Let us first of all try to picture Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky. His friend Riesenkampf delineates him as he was at twenty years of age, in 1841: “The face was rounded and full; the nose slightly retroussé; the hair light brown, worn short. A broad forehead, and beneath thin eyebrows, little grey eyes, set deep in the head. Pale cheeks, covered with freckles. A sickly, almost livid complexion, and very thick lips.” It is sometimes asserted that his first epileptic attacks occurred in Siberia; but he was a sick man even before sentence was passed on him, and the disease certainly made progress in Siberia. “A sickly complexion.” Dostoevsky had always had poor health. And yet he, weak and complaining, was singled out for military service while his robust brother was exempted. In 1841, that is, at twenty years of age, he was promoted non-commissioned officer, and then, in 1843, he took the examinations and was commissioned ensign. We learn that his officer’s pay amounted to 3,000 roubles, and although he had come into his share of the father’s fortune after the latter’s death, he led a free life, and had to take a younger brother in charge, consequently he was always falling into debt. This money question turns up again and again in his letters, much more urgently than in Balzac’s. It plays an extremely important part almost to the very end of his life, and it was not until the closing years that he was really freed from his financial worries. In his young days Dostoevsky indulged in every dissipation. He was assiduous at the play, at concerts, at the ballet. Not a care in the world! He chooses to rent a flat simply because he has taken a fancy to the landlord’s appearance. His servant robs him, and he finds entertainment in watching the pilfering continue. His mood changes abruptly, according as fortune smiles or frowns. Faced with his utter inability to steer a course in life, his family and friends are anxious to see him share quarters with Riesenkampf. “Take this real methodical German as your model,” they tell him. Riesenkampf, slightly older than Dostoevsky, was a physician, and came to settle down in Petersburg in the year 1843. At this moment, Dostoevsky has not a penny to his name. He is living on bread and milk--both unpaid for. “Fyodor is one of these people in whose company a man lives well, but who himself will remain a needy creature till the very end of his days.” They set up quarters together, but Dostoevsky proves himself impossible as a companion. He receives Riesenkampf’s patients in the waiting-room, and each time one of them appears needy, Dostoevsky succours him with Riesenkampf’s funds or with his own, when he _has_ any. One fine day he receives a thousand roubles from Moscow, the bulk of which sum is immediately employed in settling some debts; then, the very same evening, Dostoevsky gambles away the rest, at billiards, by his own account, and the following morning is obliged to borrow five roubles from his friend.