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| author | pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org> | 2025-07-31 11:22:02 -0700 |
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| committer | pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org> | 2025-07-31 11:22:02 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/76599-0.txt b/76599-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f4d6d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/76599-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12899 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76599 *** + + + + + + THE MEMOIRS OF + ALEXANDER + HERZEN + + I + + + + + NOTE + + This translation has been made by + arrangement from the sole complete + and copyright edition of _My Past + and Thoughts_, that published in the + original Russian at Berlin, 1921. + + + + + _MY PAST AND THOUGHTS_ + THE MEMOIRS OF + ALEXANDER HERZEN + _THE AUTHORISED TRANSLATION_ + _TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN + BY CONSTANCE GARNETT_ + VOLUME I + +[Illustration: [Logo]] + + NEW YORK + ALFRED A. KNOPF + + + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + T. & A. CONSTABLE LTD. EDINBURGH + * + ALL RIGHTS + RESERVED + + + FIRST PUBLISHED 1924 + + + + + TRANSLATOR’S NOTE + + +A few words about Herzen’s parentage will make his narrative more +intelligible to the English reader. Herzen’s father, Ivan Yakovlyev, was +a very wealthy nobleman belonging to one of the most aristocratic +families of Russia. In 1811, at the age of forty-two, he married (so +Brückner tells us in his _History of Russian Literature_) at Stuttgart a +girl of sixteen, whose name was Henriette Haag, though she was always in +Russia called Luise Ivanovna, as easier to pronounce. As he neglected to +repeat the marriage ceremony in Russia, their son was there +illegitimate. Yakovlyev is said to have given him the surname Herzen, +because he was the ‘child of his heart.’ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PART I + NURSERY & UNIVERSITY + (1812–1835) + CHAPTER I:—My Nurse and the _Grande Armée_—The Fire of + Moscow—My Father with Napoleon—General Ilovaisky—Travelling + with the French Prisoners—The Patriotism of C. Calot—The + Common Management of the Property—Dividing it—The Senator _page 1_ + + CHAPTER II:—The Talk of Nurses and of Generals—False + Position—Russian Encyclopaedists—Boredom—The Maids’ Room and + the Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons and Reading—The + Catechism and the Gospel _page 24_ + + CHAPTER III:—The Death of Alexander I. and the Fourteenth of + December—Moral Awakening—The Terrorist Bouchot—My Kortcheva + Cousin _page 55_ + + CHAPTER IV:—Nick and the Sparrow Hills _page 82_ + + CHAPTER V:—Details of Home Life—Eighteenth-Century People in + Russia—A Day in our House—Visitors and + _Habitués_—Sonnenberg—The Valet and Others _page 93_ + + CHAPTER VI:—The Kremlin Department—Moscow University—Our + Set—The Chemist—The Malov Affair—The Cholera—Filaret—V. + Passek—General Lissovsky—The Sungurov Affair _page 117_ + + CHAPTER VII:—The End of My Studies—The Schiller Period—Early + Youth and Bohemianism—Saint-Simonism and N. Polevoy _page 174_ + + APPENDIX:—A. Polezhaev _page 193_ + + + PART II + PRISON & EXILE + (1834–1838) + CHAPTER VIII:—A Prediction—Ogaryov’s Arrest—A Fire—A Moscow + Liberal—M. F. Orlov—The Graveyard _page 197_ + + CHAPTER IX:—Arrest—An Impartial Witness—The Office of the + Pretchistensky Police Station—A Patriarchal Judge _page 208_ + + CHAPTER X:—Under the Watch Tower—The Lisbon Policeman—The + Incendiaries _page 215_ + + CHAPTER XI:—Krutitsky Barracks—Gendarmes’ Tales—Officers _page 226_ + + CHAPTER XII:—The Investigation—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn + Junior—General Staal—Sokolovsky—Sentence _page 236_ + + CHAPTER XIII:—Exile—The Mayor at Pokrovo—The Volga—Perm _page 254_ + + CHAPTER XIV:—Vyatka—The Office and Dining-Room of His + Excellency—K. Y. Tyufyaev _page 273_ + + CHAPTER XV:—Officials—Siberian Governors-General—A Rapacious + Police-Master—An Accommodating Judge—A Roasted + Police-Captain—A Tatar Missionary—A Boy of the Female + Sex—The Potato Terror, etc. _page 295_ + + CHAPTER XVI:—Alexander Lavrentyevitch Vitberg _page 327_ + + CHAPTER XVII:—The Tsarevitch at Vyatka—The Fall of + Tyufyaev—I am transferred to Vladimir—The Police-Captain at + the Posting-Station _page 344_ + + CHAPTER XVIII:—The Beginning of my Life at Vladimir _page 356_ + + + + + PART I + NURSERY & UNIVERSITY + (1812–1835) + + ‘_When memories of the past return + And the old road again we tread, + Slowly the passions of old days + Come back to life within the soul; + Old griefs and joys are here unchanged, + Again the once familiar thrill + Stirs echoes in the troubled heart; + And for remembered woes we sigh._’ + OGARYOV: Humorous Verse. + + + + + Chapter 1 + MY NURSE AND THE _GRANDE ARMÉE_—THE FIRE OF MOSCOW—MY FATHER WITH + NAPOLEON—GENERAL ILOVAISKY—TRAVELLING WITH THE FRENCH PRISONERS—THE + PATRIOTISM OF C. CALOT—THE COMMON MANAGEMENT OF THE PROPERTY—DIVIDING + IT—THE SENATOR + + +‘Vera Artamonovna, come tell me again how the French came to Moscow,’ I +used to say, rolling myself up in the quilt and stretching in my crib, +which was sewn round with linen that I might not fall out. + +‘Oh! what’s the use of telling you, you’ve heard it so many times, +besides it’s time to go to sleep; you had better get up a little earlier +to-morrow,’ the old woman would usually answer, although she was as +eager to repeat her favourite story as I was to hear it. + +‘But do tell me a little bit. How did you find out, how did it begin?’ + +‘This was how it began. You know what your papa is—he is always putting +things off; he was getting ready and getting ready, and much use it was! +Every one was saying “It’s time to set off; it’s time to go; what is +there to wait for, there’s no one left in the town.” But no, Pavel +Ivanovitch[1] and he kept talking of how they would go together, and +first one wasn’t ready and then the other. At last we were packed and +the carriage was ready; the family sat down to lunch, when all at once +our head cook ran into the dining-room as pale as a sheet, and +announced: “The enemy has marched in at the Dragomilovsky Gate.” Our +hearts did sink. “The power of the Cross be with us!” we cried. +Everything was upside down. While we were bustling about, sighing and +groaning, we looked and down the street came galloping dragoons in such +helmets with horses’ tails streaming behind. The gates had all been +closed, and here was your papa left behind for a treat and you with him; +your wet nurse Darya still had you at the breast, you were so weak and +delicate.’ + +And I smiled with pride, pleased that I had taken part in the war. + +‘At the beginning we got along somehow, for the first few days, that is; +it was only that two or three soldiers would come in and ask by signs +whether there was something to drink; we would take them a glass each, +to be sure, and they would go away and touch their caps to us, too. But +then, you see, when fires began and kept getting worse and worse, there +was such disorder, plundering and all sorts of horrors. At that time we +were living in the lodge at the Princess Anna Borissovna’s and the house +caught fire; then Pavel Ivanovitch said, “Come to me, my house is built +of brick, it stands far back in the courtyard and the walls are thick.” + +‘So we went, masters and servants all together, there was no difference +made; we went out into the Tverskoy Boulevard and the trees were +beginning to burn—we made our way at last to the Golohvastovs’ house and +it was simply blazing, flames from every window. Pavel Ivanovitch was +dumbfoundered, he could not believe his eyes. Behind the house there is +a big garden, you know; we went into it thinking we should be safe +there. We sat there on the seats grieving, when, all at once, a mob of +drunken soldiers were upon us; one fell on Pavel Ivanovitch, trying to +pull off his travelling coat; the old man would not give it up, the +soldier pulled out his sword and struck him on the face with it so that +he kept the scar to the end of his days; the others set upon us, one +soldier tore you from your nurse, opened your baby-clothes to see if +there were any money-notes or diamonds hidden among them, saw there was +nothing there, and so the scamp purposely tore your clothes and flung +them down. As soon as they had gone away, we were in trouble again. Do +you remember our Platon who was sent for a soldier? He was dreadfully +fond of drink and was very much exhilarated that day; he tied on a sabre +and walked about like that. The day before the enemy entered, Count +Rastoptchin[2] had distributed all sorts of weapons at the arsenal; so +that was how he had got hold of a sabre. Towards the evening he saw a +dragoon ride into the yard; there was a horse standing near the stable, +the dragoon wanted to take it, but Platon rushed headlong at him and, +catching hold of the bridle, said: “The horse is ours, I won’t give it +you.” The dragoon threatened him with a pistol, but we could see it was +not loaded; the master himself saw what was happening and shouted to +Platon: “Let the horse alone, it’s not your business.” But not a bit of +it! Platon pulled out his sabre and struck the man on the head, and he +staggered, and Platon struck him again and again. “Well,” thought we, +“now the hour of our death is come; when his comrades see him, it will +be the end of us.” But when the dragoon fell off, Platon seized him by +the feet and dragged him to a pit full of mortar and threw him in, poor +fellow, although he was still alive; his horse stood there and did not +stir from the place, but stamped its foot on the ground as though it +understood; our servants shut it in the stable; it must have been burnt +there. We all hurried out of the courtyard, the fire was more and more +dreadful; worn out and with nothing to eat, we got into a house that was +still untouched, and flung ourselves down to rest; in less than an hour, +our people were shouting from the street: “Come out, come out! Fire! +Fire!” Then I took a piece of green baize from the billiard table and +wrapped you in it to keep you from the night air; and so we made our way +as far as the Tverskoy Square. There the French were putting the fire +out, because some great man of theirs was living in the governor’s +house; we sat simply in the street; sentries were walking everywhere, +others were riding by on horseback. And you were screaming, straining +yourself with crying, your nurse had no more milk, no one had a bit of +bread. Natalya Konstantinovna was with us then, a wench of spirit, you +know; she saw that some soldiers were eating something in a corner, took +you and went straight to them, showed you and said “_mangé_ for the +little one”; at first they looked at her so sternly and said “_allez, +allez_,” but she fell to scolding them. “Ah, you cursed brutes,” said +she, “you this and that”; the soldiers did not understand a word, but +they burst out laughing and gave her some bread soaked in water for you +and a crust for herself. Early in the morning an officer came up and +gathered together all the men and your papa with them, leaving only the +women and Pavel Ivanovitch who was wounded, and took them to put out the +fire in the houses near by, so we remained alone till evening; we sat +and cried and that was all. When it was dusk, the master came back and +with him an officer....’ + +Allow me to take the old woman’s place and continue her narrative. When +my father had finished his duties as a fire-brigade man, he met by the +Strastny monastery a squadron of Italian cavalry; he went up to their +officer and told him in Italian the position in which his family was +placed. When the Italian heard _la sua dolce favella_ he promised to +speak to the duc de Trévise,[3] and as a preliminary measure to put a +sentry to guard us and prevent barbarous scenes such as had taken place +in the Golohvastovs’ garden. He sent an officer to accompany my father +with these instructions. Hearing that the whole party had eaten nothing +for two days, the officer led us all to a shop that had been broken +into; the choicest tea and Levant coffee had been thrown about on the +floor, together with a great number of dates, figs, and almonds; our +servants stuffed their pockets full, and had plenty of dessert anyway. +The sentry turned out to be of the greatest use to us: a dozen times +gangs of soldiers began molesting the luckless group of women and +servants encamped in the corner of Tverskoy Square, but they moved off +immediately at his command. + +Mortier remembered that he had known my father in Paris and informed +Napoleon; Napoleon ordered him to present himself next morning. In a +shabby, dark blue, short coat with bronze buttons, intended for sporting +wear, without his wig, in high boots that had not been cleaned for +several days, with dirty linen and unshaven chin, my father—who +worshipped decorum and strict etiquette—made his appearance in the +throne room of the Kremlin Palace at the summons of the Emperor of the +French. + +Their conversation which I have heard many times is fairly +correctly given in Baron Fain’s[4] _History_ and in that of +Mihailovsky-Danilevsky. + +After the usual phrases, abrupt words and laconic remarks, to which a +deep meaning was ascribed for thirty-five years, till men realised that +their meaning was often quite trivial, Napoleon blamed Rastoptchin for +the fire, said that it was Vandalism, declared as usual his invincible +love of peace, maintained that his war was against England and not +against Russia, boasted that he had set a guard on the Foundling +Hospital and the Uspensky Cathedral, complained of Alexander, said that +he was surrounded by bad advisers and that his (Napoleon’s) peaceful +dispositions were not made known to the Emperor. + +My father observed that it was rather for a conqueror to make offers of +peace. + +‘I have done what I could; I have sent to Kutuzov,[5] he will not enter +into any negotiations and does not bring my offer to the cognizance of +the Tsar. If they want war, it is not my fault—they shall have war.’ + +After all this comedy, my father asked him for a pass to leave Moscow. + +‘I have ordered no passes to be given to any one; why are you going? +What are you afraid of? I have ordered the markets to be opened.’ + +The Emperor of the French apparently forgot at that moment that, in +addition to open markets, it is as well to have a closed house, and that +life in the Tverskoy Square in the midst of enemy soldiers is anything +but agreeable. My father pointed this out to him; Napoleon thought a +moment and suddenly asked: + +‘Will you undertake to convey a letter from me to the Emperor? On that +condition I will command them to give you a permit to leave the town +with all your household.’ + +‘I would accept your Majesty’s offer,’ my father observed, ‘but it is +difficult for me to guarantee that it will reach him.’ + +‘Will you give me your word of honour that you will make every effort to +deliver the letter in person?’ + +‘_Je m’engage sur mon honneur, Sire._’ + +‘That suffices. I will send for you. Are you in need of anything?’ + +‘Of a roof for my family while I am here. Nothing else.’ + +‘The duc de Trévise will do what he can.’ + +Mortier did, in fact, give us a room in the governor-general’s house, +and gave orders that we should be furnished with provisions; his _maître +d’hôtel_ even sent us wine. A few days passed in this way, after which +Mortier sent an adjutant, at four o’clock one morning, to summon my +father to the Kremlin. + +The fire had attained terrific proportions during those days; the +scorched air, murky with smoke, was insufferably hot. Napoleon was +dressed and was walking about the room, looking careworn and out of +temper; he was beginning to feel that his singed laurels would before +long be frozen, and that there would be no escaping here with a jest, as +in Egypt. The plan of the campaign was absurd; except Napoleon, +everybody knew it: Ney, Narbonne, Berthier, and officers of lower rank; +to all objections he had replied with the cabalistic word ‘Moscow’; in +Moscow even he guessed the truth. + +When my father went in, Napoleon took a sealed letter that was lying on +the table, handed it to him and said, bowing him out: ‘I rely on your +word of honour.’ + +On the envelope was written: ‘_A mon frère l’Empereur Alexandre_.’ + +The permit given to my father was still valid; it was signed by the duc +de Trévise and countersigned by the head police-master Lesseps. A few +outsiders, hearing of our permit, joined us, begging my father to take +them in the guise of servants or relations. An open wagonette was given +us for the wounded old man, my mother and my nurse; the others walked. A +few Uhlans escorted us, on horseback, as far as the Russian rearguard, +on sight of which they wished us a good journey and galloped back. + +A minute later the Cossacks surrounded their strange visitors and led +them to the headquarters of the rearguard. There Wintzengerode and +Ilovaisky the Fourth were in command. Wintzengerode, hearing of the +letter, told my father that he would send him on immediately, with two +dragoons, to the Tsar in Petersburg. + +‘What’s to be done with your people?’ asked the Cossack general, +Ilovaisky, ‘it is impossible for them to stay here. They are not out of +range of the guns, and something serious may be expected any day.’ + +My father begged that we should, if possible, be taken to his Yaroslav +estate, but incidentally observed that he had not a kopeck with him. + +‘We will settle up afterwards,’ said Ilovaisky, ‘and do not worry +yourself, I give you my word to send them.’ + +My father was taken by couriers along a road made by laying faggots on +the ground. For us Ilovaisky procured some sort of an old conveyance and +sent us to the nearest town with a party of French prisoners and an +escort of Cossacks; he provided us with money for our expenses until we +reached Yaroslav, and altogether did everything he possibly could in the +turmoil of wartime. Such was my first journey in Russia; my second was +unaccompanied by French Uhlans, Cossacks from the Ural and prisoners of +war—I was alone but for a drunken gendarme sitting by my side. + +My father was taken straight to Count Araktcheyev[6] and detained in his +house. The Count asked for the letter, my father told him he had given +his word of honour to deliver it in person; Araktcheyev promised to ask +the Tsar, and, next day, informed him by letter that the Tsar had +charged him to take the letter and to deliver it immediately. He gave a +receipt for the letter (which is still preserved). For a month my father +remained under arrest in Araktcheyev’s house; no one was allowed to see +him except S. S. Shishkov,[7] who came at the Tsar’s command to question +him concerning the details of the fire, of the enemy’s entry into +Moscow, and his interview with Napoleon; he was the first eye-witness to +arrive in Petersburg. At last Araktcheyev informed my father that the +Tsar had ordered his release, and did not hold him to blame for +accepting a permit from the enemy in consideration of the extremity in +which he was placed. On setting him free, Araktcheyev commanded him to +leave Petersburg immediately without seeing anybody except his elder +brother, to whom he was allowed to say good-bye. + +On reaching at nightfall the little Yaroslav village my father found us +in a peasants’ hut (he had no house on that estate). I was asleep on a +bench under the window; the window did not close properly, the snow +drifting through the crack, covered part of the bench and lay, not +thawing, on the window-sill. + +Every one was in great perturbation, especially my mother. A few days +before my father’s arrival, the village elder and some of the +house-serfs had run hastily in the morning into the hut where she was +living, trying to explain something by gestures and insisting on her +following them. At that time my mother did not speak a word of Russian; +all she could make out was that the matter concerned Pavel Ivanovitch; +she did not know what to think; the idea occurred to her that they had +killed him, or that they meant to kill him and afterwards her. She took +me in her arms, and trembling all over, more dead than alive, followed +the elder. Golohvastov was in another hut, they went into it; the old +man really was lying dead beside the table at which he had been about to +shave; a sudden stroke of paralysis had cut short his life +instantaneously. + +My mother’s position may well be imagined (she was then seventeen), +living in a little grimy hut, in the midst of these half-savage bearded +men, dressed in bare sheepskins, and talking in a completely unknown +language; and all this in November of the terrible winter of 1812. Her +one support had been Golohvastov; she wept day and night after his +death. And meanwhile these savages were pitying her from the bottom of +their hearts, showing her all their warm hospitality and good-natured +simplicity; and the village elder sent his son several times to the town +to get raisins, cakes, apples, and bread rings for her. + +Fifteen years later the elder was still living and used sometimes, grey +as a kestrel and somewhat bald, to come to us in Moscow. My mother used +specially to regale him with tea and to talk to him about the winter of +1812, saying how she had been so afraid of him and how, without +understanding each other, they had made the arrangements for the funeral +of Pavel Ivanovitch. The old man used still to call my mother—as he had +then—Yuliza Ivanovna, instead of Luise, and used to tell how I was not +at all afraid of his beard and would readily let him take me into his +arms. + +From the province of Yaroslav we moved to that of Tver, and at last, a +year later, made our way back to Moscow. By that time my father’s +brother, who had been ambassador to Westphalia and had afterwards gone +on some commission to Bernadotte, had returned from Sweden; he settled +in the same house with us. + +I still remember, as in a dream, the traces of the fire, which remained +until early in the ’twenties: great burnt-out houses without window +frames or roofs, tumbledown walls, empty spaces fenced in, with remains +of stoves and chimneys on them. + +Tales of the fire of Moscow, of the battle of Borodino, of Beresina, of +the taking of Paris were my cradle-songs, my nursery stories, my Iliad +and my Odyssey. My mother and our servants, my father and Vera +Artamonovna were continually going back to the terrible time which had +impressed them so recently, so intimately, and so acutely. Then the +returning generals and officers began to arrive in Moscow. My father’s +old comrades of the Izmailovsky regiment, now the heroes of a bloody war +scarcely ended, were often at our house. They found relief from their +toils and anxieties in describing them. This was in reality the most +brilliant moment of the Petersburg period; the consciousness of strength +gave new life, all practical affairs and troubles seemed to be put off +till the morrow when work would begin again, now all that was wanted was +to revel in the joys of victory. + +From these gentlemen I heard a great deal more about the war than from +Vera Artamonovna. I was particularly fond of the stories told by Count +Miloradovitch[8]; he spoke with the greatest vivacity, with lively +mimicry, with roars of laughter, and more than once I fell asleep, on +the sofa behind him, to the sounds of them. + +Of course, in such surroundings, I was a desperate patriot and intended +to go into the army; but an exclusive sentiment of nationality never +leads to any good; it led me to the following incident. Among others who +used to visit us was the Comte de Quinsonas, a French _émigré_ and +lieutenant-general in the Russian service. A desperate royalist, he took +part in the celebrated fête of Versailles, at which the King’s minions +trampled underfoot the revolutionary cockade and at which Marie +Antoinette drank to the destruction of the revolution. This French +count, a tall, thin, graceful old man with grey hair, was the very model +of politeness and elegant manners. There was a peerage awaiting him in +Paris, where he had already been to congratulate Louis XVIII. on getting +his berth. He had returned to Russia to dispose of his estate. Unluckily +for me this most courteous of generals of all the Russian armies began +speaking of the war in my presence. + +‘But surely you must have been fighting against us?’ I remarked with +extreme naïveté. + +‘_Non, mon petit, non; j’étais dans l’armée russe._’ + +‘What?’ said I, ‘you, a Frenchman, and fighting in our army!’ + +My father glanced sternly at me and changed the conversation. The Count +heroically set things right by saying to my father that ‘he liked such +patriotic sentiments.’ + +My father did not like them, and after the Count had gone away he gave +me a terrible scolding. + +‘This is what comes of rushing headlong into conversation about all +sorts of things you don’t understand and can’t understand; it was out of +fidelity to _his_ king that the Count served under _our_ emperor.’ + +I certainly did not understand that. + +My father had spent twelve years abroad and his brother still longer; +they tried to arrange their life in the foreign style while avoiding +great expense and retaining all Russian comforts. Their life never was +so arranged, either because they did not know how to manage or because +the nature of a Russian landowner was stronger in them than their +foreign habits. The management of their land and house was in common, +the estate was undivided, an immense crowd of house-serfs peopled the +lower storeys, and consequently all the conditions conducive to disorder +were present. + +Two nurses looked after me, one Russian and one German. Vera Artamonovna +and Madame Proveau were very kind women, but it bored me to watch them +all day long knitting stockings and bickering together, and so on every +favourable opportunity I ran away to the half of the house occupied by +my uncle, the Senator (the one who had been an ambassador), to see my +one friend, his valet Calot. + +I have rarely met a kinder, gentler, milder man; utterly alone in +Russia, parted from all his own people, with difficulty speaking broken +Russian, his devotion to me was like a woman’s. I spent whole hours in +his room, worried him, got in his way, did mischief, and he bore it all +with a good-natured smile; cut all sorts of marvels out of cardboard for +me and carved various trifles out of wood (and how I loved him for it!). +In the evenings he used to bring me up picture-books from the +library—the Travels of Gmelin[9] and of Pallas,[10] and a fat book of +_The World in Pictures_, which I liked so much that I looked at it until +the binding, although of leather, gave way; for a couple of hours at a +time, Calot would show me the same pictures, repeating the same +explanation for the thousandth time. + +Before my birthday and my name-day Calot would lock himself up in his +room, from which came the sounds of a hammer and other tools; often he +would pass along the corridor with rapid steps, every time locking his +door after him, sometimes carrying a little saucepan of glue, sometimes +a parcel with things wrapped up. It may well be imagined how much I +longed to know what he was making; I used to send the house-serf boys to +try and find out, but Calot kept a sharp look out. We somehow +discovered, on the staircase, a little crack which looked straight into +his room, but it was of no help to us; all we could see was the upper +part of the window and the portrait of Frederick II. with a huge nose +and huge star, and the expression of an emaciated vulture. Two days +before the event the noise would cease and the room would be +opened—everything in it was as usual, except for scraps of coloured and +gold paper here and there; I would flush crimson, devoured with +curiosity, but Calot, with an air of strained gravity, refused to +approach the delicate subject. + +I lived in agonies until the momentous day; at five o’clock in the +morning I was awake and thinking of Calot’s preparations; at eight +o’clock he would himself appear in a white cravat, a white waistcoat, +and a dark-blue tail coat—with empty hands. When would it end? Had he +spoiled it? And time passed and the ordinary presents came, and +Elizaveta Alexeyevna Golobvastov’s footman had already appeared with a +costly toy, wrapped up in a napkin, and the Senator had already brought +me some marvel, but the uneasy expectation of the surprise troubled my +joy. + +All at once, as it were casually, after dinner or after tea, Nurse would +say to me: ‘Go downstairs just a minute; there is somebody asking for +you.’ At last, I thought, and went down, sliding on my hands down the +banisters of the staircase. The doors into the hall were thrown open +noisily, music was playing. A transparency with my monogram was lighted +up, serf boys dressed up as Turks offered me sweetmeats, then followed a +puppet show or indoor fireworks. Calot, perspiring with his efforts, was +with his own hands setting everything in motion. + +What presents could be compared with such an entertainment! I have never +been fond of things, the bump of ownership and acquisitiveness has never +been developed in me at any age, and now, after the prolonged suspense, +the numbers of candles, the tinsel and the smell of gunpowder! Only one +thing was lacking—a comrade of my own age, but I spent all my childhood +in solitude,[11] and certainly was not over-indulged in that respect. + +My father and the Senator had another elder brother,[12] between whom +and the two younger brothers there was an open feud, in spite of which +they managed their estate in common or rather ruined it in common. The +triple control and the quarrel together led to glaring disorganisation. +My father and the Senator did everything to thwart the elder brother, +who did the same by them. The village elders and peasants lost their +heads; one brother was demanding wagons; another, hay; a third, +firewood; each gave orders, each sent his authorised agents. The elder +brother would appoint a village elder, the younger ones would remove him +within a month, upon some nonsensical pretext, and appoint another whom +their senior would not recognise. With all this, backbiting, slander, +spies and favourites were naturally plentiful, and under it all the poor +peasants, who found neither justice nor defence, were harassed on all +sides and oppressed with the double burden of work and the impossibility +of carrying out the capricious demands of their owners. + +The first consequence of the feud between the brothers that made some +impression upon them, was the loss of their great lawsuit with the +Counts Devier, though justice was on their side. Though their interests +were the same, they could never agree on a course of action; their +opponents naturally profited by this. In addition to the loss of a large +and fine estate, the Senate sentenced each of the brothers to pay costs +and damages to the amount of 30,000 paper roubles. This lesson opened +their eyes and they made up their minds to divide their property. The +preliminary negotiations lasted for about a year, the estate was carved +into three fairly equal parts and they were to decide by casting lots +which was to come to which. The Senator and my father visited their +elder brother, whom they had not seen for several years, to negotiate +and be reconciled; then there was a rumour among us that he would visit +us to complete the arrangements. The rumour of the visit of this elder +brother excited horror and anxiety in our household. + +He was one of those grotesquely original creatures who are only possible +in Russia, where life is original to grotesqueness. He was a man gifted +by nature, yet he spent his whole life in absurd actions, often almost +crimes. He had received a fairly good education in the French style, was +very well-read,—and spent his time in debauchery and empty idleness up +to the day of his death. He, too, had served at first in the Izmailovsky +regiment, had been something like an aide-de-camp in attendance on +Potyomkin, then served on some mission, and returning to Petersburg was +made chief prosecutor in the Synod. Neither diplomatic nor monastic +surroundings could restrain his unbridled character. For his quarrels +with the heads of the Church he was removed from his post; for a slap in +the face, which he either tried to give, or gave to a gentleman at an +official dinner at the governor-general’s, he was banished from +Petersburg. He went to his Tambov estate; there the peasants nearly +murdered him for his ferocity and amorous propensities; he was indebted +to his coachman and horses for his life. + +After that he settled in Moscow. Deserted by all his relations and also +by his acquaintances, he lived in solitude in his big house in the +Tverskoy Boulevard, oppressing his house-serfs and ruining his peasants. +He amassed a great library of books and collected a regular harem of +serf-girls, both of which he kept under lock and key. Deprived of every +occupation and concealing a passionate vanity, often extremely naïve, he +amused himself by buying unnecessary things, and making still more +unnecessary demands on the peasants, which he exacted with ferocity. His +lawsuit concerning an Amati violin lasted thirty years, and ended in his +losing it. After another lawsuit he succeeded by extraordinary efforts +in winning the wall between two houses, the possession of which was of +no use to him whatever. Being himself on the retired list, he used, on +reading in the newspapers of the promotions of his old colleagues, to +buy such orders as had been given to them, and lay them on his table as +a mournful reminder of the decorations he might have received! + +His brothers and sisters were afraid of him and had nothing to do with +him; our servants would go a long way round to avoid his house for fear +of meeting him, and would turn pale at the sight of him; women went in +terror of his impudent persecution, the house-serfs paid for special +services of prayer that they might not come into his possession. + +So this was the terrible man who was to visit us. Extraordinary +excitement prevailed throughout the house from early morning; I had +never seen this legendary ‘enemy-brother,’ though I was born in his +house, where my father stayed when he came back from foreign parts; I +longed to see him and at the same time I was frightened, I do not know +why, but I was terribly frightened. + +Two hours before his arrival, my father’s eldest nephew, two intimate +acquaintances and a good-natured stout and flabby official who was in +charge of the legal business arrived. They were all sitting in silent +expectation, when suddenly the butler came in, and, in a voice unlike +his own, announced that the brother ‘had graciously pleased to arrive.’ +‘Ask him up,’ said the Senator, with perceptible agitation, while my +father took a pinch of snuff, the nephew straightened his cravat, and +the official turned aside and coughed. I was ordered to go upstairs, but +trembling all over, I stayed in the next room. + +Slowly and majestically the ‘brother’ advanced, the Senator and my +father rose to meet him. He was holding an ikon with both hands before +his chest, as people do at weddings and funerals, and in a drawling +voice, a little through his nose, he addressed his brothers in the +following words: + +‘With this ikon our father blessed me before his end, charging me and +our late brother Pyotr to watch over you and to be a father to you in +his place ... if our father knew of your conduct to your elder +brother!...’ + +‘Come, _mon cher frère_,’ observed my father in his studiously +indifferent voice, ‘well have you carried out our father’s last wish. It +would be better to forget these memories, painful to you as well as to +us.’ + +‘How? what?’ shouted the devout brother. ‘Is this what you have summoned +me for ...’ and he flung down the ikon, so that the silver setting gave +a metallic clink. + +At this point the Senator shouted in a voice still more terrifying. I +rushed headlong upstairs and only had time to see the official and the +nephew, no less scared, retreating to the balcony. + +What was done and how it was done, I cannot say; the frightened servants +huddled into corners out of sight, no one knew anything of what +happened, neither the Senator nor my father ever spoke of this scene +before me. Little by little the noise subsided and the partition of the +estate was carried out, whether then or on another day I do not +remember. + +My father received Vassilyevskoe, a big estate in the Ruzsky district, +near Moscow. We spent the whole summer there the following year; +meanwhile the Senator bought himself a house in Arbat, and we returned +to live alone in our great house, deserted and deathlike. Soon +afterwards, my father too bought a house in Old Konyushenny Street. + +With the Senator, in the first place, and Calot in the second, all the +lively elements of our household were withdrawn. The Senator alone had +prevented the hypochondriacal disposition of my father from prevailing; +now it had full sway. The new house was gloomy; it was suggestive of a +prison or a hospital; the lower storey was built with pillars supporting +the arched ceiling, the thick walls made the windows look like the +embrasures of a fortress. The house was surrounded on all sides by a +courtyard unnecessarily large. + +To tell the truth, it is rather a wonder that the Senator managed to +live so long under the same roof as my father than that they parted. I +have rarely seen two men so complete a contrast as they were. + +The Senator was of a kindly disposition, and fond of amusements; he +spent his whole life in the world of artificial light and of official +diplomacy, the world that surrounded the court, without a notion that +there was another more serious world, although he had been not merely in +contact with but intimately connected with all the great events from +1789 to 1815. Count Vorontsov had sent him to Lord Grenville[13] to find +out what General Bonaparte was going to undertake after abandoning the +Egyptian army. He had been in Paris at the coronation of Napoleon. In +1811 Napoleon had ordered him to be detained in Cassel, where he was +ambassador ‘at the court of King Jeremiah,’[14] as my father used to say +in moments of vexation. In fact, he took part in all the great events of +his time, but in a queer way, irregularly. + +Though a captain in the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky regiment, he was +sent on a mission to London; Paul, seeing this in the correspondence, +ordered him at once to return to Petersburg. The soldier-diplomat set +off by the first ship and appeared before the Tsar. ‘Do you want to +remain in London?’ Paul asked in his hoarse voice. ‘If it should please +your Majesty to permit me,’ answered the captain-diplomat. + +‘Go back without loss of time,’ said Paul in his hoarse voice, and he +did go back, without even seeing his relations, who lived in Moscow. + +While diplomatic questions were being settled by bayonets and +grape-shot, he was an ambassador and concluded his diplomatic career at +the time of the Congress of Vienna, that bright festival of all the +diplomats. + +Returning to Russia he was appointed court chamberlain in Moscow, where +there is no Court. Though he knew nothing of Russian Law and legal +procedure, he got into the Senate, became a member of the Council of +Trustees, a director of the Mariinsky Hospital, and of the Alexandrinsky +Institute, and he performed all his duties with a zeal that was hardly +necessary, with a censoriousness that only did harm and with an honesty +that no one noticed. + +He was never at home, he tired out two teams of four strong horses in +the course of the day, one set in the morning, the other after dinner. +Besides the Senate, the sittings of which he never neglected, and the +Council of Wardens, which he attended twice a week, besides the hospital +and the institute, he hardly missed a single French play, and visited +the English Club three times a week. He had no time to be bored, he was +always busy and interested; he was always going somewhere, and his life +rolled lightly on good springs through a world of official papers and +pink tape. + +Moreover, up to the age of seventy-five he was as strong as a young man, +was present at all the great balls and dinners, took part in every +ceremonial assembly and annual function, whether it were of an +agricultural or medical or fire insurance society or of the Society of +Scientific Research ... and, on the top of it all, perhaps because of +it, preserved to old age some degree of human feeling and a certain +warmth of heart. + +No greater contrast to the sanguine Senator, who was always in movement +and only occasionally visited his home, can possibly be imagined than my +father, who hardly ever went out of his courtyard, hated the whole +official world and was everlastingly ill-humoured and discontented. We +also had eight horses (very poor ones), but our stable was something +like an almshouse for broken-down nags; my father kept them partly for +the sake of appearances and partly that the two coachmen and the two +postillions should have something to do, besides fetching the _Moscow +News_ and getting up cockfights, which they did very successfully +between the coachhouse and the neighbours’ yard. + +My father had scarcely been in the service at all; educated by a French +tutor, in the house of a devout and highly respected aunt, he entered +the Izmailovsky regiment as a sergeant at sixteen, served until the +accession of Paul, and retired with the rank of captain in the Guards. +In 1801 he went abroad and remained abroad until 1811, wandering from +one country to another. He returned with my mother three months before +my birth, and after the fire of Moscow he spent a year on his estate in +the province of Tver, and then returned to live in Moscow, trying to +order his life so as to be as solitary and dreary as possible. His +brother’s liveliness hindered him in this. + +After the Senator had left us, everything in the house began to assume a +more and more gloomy aspect. The walls, the furniture, the servants, +everything bore a look of displeasure and suspicion, and I need hardly +say that my father himself was of all the most displeased. The unnatural +stillness, the whispers and cautious footsteps of the servants, did not +suggest attentive solicitude, but oppression and terror. Everything was +immovable in the rooms; for five or six years the same books would lie +in the very same places with the same markers in them. In my father’s +bedroom and study the furniture was not moved nor the windows opened for +years together. When he went away into the country he took the key of +his room in his pocket, that they might not venture to scrub the floor +or wash the walls in his absence. + + + + + Chapter 2 + THE TALK OF NURSES AND OF GENERALS—FALSE POSITION—RUSSIAN + ENCYCLOPAEDISTS—BOREDOM—THE MAIDS’ ROOM AND THE SERVANTS’ HALL—TWO + GERMANS—LESSONS AND READING—THE CATECHISM AND THE GOSPEL + + +Until I was ten years old I noticed nothing strange or special in my +position; it seemed to me simple and natural that I should be living in +my father’s house; that in his part of it I should be on my good +behaviour, while my mother lived in another part of the house, in which +I could be as noisy and mischievous as I liked. The Senator spoiled me +and gave me presents, Calot carried me about in his arms, Vera +Artamonovna dressed me, put me to bed, and gave me my bath, Madame +Proveau took me out for walks and talked to me in German; everything +went on in its regular way, yet I began pondering on things. + +Stray remarks, carelessly uttered words, began to attract my attention. +Old Madame Proveau and all the servants were devoted to my mother, while +they feared and disliked my father. The scenes which sometimes took +place between them were often the subject of conversation between Madame +Proveau and Vera Artamonovna, both of whom always took my mother’s side. + +My mother certainly had a good deal to put up with. Being an extremely +kind-hearted woman, with no strength of will, she was completely crushed +by my father, and, as always happens with weak characters, put up a +desperate opposition in trifling matters and things of no consequence. +Unhappily, in these trifling matters, my father was nearly always in the +right, and the dispute always ended in his triumph. + +‘If I were in the mistress’s place,’ Madame Proveau would say, for +instance, ‘I would simply go straight back to Stuttgart; much comfort +she gets—nothing but ill-humour and unpleasantness, and deadly +dullness.’ + +‘To be sure,’ Vera Artamonovna would assent, ‘but that’s what ties her, +hand and foot,’ and she would point with her knitting-needle towards me. +‘How can she take him with her—what to? And as for leaving him here +alone, with our ways of going on, that would be too dreadful!’ + +Children in general have far more insight than is supposed, they are +quickly distracted and forget for a time what has struck them, but they +go back to it persistently, especially if it is anything mysterious or +dreadful, and with wonderful perseverance and ingenuity they go on +probing until they reach the truth. + +Once on the look out, within a few weeks I had found out all the details +of my father’s meeting my mother, had heard how she had brought herself +to leave her parents’ home, how she had been hidden at the Senator’s in +the Russian Embassy at Cassel, and had crossed the frontier, dressed as +a boy; all this I found out without putting a single question to any +one. + +The first result of these discoveries was to estrange me from my father +on account of the scenes of which I have spoken. I had seen them before, +but it had seemed to me that all that was in the regular order of +things; for I was so accustomed to the fact that every one in the house, +not excepting the Senator, was afraid of my father and that he was given +to scolding every one, that I saw nothing strange in it. Now I began to +take a different view of it, and the thought that part of all this was +endured on my account sometimes threw a dark oppressive cloud over my +bright, childish imagination. + +A second idea that took root in me from that time, was that I was far +less dependent on my father than children are as a rule. I liked this +feeling of independence which I imagined for myself. + +Two or three years later, two of my father’s old comrades in the +regiment, P. K. Essen, the governor-general of Orenburg, and A. N. +Bahmetyev, formerly commander in Bessarabia, a general who had lost his +leg at Borodino, were sitting with my father. My room was next to the +drawing-room in which they were sitting. Among other things my father +told them that he had been speaking to Prince Yussupov about putting me +into the service. ‘There’s no time to be lost,’ he added; ‘you know that +he will have to serve for years in order to reach any grade worth +speaking of.’ + +‘What a strange idea, friend, to make him a clerk,’ Essen said, +good-naturedly. ‘Leave it to me, and I will get him into the Ural +Cossacks. We’ll promote him from the ranks, that’s all that matters, +after that he will make his way as we all have.’ + +My father did not agree, he said that he had grown to dislike everything +military, that he hoped in time to get me a post on some mission to a +warm country, where he would go to end his days. + +Bahmetyev, who had taken little part in the conversation, got up on his +crutches and said: ‘It seems to me that you ought to think very +seriously over Pyotr Kirillovitch’s advice. If you don’t care to put his +name down at Orenburg, you might put him down here. We are old friends +and it’s my way to tell you openly what I think; you will do your young +man no good with the civil service and university, and you will make him +of no use to society. He is quite obviously in a false position, only +the military service can open a career for him and put him right. Before +he reaches the command of a company, all dangerous ideas will have +subsided. Military discipline is a grand schooling, his future depends +on it. You say that he has abilities, but you don’t mean to say that +none but fools go into the army, do you? What about us and all our +circle? There’s only one objection you can make—that he will have to +serve a long time before he gets a commission, but it’s just in that +particular that we can help you.’ + +This conversation had as much effect as the remarks of Madame Proveau +and Vera Artamonovna. By that time I was thirteen and such lessons, +turned over and over, and analysed from every point of view during weeks +and months of complete solitude, bore their fruit. The result of this +conversation was that, although I had till then, like all boys, dreamed +of the army and a uniform, and had been ready to cry at my father’s +wanting me to go into the civil service, my enthusiasm for soldiering +suddenly cooled, and my love and tenderness for epaulettes, stripes and +gold lace, was by degrees completely eradicated. My smouldering passion +for the uniform had, however, one last flicker. A cousin of ours, who +had been at a boarding-school in Moscow and used sometimes to spend a +holiday with us, had entered the Yamburgsky regiment of Uhlans. In 1825 +he came to Moscow as an ensign and stayed a few days with us. My heart +throbbed when I saw him with all his little cords and laces, wearing a +sword and a four-cornered helmet put on a little on one side and +fastened with a chin-strap. He was a boy of seventeen and short for his +age. Next morning I dressed up in his uniform, put on his sword and +helmet and looked at myself in the glass. Oh dear! how handsome I +thought myself in the short blue jacket with red braiding! And the +pompon, and the pouch ... what were the yellow nankeen breeches and the +short camlet jacket which I used to wear at home, in comparison with +these? + +The cousin’s visit destroyed the effect of the generals’ talk, but soon +circumstances turned me against the army again, and this time for good. + +The spiritual result of my meditations on my ‘false position’ was +somewhat the same as what I had deduced from the talk of my two nurses. +I felt myself more independent of society, of which I knew absolutely +nothing, felt that in reality I was thrown on my own resources, and with +somewhat childish conceit thought I would show the old generals what I +was made of. + +With all that it may well be imagined how drearily and monotonously the +time passed in the strange conventlike seclusion of my father’s house. I +had neither encouragement nor distraction; my father had spoilt me until +I was ten, and now he was almost always dissatisfied with me; I had no +companions, my teachers came and went, and, seeing them out of the yard, +I used to run off on the sly, to play with the house-serf boys, which +was strictly forbidden. The rest of my time I spent wandering aimlessly +about the big dark rooms, which had their windows shut all day and were +only dimly lighted in the evening, doing nothing or reading anything +that turned up. + +The servants’ hall and the maids’ room provided the only keen enjoyment +left me. There I found perfect peace and happiness; I took the side of +one party against another, discussed with my friends their affairs, and +gave my opinion upon them, knew all their private business, and never +dropped a word in the drawing-room of the secrets of the servants’ hall. + +I must pause upon this subject. Indeed, I do not intend to avoid +digressions and episodes; that is the way of every conversation, that is +the way of life itself. + +Children as a rule are fond of servants; their parents forbid them, +especially in Russia, to associate with servants; the children do not +obey them because it is dull in the drawing-room and lively in the +maids’ room. In this case, as in thousands of others, parents do not +know what they are about. I cannot conceive that our servants’ hall was +a less wholesome place for children than our ‘tea-room’ or +‘lounge-room.’ In the servants’ hall children pick up coarse expressions +and bad manners, that is true; but in the drawing-room they pick up +coarse ideas and bad feelings. + +The very instruction to children to hold themselves aloof from those +with whom they are continually in contact is immoral. + +A great deal is said among us about the complete depravity of servants, +especially when they are serfs. They certainly are not distinguished by +exemplary strictness of conduct, and their moral degradation can be seen +from the fact that they put up with too much and are too rarely moved to +indignation and resistance. But that is not the point. I should like to +know what class in Russia is less depraved? Are the nobility or the +officials? the clergy, perhaps? + +Why do you laugh? The peasants, perhaps, are the only ones who may claim +to be different.... + +The difference between the nobleman and the serving man is very small. I +hate the demagogues’ flattery of the mob, particularly since the +troubles of 1848, but the aristocrats’ slander of the people I hate even +more. By picturing servants and slaves as degraded beasts, the planters +throw dust in people’s eyes and stifle the voice of conscience in +themselves. We are not often better than the lower classes, but we +express ourselves more gently and conceal our egoism and our passions +more adroitly; our desires are not so coarse, and the ease with which +they are satisfied and our habit of not controlling them make them less +conspicuous; we are simply wealthier and better fed and consequently +more fastidious. When Count Almaviva reckoned up to the Barber of +Seville the qualities he expected from a servant, Figaro observed with a +sigh: ‘If a servant must have all these virtues, are there many +gentlemen fit to be lackeys?’ + +Immorality in Russia as a rule does not go deep; it is more savage and +dirty, noisy and coarse, dishevelled and shameless than profound. The +clergy, shut up at home, drink and overeat themselves with the +merchants. The nobility get drunk in the sight of all, play cards until +they are ruined, thrash their servants, seduce their housemaids, manage +their business affairs badly and their family life still worse. The +officials do the same, but in a dirtier way, and in addition are guilty +of grovelling before their superiors and pilfering. As far as stealing +in the literal sense goes, the nobility are less guilty, they take +openly what belongs to others; when it suits them, however, they are +just as smart as other people. All these charming weaknesses are to be +met with in a still coarser form in those who are in private and not +government service, and in those who are dependent not on the Court but +on the landowners. But in what way they are worse than others as a +class, I do not know. + +Going over my remembrances, not only of the serfs of our house and of +the Senator’s, but also of two or three households with which we were +intimate for twenty-five years, I do not remember anything particularly +vicious in their behaviour. Petty thefts, perhaps, ... but on that +matter all ideas are so muddled by their position, that it is difficult +to judge; _human property_ does not stand on ceremony with its kith and +kin, and is hail-fellow-well-met with the master’s goods. It would be +only fair to exclude from this generalisation the confidential servants, +the favourites of both sexes, masters’ mistresses and talebearers; but +in the first place they are an exception—these Kleinmihels of the +stable[15] and Benckendorfs[16] from the cellar, Perekusihins[17] in +striped linen gowns, and barelegged Pompadours; moreover, they do behave +better than any of the rest, they only get drunk at night and do not +pawn their clothes at the pot-house. + +The simple-hearted immorality of the rest revolves round a glass of +vodka and a bottle of beer, a merry talk and a pipe, absences from home +without leave, quarrels which sometimes end in fights, and sly tricks +played on the masters who expect of them something inhuman and +impossible. Of course, on the one hand, the lack of all education, on +the other, the simplicity of the peasant in slavery have brought out a +great deal that is monstrous and distorted in their manners, but for all +that, like the negroes in America, they have remained half children, a +trifle amuses them, a trifle distresses them; their desires are limited, +and are rather naïve and human than vicious. + +Vodka and tea, the tavern and the restaurant, are the two permanent +passions of the Russian servant; for their sake, he steals, for their +sake, he is poor, on their account, he endures persecution and +punishment and leaves his family in poverty. Nothing is easier than for +a Father Matthew[18] from the height of his teetotal intoxication to +condemn drunkenness, and sitting at the tea-table, to wonder why +servants go to drink tea at the restaurant, instead of drinking it at +home, although at home it is cheaper. + +Vodka stupefies a man, it enables him to forget himself, stimulates him +and induces an artificial cheerfulness; this stupefaction and +stimulation are the more agreeable the less the man is developed and the +more he is bound to a narrow, empty life. How can a servant not drink +when he is condemned to the everlasting waiting in the hall, to +perpetual poverty, to being a slave, to being sold? He drinks to +excess—when he can—because he cannot drink every day; that was observed +fifteen years ago by Senkovsky in the _Library of Good Reading_.[19] In +Italy and the South of France there are no drunkards, because there is +plenty of wine. The savage drunkenness of the English working man is to +be explained in the same way. These men are broken in the inevitable and +unequal conflict with hunger and poverty; however hard they have +struggled they have met everywhere a blank wall of oppression and sullen +resistance that has flung them back into the dark depths of social life, +and condemned them to the never-ending, aimless toil that consumes mind +and body alike. It is not surprising that after spending six days as a +lever, a cogwheel, a spring, a screw, the man breaks savagely on +Saturday afternoon out of the penal servitude of factory work, and in +half an hour is drunk, for his exhaustion cannot stand much. The +moralists would do better to drink Irish or Scotch whisky themselves and +to hold their tongues, or with their inhuman philanthropy they may +provoke terrible replies. + +Drinking tea at the restaurant has a different significance for +servants. Tea at home is not the same thing for the house-serf; at home +everything reminds him that he is a servant; at home he is in the dirty +servants’ room, he must get the samovar himself; at home he has a cup +with a broken handle, and any minute his master may ring for him. At the +restaurant he is a free man, he is a gentleman; for him the table is +laid and the lamps are lit; for him the waiter runs with the tray; the +cup shines, the tea-pot glitters, he gives orders and is obeyed, he +enjoys himself and gaily calls for pressed caviare or a turnover for his +tea. + +In all of this there is more of childish simplicity than immorality. +Impressions quickly take possession of them but do not send down roots; +their minds are continually occupied, or rather distracted, by casual +subjects, small desires, trivial aims. A childish belief in everything +marvellous turns a grown-up man into a coward, and the same childish +belief comforts him in the bitterest moments. Filled with wonder, I was +present at the death of two or three of my father’s servants; it was +then that one could judge of the simple-hearted carelessness with which +their lives had passed, of the absence of great sins upon their +conscience; if there were anything, it had all been settled +satisfactorily with the priest. + +This resemblance between servants and children accounts for their mutual +attraction. Children hate the aristocratic ideas of the grown-ups and +their benevolently condescending manners, because they are clever and +understand that in the eyes of grown-up people they are children, while +in the eyes of servants they are people. Consequently they are much +fonder of playing cards or loto with the maids than with visitors. +Visitors play for the children’s benefit with condescension, give way to +them, tease them and throw up the game for any excuse; the maids, as a +rule, play as much for their own sakes as for the children’s; and that +gives the game interest. + +Servants are extremely devoted to children, and this is not a slavish +devotion, but the mutual affection of the weak and the simple. In old +days there used to be a patriarchal dynastic affection between +landowners and their serfs, such as exists even now in Turkey. To-day +there are in Russia no more of those devoted servants, attached to the +race and family of their masters. And that is easy to understand. The +landowner no longer believes in his power, he does not believe that he +will have to answer for his serfs at the terrible Day of Judgment, but +simply makes use of his power for his own advantage. The servant does +not believe in his subjection and endures violence not as a chastisement +and trial from God, but simply because he is defenceless; it is no use +kicking against the pricks. + +I used to know in my youth two or three specimens of those fanatics of +slavery, of whom eighteenth century landowners speak with a sigh, +telling stories of their unflagging service and their great devotion, +and forgetting to add in what way their fathers and themselves had +repaid such self-sacrifice. + +On one of the Senator’s estates a feeble old man called Andrey Stepanov +was living in peace, that is, on free rations. + +He had been valet to the Senator and my father when they were serving in +the Guards, and was a good, honest, and sober man, who looked into his +young masters’ eyes, and, to use their own words, ‘guessed from them +what they wanted,’ which, I imagine, was not an easy task. Afterwards he +looked after the estate near Moscow. Cut off from the beginning of the +war of 1812 from all communication, and afterwards left alone, without +money, on the ashes of a village which had been burnt to the ground, he +sold some beams to escape starvation. The Senator, on his return to +Russia, proceeded to set his estate in order, and going into details of +the past, came to the sale of the beams. He punished his former valet by +sending him away in disgrace, depriving him of his duties. The old man, +burdened with a family, departed into exile. We used to stay for a day +or two on the estate where Andrey Stepanov was living. The feeble old +man, crippled by paralysis, used to come every time leaning on his +crutch, to pay his respects to my father and to speak to him. + +The devotion and the gentleness with which he talked, his grievous +appearance, the locks of yellowish grey hair on each side of his bald +pate, touched me deeply. ‘I have heard, master,’ he said on one +occasion, ‘that your brother has received another decoration. I am +getting old, your honour, I shall soon give up my soul to God, and yet +the Lord has not vouchsafed to me to see your brother in his +decorations, not even once before my end to behold his honour in his +ribbons and all his finery!’ + +I looked at the old man, his face was so childishly candid, his bent +figure, his painfully twisted face, lustreless eyes, and weak voice—all +inspired confidence; he was not lying, he was not flattering, he really +longed before his death to see, in ‘all his ribbons and finery,’ the man +who could not for fifteen years forgive him the loss of a few beams. Was +this a saint, or a madman? But perhaps it is only madmen who attain +saintliness? + +The new generation has not this idolatrous worship, and if there are +cases of serfs not caring for freedom, that is simply due to indolence +and material considerations. It is more depraved, there is no doubt, but +it is a sign that the end is near; if they want to see anything on their +master’s neck, it is certainly not the Vladimir ribbon. + +Here I will say something of the position of our servants in general. + +Neither the Senator nor my father oppressed the house-serfs +particularly, that is, they did not ill-treat them physically. The +Senator was hasty and impatient, and consequently often rough and +unjust, but he had so little contact with the house-serfs and took so +little notice of them that they scarcely knew each other. My father +wearied them with his caprices, never let pass a look, a word or a +movement, and was everlastingly lecturing them; to a Russian this often +seems worse than blows or abuse. + +Corporal punishment was almost unknown in our house, and the two or +three cases in which the Senator and my father resorted to the revolting +method of the police station were so exceptional, that all the servants +talked about it for months afterwards; and it was only provoked by +glaring offences. + +More frequently house-serfs were sent for soldiers, and this punishment +was a terror to all the young men; without kith or kin, they still +preferred to remain house-serfs, rather than to be in harness for twenty +years. I was greatly affected by those terrible scenes.... Two soldiers +of the police would appear at the summons of the landowner: they would +stealthily, in a casual, sudden way, seize the appointed victim. The +village elder commonly announced at this point that the master had the +evening before ordered that he was to be taken to the recruiting office, +and the man would try through his tears to put a brave face on it, while +the women wept: every one made him presents and I gave him everything I +could, that is, perhaps a twenty-kopeck piece and a neck-handkerchief. + +I remember, too, my father’s ordering some village elder’s beard to be +shaved off, because he had spent the obrok[20] which he had collected. I +did not understand this punishment, but was struck by the appearance of +this old man of sixty; he was in floods of tears, and kept bowing to the +ground and begging for a fine of one hundred roubles in addition to the +obrok if only he might be spared this disgrace. + +When the Senator was living with us, the common household consisted of +thirty men and almost as many women; the married women, however, +performed no service, they looked after their own families; there were +five or six maids or laundresses, who never came upstairs. To these must +be added the boys and girls who were being trained in their duties, that +is, in sloth and idleness, in lying and the use of vodka. + +To give an idea of the life in Russia of those days, I think it will not +be out of place to say a few words on the maintenance of the +house-serfs. At first, they used to be given five roubles a month for +food and afterwards six. The women had a rouble a month less, and +children under ten had half the full allowance. The servants made up +‘artels’[21] and did not complain of the allowance being too small, and, +indeed, provisions were extraordinarily cheap in those days. The highest +wage was a hundred roubles a year, while others received half that +amount and some only thirty roubles. Boys under seventeen got no wages +at all. In addition to their allowance, servants were given clothes, +greatcoats, shirts, sheets, quilts, towels and mattresses covered with +sailcloth; boys, who did not get wages, were allowed money for their +physical and moral purification, that is, for the bath-house and for +preparing for communion. Taking everything into account, a servant cost +three hundred roubles a year; if to this we add a share of medicine, of +a doctor and of the surplus edibles brought from the village, even then +it is not over 350 roubles. This is only a quarter of the cost of a +servant in Paris or London. + +The planters usually take into account the insurance premium of slavery, +that is, the maintenance of wife and children by the owner, and a meagre +crust of bread somewhere in the village for the slave in old age. Of +course this must be taken into account; but the cost is greatly lessened +by the fear of corporal punishment, the impossibility of changing their +position, and a much lower scale of maintenance. + +I have seen enough of the way in which the terrible consciousness of +serfdom destroys and poisons the existence of house-serfs, the way in +which it oppresses and stupefies their souls. Peasants, especially those +who pay a fixed sum in lieu of labour, have less feeling of their +personal bondage; they somehow succeed in not believing in their +complete slavery. But for the house-serf, sitting on a dirty locker in +the hall from morning till night, or standing with a plate at table, +there is no room for doubt. + +Of course there are people who live in the servants’ hall like fish in +water, people whose souls have never awakened, who have acquired a taste +for their manner of life and who perform their duties with a sort of +artistic relish. + +Of that class we had one extremely interesting specimen, our footman +Bakay, a man of tall figure and athletic build, with solid, dignified +features and an air of the greatest profundity; he lived to an advanced +age, imagining that the position of a footman was one of the greatest +consequence. + +This worthy old man was perpetually angry or a little drunk, or angry +and a little drunk at once. He took an exalted view of his duties and +ascribed a serious importance to them: with a peculiar bang and crash he +would throw up the steps of the carriage and slam the carriage door with +a report like a pistol shot. With a gloomy air he stood up stiff and +rigid behind the carriage, and every time there was a jolt over a rut he +would shout in a thick and displeased voice to the coachman: ‘Steady!’ +regardless of the fact that the rut was already five paces behind. + +Apart from going out with the carriage, his chief occupation, a duty he +had voluntarily undertaken, consisted of training the serf boys in the +aristocratic manners of the servants’ hall. When he was sober, things +went fairly well, but when his head was a little dizzy, he became +incredibly pedantic and tyrannical. I sometimes stood up for my friends, +but my authority had little influence on Bakay, whose temper was of a +Roman severity; he would open the door into the drawing-room for me and +say: ‘This is not the place for you; be pleased to leave the room or I +shall carry you out.’ He lost no opportunity of scolding the boys, and +often added a cuff to his words, or, with his thumb and first finger, +gave them a flip on the head with the sharpness and force of a spring. + +When at last he had chased the boys out and was left alone, he +transferred his persecution to his one friend, Macbeth, a big +Newfoundland dog, whom he used to feed, comb and groom. After sitting in +solitude for two or three minutes he would go out into the yard, call +Macbeth to join him on the locker, and begin a conversation. ‘What are +you sitting out there in the yard in the frost for, stupid, when there +is a warm room for you? What a beast! What are you rolling your eyes +for, eh? Have you nothing to say?’ Usually a slap would follow these +words. Macbeth would sometimes growl at his benefactor; and then Bakay +would upbraid him in earnest: ‘You may go on feeding a dog, but he will +still remain a dog, he will show his teeth at any one, without caring +who it is ... the fleas would have eaten him up if it had not been for +me!’ And offended by his friend’s ingratitude he would wrathfully take a +pinch of snuff and fling what was left between his fingers on Macbeth’s +nose. Then the dog would sneeze, clumsily brush away the snuff with his +paw, and, leaving the bench indignantly, would scratch at the door; +Bakay would open it with the word ‘Rascal’ and give him a kick as he +went out. Then the boys would come back, and he would set to flipping +them on the head again. + +Before Macbeth, we had a setter called Berta; she was very ill and Bakay +took her on to his mattress and looked after her for two or three weeks. +Early one morning I went out into the servants’ hall. Bakay tried to say +something to me, but his voice broke and a big tear rolled down his +cheek—the dog was dead. There is a fact for the student of human nature. +I do not for a moment suppose that he disliked the boys; it was simply a +case of a severe character, accentuated by drink and unconsciously +moulded by the spirit of the servants’ hall. + +But besides these amateurs of slavery, what gloomy images of martyrs, of +hopeless victims, pass mournfully before my memory. + +The Senator had a cook Alexey, a sober industrious man of exceptional +talent who made his way in the world. The Senator himself got him taken +into the Tsar’s kitchen, where there was at that time a celebrated +French cook. After being trained there, he got a post in the English +club, grew rich, married and lived like a gentleman; but the bonds of +serfdom would not let him sleep soundly at night, nor take pleasure in +his position. + +After having a service celebrated to the Iversky Madonna, Alexey plucked +up his courage and presented himself before the Senator to ask for his +freedom for five thousand roubles. The Senator was proud of _his_ cook, +just as he was proud of _his_ painter, and so he would not take the +money, but told the cook that he should be set free for nothing at his +master’s death. The cook was thunderstruck; he grieved, grew thin and +worn, turned grey and ... being a Russian, took to drink. He neglected +his work; the English Club dismissed him. He was engaged by the Princess +Trubetskoy, who worried him by her petty niggardliness. Being on one +occasion extremely offended by her, Alexey, who was fond of expressing +himself eloquently, said, speaking through his nose with his air of +dignity: ‘What a clouded soul dwells in your illustrious body!’ The +princess was furious, she turned the cook away, and, as might be +expected from a Russian lady, wrote a complaint to the Senator. The +Senator would have done nothing to him, but, as a polite gentleman, he +felt bound to send for the cook, gave him a good scolding and told him +to go and beg the princess’s pardon. + +The cook did not go to the princess but went to the pot-house. Within a +year he had lost everything from the capital he had saved up for his +ransom to the last of his aprons. His wife struggled and struggled on +with him, but at last went off and took a place as a nurse. Nothing was +heard of him for a long time. Then the police brought Alexey in tatters +and wild-looking; he had been picked up in the street, he had no +lodging, he wandered from tavern to tavern. The police insisted that his +master should take him. The Senator was distressed and perhaps +conscience-stricken, too; he received him rather mildly and gave him a +room. Alexey went on drinking, was noisy when he was drunk and imagined +that he was composing verses; he certainly had some imagination of an +incoherent sort. We were at that time at Vassilyevskoe. The Senator, not +knowing what to do with the cook, sent him there, thinking that my +father would bring him to reason. But the man was too completely +shattered. I saw in his case the concentrated anger and hatred against +the masters which lies in the heart of the serf, and might be +particularly dangerous in a cook; he would grind his teeth and speak +with malignant mimicry. He was not afraid to give full rein to his +tongue in my presence; he was fond of me and would often, patting me +familiarly on the shoulders, say that I was ‘a good branch of a rotten +tree.’ + +After the Senator’s death, my father gave him his freedom at once. It +was too late and simply meant getting rid of him, he was ruined in any +case. + +Besides Alexey, I cannot help recalling another victim of serfdom. The +Senator had a serf aged about five-and-thirty who acted as his +secretary. My father’s eldest brother, who died in 1813, had sent him as +a boy to a well-known doctor to be trained as a feldsher (or doctor’s +assistant) that he might be of use in a village hospital which his +master was intending to found. The doctor procured permission for him to +attend the lectures of the Academy of Medicine and Surgery; the young +man had abilities, he learned Latin, German, and something of doctoring. +At five-and-twenty he fell in love with the daughter of an officer, +concealed his position from her and married her. The deception could not +last long. After his master’s death, the wife learned with horror that +they were serfs. The Senator, his new owner, did not oppress them in any +way, indeed he was fond of young Tolotchanov, but the trouble with the +wife persisted; she could not forgive her husband for the deception and +ran away from him with another man. Tolotchanov must have been devoted +to her, for from that time he sank into a melancholy that bordered upon +madness, spent his nights in debauchery, and, having no means of his +own, squandered his master’s money. When he saw that he could not set +things right, on the 31st of December 1821 he poisoned himself. + +The Senator was not at home; Tolotchanov went in to my father in my +presence and told him that he had come to say good-bye to him and to ask +him to tell the Senator that he had spent the money that was missing. + +‘You are drunk,’ my father told him. ‘Go and sleep it off.’ + +‘I shall soon go for a long sleep,’ said the doctor, ‘and I only beg you +not to remember evil against me.’ + +Tolotchanov’s tranquil air rather alarmed my father and, looking more +intently at him, he asked: + +‘What’s the matter with you, are you raving?’ + +‘Not at all, I have only taken a wine-glassful of arsenic.’ + +They sent for a doctor and the police, gave him an emetic, and made him +drink milk. When he was on the point of vomiting, he restrained himself +and said: ‘Stay there, stay there, I did not swallow you for that.’ + +Afterwards, when the poison began to act more freely, I heard his moans +and his voice repeating in agony, ‘It burns! it burns! it’s fire!’ + +Some one advised him to send for a priest; he refused, and told Calot +that there could not be a life beyond the grave, that he knew too much +anatomy to believe that. At midnight he asked the doctor, in German, +what time it was, then saying, ‘Well, it’s the new year, I wish you a +happy one,’ he died. + +In the morning I rushed to the little lodge that served as a bath-house; +Tolotchanov had been taken there; the body was lying on the table, +dressed just as he had died, in a dress-coat without a cravat, with his +chest open, and his features were terribly distorted and had even turned +black. This was the first dead body I had seen; I went away almost +fainting. And the playthings and pictures I had had given me for the New +Year did not comfort me. Tolotchanov’s dark-looking face hovered before +my eyes and I kept hearing his ‘It burns! it’s fire!’ + +I will say only one thing more, to conclude this gloomy subject: the +servants’ hall had no really bad influence upon me at all. On the +contrary, it awakened in me from my earliest years an invincible hatred +for every form of slavery and every form of tyranny. At times when I was +a child, Vera Artamonovna would say by way of the greatest rebuke for +some naughtiness: ‘Wait a bit, you will grow up and turn into just such +another master as the rest.’ I felt this a horrible insult. The old +woman need not have worried herself—just such another as the rest, +anyway, I have not become. + +Besides the servants’ hall and the maids’ room I had one other +distraction, and in that I was not hindered in any way. I loved reading +as much as I hated lessons. My passion for unsystematic reading was, +indeed, one of the chief obstacles to serious study. I never could, for +instance, then or later, endure the theoretical study of languages, but +I very soon learnt to understand and chatter them incorrectly, and at +that stage I remained, because it was sufficient for my reading. + +My father and the Senator had between them a fairly large library, +consisting of French books of the eighteenth century. The books lay +about in heaps in a damp, unused room in a lower storey of the Senator’s +house. Calot had the key. I was allowed to rummage in these literary +granaries as I liked, and I read and read to my heart’s content. My +father saw two advantages in it, that I should learn French more quickly +and that I should be occupied, that is, should sit quietly and in my own +room. Besides, I did not show him all the books I read, nor lay them on +the table; some of them were hidden in the sideboard. + +What did I read? Novels and plays, of course. I read fifty volumes of +the French and Russian drama; in every volume there were three or four +plays. Besides French novels my mother had the Tales of La Fontaine and +the comedies of Kotzebue, and I read them two or three times. I cannot +say that the novels had much influence on me; though like all boys I +pounced eagerly on all equivocal or somewhat improper scenes, they did +not interest me particularly. A play which I liked beyond all measure +and read over twenty times in the Russian translation, the _Marriage of +Figaro_,[22] had much greater influence on me. I was in love with +Cherubino and the Countess, and what is more, I was myself Cherubino; my +heart throbbed as I read it and without myself clearly recognising it I +was conscious of a new sensation. How enchanting I thought the scene in +which the page is dressed up as a girl, how intensely I longed to hide +somebody’s ribbon in my bosom and kiss it in secret. In reality I had in +those years no feminine society. + +I only remember that occasionally on Sundays Bahmetyev’s two daughters +used to come from their boarding-school to visit us. The younger, a girl +of sixteen, was strikingly beautiful. I was overwhelmed when she entered +the room and never ventured to address a word to her, but kept stealing +looks at her lovely dark eyes and dark curls. I never dropped a hint on +the subject and the first breath of love passed unseen by any one, even +by her. + +Years afterwards when I met her, my heart throbbed violently and I +remembered how at twelve years old I had worshipped her beauty. + +I forgot to say that _Werther_ interested me almost as much as the +_Marriage of Figaro_; half the novel was beyond me and I skipped it, and +hurried on to the terrible _dénouement_, over which I wept like a +madman. In 1839 _Werther_ happened to come into my hands again; this was +when I was at Vladimir and I told my wife how as a boy I had cried over +it and began reading her the last letters ... and when I came to the +same passage, my tears began flowing again and I had to stop. + +Up to the age of fourteen I cannot say that my father greatly restricted +my liberty, but the whole atmosphere of our house was oppressive for a +lively boy. The persistent and unnecessary fussiness concerning my +physical health, together with complete indifference to my moral +well-being, was horribly wearisome. There were everlasting precautions +against my taking a chill, or eating anything indigestible, and anxious +solicitude over the slightest cough or cold in the head. In the winter I +was kept indoors for weeks at a time, and when I was allowed to go out, +it was only wearing warm high boots, thick scarves and such things. At +home it was always insufferably hot from the stoves. All this would +inevitably have made me a frail and delicate child but for the iron +health I inherited from my mother. She by no means shared my father’s +prejudices, and in her half of the house allowed me everything which was +forbidden in his. + +My education made slow progress without emulation, encouragement, or +approval; I did my lessons lazily, without method or supervision, and +thought to make a good memory and lively imagination take the place of +hard work. I need hardly say that there was no supervision over my +teachers either; once the terms upon which they were engaged were +settled, they might, so long as they turned up at the proper time and +sat through their hour, go on for years without rendering any account to +any one. + +One of the queerest episodes of my education at that time was the +engagement of the French actor Dalès to give me lessons in elocution. + +‘No attention is paid to it nowadays,’ my father said to me, ‘but my +brother Alexander was every evening for six months reciting “Le récit de +Théramène”[23] with his teacher without reaching the perfection that he +insisted upon.’ + +So I set to work at recitation. + +‘Well, Monsieur Dalès, I expect you can give him dancing lessons as +well?’ my father asked him on one occasion. + +Dalès, a fat old man over sixty, who was fully aware of his own +qualities, but no less fully aware of the propriety of being modest +about them, replied: ‘that he could not judge of his own talents, but +that he had often given advice in the ballet dances _au grand Opéra_.’ + +‘So I supposed,’ my father observed, offering him his open snuff-box, a +civility he would never have shown to a Russian or a German teacher. ‘I +should be very glad if you could _le dégourdir un peu_; after his +recitation he might have a little dancing.’ + +‘_Monsieur le comte peut disposer de moi._’ + +And my father, who was excessively fond of Paris, began recalling the +foyer of the opera in 1810, the youth of George,[24] the declining years +of Mars,[25] and inquiring about cafés and theatres. + +Now imagine my little room, a gloomy winter evening, the windows frozen +over and water dripping down a string from them, two tallow candles on +the table and our tête-à-tête. On the stage, Dalès still spoke fairly +naturally, but at a lesson thought it his duty to depart further from +nature in his delivery. He read Racine in a sort of chant and at the +cæsura made a parting such as an Englishman makes in his hair, so that +each line seemed like a broken stick. + +At the same time he waved his arm like a man who has fallen into the +water and does not know how to swim. He made me repeat every line +several times and always shook his head, saying, ‘Not right, not right +at all, _attention_, “_Je crains Dieu, cher Abner_,”’ then the parting, +at which he would close his eyes and with a slight shake of his head, +tenderly pushing away the waves with his hand, add: ‘_et n’ai point +d’autre crainte_.’ + +Then the old gentleman who ‘feared nothing but God’ looked at his watch, +shut the book and pushed a chair towards me; this was my partner. + +Under the circumstances it was not surprising that I never learned to +dance. + +The lessons did not last long; they were cut short very tragically a +fortnight later. + +I was at the French theatre with the Senator; the overture was played +once, then a second time and still the curtain did not rise. The front +rows, wishing to show they knew their Paris, began to be noisy in the +way the back rows are there. The manager came before the curtain, bowed +to the right, bowed to the left, bowed straight before him, and said: +‘We ask the kind indulgence of the audience; a terrible calamity has +befallen us, our comrade Dalès’—and the man’s voice was actually broken +by tears—‘has been found in his room stifled by charcoal fumes.’ + +It was in this violent way that the fumes of a Russian stove delivered +me from recitations, monologues and solo dances with my four-legged +mahogany partner. + +At twelve years old I was transferred from feminine to masculine hands. +About that time my father made two unsuccessful attempts to engage a +German to look after me. + +A German who looks after children is neither a tutor nor a nurse; it is +quite a special profession. He does not teach the children and he does +not dress them, but sees that they are taught and dressed, takes care of +their health, goes out for walks with them and talks any nonsense to +them so long as it is in German. If there is a tutor in the house, the +German is under his orders; if there is a male-nurse, he takes his +orders from the German. The visiting teachers, who come late owing to +unforeseen causes and leave early owing to circumstances over which they +have no control, do their best to win the German’s favour, and in spite +of his complete ignorance he begins to regard himself as a man of +learning. Governesses employ the German in shopping for them and in all +sorts of commissions, but only allow him to pay his court to them if +they suffer from striking physical defects or a complete lack of other +admirers. Boys of fourteen will go, without their parents’ knowledge, to +the German’s room to smoke, and he puts up with it because he must do +everything he can to remain in the house. Indeed at about that period +the German is thanked, presented with a watch and discharged. If he is +tired of sauntering about the streets with children and receiving +reprimands for their having colds, or stains on their clothes, the +‘children’s German’ becomes simply a German, sets up a little shop, +sells amber cigarette-holders, eau-de-Cologne and cigars to his former +nurslings, and carries out other secret commissions for them.[26] + +The first German who was engaged to look after me was a native of +Silesia and was called Jokisch; to my mind the surname was sufficient +reason not to have engaged him. He was a tall, bald man, distinguished +by an extreme lack of cleanliness; he used to boast of his knowledge of +agricultural science, and I imagine it must have been on that account +that my father engaged him. I looked on the Silesian giant with +aversion, and the only thing that reconciled me to him was that he used, +as we walked to the Dyevitchy grounds and to the Pryesnensky ponds, to +tell me indecent anecdotes which I repeated in the servants’ hall. He +stayed no more than a year; he did something disgraceful in the village +and the gardener tried to kill him with a scythe, so my father told him +to take himself off. + +He was succeeded by a Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel soldier (probably a +deserter) called Fyodor Karlovitch, who was distinguished by his fine +handwriting and extreme stupidity. He had been in the same position in +two families before and had acquired some experience, so adopted the +tone of a tutor; moreover, he spoke French with the accent invariably on +the wrong syllable.[27] + +I had not a particle of respect for him and poisoned every moment of his +existence, especially after I had convinced myself that he was incapable +of understanding decimal fractions and the rule of three. As a rule +there is a great deal of ruthlessness and even cruelty in boys’ hearts; +with positive ferocity I persecuted the poor Wolfenbüttel _Jäger_ with +proportion sums; this so interested me that I triumphantly informed my +father of Fyodor Karlovitch’s stupidity, though I was not given to +discussing such subjects with him. + +Moreover, Fyodor Karlovitch boasted to me that he had a new swallow-tail +coat, dark blue with gold buttons, and I actually did see him on one +occasion setting off to attend a wedding in a swallow-tail coat which +was too big for him but had gold buttons. The boy whose duty it was to +wait upon him informed me that he had borrowed the coat from a friend +who served at the counter of a perfumery shop. Without the slightest +sympathy I pestered the poor fellow to tell me where his blue dress-coat +was. + +‘There are so many moths in your house,’ he said, ‘that I have left it +with a tailor I know, to be taken care of.’ + +‘Where does that tailor live?’ + +‘What is that to you?’ + +‘Why not tell me?’ + +‘You needn’t poke your nose into other people’s business.’ + +‘Well, perhaps not, but it is my name-day in a week, so please do get +the blue coat from the tailor for that day.’ + +‘No, I won’t, you don’t deserve it because you are so impertinent.’ + +For his final discomfiture Fyodor Karlovitch must needs one day brag +before Bouchot, my French teacher, of having been a recruit at Waterloo, +and of the Germans having given the French a terrible thrashing. Bouchot +merely stared at him and took a pinch of snuff with such a terrible air +that the conqueror of Napoleon was a good deal disconcerted. Bouchot +walked off leaning angrily on his gnarled stick and never referred to +him afterwards except as ‘_le soldat de Villainton_.’ I did not know at +the time that this pun was perpetrated by Béranger and could not boast +of having sprung from Bouchot’s fertile fancy. + +At last Blücher’s companion in arms had some quarrel with my father and +left our house; after that my father did not worry me with any more +Germans. + +While our Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel friend held the field I sometimes used +to visit some boys with whom a friend of his lived, also in the capacity +of a German; and with these boys we used to take long walks; after his +departure I was left again in complete solitude. I was bored, struggled +to get out of it, and found no means of escape. As I had no chance of +overriding my father’s will I might perhaps have been broken in to this +existence, if a new intellectual interest and two meetings, of which I +will speak in the following chapter, had not soon afterwards saved me. I +am quite certain that my father had not the faintest notion what sort of +life he was forcing upon me, or he would not have thwarted me in the +most innocent desires, nor have refused me the most natural requests. + +Sometimes he allowed me to go with the Senator to the French theatre, +and this was the greatest enjoyment for me; I was passionately fond of +seeing acting, but this pleasure brought me as much pain as joy. The +Senator used to arrive with me when the play was half over, and as he +invariably had an invitation for the evening, would drag me away before +the end. The theatre was in Apraxin’s House, at Arbatsky Gate, and we +lived in Old Konyushenny Street, that is very close by, but my father +sternly forbade my returning without the Senator. + +I was about fifteen when my father engaged a priest to give me Scripture +lessons, so far as was necessary for entering the University. The +Catechism came into my hands after I had read Voltaire. Nowhere does +religion play so modest a part in education as in Russia, and that, of +course, is a great piece of good fortune. A priest is always paid +half-price for lessons in religion, and, indeed, if the same priest +gives Latin lessons also, he is paid more for them than for teaching the +Catechism. + +My father regarded religion as among the essential belongings of a +well-bred man; he used to say that one must believe in the ‘Holy +Scriptures’ without criticism, because you could do nothing in that +domain with reason, and all intellectual considerations merely obscured +the subject; that one must observe the rites of the religion in which +one was born, without, however, giving way to excessive devoutness, +which was all right for old women, but not proper in men. Did he himself +believe? I imagine that he did believe a little, from habit, from regard +for propriety, and from a desire to be on the safe side. He did not +himself, however, take part in any church observances, sheltering +himself behind the delicate state of his health. He scarcely ever +received a priest, at most he would ask him to perform a service in the +empty drawing-room and would send him there five roubles. In the winter +he excused himself on the plea that the priest and the deacon always +brought such chilliness with them that he invariably caught cold. In the +country he used to go to church and receive the priest, but rather with +a view to secular affairs than religious considerations. My mother was a +Lutheran and therefore one degree more religious; on one or two Sundays +in every month she would drive to her church, or as Bakay persisted in +calling it, to ‘her kirche,’ and, having nothing better to do, I went +with her. There I learned to mimic the German pastors, their declamation +and verbosity with artistic finish, and I retained the talent in riper +years. + +Every year my father commanded me to fast, confess, and take the +sacrament. I was afraid of confession, and the church _mise en scène_ +altogether impressed and alarmed me. With genuine awe I went up to take +the sacrament, but I cannot call it a religious feeling, it was the awe +which is inspired by everything incomprehensible and mysterious, +especially when a grave and solemn significance is attributed to it; +casting spells and telling fortunes affect one in the same way. I took +the sacrament after matins in Holy Week, and, after devouring eggs +coloured red and Easter cakes, I thought no more of religion for the +rest of the year. + +But I used to read the Gospel a great deal and with love, both in the +Slavonic and in the Lutheran translation. I read it without any +guidance, and, though I did not understand everything, I felt a deep and +genuine respect for what I read. In my early youth I was often +influenced by Voltairianism, and was fond of irony and mockery, but I do +not remember that I ever took the Gospel in my hand with a cold feeling; +and it has been the same with me all my life; at all ages and under +various circumstances I have gone back to reading the Gospel, and every +time its words have brought peace and gentleness to my soul. + +When the priest began giving me lessons he was surprised to find not +only that I had a general knowledge of the Gospel but that I could quote +texts, word for word; ‘but the Lord God,’ he said, ‘though He has opened +his mind, had not yet opened his heart.’ And my theologian, shrugging +his shoulders, marvelled at my ‘double nature,’ but was pleased with me, +thinking that I should be able to pass my examination. + +Soon a religion of a different sort took possession of my soul. + + + + + Chapter 3 + THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I. AND THE FOURTEENTH OF DECEMBER—MORAL + AWAKENING—THE TERRORIST BOUCHOT—MY KORTCHEVA COUSIN + + +One winter morning the Senator arrived not at the time he usually +visited us; looking anxious, he went with hurried footsteps into my +father’s study and closed the door, motioning me to remain in the +drawing-room. + +Luckily I had not long to rack my brains guessing what was the matter. +The door of the servants’ hall opened a little way and a red face, +half-hidden in the wolf-fur of a livery overcoat, called me in a +whisper; it was the Senator’s footman. I rushed to the door. + +‘Haven’t you heard?’ he asked. + +‘What?’ + +‘The Tsar has just died at Taganrog.’ + +The news impressed me; I had never thought of the possibility of the +Tsar’s death; I had grown up with a great respect for Alexander, and +recalled mournfully how I had seen him not long before in Moscow. When +we were out walking, we had met him beyond the Tverskoy Gate; he was +quietly riding along with two or three generals, returning from Hodynki, +where there had been a review. His face was gracious, his features soft +and rounded, his expression tired and melancholy. When he was on a level +with us, I raised my hat, he bowed to me, smiling. What a contrast to +Nicholas, who always looked like a slightly bald Medusa with cropped +hair and moustaches. In the street, at the court, with his children and +ministers, with his couriers and maids of honour, he was incessantly +trying whether his eyes had the power of a rattlesnake, of freezing the +blood in the veins.[28] If Alexander’s external gentleness was assumed, +surely such hypocrisy is better than the naked shamelessness of +despotism. + +While vague ideas floated through my mind, while portraits of the new +Emperor Constantine were sold in the shops, while appeals to take the +oath of allegiance were being delivered, and good people were hastening +to do so, rumours were suddenly afloat that the Tsarevitch had refused +the crown. Then that same footman of the Senator’s, who was greatly +interested in political news and had a fine field for gathering it—in +all the public offices and vestibules of senators, to one or other of +which he was always driving from morning to night, for he did not share +the privilege of the horses, who were changed after dinner—informed me +that there had been rioting in Petersburg and that cannons were being +fired in Galerny Street. + +On the following evening Count Komarovsky, a general of the gendarmes, +was with us: he told us of the troops in St. Isaac’s Square, of the +Horse Guards’ attack, of the death of Count Miloradovitch. + +Then followed arrests; ‘so-and-so has been taken,’ ‘so-and-so has been +seized,’ ‘so-and-so has been brought up from the country’; terrified +parents trembled for their children. The sky was overcast with gloomy +storm-clouds. + +In the reign of Alexander political punishments were rare; the Tsar did, +it is true, banish Pushkin for his verses and Labzin for having, when he +was secretary, proposed to elect a coachman, called Ilya Baykov, a +member of the Academy of Arts[29]; but there was no systematic +persecution. The secret police had not yet grown into an independent +body of gendarmes, but consisted of a department under the control of De +Sanglain, an old Voltairian, a wit, a great talker, and a humorist in +the style of Jouy.[30] Under Nicholas, this gentleman himself was under +the supervision of the police and he was considered a liberal, though he +was exactly what he had always been; from this fact alone, it is easy to +judge of the difference between the two reigns. + +Nicholas was completely unknown until he came to the throne; in the +reign of Alexander he was of no consequence, and no one was interested +in him. Now every one rushed to inquire about him; no one could answer +questions but the officers of the Guards; they hated him for his cold +cruelty, his petty fussiness and his vindictiveness. One of the first +anecdotes that went the round of the town confirmed the officers’ +opinion of him. The story was that at some drill or other the Grand Duke +had so far forgotten himself as to try and take an officer by the +collar. The officer responded with the words: ‘Your Highness, my sword +is in my hand.’ Nicholas drew back, said nothing, but never forgot the +answer. After the Fourteenth of December he made inquiries on two +occasions as to whether this officer was implicated. Fortunately he was +not.[31] + +The tone of society changed before one’s eyes; the rapid deterioration +in morals was a melancholy proof of how little the sense of personal +dignity was developed among Russian aristocrats. Nobody (except women) +dared show sympathy, dared utter a warm word about relations or friends, +whose hands had been shaken only the day before they had been carried +off at night by the police. On the contrary, there were savage fanatics +for slavery, some from abjectness, others, worse still, from +disinterested motives. + +Women alone did not take part in this shameful abandonment of those who +were near and dear ... and women alone stood at the Cross too, and at +the blood-stained guillotine there stood, first, Lucile Desmoulins,[32] +that Ophelia of the Revolution, always beside the axe, waiting for her +turn, and later, George Sand, who gave the hand of sympathy and +friendship on the scaffold to the youthful fanatic Alibaud.[33] + +The wives of men, exiled to hard labour, lost their civil rights, +abandoned wealth and social position, and went to a lifetime of bondage +in the terrible climate of Eastern Siberia, under the still more +terrible yoke of the police there. Sisters, who had not the right to go +with their brothers, withdrew from court, and many left Russia; almost +all of them kept a feeling of love for the victims alive in their +hearts; but there was no such love in the men, terror consumed it in +their hearts, not one of them dared mention the luckless exiles. + +While I am touching on the subject, I cannot forbear saying a few words +about one of those heroic stories, of which very little has been heard. +A young French governess was living in the old-fashioned family of the +Ivashevs. Ivashev’s son and heir wanted to marry her. This drove all his +relations frantic; there was an uproar, tears, petitions. The French +girl had not the support of a brother like Tchernov, who on his sister’s +behalf killed Novosiltsov and was killed by him in a duel. She was +persuaded to leave Petersburg, and he to put off for a time his design +of marrying her. Ivashev was one of the more active conspirators and he +was sentenced to penal servitude for life. His relations did not succeed +in saving him from the _mésalliance_. As soon as the dreadful news +reached the young girl in Paris, she set off for Petersburg and asked +permission to go to the province of Irkutsk to join her betrothed. +Benckendorf tried to dissuade her from this criminal intention; he did +not succeed and reported the matter to Nicholas. The Tsar directed that +the position of women who did not desert their exiled husbands should be +explained to her, adding that he would not prevent her going, but that +she must know that, if wives who went to Siberia from fidelity to their +husbands deserved some indulgence, she had not the slightest right to +any since she was wilfully entering into marriage with a criminal. +Nicholas and she both kept their word, she went to Siberia, and he did +nothing to alleviate her fate. + + ‘The Monarch though severe was just.’