Collection of Posthumous Articles, Vol. 2

K. belongs entirely to those strange personalities who developed on the margins of Peter’s Russia, especially after 1812, as a consequence of it, as its victims, and indirectly, as its outlet. These people were derailed from the general path, which was arduous and ugly, and never managed to find their own; they searched for it, and in this searching, they remained stalled. In this sacrificed rank, the features are quite varied. Not all of them resemble Onegin or Pechorin, nor are they all superfluous or idle people; there are also people who toiled and succeeded in nothing, failed people. A thousand times I have wanted to convey a series of unique figures, sharp portraits drawn from life, and I have involuntarily stopped, overwhelmed by the material. There is nothing herd-like or common about them; their stamp is unique. One general connection binds them, or rather, one common misfortune. Looking closely at the dark gray background, one sees soldiers under the rod, serfs under the birch, a suppressed groan expressed in faces, kibitkas traditional covered horse-drawn carriages rushing to Siberia, convicts trudging to the same place, shaved foreheads, branded faces, helmets, epaulets, plumes... in short, the Russia of St. Petersburg. They are miserable because of it, and they have the strength neither to digest it, nor to break free, nor to help the cause. They want to run off the canvas and cannot: there is no ground beneath their feet. They want to shout, but they have no tongue, and there is no ear that would listen.

It is no wonder that in this lost equilibrium, more eccentrics and oddballs developed than practically useful people, than tireless workers; that in their lives there was as much that was unsettled and insane as there was that was good and purely human.

K.’s father was an instrument maker. He was famous for his surgical instruments and his high integrity. He died early, leaving a large family in the hands of his widow and his affairs in complete disarray. By origin, he was, I believe, Swedish. It follows that there could be no talk of a true connection—that immediate connection with the people, which one absorbs with mother's milk, even in the master’s house. A society of foreign manufacturers, industrialists, craftsmen, and their masters constitutes a closed circle of life, separated by habits, interests, and everything in the world from both the upper and lower layers of Russian society. Often, this environment is, within its family life, far more moral and pure than the savage tyranny and cloistered debauchery of our merchant class, the sad and heavy drunkenness of the townspeople, or the narrow, dirty, and theft-based life of the bureaucrats. Yet, it is nonetheless completely alien to the surrounding world; it is foreign, imparting a different pli bent/character and different foundations from the very beginning.