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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Varvara Timofeeva, a twenty-three-year-old proofreader with ties to the radical intelligentsia who worked with Dostoevsky while he was editor of The Citizen, described a remarkable conversation she had with the writer about the Gospels. Their exchange brings us to the core of Dostoevsky's thinking about Christianity:
“Well, and you still haven't told me just what your ideal is,” he began …
“There's only one ideal … for those who know the Gospels …”
“And do you know them?” he asked unbelievingly.
“I was very religious as a child and I read them constantly.”
“But since then, of course, you've grown up, gotten smarter, having been educated in the higher sciences and art …”
On the edges of his mouth appeared the “crooked” smile so familiar to me. But this time it didn't disturb me.
“Then,” I continued in the same tone, “under the influence of science my religiousness began to take different forms, but I always thought and still think that we have nothing better and higher than the Gospels!”
“But how do you understand the Gospels? After all, people interpret them variously. What do you think: what is the very essence of them?”
The question that he asked entered my mind for the first time ever. But now it was as if distant voices from the depths of my memory prompted an answer:
“The realization of the teachings of Christ on earth, in our life, in our conscience …”
“And is that all?” he went on in a disappointed tone.
I also thought that it was too little.
“No, there's more … Not everything ends here on earth. All this earthly life is only a step … to other existences …”
“To other worlds!” He said ecstatically, throwing his arms up toward the open window, in which could then be seen the beautiful, bright, transparent June sky.
“And what an amazing though also tragic task it is to tell this to people! … Amazing and tragic because there is a great deal of suffering here … Much suffering but on the other hand how much grandeur!”
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