[34] + +In the prison nothing was known of the permission given her, and when +the poor girl arrived she had, while a correspondence was carried on +with the authorities in Petersburg, to wait in a little settlement +inhabited by all sorts of former criminals, with no means of finding out +anything about Ivashev or communicating with him. + +By degrees she became acquainted with her new companions. Among them was +an exiled robber who worked in the prison; she told him her story. Next +day the robber brought her a note from Ivashev. A day later he offered +to bring her notes from Ivashev and to take her letters to him. He had +to work in the prison from morning till evening; at nightfall he would +take Ivashev’s letter and would set off with it regardless of snowstorms +and fatigue, and return to his work at dawn.[35] + +At last the permission came and they were married. A few years later +penal servitude was exchanged for a settlement. Their position was +somewhat better, but their strength was exhausted; the wife was the +first to sink under the weight of all she had gone through. She faded +away as a flower of southern lands must fade in the Siberian snows. +Ivashev did not survive her, he actually died a year later, but before +then he had left this sphere; his letters (which made some impression on +the Third Section[36]) bear the traces of an infinitely mournful, holy +madness and gloomy poetry; he was not really living after her death, but +slowly and solemnly dying. This chronicle does not end with his death. +After Ivashev’s exile his father made over his estate to his +illegitimate son, begging him to help his poor brother and not to forget +him. The exiles left two little boys, helpless, fatherless and +motherless, who had neither name nor rights and seemed likely to become +cantonists[37] and settlers in Siberia. Ivashev’s brother entreated +Nicholas for permission to take the children. Nicholas granted +permission. A few years later he risked another petition, he moved +heaven and earth for their father’s name to be restored to them; and in +this too he was successful. + +The accounts of the rising and of the trial of the leaders, and the +horror in Moscow, made a deep impression on me; a new world which became +more and more the centre of my moral existence was revealed to me. I do +not know how it came to pass, but though I had no understanding, or only +a very dim one, of what it all meant, I felt that I was not on the same +side as the grape-shot and victory, prisons and chains. The execution of +Pestel,[38] and his associates finally dissipated the childish dream of +my soul. + +Every one expected some mitigation of the sentence on the condemned men, +the coronation was about to take place. Even my father, in spite of his +caution and his scepticism, said that the death penalty would not be +carried out, and that all this was done merely to impress people. But, +like every one else, he knew little of the youthful monarch. Nicholas +left Petersburg, and, without visiting Moscow, stopped at the Petrovsky +Palace.... The citizens of Moscow could scarcely believe their eyes when +they read in the _Moscow News_ of the terrible event of the fourteenth +of July. + +The Russian people had become unaccustomed to the death penalty; since +the days of Mirovitch,[39] who was executed instead of Catherine II., +and of Pugatchov[40] and his companions, there had been no executions; +men had died under the knout, soldiers had run the gauntlet (contrary to +the law) until they fell dead, but the death penalty _de jure_ did not +exist. The story is told that in the reign of Paul there was some +partial rising of the Cossacks on the Don in which two officers were +implicated. Paul ordered them to be tried by court martial, and gave the +hetman or general full authority. The court condemned them to death, but +no one dared to confirm the sentence; the hetman submitted the matter to +the Tsar. ‘They are a pack of women,’ said Paul; ‘they want to throw the +execution on me, very much obliged to them,’ and he commuted the +sentence to penal servitude. + +Nicholas re-introduced the death penalty into our criminal proceedings, +at first illegally, but afterwards he included it in the Code. + +The day after receiving the terrible news there was a religious service +in the Kremlin.[41] After celebrating the execution Nicholas made his +triumphal entry into Moscow. I saw him then for the first time; he was +on horseback riding beside a carriage in which the two empresses, his +wife and Alexander’s widow, were sitting. He was handsome, but there was +a coldness about his looks; no face could have more mercilessly betrayed +the character of the man than his. The sharply retreating forehead and +the lower jaw developed at the expense of the skull were expressive of +iron will and feeble intelligence, rather of cruelty than of sensuality; +but the chief point in the face was the eyes, which were entirely +without warmth, without a trace of mercy, wintry eyes. I do not believe +that he ever passionately loved any woman, as Paul loved Anna +Lopuhin,[42] and as Alexander loved all women except his wife; ‘he was +favourably disposed to them,’ nothing more. + +In the Vatican there is a new gallery in which Pius VII., I believe, has +placed an immense number of statues, busts, and statuettes, dug up in +Rome and its environs. The whole history of the decline of Rome is there +expressed in eyebrows, lips, foreheads; from the daughters of Augustus +down to Poppaea, the matrons have succeeded in transforming themselves +into cocottes, and the type of cocotte is predominant and persists; the +masculine type, surpassing itself, so to speak, in Antinous and +Hermaphroditus, divides into two. On one hand there is sensual and moral +degradation, low brows and features defiled by vice and gluttony, +bloodshed and every wickedness in the world, petty as in the hetaira +Heliogabalus, or with sunken cheeks like Galba; the last type is +wonderfully reproduced in the King of Naples.... But there is +another—the type of military commander in whom everything social and +moral, everything human has died out, and there is left nothing but the +passion for domination; the mind is narrow and there is no heart at all; +they are the monks of the love of power; force and austere will is +manifest in their features. Such were the Emperors of the Praetorian +Guard and of the army, whom the turbulent legionaries raised to power +for an hour. Among their number I found many heads that recalled +Nicholas before he wore a moustache. I understand the necessity for +these grim and inflexible guards beside what is dying in frenzy, but +what use are they to what is youthful and growing? + +In spite of the fact that political dreams absorbed me day and night, my +ideas were not distinguished by any peculiar insight; they were so +confused that I actually imagined that the object of the Petersburg +rising was, among other things, to put the Tsarevitch Constantine on the +throne, while limiting his power. This led to my being devoted for a +whole year to that eccentric creature. He was at that time more popular +than Nicholas; for what reason I do not know, but the masses, for whom +he had never done anything good, and the soldiers, to whom he had done +nothing but harm, loved him. I well remember how during the coronation +he walked beside the pale-faced Nicholas with scowling, light-yellow, +bushy eyebrows, a bent figure with the shoulders hunched up to the ears, +wearing the uniform of the Lettish Guards with a yellow collar. After +giving away the bride at the wedding of Nicholas with Russia, he went +away to complete the disaffection of Warsaw. Nothing more was heard of +him until the 29th of November 1830.[43] + +My hero was not handsome and you could not find such a type in the +Vatican. I should have called it the Gatchina type, if I had not seen +the King of Sardinia. + +I need hardly say that now solitude weighed upon me more than ever, for +I longed to communicate my ideas and my dreams to some one, to test them +and to hear them confirmed; I was too proudly conscious of being +‘ill-intentioned’ to say nothing about it, or to speak of it +indiscriminately. My first choice of a confidant was my Russian tutor. + +I. E. Protopopov was full of that vague and generous liberalism which +often passes away with the first grey hair, with marriage and a post, +but yet does ennoble a man. My teacher was touched, and as he was taking +leave embraced me with the words: ‘God grant that these feelings may +take root and grow stronger in you.’ His sympathy was a great comfort to +me. After this he began bringing me much-dog’s-eared manuscript copies +in small handwriting of Pushkin’s poems, the ‘Ode to Freedom,’ ‘The +Dagger,’ ‘Ryleyev’s Reverie.’ I used to copy them in secret ... (and now +I print them openly!). + +Of course, my reading, too, took a different turn. Politics was now in +the foreground, and above all the history of the Revolution, of which I +knew nothing except from Madame Proveau’s tales. In the library in the +basement I discovered a history of the ‘nineties written by a Royalist. +It was so partial that even at fourteen I did not believe it. I happened +to hear from old Bouchot that he had been in Paris during the +Revolution; and I longed to question him; but Bouchot was a stern and +forbidding man with an immense nose and spectacles; he never indulged in +superfluous conversation, he conjugated verbs, dictated copies, scolded +me and went away, leaning on his thick gnarled stick. + +‘Why did they execute Louis XVI.?’ I asked him in the middle of a +lesson. + +The old man looked at me, frowning with one grey eyebrow and lifting the +other, pushed his spectacles up on his forehead like a visor, pulled out +a large blue handkerchief and, blowing his nose with dignity, said: +‘_Parce qu’il a été traître à la patrie_.’ + +‘If you had been one of the judges, would you have signed the death +sentence?’ + +‘With both hands.’ + +This lesson was of more value to me than all the subjunctives; it was +enough for me; it was clear that the king deserved to be executed. + +Old Bouchot did not like me and thought me empty-headed and mischievous, +because I did not prepare my lessons properly, and he often used to say +‘you’ll come to no good,’ but when he noticed my sympathy with his +regicide ideas, he began to be gracious instead of being cross, forgave +my mistakes and used to tell me episodes of the year ’93, and how he had +left France, when ‘the dissolute and the dishonest’ got the upper hand. +He would finish the lesson with the same dignity, without a smile, but +now he would say indulgently: ‘I really did think that you were coming +to no good, but your generous feelings will be your salvation.’ + +To this encouragement and sympathy from my teacher was soon added a +warmer sympathy which had more influence on me. + +The granddaughter[44] of my father’s eldest brother was living in a +little town in the province of Tver. I had known her from my earliest +childhood, but we rarely met; she used to come once a year for Christmas +or for Carnival to stay at Moscow with her aunt. Nevertheless, we became +friends. She was five years older than I, but so small and young-looking +that she might have been taken for the same age. What I particularly +liked her for was that she was the first person who treated me as a +human being, that is, did not continually express surprise at my having +grown, ask me what lessons I was doing, and whether I was good at them, +and whether I wanted to go into the army and into what regiment, but +talked to me as people in general talk to each other; though she +retained that tone of authority which girls like to assume with boys who +are a little younger than themselves. We had written to each other and +after 1824 fairly often, but letters again mean pens and paper, again +the schoolroom table with its blots and pictures carved with a penknife; +I longed to see her, to talk to her about my new ideas, and so it may be +imagined with what joy I heard that my cousin was coming in February +(1826), and would stay with us for some months. I scratched on my table +the days of the month until her arrival and blotted them out as they +passed, sometimes intentionally forgetting three days so as to have the +pleasure of blotting out rather more at once, and yet the time dragged +on very slowly; then the time fixed had passed and her coming was +deferred until a later date, and that passed, as it always does. + +I was sitting one evening with my tutor Protopopov in my schoolroom, and +he as usual, taking a sip of fizzing kvass after every sentence, was +talking of the hexameter, horribly with voice and hand chopping up every +line of Gnyeditch’s _Iliad_ at the cæsura, when all of a sudden the snow +in the yard crunched with a different sound from that made by town +sledges, the tied-up bell gave the relic of a tinkle, there was talk in +the yard.... I flushed crimson, I had no more thought for the measured +wrath of ‘Achilles, son of Peleus’; I rushed headlong to the hall and my +cousin from Tver, wrapped in fur coats, shawls, and scarves, wearing a +bonnet and fluffy white high boots, red with the frost and, perhaps, +with joy, rushed to kiss me. + +People usually talk of their early childhood, of its griefs and joys +with a smile of condescension, as though, like Sofya Pavlovna in _Woe +from Wit_, they would say with a grimace: ‘Childishness!’ As though they +had grown better in later years, as though their feelings were keener or +deeper. Within three years children are ashamed of their playthings—let +them be, they long to be grown-up, they grow and change so rapidly, they +see that from their jackets and the pages of their schoolbooks; but one +would have thought grown-up people might understand that childhood +together with two or three years of youth is the fullest, most exquisite +part of life, the part that is most our own, and, indeed, almost the +most important, for it imperceptibly shapes our future. + +So long as a man is advancing with discreet footsteps forward, without +stopping or taking thought, so long as he does not come to a precipice +or break his neck, he imagines that his life lies before him, looks down +on the past and does not know how to appreciate the present. But when +experience has crushed the flowers of spring and the flush of summer has +cooled, when he begins to suspect that his life is practically over, +though its continuation remains, then he turns with different feelings +to the bright, warm, lovely memories of early youth. + +Nature with her everlasting snares and economic devices _gives_ man +youth, but _takes_ the formed man for herself; she draws him on, +entangles him in a web of social and family relations, three-fourths of +which are independent of his will; he, of course, gives his personal +character to his actions, but he belongs to himself far less than in +youth; the lyrical element of the personality is feebler and therefore +also the power of enjoyment—everything is weaker, except the mind and +the will. + +My cousin’s life was not a bed of roses. Her mother she lost when she +was a baby. Her father was a desperate gambler, and, like all who have +gambling in their blood, he was a dozen times reduced to poverty and a +dozen times rich again, and ended all the same by completely ruining +himself. _Les beaux restes_ of his property he devoted to a stud-farm on +which he concentrated all his thoughts and feelings. His son, an ensign +in the Uhlans, my cousin’s only brother and a very good-natured youth, +was going the straight road to ruin; at nineteen he was already a more +passionate gambler than his father. + +At fifty, the father, for no reason at all, married an old maid who had +been a pupil in the Smolny Convent.[45] Such a complete, perfect type of +the Petersburg boarding-school miss it has never been my lot to meet. +She had been one of the best pupils, and afterwards had become _dame de +classe_ in the school; thin, fair, and short-sighted, she had something +didactic and edifying about her very appearance. Not at all stupid, she +was full of an icy enthusiasm in words, talked in hackneyed phrases of +virtue and devotion, knew chronology and geography by heart, spoke +French with a revolting correctness and concealed an inner vanity which +was like an artificial Jesuitical modesty. In addition to these traits +of the ‘seminarists in yellow shawls’ she had others which were purely +Nevsky or Smolny characteristics. She used to raise her eyes full of +tears to heaven, as she spoke of the visits of their common mother (the +Empress Maria Fyodorovna), was in love with the Emperor Alexander, and, +I remember, used to wear a locket, or a signet ring, with a scrap of a +letter from the Empress Elizabeth in it, ‘_Il a repris son sourire de +bienveillance!_’ + +The reader can picture the harmonious trio: the father, a gambler, +passionately devoted to horses, gypsies, noise, carousals, races, and +trotting matches; the daughter brought up in complete independence, +accustomed to do what she liked in the house; and the learned lady who, +from an elderly schoolmistress, had been turned into a young wife. Of +course, she did not like her stepdaughter, and of course her +stepdaughter did not like her; as a rule great affection can only exist +between women of five-and-thirty and girls of seventeen when the former, +with resolute self-sacrifice, determine to have no sex. + +I am not at all surprised at the common hostility between stepdaughters +and stepmothers, it is natural and it is right. The new person put into +the mother’s place excites aversion in the children, the second marriage +is for them like a second funeral. The children’s love is vividly +expressed in this feeling, it whispers to the orphans: ‘Your father’s +wife is not your mother.’ At first Christianity understood that with the +conception of marriage which it developed, with the immortality of the +soul which it preached, a second marriage was altogether incongruous; +but, making continual concessions to the world, the Church compromised +with its principles and was confronted with the implacable logic of +life, with the simple childish heart that in practice revolts against +the pious incongruity of regarding its father’s companion as its mother. + +On her side, too, the woman who comes to her new home from church and +finds a family, children awaiting her, is in an awkward position; she +has nothing to do with them, she must affect feelings which she cannot +have, she must persuade herself and others that another woman’s children +are as dear to her as her own. + +And therefore I do not in the least blame the lady from the convent nor +my cousin for their mutual dislike, but I understand how the young girl, +unaccustomed to discipline, was fretting to escape anywhere out of the +parental home. Her father was beginning to get old and was more and more +under the thumb of his learned wife. Her brother, the Uhlan, was going +from bad to worse, and, in fact, life was not pleasant at home, and at +last she persuaded her stepmother to let her come for some months, +possibly even for a year, to us. + +The day after her arrival my cousin turned the whole order of my life, +except my lessons, upside down, arbitrarily fixed hours for our reading +together, advised me not to read novels, but recommended Ségur’s +_Universal History_ and the _Travels of Anacharsis_. Her stoical ideals +led her to oppose my marked inclination for smoking in secret, which I +did by wrapping the tobacco in paper (cigarettes did not exist in those +days); she liked preaching morality to me in general, and if I did not +obey her teaching, at least I listened meekly. Luckily she could not +keep up to her own standards, and, forgetting her rules, she read +Zschokke’s[46] tales with me instead of the archæological novel, and +secretly sent a boy out to buy, in winter, buckwheat cakes and +pease-pudding, and, in summer, gooseberries and currants. + +I think my cousin’s influence over me was very good; with her a warm +element came into the cell-like seclusion of my youth, it fostered and +perhaps, indeed, preserved the scarcely developing feelings which might +very well have been completely crushed by my father’s irony. I learnt to +be observant, to be wounded by a word, to care about somebody else, to +love; I learnt to talk about my feelings. She supported my political +aspirations, predicted for me an extraordinary future and fame, and I, +with childish vanity, believed her that I was a future ‘Brutus or +Fabricius.’ + +To me alone she confided the secret of her love for an officer of the +Alexandrinsky Regiment of Hussars, in a black cape and a black dolman; +it was a genuine secret, for the hussar himself, as he commanded his +squadron, never suspected what a pure flame was glowing for him in the +bosom of a girl of eighteen. I do not know whether I envied his lot, +probably I did a little, but I was proud of having been chosen as a +confidant, and imagined (after Werther) that this was one of those +tragic passions, which would have a great _dénouement_ accompanied by +suicide, poison, and a dagger, and the idea even occurred to me that I +might go to him and tell him all about it. + +My cousin had brought shuttlecocks from Kortcheva; in one of the +shuttlecocks there was a pin, she would never play with any other, and +whenever it fell to me or any one else she would take it, saying she was +used to playing with it. The demon of mischief, which was always my evil +tempter, prompted me to change the pin, that is, to stick it in another +shuttlecock. The trick was fully successful, my cousin always took to +the one with the pin in it. A fortnight later I told her; her face +changed, she dissolved into tears and went off to her own room. I was +panic-stricken and unhappy and, after waiting for half an hour, went to +her; her door was locked. I begged her to open it; she refused to let me +in and said that she was ill, that I was no friend to her, but a +heartless boy. I wrote her a note and besought her to forgive me; after +tea we made it up, I kissed her hand, she embraced me and at once +explained the full importance of the matter. A year before, the hussar +had dined with them and after dinner played battledore and shuttlecock, +and this was the shuttlecock with which he had played. I had pangs of +conscience, I thought that I had committed a real sacrilege. + +My cousin stayed until October. Her father sent for her to come home, +promising to let her come to us at Vassilyevskoe the following year. We +looked forward with horror to parting and, behold, one day a chaise came +for her, and her maid carried off boxes and baskets to pack in it while +our servants filled the chaise with all sorts of provisions for a full +week’s journey, and crowded at the entrance to say good-bye. We embraced +warmly, she wept and I wept—the chaise drove out into the side street +beside the very place where they used to sell us buckwheat cakes and +pease-pudding, and vanished. I crossed the yard, it seemed so cold and +horrid; I went up into my room—and there it seemed cold and empty. I set +to work on my lesson for Protopopov, while I wondered where the chaise +was now, and whether it had passed the town-gate or not. + +My only comfort was the thought of our being together again at +Vassilyevskoe the following June! + +For me the country was always a time of renewal, I was passionately fond +of country life. The forest, the fields, and the freedom—it was all so +new for me who had been brought up in cotton-wool, within brick walk, +not daring on any pretext to go out beyond the gate without asking leave +and being accompanied by a footman.... + +‘Are we going this year to Vassilyevskoe or not?’ From early spring I +was greatly interested in this question. My father invariably said that +this year he was going away early, that he longed to see the leaves come +out, but he never could get off before July. Some years he would put it +off so late that we never went at all. He wrote to the country every +winter that the house was to be got ready and thoroughly warmed, but +this was done through deep diplomatic considerations rather than quite +seriously, in order that the village elder and the counting-house clerk +might be afraid he would soon be coming and look after their work more +carefully. + +It seemed that we were going. My father told the Senator that he was +longing to rest in the country and that the estate wanted looking after, +but again weeks went by. + +Little by little there seemed more ground for hope, provisions began to +be sent off, sugar, tea, all sorts of cereals, and wine—then again there +was a pause, and then at last an order was despatched to the village +elder to send so many peasants’ horses on such a day—and so we were +going, we were going! + +I did not think then what the loss of four or five days when work in the +fields was at its height must have meant to the peasants, but rejoiced +with all my heart and hastened to pack my books and exercise books. The +horses were brought, with inward satisfaction I heard their munching and +snorting in the yard, and took great interest in the bustle of the +coachmen, and the wrangling of the servants as to who should sit in +which cart and where each should put his belongings. In the servants’ +quarters lights were burning until daybreak, and all were packing, +dragging sacks and bags from place to place, and dressing for the +journey (which was one of over fifty miles). My father’s valet was the +most exasperated of all, he realised the full importance of the packing; +with intense irritation he flung out everything which had been put in by +others, tore his hair with vexation and was quite unapproachable. + +My father did not get up a bit earlier next day, in fact I think he got +up later than usual, and drank his coffee just as slowly, but at last, +at eleven o’clock, he ordered the horses to be put in. Behind the +carriage, which had four seats and was drawn by six carriage horses, +there followed three and sometimes four conveyances—a coach, a chaise, a +wagon, or instead of it, two carts; all these were filled with the +house-serfs and their belongings, although wagon-loads had been sent on +beforehand, and everything was so tightly packed that no one could sit +with comfort. We stopped half way to have dinner and to feed the horses +in the big village of Perhushkovo, the name of which occurs in +Napoleon’s bulletins. This village belonged to the son of that elder +brother of my father of whom I have spoken in connection with the +division of the property. The neglected house of the owner stood on the +high-road, surrounded by flat, cheerless-looking fields; but even this +dusty vista delighted me after the stuffiness of town. In the house the +warped boards and stairs shook, sounds and footsteps resounded loudly, +the walls echoed as it were with astonishment. The old-fashioned +furniture from the former owner’s art museum was living out its day in +this exile; I wandered with curiosity from room to room, went upstairs +and downstairs and finally into the kitchen. There our man-cook, with a +cross and ironical expression, was preparing a hasty dinner. The +steward, a grey-haired old man with a swelling on his head, was usually +sitting in the kitchen; the cook addressed his remarks to him and +criticised the stove and the hearth, while the steward listened to him +and from time to time answered laconically: ‘May-be,’ and looked +disconsolately at all the upset, wondering when the devil would carry us +off again. + +The dinner was served on a special English service, made of tin or some +composition, bought _ad hoc_. Meanwhile the horses had been put in; in +the hall and vestibule, people who were fond of meetings and +leave-takings were gathering together: footmen who were finishing their +lives on bread and pure country air, old women who had been +prepossessing maids thirty years before, all the locusts of a +landowner’s household who through no fault of their own eat up the +peasants’ substance like real locusts. With them came children with +flaxen hair; barefooted and muddy, they kept poking forward while the +old women pulled them back. They caught me on every opportunity, and +every year wondered that I had grown so much. My father said a few words +to them; some went up to kiss his hand, which he never gave them, others +bowed, and we set off. + +A few miles from Prince Golitsyn’s estate of Vyazma the elder of +Vassilyevskoe was waiting for us on horseback at the edge of the forest, +and he escorted us by a cross-road. In the village by the big house, +approached by a long avenue of limes, we were met by the priest, his +wife, the church servitors, the house-serfs, several peasants, and the +village fool, who was the only one to display a feeling of human +dignity, for he did not take off his hat, but stood smiling at a little +distance and took to his heels as soon as any of the town servants +attempted to approach him. + +I have seen few places more picturesque than Vassilyevskoe. For any one +who knows Kuntsovo and Yussupov’s Arhangelskoe, or Lopuhin’s estate +facing the Savin monastery, it is enough to say that Vassilyevskoe lies +on a continuation of the same bank of the Moskva, twenty miles from the +same monastery. On the sloping side of the river lie the village, the +church, and the old manor house. On the other side there is a hill and a +small village, and there my father built a new house. The view from it +embraced an expanse of ten miles of country; seas of quivering +cornfields stretched endlessly; homesteads and villages with white +churches could be seen here and there; forests of various hues made a +semicircular setting, and the Moskva like a pale blue ribbon ran through +it all. Early in the morning I opened the window in the room upstairs +and gazed and listened and breathed. + +And yet I regretted the old brick house, perhaps because I was there +when I first went to the country; I so loved the long, shady avenue +leading up to it and the garden that had run wild; the house had fallen +into ruins and a slender graceful birch tree was growing out of a crack +in the wall of the hall. On the left an avenue of willows ran along the +riverside, beyond it there were reeds and the white sand down to the +river; on that sand and among those reeds I used at ten and eleven years +old to play for a whole morning. A bent old man, the gardener, used +always to be sitting before the house, he used to distil peppermint +water, cook berries, and secretly regale me on all sorts of vegetables. +There were great numbers of rooks in the garden: the tops of the trees +were covered with their nests, and they used to circle round them, +cawing; sometimes, especially in the evening, they used to fly up in +regular hundreds racing after one another with a great clamour; +sometimes one would fly hurriedly from tree to tree and then all would +be still.... And towards night an owl would wail somewhere in the +distance like a child, or go off into a peal of laughter.... I was +afraid of these wild wailing sounds and yet I went to listen to them. + +Every year, or, at least, every alternate year, we used to go to +Vassilyevskoe. As I went away, I used to measure my height on the wall +by the balcony, and I went at once on arriving to find how much I had +grown. But in the country I could measure not only my physical growth, +these periodical returns to the same objects showed me clearly the +difference in my inner development. Other books were brought, other +objects interested me. In 1823 I was quite a child, I had children’s +books with me, and even those I did not read, but was much more +interested in a hare and a squirrel which were living in the loft near +my room. One of my principal enjoyments consisted in my father’s +permission to shoot from a falconet every evening, which operation of +course entertained all the servants, and grey-haired old men of fifty +were as much diverted as I was. In 1827 I brought with me Plutarch and +Schiller; early in the morning I used to go out into the forest as far +as I could and, imagining that I was in the Bohemian forests, read aloud +to myself. Nevertheless, I was greatly interested in a dam which I was +making on a small stream with the help of a serf-boy and would run a +dozen times a day to look at it and repair it. In 1829 and 1830 I was +writing a philosophical article on Schiller’s _Wallenstein_, and of my +old toys none but the falconet retained its charm. + +Besides shooting there was, however, another enjoyment for which I +retained an unalterable passion—watching the evenings in the country; +now as then, such evenings are still times of devoutness, peace, and +poetry. One of the last serenely-bright moments in my life reminds me +also of those village evenings. The sun was sinking majestically, +brilliantly, into an ocean of fire, was dissolving into it.... All at +once the rich purple was followed by deep blue dusk, everything was +covered with a smoky mist: in Italy the darkness falls quickly. We +mounted our mules; on the way from Frascati to Rome we had to ride +through a little village; here and there lights were already twinkling; +everything was still, the mules’ hoofs rang musically on the stone, a +fresh and rather damp wind was blowing from the Apennines. As we came +out of the village, there was a little Madonna standing in a niche with +a lamp burning before her; some peasant girls as they came from work +with white kerchiefs on their heads sank on their knees and chanted a +prayer; they were joined by some strolling flute-players who were +passing by. I was deeply affected, deeply touched. We looked at each +other ... and with slow steps rode on to the inn where a carriage was +waiting for us. As we drove homewards I talked of the evenings at +Vassilyevskoe, and what was there to tell? + + ‘In silence stood the garden trees, + Among the hills the village lay, + And thither at the fall of night + The lingering cattle wend their way.’ + OGARYOV: Humorous Verse. + +... The shepherd cracks his long whip and plays on his birch-bark pipe; +there is the lowing and bleating and stamping of the herds returning +over the bridge, the dog with a bark chases a straying sheep while she +runs with a sort of wooden gallop; and then the songs of the peasant +girls, on their way home from the fields, come closer and closer; but +the path turns off to the right and the sounds retreat again. From the +houses children run out at the creaking gates to meet their cows and +sheep; work is over. The children are playing in the street and on the +river-bank, their voices ring out with shrill clearness over the river +in the evening glow; the parched smell of corn-kilns mingles in the air, +the dew begins little by little to lie like smoke over the fields, the +wind moves over the forest with a sound as though the leaves were +boiling and the summer lightning, quivering, lights up the landscape +with a dying, tremulous azure, and Vera Artamonovna, grumbling rather +than cross, says, coming upon me under a lime tree: ‘How is it there is +no finding you anywhere, and tea has been ready long ago and every one +is at the table, here I have been looking and looking for you until my +legs are tired. I can’t go running about at my age; and why are you +lying on the damp grass like that? ... you’ll have a cold to-morrow, +I’ll be bound.’ + +‘Oh, come, come,’ I say, laughing to the old woman, ‘I shan’t have a +cold and I don’t want any tea, but you steal me the best of the cream +from the very top.’ + +‘Well, you really are a boy, there’s no being angry with you ... that’s +a queer thing to ask for! I have got the cream ready for you without +your asking. Look at the lightning ... well, that’s right! It’s good for +the corn.’ + +And I go home skipping and whistling. + +We did not visit Vassilyevskoe after 1832. My father sold it while I was +in exile. In 1843 we stayed at another estate in the Moscow province, in +the district of Zvenigorod, about fourteen miles from Vassilyevskoe. I +could not help going over to visit my old home. And here we were again +riding along the same cross-road; the familiar fir-wood and the hill +covered with nut trees came into view, and then the ford over the river, +the ford that had so delighted me twenty years before, the gurgling of +the water, the crunching of the pebbles, the shouting coachmen and the +struggling horses ... and here was the village and the priest’s house +where he used to sit on a bench in a dark-brown cassock, simple-hearted, +good-natured, red-haired, always in a sweat, always nibbling something +and always afflicted with a hiccup; and here was the counting-house +where the clerk Vassily Epifanov, who was never sober, used to write his +accounts, huddled up over the paper, holding the pen by the very end +with his third finger bent tightly under it. The priest was dead and +Vassily Epifanov was keeping accounts and getting drunk in another +village. We stopped at the village elder’s hut, but found only the wife +at home, the man himself was in the fields. + +A strange element had crept in during those ten years; instead of our +house on the hill there was a new one, and a new garden was laid out +beside it. As we turned by the church and the graveyard, we met a +deformed-looking figure, dragging itself along almost on all fours; it +was showing me something, I went up: it was a hunchback and paralytic +old woman, half-crazy, who used to live on charity and work in the +former priest’s garden. She had been about seventy then and death seemed +to have overlooked her. She recognised me, shed tears, shook her head +and kept saying: ‘Ough! why even you are getting old, I only knew you +from your walk, while I—there, there, ough! ough! don’t talk of it!’ + +As we were driving back, I saw in the fields in the distance the village +elder, the same as in our time. At first he did not know me, but when we +had driven by, as though suddenly coming to himself with a start, he +took off his hat and bowed low. When we had driven a little further I +turned round; the village elder, Grigory Gorsky, was still standing in +the same place, looking after us; his tall, bearded figure, bowing in +the midst of the cornfield, gave us a friendly send-off from the home +which had passed into strangers’ hands. + + + + + Chapter 4 + NICK AND THE SPARROW HILLS + + ‘_Write how here on that spot (the Sparrow Hills) the story of + our lives, yours and mine, developed._’—A Letter, 1833. + + +Three years before the time of my cousin’s visit we were walking on the +banks of the Moskva at Luzhniki, _i.e._ on the other side of the Sparrow +Hills. At the river’s edge we met a French tutor of our acquaintance +dressed in nothing but his shirt; he was panic-stricken and was +shouting, ‘He is drowning, he is drowning!’ But before our friend had +time to take off his shirt or put on his trousers, an Ural Cossack ran +down from the Sparrow Hills, dashed into the water, vanished, and a +minute later reappeared with a frail-looking man, whose head and arms +were flopping about like clothes hung out in the wind. He laid him on +the bank, saying, ‘We had better roll him or else he will die.’ + +The people standing round collected fifty roubles and offered it to the +Cossack. The latter without affectation said very simple-heartedly: +‘It’s a sin to take money for such a thing, and it was no trouble +either; come to think of it, he is no more weight than a cat. But we are +poor people, though,’ he added. ‘Ask, we don’t; but, there, if people +give, why not take; we are humbly thankful.’ Then tying up the money in +a handkerchief he went to graze his horses on the hill. My father asked +his name and wrote about the incident next day to Essen. Essen promoted +him to be a non-commissioned officer. A few months later the Cossack +came to see us and with him a pock-marked bald German, smelling of scent +and wearing a curled fair wig; he came to thank us on behalf of the +Cossack, it was the drowned man. From that time he took to coming to see +us. + +Karl Ivanovitch Sonnenberg, that was his name, was at that time +completing the German part of the education of two young rascals; from +them he went to a landowner of Simbirsk, and from him to a distant +relative of my father’s. The boy, the care of whose health and German +accent had been entrusted to him and whom Sonnenberg called Nick, +attracted me. There was something kind, gentle, and dreamy about him; he +was not at all like the other boys it had been my luck to meet, but, +nevertheless, we became close friends. He was silent and dreamy; I was +playful but afraid to tease him. + +About the time when my cousin went back to Kortcheva, Nick’s grandmother +died; his mother he had lost in early childhood. There was a great upset +in the house, and Sonnenberg who really had nothing to do was very busy +too, and imagined that he was run off his legs; he brought Nick in the +morning and asked that he might remain with us for the rest of the day. +Nick was sad and frightened; I suppose he had been fond of his +grandmother. He so poetically recalled her in after years: + + “When even’s golden beams are blent + With rosy vistas, radiant hued, + I call to mind how in our home + The ancient customs we pursued. + On every Sunday’s eve there came + Our grey and stately priest arrayed, + And, bowing to the holy shrine, + With his assistants knelt and prayed. + Our grandmamma, the honoured dame, + Would lean upon her spacious chair + And, fingering her rosary, + Would bend her head in whispered prayer. + And through the doorway we could see + The house-servants’ familiar faces, + As praying for a ripe old age + They knelt in their accustomed places. + Meantime, upon the window-panes + The evening glow would shine, reflected, + While incense floated through the hall + By censers, swinging wide, projected. + Amid the silence so profound + No sound was heard except the praying + Of mingled voices. On my heart + Some feeling undefined was weighing, + A wistful sadness, dim and vague, + Of fleeting, childish dreams begot. + Unknown to me my heart was full + Of yearning for I knew not what.”— + OGARYOV: Humorous Verse.[47] + +... After we had been sitting still a little I suggested reading +Schiller. I was surprised at the similarity of our tastes; he knew far +more by heart than I did and knew precisely the passages I liked best; +we closed the book and, so to speak, began sounding our mutual +sympathies. + +From Möros who went with a dagger in his sleeve ‘to free the city from +the tyrant,’ from Wilhelm Tell who waited for Vogt on the narrow path to +Küsznacht, the transition to Nicholas and the Fourteenth of December was +easy. These thoughts and these comparisons were not new to Nick; he, +too, knew Pushkin’s and Ryleyev’s[48] unpublished poems. The contrast +between him and the empty-headed boys I had occasionally met was +striking. + +Not long before, walking to the Pryesnensky Ponds, full of my Bouchot +terrorism, I had explained to a companion of my own age the justice of +the execution of Louis XVI. ‘Quite so,’ observed the youthful Prince O., +‘but you know he was God’s anointed!’ I looked at him with compassion, +ceased to care for him and never asked to go and see him again. + +There were no such barriers with Nick, his heart beat as mine did. He, +too, had broken loose from the grim conservative shore, and we had but +to shove off more vigorously together and almost from the first day we +resolved to work in the interests of the Tsarevitch Constantine! + +Before that day we had had few long conversations. Karl Ivanovitch +pestered us like an autumn fly and spoilt every conversation with his +presence; he interfered in everything without understanding, made +observations, straightened Nick’s shirt collar, was in a hurry to get +home, in fact, was detestable. A month later we could not pass two days +without seeing each other or writing letters; with all the impulsiveness +of my nature I devoted myself more and more to Nick, while he had a +quiet and deep love for me. + +From the very beginning our friendship took a serious tone. I do not +remember that mischievous pranks ever took a foremost place with us, +particularly when we were alone. Of course we did not sit still, our +boyish years showed themselves in laughing and playing the fool, teasing +Sonnenberg and playing with bows and arrows in the yard; but at the +bottom of it all there was something very different from idle +companionship. Besides our being of the same age, besides our ‘chemical +affinity,’ we were united by our common faith. Nothing in the world so +purifies and ennobles early youth, nothing keeps it so safe as a keenly +alert interest of a purely human character. We respected our future in +ourselves, we looked at each other as ‘chosen vessels,’ predestined. + +Nick and I often walked out into the country. We had our favourite +places, the Sparrow Hills, the fields beyond the Dragomilovsky Gate. He +would come with Sonnenberg to fetch me at six or seven in the morning, +and if I were asleep would throw sand and little pebbles at my window. I +would wake up smiling and hasten to go out to him. + +The indefatigable Karl Ivanovitch had instituted these walks. + +In the old-fashioned patriarchal education of Ogaryov Sonnenberg plays +the part of Biron.[49] When he made his appearance the influence of the +old peasant who had looked after the boy was put aside; the discontented +oligarchy of the servants’ hall were forced against the grain to +silence, knowing that there was no overcoming the damned German who fed +at the master’s table. Sonnenberg made violent changes in the old order +of things. The old man who had been nurse positively grew tearful when +he learned that the wretched German had taken the young master _himself_ +to buy ready-made boots at a shop! Sonnenberg’s revolution, like Peter +the Great’s, was distinguished by a military character even in the most +peaceful matters. It does not follow from that that Karl Ivanovitch’s +thin little shoulders had ever been adorned with epaulettes. But nature +has so made the German, that if he does not reach the slovenliness and +_sans-gêne_ of a philologist or a theologian, he is inevitably of a +military mind, even though he be a civilian. By virtue of this +peculiarity Karl Ivanovitch liked tight-fitting clothes, buttoned up and +cut with a waist, by virtue of it he was a strict observer of his own +rules, and if he proposed to get up at six o’clock in the morning, he +would get Nick up at one minute before six, and in no case later than +one minute after six, and would go out into the open air with him. + +The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Karl Ivanovitch had been so +nearly drowned, soon became our ‘Holy Mountain.’ + +One day after dinner my father proposed to drive out into the country. +Ogaryov was with us and my father invited him and Sonnenberg to go too. +These expeditions were not a joking matter. Before reaching the +town-gate we had to drive for an hour or more in a four-seated carriage, +built by ‘Joachim,’ which had not saved it from becoming disgracefully +shabby in its fifteen years of tranquil service and being heavier than a +siege cannon. The four horses of different sizes and colours who had +grown fat and lazy in idleness were covered with sweat and foam within a +quarter of an hour; the coachman Avdey was forbidden to let them get +into this condition, and so had no choice but to let them walk. The +windows were usually closed, however hot it might be; and with all this, +we had the indifferently oppressive supervision of my father and the +restlessly fussy and irritating supervision of Karl Ivanovitch. But we +gladly put up with everything for the sake of being together. + +At Luzhniki we crossed the river Moskva in a boat at the very spot where +the Cossack had pulled Karl Ivanovitch out of the water. My father +walked, as always, bent and morose; beside him Karl Ivanovitch tripped +along, entertaining him with gossip and scandal. We went on in front of +them, and getting far ahead ran up to the Sparrow Hills at the spot +where the first stone of Vitberg’s temple was laid. + +Flushed and breathless, we stood there mopping our faces. The sun was +setting, the cupolas glittered, the city lay stretched further than the +eye could reach; a fresh breeze blew on our faces, we stood leaning +against each other and, suddenly embracing, vowed in sight of all Moscow +to sacrifice our lives to the struggle we had chosen. + +This scene may strike others as very affected and very theatrical, and +yet twenty-six years afterwards I am moved to tears recalling it; there +was a sacred sincerity in it, and that our whole life has proved. But +apparently a like destiny awaits all vows made on that spot; Alexander +was sincere, too, when he laid the first stone of that temple, which, as +Joseph II.[50] said (though then mistakenly) when laying the first stone +in some town in Novorossia, was destined to be the last. + +We did not know all the strength of the foe with whom we were entering +into battle, but we took up the fight. That strength broke much in us, +but it did not crush us, and we did not surrender to it in spite of all +its blows. The wounds received from it were honourable. Jacob’s strained +thigh was the sign that he had wrestled in the night with a God. + +From that day the Sparrow Hills became a place of worship for us and +once or twice a year we went there, and always by ourselves. There, five +years later, Ogaryov asked me timidly and shyly whether I believed in +his poetic talent, and wrote to me afterwards (1833) from his country +house: ‘I have come away and feel sad, sad, as I have never been before. +And it’s all the Sparrow Hills. For a long time I hid my enthusiasm in +myself; shyness or something else, I don’t myself know what, prevented +me from uttering it, but on the Sparrow Hills that enthusiasm was not +weighed down by solitude. You shared it with me and those were moments +that I shall never forget, like memories of past happiness they have +haunted me on my journey, while all around I saw nothing but forest; it +was all so dark blue and in my soul was darkness, darkness. + +‘Write,’ he concluded, ‘how on that spot (that is, on the Sparrow Hills) +the history of our lives, yours and mine, developed.’ + +Five more years passed. I was far from the Sparrow Hills, but near me +their Prometheus, A. L. Vitberg, stood, austere and gloomy. In 1842 +returning finally to Moscow, again I visited the Sparrow Hills, once +more we stood on the site of the foundation stone and gazed at the same +view, two together, but the other was not Nick. + +From 1827 we were not parted. In every memory of that time, general and +particular, he with his boyish features and his love for me was +everywhere in the foreground. Early could be seen in him that sign of +grace, which is vouchsafed to few, whether for woe or for bliss I know +not, but certainly for being apart from the crowd. A large portrait of +Ogaryov as he was at that time (1827–8), painted in oils, remained for +many years afterwards in his father’s house. In later days I often stood +before it and gazed at him. He was painted with a turned-down shirt +collar; the painter had wonderfully reproduced the luxuriant chestnut +hair, the youthfully soft beauty of his irregular features and his +rather swarthy colouring; there was a dreaminess in the portrait that +gave promise of intense thought, a vague melancholy and extreme +gentleness shone in his big grey eyes that suggested the future +greatness of a mighty spirit; such indeed he grew to be. This portrait, +presented to me, was taken by a woman who was a stranger; perhaps these +lines will meet her eyes and she will send it to me. + +I do not know why the memories of first love are given such precedence +over the memories of youthful friendship. The fragrance of first love +lies in the fact that it forgets the difference of sex, that it is +passionate friendship. On the other hand, friendship between the young +has all the ardour of love and all its character, the same delicate fear +of touching on its feelings with a word, the same mistrust of self and +boundless devotion, the same agony at separation, and the same jealous +desire for exclusive affection. + +I had long loved Nick and loved him passionately, but did not venture to +call him my friend, and when he was spending the summer at Kuntsovo I +wrote to him at the end of a letter: ‘Whether your friend or not, I +don’t know yet.’ He first used the second person singular in writing to +me and used to call me his Agathon after Karamzin,[51] while I called +him my Raphael after Schiller.[52] + +You may smile if you like, but let it be a mild, good-natured smile, as +men smile when they think of being fifteen. Or would it not be better to +muse over the question, ‘Was I like that when I was developing?’ and to +bless your fate if you have had youth (merely being young is not enough +for it), to bless it doubly if you had a friend then. + +The language of that period seems affected and bookish to us now, we +have become unaccustomed to its vague enthusiasm, its confused fervour +that passes suddenly into yearning tenderness or childish laughter. It +would be as absurd in a man of thirty as the celebrated _Bettina will +schlafen_,[53] but in its proper time this language of youth, this +_jargon de la puberté_, this change of the psychological voice is very +sincere, even the bookish tone is natural to the age of theoretical +knowledge and practical ignorance. + +Schiller remained our favourite.[54] The characters of his dramas were +for us living persons; we analysed them, loved and hated them, not as +poetic creations but as living men. Moreover we saw ourselves in them. I +wrote to Nick, somewhat troubled by his being too fond of Fiesco, that +behind every Fiesco stands his Verrina. My ideal was Karl Moor, but I +soon changed it in favour of the Marquis of Posa. I imagined in a +hundred variations how I would speak to Nicholas, and how afterwards he +would send me to the mines or the scaffold. It is a strange thing that +almost all our day-dreams ended in Siberia or the scaffold and hardly +ever in triumph; can this be characteristic of the Russian imagination, +or is it the effect of Petersburg with its five gallows and its penal +servitude reflected on the young generation? + +And so, Ogaryov, hand in hand we moved forward into life! Fearlessly and +proudly we advanced, lavishly we responded to every appeal and sincerely +we gave ourselves up to every enthusiasm. The path we chose was a thorny +one, we have never left it for one moment, wounded and broken we have +gone forward and no one has turned us aside. I have reached ... not the +goal but the spot where the road goes downhill, and involuntarily I seek +thy hand that we may go down together, that I may press it and say +smiling mournfully, ‘So this is all!’ + +Meanwhile in the dull leisure to which the events of life have condemned +me, finding in myself neither strength nor freshness for new labours, I +am writing down our memories. Much of that which united us so closely +has taken shape in these pages. I present them to thee. For thee they +have a double value, the value of tombstones on which we meet familiar +names.[55] + +... And is it not strange to think that had Sonnenberg known how to +swim, or had he been drowned then in the Moskva, had he been pulled out +not by a Cossack of the Urals but by some soldier of the Apsheronsky +infantry, I should not have met Nick or should have met him later, +differently, not in that room in our old house, where, smoking cigars on +the sly, we entered so deeply into each other’s lives and drew strength +from each other. He did not forget our ‘old house.’ + + ‘Old Home! My old friend! I have found thee, + Thy cold desolation I see; + The past is arising before me, + And sadly I gaze upon thee. + Unswept and untended the courtyard, + Neglected and fallen the well, + Green leaves that once whispered and murmured + Lie yellow and dead where they fell. + The house is dismantled and empty, + The plaster is spread on the grass, + The heavy grey clouds wander sadly + And weep for thy plight as they pass. + I entered. The rooms were familiar: + ’Twas here—when we children were young— + The peevish old man sat and grumbled, + We feared his malevolent tongue. + And this room, my friend, oh! my comrade! + We shared, one in heart and in mind, + What bright golden thoughts were conceived here + In days that lie dimly behind! + A star shimmered faint through the window: + The words that are left on the wall + Were written when youth was triumphant, + Inspirer, dictator of all! + In this little room love and friendship + Were fostered. What joys did they bring! + But now, in its drear empty corners + The spiders’ webs broaden and cling. + And suddenly, smitten with terror, + Methought in the graveyard near by + I stood and I called on my loved ones, + The dead did not answer my cry....’ + OGARYOV: Humorous Verse.[56] + + + + + Chapter 5 + DETAILS OF HOME LIFE—EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PEOPLE IN RUSSIA—A DAY IN OUR + HOUSE—VISITORS AND _HABITUÉS_—SONNENBERG—THE VALET AND OTHERS + + +The insufferable dreariness of our house grew greater every year. If my +University time had not been approaching, if it had not been for my new +friendship, my political enthusiasm and the liveliness of my +disposition, I should have run away or perished. + +My father was hardly ever in a good humour, he was perpetually +dissatisfied with everybody. A man of great intelligence and great +powers of observation, he had seen, heard, and remembered an immense +amount; an accomplished man of the world, he could be extremely polite +and interesting, but he did not care to be and sank more and more into +ill-humoured unsociability. + +It is hard to say exactly what it was that put so much bitterness and +spleen into his blood. Periods of passion, of great unhappiness, of +mistakes and losses were completely absent from his life. I could never +fully understand what was the origin of the spiteful mockery and +irritability that filled his soul, the mistrustful unsociability and the +vexation that consumed him. Did he bear with him to the grave some +memory which he confided to no one, or was this simply the result of the +combination of two elements so absolutely opposed as the eighteenth +century and Russian life, with the assistance of a third, terribly +conducive to the development of ill-humour, the idleness of the +slave-owner? + +Last century produced in the West, particularly in France, a wonderful +crop of men endowed with all the weak points of the Regency and all the +strong points of Rome and Sparta. These mixtures of Faublas[57] and +Regulus opened wide the doors of the Revolution and were the first to +rush in, crowding each other in their haste to reach the ‘window’ of the +guillotine. Our age no longer produces these single-minded powerful +natures; the eighteenth century on the contrary called them forth +everywhere, even where they were not needed, even where they could not +develop except into something grotesque. In Russia men exposed to the +influence of this mighty Western movement became original, but not +historical figures. Foreigners at home, foreigners in other lands, idle +spectators, spoilt for Russia by Western prejudices and for the West by +Russian habits, they were a sort of intellectual superfluity and were +lost in artificial life, in sensual pleasure and in unbearable egoism. + +To this class belonged the Tatar Prince, N. B. Yussupov, a Russian +grandee and a European _grand seigneur_, a foremost figure in Moscow, +conspicuous for his intelligence and his wealth. About him gathered a +perfect galaxy of grey-headed gallants and _esprits forts_, all the +Masalskys and Santis and _tutti quanti_. They were all rather cultured +and well-educated people; having no work in life they flung themselves +upon pleasure, pampered themselves, loved themselves, good-naturedly +forgave themselves all transgressions, exalted their gastronomy to the +level of a Platonic passion and reduced love for women to a sort of +voracious gourmandise. + +The old sceptic and Epicurean Yussupov, a friend of Voltaire and +Beaumarchais,[58] of Diderot and Casti,[59] really was gifted with +artistic taste. To see this, one need but go to Arhangelskoe and look at +his galleries, that is, if they have not yet been sold bit by bit by his +heir. He was magnificently fading out of life at eighty, surrounded by +marble, painted and living beauty. In his house near Moscow Pushkin +conversed with him and addressed a wonderful epistle to him, and there, +too, pictures were painted by Gonzaga,[60] to whom Yussupov dedicated +his theatre. + +By his education, by his service in the Guards, by position and +connections, my father belonged to this circle, but neither his +character nor his health permitted him to lead a frivolous life to the +age of seventy: and he passed to the opposite extreme. He tried to lead +a solitary life and found in it a deadly dullness, the mare because he +tried to arrange it entirely _for himself_. His strength of will changed +into obstinate caprice, his unemployed energies spoilt his character, +making him insufferable. + +When he was being educated, European civilisation was still so new in +Russia that to be educated was equivalent to being so much the less +Russian. To the end of his days he wrote more freshly and correctly in +French than in Russian. He had literally not read one single book in +Russian, not even the Bible. Though, indeed, he had not read the Bible +in other languages either; he knew the subject-matter of the Holy +Scriptures generally from hearsay and from extracts, and had no +curiosity to look into it. He had, it is true, a respect for +Derzhavin[61] and Krylov[62]: Derzhavin because he had written an ode on +the death of his uncle, Prince Meshtchersky, Krylov because he had been +with him as second at N. N. Bahmetyev’s duel. My father did once pick up +Karamzin’s _History of the Russian Empire_, having heard that the +Emperor Alexander was reading it, but he laid it aside, saying +contemptuously: ‘It is nothing but Izyaslavitches and Olgovitches, to +whom can it be of interest?’ + +For men he had an open, undisguised contempt—for all. Never under any +circumstances did he reckon upon anybody, and I do not remember that he +ever applied to any one with any serious request. He himself did nothing +for any one. In his relations with outsiders he demanded one thing only, +the observance of the proprieties; _les apparences, les convenances_ +made up the whole of his moral religion. He was ready to forgive much, +or rather to overlook it, but breaches of good form and good manners +made him beside himself, and in such cases he was without any tolerance, +without the slightest indulgence or compassion. I so long raged inwardly +against this injustice that at last I understood it. He was convinced +beforehand that every man is capable of any evil act; and that, if he +does not commit it, it is either that he has no need to, or that the +opportunity does not present itself; in the disregard of formalities he +saw a personal affront, a disrespect to himself; or a ‘plebeian +education,’ which in his opinion cut a man off from all human society. + +‘The soul of man,’ he used to say, ‘is darkness, and who knows what is +in any man’s soul? I have too much business of my own to be interested +in other people’s, much less to judge and criticise their intentions; +but I cannot be in the same room with an ill-bred man, he offends me, +grates upon me; of course he may be the best-hearted man in the world +and for that he will have a place in paradise, but I don’t want him. +What is most important in life is _esprit de conduite_, it is more +important than the most lofty intellect or any kind of learning. To know +how to be at ease everywhere, to put yourself forward nowhere, the +utmost courtesy with all and no familiarity with any one.’ + +My father disliked every sort of _abandon_, every sort of openness; all +that he called familiarity, just as he called every feeling +sentimentality. He persistently posed as a man superior to all such +petty trifles; for the sake of what, with what object? What was the +higher interest to which the heart was sacrificed?—I do not know. And +for whom did this haughty old man, who despised men so genuinely and +knew them so well, play his part of impartial judge?—For a woman whose +will he had broken although she sometimes contradicted him; for an +invalid who lay always at the mercy of the surgeon’s knife; for a boy +whose high spirits he had developed into disobedience; for a dozen +lackeys whom he did not reckon as human beings! + +And what patience was spent on it, what perseverance, and how +wonderfully well the part was played in spite of age and illness. Truly +the soul of man is darkness. + +Later on when I was arrested, and afterwards when I was sent into exile, +I saw that the old man’s heart was more open to love and even to +tenderness than I had thought. I never thanked him for it, not knowing +how he would take my gratitude. + +Of course he was not happy; always on his guard, always dissatisfied, he +saw with a pang the hostile feelings he roused in all his household; he +saw the smile pass from the face and the words checked at his entrance; +he spoke of it with mockery, with vexation, but made not a single +concession and went his way with the utmost persistence. Mockery, irony, +cold, malignant and scornful, was a weapon which he used like an artist; +he employed it equally against us and against the servants. In early +youth one can bear many things better than sarcasm, and until I went to +prison I was really estranged from my father, and joined with the maids +and men-servants in leading a little war against him. + +Moreover, he had persuaded himself that he was dangerously ill and was +continually undergoing treatment; besides our own household doctor, he +was visited by two or three others and had three or four consultations a +year at least. Visitors, seeing always his unfriendly face and hearing +nothing but complaints of his health, which was far from being so bad as +he thought, left off coming. He was angry at this but never reproached a +single person nor invited one. A terrible dullness reigned in the house, +particularly on the endless winter evenings—two lamps lighted a whole +suite of rooms; wearing felt or lamb’s-wool high boots, a velvet cap, +and a coat lined with white lambskin, bowed, with his hands clasped +behind his back, the old man walked up and down, followed by two or +three brown dogs, and never uttering a word. + +A carefulness spent on worthless objects grew with his melancholy. He +managed the estate badly for himself and badly for his peasants. The +village elders and his _missi dominici_ robbed their master and the +peasants; on the other hand, everything that met the eye was subjected +to redoubled supervision, candles were saved and the thin _vin de +Graves_ was replaced by sour Crimean wine at the very time when a whole +forest was cut down in one village, and in another his own oats were +sold to him. He had his privileged thieves; the peasant whom he made +collector of _obrok_ (payment from a serf in lieu of labour) in Moscow +and whom he sent every summer to supervise the village elder, the +market, the garden, the forest, and the field labours, saved enough in +ten years to buy a house in Moscow. From a child I hated this minister +without portfolio; on one occasion he beat an old peasant in the yard in +my presence. I was so furious that I hung on to his beard and almost +fainted. From that time I could not look at him without dislike until he +died in 1845. I several times asked my father where did Shkun get the +money to buy a house. + +‘That’s what sobriety does,’ the old man answered, ‘he never takes a +drop of liquor.’ + +Every year near the time of carnival, the peasants from the Penza +province used to bring from near Kerensk _obrok_ in kind. For a +fortnight a trail of poor-looking wagons were on the road, laden with +pork, sucking pigs, geese, fowls, grain, rye, eggs, butter, and linen. +The arrival of the Kerensk peasants was a holiday for all the +house-serfs; they robbed the peasants and fleeced them at every step +without the slightest right to do so. The coachmen charged them for the +water in the well, and would not let their horses drink without payment. +The women made them pay for warmth in the house, they had to pay homage +to one aristocrat of the servants’ hall with a sucking pig and a towel, +to another with a goose and butter. All the time they stayed in the yard +the servants kept up a feast, holiday dishes were made, sucking pigs +were roasted, and the hall was continually full of the fumes of onion, +burnt fat, and the drink which had just been consumed. For the last two +days of these junketings Bakay did not go into the hall and did not +finish dressing, but sat in the outer kitchen with an old livery coat +thrown over his shoulders, without his waistcoat and jacket. He was +growing visibly thinner and becoming darker and older. My father put up +with all this pretty calmly, knowing that it was inevitable and could +not be altered. + +After the dead provisions had been received, my father—and the most +remarkable point about it is that the practice was repeated yearly—used +to call the cook, Spiridon, and send him to the poultry bazaar and the +Smolensky market to find out the prices; the cook returned with +fabulously small prices, less than half the real ones. My father would +tell him he was a fool and send for Shkun or Slyepushkin. The latter had +a fruit stall at the Ilyinsky Gate. And both considered the cook’s +prices terribly low, made inquiries and brought back prices rather +higher. At last Slyepushkin offered to take the whole lot, eggs and +sucking pigs and butter and rye ‘to save all disturbance to your health, +sir.’ He gave a price I need hardly say somewhat higher than the cook’s. +My father agreed. Slyepushkin would bring him oranges and little cakes +in honour of the bargain, and brought the cook a note for two hundred +roubles. + +This Slyepushkin was in great favour with my father and often borrowed +money from him; he showed his originality in his thorough understanding +of the old man’s character. + +He would ask for five hundred roubles for two months, and a day before +the two months were over would appear in the hall with an Easter cake on +a dish and the five hundred roubles on the Easter cake. My father would +take the money, Slyepushkin would make a bow and ask for his hand to +kiss, which was never given. But three days later Slyepushkin would come +again to borrow money and ask for fifteen hundred roubles. My father +would give it and Slyepushkin would again bring it by the time fixed. My +father used to hold him up as an example, but a week later he would ask +for a bigger sum, and in that way enjoyed the use of an extra five +thousand roubles a year for his business, for the trifling interest of +two or three Easter cakes, a few pounds of figs and Greek nuts and a +hundred oranges and apples from the Crimea. + +In conclusion, I will mention how some hundreds of acres of building +timber were lost in Novoselye. In the ‘forties, M. F. Orlov who, I +remember, had been commissioned by the Countess Anna Alexeyevna to +purchase an estate for her children, began treating for the Tver estate +which had come to my father from the Senator. They agreed on the price +and the business seemed to be settled. Orlov went to look at the land +and then wrote to my father that on the map he had shown him a forest, +but that there was no such forest. + +‘That’s a clever man,’ said my father, ‘he took part in the conspiracy +and wrote a book on finance, but as soon as it comes to business you can +see what a silly fellow he is. These Neckers! Well, I’ll ask Grigory +Ivanovitch to ride over, he’s not a conspirator, but he’s an honest man +and knows his work.’ + +Grigory Ivanovitch, too, went over to Novoselye and brought the news +that there was no forest, but only a semblance of one rigged up; so that +neither from the big house nor the high-road could the clearing catch +the eye. After the land was assigned to him the Senator had been at +least five times to Novoselye, and yet the secret had never leaked out. + +To give a full idea of our manner of life I will describe a whole day +from the morning; the monotony of the days was precisely what was most +deadly; our life went like an English clock regulated to go slowly, +quietly, evenly, loudly recording each second. + +At nine o’clock in the morning the valet who sat in the room next the +bedroom informed Vera Artamonovna, my ex-nurse, that the master was +getting up. She went to prepare the coffee which he always drank alone +in his study. Everything in the house assumed a different aspect, the +servants began sweeping the rooms, or at any rate made a show of doing +something. The hall, until then empty, filled up, and even the big +Newfoundland dog Macbeth sat before the stove and watched the fire +without blinking. + +Over his coffee the old man read the _Moscow News_ and the _Journal de +St. Pétersbourg_. I may mention that he had given orders for the _Moscow +News_ to be warmed, that his hands might not be chilled by the dampness +of the paper, and that he read the political news in the French text, +finding the Russian obscure. At one time he used to get a Hamburg +newspaper, but could not reconcile himself to the fact that the Germans +printed in German characters, and was always pointing out to me the +difference between the French print and the German, saying that these +grotesque Gothic letters with their little tails were bad for the eyes. +Afterwards he subscribed to the _Journal de Francfort_, but in the end +he confined himself to the journals of his own country. + +When he had finished reading he would observe that Karl Ivanovitch +Sonnenberg was in the room. When Nick was fifteen Karl Ivanovitch had +set up a shop, but having neither goods nor customers, after wasting on +this profitable undertaking the money he had somehow scraped up, he +retired from it with the honourable title of ‘merchant of Reval.’ He was +by then over forty, and at that agreeable age he led the life of a bird +of the air or a boy of fourteen, that is, did not know where he would +sleep next day nor on what he would dine. He took advantage of my +father’s being somewhat well-disposed towards him; we shall see at once +what that meant. + +In 1830 my father bought near our house another, bigger, better, and +with a garden. The house had belonged to the Countess Rastoptchin, wife +of the celebrated governor of Moscow. We moved into it; after that he +bought a third house which was quite unnecessary, but was next it. Both +these houses stood empty; they were not let for fear of fire (the houses +were insured) and disturbance from tenants. Moreover they were not kept +in repair, so they were on the sure road to ruin. In one of them the +homeless Karl Ivanovitch was permitted to live on condition that he did +not open the gates after ten o’clock (not a difficult condition, since +the gates were never closed), and that he bought firewood and did not +get it from our household supplies (as a matter of fact he bought it +from our coachman), and that he waited upon my father in the capacity of +a clerk of special commissions, _i.e._ came in the morning to inquire +whether there were any orders, turned up at dinner and, if there were no +one else dining with him, spent the evening entertaining him with news +and conversation. + +Simple as Karl Ivanovitch’s duties might appear to be, my father knew +how to inject so much bitterness into them that my poor merchant of +Reval, accustomed to all the calamities which can fall upon the head of +a man with no money, with no brains, of small stature, pock-marked face +and German nationality, could not always endure it. At intervals of two +years or a year and a half, Karl Ivanovitch, deeply offended, would +declare that ‘this is utterly unbearable,’ would pack up, buy or +exchange various articles of suspicious value and dubious quality, and +set off for the Caucasus. Ill-luck usually pursued him with ferocity. On +one occasion his wretched nag—he was driving with his own horse in +Tiflis and in the Redoubt Kali—fell down not far from the region of the +Don Cossacks; on another, half his luggage was stolen from him; on +another, his two-wheeled gig upset and his French perfumes were spilt +over the broken wheel, unappreciated by any one, at the foot of Elborus; +then he would lose something, and when he had nothing left to lose he +lost his passport. Ten months later Karl Ivanovitch, a little older, a +little more battered, a little poorer, with still fewer teeth and less +hair, would as a rule meekly present himself before my father with a +store of Persian insect powder, of faded silks and rusty Circassian +daggers, and would settle in the empty house again on the condition of +fulfilling the same duties and heating his stove with his own firewood. + +Observing Karl Ivanovitch, my father would at once begin a small attack +upon him. Karl Ivanovitch would inquire after his health, the old man +would thank him with a bow and then after a moment’s thought would +inquire, for instance: ‘Where do you buy your pomade?’ I must here +mention that Karl Ivanovitch, the ugliest of mortals, was a terrible +flirt, considered himself a Lovelace, dressed with an effort at +smartness and wore a curled golden wig. All this, of course, had long +ago been weighed and taken account of by my father. ‘At Bouïs’s on +Kuznitsky Bridge,’ Karl Ivanovitch would answer abruptly, somewhat +piqued, and he would cross one leg over the other like a man ready to +defend himself. + +‘What’s the scent called?’ + +‘Nacht-Violette,’ answered Karl Ivanovitch. + +‘He cheats you, violet is a delicate scent.’ Then in French, ‘_C’est un +parfum_, but that’s something strong, disgusting, they embalm bodies +with something of that sort! My nerves have grown so weak it makes me +positively sick; tell them to give me the eau-de-Cologne.’ + +Karl Ivanovitch would himself dash for the flask. + +‘Oh no, you must call some one else or you will come still closer; I +shall be ill, I shall faint.’ + +Karl Ivanovitch, who was reckoning on the effect of his pomade in the +maids’ room, would be deeply offended. + +After sprinkling the room with eau-de-Cologne my father would invent +commissions; to buy some French snuff and some English magnesia, and to +look at a carriage advertised for sale in the papers (he would never buy +it). Karl Ivanovitch, bowing himself out agreeably and inwardly relieved +to get off, would go away till dinner. + +After Karl Ivanovitch, the cook made his appearance; whatever he bought +or whatever he ordered, my father thought it extremely expensive. + +‘Ough, ough, how expensive! Why, is it because no supplies have come +in?’ + +‘Just so, sir,’ answered the cook, ‘the roads are so bad.’ + +‘Oh very well, till they are in better condition we will buy less.’ + +After this he would sit down to his writing-table and write reports and +orders to the villages, make up his accounts, between whiles scolding +me, receiving the doctors and above all quarrelling with his valet. The +latter was the greatest victim in the whole house. A little, sanguine +man, hasty and hot-tempered, he seemed as though created expressly to +irritate my father and provoke his reprimands. The scenes that were +repeated between them every day might have filled a farce, but it was +all perfectly serious. My father knew very well that the man was +necessary to him and often put up with rude answers from him, but never +ceased trying to train him, in spite of his efforts having been +unsuccessful for thirty-five years. The valet on his side would not have +put up with such a life if he had not had his own recreations; he was as +a rule rather tipsy by dinner-time. My father noticed this, but confined +himself to roundabout allusions to it, advising him, for instance, to +munch a little black bread and salt that he might not smell of vodka. +Nikita Andreyevitch had the habit when he was a little drunk of scraping +with his feet in a peculiar way when he handed the dishes. As soon as my +father noticed this, he would invent some commission for him, would send +him, for instance, to ask the barber Anton if he had changed his +address, adding to me in French, ‘I know that he has not moved, but the +fellow is not sober, he will drop the soup-tureen end smash it, spill +the soup on the cloth and frighten me. Let him go out for an airing. _Le +grand air_ will do him good.’ + +Usually on such occasions the valet made some answer; but if he could +find nothing to say he would go out, muttering between his teeth. Then +his master would call him and in the same calm voice ask him ‘what did +he say?’ + +‘I didn’t address a word to you.’ + +‘To whom were you speaking, then? There is no one but you and me in this +room or the next.’ + +‘To myself.’ + +‘That’s very dangerous, that’s the way madness begins.’ + +The valet would depart in a rage and go to his room; there he used to +read the _Moscow News_ and plait hair for wigs for sale. Probably to +relieve his anger he would take snuff furiously; whether his snuff was +particularly strong or the nerves of his nose were weak I cannot say, +but this was almost always followed by his sneezing violently five or +six times. + +The master rang the bell, the valet flung down his handful of hair and +went in. + +‘Was that you sneezing?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘I wanted to bless you.’ And he would make a motion with his hand for +the valet to withdraw. + +On the last day of carnival, all the servants would, according to +custom, come in the evening to beg the master’s forgiveness: on these +solemn occasions my father used to go out into the great drawing-room, +accompanied by his valet. Then he would pretend not to recognise some of +them. + +‘Who is that venerable old man standing there in the corner?’ he would +ask the valet. + +‘The coachman Danilo,’ the valet would answer abruptly, knowing that all +this was only a dramatic performance. + +‘Good gracious! how he has changed. I really believe that it is entirely +from drink that men get old so quickly; what does he do?’ + +‘He hauls the firewood in for the stoves.’ + +The old man assumed an expression of insufferable pain. + +‘How is it you have not learned to talk in thirty years?... Hauls—how +can he haul the firewood in?—firewood is carried in, not hauled in. +Well, Danilo, thank God, the Lord has been pleased to let me see you +once more. I forgive you all your sins for this year, all the oats which +you waste so immoderately, and for not brushing the horses, and do you +forgive me. Go on hauling in firewood while you have the strength, but +now Lent is coming, so take less drink, it is bad for us at our age, and +besides it is a sin.’ He conducted the whole inspection in this style. + +We used to dine between three and four o’clock. The dinner lasted a long +time and was very boring. Spiridon was an excellent cook, but my +father’s economy on the one hand, and his own on the other, rendered the +dinner somewhat meagre, in spite of the fact that there were a great +many dishes. Beside my father stood a red clay bowl into which he +himself put all sorts of pieces for the dogs; moreover, he used to feed +them with his own fork, which was deeply resented by the servants and +consequently by me. Why, it is hard to say.... + +Visitors rarely called upon us and more rarely dined. I remember out of +all those who visited us one man whose arrival to dinner would sometimes +smooth the wrinkles out of my father’s face, N. N. Bahmetyev. He was the +brother of the lame general of that name and was himself a general also, +though long on the retired list. My father and he had been friends as +long ago as the time when both had been officers in the Izmailovsky +regiment. They had both been gay young rakes in the days of Catherine, +and in the reign of Paul had both been court-martialled, Bahmetyev for +having fought a duel with some one and my father for having been his +second; then one of them had gone away to foreign lands as a tourist, +while the other went to Ufa as Governor. There was no likeness between +them. Bahmetyev, a stout, healthy and handsome old man, was fond of +having a good dinner and getting a little drunk after it; was fond of +lively conversation and many other things. He used to boast that in his +day he had eaten as many as a hundred hearth-cakes, and he could when +about sixty devour up to a dozen buckwheat pancakes drowned in a pool of +butter with complete impunity. I have been a witness of these +achievements more than once. + +Bahmetyev had some shadowy influence over my father, or at any rate did +keep him in check. When Bahmetyev noticed that my father’s ill-humour +was beyond bounds, he would put on his hat and say with a military +scrape: ‘Good-bye—you are ill and stupid to-day; I meant to stay to +dinner but I cannot endure sour faces at table! _Gehorsamer +diener!_’ ... and my father by way of explanation would say to me: ‘What +a lively impresario. N. N. still is! Thank God, he’s a healthy man and +cannot understand a suffering Job like me; there are twenty degrees of +frost, but he dashes here all the way from Pokrovka in his sledge as +though it were nothing ... while I thank the Creator every morning that +I wake up alive, that I am still breathing. Oh ... oh ... ough ...! it’s +a true proverb; the well-fed don’t understand the hungry!’ This was the +utmost condescension that could be expected from him. + +From time to time there were family dinners at which the Senator, the +Golohvastovs and others were present, and these dinners were not +casually given, nor for the sake of any pleasure to be derived from +them, but were due to profound considerations of economy and diplomacy. +Thus on the 20th February, the Senator’s name-day, we gave a dinner in +his honour, while on the 24th June, my father’s name-day, a dinner was +given at the Senator’s, an arrangement which, besides setting a moral +example of brotherly love, saved each of them from giving a much bigger +dinner at home. + +Then there were various _habitués_; Sonnenberg would appear _ex +officio_, and having just before dinner swallowed a glass of vodka and a +Reval sardine at home he would refuse a minute glass of some specially +flavoured vodka; sometimes my last French tutor, a miserly old fellow +with an insolent face, fond of talking scandal, would come. Monsieur +Thirié so often made mistakes, pouring wine into his tumbler instead of +beer and drinking it off apologetically, that at last my father said to +him, ‘The _vin de Graves_ stands on your right side, so you won’t make a +mistake again,’ and Thirié, stuffing a huge pinch of snuff into his +broad nose that turned up on one side, scattered the snuff on his plate. + +Among these visitors one was an extremely funny individual. A little +bald old man, invariably dressed in a short and narrow swallow-tail +coat, and in a waistcoat that ended precisely where the waistcoat now +begins, and carrying a thin little cane, he was in his whole figure the +embodiment of a period twenty years earlier, in 1830 of 1810 and in 1840 +of 1820. Dmitri Ivanovitch Pimenov, a civil councillor by grade, was one +of the superintendents of the Sheremetyevsky Almshouse, and was, +moreover, a literary man. Scantily endowed by nature and brought up on +the sentimentalism of Karamzin, on Marmontel[63] and Marivaux,[64] +Pimenov might be said to take a position midway between Shalikov and V. +Panaev.[65] The Voltaire of this honourable phalanx was the head of the +secret police under Alexander, Yakov Ivanovitch de Sanglain; its +promising young man, Pimen Arapov.[66] They were all in close relation +with the universal patriarch Ivan Ivanovitch Dmitriev;[67] he had no +rivals, but there was Vassily Lvovitch Pushkin.[68] Pimenov went every +Thursday to the ancient Dmitriev to discuss beauties of style and the +deterioration of the language of to-day in his house in Sadovy Street. +Pimenov himself had tried the slippery career of Russian literature; at +first he had edited the _Thoughts of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld_, then +he wrote a treatise on feminine beauty and charm. Of this treatise, +which I have not taken in my hand since I was sixteen, I remember only +long comparisons in the style in which Plutarch compares his heroes; of +the fair with the dark, ‘though a fair woman is this and that and the +other, on the other hand a dark woman is this and that and the +other....’ Pimenov’s chief peculiarity lay not in his having edited +books which no one ever read, but in the fact that if he began laughing +he could not stop, and his mirth would grow into a regular fit of +hysterics with sudden outbursts and hollow peals of laughter. He knew +this, and so, when he saw something laughable coming, began to take +measures; brought out a pocket-handkerchief, looked at his watch, +buttoned up his coat, hid his face in his hands, and when the crisis +came, stood up, turned to the wall, leaned against it and writhed in +agony for half an hour or more, then, crimson and exhausted by the +paroxysm, he would sit down mopping the perspiration from his bald head, +though the fit would seize him again long afterwards. Of course my +father had not the faintest respect for him: he was gentle, kind, +awkward, a literary man and poor, and therefore not worth considering on +any ground: but he was fully aware of his convulsive risibility. On the +strength of it he would make him laugh until every one else in the room +was, under his influence, also moved to a sort of unnatural laughter. +The instigator of our mirth would look at us, smiling innocently, as a +man looks at a crowd of noisy puppies. + +Sometimes my father played dreadful tricks on the unfortunate amateur of +feminine charm and beauty. ‘Colonel So-and-so,’ the servant would +announce. + +‘Ask him in,’ my father would say, and turning to Pimenov he would add: +‘Please be on your guard when he is here, Dmitri Ivanovitch; he has an +unfortunate tic and when he talks he makes a strange sound as though he +had a chronic hiccup.’ Thereupon he would give a perfect imitation of +the Colonel. ‘I know you are ready to laugh, please restrain yourself.’ + +This was enough. At the second word the Colonel uttered, Pimenov would +take out his handkerchief, make a parasol of his hands, and at last jump +up. + +The Colonel would look at him in amazement, while my father would say to +me with great composure: ‘What is the matter with Dmitri Ivanovitch? _Il +est malade_, he has spasms; tell them to make haste and get him a glass +of cold water and give him eau-de-Cologne.’ On such occasions Pimenov +would snatch up his hat and go, laughing, until he had reached the +Arbatsky Gates, halting at the cross-roads and leaning against +lamp-posts. + +For several years he came regularly every alternate Sunday to dine with +us, and his punctuality in coming and his unpunctuality if he missed a +Sunday angered my father equally and impelled him to worry Pimenov. Yet +the good-natured man went on coming, and coming on foot from the Red +Gate to old Konyushenny Street till he died, and not at all funnily. +After ailing for a long time, the solitary old bachelor, as he lay +dying, saw his housekeeper carry off all his things, his clothes, even +the linen from his bed, leaving him entirely uncared for. + +But the real _souffre-douleur_ at dinner were various old women, the +poor and casual dependents of Princess Hovansky, my father’s sister. For +the sake of a change, and also partly to find out how everything was +going on in our house, whether there were quarrels in the family, +whether the cook had had a fight with his wife, and whether the master +had found out that Palashka or Ulyasha were about to bring an addition +to the household, they would sometimes come on holidays to spend a whole +day. It must be noted that these widows had forty or fifty years ago, +before they were married, been attached to the household of my father’s +aunt, old Princess Meshtchersky, and afterwards to that of her niece, +and had known my father since those days; that in this interval between +their dependence in their youth and their return in old age, they had +spent some twenty years quarrelling with their husbands, keeping them +from drink, looking after them when they were paralysed, and escorting +them to the cemetery. Some had been trailing from one place to another +in Bessarabia with a garrison officer and a crowd of children, others +had spent years with a criminal charge hanging over their husbands, and +all these experiences of life had left upon them the traces of +government offices and provincial towns; a dread of the powerful of this +earth, a cringing spirit and a sort of dull-witted bigotry. + +Amazing scenes took place with them. + +‘Why is this, Anna Yakimovna; are you ill that you don’t eat anything?’ +my father would ask. Huddling herself together the widow of some +overseer in Kremenchug, a wretched old woman with a worn and faded face, +who always smelt strongly of some plaster, would answer with cringing +eyes and deprecating fingers: ‘Forgive me, Ivan Alexeyevitch, sir, I am +really ashamed, but there, it is my old-fashioned ways, sir. Ha, ha, ha, +it’s the Fast of the Assumption now.’ + +‘Oh, how tiresome! You are always so devout! It’s not what goes into the +mouth, my good woman, that defiles, but what comes out of it; whether +you eat one thing or another, it all goes the same way; now what comes +out of the mouth, you must watch over ... your judgments of your +neighbours. Come, you had better dine at home on such days, or we shall +have a Turk coming next asking for pilau; I don’t keep a restaurant _à +la carte_.’ + +The frightened old woman, who had intended to ask for some dish made of +flour or cereals, would fall upon the kvass and salad, making a great +show of eating a great deal. + +But it is noteworthy that she, or any of the others, had only to eat +meat during a fast for my father, though he never touched Lenten dishes +himself, to say, shaking his head mournfully: ‘I should not have thought +it was right for you, Anna Yakimovna, to forsake the habits of your +forefathers for the last few years of your life. I sin and eat meat, +owing to my many infirmities; but you, thank God, have kept the fasts +all your life and suddenly at your age ... what an example for _them_,’ +and he motioned towards the servants. And the poor old woman had to +attack the kvass and the salad again. + +These scenes made me very indignant; sometimes I was so bold as to +intervene and remind him of the contrary opinion he had expressed. Then +my father would rise from his seat, take off his velvet cap by the +tassel, and, holding it in the air, thank me for the lesson and beg +pardon for his forgetfulness, and then would say to the old lady: ‘It’s +a terrible age! It’s no wonder you eat meat in the fast, since children +teach their parents! What are we coming to? It’s dreadful to think of +it! Luckily you and I won’t live to see it.’ + +After dinner my father lay down to rest for an hour and a half. The +servants at once dispersed to beer-shops and eating-houses. At seven +o’clock tea was served; then sometimes some one would come in, the +Senator more often than any one; it was a time of leisure for all of us. +The Senator usually brought various items of news and told them eagerly. +My father affected complete inattention as he listened to him: he +assumed a serious face, when his brother had expected him to be dying of +laughter, and would cross-question him as though he had not heard the +point, when the Senator had been describing something striking. + +The Senator came in for it in a very different way when he contradicted +or was not of the same opinion as his younger brother (which rarely +happened, however), and sometimes, indeed, when he did not contradict, +if my father was particularly ill-humoured. In these tragi-comic scenes, +what was funniest was the Senator’s genuine heat and my father’s +affected artificial coolness. + +‘Well, you are ill to-day,’ the Senator would say impatiently, and he +would snatch his hat and rush off. Once in his vexation he could not +open the door and kicked it with all his might, saying ‘the confounded +door!’ + +My father went up, coolly opened the door inwards, and in a perfectly +composed voice observed: ‘The door does its duty, it opens inwards, and +you try to open it outwards, and are cross with it.’ It may not be out +of place to mention that the Senator was two years older than my father +and addressed him in the second person singular, while the latter as the +younger brother used the plural form, ‘you.’ + +After the Senator had gone, my father would retire to his bedroom, would +every day inquire whether the gates were closed, would receive an answer +in the affirmative, would express doubts on the subject but do nothing +to make certain. Then began a lengthy routine of washings, fomentations, +and medicines; his valet made ready on a little table by the bed a +perfect arsenal of different objects—medicine-bottles, night-lights, +pill-boxes. The old man as a rule read for an hour Bourienne’s _Mémorial +de Sainte Helène_ and other memoirs; then came the night. + +Such was our household when I left it in 1834, so I found it in 1840, +and so it continued until his death in 1846. + +At thirty when I returned from exile I realised that my father had been +right in many things, that he had unhappily a distressingly good +understanding of men. But it was not my fault that he preached even what +was true in a way so revolting to a youthful heart. His mind chilled by +a long life in a circle of depraved men put him on his guard against +every one, and his callous heart did not crave for reconciliation, and +so he remained in a hostile attitude to every one on earth. + +I found him in 1839, and still more markedly in 1842, weak and really +ill. The Senator was dead, the desolation about him was greater than +ever and he even had a different valet; but he himself was just the +same, only his physical powers were changed, there was the same spiteful +intelligence, the same tenacious memory, he still worried every one over +trifles, and Sonnenberg, still unchanged, camped out in the old house as +before and carried out commissions. + +Only then I appreciated all the desolateness of his life; I looked with +an aching heart at the mournful significance of this lonely abandoned +existence, dying out in the arid, barren, stony wilderness which he had +created about himself, but which it was not in his power to change; he +knew that, he saw death approaching, and, overcoming weakness and +infirmity, he jealously and obstinately controlled himself. I was +dreadfully sorry for the old man, but I could do nothing, he was +unapproachable. + +... Sometimes I passed softly by his study where, sitting in a rough, +uncomfortable, deep armchair, surrounded by his dogs, he would all alone +play with my three-year-old boy. It seemed as though the clenched hands +and stiffened nerves of the old man relaxed at the sight of the child, +and he found rest from the incessant agitation, conflict, and vexation +in which he had kept himself, as his dying hand touched the cradle. + + + + + Chapter 6 + THE KREMLIN DEPARTMENT—MOSCOW UNIVERSITY—OUR SET—THE CHEMIST—THE MALOV + AFFAIR—THE CHOLERA—FILARET—V. PASSEK—GENERAL LISSOVSKY—THE SUNGUROV + AFFAIR + + ‘_Oh, years of boundless ecstasies, + Of visions bright and free! + Where now your mirth untouched by spite, + Your hopeful toil and noisy glee?_’ + OGARYOV: Humorous Verse. + + +In spite of the lame general’s sinister predictions my father put my +name down with N. B. Yussupov for a berth in the Kremlin department. I +signed a paper and there the matter ended; I heard nothing more of the +service, except that three years later Yussupov sent the Palace +architect, who always shouted as though he were standing on the +scaffolding of the fifth storey and there giving orders to workmen in +the basement, to announce that I had received the first grade in the +service. These amazing incidents were, I may remark in passing, useless, +for I rose above the grades received in the service by taking my +degree—it was not worth while taking so much trouble for the sake of two +or three years’ seniority. And meanwhile this supposed post in the +service almost prevented me from entering the university. The Council, +seeing that I was reckoned as in the office of the Kremlin department, +refused me the right to go in for the examination. + +For those in the government service, there were special after-dinner +courses of study, extremely limited in scope and only qualifying for +entrance into the so-called ‘committee examinations.’ All the wealthy +idlers, the young snobs who had learnt nothing, all those who did not +want to serve in the army and were in a hurry to get the grade of +assessor went in for the ‘committee examinations’; they were gold mines +for the old professors, who coached them privately for twenty roubles +the lesson. + +To begin my life in these Caudine Forks of learning was far from suiting +my ideas. I told my father resolutely that if he could not find some way +out of it, I should resign my post in the service. + +My father was angry, said that with my caprices I was preventing him +from making a career for me, and abused the teachers who had put this +nonsense into my head, but, seeing that all this had very little effect +upon me, he made up his mind to go to Yussupov. + +The latter settled the matter in a trice, after the fashion of a great +nobleman and a Tatar. He called his secretary and told him to write me a +leave of absence for three years. The secretary hesitated and hesitated, +and at last, half in terror, submitted that leave of absence for longer +than four months could not be given without the sanction of the Most +High. + +‘What nonsense, my man,’ the prince said to him. ‘Where is the +difficulty? Well, if leave of absence is impossible, write that I +commission him to attend the university courses for three years to +perfect himself in the sciences.’ + +His secretary wrote this and next day I was sitting in the amphitheatre +of the Physico-Mathematical auditorium. + +The University of Moscow and the Lyceum of Tsarskoe Syelo play a +significant part in the history of Russian education and in the life of +the last two generations. + +The Moscow University grew in importance together with the city itself +after 1812. Degraded by Peter the Great from being the royal capital, +Moscow was promoted by Napoleon (partly intentionally, but still more +unintentionally) to being the capital of the Russian people. The people +realised their ties of blood with Moscow from the pain felt at the news +of its being taken by the enemy. From that time a new epoch began for +the city. Its university became more and more the centre of Russian +culture. All the conditions necessary for its development were +combined—historical significance, geographical position, and the absence +of the Tsar. + +The intensified mental activity of Petersburg after the death of Paul +came to a gloomy close on the Fourteenth of December. Nicholas appeared +with five gibbets, with penal servitude, with the white strap and the +light-blue uniform of Benckendorf.[69] + +The tide turned, the blood rushed to the heart, the activity that was +outwardly concealed was surging inwardly. Moscow University remained +firm and was the foremost to stand out in sharp relief against the +general darkness. The Tsar began to hate it from the time of the +Polezhaev affair.