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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-22 00:04:10 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-22 00:04:10 -0800 |
| commit | eddd5da4a0ba2b7c654d03745e531b396c86df64 (patch) | |
| tree | ab2a9a1db15a46314358f5a6ec58e3203c404b31 /67882-h | |
| parent | b0ab2617e9545d0d8243f0a01e8096ece3bfa574 (diff) | |
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, Parts I and II, by Aleexander Ivanovich Herzen</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, Parts I and II</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Aleexander Ivanovich Herzen</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Duff J. D.</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 20, 2022 [eBook #67882]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
- <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Carlos Colon, Barry Abrahamsen, the University of Michigan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDER HERZEN, PARTS I AND II ***</div>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic001'>
-<p><span class='small'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c000' />
-</div>
-<div>
- <h1 class='c001'>MEMOIRS OF<br />ALEXANDER HERZEN - Parts I and II</h1>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c000'>
- <div>══════</div>
- <div><span class='c002'>PUBLISHED ON THE FOUNDATION</span></div>
- <div><span class='c002'>ESTABLISHED IN MEMORY OF</span></div>
- <div><span class='c002'>THEODORE L. GLASGOW</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c003' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div><span class='c005'>THE MEMOIRS</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='c002'>OF</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='c005'>ALEXANDER HERZEN</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='c006'>PARTS I AND II</span></div>
- <div class='c004'>TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY</div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='c006'>J. D. DUFF</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='xsmall'>FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c007'> </p>
-<div class='figcenter id002'>
-<img src='images/publogo.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-</div>
-<p class='c008'> </p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c003'>
- <div>NEW HAVEN</div>
- <div>YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS</div>
- <div><span class='small'>LONDON · HUMPHREY MILFORD · OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS</span></div>
- <div>MCMXXIII</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c003'>
- <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_I'>I</span>COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS</div>
- <div>─────</div>
- <div>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c003' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c003'>
- <div>THE THEODORE L. GLASGOW MEMORIAL</div>
- <div>PUBLICATION FUND</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>The present volume is the seventh work published by the
-Yale University Press on the Theodore L. Glasgow Memorial
-Publication Fund. This foundation was established September
-17, 1918, by an anonymous gift to Yale University in memory
-of Flight Sub-Lieutenant Theodore L. Glasgow, R.N. He was
-born in Montreal, Canada, and was educated at the University
-of Toronto Schools and at the Royal Military College, Kingston.
-In August, 1916, he entered the Royal Naval Air Service and
-in July, 1917, went to France with the Tenth Squadron attached
-to the Twenty-second Wing of the Royal Flying Corps. A
-month later, August 19, 1917, he was killed in action on the
-Ypres front.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c003' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>PART ONE—NURSERY AND UNIVERSITY</div>
- <div class='c000'>1812-1834</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table0' summary=''>
-<colgroup>
-<col width='92%' />
-<col width='7%' />
-</colgroup>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter I.<br /> My Nurse and the <i>Grande Armeé</i>—Moscow in Flames—My Father and Napoleon—General Ilovaiski—A Journey with French Prisoners—Patriotism—Calot—Property Managed in Common—The Division—The Senator.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter II.<br /> Gossip of Nurses and Conversation of Generals—A False Position—Boredom—The Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons and Reading—Catechism and the Gospel.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter III.<br /> Death of Alexander I—The Fourteenth of December—Moral Awakening—Bouchot—My Cousin—N. Ogaryóv.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_62'>62</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter IV.<br /> My Friend Niko and the Sparrow Hills.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter V.<br /> Details of Home Life—Men of the Eighteenth Century in Russia—A Day at Home—Guests and Visitors—Sonnenberg—Servants.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter VI.<br /> The Kremlin Offices—Moscow University—The Chemist—The Cholera—Philaret—Passek.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_120'>120</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>Chapter VII.<br /> End of College Life—The “Schiller” Stage—Youth—The Artistic Life—Saint—Simonianism and N. Polevói—Polezháev.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c013'>
- <div>PART TWO—PRISON AND EXILE</div>
- <div class='c000'>1834-1838</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table1' summary=''>
-<colgroup>
-<col width='92%' />
-<col width='7%' />
-</colgroup>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter I.<br /> A Prophecy—Ogaryóv’s Arrest—The Fires—A Moscow Liberal—Mihail Orlóv—The Churchyard.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter II.<br /> Arrest—The Independent Witness—A Police-Station—Patriarchal Justice.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_214'>214</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter III.<br /> Under the Belfry—A Travelled Policeman—The Incendiaries.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter IV.<br /> The Krutitski Barracks—A Policeman’s Story—The Officers.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter V.<br /> The Enquiry—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn Junior—General Staal—The Sentence—Sokolovski.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_246'>246</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter VI.<br /> Exile—A Chief Constable—The Volga—Perm.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_265'>265</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter VII.<br /> Vyatka—The Office and Dinner-table of His Excellency—Tufáyev.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_283'>283</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter VIII.<br /> Officials—Siberian Governors—A Bird of Prey—A Gentle Judge—An Inspector Roasted—The Tatar—A Boy of the Female Sex—The Potato Revolt—Russian Justice.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_307'>307</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>Chapter IX.<br /> Alexander Vitberg.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_342'>342</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter X.<br /> The Crown Prince at Vyatka—The Fall of Tufáyev—Transferred to Vladímir—The Inspector’s Enquiry.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_360'>360</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td> </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c011'>Chapter XI.<br /> The Beginning of my Life at Vladímir.</td>
- <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_374'>374</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>INTRODUCTION</h2>
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>I</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_6_0_7 c015'>ALEXANDER HERZEN was born in Moscow on
-March 25,<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c016'><sup>[1]</sup></a> 1812, six months before Napoleon
-arrived at the gates of the city with what was left
-of his Grand Army. He died in Paris on January 9, 1870.
-Down to his thirty-fifth year he lived in Russia, often in
-places selected for his residence by the Government; he
-left Russia, never to return, on January 10, 1847.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>The dates given here are those of the Russian calendar.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was the elder son of Iván Yákovlev, a Russian noble,
-and Luise Haag, a German girl from Stuttgart. It was a
-runaway match; and as the Lutheran marriage ceremony
-was not supplemented in Russia, the child was illegitimate.
-“Herzen” was a name invented for him by his parents.
-Surnames, however, are little used in Russian society;
-and the boy would generally be called, from his own
-Christian name and his father’s, Alexander Ivánovich.
-His parents lived together in Moscow, and he lived with
-them and was brought up much like other sons of rich
-nobles. It was quite in Herzen’s power to lead a life of
-selfish ease and luxury; but he early chose a different path
-and followed it to the end. Yet this consistent champion
-of the poor and humble was himself a typical aristocrat-generous,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>indeed, and stoical in misfortune, but bold to
-rashness and proud as Lucifer.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The story of his early life is told fully in these pages—his
-solitary boyhood and romantic friendship with his
-cousin, Nikolai Ogaryóv; his keen enjoyment of College
-life, and the beginning of his long warfare with the police
-of that other aristocrat, Nicholas, Tsar of all the Russias,
-who was just as much in earnest as Herzen but kept a
-different object in view.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Charged with socialistic propaganda, Herzen spent nine
-months of 1834-1835 in a Moscow prison and was then
-sent, by way of punishment, to Vyatka. The exiles were
-often men of exceptional ability, and the Government
-made use of their talents. So Herzen was employed for
-three years in compiling statistics and organizing an exhibition
-at Vyatka. He was then allowed to move to Vladímir,
-near Moscow, where he edited the official gazette;
-and here, on May 9, 1838, he married his cousin, Natálya
-Zakhárin, a natural daughter of one of his uncles. Receiving
-permission in 1839 to live, under supervision of the
-police, where he pleased, he spent some time in Moscow
-and Petersburg, but he was again arrested on a charge of
-disaffection and sent off this time to Novgorod, where he
-served in the Government offices for nearly three years.
-In 1842 he was allowed to retire from his duties and to
-settle with his wife and family in Moscow. In 1846 his
-father’s death made him a rich man.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For twelve years past, Herzen, when he was not in
-prison, had lived the life of a ticket-of-leave man. He was
-naturally anxious to get away from Russia; but a passport
-was indispensable, and the Government would not give
-him a passport. At last the difficulties were overcome; and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>in the beginning of 1847 Herzen, with his wife and children
-and widowed mother, left Russia for ever.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Twenty-three years, almost to a day, remained for him
-to live. The first part of that time was spent in France,
-Italy, and Switzerland; but the suburbs of London, Putney
-and Primrose Hill, were his most permanent place of
-residence. He was safe there from the Russian police;
-but he did not like London. He spoke English very badly;<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c016'><sup>[2]</sup></a>
-he made few acquaintances there; and he writes with
-some asperity of the people and their habits.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span>Herzen is mentioned in letters of Mrs. Carlyle. She notes (1) that
-his English was unintelligible; and (2) that of all the exiles who came
-to Cheyne Walk he was the only one who had money.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>His own family party was soon broken up by death.
-In November, 1851, his mother and his little son, Nikolai
-(still called Kólya) were drowned in an accident to the
-boat which was bringing them from Marseilles to Nice,
-where Herzen and his wife were expecting them. The
-shock proved fatal to his wife: she died at Nice in the
-spring of 1852. The three surviving children were not of
-an age to be companions to him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For many years after the <i>coup d’état</i> of Louis Napoleon,
-Herzen, who owned a house in Paris, was forbidden to
-live in France. He settled in London and was joined there
-by Ogaryóv, the friend of his childhood. Together they
-started a printing press, in order to produce the kind of
-literature which Nicholas and his police were trying to
-stamp out in Russia. In 1857, after the death of the great
-Autocrat, they began to issue a fortnightly paper, called
-Kólokol (<i>The Bell</i>); and this <i>Bell</i>, probably inaudible in
-London, made an astonishing noise in Russia. Its circulation
-and influence there were unexampled: it is said that
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>the new Tsar, Alexander, was one of its regular readers.
-Alexander and Herzen had met long before, at Vyatka.
-February 19, 1861, when Alexander published the edict
-abolishing slavery throughout his dominions, must have
-been one of the brightest days in Herzen’s life. There was
-little brightness in the nine years that remained. When
-Poland revolted in 1863, he lost his subscribers and his
-popularity by his courageous refusal to echo the prevailing
-feeling of his countrymen; and he gave men inferior to
-himself, such as Ogaryóv and Bakúnin, too much influence
-over his journal.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was on a visit to Paris, when he died rather suddenly
-of inflammation of the lungs on January 9, 1870. At Nice
-there is a statue of Herzen on the grave where he and his
-wife are buried.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>II</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The collected Russian edition of Herzen’s works—no
-edition was permitted by the censorship till 1905—extends
-to seven thick volumes. These are: one volume of
-fiction; one of letters addressed to his future wife; two
-of memoirs; and three of what may be called political
-journalism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>About 1842 he began to publish articles on scientific
-and social subjects in magazines whose precarious activity
-was constantly interrupted or arrested by the censorship.
-His chief novel, <i>Who Was To Blame?</i> was written in 1846.
-From the time when he left Russia he was constantly
-writing on European politics and the shifting fortunes of
-the cause which he had at heart. When he was publishing
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span>his Russian newspapers in London, first <i>The Pole-Star</i>
-and then <i>The Bell</i>, he wrote most of the matter himself.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To readers who are not countrymen or contemporaries
-of Herzen’s, the <i>Memoirs</i> are certainly the most interesting
-part of his production. They paint for us an astonishing
-picture of Russian life under the grim rule of Nicholas,
-the life of the rich man in Moscow, and the life of the
-exile near the Ural Mountains; and they are crowded with
-figures and incidents which would be incredible if one
-were not convinced of the narrator’s veracity. Herzen is
-a supreme master of that superb instrument, the Russian
-language. With a force of intellect entirely out of Boswell’s
-reach, he has Boswell’s power of dramatic presentation:
-his characters, from the Tsar himself to the humblest
-old woman, live and move before you on the printed page.
-His satire is as keen as Heine’s, and he is much more in
-earnest. Nor has any writer more power to wring the heart
-by pictures of human suffering and endurance. The
-<i>Memoirs</i> have, indeed, one fault—that they are too discursive,
-and that successive episodes are not always clearly
-connected or well proportioned. But this is mainly due to
-the circumstances in which they were produced. Different
-parts were written at considerable intervals and published
-separately. The narrative is much more continuous in the
-earlier parts: indeed, Part V is merely a collection of
-fragments. But Herzen’s <i>Memoirs</i> are among the noblest
-monuments of Russian literature.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>III</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The <i>Memoirs</i>, called by Herzen himself <i>Past and
-Thoughts</i>, are divided into five Parts. This translation,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span>made six years ago from the Petersburg edition of 1913,
-contains Parts I and II. These were written in London in
-1852-1853, and printed in London, at 36 Regent’s Square,
-in the Russian journal called <i>The Pole-Star</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Part I has not, I believe, been translated into English
-before. A translation of Part II was published in London
-during the Crimean war;<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c016'><sup>[3]</sup></a> but this was evidently taken
-from a German version by someone whose knowledge of
-German was inadequate. The German translation of the
-<i>Memoirs</i> by Dr. Buek<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c016'><sup>[4]</sup></a> seems to me very good; but it is
-defective: whole chapters of the original are omitted without
-warning.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span><i>My Exile in Siberia</i>, by Alexander Herzen. (Hurst
-and Blackett, London, 1855). Herzen was not responsible for the
-misleading title, which caused him some annoyance.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span><i>Erinnerungen von Alexander Herzen</i>, by Dr. Otto
-Buek (Berlin, 1907).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>To make the narrative easier to follow, I have divided
-it up into numbered sections, which Herzen himself did
-not use. I have added a few footnotes.</p>
-<p class='c019'>June 5, 1923.</p>
-<div class='c020'><span class='sc'>J. D. Duff.</span></div>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c003' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c003'>
- <div><span class='large'>PART I</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='large'>NURSERY AND UNIVERSITY</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='large'>(1812-1834)</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c003' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER I</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>My Nurse and the <i>Grande Armée</i>—Moscow in Flames—My
-Father and Napoleon—General Ilovaiski—A Journey with
-French Prisoners—Patriotism—Calot—Property Managed in
-Common—The Division—The Senator.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>“OH, please, Nurse, tell me again how the French
-came to Moscow!” This was a constant petition
-of mine, as I stretched myself out in my crib
-with the cloth border to prevent my falling out, and
-nestled down under the warm quilt.</p>
-
-<p class='c017'>My old nurse, Vyéra Artamónovna, was just as eager
-to repeat her favourite story as I was to hear it; but her
-regular reply was: “You’ve heard that old story ever so
-often before, and besides it’s time for you to go to sleep;
-you had better rise earlier to-morrow.”</p>
-
-<p class='c017'>“Oh, but please tell me just a little—how you heard
-the news, and how it all began.”</p>
-
-<p class='c017'>“Well, it began this way. You know how your papa
-puts off always. The packing went on and on till at
-last it was done. Everyone said it was high time to be
-off; there was nothing to keep us and hardly a soul left in
-Moscow. But no! He was always discussing with your
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>uncle Paul<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c016'><sup>[5]</sup></a> about travelling together, and they were
-never both ready on the same day. But at last our things
-were packed, the carriage was ready, and the travellers
-had just sat down to lunch, when the head cook came
-into the dining-room as white as a sheet and reported
-that the enemy had entered the city at the Dragomirovsky
-Gate. Our hearts went down into our boots, and we
-prayed that the power of the Cross might be on our side.
-All was confusion, and, while we were bustling to and fro
-and crying out, suddenly we saw a regiment of dragoons
-galloping down the street; they wore strange helmets
-with horses’ tails tied on behind. They had closed all
-the city gates; so there was your papa in a pretty mess,
-and you with him! You were still with your foster-mother,
-Darya; you were very small and weak then.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>Paul Ivanovitch Golochvastov, who had married my father’s
-youngest sister.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>And I smiled, with pride and pleasure at the thought
-that I had taken a part in the Great War.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“At first, all went reasonably well, during the first days
-at least. From time to time two or three soldiers would
-come into the house and ask for something to drink; of
-course we gave them a glass apiece, and then they would
-go away and salute quite politely as well. But then, you
-see, when the fires began and got worse and worse, there
-was terrible disorder, and pillage began and every sort
-of horror. We were living in a wing of the Princess’s
-house, and the house caught fire. Then your uncle Paul
-invited us to move to his house, which was built of stone
-and very strong and stood far back in a court-yard. So
-we all set off, masters and servants together—there was
-no thought of distinctions at such a time. When we got
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>into the boulevard, the trees on each side were beginning
-to burn. At last we reached your uncle’s house, and it
-was actually blazing, with the fire spouting out of every
-window. Your uncle could not believe his eyes; he stood
-rooted to the ground.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Behind the house, as you know, there is a big garden,
-and we went there, hoping to be safe. We sat down sadly
-enough on some benches there were there, when suddenly
-a band of drunken soldiers came in and one of them
-began to strip your uncle of a fur coat he had put on for
-the journey. But the old gentleman resisted, and the
-soldier pulled out his dirk and struck him in the face;
-and your uncle kept the scar to his dying day. The other
-soldiers set upon us, and one of them snatched you from
-the arms of your foster-mother, and undid your clothes,
-to see if there were any notes or jewels hidden there;
-when he found nothing, the mean fellow tore the clothes
-on purpose and then left you alone.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“As soon as they had gone, a great misfortune happened.
-You remember our servant Platon, who was sent
-to serve in the Army? He was always fond of the bottle
-and had had too much to drink that day. He had got hold
-of a sword and was walking about with it tied round his
-waist. The day before the enemy came, Count Rostopchín
-distributed arms of all kinds to the people at the
-Arsenal, and Platon had provided himself with a sword.
-Towards evening, a dragoon rode into the court-yard and
-tried to take a horse that was standing near the stable;
-but Platon flew at him, caught hold of the bridle, and
-said: ‘The horse is ours; you shan’t have it.’ The dragoon
-pointed a pistol at him, but it can’t have been loaded.
-Your father saw what was happening and called out:
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>‘Leave that horse alone, Platon! Don’t you interfere.’
-But it was no good: Platon pulled out his sword and
-struck the soldier over the head; the man reeled under
-the blow, and Platon struck him again and again. We
-thought we were doomed now; for, if his comrades saw
-him, they would soon kill us. When the dragoon fell off,
-Platon caught hold of his legs and threw him into a lime-pit,
-though the poor wretch was still breathing; the man’s
-horse never moved but beat the ground with its hoof, as
-if it understood; our people shut it up in the stable, and
-it must have been burnt to death there.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We all cleared out of the court as soon as we could;
-the fires everywhere grew worse and worse. Tired and
-hungry, we went into a house that had not caught fire,
-and threw ourselves down to rest; but, before an hour
-had passed, our servants in the street were calling out:
-‘Come out! come out! Fire, fire!’ I took a piece of oil-cloth
-off the billiard table, to wrap you up from the night
-air. We got as far as the Tversky Square, and the Frenchmen
-were putting out the fires there, because one of their
-great generals was living in the Governor’s house in the
-square; we sat down as we were on the street; there were
-sentries moving all about and other soldiers on horseback.
-You were crying terribly; your foster-mother had no more
-milk, and none of us had even a piece of bread. But
-Natálya Konstantínovna was with us then, and she was
-afraid of nothing. She saw some soldiers eating in a
-corner; she took you in her arms and went straight off,
-and showed you to them. ‘The baby wants <i>manger</i>,’ she
-said. At first they looked angrily at her and said, ‘<i>Allez,
-allez!</i>’ Then she called them every bad name she could
-think of; and they did not understand a word, but they
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>laughed heartily and gave her some bread soaked in water
-for you and a crust for herself. Early next morning an
-officer came and collected all the men, and your father
-too, and took them off to put out the fires round about;
-he left the women only, and your uncle who had been
-wounded. We stayed there alone till evening; we just sat
-there and cried. But at dark your father came back, and
-an officer with him.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But allow me to take the place of my old nurse and to
-continue her story.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When my father had finished his duties as a fireman,
-he met a squadron of Italian cavalry near the Monastery
-of the Passion. He went up to the officer in command,
-spoke to him in Italian, and explained the plight of his
-family. When the Italian heard his native language—<i>la
-sua dolce favella</i>—he promised to speak to the Duc de
-Trévise,<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c016'><sup>[6]</sup></a> and to post a sentinel at once, in order to prevent
-a repetition of the wild scenes which had taken place
-in my uncle’s garden. He gave orders to this effect to an
-officer, and sent him off with my father. When he heard
-that none of the party had eaten any food for two days,
-the officer took us all off to a grocer’s shop; it had been
-wrecked and the floor was covered with choice tea and
-coffee, and heaps of dates, raisins, and almonds; our
-servants filled their pockets, and of dessert at least we
-had abundance. The sentinel proved to be of no little
-service: again and again, bands of soldiers were inclined
-to give trouble to the wretched party of women and servants,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>camping in a corner of the square; but an order
-from our protector made them pass on at once.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>Mortier (1768-1835), one of Napoleon’s marshals, bore
-this title.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mortier, who remembered having met my father in
-Paris, reported the facts to Napoleon, and Napoleon
-ordered him to be presented the next day. And so my
-father, a great stickler for propriety and the rules of
-etiquette, presented himself, at the Emperor’s summons,
-in the throne-room of the Kremlin, wearing an old blue
-shooting-jacket with brass buttons, no wig, boots which
-had not been cleaned for several days, grimy linen, and
-a beard of two days’ growth.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Their conversation—how often I heard it repeated!—is
-reproduced accurately enough in the French history
-of Baron Fain and the Russian history of Danilevski.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Napoleon began with those customary phrases, abrupt
-remarks, and laconic aphorisms to which it was the custom
-for thirty-five years to attribute some profound significance,
-until it was discovered that they generally
-meant very little. He then abused Rostopchín for the fires,
-and said it was mere vandalism; he declared, as always,
-that he loved peace above all things and that he was fighting
-England, not Russia; he claimed credit for having
-placed a guard over the Foundling Hospital and the Uspenski
-Cathedral; and he complained of the Emperor
-Alexander. “My desire for peace is kept from His Majesty
-by the people round him,” he said.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father remarked that it was rather the business of
-the conqueror to make proposals of peace.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I have done my best. I have sent messages to
-Kutúzov,<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c016'><sup>[7]</sup></a> but he will hear of no discussions whatever
-and does not acquaint his master with my proposals. I
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>am not to blame—if they want war they shall have it!”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span>The Russian commander-in-chief.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>When this play-acting was done, my father asked for
-a safe-conduct to leave Moscow.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I have ordered that no passes be given. Why do you
-want to go? What are you afraid of? I have ordered the
-markets to be opened.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Apparently the Emperor did not realise that, though
-open markets are a convenience, so is a shut house, and
-that to live in the open street among French soldiers was
-not an attractive prospect for a Russian gentleman and
-his family.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When my father pointed this out, Napoleon thought
-for a little and then asked abruptly:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Will you undertake to hand to the Tsar a letter from
-me? On that condition, I will order a pass to be made out
-for you and all your family.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I would accept Your Majesty’s proposal,” said my
-father, “but it is difficult for me to guarantee success.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Will you give me your word of honour, that you will
-use all possible means to deliver my letter with your own
-hands?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I pledge you my honour, Sir.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That is enough. I shall send for you. Is there anything
-you need?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Nothing, except a roof to shelter my family till we
-leave.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The Duc de Trévise will do what he can.” Mortier
-did in fact provide a room in the Governor’s palace, and
-ordered that we should be supplied with provisions; and
-his <i>maître d’hôtel</i> sent us wine as well. After several days
-Mortier summoned my father at four in the morning, and
-sent him off to the Kremlin.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>By this time the conflagration had spread to a frightful
-extent; the atmosphere, heated red-hot and darkened by
-smoke, was intolerable. Napoleon was dressed already
-and walking about the room, angry and uneasy; he was
-beginning to realise that his withered laurels would soon
-be frozen, and that a jest would not serve, as it had in
-Egypt, to get him out of this embarrassment. His plan
-of campaign was ill-conceived, and all except Napoleon
-knew it—Ney, Narbonne, Berthier, and even officers of
-no mark or position; to all criticisms his reply was the
-magic word “Moscow”; and, when he reached Moscow,
-he too discovered the truth.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When my father entered the room, Napoleon took a
-sealed letter from a table, gave it to him, and said by
-way of dismissal, “I rely upon your word of honour.”
-The address on the envelope ran thus: <i>À mon frère
-l’empereur Alexandre</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The safe-conduct given to my father is preserved to
-this day; it is signed by the Duc de Trévise and counter-signed
-below by Lesseps, chief of police at Moscow. Some
-strangers, hearing of our good fortune, begged my father
-to take them with him, under the pretext that they were
-servants or relations; and they joined our party. An open
-carriage was provided for my mother and nurse, and for
-my wounded uncle; the rest walked. A party of cavalry
-escorted us; when the rear of the Russian Army came in
-sight, they wished us good fortune and galloped back
-again to Moscow. The strange party of refugees was
-surrounded a moment later by Cossacks, who took us to
-head-quarters. The generals in command were Wintzengerode
-and Ilovaiski.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the former was told of the letter, he told my
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>father that he would send him at once, with two dragoons,
-to see the Tsar at Petersburg.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What is to become of your party?” asked the Cossack
-general, Ilovaiski; “They can’t possibly stay here, within
-rifle-shot of the troops; there may be some hot fighting
-any day.” My father asked that we might be sent, if
-possible, to his Yaroslavl estate; and he added that he
-was absolutely penniless at the time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That does not matter: we can settle accounts later,”
-said the General; “and don’t be uneasy: I give you my
-promise that they shall be sent.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While my father was sent off to Petersburg on a
-courier’s cart, Ilovaiski procured an old rattle-trap of a
-carriage for us, and sent us and a party of French prisoners
-to the next town, under an escort of Cossacks; he
-provided us with money for posting as far as Yaroslavl,
-and, in general, did all that he could for us in a time of
-war and confusion.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was my first long journey in Russia; my second
-was not attended by either French cavalry or Ural Cossacks
-or prisoners of war; the whole party consisted of
-myself and a drunk police-officer sitting beside me in the
-carriage.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My father was taken straight to Arakchéyev’s<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c016'><sup>[8]</sup></a> house
-and detained there. When the Minister asked for the
-letter, my father said that he had given his word of
-honour to deliver it in person. The Minister then promised
-to consult the Tsar, and informed him next day in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>writing, that he himself was commissioned by the Tsar
-to receive the letter and present it at once. For the letter
-he gave a receipt, which also has been preserved. For
-about a month my father was under arrest in Arakchéyev’s
-house; no friend might see him, and his only visitor
-was S. Shishkóv, whom the Tsar sent to ask for details
-about the burning of Moscow, the entry of the French,
-and the interview with Napoleon. No eye-witness of these
-events had reached Petersburg except my father. At last
-he was told that the Tsar ordered him to be set at liberty;
-he was excused, on the ground of necessity, for having
-accepted a safe-conduct from the French authorities; but
-he was ordered to leave Petersburg at once, without
-having communication with anyone, except that he was
-allowed to say good-bye to his elder brother.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span>This minister was the real ruler of Russia till the death
-of Alexander in 1825.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he reached at nightfall the little village where
-we were, my father found us in a peasant’s cottage;
-there was no manor-house on that estate. I was sleeping
-on a settle near the window; the window would not shut
-tight, and the snow, drifting through the crack, had
-covered part of a stool, and lay, without melting, on the
-window-sill.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All were in great distress and confusion, and especially
-my mother. One morning, some days before my father
-arrived, the head man of the village came hurriedly into
-the cottage where she was living, and made signs to her
-that she was to follow him. My mother could not speak
-a word of Russian at that time; she could only make out
-that the man was speaking of my uncle Paul; she did
-not know what to think; it came into her head that the
-people had murdered him or wished to murder first him
-and then her. She took me in her arms and followed the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>head man, more dead than alive, and shaking all over.
-She entered the cottage occupied by my uncle; he was
-actually dead, and his body lay near a table at which he
-had begun to shave; a stroke of paralysis had killed him
-instantly.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My mother was only seventeen then, and her feelings
-may be imagined. She was surrounded by half-savage
-bearded men, dressed in sheepskins and speaking a language
-to her utterly incomprehensible; she was living in
-a small, smoke-grimed peasant’s cottage; and it was the
-month of November in the terrible winter of 1812. My
-uncle had been her one support, and she spent days and
-nights in tears for his loss. But those “savages” pitied
-her with all their heart; their simple kindness never
-failed her, and their head man sent his son again and
-again to the town, to fetch raisins and gingerbread, apples
-and biscuits, to tempt her to eat.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Fifteen years later, this man was still living and sometimes
-paid us a visit at Moscow. The little hair he had
-left was then white as snow. My mother used to give him
-tea and talk over that winter of 1812; she reminded
-him how frightened she was of him, and how the pair of
-them, entirely unintelligible to one another, made the
-arrangements about my uncle’s funeral. The old man
-continued to call my mother Yulíza Ivánovna (her name
-was Luise); and he always boasted that I was quite
-willing to go to him and not in the least afraid of his
-long beard.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We travelled by stages to Tver and finally to Moscow,
-which we reached after about a year. At the same time,
-a brother of my father’s returned from Sweden and
-settled down in the same house with us. Formerly ambassador
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>in Westphalia, he had been sent on some mission
-to the court of Bernadotte.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I still remember dimly the traces of the great fire,
-which were visible even in the early twenties—big houses
-with the roof gone and window-frames burnt out, heaps
-of fallen masonry, empty spaces fenced off from the
-street, remnants of stoves and chimneys sticking up out
-of them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Stories of the Great Fire, the battle of Borodino, the
-crossing of the Berezina, and the taking of Paris—these
-took the place of cradle-song and fairy-tale to me, they
-were my Iliad and Odyssey. My mother and our servants,
-my father and my old nurse, were never tired of going
-back to that terrible time, which was still so recent and
-had been brought home to them so painfully. Later, our
-officers began to return from foreign service to Moscow.
-Men who had served in former days with my father in
-the Guards and had taken a glorious part in the fierce
-contest of the immediate past, were often at our house;
-and to them it was a relief from their toils and dangers
-to tell them over again. That was indeed the most brilliant
-epoch in the history of Petersburg: the consciousness
-of power breathed new life into Russia; business
-and care were, so to speak, put off till the sober morrow,
-and all the world was determined to make merry to-day
-and celebrate the victory.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At this time I heard even more than my old nurse could
-tell me about the war. I liked especially to listen to the
-stories of Count Milorádovitch;<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c016'><sup>[9]</sup></a> I often lay at his back
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>on the long sofa, while he described and acted scenes of
-the campaign, and his lively narrative and loud laugh
-were very attractive to me. More than once I fell asleep
-in that position.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span>Michael Milorádovitch (1770-1825), a famous commander who
-lost his life in suppressing the Decembrist revolution, December,
-1825.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>These surroundings naturally developed my patriotic
-feeling to an extreme degree, and I was resolved to enter
-the Army. But an exclusive feeling of nationality is never
-productive of good, and it landed me in the following
-scrape. One of our guests was Count Quinsonet, a French
-<i>émigré</i> and a general in the Russian army. An out-and-out
-royalist, he had been present at the famous dinner
-where the King’s Body-Guards trampled on the national
-cockade and Marie Antoinette drank confusion to the
-Revolution.<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c016'><sup>[10]</sup></a> He was now a grey-haired old man, tall and
-slight, a perfect gentleman and the pink of politeness. A
-peerage was awaiting him at Paris; he had been there
-already to congratulate Louis XVIII on his accession,
-and had returned to Russia to sell his estates. As ill luck
-would have it, I was present when this politest of generals
-in the Russian service began to speak about the war.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span>This dinner took place at Versailles, on October 1, 1789.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But you, surely, were fighting against us,” I said very
-innocently.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“<i>Non, mon petit, non! J’étais dans l’armée russe.</i>”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What!” said I, “you a Frenchman and fighting on our
-side! That’s impossible.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father gave me a reproving look and tried to talk
-of something else. But the Frenchman saved the situation
-nobly: he turned to my father and said, “I like to
-see such patriotic feeling.” But my father did not like to
-see it, and scolded me severely when our guest had gone.
-“You see what comes of rushing into things which you
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>don’t and can’t understand: the Count served <i>our</i> Emperor
-out of loyalty to <i>his own</i> sovereign.” That was, as
-my father said, beyond my powers of comprehension.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My father had lived twelve years abroad, and his brother
-still longer; and they tried to organise their household,
-to some extent, on a foreign plan; yet it was to retain
-all the conveniences of Russian life and not to cost much.
-This plan was not realised; perhaps their measures were
-unskilful, or perhaps the old traditions of Russian country
-life were too strong for habits acquired abroad. They
-shared their land in common and managed it jointly, and
-a swarm of servants inhabited the ground floor of their
-house in town; in fact, all the elements of disorder were
-present.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was under the charge of two nurses, one Russian and
-the other German. Vyéra Artamónovna and Mme. Provo
-were two very good-natured women, but I got weary of
-watching them all day, as they knitted stockings and
-wrangled together. So, whenever I could, I escaped to the
-part of the house occupied by the Senator—my uncle, the
-former ambassador, was now a Senator<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c016'><sup>[11]</sup></a> and was generally
-called by this title—and there I found my only
-friend, my uncle’s valet, Calot.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>The Senate was not a deliberative body but a Supreme
-Court of Justice.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have seldom met so kind and gentle a creature as
-this man. Utterly solitary in Russia, separated from all
-his own belongings, and hardly able to speak our language,
-he had a woman’s tenderness for me. I spent whole
-hours in his room, and, though I was often mischievous
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>and troublesome, he bore it all with a good-natured smile.
-He cut out all kinds of marvels for me in cardboard, and
-carved me many toys of wood; and how I loved him in
-return! In the evenings he used to take picture-books
-from the library and bring them up to my nursery—<i>The
-Travels</i> of Gmelin and Pallas, and another thick book
-called <i>The World in Pictures</i>, which I liked so much and
-looked at so long, that the leather binding got worn out:
-for two hours together Calot would show me the same
-pictures and repeat the same explanations for the thousandth
-time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Before my birthday party, Calot shut himself up in
-his room, and I could hear mysterious sounds of a hammer
-and other tools issuing from it. He often walked
-quickly through the passage, carrying a glue-pot or something
-wrapped up in paper, but each time he left his
-room locked. I knew he was preparing some surprise for
-me, and my curiosity may be imagined. I sent the servants’
-children to act as spies, but Calot was not to be
-caught napping. We even managed to make a small hole
-in the staircase, through which we could look down into
-the room; but we could see nothing but the top of the
-window and the portrait of Frederick the Great, with
-his long nose and a large star on his breast, looking
-like a sick vulture. At last the noises stopped, and the
-room was unlocked—but it looked just as before, except
-for snippings of gilt and coloured paper on the floor. I
-was devoured by curiosity; but Calot wore a pretence of
-solemnity on his features and never touched the ticklish
-subject.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was still suffering agonies of impatience when the
-great day arrived. I awoke at six, to wonder what Calot
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>had in store for me; at eight Calot himself appeared,
-wearing a white tie and white waistcoat under his blue
-livery, but his hands were empty! I wondered how it
-would all end, and whether he had spoilt what he was
-making. The day went on, and the usual presents were
-forthcoming: my aunt’s footman had brought me an expensive
-toy wrapped up in a napkin, and my uncle, the
-Senator, had been generous also, but I was too restless, in
-expectation of the surprise, to enjoy my happiness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then, when I was not thinking of it, after dinner or
-perhaps after tea, my nurse said to me: “Go downstairs
-for a moment, there is someone there asking for you.”
-“At last!” I thought, and down the bannisters I slid on
-my arms. The drawing-room door flew open; I heard
-music and saw a transparency representing my initials;
-then some little boys, disguised as Turks, offered me
-sweets; and this was followed by a puppet-show and
-parlour fireworks. Calot was very hot and very busy; he
-kept everything going and was quite as excited as I was
-myself.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>No presents could rank with this entertainment. I
-never cared much for <i>things</i>; the bump of acquisitiveness
-was never, at any age, highly developed in me. The satisfaction
-of my curiosity, the abundance of candles, the
-silver paper, the smell of gunpowder—nothing was wanting
-but a companion of my own age. But I spent all my
-childhood in solitude and consequently was not exacting
-on that score.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My father had another brother, the oldest of the three;
-but he was not even on speaking terms with his two
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>juniors. In spite of this, they all took a share in the management
-of the family property, which really meant that
-they combined to ruin it. This triple management by
-owners at variance with one another was the height of
-absurdity. Two of them were always thwarting their
-senior’s plans, and he did the same for them. The head
-men of the villages and the serfs were utterly bamboozled:
-one landlord required carts to convey his household, the
-second demanded hay, and the third, fire-wood; each of
-the three issued orders, and sent his man of business to
-see that they were carried out. If the eldest brother appointed
-a bailiff, the other two dismissed the man in a
-month on some absurd pretext, and appointed another,
-who was promptly disowned by their senior. As a natural
-result, there were spies and favourites, to carry slanders
-and false reports, while, at the bottom of this system, the
-wretched serfs, finding neither justice nor protection and
-harassed by a diversity of masters, were worked twice
-as hard and found it impossible to satisfy such unreasonable
-demands.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As a consequence of this quarrel between brothers, they
-lost a great lawsuit in which the law was on their side.
-Though their interests were identical, they could never
-settle on a common course of procedure, and their opponents
-naturally took advantage of this state of affairs.
-They lost a large and valuable property in this way; and
-the Court also condemned each brother to pay damages
-to the amount of 30,000 <i>roubles</i>. This lesson opened their
-eyes for the first time, and they determined to divide the
-family estates between them. Preliminary discussions
-went on for nearly a year; the land was divided into three
-fairly even parts, and chance was to decide to whom each
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>should fall. My father and the Senator paid a visit to
-their brother, whom they had not seen for several years,
-in order to talk things over and be reconciled; and then
-it was noised abroad that he would return the visit and
-the business would be finally settled on that occasion. The
-report of this visit spread uneasiness and dismay throughout
-our household.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My uncle was one of those monsters of eccentricity
-which only Russia and the conditions of Russian society
-can produce. A man of good natural parts, he spent his
-whole life in committing follies which often rose to the
-dignity of crimes. Though he was well educated after the
-French fashion and had read much, his time was spent
-in profligacy or mere idleness, and this went on till his
-death. In youth he served, like his brothers, in the Guards
-and was <i>aide-de-camp</i> in some capacity to Potemkin;<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c016'><sup>[12]</sup></a>
-next, he served on a diplomatic mission, and, on his return
-to Petersburg, was appointed to a post in the Ecclesiastical
-Court. But no association either with diplomatists
-or priests could tame that wild character. He was dismissed
-from his post, for quarrelling with the Bishops;
-and he was forbidden to reside in Petersburg, because
-he gave, or tried to give, a box on the ear to a guest at
-an official dinner given by the Governor of the city. He
-retired to his estate at Tambóv; and there he was nearly
-murdered by his serfs for interference with their daughters
-and for acts of cruelty; he owed his life to his coachman
-and the speed of his horses.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>Grigóri Potemkin (pronounce Pat-yóm-kin), b. 1736, d.
-1791; minister and favourite of the Empress Catherine.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>After this experience he settled in Moscow. Disowned
-by his relations and by people in general, he lived quite
-alone in a large house on the Tver Boulevard, bullying
-his servants in town and ruining his serfs in the country.
-He collected a large library and a whole harem of country
-girls, and kept both these departments under lock and
-key. Totally unoccupied and inordinately vain, he sought
-distraction in collecting things for which he had no use,
-and in litigation, which proved even more expensive. He
-carried on his lawsuits with passionate eagerness. One
-of these suits was about an Amati fiddle; it lasted thirty
-years, and he won it in the end. He won another case
-for the possession of a party-wall between two houses:
-it cost him extraordinary exertions, and he gained nothing
-by owning the wall. After his retirement, he used to follow
-in the Gazette the promotions of his contemporaries in
-the public service; and, whenever one of them received
-an Order, he bought the star and placed it on his table,
-as a painful reminder of the distinctions he might have
-gained.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His brothers and sisters feared him and had no intercourse
-with him of any kind; our servants would not walk
-past his house, for fear of meeting him, and turned pale
-at the sight of him; the women dreaded his insolent persecution,
-and the domestic servants had prayer offered in
-church that they might never serve him.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Such was the alarming character of our expected visitor.
-From early morning all the inmates of our house
-were keenly excited. I had never seen the black sheep
-myself, though I was born in his house, which was occupied
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>by my father on his return from foreign parts; I
-was very anxious to see him, and I was also afraid, though
-I don’t know what I was afraid of.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Other visitors came before him—my father’s oldest
-nephew, two intimate friends, and a lawyer, a stout good-natured
-man who perspired freely. For two hours they
-all sat in silent expectation, till at last the butler came in,
-and, with a voice that seemed somehow unnatural, announced
-the arrival of our kinsman. “Bring him in,” said
-the Senator, in obvious agitation; my father began to
-take snuff, the nephew straightened his tie, and the lawyer
-turned to one side and cleared his throat. I was told to
-go upstairs, but I remained in the next room, shaking all
-over.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The uncle advanced at a slow and dignified pace, and
-my father and the Senator went to meet him. He was
-carrying an <i>ikon</i><a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c016'><sup>[13]</sup></a> with both arms stretched out before
-him, in the way that <i>ikons</i> are carried at weddings and
-funerals; he turned towards his brothers and in a nasal
-drawl addressed them as follows:</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f13'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span>A sacred picture.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“This is the <i>ikon</i> with which our father blessed me on
-his deathbed, and he then charged me and my late brother,
-Peter, to take his place and care for you two. If our
-father could know how you have behaved to your elder
-brother....”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Come, <i>mon cher frère</i>,” said my father, in his voice
-of studied indifference, “you have little to boast about
-on that score yourself. These references to the past are
-painful for you and for us, and we had better drop them.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What do you mean? Did you invite me here for this?”
-shouted the pious brother, and he dashed the <i>ikon</i> down
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>with such violence that the silver frame rang loudly on
-the floor. Now the Senator began, and he shouted still
-louder; but at this point I rushed upstairs, just waiting
-long enough to see the nephew and the lawyer, as much
-alarmed as I was, beating a retreat to the balcony.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>What then took place, I cannot tell. The servants had
-all hid for safety and could give no information; and
-neither my father nor the Senator ever alluded to the
-scene in my presence. The noise grew less by degrees,
-and the division of the land was carried out, but whether
-then or later, I do not know.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>What fell to my father was Vasílevskoë, a large estate
-near Moscow. We spent all the following summer there;
-and during that time the Senator bought a house for himself
-in the Arbat quarter of Moscow, so that, when we returned
-alone to our big house, we found it empty and
-dead. Soon after, my father also bought a new house in
-Moscow.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the Senator left us, he took with him, in the first
-place, my friend Calot, and, in the second place, all that
-gave life in our establishment. He alone could check my
-father’s tendency to morbid depression, which now had
-room to develop and assert itself fully. Our new house
-was not cheerful: it reminded one of a prison or hospital.
-The ground-floor rooms were vaulted; the thick walls
-made the windows look like the embrasures of a fortress;
-and the house was surrounded on all sides by a uselessly
-large court-yard.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The real wonder was, not that the Senator left us, but
-that he was able to stay so long under one roof with my
-father. I have seldom seen two men more unlike in
-character.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>My uncle was a kind-hearted man, who loved movement
-and excitement. His whole life was spent in an
-artificial world, a world of diplomats and lords-in-waiting,
-and he never guessed that there is a different world which
-comes nearer to the reality of things. And yet he was not
-merely a spectator of all that happened between 1789 and
-1815, but was personally involved in that mighty drama.
-Count Vorontsov sent him to England, to learn from Lord
-Grenville what “General Buonaparte” was up to, after he
-left the army of Egypt. He was in Paris at the time of
-Napoleon’s coronation. In 1811 Napoleon ordered him to
-be detained and arrested at Cassel, where he was minister
-at the court of King Jérôme<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c016'><sup>[14]</sup></a>—“Emperor Jérôme,” as
-my father used to say when he was annoyed. In fact, he
-witnessed each scene of that tremendous spectacle; but,
-somehow, it seemed not to impress him in the right way.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f14'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span>Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860) was King of Westphalia from
-1807 to 1813.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>When captain in the Guards, he was sent on a mission
-to London. Paul, who was then Tsar, noticed this when
-he read the roster, and ordered that he should report himself
-at once in Petersburg. The attaché sailed by the first
-ship and appeared on parade.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you want to stay in London?” Paul asked in his
-hoarse voice.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“If Your Majesty is graciously pleased to allow it,”
-answered the captain.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Go back at once!” the hoarse voice replied; and the
-young officer sailed, without even seeing his family in
-Moscow.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While he served as ambassador, diplomatic questions
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>were settled by bayonets and cannon-balls; and his diplomatic
-career came to an end at the Congress of Vienna,
-that great field-day for all the diplomats of Europe. On
-his return to Russia, he was created a lord-in-waiting at
-Moscow—a capital which has no Court. Then he was
-elected to the Senate, though he knew nothing of law or
-Russian judicial procedure; he served on the Widows’
-and Orphans’ Board, and was a governor of hospitals and
-other public institutions. All these duties he performed
-with a zeal that was probably superfluous, a love of his
-own way that was certainly harmful, and an integrity
-that passed wholly unnoticed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was never to be found at home. He tired out a
-team of four strong horses every morning, and another
-in the afternoon. He never missed a meeting of the
-Senate; twice a week he attended the Widows’ Board;
-and there were also his hospitals and schools. Besides all
-this, he was never absent from the theatre when a French
-play was given, and he was driven to the English Club
-on three days of every week. He had no time to be bored—always
-busy with one of his many occupations, perpetually
-on the way to some engagement, and his life rolled
-along on easy springs in a world of files and official envelopes.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To the age of seventy, he kept the health of youth.
-He was always to be seen at every great ball or dinner;
-he figured at speech-days and meetings of public bodies;
-whatever their objects might be—agriculture or medicine,
-fire insurance or natural science—it was all one to him;
-and, besides all this (perhaps because of this), he kept
-to old age some measure of humanity and warmth of
-heart.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>It is impossible to conceive a greater contrast to all
-this than my father. My uncle was perpetually active and
-perpetually cheerful, an occasional visitor at his own
-house. But my father hardly ever went out-of-doors, hated
-all the world of official business, and was always hard to
-please and out of humour. We had our eight horses too,
-but our stable was a kind of hospital for cripples; my
-father kept them partly for the sake of appearance, and
-partly that the two coachmen and two postilions might
-have some other occupation, as well as going to fetch
-newspapers and arranging cock-fights, which last amusement
-they carried on with much success in the space between
-the coach-house and the neighbours’ yard.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father did not remain long in the public service.
-Brought up by a French tutor in the house of a pious
-aunt, he entered the Guards as a serjeant at sixteen and
-retired as a captain when Paul became Tsar. In 1801
-he went abroad and wandered about from one foreign
-country to another till the end of 1811. He returned to
-Russia with my mother three months before I was born;
-the year after the burning of Moscow he spent in the
-Government of Tver, and then settled down permanently
-in Moscow, where he led by choice a solitary and monotonous
-life. His brother’s lively temperament was distasteful
-to him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After the Senator had left it, the whole house assumed
-a more and more gloomy aspect. The walls, the furniture,
-the servants—every thing and person had a furtive and
-dissatisfied appearance; and of course my father himself
-was more dissatisfied than anyone else. The artificial stillness,
-the hushed voices and noiseless steps of the servants,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>were no sign of devotion, but of repression and fear.
-Nothing was ever moved in the rooms: the same books
-lay on the same tables, with the same markers in them,
-for five or six years together. In my father’s bedroom
-and study the furniture was never shifted and the windows
-never opened, not once in a twelvemonth. When he
-went to the country, he regularly took the key of his
-rooms in his pocket, lest the servants should take it into
-their heads to scour the floors or to clean the walls in
-his absence.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER II</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>Gossip of Nurses and Conversation of Generals—A False Position—Boredom—The
-Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons
-and Reading—Catechism and the Gospel.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>UNTIL I was ten, I noticed nothing strange or
-peculiar in my position.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c016'><sup>[15]</sup></a> To me it seemed simple
-and natural that I was living in my father’s
-house, where I had to be quiet in the rooms inhabited by
-him, though in my mother’s part of the house I could
-shout and make a noise to my heart’s content. The Senator
-gave me toys and spoilt me; Calot was my faithful
-slave; Vyéra Artamónovna bathed me, dressed me, and
-put me to bed; and Mme. Provo took me out for walks
-and spoke German to me. All went on with perfect regularity;
-and yet I began to feel puzzled.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f15'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>Herzen’s parents were never married with the Russian
-rites, and he bore throughout life a name which was not his father’s.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>My attention was caught by some casual remarks incautiously
-dropped. Old Mme. Provo and the household
-in general were devoted to my mother, but feared and
-disliked my father. The disputes which sometimes took
-place between my parents were often the subject of discussion
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>between my nurses, and they always took my
-mother’s side.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It was true that my mother’s life was no bed of roses.
-An exceedingly kind-hearted woman, but not strong-willed,
-she was utterly crushed by my father; and, as
-often happens with weak characters, she was apt to carry
-on a desperate opposition in matters of no importance.
-Unfortunately, in these trifles my father was almost
-always in the right, and so he triumphed in the end.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mme. Provo would start a conversation in this style:
-“In her place, I declare I would be off at once and go
-back to Germany. The dulness of the life is fit to kill
-one; no enjoyment and nothing but grumbling and unpleasantness.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You’re quite right,” said Vyéra Artamónovna; “but
-she’s tied hand and foot by someone”—and she would
-point her knitting-needles at me. “She can’t take him
-with her, and to leave him here alone in a house like ours
-would be too much even for one not his mother.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Children in general find out more than people think.
-They are easily put off, and forget for a time, but they
-persist in returning to the subject, especially if it is mysterious
-or alarming; and by their questions they get at
-the truth with surprising perseverance and ingenuity.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Once my curiosity was aroused, I soon learned all the
-details of my parents’ marriage—how my mother made
-up her mind to elope, how she was concealed in the Russian
-embassy at Cassel by my uncle’s connivance, and
-then crossed the frontier disguised as a boy; and all this
-I found out without asking a single question.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The first result of these discoveries was to lessen my
-attachment to my father, owing to the disputes of which
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>I have spoken already. I had witnessed them before, but
-had taken them as a matter of course. The whole household,
-not excluding the Senator, were afraid of my father,
-and he spared no one his reproofs; and I was so accustomed
-to this, that I saw nothing strange in these quarrels
-with my mother. But now I began to take a different view
-of the matter, and the thought that I was to some extent
-responsible threw a dark shadow sometimes over my
-childhood.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A second thought which took root in my mind at that
-time was this—that I was much less dependent on my
-father than most children are on their parents; and this
-independence, though it existed only in my own imagination,
-gave me pleasure.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Two or three years after this, two old brother-officers
-of my father’s were at our house one evening—General
-Essen, the Governor of Orenburg, and General Bakhmétyev,
-who lost a leg at Borodino and was later Lieutenant-Governor
-of Bessarabia. My room was next the drawing-room
-where they were sitting. My father happened to
-mention that he had been speaking to Prince Yusúpov
-with regard to my future; he wished me to enter the
-Civil Service. “There’s no time to lose,” he added; “as
-you know, he must serve a long time before he gets any
-decent post.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“It is a strange notion of yours,” said Essen good-humouredly,
-“to turn the boy into a clerk. Leave it to me;
-let me enroll him in the Ural Cossacks; he will soon get
-his commission, which is the main thing, and then he can
-forge ahead like the rest of us.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>But my father would not agree: he said that everything
-military was distasteful to him, that he hoped in time
-to get me a diplomatic post in some warm climate, where
-he would go himself to end his days.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Bakhmétyev had taken little part in the conversation;
-but now he got up on his crutches and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“In my opinion, you ought to think twice before you
-reject Essen’s advice. If you don’t fancy Orenburg, the
-boy can enlist here just as well. You and I are old friends,
-and I always speak my mind to you. You will do no good
-to the young man himself and no service to the country
-by sending him to the University and on to the Civil
-Service. He is clearly in a false position, and nothing but
-the Army can put that right and open up a career for
-him from the first. Any dangerous notions will settle down
-before he gets the command of a regiment. Discipline
-works wonders, and his future will depend on himself.
-You say that he’s clever; but you don’t suppose that all
-officers in the Army are fools? Think of yourself and me
-and our lot generally. There is only one possible objection—that
-he may have to serve some time before he gets
-his commission; but that’s the very point in which we
-can help you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This conversation was as valuable to me as the casual
-remarks of my nurses. I was now thirteen; and these
-lessons, which I turned over and over and pondered in my
-heart for weeks and months in complete solitude, bore
-their fruit. I had formerly dreamt, as boys always do,
-of military service and fine uniforms, and had nearly
-wept because my father wished to make a civilian of me;
-but this conversation at once cooled my enthusiasm, and
-by degrees—for it took time—I rooted out of my mind
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>every atom of my passion for stripes and epaulettes and
-aiguillettes. There was, it is true, one relapse, when a
-cousin, who was at school in Moscow and sometimes came
-to our house on holidays, got a commission in a cavalry
-regiment. After joining his regiment, he paid a visit to
-Moscow and stayed some days with us. My heart beat
-fast, when I saw him in all his finery, carrying his sabre
-and wearing the shako held at a becoming angle by the
-chin-strap. He was sixteen but not tall for his age; and
-next morning I put on his uniform, sabre, shako, and all,
-and looked at myself in the glass. How magnificent I
-seemed to myself, in the blue jacket with scarlet facings!
-What a contrast between this gorgeous finery and the
-plain cloth jacket and duck trousers which I wore at
-home!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My cousin’s visit weakened for a time the effect of
-what the generals had said; but, before long, circumstances
-gave me a fresh and final distaste for a soldier’s
-uniform.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By pondering over my “false position,” I was brought
-to much the same conclusions as by the talk of the two
-nurses. I felt less dependence on society (of which, however,
-I knew nothing), and I believed that I must rely
-mainly on my own efforts. I said to myself with childish
-arrogance that General Bakhmétyev and his brother-officers
-should hear of me some day.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In view of all this, it may be imagined what a weary
-and monotonous existence I led in the strange monastic
-seclusion of my home. There was no encouragement for
-me, and no variety; my father, who showed no fondness
-for me after I was ten, was almost always displeased
-with me; I had no companions. My teachers came and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>went; I saw them to the door, and then stole off to play
-with the servants’ children, which was strictly forbidden.
-At other times I wandered about the large gloomy rooms,
-where the windows were shut all day and the lights burnt
-dim in the evening; I either did nothing or read any
-books I could lay hands on.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My only other occupation I found in the servants’ hall
-and the maids’ room; they gave me real live pleasure.
-There I found perfect freedom; I took a side in disputes;
-together with my friends downstairs, I discussed their
-doings and gave my advice; and though I knew all their
-secrets, I never once betrayed them by a slip of the
-tongue in the drawing-room.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>This is a subject on which I must dwell for a little. I
-should say that I do not in general mean to avoid digressions
-and disquisitions; every conversation is full of them,
-and so is life itself.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As a rule, children are attached to servants. Parents,
-especially Russian parents, forbid this intimacy, but the
-children do not obey orders, because they are bored in
-the drawing-room and happy in the pantry. In this case,
-as in a thousand others, parents don’t know what they
-are doing. I find it impossible to imagine that our servants’
-hall was a worse place for children than our morning-room
-or smoking-room. It is true that children pick
-up coarse expressions and bad manners in the company
-of servants; but in the drawing-room they learn coarse
-ideas and bad feelings.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The mere order to keep at a distance from people with
-whom the children are in constant relations, is in itself
-revolting.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>Much is said in Russia about the profound immorality
-of servants, especially of serfs. It is true that they are
-not distinguished by exemplary strictness of conduct.
-Their low stage of moral development is proved by the
-mere fact that they put up with so much and protest so
-seldom. But that is not the question. I should like to know
-what class in Russia is less depraved than the servant
-class. Certainly not the nobles, nor the officials. The
-clergy, perhaps?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>What makes the reader laugh?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Possibly the peasants, but no others, might have some
-claim to superiority.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The difference between the class of nobles and the
-class of servants is not great. I hate, especially since the
-calamities of the year 1848, democrats who flatter the
-mob, but I hate still more aristocrats who slander the
-people. By representing those who serve them as profligate
-animals, slave-owners throw dust in the eyes of
-others and stifle the protests of their own consciences. In
-few cases are we better than the common people, but we
-express our feelings with more consideration, and we are
-cleverer at concealing selfish and evil passions; our desires
-are not so coarse or so obvious, owing to the easiness
-of satisfying them and the habitual absence of self-restraint;
-we are merely richer, better fed, and therefore
-more difficult to please. When Count Almaviva named to
-the barber of Seville all the qualifications he required in
-a servant, Figaro said with a sigh, “If a servant must
-possess all these merits, it will be hard to find masters
-who are fit for a servant’s place.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In Russia in general, moral corruption is not deep. It
-might truly enough be called savage, dirty, noisy, coarse,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>disorderly, shameless; but it is mainly on the surface.
-The clergy, in the concealment of their houses, eat and
-drink to excess with the merchant class. The nobles get
-drunk in the light of day, gamble recklessly, strike their
-men-servants and run after the maids, mismanage their
-affairs, and fail even worse as husbands and fathers. The
-official class are as bad in a dirtier way; they curry favour,
-besides, with their superiors and they are all petty thieves.
-The nobles do really steal less: they take openly what
-does not belong to them, though without prejudice to
-other methods, when circumstances are favourable.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All these amiable weaknesses occur in a coarser form
-among servants—that class of “officials” who are beneath
-the fourteenth grade—those “courtiers” who belong, not
-to the Tsar, but to the landowners.<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c016'><sup>[16]</sup></a> But how they, as
-a class, are worse than others, I have no idea.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f16'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span>In Russia civil-service officials (<i>chinóvniki</i>) are
-divided into fourteen classes. Nobles are called <i>dvoryáne</i>, and
-servants attached to a landowner’s house <i>dvoróvië</i>; Herzen plays
-on the likeness of the two names.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I run over my recollections on the subject—and
-for twenty-five years I was well acquainted, not only with
-our own servants, but with those of my uncle and several
-neighbours—I remember nothing specially vicious in
-their conduct. Petty thefts there were, no doubt; but it
-is hard to pass sentence in this case, because ordinary
-ideas are perverted by an unnatural status: the human
-chattel is on easy terms with the chattels that are inanimate,
-and shows no particular respect for his master’s
-property. One ought, in justice, to exclude exceptional
-cases—casual favourites, either men or women, who bask
-in their master’s smiles and carry tales against the rest;
-and besides, <i>their</i> behaviour is exemplary, for they never
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>get drunk in the daytime and never pawn their clothes at
-the public-house.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The misconduct of most servants is of a simple kind
-and turns on trifles—a glass of spirits or a bottle of beer,
-a chat over a pipe, absence from the house without leave,
-quarrels which sometimes proceed as far as blows, or
-deception of their master when he requires of them more
-than man can perform. They are as ignorant as the peasants
-but more sophisticated; and this, together with their
-servile condition, accounts for much that is perverted and
-distorted in their character; but, in spite of all this, they
-remain grown-up children, like the American negroes.
-Trifles make them laugh or weep; their desires are limited
-and deserve to be called simple and natural rather than
-vicious.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Spirits and tea, the public-house and the tea-shop—these
-are the invariable vices of a servant in Russia. For
-them he steals; because of them he is poor; for their sake
-he endures persecution and punishment and leaves his wife
-and children to beggary. Nothing is easier than to sit, like
-Father Matthew,<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c016'><sup>[17]</sup></a> in the seat of judgement and condemn
-drunkenness, while you are yourself intoxicated with sobriety;
-nothing simpler than to sit at your own tea-table
-and marvel at servants, because they <i>will</i> go to the tea-shop
-instead of drinking their tea at home, where it would
-cost them less.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f17'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span>An Irish priest who preached temperance in the middle of
-the nineteenth century.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Strong drink stupefies a man and makes it possible for
-him to forget; it gives him an artificial cheerfulness, an
-artificial excitement; and the pleasure of this state is increased
-by the low level of civilisation and the narrow
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>empty life to which these men are confined. A servant
-is a slave who may be sold, a slave condemned to perpetual
-service in the pantry and perpetual poverty: how
-can such a man do otherwise than drink? He drinks too
-much when he gets the chance, because he cannot drink
-every day; this was pointed out by Senkovsky in one of
-his books fifteen years ago. In Italy and the south of
-France, there are no drunkards, because there is abundance
-of wine. And the explanation of the savage
-drunkenness among English workmen is just the same.
-These men are broken in a hopeless and ill-matched
-struggle against hunger and beggary; after all their
-efforts, they have found everywhere a leaden vault above
-their heads, and a sullen opposition which has cast them
-down into the nether darkness of society and condemned
-them to a life of endless toil—toil without an object and
-equally destructive of mind and body. What wonder that
-such a man, after working six days as a lever or wheel or
-spring or screw, breaks out on Saturday night, like a
-savage, from the factory which is his prison, and drinks
-till he is dead drunk? His exhaustion shortens the process,
-and it is complete in half an hour. Moralists would do
-better to order “Scotch” or “Irish” for themselves, and
-hold their tongues; or else their inhuman philanthropy
-may evoke formidable replies.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To a servant, tea drunk in a tea-shop is quite a different
-thing. Tea at home is not really tea: everything there
-reminds him that he is a servant—the pantry is dirty,
-he has to put the <i>samovár</i><a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c016'><sup>[18]</sup></a> on the table himself, his cup
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>has lost its handle, his master’s bell may ring at any
-moment. In the tea-shop he is a free man, a master; the
-table is laid and the lamps lit for <i>him</i>; for <i>him</i> the waiter
-hurries in with the tray, the cups shine, and the teapot
-glitters; he gives orders, and other people obey him; he
-feels happy and calls boldly for some cheap caviare or
-pastry to eat with his tea.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f18'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>An urn with a central receptacle to hold hot charcoal:
-tea in Russia is regularly accompanied by a samovár.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>In all this there is more of childlike simplicity than of
-misconduct. Impressions take hold of them quickly but
-throw out no roots; their minds are continually occupied—if
-one can call it occupation—with casual objects,
-trifling desires, and petty aims. A childish belief in the
-marvellous turns a grown man into a coward, and the
-same belief consoles him in his darkest hours. I witnessed
-the death of several of my father’s servants, and I
-was astonished. One could see then that their whole life
-had been spent, like a child’s, without fears for the future,
-and that no great sins lay heavy on their souls; even if
-there had been anything of the kind, a few minutes with
-the priest were enough to put all to rights.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is on this resemblance between children and servants
-that their mutual attachment is based. Children resent
-the indulgent superiority of grown-up people; they
-are clever enough to understand that servants treat them
-with more respect and take them seriously. For this
-reason, they enjoy a game of bézique with the maids much
-more than with visitors. Visitors play out of indulgence
-and to amuse the child: they let him win, or tease him,
-and stop when they feel inclined; but the maid plays just
-as much for her own amusement; and thus the game gains
-in interest.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Servants have a very strong attachment to children;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>and this is not servility at all—it is a mutual alliance,
-with weakness and simplicity on both sides.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In former days there existed—it still exists in Turkey—a
-feudal bond of affection between the Russian landowner
-and his household servants. But the race of such
-servants, devoted to the family as a family, is now extinct
-with us. The reason of this is obvious. The landowner
-has ceased to believe in his own authority; he does
-not believe that he will answer, at the dreadful Day of
-Judgement, for his treatment of his people; and he abuses
-his power for his own advantage. The servant does not
-believe in his inferiority; he endures oppression, not as
-a punishment or trial inflicted by God, but merely because
-he is defenceless.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But I knew, in my young days, two or three specimens
-of that boundless loyalty which old gentlemen of seventy
-sometimes recall with a sigh: they speak of the wonderful
-zeal and devotion of their servants, but they never mention
-the return which they and their fathers made to that
-faithfulness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was Andréi Stepánov, whom I knew as a decrepit
-old man, spending his last days, on very short commons,
-on an estate belonging to my uncle, the Senator.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When my father and uncle were young men in the
-Army, he was their valet, a kind, honest, sober man, who
-guessed what his young masters wanted—and they wanted
-a good deal—by a mere look at their faces; I know this
-from themselves. Later he was in charge of an estate near
-Moscow. The war of 1812 cut him off at once from all
-communications; the village was burnt down, and he
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>lived on there alone and without money, and finally sold
-some wood, to save himself from starvation. When my
-uncle returned to Russia, he went into the estate accounts
-and discovered the sale of wood. Punishment followed:
-the man was disgraced and removed from his office,
-though he was old and burdened with a family. We often
-passed through the village where he lived and spent a day
-or two there; and the old man, now paralysed and walking
-on crutches, never failed to visit us, in order to make
-his bow to my father and talk to him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was deeply touched by the simple devotion of his
-language and by his miserable appearance; I remember
-the tufts of hair, between yellow and white, which covered
-both sides of his bare scalp.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“They tell me, Sir,” he said once to my father, “that
-your brother has received another Order. I am getting
-old, <i>bátyushka</i>, and shall soon give back my soul to God;
-but I wish God would suffer me to see your brother wearing
-his Order; just once before I die, I would like to see
-him with his ribbon and all his glory.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My eyes were on the old man, and everything about
-him showed that he was speaking the truth—his expression
-as frank as a child’s, his bent figure, his crooked face,
-dim eyes, and feeble voice. There was no falsehood or
-flattery there: he did really wish to see, once more before
-he died, the man who, for fourteen years, had never forgiven
-him for that wood! Should I call him a saint or a
-madman? Are there any who attain to sanctity, except
-madmen?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But this form of idolatry is unknown to the rising generation;
-and, if there are cases of serfs who refuse emancipation,
-it is due either to mere indolence or selfish considerations.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>This is a worse condition of things, I admit,
-but it brings us nearer the end. The serfs of to-day
-may wish to see something round their master’s neck;
-but you may feel sure that it is not the ribbon of any
-Order of Chivalry!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>This seems an opportunity to give some general account
-of the treatment shown to servants in our household.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Neither my father nor my uncle was specially tyrannical,
-at least in the way of corporal punishment. My
-uncle, being hot-tempered and impatient, was often rough
-and unjust to servants; but he thought so little about
-them and came in contact with them so seldom, that each
-side knew little of the other. My father wore them out
-by his fads: he could never pass over a look or a word
-or a movement without improving the occasion; and a
-Russian often resents this treatment more than blows or
-bad language.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Corporal punishment was almost unknown with us;
-and the two or three cases in which it was resorted to
-were so exceptional, that they formed the subject of conversation
-for whole months downstairs; it should also be
-said that the offences which provoked it were serious.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A commoner form of punishment was compulsory enlistment
-in the Army, which was intensely dreaded by
-all the young men-servants. They preferred to remain
-serfs, without family or kin, rather than carry the knapsack
-for twenty years. I was strongly affected by those
-horrible scenes: at the summons of the landowner, a file
-of military police would appear like thieves in the night
-and seize their victim without warning; the bailiff would
-explain that the master had given orders the night before
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>for the man to be sent to the recruiting office; and then
-the victim, through his tears, tried to strike an attitude,
-while the women wept, and all the people gave him presents,
-and I too gave what I could, very likely a sixpenny
-necktie.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I remember too an occasion when a village elder spent
-some money due from peasants to their master, and my
-father ordered his beard to be shaved off, by way of punishment.
-This form of penalty puzzled me, but I was impressed
-by the man’s appearance: he was sixty years old,
-and he wept profusely, bowing to the ground and offering
-to repay the money and a hundred <i>roubles</i> more, if only
-he might escape the shame of losing his beard.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While my uncle lived with us, there were regularly
-about sixty servants belonging to the house, of whom
-nearly half were women; but the married women might
-give all their time to their own families; there were five
-or six house-maids always employed, and laundry-maids,
-but the latter never came upstairs. To these must be
-added the boys and girls who were being taught housework,
-which meant that they were learning to be lazy
-and tell lies and drink spirits.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As a feature of those times, it will not, I think, be
-superfluous to say something of the wages paid to servants.
-They got five <i>roubles</i> a month, afterwards raised to
-six, for board-wages; women got a <i>rouble</i> less, and
-children over ten half the amount. The servants clubbed
-together for their food, and made no complaint of insufficiency,
-which proves that food cost wonderfully little.
-The highest wages paid were 100 <i>roubles</i> a year; others
-got fifty, and some thirty. Boys under eighteen got no
-wages. Then our servants were supplied with clothes,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>overcoats, shirts, sheets, coverlets, towels, and mattresses
-of sail-cloth; the boys who got no wages received a sum
-of money for the bath-house and to pay the priest in
-Lent—purification of body and soul was thus provided
-for. Taking everything into account, a servant cost about
-300 <i>roubles</i> a year; if we add his share of medical attendance
-and drugs and the articles of consumption which
-came in carts from the landlord’s estates in embarrassing
-amount, even then the figure will not be higher than 350
-<i>roubles</i>. In Paris or London a servant costs four times as
-much.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Slave-owners generally reckon “insurance” among the
-privileges of their slaves, <i>i.e.</i>, the wife and children are
-maintained by the master, and the slave himself, in old
-age, will get a bare pittance in some corner of the estate.
-Certainly this should be taken into account, but the value
-of it is considerably lessened by the constant fear of corporal
-punishment and the impossibility of rising higher
-in the social scale.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My own eyes have shown me beyond all doubt, how the
-horrible consciousness of their enslaved condition torments
-and poisons the existence of servants in Russia,
-how it oppresses and stupefies their minds. The peasants,
-especially those who pay <i>obrók</i>,<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c016'><sup>[19]</sup></a> are less conscious of
-personal want of freedom; it is possible for them not to
-believe, to some extent, in their complete slavery. But in
-the other case, when a man sits all day on a dirty bench
-in the pantry, or stands at a table holding a plate, there
-is no possible room for doubt.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f19'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span><i>Obrók</i> is money paid by a serf to his master in
-lieu of personal service; such a serf might carry on a trade or
-business of his own and was liable to no other burdens than the
-<i>obrók</i>.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>There are, of course, people who enjoy this life as if
-it were their native element; people whose mind has never
-been aroused from slumber, who have acquired a taste
-for their occupation, and perform its duties with a kind
-of artistic satisfaction.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Our old footman, Bakai, an exceedingly interesting
-character, was an instance of this kind. A tall man of
-athletic build, with large and dignified features, and an
-air of the profoundest reflexion, he lived to old age in the
-belief that a footman’s place is one of singular dignity.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This respectable old man was constantly out of temper
-or half-drunk, or both together. He idealised the duties
-of his office and attributed to them a solemn importance.
-He could lower the steps of a carriage with a peculiarly
-loud rattle; when he banged a carriage-door he made
-more noise than the report of a gun. He stood on the
-rumble surly and straight, and, every time that a hole in
-the road gave him a jolt, he called out to the coachman,
-“Easy there!” in a deep voice of displeasure, though the
-hole was by that time five yards behind the carriage.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His chief occupation, other than going out with the
-carriage, was self-imposed. It consisted in training the
-pantry-boys in the standard of manners demanded by
-the servants’ hall. As long as he was sober, this went well
-enough; but when he was affected by liquor, he was
-severe and exacting beyond belief. I sometimes tried to
-protect my young friends, but my authority had little
-weight with the Roman firmness of Bakai: he would open
-the door that led to the drawing-room, with the words:
-“This is not your place. I beg you will go, or I shall carry
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>you out.” Not a movement, not a word, on the part of
-the boys, did he let pass unrebuked; and he often accompanied
-his words with a smack on the head, or a painful
-fillip, which he inflicted by an ingenious and spring-like
-manipulation of his finger and thumb.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he had at last driven the boys from the room and
-was left alone, he transferred his attentions to his only
-friend, a large Newfoundland dog called Macbeth, whom
-he fed and brushed and petted and loved. After sitting
-alone for a few minutes, he would go down to the court-yard
-and invite Macbeth to join him in the pantry. Then
-he began to talk to his friend: “Foolish brute! What
-makes you sit outside in the frost, when there’s warmth
-in here? Well, what are you staring at? Can’t you
-answer?” and the questions were generally followed by
-a smack on the head. Macbeth occasionally growled at
-his benefactor; and then Bakai reproved him, with no
-weak fondness: “Do what you like for a dog, a dog it still
-remains: it shows its teeth at you, with never a thought
-of who you are. But for me, the fleas would eat you up!”
-And then, hurt by his friend’s ingratitude, he would take
-snuff angrily and throw what was left on his fingers at
-Macbeth’s nose. The dog would sneeze, make incredibly
-awkward attempts to get the snuff out of his eyes with
-his paw, rise in high dudgeon from the bench, and begin
-scratching at the door. Bakai opened the door and dismissed
-the dog with a kick and a final word of reproach.
-At this point the pantry-boys generally came back, and
-the sound of his knuckles on their heads began again.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We had another dog before Macbeth, a setter called
-Bertha. When she became very ill, Bakai put her on his
-bed and nursed her for some weeks. Early one morning
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>I went into the servants’ hall. Bakai tried to say something,
-but his voice broke and a large tear rolled down
-his cheek—the dog was dead. There is another fact for
-the student of human nature. I don’t at all suppose that
-he hated the pantry-boys either; but he had a surly temper
-which was made worse by drinking bad spirits and
-unconsciously affected by his surroundings.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Such men as Bakai hugged their chains, but there were
-others: there passes through my memory a sad procession
-of hopeless sufferers and martyrs. My uncle had a cook of
-remarkable skill in his business, a hard-working and sober
-man who made his way upwards. The Tsar had a famous
-French <i>chef</i> at the time and my uncle contrived to secure
-for his servant admission to the imperial kitchens. After
-this instruction, the man was engaged by the English
-Club at Moscow, made money, married, and lived like a
-gentleman; but, with the noose of serfdom still round
-his neck, he could never sleep easy or enjoy his position.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alexyéi—that was his name—at last plucked up courage,
-had prayers said to Our Lady of Iberia, and called
-on my uncle and offered 5,000 <i>roubles</i> for his freedom.
-But his master was proud of the cook as his property—he
-was proud of another man, a painter, for just the same
-reason—and therefore he refused the money, promising
-the cook to give him his freedom in his will, without any
-payment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was a frightful blow to the man. He became depressed;
-the expression of his features changed; his hair
-turned grey; and, being a Russian, he took to the bottle.
-He became careless about his work, and the English Club
-dismissed him. Then he was engaged by the Princess
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Trubetskoi, and she persecuted him by her petty meanness.
-Alexyéi was a lover of fine phrases; and once, when
-he was insulted by her beyond bearing, he drew himself
-up and said in his nasal voice, “What a stormy soul inhabits
-Your Serene Highness’s body!” The Princess was
-furious: she dismissed the man and wrote, as a Russian
-great lady would, to my uncle to complain of his servant.
-My uncle would rather have done nothing, but, out of
-politeness to the lady, he sent for the cook and scolded
-him, and told him to go and beg pardon of the Princess.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But, instead of going there, he went to the public-house.
-Within a year he was utterly ruined: all the money he had
-saved for his freedom was gone, and even his last kitchen-apron.
-He fought with his wife, and she with him, till at
-last she went into service as a nurse away from Moscow.
-Nothing was heard of him for a long time. At last a policeman
-brought him to our house, a wild and ragged
-figure. He had no place of abode and wandered from one
-drink-shop to another. The police had picked him up in
-the street and demanded that his master should take him
-in hand. My uncle was vexed and, perhaps, repentant:
-he received the man kindly enough and gave him a room
-to live in. Alexyéi went on drinking; when he was drunk,
-he was noisy and fancied he was writing poetry; and he
-really had some imaginative gift but no control over it.
-We were in the country at the time, and my uncle sent
-the man to us, fancying that my father would have some
-control over him. But the man was too far gone. His case
-revealed to me the concentrated ill-feeling and hatred
-which a serf cherishes in his heart against his masters:
-he gnashed his teeth as he spoke, and used gestures which,
-especially as coming from a cook, were ominous. My
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>presence did not prevent him from speaking freely; he
-was fond of me, and often patted my shoulder as he said,
-“This is a sound branch of a rotten tree!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When my uncle died, my father gave Alexyéi his freedom
-at once. But this was too late: it only meant washing
-our hands of him, and he simply vanished from sight.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>There was another victim of the system whom I cannot
-but recall together with Alexyéi. My uncle had a servant
-of thirty-five who acted as a clerk. My father’s oldest
-brother, who died in 1813, intending to start a cottage
-hospital, placed this man, Tolochanov, when he was a
-boy, with a doctor, in order to learn the business of a
-dresser. The doctor got permission for him to attend
-lectures at the College of Medicine; the young man
-showed ability, learned Latin and German, and practised
-with some success. When he was twenty-five, he fell in
-love with the daughter of an officer, concealed his position
-from her, and married her. The deception could not be
-kept up for long: my uncle died, and the wife was horrified
-to discover that she, as well as her husband, was a
-serf. The “Senator,” their new owner, put no pressure on
-them at all—he had a real affection for young Tolochanov—but
-the wife could not pardon the deception: she quarrelled
-with him and finally eloped with another man.
-Tolochanov must have been very fond of her: he fell into
-a state of depression which bordered on insanity; he spent
-his nights in drunken carouses, and, having no money of
-his own, made free with what belonged to his master.
-Then, when he saw he could not balance his accounts, he
-took poison, on the last day of the year 1821.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>My uncle was away from home. I was present when
-Tolochanov came into the room and told my father he
-had come to say good-bye; he also gave me a message
-for my uncle, that he had spent the missing money.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You’re drunk,” said my father; “go and sleep it off.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“My sleep will last a long time,” said the doctor; “I
-only ask you not to think ill of my memory.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The man’s composure frightened my father: he looked
-at him attentively and asked: “What’s the matter with
-you? Are you wandering?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No, Sir; I have only swallowed a dose of arsenic.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The doctor and police were summoned, milk and emetics
-were administered. When the vomiting began, he
-tried to keep it back and said: “You stop where you are!
-I did not swallow you, to bring you up again.” When the
-poison began to work more strongly, I heard his groans
-and the agonised voice in which he said again and again,
-“It burns, it burns like fire!” Someone advised that the
-priest should be sent for; but he refused, and told Calot
-that he knew <i>too much anatomy</i> to believe in a life beyond
-the grave. At twelve at night he spoke to the doctor: he
-asked the time, in German, and then said, “Time to wish
-you a Happy New Year!” and then he died.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the morning I went hastily to the little wing, used
-as a bath-house, where Tolochanov had been taken. The
-body was lying on a table in the attitude in which he died;
-he was wearing a coat, but the necktie had been removed
-and the chest was bare; the features were terribly distorted
-and even blackened. It was the first dead body I
-had ever seen; and I ran out, nearly fainting. The toys
-and picture-book which I had got as New Year’s presents
-could not comfort me: I still saw before me the blackened
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>features of Tolochanov, and heard his cry, “It burns like
-fire!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To end this sad subject, I shall say only one thing
-more: the society of servants had no really bad influence
-on me. On the contrary, it implanted in me, in early years,
-a rooted hatred for slavery and oppression in all their
-manifestations. When I had been naughty as a child and
-my nurse, Vyéra Artamónovna, wished to be very cutting,
-she used to say, “Wait a bit, and you will be exactly like
-the rest, when you grow up and become a master!” I felt
-this to be a grievous insult. Well, the old woman may rest
-in peace—whatever I became, I did not become “exactly
-like the rest.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I had one other distraction, as well as the servants’
-hall, and in this I met at least with no opposition. I loved
-reading as much as I disliked my lessons. Indeed, my
-passion for desultory reading was one of the main difficulties
-in the way of serious study. For example, I detested,
-then as now, the theoretical study of languages;
-but I was very quick in making out the meaning more
-or less and acquiring the rudiments of conversation; and
-there I stopped, because that was all I needed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father and my uncle had a fairly large library,
-consisting of French books of the eighteenth century.
-The books lay about in heaps in a damp unused room on
-the ground-floor of the house. Calot kept the key and I
-was free to rummage as much as I pleased in this literary
-lumber-room. I read and read with no interruptions. My
-father approved for two reasons: in the first place, I
-would learn French quicker; and besides I was kept occupied,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>sitting quietly in a corner. I must add that I did
-not display all the books I read openly on the table: some
-of them I kept secreted in a cupboard.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But what books did I read? Novels, of course, and
-plays. I read through fifteen volumes, each of which contained
-three or four plays, French or Russian. As well
-as French novels, my mother had novels by Auguste Lafontaine
-and Kotzebue’s comedies; and I read them all
-twice over. I cannot say that the novels had much effect
-on me. As boys do, I pounced on all the ambiguous passages
-and disorderly scenes, but they did not interest me
-specially. A far greater influence was exercised over my
-mind by a play which I loved passionately and read over
-twenty times, though it was in a Russian translation—<i>The
-Marriage of Figaro</i>. I was in love with Cherubino and
-the Countess; nay more, I myself was Cherubino; I felt
-strong emotion as I read it and was conscious of some new
-sensation which I could not at all understand. I was
-charmed with the scene where the page is dressed up as
-a woman, and passionately desired to have a ribbon
-belonging to someone, in order to hide it in my breast
-and kiss it when no one was looking. As a matter of fact,
-no female society came in my way at that age.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I only remember two school-girls who paid us occasional
-Sunday visits. The younger was sixteen and strikingly
-beautiful. I became confused whenever she entered
-the room; I never dared to address her, or to go beyond
-stolen glances at her beautiful dark eyes and dark curls.
-I never spoke a word of this to anyone, and my first love-pangs
-passed off unknown even to her who caused them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I met her years afterwards, my heart beat fast
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>and I remembered how I had worshipped her beauty at
-twelve years old.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I forgot to say that <i>Werther</i> interested me almost as
-much as <i>The Marriage of Figaro</i>; half of the story I
-could not understand and skipped, in my eagerness to
-reach the final catastrophe; but over that I wept quite
-wildly. When I was at Vladímir in 1839, the same book
-happened to come into my hands, and I told my wife how
-I used to cry over it as a boy. Then I began to read the
-last letters to her; and when I reached the familiar passage,
-the tears flowed fast and I had to stop.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I cannot say that my father put any special pressure
-upon me before I was fourteen; but the whole atmosphere
-of our house was stifling to a live young creature. Side by
-side with complete indifference about my moral welfare,
-an excessive degree of importance was attached to bodily
-health; and I was terribly worried by precautions against
-chills and unwholesome food, and the fuss that was made
-over a trifling cold in the head. In winter I was kept indoors
-for weeks at a time, and, if a drive was permitted,
-I had to wear warm boots, comforters, and so on. The
-rooms were kept unbearably hot with stoves. This treatment
-must have made me feeble and delicate, had I not
-inherited from my mother the toughest of constitutions.
-She, on her part, shared none of these prejudices, and
-in her part of the house I might do all the things which
-were forbidden when I was with my father.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Without rivalry and without encouragement or approval,
-my studies made little progress. For want of
-proper system and supervision, I took things easy and
-thought to dispense with hard work by means of memory
-and a lively imagination. My teachers too, as a matter
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>of course, were under no supervision; when once the fees
-were settled, provided they were punctual in coming to
-the house and leaving it, they might go on for years, without
-giving any account of what they were doing.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>One of the queerest incidents of my early education was
-when a French actor, Dalès, was invited to give me lessons
-in elocution.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“People pay no attention to it nowadays,” my father
-said to me, “but your brother Alexander practised <i>le recit
-de Théramène</i><a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c016'><sup>[20]</sup></a> every evening for six months with Aufraine,
-the actor, and never reached the perfection which
-his teacher desired.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f20'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span>From Racine’s <i>Phèdre</i>.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>So I began to learn elocution.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I suppose, M. Dalès,” my father once said to him,
-“you could give lessons in dancing too.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Dalès was a stout old gentleman of over sixty; with
-a profound consciousness of his own merits but an equally
-profound sense of modesty, he answered that he could
-not judge of his own talents, but that he often gave hints
-to the ballet-dancers at the Opera.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Just as I supposed,” remarked my father, offering
-him his snuff-box open—a favour he would never have
-shown to a Russian or German tutor. “I should be much
-obliged if you would make him dance a little after the
-declamation; he is so stiff.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“<i>Monsieur le comte peut disposer de moi.</i>”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And then my father, who was a passionate lover of
-Paris, began to recall the <i>foyer</i> of the Opera-house as
-it was in 1810, the <i>début</i> of Mlle. George and the later
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>years of Mlle. Mars,<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c016'><sup>[21]</sup></a> and asked many question about
-<i>cafés</i> and theatres.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f21'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>George (1787-1867) was the chief actress in tragedy, and
-Mars (1779-1847) the chief actress in comedy, on the Paris stage of
-their time.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>And now you must imagine my small room on a dismal
-winter evening, with the water running down the frozen
-windows over the sandbags, two tallow candles burning
-on the table, and us two face to face. On the stage
-Dalès spoke in a fairly natural voice, but, in giving a
-lesson, he thought himself bound to get away as far as
-possible from nature. He recited Racine in a sing-song
-voice, and made a parting, like the parting of an Englishman’s
-back hair, at the caesura of each line, so that
-every verse came out in two pieces like a broken stick.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Meanwhile he made the gestures of a man who has
-fallen into the water and cannot swim. He made me repeat
-each verse several times and constantly shook his
-head: “Not right at all! Listen to me! ‘<i>Je crains Dieu,
-cher Abner</i>’—now came the parting; he closed his eyes,
-shook his head slightly, and added, repelling the waves
-with a languid movement of the arm, ‘<i>et n’ai point d’autre
-crainte</i>.’”<a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c016'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f22'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. </span>From Racine’s <i>Athalie</i>.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then the old gentleman, who “feared nothing but God,”
-would look at his watch, put away his books, and take
-hold of a chair. This chair was my partner.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Is it surprising that I never learned to dance? These
-lessons did not last long: within a fortnight they were
-brought to an end by a very tragic event.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was at the theatre with my uncle, and the overture
-was played several times without the curtain rising. The
-front rows, wishing to show their familiarity with Paris
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>customs, began to make the noise which is made in Paris
-by the back rows only. A manager came out in front of
-the curtain; he bowed to the left, he bowed to the right,
-he bowed to the front, and then he said: “We ask for
-all the indulgence of the audience; a terrible misfortune
-has befallen us: Dalès, a member of our company,”—and
-here the manager’s speech was interrupted by genuine
-tears,—“has been found dead in his room, poisoned by
-the fumes from the stove.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Such were the forcible means by which the Russian
-system of ventilation delivered me from lessons in elocution,
-from spouting Racine, and from dancing a solo with
-the partner who boasted four legs carved in mahogany.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When I was twelve, I was transferred from the hands
-of women to those of men; and, about that time, my
-father made two unsuccessful attempts to put a German
-in charge of me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A German in charge of children” is neither a tutor
-nor a <i>dyádka</i><a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c016'><sup>[23]</sup></a>—it is quite a profession by itself. He does
-not teach or dress the children himself, but sees that they
-are dressed and taught; he watches over their health,
-takes them out for walks, and talks whatever nonsense
-he pleases, provided that it is in German. If there is a
-tutor in the house, the German is his inferior; but he
-takes precedence of the <i>dyádka</i>, if there is one. The visiting
-teachers, if they come late from unforeseen causes, or
-leave too early owing to circumstances beyond their control,
-are polite to the German; and, though quite uneducated,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>he begins to think himself a man of learning. The
-governesses make use of the German to do all sorts of
-errands for them, but never permit any attentions on his
-part, unless they suffer from positive deformity and see
-no prospect of any other admirers. When boys are fourteen
-they go off to the German’s room to smoke on the
-sly, and he allows it, because he needs powerful assistance
-if he is to keep his place. Indeed, the common practice
-is to dismiss him at this period, after thanking him in
-the presence of the boys and presenting him with a watch.
-If he is tired of taking children out and receiving reprimands
-when they catch cold or stain their clothes, then
-the “German in charge of children” becomes a German
-without qualification: he starts a small shop where he
-sells amber mouth-pieces, eau-de-cologne, and cigars to
-his former charges, and performs secret services for them
-of another kind.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f23'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. </span>A <i>dyádka</i> (literally “uncle”) is a man-servant put
-in charge of his young master.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The first German attached to my person was a native
-of Silesia, and his name was Iokisch; in my opinion, his
-name alone was a sufficient disqualification. He was a tall,
-bald man, who professed a knowledge of agriculture, and
-I believe that this fact induced my father to take him;
-but his chief distinction was his extreme need of soap and
-water. I looked with aversion at the Silesian giant, and
-only consented to walk about with him in the parks and
-gardens on condition that he told me improper stories,
-which I retailed in the servants’ hall. He did not survive
-more than a year; he was guilty of some misconduct on
-our country estate, and a gardener tried to kill him with
-a scythe; and this made my father order him to clear out.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His successor was Theodore Karlovitch, a soldier
-(probably a deserter) from Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>was remarkable for his beautiful handwriting and excessive
-stupidity. He had filled a similar post twice already,
-and had gained some experience, so that he gave himself
-the airs of a tutor; also, he spoke French, mispronouncing
-<i>j</i> as <i>sh</i> and misplacing the accents.<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c016'><sup>[24]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f24'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. </span>The English speak French even worse than the Germans; but
-they merely mutilate the language, whereas the German vulgarises it.
-(Author’s note.)</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I had no kind of respect for him, but poisoned every
-moment of his existence, especially after I was convinced
-that, in spite of all my efforts, he was unable to understand
-either decimal fractions or the rule of three. In most
-boys’ hearts there is a good deal that is ruthless and even
-cruel; and I persecuted the Jäger of Wolfenbüttel unmercifully
-with sums in proportion. I was so much interested
-by this, that, though I did not often speak on
-such subjects to my father, I solemnly informed him of
-the stupidity of Theodore Karlovitch.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He once boasted to me of a new frock-coat, dark blue
-with gold buttons, and I actually saw him once wearing
-it; he was going to a wedding, and the coat, though it was
-too large for him, really had gold buttons. But the boy
-who waited on the German informed me that the garment
-was borrowed from a friend who kept a perfumer’s shop.
-Without the least feeling of pity, I attacked my victim,
-and asked bluntly where his blue coat was.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There is a great deal of moth in this house, and I
-have given it to a tailor whom I know to keep it safe for
-me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Where does the tailor live?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What business is that of yours?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Why not say?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>“People should mind their own business.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, very well. But my birthday is next week, and, to
-please me, you might get the blue coat from the tailor
-for that day.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No, I won’t; you don’t deserve it, after your rudeness.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I held up a threatening finger at him. But the final
-blow to the German’s position took place as follows. He
-must needs boast one day, in the presence of Bouchot,
-my French tutor, that he had fought at Waterloo and
-that the Germans had given the French a terrible mauling.
-Bouchot merely looked at him and took snuff with
-such a formidable air that the conqueror of Napoleon
-was rather taken aback. Bouchot left the room, leaning
-angrily on his knotted stick, and he never afterwards
-called the man by any other name than <i>le soldat de
-Vilain-ton</i>.<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c016'><sup>[25]</sup></a> I did not know then that this pun is the
-property of Béranger, and I was exceedingly delighted
-by Bouchot’s cleverness.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f25'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, Wellington.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>At last this comrade of Blücher’s left our house, after
-a quarrel with my father; and I was not troubled further
-with Germans.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>During the time of the warrior from Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel,
-I sometimes visited a family of boys, who were
-also under the charge of a German; and we took long
-walks together. The two Germans were friends. But, when
-my German departed, I was left once more in complete
-solitude. I disliked it and tried hard to escape from it,
-but without success. As I was powerless to overcome my
-father’s wishes, I should, perhaps, have been crushed by
-this kind of life; but I was soon saved by a new form of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>mental activity, and by two new acquaintances, of whom
-I shall speak in the next chapter. I am sure that it never
-once occurred to my father what sort of life he was forcing
-me to lead; or else he would not have vetoed my
-very innocent wishes and the very natural requests which
-I put to him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He let me go occasionally to the French Theatre with
-my uncle. This was a supreme enjoyment to me. I was
-passionately fond of the theatre; but even this treat cost
-me as much pain as pleasure. My uncle often arrived
-when the play was half over; and, as he was always engaged
-for some party, he often took me out before the
-end. The theatre was quite close to our house; but I was
-strictly forbidden by my father to come home alone.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I was about fifteen when my father summoned a priest to
-the house to teach me as much Divinity as was required
-for entrance at the University. I had read Voltaire before
-I ever opened the Catechism. In the business of education,
-religion is less obtrusive in Russia than in any other
-country; and this is, of course, a very good thing. A
-priest is always paid half the usual fee for lessons in
-Divinity; and, if the same priest also teaches Latin, he
-actually gets more for a Latin lesson than for instruction
-in the Catechism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father looked upon religion as one of the indispensable
-attributes of a gentleman. It was necessary to accept
-Holy Scripture without discussion, because mere intellect
-is powerless in that department, and the subject is only
-made darker by human logic. It was necessary to submit
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>to such rites as were required by the Church into which
-you were born; but you must avoid excessive piety, which
-is suitable for women of advanced age but improper for
-a man. Was he himself a believer? I imagine that he believed
-to some extent, from habit, from a sense of decency,
-and just in case—. But he never himself observed any of
-the rules laid down by the Church, excusing himself on
-the plea of bad health. He hardly ever admitted a priest
-to his presence, or asked him to repeat a psalm while
-waiting in the empty drawing-room for the five-<i>rouble</i>
-note which was his fee. In winter he excused himself on
-the plea that the priest and his clerk brought in so much
-cold air with them that he always caught cold in consequence.
-In the country, he went to church and received
-the priest at his house; but this was not due to religious
-feeling but rather a concession to the ideas of society
-and the wishes of Government.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My mother was a Lutheran, and, as such, a degree more
-religious. Once or twice a month she went on Sundays to
-her place of worship—her <i>Kirche</i>, as Bakai persisted in
-calling it, and I, for want of occupation, went with her.
-I learned there to imitate with great perfection the
-flowery style of the German pastors, and I had not lost
-this art when I came to manhood.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father always made me keep Lent. I rather dreaded
-confession, and church ceremonies in general were impressive
-and awful to me. The Communion Service caused
-me real fear; but I shall not call that religious feeling:
-it was the fear which is always inspired by the unintelligible
-and mysterious, especially when solemn importance
-is attached to the mystery. When Easter brought
-the end of the Fast, I ate all the Easter dishes—dyed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>eggs, currant loaf, and consecrated cakes, and thought
-no more about religion for the rest of the year.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Yet I often read the Gospel, both in Slavonic and in
-Luther’s translation, and loved it. I read it without notes
-of any kind and could not understand all of it, but I felt
-a deep and sincere reverence for the book. In my early
-youth, I was often attracted by the Voltairian point of
-view—mockery and irony were to my taste; but I don’t
-remember ever taking up the Gospel with indifference
-or hostility. This has accompanied me throughout life:
-at all ages and in all variety of circumstances, I have
-gone back to the reading of the Gospel, and every time
-its contents have brought down peace and gentleness into
-my heart.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the priest began to give me lessons, he was astonished,
-not merely at my general knowledge of the
-Gospel but also at my power of quoting texts accurately.
-“But,” he used to say, “the Lord God, who has opened
-the mind, has not yet opened the heart.” My theological
-instructor shrugged his shoulders and was surprised by
-the inconsistency he found in me; still he was satisfied
-with me, because he thought I should be able to pass my
-examination.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A religion of a different kind was soon to take possession
-of my heart and mind.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER III</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>Death of Alexander I—The Fourteenth of December—Moral
-Awakening—Bouchot—My Cousin—N. Ogaryóv.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ONE winter evening my uncle came to our house
-at an unusual hour. He looked anxious and
-walked with a quick step to my father’s study,
-after signing to me to stay in the drawing-room.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Fortunately, I was not obliged to puzzle my head long
-over the mystery. The door of the servants’ hall opened a
-little way, and a red face, half hidden by the wolf-fur
-of a livery coat, invited me to approach; it was my uncle’s
-footman, and I hastened to the door.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Have you not heard?” he asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Heard what?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The Tsar is dead. He died at Taganrog.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was impressed by the news: I had never before
-thought of the possibility of his death. I had been brought
-up in great reverence for Alexander, and I thought with
-sorrow how I had seen him not long before in Moscow.
-We were out walking when we met him outside the Tver
-Gate; he was riding slowly, accompanied by two or three
-high officers, on his way back from manœuvres. His face
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>was attractive, the features gentle and rounded, and his
-expression was weary and sad. When he caught us up, I
-took off my hat; he smiled and bowed to me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Confused ideas were still simmering in my head; the
-shops were selling pictures of the new Tsar, Constantine;
-notices about the oath of allegiance were circulating; and
-good citizens were making haste to take the oath—when
-suddenly a report spread that the Crown Prince had abdicated.
-Immediately afterwards, the same footman, a
-great lover of political news, with abundant opportunities
-for collecting it from the servants of senators and lawyers—less
-lucky than the horses which rested for half the
-day, he accompanied his master in his rounds from morning
-till night—informed me that there was a revolution
-in Petersburg and that cannon were firing in the capital.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the evening of the next day, Count Komarovsky, a
-high officer of the police, was at our house, and told us
-of the band of revolutionaries in the Cathedral Square,
-the cavalry charge, and the death of Milorádovitch.<a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c016'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f26'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. </span>When Nicholas became Emperor in place of his brother
-Constantine, the revolt of the Decembrists took place in Petersburg on
-December 14, 1825. Five of the conspirators were afterwards hanged,
-and over a hundred banished to Siberia.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then followed the arrests—“They have taken so-and-so”;
-“They have caught so-and-so”; “They have arrested
-so-and-so in the country.” Parents trembled in fear for
-their sons; the sky was covered over with black clouds.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>During the reign of Alexander, political persecution
-was rare: it is true that he exiled Púshkin for his verses,
-and Labzin, the secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts,
-for proposing that the imperial coachman should be
-elected a member;<a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c016'><sup>[27]</sup></a> but there was no systematic persecution.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>The secret police had not swollen to its later proportions:
-it was merely an office, presided over by De Sanglin,
-a freethinking old gentleman and a sayer of good things,
-in the manner of the French writer, Etienne de Jouy.
-Under Nicholas, De Sanglin himself came under police
-supervision and passed for a liberal, though he remained
-precisely what he had always been; but this fact alone
-serves to mark the difference between the two reigns.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f27'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. </span>The president had proposed to elect Arakchéyev, on the
-ground of his nearness to the Tsar. Labzin then proposed the election
-of Ilyá Baikov, the Tsar’s coachman. “He is not only near the Tsar but
-sits in front of him,” he said.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The tone of society changed visibly; and the rapid demoralisation
-proved too clearly how little the feeling of
-personal dignity is developed among the Russian aristocracy.
-Except the women, no one dared to show sympathy
-or to plead earnestly in favour of relations and
-friends, whose hands they had grasped yesterday but who
-had been arrested before morning dawned. On the contrary,
-men became zealots for tyranny, some to gain their
-own ends, while others were even worse, because they had
-nothing to gain by subservience.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Women alone were not guilty of this shameful denial
-of their dear ones. By the Cross none but women were
-standing; and by the blood-stained guillotine there were
-women too—a Lucile Desmoulins, that Ophelia of the
-French Revolution, wandering near the fatal axe and
-waiting her turn, or a George Sand holding out, even on
-the scaffold, the hand of sympathy and friendship to the
-young fanatic, Alibaud.<a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c016'><sup>[28]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f28'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. </span>Camille Desmoulins was guillotined, with Danton, April 5,
-1794; his wife, Lucile, soon followed him. Alibaud was executed July
-11, 1836, for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The wives of the exiles were deprived of all civil rights;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>abandoning their wealth and position in society, they
-faced a whole lifetime of slavery in Eastern Siberia,
-where the terrible climate was less formidable than the
-Siberian police. Sisters, who were not permitted to accompany
-their condemned brothers, absented themselves
-from Court, and many of them left Russia; almost all
-of them retained in their hearts a lively feeling of affection
-for the sufferers. But this was not so among the men:
-fear devoured this feeling in their hearts, and none of
-them dared to open their lips about “the unfortunate.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As I have touched on this subject, I cannot refrain
-from giving some account of one of these heroic women,
-whose history is known to very few.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In the ancient family of the Ivashevs a French girl was
-living as a governess. The only son of the house wished
-to marry her. All his relations were driven wild by the
-idea; there was a great commotion, tears, and entreaties.
-They succeeded in inducing the girl to leave Petersburg
-and the young man to delay his intention for a season.
-Young Ivashev was one of the most active conspirators,
-and was condemned to penal servitude for life. For this
-was a form of <i>mésalliance</i> from which his relations did
-not protect him. As soon as the terrible news reached
-the young girl in Paris, she started for Petersburg, and
-asked permission to travel to the Government of Irkutsk,
-in order to join her future husband. Benkendorf tried
-to deter her from this criminal purpose; when he failed,
-he reported the case to Nicholas. The Tsar ordered that
-the position of women who had remained faithful to their
-exiled husbands should be explained to her. “I don’t keep
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>her back,” he added; “but she ought to realise that if
-wives, who have accompanied their husbands out of
-loyalty, deserve some indulgence, she has no claim whatever
-to such treatment, when she intends to marry one
-whom she knows to be a criminal.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In Siberia nothing was known of this permission. When
-she had found her way there, the poor girl was forced to
-wait while a correspondence went on with Petersburg.
-She lived in a miserable settlement peopled with released
-criminals of all kinds, unable to get any news of her lover
-or to inform him of her whereabouts.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By degrees she made acquaintances among her strange
-companions. One of these was a highwayman who was
-now employed in the prison, and she told him all her
-story. Next day he brought her a note from Ivashev;
-and soon he offered to carry messages between them. All
-day he worked in the prison; at nightfall he got a scrap
-of writing from Ivashev and started off, undeterred by
-weariness or stormy weather, and returned to his daily
-work before dawn.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At last permission came for their marriage. A few years
-later, penal servitude was commuted to penal settlement,
-and their condition was improved to some extent. But
-their strength was exhausted, and the wife was the first
-to sink under the burden of all she had undergone. She
-faded away, as a flower from southern climes was bound
-to fade in the snows of Siberia. Ivashev could not survive
-her long: just a year later he too died. But he had ceased
-to live before his death: his letters (which impressed
-even the inquisitors who read them) were evidence not
-only of intense sorrow, but of a distracted brain; they
-were full of a gloomy poetry and a crazy piety; after
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>her death he never really lived, and the process of his
-death was slow and solemn.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This history does not end with their deaths. Ivashev’s
-father, after his son’s exile, transferred his property to
-an illegitimate son, begging him not to forget his unfortunate
-brother but to do what he could. The young
-pair were survived by two children, two nameless infants,
-with a future prospect of the roughest labour in Siberia—without
-friends, without rights, without parents. Ivashev’s
-brother got permission to adopt the children. A few years
-later he ventured on another request: he used influence,
-that their father’s name might be restored to them, and
-this also was granted.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I was strongly impressed by stories of the rebels and I
-their fate, and by the horror which reigned in Moscow.
-These events revealed to me a new world, which became
-more and more the centre of my whole inner life; I don’t
-know how it came to pass; but, though I understood very
-dimly what it was all about, I felt that the side that
-possessed the cannons and held the upper hand was not
-my side. The execution of Pestel<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c016'><sup>[29]</sup></a> and his companions
-finally awakened me from the dreams of childhood.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f29'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. </span>One of the Decembrists.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Though political ideas occupied my mind day and
-night, my notions on the subject were not very enlightened:
-indeed they were so wide of the mark that I believed
-one of the objects of the Petersburg insurrection
-to consist in placing Constantine on the throne as a constitutional
-monarch.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It will easily be understood that solitude was a greater
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>burden to me than ever: I needed someone, in order to
-impart to him my thoughts and ideals, to verify them, and
-to hear them confirmed. Proud of my own “disaffection,”
-I was unwilling either to conceal it or to speak of it to
-people in general.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My choice fell first on Iván Protopópov, my Russian
-tutor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This man was full of that respectable indefinite liberalism,
-which, though it often disappears with the first grey
-hair, marriage, and professional success, does nevertheless
-raise a man’s character. He was touched by what I
-said, and embraced me on leaving the house. “Heaven
-grant,” he said, “that those feelings of your youth may
-ripen and grow strong!” His sympathy was a great comfort
-to me. After this time he began to bring me manuscript
-copies, in very small writing and very much frayed,
-of Púshkin’s poems—<i>Ode to Freedom</i>, <i>The Dagger</i>, and
-of Ryléev’s <i>Thoughts</i>. These I used to copy out in secret;
-and now I print them as openly as I please!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As a matter of course, my reading also changed. Politics
-for me in future, and, above all, the history of the
-French Revolution, which I knew only as described by
-Mme. Provo. Among the books in our cellar I unearthed
-a history of the period, written by a royalist; it was so
-unfair that, even at fourteen, I could not believe it. I
-had chanced to hear old Bouchot say that he was in Paris
-during the Revolution; and I was very anxious to question
-him. But Bouchot was a surly, taciturn man, with
-spectacles over a large nose; he never indulged in any
-needless conversation with me: he conjugated French
-verbs, dictated examples, scolded me, and then took his
-departure, leaning on his thick knotted stick.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>The old man did not like me: he thought me a mere
-idler, because I prepared my lessons badly; and he often
-said, “You will come to no good.” But when he discovered
-my sympathy with his political views, he softened down
-entirely, pardoned my mistakes, and told me stories of
-the year ’93, and of his departure from France when
-“profligates and cheats” got the upper hand. He never
-smiled; he ended our lesson with the same dignity as
-before, but now he said indulgently, “I really thought
-you would come to no good, but your feelings do you
-credit, and they will save you.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>To this encouragement and approval from my teachers
-there was soon added a still warmer sympathy which had
-a profound influence upon me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In a little town of the Government of Tver lived a
-granddaughter of my father’s eldest brother. Her name
-was Tatyana Kuchin. I had known her from childhood,
-but we seldom met: once a year, at Christmas or Shrovetide,
-she came to pay a visit to her aunt at Moscow. But
-we had become close friends. Though five years my senior,
-she was short for her age and looked no older than myself.
-My chief reason for getting to like her was that
-she was the first person to talk to me in a reasonable
-way: I mean, she did not constantly express surprise at
-my growth; she did not ask what lessons I did and
-whether I did them well; whether I intended to enter
-the Army, and, if so, what regiment; but she talked to
-me as most sensible people talk to one another, though
-she kept the little airs of superiority which all girls like
-to show to boys a little younger than themselves.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We corresponded, especially after the events of 1824;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>but letters mean paper and pen and recall the school-room
-table with its ink-stains and decorations carved
-with a penknife. I wanted to see her and to discuss our
-new ideas; and it may be imagined with what delight I
-heard that my cousin was to come in February (of 1826)
-and to spend several months with us. I scratched a calendar
-on my desk and struck off the days as they passed,
-sometimes abstaining for a day or two, just to have the
-satisfaction of striking out more at one time. In spite of
-this, the time seemed very long; and when it came to an
-end, her visit was postponed more than once; such is the
-way of things.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One evening I was sitting in the school-room with
-Protopópov. Over each item of instruction he took, as
-usual, a sip of sour broth; he was explaining the hexameter
-metre, ruthlessly hashing, with voice and hand, each
-verse of Gnyéditch’s translation of the Iliad into its separate
-feet. Suddenly, a sound unlike that of town sledges
-came from the snow outside; I heard the faint tinkle of
-harness-bells and the sound of voices out-of-doors. I
-flushed up, lost all interest in the hashing process and the
-wrath of Achilles, and rushed headlong to the front hall.
-There was my cousin from Tver, wrapped up in furs,
-shawls, and comforters, and wearing a hood and white
-fur boots. Blushing red with frost and, perhaps, also with
-joy, she ran into my arms.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Most people speak of their early youth, its joys and
-sorrows, with a slightly condescending smile, as if they
-wished to say, like the affected lady in Griboyédov’s play,
-“How childish!” Children, when a few years are past, are
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>ashamed of their toys, and this is right enough: they
-want to be men and women, they grow so fast and change
-so much, as they see by their jackets and the pages of
-their lesson-books. But adults might surely realise that
-childhood and the two or three years of youth are the
-fullest part of life, the fairest, and the most truly our
-own; and indeed they are possibly the most important
-part, because they fix all that follows, though we are not
-aware of it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>So long as a man moves modestly forwards, never stopping
-and never reflecting, and until he comes to the edge
-of a precipice or breaks his neck, he continues to believe
-that his life lies ahead of him; and therefore he looks
-down upon his past and is unable to appreciate the present.
-But when experience has laid low the flowers of
-spring and chilled the glow of summer—when he discovers
-that life is practically over, and all that remains
-a mere continuance of the past, then he feels differently
-towards the brightness and warmth and beauty of early
-recollections.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Nature deceives us all with her endless tricks and devices:
-she makes us a gift of youth, and then, when we
-are grown up, asserts her mastery and snares us in a web
-of relations, domestic and public, most of which we are
-powerless to control; and, though we impart our personal
-character to our actions, we do not possess our souls in
-the same degree; the lyric element of personality is
-weaker, and, with it, our feelings and capacity for enjoyment—all,
-indeed, is weaker, except intelligence and will.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My cousin’s life was no bed of roses. She lost her mother
-in childhood; her father was a passionate gambler, who,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>like all men who have gambling in their blood, was constantly
-rich and poor by turns and ended by ruining
-himself. What was left of his fortune he devoted to his
-stud, which now became the object of all his thoughts
-and desires. His only son, a good-natured cavalry officer,
-was taking the shortest road to ruin: at the age of nineteen,
-he was a more desperate gambler than his father.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the father was fifty, he married, for no obvious
-reason, an old maid who was a teacher in the Smolny
-Convent. She was the most typical specimen of a Petersburg
-governess whom I had ever happened to meet: thin,
-blonde, and very shortsighted, she looked the teacher and
-the moralist all over. By no means stupid, she was full of
-an icy enthusiasm in her talk, she abounded in commonplaces
-about virtue and devotion, she knew history and
-geography by heart, spoke French with repulsive correctness,
-and concealed a high opinion of herself under an
-artificial and Jesuitical humility. These traits are common
-to all pedants in petticoats; but she had others peculiar
-to the capital or the convent. Thus she raised tearful eyes
-to heaven, when speaking of the visit of “the mother of us
-all” (the Empress, Márya Fyódorovna<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c016'><sup>[30]</sup></a>); she was in
-love with Tsar Alexander, and carried a locket or ring
-containing a fragment of a letter from the Empress Elizabeth<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c016'><sup>[31]</sup></a>—“<i>il
-a repris son sourire de bienveillance</i>!”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f30'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. </span>The wife of Paul and mother of Alexander I and Nicholas.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f31'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. </span>Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, reigned from 1741
-to 1762. Probably <i>il</i> refers to her father.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is easy to imagine the harmonious trio that made up
-this household: a card-playing father, passionately devoted
-to horses and racing and noisy carouses in disreputable
-company; a daughter brought up in complete independence
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>and accustomed to do as she pleased in the house;
-and a middle-aged blue-stocking suddenly converted into
-a bride. As a matter of course, no love was lost between
-the stepmother and stepdaughter. In general, real friendship
-between a woman of thirty-five and a girl of seventeen
-is impossible, unless the former is sufficiently unselfish
-to renounce all claim to sex.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The common hostility between stepmothers and step-daughters
-does not surprise me in the least: it is natural
-and even moral. A new member of the household, who
-usurps their mother’s place, provokes repulsion on the
-part of the children. To them the second marriage is a
-second funeral. The child’s love is revealed in this feeling,
-and whispers to the orphan, “Your father’s wife is
-not your mother.” At one time the Church understood
-that a second marriage is inconsistent with the Christian
-conception of marriage and the Christian dogma of immortality;
-but she made constant concessions to the
-world, and went too far, till she came up against the logic
-of facts—the simple heart of the child who revolts against
-the absurdity and refuses the name of mother to his
-father’s second choice.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The woman too is in an awkward situation when she
-comes away from the altar to find a family of children
-ready-made: she has nothing to do with them, and has
-to force feelings which she cannot possess; she is bound
-to convince herself and the world, that other people’s
-children are just as attractive to her as her own.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Consequently, I don’t blame either the convent-lady
-or my cousin for their mutual dislike; but I understand
-how a young girl unaccustomed to control was eager to
-go wherever she could be free. Her father was now getting
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>old and more submissive to his learned wife; her brother,
-the officer, was behaving worse and worse; in fact, the
-atmosphere at home was oppressive, and she finally induced
-her stepmother to let her go on a visit to us, for
-some months or possibly for a year.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The day after her arrival, my cousin turned my usual
-routine, with the exception of my lessons, upside down.
-With a high hand she fixed hours for us to read together,
-advised me to stop reading novels, and recommended
-Ségur’s <i>General History</i> and <i>The Travels of Anacharsis</i>.<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c016'><sup>[32]</sup></a>
-From the ascetic point of view she opposed my strong
-inclination to smoke on the sly—cigarettes were then unknown,
-and I rolled the tobacco in paper myself: in general,
-she liked to preach to me, and I listened meekly to
-her sermons, if I did not profit by them. Fortunately, she
-was not consistent: quite forgetting her own arrangements,
-she read with me for amusement rather than instruction,
-and often sent out a secret messenger in the
-shape of a pantry-boy to buy buckwheat cakes in winter
-or gooseberries in summer.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f32'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. </span><i>Voyage du jeune Anacharsis</i>, by the Abbé Barthélemy, published
-in 1779. Ségur was a French historian (1753-1830).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I believe that her influence on me was very good. She
-brought into my monastic life an element of warmth, and
-this may have served to keep alive the enthusiasms that
-were beginning to stir in my mind, when they might easily
-have been smothered by my father’s ironical tone. I
-learned to be attentive, to be nettled by a single word,
-to care for a friend, and to feel affection; I learned also
-to talk about feelings. In her I found support for my
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>political ideas; she prophesied a remarkable future and
-reputation for me, and I, with a child’s vanity, believed
-her when she said I would one day be a Brutus or
-Fabricius.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To me alone she confided the secret of her love for a
-cavalry officer in a black jacket and dolman. It was
-really a secret; for the officer, as he rode at the head of
-his squadron, never suspected the pure little flame that
-burnt for him in the breast of this young lady of eighteen.
-Whether I envied him, I can’t say; probably I did, a little;
-but I was proud of being chosen as her confidant, and I
-imagined (under the influence of <i>Werther</i>) that this was
-a tragic passion, fated to end in some great catastrophe
-involving suicide by poison or the dagger. I even thought
-at times of calling on the officer and telling him the whole
-story.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My cousin brought shuttlecocks with her from home.
-One of them had a pin stuck into it, and she always used
-it in playing; if anyone else happened to get hold of it,
-she took it away and said that no other suited her as well.
-But the demon of mischief, which was always whispering
-its temptations in my ear, tempted me to take out this
-pin and stick it into another shuttlecock. The trick was
-entirely successful: my cousin always chose the shuttlecock
-with the pin in it. After a fortnight I told her what
-I had done: she changed colour, burst out crying, and
-ran to her own room. I was frightened and distressed;
-after waiting half an hour I went to find her. Her door
-was locked, and I asked her to open it. She refused, saying
-that she was not well, and that I was an unkind, heartless
-boy. Then I wrote a note in which I begged her to
-forgive me, and after tea we made it up: I kissed her
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>hand, and she embraced me and explained the full importance
-of the incident. A year before, the officer had
-dined at their house and played battledore with her afterwards;
-and the marked shuttlecock had been used by
-him. I felt very remorseful, as if I had committed a real
-act of sacrilege.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My cousin stayed with us till October, when her father
-summoned her home, promising to let her spend the next
-summer with us in the country. We looked forward with
-horror to the separation; and soon there came an autumn
-day when a carriage arrived to fetch her, and her
-maid carried down baskets and band-boxes, while our
-servants put in provisions of all kinds, to last a week, and
-crowded to the steps to say their good-byes. We exchanged
-a close embrace, and both shed tears; the carriage
-drove out into the street, turned into a side-street
-close to the very shop where we used to buy the buckwheat
-cakes, and disappeared. I took a turn in the court-yard,
-but it seemed cold and unfriendly; my own room,
-where I went next, seemed empty and cold too. I began
-to prepare a lesson for Protopópov, and all the time I
-was thinking, “Where is the carriage now? has it passed
-the gates or not?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I had one comfort: we should spend next June together
-in the country.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I had a passionate love for the country, and our visits
-there gave me new life. Forests, fields, and perfect freedom—all
-this was a complete change to me, who had
-grown up wrapped in cotton-wool, behind stone walls,
-never daring to leave the house on any pretext without
-asking leave, or without the escort of a footman.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>From spring onwards, I was always much exercised
-by one question—shall we go to the country this year
-or not? Every year my father said that he wished to see
-the leaves open and would make an early start; but he
-was never ready before July. One year he put off so long
-that we never went at all. He sent orders every winter
-that the country-house was to be prepared and heated,
-but this was merely a deep device, that the head man and
-ground-officer, fearing our speedy arrival, might pay more
-attention to their duties.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It seemed that we were to go. My father said to my
-uncle, that he should enjoy a rest in the country and
-must see what was doing on the land; but still weeks went
-by.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The prospect became brighter by degrees. Food supplies
-were sent off—tea and sugar, grain of different kinds
-and wine; then came another delay; but at last the head
-man was ordered to send a certain number of peasants’
-horses on a fixed day. Joy! Joy! we are to go!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At that time I never thought of the trouble caused to
-the peasants by the loss of four or five days at the busiest
-time of the year. I was completely happy and made haste
-to pack up my books and notebooks. The horses came,
-and I listened with inward satisfaction to the sound of
-their munching and snorting in the court. I took a lively
-interest in the bustle of the drivers and the wrangles of
-the servants, as they disputed where each should sit and
-accommodate his belongings. Lights burnt all night in
-the servants’ quarters: all were busy packing, or dragging
-about boxes and bags, or putting on special clothes for
-the journey, though it was not more than eighty <i>versts</i>.
-My father’s valet was the most excited of the party: he
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>realised all the importance of packing, pulled out in fury
-all that others had put in, tore his hair with vexation,
-and was quite impossible to approach.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the day itself my father got up no earlier than usual—indeed,
-it seemed later—and took just as long over his
-coffee; it was eleven o’clock before he gave the order to
-put to the horses. First came a coach to hold four, drawn
-by six of our own horses; this was followed by three or
-sometimes four equipages—an open carriage, a britzka,
-and either a large waggon or two carts; all these were
-filled by the servants and their baggage, in addition to
-the carts which had preceded us; and yet there was such
-a squeeze that no one could sit in comfort.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>We stopped half-way, to dine and feed the horses, at
-a large village, whose name of Perkhushkov may be
-found in Napoleon’s bulletins. It belonged to a son of the
-uncle, of whom I spoke in describing the division of the
-property. The neglected manor-house stood near the high
-road, which had dull flat fields on each side of it; but to
-me even this dusty landscape was delightful after the confinement
-of a town. The floors of the house were uneven,
-and the steps of the staircase shook; our tread sounded
-loud, and the walls echoed the noise, as if surprised by
-visitors. The old furniture, prized as a rarity by its former
-owner, was now spending its last days in banishment here.
-I wandered, with eager curiosity, from room to room,
-upstairs and downstairs, and finally into the kitchen. Our
-cook was preparing a hasty meal for us, and looked discontented
-and scornful; the bailiff was generally sitting
-in the kitchen, a grey-haired man with a lump on his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>head. When the cook turned to him and complained of
-the kitchen-range, the bailiff listened and said from time
-to time, “Well, perhaps you’re right”; he looked uneasily
-at all the stir in the house and clearly hoped we should
-soon go away.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Dinner was served on special plates, made of tin or
-Britannia metal, and bought for the purpose. Meanwhile
-the horses were put to; and the hall was filled with those
-who wished to pay their respects—former footmen,
-spending their last days in pure air but on short commons,
-and old women who had been pretty house-maids thirty
-years ago, all the creeping and hopping population of
-great houses, who, like the real locusts, devour the peasants’
-toil by no fault of their own. They brought with
-them flaxen-haired children with bare feet and soiled
-clothes; the children kept pushing forward, and the old
-women kept pulling them back, and both made plenty of
-noise. The women caught hold of me when they could
-and expressed surprise at my growth in the same terms
-every year. My father spoke a few words to them; some
-tried to kiss his hand, but he never permitted it; others
-made their bow; and then we went away.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By the edge of a wood our bailiff was waiting for us,
-and he rode in front of us the last part of the way. A long
-lime avenue led up to our house from the vicarage; at
-the house we were met by the priest and his wife, the
-sexton, the servants, and some peasants. An idiot, called
-Pronka, was there too, the only self-respecting person;
-for he kept on his dirty old hat, stood a little apart and
-grinned, and started away whenever any of the newcomers
-tried to approach him.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>I have seen few more charming spots than this estate
-of Vasílevskoë. On one side, where the ground slopes,
-there is a large village with a church and an old manor-house;
-on the other side, where there is a hill and a
-smaller village, was a new house built by my father.
-From our windows there was a view for many miles: the
-endless corn-fields spread like lakes, ruffled by the breeze;
-manor-houses and villages with white churches were
-visible here and there; forests of varying hues made a
-semicircular frame for the picture; and the ribbon of the
-Moscow River shone blue outside it. In the early morning
-I used to push up my window as high as it would go, and
-look, and listen, and drink in the air.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Yet I had a tenderness for the old manor-house too,
-perhaps because it gave me my first taste of the country;
-I had a passion for the long shady avenue which led up
-to it, and the neglected garden. The house was falling
-down, and a slender shapely birch-tree was growing out
-of a crack in the hall floor. A willow avenue went to the
-left, followed by reed-beds and white sand, all the way
-to the river; about my twelfth year, I used to play the
-whole morning on this sand and among the reeds. An
-old gardener, bent and decrepit, was generally sitting in
-front of the house, boiling fruit or straining mint-wine;
-and he used to give me peas and beans to eat on the sly.
-There were a number of rooks in the garden; they nested
-in the tree-tops and flew round and round, cawing; sometimes,
-especially towards evening, they rose up in hundreds
-at a time, rousing others by their noise; sometimes
-a single bird would fly quickly from tree to tree, amid
-general silence. When night came on, some distant owl
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>would cry like a child or burst out laughing; and, though
-I feared those wild plaintive noises, yet I went and
-listened.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The years when we did not stay at Vasílevskoë were
-few and far between. On leaving, I always marked my
-height on the wall near the balcony, and my first business
-on arriving was to find out how much I had grown. But I
-could measure more than mere bodily growth by this
-place: the regular recurrence to the same surroundings
-enabled me to detect the development of my mind. Different
-books and different objects engaged my attention.
-In 1823 I was still quite a child and took childish books
-with me; and even these I left unread, taking more interest
-in a hare and a squirrel that lived in a garret near
-my room. My father allowed me, once every evening, to
-fire off a small cannon, and this was one of my chief delights.
-Of course, all the servants bore a hand in this occupation,
-and grey-haired men of fifty were no less excited
-than I was. In 1827 my books were Plutarch and Schiller;
-early in the morning I sought the remotest part of the
-wood, lay down under a tree, and read aloud, fancying
-myself in the forests of Bohemia. Yet, all the same, I
-paid much attention to a dyke which I and another boy
-were making across a small stream, and I ran there ten
-times a day to look at it and repair it. In 1829 and the
-next year, I was writing a “philosophical” review of
-Schiller’s <i>Wallenstein</i>, and the cannon was the only one
-of my old amusements that still maintained its attraction.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But I had another pleasure as well as firing off the
-cannon—the evenings in the country haunted me like a
-passion, and I feel them still to be times of piety and
-peace and poetry.... One of the last bright hours of my
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>life also recalls to me an evening in the country. I was in
-Italy, and <i>she</i> was with me. The sun was setting, solemn
-and bright, in an ocean of fire, and melting into it. Suddenly
-the rich crimson gave place to a sombre blue, and
-smoke-coloured vapour covered all the sky; for in Italy
-darkness comes on fast. We mounted our mules; riding
-from Frascati to Rome, we had to pass through a small
-village; lights were twinkling already here and there, all
-was peace, the hoofs of the mules rang out on the stone,
-a fresh dampish wind blew from the Apennines. At the
-end of the village there was a small Madonna in a niche,
-with a lamp burning before her; the village girls, coming
-home from work with white kerchiefs over their heads,
-knelt down and sang a hymn, and some begging <i>pifferari</i>
-who were passing by added their voices. I was profoundly
-impressed and much moved by the scene. We looked at
-each other, and rode slowly on to the inn where our carriage
-was waiting. When we got home, I described the
-evenings I had spent at Vasílevskoë. What was it I described?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The shepherd cracks his long whip and plays on his
-birch-bark pipe. I hear the lowing and bleating of the returning
-animals, and the stamping of their feet on the
-bridge. A barking dog scurries after a straggling sheep,
-and the sheep breaks into a kind of wooden-legged gallop.
-Then the voices of the girls, singing on their way from the
-fields, come nearer and nearer; but the path takes a turn
-to the right, and the sound dies away again. House-doors
-open with creaking of the hinges, and the children come
-out to meet their cows and sheep. Work is over. Children
-play in the street or by the river, and their voices come
-penetrating and clear over the water through the evening
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>glow. The smell of burning passes from the corn-kilns
-through the air; the soaking dew begins to spread like
-smoke over the earth, the wind seems to walk audibly
-over the trees, the sunset glow sends a last faint light over
-the world—and Vyéra Artamónovna finds me under a
-lime-tree, and scolds me, though she is not seriously
-angry.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What’s the meaning of this? Tea has long been served,
-and everyone is there. I have looked and looked for you
-everywhere till I’m tired out. I’m too old for all this running.
-And what <i>do</i> you mean by lying on the wet grass?
-You’ll have a cold to-morrow, I feel sure.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Never mind, never mind,” I would answer laughing;
-“I shan’t have a cold, and I want no tea; but you must
-steal me some cream, and mind you skim off the top of
-the jug!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Really, I can’t find it in my heart to be angry with
-you! But how dainty you are! I’ve got cream ready for
-you, without your asking. Look how red the sky is! That’s
-a sign of a good harvest.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And then I made off home, jumping and whistling as
-I went.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>We never went back to Vasílevskoë after 1832, and my
-father sold it during my banishment. In 1843 we were
-staying in the country within twenty <i>versts</i> of the old
-home and I could not resist paying it a visit. We drove
-along the familiar road, past the pine-wood and the hill
-covered with nut bushes, till we came to the ford which
-had given me such delight twenty years ago—I remembered
-the splashing water, the crunching sound of the
-pebbles, the coachmen shouting at the jibbing horses. At
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>last we reached the village and the priest’s house; there
-was the bench where the priest used to sit, wearing his
-brown cassock—a simple kindly man who was always
-chewing something and always in a perspiration; and
-then the estate-office where Vassíli Epifánov made out his
-accounts; never quite sober, he sat crouching over the
-paper, holding his pen very low down and tucking his
-third finger away behind it. The priest was dead, and
-Vassíli Epifánov, not sober yet, was making out accounts
-somewhere else. The village head man was in the fields,
-but we found his wife at their cottage.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Changes had taken place in the interval. A new manor-house
-had been built on the hill, and a new garden laid
-out round it. Returning past the church and churchyard,
-we met a poor deformed object, creeping, as it seemed,
-on all-fours. It signed to me, and I went close to it. It
-was an old woman, bent, paralysed, and half-crazy; she
-used to live on charity and work in the old priest’s garden;
-she was now about seventy, and her, of all people,
-death had spared! She knew me and shed tears, shaking
-her head and saying: “How old you have grown! I only
-knew you by your walk. And me—but there’s no use
-talking about me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As we drove home, I saw the head man, the same as
-in our time, standing in a field some way off. He did not
-recognise me at first; but when we were past, he made
-out who I was, took off his hat, and bowed low. A little
-further on, I turned round, and Grigóri Gorski—that
-was the head man’s name—was standing on the same
-spot and watching our carriage. That tall bearded figure,
-bowing in the harvest field, was a link with the past; but
-Vasílevskoë had ceased to be ours.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER IV</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>My Friend Niko and the Sparrow Hills.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>SOME time in the year 1824 I was walking one day
-with my father along the Moscow River, on the
-far side of the Sparrow Hills; and there we met a
-French tutor whom we knew. He had nothing on but
-his shirt, was obviously in great alarm, and was calling
-out, “Help! Help!” Before our friend had time to pull
-off his shirt or pull on his trousers, a Cossack ran down
-from the Sparrow Hills, hurled himself into the water,
-and disappeared. In another moment he reappeared,
-grasping a miserable little object, whose head and hands
-shook like clothes hung out to dry; he placed this burden
-on the bank and said, “A shaking will soon bring him
-round.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The bystanders collected fifty <i>roubles</i> for the rescuer.
-The Cossack made no pretences but said very honestly,
-“It’s a sin to take money for a thing like that; for he
-gave me no trouble, no more than a cat, to pull him out.
