write a scathing and terrible satire on provincial society, where
every one almost without exception is represented as absolutely
selfish, absolutely conceited, and absolutely heartless. It is a study
of village gossip, a favourite subject for satirists in all languages.
In the middle of the book Dostoevski remarks: "Everybody in the
provinces lives as though he were under a bell of glass. It is
impossible for him to conceal anything whatever from his honourable
fellow-citizens. They know things about him of which he himself is
ignorant. The provincial, by his very nature, ought to be a very
profound psychologist. That is why I am sometimes honestly amazed to
meet in the provinces so few psychologists and so many imbeciles."

Never again did Dostoevski write a book containing so little of
himself, and so little of the native Russian element. Leaving out the
exaggeration, it might apply to almost any village in any country, and
instead of sympathy, it shows only scorn. The scheming mother, who
attempts to marry her beautiful daughter to a Prince rotten with
diseases, is a stock figure on the stage and in novels. The only truly
Russian personage is the young lover, weak-willed and irresolute, who
lives a coward in his own esteem.

This novel was immediately followed by another within the same year,
"Stepanchikovo Village," translated into English with the title "The
Friend of the Family." This has for its hero one of the most
remarkable of Dostoevski's characters, and yet one who infallibly
reminds us of Dickens's Pecksniff. The story is told in the first
person, and while it cannot by any stretch of language be called a
great book, it has one advantage over its author's works of genius, in
being interesting from the first page to the last. Both the uncle and
the nephew, who narrate the tale, are true Russian characters: they