[70] He sent A. Pissarev, the major-general of the +‘Kaluga Evenings,’ as director, commanded the students to be dressed in +uniform, commanded them to wear a sword, then forbade them to wear a +sword, condemned Polezhaev to be a common soldier for his verses and +punished Kostenetsky and his comrades for their prose, destroyed the +Kritskys[71] for a bust, sentenced us to exile for Saint-Simonism, then +made Prince Sergey Mihailovitch Golitsyn director, and then took no +further notice of that ‘hot-bed of vice,’ piously advising young men who +had finished their studies at the Lyceum or at the School of +Jurisprudence not to enter it. + +Golitsyn was a surprising person, it was long before he could accustom +himself to the irregularity of there being no lecture when a professor +was ill; he thought the next on the list ought to take his place, so +that it sometimes happened to Father Ternovsky to lecture in the clinic +on women’s diseases and the gynæcologist Richter to discourse on the +Immaculate Conception. + +But in spite of that the university that had fallen into disgrace grew +in influence; the youthful strength of Russia streamed to it from all +sides, from all classes of society, as into a common reservoir; in its +halls they were purified from the superstitions they had picked up at +the domestic hearth, reached a common level, became like brothers and +dispersed again to all parts of Russia and among all classes of its +people. + +Until 1848 the organisation of our universities was purely democratic. +Its doors were open to every one who could pass the examination, who was +neither a serf, a peasant, nor a man excluded from his commune. Nicholas +spoilt all this; he put restrictions on the admission of students, +increased the fees of those who paid their own expenses, and permitted +none to be relieved of payment but poor _noblemen_. All these belonged +to the series of senseless measures which will disappear with the last +breath of that drag on the Russian wheel, together with passports, +religious intolerance and so on.[72] + +The young men of all sorts and conditions coming from above and from +below, from the south and from the north, were quickly fused into a +compact mass of comrades. Social distinctions had not among us the +distressing influence which we find in English schools and barracks; I +am not speaking of the English universities. They exist exclusively for +the aristocracy and for the rich. A student who thought fit to boast +among us of his blue blood or his wealth would have been sent to +Coventry and made the butt of his comrades. + +The external distinctions—and they did not go very deep—that divided the +students arose from other causes. Thus, for instance, the medical +section which was on the other side of the garden was not so closely +united with us as the other faculties; moreover, the majority of the +medical students consisted of seminarists and Germans. The Germans kept +a little apart and were deeply imbued with the Western bourgeois spirit. +All the education of the luckless seminarists, all their ideas were +utterly different from ours, we spoke different languages; brought up +under the yoke of monastic despotism, weighed down by rhetoric and +theology, they envied us our ease and freedom; we were vexed at their +Christian meekness.[73] + +I entered in the section of physics and mathematics in spite of the fact +that I had never had a marked ability, nor much liking for mathematics. +Nick and I had been taught mathematics together by a teacher whom we +loved for his anecdotes and stories; interesting as he was, he could +hardly have developed a passion for his subject. His knowledge of +mathematics extended only to conic sections, _i.e._ exactly as far as +was necessary for preparing High School boys for the university; a real +philosopher, he never had the curiosity to glance at the ‘university +grades’ of mathematics. + +What was particularly remarkable was that he had never read more than +one book on the subject, and that book, Francoeur’s Course, he studied +over and over again for ten years; but being continent by temperament +and disliking superfluous luxury, he never went beyond a certain page. + +I chose the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics because the natural +sciences were taught in that Faculty, and just at that time I developed +a great passion for natural science. + +A rather strange meeting had led me to those studies. + +After the famous division of the family property in 1822, which I have +described, my father’s ‘elder brother’ went to live in Petersburg. For a +long time nothing was heard of him, then suddenly a rumour came that he +was getting married. He was at that time over sixty, and every one knew +that he had a grown-up son besides other children. He married the mother +of his eldest son; the bride, too, was over fifty. With this marriage he +legitimised his son. Why not all the children? It would be hard to say +why, if we had not known the chief object of it all; his one desire was +to deprive his brothers of the inheritance, and this he completely +attained by legitimising the son. + +In the famous inundation of Petersburg in 1824 the old man was drenched +with water in his carriage. He caught cold, took to his bed, and in the +beginning of 1825 he died. + +Of the son there were strange rumours. It was said that he was +unsociable, refused to make acquaintances, sat alone for ever absorbed +in chemistry, spent his life at his microscope, read even at dinner and +hated feminine society. Of him it is said in _Woe from Wit_,[74] + + ‘He is a chemist, he is a botanist, + Our nephew, Prince Fyodor, + He flies from women and even from me.’ + +His uncles, who transferred to him the grudge they had against his +father, never spoke of him except as ‘the Chemist,’ using this word as a +term of disparagement, and assuming that chemistry was a subject that +could not be studied by a gentleman. + +His father used to oppress him dreadfully, not merely insulting him with +the spectacle of grey-headed cynical vice, but actually being jealous of +him as a possible rival in his seraglio. The Chemist on one occasion +tried to escape from this ignoble existence by taking laudanum. The +comrade with whom he used to work at chemistry by chance saved him. His +father was thoroughly frightened, and before his death had begun to +treat his son better. + +After his father’s death the Chemist released the luckless odalisques, +halved the heavy _obrok_ laid by his father on the peasants, forgave all +arrears and presented them gratis with the army receipt for the full +quota of recruits, which the old man used to sell them after sending his +serfs as soldiers. + +A year and a half later he came to Moscow. I longed to see him, for I +liked him both for the way he treated his peasants and on account of the +undeserved dislike his uncles felt for him. + +One morning a small man in gold spectacles, with a big nose, with hair +somewhat thin on the top, and with hands burnt by chemical reagents, +called upon my father. My father met him coldly, sarcastically; his +nephew responded in the same coin and gave him quite as good as he got: +after taking each other’s measure, they began speaking of extraneous +matters with external indifference, and parted politely but with +concealed dislike. My father saw that he was an opponent who would not +give in to him. + +They did not become more intimate later. The Chemist very rarely visited +his uncles; the last time he saw my father was after the Senator’s +death, when he came to ask him for a loan of thirty thousand roubles for +the purchase of land. My father would not lend it. The Chemist was moved +to anger and, rubbing his nose, observed with a smile, ‘There is no risk +whatever in it; my estate is entailed; I am borrowing money for its +improvement. I have no children and we are each other’s heirs.’ The old +man of seventy-five never forgave his nephew for this sally. + +I took to visiting the Chemist from time to time. He lived in an +extremely original way. In his big house on the Tverskoy Boulevard he +used one tiny room for himself and one as a laboratory. His old mother +occupied another little room on the other side of the corridor, the rest +of the house was abandoned and remained exactly as it had been when his +father left it to go to Petersburg. The blackened candelabra, the +wonderful furniture among which were rarities of all sorts, a +grandfather clock said to have been bought by Peter the Great in +Amsterdam, an armchair said to have come from the house of Stanislav +Leszcynski,[75] frames without pictures in them, pictures turned to the +wall, were all left anyhow, filling up three big, unheated and unlighted +drawing-rooms. Servants were usually playing some musical instrument and +smoking in the hall, where in old days they had scarcely dared to +breathe nor say their prayers. A man-servant would light a candle and +escort one through this museum of antiquities, observing every time that +there was no need to take my cloak off as it was very cold in the +drawing-rooms. Thick layers of dust covered the horns and various +curios, the reflections of which moved together with the candle in the +elaborately carved mirrors, straw left from the packing lay undisturbed +here and there together with scraps of paper and bits of string. + +At last we reached the door hung with a rug which led to the terribly +overheated study. In it the Chemist, in a soiled dressing-gown lined +with squirrel fur, was invariably sitting, surrounded by books, phials, +retorts, crucibles, and other apparatus. In that study where Chevalier’s +microscope now reigned supreme and there was always a smell of chlorine, +and where a few years before terrible infamous deeds were perpetrated—in +that study I was born. My father on his return from foreign parts before +his quarrel with his brother stayed for some months in his house, and in +the same house, too, my wife was born in 1817. The Chemist sold the +house two years later, and it chanced that I was in the house again at +evening parties, at Sverbeyev’s, arguing there about Pan-Slavism and +getting angry with Homyakov, who never lost his temper about anything. +The rooms had been done up, but the front entrance, the vestibule, the +stairs, the hall were all untouched, and so was the little study. + +The Chemist’s housekeeping was even less complicated, especially when +his mother had gone away for the summer to their estate near Moscow and +with her the cook. His valet used to appear at four o’clock with a +coffee-pot, pour into it a little strong broth and, taking advantage of +the chemical furnace, would set it there to warm, together with various +poisons. Then he would bring bread and half a woodcock from the +restaurant, and that made up the whole dinner. When it was over the +valet would wash the coffee-pot and it would return to its natural +duties. In the evening, the valet would appear again, take from the sofa +a heap of books, and a tiger-skin that had come down to the Chemist from +his father, bring sheets, pillows and bedclothes, and the study was as +easily transformed into a bedroom as it had been into a kitchen and a +dining-room. + +From the very beginning of our acquaintance the Chemist saw that I was +interested in earnest, and began to persuade me to give up the ‘empty’ +study of literature and the ‘dangerous and quite useless pursuit of +politics,’ and take to natural science. He gave me Cuvier’s speech on +_Geological Cataclysms_ and De Candolle’s _Plant Morphology_. Seeing +that these were not thrown away upon me he offered me the use of his +excellent collection, apparatus, herbariums, and even his guidance. He +was very interesting on his own ground, extremely learned, witty and +even polite; but one could not go beyond the monkeys with him; from +stones to ourangoutangs, everything interested him, but he did not care +to be drawn beyond them, particularly into philosophy, which he regarded +as twaddle. He was neither a conservative nor a reactionary, he simply +did not believe in people, that is, believed that egoism is the sole +source of all action, and thought that it was restrained merely by the +senselessness of some and the ignorance of others. + +I was revolted by his materialism. The superficial, timid, +half-Voltairianism of our fathers was not in the least like the +Chemist’s materialism. His outlook was calm, consistent, complete. He +reminded me of the celebrated answer made by Lalande[76] to Napoleon: +‘Kant accepts the hypothesis of God,’ Bonaparte said to him. ‘Sire,’ +replied the astronomer, ‘in my studies I have never had occasion to make +use of that hypothesis.’ + +The Chemist’s atheism went far beyond the sphere of theology. He +considered Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire[77] a mystic and Oken[78] simply a +degenerate. He closed the works of the natural philosophers with the +same contempt with which my father had closed Karamzin’s _History_. +‘They have invented first causes, spiritual powers, and then are +surprised that they can neither find them nor understand them,’ he said. +This was a second edition of my father, in a different age and +differently educated. + +His views on all the problems of life were still more comfortless. He +thought that there was as little responsibility for good and evil in man +as in the beasts; that it was all a matter of organisation, +circumstances, and the general condition of the nervous system, of which +he said _more was expected than it was capable of giving_. He did not +like family life, spoke with horror of marriage, and naïvely +acknowledged that in the thirty years of his life he had never loved one +woman. However, one warm spot in this frozen man still remained; it +could be seen in his attitude to his old mother; they had suffered a +great deal together at the hands of his father, and their troubles had +united them; he touchingly surrounded her solitary and infirm old age +with tranquillity and attention, as far as he knew how. + +He never advocated his theories, except those that concerned chemistry; +they came out casually or were called for by me. He even showed +reluctance in answering my romantic and philosophic objections; his +answers were brief, and he made them with a smile and with that delicacy +with which a big old mastiff plays with a puppy, allowing him to tease +and only pushing him off with a light pat of his paw. But it was just +that which provoked me most and I would return to the charge without +weariness, never gaining an inch of ground, however. Later on, namely +twelve years afterwards, just as I recalled my father’s observations I +frequently recalled the Chemist’s. Of course, he had been right in +three-quarters of everything against which I argued, but of course I was +right too. There are truths (we have spoken of this already) which like +political rights are not given to those under a certain age. + +The Chemist’s influence made me choose the Faculty of Physics and +Mathematics; perhaps I should have done better to enter in the Medical +Faculty, but there was no great harm in my first acquiring some degree +of knowledge of the differential and integral calculus and then +completely forgetting it. + +Without the natural sciences there is no salvation for the modern man. +Without that wholesome food, without that strict training of the mind by +facts, without that closeness to the life surrounding us, without +humility before its independence, the monastic cell remains hidden in +the soul, and in it the drop of mysticism which may flood the whole +understanding with its dark waters. + +Before I completed my studies the Chemist had gone away to Petersburg, +and I did not see him again until I came back from Vyatka. Some months +after my marriage I went half secretly for a few days to the estate near +Moscow where my father was then living. The object of my going was to +effect a complete reconciliation with him, for he was still angry with +me for my marriage. + +On the way I halted at Perhushkovo where we had so many times broken our +journey in old days. The Chemist was expecting me there and had actually +got a dinner and two bottles of champagne ready for me. In those four or +five years he had not changed at all except for being a little older. +Before dinner he asked me quite seriously: ‘Tell me, please, openly, how +do you find married life, is there anything good in it, or not much?’ I +laughed. ‘What boldness it is on your part,’ he went on. ‘I wonder at +you; in a normal condition a man can never venture on such a terrible +step. Two or three very good matches have been proposed to me, but when +I imagine a woman taking up her abode in my room, setting everything in +order according to her ideas, perhaps forbidding me to smoke my tobacco, +making a fuss and an upset, I am so panic-stricken that I prefer to die +in solitude.’ + +‘Shall I stay the night with you or go on to Perhushkovo?’ I asked him +after dinner. + +‘I have plenty of room here,’ he answered, ‘but for you I think it would +be better to go on, you will reach your father at ten o’clock. You know, +of course, that he is still angry with you; well—in the evening before +going to bed old people’s nerves are usually exhausted and feeble—he +will probably receive you much better this evening than to-morrow; in +the morning you will find him quite ready for battle.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha! I recognise my teacher in physiology and materialism,’ said +I, laughing heartily, ‘how your remark recalls those blissful days when +I used to go to you like Goethe’s _Wagner_ to weary you with my idealism +and listen with some indignation to your chilling opinions.’ + +‘Since then,’ he answered, laughing too, ‘you have lived enough to know +that all men’s doings depend simply on their nerves and their chemical +composition.’ + +Later on we had some sort of disagreement, probably we were both to +blame.... Nevertheless in 1846 he wrote me a letter. I was then +beginning to be the fashion after the publication of the first part of +_Who is to Blame?_ The Chemist wrote to me that he saw with grief that I +was wasting my talent on ‘idle pursuits!... I forgive you everything for +the sake of your letters on the study of nature. In them I understood +the German philosophy (so far as it is possible for the mind of man to +do so)—why then instead of going on with serious work are you writing +tales?’ I sent him a few friendly lines in reply, and with that our +relations ended. + +If the Chemist’s own eyes ever rest upon these lines, I would beg him to +read them just before going to sleep at night when his nerves are +exhausted, and then I am sure he will forgive me this affectionate +gossip, especially as I keep a very warm and good memory of him. + +And so at last the seclusion of the parental home was over. I was _au +large_. Instead of solitude in our little room, instead of quiet and +half-concealed interviews with Ogaryov alone, I was surrounded by a +noisy family, seven hundred in number. I was more at home in it in a +fortnight than I had been in my father’s house from the day of my birth. + +But the parental roof pursued me even to the university in the shape of +a footman whom my father ordered to accompany me, particularly when I +went on foot. For a whole session I was trying to get rid of my escort +and only with difficulty succeeded in doing so officially. I say +‘officially,’ because Pyotr Fyodorovitch, upon whom the duty was laid, +very quickly grasped, first, that I disliked being accompanied, and, +secondly, that it was a great deal more pleasant for him in various +places of entertainment than in the hall of the Faculty of Physics and +Mathematics, where the only pleasures open to him were conversation with +the two porters and regaling them and himself with snuff. + +With what object was an escort sent with me? Could Pyotr, who from his +youth had been given to getting drunk for several days at a time, have +prevented me from doing anything? I imagine that my father did not even +suppose so, but for his own peace of mind took steps, which were +insufficient but were still steps, like people who do not believe but +take the sacrament. It was part of the old-fashioned education of +landowners. Up to seven years old, it was the rule that I should be led +by the hand up the staircase, which was rather steep; up to eleven, I +was washed in my bath by Vera Artamonovna; therefore, very consistently, +a servant was sent with me when I was a student; until I was twenty-one, +I was not allowed to be out after half-past ten. I was inevitably in +freedom and on my own feet when in exile; had I not been exiled, +probably the same regime would have continued up to twenty-five or even +thirty-five. + +Like the majority of lively boys brought up in solitude, I flung myself +on every one’s neck with such sincerity and impulsiveness, made +propaganda with such senseless imprudence, and was so candidly fond of +every one, that I could not fail to call forth a warm response from lads +almost of the same age. (I was then in my seventeenth year.) + +The sage rule—to be courteous to all, intimate with no one and to trust +no one—did as much to promote this readiness to make friends as the +persistent thought with which we entered the university, the thought +that here our dreams would be accomplished, that here we should sow the +seeds and lay the foundation of a league. We were persuaded that out of +this lecture-room would come the company which would follow in the +footsteps of Pestel and Ryleyev, and that we should be in it. + +They were a splendid set of young men in our year. It was just at that +time that theoretical tendencies were becoming more and more marked +among us. The scholastic method of learning and aristocratic indolence +were alike disappearing, and not yet replaced by that German +utilitarianism which enriches men’s minds with science, as the fields +with manure, for the sake of an increased crop. A considerable group of +students no longer regarded science as a necessary but wearisome +short-cut by which they would come to be collegiate assessors. The +problems that were arising amongst us had no reference whatever to +grades in the service. + +On the other hand, the interest in science had not yet had time to +degenerate into doctrinarianism; science did not draw us away from the +life and suffering around us. Our sympathy with it raised the social +morality of the students, too, in an extraordinary way. We said openly +in the lecture-room everything that came into our heads; manuscript +copies of prohibited poems passed from hand to hand, prohibited books +were read with commentaries, but for all that I do not remember a single +case of tale-bearing or treachery. There were timid young men who turned +away and held aloof, but they too were silent.[79] + +One silly boy, questioned by his mother on the Malov affair, under +threat of the birch told her something. The fond mother—an aristocrat +and a princess—flew to the rector and told him her son’s tale as proof +of his penitence. We heard of this and tormented him so that he could +not remain until the end of his session. + +This affair, for which I too was imprisoned, deserves to be described. + +Malov was a stupid, coarse, and uncultured professor in the political +section. The students despised him and laughed at him. ‘How many +professors have you in your section?’ asked the director of a student in +the political lecture-room. ‘Nine, not counting Malov,’ answered the +student.[80] Well, this professor, who had to be left out of the +reckoning when the others were counted, began to be more and more +insolent in his treatment of the students; the latter made up their +minds to turn him out of the lecture-room. After deliberating together +they sent two delegates to our section to invite me to come with an +auxiliary force. I at once gave the word to go out to battle with Malov, +and several students went with me; when we went into the lecture-room +Malov was on the spot and saw us come in. + +On the faces of all the students could be seen the same fear: that on +that day he might say nothing rude to them. This anxiety was soon over. + +The overflowing lecture-room was restless and a vague subdued hum rose +from it. Malov made some observations; there began a scraping of feet. +‘You express your thoughts like horses, with your legs,’ observed Malov, +probably imagining that horses think with a trot and a gallop, and a +storm arose, whistling, hisses, shouts; ‘Out with him, _pereat_!’ Malov, +pale as a sheet, made a desperate effort to control the uproar but could +not; the students jumped on to the benches, Malov quietly left his chair +and, shrinking together, began to make his way to the door; the students +went after him, saw him through the university court into the street and +flung his goloshes after him. The last circumstance was important, for +the case at once assumed a very different character in the street; but +where in the world are there lads of seventeen or eighteen who would +consider that? + +The University Council was alarmed and persuaded the director to present +the affair as completely closed, and for that reason to put the +ringleaders, or at least some of them, in prison. This was prudent; it +might otherwise easily have happened that the Tsar would have sent an +aide-de-camp who, with a view to gaining a cross, would have turned the +affair into a plot, a conspiracy, a mutiny, and would have suggested +sending all the culprits to penal servitude, which the Tsar would +graciously have commuted to service as common soldiers. Seeing that vice +was punished and virtue triumphant, the Tsar confined himself to +graciously confirming the students’ wishes by authority of the Most High +and dismissed the professor. We had driven Malov out as far as the +university gates and he put him outside them. It was _vae victis_ with +Nicholas, but on this occasion it was not for us to complain. + +And so the affair went on merrily; after dinner next day the porter from +the head office, a grey-headed old man, who conscientiously assumed _à +la lettre_ that the students’ tips were for vodka and therefore kept +himself continually in a condition approximating to drunkenness rather +than sobriety, came to me bringing in the cuff of his coat a note from +the rector; I was instructed to present myself before him at seven +o’clock. After he had gone, a pale and frightened student appeared, a +baron from the Baltic provinces, who had received a similar invitation +and was one of the luckless victims led on by me. He began showering +reproaches upon me and then asked advice as to what he was to say. + +‘Lie desperately, deny everything, except that there was an uproar and +that you were in the lecture-room.’ + +‘But the rector will ask why I was in the political lecture-room and not +in my own.’ + +‘What of it? Why, don’t you know that Rodion Heiman did not come to give +his lecture, so you, not wishing to waste your time, went to hear +another.’ + +‘He won’t believe it.’ + +‘Well, that’s his affair.’ + +As we were going into the university courtyard I looked at my baron, his +plump little cheeks were very pale and altogether he was in a bad way. + +‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you may be sure that the rector will begin with me +and not with you, so you say exactly the same with variations. You did +not do anything in particular, as a matter of fact. Don’t forget one +thing, for making an uproar and for telling lies ever so many of you +will be put in prison, but if you go and tell tales and mix anybody else +up in it before me, I’ll tell the others and we’ll poison your +existence.’ + +The baron promised and kept his word honestly. + +The rector at that time was Dvigubsky, one of the surviving specimens of +the professors before the flood, or to be more accurate, before the +fire, that is, before 1812. They are extinct now; with the directorship +of Prince Obolensky the patriarchal period of Moscow University ended. +In those days the government did not trouble itself about the +university; the professors lectured or did not lecture, the students +attended or did not attend, and went about, not in uniform jackets _ad +instar_ of light-cavalry officers, but in all sorts of outrageous and +eccentric garments, in tiny little caps that would scarcely keep on +their virginal locks. The professors consisted of two groups or classes +who placidly hated each other. One group was composed exclusively of +Germans, the other of non-Germans. The Germans, among whom were +good-natured and learned men such as Loder, Fischer, Hildebrand, and +Heym himself, were as a rule distinguished by their ignorance of the +Russian language and disinclination to learn it, their indifference to +the students, their spirit of Western exclusiveness, their immoderate +smoking of cigars and the immense quantity of decorations which they +invariably wore. The non-Germans for their part knew not a single living +language except Russian, were servile in their patriotism, as uncouth as +seminarists, and, with the exception of Merzlyakov,[81] were treated as +of little account, and instead of an immoderate consumption of cigars +indulged in an immoderate consumption of liquor. The Germans for the +most part hailed from Göttingen and the non-Germans were sons of +priests. + +Dvigubsky was one of the non-Germans: his appearance was so venerable +that a student from a seminary, who came in for a list of classes, went +up to kiss his hand and ask for his blessing, and always called him ‘The +Father Rector.’ At the same time he was wonderfully like an owl with an +Anna ribbon on its neck, in which form another student, who had received +a more worldly education, drew his portrait. When he came into our +lecture-room either with the dean Tchumakov, or with Kotelnitsky, who +had charge of a cupboard inscribed _Materia Medica_, kept for some +unknown reason in the mathematical lecture-room, or with Reiss, who was +bespoken from Germany because his uncle was a very good chemist, and +who, when he read French, used to call a lamp-wick a _bâton de coton_, +and poison, _poisson_, and so cruelly distorted the word ‘lightning’ +that many people supposed he was swearing—we looked at them with round +eyes as at a collection of antiquities, as at the last of the +Abencerrages,[82] representatives of a different age not so near to us +as to Tredyakovsky[83] and Kostrov[84]; the times in which Heraskov[85] +and Knyazhnin[86] were still read, the times of the good-natured +Professor Diltey, who had two little dogs, one which always barked and +the other which never barked, for which reason he very justly called one +Bavardka and the other Prudentka. + +But Dvigubsky was not at all a good-natured professor; he received us +extremely curtly and was rude. I reeled off a fearful rigmarole and was +disrespectful; the baron served up the same story. The rector, +irritated, told us to present ourselves next morning before the Council, +where in the course of half an hour they questioned, condemned and +sentenced us and sent the sentence to Prince Golitsyn for ratification. + +I had scarcely had time to rehearse the trial and the sentence of the +University Senate to the students five or six times in the lecture-room +when all at once the inspector, who was a major in the Russian army and +a French dancing-master, made his appearance with a non-commissioned +officer, bringing an order to seize me and conduct me to prison. Some of +the students went to see me on my way, and in the courtyard there was +already a crowd of young men, so evidently I was not the first taken; as +we passed, they all waved their caps and their hands; the university +soldiers moved them back but the students would not go. + +In the dirty cellar which served as a prison I found two of the arrested +men, Arapetov and Olov; Prince Andrey Obolensky and Rozenheim had been +put in another room; in all, there were six of us punished for the Malov +affair. Orders were given that we should be kept on bread and water; the +rector sent some sort of soup, which we refused, and it was well we did +so. As soon as it got dark and the lecture-rooms emptied, our comrades +brought us cheese, game, cigars, wine, and liqueurs. The soldier in +charge was angry and grumbled, but accepted twenty kopecks and carried +in the provisions. After midnight he went further and let several +visitors come in to us; so we spent our time feasting by night and +sleeping by day. + +On one occasion it somehow happened that the assistant-director Panin, +the brother of the Minister of Justice, faithful to his Horse-Guard +habits, took it into his head to go the round of the Imperial prison in +the university cellars by night. We had only just lighted a candle and +put it under a chair so that the light could not be seen from outside, +and were beginning on our midnight repast, when we heard a knock at the +outer door; not the sort of knock which weakly begs a soldier to open, +which is more afraid of being heard than of not being heard; no, this +was a peremptory knock, a knock of authority. The soldier was petrified; +we hid the bottles and the students in a little cupboard, blew out the +candle and threw ourselves on our trestle-beds. Panin entered. ‘I +believe you are smoking?’ he said, so lost in thick clouds of smoke that +we could hardly distinguish him and the inspector who was carrying a +lantern. ‘Where do they get a light, do you give it them?’ The soldier +swore that he did not. We answered that we had tinder with us. The +inspector undertook to remove it and to take away the cigars, and Panin +withdrew without observing that the number of caps in the room was +double the number of heads. + +On Saturday evening the inspector made his appearance and announced that +I and another one might go home, but that the rest would remain until +Monday. This distinction seemed to me insulting and I asked the +inspector whether I might remain; he drew back a step, looked at me with +the threateningly majestic air with which tsars and heroes in a ballet +depict anger in a dance, and saying, ‘Stay by all means,’ walked away. I +got more into trouble at home for this last sally than for the whole +business. + +And so the first nights I slept away from home were spent in prison. Not +long afterwards it was my lot to have experience of a very different +prison, and there I stayed not eight days but nine months, after which I +went not home but into exile. All that comes later, however. + +From that time forward I enjoyed the greatest popularity in the +lecture-room. From the first I had been accepted as a good comrade. +After the Malov affair, I became, like Gogol’s famous lady, a comrade +‘agreeable in all respects.’ + +Did we learn anything with all this going on, could we study? I imagine +that we did. The teaching was more meagre and its scope narrower than in +the ’forties. It is not the function of a university, however, to give a +complete training in any branch of knowledge; its work is to put a man +in a position to continue study on his own account; its work is to +provoke inquiry, to teach men to ask questions. And this was certainly +done by such professors as M. G. Pavlov, and on the other side, by such +as Katchenovsky. + +But contact with other young men in the lecture-rooms and the exchange +of ideas and opinions did more to develop the students than lectures and +professors.... The Moscow University did its work; the professors whose +lectures contributed to the development of Lermontov, Byelinsky,[87] +Turgenev, Kavelin,[88] and Pirogov[89] may play their game of boston in +tranquillity and still more tranquilly lie under the earth. + +And what original figures, what marvels there were among them—from +Fyodor Ivanovitch Tchumakov, who made formulas to fit in with those in +the text-book with the reckless freedom of the privileged landowner, +adding and removing letters, taking powers for roots and _x_ for the +known quantity, to Gavril Myagkov, who lectured on military tactics. +From perpetually dealing with heroic subjects, Myagkov’s very appearance +had acquired an air of drill and discipline; buttoned up to the throat +and wearing a cravat entirely free from curves, he delivered his +lectures as though giving words of command. ‘Gentlemen!’ he would shout; +‘in the field—of artillery!’ This did not mean that cannons were +advancing into the field of battle, but simply that such was the heading +in the margin. What a pity Nicholas avoided visiting the University! If +he had seen Myagkov, he would certainly have made him Director. + +And Fyodor Fyodorovitch Reiss, who in his chemistry lectures never went +beyond the second person of the chemical divinity, _i.e._ hydrogen! +Reiss, who had actually been made Professor of Chemistry because not he, +but his uncle, had at one time studied that science! Towards the end of +the reign of Catherine, the old uncle had been invited to Russia; he did +not want to come, so sent his nephew instead.... + +Among the exceptional incidents of my course, which lasted four years +(for the University was closed for a whole session during the cholera), +were the cholera itself, the arrival of Humboldt and the visit of +Uvarov. + +Humboldt was welcomed on his return to Moscow from the Urals in a solemn +assembly, held in the precincts of the University by the Society of +Scientific Research, the members of which were various senators and +governors—people, in fact, who took no interest in science, either +natural or unnatural. The fame of Humboldt, a privy councillor of his +Prussian Majesty, on whom the Tsar had graciously bestowed the Anna, and +to whom he had also commanded that equipment and diploma should be +presented free of charge, had reached even them. They were determined +not to disgrace themselves before a man who had been to Mount Chimborazo +and had lived at Sans-Souci. + +To this day we look upon Europeans and upon Europe in the same way as +provincials look upon those who live in the capital, with deference and +a feeling of our own inferiority, flattering them and imitating them, +taking everything in which we are different for a defect, blushing for +our peculiarities and concealing them. The fact is that we were +intimidated by the jeers of Peter the Great, by the insults of Biron, by +the haughty superiority of German officers and French tutors, and we +have not recovered from it. They talk in Western Europe of our duplicity +and wily cunning; they mistake the desire to show off and swagger a bit +for the desire to deceive. Among us the same man is ready to be naïvely +Liberal with a Liberal or to play the Legitimist with a reactionary, and +this with no ulterior motive, simply from politeness and a desire to +please; the bump _de l’approbativité_ is strongly developed in our +skulls. + +‘Prince Dmitri Golitsyn,’ observed Lord Durham, ‘is a true Whig, a Whig +in soul!’ + +Prince D. V. Golitsyn is a respectable Russian gentleman, but why he was +a Whig and in what way he was a Whig I don’t understand. You may be +certain that in his old age the prince wanted to please Durham and so +played the Whig. + +The reception of Humboldt in Moscow and in the University was no jesting +matter. The Governor-General, various military and civic chiefs, and the +members of the Senate, all turned up with ribbons across their +shoulders, in full uniform, and the professors wore swords like warriors +and carried three-cornered hats under their arms. Humboldt, suspecting +nothing, came in a dark-blue coat with gold buttons, and, of course, was +overwhelmed with confusion. From the vestibule to the hall of the +Society of Scientific Research, ambushes were prepared for him on all +sides: here stood the rector, there a dean, here a budding professor, +there a veteran whose career was over and who for that reason spoke very +slowly; every one welcomed him in Latin, in German, in French, and all +this took place in those awful stone tubes, called corridors, in which +one cannot stay for a minute without being laid up with a cold for a +month. Humboldt, hat in hand, listened to everybody and answered +everybody—I feel certain that all the savages among whom he had been, +red-skinned and copper-coloured, caused him less trouble than his Moscow +reception. + +As soon as he reached the hall and sat down, he had to get up again. The +Director, Pissarev, thought it necessary, in brief but vigorous +language, to lay down the law in Russian concerning the services of his +Excellency, the celebrated traveller; after which Sergey Glinka,[90] +‘the officer,’ with a voice of the year 1812, deep and hoarse, recited +his poem which began: + + ‘_Humboldt—Prométhée de nos jours!_’ + +Whilst Humboldt wanted to talk about his observations on the magnetic +needle and to compare his meteorological records on the Urals with those +of Moscow, the rector came up to show him instead something plaited of +the imperial hair of Peter the Great ... and Ehrenberg and Rosa had +difficulty in finding a chance to tell him something about their +discoveries.[91] + +Things are not much better among us in the nonofficial world: ten years +ago Liszt was received in Moscow society in much the same way. Silly +enough things were done in his honour in Germany, but here it took quite +a different character. In Germany, it was all old-maidish exaltation, +sentimentality, all _Blumenstreuen_, while with us it was all servility, +homage paid to power, rigid standing at attention, with us it was all ‘I +have the honour to present myself to your Excellency.’ And in that case, +unfortunately, there was Liszt’s fame as a celebrated Lovelace to add to +it all. The ladies flocked round him, as peasant-boys at the cross-roads +flock round a traveller while his horses are being harnessed, +inquisitively examining himself, his carriage, his cap.... No one +listened to anybody but Liszt, no one spoke to anybody else, nor +answered anybody else. I remember that at one evening party, +Homyakov,[92] blushing for the honourable company, said to me, ‘Please +let us argue about something, that Liszt may see that there are people +in the room not exclusively occupied with him.’ For the consolation of +our ladies I can only say one thing, that in just the same way +Englishwomen dashed about, crowded round, pestered and obstructed other +celebrities such as Kossuth and afterwards Garibaldi. But alas for those +who want to learn good manners from Englishwomen and their husbands! + +Our second ‘famous’ visitor was also in a certain sense ‘the Prometheus +of our day,’ only he stole the light not from Jupiter but from men. This +Prometheus, sung not by Glinka but by Pushkin himself, in his ‘Epistle +to Lucullus,’ was the Minister of Public Instruction, S. S. Uvarov. He +amazed us by the multitude of languages and the variety of subjects with +which he was acquainted; a veritable shopman in the stores of +enlightenment, he had committed to memory patterns of all the sciences, +samples or rather snippets of them. In the reign of Alexander, he wrote +Liberal brochures in French; later on, corresponded on Greek subjects +with Goethe in German. When he became Minister, he discoursed upon +Slavonic poetry of the fourth century, upon which Katchenovsky observed +to him that in those days our forefathers had enough to do to fight the +bears, let alone singing ballads about the gods of Samothrace and the +mercy of tyrants. He used to carry in his pocket, by way of a +testimonial, a letter from Goethe, in which the latter paid him an +extremely odd compliment, saying: ‘There is no need for you to apologise +for your style; you have succeeded in what I never can succeed in +doing—forgetting the German grammar.’ + +So this actual civil Pic-de-la-Mirandole[93] introduced a new kind of +torture. He ordered that the best students should be selected to deliver +a lecture, each on his own subject, instead of the professor. The deans, +of course, selected the liveliest. + +These lectures went on for a whole week. The students had to prepare in +all the subjects of their course, and the deans picked out the student’s +name and the subject by lot. Uvarov invited all the distinguished people +of Moscow. Archimandrites and senators, the Governor-General and Ivan +Ivanovitch Dmitriev—all were present. + +I had to lecture on mineralogy in Lovetsky’s place—and already he is +dead! + + ‘Where’s our old comrade Langeron! + Where’s our old comrade Benigsen! + You, too, are nowhere to be seen, + And you, too, might have never been!’ + +Alexey Leontyevitch Lovetsky was a tall, roughly-hewn, heavily-moving +man with a big mouth and a large face, entirely devoid of expression. +Removing in the corridor his pea-green overcoat adorned with a number of +collars of varying size, such as were worn during the First Consulate, +he would begin, before entering the lecture-room, in an even, +passionless voice (which was in perfect keeping with his stony subject): +‘We concluded in the last lecture all that is necessary concerning the +Siliceous Rocks.’ Then he would sit down and go on: ‘The Argillaceous +Rocks....’ He had created an invariable system for formulating the +qualities of each mineral, from which he never departed; so that it +sometimes happened that the characteristics were entered in the +negative: + +‘Crystallisation—does not crystallise. + +‘Employment—is not employed for any purpose. + +‘Use—injurious to the organism....’ + +He did not, however, avoid poetry, nor moral reflections, and every time +he showed us artificial stones and told us how they were made, he added: +‘Gentlemen, it’s a fraud!’ In dealing with husbandry, he found moral +qualities in a good cock if he ‘crowed well and was attentive to the +hens,’ and a distinct virtue in an aristocratic ram if he had ‘bald +knees.’ He would also tell us touching tales in which flies describe how +on a fine summer evening they walked about a tree and were covered with +resin which turned into amber, and he always added: ‘That, gentlemen, is +prosopopeia!’ + +When the dean summoned me, the audience was rather exhausted; two +mathematical lectures had reduced the listeners, who did not understand +a single word, to apathy and depression. Uvarov asked for something a +little livelier and for a student with a ‘well-balanced tongue.’ +Shtchepkin pointed to me. + +I mounted the platform. Lovetsky was sitting near, motionless, with his +arms on his knees like a Memnon or Osiris, and was looking uneasy. I +whispered to him, ‘What luck that I have to lecture in your room. I +won’t give you away.’ + +‘Don’t boast when you are going into action,’ the worthy professor +responded, scarcely moving his lips and not looking at me. I almost +burst out laughing; but when I looked before me, there was a mist before +my eyes, I felt that I was turning pale and there was a sort of dryness +on my tongue. I had never spoken in public before, the lecture-room was +full of students—they relied upon me; at the table below were the +‘mighty of this world’ and all the professors of our section. I picked +up the question and read in an unnatural voice, ‘Crystallisation, its +conditions, laws and forms.’ + +While I was thinking how to begin, the happy thought occurred to me that +if I made a mistake, the professors might notice it, but they would not +say a word, while the rest of the audience knew nothing about the +subject themselves, and the students would be satisfied so long as I did +not break down in the middle, because I was a favourite. And so in the +name of Haüy, Werner, and Mitscherlich, I delivered my first lecture, +concluding it with philosophic reflections, and all the time addressing +myself to the students and not to the Minister. The students and the +professors shook hands with me and thanked me. Uvarov led me off to be +introduced to Prince Golitsyn and the latter said something, of which I +could catch nothing but the vowel sounds. Uvarov promised me a book in +honour of the occasion, but never sent it. + +The second and third occasions of my appearance in public were very +different. In 1836 I played the part of ‘Ugar’ in the old Russian farce, +while the wife of the colonel of gendarmes was ‘Marfa,’ before all the +_beau-monde_ of Vyatka, including Tyufyaev. We had been rehearsing for a +month, but yet my heart beat violently and my hands trembled, when a +deathly silence followed the overture and the curtain began rising with +a sort of horrid shudder; Marfa and I were waiting behind the scenes. +She was so sorry for me, or else so afraid that I should spoil the +performance, that she gave me an immense glass of champagne, but even +with that I was half dead. + +After making my début under the auspices of a Minister of Education and +a colonel of gendarmes, I appeared without any nervousness or +self-conscious shyness at a Polish meeting in London and that was my +third public appearance. The place of the Minister Uvarov was on that +occasion filled by the ex-Minister, Ledru-Rollin.[94] + +But is not this enough of student reminiscences? I am afraid it may be a +sign of senility to linger so long over them; I will only add a few +details concerning the cholera of 1831. + +Cholera—the word so familiar now in Europe and so thoroughly at home in +Russia that a patriotic poet calls the cholera the one faithful ally of +Nicholas—was heard then for the first time in the North. Every one +trembled before the terrible plague that was moving up the Volga towards +Moscow. Exaggerated rumours filled the imagination with horror. The +disease advanced capriciously, halting, skipping over places, and it +seemed to have missed Moscow, when suddenly the terrible news, ‘The +cholera is in Moscow!’ was all over the city. + +In the morning a student in the political section felt ill, next day he +died in the university hospital. We rushed to look at his body. He was +emaciated, as though after a long illness, the eyes were sunk, the +features were distorted, beside him lay a porter, who had been taken ill +in the night. + +We were informed that the university was to be closed. This order was +read to our section by the professor of technology, Denisov; he was +melancholy, perhaps frightened. Next morning he too died. + +We assembled together from all sections in the big university courtyard; +there was something touching in this crowd of young people bidden to +disperse before the plague. Their faces were pale and particularly full +of feeling; many were thinking of friends and relations. We said +good-bye to the government scholars, who had been separated from us by +quarantine measures, and were being distributed in small numbers in +different houses. And at home we were all met by the stench of chloride +of lime, vinegar—and a diet such as might well have laid a man up, apart +from chloride and cholera. + +Strange to say those gloomy days have remained as it were a time of +ceremonial solemnity in my memory. + +Moscow assumed quite a different aspect. The public activities, unknown +at ordinary times, gave it a new life. There were fewer carriages in the +streets, and gloomy crowds of people stood at the cross-roads and talked +about poisoners. The conveyances that were taking the sick moved at a +walking pace, escorted by police; people drew aside from black hearses +with the dead. Bulletins concerning the disease were printed twice a +day. The town was surrounded by a cordon as in time of war, and the +soldiers shot a poor sacristan who was making his way across the river. +All this absorbed men’s minds, terror of the plague ousted terror of the +authorities; the people murmured, and then there came one piece of news +upon another, that so-and-so had been taken ill, that so-and-so had +died.... + +The Metropolitan, Filaret, arranged a universal service of prayer. On +the same day and at the same hour, all the priests made the round of +their parishes in procession with banners. The terrified inhabitants +came out of their houses and fell on their knees, as the procession +passed, praying with tears for the remission of sins. Even the priests, +accustomed to address God on intimate terms, were grave and moved. Some +of them went to the Kremlin. There in the open air, surrounded by the +higher clergy, knelt the Metropolitan praying that this cup might pass +away. On the same spot six years before, he had held a thanksgiving for +the hanging of the Decembrists. + +Filaret was by way of being a high priest in opposition; on behalf of +what he was in opposition, I never could make out. Perhaps on behalf of +his own personality. He was an intelligent and learned man, and a master +of the Russian language, successfully introducing Church Slavonic into +it; but all this gave him no ground for opposition. The common people +did not like him and called him a freemason, because he was closely +associated with Prince A. N. Golitsyn and was preaching in Petersburg in +the palmy days of the Bible Society. The Synod forbade his catechism +being used in teaching. The clergy under his sway went in terror of his +despotism; possibly it was as rivals that Nicholas and he hated each +other. + +Filaret was very clever and ingenious in humiliating the temporal power; +in his sermons there was the light of that vague Christian socialism for +which Lacordaire and other far-sighted Catholics were distinguished. +From his exalted ecclesiastical tribune, Filaret declared that a man can +never lawfully be the tool of another, that there can be nothing between +men but an exchange of services, and this, he said, in a state in which +half the population were slaves. + +He said to the fettered convicts in the forwarding prison on the Sparrow +Hills: ‘The civil law has condemned you and drives you away, but the +Church hastens after you, longing to say one more word, one more prayer +for you and to give you her blessing on your journey.’ Then comforting +them, he added ‘that they, condemned convicts, had broken with their +past, that a new life lay before them, while among others (probably +there were no others except officials present) there were far greater +criminals,’ and he quoted the example of the robber at Christ’s side. + +Filaret’s sermon at the service on the occasion of the cholera surpassed +all his other efforts; he took as his text how the angel offered David +the choice of war, famine or plague as a punishment; David chose plague. +The Tsar came to Moscow furious, sent the Court Minister, Prince +Volkonsky, to give Filaret a good ‘dressing down’ and threatened to send +him to be Metropolitan in Georgia. The Metropolitan meekly submitted and +sent a new message to all the churches, in which he explained that they +would be wrong to look in the text of his first sermon for an +application to their beloved Emperor, that by David was meant ourselves +defiled by sin. Of course, this made the first sermon intelligible even +to those who had not grasped its meaning at first. + +This was how the Metropolitan of Moscow played at opposition. + +The service had as little effect on the cholera as the chloride of lime; +the disease spread further and further. + +I was in Paris during the severest visitation of cholera in 1849. The +plague was terrible. The hot days of June helped to spread it: the poor +died like flies, the tradespeople fled from Paris while others sat +behind locked doors. The government, exclusively occupied with its +struggles against the revolutionaries, did not think of taking active +measures. The scanty collections raised for relief were insufficient for +the emergency. The poor working people were left abandoned to the +caprice of destiny, the hospitals had not beds enough, the police had +not coffins enough, and in the houses, packed to overflowing with +families, the bodies remained two or three days in inner rooms. In +Moscow it was not like that. + +Prince D. V. Golitsyn, at that time governor-general, a weak but +honourable man, cultured and much respected, aroused the enthusiasm of +Moscow society, and somehow everything was arranged in a private way, +that is, without the special interference of government. A committee was +formed of citizens of standing—wealthy landowners and merchants. Every +member undertook one quarter of Moscow. Within a few days twenty +hospitals had been opened; they did not cost the government a farthing, +everything was done by subscription. Shopkeepers gave gratis everything +needed for the hospitals, bedclothes, linen, and warm clothing for the +patients on recovery. Young men volunteered as superintendents of the +hospitals to ensure that half of these contributions should not be +stolen by the attendants. + +The university did its full share. The whole medical faculty, students +and doctors _en masse_, put themselves at the disposal of the cholera +committee; they were assigned to the different hospitals and remained +there until the cholera was over. For three or four months these +admirable young men lived in the hospitals as orderlies, assistants, +nurses, secretaries, and all this without any remuneration and at a time +when there was such an exaggerated fear of the infection. I remember one +student, a Little Russian, who at the very beginning of the cholera had +asked for leave of absence on account of important family affairs. Leave +is rarely given in term-time, but at last he obtained it; just as he was +about to set off, the students went to the hospitals. The Little Russian +put his leave in his pocket and went with them. When he came out of the +hospital his leave was long overdue and he was the first to laugh over +his trip. + +Moscow, apparently so drowsy and apathetic, so absorbed in scandal and +piety, weddings, and nothing at all, always wakes up when it is +necessary, and is equal to the occasion when the storm breaks over +Russia. + +In 1612 she was joined in blood-stained nuptials with Russia, and their +union was welded in fire in 1812. + +She bowed her head before Peter because the future of Russia lay in his +brutal clutch. But with murmurs and disdain Moscow received within her +walls the woman stained with her husband’s blood, that impenitent Lady +Macbeth, that Lucretia Borgia without her Italian blood, the Russian +Empress of German birth[95]—and scowling and pouting, she quietly +withdrew from Moscow. + +Scowling and pouting, Napoleon waited for the keys of Moscow at the +Dragomilovsky Gate, impatiently playing with his cigar-holder and +tugging at his glove. He was not accustomed to enter foreign towns +unescorted. + +‘But my Moscow came not forth,’ as Pushkin says; but set fire to +herself. + +The cholera came and again the people’s city showed itself full of heart +and energy! + +In August 1830, we went to Vassilyevskoe, stopped, as we always did, at +the Radcliffian[96] castle of Perhushkovo, and, after feeding ourselves +and our horses, were preparing to continue our journey. Bakay, with a +towel round his waist like a belt, had already shouted: ‘Off!’ when a +man galloped up on horseback, signalling to us to stop, and one of the +Senator’s postillions, covered with dust and sweat, leapt off his horse +and handed my father an envelope. In the envelope was the news of the +Revolution of July! There were two pages of the _Journal des Débats_ +which he had brought with a letter; I read them over a hundred times and +got to know them by heart, and for the first time I was bored in the +country. + +It was a glorious time, events came quickly. Scarcely had the meagre +figure of Charles X. had time to disappear behind the mists of Holyrood, +when Belgium flared up, the throne of the Citizen King tottered, and a +warm revolutionary spirit began to be apparent in debates and +literature. Novels, plays, poems, all once more became propaganda and +conflict. + +At that time we knew nothing of the artificial stage-setting of the +revolution in France, and we took it all for the genuine thing. + +Any one who cares to see how strongly the news of the revolution of July +affected the younger generation should read Heine’s description of how +he heard in Heligoland ‘that the great Pan of the Pagans is dead.’ There +was no sham ardour there, Heine at thirty was as enthusiastic, as +childishly excited, as we were at eighteen. + +We followed step by step every word, every event, the bold questions and +abrupt answers, the doings of General Lafayette, and the doings of +General Lamarque; we not only knew every detail concerning them but +loved all the leading men (the Radical ones, of course) and kept their +portraits, from Manuel[97] and Benjamin Constant to Dupont de l’Eure[98] +and Armand Carrel.[99] + +In the midst of this ferment all at once, like a bomb exploding close +by, the news of the rising in Warsaw overwhelmed us. This was not far +away, this was at home, and we looked at each other with tears in our +eyes, repeating our favourite line: + + ‘Nein! es sind keine leere Träume!’ + +We rejoiced at every defeat of Dibitch; refused to believe in the +failures of the Poles, and I at once added to my shrine the portrait of +Thaddeus Kosciuszko. + +It was just then that I saw Nicholas for the second time and his face +was still more strongly imprinted on my memory. The nobles were giving a +ball in his honour. I was in the gallery of the Assembly Hall and could +stare at him to my heart’s content. He had not yet begun to wear a +moustache. His face was still young, but the change in it since the time +of the Coronation struck me. He stood morosely by a column, staring +coldly and grimly before him, without looking at any one. He had grown +thinner. In those features, in those pewtery eyes one could read the +fate of Poland and indeed of Russia also. He was shaken, frightened, he +doubted[100] the security of his throne and was ready to revenge himself +for what he had suffered, for his fear and his doubts. + +With the pacification of Poland all the restrained malignancy of the man +was let loose. Soon we, too, felt it. + +The network of espionage cast about the university from the beginning of +the reign began to be drawn tighter. In 1832 a Pole who was a student in +our section was a victim. Sent to the university as a government +scholar, not at his own initiative, he had been put in our course; we +made friends with him; he was discreet and melancholy in his behaviour, +we never heard a rash word from him, but we never heard a word of +weakness either. One morning he was missing from the lectures, next day +he was missing still. We began to make inquiries; the government +scholars told us in secret that he had been fetched away at night, that +he had been summoned before the authorities, and then people had come +for his papers and belongings and had told them not to speak of it. +There the matter ended, _we never heard anything of the fate of this +luckless young man_.[102] + +A few months passed when suddenly there was a report in the lecture-room +that several students had been seized in the night; among them were +Kostenetsky, Kolreif, Antonovitch and others; we knew them well, they +were all excellent fellows. Kolreif, the son of a Protestant pastor, was +an extremely gifted musician. A court martial was appointed to try them; +this meant in plain language that they were doomed to perish. We were +all in a fever of suspense to know what would happen to them, but from +the first they too vanished without trace. The storm that was crushing +the rising blades of corn was everywhere. We no longer had a foreboding +of its approach, we felt it, we saw it, and we huddled closer and closer +together. + +The danger strung up our tense nerves, made our hearts beat faster and +made us love each other with greater devotion. There were five of us at +first and now we met Vadim Passek. + +In Vadim there was a great deal that was new to us. We had all with +slight variations had a similar bringing up, that is, we knew nothing +but Moscow and our country estates, we had all learned out of the same +books, had lessons from the same tutors, and been educated at home or at +a boarding-school preparatory for the university. Vadim had been born in +Siberia during his father’s exile, in the midst of want and privation. +His father had been himself his teacher. He had grown up in a large +family of brothers and sisters, under a crushing weight of poverty but +in complete freedom. Siberia had put its imprint on him, which was quite +unlike our provincial stamp; he was far from being so vulgar and petty, +he was distinguished by more sturdiness and a tougher fibre. Vadim was a +savage in comparison with us. His daring was of another kind, unlike +ours, more that of the _bogatyr_, and sometimes conceited; the +aristocracy of misfortune had developed a peculiar self-respect in him; +but he knew how to love others too, and gave himself to them without +stint. He was bold—even reckless to excess—a man born in Siberia, and in +an exiled family too, has an advantage over us in not being afraid of +Siberia. + +Vadim from family tradition hated the autocracy with his whole soul, and +he took us to his heart as soon as we met. We made friends very quickly. +Though, indeed, at that time, there was neither ceremony nor reasonable +precaution, nothing like it, to be seen in our circle. + +‘Would you like to make the acquaintance of Ketscher, of whom you have +heard so much?’ Vadim said to me. + +‘I certainly should.’ + +‘Come to-morrow, then, at seven o’clock; don’t be late, he’ll be with +me.’ + +I went—Vadim was not at home. A tall man with an expressive face and a +good-naturedly menacing look behind his spectacles was waiting for him. +I took up a book, he took up a book. ‘But perhaps you,’ he said as he +opened it, ‘perhaps you are Herzen?’ + +‘Yes; and you Ketscher?’ + +A conversation began and grew more and more eager.... + +And from that minute (which may have been about the end of 1831) we were +inseparable friends; from that minute the anger and sweetness, the laugh +and shout of Ketscher have resounded at all the stages, in all the +incidents of our life. + +Our meeting with Vadim introduced a new element into our fraternity. + +We met as before most frequently at Ogaryov’s. His invalid father had +gone to live on his estate in Penza. Ogaryov lived alone on the lowest +storey of their house at the Nikitsky Gate. This was not far from the +University, and all were particularly attracted there. Ogaryov had that +magnetic attraction which forms the first thread of crystallisation in +every mass of casually meeting atoms, if only they have some affinity. +Wherever such men are flung down, they imperceptibly become the heart of +the organism. + +But besides his bright, cheerful room, furnished with red and gold +striped hangings, always haunted by the smoke of cigars and the smell of +punch and other—I was going to say—edibles and beverages, but I stopped, +because there rarely were any edibles except cheese—well, besides +Ogaryov’s ultra-student-like abode where we argued for nights together, +and sometimes caroused for nights also, another house, in which almost +for the first time we learnt to respect family life, became more and +more our favourite resort. + +Vadim often left our conversations and went off home; he missed his +mother and sisters if he did not see them for long together. To us who +lived heart and soul in comradeship, it was strange that he could prefer +his family to our company. + +He introduced us to it. In that family everything bore traces of the +Tsar’s _persecution_; only yesterday it had come from Siberia, it was +ruined, harassed, and at the same time full of that dignity which +misfortune lays, not upon every sufferer, but on the faces of those who +have known how to bear it. + +Their father had been seized in the reign of Paul in consequence of some +political treachery, flung into the Schlüsselburg and exiled to Siberia. +Alexander brought back thousands of those exiled by his insane father, +but Passek was forgotten. He was the nephew of that Passek who took part +in the murder of Peter III., and who was afterwards governor-general in +the Polish provinces, and he might have claimed part of an inheritance +which had already passed into other hands, and it was those ‘other +hands’ which kept him in Siberia. + +While in the Schlüsselburg Passek married the daughter of one of the +officers in the garrison there. The young girl knew that things would go +hard with her, but she was not deterred by fear of exile. At first they +struggled on somehow in Siberia, selling the last of their belongings, +but their poverty grew more and more terrible, and the more rapidly so +as their family increased. Weighed down by privation, by hard work, +deprived of warm clothing and at times even of bread, they yet succeeded +in coming through and in bringing up a whole family of young lions; the +father transmitted to them his proud, indomitable spirit and faith in +himself, the secret of fortitude in misfortune; he educated them by his +example, the mother by her self-sacrifice and bitter tears. The sisters +were in no way inferior to the brothers in heroic fortitude. Yes—why be +afraid of words—they were a family of heroes. What they had all borne +for one another, what they had done for the family was incredible, and +always with head erect, not in the least crushed. + +In Siberia the three sisters had only one pair of shoes; they used to +keep them for going on walks, that strangers might not see the extremity +of their need. + +At the beginning of 1826 Passek received permission to return to Russia. +It was winter, and it was no easy matter to move with such a family, +without fur coats, without money, from the province of Tobolsk, while on +the other hand the heart yearned for Russia: exile is more than ever +insufferable after it is over. Our martyrs struggled back somehow; a +peasant woman, who had nursed one of the children during the mother’s +illness, brought her hard-earned savings to help them on the way, asking +only that they would take her too; the drivers brought them to the +Russian frontier for a trifle, or for nothing; some of the family walked +while others were driven, and the young people took turns; so they made +the long winter journey from the Urals to Moscow. Moscow was the dream +of the young ones, their hope—and there hunger awaited them. + +While forgiving Passek, the government never thought of returning him +some part of his property. Exhausted by his efforts and privations, the +old man took to his bed; they knew not where to find bread for the +morrow. + +At that moment Nicholas celebrated his coronation, banquet followed upon +banquet, Moscow was like a heavily decorated ballroom, everywhere +lights, shields, and gay attire.... The two elder sisters, without +consulting any one, wrote a petition to Nicholas, describing the +position of the family, and begged him to inquire into the case and +restore their property. They left the house secretly in the morning and +went to the Kremlin, squeezing their way to the front, and awaited the +Tsar, ‘crowned and exalted on high.’ When Nicholas came down the steps +of the red staircase, the two girls quietly stepped forward and offered +the petition. He passed by, pretending not to see them; an aide-de-camp +took the paper and the police led them away. + +Nicholas was about thirty at the time and already was capable of such +heartlessness. This coldness, this caution is characteristic of little +commonplace natures, cashiers, and petty clerks. I have often noticed +this unyielding firmness of character in postal officials, salesmen of +theatre and railway tickets, and people who are continually bothered and +interrupted at every minute. They learn not to see a man, though he is +standing by. But how did this autocratic clerk train himself not to see, +and what need had he not to be a minute late for a function? + +The girls were kept in custody until evening. Frightened and insulted, +they besought the police superintendent to let them go home, where their +absence must have upset the whole family. Nothing was done about the +petition. + +The father could endure no more, his sufferings had been too great; he +died. The children were left with their mother, struggling on from day +to day. The greater the need, the harder the sons worked; all three +finished their university course brilliantly and took their degrees. The +two elder ones went off to Petersburg; there, being excellent +mathematicians, they gave lessons in addition to their work in the +service (one in the Admiralty and the other in the Engineers) and, +denying themselves everything, sent the money they earned home to the +family. + +I vividly remember the old mother in her dark gown and white cap; her +thin, pale face was covered with wrinkles, she looked far older than she +was, only her eyes retained something of her youth; so much gentleness, +love, anxiety, and so many past tears could be seen in them. She adored +her children; she was rich, famous, young in them; with deep and devout +feeling she spoke of them in her weak voice, which sometimes broke and +quivered with suppressed tears. + +When they were all gathered together in Moscow and sitting round their +simple repast, the old woman was beside herself with joy; she walked +round the table, looked after their wants, and, suddenly stopping, would +gaze at all her young people with such pride, with such happiness, and +then lift her eyes to me as though asking: ‘They really are fine, aren’t +they?’ At such times I longed to throw myself on her neck and kiss her +hands; and, moreover, they really were all of them very handsome, too. + +She was happy then, why did she not die at one of those dinners?... + +In two years, she had lost the three elder sons. One died, gloriously, +his heroism acknowledged by his enemies in the midst of victory and +glory, though it was not for his own cause he sacrificed his life. He +was the young general killed by the Circassians at Dargo. Laurels do not +heal a mother’s grief.... The others did not have so happy an end; the +hardness of Russian life weighed upon them, weighed upon them till it +crushed them. Poor mother! and poor Russia! + +Vadim died in February 1843. I was with him at the end, and for the +first time looked upon the death of a man dear to me, and at the same +time death in its full horror, in all its meaningless fortuitousness, in +all its blind, immoral injustice. + +Ten years before his death Vadim married my cousin[103] and I was best +man at his wedding. Married life and the change in his habits parted us +somewhat. He was happy in his private life, but unfortunate in his +outward circumstances, and unsuccessful in his undertakings. Not long +before our arrest, he went to Harkov, where he had been promised a +lecturer’s chair at the university. His going there saved him indeed +from prison, but his name was not forgotten by the police. Vadim was +refused the post. The assistant-director admitted to him that they had +received a document by which they were forbidden to give him the chair, +on account of connections with evilly-disposed persons of which the +government had obtained knowledge. + +Vadim was left without a post, that is, without bread—that was his +Vyatka. + +We were exiled. Relations with us were dangerous. Black years of poverty +followed for him; in seven years of struggle to get a bare living, in +mortifying contact with coarse and heartless people, far from friends +and from all possibility of corresponding with them, his health gave +way. + +‘Once we had spent all our money to the last farthing,’ his wife told me +afterwards; ‘on the previous evening I had tried to get hold of ten +roubles somehow, but had not succeeded. I had already borrowed from +every one from whom it was possible to borrow a little. In the shops +they refused to give us provisions except for cash, we thought of +nothing but what would the children have to eat next day. Vadim sat +gloomily by the window, then he got up, took his hat and said he would +like a walk. I saw that he was very much depressed; I felt frightened, +but still I was glad that he should distract his mind a little. When he +was gone I flung myself on the bed and wept very bitterly, then I began +thinking what to do—everything we had of the slightest value, our rings +and our spoons, had long ago been pawned; I saw no resource left but to +apply to my people and beg their bitter, cold assistance. Meanwhile +Vadim wandered aimlessly about the streets and so reached Petrovsky +Boulevard. As he passed by Shiryaev’s shop it occurred to him to inquire +whether the bookseller had sold even one copy of his book; he had been +in the shop five days before, but had found nothing for him; he walked +despondently into the shop. + +‘Very glad to see you,’ Shiryaev said to him, ‘there is a letter from +our Petersburg agent, he has sold three hundred roubles’ worth of your +book; would you like to have the money?’ And Shiryaev counted him out +fifteen gold roubles. Vadim lost his head in his delight, rushed into +the first restaurant for provisions, bought a bottle of wine and fruit +and dashed home in a cab in triumph. At the moment I was watering the +remainder of some broth for the children, and was meaning to put a +little aside for him and to assure him that I had already had some, when +he suddenly came in with the parcel and the bottle, gay and joyous.’ And +she sobbed and could not utter another word. + +After my exile I met him casually in Petersburg and found him very much +changed. He kept his convictions, but he kept them like a warrior who +will not let the sword drop out of his hand, though he feels that he is +wounded to death. He was by then exhausted and looked coldly into the +future. So, too, I found him in Moscow in 1842, his circumstances had +somewhat improved, his work had begun to be appreciated; but all this +came too late—it was like the epaulettes of Polezhaev or the release of +Kolreif—granted not by the Russian Tsar but by Russian life. + +Vadim was wasting away; in the autumn of 1842 tuberculosis was +discovered, that terrible disease which I was destined to see once +again. + +A month before his death I began to notice with horror that his mental +faculties were growing dimmer and weaker, like candles smouldering out +and leaving the room darker and gloomier. Soon it was with difficulty +and effort that he could find the words for incoherent speech, then he +scarcely spoke at all and only inquired anxiously for his medicines and +whether it was not time to take them. + +At three o’clock one night in February, Vadim’s wife sent for me; the +sick man was very bad, he had asked for me. I went in to him and gently +took his hand, his wife mentioned my name; he gazed long and wearily at +me but did not recognise me and closed his eyes. The children were +brought in; he looked at them but I think did not recognise them either. +His moaning became more painful, he would subside for minutes and then +suddenly give a prolonged sigh and groan; then a bell pealed in a +neighbouring church, Vadim listened and said, ‘That’s matins,’ after +that he did not utter another word.... His wife knelt sobbing by the +dead man’s bedside; a good, kind lad, one of their university comrades, +who had been looking after him of late, bustled about, moving back the +medicine table, raising the curtains.... I went away—it was bright and +frosty, the rising sun shone brilliantly on the snow as though something +good had happened; I went to order the coffin. + +When I went back a deathlike stillness reigned in the little house, the +dead man in accordance with Russian custom lay on a table in the +drawing-room, at a little distance from it sat his friend, the artist +Rabus, making a pencil sketch of him through his tears; beside the dead +man stood a tall woman with silently folded arms and an expression of +infinite sorrow; no artist could have moulded a nobler and finer figure +of grief. The woman was not young, but retained traces of a stern, +majestic beauty; she stood motionless, wrapped in a long black velvet +cloak lined with ermine fur. + +I stopped in the doorway. + +Two or three minutes passed in the same stillness, when all at once she +bent down, warmly kissed the dead man on the forehead, and said, +‘Farewell! farewell, friend Vadim,’ and with resolute steps walked into +the inner rooms. Rabus went on drawing, he nodded to me, we had no +inclination to speak. I sat down by the window in silence. + +That woman was Madame E. Tchertkov, the sister of Count Zahar +Tchernyshev, exiled for the Fourteenth of December. + +The Simonovsky archimandrite, Melhisedek, of his own accord offered a +grave within the precincts of his monastery. Melhisedek had once been a +humble carpenter and a desperate dissenter, had afterwards gone back to +orthodoxy, become a monk, been made Father Superior and afterwards +archimandrite. With all that, he remained a carpenter, that is, he kept +his heart and his broad shoulders and his red, healthy face. He knew +Vadim and respected him for his historical researches concerning Moscow. + +When the dead man’s body arrived before the monastery gates, they were +opened and Melhisedek came out with all the monks to meet the martyr’s +poor coffin with soft, mournful chanting, and to follow it to the grave. +Not far from Vadim’s grave lie the ashes of another dear friend, +Venevitinov,[104] with the inscription ‘How well he knew life, how +little he lived!’ How well Vadim, too, knew life! + +This was not enough for fate. Why did the old mother live so long? She +had seen the end of their exile, had seen her children in all the beauty +of their youth, in all the brilliance of their talent, what more had she +to live for! Who prizes happiness should seek an early death. Happiness +that lasts is no more to be found than ice which never melts. + +Vadim’s eldest brother died a few months after the second, Diomid, had +been killed; he caught cold, neglected his illness, and his undermined +organism succumbed. He was barely forty and he was the eldest. + +These three graves of three friends cast long dark shadows over the +past; the last months of my youth are seen through funeral crape and the +smoke of incense.... + +A year passed, the trial of my university comrades was over. They were +found guilty (just as we were later on, and later still the Petrashevsky +group[105]) of a design to form a secret society, and of criminal +conversations; for this they were sent as common soldiers to Orenburg. +Nicholas made an exception of one of them, Sungurov. He had completed +his studies and was in the service, married and had children. He was +condemned to deprivation of rights of property and exile to Siberia. + +‘What could a handful of young students do, they ruined themselves for +nothing!’ All that is very sensible, and people who argue in that way +ought to be gratified at the _good sense_ of the young generation that +followed us. After our affair which followed that of Sungurov, fifteen +years passed in tranquillity before the Petrashevsky affair, and it was +those fifteen years from which Russia is only just beginning to recover +and by which two generations were ruined, the elder lost in debauchery, +and the younger, poisoned from childhood, whose sickly representatives +we are seeing to-day. + +After the Decembrists, all attempts to form societies were, indeed, +unsuccessful; the scantiness of our forces and the vagueness of our aims +pointed to the necessity for another kind of work—preparatory, +spiritual. All that is true. + +But what would young men be made of who could wait for solutions to +theoretical problems while calmly looking on at what was being done +around them, at the hundreds of Poles clanking their fetters on the +Vladimir Road, at serfdom, at the soldiers flogged in the Hodynsky Field +by some General Lashkevitch, at fellow-students lost and never heard of +again? For the moral purification of the generation, as a pledge of the +future, they were bound to be so indignant as to be senseless in their +attempts and disdainful of danger. The savage punishments inflicted on +boys of sixteen or seventeen served as a terrible lesson and in a way a +hardening process; the cruel blows aimed at every one of us by a +heartless monster dispelled for good all rosy hopes of indulgence for +youth. It was dangerous to jest with Liberalism, and no one could dream +of playing at conspiracy. For one carelessly concealed tear over Poland, +for one boldly uttered word, there were years of exile, of the white +strap,[106] and sometimes even of the fortress; that was why it was +important that those words were uttered and that those tears were shed. +Young people perished sometimes, but they perished without checking the +mental activity that was solving the sphinx riddle of Russian life, +indeed they even justified its hope. + +Our turn came now. Our names were already on the list of the secret +police. The first play of the light-blue cat with the mouse began as +follows. + +When our condemned comrades were being sent off to Orenburg by étape, on +foot without sufficient warm clothing, Ogaryov in our circle, I. +Kireyevsky in his, got up subscriptions. All the condemned men were +without money. Kireyevsky brought the money collected to the commander, +Staal, a good-natured old man of whom I shall have more to say later. +Staal promised to give the money and asked Kireyevsky, ‘But what are +these lists for?’ ‘The names of those who subscribed,’ answered +Kireyevsky, ‘and the amounts.’ ‘You do believe that I will give them the +money?’ asked the old man. ‘Of course.’ ‘And I imagine that those who +have given it to you trust you. And so what is the use of our keeping +their names?’ With these words Staal threw the lists into the fire, and, +of course, he did very well. + +Ogaryov himself took the money to the barracks, and this went off +without a hitch, but the prisoners took it into their heads to send +their thanks from Orenburg to their comrades, and, as a government +official was going to Moscow, they seized the opportunity and asked him +to take a letter, which they were afraid to trust to the post. The +official did not fail to take advantage of this rare chance for proving +all the ardour of his loyal sentiments and presented the letter to the +general of gendarmes in Moscow. + +The general of gendarmes at this time was Lissovsky, who was appointed +to the post when A. A. Volkov went out of his mind imagining that the +Poles wanted to offer him the crown of Poland (an ironical trick of +destiny to send a general of gendarmes mad over the crown of the +Jagellons![107]). + +Lissovsky, himself a Pole, was neither spiteful nor ill-disposed: having +wasted his property over cards and a French actress, he philosophically +preferred the place of general of gendarmes in Moscow to a place in the +debtors’ prison of the same city. + +Lissovsky summoned Ogaryov, Ketscher, S. Vadim, I. Obolensky and others, +and charged them with being in relations with political criminals. On +Ogaryov’s observing that he had not written to any one, and that if any +one had written to him he could not be responsible for it, and that, +moreover, no letter had reached him, Lissovsky answered: ‘You got up a +subscription for them, _that’s still worse_. As it is the first offence +the Sovereign is _so merciful_ as to _pardon_ you; only I warn you, +gentlemen, a strict supervision will be kept over you; be careful.’ + +Lissovsky looked round at all with a significant glance, and his eyes +resting upon Ketscher, who was taller and a little older than the rest +and who raised his eyebrows so fiercely, he added: ‘You, my good sir, +ought to be ashamed in your position.’ It might have been supposed that +Ketscher was vice-chancellor of the Russian Heraldry Office, while as a +matter of fact he was only a humble district doctor. + +I was not sent for, probably my name was not in the letter. + +This threat was like a promotion, a consecration, a winning of our +spurs. Lissovsky’s advice threw oil on the fire, and as though to make +their future task easier for the police we put on velvet _bérets à la_ +Karl Sand[108] and tied tricolor scarves round our necks. + +Colonel Shubensky, who was quietly and softly with velvet steps creeping +into Lissovsky’s place, pounced upon his weakness with us; we were to +serve him for a step in his promotion—and we did so serve him. + +But first I will add a few words concerning the fate of Sungurov and his +companions. Nicholas let Kolreif return ten years later from Orenburg, +where his regiment was stationed. He pardoned him on the ground of his +being in consumption, just as, because he was in consumption, Polezhaev +was promoted to be an officer, and because he was dead Bestuzhev was +given a cross. Kolreif returned to Moscow and died in the arms of his +old, grief-stricken father. + +Kostenetsky distinguished himself in the Caucasus and was promoted to +the rank of an officer. It was the same with Antonovitch. The fate of +the luckless Sungurov was incomparably more dreadful. On reaching the +first étape on the Sparrow Hills, Sungurov asked leave from the officer +in charge to go out into the fresh air, as the hut, packed to +overflowing with exiles, was suffocating. The officer, a young man of +twenty, went out himself into the road with him. Sungurov, choosing a +favourable moment, turned off the road and disappeared. Probably he knew +the locality well. He succeeded in getting away from the officer, but +next day the gendarmes got on his track. When Sungurov saw that it was +impossible to escape, he cut his throat. The gendarmes took him to +Moscow unconscious and losing blood. + +The unfortunate officer was degraded to the ranks. + +Sungurov did not die. He was tried again, this time not as a political +prisoner, but as a runaway convict: half his head was shaved: it is an +original method (probably inherited from the Tatars) in use for +preventing escapes and it shows even more than corporal punishment the +complete contempt for human dignity of the Russian legislature. To this +external disgrace the sentence added one stroke of the lash within the +walls of the prison. Whether this sentence was carried out I do not +know. After that, Sungurov was sent to Nertchinsk to the mines. + +I heard his name pronounced once more and then it vanished for ever. + +In Vyatka I once met in the street a young doctor, a fellow-student at +the university, who was on his way to some post in a factory. We talked +of old days and common acquaintances. + +‘My God!’ said the doctor, ‘do you know whom I saw on my way here in the +Nizhni-Novgorod Province? I was sitting in the posting-station waiting +for horses. It was very nasty weather. An étape officer, in charge of a +party of convicts, came in to get warm. We got into conversation; +hearing that I was a doctor, he asked me to go to the étape to look at +one of the convicts and see whether he were shamming or really were +seriously ill. I went, of course, with the intention of declaring in any +case that the convict was ill. In the small étape there were eighty men +in chains, shaven and unshaven, women and children; they all moved apart +as the officer went up, and we saw, lying on straw in a corner on the +dirty floor, a figure wrapped in a convict’s greatcoat. + +‘“This is the invalid,” said the officer. + +‘I had no need to lie, the poor wretch was in a high fever; emaciated +and exhausted by prison and the journey, with half his head shaven and +his beard uncut, he looked terrible as he stared about aimlessly, and +continually asked for water. + +‘“Well, brother, are you very bad?” I said to the sick man, and added to +the officer: “it is impossible for him to go on.” + +‘The sick man fixed his eyes upon me and muttered “Is that you?”—he +mentioned my name. “You don’t know me?” he added in a voice which went +to my heart like a knife. + +‘“Forgive me,” I said, taking his dry and burning hand, “I can’t recall +you.” + +‘“I am Sungurov,” he answered. + +‘Poor Sungurov!’ repeated the doctor, shaking his head. + +‘Well, did they leave him?’ I asked. + +‘No, but they got a cart for him.’ + +After I had written this I learned that Sungurov died at Nertchinsk. His +property which consisted of two hundred and fifty souls in the +Bronnitsky district near Moscow, and four hundred souls in the Arzamas +district of the Nizhni-Novgorod Province, _went to pay for the keep of +him and his comrades in prison while awaiting trial_. + +His family was ruined; the first care of the authorities, however, was +to diminish it. _Sungurov’s wife was seized with her two children, and +spent six months_ in the Pretchistensky prison, and her baby died there. +May the rule of Nicholas be damned for ever and ever! Amen! + + + + + Chapter 7 + THE END OF MY STUDIES—THE SCHILLER PERIOD—EARLY YOUTH AND + BOHEMIANISM—SAINT-SIMONISM AND N. POLEVOY + + +Before the storm had broken over our heads my time at the university was +coming to an end. The ordinary anxieties, the nights without sleep spent +in trying to learn useless things by heart, the superficial study in a +hurry and the thought of the examination stifling all interest in +science—all that was as it always is. I wrote a dissertation on +astronomy for the gold medal, but only got the silver one. I am certain +that I am incapable of understanding now what I wrote then, and that it +was worth its weight—in silver. + +It sometimes happens to me to dream that I am a student going in for an +examination—I think with horror how much I have forgotten and feel that +I shall be plucked,—and I wake up rejoicing from the bottom of my heart +that the sea and passports, and years and crimes cut me off from the +university, that no one is going to torture me, and no one dare give me +a disgusting minimum. And, indeed, the professors would be surprised +that I should have gone so far back in so few years. One did, indeed, +express this to me.[109] + +After the final examination the professors shut themselves up to reckon +the marks, while we, excited by hopes and doubts, hung about the +corridors and entrance in little groups. Sometimes some one would come +out of the council-room. We rushed to learn our fate, but for a long +time it was not settled. At last Heiman came out. ‘I congratulate you,’ +he said to me, ‘you are a graduate.’ ‘Who else, who else?’ ‘So-and-so, +and So-and-so.’ I felt at once sad and gay; as I went out at the +university gates I thought that I should not go out at them again as I +had yesterday and every day; I was shut out of the university, of that +common home where I had spent four years, so youthfully and so well; on +the other hand I was comforted by the feeling of being accepted as +completely grown-up, and, why not admit it? by the title of graduate I +had gained all at once.[110] + +Alma Mater! I am so greatly indebted to the university, and lived in its +life and with it so long after I had finished my studies, that I cannot +think of it without love and respect. It cannot charge me with +ingratitude, though in relation with the university gratitude is easy, +it is inseparable from the love and bright memories of youth ... and I +send it my blessing from this far-off foreign land! + +The year we spent after taking our degrees made a glorious end to early +youth. It was one prolonged feast of friendship, exchange of ideas, +inspiration, carousing.... + +A little group of university friends who had succeeded in surviving did +not part, but went on living in their common sympathies and fancies, and +no one thought of his material prospects or future career. I should not +think well of this in men of mature age, but I prize it in the young. +Youth when it has not been sapped by the moral corruption of +petty-bourgeois ideas is everywhere impractical, and is especially bound +to be so in a young country which is full of such great strivings and +has attained so little. Moreover, to be impractical need not imply +anything false, everything turned toward the future is bound to have a +share of idealism. If it were not for the impractical characters, all +the practical people would remain at the same dull stage of perpetual +repetition. + +Some enthusiasm preserves a man from real degradation far more than all +the moral admonitions in the world. I remember youthful orgies, moments +of revelry that sometimes went beyond bounds, but I do not remember one +really immoral affair in our circle, nothing of which a man would have +to feel seriously ashamed, which he would try to forget and conceal. +Everything was done openly, and what is bad is rarely done openly. Half, +more than half, of the heart was turned away from idle sensuality and +morbid egoism, which concentrate on impure thoughts and accentuate vice. + +I consider it a great misfortune for a nation when their young +generation has no youth; we have already observed that being young is +not enough. The most grotesque period of German student life is a +hundred times better than the petty-bourgeois maturity of young men in +France and England. To my mind the elderly Americans of fifteen are +simply disgusting. + +In France there was at one time a brilliant aristocratic youth, and +later on a brilliant revolutionary youth. All the St. Justs[111] and +Hoches,[112] Marceaux and Desmoulins,[113] the heroic children who grew +up on the gloomy poetry of Jean-Jacques, were real youth. The Revolution +was the work of young men, neither Danton nor Robespierre nor Louis XVI. +himself outlived their thirty-fifth year. With Napoleon the young men +were turned into orderlies, with the Restoration, ‘the revival of old +age,’—youth was utterly incompatible—everything became mature, +businesslike, that is, petty-bourgeois. + +The last youths of France were the Saint-Simonists and the Fourierists. +The few exceptions cannot alter the prosaically dull character of French +youth. Escousse and Lebras[114] shot themselves because they were young +in a society of old men. Others struggled like fish thrown out of the +water on to the muddy bank, till some fell at the barricades, others +were caught in the Jesuit snares. + +But since youth asserts its rights, the greater number of young +Frenchmen work off their youth in a Bohemian period, that is, if they +have no money, live in little cafés with little grisettes in the +Quartier Latin, and in grand cafés with grand lorettes, if they have +money. Instead of a Schiller period, they have a Paul de Kock period; in +it, strength, energy, everything young is rapidly and rather wretchedly +wasted and the man is ready—for a _commis_ in a commercial house. The +Bohemian period leaves at the bottom of the soul one passion only—the +thirst for money, and the whole future is sacrificed to it, there are no +other interests; these practical people laugh at theoretical questions +and despise women (the result of numerous conquests over those whose +trade it is to be conquered). As a rule, the Bohemian period is passed +under the guidance of some worn-out sinner, of some faded celebrity, +_d’un vieux prostitué_, living at some one else’s expense, an actor who +has lost his voice, or a painter whose hands tremble, and he is the +model who is imitated in accent, in dress, and above all in a haughty +view of human affairs and a profound understanding of good fare. + +In England the Bohemian period is replaced by a paroxysm of charming +originalities and amiable eccentricities. For instance, senseless +tricks, absurd squandering of money, ponderous practical jokes, heavy, +but carefully concealed vice, profitless trips to Calabria or Quito, to +the North and to the South—with horses, dogs, races, and stuffy dinners +by the way, then a wife and an enormous number of fat and rosy babies; +business transactions, the _Times_, Parliament, and the old port which +weighs them to the earth. + +We played pranks too and we caroused, but the fundamental tone was not +the same, the diapason was too elevated. Mischief and dissipation never +became our goal. Our goal was faith in our vocation; supposing that we +were mistaken, still, believing it as a fact, we respected in ourselves +and in each other the instruments of the common cause. And in what did +our feasts and orgies consist? Suddenly it would occur to us that in +another two days it would be the sixth of December, St. Nikolay’s day. +The supply of Nikolays was terrific, Nikolay Ogaryov, Nikolay S——, +Nikolay Ketscher, Nikolay Sazonov.... + +‘I say, who is going to celebrate the name-day?’ + +‘I! I!...’ + +‘I will next day then.’ + +‘That’s all nonsense, what’s the good of next day? We will keep it in +common, by subscription! And what a feast it will be!’ + +‘Yes! yes! at whose rooms are we to assemble?’ + +‘S—— is ill, so it’s clear it must be at his.’ + +And so plans and calculations are made, and it is incredibly absorbing +for the future guests and hosts. One Nikolay drives off to Yar’s to +order supper, another to Materne’s for cheese and salami. Wine, of +course, is bought in Petrovka from Depré’s, on whose price-list Ogaryov +wrote the epigram: + + ‘De près ou de loin, + Mais je fournis toujours.’ + +Our inexperienced taste went no further than champagne, and was so young +that we sometimes even preferred _Rivesaltes mousseux_ to champagne. I +once saw the name on a wine-list in Paris, remembered 1833 and tried a +bottle, but, alas, even my memories did not help me to drink more than a +glass. + +Before the festive day, the wines would be tried, and so it would be +necessary to send a messenger for more, as it appeared they were liked. + +While we are on the subject, I cannot refrain from describing what +happened to Sokolovsky. He was perpetually without money and immediately +spent everything he received. A year before his arrest, he arrived in +Moscow and stayed with S——. He had, I remember, succeeded in selling the +manuscript of _Heveri_, and so resolved to give a feast not only for us +but also _pour les gros bonnets_, _i.e._ invited Polevoy, Maximovitch, +and others. On the morning of the previous day, he set out with +Polezhaev, who was at that time in Moscow with his regiment, to make +purchases, bought cups and even a samovar and all sorts of unnecessary +things and finally wines and eatables, that is, pasties, stuffed +turkeys, and soon. In the evening we arrived at S——’s. Sokolovsky +suggested uncorking one bottle, and then another, and by the end of the +evening, it appeared that there was no more wine and no more money. +Sokolovsky had spent everything he had left over after paying some small +debts. Sokolovsky was mortified, but controlled his feeling; he thought +and thought, then wrote to the _gros bonnets_ that he had been taken +seriously ill and was putting off the feast. + +For the celebration of the four name-days, I wrote out a complete +programme, which was deemed worthy of the special attention of the +inquisitor Golitsyn, who asked me at the committee whether the programme +had really been carried out. + +‘_À la lettre_,’ I replied. He shrugged his shoulders as though he had +spent his whole life in the Smolny Convent or keeping Good Friday. + +After supper as a rule a vital question, a question that aroused +controversy arose, _i.e._ how to prepare the punch. Other things were +usually eaten and drunk in good faith, like the voting in Parliament, +without dispute, but in this every one must have a hand and, moreover, +it was after supper.... ‘Light it—don’t light it yet—light it how?—put +it out with champagne or Sauterne?—put the fruit and pineapple in while +it is burning or afterwards?’ + +‘Evidently when it is burning, and then the whole aroma will go into +punch.’ + +‘But, I say, the pineapple will swim, the edges will be scorched, it is +simply a waste.’ + +‘That’s all nonsense,’ Ketscher would shout louder than all, ‘but what’s +not nonsense is that you must put out the candles.’ + +The candles were put out; all the faces looked blue, and the features +seemed to quiver with the movement of the flame. And meantime the +temperature in the little room was becoming tropical. Every one was +thirsty and the punch was not ready. But Joseph the Frenchman sent from +Yar’s was ready; he had prepared something, the antithesis of punch, an +iced beverage of various wines _à la base de cognac_. A genuine son of +the ‘_grand peuple_,’ he explained to us, as he put in the French wine, +that it was so good because it had twice passed the Equator. ‘_Oui, oui, +messieurs, deux fois l’équateur, messieurs!_’ + +When the beverage remarkable for its arctic iciness had been finished +and in fact there was no need of more drink, Ketscher shouted, stirring +the fiery lake in the soup-tureen and making the last lumps of sugar +melt with a hiss and a wail, ‘It’s time to put it out! time to put it +out!’ + +The flame turns red with the champagne, and races over the surface of +the punch with a look of despair and foreboding. + +Then comes a voice of despair, ‘But I say, old man, you’re mad, the wax +is melting right into the punch.’ + +‘Well, you try holding the bottle yourself in such heat so that the wax +does not melt.’ + +‘Well, something ought to have been wrapped round it first,’ the +distressed voice continues. + +‘Cups, cups, have you enough? How many are there of us? Nine, ten, +fourteen, yes, yes!’ + +‘Where’s one to find fourteen cups?’ + +‘Well any one who hasn’t got a cup must take a glass.’ + +‘The glasses will crack.’ + +‘Never, never, you’ve only to put a spoon in them.’ + +Candles are brought, the last flicker of flame runs across the middle, +makes a pirouette and vanishes. + +‘The punch is a success!’ + +‘It is a great success!’ is said on all sides. + +Next day my head aches—I feel sick. That’s evidently from the punch, too +mixed! And on the spot I make a sincere resolution never to drink punch +for the future; it is a poison. + +Pyotr Fyodorovitch comes in. + +‘You came home in somebody else’s hat, our hat is a much better one.’ + +‘The devil take it entirely.’ + +‘Should I run to Nikolay Mihailovitch’s Kuzma?’ + +‘Why, do you imagine some one went home without a hat?’ + +‘It would be just as well anyway.’ + +At this point I guess that the hat is only a pretext, and that Kuzma has +invited Pyotr Fyodorovitch to the field of battle. + +‘You go and see Kuzma; only first ask the cook to let me have some sour +cabbage.’ + +‘So, Alexandr Ivanitch, the gentlemen kept their name-days in fine +style?’ + +‘Yes, indeed, there hasn’t been such a supper in our time.’ + +‘So we shan’t be going to the university to-day?’ + +My conscience pricks me and I make no answer. + +‘Your papa was asking me, “How is it,” says he, “he is not up yet?” +Without thinking, I said, “His honour’s head aches; he complained of it +from early morning, so I did not even pull up the blinds.” “Well,” said +he, “you did right there.”’ + +‘But do let me go to sleep, for Christ’s sake. You want to go and see +Kuzma, so go.’ + +‘This minute, this minute, sir; first I’ll run for the cabbage.’ + +A heavy sleep closes my eyes again; two or three hours later I wake up +much better. What are they doing there? I wonder. Ketscher and Ogaryov +stayed the night. It’s vexatious that punch has such an effect on the +head, for it must be owned it’s very nice. It is a mistake to drink +punch by the glassful; henceforth and for ever I will certainly drink no +more than a small cupful. + +Meantime my father has already finished interviewing the cook and +reading the newspapers. + +‘You have a headache to-day?’ + +‘Yes, a bad one.’ + +‘Perhaps you have been working too hard?’ And as he asks the question I +can see that he has his doubts already. + +‘I forgot though, I believe you spent the evening with Nikolasha[115] +and Ogaryov.’ + +‘Of course.’ + +‘Did they regale you with anything ... for the name-day? Madeira in the +soup again? Ah, I don’t like all that. Nikolasha is too fond of wine I +know, and where he gets that weakness from I don’t understand. Poor +Pavel Ivanovitch ... why, on the twenty-ninth of June, his name-day, he +would invite all the relations and have a dinner in the regular way, +quiet and proper. But the fashion nowadays, champagne and sardines in +oil, it’s a disgusting sight. As for that luckless young Ogaryov, I say +nothing about him, he is alone and abandoned! Moscow ... with plenty of +money, his coachman Eremey “goes to fetch wine.” The coachman’s glad to, +he gets ten kopecks at the shop for it.’ + +‘Yes, I lunched with Nikolay Pavlovitch. But I don’t think that that’s +why my head aches. I will go for a little walk; that always does me +good.’ + +‘By all means; you will dine at home, I hope.’ + +‘Of course, I am only going out for a little.’ + +To explain the Madeira in the soup, it must be said that about a year +before the famous celebration of the four name-days, Ogaryov and I had +gone off for a spree in Easter-week and, to get out of dining at home, I +had said that I had been invited to dinner by Ogaryov’s father. + +My father disliked my friends as a rule; he used to call them by the +wrong surnames, invariably making the same mistake, thus he never failed +to call S—— Sakeny and Sazonov, Snaziny. He liked Ogaryov least of all, +both because he wore his hair long and because he smoked without asking +his leave. On the other hand, he regarded him as a distant cousin and so +could not distort the name of a relation. Moreover, his father, Platon +Bogdanovitch, belonged both by family and by fortune to the little +circle of persons recognised by my father, and he liked my being +intimate with the family. He would have liked it better still, if Platon +Bogdanovitch had had no son. + +And so to refuse the invitation was considered impossible. + +Instead of settling ourselves in Platon Bogdanovitch’s respectable +dining-room, we set off first to the Prices’ booth (I was delighted +later on to meet this family of acrobats in Geneva and in London). There +was a little girl there, over whom we raved and whom we had named +Mignon. + +After gazing at Mignon and resolving to see her again in the evening, we +set off to dine at Yar’s. I had a gold piece and Ogaryov about the same. +We were at that time complete novices and so, after long consultation, +we ordered fish soup with champagne in it, a bottle of Rhine-wine, and +some tiny bird, so that when we got up from the dinner, which was +frightfully expensive, we were quite hungry and so went off to look at +Mignon again. + +When my father said good-night to me, he observed that he thought I +smelt of wine. + +‘That must be because there was Madeira in the soup.’ ‘_Au madère_—that +must be Platon Bogdanovitch’s son-in-law’s idea; _cela sent les casernes +de la garde_.’ + +From that time forth, if my father fancied that I had been drinking, or +that my face was red, he would be sure to say to me, ‘I suppose you have +had Madeira in your soup to-day!’ + +And so I hastened off to S——’s. + +Ogaryov and Ketscher were, of course, on the spot. Ketscher, looking +tousled, was displeased with some arrangements that were being made and +was criticising them severely. Ogaryov, on the homeopathic system of +driving out one nail with another, was drinking up what was left, not +merely after the supper but after the foraging of Pyotr Fyodorovitch, +who was already singing, whistling, and playing a tattoo in S——’s +kitchen. + +Recalling the days of our youth, of all our circle, I do not remember a +single incident which would weigh on the conscience, which one would be +ashamed to think of. And that applies to all our friends without +exception. + +There were, of course, Platonic dreamers and disillusioned youths of +seventeen among us. Vadim even wrote a drama in which he tried to depict +‘the terrible ordeal of his spent heart.’ The drama began like this: ‘A +garden—house in distance—windows lighted—storm raging—no one in +sight—garden gate not fastened, it flaps to and fro and creaks.’ + +‘Are there any characters in the drama besides the gate in the garden?’ +I asked Vadim. + +And Vadim, rather nettled, said, ‘You’re always playing the fool! It’s +not a jest, it’s the record of my heart; if you go on like that I won’t +read it’—and proceeded to read it. + +There were follies, too, that were not at all Platonic; even some that +ended not in writing plays but in the chemist’s shop. But there were no +vulgar intrigues ruining a woman or humiliating a man, there were no +kept mistresses (indeed the vulgar word for them did not exist among +us). Tranquil, secure, prosaic, petty-bourgeois vice, vice by contract, +passed our circle by. + +‘Then you do admit the worse form of vice, prostitution?’ I shall be +asked. + +Not I, but you do! that is, not you individually, but all of you. It is +so firmly established in the social structure that it asks for no +sanction from me. + +Social enthusiasm, general theories, were our salvation; and not they +alone but also a high development of scientific and artistic interest. +Like fumigating paper, they burnt out the grease spots. I have preserved +some of Ogaryov’s letters of that period, and the background of our +lives can be easily judged from them. On June 7, 1833, Ogaryov, for +instance, wrote to me: + +‘I believe we know each other, I believe we can be open. You will not +show my letters to any one else. And so tell me—for some time past I +have been so absolutely brimming over, I may say, suffocated with +sensations and thoughts, that I fancy, it’s more than fancy, the idea +sticks in my head, that it is my vocation to be a poet, a creative +artist or a musician, _alles eins_, but I feel that I must live in that +thought, for I have a feeling in myself that I am a poet;—granted that I +have written rubbish so far, yet the fire in my soul, the exuberance of +my feelings, gives me the hope that I shall write decently (excuse the +vulgar expression). Tell me, friend, am I to believe in my vocation? You +know me, maybe, better than I know myself, and will not make a +mistake.’—_June 7, 1833._ + +‘You write: but you are a poet, a real poet! Friend, can you conceive +all that those words do for me? And so all that I feel, to which I +strive, in which I live is not an illusion! It is not an illusion! Are +you telling the truth? It is not the delirium of fever—that I feel. You +know me better than any one, don’t you? I certainly feel that you do. +No, this exalted life is not the delirium of fever, not the illusion of +imagination, it is too exalted for deception, it is real, I live in it, +I cannot imagine myself with any other life. Why don’t I understand +music, what a symphony would rise out of my soul now! One can catch the +stately _adagio_, but I have no power to express myself; I want to say +more than has been said, _presto, presto_, I want a tempestuous, +irrepressible _presto_. _Adagio_ and _presto_, the two extremes. Away +with these compromises, _andante_, _allegro_, _moderato_, faltering or +feeble-minded, they can neither speak strongly nor feel +strongly.’—TCHERTKOVO, _Aug. 18, 1833_. + + +We have grown out of the habit of this enthusiastic bubble of youth and +it is strange to us, but in these lines, written by a youth under +twenty, it can clearly be seen that he is insured against vulgar vice +and vulgar virtue, and that even if he is not saved from the mire, he +will come out of it unsullied. + +It is not lack of self-confidence, it is the hesitation of faith, it is +the passionate desire for confirmation, for the superfluous word of +love, so precious to us. Yes, it is the uneasiness of creative +conception, it is the anxious searchings of a soul in travail. + +‘I cannot yet,’ he writes in the same letter, ‘catch the notes which are +resounding in my soul, physical incapacity limits the imagination. But, +hang it all! I am a poet, poetry whispers the truth to me where I could +not have grasped it with cold reason.’ + +So ends the first part of our youth; the second begins in prison. But +before we go on to it, I must say something of the tendencies, of the +ideas, with which it found us. + +The period that followed the suppression of the Polish insurrection +educated us rapidly. We were not merely troubled that Nicholas had grown +to his full stature and was firmly established in severity; we began +with inward horror to discover that in Europe, too, and especially in +France, to which we looked for our political watchword and battle-cry, +things were not going well; we began to look upon our theories with +suspicion. + +The childish liberalism of 1826, which gradually passed into the French +political theory expounded by the Lafayettes and Benjamin Constant and +sung by Béranger, lost its magic power over us after the ruin of Poland. + +Then one section of the young people, and among them Vadim, threw +themselves into a close and earnest study of Russian history. + +Another set took to the study of German philosophy. + +Ogaryov and I belonged to neither of these sets. We had grown too +closely attached to certain ideas to part with them readily. + +Our faith in revolution of the festive Béranger stamp was shaken, but we +looked for something which we could find neither in the _Chronicle_ of +Nestor[116] nor in the transcendental idealism of Schelling. + +In the midst of this ferment, in the midst of surmises, of confused +efforts to understand the doubts which frightened us, the pamphlets of +Saint Simon and his followers, their tracts and their trial came into +our hands. They impressed us. + +Critics, superficial and not superficial, have laughed enough at Father +Enfantin[117] and his apostles; the time has now come for some +recognition of these forerunners of socialism. + +These enthusiastic youths with their strange waistcoats and their +budding beards made a magnificent and poetic appearance in the midst of +the petty-bourgeois world. They heralded a new faith, they had something +to say, they had something in the name of which to judge the old order +of things, fain to judge them by the Code Napoleon and the religion of +Orleans. + +On the one hand came the emancipation of woman, the call to her to join +in common labour, the giving of her destiny into her own hands, alliance +with her as with an equal. + +On the other hand the justification, the _redemption_ of the flesh, +_Réhabilitation de la chair_! + +Grand words, involving a whole world of new relations between human +beings; a world of health, a world of spirit, a world of beauty, the +world of natural morality, and therefore of moral purity. Many have +scoffed at emancipation of women and at the recognition of the rights of +the flesh, giving to those words a filthy and vulgar meaning; our +monastically depraved imagination fears the flesh, fears woman. +Simple-hearted people grasped that the purifying sanctification of the +flesh is the death knell of Christianity; the religion of life had come +to replace the religion of death, the religion of beauty to replace the +religion of castigation and mortification by prayer and fasting. The +crucified body had risen again in its turn and was no longer ashamed; +man attained a harmonious unity and divined that he was a whole being +and not made up like a pendulum of two different metals restraining each +other, that the enemy bound up with him had disappeared. + +What courage was needed in France to proclaim in the hearing of all +those words of deliverance from the spiritual ideas which are so strong +in the minds of the French and so completely absent from their conduct! + +The old world, ridiculed by Voltaire, undermined by the Revolution, but +fortified, patched up and made secure by the petty-bourgeois for their +own personal convenience, had never experienced this before. It tried to +judge the heretics on the basis of its secret conspiracy of hypocrisy, +but these young men unmasked it. They were accused of being apostates +from Christianity, and they pointed above their judge’s head to the holy +picture that had been covered with a curtain after the Revolution of +1830. They were charged with justifying sensuality, and they asked their +judge, was his life chaste? + +The new world was pushing at the door, and our hearts opened wide to +meet it. Saint-Simonism lay at the foundation of our convictions and +remained so in its essentials unalterably. + +Impressionable, genuinely youthful, we were easily caught up in its +mighty current and passed early over that boundary at which whole crowds +of people remain standing with their hands folded, go back or seek from +side to side a ford—to cross the ocean! + +But not all ventured with us. Socialism and Realism remain to this day +the touchstones flung on the paths of revolution and science. Groups of +travellers, tossed up against these rocks by the current of events, or +by process of reasoning, immediately divide and make two everlasting +parties which, in various disguises, cut across the whole of history, +across all upheavals, across innumerable political parties and even +circles of no more than a dozen youths. One stands for logic, the other +for history; one for dialectics, the other for embryology. One is more +correct, the other more practical. + +There can be no talk of choice; it is harder to bridle thought than any +passion, it leads one on unconsciously; any one who can chain it by +feeling, by dreams, by dread of consequences, will chain it, but not all +can. If thought gets the upper hand in any one, he does not inquire +about its practicability, or whether it will make things easier or +harder; he seeks the truth, and inflexibly, impartially lays down his +principles, as the Saint-Simonists did at one time, as Proudhon does to +this day. + +Our circle drew in closer. Even then, in 1833, the Liberals looked at us +askance, as having strayed from the true path. Just before we went to +prison, Saint-Simonism became a barrier between N. A. Polevoy and me. +Polevoy was a man of extraordinarily ingenious and active mind, which +readily absorbed every kind of nutriment; he was born to be a +journalist, a chronicler of successes, of discoveries, of political and +learned controversies. I made his acquaintance at the end of my time at +the university—and was sometimes in his house and at his brother +Ksenofont’s. This was the time when his reputation was at its highest, +the period just before the prohibition of the _Telegraph_. + +This man who lived in the latest discovery, in the question of the hour, +in the last novelty, in theories and in events, and who changed like a +chameleon, could not, for all the liveliness of his mind, understand +Saint-Simonism. For us Saint-Simonism was a revelation, for him it was +insanity, a silly Utopia, hindering social development. To all my +rhetoric, my expositions and arguments, Polevoy was deaf; he lost his +temper and grew vindictive. Opposition from a student was particularly +annoying to him, for he greatly prized his influence on the young, and +saw in this dispute that it was slipping away from him. + +On one occasion, offended by the absurdity of his objections, I observed +that he was just as old-fashioned a Conservative as those against whom +he had been fighting all his life. Polevoy was deeply offended by my +words and, shaking his head, said to me: ‘The time will come when you +will be rewarded for a whole lifetime of toil and effort by some young +man’s saying with a smile, “Be off, you are behind the times.”’ I felt +sorry for him and ashamed of having hurt his feelings, but at the same +time I felt that his sentence could be heard in his melancholy words. +They were not those of a mighty champion, but of an exhausted and aged +gladiator. I realised then that he would not advance, and was incapable +of standing still at the same point with a mind so active and a basis so +insecure. + +You know what happened to him afterwards: he set to work upon his +_Parasha, the Siberian_.[118] + +What luck a timely death is for a man who can at the right moment +neither leave the stage nor move forward! I have thought that looking at +Polevoy, looking at Pius IX., and at many others! + + + + + Appendix + A. POLEZHAEV + + +To complete the gloomy record of that period, I ought to add a few +details about A. Polezhaev. + +As a student, Polezhaev was renowned for his excellent verses. Amongst +other things he wrote a humorous parody of ‘_Onyegin_,’ called +‘_Sashka_,’ in which, regardless of proprieties, he attacked many things +in a jesting tone, in very charming verses. + +In the autumn of 1826, Nicholas, after hanging Pestel, Muravyov, and +their friends, celebrated his coronation in Moscow. For other sovereigns +these ceremonies are occasions for amnesties and pardons: Nicholas, +after celebrating his apotheosis, proceeded again to ‘strike down the +foes of the father-land,’ like Robespierre after his ‘Fête-Dieu.’ + +The secret police brought him Polezhaev’s poem. + +And so at three o’clock one night, the rector woke Polezhaev, told him +to put on his uniform and go to the office. There the director was +awaiting him. After looking to see that all the necessary buttons were +on his uniform and no unnecessary ones, he invited Polezhaev without any +explanation to get into his carriage and drove off with him. + +He conducted him to the Minister of Public Instruction. The latter put +Polezhaev into his carriage and he too drove him off—but this time +straight to the Tsar. + +Prince Lieven left Polezhaev in the drawing-room—where several courtiers +and higher officials were already waiting although it was only six +o’clock in the morning—and went into the inner apartments. The courtiers +imagined that the young man had distinguished himself in some way and at +once entered into conversation with him. A senator suggested that he +might give lessons to his son. + +Polezhaev was summoned to the study. The Tsar was standing leaning on +the bureau and talking to Lieven. He flung a searching and malignant +glance at the newcomer; there was a manuscript in his hand. + +‘Did you write these verses?’ he inquired. + +‘Yes,’ answered Polezhaev. + +‘Here, prince,’ the Tsar continued, ‘I will give you a specimen of +university education, I will show you what young men learn there. Read +the manuscript aloud,’ he added, addressing Polezhaev. + +The agitation of the latter was so great that he could not read. +Nicholas’s eyes were fixed immovably upon him. I know them and know +nothing so terrible, so hopeless, as those colourless, cold, pewtery +eyes. + +‘I cannot,’ said Polezhaev. + +‘Read!’ shouted the imperial drum-major. + +That shout restored Polezhaev’s faculties; he opened the manuscript. +Never, he told us, had he seen ‘_Sashka_’ so carefully copied and on +such splendid paper. + +At first it was hard for him to read; then as he got more and more into +the spirit of the thing, he read the poem in a loud and lively voice. At +particularly startling passages, the Tsar made a sign with his hand to +the Minister and the latter covered his eyes with horror. + +‘What do you say to that?’ Nicholas inquired at the end of the reading. +‘I will put a stop to this corruption; these are the _last traces, the +last remnants_; I will root them out. What is his record?’ + +The minister, of course, knew nothing of his record, but some human +feeling must have stirred in him, for he said: ‘He has an excellent +record, your Majesty.’ + +‘That record has saved you, but you must be punished, as an example to +others. Would you like to go into the army?’ + +Polezhaev was silent. + +‘I give you a chance of clearing your name in the army. Well?’ + +‘I must obey,’ answered Polezhaev. + +The Tsar went up to him, laid his hand on his shoulder and, saying to +him, ‘Your fate is in your own hands, if I forget you you can _write_ to +me,’ _kissed him on the forehead_. + +I made Polezhaev repeat the story of the kiss a dozen times, it seemed +to me so incredible. He swore that it was true. + +From the Tsar, he was led off to Dibitch, who lived on the spot in the +palace. Dibitch was asleep; he was awakened, came out yawning, and, +after reading the paper handed to him, asked the aide-de-camp: ‘Is this +he?’—‘Yes, your Excellency.’ + +‘Well! it’s a capital thing; you will serve in the army. I have always +been in the army, and you see what I’ve risen to, and maybe you’ll be +made a field-marshal.’ This stupid, inappropriate, German joke was +Dibitch’s equivalent to a kiss. Polezhaev was led off to the camp and +handed over to the soldiers. + +Three years passed. Polezhaev remembered the Tsar’s words and wrote him +a letter. No answer came. A few months later he wrote a second; again +there was no answer. Convinced that his letters did not reach the Tsar, +he ran away, and ran away in order to present a petition in person. He +behaved carelessly, saw his old friends in Moscow and was entertained by +them; of course, that could not be kept secret. In Tver he was seized +and sent back to his regiment, as a runaway soldier, on foot and in +chains. The court martial condemned him to run the gauntlet; the +sentence was despatched to the Tsar for ratification. + +Polezhaev wanted to kill himself before the punishment. After searching +in vain in his prison for a sharp instrument, he confided in an old +soldier who liked him. The soldier understood him and respected his +wishes. When the old man learned that the answer had come, he brought +him a bayonet and, as he gave him it, said through his tears: ‘I have +sharpened it myself.’ + +The Tsar did not confirm Polezhaev’s sentence. + +Then it was that he wrote the fine poem beginning: + + ‘I perished lonely, + No help was nigh. + My evil genius + Passed mocking by.’[119] + +Polezhaev was sent to the Caucasus. There for distinguished service he +was promoted to be a non-commissioned officer. Years and years passed; +his hopeless, dreary position broke him down; become a police poet and +sing the glories of Nicholas he could not, and that was the only way of +escape from the army. + +There was, however, another means of escape, and he preferred it; he +drank to win forgetfulness. There is a terrible poem of his, ‘To Vodka.’ + +He succeeded in getting transferred to a regiment of the Carabineers +stationed in Moscow. This was a considerable alleviation of his lot, but +malignant consumption had already laid its grip upon him. + +It was at this period that I made his acquaintance, about 1833. He +struggled on another four years and died in the military hospital. + +When one of his friends went to ask for the body for burial, no one knew +where it was; the military hospital did a trade in corpses; they sold +them to the university and to the Medical Academy, made them into +skeletons, and so on. At last he found poor Polezhaev’s body in a +cellar; he was lying under a heap of others and the rats had gnawed off +one foot. + +After his death, his poems were published, and his portrait in a +soldier’s uniform was to have been included in the edition. The censor +thought this unseemly, and the poor martyr was portrayed with the +epaulettes of an officer—he had been promoted in the hospital. + + + + + PART II + PRISON & EXILE + (1834–1838) + + + + + Chapter 8 + A PREDICTION—OGARYOV’S ARREST—A FIRE—A MOSCOW LIBERAL—M. F. ORLOV—THE + GRAVEYARD + + +One day in the spring of 1834, I arrived at Vadim’s in the morning and +found neither him nor any of his brothers and sisters at home. I went +upstairs to his little room and sat down to write. + +The door softly opened and Vadim’s mother came in; her footsteps were +barely audible; looking weary and ill she went up to an armchair and +said to me, as she sat down: ‘Go on writing, go on writing, I came to +see whether Vadya had come in; the children have gone for a walk and +downstairs it is so empty, I felt sad and frightened. I’ll stay here a +little, I won’t hinder you, go on with your work.’ + +Her face was pensive and I could see in it even more clearly than usual +the imprint of what she had suffered in the past and of that suspicious +apprehensiveness in regard to the future, that distrust of life, which +is always left after great and prolonged misfortunes. + +We began to talk. She told me something about Siberia: ‘I have had very +many troubles to bear and I have more to see yet,’ she added, shaking +her head, ‘my heart bodes nothing good.’ + +I thought how sometimes, after hearing our bold talk and demagogic +conversation, she would turn pale, sigh softly, go out of the room and +for a long time not utter a word. + +‘You and your friends,’ she went on, ‘you are going the sure road to +ruin. You will ruin Vadya, yourself, and all of them; I love you, too, +you know, like a son.’ A tear ran down her wasted cheek. + +I did not speak. She took my hand and, trying to smile, added: ‘Don’t be +angry, my nerves are overwrought; I understand it all, you go your path, +there is no other for you, and, if there were, you would none of you be +the same. I know that, but I cannot get over my alarm; I have been +through so many troubles that I have no strength to face fresh ones. +Mind you don’t say a word to Vadya about this, he would be distressed, +he would talk to me.... Here he is,’ she added, hurriedly wiping away +her tears and once more asking me with her eyes to say nothing. + +Poor mother! Noble, great-hearted woman! It is as fine as Corneille’s +‘qu’il mourût!’ + +Her prediction was soon fulfilled; happily this time the storm passed +over the heads of her family, but it brought the poor woman much sorrow +and alarm. + +‘Taken? What do you mean?’ I asked, jumping out of bed and feeling my +head to make sure that I was awake. + +‘The police-master came in the night with the district policeman and +Cossacks, about two hours after you left, seized all the papers and took +Nikolay Platonovitch.’ It was Ogaryov’s valet speaking. I could not +imagine what pretext the police had invented; of late everything had +been quiet. Ogaryov had only arrived a day or two before ... and why had +they taken him and not me? + +It was impossible to remain doing nothing; I dressed and went out of the +house with no definite aim. It was the first trouble that had befallen +me. I felt sick, I was tortured by my impotence. + +As I wandered about the streets, I thought, at last, of a friend V—— +whose social position made it possible for him to find out what was the +matter and, perhaps, to help. He lived a terrible distance away in a +summer villa beyond the Vorontsov Field; I got into the first cab I came +across and galloped off to him. It was before seven in the morning. + +I had made the acquaintance of V—— about a year and a half before; he +was in his way a lion in Moscow. He had been educated in Paris, was +wealthy, intelligent, cultured, witty, free-thinking, had been clapped +into the Peter-Paul fortress over the affair of the Fourteenth of +December and was among those afterwards acquitted; he had had no +experience of exile, but the glory of the affair clung to him. He was in +the government service and had great influence with the +governor-general, Prince Golitsyn, who was fond of men of a free way of +thinking, particularly if they expressed their views fluently in French. +The prince was not strong in Russian. + +V—— was ten years older than we, and surprised us by his practical +remarks, his knowledge of political affairs, his French eloquence and +the ardour of his Liberalism. He knew so much and in such detail, talked +so charmingly and so easily; his opinions were so clearly defined; he +had answers, good advice, explanations for everything. He had read +everything, all the new novels, treatises, magazines, and poetry, was +moreover a devoted student of zoology, wrote out schemes of reform for +Prince Golitsyn and drew out plans for children’s books. His Liberalism +was of the purest, trebly-distilled essence, of the left wing between +that of Mauguin and of General Lamarque. + +His study was hung with portraits of all the revolutionary celebrities +from Hampden and Bailly[120] to Fieschi[121] and Armand Carrel. A whole +library of prohibited books was to be found under this revolutionary +shrine. + +A skeleton, a few stuffed birds, some dried amphibians, and insides of +animals preserved in spirit, gave a serious tone of study and reflection +to the over-impetuous character of the room. + +We used to look with envy at his experience and knowledge of men; his +refined ironical manner of arguing had a great influence on us. We +looked upon him as a capable revolutionary, as a statesman _in spe_. + +I did not find V—— at home, he had gone to town overnight for an +interview with Prince Golitsyn. His valet told me he would certainly be +home within an hour and a half. I waited. + +V——’s summer villa was a splendid one. The study in which I sat waiting +was a lofty, spacious room, and an immense door led to the verandah and +into the garden. It was a hot day, the fragrance of trees and flowers +came in from the garden, children were playing in front of the house +with ringing laughter. Wealth, abundance, space, sunshine and shadow, +flowers and greenery ... while in prison it is cramped, stifling, dark. +I do not know how long I had been sitting there absorbed in bitter +thoughts, when suddenly the valet called me from the verandah with a +peculiar animation. + +‘What is it?’ I inquired. + +‘Oh, come here and look.’ + +I went out to the verandah, not to wound him by refusal, and stood +petrified. A whole semi-circle of houses were blazing away, as though +they had been set fire to at the same moment. The fire was spreading +with incredible rapidity. + +I remained on the verandah; the valet gazed with a sort of nervous +pleasure at the fire, saying: ‘It’s going finely—look, that house on the +right is beginning to burn, it’s certainly beginning to burn.’ + +A fire has something revolutionary about it; it laughs at property and +levels fortunes. The valet understood that instinctively. + +Half an hour later half the horizon was covered with smoke, red behind +and greyish-black above. That day Lefortovo was burned down. It was the +first of a series of cases of incendiarism, which went on for five +months, and we shall speak of them again. + +At last V—— arrived. He was at his best, charming and cordial; he told +me about the fire by which he had driven and about the general belief +that it was a case of arson, and added, half in jest: ‘It’s +Pugatchovism. You’ll see, we shan’t escape, they will put us on a +stake.’ + +‘Before they put us on a stake,’ I answered, ‘I am afraid they will put +us on a chain. Do you know that last night the police seized Ogaryov?’ + +‘The police—what are you saying?’ + +‘That’s what I have come to you about. Something must be done; go to +Prince Golitsyn, find out what’s the matter and ask permission for me to +see him.’ + +Receiving no answer, I glanced at V——, but where he had been, it seemed +as though an elder brother were sitting with a livid face and sunken +features; he was moaning and moving uneasily. + +‘What’s the matter?’ + +‘There, I told you; I always said what it would lead to.... Yes, yes, we +might have expected it. Oh dear, oh dear!... I am not to blame in +thought nor in act, but very likely they will put me in prison too, and +that is no joking matter; I know what the fortress is like.’ + +‘Will you go to the prince?’ + +‘Upon my word, whatever for? I advise you as a friend, don’t even speak +of Ogaryov; keep as quiet as you can, or it will be bad for you. You +don’t know how dangerous these things are; my sincere advice is, keep +out of it, do your utmost and you won’t help Ogaryov, but you will ruin +yourself. That’s what autocracy means—no rights, no defence; are the +lawyers and judges any use?’ + +On this occasion I was not disposed to listen to his bold opinions and +startling criticisms. I took my hat and went away. + +At home I found everything in agitation. Already my father was angry +with me on account of Ogaryov’s arrest. Already the Senator was on the +spot, rummaging among my books, taking away what he thought dangerous, +and in a very bad humour. + +On the table I found a note from M. F. Orlov inviting me to dinner. +Could he not do something for us? I was beginning to be discouraged by +experience: still there was no harm in trying. + +Mihail Fyodorovitch Orlov was one of the founders of the celebrated +League of Welfare,[122] and that he had not reached Siberia was not his +own fault, but was due to his brother, who enjoyed the special favour of +Nicholas and had been the first to gallop with his Horse Guards to the +defence of the Winter Palace on December the Fourteenth. Orlov was sent +to his estate in the country, and a few years later was allowed to live +in Moscow. During his solitary life in the country he studied political +economy and chemistry. The first time I met him he talked of his new +system of nomenclature in chemistry. All energetic people who begin +studying a subject late in life show an inclination to move the +furniture about and rearrange it to suit themselves. His nomenclature +was more complicated than the received French system. I wanted to +attract his attention, and by way of gaining his favour began proving to +him that his system was good, but the old one was better. + +Orlov contested the point and then agreed. + +My effort to please succeeded: from that time we were on intimate terms. +He saw in me a rising possibility; I saw in him a veteran of our views, +a friend of our heroes, a noble figure in our lives. + +Poor Orlov was like a lion in a cage. Everywhere he knocked himself +against the bars, he had neither space to move nor work to do and was +consumed by a thirst for activity. + +After the fall of France, I more than once met people of the same sort, +people who were disintegrated by the craving for public activity and +incapable of occupying themselves within the four walls of their study +or in home life. They do not know how to be alone; in solitude they are +attacked with ennui, they become whimsical, quarrel with their last +friends, see intrigues against them on all hands, and themselves +intrigue to find out all these non-existent plots. + +A stage and spectators are as necessary to them as the air they breathe; +in the public view they really are heroes and will endure the +unendurable. They must have noise, clamour, applause, they want to make +speeches, to hear their enemies’ replies, they crave the stimulus of +struggle, the fever of danger, and without these tonics they are +miserable, they pine, let themselves go and grow heavy, break out and +make mistakes. Such is Ledru-Rollin, who, by the way, has a look of +Orlov in the face, particularly since he has grown moustaches. + +Orlov was very handsome; his tall figure, fine carriage, handsome, manly +features and completely bare skull, altogether gave an indescribable +attractiveness to his appearance. His bust would make a good contrast to +the bust of A. P. Yermolov, whose frowning, quadrangular brow, thick +thatch of grey hair, and eyes piercing the distance gave him that beauty +of the warrior chieftain, grown old in battles, which won Maria +Kotcheby’s heart in Mazeppa. + +Orlov was so bored that he did not know what to begin upon. He tried +founding a glass factory, in which mediæval stained glass was made, +costing him more than he sold it for; and began writing a book ‘on +credit’—no, that was not the way his heart yearned to go, and yet it was +the only way open to him. The lion was condemned to wander idly between +Arbat and Basmanny Street, not even daring to let his tongue move +freely. + +It was terribly pitiful to see Orlov trying to become a learned man, a +theorist. His intelligence was clear and brilliant, but not at all +speculative, and he got entangled at once among newly invented systems +in long-familiar subjects—like his chemical nomenclature for instance. +He was a complete failure in everything abstract, but with intense +exasperation applied himself to metaphysics. + +Careless and incontinent of speech, he was continually making mistakes; +carried away by his first impression, which was always chivalrously +lofty, he would suddenly remember his position and turn back half way. +He was an even greater failure in these diplomatic countermarches than +in metaphysics and nomenclature; and, having got into one difficulty, he +would get into two or three more in trying to right himself. He was +blamed for this; people are so superficial and inattentive that they +look more to words than to acts, and attach more weight to separate +mistakes than to the drift of the whole character. What is the use of +blaming a man from the point of view of Roman virtue, one must blame the +melancholy surroundings in which any noble feeling must be communicated +by contraband, underground, and behind locked doors; and, if one says a +word aloud, one is wondering all day how soon the police will come.... + +There was a large party at the dinner. I happened to sit beside General +Raevsky, the brother of Orlov’s wife. He too had been under a ban since +the Fourteenth of December; the son of the celebrated N. N. Raevsky, he +had as a boy of fourteen been with his brother at Borodino by his +father’s side; later on, he died of wounds in the Caucasus. I told him +about Ogaryov, and asked him whether Orlov could do anything and whether +he would care to do it. + +A cloud came over Raevsky’s face, but it was not the look of tearful +cowardice which I had seen in the morning, but a mixture of bitter +memories and repulsion. + +‘There is no question of caring or not caring,’ he answered, ‘only I +doubt whether Orlov can do much; after dinner go to the study and I will +bring him to you. So then,’ he added after a pause, ‘your turn has come; +all are dragged down to that black pit.’ + +After questioning me, Orlov wrote a letter to Prince Golitsyn asking for +an interview. + +‘The prince,’ he told me, ‘is a very decent man; if he won’t do +anything, he will at least tell us the truth.’ + +Next day I went for an answer. Prince Golitsyn said that Ogaryov had +been arrested by order of the Tsar, that a committee of inquiry had been +appointed, and that the material evidence was some supper on the 24th +June, at which seditious songs had been sung. I could make nothing of +it. That day was my father’s name-day; I had spent the whole day at home +and Ogaryov had been with us. + +It was with a heavy heart that I left Orlov; he, too, was troubled; when +I gave him my hand he stood up, embraced me, pressed me warmly to his +broad chest and kissed me. + +It was as though he felt that we were parting for long years. + +I only saw him once afterwards, six years later. He was smouldering out. +The look of illness on his face, the melancholy and a sort of new +angularity in it struck me; he was gloomy, was conscious that he was +breaking up, knew things were all going wrong—and saw no way of +salvation. Two months later, he died, the blood curdled in his veins. + +... There is a wonderful monument in Lucerne; carved by Thorwaldsen in +natural rock. A dying lion is lying in a hollow; he is wounded to death, +the blood is streaming from a wound, in which the fragment of an arrow +is sticking; he has laid his gallant head upon his paw, he is moaning, +there is a look in his eyes of unbearable pain; around there is a +wilderness, with a pond below, all shut in by mountains, trees, and +greenery; people pass by without seeing that here a royal beast is +dying. + +Once after sitting some time on the seat facing the stone agony, I was +suddenly reminded of my last visit to Orlov. + +Driving home from Orlov, I passed the house of the chief police-master, +and the idea occurred to me to ask him openly for permission to see +Ogaryov. + +I had never in my life been in the house of a police official. I was +kept waiting a long time; at last the head police-master came out. My +request surprised him. + +‘What grounds have you for asking this permission?’ + +‘Ogaryov is my cousin.’ + +‘Your cousin?’ he asked, looking straight into my face. I did not +answer, but I, too, looked straight into his Excellency’s face. + +‘I cannot give you permission,’ he said; ‘your cousin is _au secret_. I +am very sorry!’ + +Uncertainty and inactivity were killing me. I had hardly a friend in +town, I could find out absolutely nothing. It seemed as though the +police had forgotten or overlooked me. It was very, very dreary. But +just when the whole sky was overcast with grey storm-clouds and the long +night of exile and prison was approaching, a ray of light came to me. + +A few words of deep sympathy uttered by a girl of seventeen whom I had +looked upon as a child raised me up again. + +For the first time in my story a woman’s figure appears ... and +precisely one woman’s figure appears throughout all my life. + +The passing fancies of youth and spring that had stirred my soul paled +and vanished before it, like pictures in the mist; and no fresh ones +came. + +We met in a graveyard. She stood leaning against a tombstone and spoke +of Ogaryov, and my grief was comforted. + +‘Till to-morrow,’ she said and gave me her hand, smiling through her +tears. + +‘Till to-morrow,’ I answered ... and stood a long time looking after her +retreating figure. + +That was on the nineteenth of July 1834. + + + + + Chapter 9 + ARREST—AN IMPARTIAL WITNESS—THE OFFICE OF THE PRETCHISTENSKY POLICE + STATION—A PATRIARCHAL JUDGE + + +‘Till to-morrow,’ I repeated, as I fell asleep.... I felt +extraordinarily light-hearted and happy. + +Between one and two in the night, my father’s valet woke me; he was not +dressed and was panic-stricken. + +‘An officer is asking for you.’ + +‘What officer?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘Well, I do,’ I told him and flung on my dressing-gown. + +In the doorway of the drawing-room, a figure was standing wrapped in a +military greatcoat; by the window I saw a white plume, behind there were +other persons,—I distinguished the cap of a Cossack. + +It was the police-master, Miller. + +He told me that by an order of the military governor-general, which he +held in his hand, he must look through my papers. Candles were brought. +The police-master took my keys; the district police superintendent and +his lieutenant began rummaging among my books and my linen. The +police-master busied himself among my papers; everything seemed to him +suspicious, he laid them all on one side and all at once turned to me +and said: ‘I must ask you to dress meanwhile; you’ll come along with +me.’ + +‘Where?’ I asked. + +‘To the Pretchistensky police station,’ answered the police-master in a +soothing voice. + +‘And then?’ + +‘There is nothing more in the governor-general’s instructions.’ + +I began to dress. + +Meanwhile the panic-stricken servants had awakened my mother. She rushed +out of her bedroom and was coming to my room, but was stopped by a +Cossack at the drawing-room door. She uttered a shriek, I shuddered and +ran to her. The police-master left the papers and came with me to the +drawing-room. He apologised to my mother, let her pass, swore at the +Cossack, who was not to blame, and went back to the papers. + +Then my father came up. He was pale but tried to maintain his studied +indifference. The scene was becoming painful. My mother sat in the +corner, weeping. My old father spoke of irrelevant matters with the +police-master, but his voice shook. I was afraid that I could not stand +this for long and did not want to afford the local police superintendent +the satisfaction of seeing me in tears. + +I pulled the police-master by the sleeve, ‘Let us go!’ + +‘Let us go,’ he said with relief. My father went out of the room and +returned a minute later. He brought a little ikon and put it round my +neck, saying that his father had given it to him with his blessing on +his deathbed. I was touched: this _religious_ gift showed me the degree +of terror and distress in the old man’s heart. I knelt down while he was +putting it on; he helped me up, embraced me and blessed me. + +The ikon was a picture in enamel of the head of John the Baptist on a +charger. What this was—example, advice, or prophecy?—I don’t know, but +the significance of the ikon struck me. + +My mother was almost unconscious. + +All the servants accompanied me down the staircase weeping and rushing +to kiss me or my hand. I felt as though I were present at my own +funeral. The police-master scowled and hurried on. + +When we went out at the gate he collected his company; he had with him +four Cossacks, two police superintendents and two ordinary policemen. + +‘Allow me to go home,’ a man with a beard who was sitting in front of +the gate asked the police-master. + +‘You can go,’ said Miller. + +‘What man is that?’ I asked, getting into the droshky. + +‘The impartial witness; you know that without an impartial witness the +police cannot enter a house.’ + +‘Then why did you leave him at the gate?’ + +‘It’s a mere form! It’s simply keeping the man out of bed for nothing,’ +observed Miller + +We drove accompanied by two Cossacks on horseback. + +There was no special room for me in the police station. The +police-master directed that I should be put in the office until the +morning. He himself took me there; he flung himself in an easy chair +and, yawning wearily, muttered: ‘It’s a damnable service. I’ve been at +the races since three o’clock in the afternoon, and here I’ll be busy +with you till morning. I bet it’s past three already and to-morrow I +must go with the report at nine.’ + +‘Good-bye,’ he added a minute later, and went out. A non-commissioned +officer locked me in, observing that if I wanted anything I could knock +at the door. + +I opened the window. The day was already beginning and the wind of +morning was rising; I asked the non-commissioned officer for water and +drank off a whole jugful. There was no thinking of sleep. Besides there +was nowhere to lie down; apart from the dirty leather chair and one easy +chair, there was nothing in the office but a big table heaped up with +papers and in the corner a little table still more heaped up with +papers. The dim night-light hardly lighted the room, but made a +flickering patch of light on the ceiling that grew paler and paler with +the dawn. + +I sat down in the place of the police superintendent and took up the +first paper that was lying on the table, a document relating to the +funeral of a serf of Prince Gagarin’s and a medical certificate that he +had died according to all the rules of medical science. I picked up +another—it was a set of police regulations. I ran through it and found a +paragraph which stated that ‘Every arrested man has the right within +three days after his arrest to know the ground of his arrest or to be +released.’ I noted this paragraph for my own benefit. + +An hour later I saw through the window our butler bringing me a pillow, +bedclothes, and a greatcoat. He asked something of the non-commissioned +officer, probably permission to come in to me; he was a grey-headed old +man, to two or three of whose children I had stood godfather as a small +boy. The non-commissioned officer gave him a rough and abrupt refusal; +one of our coachmen was standing near. I shouted to them from the +window. The non-commissioned officer fussed about and told them to be +off. The old man bowed to me and shed tears; the coachman, as he lashed +the horses, took off his hat and wiped his eyes, the droshky rattled +away and my tears fell in streams, my heart was brimming over; they were +the first and last tears I shed while I was in prison. + +Towards morning the office began to fill up, the clerk arrived still +drunk from the evening before, a consumptive-looking individual with red +hair, a look of brutal vice on his pimpled face. He wore a very dirty, +badly-cut and shiny coat of a brick colour. After him another extremely +free-and-easy individual in the greatcoat of a non-commissioned officer +arrived. He at once addressed me with the question: + +‘Were you taken at the theatre or what?’ + +‘I was arrested at home.’ + +‘Did Fyodor Ivanovitch himself arrest you?’ + +‘Who’s Fyodor Ivanovitch?’ + +‘Colonel Miller.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘I understand.’ He winked to the red-haired man who showed no interest +whatever. The free-and-easy individual did not continue the +conversation—he saw that I had been taken neither for disorderly conduct +nor drunkenness, so lost all interest in me, or perhaps was afraid to +enter into conversation with a dangerous prisoner. + +Not long afterwards various sleepy-looking police officials made their +appearance and then came people with grievances and legal complaints. + +The keeper of a brothel brought a complaint against the owner of a +beer-shop, that he had publicly insulted her in his shop in such +language, as, being a woman, she could not bring herself to utter before +the police. The shopkeeper swore that he had not used such language. The +woman swore that he had uttered the words more than once and very +loudly, and added that he had raised his hand against her and that, if +she had not ducked, he would have cut her face open. The shopkeeper +declared that, in the first place, she had not paid what she owed him, +and, in the second, had insulted him in his own shop and, what’s more, +threatened that he should be thrashed within an inch of his life by her +followers. + +The brothel-keeper, a tall, untidy woman with puffy eyes, screamed in a +loud shrill voice and was extremely talkative. The man made more use of +mimicry and gesture than of words. + +The police Solomon, instead of judging between them, scolded them both +vigorously. + +‘The dogs are too well fed, that’s why they run mad,’ he said; ‘the +beasts should sit quiet at home and be thankful we say nothing and leave +them in peace. An important matter, indeed! They quarrel and run at once +to trouble the police. And you’re a fine lady! as though it were the +first time—what’s one to call you if not a bad word with the trade you +follow?’ + +The shopkeeper shook his head and shrugged his shoulders to express his +profound gratification. The police officer at once pounced upon him and +said, ‘What do you go barking behind your counter for, you dog? Do you +want to go to the lock-up? You’re a foul-tongued brute, and lifting your +ugly paw too—do you want a taste of the birch, eh?’ + +For me this scene had all the charm of novelty and it remained imprinted +on my memory for ever, it was the first case of patriarchal Russian +justice I had seen. + +The brothel-keeper and the police continued shouting until the police +superintendent came in. Without inquiring why these people were there or +what they wanted, he shouted in a still more savage voice: ‘Get out, be +off, this isn’t a public bath-house or a pot-house!’ + +Having driven ‘the scum’ out he turned to the police, ‘You ought to be +ashamed to allow such disorder! How many times I have said to you the +place won’t be held in proper respect, low creatures like that will turn +it into a perfect Bedlam, you are too easy-going with these scoundrels. +What man is this?’ he asked about me. + +‘A prisoner brought in by Fyodor Ivanovitch, here is the document +concerning him.’ + +The superintendent ran through the document, looked at me, met with +disapproval the direct and unflinching gaze which I fixed upon him, +prepared at the first word to give as good as I got, and said ‘Excuse +me.’ + +The affair of the brothel-keeper and the beer-shop man began again. She +insisted on making a deposition on oath. A priest arrived. I believe +they both made sworn statements; I did not see the end of it. I was +taken away to the head police-master’s. I do not know why; no one said a +word to me; then again I was brought back to the police station, where a +room had been prepared for me under the watch tower. The +non-commissioned officer observed that if I wanted anything to eat, I +had better send out to buy it, that the government ration had not been +fixed yet and that it would not be for another two days; moreover, that +it consisted of two or three kopecks of silver and that the better-class +prisoners did not claim it. + +There was a dirty sofa standing by the wall; it was past midday, I felt +fearfully tired, flung myself on the sofa and slept like the dead. When +I woke up, all was quiet and serene in my heart. I had been worn out of +late by uncertainty about Ogaryov, now my turn too had come, the danger +was no longer far off, but was all about me, the storm-cloud was +overhead. This first persecution was to be our consecration. + + + + + Chapter 10 + UNDER THE WATCH TOWER—THE LISBON POLICEMAN—THE INCENDIARIES + + +A man soon becomes used to prison, if he only has some inner resources. +One quickly becomes used to the peace and complete freedom in one’s +cage—no anxieties, no distractions. + +At first, books were not allowed; the superintendent assured me that it +was forbidden to take books from my home. I asked him to buy me some. +‘Something instructive, a grammar now, I might get, perhaps, but for +anything more you must ask the general.’ The suggestion that I should +wile away the time by reading a grammar was extremely funny, +nevertheless I caught at it eagerly, and asked the superintendent to buy +me an Italian grammar and lexicon. I had two red notes with me, I gave +him one; he at once sent an officer for the books and gave him a letter +to the chief police-master in which, on the strength of the paragraph I +had read, I asked him to let me know the cause of my arrest or to +release me. + +The local superintendent, in whose presence I wrote the letter, tried to +persuade me not to send it. + +‘It’s a mistake, sir, upon my soul, it’s a mistake to trouble the +general; he’ll say “they are restless people,” it will do you harm and +be no use whatever.’ + +In the evening the policeman appeared and told me that the head +police-master had bidden him tell me that I should know the cause of my +arrest in due time. Then he pulled out of his pocket a greasy Italian +grammar, and added, smiling, ‘it luckily happened that there was a +dictionary in it so there was no need to buy one.’ Not a word was said +about the change. I was on the point of writing to the chief +police-master again, but the rôle of a miniature Hampden at the +Pretchistensky police station struck me as too funny. + +Ten days after my arrest a little swarthy, pock-marked policeman +appeared at ten o’clock in the evening with an order for me to dress and +set off to the committee of inquiry. + +While I was dressing the following ludicrously vexatious incident +occurred. My dinner was sent me from home, a servant gave it to the +non-commissioned officer below and he sent it up to me by a soldier. +They were allowed to send me from home about a bottle of wine a day. N. +Sazonov took advantage of this permission to send me a bottle of +excellent Johannisberg. The soldier and I ingeniously uncorked the +bottle with two nails, the wine had a delicate fragrance that was +apparent at a distance. I looked forward to enjoying it for the next +three or four days. + +One must be in prison to know how much childishness remains in a man and +what comfort can be found in trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick +at the expense of one’s guard. + +The pock-marked policeman sniffed out my bottle and turning to me asked +permission to taste a little. I was vexed; however, I said that I should +be delighted. I had no wine-glass. The monster took a tumbler, filled it +incredibly full and drank it without taking breath; this way of imbibing +spirits and wine only exists among Russians and Poles; I have seen no +other people in all Europe who could empty a tumbler at a gulp or even +toss off a wine-glassful. To make the loss of the wine still more +bitter, the pock-marked policeman wiped his lips with a snuffy blue +handkerchief, adding ‘First-class Madeira.’ I looked at him with hatred +and spitefully rejoiced that he had not been vaccinated and nature had +not spared him the smallpox. + +This connoisseur of wines conducted me to the chief police-master’s +house in Tverskoy Boulevard, showed me into a side-room and left me +alone there. Half an hour later, a stout man with a lazy, good-natured +air came into the room from the inner apartments; he threw a portfolio +of papers on the table and sent the gendarme standing at the door away +on some errand. + +‘I suppose,’ he said to me, ‘you are concerned with the case of Ogaryov +and the other young men who have lately been arrested?’ + +I said I was. + +‘I happened to hear about it,’ he went on, ‘it’s a strange case, I don’t +understand it.’ + +‘I’ve been a fortnight in prison in connection with the case and I don’t +understand it, and, what’s more, I simply know nothing about it.’ + +‘A good thing, too,’ he said, looking intently at me; ‘and mind you +don’t know anything about it. You must forgive me, if I give you a bit +of advice; you’re young, your blood is still hot, you long to speak out, +that’s the trouble, don’t forget that you know nothing about it, that’s +the only safe line.’ + +I looked at him in surprise, his face expressed nothing evil; he guessed +what I felt and with a smile said, ‘I was a Moscow student myself twelve +years ago.’ + +A clerk of some sort came in; the stout man addressed him and, after +giving him his orders, went out with a friendly nod to me, putting his +finger on his lips. I never met the gentleman afterwards and I do not +know who he was, but I found out the value of his advice. + +Then a police-master came in, not Miller, but another called Tsinsky, +and summoned me to the committee. In a large rather handsome room, five +men were sitting at a table, all in military uniform, with the exception +of one decrepit old man. They were smoking cigars and gaily talking +together, lolling in easy chairs, with their uniforms unbuttoned. The +chief police-master was presiding. + +When I went in, he turned to a figure sitting meekly in a corner, and +said, ‘If you please, father.’ Only then I noticed that there was +sitting in a corner an old priest with a grey beard and a reddish-blue +face. The priest was half-asleep and yawning with his hand over his +mouth; his mind was far away and he was longing to get home. In a +drawling, somewhat chanting voice he began exhorting me, talking of the +sin of concealing the truth before the persons appointed by the Tsar, +and of the uselessness of such duplicity considering the all-hearing ear +of God; he did not even forget to refer to the everlasting texts, to the +effect that all power is from God and that we must render to Cæsar the +things that are Cæsar’s. In conclusion, he said that I must put my lips +to the Gospel and the Holy Cross in confirmation of the oath (which, +however, I had not given, and he did not insist on my taking) to reveal +the whole truth sincerely and openly. + +When he had finished he began hurriedly wrapping up the Gospel and the +Cross. Tsinsky, barely rising from his seat, told him that he could go. +After this he turned to me and translated the spiritual advice into +secular language: ‘I will only add one thing to the priest’s words—it’s +useless for you to deny the truth, even if you wish to do so.’ He +pointed to the heaps of papers, letters, and portraits which were +intentionally scattered about the table. ‘Only an open confession can +mitigate your lot; to be at liberty or in Bobruisk in the Caucasus +depends on yourself.’ + +The questions were put to me in writing: the naïveté of some of them was +amazing: ‘Do you know of the existence of any secret society? Do you +belong to any secret society, literary or otherwise? Who are its +members? Where do they meet?’ + +To all these it was extremely easy to answer by the single word: ‘No.’ + +‘I see you know nothing,’ said Tsinsky after looking through the +answers. ‘I have warned you, you are making your position more +difficult.’ + +With that the first examination ended. + +... Eight years later, in a different part of the very house in which +this took place, there was living the sister of the new chief +police-master, a woman who had once been very handsome, and whose +daughter was a beauty. + +I used to visit there; and every time I passed through the room in which +Tsinsky and Co. had tried and examined us; then and afterwards, there +hung in it the portrait of Paul, whether as a reminder of the depths of +degradation to which a man may be brought by unbridled passion and the +misuse of power, or as an incitement of the police to every sort of +brutality, I do not know, but there he was, cane in hand, snub-nosed and +scowling. I stopped every time before that portrait, in old days as a +prisoner, later on as a visitor. The little drawing-room close by, full +of the fragrance of beauty and femininity, seemed somehow out of place +in this stern house of strict discipline and police examinations; I felt +unable to be myself there, and somehow regretful that the blossom that +was unfolding so beautifully should flower against the gloomy brick wall +of a police office. The things that we said and that were said by the +little circle of friends that gathered round them sounded so ironical, +so surprising to the ear, within those walls accustomed to hear +interrogations, secret information, and reports of wholesale police +raids, within those walls which alone separated us from the whisper of +policemen, the sighs of prisoners, the clank of gendarmes’ spurs and +Cossacks’ sabres.... + +A week or two later, the little pock-marked policeman came and took me +to Tsinsky again. In the vestibule several men in fetters, surrounded by +soldiers with guns, were sitting or lying down; in the lobby also there +were several men of different classes, unchained but strictly guarded. +The little policeman told me that they were all incendiaries. Tsinsky +was out at the fire and we had to await his return; we had arrived +between nine and ten in the evening; no one had asked for me by one +o’clock in the night, and I was still sitting very quietly in the lobby +with the incendiaries. First one and then another of them was sent for, +the police ran backwards and forwards, chains clanked, and the soldiers +were so bored that they rattled their guns and did drill exercises. +About one o’clock Tsinsky arrived, sooty and grimy, and hurried straight +to his study without stopping. Half an hour passed, my policeman was +sent for; he came back looking pale and upset, with his face twitching +convulsively. Tsinsky poked his head out of the door after him and said: +‘The whole committee has been waiting for you all the evening, Monsieur +Herzen; this blockhead brought you here when you were wanted at Prince +Golitsyn’s. I am very sorry you have had to wait here so long, but it is +not my fault. What is one to do with such men? I believe he has been +fifty years in the service and he is still an idiot. Come, be off home +now,’ he added, changing to a much ruder tone as he addressed the +policeman. + +The little man repeated all the way home: ‘O Lord, what a misfortune! a +man has no thought, no notion what is happening to him, he will be the +death of me now, he would take no notice if you had not been kept +waiting there, but of course it is a disgrace to him. O Lord, how +unlucky!’ + +I forgave him my wine, particularly when he told me that he had not been +nearly so frightened when he had been almost drowned near Lisbon. This +last remark was so unexpected that I was overcome with senseless +laughter: ‘Dear me, how very strange! However did you get to Lisbon?’ +The old man had been for over twenty-five years a naval officer. One +cannot but agree with the minister who assured Captain Kopeykin[123] +that: ‘It has never happened yet among us in Russia that a man who has +deserved well of his country should be left without recognition.’ + +Fate had saved him at Lisbon only to be abused by Tsinsky like a boy, +after forty years’ service. + +He was scarcely to blame. + +The committee of inquiry formed by the governor-general did not please +the Tsar; he appointed a new one presided over by Prince Sergey +Mihailovitch Golitsyn. The members of this committee were the Moscow +Commandant, Staal, the other Prince Golitsyn, the colonel of gendarmes, +Shubensky, and Oransky, the ex-auditor. + +In the instructions from the chief police-master nothing was said about +the committee having been changed; it was very natural that the hero of +Lisbon should have taken me to Tsinsky. + +There was great excitement at the police station also; three fires had +taken place that evening—and the committee had sent twice to inquire +what had become of me and whether I had escaped. Anything that Tsinsky +had left unsaid in his abuse the police station superintendent made up +now to the hero of Lisbon; which, indeed, was only to be expected, since +the superintendent was himself partly to blame, not having inquired +where I was to be sent. In a corner in the office, some one was lying on +the chairs, moaning; I looked, it was a young man of handsome +appearance, neatly dressed, he was spitting blood and moaning; the +police doctor advised his being taken to the hospital as early as +possible in the morning. + +When the non-commissioned officer took me to my room, I extracted from +him the story of the wounded man. He was an ex-officer of the Guards, he +had an intrigue with some maid-servant and had been with her when a +lodge of the house caught fire. This was the time of the greatest panic +in regard to arson; indeed, not a day passed without my hearing the bell +ring the alarm three or four times; from my window I saw the glare of +two or three fires every night. To avoid compromising the girl, the +officer climbed over the fence as soon as the alarm was sounded, and hid +in the stable of the next house, waiting for an opportunity to get off. +A little girl who was in the yard saw him and told the first policeman +who galloped up that he was hidden in the stable; they rushed in with a +crowd of people and dragged the officer out in triumph. He was so badly +beaten that he died next morning. + +The people who had been captured were sorted out; about half were +released, the others were detained on suspicion. The police-master, +Bryantchaninov, used to ride over every morning and cross-examine them +for three or four hours. Sometimes the victims were thrashed or beaten, +then their wailing, screams and entreaties, and the moaning of the women +reached me, together with the harsh voice of the police-master and the +monotonous reading of the clerk. It was awful, intolerable. At night I +dreamed of those sounds and woke in a frenzy at the thought that the +victims were lying on straw only a few paces from me, in chains, with +lacerated wounds on their backs, and in all probability quite innocent. + +To know what the Russian prisons, the Russian law-courts and the Russian +police are like, one must be a peasant, a house-serf, a workman, or an +artisan. + +Political prisoners, who for the most part belong to the nobility, are +kept in close custody and punished savagely, but their fate cannot be +compared with the fate of the poor. With them the police do not stand on +ceremony. To whom can the peasant or the workman go afterwards to +complain, where can he find justice? + +So terrible is the disorder, the brutality, the arbitrariness and the +corruption of Russian justice and of the Russian police that a man of +the humbler class who falls into the hands of the law is more afraid of +the process of law itself than of any punishment. He looks forward with +impatience to the time when he will be sent to Siberia; his martyrdom +ends with the beginning of his punishment. And let us remember that +three-quarters of the people taken up by the police on suspicion are +released on trial, and that they have passed through the same agonies as +the guilty. + +Peter III. abolished torture and the Secret Chamber. + +Catherine II. abolished torture. + +Alexander I. abolished it once more. + +Answers given ‘under intimidation’ are not recognised by law. The +officer who tortures the accused man renders himself liable to severe +punishment. + +And yet all over Russia, from the Behring Straits to Taurogen, men are +tortured; where it is dangerous to torture by flogging, they are +tortured by insufferable heat, thirst, and salted food. In Moscow the +police put an accused prisoner with bare feet on a metal floor in a +temperature of ten degrees of frost; he died in the hospital which was +under the supervision of Prince Meshtchersky, who told the story with +indignation. The government knows all this, the governors conceal it, +the Senate connives at it, the ministers say nothing, the Tsar, and the +synod, the landowners and the priests all agree with Selifan[124] that +‘there must be thrashing for the peasants are too fond of their ease, +order must be kept up.’ + +The committee appointed to investigate the cases of incendiarism was +investigating, that is, thrashing, for six months and had thrashed out +nothing in the end. The Tsar was incensed and ordered that the thing was +to be finished in three days. The thing was finished in three days. +Culprits were found and condemned to punishment by the knout, by +branding, and by exile to penal servitude. The porters from all the +houses gathered together to look at the terrible punishment of ‘the +incendiaries.’ By then it was winter and I was at that time in the +Krutitsky Barracks. The captain of gendarmes, a good-natured old man who +had been present at the punishment, told me the details. The first man +condemned to the knout told the crowd in a loud voice that he swore he +was innocent, that he did not know himself what he had answered under +torture, then taking off his shirt he turned his back to the crowd and +said: ‘Look, good Christians!’ + +A moan of horror ran through the crowd, his back was a dark-blue striped +wound, and on that wound he was to be beaten with the knout. The murmurs +and gloomy aspect of the crowd made the police hurry. The executioners +dealt the legal number of blows, while others did the branding and +others riveted fetters, and the business seemed to be finished. But this +scene impressed the inhabitants; in every circle in Moscow people were +talking about it. The governor-general reported upon it to the Tsar. The +Tsar ordered a new trial to be held, and the case of the incendiary who +had protested before the punishment to be particularly inquired into. + +Several months afterwards, I read in the papers that the Tsar, wishing +to compensate two who had been punished by the knout, though innocent, +ordered them to be given two hundred roubles a lash, and to be provided +with a special passport testifying to their innocence in spite of the +branding. These two were the man who had spoken to the crowd and one of +his companions. + +The story of the fires in Moscow in 1834, cases similar to which +occurred ten years later in various provinces, remains a mystery. That +the fires were caused by arson there is no doubt; fire, ‘the red cock,’ +is in general a very national means of revenge among us. One is +continually hearing of the burning by peasants of their owners’ houses, +cornstacks, and granaries, but what was the cause of the incendiarism in +Moscow in 1834 no one knows, and, least of all, the members of the +committee of inquiry. + +Before 22nd August, Coronation Day, some practical jokers dropped +letters in various places in which they informed the inhabitants that +they need not bother about an illumination, that there would be a fine +flare-up. + +The cowardly Moscow authorities were in a great fluster. The police +station was filled with soldiers from early morning and a squadron of +Uhlans were stationed in the yard. In the evening patrols on horse and +on foot were incessantly moving about the streets. Artillery was kept in +readiness. Police-masters galloped up and down with Cossacks and +gendarmes. Prince Golitsyn himself rode about the town with his +aides-de-camp. The military appearance of modest Moscow was strange and +affected the nerves. Till late at night I lay in the window under my +watch tower and looked into the yard.... The Uhlans who had been hurried +to the place were sitting in groups, near their horses, some were +mounted on their horses. Officers were walking about; looking +disdainfully at the police, aides-de-camp with yellow collars arrived +continually, looking anxious and, after doing nothing, went away again. + +There were no fires. + +After this the Tsar himself came to Moscow. He was displeased with the +inquiry into our case which was only beginning, was displeased that we +were left in the hands of the ordinary police, was displeased that the +incendiaries had not been found—in fact, he was displeased with +everything and with every one. + +We soon felt the presence of the Most High. + + + + + Chapter 11 + KRUTITSKY BARRACKS—GENDARMES’ TALES—OFFICERS + + +Three days after the Tsar’s arrival, late in the evening—all these +things are done in darkness to avoid disturbing the public—a police +officer came to me with instructions to collect my belongings and set +off with him. + +‘Where are we going?’ I asked. + +‘You will see,’ was the policeman’s intelligent and polite reply. After +this, of course, I collected my things and set off without continuing +the conversation. + +We drove on and on for an hour and a half, at last we passed the Simonov +Monastery and stopped at a heavy stone gate, before which two gendarmes +with carbines were pacing up and down. This was the Krutitsky Monastery, +converted into a barracks of gendarmes. + +I was led into a little office. The clerks, the adjutants, the officers +were all in light blue. The officer on duty, in a casque and full +uniform, asked me to wait a little and even suggested that I should +light the pipe I held in my hand. After this he proceeded to write an +acknowledgment of having received a prisoner; giving it to the +policeman, he went away and returned with another officer. ‘Your room is +ready,’ said the latter, ‘come along.’ A gendarme held a candle for us, +we went down the stairs and took a few steps across the courtyard into a +long corridor lighted by a single lantern; on both sides were little +doors, one of them the officer on duty opened; it led into a tiny +guardroom behind which was a small, dark, cold room that smelt like a +cellar. The officer who conducted me then turned to me, saying in French +that he was ‘_désolé d’être dans la nécessité_’ of searching my pockets, +but military service, duty, his instructions.... After this eloquent +introduction, he very simply turned to the policeman and indicated me +with his eyes. The policeman on the spot thrust an incredibly large and +hairy hand into my pockets. I observed to the police officer that this +was quite unnecessary, that I would myself, if he liked, turn my pockets +inside out without such violent measures; moreover, what could I have +after six weeks imprisonment? + +‘We know,’ said the polite officer with a smile of inimitable +self-complacency, ‘how things are done in the police station.’ The +officer on duty also smiled sarcastically. However, they told the +policeman he need only look. I pulled out everything I had. + +‘Scatter all your tobacco on the table,’ said the officer who was +_désolé_. + +In my tobacco pouch I had a penknife and a pencil wrapped up in paper; +from the very beginning I had been thinking about them and, as I talked +to the officer, I played with the tobacco pouch, until I got the +penknife into my hand. I held it through the material of the pouch, and +boldly shook the tobacco out on the table. The policeman poured it in +again. The penknife and pencil had been saved; so there was a lesson for +the officer for his proud disdain of the ordinary police. + +This incident put me in the best of humours and I began gaily +scrutinising my new domain. + +Some of the monks’ cells, built three hundred years ago and sunk into +the earth, had been turned into secular cells for political prisoners. + +In my room there was a bedstead without a mattress, a little table, on +it a jug of water, and beside it a chair, a thin tallow candle was +burning in a big copper candlestick. The damp and cold pierced to one’s +bones; the officer ordered the stove to be lighted, and then they all +went away. A soldier promised to bring some hay; meanwhile, putting my +greatcoat under my head, I lay down on the bare bedstead and lit my +pipe. + +A minute later I noticed that the ceiling was covered with ‘Prussian’ +beetles. They had seen no light for a long time and were running towards +it from all directions, crowding together, hurrying, falling on to the +table, and then racing headlong, backwards and forwards, along the edge +of the table. + +I disliked black beetles, as I did every sort of uninvited guest; my +neighbours seemed to me horribly disgusting, but there was nothing to be +done, I could not begin by complaining about the black beetles and my +nerves had to submit. Two or three days later, however, all the +‘Prussians’ moved next door to the soldier’s room, where it was warmer; +only occasionally a stray beetle would run in, prick up his whiskers and +scurry back to get warm. + +Though I continually asked the gendarme, he still kept the stove closed. +I began to feel unwell and giddy, I tried to get up and knock to the +soldier; I did actually get up, but with that all I remember ended.... + +When I came to myself I was lying on the floor with a splitting +headache. A tall gendarme was standing with his hands folded, staring at +me blankly, as in the well-known bronze statuettes a dog stares at a +tortoise. + +‘You have been finely suffocated, your honour,’ he said, seeing that I +had recovered consciousness. ‘I’ve brought you horse-radish with salt +and kvass; I have already made you sniff it, now you must drink it up.’ +I drank it, he lifted me up and laid me on the bed; I felt very faint, +there were double windows and no pane that opened in them; the soldier +went to the office to ask permission for me to go into the yard; the +officer on duty told him to say that neither the colonel nor the +adjutant were there, and that he could not take the responsibility. I +had to remain in the room full of charcoal fumes. + +I got used even to the Krutitsky Barracks, conjugating the Italian verbs +and reading some wretched little books. At first my confinement was +rather strict; at nine o’clock in the evening, at the last note of the +bugle, a soldier came into my room, put out the candle and locked the +door. From nine o’clock in the evening until eight next morning I had to +sit in darkness. I have never been a great sleeper, and in prison where +I had no exercise, four hours’ sleep was quite enough for me; and not to +have candles was a real affliction. Moreover, the sentry uttered every +quarter of an hour from both sides of the corridor a loud, prolonged +shout. + +A few weeks later Colonel Semyonov (brother of the celebrated actress, +afterwards Princess Gagarin) allowed them to leave me a candle, forbade +anything to be hung over the window, which was below the level of the +courtyard, so that the sentry could see everything that was being done +in the cell, and gave instructions that the sentries should not shout in +the corridor. + +Then the commanding officer gave us permission to have ink and to walk +in the courtyard. Paper was given in a fixed amount on condition that +none of the leaves were torn. I was allowed once in twenty-four hours to +go, accompanied by a soldier and the officer on duty, into the yard, +which was enclosed by a fence and surrounded by a cordon of sentries. + +Life passed quietly and monotonously, the military punctuality gave it a +mechanical regularity like the cæsura in verse. In the morning, with the +assistance of the gendarme, I prepared coffee on the stove; at nine +o’clock the officer on duty, in gloves, enormous gauntlets, in a casque +and a greatcoat, appeared, clanking his sabre and bringing in with him +several cubic feet of frost. At one, the gendarme brought a dirty napkin +and a bowl of soup, which he always held by the edge, so that his two +middle fingers were perceptibly cleaner than the others. We were fed +fairly decently, but it must not be forgotten that we were charged two +roubles a day for our keep, which in the course of nine months’ +imprisonment ran up to a considerable sum for persons of no means. The +father of one prisoner said quite simply that he had not the money; he +received the cool reply that it would be stopped out of his salary. If +he had not been receiving a salary, it is extremely probable that he +would have been put in prison. + +In conclusion, I ought to observe that a rouble and a half was sent to +Colonel Semyonov at the barracks for our board from the ordnance house. +There was almost a fuss about this; but the adjutant, who got the +benefit of it, presented the gendarmes’ division with boxes for first +performances or benefit nights, and with that the matter ended. + +After sunset there followed a complete stillness, which was not +disturbed by the footsteps of the soldiers crunching over the snow +before the window, nor the far-away calls of the sentries. As a rule I +read until one o’clock and then put out my candle. Sleep carried me into +freedom, sometimes it seemed as though I woke up feeling—ough, what a +horrible dream I have had—prison and gendarmes—and I would rejoice that +it was all a dream; and then, all at once, there would be the clank of a +sabre in the corridor, or the officer on duty would open the door, +accompanied by a soldier with a lantern, or the sentry would shout +inhumanly, ‘Who goes there?’ or a bugle under my very window would +outrage the morning air with its shrill reveille.... + +In moments of dullness when I was disinclined to read, I would talk with +the gendarmes who guarded me, particularly with the old fellow who had +looked after me when I was overcome by the charcoal fumes. The colonel +used, as a sign of favour, to free his old soldiers from regular +discipline, and set them to the easy duty of guarding a prisoner; a +corporal, who was a spy and a rogue, was set over them. Five or six +gendarmes made up the whole staff. + +The old man, of whom I am speaking, was a simple, good-hearted creature, +given to all sorts of kind actions, for which he had probably had to pay +a good deal in his life. He had passed through the campaign of 1812, his +chest was covered with medals, he had served his full time and remained +in the army of his own free will, not knowing where to go. ‘Twice,’ he +told me, ‘I wrote to my home in the Mogilev province, but I got no +answer, so it seems as though there were none of my people left: and so +I feel a little uneasy to go home, one would stay there a bit and then +wander off like a lost spirit, going hither and thither to beg one’s +bread.’ How barbarously and mercilessly the army is organised in Russia +with its monstrous term of service! A man’s private life is everywhere +sacrificed without the slightest scruple and with no compensation. + +Old Filimonov had pretensions to a knowledge of German which he had +studied in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. He very +felicitously adapted German words to the Russian spirit, calling a +horse, _fert_, eggs, _yery_, fish, _pish_, oats, _ober_, pancakes, +_pankutie_. + +There was a naïveté about his stories which made me sad and +thoughtful. In Moldavia during the Turkish campaign of 1805 he was in +the company of a captain, the most good-natured man in the world, who +looked after every soldier as though he were his own son and was +always foremost in action. ‘A Moldavian girl had captivated him and +then we saw our captain was in trouble, for, do you know, he noticed +that the girl was making up to another officer. So one day he called +me and a comrade—a splendid soldier, he had both his legs blown off +afterwards at Maly-Yaroslavets—and began telling us how the Moldavian +girl had treated him and asked would we care to help him and give her +a lesson. “To be sure, sir,” we said, “we are always glad to do our +best for your honour.” He thanked us and pointed out the house in +which the officer lived, saying, “You wait on the bridge at night; she +will certainly go to him, you seize her without any noise and drop her +in the river.” “That is easily done, your honour,” we said, and my +comrade and I got a sack ready. We were sitting there when towards +midnight the Moldavian girl runs up. “Why, you are in a hurry, madam,” +said we, and gave her one on the head. She never uttered a squeal, +poor dear, and we popped her into the sack and over into the river; +and next day the captain went to the officer and said: “Don’t you be +angry with your Moldavian girl, we detained her a little, and now she +is in the river, and I am ready for a little fun with you with the +sabre or with pistols, which you like.” So they hacked at each other. +The officer gave our captain a bad cut on the chest, the poor, dear +man pined away and a few months later gave up his soul to God.’ + +‘And the Moldavian girl was drowned, then?’ I asked. + +‘Yes, she was drowned,’ answered the soldier. + +I looked with surprise at the childish carelessness with which the old +gendarme told me this story. And he, as though guessing what I felt or +thinking of it for the first time, added, to soothe me and pacify his +conscience: ‘A heathen woman, sir, as good as not christened, that sort +of people.’ + +On every Imperial holiday the gendarmes are given a glass of vodka. The +sergeant allowed Filimonov to refuse his share for five or six times and +to receive them all at once. Filimonov scored on a wooden tally-stick +how many glasses he had missed, and on the most important holiday would +go for them. He would pour this vodka into a bowl, would crumble bread +into it and eat it with a spoon. After this meal he would light a big +pipe with a tiny mouthpiece, filled with tobacco of incredible strength +which he used to cut up himself, and therefore rather wittily call +‘Self-Cut.’ As he smoked he would fold himself up in a little window, +bent double—there were no chairs in the soldiers’ rooms—and sing this +song: + + ‘The maids come out into the meadow + Where was an anthill and a flower.’ + +As he got more drunk the words would become more inarticulate until he +fell asleep. Imagine the health of a man who had been twice wounded and +at over sixty could still survive such feasts! + +Before I leave these Flemish barrack scenes _à la_ Wouverman[125] and _à +la_ Callot,[126] and this prison gossip, which is like the reminiscences +of all prisoners, I will say a few words about the officers. + +The greater number among them were rather good-natured men, by no means +spies, but men who had by chance come into the gendarmes’ division. +Young noblemen with little or no education and no fortune, who did not +know where to lay their heads, they were gendarmes because they had +found no other job. They performed their duties with military +exactitude, but I never observed a trace of zeal in any of them, except +the adjutant, but then he, of course, was an adjutant. + +When the officers had made my acquaintance, they did all sorts of little +things to alleviate my lot, and it would be a sin to complain of them. + +One young officer told me that in 1831 he was sent to find and arrest a +Polish landowner, who was in hiding somewhere in the neighbourhood of +his estate. He was charged with being in relations with revolutionary +emissaries. From evidence that the officer collected, he found out where +the landowner must be hidden, went there with his company, put a cordon +round the house and entered it with two gendarmes. The house was +empty—they walked through the rooms, peeping into everything and found +no one anywhere, but yet some traces showed clearly that there had been +persons in the house lately. Leaving the gendarmes below, the young man +went a second time up to the attic; looking round attentively he saw a +little door which led to a loft or some little cupboard; the door was +fastened on the inside, he pushed it with his foot, it opened, and a +tall, handsome woman stood facing him. She pointed in silence to a man +who held in his arms a girl of about twelve, who was almost unconscious. +This was the Pole with his wife and child. The officer was embarrassed. +The tall woman noticed this and asked him: ‘And will you have the +cruelty to ruin them?’ The officer apologised, saying the usual +commonplaces about the inviolability of his military oath, and his duty, +and, at last, in despair, seeing that his words had no effect, ended +with the question: ‘What am I to do?’ The woman looked proudly at him +and said, pointing to the door: ‘Go down and say there is no one here.’ +‘Upon my word, I don’t know how it happened and what was the matter with +me, but I went down from the attic and told the corporal to collect the +men. A couple of hours later we were looking vigorously in another part, +while he was making his way over the frontier. Well, woman! I admit it!’ + +Nothing in the world can be more narrow-minded and more inhuman than +wholesale condemnation of entire classes in accordance with the label, +the moral catalogue, the leading characteristics of the class. Names are +dreadful things. Jean Paul Richter says with absolute truth: ‘If a child +tells a lie, frighten him with his bad conduct, tell him he has told a +lie, but don’t tell him he is a liar. You destroy his moral confidence +in himself by defining him as a liar. “That is a murderer,” we are told, +and at once we fancy a hidden dagger, a brutal expression, evil designs, +as though murder were a permanent employment, the trade of the man who +has happened once in his life to kill some one. One cannot be a spy or +trade in the vice of others and remain an honest man, but one may be a +police officer without losing all human dignity; just as one may +conceivably find women of a tender heart and even nobility of character +in the unhappy victims of “public incontinence.”’ + +I have an aversion for people who cannot, or will not, take the trouble +to go beyond the name, to step across the barrier of crime, of a +complicated false position, but either chastely turn aside, or harshly +thrust it all away from them. This is usually done by cold, abstract +natures, egoistic and revolting in their purity, or base, vulgar natures +who have not yet happened, or have not needed, to show themselves in +practice. They are through sympathy at home in the dirty depths into +which others have sunk. + + + + + Chapter 12 + THE INVESTIGATION—GOLITSYN SENIOR—GOLITSYN JUNIOR—GENERAL + STAAL—SOKOLOVSKY—SENTENCE + + +But with all this what of our case, what of the investigation and the +trial? + +They were no more successful in the new committee than in the old. The +police had been on our track for a long time, but in their zeal and +impatience could not wait to find anything adequate, and did something +silly. They had sent a retired officer called Skaryatka to lead us on +and catch us; he made acquaintance with almost all of our circle, but we +very soon guessed what he was and held aloof from him. Other young men, +for the most part students, had not been so cautious, but these others +had no serious connection with us. + +One student, on completing his studies, gave a supper to his friends on +24th June 1834. Not one of us was at the festivity, indeed not one of us +had been invited. The young men drank too much, played the fool, danced +the mazurka, and among other things sang Sokolovsky’s well-known song on +the accession of Nicholas: + + ‘The Emperor of Russia + Has gone to realms above, + The operating surgeon + Slit his belly open. + + ‘The Government is weeping + And all the people weep; + There’s coming to rule over us + Constantine the freak. + + ‘But to the King of Heaven, + Almighty God above, + Our Tsar of blessed memory + Has handed a petition. + + ‘When He read the paper, + Moved to pity, God + Gave us Nicholas instead, + The blackguard, the....’[127] + +In the evening Skaryatka suddenly remembered that it was his name-day, +told a tale of how advantageously he had sold a horse, and invited the +students to his quarters, promising them a dozen of champagne. They all +went, the champagne appeared, and the host, staggering, proposed that +they should once more sing Sokolovsky’s song. In the middle of the +singing the door opened and Tsinsky with the police walked in. All this +was crude, stupid, clumsy, and at the same time unsuccessful. + +The police wanted to catch us; they were looking for external evidence +to involve in the case some five or six men whom they had already +marked, and only succeeded in catching twenty innocent persons. + +It is not easy, however, to disconcert the Russian police. Within a +fortnight they arrested us as implicated in the supper case. In +Sokolovsky’s possession they found letters from S——, in S——’s possession +letters from Ogaryov, and in Ogaryov’s possession my letters. +Nevertheless, nothing was discovered. The first investigation failed. To +ensure the success of the second, the Tsar sent from Petersburg the +choicest of the inquisitors, A. F. Golitsyn. + +This kind of person is rare in Russia. It is represented among us by +Mordvinov, the famous head of the Third Section, Pelikan, the rector of +Vilna, and a few accommodating Letts and degraded Poles.[128] But +unluckily for the inquisition, Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, was +appointed the first member. Staal, a straightforward military man, a +gallant old general, went into the case and found that it consisted of +two circumstances that had no connection with each other: the affair of +the supper party, for which the police ought to be punished, and the +arrest for no apparent reason of persons whose only guilt, so far as +could be seen, lay in certain half-expressed opinions, for which it +would be both difficult and absurd to try them. + +Staal’s opinion did not please Golitsyn junior. The dispute between them +took a bitter character; the old warrior flared up, wrathfully struck +the floor with his sabre and said: ‘Instead of ruining people, you had +better draw up a report on the advisability of closing all the schools +and universities; that would warn other unfortunate youths; however, you +can do what you like, but you must do it without me. I won’t set foot in +the committee again.’ With these words the old man hurriedly left the +room. + +The Tsar was informed of this the same day. + +In the morning when the commandant appeared with his report, the Tsar +asked him why he would not attend the committee; Staal told him why. + +‘What nonsense!’ replied the Tsar, ‘to quarrel with Golitsyn, for shame! +I trust you will attend the committee as before.’ + +‘Sire,’ answered Staal, ‘spare my grey hairs. I have lived to reach them +without the slightest stain on my honour. My zeal is known to your +Majesty, my blood, the remnant of my days are yours, but this is a +question of my honour—my conscience revolts against what is being done +in the committee.’ + +The Tsar frowned. Staal bowed himself out, and was not once in the +committee afterwards. + +This anecdote, the accuracy of which is not open to the slightest doubt, +throws great light on the character of Nicholas. How was it that it did +not enter his head that if a man whom he could not but respect, a brave +warrior, an old man who had won his position, so obstinately besought +him to spare his honour, the case could not be quite clean? He could not +have done less than insist on Staal’s explaining the matter in the +presence of Golitsyn. He did not do this, but gave orders that we should +be confined more strictly. + +When he had gone there were only enemies of the accused in the +committee, presided over by a simple-hearted old man, Prince S. M. +Golitsyn, who knew as little about the case nine months after it had +begun as he did nine months before it began. He preserved a dignified +silence, very rarely put in a word, and at the end of an examination +invariably asked: ‘May we let him go?’ ‘We may,’ Golitsyn junior would +answer, and the senior would say with dignity to the prisoner, ‘You may +go.’ + +My first examination lasted four hours. + +The questions were of two kinds. The object of the first was to discover +a manner of thinking, ‘in opposition to the spirit of government, +revolutionary opinions, imbued with the pernicious doctrines of Saint +Simon,’ as Golitsyn junior and the auditor Oransky expressed it. + +These questions were easy, but they were hardly questions. In the papers +and letters that had been seized, the opinions were fairly simply +expressed; the questions could in reality only relate to the substantial +fact of whether a man had or had not written the words in question. The +committee thought it necessary to add to every written phrase, ‘How do +you explain the following passage in your letter?’ + +Of course it was useless to explain; I wrote evasive and empty phrases +in reply. In one letter the auditor discovered the phrase: ‘All +constitutional parties lead to nothing, they are contracts between a +master and his slaves; the problem is not to make things better for the +slaves, but to put an end to their being slaves.’ When I had to explain +this phrase I observed that I saw no obligation to defend constitutional +government, and that, if I had defended it, it would have been charged +against me. + +‘A constitutional form of government may be attacked from two sides,’ +Golitsyn junior observed in his nervous hissing voice; ‘you do not +attack it from the point of view of monarchy, or you would not talk +about slaves.’ + +‘In that I err in company with the Empress Catherine II., who ordered +that her subjects should not be called slaves.’ + +Golitsyn, breathless with anger at this ironical reply, said: ‘You seem +to imagine that we are assembled here to conduct scholastic arguments, +that you are defending a thesis in the university.’ + +‘With what object, then, do you ask for explanations?’ + +‘You appear not to understand what is wanted of you.’ + +‘I don’t understand.’ + +‘What obstinacy there is in all of them,’ Golitsyn senior, the +president, added, shrugging his shoulders and glancing at Shubensky, the +colonel of gendarmes. I smiled. ‘Just like Ogaryov,’ the simple-hearted +president observed. + +A pause followed, the committee was assembled in Golitsyn senior’s +library; I turned to the bookshelves and began examining the books. +Among other things there was an edition in many volumes of the works of +Saint Simon. ‘Here,’ I said, turning to the president, ‘is it not +unjust? I am being tried on account of Saint-Simonism, while you, +prince, have twenty volumes of his works.’ + +As the good-natured old man had never read anything in his life, he +could not think what to answer. But Golitsyn junior looked at me with +the eyes of a viper and asked: ‘Don’t you see that those are the memoirs +of the Duc de Saint Simon of the time of Louis XIV.?’ + +The president with a smile gave me a nod that signified, ‘Well, my boy, +you put your foot in it, didn’t you?’ and said, ‘You can go.’ + +While I was in the doorway the president asked: ‘Is he the one who wrote +about Peter the Great, that thing you were showing me?’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Shubensky. + +I stopped. + +‘_Il a des moyens_,’ observed the president. + +‘So much the worse. Poison in clever hands is all the more dangerous,’ +added the inquisitor; ‘a very pernicious and quite incorrigible young +man.’ + +My sentence lay in those words. + +Apropos of Saint Simon. When the police-master seized Ogaryov’s books +and papers, he laid aside a volume of Thiers’ _History of the French +Revolution_, then found a second volume, a third, up to an eighth. At +last he could bear it no longer, and said: ‘Good Lord, what a number of +revolutionary books ... and here is another,’ he added, giving the +policeman Cuvier’s _Discours sur les Révolutions du Globe Terrestre_.’ + +The second kind of question was more complicated. In them all sorts of +police traps and inquisitional tricks were made use of to confuse, +entangle, and involve one in contradictions. Hints of evidence given by +others and all sorts of moral tests were employed. It is not worth while +to repeat them, it is enough to say that all their devices did not draw +any of the four of us into conflicting statements. + +After I had received my last question, I was sitting alone in the little +room in which we wrote. All at once the door opened and Golitsyn junior +walked in with a gloomy and anxious face. ‘I have come,’ he said, ‘to +have a few words with you before your evidence is completed. My late +father’s long connection with yours makes me take a special interest in +you. You are young and may still make a career; to do so you must clear +yourself of this affair ... and fortunately it depends on yourself. Your +father has taken your arrest deeply to heart and is living now in the +hope that you will be released: Prince Sergey Mihailovitch and I have +just been speaking about it and we are genuinely ready to do all we can; +give us the means of assisting you.’ + +I saw the drift of his words, the blood rushed to my head, I gnawed my +pen with vexation. He went on: ‘You are going straight under the white +strap, or to the fortress, on the way you will kill your father; he will +not survive the day when he sees you in the grey overcoat of a soldier.’ + +I tried to say something but he interrupted me: + +‘I know what you want to say. Have a little patience! That you had +designs against the government is evident. To merit the mercy of the +Most High you must give proofs of your penitence. You are obstinate, you +give evasive answers and from a false sense of honour you spare men of +whom we know more than you do and _who have not been so discreet as +you_[129]; you will not help them, and they will drag you down with them +to ruin. Write a letter to the committee, simply, frankly, say that you +feel your guilt, that you were led away by your youth, name the +unfortunate, misguided men who have led you astray.... Are you willing +at this easy price to purchase your future and your father’s life?’ + +‘I know nothing and have not a word to add to my evidence,’ I replied. + +Golitsyn got up and said coldly: ‘As you please, it is not our fault!’ +With that the examination ended. + +In the January or February of 1835 I was before the committee for the +last time. I was summoned to read through my answers, to add to them if +I wished, and to sign them. + +Only Shubensky was present. When I had finished reading them over I said +to him: ‘I should like to know what charge can be made against a man +upon these questions and upon these answers? Under what article of the +Code do you bring me?’ + +‘The Imperial Code is drawn up for criminals of a different kind,’ +observed the light-blue colonel. + +‘That’s a different point. After reading over all these literary +exercises, I cannot believe that that makes up the whole charge on +account of which I have been in prison over six months.’ + +‘But do you really imagine,’ replied Shubensky, ‘that we believe you +that you have not formed a secret society?’ + +‘Where is the society?’ + +‘It is your luck that no traces have been found, that you have not +succeeded in doing anything. We stopped you in time, that is, to speak +plainly, we have saved you.’ + +It was the story of the locksmith’s wife and her husband in Gogol’s +_Inspector General_ over again. + +When I had signed, Shubensky rang the bell and told them to summon the +priest. The priest came up and wrote below my signature that all the +evidence had been given by me voluntarily and without any compulsion. I +need hardly say that he had not been present at the examination, and +that he had not even the decency to ask me how it had been. (It was my +impartial witness outside the gate again!) + +At the end of the investigation, prison conditions were somewhat +relaxed. Members of our families could obtain permits for interviews. So +passed another two months. + +In the middle of March our sentence was ratified. No one knew what it +was; some said we were being sent to the Caucasus, others that we should +be taken to Bobruisk, others again hoped that we should all be released +(this was the sentence which was proposed by Staal and sent separately +by him to the Tsar; he advised that our imprisonment should be taken as +equivalent to punishment). + +At last, on 20th March, we were all assembled at Prince Golitsyn’s to +hear our sentence. This was a gala day for us. We saw each other for the +first time after our arrest. + +Noisily, gaily embracing and shaking hands, we stood surrounded by a +cordon of gendarmes and garrison officers. This meeting cheered us all +up; there was no end to the questions and the anecdotes. + +Sokolovsky was present, pale and somewhat thinner, but as brilliantly +amusing as ever. + +The author of _The Fabric of the World_ and of _Heveri_ and other rather +good poems, had naturally great poetic talent, but was not wildly +original enough to dispense with culture, nor sufficiently well-educated +to develop his talent. A charming rake, a poet in life, he was not in +the least a political man. He was amusing, charming, a merry companion +in merry moments, a ‘bon vivant,’ fond of having a good time, as we all +were, perhaps a little too much so. + +Having dropped accidentally from a carousal into prison, Sokolovsky +behaved extremely well, he grew up in confinement. The auditor of the +committee, a pedant, a pietist, a detective, who had grown thin and +grey-headed in envy and slander, not daring from religion and devotion +to the throne to understand the last two verses of his poem in their +grammatical sense, asked Sokolovsky ‘to whom do those rude words at the +end of the song refer?’ + +‘Rest assured,’ said Sokolovsky, ‘not to the Tsar, and I would +particularly draw your attention to that extenuating circumstance.’ + +The auditor shrugged his shoulders, turned up his eyes to the ceiling +and after gazing a long time in silence at Sokolovsky took a pinch of +snuff. + +Sokolovsky was arrested in Petersburg and sent to Moscow without being +told where he was being taken. The police often perpetrate these jests +among us, and quite unnecessarily. It is the form their creative fancy +takes. There is no occupation in the world so prosaic, so revolting that +it has not its artistic yearnings, its craving for decoration and +adornment. Sokolovsky was taken straight to prison and put into a dark +cell. Why was he put in prison while we were kept in barracks? + +He had two or three shirts with him and nothing else at all. In England +every one on being brought into prison is at once put into a bath, but +with us they take every precaution against cleanliness. + +If Dr. Haas had not sent Sokolovsky a bundle of his own linen he would +have been crusted with dirt. + +Dr. Haas was a very original eccentric person. The memory of this ‘crazy +and fanatical’ man ought not to be lost in the rubbish heap of official +necrologies describing the virtues of persons of the first two grades +which no one ever heard of before their death. + +A thin little, waxen-looking old man, in a black, swallow-tail coat, +short trousers, black silk stockings and shoes with buckles, he looked +as though he had just come out of some drama of the eighteenth century. +In this _grand gala_ of funerals and weddings, and in the agreeable +climate of the northern latitude of fifty-nine degrees, Haas used every +week to drive to the étape on the Sparrow Hills when a batch of convicts +were being sent off. In the capacity of prison doctor he had access to +them, he used to go to inspect them and always brought with him a basket +full of all manner of things, provisions and dainties of all +sorts—walnuts, cakes, oranges, and apples, for the women. This aroused +the wrath and indignation of the benevolent ladies who were afraid of +giving pleasure by philanthropy, and afraid of being more charitable +than was necessary to save the convicts from dying of hunger and cold. + +But Haas was not easy to move, and after listening mildly to reproaches +for his ‘foolish spoiling of the female convicts,’ would rub his hands +and say: ‘Be so kind to see, gracious madam, a bit of bread, a copper +every one will give them, but a sweet or an orange for long they will +see not, no one gives them, that I can from your words deduce; I do them +this pleasure for that it will not a long time be repeated.’ + +Haas lived in the hospital. A patient came before dinner to consult him. +Haas examined him and went into his study to write some prescription. On +his return he found neither the patient nor the silver forks and spoons +which had been lying on the table. Haas called the porter and asked him +if any one had come in besides the patient. The porter grasped the +position, rushed out and returned a minute later with the spoons and the +patient, whom he had stopped with the help of another hospital porter. +The rascal fell at the doctor’s feet and besought mercy. Haas was +overcome with confusion. + +‘Go for the police,’ he said to one of the porters, and to the other, +‘and you send the secretary here at once.’ + +The porters, pleased at the capture and at their share in the business +altogether, ran off, and Haas, taking advantage of their absence, said +to the thief, ‘You are a false man, you have deceived and tried to rob +me. God will judge you ... and now run quickly to the back gates before +the porters come back ... but stay, perhaps you have no money, here is +half a rouble, but try to reform your soul; from God you will not escape +as from the policeman.’ + +At this even the members of his own household protested. But the +incorrigible doctor maintained his point: ‘Theft is a great vice; but I +know the police, I know how they torment them—they will question him, +they will flog him; to give up one’s neighbour to the lash is a far +worse vice; besides, who can tell, perhaps what I have done may touch +his heart!’ + +His friends shook their heads and said, ‘_Er hat einen raptus_’; the +benevolent ladies said, ‘_C’est un brave homme mais ce n’est pas tout à +fait en règle, cela_,’ and tapped their foreheads. And Haas rubbed his +hands and went his own way. + +... Sokolovsky had hardly finished his anecdotes, when several others +speaking at once began to tell theirs; it was as though we had all +returned from a long journey—there was no end to the questions, jokes, +and witticisms. + +Physically, S—— had suffered more than the rest; he was thin and had +lost part of his hair. He had been at his mother’s in the country in the +Tambov province when he heard that we had been arrested, and at once set +off for Moscow, for fear that his mother should be alarmed by a visit of +the gendarmes, but he caught cold on the way and reached home in a high +fever. The police found him in bed, and it was impossible to move him to +the police station. He was placed under arrest at home, a soldier of the +police station was put on guard in the bedroom and the local police +superintendent was told off to act as brother-of-mercy by the patient’s +bedside, so that on recovering consciousness after delirium he met the +attentive glance of the one, or the battered countenance of the other. + +At the beginning of the winter he was moved to the Lefortovsky Hospital; +it appeared there was not a single empty private room for a prisoner, +but such trifles were not deemed worth considering; a corner screened +off apart, with no stove, was found, the sick man was put in this +southern verandah and a sentry told off to watch him. What the +temperature in this hole was in winter may be judged from the fact that +the sentry was so benumbed with cold at night that he would go into the +corridor to warm himself at the stove, begging S—— not to tell of it. +The hospital authorities themselves saw that such tropical quarters were +impossible in a latitude so near the pole, and moved S—— to a room near +the one in which frost-bitten patients were rubbed. + +Before we had time to describe and listen to half our adventures, the +adjutants began suddenly bustling about, the gendarmes’ officers drew +themselves up, and the police set themselves to rights: the door opened +solemnly and little Prince Sergey Mihailovitch Golitsyn walked in _en +grande tenue_ with a ribbon across his shoulder; Tsinsky was in a +uniform of the suite, even the auditor, Oransky, put on some sort of +pale-green civil-military uniform for the joyful occasion. The +commandant, of course, had not come. + +Meanwhile the noise and laughter had risen to such a pitch that the +auditor came fiercely into the room and observed that loud conversation +and, above all, laughter seemed a flagrant disrespect to the will of the +Most High, which we were about to hear. + +The doors were opened. Officers divided us into three groups: in the +first was Sokolovsky, the painter Utkin, and an officer called Ibaev; we +were in the second; in the third, _tutti frutti_. + +The sentence regarding the first category was read aloud. It was +terrible; condemned for high treason, they were sent to the +Schlüsselburg for an indefinite period. When Oransky, drawling to give +himself dignity, read with emphasis that for ‘insulting the Majesty and +Most August Family, _et cetera_,’ Sokolovsky observed: ‘Well, I never +insulted the family.’ + +Among his papers besides this poem were found some resolutions written +in jest as though by the Grand Duke Michael Pavlovitch, with intentional +mistakes in spelling, and those orthographical errors helped to convict +him. + +Tsinsky, to show that he could be free and easy and affable, said to +Sokolovsky after the sentence: ‘Hey, have you ever been in Schlüsselburg +before?’ ‘Last year,’ Sokolovsky answered promptly, ‘as though I knew +what was coming, I drank a bottle of Madeira there.’ Two years later +Utkin died in the fortress. Sokolovsky, half dead, was released and sent +to the Caucasus; he died at Pyatigorsk. Some remnant of shame and +conscience led the government after the death of two to transfer the +third to Perm. Ibaev only died in the spiritual sense: he became a +mystic. + +Utkin, ‘a free artist confined in prison,’ as he described himself at +the examinations, was a man of forty; he had never taken part in any +kind of political affair, but, being of a generous and impulsive +temperament, he gave free rein to his tongue in the committee and was +abrupt and rude in his answers. For this he was done to death in a damp +cell, in which the water trickled down the walls. + +Ibaev’s greater guilt lay in his epaulettes. Had he not been an officer, +he would never have been so punished. The man had happened to be present +at some supper party, had probably drunk too much and sung like all the +rest, but certainly neither more nor louder than the others. + +Our turn came. Oransky wiped his spectacles, cleared his throat, and +began reverently announcing the will of the Most High. The Tsar, after +examining the report of the committee and taking into special +consideration the youth of the criminals, _commanded that we should not +be brought to trial_, and informed us that by law we ought, as men +guilty of high treason by singing seditious songs, to lose our lives or, +alternatively, to be sentenced to penal servitude for life. Instead of +this, the Tsar in his infinite mercy forgave the greater number of the +guilty, leaving them in their present abode under the supervision of the +police. The more guilty among them he commanded to be put under +reformatory treatment, which consisted in being sent to civilian duty +for an indefinite period to remote provinces, to live under the +superintendence of the local police authorities. + +It appeared that there were six of the ‘more guilty’: Ogaryov, S——, +Lahtin, Obolensky, Sorokin, and I. I was to be sent to Perm. Among those +condemned was Lahtin, who had not been arrested at all. When he was +summoned to the committee to hear the sentence, he supposed that it was +as a warning, to be punished by hearing how others were punished. The +story was that some one of Prince Golitsyn’s circle, being angry with +Lahtin’s wife, had prepared this agreeable surprise for him. A man of +delicate health, he died three years later in exile. + +When Oransky had finished reading, Colonel Shubensky stepped forward. In +choice language and in the style of Lomonossov he informed us that it +was due to the good offices of the noble gentleman who had presided at +the committee that the Tsar had been so merciful. + +Shubensky waited for all of us to thank Prince Golitsyn, but this did +not come off. + +Some of those who were pardoned nodded, stealing a stealthy glance at us +as they did so. + +We stood with folded arms, making not the slightest sign that our hearts +were touched by the Imperial and princely mercy. + +Then Shubensky thought of another dodge and, addressing Ogaryov, said: +‘You are going to Penza; do you imagine that that is by chance? Your +father is lying paralysed at Penza and the prince besought the Tsar to +fix that town, that your being near might to some extent alleviate the +blow of your exile for him. Do you not think you have reason to thank +the prince?’ + +There was no help for it, Ogaryov made a slight bow. This was what they +were trying to get. + +The good-natured old man was pleased at this, and next, I don’t know +why, he summoned me. I stepped forward with the devout intention of not +thanking him whatever he or Shubensky might say; besides, I was being +sent farther away than any and to the nastiest town. + +‘You are going to Perm,’ said Prince Golitsyn. I said nothing. He was +disconcerted and, to say something, added, ‘I have an estate there.’ + +‘Would you care to send some commission through me to your steward?’ I +asked with a smile. + +‘I do not give commissions to people like you—Carbonari,’ added the +resourceful old man. + +‘Then what do you wish of me?’ + +‘Nothing.’ + +‘I thought you called me.’ + +‘You can go,’ Shubensky interposed. + +‘Allow me,’ I replied, ‘since I am here to remind you that you told me, +Colonel, last time I was before the committee, that no one accused me of +being connected with the supper-party affair. Yet in the sentence it is +stated that I was one of those guilty in connection with that affair. +There is some mistake here.’ + +‘Do you wish to protest against the decision of the Most High?’ observed +Shubensky. ‘You had better take care that Perm is not changed to +something worse. I shall order your words to be taken down.’ + +‘I meant to ask you to do so. In the sentence the words occur “on the +report of the committee.” I am protesting against your report and not +against the will of the Most High. I appeal to the prince: there was no +question in my case of a supper party or of songs, was there?’ + +‘As though you do not know,’ said Shubensky, beginning to turn pale with +wrath, ‘that you are ten times more guilty than those who were at the +supper party. He now’—he pointed to one of those who had been +pardoned—‘in a state of intoxication sang some filthy song, but +afterwards he begged forgiveness on his knees with tears. But you are +still far from a sign of penitence.’ + +The gentleman at whom the colonel pointed said nothing, but hung his +head and flushed crimson.... + +It was a good lesson, much good his meanness did him!... + +‘Excuse me, it is not the point whether my guilt is greater or not,’ I +went on, ‘but, if I am a murderer, I don’t want to be considered a +thief. I don’t want it to be said of me, even in justification, that I +did something in a “state of intoxication,” as you expressed it just +now.’ + +‘If I had a son who showed such stubbornness I would myself beg the Tsar +to send him to Siberia.’ + +At this point the chief police-master interposed some incoherent +nonsense. It is a pity that Golitsyn junior was not present, it would +have been an opportunity for his eloquence. + +It all ended, of course, in nothing. + +Lahtin went up to Prince Golitsyn and begged that his departure might be +deferred. ‘My wife is with child,’ he said. + +‘I am not responsible for that,’ answered Golitsyn. + +A wild beast, a mad dog when it bites, looks grave and sticks up its +tail, but this crazy aristocrat, though he had the reputation of a +good-natured man, was not ashamed to make this vulgar joke. + +We were left once more for a quarter of an hour in the room, and, in +spite of the zealous upbraidings of the gendarmes and police officers, +warmly embraced one another and took a long farewell. Except Obolensky I +saw none of them again until I came back from Vyatka. + +Departure was before us. + +Prison had been a continuation of our past; but our departure into the +wilds was a complete break with it. + +Our youthful existence in our circle of friends was over. + +Our exile would probably last several years. Where and how should we +meet, and should we ever meet?... + +I regretted my old life, and I had to leave it so abruptly ... without +saying good-bye. I had no hope of seeing Ogaryov. Two of my friends had +succeeded in seeing me during the last few days, but that was not enough +for me. + +If I could but once again see my youthful comforter and press her hand, +as I had pressed it in the graveyard.... I longed both to take leave of +my past and to greet my future in her person.... + +We did see each other for a few minutes on the 9th of April 1835, on the +day before I was sent off into exile. + +For years I kept that day sacred in my memory; it was one of the +happiest moments in my life. + +Why must the thought of that day and of all the bright days of my past +bring back so much that is terrible?... The grave, the wreath of +dark-red roses, two children holding my hand—torches, crowds of exiles, +the moon, the warm sea under the mountain-side, the words that I did not +understand and that wrung my heart.... + +All is over! + + + + + Chapter 13 + EXILE—THE MAYOR AT POKROVO—THE VOLGA—PERM + + +On the morning of the 10th of April an officer of gendarmes took me to +the house of the governor-general. There, in the private part of the +building, my relatives were allowed to come and say good-bye to me. + +Of course it was all awkward and wrung the heart; the prying spies and +clerks, the reading of the instructions to the gendarme who was to take +me, the impossibility of saying anything without witnesses: in fact, +more distressing and painful surroundings could not be imagined. + +I heaved a sigh of relief when at last the carriage rolled off along +Vladimirka. + + ‘Per me si va nella città dolente, + Per me si va nel eterno dolore——’ + +At a station somewhere I wrote those two lines, which apply equally well +to the portals of Hell and the Siberian high-road. + +Seven versts from Moscow there is a restaurant called ‘Perov’s’; there +one of my most intimate friends had promised to wait for me. I suggested +to the gendarme a drink of vodka. It was a long way from the town. We +went in, but my friend was not there. I tried every device to linger in +the tavern; at last the gendarme would stay no longer and the driver was +starting the horses—when suddenly a troika dashed up straight to the +restaurant. I flew to the door ... two strangers, merchants’ sons, out +for a spree, noisily dismounted from the chaise. I looked into the +distance—not one moving point, not one man could be seen on the road to +Moscow ... it was bitter to get in and drive off. I gave the driver +twenty kopecks, and we flew like an arrow from the bow. + +We drove without stopping; the gendarme had been ordered to do not less +than two hundred versts in the twenty-four hours. This would have been +quite endurable at any time but the beginning of April. In places the +road was covered with ice, in places with mud and water; moreover, as we +drove towards Siberia it got worse and worse at every station. + +The first incident of my journey was at Pokrovo. + +We had lost several hours owing to the ice which was floating down the +river and cutting off all communication with the opposite bank. The +gendarme was in a nervous fidget; all at once the superintendent of the +posting-station at Pokrovo announced that there were no horses. The +gendarme pointed out that in the permit he was instructed to give them +couriers’ horses if there were no post horses. The superintendent +replied that those horses had been taken by the Deputy Minister of Home +Affairs. I need hardly say that the gendarme began to quarrel and made a +row. The superintendent ran to try and get private horses and the +gendarme went with him. + +I got tired of waiting for them in the superintendent’s dirty room. I +went out at the gate and began walking in front of the house. It was my +first walk unescorted by a soldier after nine months’ imprisonment. + +I had walked up and down for half an hour when suddenly I was met by a +man wearing a uniform with epaulettes and a blue _pour le mérite_ on his +neck. He looked at me with marked persistence, passed me, and at once +turning back asked me with a fierce air: ‘Is it you who are being taken +by a gendarme to Perm?’ + +‘Yes,’ I answered without stopping. + +‘Excuse me, excuse me, but how dare he?...’ + +‘With whom have I the honour to speak?’ + +‘I am the mayor,’ answered the stranger in a voice which betrayed a +profound sense of the dignity of that public position. ‘Upon my soul! I +am expecting the Deputy Minister from hour to hour, and here there are +political prisoners walking about the streets. What an ass your gendarme +is!’ + +‘Will you please address yourself to the gendarme in person.’ + +‘It is not a matter of addressing myself, I’ll arrest him. I’ll order +him a hundred strokes and send you on with a policeman.’ + +I nodded without waiting for him to finish his speech and strode rapidly +back into the station. + +From the window I could hear him fuming at the gendarme and threatening +all sorts of things. The gendarme apologised but did not seem much +frightened. Three minutes later they both came in. I was sitting turned +toward the window and did not look at them. + +From the mayor’s questions to the gendarme, I saw that he was consumed +by the desire to find out for what offence, how and why, I was being +sent into exile. I remained obstinately silent. The mayor began +addressing me and the gendarme indiscriminately: ‘No one cares to enter +into our position. Do you suppose it is pleasant for me to have to swear +at a soldier and cause unpleasantness to a man whom I have never seen in +my life? It is the responsibility! The mayor is in charge of the town. +Whatever happens, I have to answer for it; if government funds are +stolen, it is my fault; if the church is burnt down, it is my fault; if +there are a great many men drunk in the street, it is my fault; if there +is not enough liquor drunk, it is my fault too’ (the last phrase pleased +him very much and he went on in a more cheerful tone). ‘It’s a good +thing you met me, but if you had met the Minister and you walking up and +down, he would have asked, how is this, a political prisoner out for a +walk? Put the mayor under arrest....’ + +At last I was weary of his eloquence and, turning to him, I said: ‘Do +what your duty requires, but I beg you to spare me your admonitions. I +see from what you say that you expect me to bow to you; it is not my +habit to bow to strangers.’ + +The mayor was confused. + +‘It is always like that among us,’ A—— A—— used to say; ‘whichever is +first to begin scolding and shouting always gets the best of it. If you +allow an official to raise his voice, you are lost; hearing himself +yelling, he becomes a wild beast. If at his first rude word you begin +shouting, he is invariably scared and gives way, thinking you are a +determined person and that such persons had better not be irritated too +much.’ + +The mayor sent the gendarme to inquire about horses and, turning to me, +observed by way of apology: ‘I have acted like this for the sake of the +soldier; you don’t know what our soldiers are like—one must not allow +the slightest slackness, but, believe me, I can discriminate—allow me to +ask you what unlucky chance....’ + +‘At the conclusion of our trial we were forbidden to speak of it.’ + +‘In that case.... Of course.... I do not venture ...’ and the mayor’s +eyes expressed agonies of curiosity. He paused. + +‘I had a distant relative, he was a year in the Peter-Paul fortress. You +see, I, too—excuse me, it worries me. I believe you are still angry? I +am a military man, stern, accustomed to the service; I went into the +regiment at seventeen. I have a hasty temper, but it is all over in a +minute. I won’t touch your gendarme, the devil take him entirely....’ + +The gendarme came in with the reply that the horses could not be driven +in from the grazing-ground in less than an hour. + +The mayor informed him that he forgave him on my intercession. Then +turning to me he added: + +‘And to show that you are not angry, you will not refuse my request. I +live only two doors away; allow me to ask you to take pot-luck at lunch +with me.’ + +This was so funny after our encounter that I went to the mayor’s and ate +his dried sturgeon and caviare and drank his vodka and Madeira. + +He became so affable that he told me all his domestic affairs, even +describing his wife’s illness which had lasted seven years. After +luncheon he took with proud satisfaction a letter from a vase standing +on the table and gave me to read ‘a poem’ by his son, deemed worthy of +being read in public at the examination for the Cadet School. After +obliging me with such marks of complete confidence, he adroitly passed +to an indirect question about my case. This time I partly gratified his +curiosity. + +This mayor reminded me of the secretary of the district court of whom +our friend Shtchepkin used to tell: ‘Nine police-captains came and went, +but the secretary remained unchanged, and went on managing the district +as before. “How is it you get on with all of them?” Shtchepkin asked +him. “Oh, it’s nothing; with God’s help we get round them somehow. Some +certainly were hot-tempered at first, would stamp with their forelegs +and their hindlegs, shout, swear for all they were worth, say they’d +kick me out, and they’d report me to the governor—well, as you see, I +know my place, one holds one’s tongue and thinks; give him time, he’ll +be broken in! This is just first being in harness! And, as a matter of +fact, they can be driven all right!”’ + +When we reached Kazan the Volga was in all the glory of the spring +floods. The whole distance from Uslon to Kazan we had to float on a +punt, the river had overflowed for fifteen versts or more. It was a +cloudy day. The ferry had broken down, a number of carts and conveyances +of all sorts were waiting on the bank. The gendarme went to the station +superintendent and asked for a punt. The man gave it reluctantly, saying +that it would be better to wait, that it was not safe to cross. The +gendarme was in a hurry because he was drunk and because he wanted to +show his power. + +They put my carriage on a little punt and we floated off. The weather +seemed calmer. Half an hour later the Tatar put up a sail, when suddenly +the storm began to rage again. We were carried along with such violence +that, running upon a log, we crashed against it so that the wretched +punt was broken and the water poured over the deck. The position was +disagreeable; however, the Tatar succeeded in getting the punt on to a +sandbank. A merchant’s barge came into sight. We shouted to it and asked +them to send a boat; the bargemen heard us and floated by without doing +anything. + +A peasant came up with his wife in a little canoe made out of a +tree-trunk, asked us what was the matter, and, remarking ‘Well, what of +it? Stop up the hole and go your way rejoicing. What’s there to mope +about? It’s because you are a Tatar, I suppose, you can’t do anything,’ +climbed on to the punt. + +The Tatar certainly was very much alarmed. First, when the water had +poured over the sleeping gendarme, the latter had leapt up and at once +began beating the Tatar. Secondly, the boat was government property, and +the Tatar kept repeating: ‘Here it will go to the bottom, what will +become of me! what will become of me!’ + +I comforted him by saying that if it went to the bottom he would go with +it. + +‘It is all right, master, if I drown, but how if I don’t?’ + +The peasant and the others stopped up the hole with all sorts of things. +The peasant struck it with his axe and knocked in some little plank; +then, up to his waist in the water, helped to drag the punt off the +sandbank and we were soon floating off into the channel of the Volga. +The river rushed us along savagely. The wind and the sleet cut the face, +the cold penetrated to the bone, but soon the monument of Ivan the +Terrible began to stand out from the fog and the floods of water. It +seemed as though the danger were over, when suddenly the Tatar shouted +in a plaintive voice, ‘A leak, a leak!’ and the water began pouring +vigorously in at the hole that had been stuffed up. We were in the very +centre of the river, the punt moved more and more slowly, one could +foresee that it would soon sink altogether. The Tatar took off his cap +and prayed. My valet, overcome with terror, wept and said: ‘Farewell, +mother, I shall not see you again.’ The gendarme swore and vowed to +thrash them all as soon as they got to the bank. + +At first I too was frightened; besides, the wind and the rain added +confusion and uproar. But the thought that it was absurd that I should +perish without having _done anything_, that youthful ‘_Quid timeas, +Caesarem vehis!_’ got the upper hand and I calmly awaited the end, +convinced that I could not perish between Uslon and Kazan. Later on, +life breaks us of this proud confidence and punishes us for it; that is +why youth is bold and full of heroism, while with the years a man grows +cautious and is rarely carried away. + +A quarter of an hour later, we were ashore near the walls of the Kazan +Kremlin, drenched and shivering. I went into the nearest tavern, drank +off a glass of foaming wine, ate a fried egg, and set off to the +post-office. + +In villages and little towns there is a room at the posting-station for +travellers, in big towns every one puts up at hotels and there is +nothing at the posting-stations for travellers. I was taken to the +posting-station. The superintendent of the station showed me his room; +there were women and children in it and a sick and bedridden old man; +there was absolutely not a corner where I could change my clothes. I +wrote a letter to the general of gendarmes and asked him to assign a +room to me somewhere that I might get warm and dry my clothes. + +An hour later the gendarme returned and said that Count Apraxin had +ordered that a room should be given me. I waited a couple of hours; no +one came and I sent the gendarme off again. He came back with the answer +that Colonel Pol, to whom the General had given the order to find me a +room, was playing cards at the Nobles’ Club and that a room could not be +found me till next day. + +This was barbarous; and I wrote a second letter to Count Apraxin asking +him to send me on immediately, saying that I might find shelter at the +next posting-station. The Count was graciously pleased to be in bed, and +the letter was left until the morning. There was nothing for it. I took +off my wet clothes and lay down on the table of the post-office wrapped +in the greatcoat of the ‘elder’; for a pillow I took a thick book and +laid some linen upon it. + +In the morning I sent out for some breakfast. The post-office officials +were by now assembling. The clerk in charge submitted to me that it +really was not the right thing to have breakfast in a public office, +that it did not matter to him personally, but that the postmaster might +not like it. + +I answered him jocosely that a man cannot be turned out who has no right +to go, and if he has no right to go he is obliged to eat and drink where +he is detained.... + +Next day Count Apraxin gave me permission to remain three days in Kazan +and to put up at the hotel. + +I spent those three days wandering about the town with the gendarme. The +Tatar women with their covered faces, their broad-cheeked husbands, +mosques of the true faith side by side with orthodox churches, all was +suggestive of Asia and the East. In Vladimir, in Nizhni there is a +feeling of nearness to Moscow, here of remoteness from her. + +In Perm I was taken straight to the governor. He was holding a great +reception; his daughter was being married that day to an officer. He +insisted on my going in, and I had to present myself to the whole +society of Perm in a dirty travelling coat, covered with mud and dust. +The governor, after talking all sorts of nonsense, forbade me to make +acquaintance with the Polish exiles and ordered me to come to him in a +few days, saying that then he would find me work in the office. + +This governor was a Little Russian; he did not oppress the exiles, and +altogether was a harmless person. He was improving his position somehow +on the sly, like a mole working unseen underground; he was adding grain +to grain and laying by a little hourly for a rainy day. + +From some inexplicable idea of discipline, he used to order all the +exiles who lived in Perm to appear before him at ten o’clock in the +morning on Saturdays. He would come out with his pipe and a list, verify +whether we were all present, and, if any one was not, send a policeman +to find out the reason and, after saying scarcely anything to any one, +would dismiss us. In this way in his reception-room I became acquainted +with all the Polish exiles, whose acquaintance he had warned me I must +not make. + +The day after my arrival the gendarme went away, and for the first time +since my arrest I found myself in freedom. + +In freedom ... in a little town on the Siberian frontier, with no +experience, with no conception of the surroundings in which I had to +live. + +From the nursery I had passed into the lecture-room, from the +lecture-room to a circle of friends—it had all been theories, dreams, my +own people, no practical responsibilities. Then prison to let it all +settle. Practical contact with life was beginning here near the Ural +Mountains. + +It began at once; the day after my arrival, I went with a porter from +the governor’s office to look for a lodging and he took me to a big +house of one storey. In spite of my protesting that I was looking for a +very little house or, still better, part of a house, he obstinately +insisted on my going in. + +The landlady made me sit down on her sofa and, learning that I came from +Moscow, asked if I had seen Mr. Kabrit in Moscow. I told her that I had +never even heard the name. + +‘How is that?’ observed the old woman; ‘I mean Kabrit,’ and she +mentioned his Christian name and his father’s name. ‘Upon my word, sir, +why, he was our vice-governor!’ + +‘But I have been nine months in prison, perhaps that is why I have not +heard of him,’ I said, smiling. + +‘Maybe that is it. So you will take the house, my good sir?’ + +‘It is too big, much too big; I told the man so.’ + +‘You can’t have too much of a good thing,’ she said. + +‘That is so, but you will want more rent for so much of a good thing.’ + +‘Ah, my good sir, but who has talked to you about my price? I have not +said a word about it yet.’ + +‘But I know that such a house cannot be cheap.’ + +‘How much will you give?’ + +To get rid of her, I said that I would not give more than three hundred +and fifty roubles. + +‘Well, I would be thankful for that. Bid the man bring your bits of +trunks, darling, and take a little glass of Teneriffe.’ + +Her price seemed to me fabulously low. I took the house, and, just as I +was on the point of going, she stopped me. ‘I forgot to ask you, are you +going to keep your own cow?’ + +‘Good Heavens, no!’ I answered, almost appalled by her question. + +‘Well, then, I will let you have cream.’ + +I went away thinking with horror where I was and what I was that I could +be considered capable of keeping my own cow. But before I had time to +look round, the governor informed me that I was transferred to Vyatka +because another exile who had been allotted to Vyatka had asked to be +transferred to Perm, where he had relations. The governor wanted me to +leave the next day. This was impossible; thinking to remain some time in +Perm, I had bought all sorts of things and I had to sell them even at +half-price. After various evasive answers, the governor gave me +permission to remain forty-eight hours, exacting a promise that I would +not seek an opportunity of seeing the other exiles. + +I was preparing to sell my horse and all sorts of rubbish the next day +when suddenly the police-master appeared with an order to leave within +twenty-four hours. I explained to him that the governor had given me an +extension of time. The police-master showed me the instructions, in +which he certainly was directed to see me off within twenty-four hours. +The document had been signed that very day and, consequently, after the +conversation with me. + +‘Ah,’ said the police-master, ‘_I_ understand, I understand; our fine +gentleman wants to throw the responsibility on me.’ + +‘Let us go and confront him with it.’ + +‘Let us!’ + +The governor said that he had forgotten the permission he had given me. +The police-master asked slyly whether he wished him to make a fresh copy +of the instructions. + +‘Is it worth while?’ the governor remarked simply. + +‘We have caught him,’ said the police-master, gleefully rubbing his +hands, ‘the scribbling soul!’ + +The Perm police-master belonged to a special type of military men turned +into officials. They are men who have had the luck in the army to come +in contact with a bayonet or to be hit by a bullet, and so to be given +such posts as that of local police-master or executive clerk. + +In the regiment they have acquired certain airs of frankness, have +learnt by heart various phrases about the inviolability of honour and +the noble feelings, and also sarcastic jeers at the ‘scribbling gentry.’ +The younger among them have read Marlinsky[130] and Zagoskin,[131] know +the beginning of the _Prisoner of the Caucasus_ and _Voynarovsky_, and +often repeat verses. Some, for instance, will say every time they see a +man smoking: + + ‘The amber smoked between his lips.’ + +They are all without exception deeply and volubly conscious that their +position is far inferior to their merits, that only poverty keeps them +in this ‘world of ink,’ that if it were not for their wounds and lack of +means, they would be commanding army corps or have the rank of +adjutant-generals. Every one of them will quote a striking instance of +some old comrade and say: ‘Why, Kreits, or Ridiger, was made a cornet +with me. We lodged together. Called each other Petrusha and Alyosha—but +there, I’m not a German, you see, and I had no backing—so I can stay a +policeman. Do you imagine it’s easy for an honourable man with our ideas +to do police work?’ + +Their wives are even louder in their complaints, and with heavy hearts +go to Moscow every year to put money into the bank, on the pretext that +a mother or aunt is ill and wants to see them for the last time. + +And so they live in comfort for fifteen years. The husband, railing +against his destiny, thrashes the police, beats the workpeople, cringes +to the governor, screens thieves, steals legal documents, and repeats +verses from the _Fountain of Bahtchisaray_.[132] The wife, complaining +of destiny and provincial life, grabs everything she can get, takes +tribute from petitioners and shops, and raves over moonlight nights. + +I have made this digression because at first I was taken in by these +gentry and believed they really were rather better than the rest, which +is far from being the case.... + +I brought away from Perm one personal memory which is dear to me. + +At one of the governor’s inspections of the exiles a Polish priest +invited me to go and see him. I found several Poles there. One of them +sat in silence pensively smoking a little pipe; misery, hopeless misery, +was apparent on every feature of his face. He was round-shouldered, even +crooked, his face was of the irregular Polish-Lithuanian type which at +first surprises and then attracts. The greatest of the Poles, Thaddeus +Kosciuszko, had just such features. The clothes of the Pole, whose name +was Tsihanovitch, gave evidence of terrible poverty. + +A few days later I was walking along the deserted boulevard with which +Perm is bounded on one side; it was in the second half of May, the young +leaves were opening, the birches were in flower (I remember the whole +avenue was of birches), and there was no one anywhere. Our provincials +are not fond of _platonic_ walks. After strolling for some time, I saw +at last on the other side of the boulevard, that is, where the open +country began, a man botanising or perhaps simply gathering the scanty +and monotonous flowers of that region. When he raised his head I +recognised Tsihanovitch and went up to him. + +Later on I saw a good deal of the victims of the Polish insurrection; +their record is particularly rich in martyrs—Tsihanovitch was the first. +When he told me how he had been persecuted by executioners in the +uniform of adjutant-generals—those tools with which the brutality of the +savage despot of the Winter Palace fights—then our discomforts, our +prison, and our trial seemed to me paltry. + +At that time in Vilna the commanding officer _on the side of the +victorious enemy_ was the celebrated renegade Muravyov, who immortalised +himself by the historic declaration, ‘that he belonged to the Muravyovs +who hanged and not the Muravyovs who are hanged.’ For Nicholas’ narrow, +vindictive outlook, men of feverish ambition and coarse callousness were +always the best fitted or, at any rate, the most sympathetic. + +The generals who sat in the torture chamber and tormented the +emissaries, their friends or the friends of their friends, behaved to +the prisoners like blackguards, with no breeding, no feeling of +delicacy, and at the same time were very well aware that all their +doings were covered by the military coat of Nicholas, soaked in the +blood of the Polish martyrs and the tears of Polish mothers.... This +Passion Week of a whole people still awaits its Luke or its Matthew.... +But let them know: one torturer after another will be shamed at the bar +of history and leave his name there. That will be the portrait gallery +of the period of Nicholas by way of pendant to the gallery of the +generals of 1812. + +Muravyov spoke to the prisoners as though they were of a lower class, +and swore at them in the language of the market. Once he was so carried +away by fury that he went up to Tsihanovitch and would have taken him by +the shoulder and perhaps have struck him, but met the fettered +prisoner’s eyes, was abashed, and went on in a different tone. + +I guessed what those eyes must have looked like; when he told me the +story three years after the event, his eyes glowed, the veins stood out +on his forehead and on his bowed neck. + +‘What could you have done in chains?’ + +‘I could have torn him to pieces with my teeth, I could have beaten him +to death with my skull, with my chains,’ he said, trembling. + +Tsihanovitch was sent at first to Verhoturye, one of the remotest towns +of the province of Perm, lost in the Ural Mountains, buried in snow and +so far from every road that in winter there was scarcely any means of +communication. I need hardly say that living in Verhoturye was worse +than in Omsk or Krasnoyarsk. Being in complete solitude, Tsihanovitch +occupied himself with the study of natural science, collected the scanty +flora of the Ural Mountains, and at last received permission to move to +Perm; and this was a great amelioration of his lot. Again he heard the +sound of his own language and met with comrades in misfortune. His wife, +who had remained in Lithuania, wrote that she was setting off to _walk_ +to him from the province of Vilna. + +When I was transferred so unexpectedly to Vyatka, I went to say good-bye +to Tsihanovitch. The little room in which he lived was almost completely +empty. A small, old trunk stood beside the meagre bed, a wooden table +and a chair made up the rest of the furniture. It reminded me of my cell +in the Krutitsky Barracks. + +The news of my departure grieved him, but he was so used to +disappointments that a minute later he said to me with a smile that was +almost bright: ‘That’s just what I love nature for; wherever a man may +be, she cannot be taken from him.’ + +I wanted to leave him something as a souvenir. I took a little stud out +of my shirt and asked him to accept it. + +‘It won’t suit my shirt, but I shall keep your stud to the end of my +days and I will wear it at my funeral.’ + +Then he sank into thought and all at once began rapidly rummaging in his +trunk. He found a little bag, from it drew out an iron chain made in a +peculiar way, and, tearing several links off, gave them to me with the +words: ‘That chain is very precious to me, the most sacred memories of a +certain time are connected with it. I do not give you all, but take +these links. I never thought that I, an exile from Lithuania, would +present them to a Russian exile.’ + +I embraced him and said good-bye. + +‘When are you going?’ he asked. + +‘To-morrow morning, but I will not invite you; a gendarme is always +sitting in my lodging.’ + +‘And so a good journey to you; may you be happier than I.’ + +At nine o’clock next morning the police-master turned up at my lodgings +and began hurrying me off. The Perm gendarme, a far more manageable +person than the Krutitsky one, was busy getting the carriage ready, not +concealing his joy at the hope of being able to be drunk for three +hundred and fifty versts. Everything was ready. I glanced casually into +the street; Tsihanovitch was passing, I rushed to the window. + +‘Well, thank God,’ he said, ‘this is the fourth time I have walked past +to say good-bye to you, if only from a distance, and still you did not +see me.’ + +With eyes full of tears I thanked him. This tender, womanly attention +deeply touched me; but for this meeting I should have had nothing to +regret in Perm! + +On the day after we left Perm there was a heavy, unceasing downpour of +rain from dawn, such as is common in forest districts; at two o’clock we +reached a very poor village in the province of Vyatka. There was no +house at the posting-station. Votyaks[133] (who could not read or write) +performed the duties of overseer, looked through the permit for horses, +saw whether there were two seals or one, shouted ‘Aïda, aïda!’ and +harnessed the horses, I need hardly say, twice as quickly as it would +have been done had there been a superintendent. I wanted to get dry and +warm and to have something to eat. Before we reached the village, the +Perm gendarme agreed to my suggestion that we should rest for a couple +of hours. When I went into the stifling hut, without a chimney, and +found that it was absolutely impossible to get anything, that there was +not even a pot-house for five versts, I regretted our decision and was +on the point of asking for horses. + +While I was thinking whether to go on or not to go on, a soldier came in +and reported that the officer at the étape had sent to invite me to a +cup of tea. + +‘With the greatest pleasure. Where is your officer?’ + +‘In the hut near by, your honour,’ and the soldier made the familiar +left-about-turn. I followed him. + +A short, elderly officer with a face that bore traces of many anxieties, +petty cares, and fear of his superiors, met me with all the genial +hospitality of deadly boredom. He was one of those unintelligent, +good-natured soldiers who work in the service for twenty-five years +without promotion and without reasoning about it, as old horses serve, +who probably suppose that it is their duty at dawn to put on their +harness and drag something. + +‘Whom are you taking, and where?’ + +‘Oh, don’t ask, for it is heart-rending. Well, I suppose my superiors +know all about it; it is our duty to carry out orders and we are not +responsible, but, looking at it as a man, it is an ugly business.’ + +‘Why, what is it?’ + +‘You see, they have collected a crowd of cursed little Jew boys of eight +or nine years old. Whether they are taking them for the navy or what, I +can’t say. At first _the orders were to drive them to Perm, then there +was a change and we are driving them to Kazan_. I have taken them over a +hundred versts. The officer who handed them over said it was dreadful, +and that’s all about it; a third were left on the way’ (and the officer +pointed to the earth). ‘Not half will reach their destination,’ he +added. + +‘Have there been epidemics, or what?’ I asked, deeply moved. + +‘No, not epidemics, but they just die off like flies. A Jew boy, you +know, is such a frail, weakly creature, like a skinned cat; he is not +used to tramping in the mud for ten hours a day and eating dried +bread—then again, being among strangers, no father nor mother nor +petting; well, they cough and cough until they cough themselves into +their graves. And I ask you, what use is it to them? What can they do +with little boys?’ + +I made no answer. + +‘When do you set off?’ I asked. + +‘Well, we ought to have gone long ago, but it has been raining so +heavily.... Hey, you there! tell the small fry to form up.’ + +They brought the children and formed them into regular ranks: it was one +of the most awful sights I have ever seen, those poor, poor children! +Boys of twelve or thirteen might somehow have survived it, but little +fellows of eight and ten.... No painting could reproduce the horror of +that scene. + +Pale, exhausted, with frightened faces, they stood in thick, clumsy, +soldiers’ overcoats, with stand-up collars, fixing helpless, pitiful +eyes on the garrison soldiers who were roughly getting them into ranks. +The white lips, the blue rings under their eyes looked like fever or +chill. And these sick children, without care or kindness, exposed to the +icy wind that blows straight from the Arctic Ocean, were going to their +graves. + +And note that they were being taken by a kind-hearted officer who was +obviously sorry for the children. What if they had been taken by a +military political economist? + +I took the officer’s hand and, saying ‘Take care of them,’ rushed to my +carriage. I wanted to sob and felt that I could not control myself. + +What monstrous crimes are secretly buried in the archives of the +infamous reign of Nicholas! We are used to them, they are committed +every day, committed as though nothing were wrong, unnoticed, lost in +the terrible distance, noiselessly sunk in the silent bogs of +officialdom or shrouded by the censorship of the police. + +Have we not seen with our own eyes seven hungry peasants from Pskov, who +were being forcibly removed to the province of Tobolsk and were pitched +without food or night’s lodging in the Tverskoy Square in Moscow until +Prince D. V. Golitsyn ordered them to be cared for at his own expense? + + + + + Chapter 14 + VYATKA—THE OFFICE AND DINING-ROOM OF HIS EXCELLENCY—K. Y. TYUFYAEV + + +The Governor of Vyatka did not receive me, but sent word that I was to +present myself next morning at ten. + +I found in the room next morning the district police-captain, the +police-master, and two officials: they were all standing talking in +whispers and looking uneasily at the door. The door opened and there +walked in a short, broad-shouldered old man with a head set on his +shoulders like a bull-dog’s, and with big jaws, which completed his +resemblance to that animal and, moreover, wore a perpetual grin; the +elderly and at the same time satyr-like expression of his face, the +quick little grey eyes, and the sparse, stiff hair made an incredibly +disgusting impression. + +To begin with, he gave the district police-captain a good dressing down +for the state of the roads on which he had driven the day before. The +district police-captain stood with his head somewhat bowed in token of +respect and submission, and replied to everything as servants used to do +in old days, ‘I obey, your Excellency.’ + +When he had done with the district police-captain, he turned to me. He +looked at me insolently and asked: + +‘Did you finish your studies at the Moscow University?’ + +‘I took my degree.’ + +‘And then served?’ + +‘In the Kremlin department.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha! a fine sort of service! Of course, you had plenty of time +there for supper parties and singing songs. Alenitsyn!’ he shouted. + +A scrofulous-looking young man walked in. + +‘Here, my boy, here is a graduate of the Moscow University. I expect he +knows everything except his duties in the service; it is His Majesty’s +pleasure that he should learn them with us. Take him into your office +and send me a special report on him. To-morrow you will come to the +office at nine o’clock, and now you can go. But stay, I forgot to ask +how you write.’ + +I did not understand for the moment. + +‘Come, your handwriting.’ + +‘I have nothing with me.’ + +‘Bring paper and pen,’ and Alenitsyn handed me a pen. + +‘What am I to write?’ + +‘What you like,’ observed the secretary. ‘Write, “On inquiry it +appears——”’ + +‘Well, you won’t be corresponding with the Tsar,’ the governor remarked, +laughing ironically. + +Before I left Perm I had heard a great deal about Tyufyaev, but he far +surpassed all my expectations. + +What does not Russian life produce! + +Tyufyaev was born at Tobolsk. His father was possibly a convict and +belonged to the poorest class of artisan. At thirteen, young Tyufyaev +joined a troupe of travelling acrobats who wandered from fair to fair, +dancing on the tight-rope, turning somersaults, and so on. With these he +travelled from Tobolsk to the Polish provinces, entertaining the good +Russian people. There, I do not know why, he was arrested, and as he had +no passport he was treated as a vagrant, and sent on foot with a party +of convicts back to Tobolsk. His mother was by then a widow and was +living in great poverty. The son rebuilt the stove with his own hands +when it was broken: he had to find some calling; the boy had learned to +read and write, and he was engaged as a copying clerk in the local +court. + +Being naturally of a free-and-easy character and having developed his +abilities by a many-sided education in the troupe of acrobats and the +party of convicts with whom he had passed from one end of Russia to the +other, he became an energetic and practical man. + +At the beginning of the reign of Alexander some sort of inspector came +to Tobolsk. He needed capable clerks, and some one recommended Tyufyaev. +The inspector was so well pleased with him that he proposed taking him +along to Petersburg. Then Tyufyaev, whose ambition, to use his own +words, had never risen above the post of secretary in a district court, +formed a higher opinion of himself, and with iron will resolved to make +his career. + +And he did make it. Ten years later we find him the indefatigable +secretary of Kankrin, who was at that time a general in the +commissariat. A year later he was superintending a department in +Araktcheyev’s secretariat which superintended all Russia. He was with +Araktcheyev in Paris at the time when it was occupied by the allied +troops. Tyufyaev spent the whole time sitting in the secretariat of the +expeditionary army and literally did not see one street in Paris. He sat +day and night collating and copying papers with his worthy colleague, +Kleinmihel. + +Araktcheyev’s secretariat was like those copper mines into which men are +only sent to work for a few months, because if they remain longer they +die. Even Tyufyaev was tired at last in that factory of orders and +decrees, of regulations and commands, and began asking for a quieter +post. Araktcheyev could not fail to like a man like Tyufyaev, a man free +from higher pretensions, from all interests and opinions, formally +honest, devoured by ambition, and regarding obedience as the foremost +human virtue. Araktcheyev rewarded Tyufyaev with the post of deputy +governor. A few years later he made him governor of the Perm Province. +The province, through which Tyufyaev had once walked on a rope and once +tied to a rope, lay at his feet. + +A governor’s power increases in direct ratio to his distance from +Petersburg, but it increases in geometrical progression in the provinces +where there are no nobility, as in Perm, Vyatka, and Siberia. Such a +region was just what Tyufyaev wanted. + +He was an Oriental satrap, only an active, restless one, meddling in +everything and for ever busy. Tyufyaev would have been a ferocious +Commissaire of the Convention in 1794, a Carrier.[134] + +Dissolute in his life, coarse in nature, intolerant of the slightest +contradiction, his influence was extremely pernicious. He did not take +bribes, though he did make his fortune, as it appeared after his death. +He was severe to his subordinates, he punished without mercy those who +were detected in wrongdoing, yet his officials were more dishonest than +anywhere. He carried the abuse of influence to an incredible point; for +instance, when he sent an official to an inquiry he would (that is, if +he were interested in the case) tell him that probably this or that +would be discovered, and woe to the official if something else were +discovered. + +Perm was still full of the fame of Tyufyaev; there was a party of his +adherents there, hostile to the new governor, who, of course, had +surrounded himself with his own partisans. + +On the other hand, there were people who hated him. One of them, a +rather original product of the warping influences of Russian life, +particularly warned me what Tyufyaev was like. I am speaking of a doctor +in one of the factories. This doctor, whose name was Tchebotarev, an +intelligent and very nervous man, had made an unfortunate marriage soon +after he had completed his studies, then he was transferred to +Ekaterinburg and without any experience plunged into the bog of +provincial life. Though placed in a fairly independent position in these +surroundings, he yet was mastered by them; all his resistance took the +form of sarcasms at the expense of the officials. He laughed at them to +their faces, he said the most insulting things with grimaces and +affectation. Since no one was spared, no one particularly resented the +doctor’s spiteful tongue. He made himself a social position by his +attacks and forced a flabby set of people to put up with the lash with +which he chastised them incessantly. I was warned that he was a good +doctor, but crazy and extremely impertinent. + +His gossip and jokes were neither coarse nor pointless; quite the +contrary, they were full of humour and concentrated bitterness; it was +his poetry, his revenge, his outcry of anger and, to some extent, +perhaps, of despair. He had studied the circle of officials as an artist +and as a doctor, and, encouraged by their cowardice and lack of +resource, took any liberty he liked with them. + +At every word he would add, ‘It won’t make a ha’p’orth of difference to +you.’ + +Once in joke I remarked upon his repeating this. + +‘Why are you surprised?’ the doctor replied. ‘The object of everything +that is said is to convince. I am in haste to add the strongest argument +that exists. Convince a man that to kill his own father will not make a +ha’p’orth of difference and he will kill him.’ + +Tchebotarev never refused to lend small sums of a hundred or two hundred +roubles. When any one asked him for a loan, he would take out his +notebook and inquire the exact date when the borrower would return the +money. + +‘Now,’ he would say, ‘allow me to make a bet of a silver rouble that you +won’t repay it then.’ + +‘Upon my soul,’ the other would object, ‘what do you take me for?’ + +‘It makes not a ha’p’orth of difference what I take you for,’ the doctor +would answer, ‘but the fact is I have been keeping a record for six +years, and not one person has paid me up to time yet, and hardly any one +has repaid me later either.’ + +The day fixed would pass and the doctor would very gravely ask for the +silver rouble he had won. + +A spirit-tax contractor at Perm was selling a travelling coach. The +doctor presented himself before him and made the following speech: ‘You +have a coach to sell, I need it; you are a wealthy man, you are a +millionaire, every one respects you for it and I have therefore come to +pay you my respects also; as you are a wealthy man, it makes not a +ha’p’orth of difference to you whether you sell the coach or not, while +I need it very much and have very little money. You want to squeeze me, +to take advantage of my necessity and ask fifteen hundred for the coach. +I offer you seven hundred roubles. I shall be coming every day to +bargain with you and in a week you will let me have it for seven-fifty +or eight hundred; wouldn’t it be better to begin with that? I am ready +to give it.’ + +‘Much better,’ answered the astonished spirit-tax contractor, and he let +him have the coach. + +Tchebotarev’s anecdotes and mischievous tricks were endless. I will add +two more. + +‘Do you believe in magnetism?’ a rather intelligent and cultured lady +asked him in my presence. + +‘What do you mean by magnetism?’ + +The lady talked some vague nonsense in reply. + +‘It makes not a ha’p’orth of difference to you whether I believe in +magnetism or not, but if you like I will tell you what I have seen in +that way.’ + +‘Please do.’ + +‘Only listen attentively.’ + +After this he described in a very lively and interesting way the +experiments of a Harkov doctor, an acquaintance of his. + +In the middle of the conversation, a servant brought some lunch in on a +tray. As he was going out, the lady said to him, ‘You have forgotten to +bring the mustard.’ Tchebotarev stopped. ‘Go on, go on,’ said the lady, +a little scared already, ‘I am listening.’ + +‘Has he brought the salt?’ + +‘So you are angry already,’ said the lady, turning crimson. + +‘Not in the least. I assure you I know that you were listening +attentively. Besides, I know that, however intelligent a woman is and +whatever is being talked about, she can never rise above the kitchen—so +how could I dare to be angry with you personally?’ + +At Countess Polier’s factory he asked a lad, one of his patients there, +to enter his service. The boy was willing, but the foreman said that he +could not let him go without permission from the countess. Tchebotarev +wrote to the lady. She told the foreman to let the lad have his passport +on condition that the doctor paid five years’ _obrok_ in advance. The +doctor promptly wrote to the countess that he agreed to her terms, but +asked her as a preliminary to decide one point that troubled him, _i.e._ +from whom could he recover the money if Encke’s Comet should, +intersecting the earth’s orbit, turn it out of its course—which might +occur a year and a half before the term fixed. + +On the day of my departure for Vyatka the doctor appeared early in the +morning and began with the following foolishness: ‘Like Horace, once you +sang, and to this day you are translated.’[135] Then he took out his +notebook and asked if I would not like some money for the journey. I +thanked him and refused. + +‘Why won’t you take any? It won’t make a ha’p’orth of difference to +you.’ + +‘I have money.’ + +‘That’s bad,’ he said; ‘the end of the world must be at hand.’ He opened +his notebook and wrote down: ‘After fifteen years of practice I have for +the first time met a man who won’t borrow, even though he is going +away.’ + +Having finished playing the fool, he sat down on my bed and said +gravely: ‘You are going to a terrible man. Be on your guard against him +and keep as far away from him as you can. If he likes you it will be a +poor recommendation; if he dislikes you, he will ruin you by slander, by +calumny, and I don’t know what, but he will ruin you, and it won’t make +a ha’p’orth of difference to him.’ + +With this he told me an incident the truth of which I had an opportunity +of verifying afterwards from documents in the secretariat of the +Minister of Home Affairs. + +Tyufyaev carried on an open intrigue with the sister of a poor +government clerk. The brother was made a laughing-stock and he tried to +break off the liaison, threatened to report it to the authorities, tried +to write to Petersburg—in fact, made such a to-do that on one occasion +the police seized him and brought him before the provincial authorities +to be certified as a lunatic. + +The provincial authorities, the president of the court, and the +inspector of the medical board, an old German who was very much liked by +the working people and whom I knew personally, all found that Petrovsky, +as the man was called, was mad. + +Our doctor knew Petrovsky, who was a patient of his. He was asked as a +matter of form. He told the inspector that Petrovsky was not mad at all, +and that he proposed that they should make a fresh inquiry into the +case, otherwise he would have to pursue the matter further. The local +authorities were not at all opposed to this, but unluckily Petrovsky +died in the madhouse before the day fixed for the second inquiry, +although he was a sturdy young fellow. + +The report of the case reached Petersburg. Petrovsky’s sister was +arrested (why not Tyufyaev?) and a secret investigation began. Tyufyaev +dictated the answers; he surpassed himself on this occasion. To hush it +up at once and to ward off the danger of a second involuntary journey to +Siberia, Tyufyaev instructed the girl to say that her brother had been +on bad terms with her ever since, carried away by youth and +inexperience, she had been seduced by the Emperor Alexander on his visit +to Perm, for which she had received five thousand roubles through +General Solomka. + +Alexander’s habits were such that there was nothing incredible in the +story. To find out whether it was true was not easy, and in any case +would have created a great deal of scandal. To Count Benckendorf’s +inquiry, General Solomka answered that so much money had passed through +his hands that he could not remember the five thousand. + +‘_La regina ne aveva molto!_’ says the Improvisatore in Pushkin’s +_Egyptian Nights_.... + +So this estimable pupil of Araktcheyev’s and worthy comrade of +Kleinmihel’s, acrobat, vagrant, copying clerk, secretary, and governor, +this tender heart, and disinterested man who put the sane into a +madhouse and did them to death there, the man who slandered the Emperor +Alexander to divert the attention of the Emperor Nicholas, was now +undertaking to train me in the service. + +I was almost completely dependent upon him. He had only to write some +nonsense to the minister and I should have been sent off to some place +in Irkutsk. No need to write, indeed he had the right to send me to any +outlandish town, Kay or Tsarevo-Santchursk, without any discussion, +without any formalities. Tyufyaev dispatched a young Pole to Glazov +because the ladies preferred dancing the mazurka with him to dancing it +with his Excellency. + +In this way Prince Dolgoruky was transferred from Perm to Verhoturye. +The latter place, lost in the mountains and the snows, is reckoned in +the province of Perm, though it is as bad as Beryozov for climate and +worse for desolation. + +Prince Dolgoruky was one of the aristocratic scamps of the wrong sort +such as are rarely met with in our day. He played all sorts of pranks in +Petersburg, pranks in Moscow, and pranks in Paris. + +His life was spent in this. He was an Izmailov on a small scale, a +Prince E. Gruzinsky without his band of runaways at Lyskovo, that is, a +spoilt, insolent, repulsive jester, a great gentleman and a great +buffoon at once. When his doings went beyond all bounds, he was ordered +to live in Perm. + +He arrived in two carriages; in one he travelled with his dog, in the +other, his French cook with his parrots. The people of Perm were +delighted at the arrival of a wealthy visitor, and soon all the town was +crowding into his dining-room. Dolgoruky got up an affair with a young +lady at Perm; the latter, suspecting some infidelity, appeared +unexpectedly at the prince’s house one morning and found him with his +housemaid. This led to a scene which ended in the faithless lover taking +his riding-whip from the wall; the lady, seeing his intention, took to +flight, he followed her, scantily attired in a dressing-gown; overtaking +her in the little square in which the battalion were usually drilled, he +gave the jealous lady three or four lashes with the whip and calmly +returned home as though he had done his duty. + +Such charming pranks brought down upon him the censure of his Perm +friends, and the authorities decided to send this mischievous urchin of +forty to Verhoturye. On the eve of departure he gave a splendid dinner, +and in spite of their differences the officials came to it. Dolgoruky +promised to give them some wonderful pie for dinner. + +The pie certainly was excellent and vanished with incredible rapidity. +When nothing but scraps were left, Dolgoruky turned pathetically to his +guests and said: ‘Never let it be said that I grudged you anything at +parting. I ordered my Gardi to be killed yesterday for the pie.’ + +The officials looked at one another in horror, and looked round them for +the big Dane they knew so well; he was not to be seen. The prince saw +what they felt and bade the servant bring the rejected remnants of Gardi +and his skin; the rest of him was in the stomachs of the Perm officials. +Half the town was ill with horror. + +Meanwhile Dolgoruky, pleased at having had a joke at the expense of his +friends, drove in triumph to Verhoturye. A third conveyance carried a +whole poultry yard, a poultry yard travelling with post horses! On the +way he carried off the ledgers from several posting-stations, mixed them +up, altered the entries and almost drove the posting superintendents out +of their minds, for even with their books they did not find it easy to +make their accounts balance. + +The stifling emptiness and numbness of Russian life, strangely combined +with the liveliness and even turbulence of the Russian character, +develops every sort of eccentricity among us. + +In Suvorov’s habit of crowing like a cock, just as in Prince Dolgoruky’s +dog-pie, in the savage deeds of Izmailov,[136] in the half-voluntary +madness of Mamonov,[137] in the violent crimes of Tolstoy ‘the +American,’ I detect a kindred note, familiar to us all, though weakened +in us by education, or directed to some other end. + +I knew Tolstoy personally and just at the date when he lost his daughter +Sarra, an exceptional girl with marked poetic gifts. One glance at the +old man’s exterior, at his forehead covered with grey curls, at his +sparkling eyes and athletic frame revealed how much energy and vigour +nature had bestowed on him. He had developed only turbulent passions and +evil propensities, and that is not surprising; everything vicious is +allowed among us to develop for a long time without hindrance, while for +humane passions a man is sent to a garrison or Siberia at the first +step.... He rioted, gambled, fought, mutilated people and ruined +families for twenty years on end, till at last he was sent to Siberia, +from which he ‘returned an Aleutian’ as Griboyedov says, that is, he +made his way through Kamtchatka to America, and thence obtained +permission to return to Russia. Alexander pardoned him, and from the day +after his arrival he carried on the same life as before. Married to a +gypsy girl belonging to the Moscow camp and famous for her voice, he +turned his house into a gambling den, spent all his time in orgies, all +his nights at cards, and wild scenes of greed and drunkenness took place +beside the cradle of the little Sarra. The story goes that on one +occasion, to prove the nicety of his aim, he made his wife stand on the +table and shot through the heel of her shoe. + +His last prank almost sent him to Siberia again. He had long been angry +with an artisan; he seized him in his house, bound him hand and foot, +and pulled out one of his teeth. Will it be believed that this incident +took place only ten or twelve years ago? The injured man lodged a +complaint. Tolstoy bribed the police and the judge, and the man was put +in prison for making a false accusation. At that time a well-known +Russian literary tan, N. F. Pavlov, was serving on the prison +commission. The artisan told him his story, the inexperienced official +took it up, Tolstoy was scared in earnest, the case was obviously going +to end in his condemnation; but great is the God of Russia. Count Orlov +wrote to Prince Shtcherbatov a secret report, in which he advised him to +hush up the case, so as not to allow the _open triumph of a man of +inferior rank over a member of the higher classes_. To Pavlov, Count +Orlov gave the advice to resign his post.... This is almost more +incredible than the extraction of the tooth. I was in Moscow at the time +and knew the imprudent official well. But let us return to Vyatka. + +The government office was incomparably worse than prison. Not that the +actual work was great, but the stifling atmosphere, as of the Cave of +Dogs, of that scene of corruption, and the terrible, stupid waste of +time made the office insufferable. Alenitsyn did not worry me, he was, +indeed, more polite than I expected; he had been at the Kazan High +School and consequently had a respect for a graduate of the Moscow +University. + +There were some twenty clerks in the office. For the most part they were +persons of no education and no moral conceptions; sons of clerks and +secretaries, accustomed from their cradle to regard the service as a +source of profit, and the peasants as soil that yielded revenue, they +sold their services, took twenty kopecks and quarter-roubles, cheated +for a glass of wine, demeaned themselves and did all sorts of shabby +things. My valet gave up going to the ‘billiard room,’ saying that the +officials cheated there worse than anybody, and one could not give them +a lesson because they were ‘officers.’ So with these people, whom my +servant did not beat only on account of their rank, I had to sit every +day from nine in the morning until two, and from five to eight in the +evening. + +Besides Alenitsyn, who was the head of the office, there was a +head-clerk of the table at which I was put, who was also not a spiteful +creature, though drunken and illiterate. At the same table sat four +clerks. I had to talk to and become acquainted with these, and, indeed, +with all the others, too. Apart from the fact that these people would +have paid me out sooner or later for being ‘proud’ if I had not, it is +simply impossible to spend several hours of every day with the same +people without making their acquaintance. Moreover, it must not be +forgotten that provincials make up to any one from outside and +particularly to any one who comes from the capital, especially if there +is some interesting story connected with him. + +After spending the whole day in this bondage, I would sometimes come +home with all my faculties in a state of stupefaction and fling myself +on the sofa, worn out, humiliated, and incapable of any work or +occupation. I heartily regretted my Krutitsky cell with its charcoal +fumes and black beetles, with a gendarme on guard and a lock on the +door. There I had freedom, I did what I liked and no one interfered with +me; instead of these vulgar sayings, dirty people, mean ideas and coarse +feelings, there had been the stillness of death and unbroken leisure. +And when I remembered that after dinner I had to go again, and again +to-morrow, I was at times overcome by fury and despair and tried to find +comfort in drinking wine and vodka. + +And then, to make things worse, one of my fellow-clerks would look in +‘on his way’ and relieve his boredom by staying on talking until it was +time to go back to the office. + +Within a few months, however, the position became somewhat easier. + +Prolonged steady persecution is not in the Russian character unless a +personal or mercenary element comes in; and that is not because the +government does not want to stifle and crush a man, but is due to the +Russian carelessness, to our _laissez-aller_. Russians in authority are +as a rule ill-bred, coarse, and insolent; it is easy to provoke them to +rudeness, but persistent oppression is not in their line, they have not +enough patience for it, perhaps because it yields them no profit. + +In the first heat to display, on the one hand, their zeal, on the other, +their power, they do all sorts of stupid and unnecessary things, then, +little by little, they leave a man in peace. + +So it was with the office. The Ministry of Home Affairs had at that time +a craze for statistics: it had given orders for committees to be formed +everywhere, and had issued programmes which could hardly have been +carried out even in Belgium or Switzerland; at the same time, all sorts +of elaborate tables with maxima and minima, with averages and various +deductions from the totals for periods of ten years (made up on evidence +which had not been collected even a year beforehand!), with moral +remarks and meteorological observations. Not a farthing was assigned for +the expenses of the committees and the collection of evidence; all this +was to be done from love for statistics through the rural police and put +into proper shape in the government office. The clerks, overwhelmed with +work, and the rural police, who hate all peaceful and theoretical tasks, +looked upon a statistics committee as a useless luxury, as a caprice of +the ministry; however, the reports had to be sent in with tabulated +results and deductions. + +This business seemed overwhelmingly difficult to the whole office; it +was simply impossible; but no one troubled about that, all they worried +about was that there should be no occasion for reprimands. I promised +Alenitsyn to prepare a preface and introduction, and to draw up +summaries of the tables with eloquent remarks introducing foreign words, +quotations, and striking deductions, if he would allow me to undertake +this very severe work not at the office but at home. Alenitsyn, after +parleying with Tyufyaev, agreed. + +The introduction to my record of the work of the committee, in which I +discussed their hopes and their plans, for in reality nothing had been +done at all, touched Alenitsyn to the depths of his soul. Tyufyaev +himself thought it was written in masterly style. With that my labours +in the statistical line ended, but they put the committee under my +supervision. They no longer forced the hard labour of copying upon me, +and the drunken head-clerk who had been my chief became almost my +subordinate. Alenitsyn only insisted, from some consideration of +propriety, that I should go every day for a short time to the office. + +To show the complete impossibility of real statistics, I will quote the +facts sent from the town of Kay. There, among various absurdities, were +for instance the entries: Drowned—2. Causes of drowning not known—2, and +in the column of totals these two figures were added together and the +figure 4 was entered. Under the heading of extraordinary incidents +occurred the following tragic anecdote: So-and-so, artisan, having +deranged his intelligence by stimulating beverages, hanged himself. +Under the heading of morality of the town’s inhabitants was the entry: +‘There are no Jews in the town of Kay.’ To the inquiry whether sums had +been allotted for the building of a church, a stock exchange, or an +almshouse, the answer ran thus: ‘For the building of a stock exchange +was assigned—nothing.’ + +The statistics that saved me from work at the office had the unfortunate +consequence of bringing me into personal relations with Tyufyaev. + +There was a time when I hated that man; that time is long past and the +man himself is past. He died on his Kazan estates about 1845. Now I +think of him without anger, as of a peculiar wild beast met in a forest +which ought to have been tamed, but with which one could not be angry +for being a beast. At the time I could not help coming into conflict +with him; that was inevitable for any decent man. Chance helped me or he +would have done me great injury; to owe him a grudge for the harm he did +not do me would be absurd and paltry. + +Tyufyaev lived alone. His wife was separated from him. The governor’s +favourite, the wife of a cook who for no fault but being married to her +had been sent away to the country, was, with an awkwardness which almost +seemed intentional, kept out of sight in the back rooms of his house. +She did not make her appearance officially, but officials who were +particularly devoted to the governor—that is, particularly afraid of not +being so—formed a sort of court about the cook’s wife ‘who was in +favour.’ Their wives and daughters paid her stealthy visits in the +evening and did not boast of doing so. This lady was possessed of the +same sort of tact as distinguished one of her brilliant +predecessors—Potyomkin; knowing the old man’s disposition and afraid of +being replaced, she herself sought out for him rivals that were not a +danger to her. The grateful old man repaid this indulgent love with his +devotion and they got on well together. + +All the morning Tyufyaev worked and was in the office of the +secretariat. The poetry of life only began at three o’clock. Dinner was +for him no jesting matter. He liked a good dinner and he liked to eat it +in company. Preparations were always made in his kitchen for twelve at +table; if the guests were less than half that number he was mortified; +if there were no more than two visitors he was wretched; if there was no +one at all, he would go off on the verge of despair to dine in his +Dulcinea’s apartments. To procure people in order to feed them to +repletion is not a difficult task, but his official position and the +terror he inspired in his subordinates did not permit them freely to +enjoy his hospitality, nor him to turn his house into a tavern. He had +to confine himself to councillors, presidents (but with half of these he +was on bad terms), rich merchants, spirit-tax contractors, and the few +visitors to the town and ‘oddities,’ who were something in the style of +the _capacités_ whom Louis-Philippe wanted to introduce into elections. +Of course I was an oddity of the first magnitude in Vyatka. + +Persons exiled ‘for their opinions’ to remote towns are somewhat feared, +but are never confounded with ordinary mortals. ‘Dangerous people’ have +for provincials the same attraction that notorious Lovelaces have for +women and courtesans for men. ‘Dangerous people’ are far more shunned by +Petersburg officials and wealthy Moscow people than by provincials and +especially by Siberians. + +Those who were exiled in connection with the Fourteenth of December were +looked upon with immense respect. The first visit on New Year’s Day was +paid by officials to the widow of Yushnevsky. The senator Tolstoy when +taking a census of Siberia was guided by evidence received from the +exiled Decembrists in checking the facts furnished by the officials. + +Minih[138] from his tower in Pelymo superintended the affairs of the +Tobolsk Province. Governors used to go to consult him about matters of +importance. + +The working people are still less hostile to exiles: they are always on +the side of those who are punished. The word ‘convict’ disappears near +the Siberian frontier and is replaced by the word ‘unfortunate.’ In the +eyes of the Russian peasant legal sentence is no disgrace to a man. The +peasants of the Perm Province, living along the main road to Tobolsk, +often put out kvass, milk, and bread in a little window in case an +‘unfortunate’ should be secretly passing that way from Siberia. + +By the way, speaking of exiles, Polish exiles begin to be met beyond +Nizhni and their number rapidly increases after Kazan. In Perm there +were forty, in Vyatka not less; there were besides several in every +district town. + +They lived quite apart from the Russians and avoided all contact with +the inhabitants. There was great unity among them, and the rich shared +with the poor like brothers. + +I never saw signs of either hatred or special goodwill towards them on +the part of the inhabitants. They looked upon them as outsiders—the more +so, as scarcely a single Pole knew Russian. + +One tough old Sarmatian, who had been an officer in the Uhlans under +Poniatowski and had taken part in Napoleon’s campaigns, received +permission in 1837 to return to his Lithuanian domains. On the eve of +his departure he invited me and several Poles to dinner. After dinner my +cavalry officer came up to me, glass in hand, embraced me, and with a +warrior’s simplicity whispered in my ear, ‘Oh, why are you a Russian!’ I +did not answer a word, but this observation sank deeply into my heart. I +realised that _this_ generation could never set Poland free. + +From the time of Konarski,[139] the Poles have come to look quite +differently upon the Russians. + +As a rule Polish exiles are not oppressed, but the position is awful for +those who have no private means. The government gives those who have +nothing _fifteen roubles a month_; with that they must pay for lodging, +food, clothes, and fuel. In the bigger towns, in Kazan and Tobolsk, it +is possible to earn something by giving lessons or concerts, playing at +balls, drawing portraits and teaching dancing. In Perm and Vyatka they +had no such resources. And in spite of that they would ask nothing from +Russians. + +Tyufyaev’s invitations to his rich Siberian dinners were a real +infliction to me. His dining-room was the same thing as the office only +in another form, less dirty but more vulgar, because it had the +appearance of free will and not of compulsion. + +Tyufyaev knew his guests through and through, despised them, showed them +his claws at times, and altogether treated them as a master treats his +dogs, at one time with excessive familiarity, at another with a rudeness +which was beyond all bounds—and yet he invited them to his dinners and +they came to them in trembling and in joy, demeaning themselves, talking +scandal, listening, trying to please, smiling, bowing. + +I blushed for them and felt ashamed. + +Our friendship did not last long. Tyufyaev soon perceived that I was not +fit for ‘aristocratic’ Vyatka society. + +A few months later he was displeased with me, a few months later still +he hated me, and I not only went no more to his dinners but even gave up +going to him at all. The visit of the Tsarevitch saved me from his +persecution, as we shall see later on. + +I must note that I had done absolutely nothing to deserve first his +attentions and invitations, and afterwards his anger and disapproval. He +could not endure to see in me a man who behaved independently, though +not in the least insolently; I was always _en règle_ with him, and he +demanded obsequiousness. He loved his power jealously. He had earned it +and he exacted not only obedience but an appearance of absolute +subordination. In this, unhappily, he was typically national. + +A landowner says to his servant, ‘Hold your tongue; I won’t put up with +your answering me!’ + +The head of a department observes, turning pale with anger, to a clerk +who has made some criticism, ‘You forget yourself; do you know to whom +you are speaking?’ + +The Tsar sends men to Siberia ‘for opinions,’ buries them in dungeons +for a poem—and all three of them are readier to forgive stealing and +bribe-taking, murder and robbery, than the impudence of human dignity +and the insolence of an independent word. + +Tyufyaev was a true servant of the Tsar. He was thought highly of, but +not highly enough. Byzantine servility was in him wonderfully combined +with official discipline. Obliteration of self, renunciation of will and +thought before authority went hand in hand with savage oppression of +subordinates. He might have been a civilian Kleinmihel, his ‘zeal’ might +in the same way have conquered everything, and he might in the same way +have plastered the walls with the dead bodies of men, have dried the +palace with human lungs, and have thrashed the young men of the +engineering corps even more severely for not being informers. + +Tyufyaev had an intense secret hatred for everything aristocratic; he +had gained it from bitter experience. The hard labour of Araktcheyev’s +secretariat had been his first refuge, his first deliverance. Till then +his superiors had never offered him a chair, but had employed him on +menial errands. When he served in the commissariat, the officers had +persecuted him in military fashion and one colonel had horsewhipped him +in the street in Vilna.... All this had entered into the copying clerk’s +soul and rankled there; now he was governor and it was his turn to +oppress, to keep men standing, to address them familiarly, to shout at +them, and sometimes to bring nobles of ancient lineage to trial. + +From Perm, Tyufyaev had been transferred to Tver. The nobles of that +province could not, for all their submissiveness and servility, put up +with him. They petitioned the minister Bludov to remove him. Bludov +transferred him to Vyatka. + +There he was quite at home again. Officials and contractors, +factory-owners and government clerks, a free hand with no one to +interfere.... Every one trembled before him, every one remained standing +in his presence, every one offered him drink and gave him dinners, every +one waited on his slightest wish; at weddings and name-day parties, the +first toast was ‘To the health of his Excellency!’ + + + + + Chapter 15 + OFFICIALS—SIBERIAN GOVERNORS-GENERAL—A RAPACIOUS POLICE-MASTER—AN +ACCOMMODATING JUDGE—A ROASTED POLICE-CAPTAIN—A TATAR MISSIONARY—A BOY OF + THE FEMALE SEX—THE POTATO TERROR, ETC. + + +One of the most melancholy results of the revolutionising of Russia by +Peter the Great was the development of the official class. An +artificial, hungry, and uncultivated class, capable of doing nothing but +‘serving,’ knowing nothing but official forms, it constitutes a kind of +civilian clergy, officiating in the courts and the police forces, and +sucking the blood of the people with thousands of greedy and unclean +mouths. + +Gogol lifted one corner of the curtain and showed us Russian officialdom +in all its ugliness; but Gogol cannot help conciliating by his laughter; +his immense comic talent gets the upper hand of his indignation. +Moreover, in the fetters of the Russian censorship, he could scarcely +touch upon the melancholy side of that foul underworld, in which the +destinies of the unhappy Russian people are forged. + +There, somewhere in grimy offices, from which we make haste to get away, +shabby men write and write on grey paper, and copy on to stamped +paper—and persons, families, whole villages are outraged, terrified, +ruined. A father is sent into exile, a mother to prison, a son for a +soldier, and all this breaks like a thunderclap upon them, unexpected, +for the most part undeserved. And for the sake of what? For the sake of +money. A tribute must be paid ... or an inquiry will be held concerning +some dead drunkard, burnt up by spirits and frozen to death. And the +head-man collects and the village elder collects, the peasants bring +their last kopeck. The police-inspector must live; the police-captain +must live and keep his wife too; the councillor must live and educate +his children, the councillor is an exemplary father. + +Officialdom reigns supreme in the north-east provinces of Russia and in +Siberia. There it flourishes unhindered, unsupervised ... it is so +terribly far off, every one shares in the profits, stealing becomes _res +publica_. Even the cannon-shots of the Imperial power cannot destroy +these foul, boggy trenches hidden under the snow. All the measures of +government are weakened, all its intentions are distorted; it is +deceived, fooled, betrayed, sold, and all under cover of loyal servility +and with the observance of all the official forms. + +Speransky[140] tried to ameliorate the lot of the Siberian people. He +introduced everywhere the collegiate principle, as though it made any +difference whether the officials stole individually or in gangs. He +discharged the old rogues by hundreds and engaged new ones by hundreds. +At first he inspired such terror in the rural police that they actually +bribed the peasants not to make complaints against them. Three years +later the officials were making their fortunes by the new forms as well +as they had done by the old. + +Another eccentric individual was General Velyaminov. For two years he +struggled at Tobolsk trying to check abuses, but, seeing the +hopelessness of it, threw it all up and quite gave up attending to +business. + +Others, more judicious, did not make the attempt, but got rich +themselves and let others get rich. + +‘I will abolish bribe-taking,’ said Senyavin, the Governor of Moscow, to +a grey-headed peasant who had lodged a complaint against some obvious +injustice. The old man smiled. + +‘What are you laughing at?’ asked Senyavin. + +‘Why, you must forgive me, sir,’ answered the peasant; ‘it put me in +mind of one fine young fellow who boasted he would lift a cannon, and he +really did try, but he did not lift it for all that.’ + +Senyavin, who told the story himself, belonged to that class of +unpractical men in the Russian service who imagine that rhetorical +sallies on the subject of honesty and despotic persecution of two or +three rogues can remedy so universal a disease as Russian bribe-taking, +which grows freely under the shadow of the censorship. + +There are only two remedies for it, publicity, and an entirely different +organisation of the whole machinery, the introduction again of the +popular elements of the arbitration courts, verbal proceedings, sworn +witnesses, and all that the Petersburg administration detests. + +Pestel, the Governor-General of Western Siberia, father of the +celebrated Pestel put to death by Nicholas, was a real Roman proconsul +and one of the most violent. He carried on an open system of plunder in +the whole region which was cut off by his spies from Russia. Not a +single letter crossed the border without the seal being broken, and woe +to the man who should dare to write anything about his rule. He kept +merchants of the first guild for a year at a time in prison in chains; +he tortured them. He sent officials to the borders of Eastern Siberia +and left them there for two or three years. + +For a long time the people bore it; at last an artisan of Tobolsk made +up his mind to bring the position of affairs to the knowledge of the +Tsar. Afraid of the ordinary routes, he went to Kyahta and from there +made his way with a caravan of tea across the Siberian frontier. He +found an opportunity at Tsarskoe Syelo of giving Alexander his petition, +beseeching him to read it. Alexander was amazed and impressed by the +terrible things he read in it. He sent for the man, and after a long +talk with him was convinced of the melancholy truth of his report. +Mortified and somewhat embarrassed, he said to him: ‘You can go home +now, my friend; the thing shall be inquired into.’ + +‘Your Majesty,’ answered the man, ‘I will not go home now. Better +command me to be put in prison. My conversation with your Majesty will +not remain a secret and I shall be killed.’ + +Alexander shuddered and said, turning to Miloradovitch, who was at that +time Governor-General in Petersburg: + +‘You will answer to me for him.’ + +‘In that case,’ observed Miloradovitch, ‘allow me to take him into my +own house.’ And the man actually remained there until the case was +ended. + +Pestel almost always lived in Petersburg. You may remember that the +proconsuls as a rule lived in Rome. By means of his presence and +connections, and still more by the division of the spoils, he avoided +all sorts of unpleasant rumours and scandals.[141] + +The Imperial Council took advantage of Alexander’s temporary absence at +Verona or Aachen to come to the intelligent and just decision that since +the matter related to Siberia the case should be handed to Pestel to +deal with, as he was on the spot. Miloradovitch, Mordvinov, and two +others were opposed to this decision, and the case was brought before +the Senate. + +The Senate, with that outrageous injustice with which it continually +judges cases relating to the higher officials, exonerated Pestel but +exiled Treskin, the civilian governor of Tobolsk, and deprived him of +his grade and rank. Pestel was only relieved of his duty. + +After Pestel, Kaptsevitch, a man of the school of Araktcheyev, was sent +to Tobolsk. Thin, bilious, a tyrant by nature and a tyrant because he +had spent his whole life in the army, a man of restless activity, he +brought external discipline and order into everything, fixed maximum +prices for goods, but left everyday affairs in the hands of robbers. In +1824 the Tsar wanted to visit Tobolsk. Through the Perm provinces runs +an excellent broad high-road, which has been in use for ages and is +probably good owing to the nature of the soil. Kaptsevitch made a +similar road to Tobolsk in a few months. In the spring, in the time of +alternate thaw and frost, he forced thousands of workmen to make the +road by levies from villages near and far; epidemics broke out among +them, half the workmen died, but ‘zeal can accomplish everything’—the +road was made. + +Eastern Siberia is still more slackly governed. It is so far away that +news scarcely reaches Petersburg. Bronevsky, the Governor-General in +Irkutsk, was fond of firing cannon-balls into the town when ‘he was +merry.’ And another high official used when he was drunk to perform a +service in his house in full vestments and in the presence of the chief +priest. Anyway the noisiness of the one and the devoutness of the other +were not so pernicious as Pestel’s blockade and Kaptsevitch’s ceaseless +activity. + +It is a pity that Siberia is so badly governed. The choice of its +governors-general has been particularly unfortunate. I do not know what +Muravyov is like; he is celebrated for his intelligence and ability; the +others were good for nothing. Siberia has a great future; it is looked +upon merely as a cellar, in which there are great stores of gold, of +fur, and other goods, but which is cold, buried in snow, poor in the +means of life, without roads or population. That is not true. + +The dead hand of the Russian government, that does everything by +violence, everything with the stick, cannot give the living impetus +which would carry Siberia forward with American rapidity. We shall see +what will happen when the mouths of the Amur are opened for navigation +and America meets Siberia near China. + +I said long ago that the _Pacific Ocean is the Mediterranean of the +future_.[142] In that future the part played by Siberia, the land that +lies between the ocean, Southern Asia, and Russia, will be extremely +important. Of course Siberia is bound to extend to the Chinese frontier. +People cannot freeze and shiver in Beryozov and Yakutsk when there are +Krasnoyarsk, Minusinsk, and other such places. + +Even the Russian immigration into Siberia has elements in its nature +that suggest a different development. Generally speaking, the Siberian +race is healthy, well-grown, intelligent, and extremely practical. The +Siberian children of settlers know nothing of the landowners’ power. +There is no noble class in Siberia and at the same time there is no +aristocracy in the towns; the officials and the officers, who are the +representatives of authority, are more like a hostile garrison stationed +there by a victorious enemy than an aristocracy. The immense distances +save the peasants from frequent contact with them; money saves the +merchants, who in Siberia despise the officials and, though outwardly +giving way to them, take them for what they are—their clerks employed in +civil affairs. + +The habit of using firearms, inevitable for a Siberian, is universal. +The dangers and emergencies of his daily life have made the Siberian +peasant more warlike, more resourceful, readier to offer resistance than +the Great Russian. The remoteness of churches leaves his mind freer from +superstition than in Russia, he is cold to religion and most often a +dissenter. There are remote villages which the priest visits only three +or four times a year and then christens, buries, marries, and hears +confessions wholesale. + +On this side of the Ural Mountains things are done more discreetly, and +yet I could fill volumes with anecdotes of the abuse of power and the +roguery of the officials, heard in the course of my service in the +office and dining-room of the governor. + +‘Well, he was a master at it, my predecessor,’ the police-master of +Vyatka said to me in a moment of confidential conversation. ‘Well, of +course, that’s the way to get on, only you have got to be born to it; he +was a regular Seslavin,[143] a Figner in his own way, I may say,’ and +the eyes of the lame major, promoted to be a police-master for his +wounds, sparkled at the memory of his glorious predecessor. + +‘A gang of robbers turned up not far from the town, and once or twice +news reached the authorities of merchants’ goods being stolen, or money +being seized from a contractor’s steward. The governor was in a great +taking and wrote off one order after another. Well, you know the rural +police are cowards; they are equal to binding a wretched little thief +and bringing him to justice—but this was a gang and maybe with guns. The +rural police did nothing. The governor sends for the police-master and +says: “I know that it is not your duty, but your efficiency makes me +turn to you.” + +‘The police-master had information about the business beforehand. +“General,” said he, “I will set off in an hour, the robbers must be at +this place and that place; I’ll take soldiers with me, I shall find them +at this place and that place, and within a few days I shall bring them +in chains to the prison.” Why, it was like Suvorov with the Austrian +Emperor! And indeed, no sooner said than done—he fairly pounced on them +with the soldiers, they had no time to hide their money, the +police-master took it all and brought the robbers to the town. + +‘The police inquiry began. The police-master asked them: “Where is your +money?” + +‘“Why, we gave it to you, sir, into your very hands,” answered two of +the robbers. + +‘“Gave it to me?” says the police-master in amazement. + +‘“Yes, to you, to you,” shout the robbers. + +‘“What insolence!” says the police-master to the inspector, turning pale +with indignation. “Why, you scoundrels, you’ll be saying next, I +suppose, that I stole it with you. I’ll teach you to insult my uniform; +I’m a cornet of Uhlans and won’t allow a slur on my honour!” + +‘He has them flogged, saying “Confess where you have hidden the money.” +At first they stick to their story, only when he gives the order for +them to have a second pipeful, the ringleader shouts: “We are guilty, we +spent the money.” + +‘“You should have said so long ago,” said the police-master, “instead of +talking such nonsense; you won’t take me in, my man.” + +‘“Well, to be sure, we ought to come to your honour for a lesson and not +you to us. We couldn’t teach you anything!” muttered the old robber, +looking with admiration at the police-master. + +‘And do you know he got the Vladimir ribbon for that business.’ + +‘Excuse me,’ I asked, interrupting the praises of the great +police-master, ‘what is the meaning of “a second pipeful”?’ + +‘That’s just a saying among us. It’s a dreary business you know, +flogging, so as you order it to begin, you light your pipe and it is +usually over by the time you have smoked it—but in exceptional cases we +sometimes order our friends to be treated to two pipefuls. The police +are used to it, they know pretty well how much to give.’ + +Of the Figner above mentioned, there were regular legends current in +Vyatka. He performed miracles. Once, I do not remember the occasion, +some general-adjutant or minister arrived, and the police-master wanted +to show that he did not wear the Uhlan cross for nothing and that he +could spur his horse as smartly as any one. To this end he applied to +one of the Mashkovtsevs, rich merchants of that region, asking him to +give him his valuable grey saddle-horse. Mashkovtsev would not give it. + +‘Very good,’ said Figner, ‘you won’t do such a trifle for me of your own +accord, so I’ll take the horse without your permission.’ + +‘Well, we shall see about that,’ said Gold. + +‘Yes, we shall see,’ said Steel.