-But,” he added, “though I don’t ask for money, if I’m
-offered it, I may as well take it. I’m a poor man. So thank
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>you kindly.” Then he tied up the money in his handkerchief
-and went back to his horses grazing on the hill.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father asked the man’s name and wrote next day
-to tell his commanding officer of his gallantry; and the
-Cossack was promoted to be a corporal. A few months
-later the Cossack appeared at our house and brought a
-companion, a German with a fair curling wig, pock-marked,
-and scented. This was the drowning man, who
-had come to return thanks on behalf of the Cossack;
-and he visited us afterwards from time to time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Karl Sonnenberg had taught boys German in several
-families, and was now employed by a distant relation of
-my father’s, who had confided to him the bodily health
-and German pronunciation of his son. This boy, Nikolai
-Ogaryóv, whom Sonnenberg always called Niko, attracted
-me. There was something kind, gentle, and thoughtful
-about him; he was quite unlike the other boys whom I
-was in the way of seeing. Yet our intimacy ripened slowly:
-he was silent and thoughtful, I was lively and feared to
-trouble him by my liveliness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Niko had lost his mother in infancy, and his grandmother
-died about the time when my cousin Tatyana left
-us and went home. Their household was in confusion,
-and Sonnenberg, who had really nothing to do, made out
-that he was terribly busy; so he brought the boy to our
-house in the morning and asked if we would keep him
-for the whole day. Niko was frightened and sad; I suppose
-he loved his grandmother.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After sitting together for some time, I proposed that
-we should read Schiller. I was soon astonished by the
-similarity of our tastes: he knew by heart much more
-than I did, and my favourite passages were those he knew
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>best; we soon shut the book, and each began to explore
-the other’s mind for common interests.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He too was familiar with the unprinted poems of Púshkin
-and Ryléev;<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c016'><sup>[33]</sup></a> the difference from the empty-headed
-boys whom I sometimes met was surprising. His heart
-beat to the same tune as mine; he too had cut the painter
-that bound him to the sullen old shore of conservatism;
-our business was to push off with a will; and we decided,
-perhaps on that very first day, to act in support of the
-Crown Prince Constantine!</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f33'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. </span>One of the five Decembrists who were hanged when the
-revolt was suppressed.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was our first long conversation. Sonnenberg was
-always in our way, persistent as a fly in autumn and spoiling
-all our talk by his presence. He was constantly interfering,
-criticising without understanding, putting the
-collar of Niko’s shirt to rights, or in a hurry to go home;
-in short, he was thoroughly objectionable. But, before
-a month was over, it was impossible for my friend and
-me to pass two days without meeting or writing; I, who
-was naturally impulsive, became more and more attached
-to Niko, and he had a less demonstrative but deep love
-for me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>From the very first, our friendship was bound to take
-a serious turn. I cannot remember that we thought much
-of amusement, especially when we were alone. I don’t
-mean that we sat still always; after all, we were boys, and
-we laughed and played the fool and teased Sonnenberg
-and shot with a bow in our court-yard. But our friendship
-was not founded on mere idle companionship: we
-were united, not only by equality of age and “chemical”
-affinity, but by a common religion. Nothing in the world
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>has more power to purify and elevate that time of life,
-nothing preserves it better, than a strong interest in
-humanity at large. We respected, in ourselves, our own
-future; we regarded one another as chosen vessels, with
-a fixed task before us.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We often took walks into the country; our favourite
-haunts were the Sparrow Hills, and the fields outside the
-Dragomirovsky Gate. Accompanied by Sonnenberg, he
-used to come for me at six or seven in the morning; and
-if I was still asleep, he used to throw sand or pebbles at
-my window. I woke up joyfully and hastened to join him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These morning walks had been started by the activity
-of Sonnenberg. My friend had been brought up under a
-<i>dyádka</i>,<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c016'><sup>[34]</sup></a> in the manner traditional in noble Russian
-families, till Sonnenberg came. The influence of the
-<i>dyádka</i> waned at once, and the oligarchy of the servants’
-hall had to grin and bear it: they realised that they were
-no match for the “accursed German” who was permitted
-to dine with the family. Sonnenberg’s reforms were radical:
-the <i>dyádka</i> even wept when the German took his
-young master in person to a shop to buy ready-made
-boots. Just like the reforms of Peter the Great, Sonnenberg’s
-reforms bore a military character even in matters
-of the least warlike nature. It does not follow from this
-that Sonnenberg’s narrow shoulders were ever covered by
-epaulettes, plain or laced—nature has constructed the
-German on such a plan, that, unless he is a philologer or
-theologian and therefore utterly indifferent to personal
-neatness, he is invariably military, whatever civilian
-sphere he may adorn. Hence Sonnenberg liked tight
-clothes, closely buttoned and belted in at the waist; and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>hence he was a strict observer of rules approved by himself.
-He had made it a rule to get up at six in the morning;
-therefore he made his pupil get up one minute before
-six or, at latest, one minute after it, and took him out into
-the fresh air every morning.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f34'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. </span>See note to p. 55.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Sonnenberg had
-been so nearly drowned, soon became to us a Holy Place.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One day after dinner, my father proposed to take a
-drive into the country, and, as Niko was in the house,
-invited him and Sonnenberg to join us. These drives were
-no joke. Though the carriage was made by Iochim, most
-famous of coachmakers, it had been used, if not severely,
-for fifteen years till it had become old and ugly, and it
-weighed more than a siege mortar, so that we took an
-hour or more to get outside the city-gates. Our four
-horses, ill-matched both in size and colour, underworked
-and overfed, were covered with sweat and lather in a
-quarter of an hour; and the coachman, knowing that
-this was forbidden, had to keep them at a walk. However
-hot it was, the windows were generally kept shut. To all
-this you must add the steady pressure of my father’s eye
-and Sonnenberg’s perpetual fussy interference; and yet
-we boys were glad to endure it all, in order that we might
-be together.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We crossed the Moscow River by a ferry at the very
-place where the Cossack pulled Sonnenberg out of the
-water. My father walked along with gloomy aspect and
-stooping figure, as always, while Sonnenberg trotted at
-his side and tried to amuse him with scandal and gossip.
-We two walked on in front till we had got a good lead;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>then we ran off to the site of Vitberg’s cathedral<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c016'><sup>[35]</sup></a> on
-the Sparrow Hills.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f35'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. </span>See part II, chap. IX.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Panting and flushed, we stood there and wiped our
-brows. The sun was setting, the cupolas of Moscow glittered
-in his rays, the city at the foot of the hill spread
-beyond our vision, a fresh breeze fanned our cheeks. We
-stood there leaning against each other; then suddenly
-we embraced and, as we looked down upon the great city,
-swore to devote our lives to the struggle we had undertaken.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Such an action may seem very affected and theatrical
-on our part; but when I recall it, twenty-six years after,
-it affects me to tears. That it was absolutely sincere has
-been proved by the whole course of our lives. But all vows
-taken on that spot are evidently doomed to the same
-fate: the Emperor Alexander also acted sincerely when
-he laid the first stone of the cathedral there, but the first
-stone was also the last.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We did not know the full power of our adversary, but
-still we threw down the glove. Power dealt us many a
-shrewd blow, but we never surrendered to it, and it was
-not power that crushed us. The scars inflicted by power
-are honourable; the strained thigh of Jacob was a sign
-that he had wrestled with God in the night.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>From that day the Sparrow Hills became a place of
-pilgrimage for us: once or twice a year we walked there,
-and always by ourselves. There, five years later, Ogaryóv
-asked me with a modest diffidence whether I believed in
-his poetic gift. And in 1833 he wrote to me from the
-country:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Since I left Moscow, I have felt sad, sadder than I
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>ever was in my life. I am always thinking of the Sparrow
-Hills. I long kept my transports hidden in my heart; shyness
-or some other feeling prevented me from speaking
-of them. But on the Sparrow Hills these transports were
-not lessened by solitude: you shared them with me, and
-those moments are unforgettable; like recollections of
-bygone happiness, they pursued me on my journey,
-though I passed no hills but only forests.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Tell the world,” he ended, “how our lives (yours and
-mine) took shape on the Sparrow Hills.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Five more years passed, and I was far from those Hills,
-but their Prometheus, Alexander Vitberg, was near me,
-a sorrowful and gloomy figure. After my return to
-Moscow, I visited the place again in 1842; again I stood
-by the foundation-stone and surveyed the same scene;
-and a companion was with me—but it was not my friend.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>After 1827 we two were inseparable. In every recollection
-of that time, whether detailed or general, <i>he</i> is always
-prominent, with the face of opening manhood, with his
-love for me. He was early marked with that sign of consecration
-which is given to few, and which, for weal or for
-woe, separates a man from the crowd. A large oil-painting
-of Ogaryóv was made about that time and long remained
-in his father’s house. I often stopped in front of it and
-looked long at it. He was painted with a loose open collar:
-the artist has caught successfully the luxuriant chestnut
-hair, the fleeting beauty of youth on the irregular features,
-and the somewhat swarthy complexion. The canvas preserves
-the serious aspect which precedes hard intellectual
-work. The vague sorrow and extreme gentleness which
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>shine from the large grey eyes, give promise of great
-power of sympathy; and that promise was fulfilled. The
-portrait was given to me. A lady, not related to Ogaryóv,
-afterwards got hold of it; perhaps she will see these lines
-and restore it to me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I do not know why people dwell exclusively on recollections
-of first love and say nothing about memories of
-youthful friendship. First love is so fragrant, just because
-it forgets difference of sex, because it is passionate friendship.
-Friendship between young men has all the fervour
-of love and all its characteristics—the same shy reluctance
-to profane its feeling by speech, the same diffidence
-and absolute devotion, the same pangs at parting, and
-the same exclusive desire to stand alone without a rival.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I had loved Niko long and passionately before I dared
-to call him “friend”; and, when we were apart in summer,
-I wrote in a postscript, “whether I am your friend
-or not, I don’t know yet.” He was the first to use “thou”
-in writing to me; and he called me Damon before I called
-him Pythias.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Smile, if you please, but let it be a kindly smile, such
-as men smile when recalling their own fifteenth year.
-Perhaps it would be better to ask, “Was I like that in my
-prime?” and to thank your stars, if you ever <i>had</i> a prime,
-and to thank them doubly, if you had a friend to share it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The language of that time seems to us affected and
-bookish. We have travelled far from its passing enthusiasms
-and one-sided partisanships, which suddenly give
-place to feeble sentimentality or childish laughter. In a
-man of thirty it would be absurd, like the famous <i>Bettina
-will schlafen</i>;<a id='r36' /><a href='#f36' class='c016'><sup>[36]</sup></a> but, in its own season, this language of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>adolescence, this <i>jargon de la puberté</i>, this breaking of
-the soul’s voice—all this is quite sincere, and even its
-bookish flavour is natural to the age which knows theory
-and is ignorant of practice.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f36'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. </span>This must refer to Bettina von Arnim’s first interview
-with Goethe at Weimar in April, 1807. She writes that she sprang into
-Goethe’s arms and slept there. The poet was then 58, and Bettina had
-ceased to be a child.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Schiller remained our favourite; the characters in his
-plays were real for us; we discussed them and loved or
-hated them as living beings and not as people in a book.
-And more than that—we identified ourselves with them. I
-was rather distressed that Niko was too fond of Fiesco,
-and wrote to say that behind every Fiesco stands a Verina.
-My own ideal was Karl Moor, but I soon deserted him
-and adopted the Marquis Posa instead.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Thus it was that Ogaryóv and I entered upon life hand
-in hand. We walked in confidence and pride; without
-counting the cost, we answered every summons and surrendered
-ourselves sincerely to each generous impulse.
-The path we chose was not easy; but we never once left
-it; wounded and broken, we still went on, and no one out-stripped
-us on the way. I have reached, not our goal but
-the place where the road turns downhill, and I seek instinctively
-for your arm, my friend, that I may press it
-and say with a sad smile as we go down together, “So
-this is all!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Meanwhile, in the wearisome leisure to which I am
-condemned by circumstances, as I find in myself neither
-strength nor vigour for fresh toil, I am recording <i>our</i>
-recollections.<a id='r37' /><a href='#f37' class='c016'><sup>[37]</sup></a> Much of what bound us so closely has
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>found a place in these pages, and I give them to you. For
-you they have a double meaning, the meaning of epitaphs,
-on which we meet with familiar names.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f37'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. </span>This was written in 1853.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>But it is surely an odd reflection, that, if Sonnenberg
-had learned to swim or been drowned when he fell into
-the river, or if he had been pulled out by some ordinary
-private and not by that Cossack, we should never have
-met; or, if we had, it would have been at a later time and
-in a different way—not in the little room of our old house
-where we smoked our first cigars, and where we drew
-strength from one another for our first long step on the
-path of life.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER V</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>Details of Home Life—Men of the Eighteenth Century in Russia—A
-Day at Home—Guests and Visitors—Sonnenberg—Servants.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THE dulness and monotony of our house became
-more intolerable with every year. But for the
-prospect of University life, my new friendship,
-my interest in politics, and my lively turn of character,
-I must either have run away or died of the life.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father was seldom cheerful; as a rule he was dissatisfied
-with everyone and everything. He was a man of
-unusual intelligence and powers of observation, who had
-seen and heard a great deal and remembered it; he was
-a finished man of the world and could be exceedingly
-pleasant and interesting; but he did not choose to be so,
-and sank deeper and deeper into a state of morbid solitude.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>What precisely it was that infused so much bile and
-bitterness into his blood, it is hard to say. No period of
-passion, of great misfortunes, mistakes, and losses, had
-ever taken place in his life. I could never fully understand
-the source of that bitter scorn and irritation which
-filled his heart, of his distrust and avoidance of mankind,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>and of the disgust that preyed upon him. Perhaps he took
-with him to the grave some recollection which he never
-confided to any ear; perhaps it was merely due to the
-combination of two things so incongruous as the eighteenth
-century and Russian life; and there was a third factor,
-the traditional idleness of his class, which had a terrible
-power of producing unreasonable tempers.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In Europe, especially in France, the eighteenth century
-produced an extraordinary type of man, which combined
-all the weaknesses of the Regency with all the strength of
-Spartans or Romans. Half like Faublas and half like
-Regulus, these men opened wide the doors of revolution
-and were the first to rush into it, jostling one another in
-their haste to pass out by the “window” of the guillotine.
-Our age has ceased to produce those strong, complete
-natures; but last century evoked them everywhere, even
-in countries where they were not needed and where their
-development was bound to be distorted. In Russia, men
-who were exposed to the influence of this powerful European
-current, did not make history, but they became unlike
-other men. Foreigners at home and foreigners abroad,
-spoilt for Russia by European prejudices and for Europe
-by Russian habits, they were a living contradiction in
-terms and sank into an artificial life of sensual enjoyment
-and monstrous egoism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Such was the most conspicuous figure at Moscow in
-those days, Prince Yusúpov, a Tatar prince, a <i>grand
-seigneur</i> of European reputation, and a Russian grandee
-of brilliant intellect and great fortune. He was surrounded
-by a whole pleiad of grey-haired Don Juans and freethinkers—such
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>men as Masalski, Santi, and the rest.
-They were all men of considerable mental development
-and culture; but they had nothing to do, and they rushed
-after pleasure, loved and petted their precious selves,
-genially gave themselves absolution for all transgressions,
-exalted the love of eating to the height of a Platonic
-passion, and lowered love for women into a kind of gluttonous
-epicureanism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Old Yusúpov was a sceptic and a <i>bon-vivant</i>; he had
-been the friend of Voltaire and Beaumarchais, of Diderot
-and Casti; and his artistic taste was beyond question.
-You may convince yourself of this by a single visit to
-his palace outside Moscow and a glance at his pictures,
-if his heir has not sold them yet by auction. At eighty,
-this luminary was setting in splendour, surrounded by
-beauty in marble and colour, and also in flesh and blood.
-Púshkin, who dedicated a noble Epistle to him,<a id='r38' /><a href='#f38' class='c016'><sup>[38]</sup></a> used to
-converse with Yusúpov in his country-house; and Gonzaga,
-to whom Yusúpov dedicated his theatre, used to
-paint there.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f38'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. </span><i>To a Great Man</i> (1830).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>By his education and service in the Guards, by his birth
-and connexions, my father belonged to the same circle;
-but neither temperament nor health allowed him to lead
-a life of dissipation to the age of seventy, and he went
-to the opposite extreme. He determined to secure a life
-of solitude, and found it intensely tedious—all the more
-tedious because he had sought it merely for his own sake.
-A strong will was degraded into stubborn wilfulness, and
-unused powers spoilt his temper and made it difficult.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>At the time of his education European civilisation was
-so new in Russia that a man of culture necessarily became
-less of a Russian. To the end of his life he wrote French
-with more ease and correctness than Russian, and he
-literally never read a Russian book, not even the Bible.
-The Bible, indeed, he did not read even in other languages;
-he knew, by hearsay and from extracts, the matter
-of Holy Scripture in general, and felt no curiosity to
-examine further. He did respect Derzhávin and Krylóv,
-the first because he had written an ode on the death of
-his uncle, Prince Meshcherski, and the latter, because
-they had acted together as seconds in a duel. When my
-father heard that the Emperor Alexander was reading
-Karamzín’s <i>History of the Russian Empire</i>, he tried it
-himself but soon laid it aside: “Nothing but old Slavonic
-names! Who can take an interest in all that?”—such was
-his disparaging criticism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His contempt for mankind was unconcealed and without
-exceptions. Never, under any circumstances, did he
-rely on anyone, and I don’t remember that he ever preferred
-a considerable request in any quarter; and he
-never did anything to oblige other people. All he asked of
-others was to maintain appearances: <i>les apparences, les
-convenances</i>—his moral code consisted of these alone.
-He excused much, or rather shut his eyes to much: but
-any breach of decent forms enraged him to such a degree
-that he became incapable of the least indulgence or sympathy.
-I puzzled so long over this unfairness that I ended
-by understanding it: he was convinced beforehand that
-any man is capable of any bad action, and refrains from
-it only because it does not pay, or for want of opportunity;
-but in any breach of politeness he found personal
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>offence, and disrespect to himself, or “middle-class breeding,”
-which, in his opinion, excluded a man from all
-decent society.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The heart of man,” he used to say, “is hidden, and
-nobody knows what another man feels. I have too much
-business of my own to attend to other people, let alone
-judging their motives. But I cannot live in the same room
-with an ill-bred man: he offends me, <i>il me froisse</i>. Otherwise
-he may be the best man in the world; if so, he will
-go to Heaven; but I have no use for him. The most important
-thing in life, more important than soaring intellect
-or erudition, is <i>savoir vivre</i>, to do the right thing always,
-never to thrust yourself forward, to be perfectly polite to
-everyone and familiar with nobody.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All impulsiveness and frankness my father disliked and
-called familiarity; and all display of feeling passed with
-him for sentimentality. He regularly represented himself
-as superior to all such trivialities; but what that higher
-object was, for the sake of which he sacrificed his feelings,
-I have no idea. And when this proud old man, with
-his clear understanding and sincere contempt of mankind,
-played this part of a passionless judge, whom did he mean
-to impress by the performance? A woman whose will he
-had broken, though she never tried to oppose him; a boy
-whom his own treatment drove from mere naughtiness to
-positive disobedience; and a score of footmen whom he
-did not reckon as human beings!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And how much strength and endurance was spent for
-this object, how much persistence! How surprising the
-consistency with which the part was played to the very
-end, in spite of old age and disease! The heart of man is
-indeed hidden.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>At the time of my arrest, and later when I was going
-into exile, I saw that the old man’s heart was much more
-open than I supposed to love and even to tenderness. But
-I never thanked him for this; for I did not know how he
-would have taken my thanks.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As a matter of course, he was not happy. Always on
-his guard, discontented with everyone, he suffered when
-he saw the feelings he inspired in every member of the
-household. Smiles died away and talk stopped whenever
-he came into the room. He spoke of this with mockery
-and resented it; but he made no concession whatever
-and went his own way with steady perseverance. Stinging
-mockery and cool contemptuous irony were the weapons
-which he could wield with the skill of an artist, and he
-used them equally against us and against the servants.
-There are few things that a growing boy resents more;
-and, in fact, up to the time of my imprisonment I was on
-bad terms with my father and carried on a petty warfare
-against him, with the men and maids for my allies.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>For the rest, he had convinced himself that he was dangerously
-ill, and was constantly under treatment. He had
-a doctor resident in the house and was visited by two or
-three other physicians; and at least three consultations
-took place each year. His sour looks and constant complaints
-of his health (which was not really so bad) soon
-reduced the number of our visitors. He resented this; yet
-he never remonstrated or invited any friend to the house.
-An air of terrible boredom reigned in our house, especially
-in the endless winter evenings. The whole suite
-of drawing-rooms was lit up by a single pair of lamps; and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>there the old man walked up and down, a stooping figure
-with his hands behind his back; he wore cloth boots, a
-velvet skull-cap, and a warm jacket of white lamb-skin;
-he never spoke a word, and three or four brown dogs
-walked up and down with him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As melancholy grew on him, so did his wish to save, but
-it was entirely misapplied. His management of his land
-was not beneficial either to himself or to his serfs. The
-head man and his underlings robbed both their master and
-the peasants. In certain matters there was strict economy:
-candle-ends were saved and light French wine was replaced
-by sour wine from the Crimea; on the other hand,
-a whole forest was felled without his knowledge on one
-estate, and he paid the market price for his own oats on
-another. There were men whom he permitted to steal;
-thus a peasant, whom he made collector of the <i>obrók</i> at
-Moscow, and who was sent every summer to the country,
-to report on the head man and the farm-work, the garden
-and the timber, grew rich enough to buy a house in
-Moscow after ten years’ service. From childhood I hated
-this factotum: I was present once when he thrashed an
-old peasant in our court-yard; in my fury I caught him
-by the beard and nearly fainted myself. From that time
-I could never bear the sight of him. He died in 1845.
-Several times I asked my father where this man got the
-money to buy a house.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The result of sober habits,” he said; “that man never
-took a drop in his life.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Every year about Shrovetide our peasants from the Government
-of Penza brought their payments in kind to
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>Moscow. It was a fortnight’s journey for the carts, laden
-with carcasses of pork, sucking-pigs, geese, chickens, rye,
-eggs, butter, and even linen. The arrival of the peasants
-was a regular field-day for all our servants, who robbed
-and cheated the visitors right and left, without any right
-to do so. The coachman charged for the water their horses
-drank, and the women charged for a warm place by the
-fire, while the aristocrats of the servants’ hall expected
-each to get a sucking-pig and a piece of cloth, or a goose
-and some pounds of butter. While the peasants remained
-in the court-yard, the servants feasted continuously: soup
-was always boiling and sucking-pigs roasting, and the
-servants’ hall reeked perpetually of onions, burning fat,
-and bad whiskey. During the last two days Bakai never
-came into the hall, but sat in the kitchen-passage, dressed
-in an old livery overcoat, without jacket or waistcoat
-underneath it; and other servants grew older visibly and
-darker in complexion. All this my father endured calmly
-enough, knowing that it must be so and that reform was
-impossible.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These provisions always arrived in a frozen condition,
-and thereupon my father summoned his cook Spiridon
-and sent him to the markets to enquire about prices. The
-cook reported astonishingly low figures, lower by half
-than was actually offered. My father called him a fool
-and sent for his factotum and a dealer in fruit named
-Slepushkin. Both expressed horror at the cook’s figures,
-made enquiries, and quoted prices a little higher. Finally
-Slepushkin offered to take the whole in a lump—eggs,
-sucking-pigs, butter, rye, and all,—“to save you, <i>bátyushka</i>,
-from further worry.” The price he offered was
-of course a trifle higher than the cook had mentioned. My
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>father consented: to celebrate the occasion, Slepushkin
-presented him with some oranges and gingerbread, and
-the cook with a note for 200 <i>roubles</i>. And the most extraordinary
-part of this transaction was that it was repeated
-exactly every year.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Slepushkin enjoyed my father’s favour and often
-borrowed money of him; and the strange way in which
-he did it showed his profound knowledge of my father’s
-character.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He would borrow 500 <i>roubles</i> for two months, and two
-days before payment was due, he would present himself
-at our house, carrying a currant-loaf on a dish and 500
-<i>roubles</i> on the top of the loaf. My father took the money,
-and the borrower bowed low and begged, though unsuccessfully,
-to kiss his benefactor’s hand. But Slepushkin
-would turn up again a week later and ask for a loan of
-1,500 <i>roubles</i>. He got it and again paid his debt on the
-nail; and my father considered him a pattern of honesty.
-A week later, Slepushkin would borrow a still larger sum.
-Thus in the course of a year he secured 5,000 <i>roubles</i> in
-ready money to use in his business; and for this he paid,
-by way of interest, a couple of currant-loaves, a few
-pounds of figs and walnuts, and perhaps a hundred
-oranges and Crimean apples.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I shall end this subject by relating how my father lost
-nearly a thousand acres of valuable timber on one of the
-estates which had come to him from his brother, the
-Senator.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the forties Count Orlóv, wishing to buy land for
-his sons, offered a price for this estate, which was in the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>Government of Tver. The parties came to terms, and it
-seemed that the transaction was complete. But when the
-Count went to examine his purchase, he wrote to my
-father that a forest marked upon the plan of the estate
-had simply disappeared.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There!” said my father, “Orlóv is a clever man of
-course; he was involved in the conspiracy too.<a id='r39' /><a href='#f39' class='c016'><sup>[39]</sup></a> He has
-written a book on finance; but when it comes to business,
-he is clearly no good. Necker<a id='r40' /><a href='#f40' class='c016'><sup>[40]</sup></a> over again! I shall send
-a friend of my own to look at the place, not a conspirator
-but an honest man who understands business.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f39'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. </span>See p. <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f40'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. </span>Jacques Necker (1732-1804), Minister of Finance under
-Louis XVI; the husband of Gibbon’s first love, and the father of Mme.
-de Staël.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>But alas! the honest man came back and reported that
-the forest had disappeared; all that remained was a fringe
-of trees, which made it impossible to detect the truth from
-the high road or from the manor-house. After the division
-between the brothers, my uncle had paid five visits to the
-place, but had seen nothing!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>That our way of life may be thoroughly understood,
-I shall describe a whole day from the beginning. They
-were all alike, and this very monotony was the most
-killing part of it all. Our life went on like an English
-clock with the regulator put back—with a slow and steady
-movement and a loud tick for each second.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At ten in the morning, the valet who sat in the room
-next the bedroom, informed Vyéra Artamónovna, formerly
-my nurse, that the master was getting up; and
-she went off to prepare coffee, which my father drank
-alone in his study. The house now assumed a different
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>aspect: the servants began to clean the rooms or at least
-to make a pretence of doing something. The servants’
-hall, empty till then, began to fill up; and even Macbeth,
-the big Newfoundland dog, sat down before the stove and
-stared unwinkingly at the fire.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Over his coffee my father read the <i>Moscow Gazette</i>
-and the <i>Journal de St. Petersburg</i>. It may be worth mentioning
-that the newspapers were warmed to save his
-hands from contact with the damp sheets, and that he
-read the political news in the French version, finding it
-clearer than the Russian. For some time he took in the
-<i>Hamburg Gazette</i>, but could not pardon the Germans for
-using German print; he often pointed out to me the difference
-between French and German type, and said that the
-curly tails of the Gothic letters tried his eyes. Then he
-ordered the <i>Journal de Francfort</i> for a time, but finally
-contented himself with the native product.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he had read the newspaper, he noticed for the
-first time the presence of Sonnenberg in the room. When
-Niko reached the age of fifteen, Sonnenberg professed to
-start a shop; but having nothing to sell and no customers,
-he gave it up, when he had spent such savings as he had
-in this useful form of commerce; yet he still called himself
-“a commercial agent.” He was then much over forty,
-and at that pleasant age he lived like the fowls of the air
-or a boy of fourteen; he never knew to-day where he
-would sleep or how he would secure a dinner to-morrow.
-He enjoyed my father’s favour to a certain extent: what
-that amounted to, we shall see presently.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In 1840 my father bought the house next to ours, a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>larger and better house, with a garden, which had belonged
-to Countess Rostopchín, wife of the famous governor
-of Moscow. We moved into it. Then he bought a
-third house, for no reason except that it was adjacent.
-Two of these houses stood empty; they were never let
-because tenants would give trouble and might cause fires—both
-houses were insured, by the way—and they were
-never repaired, so that both were in a fair way to fall
-down. Sonnenberg was permitted to lodge in one of these
-houses, but on conditions: (1) he must never open the
-yard-gates after 10 p.m. (as the gates were never shut,
-this was an easy condition); (2) he was to provide fire-wood
-at his own expense (he did in fact buy it of our
-coachman); and (3) he was to serve my father as a kind
-of private secretary, coming in the morning to ask for
-orders, dining with us, and returning in the evening, when
-there was no company, to entertain his employer with conversation
-and the news.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The duties of his place may seem simple enough; but
-my father contrived to make it so bitter that even Sonnenberg
-could not stand it continuously, though he was familiar
-with all the privations that can befall a man with no
-money and no sense, with a feeble body, a pock-marked
-face, and German nationality. Every two years or so, the
-secretary declared that his patience was at an end. He
-packed up his traps, got together by purchase or barter
-some odds and ends of disputable value and doubtful
-quality, and started off for the Caucasus. Misfortune
-dogged him relentlessly. Either his horse—he drove his
-own horse as far as Tiflis and Redut-Kale—came down
-with him in dangerous places inhabited by Don Cossacks;
-or half his wares were stolen; or his two-wheeled cart
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>broke down and his French scent-bottles wasted their
-sweetness on the broken wheel at the foot of Mount
-Elbruz; he was always losing something, and when he
-had nothing else to lose, he lost his passport. Nearly a
-year would pass, and then Sonnenberg, older, more unkempt,
-and poorer than before, with fewer teeth and less
-hair than ever, would turn up humbly at our house, with
-a stock of Persian powder against fleas and bugs, faded
-silk for dressing-gowns, and rusty Circassian daggers;
-and down he settled once more in the empty house, to
-buy his own fire-wood and run errands by way of rent.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>As soon as he noticed Sonnenberg, my father began a
-little campaign at once. He acknowledged by a bow enquiries
-as to his health; then he thought a little, and
-asked (this just as an example of his methods), “Where
-do you buy your hair-oil?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I should say that Sonnenberg, though the plainest of
-men, thought himself a regular Don Juan: he was careful
-about his clothes and wore a curling wig of a golden-yellow
-colour.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I buy it of Buis, on the Kuznetsky Bridge,” he answered
-abruptly, rather nettled; and then he placed one
-foot on the other, like a man prepared to defend himself.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What do you call that scent?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Night-violet,” was the answer.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The man is cheating you. Violet is a delicate scent,
-but this stuff is strong and unpleasant, the sort of thing
-embalmers use for dead bodies. In the weak condition of
-my nerves, it makes me feel ill. Please tell them to bring
-me some eau-de-cologne.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Sonnenberg made off himself to fetch the bottle.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, no! you’d better call someone. If you come nearer
-me yourself, I shall faint.” Sonnenberg, who counted on
-his hair-oil to captivate the maids, was deeply injured.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he had sprinkled the room with eau-de-cologne,
-my father set about inventing errands: there was French
-snuff and English magnesia to be ordered, and a carriage
-advertised for sale to be looked at—not that my father
-ever bought anything. Then Sonnenberg bowed and disappeared
-till dinner-time, heartily glad to get away.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The next to appear on the scene was the cook. Whatever
-he had bought or put on the slate, my father always
-objected to the price.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Dear, dear! how high prices are! Is nothing coming
-in from the country?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No, indeed, Sir,” answered the cook; “the roads are
-very bad just now.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, you and I must buy less, until they’re mended.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Next he sat down at his writing table, where he wrote
-orders for his bailiff or examined his accounts, and scolded
-me in the intervals of business. He consulted his doctor
-also; but his chief occupation was to quarrel with his
-valet, Nikíta. Nikíta was a perfect martyr. He was a
-short, red-faced man with a hot temper, and might have
-been created on purpose to annoy my father and draw
-down reproofs upon himself. The scenes that took place
-between the two every day might have furnished material
-for a comedy, but it was all serious to them. Knowing
-that the man was indispensable to him, my father often
-put up with his rudeness; yet, in spite of thirty years of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>complete failure, he still persisted in lecturing him for
-his faults. The valet would have found the life unendurable,
-if he had not possessed one means of relief: he was
-generally tipsy by dinner-time. My father, though this did
-not escape him, did not go beyond indirect allusions to
-the subject: for instance, he would say that a piece of
-brown bread and salt prevented a man from smelling
-of spirits. When Nikita had taken too much, he shuffled
-his feet in a peculiar way while handing the dishes; and
-my father, on noticing this, used to invent a message for
-him at once; for instance, he would send him to the barber’s
-to ask if he had changed his address. Then he would
-say to me in French: “I know he won’t go; but he’s not
-sober; he might drop a soup plate and stain the cloth
-and give me a start. Let him take a turn; the fresh air
-will do him good.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On these occasions, the valet generally made some
-reply, or, if not, muttered to himself as he left the room.
-Then the master called him back with unruffled composure,
-and asked him, “What did you say to me?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I said nothing at all to you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Then who are you talking to? Except you and me,
-there is nobody in this room or the next.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I was talking to myself.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A very dangerous thing: madness often begins in
-that way.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The valet went off in a fury to his room, which was
-next to his master’s bedroom. There he read the <i>Moscow
-Gazette</i> and made wigs for sale. Probably to relieve his
-feelings, he took snuff furiously, and the snuff was so
-strong or the membrane of his nose so weak, that he always
-sneezed six or seven times after a pinch.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>The master’s bell rang and the valet threw down the
-hair in his hands and answered the bell.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Is that you sneezing?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, Sir.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Then, bless you!”—and a motion of the hand dismissed
-the valet.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>On the eve of each Ash Wednesday all the servants
-came, according to the old custom, to ask pardon of their
-master for offences; and on these solemn occasions my
-father came into the drawing-room accompanied by his
-valet. He always pretended that he could not recognise
-some of the people.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Who is that decent old man, standing in that corner?”
-he would ask the valet.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Danilo, the coachman,” was the impatient answer; for
-Nikita knew this was all play-acting.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Dear, dear! how changed he is! I really believe it is
-drinking too much that ages them so fast. What does he
-do now?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“He drives fire-wood.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father made a face as if he were suffering severe
-pain. “Drives wood? What do you mean? Wood is not
-driven, it is conveyed in a cart. Thirty years might have
-taught you to speak better.... Well, Danilo, God in
-His mercy has permitted me to meet you yet another
-year. I pardon you all your offences throughout the year,
-your waste of my oats and your neglect of my horses;
-and you must pardon me. Go on with your work while
-strength lasts; and now that Lent is beginning, I advise
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>you to take rather less spirits: at our years it is bad for
-the health, and the Church forbids it.” This was the kind
-of way in which he spoke to them all on this occasion.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>We dined at four: the dinner lasted a long time and was
-very tiresome. Spiridon was an excellent cook; but his
-parsimony as well as my father’s made the meal rather
-unsatisfying, though there were a number of courses. My
-father used to put bits for the dogs in a red jar that stood
-beside his place; he also fed them off his fork, a proceeding
-which was deeply resented by the servants and therefore
-by myself also; but I do not know why.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Visitors, rare in general, were especially rare at dinner.
-I only remember one, whose appearance at the table had
-power at times to smoothe the frown from my father’s
-face, General Nikolai Bakhmétyev. He had given up
-active service long ago; but he and my father had been
-gay young subalterns together in the Guards, in the time
-of Catherine; and, while her son was on the throne, both
-had been court-martialled, Bakhmétyev for fighting a duel,
-and my father for acting as a second. Later, the one had
-gone off to foreign parts as a tourist, the other to Ufá as
-Governor. Bakhmétyev was a big man, healthy and handsome
-even in old age: he enjoyed his dinner and his glass
-of wine, he enjoyed cheerful conversation, and other
-things as well. He boasted that in his day he had eaten
-a hundred meat patties at a sitting; and, at sixty, he
-could eat a dozen buckwheat cakes swimming in a pool
-of butter, with no fear of consequences. I witnessed his
-feats of this kind more than once.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He had some faint influence over my father and could
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>control him to some extent. When he saw that his friend
-was in too bad a temper, he would put on his hat and
-march away. “I’m off for the present,” he would say;
-“you’re not well, and dull to-night. I meant to dine with
-you but I can’t stand sour faces at my dinner. <i>Gehorsamer
-Diener!</i>” Then my father would say to me, by way of
-explanation: “What life there is in that old man yet! He
-may thank God for his good health; he can’t feel for
-poor sufferers like me; in this awful frost he rushes about
-in his sledge and thinks nothing of it, at this season; but
-I thank my Creator every morning for waking up with
-the breath still in my body. There is truth in the proverb—it’s
-ill talking between a full man and a fasting.” More
-indulgence than this it was impossible to expect from my
-father.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Family dinners were given occasionally to near relations,
-but these entertainments proceeded rather from
-deep design than from mere warmth of heart. Thus my
-uncle, the Senator, was always invited to a party at our
-house for his birthday, February 20, and we were invited
-by him for St. John’s Day, June 24, which was my
-father’s birthday; this arrangement not only set an edifying
-example of brotherly love, but also saved each of
-them from giving a much larger entertainment at his own
-house.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There were some regular guests as well. Sonnenberg
-appeared at dinner <i>ex officio</i>; he had prepared himself
-by a bumper of brandy and a sardine eaten beforehand,
-and declined the tiny glass of stale brandy offered him. My
-last French tutor was an occasional guest—an old miser
-and scandal-monger, with an impudent face. M. Thirié
-constantly made the mistake of filling his glass with wine
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>instead of beer. My father would say to him, “If you
-remember that the wine is on your right, you will not
-make the mistake in future”: and Thirié crammed a great
-pinch of snuff into his large and crooked nose, and spilt
-the snuff over his plate.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>One of these visitors was an exceedingly comic figure,
-a short, bald old man, who always wore a short, tight tail-coat,
-and a waistcoat which ended where a modern waistcoat
-begins. His name was Dmitri Pimyónov, and he always
-looked twenty years out of date, reminding you of
-1810 in 1830, and of 1820 in 1840. He was interested in
-literature, but his natural capacity was small, and he had
-been brought up on the sentimental phrases of Karamzín,
-or Marmontel and Marivaux. Dmítriev was his master in
-poetry; and he had been tempted to make some experiments
-of his own on that slippery track which is trod by
-Russian authors—his first publication was a translation of
-La Rochefoucauld’s <i>Pensées</i>, and his second a treatise on
-<i>Female Beauty and Charm</i>. But his chief distinction was,
-not that he had once published books which nobody ever
-read, but that, if he once began to laugh, he could not stop,
-but went on till he crowed convulsively like a child with
-whooping-cough. He was aware of this, and therefore
-took his precautions when he felt it coming on: he pulled
-out his handkerchief, looked at his watch, buttoned up
-his coat, and covered his face with both hands; then,
-when the paroxysm was imminent, he got up, turned his
-face to the wall, and stood in that position suffering torments,
-for half an hour or longer; at last, red in the
-face and worn out by his exertions, he sat down again
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>and mopped his bald head; and for a long time an occasional
-sob heaved his body.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was a kindly man, but awkward and poor and a
-man of letters. Consequently my father attached no importance
-to him and considered him as “below the salt”
-in all respects; but he was well aware of this tendency to
-convulsive laughter, and used to make his guest laugh to
-such an extent that other people could not help laughing
-too in an uncomfortable fashion. Then the author of all
-this merriment, with a slight smile on his own lips, used to
-look at us as a man looks at puppies when they are rioting.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father sometimes played dreadful tricks on this unlucky
-admirer of <i>Female Beauty and Charm</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A Colonel of Engineers was announced by the servant
-one day. “Bring him in,” said my father, and then he
-turned to Pimyónov and said, “Please be careful before
-him: he is unfortunate enough to have a very peculiar
-stammer”—here he gave a very successful imitation of
-the Colonel—“I know you are easily amused, but please
-restrain yourself.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>That was quite enough: before the officer had spoken
-three words, Pimyónov pulled out his handkerchief, made
-an umbrella out of his hand, and finally sprang to his
-feet.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The officer looked on in surprise, while my father said
-to me with perfect composure: “What can be the matter
-with our friend? He is suffering from spasms of some
-kind: order a glass of cold water for him at once, and
-bring eau-de-cologne.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But in these cases Pimyónov clutched his hat and
-vanished. Home he went, shouting with laughter for a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>mile or so, stopping at the crossings, and leaning against
-the lamp-posts.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For several years he dined at our house every second
-Sunday, with few exceptions; and my father was equally
-vexed, whether he came or failed to come. He was not
-kind to Pimyónov, but the worthy man took the long walk,
-in spite of that, until he died. There was nothing laughable
-about his death: he was a solitary old bachelor, and,
-when his long illness was nearing the end, he looked on
-while his housekeeper robbed him of the very sheets upon
-his bed and then left him without attendance.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But the real martyrs of our dinner-table were certain
-old and feeble ladies, who held a humble and uncertain
-position in the household of Princess Khovanski, my
-father’s sister. For the sake of change, or to get information
-about our domestic affairs—whether the heads of
-the family had quarrelled, whether the cook had beaten
-his wife and been detected by his master, whether a maid
-had slipped from the path of virtue—these old people
-sometimes came on a saint’s day to spend the day. I ought
-to mention that these old widows had known my father
-forty or fifty years earlier in the house of the Princess
-Meshcherski, where they were brought up for charity.
-During this interval between their precarious youth and
-unsettled old age, they had quarrelled for twenty years
-with husbands, tried to keep them sober, nursed them
-when paralysed, and buried them. One had fought the
-battle of life in Bessarabia with a husband on half-pay
-and a swarm of children; another, together with her
-husband, had been a defendant for years in the criminal
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>courts; and all these experiences had left on them the
-traces of life in provincial towns—a dread of those who
-have power in this world, a spirit of humility and also of
-blind fanaticism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Their presence often gave rise to astonishing scenes.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Are you not well, that you are eating nothing, Anna
-Yakimovna?” my father would ask.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then Anna Yakimovna, the widow of some obscure
-official, an old woman with a worn faded face and a perpetual
-smell of camphor, apologised with eyes and fingers
-as she answered: “Excuse me, <i>bátyushka</i>—I am really
-quite ashamed; but, you know, by old custom to-day is
-a Fast-day.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What a nuisance! You are too scrupulous, <i>mátushka</i>:
-‘not that which entereth into a man defileth a man but
-that which cometh out’: whatever you eat, the end is the
-same. But we ought to watch ‘what cometh out of the
-mouth,’ and that means scandal against our neighbours.
-I think you should dine at home on such days. Suppose
-a Turk were to turn up, he might want pilaus; but my
-house is not a hotel where each can order what he wants.”
-This terrified the old woman who had intended to ask for
-some milk pudding; but she now attacked the <i>kvass</i> and
-the salad, and made a pretence of eating enormously.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But if she, or any of them, began to eat meat on a Fast-day,
-then my father (who never fasted himself) would
-shake his head sorrowfully and say: “Do you really think
-it worth while, Anna Yakimovna, to give up the ancient
-custom, when you have so few years still to live? I, poor
-sinner, don’t fast myself, because I have many diseases;
-but you may thank God for your health, considering your
-age, and you have kept the fasts all your life; and now
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>all of a sudden—think what an example to <i>them</i>—”
-pointing to the servants. And the poor old woman once
-more fell upon the <i>kvass</i> and the salad.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These scenes filled me with disgust, and I sometimes
-ventured to defend the victim by pointing out the desire
-of conformity which he expressed at other times. Then
-it was my father’s custom to get up and take off his velvet
-skull-cap by the tassel: holding it over his head, he would
-thank me for my lecture and beg me to excuse his forgetfulness.
-Then he would say to the old lady: “These are
-terrible times! Little wonder that you neglect the Fast,
-when children teach their parents! What are we coming
-to? It is an awful prospect; but fortunately you and I
-will not live to see it.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>After dinner my father generally lay down for an hour
-and a half, and the servants at once made off to the
-taverns and tea-shops. Tea was served at seven, and we
-sometimes had a visitor at that hour, especially my uncle,
-the Senator. This was a respite for us; for he generally
-brought a budget of news with him and produced it with
-much vivacity. Meanwhile my father put on an air of
-absolute indifference, keeping perfectly grave over the
-most comic stories, and questioning the narrator, as if
-he could not see the point, when he was told of any striking
-fact.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Senator came off much worse, when he occasionally
-contradicted or disagreed with his younger brother, and
-sometimes even without contradicting him, if my father
-happened to be specially out of humour. In these serio-comic
-scenes, the most comic feature was the contrast
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>between my uncle’s natural vehemence and my father’s
-artificial composure. “Oh, you’re not well to-day,” my
-uncle would say at last, and then snatch his hat and go
-off in a hurry. One day he was unable in his anger to
-open the door. “Damn that door!” he said, and kicked it
-with all his might. My father walked slowly up to the
-door, opened it, and said with perfect calmness, “The
-door works perfectly: but it opens outwards, and you try
-to open it inwards and get angry with it.” I may mention
-that the Senator, being two years older than my father,
-always addressed him as “thou,” while my father said
-“you” as a mark of respect for seniority.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When my uncle had gone, my father went to his bedroom;
-but first he always enquired whether the gates of
-the court were shut, and expressed some doubt when he
-was told they were, though he never took any steps to
-ascertain the facts. And now began the long business of
-undressing: face and hands were washed, fomentations
-applied and medicines swallowed; the valet placed on the
-table near the bed a whole arsenal of phials, nightlights,
-and pill-boxes. For about an hour the old man read
-memoirs of some kind, very often Bourrienne’s <i>Memorial
-de St. Hélène</i>. And so the day ended.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§16</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Such was the life I left in 1834, and such I found it
-in 1840, and such it remained down to my father’s death
-in 1846. When I returned from exile at the age of thirty,
-I realised that my father was right in many respects, and
-that he, to his misfortune, knew the world only too well.
-But did I deserve that he should preach even the truth
-in a manner so repulsive to the heart of youth? His intelligence,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>chilled by a long life spent in a corrupt society,
-made him suspicious of all the world; his feelings were
-not warm and did not crave for reconciliation; and therefore
-he remained at enmity with all his fellow-creatures.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In 1839, and still more in 1842, found him feeble and
-suffering from symptoms which were not imaginary. My
-uncle’s death had left him more solitary than ever; even
-his old valet had gone, but he was just the same; his
-bodily strength had failed him, but his cruel wit and his
-memory were unaffected; he still carried on the same
-petty tyranny, and the same old Sonnenberg still pitched
-his camp in our old house and ran errands as before.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For the first time, I realised the sadness of that life
-and watched with an aching heart that solitary deserted
-existence, fading away in the parched and stony desert
-which he had created around him by his own actions, but
-was powerless to change. He knew his powerlessness, and
-he saw death approaching, and held out jealously and
-stubbornly. I felt intense pity for the old man, but I
-could do nothing—he was inaccessible.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I sometimes walked past his study and saw him sitting
-in his deep armchair, a hard, uncomfortable seat; he had
-his dogs round him and was playing with my three-year-old
-son, just the two together. It seemed to me that the
-sight of this child relaxed the clutching fingers and stiffening
-nerves of old age, and that, when his dying hand
-touched the cradle of infancy, he could rest from the
-anxiety and irritable strife in which his whole life had
-been spent.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VI</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>The Kremlin Offices—Moscow University—The Chemist—The
-Cholera—Philaret—Passek.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>IN spite of the ominous prognostications of the one-legged
-general, my father entered my name for
-service at the Government offices in the Kremlin,
-under Prince Yusúpov. I signed some document, and
-there the matter ended. I never heard anything more
-about my office, except once, three years later, when a
-man was sent to our house by Yusúpov, to inform me
-that I had gained the first step of official promotion; this
-messenger was the court architect, and he always shouted
-as if he were standing on the roof of a five-storeyed
-house and giving orders from there to workmen in the
-cellar. I may remark in passing, that all this hocus-pocus
-was useless: when I passed my final examination at the
-University, this gave me at once the promotion earned
-by service; and the loss of a year or two of seniority was
-not serious. On the other hand, this pretence of office-work
-nearly prevented me from matriculating; for, when
-the University authorities found that I was reckoned as
-a Government clerk, they refused me permission to take
-the examination.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>For the clerks in public offices there were special afternoon
-lectures, of an elementary kind, which gave the
-right of admission to a special examination. Rich idlers,
-young gentlemen whose education had been neglected,
-men who wished to avoid military service and to get the
-rank of <i>assessor</i> as soon as possible—such were the candidates
-for this examination; and it served as a kind of
-gold-mine to the senior professors, who gave private instruction
-at twenty <i>roubles</i> a lesson.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To pass through these Caudine Forks to knowledge
-was entirely inconsistent with my views, and I told my
-father decidedly that unless he found some other method
-I should retire from the Civil Service.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was angry: he said that my wilfulness prevented
-him from settling my future, and blamed my teachers
-for filling my head with this nonsense; but when he saw
-that all this had little effect upon me, he determined to
-wait on Prince Yusúpov.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Prince settled the matter in no time; there was
-no shillyshallying about his methods. He sent for his secretary
-and told him to make out leave of absence for me—for
-three years. The secretary hummed and hawed and
-respectfully submitted to his chief that four months was
-the longest period for which leave could be granted without
-the imperial sanction.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Rubbish, my friend!” said the Prince; “the thing is
-perfectly simple: if he can’t have leave of absence, then
-say that I order him to go through the University course
-and complete his studies.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The secretary obeyed orders, and next day found me
-sitting in the lecture-theatre of the Faculty of Mathematics
-and Physics.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>The University of Moscow and the High School of
-Tsárskoë Seló<a id='r41' /><a href='#f41' class='c016'><sup>[41]</sup></a> play an important part in the history of
-Russian education and in the life of the last two generations.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f41'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. </span>Tsárskoë Seló = The Tsar’s Village, near Petersburg.
-Púshkin was at this school.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>After the year 1812, Moscow University and Moscow
-itself rose in importance. Degraded from her position as
-an imperial capital by Peter the Great, the city was promoted
-by Napoleon, partly by his wish but mainly against
-it, to be the capital of the Russian nation. The people
-discovered the ties of blood that bound them to Moscow
-by the pain they felt on hearing of her capture by the
-enemy. For her it was the beginning of a new epoch; and
-her University became more and more the centre of Russian
-education, uniting as it did everything to favour its
-development—historical importance and geographical
-position.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was a vigorous outburst of intellectual activity
-in Petersburg after the death of the Emperor Paul; but
-this died away in the darkness that followed the fourteenth
-of December, 1825.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All was reversed, the blood flowed back to the heart,
-and all activity was forced to ferment and burrow underground.
-But Moscow University stood firm and was the
-first visible object to emerge from the universal fog.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The University soon grew in influence. All the youth
-and strength of Russia came together there in one common
-meeting-place, from all parts of the country and all
-sections of society; there they cast off the prejudices
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>they had acquired at home, reached a common level,
-formed ties of brotherhood with one another, and then
-went back to every part of Russia and penetrated every
-class.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Down to 1848 the constitution of our universities was
-purely democratic. Their doors were open to everyone
-who could pass the examination, provided he was not a
-serf, or a peasant detained by the village community. The
-Emperor Nicholas limited the number of freshmen and
-increased the charges to pensioners, permitting poor
-nobles only to escape from this burden. But all this belongs
-to the class of measures that will disappear together
-with the passport system, religious intolerance, and so on.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A motley assemblage of young men, from high to low,
-from North and South, soon blended into a compact body
-united by ties of friendship. Among us social distinctions
-had none of that offensive influence which one sees in
-English schools and regiments—to say nothing of English
-universities which exist solely for the rich and well-born.
-If any student among us had begun to boast of his family
-or his money, he would have been tormented and sent to
-Coventry by the rest.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The external distinctions among us were not deep and
-proceeded from other sources. For instance, the Medical
-School was across the park and somewhat removed from
-the other faculties; besides, most of the medical students
-were Germans or came from theological seminaries. The
-Germans kept somewhat apart, and the bourgeois spirit
-of Western Europe was strong in them. The whole education
-of the divinity students and all their ideas were different
-from ours; we spoke different languages; they had
-grown up under the yoke of monastic control and been
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>crammed with rhetoric and theology; they envied our freedom,
-and we resented their Christian humility.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Though I joined the Faculty of Mathematics and
-Physics, I never had any great turn or much liking for
-mathematics. Niko and I were taught the subject by the
-same teacher, whom we liked because he told us stories; he
-was very entertaining, but I doubt if he could have developed
-a special passion in any pupil for his branch of
-science. He knew as far as Conic Sections, <i>i.e.</i>, just what
-was required from schoolboys entering the University; a
-true philosopher, he had never had the curiosity to glance
-at the “University branches” of mathematics. It was
-specially remarkable that he taught for ten years continuously
-out of a single book—Francœur’s treatise—and
-always stopped at the same page, having no ambition to
-go beyond the required minimum.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I chose that Faculty, because it included the subject of
-natural science, in which I then took a specially strong
-interest; and this interest was due to a rather odd meeting.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I have described already the remarkable division of
-the family property in 1822. When it was over, my oldest
-uncle went to live in Petersburg, and nothing was heard
-of him for a long time. At last a report got abroad that
-he intended to marry. He was then over sixty, and it was
-well known that he had other children as well as a grown-up
-son. He did, in fact, marry the mother of his eldest
-son and so made the son legitimate. He might as well
-have legitimised the other children; but the chief object
-of these proceedings was well known—he wished to disinherit
-his brothers; and he fully attained that object by
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>the acknowledgement of his son. In the famous inundation
-of 1824, the water flooded the carriage in which he
-was driving. The old man caught cold, took to his bed,
-and died in the beginning of 1825.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>About the son there were strange reports: it was said
-that he was unsociable and had no friends; he was interested
-in chemistry and spent his life over the microscope;
-he read even at meals and disliked women’s society.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His uncles transferred to him the grievance they had
-felt against his father. They always called him “The
-Chemist,” using this as a term of contempt, and giving it
-to be understood that chemistry was a quite impossible
-occupation for a gentleman.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He had suffered horrible treatment from his father,
-who kept a harem in the house and not only insulted him
-by the spectacle of shameless senile profligacy but was
-actually jealous of his son’s rivalry. From this dishonourable
-existence The Chemist tried to escape by means of
-laudanum; but a friend who worked at chemistry with
-him saved his life by a mere chance. This frightened the
-father, and he treated his son better afterwards.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When his father died, The Chemist set free the fair
-captives of the harem, reduced by half the heavy dues
-levied by his father on the peasants, forgave all arrears,
-and gave away for nothing the exemptions which his
-father used to sell, excusing household servants from
-service in the Army.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he came to Moscow eighteen months later, I was
-anxious to see him; for I was inclined to like him for his
-treatment of his peasants, and also for the dislike which
-his uncles unjustly felt for him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>He called on my father one morning—a shortish man,
-with a large nose and half his hair gone; he wore gold
-spectacles, and his fingers were stained with chemicals.
-My father’s reception was cold and cutting, but the
-nephew gave just as good as he got; when they had taken
-each other’s measure, they talked on casual topics with
-a show of indifference and parted politely, but a strong
-feeling of dislike was concealed on both sides. My father
-saw that his antagonist would never give way.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>They never came closer afterwards. The Chemist very
-rarely visited his uncles; the last time he and my father
-met was after the Senator’s death—he came to ask a loan
-of 30,000 <i>roubles</i>, in order to buy land. My father refused
-to lend it; The Chemist was angry, but he rubbed his nose
-and said with a smile: “What possible risk is there? My
-estate is entailed, and I want the money for improvements.
-I have no children, so that you are the heir to my
-land as I am to yours.”<a id='r42' /><a href='#f42' class='c016'><sup>[42]</sup></a> My father, who was then seventy-five,
-never forgave his nephew this sally.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f42'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. </span>Herzen himself was excluded from succession by his birth.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I began to visit him from time to time. His was a singular
-existence. He had a large house on the Tver Boulevard,
-where he lived in one very small room and used another
-as a laboratory. His old mother occupied another small
-room at the end of the passage; and the rest of the house
-was unused, and left exactly as it was when his father
-migrated to Petersburg. Tarnished chandeliers, valuable
-furniture, rarities of all kinds, grandfather’s clocks supposed
-to have been bought by Peter the Great in Amsterdam,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>armchairs supposed to have belonged to Stanislas
-Leshchinski,<a id='r43' /><a href='#f43' class='c016'><sup>[43]</sup></a> empty frames, and pictures turned to the
-wall—all these, in complete disorder, filled three large
-drawing-rooms which were neither heated nor lighted.
-In the outer hall the servants were generally playing the
-banjo and smoking—in the very room where formerly they
-hardly dared to breathe or say their prayers. One of
-them lit a candle and escorted me through the long
-museum; and he never failed to advise me to keep on my
-overcoat, because it was very cold in the drawing-rooms.
-Thick layers of dust covered all the projections of the
-furniture, and the contents of the rooms were reflected
-in the carved mirrors and seemed to move with the candle;
-straw, left over from packing, lay comfortably here and
-there, together with scraps of paper and bits of string.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f43'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. </span>King of Poland and father-in-law of Louis XV.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>After passing through these rooms, you came at last
-to a curtained door which led into the study. The heat
-in this room was terrific; and here The Chemist was
-always to be found, wearing a stained dressing-gown
-trimmed with squirrel-fur, sitting behind a rampart of
-books, and surrounded by bottles, retorts, crucibles, and
-other apparatus. A few years earlier, this room had been
-the scene of shocking vice and cruelty; now it smelt of
-chlorine and was ruled by the microscope; and in this
-very room I was born! When my father returned from
-foreign parts, he had not yet quarrelled with his brother,
-and spent some months under his roof. Here too my wife
-was born in the year 1817. After two years The Chemist
-sold the house, and I spent many evenings there, arguing
-about Pan-Slavism and losing my temper with Homyakóv,<a id='r44' /><a href='#f44' class='c016'><sup>[44]</sup></a>
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>though nothing could make him lose his. The chief
-rooms were altered then, but the outside steps, front hall,
-and staircase were unchanged; and the little study was
-left as before.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f44'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. </span>Alexyéi Homyakóv (1804-1860), poet, theologian, and a
-leader of the Slavophile party.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Chemist’s household arrangements, simple at all
-times, were even simpler when his mother went to the
-country in summer and took the cook with her. At four
-in the afternoon, his valet brought a coffee-pot, made
-some strong broth in it, and placed it by the fire of the
-chemical furnace, where all sorts of poisons were brewing;
-then he fetched half a chicken and a loaf from an
-eating-house; and that was his master’s dinner. When
-it was eaten, the valet washed the coffee-pot and restored
-it to its proper functions. The man came again in the
-evening: he removed from the sofa a heap of books and
-a tiger-skin which The Chemist had inherited from his
-father; and when he had spread out a sheet and fetched
-pillows and a coverlet, the study, which had served as
-kitchen and drawing-room, was converted just as easily
-into a bedroom.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>At the very beginning of our acquaintance, The Chemist
-perceived that I was no mere idler; and he urged me
-to give up literature and politics—the former was mere
-trifling and the latter not only fruitless but dangerous—and
-take to natural science. He gave me Cuvier’s <i>Essay
-on Geological Changes</i> and <i>Candolle’s Botanical Geography</i>,
-and, seeing that I profited by the reading, he
-placed at my disposal his own excellent collections and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>preparations, and even offered to direct my studies himself.
-On his own ground he was very interesting—exceedingly
-learned, acute, and even amiable, within certain
-limits. As far as the monkeys, he was at your service:
-from the inorganic kingdom up to the orang-outang,
-nothing came amiss to him; but he did not willingly venture
-farther, and philosophy, in particular, he avoided
-as mere moonshine. He was no enemy to reform, nor Rip
-van Winkle: he simply disbelieved in human nature—he
-believed that selfishness is the one and only motive of our
-actions, and is limited only by stupidity in some cases
-and by ignorance in others.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His materialism shocked me. It was quite unlike the
-superficial and half-hearted scepticism of a previous generation.
-His views were deliberate, consistent, and definite—one
-thought of Lalande’s famous answer to Napoleon.
-“Kant accepts the hypothesis of a deity,” said Napoleon.
-“Sir,” answered the astronomer, “in the course of my
-studies I have never found it necessary to make use of
-that hypothesis.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Chemist’s scepticism did not refer merely to
-theology. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire he called a mystic, and
-Oken a mere lunatic. He felt for the works of natural
-philosophers the contempt my father had expressed for
-Karamzín—“They first invent spiritual forces and First
-Causes, and then they are surprised that they cannot
-prove them or understand them.” In fact, it was my father
-over again, but differently educated and belonging to a
-different generation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His views on social questions were even more disquieting.
-He believed that men are no more responsible for
-their actions, good or bad, than beasts: it was all a matter
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>of constitution and circumstances and depended
-mainly on the state of the nervous system, from which,
-as he said, people expect more than it is able to give. He
-disliked family life, spoke with horror of marriage, and
-confessed frankly that, at thirty years of age, he had
-never once been in love. This hard temperament had,
-however, one tender side which showed itself in his conduct
-towards his mother. Both had suffered much from
-his father, and common suffering had united them closely.
-It was touching to see how he did what he could to surround
-her solitary and sickly old age with security and
-attention.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He never tried to make converts to his views, except
-on chemistry: they came out casually or were elicited by
-my questions. He was even unwilling to answer the objections
-I urged from an idealistic point of view; his answers
-were brief, and he smiled as he spoke, showing the
-kind of considerateness that an old mastiff will show to
-a lapdog whom he allows to snap at him and only pushes
-gently from him with his paw. But I resented this more
-than anything else and returned unwearied to the attack,
-though I never gained a single inch of ground. In later
-years I often called to mind what The Chemist had said,
-just as I recalled my father’s utterances; and, of course,
-he was right in three-fourths of the points in dispute. But,
-all the same, I was right too. There are truths which, like
-political rights, cannot be conveyed from one man to
-another before a certain age.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>It was The Chemist’s influence that made me choose
-the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics. Perhaps I should
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>have done better to take up medicine; but it did me no
-great harm to acquire a partial knowledge of differential
-and integral equations, and then to lose it absolutely.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Without a knowledge of natural science, there is no
-salvation for the modern man. This wholesome food, this
-strict training of the mind by facts, this proximity to the
-life that surrounds ours, and this acknowledgement of
-its independence—without these there lurks somewhere
-in the soul a monastic cell, and this contains a germ of
-mysticism which may cover like a dark cloud the whole
-intellect.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Before I had gone through College, The Chemist had
-moved to Petersburg, and I did not meet him again till
-my return from exile. A few months after my marriage
-I paid a half-secret visit of a few days to my father, who
-was living near Moscow. He was still displeased at my
-marriage, and the purpose of my journey was to make
-peace between us once for all. I broke my journey at the
-village of Perkhushkov, the place where we had so often
-stayed in my youth. The Chemist was expecting me there;
-he even had dinner ready for me, and two bottles of
-champagne. Four or five years had made no change in
-him, except that he looked a little older. Before dinner
-he said to me quite seriously: “Please tell me frankly how
-marriage and domestic life strike you. Do you find it to
-your taste, or only passable?” I laughed, and he went on:
-“I am astonished at your boldness; no man in a normal
-condition could ever decide on so awful a step. More than
-one good match has been suggested to me; but when I
-think that a woman would do as she liked in my room,
-arranging everything in what she thinks order, forbidding
-me to smoke possibly, making a noise and talking nonsense,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>I feel such terror of the prospect that I prefer to
-die in solitude.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Shall I stop the night here or go on to my father’s?”
-I asked him after dinner.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There is room enough in the house,” he answered,
-“but for your own sake I advise you to go on; you will
-get there by ten o’clock. Of course you know he’s still
-angry with you. Well, old people’s nerves are generally
-less active at night, before they get to sleep, and you will
-probably get a much better reception to-night than to-morrow
-morning; by then his spurs will be sharp for the
-fray.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Ha! ha! ha!” I laughed, “there is my old instructor
-in physiology and materialism! You remind me of those
-blissful days, when I used to come to you, like Wagner
-in <i>Faust</i>, to bore you with my idealism and to suffer, with
-some impatience, the cold water you threw on it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He laughed too and replied, “You have lived long
-enough, since then, to find out that all human actions
-depend merely on the nerves and chemical combination.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Later, we somehow drifted apart; probably we were
-both to blame. Nevertheless, he wrote me a letter in 1846.
-I had published the first part of <i>Whose Fault Is It?</i><a id='r45' /><a href='#f45' class='c016'><sup>[45]</sup></a> and
-was beginning to be the fashion. He wrote that he was
-sorry to see me wasting my powers on trivial objects. “I
-made it up with you because of your letters on the study
-of Nature, in which you made me understand (as far as
-it is intelligible to the mind of man) the German philosophy.
-But why, instead of going on with serious work,
-do you write fairy tales?” I sent a few friendly words in
-reply, and there our relations ended.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f45'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. </span>A novel.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>If these lines happen to fall under The Chemist’s eyes,
-I beg that he will read them before going to bed, when
-the nerves are less active; and I am convinced that he will
-be able then to pardon this friendly gossip, and all the
-more because I cherish a real regard for him.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>And so, at last, the doors of my prison were opened,
-and I was free. The solitude of my smallish room and the
-quiet half-secret interviews with my one friend, Ogaryóv,
-were now exchanged for a noisy family of six hundred
-members. In a fortnight, I was more at home there than I
-had ever been, from the day I was born, in my father’s
-house.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But even here my father’s house pursued me, in the
-shape of a footman whom my father sent with me to the
-University, especially when I walked there. I spent a
-whole term in trying to dodge this escort, and was formally
-excused from it at last. I say “formally,” because
-my valet Peter, who was entrusted with this duty, very
-soon realised, first, that I disliked being escorted, and
-secondly, that he himself would be much better off in
-various places of amusement than in the entrance-hall of
-my lecture-room, where he had no occupation except to
-exchange gossip and pinches of snuff with the two porters.
-What was the motive of this precaution? Was it possible
-that Peter, who had been liable all his life to drinking-bouts
-that lasted for days, could keep me straight? I don’t
-suppose my father believed that; but, for his own peace
-of mind, he took measures—ineffective, indeed, but still
-measures—much in the way that freethinkers keep Lent.
-This is a characteristic feature of the old system of education
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>in Russia. Till I was seven, I was not allowed to
-come downstairs alone—the flight was rather steep; and
-Vyéra Artamónovna went on bathing me till I was eleven.
-It was of a piece with this system that I should have a servant
-walking behind me to College, and should not be
-allowed, before I was twenty-one, to be out later than
-half-past ten. I was never really free and independent
-till I was banished; but for that incident, the system
-would probably have gone on till I was twenty-five or
-thirty-five.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Like most energetic boys who have been brought up
-alone, I rushed into the arms of my companions with
-such frank eagerness, made proselytes with such sublime
-confidence, and was myself so fond of everyone, that I
-could not but kindle a corresponding warmth in my
-hearers, who were mostly of the same age as myself. I
-was then seventeen.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The process of making friends was hastened partly by
-the advice which worldly wisdom gave me—to be polite
-to all and intimate with none, to confide in nobody; and
-there was also the belief which we all took with us to
-College, the belief that here our dreams would be realised,
-that here we should sow the seed of a future harvest and
-lay the foundations of a permanent alliance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The young men of my time were admirable. It was just
-the time when ideals were stirring more and more in Russia.
-The formalism of theological training and Polish
-indolence had alike disappeared, and had not yet given
-place to German utilitarianism, which applies culture to
-the mind, like manure to a field, in the hope of a heavier
-crop. The best students had ceased to consider learning
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>as a tiresome but indispensable byway to official promotion;
-and the questions which we discussed had nothing
-to do with advancement in the Civil Service.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the other hand, the pursuit of knowledge had not
-yet become divorced from realities, and did not distract
-our attention from the suffering humanity around us; and
-this sympathy heightened the <i>social</i> morality of the students.
-My friends and I said openly in the lecture-room
-whatever came into our heads; copies of forbidden poems
-were freely circulated, and forbidden books were read
-aloud and commented on; and yet I cannot recall a single
-instance of information given by a traitor to the authorities.
-There were timid spirits who held aloof and shut
-their eyes; but even they held their tongues.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One foolish boy made some disclosures to his mother,
-when she questioned him, under threat of the rod, about
-the Málov affair. The fond mother—she was a Princess
-and a leader in society—rushed to the Rector and communicated
-her son’s disclosures, in order to prove his repentance.
-We found this out, and tormented him so, that
-he left before his time was up.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But this episode, which led to my confinement within
-the walls of the University prison, is worth telling.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Málov, though a professor in the University, was a
-stupid, rude, ill-educated man, an object of contempt and
-derision to the students. One of them, when asked by a
-Visitor, how many professors there were in their department,
-replied that there were nine, not counting Málov.<a id='r46' /><a href='#f46' class='c016'><sup>[46]</sup></a>
-And this man, who could be spoken of in this way, began
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>to treat his class with more and more rudeness, till they
-determined to turn him out of the lecture-room. When
-their plan was made, they sent two spokesmen to our department,
-and invited me to bring reinforcements. I
-raised the fiery cross against the foe at once, and was
-joined by some adherents. When we entered Málov’s
-lecture-room, he was there and saw us.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f46'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. </span>There is here an untranslatable play on words.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>One fear only was depicted on the faces of all the audience—that
-he might refrain for once from rude remarks.
-But that fear soon passed off. The tightly packed lecture-room
-was in a fever and gave vent to a low suppressed
-noise. Málov made some objection, and a scraping of feet
-began. “You are like horses, expressing your thoughts
-with your feet,” said the professor, imagining, I suppose,
-that horses think by gallop and trot. Then the storm
-broke, with hisses and yells. “Turn him out! turn him
-out! <i>Pereat!</i>” Málov turned white as a sheet and made
-a desperate effort to control the noise, but failed; the
-students jumped up on the benches. Málov slowly left
-his chair, hunched himself up, and made his way to the
-door. The students followed him through the court to the
-street outside, and threw his goloshes out after him. The
-last detail was important: if once it reached the street,
-the proceeding became much more serious; but what lads
-of seventeen or eighteen would ever take that into account?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The University Council took fright and induced the
-Visitor to represent the affair as settled, and, with that
-object, to consign the guilty persons or someone, at least,
-to the University prison. That was rather ingenious on
-their part. Otherwise, it was likely enough that the Emperor
-would send an <i>aide-de-camp</i>, and that the <i>aide-de-camp</i>,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>in order to earn a cross, would have magnified the
-affair into conspiracy and rebellion; then he would have
-advised penal servitude for all the offenders, and the
-Emperor, in his mercy, would have sent them to the
-colours instead. But seeing vice punished and virtue triumphant,
-the Emperor merely confirmed the action of the
-students by dismissing the professor. Though we drove
-Málov as far as the University gates, it was Nicholas who
-drove him out of them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>So the fat was in the fire. On the following afternoon,
-one of the porters hobbled up to me, a white-haired old
-man who was normally in a state more drunk than sober,
-and produced from the lining of his overcoat a note from
-the Rector for me: I was ordered to call on him at seven
-in the evening. The porter was soon followed by a student,
-a baron from the Baltic Provinces, who was one of the
-unfortunate victims enticed by me, and had received an
-invitation similar to mine. He looked pale and frightened
-and began by heaping reproaches on me; then he asked
-me what I advised him to say.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Lie desperately,” I answered; “deny everything,
-except that there was a row and you were present.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But if the Rector asks why I was in the wrong lecture-room?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That’s easy. Say of course that our lecturer did not
-turn up, and that you, not wishing to waste your time,
-went to hear someone else.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“He won’t believe me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That’s his affair.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When we entered the University yard, I looked at my
-baron: his plump cheeks were very pale, and he was
-obviously feeling uncomfortable. “Listen to me,” I said;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>“you may be sure that the Rector will deal with me first.
-Say what I say, with variations; you really took no
-special part in the affair. But remember one thing: for
-making a row and for telling lies about it, they will, at
-most, put you in the prison; but, if you are not careful and
-involve any other student, I shall tell the rest and we
-shall poison your existence.” The baron promised, and
-kept his word like a gentleman.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Rector at that time was Dvigubski, a survival and
-a typical specimen of the antediluvian professor—but,
-for flood I should substitute fire, the Great Fire of 1812.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>They are extinct now: the patriarchal epoch of Moscow
-University ends with the appointment of Prince Obolenski
-as Visitor. In those days the Government left the
-University alone: the professors lectured or not, the students
-attended or not, just as they pleased, and the latter,
-instead of the kind of cavalry uniform they have now,
-wore mufti of varying degrees of eccentricity, and very
-small caps which would hardly stick on over their virgin
-locks. Of professors there were two classes or camps,
-which carried on a bloodless warfare against each other—one
-composed exclusively of Germans, the other of non-Germans.
-The Germans included some worthy and learned
-men, such as Loder, Fischer, Hildebrandt, and Heim; but
-they were distinguished as a rule for their ignorance and
-dislike of the Russian language, their want of sympathy
-with the students, their unlimited consumption of tobacco,
-and the large number of stars and orders which they
-always wore. The non-Germans, on their side, knew no
-modern language but Russian; they had the ill-breeding
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>of the theological school and the servile temper of their
-nation; they were mostly overworked, and they made up
-for abstention from tobacco by an excessive indulgence in
-strong drinks. Most of the Germans came from Göttingen,
-and most of the non-Germans were sons of priests.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Dvigubski belonged to the latter class. He looked so
-much the ecclesiastic that one of the students—he had
-been brought up at a priests’ school—asked for his blessing
-and regularly addressed him as “Your Reverence” in
-the course of an examination. But he was also startlingly
-like an owl wearing the Order of St. Anne; and as such
-he was caricatured by another student who had come less
-under church influences. He came occasionally to our
-lecture-room, and brought with him the dean, Chumakov,
-or Kotelnitski, who had charge of a cupboard labelled
-<i>Materia Medica</i>, and kept, for some unknown reason, in
-the mathematical class-room; or Reiss, who had been
-imported from Germany because his uncle knew chemistry,
-and lectured in French with such a pronunciation
-that <i>poisson</i> took the place of <i>poison</i> in his mouth, and
-some quite innocent words sounded unprintable. When
-these old gentlemen appeared, we stared at them: to us
-they were a party of “dug-outs,” the Last of the Mohicans,
-representatives of a different age, quite remote from ours—of
-the time when Knyazhnín and Cheraskov were read,
-the time of good-natured Professor Dilthey, who had two
-dogs which he named <i>Babil</i> and <i>Bijou</i>, because one never
-stopped barking and the other was always silent.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But Dvigubski was by no means a good-natured professor:
-his reception of us was exceedingly abrupt and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>discourteous; I talked terrible nonsense and was rude,
-and the baron played second fiddle to me. Dvigubski was
-provoked and ordered us to appear before the Council
-next morning. The Council settled our business in half
-an hour: they questioned, condemned, and sentenced us,
-and referred the sentence, for confirmation, to Prince Golitsyn.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I had hardly had time to give half a dozen performances
-in the lecture-room, representing the proceedings of the
-University Court, when the beginning of the lecture was
-interrupted by the appearance of a party, consisting of
-our inspector, an army major, a French dancing-master,
-and a corporal, who carried an order for my arrest and
-incarceration. Some students escorted me, and there were
-many more in the court-yard, who waved their hands or
-caps. Clearly I was not the first victim. The University
-police tried in vain to push them back.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I found two captives already immured in the dirty cellar
-which served as a prison, and there were two more in
-another room; six was the total number of those who
-suffered for this affair. We were sentenced to a diet of
-bread and water, and, though we declined some soup
-which the Rector sent us, we did not suffer; for when the
-College emptied at nightfall, our friends brought us
-cheese, game, cigars, wine, and <i>liqueurs</i>. The sentry
-grumbled and scolded, but he took a small bribe, and introduced
-the supplies. After midnight, he moved to some
-distance and allowed several of our friends to join us.
-And so we spent our time, feasting by night and sleeping
-by day.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A certain Panin, a brother of the Minister of Justice
-and employed under our Visitor, mindful of Army traditions,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>took it into his head one night to go the rounds and
-inspect our cellar-prison. We had just lit a candle, keeping
-it under a chair to betray no light, and were attacking
-our midnight meal, when a knocking was heard at the
-outer door, not the meek sound that begs for admittance
-and fears to be heard more than not to be heard, but a
-knock of power and authority. The sentry turned rigid,
-we hid the bottles and our guests in a cupboard, blew out
-the light, and dropped on our pallet-beds. Panin came in.
-“You appear to be smoking,” he said—the smoke was so
-thick that Panin and the inspector who were carrying a
-lantern were hardly visible. “Where do they get a light
-from? From you?” he asked the sentry. The man swore
-he was innocent, and we said that we had got tinder of
-our own. The inspector promised to take it and our cigars
-away; and Panin went off, without ever noticing that
-there were twice as many caps in the room as heads.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On Saturday evening the inspector appeared and announced
-that I and one other might go home; the rest
-were to stay till Monday. I resented this proposal and
-asked him whether I might stay. He fell back a step,
-looked at me with that expression of dignified wrath which
-is worn by ballet-dancers when representing angry kings
-or heroes, and said, “By all means, if you want to!” Then
-he left us; and this sally on my part brought down more
-paternal wrath on me than any other part of the affair.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Thus the first nights which I spent away from home
-were spent in prison. I was soon to experience a prison
-of another kind, and there I spent, not eight days, but
-nine months; and when these had passed, instead of
-going home, I went into exile. But much happened before
-that.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>From this time I was a popular hero in the lecture-room.
-Till then I was considered “all right” by the rest;
-but, after the Málov affair, I became, like the lady in
-Gógol, all right in the fullest sense of that term.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But did we learn anything, meanwhile, and was study
-possible under such circumstances? I think we did. The
-instruction was more limited in quantity and scope than
-in the forties. But a university is not bound to complete
-scientific education: its business is rather to put a man
-in a position to walk by himself; it should raise problems
-and teach a man to ask questions. And this is exactly
-what was done by such professors as Pávlov and Kachenovsky,
-each in his own way. But the collision of young
-minds, the exchange of ideas, and the discussion of books—all
-this did more than professors or lectures to develop
-and ripen the student. Moscow University was a successful
-institution; and the professors who contributed by
-their lectures to the development of Lérmontov, Byelínski,
-Turgénev, Kavélin, and Pirógov, may play cards with an
-easy conscience, or, with a still easier conscience, rest in
-their graves.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And what astonishing people some of them were! There
-was Chumakov, who treated the formulae of Poinsot’s
-<i>Algebra</i> like so many serfs—adding letters and subtracting
-them, mixing up square numbers and their roots, and
-treating x as the known quantity. There was Myágkov,
-who, in spite of his name,<a id='r47' /><a href='#f47' class='c016'><sup>[47]</sup></a> lectured on the harshest of
-sciences, the science of tactics. The constant study of this
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>noble subject had actually given a martial air to the professor;
-and as he stood there buttoned up to the throat
-and erect behind his stock, his lectures sounded more like
-words of command than mere conversation. “Gentlemen,
-artillery!” he would cry out. It sounded like the field of
-battle, but it only meant that this was the heading of his
-next discourse. And there was Reiss, who lectured on
-chemistry but never ventured further than hydrogen—Reiss,
-who was elected to the Chair for no knowledge of
-his own but because his uncle had once studied the
-science. The latter was invited to come to Russia towards
-the end of Catherine’s reign; but the old man did not
-want to move, and sent his nephew instead.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f47'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. </span><i>Myágki</i> is the Russian for “mild.”</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>My University course lasted four years, the additional
-year being due to the fact that a whole session was lost
-owing to the cholera. The most remarkable events of that
-time were the cholera itself, and the visits of Humboldt
-and Uvárov.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When Humboldt<a id='r48' /><a href='#f48' class='c016'><sup>[48]</sup></a> was on his way back from the Ural
-Mountains, he was welcomed to Moscow at a formal
-meeting of the Society for the Pursuit of Natural Science,
-most of whose members were state functionaries of some
-kind, not at all interested in science, either natural or unnatural.
-But the glory of Humboldt—a Privy Councillor
-of the Prussian King, a man on whom the Tsar had graciously
-conferred the Order of St. Anne, with instructions
-that the recipient was to be put to no expense in the matter—was
-a fact of which even they were not ignorant; and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>they were determined to show themselves to advantage
-before a man who had climbed Chimborazo and who lived
-at Sans-Souci.<a id='r49' /><a href='#f49' class='c016'><sup>[49]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f48'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. </span>Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859), born at Berlin, a famous writer
-on natural science.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f49'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. </span>The Prussian palace, near Potsdam.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Our attitude towards Europe and Europeans is still
-that of provincials towards the dwellers in a capital: we
-are servile and apologetic, take every difference for a
-defect, blush for our peculiarities and try to hide them,
-and confess our inferiority by imitation. The fact is that
-we are intimidated: we have never got over the sneers
-of Peter the Great and his coadjutors, or the superior airs
-of French tutors and Germans in our Civil Service. Western
-nations talk of our duplicity and cunning; they believe
-we want to deceive them, when we are only trying
-to make a creditable appearance and pass muster. A Russian
-will express quite different political views in talking
-to different persons, without any ulterior object, and
-merely from a wish to please: the bump of complaisance
-is highly developed in our skulls.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Prince Dmitri Golitsyn,” said Lord Durham on one
-occasion, “is a true Whig, a Whig at heart.” Prince Golitsyn
-was a worthy Russian gentleman, but I do not understand
-in what sense he was a Whig. It is clear enough
-that the Prince in his old age wished to be polite to Lord
-Durham and put on the Whig for that purpose.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Humboldt’s reception in Moscow and at the University
-was a tremendous affair. Everyone came to meet
-him—the Governor of the city, functionaries military and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>civil, and the judges of the Supreme Court; and the professors
-were there wearing full uniform and their Orders,
-looking most martial with swords and three-cornered hats
-tucked under their arms. Unaware of all this, Humboldt
-arrived in a blue coat with gilt buttons and was naturally
-taken aback. His way was barricaded at every point between
-the entrance and the great hall: first the Rector
-stopped him, then the Dean, now a budding professor,
-and now a veteran who was just ending his career and
-therefore spoke very slowly; each of them delivered a
-speech of welcome in Latin or German or French, and all
-this went on in those terrible stone funnels miscalled passages,
-where you stopped for a minute at the risk of catching
-cold for a month. Humboldt listened bare-headed to
-them all and replied to them all. I feel convinced that
-none of the savages, either red-skinned or copper-coloured,
-whom he had met in his travels, made him so uncomfortable
-as his reception at Moscow.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he reached the hall at last and could sit down,
-he had to get up again. Our Visitor, Pisarev, thought it
-necessary to set forth in a few powerful Russian sentences
-the merits of His Excellency, the famous traveller;
-and then a poet, Glinka, in a deep hoarse voice recited a
-poem of his own which began—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c022'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Humboldt, Prometheus of our time!”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>What Humboldt wanted was to discuss his observations
-on the magnetic pole, and to compare the meteorological
-records he had taken in the Ural Mountains with those
-at Moscow; but the Rector preferred to show him some
-relic plaited out of the hair of Peter the Great. It was
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>with difficulty that Ehrenberg and Rose found an opportunity
-to tell him something of their discoveries.<a id='r50' /><a href='#f50' class='c016'><sup>[50]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f50'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. </span>Odd views were taken in Russia of Humboldt’s travels.
-There was a Cossack at Perm who liked describing how he escorted “a
-mad Prussian prince called Gumplot.” When asked what Gumplot did, he
-said: “He was quite childish, picking grasses and gazing at sand. At
-one place he told me through the interpreter to wade into a pool and
-fish out what was at the bottom—there was nothing but what there is
-at the bottom of every pool. Then he asked if the water at the bottom
-was very cold. You won’t catch me that way, thought I; so I saluted
-and said, ‘The rules of the service require it, Your Excellency.’”
-[Author’s Note.]</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Even in unofficial circles, we don’t do things much
-better in Russia. Liszt was received in just the same way
-by Moscow society ten years ago. There was folly enough
-over him in Germany; but that was quite a different
-thing—old-maidish gush and sentimentality and strewing
-of roses, whereas in Russia there was servile acknowledgement
-of power and prim formality of a strictly official
-type. And Liszt’s reputation as a Don Juan was mixed
-up in an unpleasant way with it all: the ladies swarmed
-around him, just as boys in out-of-the-way places swarm
-round a traveller when he is changing horses and stare
-at him or his carriage or his hat. Every ear was turned to
-Liszt, every word and every reply was addressed to him
-alone. I remember one evening when Homyakóv, in his
-disgust with the company, appealed to me to start a dispute
-with him on any subject, that Liszt might discover
-there were some people in the room who were not exclusively
-taken up with him. I can only say one thing to
-console our ladies—that Englishwomen treated other celebrities,
-Kossuth, Garibaldi, and others, in just the same
-way, crowding and jostling round the object of worship;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>but woe to him who seeks to learn good manners from
-Englishwomen, or their husbands!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§16</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Our other distinguished visitor was also “a Prometheus
-of our time” in a certain sense; only, instead of stealing
-fire from Zeus, he stole it from mankind. This Prometheus,
-whose fame was sung, not by Glinka but by Púshkin
-himself in his <i>Epistle to Lucullus</i>, was Uvárov, the
-Minister of Education.<a id='r51' /><a href='#f51' class='c016'><sup>[51]</sup></a> He astonished us by the number
-of languages he spoke and by the amount of his miscellaneous
-knowledge; he was a real shopman behind the
-counter of learning and kept samples of all the sciences,
-the elements chiefly, in his head. In Alexander’s reign,
-he wrote reform pamphlets in French; then he had a
-German correspondence with Goethe on Greek matters.
-After becoming minister, he discoursed on Slavonic
-poetry of the fourth century, which made Kachenovsky
-remark to him that our ancestors were much busier in
-fighting bears than in hymning their gods and kings. As
-a kind of patent of nobility, he carried about in his pocket
-a letter from Goethe, in which Goethe paid him a very
-odd compliment: “You have no reason to apologise for
-your style: you have succeeded in doing what I could
-never do—forgetting German grammar.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f51'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. </span>Serghéi Uvárov (1786-1855) was both Minister of Education
-and President of the Academy of Sciences. He used his power to tighten
-the censorship and suppressed <i>The Moscow Telegraph</i>, edited by
-Polevoi, which was the most independent of Russian journals; in this
-way he “stole fire from mankind.” The reference to Púshkin is
-malicious: what Púshkin wrote about Uvárov in that poem was the
-reverse of complimentary. “Lucullus” was Count Sheremétyev and Uvárov
-was his heir.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>This highly placed Admirable Crichton invented a new
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>kind of torture for our benefit. He gave directions that the
-best students should be selected, and that each of them
-should deliver a lecture in his own department of study,
-in place of the professor. The Deans of course chose the
-readiest of the students to perform.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These lectures went on for a whole week. The students
-had to get up all the branches of their subject, and the
-Dean drew a lot to determine the theme and the speaker.
-Uvárov invited all the rank and fashion of Moscow. Ecclesiastics
-and judges, the Governor of the city, and the old
-poet, Dmítriev—everyone was there.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§17</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>It fell to me to lecture on a mineralogical subject. Our
-professor, Lovetski,—he is now dead,—was a tall man
-with a clumsy figure and awkward gait, a large mouth
-and a large and entirely expressionless face. He wore a
-pea-green overcoat, adorned in the fashion of the First
-Consulate with a variety of capes; and while taking off
-this garment in the passage outside the lecture-room, he
-always began in an even and wooden voice which seemed
-to suit his subject, “In our last lecture we dealt fully with
-silicon dioxide”—then he took his seat and went on, “We
-proceed to aluminium ...” In the definition of each
-metal, he followed an absolutely identical formula, so
-that some of them had to be defined by negatives, in this
-way: “Crystallisation: this metal does not crystallise”;
-“Use: this metal is never used”; “Service to man: this
-substance does nothing but harm to the human organism.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Still he did not avoid poetical illustration or edifying
-comment: whenever he showed us counterfeit gems and
-explained how they were made, he never failed to add,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>“Gentlemen, this is dishonest.” When alluding to farming,
-he found <i>moral</i> worth in a cock that was fond of
-crowing and courting his hens, and blue blood in a ram
-if he had “bald knees.” He had also a touching story
-about some flies which ran over the bark of a tree on a
-fine summer day till they were caught in the resin which
-had turned to amber; and this always ended with the
-words, “Gentlemen, these things are an allegory.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I was summoned forth by the Dean, the audience
-was somewhat weary: two lectures on mathematics had
-had a depressing effect upon hearers who did not understand
-a word of the subject. Uvárov called for something
-more lively and a speaker with a ready tongue; and I was
-chosen to meet the situation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While I was mounting to the desk, Lovetski sat there
-motionless, with his hands on his knees, looking like
-Memnon or Osiris. I whispered to him, “Never fear! I
-shan’t give you away!”—and the worthy professor, without
-looking at me and hardly moving his lips, formed the
-words, “Boast not, when girding on thine armour!” I
-nearly laughed aloud, but when I looked in front of me,
-the whole room swam before my eyes, I felt that I was
-losing colour, and my mouth grew strangely dry. It was
-my first speech in public; the lecture-room was full of
-students, who relied upon me; at a table just below me
-sat the dignitaries and all the professors of our faculty.
-I took the paper and read out in a voice that sounded
-strange to myself, “Crystallisation: its conditions, laws,
-and forms.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While I was considering how I should begin, a consoling
-thought came into my head—that, if I did make mistakes,
-the professors might perhaps detect them but would
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>certainly not speak of them, while the rest of the audience
-would be quite in the dark, and the students would be
-quite satisfied if I managed not to break down; for I was
-a favourite with them. So I delivered my lecture and
-ended up with some speculative observations, addressing
-myself throughout to my companions and not to the
-minister. Students and professors shook me by the hand
-and expressed their thanks. Uvárov presented me to
-Prince Golitsyn, who said something, but I could not
-understand it, as the Prince used vowels only and no consonants.
-Uvárov promised me a book as a souvenir of
-the occasion; but I never got it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My second and third appearances on a public stage
-were very different. In 1836 I took a chief part in amateur
-theatricals before the Governor and <i>beau monde</i> of
-Vyatka. Though we had been rehearsing for a month, my
-heart beat furiously and my hands trembled; when the
-overture came to an end, dead silence followed, and the
-curtain slowly rose with an awful twitching. The leading
-lady and I were in the green-room; and she was so sorry
-for me, or so afraid that I would break down and spoil
-the piece, that she administered a full bumper of champagne;
-but even this was hardly able to restore me to
-my senses.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This preliminary experience saved me from all nervous
-symptoms and self-consciousness when I made my third
-public appearance, which was at a Polish meeting held
-in London and presided over by the ex-Minister Ledru-Rollin.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§18</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But perhaps I have dwelt long enough on College memories.
-I fear it may be a sign of senility to linger so long
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>over them; and I shall only add a few details on the
-cholera of 1831.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The word “cholera,” so familiar now in Europe and
-especially in Russia, was heard in the North for the first
-time in 1831. The dread contagion caused general terror,
-as it spread up the course of the Volga towards Moscow.
-Exaggerated rumours filled men’s minds with horror. The
-epidemic took a capricious course, sometimes pausing,
-and sometimes passing over a district; it was believed
-that it had gone round Moscow, when suddenly the terrible
-tidings spread like wildfire, “The cholera is in the
-city.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A student who was taken ill one morning died in the
-University hospital on the evening of the next day. We
-went to look at the body. It was emaciated as if by long
-illness, the eyes were sunk in their sockets, and the
-features were distorted. Near him lay his attendant who
-had caught the infection during the night.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We were told that the University was to be closed. The
-notice was read in our faculty by Denísov, the professor
-of technology; he was depressed and perhaps frightened;
-before the end of the next day he too was dead.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All the students collected in the great court of the University.
-There was something touching in that crowd of
-young men forced asunder by the fear of infection. All
-were excited, and there were many pale faces; many were
-thinking of relations and friends; we said good-bye to
-the scholars who were to remain behind in quarantine,
-and dispersed in small groups to our homes. There we
-were greeted by the stench of chloride of lime and vinegar,
-and submitted to a diet which, of itself and without
-chloride or cholera, was quite enough to cause an illness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>It is a strange fact, but this sad time is more solemn
-than sad in my recollection of it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The aspect of Moscow was entirely changed. The city
-was animated beyond its wont by the feeling of a common
-life. There were fewer carriages in the streets;
-crowds stood at the crossings and spoke darkly of poisoners;
-ambulances, conveying the sick, moved along at a
-footpace, escorted by police; and people turned aside as
-the hearses went by. Bulletins were published twice a
-day. The city was surrounded by troops, and an unfortunate
-beadle was shot while trying to cross the river.
-These measures caused much excitement, and fear of disease
-conquered the fear of authority; the inhabitants protested;
-and meanwhile tidings followed tidings—that so-and-so
-had sickened and so-and-so was dead.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Archbishop, Philaret, ordained a Day of Humiliation.
-At the same hour on the same day all the priests
-went in procession with banners round their parishes,
-while the terrified inhabitants came out of their houses
-and fell on their knees, weeping and praying that their
-sins might be forgiven; even the priests were moved by
-the solemnity of the occasion. Some of them marched to
-the Kremlin, where the Archbishop, surrounded by clerical
-dignitaries, knelt in the open air and prayed, “May
-this cup pass from us!”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§19</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Philaret carried on a kind of opposition to Government,
-but why he did so I never could understand, unless it
-was to assert his own personality. He was an able and
-learned man, and a perfect master of the Russian language,
-which he spoke with a happy flavouring of Church-Slavonic;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>but all this gave him no right to be in opposition.
-The people disliked him and called him a freemason,
-because he was intimate with Prince A. N. Golitsyn
-and preached in Petersburg just when the Bible Society
-was in vogue there. The Synod forbade the use of
-his Catechism in the schools. But the clergy who were
-under his rule trembled before him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Philaret knew how to put down the secular powers with
-great ingenuity and dexterity; his sermons breathed that
-vague Christian socialism to which Lacordaire and other
-far-sighted Roman Catholics owed their reputation. From
-the height of his episcopal pulpit, Philaret used to say
-that no man could be legally the mere instrument of
-another, and that an exchange of services was the only
-proper relation between human beings; and this he said
-in a country where half the population were slaves.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Speaking to a body of convicts who were leaving Moscow
-on their way to Siberia, he said, “Human law has
-condemned you and driven you forth; but the Church
-will not let you go; she wishes to address you once more,
-to pray for you once again, and to bless you before your
-journey.” Then, to comfort them, he added, “You, by
-your punishment, have got rid of your past, and a new
-life awaits you; but, among others” (and there were probably
-no others present except officials) “there are even
-greater sinners than you”; and he spoke of the penitent
-thief at the Crucifixion as an example for them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But Philaret’s sermon on the Day of Humiliation left
-all his previous utterances in the shade. He took as his
-text the passage where the angel suffered David to choose
-between war, famine, and pestilence as the punishment
-for his sin, and David chose the pestilence. The Tsar
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>came to Moscow in a furious rage, and sent a high Court
-official to reprove the Archbishop; he even threatened to
-send him to Georgia to exercise his functions there. Philaret
-submitted meekly to the reproof; and then he sent
-round a new rescript to all the churches, explaining that
-it was a mistake to suppose that he had meant David to
-represent the Tsar: we ourselves were David, sunk like
-him in the mire of sin. In this way, the meaning of the
-original sermon was explained even to those who had
-failed to grasp its meaning at first.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Such was the way in which the Archbishop of Moscow
-played at opposition.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Day of Humiliation was as ineffectual as the
-chloride of lime; and the plague grew worse and worse.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§20</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I witnessed the whole course of the frightful epidemic
-of cholera at Paris in 1849. The violence of the disease
-was increased by the hot June weather; the poor died
-like flies; of the middle classes some fled to the country,
-and the rest locked themselves up in their houses. The
-Government, exclusively occupied by the struggle against
-the revolutionists, never thought of taking any active
-steps. Large private subscriptions failed to meet the requirements
-of the situation. The working class were left
-to take their chance; the hospitals could not supply all
-the beds, nor the police all the coffins, that were required;
-and corpses remained for forty-eight hours in living-rooms
-crowded with a number of different families.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In Moscow things were different.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Prince Dmitri Golitsyn was Governor of the city, not
-a strong man, but honourable, cultured, and highly respected.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>He gave the line to Moscow society, and everything
-was arranged by the citizens themselves without
-much interference on the part of Government. A committee
-was formed of the chief residents—rich landowners
-and merchants. Each member of the committee
-undertook one of the districts of Moscow. In a few days
-twenty hospitals were opened, all supported by voluntary
-contributions and not costing one penny to the State. The
-merchants supplied all that was required in the hospitals—bedding,
-linen, and warm clothing, and this last might
-be kept by convalescents. Young people acted gratuitously
-as inspectors in the hospitals, to see that the free-will
-offerings of the merchants were not stolen by the
-orderlies and nurses.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The University too played its part. The whole medical
-school, both teachers and students, put themselves at the
-disposal of the committee. They were distributed among
-the hospitals and worked there incessantly until the infection
-was over. For three or four months these young
-men did fine work in the hospitals, as assistant physicians,
-dressers, nurses, or clerks, and all this for no pecuniary
-reward and at a time when the fear of infection was intense.
-I remember one Little Russian student who was
-trying to get an <i>exeat</i> on urgent private affairs when the
-cholera began. It was difficult to get an <i>exeat</i> in term-time,
-but he got it at last and was just preparing to start
-when the other students were entering the hospitals. He
-put his <i>exeat</i> in his pocket and joined them. When he
-left the hospital, his leave of absence had long expired,
-and he was the first to laugh heartily at the form his trip
-had taken.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Moscow has the appearance of being sleepy and slack,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>of caring for nothing but gossip and piety and fashionable
-intelligence; but she invariably wakes up and rises
-to the occasion when the hour strikes and when the
-thunder-storm breaks over Russia.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>She was wedded to Russia in blood in 1612, and she
-was welded to Russia in the fire of 1812.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>She bent her head before Peter, because he was the
-wild beast whose paw contained the whole future of
-Russia.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Frowning and pouting out his lips, Napoleon sat outside
-the gates, waiting for the keys of Moscow; impatiently
-he pulled at his bridle and twitched his glove. He was
-not accustomed to be alone when he entered foreign
-capitals.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But other thoughts had Moscow mine,” as Púshkin
-wrote, and she set fire to herself.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The cholera appeared, and once again the people’s
-capital showed itself full of feeling and power!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§21</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In August of 1830 we went to stay at Vasílevskoë, and
-broke our journey as usual at Perkhushkov, where our
-house looked like a castle in a novel of Mrs. Radcliffe’s.
-After taking a meal and feeding the horses, we were preparing
-to resume our journey, and Bakai, with a towel
-round his waist, was just calling out to the coachman,
-“All right!” when a mounted messenger signed to us to
-stop. This was a groom belonging to my uncle, the Senator.
-Covered with dust and sweat, he jumped off his horse
-and delivered a packet to my father. The packet contained
-the <i>Revolution of July</i>! Two pages of the <i>Journal
-des Débats</i>, which he brought with him as well as a letter,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>I read over a hundred times till I knew them by heart;
-and for the first time I found the country tiresome.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It was a glorious time and events moved quickly. The
-spare figure of Charles X had hardly disappeared into
-the fogs of Holyrood, when Belgium burst into flame and
-the throne of the citizen-king began to totter. The revolutionary
-spirit began to work in men’s mouths and in literature:
-novels, plays, and poetry entered the arena and
-preached the good cause.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We knew nothing then of the theatrical element which
-is part of all revolutionary movements in France, and
-we believed sincerely in all we heard.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>If anyone wishes to know how powerfully the news of
-the July revolution worked on the rising generation, let
-him read what Heine wrote, when he heard in Heligoland
-that “the great Pan, the pagan god, was dead.” There is
-no sham enthusiasm there: Heine at thirty was just as
-much carried away, just as childishly excited, as we were
-at eighteen.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We followed every word and every incident with close
-attention—bold questions and sharp replies, General
-Lafayette and General Lamarque. Not only did we know
-all about the chief actors—on the radical side, of course—but
-we were warmly attached to them, and cherished
-their portraits, from Manuel and Benjamin Constant to
-Dupont de l’Eure and Armand Carrel.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§22</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Our special group consisted of five to begin with, and
-then we fell in with a sixth, Vadim Passek.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was much that was new to us in Vadim. We five
-had all been brought up in very much the same way:
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>we knew no places but Moscow and the surrounding
-country; we had read the same books and taken lessons
-from the same teachers; we had been educated either at
-home or in the boarding-school connected with the University.
-But Vadim was born in Siberia, during his father’s
-exile, and had suffered poverty and privation. His father
-was his teacher, and he was one of a large family, who
-grew up familiar with want but free from all other restraints.
-Siberia has a stamp of its own, quite unlike the
-stamp of provincial Russia; those who bear it have more
-health and more elasticity. Compared to Vadim we were
-tame. His courage was of a different kind, heroic and at
-times overbearing; the high distinction of suffering had
-developed in him a special kind of pride, but he had also
-a generous warmth of heart. He was bold, and even imprudent
-to excess; but a man born in Siberia and belonging
-to a family of exiles has this advantage over others,
-that Siberia has for him no terrors.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As soon as we met, Vadim rushed into our arms. Very
-soon we became intimate. It should be said that there
-was nothing of the nature of ceremony or prudent precaution
-in our little coterie of those days.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Would you like to know Ketcher, of whom you have
-heard so much?” Vadim once asked me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Of course I should.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, come at seven to-morrow evening, and don’t be
-late; he will be at our house.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I arrived, Vadim was out. A tall man with an
-expressive face was waiting for him and shot a glance,
-half good-natured and half formidable, at me from under
-his spectacles. I took up a book, and he followed my example.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>“I say,” he began, as he opened the book, “are you
-Herzen?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And so conversation began and soon grew fast and furious.
-Ketcher soon interrupted me with no ceremony: “Excuse
-me! I should be obliged if you would address me as
-‘thou.’”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“By all means!” said I. And from that minute—perhaps
-it was the beginning of 1831—we were inseparable
-friends; and from that minute Ketcher’s friendly laugh
-or fierce shout became a part of my life at all its stages.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The acquaintance with Vadim brought a new and
-gentler element into our camp.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As before, our chief meeting-place was Ogaryóv’s house.
-His invalid father had gone to live in the country, and he
-lived alone on the ground-floor of their Moscow house,
-which was near the University and had a great attraction
-for us all. Ogaryóv had that magnetic power which forms
-the first point of crystallisation in any medley of disordered
-atoms, provided the necessary affinity exists.
-Though scattered in all directions, they become imperceptibly
-the heart of an organism. In his bright cheerful
-room with its red and gold wall-paper, amid the perpetual
-smell of tobacco and punch and other—I was going to
-say, eatables and drinkables, but now I remember that
-there was seldom anything to eat but cheese—we often
-spent the time from dark till dawn in heated argument
-and sometimes in noisy merriment. But, side by side with
-that hospitable students’ room, there grew more and more
-dear to us another house, in which we learned—I might
-say, for the first time—respect for family life.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Vadim often deserted our discussions and went off
-home: when he had not seen his mother and sisters for
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>some time, he became restless. To us our little club was
-the centre of the world, and we thought it strange that
-he should prefer the society of his family; were not we
-a family too?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then he introduced us to his family. They had lately
-returned from Siberia; they were ruined, yet they bore
-that stamp of dignity which calamity engraves, not on
-every sufferer, but on those who have borne misfortune
-with courage.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§23</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Their father was arrested in Paul’s reign, having been
-informed against for revolutionary designs. He was
-thrown into prison at Schlüsselburg and then banished
-to Siberia. When Alexander restored thousands of his
-father’s exiles, Passek was <i>forgotten</i>. He was a nephew
-of the Passek who became Governor of Poland, and might
-have claimed a share of the fortune which had now passed
-into other hands.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While detained at Schlüsselburg, Passek had married
-the daughter of an officer of the garrison. The young girl
-knew that exile would be his fate, but she was not deterred
-by that prospect. In Siberia they made a shift at first to
-get on, by selling their last belongings, but the pressure
-of poverty grew steadily worse and worse, and the process
-was hastened by their increasing family. Yet neither destitution
-nor manual toil, nor the absence of warm clothing
-and sometimes of daily food—nothing prevented them
-from rearing a whole family of lion-cubs, who inherited
-from their father his dauntless pride and self-confidence.
-He educated them by his example, and they were taught
-by their mother’s self-sacrifice and bitter tears. The girls
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>were not inferior to the boys in heroic constancy. Why
-shrink from using the right word?—they were a family
-of heroes. No one would believe what they endured and
-did for one another; and they held their heads high
-through it all.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When they were in Siberia, the three sisters had at one
-time a single pair of shoes between them; and they kept
-it to walk out in, in order to hide their need from the
-public eye.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At the beginning of the year 1826 Passek was permitted
-to return to Russia. It was winter weather, and
-it was a terrible business for so large a family to travel
-from Tobolsk without furs and without money; but exile
-becomes most unbearable when it is over, and they were
-longing to be gone. They contrived it somehow. The
-foster-mother of one of the children, a peasant woman,
-brought them her poor savings as a contribution, and
-only asked that they would take her too; the post-boys
-brought them as far as the Russian frontier for little payment
-or none at all; the children took turns in driving
-or walking; and so they completed the long winter journey
-from the Ural ridge to Moscow. Moscow was their dream
-and their hope; and at Moscow they found starvation
-waiting for them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the authorities pardoned Passek, they never
-thought of restoring to him any part of his property. On
-his arrival, worn out by exertions and privations, he fell
-ill; and the family did not know where they were to get
-to-morrow’s dinner.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The father could bear no more; he died. The widow
-and children got on as best they could from day to day.
-The greater the need, the harder the sons worked; three
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>of them took their degree at the University with brilliant
-success. The two eldest, both excellent mathematicians,
-went to Petersburg; one served in the Navy and the other
-in the Engineers, and both contrived to give lessons in
-mathematics as well. They practised strict self-denial
-and sent home all the money they earned.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have a vivid recollection of their old mother in her
-dark jacket and white cap. Her thin pale face was covered
-with wrinkles, and she looked much older than she was;
-the eyes alone still lived and revealed such a fund of
-gentleness and love, and such a past of anxiety and tears.
-She was in love with her children; they were wealth and
-distinction and youth to her; she used to read us their
-letters, and spoke of them with a sacred depth of feeling,
-while her feeble voice sometimes broke and trembled with
-unshed tears.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sometimes there was a family gathering of them all
-at Moscow, and then the mother’s joy was beyond description.
-When they sat down to their modest meal, she
-would move round the table and arrange things, looking
-with such joy and pride at her young ones, and sometimes
-mutely appealing to me for sympathy and admiration.
-They were really, in point of good looks also, an exceptional
-family. At such times I longed to kiss her hand
-and fall upon her neck.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>She was happy then; it would have been well if she
-had died at one of those meetings.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the space of two years she lost her three eldest sons.
-Diomid died gloriously, honoured by the foe, in the arms
-of victory, though he laid down his life in a quarrel that
-was not his. As a young general, he was killed in action
-against Circassians. But laurels cannot mend a mother’s
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>broken heart. The other two were less fortunate: the
-weight of Russian life lay heavy upon them and crushed
-them at last.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alas! poor mother!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§24</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Vadim died in February of 1843. I was present at his
-death; it was the first time I had witnessed the death of
-one dear to me, and I realised the unrelieved horror, the
-senseless irrationality, and the stupid injustice of the
-tragedy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Ten years earlier Vadim had married my cousin
-Tatyana, and I was best man at the wedding. Family
-life and change of conditions parted us to some extent.
-He was happy in his quiet life, but outward circumstances
-were unfavourable and his enterprises were unsuccessful.
-Shortly before I and my friends were arrested, he went
-to Khárkov, where he had been promised a professor’s
-chair in the University. This trip saved him from prison;
-but his name had come to the ears of the police, and the
-University refused to appoint him. An official admitted
-to him that a document had been received forbidding his
-appointment, because the Government knew that he was
-connected with <i>disaffected persons</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>So Vadim remained without employment, <i>i.e.</i> without
-bread to eat. That was his form of punishment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We were banished. Relations with us were dangerous.
-Black years of want began for him; for seven years he
-struggled to earn a bare living, suffering from contact
-with rough manners and hard hearts, and unable to exchange
-messages with his friends in their distant place
-of exile; and the struggle proved too hard even for his
-powerful frame.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>“One day we had spent all our money to the last
-penny;”—his wife told me this story later—“I had tried
-to borrow ten <i>roubles</i> the day before, but I failed, because
-I had borrowed already in every possible quarter. The
-shops refused to give us any further credit, and our one
-thought was—what will the children get to eat to-morrow?
-Vadim sat in sorrow near the window; then he got up,
-took his hat, and said he meant to take a walk. I saw
-that he was very low, and I felt frightened; and yet I
-was glad that he should have something to divert his
-thoughts. When he went out, I threw myself upon the
-bed and wept bitter tears, and then I began to think what
-was to be done. Everything of any value, rings and
-spoons, had been pawned long ago. I could see no resource
-but one—to go to our relations and beg their cold
-charity, their bitter alms. Meanwhile Vadim was walking
-aimlessly about the streets till he came to the Petrovsky
-Boulevard. As he passed a bookseller’s shop there, it
-occurred to him to ask whether a single copy of his book
-had been sold. Five days earlier he had enquired, with
-no result; and he was full of apprehension when he entered
-the shop. ‘Very glad to see you,’ said the man; ‘I
-have heard from my Petersburg agent that he has sold
-300 <i>roubles’</i> worth of your books. Would you like payment
-now?’ And the man there and then counted out
-fifteen gold pieces. Vadim’s joy was so great that he was
-bewildered. He hurried to the nearest eating-house, bought
-food, fruit, and a bottle of wine, hired a cab, and drove
-home in triumph. I was adding water to some remnants
-of soup, to feed the children, and I meant to give him a
-little, pretending that I had eaten something already;
-and then suddenly he came in, carrying his parcel and the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>bottle of wine, and looking as happy and cheerful as in
-times past.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then she burst out sobbing and could not utter another
-word.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After my return from banishment I saw him occasionally
-in Petersburg and found him much changed. He kept
-his old convictions, but he kept them as a warrior, feeling
-that he is mortally wounded, still grasps his sword.
-He was exhausted and depressed, and looked forward
-without hope. And such I found him in Moscow in 1842;
-his circumstances were improved to some extent, and his
-works were appreciated, but all this came too late.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then consumption—that terrible disease which I was
-fated to watch once again<a id='r52' /><a href='#f52' class='c016'><sup>[52]</sup></a>—declared itself in the autumn
-of 1842, and Vadim wasted away.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f52'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. </span>Herzen’s wife died of consumption at Nice in 1852.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>A month before he died, I noticed with horror that his
-powers of mind were failing and growing dim like a flickering
-candle; the atmosphere of the sick-room grew
-darker steadily. Soon it cost him a laborious effort to find
-words for incoherent speech, and he confused words of
-similar sound; at last, he hardly spoke except to express
-anxiety about his medicines and the hours for taking
-them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At three o’clock one February morning, his wife sent
-for me. The sick man was in distress and asking for me.
-I went up to his bed and touched his hand; his wife
-named me, and he looked long and wearily at me but
-failed to recognise me and shut his eyes again. Then the
-children were brought, and he looked at them, but I do
-not think he recognised them either. His breathing became
-more difficult; there were intervals of quiet followed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>by long gasps. Just then the bells of a neighbouring
-church rang out; Vadim listened and then said,
-“That’s for early Mass,” and those were his last words.
-His wife sobbed on her knees beside the body; a young
-college friend, who had shown them much kindness during
-the last illness, moved about the room, pushing away
-the table with the medicine-bottles and drawing up the
-blinds. I left the house; it was frosty and bright out of
-doors, and the rising sun glittered on the snow, just as
-if all was right with the world. My errand was to order
-a coffin.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I returned, the silence of death reigned in the
-little house. In accordance with Russian custom, the dead
-man was lying on the table in the drawing-room, and an
-artist-friend, seated at a little distance, was drawing,
-through his tears, a portrait of the lifeless features. Near
-the body stood a tall female figure, with folded arms and
-an expression of infinite sorrow; she stood silent, and no
-sculptor could have carved a nobler or more impressive
-embodiment of grief. She was not young, but still retained
-the traces of a severe and stately beauty; wrapped up in a
-long mantle of black velvet trimmed with ermine, she
-stood there like a statue.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I remained standing at the door.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The silence went on for several minutes; but suddenly
-she bent forward, pressed a kiss on the cold forehead,
-and said, “Good-bye, good-bye, dear Vadim”; then she
-walked with a steady step into an inner room. The painter
-went on with his work; he nodded to me, and I sat down
-by the window in silence; we felt no wish to talk.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The lady was Mme. Chertkóv, the sister of Count
-Zachar Chernyshev, one of the exiled Decembrists.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>Melchizedek, the Abbot of St. Peter’s Monastery, himself
-offered that Vadim should be buried within the convent
-walls. He knew Vadim and respected him for his
-researches into the history of Moscow. He had once been
-a simple carpenter and a furious dissenter; but he was
-converted to Orthodoxy, became a monk, and rose to be
-Prior and finally Abbot. Yet he always kept the broad
-shoulders, fine ruddy face, and simple heart of the carpenter.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the body appeared before the monastery gates,
-Melchizedek and all his monks came out to meet the
-martyr’s poor coffin, and escorted it to the grave, singing
-the funeral music. Not far from his grave rests the dust
-of another who was dear to us, Venevitínov, and his epitaph
-runs—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c022'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“He knew life well but left it soon”—</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>and Vadim knew it as well.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But Fortune was not content even with his death. Why
-indeed did his mother live to be so old? When the period
-of exile came to an end, and when she had seen her children
-in their youth and beauty and fine promise for the
-future, life had nothing more to give her. Any man who
-values happiness should seek to die young. Permanent
-happiness is no more possible than ice that will not melt.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Vadim’s eldest brother died a few months after Diomid,
-the soldier, fell in Circassia: a neglected cold proved fatal
-to his enfeebled constitution. He was the oldest of the
-family, and he was hardly forty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Long and black are the shadows thrown back by these
-three coffins of three dear friends; the last months of my
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>youth are veiled from me by funeral crape and the incense
-of thuribles.</p>
-
-<hr class='c023' />
-<h3 class='c014'>§25</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>After dragging on for a year, the affair of Sungurov
-and our other friends who had been arrested came to an
-end. The charge, as in our case and in that of Petrashev’s
-group, was that they <i>intended</i> to form a secret society
-and had held treasonable conversations. Their punishment
-was to be sent to Orenburg, to join the colours.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And now our turn came. Our names were already entered
-on the black list of the secret police. The cat dealt
-her first playful blow at the mouse in the following way.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When our friends, after their sentence, were starting
-on their long march to Orenburg without warm enough
-clothing, Ogaryóv and Kiréevski each started a subscription
-for them, as none of them had money. Kiréevski took
-the proceeds to Staal, the commandant, a very kind-hearted
-old soldier, of whom more will be said hereafter.
-Staal promised to transmit the money, and then said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What papers are those you have?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The subscribers’ names,” said Kiréevski, “and a list
-of subscriptions.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you trust me to pay over the money?” the old
-man asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Of course I do.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“And I fancy the subscribers will trust you. Well, then,
-what’s the use of our keeping these names?” and Staal
-threw the list into the fire; and I need hardly say that
-was a very kind action.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Ogaryóv took the money he had collected to the prison
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>himself, and no difficulty was raised. But the prisoners
-took it into their heads to send a message of thanks from
-Orenburg, and asked some functionary who was travelling
-to Moscow to take a letter which they dared not
-trust to the post. The functionary did not fail to profit
-by such an excellent opportunity of proving his loyalty
-to his country: he laid the letter before the head of the
-police at Moscow.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Volkov, who had held this office, had gone mad, his
-delusion being that the Poles wished to elect him as their
-king, and Lisovski had succeeded to the position. Lisovski
-was a Pole himself; he was not a cruel man or a bad man;
-but he had spent his fortune, thanks to gambling and a
-French actress, and, like a true philosopher, he preferred
-the situation of chief of the police at Moscow to a situation
-in the slums of that city.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He summoned Ogaryóv, Ketcher, Satin, Vadim, Obolenski,
-and others, and charged them with having relations
-with political prisoners. Ogaryóv replied that he had written
-to none of them and had received no letter; if one of
-them had written to him, he could not be responsible for
-that. Lisovski then said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You raised a subscription for them, which is even
-worse. The Tsar is merciful enough to pardon you for
-once; but I warn you, gentlemen, that you will be strictly
-watched, and you had better be careful.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He looked meaningly at all the party and his eye fell on
-Ketcher, who was older and taller than the rest, and was
-lifting his eyebrows and looking rather fierce. He added,
-“I wonder that you, Sir, considering your position in
-society, are not ashamed to behave so.” Ketcher was only
-a country doctor; but, from Lisovski’s words, he might
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>have been Chancellor of the imperial Orders of Knighthood.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was not summoned; it is probable that the letter did
-not contain my name.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This threat we regarded as a promotion, a consecration,
-a powerful incentive. Lisovski’s warning was oil on
-the flames; and, as if to make it easier for the police, we
-all took to velvet caps of the Karl Sand<a id='r53' /><a href='#f53' class='c016'><sup>[53]</sup></a> fashion and tricolor
-neckties.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f53'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. </span>The German student who shot Kotzebue.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Colonel Shubinski now climbed up with the velvet
-tread of a cat into Lisovski’s place, and soon marked his
-predecessor’s weakness in dealing with us: our business
-was to serve as one of the steps in his official career, and
-we did what was wanted.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§26</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But first I shall add a few words about the fate of Sungurov
-and his companions.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Kolreif returned to Moscow, where he died in the arms
-of his grief-stricken father.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Kostenetski and Antonovitch both distinguished themselves
-as private soldiers in the Caucasus and received
-commissions.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The fate of the unhappy Sungurov was far more tragic.
-On reaching the first stage of their journey from Moscow,
-he asked permission of the officer, a young man of
-twenty, to leave the stifling cottage crammed with convicts
-for the fresh air. The officer walked out with him.
-Sungurov watched for an opportunity, sprang off the
-road, and disappeared. He must have known the district
-well, for he eluded the officer; but the police got upon
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>his tracks next day. When he saw that escape was impossible,
-he cut his throat. He was carried back to Moscow,
-unconscious and bleeding profusely. The unlucky
-officer was deprived of his commission.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sungurov did not die. He was tried again, not for a
-political offence but for trying to escape. Half his head
-was shaved; and to this outward ignominy the court
-added a <i>single stroke</i> of the whip to be inflicted inside
-the prison. Whether this was actually carried out, I do not
-know. He was then sent off to work in the mines at Nerchinsk.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His name came to my ears just once again and then
-vanished for ever.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I was at Vyatka, I happened to meet in the
-street a young doctor, a college friend; and we spoke
-about old times and common acquaintances.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Good God!” said the doctor, “do you know whom I
-saw on my way here? I was waiting at a post-house for
-fresh horses. The weather was abominable. An officer in
-command of a party of convicts came in to warm himself.
-We began to talk; and hearing that I was a doctor, he
-asked me to take a look at one of the prisoners on march;
-I could tell him whether the man was shamming or really
-very bad. I consented: of course, I intended in any case to
-back up the convict. There were eighteen convicts, as
-well as women and children, in one smallish barrack-room;
-some of the men had their heads shaved, and some
-had not; but they were all fettered. They opened out to
-let the officer pass; and we saw a figure wrapped in a
-convict’s overcoat and lying on some straw in a corner
-of the dirty room.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘There’s your patient,’ said the officer. No fibs on my
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>part were necessary: the man was in a high fever. He was
-a horrible sight: he was thin and worn out by prison and
-marching; half his head was shaved, and his beard was
-growing; he was rolling his eyes in delirium and constantly
-calling for water.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Are you feeling bad, my man?’ I said to the patient,
-and then I told the officer that he was quite unable to
-march.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The man fixed his eyes on me and then muttered, ‘Is
-that you?’ He addressed me by name and added, in a
-voice that went through me like a knife, ‘You won’t
-know me again.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Excuse me,’ I said; ‘I have forgotten your name,’
-and I took his hot dry hand in my own.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘I am Sungurov,’ he answered. Poor fellow!” repeated
-the doctor, shaking his head.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, did they leave him there?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No: a cart was got for him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After writing the preceding narrative, I learned that
-Sungurov died at Nerchinsk.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VII</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>End of College Life—The “Schiller” Stage—Youth—The Artistic
-Life—Saint-Simonianism and N. Polevói—Polezháev.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THE storm had not yet burst over our heads when
-my college course came to an end. My experience
-of the final stage of education was exactly like
-that of everyone else—constant worry and sleepless
-nights for the sake of a painful and useless test of the
-memory, superficial cramming, and all real interest in
-learning crowded out by the nightmare of examination. I
-wrote an astronomical dissertation for the gold medal, and
-the silver medal was awarded me. I am sure that I should
-not be able now to understand what I wrote then, and that
-it was worth its weight—<i>in silver</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have sometimes dreamt since that I was a student
-preparing for examination; I thought with horror how
-much I had forgotten and how certain I was to fail, and
-then I woke up, to rejoice with all my heart that the sea
-and much else lay between me and my University, and
-that no one would ever examine me again or venture to
-place me at the bottom of the list. My professors would
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>really be astonished, if they could discover how much I
-have gone backward in the interval.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the examinations were over, the professors shut
-themselves up to count the marks, and we walked up and
-down the passage and the vestibule, the prey of hopes and
-fears. Whenever anyone left the meeting, we rushed to
-him, eager to learn our fate; but the decision took a long
-time. At last Heiman came out and said to me, “I congratulate
-you; you have passed.” “Who else? who else?” I
-asked; and some names were mentioned. I felt both sad
-and pleased. As I walked out of the college gates, I felt
-that I was leaving the place otherwise than yesterday or
-ever before, and becoming a stranger to that great family
-party in which I had spent four years of youth and happiness.
-On the other hand, I was pleased by the feeling that
-I was now admittedly grown up, and also—I may as well
-confess it—by the fact that I had got my degree at the
-first time of asking.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I owe so much to my <i>Alma Mater</i> and I continued so
-long after my degree to live her life and near her, that I
-cannot recall the place without love and reverence. She
-will not accuse me of ingratitude. In this case at least
-it is easy to be grateful; for gratitude is inseparable from
-love and bright memories of youthful development. Writing
-in a distant foreign land, I send her my blessing!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The year which we spent after leaving College formed a
-triumphant conclusion to the first period of our youth.
-It was one long festival of friendship, of high spirits, of
-inspiration and exchange of ideas.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We were a small group of college friends who kept together
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>after our course was over, and continued to share
-the same views and the same ideals. Not one of us thought
-of his future career or financial position. I should not
-praise this attitude in grown-up people, but I value it
-highly in a young man. Except where it is dried up by
-the corrupting influence of vulgar respectability, youth
-is everywhere unpractical, and is especially bound to be
-so in a young country which has many ideals and has
-realised few of them. Besides, the unpractical sphere is
-not always a fool’s paradise: every aspiration for the
-future involves some degree of imagination; and, but for
-unpractical people, practical life would never get beyond
-a tiresome repetition of the old routine.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Enthusiasm of some kind is a better safeguard against
-real degradation than any sermon. I can remember youthful
-follies, when high spirits carried us sometimes into
-excesses; but I do not remember a single disgraceful incident
-among our set, nothing that a man need be really
-ashamed of or seek to forget and cover up. Bad things
-are done in secret; and there was nothing secret in our
-way of life. Half our thoughts—more than half—were
-not directed towards that region where idle sensuality and
-morbid selfishness are concentrated on impure designs
-and make vice thrice as vicious.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I have a sincere pity for any nation where old heads
-grow on young shoulders; youth is a matter, not only of
-years, but of temperament. The German student, in the
-height of his eccentricity, is a hundred times better than
-the young Frenchman or Englishman with his dull grown-up
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>airs; as to American boys who are men at fifteen—I
-find them simply repulsive.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In old France the young nobles were really young and
-fine; and later, such men as Saint Just and Hoche, Marceau
-and Desmoulins, heroic children reared on Rousseau’s
-dark gospel, were young too, in the true sense of
-the word. The Revolution was the work of young men:
-neither Danton nor Robespierre, nor Louis XVI himself
-survived his thirty-fifth year. Under Napoleon, the young
-men all became subalterns; the Restoration, the “resurrection
-of old age,” had no use for young men; and everybody
-became grown-up, business-like, and dull.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The last really young Frenchmen were the followers of
-Saint Simon.<a id='r54' /><a href='#f54' class='c016'><sup>[54]</sup></a> A few exceptions only prove the fact that
-their young men have no liveliness or poetry in their disposition.
-Escousse and Lebras blew their brains out, just
-because they were young men in a society where all were
-old. Others struggled like fish jerked out of the water
-upon a muddy bank, till some of them got caught on the
-barricades and others on the Jesuits’ hook.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f54'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. </span>Claude Henri, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), founded
-at Paris a society which was called by his name. His views were
-socialistic.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Still youth must assert itself somehow, and therefore
-most young Frenchmen go through an “artistic” period:
-that is, those who have no money spend their time in
-humble cafés of the Latin quarter with humble grisettes,
-and those who have money resort to large cafés and more
-expensive ladies. They have no “Schiller” stage; but they
-have what may be called a “Paul de Kock” stage, which
-soon consumes in poor enough fashion all the strength
-and vigour of youth, and turns out a man quite fit to be
-a commercial traveller. The “artistic” stage leaves at the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>bottom of the soul one passion only—the thirst for money,
-which excludes all other interests and determines all the
-rest of life; these practical men laugh at abstract questions
-and despise women—this is the result of repeated
-conquests over those whose profession it is to be defeated.
-Most young men, when going through this stage, find a
-guide and philosopher in some hoary sinner, an extinct
-celebrity who lives by sponging on his young friends—an
-actor who has lost his voice, or an artist whose hand
-has begun to shake. Telemachus imitates his Mentor’s
-pronunciation and his drinks, and especially his contempt
-for social problems and profound knowledge of
-gastronomy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In England this stage takes a different form. There
-young men go through a stormy period of amiable eccentricity,
-which consists in silly practical jokes, absurd extravagance,
-heavy pleasantries, systematic but carefully
-concealed profligacy, and useless expeditions to the ends
-of the earth. Then there are horses, dogs, races, dull dinners;
-next comes the wife with an incredible number of
-fat, red-cheeked babies, business in the City, the <i>Times</i>,
-parliament, and old port which finally clips the Englishman’s
-wings.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We too did foolish things and were riotous at times,
-but the prevailing tone was different and the atmosphere
-purer. Folly and noise were never an object in themselves.
-We believed in our mission; and though we may have
-made mistakes, yet we respected ourselves and one another
-as the instruments of a common purpose.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But what were these revels of ours like? It would suddenly
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>occur to one of us that this was the fourth of
-December and that the sixth was St. Nicholas’ Day. Many
-of us were named after the Saint, Ogaryóv himself and at
-least three more. “Well, who shall give a dinner on the
-day?” “I will—I will.” “I’ll give one on the seventh.”
-“Pooh! what’s the seventh? We must contribute and
-all give it together; and that will be a grand feed.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“All right. Where shall we meet?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“So-and-so is ill. Clearly we must go to him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then followed plans and calculations which gave a
-surprising amount of occupation to both hosts and guests
-at the coming banquet. One Nikolai went off to a restaurant
-to order the supper, another elsewhere to order cheese
-and savouries; our wine invariably came from the famous
-shop of Deprez. We were no connoisseurs and never
-soared above champagne; indeed, our youthful palates
-deserted even champagne in favour of a brand called
-<i>Rivesaltes Mousseux</i>. I once noticed this name on the
-card of a Paris restaurant, and called for a bottle of it,
-in memory of 1833. But alas! not even sentiment could
-induce me to swallow more than one glass.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The wine had to be tasted before the feast, and as the
-samples evidently gave great satisfaction, it was necessary
-to send more than one mission for this purpose.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In this connexion I cannot refrain from recording something
-that happened to our friend Sokolovski. He could
-never keep money and spent at once whatever he got.
-A year before his arrest, he paid a visit to Moscow. As
-he had been successful in selling the manuscript of a
-poem, he determined to give a dinner and to ask not only
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>us but such bigwigs as Polevói, Maximovitch, and others.
-On the day before, he went out with Polezháev, who was
-in Moscow with his regiment, to make his purchases; he
-bought all kinds of needless things, cups and even a
-<i>samovár</i>, and finally wine and eatables, such as stuffed
-turkeys, patties, and so on. Five of us went that evening
-to his rooms, and he proposed to open a single bottle for
-our benefit. A second followed, and at the end of the
-evening, or rather, at dawn of the next day, it appeared
-that the wine was all drunk and that Sokolovski had no
-more money. After paying some small debts, he had spent
-all his money on the dinner. He was much distressed, but,
-after long reflexion, plucked up courage and wrote to all
-the bigwigs that he was seriously ill and must put off his
-party.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>For our “feast of the four birthdays” I wrote out a
-regular programme, which was honoured by the special
-attention of Golitsyn, one of the Commissioners at our
-trial, who asked me if the programme had been carried
-out exactly.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“<i>À la lettre!</i>” I replied. He shrugged his shoulders, as
-if his own life had been a succession of Good Fridays
-spent in a monastery.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our suppers were generally followed by a lively discussion
-over a question of the first importance, which
-was this—how ought the punch to be made? Up to this
-point, the eating and drinking went on usually in perfect
-harmony, like a bill in parliament which is carried <i>nem.
-con.</i> But over the punch everyone had his own view; and
-the previous meal enlivened the discussion. Was the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>punch to be set on fire now, or to be set on fire later?
-How was it to be set on fire? Was champagne or sauterne
-to be used to put it out? Was the pineapple to be put in
-while it was still alight, or not?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“While it’s burning, of course! Then all the flavour
-will pass into the punch.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Nonsense! The pineapple floats and will get burnt.
