Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I spoke ardently. Dostoyevsky looked at me in agitation. And do you seriously believe that she could sincerely fall in love with him and for life? He paused, hesitating. Put yourself in her place for a moment, he said with his voice trembling. – Imagine that that artist is myself, that I declared my love to you. Tell me, what would you say? Dostoyevsky’s face expressed so much agitation, such anguish of heart that I at last understood that it was not simply a literary discussion, and that I should be dealing a blow to his pride and amour-propre if I gave an evasive answer. I glanced at this agitated face, so dear to me, and said: I should answer that I love you and shall love you all my life.

Anna Dostoyevskaya.

Reminiscences. Moscow, 1981, p. 91

At the end of the novel, I noticed that my stenographer sincerely loves me, Dostoyevsky would say about the extraordinary circumstances of his marriage. Although she never said a word about it to me, I liked her more and more…. The difference in years is terrible… but I am more and more convinced that she will be happy. She has a heart, and she knows how to love.

Dostoyevsky ended the first letter to his young bride with the words: You are my future everything – hope, faith, happiness and bliss.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Anna Snitkina

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anna Dostoyevskaya. Correspondence/Compiled by Sergei Belov and Vladimir Tunimanov. Moscow, 1979, p. 5.

It always seems to me that I am extremely happy in having married Fedya, and that the bad moments are what I have to pay for my happiness. Bidding me good night Fedya said that he loved me boundlessly; that if he were told that he had got to have his head cut off for me he would submit readily, so much did he love me, and that he would never forget my kindness during those moments.

Anna Dostoyevskaya. Diary in 1867. P. 225.

Anya loves me, and I have never been so happy in my life as with her. She is meek, kind, smart, believes in me, and made me so attached to her with love that it seems that I would now die without her.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Anna Snitkina

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Letters. Vol. 2, p. 24.

… It is you I imagine and it is you I’m thinking of all the time. No, Anya, strong is my love for you! ... Kiss you countless times. Happy New Year, and may it bestow new happiness upon you. Pray for our cause, my angel. I will spare no effort… Yours entirely, your faithful, the most faithful and invariably yours. I do believe in you and trust that you are my future. You know, the farther the happiness, the more you appreciate it…