TRANSLATORS’ NOTE

The Russian Government has recently published a small paper-covered book containing Stavrogin’s Confession, unpublished chapters of Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed, and Dostoevsky’s plan or sketch of a novel which he never actually wrote but which he called The Life of a Great Sinner. The circumstances in which these MSS. were discovered are described in the note of the Russian Government which we give below. Our translation of Stavrogin’s Confession and of the plan is from the text as published by the Russian Government. We have added translations of introductory or explanatory notes upon the two MSS. by V. Friche, V. Komarovich, and N. Brodsky. The notes by Friche and Komarovich are given in the book published by the Russian Government, that by M. Komarovich appeared in Builoe (No. 18, 1922).

It should be added that there are two different 6versions of the unpublished chapters of The Possessed in existence, and they have both been published for the first time this year. The second version, which is in the Pushkin Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was published in Builoe. We have not included it, since it appears to be an earlier version than that published by the Russian Government. It should be noted that M. Komarovich’s note refers to this version in the Academy of Sciences.

NEW MSS. OF F. M. DOSTOEVSKY

On November 12, 1921, in the presence of A. V. Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education, and M. N. Pokrovsky, Assistant Commissar of Education, in the Central Archive Department of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic there was opened a white tin case numbered 5038 from the State Archives containing F. M. Dostoevsky’s papers.

In the case were twenty-three articles: note-books, bags, and bundles of letters and other documents. On one of these note-books, which is bound (187 numbered pages), is written: “en cas de ma mort ou une maladie grave”; these are business papers and instructions of Anna Grigorevna Dostoevsky, the writer’s wife. On pages 53-55 she has written: “List of note-books 10in which Fedor Mikhailovich wrote the plans of his novels and also some biographical notes, copies of letters, etc.” Madame A. G. Dostoevsky gives a list of fifteen such note-books with a short description of their contents and disposal: Nos. 1 and 2, Crime and Punishment; No. 3, Crime and Punishment and The Idiot; Nos. 4-5, Journal, 1876; No. 6, Journal, 1881; Nos. 7 and 8, The Raw Youth; No. 9, Brothers Karamazov; No. 10, The Idiot; No. 11, The Eternal Husband; Nos. 12-15, The Possessed. Of these fifteen note-books enumerated by A. G. Dostoevsky the following were deposited on her instructions in the Historical Museum: No. 7, No. 12, and No. 13. Note-book No. 8 was in

1901 “transferred to Lubov Fedorovna Dostoevsky” (Dostoevsky’s daughter), and No. 9 was deposited elsewhere. The other note-books of Dostoevsky given in A. G. Dostoevsky’s list, with the exception of No. 11, i.e. Nos. 1-6, 10, 14, and 15, were found in the white case when it was opened on November 12 at the Central Archive Department.

On the first page of these note-books A. G. Dostoevsky has, in her own handwriting, given a brief list of their contents, as follows:

1. Variant of the novel Crime and Punishment, under the title On Trial. (Raskolnikov tells his story.)

2. Materials for the novel Crime and Punishment.

3. Draft of letter to Katkov.

1. Variant of the novel Crime and Punishment.

2. Materials for the novel Crime and Punishment.

3. Materials for the tale The Crocodile.—Answers to Sovremennik.—Notes.

4. Letter to Katkov (1865) explaining the fundamental idea of Crime and Punishment.

1. Materials for the novel Crime and Punishment.

2. Materials for the novel The Idiot.

Journal, 1876. January, February, March.

Journal, 1876. April, December.

Journal, 1881.

The Idiot.

The Possessed. Notes for the end of the novel.

The Possessed.

In addition to these note-books which were in A. G. Dostoevsky’s list, there were also found in the white case three other note-books not mentioned by her, namely, (1) containing materials for The Raw Youth, in a linen binding, 204 pages; (2) unbound, 33½ folios, also containing material for The Raw Youth (one of these may be either No. 7 or No. 8 above); (3) containing materials for The Idiot, 144 pages.[1]

Everything of value in these note-books will be published in a book, now being prepared, which will include Dostoevsky’s letters found in the case; they cover the period 1839-1855, mostly to his brother, as well as the period 1866-1880, 13the latter being to his fiancée and future wife, A. G. Dostoevsky. The new note-books will make it possible to understand with some accuracy and completeness the method of work by which Dostoevsky produced such masterpieces as Crime and Punishment, The Raw Youth, and The Possessed. Besides these, there are scattered through the note-books subjects of stories (The Crank), long tales (The Seekings), poems (Imperator), which were planned but not written.

In addition to the list which Madame Dostoevsky gives in the note-book marked “en cas de ma mort, etc.,” she also mentions one other note-book in which fifteen proof-sheets of The Possessed had been pasted. This note-book was also found in the white case. On the first page of it A. G. Dostoevsky has written: “In this note-book (in proof-sheets) are a few chapters of the novel The Possessed, which were not included in it by F. M. Dostoevsky, when it was published in Russkìi Vèstnik. The first chapter (proof-sheets 1-5) was first published in the eighth volume of the jubilee edition of the Complete Works in the section ‘Materials for the novel The Possessed.’” (This last statement is not quite correct. In the “Materials,” to which A. G. 14Dostoevsky refers, the first chapter is not published in full, the first twenty lines not being included.) “The other chapters,” A. G. Dostoevsky continues, “have never been published.”

Below the reader will find the text of these two hitherto unpublished chapters of The Possessed. We have thought it necessary also to republish the first chapter, because all these chapters form a whole and should be given together, and also because the beginning of the first chapter was not published in the Supplement to Vol. VIII. of the jubilee edition. The fifteen proof-sheets pasted in the note-book—particularly after the first chapter—are covered, in the margins and the text itself, with a vast number of corrections, insertions, and additions in Dostoevsky’s handwriting.

We give below the text of the proofs with only a few of the author’s corrections. We have omitted passages which Dostoevsky struck out without substituting a variant, though we give such passages in the footnotes. We have made a few corrections about which there could be no doubt. All the other corrections and additions, which are extremely numerous, will be given in a book of new materials on Dostoevsky which 15is under preparation. It is clear that the author himself did not consider that these marginal corrections and additions were final. This is shown by the fact that there are several mistakes in the text and the punctuation is not always correct, while often there are several different corrections of the text in the margin and it is not clear which correction is to be preferred; other passages are incompletely corrected, and, lastly, several corrections inserted in the text give a rough version in which the same idea is expressed more than once in different words.

The plan of The Life of a Great Sinner, which we give below, is taken from F. M. Dostoevsky’s note-book which is in the Historical Museum. This plan has recently been published by L. P. Grossman in his book on Dostoevsky,[2] but not in full nor accurately, with such important omissions that the text given below can alone be considered accurately to reproduce the original.

STAVROGIN’S CONFESSION

I

Nikolai Vsevolodovich did not sleep that night, and all the time he sat on the sofa, often gazing fixedly at a particular point in the corner near the chest of drawers. All night long the lamp burnt in his room. About seven o’clock in the morning he fell asleep where he sat, and, when Alexei Egorovich, according to invariable custom, came into his room at half-past nine precisely with a cup of coffee and, by coming in, woke him, he seemed unpleasantly surprised that he should have slept so long and that it was already so late. He hastily drank his coffee, hastily dressed himself, and hurriedly left the house. To Alexei Egorovich’s hesitating question “Any orders?” he made no reply. He walked along 20the street looking at the ground, deep in thought, save that now and then he looked up for a moment, raised his head, showing a certain vague but violent uneasiness. At one crossing, not far from the house, a crowd of peasants, about fifty or more, crossed the road; they walked orderly, almost silently, in deliberate order. At the little shop, where he had to wait a moment,

some one said that these were “Shpigulin’s workmen.” He hardly paid any attention to them. At last, about half-past ten, he approached the gate of Our Lady Spasso-Efimev Monastery, on the outskirts of the town, by the river. Here only he suddenly seemed to remember something alarming and troublesome, stopped, hastily fumbled for something in his side pocket and—smiled. Upon entering the enclosure he asked the first youth he met how to find Bishop Tikhon, who was living in retirement in the Monastery. The youth began bowing, and immediately showed the way. Near the little flight of steps, at the end of the long two-storied Monastery buildings, he was taken over from the youth, authoritatively and promptly, by a fat grey-haired monk, who took him through a long narrow corridor, also bowing all the time (though because of his fat he could not bow low, but only twitched his head frequently and abruptly), 21and all the time begging him to follow, though Nikolai Vsevolodovich followed without being told to. The monk asked questions incessantly

