with open arms by the whole town, even if he had not been a writer. His novels, which were very much read in the provinces, increased the sympathy of the inhabitants of Semipalatinsk for him. My father, for his part, sought their friendship. The close intimacy in which he had been obliged to live with the convicts had cured him of his Lithuanian aloofness. He no longer felt any Lithuanian scorn for the ignorant Moscovites; he knew that lack of culture in the Russian is often combined with a heart of gold. He went into society, took part in the amusements of Semipalatinsk, and made himself beloved by the whole town. The joy of life filled his being. Whereas poor Durov went out like a candle and died shortly after his release, Dostoyevsky took up hfe at the point where he had left it at the moment of his condemnation. He hastened to resume amicable relations with his kinsfolk at Moscow and Petersburg.46 He generously forgave them for having forsaken him in his prison; in his joy at being at last free, he called his sisters, who had been so cold-hearted to him, " the angels." He wrote to his literary friends in Petersburg, sent for their works, and showed much interest in what they had been doing during " my death." He formed friendships with officers and soldiers of his regiment.47
46 My father was able to send his first letters to his brother MihaU, and receive a little money from him before his release, thanks to the kindness of the Commandant.
47 Dostoyevsky tells us later, in the journal, The Citizen, that he liked to read aloud to his comrades, the soldiers, in the evening when they were aU assembled in the barrack-room. He admits that these readings and the discussions that followed them gave him great pleasure.
On the occasion of the departure of one of his new friends, named Vatihanov, Dostoyevsky was photographed with him by the unskilful practitioner of Semi-palatinsk. To this circumstance we owe the only existing portrait of Dostoyevsky as a young man.
A few months after his release, Dostoyevsky met at Semipalatinsk a man of his own world, the young Baron Wrangel, who had come to Siberia on business connected with his ministry. He was a native of the Baltic Provinces, of Swedish descent, but completely russified, and a great admirer of my father's works. He proposed that they should live together, and Dostoyevsky accepted his offer. It is curious that each time Dostoyevsky agreed to live with a comrade, it should have been Avith Russians of European origin: Grigorovitch, a Frenchman, and Wrangel, a Swede. It is probable that my father could never have endured the semi-Oriental habits of the true Russians, who sleep all day after playing cards all night. He wanted a regular life with a well-bred companion, who would respect his hours of work and meditation. He was happy with young Wrangel. They spent the winter in the town, and in summer they rented a rustic dwelling in the form of a villa, and amused themselves by growing flowers, of which they were both very fond.
Later, Baron Wrangel changed his ministry, and devoted himself to diplomacy. He was our charge d'affaires in the Balkans, lived there a long time, and knew many remarkable people. Nevertheless, at the close of his life he dwelt solely upon his friendship with Dostoyevsky. My compatriots who knew him in his last post as Russian Consul at Dresden used to tell me that whenever a Russian made his acquaintance. Baron Wrangel would always begin by telling him that he had been the friend of the great Dostoyevsky, and describing their life together at Semipalatinsk. " It became a veritable mania," said the Russians naively. They would have understood his enthusiasm had its object been a Duke or a Marquis—but a writer ! That was not much to boast of. The Baltic noble was more intelligent and more civilised than my snobbish compatriots. In his old age, looking back on his career. Baron Wrangel realised that the most beautiful page of his life had been the friendship of the great writer, and his greatest service to humanity the few months of tranquillity his delicacy and refinement had secured for a suffering man of genius, neglected by his friends, who needed rest after the terrible trial he had undergone.
Baron Wrangel published his reminiscences of my father. He could not describe the intimate life of Dostoyevsky, for my father only spoke of this to his relatives or to friends of many years standing and of proved fidelity, but he gives an excellent account of the society of Semipalatinsk and of the part my father played in the little town. Baron Wrangel's reminiscences are the only record we possess of this period of Dostoyevsky's life.
IX
DOSTOYEVSKY'S FIRST MARRIAGE
The labour my father had to perform in prison was very hard, but it did him good by developing his body. He was no longer a sick creature, or an adolescent whose development had been arrested. He had become a man, and he longed for love. Any woman rather more adroit than the rustic beauties of Semipalatinsk could have won his heart. Such an one was to appear a few months after his release. But what a terrible woman fate had allotted to my poor father !
Among the officers of the Semipalatinsk regiment there was a certain Captain Issaieff, a good fellow not overburdened with brains. He was in wretched health, and had been given up by all the doctors in the town. He was charming to my father, and often invited him to his house. Maria Dmitrievna, his wife, received Dostoyevsky with much grace, and exerted herself to please him and to tame him. She knew that she would soon be a widow and would have no means beyond the meagre pension which the Russian Government gave to the widows of officers, a sum barely sufficient to feed her and her son, a boy of seven years old. Like a good woman of business, she was already looking about for a second husband. Dostoyevsky seemed to her the most eligible parti in the town; he was a writer of great talent, he had a rich aunt in Moscow, who had again begun to send him money from time to time. Maria Dmitrievna played the part of a poetic soul, misunderstood by the society of a small provincial town, and yearning for a kindred spirit, a mind as lofty as her own. She soon took possession of the ingenuous heart of my father, who, at the age of thirty-three, fell in love for the first time.
This sentimental friendship was suddenly interrupted. The captain was ordered to Kusnetzk, a little Siberian town where there was another regiment belonging to the same division as that of Semipalatinsk. He took away his wife and child, and died a few months afterwards at Kusnetzk of the phthisis from which he had long been suffering. Maria Dmitrievna wrote to announce her husband's death to Dostoyevsky, and kept up a lively correspondence with him. While waiting for the Government to grant her little pension she was living in great poverty, and complained bitterly to my father. Dostoyevsky sent her nearly all the money he received from his relatives. He pitied her sincerely and wished to help her, but his feeling for her was rather sympathy than love. Thus when Maria Dmitrievna wrote that she had found a suitor at Kusnetzk and was about to marry again, he rejoiced; far from being heartbroken, he was delighted to think that the poor woman had found a protector. He even made interest with his friends to procure for his rival some coveted appointment. In fact, Dostoyevsky did not look upon Maria Dmitrievna's future husband as a rival. At this period my father was not very sure that he should ever be able to marry, and considered himself in some degree an invahd. The epilepsy which had so long been latent in him began to declare itself. He had strange attacks, sudden convulsions which exhausted him and made him incapable of work. The regimental doctor who was treating him hesitated to diagnose the malady; it was not until much later that it was pronounced to be epilepsy. Meanwhile everybody—doctors, comrades, relatives, his friend Baron Wrangel, his brother Mihail—advised him not to marry, and Dostoyevsky resigned himself sadly to celibacy. He accepted the part of Prince Mishkin, who, though he loves Nastasia Philip-ovna, allows her to go away with Rogogin and keeps up amicable relations with his rival.
Meanwhile Maria Dmitrievna quarrelled with her lover, and left the town of Kusnetzk. She had at length received her pension, but this pittance was quite insufficient for a capricious, idle and ambitious woman. My father was now an officer, and she came back to her first idea of a marriage with him. In the letters she now wrote with increasing frequency, she exaggerated her poverty, declared that she was weary of the struggle, and threatened to put an end to herself and to her child. Dostoyevsky became very uneasy;
