
STEVE KOGAN writes:
The issue of “women’s rights” was almost a century old when Nietzsche cut it to the quick with a five word response: “Feminism: the uglification of Europe.” For years, I found nothing to match its bite until I recently came across the following reminiscence in The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist from Contemporaries’ Memoirs and Rare Periodicals (1997). The account is taken from the memoirs of a Prince Vladimir Meshchersky (St. Petersburg, 1898), a friend of Tchaikowsky’s and the grandson of Nikolai Karamzin, the 18th and early 19th-century historian, whose volumes on Russian history became classics in their time:
At the parties I gave, Dostoevsky showed himself to be a charming person. He told his stories, and he displayed his wit and humor, as well as his unusual and original way of thinking. As a new person entered the room, however, Dostoevsky became silent for a moment and looked like a snail retreating into its shell, or like a silent and evil-looking pagan idol. And this lasted until the newcomer produced a good impression on him…. If the stranger engaged Dostoevsky in conversation, one generally heard him make some rude remark, or saw a sour look on his face.
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