and spoke of the Father Archimandrite, but, receiving no answers, he became more and more deferential. Stavrogin observed that he was known here, although, so far as he remembered, he had only been here as a child. When they reached the door at the very end of the corridor the monk opened it, as if he had authority, and enquired familiarly of the lay-brother, who instantly appeared, whether they might go in; then, without waiting for a reply, he threw the door wide open, and, bending down, let the “dear” visitor enter. On receiving a gratuity he quickly disappeared, as if in flight. Nikolai Vsevolodovich entered a small room, and almost at that very moment there appeared in the door of the adjoining room a tall thin man, aged about fifty-five, in a simple cassock, looking rather ill, with a vague smile and with a strange, somewhat shy expression. This was that very Tikhon of whom Nikolai Vsevolodovich had heard for the first time from Shatov, and about whom he had since managed to collect in passing certain information.

The information was varied and contradictory, but there was something common to it all, 22namely, that those who liked Tikhon and those who did not like him (there were such) both kept back something of their opinion. Those who did not like him probably did it out of contempt for him; and his adherents, even the ardent ones, from a sort of modesty, as though wishing to conceal something about him—some weakness, some craziness perhaps. Nikolai Vsevolodovich had found out that Tikhon had been living in the Monastery for about six years, and that the humblest people as well as the most distinguished were in the habit of going to him there; that even in far-distant Petersburg he had ardent admirers amongst men, but chiefly among women. Again he had also heard from one stately-looking old man belonging to our “Club,” a pious old man too, this opinion, that “that Tikhon is almost a madman[4] and, undoubtedly, given to drink.” For my own part, I shall add, although this is anticipating, that the last statement is complete rubbish, but that

he is afflicted with a chronic rheumatic affection in his legs and suffers at times from nervous tremors. Nikolai Vsevolodovich also learnt that the Bishop who lived in retreat in the Monastery had not managed to inspire a particular respect 23for himself in the Monastery itself, either through weakness of character or through absentmindedness unforgivable and improper in one of his rank. It was also said that the Father Archimandrite, a stern man, conscientious in the discharge of his duties as Father Superior, and famous too for his scholarship, even cherished a certain hostility against him and condemned him (not to his face, but indirectly) for his slovenly mode of life, and almost accused him of heresy. The monks, too, treated the sick Bishop not exactly with neglect, but with a sort of familiarity. The two rooms which composed Tikhon’s cell were also rather strangely furnished. Side by side with clumsy old pieces of furniture, covered with shabby leather, were three or four elegant things: a superb easy-chair, a large writing-table of excellent workmanship, a daintily

carved bookcase, little tables, shelves, all of which had, of course, been given to him as presents. There was an expensive Bokhara carpet, and also mats. There were engravings of a “worldly” nature and of mythological subjects, and alongside with these in the corner there was a large shrine glittering with gold and silver icons, one of which was of very ancient date and contained relics. His library also, it was said, was of a too varied and contradictory character: side by 24side with the works of the great ecclesiastics and Christian Fathers there were works “of drama and fiction, and perhaps something even worse.”

After the first greetings, uttered with an evident awkwardness on both sides, hurriedly and even indistinctly, Tikhon led his visitor to his study, and, as if all the while in a hurry, made him sit on the sofa, in front of the table, and sat down himself nearby in a wicker chair.[5] To his surprise Nikolai Vsevolodovich was completely at a loss. It looked as if he was making up his mind with all his might on a step extraordinary and inevitable, and yet at the same time almost impossible for him. For a minute he looked about the study, evidently without seeing what he looked at;[6] he was thinking but, perhaps, without knowing of what. He was roused by the stillness, and suddenly it appeared to him that Tikhon cast down his eyes with a kind of shyness, with a quite unnecessary[7] smile. This instantly roused in him disgust and reaction; he wanted to get up and go; 25in his opinion, Tikhon was decidedly drunk. But the latter suddenly raised his eyes and looked at him with such a firm and thoughtful gaze, and at the same time with such an unexpected

and enigmatical expression, that he nearly shuddered. And now it suddenly seemed to him something absolutely different: that Tikhon already knew why he had come, that he was already warned (although nobody in the whole world could know the reason), and that if he did not speak first, it was because he was sparing his feelings, was afraid of his humiliation.

