Pioneers of Nihilism 1897

Title : Pioneers of Nihilism 1897  
Author : Fred Whishaw
Source : Windsor Magazine
Year Published : 1898
Page Count : 7
Image Count : 3
Word Count : 3,778
File Size in MB : 3.8
File Type : PDF

"One cold night in the autumn of 1847 a party of fifteen young men, ranging in age from about twenty years to thirty-five, sat round a scantily furnished room up four flights of dark and evilly smelling stairs in a house in St. Petersburg. There were not nearly enough chairs for all, but those who were not accommodated with four-legged stools made themselves equally comfortable by lounging upon seats with no legs at all, such as the floor, Platonof’s trunk, and so on. The young fellows were engaged in a curious occupation. Seated at a table, upon which lay an open bundle of manuscript, was a dreamy youth of twenty-four or so, one Dostoiefsky, the author of the manuscript aforesaid, whose pages he turned over at intervals. Half lying upon the floor, with his back against the stove, reclined Petrachefsky, the president, reciting very dramatically, from memory, what appeared to be the contents of the MS.; for Dostoiefsky at the table followed the recitation, turning over the pages as the reciter glibly finished..."