Dostoeffsky’s Characters

Not one of Dostoeffsky&s;s characters is at ease in the authors&s; world; in every case their sensibilities reach back to the fundamental problems of life. Dostoeffsky loves his creations only so long as they suffer, only so long as they manifest in a high degree the conflicting tendencies in his own life, so long as they are chaotic, so long as this primal disorder can shape itself into destiny. Dostoeffsky&s;s heroes, on the other hand, neither seek a contact with real life, nor ever find it; that is their peculiarity. These creatures of Dostoeffsky&s;s universe wish to drink at the fountain-head, not from the pipes and conduits in the streets of the authors&s; cities; they want to feel eternity, the infinite, within their hearts, and to escape the temporal. Dostoeffsky&s;s characters are the pathfinders into another world, his novels form the background to the mythus of the new men who are to be born of the Russian spirit.