-That will simply spoil it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That is all rubbish,” cries Ketcher, high above the
-rest; “but I’ll tell you what does matter—we must put
-out the candles.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the candles were out, all faces looked blue in
-the flickering light of the punch. The room was not large,
-and the burning rum soon raised the temperature to a
-tropical height. All were thirsty, but the punch was not
-ready. But Joseph, a French waiter sent from the restaurant,
-rose to the occasion: he brewed a kind of antithesis
-to the punch—an iced drink compounded of various wines
-with a foundation of brandy; and as he poured in the
-French wine, he explained, like a true son of the <i>grande
-nation</i>, that the wine owed its excellence to having twice
-crossed the equator—“<i>Oui, oui, messieurs, deux fois
-l’équateur, messieurs!</i>”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Joseph’s cup was as cold as the North Pole. When it
-was finished, there was no need of any further liquid; but
-Ketcher now called out, “Time to put out the punch!”
-He was stirring a fiery lake in a soup-tureen, while the
-last lumps of sugar hissed and bubbled as they melted.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In goes the champagne, and the flame turns red and
-careers over the surface of the punch, looking somehow
-angry and menacing.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Then a desperate shout: “My good man, are you mad?
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>The wax is dropping straight off the bottle into the
-punch!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, just you try yourself, in this heat, to hold the
-bottle so that the wax won’t melt!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You should knock it off first, of course,” continues the
-critic.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The cups, the cups—have we enough to go round?
-How many are we—ten, twelve, fourteen? That’s right.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We’ve not got fourteen cups.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Then the rest must take glasses.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The glasses will crack.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Not a bit of it, if you put the spoon in.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The candles are re-lit, the last little tongue of flame
-darts to the centre of the bowl, twirls round, and disappears.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And all admit that the punch is a success, a splendid
-success.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Next day I awake with a headache, clearly due to the
-punch. That comes of mixing liquors. Punch is poison;
-I vow never to touch it in future.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My servant, Peter, comes in. “You came in last night,
-Sir, wearing someone else’s hat, not so good a hat as your
-own.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The deuce take my hat!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Perhaps I had better go where you dined last night
-and enquire?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you suppose, my good man, that one of the party
-went home bare-headed?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“It can do no harm—just in case.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Now it dawns upon me that the hat is a pretext, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>that Peter has been invited to the scene of last night’s
-revelry.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“All right, you can go. But first tell the cook to send
-me up some pickled cabbage.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I suppose, Sir, the birthday party went off well last
-night?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I should rather think so! There never was such a
-party in all my time at College.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I suppose you won’t want me to go to the University
-with you to-day?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I feel remorse and make no reply.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Your papa asked me why you were not up yet. But
-I was a match for him. ‘He has a headache,’ I said, ‘and
-complained when I called him; so I left the blinds down.’
-And your papa said I was right.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“For goodness sake, let me go to sleep! You wanted to
-go, so be off with you!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“In a minute, Sir; I’ll just order the cabbage first.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Heavy sleep again seals my eyelids, and I wake in two
-hours’ time, feeling a good deal fresher. I wonder what
-my friends are doing. Ketcher and Ogaryóv were to spend
-the night where we dined. I must admit that the punch
-was very good; but its effect on the head is annoying. To
-drink it out of a tumbler is a mistake; I am quite determined
-in future to drink it always out of a <i>liqueur</i>-glass.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Meanwhile my father has read the papers and interviewed
-the cook as usual.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Have you a headache to-day?” he asks.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, a bad one.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Perhaps you’ve been working too hard.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>But the way he asked the question showed he did not
-believe that.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, I forgot: you were dining with your friends last
-night, eh?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, I was.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A birthday party? And they treated you handsomely,
-I’ve no doubt. Did you have soup made with Madeira?
-That sort of thing is not to my taste. I know one of your
-young friends is too often at the bottle; but I can’t
-imagine where he gets the taste from. His poor father
-used to give a dinner on his birthday, the twenty-ninth of
-June, and ask all his relations; but it was always a very
-modest, decent affair. But this modern fashion of champagne
-and sardines <i>à l’huile</i>—I don’t like to see it. Your
-other friend, that unfortunate young Ogaryóv, is even
-worse. Here he is, left to himself in Moscow, with his
-pockets full of money. He is constantly sending his coachman,
-Jeremy, for wine; and the coachman has no objection,
-because the dealer gives him a present.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, I did have lunch with Ogaryóv. But I don’t think
-my headache can be due to that. I think I will take a
-turn in the open air; that always does me good.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“By all means, but I hope you will dine at home.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Certainly; I shan’t be long.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But I must explain the allusion to Madeira in the soup.
-A year or more before the grand birthday party, I went
-out for a walk with Ogaryóv one day in Easter week, and,
-in order to escape dinner at home, I said that I had been
-invited to dine at their house by Ogaryóv’s father.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father did not care for my friends in general and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>used to call them by wrong names, though he always made
-the same mistake in addressing any of them; and Ogaryóv
-was less of a favourite than any, both because he wore
-his hair long and because he smoked without being asked
-to do so. But on the other hand, my father could hardly
-mutilate his own grandnephew’s surname; and also
-Ogaryóv’s father, both by birth and fortune, belonged to
-the select circle of people whom my father recognised.
-Hence he was pleased to see me going often to their house,
-but he would have been still better pleased if the house
-had contained no son.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He thought it proper therefore for me to accept the
-invitation. But Ogaryóv and I did not repair to his father’s
-respectable dining-room. We went first to Price’s place
-of entertainment. Price was an acrobat, whom I was delighted
-to meet later with his accomplished family in both
-Geneva and London. He had a little daughter, whom we
-admired greatly and had christened Mignon.<a id='r55' /><a href='#f55' class='c016'><sup>[55]</sup></a> When we
-had seen Mignon perform and decided to come back for
-the evening performance, we went to dine at the best
-restaurant in Moscow. I had one gold piece in my pocket,
-and Ogaryóv had about the same sum. At that time we
-had no experience in ordering dinners. After long consultation
-we ordered fish-soup made with champagne, a
-bottle of Rhine wine, and a tiny portion of game. The
-result was that we paid a terrific bill and left the restaurant
-feeling exceedingly hungry. Then we went back to
-see Mignon a second time.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f55'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. </span>After the character in Goethe’s <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>.
-The Prices were evidently English.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I was saying good-night to my father, he said,
-“Surely you smell of wine.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>“That is probably because there was Madeira in the
-soup at dinner,” I replied.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Madeira? That must be a notion of M. Ogaryóv’s son-in-law;
-no one but a guardsman would think of such a
-thing.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And from that time until my banishment, whenever
-my father thought that I had been drinking wine and that
-my face was flushed, he invariably attributed it to Madeira
-in the soup I had taken.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>On the present occasion, I hurried off to the scene of
-our revelry and found Ogaryóv and Ketcher still there.
-The latter looked rather the worse for wear; he was finding
-fault with some of last night’s arrangements and was
-severely critical. Ogaryóv was trying a hair of the dog that
-bit him, though there was little left to drink after the
-party, and that little was now diminished by the descent
-of my man Peter, who was by this time in full glory, singing
-a song and drumming on the kitchen table downstairs.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When I recall those days, I cannot remember a single
-incident among our set such as might weigh upon a man’s
-conscience and cause shame in recollection; and this is
-true of every one of the group without a single exception.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Of course, there were Platonic lovers among us, and
-disenchanted youths of sixteen. Vadim even wrote a play,
-in order to set forth the “terrible experience of a broken
-heart.” The play began thus—<i>A garden, with a house
-in the distance; there are lights in the windows. The
-stage is empty. A storm is blowing. The garden gate
-clinks and bangs in the wind.</i></p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>“Are the garden and the gate your only <i>dramatis personae</i>?”
-I asked him. He was rather offended. “What nonsense
-you talk!” he said; “it is no joking matter but an
-actual experience. But if you take it so, I won’t read
-any more.” But he did, none the less.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There were also love affairs which were by no means
-Platonic, but there were none of those low intrigues which
-ruin the woman concerned and debase the man; there
-were no “kept mistresses”; that disgusting phrase did
-not even exist. Cool, safe, prosaic profligacy of the
-bourgeois fashion, profligacy by contract, was unknown
-to our group.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>If it is said that I approve of the worst form of profligacy,
-in which a woman sells herself for the occasion,
-I say that it is you, not I, who approve of it—not you in
-particular but people in general. That custom rests so
-securely on the present constitution of society that it
-needs no patronage of mine.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our interest in general questions and our social ideals
-saved us; and a keen interest in scientific and artistic matters
-helped us too. These preoccupations had a purifying
-effect, just as lighted paper makes grease-spots vanish.
-I have kept some of Ogaryóv’s letters written at that time;
-and they give a good idea of what was mostly in our
-minds. For example, he writes to me on June 7, 1833:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I think we know one another well enough to speak
-frankly. You won’t show my letter to anyone. Well, for
-some time past I have been so filled—crushed, I might
-say—with feelings and ideas, that I think—but ‘think’
-is too weak: I have an indelible impression—that I was
-born to be a poet, whether writer of verse or composer of
-music, never mind which. I feel it impossible to part
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>from this belief; I have a kind of intuition that I am
-a poet. Granting that I still write badly, still this inward
-fire and this abundance of feeling make me hope that
-some day I shall write decently—please excuse the triviality
-of the phrase. Tell me, my dear friend, whether I
-can believe in my vocation. Perhaps you know better
-than I do myself, and you will not be misled.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He writes again on August 18:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“So you answer that I am a poet, a true poet. Is it
-possible that you understand the full significance of your
-words? If you are right, my feelings do not deceive me,
-and the object and aspiration of my whole life is not a
-mere dream. Are you right, I wonder? I feel sure that
-I am not merely raving. No one knows me better than
-you do—of that I am sure. Yes! that high vocation is not
-mere raving, no mere illusion; it is too high for deception,
-it is real, I live by virtue of it and cannot imagine a
-different life for myself. If only I could compose, what
-a symphony would take wing from my brain just now!
-First a majestic <i>adagio</i>; but it has not power to express
-all; I need a <i>presto</i>, a wild stormy <i>presto</i>. <i>Adagio</i> and
-<i>presto</i> are the two extremes. A fig for your <i>andante</i> and
-<i>allegro moderato</i>! They are mere mediocrities who can
-only lisp, incapable alike of strong speech or strong feeling.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To us this strain of youthful enthusiasm sounds strange,
-from long disuse; but these few lines of a youth under
-twenty show clearly enough that the writer is insured
-against commonplace vice and commonplace virtue, and
-that, though he may stumble into the mire, he will come
-out of it undefiled.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There is no want of self-confidence in the letter; but
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>the believer has doubts and a passionate desire for confirmation
-and a word of sympathy, though that hardly
-needed to be spoken. It is the restlessness of creative
-activity, the uneasy looking about of a pregnant soul.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“As yet,” he writes in the same letter, “I can’t catch
-the sounds that my brain hears; a physical incapacity
-limits my fancy. But never mind! A poet I am, and
-poetry whispers to me truth which I could never have
-discovered by cold logic. Such is my theory of revelation.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Thus ends the first part of our youth, and the second
-begins with prison. But before starting on that episode, I
-must record the ideas towards which we were tending
-when the prison-doors closed on us.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The period that followed the suppression of the Polish
-revolt in 1830 was a period of rapid enlightenment. We
-soon perceived with inward horror that things were going
-badly in Europe and especially in France—France to
-which we looked for a political creed and a banner; and
-we began to distrust our own theories.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The simple liberalism of 1826, which by degrees took,
-in France, the form sung by Béranger and preached by
-men like La Fayette and Benjamin Constant, lost its magic
-power over us after the destruction of Poland.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It was then that some young Russians, including Vadim,
-took refuge in the profound study of Russian history,
-while others took to German philosophy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But Ogaryóv and I did not join either of these groups.
-Certain ideals had become so much a part of us that we
-could not lightly give them up. Our belief in the sort of
-dinner-table revolution dear to Béranger was shaken; but
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>we sought something different, which we could not find
-either in Nestor’s <i>Chronicle</i><a id='r56' /><a href='#f56' class='c016'><sup>[56]</sup></a> or in the transcendentalism
-of Schelling.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f56'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. </span>The earliest piece of literature in Russian.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>During this period of ferment and surmise and endeavour
-to understand the doubts that frightened us, there
-came into our hands the pamphlets and sermons of the
-Saint-Simonians, and the report of their trial. We were
-much impressed by them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Superficial and unsuperficial critics alike have had their
-laugh at <i>Le Père Enfantin</i><a id='r57' /><a href='#f57' class='c016'><sup>[57]</sup></a> and his apostles; but a time
-is coming when a different reception will be given to those
-forerunners of socialism.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f57'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. </span>Barthèlemy Enfantin (1796-1864) carried on the work of
-Saint-Simon in Paris.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Though these young enthusiasts wore long beards and
-high waistcoats, yet their appearance in a prosaic world
-was both romantic and serious. They proclaimed a new
-belief, they had something to say—a principle by virtue
-of which they summoned before their judgement-seat the
-old order of things, which wished to try them by the <i>code
-Napoléon</i> and the religion of the House of Orleans.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>First, they proclaimed the emancipation of women—summoning
-them to a common task, giving them control
-of their own destiny, and making an alliance with them
-on terms of equality.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Their second dogma was the restoration of the body
-to credit—<i>la réhabilitation de la chair</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These mighty watchwords comprise a whole world of
-new relations between human beings—a world of health
-and spirit and beauty, a world of natural and therefore
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>pure morality. Many mocked at the “freedom of women”
-and the “recognition of the rights of the flesh,” attributing
-a low and unclean meaning to these phrases; for our
-minds, corrupted by monasticism, fear the flesh and fear
-women. A religion of life had come to replace the religion
-of death, a religion of beauty to replace the religion of
-penance and emaciation, of fasting and prayer. The crucified
-body had risen in its turn and was no longer abashed.
-Man had reached a harmonious unity: he had discovered
-that he is a single being, not made, like a pendulum, of
-two different metals that check each other; he realised
-that the foe in his members had ceased to exist.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It required no little courage to preach such a message
-to all France, and to attack those beliefs which are so
-strongly held by all Frenchmen and so entirely powerless
-to influence their conduct.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To the old world, mocked by Voltaire and shattered by
-the Revolution, and then patched and cobbled for their
-own use by the middle classes, this was an entirely new
-experience. It tried to judge these dissenters, but its own
-hypocritical pretences were brought to light by them in
-open court. When the Saint-Simonians were charged with
-religious apostasy, they pointed to the crucifix in the
-court which had been veiled since the revolution of 1830;
-and when they were accused of justifying sensuality, they
-asked their judge if he himself led a chaste life.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A new world was knocking at the door, and our hearts
-and minds flew open to welcome it. The socialism of Saint
-Simon became the foundation of our beliefs and has remained
-an essential part of them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>With the impressibility and frankness of youth, we
-were easily caught up by the mighty stream and early
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>passed across that Jordan, before which whole armies of
-mankind stop short, fold their arms, and either march
-backwards or hunt about for a ford; but there is no ford
-over Jordan!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We did not all cross. Socialism and rationalism are to
-this day the touchstones of humanity, the rocks which
-lie in the course of revolution and science. Groups of
-swimmers, driven by reflexion or the waves of circumstance
-against these rocks, break up at once into two
-camps, which, under different disguises, remain the same
-throughout all history, and may be distinguished either
-in a great political party or in a group of a dozen young
-men. One represents logic; the other, history: one stands
-for dialectics; the other for evolution. Truth is the main
-object of the former, and feasibility of the latter. There
-is no question of choice between them: thought is harder
-to tame than any passion and pulls with irresistible force.
-Some may be able to put on the drag and stop themselves
-by means of feeling or dreams or fear of consequences;
-but not all can do this. If thought once masters a man, he
-ceases to discuss whether the thing is practicable, and
-whether the enterprise is hard or easy: he seeks truth
-alone and carries out his principles with inexorable impartiality,
-as the Saint-Simonians did in their day and as
-Proudhon<a id='r58' /><a href='#f58' class='c016'><sup>[58]</sup></a> does still.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f58'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. </span>Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-1863), a French publicist
-and socialist.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our group grew smaller and smaller. As early as 1833,
-the “liberals” looked askance at us as backsliders. Just
-before we were imprisoned, Saint-Simonianism raised a
-barrier between me and Polevói. He had an extraordinarily
-active and adroit mind, which could rapidly assimilate
-any food; he was a born journalist, the very man to
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>chronicle successes and discoveries and the battles of
-politicians or men of science. I made his acquaintance
-towards the end of my college course and saw a good
-deal of him and his brother, Xenophon. He was then at
-the height of his reputation; it was shortly before the
-suppression of his newspaper, the <i>Telegraph</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To Polevói the latest discovery, the freshest novelty
-either of incident or theory, was the breath of his nostrils,
-and he was changeable as a chameleon. Yet, for all his
-lively intelligence, he could never understand the Saint-Simonian
-doctrine. What was to us a revelation was to
-him insanity, a mere Utopia and a hindrance to social progress.
-I might declaim and expound and argue as much
-as I pleased—Polevói was deaf, grew angry and even
-bitter. He especially resented opposition on the part of
-a student; for he valued his influence over the young,
-and these disputes showed him that it was slipping out
-of his grasp.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One day I was hurt by the absurdity of his criticisms
-and told him that he was just as benighted as the foes
-against whom he had been fighting all his life. Stung to
-the quick by my taunt he said, “Your time will come
-too, when, in recompense for a lifetime of labour and
-effort, some young man with a smile on his face will call
-you a back number and bid you get out of his way.” I
-felt sorry for him and ashamed of having hurt his feelings;
-and yet I felt also that this complaint, more suitable
-to a worn-out gladiator than a tough fighter, contained
-his own condemnation. I was sure then that he would
-never go forward, and also that his active mind would
-prevent him from remaining where he was, in a position
-of unstable equilibrium.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>His subsequent history is well known: he wrote <i>Parasha,
-the Siberian Girl</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>If a man cannot pass off the stage when his hour has
-struck and cannot adopt a new rôle, he had better die.
-That is what I felt when I looked at Polevói, and at Pius
-the Ninth, and at how many others!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>To complete my chronicle of that sad time, I should record
-here some details about Polezháev.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Even at College he became known for his remarkable
-powers as a poet. One of his productions was a humorous
-poem called <i>Sashka</i>, a parody of Púshkin’s <i>Onégin</i>; he
-trod on many corns in the pretty and playful verse, and
-the poem, never intended for print, allowed itself the
-fullest liberty of expression.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the Tsar Nicholas came to Moscow for his coronation
-in the autumn of 1826, the secret police furnished
-him with a copy of the poem.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>So, at three one morning, Polezháev was wakened by
-the Vice-Chancellor and told to put on his uniform and
-appear at the office. The Visitor of the University was
-waiting for him there: he looked to see that Polezháev’s
-uniform had no button missing and no button too many,
-and then carried him off in his own carriage, without
-offering any explanation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>They drove to the house of the Minister of Education.
-The Minister of Education also gave Polezháev a seat
-in his carriage, and this time they drove to the Palace
-itself.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Prince Liven proceeded to an inner room, leaving
-Polezháev in a reception room, where, in spite of the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>early hour—it was 6 a.m.—several courtiers and other
-high functionaries were waiting. They supposed that the
-young man had distinguished himself in some way and
-began a conversation with him at once; one of them proposed
-to engage him as tutor to his son.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was soon sent for. The Tsar was standing, leaning
-on a desk and talking to Liven. He held a manuscript in
-his hand and darted an enquiring glance at Polezháev as
-he entered the room. “Did you write these verses?” he
-asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes,” said Polezháev.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, Prince,” the Tsar went on, “I shall give you a
-specimen of University education; I shall show you what
-the young men learn there.” Then he turned to Polezháev
-and added, “Read this manuscript aloud.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Polezháev’s agitation was such that he could not read
-it; and he said so.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Read it at once!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The loud voice restored his strength to Polezháev, and
-he opened the manuscript. He said afterwards that he
-had never seen <i>Sashka</i> so well copied or on such fine
-paper.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At first he read with difficulty, but by degrees he took
-courage and read the poem to the end in a loud lively
-tone. At the most risky passages the Tsar waved his hand
-to the Minister and the Minister closed his eyes in horror.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What do you say, Prince?” asked Nicholas, when the
-reading was over. “I mean to put a stop to this profligacy.
-These are surviving relics of the old mischief,<a id='r59' /><a href='#f59' class='c016'><sup>[59]</sup></a> but I shall
-root them out. What character does he bear?”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f59'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, the Decembrist conspiracy.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Of course the Minister knew nothing about his character;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>but some humane instinct awoke in him, and he
-said, “He bears an excellent character, Your Majesty.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You may be grateful for that testimony. But you must
-be punished as an example to others. Do you wish to enter
-the Army?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Polezháev was silent.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I offer you this means of purification. Will you take
-it?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I must obey when you command,” said Polezháev.
-The Tsar came close up to him and laid a hand on his
-shoulder. He said: “Your fate depends upon yourself.
-If I forget about you, you may write to me.” Then he
-kissed Polezháev on the forehead.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This last detail seemed to me so improbable that I made
-Polezháev repeat it a dozen times; he swore that it was
-true.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>From the presence of the Tsar, Polezháev was taken
-to Count Diebitch, who had rooms in the Palace. Diebitch
-was roused out of his sleep and came in yawning. He
-read through the document and asked the <i>aide-de-camp</i>,
-“Is this the man?” “Yes,” was the reply.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, good luck to you in the service! I was in it
-myself and worked my way up, as you see; perhaps you
-will be a field-marshal yourself some day.” That was
-Diebitch’s kiss—a stupid, ill-timed, German joke. Polezháev
-was taken to camp and made to serve with the colours.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When three years had passed, Polezháev recalled what
-the Tsar had said and wrote him a letter. No answer
-came. After a few months he wrote again with the same
-result. Feeling sure that his letters were not delivered, he
-deserted, his object being to present a petition in person.
-But he behaved foolishly: he hunted up some college
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>friends in Moscow and was entertained by them, and of
-course further secrecy was impossible. He was arrested
-at Tver and sent back to his regiment as a deserter; he
-had to march all the way in fetters. A court-martial sentenced
-him to run the gauntlet, and the sentence was forwarded
-to the Tsar for confirmation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Polezháev determined to commit suicide before the
-time of his punishment. For long he searched in the prison
-for some sharp instrument, and at last he confided in an
-old soldier who was attached to him. The soldier understood
-and sympathised with his wish; and when he heard
-that the reply had come, he brought a bayonet and said
-with tears in his eyes as he gave it to Polezháev, “I sharpened
-it with my own hands.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But the Tsar ordered that Polezháev should not be
-flogged.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It was at this time that he wrote that excellent poem
-which begins—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c022'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“No consolation</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Came when I fell;</div>
- <div class='line in1'>In jubilation</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Laughed fiends of Hell.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>He was sent to the Caucasus, where he distinguished
-himself and was promoted corporal. Years passed, and
-the tedium and hopelessness of his position were too much
-for him. For him it was impossible to become a poet at
-the service of the police, and that was the only way to
-get rid of the knapsack.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was, indeed, one other way, and he preferred it:
-he drank, in order to forget. There is one terrible poem
-of his—<i>To Whiskey</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>He got himself transferred to a regiment of carabineers
-quartered at Moscow. This was a material improvement
-in his circumstances, but cruel consumption had already
-fastened on his lungs. It was at this time I made his acquaintance,
-about 1833. He dragged on for four years
-more and died in the military hospital.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When one of his friends went to ask for the body, to
-bury it, no one knew where it was. The military hospital
-carries on a trade in dead bodies, selling them to the
-University and medical schools, manufacturing skeletons,
-and so on. Polezháev’s body was found at last in a cellar;
-there were other corpses on the top of it, and the rats had
-gnawed one of the feet.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His poems were published after his death, and it was
-intended to add a portrait of him in his private’s uniform.
-But the censor objected to this, and the unhappy victim
-appears with the epaulettes of an officer—he was promoted
-while in the hospital.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c003'>
- <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span><span class='large'>PART II</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='large'>PRISON AND EXILE</span></div>
- <div class='c000'><span class='large'>(1834-1838)</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c003' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER I</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>A Prophecy—Ogaryóv’s Arrest—The Fires—A Moscow Liberal—Mihail
-Orlóv—The Churchyard.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ONE morning in the spring of 1834 I went to
-Vadim’s house. Though neither he nor any of
-his brothers or sisters were at home, I went upstairs
-to his little room, sat down, and began to write.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The door opened softly, and Vadim’s mother came in.
-Her tread was scarcely audible; looking tired and ill, she
-went to an armchair and sat down. “Go on writing,” she
-said; “I just looked in to see if Vadya had come home.
-The children have gone out for a walk, and the downstairs
-rooms are so empty and depressing that I felt sad and
-frightened. I shall sit here for a little, but don’t let me
-interfere with what you are doing.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>She looked thoughtful, and her face showed more clearly
-than usual the shadow of past suffering, and that suspicious
-fear of the future and distrust of life which is the
-invariable result of great calamities when they last long
-and are often repeated.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We began to talk. She told me something of their life
-in Siberia. “I have come through much already,” she said,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>shaking her head, “and there is more to come: my heart
-forebodes evil.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I remembered how, sometimes, when listening to our
-free talk on political subjects, she would turn pale and
-heave a gentle sigh; and then she would go away to another
-room and remain silent for a long time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You and your friends,” she went on, “are on the road
-that leads to certain ruin—ruin to Vadya and yourself
-and all of you. You know I love you like a son”—and a
-tear rolled down her worn face.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I said nothing. She took my hand, tried to smile, and
-went on: “Don’t be vexed with me; my nerves are upset.
-I quite understand. You must go your own way; for you
-there is no other; if there were, you would be different
-people. I know this, but I cannot conquer my fears; I
-have borne so much misfortune that I have no strength
-for more. Please don’t say a word of this to Vadya, or he
-will be vexed and argue with me. But here he is!”—and
-she hastily wiped away her tears and once more begged
-me by a look to keep her secret.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Unhappy mother! Saint and heroine! Corneille’s <i>qu’il
-mourût</i><a id='r60' /><a href='#f60' class='c016'><sup>[60]</sup></a> was not a nobler utterance than yours.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f60'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. </span>Said of his son by the father in Corneille’s play,
-<i>Horace</i>.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Her prophecy was soon fulfilled. Though the storm
-passed harmless this time over the heads of her sons, yet
-the poor lady had much grief and fear to suffer.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>“Arrested him?” I called out, springing out of bed, and
-pinching myself, to find out if I was asleep or awake.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Two hours after you left our house, the police and a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>party of Cossacks came and arrested my master and
-seized his papers.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The speaker was Ogaryóv’s valet. Of late all had been
-quiet, and I could not imagine what pretext the police had
-invented. Ogaryóv had only come to Moscow the day before.
-And why had they arrested him, and not me?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To do nothing was impossible. I dressed and went out
-without any definite purpose. It was my first experience
-of misfortune. I felt wretched and furious at my own
-impotence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I wandered about the streets till at last I thought of
-a friend whose social position made it possible for him
-to learn the state of the case, and, perhaps, to mend matters.
-But he was then living terribly far off, at a house in
-a distant suburb. I called the first cab I saw and hurried
-off at top speed. It was then seven o’clock in the morning.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Eighteen months before this time we had made the acquaintance
-of this man, who was a kind of a celebrity
-in Moscow. Educated in Paris, he was rich, intelligent,
-well-informed, witty, and independent in his ideas. For
-complicity in the Decembrist plot he had been imprisoned
-in a fortress till he and some others were released; and
-though he had not been exiled, he wore a halo. He was in
-the public service and had great influence with Prince
-Dmitri Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, who liked
-people with independent views, especially if they could
-express them in good French; for the Governor was not
-strong in Russian.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>V.—as I shall call him—was ten years our senior and
-surprised us by his sensible comments on current events,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>his knowledge of political affairs, his eloquent French,
-and the ardour of his liberalism. He knew so much and
-so thoroughly; he was so pleasant and easy in conversation;
-his views were so clearly defined; he had a reply
-to every question and a solution of every problem. He
-read everything—new novels, pamphlets, newspapers,
-poetry, and was working seriously at zoology as well; he
-drew up reports for the Governor and was organising a
-series of school-books.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His liberalism was of the purest tricolour hue, the liberalism
-of the Left, midway between Mauguin and General
-Lamarque.<a id='r61' /><a href='#f61' class='c016'><sup>[61]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f61'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. </span>French politicians prominent about 1830.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The walls of his study in Moscow were covered with
-portraits of famous revolutionaries, from John Hampden
-and Bailly to Fieschi and Armand Carrel,<a id='r62' /><a href='#f62' class='c016'><sup>[62]</sup></a> and a whole
-library of prohibited books was ranged beneath these
-patron saints. A skeleton, with a few stuffed birds and
-scientific preparations, gave an air of study and concentration
-to the room and toned down its revolutionary
-appearance.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f62'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. </span>Bailly, Mayor of Paris, was guillotined in 1793. Fieschi
-was executed in 1836 for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe.
-Armand Carrel was a French publicist and journalist who fell in a duel
-in 1836.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>We envied his experience and knowledge of the world;
-his subtle irony in argument impressed us greatly. We
-thought of him as a practical reformer and rising statesman.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>V. was not at home. He had gone to Moscow the evening
-before, for an interview with the Governor; his valet
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>said that he would certainly return within two hours. I
-waited for him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The country-house which he occupied was charming.
-The study where I waited was a high spacious room on
-the ground-floor, with a large door leading to a terrace
-and garden. It was a hot day; the scent of trees and
-flowers came from the garden; and some children were
-playing in front of the house and laughing loudly. Wealth,
-ease, space, sun and shade, flowers and verdure—what
-a contrast to the confinement and close air and darkness
-of a prison! I don’t know how long I sat there, absorbed
-in bitter thoughts; but suddenly the valet who was on
-the terrace called out to me with an odd kind of excitement.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What is it?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Please come here and look.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Not wishing to annoy the man, I walked out to the
-terrace, and stood still in horror. All round a number of
-houses were burning; it seemed as if they had all caught
-fire at once. The fire was spreading with incredible speed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I stayed on the terrace. The man watched the fire with
-a kind of uneasy satisfaction, and he said, “It’s spreading
-grandly; that house on the right is certain to be
-burnt.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There is something revolutionary about a fire: fire
-mocks at property and equalises fortunes. The valet felt
-this instinctively.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Within half an hour, a whole quarter of the sky was
-covered with smoke, red below and greyish black above.
-It was the beginning of those fires which went on for five
-months, and of which we shall hear more in the sequel.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At last V. arrived. He was in good spirits, very cordial
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>and friendly, talking of the fires past which he had come
-and of the common report that they were due to arson.
-Then he added, half in jest: “It’s Pugatchóv<a id='r63' /><a href='#f63' class='c016'><sup>[63]</sup></a> over again.
-Just look out, or you and I will be caught by the rebels
-and impaled.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f63'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. </span>The leader of a famous rebellion in Catherine’s reign.
-Many nobles were murdered with brutal cruelty.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I am more afraid that the authorities will lay us by
-the heels,” I answered. “Do you know that Ogaryóv was
-arrested last night by the police?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The police! Good heavens!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That is why I came. Something must be done. You
-must go to the Governor and find out what the charge is;
-and you must ask leave for me to see him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>No answer came, and I looked at V. I saw a face that
-might have belonged to his elder brother—the pleasant
-colour and features were changed; he groaned aloud and
-was obviously disturbed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What’s the matter?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You know I told you, I always told you, how it would
-end. Yes, yes, it was bound to happen. It’s likely enough
-they will shut me up too, though I am perfectly innocent.
-I know what the inside of a fortress is like, and it’s no
-joke, I can tell you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Will you go to the Governor?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“My dear fellow, what good would it do? Let me give
-you a piece of friendly advice: don’t say a word about
-Ogaryóv; keep as quiet as you can, or harm will come of
-it. You don’t know how dangerous affairs like this are.
-I frankly advise you to keep out of it. Make what stir
-you like, you will do Ogaryóv no good and you will get
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>caught yourself. That is what autocracy means—Russian
-subjects have no rights and no means of defence, no advocates
-and no judges.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But his brave words and trenchant criticisms had no
-attractions for me on this occasion: I took my hat and
-departed.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I found a general commotion going on at home. My
-father was angry with me because Ogaryóv had been arrested;
-my uncle, the Senator, was already on the scene,
-rummaging among my books and picking out those which
-he thought dangerous; he was very uneasy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On my table I found an invitation to dine that day with
-Count Orlóv. Possibly he might be able to do something?
-Though I had learned a lesson by my first experiment,
-it could do no harm to try.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mihail Orlóv was one of the founders of the famous
-Society of Welfare;<a id='r64' /><a href='#f64' class='c016'><sup>[64]</sup></a> and if he missed Siberia, he was
-less to blame for that than his brother, who was the first
-to gallop up with his squadron of the Guards to the defence
-of the Winter Palace, on December 14, 1825. Orlóv
-was confined at first to his own estates, and allowed to
-settle in Moscow a few years later. During his solitary
-life in the country he studied political economy and chemistry.
-The first time I met him he spoke of a new method
-of naming chemical compounds. Able men who take up
-some science late in life often show a tendency to rearrange
-the furniture, so to speak, to suit their own ideas.
-Orlóv’s system was more complicated than the French
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>system, which is generally accepted. As I wished to attract
-his attention, I argued in a friendly way that, though his
-system was good, it was not as good as the old one.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f64'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. </span>An imitation of the <i>Tugenbund</i> formed by German
-students in 1808. In Russia the society became identified with the
-Decembrists.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>He contested the point, but ended by agreeing with
-me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My little trick was successful, and we became intimate.
-He saw in me a rising possibility, and I saw in him a man
-who had fought for our ideals, an intimate friend of our
-heroes, and a shining light amid surrounding darkness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Poor Orlóv was like a caged lion. He beat against the
-bars of his cage at every turn; nowhere could he find
-elbow-room or occupation, and he was devoured by a
-passion for activity.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>More than once since the collapse of France<a id='r65' /><a href='#f65' class='c016'><sup>[65]</sup></a> I have
-met men of this type, men to whom political activity was
-an absolute necessity, who never could find rest within
-the four walls of their study or in family life. To them
-solitude is intolerable: it makes them fanciful and unreasonable;
-they quarrel with their few remaining friends,
-and are constantly discovering plots against themselves,
-or else they make plots of their own, in order to unmask
-the imaginary schemes of their enemies.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f65'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, after December 2, 1851.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>A theatre of action and spectators are as vital to these
-men as the air they breathe, and they are capable of real
-heroism under such conditions. Noise and publicity are
-essential to them; they must be making speeches and
-hearing the objections of their opponents; they love the
-excitement of contest and the fever of danger, and, if
-deprived of these stimulants, they grow depressed and
-spiritless, run to seed, lose their heads, and make mistakes.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>Ledru-Roilin<a id='r66' /><a href='#f66' class='c016'><sup>[66]</sup></a> is a man of this type; and he, by the
-way, especially since he has grown a beard, has a personal
-resemblance to Orlóv.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f66'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. </span>Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (1807-1874), a French liberal
-politician and advocate of universal suffrage.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Orlóv was a very fine-looking man. His tall figure, dignified
-bearing, handsome manly features, and entirely bald
-scalp seemed to suit one another perfectly, and lent an
-irresistible attraction to his outward appearance. His head
-would make a good contrast with the head of General
-Yermólov, that tough old warrior, whose square frowning
-forehead, penthouse of grey hair, and penetrating glance
-gave him the kind of beauty which fascinated Marya
-Kochubéi in the poem.<a id='r67' /><a href='#f67' class='c016'><sup>[67]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f67'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. </span>See Púshkin’s <i>Poltáva</i>. Marya, who was young and
-beautiful, fell in love with Mazeppa, who was old and war-worn and her
-father’s enemy.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Orlóv was at his wits’ end for occupation. He started
-a factory for stained-glass windows of medieval patterns
-and spent more in producing them than he got by selling
-them. Then he tried to write a book on “Credit,” but that
-proved uncongenial, though it was his only outlet. The
-lion was condemned to saunter about Moscow with
-nothing to do, and not daring even to use his tongue
-freely.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Orlóv’s struggles to turn himself into a philosopher and
-man of science were most painful to watch. His intellect,
-though clear and showy, was not at all suited to abstract
-thought, and he confused himself over the application of
-newly devised methods to familiar subjects, as in the case
-of chemistry. Though speculation was decidedly not his
-forte, he studied metaphysics with immense perseverance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Being imprudent and careless in his talk, he was constantly
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>making slips; he was carried away by his instincts,
-which were always chivalrous and generous, and then he
-suddenly remembered his position and checked himself
-in mid-course. In these diplomatic withdrawals he was
-even less successful than in metaphysics or scientific terminology:
-in trying to clear himself of one indiscretion,
-he often slipped into two or three more. He got blamed
-for this; people are so superficial and unobservant that
-they think more of words than actions, and attach more
-importance to particular mistakes than to a man’s general
-character. It was unfair to expect of him a high standard
-of consistency; he was less to blame than the sphere in
-which he lived, where every honourable feeling had to
-be hidden, like smuggled goods, up your sleeve, and
-uttered behind closed doors. If you spoke above your
-breath, you would spend the whole day in wondering
-whether the police would soon be down upon you.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>It was a large dinner. I happened to sit next General
-Raevski, Orlóv’s brother-in-law. Raevski also had been
-in disgrace since the famous fourteenth of December. As
-a boy of fourteen he had served under his distinguished
-father at the battle of Borodino; and he died eventually
-of wounds received in the Caucasus. I told him about
-Ogaryóv and asked whether Orlóv would be able and willing
-to take any steps.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Raevski’s face clouded over, but it did not express that
-querulous anxiety for personal safety which I had seen
-earlier in the day; he evidently felt disgust mixed with
-bitter memories.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Of willingness there can be no question in such a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>case,” he said; “but I doubt if Orlóv has the power to
-do much. Pass through to the study after dinner, and I
-will bring him to you there.” He was silent for a moment
-and then added, “So your turn has come too; those depths
-will drown you all.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Orlóv questioned me and then wrote to the Governor,
-asking for an interview. “The Prince is a gentleman,” he
-said; “if he does nothing, at least he will tell us the truth.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I went next day to hear the answer. Prince Dmitri
-Golitsyn had replied that Ogaryóv had been arrested by
-order of the Tsar, that a commission of enquiry had been
-appointed, and that the charge turned chiefly on a dinner
-given on June 24, at which seditious songs had been sung.
-I was utterly puzzled. That day was my father’s birthday;
-I had spent the whole day at home, and Ogaryóv was
-there too.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My heart was heavy when I left Orlóv. He too was
-unhappy: when I held out my hand at parting, he got up
-and embraced me, pressed me tight to his broad chest
-and kissed me. It was just as if he felt that we should not
-soon meet again.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I only saw him once more, just six years later. He was
-then near death; I was struck by the signs of illness and
-depression on his face, and the marked angularity of his
-features was a shock to me. He felt that he was breaking
-up, and knew that his affairs were in hopeless disorder.
-Two months later he died, of a clot of blood in the arteries.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At Lucerne there is a wonderful monument carved by
-Thorwaldsen in the natural rock—a niche containing the
-figure of a dying lion. The great beast is mortally
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>wounded; blood is pouring from the wound, and a broken
-arrow sticks up out of it The grand head rests on the
-paw; the animal moans and his look expresses agony.
-That is all; the place is shut off by hills and trees and
-bushes; passers-by would never guess that the king of
-beasts lies there dying.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I sat there one day for a long time and looked at this
-image of suffering, and all at once I remembered my last
-visit to Orlóv.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>As I drove home from Orlóv’s house, I passed the office
-of General Tsinski, chief of the police; and it occurred to
-me to make a direct application to him for leave to see
-Ogaryóv.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Never in my life had I paid a visit to any person connected
-with the police. I had to wait a long time; but at
-last the Chief Commissioner appeared. My request surprised
-him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What reason have you for asking this permission?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Ogaryóv and I are cousins.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Cousins?” he asked, looking me straight in the face.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I said nothing, but returned His Excellency’s look
-exactly.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I can’t give you leave,” he said; “your kinsman is in
-solitary confinement. I am very sorry.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My ignorance and helplessness were torture to me.
-Hardly any of my intimate friends were in Moscow; it
-was quite impossible to find out anything. The police
-seemed to have forgotten me or to ignore me. I was utterly
-weary and wretched. But when all the sky was covered
-with gloomy clouds and the long night of exile and prison
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>was coming close, just then a radiant sunbeam fell upon
-me.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>A few words of deep sympathy, spoken by a girl<a id='r68' /><a href='#f68' class='c016'><sup>[68]</sup></a> of
-sixteen, whom I regarded as a child, put new life in me.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f68'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. </span>This was Natálya Zakhárin, Herzen’s cousin, who
-afterwards became his wife.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>This is the first time that a woman figures in my narrative;
-and it is practically true that only one woman figures
-in my life.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My young heart had been set beating before by fleeting
-fancies of youth; but these vanished like the shapes
-of cloudland before this figure, and no new fancies ever
-came.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our meeting was in a churchyard. She leant on a grave-stone
-and spoke of Ogaryóv, till my sorrow grew calm.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We shall meet to-morrow,” she said, and gave me her
-hand, smiling through her tears.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“To-morrow,” I repeated, and looked long after her
-retreating figure.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The date was July 19, 1834.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER II</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>Arrest—The Independent Witness—A Police-Station—Patriarchal Justice.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>“WE shall meet to-morrow,” I repeated to myself
-as I was falling asleep, and my heart
-felt unusually light and happy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At two in the morning I was wakened by my father’s
-valet; he was only half-dressed and looked frightened.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“An officer is asking for you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What officer?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I don’t know.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, I do,” I said, as I threw on my dressing-gown.
-A figure wrapped in a military cloak was standing at the
-drawing-room door; I could see a white plume from my
-window, and there were some people behind it—I could
-make out a Cossack helmet.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our visitor was Miller, an officer of police. He told me
-that he bore a warrant from the military Governor of
-Moscow to examine my papers. Candles were brought.
-Miller took my keys, and while his subordinates rummaged
-among my books and shirts, attended to the papers
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>himself. He put them all aside as suspicious; then he
-turned suddenly to me and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I beg you will dress meanwhile; you will have to go
-with me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Where to?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“To the police-station of the district,” he said, in a
-reassuring voice.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“And then?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There are no further orders in the Governor’s warrant.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I began to dress.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Meanwhile my mother had been awakened by the terrified
-servants, and came in haste from her bedroom to see
-me. When she was stopped half-way by a Cossack, she
-screamed; I started at the sound and ran to her. The
-officer came with us, leaving the papers behind him. He
-apologised to my mother and let her pass; then he scolded
-the Cossack, who was not really to blame, and went back
-to the papers.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My father now appeared on the scene. He was pale
-but tried to keep up his air of indifference. The scene
-became trying: while my mother wept in a corner, my
-father talked to the officer on ordinary topics, but his
-voice shook. I feared that if this went on it would prove
-too much for me, and I did not wish that the under-strappers
-of the police should have the satisfaction of
-seeing me shed tears.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I twitched the officer’s sleeve and said we had better
-be off.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He welcomed the suggestion. My father then left the
-room, but returned immediately; he was carrying a little
-sacred picture, which he placed round my neck, saying
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>that his father on his deathbed had blessed him with it.
-I was touched: the nature of this gift proved to me how
-great was the fear and anxiety that filled the old man’s
-heart. I knelt down for him to put it on; he raised me
-to my feet, embraced me, and gave me his blessing.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It was a representation on enamel of the head of John
-the Baptist on the charger. Whether it was meant for an
-example, a warning, or a prophecy, I don’t know, but it
-struck me as somehow significant.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My mother was almost fainting.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was escorted down the stairs by all the household
-servants, weeping and struggling to kiss my face and
-hands; it might have been my own funeral with me to
-watch it. The officer frowned and hurried on the proceedings.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Once outside the gate, he collected his forces—four
-Cossacks and four policemen.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was a bearded man sitting outside the gate, who
-asked the officer if he might now go home.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Be off!” said Miller.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Who is that?” I asked, as I took my seat in the cab.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“He is a witness: you know that the police must take
-a witness with them when they make an entrance into a
-private house.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Is that why you left him outside?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A mere formality,” said Miller; “it’s only keeping the
-man out of his bed for nothing.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our cab started, escorted by two mounted Cossacks.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>There was no private room for me at the police-station,
-and the officer directed that I should spend the rest of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>the night in the office. He took me there himself; dropping
-into an armchair and yawning wearily, he said: “It’s a
-dog’s life. I’ve been up since three, and now your business
-has kept me till near four in the morning, and at nine I
-have to present my report.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Good-bye,” he said a moment later and left the room.
-A corporal locked me in, and said that I might knock at
-the door if I needed anything.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I opened the window: day was beginning and the morning
-breeze was stirring. I asked the corporal for water
-and drank a whole jugful. Of sleep I never even thought.
-For one thing, there was no place to lie down; the room
-contained no furniture except some dirty leather-covered
-chairs, one armchair, and two tables of different sizes,
-both covered with a litter of papers. There was a night-light,
-too feeble to light up the room, which threw a
-flickering white patch on the ceiling; and I watched the
-patch grow paler and paler as the dawn came on.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I sat down in the magistrate’s seat and took up the
-paper nearest me on the table—a permit to bury a servant
-of Prince Gagárin’s and a medical certificate to prove
-that the man had died according to all the rules of the
-medical art. I picked up another—some police regulations.
-I ran through it and found an article to this effect:
-“Every prisoner has a right to learn the cause of his
-arrest or to be discharged within three days.” I made a
-mental note of this item.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>An hour later I saw from the window the arrival of
-our butler with a cushion, coverlet, and cloak for me. He
-made some request to the corporal, probably for leave to
-visit me; he was a grey-haired old man, to several of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>whose children I had stood godfather while a child myself;
-the corporal gave a rough and sharp refusal. One of
-our coachmen was there too, and I hailed them from the
-window. The soldier, in a fuss, ordered them to be off.
-The old man bowed low to me and shed tears; and the
-coachman, as he whipped up his horse, took off his hat
-and rubbed his eyes. When the carriage started, I could
-bear it no more: the tears came in a flood, and they were
-the first and last tears I shed during my imprisonment.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Towards morning the office began to fill up. The first
-to appear was a clerk, who had evidently been drunk the
-night before and was not sober yet. He had red hair and
-a pimpled face, a consumptive look, and an expression of
-brutish sensuality; he wore a long, brick-coloured coat,
-ill-made, ill-brushed, and shiny with age. The next comer
-was a free-and-easy gentleman, wearing the cloak of a non-commissioned
-officer. He turned to me at once and asked:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“They got you at the theatre, I suppose?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No; I was arrested at home.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“By Fyodor Ivanovitch?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Who is Fyodor Ivanovitch?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Why, Colonel Miller.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, it was he.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Ah, I understand, Sir”—and he winked to the red-haired
-man, who showed not the slightest interest. The
-other did not continue the conversation; seeing that I
-was not charged as drunk and disorderly, he thought me
-unworthy of further attention; or perhaps he was afraid
-to converse with a political prisoner.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>A little later, several policemen appeared, rubbing their
-eyes and only half awake; and finally the petitioners and
-suitors.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A woman who kept a disorderly house made a complaint
-against a publican. He had abused her publicly in
-his shop, using language which she, as a woman, could not
-venture to repeat before a magistrate. The publican swore
-he had never used such language; the woman swore that
-he had used it repeatedly and very loudly, and she added
-that he had raised his hand against her and would have
-laid her face open, had she not ducked her head. The
-shopman said, first, that she owed him money, and, secondly,
-that she had insulted him in his own shop, nay
-more, had threatened to kill him by the hands of her
-bullies.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>She was a tall, slatternly woman with swollen eyes; her
-voice was piercingly loud and high, and she had an extraordinary
-flow of language. The shopman relied more on
-gesture and pantomime than on his eloquence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the absence of the judge, one of the policemen proved
-to be a second Solomon. He abused both parties in fine
-style. “You’re too well off,” he said; “that’s what’s the
-matter with you; why can’t you stop at home and keep
-the peace, and be thankful to us for letting you alone?
-What fools you are! Because you have had a few words
-you must run at once before His Worship and trouble
-him! How dare you give yourself airs, my good woman,
-as if you had never been abused before? Why your very
-trade can’t be named in decent language!” Here the shopman
-showed the heartiest approval by his gestures; but
-his turn came next. “And you, how dare you stand there
-in your shop and bark like an angry dog? Do you want to
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>be locked up? You use foul language, and raise your fist
-as well; it’s a sound thrashing you want.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This scene had the charm of novelty for me; it was
-the first specimen I had seen of patriarchal justice as administered
-in Russia, and I have never forgotten it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The pair went on shouting till the magistrate came in.
-Without even asking their business, he shouted them down
-at once. “Get out of this! Do you take this place for a
-bad house or a gin-shop?” When he had driven out the
-offenders, he turned on the policeman: “I wonder you are
-not ashamed to permit such disorder. I have told you
-again and again. People lose all respect for the place; it
-will soon be a regular bear-garden for the mob; you are
-too easy with them.” Then he looked at me and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Who is that?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A prisoner whom Fyodor Ivanovitch brought in,”
-answered the policeman; “there is a paper about him
-somewhere, Sir.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The magistrate ran through the paper and then glanced
-at me. As I kept my eyes fixed on him, ready to retort
-the instant he spoke, he was put out and said, “I beg your
-pardon.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But now the business began again between the publican
-and his enemy. The woman wished to take an oath, and
-a priest was summoned; I believe both parties were sworn,
-and there was no prospect of a conclusion. At this point
-I was taken in a carriage to the Chief Commissioner’s
-office—I am sure I don’t know why, for no one spoke a
-word to me there—and then brought back to the police-station,
-where a room right under the belfry was prepared
-for my occupation. The corporal observed that if
-I wanted food I must send out for it: the prison ration
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>would not be issued for a day or two; and besides, as it
-only amounted to three or four <i>kopecks</i> a day, a gentleman
-“under a cloud” did not usually take it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Along the wall of my room there was a sofa with a
-dirty cover. It was past midday and I was terribly weary.
-I threw myself on the sofa and fell fast asleep. When I
-woke, I felt quite easy and cheerful. Of late I had been
-tormented by my ignorance of Ogaryóv’s fate; now, my
-own turn had come, the black cloud was right overhead,
-I was in the thick of the danger, instead of watching it in
-the distance. I felt that this first prosecution would serve
-us as a consecration for our mission.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER III</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>Under the Belfry—A Travelled Policeman—The Incendiaries.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>A MAN soon gets used to prison, if he has any interior
-life at all. One quickly gets accustomed
-to the silence and complete freedom of one’s cage—there
-are no cares and no distractions.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>They refused me books at first, and the police-magistrate
-declared that it was against the rules for me to get
-books from home. I then proposed to buy some. “I suppose
-you mean some serious book—a grammar of some
-kind, I dare say? Well, I should not object to that; for
-other books, higher authority must be obtained.” Though
-the suggestion that I should study grammar to relieve
-boredom was exceedingly comic, yet I caught at it eagerly
-and asked him to buy me an Italian grammar and dictionary.
-I had two ten-<i>rouble</i> notes on me, and I gave him
-one. He sent at once to buy the books, and despatched
-by the same messenger a letter to the Chief Commissioner,
-in which, taking my stand on the article I had read, I
-asked him to explain the cause of my arrest or to release
-me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>The magistrate, in whose presence I wrote the letter,
-urged me not to send it. “It’s no good, I swear it’s no good
-your bothering His Excellency. They don’t like people
-who give them trouble. It can’t result in anything, and it
-may hurt you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A policeman turned up in the evening with a reply:
-His Excellency sent me a verbal message, to the effect
-that I should learn in good time why I was arrested. The
-messenger then produced a greasy Italian grammar from
-his pocket, and added with a smile, “By good luck it
-happens that there is a vocabulary here; so you need not
-buy one.” The question of change out of my note was not
-alluded to. I was inclined to write again to His Excellency;
-but to play the part of a little Hampden seemed to me
-rather too absurd in my present quarters.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I had been in prison ten days, when a short policeman
-with a swarthy, pock-marked face came to my room at
-ten in the evening, bringing an order that I was to dress
-and present myself before the Commission of Enquiry.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While I was dressing, a serio-comic incident occurred.
-My dinner was sent me every day from home; our
-servant delivered it to the corporal on duty, and he sent
-a private upstairs with it. A bottle of wine from outside
-was allowed daily, and a friend had taken advantage of
-this permission to send me a bottle of excellent hock. The
-private and I contrived to uncork the bottle with a couple
-of nails; the bouquet of the wine was perceptible at a
-distance, and I looked forward to the pleasure of drinking
-it for some days to come.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>There is nothing like prison life for revealing the childishness
-in a grown man and the consolation he finds in
-trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick played on a turnkey.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Well, the pock-marked policeman found out my bottle,
-and, turning to me, asked if he might have a taste. Though
-I was vexed, I said I should be very glad. I had no glass.
-The wretch took a cup, filled it to the very brim, and
-emptied it into himself without drawing breath. No one
-but a Russian or a Pole can pour down strong drink in
-this fashion: I have never in any part of Europe seen a
-glass or cup of spirits disposed of with equal rapidity.
-To add to my sorrow at the loss of this cupful, my friend
-wiped his lips with a blue tobacco-stained handkerchief,
-and said as he thanked me, “Something like Madeira,
-<i>that</i> is!” I hated the sight of him and felt a cruel joy that
-his parents had not vaccinated him and nature had not
-spared him the small-pox.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>This judge of wine went with me to the Chief Commissioner’s
-house on the Tver Boulevard, where he took me
-to a side room and left me alone. Half an hour later, a
-fat man with a lazy, good-natured expression came in,
-carrying papers in a wallet; he threw the wallet on a
-chair and sent the policeman who was standing at the
-door off on some errand.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I suppose,” he said to me, “you are mixed up in the
-affair of Ogaryóv and the other young men who were
-lately arrested.” I admitted it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I’ve heard about it casually,” he went on; “a queer
-business! I can’t understand it at all.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“Well, I’ve been in prison a fortnight because of it, and
-not only do I not understand it, but I know nothing about
-it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That’s right!” said the man, looking at me attentively.
-“Continue to know nothing about it! Excuse me, if I give
-you a piece of advice. You are young, and your blood is
-still hot, and you want to be talking; but it’s a mistake.
-Just you remember that you know nothing about it.
-Nothing else can save you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I looked at him in surprise; but his expression did not
-suggest anything base. He guessed my thoughts and said
-with a smile:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I was a student at Moscow University myself twelve
-years ago.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A clerk of some kind now came in. The fat man, who
-was evidently his superior, gave him some directions and
-then left the room, after pressing a finger to his lips with
-a friendly nod to me. I never met him again and don’t
-know now who he was; but experience proved to me that
-his advice was well meant.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My next visitor was a police-officer, not Colonel Miller
-this time. He summoned me to a large, rather fine room
-where five men were sitting at a table, all wearing military
-uniform except one who was old and decrepit. They were
-smoking cigars and carrying on a lively conversation, lying
-back in their chairs with their jackets unbuttoned. The
-Chief Commissioner, Tsinski, was in the chair.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I came in, he turned to a figure sitting modestly
-in a corner of the room and said, “May I trouble Your
-Reverence?” Then I made out that the figure in the corner
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>was an old priest with a white beard and a mottled face.
-The old man was drowsy and wanted to go home; he was
-thinking of something else and yawning with his hand
-before his face. In a slow and rather sing-song voice he
-began to admonish me: he said it was sinful to conceal
-the truth from persons appointed by the Tsar, and useless,
-because the ear of God hears the unspoken word; he
-did not fail to quote the inevitable texts—that all power
-is from God, and that we must render to Caesar the things
-that are Caesar’s. Finally, he bade me kiss the Holy
-Gospel and the True Cross in confirmation of a vow
-(which however I did not take and he did not ask) to
-reveal the whole truth frankly and openly.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When he had done, he began hastily to wrap up the
-Gospel and the Cross; and the President, barely rising in
-his seat, told him he might go. Then he turned to me and
-translated the priest’s address into the language of this
-world. “One thing I shall add to what the priest has said—it
-is impossible for you to conceal the truth even if you
-wish to.” He pointed to piles of papers, letters, and portraits,
-scattered on purpose over the table: “Frank confession
-alone can improve your position; it depends on
-yourself, whether you go free or are sent to the Caucasus.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Questions were then submitted in writing, some of them
-amusingly simple—“Do you know of the existence of
-any secret society? Do you belong to any society, learned
-or otherwise? Who are its members? Where do they
-meet?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To all this it was perfectly simple to answer “No” and
-nothing else.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I see you know nothing,” said the President, reading
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>over the answers; “I warned you beforehand that you will
-complicate your situation.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And that was the end of the first examination.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Eight years later a lady, who had once been beautiful,
-and her beautiful daughter, were living in a different part
-of this very house where the Commission sat; she was
-the sister of a later Chief Commissioner.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I used to visit there and always had to pass through
-the room where Tsinski and Company used to sit on us.
-There was a portrait of the Emperor Paul on the wall,
-and I used to stop in front of it every time I passed, either
-as a prisoner or as a visitor. Near it was a little drawing-room
-where all breathed of beauty and femininity; and
-it seemed somehow out of place beside frowning Justice
-and criminal trials. I felt uneasy there, and sorry that
-so fair a bud had found such an uncongenial spot to open
-in as the dismal brick walls of a police-office. Our talk,
-and that of a small number of friends who met there,
-sounded ironical and strange to the ear within those walls,
-so familiar with examinations, informations, and reports
-of domiciliary visits—within those walls which parted us
-from the mutter of policemen, the sighs of prisoners, the
-jingling spurs of officers, and the clanking swords of
-Cossacks.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Within a week or a fortnight the pock-marked policeman
-came again and went with me again to Tsinski’s
-house. Inside the door some men in chains were sitting
-or lying, surrounded by soldiers with rifles; and in the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>front room there were others, of various ranks in society,
-not chained but strictly guarded. My policeman told me
-that these were incendiaries. As Tsinski himself had gone
-to the scene of the fires, we had to wait for his return.
-We arrived at nine in the evening; and at one in the morning
-no one had asked for me, and I was still sitting very
-peacefully in the front hall with the incendiaries. One or
-other of them was summoned from time to time; the
-police ran backward and forward, the chains clinked, and
-the soldiers, for want of occupation, rattled their rifles
-and went through the manual exercise. Tsinski arrived
-about one, black with smoke and grime, and hurried on
-to his study without stopping. Half an hour later my
-policeman was summoned; when he came back, he looked
-pale and upset and his face twitched convulsively. Tsinski
-followed him, put his head in at the door, and said: “Why,
-the members of the Commission were waiting for you, M.
-Herzen, the whole evening. This fool brought you here
-at the hour when you were summoned to Prince Golitsyn’s
-house instead. I am very sorry you have had to wait so
-long, but I am not to blame. What can one do, with such
-subordinates? I suppose he has been fifty years in the
-service, and is as great a blockhead as ever. Well,” he
-added, turning to the policeman and addressing him in a
-much less polite style, “be off now and go back.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All the way home the man kept repeating: “Lord! what
-bad luck! A man never knows what’s going to happen to
-him. He will do for me now. He wouldn’t matter so much;
-but the Prince will be angry, and the Commissioner will
-catch it for your not being there. Oh, what a misfortune!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I forgave him the hock, especially when he declared
-that, though he was once nearly drowned at Lisbon, he
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>was less scared then than now. This adventure surprised
-me so much that I roared with laughter. “How utterly
-absurd! What on earth took you to Lisbon?” I asked. It
-turned out that he had served in the Fleet twenty-five
-years before. The statesman in Gógol’s novel, who declares
-that every servant of the State in Russia meets with
-his reward sooner or later,<a id='r69' /><a href='#f69' class='c016'><sup>[69]</sup></a> certainly spoke the truth. For
-death spared my friend at Lisbon, in order that he might
-be scolded like a naughty boy by Tsinski, after forty
-years’ service.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f69'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. </span>Gógol, <i>Dead Souls</i>, Part I, chap. 10.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Besides, he was hardly at all to blame in the matter.
-The Tsar was dissatisfied with the original Commission
-of Enquiry, and had appointed another, with Prince
-Serghéi Golitsyn as chairman; the other members were
-Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, another Prince Golitsyn,
-Shubenski, a colonel of police, and Oranski, formerly
-paymaster-general. As my Lisbon friend had received no
-notice that the new Commission would sit at a different
-place, it was very natural that he should take me to
-Tsinski’s house.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When we got back, we found great excitement there
-too: three fires had broken out during the evening, and
-the Commissioners had sent twice to ask what had become
-of me and whether I had run away. If Tsinski had not
-abused my escort sufficiently, the police-magistrate fully
-made up for any deficiencies; and this was natural, because
-he himself was partly to blame for not asking where
-exactly I was to be sent.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>In a corner of the office there was a man lying on two
-chairs and groaning, who attracted my attention. He was
-young, handsome, and well-dressed. The police-surgeon
-advised that he should be sent to the hospital early next
-morning, as he was spitting blood and in great suffering. I
-got the details of this affair from the corporal who took
-me to my room. The man was a retired officer of the
-Guards, who was carrying on a love affair with a maid-servant
-and was with her when a fire broke out in the
-house. The panic caused by incendiarism was then at its
-height; and, in fact, never a day passed without my hearing
-the tocsin ring repeatedly, while at night I could always
-see the glow of several fires from my window. As
-soon as the excitement began, the officer, wishing to save
-the girl’s reputation, climbed over a fence and hid himself
-in an outbuilding of the next house, intending to come out
-when the coast was clear. But a little girl had seen him in
-the court-yard, and told the first policeman who came on
-the scene that an incendiary was hiding in the shed. The
-police made for the place, accompanied by a mob, dragged
-the officer out in triumph, and dealt with him so vigorously
-that he died next morning.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The police now began to sift the men arrested for arson.
-Half of them were let go, but the rest were detained on
-suspicion. A magistrate came every morning and spent
-three or four hours in examining the charges. Some were
-flogged during this process; and then their yells and cries
-and entreaties, the shrieks of women, the harsh voice of
-the magistrate, and the drone of the clerk’s reading—all
-this came to my ears. It was horrible beyond endurance.
-I dreamed of these sounds at night, and woke up in
-horror at the thought of these poor wretches, lying on
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>straw a few feet away, in chains, with flayed and bleeding
-backs, and, in all probability, quite innocent.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In order to know what Russian prisons and Russian
-police and justice really are, one must be a peasant, a
-servant or workman or shopkeeper. The political prisoners,
-who are mostly of noble birth, are strictly guarded and
-vindictively punished; but they suffer infinitely less than
-the unfortunate “men with beards.” With them the police
-stand on no ceremony. In what quarter can a peasant or
-workman seek redress? Where will he find justice?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Russian system of justice and police is so haphazard,
-so inhuman, so arbitrary and corrupt, that a poor
-malefactor has more reason to fear his trial than his sentence.
-He is impatient for the time when he will be sent
-to Siberia; for his martyrdom comes to an end when his
-punishment begins. Well, then, let it be remembered that
-three-fourths of those arrested on suspicion by the police
-are acquitted by the court, and that all these have gone
-through the same ordeal as the guilty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Peter the Third abolished the torture-chamber, and the
-Russian star-chamber.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Catherine the Second abolished torture.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alexander the First abolished it over again.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Evidence given under torture is legally inadmissible,
-and any magistrate applying torture is himself liable to
-prosecution and severe punishment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>That is so: and all over Russia, from Behring Straits
-to the Crimea, men suffer torture. Where flogging is unsafe,
-other means are used—intolerable heat, thirst, salt
-food; in Moscow the police made a prisoner stand barefooted
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>on an iron floor, at a time of intense frost; the man
-died in a hospital, of which Prince Meshcherski was president,
-and he told the story afterwards with horror. All
-this is known to the authorities; but they all agree with
-Selifan<a id='r70' /><a href='#f70' class='c016'><sup>[70]</sup></a> in Gógol’s novel—“Why not flog the peasants?
-The peasants need a flogging from time to time.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f70'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. </span>Gógol, <i>Dead Souls</i>, Part I, chap. 3. Selifan, a
-coachman, is a peasant himself.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The board appointed to investigate the fires sat, or, in
-other words, flogged, for six months continuously, but
-they were no wiser at the end of the flogging. The Tsar
-grew angry: he ordered that the business should be completed
-in three days. And so it was: guilty persons were
-discovered and sentenced to flogging, branding, and penal
-servitude. All the hall-porters in Moscow were brought
-together to witness the infliction of the punishment. It
-was winter by then, and I had been moved to the Krutitski
-Barracks; but a captain of police, a kind-hearted old
-man, who was present at the scene, told me the details I
-here record. The man who was brought out first for
-flogging addressed the spectators in a loud voice: he swore
-that he was innocent, and that he did not know what
-evidence he had given under torture; then he pulled off
-his shirt and turned his back to the people, asking them
-to look at it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A groan of horror ran through the crowd: his whole
-back was raw and bleeding, and that livid surface was
-now to be flogged over again. The protesting cries and
-sullen looks of the crowd made the police hurry on with
-the business: the executioners dealt out the legal number
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>of lashes, the branding and fettering took place, and the
-affair seemed at an end. But the scene had made an impression
-and was the subject of conversation all through
-the city. The Governor reported this to the Tsar, and the
-Tsar appointed a new board, which was to give special
-attention to the case of the man who had addressed the
-crowd.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Some months later I read in the newspapers that the
-Tsar, wishing to compensate two men who had been
-flogged for crimes of which they were innocent, ordered
-that they should receive 200 <i>roubles</i> for each lash, and
-also a special passport, to prove that though branded
-they were not guilty. These two were the man who had
-addressed the crowd, and one of his companions.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The cause of these incendiary fires which alarmed Moscow
-in 1834 and were repeated ten years later in different
-parts of the country, still remains a mystery. That it was
-not all accidental is certain: fire as a means of revenge—“The
-red cock,” as it is called—is characteristic of
-the nation. One is constantly hearing of a gentleman’s
-house or corn-kiln or granary being set on fire by his
-enemies. But what was the motive for the fires at Moscow
-in 1834, nobody knows, and the members of the
-Board of Enquiry least of all.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The twenty-second of August was the Coronation Day;
-and some practical jokers dropped papers in different
-parts of the city, informing the inhabitants they need not
-trouble about illuminating, because there would be plenty
-of light otherwise provided.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The authorities of the city were in great alarm. From
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>early morning my police-station was full of troops, and
-a squadron of dragoons was stationed in the court-yard.
-In the evening bodies of cavalry and infantry patrolled
-the streets; cannon were ready in the arsenal. Police-officers,
-with constables and Cossacks, galloped to and
-fro; the Governor himself rode through the city with his
-<i>aides-de-camp</i>. It was strange and disquieting to see
-peaceful Moscow turned into a military camp. I watched
-the court-yard from my lofty window till late at night.
-Dismounted dragoons were sitting in groups near their
-horses, while others remained in the saddle; their officers
-walked about, looking with some contempt at their comrades
-of the police; staff-officers, with anxious faces and
-yellow collars on their jackets, rode up, did nothing, and
-rode away again.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There were no fires.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Immediately afterwards the Tsar himself came to Moscow.
-He was dissatisfied with the investigation of our
-affair, which was just beginning, dissatisfied because we
-had not been handed over to the secret police, dissatisfied
-because the incendiaries had not been discovered—in
-short, he was dissatisfied with everything and everybody.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER IV</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>The Krutitski Barracks—A Policeman’s Story—The Officers.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THREE days after the Tsar came to Moscow, a
-police-officer called on me late in the evening—all
-these things are done in the dark, to spare the
-nerves of the public—bringing an order for me to pack
-up and start off with him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Where to?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You will see shortly,” he answered with equal wit and
-politeness. That was enough: I asked no more questions,
-but packed up my things and started.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We drove on and on for an hour and a half, passed St.
-Peter’s Monastery, and stopped at a massive stone gateway,
-before which two constables were pacing, armed
-with carbines. This building was the Krutitski Monastery,
-which had been converted into a police-barracks.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was taken to a smallish office, where everyone was
-dressed in blue, officers and clerks alike. The orderly
-officer, wearing full uniform and a helmet, asked me to
-wait and even proposed that I should light my pipe which
-I was holding. Having written out an acknowledgement
-that a fresh prisoner had been received, and handed it to
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>my escort, he left the room and returned with another
-officer, who told me that my quarters were ready and
-asked me to go there. A constable carried a light, and we
-descended a staircase, passed through a small yard, and
-entered by a low door a long passage lighted by a single
-lantern. On both sides of the passage there were low
-doors; and the orderly officer opened one of these, which
-led into a tiny guard-room and thence into a room of
-moderate size, damp, cold, and smelling like a cellar.
-The officer who was escorting me now addressed me in
-French: he said that he was <i>désolé d’être dans la nécessité</i>
-of rummaging my pockets, but that discipline and
-his duty required it. After this noble exordium he turned
-without more ado to the gaoler and winked in my direction;
-and the man instantly inserted into my pocket an
-incredibly large and hairy paw. I pointed out to the polite
-officer that this was quite unnecessary: I would empty
-out all my pockets myself, without any forcible measures
-being used. And I asked what I could possibly have on
-me after six weeks in prison.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, we know what they are capable of at police-stations,”
-said the polite officer, with an inimitable smile of
-superiority, and the orderly officer also smiled sarcastically;
-but they told the turnkey merely to look on while
-I emptied my pockets.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Shake out any tobacco you have on the table,” said
-the polite officer.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I had in my tobacco-pouch a pencil and a penknife
-wrapped up in paper. I remembered about them at once,
-and, while talking to the officer, I fiddled with the pouch
-till the knife came out in my hand; then I gripped it
-behind the pouch, while boldly pouring out the tobacco
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>on the table. The turnkey gathered it together again. I
-had saved my knife and my pencil, and I had also paid
-out my polite friend for his contempt of my former
-gaolers.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This little incident put me in excellent humour, and
-I began cheerfully to survey my new possessions.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The monks’ cells, built 300 years ago, had sunk deep
-into the ground, and were now put to a secular use for
-political prisoners.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My room contained a bedstead without a mattress, a
-small table with a jug of water on it, and a chair; a thin
-tallow candle was burning in a large copper candlestick.
-The damp and cold struck into the marrow of my bones;
-the officer ordered the stove to be lighted, and then I was
-left alone. A turnkey promised to bring some straw; meanwhile
-I used my overcoat as a pillow, lay down on the bare
-bedstead, and lit a pipe. I very soon noticed that the
-ceiling was covered with black beetles. Not having seen
-a light for a long time, the black beetles hurried to the
-lighted patch in great excitement, jostling one another,
-dropping on the table, and then running wildly about
-along the edge of it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I don’t like black beetles, nor uninvited guests in general.
-My neighbours seemed to me horribly repulsive, but
-there was nothing to be done: I could not begin by complaining
-of black beetles, and I suppressed my dislike of
-them. Besides, after a few days all the insects migrated
-to the next room, where the turnkey kept up a higher
-temperature; only an occasional specimen would look in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>on me, twitch his whiskers, and then hurry back to the
-warmth.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In spite of my entreaties, the turnkey insisted on closing
-the stove after he had lighted it. I soon felt uncomfortable
-and giddy, and I decided to get up and knock
-on the wall. I did get up, but I remember no more.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I came to myself I was lying on the floor and
-my head was aching fiercely. A tall, grey-haired turnkey
-was standing over me with his arms folded, and watching
-me with a steady, expressionless stare, such as may be
-seen in the eyes of the dog watching the tortoise, in a
-well-known bronze group.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Seeing that I was conscious, he began: “Your Honour
-had a near shave of suffocation. But I put some pickled
-horse-radish to your nose, and now you can drink some
-<i>kvass</i>.”<a id='r71' /><a href='#f71' class='c016'><sup>[71]</sup></a> When I had drunk, he lifted me up and laid me
-on my bed. I felt very faint, and the window, which was
-double, could not be opened. The turnkey went to the office
-to ask that I might go out into the court; but the orderly
-officer sent a message that he could not undertake the
-responsibility in the absence of the colonel and adjutant.
-I had to put up with the foul atmosphere.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f71'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. </span>A sort of beer.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But I became accustomed even to these quarters, and
-conjugated Italian verbs and read any books I could get.
-At first, the rules were fairly strict: when the bugle
-sounded for the last time at nine in the evening, a turnkey
-came in, blew out my candle, and locked me up for the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>night. I had to sit in darkness till eight next morning. I
-was never a great sleeper, and the want of exercise made
-four hours’ sleep ample for me in prison; hence the want
-of a light was a serious deprivation. Besides this, a sentry
-at each end of the passage gave a loud prolonged cry of
-“All’s well-l-l-l!” every quarter of an hour.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After a few weeks, however, the colonel allowed me to
-have a light. My window was beneath the level of the
-court, so that the sentry could watch all my movements;
-and no blind or curtain to the window was allowed. He
-also stopped the sentries from calling out in the passage.
-Later, we were permitted to have ink and a fixed number
-of sheets of paper, on condition that none were torn up;
-and we were allowed to walk in the yard once in twenty-four
-hours, accompanied by a sentry and the officer of
-the day, while outside the yard there was a fence and a
-chain of sentries.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The life was monotonous and peaceful; military precision
-gave it a kind of mechanical regularity like the
-caesura in verse. In the morning I made coffee over the
-stove with the help of the turnkey; at ten the officer of
-the day made his appearance, bringing in with him several
-cubic feet of frost, and clattering with his sword; he wore
-cloak and helmet and gloves up to his elbows; at one the
-turnkey brought me a dirty napkin and a bowl of soup,
-which he held by the rim in such a way that his two
-thumbs were noticeably cleaner than the other fingers.
-The food was tolerable; but it must be remembered that
-we were charged two <i>roubles</i> a day for it, which mounts
-up to a considerable sum for a poor man in the course of
-nine months. The father of one prisoner said frankly that
-he could not pay, whereupon he was told it would be
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>stopped out of his salary; had he not been drawing Government
-pay, he would probably have been put in prison
-himself. There was also a Government allowance for our
-keep; but the quarter-masters put this in their pockets and
-stopped the mouths of the officers with orders for the
-theatres on first nights and benefits.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After sunset complete silence set in, only interrupted
-by the distant calls of the sentries, or the steps of a
-soldier crunching over the snow right in front of my window.
-I generally read till one, before I put out my candle.
-In my dreams I was free once more. Sometimes I woke
-up thinking: “What a horrid nightmare of prison and
-gaolers! How glad I am it’s not true!”—and suddenly a
-sword rattled in the passage, or the officer of the day came
-in with his lantern-bearer, or a sentry called out “Who
-goes there?” in his mechanical voice, or a bugle, close to
-the window, split the morning air with reveille.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When I was bored and not inclined to read, I talked to
-my gaolers, especially to the old fellow who had treated me
-for my fainting fit. The colonel, as a mark of favour, excused
-some of the old soldiers from parade and gave them
-the light work of guarding a prisoner; they were in charge
-of a corporal—a spy and a scoundrel. Five or six of these
-veterans did all the work of the prison.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The old soldier I am speaking of was a simple creature,
-kind-hearted himself and grateful for any kindness that
-was shown him, and it is likely that not much had been
-shown him in the course of his life. He had served through
-the campaign of 1812 and his breast was covered with
-medals. His term of service had expired, but he stayed on
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>as a volunteer, having no place to go to. “I wrote twice,”
-he used to say, “to my relations in the Government of
-Mogilev, but I got no answer; so I suppose that all my
-people are dead. I don’t care to go home, only to beg my
-bread in old age.” How barbarous is the system of military
-service in Russia, which detains a man for twenty
-years with the colours! But in every sphere of life we
-sacrifice the individual without mercy and without reward.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Old Philimonov professed to know German; he had
-learned it in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. In
-fact, he knew some German words, to which he attached
-Russian terminations with much ingenuity.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In his stories of the past there was a kind of artlessness
-which made me sad. I shall record one of them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He served in Moldavia, in the Turkish campaign of
-1805; and the commander of his company was the kindest
-of men, caring like a father for each soldier and always
-foremost in battle. “Our captain was in love with a Moldavian
-woman, and we saw that he was in bad spirits; the
-reason was that she was often visiting another officer. One
-day he sent for me and a friend of mine—a fine soldier he
-was and lost both legs in battle afterwards—and said to
-us that the woman had jilted him; and he asked if we
-were willing to help him and teach her a lesson. ‘Surely,
-Your Honour,’ said we; ‘we are at your service at any
-time.’ He thanked us and pointed out the house where the
-officer lived. Then he said, ‘Take your stand to-night on
-the bridge which she must cross to get to his house; catch
-hold of her quietly, and into the river with her!’ ‘Very
-good, Your Honour,’ said we. So I and my chum got hold
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>of a sack and went to the bridge; there we sat, and near
-midnight the girl came running past. ‘What are you hurrying
-for?’ we asked. Then we gave her one over the head;
-not a sound did she make, bless her; we put her in the
-sack and threw it into the river. Next day our captain
-went to the other officer and said: ‘You must not be angry
-with the girl: we detained her; in fact, she is now at the
-bottom of the river. But I am quite prepared to take a
-little walk with you, with swords or pistols, as you prefer.’
-Well, they fought, and our captain was badly wounded
-in the chest; he wasted away, poor fellow, and after three
-months gave back his soul to God.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But was the woman really drowned?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, yes, Sir,” said the soldier.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was horrified by the childlike indifference with which
-the old man told me this story. He appeared to guess my
-feelings or to give a thought for the first time to his victim;
-for he added, to reassure me and make it up with his own
-conscience:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You know, Sir, she was only a benighted heathen, not
-like a Christian at all.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>It is the custom to serve out a glass of brandy to the
-gaolers on saints’ days and royal birthdays; and Philimonov
-was allowed to decline this ration till five or six
-were due to him, and then to draw it all at once. He
-marked on a tally the number of glasses he did not drink,
-and applied for the lot on one of the great festivals. He
-poured all the brandy into a soup-tureen, crumbled bread
-into it, and then supped it with a spoon. When this repast
-was over, he smoked a large pipe with a tiny mouthpiece;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>his tobacco, which he cut up himself, was strong beyond
-belief. As there was no seat in his room, he curled himself
-up on the narrow space of the window-sill; and there he
-smoked and sang a song about grass and flowers, pronouncing
-the words worse and worse as the liquor gained
-power over him. But what a constitution the man had!
-He was over sixty and had been twice wounded, and yet
-he could stand such a meal as I have described.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Before I end these Wouverman-Callot<a id='r72' /><a href='#f72' class='c016'><sup>[72]</sup></a> sketches of barrack-life
-and this prison-gossip which only repeats the
-recollections of all captives like myself, I shall say something
-also of the officers.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f72'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. </span>Wouverman (1619-1668), a Dutch painter; Callot
-(1592-1635), a French painter; both painted outdoor life, soldiers,
-beggars, etc.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Most of them were not spies at all, but good enough
-people, who had drifted by chance into the constabulary.
-Young nobles, with little or no education, without fortune
-or any settled prospects, they had taken to this life, because
-they had nothing else to do. They performed their
-duties with military precision, but without a scrap of enthusiasm,
-as far as I could see; I must except the adjutant,
-indeed; but then that was just why he <i>was</i> adjutant. When
-I got to know the officers, they granted me all the small indulgences
-that were in their power, and it would be a sin
-for me to complain of them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One of the young officers told me a story of the year
-1831, when he was sent to hunt down and arrest a Polish
-gentleman who was in hiding somewhere near his own
-estate. He was accused of having relations with agitators.
-The officer started on his mission, made enquiries, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>discovered the Pole’s hiding place. He led his men there,
-surrounded the house, and entered it with two constables.
-The house was empty: they went through all the rooms
-and hunted about, but no one was to be seen; and yet
-some trifling signs proved that the house had been occupied
-not long before. Leaving his men below, the young
-officer went up to the attics a second time; after a careful
-search, he found a small door leading to a garret or secret
-chamber of some kind; the door was locked on the inside,
-but flew open at a kick. Behind it stood a tall and beautiful
-woman; she pointed without a word to a man who
-held in his arms a fainting girl of twelve. It was the Pole
-and his family. The officer was taken aback. The tall
-woman perceived this and said, “Can you be barbarous
-enough to destroy them?” The officer apologised: he
-urged the stock excuse, that a soldier is bound to implicit
-obedience; but at last, in despair, as he saw that his words
-had not the slightest effect, he ended by asking what he
-was to do. The woman looked haughtily at him, pointed
-to the door, and said, “Go down at once and say that
-there is no one here.” “I swear I cannot explain it,” the
-officer said, “but down I went and ordered the sergeant
-to collect the party. Two hours later we were beating
-every bush on another estate, while our man was slipping
-across the frontier. Strange, what things women make one
-do!”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Nothing in the world can be more stupid and more unfair
-than to judge a whole class of men in the lump, merely
-by the name they bear and the predominating characteristics
-of their profession. A label is a terrible thing. Jean
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>Paul Richter<a id='r73' /><a href='#f73' class='c016'><sup>[73]</sup></a> says with perfect truth: “If a child tells a
-lie, make him afraid of doing wrong and tell him that
-he has told a lie, but don’t call him a liar. If you define
-him as a liar, you break down his confidence in his
-own character.” We are told that a man is a murderer, and
-we instantly imagine a hidden dagger, a savage expression,
-and dark designs, as if murder were the regular occupation,
-the trade, of anyone who has once in his life without
-design killed a man. A spy, or a man who makes money
-by the profligacy of others, cannot be honest; but it is
-possible to be an officer of police and yet to retain some
-manly worth, just as a tender and womanly heart and
-even delicacy of feeling may constantly be found in the
-victims of what is called “social incontinence.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f73'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. </span>The German humorist (1763-1825).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have an aversion for people who, because they are
-too stupid or will not take the trouble, never get beyond
-a mere label, who are brought up short by a single bad
-action or a false position, either chastely shutting their
-eyes to it or pushing it roughly from them. People who
-act thus are generally either bloodless and self-satisfied
-theorists, repulsive in their purity, or mean, low natures
-who have not yet had the chance or the necessity to display
-themselves in their true colours; they are by nature
-at home in the mire, into which others have fallen by misfortune.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER V</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>The Enquiry—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn Junior—General Staal—The
-Sentence—Sokolovski.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>BUT meanwhile what about the charge against us?
-and what about the Commission of Enquiry?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The new Commission made just as great a mess
-of it as its predecessor. The police had been on our track
-for a long time, but their zeal and impatience prevented
-them from waiting for a decent pretext, and they did a
-silly thing. They employed a retired officer called Skaryatka
-to draw us on till we were committed; and he made
-acquaintance with nearly all of our set. But we very soon
-made out what he was and kept him at a distance. Some
-other young men, chiefly students, were less cautious, but
-these others had no relations of any importance with us.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One of the latter, on taking his degree, entertained his
-friends on June 24, 1834. Not one of us was present at
-the entertainment; not one of us was even invited. The
-students drank toasts, and danced and played the fool;
-and one thing they did was to sing in chorus Sokolovski’s
-well-known song abusing the Tsar.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Skaryatka was present and suddenly remembered that
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>the day was his birthday. He told a story of selling a
-horse at a profit and invited the whole party to supper
-at his rooms, promising a dozen of champagne. They all
-accepted. The champagne duly appeared, and their host,
-who had begun to stagger, proposed that Sokolovski’s
-song should be sung over again. In the middle of the song
-the door opened, and Tsinski appeared with his myrmidons.
-It was a stupid and clumsy proceeding, and a failure
-as well.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The police wanted to catch us and were looking out
-for some tangible pretext, in order to trap the five or six
-victims whom they had marked down; what they actually
-did was to arrest a score of innocent persons.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But the police are not easily abashed, and they arrested
-us a fortnight later, as concerned in the affair of the students’
-party. They found a number of letters—letters of
-Satin’s at Sokolovski’s rooms, of Ogaryóv’s at Satin’s, and
-of mine at Ogaryóv’s; but nothing of importance was discovered.
-The first Commission of Enquiry was a failure;
-and in order that the second might succeed better, the Tsar
-sent from Petersburg the Grand Inquisitor, Prince A. F.
-Golitsyn.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The breed to which he belonged is rare with us; it included
-Mordvínov, the notorious chief of the Third Section,
-Pelikan, the Rector of Vilna University, with a few
-officials from the Baltic provinces and renegade Poles.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But it was unfortunate for the Inquisition that Staal,
-the Commandant of Moscow, was the first member appointed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>to it. Staal was a brave old soldier and an honest
-man; he looked into the matter, and found that two quite
-distinct incidents were involved: the first was the students’
-party, which the police were bound to punish; the
-second was the mysterious arrest of some men, whose
-whole visible fault was limited to some half-expressed
-opinions, and whom it would be difficult and absurd to
-try on that charge alone.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Prince A. F. Golitsyn disapproved of Staal’s view, and
-their dispute took a heated turn. The old soldier grew
-furiously angry; he dashed his sword on the floor and
-said: “Instead of destroying these young men, you would
-do better to have all the schools and universities closed,
-and that would be a warning to other unfortunates. Do
-as you please, only I shall take no part in it: I shall not
-set foot again in this place.” Having spoken thus, the old
-man left the room at once.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was reported to the Tsar that very day; and when
-the Commandant presented his report next morning, the
-Tsar asked why he refused to attend the Commission,
-and Staal told him the reason.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What nonsense!” said Nicholas; “I wonder you are
-not ashamed to quarrel with Golitsyn, and I hope you will
-continue to attend.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Sir,” replied Staal, “spare my grey hairs! I have lived
-till now without the smallest stain on my honour. My
-loyalty is known to Your Majesty; my life, what remains
-of it, is at your service. But this matter touches my
-honour, and my conscience protests against the proceedings
-of that Commission.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Tsar frowned; Staal bowed himself out and never
-afterwards attended a single meeting.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Commission now consisted of foes only. The President
-was Prince S. M. Golitsyn, a simple old gentleman,
-who, after sitting for nine months, knew just as little about
-the business as he did nine months before he took the
-chair. He preserved a dignified silence and seldom spoke;
-whenever an examination was finished, he asked, “May he
-be dismissed?” “Yes,” said Golitsyn junior, and then
-Golitsyn senior signified in a stately manner to the accused,
-“You may go.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My first examination lasted four hours. The questions
-asked were of two kinds. The object of the first was to
-discover a trend of thought “opposed to the spirit of the
-Russian government, and ideas that were either revolutionary
-or impregnated with the pestilent doctrine of Saint-Simonianism”—this
-is a quotation from Golitsyn junior
-and Oranski, the paymaster.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Such questions were simple, but they were not really
-questions at all. The confiscated papers and letters were
-clear enough evidence of opinions; the questions could
-only turn on the essential fact, whether the letters were
-or were not written by the accused; but the Commissioners
-thought it necessary to add to each expression
-they had copied out, “In what sense do you explain the
-following passage in your letter?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Of course there was nothing to explain, and I wrote
-meaningless and evasive answers to all the questions.
-Oranski discovered the following statement in one of my
-letters: “No written constitution leads to anything: they
-are all mere contracts between a master and his slaves;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>the problem is not to improve the condition of the slaves
-but to eliminate them altogether.” When called upon to
-explain this statement, I remarked that I saw no necessity
-to defend constitutional government, and that, if I had
-done so, I might have been prosecuted.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There are two sides from which constitutional government
-can be attacked,” said Golitsyn junior, in his excitable,
-sibilant voice, “and you don’t attack it from the
-point of view of autocracy, or else you would not have
-spoken of ‘slaves.’”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“In that respect I am as guilty as the Empress Catherine,
-who forbade her subjects to call themselves slaves.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Golitsyn junior was furious at my sarcasm.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you suppose,” he said, “that we meet here to carry
-on academic discussion, and that you are defending a
-thesis in the lecture-room?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Why then do you ask for explanations?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you pretend not to understand what is wanted of
-you?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I don’t understand,” I said.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“How obstinate they are, every one of them!” said the
-chairman, Golitsyn senior, as he shrugged his shoulders
-and looked at Colonel Shubenski, of the police. I smiled.
-“Ogaryóv over again,” sighed the worthy old gentleman,
-letting the cat quite out of the bag.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A pause followed this indiscretion. The meetings were
-all held in the Prince’s library, and I turned towards the
-shelves and examined the books; they included an edition
-in many volumes of the <i>Memoirs</i> of the Duc de Saint-Simon.<a id='r74' /><a href='#f74' class='c016'><sup>[74]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f74'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. </span>The author of the famous <i>Memoirs</i> (1675-1755) was
-an ancestor of the preacher of socialism (1760-1825).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>I turned to the chairman. “There!” I said, “what an
-injustice! You are trying me for Saint-Simonianism, and
-you, Prince, have on your shelves twenty volumes of his
-works.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The worthy man had never read a book in his life, and
-was at loss for a reply. But Golitsyn junior darted a
-furious glance at me and asked, “Don’t you see that these
-are the works of the Duc de Saint-Simon who lived in
-the reign of Louis XIV?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The chairman smiled and conveyed to me by a nod
-his impression that I had made a slip this time; then he
-said, “You may go.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I had reached the door, the chairman asked,
-“Was it he who wrote the article about Peter the Great
-which you showed me?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes,” answered Shubenski.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I stopped short.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“He has ability,” remarked the chairman.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“So much the worse: poison is more dangerous in skilful
-hands,” added the Inquisitor; “a very dangerous young
-man and quite incorrigible.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These words contained my condemnation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Here is a parallel to the Saint-Simon incident. When
-the police-officer was going through books and papers at
-Ogaryóv’s house, he put aside a volume of Thiers’s <i>History
-of the French Revolution</i>; when he found a second volume,
-a third, an eighth, he lost patience. “What a collection
-of revolutionary works! And here’s another!” he
-added, handing to his subordinate Cuvier’s speech <i>Sur
-les révolutions du globe terrestre</i>!</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>There were other questions of a more complicated kind,
-in which various traps and tricks, familiar to the police
-and boards of enquiry, were made use of, in order to confuse
-me and involve me in contradictions. Hints that
-others had confessed, and moral torture of various kinds,
-came into play here. They are not worth repeating; it is
-enough to say that the tricks all failed to make me or my
-three friends betray one another.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the last question had been handed out to me, I
-was sitting alone in the small room where we wrote our
-replies. Suddenly the door opened, and Golitsyn junior
-came in, wearing a pained and anxious expression.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I have come,” he said, “to have a talk with you before
-the end of your replies to our questions. The long friendship
-between my late father and yours makes me feel a
-special interest in you. You are young and may have a
-distinguished career yet; but you must first clear yourself
-of this business, and that fortunately depends on
-yourself alone. Your father has taken your arrest very
-much to heart; his one hope now is that you will be released.
-The President and I were discussing it just now,
-and we are sincerely ready to make large concessions;
-but you must make it possible for us to help you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I saw what he was driving at. The blood rushed to my
-head, and I bit my pen with rage.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He went on: “You are on the road that leads straight
-to service in the ranks or imprisonment, and on the way
-you will kill your father: he will not survive the day when
-he sees you in the grey overcoat of a private soldier.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I tried to speak, but he stopped me. “I know what you
-want to say. Have patience a moment. That you had designs
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>against the Government is perfectly clear; and we
-must have proofs of your repentance, if you are to be an
-object of the Tsar’s clemency. You deny everything; you
-give evasive answers; from a false feeling of honour you
-protect people of whom we know more than you do, and
-who are by no means as scrupulous as you are; you won’t
-help them, but they will drag you over the precipice in
-their fall. Now write a letter to the Board; say simply and
-frankly that you are conscious of your guilt, and that
-you were led away by the thoughtlessness of youth; and
-name the persons whose unhappy errors led you astray.
-Are you willing to pay this small price, in order to redeem
-your whole future and to save your father’s life?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I know nothing, and will add nothing to my previous
-disclosures,” I replied.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Golitsyn got up and said in a dry voice: “Very well! As
-you refuse, we are not to blame.” That was the end of
-my examination.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I made my last appearance before the Commission in
-January or February of 1835. I was summoned there to
-read through my answers, make any additions I wished,
-and sign my name. Shubenski was the only Commissioner
-present. When I had done reading, I said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I should like to know what charge can be based on
-these questions and these answers. Which article of the
-code applies to my case?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The code of law is intended for crimes of a different
-kind,” answered the colonel in blue.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That is another matter. But when I read over all
-these literary exercises, I cannot believe that the charge,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>on which I have spent six months in prison, is really contained
-there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you really imagine,” returned Shubenski, “that
-we accepted your statement that you were not forming a
-secret society?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Where is it, then?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“It is lucky for you that we could not find the proofs,
-and that you were cut short. We stopped you in time;
-indeed, it may be said that we saved you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Gógol’s story, in fact, over again, of the carpenter Poshlepkin
-and his wife, in <i>The Revizor</i>.<a id='r75' /><a href='#f75' class='c016'><sup>[75]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f75'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. </span>Gógol, <i>The Revizor</i>, Act IV, Scene ii.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>After I had signed my name, Shubenski rang and
-ordered the priest to be summoned. The priest appeared
-and added his signature, testifying that all my admissions
-had been made voluntarily and without compulsion of any
-kind. Of course, he had never been present while I was
-examined; and he had not the assurance to ask my account
-of the proceedings. I thought of the unprejudiced
-witness who stopped outside our house while the police
-arrested me.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When the enquiry was over, the conditions of my imprisonment
-were relaxed to some extent, and near relations
-could obtain permission for interviews. In this way
-two more months passed by.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the middle of March our sentence was confirmed.
-What it was nobody knew: some said we should be
-banished to the Caucasus, while others hoped we should
-all be released. The latter was Staal’s proposal, which he
-submitted separately to the Tsar; he held that we had
-been sufficiently punished by our imprisonment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>At last, on the twentieth of March, we were all brought
-to Prince Golitsyn’s house, to hear our sentence. It was
-a very great occasion: for we had never met since we were
-arrested.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A cordon of police and officers of the garrison stood
-round us, while we embraced and shook hands with one
-another. The sight of friends gave life to all of us, and we
-made plenty of noise; we asked questions and told our
-adventures indefatigably.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sokolovski was present, rather pale and thin, but as
-humorous as ever.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Sokolovski, the author of <i>Creation</i> and other meritorious
-poems, had a strong natural gift for poetry; but this
-gift was neither improved by cultivation nor original
-enough to dispense with it. He was not a politician at all,
-he lived the life of a poet. He was very amusing and
-amiable, a cheerful companion in cheerful hours, a <i>bon-vivant</i>,
-who enjoyed a gay party as well as the rest of us,
-and perhaps a little better. He was now over thirty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When suddenly torn from this life and thrown into
-prison, he bore himself nobly: imprisonment strengthened
-his character.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was arrested in Petersburg and then conveyed to
-Moscow, without being told where he was going. Useless
-tricks of this kind are constantly played by the Russian
-police; in fact, it is the poetry of their lives; there is no
-calling in the world, however prosaic and repulsive, that
-does not possess its own artistic refinements and mere
-superfluous adornments. Sokolovski was taken straight to
-prison and lodged in a kind of dark store-room. Why
-should he be confined in prison and we in barracks?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>He took nothing there with him but a couple of shirts.
-In England, every convict is forced to take a bath as soon
-as he enters prison; in Russia, precautionary measures
-are taken against cleanliness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sokolovski would have been in a horrible state had not
-Dr. Haas sent him a parcel of his own linen.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>This Dr. Haas, who was often called a fool and a lunatic,
-was a very remarkable man. His memory ought not
-to be buried in the jungle of official obituaries—that record
-of virtues that never showed themselves until their possessors
-were mouldering in the grave.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was a little old man with a face like wax; in his
-black tail-coat, knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and
-shoes with buckles, he looked as if he had just stepped
-out of some play of the eighteenth century. In this costume,
-suitable for a wedding or a funeral, and in the
-agreeable climate of the 59th degree of north latitude, he
-used to drive once a week to the Sparrow Hills when the
-convicts were starting for the first stage of their long
-march. He had access to them in his capacity of a prison-doctor,
-and went there to pass them in review; and he
-always took with him a basketful of odds and ends—eatables
-and dainties of different kinds for the women, such
-as walnuts, gingerbread, apples, and oranges. This generosity
-excited the wrath and displeasure of the ‘charitable’
-ladies, who were afraid of giving pleasure by their charity,
-and afraid of being more charitable than was absolutely
-necessary to save the convicts from being starved or
-frozen.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But Haas was obstinate. When reproached for the foolish
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>indulgence he showed to the women, he would listen
-meekly, rub his hands, and reply: “Please observe, my
-dear lady; they can get a crust of bread from anyone, but
-they won’t see sweets or oranges again for a long time,
-because no one gives them such things—your own words
-prove that. And therefore I give them this little pleasure,
-because they won’t get it soon again.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Haas lived in a hospital. One morning a patient came
-to consult him. Haas examined him and went to his study
-to write a prescription. When he returned, the invalid had
-disappeared, and so had the silver off the dinner-table.
-Haas called a porter and asked whether anyone else had
-entered the building. The porter realised the situation:
-he rushed out and returned immediately with the spoons
-and the patient, whom he had detained with the help of a
-sentry. The thief fell on his knees and begged for mercy.
-Haas was perplexed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Fetch a policeman,” he said to one of the porters.
-“And you summon a clerk here at once.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The two porters, pleased with their part in detecting
-the criminal, rushed from the room; and Haas took advantage
-of their absence to address the thief. “You are
-a dishonest man; you deceived me and tried to rob me;
-God will judge you for it. But now run out at the back
-gate as fast as you can, before the sentries come back.
-And wait a moment—very likely you haven’t a penny;
-here is half a <i>rouble</i> for you. But you must try to mend
-your ways: you can’t escape God as easily as the policeman.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His family told Haas he had gone too far this time. But
-the incorrigible doctor stated his view thus: “Theft is a
-serious vice; but I know the police, and how they flog
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>people; it is a much worse vice to deliver up your neighbour
-to their tender mercies. And besides, who knows?
-My treatment may soften his heart.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His family shook their heads and protested: and the
-charitable ladies said, “An excellent man but not quite all
-right <i>there</i>,” pointing to their foreheads; but Haas only
-rubbed his hands and went his own way.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Sokolovski had hardly got to an end of his narrative before
-others began to tell their story, several speaking at
-the same time. It was as if we had returned from a long
-journey—there was a running fire of questions and
-friendly chaff.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Satin had suffered more in body that the rest of us: he
-looked thin and had lost some of his hair. He was on his
-mother’s estate in the Government of Tambóv when he
-heard of our arrest, and started at once for Moscow, that
-his mother might not be terrified by a visit from the police.
-But he caught cold on the journey and was seriously ill
-when he reached Moscow. The police found him there in
-his bed. It being impossible to remove him, he was put
-under arrest in his own house: a sentry was posted inside
-his bedroom, and a male sister of mercy, in the shape of
-a policeman, sat by his pillow; hence, when he recovered
-from delirium, his eyes rested on the scrutinising looks of
-one attendant or the sodden face of the other.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When winter began he was transferred to a hospital.
-It turned out that there was no unoccupied room suitable
-for a prisoner; but that was a trifle which caused no
-difficulty. A secluded corner <i>without a stove</i> was discovered
-in the building, and here he was placed with a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>sentry to guard him. Nothing like a balcony on the
-Riviera for an invalid! What the temperature in that
-stone box was like in winter, may be guessed: the sentry
-suffered so much that he used at night to go into the passage
-and warm himself at the stove, begging his prisoner
-not to tell the officer of the day.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But even the authorities of the hospital could not continue
-this open-air treatment in such close proximity to
-the North Pole, and they moved Satin to a room next to
-that in which people who were brought in frozen were
-rubbed till they regained consciousness.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Before we had nearly done telling our own experiences
-and listening to those of our friends, the adjutants began
-to bustle about, the garrison officers stood up straight,
-and the policemen came to attention; then the door opened
-solemnly, and little Prince Golitsyn entered <i>en grande
-tenue</i> with his ribbon across his shoulder; Tsinski was
-in Household uniform; and even Oranski had put on
-something special for the joyful occasion—a light green
-costume, between uniform and mufti. Staal, of course, was
-not there.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The officers now divided us into three groups. Sokolovski,
-an artist called Ootkin, and Ibayev formed the first
-group; I and my friends came next, and then a miscellaneous
-assortment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The first three, who were charged with treason, were
-sentenced to confinement at Schlüsselburg<a id='r76' /><a href='#f76' class='c016'><sup>[76]</sup></a> for an unlimited
-term.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f76'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. </span>A prison-fortress on an island in the Neva, forty miles
-from Petersburg.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>In order to show his easy, pleasant manners, Tsinski
-asked Sokolovski, after the sentence was read, “I think
-you have been at Schlüsselburg before?” “Yes, last year,”
-was the immediate answer; “I suppose I knew what was
-coming, for I drank a bottle of Madeira there.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Two years later Ootkin died in the fortress. Sokolovski
-was released more dead than alive and sent to the Caucasus,
-where he died at Pyatigorsk. Of Ibayev it may be
-said in one sense that he died too; for he became a mystic.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Ootkin, “a free artist confined in prison,” as he signed
-himself in replying to the questions put to him, was a man
-of forty; he never took part in political intrigue of any
-kind, but his nature was proud and vehement, and he was
-uncontrolled in his language and disrespectful to the members
-of the Commission. For this they did him to death in a
-damp dungeon where the water trickled down the walls.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But for his officer’s uniform, Ibayev would never have
-been punished so severely. He happened to be present at
-a party where he probably drank too much and sang, but
-he certainly drank no more and sang no louder than the
-rest.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>And now our turn came. Oranski rubbed his spectacles,
-cleared his throat, and gave utterance to the imperial
-edict. It was here set forth that the Tsar, having considered
-the report of the Commission and taking special
-account of the youth of the criminals, ordered that they
-should not be brought before a court of justice. On the
-contrary, the Tsar in his infinite clemency pardoned the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>majority of the offenders and allowed them to live at home
-under police supervision. But the ringleaders were to
-undergo corrective discipline, in the shape of banishment
-to distant Governments for an unlimited term; they were
-to serve in the administration, under the supervision of
-the local authorities.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This last class contained six names—Ogaryóv, Satin,
-Lakhtin, Sorokin, Obolenski, and myself. My destination
-was Perm. Lakhtin had never been arrested at all; when
-he was summoned to the Commission to hear the sentence,
-he supposed it was intended merely to give him a fright,
-that he might take thought when he saw the punishment of
-others. It was said that this little surprise was managed
-by a relation of Prince Golitsyn’s who was angry with
-Lakhtin’s wife. He had weak health and died after three
-years in exile.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When Oranski had done reading, Colonel Shubenski
-stepped forward. He explained to us in picked phrases and
-the style of Lomonossov,<a id='r77' /><a href='#f77' class='c016'><sup>[77]</sup></a> that for the Tsar’s clemency
-we were obliged to the good offices of the distinguished
-nobleman who presided at the Commission. He expected
-that we should all express at once our gratitude to the
-great man, but he was disappointed.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f77'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, an old-fashioned pompous style. Lomonossov
-(1711-1765) was the originator of Russian literature and Russian
-science.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Some of those who had been pardoned made a sign
-with their heads, but even they stole a glance at us as
-they did so.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Shubenski then turned to Ogaryóv and said: “You are
-going to Penza. Do you suppose that is a mere accident?
-Your father is lying paralysed at Penza; and the Prince
-asked the Emperor that you might be sent there, that
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>your presence might to some extent lighten the blow he
-must suffer in your banishment. Do you too think you
-have no cause for gratitude?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Ogaryóv bowed; and that was all they got for their
-pains.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But that good old gentleman, the President, was
-pleased, and for some reason called me up next. I stepped
-forward: whatever he or Shubenski might say, I vowed
-by all the gods that I would not thank them. Besides, my
-place of exile was the most distant and most disgusting
-of all.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“So you are going to Perm,” said the Prince.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I said nothing. The Prince was taken aback, but, in
-order to say something, he added, “I have an estate there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Can I take any message to your bailiff?” I asked,
-smiling.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I send no messages by people like you—mere <i>carbonari</i>,”
-said the Prince, by a sudden inspiration.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What do you want of me then?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Nothing.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, I thought you called me forward.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You may go,” interrupted Shubenski.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Permit me,” I said, “as I am here, to remind you that
-you, Colonel, said to me on my last appearance before the
-Commission, that no one charged me with complicity in the
-students’ party; but now the sentence says that I am one
-of those punished on that account. There is some mistake
-here.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you mean to protest against the imperial decision?”
-cried out Shubenski. “If you are not careful, young man,
-something worse may be substituted for Perm. I shall
-order your words to be taken down.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>“Just what I meant to ask. The sentence says ‘according
-to the report of the Commission’: well, my protest is
-not against the imperial edict but against your report. I
-call the Prince to witness, that I was never even questioned
-about the party or the songs sung there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Shubenski turned pale with rage. “You pretend not to
-know,” he said, “that your guilt is ten times greater than
-that of those who attended the party.” He pointed to one
-of the pardoned men: “There is a man who sang an objectionable
-song under the influence of drink; but he
-afterwards begged forgiveness on his knees with tears.
-You are still far enough from any repentance.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Excuse me,” I went on; “the depth of my guilt is not
-the question. But if I am a murderer, I don’t want to pass
-for a thief. I don’t want people to say, even by way of
-defence, that I did so-and-so under the influence of drink.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“If my son, my own son, were as brazen as you, I
-should myself ask the Tsar to banish him to Siberia.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At this point the Commissioner of Police struck in with
-some incoherent nonsense. It is a pity that Golitsyn junior
-was not present; he would have had a chance to air his
-rhetoric.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All this, as a matter of course, led to nothing.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We stayed in the room for another quarter of an hour,
-and spent the time, undeterred by the earnest representations
-of the police-officers, in warm embraces and a long
-farewell. I never saw any of them again, except Obolenski,
-before my return from Vyatka.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>We had to face our departure. Prison was in a sense a
-continuation of our former life; but with our departure
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>for the wilds, it broke off short. Our little band of youthful
-friends was parting asunder. Our exile was sure to
-last for several years. Where and how, if ever, should we
-meet again? One felt regret for that past life—one had
-been forced to leave it so suddenly, without saying good-bye.
-Of a meeting with Ogaryóv I had no hope. Two of
-my intimate friends secured an interview with me towards
-the end, but I wanted something more.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§16</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I wished to see once more the girl who had cheered me
-before and to press her hand as I had pressed it in the
-churchyard nine months earlier. At that interview I intended
-to part with the past and greet the future.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We did meet for a few minutes on April 9, 1835, the
-day before my departure into exile.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Long did I keep that day sacred in memory; it is one
-of the red-letter days of my life.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But why does the recollection of that day and all the
-bright and happy days of my past life recall so much that
-is terrible? I see a grave, a wreath of dark-red roses, two
-children whom I am leading by the hand, torch-light, a
-band of exiles, the moon, a warm sea beneath a mountain;
-I hear words spoken which I cannot understand, and yet
-they tear my heart.<a id='r78' /><a href='#f78' class='c016'><sup>[78]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f78'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. </span>Herzen’s wife, Natalie, died at Nice in 1852 and was
-buried there under the circumstances here described.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>All, all, has passed away!</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VI</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>Exile—A Chief Constable—The Volga—Perm.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ON the morning of April 10, 1835, a police-officer
-conducted me to the Governor’s palace, where
-my parents were allowed to take leave of me
-in the private part of the office.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was bound to be an uncomfortable and painful
-scene. Spies and clerks swarmed round us; we listened
-while his instructions were read aloud to the police-agent
-who was to go with me; it was impossible to exchange a
-word unwatched—in short, more painful and galling surroundings
-cannot be imagined. It was a relief when the
-carriage started at last along the Vladimirka River.</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c022'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><i>Per me si va nella città dolente,</i></div>
- <div class='line'><i>Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore</i>—<a id='r79' /><a href='#f79' class='c016'><sup>[79]</sup></a></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote c000' id='f79'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. </span>Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, Canto III.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I wrote this couplet on the wall of one of the post-houses;
-it suits the vestibule of Hell and the road to Siberia
-equally well.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One of my intimate friends had promised to meet me
-at an inn seven <i>versts</i> from Moscow.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>I proposed to the police-agent that he should have a
-glass of brandy there; we were at a safe distance from
-Moscow, and he accepted. We went in, but my friend
-was not there. I put off our start by every means in my
-power; but at last my companion was unwilling to wait
-longer, and the driver was touching up the horses, when
-suddenly a <i>troika</i><a id='r80' /><a href='#f80' class='c016'><sup>[80]</sup></a> came galloping straight up to the door.
-I rushed out—and met two strangers; they were merchants’
-sons out for a spree and made some noise as they
-got off their vehicle. All along the road to Moscow I could
-not see a single moving spot, nor a single human being.
-I felt it bitter to get into the carriage and start. But I gave
-the driver a quarter-<i>rouble</i>, and off we flew like an arrow
-from the bow.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f80'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. </span>Three horses harnessed abreast form a <i>troika</i>.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>We put up nowhere: the orders were that not less than
-200 <i>versts</i> were to be covered every twenty-four hours.
-That would have been tolerable, at any other season; but
-it was the beginning of April, and the road was covered
-with ice in some places, and with water and mud in others;
-and it got worse and worse with each stage of our advance
-towards Siberia.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My first adventure happened at Pokróv.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We had lost some hours owing to the ice on the river,
-which cut off all communication with the other side. My
-guardian was eager to get on, when the post-master at
-Pokróv suddenly declared that there were no fresh horses.
-My keeper produced his passport, which stated that horses
-must be forthcoming all along the road; he was told that
-the horses were engaged for the Under-Secretary of the
-Home Office. He began, of course, to wrangle and make
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>a noise; and then they both went off together to get horses
-from the local peasants.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Getting tired of waiting for their return in the post-master’s
-dirty room, I went out at the gate and began to
-walk about in front of the house. It was nine months
-since I had taken a walk without the presence of a sentry.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I had been walking half an hour when a man came up
-to me; he was wearing uniform without epaulettes and a
-blue medal-ribbon. He stared very hard at me, walked
-past, turned round at once, and asked me in an insolent
-manner:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Is it you who are going to Perm with a police-officer?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes,” I answered, still walking.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Excuse me! excuse me! How does the man dare...?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Whom have I the honour of speaking to?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I am the chief constable of this town,” replied the
-stranger, and his voice showed how deeply he felt his own
-social importance. “The Under-Secretary may arrive at
-any moment, and here, if you please, there are political
-prisoners walking about the streets! What an idiot that
-policeman is!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“May I trouble you to address your observations to the
-man himself?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Address him? I shall arrest him and order him a hundred
-lashes, and send you on in charge of someone else.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Without waiting for the end of his speech, I nodded
-and walked back quickly to the post-house. Sitting by the
-window, I could hear his loud angry voice as he threatened
-my keeper, who excused himself but did not seem
-seriously alarmed. Presently they came into the room together;
-I did not turn round but went on looking out of
-the window.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>From their conversation I saw at once that the chief
-constable was dying to know all about the circumstances
-of my banishment. As I kept up a stubborn silence, the
-official began an impersonal address, intended equally for
-me and my keeper.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We get no sympathy. What pleasure is it to me, pray,
-to quarrel with a policeman or to inconvenience a gentleman
-whom I never set eyes on before in my life? But I
-have a great responsibility, in my position here. Whatever
-happens, I get the blame. If public funds are stolen, they
-attack me; if the church catches fire, they attack me; if
-there are too many drunk men in the streets, I suffer for
-it; if too little whisky is drunk,<a id='r81' /><a href='#f81' class='c016'><sup>[81]</sup></a> I suffer for that too.”
-He was pleased with his last remark and went on more
-cheerfully: “It is lucky you met me, but you might have
-met the Secretary; and if you had walked past him, he
-would have said ‘A political prisoner walking about!
-Arrest the chief constable!’”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f81'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. </span>great revenue was derived by Government from the sale of
-spirits.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I got weary at last of his eloquence. I turned to him
-and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do your duty by all means, but please spare me your
-sermons. From what you say I see that you expected me
-to bow to you; but I am not in the habit of bowing to
-strangers.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My friend was flabbergasted.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>That is the rule all over Russia, as a friend of mine
-used to say: whoever gets rude and angry first, always
-wins. If you ever allow a Jack in office to raise his voice,
-you are lost: when he hears himself shouting, he turns
-into a wild beast. But if <i>you</i> begin shouting at his first
-rude word, he is certain to be cowed; for he thinks that
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>you mean business and are the sort of person whom it is
-unsafe to irritate.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The chief constable sent my keeper to enquire about
-the horses; then he turned to me and remarked by way
-of apology:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I acted in that way chiefly because of the man. You
-don’t know what our underlings are like—it is impossible
-to pass over the smallest breach of discipline. But I assure
-you I know a gentleman when I see him. Might I ask you
-what unfortunate incident it was that brings you...”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We were bound to secrecy at the end of the trial.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, in that case ... of course ... I should not
-venture...”—and his eyes expressed the torments of
-curiosity. He held his tongue, but not for long.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I had a distant cousin, who was imprisoned for about
-a year in the fortress of Peter and Paul; he was mixed up
-with ... you understand. Excuse me, but I think you
-are still angry, and I take it to heart. I am used to army
-discipline; I began serving when I was seventeen. I have
-a hot temper, but it all passes in a moment. I won’t trouble
-your man any further, deuce take him!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My keeper now came in and reported that it would
-take an hour to drive in the horses from the fields.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The chief constable told him that he was pardoned at
-my intercession; then he turned to me and added:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“To show that you are not angry, I do hope you will
-come and take pot-luck with me—I live two doors away;
-please don’t refuse.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This turn to our interview seemed to me so amusing
-that I went to his house, where I ate his pickled sturgeon
-and caviare and drank his brandy and Madeira.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He grew so friendly that he told me all his private
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>affairs, including the details of an illness from which his
-wife had suffered for seven years. After our meal, with
-pride and satisfaction he took a letter from a jar on the
-table and let me read a “poem” which his son had written
-at school and recited on Speech-day. After these flattering
-proofs of confidence, he neatly changed the conversation
-and enquired indirectly about my offence; and this time I
-gratified his curiosity to some extent.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This man reminded me of a justice’s clerk whom my
-friend S. used to speak about. Though his chief had been
-changed a dozen times, the clerk never lost his place and
-was the real ruler of the district.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“How do you manage to get on with them all?” my
-friend asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“All right, thank you; one manages to rub on somehow.
-You do sometimes get a gentleman who is very
-awkward at first, kicks with fore legs and hind legs, shouts
-abuse at you, and threatens to complain at head-quarters
-and get you turned out. Well, you know, the likes of us
-have to put up with that. One holds one’s tongue and
-thinks—‘Oh, he’ll wear himself out in time; he’s only just
-getting into harness.’ And so it turns out: once started,
-he goes along first-rate.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>On getting near Kazán, we found the Volga in full flood.
-The river spread fifteen <i>versts</i> or more beyond its banks,
-and we had to travel by water for the whole of the last
-stage. It was bad weather, and a number of carts and
-other vehicles were detained on the bank, as the ferries
-had stopped working.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My keeper went to the man in charge and demanded
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>a raft for our use. The man gave it unwillingly; he said
-that it was dangerous and we had better wait. But my
-keeper was in haste, partly because he was drunk and
-partly because he wished to show his power.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My carriage was placed upon a moderate-sized raft
-and we started. The weather appeared to improve; and
-after half an hour the boatman, who was a Tatar, hoisted
-a sail. But suddenly the storm came on again with fresh
-violence, and we were carried rapidly downstream. We
-caught up some floating timber and struck it so hard that
-our rickety raft was nearly wrecked and the water came
-over the decking. It was an awkward situation; but the
-Tatar managed to steer us into a sandbank.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A barge now hove in sight. We called out to them to
-send us their boat, but the bargemen, though they heard
-us, went past and gave us no assistance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A peasant, who had his wife with him in a small boat,
-rowed up to us and asked what was the matter. “What
-of that?” he said. “Stop the leak, say a prayer, and start
-off. There’s nothing to worry about; but you’re a Tatar,
-and that’s why you’re so helpless.” Then he waded over
-to our raft.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Tatar was really very much alarmed. In the first
-place, my keeper, who was asleep when the water came
-on board and wet him, sprang to his feet and began to
-beat the Tatar. In the second place, the raft was Government
-property and the Tatar kept saying, “If it goes to
-the bottom, I shall catch it!” I tried to comfort him by
-saying that in that case he would go to the bottom too.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But, if I’m <i>not</i> drowned, <i>bátyushka</i>, what then?”
-was his reply.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The peasant and some labourers stuffed up the leak in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>the raft and nailed a board over it with their axe-heads;
-then, up to the waist in the water, they dragged the raft off
-the sandbank, and we soon reached the channel of the
-Volga. The current ran furiously. Wind, rain, and snow
-lashed our faces, and the cold pierced to our bones; but
-soon the statue of Ivan the Terrible began to loom out
-from behind the fog and torrents of rain. It seemed that
-the danger was past; but suddenly the Tatar called out
-in a piteous voice, “It’s leaking, it’s leaking!”—and the
-water did in fact come rushing in at the old leak. We were
-right in the centre of the stream, but the raft began to
-move slower and slower, and the time seemed at hand
-when it would sink altogether. The Tatar took off his cap
-and began to pray; my servant shed tears and said a final
-good-bye to his mother at home; but my keeper used bad
-language and vowed he would beat them both when we
-landed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I too felt uneasy at first, partly owing to the wind and
-rain, which added an element of confusion and disorder
-to the danger. But then it seemed to me absurd that I
-should meet my death before I had done anything; the
-spirit of the conqueror’s question—<i>quid timeas? Caesarem
-vehis!</i>—asserted itself;<a id='r82' /><a href='#f82' class='c016'><sup>[82]</sup></a> and I waited calmly for the end,
-convinced that I should not end my life there, between
-Uslon and Kazán. Later life saps such proud confidence
-and makes a man suffer for it; and that is why youth is
-bold and heroic, while a man in years is cautious and
-seldom carried away.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f82'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. </span>The story of Caesar’s rebuke to the boatman is told by
-Plutarch in his <i>Life of Caesar</i>, chap. 38.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>A quarter of an hour later we landed, drenched and
-frozen, near the walls of the Kremlin of Kazán. At the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>nearest public-house I got a glass of spirits and a hard-boiled
-egg, and then went off to the post-house.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In villages and small towns, the post-master keeps a
-room for the accommodation of travellers; but in the
-large towns, where everybody goes to the hotels, there is
-no such provision. I was taken into the office, and the
-post-master showed me his own room. It was occupied by
-women and children and an old bedridden man; there was
-positively not a corner where I could change my clothes.
-I wrote a letter to the officer in command of the Kazán
-police, asking him to arrange that I should have some
-place where I could warm myself and dry my clothes.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My messenger returned in an hour’s time and reported
-that Count Apraxin would grant my request. I waited
-two hours more, but no one came, and I despatched my
-messenger again. He brought this answer—that the
-colonel who had received Apraxin’s order was playing
-whist at the club, and that nothing could be done for me
-till next day.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was positive cruelty, and I wrote a second letter
-to Apraxin. I asked him to send me on at once and said
-I hoped to find better quarters after the next stage of my
-journey. But my letter was not delivered, because the
-Count had gone to bed. I could do no more. I took off
-my wet clothes in the office; then I wrapped myself up
-in a soldier’s overcoat and lay down on the table; a thick
-book, covered with some of my linen, served me as a
-pillow. I sent out for some breakfast in the morning. By
-that time the clerks were arriving, and the door-keeper
-pointed out to me that a public office was an unsuitable
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>place to breakfast in; it made no difference to him personally,
-but the post-master might disapprove of my proceedings.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I laughed and said that a captive was secure against
-eviction and was bound to eat and drink in his place of
-confinement, wherever it might be.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Next morning Count Apraxin gave me leave to stay
-three days at Kazán and to put up at a hotel.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For those three days I wandered about the city, attended
-everywhere by my keeper. The veiled faces of the
-Tatar women, the high cheekbones of their husbands,
-the mosques of true believers standing side by side with
-the churches of the Orthodox faith—it all reminds one of
-Asia and the East. At Vladímir or Nizhni the neighbourhood
-of Moscow is felt; but one feels far from Moscow
-at Kazán.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When I reached Perm, I was taken straight to the Governor’s
-house. There was a great gathering there; for
-it was his daughter’s wedding-day; the bridegroom was
-an officer in the Army. The Governor insisted that I should
-come in. So I made my bow to the <i>beau monde</i> of Perm,
-covered with mud and dust, and wearing a shabby, stained
-coat. The Governor talked a great deal of nonsense; he
-told me to keep clear of the Polish exiles in the town and
-to call again in the course of a few days, when he would
-provide me with some occupation in the public offices.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Governor of Perm was a Little Russian; he was
-not hard upon the exiles and behaved reasonably in other
-respects. Like a mole which adds grain to grain in some
-underground repository, so he kept putting by a trifle for
-a rainy day, without anyone being the wiser.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>From some dim idea of keeping a check over us, he ordered
-that all the exiles residing at Perm should report
-themselves at his house, at ten every Saturday morning.
-He came in smoking his pipe and ascertained, by means
-of a list which he carried, whether all were present; if
-anyone was missing, he sent to enquire the reason; he
-hardly ever spoke to anyone before dismissing us. Thus
-I made the acquaintance in his drawing-room of all the
-Poles whom he had told me I was to avoid.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The day after I reached Perm, my keeper departed,
-and I was at liberty for the first time since my arrest—at
-liberty, in a little town on the Siberian frontier, with
-no experience of life and no comprehension of the sphere
-in which I was now forced to live.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>From the nursery I had passed straight to the lecture-room,
-and from the lecture-room to a small circle of
-friends, an intimate world of theories and dreams, without
-contact with practical life; then came prison, with
-its opportunities for reflexion; and contact with life was
-only beginning now and here, by the ridge of the Ural
-Mountains.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Practical life made itself felt at once: the day after my
-arrival I went to look for lodgings with the porter at the
-Governor’s office; he took me to a large one-storeyed
-house; and, though I explained that I wanted a small
-house, or, better still, part of a house, he insisted that I
-should go in.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The lady who owned the house made me sit on the sofa.
-Hearing that I came from Moscow, she asked if I had
-seen M. Kabrit there. I replied that I had never in my
-life heard a name like it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>“Come, come!” said the old lady; “I mean M. Kabrit,”
-and she gave his Christian name and patronymic. “You
-don’t say, <i>bátyushka</i>, that you don’t know him! He is our
-Vice-Governor!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, I spent nine months in prison,” I said smiling,
-“and perhaps that accounts for my not hearing of him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“It may be so. And so you want to hire the little house,
-<i>bátyushka</i>?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“It’s a big house, much too big; I said so to the man
-who brought me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Too much of this world’s goods are no burden to the
-back.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“True; but you will ask a large rent for your large
-house.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Who told you, young man, about my prices? I’ve not
-opened my mouth yet.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, but I know you can’t ask little for a house like
-this.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“How much do you offer?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In order to have done with her, I said that I would
-not pay more than 350 <i>roubles</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“And glad I am to get it, my lad! Just drink a glass of
-Canary, and go and have your boxes moved in here.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The rent seemed to me fabulously low, and I took the
-house. I was just going when she stopped me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I forgot to ask you one thing—do you mean to keep
-a cow?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Good heavens! No!” I answered, deeply insulted by
-such a question.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Very well; then I will supply you with cream.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I went home, thinking with horror that I had reached
-a place where I was thought capable of keeping a cow!</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>Before I had time to look about me, the Governor informed
-me that I was transferred to Vyatka: another exile
-who was destined for Vyatka had asked to be transferred
-to Perm, where some of his relations lived. The Governor
-wished me to start next day. But that was impossible; as
-I expected to stay some time at Perm, I had bought
-a quantity of things and must sell them, even at a loss of
-50 per cent. After several evasive answers, the Governor
-allowed me to stay for forty-eight hours longer, but he
-made me promise not to seek an opportunity of meeting
-the exile from Vyatka.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was preparing to sell my horse and a variety of rubbish,
-when the inspector of police appeared with an order
-that I was to leave in twenty-four hours. I explained to
-him that the Governor had granted me an extension, but
-he actually produced a written order, requiring him to
-see me off within twenty-four hours; and this order had
-been signed by the Governor after his conversation with
-me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I can explain it,” said the inspector; “the great man
-wishes to shuffle off the responsibility on me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Let us go and confront him with his signature,” I said.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“By all means,” said the inspector.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Governor said that he had forgotten his promise
-to me, and the inspector slyly asked if the order had not
-better be rewritten. “Is it worth the trouble?” asked the
-Governor, with an air of indifference.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We had him there,” said the inspector to me, rubbing
-his hands with satisfaction. “What a mean shabby fellow
-he is!”</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>This inspector belonged to a distinct class of officials,
-who are half soldiers and half civilians. They are men
-who, while serving in the Army, have been lucky enough
-to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and have therefore
-been rewarded with positions in the police service.
-Military life has given them an air of frankness; they
-have learned some phrases about the point of honour and
-some terms of ridicule for humble civilians. The youngest
-of them have read Marlinski and Zagóskin,<a id='r83' /><a href='#f83' class='c016'><sup>[83]</sup></a> and can
-repeat the beginning of <i>The Prisoner of the Caucasus</i>,<a id='r84' /><a href='#f84' class='c016'><sup>[84]</sup></a>
-and they like to quote the verses they know. For instance,
-whenever they find a friend smoking, they invariably say:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c022'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“The amber smoked between his teeth.”<a id='r85' /><a href='#f85' class='c016'><sup>[85]</sup></a></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote c000' id='f83'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. </span>Popular novelists of the “patriotic” school, now forgotten.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f84'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. </span>A poem by Púshkin.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f85'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. </span><i>The Fountain of Bakhchisarai</i>, I. 2.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>They are one and all deeply convinced, and let you
-know their conviction with emphasis, that their position is
-far below their merits, and that poverty alone keeps them
-down; but for their wounds and want of money, they
-would have been generals-in-waiting or commanders of
-army-corps. Each of them can point to some comrade-in-arms
-who has risen to the top of the tree. “You see what
-Kreutz is now,” he says; “well, we two were gazetted
-together on the same day and lived in barracks like
-brothers, on the most familiar terms. But I’m not a German,
-and I had no kind of interest; so here I sit, a mere
-policeman. But you understand that such a position is
-distasteful to anyone with the feelings of a gentleman.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Their wives are even more discontented. These poor
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>sufferers travel to Moscow once a year, where their real
-business is to deposit their little savings in the bank,
-though they pretend that a sick mother or aunt wishes to
-see them for the last time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And so this life goes on for fifteen years. The husband,
-railing at fortune, flogs his men and uses his fists to the
-shopkeepers, curries favour with the Governor, helps
-thieves to get off, steals State papers, and repeats verses
-from <i>The Fountain of Bakhchisarai</i>.<a id='r86' /><a href='#f86' class='c016'><sup>[86]</sup></a> The wife, railing
-at fortune and provincial life, takes all she can lay her
-hands on, robs petitioners, cheats tradesmen, and has
-a sentimental weakness for moonlight nights.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f86'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. </span>Another of Púshkin’s early works.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have described this type at length, because I was taken
-in by these good people at first, and really thought them
-superior to others of their class; but I was quite wrong.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I took with me from Perm one personal recollection
-which I value.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At one of the Governor’s Saturday reviews of the exiles,
-a Roman Catholic priest invited me to his house. I went
-there and found several Poles. One of them sat there,
-smoking a short pipe and never speaking; misery, hopeless
-misery, was visible in every feature. His figure was
-clumsy and even crooked; his face was of that irregular
-Polish-Lithuanian type which surprises you at first and
-becomes attractive later: the greatest of all Poles, Thaddei
-Kosciusko,<a id='r87' /><a href='#f87' class='c016'><sup>[87]</sup></a> had that kind of face. The man’s name was
-Tsichanovitch, and his dress showed that he was terribly
-poor.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f87'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. </span>The famous Polish general and patriot (1746-1817).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>Some days later, I was walking along the avenue which
-bounds Perm in one direction. It was late in May; the
-young leaves of the trees were opening, and the birches
-were in flower—there were no trees but birches, I think,
-on both sides of the avenue—but not a soul was to be
-seen. People in the provinces have no taste for <i>Platonic</i>
-perambulations. After strolling about for a long time; at
-last I saw a figure in a field by the side of the avenue: he
-was botanising, or simply picking flowers, which are not
-abundant or varied in that part of the world. When he
-raised his head, I recognised Tsichanovitch and went up
-to him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He had originally been banished to Verchoturye, one of
-the remotest towns in the Government of Perm, hidden
-away in the Ural Mountains, buried in snow, and so far
-from all roads that communication with it was almost
-impossible in winter. Life there is certainly worse than
-at Omsk or Krasnoyarsk. In his complete solitude there,
-Tsichanovitch took to botany and collected the meagre
-flora of the Ural Mountains. He got permission later to
-move to Perm, and to him this was a change for the better:
-he could hear once more his own language spoken
-and meet his companions in misfortune. His wife, who
-had remained behind in Lithuania, wrote that she intended
-to join him, <i>walking from the Government of Vilna</i>. He
-was expecting her.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I was transferred so suddenly to Vyatka, I went
-to say good-bye to Tsichanovitch. The small room in
-which he lived was almost bare—there was a table and one
-chair, and a little old portmanteau standing on end near
-the meagre bed; and that was all the furniture. My cell in
-the Krutitski barracks came back to me at once.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>He was sorry to hear of my departure, but he was so
-accustomed to privations that he soon smiled almost
-brightly as he said, “That’s why I love Nature; of her
-you can never be deprived, wherever you are.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Wishing to leave him some token of remembrance, I
-took off a small sleeve-link and asked him to accept it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Your sleeve-link is too fine for my shirt,” he said;
-“but I shall keep it as long as I live and wear it in my
-coffin.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After a little thought, he began to rummage hastily in
-his portmanteau. He took from a small bag a wrought-iron
-chain with a peculiar pattern, wrenched off some of
-the links, and gave them to me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I have a great value for this chain,” he said; “it is
-connected with the most sacred recollections of my life,
-and I won’t give it all to you; but take these links. I
-little thought that I should ever give them to a Russian,
-an exile like myself.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I embraced him and said good-bye.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“When do you start?” he asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“To-morrow morning; but don’t come: when I go back,
-I shall find a policeman at my lodgings, who will never
-leave me for a moment.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Very well. I wish you a good journey and better fortune
-than mine.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By nine o’clock next morning the inspector appeared
-at my house, to hasten my departure. My new keeper, a
-much tamer creature than his predecessor, and openly
-rejoicing at the prospect of drinking freely during the 350
-<i>versts</i> of our journey, was doing something to the carriage.
-All was ready. I happened to look into the street and saw
-Tsichanovitch walking past. I ran to the window.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“Thank God!” he said. “This is the fourth time I have
-walked past, hoping to hail you, if only from a distance;
-but you never saw me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My eyes were full of tears as I thanked him: I was
-deeply touched by this proof of tender womanly attachment.
-But this was the only reason why I was sorry to
-leave Perm.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>On the second day of our journey, heavy rain began at
-dawn and went on all day without stopping, as it often
-does in wooded country; at two o’clock we came to a
-miserable village of natives. There was no post-house; the
-native Votyaks, who could neither read nor write, opened
-my passport and ascertained whether there were two seals
-or one, shouted out “All right!” and harnessed the fresh
-horses. A Russian post-master would have kept us twice
-as long. On getting near this village, I had proposed to
-my keeper that we should rest there two hours: I wished
-to get dry and warm and have something to eat. But
-when I entered the smoky, stifling hut and found that no
-food was procurable, and that there was not even a public-house
-within five <i>versts</i>, I repented of my purpose and
-intended to go on.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While I was still hesitating, a soldier came in and
-brought me an invitation to drink a cup of tea from an
-officer on detachment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“With all my heart. Where is your officer?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“In a hut close by, Your Honour”—and the soldier
-made a left turn and disappeared. I followed him.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VII</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>Vyatka—The Office and Dinner-table of His Excellency—Tufáyev.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>WHEN I called on the Governor of Vyatka,
-he sent a message that I was to call again
-at ten next morning.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I returned, I found four men in the drawing-room,
-the inspectors of the town and country police, and
-two office clerks. They were all standing up, talking in
-whispers, and looking uneasily at the door. The door
-opened, and an elderly man of middle height and broad-shouldered
-entered the room. The set of his head was like
-that of a bulldog, and the large jaws with a kind of carnivorous
-grin increased the canine resemblance; the senile
-and yet animal expression of the features, the small, restless
-grey eyes, and thin lank hair made an impression
-which was repulsive beyond belief.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He began by roughly reproving the country inspector
-for the state of a road by which His Excellency had
-travelled on the previous day. The inspector stood with
-his head bent, in sign of respect and submission, and said
-from time to time, like servants in former days, “Very
-good, Your Excellency.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>Having done with the inspector he turned to me. With
-an insolent look he said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I think you have taken your degree at Moscow University?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I have.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Did you enter the public service afterwards?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I was employed in the Kremlin offices.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Ha! Ha! Much they do there! Not too busy there to
-attend parties and sing songs, eh?” Then he called out,
-“Alenitsin!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A young man of consumptive appearance came in.
-“Hark ye, my friend. Here is a graduate of Moscow University
-who probably knows everything except the business
-of administration, and His Majesty desires that we
-should teach it to him. Give him occupation in your office,
-and let me have special reports about him. You, Sir, will
-come to the office at nine to-morrow morning. You can go
-now. By the way, I forgot to ask how you write.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was puzzled at first. “I mean your handwriting,” he
-added.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I said I had none of my own writing on me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Bring paper and a pen,” and Alenitsin handed me a
-pen.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What shall I write?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What you please,” said the clerk; “write, <i>Upon investigation
-it turned out.</i>”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Governor looked at the writing and said with a
-sarcastic smile, “Well, we shan’t ask you to correspond
-with the Tsar.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>While I was still at Perm, I had heard much about
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>Tufáyev, but the reality far surpassed all my expectations.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There is no person or thing too monstrous for the conditions
-of Russian life to produce.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was born at Tobolsk. His father was, I believe, an
-exile and belonged to the lowest and poorest class of free
-Russians. At thirteen he joined a band of strolling players,
-who wandered from fair to fair, dancing on the tight rope,
-turning somersaults, and so on. With them he went all
-the way from Tobolsk to the Polish provinces, making
-mirth for the lieges. He was arrested there on some charge
-unknown to me, and then, because he had no passport,
-sent back on foot to Tobolsk as a vagabond, together with
-a gang of convicts. His mother was now a widow and
-living in extreme poverty; he rebuilt the stove in her
-house with his own hands, when it came to pieces. He
-had to seek a trade of some kind; the boy learned to read
-and write and got employment as a clerk in the town
-office. Naturally quick-witted, he had profited by the
-variety of his experience; he had learned much from the
-troupe of acrobats, and as much from the gang of convicts
-in whose company he had tramped from one end of Russia
-to the other. He soon became a sharp man of business.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At the beginning of Alexander’s reign a Government Inspector
-was sent to Tobolsk, and Tufáyev was recommended
-to him as a competent clerk. He did his work so
-well that the Inspector offered to take him back to Petersburg.
-Hitherto, as he said himself, his ambition had not
-aspired beyond a clerkship in some provincial court; but
-now he set a different value on himself, and resolved with
-an iron strength of will to climb to the top of the tree.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And he did it. Ten years later we find him acting as
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>secretary to the Controller of the Navy, and then chief
-of a department in the office of Count Arakchéyev,<a id='r88' /><a href='#f88' class='c016'><sup>[88]</sup></a>
-which governed the whole Empire. When Paris was occupied
-by the Allied Armies in 1815, the Count took his
-secretary there with him. During the whole time of the
-occupation, Tufáyev literally never saw a single street
-in Paris; he sat all day and all night in the office, drawing
-up or copying documents.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f88'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. </span>Arakchéyev (1769-1835) was Minister and favourite of Emperor
-Alexander I; he has been called “the assassin of the Russian people.”</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Arakchéyev’s office was like those copper-mines where
-the workmen are kept only for a few months, because,
-if they stay longer, they die. In this manufactory of edicts
-and ordinances, mandates and instructions, even Tufáyev
-grew tired at last and asked for an easier place. He was
-of course, a man after Arakchéyev’s own heart—a man
-without pretensions or distractions or opinions of his
-own, conventionally honest, eaten up by ambition, and
-ranking obedience as the highest of human virtues. Arakchéyev
-rewarded him with the place of a Vice-Governor,
-and a few years later made him Governor of Perm. The
-province, which Tufáyev had passed through as acrobat
-and convict, first dancing on a rope and then bound by
-a rope, now lay at his feet.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A Governor’s power increases by arithmetical progression
-with the distance from Petersburg, but increases by
-geometrical progression in provinces like Perm or Vyatka
-or Siberia, where there is no resident nobility. That was
-just the kind of province that Tufáyev needed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was a Persian satrap, with this difference—that he
-was active, restless, always busy and interfering in everything.
-He would have been a savage agent of the French
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>Convention in 1794, something in the way of Carrier.<a id='r89' /><a href='#f89' class='c016'><sup>[89]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f89'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. </span>Infamous for his <i>noyades</i> at Nantes; guillotined in 1794.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Profligate in his life, naturally coarse, impatient of all
-opposition, his influence was extremely harmful. He did
-not take bribes; and yet, as appeared after his death, he
-amassed a considerable fortune. He was strict with his
-subordinates and punished severely those whom he detected
-in dishonesty; but they stole more under his rule
-than ever before or since. He carried the misuse of influence
-to an extraordinary pitch; for instance, when
-despatching an official to hold an enquiry, he would say,
-if he had a personal interest in the matter, “You will probably
-find out so-and-so to be the case,” and woe to the
-official if he did not find out what the Governor foretold.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Perm, when I was there, was still full of Tufáyev’s
-glory, and his partisans were hostile to his successor, who,
-as a matter of course, surrounded himself with supporters
-of his own.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But on the other hand, there were people at Perm who
-hated him. One of these was Chebotarev, a doctor employed
-at one of the factories and a remarkable product
-of Russian life. He warned me specially against Tufáyev.
-He was a clever and very excitable man, who had made an
-unfortunate marriage soon after taking his degree; then
-he had drifted to Ekaterinburg<a id='r90' /><a href='#f90' class='c016'><sup>[90]</sup></a> and sank with no experience
-into the slough of provincial life. Though his position
-here was fairly independent, his career was wrecked,
-and his chief employment was to mock at the Government
-officials. He jeered at them in their presence and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>said the most insulting things to their faces. But, as he
-spared nobody, nobody felt particular resentment at his
-flouts and jeers. His bitter tongue assured him a certain
-ascendancy over a society where fixed principles were
-rare, and he forced them to submit to the lash which he
-was never weary of applying.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f90'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. </span>A town in the Ural district, now polluted by a horrible
-crime.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was told beforehand that, though he was a good doctor,
-he was crack-brained and excessively rude.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But his way of talking and jesting seemed to me neither
-offensive nor trivial; on the contrary, it was full of humour
-and concentrated bile. This was the poetry of his life, his
-revenge, his cry of resentment and, perhaps, in part, of
-despair also. Both as a student of human nature and as
-a physician, he had placed these officials under his microscope;
-he knew all their petty hidden vices; and, encouraged
-by their dulness and cowardice, he observed no
-limits in his way of addressing them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He constantly repeated the same phrase—“It does not
-matter twopence,” or “It won’t cost you twopence.” I
-once laughed at him for this, and he said: “What are
-you surprised at? The object of all speech is to persuade,
-and I only add to my statements the strongest proof that
-exists in the world. Once convince a man that it won’t
-cost him twopence to kill his own father and he’ll kill
-him sure enough.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was always willing to lend moderate sums, as much
-as a hundred or two hundred <i>roubles</i>. Whenever he was
-appealed to for a loan, he pulled out his pocket-book and
-asked for a date by which the money would be repaid.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Now,” he said, “I will bet a <i>rouble</i> that you will not
-pay the money on that day.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>“My dear Sir, who do you take me for?” the borrower
-would say.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“My opinion of you does not matter twopence,” was
-the reply; “but the fact is that I have kept an account
-for six years, and not a single debtor has ever paid me
-on the day, and very few after it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the time had expired, the doctor asked with a
-grave face for the payment of his bet.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A rich merchant at Perm had a travelling carriage for
-sale. The doctor called on him and delivered the following
-speech all in a breath. “You are selling a carriage,
-I need one. Because you are rich and a millionaire, everyone
-respects you, and I have come to testify my respect
-for the same reason. Owing to your wealth, it does not
-matter twopence to you whether you sell the carriage
-or not; but I need it, and I am poor. You will want to
-squeeze me and take advantage of my necessity; therefore
-you will ask 1,500 <i>roubles</i> for it. I shall offer 700
-<i>roubles</i>; I shall come every day to haggle over the
-price, and after a week you will let me have it for 750
-or 800. Might we not as well begin at once at that point?
-I am prepared to pay that sum.” The merchant was so
-astonished that he let the doctor have the carriage at his
-own figure.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But there was no end to the stories of Chebotarev’s
-eccentricity. I shall add two more.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I was present once when a lady, a rather clever and
-cultivated woman, asked him if he believed in mesmerism.
-“What do you mean by mesmerism?” he asked. The lady
-talked the usual nonsense in reply. “It does not matter
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>twopence to you,” he said, “to know whether I believe in
-mesmerism or not; but if you like, I will tell you what I
-have seen in that way.” “Please do.” “Yes; but you must
-listen attentively,” and then he began to describe some
-experiments made by a friend of his, a doctor at Khárkov;
-his description was very lively, clever, and interesting.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>While he was talking, a servant brought in some refreshments
-on a tray, and was leaving the room when the
-lady said, “You have forgotten the mustard.” Chebotarev
-stopped dead. “Go on, go on,” said the lady, a little
-frightened already. “I’m listening to you.” “Pray, Madam,
-has he remembered the salt?” “I see you are angry with
-me,” said the lady, blushing. “Not in the least, I assure
-you. I know that you were listening attentively; but I
-also know that no woman, however intelligent she may
-be and whatever may be the subject under discussion,
-can ever soar higher than the kitchen. How then could
-I venture to be angry with you in particular?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Another story about him. Being employed as a doctor
-at the factories of a Countess Pollier, he took a fancy to
-a boy he saw there, and wished to have him for a servant.
-The boy was willing, but the steward said that the consent
-of the Countess must first be obtained. The doctor
-wrote to her, and she replied that he might have the boy,
-on condition of paying down a sum equal to the payments
-due to her from the boy during the next five years. The
-doctor wrote at once to express his willingness, but he
-asked her to answer this question. “As Encke’s comet may
-be expected to pass through the orbit of the earth in three
-years and a half from now, who will be responsible for
-repaying the money I have advanced, in case the comet
-drives the earth out of its orbit?”</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>On the day I left for Vyatka, the doctor turned up at
-my house early in the morning. He began with this witticism.
-“You are like Horace: he sang once and people
-have been translating him ever since, and so you are
-translated<a id='r91' /><a href='#f91' class='c016'><sup>[91]</sup></a> from place to place for that song you sang.”
-Then he pulled out his purse and asked if I needed money
-for the journey. I thanked him and declined his offer.
-“Why don’t you take it? It won’t cost you twopence.”
-“I have money.” “A bad sign,” he said; “the end of the
-world is coming.” Then he opened his notebook and made
-this entry. “For the first time in fifteen years’ practice
-I have met a man who refused money, and that man was
-on the eve of departure.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f91'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. </span>The same Russian verb means ‘to translate’ and ‘to
-transfer.’</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Having had his jest, he sat down on my bed and said
-seriously: “That’s a terrible man you are going to. Keep
-out of his way as much as ever you can. If he takes a
-fancy to you, that says little in your favour; but if he
-dislikes you, he will certainly ruin you; what weapon he
-will use, false accusation or not, I don’t know, but ruin you
-he will; he won’t care twopence.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Thereupon he told me a strange story, which I was able
-to verify at a later date by means of papers preserved in
-the Home Office at Petersburg.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Tufáyev had a mistress at Perm, the sister of a humble
-official named Petrovski. The fact was notorious, and the
-brother was laughed at. Wishing therefore to break off
-this connexion, he threatened to write to Petersburg and
-lay information, and, in short, made such a noise and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>commotion that the police arrested him one day as insane
-and brought him up to be examined before the administration
-of the province. The judges and the inspector of
-public health—he was an old German, much beloved by
-the poor, and I knew him personally—all agreed that
-Petrovski was insane.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But Chebotarev knew Petrovski and had been his doctor.
-He told the inspector that Petrovski was not mad at
-all, and urged a fresh examination; otherwise, he would
-feel bound to carry the matter further. The administration
-raised no difficulties; but unfortunately Petrovski
-died in the mad-house before the day fixed for the second
-examination, though he was a young man and enjoyed
-good health.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>News of the affair now reached Petersburg. The sister
-was arrested (Tufáyev ought to have been) and a secret
-enquiry began. Tufáyev dictated the replies of the witnesses.
-He surpassed himself in this business. He devised
-a means to stifle it for ever and to save himself from a
-second involuntary journey to Siberia. He actually induced
-the sister to say that her youth and inexperience
-had been taken advantage of by the late Tsar Alexander
-when he passed through Perm, and that the quarrel with
-her brother dated from that event.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Was her story true? Well, <i>la regina ne aveva molto</i>,<a id='r92' /><a href='#f92' class='c016'><sup>[92]</sup></a>
-says the story-teller in Púshkin’s <i>Egyptian Nights</i>.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f92'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. </span>The reference in Púshkin is to Cleopatra’s lovers.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Such was the man who now undertook to teach me the
-business of administration, a worthy pupil of Arakchéyev,
-acrobat, tramp, clerk, secretary, Governor, a tender-hearted,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>unselfish being, who shut up sane men in mad-houses
-and made away with them there.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was entirely at his mercy. He had only to write some
-nonsense to the Minister at Petersburg, and I should be
-packed off to Irkutsk. Indeed, writing was unnecessary;
-he had the right to transfer me to some savage place like
-Kai or Tsarevo-Sanchursk, where there were no resources
-and no means of communication. He sent one young Pole
-to Glazov, because the ladies had the bad taste to prefer
-him as a partner in the mazurka to His Excellency. In
-this way Prince Dolgorúkov was transferred from Perm
-to Verchoturye, a place in the Government of Perm,
-buried in mountains and snow-drifts, with as bad a climate
-as Beryózov and even less society.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Prince Dolgorúkov belonged to a type which is becoming
-rarer with us; he was a sprig of nobility, of the wrong
-sort, whose escapades were notorious at Petersburg, Moscow,
-and Paris. His whole life was spent in folly; he was
-a spoilt, insolent, offensive practical joker, a mixture of
-buffoon and fine gentleman. When his pranks exceeded
-all bounds, he was banished to Perm.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He arrived there with two carriages; the first was occupied
-by himself and his dog, a Great Dane, the second by
-his French cook and his parrots. The arrival of this
-wealthy visitor gave much pleasure, and before long all
-the town was rubbing shoulders in his dining-room. He
-soon took up with a young lady of Perm; and this young
-lady, suspecting that he was unfaithful, turned up unexpectedly
-at his house one morning, and found him with
-a maid-servant. A scene followed, and at last the faithless
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>lover took his riding-whip down from its peg; when the
-lady perceived his intention, she made off; simply attired
-in a dressing-gown and nothing else, he made after her,
-and caught her up on the small parade-ground where the
-troops were exercised. When he had given the jealous lady
-a few blows with his whip, he strolled home, quite content
-with his performance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But these pleasant little ways brought upon him the
-persecution of his former friends, and the authorities
-decided to send this madcap of forty on to Verchoturye.
-The day before he left, he gave a grand dinner, and all
-the local officials, in spite of the strained relations, came
-to the feast; for Dolgorúkov had promised them a new
-and remarkable pie. The pie was in fact excellent and
-vanished with extraordinary rapidity. When nothing but
-the crust was left, Dolgorúkov said to his guests with an
-air of emotion: “It never can be said that I spared anything
-to make our last meeting a success. I had my dog
-killed yesterday, to make this pie.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The officials looked first with horror at one another
-and then round the room for the Great Dane whom they
-all knew perfectly; but he was not there. The Prince
-ordered a servant to bring in the mortal remains of his
-favourite; the skin was all there was to show; the rest
-was in the stomachs of the people of Perm. Half the town
-took to their beds in consequence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Dolgorúkov meanwhile, pleased by the success of the
-practical joke he had played on his friends, was travelling
-in triumph to Verchoturye. To his train he had now added
-a third vehicle containing a hen-house and its inhabitants.
-At several of the post-houses on his way he carried off
-the official registers, mixed them up, and altered the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>figures; the posting-department, who, even with the
-registers, found it difficult enough to get the returns right,
-almost went mad in consequence.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The oppressive emptiness and dumbness of Russian life,
-when misallied to a strong and even violent temperament,
-are apt to produce monstrosities of all kinds.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Not only in Dolgorúkov’s pie, but in Suvórov’s crowing
-like a cock, in the savage outbursts of Ismailov, in the
-semi-voluntary insanity of Mamonov,<a id='r93' /><a href='#f93' class='c016'><sup>[93]</sup></a> and in the wild extravagances
-of Tolstoi, nicknamed “The American,”
-everywhere I catch a national note which is familiar to us
-all, though in most of us it is weakened by education or
-turned in some different direction.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f93'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r93'>93</a>. </span>Suvórov, the famous general (1729-1800), was very
-eccentric in his personal habits. Ismailov, a rich landowner at the
-beginning of the nineteenth century, was infamous for his cruelties.
-Mamonov (1758-1803) was one of Catherine’s favourites.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Tolstoi I knew personally, just at the time when he lost
-his daughter, Sara, a remarkable girl with a high poetic
-gift. He was old then; but one look at his athletic figure,
-his flashing eyes, and the grey curls that clustered on his
-forehead, was enough to show how great was his natural
-strength and activity. But he had developed only stormy
-passions and vicious propensities. And this is not surprising:
-in Russia all that is vicious is allowed to grow for
-long unchecked, while men are sent to a fortress or to
-Siberia at the first sign of a humane passion. For twenty
-years Tolstoi rioted and gambled, used his fists to mutilate
-his enemies, and reduced whole families to beggary,
-till at last he was banished to Siberia. He made his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>way through Kamchatka to America and, while there,
-obtained permission to return to Russia. The Tsar pardoned
-him, and he resumed his old life the very day after
-his return. He married a gipsy woman, a famous singer
-who belonged to a gipsy tribe at Moscow, and turned his
-house into a gambling-hell. His nights were spent at the
-card-table, and all his time in excesses; wild scenes of
-cupidity and intoxication went on round the cradle of his
-daughter. It is said that he once ordered his wife to stand
-on the table, and sent a bullet through the heel of her
-shoe, in order to prove the accuracy of his aim.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His last exploit very nearly sent him back to Siberia.
-He contrived to entrap in his house at Moscow a tradesman
-against whom he had an old grudge, bound him
-hand and foot, and pulled out one of his teeth. It is
-hardly credible that this should have happened only ten
-or twelve years ago. The man lodged a complaint. But
-Tolstoi bribed the police and the judges, and the victim
-was lodged in prison for false witness. It happened that a
-well-known man of letters was then serving on the prison
-committee and took up the affair, on learning the facts
-from the tradesman. Tolstoi was seriously alarmed; it
-was clear that he was likely to be condemned. But anything
-is possible in Russia. Count Orlóv sent secret instructions
-that the affair must be hushed up, to deprive
-the lower classes of a direct triumph over the aristocracy,
-and he also advised that the man of letters should be removed
-from the committee. This is almost more incredible
-than the incident of the tooth. But I was in Moscow then
-myself and well acquainted with the imprudent man of
-letters. But I must go back to Vyatka.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>The office there was incomparably worse than my prison.
-The actual work was not hard; but the mephitic atmosphere—the
-place was like a second Grotto del Cane<a id='r94' /><a href='#f94' class='c016'><sup>[94]</sup></a>—and
-the monstrous and absurd waste of time made the
-life unbearable. Alenitsin did not treat me badly. He was
-even more polite than I expected; having been educated
-at the grammar school of Kazán, he had some respect for
-a graduate of Moscow University.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f94'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r94'>94</a>. </span>The grotto near Naples where dogs were held over the
-sulphurous vapour till they became insensible.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Twenty clerks were employed in the office. The majority
-of them were entirely destitute of either intellectual culture
-or moral sense, sons of clerks, who had learned from their
-cradles to look upon the public service as a means of livelihood
-and the cultivators of the land as the source of
-their income. They sold official papers, pocketed small
-sums whenever they could get them, broke their word for
-a glass of spirits, and stuck at nothing, however base and
-ignominious. My own valet stopped playing billiards at
-the public rooms, because, as he said, the officials cheated
-shamefully and he could not give them a lesson because
-of their rank in society.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>With these men, whose position alone made them safe
-from my servant’s fists, I had to sit every day from nine
-till two and again from five till eight.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alenitsin was head of the whole office, and the desk
-at which I sat had a chief also, not a bad-hearted man,
-but drunken and illiterate. There were four other clerks
-at my desk; and I had to be on speaking terms with them,
-and with all the rest as well. Apart from the fact that
-these people would sooner or later have paid me out for
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>any airs of exclusiveness, it is simply impossible not to
-get to know people in whose company you spend several
-hours every day. It must also be remembered how people
-in the country hang on to a stranger, especially if he
-comes from the capital, and still more if he has been mixed
-up in some exciting scandal.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I had tugged at the oar all day in this galley, I
-used sometimes to go home quite stupefied and fall on my
-sofa, worn out and humiliated, and incapable of any work
-or occupation. I heartily regretted my prison cell with its
-foul air and black beetles, its locked door and turnkey
-behind the lock. There I was free and did what I liked
-without interference; there I enjoyed dead silence and
-unbroken leisure; I had exchanged these for trivial talk,
-dirty companions, low ideas, and coarse feelings. When
-I remembered that I must go back there in the afternoon,
-and back again to-morrow, I sometimes fell into such fits
-of rage and despair that I drank wine and spirits for consolation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Nor was that all. One of my desk-fellows would perhaps
-look in, for want of something to do; and there he would
-sit and chatter till the appointed hour recalled us to the
-office.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>After a few months, however, the office life became somewhat
-less oppressive.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is not in the Russian character to keep up a steady
-system of persecution, unless where personal or avaricious
-motives are involved; and this fact is due to our Russian
-carelessness and indifference. Those in authority in Russia
-are generally unlicked and insolent, and it is very easy,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>when dealing with them, to come in for the rough side of
-their tongue; but a war of pin-pricks is not in their way—they
-have not the patience for it, perhaps because it brings
-in no profit.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the heat of the moment, in order to display their
-power or prove their zeal, they are capable of anything,
-however absurd and unnecessary; but then by degrees
-they cease to trouble you.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I found this to be the case in my office. It so happened
-that the Ministry of the Interior had just been seized with
-a fit of statistics. Orders were issued that committees
-should be appointed all over the country, and information
-was required from these committees which could hardly
-have been supplied in such countries as Belgium and Switzerland.
-There were also ingenious tables of all kinds for
-figures, to show a maximum and minimum as well as
-averages, and conclusions based on a comparison of ten
-years (for nine of which, if you please, no statistics at
-all had been recorded); the morality of the inhabitants
-and even the weather were to be included in the report.
-For the committee and for the collection of facts not a
-penny was allotted; the work had to be done from pure
-love of statistics; the rural police were to collect the facts
-and the Governor’s office to put them in order. The office
-was overburdened with work already, and the rural police
-preferred to use their fists rather than their brains; both
-looked on the statistics committee as a mere superfluity,
-an official joke; nevertheless, a report had to be presented,
-including tables of figures and conclusions based
-thereon.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To all our office the job seemed excessively difficult.
-It was, indeed, simply impossible; but to that nobody paid
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>any attention; their sole object was to escape a reprimand.
-I promised Alenitsin that I would write the introduction
-and first part of the report, with specimen tables, introducing
-plenty of eloquent phrases, foreign words, apt
-quotations, and impressive conclusions, if he would allow
-me to perform this difficult task at my house instead of
-at the office. He talked it over with the Governor and gave
-permission.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The beginning of the report dealt with the committee’s
-activity; and here, as there was nothing to show at present,
-I dwelt upon hopes and intentions for the future. This
-composition moved Alenitsin to the depth of his heart and
-was considered a masterpiece even by the Governor. That
-was the end of my labours in the department of statistics,
-but I was made chairman of the committee. Thus I was
-delivered from the slavery of copying office papers, and
-my drunken chief became something like my subordinate.
-Alenitsin only asked, from some idea of keeping up appearances,
-that I should just look in every day at the
-office.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To show how utterly impossible it was to draw up
-serious tables, I shall quote some information received
-from the town of Kai. There were many absurdities, and
-this was one.</p>
-
-<table class='table2' summary=''>
-<colgroup>
-<col width='87%' />
-<col width='12%' />
-</colgroup>
- <tr>
- <td class='c024'>Persons drowned,</td>
- <td class='c012'>2</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c024'>Causes of drowning unknown,</td>
- <td class='c012'>2</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c024'> </td>
- <td class='c012'>═══</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c024'>Total</td>
- <td class='c012'>4</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p class='c008'>Under the heading “Extraordinary Events” the following
-tragedy was chronicled: “So-and-so, having injured his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>brain with spirituous liquors, hanged himself.” Under the
-heading “Morality of the Inhabitants” this was entered:
-“No Jews were found in the town of Kai.” There was a
-question whether any funds had been allotted to the building
-of a church, or exchange, or hospital. The answer was:
-“Money allotted to the building of an exchange was not
-allotted.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Statistics saved me from office work, but they had one
-bad result—they brought me into personal relations with
-the Governor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was a time when I hated this man, but that time
-has long passed away, and the man has passed away himself—he
-died about 1845 near Kazán, where he had an
-estate. I think of him now without anger; I regard him
-as a strange beast encountered in some primeval forest,
-which deserves study, but, just because it is a beast, cannot
-excite anger. But then it was impossible not to fight
-him; any decent man must have done so. He might have
-damaged me seriously, but accident preserved me; and to
-resent the harm which he failed to do me would be absurd
-and pitiable.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Governor was separated from his wife, and the
-wife of his cook occupied her place. The cook was banished
-from the town, his only guilt being his marriage;
-and the cook’s wife, by an arrangement whose awkwardness
-seemed intentional, was concealed in the back part
-of the Governor’s residence. Though she was not formally
-recognised, yet the cook’s wife had a little court,
-formed out of those officials who were especially devoted
-to the Governor—in other words, those whose conduct
-could least stand investigation; and their wives and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>daughters, though rather bashful about it, paid her stolen
-visits after dark. This lady possessed the tact which distinguished
-one of her most famous male predecessors—Catherine’s
-favourite, Potemkin. Knowing her consort’s
-way and anxious not to lose her place, she herself procured
-for him rivals from whom she had nothing to fear.
-Grateful for this indulgence, he repaid her with his affection,
-and the pair lived together in harmony.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Governor spent the whole morning working in his
-office. The poetry of his life began at three o’clock. He
-loved his dinner, and he liked to have company while
-eating. Twelve covers were laid every day; if the party
-was less than six, he was annoyed; if it fell to two, he was
-distressed; and if he had no guest, he was almost desperate
-and went off to the apartments of his Dulcinea, to
-dine there. It is not a difficult business to get people together,
-in order to feed them to excess; but his official
-position, and the fear his subordinates felt for him, prevented
-them from availing themselves freely of his hospitality,
-and him from turning his house into an inn. He
-had therefore to content himself with heads of departments—though
-with half of them he was on bad terms—occasional
-strangers, rich merchants, spirit-distillers, and
-“curiosities.” These last may be compared with the
-<i>capacités</i>, who were to be introduced into the Chamber
-of Deputies under Louis Philippe. I need hardly say that
-I was a “curiosity” of the first water at Vyatka.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>People banished for their opinions to remote parts of
-Russia are a little feared but by no means confounded
-with ordinary mortals. For the provincial mind “dangerous people”
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>have that kind of attraction which notorious
-Don Juans have for women, and notorious courtesans for
-men. The officials of Petersburg and grandees of Moscow
-are much more shy of “dangerous” people than the dwellers
-in the provinces and especially in Siberia.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The exiled Decembrists were immensely respected.
-Yushnevski’s widow was treated as a lady of the first consequence
-in Siberia; the official figures of the Siberian
-census were corrected by means of statistics supplied by
-the exiles; and Minich, in his prison, managed the affairs
-of the province of Tobolsk, the Governors themselves resorting
-to him for advice in matters of importance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The common people are even more friendly to the exiles;
-they always take the side of men who have been
-punished. Near the Siberian frontier, the word “exile”
-disappears, and the word “unfortunate” is used instead. In
-the eyes of the Russian people, the sentence of a court
-leaves no stain. In the Government of Perm, the peasants
-along the road to Tobolsk often put out <i>kvass</i> or milk and
-bread on the window-sill, for the use of some “unfortunate”
-who may be trying to escape from Siberia.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In this place I may say something about the Polish exiles.
-There are some as far west as Nizhni, and after Kazán
-the number rapidly increases; there were forty of them at
-Perm and at least as many at Vyatka; and each of the
-smaller towns contained a few.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>They kept entirely apart and avoided all communication
-with the Russian inhabitants; among themselves they
-lived like brothers, and the rich shared their wealth with
-the poor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>I never noticed any special hatred or any liking for
-them on the part of the Russians. They were simply considered
-as outsiders; and hardly any of the Poles knew
-Russian.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I remember one of the exiles who got permission in
-1837 to return to his estates in Lithuania. He was a tough
-old cavalry officer who had served under Poniatovski in
-several of Napoleon’s campaigns. The day before he left,
-he invited some Poles to dinner, and me as well. After
-dinner he came up to me with his glass in his hand, embraced
-me, and said with a soldier’s frankness, “Oh, why
-are you a Russian?” I made no answer, but his question
-made a strong impression on me. I realised that it was
-impossible for the present generation to give freedom to
-Poland. But, since Konarsky’s<a id='r95' /><a href='#f95' class='c016'><sup>[95]</sup></a> time, Poles have begun to
-think quite differently of Russians.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f95'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r95'>95</a>. </span>A Polish revolutionary; born in 1808, he was shot in
-February, 1839.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>In general, the exiled Poles are not badly treated; but
-those of them who have no means of their own are shockingly
-ill off. Such men receive from Government fifteen
-<i>roubles</i> a month, to pay for lodgings, clothing, food, and
-fuel. In the larger towns, such as Kazán or Tobolsk, they
-can eke out a living by giving lessons or concerts, by playing
-at balls or painting portraits or teaching children to
-dance; but at Perm and Vyatka even these resources did
-not exist. In spite of that, they never asked Russians for
-assistance in any form.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Governor’s invitations to dine on the luxuries of
-Siberia were a real infliction to me. His dining-room was
-merely the office over again, in a different shape, cleaner
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>indeed, but more objectionable, because there was not the
-same appearance of compulsion about it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He knew his guests thoroughly and despised them.
-Sometimes he showed his claws, but he generally treated
-them as a man treats his dogs, either with excessive familiarity
-or with a roughness beyond all bounds. But all the
-same he continued to invite them, and they came in a
-flutter of joy, prostrating themselves before him, currying
-favour by tales against others, all smiles and bows
-and complaisance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I blushed for them and felt ashamed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our intimacy did not last long: the Governor soon perceived
-that I was unfit to move in the highest circles of
-Vyatka.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After three months he was dissatisfied with me, and
-after six months he hated me. I ceased to attend his dinners,
-and never even called at his house. As we shall see
-later, it was a visit to Vyatka from the Crown Prince<a id='r96' /><a href='#f96' class='c016'><sup>[96]</sup></a>
-that saved me from his persecution.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f96'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r96'>96</a>. </span>Afterwards Alexander II.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>In this connexion it is necessary to add that I did
-nothing whatever to deserve either his attentions and invitations
-at first, or his anger and ill-usage afterwards. He
-could not endure in me an attitude which, though not at
-all rude, was independent; my behaviour was perfectly
-correct, but he demanded servility.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He was greedily jealous of the power which he had
-worked hard to gain, and he sought not merely obedience
-but the appearance of unquestioning subordination.
-Unfortunately, in this respect he was a true Russian.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The gentleman says to his servant: “Hold your tongue!
-I will not allow you to answer me back.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>The head of an office says to any subordinate who
-ventures on a protest: “You forget yourself. Do you know
-to whom you are speaking?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Tufáyev cherished a secret but intense hatred for everything
-aristocratic, and it was the result of bitter experience.
-For him the penal servitude of Arakchéyev’s office
-was a harbour of refuge and freedom, such as he had
-never enjoyed before. In earlier days his employers, when
-they gave him small jobs to do, never offered him a chair;
-when he served in the Controller’s office, he was treated
-with military roughness by the soldiers and once horse-whipped
-by a colonel in the streets of Vilna. The clerk
-stored all this up in his heart and brooded over it; and
-now he was Governor, and it was his turn to play the
-tyrant, to keep a man standing, to address people familiarly,
-to speak unnecessarily loudly, and at times to commit
-long-descended nobles for trial.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>From Perm he was promoted to Tver. But the nobles,
-however deferential and subservient, could not stand
-Tufáyev. They petitioned for his removal, and he was
-sent to Vyatka.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There he was in his element once more. Officials and
-distillers, factory-owners and officials,—what more could
-the heart of man desire? Everyone trembled before him
-and got up when he approached; everyone gave him dinners,
-offered him wine, and sought to anticipate his wishes;
-at every wedding or birthday party the first toast proposed
-was “His Excellency the Governor!”</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>Officials—Siberian Governors—A Bird of Prey—A Gentle
-Judge—An Inspector Roasted—The Tatar—A Boy of the
-Female Sex—The Potato Revolt—Russian Justice.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ONE of the saddest consequences of the revolution
-effected by Peter the Great is the development
-of the official class in Russia. These <i>chinóvniks</i>
-are an artificial, ill-educated, and hungry class,
-incapable of anything except office-work, and ignorant of
-everything except official papers. They form a kind of lay
-clergy, officiating in the law-courts and police-offices, and
-sucking the blood of the nation with thousands of dirty,
-greedy mouths.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Gógol raised one side of the curtain and showed us the
-Russian <i>chinóvnik</i> in his true colours;<a id='r97' /><a href='#f97' class='c016'><sup>[97]</sup></a> but Gógol, without
-meaning to, makes us resigned by making us laugh,
-and his immense comic power tends to suppress resentment.
-Besides, fettered as he was by the censorship, he
-could barely touch on the sorrowful side of that unclean
-subterranean region in which the destinies of the ill-starred
-Russian people are hammered and shaped.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f97'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r97'>97</a>. </span>Gógol’s play, <i>The Revisor</i>, is a satire on the
-Russian bureaucracy.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>There, in those grimy offices which we walk through
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>as fast as we can, men in shabby coats sit and write; first
-they write a rough draft and then copy it out on stamped
-paper—and individuals, families, whole villages are injured,
-terrified, and ruined. The father is banished to a
-distance, the mother is sent to prison, the son to the Army;
-it all comes upon them as suddenly as a clap of thunder,
-and in most cases it is undeserved. The object of it all is
-money. Pay up! If you don’t, an inquest will be held on
-the body of some drunkard who has been frozen in the
-snow. A collection is made for the village authorities; the
-peasants contribute their last penny. Then there are the
-police and law-officers—they must live somehow, and
-one has a wife to maintain and another a family to educate,
-and they are all model husbands and fathers.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This official class is sovereign in the north-eastern Governments
-of Russia and in Siberia. It has spread and
-flourished there without hindrance and without pause; in
-that remote region where all share in the profits, theft is
-the order of the day. The Tsar himself is powerless against
-these entrenchments, buried under snow and constructed
-out of sticky mud. All measures of the central Government
-are emasculated before they get there, and all its
-purposes are distorted: it is deceived and cheated, betrayed
-and sold, and all the time an appearance of servile
-fidelity is kept up, and official procedure is punctually
-observed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Speranski<a id='r98' /><a href='#f98' class='c016'><sup>[98]</sup></a> tried to lighten the burdens of the people
-by introducing into all the offices in Siberia the principle
-of divided control. But it makes little difference whether
-the stealing is done by individuals or gangs of robbers.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>He discharged hundreds of old thieves, and took on hundreds
-of new ones. The rural police were so terrified at
-first that they actually paid blackmail to the peasants.
-But a few years passed, and the officials were making as
-much money as ever, in spite of the new conditions.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f98'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r98'>98</a>. </span>Michail Speranski (1772-1839), minister under Alexander
-I, was Governor of Siberia in 1819.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>A second eccentric Governor, General Velyaminov, tried
-again. For two years he struggled hard at Tobolsk to root
-out the malpractices; and then, conscious of failure, he
-gave it all up and ceased to attend to business at all.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Others, more prudent than he, never tried the experiment:
-they made money themselves and let others do the
-same.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I shall root out bribery,” said Senyavin, the Governor
-of Moscow, to a grey-bearded old peasant who had entered
-a complaint against some crying act of injustice. The old
-man smiled.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What are you laughing at?” asked the Governor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, I <i>was</i> laughing, <i>bátyushka</i>; you must forgive
-me. I was thinking of one of our people, a great strong
-fellow, who boasted that he would lift the Great Cannon
-at Moscow; and he did try, but the cannon would not
-budge.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Senyavin used to tell this story himself. He was one
-of those unpractical bureaucrats who believe that well-turned
-periods in praise of honesty, and rigorous prosecution
-of the few thieves who get caught, have power to cure
-the widespread plague of Russian corruption, that noxious
-weed that spreads at ease under the protecting boughs of
-the censorship.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Two things are needed to cope with it—publicity, and
-an entirely different organisation of the whole machine.
-The old national system of justice must be re-introduced,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>with oral procedure and sworn witnesses and all that the
-central Government detests so heartily.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Pestel, one of the Governors of Western Siberia, was
-like a Roman proconsul, and was outdone by none of
-them. He carried on a system of open and systematic
-robbery throughout the country, which he had entirely
-detached from Russia by means of his spies. Not a letter
-crossed the frontier unopened, and woe to the writer who
-dared to say a word about his rule. He kept the merchants
-of the First Guild in prison for a whole year, where they
-were chained and tortured. Officials he punished by sending
-them to the frontier of Eastern Siberia and keeping
-them there for two or three years.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The people endured him for long; but at last a tradesman
-of Tobolsk determined to bring the state of things
-to the Tsar’s knowledge. Avoiding the usual route, he went
-first to Kyakhta and crossed the Siberian frontier from
-there with a caravan of tea. At Tsárskoë Seló<a id='r99' /><a href='#f99' class='c016'><sup>[99]</sup></a> he found
-an opportunity to hand his petition to Alexander, and
-begged him to read it. Alexander was astonished and impressed
-by the strange matter he read there. He sent for
-the petitioner, and they had a long conversation which
-convinced him of the truth of the terrible story. Horrified
-and somewhat confused, the Tsar said:</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f99'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r99'>99</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, “The Tsar’s Village,” near Petersburg.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You can go back to Siberia now, my friend; the matter
-shall be looked into.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No, Your Majesty,” said the man; “I cannot go home
-now; I would rather go to prison. My interview with Your
-Majesty cannot be kept secret, and I shall be murdered.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>Alexander started. He turned to Milorádovitch, who
-was then Governor of Petersburg, and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I hold you answerable for this man’s life.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“In that case,” said Milorádovitch, “Your Majesty
-must allow me to lodge him in my own house.” And there
-the man actually stayed until the affair was settled.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Pestel resided almost continuously at Petersburg. You
-will remember that the Roman proconsuls also generally
-lived in the capital.<a id='r100' /><a href='#f100' class='c016'><sup>[100]</sup></a> By his presence and his connexions
-and, above all, by sharing his booty, he stopped in advance
-all unpleasant rumours and gossip. He and Rostopchín
-were dining one day at the Tsar’s table. They were standing
-by the window, and the Tsar asked, “What is that on
-the church cross over there—something black?” “I cannot
-make it out,” said Rostopchín; “we must appeal to
-Pestel; he has wonderful sight and can see from here
-what is going on in Siberia.”</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f100'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r100'>100</a>. </span>Herzen is mistaken here.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Imperial Council, taking advantage of the absence
-of Alexander,—he was at Verona or Aix,—wisely and
-justly decided that, as the complaint referred to Siberia,
-Pestel, who was fortunately on the spot, should conduct
-the investigation. But Milorádovitch, Mordvínov, and
-two others protested against this decision, and the matter
-was referred to the Supreme Court.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>That body gave an unjust decision, as it always does
-when trying high officials. Pestel was reprimanded, and
-Treskin, the Civil Governor of Tobolsk, was deprived
-of his official rank and title of nobility and banished.
-Pestel was merely dismissed from the service.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Pestel was succeeded at Tobolsk by Kaptsevitch, a
-pupil of Arakchéyev. Thin and bilious, a tyrant by nature
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>and a restless martinet, he introduced military discipline
-everywhere; but, though he fixed maximum prices, he left
-all ordinary business in the hands of the robbers. In 1824
-the Tsar intended to visit Tobolsk. Throughout the Government
-of Perm there is an excellent high road, well worn
-by traffic; it is probable that the soil was favourable for
-its construction. Kaptsevitch made a similar road all the
-way to Tobolsk in a few months. In spring, when the
-snow was melting and the cold bitter, thousands of men
-were driven in relays to work at the road. Sickness broke
-out and half the workmen died; but “zeal overcomes all
-difficulties,” and the road was made.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Eastern Siberia is governed in a still more casual
-fashion. The distance is so great that all rumours die
-away before they reach Petersburg. One Governor of
-Irkutsk used to fire cannon at the town when he was
-cheerful after dinner; another, in the same state, used
-to put on priest’s robes and celebrate the Mass in his
-own house, in the presence of the Bishop; but, at least,
-neither the noise of the former nor the piety of the latter
-did as much harm as the state of siege kept up by Pestel
-and the restless activity of Kaptsevitch.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>It is a pity that Siberia is so badly governed. The choice
-of Governors has been peculiarly unfortunate. I do not
-know how Muravyóv acquits himself there—his intelligence
-and capacity are well known; but all the rest have
-been failures. Siberia has a great future before it. It is
-generally regarded as a kind of cellar, full of gold and
-furs and other natural wealth, but cold, buried in snow,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>and ill provided with comforts and roads and population.
-But this is a false view.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Russian Government is unable to impart that life-giving
-impulse which would drive Siberia ahead with
-American speed. We shall see what will happen when the
-mouths of the Amoor are opened to navigation, and when
-America meets Siberia on the borders of China.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I said, long ago, that the Pacific Ocean is the Mediterranean
-of the future; and I have been pleased to see
-the remark repeated more than once in the New York
-newspapers. In that future the part of Siberia, lying as it
-does between the ocean, South Asia, and Russia, is exceedingly
-important. Siberia must certainly extend to the
-Chinese frontier: why should we shiver and freeze at
-Beryózov and Yakutsk, when there are such places as
-Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Russian settlers in Siberia have traits of character
-which suggest development and progress. The population
-in general are healthy and well grown, intelligent and
-exceedingly practical. The children of the emigrants have
-never felt the pressure of landlordism. There are no great
-nobles in Siberia, and there is no aristocracy in the towns;
-authority is represented by the civil officials and military
-officers; but they are less like an aristocracy than a hostile
-garrison established by a conqueror. The cultivators are
-saved from frequent contact with them by the immense
-distances, and the merchants are saved by their wealth.
-This latter class, in Siberia, despise the officials: while
-professing to give place to them, they take them for what
-they really are—inferiors who are useful in matters of
-law.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Arms are indispensable to the settler, and everyone
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>knows how to use them. Familiarity with danger and the
-habit of prompt action have made the Siberian peasant
-more soldierly, more resourceful, and more ready to resist,
-than his Great Russian brother. The distance of the
-churches has left him more independence of mind: he is
-lukewarm about religion and very often a dissenter. There
-are distant villages which the priest visits only thrice
-a year, when he christens the children in batches, reads
-the service for the dead, marries all the couples, and hears
-confession of accumulated sins.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>On this side of the Ural ridge, the ways of governors are
-less eccentric. But yet I could fill whole volumes with
-stories which I heard either in the office or at the Governor’s
-dinner-table—stories which throw light on the
-malpractices and dishonesty of the officials.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>“Yes, Sir, he was indeed a marvel, my predecessor was”—thus
-the inspector of police at Vyatka used to address
-me in his confidential moments. “Well, of course, we get
-along fairly, but men like him are born, not made. He
-was, in his way, I might say, a Caesar, a Napoleon”—and
-the eyes of my lame friend, the Major, who had got
-his place as recompense for a wound, shone as he recalled
-his glorious predecessor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There was a gang of robbers, not far from the town.
-Complaints came again and again to the authorities; now
-it was a party of merchants relieved of their goods, now
-the manager of a distillery was robbed of his money. The
-Governor was in a fuss and drew up edict after edict. Well,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>as you know, the country police are not brave: they can
-deal well enough with a petty thief, if there’s only one;
-but here there was a whole gang, and, likely enough, in
-possession of firearms. As the country police did nothing,
-the Governor summoned the town inspector and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘I know that this is not your business at all, but your
-well-known activity forces me to appeal to you.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The inspector knew all about the scandal already.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘General,’ said he, ‘I shall start in an hour. I know
-where the robbers are sure to be; I shall take a detachment
-with me; I shall come upon the scoundrels, bring
-them back in chains, and lodge them in the town prison,
-before they are three days older.’ Just like Suvórov to
-the Austrian Emperor! And he did what he said he would
-do: he surprised them with his detachment; the robbers
-had no time to hide their money; the inspector took it
-all and marched them off to the town.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“When the trial began, the inspector asked where the
-money was.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Why, <i>bátyushka</i>, we put it into your own hands,’
-said two of the men.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Mine!’ cried the inspector, with an air of astonishment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Yes, yours!’ shouted the thieves.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘There’s insolence for you!’ said the inspector to the
-magistrate, turning pale with rage. ‘Do you expect to
-make people believe that I was in league with you? I
-shall show you what it is to insult my uniform; I was a
-cavalry officer once, and my honour shall not be insulted
-with impunity!’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“So the thieves were flogged, that they might confess
-where they had stowed away the money. At first they were
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>obstinate, but when they heard the order that they were
-to be flogged ‘for two pipes,’ then the leader of the gang
-called out—‘We plead guilty! We spent the money ourselves.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘You might have said so sooner,’ remarked the inspector,
-‘instead of talking such nonsense. You won’t get
-round me in a hurry, my friend.’ ‘No, indeed!’ muttered
-the robber, looking in astonishment at the inspector; ‘we
-could teach nothing to Your Honour, but we might learn
-from you.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, over that affair the inspector got the Vladímir
-Order.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting his enthusiasm for
-the great man, “but what is the meaning of that phrase
-‘for two pipes’?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, we often use that in the police. One gets bored,
-you know, while a flogging is going on; so one lights a
-pipe; and, as a rule, when the pipe is done, the flogging
-is over too. But in special cases we order that the flogging
-shall go on till two pipes are smoked out. The men who
-flog are accustomed to it and know exactly how many
-strokes that means.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Ever so many stories about this hero were in circulation
-at Vyatka. His exploits were miraculous. For some reason
-or another—perhaps a Staff-general or Minister was expected—he
-wished to show that he had not worn cavalry
-uniform for nothing, but could put spurs to a charger in
-fine style. With this object in view, he requisitioned a
-horse from a rich merchant of the district; it was a grey
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>stallion, and a very valuable animal. The merchant refused
-it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“All right,” said the inspector; “if you don’t choose
-to do me such a trifling service voluntarily, then I shall
-take the horse without your leave.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We shall see about that,” said Gold.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, you shall,” said Steel.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The merchant locked up his stable and set two men to
-guard it. “Foiled for once, my friend!” he thought.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But that night, by a strange accident, a fire broke out
-in some empty sheds close to the merchant’s house. The
-inspector and his men worked manfully. In order to save
-the house, they even pulled down the wall of the stable
-and led out the object of dispute, with not a hair of his
-mane or tail singed. Two hours later, the inspector was
-caracoling on a grey charger, on his way to receive the
-thanks of the distinguished visitor for his courage and
-skill in dealing with the fire. This incident proved to
-everyone that he bore a charmed life.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Governor was once leaving a party; and, just as
-his carriage started, a careless driver, in charge of a small
-sledge, drove into him, striking the traces between the
-wheelers and leaders. There was a block for a moment,
-but the Governor was not prevented from driving home
-in perfect comfort. Next day he said to the inspector:
-“Do you know whose coachman ran into me last night?
-He must be taught better.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“That coachman will not do it again, Your Excellency,”
-answered the inspector with a smile; “I have made him
-smart properly for it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>“Whose coachman was it?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Councillor Kulakov’s, Your Excellency.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At that moment the old Councillor, whom I found at
-Vyatka and left there still holding the same office, came
-into the room.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You must excuse us,” said the Governor, “for giving
-a lesson to your coachman yesterday.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Councillor, quite in the dark, looked puzzled.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“He drove into my carriage yesterday. Well, you understand,
-if he did it to <i>me</i>, then ...”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But, Your Excellency, my wife and I spent the evening
-at home, and the coachman was not out at all.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What’s the meaning of this?” asked the Governor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But the inspector was not taken aback.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The fact is, Your Excellency, I had such a press of
-business yesterday that I quite forgot about the coachman.
-But I confess I did not venture to mention to Your
-Excellency that I had forgotten. I meant to attend to
-his business at once.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, there’s no denying that you are the right man in
-the right place!” said the Governor.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Side by side with this bird of prey I shall place the portrait
-of a very different kind of official—a mild and sympathetic
-creature, a real sucking dove.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Among my acquaintance at Vyatka was an old gentleman
-who had been dismissed from the service as inspector
-of rural police. He now drew up petitions and managed
-lawsuits for other people—a profession which he had been
-expressly forbidden to adopt. He had entered the service
-in the year one, had robbed and squeezed and blackmailed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>in three provinces, and had twice figured in the dock. This
-veteran liked to tell surprising stories of what he and his
-contemporaries had done; and he did not conceal his contempt
-for the degenerate successors who now filled their
-places.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Oh, they’re mere bunglers,” he used to say. “Of course
-they take bribes, or they couldn’t live; but as for dexterity
-or knowledge of the law, you needn’t expect anything
-of the kind from them. Just to give you an idea, let
-me tell you of a friend of mine who was a judge for twenty
-years and died twelve months ago. He was a genius! The
-peasants revere his memory, and he left a trifle to his
-family too. His method was all his own. If a peasant came
-with a petition, the Judge would admit him at once and
-be very friendly and cheerful.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Well, my friend, tell me your name and your father’s
-name, too.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The peasant bows—‘Yermolai is my name, <i>bátyushka</i>,
-and my father’s name was Grigóri.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Well, how are you, Yermolai Grigorevitch, and where
-do you come from?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘I live at Dubilov.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘I know, I know—those mills on the right hand of
-the high road are yours, I suppose?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Just so, <i>bátyushka</i>, the mills belong to our village.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘A prosperous village, too—good land—black soil.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘We have no reason to murmur against Heaven, Your
-Worship.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Well, that’s right. I dare say you have a good large
-family, Yermolai Grigorevitch?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Three sons and two daughters, Your Worship, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>my eldest daughter’s husband has lived in our house these
-five years.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘And I dare say there are some grandchildren by this
-time?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Indeed there are, Your Worship—a few of them too.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘And thank God for it! He told us to increase and
-multiply. Well, you’ve come a long way, Yermolai Grigorevitch;
-will you drink a glass of brandy with me?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The visitor seems doubtful. The Judge fills the glass,
-saying:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Come, come, friend—the holy fathers have not forbidden
-us the use of wine and oil on this day.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘It is true that we are allowed it, but strong drink
-brings a man to all bad fortune.’ Thereupon he crosses
-himself, bows to his host, and drinks the dram.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Now, with a family like that, Grigorevitch, you must
-find it hard to feed and clothe them all. One horse and
-one cow would never do for you—you would run short
-of milk for such a number.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘One horse, <i>bátyushka</i>! That wouldn’t do at all. I’ve
-three, and I had a fourth, a roan, but it died in St. Peter’s
-Fast; it was bewitched; our carpenter Doroféi hates to
-see others prosper, and he has the evil eye.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Well, that does happen sometimes. But you have
-good pasture there, and I dare say you keep sheep.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Yes, we have some sheep.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Dear me, we have had quite a long chat, Yermolai
-Grigorevitch. I must be off to Court now—the Tsar’s
-service, as you know. Have you any little business to ask
-me about, I wonder?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Indeed I have, Your Worship.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>“‘Well, what is it? Have you been doing something
-foolish? Be quick and tell me, because I must be starting.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘This is it, Your Honour. Misfortune has come upon
-me in my old age, and I trust to you. It was Assumption
-Day; we were in the public-house, and I had words with
-a man from another village—a nasty fellow he is, who
-steals our wood. Well, we had some words, and then he
-raised his fist and struck me on the breast. “Don’t you
-use your fists off your own dunghill,” said I; and I wanted
-to teach him a lesson, so I gave him a tap. Now, whether
-it was the drink or the work of the Evil One, my fist went
-straight into his eye, and the eye was damaged. He went
-at once to the police—“I’ll have the law of him,” says
-he.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“During this narrative the Judge—a fig for your
-Petersburg actors!—becomes more and more solemn; the
-expression of his eyes becomes alarming; he says not a
-word.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The peasant sees this and changes colour; he puts his
-hat down on the ground and takes out a handkerchief to
-wipe the sweat off his brow. The Judge turns over the
-leaves of a book and still keeps silence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘That is why I have come to see you, <i>bátyushka</i>,’
-the peasant says in a strained voice.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘What can I do in such a case? It’s a bad business!
-What made you hit him in the eye?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘What indeed, <i>bátyushka</i>! It was the enemy led me
-astray.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Sad, very sad! Such a thing to ruin a whole family!
-How can they get on without you—all young, and the
-grandchildren mere infants! A sad thing for your wife,
-too, in her old age!’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>“The man’s legs begin to tremble. ‘Does Your Honour
-think it’s as bad as all that?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Take the book and read the act yourself. But perhaps
-you can’t read? Here is the article dealing with
-injuries to the person—“shall first be flogged and then
-banished to Siberia.”’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Oh, save a man from ruin, save a fellow-Christian
-from destruction! Is it impossible ...’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘But, my good man, we can’t go against the law. So
-far as it’s in our hands, we might perhaps lower the thirty
-strokes to five or so.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘But about Siberia?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Oh, there we’re powerless, my friend.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The peasant at this point produces a purse, takes a
-paper out of the purse and two or three gold pieces out
-of the paper; with a low bow he places them on the table.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘What’s all that, Yermolai Grigorevitch?’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Save me, <i>bátyushka</i>!’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘No more of that! I have my weak side and I take a
-present at times; my salary is small and I have to do it.
-But if I do, I like to give something in return; and what
-can I do for you? If only it had been a rib or a tooth! But
-the eye! Take your money back.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The peasant is dumbfounded.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘There is just one possibility: I might speak to the
-other judges and write a line to the county town. The
-matter will probably go to the court there, and I have
-friends there who will do all they can. But they’re men
-of a different kidney, and three yellow-boys will not go
-far in that quarter.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The peasant recovers a little.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>“‘<i>I</i> don’t want anything—I’m sorry for your family;
-but it’s no use offering <i>them</i> less than 400 <i>roubles</i>.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘Four hundred <i>roubles</i>! How on earth can I get such
-a mint of money as that, in these times? It’s quite beyond
-me, I swear.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“‘It’s not easy, I agree. We can lessen the flogging; the
-man’s sorry, we shall say, and he was not sober at the
-time. People <i>do</i> live in Siberia, after all; and it’s not so
-very far from here. Of course, you might manage it by
-selling a pair of horses and one of the cows and the sheep.
-But you would have to work many years to replace all
-that stock; and if you don’t pay up, your horses will be
-left all right but you’ll be off on the long tramp yourself.
-Think it over, Grigorevitch; no hurry; we’ll do nothing
-till to-morrow; but I must be going now.’ And the Judge
-pockets the coins he had refused, saying, ‘It’s quite unnecessary—I
-only take it to spare your feelings.’</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Next day, an old Jew turns up at the Judge’s house,
-lugging a bag that contains 350 <i>roubles</i> in coinage of all
-dates.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The Judge promises his assistance. The peasant is
-tried, and tried over again, and well frightened; then he
-gets off with a light sentence, or a caution to be more
-prudent in future, or a note against his name as a suspicious
-character. And the peasant for the rest of his life
-prays that God will reward the Judge for his kindness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, that’s a specimen of the neat way they used to
-do it”—so the retired inspector used to wind up his story.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In Vyatka the Russian tillers of the soil are fairly independent,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>and get a bad name in consequence from the
-officials, as unruly and discontented. But the Finnish
-natives, poor, timid, stupid people, are a regular gold-mine
-to the rural police. The inspectors pay the governors twice
-the usual sum when they are appointed to districts where
-the Finns live.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The tricks which the authorities play on these poor
-wretches are beyond belief.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>If the land-surveyor is travelling on business and passes
-a native village, he never fails to stop there. He takes the
-theodolite off his cart, drives in a post and pulls out his
-chain. In an hour the whole village is in a ferment. “The
-land-measurer! the land-measurer!” they cry, just as they
-used to cry, “The French! the French!” in the year ’12.
-The elders come to pay their respects: the surveyor goes
-on measuring and making notes. They ask him not to
-cheat them out of their land, and he demands twenty or
-thirty <i>roubles</i>. They are glad to give it and collect the
-money; and he drives on to the next village of natives.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Again, if the police find a dead body, they drag it about
-for a fortnight—the frost makes this possible—through
-the Finnish villages. In each village they declare that they
-have just found the corpse and mean to start an inquest;
-and the people pay blackmail.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Some years before I went to Vyatka, a rural inspector,
-a famous blackmailer, brought a dead body in a cart into
-a large village of Russian settlers, and demanded, I think,
-200 <i>roubles</i>. The village elder consulted the community;
-but they would not go beyond one hundred. The inspector
-would not lower his price. The peasants got angry: they
-shut him up with his two clerks in the police-office and
-threatened, in their turn, to burn them alive. The inspector
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>did not take them seriously. The peasants piled straw
-around the house; then, by way of ultimatum, they held
-up a hundred-<i>rouble</i> note on a pole in front of the window.
-The hero inside asked for a hundred more. Thereupon
-the peasants fired the straw at all four corners, and all
-the three Mucius Scaevolas of the rural police were burnt
-to death. At a later time this matter came before the Supreme
-Court.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These native settlements are in general much less thriving
-than the Russian villages.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“You don’t seem well off, friend,” I said to the native
-owner of a hut where I was waiting for fresh horses; it
-was a wretched, smoky, lop-sided cabin, with windows
-looking over the yard at the back.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What can we do, <i>bátyushka</i>? We are poor, and keep
-our money for a rainy day.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A rainy day? It looks to me as if you’d got it already.
-But drink that for comfort”—and I filled a glass with rum.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“We don’t drink,” said the Finn, with a greedy look at
-the glass and a suspicious look at me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Come, come, you’d better take it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, drink first yourself.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I drank, and then he followed my example. “What are
-you doing?” he asked. “Have you come on business from
-Vyatka?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No,” I answered; “I’m a traveller on my way there.”
-He was considerably relieved to hear this; he looked all
-round, and added by way of explanation, “The rainy day
-is when the inspector or the priest comes here.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I should like to say something here about the latter of
-these personages.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>Of the Finnish population some accepted Christianity
-before Peter’s reign, others were baptised in the time of
-Elizabeth,<a id='r101' /><a href='#f101' class='c016'><sup>[101]</sup></a> and others have remained heathen. Most of
-those who changed their religion under Elizabeth are still
-secretly attached to their own dismal and savage faith.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f101'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r101'>101</a>. </span>Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, reigned from 1741
-to 1762.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Every two or three years the police-inspector and the
-priest make a tour of the villages, to find out which of
-the natives have not fasted in Lent, and to enquire the
-reasons. The recusants are harried and imprisoned, flogged
-and fined. But the visitors search especially for some proof
-that the old heathen rites are still kept up. In that case,
-there is a real ‘rainy day’—the detective and the missionary
-raise a storm and exact heavy blackmail; then they
-go away, leaving all as it was before, to repeat their visit
-in a year or two.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the year 1835 the Holy Synod thought it necessary
-to convert the heathen Cheremisses to Orthodoxy. Archbishop
-Philaret nominated an active priest named Kurbanovski
-as missionary. Kurbanovski, a man eaten up by
-the Russian disease of ambition, set to work with fiery
-zeal. He tried preaching at first, but soon grew tired of it;
-and, in point of fact, not much is to be done by that
-ancient method.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Cheremisses, when they heard of this, sent their
-own priests to meet the missionary. These fanatics were
-ingenious savages: after long discussions, they said to
-him: “The forest contains not only silver birches and tall
-pines but also the little juniper. God permits them all to
-grow and does not bid the juniper be a pine tree. We men
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>are like the trees of the forest. Be you the silver birches,
-and let us remain the juniper. We don’t interfere with you,
-we pray for the Tsar, pay our dues, and provide recruits
-for the Army; but we are not willing to be false to our
-religion.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Kurbanovski saw that they could not agree, and that
-he was not fated to play the part of Cyril and Methodius.<a id='r102' /><a href='#f102' class='c016'><sup>[102]</sup></a>
-He had recourse to the secular arm; and the local police-inspector
-was delighted—he had long wished to show his
-zeal for the church; he was himself an unbaptised Tatar,
-a true believer in the Koran, and his name was Devlet
-Kildéyev.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f102'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r102'>102</a>. </span>In the ninth century Cyril and his brother Methodius, two
-Greek monks of Salonica, introduced Christianity among the Slavs. They
-invented the Russian alphabet.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>He took a detachment of his men and proceeded to
-besiege the Cheremisses. Several villages were baptised.
-Kurbanovski sang the <i>Te Deum</i> in church and went back
-to Moscow, to receive with humility the velvet cap for
-good service; and the Government sent the Vladímir Cross
-to the Tatar.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But there was an unfortunate misunderstanding between
-the Tatar missionary and the local mullah. The
-mullah was greatly displeased when this believer in the
-Koran took to preaching the Gospel and succeeded so
-well. During Ramadan, the inspector boldly put on his
-cross and appeared in the mosque wearing it; he took a
-front place, as a matter of course. The mullah had just
-begun to chant the Koran through his nose, when he suddenly
-stopped and said that he dared not go on, in the
-presence of a true believer who had come to the mosque
-wearing a Christian emblem.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>The congregation protested; and the discomfited inspector
-was forced to put his cross in his pocket.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I read afterwards in the archives of the Home Office
-an account of this brilliant conversion of the Cheremisses.
-The writer mentioned the zealous cooperation of Devlet
-Kildéyev, but unfortunately forgot to add that his zeal
-for the Church was the more disinterested because of his
-firm belief in the truth of Islam.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Before I left Vyatka, the Department of Imperial Domains
-was committing such impudent thefts that a commission
-of enquiry was appointed; and this commission
-sent out inspectors into all the provinces. A new system
-of control over the Crown tenants was introduced after
-that time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Our Governor at that time was Kornilov; he had to
-nominate two subordinates to assist the inspectors, and
-I was one of the two. I had to read a multitude of documents,
-sometimes with pain, sometimes with amusement,
-sometimes with disgust. The very headings of the subjects
-for investigation struck me with astonishment—</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>(1) <i>The loss and total disappearance of a police-station,
-and the destruction of the plan by the gnawing of
-mice.</i></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>(2) <i>The loss of twelve miles of arable land.</i></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>(3) <i>The transference of the peasant’s son Vasili to
-the female sex.</i></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The last item was so remarkable that I read the details
-at once from beginning to end.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was a petition to the Governor from the father
-of the child. The petitioner stated that fifteen years ago
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>a daughter had been born to him, whom he wished to call
-Vasilissa; but the priest, not being sober, christened the
-girl Vasili, and entered the name thus on the register.
-This fact apparently caused little disturbance to the
-father; but when he found he would soon be required to
-provide a recruit for the Army and pay the poll-tax for
-the child, he informed the police. The police were much
-puzzled. They began by refusing to act, on the ground
-that he ought to have applied earlier. The father then
-went to the Governor, and the Governor ordered that this
-boy of the female sex should be formally examined by a
-doctor and a midwife. But at this point, matters were
-complicated by a correspondence with the ecclesiastical
-authorities; and the parish priest, whose predecessor,
-under the influence of drink, had been too prudish to
-recognise differences of sex, now appeared on the scene;
-the matter went on for years, and I rather think the girl
-was never cleared of the suspicion of being a boy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The reader is not to suppose that this absurd story is
-a mere humorous invention of mine.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>During the Emperor Paul’s reign a colonel of the
-Guards, making his monthly report, returned as dead an
-officer who had gone to the hospital; and the Tsar struck
-his name off the lists. But unfortunately the officer did
-not die; he recovered instead. The colonel induced him
-to return to his estates for a year or two, hoping to find
-an opportunity of putting matters straight; and the officer
-agreed. But his heirs, having read of his death in the
-Gazette, positively refused to recognise him as still alive;
-though inconsolable for their loss, they insisted upon their
-right of succession. The living corpse, whom the Gazette
-had killed once, found that he was likely to die over
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>again, by starvation this time. So he travelled to Petersburg
-and handed in a petition to the Tsar.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This beats even my story of the girl who was also a
-boy.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>It is a miry slough, this account of our provincial administration;
-yet I shall add a few words more. This
-publicity is the last paltry compensation to those who
-suffered unheard and unpitied.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Government is very ready to reward high officials with
-grants of unoccupied land. There is no great harm in
-that, though it might be wiser to keep it for the needs of
-an increasing population. The rules governing such allotments
-of land are rather detailed; it is illegal to grant the
-banks of a navigable river, or wood fit for building purposes,
-or both sides of a river; and finally, land reclaimed
-by peasants may in no case be taken from them, even
-though the peasants have no title to the land except prescription.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>All this is very well, on paper; but in fact this allotment
-of land to individuals is a terrible instrument by
-which the Crown is robbed and the peasants oppressed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Most of the magnates to whom the leases are granted
-either sell their rights to merchants, or try, by means of
-the provincial authorities, to secure some privileges contrary
-to the rules. Thus it happened, by mere chance, of
-course, that Count Orlóv himself got possession of the
-road and pastures used by droves of cattle in the Government
-of Saratov.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>No wonder, then, that the peasants of a certain district
-in Vyatka were deprived one fine morning of all their
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>land, right up to their houses and farmyards, the soil
-having passed into the possession of some merchants who
-had bought the lease from a relation of Count Kankrin.<a id='r103' /><a href='#f103' class='c016'><sup>[103]</sup></a>
-The merchants next put a rent on the land. The law was
-appealed to. The Crown Court, being bribed by the merchants
-and fearing a great man’s cousin, put a spoke in
-the wheel; but the peasants, determined to go on to the
-bitter end, chose two shrewd men from among themselves
-and sent them off to Petersburg. The matter now came
-before the Supreme Court. The judges suspected that the
-peasants were in the right; but they were puzzled how
-to act, and consulted Kankrin. That nobleman admitted
-frankly that the land had been taken away unjustly; but
-he thought there would be difficulty in restoring it, because
-it <i>might</i> have been re-sold since, and because the
-new owners <i>might</i> have made some improvements. He
-therefore suggested that advantage should be taken of
-the vast extent of the Crown lands, and that the same
-quantity of land should be granted to the peasants, but
-in another district. This solution pleased everyone except
-the peasants: in the first place, it was no trifle to reclaim
-fresh land; and, in the second place, the land offered them
-turned out to be a bog. As the peasants were more interested
-in growing corn than in shooting snipe, they sent
-in a fresh petition.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f103'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r103'>103</a>. </span>Count Kankrin (1774-1845) was Minister of Finance from
-1823 till his death. He carried through some important reforms in the
-currency.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Crown Court and the Treasury then treated this
-as a fresh case. They discovered a law which provided
-that, in cases where unsuitable land had been allotted, the
-grant should not be cancelled but an addition of 50 per
-cent should be made; they therefore directed that the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>peasants should get half a bog in addition to the bog they
-had been given already.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The peasants sent in a third petition to the Supreme
-Court. But, before this was discussed, the Board of Agriculture
-sent them plans of their new land, duly bound
-and coloured; with a neat diagram of the points of the
-compass arranged in a star, and suitable explanations of
-the rhombus R R Z and the rhombus Z Z R, and, above
-all, with a demand for a fixed payment per acre. When the
-peasants saw that, far from getting back their good land,
-they were to be charged money for their bog, they flatly
-refused to pay.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The rural inspector informed the Governor of this; and
-the Governor sent troops under the command of the town
-inspector of Vyatka. The latter went to the spot, arrested
-several men and beat them, restored order in the district,
-took money, handed over the ‘guilty’ to the Criminal
-Court, and was hoarse for a week after, owing to the
-strain on his voice. Several of the offenders were sentenced
-to flogging and banishment.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Two years afterwards, when the Crown Prince was
-passing through the district, these peasants presented a
-petition, and he ordered the matter to be examined. It
-was at this point that I had to draw up a report of all the
-proceedings. Whether anything sensible was done in consequence
-of this fresh investigation, I do not know. I have
-heard that the exiles were restored, but I never heard that
-the land had been given back.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In the next place I shall refer to the famous episode of
-the “potato-rebellion.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>In Russia, as formerly throughout Europe, the peasants
-were unwilling to grow potatoes, from an instinctive feeling
-that potatoes are poor food and not productive of
-health and strength. Model landlords, however, and many
-Crown settlements used to grow these tubers long before
-the “potato revolt.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the Government of Kazán and part of Vyatka, the
-people had grown a crop of potatoes. When the tubers
-were taken up, it occurred to the Board of Agriculture
-to start communal pits for storing them. The pits were
-authorised, ordered, and constructed; and in the beginning
-of winter the peasants, with many misgivings, carted
-their potatoes to the communal pits. But they positively
-refused, when they were required in the spring to plant
-these same potatoes in a frozen condition. What, indeed,
-can be more insulting to labouring men than to bid them
-do what is obviously absurd? But their protest was represented
-as a rebellion. The minister despatched an official
-from Petersburg; and this intelligent and practical
-man excused the farmers of the first district he visited from
-planting the frozen potatoes, and charged for this dispensation
-one <i>rouble</i> per head. He repeated this operation in
-two other districts; but the men of the fourth district
-flatly refused either to plant the potatoes or to pay the
-money. “You have excused the others,” they said; “you
-are clearly bound to let us off too.” The official then tried
-to end the business by threats and corporal punishment;
-but the peasants armed themselves with poles and routed
-the police. The Governor sent a force of Cossacks to the
-spot; and the neighbouring districts backed up the rebels.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is enough to say that cannon roared and rifles cracked
-before the affair was over. The peasants took to the woods
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>and were routed out of their covert like wild animals by
-the Cossacks. They were caught, chained, and sent to
-Kosmodemyansk to be tried by court-martial.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By a strange chance there was a simple, honest man, an
-old major of militia, serving on the court-martial; and
-he ventured to say that the official from Petersburg was
-to blame for all that had happened. But everyone promptly
-fell on the top of him and squashed him and suppressed
-him; they tried to frighten him and said he ought to be
-ashamed of his attempt “to ruin an innocent man.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The enquiry went on just as enquiries do in Russia:
-the peasants were flogged on examination, flogged as a
-punishment, flogged as an example, and flogged to get
-money out of them; and then a number of them were
-exiled to Siberia.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is worthy of remark that the Minister passed through
-Kosmodemyansk during the trial. One thinks he might
-have looked in at the court-martial himself or summoned
-the dangerous major to an interview. He did nothing of
-the kind.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The famous Turgot,<a id='r104' /><a href='#f104' class='c016'><sup>[104]</sup></a> knowing how unpopular the potato
-was in France, distributed seed-potatoes to a number
-of dealers and persons in Government employ, with strict
-orders that the peasants were to have none. But at the
-same time he let them know privately that the peasants
-were not to be prevented from helping themselves. The
-result was that in a few years potatoes were grown all
-over the country.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f104'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r104'>104</a>. </span>Turgot (1727-1781) was one of the Ministers of Finance
-under Louis XVI.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>All things considered, this seems to me a better method
-than the cannon-ball plan.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§14</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>In the year 1836 a strolling tribe of gipsies came to
-Vyatka and encamped there. These people wandered at
-times as far as Tobolsk and Irbit, carrying on from time
-immemorial their roving life of freedom, accompanied of
-course by a bear that had been taught to dance and children
-that had been taught nothing; they lived by doctoring
-horses, telling fortunes, and petty theft. At Vyatka
-they went on singing their songs and stealing chickens,
-till the Governor suddenly received instructions, that, if
-the gipsies turned out to have no passports—no gipsy
-was ever known to possess one—a certain interval should
-be allowed them, within which they must register themselves
-as members of the village communities where they
-happened to be at the time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>If they failed to do so by the date mentioned, then all
-who were fit for military service were to be sent to the
-colours, the rest to be banished from the country, and
-all their male children to be taken from them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Tufáyev himself was taken aback by this decree. He
-gave notice of it to the gipsies, but he reported to Petersburg
-that it could not be complied with. The registration
-would cost money; the consent of the communities must
-be obtained, and they would want money for admitting
-the gipsies. After taking everything into consideration,
-Tufáyev proposed to the Minister—and he must get due
-credit for the proposal—that the gipsies should be treated
-leniently and given an extension of time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In reply the Minister ordered him to carry out the
-original instructions when the time had expired. The Governor
-hardened his heart and sent a detachment to surround
-the gipsy encampment; when that was done, the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>police brought up a militia battalion, and scenes that
-beggar description are said to have followed—women,
-with their hair flying loose, ran frantically to and fro,
-shrieking and sobbing, while white-haired old women
-clutched hold of their sons. But order triumphed, and the
-police-inspector secured all the boys and the recruits, and
-the rest were marched off by stages to their place of exile.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But a question now arose: where were the kidnapped
-children to be put, and at whose cost were they to be maintained?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In former days there had been schools for foundlings
-which cost the Crown nothing; but these had been abolished,
-as productive of immorality. The Governor advanced
-the money from his own pocket and consulted
-the Minister. The Minister replied that, until further
-orders, the children were to be looked after by the old
-people in the alms-house.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To make little children live with dying old men and
-women, and to force them to breathe the atmosphere of
-death; and on the other hand, to force the aged and
-worn-out to look after the children for nothing—that was
-a real inspiration!</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>While I am on this subject, I shall tell here the story
-of what happened eighteen months later to a bailiff of
-my father’s. Though a peasant, he was a man of intelligence
-and experience; he had several teams of his own
-which he hired out, and he served for twenty years as
-bailiff of a small detached village.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the year which I spent at Vladímir, he was asked
-by the people of a neighbouring village to supply a substitute
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>as a recruit for the Army; and he turned up in the
-town with the future defender of his country at the end
-of a rope. He seemed perfectly self-confident and sure
-of success.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes, <i>bátyushka</i>,” he said to me, combing with his
-fingers his thick brown beard with some grey in it, “it all
-depends on how you manage these things. We put forward
-a lad two years ago, but he was a very poor miserable
-specimen, and the men were very much afraid that he
-would not do. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you must begin by collecting
-some money—the wheel won’t go round unless you
-grease it!’ So we had a talk together, and the village produced
-twenty-five gold pieces. I drove into the town, had
-a talk with the people in the Crown Court, and then went
-straight to the President’s house—a clever man, <i>bátyushka</i>,
-and an old acquaintance of mine. He had me
-taken into his study, where he was lying on the sofa with
-a bad leg. I put the facts before him. He laughed and said,
-‘All right, all right! But you tell me how many of <i>them</i>
-you have brought with you; for I know what an old skin-flint
-you are.’ I put ten gold pieces on the table with a
-low bow. He took them up and played with them. ‘Well,’
-says he, ‘I’m not the only person who expects payment;
-have you brought any more?’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘we can go
-as far as ten more.’ ‘You can count for yourself,’ says he,
-‘where they are to go to: the doctor will want a couple,
-and the inspector of recruits another couple, and the clerk—I
-don’t think more than three will be needed in that
-quarter; but you had better give me the lot, and I’ll try
-to arrange it for you.’”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, did you give it?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>“Certainly I did; and the man was passed for the Army
-all right.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Enlightened by this method of rounding off accounts,
-and attracted probably by the five gold pieces to whose
-ultimate destination he had made no allusion, the bailiff
-was sure of success this time also. But there is many a
-slip between the bribe and the palm that closes on it. Count
-Essen, an Imperial <i>aide-de-camp</i>, was sent to Vladímir to
-inspect the recruits. The bailiff, with his golden arguments
-in his pocket, found his way into the presence of the
-Count. But unfortunately the Count was no true Russian,
-but a son of the Baltic provinces which teach German devotion
-towards the Russian Tsar. He got angry, raised
-his voice, and, worse than all, rang his bell; in ran a secretary,
-and police-officers on the top of him. The bailiff,
-who had never dreamed of the existence of a man in uniform
-who would refuse a bribe, lost his head altogether;
-instead of holding his tongue, he swore by all his gods that
-he had never offered money, and wished that his eyes
-might fall out and he might die of thirst, if he had ever
-thought of such a thing. Helpless as a sheep, he was taken
-off to the police-station, where he probably repented of
-his folly in insulting a high officer by offering him so
-little.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Essen was not content with his own clear conscience
-nor with having given the man a fright. He probably
-wished to lay the axe to the tree of Russian corruption, to
-punish vice, and to make a salutary example. He therefore
-reported the bailiff’s nefarious attempt to the police,
-the Governor, and the Recruiting Office. The offender was
-put in prison and ordered to be tried. Thanks to the absurd
-law, which is equally severe on the honest man who
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>gives a bribe and the official who pockets it, the affair
-looked bad, and I resolved at all costs to save the bailiff.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I went at once to the Governor, but he refused to interfere.
-The President and Councillors of the Criminal Court
-shook their heads: the <i>aide-de-camp</i> was interested in the
-case, and that frightened them. I went to Count Essen
-himself, and he was very gracious—he had no wish that
-the bailiff should suffer, but thought he needed a lesson:
-“Let him be tried and acquitted,” he said. When I repeated
-this to the inspector of police, he remarked: “The fact
-is, these gentlemen don’t understand business. If the
-Count had simply sent him to me, I should have warmed
-the fool’s back for walking into a river without asking
-if there was a ford; then I should have sent him about
-his business, and all parties would have been satisfied.
-But the court complicates matters.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have never forgotten what the Count said and what
-the inspector said: they expressed so neatly and clearly
-the view of justice entertained in the Russian Empire.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Between these Pillars of Hercules of our national jurisprudence,
-the bailiff had fallen into the deep water, in
-other words, into the Criminal Court. A few months later
-the court came to a decision: the criminal was to be flogged
-and then banished to Siberia. His son and all his relations
-came to me, begging me to save the father and head of
-the family. I felt intense pity myself for the sufferer, who
-was perfectly innocent. I called again on the President
-and Councillors; again I tried to prove that they were
-injuring themselves by punishing this man so severely.
-“You know very well yourselves,” I said, “that no lawsuit
-is ever settled without bribes; and you will starve
-yourselves, unless you take the truly Christian view that
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>every gift is good and perfect.”<a id='r105' /><a href='#f105' class='c016'><sup>[105]</sup></a> By begging and bowing
-and sending the bailiff’s son to bow still lower, I attained
-half of my object. The man was condemned to suffer a
-certain number of lashes within the prison walls, but he
-was not exiled; and he was forbidden to undertake any
-business of the kind in future for other peasants.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f105'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r105'>105</a>. </span>There is a reference to the Epistle of James, i. 17.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>When I found that the Governor and state-attorney had
-confirmed this remission, I went off to beg the police that
-the flogging might be lightened; and they, partly flattered
-by this personal appeal, and partly pitying a martyr in
-a cause so near to their own hearts, and also because they
-knew the man was well-to-do, promised me that the punishment
-should be merely nominal.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A few days later the bailiff came to my house one morning;
-he looked thin, and there was more grey in his beard.
-For all his joy, I soon perceived that he had something
-on his mind.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What’s troubling you?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, I wish I could get it all over at once.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I don’t understand you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What I mean is—when will the flogging be?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But haven’t you been flogged?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But they’ve let you out, and I suppose you’re going
-home.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Home? Yes, I’m going home, but I keep thinking about
-the flogging; the secretary spoke of it, I am sure I heard
-him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was really quite puzzled. At last I asked him if he
-had a written discharge of any kind. He handed it to me.
-I read there the original sentence at full length, and then
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>a postscript, that he was to be flogged within the prison
-walls by sentence of the court and then to be discharged,
-in possession of this certificate.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I burst out laughing. “You see, you’ve been flogged
-already.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No, <i>bátyushka</i>, I’ve not.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Well, if you’re not content, go back and ask them to
-flog you; perhaps the police will take pity upon you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Seeing me laugh, he too smiled, but he shook his head
-doubtfully and said, “It’s a very queer business.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A very irregular business, many will say; but let them
-reflect that it is this kind of irregularity alone which makes
-life possible in Russia.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER IX</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>Alexander Vitberg.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>IN the midst of all this ugliness and squalor, these
-petty and repulsive persons and scenes, in this world
-of chicanery and red tape, I recall the sad and noble
-figure of a great artist.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I lived at his side for two years and a half and saw
-this strong man breaking up under the pressure of persecution
-and misfortune.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Nor can it be said that he succumbed without a protest;
-for ten long years he struggled desperately. When he
-went into exile, he still hoped to conquer his enemies
-and right himself; in fact, he was still eager for the conflict,
-still full of projects and expedients. But at Vyatka
-he saw that all was over.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He might have accepted this discovery but for the wife
-and children at his side, and the prospect of long years
-of exile, poverty, and privation; he grew greyer and older,
-not day by day, but hour by hour. I was two years at
-Vyatka, and when I left, he was ten years older than when
-I came.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Let me tell the story of this long martyrdom.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Emperor Alexander could not believe in his victory
-over Napoleon. Glory was a burden to him, and he quite
-sincerely gave it to God’s name instead. Always inclined
-to mysticism and despondency, he was more than ever
-haunted by these feelings after his repeated victories over
-Napoleon.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the last soldier of the French army had retreated
-over the frontier, Alexander published a manifesto, in
-which he took a vow to erect a great cathedral at Moscow,
-dedicated to the Saviour.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Plans for this church were invited from all quarters,
-and there was a great competition of artists.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alexander Vitberg was then a young man; he had been
-trained in the art schools at Petersburg and had gained
-the gold medal for painting. Of Swedish descent, he was
-born in Russia and received his early education in the
-School of Mines. He was a passionate lover of art, with a
-tendency to eccentricity and mysticism. He read the Emperor’s
-manifesto and the invitation for designs, and at
-once gave up all his former occupations. Day and night
-he wandered about the streets of Petersburg, tormented
-by a fixed idea which he was powerless to banish. He
-shut himself up in his room, took his pencil, and began to
-work.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The artist took no one into his confidence. After working
-for several months, he travelled to Moscow, where he
-studied the city and its surroundings. Then he set to work
-again, hiding himself from all eyes for months at a time,
-and hiding his drawings also.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The time came for the competition. Many plans were
-sent in, plans from Italy and from Germany, and our own
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>academicians sent in theirs. The design of this unknown
-youth took its place among the rest. Some weeks passed
-before the Emperor examined the plans, and these weeks
-were the Forty Days in the Wilderness, days of temptation
-and doubt and painful anxiety.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Emperor was struck by Vitberg’s design, which
-was on a colossal scale and remarkable for religious and
-artistic feeling. He stopped first in front of it and asked
-who had sent it in. The envelope was opened; the name
-inside was that of an unknown student of the Academy.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alexander sent for Vitberg and had a long conversation
-with him. He was impressed by the artist’s confident and
-animated speech, the real inspiration which filled him,
-and the mystical turn of his convictions. “You speak in
-stone,” the Emperor said, as he looked through the plans
-again.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The plans were approved that very day; Vitberg was
-appointed architect of the cathedral and president of the
-building committee. Alexander was not aware that there
-were thorns beneath the crown of laurels which he placed
-on the artist’s head.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture.
-Abstract, geometrical, musical and yet dumb, passionless,
-it depends entirely upon symbolism, form, suggestion.
-Simple lines, and the harmonious combination and numerical
-relations between these, present something mysterious
-and at the same time incomplete. A building, a
-temple, does not comprise its object within itself; it differs
-in this respect from a statue or a picture, a poem or a
-symphony. The building needs an inhabitant; in itself it
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>is a prepared space, a setting, like the shell of a tortoise
-or marine creature; and the essential thing is just this,
-that the outer case should fit the spirit and the inhabitant,
-as closely as the shell fits the tortoise. The walls of the
-temple, its vaults and pillars, its main entrance, its foundations
-and cupola, should all reflect the deity that dwells
-within, just as the bones of the skull correspond exactly
-to the convolutions of the brain.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To the Egyptians their temples were sacred books, their
-obelisks were sermons by the high road.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Solomon’s temple is the Bible in stone; and so St.
-Peter’s at Rome is the transition, in stone, from Catholicism
-to a kingdom of this world, the first stage of our
-liberation from monastic fetters.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The mere construction of temples was at all times accompanied
-by so many mystical rites, allegoric ceremonies,
-and solemn consecrations, that the medieval builders
-ranked themselves as a kind of religious order, as successors
-to the builders of Solomon’s temple; and they formed
-themselves into secret companies, of which freemasonry
-was a later development.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Renaissance robbed architecture of this essentially
-mystical note. The Christian faith began to contend with
-scepticism, the Gothic spire with the Greek façade, religious
-sanctity with worldly beauty. This is why St. Peter’s
-at Rome is so significant; in that colossal erection Christianity
-is struggling to come alive, the Church turns pagan,
-and Michael Angelo uses the walls of the Sistine Chapel
-to depict Jesus Christ as a brawny athlete, a Hercules in
-the flower of youth and strength.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After this date church architecture fell into utter decadence,
-till it became a mere reproduction, in varying proportions,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>either of St. Peter’s or of ancient Greek temples.
-There is one Parthenon at Paris which is called the
-Church of the Madeleine, and another at New York,
-which is used as the Exchange.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Without faith and without special circumstances, it was
-hard to build anything with life about it. All modern
-churches are misfits and pretentious anachronisms, like
-those angular Gothic churches with which the English
-ornament their towns and offend every artistic eye.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But the circumstances in which Vitberg drew his plans,
-his own personality, and the Emperor’s temperament, all
-these were quite exceptional.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The war of 1812 had a profound effect upon men’s
-minds in Russia, and it was long after the liberation of
-Moscow before the general emotion and excitement subsided.
-Then foreign events, the taking of Paris, the history
-of the Hundred Days, expectations and rumours, Waterloo,
-Napoleon on board the <i>Bellerophon</i>, mourning for
-the dead and anxiety for the living, the returning armies,
-the warriors restored to their homes,—all this had a strong
-effect upon the least susceptible natures. Now imagine a
-young man, an artist and a mystic, endowed with creative
-power, and also an enthusiast spurred on by current
-events, by the Tsar’s challenge, and by his own genius.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Near Moscow, between the Mozhaisk and Kaluga
-roads, a modest eminence dominates the whole city. Those
-are the Sparrow Hills of which I spoke in my early recollections.
-They command one of the finest views of all
-Moscow. Here it was that Ivan the Terrible, still young
-and unhardened, shed tears at the sight of his capital on
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>fire; and here that the priest Silvester met him and by
-his stern rebuke changed for twenty years to come the
-nature of that monster and man of genius.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Napoleon and his army marched round these hills.
-There his strength was broken, and there his retreat
-began. What better site for a temple in memory of 1812
-than the farthest point reached by the enemy?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But this was not enough. It was Vitberg’s intention to
-convert the hill itself into the lowest part of the cathedral,
-to build a colonnade to the river, and then, on a foundation
-laid on three sides by nature herself, to erect a second
-and a third church. But all the three churches made one;
-for Vitberg’s cathedral, like the chief dogma of Christianity,
-was both triple and indivisible.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The lowest of the three churches, hewn in the rock,
-was a parallelogram in the shape of a coffin or dead body.
-All that was visible was a massive entrance supported on
-columns of almost Egyptian size; the church itself was
-hidden in the primitive unworked rock. It was lighted by
-lamps in high Etruscan candelabra; a feeble ray of daylight
-from the second church passed into it through a
-transparent picture of the Nativity. All the heroes who
-fell in 1812 were to rest in this crypt; a perpetual mass
-was to be said there for those who had fallen on the field
-of battle; and the names of them all, from the chief commanders
-to the private soldiers, were to be engraved on
-the walls.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the top of this coffin or cemetery rose the second
-church, in the form of a Greek cross with limbs of equal
-length spreading to the four quarters, a temple of life, of
-suffering, of labour. The colonnade which led up to it
-was adorned with statues of the Patriarchs and Judges.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>At the entrance were the Prophets; they stood outside
-the church, pointing out the way which they could not
-tread themselves. Inside this temple the Gospel story and
-the Acts of the Apostles were represented on the walls.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Above this building, crowning it, completing it, and
-including it, the third church was to be built in the shape
-of the Pantheon. It was brightly lighted, as the home of
-the Spirit, of unbroken peace, of eternity; and eternity
-was represented by its shape. Here there were no pictures
-or sculpture; but there was an exterior frieze representing
-the archangels, and the whole was surmounted by a
-colossal dome.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sad is my present recollection of Vitberg’s main idea;
-he had worked it out in every detail, in complete accordance
-at every point with Christian theology and architectural
-beauty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This astonishing man spent a whole lifetime over his
-conception. It was his sole occupation during the ten
-years that his trial lasted; in poverty and exile, he devoted
-several hours of each day to his cathedral. He lived in
-it; he could not believe that it would never be built; his
-whole life—his memories, his consolations, his fame—was
-wrapped up in that portfolio.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It may be that in the future, when the martyr is dead,
-some later artist may shake the dust from those leaves
-and piously give to the world that record of suffering,
-those plans over which the strong man, after his brief
-hour of glory had gone out, spent a life of darkness and
-pain.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His plan was full of genius, and startling in its extravagance;
-for this reason Alexander chose it, and for this
-reason it should have been carried out. It is said that the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>hill could never have supported such a building; but I
-do not believe it, especially in view of all the modern
-triumphs of engineering in America and England, those
-suspension-bridges and tunnels which a train takes eight
-minutes to pass through.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Milorádovitch advised Vitberg to have granite monoliths
-for the great pillars of the lowest church. Someone
-pointed out that the process of bringing these from Finland
-would be very costly. “That is the very reason why
-we should get them,” answered Milorádovitch; “if there
-were granite quarries on the Moscow River, where would
-be the wonder in erecting the pillars?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Milorádovitch was a soldier, but he understood the
-element of romance in war and in other things. Magnificent
-ends are gained by magnificent means. Nature alone
-attains to greatness without effort.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The chief accusation brought against Vitberg, even by
-those who never doubted his honesty, was this, that he
-had accepted the post of director of the works. As an
-artist without experience, and a young man ignorant of
-finance, he should have been content with his position
-as architect. This is true.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is easy to sit in one’s chair and condemn Vitberg for
-this. But he accepted the post just because he was young
-and inexperienced, because nothing seemed hard when
-once his plans had been accepted, because the Tsar himself
-offered him the post, encouraged him, and supported
-him. Whose head would not have been turned? Where
-are these sober, sensible, self-controlled people? If they
-exist, they are not capable of constructing colossal plans,
-they cannot make stones speak.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>As a matter of course, Vitberg was soon surrounded by
-a swarm of rascals, men who look on state employment
-merely as a lucky chance to line their own pockets. It is
-easy to understand that such men would undermine Vitberg
-and set traps for him; yet he might have climbed
-out of these but for something else—had not envy in
-some quarters, and injured dignity in others, been added
-to general dishonesty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There were three other members of the commission as
-well as Vitberg—the Archbishop Philaret, the Governor of
-Moscow, and Kushnikov, a Judge of the Supreme Court;
-and all three resented from the first the presence of this
-“whipper-snapper,” who actually ventured to state his
-objections and insist on his own opinions.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>They helped others to entangle and defame him, and
-then they destroyed him without a qualm.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Two events contributed to this catastrophe, the fall of
-the Minister, Prince A. N. Golitsyn, and then the death
-of Alexander.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Minister’s fall dragged Vitberg down with it. He
-felt the full weight of that disaster: the Commission complained,
-the Archbishop was offended, the Governor was
-dissatisfied. His replies were called insolent—insolence
-was one of the main charges brought against him on his
-trial—and it was said that his subordinates stole—as if
-there was a single person in the public service in Russia
-who refrains from stealing! It is possible, indeed, that
-his agents stole more than usual; for he was quite inexperienced
-in the management of reformatories or the
-detection of highly placed thieves.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alexander ordered Arakchéyev to investigate the affair.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>He himself was sorry for Vitberg and sent a message to
-say that he was convinced of the architect’s honesty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But Alexander died and Arakchéyev fell. Under
-Nicholas, Vitberg’s affair at once assumed a more threatening
-aspect. It dragged on for ten years, and the absurdity
-of the proceedings is incredible. The Supreme Court dismissed
-charges taken as proved by the Criminal Court,
-and charged him with guilt of which he had been acquitted;
-the committee of ministers found him guilty on all
-the charges; and the Emperor Nicholas added to the
-original sentence banishment to Vyatka.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>So Vitberg was banished, having been discharged from
-the public service “for abusing the confidence of the
-Emperor Alexander and for squandering the revenues of
-the Crown.” A claim was brought against him for a million
-<i>roubles</i>—I think that was the sum; all his property was
-seized and sold by auction, and a report was spread that
-he had transferred an immense sum of money to America.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I lived for two years in the same house with Vitberg and
-kept up constant relations with him till I left Vyatka. He
-had not saved even enough for his daily bread, and his
-family lived in the direst poverty.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In order to throw light on this trial and all similar trials
-in Russia, I shall add two trifling details.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Vitberg bought a forest for building material from a
-merchant named Lobanov, but, before the trees were
-felled, offered to take another forest instead which was
-nearer the river and belonged to the same owner. Lobanov
-agreed; the trees were felled and the timber floated down
-the river. More timber was needed at a later date, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>Vitberg bought the first forest over again. Hence arose
-the famous charge that he had paid twice over for the
-same timber. The unfortunate Lobanov was put in prison
-on this charge and died there.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Of the second affair I was myself an eye-witness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Vitberg bought up land with a view to his cathedral.
-His idea was that the serfs, when transferred with the
-land he had bought, should bind themselves to supply a
-fixed number of workmen to be employed on the cathedral;
-in this way they acquired complete freedom from
-all other burdens for themselves and their community.
-It is amusing to note that our judges, being also landowners,
-objected to this measure as a form of slavery!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One estate which Vitberg wished to buy belonged to
-my father. It lay on the bank of the Moscow River; stone
-had been found there, and Vitberg got leave from my
-father to make a geological inspection, in order to determine
-how much stone there was. After obtaining leave,
-Vitberg had to go off to Petersburg.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Three months later my father learned that the quarrying
-operations were being carried out on a great scale, and
-that the peasants’ cornfields were buried under blocks of
-stone. His protests were not listened to, and he went to
-law. There was a stubborn contest. The defendants tried
-at first to throw all the blame on Vitberg, but, unfortunately
-for them, it turned out that he had given no orders
-whatever, and that the Commission had done the whole
-thing during his absence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The case was referred to the Supreme Court, which
-surprised everyone by coming to a fairly reasonable decision.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>The stone which had been quarried was to belong
-to the landowner, as compensation for the injury to his
-fields; the Crown funds spent on the work were to be
-repaid, to the amount of 100,000 <i>roubles</i>, by those who
-had signed the contract for the work. The signatories were
-Prince Golitsyn, the Archbishop, and Kushnikov. Of
-course there was a great outcry, and the matter was referred
-to the Tsar.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Tsar ordered that the payment should not be
-exacted, because—as he wrote with his own hand—“the
-members of the Commission did not know what they were
-signing”! This is actually printed in the journals of the
-Supreme Court. Even if the Archbishop was bound by
-his cloth to display humility, what are we to think of the
-other two magnates who accepted the Tsar’s generosity
-under such conditions?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But where was the money to be found? Crown property,
-we are told, can neither be burnt by fire nor drowned
-in water—it can only be stolen, we might add. Without
-hesitation a general of the Staff was sent in haste to Moscow
-to clear matters up.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He did so, restored order, and settled everything in
-the course of a few days. The stone was to be taken from
-the landowner, to defray the expenses of the quarry,
-though, if the landowner wished to keep the stone, he
-might do so on payment of 100,000 <i>roubles</i>. The landowner
-was not to receive special compensation, because
-the value of his property had been increased by the discovery
-of a new source of wealth (that is really a noble
-touch!)—but a certain law of Peter the Great’s sanctioned
-the payment of so many <i>kopecks</i> an acre for the damage
-done to the peasants’ fields.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>The real sufferer was my father. It is hardly necessary
-to add that this business of the stone quarry figured after
-all among the charges brought against Vitberg at his trial.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Vitberg had been living in exile at Vyatka for two years
-when the merchants of the town determined to build a
-new church.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Their plans surprised the Tsar Nicholas when they
-were submitted to him. He confirmed them and gave
-orders to the local authorities that the builders were not
-to mar the architect’s design.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Who made these plans?” he asked of the minister.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Vitberg, Your Majesty.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Do you mean the same Vitberg?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The same man, Your Majesty.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>And so it happened that Vitberg, most unexpectedly,
-got permission to return to Moscow or Petersburg. When
-he asked leave to clear his character, it was refused; but
-when he made skilful plans for a church, the Tsar ordered
-his restoration—as if there had ever been a doubt of his
-artistic capacity!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In Petersburg, where he was starving for bread, he
-made a last attempt to defend his honour. It was a complete
-failure. He applied to Prince A. N. Golitsyn; but
-the Prince thought it impossible to open the question
-again, and advised Vitberg to address a humble petition
-for pecuniary assistance to the Crown Prince. He said
-that Zhukovski and himself would interest themselves in
-the matter, and held out hopes of a gift of 1,000 <i>roubles</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Vitberg refused.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I visited Petersburg for the last time at the beginning
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>of winter in 1846, and there I saw Vitberg. He was quite
-a wreck; even his wrath against his enemies, which I had
-admired so much in former days, had begun to cool down;
-he had ceased to hope and was making no endeavour to
-escape from his position; a calm despair was making an
-end of him; he was breaking up altogether and only waiting
-for death.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Whether the sufferer is still living, I do not know, but
-I doubt it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But for my children,” he said to me at parting, “I
-would tear myself away from Russia and beg my bread
-over the world; wearing my Cross of Vladímir, I would
-hold out calmly to the passer-by that hand which the Tsar
-Alexander grasped, and tell him of my great design and
-the fate of an artist in Russia.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Poor martyr,” thought I, “Europe shall learn your
-fate—I promise you that.”</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>My intimacy with Vitberg was a great relief to me at
-Vyatka. His serious simplicity and a certain solemnity
-of manner suggested the churchman to some extent. Strict
-in his principles, he tended in general to austerity rather
-than enjoyment; but this strictness took nothing from the
-luxuriance and richness of his artistic fancy. He could
-invest his mystical views with such lively forms and such
-beautiful colouring that objections died on your lips, and
-you felt reluctant to examine and pull to pieces the glimmering
-forms and shadowy pictures of his imagination.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His mysticism was partly due to his Scandinavian blood.
-It was the same play of fancy combined with cool reflection
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>which we see in Swedenborg;<a id='r106' /><a href='#f106' class='c016'><sup>[106]</sup></a> and that in its turn
-resembles the fiery reflection of the sun’s rays when they
-fall on the ice-covered mountains and snows of Norway.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f106'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r106'>106</a>. </span>Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish mystic and
-founder of a sect.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Though I was shaken for a time by Vitberg’s influence,
-my positive turn of mind held its own nevertheless. It
-was not my destiny to be carried up to the third heaven;
-I was born to inhabit earth alone. Tables never turn at
-my touch, rings never quiver when I look at them. The
-daylight of thought is my element, not the moonlight of
-imagination.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But I was more inclined to the mystical standpoint
-when I lived with Vitberg than at any other period of my
-life.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There was much to support Vitberg’s influence—the
-loneliness of exile, the strained and pietistic tone of the
-letters I received from home, the love which was mastering
-my whole being with ever increasing power, and an
-oppressive feeling of remorse for my own misconduct.<a id='r107' /><a href='#f107' class='c016'><sup>[107]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f107'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r107'>107</a>. </span>He refers to an intrigue he was carrying on at Vyatka.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Two years later I was again influenced by ideas partly
-religious and partly socialistic, which I took from the
-Gospel and from Rousseau; my position was that of some
-French thinkers, such as Pierre Leroux.<a id='r108' /><a href='#f108' class='c016'><sup>[108]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f108'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r108'>108</a>. </span>A French publicist and disciple of Saint Simon,
-1797-1871.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>My friend Ogaryóv plunged even before I did into the
-waves of mysticism. In 1833 he began to write a libretto
-for Gebel’s oratorio of <i>Paradise Lost</i>; and he wrote to
-me that the whole history of humanity was included in
-that poem! It appears therefore that he then considered
-the paradise of his aspirations to have existed already and
-disappeared from view.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>In 1838 I wrote from this point of view some historical
-scenes which I supposed at the time to be dramatic. They
-were in verse. In one I represented the strife between
-Christianity and the ancient world, and told how St. Paul,
-when entering Rome, raised a young man from the dead
-to enter on a new life. Another described the contest of
-the Quakers against the Church of England, and the departure
-of William Penn for America.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The mysticism of the Gospel soon gave way in my mind
-to the mysticism of science; but I was fortunate enough
-to escape from the latter as well in course of time.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>But now I must go back to the modest little town which
-was called Chlynov until Catherine II changed its name
-to Vyatka; what her motive was, I do not know, unless
-it was her Finnish patriotism.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In that dreary distant backwater of exile, separated
-from all I loved, surrounded by the unclean horde of officials,
-and exposed without defence to the tyranny of the
-Governor, I met nevertheless with many warm hearts and
-friendly hands, and there I spent many happy hours which
-are sacred in recollection.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Where are you now, and how are you, my snowbound
-friends? It is twenty years since we met. I suppose you
-have grown old, as I have; you are thinking about marrying
-your daughters, and have given up drinking champagne
-by the bottle and tossing off bumpers of vodka.
-Which of you has made a fortune, and which has lost it?
-Which has risen high in the official world, and which is
-laid low by the palsy? Above all, do you still keep alive
-the memory of our free discussions? Do those chords
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>still resound that were struck so vigorously by our common
-friendship and our common resentment?</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I am unchanged, as you know, for I suspect that
-rumour flies from the banks of the Thames as far as you.
-I think of you sometimes, and always with affection. I
-have kept some letters of those former days, and some of
-them I regard as treasures and love to read over again.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I am not ashamed to confess to you,” writes one young
-friend on January 26, 1838, “that my heart is full of
-bitterness. Help me for the sake of that life to which you
-summoned me; help me with your advice. I want to learn;
-make me a list of books, lay down any programme you
-like; I will work my hardest, if you will point the way.
-It would be sinful of you to discourage me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I bless you,” another wrote to me just after I had left
-Vyatka, “as the husbandman blesses the rain which gives
-life to his unfertilized field.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I copy out these lines, not from vanity, but because
-they are very precious to me. This appeal to young hearts
-and their generous reply, and the unrest I was able to
-awaken in them—this is my compensation for nine months
-spent in prison and three years at Vyatka.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>There is one thing more. Twice a week the post from
-Moscow came to Vyatka. With what excitement I waited
-near the post-office while the letters were sorted! How my
-heart beat as I broke the seal of my letter from home and
-searched inside for a little enclosure, written on thin paper
-in a wonderfully small and beautiful hand!</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I did not read that in the post-office. I walked slowly
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>home, putting off the happy moment and feasting on the
-thought that the letter was there.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These letters have all been preserved. I left them at
-Moscow when I quitted Russia. Though I longed to read
-them over, I was afraid to touch them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Letters are more than recollections, the very life blood
-of the past is stored up in them; they <i>are</i> the past, exactly
-as it was, preserved from destruction and decay.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Is it really necessary once again to know, to see, to
-touch with hands which age has covered with wrinkles,
-what once you wore on your wedding-day?<a id='r109' /><a href='#f109' class='c016'><sup>[109]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f109'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r109'>109</a>. </span>These letters were from Herzen’s cousin, Natálya
-Zakhárin, who became his wife in 1838.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER X</h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c021'>The Crown Prince at Vyatka—The Fall of Tufáyev—Transferred
-to Vladímir—The Inspector’s Enquiry.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THE Crown Prince<a id='r110' /><a href='#f110' class='c016'><sup>[110]</sup></a> is coming to Vyatka! The
-Crown Prince is travelling through Russia, to see
-the country and to be seen himself! This news
-was of interest to everyone and of special interest, of
-course, to the Governor. In his haste and confusion, he
-issued a number of ridiculous and absurd orders—for
-instance, that the peasants along the road should wear
-their holiday <i>kaftáns</i>, and that all boardings in the towns
-should be repainted and all sidewalks mended. A poor
-widow who owned a smallish house in Orlóv informed the
-mayor that she had no money to repair her sidewalk; the
-mayor reported this to the Governor, and the Governor
-ordered the floors of her house to be pulled up—the sidewalks
-there were made of wood—and, if that was insufficient,
-the repairs were to be done at the public cost and
-the money to be refunded by the widow, even if she had
-to sell her house by auction for the purpose. Things did
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>not go to the length of an auction, but the widow’s floors
-were torn up.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f110'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r110'>110</a>. </span>Afterwards Alexander II.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Fifty <i>versts</i> from Vyatka is the spot where the wonder-working
-<i>ikon</i> of St. Nicholas was revealed to the people
-of Novgorod. When they moved to Vyatka, they took the
-<i>ikon</i> with them; but it disappeared and turned up again
-by the Big River, fifty <i>versts</i> away. The people removed
-it again; but they took a vow that, if the <i>ikon</i> would
-stay with them, they would carry it in solemn procession
-once a year—on the twenty-third of May, I think,—to
-the Big River. This is the chief summer holiday in the
-Government of Vyatka. The <i>ikon</i> is despatched along
-the river on a richly decorated barge the day before, accompanied
-by the Bishop and all the clergy in their full
-robes. Hundreds of boats of every description, filled with
-peasants and their wives, native tribesmen and shopkeepers,
-make up a lively scene, as they sail in the wake
-of the Saint. In front of all sails the Governor’s barge,
-decorated with scarlet cloth. It is a remarkable sight. The
-people gather from far and near in tens of thousands,
-wait on the bank for the arrival of the Saint, and move
-about in noisy crowds round the little village by the river.
-It is remarkable that the native Votyaks and Cheremisses
-and even Tatars, though they are not Christians, come
-in crowds to pray to the <i>ikon</i>. The festival, indeed, wears
-a purely pagan aspect. Natives and Russians alike bring
-calves and sheep as offerings up to the wall of the monastery;
-they slaughter them on the spot, and the Abbot repeats
-prayers and blesses and consecrates the meat, which
-is offered at a special window on the inner side of the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>monastery enclosure. The meat is then distributed to the
-people. In old times it was given away, but nowadays
-the monks receive a few pence for each piece. Thus the
-peasant who has presented an entire calf has to spend a
-trifle in order to get a bit of veal for his own eating. The
-court of the monastery is filled with beggars, cripples,
-blind men, and sufferers from all sorts of deformity; they
-sit on the ground and sing out in chorus for alms. The
-gravestones round the church are used as seats by boys,
-the sons of priests and shopmen; armed with an ink-bottle,
-each offers to write out names of the dead, that their
-souls may be prayed for. “Who wants names written?”
-they call out, and the women crowd round them and repeat
-the names. The boys scratch away with their pens
-with a professional air and repeat the names after them—“Marya,
-Marya, Akulina, Stepanida, Father Ioann, Matrona—no,
-no! auntie, half a <i>kopeck</i> is all you gave me;
-but I can’t take less than five <i>kopecks</i> for such a lot—Ioann,
-Vasilissa, Iona, Marya, Yevpraxia, and the baby
-Katherine.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The church is tightly packed, and the female worshippers
-differ oddly in their preferences: one hands a candle
-to her neighbour with precise directions that it is to be
-offered to “the guest,” <i>i.e.</i>, the Saint who is there on a
-visit, while another woman prefers “the host,” <i>i.e.</i>, the
-local Saint. During the ceremonies the monks and attendant
-acolytes from Vyatka are never sober; they stop at all
-the large villages along the way, and the peasants stand
-treat.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This ancient and popular festival was celebrated on
-the twenty-third of May. But the Prince was to arrive
-on May 19, and the Governor, wishing to please his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span>august visitor, changed the date of the festival; what
-harm could it do, if St. Nicholas paid his visit three days
-too soon? The Abbot’s consent was necessary; but he was
-fortunately a man of the world and raised no difficulty
-when the Governor proposed to keep the twenty-third of
-May on the nineteenth.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Instructions of various kinds came from Petersburg;
-for instance, it was ordered that each provincial capital
-should organise an exhibition of the local products and
-manufactures; and the animal, vegetable, and mineral
-products were to be kept separate. This division into kingdoms
-perplexed our office not a little, and puzzled even the
-Governor himself. Wishing not to make mistakes, he decided,
-in spite of the bad relations between us, to seek
-my advice. “Now, honey, for example,” he said, “where
-would you put honey? And that gilt frame—how can we
-settle where that belongs?” My replies showed that I
-had surprisingly exact information concerning the three
-natural kingdoms, and he proposed that I should undertake
-the arrangement of the exhibition.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I was still putting in order wooden spoons and native
-costumes, honey and iron trellis-work, when an awful
-rumour spread through the town that the Mayor of Orlóv
-had been arrested. The Governor’s face turned yellow,
-and he even seemed unsteady in his gait.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A week before the Prince arrived, the Mayor of Orlóv
-wrote to the Governor that the widow whose floors had
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>been torn up was making a disturbance, and that a rich
-and well-known merchant of the town declared his intention
-of telling the whole story to the Prince on his
-arrival. The Governor dealt very ingeniously with this
-firebrand; he recalled with satisfaction the precedent of
-Petrovski, and ordered that the merchant, being suspected
-of insanity, should be sent to Vyatka for examination.
-Thus the matter would drag on till the Prince left the
-province; and that would be the end of it. The mayor
-did what he was told, and the merchant was placed in
-the hospital at Vyatka.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At last the Prince arrived. He greeted the Governor
-coldly and took no further notice of him, and he sent his
-own physician at once to examine the merchant. He knew
-all about it by this time. For the widow had presented her
-petition at Orlóv, and then the merchants and shop people
-had told the whole story. The Governor grew more and
-more crest-fallen. The affair looked bad. The mayor had
-said plainly that he acted throughout on the written orders
-of the Governor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the physician came back, he reported that the
-merchant was perfectly sane. That was a finishing stroke
-for the Governor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At eight in the evening the Prince visited the exhibition
-with his suite. The Governor conducted him; but he made
-a terrible hash of his explanations, till two of the suite,
-Zhukovski<a id='r111' /><a href='#f111' class='c016'><sup>[111]</sup></a> and Arsenyev, seeing that things were not
-going well, invited me to do the honours; and I took the
-party round.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f111'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r111'>111</a>. </span>The famous man of letters (1783-1852) who acted as tutor
-to Alexander. Arsenyev undertook the scientific side of the Prince’s
-education.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span>The young Prince had not the stern expression of his
-father; his features suggested rather good nature and indolence.
-Though he was only about twenty, he was beginning
-to grow stout. The few words he addressed to me
-were friendly, and he had not the hoarse abrupt utterance
-of his uncle Constantine.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>When the Prince left the exhibition, Zhukovski asked
-me what had brought me to Vyatka; he was surprised
-to find in such a place an official who could speak like a
-gentleman. He offered at once to speak to the Prince about
-me; and he actually did all that he could. The Prince suggested
-to his father that I should be allowed to return to
-Petersburg; the Emperor said that this would be unfair
-to the other exiles, but, owing to the Prince’s intercession,
-he ordered that I should be transferred to Vladímir. This
-was an improvement in point of position, as Vladímir is
-700 <i>versts</i> nearer Moscow. But of this I shall speak later.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>In the evening there was a ball at the assembly-rooms.
-The musicians, who had been summoned for the occasion
-from one of the factories of the province, arrived in the
-town helplessly drunk. The Governor rose to the emergency:
-the performers were all shut up in prison twenty-four
-hours before the ball, marched straight from prison
-to the orchestra, and kept there till the ball was over.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The ball was a dull, ill-arranged affair, both mean and
-motley, as balls always are in small towns on great occasions.
-The police-officers bustled up and down; the officials,
-in full uniform, squeezed up against the walls; the
-ladies crowded round the Prince, just as savages mob a
-traveller from Europe.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span>Apropos of the ladies, I may tell a story. One of the
-towns offered a “collation” after their exhibition. The
-Prince partook of nothing but a single peach; when he
-had eaten it, he threw the stone out of the window. Suddenly
-a tall figure emerged from the crowd of officials
-standing outside the building; it was a certain rural judge,
-well known for his irregular habits; he walked deliberately
-up to the window, picked up the stone, and put it
-in his pocket. When the collation was over, he went up
-to one of the important ladies and offered her the stone;
-she was charmed to get such a treasure. Then he went
-to several other ladies and made them happy in the same
-way. He had bought five peaches and cut out the stones.
-Not one of the six ladies could ever be sure of the authenticity
-of her prize.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>When the Prince had gone, the Governor prepared with a
-heavy heart to exchange his satrapy for a place on the
-bench of the Supreme Court at home; but he was not so
-fortunate as that.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Three weeks later the post brought documents from
-Petersburg addressed to “The Acting Governor of the
-Province.” Our office was a scene of confusion; officials
-came and went; we heard that an edict had been received,
-but the Governor pretended illness and kept his house.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>An hour later we heard that Tufáyev had been dismissed
-from his office; and that was all that the edict
-said about him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The whole town rejoiced over his fall. While he ruled,
-the atmosphere was impure, stale, and stifling; now one
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span>could breathe more freely. And yet it was hateful to see
-the triumph of his subordinates. Asses in plenty raised
-their heels against this stricken wild-boar. To compare
-small things with great, the meanness of mankind was
-shown as clearly then as when Napoleon fell. Between
-Tufáyev and me there had been an open breach for a long
-time; and if he had not been turned out himself, he would
-certainly have sent me to some frontier town like Kai.
-I had therefore no reason to change my behaviour towards
-him; but others, who only the day before had pulled off
-their hats at the sight of his carriage and run at his nod,
-who had smiled at his spaniel and offered their snuffboxes
-to his valet—these same men now would hardly salute
-him and made the whole town ring with their protests
-against the irregularities which he had committed and
-they had shared in. All this is an old story and repeats
-itself so regularly from age to age, in all places, that we
-must accept this form of baseness as a universal trait of
-human nature, and, at all events, not be surprised by it.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>His successor, Kornilov, soon made his appearance. He
-was a very different sort of person—a man of about fifty,
-tall and stout, rather flabby in appearance, but with an
-agreeable smile and gentlemanly manners. He formed
-all his sentences with strict grammatical accuracy and
-used a great number of words; in fact, he spoke with
-a clearness which was capable, by its copiousness, of
-obscuring the simplest topic. He had been at school with
-Púshkin and had served in the Guards; he bought all the
-new French books, liked to talk on serious topics, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>gave me a copy of Tocqueville’s<a id='r112' /><a href='#f112' class='c016'><sup>[112]</sup></a> <i>Democracy in America</i>
-the day after he arrived at Vyatka.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f112'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r112'>112</a>. </span>Alexis de Tocqueville, a French statesman and publicist
-(1805-1859).</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>It was a startling change. The same rooms, the same
-furniture, but, instead of the Tatar tax-collector with the
-face of an Esquimo and the habits of a Siberian, a theorist
-with a tincture of pedantry but a gentleman none the less.
-Our new Governor had intelligence, but his intellect
-seemed to give light only and no warmth, like a bright
-day in winter which ripens no fruit though it is pleasant
-enough. He was a terrible formalist too, though not of
-the red-tape variety; it is not easy to describe the type,
-but it was just as tiresome as all varieties of formalism
-are.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As the new Governor had a real wife, the official residence
-lost its ultra-bachelor characteristics; it became
-monogamous. As a consequence of this, the members of
-the Council became quite domestic characters: these bald
-old gentlemen, instead of boasting over their conquests,
-now spoke with tender affection of their lawful wives, although
-these ladies were past their prime and either
-angular and bony, or so fat that it was impossible for a
-surgeon to draw blood from them.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Some years before he came to us, Kornilov, being then
-a colonel in the Guards, was appointed Civil Governor
-of a provincial town, and entered at once upon business
-of which he knew nothing. Like all new brooms, he began
-by reading every official paper that was submitted to him.
-He came across a certain document from another Government
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>which he could not understand, though he read it
-through several times.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He rang for his secretary and gave it to him to read.
-But the secretary also was unable to explain the matter
-clearly.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What will you do with this document,” asked Kornilov,
-“if I pass it on to the office?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I shall hand it to Desk III—it is in their department.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“So the chief of Desk III will know what to do?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Certainly, Your Excellency; he has been in charge of
-that desk for six years.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Please summon him to me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The chief came, and Kornilov handed him the paper
-and asked what should be done. The clerk ran through it
-hastily, and then said a question must be asked of the
-Crown Court and instructions given to the inspector of
-rural police.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What instructions?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The clerk seemed puzzled; at last he said that, though
-it was difficult to state them on the spot, it was easy to
-write them down.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There is a chair; will you be good enough to write
-now?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The clerk took a pen, wrote rapidly and confidently,
-and soon produced the two documents.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Governor took them and read them through; he
-read them through again; he could make nothing of them.
-“Well,” he used to say afterwards, “I saw that it really
-was in the form of an answer to the original document;
-so I plucked up courage and signed it. The answer gave
-entire satisfaction; I never heard another word about it.”</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>The announcement of my transference to Vladímir arrived
-before Christmas. My preparations were quickly
-made, and I started off.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I said a cordial good-bye to society at Vyatka; in that
-distant town I had made two or three real friends among
-the young merchants. They vied with one another in showing
-sympathy and friendship for the outcast. Several
-sledges accompanied me to the first stopping-place, and,
-in spite of my protests, a whole cargo of eatables and
-drinkables was placed on my conveyance. Next day I
-reached Yaransk.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>After Yaransk the road passes through endless pine-forests.
-There was moonlight and hard frost as my small
-sledge slid along the narrow track. I have never since seen
-such continuous forests. They stretch all the way to Archangelsk,
-and reindeer occasionally find their way through
-them to the Government of Vyatka. Most of the wood is
-suitable for building purposes. The fir-trees seemed to
-file past my sledge like soldiers; they were remarkably
-straight and high, and covered with snow, under which
-their black needles stuck out like bristles. I fell asleep
-and woke again—and there were the armies of the pines
-still marching past at a great rate, and sometimes shaking
-off the snow. There are small clearings where the horses
-are changed; you see a small house half-hidden in the
-trees and the horses tethered to a tree-trunk, and hear
-their bells jingling; a couple of native boys in embroidered
-shirts run out, still rubbing their eyes; the driver has a
-dispute with the other driver in a hoarse alto voice; then
-he calls out “All right!” and strikes up a monotonous song—and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>the endless procession of pine-trees and snow-drifts
-begins again.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Just as I got out of the Government of Vyatka, I came
-in contact for the last time with the officials, and this final
-appearance was quite in their best manner.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We stopped at a post-house, and the driver began to
-unharness the horses. A tall peasant appeared at the door
-and asked who I was.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What business is that of yours?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I am the inspector’s messenger, and he told me to ask.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Very well: go to the office and you will find my passport
-there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The peasant disappeared but returned in a moment
-and told the driver that he could not have fresh horses.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This was too much. I jumped out of the sledge and
-entered the house. The inspector was sitting on a bench
-and dictating to a clerk; both were half-seas over. On
-another bench in a corner a man was sitting, or rather
-lying, with fetters on his feet and hands. There were
-several bottles in the room, glasses, and a litter of papers
-and tobacco ash on the table.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Where is the inspector?” I called out loudly, as I
-went in.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I am the inspector,” was the reply. I had seen the man
-before in Vyatka; his name was Lazarev. While speaking
-he stared very rudely at me—and then rushed towards
-me with open arms.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It must be remembered that, after Tufáyev’s fall, the
-officials, seeing that his successor and I were on fairly
-good terms, were a little afraid of me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span>I kept him off with my hand, and asked in a very serious
-voice: “How could you order that I was to have no horses?
-What an absurdity to detain travellers on the high road!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“It was only a joke; I hope you won’t be angry about
-it.” Then he shouted at his messenger: “Horses! horses
-at once! What are you standing there for, you idiot?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I hope you will have a cup of tea with some rum in
-it,” he said to me.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“No, thank you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Perhaps we have some champagne”; he rushed to the
-bottles, but they were all empty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“What are you doing here?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Holding an enquiry; this fine fellow took an axe and
-killed his father and sister. There was a quarrel and he
-was jealous.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“And so you celebrate the occasion with champagne?”
-I said.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The man looked confused. I glanced at the murderer.
-He was a Cheremiss of about twenty; there was nothing
-savage about his face; it was of purely Oriental type with
-narrow flashing eyes and black hair.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was so disgusted by the whole scene that I went out
-again into the yard. The inspector ran out after me, with
-a bottle of rum in one hand and a glass in the other, and
-pressed me to have a drink.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In order to get rid of him, I accepted. He caught me by
-the arm and said: “I am to blame, I admit; but I hope
-you will not mention the facts to His Excellency and so
-ruin an honest man.” As he spoke, he caught hold of my
-hand and actually kissed it, repeating a dozen times over,
-“In God’s name, don’t ruin an honest man!” I pulled
-away my hand in disgust and said:</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_373'>373</span>“You needn’t be afraid; what need have I to tell tales?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But can’t I do you some service?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Yes; you can make them harness the horses quicker.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Look alive there!” he shouted out, and soon began
-tugging at the straps himself.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>I never forgot this incident. Nine years later I was in
-Petersburg for the last time; I had to visit the Home
-Office to arrange about a passport. While I was talking
-to the secretary in charge, a gentleman walked through
-the room, distributing friendly handshakes to the magnates
-of the office and condescending bows to the lesser lights.
-“Hang it! it can’t surely be him!” I thought. “Who is
-that?” I asked.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“His name is Lazarev; he is specially employed by the
-Minister and is a great man here.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Did he serve once as inspector in the Government
-of Vyatka?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“He did.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I congratulate you, gentlemen! Nine years ago that
-man kissed my hand!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It must be allowed that the Minister knew how to
-choose his subordinates.</p>
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_374'>374</span>
- <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER XI</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>The Beginning of my Life at Vladímir.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3>
-<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>WHEN we had reached Kosmodemyansk and
-I came out to take my seat in the sledge, I
-saw that the horses were harnessed three
-abreast in Russian fashion; and the bells jingled cheerfully
-on the yoke worn by the wheeler.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In Perm and Vyatka they harness the horses differently—either
-in single file, or one leader with two wheelers.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My heart beat fast with joy, to see the Russian fashion
-again.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Now let us see how fast you can go!” I said to the lad
-sitting with a professional air on the box of the sledge.
-He wore a sheepskin coat with the wool inside, and such
-stiff gloves that he could hardly bring two fingers together
-to clutch the coin I offered him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Very good, Sir. Gee up, my beauties!” said the lad.
-Then he turned to me and said, “Now, Sir, just you hold
-on; there’s a hill coming where I shall let the horses go.”
-The hill was a steep descent to the Volga, along which
-the track passed in winter.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_375'>375</span>He did indeed let the horses go. As they galloped down
-the hill, the sledge, instead of moving decently forwards,
-banged like a cracker from side to side of the road. The
-driver was intensely pleased; and I confess that I, being
-a Russian, enjoyed it no less.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In this fashion I drove into the year 1838—the best
-and brightest year of my life. Let me tell you how I saw
-the New Year in.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>About eighty <i>versts</i> from Nizhni, my servant Matthew
-and I went into a post-house to warm ourselves. The frost
-was keen, and it was windy as well. The post-master, a
-thin and sickly creature who aroused my compassion, was
-writing out a way-bill, repeating each letter as he wrote
-it, and making mistakes all the same. I took off my fur
-coat and walked about the room in my long fur boots.
-Matthew warmed himself at the red-hot stove, the post-master
-muttered to himself, and the wooden clock on the
-wall ticked with a feeble, jerky sound.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Look at the clock, Sir,” Matthew said to me; “it will
-strike twelve immediately, and the New Year will begin.”
-He glanced half-enquiringly at me and then added, “I
-shall bring in some of the things they put on the sledge
-at Vyatka.” Without waiting for an answer, he hurried
-off in search of the bottles and a parcel.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Matthew, of whom I shall say more in future, was
-more than a servant—he was my friend, my younger
-brother. A native of Moscow, he had been handed over
-to our old friend Sonnenberg, to learn the art of bookbinding,
-about which Sonnenberg himself knew little
-enough; later, he was transferred to my service.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_376'>376</span>I knew that I should have hurt Matthew by refusing,
-and I had really no objection myself to making merry in
-the post-house. The New Year is itself a stage in life’s
-journey.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He brought in a ham and champagne.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The wine was frozen hard, and the ham was frosted
-over with ice; we had to chop it with an axe, but <i>à la
-guerre comme à la guerre</i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“A Happy New Year,” we all cried. And I had cause
-for happiness. I was travelling back in the right direction,
-and every hour brought me nearer to Moscow—my heart
-was full of hope.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As our frozen champagne was not much to the taste
-of the post-master, I poured an equal quantity of rum
-into his glass; and this new form of “half and half” was
-a great success.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The driver, whom I invited to drink with us, was even
-more thoroughgoing in his methods: he poured pepper
-into the foaming wine, stirred it up with a spoon, and
-drank the glass at one gulp; then he sighed and added
-with a sort of groan, “That was fine and hot.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The post-master himself helped me into the sledge, and
-was so zealous in his attentions that he dropped a lighted
-candle into the hay and failed to find it afterwards. He
-was in great spirits and kept repeating, “A Happy New
-Year for me too, thanks to you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The “heated” driver touched up the horses, and we
-started.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>At eight on the following evening I arrived at Vladímir
-and stopped at an inn which is described with perfect
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_377'>377</span>accuracy in <i>The Tarantas</i>,<a id='r113' /><a href='#f113' class='c016'><sup>[113]</sup></a> with its queer menu in Russian-French
-and its vinegar for claret.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f113'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r113'>113</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, <i>The Travelling Carriage</i>, a novel by
-Count Sologub.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Someone was asking for you this morning,” said the
-waiter, after reading the name on my passport; “perhaps
-he’s waiting in the bar now.” The waiter’s head displayed
-that dashing parting and noble curl over the ear which
-used to be the distinguishing marks of Russian waiters
-and are now peculiar to them and Prince Louis Napoleon.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I could not guess who this could be.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“But there he is,” added the waiter, standing aside.
