The first point to be noted about them is that they are all, for the most part, ultra-realists; but apparently we may search their writings in vain for the cheerfulness which at times illumines the pages of their English, or the light-hearted vivacity which sparkles in the pages of their French counterparts.  In Dostoievsky’s powerfully written Crime and Punishment all is gloom and horror; the hero of the tale is a madman and a murderer.  To a foreigner these authors seem to present the picture of a society oppressed with an all-pervading sense of the misery of existence, and with the impossibility of finding any means by which that misery can be alleviated.  In many instances, their lives—­and still more their deaths—­were as sad and depressing as their thoughts.  Several of their most noted authors died violent deaths.  At thirty-seven years of age the poet Pouchkine was killed in a duel, Lermontof met the same fate at the age of twenty-six.  Griboiedof was assassinated at the age of thirty-four.  But the most tragic history is that of Dostoievsky, albeit he lived to a green old age, and eventually died a natural death.  In 1849, he was connected with some political society, but he does not appear, even at that time, to have been a violent politician.  Nevertheless, he and his companions, after being kept for several months in close confinement, were condemned to death.  They were brought to the place of execution, but at the last moment, when the soldiers were about to fire, their sentences were commuted to exile.  Dostoievsky remained for some years in Siberia, but was eventually allowed to return to Russia.  The inhuman cruelty to which he had been subject naturally dominated his mind and inspired his pen for the remainder of his days.

De Voguee deals almost exclusively with the writings of Pouchkine, Gogol, Dostoievsky, Tourguenef, who was the inventor of the word Nihilism, and the mystic Tolstoy, who was the principal apostle of the doctrine.  All these, with the possible exception of Tourguenef, had one characteristic in common.  Their intellects were in a state of unstable equilibrium.  As poets, they could excite the enthusiasm of the masses, but as political guides they were mere Jack-o’-Lanterns, leading to the deadly swamp of despair.  Dostoievsky was in some respects the most interesting and also the most typical of the group.  De Voguee met him in his old age, and the account he gives of his appearance is most graphic.  His history could be read in his face.

On y lisait mieux que dans le livre, les souvenirs de la maison des morts, les longues habitudes d’effroi, de mefiance et de martyre.  Les paupieres, les levres, toutes les fibres de cette face tremblaient de tics nerveux.  Quand il s’animait de colere sur une idee, on eut jure qu’on avait deja vu cette tete sur les banes d’une cour criminelle, ou parmi les vagabonds qui mendient aux portes des prisons.  A d’autres moments, elle avait la mansuetude triste des vieux saints sur les images slavonnes.

And here is what De Voguee says of the writings of this semi-lunatic man of genius: