics and lost consciousness. Complete, completest victory! Yuriev rang his bell and announced that the ‘Society of Lovers of Russian Literature’ unanimously elected me honorary member. Again wailing and shouting. After an interval almost of an hour the session was resumed. All the other speakers had a mind not to read. Aksakov got up and declared that he would not read his speech since all had been said and all had been solved by the great word of our genius — Dostoevsky. However, we all made him speak. The reading went on, and meanwhile a conspiracy was arranged. I was worn out and wanted to go home, but they forced me to stay. In that one hour they managed to get a sumptuous laurel crown, a yard and a half across, and at the end of the sitting a number of ladies (over a hundred) stormed the platform and crowned me in sight of the whole hall with the wreath: ‘From women of Russia, of whom you spoke so much good!’ All cried; enthusiasm again. Tretyakov, the Lord Mayor, thanked me on behalf of the City of Moscow. — Admit, Anya, that for this it was worth staying on: this is a pledge for the future, a pledge for everything, should I even die. — When I came home, I received your letter about the new-born foal, but you write so unfeelingly about my staying on. In an hour’s time I ’ll go off to read at the second literary festivity. I shall read The Prophet. To-morrow—visits. After to-morrow, on the 10th I am leaving. On the 11th I shall be at home, unless anything very important detains me. The speech must be placed, but to whom shall I give it? They are all tearing it between them. Terrible!
Good-bye for now, my dear, desirable and precious one. I kiss your little feet. I embrace the children, I kiss them, — bless them. I kiss the foal. I bless you all. My head is queer, my hands and feet shake. Good-bye for now, for a little while.
Yours all and wholly F. DOSTOEVSKY.