-What I first saw was not a man at all but an immense
-tray piled high with all sorts of provisions—cake and
-biscuits, apples and oranges, eggs, almonds and raisins;
-then behind the tray came into view the white beard and
-blue eyes belonging to the bailiff on my father’s estate
-near Vladimir.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Gavrilo Semyónitch!” I cried out, and rushed into his
-arms. His was the first familiar face, the first link with
-the past, that I had met since the period of prison and
-exile began. I could not look long enough at the old man’s
-intelligent face, I could not say enough to him. To me he
-represented nearness to Moscow, to my home and my
-friends: he had seen them all three days before and
-brought me greetings from them all. How could I feel that
-I was really far from them?</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>The Governor of Vladimir was a man of the world who
-had lived long enough to attain a temper of cool indifference.
-He was a Greek and his name was Kuruta. He took
-my measure at once and abstained from the least attempt
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_378'>378</span>at severity. Office work was never even hinted at—the
-only duty he asked me to undertake was that I should
-edit the Provincial Gazette in collaboration with the local
-schoolmaster.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I was familiar with this business, as I had started the
-unofficial part of the Gazette at Vyatka. By the way, one
-article which I published there nearly landed my successor
-in a scrape. In describing the festival on the Big River,
-I said that the mutton offered to St. Nicholas used to be
-given away to the poor but was now sold. This enraged the
-Abbot, and the Governor had some difficulty in pacifying
-him.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>Provincial Gazettes were first introduced in the year
-1837. It was Bludov, the Minister of the Interior, who
-conceived the idea of training in publicity the land of
-silence and dumbness. Bludov, known as the continuator
-of Karamzín’s History—though he never added a line to
-it—and as the author of the Report on the Decembrist
-Revolution—which had better never have been written—was
-one of those doctrinaire statesmen who came to the
-front in the last years of Alexander’s reign. They were
-able, educated, honest men; they had belonged in their
-youth to the Literary Club of Arzamas;<a id='r114' /><a href='#f114' class='c016'><sup>[114]</sup></a> they wrote Russian
-well, had patriotic feelings, and were so much interested
-in the history of their country that they had no
-leisure to bestow on contemporary events. They all worshipped
-the immortal memory of Karamzín, loved Zhukovski,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_379'>379</span>knew Krylóv<a id='r115' /><a href='#f115' class='c016'><sup>[115]</sup></a> by heart, and used to travel to Moscow
-on purpose to talk to Dmítriev<a id='r116' /><a href='#f116' class='c016'><sup>[116]</sup></a> in his house there. I
-too used to visit there in my student days; but I was
-armed against the old poet by prejudices in favour of
-romanticism, by my acquaintance with N. Polevói, and by
-a secret feeling of dissatisfaction that Dmítriev, being a
-poet, should also be Minister of Justice. Though much was
-expected of them, they did nothing; but that is the fate of
-doctrinaires in all countries. Perhaps they would have left
-more lasting traces behind them if Alexander had lived;
-but Alexander died, and they never got beyond the mere
-wish to do the state some service.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f114'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r114'>114</a>. </span>Zhukovski and Púshkin both belonged to this club. It
-carried on a campaign against Shishkóv and other opponents of the new
-developments in Russian style.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f115'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r115'>115</a>. </span>Krylóv (1768-1844), the famous writer of fables.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f116'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r116'>116</a>. </span>Dmítriev, a poet once famous, who lived long enough to
-welcome Púshkin.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>At Monaco there is a monument to one of their Princes
-with this inscription. “Here rests Prince Florestan”—I
-forget his number—“who wished to make his subjects
-happy.” Our doctrinaires also wished to make Russia
-happy, but they reckoned without their host. I don’t know
-who prevented Florestan; but it was our Florestan<a id='r117' /><a href='#f117' class='c016'><sup>[117]</sup></a> who
-prevented them. They were forced to take a part in the
-steady deterioration of Russia, and all the reforms they
-could introduce were useless, mere alterations of forms
-and names. Every Russian in authority considers it his
-highest duty to rack his brains for some novelty of this
-kind; the change is generally for the worse and sometimes
-leaves things exactly as they were. Thus the name
-of ‘secretary’ has given place to a Russian equivalent in
-the public offices of the provinces, but the duties are not
-changed. I remember how the Minister of Justice put forward
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_380'>380</span>a proposal for necessary changes in the uniform of
-civilian officials. It began with great pomp and circumstance—“Having
-taken special notice of the lack of uniformity
-in the cut and fashion of certain uniforms worn
-by the civilian department, and having adopted as a principle
-...,” etc.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f117'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r117'>117</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, the Emperor Nicholas.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Beset by this itch for novelty the Minister of the Interior
-made changes with regard to the officers who administer
-justice in the rural districts. The old judges lived
-in the towns and paid occasional visits to the country;
-their successors have their regular residence in the country
-and pay occasional visits to the towns. By this reform all
-the peasants came under the immediate scrutiny of the
-police. The police penetrated into the secrets of the peasant’s
-commerce and wealth, his family life, and all the
-business of his community; and the village community
-had been hitherto the last refuge of the people’s life. The
-only redeeming feature is this—there are many villages
-and only two judges to a district.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>About the same time the same Minister excogitated the
-Provincial Gazettes. Our Government, while utterly contemptuous
-of education, makes pretensions to be literary;
-and whereas, in England, for example, there are no Government
-newspapers at all, every public department in
-Russia publishes its own organ, and so does the Academy,
-and so do the Universities. We have papers to represent
-the mining interest and the pickled-herring interest, the
-interests of Frenchmen and Germans, the marine interest
-and the land-carriage interest, all published at the expense
-of Government. The different departments contract for
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_381'>381</span>articles, just as they contract for fire-wood and candles,
-the only difference being that in the former case there is
-no competition; there is no lack of general surveys, invented
-statistics, and fanciful conclusions based on the
-statistics. Together with a monopoly in everything else,
-the Government has assumed a monopoly of nonsense;
-ordering everyone to be silent, it chatters itself without
-ceasing. In continuation of this system, Bludov ordered
-that each provincial Government should publish its own
-Gazette, and that each Gazette should include, as well as
-the official news, a department for history, literature and
-the like.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>No sooner said than done. In fifty provincial Governments
-they were soon tearing their hair over this unofficial
-part. Priests from the theological seminaries, doctors
-of medicine, schoolmasters, anyone who was suspected of
-being able to spell correctly—all these were pressed into
-the service. These recruits reflected, read up the leading
-newspapers and magazines, felt nervous, took the plunge,
-and finally produced their little articles.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>To see oneself in print is one of the strongest artificial
-passions of an age corrupted by books. But it requires
-courage, nevertheless, except in special circumstances, to
-venture on a public exhibition of one’s productions.
-People who would not have dreamed of publishing their
-articles in the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> or the Petersburg newspapers,
-now began to print their writings in the privacy
-of their own houses. Thus the dangerous habit of possessing
-an organ of one’s own took root, and men became
-accustomed to publicity. And indeed it is not a bad thing
-to have a weapon which is always ready for use. A printing
-press, like the human tongue, has no bones.</p>
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_382'>382</span>
- <h3 class='c014'>§7</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c018'>My colleague in the editorship had taken his degree at
-Moscow University and in the same faculty as myself.
-The end of his life was too tragical for me to speak of
-him with a smile; but, down to the day of his death, he
-was an exceedingly absurd figure. By no means stupid,
-he was excessively clumsy and awkward. His exceptional
-ugliness had no redeeming feature, and there was an abnormal
-amount of it. His face was nearly twice as large
-as most people’s and marked by small-pox; he had the
-mouth of a codfish which spread from ear to ear; his
-light-grey eyes were lightened rather than shaded by
-colourless eye-lashes; his scalp had a meagre covering of
-bristly hair; he was moreover taller by a head than myself,<a id='r118' /><a href='#f118' class='c016'><sup>[118]</sup></a>
-with a slouching figure and very slovenly habits.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f118'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r118'>118</a>. </span>Herzen himself was a very tall, large man.</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>His very name was such that it once caused him to be
-arrested. Late one evening, wrapped up in his overcoat,
-he was walking past the Governor’s residence, with a field-glass
-in his hand. He stopped and aimed the glass at the
-heavens. This astonished the sentry, who probably reckoned
-the stars as Government property: he challenged
-the rapt star-gazer—“Who goes there?” “Nebába,”<a id='r119' /><a href='#f119' class='c016'><sup>[119]</sup></a>
-answered my colleague in a deep bass voice, and gazed
-as before.</p>
-
-<div class='fn'>
-
-<div class='footnote' id='f119'>
-<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r119'>119</a>. </span>The word means in Russian “Not a woman.”</p>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Don’t play the fool with me—I’m on duty,” said the
-sentry.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I tell you that I am Nebába!”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The soldier’s patience was exhausted: he rang the bell,
-a serjeant appeared, the sentry handed the astronomer
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_383'>383</span>over to him, to be taken to the guard-room. “They’ll find
-out there,” as he said, “whether you’re a woman or not.”
-And there he would certainly have stayed till the morning,
-had not the officer of the day recognised him.</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>One morning Nebába came to my room to tell me that
-he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled
-with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then
-he added, with some confusion, “I shall not return alone.”
-“Do you mean that ...?” “Yes, I am going to be
-married,” he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the
-heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry
-this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight
-later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen
-and, if no beauty, pretty enough, with lively eyes; and
-then I thought him the hero.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Six weeks had not passed before I saw that things were
-going badly with my poor Orson. He was terribly depressed,
-corrected his proofs carelessly, never finished
-his article on “The Migration of Birds,” and could not
-fix his attention on anything; at times it seemed to me
-that his eyes were red and swollen. This state of things
-did not last long. One day as I was going home, I noticed
-a crowd of boys and shopkeepers running towards the
-churchyard. I walked after them.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Nebába’s body was lying near the church wall, and a
-rifle lay beside him. He had shot himself opposite the
-windows of his own house; the string with which he had
-pulled the trigger was still attached to his foot. The police-surgeon
-blandly assured the crowd that the deceased had
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_384'>384</span>suffered no pain; and the police prepared to carry his body
-to the station.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Nature is cruel to the individual. What dark forebodings
-filled the breast of this poor sufferer, before he made
-up his mind to use his piece of string and stop the pendulum
-which measured out nothing to him but insult and
-suffering? And why was it so? Because his father was
-consumptive or his mother dropsical? Likely enough. But
-what right have we to ask for reasons or for justice? What
-is it that we seek to call to account? Will the whirling
-hurricane of life answer our questions?</p>
-<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3>
-
-<p class='c018'>At the same time there began for me a new epoch in my
-life—pure and bright, youthful but earnest; it was the
-life of a hermit, but a hermit thoroughly in love.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But this belongs to another part of my narrative.</p>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c004' />
-</div>
-<p class='c008'> </p>
-<div class='tnbox'>
-
- <ul class='ul_1 c004'>
- <li>Transcriber’s Notes:
- <ul class='ul_2'>
- <li>Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- </li>
- <li>Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- </li>
- <li>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant
- form was found in this book.
- </li>
- </ul>
- </li>
- </ul>
-
-</div>
-<p class='c008'> </p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDER HERZEN, PARTS I AND II ***</div>
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text-align: center; } + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67882 ***</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='small'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c000' /> +</div> +<div> + <h1 class='c001'>MEMOIRS OF<br />ALEXANDER HERZEN - Parts I and II</h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c000'> + <div>══════</div> + <div><span class='c002'>PUBLISHED ON THE FOUNDATION</span></div> + <div><span class='c002'>ESTABLISHED IN MEMORY OF</span></div> + <div><span class='c002'>THEODORE L. GLASGOW</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003' /> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div><span class='c005'>THE MEMOIRS</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='c002'>OF</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='c005'>ALEXANDER HERZEN</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='c006'>PARTS I AND II</span></div> + <div class='c004'>TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY</div> + <div class='c000'><span class='c006'>J. D. DUFF</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='xsmall'>FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'> </p> +<div class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/publogo.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> +</div> +<p class='c008'> </p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>NEW HAVEN</div> + <div>YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS</div> + <div><span class='small'>LONDON · HUMPHREY MILFORD · OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS</span></div> + <div>MCMXXIII</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_I'>I</span>COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS</div> + <div>─────</div> + <div>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003' /> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>THE THEODORE L. GLASGOW MEMORIAL</div> + <div>PUBLICATION FUND</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c009'>The present volume is the seventh work published by the +Yale University Press on the Theodore L. Glasgow Memorial +Publication Fund. This foundation was established September +17, 1918, by an anonymous gift to Yale University in memory +of Flight Sub-Lieutenant Theodore L. Glasgow, R.N. He was +born in Montreal, Canada, and was educated at the University +of Toronto Schools and at the Royal Military College, Kingston. +In August, 1916, he entered the Royal Naval Air Service and +in July, 1917, went to France with the Tenth Squadron attached +to the Twenty-second Wing of the Royal Flying Corps. A +month later, August 19, 1917, he was killed in action on the +Ypres front.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>PART ONE—NURSERY AND UNIVERSITY</div> + <div class='c000'>1812-1834</div> + </div> +</div> + +<table class='table0' summary=''> +<colgroup> +<col width='92%' /> +<col width='7%' /> +</colgroup> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter I.<br /> My Nurse and the <i>Grande Armeé</i>—Moscow in Flames—My Father and Napoleon—General Ilovaiski—A Journey with French Prisoners—Patriotism—Calot—Property Managed in Common—The Division—The Senator.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter II.<br /> Gossip of Nurses and Conversation of Generals—A False Position—Boredom—The Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons and Reading—Catechism and the Gospel.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter III.<br /> Death of Alexander I—The Fourteenth of December—Moral Awakening—Bouchot—My Cousin—N. Ogaryóv.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_62'>62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter IV.<br /> My Friend Niko and the Sparrow Hills.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter V.<br /> Details of Home Life—Men of the Eighteenth Century in Russia—A Day at Home—Guests and Visitors—Sonnenberg—Servants.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter VI.<br /> The Kremlin Offices—Moscow University—The Chemist—The Cholera—Philaret—Passek.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_120'>120</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>Chapter VII.<br /> End of College Life—The “Schiller” Stage—Youth—The Artistic Life—Saint—Simonianism and N. Polevói—Polezháev.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>PART TWO—PRISON AND EXILE</div> + <div class='c000'>1834-1838</div> + </div> +</div> + +<table class='table1' summary=''> +<colgroup> +<col width='92%' /> +<col width='7%' /> +</colgroup> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter I.<br /> A Prophecy—Ogaryóv’s Arrest—The Fires—A Moscow Liberal—Mihail Orlóv—The Churchyard.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter II.<br /> Arrest—The Independent Witness—A Police-Station—Patriarchal Justice.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_214'>214</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter III.<br /> Under the Belfry—A Travelled Policeman—The Incendiaries.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter IV.<br /> The Krutitski Barracks—A Policeman’s Story—The Officers.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter V.<br /> The Enquiry—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn Junior—General Staal—The Sentence—Sokolovski.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_246'>246</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter VI.<br /> Exile—A Chief Constable—The Volga—Perm.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_265'>265</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter VII.<br /> Vyatka—The Office and Dinner-table of His Excellency—Tufáyev.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_283'>283</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter VIII.<br /> Officials—Siberian Governors—A Bird of Prey—A Gentle Judge—An Inspector Roasted—The Tatar—A Boy of the Female Sex—The Potato Revolt—Russian Justice.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_307'>307</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>Chapter IX.<br /> Alexander Vitberg.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_342'>342</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter X.<br /> The Crown Prince at Vyatka—The Fall of Tufáyev—Transferred to Vladímir—The Inspector’s Enquiry.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_360'>360</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c011'>Chapter XI.<br /> The Beginning of my Life at Vladímir.</td> + <td class='c012'><a href='#Page_374'>374</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span> + <h2 class='c010'>INTRODUCTION</h2> +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>I</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_6_0_7 c015'>ALEXANDER HERZEN was born in Moscow on +March 25,<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c016'><sup>[1]</sup></a> 1812, six months before Napoleon +arrived at the gates of the city with what was left +of his Grand Army. He died in Paris on January 9, 1870. +Down to his thirty-fifth year he lived in Russia, often in +places selected for his residence by the Government; he +left Russia, never to return, on January 10, 1847.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f1'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>The dates given here are those of the Russian calendar.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>He was the elder son of Iván Yákovlev, a Russian noble, +and Luise Haag, a German girl from Stuttgart. It was a +runaway match; and as the Lutheran marriage ceremony +was not supplemented in Russia, the child was illegitimate. +“Herzen” was a name invented for him by his parents. +Surnames, however, are little used in Russian society; +and the boy would generally be called, from his own +Christian name and his father’s, Alexander Ivánovich. +His parents lived together in Moscow, and he lived with +them and was brought up much like other sons of rich +nobles. It was quite in Herzen’s power to lead a life of +selfish ease and luxury; but he early chose a different path +and followed it to the end. Yet this consistent champion +of the poor and humble was himself a typical aristocrat-generous, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>indeed, and stoical in misfortune, but bold to +rashness and proud as Lucifer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The story of his early life is told fully in these pages—his +solitary boyhood and romantic friendship with his +cousin, Nikolai Ogaryóv; his keen enjoyment of College +life, and the beginning of his long warfare with the police +of that other aristocrat, Nicholas, Tsar of all the Russias, +who was just as much in earnest as Herzen but kept a +different object in view.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Charged with socialistic propaganda, Herzen spent nine +months of 1834-1835 in a Moscow prison and was then +sent, by way of punishment, to Vyatka. The exiles were +often men of exceptional ability, and the Government +made use of their talents. So Herzen was employed for +three years in compiling statistics and organizing an exhibition +at Vyatka. He was then allowed to move to Vladímir, +near Moscow, where he edited the official gazette; +and here, on May 9, 1838, he married his cousin, Natálya +Zakhárin, a natural daughter of one of his uncles. Receiving +permission in 1839 to live, under supervision of the +police, where he pleased, he spent some time in Moscow +and Petersburg, but he was again arrested on a charge of +disaffection and sent off this time to Novgorod, where he +served in the Government offices for nearly three years. +In 1842 he was allowed to retire from his duties and to +settle with his wife and family in Moscow. In 1846 his +father’s death made him a rich man.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For twelve years past, Herzen, when he was not in +prison, had lived the life of a ticket-of-leave man. He was +naturally anxious to get away from Russia; but a passport +was indispensable, and the Government would not give +him a passport. At last the difficulties were overcome; and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>in the beginning of 1847 Herzen, with his wife and children +and widowed mother, left Russia for ever.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Twenty-three years, almost to a day, remained for him +to live. The first part of that time was spent in France, +Italy, and Switzerland; but the suburbs of London, Putney +and Primrose Hill, were his most permanent place of +residence. He was safe there from the Russian police; +but he did not like London. He spoke English very badly;<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c016'><sup>[2]</sup></a> +he made few acquaintances there; and he writes with +some asperity of the people and their habits.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f2'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span>Herzen is mentioned in letters of Mrs. Carlyle. She notes (1) that +his English was unintelligible; and (2) that of all the exiles who came +to Cheyne Walk he was the only one who had money.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>His own family party was soon broken up by death. +In November, 1851, his mother and his little son, Nikolai +(still called Kólya) were drowned in an accident to the +boat which was bringing them from Marseilles to Nice, +where Herzen and his wife were expecting them. The +shock proved fatal to his wife: she died at Nice in the +spring of 1852. The three surviving children were not of +an age to be companions to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For many years after the <i>coup d’état</i> of Louis Napoleon, +Herzen, who owned a house in Paris, was forbidden to +live in France. He settled in London and was joined there +by Ogaryóv, the friend of his childhood. Together they +started a printing press, in order to produce the kind of +literature which Nicholas and his police were trying to +stamp out in Russia. In 1857, after the death of the great +Autocrat, they began to issue a fortnightly paper, called +Kólokol (<i>The Bell</i>); and this <i>Bell</i>, probably inaudible in +London, made an astonishing noise in Russia. Its circulation +and influence there were unexampled: it is said that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>the new Tsar, Alexander, was one of its regular readers. +Alexander and Herzen had met long before, at Vyatka. +February 19, 1861, when Alexander published the edict +abolishing slavery throughout his dominions, must have +been one of the brightest days in Herzen’s life. There was +little brightness in the nine years that remained. When +Poland revolted in 1863, he lost his subscribers and his +popularity by his courageous refusal to echo the prevailing +feeling of his countrymen; and he gave men inferior to +himself, such as Ogaryóv and Bakúnin, too much influence +over his journal.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was on a visit to Paris, when he died rather suddenly +of inflammation of the lungs on January 9, 1870. At Nice +there is a statue of Herzen on the grave where he and his +wife are buried.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>II</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The collected Russian edition of Herzen’s works—no +edition was permitted by the censorship till 1905—extends +to seven thick volumes. These are: one volume of +fiction; one of letters addressed to his future wife; two +of memoirs; and three of what may be called political +journalism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>About 1842 he began to publish articles on scientific +and social subjects in magazines whose precarious activity +was constantly interrupted or arrested by the censorship. +His chief novel, <i>Who Was To Blame?</i> was written in 1846. +From the time when he left Russia he was constantly +writing on European politics and the shifting fortunes of +the cause which he had at heart. When he was publishing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span>his Russian newspapers in London, first <i>The Pole-Star</i> +and then <i>The Bell</i>, he wrote most of the matter himself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To readers who are not countrymen or contemporaries +of Herzen’s, the <i>Memoirs</i> are certainly the most interesting +part of his production. They paint for us an astonishing +picture of Russian life under the grim rule of Nicholas, +the life of the rich man in Moscow, and the life of the +exile near the Ural Mountains; and they are crowded with +figures and incidents which would be incredible if one +were not convinced of the narrator’s veracity. Herzen is +a supreme master of that superb instrument, the Russian +language. With a force of intellect entirely out of Boswell’s +reach, he has Boswell’s power of dramatic presentation: +his characters, from the Tsar himself to the humblest +old woman, live and move before you on the printed page. +His satire is as keen as Heine’s, and he is much more in +earnest. Nor has any writer more power to wring the heart +by pictures of human suffering and endurance. The +<i>Memoirs</i> have, indeed, one fault—that they are too discursive, +and that successive episodes are not always clearly +connected or well proportioned. But this is mainly due to +the circumstances in which they were produced. Different +parts were written at considerable intervals and published +separately. The narrative is much more continuous in the +earlier parts: indeed, Part V is merely a collection of +fragments. But Herzen’s <i>Memoirs</i> are among the noblest +monuments of Russian literature.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>III</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The <i>Memoirs</i>, called by Herzen himself <i>Past and +Thoughts</i>, are divided into five Parts. This translation, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span>made six years ago from the Petersburg edition of 1913, +contains Parts I and II. These were written in London in +1852-1853, and printed in London, at 36 Regent’s Square, +in the Russian journal called <i>The Pole-Star</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Part I has not, I believe, been translated into English +before. A translation of Part II was published in London +during the Crimean war;<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c016'><sup>[3]</sup></a> but this was evidently taken +from a German version by someone whose knowledge of +German was inadequate. The German translation of the +<i>Memoirs</i> by Dr. Buek<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c016'><sup>[4]</sup></a> seems to me very good; but it is +defective: whole chapters of the original are omitted without +warning.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f3'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span><i>My Exile in Siberia</i>, by Alexander Herzen. (Hurst +and Blackett, London, 1855). Herzen was not responsible for the +misleading title, which caused him some annoyance.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f4'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span><i>Erinnerungen von Alexander Herzen</i>, by Dr. Otto +Buek (Berlin, 1907).</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>To make the narrative easier to follow, I have divided +it up into numbered sections, which Herzen himself did +not use. I have added a few footnotes.</p> +<p class='c019'>June 5, 1923.</p> +<div class='c020'><span class='sc'>J. D. Duff.</span></div> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003' /> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'>PART I</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='large'>NURSERY AND UNIVERSITY</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='large'>(1812-1834)</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>My Nurse and the <i>Grande Armée</i>—Moscow in Flames—My +Father and Napoleon—General Ilovaiski—A Journey with +French Prisoners—Patriotism—Calot—Property Managed in +Common—The Division—The Senator.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>“OH, please, Nurse, tell me again how the French +came to Moscow!” This was a constant petition +of mine, as I stretched myself out in my crib +with the cloth border to prevent my falling out, and +nestled down under the warm quilt.</p> + +<p class='c017'>My old nurse, Vyéra Artamónovna, was just as eager +to repeat her favourite story as I was to hear it; but her +regular reply was: “You’ve heard that old story ever so +often before, and besides it’s time for you to go to sleep; +you had better rise earlier to-morrow.”</p> + +<p class='c017'>“Oh, but please tell me just a little—how you heard +the news, and how it all began.”</p> + +<p class='c017'>“Well, it began this way. You know how your papa +puts off always. The packing went on and on till at +last it was done. Everyone said it was high time to be +off; there was nothing to keep us and hardly a soul left in +Moscow. But no! He was always discussing with your +<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>uncle Paul<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c016'><sup>[5]</sup></a> about travelling together, and they were +never both ready on the same day. But at last our things +were packed, the carriage was ready, and the travellers +had just sat down to lunch, when the head cook came +into the dining-room as white as a sheet and reported +that the enemy had entered the city at the Dragomirovsky +Gate. Our hearts went down into our boots, and we +prayed that the power of the Cross might be on our side. +All was confusion, and, while we were bustling to and fro +and crying out, suddenly we saw a regiment of dragoons +galloping down the street; they wore strange helmets +with horses’ tails tied on behind. They had closed all +the city gates; so there was your papa in a pretty mess, +and you with him! You were still with your foster-mother, +Darya; you were very small and weak then.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f5'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>Paul Ivanovitch Golochvastov, who had married my father’s +youngest sister.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>And I smiled, with pride and pleasure at the thought +that I had taken a part in the Great War.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“At first, all went reasonably well, during the first days +at least. From time to time two or three soldiers would +come into the house and ask for something to drink; of +course we gave them a glass apiece, and then they would +go away and salute quite politely as well. But then, you +see, when the fires began and got worse and worse, there +was terrible disorder, and pillage began and every sort +of horror. We were living in a wing of the Princess’s +house, and the house caught fire. Then your uncle Paul +invited us to move to his house, which was built of stone +and very strong and stood far back in a court-yard. So +we all set off, masters and servants together—there was +no thought of distinctions at such a time. When we got +<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>into the boulevard, the trees on each side were beginning +to burn. At last we reached your uncle’s house, and it +was actually blazing, with the fire spouting out of every +window. Your uncle could not believe his eyes; he stood +rooted to the ground.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Behind the house, as you know, there is a big garden, +and we went there, hoping to be safe. We sat down sadly +enough on some benches there were there, when suddenly +a band of drunken soldiers came in and one of them +began to strip your uncle of a fur coat he had put on for +the journey. But the old gentleman resisted, and the +soldier pulled out his dirk and struck him in the face; +and your uncle kept the scar to his dying day. The other +soldiers set upon us, and one of them snatched you from +the arms of your foster-mother, and undid your clothes, +to see if there were any notes or jewels hidden there; +when he found nothing, the mean fellow tore the clothes +on purpose and then left you alone.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“As soon as they had gone, a great misfortune happened. +You remember our servant Platon, who was sent +to serve in the Army? He was always fond of the bottle +and had had too much to drink that day. He had got hold +of a sword and was walking about with it tied round his +waist. The day before the enemy came, Count Rostopchín +distributed arms of all kinds to the people at the +Arsenal, and Platon had provided himself with a sword. +Towards evening, a dragoon rode into the court-yard and +tried to take a horse that was standing near the stable; +but Platon flew at him, caught hold of the bridle, and +said: ‘The horse is ours; you shan’t have it.’ The dragoon +pointed a pistol at him, but it can’t have been loaded. +Your father saw what was happening and called out: +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>‘Leave that horse alone, Platon! Don’t you interfere.’ +But it was no good: Platon pulled out his sword and +struck the soldier over the head; the man reeled under +the blow, and Platon struck him again and again. We +thought we were doomed now; for, if his comrades saw +him, they would soon kill us. When the dragoon fell off, +Platon caught hold of his legs and threw him into a lime-pit, +though the poor wretch was still breathing; the man’s +horse never moved but beat the ground with its hoof, as +if it understood; our people shut it up in the stable, and +it must have been burnt to death there.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We all cleared out of the court as soon as we could; +the fires everywhere grew worse and worse. Tired and +hungry, we went into a house that had not caught fire, +and threw ourselves down to rest; but, before an hour +had passed, our servants in the street were calling out: +‘Come out! come out! Fire, fire!’ I took a piece of oil-cloth +off the billiard table, to wrap you up from the night +air. We got as far as the Tversky Square, and the Frenchmen +were putting out the fires there, because one of their +great generals was living in the Governor’s house in the +square; we sat down as we were on the street; there were +sentries moving all about and other soldiers on horseback. +You were crying terribly; your foster-mother had no more +milk, and none of us had even a piece of bread. But +Natálya Konstantínovna was with us then, and she was +afraid of nothing. She saw some soldiers eating in a +corner; she took you in her arms and went straight off, +and showed you to them. ‘The baby wants <i>manger</i>,’ she +said. At first they looked angrily at her and said, ‘<i>Allez, +allez!</i>’ Then she called them every bad name she could +think of; and they did not understand a word, but they +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>laughed heartily and gave her some bread soaked in water +for you and a crust for herself. Early next morning an +officer came and collected all the men, and your father +too, and took them off to put out the fires round about; +he left the women only, and your uncle who had been +wounded. We stayed there alone till evening; we just sat +there and cried. But at dark your father came back, and +an officer with him.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But allow me to take the place of my old nurse and to +continue her story.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When my father had finished his duties as a fireman, +he met a squadron of Italian cavalry near the Monastery +of the Passion. He went up to the officer in command, +spoke to him in Italian, and explained the plight of his +family. When the Italian heard his native language—<i>la +sua dolce favella</i>—he promised to speak to the Duc de +Trévise,<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c016'><sup>[6]</sup></a> and to post a sentinel at once, in order to prevent +a repetition of the wild scenes which had taken place +in my uncle’s garden. He gave orders to this effect to an +officer, and sent him off with my father. When he heard +that none of the party had eaten any food for two days, +the officer took us all off to a grocer’s shop; it had been +wrecked and the floor was covered with choice tea and +coffee, and heaps of dates, raisins, and almonds; our +servants filled their pockets, and of dessert at least we +had abundance. The sentinel proved to be of no little +service: again and again, bands of soldiers were inclined +to give trouble to the wretched party of women and servants, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>camping in a corner of the square; but an order +from our protector made them pass on at once.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f6'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>Mortier (1768-1835), one of Napoleon’s marshals, bore +this title.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Mortier, who remembered having met my father in +Paris, reported the facts to Napoleon, and Napoleon +ordered him to be presented the next day. And so my +father, a great stickler for propriety and the rules of +etiquette, presented himself, at the Emperor’s summons, +in the throne-room of the Kremlin, wearing an old blue +shooting-jacket with brass buttons, no wig, boots which +had not been cleaned for several days, grimy linen, and +a beard of two days’ growth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Their conversation—how often I heard it repeated!—is +reproduced accurately enough in the French history +of Baron Fain and the Russian history of Danilevski.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Napoleon began with those customary phrases, abrupt +remarks, and laconic aphorisms to which it was the custom +for thirty-five years to attribute some profound significance, +until it was discovered that they generally +meant very little. He then abused Rostopchín for the fires, +and said it was mere vandalism; he declared, as always, +that he loved peace above all things and that he was fighting +England, not Russia; he claimed credit for having +placed a guard over the Foundling Hospital and the Uspenski +Cathedral; and he complained of the Emperor +Alexander. “My desire for peace is kept from His Majesty +by the people round him,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father remarked that it was rather the business of +the conqueror to make proposals of peace.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have done my best. I have sent messages to +Kutúzov,<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c016'><sup>[7]</sup></a> but he will hear of no discussions whatever +and does not acquaint his master with my proposals. I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>am not to blame—if they want war they shall have it!”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f7'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span>The Russian commander-in-chief.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>When this play-acting was done, my father asked for +a safe-conduct to leave Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have ordered that no passes be given. Why do you +want to go? What are you afraid of? I have ordered the +markets to be opened.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Apparently the Emperor did not realise that, though +open markets are a convenience, so is a shut house, and +that to live in the open street among French soldiers was +not an attractive prospect for a Russian gentleman and +his family.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When my father pointed this out, Napoleon thought +for a little and then asked abruptly:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Will you undertake to hand to the Tsar a letter from +me? On that condition, I will order a pass to be made out +for you and all your family.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I would accept Your Majesty’s proposal,” said my +father, “but it is difficult for me to guarantee success.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Will you give me your word of honour, that you will +use all possible means to deliver my letter with your own +hands?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I pledge you my honour, Sir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That is enough. I shall send for you. Is there anything +you need?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Nothing, except a roof to shelter my family till we +leave.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The Duc de Trévise will do what he can.” Mortier +did in fact provide a room in the Governor’s palace, and +ordered that we should be supplied with provisions; and +his <i>maître d’hôtel</i> sent us wine as well. After several days +Mortier summoned my father at four in the morning, and +sent him off to the Kremlin.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>By this time the conflagration had spread to a frightful +extent; the atmosphere, heated red-hot and darkened by +smoke, was intolerable. Napoleon was dressed already +and walking about the room, angry and uneasy; he was +beginning to realise that his withered laurels would soon +be frozen, and that a jest would not serve, as it had in +Egypt, to get him out of this embarrassment. His plan +of campaign was ill-conceived, and all except Napoleon +knew it—Ney, Narbonne, Berthier, and even officers of +no mark or position; to all criticisms his reply was the +magic word “Moscow”; and, when he reached Moscow, +he too discovered the truth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When my father entered the room, Napoleon took a +sealed letter from a table, gave it to him, and said by +way of dismissal, “I rely upon your word of honour.” +The address on the envelope ran thus: <i>À mon frère +l’empereur Alexandre</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The safe-conduct given to my father is preserved to +this day; it is signed by the Duc de Trévise and counter-signed +below by Lesseps, chief of police at Moscow. Some +strangers, hearing of our good fortune, begged my father +to take them with him, under the pretext that they were +servants or relations; and they joined our party. An open +carriage was provided for my mother and nurse, and for +my wounded uncle; the rest walked. A party of cavalry +escorted us; when the rear of the Russian Army came in +sight, they wished us good fortune and galloped back +again to Moscow. The strange party of refugees was +surrounded a moment later by Cossacks, who took us to +head-quarters. The generals in command were Wintzengerode +and Ilovaiski.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the former was told of the letter, he told my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>father that he would send him at once, with two dragoons, +to see the Tsar at Petersburg.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What is to become of your party?” asked the Cossack +general, Ilovaiski; “They can’t possibly stay here, within +rifle-shot of the troops; there may be some hot fighting +any day.” My father asked that we might be sent, if +possible, to his Yaroslavl estate; and he added that he +was absolutely penniless at the time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That does not matter: we can settle accounts later,” +said the General; “and don’t be uneasy: I give you my +promise that they shall be sent.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>While my father was sent off to Petersburg on a +courier’s cart, Ilovaiski procured an old rattle-trap of a +carriage for us, and sent us and a party of French prisoners +to the next town, under an escort of Cossacks; he +provided us with money for posting as far as Yaroslavl, +and, in general, did all that he could for us in a time of +war and confusion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was my first long journey in Russia; my second +was not attended by either French cavalry or Ural Cossacks +or prisoners of war; the whole party consisted of +myself and a drunk police-officer sitting beside me in the +carriage.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My father was taken straight to Arakchéyev’s<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c016'><sup>[8]</sup></a> house +and detained there. When the Minister asked for the +letter, my father said that he had given his word of +honour to deliver it in person. The Minister then promised +to consult the Tsar, and informed him next day in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>writing, that he himself was commissioned by the Tsar +to receive the letter and present it at once. For the letter +he gave a receipt, which also has been preserved. For +about a month my father was under arrest in Arakchéyev’s +house; no friend might see him, and his only visitor +was S. Shishkóv, whom the Tsar sent to ask for details +about the burning of Moscow, the entry of the French, +and the interview with Napoleon. No eye-witness of these +events had reached Petersburg except my father. At last +he was told that the Tsar ordered him to be set at liberty; +he was excused, on the ground of necessity, for having +accepted a safe-conduct from the French authorities; but +he was ordered to leave Petersburg at once, without +having communication with anyone, except that he was +allowed to say good-bye to his elder brother.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f8'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span>This minister was the real ruler of Russia till the death +of Alexander in 1825.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>When he reached at nightfall the little village where +we were, my father found us in a peasant’s cottage; +there was no manor-house on that estate. I was sleeping +on a settle near the window; the window would not shut +tight, and the snow, drifting through the crack, had +covered part of a stool, and lay, without melting, on the +window-sill.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All were in great distress and confusion, and especially +my mother. One morning, some days before my father +arrived, the head man of the village came hurriedly into +the cottage where she was living, and made signs to her +that she was to follow him. My mother could not speak +a word of Russian at that time; she could only make out +that the man was speaking of my uncle Paul; she did +not know what to think; it came into her head that the +people had murdered him or wished to murder first him +and then her. She took me in her arms and followed the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>head man, more dead than alive, and shaking all over. +She entered the cottage occupied by my uncle; he was +actually dead, and his body lay near a table at which he +had begun to shave; a stroke of paralysis had killed him +instantly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My mother was only seventeen then, and her feelings +may be imagined. She was surrounded by half-savage +bearded men, dressed in sheepskins and speaking a language +to her utterly incomprehensible; she was living in +a small, smoke-grimed peasant’s cottage; and it was the +month of November in the terrible winter of 1812. My +uncle had been her one support, and she spent days and +nights in tears for his loss. But those “savages” pitied +her with all their heart; their simple kindness never +failed her, and their head man sent his son again and +again to the town, to fetch raisins and gingerbread, apples +and biscuits, to tempt her to eat.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Fifteen years later, this man was still living and sometimes +paid us a visit at Moscow. The little hair he had +left was then white as snow. My mother used to give him +tea and talk over that winter of 1812; she reminded +him how frightened she was of him, and how the pair of +them, entirely unintelligible to one another, made the +arrangements about my uncle’s funeral. The old man +continued to call my mother Yulíza Ivánovna (her name +was Luise); and he always boasted that I was quite +willing to go to him and not in the least afraid of his +long beard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We travelled by stages to Tver and finally to Moscow, +which we reached after about a year. At the same time, +a brother of my father’s returned from Sweden and +settled down in the same house with us. Formerly ambassador +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>in Westphalia, he had been sent on some mission +to the court of Bernadotte.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I still remember dimly the traces of the great fire, +which were visible even in the early twenties—big houses +with the roof gone and window-frames burnt out, heaps +of fallen masonry, empty spaces fenced off from the +street, remnants of stoves and chimneys sticking up out +of them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Stories of the Great Fire, the battle of Borodino, the +crossing of the Berezina, and the taking of Paris—these +took the place of cradle-song and fairy-tale to me, they +were my Iliad and Odyssey. My mother and our servants, +my father and my old nurse, were never tired of going +back to that terrible time, which was still so recent and +had been brought home to them so painfully. Later, our +officers began to return from foreign service to Moscow. +Men who had served in former days with my father in +the Guards and had taken a glorious part in the fierce +contest of the immediate past, were often at our house; +and to them it was a relief from their toils and dangers +to tell them over again. That was indeed the most brilliant +epoch in the history of Petersburg: the consciousness +of power breathed new life into Russia; business +and care were, so to speak, put off till the sober morrow, +and all the world was determined to make merry to-day +and celebrate the victory.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At this time I heard even more than my old nurse could +tell me about the war. I liked especially to listen to the +stories of Count Milorádovitch;<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c016'><sup>[9]</sup></a> I often lay at his back +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>on the long sofa, while he described and acted scenes of +the campaign, and his lively narrative and loud laugh +were very attractive to me. More than once I fell asleep +in that position.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f9'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span>Michael Milorádovitch (1770-1825), a famous commander who +lost his life in suppressing the Decembrist revolution, December, +1825.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>These surroundings naturally developed my patriotic +feeling to an extreme degree, and I was resolved to enter +the Army. But an exclusive feeling of nationality is never +productive of good, and it landed me in the following +scrape. One of our guests was Count Quinsonet, a French +<i>émigré</i> and a general in the Russian army. An out-and-out +royalist, he had been present at the famous dinner +where the King’s Body-Guards trampled on the national +cockade and Marie Antoinette drank confusion to the +Revolution.<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c016'><sup>[10]</sup></a> He was now a grey-haired old man, tall and +slight, a perfect gentleman and the pink of politeness. A +peerage was awaiting him at Paris; he had been there +already to congratulate Louis XVIII on his accession, +and had returned to Russia to sell his estates. As ill luck +would have it, I was present when this politest of generals +in the Russian service began to speak about the war.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f10'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span>This dinner took place at Versailles, on October 1, 1789.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>“But you, surely, were fighting against us,” I said very +innocently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>Non, mon petit, non! J’étais dans l’armée russe.</i>”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What!” said I, “you a Frenchman and fighting on our +side! That’s impossible.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father gave me a reproving look and tried to talk +of something else. But the Frenchman saved the situation +nobly: he turned to my father and said, “I like to +see such patriotic feeling.” But my father did not like to +see it, and scolded me severely when our guest had gone. +“You see what comes of rushing into things which you +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>don’t and can’t understand: the Count served <i>our</i> Emperor +out of loyalty to <i>his own</i> sovereign.” That was, as +my father said, beyond my powers of comprehension.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My father had lived twelve years abroad, and his brother +still longer; and they tried to organise their household, +to some extent, on a foreign plan; yet it was to retain +all the conveniences of Russian life and not to cost much. +This plan was not realised; perhaps their measures were +unskilful, or perhaps the old traditions of Russian country +life were too strong for habits acquired abroad. They +shared their land in common and managed it jointly, and +a swarm of servants inhabited the ground floor of their +house in town; in fact, all the elements of disorder were +present.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was under the charge of two nurses, one Russian and +the other German. Vyéra Artamónovna and Mme. Provo +were two very good-natured women, but I got weary of +watching them all day, as they knitted stockings and +wrangled together. So, whenever I could, I escaped to the +part of the house occupied by the Senator—my uncle, the +former ambassador, was now a Senator<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c016'><sup>[11]</sup></a> and was generally +called by this title—and there I found my only +friend, my uncle’s valet, Calot.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f11'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>The Senate was not a deliberative body but a Supreme +Court of Justice.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I have seldom met so kind and gentle a creature as +this man. Utterly solitary in Russia, separated from all +his own belongings, and hardly able to speak our language, +he had a woman’s tenderness for me. I spent whole +hours in his room, and, though I was often mischievous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>and troublesome, he bore it all with a good-natured smile. +He cut out all kinds of marvels for me in cardboard, and +carved me many toys of wood; and how I loved him in +return! In the evenings he used to take picture-books +from the library and bring them up to my nursery—<i>The +Travels</i> of Gmelin and Pallas, and another thick book +called <i>The World in Pictures</i>, which I liked so much and +looked at so long, that the leather binding got worn out: +for two hours together Calot would show me the same +pictures and repeat the same explanations for the thousandth +time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Before my birthday party, Calot shut himself up in +his room, and I could hear mysterious sounds of a hammer +and other tools issuing from it. He often walked +quickly through the passage, carrying a glue-pot or something +wrapped up in paper, but each time he left his +room locked. I knew he was preparing some surprise for +me, and my curiosity may be imagined. I sent the servants’ +children to act as spies, but Calot was not to be +caught napping. We even managed to make a small hole +in the staircase, through which we could look down into +the room; but we could see nothing but the top of the +window and the portrait of Frederick the Great, with +his long nose and a large star on his breast, looking +like a sick vulture. At last the noises stopped, and the +room was unlocked—but it looked just as before, except +for snippings of gilt and coloured paper on the floor. I +was devoured by curiosity; but Calot wore a pretence of +solemnity on his features and never touched the ticklish +subject.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was still suffering agonies of impatience when the +great day arrived. I awoke at six, to wonder what Calot +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>had in store for me; at eight Calot himself appeared, +wearing a white tie and white waistcoat under his blue +livery, but his hands were empty! I wondered how it +would all end, and whether he had spoilt what he was +making. The day went on, and the usual presents were +forthcoming: my aunt’s footman had brought me an expensive +toy wrapped up in a napkin, and my uncle, the +Senator, had been generous also, but I was too restless, in +expectation of the surprise, to enjoy my happiness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then, when I was not thinking of it, after dinner or +perhaps after tea, my nurse said to me: “Go downstairs +for a moment, there is someone there asking for you.” +“At last!” I thought, and down the bannisters I slid on +my arms. The drawing-room door flew open; I heard +music and saw a transparency representing my initials; +then some little boys, disguised as Turks, offered me +sweets; and this was followed by a puppet-show and +parlour fireworks. Calot was very hot and very busy; he +kept everything going and was quite as excited as I was +myself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>No presents could rank with this entertainment. I +never cared much for <i>things</i>; the bump of acquisitiveness +was never, at any age, highly developed in me. The satisfaction +of my curiosity, the abundance of candles, the +silver paper, the smell of gunpowder—nothing was wanting +but a companion of my own age. But I spent all my +childhood in solitude and consequently was not exacting +on that score.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My father had another brother, the oldest of the three; +but he was not even on speaking terms with his two +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>juniors. In spite of this, they all took a share in the management +of the family property, which really meant that +they combined to ruin it. This triple management by +owners at variance with one another was the height of +absurdity. Two of them were always thwarting their +senior’s plans, and he did the same for them. The head +men of the villages and the serfs were utterly bamboozled: +one landlord required carts to convey his household, the +second demanded hay, and the third, fire-wood; each of +the three issued orders, and sent his man of business to +see that they were carried out. If the eldest brother appointed +a bailiff, the other two dismissed the man in a +month on some absurd pretext, and appointed another, +who was promptly disowned by their senior. As a natural +result, there were spies and favourites, to carry slanders +and false reports, while, at the bottom of this system, the +wretched serfs, finding neither justice nor protection and +harassed by a diversity of masters, were worked twice +as hard and found it impossible to satisfy such unreasonable +demands.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As a consequence of this quarrel between brothers, they +lost a great lawsuit in which the law was on their side. +Though their interests were identical, they could never +settle on a common course of procedure, and their opponents +naturally took advantage of this state of affairs. +They lost a large and valuable property in this way; and +the Court also condemned each brother to pay damages +to the amount of 30,000 <i>roubles</i>. This lesson opened their +eyes for the first time, and they determined to divide the +family estates between them. Preliminary discussions +went on for nearly a year; the land was divided into three +fairly even parts, and chance was to decide to whom each +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>should fall. My father and the Senator paid a visit to +their brother, whom they had not seen for several years, +in order to talk things over and be reconciled; and then +it was noised abroad that he would return the visit and +the business would be finally settled on that occasion. The +report of this visit spread uneasiness and dismay throughout +our household.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My uncle was one of those monsters of eccentricity +which only Russia and the conditions of Russian society +can produce. A man of good natural parts, he spent his +whole life in committing follies which often rose to the +dignity of crimes. Though he was well educated after the +French fashion and had read much, his time was spent +in profligacy or mere idleness, and this went on till his +death. In youth he served, like his brothers, in the Guards +and was <i>aide-de-camp</i> in some capacity to Potemkin;<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c016'><sup>[12]</sup></a> +next, he served on a diplomatic mission, and, on his return +to Petersburg, was appointed to a post in the Ecclesiastical +Court. But no association either with diplomatists +or priests could tame that wild character. He was dismissed +from his post, for quarrelling with the Bishops; +and he was forbidden to reside in Petersburg, because +he gave, or tried to give, a box on the ear to a guest at +an official dinner given by the Governor of the city. He +retired to his estate at Tambóv; and there he was nearly +murdered by his serfs for interference with their daughters +and for acts of cruelty; he owed his life to his coachman +and the speed of his horses.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f12'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>Grigóri Potemkin (pronounce Pat-yóm-kin), b. 1736, d. +1791; minister and favourite of the Empress Catherine.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>After this experience he settled in Moscow. Disowned +by his relations and by people in general, he lived quite +alone in a large house on the Tver Boulevard, bullying +his servants in town and ruining his serfs in the country. +He collected a large library and a whole harem of country +girls, and kept both these departments under lock and +key. Totally unoccupied and inordinately vain, he sought +distraction in collecting things for which he had no use, +and in litigation, which proved even more expensive. He +carried on his lawsuits with passionate eagerness. One +of these suits was about an Amati fiddle; it lasted thirty +years, and he won it in the end. He won another case +for the possession of a party-wall between two houses: +it cost him extraordinary exertions, and he gained nothing +by owning the wall. After his retirement, he used to follow +in the Gazette the promotions of his contemporaries in +the public service; and, whenever one of them received +an Order, he bought the star and placed it on his table, +as a painful reminder of the distinctions he might have +gained.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His brothers and sisters feared him and had no intercourse +with him of any kind; our servants would not walk +past his house, for fear of meeting him, and turned pale +at the sight of him; the women dreaded his insolent persecution, +and the domestic servants had prayer offered in +church that they might never serve him.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Such was the alarming character of our expected visitor. +From early morning all the inmates of our house +were keenly excited. I had never seen the black sheep +myself, though I was born in his house, which was occupied +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>by my father on his return from foreign parts; I +was very anxious to see him, and I was also afraid, though +I don’t know what I was afraid of.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Other visitors came before him—my father’s oldest +nephew, two intimate friends, and a lawyer, a stout good-natured +man who perspired freely. For two hours they +all sat in silent expectation, till at last the butler came in, +and, with a voice that seemed somehow unnatural, announced +the arrival of our kinsman. “Bring him in,” said +the Senator, in obvious agitation; my father began to +take snuff, the nephew straightened his tie, and the lawyer +turned to one side and cleared his throat. I was told to +go upstairs, but I remained in the next room, shaking all +over.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The uncle advanced at a slow and dignified pace, and +my father and the Senator went to meet him. He was +carrying an <i>ikon</i><a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c016'><sup>[13]</sup></a> with both arms stretched out before +him, in the way that <i>ikons</i> are carried at weddings and +funerals; he turned towards his brothers and in a nasal +drawl addressed them as follows:</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f13'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span>A sacred picture.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>“This is the <i>ikon</i> with which our father blessed me on +his deathbed, and he then charged me and my late brother, +Peter, to take his place and care for you two. If our +father could know how you have behaved to your elder +brother....”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Come, <i>mon cher frère</i>,” said my father, in his voice +of studied indifference, “you have little to boast about +on that score yourself. These references to the past are +painful for you and for us, and we had better drop them.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What do you mean? Did you invite me here for this?” +shouted the pious brother, and he dashed the <i>ikon</i> down +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>with such violence that the silver frame rang loudly on +the floor. Now the Senator began, and he shouted still +louder; but at this point I rushed upstairs, just waiting +long enough to see the nephew and the lawyer, as much +alarmed as I was, beating a retreat to the balcony.</p> + +<p class='c008'>What then took place, I cannot tell. The servants had +all hid for safety and could give no information; and +neither my father nor the Senator ever alluded to the +scene in my presence. The noise grew less by degrees, +and the division of the land was carried out, but whether +then or later, I do not know.</p> + +<p class='c008'>What fell to my father was Vasílevskoë, a large estate +near Moscow. We spent all the following summer there; +and during that time the Senator bought a house for himself +in the Arbat quarter of Moscow, so that, when we returned +alone to our big house, we found it empty and +dead. Soon after, my father also bought a new house in +Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the Senator left us, he took with him, in the first +place, my friend Calot, and, in the second place, all that +gave life in our establishment. He alone could check my +father’s tendency to morbid depression, which now had +room to develop and assert itself fully. Our new house +was not cheerful: it reminded one of a prison or hospital. +The ground-floor rooms were vaulted; the thick walls +made the windows look like the embrasures of a fortress; +and the house was surrounded on all sides by a uselessly +large court-yard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The real wonder was, not that the Senator left us, but +that he was able to stay so long under one roof with my +father. I have seldom seen two men more unlike in +character.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>My uncle was a kind-hearted man, who loved movement +and excitement. His whole life was spent in an +artificial world, a world of diplomats and lords-in-waiting, +and he never guessed that there is a different world which +comes nearer to the reality of things. And yet he was not +merely a spectator of all that happened between 1789 and +1815, but was personally involved in that mighty drama. +Count Vorontsov sent him to England, to learn from Lord +Grenville what “General Buonaparte” was up to, after he +left the army of Egypt. He was in Paris at the time of +Napoleon’s coronation. In 1811 Napoleon ordered him to +be detained and arrested at Cassel, where he was minister +at the court of King Jérôme<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c016'><sup>[14]</sup></a>—“Emperor Jérôme,” as +my father used to say when he was annoyed. In fact, he +witnessed each scene of that tremendous spectacle; but, +somehow, it seemed not to impress him in the right way.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f14'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span>Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860) was King of Westphalia from +1807 to 1813.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>When captain in the Guards, he was sent on a mission +to London. Paul, who was then Tsar, noticed this when +he read the roster, and ordered that he should report himself +at once in Petersburg. The attaché sailed by the first +ship and appeared on parade.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you want to stay in London?” Paul asked in his +hoarse voice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If Your Majesty is graciously pleased to allow it,” +answered the captain.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Go back at once!” the hoarse voice replied; and the +young officer sailed, without even seeing his family in +Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While he served as ambassador, diplomatic questions +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>were settled by bayonets and cannon-balls; and his diplomatic +career came to an end at the Congress of Vienna, +that great field-day for all the diplomats of Europe. On +his return to Russia, he was created a lord-in-waiting at +Moscow—a capital which has no Court. Then he was +elected to the Senate, though he knew nothing of law or +Russian judicial procedure; he served on the Widows’ +and Orphans’ Board, and was a governor of hospitals and +other public institutions. All these duties he performed +with a zeal that was probably superfluous, a love of his +own way that was certainly harmful, and an integrity +that passed wholly unnoticed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was never to be found at home. He tired out a +team of four strong horses every morning, and another +in the afternoon. He never missed a meeting of the +Senate; twice a week he attended the Widows’ Board; +and there were also his hospitals and schools. Besides all +this, he was never absent from the theatre when a French +play was given, and he was driven to the English Club +on three days of every week. He had no time to be bored—always +busy with one of his many occupations, perpetually +on the way to some engagement, and his life rolled +along on easy springs in a world of files and official envelopes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To the age of seventy, he kept the health of youth. +He was always to be seen at every great ball or dinner; +he figured at speech-days and meetings of public bodies; +whatever their objects might be—agriculture or medicine, +fire insurance or natural science—it was all one to him; +and, besides all this (perhaps because of this), he kept +to old age some measure of humanity and warmth of +heart.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>It is impossible to conceive a greater contrast to all +this than my father. My uncle was perpetually active and +perpetually cheerful, an occasional visitor at his own +house. But my father hardly ever went out-of-doors, hated +all the world of official business, and was always hard to +please and out of humour. We had our eight horses too, +but our stable was a kind of hospital for cripples; my +father kept them partly for the sake of appearance, and +partly that the two coachmen and two postilions might +have some other occupation, as well as going to fetch +newspapers and arranging cock-fights, which last amusement +they carried on with much success in the space between +the coach-house and the neighbours’ yard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father did not remain long in the public service. +Brought up by a French tutor in the house of a pious +aunt, he entered the Guards as a serjeant at sixteen and +retired as a captain when Paul became Tsar. In 1801 +he went abroad and wandered about from one foreign +country to another till the end of 1811. He returned to +Russia with my mother three months before I was born; +the year after the burning of Moscow he spent in the +Government of Tver, and then settled down permanently +in Moscow, where he led by choice a solitary and monotonous +life. His brother’s lively temperament was distasteful +to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After the Senator had left it, the whole house assumed +a more and more gloomy aspect. The walls, the furniture, +the servants—every thing and person had a furtive and +dissatisfied appearance; and of course my father himself +was more dissatisfied than anyone else. The artificial stillness, +the hushed voices and noiseless steps of the servants, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>were no sign of devotion, but of repression and fear. +Nothing was ever moved in the rooms: the same books +lay on the same tables, with the same markers in them, +for five or six years together. In my father’s bedroom +and study the furniture was never shifted and the windows +never opened, not once in a twelvemonth. When he +went to the country, he regularly took the key of his +rooms in his pocket, lest the servants should take it into +their heads to scour the floors or to clean the walls in +his absence.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>Gossip of Nurses and Conversation of Generals—A False Position—Boredom—The +Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons +and Reading—Catechism and the Gospel.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>UNTIL I was ten, I noticed nothing strange or +peculiar in my position.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c016'><sup>[15]</sup></a> To me it seemed simple +and natural that I was living in my father’s +house, where I had to be quiet in the rooms inhabited by +him, though in my mother’s part of the house I could +shout and make a noise to my heart’s content. The Senator +gave me toys and spoilt me; Calot was my faithful +slave; Vyéra Artamónovna bathed me, dressed me, and +put me to bed; and Mme. Provo took me out for walks +and spoke German to me. All went on with perfect regularity; +and yet I began to feel puzzled.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f15'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>Herzen’s parents were never married with the Russian +rites, and he bore throughout life a name which was not his father’s.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>My attention was caught by some casual remarks incautiously +dropped. Old Mme. Provo and the household +in general were devoted to my mother, but feared and +disliked my father. The disputes which sometimes took +place between my parents were often the subject of discussion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>between my nurses, and they always took my +mother’s side.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was true that my mother’s life was no bed of roses. +An exceedingly kind-hearted woman, but not strong-willed, +she was utterly crushed by my father; and, as +often happens with weak characters, she was apt to carry +on a desperate opposition in matters of no importance. +Unfortunately, in these trifles my father was almost +always in the right, and so he triumphed in the end.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mme. Provo would start a conversation in this style: +“In her place, I declare I would be off at once and go +back to Germany. The dulness of the life is fit to kill +one; no enjoyment and nothing but grumbling and unpleasantness.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re quite right,” said Vyéra Artamónovna; “but +she’s tied hand and foot by someone”—and she would +point her knitting-needles at me. “She can’t take him +with her, and to leave him here alone in a house like ours +would be too much even for one not his mother.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Children in general find out more than people think. +They are easily put off, and forget for a time, but they +persist in returning to the subject, especially if it is mysterious +or alarming; and by their questions they get at +the truth with surprising perseverance and ingenuity.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Once my curiosity was aroused, I soon learned all the +details of my parents’ marriage—how my mother made +up her mind to elope, how she was concealed in the Russian +embassy at Cassel by my uncle’s connivance, and +then crossed the frontier disguised as a boy; and all this +I found out without asking a single question.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The first result of these discoveries was to lessen my +attachment to my father, owing to the disputes of which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>I have spoken already. I had witnessed them before, but +had taken them as a matter of course. The whole household, +not excluding the Senator, were afraid of my father, +and he spared no one his reproofs; and I was so accustomed +to this, that I saw nothing strange in these quarrels +with my mother. But now I began to take a different view +of the matter, and the thought that I was to some extent +responsible threw a dark shadow sometimes over my +childhood.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A second thought which took root in my mind at that +time was this—that I was much less dependent on my +father than most children are on their parents; and this +independence, though it existed only in my own imagination, +gave me pleasure.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Two or three years after this, two old brother-officers +of my father’s were at our house one evening—General +Essen, the Governor of Orenburg, and General Bakhmétyev, +who lost a leg at Borodino and was later Lieutenant-Governor +of Bessarabia. My room was next the drawing-room +where they were sitting. My father happened to +mention that he had been speaking to Prince Yusúpov +with regard to my future; he wished me to enter the +Civil Service. “There’s no time to lose,” he added; “as +you know, he must serve a long time before he gets any +decent post.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is a strange notion of yours,” said Essen good-humouredly, +“to turn the boy into a clerk. Leave it to me; +let me enroll him in the Ural Cossacks; he will soon get +his commission, which is the main thing, and then he can +forge ahead like the rest of us.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>But my father would not agree: he said that everything +military was distasteful to him, that he hoped in time +to get me a diplomatic post in some warm climate, where +he would go himself to end his days.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Bakhmétyev had taken little part in the conversation; +but now he got up on his crutches and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“In my opinion, you ought to think twice before you +reject Essen’s advice. If you don’t fancy Orenburg, the +boy can enlist here just as well. You and I are old friends, +and I always speak my mind to you. You will do no good +to the young man himself and no service to the country +by sending him to the University and on to the Civil +Service. He is clearly in a false position, and nothing but +the Army can put that right and open up a career for +him from the first. Any dangerous notions will settle down +before he gets the command of a regiment. Discipline +works wonders, and his future will depend on himself. +You say that he’s clever; but you don’t suppose that all +officers in the Army are fools? Think of yourself and me +and our lot generally. There is only one possible objection—that +he may have to serve some time before he gets +his commission; but that’s the very point in which we +can help you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This conversation was as valuable to me as the casual +remarks of my nurses. I was now thirteen; and these +lessons, which I turned over and over and pondered in my +heart for weeks and months in complete solitude, bore +their fruit. I had formerly dreamt, as boys always do, +of military service and fine uniforms, and had nearly +wept because my father wished to make a civilian of me; +but this conversation at once cooled my enthusiasm, and +by degrees—for it took time—I rooted out of my mind +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>every atom of my passion for stripes and epaulettes and +aiguillettes. There was, it is true, one relapse, when a +cousin, who was at school in Moscow and sometimes came +to our house on holidays, got a commission in a cavalry +regiment. After joining his regiment, he paid a visit to +Moscow and stayed some days with us. My heart beat +fast, when I saw him in all his finery, carrying his sabre +and wearing the shako held at a becoming angle by the +chin-strap. He was sixteen but not tall for his age; and +next morning I put on his uniform, sabre, shako, and all, +and looked at myself in the glass. How magnificent I +seemed to myself, in the blue jacket with scarlet facings! +What a contrast between this gorgeous finery and the +plain cloth jacket and duck trousers which I wore at +home!</p> + +<p class='c008'>My cousin’s visit weakened for a time the effect of +what the generals had said; but, before long, circumstances +gave me a fresh and final distaste for a soldier’s +uniform.</p> + +<p class='c008'>By pondering over my “false position,” I was brought +to much the same conclusions as by the talk of the two +nurses. I felt less dependence on society (of which, however, +I knew nothing), and I believed that I must rely +mainly on my own efforts. I said to myself with childish +arrogance that General Bakhmétyev and his brother-officers +should hear of me some day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In view of all this, it may be imagined what a weary +and monotonous existence I led in the strange monastic +seclusion of my home. There was no encouragement for +me, and no variety; my father, who showed no fondness +for me after I was ten, was almost always displeased +with me; I had no companions. My teachers came and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>went; I saw them to the door, and then stole off to play +with the servants’ children, which was strictly forbidden. +At other times I wandered about the large gloomy rooms, +where the windows were shut all day and the lights burnt +dim in the evening; I either did nothing or read any +books I could lay hands on.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My only other occupation I found in the servants’ hall +and the maids’ room; they gave me real live pleasure. +There I found perfect freedom; I took a side in disputes; +together with my friends downstairs, I discussed their +doings and gave my advice; and though I knew all their +secrets, I never once betrayed them by a slip of the +tongue in the drawing-room.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>This is a subject on which I must dwell for a little. I +should say that I do not in general mean to avoid digressions +and disquisitions; every conversation is full of them, +and so is life itself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As a rule, children are attached to servants. Parents, +especially Russian parents, forbid this intimacy, but the +children do not obey orders, because they are bored in +the drawing-room and happy in the pantry. In this case, +as in a thousand others, parents don’t know what they +are doing. I find it impossible to imagine that our servants’ +hall was a worse place for children than our morning-room +or smoking-room. It is true that children pick +up coarse expressions and bad manners in the company +of servants; but in the drawing-room they learn coarse +ideas and bad feelings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The mere order to keep at a distance from people with +whom the children are in constant relations, is in itself +revolting.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>Much is said in Russia about the profound immorality +of servants, especially of serfs. It is true that they are +not distinguished by exemplary strictness of conduct. +Their low stage of moral development is proved by the +mere fact that they put up with so much and protest so +seldom. But that is not the question. I should like to know +what class in Russia is less depraved than the servant +class. Certainly not the nobles, nor the officials. The +clergy, perhaps?</p> + +<p class='c008'>What makes the reader laugh?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Possibly the peasants, but no others, might have some +claim to superiority.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The difference between the class of nobles and the +class of servants is not great. I hate, especially since the +calamities of the year 1848, democrats who flatter the +mob, but I hate still more aristocrats who slander the +people. By representing those who serve them as profligate +animals, slave-owners throw dust in the eyes of +others and stifle the protests of their own consciences. In +few cases are we better than the common people, but we +express our feelings with more consideration, and we are +cleverer at concealing selfish and evil passions; our desires +are not so coarse or so obvious, owing to the easiness +of satisfying them and the habitual absence of self-restraint; +we are merely richer, better fed, and therefore +more difficult to please. When Count Almaviva named to +the barber of Seville all the qualifications he required in +a servant, Figaro said with a sigh, “If a servant must +possess all these merits, it will be hard to find masters +who are fit for a servant’s place.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In Russia in general, moral corruption is not deep. It +might truly enough be called savage, dirty, noisy, coarse, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>disorderly, shameless; but it is mainly on the surface. +The clergy, in the concealment of their houses, eat and +drink to excess with the merchant class. The nobles get +drunk in the light of day, gamble recklessly, strike their +men-servants and run after the maids, mismanage their +affairs, and fail even worse as husbands and fathers. The +official class are as bad in a dirtier way; they curry favour, +besides, with their superiors and they are all petty thieves. +The nobles do really steal less: they take openly what +does not belong to them, though without prejudice to +other methods, when circumstances are favourable.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All these amiable weaknesses occur in a coarser form +among servants—that class of “officials” who are beneath +the fourteenth grade—those “courtiers” who belong, not +to the Tsar, but to the landowners.<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c016'><sup>[16]</sup></a> But how they, as +a class, are worse than others, I have no idea.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f16'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span>In Russia civil-service officials (<i>chinóvniki</i>) are +divided into fourteen classes. Nobles are called <i>dvoryáne</i>, and +servants attached to a landowner’s house <i>dvoróvië</i>; Herzen plays +on the likeness of the two names.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>When I run over my recollections on the subject—and +for twenty-five years I was well acquainted, not only with +our own servants, but with those of my uncle and several +neighbours—I remember nothing specially vicious in +their conduct. Petty thefts there were, no doubt; but it +is hard to pass sentence in this case, because ordinary +ideas are perverted by an unnatural status: the human +chattel is on easy terms with the chattels that are inanimate, +and shows no particular respect for his master’s +property. One ought, in justice, to exclude exceptional +cases—casual favourites, either men or women, who bask +in their master’s smiles and carry tales against the rest; +and besides, <i>their</i> behaviour is exemplary, for they never +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>get drunk in the daytime and never pawn their clothes at +the public-house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The misconduct of most servants is of a simple kind +and turns on trifles—a glass of spirits or a bottle of beer, +a chat over a pipe, absence from the house without leave, +quarrels which sometimes proceed as far as blows, or +deception of their master when he requires of them more +than man can perform. They are as ignorant as the peasants +but more sophisticated; and this, together with their +servile condition, accounts for much that is perverted and +distorted in their character; but, in spite of all this, they +remain grown-up children, like the American negroes. +Trifles make them laugh or weep; their desires are limited +and deserve to be called simple and natural rather than +vicious.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Spirits and tea, the public-house and the tea-shop—these +are the invariable vices of a servant in Russia. For +them he steals; because of them he is poor; for their sake +he endures persecution and punishment and leaves his wife +and children to beggary. Nothing is easier than to sit, like +Father Matthew,<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c016'><sup>[17]</sup></a> in the seat of judgement and condemn +drunkenness, while you are yourself intoxicated with sobriety; +nothing simpler than to sit at your own tea-table +and marvel at servants, because they <i>will</i> go to the tea-shop +instead of drinking their tea at home, where it would +cost them less.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f17'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span>An Irish priest who preached temperance in the middle of +the nineteenth century.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Strong drink stupefies a man and makes it possible for +him to forget; it gives him an artificial cheerfulness, an +artificial excitement; and the pleasure of this state is increased +by the low level of civilisation and the narrow +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>empty life to which these men are confined. A servant +is a slave who may be sold, a slave condemned to perpetual +service in the pantry and perpetual poverty: how +can such a man do otherwise than drink? He drinks too +much when he gets the chance, because he cannot drink +every day; this was pointed out by Senkovsky in one of +his books fifteen years ago. In Italy and the south of +France, there are no drunkards, because there is abundance +of wine. And the explanation of the savage +drunkenness among English workmen is just the same. +These men are broken in a hopeless and ill-matched +struggle against hunger and beggary; after all their +efforts, they have found everywhere a leaden vault above +their heads, and a sullen opposition which has cast them +down into the nether darkness of society and condemned +them to a life of endless toil—toil without an object and +equally destructive of mind and body. What wonder that +such a man, after working six days as a lever or wheel or +spring or screw, breaks out on Saturday night, like a +savage, from the factory which is his prison, and drinks +till he is dead drunk? His exhaustion shortens the process, +and it is complete in half an hour. Moralists would do +better to order “Scotch” or “Irish” for themselves, and +hold their tongues; or else their inhuman philanthropy +may evoke formidable replies.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To a servant, tea drunk in a tea-shop is quite a different +thing. Tea at home is not really tea: everything there +reminds him that he is a servant—the pantry is dirty, +he has to put the <i>samovár</i><a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c016'><sup>[18]</sup></a> on the table himself, his cup +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>has lost its handle, his master’s bell may ring at any +moment. In the tea-shop he is a free man, a master; the +table is laid and the lamps lit for <i>him</i>; for <i>him</i> the waiter +hurries in with the tray, the cups shine, and the teapot +glitters; he gives orders, and other people obey him; he +feels happy and calls boldly for some cheap caviare or +pastry to eat with his tea.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f18'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>An urn with a central receptacle to hold hot charcoal: +tea in Russia is regularly accompanied by a samovár.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>In all this there is more of childlike simplicity than of +misconduct. Impressions take hold of them quickly but +throw out no roots; their minds are continually occupied—if +one can call it occupation—with casual objects, +trifling desires, and petty aims. A childish belief in the +marvellous turns a grown man into a coward, and the +same belief consoles him in his darkest hours. I witnessed +the death of several of my father’s servants, and I +was astonished. One could see then that their whole life +had been spent, like a child’s, without fears for the future, +and that no great sins lay heavy on their souls; even if +there had been anything of the kind, a few minutes with +the priest were enough to put all to rights.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is on this resemblance between children and servants +that their mutual attachment is based. Children resent +the indulgent superiority of grown-up people; they +are clever enough to understand that servants treat them +with more respect and take them seriously. For this +reason, they enjoy a game of bézique with the maids much +more than with visitors. Visitors play out of indulgence +and to amuse the child: they let him win, or tease him, +and stop when they feel inclined; but the maid plays just +as much for her own amusement; and thus the game gains +in interest.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Servants have a very strong attachment to children; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>and this is not servility at all—it is a mutual alliance, +with weakness and simplicity on both sides.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In former days there existed—it still exists in Turkey—a +feudal bond of affection between the Russian landowner +and his household servants. But the race of such +servants, devoted to the family as a family, is now extinct +with us. The reason of this is obvious. The landowner +has ceased to believe in his own authority; he does +not believe that he will answer, at the dreadful Day of +Judgement, for his treatment of his people; and he abuses +his power for his own advantage. The servant does not +believe in his inferiority; he endures oppression, not as +a punishment or trial inflicted by God, but merely because +he is defenceless.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But I knew, in my young days, two or three specimens +of that boundless loyalty which old gentlemen of seventy +sometimes recall with a sigh: they speak of the wonderful +zeal and devotion of their servants, but they never mention +the return which they and their fathers made to that +faithfulness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was Andréi Stepánov, whom I knew as a decrepit +old man, spending his last days, on very short commons, +on an estate belonging to my uncle, the Senator.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When my father and uncle were young men in the +Army, he was their valet, a kind, honest, sober man, who +guessed what his young masters wanted—and they wanted +a good deal—by a mere look at their faces; I know this +from themselves. Later he was in charge of an estate near +Moscow. The war of 1812 cut him off at once from all +communications; the village was burnt down, and he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>lived on there alone and without money, and finally sold +some wood, to save himself from starvation. When my +uncle returned to Russia, he went into the estate accounts +and discovered the sale of wood. Punishment followed: +the man was disgraced and removed from his office, +though he was old and burdened with a family. We often +passed through the village where he lived and spent a day +or two there; and the old man, now paralysed and walking +on crutches, never failed to visit us, in order to make +his bow to my father and talk to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was deeply touched by the simple devotion of his +language and by his miserable appearance; I remember +the tufts of hair, between yellow and white, which covered +both sides of his bare scalp.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“They tell me, Sir,” he said once to my father, “that +your brother has received another Order. I am getting +old, <i>bátyushka</i>, and shall soon give back my soul to God; +but I wish God would suffer me to see your brother wearing +his Order; just once before I die, I would like to see +him with his ribbon and all his glory.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My eyes were on the old man, and everything about +him showed that he was speaking the truth—his expression +as frank as a child’s, his bent figure, his crooked face, +dim eyes, and feeble voice. There was no falsehood or +flattery there: he did really wish to see, once more before +he died, the man who, for fourteen years, had never forgiven +him for that wood! Should I call him a saint or a +madman? Are there any who attain to sanctity, except +madmen?</p> + +<p class='c008'>But this form of idolatry is unknown to the rising generation; +and, if there are cases of serfs who refuse emancipation, +it is due either to mere indolence or selfish considerations. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>This is a worse condition of things, I admit, +but it brings us nearer the end. The serfs of to-day +may wish to see something round their master’s neck; +but you may feel sure that it is not the ribbon of any +Order of Chivalry!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>This seems an opportunity to give some general account +of the treatment shown to servants in our household.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Neither my father nor my uncle was specially tyrannical, +at least in the way of corporal punishment. My +uncle, being hot-tempered and impatient, was often rough +and unjust to servants; but he thought so little about +them and came in contact with them so seldom, that each +side knew little of the other. My father wore them out +by his fads: he could never pass over a look or a word +or a movement without improving the occasion; and a +Russian often resents this treatment more than blows or +bad language.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Corporal punishment was almost unknown with us; +and the two or three cases in which it was resorted to +were so exceptional, that they formed the subject of conversation +for whole months downstairs; it should also be +said that the offences which provoked it were serious.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A commoner form of punishment was compulsory enlistment +in the Army, which was intensely dreaded by +all the young men-servants. They preferred to remain +serfs, without family or kin, rather than carry the knapsack +for twenty years. I was strongly affected by those +horrible scenes: at the summons of the landowner, a file +of military police would appear like thieves in the night +and seize their victim without warning; the bailiff would +explain that the master had given orders the night before +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>for the man to be sent to the recruiting office; and then +the victim, through his tears, tried to strike an attitude, +while the women wept, and all the people gave him presents, +and I too gave what I could, very likely a sixpenny +necktie.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I remember too an occasion when a village elder spent +some money due from peasants to their master, and my +father ordered his beard to be shaved off, by way of punishment. +This form of penalty puzzled me, but I was impressed +by the man’s appearance: he was sixty years old, +and he wept profusely, bowing to the ground and offering +to repay the money and a hundred <i>roubles</i> more, if only +he might escape the shame of losing his beard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While my uncle lived with us, there were regularly +about sixty servants belonging to the house, of whom +nearly half were women; but the married women might +give all their time to their own families; there were five +or six house-maids always employed, and laundry-maids, +but the latter never came upstairs. To these must be +added the boys and girls who were being taught housework, +which meant that they were learning to be lazy +and tell lies and drink spirits.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As a feature of those times, it will not, I think, be +superfluous to say something of the wages paid to servants. +They got five <i>roubles</i> a month, afterwards raised to +six, for board-wages; women got a <i>rouble</i> less, and +children over ten half the amount. The servants clubbed +together for their food, and made no complaint of insufficiency, +which proves that food cost wonderfully little. +The highest wages paid were 100 <i>roubles</i> a year; others +got fifty, and some thirty. Boys under eighteen got no +wages. Then our servants were supplied with clothes, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>overcoats, shirts, sheets, coverlets, towels, and mattresses +of sail-cloth; the boys who got no wages received a sum +of money for the bath-house and to pay the priest in +Lent—purification of body and soul was thus provided +for. Taking everything into account, a servant cost about +300 <i>roubles</i> a year; if we add his share of medical attendance +and drugs and the articles of consumption which +came in carts from the landlord’s estates in embarrassing +amount, even then the figure will not be higher than 350 +<i>roubles</i>. In Paris or London a servant costs four times as +much.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Slave-owners generally reckon “insurance” among the +privileges of their slaves, <i>i.e.</i>, the wife and children are +maintained by the master, and the slave himself, in old +age, will get a bare pittance in some corner of the estate. +Certainly this should be taken into account, but the value +of it is considerably lessened by the constant fear of corporal +punishment and the impossibility of rising higher +in the social scale.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My own eyes have shown me beyond all doubt, how the +horrible consciousness of their enslaved condition torments +and poisons the existence of servants in Russia, +how it oppresses and stupefies their minds. The peasants, +especially those who pay <i>obrók</i>,<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c016'><sup>[19]</sup></a> are less conscious of +personal want of freedom; it is possible for them not to +believe, to some extent, in their complete slavery. But in +the other case, when a man sits all day on a dirty bench +in the pantry, or stands at a table holding a plate, there +is no possible room for doubt.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f19'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span><i>Obrók</i> is money paid by a serf to his master in +lieu of personal service; such a serf might carry on a trade or +business of his own and was liable to no other burdens than the +<i>obrók</i>.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>There are, of course, people who enjoy this life as if +it were their native element; people whose mind has never +been aroused from slumber, who have acquired a taste +for their occupation, and perform its duties with a kind +of artistic satisfaction.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Our old footman, Bakai, an exceedingly interesting +character, was an instance of this kind. A tall man of +athletic build, with large and dignified features, and an +air of the profoundest reflexion, he lived to old age in the +belief that a footman’s place is one of singular dignity.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This respectable old man was constantly out of temper +or half-drunk, or both together. He idealised the duties +of his office and attributed to them a solemn importance. +He could lower the steps of a carriage with a peculiarly +loud rattle; when he banged a carriage-door he made +more noise than the report of a gun. He stood on the +rumble surly and straight, and, every time that a hole in +the road gave him a jolt, he called out to the coachman, +“Easy there!” in a deep voice of displeasure, though the +hole was by that time five yards behind the carriage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His chief occupation, other than going out with the +carriage, was self-imposed. It consisted in training the +pantry-boys in the standard of manners demanded by +the servants’ hall. As long as he was sober, this went well +enough; but when he was affected by liquor, he was +severe and exacting beyond belief. I sometimes tried to +protect my young friends, but my authority had little +weight with the Roman firmness of Bakai: he would open +the door that led to the drawing-room, with the words: +“This is not your place. I beg you will go, or I shall carry +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>you out.” Not a movement, not a word, on the part of +the boys, did he let pass unrebuked; and he often accompanied +his words with a smack on the head, or a painful +fillip, which he inflicted by an ingenious and spring-like +manipulation of his finger and thumb.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When he had at last driven the boys from the room and +was left alone, he transferred his attentions to his only +friend, a large Newfoundland dog called Macbeth, whom +he fed and brushed and petted and loved. After sitting +alone for a few minutes, he would go down to the court-yard +and invite Macbeth to join him in the pantry. Then +he began to talk to his friend: “Foolish brute! What +makes you sit outside in the frost, when there’s warmth +in here? Well, what are you staring at? Can’t you +answer?” and the questions were generally followed by +a smack on the head. Macbeth occasionally growled at +his benefactor; and then Bakai reproved him, with no +weak fondness: “Do what you like for a dog, a dog it still +remains: it shows its teeth at you, with never a thought +of who you are. But for me, the fleas would eat you up!” +And then, hurt by his friend’s ingratitude, he would take +snuff angrily and throw what was left on his fingers at +Macbeth’s nose. The dog would sneeze, make incredibly +awkward attempts to get the snuff out of his eyes with +his paw, rise in high dudgeon from the bench, and begin +scratching at the door. Bakai opened the door and dismissed +the dog with a kick and a final word of reproach. +At this point the pantry-boys generally came back, and +the sound of his knuckles on their heads began again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We had another dog before Macbeth, a setter called +Bertha. When she became very ill, Bakai put her on his +bed and nursed her for some weeks. Early one morning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>I went into the servants’ hall. Bakai tried to say something, +but his voice broke and a large tear rolled down +his cheek—the dog was dead. There is another fact for +the student of human nature. I don’t at all suppose that +he hated the pantry-boys either; but he had a surly temper +which was made worse by drinking bad spirits and +unconsciously affected by his surroundings.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Such men as Bakai hugged their chains, but there were +others: there passes through my memory a sad procession +of hopeless sufferers and martyrs. My uncle had a cook of +remarkable skill in his business, a hard-working and sober +man who made his way upwards. The Tsar had a famous +French <i>chef</i> at the time and my uncle contrived to secure +for his servant admission to the imperial kitchens. After +this instruction, the man was engaged by the English +Club at Moscow, made money, married, and lived like a +gentleman; but, with the noose of serfdom still round +his neck, he could never sleep easy or enjoy his position.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alexyéi—that was his name—at last plucked up courage, +had prayers said to Our Lady of Iberia, and called +on my uncle and offered 5,000 <i>roubles</i> for his freedom. +But his master was proud of the cook as his property—he +was proud of another man, a painter, for just the same +reason—and therefore he refused the money, promising +the cook to give him his freedom in his will, without any +payment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was a frightful blow to the man. He became depressed; +the expression of his features changed; his hair +turned grey; and, being a Russian, he took to the bottle. +He became careless about his work, and the English Club +dismissed him. Then he was engaged by the Princess +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Trubetskoi, and she persecuted him by her petty meanness. +Alexyéi was a lover of fine phrases; and once, when +he was insulted by her beyond bearing, he drew himself +up and said in his nasal voice, “What a stormy soul inhabits +Your Serene Highness’s body!” The Princess was +furious: she dismissed the man and wrote, as a Russian +great lady would, to my uncle to complain of his servant. +My uncle would rather have done nothing, but, out of +politeness to the lady, he sent for the cook and scolded +him, and told him to go and beg pardon of the Princess.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But, instead of going there, he went to the public-house. +Within a year he was utterly ruined: all the money he had +saved for his freedom was gone, and even his last kitchen-apron. +He fought with his wife, and she with him, till at +last she went into service as a nurse away from Moscow. +Nothing was heard of him for a long time. At last a policeman +brought him to our house, a wild and ragged +figure. He had no place of abode and wandered from one +drink-shop to another. The police had picked him up in +the street and demanded that his master should take him +in hand. My uncle was vexed and, perhaps, repentant: +he received the man kindly enough and gave him a room +to live in. Alexyéi went on drinking; when he was drunk, +he was noisy and fancied he was writing poetry; and he +really had some imaginative gift but no control over it. +We were in the country at the time, and my uncle sent +the man to us, fancying that my father would have some +control over him. But the man was too far gone. His case +revealed to me the concentrated ill-feeling and hatred +which a serf cherishes in his heart against his masters: +he gnashed his teeth as he spoke, and used gestures which, +especially as coming from a cook, were ominous. My +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>presence did not prevent him from speaking freely; he +was fond of me, and often patted my shoulder as he said, +“This is a sound branch of a rotten tree!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When my uncle died, my father gave Alexyéi his freedom +at once. But this was too late: it only meant washing +our hands of him, and he simply vanished from sight.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>There was another victim of the system whom I cannot +but recall together with Alexyéi. My uncle had a servant +of thirty-five who acted as a clerk. My father’s oldest +brother, who died in 1813, intending to start a cottage +hospital, placed this man, Tolochanov, when he was a +boy, with a doctor, in order to learn the business of a +dresser. The doctor got permission for him to attend +lectures at the College of Medicine; the young man +showed ability, learned Latin and German, and practised +with some success. When he was twenty-five, he fell in +love with the daughter of an officer, concealed his position +from her, and married her. The deception could not be +kept up for long: my uncle died, and the wife was horrified +to discover that she, as well as her husband, was a +serf. The “Senator,” their new owner, put no pressure on +them at all—he had a real affection for young Tolochanov—but +the wife could not pardon the deception: she quarrelled +with him and finally eloped with another man. +Tolochanov must have been very fond of her: he fell into +a state of depression which bordered on insanity; he spent +his nights in drunken carouses, and, having no money of +his own, made free with what belonged to his master. +Then, when he saw he could not balance his accounts, he +took poison, on the last day of the year 1821.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>My uncle was away from home. I was present when +Tolochanov came into the room and told my father he +had come to say good-bye; he also gave me a message +for my uncle, that he had spent the missing money.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re drunk,” said my father; “go and sleep it off.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My sleep will last a long time,” said the doctor; “I +only ask you not to think ill of my memory.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The man’s composure frightened my father: he looked +at him attentively and asked: “What’s the matter with +you? Are you wandering?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, Sir; I have only swallowed a dose of arsenic.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The doctor and police were summoned, milk and emetics +were administered. When the vomiting began, he +tried to keep it back and said: “You stop where you are! +I did not swallow you, to bring you up again.” When the +poison began to work more strongly, I heard his groans +and the agonised voice in which he said again and again, +“It burns, it burns like fire!” Someone advised that the +priest should be sent for; but he refused, and told Calot +that he knew <i>too much anatomy</i> to believe in a life beyond +the grave. At twelve at night he spoke to the doctor: he +asked the time, in German, and then said, “Time to wish +you a Happy New Year!” and then he died.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the morning I went hastily to the little wing, used +as a bath-house, where Tolochanov had been taken. The +body was lying on a table in the attitude in which he died; +he was wearing a coat, but the necktie had been removed +and the chest was bare; the features were terribly distorted +and even blackened. It was the first dead body I +had ever seen; and I ran out, nearly fainting. The toys +and picture-book which I had got as New Year’s presents +could not comfort me: I still saw before me the blackened +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>features of Tolochanov, and heard his cry, “It burns like +fire!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>To end this sad subject, I shall say only one thing +more: the society of servants had no really bad influence +on me. On the contrary, it implanted in me, in early years, +a rooted hatred for slavery and oppression in all their +manifestations. When I had been naughty as a child and +my nurse, Vyéra Artamónovna, wished to be very cutting, +she used to say, “Wait a bit, and you will be exactly like +the rest, when you grow up and become a master!” I felt +this to be a grievous insult. Well, the old woman may rest +in peace—whatever I became, I did not become “exactly +like the rest.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I had one other distraction, as well as the servants’ +hall, and in this I met at least with no opposition. I loved +reading as much as I disliked my lessons. Indeed, my +passion for desultory reading was one of the main difficulties +in the way of serious study. For example, I detested, +then as now, the theoretical study of languages; +but I was very quick in making out the meaning more +or less and acquiring the rudiments of conversation; and +there I stopped, because that was all I needed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father and my uncle had a fairly large library, +consisting of French books of the eighteenth century. +The books lay about in heaps in a damp unused room on +the ground-floor of the house. Calot kept the key and I +was free to rummage as much as I pleased in this literary +lumber-room. I read and read with no interruptions. My +father approved for two reasons: in the first place, I +would learn French quicker; and besides I was kept occupied, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>sitting quietly in a corner. I must add that I did +not display all the books I read openly on the table: some +of them I kept secreted in a cupboard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But what books did I read? Novels, of course, and +plays. I read through fifteen volumes, each of which contained +three or four plays, French or Russian. As well +as French novels, my mother had novels by Auguste Lafontaine +and Kotzebue’s comedies; and I read them all +twice over. I cannot say that the novels had much effect +on me. As boys do, I pounced on all the ambiguous passages +and disorderly scenes, but they did not interest me +specially. A far greater influence was exercised over my +mind by a play which I loved passionately and read over +twenty times, though it was in a Russian translation—<i>The +Marriage of Figaro</i>. I was in love with Cherubino and +the Countess; nay more, I myself was Cherubino; I felt +strong emotion as I read it and was conscious of some new +sensation which I could not at all understand. I was +charmed with the scene where the page is dressed up as +a woman, and passionately desired to have a ribbon +belonging to someone, in order to hide it in my breast +and kiss it when no one was looking. As a matter of fact, +no female society came in my way at that age.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I only remember two school-girls who paid us occasional +Sunday visits. The younger was sixteen and strikingly +beautiful. I became confused whenever she entered +the room; I never dared to address her, or to go beyond +stolen glances at her beautiful dark eyes and dark curls. +I never spoke a word of this to anyone, and my first love-pangs +passed off unknown even to her who caused them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I met her years afterwards, my heart beat fast +<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>and I remembered how I had worshipped her beauty at +twelve years old.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I forgot to say that <i>Werther</i> interested me almost as +much as <i>The Marriage of Figaro</i>; half of the story I +could not understand and skipped, in my eagerness to +reach the final catastrophe; but over that I wept quite +wildly. When I was at Vladímir in 1839, the same book +happened to come into my hands, and I told my wife how +I used to cry over it as a boy. Then I began to read the +last letters to her; and when I reached the familiar passage, +the tears flowed fast and I had to stop.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I cannot say that my father put any special pressure +upon me before I was fourteen; but the whole atmosphere +of our house was stifling to a live young creature. Side by +side with complete indifference about my moral welfare, +an excessive degree of importance was attached to bodily +health; and I was terribly worried by precautions against +chills and unwholesome food, and the fuss that was made +over a trifling cold in the head. In winter I was kept indoors +for weeks at a time, and, if a drive was permitted, +I had to wear warm boots, comforters, and so on. The +rooms were kept unbearably hot with stoves. This treatment +must have made me feeble and delicate, had I not +inherited from my mother the toughest of constitutions. +She, on her part, shared none of these prejudices, and +in her part of the house I might do all the things which +were forbidden when I was with my father.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Without rivalry and without encouragement or approval, +my studies made little progress. For want of +proper system and supervision, I took things easy and +thought to dispense with hard work by means of memory +and a lively imagination. My teachers too, as a matter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>of course, were under no supervision; when once the fees +were settled, provided they were punctual in coming to +the house and leaving it, they might go on for years, without +giving any account of what they were doing.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>One of the queerest incidents of my early education was +when a French actor, Dalès, was invited to give me lessons +in elocution.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“People pay no attention to it nowadays,” my father +said to me, “but your brother Alexander practised <i>le recit +de Théramène</i><a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c016'><sup>[20]</sup></a> every evening for six months with Aufraine, +the actor, and never reached the perfection which +his teacher desired.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f20'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span>From Racine’s <i>Phèdre</i>.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>So I began to learn elocution.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose, M. Dalès,” my father once said to him, +“you could give lessons in dancing too.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Dalès was a stout old gentleman of over sixty; with +a profound consciousness of his own merits but an equally +profound sense of modesty, he answered that he could +not judge of his own talents, but that he often gave hints +to the ballet-dancers at the Opera.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Just as I supposed,” remarked my father, offering +him his snuff-box open—a favour he would never have +shown to a Russian or German tutor. “I should be much +obliged if you would make him dance a little after the +declamation; he is so stiff.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>Monsieur le comte peut disposer de moi.</i>”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then my father, who was a passionate lover of +Paris, began to recall the <i>foyer</i> of the Opera-house as +it was in 1810, the <i>début</i> of Mlle. George and the later +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>years of Mlle. Mars,<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c016'><sup>[21]</sup></a> and asked many question about +<i>cafés</i> and theatres.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f21'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>George (1787-1867) was the chief actress in tragedy, and +Mars (1779-1847) the chief actress in comedy, on the Paris stage of +their time.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>And now you must imagine my small room on a dismal +winter evening, with the water running down the frozen +windows over the sandbags, two tallow candles burning +on the table, and us two face to face. On the stage +Dalès spoke in a fairly natural voice, but, in giving a +lesson, he thought himself bound to get away as far as +possible from nature. He recited Racine in a sing-song +voice, and made a parting, like the parting of an Englishman’s +back hair, at the caesura of each line, so that +every verse came out in two pieces like a broken stick.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Meanwhile he made the gestures of a man who has +fallen into the water and cannot swim. He made me repeat +each verse several times and constantly shook his +head: “Not right at all! Listen to me! ‘<i>Je crains Dieu, +cher Abner</i>’—now came the parting; he closed his eyes, +shook his head slightly, and added, repelling the waves +with a languid movement of the arm, ‘<i>et n’ai point d’autre +crainte</i>.’”<a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c016'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f22'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. </span>From Racine’s <i>Athalie</i>.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Then the old gentleman, who “feared nothing but God,” +would look at his watch, put away his books, and take +hold of a chair. This chair was my partner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Is it surprising that I never learned to dance? These +lessons did not last long: within a fortnight they were +brought to an end by a very tragic event.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was at the theatre with my uncle, and the overture +was played several times without the curtain rising. The +front rows, wishing to show their familiarity with Paris +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>customs, began to make the noise which is made in Paris +by the back rows only. A manager came out in front of +the curtain; he bowed to the left, he bowed to the right, +he bowed to the front, and then he said: “We ask for +all the indulgence of the audience; a terrible misfortune +has befallen us: Dalès, a member of our company,”—and +here the manager’s speech was interrupted by genuine +tears,—“has been found dead in his room, poisoned by +the fumes from the stove.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such were the forcible means by which the Russian +system of ventilation delivered me from lessons in elocution, +from spouting Racine, and from dancing a solo with +the partner who boasted four legs carved in mahogany.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When I was twelve, I was transferred from the hands +of women to those of men; and, about that time, my +father made two unsuccessful attempts to put a German +in charge of me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A German in charge of children” is neither a tutor +nor a <i>dyádka</i><a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c016'><sup>[23]</sup></a>—it is quite a profession by itself. He does +not teach or dress the children himself, but sees that they +are dressed and taught; he watches over their health, +takes them out for walks, and talks whatever nonsense +he pleases, provided that it is in German. If there is a +tutor in the house, the German is his inferior; but he +takes precedence of the <i>dyádka</i>, if there is one. The visiting +teachers, if they come late from unforeseen causes, or +leave too early owing to circumstances beyond their control, +are polite to the German; and, though quite uneducated, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>he begins to think himself a man of learning. The +governesses make use of the German to do all sorts of +errands for them, but never permit any attentions on his +part, unless they suffer from positive deformity and see +no prospect of any other admirers. When boys are fourteen +they go off to the German’s room to smoke on the +sly, and he allows it, because he needs powerful assistance +if he is to keep his place. Indeed, the common practice +is to dismiss him at this period, after thanking him in +the presence of the boys and presenting him with a watch. +If he is tired of taking children out and receiving reprimands +when they catch cold or stain their clothes, then +the “German in charge of children” becomes a German +without qualification: he starts a small shop where he +sells amber mouth-pieces, eau-de-cologne, and cigars to +his former charges, and performs secret services for them +of another kind.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f23'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. </span>A <i>dyádka</i> (literally “uncle”) is a man-servant put +in charge of his young master.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The first German attached to my person was a native +of Silesia, and his name was Iokisch; in my opinion, his +name alone was a sufficient disqualification. He was a tall, +bald man, who professed a knowledge of agriculture, and +I believe that this fact induced my father to take him; +but his chief distinction was his extreme need of soap and +water. I looked with aversion at the Silesian giant, and +only consented to walk about with him in the parks and +gardens on condition that he told me improper stories, +which I retailed in the servants’ hall. He did not survive +more than a year; he was guilty of some misconduct on +our country estate, and a gardener tried to kill him with +a scythe; and this made my father order him to clear out.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His successor was Theodore Karlovitch, a soldier +(probably a deserter) from Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>was remarkable for his beautiful handwriting and excessive +stupidity. He had filled a similar post twice already, +and had gained some experience, so that he gave himself +the airs of a tutor; also, he spoke French, mispronouncing +<i>j</i> as <i>sh</i> and misplacing the accents.<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c016'><sup>[24]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f24'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. </span>The English speak French even worse than the Germans; but +they merely mutilate the language, whereas the German vulgarises it. +(Author’s note.)</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I had no kind of respect for him, but poisoned every +moment of his existence, especially after I was convinced +that, in spite of all my efforts, he was unable to understand +either decimal fractions or the rule of three. In most +boys’ hearts there is a good deal that is ruthless and even +cruel; and I persecuted the Jäger of Wolfenbüttel unmercifully +with sums in proportion. I was so much interested +by this, that, though I did not often speak on +such subjects to my father, I solemnly informed him of +the stupidity of Theodore Karlovitch.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He once boasted to me of a new frock-coat, dark blue +with gold buttons, and I actually saw him once wearing +it; he was going to a wedding, and the coat, though it was +too large for him, really had gold buttons. But the boy +who waited on the German informed me that the garment +was borrowed from a friend who kept a perfumer’s shop. +Without the least feeling of pity, I attacked my victim, +and asked bluntly where his blue coat was.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There is a great deal of moth in this house, and I +have given it to a tailor whom I know to keep it safe for +me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Where does the tailor live?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What business is that of yours?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why not say?”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>“People should mind their own business.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, very well. But my birthday is next week, and, to +please me, you might get the blue coat from the tailor +for that day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, I won’t; you don’t deserve it, after your rudeness.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I held up a threatening finger at him. But the final +blow to the German’s position took place as follows. He +must needs boast one day, in the presence of Bouchot, +my French tutor, that he had fought at Waterloo and +that the Germans had given the French a terrible mauling. +Bouchot merely looked at him and took snuff with +such a formidable air that the conqueror of Napoleon +was rather taken aback. Bouchot left the room, leaning +angrily on his knotted stick, and he never afterwards +called the man by any other name than <i>le soldat de +Vilain-ton</i>.<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c016'><sup>[25]</sup></a> I did not know then that this pun is the +property of Béranger, and I was exceedingly delighted +by Bouchot’s cleverness.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f25'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, Wellington.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>At last this comrade of Blücher’s left our house, after +a quarrel with my father; and I was not troubled further +with Germans.</p> + +<p class='c008'>During the time of the warrior from Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, +I sometimes visited a family of boys, who were +also under the charge of a German; and we took long +walks together. The two Germans were friends. But, when +my German departed, I was left once more in complete +solitude. I disliked it and tried hard to escape from it, +but without success. As I was powerless to overcome my +father’s wishes, I should, perhaps, have been crushed by +this kind of life; but I was soon saved by a new form of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>mental activity, and by two new acquaintances, of whom +I shall speak in the next chapter. I am sure that it never +once occurred to my father what sort of life he was forcing +me to lead; or else he would not have vetoed my +very innocent wishes and the very natural requests which +I put to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He let me go occasionally to the French Theatre with +my uncle. This was a supreme enjoyment to me. I was +passionately fond of the theatre; but even this treat cost +me as much pain as pleasure. My uncle often arrived +when the play was half over; and, as he was always engaged +for some party, he often took me out before the +end. The theatre was quite close to our house; but I was +strictly forbidden by my father to come home alone.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I was about fifteen when my father summoned a priest to +the house to teach me as much Divinity as was required +for entrance at the University. I had read Voltaire before +I ever opened the Catechism. In the business of education, +religion is less obtrusive in Russia than in any other +country; and this is, of course, a very good thing. A +priest is always paid half the usual fee for lessons in +Divinity; and, if the same priest also teaches Latin, he +actually gets more for a Latin lesson than for instruction +in the Catechism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father looked upon religion as one of the indispensable +attributes of a gentleman. It was necessary to accept +Holy Scripture without discussion, because mere intellect +is powerless in that department, and the subject is only +made darker by human logic. It was necessary to submit +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>to such rites as were required by the Church into which +you were born; but you must avoid excessive piety, which +is suitable for women of advanced age but improper for +a man. Was he himself a believer? I imagine that he believed +to some extent, from habit, from a sense of decency, +and just in case—. But he never himself observed any of +the rules laid down by the Church, excusing himself on +the plea of bad health. He hardly ever admitted a priest +to his presence, or asked him to repeat a psalm while +waiting in the empty drawing-room for the five-<i>rouble</i> +note which was his fee. In winter he excused himself on +the plea that the priest and his clerk brought in so much +cold air with them that he always caught cold in consequence. +In the country, he went to church and received +the priest at his house; but this was not due to religious +feeling but rather a concession to the ideas of society +and the wishes of Government.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My mother was a Lutheran, and, as such, a degree more +religious. Once or twice a month she went on Sundays to +her place of worship—her <i>Kirche</i>, as Bakai persisted in +calling it, and I, for want of occupation, went with her. +I learned there to imitate with great perfection the +flowery style of the German pastors, and I had not lost +this art when I came to manhood.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father always made me keep Lent. I rather dreaded +confession, and church ceremonies in general were impressive +and awful to me. The Communion Service caused +me real fear; but I shall not call that religious feeling: +it was the fear which is always inspired by the unintelligible +and mysterious, especially when solemn importance +is attached to the mystery. When Easter brought +the end of the Fast, I ate all the Easter dishes—dyed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>eggs, currant loaf, and consecrated cakes, and thought +no more about religion for the rest of the year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yet I often read the Gospel, both in Slavonic and in +Luther’s translation, and loved it. I read it without notes +of any kind and could not understand all of it, but I felt +a deep and sincere reverence for the book. In my early +youth, I was often attracted by the Voltairian point of +view—mockery and irony were to my taste; but I don’t +remember ever taking up the Gospel with indifference +or hostility. This has accompanied me throughout life: +at all ages and in all variety of circumstances, I have +gone back to the reading of the Gospel, and every time +its contents have brought down peace and gentleness into +my heart.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the priest began to give me lessons, he was astonished, +not merely at my general knowledge of the +Gospel but also at my power of quoting texts accurately. +“But,” he used to say, “the Lord God, who has opened +the mind, has not yet opened the heart.” My theological +instructor shrugged his shoulders and was surprised by +the inconsistency he found in me; still he was satisfied +with me, because he thought I should be able to pass my +examination.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A religion of a different kind was soon to take possession +of my heart and mind.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>Death of Alexander I—The Fourteenth of December—Moral +Awakening—Bouchot—My Cousin—N. Ogaryóv.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ONE winter evening my uncle came to our house +at an unusual hour. He looked anxious and +walked with a quick step to my father’s study, +after signing to me to stay in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Fortunately, I was not obliged to puzzle my head long +over the mystery. The door of the servants’ hall opened a +little way, and a red face, half hidden by the wolf-fur +of a livery coat, invited me to approach; it was my uncle’s +footman, and I hastened to the door.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Have you not heard?” he asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Heard what?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The Tsar is dead. He died at Taganrog.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was impressed by the news: I had never before +thought of the possibility of his death. I had been brought +up in great reverence for Alexander, and I thought with +sorrow how I had seen him not long before in Moscow. +We were out walking when we met him outside the Tver +Gate; he was riding slowly, accompanied by two or three +high officers, on his way back from manœuvres. His face +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>was attractive, the features gentle and rounded, and his +expression was weary and sad. When he caught us up, I +took off my hat; he smiled and bowed to me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Confused ideas were still simmering in my head; the +shops were selling pictures of the new Tsar, Constantine; +notices about the oath of allegiance were circulating; and +good citizens were making haste to take the oath—when +suddenly a report spread that the Crown Prince had abdicated. +Immediately afterwards, the same footman, a +great lover of political news, with abundant opportunities +for collecting it from the servants of senators and lawyers—less +lucky than the horses which rested for half the +day, he accompanied his master in his rounds from morning +till night—informed me that there was a revolution +in Petersburg and that cannon were firing in the capital.</p> + +<p class='c008'>On the evening of the next day, Count Komarovsky, a +high officer of the police, was at our house, and told us +of the band of revolutionaries in the Cathedral Square, +the cavalry charge, and the death of Milorádovitch.<a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c016'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f26'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. </span>When Nicholas became Emperor in place of his brother +Constantine, the revolt of the Decembrists took place in Petersburg on +December 14, 1825. Five of the conspirators were afterwards hanged, +and over a hundred banished to Siberia.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Then followed the arrests—“They have taken so-and-so”; +“They have caught so-and-so”; “They have arrested +so-and-so in the country.” Parents trembled in fear for +their sons; the sky was covered over with black clouds.</p> + +<p class='c008'>During the reign of Alexander, political persecution +was rare: it is true that he exiled Púshkin for his verses, +and Labzin, the secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts, +for proposing that the imperial coachman should be +elected a member;<a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c016'><sup>[27]</sup></a> but there was no systematic persecution. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>The secret police had not swollen to its later proportions: +it was merely an office, presided over by De Sanglin, +a freethinking old gentleman and a sayer of good things, +in the manner of the French writer, Etienne de Jouy. +Under Nicholas, De Sanglin himself came under police +supervision and passed for a liberal, though he remained +precisely what he had always been; but this fact alone +serves to mark the difference between the two reigns.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f27'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. </span>The president had proposed to elect Arakchéyev, on the +ground of his nearness to the Tsar. Labzin then proposed the election +of Ilyá Baikov, the Tsar’s coachman. “He is not only near the Tsar but +sits in front of him,” he said.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The tone of society changed visibly; and the rapid demoralisation +proved too clearly how little the feeling of +personal dignity is developed among the Russian aristocracy. +Except the women, no one dared to show sympathy +or to plead earnestly in favour of relations and +friends, whose hands they had grasped yesterday but who +had been arrested before morning dawned. On the contrary, +men became zealots for tyranny, some to gain their +own ends, while others were even worse, because they had +nothing to gain by subservience.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Women alone were not guilty of this shameful denial +of their dear ones. By the Cross none but women were +standing; and by the blood-stained guillotine there were +women too—a Lucile Desmoulins, that Ophelia of the +French Revolution, wandering near the fatal axe and +waiting her turn, or a George Sand holding out, even on +the scaffold, the hand of sympathy and friendship to the +young fanatic, Alibaud.<a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c016'><sup>[28]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f28'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. </span>Camille Desmoulins was guillotined, with Danton, April 5, +1794; his wife, Lucile, soon followed him. Alibaud was executed July +11, 1836, for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The wives of the exiles were deprived of all civil rights; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>abandoning their wealth and position in society, they +faced a whole lifetime of slavery in Eastern Siberia, +where the terrible climate was less formidable than the +Siberian police. Sisters, who were not permitted to accompany +their condemned brothers, absented themselves +from Court, and many of them left Russia; almost all +of them retained in their hearts a lively feeling of affection +for the sufferers. But this was not so among the men: +fear devoured this feeling in their hearts, and none of +them dared to open their lips about “the unfortunate.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>As I have touched on this subject, I cannot refrain +from giving some account of one of these heroic women, +whose history is known to very few.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In the ancient family of the Ivashevs a French girl was +living as a governess. The only son of the house wished +to marry her. All his relations were driven wild by the +idea; there was a great commotion, tears, and entreaties. +They succeeded in inducing the girl to leave Petersburg +and the young man to delay his intention for a season. +Young Ivashev was one of the most active conspirators, +and was condemned to penal servitude for life. For this +was a form of <i>mésalliance</i> from which his relations did +not protect him. As soon as the terrible news reached +the young girl in Paris, she started for Petersburg, and +asked permission to travel to the Government of Irkutsk, +in order to join her future husband. Benkendorf tried +to deter her from this criminal purpose; when he failed, +he reported the case to Nicholas. The Tsar ordered that +the position of women who had remained faithful to their +exiled husbands should be explained to her. “I don’t keep +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>her back,” he added; “but she ought to realise that if +wives, who have accompanied their husbands out of +loyalty, deserve some indulgence, she has no claim whatever +to such treatment, when she intends to marry one +whom she knows to be a criminal.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In Siberia nothing was known of this permission. When +she had found her way there, the poor girl was forced to +wait while a correspondence went on with Petersburg. +She lived in a miserable settlement peopled with released +criminals of all kinds, unable to get any news of her lover +or to inform him of her whereabouts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>By degrees she made acquaintances among her strange +companions. One of these was a highwayman who was +now employed in the prison, and she told him all her +story. Next day he brought her a note from Ivashev; +and soon he offered to carry messages between them. All +day he worked in the prison; at nightfall he got a scrap +of writing from Ivashev and started off, undeterred by +weariness or stormy weather, and returned to his daily +work before dawn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At last permission came for their marriage. A few years +later, penal servitude was commuted to penal settlement, +and their condition was improved to some extent. But +their strength was exhausted, and the wife was the first +to sink under the burden of all she had undergone. She +faded away, as a flower from southern climes was bound +to fade in the snows of Siberia. Ivashev could not survive +her long: just a year later he too died. But he had ceased +to live before his death: his letters (which impressed +even the inquisitors who read them) were evidence not +only of intense sorrow, but of a distracted brain; they +were full of a gloomy poetry and a crazy piety; after +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>her death he never really lived, and the process of his +death was slow and solemn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This history does not end with their deaths. Ivashev’s +father, after his son’s exile, transferred his property to +an illegitimate son, begging him not to forget his unfortunate +brother but to do what he could. The young +pair were survived by two children, two nameless infants, +with a future prospect of the roughest labour in Siberia—without +friends, without rights, without parents. Ivashev’s +brother got permission to adopt the children. A few years +later he ventured on another request: he used influence, +that their father’s name might be restored to them, and +this also was granted.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I was strongly impressed by stories of the rebels and I +their fate, and by the horror which reigned in Moscow. +These events revealed to me a new world, which became +more and more the centre of my whole inner life; I don’t +know how it came to pass; but, though I understood very +dimly what it was all about, I felt that the side that +possessed the cannons and held the upper hand was not +my side. The execution of Pestel<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c016'><sup>[29]</sup></a> and his companions +finally awakened me from the dreams of childhood.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f29'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. </span>One of the Decembrists.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Though political ideas occupied my mind day and +night, my notions on the subject were not very enlightened: +indeed they were so wide of the mark that I believed +one of the objects of the Petersburg insurrection +to consist in placing Constantine on the throne as a constitutional +monarch.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It will easily be understood that solitude was a greater +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>burden to me than ever: I needed someone, in order to +impart to him my thoughts and ideals, to verify them, and +to hear them confirmed. Proud of my own “disaffection,” +I was unwilling either to conceal it or to speak of it to +people in general.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My choice fell first on Iván Protopópov, my Russian +tutor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This man was full of that respectable indefinite liberalism, +which, though it often disappears with the first grey +hair, marriage, and professional success, does nevertheless +raise a man’s character. He was touched by what I +said, and embraced me on leaving the house. “Heaven +grant,” he said, “that those feelings of your youth may +ripen and grow strong!” His sympathy was a great comfort +to me. After this time he began to bring me manuscript +copies, in very small writing and very much frayed, +of Púshkin’s poems—<i>Ode to Freedom</i>, <i>The Dagger</i>, and +of Ryléev’s <i>Thoughts</i>. These I used to copy out in secret; +and now I print them as openly as I please!</p> + +<p class='c008'>As a matter of course, my reading also changed. Politics +for me in future, and, above all, the history of the +French Revolution, which I knew only as described by +Mme. Provo. Among the books in our cellar I unearthed +a history of the period, written by a royalist; it was so +unfair that, even at fourteen, I could not believe it. I +had chanced to hear old Bouchot say that he was in Paris +during the Revolution; and I was very anxious to question +him. But Bouchot was a surly, taciturn man, with +spectacles over a large nose; he never indulged in any +needless conversation with me: he conjugated French +verbs, dictated examples, scolded me, and then took his +departure, leaning on his thick knotted stick.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>The old man did not like me: he thought me a mere +idler, because I prepared my lessons badly; and he often +said, “You will come to no good.” But when he discovered +my sympathy with his political views, he softened down +entirely, pardoned my mistakes, and told me stories of +the year ’93, and of his departure from France when +“profligates and cheats” got the upper hand. He never +smiled; he ended our lesson with the same dignity as +before, but now he said indulgently, “I really thought +you would come to no good, but your feelings do you +credit, and they will save you.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>To this encouragement and approval from my teachers +there was soon added a still warmer sympathy which had +a profound influence upon me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In a little town of the Government of Tver lived a +granddaughter of my father’s eldest brother. Her name +was Tatyana Kuchin. I had known her from childhood, +but we seldom met: once a year, at Christmas or Shrovetide, +she came to pay a visit to her aunt at Moscow. But +we had become close friends. Though five years my senior, +she was short for her age and looked no older than myself. +My chief reason for getting to like her was that +she was the first person to talk to me in a reasonable +way: I mean, she did not constantly express surprise at +my growth; she did not ask what lessons I did and +whether I did them well; whether I intended to enter +the Army, and, if so, what regiment; but she talked to +me as most sensible people talk to one another, though +she kept the little airs of superiority which all girls like +to show to boys a little younger than themselves.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We corresponded, especially after the events of 1824; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>but letters mean paper and pen and recall the school-room +table with its ink-stains and decorations carved +with a penknife. I wanted to see her and to discuss our +new ideas; and it may be imagined with what delight I +heard that my cousin was to come in February (of 1826) +and to spend several months with us. I scratched a calendar +on my desk and struck off the days as they passed, +sometimes abstaining for a day or two, just to have the +satisfaction of striking out more at one time. In spite of +this, the time seemed very long; and when it came to an +end, her visit was postponed more than once; such is the +way of things.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One evening I was sitting in the school-room with +Protopópov. Over each item of instruction he took, as +usual, a sip of sour broth; he was explaining the hexameter +metre, ruthlessly hashing, with voice and hand, each +verse of Gnyéditch’s translation of the Iliad into its separate +feet. Suddenly, a sound unlike that of town sledges +came from the snow outside; I heard the faint tinkle of +harness-bells and the sound of voices out-of-doors. I +flushed up, lost all interest in the hashing process and the +wrath of Achilles, and rushed headlong to the front hall. +There was my cousin from Tver, wrapped up in furs, +shawls, and comforters, and wearing a hood and white +fur boots. Blushing red with frost and, perhaps, also with +joy, she ran into my arms.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Most people speak of their early youth, its joys and +sorrows, with a slightly condescending smile, as if they +wished to say, like the affected lady in Griboyédov’s play, +“How childish!” Children, when a few years are past, are +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>ashamed of their toys, and this is right enough: they +want to be men and women, they grow so fast and change +so much, as they see by their jackets and the pages of +their lesson-books. But adults might surely realise that +childhood and the two or three years of youth are the +fullest part of life, the fairest, and the most truly our +own; and indeed they are possibly the most important +part, because they fix all that follows, though we are not +aware of it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So long as a man moves modestly forwards, never stopping +and never reflecting, and until he comes to the edge +of a precipice or breaks his neck, he continues to believe +that his life lies ahead of him; and therefore he looks +down upon his past and is unable to appreciate the present. +But when experience has laid low the flowers of +spring and chilled the glow of summer—when he discovers +that life is practically over, and all that remains +a mere continuance of the past, then he feels differently +towards the brightness and warmth and beauty of early +recollections.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Nature deceives us all with her endless tricks and devices: +she makes us a gift of youth, and then, when we +are grown up, asserts her mastery and snares us in a web +of relations, domestic and public, most of which we are +powerless to control; and, though we impart our personal +character to our actions, we do not possess our souls in +the same degree; the lyric element of personality is +weaker, and, with it, our feelings and capacity for enjoyment—all, +indeed, is weaker, except intelligence and will.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My cousin’s life was no bed of roses. She lost her mother +in childhood; her father was a passionate gambler, who, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>like all men who have gambling in their blood, was constantly +rich and poor by turns and ended by ruining +himself. What was left of his fortune he devoted to his +stud, which now became the object of all his thoughts +and desires. His only son, a good-natured cavalry officer, +was taking the shortest road to ruin: at the age of nineteen, +he was a more desperate gambler than his father.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the father was fifty, he married, for no obvious +reason, an old maid who was a teacher in the Smolny +Convent. She was the most typical specimen of a Petersburg +governess whom I had ever happened to meet: thin, +blonde, and very shortsighted, she looked the teacher and +the moralist all over. By no means stupid, she was full of +an icy enthusiasm in her talk, she abounded in commonplaces +about virtue and devotion, she knew history and +geography by heart, spoke French with repulsive correctness, +and concealed a high opinion of herself under an +artificial and Jesuitical humility. These traits are common +to all pedants in petticoats; but she had others peculiar +to the capital or the convent. Thus she raised tearful eyes +to heaven, when speaking of the visit of “the mother of us +all” (the Empress, Márya Fyódorovna<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c016'><sup>[30]</sup></a>); she was in +love with Tsar Alexander, and carried a locket or ring +containing a fragment of a letter from the Empress Elizabeth<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c016'><sup>[31]</sup></a>—“<i>il +a repris son sourire de bienveillance</i>!”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f30'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. </span>The wife of Paul and mother of Alexander I and Nicholas.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f31'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. </span>Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, reigned from 1741 +to 1762. Probably <i>il</i> refers to her father.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>It is easy to imagine the harmonious trio that made up +this household: a card-playing father, passionately devoted +to horses and racing and noisy carouses in disreputable +company; a daughter brought up in complete independence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>and accustomed to do as she pleased in the house; +and a middle-aged blue-stocking suddenly converted into +a bride. As a matter of course, no love was lost between +the stepmother and stepdaughter. In general, real friendship +between a woman of thirty-five and a girl of seventeen +is impossible, unless the former is sufficiently unselfish +to renounce all claim to sex.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The common hostility between stepmothers and step-daughters +does not surprise me in the least: it is natural +and even moral. A new member of the household, who +usurps their mother’s place, provokes repulsion on the +part of the children. To them the second marriage is a +second funeral. The child’s love is revealed in this feeling, +and whispers to the orphan, “Your father’s wife is +not your mother.” At one time the Church understood +that a second marriage is inconsistent with the Christian +conception of marriage and the Christian dogma of immortality; +but she made constant concessions to the +world, and went too far, till she came up against the logic +of facts—the simple heart of the child who revolts against +the absurdity and refuses the name of mother to his +father’s second choice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The woman too is in an awkward situation when she +comes away from the altar to find a family of children +ready-made: she has nothing to do with them, and has +to force feelings which she cannot possess; she is bound +to convince herself and the world, that other people’s +children are just as attractive to her as her own.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Consequently, I don’t blame either the convent-lady +or my cousin for their mutual dislike; but I understand +how a young girl unaccustomed to control was eager to +go wherever she could be free. Her father was now getting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>old and more submissive to his learned wife; her brother, +the officer, was behaving worse and worse; in fact, the +atmosphere at home was oppressive, and she finally induced +her stepmother to let her go on a visit to us, for +some months or possibly for a year.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The day after her arrival, my cousin turned my usual +routine, with the exception of my lessons, upside down. +With a high hand she fixed hours for us to read together, +advised me to stop reading novels, and recommended +Ségur’s <i>General History</i> and <i>The Travels of Anacharsis</i>.<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c016'><sup>[32]</sup></a> +From the ascetic point of view she opposed my strong +inclination to smoke on the sly—cigarettes were then unknown, +and I rolled the tobacco in paper myself: in general, +she liked to preach to me, and I listened meekly to +her sermons, if I did not profit by them. Fortunately, she +was not consistent: quite forgetting her own arrangements, +she read with me for amusement rather than instruction, +and often sent out a secret messenger in the +shape of a pantry-boy to buy buckwheat cakes in winter +or gooseberries in summer.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f32'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. </span><i>Voyage du jeune Anacharsis</i>, by the Abbé Barthélemy, published +in 1779. Ségur was a French historian (1753-1830).</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I believe that her influence on me was very good. She +brought into my monastic life an element of warmth, and +this may have served to keep alive the enthusiasms that +were beginning to stir in my mind, when they might easily +have been smothered by my father’s ironical tone. I +learned to be attentive, to be nettled by a single word, +to care for a friend, and to feel affection; I learned also +to talk about feelings. In her I found support for my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>political ideas; she prophesied a remarkable future and +reputation for me, and I, with a child’s vanity, believed +her when she said I would one day be a Brutus or +Fabricius.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To me alone she confided the secret of her love for a +cavalry officer in a black jacket and dolman. It was +really a secret; for the officer, as he rode at the head of +his squadron, never suspected the pure little flame that +burnt for him in the breast of this young lady of eighteen. +Whether I envied him, I can’t say; probably I did, a little; +but I was proud of being chosen as her confidant, and I +imagined (under the influence of <i>Werther</i>) that this was +a tragic passion, fated to end in some great catastrophe +involving suicide by poison or the dagger. I even thought +at times of calling on the officer and telling him the whole +story.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My cousin brought shuttlecocks with her from home. +One of them had a pin stuck into it, and she always used +it in playing; if anyone else happened to get hold of it, +she took it away and said that no other suited her as well. +But the demon of mischief, which was always whispering +its temptations in my ear, tempted me to take out this +pin and stick it into another shuttlecock. The trick was +entirely successful: my cousin always chose the shuttlecock +with the pin in it. After a fortnight I told her what +I had done: she changed colour, burst out crying, and +ran to her own room. I was frightened and distressed; +after waiting half an hour I went to find her. Her door +was locked, and I asked her to open it. She refused, saying +that she was not well, and that I was an unkind, heartless +boy. Then I wrote a note in which I begged her to +forgive me, and after tea we made it up: I kissed her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>hand, and she embraced me and explained the full importance +of the incident. A year before, the officer had +dined at their house and played battledore with her afterwards; +and the marked shuttlecock had been used by +him. I felt very remorseful, as if I had committed a real +act of sacrilege.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My cousin stayed with us till October, when her father +summoned her home, promising to let her spend the next +summer with us in the country. We looked forward with +horror to the separation; and soon there came an autumn +day when a carriage arrived to fetch her, and her +maid carried down baskets and band-boxes, while our +servants put in provisions of all kinds, to last a week, and +crowded to the steps to say their good-byes. We exchanged +a close embrace, and both shed tears; the carriage +drove out into the street, turned into a side-street +close to the very shop where we used to buy the buckwheat +cakes, and disappeared. I took a turn in the court-yard, +but it seemed cold and unfriendly; my own room, +where I went next, seemed empty and cold too. I began +to prepare a lesson for Protopópov, and all the time I +was thinking, “Where is the carriage now? has it passed +the gates or not?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I had one comfort: we should spend next June together +in the country.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I had a passionate love for the country, and our visits +there gave me new life. Forests, fields, and perfect freedom—all +this was a complete change to me, who had +grown up wrapped in cotton-wool, behind stone walls, +never daring to leave the house on any pretext without +asking leave, or without the escort of a footman.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>From spring onwards, I was always much exercised +by one question—shall we go to the country this year +or not? Every year my father said that he wished to see +the leaves open and would make an early start; but he +was never ready before July. One year he put off so long +that we never went at all. He sent orders every winter +that the country-house was to be prepared and heated, +but this was merely a deep device, that the head man and +ground-officer, fearing our speedy arrival, might pay more +attention to their duties.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It seemed that we were to go. My father said to my +uncle, that he should enjoy a rest in the country and +must see what was doing on the land; but still weeks went +by.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The prospect became brighter by degrees. Food supplies +were sent off—tea and sugar, grain of different kinds +and wine; then came another delay; but at last the head +man was ordered to send a certain number of peasants’ +horses on a fixed day. Joy! Joy! we are to go!</p> + +<p class='c008'>At that time I never thought of the trouble caused to +the peasants by the loss of four or five days at the busiest +time of the year. I was completely happy and made haste +to pack up my books and notebooks. The horses came, +and I listened with inward satisfaction to the sound of +their munching and snorting in the court. I took a lively +interest in the bustle of the drivers and the wrangles of +the servants, as they disputed where each should sit and +accommodate his belongings. Lights burnt all night in +the servants’ quarters: all were busy packing, or dragging +about boxes and bags, or putting on special clothes for +the journey, though it was not more than eighty <i>versts</i>. +My father’s valet was the most excited of the party: he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>realised all the importance of packing, pulled out in fury +all that others had put in, tore his hair with vexation, +and was quite impossible to approach.</p> + +<p class='c008'>On the day itself my father got up no earlier than usual—indeed, +it seemed later—and took just as long over his +coffee; it was eleven o’clock before he gave the order to +put to the horses. First came a coach to hold four, drawn +by six of our own horses; this was followed by three or +sometimes four equipages—an open carriage, a britzka, +and either a large waggon or two carts; all these were +filled by the servants and their baggage, in addition to +the carts which had preceded us; and yet there was such +a squeeze that no one could sit in comfort.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>We stopped half-way, to dine and feed the horses, at +a large village, whose name of Perkhushkov may be +found in Napoleon’s bulletins. It belonged to a son of the +uncle, of whom I spoke in describing the division of the +property. The neglected manor-house stood near the high +road, which had dull flat fields on each side of it; but to +me even this dusty landscape was delightful after the confinement +of a town. The floors of the house were uneven, +and the steps of the staircase shook; our tread sounded +loud, and the walls echoed the noise, as if surprised by +visitors. The old furniture, prized as a rarity by its former +owner, was now spending its last days in banishment here. +I wandered, with eager curiosity, from room to room, +upstairs and downstairs, and finally into the kitchen. Our +cook was preparing a hasty meal for us, and looked discontented +and scornful; the bailiff was generally sitting +in the kitchen, a grey-haired man with a lump on his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>head. When the cook turned to him and complained of +the kitchen-range, the bailiff listened and said from time +to time, “Well, perhaps you’re right”; he looked uneasily +at all the stir in the house and clearly hoped we should +soon go away.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Dinner was served on special plates, made of tin or +Britannia metal, and bought for the purpose. Meanwhile +the horses were put to; and the hall was filled with those +who wished to pay their respects—former footmen, +spending their last days in pure air but on short commons, +and old women who had been pretty house-maids thirty +years ago, all the creeping and hopping population of +great houses, who, like the real locusts, devour the peasants’ +toil by no fault of their own. They brought with +them flaxen-haired children with bare feet and soiled +clothes; the children kept pushing forward, and the old +women kept pulling them back, and both made plenty of +noise. The women caught hold of me when they could +and expressed surprise at my growth in the same terms +every year. My father spoke a few words to them; some +tried to kiss his hand, but he never permitted it; others +made their bow; and then we went away.</p> + +<p class='c008'>By the edge of a wood our bailiff was waiting for us, +and he rode in front of us the last part of the way. A long +lime avenue led up to our house from the vicarage; at +the house we were met by the priest and his wife, the +sexton, the servants, and some peasants. An idiot, called +Pronka, was there too, the only self-respecting person; +for he kept on his dirty old hat, stood a little apart and +grinned, and started away whenever any of the newcomers +tried to approach him.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>I have seen few more charming spots than this estate +of Vasílevskoë. On one side, where the ground slopes, +there is a large village with a church and an old manor-house; +on the other side, where there is a hill and a +smaller village, was a new house built by my father. +From our windows there was a view for many miles: the +endless corn-fields spread like lakes, ruffled by the breeze; +manor-houses and villages with white churches were +visible here and there; forests of varying hues made a +semicircular frame for the picture; and the ribbon of the +Moscow River shone blue outside it. In the early morning +I used to push up my window as high as it would go, and +look, and listen, and drink in the air.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yet I had a tenderness for the old manor-house too, +perhaps because it gave me my first taste of the country; +I had a passion for the long shady avenue which led up +to it, and the neglected garden. The house was falling +down, and a slender shapely birch-tree was growing out +of a crack in the hall floor. A willow avenue went to the +left, followed by reed-beds and white sand, all the way +to the river; about my twelfth year, I used to play the +whole morning on this sand and among the reeds. An +old gardener, bent and decrepit, was generally sitting in +front of the house, boiling fruit or straining mint-wine; +and he used to give me peas and beans to eat on the sly. +There were a number of rooks in the garden; they nested +in the tree-tops and flew round and round, cawing; sometimes, +especially towards evening, they rose up in hundreds +at a time, rousing others by their noise; sometimes +a single bird would fly quickly from tree to tree, amid +general silence. When night came on, some distant owl +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>would cry like a child or burst out laughing; and, though +I feared those wild plaintive noises, yet I went and +listened.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The years when we did not stay at Vasílevskoë were +few and far between. On leaving, I always marked my +height on the wall near the balcony, and my first business +on arriving was to find out how much I had grown. But I +could measure more than mere bodily growth by this +place: the regular recurrence to the same surroundings +enabled me to detect the development of my mind. Different +books and different objects engaged my attention. +In 1823 I was still quite a child and took childish books +with me; and even these I left unread, taking more interest +in a hare and a squirrel that lived in a garret near +my room. My father allowed me, once every evening, to +fire off a small cannon, and this was one of my chief delights. +Of course, all the servants bore a hand in this occupation, +and grey-haired men of fifty were no less excited +than I was. In 1827 my books were Plutarch and Schiller; +early in the morning I sought the remotest part of the +wood, lay down under a tree, and read aloud, fancying +myself in the forests of Bohemia. Yet, all the same, I +paid much attention to a dyke which I and another boy +were making across a small stream, and I ran there ten +times a day to look at it and repair it. In 1829 and the +next year, I was writing a “philosophical” review of +Schiller’s <i>Wallenstein</i>, and the cannon was the only one +of my old amusements that still maintained its attraction.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But I had another pleasure as well as firing off the +cannon—the evenings in the country haunted me like a +passion, and I feel them still to be times of piety and +peace and poetry.... One of the last bright hours of my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>life also recalls to me an evening in the country. I was in +Italy, and <i>she</i> was with me. The sun was setting, solemn +and bright, in an ocean of fire, and melting into it. Suddenly +the rich crimson gave place to a sombre blue, and +smoke-coloured vapour covered all the sky; for in Italy +darkness comes on fast. We mounted our mules; riding +from Frascati to Rome, we had to pass through a small +village; lights were twinkling already here and there, all +was peace, the hoofs of the mules rang out on the stone, +a fresh dampish wind blew from the Apennines. At the +end of the village there was a small Madonna in a niche, +with a lamp burning before her; the village girls, coming +home from work with white kerchiefs over their heads, +knelt down and sang a hymn, and some begging <i>pifferari</i> +who were passing by added their voices. I was profoundly +impressed and much moved by the scene. We looked at +each other, and rode slowly on to the inn where our carriage +was waiting. When we got home, I described the +evenings I had spent at Vasílevskoë. What was it I described?</p> + +<p class='c008'>The shepherd cracks his long whip and plays on his +birch-bark pipe. I hear the lowing and bleating of the returning +animals, and the stamping of their feet on the +bridge. A barking dog scurries after a straggling sheep, +and the sheep breaks into a kind of wooden-legged gallop. +Then the voices of the girls, singing on their way from the +fields, come nearer and nearer; but the path takes a turn +to the right, and the sound dies away again. House-doors +open with creaking of the hinges, and the children come +out to meet their cows and sheep. Work is over. Children +play in the street or by the river, and their voices come +penetrating and clear over the water through the evening +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>glow. The smell of burning passes from the corn-kilns +through the air; the soaking dew begins to spread like +smoke over the earth, the wind seems to walk audibly +over the trees, the sunset glow sends a last faint light over +the world—and Vyéra Artamónovna finds me under a +lime-tree, and scolds me, though she is not seriously +angry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What’s the meaning of this? Tea has long been served, +and everyone is there. I have looked and looked for you +everywhere till I’m tired out. I’m too old for all this running. +And what <i>do</i> you mean by lying on the wet grass? +You’ll have a cold to-morrow, I feel sure.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Never mind, never mind,” I would answer laughing; +“I shan’t have a cold, and I want no tea; but you must +steal me some cream, and mind you skim off the top of +the jug!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Really, I can’t find it in my heart to be angry with +you! But how dainty you are! I’ve got cream ready for +you, without your asking. Look how red the sky is! That’s +a sign of a good harvest.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then I made off home, jumping and whistling as +I went.