@infiniteb88ks: In 1868, Fyodor Dostoevsky became a father for the first time. He was 46. He had married Anna the year before. She was twenty, the stenographer he’d hired to dictate The Gambler against a deadline, and he proposed four months after they met. His creditors were closing in, so they left Russia for what was meant to be a few months abroad. It turned into four years. By the winter they were in Geneva, poor, pregnant, and happy. Sonya arrived in the early hours of February 22. Anna wrote that he had been praying in the next room, heard a strange cry, didn’t trust it, then heard it again and burst through the door to kneel by the bed and kiss her hands. What came next is what he’s apologising for in the letter. He wrote to everyone. He told his niece the baby looked absurdly like him. He sat by the cradle for hours. He sang to her, badly, and she listened. The friends who wrote back to congratulate him found it comical, the author of Crime and Punishment cooing over an infant, and he knew it. In May the weather turned fine and the doctor told them to take her out to sleep in the park by the lake. One afternoon the cold wind came down off the mountains. That night she had a fever. The doctor came every day and said she would be fine. Three hours before she died, he said she was better. Anna wrote later that she never saw such despair in him again. She was 21. She had lost her first child too. Six days later he wrote to Maikov, the one friend he could tell without being laughed at. He said he would be crucified to have her back. Then his wife was crying, and he let the subject go. People told him he would have other children. It is the only line in the letter where you can hear him flinch. Sixteen months later, in Dresden, Anna had a girl. They named her Lyubov. It’s the Russian word for love. If you’ve made it this far, thank you. And if you’re a lover of literature, follow us. We’re just getting started. #dostoevsky #letters #grief #fatherhood #BookTok

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Monday 19 October 2026 19:11:59 GMT