“Do you know me?” he suddenly asked abruptly. “Did I introduce myself when I came in or not? Pardon me, I am so absent-minded....”

“You did not introduce yourself, but I had the pleasure of seeing you once about four years ago, here in the Monastery ... by chance.”

Tikhon spoke unhurriedly and evenly, in a soft voice, pronouncing his words clearly and distinctly.

“I was not in this Monastery four years ago,” Nikolai Vsevolodovich replied with unnecessary rudeness. “I was here only as a child, when you were not yet here.”

“Perhaps you have forgotten?” Tikhon observed guardedly and without insisting upon it.

26“No, I have not forgotten; it would be ridiculous if I did not remember,” Stavrogin on his part insisted rather too hotly. “Perhaps you have merely heard about me and formed some idea, and thus made the mistake that you had seen me.”

Tikhon remained silent. Nikolai Vsevolodovich now noticed that a nervous shudder sometimes passed over his face, a symptom of chronic nervous exhaustion.

“I see only that you are not well to-day,” he said. “I think it would be better if I went.”

He even began to rise from his seat.

“Yes, to-day and yesterday I have had violent pains in my legs and I slept little during the night....”

Tikhon stopped. His visitor suddenly fell into a vague reverie. The silence lasted long, about two minutes.

“You were watching me?” he suddenly asked with anxiety and suspicion.

“I looked at you, and was reminded of the expression on your mother’s face. Externally unlike, there is much inner, spiritual resemblance.”

“There is no resemblance at all, certainly no spiritual—absolutely none!” Nikolai Vsevolodovich grew again uneasy for no reason and too persistent without knowing why. “You 27say this just ... out of pity for my state,”[8] he said without thinking. “Ah! does my mother come and see you?”

“She does.”

“I didn’t know. She never told me. Does she come often?”

“Nearly every month, sometimes oftener.”

“I never, never heard of that. I did not know.” He seemed terribly alarmed by that fact. “And she, of course, told you that I am mad,” he broke out again.

“No, not exactly that you are mad—though, I’ve heard that notion too, but from others.”

“You must have a very good memory, if you can remember such trifles. And did you hear about the slap in the face?”

“I heard something about that.”

“You mean everything. You must have a great deal of time on your hands. And about the duel too?”[9]

“And about the duel.”

“You don’t need newspapers here. Shatov warned you against me?”

“No, I know Mr. Shatov, though; but I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

28“Hm.... What’s that map you have got there? Ah, the map of the last war! What do you want with it?”

“I wanted to refer to it in reading this book. It’s a most interesting description.”

“Let me see. Yes, the account is not bad.[10] Yet what strange reading for you.”

He drew the book towards him and gave it a cursory glance. It was a full and able account of the circumstances of the last war, not so much from the military point of view, however, as from the purely literary. Having turned the book over, he suddenly put it down impatiently.

“I positively do not know why I came here,” he said with aversion, looking straight into Tikhon’s eyes, as though he expected him to reply.

“You, too, are not feeling well!”

“No, not altogether.”[11]

And suddenly he related, in the shortest and most abrupt manner so that certain words could hardly be understood, that he was subject, especially at nights, to a kind of hallucinations, that he sometimes saw or felt near him a spiteful being, mocking and “rational,” “in various forms and in various characters, but it 29is always one and the same and I always fly into a rage.”

Wild and confused were these revelations, as if indeed they came from a madman. And yet Nikolai Vsevolodovich spoke with such strange frankness, never seen in him before, with such a simplicity, quite unnatural to him, that it seemed as if suddenly and unexpectedly his former self had completely disappeared. He was not in the least ashamed of showing the fear with which he spoke of his apparition. But all this was momentary and went as suddenly as it had come.

“It’s all nonsense,” he said, drawing back with awkward irritation. “I’ll go and see a doctor.”

“You should, certainly,” Tikhon assented.

“You speak so confidently.... Have you seen people, like me, with such apparitions?”