ABSTRACT
In J. M. Coetzee’s novel The Master of Petersburg, there is a conversation between a fictional Dostoevsky and the former landlady of his deceased stepson, Pavel, as Dostoevsky is about to read Pavel’s diary:
LANDLADY: There is something I should warn you of, Fyodor Mikhailovich. Pavel made a certain cult of his father-of Alexander Isaev, I mean.