[144] + +Mashkovtsev locked up the horse and put two men on guard, and on that +occasion the police-master was unsuccessful. + +But in the night, as though of design, an empty barn belonging to +spirit-tax contractors, and adjoining the Mihailovitch house, took fire. +The police-master and the police did their work admirably; to save +Mashkovtsev’s house, they even pulled down the wall of his stable and +carried off the horse in dispute without a hair of his tail or of his +mane singed. Two hours later, the police-master, parading on a white +stallion, went to receive the thanks of the highest authority for his +exemplary management of the fire. After this no one doubted that the +police-master could do anything. + +The governor Ryhlevsky was driving from an assembly; at the moment when +his carriage was starting, the driver of a small sledge carelessly got +between the traces of the back pair and the front pair of horses; this +led to a minute’s confusion, which did not, however, prevent Ryhlevsky +from reaching home perfectly comfortably. Next day the governor asked +the police-master if he knew whose coachman it was who had driven into +his traces, and said that he ought to be reprimanded. + +‘That coachman, your Excellency, will never drive into your traces +again; I gave him a good lesson,’ the police-master answered, smiling. + +‘But whose man is he?’ + +‘Councillor Kulakov’s, your Excellency.’ + +At that moment the old councillor, whom I found and left councillor of +the provincial government, walked into the governor’s. + +‘You must forgive us,’ said the governor to him, ‘for having given your +coachman a lesson.’ + +The astonished councillor looked at him inquiringly, unable to +understand. + +‘You see he drove into my traces yesterday. You see if he is allowed +to....’ + +‘But, your Excellency, I was at home all day yesterday, and my wife too, +and the coachman was at home.’ + +‘What’s the meaning of this?’ asked the governor. + +‘I am very sorry, your Excellency. I was so busy yesterday, my head was +in a whirl, I quite forgot about the coachman, and I confess I did not +dare to report that to your Excellency. I meant to see about him at +once.’ + +‘Well, you are a regular police-master, there is no doubt about it!’ +observed Ryhlevsky. + +Side by side with this rapacious official, I will describe another of +the opposite breed—a tame, soft, sympathetic official. + +Among my acquaintances was one venerable old man, a police-captain +dismissed from his position by a Committee of Inquiry instituted by the +Senators’ revision. He spent his time drawing up petitions and getting +up cases, which was just what he was forbidden to do. This man, who had +been in the service immemorial ages, had stolen, doctored official +documents, and collected false evidence in three provinces, twice been +tried, and so on. This veteran of the rural police liked to tell amazing +anecdotes about himself and his colleagues, not concealing his contempt +for the degenerate officials of the younger generation. + +‘They’re giddy-pates,’ he said; ‘of course they take what they can get, +there is no living without it, but it is no use looking for cleverness +or knowledge of the law in them. I’ll tell you, for instance, about one +friend of mine. He was a judge for twenty years and only died last year. +He was a man of brains! And the peasants don’t remember evil against +him, though he has left his family a bit of bread. He had quite a +special way of his own. If a peasant came along with a petition, the +judge would admit him at once and be as friendly and pleasant as you +please. + +‘“What is your name, uncle, and what was your father’s?” + +‘The peasant would bow and say, “Yermolay, sir, and my father was called +Grigory.” + +‘“Well, good health to you, Yermolay Grigoryevitch, from what parts is +the Lord bringing you here?” + +‘“We are from Dubilovo.” + +‘“I know, I know. You have a mill, I fancy, on the right from the +track.” + +‘“Yes sir, the mill of our commune.” + +‘“A well-to-do village; the land is good, black soil.” + +‘“We don’t complain against God, kind sir.” + +‘“Well, that is as it should be. I’ll be bound you have a good-sized +family, Yermolay Grigoryevitch?” + +‘“Three sons and two daughters, and I have married the elder to a young +fellow who has been with us five years.” + +‘“I daresay you have grandchildren by now?” + +‘“Yes, there are little ones, your honour.” + +‘“And thank God for it! increase and multiply. Well, Yermolay +Grigoryevitch, it is a long way you have come, let us have a glass of +birch wine.” + +‘The peasant makes a show of refusing. The judge fills a glass for him, +saying, “Nonsense, nonsense, my man, the holy Fathers have nothing +against wine and oil to-day.” + +‘“It’s true there is nothing against it, but wine brings a man to every +trouble.” Then he crosses himself, bows, and drinks the birch wine. + +‘“With such a family, Grigoryevitch, I’ll be bound life is hard? To feed +and clothe every one of them you can’t manage with one wretched nag or +cow; there would not be milk enough.” + +‘“Upon my word, sir, what could I do with only one horse? I have three, +I did have a fourth, a roan, but it was bewitched about St. Peter’s +fast; the carpenter in our village, Dorofey, may God be his judge, hates +to see another man well off and has an evil eye.” + +‘“It does happen, it does happen. And you have big grazing lands, of +course; I’ll be bound you keep sheep?” + +‘“To be sure, we have sheep too.” + +‘“Ah, I’ve been too long talking with you. It’s the Tsar’s service, +Yermolay Grigoryevitch, it is time I was in the Court. Had you come +about some little business or what?” + +‘“Yes, your honour.” + +‘“Well, what is it? some quarrel? Make haste and tell me, old man! it is +time I was going.” + +‘“Well, kind sir, trouble has come upon me in my old age. Just at +Assumption, we were in the tavern and came to high words with a peasant +of a neighbouring village, such a mischievous man, he is always stealing +our wood. We had hardly said a word before he swung his fist and gave me +a punch in the chest. ‘Keep your blows for your own village,’ I said to +him, and just to make an example, I would have given him a push, but, +being drunk perhaps, or else it was the devil in it, hit him in the +eye—and, well, I spoilt his eye, and he is gone with the church elder +straight to the inspector—wants to have me up to be tried in the court.” + +‘While he tells this story, the judge—our Petersburg actors are nothing +to him—grows graver and graver, makes his eyes look dreadful, and does +not say a word. + +‘The peasant sees and turns pale, lays his hat at his feet and takes out +a towel to mop his face. The judge still sits silent and turns over the +leaves of a book. + +‘“So I have come here to you, kind sir,” says the peasant in a changed +tone. + +‘“What can I do in the matter? What a position! And what did you hit him +in the eye for?” + +‘“That’s true indeed, sir, what for.... The evil one confounded me.” + +‘“It’s a pity! a great pity! to think that a household must be ruined! +Why, what will become of the family without you, all young people and +little grandchildren, and I am sorry for your old woman, too.” + +‘The peasant’s legs begin to tremble. + +‘“Well, kind sir, what have I brought on myself?” + +‘“Look here, Yermolay Grigoryevitch, read for yourself ... or perhaps +you are no great reader? Well, here is the article on maiming and +mutilation ... to be punished by flogging and exile to Siberia.” + +‘“Don’t let a man be ruined! Don’t destroy a Christian! Cannot something +be done?...” + +‘“What a fellow! Can we go against the law? Of course, it is all in +human hands. Well, instead of thirty strokes we might give five.” + +‘“But about Siberia?...” + +‘“That’s not in our power to decide, my good man.” + +‘The peasant pulls out of his bosom a little bag, takes out of the bag a +bit of paper, out of the paper two and then three gold pieces, and with +a low bow lays them on the table. + +‘“What’s this, Yermolay Grigoryevitch?” + +‘“Save me, kind sir.” + +‘“Nonsense, nonsense, what do you mean? Sinful man that I am, I do +sometimes accept a token of gratitude. My salary is small, so one is +forced to, but if one accepts it, it must be for something! How can I +help you? It would be a different thing if it were a rib or a tooth, but +a blow on the eye! Take your money back.” + +‘The peasant is crushed. + +‘“I’ll tell you what; shall I talk to my colleagues and write to the +governor’s office? Very likely the case will come into the courts of +justice, there I have friends, they can do anything, only they are a +different sort of people, you won’t get off for three gold pieces +there.” + +‘The peasant begins to recover his faculties. + +‘“You needn’t give me anything. I am sorry for your family, but it is no +use your offering them less than two grey notes.” + +‘“But, kind sir, as God is above, I don’t know where I am to turn to get +such a mint of money—four hundred roubles—these are hard times.”’ + +‘“Yes, I expect it is difficult. We could diminish the punishment in +view of your penitence, and taking into consideration that you were not +sober ... and, there, you know people get on all right in Siberia. There +is no telling how far you may have to go.... Of course, if you were to +sell a couple of horses and one of the cows, and the sheep, you might +make it up. But it would take you a time to make up that money again! On +the other hand, if you do keep the horses, you’ll have to go off +yourself to the ends of the earth. Think it over, Grigoryevitch; there +is no hurry, we can wait till to-morrow, but it is time I was going,” +adds the judge, and puts the gold pieces he had refused into his pocket, +saying, “This is quite unnecessary. I only take it not to offend you.”’ + +‘Next morning you may be sure the old screw brings three hundred and +fifty roubles in all sorts of old-fashioned coins to the judge. + +‘The judge promises to look after his interests: the peasant is tried +and tried and properly scared and then let off with some light +punishment, or with a warning to be careful in future, or with a note +that he is to be kept under police supervision, and he remembers the +judge in his prayers for the rest of his life. + +‘That’s how they used to do in old days,’ the discharged +police-inspector told me; ‘they did things properly.’ + +The peasants of Vyatka are, generally speaking, not very long-suffering, +and for that reason the officials consider them fractious and +troublesome. The rural police find their real gold mine in the Votyaks, +the Mordvahs, and the Tchuvashes; they are pitiful, timid, dull-witted +people. Police inspectors pay double to the governor for appointments in +districts populated by these Finnish tribes. + +The police and the officials do incredible things with these poor +creatures. + +If a land-surveyor crosses a Votyak village on some commission, he +invariably halts in it, takes an astrolabe out of his cart, sticks a +post into the ground and stretches a chain. Within an hour the whole +village is in a turmoil. ‘The surveyors, the surveyors!’ the peasants +say with the horror with which in 1812 they used to say, ‘The French, +the French!’ The village elder comes with the commune to do homage. And +the surveyor measures everything and writes it down. The elder entreats +him not to measure, not to do them injury. The surveyor demands twenty +or thirty roubles. The Votyaks are greatly relieved, they collect the +money—and the surveyor goes on to the next Votyak village. + +If a dead body comes into the hands of the police, they take it about +with them for a fortnight, if it is frosty weather, from one Votyak +village to another, and in each one declare that they have just picked +it up, and that an inquest and inquiry will be held in their village. +The Votyaks buy them off. + +A few years before I came to the district, a police-inspector who had +acquired a taste for taking bribes brought a dead body into a big +Russian village and demanded, I remember, two hundred roubles. The +village elder called the commune together. The commune refused to give +more than a hundred. The police official would not give way. The +peasants lost their tempers and shut him with his two clerks in the hut +which serves as the parish office, and in their turn threatened to burn +them. The police-inspector did not believe in the threat. The peasants +surrounded the hut with straw and, as an ultimatum, passed a +hundred-rouble note in at the window on a stake. The heroic +police-inspector still insisted on another hundred. Then the peasants +set fire to the straw all round the hut and the three Mucius Scaevolas +of the rural police were burnt to death. This affair was afterwards +brought before the senate. + +The Votyak villages are as a rule much poorer than the Russian ones. + +‘You live poorly, brother,’ I said to a Votyak while I was waiting for +horses in a stuffy, smoky little hut all on the slant with its windows +looking into the back-yard. + +‘Can’t be helped, master! We are poor, we save money for bad times.’ + +‘Well, it would be hard for times to be worse, old man,’ I said to him, +pouring out a glass of rum. ‘Drink, and forget your troubles.’ + +‘We do not drink,’ answered the Votyak, looking eagerly at the glass and +suspiciously at me. + +‘Nonsense! come, take it.’ + +‘Drink yourself first.’ + +I drank and then the Votyak drank. + +‘And what are you?’ he asked. ‘From the government on business?’ + +‘No,’ I answered, ‘on a journey; I am going to Vyatka.’ + +This considerably reassured him and, looking round carefully, he added +by way of explanation, ‘it is a black day when the police-inspector and +the priest come to us.’ + +I should like to add something concerning the latter. Our priests are +being more and more transformed into clerical police, as might indeed be +expected from the Byzantine meekness of our Church and the spiritual +supremacy of the Tsar. + +The Finnish tribes were partly christened before the time of Peter the +Great and partly in the reign of Elizabeth, while a section of them have +remained heathen. The greater number of those christened in the reign of +Elizabeth secretly adhere to their savage, gloomy religion.[145] + +Every two or three years the police-inspector or the rural police +superintendent go through the villages accompanied by a priest, to +discover which of the Votyaks have confessed and been absolved, and +which have not and why not. They are oppressed, thrown into prison, +flogged, and made to pay fines; and, above all, the priest and the +police-inspector search for any proof that they have not given up their +old rites. Then the spiritual spy and the police missionary raise a +storm, exact an immense bribe, give them a ‘black day,’ and so depart +leaving everything as before, to repeat their procession with cross and +rods a year or two later. + +In 1835 the Most Holy Synod thought it fitting to do apostolic work in +the Vyatka Province and convert the Tcheremiss heathen to orthodoxy. + +This conversion is a type of all the great reforms carried out by the +Russian government, a façade, scene-painting, _blague_, deception, a +magnificent report, while somebody steals and some one else is flogged. + +The Metropolitan, Filaret, sent an energetic priest as a missionary. His +name was Kurbanovsky. Consumed by the Russian disease of ambition, +Kurbanovsky threw himself warmly into the work. He determined at all +costs to force the grace of God upon the Tcheremisses. At first he tried +preaching, but he soon got tired of that. And, indeed, does one make +much way by that old method? + +The Tcheremisses, seeing the position of affairs, sent to him their +priests, wild, fanatical and adroit. After a prolonged parleying, they +said to Kurbanovsky: ‘In the forest are white birch-trees, tall pines +and firs, there is also the little juniper. God suffers them all and +bids not the juniper be a pine-tree. And so are we among ourselves, like +the forest. Be ye the white birch, we will remain the juniper; we will +not trouble you, _we will pray for the Tsar_, will pay the taxes and +send recruits, but we will not change our holy things.’[146] + +Kurbanovsky saw that there was no making them hear reason, and that the +success of Cyril and Methodius[147] would not be vouchsafed him, and he +appealed to the local police-captain. The latter was highly delighted. +He had long been eager to display his devotion to the Church. He was an +unbaptized Tatar, _i.e._ a Mahommedan of the true faith, by name +Devlet-Kildeyev. + +The police-captain took a band of soldiers and set off to attack the +Tcheremisses with the Word of God. Several villages were duly +christened. The apostle Kurbanovsky performed the thanksgiving service +and went meekly off to receive his reward. To the Tatar apostle the +government sent the Vladimir Cross for the propagation of Christianity! + +Unfortunately, the Tatar missionary was not on good terms with the +mullah at Malmyzho. The mullah was not at all pleased that a son of the +true faith of the Koran should preach the Gospel so successfully. In +Ramadan, the police-captain, heedlessly affixing the cross to his +button, appeared at the mosque and of course took up his stand before +all the rest. The mullah had only just begun reading the Koran through +his nose, when all at once he stopped, and said that he dare not +continue in the presence of a Mussulman who had come into the mosque +wearing a Christian emblem. + +The Tatars raised a murmur, the police-captain was overcome with +confusion and either withdrew or removed the cross. + +I afterwards read in the _Journal of the Ministry of Home Affairs_ about +the brilliant conversion of the Tcheremisses. The article referred to +the zealous co-operation of Devlet-Kildeyev. Unluckily they forgot to +add that his zeal for the Church was the more disinterested as his faith +in Islam was so firm. + +Before the end of my time at Vyatka, the Department of Crown Property +was stealing so impudently that a commission of inquiry was appointed, +which sent inspectors about the province. With that began the +introduction of new regulations concerning Crown peasants. + +Governor Kornilov had the appointment of the officials for this +inspection in his hands. I was one of those appointed. What things it +was my lot to read! Melancholy, and amusing, and disgusting. The very +headings of the cases moved me to amazement. + +‘Relating to the disappearance of the house of the Parish Council, no +one knows where, and of the gnawing of the plan of it by mice.’ + +‘Relating to the loss of twenty-two government quit-rent articles, +_i.e._ of fifteen versts of land.’ + +‘Relating to the re-enumeration of the peasant boy Vassily among the +feminine sex.’ This last was so strange that I at once read the case +from cover to cover. + +The father of this supposed Vassily wrote in his petition to the +governor that fifteen years ago he had a daughter born, whom he had +wanted to call Vassilisa, but that the priest, being ‘in liquor,’ +christened the girl Vassily and so entered it on the register. The +circumstance apparently troubled the peasant very little. But when he +realised that it would soon come to his family to furnish a recruit and +pay the poll tax, he reported on the matter to the mayor and the rural +police superintendent. The case seemed very suspicious to the police. +They had previously refused to listen to the peasant, saying that he had +let ten years pass. The peasant went to the governor, the latter +arranged a solemn examination of the boy of the feminine sex by a doctor +and a midwife.... At this point a correspondence suddenly sprang up with +the Consistory, and the priest, the successor of the one who, when ‘in +liquor,’ had failed to note this trifling difference, appeared on the +scene, and the case went on for years and the girl was left under +suspicion of being a man until the end. + +Do not imagine that this is an absurd figment of my fancy; not at all, +it is quite in harmony with the spirit of the Russian autocracy. + +In the reign of Paul some colonel of the Guards in his monthly report +entered an officer as dead who was dying in the hospital. Paul struck +him off the list as dead. Unluckily the officer did not die, but +recovered. The colonel persuaded him to withdraw to his country estate +for a year or two, hoping to find an opportunity to rectify the error. +The officer agreed, but unfortunately for the colonel the heirs who had +read of their kinsman’s death in the _Army Gazette_ refused on any +consideration to acknowledge that he was living, and, inconsolable at +their loss, insisted on bringing the matter before the authorities. When +the living corpse saw that he was likely to die a second time, not +merely on paper but from hunger, he went to Petersburg and sent in a +petition to Paul. The Tsar wrote with his own hand on the petition: +‘Forasmuch as a decree of the Most High has been promulgated concerning +this gentleman, the petition must be refused.’ + +This is even better than my Vassilisa-Vassily. Of what consequence was +the crude fact of life beside the decree of the Most High? Paul was the +poet and dialectician of autocracy! + +Foul and loathsome as this morass of officialdom is, I must add a few +words more about it. To bring it into the light of day is the least poor +tribute one can pay to those who have suffered and perished, unknown and +uncomforted. + +The government readily gives the higher officials waste lands by way of +reward. There is no great harm in that, though it would be more sensible +to keep these reserves to provide for the increase of population. The +regulations that govern the fixing of the boundaries of these lands are +fairly detailed; forests containing building timber, the banks of +navigable rivers, indeed the banks of any river, must not be given away, +nor under any circumstances may lands be so assigned that are being +cultivated by peasants, even though the peasants have no right to the +land except that of long usage.[148] + +All these restrictions of course are only on paper. In reality the +assignment of land to private owners is a terrible source of plunder and +oppression of the peasants. Great noblemen in receipt of rents used +either to sell their rights to merchants, or try through the provincial +authorities to gain some special privilege contrary to the regulations. +Even Count Orlov himself was _by chance_ assigned a main road and the +pasture lands on which cattle droves are pastured in the Province of +Saratov. + +It is therefore no wonder that one fine morning the peasants of the +Darovsky parish in Kotelnitchesky district had their lands cut off right +up to their barns and houses and given as private property to some +merchants who had bought the lease of them from a kinsman of Count +Kankrin. The merchants fixed a rent for the land. This led to a lawsuit. +The Court of Justice, bribed by the merchants and afraid of Kankrin’s +kinsman, confused the issues of the case. But the peasants were +determined to persist with it. They elected two hard-headed peasants +from amongst themselves and sent them to Petersburg. The case was +brought before the Senate. The land-surveying department perceived that +the peasants were in the right and consulted Kankrin. The latter simply +admitted that the land had been irregularly apportioned, but urged that +it would be difficult to restore it, because it _might_ have changed +hands since then, and that its present owners _might_ have made various +improvements. And therefore his Excellency proposed that, considering +the vast amount of Crown property available, the peasants should be +assigned a full equivalent in a different part. This satisfied every one +except the peasants. In the first place, it is no light matter to bring +fresh land under cultivation, and, in the second, the fresh land turned +out to be swampy and unsuitable. As the peasants were more interested in +growing corn than in shooting grouse and woodcock, they sent another +petition. + +Then the Court of Justice and the Ministry of Finance made a new case +out of the old one, and finding a law which authorised them, if the land +that was assigned turned out to be unsuitable, to add as much as another +half of the amount to it, ordered the peasants to be given another half +swamp in addition to the swamp they already had. + +The peasants sent another petition to the Senate, but, before their case +had come up for investigation, the land-surveying department sent them +plans of their new land, with the boundaries marked and coloured, with +stars for the points of the compass and appropriate explanations for the +lozenges, marked R.R.Z., and the lozenges marked Z.Z.R., and, what was +of more consequence, a demand for so much rent per acre. The peasants, +seeing that far from giving them land, they were trying to squeeze money +out of them for the bog, refused point-blank to pay. The police-captain +reported it to Tyufyaev, who sent a punitory expedition under the +command of the Vyatka police-master. The latter arrived, seized a few +persons, flogged them, restored order in the district, took the money, +handed over the _guilty parties_ to the Criminal Court, and was hoarse +for a week afterwards from shouting. Several men were punished with the +lash and sent into exile. + +Two years later the Tsarevitch passed through the district, the peasants +handed him a petition; he ordered the case to be investigated. It was +upon this that I had to draw up a report. Whether any good came of this +re-investigation I do not know. I have heard that the exiles were +brought back, but whether the land was restored I cannot say. + +In conclusion, I must mention the celebrated story of the potato mutiny +and how Nicholas tried to bring the blessings of Petersburg civilisation +to the nomad gypsies. + +Like the peasantry of all Europe at one time, the Russian peasants were +not very ready to plant potatoes, as though an instinct told the people +that this was a poor kind of food which would give them neither health +nor strength. However, on the estates of decent landowners and in many +crown villages, ‘earth apples’ had been planted long before the Potato +Terror. But anything that is done of itself is distasteful to the +Russian Government. Everything must be done under terror of the stick +and the drill-sergeant, to the beating of drums. + +The peasants of the Kazan and of part of the Vyatka province planted +potatoes in their fields. When the potatoes were lifted, the idea +occurred to the Ministry to set up a central potato-pit in each +_volost_. Potato-pits were ratified, potato-pits were prescribed, +potato-pits were dug; and at the beginning of winter the peasants, much +against their will, took the potatoes to the central pit. But when the +following spring the authorities tried to make them plant frozen +potatoes, they refused. There cannot, indeed, be a more flagrant insult +to labour than a command to do something obviously absurd. This refusal +was represented as a mutiny. The Minister Kisselyov sent an official +from Petersburg; he, being an intelligent and practical man, exacted a +rouble apiece from the peasants of the first _volost_ and allowed them +not to plant frozen potatoes. + +He repeated this proceeding in the second _volost_ and the third, but in +the fourth, the elder told him point-blank that he would neither plant +the potatoes nor pay him anything. ‘You have let off these and those,’ +he told the official; ‘it’s clear you must let us off too.’ The official +would have concluded the business with threats and thrashings, but the +peasants snatched up stakes and drove away the police; the military +governor sent Cossacks. The neighbouring _volosts_ took the peasants’ +part. + +It is enough to say that it came to using grape-shot and bullets. The +peasants left their homes and dispersed into the woods; the Cossacks +drove them out of the bushes like game; then they were caught, put into +irons, and sent to be court-martialled at Kosmodemiansk. + +By a strange accident the old major in charge there was an honest, +good-natured man; in the simplicity of his heart, he said that the +official sent from Petersburg was solely to blame. Every one pounced +upon him, his voice was hushed up, he was suppressed; he was intimidated +and even put to shame for ‘trying to ruin an innocent man.’ + +And the inquiry followed the usual Russian routine: the peasants were +flogged during the examination, flogged as a punishment, flogged as an +example, flogged to extort money, and a whole crowd of them sent to +Siberia. + +It is worth noting that Kisselyov passed through Kosmodemiansk during +the inquiry. He might, it may be thought, have looked in at the court +martial or have sent for the major. + +He did not do so! + +The famous Turgot, seeing the hatred of the peasants for the potatoes, +distributed seed-potatoes among contractors, purveyors, and other +persons under government control, sternly forbidding them to give them +to the peasants. At the same time he gave them secret orders not to +prevent the peasants from stealing them. In a few years a large part of +France was under potatoes. + +_Tout bien pris_, is not that better than grape-shot, Pavel +Dmitrievitch? + +In 1836 a gypsy camp came to Vyatka and settled in a field. These +gypsies had wandered as far as Tobolsk and Irbit and had invariably, +accompanied by their trained bear and entirely untrained children, led +their free nomadic existence from time immemorial, engaged in +horse-doctoring, fortune-telling, and petty pilfering. They peacefully +sang songs and robbed hen-roosts, but all at once the governor received +instructions from the Most High that if gypsies were found without +passports (not a single gypsy had ever had a passport, and that Nicholas +and his men knew perfectly well) they were to be given a fixed time +within which they were to inscribe themselves as citizens of the village +or town where they happened to be at the date of the decree. + +At the expiration of the time limit, it was ordained that those fit for +military service should be taken for soldiers and the rest sent into +exile, all but the children of the male sex. + +This senseless decree, which recalled biblical accounts of the +persecution and punishment of whole races and the slaughter of all the +males among them, disconcerted even Tyufyaev. He communicated the absurd +decree to the gypsies and wrote to Petersburg that it could not be +carried out. To inscribe themselves as citizens they would need both +money for the officials and the consent of the town or village, which +would also have been unwilling to accept the gypsies for nothing. It was +necessary, too, that the gypsies should themselves have been desirous of +settling on the spot. Taking all this into consideration, Tyufyaev—and +one must give him credit for it—asked the Ministry to grant +postponements and exemptions. + +The Ministry answered by instructions that at the expiration of the time +limit this Nebuchadnezzar-like decree should be carried out. Most +unwillingly Tyufyaev sent a company of soldiers with orders to surround +the gypsy camp; as soon as this was done, the police arrived with the +garrison battalion, and what happened, I am told, was beyond all +imagination. Women with streaming hair ran about in a frenzy, screaming +and weeping, and falling at the feet of the police; grey-headed old +mothers clung to their sons. But order triumphed and the police-master +took the boys and took the recruits—while the rest were sent by étape +somewhere into exile. + +But when the children had been taken, the question arose what was to be +done with them and at whose expense they were to be kept. + +In old days there were foundling hospitals in connection with the +Department of Public Charity which cost the government nothing. But the +Prussian chastity of Nicholas abolished them as detrimental to morals. +Tyufyaev advanced money of his own and asked the Minister for +instructions. Ministers never stick at anything. They ordered that the +boys, until further instructions, were to be put into the charge of the +old men and women maintained in the almshouses. + +Think of placing little children in charge of moribund old men and +women, making them breathe the atmosphere of death—forcing old people +who need peace and quiet to look after children for nothing! + +What imagination! + +While I am on the subject I must describe what happened some eighteen +months later to the elder of my father’s village in the province of +Vladimir. He was a peasant of intelligence and experience who carried on +the trade of a carrier, had several teams of three horses each, and had +been for twenty years the elder of a little village that paid _obrok_ to +my father. + +Some time during the year I spent in Vladimir, the neighbouring peasants +asked him to deliver a recruit for them. Bringing the future defender of +his country on a rope, he arrived in the town with great self-confidence +as a man proficient in the business. + +‘This,’ said he, combing with his fingers the fair, grizzled beard that +framed his face, ‘is all the work of men’s hands, sir. Last year we +pitched on our lad, such a wretched sickly fellow he was—the peasants +were much afraid he wouldn’t do. “And how much, good Christians, will +you go to? A wheel will not turn without being greased.” We talked it +over and the _mir_ decided to give twenty-five gold pieces. I went to +the town and after talking in the government office I went straight to +the president—he was a sensible man, sir, and had known me a long time. +He told them to take me into his study and he had something the matter +with his leg, so he was lying on the sofa. I put it all before him and +he answered me with a laugh, “that’s all right, that’s all right, you +tell me how many _of them_ you have brought—you are a skinflint, I know +you.” I put ten gold pieces on the table and made him a low bow—he took +the money in his hand and kept playing with it. “But I say,” he said, “I +am not the only one whom you will have to pay, what more have you +brought?” “Another ten,” I told him. “Well,” he said, “you can reckon +yourself what you must do with it. Two to the doctor, two to the army +receiver, then the clerk, and all sorts of other little tips won’t come +to more than three—so you had better leave the rest with me and I will +try to arrange it all.”’ + +‘Well, did you give it to him?’ + +‘To be sure I did—and they took the boy all right.’ + +Accustomed to such reckonings and calculations and also, perhaps, to the +five gold pieces of which he had given no account, the elder was +confident of success. But there may be many mishaps between the bribe +and the hand that takes it. Count Essen, one of the Imperial adjutants, +was sent to Vladimir for the levy of recruits. The elder approached him +with his gold pieces. Unfortunately the Count had, like the heroine of +Pushkin’s _Nulin_, been reared ‘not in the traditions of his fathers,’ +but in the school of the Baltic aristocracy, which instils German +devotion to the Russian Tsar. Essen was angered, shouted at him and, +what was worse, rang the bell; the clerk ran in and gendarmes made their +appearance. The elder, who had never suspected the existence of men in +uniform who would not take bribes, lost his head so completely that he +did not deny the charge, did not vow and swear that he had never offered +money, did not protest, might God strike him blind and might another +drop never pass between his lips, if he had thought of such a thing! He +let himself be caught like a sheep and led off to the police station, +probably regretting that he had offered the general too little and so +offended him. + +But Essen, not satisfied with the purity of his own conscience, nor the +terror of the luckless peasant, and probably wishing to eradicate +bribery _in Russland_, to punish vice and set a salutary example, wrote +to the police, wrote to the governor, wrote to the recruiting office of +the elder’s criminal attempt. The peasant was put in prison and +committed for trial. Thanks to the stupid and grotesque law which metes +out the same punishment to the honest man who gives a bribe to an +official and to the official himself who takes the bribe, things looked +black for him and the elder had to be saved at all costs. + +I rushed to the governor; he refused to intervene in the matter; the +president and councillors of the Criminal Court shook their heads, +panic-stricken at the interference of the Imperial adjutant. The latter +himself, relenting, was the first to declare that he ‘wished the man no +harm, that he only wanted to give him a lesson, that he ought _to be +tried and then let off_.’ When I told this to the police-master, he +observed: ‘The fact is, none of these gentry know how things are done, +he should have simply sent him to me. I would have given the fool a good +drubbing—to teach him to mind what he is about—and would have sent him +about his business. Every one would have been satisfied, and now you are +in a nice mess with the Criminal Court.’ + +These two comments express the Russian conception of law so neatly and +strikingly that I cannot forget them. + +Between these pillars of Hercules of the national jurisprudence, the +elder had fallen into the deepest gulf, that is, into the Criminal +Court. A few months later the verdict was prepared that the elder after +being punished with the lash should be exiled to Siberia. His son and +all his family came to me, imploring me to save their father, the head +of the family. I myself felt fearfully sorry for the peasant, ruined +though perfectly innocent. I went again to the president and the +councillors, pointing out to them that they were doing themselves harm +by punishing the elder so severely; that they knew themselves very well +that no business was ever done without bribes; that, in fact, they would +have nothing to eat if they did not, like true Christians, consider that +every gift is perfect and every giving is a blessing. Entreating, +bowing, and sending the elder’s son to bow still lower, I succeeded in +gaining half of my object. The elder was condemned to a few strokes of +the lash within prison walls, was allowed to remain in his home, but was +forbidden to act as an agent for the other peasants. + +I sighed with relief when I saw that the governor and the prosecutor had +agreed to this, and went to the police to ask for some mitigation of the +severity of the flogging; the police, partly because they were flattered +at my coming myself to ask them a favour, partly through compassion for +a man who was suffering for something that concerned them all so +intimately, promised me to make it a pure formality. + +A few days later the elder appeared, thinner and greyer than before. I +saw that for all his delight he was sad about something and weighed down +by some oppressive thought. + +‘What are you worrying about?’ I asked him. + +‘Well, I wish they’d settle it once for all.’ + +‘I don’t understand.’ + +‘I mean, when will they punish me?’ + +‘Why, haven’t they punished you?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Then how is it they have let you go? You are going home, aren’t you?’ + +‘Home, yes; but I fancy the secretary read something about punishment.’ + +I could really make nothing of it, and at last asked him whether they +had given him any sort of paper. He gave it me. The whole verdict was +written in it, and at the end it was stated that, having received the +punishment of the lash within the prison walls in accordance with the +sentence of the Criminal Court, he was given his certificate and let out +of prison. + +I laughed. + +‘Well, you have been flogged already, then!’ + +‘No, sir, I haven’t.’ + +‘Well, if you are dissatisfied, go back and ask them to punish you; +perhaps the police will enter into your position.’ + +Seeing that I was laughing, the old man smiled too, shaking his head +dubiously and adding: ‘Well, well, strange doings!’ + +‘How irregular!’ many people will say; but they must remember that it is +only through such irregularity that life is possible in Russia. + + + + + Chapter 16 + ALEXANDER LAVRENTYEVITCH VITBERG + + +Among the grotesque and dirty, petty and loathsome scenes and figures, +affairs and cases, in this setting of official routine and red-tape, I +recall the noble and melancholy features of an artist, who was crushed +by the government with cold and callous cruelty. + +The leaden hand of the Tsar did not merely strangle a work of genius in +its infancy, did not merely destroy the very creation of the artist, +entangling him in judicial snares and police traps, but tried to snatch +from him his honourable name together with his last crust of bread and +to brand him as a taker of bribes and a pilferer of government funds. + +After ruining and disgracing A. L. Vitberg, Nicholas exiled him to +Vyatka. It was there that we met. + +For two years and a half I lived with the great artist and saw the +strong man, who had fallen a victim to the autocracy of red-tape +officialdom and barrack-discipline, which measures everything in the +world by the footrule of the recruiting officer and the copying clerk, +breaking down under the weight of persecution and misery. + +It cannot be said that he succumbed easily; he struggled desperately for +full ten years. He came into exile still hoping to confound his enemies +and justify himself, he came in fact still ready for conflict, bringing +plans and projects. But he soon discerned that all was over. + +Perhaps even this discovery would not have overwhelmed him, but he had +at his side a wife and children and ahead of him years of exile, +poverty, and privation; and Vitberg was turning grey, growing old, +growing old not by days but by hours. When I left him in Vyatka at the +end of two years he was quite ten years older. + +Here is the story of this long martyrdom. + +The Emperor Alexander did not believe in his victory over Napoleon, he +was oppressed by the fame of it and genuinely gave the glory to God. +Always disposed to mysticism and melancholy, in which many people saw +the fretting of conscience, he gave way to it particularly after the +series of victories over Napoleon. + +When ‘the last soldier of the enemy had crossed the frontier,’ Alexander +issued a proclamation in which he vowed to raise in Moscow an immense +temple to the Saviour. Plans for such a temple were invited, and an +immense competition began. + +Vitberg was at that time a young artist who had just completed his +studies and gained the gold medal for painting. A Swede by origin, he +was born in Russia and at first was educated in the Engineers’ Cadet +Corps. The artist was enthusiastic, eccentric, and given to mysticism: +he read the proclamation, read the appeal for plans, and flung aside all +other pursuits. For days and nights he wandered about the streets of +Petersburg, tortured by a persistent idea; it was too strong for him, he +locked himself up in his own room, took a pencil and set to work. + +To no one in the world did the artist confide his design. After some +months of work, he went to Moscow to study the city and the surrounding +country and set to work again, shutting himself up for months together +and keeping his design a secret. + +The date of the competition arrived. The plans were numerous, there were +designs from Italy and from Germany and our Academicians sent in theirs. +And the unknown youth sent in his among the rest. Weeks passed before +the Emperor examined the plans. These were the forty days in the +wilderness, days of temptation, doubt, and agonising suspense. + +Vitberg’s colossal design, filled with religious poetry, impressed +Alexander. He came to a stop before it, and it was the first of which he +inquired the authorship. They broke open the sealed envelope and found +the unknown name of an Academy pupil. + +Alexander wanted to see Vitberg. He had a long talk with the artist. His +bold and fervent language, his genuine inspiration and the mystic tinge +of his convictions impressed the Emperor. ‘You speak in stones,’ he +observed, examining Vitberg’s design again. + +That very day his design was accepted and Vitberg was chosen to be the +architect and the director of the building committee. Alexander did not +know that with the laurel wreath he was putting a crown of thorns on the +artist’s head. + +There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture; abstract, +geometrical, mutely musical, passionless, it lives in symbol, in emblem, +in suggestion. Simple lines, their harmonious combination, rhythm, +numerical relations, make up something mysterious and at the same time +incomplete. The building, the temple, is not its own object, as is a +statue or a picture, a poem, or a symphony; a building requires an +inmate; it is a place mapped and cleared for habitation, an environment, +the shield of the tortoise, the shell of the mollusc; and the whole +point of it is that the receptacle should correspond with its spirit, +its object, its inmate, as the shell does with the tortoise. The walls +of the temple, its vaults and columns, its portal and façade, its +foundations and its cupola must bear the imprint of the divinity that +dwells within it, just as the convolutions of the brain are imprinted on +the bone of the skull. + +The Egyptian temples were their holy books. The obelisks were sermons on +the high-road. Solomon’s temple was the Bible turned into architecture; +just as St. Peter’s at Rome is the architectural symbol of the escape +from Catholicism, of the beginning of the lay world, of the beginning of +the secularisation of mankind. + +The very building of temples was so invariably accompanied by mystic +rites, symbolical utterances, mysterious consecrations that the mediæval +builders looked upon themselves as something apart, a kind of +priesthood, the heirs of the builders of Solomon’s temple, and made up +secret guilds of stonemasons, which afterwards passed into Freemasonry. + +From the time of the Renaissance architecture loses its peculiar mystic +character. The Christian faith is struggling with philosophic doubt, the +Gothic arch with the Greek pediment, spiritual holiness with worldly +beauty. What gives St. Peter’s its lofty significance is that in its +colossal proportions Christianity struggles towards life, the church +becomes pagan and on the walls of the Sistine Chapel Michael Angelo +paints Jesus Christ as a broad-shouldered athlete, a Hercules in the +flower of his age and strength. + +After St. Peter’s, church architecture deteriorated completely and was +reduced at last to simple repetition, on a larger or smaller scale, of +the ancient Greek peripteras and of St. Peter’s. + +One Parthenon is called St. Madeleine’s in Paris; the other is the +Exchange in New York. + +Without faith and without special circumstances, it was hard to create +anything living: there is something of artificiality, of hypocrisy, of +anachronism, about all new churches, such as the five-domed cruet-stands +with onions instead of corks in them in the Indo-Byzantine manner, which +Nicholas builds, with Ton for architect, or the angular Gothic churches +offensive to the aristocratic eye, with which the English decorate their +towns. + +But the circumstances under which Vitberg created his design, his +personality, and the state of mind of the Emperor were all exceptional. + +The war of 1812 had caused a violent upheaval in men’s minds in Russia; +it was long after the deliverance of Moscow before the ferment of +thought and nervous irritation could subside. Events outside Russia, the +taking of Paris, the story of the Hundred Days, the suspense, the +rumours, Waterloo, Napoleon sailing over the ocean, the mourning for +fallen kinsmen, the apprehension over the living, the returning troops, +the soldiers going home, all produced a great effect even on the +coarsest natures. Imagine a youthful artist, a mystic, gifted with +creative force and at the same time a fanatic, under the influence of +all that had happened, under the influence of the Tsar’s appeal and his +own genius. + +Near Moscow, between the Mozhaisk and Kaluga roads, there is a slight +eminence which rises above the whole city. These are the Sparrow Hills +of which I have spoken in my first reminiscences of childhood. The city +lies stretched at their foot, and one of the most picturesque views of +Moscow is from their top. Here Ivan the Terrible, at that time a young +profligate, stood weeping and watching his capital burn; here the priest +Sylvester appeared before him and with stern words transformed that +monster of genius for twenty years. + +Napoleon with his army skirted this hill, here his strength was broken, +it was at the foot of the Sparrow Hills that his retreat began. + +Could a better spot be found for a temple to commemorate the year 1812 +than the furthest point which the enemy reached? + +But this was not enough, the hill itself was to be turned into the lower +part of the temple; the open ground down to the river was to be +encircled by a colonnade, and on this base, built on three sides by +nature itself, a second and a third temple were to be raised, making up +a marvellous whole. + +Vitberg’s temple, like the chief dogma of Christianity, was threefold +and indivisible. + +The lower temple carved out of the hill had the form of a parallelogram, +a coffin, a body, it was a heavy portico supported by almost Egyptian +columns, it merged into the hill, into rough, unhewn nature. This temple +was lighted up by lamps in tall Etrurian candelabra, and the daylight +filtered sparsely into it through the second temple, passing through a +transparent picture of the Nativity. In this crypt all the heroes who +had fallen in 1812 were to be laid at rest. An eternal requiem was to be +sung for those slain on the field of battle, the names of all of them +from the generals to the private soldiers were to be carved upon the +walls. + +Upon this tomb, upon this graveyard, the second temple—the temple of +outstretched hands, of life, of suffering, of labour, was laid out in +the form of a Greek cross with the four ends equal. The colonnade +leading to it was decorated with statues from figures of the Old +Testament. At the entrance stood the prophets, they stood outside the +temple pointing the way which they were not destined to tread. The whole +story of the Gospels and of the Acts of the Apostles was depicted within +this temple. + +Above it, crowning it and completing it, was a third temple in the form +of a dome. This temple, brightly lighted, was the temple of the spirit +of untroubled peace, of eternity, expressed in its circular plan. Here +there were neither pictures nor sculpture, only on the outside it was +encircled by a ring of archangels and was covered by a colossal cupola. + +I am now giving from memory Vitberg’s leading idea. He had it worked out +to the minutest detail and everywhere perfectly in harmony with +Christian theology and architectural beauty. + +The marvellous man spent his whole life over his design. During the ten +years that he was on his trial he was occupied with nothing else and, +though harassed by poverty and privation in exile, he devoted several +hours every day to his temple. He lived in it, he did not believe that +it would never be built; memories, consolations, glory, all were in the +artist’s portfolio. + +Perhaps one day some other artist, after the martyr’s death, will shake +the dust off those sheets and with reverence publish that record of +martyrdom, in which was spent and wasted a life full of strength, for a +moment gladdened by the radiance of glory, then worn out and crushed +between a drill-sergeant Tsar, serf-senators, and pettifogging +ministers. + +The design was a work of genius, terrifying, staggering; that was why +Alexander chose it, that was why it ought to have been carried out. It +was said that the hill could not have borne the weight of the temple. I +find that incredible in face of all the new resources of the American +and English engineers, the tunnels which a train takes eight minutes to +pass through, the hanging bridges, and so on. + +Miloradovitch advised Vitberg to make the thick columns of the lower +temple of single blocks of granite. On this some one observed that it +would be very expensive to bring the granite blocks from Finland. ‘That +is just why we ought to get them,’ answered Miloradovitch, ‘if there +were a quarry in the river Moskva there would be nothing wonderful in +having them.’ + +Miloradovitch was a warrior poet and he understood poetry in general. +Grand things are done by grand means. + +Only nature does great things for nothing. + +Even those who have no doubt of Vitberg’s honesty find great fault with +him for having undertaken the duty of directing operations, though he +was an inexperienced young artist who knew nothing of official business. +He ought to have confined himself to the part of architect. That is +true. + +But it is easy to make such criticisms sitting at home in one’s study. +He undertook it just because he was young, inexperienced, and an artist; +he undertook it because after his design had been accepted, everything +seemed easy to him; he undertook it because the Tsar himself had +proposed it to him, encouraged him, supported him. Is there any man +whose head would not have been turned?... Are there any so prudent, so +sober, so self-restrained? Well, if there are, they do not design +colossal temples nor do they make ‘stones speak’! + +It need hardly be said that Vitberg was surrounded by a crowd of rogues, +men who look on Russia as a field for plunder, on the service as a +profitable line of business, on a public post as a lucky chance to make +a fortune. It was easy to understand that they would dig a pit under +Vitberg’s feet. But that, after falling into it, he should be unable to +get out again, was due also to the envy of some and the wounded vanity +of others. + +Vitberg’s colleagues on the committee were the metropolitan Filaret, the +Governor-General of Moscow, and the Senator Kushnikov; they were all +offended to begin with by being associated with a young upstart, +especially as he gave his opinion boldly and objected if he did not +agree. + +They helped to get him into trouble, they helped to slander him and with +cold-blooded indifference completed his ruin afterwards. + +They were helped in this by the fall of the mystically-minded minister +Prince A. N. Golitsyn, and afterwards by the death of Alexander. +Together with the fall of Golitsyn came the collapse of Freemasonry, of +the Bible societies, of Lutheran pietism, which in the persons of +Magnitsky at Kazan and of Runitch in Petersburg ran to grotesque +extremes, to savage persecutions, to hysterical antics, to complete +dementia and goodness knows what strange doings. + +Savage, coarse, ignorant orthodoxy was supreme. It was preached by Fotiy +the archimandrite of Novgorod, who lived on intimate (not physically, of +course) terms with Countess Orlov. The daughter of the celebrated Alexey +Grigoryevitch who strangled Peter III., she hoped to win the redemption +of her father’s soul by devoting herself to frenzied fanaticism, by +giving up to Fotiy and his monks the greater part of her enormous +estates, which had been forcibly snatched from the monasteries by +Catherine. + +But the one thing in which the Petersburg government is persistent, the +one thing in which it does not change, however its principles and +religions may change, is its unjust oppression and persecution. The +violence of the Runitches and the Magnitskys was turned against the +Runitches and the Magnitskys. The Bible Society, only yesterday +patronised and approved—the prop of morality and religion, was to-day +closed and sealed, and its members put almost on the level with +counterfeit coiners; the _Messenger of Zion_, only yesterday recommended +to all fathers of families, was more severely prohibited than Voltaire +and Diderot, and its editor, Labzin, was exiled to Vologda. + +Prince A. N. Golitsyn’s fall involved Vitberg; everyone fell upon him, +the committee complained of him, the metropolitan was offended and the +governor-general was displeased. His answers were ‘insolent’ +(‘insolence’ is one of the principal charges in the indictment of him); +his subordinates were thieves—as though there were any one in the +government service who was not a thief. Though indeed it is likely that +there was more thieving among Vitberg’s subordinates than among others; +he had had no practice in superintending houses of correction and +official thieves. + +Alexander commanded Araktcheyev to investigate the case. He was sorry +for Vitberg; he let him know through one of his attendants that he +believed in his rectitude. + +But Alexander died and Araktcheyev fell. Under Nicholas, Vitberg’s case +at once took a turn for the worse. It was dragged on for ten years with +terrible absurdities. On the points on which he was found guilty by the +Criminal Court he was acquitted by the Senate. On those on which he was +acquitted by the Court he was found guilty by the Senate. The committee +of ministers found him guilty on all the charges. The Tsar, taking +advantage of the ‘most precious privilege of monarchs to show mercy and +remit punishment,’ added exile to Vyatka to his sentence. + +And so Vitberg was sent into exile, dismissed from the service ‘for +abuse of the confidence of the Emperor Alexander and causing loss to the +treasury.’ He was fined, I believe, a million roubles, all his property +was seized and sold by public auction, and a rumour was circulated that +he had transferred countless millions to America. + +I lived in the same house with Vitberg for two years and remained on +intimate terms with him up to the time I left Vyatka. He had not saved +the barest crust of bread; his family lived in the most awful poverty. + +To give an idea of this case and of all similar ones in Russia, I will +quote two little details which have remained in my memory. + +Vitberg bought for timber for the temple a copse from a merchant called +Lobanov; before the trees were felled Vitberg saw another wood, also +Lobanov’s, nearer to the river and asked him to exchange the one he had +sold for the second one. The merchant consented. The trees were felled +and the timber floated down the river. Later on more timber was needed, +and Vitberg bought the first wood again. This was the celebrated +accusation of having twice over bought the same copse. Poor Lobanov was +put in prison for it and died there. + +The second instance came before my own eyes. Vitberg bought an estate +for the temple. His idea was that the peasants bought with the land for +the temple should be bound to furnish a certain number of workmen for +it, and by this means should obtain complete freedom for themselves and +their villages. It is amusing that our serf-owning senators found a +suggestion of slavery in this measure! + +Among other things, Vitberg wanted to buy my father’s estate in the +Ruzsky district on the bank of the Moskva. Marble had been found on it, +and Vitberg asked permission to make a geological survey to discover +what amount of it there was. My father gave permission. Vitberg went off +to Petersburg. + +Three months later my father learnt that quarrying was going forward on +an immense scale, that the peasants’ cornfields were heaped up with +marble. He protested; no notice was taken. A protracted lawsuit began. +At first they tried to throw all the blame on Vitberg, but unluckily it +appeared that he had given no orders, and that it all had been done by +the committee in his absence. + +The case was taken before the Senate. To the general surprise the +Senate’s decision was not very far from common-sense. The marble +quarried was to remain the property of the landowner as compensation for +the ruined cornfields. The government money spent on quarrying and +labour, mounting to a hundred thousand roubles, was to be made good by +those who signed the contract for the work. Those who signed were Prince +Golitsyn, Filaret, and Kushnikov. There was of course a great clamour +and outcry. The case was taken before the Tsar. He had his system of +justice. He directed that the offenders should be excused payment +because—he wrote it with his own hand, as is printed in the minutes of +the Senate—‘The members of the committee did not know what they were +signing.’ Even if we admit that the metropolitan was professionally +bound to show a meek spirit, what are we to think of the other two grand +gentlemen who accepted the Imperial favour on grounds so courteously and +graciously explained? + +But from whom was the hundred thousand to be taken? Government property, +they say, is not burnt in the fire nor drowned in the water. It is only +stolen, we might add. No need to hesitate, an adjutant-general was sent +off post-haste to Moscow to investigate the question. + +Strekalov investigated everything, set everything straight, arranged and +settled it all in a few days: the marble was to be taken from the +landowner to make good the sum paid for the quarrying; if, however, the +landowner wished to retain the marble he was required to pay the hundred +thousand. The landowner needed no compensation, because the value of his +property was increased by the discovery of a new form of wealth upon it +(this was the _chef-d’œuvre_!), but for the damaged fields of the +peasants so many kopecks per dessyatin were to be allotted in accordance +with the law of flooded meadows and ruined hayfields passed by Peter I. + +The person really punished in this case was my father. There is no need +to add that the quarrying of this marble was nevertheless brought up +against Vitberg in his indictment. + +Two years after Vitberg’s exile the merchants of Vyatka formed a project +of building a new church. + +Nicholas, desirous of killing all spirit of independence, of +individuality, of imagination, and of freedom, everywhere and in +everything, published a whole volume of designs for churches sanctioned +by the Most High. If any one wanted to build a church he was absolutely +obliged to select one of the approved plans. He is said to have +forbidden the writing of Russian operas, considering that even those +written by the adjutant Lvov, in the very office of the secret police, +were good for nothing. But that was not enough: he ought to have +published a collection of musical airs sanctioned by the Most High! + +The Vyatka merchants after turning over the approved plans had the +boldness to differ from the Tsar’s taste. The design they sent in +astonished Nicholas; he sanctioned it and sent instructions to the +provincial authorities to see that the architect’s ideas were faithfully +carried out. + +‘Who made this design?’ he asked the secretary. + +‘Vitberg, your Majesty.’ + +‘What, the same Vitberg?’ + +‘The same, your Majesty.’ + +And behold, like a bolt from the blue, comes permission for Vitberg to +return to Moscow or Petersburg. The man had asked leave to clear his +character and it had been refused; he made a successful design, and the +Tsar bade him return—as though any one had ever doubted his artistic +ability.... + +In Petersburg, almost perishing of want, he made one last effort to +defend his honour. It was utterly unsuccessful. Vitberg asked the +assistance of A. N. Golitsyn, but the latter thought it impossible to +raise the case again, and advised Vitberg to write a very touching +letter to the Tsarevitch begging for financial assistance. He undertook +to do his best for him with the assistance of Zhukovsky,[149] and +promised to get him a thousand silver roubles. + +Vitberg refused. + +I was in Petersburg for the last time in the beginning of the winter of +1846 and there saw Vitberg. He was completely crushed. Even his old +wrath against his enemies which I had liked so much had begun to die +down; he had no more hope, he did nothing to escape from his position, +blank despair was bringing him to his end, his life was shattered, he +was waiting for death. If this was what Nicholas wanted he may be +satisfied. + +Whether the victim is still living I do not know, but I doubt it. + +‘If it were not for my family, my children,’ he said at parting, ‘I +would escape from Russia and go begging alms about the world. With the +Vladimir cross on my neck I would calmly hold out to passers-by the hand +pressed by the Emperor Alexander and tell them of my design and the fate +of an artist in Russia!’ + +‘They shall hear in Europe of your fate, poor martyr,’ I thought; ‘I +will answer for that.’ + +The society of Vitberg was a great solace to me in Vyatka. A grave +serenity and a sort of solemnity gave something priestly to his manner. +He was a man of very pure morals and in general more disposed to +asceticism than indulgence; but his severity did not detract from the +wealth and luxuriance of his artistic nature. He could give to his +mysticism so plastic a form and so artistic a colouring that criticism +died away on one’s lips; one was sorry to analyse, to dissect the +shining images and misty pictures of his imagination. + +Vitberg’s mysticism was partly due to his Scandinavian blood, it was the +same coldly-thought-out dreaminess which we see in Swedenborg, and which +is like the fiery reflection of sunbeams in the icy mountains and snows +of Norway. + +Vitberg’s influence made me waver, but my realistic temperament +nevertheless gained the upper hand. I was not destined to rise into the +third heaven, I was born a quite earthly creature. No tables turn at the +touch of my hands nor do rings shake at my glance. The daylight of +thought is more akin to me than the moonlight of phantasy. But I was +more disposed to mysticism at the period when I was living with Vitberg +than at any other time. Separation, exile, the religious exaltation of +the letters I received, the love which was filling my soul more and more +intensely, and at the same time the oppressive feeling of remorse, all +reinforced Vitberg’s influence. + +And for two years afterwards I was under the influence of ideas of a +mystical socialist tinge, drawn from the Gospel and Jean-Jacques, after +the style of French thinkers like Pierre Leroux.[150] + +Ogaryov plunged into the sea of mysticism even before I did. In 1833 he +was beginning to write the words for Gebel’s[151] oratorio, _The Lost +Paradise_. In the idea of a “Lost Paradise,” Ogaryov wrote to me, ‘there +is the whole history of humanity’; so at that time, he too mistook the +paradise of the ideal that we are seeking for a paradise we have lost. + +In 1838 I wrote historical scenes in the religious socialist spirit, and +at the time took them for dramas. In some I pictured the conflict of the +pagan world with Christianity. In them Paul going to Rome raised a dead +youth to new life. In others I described the conflict of the official +Church with the Quakers and the departure of William Penn to America to +the new world.[152] + +The mysticism of the gospel was soon replaced in me by the mysticism of +science; fortunately I rid myself of the second also. + +But to return to our modest little town of Hlynov, the name of which +was, I don’t know why, perhaps from Finnish patriotism, changed by +Catherine II. to Vyatka. + +In the desolation of my Vyatka exile, in the filthy atmosphere of +government clerks, in that gloomy remote place, separated from all who +were dear to me and put defenceless in the power of the governor, I +spent many exquisite sacred moments, and met many warm hearts and +friendly hands. + +Where are you? What has happened to you, my friends of that snowy +region? It is twenty years since we met. I dare say you have grown old +as I have, you are marrying your daughters, you don’t now drink +champagne by the bottle and liqueur by the little glass. Which of you +has grown rich, which of you has come to ruin, who is high up in the +service, who is paralysed? Above all, is the memory of our old talks +still living in you, are those chords which vibrated so eagerly with +love and indignation still vibrating within you? + +I have remained the same, that you know; I dare say news of me reaches +you even from the banks of the Thames. Sometimes I think of you, always +with love; I have some letters of that time, some of them are +exceedingly dear to me and I like reading them over. + +‘I am not ashamed to own to you that I am passing through a very bitter +time,’ a young man wrote to me on the 26th of January 1838. ‘Help me for +the sake of that life to which you called me, help me with your advice. +I want to study, tell me of books, tell me anything you like, I will do +all I can, give me a chance; it will be too bad of you if you don’t help +me.’ + +‘I bless you,’ another wrote to me after I had gone away, ‘as the +husbandman blesses the rain that has made fruitful his arid soil.’ + +It is not from vanity that I have quoted these lines, but because they +are very precious to me. For the sake of those youthful appeals and +youthful love, for the sake of the yearnings aroused in those hearts, +one could well resign oneself to nine months’ imprisonment and three +years’ exile to Vyatka. + +And then twice a week the post from Moscow came in; with what excitement +I waited by the post-office while the letters were sorted, with what a +tremor I broke the seal and looked in the letter from home for a tiny +note on thin paper written in a wonderfully fine and elegant hand. + +I never read it in the post-office, but walked quietly home, deferring +the minute of reading it, happy in the mere thought that there was a +letter. + +Those letters were all kept. I left them in Moscow. I long to read them +over again and dread to touch them.... + +Letters are more than memories, the very essence of events still lives +in them; they are the very past just as it was, preserved and unfaded. + +... Should one know it, see it all again? Should one touch with wrinkled +hands one’s wedding garment? + + + + + Chapter 17 + THE TSAREVITCH AT VYATKA—THE FALL OF TYUFYAEV—I AM TRANSFERRED TO + VLADIMIR—THE POLICE-CAPTAIN AT THE POSTING-STATION + + +The Tsarevitch will visit Vyatka! The Tsarevitch is travelling about +Russia to show himself and look at the country! This news interested +all, but the governor, of course, more than any one. He was worried and +did a number of incredibly stupid things: ordered the peasants along the +high-road to be dressed in holiday attire, ordered the fences to be +painted and the sidewalks to be repaired in the towns. At Orlov a poor +widow who owned a small house told the mayor that she had no money to +repair the sidewalk and he reported this to the governor. The latter +ordered that the planks should be taken from her floors (the sidewalks +there are made of wood), and that, should they not be sufficient, the +repairs should be made at the government expense and the money recovered +from her afterwards, even if it were necessary to sell her house by +public auction. The sale did not take place, but the widow’s floors were +broken up. + +Fifty versts from Vyatka there was the spot in which the wonder-working +ikon of St. Nicholas of Hlynov appeared to the people of Novgorod. When +emigrants from Novgorod settled at Hlynov (now Vyatka) they brought the +ikon, but it disappeared and turned up again on the Great river fifty +versts from Vyatka. They fetched it back again, and at the same time +took a vow that if the ikon would stay they would carry it every year in +a solemn procession to the Great river. This was the chief summer +holiday in the Vyatka province; I believe it was on the 23rd of May. For +twenty-four hours the ikon was travelling down the river in a +magnificent boat with the bishop and all the clergy in full vestments +accompanying it. Hundreds of boats and craft of all sorts filled with +peasants, men and women, Votyaks, and artisans, made up a +bright-coloured procession following the sailing image, and foremost of +all was the governor’s decked boat covered with red cloth. This barbaric +ceremony was a very fine show. Tens of thousands of people from +districts near and far were awaiting the image on the banks of the Great +river. They were all camping in noisy crowds about a small village, and +what was most strange, crowds of heathen Votyaks, Tcheremisses, and even +Tatars came to pray to the image, and, indeed, the festival is a +thoroughly pagan ceremony. Outside the monastery-wall Votyaks and +Russians bring sheep and calves to be sacrificed; they are killed on the +spot, a monk reads a service over them, blesses and consecrates the +meat, which is sold at a special window within the precincts. The meat +is distributed in pieces to the people; in old days it used to be given +for nothing, now the monks charge a few kopecks for every piece. So that +a peasant who has presented a whole calf has to pay something for a +piece for his own consumption. In the monastery-yard sit whole crowds of +beggars, the halt, the blind, and the lame, who raise a lamentation in +chorus. Lads—priests’ sons or boys from the town—sit on the tombstones +near the church with inkpots and cry: ‘Who wants to be prayed for?’ +Peasant girls and women surround them, mentioning names, and the lads, +saucily scratching with their pens, repeat: ‘Marya, Marya, Akulina +Stepanida, Father Ioann, Matryona.... Well, Auntie, you have got a lot; +you’ve shelled out two kopecks, we can’t take less than five; such a +family—Ioann, Vassilisa, Iona, Marya, Yevpraxyea, Baby Katerina....’ + +In the church there is a great crush and strange preferences are shown; +one peasant woman will hand her neighbour a candle with exact +instructions to put it up ‘for our visitor,’ another for ‘our host.’ The +Vyatka monks and deacons are continually drunk during the whole time of +this procession. They stop at the bigger villages on the way, and the +peasants regale them enough to kill them. + +So this popular holiday, to which the peasants had been accustomed for +ages, the governor proposed to change to an earlier date, wishing to +entertain the Tsarevitch who was to arrive on the 19th of May; he +thought there would be no harm in St. Nicholas going on his visit three +days earlier. The consent of the bishop was of course necessary; +fortunately the bishop was an amenable person, and found nothing to +protest against in the governor’s intention of changing the festival of +the 23rd of May to the 19th. + +The governor sent a list of his ingenious plans for the reception of the +Tsarevitch to the Tsar—as though to say, see how we fête your son. On +reading this document the Tsar flew into a rage, and said to the +Minister of Home Affairs: ‘The governor and the bishop are fools, leave +the holiday as it was.’ The Minister gave the governor a good scolding, +the Synod did the same to the bishop, and St. Nicholas went on his visit +according to his old habits. + +Among various instructions from Petersburg, orders came that in every +provincial town an exhibition should be held of the various natural +products and handicrafts of the district, and that the things exhibited +should be arranged according to the three natural kingdoms. This +division into animal, vegetable, and mineral greatly worried the +officials, and Tyufyaev himself to some extent. That he might not make a +mistake he made up his mind in spite of his dislike to summon me to give +advice. ‘Now, for instance, honey,’ he said, ‘where would you put honey? +or a gilt frame—how are you to decide where it is to go?’ Seeing from my +answers that I had wonderfully precise information concerning the three +natural kingdoms, he offered me the task of arranging the exhibition. + +While I was busy placing wooden vessels and Votyak dresses, honey and +iron sieves, and Tyufyaev went on taking the most ferocious measures for +the entertainment of his Imperial Highness at Vyatka, the Highness in +question was graciously pleased to stay at Orlov, and the news of the +arrest of the Orlov mayor burst like a clap of thunder on the town. +Tyufyaev turned yellow, and there was an uncertainty apparent in his +gait. + +Five days before the Tsarevitch arrived in Orlov, the mayor wrote to +Tyufyaev that the widow whose floor had been broken up to make the +sidewalk was making a fuss, and that So-and-so, a wealthy merchant and a +prominent person in the town, was boasting that he would tell the +Tsarevitch everything. Tyufyaev disposed of the latter very adroitly; he +told the mayor to have doubts of his sanity (the precedent of Petrovsky +pleased him), and to send him to Vyatka to be examined by the doctors; +this business could be delayed till the Tsarevitch had left the province +of Vyatka, and that would be the end of it. The mayor did as he was bid, +the merchant was put in the hospital at Vyatka. + +At last the Tsarevitch arrived. He gave Tyufyaev a frigid bow, did not +invite him to visit him, but at once sent for the doctor, Dr. Enohin, to +inquire concerning the arrested merchant. He knew all about it. The +Orlov widow had given him her petition, the other merchants and artisans +told him all that was going on. Tyufyaev’s face was more awry than ever. +Things looked black for him. The mayor said straight out that he had +written instructions from the governor for everything. + +Dr. Enohin declared that the merchant was perfectly sane. Tyufyaev was +lost. + +Between seven and eight in the evening the Tsarevitch visited the +exhibition with his suite. Tyufyaev conducted him, explaining things +incoherently, getting into a muddle and speaking of the ancient Siberian +prince Tohtamysh as though he were a tsar. Zhukovsky and Arsenyev, +seeing that things were not going well, asked me to show them the +exhibition. I led them round. + +The Tsarevitch’s expression had none of that narrow severity, that cold +merciless cruelty which was characteristic of his father; his features +were more suggestive of good nature and listlessness. He was about +twenty, but was already beginning to grow stout. + +The few words he said to me were friendly and very different from the +hoarse, abrupt tones of his uncle Constantine and the menacing +intonations of his father, which made the listener almost faint with +terror. + +When he had gone away, Zhukovsky and Arsenyev began asking me how I had +come to Vyatka. They were surprised to hear a Vyatka official speak like +a gentleman. They at once offered to speak of my position to the +Tsarevitch, and did in fact do all that they could for me. The +Tsarevitch approached the Tsar for permission for me to return to +Petersburg. The Tsar replied that that would be unfair to the other +exiles, but, in consideration of the Tsarevitch’s representations, he +ordered me to be transferred to Vladimir, which was geographically an +improvement, being seven hundred versts nearer home. But of that later. + +In the evening there was a ball. The musicians who had been sent for +expressly from one of the factories arrived dead drunk; the governor +arranged that they should be locked up for twenty-four hours before the +ball, escorted straight from the police station to their seats in the +orchestra and not allowed to leave them till the ball was over. + +The ball was a stupid, awkward, extremely poor and extremely gaudy +affair, as balls always are in little towns on exceptional occasions. +Police officers fussed about, government clerks in uniform huddled +against the walls, ladies flocked round the Tsarevitch as savages do +round travellers.... Apropos of the ladies, in one little town a +_goûter_ was arranged after the exhibition. The Tsarevitch took nothing +but one peach, the stone of which he threw on the window-sill. All at +once a tall figure saturated with spirits stepped out from the crowd of +officials; it was the district assessor, notoriously a desperate +character, who with measured steps approached the window, picked up the +stone and put it in his pocket. + +After the ball or the _goûter_, he approached one of the ladies of most +consequence and offered her the stone gnawed by royalty; the lady +accepted it with enthusiasm. Then he approached a second, then a third, +all were in ecstasies. + +The assessor had bought five peaches, cut out the stones, and made six +ladies happy. Which had the real one? Each was suspicious of the +genuineness of her own stone.... + +After the departure of the Tsarevitch, Tyufyaev with a weight on his +heart prepared to exchange his autocratic power for the chair of a +senator; but worse than that happened. + +Three weeks later the post brought from Petersburg papers addressed to +the governor of the province. Everything was turned upside down in the +secretariat; the registrar ran to say that they had received a decree; +the office manager rushed to Tyufyaev, the latter gave out that he was +ill and would not go to the office. Within an hour we learned that he +had been dismissed _sans phrase_. + +The whole town was delighted at the fall of the governor; there was +something stifling, unclean, about his rule, a fetid odour of red tape, +but for all that it was disgusting to look at the rejoicings of the +officials. + +Yes, every ass gave a parting kick to this wounded boar. The meanness of +men was just as apparent as at the fall of Napoleon, though the +catastrophe was on a different scale. Of late I had been on terms of +open hostility with him, and he would have certainly sent me off to some +obscure little town, if he had not been sent away himself. I had held +aloof from him, and I had no reason to change my behaviour in regard to +him. But the others, who only the day before had been cap in hand at the +sight of his carriage, eagerly anticipating his wishes, fawning on his +dog and offering snuff to his valet, now barely greeted him and made an +outcry all over the town against the irregularities, the guilt of which +they shared with him. This is nothing new, it has been repeated so +continually in every age and every place that we must accept this +meanness as a common trait of humanity and at any rate feel no surprise +at it. + +The new governor, Kornilov, arrived. He was a man of quite a different +type: a tall, stout, lymphatic man about fifty with a pleasantly smiling +face and cultured manner. He expressed himself with extraordinary +grammatical correctness at great length with a precision and clarity +calculated by its very excess to obscure the simplest subject. He had +been at the Lyceum of Tsarskoe Syelo, had been a schoolfellow of +Pushkin’s, had served in the Guards, bought the new French books, liked +talking of important subjects, and gave me De Tocqueville’s book on +_Democracy in America_ on the day after his arrival. + +The change was very great. The same rooms, the same furniture, but +instead of a Tatar _baskak_, with the exterior of a Tunguz and the +habits of a Siberian—a _doctrinaire_, rather a pedant, but at the same +time quite a decent man. The new governor was intelligent, but his +intelligence seemed somehow to shed light without giving warmth, like a +bright, winter day which is pleasant though one does not look for fruits +from it. Moreover, he was a terrible formalist—not in a pettifogging +way, but ... how shall I express it?... it was formalism of a higher +sort, but just as tiresome as any other. + +As the new governor was really married, the house lost its +ultra-bachelor and polygamous character. Of course this brought all the +councillors back to their lawful spouses; bald old men no longer boasted +of their conquests among the fair, but, on the contrary, alluded +tenderly to their faded, angularly-bony, or monstrously fat wives. + +Kornilov had some years before coming to Vyatka been promoted to be +civil governor somewhere, straight from being a colonel in the +Semyonovsky or Izmailovsky regiment. He went to his province knowing +nothing of his duties. To begin with, like all novices he set to work to +read everything. One day a document came to him from another province +which he could make nothing of, though he read it two or three times. He +called the secretary and gave it him to read. The secretary could not +explain the business clearly either. + +‘What will you do with that document,’ Kornilov asked him, ‘if I pass it +on to the office?’ + +‘I shall hand it in to the third table, it’s in their section.’ + +‘Then the head-clerk of the third table knows what to do?’ + +‘To be sure he does, your Excellency, he has been in charge of that +table for seven years.’ + +‘Send him to me.’ + +The head-clerk came in. Kornilov handing him the paper asked what was to +be done. The head-clerk glanced through the document and informed him +that they ought to make an inquiry in the palace of justice and send a +notification to the police-captain. + +‘But notify what?’ + +The head-clerk was nonplussed, and at last admitted that it was +difficult to express it in words, but that it was easy to write it. + +‘Here is a chair, I beg you to write your answer.’ + +The head-clerk took up the pen and without hesitation briskly scribbled +off two documents. + +The governor took them, read them once, read them twice, but could make +nothing of it. ‘I saw,’ he told me, smiling, ‘that it really was an +answer to the document, and crossing myself I signed it. Nothing more +was heard of the business—the answer was completely satisfactory.’ + +The news of my transfer to Vladimir came just before Christmas; I was +soon ready and set off. + +My parting with Vyatka society was very warm. In that remote town I had +made two or three friends among the young merchants. Every one wanted to +show sympathy and kindness to the exile. Several sledges accompanied me +as far as the first posting-station, and in spite of all my efforts to +prevent it my sledge was filled up with a perfect load of all sorts of +provisions and wine. Next day I reached Yaransk. + +From Yaransk the road goes through endless pine forests. It was +moonlight and very frosty at night. The little sledge flew along the +narrow road. I have never seen such forests since, they go on in that +way unbroken as far as Archangel, and sometimes reindeer come through +them to the Vyatka province. The forest was for the most part of large +trees; the pines, of remarkable straightness, ran past the sledge like +soldiers, tall and covered with snow from under which their black +needles stuck out like bristles; one would drop asleep and wake up again +and still the regiments of pines would be marching rapidly by, sometimes +shaking off the snow. The horses were changed at little clearings; there +was a tiny house lost among the trees, the horses were tied up to a +trunk, the bells would begin tinkling, two or three Tcheremiss boys in +embroidered shirts would run out, looking sleepy. The Votyak driver +would swear at his companion in a husky alto, shout ‘Aïda,’ begin +singing a song on two notes, and again pines and snow, snow and pines. + +Just as I drove out of the Vyatka province it was my lot to take my last +farewell of the official world, and it showed itself in all its glory +_pour la clôture_. + +We stopped at a posting-station, the driver began unharnessing the +horses, when a tall peasant appeared in the porch and asked: + +‘Who has arrived?’ + +What’s that to do with you?’ + +‘Why, the police-captain told me to inquire, and I am the messenger of +the rural court.’ + +‘Well then, go into the station hut, my travelling permit is there.’ + +The peasant went away and came back a minute later, saying to the +driver, ‘He is not to have horses.’ + +This was too much. I jumped out of the sledge and went into the hut. A +half-tipsy police-captain was sitting on a bench, dictating to a +half-tipsy clerk. A man with fetters on his hands and feet was sitting +or rather lying on another bench in the corner. Several bottles, +glasses, tobacco ash, and bundles of papers were scattered about. + +‘Where is the police-captain?’ I asked in a loud voice as I went in. + +‘The police-captain’s here,’ answered the half-tipsy man whom I +recognised as Lazarev, a man I had seen in Vyatka. As he spoke he fixed +a rude and impudent stare upon me, and all at once rushed at me with +open arms. + +I must explain that after Tyufyaev’s downfall the officials, seeing that +I was on rather good terms with the governor, had began making up to me. + +I stopped him with my hand and asked him very gravely, ‘How could you +give orders that I shouldn’t have horses. What nonsense is this, +stopping travellers on the high-road?’ + +‘Why, I was joking; upon my soul, aren’t you ashamed to be angry! Here, +horses, order the horses! Why are you standing there, you rascal?’ he +shouted to the messenger. ‘Please have a cup of tea with rum.’ + +‘Thank you.’ + +‘But haven’t we any champagne....’ He hurried to the bottles, they were +all empty. + +‘What are you doing here?’ + +‘An inquiry, this fine fellow here has killed his father and sister with +an axe, in a quarrel, through jealousy.’ + +‘So that’s why you are drinking together?’ + +The police-captain was disconcerted. I glanced at the Tcheremiss; he was +a young fellow of twenty, with nothing ferocious about his face, which +was typically oriental, with shining, narrow eyes and black hair. + +It was all so disgusting that I went out into the yard again. The +police-captain ran out after me with a glass in one hand and a bottle of +rum in the other, and pressed me to have a drink. + +To get rid of him I drank some; he caught hold of my hand and said: ‘I +am sorry, there, I am sorry! there it is, but I hope you won’t speak of +it to his Excellency, don’t ruin an honourable man!’ With that the +police-captain _seized my hand and kissed it_, repeating a dozen times +over: ‘For God’s sake don’t ruin an honourable man.’ I pulled away my +hand in disgust and said to him: + +‘Oh get away, as though I were likely to tell him.’ + +‘But how can I be of service to you?’ + +‘See they make haste and harness the horses.’ + +‘Look alive,’ he shouted, ‘Aïda, aïda!’ and he himself began dragging at +the straps and harness. + +This incident is vividly imprinted on my memory. In 1841, when I was for +the last time in Petersburg, I had to go to the secretariat of the +Minister of Home Affairs to try and get a passport. While I was talking +to the head-clerk of the table, a gentleman passed ... shaking hands +familiarly with the magnates of the secretariat and bowing +condescendingly to the head-clerks of the tables. ‘Bah, hang it all,’ I +thought, ‘surely that is he! Who is that?’ I asked. + +‘Lazarev, a clerk of special commissions and a great authority in the +ministry.’ + +‘Was he once a police-captain in the Vyatka province?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, I congratulate you, gentlemen, nine years ago he kissed my hand.’ + +Perovsky was a master in the choice of men. + + + + + Chapter 18 + THE BEGINNING OF MY LIFE AT VLADIMIR + + +When I went to get into my sledge at Kosmodemiansk it was harnessed in +the Russian style, three horses abreast, and the shaft horse with the +yoke over its head was gaily jingling the bells. + +In Perm and Vyatka the horses are put in tandem, one before the other or +two side by side and the third in front. So my heart throbbed with +delight when I saw the familiar troika. + +‘Come now, show us your mettle,’ I said to the young lad who sat smartly +on the box in an unlined sheepskin and stiff gauntlets which barely +allowed his fingers to close enough to take fifteen kopecks from my +hand. + +‘We’ll do our best, sir, we’ll do our best. Hey, darlings! Now, sir,’ he +said, turning suddenly to me, ‘you only hold on, there is a hill yonder, +so I will let them go.’ + +It was a steep descent to the Volga which was used as a road in the +winter. + +He certainly did let the horses go. The sledge bounded from right to +left, from left to right, as the horses flew downhill; the driver was +tremendously pleased, and indeed, sinful man that I am, so was I—it is +the Russian temperament. + +So I raced with posting horses into 1838—into the best, the brightest +year of my life. I will describe how we saw the New Year in. + +Eighty versts from Nizhni, we, _i.e._ Matvey, my valet, and I, went into +the station superintendent’s to warm ourselves. There was a very sharp +frost, and it was windy too. The superintendent, a thin, sickly, +pitiful-looking man, made the inscription in my travelling permit, +dictating every letter to himself and yet making mistakes. I took off my +fur-lined coat and walked up and down the room in immense fur boots, +Matvey was warming himself at the red-hot stove, the superintendent +muttered, while a wooden clock ticked on a faint, cracked note. + +‘I say,’ Matvey said to me, ‘it will soon be twelve o’clock, it’s the +New Year, you know. I will bring something,’ he added, looking at me +half-inquiringly, ‘from the stores they gave us at Vyatka.’ And without +waiting for an answer he ran to fetch bottles and a parcel of food. + +Matvey, of whom I shall have more to say later, was more than a servant, +he was a friend, a younger brother to me. A Moscow artisan, apprenticed +to Sonnenberg to learn the art of bookbinding, in which Sonnenberg, +however, was not very proficient, he passed into my hands. + +I knew that if I refused it would disappoint Matvey, besides I had +nothing against celebrating the day at the posting-station.... The New +Year is a station of a sort. + +Matvey brought ham and champagne. The champagne turned out to be frozen +solid; the ham could have been chopped with an axe, it was all +glistening with ice; but _à la guerre comme à la guerre_. ‘May the New +Year bring new happiness.’ Yes indeed, new happiness. Was I not on my +homeward way? Every hour was bringing me nearer to Moscow—my heart was +full of hope. + +The frozen champagne did not exactly please the superintendent. I added +half a glass of rum to his wine. This new ‘_half-and-half_’ had a great +success. + +The driver, whom I also invited to join us, was still more extreme in +his views; he sprinkled pepper into the glass of foaming wine, stirred +it with a spoon, drank it off at one gulp, uttered a painful sigh and +almost with a moan added: ‘It did scorch fine!’ + +The superintendent himself tucked me into the sledge, and was so zealous +in his attentions that he dropped the lighted candle into the hay and +could not find it afterwards. He was in great spirits and kept +repeating: ‘You’ve given me a New Year’s Eve, too!’ + +The scorched driver whipped up the horses. + +At eight o’clock on the following evening I reached Vladimir and put up +at the hotel, which is extremely accurately described in the _Tarantass_ +with its fowls in rice, its dough-like pastry, and vinegar by way of +Bordeaux. + +‘A man was asking for you this morning, he’s waiting at the beer-shop,’ +the waiter, who wore the rakish parting and killing lovelocks, which in +old days were only affected by Russian waiters, but are now worn by +Louis Napoleon also, told me after reading my name on my travel permit. + +I could not conceive who this could be. ‘But here he is,’ added the +waiter, moving aside. + +What I saw first, however, was not a man but a tray of terrific size, on +which were piles of all sorts of good things, a cake and cracknels, +oranges and apples, eggs, almonds, raisins ... and behind the tray +appeared the grey head and blue eyes of the village elder, from my +father’s Vladimir estate. + +‘Gavril Semyonitch,’ I cried, and rushed to hug him. This was the first +of our own people, the first figure out of my former life whom I met +after imprisonment and exile. I could not take my eyes off the +intelligent old man, and felt as though I would never say all I had to +say to him. He was the living proof of my nearness to Moscow, to my +home, to my friends; only three days before, he had seen them all, he +brought me greetings from all of them.... So it was not so far away +after all! + +The governor, who was a clever Greek called Kuruta, had a thorough +knowledge of human nature, and had long ceased to have a strong +preference for good or evil. He grasped my position at once and did not +make the slightest attempt to worry me. Office work was not even +referred to; he commissioned me and a master at the high school to edit +the _Vladimir Provincial News_—that was my only duty. + +The work was familiar to me; I had in Vyatka successfully edited the +unofficial part of the _Provincial News_, and had published in it an +article which almost got my successor into trouble. Describing the +festival on the Great river, I said that the mutton sacrificed to St. +Nicholas at Hlynov used in old days to be distributed to the poor, but +now was sold. The bishop was incensed and the governor had difficulty in +persuading him to let the matter drop. + +These provincial newspapers were introduced in 1837. The very original +idea of training the inhabitants of the land of silence and dumbness to +express themselves in print occurred to Bludov the Minister of Home +Affairs. The latter, famous for being chosen to continue Karamzin’s +_History_, though he never actually added a line to it, and for being +the author of the report of the committee of investigation into the +affair of the 14th of December, which it would have been better not to +write at all, belonged to the group of political doctrinaires who +appeared on the scene at the end of the reign of Alexander. They were +intelligent, cultured, old ‘Arzamass geese’[154] who had risen in the +service. They could write Russian, were patriots, and were so zealously +engaged in the history of their native land that they had no time to +give serious attention to its present condition. They all cherished the +never-to-be-forgotten memory of N. M. Karamzin, loved Zhukovsky, knew +Krylov by heart, and used to go to Moscow to converse with I. I. +Dmitriev in his house in Sadovy Street, where I too visited him as a +student, armed with romantic prejudices, a personal acquaintance with N. +Polevoy, and a concealed disapproval of the fact that Dmitriev, who was +a poet, should be Minister of Justice. Great things were hoped of them, +and like most doctrinaires of all countries they did nothing. Perhaps +they might have succeeded in leaving more permanent traces under +Alexander, but Alexander died and left them with nothing but their +desire to do something worth doing. + +At Monaco there is an inscription on the tombstone of one of the +hereditary princes: ‘Here lies the body of Florestan So-and-so—he +desired to do good to his subjects.’[155] Our doctrinaires also desired +to do good, not to their own subjects but to the subjects of Nicholas, +but they reckoned without their host. I do not know who hindered +Florestan, but they were hindered by our Florestan. They were drawn into +taking part in all the measures detrimental to Russia and had to +restrict themselves to useless innovations, mere alterations of name and +form. Every head of a department among us thinks it his duty to produce +at intervals a project, an innovation, usually for the worse but +sometimes simply neutral. They thought it necessary for instance to call +the secretary in the governor’s office by a name of purely Russian +origin, while they left the secretary of the provincial office +untranslated into Russian. I remember that the Minister of Justice +brought forward a plan for necessary changes in the uniforms of civil +servants. This scheme opened in a majestic and solemn style: ‘taking +into special consideration the lack of unity, of standard, in the make +and pattern of certain uniforms in the civil department and adopting as +a fundamental principle,’ and so on. + +Possessed by the same mania for reform the Minister of Home Affairs +replaced the rural assessors by police inspectors. The assessors lived +in the towns and used to visit the villages. The police inspectors +sometimes met together in the town but lived permanently in the country. +In this way all the peasants were put under the supervision of the +police and this was done with full knowledge of the predatory, +rapacious, corrupt character of our police officials. Bludov initiated +the policeman into the secrets of the peasants’ industry and wealth, +into their family life, into the affairs of the commune, and in this way +attacked the last stronghold of peasant life. Fortunately our villages +are very many and there are only two police inspectors in a district. + +Almost at the same time the same Bludov had the notion of establishing +provincial newspapers. In Russia, although the government has no regard +for popular education, it has literary pretensions, and while in +England, for instance, there are no official organs, every one of our +departments has its own magazine, and so have the universities and the +academy. We have journals relating to mining, to dry-salting, to marine +affairs, and to means of communication, some in Russian, others in +French or German. All these are published at the government expense; +contracts for literary articles are made with the department exactly as +contracts for fuel and candles, but without competition; there are +plenty of statistics, invented figures and fantastic inferences from +them. After monopolising everything else, the government has now taken +the monopoly of talk and, imposing silence on every one else, has begun +chattering unceasingly. Continuing this system, Bludov commanded every +provincial government to publish its own newspaper, which was to have an +unofficial part for articles on historical, literary, and other +subjects. + +No sooner said than done, and the officials in fifty provinces were +tearing their hair over this unofficial part. Priests of seminary +education, doctors of medicine, high-school teachers, all who could be +suspected of a tinge of culture and ability to spell correctly were +requisitioned. After much reflection and reading over of the _Library of +Good Reading_ and the _Notes of the Fatherland_, with inward tremors and +misgivings, they at last set to work to write articles. + +The desire to see one’s name in print is one of the strongest artificial +passions of this bookish age. Nevertheless it needs favourable +circumstances to induce people to expose their efforts to public +criticism. People who would never have dared to dream of sending their +essays to the _Moscow News_ or to a Petersburg magazine, were ready to +publish them at home. And, meanwhile, the fatal habit of the newspaper +took root. And, indeed, it may not be amiss to have an instrument ready. +The printing press, too, is an unruly member. + +My colleague in the editorship was also a Moscow graduate and of the +same faculty. I have not the heart to speak of him with a smile because +of his sad death, and yet he was an absurd figure up to the end. Though +far from being stupid, he was extraordinarily clumsy and awkward. It +would be hard to find an ugliness not merely so complete but so great, +that is, on so large a scale. His face was half as large again as +ordinary and somehow rugged-looking; a huge fish-like mouth reached to +his ears, white eyelashes did not shade but rather emphasised his pale +grey eyes, his skull was scantily covered with bristling hair, and at +the same time he was a head taller than I was, round-shouldered, and +very untidy in his appearance. + +Even his name was such that a sentry at Vladimir locked him up on +account of it. Late one evening he was walking past the governor’s +house, wrapped up in his overcoat, carrying a pocket telescope; he stood +still and took aim with it at some planet. This perturbed the sentry who +probably regarded stars as public property. ‘Who goes there?’ he shouted +to the motionless stargazer. ‘Nebaba,’[156] answered my friend in a deep +voice, without budging. + +‘Don’t play the fool,’ answered the sentry, offended, ‘I am on duty.’ + +‘But I tell you I am Nebaba.’ + +This was too much for the sentry and he rang his bell; a sergeant +appeared and the sentry handed over the astronomer to be taken to the +guardroom. ‘There they’ll find out whether you are a woman or not.’ He +would certainly have spent the night in custody had not the officer on +duty recognised him. + +One morning Nebaba came to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few +days; he gave a sly, rather appealing smile as he told me this. ‘I shall +not return alone,’ he said hesitatingly. + +‘What, you mean...?’ + +‘Yes, I am actually getting married,’ he said shyly. I marvelled at the +heroic courage of the woman who could bring herself to marry this +good-hearted but monstrously ugly man. But when two or three weeks later +I saw in his house a girl of eighteen, who was not exactly good-looking +but rather prepossessing and with a lively expression in her eyes, I +began to look upon him as a hero. + +Six weeks later I began to notice that things were not going well with +my Quasimodo. He was plunged in dejection, corrected his proofs badly, +did not finish his article on migratory birds, and was gloomily +preoccupied. It did not last long. One day as I was returning home +through the Golden Gate I saw shopmen and boys running to the +churchyard; policemen bustled about. I went with them. + +Nebaba’s dead body was lying by the church wall and beside him a gun. He +had shot himself just opposite the window of his house; the string with +which he had pulled the trigger was still on his foot. The inspector of +the medical board, in well-rounded sentences, assured the bystanders +that the dead man had felt no pain; the police were preparing to take +the body to the police station. + +How savage nature is to some people! What were the feelings in the heart +of the victim before he brought himself to stop with his bit of string +the pendulum that measured for him nothing but humiliations and +misfortunes? And why? Because his father was scrofulous and his mother +lymphatic? That may all be so. But what right have we to expect justice, +to call to account, to ask for reasons from—what? The whirling vortex of +life?... + +At that very time a new chapter in my life was opening, a chapter full +of purity, serenity, youth, earnestness, secluded and bathed in love.... + +It belongs to another volume. + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + Golohvastov, the husband of my father’s younger sister. + +Footnote 2: + + Governor of Moscow in 1812. Believed to have set fire to the city when + the French entered. See Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_.