“Veteran European Russian” he chose to describe himself. I shall let Versilov of _A Raw Youth_ develop Dostoevsky’s idea this time! “The highest Russian thought is the reconciliation of ideas, and who in the whole world could understand such a thought at that time? I was a solitary wanderer: I am not speaking of myself personally--it’s the Russian idea I’m speaking of. There all was strife and logic; there the Frenchman was nothing but a Frenchman, the German nothing but a German, and this more intensely so than at any time in their history. Consequently never had the Frenchman done so much harm to France, or the German to Germany, as just at that time! In these days in all Europe there was not one European! I alone of all the vitriol-throwers could have told them to their face that their Tuileries was a mistake. And I alone among the avenging reactionists could have told them that the Tuileries, although a crime, was none the less logical. And that, my boy, was because I, as a Russian, was the only European in Russia. I am not talking of the whole Russian idea.... “Europe has created a noble type of Frenchman, of Englishman, and of German, but of the man of the future she scarcely knows at present. And, I fancy, so far she does not want to know. And that one can well imagine; they are not free, and we are free. I, with my Russian melancholy, was the only one free in Europe.... Take note, my dear, of a strange fact: every Frenchman can serve not only his France, but humanity, only on condition that he remains French to the utmost possible degree, and it’s the same for the Englishman and the German. Only to the Russian, even in our day, has been vouchsafed the capacity to become most of all Russian only when he is most European, and this is true even in our day, that is, long before the millennium has been reached.”[133] But, to offset this declaration and show how acutely conscious Dostoevsky was of the danger to any country in too marked europeanization, I must read you this remarkable passage from _The Possessed_: