Moscow
and at the military engineering academy at St Petersburg, which he left
in 1843 with the grade of sub-lieutenant. Next year his father died, and
he resigned his commission in order to devote himself to
literature--thus commencing a long struggle with ill-health and penury.
In addition to the old Russian masters Gogol and Pushkin, Balzac and
George Sand supplied him with literary ideals. He knew little of
Dickens, but his first story is thoroughly Dickensian in character. The
hero is a Russian "Tom Pinch," who entertains a pathetic, humble
adoration for a fair young girl, a solitary waif like himself.
Characteristically the Russian story ends in "tender gloom." The girl
marries a middle-aged man of property; the hero dies of a broken heart,
and his funeral is described in lamentable detail. The germ of all
Dostoievsky's imaginative work may be discovered here. The story was
submitted in manuscript to the Russian critic, Bielinski, and excited
his astonishment by its power over the emotions. It appeared in the
course of 1846 in the _Recueil de Saint-Petersbourg_, under the title of
"Poor People." An English version, _Poor Folk_, with an introduction by
Mr George Moore, appeared in 1894. The successful author became a
regular contributor of short tales to the _Annals of the Country_, a
monthly periodical conducted by Kraevsky; but he was wretchedly paid,
and his work, though revealing extraordinary power and intensity,
commonly lacks both finish and proportion. Poverty and physical
suffering robbed him of the joy of life and filled him with bitter
thoughts and morbid imaginings. During 1847 he became an enthusiastic
member of the revolutionary reunions of the political agitator,
Petrachevski. Many of the students and younger members did little more
than discuss the theories of Fourier and other economists at these
gatherings. Exaggerated reports were eventually carried to the police,
and on the 23rd of April 1849 Dostoievsky and his brother, with thirty
other suspected personages, were arrested. After a short examination by
the secret police they were lodged in the fortress of St Peter and St
Paul at St Petersburg, in which confinement Feodor wrote his story _A
Little Hero_. On the 22nd of December 1849 the accused were all
condemned to death and conveyed in vans to a large scaffold in the
Simonovsky Place. As the soldiers were preparing to carry out the
sentence, the prisoners were informed that their penalty was c