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"If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth."

The sentence of death had been read, last rites offered. Fyodor Dostoyevksy, 29, watched as fellow prisoners were tied to a stake, readied to be shot.

Then a messenger burst upon this scene, saying the Tsar had decided to spare their lives (as it turned out, the mock execution had been part of his punishment). When the pardon was announced, two of the prisoners went permanently insane; another went on to write Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov—two of the greatest novels in Western literature.

The experience was perhaps the most dramatic but not the only crisis of Dostoyevsky's mercurial life. Though a devout Christian, he was never a good one; though a brilliant writer, his works remain technically unpolished. And yet, his insights into the human heart—perhaps because his own heart was so troubled—remain some of the most profound in literature.

Dostoyevksy's father, a lecherous and cruel man (he was eventually murdered by his serfs), had marked out for him a career as a military engineer. But Dostoyevsky longed to take up the pen, and after completing his degree in 1843, he resigned his commission to commence his writing career.

His first novel, Poor Folk, won praise from Russian critics, who hailed him as the great new Russian talent. After the mock execution, Dostoyevsky was sent to a Siberian labor camp for four years for his involvement in "revolutionary activities." After his release, he wrote The House of the Dead, based on his brutal camp experiences. The novel initiated the Russian tradition of prison camp literature.

It was while in prison that Dostoyevsky suffered his first attacks of epilepsy, a condition that plagued him his whole life and that he described in his writings.

In the 1860s, Dostoyevsky edited (with his brother, Mikhail) two influential journals. In these journals, and in his 1864 Notes from the Underground, he increasingly distanced himself from utopian radicals (socialists and communists) who sought to abolish serfdom and corruption in the Tsarist government—in fact, the whole hierarchical nature of society—and usher in a better society.

In spite of his literary success, Dostoyevsky managed to bring his life to ruin. He had become addicted to gambling, and had lost all his own money and all that friends had loaned him. He fervently believed in a will to win: "In game of chance," he once wrote, "if one has perfect control of one's will … one cannot fail to overcome the brutality of chance."

Chance was brutal to Dostoyevsky, and in order to stave off his creditors, he signed an unjust contract with a conniving publisher who sought to exploit Dostoyevsky's situation and lack of discipline: Dostoyevsky was to finish a novel by a certain date, and if he failed, the publisher would retain all the rights to all of Dostoyevsky's published work.

Dostoyevsky characteristically delayed until it seemed too late. Less than a month remained when finally he employed an 18-year old stenographer, Anna Smitkina. After dictating to her day and night for three weeks, he delivered the manuscript, titled The Gambler, to his publisher and was saved. It was the discipline and encouragement of Anna that had made the difference, and Dostoyevsky knew it.

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