Our Return to Russia in 1871

Our return to Petersburg, after an absence abroad for over four years, took place on a hot summer day, on July 8, 18711

From the Warsaw station we drove past the cathedral of Holy Trinity, in which our wedding had taken place. Both Fiodor Mihailovich and myself crossed ourselves, and seeing us do this our little baby daughter [Lubov] also made the sign of the cross. I remember Fiodor Mihailovich saying:

‘Well, Anechka, we have lived happily these four years abroad, despite the fact that at times life has been hard. What is life in Petersburg going to give us? Everything is in a mist before us! I foresee a good many troubles, difficulties, and worries before we stand on our own feet. On God’s help only do I rely!’ 2

‘Why worry beforehand?’ I remember answering him. ‘Let us rely on God’s mercy. The chief thing now is that our long-cherished dream has been realised, and we are again in Petersburg, again in our mother country.’ 3

Various feelings agitated us both. In me prevailed a feeling of boundless joy. I, who from my early youth had dreamt about life in Europe, and was so happy in going there, had for the last two years of our stay there not only grown cold to foreign countries, I had come to hate them almost. Everything abroad—religion, language, people, customs, manners—seemed to me not only foreign, but hostile. I missed Russian black bread, deep snow, sledges, the sound of Russian church bells; in a word, everything that I have been accustomed to from my childhood4

I saw that Fiodor Mihailovich worked without sparing himself; and I saw that now and then he received large sums of money; but, as a considerable part of it had to be given to our relations, and interest had also to be paid on the articles we had pawned when we left for abroad, I lost hope of being able to save any considerable amount to pay over to our creditors, on our return to Petersburg, to prevent them from worrying us at the outset, and to get time to look round and see what we could do to improve our entangled circumstances. I perfectly understood that only by returning home and by acting in person, and not through intermediaries, could we settle our financial affairs. It also seemed to me that in Petersburg I might find some work for myself, as stenographer, or translator, and thus be able to bring in a certain contribution5

I also thought that my mother’s house, in the Kostromsky Street, which was intended for me, would pass into my hands. In that case our liberation from our debts would proceed more successfully. I meant to sell the house immediately, to pay the most pressing debts, and to discharge the rest by instalments from the money received for Dostoevsky’s novels. That is why I so much wished to go back to Russia6

But our feelings of joy were mingled also with apprehension as to how we could straighten out our affairs. We owed about twenty-five thousand roubles, and our whole fortune, on the day of our arrival, consisted of sixty roubles in cash and two trunks bought abroad. In one of these were Fiodor Mihailovich’s clothes, his manuscripts and notebooks; in the other—my things and the children’s. When I think back on it all now, I think how much spiritual energy and power was needed to begin a new life in such circumstances7

On our arrival we stopped at the Commercial Hotel, in the Great Konyushenna Street, and stayed there for two days. To stay on there was inadvisable, in view of the coming addition to the family, and it did not suit our means either; so we moved to a house in the Ekaterininsky Prospekt, where we took two furnished rooms on the fourth floor. We chose that neighbourhood in order that our little girl might spend the hot days of July and August in the Yussupov Park, which was quite close at hand8

During the very first days of our arrival Fiodor Mihailovich’s relations came to see us, and we received them all very cordially. During these last four years the position of Emily Fiodorovna Dostoevsky had changed for the better: her elder son, Fiodor Mihailovich (the ‘junior,’ as our relations called him, to distinguish him from my husband, Fiodor Mihailovich ‘senior’), had given many well-paid music lessons; her second son, Mihail Mihailovich, had had work in a bank; her daughter, Ekaterina Mihailovna, also had some kind of occupation. Consequently the family had lived quite comfortably9

Moreover, Emily Fiodorovna had during that time become accustomed to the idea that Fiodor Mihailovich, having his own family to keep, could assist her only in exceptional circumstances. Pavel Alexandrovich Isayev was the only one who could not rid himself of the idea that ‘his father,’ as he called Fiodor Mihailovich, ‘was obliged’ to keep not only him, but also his family. But him too I received kindly, because I happened to make the acquaintance of his wife, whom he had married only in April of that year. I liked Nadezhda Mihailovna Isayev at first sight, and, in spite of the slight difference in our ages, we became friends at once. She was a good-looking woman, not tall, very modest, and not stupid; so that I could not possibly understand why she had decided to choose for her life-companion such an impossible man as Pavel Alexandrovich Isayev. I was sincerely sorry for her; for, knowing his character, I foresaw that her life was not going to be happy10

Eight days after our arrival in Petersburg, on July 16, at 9 o’clock in the morning took place the expected event—the birth of our elder son Fiodor.¹

When I began to recover, we had our boy baptised, his godfather being Apollon Nicolayevich Maikov, who acted in the same capacity to our two daughters. 11For his godmother Fiodor Mihailovich chose our daughter Lyubochka, who was not yet two years old1213

At the end of August, Fiodor Mihailovich we15nt off to Moscow and brought back a certain sum of money, not a very big sum, but enough to make it possible for us to move from the furnished rooms to a flat. The chief problem was our lack of furniture, which we had to get before taking the flat. The idea occurred to me of going to the Apraxin market and of asking the dealers there if they would agree to sell us furniture for monthly payments of 25 roubles, the furniture to be considered the property of the dealer until the whole sum was paid. One dealer there, Lubimov, agreed to these terms and let us have at once goods to the value of 400 roubles. But, Heavens, what things they were! The furniture was new; but it was made of birch or pine and, not to speak of its absurd style, it came from such a bad market, that after three years of use it became unglued and fell to pieces. In the end we had to throw it away and to replace it by new stuff. But even for that furniture I was grateful. It enabled us to have our own flat; for living in furnished rooms was unthinkable, the close proximity of tiny babies preventing Fiodor Mihailovich from either sleeping or working16

Having arranged the matter of furniture I began looking for a flat, and in this Isayev offered his assistance. That very evening he announced that he had found an excellent flat—eight rooms—at the very low rent of 100 roubles per month.

‘We don’t need such a large flat,’ I said.

‘It isn’t at all large,’ answered Isayev. ‘You will have a drawing-room, study, bedroom, and nursery; we shall have a drawing-room, study, bedroom; and the dining-room we shall share between us.’

‘Do you suppose that we are to live together?’

‘Why not? I told Nadya that when “my father” came back we should all live together.’

This time I had to talk to him seriously and to convince him that circumstances had changed and that I would in no event agree to our living together. As usual, Isayev became impertinent and threatened to complain to Fiodor Mihailovich. But I refused to listen. I had not spent four years of independent life for nothing, and when Isayev turned to Fiodor Mihailovich, he received the answer that he had left everything to me and whatever I decided must hold good. For quite a long time Isayev could not forgive me for upsetting the plans he had formed17

I took a flat in Serpuhov Street, from Mme. Archangelsky, and signed the agreement in my own name so as to relieve Fiodor Mihailovich of the necessity of negotiating with the landlady, the house-porter, etc.

The flat consisted of four rooms: a study (in which Fiodor Mihailovich slept on a divan), a drawing-room, a dining-room, and a nursery in which I also slept18

In arranging the house I comforted myself with the thought that I should not have to buy many household things and clothes; for before we left Russia our things had been distributed among various people for safe-keeping. And soon after I recovered from my illness, I began to busy myself with getting these things together. But here unpleasant surprises came one after the other. It began in this way. I went off to my mother’s house, in which an old maid called Olga Vasilievna had been living for many years. She was an extremely honest woman; and to her safe keeping my mother, three years previously, just before she went abroad to pay us a short visit, had entrusted various household effects, samovars, copper utensils, glass and china. To my great distress it turned out that a few months previously Olga Vasilievna had died, that as she was a single woman a country cousin had turned up and buried her, and that the magistrate had ordered that all the effects found in the house should be sold in order to defray the expenses which the cousin had incurred on the funeral. There were people, lodgers in the house, who knew that Olga Vasilievna was only taking care of our things. But the cousin said ‘she knew nothing about that,’ but if she were told who had entrusted Olga with the goods and what they were, she would return them. And thus she took away all our things with her to the country. I wrote to her, to Torzhok, but received from her only a pair of malachite ear-rings and a tea-caddy, which she admitted had not belonged to her late aunt. As to the other things, she suggested that we should bring an action against her in court for their recovery. Of course, I brought no action19

The other unpleasant surprise was the history of my china and glass, which I charged my sister Marie Gregorevna to keep for me. I may say that my father was a great connoisseur and expert in china. He loved to go round the antique shops and to buy beautiful things. After his death several beautiful old cups of Vieux-Saxe and Sèvres came to me, and also some old cut-glass. All these things were kept in a special cupboard, and I felt sure that they were safe. But this is what happened. When my sister returned from her summer holiday in the country, and was setting her household things in order, she told the parlourmaid to wash the things in the cupboards, my things included, and specially asked her to be careful with my things as they did not belong to her. And then the maid, whom my sister had scolded for something and threatened to sack, deliberately, out of spite, in order to pay my sister out, in the presence of the chambermaid and cook, threw the whole huge tray on the floor, with such force that everything was smashed to smithereens, and not a single thing could be glued together. Certainly, my sister made it up to me by sending me a tea-service and other crockery; but even now I remember with regret the cups with the little shepherdesses on them, and also the tea-glass with a fly, so vividly painted on it that every one who drank from it would invariably try to remove it, imagining it was alive. And I would pay a good deal to get them back. The impressions of childhood remain with us all our life long. It was just my luck that the maid’s spite should have been vented on these things of mine, and not on those of my sister who had given her the scolding. There is truth in the proverb: ‘Misfortunes never come singly.‘20

