Anna Gregorevna Dostoevsky, née Snitkin, had been trained as a shorthand writer. She finished her training in 1866, and became Dostoevsky’s secretary at a time when he was hastily finishing The Gambler. During the whole of October 1866, she wrote to his dictation. They were married on February 15, 1867, in a style which gave much satisfaction to the bride. She describes the scene in her Reminiscences, in a passage as yet unpublished:
‘Fiodor Mihailovich arranged things well: the church was lighted brightly, a splendid choir sang, there was a crowd of beautifully dressed guests; but all this I learnt only later, from what had been told to me; for up to nearly half-way through the ceremony I felt as if I were in a mist, I crossed myself mechanically and my answers to the priest’s questions were scarcely audible. I did not even notice which of us was the first to step on to the pink silk cushion—I think that Fiodor Mihailovich was the first; for I have given way to him all my life long. It was only after the Communion that my head became clear, and that I began to pray ardently. Afterwards every one told me that during the wedding ceremony I was terribly pale… .’
The couple left Russia, originally for Dresden, two months later, on April 14, 1867, intending to remain away for only three or four months. Circumstances, however, some of which are sufficiently indicated in the letters to Maikov, delayed the return until the spring of 1871. At that time Dostoevsky was very ill and very homesick, as may be seen from his letter of March 18, 1871, to N. N. Strahov:
‘I have been ill for some time, and above all I have felt homesick after my epileptic fit. When I have not had a fit for a long time, and then it suddenly breaks out, then I feel an unusual nostalgia, a moral one. It drives me to despair. Formerly this depression used to last about three days after the fit, and now it lasts seven or eight days; but all the time I have been in Dresden my fits have been less frequent than anywhere else. Secondly, there is the longing for work. I am almost worn out with the slowness of my work. I must go to Russia, although I have got quite unaccustomed to the Petersburg climate. But, after all, whatever happens, return I must… . My writing does not come off, Nicolay Nicolayevich, or it is produced with terrible difficulty. What all this means—I do not know. But I think it is my need for Russia. At whatever cost I must return to Russia… .’
In his letter of February 4, 1872, to S. D. Yanovsky, six months after his return to Russia, he writes:
‘I spent four years abroad—in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, and got terribly sick of it in the end. With horror I began to notice that I was falling behind Russia; I read three papers, and spoke with Russians; but there was a something which as it were I did not understand. I had to come back and see with my own eyes. Well, I’ve returned, and found nothing particularly puzzling; in a couple of months I shall understand everything again!’
But if Dostoevsky desired to return to Russia for his own sake, he was still more anxious to do so on account of his wife. In a letter to A. N. Maikov, Dostoevsky writes:
‘to remain in Dresden for another year is impossible, quite out of the question. It would mean just killing Anna Gregorevna with despair, over which she has no control, since hers is a genuine case of home-sickness.’
It was something more, perhaps, than home-sickness; for Madame Dostoevsky’s existence was one of incessant work, incessant anxiety. The following pages show some of her troubles; but it should further be remembered that during the last fourteen years of Dostoevsky’s life,—the most intense and productive years of his creative activity,—Anna Gregorevna was not only his wife and true friend, but also, as the Reminiscences indicate, his assistant, shorthand writer, publisher, financial adviser, and business manager.
The Reminiscences of Madame Dostoevsky, for the year 1871-1872, are taken from three of her notebooks found in the Poushkin Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Petersburg.