I 4 ading en before the /as heads, ore me . I TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE A nw words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader to understand his work. Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hardworking and deeply religions people, but so poor that they lived with their five children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their evenings in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a serious character. Though always sickly and delicate Dostoevsky came out third in the final examination of the Petersburg school of Engineering. There he had already begun his first work, “ Poor Folk.” This story was published by the poet Nekrassov in his review and was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career seemed to open before him, but these hopes were soon dashed. In 1849 he was arrested. Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolu¬ tionist, Dostoevsky was one of a little group of young men who met together to read Fourier and Proudhon. He was accused of
- taking part in conversations against the censorship, of reading
a letter from Byelinsky to Gogol, and of knowing of the intention to set up a printing press.” Under Nicholas I. (that " stem and just man,” as Maurice Baring calls him) this was enough, and he was condemned to death. After eight months' imprison* ment he was with twenty-one others taken out to the Sem- yonovsky Square to be shot. Writing to his brother Mihail, Dostoevsky says : ” They snapped swords over our heads, and they made us put on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes, to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I concluded I had only a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and I contrived to kiss Pleetcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops Original from UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA Digitized by