I was also greatly distressed by another surprise. During the whole four years of our stay abroad Fiodor Mihailovich used to send Praskovya Petrovna (the mother of Vanya, the natural son of Fiodor Mihailovich’s brother—Mihail Mihailovich Dostoevsky) money to pay the interest on the things which we had pawned on leaving Russia (Fiodor Mihailovich’s fur coat and my fur cloak), and we congratulated ourselves that we should only have to redeem the things and not to spend much money on buying warm clothes. Imagine our sorrow—mine and Fiodor’s—when Praskovya Petrovna, whom I had asked to bring us the pawnbrokers’ receipts, came to us and told us with tears in her eyes a story (perhaps false) of how she had been paying the interest all the time, but had forgotten to pay the last instalment, and that our things were now lost. She cried, promised to get the things back; but all these were empty promises, never fulfilled. True, we owe her thanks for having returned to us the pawnbrokers’ receipts for the gold and silver things we pawned. These things had to lie there pledged for another five years before we managed to redeem them21

When we left in 1867 for abroad, for three months only, we moved certain articles of furniture (the bed, a large chest of drawers filled with cushions and blankets, Fiodor Mihailovich’s library, etc.) to Emily Fiodorovna, in whose flat Isayev at that time was settled. There were also stored the old icons of the Saviour and Our Lady in silver frames, which had been presented to me when I married. When I was arranging the flat I asked Isayev to fetch my icons. He brought them to me—but without the silver frames. Thereupon he told a story of how his landlady (he had had a dozen landladies in four years) had robbed him, how once when he returned home he found that the silver frames were missing, what steps he took for their recovery, the proceedings in court. As to the furniture, cushions, blankets, he said that he had taken them for his own family; and as to the library, he candidly confessed that as he had no money he had been selling one book after another. He also sold all books presented to Fiodor Mihailovich, with autographs and dedications by their authors. When I expressed regret at the loss of the library Isayev turned round on me and declared that we ourselves were to blame for everything: ‘Why hadn’t we sent him money punctually?’ As if we were obliged to keep a robust, strong, lazy fellow!22

The loss of Fiodor Mihailovich’s library we felt particularly keenly. I remember how, when we lived abroad, Fiodor Mihailovich longed for his books, and I comforted him with the assurance that the library was perfectly safe and that he would have it back on his return to Russia. And now came the loss—irreparable to us: for our financial circumstances, right up to the death of Fiodor Mihailovich, were such that we never had means to acquire a decent library again. And Fiodor Mihailovich was justly proud of his old library, on which he had spent large sums of money every year. To judge from the bills of Basunov the bookseller, the library contained many serious works; for instance, it was rich in the literature of the Old Believers. And all this had been sacrificed for a mere song. Later on, in the Alexandrovsky market, I chanced to find one of the books sold by Isayev which had belonged to me; a book which had been given to me as a prize when I passed from one class to another in the Maryinsky Gymnasium for Girls. In the book remained the fly-leaf, with the inscription setting forth the name of the person to whom the book had been given. Of course I bought the book back23

These are the kinds of losses by which we had, through most incredible accidents, to pay for the four years spent abroad.

Yet not all the surprises were unpleasant. There came to light one circumstance which gave me great joy. In the winter of 1871 I happened to pay a visit to my cousin, Dr. M. N. Snitkin. In the spring of that year he had married Ekaterina Ippolitovna, the sister of Mme. Saint-Hilaire. When she heard about our misfortunes with regard to our things, Ekaterina Ippolitovna said to me: ‘I’ve heard from my sister Sasha (Alexandra Ippolitovna Saint-Hilaire) that at the top of her house there was a basket of papers belonging to your husband.’

I began to question her, and it turned out that about three years before Fiodor Mihailovich ‘junior’ had asked Mme. Saint-Hilaire’s permission to leave with her, for a short time, a wicker basket containing his uncle’s papers. He himself had disappeared; but the basket remained with them. Next day I sent for the basket. And there arrived a large laundry-basket, packed full with papers and notebooks, not locked but tied with a thin string.

My ecstasy can be imagined when, examining the contents of the basket, I found several notebooks by Fiodor Mihailovich, several books of memoranda relating to the conduct of the reviews Vremya and Epocha, left by Mihail Mihailovich; and a mass of most varied correspondence. These recovered papers more than once served us a good turn in our subsequent life, when it was necessary to prove or refute certain facts in the life of Fiodor Mihailovich which had been unknown to me before 1867 As it appeared later, Isayev, on our departure, took that basket of letters and notebooks to his rooms. When he moved from Emily Fiodorovna’s house, he left the basket there, but as she did not know what to do with it, she handed it over to her son, Fiodor ‘junior,’ who placed it for safe-keeping with friends. And then every one forgot about it24

I had occurred to me that Fiodor Mihailovich might have notebooks and manuscripts of an earlier period—for instance, of the period when he wrote his Insulted and Injured or The House of the Dead. And it seemed to me another basket of papers and manuscripts must be in existence, a basket also taken by Isayev, and from him passed through several hands, now lying in somebody else’s attic, forgotten by everybody until the mice began to look after it. But in spite of all my efforts I could not discover it25