The present collection represents, in miniature, the inner development of Dostoevskys later work. The stories here, with one exception, were written after Notes from Underground . And even that one exception, A Nasty Anecdote , written in 1862, may be described as verging on the underground. It is one of the broadest satires in Dostoevsky, and the most farcical of his scandalous feasts. The target of the satire is the spirit of reform that spread through Russia in the early years of the reign of the tsar-liberator Alexander II, who came to the throne in 1855. More specifically, the target is the festival of reconciliation that Dostoevsky himself had looked forward to even quite recently in his journalism. Here, when the wealthy liberal official Pralinsky, whose name in English as in Russian suggests the sweetness of praline, appears uninvited at the wedding party of his subordinate Pseldonymov, the festival actually takes place, with disastrous consequences. What erupts into Pralinsky-Dostoevskys dream of all people embracing morally is a world that Pralinsky has never known but that Dostoevsky knew quite wellthe world of wretchedly poor clerks and young nihilists, the underside of the bureaucracy of which Pralinsky and his fellow generals are the top, and along with that the world of carnival humor. Pralinsky wants to embrace morally while keeping his distance (Ill delicately give a reminder that they and I aredifferent, sirs. Earth and sky). He finds himself, however, in a very physical predicament: his first act is to step into a cooling galantine, and he ends with his face in the blancmange. No distances are respected; all distinctions break down. This is not the sort of union Pralinsky dreamed of. He gets drunk, and his great word, meant to bring all people together, the word humaneness, comes out as hu-humaneness. Instead of proving himself a statesman, he makes himself the subject of a nasty anecdote. The structure of the story is particularly effective: by postponing his account of Pseldonymovs life until the end, Dostoevsky leaves us with two monumental portraits, absolutely irreconcilable, standing side by side.
These portraits are still single, anecdotal figures. Their opposition is mainly social and external. In the underground, the divisions become internal and rivalry acquires a metaphysical dimension. This is shown clearly in The Eternal Husband , written in 1870. Dostoevsky said at the time, in a letter to his friend and editor N. Strakhov: I thought of writing this story four years ago, the year of my brothers death, in response to the words of Apollon Grigoriev, who praised my Notes from Underground and said to me then: That is how you should write. But this is not Notes from Underground , it is quite different in form, though the essence is the same, my usual essence, if only you, Nikolai Nikolaevich, will acknowledge that, as a writer, I have some particular essence of my own. The more spectacular ideological elements of Dostoevskys work, such as the polemical monologue of the man from underground or the poem of the Grand Inquisitor, which have drawn so much commentary from critics and philosophers, are entirely absent from The Eternal Husband . They are not of the essence, then. What is of the essence, of his usual essence, is the mechanism of metaphysical rivalry and deviated transcendence, which is portrayed here in its purest form, as a kind of duel, almost a prizefight, its rounds signaled by the ringing of bells.
There is a certain way in which the double makes his appearance in Dostoevskys work. Raskolnikov, in acute anguish at the end of the third part of Crime and Punishment , dreams that he is murdering the old woman again, but this time she does not die
but instead laughs wildly at him. Terrified, he attempts to cry out and wakes up:
He drew a deep breathyet, strangely, it was as if the dream were still going on: his door was wide open, and a man completely unknown to him was standing on the threshold, studying him intently.
Raskolnikov had not yet managed to open his eyes fully, and he instantly closed them again. He lay on his back without stirring. Is this the dream still going on, or not? he thought, and again imperceptibly parted his eyelashes a little: the stranger was standing in the same place and was still peering at him! Finally it became unbearable: Raskolnikov raised himself all at once and sat up on the sofa.
Speak, then. What do you want?
Ah, I just knew you were not asleep, but only pretending, the unknown man answered strangely, with a quiet laugh. Allow me to introduce myself: Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov.
Similarly, Ivan Karamazov finds himself in an inexplicable state of anguish as he approaches his fathers house:
Above all this anguish was vexing and annoyed him by the fact that it had some sort of accidental, completely external appearance; this he felt. Somewhere some being or object was standing and sticking up, just as when something sometimes sticks up in front of ones eyes and one doesnt notice it for a long time, being busy or in heated conversation, and meanwhile one is clearly annoyed, almost suffering, and at last it dawns on one to remove the offending object, often quite trifling and ridiculous, something left in the wrong place, a handkerchief dropped on the floor, a book not put back in the bookcase, or whatever. At last, in a very bad and irritated state of mind, Ivan Fyodorovich reached his fathers house, and suddenly, glancing at the gate from about fifty paces away, he at once realized what was tormenting and worrying him so.