The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. [The Macmillan Company, New York.]
Shatov was an incorrigible idealist, with a keen satirical ability to destroy his own ideals. He had made a god out of Verhovensky, the leading figure in Dostoevsky's The Possessed. Verhovensky was, he imagined, a god of selfish courage and supreme unconcern, the sort of man whom everybody followed involuntarily. Shatov knew that his hero had irreparably injured three women, one of them half-witted and defenseless. That did not bother the idealist at all; it was "in character." But when Verhovensky lied about it to avoid condemnation, Shatov hit him a savage blow on the cheek and brooded for weeks over the disappointment. The disappointment was deepened by the fact that Verhovensky did not kill him for the blow.
There is something characteristically Russian about that. It goes far to explain Russian pessimism, and give the key to this very book. Your Russian wants above all things to be logical. He will fasten upon an idea and enshrine it in his holy of holies. He will relentlessly follow the dictates of his idea though it lead him to insanity. There is greatness in his attitude, also absurdity. Witness Tolstoy. And when he recognizes his own absurdity he becomes gloomy and savage; there is no escape from the vanity of the world, the spirit, and himself.
I can imagine the mood of Dostoevsky when this book germinated in his mind. He saw this trait in the people about him, he felt it in himself. The intellectuals, each with his little theory, were steadily working towards--nothing at all. The government with its elaborate systems for economic improvement and individual repression, the revolutionary with his scheming insincerity and chaotic program, were equally futile. The women with their pathetic loves, the frivolous with their mad pursuit of amusement, the great and the small, the sycophant and the rebel, were all bitter failures. Suddenly it occurred to him--they are all mad in an insane world, each in his way, one no more than another. I will vent my disgust with these vermin in a book; I will show what they really are. Like the madman who carefully traces out his meaningless labyrinth, I will with the most painstaking psychology unravel their minds, and in so doing I will find my release and my fiendish joy. The only thing lacking in this madhouse is complete self-consciousness. That I will furnish.--And so Dostoevsky logically and nobly followed his idea to its insane conclusion.