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>We never went back to Vasílevskoë after 1832, and my +father sold it during my banishment. In 1843 we were +staying in the country within twenty <i>versts</i> of the old +home and I could not resist paying it a visit. We drove +along the familiar road, past the pine-wood and the hill +covered with nut bushes, till we came to the ford which +had given me such delight twenty years ago—I remembered +the splashing water, the crunching sound of the +pebbles, the coachmen shouting at the jibbing horses. At +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>last we reached the village and the priest’s house; there +was the bench where the priest used to sit, wearing his +brown cassock—a simple kindly man who was always +chewing something and always in a perspiration; and +then the estate-office where Vassíli Epifánov made out his +accounts; never quite sober, he sat crouching over the +paper, holding his pen very low down and tucking his +third finger away behind it. The priest was dead, and +Vassíli Epifánov, not sober yet, was making out accounts +somewhere else. The village head man was in the fields, +but we found his wife at their cottage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Changes had taken place in the interval. A new manor-house +had been built on the hill, and a new garden laid +out round it. Returning past the church and churchyard, +we met a poor deformed object, creeping, as it seemed, +on all-fours. It signed to me, and I went close to it. It +was an old woman, bent, paralysed, and half-crazy; she +used to live on charity and work in the old priest’s garden; +she was now about seventy, and her, of all people, +death had spared! She knew me and shed tears, shaking +her head and saying: “How old you have grown! I only +knew you by your walk. And me—but there’s no use +talking about me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>As we drove home, I saw the head man, the same as +in our time, standing in a field some way off. He did not +recognise me at first; but when we were past, he made +out who I was, took off his hat, and bowed low. A little +further on, I turned round, and Grigóri Gorski—that +was the head man’s name—was standing on the same +spot and watching our carriage. That tall bearded figure, +bowing in the harvest field, was a link with the past; but +Vasílevskoë had ceased to be ours.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>My Friend Niko and the Sparrow Hills.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>SOME time in the year 1824 I was walking one day +with my father along the Moscow River, on the +far side of the Sparrow Hills; and there we met a +French tutor whom we knew. He had nothing on but +his shirt, was obviously in great alarm, and was calling +out, “Help! Help!” Before our friend had time to pull +off his shirt or pull on his trousers, a Cossack ran down +from the Sparrow Hills, hurled himself into the water, +and disappeared. In another moment he reappeared, +grasping a miserable little object, whose head and hands +shook like clothes hung out to dry; he placed this burden +on the bank and said, “A shaking will soon bring him +round.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The bystanders collected fifty <i>roubles</i> for the rescuer. +The Cossack made no pretences but said very honestly, +“It’s a sin to take money for a thing like that; for he +gave me no trouble, no more than a cat, to pull him out. +But,” he added, “though I don’t ask for money, if I’m +offered it, I may as well take it. I’m a poor man. So thank +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>you kindly.” Then he tied up the money in his handkerchief +and went back to his horses grazing on the hill.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father asked the man’s name and wrote next day +to tell his commanding officer of his gallantry; and the +Cossack was promoted to be a corporal. A few months +later the Cossack appeared at our house and brought a +companion, a German with a fair curling wig, pock-marked, +and scented. This was the drowning man, who +had come to return thanks on behalf of the Cossack; +and he visited us afterwards from time to time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Karl Sonnenberg had taught boys German in several +families, and was now employed by a distant relation of +my father’s, who had confided to him the bodily health +and German pronunciation of his son. This boy, Nikolai +Ogaryóv, whom Sonnenberg always called Niko, attracted +me. There was something kind, gentle, and thoughtful +about him; he was quite unlike the other boys whom I +was in the way of seeing. Yet our intimacy ripened slowly: +he was silent and thoughtful, I was lively and feared to +trouble him by my liveliness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Niko had lost his mother in infancy, and his grandmother +died about the time when my cousin Tatyana left +us and went home. Their household was in confusion, +and Sonnenberg, who had really nothing to do, made out +that he was terribly busy; so he brought the boy to our +house in the morning and asked if we would keep him +for the whole day. Niko was frightened and sad; I suppose +he loved his grandmother.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After sitting together for some time, I proposed that +we should read Schiller. I was soon astonished by the +similarity of our tastes: he knew by heart much more +than I did, and my favourite passages were those he knew +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>best; we soon shut the book, and each began to explore +the other’s mind for common interests.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He too was familiar with the unprinted poems of Púshkin +and Ryléev;<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c016'><sup>[33]</sup></a> the difference from the empty-headed +boys whom I sometimes met was surprising. His heart +beat to the same tune as mine; he too had cut the painter +that bound him to the sullen old shore of conservatism; +our business was to push off with a will; and we decided, +perhaps on that very first day, to act in support of the +Crown Prince Constantine!</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f33'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. </span>One of the five Decembrists who were hanged when the +revolt was suppressed.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>This was our first long conversation. Sonnenberg was +always in our way, persistent as a fly in autumn and spoiling +all our talk by his presence. He was constantly interfering, +criticising without understanding, putting the +collar of Niko’s shirt to rights, or in a hurry to go home; +in short, he was thoroughly objectionable. But, before +a month was over, it was impossible for my friend and +me to pass two days without meeting or writing; I, who +was naturally impulsive, became more and more attached +to Niko, and he had a less demonstrative but deep love +for me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From the very first, our friendship was bound to take +a serious turn. I cannot remember that we thought much +of amusement, especially when we were alone. I don’t +mean that we sat still always; after all, we were boys, and +we laughed and played the fool and teased Sonnenberg +and shot with a bow in our court-yard. But our friendship +was not founded on mere idle companionship: we +were united, not only by equality of age and “chemical” +affinity, but by a common religion. Nothing in the world +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>has more power to purify and elevate that time of life, +nothing preserves it better, than a strong interest in +humanity at large. We respected, in ourselves, our own +future; we regarded one another as chosen vessels, with +a fixed task before us.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We often took walks into the country; our favourite +haunts were the Sparrow Hills, and the fields outside the +Dragomirovsky Gate. Accompanied by Sonnenberg, he +used to come for me at six or seven in the morning; and +if I was still asleep, he used to throw sand or pebbles at +my window. I woke up joyfully and hastened to join him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These morning walks had been started by the activity +of Sonnenberg. My friend had been brought up under a +<i>dyádka</i>,<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c016'><sup>[34]</sup></a> in the manner traditional in noble Russian +families, till Sonnenberg came. The influence of the +<i>dyádka</i> waned at once, and the oligarchy of the servants’ +hall had to grin and bear it: they realised that they were +no match for the “accursed German” who was permitted +to dine with the family. Sonnenberg’s reforms were radical: +the <i>dyádka</i> even wept when the German took his +young master in person to a shop to buy ready-made +boots. Just like the reforms of Peter the Great, Sonnenberg’s +reforms bore a military character even in matters +of the least warlike nature. It does not follow from this +that Sonnenberg’s narrow shoulders were ever covered by +epaulettes, plain or laced—nature has constructed the +German on such a plan, that, unless he is a philologer or +theologian and therefore utterly indifferent to personal +neatness, he is invariably military, whatever civilian +sphere he may adorn. Hence Sonnenberg liked tight +clothes, closely buttoned and belted in at the waist; and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>hence he was a strict observer of rules approved by himself. +He had made it a rule to get up at six in the morning; +therefore he made his pupil get up one minute before +six or, at latest, one minute after it, and took him out into +the fresh air every morning.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f34'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. </span>See note to p. 55.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Sonnenberg had +been so nearly drowned, soon became to us a Holy Place.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One day after dinner, my father proposed to take a +drive into the country, and, as Niko was in the house, +invited him and Sonnenberg to join us. These drives were +no joke. Though the carriage was made by Iochim, most +famous of coachmakers, it had been used, if not severely, +for fifteen years till it had become old and ugly, and it +weighed more than a siege mortar, so that we took an +hour or more to get outside the city-gates. Our four +horses, ill-matched both in size and colour, underworked +and overfed, were covered with sweat and lather in a +quarter of an hour; and the coachman, knowing that +this was forbidden, had to keep them at a walk. However +hot it was, the windows were generally kept shut. To all +this you must add the steady pressure of my father’s eye +and Sonnenberg’s perpetual fussy interference; and yet +we boys were glad to endure it all, in order that we might +be together.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We crossed the Moscow River by a ferry at the very +place where the Cossack pulled Sonnenberg out of the +water. My father walked along with gloomy aspect and +stooping figure, as always, while Sonnenberg trotted at +his side and tried to amuse him with scandal and gossip. +We two walked on in front till we had got a good lead; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>then we ran off to the site of Vitberg’s cathedral<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c016'><sup>[35]</sup></a> on +the Sparrow Hills.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f35'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. </span>See part II, chap. IX.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Panting and flushed, we stood there and wiped our +brows. The sun was setting, the cupolas of Moscow glittered +in his rays, the city at the foot of the hill spread +beyond our vision, a fresh breeze fanned our cheeks. We +stood there leaning against each other; then suddenly +we embraced and, as we looked down upon the great city, +swore to devote our lives to the struggle we had undertaken.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such an action may seem very affected and theatrical +on our part; but when I recall it, twenty-six years after, +it affects me to tears. That it was absolutely sincere has +been proved by the whole course of our lives. But all vows +taken on that spot are evidently doomed to the same +fate: the Emperor Alexander also acted sincerely when +he laid the first stone of the cathedral there, but the first +stone was also the last.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We did not know the full power of our adversary, but +still we threw down the glove. Power dealt us many a +shrewd blow, but we never surrendered to it, and it was +not power that crushed us. The scars inflicted by power +are honourable; the strained thigh of Jacob was a sign +that he had wrestled with God in the night.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From that day the Sparrow Hills became a place of +pilgrimage for us: once or twice a year we walked there, +and always by ourselves. There, five years later, Ogaryóv +asked me with a modest diffidence whether I believed in +his poetic gift. And in 1833 he wrote to me from the +country:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Since I left Moscow, I have felt sad, sadder than I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>ever was in my life. I am always thinking of the Sparrow +Hills. I long kept my transports hidden in my heart; shyness +or some other feeling prevented me from speaking +of them. But on the Sparrow Hills these transports were +not lessened by solitude: you shared them with me, and +those moments are unforgettable; like recollections of +bygone happiness, they pursued me on my journey, +though I passed no hills but only forests.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tell the world,” he ended, “how our lives (yours and +mine) took shape on the Sparrow Hills.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Five more years passed, and I was far from those Hills, +but their Prometheus, Alexander Vitberg, was near me, +a sorrowful and gloomy figure. After my return to +Moscow, I visited the place again in 1842; again I stood +by the foundation-stone and surveyed the same scene; +and a companion was with me—but it was not my friend.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>After 1827 we two were inseparable. In every recollection +of that time, whether detailed or general, <i>he</i> is always +prominent, with the face of opening manhood, with his +love for me. He was early marked with that sign of consecration +which is given to few, and which, for weal or for +woe, separates a man from the crowd. A large oil-painting +of Ogaryóv was made about that time and long remained +in his father’s house. I often stopped in front of it and +looked long at it. He was painted with a loose open collar: +the artist has caught successfully the luxuriant chestnut +hair, the fleeting beauty of youth on the irregular features, +and the somewhat swarthy complexion. The canvas preserves +the serious aspect which precedes hard intellectual +work. The vague sorrow and extreme gentleness which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>shine from the large grey eyes, give promise of great +power of sympathy; and that promise was fulfilled. The +portrait was given to me. A lady, not related to Ogaryóv, +afterwards got hold of it; perhaps she will see these lines +and restore it to me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I do not know why people dwell exclusively on recollections +of first love and say nothing about memories of +youthful friendship. First love is so fragrant, just because +it forgets difference of sex, because it is passionate friendship. +Friendship between young men has all the fervour +of love and all its characteristics—the same shy reluctance +to profane its feeling by speech, the same diffidence +and absolute devotion, the same pangs at parting, and +the same exclusive desire to stand alone without a rival.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I had loved Niko long and passionately before I dared +to call him “friend”; and, when we were apart in summer, +I wrote in a postscript, “whether I am your friend +or not, I don’t know yet.” He was the first to use “thou” +in writing to me; and he called me Damon before I called +him Pythias.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Smile, if you please, but let it be a kindly smile, such +as men smile when recalling their own fifteenth year. +Perhaps it would be better to ask, “Was I like that in my +prime?” and to thank your stars, if you ever <i>had</i> a prime, +and to thank them doubly, if you had a friend to share it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The language of that time seems to us affected and +bookish. We have travelled far from its passing enthusiasms +and one-sided partisanships, which suddenly give +place to feeble sentimentality or childish laughter. In a +man of thirty it would be absurd, like the famous <i>Bettina +will schlafen</i>;<a id='r36' /><a href='#f36' class='c016'><sup>[36]</sup></a> but, in its own season, this language of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>adolescence, this <i>jargon de la puberté</i>, this breaking of +the soul’s voice—all this is quite sincere, and even its +bookish flavour is natural to the age which knows theory +and is ignorant of practice.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f36'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. </span>This must refer to Bettina von Arnim’s first interview +with Goethe at Weimar in April, 1807. She writes that she sprang into +Goethe’s arms and slept there. The poet was then 58, and Bettina had +ceased to be a child.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Schiller remained our favourite; the characters in his +plays were real for us; we discussed them and loved or +hated them as living beings and not as people in a book. +And more than that—we identified ourselves with them. I +was rather distressed that Niko was too fond of Fiesco, +and wrote to say that behind every Fiesco stands a Verina. +My own ideal was Karl Moor, but I soon deserted him +and adopted the Marquis Posa instead.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Thus it was that Ogaryóv and I entered upon life hand +in hand. We walked in confidence and pride; without +counting the cost, we answered every summons and surrendered +ourselves sincerely to each generous impulse. +The path we chose was not easy; but we never once left +it; wounded and broken, we still went on, and no one out-stripped +us on the way. I have reached, not our goal but +the place where the road turns downhill, and I seek instinctively +for your arm, my friend, that I may press it +and say with a sad smile as we go down together, “So +this is all!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Meanwhile, in the wearisome leisure to which I am +condemned by circumstances, as I find in myself neither +strength nor vigour for fresh toil, I am recording <i>our</i> +recollections.<a id='r37' /><a href='#f37' class='c016'><sup>[37]</sup></a> Much of what bound us so closely has +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>found a place in these pages, and I give them to you. For +you they have a double meaning, the meaning of epitaphs, +on which we meet with familiar names.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f37'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. </span>This was written in 1853.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>But it is surely an odd reflection, that, if Sonnenberg +had learned to swim or been drowned when he fell into +the river, or if he had been pulled out by some ordinary +private and not by that Cossack, we should never have +met; or, if we had, it would have been at a later time and +in a different way—not in the little room of our old house +where we smoked our first cigars, and where we drew +strength from one another for our first long step on the +path of life.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>Details of Home Life—Men of the Eighteenth Century in Russia—A +Day at Home—Guests and Visitors—Sonnenberg—Servants.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THE dulness and monotony of our house became +more intolerable with every year. But for the +prospect of University life, my new friendship, +my interest in politics, and my lively turn of character, +I must either have run away or died of the life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father was seldom cheerful; as a rule he was dissatisfied +with everyone and everything. He was a man of +unusual intelligence and powers of observation, who had +seen and heard a great deal and remembered it; he was +a finished man of the world and could be exceedingly +pleasant and interesting; but he did not choose to be so, +and sank deeper and deeper into a state of morbid solitude.</p> + +<p class='c008'>What precisely it was that infused so much bile and +bitterness into his blood, it is hard to say. No period of +passion, of great misfortunes, mistakes, and losses, had +ever taken place in his life. I could never fully understand +the source of that bitter scorn and irritation which +filled his heart, of his distrust and avoidance of mankind, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>and of the disgust that preyed upon him. Perhaps he took +with him to the grave some recollection which he never +confided to any ear; perhaps it was merely due to the +combination of two things so incongruous as the eighteenth +century and Russian life; and there was a third factor, +the traditional idleness of his class, which had a terrible +power of producing unreasonable tempers.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In Europe, especially in France, the eighteenth century +produced an extraordinary type of man, which combined +all the weaknesses of the Regency with all the strength of +Spartans or Romans. Half like Faublas and half like +Regulus, these men opened wide the doors of revolution +and were the first to rush into it, jostling one another in +their haste to pass out by the “window” of the guillotine. +Our age has ceased to produce those strong, complete +natures; but last century evoked them everywhere, even +in countries where they were not needed and where their +development was bound to be distorted. In Russia, men +who were exposed to the influence of this powerful European +current, did not make history, but they became unlike +other men. Foreigners at home and foreigners abroad, +spoilt for Russia by European prejudices and for Europe +by Russian habits, they were a living contradiction in +terms and sank into an artificial life of sensual enjoyment +and monstrous egoism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such was the most conspicuous figure at Moscow in +those days, Prince Yusúpov, a Tatar prince, a <i>grand +seigneur</i> of European reputation, and a Russian grandee +of brilliant intellect and great fortune. He was surrounded +by a whole pleiad of grey-haired Don Juans and freethinkers—such +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>men as Masalski, Santi, and the rest. +They were all men of considerable mental development +and culture; but they had nothing to do, and they rushed +after pleasure, loved and petted their precious selves, +genially gave themselves absolution for all transgressions, +exalted the love of eating to the height of a Platonic +passion, and lowered love for women into a kind of gluttonous +epicureanism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Old Yusúpov was a sceptic and a <i>bon-vivant</i>; he had +been the friend of Voltaire and Beaumarchais, of Diderot +and Casti; and his artistic taste was beyond question. +You may convince yourself of this by a single visit to +his palace outside Moscow and a glance at his pictures, +if his heir has not sold them yet by auction. At eighty, +this luminary was setting in splendour, surrounded by +beauty in marble and colour, and also in flesh and blood. +Púshkin, who dedicated a noble Epistle to him,<a id='r38' /><a href='#f38' class='c016'><sup>[38]</sup></a> used to +converse with Yusúpov in his country-house; and Gonzaga, +to whom Yusúpov dedicated his theatre, used to +paint there.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f38'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. </span><i>To a Great Man</i> (1830).</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>By his education and service in the Guards, by his birth +and connexions, my father belonged to the same circle; +but neither temperament nor health allowed him to lead +a life of dissipation to the age of seventy, and he went +to the opposite extreme. He determined to secure a life +of solitude, and found it intensely tedious—all the more +tedious because he had sought it merely for his own sake. +A strong will was degraded into stubborn wilfulness, and +unused powers spoilt his temper and made it difficult.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>At the time of his education European civilisation was +so new in Russia that a man of culture necessarily became +less of a Russian. To the end of his life he wrote French +with more ease and correctness than Russian, and he +literally never read a Russian book, not even the Bible. +The Bible, indeed, he did not read even in other languages; +he knew, by hearsay and from extracts, the matter +of Holy Scripture in general, and felt no curiosity to +examine further. He did respect Derzhávin and Krylóv, +the first because he had written an ode on the death of +his uncle, Prince Meshcherski, and the latter, because +they had acted together as seconds in a duel. When my +father heard that the Emperor Alexander was reading +Karamzín’s <i>History of the Russian Empire</i>, he tried it +himself but soon laid it aside: “Nothing but old Slavonic +names! Who can take an interest in all that?”—such was +his disparaging criticism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His contempt for mankind was unconcealed and without +exceptions. Never, under any circumstances, did he +rely on anyone, and I don’t remember that he ever preferred +a considerable request in any quarter; and he +never did anything to oblige other people. All he asked of +others was to maintain appearances: <i>les apparences, les +convenances</i>—his moral code consisted of these alone. +He excused much, or rather shut his eyes to much: but +any breach of decent forms enraged him to such a degree +that he became incapable of the least indulgence or sympathy. +I puzzled so long over this unfairness that I ended +by understanding it: he was convinced beforehand that +any man is capable of any bad action, and refrains from +it only because it does not pay, or for want of opportunity; +but in any breach of politeness he found personal +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>offence, and disrespect to himself, or “middle-class breeding,” +which, in his opinion, excluded a man from all +decent society.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The heart of man,” he used to say, “is hidden, and +nobody knows what another man feels. I have too much +business of my own to attend to other people, let alone +judging their motives. But I cannot live in the same room +with an ill-bred man: he offends me, <i>il me froisse</i>. Otherwise +he may be the best man in the world; if so, he will +go to Heaven; but I have no use for him. The most important +thing in life, more important than soaring intellect +or erudition, is <i>savoir vivre</i>, to do the right thing always, +never to thrust yourself forward, to be perfectly polite to +everyone and familiar with nobody.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>All impulsiveness and frankness my father disliked and +called familiarity; and all display of feeling passed with +him for sentimentality. He regularly represented himself +as superior to all such trivialities; but what that higher +object was, for the sake of which he sacrificed his feelings, +I have no idea. And when this proud old man, with +his clear understanding and sincere contempt of mankind, +played this part of a passionless judge, whom did he mean +to impress by the performance? A woman whose will he +had broken, though she never tried to oppose him; a boy +whom his own treatment drove from mere naughtiness to +positive disobedience; and a score of footmen whom he +did not reckon as human beings!</p> + +<p class='c008'>And how much strength and endurance was spent for +this object, how much persistence! How surprising the +consistency with which the part was played to the very +end, in spite of old age and disease! The heart of man is +indeed hidden.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>At the time of my arrest, and later when I was going +into exile, I saw that the old man’s heart was much more +open than I supposed to love and even to tenderness. But +I never thanked him for this; for I did not know how he +would have taken my thanks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As a matter of course, he was not happy. Always on +his guard, discontented with everyone, he suffered when +he saw the feelings he inspired in every member of the +household. Smiles died away and talk stopped whenever +he came into the room. He spoke of this with mockery +and resented it; but he made no concession whatever +and went his own way with steady perseverance. Stinging +mockery and cool contemptuous irony were the weapons +which he could wield with the skill of an artist, and he +used them equally against us and against the servants. +There are few things that a growing boy resents more; +and, in fact, up to the time of my imprisonment I was on +bad terms with my father and carried on a petty warfare +against him, with the men and maids for my allies.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>For the rest, he had convinced himself that he was dangerously +ill, and was constantly under treatment. He had +a doctor resident in the house and was visited by two or +three other physicians; and at least three consultations +took place each year. His sour looks and constant complaints +of his health (which was not really so bad) soon +reduced the number of our visitors. He resented this; yet +he never remonstrated or invited any friend to the house. +An air of terrible boredom reigned in our house, especially +in the endless winter evenings. The whole suite +of drawing-rooms was lit up by a single pair of lamps; and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>there the old man walked up and down, a stooping figure +with his hands behind his back; he wore cloth boots, a +velvet skull-cap, and a warm jacket of white lamb-skin; +he never spoke a word, and three or four brown dogs +walked up and down with him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As melancholy grew on him, so did his wish to save, but +it was entirely misapplied. His management of his land +was not beneficial either to himself or to his serfs. The +head man and his underlings robbed both their master and +the peasants. In certain matters there was strict economy: +candle-ends were saved and light French wine was replaced +by sour wine from the Crimea; on the other hand, +a whole forest was felled without his knowledge on one +estate, and he paid the market price for his own oats on +another. There were men whom he permitted to steal; +thus a peasant, whom he made collector of the <i>obrók</i> at +Moscow, and who was sent every summer to the country, +to report on the head man and the farm-work, the garden +and the timber, grew rich enough to buy a house in +Moscow after ten years’ service. From childhood I hated +this factotum: I was present once when he thrashed an +old peasant in our court-yard; in my fury I caught him +by the beard and nearly fainted myself. From that time +I could never bear the sight of him. He died in 1845. +Several times I asked my father where this man got the +money to buy a house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The result of sober habits,” he said; “that man never +took a drop in his life.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Every year about Shrovetide our peasants from the Government +of Penza brought their payments in kind to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>Moscow. It was a fortnight’s journey for the carts, laden +with carcasses of pork, sucking-pigs, geese, chickens, rye, +eggs, butter, and even linen. The arrival of the peasants +was a regular field-day for all our servants, who robbed +and cheated the visitors right and left, without any right +to do so. The coachman charged for the water their horses +drank, and the women charged for a warm place by the +fire, while the aristocrats of the servants’ hall expected +each to get a sucking-pig and a piece of cloth, or a goose +and some pounds of butter. While the peasants remained +in the court-yard, the servants feasted continuously: soup +was always boiling and sucking-pigs roasting, and the +servants’ hall reeked perpetually of onions, burning fat, +and bad whiskey. During the last two days Bakai never +came into the hall, but sat in the kitchen-passage, dressed +in an old livery overcoat, without jacket or waistcoat +underneath it; and other servants grew older visibly and +darker in complexion. All this my father endured calmly +enough, knowing that it must be so and that reform was +impossible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These provisions always arrived in a frozen condition, +and thereupon my father summoned his cook Spiridon +and sent him to the markets to enquire about prices. The +cook reported astonishingly low figures, lower by half +than was actually offered. My father called him a fool +and sent for his factotum and a dealer in fruit named +Slepushkin. Both expressed horror at the cook’s figures, +made enquiries, and quoted prices a little higher. Finally +Slepushkin offered to take the whole in a lump—eggs, +sucking-pigs, butter, rye, and all,—“to save you, <i>bátyushka</i>, +from further worry.” The price he offered was +of course a trifle higher than the cook had mentioned. My +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>father consented: to celebrate the occasion, Slepushkin +presented him with some oranges and gingerbread, and +the cook with a note for 200 <i>roubles</i>. And the most extraordinary +part of this transaction was that it was repeated +exactly every year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Slepushkin enjoyed my father’s favour and often +borrowed money of him; and the strange way in which +he did it showed his profound knowledge of my father’s +character.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He would borrow 500 <i>roubles</i> for two months, and two +days before payment was due, he would present himself +at our house, carrying a currant-loaf on a dish and 500 +<i>roubles</i> on the top of the loaf. My father took the money, +and the borrower bowed low and begged, though unsuccessfully, +to kiss his benefactor’s hand. But Slepushkin +would turn up again a week later and ask for a loan of +1,500 <i>roubles</i>. He got it and again paid his debt on the +nail; and my father considered him a pattern of honesty. +A week later, Slepushkin would borrow a still larger sum. +Thus in the course of a year he secured 5,000 <i>roubles</i> in +ready money to use in his business; and for this he paid, +by way of interest, a couple of currant-loaves, a few +pounds of figs and walnuts, and perhaps a hundred +oranges and Crimean apples.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I shall end this subject by relating how my father lost +nearly a thousand acres of valuable timber on one of the +estates which had come to him from his brother, the +Senator.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the forties Count Orlóv, wishing to buy land for +his sons, offered a price for this estate, which was in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>Government of Tver. The parties came to terms, and it +seemed that the transaction was complete. But when the +Count went to examine his purchase, he wrote to my +father that a forest marked upon the plan of the estate +had simply disappeared.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There!” said my father, “Orlóv is a clever man of +course; he was involved in the conspiracy too.<a id='r39' /><a href='#f39' class='c016'><sup>[39]</sup></a> He has +written a book on finance; but when it comes to business, +he is clearly no good. Necker<a id='r40' /><a href='#f40' class='c016'><sup>[40]</sup></a> over again! I shall send +a friend of my own to look at the place, not a conspirator +but an honest man who understands business.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f39'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. </span>See p. <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f40'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. </span>Jacques Necker (1732-1804), Minister of Finance under +Louis XVI; the husband of Gibbon’s first love, and the father of Mme. +de Staël.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>But alas! the honest man came back and reported that +the forest had disappeared; all that remained was a fringe +of trees, which made it impossible to detect the truth from +the high road or from the manor-house. After the division +between the brothers, my uncle had paid five visits to the +place, but had seen nothing!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>That our way of life may be thoroughly understood, +I shall describe a whole day from the beginning. They +were all alike, and this very monotony was the most +killing part of it all. Our life went on like an English +clock with the regulator put back—with a slow and steady +movement and a loud tick for each second.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At ten in the morning, the valet who sat in the room +next the bedroom, informed Vyéra Artamónovna, formerly +my nurse, that the master was getting up; and +she went off to prepare coffee, which my father drank +alone in his study. The house now assumed a different +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>aspect: the servants began to clean the rooms or at least +to make a pretence of doing something. The servants’ +hall, empty till then, began to fill up; and even Macbeth, +the big Newfoundland dog, sat down before the stove and +stared unwinkingly at the fire.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Over his coffee my father read the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> +and the <i>Journal de St. Petersburg</i>. It may be worth mentioning +that the newspapers were warmed to save his +hands from contact with the damp sheets, and that he +read the political news in the French version, finding it +clearer than the Russian. For some time he took in the +<i>Hamburg Gazette</i>, but could not pardon the Germans for +using German print; he often pointed out to me the difference +between French and German type, and said that the +curly tails of the Gothic letters tried his eyes. Then he +ordered the <i>Journal de Francfort</i> for a time, but finally +contented himself with the native product.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When he had read the newspaper, he noticed for the +first time the presence of Sonnenberg in the room. When +Niko reached the age of fifteen, Sonnenberg professed to +start a shop; but having nothing to sell and no customers, +he gave it up, when he had spent such savings as he had +in this useful form of commerce; yet he still called himself +“a commercial agent.” He was then much over forty, +and at that pleasant age he lived like the fowls of the air +or a boy of fourteen; he never knew to-day where he +would sleep or how he would secure a dinner to-morrow. +He enjoyed my father’s favour to a certain extent: what +that amounted to, we shall see presently.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In 1840 my father bought the house next to ours, a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>larger and better house, with a garden, which had belonged +to Countess Rostopchín, wife of the famous governor +of Moscow. We moved into it. Then he bought a +third house, for no reason except that it was adjacent. +Two of these houses stood empty; they were never let +because tenants would give trouble and might cause fires—both +houses were insured, by the way—and they were +never repaired, so that both were in a fair way to fall +down. Sonnenberg was permitted to lodge in one of these +houses, but on conditions: (1) he must never open the +yard-gates after 10 p.m. (as the gates were never shut, +this was an easy condition); (2) he was to provide fire-wood +at his own expense (he did in fact buy it of our +coachman); and (3) he was to serve my father as a kind +of private secretary, coming in the morning to ask for +orders, dining with us, and returning in the evening, when +there was no company, to entertain his employer with conversation +and the news.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The duties of his place may seem simple enough; but +my father contrived to make it so bitter that even Sonnenberg +could not stand it continuously, though he was familiar +with all the privations that can befall a man with no +money and no sense, with a feeble body, a pock-marked +face, and German nationality. Every two years or so, the +secretary declared that his patience was at an end. He +packed up his traps, got together by purchase or barter +some odds and ends of disputable value and doubtful +quality, and started off for the Caucasus. Misfortune +dogged him relentlessly. Either his horse—he drove his +own horse as far as Tiflis and Redut-Kale—came down +with him in dangerous places inhabited by Don Cossacks; +or half his wares were stolen; or his two-wheeled cart +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>broke down and his French scent-bottles wasted their +sweetness on the broken wheel at the foot of Mount +Elbruz; he was always losing something, and when he +had nothing else to lose, he lost his passport. Nearly a +year would pass, and then Sonnenberg, older, more unkempt, +and poorer than before, with fewer teeth and less +hair than ever, would turn up humbly at our house, with +a stock of Persian powder against fleas and bugs, faded +silk for dressing-gowns, and rusty Circassian daggers; +and down he settled once more in the empty house, to +buy his own fire-wood and run errands by way of rent.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>As soon as he noticed Sonnenberg, my father began a +little campaign at once. He acknowledged by a bow enquiries +as to his health; then he thought a little, and +asked (this just as an example of his methods), “Where +do you buy your hair-oil?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I should say that Sonnenberg, though the plainest of +men, thought himself a regular Don Juan: he was careful +about his clothes and wore a curling wig of a golden-yellow +colour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I buy it of Buis, on the Kuznetsky Bridge,” he answered +abruptly, rather nettled; and then he placed one +foot on the other, like a man prepared to defend himself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What do you call that scent?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Night-violet,” was the answer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The man is cheating you. Violet is a delicate scent, +but this stuff is strong and unpleasant, the sort of thing +embalmers use for dead bodies. In the weak condition of +my nerves, it makes me feel ill. Please tell them to bring +me some eau-de-cologne.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Sonnenberg made off himself to fetch the bottle.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, no! you’d better call someone. If you come nearer +me yourself, I shall faint.” Sonnenberg, who counted on +his hair-oil to captivate the maids, was deeply injured.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When he had sprinkled the room with eau-de-cologne, +my father set about inventing errands: there was French +snuff and English magnesia to be ordered, and a carriage +advertised for sale to be looked at—not that my father +ever bought anything. Then Sonnenberg bowed and disappeared +till dinner-time, heartily glad to get away.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The next to appear on the scene was the cook. Whatever +he had bought or put on the slate, my father always +objected to the price.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear, dear! how high prices are! Is nothing coming +in from the country?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, indeed, Sir,” answered the cook; “the roads are +very bad just now.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, you and I must buy less, until they’re mended.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Next he sat down at his writing table, where he wrote +orders for his bailiff or examined his accounts, and scolded +me in the intervals of business. He consulted his doctor +also; but his chief occupation was to quarrel with his +valet, Nikíta. Nikíta was a perfect martyr. He was a +short, red-faced man with a hot temper, and might have +been created on purpose to annoy my father and draw +down reproofs upon himself. The scenes that took place +between the two every day might have furnished material +for a comedy, but it was all serious to them. Knowing +that the man was indispensable to him, my father often +put up with his rudeness; yet, in spite of thirty years of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>complete failure, he still persisted in lecturing him for +his faults. The valet would have found the life unendurable, +if he had not possessed one means of relief: he was +generally tipsy by dinner-time. My father, though this did +not escape him, did not go beyond indirect allusions to +the subject: for instance, he would say that a piece of +brown bread and salt prevented a man from smelling +of spirits. When Nikita had taken too much, he shuffled +his feet in a peculiar way while handing the dishes; and +my father, on noticing this, used to invent a message for +him at once; for instance, he would send him to the barber’s +to ask if he had changed his address. Then he would +say to me in French: “I know he won’t go; but he’s not +sober; he might drop a soup plate and stain the cloth +and give me a start. Let him take a turn; the fresh air +will do him good.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>On these occasions, the valet generally made some +reply, or, if not, muttered to himself as he left the room. +Then the master called him back with unruffled composure, +and asked him, “What did you say to me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I said nothing at all to you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then who are you talking to? Except you and me, +there is nobody in this room or the next.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I was talking to myself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A very dangerous thing: madness often begins in +that way.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The valet went off in a fury to his room, which was +next to his master’s bedroom. There he read the <i>Moscow +Gazette</i> and made wigs for sale. Probably to relieve his +feelings, he took snuff furiously, and the snuff was so +strong or the membrane of his nose so weak, that he always +sneezed six or seven times after a pinch.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>The master’s bell rang and the valet threw down the +hair in his hands and answered the bell.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Is that you sneezing?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, Sir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then, bless you!”—and a motion of the hand dismissed +the valet.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>On the eve of each Ash Wednesday all the servants +came, according to the old custom, to ask pardon of their +master for offences; and on these solemn occasions my +father came into the drawing-room accompanied by his +valet. He always pretended that he could not recognise +some of the people.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who is that decent old man, standing in that corner?” +he would ask the valet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Danilo, the coachman,” was the impatient answer; for +Nikita knew this was all play-acting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear, dear! how changed he is! I really believe it is +drinking too much that ages them so fast. What does he +do now?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He drives fire-wood.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father made a face as if he were suffering severe +pain. “Drives wood? What do you mean? Wood is not +driven, it is conveyed in a cart. Thirty years might have +taught you to speak better.... Well, Danilo, God in +His mercy has permitted me to meet you yet another +year. I pardon you all your offences throughout the year, +your waste of my oats and your neglect of my horses; +and you must pardon me. Go on with your work while +strength lasts; and now that Lent is beginning, I advise +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>you to take rather less spirits: at our years it is bad for +the health, and the Church forbids it.” This was the kind +of way in which he spoke to them all on this occasion.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>We dined at four: the dinner lasted a long time and was +very tiresome. Spiridon was an excellent cook; but his +parsimony as well as my father’s made the meal rather +unsatisfying, though there were a number of courses. My +father used to put bits for the dogs in a red jar that stood +beside his place; he also fed them off his fork, a proceeding +which was deeply resented by the servants and therefore +by myself also; but I do not know why.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Visitors, rare in general, were especially rare at dinner. +I only remember one, whose appearance at the table had +power at times to smoothe the frown from my father’s +face, General Nikolai Bakhmétyev. He had given up +active service long ago; but he and my father had been +gay young subalterns together in the Guards, in the time +of Catherine; and, while her son was on the throne, both +had been court-martialled, Bakhmétyev for fighting a duel, +and my father for acting as a second. Later, the one had +gone off to foreign parts as a tourist, the other to Ufá as +Governor. Bakhmétyev was a big man, healthy and handsome +even in old age: he enjoyed his dinner and his glass +of wine, he enjoyed cheerful conversation, and other +things as well. He boasted that in his day he had eaten +a hundred meat patties at a sitting; and, at sixty, he +could eat a dozen buckwheat cakes swimming in a pool +of butter, with no fear of consequences. I witnessed his +feats of this kind more than once.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had some faint influence over my father and could +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>control him to some extent. When he saw that his friend +was in too bad a temper, he would put on his hat and +march away. “I’m off for the present,” he would say; +“you’re not well, and dull to-night. I meant to dine with +you but I can’t stand sour faces at my dinner. <i>Gehorsamer +Diener!</i>” Then my father would say to me, by way of +explanation: “What life there is in that old man yet! He +may thank God for his good health; he can’t feel for +poor sufferers like me; in this awful frost he rushes about +in his sledge and thinks nothing of it, at this season; but +I thank my Creator every morning for waking up with +the breath still in my body. There is truth in the proverb—it’s +ill talking between a full man and a fasting.” More +indulgence than this it was impossible to expect from my +father.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Family dinners were given occasionally to near relations, +but these entertainments proceeded rather from +deep design than from mere warmth of heart. Thus my +uncle, the Senator, was always invited to a party at our +house for his birthday, February 20, and we were invited +by him for St. John’s Day, June 24, which was my +father’s birthday; this arrangement not only set an edifying +example of brotherly love, but also saved each of +them from giving a much larger entertainment at his own +house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were some regular guests as well. Sonnenberg +appeared at dinner <i>ex officio</i>; he had prepared himself +by a bumper of brandy and a sardine eaten beforehand, +and declined the tiny glass of stale brandy offered him. My +last French tutor was an occasional guest—an old miser +and scandal-monger, with an impudent face. M. Thirié +constantly made the mistake of filling his glass with wine +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>instead of beer. My father would say to him, “If you +remember that the wine is on your right, you will not +make the mistake in future”: and Thirié crammed a great +pinch of snuff into his large and crooked nose, and spilt +the snuff over his plate.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3> + +<p class='c018'>One of these visitors was an exceedingly comic figure, +a short, bald old man, who always wore a short, tight tail-coat, +and a waistcoat which ended where a modern waistcoat +begins. His name was Dmitri Pimyónov, and he always +looked twenty years out of date, reminding you of +1810 in 1830, and of 1820 in 1840. He was interested in +literature, but his natural capacity was small, and he had +been brought up on the sentimental phrases of Karamzín, +or Marmontel and Marivaux. Dmítriev was his master in +poetry; and he had been tempted to make some experiments +of his own on that slippery track which is trod by +Russian authors—his first publication was a translation of +La Rochefoucauld’s <i>Pensées</i>, and his second a treatise on +<i>Female Beauty and Charm</i>. But his chief distinction was, +not that he had once published books which nobody ever +read, but that, if he once began to laugh, he could not stop, +but went on till he crowed convulsively like a child with +whooping-cough. He was aware of this, and therefore +took his precautions when he felt it coming on: he pulled +out his handkerchief, looked at his watch, buttoned up +his coat, and covered his face with both hands; then, +when the paroxysm was imminent, he got up, turned his +face to the wall, and stood in that position suffering torments, +for half an hour or longer; at last, red in the +face and worn out by his exertions, he sat down again +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>and mopped his bald head; and for a long time an occasional +sob heaved his body.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was a kindly man, but awkward and poor and a +man of letters. Consequently my father attached no importance +to him and considered him as “below the salt” +in all respects; but he was well aware of this tendency to +convulsive laughter, and used to make his guest laugh to +such an extent that other people could not help laughing +too in an uncomfortable fashion. Then the author of all +this merriment, with a slight smile on his own lips, used to +look at us as a man looks at puppies when they are rioting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father sometimes played dreadful tricks on this unlucky +admirer of <i>Female Beauty and Charm</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A Colonel of Engineers was announced by the servant +one day. “Bring him in,” said my father, and then he +turned to Pimyónov and said, “Please be careful before +him: he is unfortunate enough to have a very peculiar +stammer”—here he gave a very successful imitation of +the Colonel—“I know you are easily amused, but please +restrain yourself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>That was quite enough: before the officer had spoken +three words, Pimyónov pulled out his handkerchief, made +an umbrella out of his hand, and finally sprang to his +feet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The officer looked on in surprise, while my father said +to me with perfect composure: “What can be the matter +with our friend? He is suffering from spasms of some +kind: order a glass of cold water for him at once, and +bring eau-de-cologne.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But in these cases Pimyónov clutched his hat and +vanished. Home he went, shouting with laughter for a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>mile or so, stopping at the crossings, and leaning against +the lamp-posts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For several years he dined at our house every second +Sunday, with few exceptions; and my father was equally +vexed, whether he came or failed to come. He was not +kind to Pimyónov, but the worthy man took the long walk, +in spite of that, until he died. There was nothing laughable +about his death: he was a solitary old bachelor, and, +when his long illness was nearing the end, he looked on +while his housekeeper robbed him of the very sheets upon +his bed and then left him without attendance.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But the real martyrs of our dinner-table were certain +old and feeble ladies, who held a humble and uncertain +position in the household of Princess Khovanski, my +father’s sister. For the sake of change, or to get information +about our domestic affairs—whether the heads of +the family had quarrelled, whether the cook had beaten +his wife and been detected by his master, whether a maid +had slipped from the path of virtue—these old people +sometimes came on a saint’s day to spend the day. I ought +to mention that these old widows had known my father +forty or fifty years earlier in the house of the Princess +Meshcherski, where they were brought up for charity. +During this interval between their precarious youth and +unsettled old age, they had quarrelled for twenty years +with husbands, tried to keep them sober, nursed them +when paralysed, and buried them. One had fought the +battle of life in Bessarabia with a husband on half-pay +and a swarm of children; another, together with her +husband, had been a defendant for years in the criminal +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>courts; and all these experiences had left on them the +traces of life in provincial towns—a dread of those who +have power in this world, a spirit of humility and also of +blind fanaticism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Their presence often gave rise to astonishing scenes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Are you not well, that you are eating nothing, Anna +Yakimovna?” my father would ask.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then Anna Yakimovna, the widow of some obscure +official, an old woman with a worn faded face and a perpetual +smell of camphor, apologised with eyes and fingers +as she answered: “Excuse me, <i>bátyushka</i>—I am really +quite ashamed; but, you know, by old custom to-day is +a Fast-day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What a nuisance! You are too scrupulous, <i>mátushka</i>: +‘not that which entereth into a man defileth a man but +that which cometh out’: whatever you eat, the end is the +same. But we ought to watch ‘what cometh out of the +mouth,’ and that means scandal against our neighbours. +I think you should dine at home on such days. Suppose +a Turk were to turn up, he might want pilaus; but my +house is not a hotel where each can order what he wants.” +This terrified the old woman who had intended to ask for +some milk pudding; but she now attacked the <i>kvass</i> and +the salad, and made a pretence of eating enormously.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But if she, or any of them, began to eat meat on a Fast-day, +then my father (who never fasted himself) would +shake his head sorrowfully and say: “Do you really think +it worth while, Anna Yakimovna, to give up the ancient +custom, when you have so few years still to live? I, poor +sinner, don’t fast myself, because I have many diseases; +but you may thank God for your health, considering your +age, and you have kept the fasts all your life; and now +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>all of a sudden—think what an example to <i>them</i>—” +pointing to the servants. And the poor old woman once +more fell upon the <i>kvass</i> and the salad.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These scenes filled me with disgust, and I sometimes +ventured to defend the victim by pointing out the desire +of conformity which he expressed at other times. Then +it was my father’s custom to get up and take off his velvet +skull-cap by the tassel: holding it over his head, he would +thank me for my lecture and beg me to excuse his forgetfulness. +Then he would say to the old lady: “These are +terrible times! Little wonder that you neglect the Fast, +when children teach their parents! What are we coming +to? It is an awful prospect; but fortunately you and I +will not live to see it.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3> + +<p class='c018'>After dinner my father generally lay down for an hour +and a half, and the servants at once made off to the +taverns and tea-shops. Tea was served at seven, and we +sometimes had a visitor at that hour, especially my uncle, +the Senator. This was a respite for us; for he generally +brought a budget of news with him and produced it with +much vivacity. Meanwhile my father put on an air of +absolute indifference, keeping perfectly grave over the +most comic stories, and questioning the narrator, as if +he could not see the point, when he was told of any striking +fact.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Senator came off much worse, when he occasionally +contradicted or disagreed with his younger brother, and +sometimes even without contradicting him, if my father +happened to be specially out of humour. In these serio-comic +scenes, the most comic feature was the contrast +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>between my uncle’s natural vehemence and my father’s +artificial composure. “Oh, you’re not well to-day,” my +uncle would say at last, and then snatch his hat and go +off in a hurry. One day he was unable in his anger to +open the door. “Damn that door!” he said, and kicked it +with all his might. My father walked slowly up to the +door, opened it, and said with perfect calmness, “The +door works perfectly: but it opens outwards, and you try +to open it inwards and get angry with it.” I may mention +that the Senator, being two years older than my father, +always addressed him as “thou,” while my father said +“you” as a mark of respect for seniority.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When my uncle had gone, my father went to his bedroom; +but first he always enquired whether the gates of +the court were shut, and expressed some doubt when he +was told they were, though he never took any steps to +ascertain the facts. And now began the long business of +undressing: face and hands were washed, fomentations +applied and medicines swallowed; the valet placed on the +table near the bed a whole arsenal of phials, nightlights, +and pill-boxes. For about an hour the old man read +memoirs of some kind, very often Bourrienne’s <i>Memorial +de St. Hélène</i>. And so the day ended.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§16</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Such was the life I left in 1834, and such I found it +in 1840, and such it remained down to my father’s death +in 1846. When I returned from exile at the age of thirty, +I realised that my father was right in many respects, and +that he, to his misfortune, knew the world only too well. +But did I deserve that he should preach even the truth +in a manner so repulsive to the heart of youth? His intelligence, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>chilled by a long life spent in a corrupt society, +made him suspicious of all the world; his feelings were +not warm and did not crave for reconciliation; and therefore +he remained at enmity with all his fellow-creatures.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In 1839, and still more in 1842, found him feeble and +suffering from symptoms which were not imaginary. My +uncle’s death had left him more solitary than ever; even +his old valet had gone, but he was just the same; his +bodily strength had failed him, but his cruel wit and his +memory were unaffected; he still carried on the same +petty tyranny, and the same old Sonnenberg still pitched +his camp in our old house and ran errands as before.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For the first time, I realised the sadness of that life +and watched with an aching heart that solitary deserted +existence, fading away in the parched and stony desert +which he had created around him by his own actions, but +was powerless to change. He knew his powerlessness, and +he saw death approaching, and held out jealously and +stubbornly. I felt intense pity for the old man, but I +could do nothing—he was inaccessible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I sometimes walked past his study and saw him sitting +in his deep armchair, a hard, uncomfortable seat; he had +his dogs round him and was playing with my three-year-old +son, just the two together. It seemed to me that the +sight of this child relaxed the clutching fingers and stiffening +nerves of old age, and that, when his dying hand +touched the cradle of infancy, he could rest from the +anxiety and irritable strife in which his whole life had +been spent.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>The Kremlin Offices—Moscow University—The Chemist—The +Cholera—Philaret—Passek.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>IN spite of the ominous prognostications of the one-legged +general, my father entered my name for +service at the Government offices in the Kremlin, +under Prince Yusúpov. I signed some document, and +there the matter ended. I never heard anything more +about my office, except once, three years later, when a +man was sent to our house by Yusúpov, to inform me +that I had gained the first step of official promotion; this +messenger was the court architect, and he always shouted +as if he were standing on the roof of a five-storeyed +house and giving orders from there to workmen in the +cellar. I may remark in passing, that all this hocus-pocus +was useless: when I passed my final examination at the +University, this gave me at once the promotion earned +by service; and the loss of a year or two of seniority was +not serious. On the other hand, this pretence of office-work +nearly prevented me from matriculating; for, when +the University authorities found that I was reckoned as +a Government clerk, they refused me permission to take +the examination.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>For the clerks in public offices there were special afternoon +lectures, of an elementary kind, which gave the +right of admission to a special examination. Rich idlers, +young gentlemen whose education had been neglected, +men who wished to avoid military service and to get the +rank of <i>assessor</i> as soon as possible—such were the candidates +for this examination; and it served as a kind of +gold-mine to the senior professors, who gave private instruction +at twenty <i>roubles</i> a lesson.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To pass through these Caudine Forks to knowledge +was entirely inconsistent with my views, and I told my +father decidedly that unless he found some other method +I should retire from the Civil Service.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was angry: he said that my wilfulness prevented +him from settling my future, and blamed my teachers +for filling my head with this nonsense; but when he saw +that all this had little effect upon me, he determined to +wait on Prince Yusúpov.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Prince settled the matter in no time; there was +no shillyshallying about his methods. He sent for his secretary +and told him to make out leave of absence for me—for +three years. The secretary hummed and hawed and +respectfully submitted to his chief that four months was +the longest period for which leave could be granted without +the imperial sanction.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Rubbish, my friend!” said the Prince; “the thing is +perfectly simple: if he can’t have leave of absence, then +say that I order him to go through the University course +and complete his studies.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The secretary obeyed orders, and next day found me +sitting in the lecture-theatre of the Faculty of Mathematics +and Physics.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>The University of Moscow and the High School of +Tsárskoë Seló<a id='r41' /><a href='#f41' class='c016'><sup>[41]</sup></a> play an important part in the history of +Russian education and in the life of the last two generations.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f41'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. </span>Tsárskoë Seló = The Tsar’s Village, near Petersburg. +Púshkin was at this school.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>After the year 1812, Moscow University and Moscow +itself rose in importance. Degraded from her position as +an imperial capital by Peter the Great, the city was promoted +by Napoleon, partly by his wish but mainly against +it, to be the capital of the Russian nation. The people +discovered the ties of blood that bound them to Moscow +by the pain they felt on hearing of her capture by the +enemy. For her it was the beginning of a new epoch; and +her University became more and more the centre of Russian +education, uniting as it did everything to favour its +development—historical importance and geographical +position.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a vigorous outburst of intellectual activity +in Petersburg after the death of the Emperor Paul; but +this died away in the darkness that followed the fourteenth +of December, 1825.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All was reversed, the blood flowed back to the heart, +and all activity was forced to ferment and burrow underground. +But Moscow University stood firm and was the +first visible object to emerge from the universal fog.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The University soon grew in influence. All the youth +and strength of Russia came together there in one common +meeting-place, from all parts of the country and all +sections of society; there they cast off the prejudices +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>they had acquired at home, reached a common level, +formed ties of brotherhood with one another, and then +went back to every part of Russia and penetrated every +class.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Down to 1848 the constitution of our universities was +purely democratic. Their doors were open to everyone +who could pass the examination, provided he was not a +serf, or a peasant detained by the village community. The +Emperor Nicholas limited the number of freshmen and +increased the charges to pensioners, permitting poor +nobles only to escape from this burden. But all this belongs +to the class of measures that will disappear together +with the passport system, religious intolerance, and so on.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A motley assemblage of young men, from high to low, +from North and South, soon blended into a compact body +united by ties of friendship. Among us social distinctions +had none of that offensive influence which one sees in +English schools and regiments—to say nothing of English +universities which exist solely for the rich and well-born. +If any student among us had begun to boast of his family +or his money, he would have been tormented and sent to +Coventry by the rest.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The external distinctions among us were not deep and +proceeded from other sources. For instance, the Medical +School was across the park and somewhat removed from +the other faculties; besides, most of the medical students +were Germans or came from theological seminaries. The +Germans kept somewhat apart, and the bourgeois spirit +of Western Europe was strong in them. The whole education +of the divinity students and all their ideas were different +from ours; we spoke different languages; they had +grown up under the yoke of monastic control and been +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>crammed with rhetoric and theology; they envied our freedom, +and we resented their Christian humility.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Though I joined the Faculty of Mathematics and +Physics, I never had any great turn or much liking for +mathematics. Niko and I were taught the subject by the +same teacher, whom we liked because he told us stories; he +was very entertaining, but I doubt if he could have developed +a special passion in any pupil for his branch of +science. He knew as far as Conic Sections, <i>i.e.</i>, just what +was required from schoolboys entering the University; a +true philosopher, he had never had the curiosity to glance +at the “University branches” of mathematics. It was +specially remarkable that he taught for ten years continuously +out of a single book—Francœur’s treatise—and +always stopped at the same page, having no ambition to +go beyond the required minimum.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I chose that Faculty, because it included the subject of +natural science, in which I then took a specially strong +interest; and this interest was due to a rather odd meeting.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I have described already the remarkable division of +the family property in 1822. When it was over, my oldest +uncle went to live in Petersburg, and nothing was heard +of him for a long time. At last a report got abroad that +he intended to marry. He was then over sixty, and it was +well known that he had other children as well as a grown-up +son. He did, in fact, marry the mother of his eldest +son and so made the son legitimate. He might as well +have legitimised the other children; but the chief object +of these proceedings was well known—he wished to disinherit +his brothers; and he fully attained that object by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>the acknowledgement of his son. In the famous inundation +of 1824, the water flooded the carriage in which he +was driving. The old man caught cold, took to his bed, +and died in the beginning of 1825.</p> + +<p class='c008'>About the son there were strange reports: it was said +that he was unsociable and had no friends; he was interested +in chemistry and spent his life over the microscope; +he read even at meals and disliked women’s society.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His uncles transferred to him the grievance they had +felt against his father. They always called him “The +Chemist,” using this as a term of contempt, and giving it +to be understood that chemistry was a quite impossible +occupation for a gentleman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had suffered horrible treatment from his father, +who kept a harem in the house and not only insulted him +by the spectacle of shameless senile profligacy but was +actually jealous of his son’s rivalry. From this dishonourable +existence The Chemist tried to escape by means of +laudanum; but a friend who worked at chemistry with +him saved his life by a mere chance. This frightened the +father, and he treated his son better afterwards.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When his father died, The Chemist set free the fair +captives of the harem, reduced by half the heavy dues +levied by his father on the peasants, forgave all arrears, +and gave away for nothing the exemptions which his +father used to sell, excusing household servants from +service in the Army.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When he came to Moscow eighteen months later, I was +anxious to see him; for I was inclined to like him for his +treatment of his peasants, and also for the dislike which +his uncles unjustly felt for him.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>He called on my father one morning—a shortish man, +with a large nose and half his hair gone; he wore gold +spectacles, and his fingers were stained with chemicals. +My father’s reception was cold and cutting, but the +nephew gave just as good as he got; when they had taken +each other’s measure, they talked on casual topics with +a show of indifference and parted politely, but a strong +feeling of dislike was concealed on both sides. My father +saw that his antagonist would never give way.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They never came closer afterwards. The Chemist very +rarely visited his uncles; the last time he and my father +met was after the Senator’s death—he came to ask a loan +of 30,000 <i>roubles</i>, in order to buy land. My father refused +to lend it; The Chemist was angry, but he rubbed his nose +and said with a smile: “What possible risk is there? My +estate is entailed, and I want the money for improvements. +I have no children, so that you are the heir to my +land as I am to yours.”<a id='r42' /><a href='#f42' class='c016'><sup>[42]</sup></a> My father, who was then seventy-five, +never forgave his nephew this sally.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f42'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. </span>Herzen himself was excluded from succession by his birth.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I began to visit him from time to time. His was a singular +existence. He had a large house on the Tver Boulevard, +where he lived in one very small room and used another +as a laboratory. His old mother occupied another small +room at the end of the passage; and the rest of the house +was unused, and left exactly as it was when his father +migrated to Petersburg. Tarnished chandeliers, valuable +furniture, rarities of all kinds, grandfather’s clocks supposed +to have been bought by Peter the Great in Amsterdam, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>armchairs supposed to have belonged to Stanislas +Leshchinski,<a id='r43' /><a href='#f43' class='c016'><sup>[43]</sup></a> empty frames, and pictures turned to the +wall—all these, in complete disorder, filled three large +drawing-rooms which were neither heated nor lighted. +In the outer hall the servants were generally playing the +banjo and smoking—in the very room where formerly they +hardly dared to breathe or say their prayers. One of +them lit a candle and escorted me through the long +museum; and he never failed to advise me to keep on my +overcoat, because it was very cold in the drawing-rooms. +Thick layers of dust covered all the projections of the +furniture, and the contents of the rooms were reflected +in the carved mirrors and seemed to move with the candle; +straw, left over from packing, lay comfortably here and +there, together with scraps of paper and bits of string.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f43'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. </span>King of Poland and father-in-law of Louis XV.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>After passing through these rooms, you came at last +to a curtained door which led into the study. The heat +in this room was terrific; and here The Chemist was +always to be found, wearing a stained dressing-gown +trimmed with squirrel-fur, sitting behind a rampart of +books, and surrounded by bottles, retorts, crucibles, and +other apparatus. A few years earlier, this room had been +the scene of shocking vice and cruelty; now it smelt of +chlorine and was ruled by the microscope; and in this +very room I was born! When my father returned from +foreign parts, he had not yet quarrelled with his brother, +and spent some months under his roof. Here too my wife +was born in the year 1817. After two years The Chemist +sold the house, and I spent many evenings there, arguing +about Pan-Slavism and losing my temper with Homyakóv,<a id='r44' /><a href='#f44' class='c016'><sup>[44]</sup></a> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>though nothing could make him lose his. The chief +rooms were altered then, but the outside steps, front hall, +and staircase were unchanged; and the little study was +left as before.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f44'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. </span>Alexyéi Homyakóv (1804-1860), poet, theologian, and a +leader of the Slavophile party.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The Chemist’s household arrangements, simple at all +times, were even simpler when his mother went to the +country in summer and took the cook with her. At four +in the afternoon, his valet brought a coffee-pot, made +some strong broth in it, and placed it by the fire of the +chemical furnace, where all sorts of poisons were brewing; +then he fetched half a chicken and a loaf from an +eating-house; and that was his master’s dinner. When +it was eaten, the valet washed the coffee-pot and restored +it to its proper functions. The man came again in the +evening: he removed from the sofa a heap of books and +a tiger-skin which The Chemist had inherited from his +father; and when he had spread out a sheet and fetched +pillows and a coverlet, the study, which had served as +kitchen and drawing-room, was converted just as easily +into a bedroom.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>At the very beginning of our acquaintance, The Chemist +perceived that I was no mere idler; and he urged me +to give up literature and politics—the former was mere +trifling and the latter not only fruitless but dangerous—and +take to natural science. He gave me Cuvier’s <i>Essay +on Geological Changes</i> and <i>Candolle’s Botanical Geography</i>, +and, seeing that I profited by the reading, he +placed at my disposal his own excellent collections and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>preparations, and even offered to direct my studies himself. +On his own ground he was very interesting—exceedingly +learned, acute, and even amiable, within certain +limits. As far as the monkeys, he was at your service: +from the inorganic kingdom up to the orang-outang, +nothing came amiss to him; but he did not willingly venture +farther, and philosophy, in particular, he avoided +as mere moonshine. He was no enemy to reform, nor Rip +van Winkle: he simply disbelieved in human nature—he +believed that selfishness is the one and only motive of our +actions, and is limited only by stupidity in some cases +and by ignorance in others.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His materialism shocked me. It was quite unlike the +superficial and half-hearted scepticism of a previous generation. +His views were deliberate, consistent, and definite—one +thought of Lalande’s famous answer to Napoleon. +“Kant accepts the hypothesis of a deity,” said Napoleon. +“Sir,” answered the astronomer, “in the course of my +studies I have never found it necessary to make use of +that hypothesis.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Chemist’s scepticism did not refer merely to +theology. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire he called a mystic, and +Oken a mere lunatic. He felt for the works of natural +philosophers the contempt my father had expressed for +Karamzín—“They first invent spiritual forces and First +Causes, and then they are surprised that they cannot +prove them or understand them.” In fact, it was my father +over again, but differently educated and belonging to a +different generation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His views on social questions were even more disquieting. +He believed that men are no more responsible for +their actions, good or bad, than beasts: it was all a matter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>of constitution and circumstances and depended +mainly on the state of the nervous system, from which, +as he said, people expect more than it is able to give. He +disliked family life, spoke with horror of marriage, and +confessed frankly that, at thirty years of age, he had +never once been in love. This hard temperament had, +however, one tender side which showed itself in his conduct +towards his mother. Both had suffered much from +his father, and common suffering had united them closely. +It was touching to see how he did what he could to surround +her solitary and sickly old age with security and +attention.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He never tried to make converts to his views, except +on chemistry: they came out casually or were elicited by +my questions. He was even unwilling to answer the objections +I urged from an idealistic point of view; his answers +were brief, and he smiled as he spoke, showing the +kind of considerateness that an old mastiff will show to +a lapdog whom he allows to snap at him and only pushes +gently from him with his paw. But I resented this more +than anything else and returned unwearied to the attack, +though I never gained a single inch of ground. In later +years I often called to mind what The Chemist had said, +just as I recalled my father’s utterances; and, of course, +he was right in three-fourths of the points in dispute. But, +all the same, I was right too. There are truths which, like +political rights, cannot be conveyed from one man to +another before a certain age.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>It was The Chemist’s influence that made me choose +the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics. Perhaps I should +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>have done better to take up medicine; but it did me no +great harm to acquire a partial knowledge of differential +and integral equations, and then to lose it absolutely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Without a knowledge of natural science, there is no +salvation for the modern man. This wholesome food, this +strict training of the mind by facts, this proximity to the +life that surrounds ours, and this acknowledgement of +its independence—without these there lurks somewhere +in the soul a monastic cell, and this contains a germ of +mysticism which may cover like a dark cloud the whole +intellect.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Before I had gone through College, The Chemist had +moved to Petersburg, and I did not meet him again till +my return from exile. A few months after my marriage +I paid a half-secret visit of a few days to my father, who +was living near Moscow. He was still displeased at my +marriage, and the purpose of my journey was to make +peace between us once for all. I broke my journey at the +village of Perkhushkov, the place where we had so often +stayed in my youth. The Chemist was expecting me there; +he even had dinner ready for me, and two bottles of +champagne. Four or five years had made no change in +him, except that he looked a little older. Before dinner +he said to me quite seriously: “Please tell me frankly how +marriage and domestic life strike you. Do you find it to +your taste, or only passable?” I laughed, and he went on: +“I am astonished at your boldness; no man in a normal +condition could ever decide on so awful a step. More than +one good match has been suggested to me; but when I +think that a woman would do as she liked in my room, +arranging everything in what she thinks order, forbidding +me to smoke possibly, making a noise and talking nonsense, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>I feel such terror of the prospect that I prefer to +die in solitude.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Shall I stop the night here or go on to my father’s?” +I asked him after dinner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There is room enough in the house,” he answered, +“but for your own sake I advise you to go on; you will +get there by ten o’clock. Of course you know he’s still +angry with you. Well, old people’s nerves are generally +less active at night, before they get to sleep, and you will +probably get a much better reception to-night than to-morrow +morning; by then his spurs will be sharp for the +fray.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ha! ha! ha!” I laughed, “there is my old instructor +in physiology and materialism! You remind me of those +blissful days, when I used to come to you, like Wagner +in <i>Faust</i>, to bore you with my idealism and to suffer, with +some impatience, the cold water you threw on it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He laughed too and replied, “You have lived long +enough, since then, to find out that all human actions +depend merely on the nerves and chemical combination.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Later, we somehow drifted apart; probably we were +both to blame. Nevertheless, he wrote me a letter in 1846. +I had published the first part of <i>Whose Fault Is It?</i><a id='r45' /><a href='#f45' class='c016'><sup>[45]</sup></a> and +was beginning to be the fashion. He wrote that he was +sorry to see me wasting my powers on trivial objects. “I +made it up with you because of your letters on the study +of Nature, in which you made me understand (as far as +it is intelligible to the mind of man) the German philosophy. +But why, instead of going on with serious work, +do you write fairy tales?” I sent a few friendly words in +reply, and there our relations ended.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f45'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. </span>A novel.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>If these lines happen to fall under The Chemist’s eyes, +I beg that he will read them before going to bed, when +the nerves are less active; and I am convinced that he will +be able then to pardon this friendly gossip, and all the +more because I cherish a real regard for him.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>And so, at last, the doors of my prison were opened, +and I was free. The solitude of my smallish room and the +quiet half-secret interviews with my one friend, Ogaryóv, +were now exchanged for a noisy family of six hundred +members. In a fortnight, I was more at home there than I +had ever been, from the day I was born, in my father’s +house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But even here my father’s house pursued me, in the +shape of a footman whom my father sent with me to the +University, especially when I walked there. I spent a +whole term in trying to dodge this escort, and was formally +excused from it at last. I say “formally,” because +my valet Peter, who was entrusted with this duty, very +soon realised, first, that I disliked being escorted, and +secondly, that he himself would be much better off in +various places of amusement than in the entrance-hall of +my lecture-room, where he had no occupation except to +exchange gossip and pinches of snuff with the two porters. +What was the motive of this precaution? Was it possible +that Peter, who had been liable all his life to drinking-bouts +that lasted for days, could keep me straight? I don’t +suppose my father believed that; but, for his own peace +of mind, he took measures—ineffective, indeed, but still +measures—much in the way that freethinkers keep Lent. +This is a characteristic feature of the old system of education +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>in Russia. Till I was seven, I was not allowed to +come downstairs alone—the flight was rather steep; and +Vyéra Artamónovna went on bathing me till I was eleven. +It was of a piece with this system that I should have a servant +walking behind me to College, and should not be +allowed, before I was twenty-one, to be out later than +half-past ten. I was never really free and independent +till I was banished; but for that incident, the system +would probably have gone on till I was twenty-five or +thirty-five.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Like most energetic boys who have been brought up +alone, I rushed into the arms of my companions with +such frank eagerness, made proselytes with such sublime +confidence, and was myself so fond of everyone, that I +could not but kindle a corresponding warmth in my +hearers, who were mostly of the same age as myself. I +was then seventeen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The process of making friends was hastened partly by +the advice which worldly wisdom gave me—to be polite +to all and intimate with none, to confide in nobody; and +there was also the belief which we all took with us to +College, the belief that here our dreams would be realised, +that here we should sow the seed of a future harvest and +lay the foundations of a permanent alliance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young men of my time were admirable. It was just +the time when ideals were stirring more and more in Russia. +The formalism of theological training and Polish +indolence had alike disappeared, and had not yet given +place to German utilitarianism, which applies culture to +the mind, like manure to a field, in the hope of a heavier +crop. The best students had ceased to consider learning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>as a tiresome but indispensable byway to official promotion; +and the questions which we discussed had nothing +to do with advancement in the Civil Service.</p> + +<p class='c008'>On the other hand, the pursuit of knowledge had not +yet become divorced from realities, and did not distract +our attention from the suffering humanity around us; and +this sympathy heightened the <i>social</i> morality of the students. +My friends and I said openly in the lecture-room +whatever came into our heads; copies of forbidden poems +were freely circulated, and forbidden books were read +aloud and commented on; and yet I cannot recall a single +instance of information given by a traitor to the authorities. +There were timid spirits who held aloof and shut +their eyes; but even they held their tongues.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One foolish boy made some disclosures to his mother, +when she questioned him, under threat of the rod, about +the Málov affair. The fond mother—she was a Princess +and a leader in society—rushed to the Rector and communicated +her son’s disclosures, in order to prove his repentance. +We found this out, and tormented him so, that +he left before his time was up.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But this episode, which led to my confinement within +the walls of the University prison, is worth telling.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Málov, though a professor in the University, was a +stupid, rude, ill-educated man, an object of contempt and +derision to the students. One of them, when asked by a +Visitor, how many professors there were in their department, +replied that there were nine, not counting Málov.<a id='r46' /><a href='#f46' class='c016'><sup>[46]</sup></a> +And this man, who could be spoken of in this way, began +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>to treat his class with more and more rudeness, till they +determined to turn him out of the lecture-room. When +their plan was made, they sent two spokesmen to our department, +and invited me to bring reinforcements. I +raised the fiery cross against the foe at once, and was +joined by some adherents. When we entered Málov’s +lecture-room, he was there and saw us.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f46'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. </span>There is here an untranslatable play on words.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>One fear only was depicted on the faces of all the audience—that +he might refrain for once from rude remarks. +But that fear soon passed off. The tightly packed lecture-room +was in a fever and gave vent to a low suppressed +noise. Málov made some objection, and a scraping of feet +began. “You are like horses, expressing your thoughts +with your feet,” said the professor, imagining, I suppose, +that horses think by gallop and trot. Then the storm +broke, with hisses and yells. “Turn him out! turn him +out! <i>Pereat!</i>” Málov turned white as a sheet and made +a desperate effort to control the noise, but failed; the +students jumped up on the benches. Málov slowly left +his chair, hunched himself up, and made his way to the +door. The students followed him through the court to the +street outside, and threw his goloshes out after him. The +last detail was important: if once it reached the street, +the proceeding became much more serious; but what lads +of seventeen or eighteen would ever take that into account?</p> + +<p class='c008'>The University Council took fright and induced the +Visitor to represent the affair as settled, and, with that +object, to consign the guilty persons or someone, at least, +to the University prison. That was rather ingenious on +their part. Otherwise, it was likely enough that the Emperor +would send an <i>aide-de-camp</i>, and that the <i>aide-de-camp</i>, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>in order to earn a cross, would have magnified the +affair into conspiracy and rebellion; then he would have +advised penal servitude for all the offenders, and the +Emperor, in his mercy, would have sent them to the +colours instead. But seeing vice punished and virtue triumphant, +the Emperor merely confirmed the action of the +students by dismissing the professor. Though we drove +Málov as far as the University gates, it was Nicholas who +drove him out of them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So the fat was in the fire. On the following afternoon, +one of the porters hobbled up to me, a white-haired old +man who was normally in a state more drunk than sober, +and produced from the lining of his overcoat a note from +the Rector for me: I was ordered to call on him at seven +in the evening. The porter was soon followed by a student, +a baron from the Baltic Provinces, who was one of the +unfortunate victims enticed by me, and had received an +invitation similar to mine. He looked pale and frightened +and began by heaping reproaches on me; then he asked +me what I advised him to say.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Lie desperately,” I answered; “deny everything, +except that there was a row and you were present.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But if the Rector asks why I was in the wrong lecture-room?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s easy. Say of course that our lecturer did not +turn up, and that you, not wishing to waste your time, +went to hear someone else.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He won’t believe me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s his affair.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When we entered the University yard, I looked at my +baron: his plump cheeks were very pale, and he was +obviously feeling uncomfortable. “Listen to me,” I said; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>“you may be sure that the Rector will deal with me first. +Say what I say, with variations; you really took no +special part in the affair. But remember one thing: for +making a row and for telling lies about it, they will, at +most, put you in the prison; but, if you are not careful and +involve any other student, I shall tell the rest and we +shall poison your existence.” The baron promised, and +kept his word like a gentleman.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The Rector at that time was Dvigubski, a survival and +a typical specimen of the antediluvian professor—but, +for flood I should substitute fire, the Great Fire of 1812.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They are extinct now: the patriarchal epoch of Moscow +University ends with the appointment of Prince Obolenski +as Visitor. In those days the Government left the +University alone: the professors lectured or not, the students +attended or not, just as they pleased, and the latter, +instead of the kind of cavalry uniform they have now, +wore mufti of varying degrees of eccentricity, and very +small caps which would hardly stick on over their virgin +locks. Of professors there were two classes or camps, +which carried on a bloodless warfare against each other—one +composed exclusively of Germans, the other of non-Germans. +The Germans included some worthy and learned +men, such as Loder, Fischer, Hildebrandt, and Heim; but +they were distinguished as a rule for their ignorance and +dislike of the Russian language, their want of sympathy +with the students, their unlimited consumption of tobacco, +and the large number of stars and orders which they +always wore. The non-Germans, on their side, knew no +modern language but Russian; they had the ill-breeding +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>of the theological school and the servile temper of their +nation; they were mostly overworked, and they made up +for abstention from tobacco by an excessive indulgence in +strong drinks. Most of the Germans came from Göttingen, +and most of the non-Germans were sons of priests.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Dvigubski belonged to the latter class. He looked so +much the ecclesiastic that one of the students—he had +been brought up at a priests’ school—asked for his blessing +and regularly addressed him as “Your Reverence” in +the course of an examination. But he was also startlingly +like an owl wearing the Order of St. Anne; and as such +he was caricatured by another student who had come less +under church influences. He came occasionally to our +lecture-room, and brought with him the dean, Chumakov, +or Kotelnitski, who had charge of a cupboard labelled +<i>Materia Medica</i>, and kept, for some unknown reason, in +the mathematical class-room; or Reiss, who had been +imported from Germany because his uncle knew chemistry, +and lectured in French with such a pronunciation +that <i>poisson</i> took the place of <i>poison</i> in his mouth, and +some quite innocent words sounded unprintable. When +these old gentlemen appeared, we stared at them: to us +they were a party of “dug-outs,” the Last of the Mohicans, +representatives of a different age, quite remote from ours—of +the time when Knyazhnín and Cheraskov were read, +the time of good-natured Professor Dilthey, who had two +dogs which he named <i>Babil</i> and <i>Bijou</i>, because one never +stopped barking and the other was always silent.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But Dvigubski was by no means a good-natured professor: +his reception of us was exceedingly abrupt and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>discourteous; I talked terrible nonsense and was rude, +and the baron played second fiddle to me. Dvigubski was +provoked and ordered us to appear before the Council +next morning. The Council settled our business in half +an hour: they questioned, condemned, and sentenced us, +and referred the sentence, for confirmation, to Prince Golitsyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I had hardly had time to give half a dozen performances +in the lecture-room, representing the proceedings of the +University Court, when the beginning of the lecture was +interrupted by the appearance of a party, consisting of +our inspector, an army major, a French dancing-master, +and a corporal, who carried an order for my arrest and +incarceration. Some students escorted me, and there were +many more in the court-yard, who waved their hands or +caps. Clearly I was not the first victim. The University +police tried in vain to push them back.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I found two captives already immured in the dirty cellar +which served as a prison, and there were two more in +another room; six was the total number of those who +suffered for this affair. We were sentenced to a diet of +bread and water, and, though we declined some soup +which the Rector sent us, we did not suffer; for when the +College emptied at nightfall, our friends brought us +cheese, game, cigars, wine, and <i>liqueurs</i>. The sentry +grumbled and scolded, but he took a small bribe, and introduced +the supplies. After midnight, he moved to some +distance and allowed several of our friends to join us. +And so we spent our time, feasting by night and sleeping +by day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A certain Panin, a brother of the Minister of Justice +and employed under our Visitor, mindful of Army traditions, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>took it into his head one night to go the rounds and +inspect our cellar-prison. We had just lit a candle, keeping +it under a chair to betray no light, and were attacking +our midnight meal, when a knocking was heard at the +outer door, not the meek sound that begs for admittance +and fears to be heard more than not to be heard, but a +knock of power and authority. The sentry turned rigid, +we hid the bottles and our guests in a cupboard, blew out +the light, and dropped on our pallet-beds. Panin came in. +“You appear to be smoking,” he said—the smoke was so +thick that Panin and the inspector who were carrying a +lantern were hardly visible. “Where do they get a light +from? From you?” he asked the sentry. The man swore +he was innocent, and we said that we had got tinder of +our own. The inspector promised to take it and our cigars +away; and Panin went off, without ever noticing that +there were twice as many caps in the room as heads.</p> + +<p class='c008'>On Saturday evening the inspector appeared and announced +that I and one other might go home; the rest +were to stay till Monday. I resented this proposal and +asked him whether I might stay. He fell back a step, +looked at me with that expression of dignified wrath which +is worn by ballet-dancers when representing angry kings +or heroes, and said, “By all means, if you want to!” Then +he left us; and this sally on my part brought down more +paternal wrath on me than any other part of the affair.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus the first nights which I spent away from home +were spent in prison. I was soon to experience a prison +of another kind, and there I spent, not eight days, but +nine months; and when these had passed, instead of +going home, I went into exile. But much happened before +that.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>From this time I was a popular hero in the lecture-room. +Till then I was considered “all right” by the rest; +but, after the Málov affair, I became, like the lady in +Gógol, all right in the fullest sense of that term.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But did we learn anything, meanwhile, and was study +possible under such circumstances? I think we did. The +instruction was more limited in quantity and scope than +in the forties. But a university is not bound to complete +scientific education: its business is rather to put a man +in a position to walk by himself; it should raise problems +and teach a man to ask questions. And this is exactly +what was done by such professors as Pávlov and Kachenovsky, +each in his own way. But the collision of young +minds, the exchange of ideas, and the discussion of books—all +this did more than professors or lectures to develop +and ripen the student. Moscow University was a successful +institution; and the professors who contributed by +their lectures to the development of Lérmontov, Byelínski, +Turgénev, Kavélin, and Pirógov, may play cards with an +easy conscience, or, with a still easier conscience, rest in +their graves.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And what astonishing people some of them were! There +was Chumakov, who treated the formulae of Poinsot’s +<i>Algebra</i> like so many serfs—adding letters and subtracting +them, mixing up square numbers and their roots, and +treating x as the known quantity. There was Myágkov, +who, in spite of his name,<a id='r47' /><a href='#f47' class='c016'><sup>[47]</sup></a> lectured on the harshest of +sciences, the science of tactics. The constant study of this +<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>noble subject had actually given a martial air to the professor; +and as he stood there buttoned up to the throat +and erect behind his stock, his lectures sounded more like +words of command than mere conversation. “Gentlemen, +artillery!” he would cry out. It sounded like the field of +battle, but it only meant that this was the heading of his +next discourse. And there was Reiss, who lectured on +chemistry but never ventured further than hydrogen—Reiss, +who was elected to the Chair for no knowledge of +his own but because his uncle had once studied the +science. The latter was invited to come to Russia towards +the end of Catherine’s reign; but the old man did not +want to move, and sent his nephew instead.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f47'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. </span><i>Myágki</i> is the Russian for “mild.”</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>My University course lasted four years, the additional +year being due to the fact that a whole session was lost +owing to the cholera. The most remarkable events of that +time were the cholera itself, and the visits of Humboldt +and Uvárov.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When Humboldt<a id='r48' /><a href='#f48' class='c016'><sup>[48]</sup></a> was on his way back from the Ural +Mountains, he was welcomed to Moscow at a formal +meeting of the Society for the Pursuit of Natural Science, +most of whose members were state functionaries of some +kind, not at all interested in science, either natural or unnatural. +But the glory of Humboldt—a Privy Councillor +of the Prussian King, a man on whom the Tsar had graciously +conferred the Order of St. Anne, with instructions +that the recipient was to be put to no expense in the matter—was +a fact of which even they were not ignorant; and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>they were determined to show themselves to advantage +before a man who had climbed Chimborazo and who lived +at Sans-Souci.<a id='r49' /><a href='#f49' class='c016'><sup>[49]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f48'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. </span>Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859), born at Berlin, a famous writer +on natural science.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f49'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. </span>The Prussian palace, near Potsdam.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Our attitude towards Europe and Europeans is still +that of provincials towards the dwellers in a capital: we +are servile and apologetic, take every difference for a +defect, blush for our peculiarities and try to hide them, +and confess our inferiority by imitation. The fact is that +we are intimidated: we have never got over the sneers +of Peter the Great and his coadjutors, or the superior airs +of French tutors and Germans in our Civil Service. Western +nations talk of our duplicity and cunning; they believe +we want to deceive them, when we are only trying +to make a creditable appearance and pass muster. A Russian +will express quite different political views in talking +to different persons, without any ulterior object, and +merely from a wish to please: the bump of complaisance +is highly developed in our skulls.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Prince Dmitri Golitsyn,” said Lord Durham on one +occasion, “is a true Whig, a Whig at heart.” Prince Golitsyn +was a worthy Russian gentleman, but I do not understand +in what sense he was a Whig. It is clear enough +that the Prince in his old age wished to be polite to Lord +Durham and put on the Whig for that purpose.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Humboldt’s reception in Moscow and at the University +was a tremendous affair. Everyone came to meet +him—the Governor of the city, functionaries military and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>civil, and the judges of the Supreme Court; and the professors +were there wearing full uniform and their Orders, +looking most martial with swords and three-cornered hats +tucked under their arms. Unaware of all this, Humboldt +arrived in a blue coat with gilt buttons and was naturally +taken aback. His way was barricaded at every point between +the entrance and the great hall: first the Rector +stopped him, then the Dean, now a budding professor, +and now a veteran who was just ending his career and +therefore spoke very slowly; each of them delivered a +speech of welcome in Latin or German or French, and all +this went on in those terrible stone funnels miscalled passages, +where you stopped for a minute at the risk of catching +cold for a month. Humboldt listened bare-headed to +them all and replied to them all. I feel convinced that +none of the savages, either red-skinned or copper-coloured, +whom he had met in his travels, made him so uncomfortable +as his reception at Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When he reached the hall at last and could sit down, +he had to get up again. Our Visitor, Pisarev, thought it +necessary to set forth in a few powerful Russian sentences +the merits of His Excellency, the famous traveller; +and then a poet, Glinka, in a deep hoarse voice recited a +poem of his own which began—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c022'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Humboldt, Prometheus of our time!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>What Humboldt wanted was to discuss his observations +on the magnetic pole, and to compare the meteorological +records he had taken in the Ural Mountains with those +at Moscow; but the Rector preferred to show him some +relic plaited out of the hair of Peter the Great. It was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>with difficulty that Ehrenberg and Rose found an opportunity +to tell him something of their discoveries.<a id='r50' /><a href='#f50' class='c016'><sup>[50]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f50'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. </span>Odd views were taken in Russia of Humboldt’s travels. +There was a Cossack at Perm who liked describing how he escorted “a +mad Prussian prince called Gumplot.” When asked what Gumplot did, he +said: “He was quite childish, picking grasses and gazing at sand. At +one place he told me through the interpreter to wade into a pool and +fish out what was at the bottom—there was nothing but what there is +at the bottom of every pool. Then he asked if the water at the bottom +was very cold. You won’t catch me that way, thought I; so I saluted +and said, ‘The rules of the service require it, Your Excellency.’” +[Author’s Note.]</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Even in unofficial circles, we don’t do things much +better in Russia. Liszt was received in just the same way +by Moscow society ten years ago. There was folly enough +over him in Germany; but that was quite a different +thing—old-maidish gush and sentimentality and strewing +of roses, whereas in Russia there was servile acknowledgement +of power and prim formality of a strictly official +type. And Liszt’s reputation as a Don Juan was mixed +up in an unpleasant way with it all: the ladies swarmed +around him, just as boys in out-of-the-way places swarm +round a traveller when he is changing horses and stare +at him or his carriage or his hat. Every ear was turned to +Liszt, every word and every reply was addressed to him +alone. I remember one evening when Homyakóv, in his +disgust with the company, appealed to me to start a dispute +with him on any subject, that Liszt might discover +there were some people in the room who were not exclusively +taken up with him. I can only say one thing to +console our ladies—that Englishwomen treated other celebrities, +Kossuth, Garibaldi, and others, in just the same +way, crowding and jostling round the object of worship; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>but woe to him who seeks to learn good manners from +Englishwomen, or their husbands!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§16</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Our other distinguished visitor was also “a Prometheus +of our time” in a certain sense; only, instead of stealing +fire from Zeus, he stole it from mankind. This Prometheus, +whose fame was sung, not by Glinka but by Púshkin +himself in his <i>Epistle to Lucullus</i>, was Uvárov, the +Minister of Education.<a id='r51' /><a href='#f51' class='c016'><sup>[51]</sup></a> He astonished us by the number +of languages he spoke and by the amount of his miscellaneous +knowledge; he was a real shopman behind the +counter of learning and kept samples of all the sciences, +the elements chiefly, in his head. In Alexander’s reign, +he wrote reform pamphlets in French; then he had a +German correspondence with Goethe on Greek matters. +After becoming minister, he discoursed on Slavonic +poetry of the fourth century, which made Kachenovsky +remark to him that our ancestors were much busier in +fighting bears than in hymning their gods and kings. As +a kind of patent of nobility, he carried about in his pocket +a letter from Goethe, in which Goethe paid him a very +odd compliment: “You have no reason to apologise for +your style: you have succeeded in doing what I could +never do—forgetting German grammar.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f51'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. </span>Serghéi Uvárov (1786-1855) was both Minister of Education +and President of the Academy of Sciences. He used his power to tighten +the censorship and suppressed <i>The Moscow Telegraph</i>, edited by +Polevoi, which was the most independent of Russian journals; in this +way he “stole fire from mankind.” The reference to Púshkin is +malicious: what Púshkin wrote about Uvárov in that poem was the +reverse of complimentary. “Lucullus” was Count Sheremétyev and Uvárov +was his heir.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>This highly placed Admirable Crichton invented a new +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>kind of torture for our benefit. He gave directions that the +best students should be selected, and that each of them +should deliver a lecture in his own department of study, +in place of the professor. The Deans of course chose the +readiest of the students to perform.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These lectures went on for a whole week. The students +had to get up all the branches of their subject, and the +Dean drew a lot to determine the theme and the speaker. +Uvárov invited all the rank and fashion of Moscow. Ecclesiastics +and judges, the Governor of the city, and the old +poet, Dmítriev—everyone was there.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§17</h3> + +<p class='c018'>It fell to me to lecture on a mineralogical subject. Our +professor, Lovetski,—he is now dead,—was a tall man +with a clumsy figure and awkward gait, a large mouth +and a large and entirely expressionless face. He wore a +pea-green overcoat, adorned in the fashion of the First +Consulate with a variety of capes; and while taking off +this garment in the passage outside the lecture-room, he +always began in an even and wooden voice which seemed +to suit his subject, “In our last lecture we dealt fully with +silicon dioxide”—then he took his seat and went on, “We +proceed to aluminium ...” In the definition of each +metal, he followed an absolutely identical formula, so +that some of them had to be defined by negatives, in this +way: “Crystallisation: this metal does not crystallise”; +“Use: this metal is never used”; “Service to man: this +substance does nothing but harm to the human organism.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Still he did not avoid poetical illustration or edifying +comment: whenever he showed us counterfeit gems and +explained how they were made, he never failed to add, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>“Gentlemen, this is dishonest.” When alluding to farming, +he found <i>moral</i> worth in a cock that was fond of +crowing and courting his hens, and blue blood in a ram +if he had “bald knees.” He had also a touching story +about some flies which ran over the bark of a tree on a +fine summer day till they were caught in the resin which +had turned to amber; and this always ended with the +words, “Gentlemen, these things are an allegory.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I was summoned forth by the Dean, the audience +was somewhat weary: two lectures on mathematics had +had a depressing effect upon hearers who did not understand +a word of the subject. Uvárov called for something +more lively and a speaker with a ready tongue; and I was +chosen to meet the situation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While I was mounting to the desk, Lovetski sat there +motionless, with his hands on his knees, looking like +Memnon or Osiris. I whispered to him, “Never fear! I +shan’t give you away!”—and the worthy professor, without +looking at me and hardly moving his lips, formed the +words, “Boast not, when girding on thine armour!” I +nearly laughed aloud, but when I looked in front of me, +the whole room swam before my eyes, I felt that I was +losing colour, and my mouth grew strangely dry. It was +my first speech in public; the lecture-room was full of +students, who relied upon me; at a table just below me +sat the dignitaries and all the professors of our faculty. +I took the paper and read out in a voice that sounded +strange to myself, “Crystallisation: its conditions, laws, +and forms.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>While I was considering how I should begin, a consoling +thought came into my head—that, if I did make mistakes, +the professors might perhaps detect them but would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>certainly not speak of them, while the rest of the audience +would be quite in the dark, and the students would be +quite satisfied if I managed not to break down; for I was +a favourite with them. So I delivered my lecture and +ended up with some speculative observations, addressing +myself throughout to my companions and not to the +minister. Students and professors shook me by the hand +and expressed their thanks. Uvárov presented me to +Prince Golitsyn, who said something, but I could not +understand it, as the Prince used vowels only and no consonants. +Uvárov promised me a book as a souvenir of +the occasion; but I never got it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My second and third appearances on a public stage +were very different. In 1836 I took a chief part in amateur +theatricals before the Governor and <i>beau monde</i> of +Vyatka. Though we had been rehearsing for a month, my +heart beat furiously and my hands trembled; when the +overture came to an end, dead silence followed, and the +curtain slowly rose with an awful twitching. The leading +lady and I were in the green-room; and she was so sorry +for me, or so afraid that I would break down and spoil +the piece, that she administered a full bumper of champagne; +but even this was hardly able to restore me to +my senses.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This preliminary experience saved me from all nervous +symptoms and self-consciousness when I made my third +public appearance, which was at a Polish meeting held +in London and presided over by the ex-Minister Ledru-Rollin.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§18</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But perhaps I have dwelt long enough on College memories. +I fear it may be a sign of senility to linger so long +<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>over them; and I shall only add a few details on the +cholera of 1831.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The word “cholera,” so familiar now in Europe and +especially in Russia, was heard in the North for the first +time in 1831. The dread contagion caused general terror, +as it spread up the course of the Volga towards Moscow. +Exaggerated rumours filled men’s minds with horror. The +epidemic took a capricious course, sometimes pausing, +and sometimes passing over a district; it was believed +that it had gone round Moscow, when suddenly the terrible +tidings spread like wildfire, “The cholera is in the +city.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A student who was taken ill one morning died in the +University hospital on the evening of the next day. We +went to look at the body. It was emaciated as if by long +illness, the eyes were sunk in their sockets, and the +features were distorted. Near him lay his attendant who +had caught the infection during the night.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We were told that the University was to be closed. The +notice was read in our faculty by Denísov, the professor +of technology; he was depressed and perhaps frightened; +before the end of the next day he too was dead.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All the students collected in the great court of the University. +There was something touching in that crowd of +young men forced asunder by the fear of infection. All +were excited, and there were many pale faces; many were +thinking of relations and friends; we said good-bye to +the scholars who were to remain behind in quarantine, +and dispersed in small groups to our homes. There we +were greeted by the stench of chloride of lime and vinegar, +and submitted to a diet which, of itself and without +chloride or cholera, was quite enough to cause an illness.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>It is a strange fact, but this sad time is more solemn +than sad in my recollection of it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The aspect of Moscow was entirely changed. The city +was animated beyond its wont by the feeling of a common +life. There were fewer carriages in the streets; +crowds stood at the crossings and spoke darkly of poisoners; +ambulances, conveying the sick, moved along at a +footpace, escorted by police; and people turned aside as +the hearses went by. Bulletins were published twice a +day. The city was surrounded by troops, and an unfortunate +beadle was shot while trying to cross the river. +These measures caused much excitement, and fear of disease +conquered the fear of authority; the inhabitants protested; +and meanwhile tidings followed tidings—that so-and-so +had sickened and so-and-so was dead.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Archbishop, Philaret, ordained a Day of Humiliation. +At the same hour on the same day all the priests +went in procession with banners round their parishes, +while the terrified inhabitants came out of their houses +and fell on their knees, weeping and praying that their +sins might be forgiven; even the priests were moved by +the solemnity of the occasion. Some of them marched to +the Kremlin, where the Archbishop, surrounded by clerical +dignitaries, knelt in the open air and prayed, “May +this cup pass from us!”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§19</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Philaret carried on a kind of opposition to Government, +but why he did so I never could understand, unless it +was to assert his own personality. He was an able and +learned man, and a perfect master of the Russian language, +which he spoke with a happy flavouring of Church-Slavonic; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>but all this gave him no right to be in opposition. +The people disliked him and called him a freemason, +because he was intimate with Prince A. N. Golitsyn +and preached in Petersburg just when the Bible Society +was in vogue there. The Synod forbade the use of +his Catechism in the schools. But the clergy who were +under his rule trembled before him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Philaret knew how to put down the secular powers with +great ingenuity and dexterity; his sermons breathed that +vague Christian socialism to which Lacordaire and other +far-sighted Roman Catholics owed their reputation. From +the height of his episcopal pulpit, Philaret used to say +that no man could be legally the mere instrument of +another, and that an exchange of services was the only +proper relation between human beings; and this he said +in a country where half the population were slaves.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Speaking to a body of convicts who were leaving Moscow +on their way to Siberia, he said, “Human law has +condemned you and driven you forth; but the Church +will not let you go; she wishes to address you once more, +to pray for you once again, and to bless you before your +journey.” Then, to comfort them, he added, “You, by +your punishment, have got rid of your past, and a new +life awaits you; but, among others” (and there were probably +no others present except officials) “there are even +greater sinners than you”; and he spoke of the penitent +thief at the Crucifixion as an example for them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Philaret’s sermon on the Day of Humiliation left +all his previous utterances in the shade. He took as his +text the passage where the angel suffered David to choose +between war, famine, and pestilence as the punishment +for his sin, and David chose the pestilence. The Tsar +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>came to Moscow in a furious rage, and sent a high Court +official to reprove the Archbishop; he even threatened to +send him to Georgia to exercise his functions there. Philaret +submitted meekly to the reproof; and then he sent +round a new rescript to all the churches, explaining that +it was a mistake to suppose that he had meant David to +represent the Tsar: we ourselves were David, sunk like +him in the mire of sin. In this way, the meaning of the +original sermon was explained even to those who had +failed to grasp its meaning at first.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such was the way in which the Archbishop of Moscow +played at opposition.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Day of Humiliation was as ineffectual as the +chloride of lime; and the plague grew worse and worse.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§20</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I witnessed the whole course of the frightful epidemic +of cholera at Paris in 1849. The violence of the disease +was increased by the hot June weather; the poor died +like flies; of the middle classes some fled to the country, +and the rest locked themselves up in their houses. The +Government, exclusively occupied by the struggle against +the revolutionists, never thought of taking any active +steps. Large private subscriptions failed to meet the requirements +of the situation. The working class were left +to take their chance; the hospitals could not supply all +the beds, nor the police all the coffins, that were required; +and corpses remained for forty-eight hours in living-rooms +crowded with a number of different families.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In Moscow things were different.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Prince Dmitri Golitsyn was Governor of the city, not +a strong man, but honourable, cultured, and highly respected. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>He gave the line to Moscow society, and everything +was arranged by the citizens themselves without +much interference on the part of Government. A committee +was formed of the chief residents—rich landowners +and merchants. Each member of the committee +undertook one of the districts of Moscow. In a few days +twenty hospitals were opened, all supported by voluntary +contributions and not costing one penny to the State. The +merchants supplied all that was required in the hospitals—bedding, +linen, and warm clothing, and this last might +be kept by convalescents. Young people acted gratuitously +as inspectors in the hospitals, to see that the free-will +offerings of the merchants were not stolen by the +orderlies and nurses.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The University too played its part. The whole medical +school, both teachers and students, put themselves at the +disposal of the committee. They were distributed among +the hospitals and worked there incessantly until the infection +was over. For three or four months these young +men did fine work in the hospitals, as assistant physicians, +dressers, nurses, or clerks, and all this for no pecuniary +reward and at a time when the fear of infection was intense. +I remember one Little Russian student who was +trying to get an <i>exeat</i> on urgent private affairs when the +cholera began. It was difficult to get an <i>exeat</i> in term-time, +but he got it at last and was just preparing to start +when the other students were entering the hospitals. He +put his <i>exeat</i> in his pocket and joined them. When he +left the hospital, his leave of absence had long expired, +and he was the first to laugh heartily at the form his trip +had taken.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Moscow has the appearance of being sleepy and slack, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>of caring for nothing but gossip and piety and fashionable +intelligence; but she invariably wakes up and rises +to the occasion when the hour strikes and when the +thunder-storm breaks over Russia.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was wedded to Russia in blood in 1612, and she +was welded to Russia in the fire of 1812.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She bent her head before Peter, because he was the +wild beast whose paw contained the whole future of +Russia.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Frowning and pouting out his lips, Napoleon sat outside +the gates, waiting for the keys of Moscow; impatiently +he pulled at his bridle and twitched his glove. He was +not accustomed to be alone when he entered foreign +capitals.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But other thoughts had Moscow mine,” as Púshkin +wrote, and she set fire to herself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The cholera appeared, and once again the people’s +capital showed itself full of feeling and power!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§21</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In August of 1830 we went to stay at Vasílevskoë, and +broke our journey as usual at Perkhushkov, where our +house looked like a castle in a novel of Mrs. Radcliffe’s. +After taking a meal and feeding the horses, we were preparing +to resume our journey, and Bakai, with a towel +round his waist, was just calling out to the coachman, +“All right!” when a mounted messenger signed to us to +stop. This was a groom belonging to my uncle, the Senator. +Covered with dust and sweat, he jumped off his horse +and delivered a packet to my father. The packet contained +the <i>Revolution of July</i>! Two pages of the <i>Journal +des Débats</i>, which he brought with him as well as a letter, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>I read over a hundred times till I knew them by heart; +and for the first time I found the country tiresome.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a glorious time and events moved quickly. The +spare figure of Charles X had hardly disappeared into +the fogs of Holyrood, when Belgium burst into flame and +the throne of the citizen-king began to totter. The revolutionary +spirit began to work in men’s mouths and in literature: +novels, plays, and poetry entered the arena and +preached the good cause.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We knew nothing then of the theatrical element which +is part of all revolutionary movements in France, and +we believed sincerely in all we heard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If anyone wishes to know how powerfully the news of +the July revolution worked on the rising generation, let +him read what Heine wrote, when he heard in Heligoland +that “the great Pan, the pagan god, was dead.” There is +no sham enthusiasm there: Heine at thirty was just as +much carried away, just as childishly excited, as we were +at eighteen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We followed every word and every incident with close +attention—bold questions and sharp replies, General +Lafayette and General Lamarque. Not only did we know +all about the chief actors—on the radical side, of course—but +we were warmly attached to them, and cherished +their portraits, from Manuel and Benjamin Constant to +Dupont de l’Eure and Armand Carrel.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§22</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Our special group consisted of five to begin with, and +then we fell in with a sixth, Vadim Passek.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was much that was new to us in Vadim. We five +had all been brought up in very much the same way: +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>we knew no places but Moscow and the surrounding +country; we had read the same books and taken lessons +from the same teachers; we had been educated either at +home or in the boarding-school connected with the University. +But Vadim was born in Siberia, during his father’s +exile, and had suffered poverty and privation. His father +was his teacher, and he was one of a large family, who +grew up familiar with want but free from all other restraints. +Siberia has a stamp of its own, quite unlike the +stamp of provincial Russia; those who bear it have more +health and more elasticity. Compared to Vadim we were +tame. His courage was of a different kind, heroic and at +times overbearing; the high distinction of suffering had +developed in him a special kind of pride, but he had also +a generous warmth of heart. He was bold, and even imprudent +to excess; but a man born in Siberia and belonging +to a family of exiles has this advantage over others, +that Siberia has for him no terrors.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As soon as we met, Vadim rushed into our arms. Very +soon we became intimate. It should be said that there +was nothing of the nature of ceremony or prudent precaution +in our little coterie of those days.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Would you like to know Ketcher, of whom you have +heard so much?” Vadim once asked me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of course I should.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, come at seven to-morrow evening, and don’t be +late; he will be at our house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I arrived, Vadim was out. A tall man with an +expressive face was waiting for him and shot a glance, +half good-natured and half formidable, at me from under +his spectacles. I took up a book, and he followed my example.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>“I say,” he began, as he opened the book, “are you +Herzen?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And so conversation began and soon grew fast and furious. +Ketcher soon interrupted me with no ceremony: “Excuse +me! I should be obliged if you would address me as +‘thou.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“By all means!” said I. And from that minute—perhaps +it was the beginning of 1831—we were inseparable +friends; and from that minute Ketcher’s friendly laugh +or fierce shout became a part of my life at all its stages.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The acquaintance with Vadim brought a new and +gentler element into our camp.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As before, our chief meeting-place was Ogaryóv’s house. +His invalid father had gone to live in the country, and he +lived alone on the ground-floor of their Moscow house, +which was near the University and had a great attraction +for us all. Ogaryóv had that magnetic power which forms +the first point of crystallisation in any medley of disordered +atoms, provided the necessary affinity exists. +Though scattered in all directions, they become imperceptibly +the heart of an organism. In his bright cheerful +room with its red and gold wall-paper, amid the perpetual +smell of tobacco and punch and other—I was going to +say, eatables and drinkables, but now I remember that +there was seldom anything to eat but cheese—we often +spent the time from dark till dawn in heated argument +and sometimes in noisy merriment. But, side by side with +that hospitable students’ room, there grew more and more +dear to us another house, in which we learned—I might +say, for the first time—respect for family life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Vadim often deserted our discussions and went off +home: when he had not seen his mother and sisters for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>some time, he became restless. To us our little club was +the centre of the world, and we thought it strange that +he should prefer the society of his family; were not we +a family too?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then he introduced us to his family. They had lately +returned from Siberia; they were ruined, yet they bore +that stamp of dignity which calamity engraves, not on +every sufferer, but on those who have borne misfortune +with courage.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§23</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Their father was arrested in Paul’s reign, having been +informed against for revolutionary designs. He was +thrown into prison at Schlüsselburg and then banished +to Siberia. When Alexander restored thousands of his +father’s exiles, Passek was <i>forgotten</i>. He was a nephew +of the Passek who became Governor of Poland, and might +have claimed a share of the fortune which had now passed +into other hands.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While detained at Schlüsselburg, Passek had married +the daughter of an officer of the garrison. The young girl +knew that exile would be his fate, but she was not deterred +by that prospect. In Siberia they made a shift at first to +get on, by selling their last belongings, but the pressure +of poverty grew steadily worse and worse, and the process +was hastened by their increasing family. Yet neither destitution +nor manual toil, nor the absence of warm clothing +and sometimes of daily food—nothing prevented them +from rearing a whole family of lion-cubs, who inherited +from their father his dauntless pride and self-confidence. +He educated them by his example, and they were taught +by their mother’s self-sacrifice and bitter tears. The girls +<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>were not inferior to the boys in heroic constancy. Why +shrink from using the right word?—they were a family +of heroes. No one would believe what they endured and +did for one another; and they held their heads high +through it all.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When they were in Siberia, the three sisters had at one +time a single pair of shoes between them; and they kept +it to walk out in, in order to hide their need from the +public eye.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At the beginning of the year 1826 Passek was permitted +to return to Russia. It was winter weather, and +it was a terrible business for so large a family to travel +from Tobolsk without furs and without money; but exile +becomes most unbearable when it is over, and they were +longing to be gone. They contrived it somehow. The +foster-mother of one of the children, a peasant woman, +brought them her poor savings as a contribution, and +only asked that they would take her too; the post-boys +brought them as far as the Russian frontier for little payment +or none at all; the children took turns in driving +or walking; and so they completed the long winter journey +from the Ural ridge to Moscow. Moscow was their dream +and their hope; and at Moscow they found starvation +waiting for them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the authorities pardoned Passek, they never +thought of restoring to him any part of his property. On +his arrival, worn out by exertions and privations, he fell +ill; and the family did not know where they were to get +to-morrow’s dinner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The father could bear no more; he died. The widow +and children got on as best they could from day to day. +The greater the need, the harder the sons worked; three +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>of them took their degree at the University with brilliant +success. The two eldest, both excellent mathematicians, +went to Petersburg; one served in the Navy and the other +in the Engineers, and both contrived to give lessons in +mathematics as well. They practised strict self-denial +and sent home all the money they earned.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I have a vivid recollection of their old mother in her +dark jacket and white cap. Her thin pale face was covered +with wrinkles, and she looked much older than she was; +the eyes alone still lived and revealed such a fund of +gentleness and love, and such a past of anxiety and tears. +She was in love with her children; they were wealth and +distinction and youth to her; she used to read us their +letters, and spoke of them with a sacred depth of feeling, +while her feeble voice sometimes broke and trembled with +unshed tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Sometimes there was a family gathering of them all +at Moscow, and then the mother’s joy was beyond description. +When they sat down to their modest meal, she +would move round the table and arrange things, looking +with such joy and pride at her young ones, and sometimes +mutely appealing to me for sympathy and admiration. +They were really, in point of good looks also, an exceptional +family. At such times I longed to kiss her hand +and fall upon her neck.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was happy then; it would have been well if she +had died at one of those meetings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the space of two years she lost her three eldest sons. +Diomid died gloriously, honoured by the foe, in the arms +of victory, though he laid down his life in a quarrel that +was not his. As a young general, he was killed in action +against Circassians. But laurels cannot mend a mother’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>broken heart. The other two were less fortunate: the +weight of Russian life lay heavy upon them and crushed +them at last.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alas! poor mother!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§24</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Vadim died in February of 1843. I was present at his +death; it was the first time I had witnessed the death of +one dear to me, and I realised the unrelieved horror, the +senseless irrationality, and the stupid injustice of the +tragedy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Ten years earlier Vadim had married my cousin +Tatyana, and I was best man at the wedding. Family +life and change of conditions parted us to some extent. +He was happy in his quiet life, but outward circumstances +were unfavourable and his enterprises were unsuccessful. +Shortly before I and my friends were arrested, he went +to Khárkov, where he had been promised a professor’s +chair in the University. This trip saved him from prison; +but his name had come to the ears of the police, and the +University refused to appoint him. An official admitted +to him that a document had been received forbidding his +appointment, because the Government knew that he was +connected with <i>disaffected persons</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So Vadim remained without employment, <i>i.e.</i> without +bread to eat. That was his form of punishment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We were banished. Relations with us were dangerous. +Black years of want began for him; for seven years he +struggled to earn a bare living, suffering from contact +with rough manners and hard hearts, and unable to exchange +messages with his friends in their distant place +of exile; and the struggle proved too hard even for his +powerful frame.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>“One day we had spent all our money to the last +penny;”—his wife told me this story later—“I had tried +to borrow ten <i>roubles</i> the day before, but I failed, because +I had borrowed already in every possible quarter. The +shops refused to give us any further credit, and our one +thought was—what will the children get to eat to-morrow? +Vadim sat in sorrow near the window; then he got up, +took his hat, and said he meant to take a walk. I saw +that he was very low, and I felt frightened; and yet I +was glad that he should have something to divert his +thoughts. When he went out, I threw myself upon the +bed and wept bitter tears, and then I began to think what +was to be done. Everything of any value, rings and +spoons, had been pawned long ago. I could see no resource +but one—to go to our relations and beg their cold +charity, their bitter alms. Meanwhile Vadim was walking +aimlessly about the streets till he came to the Petrovsky +Boulevard. As he passed a bookseller’s shop there, it +occurred to him to ask whether a single copy of his book +had been sold. Five days earlier he had enquired, with +no result; and he was full of apprehension when he entered +the shop. ‘Very glad to see you,’ said the man; ‘I +have heard from my Petersburg agent that he has sold +300 <i>roubles’</i> worth of your books. Would you like payment +now?’ And the man there and then counted out +fifteen gold pieces. Vadim’s joy was so great that he was +bewildered. He hurried to the nearest eating-house, bought +food, fruit, and a bottle of wine, hired a cab, and drove +home in triumph. I was adding water to some remnants +of soup, to feed the children, and I meant to give him a +little, pretending that I had eaten something already; +and then suddenly he came in, carrying his parcel and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>bottle of wine, and looking as happy and cheerful as in +times past.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then she burst out sobbing and could not utter another +word.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After my return from banishment I saw him occasionally +in Petersburg and found him much changed. He kept +his old convictions, but he kept them as a warrior, feeling +that he is mortally wounded, still grasps his sword. +He was exhausted and depressed, and looked forward +without hope. And such I found him in Moscow in 1842; +his circumstances were improved to some extent, and his +works were appreciated, but all this came too late.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then consumption—that terrible disease which I was +fated to watch once again<a id='r52' /><a href='#f52' class='c016'><sup>[52]</sup></a>—declared itself in the autumn +of 1842, and Vadim wasted away.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f52'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. </span>Herzen’s wife died of consumption at Nice in 1852.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>A month before he died, I noticed with horror that his +powers of mind were failing and growing dim like a flickering +candle; the atmosphere of the sick-room grew +darker steadily. Soon it cost him a laborious effort to find +words for incoherent speech, and he confused words of +similar sound; at last, he hardly spoke except to express +anxiety about his medicines and the hours for taking +them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At three o’clock one February morning, his wife sent +for me. The sick man was in distress and asking for me. +I went up to his bed and touched his hand; his wife +named me, and he looked long and wearily at me but +failed to recognise me and shut his eyes again. Then the +children were brought, and he looked at them, but I do +not think he recognised them either. His breathing became +more difficult; there were intervals of quiet followed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>by long gasps. Just then the bells of a neighbouring +church rang out; Vadim listened and then said, +“That’s for early Mass,” and those were his last words. +His wife sobbed on her knees beside the body; a young +college friend, who had shown them much kindness during +the last illness, moved about the room, pushing away +the table with the medicine-bottles and drawing up the +blinds. I left the house; it was frosty and bright out of +doors, and the rising sun glittered on the snow, just as +if all was right with the world. My errand was to order +a coffin.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I returned, the silence of death reigned in the +little house. In accordance with Russian custom, the dead +man was lying on the table in the drawing-room, and an +artist-friend, seated at a little distance, was drawing, +through his tears, a portrait of the lifeless features. Near +the body stood a tall female figure, with folded arms and +an expression of infinite sorrow; she stood silent, and no +sculptor could have carved a nobler or more impressive +embodiment of grief. She was not young, but still retained +the traces of a severe and stately beauty; wrapped up in a +long mantle of black velvet trimmed with ermine, she +stood there like a statue.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I remained standing at the door.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The silence went on for several minutes; but suddenly +she bent forward, pressed a kiss on the cold forehead, +and said, “Good-bye, good-bye, dear Vadim”; then she +walked with a steady step into an inner room. The painter +went on with his work; he nodded to me, and I sat down +by the window in silence; we felt no wish to talk.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The lady was Mme. Chertkóv, the sister of Count +Zachar Chernyshev, one of the exiled Decembrists.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>Melchizedek, the Abbot of St. Peter’s Monastery, himself +offered that Vadim should be buried within the convent +walls. He knew Vadim and respected him for his +researches into the history of Moscow. He had once been +a simple carpenter and a furious dissenter; but he was +converted to Orthodoxy, became a monk, and rose to be +Prior and finally Abbot. Yet he always kept the broad +shoulders, fine ruddy face, and simple heart of the carpenter.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the body appeared before the monastery gates, +Melchizedek and all his monks came out to meet the +martyr’s poor coffin, and escorted it to the grave, singing +the funeral music. Not far from his grave rests the dust +of another who was dear to us, Venevitínov, and his epitaph +runs—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c022'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“He knew life well but left it soon”—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>and Vadim knew it as well.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Fortune was not content even with his death. Why +indeed did his mother live to be so old? When the period +of exile came to an end, and when she had seen her children +in their youth and beauty and fine promise for the +future, life had nothing more to give her. Any man who +values happiness should seek to die young. Permanent +happiness is no more possible than ice that will not melt.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Vadim’s eldest brother died a few months after Diomid, +the soldier, fell in Circassia: a neglected cold proved fatal +to his enfeebled constitution. He was the oldest of the +family, and he was hardly forty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Long and black are the shadows thrown back by these +three coffins of three dear friends; the last months of my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>youth are veiled from me by funeral crape and the incense +of thuribles.</p> + +<hr class='c023' /> +<h3 class='c014'>§25</h3> + +<p class='c018'>After dragging on for a year, the affair of Sungurov +and our other friends who had been arrested came to an +end. The charge, as in our case and in that of Petrashev’s +group, was that they <i>intended</i> to form a secret society +and had held treasonable conversations. Their punishment +was to be sent to Orenburg, to join the colours.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And now our turn came. Our names were already entered +on the black list of the secret police. The cat dealt +her first playful blow at the mouse in the following way.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When our friends, after their sentence, were starting +on their long march to Orenburg without warm enough +clothing, Ogaryóv and Kiréevski each started a subscription +for them, as none of them had money. Kiréevski took +the proceeds to Staal, the commandant, a very kind-hearted +old soldier, of whom more will be said hereafter. +Staal promised to transmit the money, and then said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What papers are those you have?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The subscribers’ names,” said Kiréevski, “and a list +of subscriptions.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you trust me to pay over the money?” the old +man asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of course I do.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I fancy the subscribers will trust you. Well, then, +what’s the use of our keeping these names?” and Staal +threw the list into the fire; and I need hardly say that +was a very kind action.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Ogaryóv took the money he had collected to the prison +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>himself, and no difficulty was raised. But the prisoners +took it into their heads to send a message of thanks from +Orenburg, and asked some functionary who was travelling +to Moscow to take a letter which they dared not +trust to the post. The functionary did not fail to profit +by such an excellent opportunity of proving his loyalty +to his country: he laid the letter before the head of the +police at Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Volkov, who had held this office, had gone mad, his +delusion being that the Poles wished to elect him as their +king, and Lisovski had succeeded to the position. Lisovski +was a Pole himself; he was not a cruel man or a bad man; +but he had spent his fortune, thanks to gambling and a +French actress, and, like a true philosopher, he preferred +the situation of chief of the police at Moscow to a situation +in the slums of that city.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He summoned Ogaryóv, Ketcher, Satin, Vadim, Obolenski, +and others, and charged them with having relations +with political prisoners. Ogaryóv replied that he had written +to none of them and had received no letter; if one of +them had written to him, he could not be responsible for +that. Lisovski then said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You raised a subscription for them, which is even +worse. The Tsar is merciful enough to pardon you for +once; but I warn you, gentlemen, that you will be strictly +watched, and you had better be careful.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He looked meaningly at all the party and his eye fell on +Ketcher, who was older and taller than the rest, and was +lifting his eyebrows and looking rather fierce. He added, +“I wonder that you, Sir, considering your position in +society, are not ashamed to behave so.” Ketcher was only +a country doctor; but, from Lisovski’s words, he might +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>have been Chancellor of the imperial Orders of Knighthood.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was not summoned; it is probable that the letter did +not contain my name.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This threat we regarded as a promotion, a consecration, +a powerful incentive. Lisovski’s warning was oil on +the flames; and, as if to make it easier for the police, we +all took to velvet caps of the Karl Sand<a id='r53' /><a href='#f53' class='c016'><sup>[53]</sup></a> fashion and tricolor +neckties.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f53'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. </span>The German student who shot Kotzebue.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Colonel Shubinski now climbed up with the velvet +tread of a cat into Lisovski’s place, and soon marked his +predecessor’s weakness in dealing with us: our business +was to serve as one of the steps in his official career, and +we did what was wanted.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§26</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But first I shall add a few words about the fate of Sungurov +and his companions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Kolreif returned to Moscow, where he died in the arms +of his grief-stricken father.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Kostenetski and Antonovitch both distinguished themselves +as private soldiers in the Caucasus and received +commissions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The fate of the unhappy Sungurov was far more tragic. +On reaching the first stage of their journey from Moscow, +he asked permission of the officer, a young man of +twenty, to leave the stifling cottage crammed with convicts +for the fresh air. The officer walked out with him. +Sungurov watched for an opportunity, sprang off the +road, and disappeared. He must have known the district +well, for he eluded the officer; but the police got upon +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>his tracks next day. When he saw that escape was impossible, +he cut his throat. He was carried back to Moscow, +unconscious and bleeding profusely. The unlucky +officer was deprived of his commission.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Sungurov did not die. He was tried again, not for a +political offence but for trying to escape. Half his head +was shaved; and to this outward ignominy the court +added a <i>single stroke</i> of the whip to be inflicted inside +the prison. Whether this was actually carried out, I do not +know. He was then sent off to work in the mines at Nerchinsk.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His name came to my ears just once again and then +vanished for ever.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I was at Vyatka, I happened to meet in the +street a young doctor, a college friend; and we spoke +about old times and common acquaintances.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good God!” said the doctor, “do you know whom I +saw on my way here? I was waiting at a post-house for +fresh horses. The weather was abominable. An officer in +command of a party of convicts came in to warm himself. +We began to talk; and hearing that I was a doctor, he +asked me to take a look at one of the prisoners on march; +I could tell him whether the man was shamming or really +very bad. I consented: of course, I intended in any case to +back up the convict. There were eighteen convicts, as +well as women and children, in one smallish barrack-room; +some of the men had their heads shaved, and some +had not; but they were all fettered. They opened out to +let the officer pass; and we saw a figure wrapped in a +convict’s overcoat and lying on some straw in a corner +of the dirty room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘There’s your patient,’ said the officer. No fibs on my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>part were necessary: the man was in a high fever. He was +a horrible sight: he was thin and worn out by prison and +marching; half his head was shaved, and his beard was +growing; he was rolling his eyes in delirium and constantly +calling for water.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Are you feeling bad, my man?’ I said to the patient, +and then I told the officer that he was quite unable to +march.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The man fixed his eyes on me and then muttered, ‘Is +that you?’ He addressed me by name and added, in a +voice that went through me like a knife, ‘You won’t +know me again.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Excuse me,’ I said; ‘I have forgotten your name,’ +and I took his hot dry hand in my own.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘I am Sungurov,’ he answered. Poor fellow!” repeated +the doctor, shaking his head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, did they leave him there?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No: a cart was got for him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>After writing the preceding narrative, I learned that +Sungurov died at Nerchinsk.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>End of College Life—The “Schiller” Stage—Youth—The Artistic +Life—Saint-Simonianism and N. Polevói—Polezháev.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THE storm had not yet burst over our heads when +my college course came to an end. My experience +of the final stage of education was exactly like +that of everyone else—constant worry and sleepless +nights for the sake of a painful and useless test of the +memory, superficial cramming, and all real interest in +learning crowded out by the nightmare of examination. I +wrote an astronomical dissertation for the gold medal, and +the silver medal was awarded me. I am sure that I should +not be able now to understand what I wrote then, and that +it was worth its weight—<i>in silver</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I have sometimes dreamt since that I was a student +preparing for examination; I thought with horror how +much I had forgotten and how certain I was to fail, and +then I woke up, to rejoice with all my heart that the sea +and much else lay between me and my University, and +that no one would ever examine me again or venture to +place me at the bottom of the list. My professors would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>really be astonished, if they could discover how much I +have gone backward in the interval.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the examinations were over, the professors shut +themselves up to count the marks, and we walked up and +down the passage and the vestibule, the prey of hopes and +fears. Whenever anyone left the meeting, we rushed to +him, eager to learn our fate; but the decision took a long +time. At last Heiman came out and said to me, “I congratulate +you; you have passed.” “Who else? who else?” I +asked; and some names were mentioned. I felt both sad +and pleased. As I walked out of the college gates, I felt +that I was leaving the place otherwise than yesterday or +ever before, and becoming a stranger to that great family +party in which I had spent four years of youth and happiness. +On the other hand, I was pleased by the feeling that +I was now admittedly grown up, and also—I may as well +confess it—by the fact that I had got my degree at the +first time of asking.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I owe so much to my <i>Alma Mater</i> and I continued so +long after my degree to live her life and near her, that I +cannot recall the place without love and reverence. She +will not accuse me of ingratitude. In this case at least +it is easy to be grateful; for gratitude is inseparable from +love and bright memories of youthful development. Writing +in a distant foreign land, I send her my blessing!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The year which we spent after leaving College formed a +triumphant conclusion to the first period of our youth. +It was one long festival of friendship, of high spirits, of +inspiration and exchange of ideas.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We were a small group of college friends who kept together +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>after our course was over, and continued to share +the same views and the same ideals. Not one of us thought +of his future career or financial position. I should not +praise this attitude in grown-up people, but I value it +highly in a young man. Except where it is dried up by +the corrupting influence of vulgar respectability, youth +is everywhere unpractical, and is especially bound to be +so in a young country which has many ideals and has +realised few of them. Besides, the unpractical sphere is +not always a fool’s paradise: every aspiration for the +future involves some degree of imagination; and, but for +unpractical people, practical life would never get beyond +a tiresome repetition of the old routine.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Enthusiasm of some kind is a better safeguard against +real degradation than any sermon. I can remember youthful +follies, when high spirits carried us sometimes into +excesses; but I do not remember a single disgraceful incident +among our set, nothing that a man need be really +ashamed of or seek to forget and cover up. Bad things +are done in secret; and there was nothing secret in our +way of life. Half our thoughts—more than half—were +not directed towards that region where idle sensuality and +morbid selfishness are concentrated on impure designs +and make vice thrice as vicious.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I have a sincere pity for any nation where old heads +grow on young shoulders; youth is a matter, not only of +years, but of temperament. The German student, in the +height of his eccentricity, is a hundred times better than +the young Frenchman or Englishman with his dull grown-up +<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>airs; as to American boys who are men at fifteen—I +find them simply repulsive.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In old France the young nobles were really young and +fine; and later, such men as Saint Just and Hoche, Marceau +and Desmoulins, heroic children reared on Rousseau’s +dark gospel, were young too, in the true sense of +the word. The Revolution was the work of young men: +neither Danton nor Robespierre, nor Louis XVI himself +survived his thirty-fifth year. Under Napoleon, the young +men all became subalterns; the Restoration, the “resurrection +of old age,” had no use for young men; and everybody +became grown-up, business-like, and dull.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The last really young Frenchmen were the followers of +Saint Simon.<a id='r54' /><a href='#f54' class='c016'><sup>[54]</sup></a> A few exceptions only prove the fact that +their young men have no liveliness or poetry in their disposition. +Escousse and Lebras blew their brains out, just +because they were young men in a society where all were +old. Others struggled like fish jerked out of the water +upon a muddy bank, till some of them got caught on the +barricades and others on the Jesuits’ hook.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f54'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. </span>Claude Henri, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), founded +at Paris a society which was called by his name. His views were +socialistic.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Still youth must assert itself somehow, and therefore +most young Frenchmen go through an “artistic” period: +that is, those who have no money spend their time in +humble cafés of the Latin quarter with humble grisettes, +and those who have money resort to large cafés and more +expensive ladies. They have no “Schiller” stage; but they +have what may be called a “Paul de Kock” stage, which +soon consumes in poor enough fashion all the strength +and vigour of youth, and turns out a man quite fit to be +a commercial traveller. The “artistic” stage leaves at the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>bottom of the soul one passion only—the thirst for money, +which excludes all other interests and determines all the +rest of life; these practical men laugh at abstract questions +and despise women—this is the result of repeated +conquests over those whose profession it is to be defeated. +Most young men, when going through this stage, find a +guide and philosopher in some hoary sinner, an extinct +celebrity who lives by sponging on his young friends—an +actor who has lost his voice, or an artist whose hand +has begun to shake. Telemachus imitates his Mentor’s +pronunciation and his drinks, and especially his contempt +for social problems and profound knowledge of +gastronomy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In England this stage takes a different form. There +young men go through a stormy period of amiable eccentricity, +which consists in silly practical jokes, absurd extravagance, +heavy pleasantries, systematic but carefully +concealed profligacy, and useless expeditions to the ends +of the earth. Then there are horses, dogs, races, dull dinners; +next comes the wife with an incredible number of +fat, red-cheeked babies, business in the City, the <i>Times</i>, +parliament, and old port which finally clips the Englishman’s +wings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We too did foolish things and were riotous at times, +but the prevailing tone was different and the atmosphere +purer. Folly and noise were never an object in themselves. +We believed in our mission; and though we may have +made mistakes, yet we respected ourselves and one another +as the instruments of a common purpose.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But what were these revels of ours like? It would suddenly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>occur to one of us that this was the fourth of +December and that the sixth was St. Nicholas’ Day. Many +of us were named after the Saint, Ogaryóv himself and at +least three more. “Well, who shall give a dinner on the +day?” “I will—I will.” “I’ll give one on the seventh.” +“Pooh! what’s the seventh? We must contribute and +all give it together; and that will be a grand feed.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“All right. Where shall we meet?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So-and-so is ill. Clearly we must go to him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then followed plans and calculations which gave a +surprising amount of occupation to both hosts and guests +at the coming banquet. One Nikolai went off to a restaurant +to order the supper, another elsewhere to order cheese +and savouries; our wine invariably came from the famous +shop of Deprez. We were no connoisseurs and never +soared above champagne; indeed, our youthful palates +deserted even champagne in favour of a brand called +<i>Rivesaltes Mousseux</i>. I once noticed this name on the +card of a Paris restaurant, and called for a bottle of it, +in memory of 1833. But alas! not even sentiment could +induce me to swallow more than one glass.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The wine had to be tasted before the feast, and as the +samples evidently gave great satisfaction, it was necessary +to send more than one mission for this purpose.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In this connexion I cannot refrain from recording something +that happened to our friend Sokolovski. He could +never keep money and spent at once whatever he got. +A year before his arrest, he paid a visit to Moscow. As +he had been successful in selling the manuscript of a +poem, he determined to give a dinner and to ask not only +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>us but such bigwigs as Polevói, Maximovitch, and others. +On the day before, he went out with Polezháev, who was +in Moscow with his regiment, to make his purchases; he +bought all kinds of needless things, cups and even a +<i>samovár</i>, and finally wine and eatables, such as stuffed +turkeys, patties, and so on. Five of us went that evening +to his rooms, and he proposed to open a single bottle for +our benefit. A second followed, and at the end of the +evening, or rather, at dawn of the next day, it appeared +that the wine was all drunk and that Sokolovski had no +more money. After paying some small debts, he had spent +all his money on the dinner. He was much distressed, but, +after long reflexion, plucked up courage and wrote to all +the bigwigs that he was seriously ill and must put off his +party.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>For our “feast of the four birthdays” I wrote out a +regular programme, which was honoured by the special +attention of Golitsyn, one of the Commissioners at our +trial, who asked me if the programme had been carried +out exactly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>À la lettre!</i>” I replied. He shrugged his shoulders, as +if his own life had been a succession of Good Fridays +spent in a monastery.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our suppers were generally followed by a lively discussion +over a question of the first importance, which +was this—how ought the punch to be made? Up to this +point, the eating and drinking went on usually in perfect +harmony, like a bill in parliament which is carried <i>nem. +con.</i> But over the punch everyone had his own view; and +the previous meal enlivened the discussion. Was the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>punch to be set on fire now, or to be set on fire later? +How was it to be set on fire? Was champagne or sauterne +to be used to put it out? Was the pineapple to be put in +while it was still alight, or not?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“While it’s burning, of course! Then all the flavour +will pass into the punch.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Nonsense! The pineapple floats and will get burnt. +That will simply spoil it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That is all rubbish,” cries Ketcher, high above the +rest; “but I’ll tell you what does matter—we must put +out the candles.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the candles were out, all faces looked blue in +the flickering light of the punch. The room was not large, +and the burning rum soon raised the temperature to a +tropical height. All were thirsty, but the punch was not +ready. But Joseph, a French waiter sent from the restaurant, +rose to the occasion: he brewed a kind of antithesis +to the punch—an iced drink compounded of various wines +with a foundation of brandy; and as he poured in the +French wine, he explained, like a true son of the <i>grande +nation</i>, that the wine owed its excellence to having twice +crossed the equator—“<i>Oui, oui, messieurs, deux fois +l’équateur, messieurs!</i>”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Joseph’s cup was as cold as the North Pole. When it +was finished, there was no need of any further liquid; but +Ketcher now called out, “Time to put out the punch!” +He was stirring a fiery lake in a soup-tureen, while the +last lumps of sugar hissed and bubbled as they melted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In goes the champagne, and the flame turns red and +careers over the surface of the punch, looking somehow +angry and menacing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then a desperate shout: “My good man, are you mad? +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>The wax is dropping straight off the bottle into the +punch!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, just you try yourself, in this heat, to hold the +bottle so that the wax won’t melt!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You should knock it off first, of course,” continues the +critic.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The cups, the cups—have we enough to go round? +How many are we—ten, twelve, fourteen? That’s right.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We’ve not got fourteen cups.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then the rest must take glasses.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The glasses will crack.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not a bit of it, if you put the spoon in.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The candles are re-lit, the last little tongue of flame +darts to the centre of the bowl, twirls round, and disappears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And all admit that the punch is a success, a splendid +success.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Next day I awake with a headache, clearly due to the +punch. That comes of mixing liquors. Punch is poison; +I vow never to touch it in future.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My servant, Peter, comes in. “You came in last night, +Sir, wearing someone else’s hat, not so good a hat as your +own.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The deuce take my hat!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perhaps I had better go where you dined last night +and enquire?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you suppose, my good man, that one of the party +went home bare-headed?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It can do no harm—just in case.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Now it dawns upon me that the hat is a pretext, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>that Peter has been invited to the scene of last night’s +revelry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“All right, you can go. But first tell the cook to send +me up some pickled cabbage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose, Sir, the birthday party went off well last +night?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I should rather think so! There never was such a +party in all my time at College.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose you won’t want me to go to the University +with you to-day?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I feel remorse and make no reply.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your papa asked me why you were not up yet. But +I was a match for him. ‘He has a headache,’ I said, ‘and +complained when I called him; so I left the blinds down.’ +And your papa said I was right.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For goodness sake, let me go to sleep! You wanted to +go, so be off with you!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“In a minute, Sir; I’ll just order the cabbage first.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Heavy sleep again seals my eyelids, and I wake in two +hours’ time, feeling a good deal fresher. I wonder what +my friends are doing. Ketcher and Ogaryóv were to spend +the night where we dined. I must admit that the punch +was very good; but its effect on the head is annoying. To +drink it out of a tumbler is a mistake; I am quite determined +in future to drink it always out of a <i>liqueur</i>-glass.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Meanwhile my father has read the papers and interviewed +the cook as usual.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Have you a headache to-day?” he asks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, a bad one.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perhaps you’ve been working too hard.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>But the way he asked the question showed he did not +believe that.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, I forgot: you were dining with your friends last +night, eh?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I was.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A birthday party? And they treated you handsomely, +I’ve no doubt. Did you have soup made with Madeira? +That sort of thing is not to my taste. I know one of your +young friends is too often at the bottle; but I can’t +imagine where he gets the taste from. His poor father +used to give a dinner on his birthday, the twenty-ninth of +June, and ask all his relations; but it was always a very +modest, decent affair. But this modern fashion of champagne +and sardines <i>à l’huile</i>—I don’t like to see it. Your +other friend, that unfortunate young Ogaryóv, is even +worse. Here he is, left to himself in Moscow, with his +pockets full of money. He is constantly sending his coachman, +Jeremy, for wine; and the coachman has no objection, +because the dealer gives him a present.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I did have lunch with Ogaryóv. But I don’t think +my headache can be due to that. I think I will take a +turn in the open air; that always does me good.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“By all means, but I hope you will dine at home.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Certainly; I shan’t be long.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But I must explain the allusion to Madeira in the soup. +A year or more before the grand birthday party, I went +out for a walk with Ogaryóv one day in Easter week, and, +in order to escape dinner at home, I said that I had been +invited to dine at their house by Ogaryóv’s father.