416
JOSEPH FRANK
as Granovsky did with Herzen at approximately the same moment,
i~
quite clear even from the scanty evidence. In the article we have
been 'Citing on the supposed return of Christ, which is obviously one
~f'
the sources for the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, Dostoevsky
portrays Belinsky remarking to the third interlocutor: "I'm really
touched to look at him [i.e., Dostoevsky] ... every time I so much
as
make an allusion to Christ his whole face changes as if he wanted
to cry." The point of this remark is explained in a letter of May, 1871,
where Dostoevsky speaks more freely about these discussions than he
could do in public print. "That man [Belinsky]" he tells N. N. Strak–
hov, "insulted Christianity in my presence in the filthiest terms." A
more amiable reflection of these disputes may be seen in a fragment
of Belinsky's correspondence-an invitation he sent Dostoevsky
in
July, 1845. "Dostoevsky, my soul (immortal) thirsts to see you," he
writes pleasantly. This parenthetical interjection
is
certainly a playful
allusion to one of the key issues in their conversations.
III
To what extent Dostoevsky was shaken in his religious faith–
whether or not he literally became an atheist as a result of Belinsky's
objurgations-can only remain a matter for conjecture. The evidence
on this point is contradictory, and there is no way of coming to any
positive conclusion. On the one hand, we have Dostoevsky's own word
that he accepted "all" of Belinsky's teachings. On the other, we have
his general unreliability as to detail, the evidence of his conflict with
Belinsky over the figure of Christ, and the testimony of his friend
Dr. Janovsky, which there
is
no reason to reject, that he and Dostoev–
sky had fasted together for the Feast of the Ascension in 1847 and
1849.
Moreover, in trying to gauge Dostoevsky's state of mind on this
crucial issue, we must always remember that he was susceptible to
those nervous and emotional impressions which form the experiential
and pristine source of all religious faith. Dostoevsky was constantly
haunted by fear of death at this time, and especially by the fear, not
~o
much of actually being dead, as of being considered dead in a deep
sleep and buned alive. It is certainly no accident that, in
The House
of the Dead,
when he describes for the first time the triumph of
frenzied, irrational feeling over reason, he does so with the.image of a
man who,
buri~d
alive, hopelessly struggles to rise from his coffin.
