THE EMIGRANT
THE EMIGRANT
BY
L. F. DOSTOIEFFSKAYA
TRANSLATED BY
VERA MARGOLIES
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
STEPHEN GRAHAM
NEW YORK
BRENTANO’S
1916
“The Emigrant” (Emigranta), by L. F. Dostoieffskaya,a daughter of Dostoieffsky thenovelist, was published in 1913, and obtainedconsiderable success in Russia. It isa study of the life of a Russian girl (or shouldwe say woman? for she is not young) inItaly. It is a deeply interesting study ofcontemporary types. In truth, only twoRussians take part in the story, the heroand heroine, Prince Gzhatsky and Irene.But the long struggle which is portrayed is aRussian struggle.
These Russians, however, are not theRussians of Dostoieffsky’s time. They areclearly of to-day.
Pride in Russia, and in Russia’s might andwealth and brilliant future, was one of Irene’sgreatest joys. The Russian people seemed to herto be a race of chivalrous knights, ever ready to[vi]fight for truth and Christianity, and to defendthe weak and the persecuted. When the JapaneseWar broke out, she asked herself, with thesincerest astonishment, how such pitiful monkeysever could have declared war on such indomitableknights. She even pitied the Japanese for havingfallen victims to such madness! Her despairand suffering at the news of our first failures istherefore easy to imagine. None of Irene’snear relations were at the war, but each of ourlosses, nevertheless, found its echo in her heart,like a personal misfortune. Overwhelmed withgrief, she attached no importance either to theRussian revolution, or to the reforms that followed.Like all passionate idealists when their ideal isshattered, Irene rushed to the other extreme—thatof a profound contempt for Russia.
And it is in contempt of Russia that theheroine finds consolation in Italy, and iseven ready to throw over the OrthodoxChurch to which she belongs and enter aconvent of sœurs mauves.
The chief interest in the book is the conflictbetween the influence of a certain PèreEtienne and the influence of a compatriot ofhandsome looks and robust mind, PrinceGzhatsky. Irene is in a pension “teemingwith old maids.” She is herself forty and unmarried.[vii]She is apparently without near ofkin, and is lonely beyond words, but alsoselfish and extremely condemnatory in heroutlook. But she is vivacious, spontaneous,engaging, and always asking pertinent questions.
The high demands she made of her idealhero, the man she might marry, give one theidea that there is a certain amount of autobiographyin this volume, for no doubt idealsranged high in the home of Dostoieffsky. Itis strange, however, that the question ofselfishness and unselfishness does not arisein this enthralling study of an unsatisfiedsoul. Dostoieffsky himself was never tiredof a certain Gospel sentence, the thought ofwhich might have given calm to Irene:“Except a corn of wheat fall into the groundand die it abideth alone; but if it die itbringeth forth much fruit.” The whole book,however, has a haunting suggestion of Dostoieffsky—theghost of the fat