—(_Translator’s + Note._) + +Footnote 3: + + Mortier, duc de Trévise, general under the Revolution and Napoleon. + Killed, 1835, by the infernal machine of Fieschi.—(_Translator’s + Note._) + +Footnote 4: + + Fain, François, Baron (1778–1837), French historian and secretary of + Napoleon. + +Footnote 5: + + Commander-in-chief of the Russian army in 1812. See Tolstoy’s _War and + Peace_.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 6: + + Minister of War and the most powerful and influential man of the reign + of Alexander I., whose intimate friend he was, hated and dreaded for + his cruelty. + +Footnote 7: + + Secretary of State under Alexander I.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 8: + + One of the generals of the campaign of 1812. Military governor-general + of Petersburg at the accession of Nicholas in 1825, and killed in the + rising of December 14th. See Merezhkovsky’s novel, _December the + Fourteenth_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 9: + + Gmelin, Johann Georg (1709–1755), a learned German who travelled in + the East. + +Footnote 10: + + Pallas, Peter Simon (1741–1811), German traveller and naturalist who + explored the Urals, Kirghiz Steppes, Altai mountains, and parts of + Siberia.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 11: + + My father had, besides me, another son ten years older. I was always + fond of him, but he could not be a companion to me. From his twelfth + to his thirtieth year he was always in the hands of the surgeons. + After a series of tortures, endured with extreme fortitude and + rendering his whole existence one intermittent operation, the doctors + declared his disease incurable. His health was shattered; + circumstances and character contributed to the complete ruin of his + life. The pages in which I speak of his lonely and melancholy + existence have been omitted. I do not care to print them without his + consent. + +Footnote 12: + + There were originally four brothers: Pyotr, the grandfather of ‘the + cousin from Kortcheva’ mentioned in Chapter 3; Alexander, the elder + brother here described, who is believed to have been the model from + whom Dostoevsky drew the character of Fyodor Pavlovitch in _The + Brothers Karamazov_; Lyov, always referred to as ‘the Senator,’ and + Ivan, Herzen’s father. Of the sisters one was Elizaveta Alexeyevna + Golohvastov and one was Marya Alexeyevna Hovansky. The family of the + Yakovlyevs was one of the oldest and most aristocratic in + Russia.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 13: + + British Foreign Secretary in 1791, and Prime Minister, 1806 and 1807, + when the Act for the abolition of the slave trade was passed. + +Footnote 14: + + _I.e._, of Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813. ‘At + the court of King Jeremiah’ is a popular phrase equivalent to ‘in the + days of Methuselah.’—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 15: + + Kleinmihel, Minister of Means of Communication under Nicholas I. + +Footnote 16: + + Benckendorf, Chief of Gendarmes, and favourite of Nicholas. See + Merezhkovsky’s _December the Fourteenth_ for character-study. + +Footnote 17: + + Perekusihin, Darya Savishna, favourite of Catherine II.—(_Translator’s + Notes._) + +Footnote 18: + + Father Matthew (1790–1856), Irish priest, who had remarkable success + in a great temperance campaign based on the religious + appeal.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 19: + + Senkovsky, Joseph Ivanovitch (1800–1878), of Polish origin, was a + whimsical critic on the reactionary side who placed a miserable + poetaster, Timofeyev, above Pushkin and preferred Le Sage to Fielding. + Under the pseudonym Baron Brambàeus, he wrote sensational and + bombastic novels. He edited a serial publication the _Library of Good + Reading_, employing poor young men of talent to write for + it.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 20: + + Payment in money or kind by a serf in lieu of labour for his + master.—(_Translater’s Note._) + +Footnote 21: + + _I.e._, clubs or guilds for messing or working + together.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 22: + + _Le Mariage de Figaro_, a satirical comedy by Beaumarchais (_né_ + Caron, 1732–1799), a watchmaker’s son, who rose to wealth and + influence, and by his writings helped to bring about the Revolution. + This play and an earlier one, _Le Barbier de Séville_, became popular + all over Europe, but are now chiefly remembered through their + adaptation to operas by Mozart and Rossini.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 23: + + The famous passage in Racine’s _Phèdre_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 24: + + Mlle. George (1787–1867), French actress famous for her performances + in classical tragedy. + +Footnote 25: + + Mlle. Mars (1779–1847), French actress famous for her acting in + comedies of Molière.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 26: + + The organist and music-teacher, I. I. Eck, spoken of in the _Memoirs + of a Young Man_, did nothing but give music-lessons and had no other + influence. + +Footnote 27: + + The English speak French worse than the Germans, but they only distort + the language, while the Germans degrade it. + +Footnote 28: + + The story is told that on one occasion in his own household, in the + presence, that is, of two or three heads of the secret police, two or + three maids of honour and generals in waiting, he tried his Medusa + glance on his daughter Marya Nikolayevna. She is like her father, and + her eyes really do recall the terrible look in his. The daughter + boldly confronted her father’s stare. The Tsar turned pale, his cheeks + twitched, and his eyes grew still more ferocious; his daughter met him + with the same look in hers. Every one turned pale and trembled; the + maids of honour and the generals in waiting dared not breathe, so + panic-stricken were they at this cannibalistic imperial duel with the + eyes, in the style of that described by Byron in ‘Don Juan.’ Nicholas + got up, he felt that he had met his match. + +Footnote 29: + + The President of the Academy proposed Araktcheyev as an honorary + member. Labzin asked in what the Count’s services to the arts + consisted. The President was at a loss and answered that Araktcheyev + was the man who stood nearest to the Tsar. ‘If that is a sufficient + reason, then I propose his coachman, Ilya Baykov,’ observed the + secretary, ‘he not only stands near the Tsar, but sits in front of + him.’ Labzin was a mystic and the editor of the _Messenger of Zion_; + Alexander himself was a mystic of the same sort, but with the fall of + Golitsyn’s ministry he handed over his former ‘brethren of Christ and + of the inner man’ to Araktcheyev to do with as he pleased. Labzin was + banished to Simbirsk. + +Footnote 30: + + Victor Joseph Étienne de Jouy, a popular French writer + (1764–1846).—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 31: + + The officer, if I am not mistaken, Count Samoylov, had left the army + and was living quietly in Moscow. Nicholas recognised him at the + theatre; fancied that he was dressed with rather elaborate + originality, and expressed the royal desire that such costumes should + be ridiculed on the stage. The theatre director and patriot, Zagoskin, + commissioned one of his actors to represent Samoylov in some + vaudeville. The rumour of this was soon all over the town. When the + performance was over, the real Samoylov went into the director’s box + and asked permission to say a few words to his double. The director + was frightened, but, afraid of a scene, summoned the actor. ‘You have + acted me very well,’ the Count said to him, ‘and the only thing + wanting to complete the likeness is this diamond which I always wear; + allow me to hand it over to you; you will wear it next time you are + ordered to represent me.’ After this Samoylov calmly returned to his + seat. The stupid jest at his expense fell as flat as the proclamation + that Tchaadayev was mad and other august freaks. + +Footnote 32: + + Wife of Camille Desmoulins, who at his execution appealed to the + crowd, was arrested and also executed in 1794.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 33: + + Alibaud attempted to assassinate Louis-Philippe in + 1836.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 34: + + Line from Pushkin’s poem, ‘The Tsar Nikita.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 35: + + People, who knew the Ivashevs well, have since told me that they doubt + this story of the robber, and that, in speaking of the return of the + children and of the brother’s sympathy, I must not omit to mention the + noble conduct of Ivashev’s sisters. I heard the details from one of + them, Mme. Yazykov, who visited her brother in Siberia. But whether + she told me about the robber, I don’t remember. Has not Mme. Ivashev + been mixed up with Princess Trubetskoy, who sent letters and money to + Prince Obolensky through an unknown sectary? Have Ivashev’s letters + been preserved? It seems to us that we ought to have access to them. + +Footnote 36: + + _I.e._, the secret police. + +Footnote 37: + + ‘Cantonists’ were soldiers’ sons educated at the government expense + and afterwards sent into the army.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 38: + + Pestel, leader of the officers in the Southern Army who supported the + attempt to overthrow the autocracy and establish constitutional + government. The other four who were hanged were Ryleyev, Kahovsky, + Bestuzhev-Ryumin, and Muravyov-Apóstol. See Merezhkovsky’s novel, + _December the Fourteenth_, which adheres very closely to the + historical facts. + +Footnote 39: + + Mirovitch in 1762 tried to rescue from the Schlüsselburg the + legitimate heir to the Russian throne, known as Ivan VI., who perished + in the attempt. It is said that Catherine had given orders that he was + to be murdered if any attempt were made to release him. Mirovitch was + beheaded. + +Footnote 40: + + Pugatchov, the Cossack leader of the great rising of the serfs in + 1775.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 41: + + Nicholas’s victory over the Five was celebrated by a religious service + in Moscow. In the midst of the Kremlin the Metropolitan Filaret + thanked God for the murders. The whole of the Royal Family took part + in the service, near them the Senate and the ministers, and in the + immense space around packed masses of the Guards knelt bareheaded, and + also took part in the prayers; cannon thundered from the heights of + the Kremlin. Never have the gallows been celebrated with such pomp; + Nicholas knew the importance of the victory! + + I was present at that service, a boy of fourteen lost in the crowd, + and on the spot, before that altar defiled by bloody rites. I swore to + avenge the murdered men, and dedicated myself to the struggle with + that throne, with that altar, with those cannons. I have not avenged + them, the Guards and the throne, the altar and the cannon all remain, + but for thirty years I have stood under that flag and have never once + deserted it.—(_Polar Star_, 1855.) + +Footnote 42: + + Paul’s mistress, the daughter of Lopuhin, the chief of the Moscow + Police, better known under her married name as Princess + Gagarin.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 43: + + The date when the Polish rebellion broke out.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 44: + + Tatyana Kutchin, known in Russian literature under her married name, + Passek. She wrote _Memoirs_, which throw interesting sidelights on + Herzen’s narrative.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 45: + + Originally a convent, this was a famous girls’ school founded by + Catherine II.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 46: + + Heinrich Zschokke (1771–1848), wrote in German _Tales of Swiss Life_, + in five vols., and also dramas—as well as a religious work _Stunden + der Andacht_, in eight vols., which was widely read up to the middle + of the nineteenth century and attacked for ascribing more importance + to religious feeling than to orthodox belief.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 47: + + Translated by Juliet Soskice. + +Footnote 48: + + One of the leaders of the Decembrists.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 49: + + Biron, favourite of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, was by her made + practically ruler of Russia during her reign and designated as + successor by her.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 50: + + Joseph II. of Austria paid a famous visit to Catherine II. of Russia + in 1780.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 51: + + Karamzin (1766–1826), author of a great _History of the Russian + State_, and also of novels in the sentimental romantic style of his + period. + +Footnote 52: + + In the _Philosophische Briefe_. + +Footnote 53: + + See the _Tagebuch_ of Bettina von Arnim for the account of her famous + first interview with Goethe.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 54: + + Schiller’s poetry has not lost its influence on me. A few months ago I + read _Wallenstein_, that titanic work, aloud to my son. The man who + has lost his taste for Schiller has grown old or pedantic, has grown + hard or forgotten himself. What is one to say of these precocious + _altkluge Burschen_ who know his defects so well at seventeen? + +Footnote 55: + + Written in 1853. + +Footnote 56: + + Translated by Juliet Soskice. + +Footnote 57: + + The hero of _La Vie du Chevalier de Faublas_ (1787), by Louvet de + Couvray, is the type of the effeminate rake and fashionable exquisite + of the period.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 58: + + Beaumarchais, author of _Le Barbier de Séville_ and _Le Mariage de + Figaro_. + +Footnote 59: + + Casti (1721–1803), an Italian poet, ‘attached by habit and taste to + the polished and frivolous society of the _ancien regime_, his + sympathies were nevertheless liberal,’ satirised Catherine II. and, + when exiled on that account from Vienna, had the spirit to resign his + Austrian pension. The _Talking Animals_, a satire on the predominance + of the foreigner in political life, is his best work. The influence of + his poems on Byron is apparent in ‘Don Juan.’—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 60: + + Gonzaga was a Venetian painter who came to Petersburg in 1792 to paint + scenery for the Court Theatre. He planned the celebrated park at + Pavlovsk. + +Footnote 61: + + Derzhavin, Gavril Romanovitch (1743–1816), was poet-laureate to + Catherine II., and wrote numerous patriotic and a few other odes. + +Footnote 62: + + Krylov, Ivan Andreyevitch (1768–1844), was a very popular writer of + fables in verse.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 63: + + Marmontel (1723–1799), author of the _Contes Moraux_ and other + stories. + +Footnote 64: + + Marivaux (1688–1763), author of numerous plays and a novel called + _Marianne_—all distinguished by an excessive refinement of sentiment + and language. + +Footnote 65: + + Shalikov and V. Panaev were insignificant writers of the early part of + the eighteenth century.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 66: + + Arapov (1796–1861) wrote some twenty plays, but is chiefly remembered + for the _Chronicle of the Russian Theatre_ (published after his + death), a chronological record of everything performed on the Russian + stage up to 1825. + +Footnote 67: + + I. I. Dmitriev (1760–1837) wrote a number of fables and songs, of + which ‘The Little Dove’ is the best known. He was a great patron of + young literary men, and in 1810 was made Minister of Justice. + +Footnote 68: + + Vassily Lvovitch Pushkin, a minor poet, uncle of the famous + Pushkin.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 69: + + The uniform of the secret police of which Benckendorf was head was + light blue with a white strap. + +Footnote 70: + + See later, Appendix to Chapter 7 for a full account of this. + +Footnote 71: + + The Kritsky brothers were said to have broken a bust of the Tsar at a + drinking party.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 72: + + By the way, here is another of the fatherly measures of the ‘never to + be forgotten’ Nicholas. Foundling hospitals and the regulations for + their public inspection are among the best monuments of the reign of + Catherine. The very idea of maintaining hospitals, almshouses, and + orphan asylums on part of the percentage made by the loan banks from + the investment of their capital is remarkably intelligent. + + These institutions were accepted, the banks and the regulations + enriched them, the foundling hospitals and almshouses flourished so + far as the universal thievishness of officials permitted them. Of the + children brought into the Foundling Hospital some remained in it, + while others were put out to be brought up by peasant-women in the + country; the latter remained peasants, while the former were brought + up in the institution itself. The more gifted among them were picked + out to continue the high-school course, while the less promising were + taught trades or sent to the Institute of Technology. It was the same + with the girls. Some were trained in handicrafts, others as children’s + nurses, while the cleverest became schoolmistresses and governesses. + But Nicholas dealt a terrible blow to this institution, too. It is + said that the Empress on one occasion, meeting in the house of one of + her friends the children’s governess, entered into conversation with + her and, being very much pleased with her, inquired where she had been + brought up, to which the young woman answered, the Foundling Hospital. + Any one would suppose that the Empress would be grateful to the + government for it. No—it gave her occasion to reflect on the + _impropriety_ of giving such an education to abandoned children. + + A few months later Nicholas transferred the higher classes of the + Foundling Hospital to the Officers’ Institute, _i.e._ commanded that + the foundlings should no longer be put in these classes, but replaced + them with the children of officers. He even thought of a more radical + measure, he forbade the provincial institutions in their regulations + to accept new-born infants. The best commentary on this intelligent + measure is to be found in the records of the Minister of Justice under + the heading ‘Infanticide.’ + +Footnote 73: + + Immense progress has been made in this respect. All that I have heard + of late of the theological Academies, and even of the Seminaries + confirms it. I need hardly say that it is not the ecclesiastical + authorities but the spirit of the pupils that is responsible for this + improvement. + +Footnote 74: + + Griboyedov’s famous comedy, which appeared and had a large circulation + in manuscript copies in 1824, its performance and publication being + prevented by the Censorship. When performed later it was in a very + mutilated form. It was a lively satire on Moscow society and full of + references to well-known persons, such as Izmailov and Tolstoy ‘the + American.’ Griboyedov was imprisoned in 1825 in connection with the + Fourteenth of December.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 75: + + Stanislav Leszcynski, king of Poland from 1702 to 1709. His daughter + Maria was married to Louis XV. of France.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 76: + + Lalande (1732–1807), a French astronomer connected with the theory of + the planets of Mercury. + +Footnote 77: + + Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), French naturalist and author of + many books on zoology and biology—in which, in opposition to Cuvier, + he advanced the theory of the variation of species under the influence + of environment. + +Footnote 78: + + Oken, German naturalist, who aimed at deducing a system of natural + philosophy from _à priori_ propositions, and incidentally threw off + some valuable and suggestive ideas.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 79: + + At that time there were none of the inspectors and subinspectors who + played the part of my Pyotr Fyodorovitch in the lecture-room. + +Footnote 80: + + A pun on the name—the phrase meaning also ‘Nine all but a + little.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 81: + + Merzlyakov, a critic and translator of some merit.—(_Translator’s + Note._) + +Footnote 82: + + Abencerrages, a Moorish family, on the legend of whose tragic fate in + Granada, Chateaubriand founded his romance _Les Aventures du Dernier + des Abencérages_. + +Footnote 83: + + Tredyakovsky (1703–1769), son of a priest at Astrakhan, is said, like + Lomonossov, to have walked to Moscow in pursuit of learning. He was + the author of inferior poems, but did great service to Russian culture + by his numerous translations. He was the first to write in Russian as + spoken. + +Footnote 84: + + Kostrov (1750–1796), a peasant’s son and a seminarist, wrote in + imitation of Derzhavin, but is better known for his translations of + the Iliad, Apuleius and Ossian. + +Footnote 85: + + Heraskov (1733–1807), author of an immense number of poems in + pseudo-classic style. Wiener says ‘they now appal us with their inane + voluminousness.’ But readers of Turgenev will remember how greatly + they were admired by Punin. The best known of his epics is the + Rossiad, dealing with Ivan the Terrible. + +Footnote 86: + + Knyazhnin (1742–1791) wrote numerous tragedies and comedies, chiefly + adaptations from the French or Italian, and of no literary + merit.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 87: + + Byelinsky, Vissarion Grigoryevitch (1810–1848), was the greatest of + Russian critics. See later, Chapter 25, Vol. II., for an account of + him. + +Footnote 88: + + Kavelin (1818–1855), a writer of brilliant articles on political and + economical questions. Friend of Turgenev. + +Footnote 89: + + Pirogov (1810–1881), the great surgeon and medical authority, was + the first in Russia to investigate disease by experiments on + animals, and to use anæsthetics for operations. He took an active + part in education and the reforms of the early years of Alexander + II.’s reign, and published many treatises on medical subjects. To + his genius and influence as Professor of Medicine in Petersburg + University is largely due the very high standard of medical training + in Russia.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 90: + + Glinka, author of patriotic verses of no merit. Referred to as ‘the + officer’ by Pushkin in a poem.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 91: + + How diversely Humboldt’s travels were understood in Russia may be + gathered from the account of an Ural Cossack who served in the office + of the Governor of Perm; he liked to describe how he had escorted the + mad Prussian Prince, Gumplot. What did he do? ‘Just the same silly + things, collecting grasses, looking at the sand; at Solontchaki he + said to me, through the interpreter, ‘Go into the water and get what’s + at the bottom’; well, I got just what is usually at the bottom, and he + asks, ‘Is the water very cold at the bottom?’ ‘No, my lad,’ I thought, + ‘you won’t catch me.’ So I drew myself up at attention, and answered, + ‘When it’s our duty, your Highness, it’s of no consequence, we are + glad to do our best.’ + +Footnote 92: + + Homyakov. See later, Chapter 30, for Herzen’s account of this leader + of the Slavophil movement.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 93: + + Pic-de-la-Mirandole (1463–1494), a learned Italian who was the most + famous of all infant prodigies, a mediæval ‘Admirable + Crichton.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 94: + + Ledru-Rollin (1808–1874), member of the French Provisional Government + of 1848, and one of the earliest advocates of universal adult + suffrage.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 95: + + Catherine II., born a German princess, rose to be Empress of Russia + through the murder—by her orders or with her connivance—of her + husband, Peter III., to the great advantage of the country. + +Footnote 96: + + Mrs. Radcliffe (1764–1823) wrote many stories, _The Mysteries of + Udolpho_ and _The Italians_ being the best known. All largely turn on + mysterious haunted castles, and had great vogue in their + day.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 97: + + Manuel (J. A.), a man of great independence and honesty, was expelled + from the Chambre des Députés for his opposition to the war with Spain + in 1823. + +Footnote 98: + + Dupont de l’Eure (J. C.), a leader in the revolution of 1830, was + afterwards president of the Provisional Government in 1848. + +Footnote 99: + + Armand Carrel (1800–1836), as editor of _Le National_, offered + spirited opposition to Charles X., as well as to aggressive acts of + the government of Louis-Philippe.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 100: + + Here is what Denis Davydov[101] tells in his Memoirs: + + ‘The Tsar said one day to A. P. Yermolov: “I was once in a very + terrible position during the Polish War. My wife was expecting her + confinement, the mutiny had broken out in Novgorod, I had only two + squadrons of Horse Guards left me; the news from the army only reached + me through Königsberg. I was forced to surround myself with soldiers + discharged from hospital.”’ + + The Memoirs of this general of partisans leave no room for doubt that + Nicholas, like Araktcheyev, like all cold-hearted, cruel and + revengeful people, was a coward. Here is what General Tchetchensky + told Davydov: ‘You know that I can appreciate manliness and so you + will believe my words. I was near the Tsar on the 14th December, and I + watched him all the time. I can assure you on my honour that the Tsar, + who was very pale all the time, had his heart in his boots.’ + + And again Davydov himself tells us: ‘During the riot in the Haymarket, + the Tsar only visited the capital on the second day when order was + restored. The Tsar was at Peterhof, and himself observed casually, “I + was standing all day with Volkonsky on a mound in the garden, + listening for the sound of cannon-shot from the direction of + Petersburg.” Instead of anxiously listening in the garden, and + continually sending couriers to Petersburg,’ added Davydov, ‘he ought + to have hastened there himself; any one of the least manliness would + have done so. On the following day (when everything was quiet) the + Tsar rode in his carriage into the crowd, which filled the square, and + shouted to it, “On your knees!” and the crowd hurriedly obeyed the + order. The Tsar, seeing several people dressed in parti-coloured + clothes (among those following the carriage), imagined that they were + suspicious characters, and ordered the poor wretches to be taken to + the lock-up and, turning to the people, began shouting: “They are all + wretched Poles, they have egged you on.” Such an ill-timed sally + completely ruined the effect in my opinion.’ + + A strange sort of bird was this Nicholas! + +Footnote 101: + + Davydov (see Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_) and Yermolov were both leaders + of the partisan or guerilla warfare against the French in + 1812.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 102: + + And where are the Kritskys? What had they done? Who tried them? For + what were they condemned? + +Footnote 103: + + _I.e._, Tatyana Kutchin, the ‘cousin from Kortcheva,’ mentioned in + Chapter 3.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 104: + + Venevitinov, a young poet whose few poems showed the greatest promise. + He died at the age of seventeen. + +Footnote 105: + + The members of the Petrashevsky group, of whom Dostoevsky was one, + were condemned to death, and led out to the scaffold. At the last + moment their sentence was transmuted to penal servitude in + Siberia.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 106: + + _I.e._, of supervision by the secret police, whose light-blue uniform + was worn with a white strap.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 107: + + The dynasty of kings of Poland from 1386 to 1572. + +Footnote 108: + + Karl Sand, a student of Jena University, who in 1819 assassinated the + German dramatist Kotzebue, because he threw ridicule on the + Burschenschaft movement.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 109: + + In 1844, I met Perevoshtchikov at Shtchepkin’s and sat beside him at + dinner. Towards the end he could not resist saying: ‘It is a pity, a + very great pity, that circumstances prevented you from taking up work, + you had excellent abilities.’ + + ‘But you know it’s not for every one to follow you up to heaven. We + are busy here on earth at work of some sort.’ + + ‘Upon my word, to be sure that may be work of a sort. Hegelian + philosophy perhaps. I have read your articles, there is no + understanding them; bird’s language, that’s queer sort of work. No, + indeed!’ + + For a long while I was amused at this verdict, that is, for a long + while I could not understand that our language really was poor; if it + were a bird’s, it must have been the bird that was Minerva’s + favourite. + +Footnote 110: + + Among the papers sent me from Moscow, I found a note in which I + informed my cousin who was in the country that I had taken my degree. + ‘The examination is over, and I am a graduate! You cannot imagine the + sweet feeling of freedom after four years of work. Did you think of me + on Thursday? It was a stifling day, and the torture lasted from nine + in the morning till nine in the evening.’ (26th June 1833.) I fancy I + added two hours for effect or to round off the sentence. But for all + my pleasure, my vanity was stung by another student’s winning the gold + medal. In a second letter of the 6th July, I find: ‘To-day was the + prizegiving, but I was not there. I did not care to be second at the + giving of the medals.’ + +Footnote 111: + + St. Just was a member of the Convention and the Committee of Public + Safety, a follower of Robespierre and beheaded with him at the age of + twenty-seven. + +Footnote 112: + + Hoche and Marceau were generals of the French Revolutionary Army. Both + were engaged in the pacification of La Vendée. Both perished before + reaching the age of thirty. + +Footnote 113: + + Desmoulins was one of the early leaders of the French Revolution, and + headed the attack on the Bastille; afterwards accused of being a + Moderate and beheaded together with Danton at the age of thirty-four. + +Footnote 114: + + Escousse (b. 1813) and Lebras (b. 1816) were poets who wrote in + collaboration a successful play, _Farruck le Maure_, followed by + an unsuccessful one called _Raymond_. On the failure of the latter + they committed suicide in 1832. Béranger wrote a poem on + them.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 115: + + _I.e._, Nikolay Pavlovitch Golohvastov, the younger of the two sons of + a sister of Herzen’s father. These two sons are fully described in + Vol. II. Chapter 31.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 116: + + This is the earliest record of Russian history. It begins with the + Deluge and continues in leisurely fashion up to the year 1110. Nestor, + of whom nothing is really known, is assumed to have been a monk of the + twelfth century.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 117: + + Enfantin, a French engineer, was one of the founders of + Saint-Simonism.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 118: + + Familiar to all English school-girls of the last generation in the + French as _La Jeune Sibérienne_ by Xavier de Maistre. I cannot + discover whether the Russian version is the original and the French + the translation or vice versa.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 119: + + Translated by Juliet Soskice. + +Footnote 120: + + J. S. Bailly (1736–1793), one of the early leaders of the French + revolution, and an astronomer and literary man of some distinction, + was Mayor of Paris after the taking of the Bastille, and executed in + 1793. + +Footnote 121: + + Fieschi, the celebrated conspirator, executed in 1836 for + the attempt with an ‘infernal machine’ on the life of + Louis-Philippe.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 122: + + The League of Public Welfare was formed in the reign of Alexander I. + to support philanthropic undertakings and education, to improve the + administration of justice, and to promote the economical welfare of + the country. The best men in Russia belonged to it. At first approved + by Alexander, it was afterwards repressed, and it split into the + ‘Union of the North,’ which aimed at establishing constitutional + government, and the ‘Union of the South’ led by Pestel, which aimed at + republicanism. The two Unions combined in the attempt of December the + Fourteenth.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 123: + + See Gogol’s _Dead Souls_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 124: + + A character in Gogol’s _Dead Souls_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 125: + + Philip Wouverman (1619–1668), a Dutch master who excelled in drinking + and hunting scenes. + +Footnote 126: + + Jacques Callot (1592–1635), a French painter and + engraver.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 127: + + The epithet in the last line is left to the imagination in Russian + also.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 128: + + Among those who have distinguished themselves in this line of late + years is the notorious Liprandi, who drew up a scheme for founding an + Academy of Espionage (1858). + +Footnote 129: + + I need not say that this was a barefaced lie, a shameful police trap. + +Footnote 130: + + Marlinsky (pseudonym for Bestuzhev) (1795–1837), author of numerous + tales, extremely romantic in style and subject. Readers of Turgenev + will remember that he was the favourite author of the hero of _Knock, + Knock, Knock_. + +Footnote 131: + + Zagoskin (1789–1852), author of popular historical novels, sentimental + and patriotic.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 132: + + The _Prisoner of the Caucasus_, _Voynarovsky_, and the _Fountain of + Bahtchisaray_ are poems of Pushkin’s. The line quoted is from the last + of the three.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 133: + + The Votyaks are a Mongolian tribe, found in Siberia and Eastern + Russia.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 134: + + Jean-Baptiste Carrier (1756–1794) was responsible for the _noyades_ + and massacre of 1600 people at Nantes, while suppressing the + counter-revolutionary rising of La Vendée.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 135: + + Pun on the Russian word for ‘translate,’ which also means ‘transfer + from place to place.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 136: + + In 1802, Alexander I. ordered a report to be sent him concerning the + management by Major-General Izmailov of the latter’s estates in Tula, + where serfs were tortured and imprisoned by their owner on the + slightest provocation. By the connivance of the local authorities, + Izmailov was able to retain control and persist in his brutal + practices till 1830. Even then he was only punished by being deprived + of the management of his estates and interned in a small town. Both + Izmailov and Tolstoy ‘the American’ are referred to in Griboyedov’s + famous play, _Woe from Wit_. + +Footnote 137: + + Mamonov was one of the lovers of Catherine II., declared insane for + having married against her wishes.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +Footnote 138: + + Minih was a minister and general prominent under Peter the Great and + Anna. On the latter’s death he brought about the downfall of Biron, + was exiled by Elizabeth, and finally brought back from Siberia by + Catherine.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 139: + + Simon Konarski, a Polish revolutionary, also active in the ‘Young + Europe’ (afterwards ‘Young Italy’) movement, lived in disguise and + with a false passport in Poland, founding a printing press and + carrying on active propaganda till he was caught and shot at Vilna in + 1839. His admirers cut the post to which he was tied into bits which + they preserved as relics of a saint.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 140: + + Speransky, a leading statesman of the early period of the reign of + Alexander I., banished in 1812 on a trumped-up charge of treason, + recalled by Nicholas. He was responsible for the codification of + Russian laws. See Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_ for sketch of + him.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 141: + + This gave Count Rastoptchin occasion for a biting jest at Pestel’s + expense. They were both dining with the Tsar. The Tsar, who was + standing at the window, asked: ‘What’s that on the church, the black + thing on the cross?’ ‘I can’t distinguish,’ observed Count + Rastoptchin. ‘You must ask Boris Ivanovitch, he has wonderful eyes, he + sees from here what is being done in Siberia.’ + +Footnote 142: + + I see with great pleasure that the New York papers have several times + repeated this. + +Footnote 143: + + Seslavin was a famous leader of the guerilla warfare against Napoleon + in 1812.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 144: + + An epigram of Pushkin’s contains the two lines:— + + ‘“I’ll buy all,” said Gold. + “I’ll take all,” said Steel.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 145: + + All their prayers may be reduced to a petition for the continuance of + their race, for their crops, and the preservation of their herds. + + ‘May Yumala grant that from one sheep may be born two, from one grain + may come five, that my children may have children.’ + + There is something miserable and gloomy, the survival from ancient + times of oppression, in this lack of confidence in life on earth, and + daily bread. The devil (Shaitan) is regarded as equal to God. I saw a + terrible fire in a village, in which the inhabitants were mixed + Russian and Votyak. The Russians were hard at work shouting and + dragging out their things, the tavern-keeper was particularly + conspicuous among them. It was impossible to check the fire, but it + was easy at first to save things. The Votyaks were huddled together on + a little hill, weeping copiously and doing nothing. + +Footnote 146: + + A similar reply (if Kurbanovsky did not invent this one) was made by + peasants in Germany when refusing to be converted to Catholicism. + +Footnote 147: + + Cyril and Methodius were brothers who in the ninth century evangelised + in Thrace, Moesia and Moravia, invented the Slav alphabet, and made a + Slav translation of the Bible. They are saints of both the Greek and + the Catholic Churches.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 148: + + In the Province of Vyatka the peasants are particularly fond of + forming new settlements. Very often three or four clearings are + suddenly discovered in the forest. The immense waste lands and forests + (now half cut down) tempt the peasants to take this _res nullius_ + which is left unused. The Minister of Finance has several times been + obliged to confirm these squatters in possession of the land. + +Footnote 149: + + Zhukovsky (1786–1852), the well-known poet, was tutor to the + Tsarevitch, afterwards Alexander II. He was a man of fine and + generous character. His original work is not of the first order, + but as a translator from the European and classical languages he + was of invaluable service in the development of Russian + culture.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 150: + + Leroux, a follower of Saint Simon, of the first half of the nineteenth + century.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 151: + + Gebel, a well-known musical composer of the period. + +Footnote 152: + + I thought fit, I don’t understand why, to write these scenes in verse. + Probably I thought that anybody could write unrhymed five-foot + iambics, since even Pogodin[153] wrote them. In 1839 or 1840, I gave + both the manuscripts to Byelinsky to read and calmly awaited his + eulogies. But next day Byelinsky sent them back to me with a note in + which he said: ‘Do please have them copied to run on without being + divided into lines, then I will read them with pleasure, as it is I am + bothered all the time by the idea of their being in verse.’ + + Byelinsky killed both my dramatic efforts. It is always pleasant to + pay one’s debts. In 1841, Byelinsky published a long dialogue upon + literature in the _Notes of the Fatherland_. ‘How do you like my last + article?’ he asked me, as we were dining together _en petit comité_ at + Dusseau’s. ‘Very much,’ I answered, ‘all that you say is excellent, + but tell me, please, how could you go on struggling for two hours to + talk to that man without seeing at the first word that he was a fool?’ + ‘That’s perfectly true,’ said Byelinsky, bursting into laughter. + ‘Well, my boy, that is crushing! Why, he is a perfect fool!’ + +Footnote 153: + + Pogodin, chiefly known as an historian of a peculiar Slavophil tinge, + was co-editor with Shevyryov of the _Moskvityanin_, a reactionary + journal, and wrote historical novels of little merit.—(_Translator’s + Note._) + +Footnote 154: + + The reference is to the ‘Arzamass,’ a literary club of which Karamzin, + Batyushkov, Uvarov, this Bludov and some others were members. The town + Arzamass is noted for its geese.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +Footnote 155: + + _Il a voulu le bien de ses sujets._ + +Footnote 156: + + The name means ‘not a woman.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + Page Changed from Changed to + + 160 they used to keep them for going they used to keep them for going + walks, that strangers on walks, that strangers + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last + chapter. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76599 *** diff --git a/76599-h/76599-h.htm b/76599-h/76599-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5376488 --- /dev/null +++ b/76599-h/76599-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15461 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, I | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + body { margin-left: 8%; 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KNOPF</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div><span class='small'>PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>T. & A. CONSTABLE LTD. EDINBURGH</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>*</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>ALL RIGHTS</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>RESERVED</span></div> + <div class='c005'><span class='small'>FIRST PUBLISHED 1924</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>TRANSLATOR’S NOTE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>A few words about Herzen’s parentage will +make his narrative more intelligible to the +English reader. Herzen’s father, Ivan Yakovlyev, +was a very wealthy nobleman belonging to one of +the most aristocratic families of Russia. In 1811, +at the age of forty-two, he married (so Brückner +tells us in his <cite>History of Russian Literature</cite>) at +Stuttgart a girl of sixteen, whose name was +Henriette Haag, though she was always in Russia +called Luise Ivanovna, as easier to pronounce. As +he neglected to repeat the marriage ceremony in +Russia, their son was there illegitimate. Yakovlyev +is said to have given him the surname Herzen, +because he was the ‘child of his heart.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> +<colgroup> +<col class='colwidth85'> +<col class='colwidth14'> +</colgroup> + <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>PART I</td></tr> + <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>NURSERY & UNIVERSITY</td></tr> + <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>(1812–1835)</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER I:—My Nurse and the <em>Grande Armée</em>—The Fire of Moscow—My Father with Napoleon—General Ilovaisky—Travelling with the French Prisoners—The Patriotism of C. Calot—The Common Management of the Property—Dividing it—The Senator</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_1'>1</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER II:—The Talk of Nurses and of Generals—False Position—Russian Encyclopaedists—Boredom—The Maids’ Room and the Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons and Reading—The Catechism and the Gospel</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER III:—The Death of Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span> and the Fourteenth of December—Moral Awakening—The Terrorist Bouchot—My Kortcheva Cousin</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER IV:—Nick and the Sparrow Hills</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER V:—Details of Home Life—Eighteenth-Century People in Russia—A Day in our House—Visitors and <em>Habitués</em>—Sonnenberg—The Valet and Others</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER VI:—The Kremlin Department—Moscow University—Our Set—The Chemist—The Malov Affair—The Cholera—Filaret—V. Passek—General Lissovsky—The Sungurov Affair</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER VII:—The End of My Studies—The Schiller Period—Early Youth and Bohemianism—Saint-Simonism and N. Polevoy</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>APPENDIX:—A. Polezhaev</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>PART II</td></tr> + <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>PRISON & EXILE</td></tr> + <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>(1834–1838)</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER VIII:—A Prediction—Ogaryov’s Arrest—A Fire—A Moscow Liberal—M. F. Orlov—The Graveyard</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER IX:—Arrest—An Impartial Witness—The Office of the Pretchistensky Police Station—A Patriarchal Judge</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER X:—Under the Watch Tower—The Lisbon Policeman—The Incendiaries</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XI:—Krutitsky Barracks—Gendarmes’ Tales—Officers</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XII:—The Investigation—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn Junior—General Staal—Sokolovsky—Sentence</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XIII:—Exile—The Mayor at Pokrovo—The Volga—Perm</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XIV:—Vyatka—The Office and Dining-Room of His Excellency—K. Y. Tyufyaev</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XV:—Officials—Siberian Governors-General—A Rapacious Police-Master—An Accommodating Judge—A Roasted Police-Captain—A Tatar Missionary—A Boy of the Female Sex—The Potato Terror, etc.</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XVI:—Alexander Lavrentyevitch Vitberg</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XVII:—The Tsarevitch at Vyatka—The Fall of Tyufyaev—I am transferred to Vladimir—The Police-Captain at the Posting-Station</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_344'>344</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>CHAPTER XVIII:—The Beginning of my Life at Vladimir</td> + <td class='c010'><em>page <a href='#Page_356'>356</a></em></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> + <h2 class='c006'>PART I<br> <span class='c011'>NURSERY & UNIVERSITY<br> (1812–1835)</span></h2> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c012'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘<em>When memories of the past return</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>And the old road again we tread,</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Slowly the passions of old days</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Come back to life within the soul;</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Old griefs and joys are here unchanged,</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Again the once familiar thrill</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Stirs echoes in the troubled heart;</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>And for remembered woes we sigh.</em>’</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>Ogaryov</span>: Humorous Verse.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>Chapter 1<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>My Nurse and the <em>Grande Armée</em>—The Fire of Moscow—My Father with Napoleon—General Ilovaisky—Travelling with the French Prisoners—The Patriotism of C. Calot—The Common Management of the Property—Dividing it—The Senator</span></span></h3> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>‘Vera Artamonovna, come tell me again how +the French came to Moscow,’ I used to say, +rolling myself up in the quilt and stretching in my crib, +which was sewn round with linen that I might not fall +out.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh! what’s the use of telling you, you’ve heard it +so many times, besides it’s time to go to sleep; you had +better get up a little earlier to-morrow,’ the old woman +would usually answer, although she was as eager to repeat +her favourite story as I was to hear it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But do tell me a little bit. How did you find out, +how did it begin?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘This was how it began. You know what your papa +is—he is always putting things off; he was getting +ready and getting ready, and much use it was! Every +<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>one was saying “It’s time to set off; it’s time to go; +what is there to wait for, there’s no one left in the town.” +But no, Pavel Ivanovitch<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c015'><sup>[1]</sup></a> and he kept talking of how they +would go together, and first one wasn’t ready and then +the other. At last we were packed and the carriage was +ready; the family sat down to lunch, when all at once +our head cook ran into the dining-room as pale as a sheet, +and announced: “The enemy has marched in at the +Dragomilovsky Gate.” Our hearts did sink. “The +power of the Cross be with us!” we cried. Everything +was upside down. While we were bustling about, +sighing and groaning, we looked and down the street +came galloping dragoons in such helmets with horses’ +tails streaming behind. The gates had all been closed, +and here was your papa left behind for a treat and you +with him; your wet nurse Darya still had you at the +breast, you were so weak and delicate.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And I smiled with pride, pleased that I had taken part +in the war.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘At the beginning we got along somehow, for the +first few days, that is; it was only that two or three +soldiers would come in and ask by signs whether there +was something to drink; we would take them a glass +each, to be sure, and they would go away and touch their +caps to us, too. But then, you see, when fires began +and kept getting worse and worse, there was such +disorder, plundering and all sorts of horrors. At that +time we were living in the lodge at the Princess Anna +Borissovna’s and the house caught fire; then Pavel +Ivanovitch said, “Come to me, my house is built of +brick, it stands far back in the courtyard and the walls +are thick.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So we went, masters and servants all together, there +was no difference made; we went out into the Tverskoy +<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>Boulevard and the trees were beginning to burn—we +made our way at last to the Golohvastovs’ house and it +was simply blazing, flames from every window. Pavel +Ivanovitch was dumbfoundered, he could not believe his +eyes. Behind the house there is a big garden, you know; +we went into it thinking we should be safe there. We +sat there on the seats grieving, when, all at once, a mob of +drunken soldiers were upon us; one fell on Pavel Ivanovitch, +trying to pull off his travelling coat; the old man +would not give it up, the soldier pulled out his sword and +struck him on the face with it so that he kept the scar to +the end of his days; the others set upon us, one soldier +tore you from your nurse, opened your baby-clothes to +see if there were any money-notes or diamonds hidden +among them, saw there was nothing there, and so the +scamp purposely tore your clothes and flung them down. +As soon as they had gone away, we were in trouble again. +Do you remember our Platon who was sent for a soldier? +He was dreadfully fond of drink and was very much +exhilarated that day; he tied on a sabre and walked about +like that. The day before the enemy entered, Count +Rastoptchin<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c015'><sup>[2]</sup></a> had distributed all sorts of weapons at the +arsenal; so that was how he had got hold of a sabre. +Towards the evening he saw a dragoon ride into the yard; +there was a horse standing near the stable, the dragoon +wanted to take it, but Platon rushed headlong at him and, +catching hold of the bridle, said: “The horse is ours, I +won’t give it you.” The dragoon threatened him with +a pistol, but we could see it was not loaded; the master +himself saw what was happening and shouted to Platon: +“Let the horse alone, it’s not your business.” But not +a bit of it! Platon pulled out his sabre and struck the +man on the head, and he staggered, and Platon struck him +<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>again and again. “Well,” thought we, “now the hour +of our death is come; when his comrades see him, it will +be the end of us.” But when the dragoon fell off, Platon +seized him by the feet and dragged him to a pit full of +mortar and threw him in, poor fellow, although he was +still alive; his horse stood there and did not stir from the +place, but stamped its foot on the ground as though it +understood; our servants shut it in the stable; it must +have been burnt there. We all hurried out of the +courtyard, the fire was more and more dreadful; worn +out and with nothing to eat, we got into a house that was +still untouched, and flung ourselves down to rest; in +less than an hour, our people were shouting from the +street: “Come out, come out! Fire! Fire!” Then +I took a piece of green baize from the billiard table and +wrapped you in it to keep you from the night air; and +so we made our way as far as the Tverskoy Square. +There the French were putting the fire out, because +some great man of theirs was living in the governor’s +house; we sat simply in the street; sentries were walking +everywhere, others were riding by on horseback. And +you were screaming, straining yourself with crying, your +nurse had no more milk, no one had a bit of bread. +Natalya Konstantinovna was with us then, a wench of +spirit, you know; she saw that some soldiers were eating +something in a corner, took you and went straight to +them, showed you and said “<em>mangé</em> for the little one”; +at first they looked at her so sternly and said “<em>allez, +allez</em>,” but she fell to scolding them. “Ah, you cursed +brutes,” said she, “you this and that”; the soldiers did +not understand a word, but they burst out laughing and +gave her some bread soaked in water for you and a crust +for herself. Early in the morning an officer came up +and gathered together all the men and your papa with +them, leaving only the women and Pavel Ivanovitch who +was wounded, and took them to put out the fire in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>houses near by, so we remained alone till evening; we +sat and cried and that was all. When it was dusk, the +master came back and with him an officer....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Allow me to take the old woman’s place and continue +her narrative. When my father had finished his duties +as a fire-brigade man, he met by the Strastny monastery +a squadron of Italian cavalry; he went up to their officer +and told him in Italian the position in which his family +was placed. When the Italian heard <em>la sua dolce favella</em> +he promised to speak to the duc de Trévise,<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c015'><sup>[3]</sup></a> and as a +preliminary measure to put a sentry to guard us and +prevent barbarous scenes such as had taken place in the +Golohvastovs’ garden. He sent an officer to accompany +my father with these instructions. Hearing that the +whole party had eaten nothing for two days, the officer +led us all to a shop that had been broken into; the +choicest tea and Levant coffee had been thrown about on +the floor, together with a great number of dates, figs, +and almonds; our servants stuffed their pockets full, +and had plenty of dessert anyway. The sentry turned +out to be of the greatest use to us: a dozen times +gangs of soldiers began molesting the luckless group +of women and servants encamped in the corner of +Tverskoy Square, but they moved off immediately at his +command.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Mortier remembered that he had known my father +in Paris and informed Napoleon; Napoleon ordered +him to present himself next morning. In a shabby, dark +blue, short coat with bronze buttons, intended for +sporting wear, without his wig, in high boots that had +not been cleaned for several days, with dirty linen and +unshaven chin, my father—who worshipped decorum +and strict etiquette—made his appearance in the throne +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>room of the Kremlin Palace at the summons of the +Emperor of the French.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Their conversation which I have heard many times +is fairly correctly given in Baron Fain’s<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c015'><sup>[4]</sup></a> <cite>History</cite> and in +that of Mihailovsky-Danilevsky.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the usual phrases, abrupt words and laconic +remarks, to which a deep meaning was ascribed for +thirty-five years, till men realised that their meaning +was often quite trivial, Napoleon blamed Rastoptchin +for the fire, said that it was Vandalism, declared as usual +his invincible love of peace, maintained that his war +was against England and not against Russia, boasted that +he had set a guard on the Foundling Hospital and +the Uspensky Cathedral, complained of Alexander, said +that he was surrounded by bad advisers and that his +(Napoleon’s) peaceful dispositions were not made known +to the Emperor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father observed that it was rather for a conqueror +to make offers of peace.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I have done what I could; I have sent to Kutuzov,<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c015'><sup>[5]</sup></a> +he will not enter into any negotiations and does not bring +my offer to the cognizance of the Tsar. If they want +war, it is not my fault—they shall have war.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After all this comedy, my father asked him for a pass +to leave Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I have ordered no passes to be given to any one; why +are you going? What are you afraid of? I have +ordered the markets to be opened.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Emperor of the French apparently forgot at that +moment that, in addition to open markets, it is as well +to have a closed house, and that life in the Tverskoy +Square in the midst of enemy soldiers is anything but +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>agreeable. My father pointed this out to him; Napoleon +thought a moment and suddenly asked:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Will you undertake to convey a letter from me to +the Emperor? On that condition I will command them +to give you a permit to leave the town with all your +household.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I would accept your Majesty’s offer,’ my father +observed, ‘but it is difficult for me to guarantee that it +will reach him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Will you give me your word of honour that you will +make every effort to deliver the letter in person?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘<em>Je m’engage sur mon honneur, Sire.</em>’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That suffices. I will send for you. Are you in +need of anything?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Of a roof for my family while I am here. Nothing +else.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The duc de Trévise will do what he can.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Mortier did, in fact, give us a room in the governor-general’s +house, and gave orders that we should be +furnished with provisions; his <em>maître d’hôtel</em> even sent +us wine. A few days passed in this way, after which +Mortier sent an adjutant, at four o’clock one morning, +to summon my father to the Kremlin.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The fire had attained terrific proportions during those +days; the scorched air, murky with smoke, was insufferably +hot. Napoleon was dressed and was walking about +the room, looking careworn and out of temper; he was +beginning to feel that his singed laurels would before +long be frozen, and that there would be no escaping here +with a jest, as in Egypt. The plan of the campaign was +absurd; except Napoleon, everybody knew it: Ney, +Narbonne, Berthier, and officers of lower rank; to all +objections he had replied with the cabalistic word +‘Moscow’; in Moscow even he guessed the truth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When my father went in, Napoleon took a sealed +letter that was lying on the table, handed it to him +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>and said, bowing him out: ‘I rely on your word of +honour.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the envelope was written: ‘<em>A mon frère l’Empereur +Alexandre</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The permit given to my father was still valid; it was +signed by the duc de Trévise and countersigned by the +head police-master Lesseps. A few outsiders, hearing +of our permit, joined us, begging my father to take them +in the guise of servants or relations. An open wagonette +was given us for the wounded old man, my mother and +my nurse; the others walked. A few Uhlans escorted us, +on horseback, as far as the Russian rearguard, on sight of +which they wished us a good journey and galloped back.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A minute later the Cossacks surrounded their strange +visitors and led them to the headquarters of the rearguard. +There Wintzengerode and Ilovaisky the Fourth +were in command. Wintzengerode, hearing of the letter, +told my father that he would send him on immediately, +with two dragoons, to the Tsar in Petersburg.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What’s to be done with your people?’ asked the +Cossack general, Ilovaisky, ‘it is impossible for them to +stay here. They are not out of range of the guns, and +something serious may be expected any day.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father begged that we should, if possible, be taken +to his Yaroslav estate, but incidentally observed that he +had not a kopeck with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘We will settle up afterwards,’ said Ilovaisky, ‘and +do not worry yourself, I give you my word to send them.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father was taken by couriers along a road made +by laying faggots on the ground. For us Ilovaisky +procured some sort of an old conveyance and sent us to +the nearest town with a party of French prisoners and +an escort of Cossacks; he provided us with money for +our expenses until we reached Yaroslav, and altogether +did everything he possibly could in the turmoil of wartime. +Such was my first journey in Russia; my second +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>was unaccompanied by French Uhlans, Cossacks from +the Ural and prisoners of war—I was alone but for a +drunken gendarme sitting by my side.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father was taken straight to Count Araktcheyev<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c015'><sup>[6]</sup></a> +and detained in his house. The Count asked for the +letter, my father told him he had given his word of +honour to deliver it in person; Araktcheyev promised +to ask the Tsar, and, next day, informed him by letter +that the Tsar had charged him to take the letter and to +deliver it immediately. He gave a receipt for the letter +(which is still preserved). For a month my father remained +under arrest in Araktcheyev’s house; no one was allowed +to see him except S. S. Shishkov,<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c015'><sup>[7]</sup></a> who came at the Tsar’s +command to question him concerning the details of the +fire, of the enemy’s entry into Moscow, and his interview +with Napoleon; he was the first eye-witness to arrive +in Petersburg. At last Araktcheyev informed my father +that the Tsar had ordered his release, and did not hold +him to blame for accepting a permit from the enemy in +consideration of the extremity in which he was placed. +On setting him free, Araktcheyev commanded him to +leave Petersburg immediately without seeing anybody +except his elder brother, to whom he was allowed to say +good-bye.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On reaching at nightfall the little Yaroslav village my +father found us in a peasants’ hut (he had no house on +that estate). I was asleep on a bench under the window; +the window did not close properly, the snow drifting +through the crack, covered part of the bench and lay, not +thawing, on the window-sill.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Every one was in great perturbation, especially my +mother. A few days before my father’s arrival, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>village elder and some of the house-serfs had run hastily +in the morning into the hut where she was living, trying +to explain something by gestures and insisting on her +following them. At that time my mother did not speak +a word of Russian; all she could make out was that the +matter concerned Pavel Ivanovitch; she did not know +what to think; the idea occurred to her that they had +killed him, or that they meant to kill him and afterwards +her. She took me in her arms, and trembling all over, +more dead than alive, followed the elder. Golohvastov +was in another hut, they went into it; the old man really +was lying dead beside the table at which he had been +about to shave; a sudden stroke of paralysis had cut +short his life instantaneously.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My mother’s position may well be imagined (she was +then seventeen), living in a little grimy hut, in the midst +of these half-savage bearded men, dressed in bare sheepskins, +and talking in a completely unknown language; +and all this in November of the terrible winter of 1812. +Her one support had been Golohvastov; she wept day +and night after his death. And meanwhile these savages +were pitying her from the bottom of their hearts, showing +her all their warm hospitality and good-natured simplicity; +and the village elder sent his son several times to the +town to get raisins, cakes, apples, and bread rings for her.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Fifteen years later the elder was still living and used +sometimes, grey as a kestrel and somewhat bald, to come +to us in Moscow. My mother used specially to regale +him with tea and to talk to him about the winter of 1812, +saying how she had been so afraid of him and how, +without understanding each other, they had made the +arrangements for the funeral of Pavel Ivanovitch. The +old man used still to call my mother—as he had then—Yuliza +Ivanovna, instead of Luise, and used to tell how +I was not at all afraid of his beard and would readily +let him take me into his arms.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>From the province of Yaroslav we moved to that of +Tver, and at last, a year later, made our way back to +Moscow. By that time my father’s brother, who had +been ambassador to Westphalia and had afterwards gone +on some commission to Bernadotte, had returned from +Sweden; he settled in the same house with us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I still remember, as in a dream, the traces of the fire, +which remained until early in the ’twenties: great burnt-out +houses without window frames or roofs, tumbledown +walls, empty spaces fenced in, with remains of +stoves and chimneys on them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tales of the fire of Moscow, of the battle of Borodino, +of Beresina, of the taking of Paris were my cradle-songs, +my nursery stories, my Iliad and my Odyssey. My +mother and our servants, my father and Vera Artamonovna +were continually going back to the terrible time +which had impressed them so recently, so intimately, and +so acutely. Then the returning generals and officers +began to arrive in Moscow. My father’s old comrades +of the Izmailovsky regiment, now the heroes of a bloody +war scarcely ended, were often at our house. They +found relief from their toils and anxieties in describing +them. This was in reality the most brilliant moment +of the Petersburg period; the consciousness of strength +gave new life, all practical affairs and troubles seemed to +be put off till the morrow when work would begin again, +now all that was wanted was to revel in the joys of +victory.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From these gentlemen I heard a great deal more about +the war than from Vera Artamonovna. I was particularly +fond of the stories told by Count Miloradovitch<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c015'><sup>[8]</sup></a>; +he spoke with the greatest vivacity, with lively mimicry, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>with roars of laughter, and more than once I fell asleep, +on the sofa behind him, to the sounds of them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of course, in such surroundings, I was a desperate +patriot and intended to go into the army; but an exclusive +sentiment of nationality never leads to any good; it +led me to the following incident. Among others who +used to visit us was the Comte de Quinsonas, a French +<em>émigré</em> and lieutenant-general in the Russian service. A +desperate royalist, he took part in the celebrated fête of +Versailles, at which the King’s minions trampled underfoot +the revolutionary cockade and at which Marie +Antoinette drank to the destruction of the revolution. +This French count, a tall, thin, graceful old man with +grey hair, was the very model of politeness and elegant +manners. There was a peerage awaiting him in Paris, +where he had already been to congratulate Louis <span class='fss'>XVIII.</span> +on getting his berth. He had returned to Russia to +dispose of his estate. Unluckily for me this most +courteous of generals of all the Russian armies began +speaking of the war in my presence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But surely you must have been fighting against us?’ +I remarked with extreme naïveté.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘<em>Non, mon petit, non; j’étais dans l’armée russe.</em>’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What?’ said I, ‘you, a Frenchman, and fighting in +our army!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father glanced sternly at me and changed the +conversation. The Count heroically set things right +by saying to my father that ‘he liked such patriotic +sentiments.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father did not like them, and after the Count had +gone away he gave me a terrible scolding.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘This is what comes of rushing headlong into conversation +about all sorts of things you don’t understand +and can’t understand; it was out of fidelity to <em>his</em> king +that the Count served under <em>our</em> emperor.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I certainly did not understand that.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>My father had spent twelve years abroad and his +brother still longer; they tried to arrange their life in +the foreign style while avoiding great expense and +retaining all Russian comforts. Their life never was so +arranged, either because they did not know how to +manage or because the nature of a Russian landowner +was stronger in them than their foreign habits. The +management of their land and house was in common, +the estate was undivided, an immense crowd of house-serfs +peopled the lower storeys, and consequently all the +conditions conducive to disorder were present.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Two nurses looked after me, one Russian and one +German. Vera Artamonovna and Madame Proveau +were very kind women, but it bored me to watch them +all day long knitting stockings and bickering together, +and so on every favourable opportunity I ran away to +the half of the house occupied by my uncle, the Senator +(the one who had been an ambassador), to see my one +friend, his valet Calot.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I have rarely met a kinder, gentler, milder man; +utterly alone in Russia, parted from all his own people, +with difficulty speaking broken Russian, his devotion to +me was like a woman’s. I spent whole hours in his +room, worried him, got in his way, did mischief, and he +bore it all with a good-natured smile; cut all sorts of +marvels out of cardboard for me and carved various +trifles out of wood (and how I loved him for it!). In +the evenings he used to bring me up picture-books from +the library—the Travels of Gmelin<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c015'><sup>[9]</sup></a> and of Pallas,<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c015'><sup>[10]</sup></a> +and a fat book of <cite>The World in Pictures</cite>, which I liked +so much that I looked at it until the binding, although +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>of leather, gave way; for a couple of hours at a time, +Calot would show me the same pictures, repeating the +same explanation for the thousandth time.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before my birthday and my name-day Calot would +lock himself up in his room, from which came the sounds +of a hammer and other tools; often he would pass along +the corridor with rapid steps, every time locking his door +after him, sometimes carrying a little saucepan of glue, +sometimes a parcel with things wrapped up. It may +well be imagined how much I longed to know what he +was making; I used to send the house-serf boys to try +and find out, but Calot kept a sharp look out. We +somehow discovered, on the staircase, a little crack which +looked straight into his room, but it was of no help to +us; all we could see was the upper part of the window +and the portrait of Frederick <span class='fss'>II.</span> with a huge nose and +huge star, and the expression of an emaciated vulture. +Two days before the event the noise would cease and +the room would be opened—everything in it was as +usual, except for scraps of coloured and gold paper here +and there; I would flush crimson, devoured with +curiosity, but Calot, with an air of strained gravity, +refused to approach the delicate subject.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I lived in agonies until the momentous day; at five +o’clock in the morning I was awake and thinking of +Calot’s preparations; at eight o’clock he would himself +appear in a white cravat, a white waistcoat, and a dark-blue +tail coat—with empty hands. When would it +end? Had he spoiled it? And time passed and the +ordinary presents came, and Elizaveta Alexeyevna +Golobvastov’s footman had already appeared with a +costly toy, wrapped up in a napkin, and the Senator +had already brought me some marvel, but the uneasy +expectation of the surprise troubled my joy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>All at once, as it were casually, after dinner or after +tea, Nurse would say to me: ‘Go downstairs just a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>minute; there is somebody asking for you.’ At last, +I thought, and went down, sliding on my hands down +the banisters of the staircase. The doors into the hall +were thrown open noisily, music was playing. A transparency +with my monogram was lighted up, serf boys +dressed up as Turks offered me sweetmeats, then followed +a puppet show or indoor fireworks. Calot, perspiring +with his efforts, was with his own hands setting everything +in motion.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What presents could be compared with such an +entertainment! I have never been fond of things, the +bump of ownership and acquisitiveness has never been +developed in me at any age, and now, after the prolonged +suspense, the numbers of candles, the tinsel and the smell +of gunpowder! Only one thing was lacking—a comrade +of my own age, but I spent all my childhood in solitude,<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c015'><sup>[11]</sup></a> +and certainly was not over-indulged in that respect.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father and the Senator had another elder brother,<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c015'><sup>[12]</sup></a> +between whom and the two younger brothers there was +an open feud, in spite of which they managed their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>estate in common or rather ruined it in common. The +triple control and the quarrel together led to glaring +disorganisation. My father and the Senator did everything +to thwart the elder brother, who did the same by +them. The village elders and peasants lost their heads; +one brother was demanding wagons; another, hay; a +third, firewood; each gave orders, each sent his authorised +agents. The elder brother would appoint a village +elder, the younger ones would remove him within a +month, upon some nonsensical pretext, and appoint +another whom their senior would not recognise. With +all this, backbiting, slander, spies and favourites were +naturally plentiful, and under it all the poor peasants, +who found neither justice nor defence, were harassed +on all sides and oppressed with the double burden of +work and the impossibility of carrying out the capricious +demands of their owners.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The first consequence of the feud between the brothers +that made some impression upon them, was the loss of +their great lawsuit with the Counts Devier, though +justice was on their side. Though their interests were +the same, they could never agree on a course of action; +their opponents naturally profited by this. In addition +to the loss of a large and fine estate, the Senate sentenced +each of the brothers to pay costs and damages to the +amount of 30,000 paper roubles. This lesson opened +their eyes and they made up their minds to divide their +property. The preliminary negotiations lasted for +about a year, the estate was carved into three fairly equal +parts and they were to decide by casting lots which was +to come to which. The Senator and my father visited +their elder brother, whom they had not seen for several +years, to negotiate and be reconciled; then there was +a rumour among us that he would visit us to complete +the arrangements. The rumour of the visit of this elder +brother excited horror and anxiety in our household.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>He was one of those grotesquely original creatures +who are only possible in Russia, where life is original to +grotesqueness. He was a man gifted by nature, yet he +spent his whole life in absurd actions, often almost crimes. +He had received a fairly good education in the French +style, was very well-read,—and spent his time in debauchery +and empty idleness up to the day of his death. +He, too, had served at first in the Izmailovsky regiment, +had been something like an aide-de-camp in attendance +on Potyomkin, then served on some mission, and returning +to Petersburg was made chief prosecutor in the Synod. +Neither diplomatic nor monastic surroundings could +restrain his unbridled character. For his quarrels with +the heads of the Church he was removed from his post; +for a slap in the face, which he either tried to give, or +gave to a gentleman at an official dinner at the governor-general’s, +he was banished from Petersburg. He went +to his Tambov estate; there the peasants nearly murdered +him for his ferocity and amorous propensities; he was +indebted to his coachman and horses for his life.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After that he settled in Moscow. Deserted by all +his relations and also by his acquaintances, he lived in +solitude in his big house in the Tverskoy Boulevard, +oppressing his house-serfs and ruining his peasants. +He amassed a great library of books and collected a +regular harem of serf-girls, both of which he kept under +lock and key. Deprived of every occupation and +concealing a passionate vanity, often extremely naïve, +he amused himself by buying unnecessary things, and +making still more unnecessary demands on the peasants, +which he exacted with ferocity. His lawsuit concerning +an Amati violin lasted thirty years, and ended in his losing +it. After another lawsuit he succeeded by extraordinary +efforts in winning the wall between two houses, the +possession of which was of no use to him whatever. +Being himself on the retired list, he used, on reading in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>the newspapers of the promotions of his old colleagues, to +buy such orders as had been given to them, and lay them +on his table as a mournful reminder of the decorations +he might have received!</p> + +<p class='c014'>His brothers and sisters were afraid of him and had +nothing to do with him; our servants would go a long +way round to avoid his house for fear of meeting him, +and would turn pale at the sight of him; women went +in terror of his impudent persecution, the house-serfs +paid for special services of prayer that they might not +come into his possession.</p> + +<p class='c014'>So this was the terrible man who was to visit us. +Extraordinary excitement prevailed throughout the +house from early morning; I had never seen this legendary +‘enemy-brother,’ though I was born in his house, +where my father stayed when he came back from foreign +parts; I longed to see him and at the same time I was +frightened, I do not know why, but I was terribly frightened.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Two hours before his arrival, my father’s eldest +nephew, two intimate acquaintances and a good-natured +stout and flabby official who was in charge of the legal +business arrived. They were all sitting in silent expectation, +when suddenly the butler came in, and, in +a voice unlike his own, announced that the brother ‘had +graciously pleased to arrive.’ ‘Ask him up,’ said the +Senator, with perceptible agitation, while my father +took a pinch of snuff, the nephew straightened his cravat, +and the official turned aside and coughed. I was +ordered to go upstairs, but trembling all over, I stayed +in the next room.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Slowly and majestically the ‘brother’ advanced, the +Senator and my father rose to meet him. He was +holding an ikon with both hands before his chest, as +people do at weddings and funerals, and in a drawling +voice, a little through his nose, he addressed his brothers +in the following words:</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>‘With this ikon our father blessed me before his end, +charging me and our late brother Pyotr to watch over +you and to be a father to you in his place ... if our +father knew of your conduct to your elder brother!...’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Come, <em>mon cher frère</em>,’ observed my father in his +studiously indifferent voice, ‘well have you carried out +our father’s last wish. It would be better to forget these +memories, painful to you as well as to us.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘How? what?’ shouted the devout brother. ‘Is +this what you have summoned me for ...’ and he +flung down the ikon, so that the silver setting gave a +metallic clink.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At this point the Senator shouted in a voice still more +terrifying. I rushed headlong upstairs and only had time +to see the official and the nephew, no less scared, retreating +to the balcony.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What was done and how it was done, I cannot say; +the frightened servants huddled into corners out of sight, +no one knew anything of what happened, neither the +Senator nor my father ever spoke of this scene before me. +Little by little the noise subsided and the partition of +the estate was carried out, whether then or on another +day I do not remember.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father received Vassilyevskoe, a big estate in the +Ruzsky district, near Moscow. We spent the whole +summer there the following year; meanwhile the +Senator bought himself a house in Arbat, and we returned +to live alone in our great house, deserted and deathlike. +Soon afterwards, my father too bought a house in Old +Konyushenny Street.</p> + +<p class='c014'>With the Senator, in the first place, and Calot in the +second, all the lively elements of our household were +withdrawn. The Senator alone had prevented the +hypochondriacal disposition of my father from prevailing; +now it had full sway. The new house was gloomy; +it was suggestive of a prison or a hospital; the lower +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>storey was built with pillars supporting the arched +ceiling, the thick walls made the windows look like the +embrasures of a fortress. The house was surrounded on +all sides by a courtyard unnecessarily large.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To tell the truth, it is rather a wonder that the Senator +managed to live so long under the same roof as my father +than that they parted. I have rarely seen two men so +complete a contrast as they were.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Senator was of a kindly disposition, and fond of +amusements; he spent his whole life in the world of +artificial light and of official diplomacy, the world that +surrounded the court, without a notion that there was +another more serious world, although he had been not +merely in contact with but intimately connected with +all the great events from 1789 to 1815. Count Vorontsov +had sent him to Lord Grenville<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c015'><sup>[13]</sup></a> to find out what +General Bonaparte was going to undertake after abandoning +the Egyptian army. He had been in Paris at +the coronation of Napoleon. In 1811 Napoleon had +ordered him to be detained in Cassel, where he was +ambassador ‘at the court of King Jeremiah,’<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c015'><sup>[14]</sup></a> as my +father used to say in moments of vexation. In fact, he +took part in all the great events of his time, but in a queer +way, irregularly.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Though a captain in the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky +regiment, he was sent on a mission to London; +Paul, seeing this in the correspondence, ordered him +at once to return to Petersburg. The soldier-diplomat +set off by the first ship and appeared before the Tsar. +‘Do you want to remain in London?’ Paul asked in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>his hoarse voice. ‘If it should please your Majesty to +permit me,’ answered the captain-diplomat.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Go back without loss of time,’ said Paul in his hoarse +voice, and he did go back, without even seeing his relations, +who lived in Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While diplomatic questions were being settled by +bayonets and grape-shot, he was an ambassador and +concluded his diplomatic career at the time of the +Congress of Vienna, that bright festival of all the +diplomats.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Returning to Russia he was appointed court chamberlain +in Moscow, where there is no Court. Though he +knew nothing of Russian Law and legal procedure, he +got into the Senate, became a member of the Council of +Trustees, a director of the Mariinsky Hospital, and +of the Alexandrinsky Institute, and he performed all his +duties with a zeal that was hardly necessary, with a +censoriousness that only did harm and with an honesty +that no one noticed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He was never at home, he tired out two teams of four +strong horses in the course of the day, one set in the +morning, the other after dinner. Besides the Senate, +the sittings of which he never neglected, and the Council +of Wardens, which he attended twice a week, besides +the hospital and the institute, he hardly missed a single +French play, and visited the English Club three times a +week. He had no time to be bored, he was always busy +and interested; he was always going somewhere, and his +life rolled lightly on good springs through a world of +official papers and pink tape.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Moreover, up to the age of seventy-five he was as strong +as a young man, was present at all the great balls and +dinners, took part in every ceremonial assembly and annual +function, whether it were of an agricultural or medical +or fire insurance society or of the Society of Scientific +Research ... and, on the top of it all, perhaps because +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>of it, preserved to old age some degree of human feeling +and a certain warmth of heart.</p> + +<p class='c014'>No greater contrast to the sanguine Senator, who was +always in movement and only occasionally visited his +home, can possibly be imagined than my father, who +hardly ever went out of his courtyard, hated the whole +official world and was everlastingly ill-humoured and +discontented. We also had eight horses (very poor +ones), but our stable was something like an almshouse for +broken-down nags; my father kept them partly for the +sake of appearances and partly that the two coachmen +and the two postillions should have something to do, +besides fetching the <cite>Moscow News</cite> and getting up cockfights, +which they did very successfully between the +coachhouse and the neighbours’ yard.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father had scarcely been in the service at all; +educated by a French tutor, in the house of a devout and +highly respected aunt, he entered the Izmailovsky +regiment as a sergeant at sixteen, served until the accession +of Paul, and retired with the rank of captain in the Guards. +In 1801 he went abroad and remained abroad until 1811, +wandering from one country to another. He returned +with my mother three months before my birth, and after +the fire of Moscow he spent a year on his estate in the +province of Tver, and then returned to live in Moscow, +trying to order his life so as to be as solitary and dreary +as possible. His brother’s liveliness hindered him in +this.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the Senator had left us, everything in the house +began to assume a more and more gloomy aspect. The +walls, the furniture, the servants, everything bore a look +of displeasure and suspicion, and I need hardly say that +my father himself was of all the most displeased. The +unnatural stillness, the whispers and cautious footsteps +of the servants, did not suggest attentive solicitude, but +oppression and terror. Everything was immovable in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>the rooms; for five or six years the same books would +lie in the very same places with the same markers in them. +In my father’s bedroom and study the furniture was not +moved nor the windows opened for years together. When +he went away into the country he took the key of his room +in his pocket, that they might not venture to scrub the +floor or wash the walls in his absence.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 2<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The Talk of Nurses and of Generals—False Position—Russian Encyclopaedists—Boredom—The Maids’ Room and the Servants’ Hall—Two Germans—Lessons and Reading—The Catechism and the Gospel</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>Until I was ten years old I noticed nothing strange +or special in my position; it seemed to me simple +and natural that I should be living in my father’s house; +that in his part of it I should be on my good behaviour, +while my mother lived in another part of the house, in +which I could be as noisy and mischievous as I liked. +The Senator spoiled me and gave me presents, Calot +carried me about in his arms, Vera Artamonovna dressed +me, put me to bed, and gave me my bath, Madame +Proveau took me out for walks and talked to me in German; +everything went on in its regular way, yet I began +pondering on things.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Stray remarks, carelessly uttered words, began to +attract my attention. Old Madame Proveau and all +the servants were devoted to my mother, while they +feared and disliked my father. The scenes which sometimes +took place between them were often the subject of +conversation between Madame Proveau and Vera Artamonovna, +both of whom always took my mother’s side.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My mother certainly had a good deal to put up with. +Being an extremely kind-hearted woman, with no +strength of will, she was completely crushed by my +father, and, as always happens with weak characters, put +up a desperate opposition in trifling matters and things +of no consequence. Unhappily, in these trifling matters, +my father was nearly always in the right, and the dispute +always ended in his triumph.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘If I were in the mistress’s place,’ Madame Proveau +would say, for instance, ‘I would simply go straight back +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>to Stuttgart; much comfort she gets—nothing but ill-humour +and unpleasantness, and deadly dullness.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To be sure,’ Vera Artamonovna would assent, ‘but +that’s what ties her, hand and foot,’ and she would point +with her knitting-needle towards me. ‘How can she +take him with her—what to? And as for leaving him +here alone, with our ways of going on, that would be too +dreadful!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Children in general have far more insight than is +supposed, they are quickly distracted and forget for a +time what has struck them, but they go back to it persistently, +especially if it is anything mysterious or dreadful, +and with wonderful perseverance and ingenuity they go +on probing until they reach the truth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Once on the look out, within a few weeks I had found +out all the details of my father’s meeting my mother, +had heard how she had brought herself to leave her +parents’ home, how she had been hidden at the Senator’s +in the Russian Embassy at Cassel, and had crossed the +frontier, dressed as a boy; all this I found out without +putting a single question to any one.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The first result of these discoveries was to estrange me +from my father on account of the scenes of which I have +spoken. I had seen them before, but it had seemed to +me that all that was in the regular order of things; for +I was so accustomed to the fact that every one in the house, +not excepting the Senator, was afraid of my father and +that he was given to scolding every one, that I saw nothing +strange in it. Now I began to take a different view of +it, and the thought that part of all this was endured on +my account sometimes threw a dark oppressive cloud +over my bright, childish imagination.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A second idea that took root in me from that time, +was that I was far less dependent on my father than +children are as a rule. I liked this feeling of independence +which I imagined for myself.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>Two or three years later, two of my father’s old +comrades in the regiment, P. K. Essen, the governor-general +of Orenburg, and A. N. Bahmetyev, formerly +commander in Bessarabia, a general who had lost his leg +at Borodino, were sitting with my father. My room +was next to the drawing-room in which they were sitting. +Among other things my father told them that he had +been speaking to Prince Yussupov about putting me into +the service. ‘There’s no time to be lost,’ he added; +‘you know that he will have to serve for years in order +to reach any grade worth speaking of.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What a strange idea, friend, to make him a clerk,’ +Essen said, good-naturedly. ‘Leave it to me, and I will +get him into the Ural Cossacks. We’ll promote him from +the ranks, that’s all that matters, after that he will make +his way as we all have.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father did not agree, he said that he had grown +to dislike everything military, that he hoped in time to +get me a post on some mission to a warm country, where +he would go to end his days.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Bahmetyev, who had taken little part in the conversation, +got up on his crutches and said: ‘It seems to me that +you ought to think very seriously over Pyotr Kirillovitch’s +advice. If you don’t care to put his name down at +Orenburg, you might put him down here. We are old +friends and it’s my way to tell you openly what I think; +you will do your young man no good with the civil +service and university, and you will make him of no +use to society. He is quite obviously in a false position, +only the military service can open a career for him and +put him right. Before he reaches the command of a +company, all dangerous ideas will have subsided. +Military discipline is a grand schooling, his future depends +on it. You say that he has abilities, but you don’t mean +to say that none but fools go into the army, do you? +What about us and all our circle? There’s only one +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>objection you can make—that he will have to serve a +long time before he gets a commission, but it’s just in +that particular that we can help you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This conversation had as much effect as the remarks +of Madame Proveau and Vera Artamonovna. By that +time I was thirteen and such lessons, turned over and +over, and analysed from every point of view during +weeks and months of complete solitude, bore their fruit. +The result of this conversation was that, although I had +till then, like all boys, dreamed of the army and a uniform, +and had been ready to cry at my father’s wanting me to +go into the civil service, my enthusiasm for soldiering +suddenly cooled, and my love and tenderness for epaulettes, +stripes and gold lace, was by degrees completely eradicated. +My smouldering passion for the uniform had, however, +one last flicker. A cousin of ours, who had been at a +boarding-school in Moscow and used sometimes to spend +a holiday with us, had entered the Yamburgsky regiment +of Uhlans. In 1825 he came to Moscow as an ensign +and stayed a few days with us. My heart throbbed +when I saw him with all his little cords and laces, wearing +a sword and a four-cornered helmet put on a little on +one side and fastened with a chin-strap. He was a boy +of seventeen and short for his age. Next morning I +dressed up in his uniform, put on his sword and helmet +and looked at myself in the glass. Oh dear! how +handsome I thought myself in the short blue jacket with +red braiding! And the pompon, and the pouch ... +what were the yellow nankeen breeches and the short +camlet jacket which I used to wear at home, in comparison +with these?</p> + +<p class='c014'>The cousin’s visit destroyed the effect of the generals’ +talk, but soon circumstances turned me against the army +again, and this time for good.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The spiritual result of my meditations on my ‘false +position’ was somewhat the same as what I had deduced +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>from the talk of my two nurses. I felt myself more +independent of society, of which I knew absolutely +nothing, felt that in reality I was thrown on my own +resources, and with somewhat childish conceit thought +I would show the old generals what I was made of.</p> + +<p class='c014'>With all that it may well be imagined how drearily +and monotonously the time passed in the strange conventlike +seclusion of my father’s house. I had neither encouragement +nor distraction; my father had spoilt me +until I was ten, and now he was almost always dissatisfied +with me; I had no companions, my teachers came and +went, and, seeing them out of the yard, I used to run off +on the sly, to play with the house-serf boys, which was +strictly forbidden. The rest of my time I spent wandering +aimlessly about the big dark rooms, which had their +windows shut all day and were only dimly lighted in +the evening, doing nothing or reading anything that +turned up.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The servants’ hall and the maids’ room provided the +only keen enjoyment left me. There I found perfect +peace and happiness; I took the side of one party against +another, discussed with my friends their affairs, and +gave my opinion upon them, knew all their private +business, and never dropped a word in the drawing-room +of the secrets of the servants’ hall.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I must pause upon this subject. Indeed, I do not +intend to avoid digressions and episodes; that is the way +of every conversation, that is the way of life itself.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Children as a rule are fond of servants; their parents +forbid them, especially in Russia, to associate with +servants; the children do not obey them because it is +dull in the drawing-room and lively in the maids’ room. +In this case, as in thousands of others, parents do not know +what they are about. I cannot conceive that our servants’ +hall was a less wholesome place for children than our +‘tea-room’ or ‘lounge-room.’ In the servants’ hall +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>children pick up coarse expressions and bad manners, +that is true; but in the drawing-room they pick up +coarse ideas and bad feelings.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The very instruction to children to hold themselves +aloof from those with whom they are continually in +contact is immoral.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A great deal is said among us about the complete +depravity of servants, especially when they are serfs. +They certainly are not distinguished by exemplary strictness +of conduct, and their moral degradation can be seen +from the fact that they put up with too much and are +too rarely moved to indignation and resistance. But that +is not the point. I should like to know what class in +Russia is less depraved? Are the nobility or the officials? +the clergy, perhaps?</p> + +<p class='c014'>Why do you laugh? The peasants, perhaps, are the +only ones who may claim to be different....