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father did not care for my friends in general and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>used to call them by wrong names, though he always made +the same mistake in addressing any of them; and Ogaryóv +was less of a favourite than any, both because he wore +his hair long and because he smoked without being asked +to do so. But on the other hand, my father could hardly +mutilate his own grandnephew’s surname; and also +Ogaryóv’s father, both by birth and fortune, belonged to +the select circle of people whom my father recognised. +Hence he was pleased to see me going often to their house, +but he would have been still better pleased if the house +had contained no son.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He thought it proper therefore for me to accept the +invitation. But Ogaryóv and I did not repair to his father’s +respectable dining-room. We went first to Price’s place +of entertainment. Price was an acrobat, whom I was delighted +to meet later with his accomplished family in both +Geneva and London. He had a little daughter, whom we +admired greatly and had christened Mignon.<a id='r55' /><a href='#f55' class='c016'><sup>[55]</sup></a> When we +had seen Mignon perform and decided to come back for +the evening performance, we went to dine at the best +restaurant in Moscow. I had one gold piece in my pocket, +and Ogaryóv had about the same sum. At that time we +had no experience in ordering dinners. After long consultation +we ordered fish-soup made with champagne, a +bottle of Rhine wine, and a tiny portion of game. The +result was that we paid a terrific bill and left the restaurant +feeling exceedingly hungry. Then we went back to +see Mignon a second time.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f55'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. </span>After the character in Goethe’s <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>. +The Prices were evidently English.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>When I was saying good-night to my father, he said, +“Surely you smell of wine.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>“That is probably because there was Madeira in the +soup at dinner,” I replied.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Madeira? That must be a notion of M. Ogaryóv’s son-in-law; +no one but a guardsman would think of such a +thing.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And from that time until my banishment, whenever +my father thought that I had been drinking wine and that +my face was flushed, he invariably attributed it to Madeira +in the soup I had taken.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>On the present occasion, I hurried off to the scene of +our revelry and found Ogaryóv and Ketcher still there. +The latter looked rather the worse for wear; he was finding +fault with some of last night’s arrangements and was +severely critical. Ogaryóv was trying a hair of the dog that +bit him, though there was little left to drink after the +party, and that little was now diminished by the descent +of my man Peter, who was by this time in full glory, singing +a song and drumming on the kitchen table downstairs.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When I recall those days, I cannot remember a single +incident among our set such as might weigh upon a man’s +conscience and cause shame in recollection; and this is +true of every one of the group without a single exception.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course, there were Platonic lovers among us, and +disenchanted youths of sixteen. Vadim even wrote a play, +in order to set forth the “terrible experience of a broken +heart.” The play began thus—<i>A garden, with a house +in the distance; there are lights in the windows. The +stage is empty. A storm is blowing. The garden gate +clinks and bangs in the wind.</i></p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>“Are the garden and the gate your only <i>dramatis personae</i>?” +I asked him. He was rather offended. “What nonsense +you talk!” he said; “it is no joking matter but an +actual experience. But if you take it so, I won’t read +any more.” But he did, none the less.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were also love affairs which were by no means +Platonic, but there were none of those low intrigues which +ruin the woman concerned and debase the man; there +were no “kept mistresses”; that disgusting phrase did +not even exist. Cool, safe, prosaic profligacy of the +bourgeois fashion, profligacy by contract, was unknown +to our group.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If it is said that I approve of the worst form of profligacy, +in which a woman sells herself for the occasion, +I say that it is you, not I, who approve of it—not you in +particular but people in general. That custom rests so +securely on the present constitution of society that it +needs no patronage of mine.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our interest in general questions and our social ideals +saved us; and a keen interest in scientific and artistic matters +helped us too. These preoccupations had a purifying +effect, just as lighted paper makes grease-spots vanish. +I have kept some of Ogaryóv’s letters written at that time; +and they give a good idea of what was mostly in our +minds. For example, he writes to me on June 7, 1833:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think we know one another well enough to speak +frankly. You won’t show my letter to anyone. Well, for +some time past I have been so filled—crushed, I might +say—with feelings and ideas, that I think—but ‘think’ +is too weak: I have an indelible impression—that I was +born to be a poet, whether writer of verse or composer of +music, never mind which. I feel it impossible to part +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>from this belief; I have a kind of intuition that I am +a poet. Granting that I still write badly, still this inward +fire and this abundance of feeling make me hope that +some day I shall write decently—please excuse the triviality +of the phrase. Tell me, my dear friend, whether I +can believe in my vocation. Perhaps you know better +than I do myself, and you will not be misled.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He writes again on August 18:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So you answer that I am a poet, a true poet. Is it +possible that you understand the full significance of your +words? If you are right, my feelings do not deceive me, +and the object and aspiration of my whole life is not a +mere dream. Are you right, I wonder? I feel sure that +I am not merely raving. No one knows me better than +you do—of that I am sure. Yes! that high vocation is not +mere raving, no mere illusion; it is too high for deception, +it is real, I live by virtue of it and cannot imagine a +different life for myself. If only I could compose, what +a symphony would take wing from my brain just now! +First a majestic <i>adagio</i>; but it has not power to express +all; I need a <i>presto</i>, a wild stormy <i>presto</i>. <i>Adagio</i> and +<i>presto</i> are the two extremes. A fig for your <i>andante</i> and +<i>allegro moderato</i>! They are mere mediocrities who can +only lisp, incapable alike of strong speech or strong feeling.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>To us this strain of youthful enthusiasm sounds strange, +from long disuse; but these few lines of a youth under +twenty show clearly enough that the writer is insured +against commonplace vice and commonplace virtue, and +that, though he may stumble into the mire, he will come +out of it undefiled.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There is no want of self-confidence in the letter; but +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>the believer has doubts and a passionate desire for confirmation +and a word of sympathy, though that hardly +needed to be spoken. It is the restlessness of creative +activity, the uneasy looking about of a pregnant soul.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“As yet,” he writes in the same letter, “I can’t catch +the sounds that my brain hears; a physical incapacity +limits my fancy. But never mind! A poet I am, and +poetry whispers to me truth which I could never have +discovered by cold logic. Such is my theory of revelation.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus ends the first part of our youth, and the second +begins with prison. But before starting on that episode, I +must record the ideas towards which we were tending +when the prison-doors closed on us.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The period that followed the suppression of the Polish +revolt in 1830 was a period of rapid enlightenment. We +soon perceived with inward horror that things were going +badly in Europe and especially in France—France to +which we looked for a political creed and a banner; and +we began to distrust our own theories.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The simple liberalism of 1826, which by degrees took, +in France, the form sung by Béranger and preached by +men like La Fayette and Benjamin Constant, lost its magic +power over us after the destruction of Poland.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was then that some young Russians, including Vadim, +took refuge in the profound study of Russian history, +while others took to German philosophy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Ogaryóv and I did not join either of these groups. +Certain ideals had become so much a part of us that we +could not lightly give them up. Our belief in the sort of +dinner-table revolution dear to Béranger was shaken; but +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>we sought something different, which we could not find +either in Nestor’s <i>Chronicle</i><a id='r56' /><a href='#f56' class='c016'><sup>[56]</sup></a> or in the transcendentalism +of Schelling.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f56'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. </span>The earliest piece of literature in Russian.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>During this period of ferment and surmise and endeavour +to understand the doubts that frightened us, there +came into our hands the pamphlets and sermons of the +Saint-Simonians, and the report of their trial. We were +much impressed by them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Superficial and unsuperficial critics alike have had their +laugh at <i>Le Père Enfantin</i><a id='r57' /><a href='#f57' class='c016'><sup>[57]</sup></a> and his apostles; but a time +is coming when a different reception will be given to those +forerunners of socialism.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f57'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. </span>Barthèlemy Enfantin (1796-1864) carried on the work of +Saint-Simon in Paris.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Though these young enthusiasts wore long beards and +high waistcoats, yet their appearance in a prosaic world +was both romantic and serious. They proclaimed a new +belief, they had something to say—a principle by virtue +of which they summoned before their judgement-seat the +old order of things, which wished to try them by the <i>code +Napoléon</i> and the religion of the House of Orleans.</p> + +<p class='c008'>First, they proclaimed the emancipation of women—summoning +them to a common task, giving them control +of their own destiny, and making an alliance with them +on terms of equality.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Their second dogma was the restoration of the body +to credit—<i>la réhabilitation de la chair</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These mighty watchwords comprise a whole world of +new relations between human beings—a world of health +and spirit and beauty, a world of natural and therefore +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>pure morality. Many mocked at the “freedom of women” +and the “recognition of the rights of the flesh,” attributing +a low and unclean meaning to these phrases; for our +minds, corrupted by monasticism, fear the flesh and fear +women. A religion of life had come to replace the religion +of death, a religion of beauty to replace the religion of +penance and emaciation, of fasting and prayer. The crucified +body had risen in its turn and was no longer abashed. +Man had reached a harmonious unity: he had discovered +that he is a single being, not made, like a pendulum, of +two different metals that check each other; he realised +that the foe in his members had ceased to exist.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It required no little courage to preach such a message +to all France, and to attack those beliefs which are so +strongly held by all Frenchmen and so entirely powerless +to influence their conduct.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To the old world, mocked by Voltaire and shattered by +the Revolution, and then patched and cobbled for their +own use by the middle classes, this was an entirely new +experience. It tried to judge these dissenters, but its own +hypocritical pretences were brought to light by them in +open court. When the Saint-Simonians were charged with +religious apostasy, they pointed to the crucifix in the +court which had been veiled since the revolution of 1830; +and when they were accused of justifying sensuality, they +asked their judge if he himself led a chaste life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A new world was knocking at the door, and our hearts +and minds flew open to welcome it. The socialism of Saint +Simon became the foundation of our beliefs and has remained +an essential part of them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>With the impressibility and frankness of youth, we +were easily caught up by the mighty stream and early +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>passed across that Jordan, before which whole armies of +mankind stop short, fold their arms, and either march +backwards or hunt about for a ford; but there is no ford +over Jordan!</p> + +<p class='c008'>We did not all cross. Socialism and rationalism are to +this day the touchstones of humanity, the rocks which +lie in the course of revolution and science. Groups of +swimmers, driven by reflexion or the waves of circumstance +against these rocks, break up at once into two +camps, which, under different disguises, remain the same +throughout all history, and may be distinguished either +in a great political party or in a group of a dozen young +men. One represents logic; the other, history: one stands +for dialectics; the other for evolution. Truth is the main +object of the former, and feasibility of the latter. There +is no question of choice between them: thought is harder +to tame than any passion and pulls with irresistible force. +Some may be able to put on the drag and stop themselves +by means of feeling or dreams or fear of consequences; +but not all can do this. If thought once masters a man, he +ceases to discuss whether the thing is practicable, and +whether the enterprise is hard or easy: he seeks truth +alone and carries out his principles with inexorable impartiality, +as the Saint-Simonians did in their day and as +Proudhon<a id='r58' /><a href='#f58' class='c016'><sup>[58]</sup></a> does still.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f58'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. </span>Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-1863), a French publicist +and socialist.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Our group grew smaller and smaller. As early as 1833, +the “liberals” looked askance at us as backsliders. Just +before we were imprisoned, Saint-Simonianism raised a +barrier between me and Polevói. He had an extraordinarily +active and adroit mind, which could rapidly assimilate +any food; he was a born journalist, the very man to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>chronicle successes and discoveries and the battles of +politicians or men of science. I made his acquaintance +towards the end of my college course and saw a good +deal of him and his brother, Xenophon. He was then at +the height of his reputation; it was shortly before the +suppression of his newspaper, the <i>Telegraph</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To Polevói the latest discovery, the freshest novelty +either of incident or theory, was the breath of his nostrils, +and he was changeable as a chameleon. Yet, for all his +lively intelligence, he could never understand the Saint-Simonian +doctrine. What was to us a revelation was to +him insanity, a mere Utopia and a hindrance to social progress. +I might declaim and expound and argue as much +as I pleased—Polevói was deaf, grew angry and even +bitter. He especially resented opposition on the part of +a student; for he valued his influence over the young, +and these disputes showed him that it was slipping out +of his grasp.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One day I was hurt by the absurdity of his criticisms +and told him that he was just as benighted as the foes +against whom he had been fighting all his life. Stung to +the quick by my taunt he said, “Your time will come +too, when, in recompense for a lifetime of labour and +effort, some young man with a smile on his face will call +you a back number and bid you get out of his way.” I +felt sorry for him and ashamed of having hurt his feelings; +and yet I felt also that this complaint, more suitable +to a worn-out gladiator than a tough fighter, contained +his own condemnation. I was sure then that he would +never go forward, and also that his active mind would +prevent him from remaining where he was, in a position +of unstable equilibrium.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>His subsequent history is well known: he wrote <i>Parasha, +the Siberian Girl</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If a man cannot pass off the stage when his hour has +struck and cannot adopt a new rôle, he had better die. +That is what I felt when I looked at Polevói, and at Pius +the Ninth, and at how many others!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3> + +<p class='c018'>To complete my chronicle of that sad time, I should record +here some details about Polezháev.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Even at College he became known for his remarkable +powers as a poet. One of his productions was a humorous +poem called <i>Sashka</i>, a parody of Púshkin’s <i>Onégin</i>; he +trod on many corns in the pretty and playful verse, and +the poem, never intended for print, allowed itself the +fullest liberty of expression.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the Tsar Nicholas came to Moscow for his coronation +in the autumn of 1826, the secret police furnished +him with a copy of the poem.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So, at three one morning, Polezháev was wakened by +the Vice-Chancellor and told to put on his uniform and +appear at the office. The Visitor of the University was +waiting for him there: he looked to see that Polezháev’s +uniform had no button missing and no button too many, +and then carried him off in his own carriage, without +offering any explanation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They drove to the house of the Minister of Education. +The Minister of Education also gave Polezháev a seat +in his carriage, and this time they drove to the Palace +itself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Prince Liven proceeded to an inner room, leaving +Polezháev in a reception room, where, in spite of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>early hour—it was 6 a.m.—several courtiers and other +high functionaries were waiting. They supposed that the +young man had distinguished himself in some way and +began a conversation with him at once; one of them proposed +to engage him as tutor to his son.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was soon sent for. The Tsar was standing, leaning +on a desk and talking to Liven. He held a manuscript in +his hand and darted an enquiring glance at Polezháev as +he entered the room. “Did you write these verses?” he +asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” said Polezháev.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, Prince,” the Tsar went on, “I shall give you a +specimen of University education; I shall show you what +the young men learn there.” Then he turned to Polezháev +and added, “Read this manuscript aloud.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Polezháev’s agitation was such that he could not read +it; and he said so.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Read it at once!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The loud voice restored his strength to Polezháev, and +he opened the manuscript. He said afterwards that he +had never seen <i>Sashka</i> so well copied or on such fine +paper.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At first he read with difficulty, but by degrees he took +courage and read the poem to the end in a loud lively +tone. At the most risky passages the Tsar waved his hand +to the Minister and the Minister closed his eyes in horror.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What do you say, Prince?” asked Nicholas, when the +reading was over. “I mean to put a stop to this profligacy. +These are surviving relics of the old mischief,<a id='r59' /><a href='#f59' class='c016'><sup>[59]</sup></a> but I shall +root them out. What character does he bear?”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f59'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, the Decembrist conspiracy.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Of course the Minister knew nothing about his character; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>but some humane instinct awoke in him, and he +said, “He bears an excellent character, Your Majesty.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You may be grateful for that testimony. But you must +be punished as an example to others. Do you wish to enter +the Army?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Polezháev was silent.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I offer you this means of purification. Will you take +it?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I must obey when you command,” said Polezháev. +The Tsar came close up to him and laid a hand on his +shoulder. He said: “Your fate depends upon yourself. +If I forget about you, you may write to me.” Then he +kissed Polezháev on the forehead.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This last detail seemed to me so improbable that I made +Polezháev repeat it a dozen times; he swore that it was +true.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From the presence of the Tsar, Polezháev was taken +to Count Diebitch, who had rooms in the Palace. Diebitch +was roused out of his sleep and came in yawning. He +read through the document and asked the <i>aide-de-camp</i>, +“Is this the man?” “Yes,” was the reply.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, good luck to you in the service! I was in it +myself and worked my way up, as you see; perhaps you +will be a field-marshal yourself some day.” That was +Diebitch’s kiss—a stupid, ill-timed, German joke. Polezháev +was taken to camp and made to serve with the colours.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When three years had passed, Polezháev recalled what +the Tsar had said and wrote him a letter. No answer +came. After a few months he wrote again with the same +result. Feeling sure that his letters were not delivered, he +deserted, his object being to present a petition in person. +But he behaved foolishly: he hunted up some college +<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>friends in Moscow and was entertained by them, and of +course further secrecy was impossible. He was arrested +at Tver and sent back to his regiment as a deserter; he +had to march all the way in fetters. A court-martial sentenced +him to run the gauntlet, and the sentence was forwarded +to the Tsar for confirmation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Polezháev determined to commit suicide before the +time of his punishment. For long he searched in the prison +for some sharp instrument, and at last he confided in an +old soldier who was attached to him. The soldier understood +and sympathised with his wish; and when he heard +that the reply had come, he brought a bayonet and said +with tears in his eyes as he gave it to Polezháev, “I sharpened +it with my own hands.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But the Tsar ordered that Polezháev should not be +flogged.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was at this time that he wrote that excellent poem +which begins—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c022'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“No consolation</div> + <div class='line in1'>Came when I fell;</div> + <div class='line in1'>In jubilation</div> + <div class='line in1'>Laughed fiends of Hell.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>He was sent to the Caucasus, where he distinguished +himself and was promoted corporal. Years passed, and +the tedium and hopelessness of his position were too much +for him. For him it was impossible to become a poet at +the service of the police, and that was the only way to +get rid of the knapsack.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was, indeed, one other way, and he preferred it: +he drank, in order to forget. There is one terrible poem +of his—<i>To Whiskey</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>He got himself transferred to a regiment of carabineers +quartered at Moscow. This was a material improvement +in his circumstances, but cruel consumption had already +fastened on his lungs. It was at this time I made his acquaintance, +about 1833. He dragged on for four years +more and died in the military hospital.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When one of his friends went to ask for the body, to +bury it, no one knew where it was. The military hospital +carries on a trade in dead bodies, selling them to the +University and medical schools, manufacturing skeletons, +and so on. Polezháev’s body was found at last in a cellar; +there were other corpses on the top of it, and the rats had +gnawed one of the feet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His poems were published after his death, and it was +intended to add a portrait of him in his private’s uniform. +But the censor objected to this, and the unhappy victim +appears with the epaulettes of an officer—he was promoted +while in the hospital.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span><span class='large'>PART II</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='large'>PRISON AND EXILE</span></div> + <div class='c000'><span class='large'>(1834-1838)</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>A Prophecy—Ogaryóv’s Arrest—The Fires—A Moscow Liberal—Mihail +Orlóv—The Churchyard.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ONE morning in the spring of 1834 I went to +Vadim’s house. Though neither he nor any of +his brothers or sisters were at home, I went upstairs +to his little room, sat down, and began to write.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The door opened softly, and Vadim’s mother came in. +Her tread was scarcely audible; looking tired and ill, she +went to an armchair and sat down. “Go on writing,” she +said; “I just looked in to see if Vadya had come home. +The children have gone out for a walk, and the downstairs +rooms are so empty and depressing that I felt sad and +frightened. I shall sit here for a little, but don’t let me +interfere with what you are doing.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She looked thoughtful, and her face showed more clearly +than usual the shadow of past suffering, and that suspicious +fear of the future and distrust of life which is the +invariable result of great calamities when they last long +and are often repeated.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We began to talk. She told me something of their life +in Siberia. “I have come through much already,” she said, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>shaking her head, “and there is more to come: my heart +forebodes evil.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I remembered how, sometimes, when listening to our +free talk on political subjects, she would turn pale and +heave a gentle sigh; and then she would go away to another +room and remain silent for a long time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You and your friends,” she went on, “are on the road +that leads to certain ruin—ruin to Vadya and yourself +and all of you. You know I love you like a son”—and a +tear rolled down her worn face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I said nothing. She took my hand, tried to smile, and +went on: “Don’t be vexed with me; my nerves are upset. +I quite understand. You must go your own way; for you +there is no other; if there were, you would be different +people. I know this, but I cannot conquer my fears; I +have borne so much misfortune that I have no strength +for more. Please don’t say a word of this to Vadya, or he +will be vexed and argue with me. But here he is!”—and +she hastily wiped away her tears and once more begged +me by a look to keep her secret.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Unhappy mother! Saint and heroine! Corneille’s <i>qu’il +mourût</i><a id='r60' /><a href='#f60' class='c016'><sup>[60]</sup></a> was not a nobler utterance than yours.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f60'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. </span>Said of his son by the father in Corneille’s play, +<i>Horace</i>.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Her prophecy was soon fulfilled. Though the storm +passed harmless this time over the heads of her sons, yet +the poor lady had much grief and fear to suffer.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>“Arrested him?” I called out, springing out of bed, and +pinching myself, to find out if I was asleep or awake.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Two hours after you left our house, the police and a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>party of Cossacks came and arrested my master and +seized his papers.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The speaker was Ogaryóv’s valet. Of late all had been +quiet, and I could not imagine what pretext the police had +invented. Ogaryóv had only come to Moscow the day before. +And why had they arrested him, and not me?</p> + +<p class='c008'>To do nothing was impossible. I dressed and went out +without any definite purpose. It was my first experience +of misfortune. I felt wretched and furious at my own +impotence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I wandered about the streets till at last I thought of +a friend whose social position made it possible for him +to learn the state of the case, and, perhaps, to mend matters. +But he was then living terribly far off, at a house in +a distant suburb. I called the first cab I saw and hurried +off at top speed. It was then seven o’clock in the morning.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Eighteen months before this time we had made the acquaintance +of this man, who was a kind of a celebrity +in Moscow. Educated in Paris, he was rich, intelligent, +well-informed, witty, and independent in his ideas. For +complicity in the Decembrist plot he had been imprisoned +in a fortress till he and some others were released; and +though he had not been exiled, he wore a halo. He was in +the public service and had great influence with Prince +Dmitri Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, who liked +people with independent views, especially if they could +express them in good French; for the Governor was not +strong in Russian.</p> + +<p class='c008'>V.—as I shall call him—was ten years our senior and +surprised us by his sensible comments on current events, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>his knowledge of political affairs, his eloquent French, +and the ardour of his liberalism. He knew so much and +so thoroughly; he was so pleasant and easy in conversation; +his views were so clearly defined; he had a reply +to every question and a solution of every problem. He +read everything—new novels, pamphlets, newspapers, +poetry, and was working seriously at zoology as well; he +drew up reports for the Governor and was organising a +series of school-books.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His liberalism was of the purest tricolour hue, the liberalism +of the Left, midway between Mauguin and General +Lamarque.<a id='r61' /><a href='#f61' class='c016'><sup>[61]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f61'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. </span>French politicians prominent about 1830.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The walls of his study in Moscow were covered with +portraits of famous revolutionaries, from John Hampden +and Bailly to Fieschi and Armand Carrel,<a id='r62' /><a href='#f62' class='c016'><sup>[62]</sup></a> and a whole +library of prohibited books was ranged beneath these +patron saints. A skeleton, with a few stuffed birds and +scientific preparations, gave an air of study and concentration +to the room and toned down its revolutionary +appearance.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f62'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. </span>Bailly, Mayor of Paris, was guillotined in 1793. Fieschi +was executed in 1836 for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe. +Armand Carrel was a French publicist and journalist who fell in a duel +in 1836.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>We envied his experience and knowledge of the world; +his subtle irony in argument impressed us greatly. We +thought of him as a practical reformer and rising statesman.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>V. was not at home. He had gone to Moscow the evening +before, for an interview with the Governor; his valet +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>said that he would certainly return within two hours. I +waited for him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The country-house which he occupied was charming. +The study where I waited was a high spacious room on +the ground-floor, with a large door leading to a terrace +and garden. It was a hot day; the scent of trees and +flowers came from the garden; and some children were +playing in front of the house and laughing loudly. Wealth, +ease, space, sun and shade, flowers and verdure—what +a contrast to the confinement and close air and darkness +of a prison! I don’t know how long I sat there, absorbed +in bitter thoughts; but suddenly the valet who was on +the terrace called out to me with an odd kind of excitement.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What is it?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Please come here and look.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Not wishing to annoy the man, I walked out to the +terrace, and stood still in horror. All round a number of +houses were burning; it seemed as if they had all caught +fire at once. The fire was spreading with incredible speed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I stayed on the terrace. The man watched the fire with +a kind of uneasy satisfaction, and he said, “It’s spreading +grandly; that house on the right is certain to be +burnt.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There is something revolutionary about a fire: fire +mocks at property and equalises fortunes. The valet felt +this instinctively.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Within half an hour, a whole quarter of the sky was +covered with smoke, red below and greyish black above. +It was the beginning of those fires which went on for five +months, and of which we shall hear more in the sequel.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At last V. arrived. He was in good spirits, very cordial +<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>and friendly, talking of the fires past which he had come +and of the common report that they were due to arson. +Then he added, half in jest: “It’s Pugatchóv<a id='r63' /><a href='#f63' class='c016'><sup>[63]</sup></a> over again. +Just look out, or you and I will be caught by the rebels +and impaled.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f63'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. </span>The leader of a famous rebellion in Catherine’s reign. +Many nobles were murdered with brutal cruelty.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>“I am more afraid that the authorities will lay us by +the heels,” I answered. “Do you know that Ogaryóv was +arrested last night by the police?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The police! Good heavens!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That is why I came. Something must be done. You +must go to the Governor and find out what the charge is; +and you must ask leave for me to see him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>No answer came, and I looked at V. I saw a face that +might have belonged to his elder brother—the pleasant +colour and features were changed; he groaned aloud and +was obviously disturbed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What’s the matter?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You know I told you, I always told you, how it would +end. Yes, yes, it was bound to happen. It’s likely enough +they will shut me up too, though I am perfectly innocent. +I know what the inside of a fortress is like, and it’s no +joke, I can tell you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Will you go to the Governor?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear fellow, what good would it do? Let me give +you a piece of friendly advice: don’t say a word about +Ogaryóv; keep as quiet as you can, or harm will come of +it. You don’t know how dangerous affairs like this are. +I frankly advise you to keep out of it. Make what stir +you like, you will do Ogaryóv no good and you will get +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>caught yourself. That is what autocracy means—Russian +subjects have no rights and no means of defence, no advocates +and no judges.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But his brave words and trenchant criticisms had no +attractions for me on this occasion: I took my hat and +departed.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I found a general commotion going on at home. My +father was angry with me because Ogaryóv had been arrested; +my uncle, the Senator, was already on the scene, +rummaging among my books and picking out those which +he thought dangerous; he was very uneasy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>On my table I found an invitation to dine that day with +Count Orlóv. Possibly he might be able to do something? +Though I had learned a lesson by my first experiment, +it could do no harm to try.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mihail Orlóv was one of the founders of the famous +Society of Welfare;<a id='r64' /><a href='#f64' class='c016'><sup>[64]</sup></a> and if he missed Siberia, he was +less to blame for that than his brother, who was the first +to gallop up with his squadron of the Guards to the defence +of the Winter Palace, on December 14, 1825. Orlóv +was confined at first to his own estates, and allowed to +settle in Moscow a few years later. During his solitary +life in the country he studied political economy and chemistry. +The first time I met him he spoke of a new method +of naming chemical compounds. Able men who take up +some science late in life often show a tendency to rearrange +the furniture, so to speak, to suit their own ideas. +Orlóv’s system was more complicated than the French +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>system, which is generally accepted. As I wished to attract +his attention, I argued in a friendly way that, though his +system was good, it was not as good as the old one.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f64'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. </span>An imitation of the <i>Tugenbund</i> formed by German +students in 1808. In Russia the society became identified with the +Decembrists.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>He contested the point, but ended by agreeing with +me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My little trick was successful, and we became intimate. +He saw in me a rising possibility, and I saw in him a man +who had fought for our ideals, an intimate friend of our +heroes, and a shining light amid surrounding darkness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Poor Orlóv was like a caged lion. He beat against the +bars of his cage at every turn; nowhere could he find +elbow-room or occupation, and he was devoured by a +passion for activity.</p> + +<p class='c008'>More than once since the collapse of France<a id='r65' /><a href='#f65' class='c016'><sup>[65]</sup></a> I have +met men of this type, men to whom political activity was +an absolute necessity, who never could find rest within +the four walls of their study or in family life. To them +solitude is intolerable: it makes them fanciful and unreasonable; +they quarrel with their few remaining friends, +and are constantly discovering plots against themselves, +or else they make plots of their own, in order to unmask +the imaginary schemes of their enemies.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f65'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, after December 2, 1851.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>A theatre of action and spectators are as vital to these +men as the air they breathe, and they are capable of real +heroism under such conditions. Noise and publicity are +essential to them; they must be making speeches and +hearing the objections of their opponents; they love the +excitement of contest and the fever of danger, and, if +deprived of these stimulants, they grow depressed and +spiritless, run to seed, lose their heads, and make mistakes. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>Ledru-Roilin<a id='r66' /><a href='#f66' class='c016'><sup>[66]</sup></a> is a man of this type; and he, by the +way, especially since he has grown a beard, has a personal +resemblance to Orlóv.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f66'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. </span>Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (1807-1874), a French liberal +politician and advocate of universal suffrage.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Orlóv was a very fine-looking man. His tall figure, dignified +bearing, handsome manly features, and entirely bald +scalp seemed to suit one another perfectly, and lent an +irresistible attraction to his outward appearance. His head +would make a good contrast with the head of General +Yermólov, that tough old warrior, whose square frowning +forehead, penthouse of grey hair, and penetrating glance +gave him the kind of beauty which fascinated Marya +Kochubéi in the poem.<a id='r67' /><a href='#f67' class='c016'><sup>[67]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f67'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. </span>See Púshkin’s <i>Poltáva</i>. Marya, who was young and +beautiful, fell in love with Mazeppa, who was old and war-worn and her +father’s enemy.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Orlóv was at his wits’ end for occupation. He started +a factory for stained-glass windows of medieval patterns +and spent more in producing them than he got by selling +them. Then he tried to write a book on “Credit,” but that +proved uncongenial, though it was his only outlet. The +lion was condemned to saunter about Moscow with +nothing to do, and not daring even to use his tongue +freely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Orlóv’s struggles to turn himself into a philosopher and +man of science were most painful to watch. His intellect, +though clear and showy, was not at all suited to abstract +thought, and he confused himself over the application of +newly devised methods to familiar subjects, as in the case +of chemistry. Though speculation was decidedly not his +forte, he studied metaphysics with immense perseverance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Being imprudent and careless in his talk, he was constantly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>making slips; he was carried away by his instincts, +which were always chivalrous and generous, and then he +suddenly remembered his position and checked himself +in mid-course. In these diplomatic withdrawals he was +even less successful than in metaphysics or scientific terminology: +in trying to clear himself of one indiscretion, +he often slipped into two or three more. He got blamed +for this; people are so superficial and unobservant that +they think more of words than actions, and attach more +importance to particular mistakes than to a man’s general +character. It was unfair to expect of him a high standard +of consistency; he was less to blame than the sphere in +which he lived, where every honourable feeling had to +be hidden, like smuggled goods, up your sleeve, and +uttered behind closed doors. If you spoke above your +breath, you would spend the whole day in wondering +whether the police would soon be down upon you.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>It was a large dinner. I happened to sit next General +Raevski, Orlóv’s brother-in-law. Raevski also had been +in disgrace since the famous fourteenth of December. As +a boy of fourteen he had served under his distinguished +father at the battle of Borodino; and he died eventually +of wounds received in the Caucasus. I told him about +Ogaryóv and asked whether Orlóv would be able and willing +to take any steps.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Raevski’s face clouded over, but it did not express that +querulous anxiety for personal safety which I had seen +earlier in the day; he evidently felt disgust mixed with +bitter memories.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of willingness there can be no question in such a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>case,” he said; “but I doubt if Orlóv has the power to +do much. Pass through to the study after dinner, and I +will bring him to you there.” He was silent for a moment +and then added, “So your turn has come too; those depths +will drown you all.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Orlóv questioned me and then wrote to the Governor, +asking for an interview. “The Prince is a gentleman,” he +said; “if he does nothing, at least he will tell us the truth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I went next day to hear the answer. Prince Dmitri +Golitsyn had replied that Ogaryóv had been arrested by +order of the Tsar, that a commission of enquiry had been +appointed, and that the charge turned chiefly on a dinner +given on June 24, at which seditious songs had been sung. +I was utterly puzzled. That day was my father’s birthday; +I had spent the whole day at home, and Ogaryóv was +there too.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My heart was heavy when I left Orlóv. He too was +unhappy: when I held out my hand at parting, he got up +and embraced me, pressed me tight to his broad chest +and kissed me. It was just as if he felt that we should not +soon meet again.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I only saw him once more, just six years later. He was +then near death; I was struck by the signs of illness and +depression on his face, and the marked angularity of his +features was a shock to me. He felt that he was breaking +up, and knew that his affairs were in hopeless disorder. +Two months later he died, of a clot of blood in the arteries.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At Lucerne there is a wonderful monument carved by +Thorwaldsen in the natural rock—a niche containing the +figure of a dying lion. The great beast is mortally +<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>wounded; blood is pouring from the wound, and a broken +arrow sticks up out of it The grand head rests on the +paw; the animal moans and his look expresses agony. +That is all; the place is shut off by hills and trees and +bushes; passers-by would never guess that the king of +beasts lies there dying.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I sat there one day for a long time and looked at this +image of suffering, and all at once I remembered my last +visit to Orlóv.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>As I drove home from Orlóv’s house, I passed the office +of General Tsinski, chief of the police; and it occurred to +me to make a direct application to him for leave to see +Ogaryóv.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Never in my life had I paid a visit to any person connected +with the police. I had to wait a long time; but at +last the Chief Commissioner appeared. My request surprised +him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What reason have you for asking this permission?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ogaryóv and I are cousins.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Cousins?” he asked, looking me straight in the face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I said nothing, but returned His Excellency’s look +exactly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I can’t give you leave,” he said; “your kinsman is in +solitary confinement. I am very sorry.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My ignorance and helplessness were torture to me. +Hardly any of my intimate friends were in Moscow; it +was quite impossible to find out anything. The police +seemed to have forgotten me or to ignore me. I was utterly +weary and wretched. But when all the sky was covered +with gloomy clouds and the long night of exile and prison +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>was coming close, just then a radiant sunbeam fell upon +me.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>A few words of deep sympathy, spoken by a girl<a id='r68' /><a href='#f68' class='c016'><sup>[68]</sup></a> of +sixteen, whom I regarded as a child, put new life in me.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f68'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. </span>This was Natálya Zakhárin, Herzen’s cousin, who +afterwards became his wife.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>This is the first time that a woman figures in my narrative; +and it is practically true that only one woman figures +in my life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My young heart had been set beating before by fleeting +fancies of youth; but these vanished like the shapes +of cloudland before this figure, and no new fancies ever +came.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our meeting was in a churchyard. She leant on a grave-stone +and spoke of Ogaryóv, till my sorrow grew calm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We shall meet to-morrow,” she said, and gave me her +hand, smiling through her tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“To-morrow,” I repeated, and looked long after her +retreating figure.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The date was July 19, 1834.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>Arrest—The Independent Witness—A Police-Station—Patriarchal Justice.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>“WE shall meet to-morrow,” I repeated to myself +as I was falling asleep, and my heart +felt unusually light and happy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At two in the morning I was wakened by my father’s +valet; he was only half-dressed and looked frightened.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“An officer is asking for you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What officer?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I do,” I said, as I threw on my dressing-gown. +A figure wrapped in a military cloak was standing at the +drawing-room door; I could see a white plume from my +window, and there were some people behind it—I could +make out a Cossack helmet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our visitor was Miller, an officer of police. He told me +that he bore a warrant from the military Governor of +Moscow to examine my papers. Candles were brought. +Miller took my keys, and while his subordinates rummaged +among my books and shirts, attended to the papers +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>himself. He put them all aside as suspicious; then he +turned suddenly to me and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I beg you will dress meanwhile; you will have to go +with me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Where to?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“To the police-station of the district,” he said, in a +reassuring voice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And then?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There are no further orders in the Governor’s warrant.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I began to dress.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Meanwhile my mother had been awakened by the terrified +servants, and came in haste from her bedroom to see +me. When she was stopped half-way by a Cossack, she +screamed; I started at the sound and ran to her. The +officer came with us, leaving the papers behind him. He +apologised to my mother and let her pass; then he scolded +the Cossack, who was not really to blame, and went back +to the papers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My father now appeared on the scene. He was pale +but tried to keep up his air of indifference. The scene +became trying: while my mother wept in a corner, my +father talked to the officer on ordinary topics, but his +voice shook. I feared that if this went on it would prove +too much for me, and I did not wish that the under-strappers +of the police should have the satisfaction of +seeing me shed tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I twitched the officer’s sleeve and said we had better +be off.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He welcomed the suggestion. My father then left the +room, but returned immediately; he was carrying a little +sacred picture, which he placed round my neck, saying +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>that his father on his deathbed had blessed him with it. +I was touched: the nature of this gift proved to me how +great was the fear and anxiety that filled the old man’s +heart. I knelt down for him to put it on; he raised me +to my feet, embraced me, and gave me his blessing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a representation on enamel of the head of John +the Baptist on the charger. Whether it was meant for an +example, a warning, or a prophecy, I don’t know, but it +struck me as somehow significant.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My mother was almost fainting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was escorted down the stairs by all the household +servants, weeping and struggling to kiss my face and +hands; it might have been my own funeral with me to +watch it. The officer frowned and hurried on the proceedings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Once outside the gate, he collected his forces—four +Cossacks and four policemen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a bearded man sitting outside the gate, who +asked the officer if he might now go home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Be off!” said Miller.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who is that?” I asked, as I took my seat in the cab.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He is a witness: you know that the police must take +a witness with them when they make an entrance into a +private house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Is that why you left him outside?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A mere formality,” said Miller; “it’s only keeping the +man out of his bed for nothing.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our cab started, escorted by two mounted Cossacks.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>There was no private room for me at the police-station, +and the officer directed that I should spend the rest of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>the night in the office. He took me there himself; dropping +into an armchair and yawning wearily, he said: “It’s a +dog’s life. I’ve been up since three, and now your business +has kept me till near four in the morning, and at nine I +have to present my report.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good-bye,” he said a moment later and left the room. +A corporal locked me in, and said that I might knock at +the door if I needed anything.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I opened the window: day was beginning and the morning +breeze was stirring. I asked the corporal for water +and drank a whole jugful. Of sleep I never even thought. +For one thing, there was no place to lie down; the room +contained no furniture except some dirty leather-covered +chairs, one armchair, and two tables of different sizes, +both covered with a litter of papers. There was a night-light, +too feeble to light up the room, which threw a +flickering white patch on the ceiling; and I watched the +patch grow paler and paler as the dawn came on.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I sat down in the magistrate’s seat and took up the +paper nearest me on the table—a permit to bury a servant +of Prince Gagárin’s and a medical certificate to prove +that the man had died according to all the rules of the +medical art. I picked up another—some police regulations. +I ran through it and found an article to this effect: +“Every prisoner has a right to learn the cause of his +arrest or to be discharged within three days.” I made a +mental note of this item.</p> + +<p class='c008'>An hour later I saw from the window the arrival of +our butler with a cushion, coverlet, and cloak for me. He +made some request to the corporal, probably for leave to +visit me; he was a grey-haired old man, to several of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>whose children I had stood godfather while a child myself; +the corporal gave a rough and sharp refusal. One of +our coachmen was there too, and I hailed them from the +window. The soldier, in a fuss, ordered them to be off. +The old man bowed low to me and shed tears; and the +coachman, as he whipped up his horse, took off his hat +and rubbed his eyes. When the carriage started, I could +bear it no more: the tears came in a flood, and they were +the first and last tears I shed during my imprisonment.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Towards morning the office began to fill up. The first +to appear was a clerk, who had evidently been drunk the +night before and was not sober yet. He had red hair and +a pimpled face, a consumptive look, and an expression of +brutish sensuality; he wore a long, brick-coloured coat, +ill-made, ill-brushed, and shiny with age. The next comer +was a free-and-easy gentleman, wearing the cloak of a non-commissioned +officer. He turned to me at once and asked:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“They got you at the theatre, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No; I was arrested at home.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“By Fyodor Ivanovitch?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who is Fyodor Ivanovitch?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why, Colonel Miller.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, it was he.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, I understand, Sir”—and he winked to the red-haired +man, who showed not the slightest interest. The +other did not continue the conversation; seeing that I +was not charged as drunk and disorderly, he thought me +unworthy of further attention; or perhaps he was afraid +to converse with a political prisoner.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>A little later, several policemen appeared, rubbing their +eyes and only half awake; and finally the petitioners and +suitors.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A woman who kept a disorderly house made a complaint +against a publican. He had abused her publicly in +his shop, using language which she, as a woman, could not +venture to repeat before a magistrate. The publican swore +he had never used such language; the woman swore that +he had used it repeatedly and very loudly, and she added +that he had raised his hand against her and would have +laid her face open, had she not ducked her head. The +shopman said, first, that she owed him money, and, secondly, +that she had insulted him in his own shop, nay +more, had threatened to kill him by the hands of her +bullies.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was a tall, slatternly woman with swollen eyes; her +voice was piercingly loud and high, and she had an extraordinary +flow of language. The shopman relied more on +gesture and pantomime than on his eloquence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the absence of the judge, one of the policemen proved +to be a second Solomon. He abused both parties in fine +style. “You’re too well off,” he said; “that’s what’s the +matter with you; why can’t you stop at home and keep +the peace, and be thankful to us for letting you alone? +What fools you are! Because you have had a few words +you must run at once before His Worship and trouble +him! How dare you give yourself airs, my good woman, +as if you had never been abused before? Why your very +trade can’t be named in decent language!” Here the shopman +showed the heartiest approval by his gestures; but +his turn came next. “And you, how dare you stand there +in your shop and bark like an angry dog? Do you want to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>be locked up? You use foul language, and raise your fist +as well; it’s a sound thrashing you want.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This scene had the charm of novelty for me; it was +the first specimen I had seen of patriarchal justice as administered +in Russia, and I have never forgotten it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The pair went on shouting till the magistrate came in. +Without even asking their business, he shouted them down +at once. “Get out of this! Do you take this place for a +bad house or a gin-shop?” When he had driven out the +offenders, he turned on the policeman: “I wonder you are +not ashamed to permit such disorder. I have told you +again and again. People lose all respect for the place; it +will soon be a regular bear-garden for the mob; you are +too easy with them.” Then he looked at me and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who is that?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A prisoner whom Fyodor Ivanovitch brought in,” +answered the policeman; “there is a paper about him +somewhere, Sir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The magistrate ran through the paper and then glanced +at me. As I kept my eyes fixed on him, ready to retort +the instant he spoke, he was put out and said, “I beg your +pardon.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But now the business began again between the publican +and his enemy. The woman wished to take an oath, and +a priest was summoned; I believe both parties were sworn, +and there was no prospect of a conclusion. At this point +I was taken in a carriage to the Chief Commissioner’s +office—I am sure I don’t know why, for no one spoke a +word to me there—and then brought back to the police-station, +where a room right under the belfry was prepared +for my occupation. The corporal observed that if +I wanted food I must send out for it: the prison ration +<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>would not be issued for a day or two; and besides, as it +only amounted to three or four <i>kopecks</i> a day, a gentleman +“under a cloud” did not usually take it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Along the wall of my room there was a sofa with a +dirty cover. It was past midday and I was terribly weary. +I threw myself on the sofa and fell fast asleep. When I +woke, I felt quite easy and cheerful. Of late I had been +tormented by my ignorance of Ogaryóv’s fate; now, my +own turn had come, the black cloud was right overhead, +I was in the thick of the danger, instead of watching it in +the distance. I felt that this first prosecution would serve +us as a consecration for our mission.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>Under the Belfry—A Travelled Policeman—The Incendiaries.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>A MAN soon gets used to prison, if he has any interior +life at all. One quickly gets accustomed +to the silence and complete freedom of one’s cage—there +are no cares and no distractions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They refused me books at first, and the police-magistrate +declared that it was against the rules for me to get +books from home. I then proposed to buy some. “I suppose +you mean some serious book—a grammar of some +kind, I dare say? Well, I should not object to that; for +other books, higher authority must be obtained.” Though +the suggestion that I should study grammar to relieve +boredom was exceedingly comic, yet I caught at it eagerly +and asked him to buy me an Italian grammar and dictionary. +I had two ten-<i>rouble</i> notes on me, and I gave him +one. He sent at once to buy the books, and despatched +by the same messenger a letter to the Chief Commissioner, +in which, taking my stand on the article I had read, I +asked him to explain the cause of my arrest or to release +me.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>The magistrate, in whose presence I wrote the letter, +urged me not to send it. “It’s no good, I swear it’s no good +your bothering His Excellency. They don’t like people +who give them trouble. It can’t result in anything, and it +may hurt you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A policeman turned up in the evening with a reply: +His Excellency sent me a verbal message, to the effect +that I should learn in good time why I was arrested. The +messenger then produced a greasy Italian grammar from +his pocket, and added with a smile, “By good luck it +happens that there is a vocabulary here; so you need not +buy one.” The question of change out of my note was not +alluded to. I was inclined to write again to His Excellency; +but to play the part of a little Hampden seemed to me +rather too absurd in my present quarters.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I had been in prison ten days, when a short policeman +with a swarthy, pock-marked face came to my room at +ten in the evening, bringing an order that I was to dress +and present myself before the Commission of Enquiry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While I was dressing, a serio-comic incident occurred. +My dinner was sent me every day from home; our +servant delivered it to the corporal on duty, and he sent +a private upstairs with it. A bottle of wine from outside +was allowed daily, and a friend had taken advantage of +this permission to send me a bottle of excellent hock. The +private and I contrived to uncork the bottle with a couple +of nails; the bouquet of the wine was perceptible at a +distance, and I looked forward to the pleasure of drinking +it for some days to come.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>There is nothing like prison life for revealing the childishness +in a grown man and the consolation he finds in +trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick played on a turnkey.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Well, the pock-marked policeman found out my bottle, +and, turning to me, asked if he might have a taste. Though +I was vexed, I said I should be very glad. I had no glass. +The wretch took a cup, filled it to the very brim, and +emptied it into himself without drawing breath. No one +but a Russian or a Pole can pour down strong drink in +this fashion: I have never in any part of Europe seen a +glass or cup of spirits disposed of with equal rapidity. +To add to my sorrow at the loss of this cupful, my friend +wiped his lips with a blue tobacco-stained handkerchief, +and said as he thanked me, “Something like Madeira, +<i>that</i> is!” I hated the sight of him and felt a cruel joy that +his parents had not vaccinated him and nature had not +spared him the small-pox.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>This judge of wine went with me to the Chief Commissioner’s +house on the Tver Boulevard, where he took me +to a side room and left me alone. Half an hour later, a +fat man with a lazy, good-natured expression came in, +carrying papers in a wallet; he threw the wallet on a +chair and sent the policeman who was standing at the +door off on some errand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose,” he said to me, “you are mixed up in the +affair of Ogaryóv and the other young men who were +lately arrested.” I admitted it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’ve heard about it casually,” he went on; “a queer +business! I can’t understand it at all.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“Well, I’ve been in prison a fortnight because of it, and +not only do I not understand it, but I know nothing about +it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s right!” said the man, looking at me attentively. +“Continue to know nothing about it! Excuse me, if I give +you a piece of advice. You are young, and your blood is +still hot, and you want to be talking; but it’s a mistake. +Just you remember that you know nothing about it. +Nothing else can save you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I looked at him in surprise; but his expression did not +suggest anything base. He guessed my thoughts and said +with a smile:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I was a student at Moscow University myself twelve +years ago.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A clerk of some kind now came in. The fat man, who +was evidently his superior, gave him some directions and +then left the room, after pressing a finger to his lips with +a friendly nod to me. I never met him again and don’t +know now who he was; but experience proved to me that +his advice was well meant.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My next visitor was a police-officer, not Colonel Miller +this time. He summoned me to a large, rather fine room +where five men were sitting at a table, all wearing military +uniform except one who was old and decrepit. They were +smoking cigars and carrying on a lively conversation, lying +back in their chairs with their jackets unbuttoned. The +Chief Commissioner, Tsinski, was in the chair.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I came in, he turned to a figure sitting modestly +in a corner of the room and said, “May I trouble Your +Reverence?” Then I made out that the figure in the corner +<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>was an old priest with a white beard and a mottled face. +The old man was drowsy and wanted to go home; he was +thinking of something else and yawning with his hand +before his face. In a slow and rather sing-song voice he +began to admonish me: he said it was sinful to conceal +the truth from persons appointed by the Tsar, and useless, +because the ear of God hears the unspoken word; he +did not fail to quote the inevitable texts—that all power +is from God, and that we must render to Caesar the things +that are Caesar’s. Finally, he bade me kiss the Holy +Gospel and the True Cross in confirmation of a vow +(which however I did not take and he did not ask) to +reveal the whole truth frankly and openly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When he had done, he began hastily to wrap up the +Gospel and the Cross; and the President, barely rising in +his seat, told him he might go. Then he turned to me and +translated the priest’s address into the language of this +world. “One thing I shall add to what the priest has said—it +is impossible for you to conceal the truth even if you +wish to.” He pointed to piles of papers, letters, and portraits, +scattered on purpose over the table: “Frank confession +alone can improve your position; it depends on +yourself, whether you go free or are sent to the Caucasus.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Questions were then submitted in writing, some of them +amusingly simple—“Do you know of the existence of +any secret society? Do you belong to any society, learned +or otherwise? Who are its members? Where do they +meet?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>To all this it was perfectly simple to answer “No” and +nothing else.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I see you know nothing,” said the President, reading +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>over the answers; “I warned you beforehand that you will +complicate your situation.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And that was the end of the first examination.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Eight years later a lady, who had once been beautiful, +and her beautiful daughter, were living in a different part +of this very house where the Commission sat; she was +the sister of a later Chief Commissioner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I used to visit there and always had to pass through +the room where Tsinski and Company used to sit on us. +There was a portrait of the Emperor Paul on the wall, +and I used to stop in front of it every time I passed, either +as a prisoner or as a visitor. Near it was a little drawing-room +where all breathed of beauty and femininity; and +it seemed somehow out of place beside frowning Justice +and criminal trials. I felt uneasy there, and sorry that +so fair a bud had found such an uncongenial spot to open +in as the dismal brick walls of a police-office. Our talk, +and that of a small number of friends who met there, +sounded ironical and strange to the ear within those walls, +so familiar with examinations, informations, and reports +of domiciliary visits—within those walls which parted us +from the mutter of policemen, the sighs of prisoners, the +jingling spurs of officers, and the clanking swords of +Cossacks.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Within a week or a fortnight the pock-marked policeman +came again and went with me again to Tsinski’s +house. Inside the door some men in chains were sitting +or lying, surrounded by soldiers with rifles; and in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>front room there were others, of various ranks in society, +not chained but strictly guarded. My policeman told me +that these were incendiaries. As Tsinski himself had gone +to the scene of the fires, we had to wait for his return. +We arrived at nine in the evening; and at one in the morning +no one had asked for me, and I was still sitting very +peacefully in the front hall with the incendiaries. One or +other of them was summoned from time to time; the +police ran backward and forward, the chains clinked, and +the soldiers, for want of occupation, rattled their rifles +and went through the manual exercise. Tsinski arrived +about one, black with smoke and grime, and hurried on +to his study without stopping. Half an hour later my +policeman was summoned; when he came back, he looked +pale and upset and his face twitched convulsively. Tsinski +followed him, put his head in at the door, and said: “Why, +the members of the Commission were waiting for you, M. +Herzen, the whole evening. This fool brought you here +at the hour when you were summoned to Prince Golitsyn’s +house instead. I am very sorry you have had to wait so +long, but I am not to blame. What can one do, with such +subordinates? I suppose he has been fifty years in the +service, and is as great a blockhead as ever. Well,” he +added, turning to the policeman and addressing him in a +much less polite style, “be off now and go back.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>All the way home the man kept repeating: “Lord! what +bad luck! A man never knows what’s going to happen to +him. He will do for me now. He wouldn’t matter so much; +but the Prince will be angry, and the Commissioner will +catch it for your not being there. Oh, what a misfortune!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I forgave him the hock, especially when he declared +that, though he was once nearly drowned at Lisbon, he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>was less scared then than now. This adventure surprised +me so much that I roared with laughter. “How utterly +absurd! What on earth took you to Lisbon?” I asked. It +turned out that he had served in the Fleet twenty-five +years before. The statesman in Gógol’s novel, who declares +that every servant of the State in Russia meets with +his reward sooner or later,<a id='r69' /><a href='#f69' class='c016'><sup>[69]</sup></a> certainly spoke the truth. For +death spared my friend at Lisbon, in order that he might +be scolded like a naughty boy by Tsinski, after forty +years’ service.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f69'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. </span>Gógol, <i>Dead Souls</i>, Part I, chap. 10.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Besides, he was hardly at all to blame in the matter. +The Tsar was dissatisfied with the original Commission +of Enquiry, and had appointed another, with Prince +Serghéi Golitsyn as chairman; the other members were +Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, another Prince Golitsyn, +Shubenski, a colonel of police, and Oranski, formerly +paymaster-general. As my Lisbon friend had received no +notice that the new Commission would sit at a different +place, it was very natural that he should take me to +Tsinski’s house.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When we got back, we found great excitement there +too: three fires had broken out during the evening, and +the Commissioners had sent twice to ask what had become +of me and whether I had run away. If Tsinski had not +abused my escort sufficiently, the police-magistrate fully +made up for any deficiencies; and this was natural, because +he himself was partly to blame for not asking where +exactly I was to be sent.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>In a corner of the office there was a man lying on two +chairs and groaning, who attracted my attention. He was +young, handsome, and well-dressed. The police-surgeon +advised that he should be sent to the hospital early next +morning, as he was spitting blood and in great suffering. I +got the details of this affair from the corporal who took +me to my room. The man was a retired officer of the +Guards, who was carrying on a love affair with a maid-servant +and was with her when a fire broke out in the +house. The panic caused by incendiarism was then at its +height; and, in fact, never a day passed without my hearing +the tocsin ring repeatedly, while at night I could always +see the glow of several fires from my window. As +soon as the excitement began, the officer, wishing to save +the girl’s reputation, climbed over a fence and hid himself +in an outbuilding of the next house, intending to come out +when the coast was clear. But a little girl had seen him in +the court-yard, and told the first policeman who came on +the scene that an incendiary was hiding in the shed. The +police made for the place, accompanied by a mob, dragged +the officer out in triumph, and dealt with him so vigorously +that he died next morning.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The police now began to sift the men arrested for arson. +Half of them were let go, but the rest were detained on +suspicion. A magistrate came every morning and spent +three or four hours in examining the charges. Some were +flogged during this process; and then their yells and cries +and entreaties, the shrieks of women, the harsh voice of +the magistrate, and the drone of the clerk’s reading—all +this came to my ears. It was horrible beyond endurance. +I dreamed of these sounds at night, and woke up in +horror at the thought of these poor wretches, lying on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>straw a few feet away, in chains, with flayed and bleeding +backs, and, in all probability, quite innocent.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In order to know what Russian prisons and Russian +police and justice really are, one must be a peasant, a +servant or workman or shopkeeper. The political prisoners, +who are mostly of noble birth, are strictly guarded and +vindictively punished; but they suffer infinitely less than +the unfortunate “men with beards.” With them the police +stand on no ceremony. In what quarter can a peasant or +workman seek redress? Where will he find justice?</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Russian system of justice and police is so haphazard, +so inhuman, so arbitrary and corrupt, that a poor +malefactor has more reason to fear his trial than his sentence. +He is impatient for the time when he will be sent +to Siberia; for his martyrdom comes to an end when his +punishment begins. Well, then, let it be remembered that +three-fourths of those arrested on suspicion by the police +are acquitted by the court, and that all these have gone +through the same ordeal as the guilty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Peter the Third abolished the torture-chamber, and the +Russian star-chamber.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Catherine the Second abolished torture.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alexander the First abolished it over again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Evidence given under torture is legally inadmissible, +and any magistrate applying torture is himself liable to +prosecution and severe punishment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>That is so: and all over Russia, from Behring Straits +to the Crimea, men suffer torture. Where flogging is unsafe, +other means are used—intolerable heat, thirst, salt +food; in Moscow the police made a prisoner stand barefooted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>on an iron floor, at a time of intense frost; the man +died in a hospital, of which Prince Meshcherski was president, +and he told the story afterwards with horror. All +this is known to the authorities; but they all agree with +Selifan<a id='r70' /><a href='#f70' class='c016'><sup>[70]</sup></a> in Gógol’s novel—“Why not flog the peasants? +The peasants need a flogging from time to time.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f70'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. </span>Gógol, <i>Dead Souls</i>, Part I, chap. 3. Selifan, a +coachman, is a peasant himself.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The board appointed to investigate the fires sat, or, in +other words, flogged, for six months continuously, but +they were no wiser at the end of the flogging. The Tsar +grew angry: he ordered that the business should be completed +in three days. And so it was: guilty persons were +discovered and sentenced to flogging, branding, and penal +servitude. All the hall-porters in Moscow were brought +together to witness the infliction of the punishment. It +was winter by then, and I had been moved to the Krutitski +Barracks; but a captain of police, a kind-hearted old +man, who was present at the scene, told me the details I +here record. The man who was brought out first for +flogging addressed the spectators in a loud voice: he swore +that he was innocent, and that he did not know what +evidence he had given under torture; then he pulled off +his shirt and turned his back to the people, asking them +to look at it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A groan of horror ran through the crowd: his whole +back was raw and bleeding, and that livid surface was +now to be flogged over again. The protesting cries and +sullen looks of the crowd made the police hurry on with +the business: the executioners dealt out the legal number +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>of lashes, the branding and fettering took place, and the +affair seemed at an end. But the scene had made an impression +and was the subject of conversation all through +the city. The Governor reported this to the Tsar, and the +Tsar appointed a new board, which was to give special +attention to the case of the man who had addressed the +crowd.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Some months later I read in the newspapers that the +Tsar, wishing to compensate two men who had been +flogged for crimes of which they were innocent, ordered +that they should receive 200 <i>roubles</i> for each lash, and +also a special passport, to prove that though branded +they were not guilty. These two were the man who had +addressed the crowd, and one of his companions.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The cause of these incendiary fires which alarmed Moscow +in 1834 and were repeated ten years later in different +parts of the country, still remains a mystery. That it was +not all accidental is certain: fire as a means of revenge—“The +red cock,” as it is called—is characteristic of +the nation. One is constantly hearing of a gentleman’s +house or corn-kiln or granary being set on fire by his +enemies. But what was the motive for the fires at Moscow +in 1834, nobody knows, and the members of the +Board of Enquiry least of all.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The twenty-second of August was the Coronation Day; +and some practical jokers dropped papers in different +parts of the city, informing the inhabitants they need not +trouble about illuminating, because there would be plenty +of light otherwise provided.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The authorities of the city were in great alarm. From +<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>early morning my police-station was full of troops, and +a squadron of dragoons was stationed in the court-yard. +In the evening bodies of cavalry and infantry patrolled +the streets; cannon were ready in the arsenal. Police-officers, +with constables and Cossacks, galloped to and +fro; the Governor himself rode through the city with his +<i>aides-de-camp</i>. It was strange and disquieting to see +peaceful Moscow turned into a military camp. I watched +the court-yard from my lofty window till late at night. +Dismounted dragoons were sitting in groups near their +horses, while others remained in the saddle; their officers +walked about, looking with some contempt at their comrades +of the police; staff-officers, with anxious faces and +yellow collars on their jackets, rode up, did nothing, and +rode away again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were no fires.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Immediately afterwards the Tsar himself came to Moscow. +He was dissatisfied with the investigation of our +affair, which was just beginning, dissatisfied because we +had not been handed over to the secret police, dissatisfied +because the incendiaries had not been discovered—in +short, he was dissatisfied with everything and everybody.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>The Krutitski Barracks—A Policeman’s Story—The Officers.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THREE days after the Tsar came to Moscow, a +police-officer called on me late in the evening—all +these things are done in the dark, to spare the +nerves of the public—bringing an order for me to pack +up and start off with him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Where to?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You will see shortly,” he answered with equal wit and +politeness. That was enough: I asked no more questions, +but packed up my things and started.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We drove on and on for an hour and a half, passed St. +Peter’s Monastery, and stopped at a massive stone gateway, +before which two constables were pacing, armed +with carbines. This building was the Krutitski Monastery, +which had been converted into a police-barracks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was taken to a smallish office, where everyone was +dressed in blue, officers and clerks alike. The orderly +officer, wearing full uniform and a helmet, asked me to +wait and even proposed that I should light my pipe which +I was holding. Having written out an acknowledgement +that a fresh prisoner had been received, and handed it to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>my escort, he left the room and returned with another +officer, who told me that my quarters were ready and +asked me to go there. A constable carried a light, and we +descended a staircase, passed through a small yard, and +entered by a low door a long passage lighted by a single +lantern. On both sides of the passage there were low +doors; and the orderly officer opened one of these, which +led into a tiny guard-room and thence into a room of +moderate size, damp, cold, and smelling like a cellar. +The officer who was escorting me now addressed me in +French: he said that he was <i>désolé d’être dans la nécessité</i> +of rummaging my pockets, but that discipline and +his duty required it. After this noble exordium he turned +without more ado to the gaoler and winked in my direction; +and the man instantly inserted into my pocket an +incredibly large and hairy paw. I pointed out to the polite +officer that this was quite unnecessary: I would empty +out all my pockets myself, without any forcible measures +being used. And I asked what I could possibly have on +me after six weeks in prison.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, we know what they are capable of at police-stations,” +said the polite officer, with an inimitable smile of +superiority, and the orderly officer also smiled sarcastically; +but they told the turnkey merely to look on while +I emptied my pockets.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Shake out any tobacco you have on the table,” said +the polite officer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I had in my tobacco-pouch a pencil and a penknife +wrapped up in paper. I remembered about them at once, +and, while talking to the officer, I fiddled with the pouch +till the knife came out in my hand; then I gripped it +behind the pouch, while boldly pouring out the tobacco +<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>on the table. The turnkey gathered it together again. I +had saved my knife and my pencil, and I had also paid +out my polite friend for his contempt of my former +gaolers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This little incident put me in excellent humour, and +I began cheerfully to survey my new possessions.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The monks’ cells, built 300 years ago, had sunk deep +into the ground, and were now put to a secular use for +political prisoners.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My room contained a bedstead without a mattress, a +small table with a jug of water on it, and a chair; a thin +tallow candle was burning in a large copper candlestick. +The damp and cold struck into the marrow of my bones; +the officer ordered the stove to be lighted, and then I was +left alone. A turnkey promised to bring some straw; meanwhile +I used my overcoat as a pillow, lay down on the bare +bedstead, and lit a pipe. I very soon noticed that the +ceiling was covered with black beetles. Not having seen +a light for a long time, the black beetles hurried to the +lighted patch in great excitement, jostling one another, +dropping on the table, and then running wildly about +along the edge of it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I don’t like black beetles, nor uninvited guests in general. +My neighbours seemed to me horribly repulsive, but +there was nothing to be done: I could not begin by complaining +of black beetles, and I suppressed my dislike of +them. Besides, after a few days all the insects migrated +to the next room, where the turnkey kept up a higher +temperature; only an occasional specimen would look in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>on me, twitch his whiskers, and then hurry back to the +warmth.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In spite of my entreaties, the turnkey insisted on closing +the stove after he had lighted it. I soon felt uncomfortable +and giddy, and I decided to get up and knock +on the wall. I did get up, but I remember no more.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I came to myself I was lying on the floor and +my head was aching fiercely. A tall, grey-haired turnkey +was standing over me with his arms folded, and watching +me with a steady, expressionless stare, such as may be +seen in the eyes of the dog watching the tortoise, in a +well-known bronze group.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Seeing that I was conscious, he began: “Your Honour +had a near shave of suffocation. But I put some pickled +horse-radish to your nose, and now you can drink some +<i>kvass</i>.”<a id='r71' /><a href='#f71' class='c016'><sup>[71]</sup></a> When I had drunk, he lifted me up and laid me +on my bed. I felt very faint, and the window, which was +double, could not be opened. The turnkey went to the office +to ask that I might go out into the court; but the orderly +officer sent a message that he could not undertake the +responsibility in the absence of the colonel and adjutant. +I had to put up with the foul atmosphere.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f71'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. </span>A sort of beer.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But I became accustomed even to these quarters, and +conjugated Italian verbs and read any books I could get. +At first, the rules were fairly strict: when the bugle +sounded for the last time at nine in the evening, a turnkey +came in, blew out my candle, and locked me up for the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>night. I had to sit in darkness till eight next morning. I +was never a great sleeper, and the want of exercise made +four hours’ sleep ample for me in prison; hence the want +of a light was a serious deprivation. Besides this, a sentry +at each end of the passage gave a loud prolonged cry of +“All’s well-l-l-l!” every quarter of an hour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After a few weeks, however, the colonel allowed me to +have a light. My window was beneath the level of the +court, so that the sentry could watch all my movements; +and no blind or curtain to the window was allowed. He +also stopped the sentries from calling out in the passage. +Later, we were permitted to have ink and a fixed number +of sheets of paper, on condition that none were torn up; +and we were allowed to walk in the yard once in twenty-four +hours, accompanied by a sentry and the officer of +the day, while outside the yard there was a fence and a +chain of sentries.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The life was monotonous and peaceful; military precision +gave it a kind of mechanical regularity like the +caesura in verse. In the morning I made coffee over the +stove with the help of the turnkey; at ten the officer of +the day made his appearance, bringing in with him several +cubic feet of frost, and clattering with his sword; he wore +cloak and helmet and gloves up to his elbows; at one the +turnkey brought me a dirty napkin and a bowl of soup, +which he held by the rim in such a way that his two +thumbs were noticeably cleaner than the other fingers. +The food was tolerable; but it must be remembered that +we were charged two <i>roubles</i> a day for it, which mounts +up to a considerable sum for a poor man in the course of +nine months. The father of one prisoner said frankly that +he could not pay, whereupon he was told it would be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>stopped out of his salary; had he not been drawing Government +pay, he would probably have been put in prison +himself. There was also a Government allowance for our +keep; but the quarter-masters put this in their pockets and +stopped the mouths of the officers with orders for the +theatres on first nights and benefits.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After sunset complete silence set in, only interrupted +by the distant calls of the sentries, or the steps of a +soldier crunching over the snow right in front of my window. +I generally read till one, before I put out my candle. +In my dreams I was free once more. Sometimes I woke +up thinking: “What a horrid nightmare of prison and +gaolers! How glad I am it’s not true!”—and suddenly a +sword rattled in the passage, or the officer of the day came +in with his lantern-bearer, or a sentry called out “Who +goes there?” in his mechanical voice, or a bugle, close to +the window, split the morning air with reveille.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When I was bored and not inclined to read, I talked to +my gaolers, especially to the old fellow who had treated me +for my fainting fit. The colonel, as a mark of favour, excused +some of the old soldiers from parade and gave them +the light work of guarding a prisoner; they were in charge +of a corporal—a spy and a scoundrel. Five or six of these +veterans did all the work of the prison.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The old soldier I am speaking of was a simple creature, +kind-hearted himself and grateful for any kindness that +was shown him, and it is likely that not much had been +shown him in the course of his life. He had served through +the campaign of 1812 and his breast was covered with +medals. His term of service had expired, but he stayed on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>as a volunteer, having no place to go to. “I wrote twice,” +he used to say, “to my relations in the Government of +Mogilev, but I got no answer; so I suppose that all my +people are dead. I don’t care to go home, only to beg my +bread in old age.” How barbarous is the system of military +service in Russia, which detains a man for twenty +years with the colours! But in every sphere of life we +sacrifice the individual without mercy and without reward.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Old Philimonov professed to know German; he had +learned it in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. In +fact, he knew some German words, to which he attached +Russian terminations with much ingenuity.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In his stories of the past there was a kind of artlessness +which made me sad. I shall record one of them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He served in Moldavia, in the Turkish campaign of +1805; and the commander of his company was the kindest +of men, caring like a father for each soldier and always +foremost in battle. “Our captain was in love with a Moldavian +woman, and we saw that he was in bad spirits; the +reason was that she was often visiting another officer. One +day he sent for me and a friend of mine—a fine soldier he +was and lost both legs in battle afterwards—and said to +us that the woman had jilted him; and he asked if we +were willing to help him and teach her a lesson. ‘Surely, +Your Honour,’ said we; ‘we are at your service at any +time.’ He thanked us and pointed out the house where the +officer lived. Then he said, ‘Take your stand to-night on +the bridge which she must cross to get to his house; catch +hold of her quietly, and into the river with her!’ ‘Very +good, Your Honour,’ said we. So I and my chum got hold +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>of a sack and went to the bridge; there we sat, and near +midnight the girl came running past. ‘What are you hurrying +for?’ we asked. Then we gave her one over the head; +not a sound did she make, bless her; we put her in the +sack and threw it into the river. Next day our captain +went to the other officer and said: ‘You must not be angry +with the girl: we detained her; in fact, she is now at the +bottom of the river. But I am quite prepared to take a +little walk with you, with swords or pistols, as you prefer.’ +Well, they fought, and our captain was badly wounded +in the chest; he wasted away, poor fellow, and after three +months gave back his soul to God.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But was the woman really drowned?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, yes, Sir,” said the soldier.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was horrified by the childlike indifference with which +the old man told me this story. He appeared to guess my +feelings or to give a thought for the first time to his victim; +for he added, to reassure me and make it up with his own +conscience:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You know, Sir, she was only a benighted heathen, not +like a Christian at all.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>It is the custom to serve out a glass of brandy to the +gaolers on saints’ days and royal birthdays; and Philimonov +was allowed to decline this ration till five or six +were due to him, and then to draw it all at once. He +marked on a tally the number of glasses he did not drink, +and applied for the lot on one of the great festivals. He +poured all the brandy into a soup-tureen, crumbled bread +into it, and then supped it with a spoon. When this repast +was over, he smoked a large pipe with a tiny mouthpiece; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>his tobacco, which he cut up himself, was strong beyond +belief. As there was no seat in his room, he curled himself +up on the narrow space of the window-sill; and there he +smoked and sang a song about grass and flowers, pronouncing +the words worse and worse as the liquor gained +power over him. But what a constitution the man had! +He was over sixty and had been twice wounded, and yet +he could stand such a meal as I have described.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Before I end these Wouverman-Callot<a id='r72' /><a href='#f72' class='c016'><sup>[72]</sup></a> sketches of barrack-life +and this prison-gossip which only repeats the +recollections of all captives like myself, I shall say something +also of the officers.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f72'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. </span>Wouverman (1619-1668), a Dutch painter; Callot +(1592-1635), a French painter; both painted outdoor life, soldiers, +beggars, etc.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Most of them were not spies at all, but good enough +people, who had drifted by chance into the constabulary. +Young nobles, with little or no education, without fortune +or any settled prospects, they had taken to this life, because +they had nothing else to do. They performed their +duties with military precision, but without a scrap of enthusiasm, +as far as I could see; I must except the adjutant, +indeed; but then that was just why he <i>was</i> adjutant. When +I got to know the officers, they granted me all the small indulgences +that were in their power, and it would be a sin +for me to complain of them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One of the young officers told me a story of the year +1831, when he was sent to hunt down and arrest a Polish +gentleman who was in hiding somewhere near his own +estate. He was accused of having relations with agitators. +The officer started on his mission, made enquiries, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>discovered the Pole’s hiding place. He led his men there, +surrounded the house, and entered it with two constables. +The house was empty: they went through all the rooms +and hunted about, but no one was to be seen; and yet +some trifling signs proved that the house had been occupied +not long before. Leaving his men below, the young +officer went up to the attics a second time; after a careful +search, he found a small door leading to a garret or secret +chamber of some kind; the door was locked on the inside, +but flew open at a kick. Behind it stood a tall and beautiful +woman; she pointed without a word to a man who +held in his arms a fainting girl of twelve. It was the Pole +and his family. The officer was taken aback. The tall +woman perceived this and said, “Can you be barbarous +enough to destroy them?” The officer apologised: he +urged the stock excuse, that a soldier is bound to implicit +obedience; but at last, in despair, as he saw that his words +had not the slightest effect, he ended by asking what he +was to do. The woman looked haughtily at him, pointed +to the door, and said, “Go down at once and say that +there is no one here.” “I swear I cannot explain it,” the +officer said, “but down I went and ordered the sergeant +to collect the party. Two hours later we were beating +every bush on another estate, while our man was slipping +across the frontier. Strange, what things women make one +do!”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Nothing in the world can be more stupid and more unfair +than to judge a whole class of men in the lump, merely +by the name they bear and the predominating characteristics +of their profession. A label is a terrible thing. Jean +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>Paul Richter<a id='r73' /><a href='#f73' class='c016'><sup>[73]</sup></a> says with perfect truth: “If a child tells a +lie, make him afraid of doing wrong and tell him that +he has told a lie, but don’t call him a liar. If you define +him as a liar, you break down his confidence in his +own character.” We are told that a man is a murderer, and +we instantly imagine a hidden dagger, a savage expression, +and dark designs, as if murder were the regular occupation, +the trade, of anyone who has once in his life without +design killed a man. A spy, or a man who makes money +by the profligacy of others, cannot be honest; but it is +possible to be an officer of police and yet to retain some +manly worth, just as a tender and womanly heart and +even delicacy of feeling may constantly be found in the +victims of what is called “social incontinence.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f73'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. </span>The German humorist (1763-1825).</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I have an aversion for people who, because they are +too stupid or will not take the trouble, never get beyond +a mere label, who are brought up short by a single bad +action or a false position, either chastely shutting their +eyes to it or pushing it roughly from them. People who +act thus are generally either bloodless and self-satisfied +theorists, repulsive in their purity, or mean, low natures +who have not yet had the chance or the necessity to display +themselves in their true colours; they are by nature +at home in the mire, into which others have fallen by misfortune.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>The Enquiry—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn Junior—General Staal—The +Sentence—Sokolovski.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>BUT meanwhile what about the charge against us? +and what about the Commission of Enquiry?</p> + +<p class='c008'>The new Commission made just as great a mess +of it as its predecessor. The police had been on our track +for a long time, but their zeal and impatience prevented +them from waiting for a decent pretext, and they did a +silly thing. They employed a retired officer called Skaryatka +to draw us on till we were committed; and he made +acquaintance with nearly all of our set. But we very soon +made out what he was and kept him at a distance. Some +other young men, chiefly students, were less cautious, but +these others had no relations of any importance with us.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One of the latter, on taking his degree, entertained his +friends on June 24, 1834. Not one of us was present at +the entertainment; not one of us was even invited. The +students drank toasts, and danced and played the fool; +and one thing they did was to sing in chorus Sokolovski’s +well-known song abusing the Tsar.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Skaryatka was present and suddenly remembered that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>the day was his birthday. He told a story of selling a +horse at a profit and invited the whole party to supper +at his rooms, promising a dozen of champagne. They all +accepted. The champagne duly appeared, and their host, +who had begun to stagger, proposed that Sokolovski’s +song should be sung over again. In the middle of the song +the door opened, and Tsinski appeared with his myrmidons. +It was a stupid and clumsy proceeding, and a failure +as well.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The police wanted to catch us and were looking out +for some tangible pretext, in order to trap the five or six +victims whom they had marked down; what they actually +did was to arrest a score of innocent persons.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But the police are not easily abashed, and they arrested +us a fortnight later, as concerned in the affair of the students’ +party. They found a number of letters—letters of +Satin’s at Sokolovski’s rooms, of Ogaryóv’s at Satin’s, and +of mine at Ogaryóv’s; but nothing of importance was discovered. +The first Commission of Enquiry was a failure; +and in order that the second might succeed better, the Tsar +sent from Petersburg the Grand Inquisitor, Prince A. F. +Golitsyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The breed to which he belonged is rare with us; it included +Mordvínov, the notorious chief of the Third Section, +Pelikan, the Rector of Vilna University, with a few +officials from the Baltic provinces and renegade Poles.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But it was unfortunate for the Inquisition that Staal, +the Commandant of Moscow, was the first member appointed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>to it. Staal was a brave old soldier and an honest +man; he looked into the matter, and found that two quite +distinct incidents were involved: the first was the students’ +party, which the police were bound to punish; the +second was the mysterious arrest of some men, whose +whole visible fault was limited to some half-expressed +opinions, and whom it would be difficult and absurd to +try on that charge alone.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Prince A. F. Golitsyn disapproved of Staal’s view, and +their dispute took a heated turn. The old soldier grew +furiously angry; he dashed his sword on the floor and +said: “Instead of destroying these young men, you would +do better to have all the schools and universities closed, +and that would be a warning to other unfortunates. Do +as you please, only I shall take no part in it: I shall not +set foot again in this place.” Having spoken thus, the old +man left the room at once.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was reported to the Tsar that very day; and when +the Commandant presented his report next morning, the +Tsar asked why he refused to attend the Commission, +and Staal told him the reason.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What nonsense!” said Nicholas; “I wonder you are +not ashamed to quarrel with Golitsyn, and I hope you will +continue to attend.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Sir,” replied Staal, “spare my grey hairs! I have lived +till now without the smallest stain on my honour. My +loyalty is known to Your Majesty; my life, what remains +of it, is at your service. But this matter touches my +honour, and my conscience protests against the proceedings +of that Commission.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Tsar frowned; Staal bowed himself out and never +afterwards attended a single meeting.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>The Commission now consisted of foes only. The President +was Prince S. M. Golitsyn, a simple old gentleman, +who, after sitting for nine months, knew just as little about +the business as he did nine months before he took the +chair. He preserved a dignified silence and seldom spoke; +whenever an examination was finished, he asked, “May he +be dismissed?” “Yes,” said Golitsyn junior, and then +Golitsyn senior signified in a stately manner to the accused, +“You may go.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My first examination lasted four hours. The questions +asked were of two kinds. The object of the first was to +discover a trend of thought “opposed to the spirit of the +Russian government, and ideas that were either revolutionary +or impregnated with the pestilent doctrine of Saint-Simonianism”—this +is a quotation from Golitsyn junior +and Oranski, the paymaster.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such questions were simple, but they were not really +questions at all. The confiscated papers and letters were +clear enough evidence of opinions; the questions could +only turn on the essential fact, whether the letters were +or were not written by the accused; but the Commissioners +thought it necessary to add to each expression +they had copied out, “In what sense do you explain the +following passage in your letter?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course there was nothing to explain, and I wrote +meaningless and evasive answers to all the questions. +Oranski discovered the following statement in one of my +letters: “No written constitution leads to anything: they +are all mere contracts between a master and his slaves; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>the problem is not to improve the condition of the slaves +but to eliminate them altogether.” When called upon to +explain this statement, I remarked that I saw no necessity +to defend constitutional government, and that, if I had +done so, I might have been prosecuted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There are two sides from which constitutional government +can be attacked,” said Golitsyn junior, in his excitable, +sibilant voice, “and you don’t attack it from the +point of view of autocracy, or else you would not have +spoken of ‘slaves.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“In that respect I am as guilty as the Empress Catherine, +who forbade her subjects to call themselves slaves.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Golitsyn junior was furious at my sarcasm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you suppose,” he said, “that we meet here to carry +on academic discussion, and that you are defending a +thesis in the lecture-room?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why then do you ask for explanations?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you pretend not to understand what is wanted of +you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t understand,” I said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How obstinate they are, every one of them!” said the +chairman, Golitsyn senior, as he shrugged his shoulders +and looked at Colonel Shubenski, of the police. I smiled. +“Ogaryóv over again,” sighed the worthy old gentleman, +letting the cat quite out of the bag.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A pause followed this indiscretion. The meetings were +all held in the Prince’s library, and I turned towards the +shelves and examined the books; they included an edition +in many volumes of the <i>Memoirs</i> of the Duc de Saint-Simon.<a id='r74' /><a href='#f74' class='c016'><sup>[74]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f74'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. </span>The author of the famous <i>Memoirs</i> (1675-1755) was +an ancestor of the preacher of socialism (1760-1825).</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>I turned to the chairman. “There!” I said, “what an +injustice! You are trying me for Saint-Simonianism, and +you, Prince, have on your shelves twenty volumes of his +works.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The worthy man had never read a book in his life, and +was at loss for a reply. But Golitsyn junior darted a +furious glance at me and asked, “Don’t you see that these +are the works of the Duc de Saint-Simon who lived in +the reign of Louis XIV?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The chairman smiled and conveyed to me by a nod +his impression that I had made a slip this time; then he +said, “You may go.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I had reached the door, the chairman asked, +“Was it he who wrote the article about Peter the Great +which you showed me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” answered Shubenski.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I stopped short.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He has ability,” remarked the chairman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So much the worse: poison is more dangerous in skilful +hands,” added the Inquisitor; “a very dangerous young +man and quite incorrigible.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>These words contained my condemnation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Here is a parallel to the Saint-Simon incident. When +the police-officer was going through books and papers at +Ogaryóv’s house, he put aside a volume of Thiers’s <i>History +of the French Revolution</i>; when he found a second volume, +a third, an eighth, he lost patience. “What a collection +of revolutionary works! And here’s another!” he +added, handing to his subordinate Cuvier’s speech <i>Sur +les révolutions du globe terrestre</i>!</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>There were other questions of a more complicated kind, +in which various traps and tricks, familiar to the police +and boards of enquiry, were made use of, in order to confuse +me and involve me in contradictions. Hints that +others had confessed, and moral torture of various kinds, +came into play here. They are not worth repeating; it is +enough to say that the tricks all failed to make me or my +three friends betray one another.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the last question had been handed out to me, I +was sitting alone in the small room where we wrote our +replies. Suddenly the door opened, and Golitsyn junior +came in, wearing a pained and anxious expression.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have come,” he said, “to have a talk with you before +the end of your replies to our questions. The long friendship +between my late father and yours makes me feel a +special interest in you. You are young and may have a +distinguished career yet; but you must first clear yourself +of this business, and that fortunately depends on +yourself alone. Your father has taken your arrest very +much to heart; his one hope now is that you will be released. +The President and I were discussing it just now, +and we are sincerely ready to make large concessions; +but you must make it possible for us to help you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I saw what he was driving at. The blood rushed to my +head, and I bit my pen with rage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went on: “You are on the road that leads straight +to service in the ranks or imprisonment, and on the way +you will kill your father: he will not survive the day when +he sees you in the grey overcoat of a private soldier.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I tried to speak, but he stopped me. “I know what you +want to say. Have patience a moment. That you had designs +<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>against the Government is perfectly clear; and we +must have proofs of your repentance, if you are to be an +object of the Tsar’s clemency. You deny everything; you +give evasive answers; from a false feeling of honour you +protect people of whom we know more than you do, and +who are by no means as scrupulous as you are; you won’t +help them, but they will drag you over the precipice in +their fall. Now write a letter to the Board; say simply and +frankly that you are conscious of your guilt, and that +you were led away by the thoughtlessness of youth; and +name the persons whose unhappy errors led you astray. +Are you willing to pay this small price, in order to redeem +your whole future and to save your father’s life?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know nothing, and will add nothing to my previous +disclosures,” I replied.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Golitsyn got up and said in a dry voice: “Very well! As +you refuse, we are not to blame.” That was the end of +my examination.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I made my last appearance before the Commission in +January or February of 1835. I was summoned there to +read through my answers, make any additions I wished, +and sign my name. Shubenski was the only Commissioner +present. When I had done reading, I said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I should like to know what charge can be based on +these questions and these answers. Which article of the +code applies to my case?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The code of law is intended for crimes of a different +kind,” answered the colonel in blue.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That is another matter. But when I read over all +these literary exercises, I cannot believe that the charge, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>on which I have spent six months in prison, is really contained +there.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you really imagine,” returned Shubenski, “that +we accepted your statement that you were not forming a +secret society?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Where is it, then?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is lucky for you that we could not find the proofs, +and that you were cut short. We stopped you in time; +indeed, it may be said that we saved you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Gógol’s story, in fact, over again, of the carpenter Poshlepkin +and his wife, in <i>The Revizor</i>.<a id='r75' /><a href='#f75' class='c016'><sup>[75]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f75'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. </span>Gógol, <i>The Revizor</i>, Act IV, Scene ii.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>After I had signed my name, Shubenski rang and +ordered the priest to be summoned. The priest appeared +and added his signature, testifying that all my admissions +had been made voluntarily and without compulsion of any +kind. Of course, he had never been present while I was +examined; and he had not the assurance to ask my account +of the proceedings. I thought of the unprejudiced +witness who stopped outside our house while the police +arrested me.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When the enquiry was over, the conditions of my imprisonment +were relaxed to some extent, and near relations +could obtain permission for interviews. In this way +two more months passed by.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the middle of March our sentence was confirmed. +What it was nobody knew: some said we should be +banished to the Caucasus, while others hoped we should +all be released. The latter was Staal’s proposal, which he +submitted separately to the Tsar; he held that we had +been sufficiently punished by our imprisonment.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>At last, on the twentieth of March, we were all brought +to Prince Golitsyn’s house, to hear our sentence. It was +a very great occasion: for we had never met since we were +arrested.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A cordon of police and officers of the garrison stood +round us, while we embraced and shook hands with one +another. The sight of friends gave life to all of us, and we +made plenty of noise; we asked questions and told our +adventures indefatigably.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Sokolovski was present, rather pale and thin, but as +humorous as ever.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Sokolovski, the author of <i>Creation</i> and other meritorious +poems, had a strong natural gift for poetry; but this +gift was neither improved by cultivation nor original +enough to dispense with it. He was not a politician at all, +he lived the life of a poet. He was very amusing and +amiable, a cheerful companion in cheerful hours, a <i>bon-vivant</i>, +who enjoyed a gay party as well as the rest of us, +and perhaps a little better. He was now over thirty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When suddenly torn from this life and thrown into +prison, he bore himself nobly: imprisonment strengthened +his character.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was arrested in Petersburg and then conveyed to +Moscow, without being told where he was going. Useless +tricks of this kind are constantly played by the Russian +police; in fact, it is the poetry of their lives; there is no +calling in the world, however prosaic and repulsive, that +does not possess its own artistic refinements and mere +superfluous adornments. Sokolovski was taken straight to +prison and lodged in a kind of dark store-room. Why +should he be confined in prison and we in barracks?</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>He took nothing there with him but a couple of shirts. +In England, every convict is forced to take a bath as soon +as he enters prison; in Russia, precautionary measures +are taken against cleanliness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Sokolovski would have been in a horrible state had not +Dr. Haas sent him a parcel of his own linen.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>This Dr. Haas, who was often called a fool and a lunatic, +was a very remarkable man. His memory ought not +to be buried in the jungle of official obituaries—that record +of virtues that never showed themselves until their possessors +were mouldering in the grave.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was a little old man with a face like wax; in his +black tail-coat, knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and +shoes with buckles, he looked as if he had just stepped +out of some play of the eighteenth century. In this costume, +suitable for a wedding or a funeral, and in the +agreeable climate of the 59th degree of north latitude, he +used to drive once a week to the Sparrow Hills when the +convicts were starting for the first stage of their long +march. He had access to them in his capacity of a prison-doctor, +and went there to pass them in review; and he +always took with him a basketful of odds and ends—eatables +and dainties of different kinds for the women, such +as walnuts, gingerbread, apples, and oranges. This generosity +excited the wrath and displeasure of the ‘charitable’ +ladies, who were afraid of giving pleasure by their charity, +and afraid of being more charitable than was absolutely +necessary to save the convicts from being starved or +frozen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Haas was obstinate. When reproached for the foolish +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>indulgence he showed to the women, he would listen +meekly, rub his hands, and reply: “Please observe, my +dear lady; they can get a crust of bread from anyone, but +they won’t see sweets or oranges again for a long time, +because no one gives them such things—your own words +prove that. And therefore I give them this little pleasure, +because they won’t get it soon again.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Haas lived in a hospital. One morning a patient came +to consult him. Haas examined him and went to his study +to write a prescription. When he returned, the invalid had +disappeared, and so had the silver off the dinner-table. +Haas called a porter and asked whether anyone else had +entered the building. The porter realised the situation: +he rushed out and returned immediately with the spoons +and the patient, whom he had detained with the help of a +sentry. The thief fell on his knees and begged for mercy. +Haas was perplexed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Fetch a policeman,” he said to one of the porters. +“And you summon a clerk here at once.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The two porters, pleased with their part in detecting +the criminal, rushed from the room; and Haas took advantage +of their absence to address the thief. “You are +a dishonest man; you deceived me and tried to rob me; +God will judge you for it. But now run out at the back +gate as fast as you can, before the sentries come back. +And wait a moment—very likely you haven’t a penny; +here is half a <i>rouble</i> for you. But you must try to mend +your ways: you can’t escape God as easily as the policeman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>His family told Haas he had gone too far this time. But +the incorrigible doctor stated his view thus: “Theft is a +serious vice; but I know the police, and how they flog +<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>people; it is a much worse vice to deliver up your neighbour +to their tender mercies. And besides, who knows? +My treatment may soften his heart.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>His family shook their heads and protested: and the +charitable ladies said, “An excellent man but not quite all +right <i>there</i>,” pointing to their foreheads; but Haas only +rubbed his hands and went his own way.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Sokolovski had hardly got to an end of his narrative before +others began to tell their story, several speaking at +the same time. It was as if we had returned from a long +journey—there was a running fire of questions and +friendly chaff.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Satin had suffered more in body that the rest of us: he +looked thin and had lost some of his hair. He was on his +mother’s estate in the Government of Tambóv when he +heard of our arrest, and started at once for Moscow, that +his mother might not be terrified by a visit from the police. +But he caught cold on the journey and was seriously ill +when he reached Moscow. The police found him there in +his bed. It being impossible to remove him, he was put +under arrest in his own house: a sentry was posted inside +his bedroom, and a male sister of mercy, in the shape of +a policeman, sat by his pillow; hence, when he recovered +from delirium, his eyes rested on the scrutinising looks of +one attendant or the sodden face of the other.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When winter began he was transferred to a hospital. +It turned out that there was no unoccupied room suitable +for a prisoner; but that was a trifle which caused no +difficulty. A secluded corner <i>without a stove</i> was discovered +in the building, and here he was placed with a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>sentry to guard him. Nothing like a balcony on the +Riviera for an invalid! What the temperature in that +stone box was like in winter, may be guessed: the sentry +suffered so much that he used at night to go into the passage +and warm himself at the stove, begging his prisoner +not to tell the officer of the day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But even the authorities of the hospital could not continue +this open-air treatment in such close proximity to +the North Pole, and they moved Satin to a room next to +that in which people who were brought in frozen were +rubbed till they regained consciousness.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Before we had nearly done telling our own experiences +and listening to those of our friends, the adjutants began +to bustle about, the garrison officers stood up straight, +and the policemen came to attention; then the door opened +solemnly, and little Prince Golitsyn entered <i>en grande +tenue</i> with his ribbon across his shoulder; Tsinski was +in Household uniform; and even Oranski had put on +something special for the joyful occasion—a light green +costume, between uniform and mufti. Staal, of course, was +not there.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The officers now divided us into three groups. Sokolovski, +an artist called Ootkin, and Ibayev formed the first +group; I and my friends came next, and then a miscellaneous +assortment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The first three, who were charged with treason, were +sentenced to confinement at Schlüsselburg<a id='r76' /><a href='#f76' class='c016'><sup>[76]</sup></a> for an unlimited +term.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f76'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. </span>A prison-fortress on an island in the Neva, forty miles +from Petersburg.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>In order to show his easy, pleasant manners, Tsinski +asked Sokolovski, after the sentence was read, “I think +you have been at Schlüsselburg before?” “Yes, last year,” +was the immediate answer; “I suppose I knew what was +coming, for I drank a bottle of Madeira there.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Two years later Ootkin died in the fortress. Sokolovski +was released more dead than alive and sent to the Caucasus, +where he died at Pyatigorsk. Of Ibayev it may be +said in one sense that he died too; for he became a mystic.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Ootkin, “a free artist confined in prison,” as he signed +himself in replying to the questions put to him, was a man +of forty; he never took part in political intrigue of any +kind, but his nature was proud and vehement, and he was +uncontrolled in his language and disrespectful to the members +of the Commission. For this they did him to death in a +damp dungeon where the water trickled down the walls.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But for his officer’s uniform, Ibayev would never have +been punished so severely. He happened to be present at +a party where he probably drank too much and sang, but +he certainly drank no more and sang no louder than the +rest.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3> + +<p class='c018'>And now our turn came. Oranski rubbed his spectacles, +cleared his throat, and gave utterance to the imperial +edict. It was here set forth that the Tsar, having considered +the report of the Commission and taking special +account of the youth of the criminals, ordered that they +should not be brought before a court of justice. On the +contrary, the Tsar in his infinite clemency pardoned the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>majority of the offenders and allowed them to live at home +under police supervision. But the ringleaders were to +undergo corrective discipline, in the shape of banishment +to distant Governments for an unlimited term; they were +to serve in the administration, under the supervision of +the local authorities.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This last class contained six names—Ogaryóv, Satin, +Lakhtin, Sorokin, Obolenski, and myself. My destination +was Perm. Lakhtin had never been arrested at all; when +he was summoned to the Commission to hear the sentence, +he supposed it was intended merely to give him a fright, +that he might take thought when he saw the punishment of +others. It was said that this little surprise was managed +by a relation of Prince Golitsyn’s who was angry with +Lakhtin’s wife. He had weak health and died after three +years in exile.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When Oranski had done reading, Colonel Shubenski +stepped forward. He explained to us in picked phrases and +the style of Lomonossov,<a id='r77' /><a href='#f77' class='c016'><sup>[77]</sup></a> that for the Tsar’s clemency +we were obliged to the good offices of the distinguished +nobleman who presided at the Commission. He expected +that we should all express at once our gratitude to the +great man, but he was disappointed.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f77'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, an old-fashioned pompous style. Lomonossov +(1711-1765) was the originator of Russian literature and Russian +science.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Some of those who had been pardoned made a sign +with their heads, but even they stole a glance at us as +they did so.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Shubenski then turned to Ogaryóv and said: “You are +going to Penza. Do you suppose that is a mere accident? +Your father is lying paralysed at Penza; and the Prince +asked the Emperor that you might be sent there, that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>your presence might to some extent lighten the blow he +must suffer in your banishment. Do you too think you +have no cause for gratitude?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Ogaryóv bowed; and that was all they got for their +pains.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But that good old gentleman, the President, was +pleased, and for some reason called me up next. I stepped +forward: whatever he or Shubenski might say, I vowed +by all the gods that I would not thank them. Besides, my +place of exile was the most distant and most disgusting +of all.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So you are going to Perm,” said the Prince.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I said nothing. The Prince was taken aback, but, in +order to say something, he added, “I have an estate there.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Can I take any message to your bailiff?” I asked, +smiling.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I send no messages by people like you—mere <i>carbonari</i>,” +said the Prince, by a sudden inspiration.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What do you want of me then?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I thought you called me forward.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You may go,” interrupted Shubenski.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Permit me,” I said, “as I am here, to remind you that +you, Colonel, said to me on my last appearance before the +Commission, that no one charged me with complicity in the +students’ party; but now the sentence says that I am one +of those punished on that account. There is some mistake +here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you mean to protest against the imperial decision?” +cried out Shubenski. “If you are not careful, young man, +something worse may be substituted for Perm. I shall +order your words to be taken down.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>“Just what I meant to ask. The sentence says ‘according +to the report of the Commission’: well, my protest is +not against the imperial edict but against your report. I +call the Prince to witness, that I was never even questioned +about the party or the songs sung there.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Shubenski turned pale with rage. “You pretend not to +know,” he said, “that your guilt is ten times greater than +that of those who attended the party.” He pointed to one +of the pardoned men: “There is a man who sang an objectionable +song under the influence of drink; but he +afterwards begged forgiveness on his knees with tears. +You are still far enough from any repentance.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Excuse me,” I went on; “the depth of my guilt is not +the question. But if I am a murderer, I don’t want to pass +for a thief. I don’t want people to say, even by way of +defence, that I did so-and-so under the influence of drink.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If my son, my own son, were as brazen as you, I +should myself ask the Tsar to banish him to Siberia.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>At this point the Commissioner of Police struck in with +some incoherent nonsense. It is a pity that Golitsyn junior +was not present; he would have had a chance to air his +rhetoric.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All this, as a matter of course, led to nothing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We stayed in the room for another quarter of an hour, +and spent the time, undeterred by the earnest representations +of the police-officers, in warm embraces and a long +farewell. I never saw any of them again, except Obolenski, +before my return from Vyatka.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3> + +<p class='c018'>We had to face our departure. Prison was in a sense a +continuation of our former life; but with our departure +<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>for the wilds, it broke off short. Our little band of youthful +friends was parting asunder. Our exile was sure to +last for several years. Where and how, if ever, should we +meet again? One felt regret for that past life—one had +been forced to leave it so suddenly, without saying good-bye. +Of a meeting with Ogaryóv I had no hope. Two of +my intimate friends secured an interview with me towards +the end, but I wanted something more.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§16</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I wished to see once more the girl who had cheered me +before and to press her hand as I had pressed it in the +churchyard nine months earlier. At that interview I intended +to part with the past and greet the future.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We did meet for a few minutes on April 9, 1835, the +day before my departure into exile.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Long did I keep that day sacred in memory; it is one +of the red-letter days of my life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But why does the recollection of that day and all the +bright and happy days of my past life recall so much that +is terrible? I see a grave, a wreath of dark-red roses, two +children whom I am leading by the hand, torch-light, a +band of exiles, the moon, a warm sea beneath a mountain; +I hear words spoken which I cannot understand, and yet +they tear my heart.<a id='r78' /><a href='#f78' class='c016'><sup>[78]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f78'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. </span>Herzen’s wife, Natalie, died at Nice in 1852 and was +buried there under the circumstances here described.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>All, all, has passed away!</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>Exile—A Chief Constable—The Volga—Perm.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ON the morning of April 10, 1835, a police-officer +conducted me to the Governor’s palace, where +my parents were allowed to take leave of me +in the private part of the office.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was bound to be an uncomfortable and painful +scene. Spies and clerks swarmed round us; we listened +while his instructions were read aloud to the police-agent +who was to go with me; it was impossible to exchange a +word unwatched—in short, more painful and galling surroundings +cannot be imagined. It was a relief when the +carriage started at last along the Vladimirka River.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c022'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><i>Per me si va nella città dolente,</i></div> + <div class='line'><i>Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore</i>—<a id='r79' /><a href='#f79' class='c016'><sup>[79]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote c000' id='f79'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. </span>Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, Canto III.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I wrote this couplet on the wall of one of the post-houses; +it suits the vestibule of Hell and the road to Siberia +equally well.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One of my intimate friends had promised to meet me +at an inn seven <i>versts</i> from Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>I proposed to the police-agent that he should have a +glass of brandy there; we were at a safe distance from +Moscow, and he accepted. We went in, but my friend +was not there. I put off our start by every means in my +power; but at last my companion was unwilling to wait +longer, and the driver was touching up the horses, when +suddenly a <i>troika</i><a id='r80' /><a href='#f80' class='c016'><sup>[80]</sup></a> came galloping straight up to the door. +I rushed out—and met two strangers; they were merchants’ +sons out for a spree and made some noise as they +got off their vehicle. All along the road to Moscow I could +not see a single moving spot, nor a single human being. +I felt it bitter to get into the carriage and start. But I gave +the driver a quarter-<i>rouble</i>, and off we flew like an arrow +from the bow.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f80'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. </span>Three horses harnessed abreast form a <i>troika</i>.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>We put up nowhere: the orders were that not less than +200 <i>versts</i> were to be covered every twenty-four hours. +That would have been tolerable, at any other season; but +it was the beginning of April, and the road was covered +with ice in some places, and with water and mud in others; +and it got worse and worse with each stage of our advance +towards Siberia.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My first adventure happened at Pokróv.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We had lost some hours owing to the ice on the river, +which cut off all communication with the other side. My +guardian was eager to get on, when the post-master at +Pokróv suddenly declared that there were no fresh horses. +My keeper produced his passport, which stated that horses +must be forthcoming all along the road; he was told that +the horses were engaged for the Under-Secretary of the +Home Office. He began, of course, to wrangle and make +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>a noise; and then they both went off together to get horses +from the local peasants.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Getting tired of waiting for their return in the post-master’s +dirty room, I went out at the gate and began to +walk about in front of the house. It was nine months +since I had taken a walk without the presence of a sentry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I had been walking half an hour when a man came up +to me; he was wearing uniform without epaulettes and a +blue medal-ribbon. He stared very hard at me, walked +past, turned round at once, and asked me in an insolent +manner:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Is it you who are going to Perm with a police-officer?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” I answered, still walking.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Excuse me! excuse me! How does the man dare...?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Whom have I the honour of speaking to?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am the chief constable of this town,” replied the +stranger, and his voice showed how deeply he felt his own +social importance. “The Under-Secretary may arrive at +any moment, and here, if you please, there are political +prisoners walking about the streets! What an idiot that +policeman is!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“May I trouble you to address your observations to the +man himself?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Address him? I shall arrest him and order him a hundred +lashes, and send you on in charge of someone else.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Without waiting for the end of his speech, I nodded +and walked back quickly to the post-house. Sitting by the +window, I could hear his loud angry voice as he threatened +my keeper, who excused himself but did not seem +seriously alarmed. Presently they came into the room together; +I did not turn round but went on looking out of +the window.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>From their conversation I saw at once that the chief +constable was dying to know all about the circumstances +of my banishment. As I kept up a stubborn silence, the +official began an impersonal address, intended equally for +me and my keeper.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We get no sympathy. What pleasure is it to me, pray, +to quarrel with a policeman or to inconvenience a gentleman +whom I never set eyes on before in my life? But I +have a great responsibility, in my position here. Whatever +happens, I get the blame. If public funds are stolen, they +attack me; if the church catches fire, they attack me; if +there are too many drunk men in the streets, I suffer for +it; if too little whisky is drunk,<a id='r81' /><a href='#f81' class='c016'><sup>[81]</sup></a> I suffer for that too.” +He was pleased with his last remark and went on more +cheerfully: “It is lucky you met me, but you might have +met the Secretary; and if you had walked past him, he +would have said ‘A political prisoner walking about! +Arrest the chief constable!’”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f81'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. </span>great revenue was derived by Government from the sale of +spirits.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I got weary at last of his eloquence. I turned to him +and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do your duty by all means, but please spare me your +sermons. From what you say I see that you expected me +to bow to you; but I am not in the habit of bowing to +strangers.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My friend was flabbergasted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>That is the rule all over Russia, as a friend of mine +used to say: whoever gets rude and angry first, always +wins. If you ever allow a Jack in office to raise his voice, +you are lost: when he hears himself shouting, he turns +into a wild beast. But if <i>you</i> begin shouting at his first +rude word, he is certain to be cowed; for he thinks that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>you mean business and are the sort of person whom it is +unsafe to irritate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The chief constable sent my keeper to enquire about +the horses; then he turned to me and remarked by way +of apology:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I acted in that way chiefly because of the man. You +don’t know what our underlings are like—it is impossible +to pass over the smallest breach of discipline. But I assure +you I know a gentleman when I see him. Might I ask you +what unfortunate incident it was that brings you...”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We were bound to secrecy at the end of the trial.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, in that case ... of course ... I should not +venture...”—and his eyes expressed the torments of +curiosity. He held his tongue, but not for long.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I had a distant cousin, who was imprisoned for about +a year in the fortress of Peter and Paul; he was mixed up +with ... you understand. Excuse me, but I think you +are still angry, and I take it to heart. I am used to army +discipline; I began serving when I was seventeen. I have +a hot temper, but it all passes in a moment. I won’t trouble +your man any further, deuce take him!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My keeper now came in and reported that it would +take an hour to drive in the horses from the fields.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The chief constable told him that he was pardoned at +my intercession; then he turned to me and added:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“To show that you are not angry, I do hope you will +come and take pot-luck with me—I live two doors away; +please don’t refuse.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This turn to our interview seemed to me so amusing +that I went to his house, where I ate his pickled sturgeon +and caviare and drank his brandy and Madeira.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He grew so friendly that he told me all his private +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>affairs, including the details of an illness from which his +wife had suffered for seven years. After our meal, with +pride and satisfaction he took a letter from a jar on the +table and let me read a “poem” which his son had written +at school and recited on Speech-day. After these flattering +proofs of confidence, he neatly changed the conversation +and enquired indirectly about my offence; and this time I +gratified his curiosity to some extent.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This man reminded me of a justice’s clerk whom my +friend S. used to speak about. Though his chief had been +changed a dozen times, the clerk never lost his place and +was the real ruler of the district.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How do you manage to get on with them all?” my +friend asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“All right, thank you; one manages to rub on somehow. +You do sometimes get a gentleman who is very +awkward at first, kicks with fore legs and hind legs, shouts +abuse at you, and threatens to complain at head-quarters +and get you turned out. Well, you know, the likes of us +have to put up with that. One holds one’s tongue and +thinks—‘Oh, he’ll wear himself out in time; he’s only just +getting into harness.’ And so it turns out: once started, +he goes along first-rate.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>On getting near Kazán, we found the Volga in full flood. +The river spread fifteen <i>versts</i> or more beyond its banks, +and we had to travel by water for the whole of the last +stage. It was bad weather, and a number of carts and +other vehicles were detained on the bank, as the ferries +had stopped working.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My keeper went to the man in charge and demanded +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>a raft for our use. The man gave it unwillingly; he said +that it was dangerous and we had better wait. But my +keeper was in haste, partly because he was drunk and +partly because he wished to show his power.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My carriage was placed upon a moderate-sized raft +and we started. The weather appeared to improve; and +after half an hour the boatman, who was a Tatar, hoisted +a sail. But suddenly the storm came on again with fresh +violence, and we were carried rapidly downstream. We +caught up some floating timber and struck it so hard that +our rickety raft was nearly wrecked and the water came +over the decking. It was an awkward situation; but the +Tatar managed to steer us into a sandbank.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A barge now hove in sight. We called out to them to +send us their boat, but the bargemen, though they heard +us, went past and gave us no assistance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A peasant, who had his wife with him in a small boat, +rowed up to us and asked what was the matter. “What +of that?” he said. “Stop the leak, say a prayer, and start +off. There’s nothing to worry about; but you’re a Tatar, +and that’s why you’re so helpless.” Then he waded over +to our raft.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Tatar was really very much alarmed. In the first +place, my keeper, who was asleep when the water came +on board and wet him, sprang to his feet and began to +beat the Tatar. In the second place, the raft was Government +property and the Tatar kept saying, “If it goes to +the bottom, I shall catch it!” I tried to comfort him by +saying that in that case he would go to the bottom too.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, if I’m <i>not</i> drowned, <i>bátyushka</i>, what then?” +was his reply.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The peasant and some labourers stuffed up the leak in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>the raft and nailed a board over it with their axe-heads; +then, up to the waist in the water, they dragged the raft off +the sandbank, and we soon reached the channel of the +Volga. The current ran furiously. Wind, rain, and snow +lashed our faces, and the cold pierced to our bones; but +soon the statue of Ivan the Terrible began to loom out +from behind the fog and torrents of rain. It seemed that +the danger was past; but suddenly the Tatar called out +in a piteous voice, “It’s leaking, it’s leaking!”—and the +water did in fact come rushing in at the old leak. We were +right in the centre of the stream, but the raft began to +move slower and slower, and the time seemed at hand +when it would sink altogether. The Tatar took off his cap +and began to pray; my servant shed tears and said a final +good-bye to his mother at home; but my keeper used bad +language and vowed he would beat them both when we +landed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I too felt uneasy at first, partly owing to the wind and +rain, which added an element of confusion and disorder +to the danger. But then it seemed to me absurd that I +should meet my death before I had done anything; the +spirit of the conqueror’s question—<i>quid timeas? Caesarem +vehis!</i>—asserted itself;<a id='r82' /><a href='#f82' class='c016'><sup>[82]</sup></a> and I waited calmly for the end, +convinced that I should not end my life there, between +Uslon and Kazán. Later life saps such proud confidence +and makes a man suffer for it; and that is why youth is +bold and heroic, while a man in years is cautious and +seldom carried away.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f82'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. </span>The story of Caesar’s rebuke to the boatman is told by +Plutarch in his <i>Life of Caesar</i>, chap. 38.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>A quarter of an hour later we landed, drenched and +frozen, near the walls of the Kremlin of Kazán. At the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>nearest public-house I got a glass of spirits and a hard-boiled +egg, and then went off to the post-house.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In villages and small towns, the post-master keeps a +room for the accommodation of travellers; but in the +large towns, where everybody goes to the hotels, there is +no such provision. I was taken into the office, and the +post-master showed me his own room. It was occupied by +women and children and an old bedridden man; there was +positively not a corner where I could change my clothes. +I wrote a letter to the officer in command of the Kazán +police, asking him to arrange that I should have some +place where I could warm myself and dry my clothes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My messenger returned in an hour’s time and reported +that Count Apraxin would grant my request. I waited +two hours more, but no one came, and I despatched my +messenger again. He brought this answer—that the +colonel who had received Apraxin’s order was playing +whist at the club, and that nothing could be done for me +till next day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was positive cruelty, and I wrote a second letter +to Apraxin. I asked him to send me on at once and said +I hoped to find better quarters after the next stage of my +journey. But my letter was not delivered, because the +Count had gone to bed. I could do no more. I took off +my wet clothes in the office; then I wrapped myself up +in a soldier’s overcoat and lay down on the table; a thick +book, covered with some of my linen, served me as a +pillow. I sent out for some breakfast in the morning. By +that time the clerks were arriving, and the door-keeper +pointed out to me that a public office was an unsuitable +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>place to breakfast in; it made no difference to him personally, +but the post-master might disapprove of my proceedings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I laughed and said that a captive was secure against +eviction and was bound to eat and drink in his place of +confinement, wherever it might be.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Next morning Count Apraxin gave me leave to stay +three days at Kazán and to put up at a hotel.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For those three days I wandered about the city, attended +everywhere by my keeper. The veiled faces of the +Tatar women, the high cheekbones of their husbands, +the mosques of true believers standing side by side with +the churches of the Orthodox faith—it all reminds one of +Asia and the East. At Vladímir or Nizhni the neighbourhood +of Moscow is felt; but one feels far from Moscow +at Kazán.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When I reached Perm, I was taken straight to the Governor’s +house. There was a great gathering there; for +it was his daughter’s wedding-day; the bridegroom was +an officer in the Army. The Governor insisted that I should +come in. So I made my bow to the <i>beau monde</i> of Perm, +covered with mud and dust, and wearing a shabby, stained +coat. The Governor talked a great deal of nonsense; he +told me to keep clear of the Polish exiles in the town and +to call again in the course of a few days, when he would +provide me with some occupation in the public offices.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Governor of Perm was a Little Russian; he was +not hard upon the exiles and behaved reasonably in other +respects. Like a mole which adds grain to grain in some +underground repository, so he kept putting by a trifle for +a rainy day, without anyone being the wiser.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>From some dim idea of keeping a check over us, he ordered +that all the exiles residing at Perm should report +themselves at his house, at ten every Saturday morning. +He came in smoking his pipe and ascertained, by means +of a list which he carried, whether all were present; if +anyone was missing, he sent to enquire the reason; he +hardly ever spoke to anyone before dismissing us. Thus +I made the acquaintance in his drawing-room of all the +Poles whom he had told me I was to avoid.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The day after I reached Perm, my keeper departed, +and I was at liberty for the first time since my arrest—at +liberty, in a little town on the Siberian frontier, with +no experience of life and no comprehension of the sphere +in which I was now forced to live.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From the nursery I had passed straight to the lecture-room, +and from the lecture-room to a small circle of +friends, an intimate world of theories and dreams, without +contact with practical life; then came prison, with +its opportunities for reflexion; and contact with life was +only beginning now and here, by the ridge of the Ural +Mountains.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Practical life made itself felt at once: the day after my +arrival I went to look for lodgings with the porter at the +Governor’s office; he took me to a large one-storeyed +house; and, though I explained that I wanted a small +house, or, better still, part of a house, he insisted that I +should go in.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The lady who owned the house made me sit on the sofa. +Hearing that I came from Moscow, she asked if I had +seen M. Kabrit there. I replied that I had never in my +life heard a name like it.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>“Come, come!” said the old lady; “I mean M. Kabrit,” +and she gave his Christian name and patronymic. “You +don’t say, <i>bátyushka</i>, that you don’t know him! He is our +Vice-Governor!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I spent nine months in prison,” I said smiling, +“and perhaps that accounts for my not hearing of him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It may be so. And so you want to hire the little house, +<i>bátyushka</i>?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s a big house, much too big; I said so to the man +who brought me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Too much of this world’s goods are no burden to the +back.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“True; but you will ask a large rent for your large +house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who told you, young man, about my prices? I’ve not +opened my mouth yet.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, but I know you can’t ask little for a house like +this.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How much do you offer?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In order to have done with her, I said that I would +not pay more than 350 <i>roubles</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And glad I am to get it, my lad! Just drink a glass of +Canary, and go and have your boxes moved in here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The rent seemed to me fabulously low, and I took the +house. I was just going when she stopped me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I forgot to ask you one thing—do you mean to keep +a cow?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good heavens! No!” I answered, deeply insulted by +such a question.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Very well; then I will supply you with cream.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I went home, thinking with horror that I had reached +a place where I was thought capable of keeping a cow!</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>Before I had time to look about me, the Governor informed +me that I was transferred to Vyatka: another exile +who was destined for Vyatka had asked to be transferred +to Perm, where some of his relations lived. The Governor +wished me to start next day. But that was impossible; as +I expected to stay some time at Perm, I had bought +a quantity of things and must sell them, even at a loss of +50 per cent. After several evasive answers, the Governor +allowed me to stay for forty-eight hours longer, but he +made me promise not to seek an opportunity of meeting +the exile from Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was preparing to sell my horse and a variety of rubbish, +when the inspector of police appeared with an order +that I was to leave in twenty-four hours. I explained to +him that the Governor had granted me an extension, but +he actually produced a written order, requiring him to +see me off within twenty-four hours; and this order had +been signed by the Governor after his conversation with +me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I can explain it,” said the inspector; “the great man +wishes to shuffle off the responsibility on me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Let us go and confront him with his signature,” I said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“By all means,” said the inspector.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Governor said that he had forgotten his promise +to me, and the inspector slyly asked if the order had not +better be rewritten. “Is it worth the trouble?” asked the +Governor, with an air of indifference.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We had him there,” said the inspector to me, rubbing +his hands with satisfaction. “What a mean shabby fellow +he is!”</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>This inspector belonged to a distinct class of officials, +who are half soldiers and half civilians. They are men +who, while serving in the Army, have been lucky enough +to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and have therefore +been rewarded with positions in the police service. +Military life has given them an air of frankness; they +have learned some phrases about the point of honour and +some terms of ridicule for humble civilians. The youngest +of them have read Marlinski and Zagóskin,<a id='r83' /><a href='#f83' class='c016'><sup>[83]</sup></a> and can +repeat the beginning of <i>The Prisoner of the Caucasus</i>,<a id='r84' /><a href='#f84' class='c016'><sup>[84]</sup></a> +and they like to quote the verses they know. For instance, +whenever they find a friend smoking, they invariably say:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c022'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“The amber smoked between his teeth.”<a id='r85' /><a href='#f85' class='c016'><sup>[85]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote c000' id='f83'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. </span>Popular novelists of the “patriotic” school, now forgotten.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f84'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. </span>A poem by Púshkin.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f85'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. </span><i>The Fountain of Bakhchisarai</i>, I. 2.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>They are one and all deeply convinced, and let you +know their conviction with emphasis, that their position is +far below their merits, and that poverty alone keeps them +down; but for their wounds and want of money, they +would have been generals-in-waiting or commanders of +army-corps. Each of them can point to some comrade-in-arms +who has risen to the top of the tree. “You see what +Kreutz is now,” he says; “well, we two were gazetted +together on the same day and lived in barracks like +brothers, on the most familiar terms. But I’m not a German, +and I had no kind of interest; so here I sit, a mere +policeman. But you understand that such a position is +distasteful to anyone with the feelings of a gentleman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Their wives are even more discontented. These poor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>sufferers travel to Moscow once a year, where their real +business is to deposit their little savings in the bank, +though they pretend that a sick mother or aunt wishes to +see them for the last time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And so this life goes on for fifteen years. The husband, +railing at fortune, flogs his men and uses his fists to the +shopkeepers, curries favour with the Governor, helps +thieves to get off, steals State papers, and repeats verses +from <i>The Fountain of Bakhchisarai</i>.<a id='r86' /><a href='#f86' class='c016'><sup>[86]</sup></a> The wife, railing +at fortune and provincial life, takes all she can lay her +hands on, robs petitioners, cheats tradesmen, and has +a sentimental weakness for moonlight nights.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f86'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. </span>Another of Púshkin’s early works.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I have described this type at length, because I was taken +in by these good people at first, and really thought them +superior to others of their class; but I was quite wrong.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I took with me from Perm one personal recollection +which I value.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At one of the Governor’s Saturday reviews of the exiles, +a Roman Catholic priest invited me to his house. I went +there and found several Poles. One of them sat there, +smoking a short pipe and never speaking; misery, hopeless +misery, was visible in every feature. His figure was +clumsy and even crooked; his face was of that irregular +Polish-Lithuanian type which surprises you at first and +becomes attractive later: the greatest of all Poles, Thaddei +Kosciusko,<a id='r87' /><a href='#f87' class='c016'><sup>[87]</sup></a> had that kind of face. The man’s name was +Tsichanovitch, and his dress showed that he was terribly +poor.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f87'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. </span>The famous Polish general and patriot (1746-1817).</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>Some days later, I was walking along the avenue which +bounds Perm in one direction. It was late in May; the +young leaves of the trees were opening, and the birches +were in flower—there were no trees but birches, I think, +on both sides of the avenue—but not a soul was to be +seen. People in the provinces have no taste for <i>Platonic</i> +perambulations. After strolling about for a long time; at +last I saw a figure in a field by the side of the avenue: he +was botanising, or simply picking flowers, which are not +abundant or varied in that part of the world. When he +raised his head, I recognised Tsichanovitch and went up +to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had originally been banished to Verchoturye, one of +the remotest towns in the Government of Perm, hidden +away in the Ural Mountains, buried in snow, and so far +from all roads that communication with it was almost +impossible in winter. Life there is certainly worse than +at Omsk or Krasnoyarsk. In his complete solitude there, +Tsichanovitch took to botany and collected the meagre +flora of the Ural Mountains. He got permission later to +move to Perm, and to him this was a change for the better: +he could hear once more his own language spoken +and meet his companions in misfortune. His wife, who +had remained behind in Lithuania, wrote that she intended +to join him, <i>walking from the Government of Vilna</i>. He +was expecting her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I was transferred so suddenly to Vyatka, I went +to say good-bye to Tsichanovitch. The small room in +which he lived was almost bare—there was a table and one +chair, and a little old portmanteau standing on end near +the meagre bed; and that was all the furniture. My cell in +the Krutitski barracks came back to me at once.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>He was sorry to hear of my departure, but he was so +accustomed to privations that he soon smiled almost +brightly as he said, “That’s why I love Nature; of her +you can never be deprived, wherever you are.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Wishing to leave him some token of remembrance, I +took off a small sleeve-link and asked him to accept it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your sleeve-link is too fine for my shirt,” he said; +“but I shall keep it as long as I live and wear it in my +coffin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>After a little thought, he began to rummage hastily in +his portmanteau. He took from a small bag a wrought-iron +chain with a peculiar pattern, wrenched off some of +the links, and gave them to me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have a great value for this chain,” he said; “it is +connected with the most sacred recollections of my life, +and I won’t give it all to you; but take these links. I +little thought that I should ever give them to a Russian, +an exile like myself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I embraced him and said good-bye.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“When do you start?” he asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“To-morrow morning; but don’t come: when I go back, +I shall find a policeman at my lodgings, who will never +leave me for a moment.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Very well. I wish you a good journey and better fortune +than mine.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>By nine o’clock next morning the inspector appeared +at my house, to hasten my departure. My new keeper, a +much tamer creature than his predecessor, and openly +rejoicing at the prospect of drinking freely during the 350 +<i>versts</i> of our journey, was doing something to the carriage. +All was ready. I happened to look into the street and saw +Tsichanovitch walking past. I ran to the window.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“Thank God!” he said. “This is the fourth time I have +walked past, hoping to hail you, if only from a distance; +but you never saw me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>My eyes were full of tears as I thanked him: I was +deeply touched by this proof of tender womanly attachment. +But this was the only reason why I was sorry to +leave Perm.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>On the second day of our journey, heavy rain began at +dawn and went on all day without stopping, as it often +does in wooded country; at two o’clock we came to a +miserable village of natives. There was no post-house; the +native Votyaks, who could neither read nor write, opened +my passport and ascertained whether there were two seals +or one, shouted out “All right!” and harnessed the fresh +horses. A Russian post-master would have kept us twice +as long. On getting near this village, I had proposed to +my keeper that we should rest there two hours: I wished +to get dry and warm and have something to eat. But +when I entered the smoky, stifling hut and found that no +food was procurable, and that there was not even a public-house +within five <i>versts</i>, I repented of my purpose and +intended to go on.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While I was still hesitating, a soldier came in and +brought me an invitation to drink a cup of tea from an +officer on detachment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“With all my heart. Where is your officer?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“In a hut close by, Your Honour”—and the soldier +made a left turn and disappeared. I followed him.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>Vyatka—The Office and Dinner-table of His Excellency—Tufáyev.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>WHEN I called on the Governor of Vyatka, +he sent a message that I was to call again +at ten next morning.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I returned, I found four men in the drawing-room, +the inspectors of the town and country police, and +two office clerks. They were all standing up, talking in +whispers, and looking uneasily at the door. The door +opened, and an elderly man of middle height and broad-shouldered +entered the room. The set of his head was like +that of a bulldog, and the large jaws with a kind of carnivorous +grin increased the canine resemblance; the senile +and yet animal expression of the features, the small, restless +grey eyes, and thin lank hair made an impression +which was repulsive beyond belief.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He began by roughly reproving the country inspector +for the state of a road by which His Excellency had +travelled on the previous day. The inspector stood with +his head bent, in sign of respect and submission, and said +from time to time, like servants in former days, “Very +good, Your Excellency.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>Having done with the inspector he turned to me. With +an insolent look he said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think you have taken your degree at Moscow University?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Did you enter the public service afterwards?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I was employed in the Kremlin offices.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ha! Ha! Much they do there! Not too busy there to +attend parties and sing songs, eh?” Then he called out, +“Alenitsin!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A young man of consumptive appearance came in. +“Hark ye, my friend. Here is a graduate of Moscow University +who probably knows everything except the business +of administration, and His Majesty desires that we +should teach it to him. Give him occupation in your office, +and let me have special reports about him. You, Sir, will +come to the office at nine to-morrow morning. You can go +now. By the way, I forgot to ask how you write.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was puzzled at first. “I mean your handwriting,” he +added.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I said I had none of my own writing on me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Bring paper and a pen,” and Alenitsin handed me a +pen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What shall I write?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What you please,” said the clerk; “write, <i>Upon investigation +it turned out.</i>”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Governor looked at the writing and said with a +sarcastic smile, “Well, we shan’t ask you to correspond +with the Tsar.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>While I was still at Perm, I had heard much about +<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>Tufáyev, but the reality far surpassed all my expectations.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There is no person or thing too monstrous for the conditions +of Russian life to produce.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was born at Tobolsk. His father was, I believe, an +exile and belonged to the lowest and poorest class of free +Russians. At thirteen he joined a band of strolling players, +who wandered from fair to fair, dancing on the tight rope, +turning somersaults, and so on. With them he went all +the way from Tobolsk to the Polish provinces, making +mirth for the lieges. He was arrested there on some charge +unknown to me, and then, because he had no passport, +sent back on foot to Tobolsk as a vagabond, together with +a gang of convicts. His mother was now a widow and +living in extreme poverty; he rebuilt the stove in her +house with his own hands, when it came to pieces. He +had to seek a trade of some kind; the boy learned to read +and write and got employment as a clerk in the town +office. Naturally quick-witted, he had profited by the +variety of his experience; he had learned much from the +troupe of acrobats, and as much from the gang of convicts +in whose company he had tramped from one end of Russia +to the other. He soon became a sharp man of business.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At the beginning of Alexander’s reign a Government Inspector +was sent to Tobolsk, and Tufáyev was recommended +to him as a competent clerk. He did his work so +well that the Inspector offered to take him back to Petersburg. +Hitherto, as he said himself, his ambition had not +aspired beyond a clerkship in some provincial court; but +now he set a different value on himself, and resolved with +an iron strength of will to climb to the top of the tree.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And he did it. Ten years later we find him acting as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>secretary to the Controller of the Navy, and then chief +of a department in the office of Count Arakchéyev,<a id='r88' /><a href='#f88' class='c016'><sup>[88]</sup></a> +which governed the whole Empire. When Paris was occupied +by the Allied Armies in 1815, the Count took his +secretary there with him. During the whole time of the +occupation, Tufáyev literally never saw a single street +in Paris; he sat all day and all night in the office, drawing +up or copying documents.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f88'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. </span>Arakchéyev (1769-1835) was Minister and favourite of Emperor +Alexander I; he has been called “the assassin of the Russian people.”