Netochka Nezvanova

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

He saw clearly that all his impetuosity, impatience and feverish haste amounted to nothing more than an unconscious despair at the memory of his squandered talent and that it was more than likely that this talent had never been anything very special, not even in the beginning, that there had been a great deal of blindness, of vain complacency and premature self-satisfaction, and of dreaming and fantasizing about his genius. ‘But,’ B. used to say, ‘I couldn’t help marvelling at my friend’s strange temperament. I saw before my own eyes a desperate, feverish contest taking place between a violently over-strained will and inner impotence. For seven miserable years he had contented himself with mere dreams of future fame, to the extent that he failed to notice how he was losing sight of what was essential to our art and was forgetting even the most elementary mechanics of the matter. And yet in the meantime the most colossal plans for the future were taking place in his disordered mind. Not only did he wish to become a first-rate genius, to be known as one of top violinists in the world – which, incidentally, he already considered himself – but on top of all of this he dreamed of becoming a composer, although he knew nothing about counterpoint. And what astonished me most,’ added B., ‘was that this man, with his complete impotence and totally inadequate knowledge of musical technique, had nevertheless such a deep and lucid – one might even say instinctive – understanding of art...