Dostoevsky and his Micawber hope that 'something' will turn up

Dostoevsky and his wife referred to them selves as Mr and Mrs Micawber.

Wilkins Micawber is the fictional character of a clerk in Charles Dickens's 1850 novel, David Copperfield. He is traditionally identified with the optimistic belief that "something will turn up".

 Time and again Dostoevsky gambled, in the hope of a sudden change of fortune, but invariably lost, implored his wife’s forgiveness, and then returned to writing a novel in between debilitating epileptic fits. He wrote The Eternal Husband for money when he really wanted to work on something more ambitious, and then, after finishing it, did not have the money to post it.