</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Arakchéyev’s office was like those copper-mines where +the workmen are kept only for a few months, because, +if they stay longer, they die. In this manufactory of edicts +and ordinances, mandates and instructions, even Tufáyev +grew tired at last and asked for an easier place. He was +of course, a man after Arakchéyev’s own heart—a man +without pretensions or distractions or opinions of his +own, conventionally honest, eaten up by ambition, and +ranking obedience as the highest of human virtues. Arakchéyev +rewarded him with the place of a Vice-Governor, +and a few years later made him Governor of Perm. The +province, which Tufáyev had passed through as acrobat +and convict, first dancing on a rope and then bound by +a rope, now lay at his feet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A Governor’s power increases by arithmetical progression +with the distance from Petersburg, but increases by +geometrical progression in provinces like Perm or Vyatka +or Siberia, where there is no resident nobility. That was +just the kind of province that Tufáyev needed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was a Persian satrap, with this difference—that he +was active, restless, always busy and interfering in everything. +He would have been a savage agent of the French +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>Convention in 1794, something in the way of Carrier.<a id='r89' /><a href='#f89' class='c016'><sup>[89]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f89'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. </span>Infamous for his <i>noyades</i> at Nantes; guillotined in 1794.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Profligate in his life, naturally coarse, impatient of all +opposition, his influence was extremely harmful. He did +not take bribes; and yet, as appeared after his death, he +amassed a considerable fortune. He was strict with his +subordinates and punished severely those whom he detected +in dishonesty; but they stole more under his rule +than ever before or since. He carried the misuse of influence +to an extraordinary pitch; for instance, when +despatching an official to hold an enquiry, he would say, +if he had a personal interest in the matter, “You will probably +find out so-and-so to be the case,” and woe to the +official if he did not find out what the Governor foretold.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Perm, when I was there, was still full of Tufáyev’s +glory, and his partisans were hostile to his successor, who, +as a matter of course, surrounded himself with supporters +of his own.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But on the other hand, there were people at Perm who +hated him. One of these was Chebotarev, a doctor employed +at one of the factories and a remarkable product +of Russian life. He warned me specially against Tufáyev. +He was a clever and very excitable man, who had made an +unfortunate marriage soon after taking his degree; then +he had drifted to Ekaterinburg<a id='r90' /><a href='#f90' class='c016'><sup>[90]</sup></a> and sank with no experience +into the slough of provincial life. Though his position +here was fairly independent, his career was wrecked, +and his chief employment was to mock at the Government +officials. He jeered at them in their presence and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>said the most insulting things to their faces. But, as he +spared nobody, nobody felt particular resentment at his +flouts and jeers. His bitter tongue assured him a certain +ascendancy over a society where fixed principles were +rare, and he forced them to submit to the lash which he +was never weary of applying.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f90'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. </span>A town in the Ural district, now polluted by a horrible +crime.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>I was told beforehand that, though he was a good doctor, +he was crack-brained and excessively rude.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But his way of talking and jesting seemed to me neither +offensive nor trivial; on the contrary, it was full of humour +and concentrated bile. This was the poetry of his life, his +revenge, his cry of resentment and, perhaps, in part, of +despair also. Both as a student of human nature and as +a physician, he had placed these officials under his microscope; +he knew all their petty hidden vices; and, encouraged +by their dulness and cowardice, he observed no +limits in his way of addressing them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He constantly repeated the same phrase—“It does not +matter twopence,” or “It won’t cost you twopence.” I +once laughed at him for this, and he said: “What are +you surprised at? The object of all speech is to persuade, +and I only add to my statements the strongest proof that +exists in the world. Once convince a man that it won’t +cost him twopence to kill his own father and he’ll kill +him sure enough.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was always willing to lend moderate sums, as much +as a hundred or two hundred <i>roubles</i>. Whenever he was +appealed to for a loan, he pulled out his pocket-book and +asked for a date by which the money would be repaid.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Now,” he said, “I will bet a <i>rouble</i> that you will not +pay the money on that day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>“My dear Sir, who do you take me for?” the borrower +would say.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My opinion of you does not matter twopence,” was +the reply; “but the fact is that I have kept an account +for six years, and not a single debtor has ever paid me +on the day, and very few after it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the time had expired, the doctor asked with a +grave face for the payment of his bet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A rich merchant at Perm had a travelling carriage for +sale. The doctor called on him and delivered the following +speech all in a breath. “You are selling a carriage, +I need one. Because you are rich and a millionaire, everyone +respects you, and I have come to testify my respect +for the same reason. Owing to your wealth, it does not +matter twopence to you whether you sell the carriage +or not; but I need it, and I am poor. You will want to +squeeze me and take advantage of my necessity; therefore +you will ask 1,500 <i>roubles</i> for it. I shall offer 700 +<i>roubles</i>; I shall come every day to haggle over the +price, and after a week you will let me have it for 750 +or 800. Might we not as well begin at once at that point? +I am prepared to pay that sum.” The merchant was so +astonished that he let the doctor have the carriage at his +own figure.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But there was no end to the stories of Chebotarev’s +eccentricity. I shall add two more.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I was present once when a lady, a rather clever and +cultivated woman, asked him if he believed in mesmerism. +“What do you mean by mesmerism?” he asked. The lady +talked the usual nonsense in reply. “It does not matter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>twopence to you,” he said, “to know whether I believe in +mesmerism or not; but if you like, I will tell you what I +have seen in that way.” “Please do.” “Yes; but you must +listen attentively,” and then he began to describe some +experiments made by a friend of his, a doctor at Khárkov; +his description was very lively, clever, and interesting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While he was talking, a servant brought in some refreshments +on a tray, and was leaving the room when the +lady said, “You have forgotten the mustard.” Chebotarev +stopped dead. “Go on, go on,” said the lady, a little +frightened already. “I’m listening to you.” “Pray, Madam, +has he remembered the salt?” “I see you are angry with +me,” said the lady, blushing. “Not in the least, I assure +you. I know that you were listening attentively; but I +also know that no woman, however intelligent she may +be and whatever may be the subject under discussion, +can ever soar higher than the kitchen. How then could +I venture to be angry with you in particular?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Another story about him. Being employed as a doctor +at the factories of a Countess Pollier, he took a fancy to +a boy he saw there, and wished to have him for a servant. +The boy was willing, but the steward said that the consent +of the Countess must first be obtained. The doctor +wrote to her, and she replied that he might have the boy, +on condition of paying down a sum equal to the payments +due to her from the boy during the next five years. The +doctor wrote at once to express his willingness, but he +asked her to answer this question. “As Encke’s comet may +be expected to pass through the orbit of the earth in three +years and a half from now, who will be responsible for +repaying the money I have advanced, in case the comet +drives the earth out of its orbit?”</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>On the day I left for Vyatka, the doctor turned up at +my house early in the morning. He began with this witticism. +“You are like Horace: he sang once and people +have been translating him ever since, and so you are +translated<a id='r91' /><a href='#f91' class='c016'><sup>[91]</sup></a> from place to place for that song you sang.” +Then he pulled out his purse and asked if I needed money +for the journey. I thanked him and declined his offer. +“Why don’t you take it? It won’t cost you twopence.” +“I have money.” “A bad sign,” he said; “the end of the +world is coming.” Then he opened his notebook and made +this entry. “For the first time in fifteen years’ practice +I have met a man who refused money, and that man was +on the eve of departure.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f91'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. </span>The same Russian verb means ‘to translate’ and ‘to +transfer.’</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Having had his jest, he sat down on my bed and said +seriously: “That’s a terrible man you are going to. Keep +out of his way as much as ever you can. If he takes a +fancy to you, that says little in your favour; but if he +dislikes you, he will certainly ruin you; what weapon he +will use, false accusation or not, I don’t know, but ruin you +he will; he won’t care twopence.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thereupon he told me a strange story, which I was able +to verify at a later date by means of papers preserved in +the Home Office at Petersburg.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Tufáyev had a mistress at Perm, the sister of a humble +official named Petrovski. The fact was notorious, and the +brother was laughed at. Wishing therefore to break off +this connexion, he threatened to write to Petersburg and +lay information, and, in short, made such a noise and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>commotion that the police arrested him one day as insane +and brought him up to be examined before the administration +of the province. The judges and the inspector of +public health—he was an old German, much beloved by +the poor, and I knew him personally—all agreed that +Petrovski was insane.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Chebotarev knew Petrovski and had been his doctor. +He told the inspector that Petrovski was not mad at +all, and urged a fresh examination; otherwise, he would +feel bound to carry the matter further. The administration +raised no difficulties; but unfortunately Petrovski +died in the mad-house before the day fixed for the second +examination, though he was a young man and enjoyed +good health.</p> + +<p class='c008'>News of the affair now reached Petersburg. The sister +was arrested (Tufáyev ought to have been) and a secret +enquiry began. Tufáyev dictated the replies of the witnesses. +He surpassed himself in this business. He devised +a means to stifle it for ever and to save himself from a +second involuntary journey to Siberia. He actually induced +the sister to say that her youth and inexperience +had been taken advantage of by the late Tsar Alexander +when he passed through Perm, and that the quarrel with +her brother dated from that event.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Was her story true? Well, <i>la regina ne aveva molto</i>,<a id='r92' /><a href='#f92' class='c016'><sup>[92]</sup></a> +says the story-teller in Púshkin’s <i>Egyptian Nights</i>.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f92'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. </span>The reference in Púshkin is to Cleopatra’s lovers.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Such was the man who now undertook to teach me the +business of administration, a worthy pupil of Arakchéyev, +acrobat, tramp, clerk, secretary, Governor, a tender-hearted, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>unselfish being, who shut up sane men in mad-houses +and made away with them there.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was entirely at his mercy. He had only to write some +nonsense to the Minister at Petersburg, and I should be +packed off to Irkutsk. Indeed, writing was unnecessary; +he had the right to transfer me to some savage place like +Kai or Tsarevo-Sanchursk, where there were no resources +and no means of communication. He sent one young Pole +to Glazov, because the ladies had the bad taste to prefer +him as a partner in the mazurka to His Excellency. In +this way Prince Dolgorúkov was transferred from Perm +to Verchoturye, a place in the Government of Perm, +buried in mountains and snow-drifts, with as bad a climate +as Beryózov and even less society.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Prince Dolgorúkov belonged to a type which is becoming +rarer with us; he was a sprig of nobility, of the wrong +sort, whose escapades were notorious at Petersburg, Moscow, +and Paris. His whole life was spent in folly; he was +a spoilt, insolent, offensive practical joker, a mixture of +buffoon and fine gentleman. When his pranks exceeded +all bounds, he was banished to Perm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He arrived there with two carriages; the first was occupied +by himself and his dog, a Great Dane, the second by +his French cook and his parrots. The arrival of this +wealthy visitor gave much pleasure, and before long all +the town was rubbing shoulders in his dining-room. He +soon took up with a young lady of Perm; and this young +lady, suspecting that he was unfaithful, turned up unexpectedly +at his house one morning, and found him with +a maid-servant. A scene followed, and at last the faithless +<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>lover took his riding-whip down from its peg; when the +lady perceived his intention, she made off; simply attired +in a dressing-gown and nothing else, he made after her, +and caught her up on the small parade-ground where the +troops were exercised. When he had given the jealous lady +a few blows with his whip, he strolled home, quite content +with his performance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But these pleasant little ways brought upon him the +persecution of his former friends, and the authorities +decided to send this madcap of forty on to Verchoturye. +The day before he left, he gave a grand dinner, and all +the local officials, in spite of the strained relations, came +to the feast; for Dolgorúkov had promised them a new +and remarkable pie. The pie was in fact excellent and +vanished with extraordinary rapidity. When nothing but +the crust was left, Dolgorúkov said to his guests with an +air of emotion: “It never can be said that I spared anything +to make our last meeting a success. I had my dog +killed yesterday, to make this pie.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The officials looked first with horror at one another +and then round the room for the Great Dane whom they +all knew perfectly; but he was not there. The Prince +ordered a servant to bring in the mortal remains of his +favourite; the skin was all there was to show; the rest +was in the stomachs of the people of Perm. Half the town +took to their beds in consequence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Dolgorúkov meanwhile, pleased by the success of the +practical joke he had played on his friends, was travelling +in triumph to Verchoturye. To his train he had now added +a third vehicle containing a hen-house and its inhabitants. +At several of the post-houses on his way he carried off +the official registers, mixed them up, and altered the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>figures; the posting-department, who, even with the +registers, found it difficult enough to get the returns right, +almost went mad in consequence.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The oppressive emptiness and dumbness of Russian life, +when misallied to a strong and even violent temperament, +are apt to produce monstrosities of all kinds.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Not only in Dolgorúkov’s pie, but in Suvórov’s crowing +like a cock, in the savage outbursts of Ismailov, in the +semi-voluntary insanity of Mamonov,<a id='r93' /><a href='#f93' class='c016'><sup>[93]</sup></a> and in the wild extravagances +of Tolstoi, nicknamed “The American,” +everywhere I catch a national note which is familiar to us +all, though in most of us it is weakened by education or +turned in some different direction.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f93'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r93'>93</a>. </span>Suvórov, the famous general (1729-1800), was very +eccentric in his personal habits. Ismailov, a rich landowner at the +beginning of the nineteenth century, was infamous for his cruelties. +Mamonov (1758-1803) was one of Catherine’s favourites.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Tolstoi I knew personally, just at the time when he lost +his daughter, Sara, a remarkable girl with a high poetic +gift. He was old then; but one look at his athletic figure, +his flashing eyes, and the grey curls that clustered on his +forehead, was enough to show how great was his natural +strength and activity. But he had developed only stormy +passions and vicious propensities. And this is not surprising: +in Russia all that is vicious is allowed to grow for +long unchecked, while men are sent to a fortress or to +Siberia at the first sign of a humane passion. For twenty +years Tolstoi rioted and gambled, used his fists to mutilate +his enemies, and reduced whole families to beggary, +till at last he was banished to Siberia. He made his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>way through Kamchatka to America and, while there, +obtained permission to return to Russia. The Tsar pardoned +him, and he resumed his old life the very day after +his return. He married a gipsy woman, a famous singer +who belonged to a gipsy tribe at Moscow, and turned his +house into a gambling-hell. His nights were spent at the +card-table, and all his time in excesses; wild scenes of +cupidity and intoxication went on round the cradle of his +daughter. It is said that he once ordered his wife to stand +on the table, and sent a bullet through the heel of her +shoe, in order to prove the accuracy of his aim.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His last exploit very nearly sent him back to Siberia. +He contrived to entrap in his house at Moscow a tradesman +against whom he had an old grudge, bound him +hand and foot, and pulled out one of his teeth. It is +hardly credible that this should have happened only ten +or twelve years ago. The man lodged a complaint. But +Tolstoi bribed the police and the judges, and the victim +was lodged in prison for false witness. It happened that a +well-known man of letters was then serving on the prison +committee and took up the affair, on learning the facts +from the tradesman. Tolstoi was seriously alarmed; it +was clear that he was likely to be condemned. But anything +is possible in Russia. Count Orlóv sent secret instructions +that the affair must be hushed up, to deprive +the lower classes of a direct triumph over the aristocracy, +and he also advised that the man of letters should be removed +from the committee. This is almost more incredible +than the incident of the tooth. But I was in Moscow then +myself and well acquainted with the imprudent man of +letters. But I must go back to Vyatka.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>The office there was incomparably worse than my prison. +The actual work was not hard; but the mephitic atmosphere—the +place was like a second Grotto del Cane<a id='r94' /><a href='#f94' class='c016'><sup>[94]</sup></a>—and +the monstrous and absurd waste of time made the +life unbearable. Alenitsin did not treat me badly. He was +even more polite than I expected; having been educated +at the grammar school of Kazán, he had some respect for +a graduate of Moscow University.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f94'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r94'>94</a>. </span>The grotto near Naples where dogs were held over the +sulphurous vapour till they became insensible.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Twenty clerks were employed in the office. The majority +of them were entirely destitute of either intellectual culture +or moral sense, sons of clerks, who had learned from their +cradles to look upon the public service as a means of livelihood +and the cultivators of the land as the source of +their income. They sold official papers, pocketed small +sums whenever they could get them, broke their word for +a glass of spirits, and stuck at nothing, however base and +ignominious. My own valet stopped playing billiards at +the public rooms, because, as he said, the officials cheated +shamefully and he could not give them a lesson because +of their rank in society.</p> + +<p class='c008'>With these men, whose position alone made them safe +from my servant’s fists, I had to sit every day from nine +till two and again from five till eight.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alenitsin was head of the whole office, and the desk +at which I sat had a chief also, not a bad-hearted man, +but drunken and illiterate. There were four other clerks +at my desk; and I had to be on speaking terms with them, +and with all the rest as well. Apart from the fact that +these people would sooner or later have paid me out for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>any airs of exclusiveness, it is simply impossible not to +get to know people in whose company you spend several +hours every day. It must also be remembered how people +in the country hang on to a stranger, especially if he +comes from the capital, and still more if he has been mixed +up in some exciting scandal.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When I had tugged at the oar all day in this galley, I +used sometimes to go home quite stupefied and fall on my +sofa, worn out and humiliated, and incapable of any work +or occupation. I heartily regretted my prison cell with its +foul air and black beetles, its locked door and turnkey +behind the lock. There I was free and did what I liked +without interference; there I enjoyed dead silence and +unbroken leisure; I had exchanged these for trivial talk, +dirty companions, low ideas, and coarse feelings. When +I remembered that I must go back there in the afternoon, +and back again to-morrow, I sometimes fell into such fits +of rage and despair that I drank wine and spirits for consolation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Nor was that all. One of my desk-fellows would perhaps +look in, for want of something to do; and there he would +sit and chatter till the appointed hour recalled us to the +office.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>After a few months, however, the office life became somewhat +less oppressive.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is not in the Russian character to keep up a steady +system of persecution, unless where personal or avaricious +motives are involved; and this fact is due to our Russian +carelessness and indifference. Those in authority in Russia +are generally unlicked and insolent, and it is very easy, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>when dealing with them, to come in for the rough side of +their tongue; but a war of pin-pricks is not in their way—they +have not the patience for it, perhaps because it brings +in no profit.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the heat of the moment, in order to display their +power or prove their zeal, they are capable of anything, +however absurd and unnecessary; but then by degrees +they cease to trouble you.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I found this to be the case in my office. It so happened +that the Ministry of the Interior had just been seized with +a fit of statistics. Orders were issued that committees +should be appointed all over the country, and information +was required from these committees which could hardly +have been supplied in such countries as Belgium and Switzerland. +There were also ingenious tables of all kinds for +figures, to show a maximum and minimum as well as +averages, and conclusions based on a comparison of ten +years (for nine of which, if you please, no statistics at +all had been recorded); the morality of the inhabitants +and even the weather were to be included in the report. +For the committee and for the collection of facts not a +penny was allotted; the work had to be done from pure +love of statistics; the rural police were to collect the facts +and the Governor’s office to put them in order. The office +was overburdened with work already, and the rural police +preferred to use their fists rather than their brains; both +looked on the statistics committee as a mere superfluity, +an official joke; nevertheless, a report had to be presented, +including tables of figures and conclusions based +thereon.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To all our office the job seemed excessively difficult. +It was, indeed, simply impossible; but to that nobody paid +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>any attention; their sole object was to escape a reprimand. +I promised Alenitsin that I would write the introduction +and first part of the report, with specimen tables, introducing +plenty of eloquent phrases, foreign words, apt +quotations, and impressive conclusions, if he would allow +me to perform this difficult task at my house instead of +at the office. He talked it over with the Governor and gave +permission.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The beginning of the report dealt with the committee’s +activity; and here, as there was nothing to show at present, +I dwelt upon hopes and intentions for the future. This +composition moved Alenitsin to the depth of his heart and +was considered a masterpiece even by the Governor. That +was the end of my labours in the department of statistics, +but I was made chairman of the committee. Thus I was +delivered from the slavery of copying office papers, and +my drunken chief became something like my subordinate. +Alenitsin only asked, from some idea of keeping up appearances, +that I should just look in every day at the +office.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To show how utterly impossible it was to draw up +serious tables, I shall quote some information received +from the town of Kai. There were many absurdities, and +this was one.</p> + +<table class='table2' summary=''> +<colgroup> +<col width='87%' /> +<col width='12%' /> +</colgroup> + <tr> + <td class='c024'>Persons drowned,</td> + <td class='c012'>2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'>Causes of drowning unknown,</td> + <td class='c012'>2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c012'>═══</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'>Total</td> + <td class='c012'>4</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class='c008'>Under the heading “Extraordinary Events” the following +tragedy was chronicled: “So-and-so, having injured his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>brain with spirituous liquors, hanged himself.” Under the +heading “Morality of the Inhabitants” this was entered: +“No Jews were found in the town of Kai.” There was a +question whether any funds had been allotted to the building +of a church, or exchange, or hospital. The answer was: +“Money allotted to the building of an exchange was not +allotted.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Statistics saved me from office work, but they had one +bad result—they brought me into personal relations with +the Governor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a time when I hated this man, but that time +has long passed away, and the man has passed away himself—he +died about 1845 near Kazán, where he had an +estate. I think of him now without anger; I regard him +as a strange beast encountered in some primeval forest, +which deserves study, but, just because it is a beast, cannot +excite anger. But then it was impossible not to fight +him; any decent man must have done so. He might have +damaged me seriously, but accident preserved me; and to +resent the harm which he failed to do me would be absurd +and pitiable.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Governor was separated from his wife, and the +wife of his cook occupied her place. The cook was banished +from the town, his only guilt being his marriage; +and the cook’s wife, by an arrangement whose awkwardness +seemed intentional, was concealed in the back part +of the Governor’s residence. Though she was not formally +recognised, yet the cook’s wife had a little court, +formed out of those officials who were especially devoted +to the Governor—in other words, those whose conduct +could least stand investigation; and their wives and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>daughters, though rather bashful about it, paid her stolen +visits after dark. This lady possessed the tact which distinguished +one of her most famous male predecessors—Catherine’s +favourite, Potemkin. Knowing her consort’s +way and anxious not to lose her place, she herself procured +for him rivals from whom she had nothing to fear. +Grateful for this indulgence, he repaid her with his affection, +and the pair lived together in harmony.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Governor spent the whole morning working in his +office. The poetry of his life began at three o’clock. He +loved his dinner, and he liked to have company while +eating. Twelve covers were laid every day; if the party +was less than six, he was annoyed; if it fell to two, he was +distressed; and if he had no guest, he was almost desperate +and went off to the apartments of his Dulcinea, to +dine there. It is not a difficult business to get people together, +in order to feed them to excess; but his official +position, and the fear his subordinates felt for him, prevented +them from availing themselves freely of his hospitality, +and him from turning his house into an inn. He +had therefore to content himself with heads of departments—though +with half of them he was on bad terms—occasional +strangers, rich merchants, spirit-distillers, and +“curiosities.” These last may be compared with the +<i>capacités</i>, who were to be introduced into the Chamber +of Deputies under Louis Philippe. I need hardly say that +I was a “curiosity” of the first water at Vyatka.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3> + +<p class='c018'>People banished for their opinions to remote parts of +Russia are a little feared but by no means confounded +with ordinary mortals. For the provincial mind “dangerous people” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>have that kind of attraction which notorious +Don Juans have for women, and notorious courtesans for +men. The officials of Petersburg and grandees of Moscow +are much more shy of “dangerous” people than the dwellers +in the provinces and especially in Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The exiled Decembrists were immensely respected. +Yushnevski’s widow was treated as a lady of the first consequence +in Siberia; the official figures of the Siberian +census were corrected by means of statistics supplied by +the exiles; and Minich, in his prison, managed the affairs +of the province of Tobolsk, the Governors themselves resorting +to him for advice in matters of importance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The common people are even more friendly to the exiles; +they always take the side of men who have been +punished. Near the Siberian frontier, the word “exile” +disappears, and the word “unfortunate” is used instead. In +the eyes of the Russian people, the sentence of a court +leaves no stain. In the Government of Perm, the peasants +along the road to Tobolsk often put out <i>kvass</i> or milk and +bread on the window-sill, for the use of some “unfortunate” +who may be trying to escape from Siberia.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§14</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In this place I may say something about the Polish exiles. +There are some as far west as Nizhni, and after Kazán +the number rapidly increases; there were forty of them at +Perm and at least as many at Vyatka; and each of the +smaller towns contained a few.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They kept entirely apart and avoided all communication +with the Russian inhabitants; among themselves they +lived like brothers, and the rich shared their wealth with +the poor.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>I never noticed any special hatred or any liking for +them on the part of the Russians. They were simply considered +as outsiders; and hardly any of the Poles knew +Russian.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I remember one of the exiles who got permission in +1837 to return to his estates in Lithuania. He was a tough +old cavalry officer who had served under Poniatovski in +several of Napoleon’s campaigns. The day before he left, +he invited some Poles to dinner, and me as well. After +dinner he came up to me with his glass in his hand, embraced +me, and said with a soldier’s frankness, “Oh, why +are you a Russian?” I made no answer, but his question +made a strong impression on me. I realised that it was +impossible for the present generation to give freedom to +Poland. But, since Konarsky’s<a id='r95' /><a href='#f95' class='c016'><sup>[95]</sup></a> time, Poles have begun to +think quite differently of Russians.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f95'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r95'>95</a>. </span>A Polish revolutionary; born in 1808, he was shot in +February, 1839.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>In general, the exiled Poles are not badly treated; but +those of them who have no means of their own are shockingly +ill off. Such men receive from Government fifteen +<i>roubles</i> a month, to pay for lodgings, clothing, food, and +fuel. In the larger towns, such as Kazán or Tobolsk, they +can eke out a living by giving lessons or concerts, by playing +at balls or painting portraits or teaching children to +dance; but at Perm and Vyatka even these resources did +not exist. In spite of that, they never asked Russians for +assistance in any form.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The Governor’s invitations to dine on the luxuries of +Siberia were a real infliction to me. His dining-room was +merely the office over again, in a different shape, cleaner +<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>indeed, but more objectionable, because there was not the +same appearance of compulsion about it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He knew his guests thoroughly and despised them. +Sometimes he showed his claws, but he generally treated +them as a man treats his dogs, either with excessive familiarity +or with a roughness beyond all bounds. But all the +same he continued to invite them, and they came in a +flutter of joy, prostrating themselves before him, currying +favour by tales against others, all smiles and bows +and complaisance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I blushed for them and felt ashamed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our intimacy did not last long: the Governor soon perceived +that I was unfit to move in the highest circles of +Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After three months he was dissatisfied with me, and +after six months he hated me. I ceased to attend his dinners, +and never even called at his house. As we shall see +later, it was a visit to Vyatka from the Crown Prince<a id='r96' /><a href='#f96' class='c016'><sup>[96]</sup></a> +that saved me from his persecution.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f96'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r96'>96</a>. </span>Afterwards Alexander II.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>In this connexion it is necessary to add that I did +nothing whatever to deserve either his attentions and invitations +at first, or his anger and ill-usage afterwards. He +could not endure in me an attitude which, though not at +all rude, was independent; my behaviour was perfectly +correct, but he demanded servility.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was greedily jealous of the power which he had +worked hard to gain, and he sought not merely obedience +but the appearance of unquestioning subordination. +Unfortunately, in this respect he was a true Russian.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The gentleman says to his servant: “Hold your tongue! +I will not allow you to answer me back.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>The head of an office says to any subordinate who +ventures on a protest: “You forget yourself. Do you know +to whom you are speaking?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Tufáyev cherished a secret but intense hatred for everything +aristocratic, and it was the result of bitter experience. +For him the penal servitude of Arakchéyev’s office +was a harbour of refuge and freedom, such as he had +never enjoyed before. In earlier days his employers, when +they gave him small jobs to do, never offered him a chair; +when he served in the Controller’s office, he was treated +with military roughness by the soldiers and once horse-whipped +by a colonel in the streets of Vilna. The clerk +stored all this up in his heart and brooded over it; and +now he was Governor, and it was his turn to play the +tyrant, to keep a man standing, to address people familiarly, +to speak unnecessarily loudly, and at times to commit +long-descended nobles for trial.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From Perm he was promoted to Tver. But the nobles, +however deferential and subservient, could not stand +Tufáyev. They petitioned for his removal, and he was +sent to Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There he was in his element once more. Officials and +distillers, factory-owners and officials,—what more could +the heart of man desire? Everyone trembled before him +and got up when he approached; everyone gave him dinners, +offered him wine, and sought to anticipate his wishes; +at every wedding or birthday party the first toast proposed +was “His Excellency the Governor!”</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>Officials—Siberian Governors—A Bird of Prey—A Gentle +Judge—An Inspector Roasted—The Tatar—A Boy of the +Female Sex—The Potato Revolt—Russian Justice.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>ONE of the saddest consequences of the revolution +effected by Peter the Great is the development +of the official class in Russia. These <i>chinóvniks</i> +are an artificial, ill-educated, and hungry class, +incapable of anything except office-work, and ignorant of +everything except official papers. They form a kind of lay +clergy, officiating in the law-courts and police-offices, and +sucking the blood of the nation with thousands of dirty, +greedy mouths.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Gógol raised one side of the curtain and showed us the +Russian <i>chinóvnik</i> in his true colours;<a id='r97' /><a href='#f97' class='c016'><sup>[97]</sup></a> but Gógol, without +meaning to, makes us resigned by making us laugh, +and his immense comic power tends to suppress resentment. +Besides, fettered as he was by the censorship, he +could barely touch on the sorrowful side of that unclean +subterranean region in which the destinies of the ill-starred +Russian people are hammered and shaped.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f97'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r97'>97</a>. </span>Gógol’s play, <i>The Revisor</i>, is a satire on the +Russian bureaucracy.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>There, in those grimy offices which we walk through +<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>as fast as we can, men in shabby coats sit and write; first +they write a rough draft and then copy it out on stamped +paper—and individuals, families, whole villages are injured, +terrified, and ruined. The father is banished to a +distance, the mother is sent to prison, the son to the Army; +it all comes upon them as suddenly as a clap of thunder, +and in most cases it is undeserved. The object of it all is +money. Pay up! If you don’t, an inquest will be held on +the body of some drunkard who has been frozen in the +snow. A collection is made for the village authorities; the +peasants contribute their last penny. Then there are the +police and law-officers—they must live somehow, and +one has a wife to maintain and another a family to educate, +and they are all model husbands and fathers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This official class is sovereign in the north-eastern Governments +of Russia and in Siberia. It has spread and +flourished there without hindrance and without pause; in +that remote region where all share in the profits, theft is +the order of the day. The Tsar himself is powerless against +these entrenchments, buried under snow and constructed +out of sticky mud. All measures of the central Government +are emasculated before they get there, and all its +purposes are distorted: it is deceived and cheated, betrayed +and sold, and all the time an appearance of servile +fidelity is kept up, and official procedure is punctually +observed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Speranski<a id='r98' /><a href='#f98' class='c016'><sup>[98]</sup></a> tried to lighten the burdens of the people +by introducing into all the offices in Siberia the principle +of divided control. But it makes little difference whether +the stealing is done by individuals or gangs of robbers. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>He discharged hundreds of old thieves, and took on hundreds +of new ones. The rural police were so terrified at +first that they actually paid blackmail to the peasants. +But a few years passed, and the officials were making as +much money as ever, in spite of the new conditions.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f98'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r98'>98</a>. </span>Michail Speranski (1772-1839), minister under Alexander +I, was Governor of Siberia in 1819.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>A second eccentric Governor, General Velyaminov, tried +again. For two years he struggled hard at Tobolsk to root +out the malpractices; and then, conscious of failure, he +gave it all up and ceased to attend to business at all.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Others, more prudent than he, never tried the experiment: +they made money themselves and let others do the +same.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall root out bribery,” said Senyavin, the Governor +of Moscow, to a grey-bearded old peasant who had entered +a complaint against some crying act of injustice. The old +man smiled.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What are you laughing at?” asked the Governor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I <i>was</i> laughing, <i>bátyushka</i>; you must forgive +me. I was thinking of one of our people, a great strong +fellow, who boasted that he would lift the Great Cannon +at Moscow; and he did try, but the cannon would not +budge.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Senyavin used to tell this story himself. He was one +of those unpractical bureaucrats who believe that well-turned +periods in praise of honesty, and rigorous prosecution +of the few thieves who get caught, have power to cure +the widespread plague of Russian corruption, that noxious +weed that spreads at ease under the protecting boughs of +the censorship.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Two things are needed to cope with it—publicity, and +an entirely different organisation of the whole machine. +The old national system of justice must be re-introduced, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>with oral procedure and sworn witnesses and all that the +central Government detests so heartily.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Pestel, one of the Governors of Western Siberia, was +like a Roman proconsul, and was outdone by none of +them. He carried on a system of open and systematic +robbery throughout the country, which he had entirely +detached from Russia by means of his spies. Not a letter +crossed the frontier unopened, and woe to the writer who +dared to say a word about his rule. He kept the merchants +of the First Guild in prison for a whole year, where they +were chained and tortured. Officials he punished by sending +them to the frontier of Eastern Siberia and keeping +them there for two or three years.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The people endured him for long; but at last a tradesman +of Tobolsk determined to bring the state of things +to the Tsar’s knowledge. Avoiding the usual route, he went +first to Kyakhta and crossed the Siberian frontier from +there with a caravan of tea. At Tsárskoë Seló<a id='r99' /><a href='#f99' class='c016'><sup>[99]</sup></a> he found +an opportunity to hand his petition to Alexander, and +begged him to read it. Alexander was astonished and impressed +by the strange matter he read there. He sent for +the petitioner, and they had a long conversation which +convinced him of the truth of the terrible story. Horrified +and somewhat confused, the Tsar said:</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f99'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r99'>99</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, “The Tsar’s Village,” near Petersburg.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>“You can go back to Siberia now, my friend; the matter +shall be looked into.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, Your Majesty,” said the man; “I cannot go home +now; I would rather go to prison. My interview with Your +Majesty cannot be kept secret, and I shall be murdered.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>Alexander started. He turned to Milorádovitch, who +was then Governor of Petersburg, and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I hold you answerable for this man’s life.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“In that case,” said Milorádovitch, “Your Majesty +must allow me to lodge him in my own house.” And there +the man actually stayed until the affair was settled.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Pestel resided almost continuously at Petersburg. You +will remember that the Roman proconsuls also generally +lived in the capital.<a id='r100' /><a href='#f100' class='c016'><sup>[100]</sup></a> By his presence and his connexions +and, above all, by sharing his booty, he stopped in advance +all unpleasant rumours and gossip. He and Rostopchín +were dining one day at the Tsar’s table. They were standing +by the window, and the Tsar asked, “What is that on +the church cross over there—something black?” “I cannot +make it out,” said Rostopchín; “we must appeal to +Pestel; he has wonderful sight and can see from here +what is going on in Siberia.”</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f100'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r100'>100</a>. </span>Herzen is mistaken here.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The Imperial Council, taking advantage of the absence +of Alexander,—he was at Verona or Aix,—wisely and +justly decided that, as the complaint referred to Siberia, +Pestel, who was fortunately on the spot, should conduct +the investigation. But Milorádovitch, Mordvínov, and +two others protested against this decision, and the matter +was referred to the Supreme Court.</p> + +<p class='c008'>That body gave an unjust decision, as it always does +when trying high officials. Pestel was reprimanded, and +Treskin, the Civil Governor of Tobolsk, was deprived +of his official rank and title of nobility and banished. +Pestel was merely dismissed from the service.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Pestel was succeeded at Tobolsk by Kaptsevitch, a +pupil of Arakchéyev. Thin and bilious, a tyrant by nature +<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>and a restless martinet, he introduced military discipline +everywhere; but, though he fixed maximum prices, he left +all ordinary business in the hands of the robbers. In 1824 +the Tsar intended to visit Tobolsk. Throughout the Government +of Perm there is an excellent high road, well worn +by traffic; it is probable that the soil was favourable for +its construction. Kaptsevitch made a similar road all the +way to Tobolsk in a few months. In spring, when the +snow was melting and the cold bitter, thousands of men +were driven in relays to work at the road. Sickness broke +out and half the workmen died; but “zeal overcomes all +difficulties,” and the road was made.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Eastern Siberia is governed in a still more casual +fashion. The distance is so great that all rumours die +away before they reach Petersburg. One Governor of +Irkutsk used to fire cannon at the town when he was +cheerful after dinner; another, in the same state, used +to put on priest’s robes and celebrate the Mass in his +own house, in the presence of the Bishop; but, at least, +neither the noise of the former nor the piety of the latter +did as much harm as the state of siege kept up by Pestel +and the restless activity of Kaptsevitch.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>It is a pity that Siberia is so badly governed. The choice +of Governors has been peculiarly unfortunate. I do not +know how Muravyóv acquits himself there—his intelligence +and capacity are well known; but all the rest have +been failures. Siberia has a great future before it. It is +generally regarded as a kind of cellar, full of gold and +furs and other natural wealth, but cold, buried in snow, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>and ill provided with comforts and roads and population. +But this is a false view.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Russian Government is unable to impart that life-giving +impulse which would drive Siberia ahead with +American speed. We shall see what will happen when the +mouths of the Amoor are opened to navigation, and when +America meets Siberia on the borders of China.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I said, long ago, that the Pacific Ocean is the Mediterranean +of the future; and I have been pleased to see +the remark repeated more than once in the New York +newspapers. In that future the part of Siberia, lying as it +does between the ocean, South Asia, and Russia, is exceedingly +important. Siberia must certainly extend to the +Chinese frontier: why should we shiver and freeze at +Beryózov and Yakutsk, when there are such places as +Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk?</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Russian settlers in Siberia have traits of character +which suggest development and progress. The population +in general are healthy and well grown, intelligent and +exceedingly practical. The children of the emigrants have +never felt the pressure of landlordism. There are no great +nobles in Siberia, and there is no aristocracy in the towns; +authority is represented by the civil officials and military +officers; but they are less like an aristocracy than a hostile +garrison established by a conqueror. The cultivators are +saved from frequent contact with them by the immense +distances, and the merchants are saved by their wealth. +This latter class, in Siberia, despise the officials: while +professing to give place to them, they take them for what +they really are—inferiors who are useful in matters of +law.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Arms are indispensable to the settler, and everyone +<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>knows how to use them. Familiarity with danger and the +habit of prompt action have made the Siberian peasant +more soldierly, more resourceful, and more ready to resist, +than his Great Russian brother. The distance of the +churches has left him more independence of mind: he is +lukewarm about religion and very often a dissenter. There +are distant villages which the priest visits only thrice +a year, when he christens the children in batches, reads +the service for the dead, marries all the couples, and hears +confession of accumulated sins.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>On this side of the Ural ridge, the ways of governors are +less eccentric. But yet I could fill whole volumes with +stories which I heard either in the office or at the Governor’s +dinner-table—stories which throw light on the +malpractices and dishonesty of the officials.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>“Yes, Sir, he was indeed a marvel, my predecessor was”—thus +the inspector of police at Vyatka used to address +me in his confidential moments. “Well, of course, we get +along fairly, but men like him are born, not made. He +was, in his way, I might say, a Caesar, a Napoleon”—and +the eyes of my lame friend, the Major, who had got +his place as recompense for a wound, shone as he recalled +his glorious predecessor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There was a gang of robbers, not far from the town. +Complaints came again and again to the authorities; now +it was a party of merchants relieved of their goods, now +the manager of a distillery was robbed of his money. The +Governor was in a fuss and drew up edict after edict. Well, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>as you know, the country police are not brave: they can +deal well enough with a petty thief, if there’s only one; +but here there was a whole gang, and, likely enough, in +possession of firearms. As the country police did nothing, +the Governor summoned the town inspector and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘I know that this is not your business at all, but your +well-known activity forces me to appeal to you.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The inspector knew all about the scandal already.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘General,’ said he, ‘I shall start in an hour. I know +where the robbers are sure to be; I shall take a detachment +with me; I shall come upon the scoundrels, bring +them back in chains, and lodge them in the town prison, +before they are three days older.’ Just like Suvórov to +the Austrian Emperor! And he did what he said he would +do: he surprised them with his detachment; the robbers +had no time to hide their money; the inspector took it +all and marched them off to the town.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“When the trial began, the inspector asked where the +money was.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Why, <i>bátyushka</i>, we put it into your own hands,’ +said two of the men.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Mine!’ cried the inspector, with an air of astonishment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Yes, yours!’ shouted the thieves.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘There’s insolence for you!’ said the inspector to the +magistrate, turning pale with rage. ‘Do you expect to +make people believe that I was in league with you? I +shall show you what it is to insult my uniform; I was a +cavalry officer once, and my honour shall not be insulted +with impunity!’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So the thieves were flogged, that they might confess +where they had stowed away the money. At first they were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>obstinate, but when they heard the order that they were +to be flogged ‘for two pipes,’ then the leader of the gang +called out—‘We plead guilty! We spent the money ourselves.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘You might have said so sooner,’ remarked the inspector, +‘instead of talking such nonsense. You won’t get +round me in a hurry, my friend.’ ‘No, indeed!’ muttered +the robber, looking in astonishment at the inspector; ‘we +could teach nothing to Your Honour, but we might learn +from you.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, over that affair the inspector got the Vladímir +Order.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting his enthusiasm for +the great man, “but what is the meaning of that phrase +‘for two pipes’?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, we often use that in the police. One gets bored, +you know, while a flogging is going on; so one lights a +pipe; and, as a rule, when the pipe is done, the flogging +is over too. But in special cases we order that the flogging +shall go on till two pipes are smoked out. The men who +flog are accustomed to it and know exactly how many +strokes that means.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Ever so many stories about this hero were in circulation +at Vyatka. His exploits were miraculous. For some reason +or another—perhaps a Staff-general or Minister was expected—he +wished to show that he had not worn cavalry +uniform for nothing, but could put spurs to a charger in +fine style. With this object in view, he requisitioned a +horse from a rich merchant of the district; it was a grey +<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>stallion, and a very valuable animal. The merchant refused +it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“All right,” said the inspector; “if you don’t choose +to do me such a trifling service voluntarily, then I shall +take the horse without your leave.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We shall see about that,” said Gold.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, you shall,” said Steel.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The merchant locked up his stable and set two men to +guard it. “Foiled for once, my friend!” he thought.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But that night, by a strange accident, a fire broke out +in some empty sheds close to the merchant’s house. The +inspector and his men worked manfully. In order to save +the house, they even pulled down the wall of the stable +and led out the object of dispute, with not a hair of his +mane or tail singed. Two hours later, the inspector was +caracoling on a grey charger, on his way to receive the +thanks of the distinguished visitor for his courage and +skill in dealing with the fire. This incident proved to +everyone that he bore a charmed life.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The Governor was once leaving a party; and, just as +his carriage started, a careless driver, in charge of a small +sledge, drove into him, striking the traces between the +wheelers and leaders. There was a block for a moment, +but the Governor was not prevented from driving home +in perfect comfort. Next day he said to the inspector: +“Do you know whose coachman ran into me last night? +He must be taught better.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That coachman will not do it again, Your Excellency,” +answered the inspector with a smile; “I have made him +smart properly for it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>“Whose coachman was it?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Councillor Kulakov’s, Your Excellency.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>At that moment the old Councillor, whom I found at +Vyatka and left there still holding the same office, came +into the room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You must excuse us,” said the Governor, “for giving +a lesson to your coachman yesterday.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Councillor, quite in the dark, looked puzzled.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He drove into my carriage yesterday. Well, you understand, +if he did it to <i>me</i>, then ...”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, Your Excellency, my wife and I spent the evening +at home, and the coachman was not out at all.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What’s the meaning of this?” asked the Governor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But the inspector was not taken aback.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The fact is, Your Excellency, I had such a press of +business yesterday that I quite forgot about the coachman. +But I confess I did not venture to mention to Your +Excellency that I had forgotten. I meant to attend to +his business at once.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, there’s no denying that you are the right man in +the right place!” said the Governor.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Side by side with this bird of prey I shall place the portrait +of a very different kind of official—a mild and sympathetic +creature, a real sucking dove.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Among my acquaintance at Vyatka was an old gentleman +who had been dismissed from the service as inspector +of rural police. He now drew up petitions and managed +lawsuits for other people—a profession which he had been +expressly forbidden to adopt. He had entered the service +in the year one, had robbed and squeezed and blackmailed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>in three provinces, and had twice figured in the dock. This +veteran liked to tell surprising stories of what he and his +contemporaries had done; and he did not conceal his contempt +for the degenerate successors who now filled their +places.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, they’re mere bunglers,” he used to say. “Of course +they take bribes, or they couldn’t live; but as for dexterity +or knowledge of the law, you needn’t expect anything +of the kind from them. Just to give you an idea, let +me tell you of a friend of mine who was a judge for twenty +years and died twelve months ago. He was a genius! The +peasants revere his memory, and he left a trifle to his +family too. His method was all his own. If a peasant came +with a petition, the Judge would admit him at once and +be very friendly and cheerful.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Well, my friend, tell me your name and your father’s +name, too.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The peasant bows—‘Yermolai is my name, <i>bátyushka</i>, +and my father’s name was Grigóri.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Well, how are you, Yermolai Grigorevitch, and where +do you come from?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘I live at Dubilov.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘I know, I know—those mills on the right hand of +the high road are yours, I suppose?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Just so, <i>bátyushka</i>, the mills belong to our village.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘A prosperous village, too—good land—black soil.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘We have no reason to murmur against Heaven, Your +Worship.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Well, that’s right. I dare say you have a good large +family, Yermolai Grigorevitch?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Three sons and two daughters, Your Worship, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>my eldest daughter’s husband has lived in our house these +five years.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘And I dare say there are some grandchildren by this +time?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Indeed there are, Your Worship—a few of them too.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘And thank God for it! He told us to increase and +multiply. Well, you’ve come a long way, Yermolai Grigorevitch; +will you drink a glass of brandy with me?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The visitor seems doubtful. The Judge fills the glass, +saying:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Come, come, friend—the holy fathers have not forbidden +us the use of wine and oil on this day.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘It is true that we are allowed it, but strong drink +brings a man to all bad fortune.’ Thereupon he crosses +himself, bows to his host, and drinks the dram.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Now, with a family like that, Grigorevitch, you must +find it hard to feed and clothe them all. One horse and +one cow would never do for you—you would run short +of milk for such a number.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘One horse, <i>bátyushka</i>! That wouldn’t do at all. I’ve +three, and I had a fourth, a roan, but it died in St. Peter’s +Fast; it was bewitched; our carpenter Doroféi hates to +see others prosper, and he has the evil eye.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Well, that does happen sometimes. But you have +good pasture there, and I dare say you keep sheep.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Yes, we have some sheep.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Dear me, we have had quite a long chat, Yermolai +Grigorevitch. I must be off to Court now—the Tsar’s +service, as you know. Have you any little business to ask +me about, I wonder?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Indeed I have, Your Worship.’</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>“‘Well, what is it? Have you been doing something +foolish? Be quick and tell me, because I must be starting.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘This is it, Your Honour. Misfortune has come upon +me in my old age, and I trust to you. It was Assumption +Day; we were in the public-house, and I had words with +a man from another village—a nasty fellow he is, who +steals our wood. Well, we had some words, and then he +raised his fist and struck me on the breast. “Don’t you +use your fists off your own dunghill,” said I; and I wanted +to teach him a lesson, so I gave him a tap. Now, whether +it was the drink or the work of the Evil One, my fist went +straight into his eye, and the eye was damaged. He went +at once to the police—“I’ll have the law of him,” says +he.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“During this narrative the Judge—a fig for your +Petersburg actors!—becomes more and more solemn; the +expression of his eyes becomes alarming; he says not a +word.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The peasant sees this and changes colour; he puts his +hat down on the ground and takes out a handkerchief to +wipe the sweat off his brow. The Judge turns over the +leaves of a book and still keeps silence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘That is why I have come to see you, <i>bátyushka</i>,’ +the peasant says in a strained voice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘What can I do in such a case? It’s a bad business! +What made you hit him in the eye?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘What indeed, <i>bátyushka</i>! It was the enemy led me +astray.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Sad, very sad! Such a thing to ruin a whole family! +How can they get on without you—all young, and the +grandchildren mere infants! A sad thing for your wife, +too, in her old age!’</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>“The man’s legs begin to tremble. ‘Does Your Honour +think it’s as bad as all that?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Take the book and read the act yourself. But perhaps +you can’t read? Here is the article dealing with +injuries to the person—“shall first be flogged and then +banished to Siberia.”’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Oh, save a man from ruin, save a fellow-Christian +from destruction! Is it impossible ...’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘But, my good man, we can’t go against the law. So +far as it’s in our hands, we might perhaps lower the thirty +strokes to five or so.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘But about Siberia?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Oh, there we’re powerless, my friend.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The peasant at this point produces a purse, takes a +paper out of the purse and two or three gold pieces out +of the paper; with a low bow he places them on the table.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘What’s all that, Yermolai Grigorevitch?’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Save me, <i>bátyushka</i>!’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘No more of that! I have my weak side and I take a +present at times; my salary is small and I have to do it. +But if I do, I like to give something in return; and what +can I do for you? If only it had been a rib or a tooth! But +the eye! Take your money back.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The peasant is dumbfounded.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘There is just one possibility: I might speak to the +other judges and write a line to the county town. The +matter will probably go to the court there, and I have +friends there who will do all they can. But they’re men +of a different kidney, and three yellow-boys will not go +far in that quarter.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The peasant recovers a little.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>“‘<i>I</i> don’t want anything—I’m sorry for your family; +but it’s no use offering <i>them</i> less than 400 <i>roubles</i>.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Four hundred <i>roubles</i>! How on earth can I get such +a mint of money as that, in these times? It’s quite beyond +me, I swear.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘It’s not easy, I agree. We can lessen the flogging; the +man’s sorry, we shall say, and he was not sober at the +time. People <i>do</i> live in Siberia, after all; and it’s not so +very far from here. Of course, you might manage it by +selling a pair of horses and one of the cows and the sheep. +But you would have to work many years to replace all +that stock; and if you don’t pay up, your horses will be +left all right but you’ll be off on the long tramp yourself. +Think it over, Grigorevitch; no hurry; we’ll do nothing +till to-morrow; but I must be going now.’ And the Judge +pockets the coins he had refused, saying, ‘It’s quite unnecessary—I +only take it to spare your feelings.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Next day, an old Jew turns up at the Judge’s house, +lugging a bag that contains 350 <i>roubles</i> in coinage of all +dates.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The Judge promises his assistance. The peasant is +tried, and tried over again, and well frightened; then he +gets off with a light sentence, or a caution to be more +prudent in future, or a note against his name as a suspicious +character. And the peasant for the rest of his life +prays that God will reward the Judge for his kindness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, that’s a specimen of the neat way they used to +do it”—so the retired inspector used to wind up his story.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In Vyatka the Russian tillers of the soil are fairly independent, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>and get a bad name in consequence from the +officials, as unruly and discontented. But the Finnish +natives, poor, timid, stupid people, are a regular gold-mine +to the rural police. The inspectors pay the governors twice +the usual sum when they are appointed to districts where +the Finns live.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The tricks which the authorities play on these poor +wretches are beyond belief.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If the land-surveyor is travelling on business and passes +a native village, he never fails to stop there. He takes the +theodolite off his cart, drives in a post and pulls out his +chain. In an hour the whole village is in a ferment. “The +land-measurer! the land-measurer!” they cry, just as they +used to cry, “The French! the French!” in the year ’12. +The elders come to pay their respects: the surveyor goes +on measuring and making notes. They ask him not to +cheat them out of their land, and he demands twenty or +thirty <i>roubles</i>. They are glad to give it and collect the +money; and he drives on to the next village of natives.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Again, if the police find a dead body, they drag it about +for a fortnight—the frost makes this possible—through +the Finnish villages. In each village they declare that they +have just found the corpse and mean to start an inquest; +and the people pay blackmail.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Some years before I went to Vyatka, a rural inspector, +a famous blackmailer, brought a dead body in a cart into +a large village of Russian settlers, and demanded, I think, +200 <i>roubles</i>. The village elder consulted the community; +but they would not go beyond one hundred. The inspector +would not lower his price. The peasants got angry: they +shut him up with his two clerks in the police-office and +threatened, in their turn, to burn them alive. The inspector +<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>did not take them seriously. The peasants piled straw +around the house; then, by way of ultimatum, they held +up a hundred-<i>rouble</i> note on a pole in front of the window. +The hero inside asked for a hundred more. Thereupon +the peasants fired the straw at all four corners, and all +the three Mucius Scaevolas of the rural police were burnt +to death. At a later time this matter came before the Supreme +Court.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These native settlements are in general much less thriving +than the Russian villages.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You don’t seem well off, friend,” I said to the native +owner of a hut where I was waiting for fresh horses; it +was a wretched, smoky, lop-sided cabin, with windows +looking over the yard at the back.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What can we do, <i>bátyushka</i>? We are poor, and keep +our money for a rainy day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A rainy day? It looks to me as if you’d got it already. +But drink that for comfort”—and I filled a glass with rum.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We don’t drink,” said the Finn, with a greedy look at +the glass and a suspicious look at me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Come, come, you’d better take it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, drink first yourself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I drank, and then he followed my example. “What are +you doing?” he asked. “Have you come on business from +Vyatka?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No,” I answered; “I’m a traveller on my way there.” +He was considerably relieved to hear this; he looked all +round, and added by way of explanation, “The rainy day +is when the inspector or the priest comes here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I should like to say something here about the latter of +these personages.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>Of the Finnish population some accepted Christianity +before Peter’s reign, others were baptised in the time of +Elizabeth,<a id='r101' /><a href='#f101' class='c016'><sup>[101]</sup></a> and others have remained heathen. Most of +those who changed their religion under Elizabeth are still +secretly attached to their own dismal and savage faith.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f101'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r101'>101</a>. </span>Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, reigned from 1741 +to 1762.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Every two or three years the police-inspector and the +priest make a tour of the villages, to find out which of +the natives have not fasted in Lent, and to enquire the +reasons. The recusants are harried and imprisoned, flogged +and fined. But the visitors search especially for some proof +that the old heathen rites are still kept up. In that case, +there is a real ‘rainy day’—the detective and the missionary +raise a storm and exact heavy blackmail; then they +go away, leaving all as it was before, to repeat their visit +in a year or two.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the year 1835 the Holy Synod thought it necessary +to convert the heathen Cheremisses to Orthodoxy. Archbishop +Philaret nominated an active priest named Kurbanovski +as missionary. Kurbanovski, a man eaten up by +the Russian disease of ambition, set to work with fiery +zeal. He tried preaching at first, but soon grew tired of it; +and, in point of fact, not much is to be done by that +ancient method.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Cheremisses, when they heard of this, sent their +own priests to meet the missionary. These fanatics were +ingenious savages: after long discussions, they said to +him: “The forest contains not only silver birches and tall +pines but also the little juniper. God permits them all to +grow and does not bid the juniper be a pine tree. We men +<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>are like the trees of the forest. Be you the silver birches, +and let us remain the juniper. We don’t interfere with you, +we pray for the Tsar, pay our dues, and provide recruits +for the Army; but we are not willing to be false to our +religion.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Kurbanovski saw that they could not agree, and that +he was not fated to play the part of Cyril and Methodius.<a id='r102' /><a href='#f102' class='c016'><sup>[102]</sup></a> +He had recourse to the secular arm; and the local police-inspector +was delighted—he had long wished to show his +zeal for the church; he was himself an unbaptised Tatar, +a true believer in the Koran, and his name was Devlet +Kildéyev.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f102'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r102'>102</a>. </span>In the ninth century Cyril and his brother Methodius, two +Greek monks of Salonica, introduced Christianity among the Slavs. They +invented the Russian alphabet.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>He took a detachment of his men and proceeded to +besiege the Cheremisses. Several villages were baptised. +Kurbanovski sang the <i>Te Deum</i> in church and went back +to Moscow, to receive with humility the velvet cap for +good service; and the Government sent the Vladímir Cross +to the Tatar.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But there was an unfortunate misunderstanding between +the Tatar missionary and the local mullah. The +mullah was greatly displeased when this believer in the +Koran took to preaching the Gospel and succeeded so +well. During Ramadan, the inspector boldly put on his +cross and appeared in the mosque wearing it; he took a +front place, as a matter of course. The mullah had just +begun to chant the Koran through his nose, when he suddenly +stopped and said that he dared not go on, in the +presence of a true believer who had come to the mosque +wearing a Christian emblem.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>The congregation protested; and the discomfited inspector +was forced to put his cross in his pocket.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I read afterwards in the archives of the Home Office +an account of this brilliant conversion of the Cheremisses. +The writer mentioned the zealous cooperation of Devlet +Kildéyev, but unfortunately forgot to add that his zeal +for the Church was the more disinterested because of his +firm belief in the truth of Islam.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Before I left Vyatka, the Department of Imperial Domains +was committing such impudent thefts that a commission +of enquiry was appointed; and this commission +sent out inspectors into all the provinces. A new system +of control over the Crown tenants was introduced after +that time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Our Governor at that time was Kornilov; he had to +nominate two subordinates to assist the inspectors, and +I was one of the two. I had to read a multitude of documents, +sometimes with pain, sometimes with amusement, +sometimes with disgust. The very headings of the subjects +for investigation struck me with astonishment—</p> + +<p class='c008'>(1) <i>The loss and total disappearance of a police-station, +and the destruction of the plan by the gnawing of +mice.</i></p> + +<p class='c008'>(2) <i>The loss of twelve miles of arable land.</i></p> + +<p class='c008'>(3) <i>The transference of the peasant’s son Vasili to +the female sex.</i></p> + +<p class='c008'>The last item was so remarkable that I read the details +at once from beginning to end.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a petition to the Governor from the father +of the child. The petitioner stated that fifteen years ago +<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>a daughter had been born to him, whom he wished to call +Vasilissa; but the priest, not being sober, christened the +girl Vasili, and entered the name thus on the register. +This fact apparently caused little disturbance to the +father; but when he found he would soon be required to +provide a recruit for the Army and pay the poll-tax for +the child, he informed the police. The police were much +puzzled. They began by refusing to act, on the ground +that he ought to have applied earlier. The father then +went to the Governor, and the Governor ordered that this +boy of the female sex should be formally examined by a +doctor and a midwife. But at this point, matters were +complicated by a correspondence with the ecclesiastical +authorities; and the parish priest, whose predecessor, +under the influence of drink, had been too prudish to +recognise differences of sex, now appeared on the scene; +the matter went on for years, and I rather think the girl +was never cleared of the suspicion of being a boy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The reader is not to suppose that this absurd story is +a mere humorous invention of mine.</p> + +<p class='c008'>During the Emperor Paul’s reign a colonel of the +Guards, making his monthly report, returned as dead an +officer who had gone to the hospital; and the Tsar struck +his name off the lists. But unfortunately the officer did +not die; he recovered instead. The colonel induced him +to return to his estates for a year or two, hoping to find +an opportunity of putting matters straight; and the officer +agreed. But his heirs, having read of his death in the +Gazette, positively refused to recognise him as still alive; +though inconsolable for their loss, they insisted upon their +right of succession. The living corpse, whom the Gazette +had killed once, found that he was likely to die over +<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>again, by starvation this time. So he travelled to Petersburg +and handed in a petition to the Tsar.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This beats even my story of the girl who was also a +boy.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§12</h3> + +<p class='c018'>It is a miry slough, this account of our provincial administration; +yet I shall add a few words more. This +publicity is the last paltry compensation to those who +suffered unheard and unpitied.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Government is very ready to reward high officials with +grants of unoccupied land. There is no great harm in +that, though it might be wiser to keep it for the needs of +an increasing population. The rules governing such allotments +of land are rather detailed; it is illegal to grant the +banks of a navigable river, or wood fit for building purposes, +or both sides of a river; and finally, land reclaimed +by peasants may in no case be taken from them, even +though the peasants have no title to the land except prescription.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All this is very well, on paper; but in fact this allotment +of land to individuals is a terrible instrument by +which the Crown is robbed and the peasants oppressed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Most of the magnates to whom the leases are granted +either sell their rights to merchants, or try, by means of +the provincial authorities, to secure some privileges contrary +to the rules. Thus it happened, by mere chance, of +course, that Count Orlóv himself got possession of the +road and pastures used by droves of cattle in the Government +of Saratov.</p> + +<p class='c008'>No wonder, then, that the peasants of a certain district +in Vyatka were deprived one fine morning of all their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>land, right up to their houses and farmyards, the soil +having passed into the possession of some merchants who +had bought the lease from a relation of Count Kankrin.<a id='r103' /><a href='#f103' class='c016'><sup>[103]</sup></a> +The merchants next put a rent on the land. The law was +appealed to. The Crown Court, being bribed by the merchants +and fearing a great man’s cousin, put a spoke in +the wheel; but the peasants, determined to go on to the +bitter end, chose two shrewd men from among themselves +and sent them off to Petersburg. The matter now came +before the Supreme Court. The judges suspected that the +peasants were in the right; but they were puzzled how +to act, and consulted Kankrin. That nobleman admitted +frankly that the land had been taken away unjustly; but +he thought there would be difficulty in restoring it, because +it <i>might</i> have been re-sold since, and because the +new owners <i>might</i> have made some improvements. He +therefore suggested that advantage should be taken of +the vast extent of the Crown lands, and that the same +quantity of land should be granted to the peasants, but +in another district. This solution pleased everyone except +the peasants: in the first place, it was no trifle to reclaim +fresh land; and, in the second place, the land offered them +turned out to be a bog. As the peasants were more interested +in growing corn than in shooting snipe, they sent +in a fresh petition.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f103'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r103'>103</a>. </span>Count Kankrin (1774-1845) was Minister of Finance from +1823 till his death. He carried through some important reforms in the +currency.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>The Crown Court and the Treasury then treated this +as a fresh case. They discovered a law which provided +that, in cases where unsuitable land had been allotted, the +grant should not be cancelled but an addition of 50 per +cent should be made; they therefore directed that the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>peasants should get half a bog in addition to the bog they +had been given already.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The peasants sent in a third petition to the Supreme +Court. But, before this was discussed, the Board of Agriculture +sent them plans of their new land, duly bound +and coloured; with a neat diagram of the points of the +compass arranged in a star, and suitable explanations of +the rhombus R R Z and the rhombus Z Z R, and, above +all, with a demand for a fixed payment per acre. When the +peasants saw that, far from getting back their good land, +they were to be charged money for their bog, they flatly +refused to pay.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The rural inspector informed the Governor of this; and +the Governor sent troops under the command of the town +inspector of Vyatka. The latter went to the spot, arrested +several men and beat them, restored order in the district, +took money, handed over the ‘guilty’ to the Criminal +Court, and was hoarse for a week after, owing to the +strain on his voice. Several of the offenders were sentenced +to flogging and banishment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Two years afterwards, when the Crown Prince was +passing through the district, these peasants presented a +petition, and he ordered the matter to be examined. It +was at this point that I had to draw up a report of all the +proceedings. Whether anything sensible was done in consequence +of this fresh investigation, I do not know. I have +heard that the exiles were restored, but I never heard that +the land had been given back.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§13</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In the next place I shall refer to the famous episode of +the “potato-rebellion.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>In Russia, as formerly throughout Europe, the peasants +were unwilling to grow potatoes, from an instinctive feeling +that potatoes are poor food and not productive of +health and strength. Model landlords, however, and many +Crown settlements used to grow these tubers long before +the “potato revolt.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the Government of Kazán and part of Vyatka, the +people had grown a crop of potatoes. When the tubers +were taken up, it occurred to the Board of Agriculture +to start communal pits for storing them. The pits were +authorised, ordered, and constructed; and in the beginning +of winter the peasants, with many misgivings, carted +their potatoes to the communal pits. But they positively +refused, when they were required in the spring to plant +these same potatoes in a frozen condition. What, indeed, +can be more insulting to labouring men than to bid them +do what is obviously absurd? But their protest was represented +as a rebellion. The minister despatched an official +from Petersburg; and this intelligent and practical +man excused the farmers of the first district he visited from +planting the frozen potatoes, and charged for this dispensation +one <i>rouble</i> per head. He repeated this operation in +two other districts; but the men of the fourth district +flatly refused either to plant the potatoes or to pay the +money. “You have excused the others,” they said; “you +are clearly bound to let us off too.” The official then tried +to end the business by threats and corporal punishment; +but the peasants armed themselves with poles and routed +the police. The Governor sent a force of Cossacks to the +spot; and the neighbouring districts backed up the rebels.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is enough to say that cannon roared and rifles cracked +before the affair was over. The peasants took to the woods +<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>and were routed out of their covert like wild animals by +the Cossacks. They were caught, chained, and sent to +Kosmodemyansk to be tried by court-martial.</p> + +<p class='c008'>By a strange chance there was a simple, honest man, an +old major of militia, serving on the court-martial; and +he ventured to say that the official from Petersburg was +to blame for all that had happened. But everyone promptly +fell on the top of him and squashed him and suppressed +him; they tried to frighten him and said he ought to be +ashamed of his attempt “to ruin an innocent man.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The enquiry went on just as enquiries do in Russia: +the peasants were flogged on examination, flogged as a +punishment, flogged as an example, and flogged to get +money out of them; and then a number of them were +exiled to Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is worthy of remark that the Minister passed through +Kosmodemyansk during the trial. One thinks he might +have looked in at the court-martial himself or summoned +the dangerous major to an interview. He did nothing of +the kind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The famous Turgot,<a id='r104' /><a href='#f104' class='c016'><sup>[104]</sup></a> knowing how unpopular the potato +was in France, distributed seed-potatoes to a number +of dealers and persons in Government employ, with strict +orders that the peasants were to have none. But at the +same time he let them know privately that the peasants +were not to be prevented from helping themselves. The +result was that in a few years potatoes were grown all +over the country.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f104'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r104'>104</a>. </span>Turgot (1727-1781) was one of the Ministers of Finance +under Louis XVI.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>All things considered, this seems to me a better method +than the cannon-ball plan.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§14</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>In the year 1836 a strolling tribe of gipsies came to +Vyatka and encamped there. These people wandered at +times as far as Tobolsk and Irbit, carrying on from time +immemorial their roving life of freedom, accompanied of +course by a bear that had been taught to dance and children +that had been taught nothing; they lived by doctoring +horses, telling fortunes, and petty theft. At Vyatka +they went on singing their songs and stealing chickens, +till the Governor suddenly received instructions, that, if +the gipsies turned out to have no passports—no gipsy +was ever known to possess one—a certain interval should +be allowed them, within which they must register themselves +as members of the village communities where they +happened to be at the time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If they failed to do so by the date mentioned, then all +who were fit for military service were to be sent to the +colours, the rest to be banished from the country, and +all their male children to be taken from them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Tufáyev himself was taken aback by this decree. He +gave notice of it to the gipsies, but he reported to Petersburg +that it could not be complied with. The registration +would cost money; the consent of the communities must +be obtained, and they would want money for admitting +the gipsies. After taking everything into consideration, +Tufáyev proposed to the Minister—and he must get due +credit for the proposal—that the gipsies should be treated +leniently and given an extension of time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In reply the Minister ordered him to carry out the +original instructions when the time had expired. The Governor +hardened his heart and sent a detachment to surround +the gipsy encampment; when that was done, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>police brought up a militia battalion, and scenes that +beggar description are said to have followed—women, +with their hair flying loose, ran frantically to and fro, +shrieking and sobbing, while white-haired old women +clutched hold of their sons. But order triumphed, and the +police-inspector secured all the boys and the recruits, and +the rest were marched off by stages to their place of exile.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But a question now arose: where were the kidnapped +children to be put, and at whose cost were they to be maintained?</p> + +<p class='c008'>In former days there had been schools for foundlings +which cost the Crown nothing; but these had been abolished, +as productive of immorality. The Governor advanced +the money from his own pocket and consulted +the Minister. The Minister replied that, until further +orders, the children were to be looked after by the old +people in the alms-house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To make little children live with dying old men and +women, and to force them to breathe the atmosphere of +death; and on the other hand, to force the aged and +worn-out to look after the children for nothing—that was +a real inspiration!</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§15</h3> + +<p class='c018'>While I am on this subject, I shall tell here the story +of what happened eighteen months later to a bailiff of +my father’s. Though a peasant, he was a man of intelligence +and experience; he had several teams of his own +which he hired out, and he served for twenty years as +bailiff of a small detached village.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the year which I spent at Vladímir, he was asked +by the people of a neighbouring village to supply a substitute +<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>as a recruit for the Army; and he turned up in the +town with the future defender of his country at the end +of a rope. He seemed perfectly self-confident and sure +of success.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, <i>bátyushka</i>,” he said to me, combing with his +fingers his thick brown beard with some grey in it, “it all +depends on how you manage these things. We put forward +a lad two years ago, but he was a very poor miserable +specimen, and the men were very much afraid that he +would not do. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you must begin by collecting +some money—the wheel won’t go round unless you +grease it!’ So we had a talk together, and the village produced +twenty-five gold pieces. I drove into the town, had +a talk with the people in the Crown Court, and then went +straight to the President’s house—a clever man, <i>bátyushka</i>, +and an old acquaintance of mine. He had me +taken into his study, where he was lying on the sofa with +a bad leg. I put the facts before him. He laughed and said, +‘All right, all right! But you tell me how many of <i>them</i> +you have brought with you; for I know what an old skin-flint +you are.’ I put ten gold pieces on the table with a +low bow. He took them up and played with them. ‘Well,’ +says he, ‘I’m not the only person who expects payment; +have you brought any more?’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘we can go +as far as ten more.’ ‘You can count for yourself,’ says he, +‘where they are to go to: the doctor will want a couple, +and the inspector of recruits another couple, and the clerk—I +don’t think more than three will be needed in that +quarter; but you had better give me the lot, and I’ll try +to arrange it for you.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, did you give it?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>“Certainly I did; and the man was passed for the Army +all right.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Enlightened by this method of rounding off accounts, +and attracted probably by the five gold pieces to whose +ultimate destination he had made no allusion, the bailiff +was sure of success this time also. But there is many a +slip between the bribe and the palm that closes on it. Count +Essen, an Imperial <i>aide-de-camp</i>, was sent to Vladímir to +inspect the recruits. The bailiff, with his golden arguments +in his pocket, found his way into the presence of the +Count. But unfortunately the Count was no true Russian, +but a son of the Baltic provinces which teach German devotion +towards the Russian Tsar. He got angry, raised +his voice, and, worse than all, rang his bell; in ran a secretary, +and police-officers on the top of him. The bailiff, +who had never dreamed of the existence of a man in uniform +who would refuse a bribe, lost his head altogether; +instead of holding his tongue, he swore by all his gods that +he had never offered money, and wished that his eyes +might fall out and he might die of thirst, if he had ever +thought of such a thing. Helpless as a sheep, he was taken +off to the police-station, where he probably repented of +his folly in insulting a high officer by offering him so +little.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Essen was not content with his own clear conscience +nor with having given the man a fright. He probably +wished to lay the axe to the tree of Russian corruption, to +punish vice, and to make a salutary example. He therefore +reported the bailiff’s nefarious attempt to the police, +the Governor, and the Recruiting Office. The offender was +put in prison and ordered to be tried. Thanks to the absurd +law, which is equally severe on the honest man who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>gives a bribe and the official who pockets it, the affair +looked bad, and I resolved at all costs to save the bailiff.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I went at once to the Governor, but he refused to interfere. +The President and Councillors of the Criminal Court +shook their heads: the <i>aide-de-camp</i> was interested in the +case, and that frightened them. I went to Count Essen +himself, and he was very gracious—he had no wish that +the bailiff should suffer, but thought he needed a lesson: +“Let him be tried and acquitted,” he said. When I repeated +this to the inspector of police, he remarked: “The fact +is, these gentlemen don’t understand business. If the +Count had simply sent him to me, I should have warmed +the fool’s back for walking into a river without asking +if there was a ford; then I should have sent him about +his business, and all parties would have been satisfied. +But the court complicates matters.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I have never forgotten what the Count said and what +the inspector said: they expressed so neatly and clearly +the view of justice entertained in the Russian Empire.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Between these Pillars of Hercules of our national jurisprudence, +the bailiff had fallen into the deep water, in +other words, into the Criminal Court. A few months later +the court came to a decision: the criminal was to be flogged +and then banished to Siberia. His son and all his relations +came to me, begging me to save the father and head of +the family. I felt intense pity myself for the sufferer, who +was perfectly innocent. I called again on the President +and Councillors; again I tried to prove that they were +injuring themselves by punishing this man so severely. +“You know very well yourselves,” I said, “that no lawsuit +is ever settled without bribes; and you will starve +yourselves, unless you take the truly Christian view that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>every gift is good and perfect.”<a id='r105' /><a href='#f105' class='c016'><sup>[105]</sup></a> By begging and bowing +and sending the bailiff’s son to bow still lower, I attained +half of my object. The man was condemned to suffer a +certain number of lashes within the prison walls, but he +was not exiled; and he was forbidden to undertake any +business of the kind in future for other peasants.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f105'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r105'>105</a>. </span>There is a reference to the Epistle of James, i. 17.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>When I found that the Governor and state-attorney had +confirmed this remission, I went off to beg the police that +the flogging might be lightened; and they, partly flattered +by this personal appeal, and partly pitying a martyr in +a cause so near to their own hearts, and also because they +knew the man was well-to-do, promised me that the punishment +should be merely nominal.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A few days later the bailiff came to my house one morning; +he looked thin, and there was more grey in his beard. +For all his joy, I soon perceived that he had something +on his mind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What’s troubling you?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I wish I could get it all over at once.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t understand you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What I mean is—when will the flogging be?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But haven’t you been flogged?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But they’ve let you out, and I suppose you’re going +home.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Home? Yes, I’m going home, but I keep thinking about +the flogging; the secretary spoke of it, I am sure I heard +him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was really quite puzzled. At last I asked him if he +had a written discharge of any kind. He handed it to me. +I read there the original sentence at full length, and then +<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>a postscript, that he was to be flogged within the prison +walls by sentence of the court and then to be discharged, +in possession of this certificate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I burst out laughing. “You see, you’ve been flogged +already.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, <i>bátyushka</i>, I’ve not.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, if you’re not content, go back and ask them to +flog you; perhaps the police will take pity upon you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Seeing me laugh, he too smiled, but he shook his head +doubtfully and said, “It’s a very queer business.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A very irregular business, many will say; but let them +reflect that it is this kind of irregularity alone which makes +life possible in Russia.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER IX</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>Alexander Vitberg.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>IN the midst of all this ugliness and squalor, these +petty and repulsive persons and scenes, in this world +of chicanery and red tape, I recall the sad and noble +figure of a great artist.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I lived at his side for two years and a half and saw +this strong man breaking up under the pressure of persecution +and misfortune.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Nor can it be said that he succumbed without a protest; +for ten long years he struggled desperately. When he +went into exile, he still hoped to conquer his enemies +and right himself; in fact, he was still eager for the conflict, +still full of projects and expedients. But at Vyatka +he saw that all was over.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He might have accepted this discovery but for the wife +and children at his side, and the prospect of long years +of exile, poverty, and privation; he grew greyer and older, +not day by day, but hour by hour. I was two years at +Vyatka, and when I left, he was ten years older than when +I came.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Let me tell the story of this long martyrdom.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>The Emperor Alexander could not believe in his victory +over Napoleon. Glory was a burden to him, and he quite +sincerely gave it to God’s name instead. Always inclined +to mysticism and despondency, he was more than ever +haunted by these feelings after his repeated victories over +Napoleon.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the last soldier of the French army had retreated +over the frontier, Alexander published a manifesto, in +which he took a vow to erect a great cathedral at Moscow, +dedicated to the Saviour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Plans for this church were invited from all quarters, +and there was a great competition of artists.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alexander Vitberg was then a young man; he had been +trained in the art schools at Petersburg and had gained +the gold medal for painting. Of Swedish descent, he was +born in Russia and received his early education in the +School of Mines. He was a passionate lover of art, with a +tendency to eccentricity and mysticism. He read the Emperor’s +manifesto and the invitation for designs, and at +once gave up all his former occupations. Day and night +he wandered about the streets of Petersburg, tormented +by a fixed idea which he was powerless to banish. He +shut himself up in his room, took his pencil, and began to +work.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The artist took no one into his confidence. After working +for several months, he travelled to Moscow, where he +studied the city and its surroundings. Then he set to work +again, hiding himself from all eyes for months at a time, +and hiding his drawings also.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The time came for the competition. Many plans were +sent in, plans from Italy and from Germany, and our own +<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>academicians sent in theirs. The design of this unknown +youth took its place among the rest. Some weeks passed +before the Emperor examined the plans, and these weeks +were the Forty Days in the Wilderness, days of temptation +and doubt and painful anxiety.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Emperor was struck by Vitberg’s design, which +was on a colossal scale and remarkable for religious and +artistic feeling. He stopped first in front of it and asked +who had sent it in. The envelope was opened; the name +inside was that of an unknown student of the Academy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alexander sent for Vitberg and had a long conversation +with him. He was impressed by the artist’s confident and +animated speech, the real inspiration which filled him, +and the mystical turn of his convictions. “You speak in +stone,” the Emperor said, as he looked through the plans +again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The plans were approved that very day; Vitberg was +appointed architect of the cathedral and president of the +building committee. Alexander was not aware that there +were thorns beneath the crown of laurels which he placed +on the artist’s head.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture. +Abstract, geometrical, musical and yet dumb, passionless, +it depends entirely upon symbolism, form, suggestion. +Simple lines, and the harmonious combination and numerical +relations between these, present something mysterious +and at the same time incomplete. A building, a +temple, does not comprise its object within itself; it differs +in this respect from a statue or a picture, a poem or a +symphony. The building needs an inhabitant; in itself it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>is a prepared space, a setting, like the shell of a tortoise +or marine creature; and the essential thing is just this, +that the outer case should fit the spirit and the inhabitant, +as closely as the shell fits the tortoise. The walls of the +temple, its vaults and pillars, its main entrance, its foundations +and cupola, should all reflect the deity that dwells +within, just as the bones of the skull correspond exactly +to the convolutions of the brain.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To the Egyptians their temples were sacred books, their +obelisks were sermons by the high road.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Solomon’s temple is the Bible in stone; and so St. +Peter’s at Rome is the transition, in stone, from Catholicism +to a kingdom of this world, the first stage of our +liberation from monastic fetters.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The mere construction of temples was at all times accompanied +by so many mystical rites, allegoric ceremonies, +and solemn consecrations, that the medieval builders +ranked themselves as a kind of religious order, as successors +to the builders of Solomon’s temple; and they formed +themselves into secret companies, of which freemasonry +was a later development.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Renaissance robbed architecture of this essentially +mystical note. The Christian faith began to contend with +scepticism, the Gothic spire with the Greek façade, religious +sanctity with worldly beauty. This is why St. Peter’s +at Rome is so significant; in that colossal erection Christianity +is struggling to come alive, the Church turns pagan, +and Michael Angelo uses the walls of the Sistine Chapel +to depict Jesus Christ as a brawny athlete, a Hercules in +the flower of youth and strength.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After this date church architecture fell into utter decadence, +till it became a mere reproduction, in varying proportions, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>either of St. Peter’s or of ancient Greek temples. +There is one Parthenon at Paris which is called the +Church of the Madeleine, and another at New York, +which is used as the Exchange.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Without faith and without special circumstances, it was +hard to build anything with life about it. All modern +churches are misfits and pretentious anachronisms, like +those angular Gothic churches with which the English +ornament their towns and offend every artistic eye.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But the circumstances in which Vitberg drew his plans, +his own personality, and the Emperor’s temperament, all +these were quite exceptional.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The war of 1812 had a profound effect upon men’s +minds in Russia, and it was long after the liberation of +Moscow before the general emotion and excitement subsided. +Then foreign events, the taking of Paris, the history +of the Hundred Days, expectations and rumours, Waterloo, +Napoleon on board the <i>Bellerophon</i>, mourning for +the dead and anxiety for the living, the returning armies, +the warriors restored to their homes,—all this had a strong +effect upon the least susceptible natures. Now imagine a +young man, an artist and a mystic, endowed with creative +power, and also an enthusiast spurred on by current +events, by the Tsar’s challenge, and by his own genius.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Near Moscow, between the Mozhaisk and Kaluga +roads, a modest eminence dominates the whole city. Those +are the Sparrow Hills of which I spoke in my early recollections. +They command one of the finest views of all +Moscow. Here it was that Ivan the Terrible, still young +and unhardened, shed tears at the sight of his capital on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>fire; and here that the priest Silvester met him and by +his stern rebuke changed for twenty years to come the +nature of that monster and man of genius.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Napoleon and his army marched round these hills. +There his strength was broken, and there his retreat +began. What better site for a temple in memory of 1812 +than the farthest point reached by the enemy?</p> + +<p class='c008'>But this was not enough. It was Vitberg’s intention to +convert the hill itself into the lowest part of the cathedral, +to build a colonnade to the river, and then, on a foundation +laid on three sides by nature herself, to erect a second +and a third church. But all the three churches made one; +for Vitberg’s cathedral, like the chief dogma of Christianity, +was both triple and indivisible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The lowest of the three churches, hewn in the rock, +was a parallelogram in the shape of a coffin or dead body. +All that was visible was a massive entrance supported on +columns of almost Egyptian size; the church itself was +hidden in the primitive unworked rock. It was lighted by +lamps in high Etruscan candelabra; a feeble ray of daylight +from the second church passed into it through a +transparent picture of the Nativity. All the heroes who +fell in 1812 were to rest in this crypt; a perpetual mass +was to be said there for those who had fallen on the field +of battle; and the names of them all, from the chief commanders +to the private soldiers, were to be engraved on +the walls.</p> + +<p class='c008'>On the top of this coffin or cemetery rose the second +church, in the form of a Greek cross with limbs of equal +length spreading to the four quarters, a temple of life, of +suffering, of labour. The colonnade which led up to it +was adorned with statues of the Patriarchs and Judges. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>At the entrance were the Prophets; they stood outside +the church, pointing out the way which they could not +tread themselves. Inside this temple the Gospel story and +the Acts of the Apostles were represented on the walls.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Above this building, crowning it, completing it, and +including it, the third church was to be built in the shape +of the Pantheon. It was brightly lighted, as the home of +the Spirit, of unbroken peace, of eternity; and eternity +was represented by its shape. Here there were no pictures +or sculpture; but there was an exterior frieze representing +the archangels, and the whole was surmounted by a +colossal dome.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Sad is my present recollection of Vitberg’s main idea; +he had worked it out in every detail, in complete accordance +at every point with Christian theology and architectural +beauty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This astonishing man spent a whole lifetime over his +conception. It was his sole occupation during the ten +years that his trial lasted; in poverty and exile, he devoted +several hours of each day to his cathedral. He lived in +it; he could not believe that it would never be built; his +whole life—his memories, his consolations, his fame—was +wrapped up in that portfolio.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It may be that in the future, when the martyr is dead, +some later artist may shake the dust from those leaves +and piously give to the world that record of suffering, +those plans over which the strong man, after his brief +hour of glory had gone out, spent a life of darkness and +pain.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His plan was full of genius, and startling in its extravagance; +for this reason Alexander chose it, and for this +reason it should have been carried out. It is said that the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>hill could never have supported such a building; but I +do not believe it, especially in view of all the modern +triumphs of engineering in America and England, those +suspension-bridges and tunnels which a train takes eight +minutes to pass through.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Milorádovitch advised Vitberg to have granite monoliths +for the great pillars of the lowest church. Someone +pointed out that the process of bringing these from Finland +would be very costly. “That is the very reason why +we should get them,” answered Milorádovitch; “if there +were granite quarries on the Moscow River, where would +be the wonder in erecting the pillars?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Milorádovitch was a soldier, but he understood the +element of romance in war and in other things. Magnificent +ends are gained by magnificent means. Nature alone +attains to greatness without effort.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The chief accusation brought against Vitberg, even by +those who never doubted his honesty, was this, that he +had accepted the post of director of the works. As an +artist without experience, and a young man ignorant of +finance, he should have been content with his position +as architect. This is true.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is easy to sit in one’s chair and condemn Vitberg for +this. But he accepted the post just because he was young +and inexperienced, because nothing seemed hard when +once his plans had been accepted, because the Tsar himself +offered him the post, encouraged him, and supported +him. Whose head would not have been turned? Where +are these sober, sensible, self-controlled people? If they +exist, they are not capable of constructing colossal plans, +they cannot make stones speak.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>As a matter of course, Vitberg was soon surrounded by +a swarm of rascals, men who look on state employment +merely as a lucky chance to line their own pockets. It is +easy to understand that such men would undermine Vitberg +and set traps for him; yet he might have climbed +out of these but for something else—had not envy in +some quarters, and injured dignity in others, been added +to general dishonesty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were three other members of the commission as +well as Vitberg—the Archbishop Philaret, the Governor of +Moscow, and Kushnikov, a Judge of the Supreme Court; +and all three resented from the first the presence of this +“whipper-snapper,” who actually ventured to state his +objections and insist on his own opinions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They helped others to entangle and defame him, and +then they destroyed him without a qualm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Two events contributed to this catastrophe, the fall of +the Minister, Prince A. N. Golitsyn, and then the death +of Alexander.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Minister’s fall dragged Vitberg down with it. He +felt the full weight of that disaster: the Commission complained, +the Archbishop was offended, the Governor was +dissatisfied. His replies were called insolent—insolence +was one of the main charges brought against him on his +trial—and it was said that his subordinates stole—as if +there was a single person in the public service in Russia +who refrains from stealing! It is possible, indeed, that +his agents stole more than usual; for he was quite inexperienced +in the management of reformatories or the +detection of highly placed thieves.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alexander ordered Arakchéyev to investigate the affair. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>He himself was sorry for Vitberg and sent a message to +say that he was convinced of the architect’s honesty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Alexander died and Arakchéyev fell. Under +Nicholas, Vitberg’s affair at once assumed a more threatening +aspect. It dragged on for ten years, and the absurdity +of the proceedings is incredible. The Supreme Court dismissed +charges taken as proved by the Criminal Court, +and charged him with guilt of which he had been acquitted; +the committee of ministers found him guilty on all +the charges; and the Emperor Nicholas added to the +original sentence banishment to Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So Vitberg was banished, having been discharged from +the public service “for abusing the confidence of the +Emperor Alexander and for squandering the revenues of +the Crown.” A claim was brought against him for a million +<i>roubles</i>—I think that was the sum; all his property was +seized and sold by auction, and a report was spread that +he had transferred an immense sum of money to America.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I lived for two years in the same house with Vitberg and +kept up constant relations with him till I left Vyatka. He +had not saved even enough for his daily bread, and his +family lived in the direst poverty.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In order to throw light on this trial and all similar trials +in Russia, I shall add two trifling details.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Vitberg bought a forest for building material from a +merchant named Lobanov, but, before the trees were +felled, offered to take another forest instead which was +nearer the river and belonged to the same owner. Lobanov +agreed; the trees were felled and the timber floated down +the river. More timber was needed at a later date, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>Vitberg bought the first forest over again. Hence arose +the famous charge that he had paid twice over for the +same timber. The unfortunate Lobanov was put in prison +on this charge and died there.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Of the second affair I was myself an eye-witness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Vitberg bought up land with a view to his cathedral. +His idea was that the serfs, when transferred with the +land he had bought, should bind themselves to supply a +fixed number of workmen to be employed on the cathedral; +in this way they acquired complete freedom from +all other burdens for themselves and their community. +It is amusing to note that our judges, being also landowners, +objected to this measure as a form of slavery!</p> + +<p class='c008'>One estate which Vitberg wished to buy belonged to +my father. It lay on the bank of the Moscow River; stone +had been found there, and Vitberg got leave from my +father to make a geological inspection, in order to determine +how much stone there was. After obtaining leave, +Vitberg had to go off to Petersburg.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Three months later my father learned that the quarrying +operations were being carried out on a great scale, and +that the peasants’ cornfields were buried under blocks of +stone. His protests were not listened to, and he went to +law. There was a stubborn contest. The defendants tried +at first to throw all the blame on Vitberg, but, unfortunately +for them, it turned out that he had given no orders +whatever, and that the Commission had done the whole +thing during his absence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The case was referred to the Supreme Court, which +surprised everyone by coming to a fairly reasonable decision. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>The stone which had been quarried was to belong +to the landowner, as compensation for the injury to his +fields; the Crown funds spent on the work were to be +repaid, to the amount of 100,000 <i>roubles</i>, by those who +had signed the contract for the work. The signatories were +Prince Golitsyn, the Archbishop, and Kushnikov. Of +course there was a great outcry, and the matter was referred +to the Tsar.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Tsar ordered that the payment should not be +exacted, because—as he wrote with his own hand—“the +members of the Commission did not know what they were +signing”! This is actually printed in the journals of the +Supreme Court. Even if the Archbishop was bound by +his cloth to display humility, what are we to think of the +other two magnates who accepted the Tsar’s generosity +under such conditions?</p> + +<p class='c008'>But where was the money to be found? Crown property, +we are told, can neither be burnt by fire nor drowned +in water—it can only be stolen, we might add. Without +hesitation a general of the Staff was sent in haste to Moscow +to clear matters up.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He did so, restored order, and settled everything in +the course of a few days. The stone was to be taken from +the landowner, to defray the expenses of the quarry, +though, if the landowner wished to keep the stone, he +might do so on payment of 100,000 <i>roubles</i>. The landowner +was not to receive special compensation, because +the value of his property had been increased by the discovery +of a new source of wealth (that is really a noble +touch!)—but a certain law of Peter the Great’s sanctioned +the payment of so many <i>kopecks</i> an acre for the damage +done to the peasants’ fields.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>The real sufferer was my father. It is hardly necessary +to add that this business of the stone quarry figured after +all among the charges brought against Vitberg at his trial.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Vitberg had been living in exile at Vyatka for two years +when the merchants of the town determined to build a +new church.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Their plans surprised the Tsar Nicholas when they +were submitted to him. He confirmed them and gave +orders to the local authorities that the builders were not +to mar the architect’s design.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who made these plans?” he asked of the minister.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Vitberg, Your Majesty.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you mean the same Vitberg?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The same man, Your Majesty.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And so it happened that Vitberg, most unexpectedly, +got permission to return to Moscow or Petersburg. When +he asked leave to clear his character, it was refused; but +when he made skilful plans for a church, the Tsar ordered +his restoration—as if there had ever been a doubt of his +artistic capacity!</p> + +<p class='c008'>In Petersburg, where he was starving for bread, he +made a last attempt to defend his honour. It was a complete +failure. He applied to Prince A. N. Golitsyn; but +the Prince thought it impossible to open the question +again, and advised Vitberg to address a humble petition +for pecuniary assistance to the Crown Prince. He said +that Zhukovski and himself would interest themselves in +the matter, and held out hopes of a gift of 1,000 <i>roubles</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Vitberg refused.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I visited Petersburg for the last time at the beginning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>of winter in 1846, and there I saw Vitberg. He was quite +a wreck; even his wrath against his enemies, which I had +admired so much in former days, had begun to cool down; +he had ceased to hope and was making no endeavour to +escape from his position; a calm despair was making an +end of him; he was breaking up altogether and only waiting +for death.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Whether the sufferer is still living, I do not know, but +I doubt it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But for my children,” he said to me at parting, “I +would tear myself away from Russia and beg my bread +over the world; wearing my Cross of Vladímir, I would +hold out calmly to the passer-by that hand which the Tsar +Alexander grasped, and tell him of my great design and +the fate of an artist in Russia.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor martyr,” thought I, “Europe shall learn your +fate—I promise you that.”</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>My intimacy with Vitberg was a great relief to me at +Vyatka. His serious simplicity and a certain solemnity +of manner suggested the churchman to some extent. Strict +in his principles, he tended in general to austerity rather +than enjoyment; but this strictness took nothing from the +luxuriance and richness of his artistic fancy. He could +invest his mystical views with such lively forms and such +beautiful colouring that objections died on your lips, and +you felt reluctant to examine and pull to pieces the glimmering +forms and shadowy pictures of his imagination.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His mysticism was partly due to his Scandinavian blood. +It was the same play of fancy combined with cool reflection +<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>which we see in Swedenborg;<a id='r106' /><a href='#f106' class='c016'><sup>[106]</sup></a> and that in its turn +resembles the fiery reflection of the sun’s rays when they +fall on the ice-covered mountains and snows of Norway.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f106'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r106'>106</a>. </span>Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish mystic and +founder of a sect.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Though I was shaken for a time by Vitberg’s influence, +my positive turn of mind held its own nevertheless. It +was not my destiny to be carried up to the third heaven; +I was born to inhabit earth alone. Tables never turn at +my touch, rings never quiver when I look at them. The +daylight of thought is my element, not the moonlight of +imagination.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But I was more inclined to the mystical standpoint +when I lived with Vitberg than at any other period of my +life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was much to support Vitberg’s influence—the +loneliness of exile, the strained and pietistic tone of the +letters I received from home, the love which was mastering +my whole being with ever increasing power, and an +oppressive feeling of remorse for my own misconduct.<a id='r107' /><a href='#f107' class='c016'><sup>[107]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f107'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r107'>107</a>. </span>He refers to an intrigue he was carrying on at Vyatka.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Two years later I was again influenced by ideas partly +religious and partly socialistic, which I took from the +Gospel and from Rousseau; my position was that of some +French thinkers, such as Pierre Leroux.<a id='r108' /><a href='#f108' class='c016'><sup>[108]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f108'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r108'>108</a>. </span>A French publicist and disciple of Saint Simon, +1797-1871.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>My friend Ogaryóv plunged even before I did into the +waves of mysticism. In 1833 he began to write a libretto +for Gebel’s oratorio of <i>Paradise Lost</i>; and he wrote to +me that the whole history of humanity was included in +that poem! It appears therefore that he then considered +the paradise of his aspirations to have existed already and +disappeared from view.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>In 1838 I wrote from this point of view some historical +scenes which I supposed at the time to be dramatic. They +were in verse. In one I represented the strife between +Christianity and the ancient world, and told how St. Paul, +when entering Rome, raised a young man from the dead +to enter on a new life. Another described the contest of +the Quakers against the Church of England, and the departure +of William Penn for America.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The mysticism of the Gospel soon gave way in my mind +to the mysticism of science; but I was fortunate enough +to escape from the latter as well in course of time.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>But now I must go back to the modest little town which +was called Chlynov until Catherine II changed its name +to Vyatka; what her motive was, I do not know, unless +it was her Finnish patriotism.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In that dreary distant backwater of exile, separated +from all I loved, surrounded by the unclean horde of officials, +and exposed without defence to the tyranny of the +Governor, I met nevertheless with many warm hearts and +friendly hands, and there I spent many happy hours which +are sacred in recollection.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Where are you now, and how are you, my snowbound +friends? It is twenty years since we met. I suppose you +have grown old, as I have; you are thinking about marrying +your daughters, and have given up drinking champagne +by the bottle and tossing off bumpers of vodka. +Which of you has made a fortune, and which has lost it? +Which has risen high in the official world, and which is +laid low by the palsy? Above all, do you still keep alive +the memory of our free discussions? Do those chords +<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>still resound that were struck so vigorously by our common +friendship and our common resentment?</p> + +<p class='c008'>I am unchanged, as you know, for I suspect that +rumour flies from the banks of the Thames as far as you. +I think of you sometimes, and always with affection. I +have kept some letters of those former days, and some of +them I regard as treasures and love to read over again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am not ashamed to confess to you,” writes one young +friend on January 26, 1838, “that my heart is full of +bitterness. Help me for the sake of that life to which you +summoned me; help me with your advice. I want to learn; +make me a list of books, lay down any programme you +like; I will work my hardest, if you will point the way. +It would be sinful of you to discourage me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I bless you,” another wrote to me just after I had left +Vyatka, “as the husbandman blesses the rain which gives +life to his unfertilized field.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>I copy out these lines, not from vanity, but because +they are very precious to me. This appeal to young hearts +and their generous reply, and the unrest I was able to +awaken in them—this is my compensation for nine months +spent in prison and three years at Vyatka.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>There is one thing more. Twice a week the post from +Moscow came to Vyatka. With what excitement I waited +near the post-office while the letters were sorted! How my +heart beat as I broke the seal of my letter from home and +searched inside for a little enclosure, written on thin paper +in a wonderfully small and beautiful hand!</p> + +<p class='c008'>I did not read that in the post-office. I walked slowly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>home, putting off the happy moment and feasting on the +thought that the letter was there.</p> + +<p class='c008'>These letters have all been preserved. I left them at +Moscow when I quitted Russia. Though I longed to read +them over, I was afraid to touch them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Letters are more than recollections, the very life blood +of the past is stored up in them; they <i>are</i> the past, exactly +as it was, preserved from destruction and decay.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Is it really necessary once again to know, to see, to +touch with hands which age has covered with wrinkles, +what once you wore on your wedding-day?<a id='r109' /><a href='#f109' class='c016'><sup>[109]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f109'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r109'>109</a>. </span>These letters were from Herzen’s cousin, Natálya +Zakhárin, who became his wife in 1838.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER X</h2> +</div> +<p class='c021'>The Crown Prince at Vyatka—The Fall of Tufáyev—Transferred +to Vladímir—The Inspector’s Enquiry.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>THE Crown Prince<a id='r110' /><a href='#f110' class='c016'><sup>[110]</sup></a> is coming to Vyatka! The +Crown Prince is travelling through Russia, to see +the country and to be seen himself! This news +was of interest to everyone and of special interest, of +course, to the Governor. In his haste and confusion, he +issued a number of ridiculous and absurd orders—for +instance, that the peasants along the road should wear +their holiday <i>kaftáns</i>, and that all boardings in the towns +should be repainted and all sidewalks mended. A poor +widow who owned a smallish house in Orlóv informed the +mayor that she had no money to repair her sidewalk; the +mayor reported this to the Governor, and the Governor +ordered the floors of her house to be pulled up—the sidewalks +there were made of wood—and, if that was insufficient, +the repairs were to be done at the public cost and +the money to be refunded by the widow, even if she had +to sell her house by auction for the purpose. Things did +<span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>not go to the length of an auction, but the widow’s floors +were torn up.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f110'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r110'>110</a>. </span>Afterwards Alexander II.</p> +</div> + +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Fifty <i>versts</i> from Vyatka is the spot where the wonder-working +<i>ikon</i> of St. Nicholas was revealed to the people +of Novgorod. When they moved to Vyatka, they took the +<i>ikon</i> with them; but it disappeared and turned up again +by the Big River, fifty <i>versts</i> away. The people removed +it again; but they took a vow that, if the <i>ikon</i> would +stay with them, they would carry it in solemn procession +once a year—on the twenty-third of May, I think,—to +the Big River. This is the chief summer holiday in the +Government of Vyatka. The <i>ikon</i> is despatched along +the river on a richly decorated barge the day before, accompanied +by the Bishop and all the clergy in their full +robes. Hundreds of boats of every description, filled with +peasants and their wives, native tribesmen and shopkeepers, +make up a lively scene, as they sail in the wake +of the Saint. In front of all sails the Governor’s barge, +decorated with scarlet cloth. It is a remarkable sight. The +people gather from far and near in tens of thousands, +wait on the bank for the arrival of the Saint, and move +about in noisy crowds round the little village by the river. +It is remarkable that the native Votyaks and Cheremisses +and even Tatars, though they are not Christians, come +in crowds to pray to the <i>ikon</i>. The festival, indeed, wears +a purely pagan aspect. Natives and Russians alike bring +calves and sheep as offerings up to the wall of the monastery; +they slaughter them on the spot, and the Abbot repeats +prayers and blesses and consecrates the meat, which +is offered at a special window on the inner side of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>monastery enclosure. The meat is then distributed to the +people. In old times it was given away, but nowadays +the monks receive a few pence for each piece. Thus the +peasant who has presented an entire calf has to spend a +trifle in order to get a bit of veal for his own eating. The +court of the monastery is filled with beggars, cripples, +blind men, and sufferers from all sorts of deformity; they +sit on the ground and sing out in chorus for alms. The +gravestones round the church are used as seats by boys, +the sons of priests and shopmen; armed with an ink-bottle, +each offers to write out names of the dead, that their +souls may be prayed for. “Who wants names written?” +they call out, and the women crowd round them and repeat +the names. The boys scratch away with their pens +with a professional air and repeat the names after them—“Marya, +Marya, Akulina, Stepanida, Father Ioann, Matrona—no, +no! auntie, half a <i>kopeck</i> is all you gave me; +but I can’t take less than five <i>kopecks</i> for such a lot—Ioann, +Vasilissa, Iona, Marya, Yevpraxia, and the baby +Katherine.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The church is tightly packed, and the female worshippers +differ oddly in their preferences: one hands a candle +to her neighbour with precise directions that it is to be +offered to “the guest,” <i>i.e.</i>, the Saint who is there on a +visit, while another woman prefers “the host,” <i>i.e.</i>, the +local Saint. During the ceremonies the monks and attendant +acolytes from Vyatka are never sober; they stop at all +the large villages along the way, and the peasants stand +treat.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This ancient and popular festival was celebrated on +the twenty-third of May. But the Prince was to arrive +on May 19, and the Governor, wishing to please his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span>august visitor, changed the date of the festival; what +harm could it do, if St. Nicholas paid his visit three days +too soon? The Abbot’s consent was necessary; but he was +fortunately a man of the world and raised no difficulty +when the Governor proposed to keep the twenty-third of +May on the nineteenth.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Instructions of various kinds came from Petersburg; +for instance, it was ordered that each provincial capital +should organise an exhibition of the local products and +manufactures; and the animal, vegetable, and mineral +products were to be kept separate. This division into kingdoms +perplexed our office not a little, and puzzled even the +Governor himself. Wishing not to make mistakes, he decided, +in spite of the bad relations between us, to seek +my advice. “Now, honey, for example,” he said, “where +would you put honey? And that gilt frame—how can we +settle where that belongs?” My replies showed that I +had surprisingly exact information concerning the three +natural kingdoms, and he proposed that I should undertake +the arrangement of the exhibition.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I was still putting in order wooden spoons and native +costumes, honey and iron trellis-work, when an awful +rumour spread through the town that the Mayor of Orlóv +had been arrested. The Governor’s face turned yellow, +and he even seemed unsteady in his gait.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A week before the Prince arrived, the Mayor of Orlóv +wrote to the Governor that the widow whose floors had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>been torn up was making a disturbance, and that a rich +and well-known merchant of the town declared his intention +of telling the whole story to the Prince on his +arrival. The Governor dealt very ingeniously with this +firebrand; he recalled with satisfaction the precedent of +Petrovski, and ordered that the merchant, being suspected +of insanity, should be sent to Vyatka for examination. +Thus the matter would drag on till the Prince left the +province; and that would be the end of it. The mayor +did what he was told, and the merchant was placed in +the hospital at Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At last the Prince arrived. He greeted the Governor +coldly and took no further notice of him, and he sent his +own physician at once to examine the merchant. He knew +all about it by this time. For the widow had presented her +petition at Orlóv, and then the merchants and shop people +had told the whole story. The Governor grew more and +more crest-fallen. The affair looked bad. The mayor had +said plainly that he acted throughout on the written orders +of the Governor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the physician came back, he reported that the +merchant was perfectly sane. That was a finishing stroke +for the Governor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At eight in the evening the Prince visited the exhibition +with his suite. The Governor conducted him; but he made +a terrible hash of his explanations, till two of the suite, +Zhukovski<a id='r111' /><a href='#f111' class='c016'><sup>[111]</sup></a> and Arsenyev, seeing that things were not +going well, invited me to do the honours; and I took the +party round.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f111'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r111'>111</a>. </span>The famous man of letters (1783-1852) who acted as tutor +to Alexander. Arsenyev undertook the scientific side of the Prince’s +education.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span>The young Prince had not the stern expression of his +father; his features suggested rather good nature and indolence. +Though he was only about twenty, he was beginning +to grow stout. The few words he addressed to me +were friendly, and he had not the hoarse abrupt utterance +of his uncle Constantine.</p> + +<p class='c008'>When the Prince left the exhibition, Zhukovski asked +me what had brought me to Vyatka; he was surprised +to find in such a place an official who could speak like a +gentleman. He offered at once to speak to the Prince about +me; and he actually did all that he could. The Prince suggested +to his father that I should be allowed to return to +Petersburg; the Emperor said that this would be unfair +to the other exiles, but, owing to the Prince’s intercession, +he ordered that I should be transferred to Vladímir. This +was an improvement in point of position, as Vladímir is +700 <i>versts</i> nearer Moscow. But of this I shall speak later.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>In the evening there was a ball at the assembly-rooms. +The musicians, who had been summoned for the occasion +from one of the factories of the province, arrived in the +town helplessly drunk. The Governor rose to the emergency: +the performers were all shut up in prison twenty-four +hours before the ball, marched straight from prison +to the orchestra, and kept there till the ball was over.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The ball was a dull, ill-arranged affair, both mean and +motley, as balls always are in small towns on great occasions. +The police-officers bustled up and down; the officials, +in full uniform, squeezed up against the walls; the +ladies crowded round the Prince, just as savages mob a +traveller from Europe.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span>Apropos of the ladies, I may tell a story. One of the +towns offered a “collation” after their exhibition. The +Prince partook of nothing but a single peach; when he +had eaten it, he threw the stone out of the window. Suddenly +a tall figure emerged from the crowd of officials +standing outside the building; it was a certain rural judge, +well known for his irregular habits; he walked deliberately +up to the window, picked up the stone, and put it +in his pocket. When the collation was over, he went up +to one of the important ladies and offered her the stone; +she was charmed to get such a treasure. Then he went +to several other ladies and made them happy in the same +way. He had bought five peaches and cut out the stones. +Not one of the six ladies could ever be sure of the authenticity +of her prize.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>When the Prince had gone, the Governor prepared with a +heavy heart to exchange his satrapy for a place on the +bench of the Supreme Court at home; but he was not so +fortunate as that.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Three weeks later the post brought documents from +Petersburg addressed to “The Acting Governor of the +Province.” Our office was a scene of confusion; officials +came and went; we heard that an edict had been received, +but the Governor pretended illness and kept his house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>An hour later we heard that Tufáyev had been dismissed +from his office; and that was all that the edict +said about him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The whole town rejoiced over his fall. While he ruled, +the atmosphere was impure, stale, and stifling; now one +<span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span>could breathe more freely. And yet it was hateful to see +the triumph of his subordinates. Asses in plenty raised +their heels against this stricken wild-boar. To compare +small things with great, the meanness of mankind was +shown as clearly then as when Napoleon fell. Between +Tufáyev and me there had been an open breach for a long +time; and if he had not been turned out himself, he would +certainly have sent me to some frontier town like Kai. +I had therefore no reason to change my behaviour towards +him; but others, who only the day before had pulled off +their hats at the sight of his carriage and run at his nod, +who had smiled at his spaniel and offered their snuffboxes +to his valet—these same men now would hardly salute +him and made the whole town ring with their protests +against the irregularities which he had committed and +they had shared in. All this is an old story and repeats +itself so regularly from age to age, in all places, that we +must accept this form of baseness as a universal trait of +human nature, and, at all events, not be surprised by it.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> + +<p class='c018'>His successor, Kornilov, soon made his appearance. He +was a very different sort of person—a man of about fifty, +tall and stout, rather flabby in appearance, but with an +agreeable smile and gentlemanly manners. He formed +all his sentences with strict grammatical accuracy and +used a great number of words; in fact, he spoke with +a clearness which was capable, by its copiousness, of +obscuring the simplest topic. He had been at school with +Púshkin and had served in the Guards; he bought all the +new French books, liked to talk on serious topics, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>gave me a copy of Tocqueville’s<a id='r112' /><a href='#f112' class='c016'><sup>[112]</sup></a> <i>Democracy in America</i> +the day after he arrived at Vyatka.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f112'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r112'>112</a>. </span>Alexis de Tocqueville, a French statesman and publicist +(1805-1859).</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>It was a startling change. The same rooms, the same +furniture, but, instead of the Tatar tax-collector with the +face of an Esquimo and the habits of a Siberian, a theorist +with a tincture of pedantry but a gentleman none the less. +Our new Governor had intelligence, but his intellect +seemed to give light only and no warmth, like a bright +day in winter which ripens no fruit though it is pleasant +enough. He was a terrible formalist too, though not of +the red-tape variety; it is not easy to describe the type, +but it was just as tiresome as all varieties of formalism +are.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As the new Governor had a real wife, the official residence +lost its ultra-bachelor characteristics; it became +monogamous. As a consequence of this, the members of +the Council became quite domestic characters: these bald +old gentlemen, instead of boasting over their conquests, +now spoke with tender affection of their lawful wives, although +these ladies were past their prime and either +angular and bony, or so fat that it was impossible for a +surgeon to draw blood from them.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Some years before he came to us, Kornilov, being then +a colonel in the Guards, was appointed Civil Governor +of a provincial town, and entered at once upon business +of which he knew nothing. Like all new brooms, he began +by reading every official paper that was submitted to him. +He came across a certain document from another Government +<span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>which he could not understand, though he read it +through several times.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He rang for his secretary and gave it to him to read. +But the secretary also was unable to explain the matter +clearly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What will you do with this document,” asked Kornilov, +“if I pass it on to the office?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall hand it to Desk III—it is in their department.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So the chief of Desk III will know what to do?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Certainly, Your Excellency; he has been in charge of +that desk for six years.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Please summon him to me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The chief came, and Kornilov handed him the paper +and asked what should be done. The clerk ran through it +hastily, and then said a question must be asked of the +Crown Court and instructions given to the inspector of +rural police.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What instructions?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The clerk seemed puzzled; at last he said that, though +it was difficult to state them on the spot, it was easy to +write them down.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There is a chair; will you be good enough to write +now?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The clerk took a pen, wrote rapidly and confidently, +and soon produced the two documents.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Governor took them and read them through; he +read them through again; he could make nothing of them. +“Well,” he used to say afterwards, “I saw that it really +was in the form of an answer to the original document; +so I plucked up courage and signed it. The answer gave +entire satisfaction; I never heard another word about it.”</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>The announcement of my transference to Vladímir arrived +before Christmas. My preparations were quickly +made, and I started off.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I said a cordial good-bye to society at Vyatka; in that +distant town I had made two or three real friends among +the young merchants. They vied with one another in showing +sympathy and friendship for the outcast. Several +sledges accompanied me to the first stopping-place, and, +in spite of my protests, a whole cargo of eatables and +drinkables was placed on my conveyance. Next day I +reached Yaransk.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After Yaransk the road passes through endless pine-forests. +There was moonlight and hard frost as my small +sledge slid along the narrow track. I have never since seen +such continuous forests. They stretch all the way to Archangelsk, +and reindeer occasionally find their way through +them to the Government of Vyatka. Most of the wood is +suitable for building purposes. The fir-trees seemed to +file past my sledge like soldiers; they were remarkably +straight and high, and covered with snow, under which +their black needles stuck out like bristles. I fell asleep +and woke again—and there were the armies of the pines +still marching past at a great rate, and sometimes shaking +off the snow. There are small clearings where the horses +are changed; you see a small house half-hidden in the +trees and the horses tethered to a tree-trunk, and hear +their bells jingling; a couple of native boys in embroidered +shirts run out, still rubbing their eyes; the driver has a +dispute with the other driver in a hoarse alto voice; then +he calls out “All right!” and strikes up a monotonous song—and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>the endless procession of pine-trees and snow-drifts +begins again.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§10</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Just as I got out of the Government of Vyatka, I came +in contact for the last time with the officials, and this final +appearance was quite in their best manner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>We stopped at a post-house, and the driver began to +unharness the horses. A tall peasant appeared at the door +and asked who I was.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What business is that of yours?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am the inspector’s messenger, and he told me to ask.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Very well: go to the office and you will find my passport +there.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The peasant disappeared but returned in a moment +and told the driver that he could not have fresh horses.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was too much. I jumped out of the sledge and +entered the house. The inspector was sitting on a bench +and dictating to a clerk; both were half-seas over. On +another bench in a corner a man was sitting, or rather +lying, with fetters on his feet and hands. There were +several bottles in the room, glasses, and a litter of papers +and tobacco ash on the table.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Where is the inspector?” I called out loudly, as I +went in.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am the inspector,” was the reply. I had seen the man +before in Vyatka; his name was Lazarev. While speaking +he stared very rudely at me—and then rushed towards +me with open arms.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It must be remembered that, after Tufáyev’s fall, the +officials, seeing that his successor and I were on fairly +good terms, were a little afraid of me.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span>I kept him off with my hand, and asked in a very serious +voice: “How could you order that I was to have no horses? +What an absurdity to detain travellers on the high road!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It was only a joke; I hope you won’t be angry about +it.” Then he shouted at his messenger: “Horses! horses +at once! What are you standing there for, you idiot?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I hope you will have a cup of tea with some rum in +it,” he said to me.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, thank you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perhaps we have some champagne”; he rushed to the +bottles, but they were all empty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What are you doing here?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Holding an enquiry; this fine fellow took an axe and +killed his father and sister. There was a quarrel and he +was jealous.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And so you celebrate the occasion with champagne?” +I said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The man looked confused. I glanced at the murderer. +He was a Cheremiss of about twenty; there was nothing +savage about his face; it was of purely Oriental type with +narrow flashing eyes and black hair.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was so disgusted by the whole scene that I went out +again into the yard. The inspector ran out after me, with +a bottle of rum in one hand and a glass in the other, and +pressed me to have a drink.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In order to get rid of him, I accepted. He caught me by +the arm and said: “I am to blame, I admit; but I hope +you will not mention the facts to His Excellency and so +ruin an honest man.” As he spoke, he caught hold of my +hand and actually kissed it, repeating a dozen times over, +“In God’s name, don’t ruin an honest man!” I pulled +away my hand in disgust and said:</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_373'>373</span>“You needn’t be afraid; what need have I to tell tales?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But can’t I do you some service?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; you can make them harness the horses quicker.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Look alive there!” he shouted out, and soon began +tugging at the straps himself.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§11</h3> + +<p class='c018'>I never forgot this incident. Nine years later I was in +Petersburg for the last time; I had to visit the Home +Office to arrange about a passport. While I was talking +to the secretary in charge, a gentleman walked through +the room, distributing friendly handshakes to the magnates +of the office and condescending bows to the lesser lights. +“Hang it! it can’t surely be him!” I thought. “Who is +that?” I asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“His name is Lazarev; he is specially employed by the +Minister and is a great man here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Did he serve once as inspector in the Government +of Vyatka?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He did.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I congratulate you, gentlemen! Nine years ago that +man kissed my hand!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It must be allowed that the Minister knew how to +choose his subordinates.</p> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_374'>374</span> + <h2 class='c010'>CHAPTER XI</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>The Beginning of my Life at Vladímir.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c014'>§1</h3> +<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c015'>WHEN we had reached Kosmodemyansk and +I came out to take my seat in the sledge, I +saw that the horses were harnessed three +abreast in Russian fashion; and the bells jingled cheerfully +on the yoke worn by the wheeler.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In Perm and Vyatka they harness the horses differently—either +in single file, or one leader with two wheelers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>My heart beat fast with joy, to see the Russian fashion +again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Now let us see how fast you can go!” I said to the lad +sitting with a professional air on the box of the sledge. +He wore a sheepskin coat with the wool inside, and such +stiff gloves that he could hardly bring two fingers together +to clutch the coin I offered him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Very good, Sir. Gee up, my beauties!” said the lad. +Then he turned to me and said, “Now, Sir, just you hold +on; there’s a hill coming where I shall let the horses go.” +The hill was a steep descent to the Volga, along which +the track passed in winter.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_375'>375</span>He did indeed let the horses go. As they galloped down +the hill, the sledge, instead of moving decently forwards, +banged like a cracker from side to side of the road. The +driver was intensely pleased; and I confess that I, being +a Russian, enjoyed it no less.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In this fashion I drove into the year 1838—the best +and brightest year of my life. Let me tell you how I saw +the New Year in.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§2</h3> + +<p class='c018'>About eighty <i>versts</i> from Nizhni, my servant Matthew +and I went into a post-house to warm ourselves. The frost +was keen, and it was windy as well. The post-master, a +thin and sickly creature who aroused my compassion, was +writing out a way-bill, repeating each letter as he wrote +it, and making mistakes all the same. I took off my fur +coat and walked about the room in my long fur boots. +Matthew warmed himself at the red-hot stove, the post-master +muttered to himself, and the wooden clock on the +wall ticked with a feeble, jerky sound.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Look at the clock, Sir,” Matthew said to me; “it will +strike twelve immediately, and the New Year will begin.” +He glanced half-enquiringly at me and then added, “I +shall bring in some of the things they put on the sledge +at Vyatka.” Without waiting for an answer, he hurried +off in search of the bottles and a parcel.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Matthew, of whom I shall say more in future, was +more than a servant—he was my friend, my younger +brother. A native of Moscow, he had been handed over +to our old friend Sonnenberg, to learn the art of bookbinding, +about which Sonnenberg himself knew little +enough; later, he was transferred to my service.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_376'>376</span>I knew that I should have hurt Matthew by refusing, +and I had really no objection myself to making merry in +the post-house. The New Year is itself a stage in life’s +journey.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He brought in a ham and champagne.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The wine was frozen hard, and the ham was frosted +over with ice; we had to chop it with an axe, but <i>à la +guerre comme à la guerre</i>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A Happy New Year,” we all cried. And I had cause +for happiness. I was travelling back in the right direction, +and every hour brought me nearer to Moscow—my heart +was full of hope.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As our frozen champagne was not much to the taste +of the post-master, I poured an equal quantity of rum +into his glass; and this new form of “half and half” was +a great success.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The driver, whom I invited to drink with us, was even +more thoroughgoing in his methods: he poured pepper +into the foaming wine, stirred it up with a spoon, and +drank the glass at one gulp; then he sighed and added +with a sort of groan, “That was fine and hot.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The post-master himself helped me into the sledge, and +was so zealous in his attentions that he dropped a lighted +candle into the hay and failed to find it afterwards. He +was in great spirits and kept repeating, “A Happy New +Year for me too, thanks to you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The “heated” driver touched up the horses, and we +started.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§3</h3> + +<p class='c018'>At eight on the following evening I arrived at Vladímir +and stopped at an inn which is described with perfect +<span class='pageno' id='Page_377'>377</span>accuracy in <i>The Tarantas</i>,<a id='r113' /><a href='#f113' class='c016'><sup>[113]</sup></a> with its queer menu in Russian-French +and its vinegar for claret.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f113'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r113'>113</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, <i>The Travelling Carriage</i>, a novel by +Count Sologub.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>“Someone was asking for you this morning,” said the +waiter, after reading the name on my passport; “perhaps +he’s waiting in the bar now.” The waiter’s head displayed +that dashing parting and noble curl over the ear which +used to be the distinguishing marks of Russian waiters +and are now peculiar to them and Prince Louis Napoleon.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I could not guess who this could be.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But there he is,” added the waiter, standing aside. +What I first saw was not a man at all but an immense +tray piled high with all sorts of provisions—cake and +biscuits, apples and oranges, eggs, almonds and raisins; +then behind the tray came into view the white beard and +blue eyes belonging to the bailiff on my father’s estate +near Vladimir.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Gavrilo Semyónitch!” I cried out, and rushed into his +arms. His was the first familiar face, the first link with +the past, that I had met since the period of prison and +exile began. I could not look long enough at the old man’s +intelligent face, I could not say enough to him. To me he +represented nearness to Moscow, to my home and my +friends: he had seen them all three days before and +brought me greetings from them all. How could I feel that +I was really far from them?</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§4</h3> + +<p class='c018'>The Governor of Vladimir was a man of the world who +had lived long enough to attain a temper of cool indifference. +He was a Greek and his name was Kuruta. He took +my measure at once and abstained from the least attempt +<span class='pageno' id='Page_378'>378</span>at severity. Office work was never even hinted at—the +only duty he asked me to undertake was that I should +edit the Provincial Gazette in collaboration with the local +schoolmaster.</p> + +<p class='c008'>I was familiar with this business, as I had started the +unofficial part of the Gazette at Vyatka. By the way, one +article which I published there nearly landed my successor +in a scrape. In describing the festival on the Big River, +I said that the mutton offered to St. Nicholas used to be +given away to the poor but was now sold. This enraged the +Abbot, and the Governor had some difficulty in pacifying +him.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§5</h3> + +<p class='c018'>Provincial Gazettes were first introduced in the year +1837. It was Bludov, the Minister of the Interior, who +conceived the idea of training in publicity the land of +silence and dumbness. Bludov, known as the continuator +of Karamzín’s History—though he never added a line to +it—and as the author of the Report on the Decembrist +Revolution—which had better never have been written—was +one of those doctrinaire statesmen who came to the +front in the last years of Alexander’s reign. They were +able, educated, honest men; they had belonged in their +youth to the Literary Club of Arzamas;<a id='r114' /><a href='#f114' class='c016'><sup>[114]</sup></a> they wrote Russian +well, had patriotic feelings, and were so much interested +in the history of their country that they had no +leisure to bestow on contemporary events. They all worshipped +the immortal memory of Karamzín, loved Zhukovski, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_379'>379</span>knew Krylóv<a id='r115' /><a href='#f115' class='c016'><sup>[115]</sup></a> by heart, and used to travel to Moscow +on purpose to talk to Dmítriev<a id='r116' /><a href='#f116' class='c016'><sup>[116]</sup></a> in his house there. I +too used to visit there in my student days; but I was +armed against the old poet by prejudices in favour of +romanticism, by my acquaintance with N. Polevói, and by +a secret feeling of dissatisfaction that Dmítriev, being a +poet, should also be Minister of Justice. Though much was +expected of them, they did nothing; but that is the fate of +doctrinaires in all countries. Perhaps they would have left +more lasting traces behind them if Alexander had lived; +but Alexander died, and they never got beyond the mere +wish to do the state some service.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f114'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r114'>114</a>. </span>Zhukovski and Púshkin both belonged to this club. It +carried on a campaign against Shishkóv and other opponents of the new +developments in Russian style.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f115'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r115'>115</a>. </span>Krylóv (1768-1844), the famous writer of fables.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f116'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r116'>116</a>. </span>Dmítriev, a poet once famous, who lived long enough to +welcome Púshkin.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>At Monaco there is a monument to one of their Princes +with this inscription. “Here rests Prince Florestan”—I +forget his number—“who wished to make his subjects +happy.” Our doctrinaires also wished to make Russia +happy, but they reckoned without their host. I don’t know +who prevented Florestan; but it was our Florestan<a id='r117' /><a href='#f117' class='c016'><sup>[117]</sup></a> who +prevented them. They were forced to take a part in the +steady deterioration of Russia, and all the reforms they +could introduce were useless, mere alterations of forms +and names. Every Russian in authority considers it his +highest duty to rack his brains for some novelty of this +kind; the change is generally for the worse and sometimes +leaves things exactly as they were. Thus the name +of ‘secretary’ has given place to a Russian equivalent in +the public offices of the provinces, but the duties are not +changed. I remember how the Minister of Justice put forward +<span class='pageno' id='Page_380'>380</span>a proposal for necessary changes in the uniform of +civilian officials. It began with great pomp and circumstance—“Having +taken special notice of the lack of uniformity +in the cut and fashion of certain uniforms worn +by the civilian department, and having adopted as a principle +...,” etc.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f117'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r117'>117</a>. </span><i>I.e.</i>, the Emperor Nicholas.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>Beset by this itch for novelty the Minister of the Interior +made changes with regard to the officers who administer +justice in the rural districts. The old judges lived +in the towns and paid occasional visits to the country; +their successors have their regular residence in the country +and pay occasional visits to the towns. By this reform all +the peasants came under the immediate scrutiny of the +police. The police penetrated into the secrets of the peasant’s +commerce and wealth, his family life, and all the +business of his community; and the village community +had been hitherto the last refuge of the people’s life. The +only redeeming feature is this—there are many villages +and only two judges to a district.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§6</h3> + +<p class='c018'>About the same time the same Minister excogitated the +Provincial Gazettes. Our Government, while utterly contemptuous +of education, makes pretensions to be literary; +and whereas, in England, for example, there are no Government +newspapers at all, every public department in +Russia publishes its own organ, and so does the Academy, +and so do the Universities. We have papers to represent +the mining interest and the pickled-herring interest, the +interests of Frenchmen and Germans, the marine interest +and the land-carriage interest, all published at the expense +of Government. The different departments contract for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_381'>381</span>articles, just as they contract for fire-wood and candles, +the only difference being that in the former case there is +no competition; there is no lack of general surveys, invented +statistics, and fanciful conclusions based on the +statistics. Together with a monopoly in everything else, +the Government has assumed a monopoly of nonsense; +ordering everyone to be silent, it chatters itself without +ceasing. In continuation of this system, Bludov ordered +that each provincial Government should publish its own +Gazette, and that each Gazette should include, as well as +the official news, a department for history, literature and +the like.</p> + +<p class='c008'>No sooner said than done. In fifty provincial Governments +they were soon tearing their hair over this unofficial +part. Priests from the theological seminaries, doctors +of medicine, schoolmasters, anyone who was suspected of +being able to spell correctly—all these were pressed into +the service. These recruits reflected, read up the leading +newspapers and magazines, felt nervous, took the plunge, +and finally produced their little articles.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To see oneself in print is one of the strongest artificial +passions of an age corrupted by books. But it requires +courage, nevertheless, except in special circumstances, to +venture on a public exhibition of one’s productions. +People who would not have dreamed of publishing their +articles in the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> or the Petersburg newspapers, +now began to print their writings in the privacy +of their own houses. Thus the dangerous habit of possessing +an organ of one’s own took root, and men became +accustomed to publicity. And indeed it is not a bad thing +to have a weapon which is always ready for use. A printing +press, like the human tongue, has no bones.</p> +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_382'>382</span> + <h3 class='c014'>§7</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>My colleague in the editorship had taken his degree at +Moscow University and in the same faculty as myself. +The end of his life was too tragical for me to speak of +him with a smile; but, down to the day of his death, he +was an exceedingly absurd figure. By no means stupid, +he was excessively clumsy and awkward. His exceptional +ugliness had no redeeming feature, and there was an abnormal +amount of it. His face was nearly twice as large +as most people’s and marked by small-pox; he had the +mouth of a codfish which spread from ear to ear; his +light-grey eyes were lightened rather than shaded by +colourless eye-lashes; his scalp had a meagre covering of +bristly hair; he was moreover taller by a head than myself,<a id='r118' /><a href='#f118' class='c016'><sup>[118]</sup></a> +with a slouching figure and very slovenly habits.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f118'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r118'>118</a>. </span>Herzen himself was a very tall, large man.</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>His very name was such that it once caused him to be +arrested. Late one evening, wrapped up in his overcoat, +he was walking past the Governor’s residence, with a field-glass +in his hand. He stopped and aimed the glass at the +heavens. This astonished the sentry, who probably reckoned +the stars as Government property: he challenged +the rapt star-gazer—“Who goes there?” “Nebába,”<a id='r119' /><a href='#f119' class='c016'><sup>[119]</sup></a> +answered my colleague in a deep bass voice, and gazed +as before.</p> + +<div class='fn'> + +<div class='footnote' id='f119'> +<p class='c017'><span class='label'><a href='#r119'>119</a>. </span>The word means in Russian “Not a woman.”</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c008'>“Don’t play the fool with me—I’m on duty,” said the +sentry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I tell you that I am Nebába!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The soldier’s patience was exhausted: he rang the bell, +a serjeant appeared, the sentry handed the astronomer +<span class='pageno' id='Page_383'>383</span>over to him, to be taken to the guard-room. “They’ll find +out there,” as he said, “whether you’re a woman or not.” +And there he would certainly have stayed till the morning, +had not the officer of the day recognised him.</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§8</h3> + +<p class='c018'>One morning Nebába came to my room to tell me that +he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled +with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then +he added, with some confusion, “I shall not return alone.” +“Do you mean that ...?” “Yes, I am going to be +married,” he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the +heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry +this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight +later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen +and, if no beauty, pretty enough, with lively eyes; and +then I thought him the hero.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Six weeks had not passed before I saw that things were +going badly with my poor Orson. He was terribly depressed, +corrected his proofs carelessly, never finished +his article on “The Migration of Birds,” and could not +fix his attention on anything; at times it seemed to me +that his eyes were red and swollen. This state of things +did not last long. One day as I was going home, I noticed +a crowd of boys and shopkeepers running towards the +churchyard. I walked after them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Nebába’s body was lying near the church wall, and a +rifle lay beside him. He had shot himself opposite the +windows of his own house; the string with which he had +pulled the trigger was still attached to his foot. The police-surgeon +blandly assured the crowd that the deceased had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_384'>384</span>suffered no pain; and the police prepared to carry his body +to the station.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Nature is cruel to the individual. What dark forebodings +filled the breast of this poor sufferer, before he made +up his mind to use his piece of string and stop the pendulum +which measured out nothing to him but insult and +suffering? And why was it so? Because his father was +consumptive or his mother dropsical? Likely enough. But +what right have we to ask for reasons or for justice? What +is it that we seek to call to account? Will the whirling +hurricane of life answer our questions?</p> +<h3 class='c014'>§9</h3> + +<p class='c018'>At the same time there began for me a new epoch in my +life—pure and bright, youthful but earnest; it was the +life of a hermit, but a hermit thoroughly in love.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But this belongs to another part of my narrative.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004' /> +</div> +<p class='c008'> </p> +<div class='tnbox'> + + <ul class='ul_1 c004'> + <li>Transcriber’s Notes: + <ul class='ul_2'> + <li>Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. + </li> + <li>Typographical errors were silently corrected. + </li> + <li>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant + form was found in this book. + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + +</div> +<p class='c008'> </p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67882 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57c on 2022-03-29 17:55:42 GMT --> +</html> |