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HABITS
A. G. Dostoyevskaya. Materials for F. M. Dostoevsky's
biography
Literary archives, Saint Petersburg, 1994, p.p. 229-246
Sometimes he would make knots on his handkerchiefs if he
wanted to remember something. He was fond of wearing narrow
silk neckties, straight, without a shirtfront, and tied the
bow himself. Formerly, in our early years, he used to wear
wide coloured ties and enjoyed a bright red colour. He used
to call the colour masaca. He loathed gray colour
and all indefinite colours in general. He wanted me to make
a gaudy green dress and would comment on my gray dresses saying
that such colour was used only for fence painting. Fyodor
Mikhailovich was extremely cleanly, he cleaned his clothes
before putting them on, and he cleaned them after having taken
them off before hanging into a closet. He used to smoke cigarettes
which he stuffed himself having mixed the two blends, "Caamru"
and "Mangubi Dives Medium" and "Laferme". When
he went somewhere he had been very busy the night before sorting
out his papers, apportioning them into different batches which
he signed as "current", "unimportant", etc., and he was very
concerned about the place where he would put his manuscript;
actually he calmed down only after having packed his small
suitcase. He would put there the following: a night shirt
and a shirt to wear in a daytime, stockings and clothes, his
neckties and gloves, shoes, an ashtray, his cigarette-cases
(with scissors, a knife, a brush and some newspapers inside).
And at the bottom he would put his cigarettes in a tin box,
his glass from Ems and various knick-knacks which he used
to bring us from his travels abroad. "Hush! Hush" , he shouted
in Staraya Russa when somebody made noise while he was sleeping.
When he was dictating he used to say "on another line", "colloquial",
"non-colloquial". He liked the exclamation mark and the question
mark to be put as close as possible to the word itself and
would always insist on that. He was very pleased when the
dictated was ready when he got up Before going to bed he used
to make the two-hours preparations, namely, made the children
seated, gave them something to drink, had his supper, checked
if the doors were all closed, cleaned his teeth, made his
gymnastic exercises, prayed, got the water, safety matches,
a candle and a clock ready, not far from his bed, remade his
bed and only after that he went to bed wrapping himself with
his head into a sheet and covering himself with two blankets,
cloth and flannelette, and putting over them, on his feet,
an old coat. He slept on his back, and if he slept on his
left side he coughed. There was nothing more difficult to
him than to start writing, to bestir himself. He wrote extremely
quickly. He made tea; first he rinsed the tea-pot with hot
water, then he added 3 teaspoonfuls of tea (always demanding
"his" spoon. It was called "daddy's spoon"), and filled up
just 1/3 of the tea-pot and put a napkin over it, then in
a three minutes or so he added water into the tea-pot and
covered it again. And he poured out the tea only after it
had been made.
Notes of A. G. Dostoyevskaya to F. M. Dostoevsky's works.
- L. P. Grossman. Seminary po Dostoyevskomy. Materialy,
bibliografia i kommentarii. M.-L., 1922, ss. 54-70.
- (L. P. Grossman. Workshop on F. M. Dostoevsky. Materials,
bibliography and comments).
Notes from the Dead House
"I may be wrong but it seems to me that you can know a man
by his laughter, and if you enjoy the laughter of somebody
who is a complete stranger when you first meet, then you can
say that the person is amiable". "Fyodor Mikhailovich used
to say: this is a kind man, he laughs well". Crime and
Punishment Why are you so dull, all of you?…say something!
Why should we just be sitting like that? Come on, speak! Let's
start talking… We came here and are keeping silent…. Come
on, say something!" "That's what Fyodor Mikhailovich used
to say when the family gathered at our place (his step-son,
his brother Nikolay Mikhailovich, his daughter-in-law and
nephews) and everybody was sitting silent". "- Why have you
stopped talking again? This is only me here who speaks!" "Only
Fyodor Mikhailovich speaks, and they do not keep up the conversation.
That always made Fyodor Mikhailovich angry". "Farewell , Rodya,
I mean, good –bye, I hate saying "farewell". Fyodor Mikhailovich
was always displeased when the people he loved used the word
"farewell" and he would always say: 'Why farewell? "Good-bye"
is better'". "I would like to tell you a few words" "Fyodor
Mikhailovich used this expression very often". The
Idiot "You've got such nice writing materials, quite
a lot of pencils, the paper is so thick, so good…" "Fyodor
Mikhailovich was fond of good writing materials and always
wrote his works on thick, good-quality paper with slightly
noticeable lines. He demanded from me to rewrite the text
he dictated on thick paper of definite format. He liked to
write with a sharp, hard pen. He almost didn't use pencils".
"You can say everything to a child". "The opinion often expressed
by Fyodor Mikhailovich and used by him when he talked to children.
"… She put …. into a thick, firmly bound book (she always
did so with her papers to find them as quickly as possible
when he needed them)" " A habit of Fyodor Mikhailovich. There
were always papers or urgent letters to be answered put into
his notebooks. He put papers of primary importance into the
New Testament which had been with him during his penal servitude".
"… I beat the Austrians time and again". "Fyodor Mikhailovich
often had disturbed dreams, with murders, fires and mainly
bloody battles. In his dreams he made battle schemes and for
some unknown reasons he would beat the Austrians". The
Eternal Husband "Veltchaninov complained… of losing
his memory". "All that happened to Fyodor Mikhailovich: he
used to forget the faces of the people he knew so that sometimes
he didn't remember even my brother whom he loved most sincerely.
His forgetfulness resulted in numerous enemies who were personally
insulted that he didn't recognize them. He completely forgot
the most recent events, however, he vividly remembered the
past and amazed his kinsfolk with his bright reminiscences".
"The coffin upholstered with velvet of masaca colour…" " Fyodor
Mikhailovich often mention the colour of "masaca", but never
could answer my questions about what kind of colour it was.
Most probably it was dark-violet, since coffins were then
upholstered mainly with dark-violet velvet. Generally, Fyodor
Mikhailovich could not distinguish colours well". The
Posessed " 'I love tea, he said,' at night' …"
" Fyodor Mikhailovich was fond of strong, almost like
beer, tea. The samovar was never taken from the dining-table
beginning from 12 o'clock in the afternoon. But he especially
loved tea at night when he was working".
"Sometimes he practiced fortune-telling using a book, he
opened it at random and read on the right page, at the top,
three lines". A habit of Fyodor Mikhailovich. But he read
only if something important happened in his life, and for
that purpose he used to open the New Testament that was always
on his desk. He asked me to open it and to read on his last
day. "A couple of papers were found, unimportant: an office
note, a title of some book and an old bill from a foreign
eating-house left whole in his pocket for some unknown reasons".
From his own experience Fyodor Mikhailovich used to keep in
his cigarette-case and purse the most unimportant receipts,
he simply forgot to throw them out. 'The well-known peasant
thin, half-wheat, delicious pan-cakes with hot fresh butter
atop". Fyodor Mikhailovich was very fond of such pan-cakes.
The Writer's Diary "I could never stand without
disgust the drunk people's debauch…." Fyodor Mikhailovich
felt really unhappy when at holiday nights he met a lot of
drunk men in the street. The rest of the evening he was in
low spirits. "In spite of my bad German…" Fyodor Mikhailovich
spoke German with difficulty, seeking for words, but if he
was filled with enthusiasm, and especially when he was angry,
one would wonder where he found such sarcastic and sophisticated
phrases. I can vividly remember an argument of Fyodor Mikhailovich
with an old German in the carriage who had impudently taken
my seat. I simply marveled at his knowledge of German. "…
I hate to nervous break-down to leave the steel pens not wiped".
Fyodor Mikhailovich was extremely tidy in his everyday life
and kept his steel pens clean. Fyodor Mikhailovich demanded
the same meticulous cleanness in his household. . "He is fond
of children… In Ems it even made him famous". Fyodor Mikhailovich
loved small children dearly, and when he was to live without
his family leaving for Ems he missed them and always welcomed
somebody else's children, played with them, bought them toys.
All that Fyodor Mikhailovich mentions in his letters to me.
"An amber cigar-holder". Fyodor Mikhailovich bought an amber
cigar-holder (to be exact, it was 3|4 meerschaum and 1\4 amber)
in Ems, he highly valued it and dreamed of seasoning the meerschaum.
