The Insulted and the Injured

A

“A writer, a poet. It seems strange somehow.... When has a poet made his way in the world, risen to high rank? They’re only scribbling fellows after all, not to be relied upon.”

I noticed that such doubts and delicate questions presented themselves more frequently at dusk (how well I remember all these details and all that golden time!). Towards dusk my old friend always became nervous, susceptible and suspicious. Natasha and I knew that and were always prepared to laugh at it beforehand. I remember I tried to cheer him up by telling him tales of Sumarokov’s being made a general, of Derzhavin’s having been presented with a snuff-box full of gold pieces, of how the Empress herself had visited Lomonossov; I told him about Pushkin, about Gogol.

“I know, my boy, I know all that,” the old man replied, though perhaps it was the first time he had heard these stories. “Hm! Well, Vanya, anyway I’m glad your stuff isn’t poetry. Poetry is nonsense, my boy; don’t you argue, but believe an old man like me; I wish you nothing but good. It’s simple nonsense, idle waste of time ! It’s for schoolboys to write poetry ; poetry brings lots of you young fellows to the madhouse.... Granting Pushkin was a great man, who would deny it! Still, it’s all jingling verse and nothing else. Something in the ephemeral way.... Though indeed I have read very little of it.... Prose is a different matter. A prose writer may be instructive — he can say something about patriotism, for instance, or about virtue in general.... Yes! I don’t know how to express myself, my boy, but you understand me; I speak from love. But there, there, read!” he concluded with a certain air of patronage, when at last I had brought the book and we were all sitting at the round table after tea, “read us what you’ve scribbled; they’re making a great outcry about you! Let’s hear it! Let’s hear it!”

I opened the book and prepared to read. My novel had come from the printers only that day, and having at last got hold of a copy, I rushed round to read it to them.

How vexed and grieved I was that I could not read it to them before from the manuscript, which was in the printer’s hands! Natasha positively cried with vexation, she quarrelled and reproached me with letting other people read it before she had. ... But now at last we were sitting round the table. The old man assumed a particularly serious and critical expression. He wanted to judge it very, very strictly “to make sure for himself.” A

“The man’s praised,” she thought about me, “but there’s no knowing what for. An author, a poet.... But what is an author after all?”

Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:21 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.

The Insulted and the Injured, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Chapter VI

I read them my novel at one sitting. We began immediately after tea, and stayed up till two o’clock. The old man frowned at first. He was expecting something infinitely lofty, which might be beyond his comprehension, but must in any case be elevated. But, instead of that, he heard such commonplace, familiar things — precisely such as were always happening about him. And if only the hero had been a great or interesting man, or something historical like Roslavlev, or Yury Miloslavsky; instead of that he was described as a little, down-trodden, rather foolish clerk, with buttons missing from his uniform; and all this written in such simple language, exactly as we talk ourselves ... Strange! A

Natasha listened, cried, and squeezed my hand tight by stealth under the table. The reading was over. She got up, her cheeks were flushed, tears stood in her eyes. All at once she snatched my hand, kissed it, and ran out of the room. The father and mother looked at one another.

“Hm ! what an enthusiastic creature she is,” said the old man, struck by his daughter’s behaviour. “That’s nothing though, nothing, it’s a good thing, a generous impulse! She’s a good girl. . . .” he muttered, looking askance at his wife as though to justify Natasha and at the same time wanting to defend me too.

But though A

Natasha soon came back, gay and happy, and coming over to me gave me a sly pinch. The old man attempted to play the stern critic of my novel again, but in his joy he was carried away and could not keep up the part.

“Well, Vanya, my boy, it’s good, it’s good! You’ve comforted me, relieved my mind more than I expected. It’s not elevated, it’s not great, that’s evident. . . . Over there there lies the ‘Liberation of Moscow,’ it was written in Moscow, you know. Well, you can see in that from the first line, my boy, that the author, so to speak, soars like an eagle. But, do you know, Vanya, yours is somehow simpler, easier to understand. That’s why I like it, because it’s easier to understand. It’s more akin to us as it were; it’s as though it had all happened to me myself. And what’s the use of the high-flown stuff? I shouldn’t have understood it myself. I should have improved the language. I’m praising it, but say what you will, it’s not very refined. But there, it’s too late now, it’s printed, unless perhaps there’s a second edition? But I say, my boy, maybe it will go into a second edition I Then there’ll be money again I Hm!”