The cigar-holder is kept in the family. The Karamazovs
Brothers "Now I'd appreciate to have some hot coffee".
Fyodor Mikhailovich was fond of drinking hot coffee in the
morning, the one that would boil in a coffee-pot. "Alyosha,
without any aforethought slyness began from that business
remark, meanwhile, an adult can not begin differently if he
needs to gain a child's confidence, especially that of a group
of children". A usual manner of Fyodor Mikhailovich when he
used speak to children. During his walks in Staraya Russa
Fyodor Mikhailovich often talked with unfamiliar children,
and the children would run up afterwards to him with their
questions; such was the confidence he had evoked in them.
".. It is well-known that a Russian boy is born together with
a horse". Fyodor Mikhailovich used to say so seeing how our
elder son Fedya loved horses and always asked his father about
them; the father would satisfy his curiosity gladly and with
lots of details. "One hundred and four sacred stories of the
Old and New Testaments". Fyodor Mikhailovich used the Bible
to learn reading. "… I love its sunset, its long, slanting
rays…""The long slanting rays of the setting sun" are often
met in the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich as the most favourite
hours of the day. " I was first endowed with some penetration
of the spiritual when I was but eight years old…" These are
personal recollections of Fyodor Mikhailovich concerning his
childhood. I heard it several times from him. Fyodor Mikhailovich
was glad when our children attended a public worship of Good
Friday. "Details, the main thing is details… "The favourite
expression of Fyodor Mikhailovich if he was interested in
something.
From "Memoirs of A. G. Dostoyevskaya":
The Gambler
Fyodor Mikhailovich was completely on the "gambler's" side
and used to say that he experienced much from his feelings
and expressions. He assured that one can have a strong character,
to prove it with one's life and nevertheless one can be not
enough strong to overcome the passion for roulette playing.
Uncle's Dream I was very displeased when Fyodor
Mikhailovich started to play "an old man trying to look younger
than his age". For hours he could speak the words and express
the thoughts of his character, an old prince from "Uncle's
Dream " He expressed extremely original and unexpected ideas,
spoke in a joyful and talented manner, but his stories of
a good-for-nothing old man trying to look younger than his
age always jarred upon me…
From the recollections of Pyotr Grigoryevich Kuznetsov.
–
Literary heritage.
From 1879 I served at the Dostoevskys' and assisted Anna
Grigoryevna in her book-selling activities. A. G. Dostoyevskaya
wrote in her recollections, "Selling books never took much
of my time: I was only to keep <account> books,
to put down orders and to write the accounts. I was recommended
the boy who had served at a book shop, and Pyotr, in spite
of his fifteen years of age, was doing quite well with the
purchase of books and their sending". The recollections of
Kuznetsov were written more than fifty years later after he
had worked at the Dostoevskys'.
Fyodor Mikhailovich got up at 1 o'clock in the afternoon,
he slept in his study. While he was washing himself and coughing,
his wife Anna Grigoryevna, his cook Matryona and the maid
Dunya, from Novgorod province, - Fyodor Mikhailovich used
to laugh at her now and then if he got up in a good mood,
"Dunya, you ploughed poorly" (instead of "sweep the floor"
she would say she "ploughed"); if he noticed that the floor
wasn't properly cleaned with a broom, F. M. shouted: "Dunya,
why have you ploughed the floor so poorly?". And the three
of them were to clean up and to air his study where he had
slept, so that everything was clean. After washing himself
he would put on his jacket, then came into the dining-room
and saw to the samovar to be on the table boiling, and would
never cover it with a cap. A tea-pot and a coffee-pot are
put on the table, whatever he wished; he makes tea himself
as follows: he puts a plenty of tea into the tea-pot, then
drinks absolutely black tea, or else he puts a few spoonfuls
of coffee and drinks it almost thick. He was fond of black
coffee without cream, very seldom he drank it with cream.
For breakfast they had Moscow dried rusks, big, strewed with
almonds, butter, cheese, sometimes smoked sig and rolls. Fyodor
Mikhailovich enjoyed a good dinner, he was very fond of hazel-hens,
he preferred game <...>
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