</p> + +<p class='c014'>The difference between the nobleman and the serving +man is very small. I hate the demagogues’ flattery of +the mob, particularly since the troubles of 1848, but the +aristocrats’ slander of the people I hate even more. By +picturing servants and slaves as degraded beasts, the +planters throw dust in people’s eyes and stifle the voice +of conscience in themselves. We are not often better +than the lower classes, but we express ourselves more +gently and conceal our egoism and our passions more +adroitly; our desires are not so coarse, and the ease with +which they are satisfied and our habit of not controlling +them make them less conspicuous; we are simply +wealthier and better fed and consequently more fastidious. +When Count Almaviva reckoned up to the Barber +of Seville the qualities he expected from a servant, +Figaro observed with a sigh: ‘If a servant must have +all these virtues, are there many gentlemen fit to be +lackeys?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Immorality in Russia as a rule does not go deep; it is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>more savage and dirty, noisy and coarse, dishevelled and +shameless than profound. The clergy, shut up at home, +drink and overeat themselves with the merchants. The +nobility get drunk in the sight of all, play cards until +they are ruined, thrash their servants, seduce their housemaids, +manage their business affairs badly and their +family life still worse. The officials do the same, but +in a dirtier way, and in addition are guilty of grovelling +before their superiors and pilfering. As far as stealing +in the literal sense goes, the nobility are less guilty, they +take openly what belongs to others; when it suits them, +however, they are just as smart as other people. All +these charming weaknesses are to be met with in a still +coarser form in those who are in private and not government +service, and in those who are dependent not on the +Court but on the landowners. But in what way they +are worse than others as a class, I do not know.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Going over my remembrances, not only of the serfs +of our house and of the Senator’s, but also of two or three +households with which we were intimate for twenty-five +years, I do not remember anything particularly vicious +in their behaviour. Petty thefts, perhaps, ... but on +that matter all ideas are so muddled by their position, +that it is difficult to judge; <em>human property</em> does not stand +on ceremony with its kith and kin, and is hail-fellow-well-met +with the master’s goods. It would be only fair to +exclude from this generalisation the confidential servants, +the favourites of both sexes, masters’ mistresses and talebearers; +but in the first place they are an exception—these +Kleinmihels of the stable<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c015'><sup>[15]</sup></a> and Benckendorfs<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c015'><sup>[16]</sup></a> from +the cellar, Perekusihins<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c015'><sup>[17]</sup></a> in striped linen gowns, and barelegged +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>Pompadours; moreover, they do behave better +than any of the rest, they only get drunk at night and do +not pawn their clothes at the pot-house.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The simple-hearted immorality of the rest revolves +round a glass of vodka and a bottle of beer, a merry talk +and a pipe, absences from home without leave, quarrels +which sometimes end in fights, and sly tricks played on +the masters who expect of them something inhuman +and impossible. Of course, on the one hand, the lack +of all education, on the other, the simplicity of the +peasant in slavery have brought out a great deal that is +monstrous and distorted in their manners, but for all that, +like the negroes in America, they have remained half +children, a trifle amuses them, a trifle distresses them; +their desires are limited, and are rather naïve and human +than vicious.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vodka and tea, the tavern and the restaurant, are the +two permanent passions of the Russian servant; for their +sake, he steals, for their sake, he is poor, on their account, +he endures persecution and punishment and leaves his +family in poverty. Nothing is easier than for a Father +Matthew<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c015'><sup>[18]</sup></a> from the height of his teetotal intoxication to +condemn drunkenness, and sitting at the tea-table, to +wonder why servants go to drink tea at the restaurant, +instead of drinking it at home, although at home it is +cheaper.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vodka stupefies a man, it enables him to forget himself, +stimulates him and induces an artificial cheerfulness; +this stupefaction and stimulation are the more agreeable +the less the man is developed and the more he is bound +to a narrow, empty life. How can a servant not drink +when he is condemned to the everlasting waiting in the +hall, to perpetual poverty, to being a slave, to being sold? +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>He drinks to excess—when he can—because he cannot +drink every day; that was observed fifteen years ago +by Senkovsky in the <cite>Library of Good Reading</cite>.<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c015'><sup>[19]</sup></a> In +Italy and the South of France there are no drunkards, +because there is plenty of wine. The savage drunkenness +of the English working man is to be explained in the same +way. These men are broken in the inevitable and +unequal conflict with hunger and poverty; however +hard they have struggled they have met everywhere a +blank wall of oppression and sullen resistance that has +flung them back into the dark depths of social life, and +condemned them to the never-ending, aimless toil that +consumes mind and body alike. It is not surprising that +after spending six days as a lever, a cogwheel, a spring, a +screw, the man breaks savagely on Saturday afternoon +out of the penal servitude of factory work, and in half +an hour is drunk, for his exhaustion cannot stand much. +The moralists would do better to drink Irish or Scotch +whisky themselves and to hold their tongues, or with +their inhuman philanthropy they may provoke terrible +replies.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Drinking tea at the restaurant has a different significance +for servants. Tea at home is not the same thing +for the house-serf; at home everything reminds him +that he is a servant; at home he is in the dirty servants’ +room, he must get the samovar himself; at home he has +a cup with a broken handle, and any minute his master +may ring for him. At the restaurant he is a free man, +he is a gentleman; for him the table is laid and the lamps +are lit; for him the waiter runs with the tray; the cup +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>shines, the tea-pot glitters, he gives orders and is obeyed, +he enjoys himself and gaily calls for pressed caviare or a +turnover for his tea.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In all of this there is more of childish simplicity than +immorality. Impressions quickly take possession of +them but do not send down roots; their minds are +continually occupied, or rather distracted, by casual +subjects, small desires, trivial aims. A childish belief +in everything marvellous turns a grown-up man into a +coward, and the same childish belief comforts him in +the bitterest moments. Filled with wonder, I was +present at the death of two or three of my father’s servants; +it was then that one could judge of the simple-hearted +carelessness with which their lives had passed, +of the absence of great sins upon their conscience; if +there were anything, it had all been settled satisfactorily +with the priest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This resemblance between servants and children +accounts for their mutual attraction. Children hate the +aristocratic ideas of the grown-ups and their benevolently +condescending manners, because they are clever +and understand that in the eyes of grown-up people +they are children, while in the eyes of servants they are +people. Consequently they are much fonder of playing +cards or loto with the maids than with visitors. Visitors +play for the children’s benefit with condescension, give +way to them, tease them and throw up the game for any +excuse; the maids, as a rule, play as much for their own +sakes as for the children’s; and that gives the game +interest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Servants are extremely devoted to children, and this +is not a slavish devotion, but the mutual affection of the +weak and the simple. In old days there used to be a +patriarchal dynastic affection between landowners and +their serfs, such as exists even now in Turkey. To-day +there are in Russia no more of those devoted servants, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>attached to the race and family of their masters. And +that is easy to understand. The landowner no longer +believes in his power, he does not believe that he will +have to answer for his serfs at the terrible Day of Judgment, +but simply makes use of his power for his own +advantage. The servant does not believe in his subjection +and endures violence not as a chastisement and +trial from God, but simply because he is defenceless; +it is no use kicking against the pricks.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I used to know in my youth two or three specimens of +those fanatics of slavery, of whom eighteenth century +landowners speak with a sigh, telling stories of their +unflagging service and their great devotion, and forgetting +to add in what way their fathers and themselves had +repaid such self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On one of the Senator’s estates a feeble old man +called Andrey Stepanov was living in peace, that is, on +free rations.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He had been valet to the Senator and my father when +they were serving in the Guards, and was a good, honest, +and sober man, who looked into his young masters’ eyes, +and, to use their own words, ‘guessed from them what +they wanted,’ which, I imagine, was not an easy task. +Afterwards he looked after the estate near Moscow. +Cut off from the beginning of the war of 1812 from +all communication, and afterwards left alone, without +money, on the ashes of a village which had been burnt +to the ground, he sold some beams to escape starvation. +The Senator, on his return to Russia, proceeded to set +his estate in order, and going into details of the past, +came to the sale of the beams. He punished his former +valet by sending him away in disgrace, depriving him +of his duties. The old man, burdened with a family, +departed into exile. We used to stay for a day or two +on the estate where Andrey Stepanov was living. The +feeble old man, crippled by paralysis, used to come +<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>every time leaning on his crutch, to pay his respects to +my father and to speak to him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The devotion and the gentleness with which he talked, +his grievous appearance, the locks of yellowish grey hair +on each side of his bald pate, touched me deeply. ‘I +have heard, master,’ he said on one occasion, ‘that your +brother has received another decoration. I am getting +old, your honour, I shall soon give up my soul to God, +and yet the Lord has not vouchsafed to me to see your +brother in his decorations, not even once before my end +to behold his honour in his ribbons and all his finery!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I looked at the old man, his face was so childishly +candid, his bent figure, his painfully twisted face, lustreless +eyes, and weak voice—all inspired confidence; he +was not lying, he was not flattering, he really longed +before his death to see, in ‘all his ribbons and finery,’ the +man who could not for fifteen years forgive him the loss +of a few beams. Was this a saint, or a madman? But +perhaps it is only madmen who attain saintliness?</p> + +<p class='c014'>The new generation has not this idolatrous worship, +and if there are cases of serfs not caring for freedom, +that is simply due to indolence and material considerations. +It is more depraved, there is no doubt, but it is a sign +that the end is near; if they want to see anything on +their master’s neck, it is certainly not the Vladimir +ribbon.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Here I will say something of the position of our servants +in general.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Neither the Senator nor my father oppressed the house-serfs +particularly, that is, they did not ill-treat them +physically. The Senator was hasty and impatient, and +consequently often rough and unjust, but he had so little +contact with the house-serfs and took so little notice of +them that they scarcely knew each other. My father +wearied them with his caprices, never let pass a look, a +word or a movement, and was everlastingly lecturing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>them; to a Russian this often seems worse than blows or +abuse.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Corporal punishment was almost unknown in our +house, and the two or three cases in which the Senator +and my father resorted to the revolting method of the +police station were so exceptional, that all the servants +talked about it for months afterwards; and it was only +provoked by glaring offences.</p> + +<p class='c014'>More frequently house-serfs were sent for soldiers, +and this punishment was a terror to all the young men; +without kith or kin, they still preferred to remain house-serfs, +rather than to be in harness for twenty years. I +was greatly affected by those terrible scenes.... Two +soldiers of the police would appear at the summons of +the landowner: they would stealthily, in a casual, sudden +way, seize the appointed victim. The village elder commonly +announced at this point that the master had the +evening before ordered that he was to be taken to the +recruiting office, and the man would try through his tears +to put a brave face on it, while the women wept: every +one made him presents and I gave him everything +I could, that is, perhaps a twenty-kopeck piece and a +neck-handkerchief.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I remember, too, my father’s ordering some village +elder’s beard to be shaved off, because he had spent the +obrok<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c015'><sup>[20]</sup></a> which he had collected. I did not understand +this punishment, but was struck by the appearance of +this old man of sixty; he was in floods of tears, and kept +bowing to the ground and begging for a fine of one +hundred roubles in addition to the obrok if only he +might be spared this disgrace.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When the Senator was living with us, the common +household consisted of thirty men and almost as many +women; the married women, however, performed no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>service, they looked after their own families; there were +five or six maids or laundresses, who never came upstairs. +To these must be added the boys and girls who were +being trained in their duties, that is, in sloth and idleness, +in lying and the use of vodka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To give an idea of the life in Russia of those days, I +think it will not be out of place to say a few words on the +maintenance of the house-serfs. At first, they used to +be given five roubles a month for food and afterwards +six. The women had a rouble a month less, and children +under ten had half the full allowance. The servants +made up ‘artels’<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c015'><sup>[21]</sup></a> and did not complain of the allowance +being too small, and, indeed, provisions were extraordinarily +cheap in those days. The highest wage was a +hundred roubles a year, while others received half that +amount and some only thirty roubles. Boys under +seventeen got no wages at all. In addition to their +allowance, servants were given clothes, greatcoats, shirts, +sheets, quilts, towels and mattresses covered with sailcloth; +boys, who did not get wages, were allowed money +for their physical and moral purification, that is, for the +bath-house and for preparing for communion. Taking +everything into account, a servant cost three hundred +roubles a year; if to this we add a share of medicine, of +a doctor and of the surplus edibles brought from the +village, even then it is not over 350 roubles. This is +only a quarter of the cost of a servant in Paris or +London.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The planters usually take into account the insurance +premium of slavery, that is, the maintenance of wife and +children by the owner, and a meagre crust of bread somewhere +in the village for the slave in old age. Of course +this must be taken into account; but the cost is greatly +lessened by the fear of corporal punishment, the impossibility +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>of changing their position, and a much lower +scale of maintenance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I have seen enough of the way in which the terrible +consciousness of serfdom destroys and poisons the +existence of house-serfs, the way in which it oppresses and +stupefies their souls. Peasants, especially those who pay +a fixed sum in lieu of labour, have less feeling of their +personal bondage; they somehow succeed in not believing +in their complete slavery. But for the house-serf, sitting +on a dirty locker in the hall from morning till night, or +standing with a plate at table, there is no room for doubt.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of course there are people who live in the servants’ +hall like fish in water, people whose souls have never +awakened, who have acquired a taste for their manner +of life and who perform their duties with a sort of artistic +relish.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of that class we had one extremely interesting specimen, +our footman Bakay, a man of tall figure and athletic build, +with solid, dignified features and an air of the greatest +profundity; he lived to an advanced age, imagining +that the position of a footman was one of the greatest +consequence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This worthy old man was perpetually angry or a little +drunk, or angry and a little drunk at once. He took an +exalted view of his duties and ascribed a serious importance +to them: with a peculiar bang and crash he +would throw up the steps of the carriage and slam the +carriage door with a report like a pistol shot. With a +gloomy air he stood up stiff and rigid behind the carriage, +and every time there was a jolt over a rut he would shout +in a thick and displeased voice to the coachman: ‘Steady!’ +regardless of the fact that the rut was already five paces +behind.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Apart from going out with the carriage, his chief +occupation, a duty he had voluntarily undertaken, consisted +of training the serf boys in the aristocratic manners +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>of the servants’ hall. When he was sober, things went +fairly well, but when his head was a little dizzy, he +became incredibly pedantic and tyrannical. I sometimes +stood up for my friends, but my authority had little +influence on Bakay, whose temper was of a Roman +severity; he would open the door into the drawing-room +for me and say: ‘This is not the place for you; be +pleased to leave the room or I shall carry you out.’ He +lost no opportunity of scolding the boys, and often +added a cuff to his words, or, with his thumb and first +finger, gave them a flip on the head with the sharpness +and force of a spring.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When at last he had chased the boys out and was left +alone, he transferred his persecution to his one friend, +Macbeth, a big Newfoundland dog, whom he used to +feed, comb and groom. After sitting in solitude for two +or three minutes he would go out into the yard, call +Macbeth to join him on the locker, and begin a conversation. +‘What are you sitting out there in the yard in +the frost for, stupid, when there is a warm room for you? +What a beast! What are you rolling your eyes for, eh? +Have you nothing to say?’ Usually a slap would follow +these words. Macbeth would sometimes growl at his +benefactor; and then Bakay would upbraid him in +earnest: ‘You may go on feeding a dog, but he will +still remain a dog, he will show his teeth at any one, +without caring who it is ... the fleas would have eaten +him up if it had not been for me!’ And offended by his +friend’s ingratitude he would wrathfully take a pinch of +snuff and fling what was left between his fingers on +Macbeth’s nose. Then the dog would sneeze, clumsily +brush away the snuff with his paw, and, leaving the bench +indignantly, would scratch at the door; Bakay would +open it with the word ‘Rascal’ and give him a kick as +he went out. Then the boys would come back, and he +would set to flipping them on the head again.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Before Macbeth, we had a setter called Berta; she +was very ill and Bakay took her on to his mattress and +looked after her for two or three weeks. Early one +morning I went out into the servants’ hall. Bakay tried +to say something to me, but his voice broke and a big +tear rolled down his cheek—the dog was dead. There +is a fact for the student of human nature. I do not for a +moment suppose that he disliked the boys; it was simply +a case of a severe character, accentuated by drink and +unconsciously moulded by the spirit of the servants’ hall.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But besides these amateurs of slavery, what gloomy +images of martyrs, of hopeless victims, pass mournfully +before my memory.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Senator had a cook Alexey, a sober industrious +man of exceptional talent who made his way in the +world. The Senator himself got him taken into the Tsar’s +kitchen, where there was at that time a celebrated French +cook. After being trained there, he got a post in the +English club, grew rich, married and lived like a gentleman; +but the bonds of serfdom would not let him sleep +soundly at night, nor take pleasure in his position.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After having a service celebrated to the Iversky +Madonna, Alexey plucked up his courage and presented +himself before the Senator to ask for his freedom for five +thousand roubles. The Senator was proud of <em>his</em> cook, +just as he was proud of <em>his</em> painter, and so he would not +take the money, but told the cook that he should be set +free for nothing at his master’s death. The cook was +thunderstruck; he grieved, grew thin and worn, turned +grey and ... being a Russian, took to drink. He +neglected his work; the English Club dismissed him. +He was engaged by the Princess Trubetskoy, who worried +him by her petty niggardliness. Being on one occasion +extremely offended by her, Alexey, who was fond of +expressing himself eloquently, said, speaking through his +nose with his air of dignity: ‘What a clouded soul dwells +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>in your illustrious body!’ The princess was furious, +she turned the cook away, and, as might be expected from +a Russian lady, wrote a complaint to the Senator. The +Senator would have done nothing to him, but, as a polite +gentleman, he felt bound to send for the cook, gave him +a good scolding and told him to go and beg the princess’s +pardon.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The cook did not go to the princess but went to the +pot-house. Within a year he had lost everything from +the capital he had saved up for his ransom to the last of +his aprons. His wife struggled and struggled on with +him, but at last went off and took a place as a nurse. +Nothing was heard of him for a long time. Then the +police brought Alexey in tatters and wild-looking; he +had been picked up in the street, he had no lodging, he +wandered from tavern to tavern. The police insisted +that his master should take him. The Senator was distressed +and perhaps conscience-stricken, too; he received +him rather mildly and gave him a room. Alexey went +on drinking, was noisy when he was drunk and imagined +that he was composing verses; he certainly had some +imagination of an incoherent sort. We were at that +time at Vassilyevskoe. The Senator, not knowing what +to do with the cook, sent him there, thinking that my +father would bring him to reason. But the man was +too completely shattered. I saw in his case the concentrated +anger and hatred against the masters which lies in +the heart of the serf, and might be particularly dangerous +in a cook; he would grind his teeth and speak with +malignant mimicry. He was not afraid to give full rein +to his tongue in my presence; he was fond of me and +would often, patting me familiarly on the shoulders, say +that I was ‘a good branch of a rotten tree.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the Senator’s death, my father gave him his +freedom at once. It was too late and simply meant getting +rid of him, he was ruined in any case.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>Besides Alexey, I cannot help recalling another victim +of serfdom. The Senator had a serf aged about five-and-thirty +who acted as his secretary. My father’s eldest +brother, who died in 1813, had sent him as a boy to a +well-known doctor to be trained as a feldsher (or doctor’s +assistant) that he might be of use in a village hospital +which his master was intending to found. The doctor +procured permission for him to attend the lectures of +the Academy of Medicine and Surgery; the young +man had abilities, he learned Latin, German, and something +of doctoring. At five-and-twenty he fell in love with +the daughter of an officer, concealed his position from +her and married her. The deception could not last long. +After his master’s death, the wife learned with horror that +they were serfs. The Senator, his new owner, did not +oppress them in any way, indeed he was fond of young +Tolotchanov, but the trouble with the wife persisted; +she could not forgive her husband for the deception and +ran away from him with another man. Tolotchanov +must have been devoted to her, for from that time he +sank into a melancholy that bordered upon madness, +spent his nights in debauchery, and, having no means of +his own, squandered his master’s money. When he +saw that he could not set things right, on the 31st of +December 1821 he poisoned himself.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Senator was not at home; Tolotchanov went +in to my father in my presence and told him that he had +come to say good-bye to him and to ask him to tell the +Senator that he had spent the money that was missing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You are drunk,’ my father told him. ‘Go and sleep +it off.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I shall soon go for a long sleep,’ said the doctor, ‘and +I only beg you not to remember evil against me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tolotchanov’s tranquil air rather alarmed my father +and, looking more intently at him, he asked:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What’s the matter with you, are you raving?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>‘Not at all, I have only taken a wine-glassful of arsenic.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>They sent for a doctor and the police, gave him an +emetic, and made him drink milk. When he was on the +point of vomiting, he restrained himself and said: ‘Stay +there, stay there, I did not swallow you for that.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Afterwards, when the poison began to act more freely, +I heard his moans and his voice repeating in agony, ‘It +burns! it burns! it’s fire!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Some one advised him to send for a priest; he refused, +and told Calot that there could not be a life beyond the +grave, that he knew too much anatomy to believe that. +At midnight he asked the doctor, in German, what time +it was, then saying, ‘Well, it’s the new year, I wish +you a happy one,’ he died.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the morning I rushed to the little lodge that served +as a bath-house; Tolotchanov had been taken there; +the body was lying on the table, dressed just as he had +died, in a dress-coat without a cravat, with his chest open, +and his features were terribly distorted and had even +turned black. This was the first dead body I had seen; +I went away almost fainting. And the playthings and +pictures I had had given me for the New Year did not +comfort me. Tolotchanov’s dark-looking face hovered +before my eyes and I kept hearing his ‘It burns! it’s +fire!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I will say only one thing more, to conclude this gloomy +subject: the servants’ hall had no really bad influence +upon me at all. On the contrary, it awakened in me +from my earliest years an invincible hatred for every +form of slavery and every form of tyranny. At times +when I was a child, Vera Artamonovna would say by +way of the greatest rebuke for some naughtiness: ‘Wait +a bit, you will grow up and turn into just such another +master as the rest.’ I felt this a horrible insult. The +old woman need not have worried herself—just such +another as the rest, anyway, I have not become.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>Besides the servants’ hall and the maids’ room I had +one other distraction, and in that I was not hindered in +any way. I loved reading as much as I hated lessons. +My passion for unsystematic reading was, indeed, one of +the chief obstacles to serious study. I never could, for +instance, then or later, endure the theoretical study of +languages, but I very soon learnt to understand and +chatter them incorrectly, and at that stage I remained, +because it was sufficient for my reading.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father and the Senator had between them a fairly +large library, consisting of French books of the eighteenth +century. The books lay about in heaps in a damp, unused +room in a lower storey of the Senator’s house. +Calot had the key. I was allowed to rummage in these +literary granaries as I liked, and I read and read to my +heart’s content. My father saw two advantages in it, +that I should learn French more quickly and that I should +be occupied, that is, should sit quietly and in my own +room. Besides, I did not show him all the books I read, +nor lay them on the table; some of them were hidden +in the sideboard.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What did I read? Novels and plays, of course. I +read fifty volumes of the French and Russian drama; +in every volume there were three or four plays. Besides +French novels my mother had the Tales of La Fontaine +and the comedies of Kotzebue, and I read them two or +three times. I cannot say that the novels had much +influence on me; though like all boys I pounced eagerly +on all equivocal or somewhat improper scenes, they did +not interest me particularly. A play which I liked +beyond all measure and read over twenty times in the +Russian translation, the <cite>Marriage of Figaro</cite>,<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c015'><sup>[22]</sup></a> had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>much greater influence on me. I was in love with +Cherubino and the Countess, and what is more, I was +myself Cherubino; my heart throbbed as I read it and +without myself clearly recognising it I was conscious of +a new sensation. How enchanting I thought the scene +in which the page is dressed up as a girl, how intensely +I longed to hide somebody’s ribbon in my bosom and +kiss it in secret. In reality I had in those years no +feminine society.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I only remember that occasionally on Sundays Bahmetyev’s +two daughters used to come from their boarding-school +to visit us. The younger, a girl of sixteen, was +strikingly beautiful. I was overwhelmed when she entered +the room and never ventured to address a word to her, but +kept stealing looks at her lovely dark eyes and dark curls. +I never dropped a hint on the subject and the first +breath of love passed unseen by any one, even by her.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Years afterwards when I met her, my heart throbbed +violently and I remembered how at twelve years old I +had worshipped her beauty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I forgot to say that <cite>Werther</cite> interested me almost +as much as the <cite>Marriage of Figaro</cite>; half the novel was +beyond me and I skipped it, and hurried on to the +terrible <em>dénouement</em>, over which I wept like a madman. +In 1839 <cite>Werther</cite> happened to come into my hands +again; this was when I was at Vladimir and I told my +wife how as a boy I had cried over it and began reading +her the last letters ... and when I came to the same +passage, my tears began flowing again and I had to +stop.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Up to the age of fourteen I cannot say that my father +greatly restricted my liberty, but the whole atmosphere +of our house was oppressive for a lively boy. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>persistent and unnecessary fussiness concerning my +physical health, together with complete indifference to +my moral well-being, was horribly wearisome. There +were everlasting precautions against my taking a chill, +or eating anything indigestible, and anxious solicitude +over the slightest cough or cold in the head. In the +winter I was kept indoors for weeks at a time, and when +I was allowed to go out, it was only wearing warm high +boots, thick scarves and such things. At home it was +always insufferably hot from the stoves. All this would +inevitably have made me a frail and delicate child but for +the iron health I inherited from my mother. She by +no means shared my father’s prejudices, and in her half +of the house allowed me everything which was forbidden +in his.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My education made slow progress without emulation, +encouragement, or approval; I did my lessons lazily, +without method or supervision, and thought to make a +good memory and lively imagination take the place of +hard work. I need hardly say that there was no supervision +over my teachers either; once the terms upon +which they were engaged were settled, they might, so +long as they turned up at the proper time and sat through +their hour, go on for years without rendering any account +to any one.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One of the queerest episodes of my education at that +time was the engagement of the French actor Dalès to +give me lessons in elocution.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No attention is paid to it nowadays,’ my father said to +me, ‘but my brother Alexander was every evening for +six months reciting “Le récit de Théramène”<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c015'><sup>[23]</sup></a> with his +teacher without reaching the perfection that he insisted +upon.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>So I set to work at recitation.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>‘Well, Monsieur Dalès, I expect you can give him +dancing lessons as well?’ my father asked him on one +occasion.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Dalès, a fat old man over sixty, who was fully aware +of his own qualities, but no less fully aware of the propriety +of being modest about them, replied: ‘that he +could not judge of his own talents, but that he had often +given advice in the ballet dances <em>au grand Opéra</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So I supposed,’ my father observed, offering him his +open snuff-box, a civility he would never have shown +to a Russian or a German teacher. ‘I should be very +glad if you could <em>le dégourdir un peu</em>; after his recitation +he might have a little dancing.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘<em>Monsieur le comte peut disposer de moi.</em>’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And my father, who was excessively fond of Paris, +began recalling the foyer of the opera in 1810, the youth +of George,<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c015'><sup>[24]</sup></a> the declining years of Mars,<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c015'><sup>[25]</sup></a> and inquiring +about cafés and theatres.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Now imagine my little room, a gloomy winter evening, +the windows frozen over and water dripping down a +string from them, two tallow candles on the table and +our tête-à-tête. On the stage, Dalès still spoke fairly +naturally, but at a lesson thought it his duty to depart +further from nature in his delivery. He read Racine +in a sort of chant and at the cæsura made a parting such +as an Englishman makes in his hair, so that each line +seemed like a broken stick.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the same time he waved his arm like a man who +has fallen into the water and does not know how to swim. +He made me repeat every line several times and always +shook his head, saying, ‘Not right, not right at all, +<em>attention</em>, “<em>Je crains Dieu, cher Abner</em>,”’ then the parting, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>at which he would close his eyes and with a slight +shake of his head, tenderly pushing away the waves with +his hand, add: ‘<em>et n’ai point d’autre crainte</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then the old gentleman who ‘feared nothing but +God’ looked at his watch, shut the book and pushed a +chair towards me; this was my partner.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Under the circumstances it was not surprising that I +never learned to dance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The lessons did not last long; they were cut short +very tragically a fortnight later.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was at the French theatre with the Senator; the +overture was played once, then a second time and still +the curtain did not rise. The front rows, wishing to +show they knew their Paris, began to be noisy in the way +the back rows are there. The manager came before the +curtain, bowed to the right, bowed to the left, bowed +straight before him, and said: ‘We ask the kind indulgence +of the audience; a terrible calamity has befallen +us, our comrade Dalès’—and the man’s voice was actually +broken by tears—‘has been found in his room stifled by +charcoal fumes.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was in this violent way that the fumes of a Russian +stove delivered me from recitations, monologues and +solo dances with my four-legged mahogany partner.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At twelve years old I was transferred from feminine +to masculine hands. About that time my father made +two unsuccessful attempts to engage a German to look +after me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A German who looks after children is neither a tutor +nor a nurse; it is quite a special profession. He does not +teach the children and he does not dress them, but sees +that they are taught and dressed, takes care of their +health, goes out for walks with them and talks any +nonsense to them so long as it is in German. If there +is a tutor in the house, the German is under his orders; +if there is a male-nurse, he takes his orders from the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>German. The visiting teachers, who come late owing +to unforeseen causes and leave early owing to circumstances +over which they have no control, do their best +to win the German’s favour, and in spite of his complete +ignorance he begins to regard himself as a man of learning. +Governesses employ the German in shopping for them +and in all sorts of commissions, but only allow him to +pay his court to them if they suffer from striking physical +defects or a complete lack of other admirers. Boys of +fourteen will go, without their parents’ knowledge, to +the German’s room to smoke, and he puts up with it +because he must do everything he can to remain in the +house. Indeed at about that period the German is +thanked, presented with a watch and discharged. If he +is tired of sauntering about the streets with children and +receiving reprimands for their having colds, or stains on +their clothes, the ‘children’s German’ becomes simply a +German, sets up a little shop, sells amber cigarette-holders, +eau-de-Cologne and cigars to his former nurslings, and +carries out other secret commissions for them.<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c015'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>The first German who was engaged to look after me +was a native of Silesia and was called Jokisch; to my +mind the surname was sufficient reason not to have +engaged him. He was a tall, bald man, distinguished by +an extreme lack of cleanliness; he used to boast of his +knowledge of agricultural science, and I imagine it must +have been on that account that my father engaged him. +I looked on the Silesian giant with aversion, and the only +thing that reconciled me to him was that he used, as we +walked to the Dyevitchy grounds and to the Pryesnensky +ponds, to tell me indecent anecdotes which I repeated in +the servants’ hall. He stayed no more than a year; he +did something disgraceful in the village and the gardener +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>tried to kill him with a scythe, so my father told him to +take himself off.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He was succeeded by a Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel +soldier (probably a deserter) called Fyodor Karlovitch, +who was distinguished by his fine handwriting and +extreme stupidity. He had been in the same position +in two families before and had acquired some experience, +so adopted the tone of a tutor; moreover, he spoke French +with the accent invariably on the wrong syllable.<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c015'><sup>[27]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>I had not a particle of respect for him and poisoned +every moment of his existence, especially after I had +convinced myself that he was incapable of understanding +decimal fractions and the rule of three. As a rule there +is a great deal of ruthlessness and even cruelty in boys’ +hearts; with positive ferocity I persecuted the poor +Wolfenbüttel <em>Jäger</em> with proportion sums; this so interested +me that I triumphantly informed my father of +Fyodor Karlovitch’s stupidity, though I was not given +to discussing such subjects with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Moreover, Fyodor Karlovitch boasted to me that he +had a new swallow-tail coat, dark blue with gold buttons, +and I actually did see him on one occasion setting off to +attend a wedding in a swallow-tail coat which was too +big for him but had gold buttons. The boy whose duty +it was to wait upon him informed me that he had borrowed +the coat from a friend who served at the counter of +a perfumery shop. Without the slightest sympathy +I pestered the poor fellow to tell me where his blue +dress-coat was.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘There are so many moths in your house,’ he said, +‘that I have left it with a tailor I know, to be taken care of.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Where does that tailor live?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What is that to you?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why not tell me?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>‘You needn’t poke your nose into other people’s +business.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, perhaps not, but it is my name-day in a week, +so please do get the blue coat from the tailor for that day.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No, I won’t, you don’t deserve it because you are so +impertinent.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>For his final discomfiture Fyodor Karlovitch must +needs one day brag before Bouchot, my French teacher, +of having been a recruit at Waterloo, and of the Germans +having given the French a terrible thrashing. Bouchot +merely stared at him and took a pinch of snuff with such +a terrible air that the conqueror of Napoleon was a good +deal disconcerted. Bouchot walked off leaning angrily +on his gnarled stick and never referred to him afterwards +except as ‘<em>le soldat de Villainton</em>.’ I did not know at +the time that this pun was perpetrated by Béranger and +could not boast of having sprung from Bouchot’s fertile +fancy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At last Blücher’s companion in arms had some quarrel +with my father and left our house; after that my father +did not worry me with any more Germans.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While our Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel friend held the +field I sometimes used to visit some boys with whom a +friend of his lived, also in the capacity of a German; and +with these boys we used to take long walks; after his +departure I was left again in complete solitude. I was +bored, struggled to get out of it, and found no means of +escape. As I had no chance of overriding my father’s +will I might perhaps have been broken in to this existence, +if a new intellectual interest and two meetings, of which +I will speak in the following chapter, had not soon +afterwards saved me. I am quite certain that my father +had not the faintest notion what sort of life he was forcing +upon me, or he would not have thwarted me in the most +innocent desires, nor have refused me the most natural +requests.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>Sometimes he allowed me to go with the Senator to +the French theatre, and this was the greatest enjoyment +for me; I was passionately fond of seeing acting, but +this pleasure brought me as much pain as joy. The +Senator used to arrive with me when the play was half +over, and as he invariably had an invitation for the +evening, would drag me away before the end. The +theatre was in Apraxin’s House, at Arbatsky Gate, and +we lived in Old Konyushenny Street, that is very close +by, but my father sternly forbade my returning without +the Senator.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was about fifteen when my father engaged a priest +to give me Scripture lessons, so far as was necessary for +entering the University. The Catechism came into my +hands after I had read Voltaire. Nowhere does religion +play so modest a part in education as in Russia, and that, +of course, is a great piece of good fortune. A priest is +always paid half-price for lessons in religion, and, indeed, +if the same priest gives Latin lessons also, he is paid more +for them than for teaching the Catechism.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father regarded religion as among the essential +belongings of a well-bred man; he used to say that one +must believe in the ‘Holy Scriptures’ without criticism, +because you could do nothing in that domain with +reason, and all intellectual considerations merely obscured +the subject; that one must observe the rites of the religion +in which one was born, without, however, giving way +to excessive devoutness, which was all right for old +women, but not proper in men. Did he himself believe? +I imagine that he did believe a little, from habit, from +regard for propriety, and from a desire to be on the safe +side. He did not himself, however, take part in any +church observances, sheltering himself behind the +delicate state of his health. He scarcely ever received +a priest, at most he would ask him to perform a service +in the empty drawing-room and would send him there +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>five roubles. In the winter he excused himself on the +plea that the priest and the deacon always brought such +chilliness with them that he invariably caught cold. In +the country he used to go to church and receive the priest, +but rather with a view to secular affairs than religious +considerations. My mother was a Lutheran and therefore +one degree more religious; on one or two Sundays +in every month she would drive to her church, or as +Bakay persisted in calling it, to ‘her kirche,’ and, having +nothing better to do, I went with her. There I learned +to mimic the German pastors, their declamation and +verbosity with artistic finish, and I retained the talent +in riper years.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Every year my father commanded me to fast, confess, +and take the sacrament. I was afraid of confession, and +the church <i><span lang="fr">mise en scène</span></i> altogether impressed and alarmed +me. With genuine awe I went up to take the sacrament, +but I cannot call it a religious feeling, it was the awe +which is inspired by everything incomprehensible and +mysterious, especially when a grave and solemn significance +is attributed to it; casting spells and telling +fortunes affect one in the same way. I took the sacrament +after matins in Holy Week, and, after devouring eggs +coloured red and Easter cakes, I thought no more of +religion for the rest of the year.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But I used to read the Gospel a great deal and with +love, both in the Slavonic and in the Lutheran translation. +I read it without any guidance, and, though I did not +understand everything, I felt a deep and genuine respect +for what I read. In my early youth I was often influenced +by Voltairianism, and was fond of irony and mockery, +but I do not remember that I ever took the Gospel in my +hand with a cold feeling; and it has been the same with me +all my life; at all ages and under various circumstances +I have gone back to reading the Gospel, and every time +its words have brought peace and gentleness to my soul.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>When the priest began giving me lessons he was surprised +to find not only that I had a general knowledge of +the Gospel but that I could quote texts, word for word; +‘but the Lord God,’ he said, ‘though He has opened +his mind, had not yet opened his heart.’ And my +theologian, shrugging his shoulders, marvelled at my +‘double nature,’ but was pleased with me, thinking that +I should be able to pass my examination.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Soon a religion of a different sort took possession of my +soul.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 3<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The Death of Alexander I. and the Fourteenth of December—Moral Awakening—The Terrorist Bouchot—My Kortcheva Cousin</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>One winter morning the Senator arrived not at the +time he usually visited us; looking anxious, he +went with hurried footsteps into my father’s study and +closed the door, motioning me to remain in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Luckily I had not long to rack my brains guessing what +was the matter. The door of the servants’ hall opened +a little way and a red face, half-hidden in the wolf-fur of +a livery overcoat, called me in a whisper; it was the +Senator’s footman. I rushed to the door.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Haven’t you heard?’ he asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The Tsar has just died at Taganrog.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The news impressed me; I had never thought of the +possibility of the Tsar’s death; I had grown up with a +great respect for Alexander, and recalled mournfully how +I had seen him not long before in Moscow. When we +were out walking, we had met him beyond the Tverskoy +Gate; he was quietly riding along with two or three +generals, returning from Hodynki, where there had been +a review. His face was gracious, his features soft and +rounded, his expression tired and melancholy. When +he was on a level with us, I raised my hat, he bowed to +me, smiling. What a contrast to Nicholas, who always +looked like a slightly bald Medusa with cropped hair and +moustaches. In the street, at the court, with his children +and ministers, with his couriers and maids of honour, he +was incessantly trying whether his eyes had the power +of a rattlesnake, of freezing the blood in the veins.<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c015'><sup>[28]</sup></a> If +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>Alexander’s external gentleness was assumed, surely such +hypocrisy is better than the naked shamelessness of +despotism.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While vague ideas floated through my mind, while +portraits of the new Emperor Constantine were sold in +the shops, while appeals to take the oath of allegiance +were being delivered, and good people were hastening +to do so, rumours were suddenly afloat that the Tsarevitch +had refused the crown. Then that same footman of the +Senator’s, who was greatly interested in political news +and had a fine field for gathering it—in all the public +offices and vestibules of senators, to one or other of which +he was always driving from morning to night, for he did +not share the privilege of the horses, who were changed +after dinner—informed me that there had been rioting +in Petersburg and that cannons were being fired in +Galerny Street.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the following evening Count Komarovsky, a +general of the gendarmes, was with us: he told us of the +troops in St. Isaac’s Square, of the Horse Guards’ +attack, of the death of Count Miloradovitch.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then followed arrests; ‘so-and-so has been taken,’ +‘so-and-so has been seized,’ ‘so-and-so has been brought +up from the country’; terrified parents trembled for +their children. The sky was overcast with gloomy +storm-clouds.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the reign of Alexander political punishments were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>rare; the Tsar did, it is true, banish Pushkin for his +verses and Labzin for having, when he was secretary, proposed +to elect a coachman, called Ilya Baykov, a member +of the Academy of Arts<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c015'><sup>[29]</sup></a>; but there was no systematic +persecution. The secret police had not yet grown +into an independent body of gendarmes, but consisted +of a department under the control of De Sanglain, an +old Voltairian, a wit, a great talker, and a humorist in +the style of Jouy.<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c015'><sup>[30]</sup></a> Under Nicholas, this gentleman +himself was under the supervision of the police and he +was considered a liberal, though he was exactly what he +had always been; from this fact alone, it is easy to judge +of the difference between the two reigns.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nicholas was completely unknown until he came to +the throne; in the reign of Alexander he was of no +consequence, and no one was interested in him. Now +every one rushed to inquire about him; no one could +answer questions but the officers of the Guards; they +hated him for his cold cruelty, his petty fussiness and his +vindictiveness. One of the first anecdotes that went +the round of the town confirmed the officers’ opinion of +him. The story was that at some drill or other the +Grand Duke had so far forgotten himself as to try and +take an officer by the collar. The officer responded +with the words: ‘Your Highness, my sword is in my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>hand.’ Nicholas drew back, said nothing, but never +forgot the answer. After the Fourteenth of December +he made inquiries on two occasions as to whether this +officer was implicated. Fortunately he was not.<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c015'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>The tone of society changed before one’s eyes; the +rapid deterioration in morals was a melancholy proof of +how little the sense of personal dignity was developed +among Russian aristocrats. Nobody (except women) +dared show sympathy, dared utter a warm word about +relations or friends, whose hands had been shaken only +the day before they had been carried off at night by the +police. On the contrary, there were savage fanatics +for slavery, some from abjectness, others, worse still, +from disinterested motives.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Women alone did not take part in this shameful +abandonment of those who were near and dear ... and +women alone stood at the Cross too, and at the blood-stained +guillotine there stood, first, Lucile Desmoulins,<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c015'><sup>[32]</sup></a> +that Ophelia of the Revolution, always beside the axe, +waiting for her turn, and later, George Sand, who gave +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>the hand of sympathy and friendship on the scaffold +to the youthful fanatic Alibaud.<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c015'><sup>[33]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>The wives of men, exiled to hard labour, lost their +civil rights, abandoned wealth and social position, and +went to a lifetime of bondage in the terrible climate of +Eastern Siberia, under the still more terrible yoke of the +police there. Sisters, who had not the right to go with +their brothers, withdrew from court, and many left +Russia; almost all of them kept a feeling of love for the +victims alive in their hearts; but there was no such love +in the men, terror consumed it in their hearts, not one +of them dared mention the luckless exiles.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I am touching on the subject, I cannot forbear +saying a few words about one of those heroic stories, +of which very little has been heard. A young French +governess was living in the old-fashioned family of the +Ivashevs. Ivashev’s son and heir wanted to marry her. +This drove all his relations frantic; there was an uproar, +tears, petitions. The French girl had not the support +of a brother like Tchernov, who on his sister’s behalf +killed Novosiltsov and was killed by him in a duel. She +was persuaded to leave Petersburg, and he to put off for +a time his design of marrying her. Ivashev was one of +the more active conspirators and he was sentenced to +penal servitude for life. His relations did not succeed +in saving him from the <em>mésalliance</em>. As soon as the dreadful +news reached the young girl in Paris, she set off for +Petersburg and asked permission to go to the province +of Irkutsk to join her betrothed. Benckendorf tried to +dissuade her from this criminal intention; he did not +succeed and reported the matter to Nicholas. The Tsar +directed that the position of women who did not desert +their exiled husbands should be explained to her, adding +that he would not prevent her going, but that she must +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>know that, if wives who went to Siberia from fidelity to +their husbands deserved some indulgence, she had not +the slightest right to any since she was wilfully entering +into marriage with a criminal. Nicholas and she both +kept their word, she went to Siberia, and he did nothing +to alleviate her fate.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘The Monarch though severe was just.’<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c015'><sup>[34]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>In the prison nothing was known of the permission +given her, and when the poor girl arrived she had, while +a correspondence was carried on with the authorities in +Petersburg, to wait in a little settlement inhabited by +all sorts of former criminals, with no means of finding +out anything about Ivashev or communicating with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>By degrees she became acquainted with her new +companions. Among them was an exiled robber who +worked in the prison; she told him her story. Next +day the robber brought her a note from Ivashev. A day +later he offered to bring her notes from Ivashev and to +take her letters to him. He had to work in the prison +from morning till evening; at nightfall he would take +Ivashev’s letter and would set off with it regardless of +snowstorms and fatigue, and return to his work at dawn.<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c015'><sup>[35]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>At last the permission came and they were married. +A few years later penal servitude was exchanged for a +settlement. Their position was somewhat better, but +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>their strength was exhausted; the wife was the first to +sink under the weight of all she had gone through. She +faded away as a flower of southern lands must fade in +the Siberian snows. Ivashev did not survive her, he +actually died a year later, but before then he had left +this sphere; his letters (which made some impression +on the Third Section<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c015'><sup>[36]</sup></a>) bear the traces of an infinitely +mournful, holy madness and gloomy poetry; he was not +really living after her death, but slowly and solemnly +dying. This chronicle does not end with his death. +After Ivashev’s exile his father made over his estate to +his illegitimate son, begging him to help his poor brother +and not to forget him. The exiles left two little boys, +helpless, fatherless and motherless, who had neither +name nor rights and seemed likely to become cantonists<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c015'><sup>[37]</sup></a> +and settlers in Siberia. Ivashev’s brother entreated +Nicholas for permission to take the children. Nicholas +granted permission. A few years later he risked another +petition, he moved heaven and earth for their father’s +name to be restored to them; and in this too he was +successful.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The accounts of the rising and of the trial of the +leaders, and the horror in Moscow, made a deep impression +on me; a new world which became more and more +the centre of my moral existence was revealed to me. I +do not know how it came to pass, but though I had no +understanding, or only a very dim one, of what it all +meant, I felt that I was not on the same side as the +grape-shot and victory, prisons and chains. The execution +of Pestel,<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c015'><sup>[38]</sup></a> and his associates finally dissipated the +childish dream of my soul.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>Every one expected some mitigation of the sentence +on the condemned men, the coronation was about to take +place. Even my father, in spite of his caution and his +scepticism, said that the death penalty would not be +carried out, and that all this was done merely to impress +people. But, like every one else, he knew little of the +youthful monarch. Nicholas left Petersburg, and, without +visiting Moscow, stopped at the Petrovsky Palace.... +The citizens of Moscow could scarcely believe their +eyes when they read in the <cite>Moscow News</cite> of the terrible +event of the fourteenth of July.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Russian people had become unaccustomed to the +death penalty; since the days of Mirovitch,<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c015'><sup>[39]</sup></a> who was +executed instead of Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>, and of Pugatchov<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c015'><sup>[40]</sup></a> and +his companions, there had been no executions; men +had died under the knout, soldiers had run the gauntlet +(contrary to the law) until they fell dead, but the death +penalty <em>de jure</em> did not exist. The story is told that in the +reign of Paul there was some partial rising of the Cossacks +on the Don in which two officers were implicated. Paul +ordered them to be tried by court martial, and gave the +hetman or general full authority. The court condemned +them to death, but no one dared to confirm the sentence; +the hetman submitted the matter to the Tsar. ‘They are +a pack of women,’ said Paul; ‘they want to throw the +execution on me, very much obliged to them,’ and he +commuted the sentence to penal servitude.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Nicholas re-introduced the death penalty into our +criminal proceedings, at first illegally, but afterwards he +included it in the Code.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The day after receiving the terrible news there was +a religious service in the Kremlin.<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c015'><sup>[41]</sup></a> After celebrating +the execution Nicholas made his triumphal entry into +Moscow. I saw him then for the first time; he was on +horseback riding beside a carriage in which the two +empresses, his wife and Alexander’s widow, were sitting. +He was handsome, but there was a coldness about his +looks; no face could have more mercilessly betrayed the +character of the man than his. The sharply retreating +forehead and the lower jaw developed at the expense +of the skull were expressive of iron will and feeble intelligence, +rather of cruelty than of sensuality; but the +chief point in the face was the eyes, which were entirely +without warmth, without a trace of mercy, wintry eyes. +I do not believe that he ever passionately loved any +woman, as Paul loved Anna Lopuhin,<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c015'><sup>[42]</sup></a> and as Alexander +loved all women except his wife; ‘he was favourably +disposed to them,’ nothing more.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>In the Vatican there is a new gallery in which Pius <span class='fss'>VII.</span>, +I believe, has placed an immense number of statues, busts, +and statuettes, dug up in Rome and its environs. The +whole history of the decline of Rome is there expressed +in eyebrows, lips, foreheads; from the daughters of +Augustus down to Poppaea, the matrons have succeeded +in transforming themselves into cocottes, and the type of +cocotte is predominant and persists; the masculine type, +surpassing itself, so to speak, in Antinous and Hermaphroditus, +divides into two. On one hand there is sensual +and moral degradation, low brows and features defiled +by vice and gluttony, bloodshed and every wickedness +in the world, petty as in the hetaira Heliogabalus, or +with sunken cheeks like Galba; the last type is wonderfully +reproduced in the King of Naples.... But there +is another—the type of military commander in whom +everything social and moral, everything human has died +out, and there is left nothing but the passion for domination; +the mind is narrow and there is no heart at all; +they are the monks of the love of power; force and +austere will is manifest in their features. Such were +the Emperors of the Praetorian Guard and of the army, +whom the turbulent legionaries raised to power for an +hour. Among their number I found many heads that +recalled Nicholas before he wore a moustache. I understand +the necessity for these grim and inflexible guards +beside what is dying in frenzy, but what use are they to +what is youthful and growing?</p> + +<p class='c014'>In spite of the fact that political dreams absorbed me +day and night, my ideas were not distinguished by any +peculiar insight; they were so confused that I actually +imagined that the object of the Petersburg rising was, +among other things, to put the Tsarevitch Constantine +on the throne, while limiting his power. This led to +my being devoted for a whole year to that eccentric +creature. He was at that time more popular than +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>Nicholas; for what reason I do not know, but the masses, +for whom he had never done anything good, and the +soldiers, to whom he had done nothing but harm, loved +him. I well remember how during the coronation he +walked beside the pale-faced Nicholas with scowling, +light-yellow, bushy eyebrows, a bent figure with the +shoulders hunched up to the ears, wearing the uniform +of the Lettish Guards with a yellow collar. After giving +away the bride at the wedding of Nicholas with Russia, +he went away to complete the disaffection of Warsaw. +Nothing more was heard of him until the 29th of +November 1830.<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c015'><sup>[43]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>My hero was not handsome and you could not find such +a type in the Vatican. I should have called it the +Gatchina type, if I had not seen the King of Sardinia.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I need hardly say that now solitude weighed upon me +more than ever, for I longed to communicate my ideas +and my dreams to some one, to test them and to hear +them confirmed; I was too proudly conscious of being +‘ill-intentioned’ to say nothing about it, or to speak of +it indiscriminately. My first choice of a confidant was +my Russian tutor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I. E. Protopopov was full of that vague and generous +liberalism which often passes away with the first grey +hair, with marriage and a post, but yet does ennoble a +man. My teacher was touched, and as he was taking +leave embraced me with the words: ‘God grant that +these feelings may take root and grow stronger in you.’ +His sympathy was a great comfort to me. After this he +began bringing me much-dog’s-eared manuscript copies +in small handwriting of Pushkin’s poems, the ‘Ode to +Freedom,’ ‘The Dagger,’ ‘Ryleyev’s Reverie.’ I used +to copy them in secret ... (and now I print them +openly!).</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>Of course, my reading, too, took a different turn. +Politics was now in the foreground, and above all the +history of the Revolution, of which I knew nothing +except from Madame Proveau’s tales. In the library in +the basement I discovered a history of the ‘nineties +written by a Royalist. It was so partial that even at +fourteen I did not believe it. I happened to hear from +old Bouchot that he had been in Paris during the Revolution; +and I longed to question him; but Bouchot was a +stern and forbidding man with an immense nose and +spectacles; he never indulged in superfluous conversation, +he conjugated verbs, dictated copies, scolded me and +went away, leaning on his thick gnarled stick.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why did they execute Louis <span class='fss'>XVI.</span>?’ I asked him in +the middle of a lesson.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The old man looked at me, frowning with one grey +eyebrow and lifting the other, pushed his spectacles up +on his forehead like a visor, pulled out a large blue handkerchief +and, blowing his nose with dignity, said: +‘<i><span lang="fr">Parce qu’il a été traître à la patrie</span></i>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘If you had been one of the judges, would you have +signed the death sentence?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘With both hands.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This lesson was of more value to me than all the +subjunctives; it was enough for me; it was clear that +the king deserved to be executed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Old Bouchot did not like me and thought me empty-headed +and mischievous, because I did not prepare my +lessons properly, and he often used to say ‘you’ll come to +no good,’ but when he noticed my sympathy with his +regicide ideas, he began to be gracious instead of being +cross, forgave my mistakes and used to tell me episodes +of the year ’93, and how he had left France, when ‘the +dissolute and the dishonest’ got the upper hand. He +would finish the lesson with the same dignity, without +a smile, but now he would say indulgently: ‘I really +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>did think that you were coming to no good, but your +generous feelings will be your salvation.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>To this encouragement and sympathy from my teacher +was soon added a warmer sympathy which had more +influence on me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The granddaughter<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c015'><sup>[44]</sup></a> of my father’s eldest brother +was living in a little town in the province of Tver. I +had known her from my earliest childhood, but we rarely +met; she used to come once a year for Christmas or for +Carnival to stay at Moscow with her aunt. Nevertheless, +we became friends. She was five years older than I, but +so small and young-looking that she might have been +taken for the same age. What I particularly liked her +for was that she was the first person who treated me as +a human being, that is, did not continually express +surprise at my having grown, ask me what lessons I was +doing, and whether I was good at them, and whether I +wanted to go into the army and into what regiment, but +talked to me as people in general talk to each other; +though she retained that tone of authority which girls +like to assume with boys who are a little younger than +themselves. We had written to each other and after 1824 +fairly often, but letters again mean pens and paper, again +the schoolroom table with its blots and pictures carved +with a penknife; I longed to see her, to talk to her about +my new ideas, and so it may be imagined with what joy +I heard that my cousin was coming in February (1826), +and would stay with us for some months. I scratched +on my table the days of the month until her arrival and +blotted them out as they passed, sometimes intentionally +forgetting three days so as to have the pleasure of +blotting out rather more at once, and yet the time +dragged on very slowly; then the time fixed had passed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>and her coming was deferred until a later date, and that +passed, as it always does.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was sitting one evening with my tutor Protopopov +in my schoolroom, and he as usual, taking a sip of fizzing +kvass after every sentence, was talking of the hexameter, +horribly with voice and hand chopping up every line of +Gnyeditch’s <cite>Iliad</cite> at the cæsura, when all of a sudden +the snow in the yard crunched with a different sound +from that made by town sledges, the tied-up bell gave +the relic of a tinkle, there was talk in the yard.... I +flushed crimson, I had no more thought for the measured +wrath of ‘Achilles, son of Peleus’; I rushed headlong +to the hall and my cousin from Tver, wrapped in fur +coats, shawls, and scarves, wearing a bonnet and fluffy +white high boots, red with the frost and, perhaps, with +joy, rushed to kiss me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>People usually talk of their early childhood, of its +griefs and joys with a smile of condescension, as though, +like Sofya Pavlovna in <cite>Woe from Wit</cite>, they would say +with a grimace: ‘Childishness!’ As though they had +grown better in later years, as though their feelings were +keener or deeper. Within three years children are +ashamed of their playthings—let them be, they long to +be grown-up, they grow and change so rapidly, they see +that from their jackets and the pages of their schoolbooks; +but one would have thought grown-up people +might understand that childhood together with two or +three years of youth is the fullest, most exquisite part of +life, the part that is most our own, and, indeed, almost +the most important, for it imperceptibly shapes our future.</p> + +<p class='c014'>So long as a man is advancing with discreet footsteps +forward, without stopping or taking thought, so long as +he does not come to a precipice or break his neck, he +imagines that his life lies before him, looks down on the +past and does not know how to appreciate the present. +But when experience has crushed the flowers of spring +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>and the flush of summer has cooled, when he begins to +suspect that his life is practically over, though its continuation +remains, then he turns with different feelings +to the bright, warm, lovely memories of early youth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nature with her everlasting snares and economic +devices <em>gives</em> man youth, but <em>takes</em> the formed man for +herself; she draws him on, entangles him in a web of +social and family relations, three-fourths of which are +independent of his will; he, of course, gives his personal +character to his actions, but he belongs to himself far less +than in youth; the lyrical element of the personality is +feebler and therefore also the power of enjoyment—everything +is weaker, except the mind and the will.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My cousin’s life was not a bed of roses. Her mother +she lost when she was a baby. Her father was a desperate +gambler, and, like all who have gambling in their blood, +he was a dozen times reduced to poverty and a dozen +times rich again, and ended all the same by completely +ruining himself. <em>Les beaux restes</em> of his property he +devoted to a stud-farm on which he concentrated all his +thoughts and feelings. His son, an ensign in the Uhlans, +my cousin’s only brother and a very good-natured youth, +was going the straight road to ruin; at nineteen he was +already a more passionate gambler than his father.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At fifty, the father, for no reason at all, married an +old maid who had been a pupil in the Smolny Convent.<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c015'><sup>[45]</sup></a> +Such a complete, perfect type of the Petersburg boarding-school +miss it has never been my lot to meet. She had +been one of the best pupils, and afterwards had become +<em>dame de classe</em> in the school; thin, fair, and short-sighted, +she had something didactic and edifying about her very +appearance. Not at all stupid, she was full of an icy +enthusiasm in words, talked in hackneyed phrases of +virtue and devotion, knew chronology and geography +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>by heart, spoke French with a revolting correctness and +concealed an inner vanity which was like an artificial +Jesuitical modesty. In addition to these traits of the +‘seminarists in yellow shawls’ she had others which were +purely Nevsky or Smolny characteristics. She used to +raise her eyes full of tears to heaven, as she spoke of the +visits of their common mother (the Empress Maria +Fyodorovna), was in love with the Emperor Alexander, +and, I remember, used to wear a locket, or a signet ring, +with a scrap of a letter from the Empress Elizabeth in +it, ‘<em>Il a repris son sourire de bienveillance!</em>’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The reader can picture the harmonious trio: the father, +a gambler, passionately devoted to horses, gypsies, noise, +carousals, races, and trotting matches; the daughter +brought up in complete independence, accustomed to +do what she liked in the house; and the learned lady +who, from an elderly schoolmistress, had been turned +into a young wife. Of course, she did not like her stepdaughter, +and of course her stepdaughter did not like +her; as a rule great affection can only exist between +women of five-and-thirty and girls of seventeen when +the former, with resolute self-sacrifice, determine to have +no sex.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I am not at all surprised at the common hostility +between stepdaughters and stepmothers, it is natural +and it is right. The new person put into the mother’s +place excites aversion in the children, the second marriage +is for them like a second funeral. The children’s love is +vividly expressed in this feeling, it whispers to the orphans: +‘Your father’s wife is not your mother.’ At first Christianity +understood that with the conception of marriage +which it developed, with the immortality of the soul +which it preached, a second marriage was altogether +incongruous; but, making continual concessions to the +world, the Church compromised with its principles and +was confronted with the implacable logic of life, with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>the simple childish heart that in practice revolts against +the pious incongruity of regarding its father’s companion +as its mother.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On her side, too, the woman who comes to her new +home from church and finds a family, children awaiting +her, is in an awkward position; she has nothing to do +with them, she must affect feelings which she cannot +have, she must persuade herself and others that another +woman’s children are as dear to her as her own.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And therefore I do not in the least blame the lady +from the convent nor my cousin for their mutual dislike, +but I understand how the young girl, unaccustomed to +discipline, was fretting to escape anywhere out of the +parental home. Her father was beginning to get old +and was more and more under the thumb of his learned +wife. Her brother, the Uhlan, was going from bad to +worse, and, in fact, life was not pleasant at home, and +at last she persuaded her stepmother to let her come +for some months, possibly even for a year, to us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The day after her arrival my cousin turned the whole +order of my life, except my lessons, upside down, arbitrarily +fixed hours for our reading together, advised me +not to read novels, but recommended Ségur’s <cite>Universal +History</cite> and the <cite>Travels of Anacharsis</cite>. Her stoical +ideals led her to oppose my marked inclination for +smoking in secret, which I did by wrapping the tobacco +in paper (cigarettes did not exist in those days); she liked +preaching morality to me in general, and if I did not obey +her teaching, at least I listened meekly. Luckily she +could not keep up to her own standards, and, forgetting +her rules, she read Zschokke’s<a id='r46'></a><a href='#f46' class='c015'><sup>[46]</sup></a> tales with me instead of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>the archæological novel, and secretly sent a boy out to +buy, in winter, buckwheat cakes and pease-pudding, and, +in summer, gooseberries and currants.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I think my cousin’s influence over me was very good; +with her a warm element came into the cell-like seclusion +of my youth, it fostered and perhaps, indeed, preserved +the scarcely developing feelings which might very well +have been completely crushed by my father’s irony. I +learnt to be observant, to be wounded by a word, to care +about somebody else, to love; I learnt to talk about my +feelings. She supported my political aspirations, predicted +for me an extraordinary future and fame, and I, +with childish vanity, believed her that I was a future +‘Brutus or Fabricius.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>To me alone she confided the secret of her love for +an officer of the Alexandrinsky Regiment of Hussars, in +a black cape and a black dolman; it was a genuine secret, +for the hussar himself, as he commanded his squadron, +never suspected what a pure flame was glowing for him +in the bosom of a girl of eighteen. I do not know whether +I envied his lot, probably I did a little, but I was proud +of having been chosen as a confidant, and imagined (after +Werther) that this was one of those tragic passions, which +would have a great <em>dénouement</em> accompanied by suicide, +poison, and a dagger, and the idea even occurred to me +that I might go to him and tell him all about it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My cousin had brought shuttlecocks from Kortcheva; +in one of the shuttlecocks there was a pin, she would +never play with any other, and whenever it fell to me or +any one else she would take it, saying she was used to +playing with it. The demon of mischief, which was +always my evil tempter, prompted me to change the pin, +that is, to stick it in another shuttlecock. The trick was +fully successful, my cousin always took to the one with +the pin in it. A fortnight later I told her; her face +changed, she dissolved into tears and went off to her own +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>room. I was panic-stricken and unhappy and, after +waiting for half an hour, went to her; her door was +locked. I begged her to open it; she refused to let me +in and said that she was ill, that I was no friend to her, +but a heartless boy. I wrote her a note and besought +her to forgive me; after tea we made it up, I kissed her +hand, she embraced me and at once explained the full +importance of the matter. A year before, the hussar +had dined with them and after dinner played battledore +and shuttlecock, and this was the shuttlecock with which +he had played. I had pangs of conscience, I thought +that I had committed a real sacrilege.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My cousin stayed until October. Her father sent for +her to come home, promising to let her come to us at +Vassilyevskoe the following year. We looked forward +with horror to parting and, behold, one day a chaise came +for her, and her maid carried off boxes and baskets to +pack in it while our servants filled the chaise with all +sorts of provisions for a full week’s journey, and crowded +at the entrance to say good-bye. We embraced warmly, +she wept and I wept—the chaise drove out into the +side street beside the very place where they used to sell +us buckwheat cakes and pease-pudding, and vanished. +I crossed the yard, it seemed so cold and horrid; I went +up into my room—and there it seemed cold and empty. +I set to work on my lesson for Protopopov, while I +wondered where the chaise was now, and whether it had +passed the town-gate or not.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My only comfort was the thought of our being together +again at Vassilyevskoe the following June!</p> + +<p class='c014'>For me the country was always a time of renewal, I +was passionately fond of country life. The forest, the +fields, and the freedom—it was all so new for me who had +been brought up in cotton-wool, within brick walk, not +daring on any pretext to go out beyond the gate without +asking leave and being accompanied by a footman....</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>‘Are we going this year to Vassilyevskoe or not?’ +From early spring I was greatly interested in this question. +My father invariably said that this year he was going +away early, that he longed to see the leaves come out, but +he never could get off before July. Some years he would +put it off so late that we never went at all. He wrote +to the country every winter that the house was to be got +ready and thoroughly warmed, but this was done through +deep diplomatic considerations rather than quite seriously, +in order that the village elder and the counting-house +clerk might be afraid he would soon be coming and look +after their work more carefully.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It seemed that we were going. My father told the +Senator that he was longing to rest in the country and +that the estate wanted looking after, but again weeks +went by.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Little by little there seemed more ground for hope, +provisions began to be sent off, sugar, tea, all sorts of +cereals, and wine—then again there was a pause, and then +at last an order was despatched to the village elder to +send so many peasants’ horses on such a day—and so +we were going, we were going!</p> + +<p class='c014'>I did not think then what the loss of four or five days +when work in the fields was at its height must have meant +to the peasants, but rejoiced with all my heart and +hastened to pack my books and exercise books. The +horses were brought, with inward satisfaction I heard +their munching and snorting in the yard, and took great +interest in the bustle of the coachmen, and the wrangling +of the servants as to who should sit in which cart and +where each should put his belongings. In the servants’ +quarters lights were burning until daybreak, and all were +packing, dragging sacks and bags from place to place, +and dressing for the journey (which was one of over +fifty miles). My father’s valet was the most exasperated +of all, he realised the full importance of the packing; with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>intense irritation he flung out everything which had been +put in by others, tore his hair with vexation and was +quite unapproachable.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father did not get up a bit earlier next day, in +fact I think he got up later than usual, and drank his +coffee just as slowly, but at last, at eleven o’clock, he +ordered the horses to be put in. Behind the carriage, +which had four seats and was drawn by six carriage horses, +there followed three and sometimes four conveyances—a +coach, a chaise, a wagon, or instead of it, two carts; all +these were filled with the house-serfs and their belongings, +although wagon-loads had been sent on beforehand, and +everything was so tightly packed that no one could sit +with comfort. We stopped half way to have dinner +and to feed the horses in the big village of Perhushkovo, +the name of which occurs in Napoleon’s bulletins. This +village belonged to the son of that elder brother of my +father of whom I have spoken in connection with the +division of the property. The neglected house of the +owner stood on the high-road, surrounded by flat, cheerless-looking +fields; but even this dusty vista delighted +me after the stuffiness of town. In the house the warped +boards and stairs shook, sounds and footsteps resounded +loudly, the walls echoed as it were with astonishment. +The old-fashioned furniture from the former owner’s +art museum was living out its day in this exile; I wandered +with curiosity from room to room, went upstairs and +downstairs and finally into the kitchen. There our +man-cook, with a cross and ironical expression, was +preparing a hasty dinner. The steward, a grey-haired +old man with a swelling on his head, was usually sitting +in the kitchen; the cook addressed his remarks to him +and criticised the stove and the hearth, while the steward +listened to him and from time to time answered laconically: +‘May-be,’ and looked disconsolately at all the +upset, wondering when the devil would carry us off again.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>The dinner was served on a special English service, +made of tin or some composition, bought <em>ad hoc</em>. Meanwhile +the horses had been put in; in the hall and vestibule, +people who were fond of meetings and leave-takings +were gathering together: footmen who were finishing +their lives on bread and pure country air, old women +who had been prepossessing maids thirty years before, +all the locusts of a landowner’s household who through +no fault of their own eat up the peasants’ substance +like real locusts. With them came children with flaxen +hair; barefooted and muddy, they kept poking forward +while the old women pulled them back. They caught +me on every opportunity, and every year wondered that +I had grown so much. My father said a few words +to them; some went up to kiss his hand, which he never +gave them, others bowed, and we set off.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few miles from Prince Golitsyn’s estate of Vyazma +the elder of Vassilyevskoe was waiting for us on horseback +at the edge of the forest, and he escorted us by a cross-road. +In the village by the big house, approached by a long +avenue of limes, we were met by the priest, his wife, the +church servitors, the house-serfs, several peasants, and the +village fool, who was the only one to display a feeling of +human dignity, for he did not take off his hat, but stood +smiling at a little distance and took to his heels as soon as +any of the town servants attempted to approach him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I have seen few places more picturesque than Vassilyevskoe. +For any one who knows Kuntsovo and +Yussupov’s Arhangelskoe, or Lopuhin’s estate facing +the Savin monastery, it is enough to say that Vassilyevskoe +lies on a continuation of the same bank of the Moskva, +twenty miles from the same monastery. On the sloping +side of the river lie the village, the church, and the old +manor house. On the other side there is a hill and a +small village, and there my father built a new house. +The view from it embraced an expanse of ten miles of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>country; seas of quivering cornfields stretched endlessly; +homesteads and villages with white churches could be +seen here and there; forests of various hues made a semicircular +setting, and the Moskva like a pale blue ribbon +ran through it all. Early in the morning I opened the +window in the room upstairs and gazed and listened and +breathed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And yet I regretted the old brick house, perhaps because +I was there when I first went to the country; I so loved +the long, shady avenue leading up to it and the garden +that had run wild; the house had fallen into ruins and +a slender graceful birch tree was growing out of a crack +in the wall of the hall. On the left an avenue of willows +ran along the riverside, beyond it there were reeds and +the white sand down to the river; on that sand and among +those reeds I used at ten and eleven years old to play for +a whole morning. A bent old man, the gardener, used +always to be sitting before the house, he used to distil +peppermint water, cook berries, and secretly regale me on +all sorts of vegetables. There were great numbers of +rooks in the garden: the tops of the trees were covered +with their nests, and they used to circle round them, +cawing; sometimes, especially in the evening, they +used to fly up in regular hundreds racing after one +another with a great clamour; sometimes one would +fly hurriedly from tree to tree and then all would be +still.... And towards night an owl would wail somewhere +in the distance like a child, or go off into a peal +of laughter.... I was afraid of these wild wailing +sounds and yet I went to listen to them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Every year, or, at least, every alternate year, we used +to go to Vassilyevskoe. As I went away, I used to measure +my height on the wall by the balcony, and I went at once +on arriving to find how much I had grown. But in the +country I could measure not only my physical growth, +these periodical returns to the same objects showed me +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>clearly the difference in my inner development. Other +books were brought, other objects interested me. In +1823 I was quite a child, I had children’s books with me, +and even those I did not read, but was much more +interested in a hare and a squirrel which were living in +the loft near my room. One of my principal enjoyments +consisted in my father’s permission to shoot from a +falconet every evening, which operation of course entertained +all the servants, and grey-haired old men of fifty +were as much diverted as I was. In 1827 I brought +with me Plutarch and Schiller; early in the morning +I used to go out into the forest as far as I could and, +imagining that I was in the Bohemian forests, read aloud +to myself. Nevertheless, I was greatly interested in a +dam which I was making on a small stream with the help +of a serf-boy and would run a dozen times a day to look +at it and repair it. In 1829 and 1830 I was writing a +philosophical article on Schiller’s <cite>Wallenstein</cite>, and of +my old toys none but the falconet retained its charm.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Besides shooting there was, however, another enjoyment +for which I retained an unalterable passion—watching +the evenings in the country; now as then, such +evenings are still times of devoutness, peace, and poetry. +One of the last serenely-bright moments in my life +reminds me also of those village evenings. The sun was +sinking majestically, brilliantly, into an ocean of fire, +was dissolving into it.... All at once the rich purple +was followed by deep blue dusk, everything was covered +with a smoky mist: in Italy the darkness falls quickly. +We mounted our mules; on the way from Frascati to +Rome we had to ride through a little village; here and +there lights were already twinkling; everything was +still, the mules’ hoofs rang musically on the stone, a fresh +and rather damp wind was blowing from the Apennines. +As we came out of the village, there was a little Madonna +standing in a niche with a lamp burning before her; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>some peasant girls as they came from work with white +kerchiefs on their heads sank on their knees and chanted +a prayer; they were joined by some strolling flute-players +who were passing by. I was deeply affected, +deeply touched. We looked at each other ... and +with slow steps rode on to the inn where a carriage was +waiting for us. As we drove homewards I talked of the +evenings at Vassilyevskoe, and what was there to tell?</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘In silence stood the garden trees,</div> + <div class='line'>Among the hills the village lay,</div> + <div class='line'>And thither at the fall of night</div> + <div class='line'>The lingering cattle wend their way.’</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>Ogaryov</span>: Humorous Verse.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>... The shepherd cracks his long whip and plays +on his birch-bark pipe; there is the lowing and bleating +and stamping of the herds returning over the bridge, the +dog with a bark chases a straying sheep while she runs +with a sort of wooden gallop; and then the songs of +the peasant girls, on their way home from the fields, +come closer and closer; but the path turns off to the +right and the sounds retreat again. From the houses +children run out at the creaking gates to meet their cows +and sheep; work is over. The children are playing in +the street and on the river-bank, their voices ring out +with shrill clearness over the river in the evening glow; +the parched smell of corn-kilns mingles in the air, the +dew begins little by little to lie like smoke over the fields, +the wind moves over the forest with a sound as though +the leaves were boiling and the summer lightning, quivering, +lights up the landscape with a dying, tremulous +azure, and Vera Artamonovna, grumbling rather than +cross, says, coming upon me under a lime tree: ‘How +is it there is no finding you anywhere, and tea has been +ready long ago and every one is at the table, here I have +been looking and looking for you until my legs are tired. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>I can’t go running about at my age; and why are you +lying on the damp grass like that? ... you’ll have a +cold to-morrow, I’ll be bound.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh, come, come,’ I say, laughing to the old woman, +‘I shan’t have a cold and I don’t want any tea, but you +steal me the best of the cream from the very top.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, you really are a boy, there’s no being angry +with you ... that’s a queer thing to ask for! I have +got the cream ready for you without your asking. Look +at the lightning ... well, that’s right! It’s good for +the corn.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And I go home skipping and whistling.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We did not visit Vassilyevskoe after 1832. My +father sold it while I was in exile. In 1843 we stayed +at another estate in the Moscow province, in the district +of Zvenigorod, about fourteen miles from Vassilyevskoe. +I could not help going over to visit my old home. And +here we were again riding along the same cross-road; +the familiar fir-wood and the hill covered with nut trees +came into view, and then the ford over the river, the ford +that had so delighted me twenty years before, the gurgling +of the water, the crunching of the pebbles, the shouting +coachmen and the struggling horses ... and here was +the village and the priest’s house where he used to sit +on a bench in a dark-brown cassock, simple-hearted, +good-natured, red-haired, always in a sweat, always +nibbling something and always afflicted with a hiccup; +and here was the counting-house where the clerk Vassily +Epifanov, who was never sober, used to write his accounts, +huddled up over the paper, holding the pen by the very +end with his third finger bent tightly under it. The +priest was dead and Vassily Epifanov was keeping +accounts and getting drunk in another village. We +stopped at the village elder’s hut, but found only the wife +at home, the man himself was in the fields.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A strange element had crept in during those ten years; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>instead of our house on the hill there was a new one, and +a new garden was laid out beside it. As we turned by +the church and the graveyard, we met a deformed-looking +figure, dragging itself along almost on all fours; +it was showing me something, I went up: it was a hunchback +and paralytic old woman, half-crazy, who used to live +on charity and work in the former priest’s garden. She +had been about seventy then and death seemed to have +overlooked her. She recognised me, shed tears, shook +her head and kept saying: ‘Ough! why even you are +getting old, I only knew you from your walk, while I—there, +there, ough! ough! don’t talk of it!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>As we were driving back, I saw in the fields in the +distance the village elder, the same as in our time. At +first he did not know me, but when we had driven by, +as though suddenly coming to himself with a start, he +took off his hat and bowed low. When we had driven +a little further I turned round; the village elder, Grigory +Gorsky, was still standing in the same place, looking after +us; his tall, bearded figure, bowing in the midst of the +cornfield, gave us a friendly send-off from the home +which had passed into strangers’ hands.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 4<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Nick and the Sparrow Hills</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>‘<em>Write how here on that spot (the Sparrow Hills) the story +of our lives, yours and mine, developed.</em>’—A Letter, 1833.</p> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>Three years before the time of my cousin’s visit +we were walking on the banks of the Moskva at +Luzhniki, <em>i.e.</em> on the other side of the Sparrow Hills. +At the river’s edge we met a French tutor of our acquaintance +dressed in nothing but his shirt; he was panic-stricken +and was shouting, ‘He is drowning, he is drowning!’ +But before our friend had time to take off his +shirt or put on his trousers, an Ural Cossack ran down +from the Sparrow Hills, dashed into the water, vanished, +and a minute later reappeared with a frail-looking man, +whose head and arms were flopping about like clothes +hung out in the wind. He laid him on the bank, saying, +‘We had better roll him or else he will die.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The people standing round collected fifty roubles and +offered it to the Cossack. The latter without affectation +said very simple-heartedly: ‘It’s a sin to take money +for such a thing, and it was no trouble either; come to +think of it, he is no more weight than a cat. But we are +poor people, though,’ he added. ‘Ask, we don’t; but, +there, if people give, why not take; we are humbly +thankful.’ Then tying up the money in a handkerchief +he went to graze his horses on the hill. My father asked +his name and wrote about the incident next day to Essen. +Essen promoted him to be a non-commissioned officer. +A few months later the Cossack came to see us and with +him a pock-marked bald German, smelling of scent and +wearing a curled fair wig; he came to thank us on behalf +of the Cossack, it was the drowned man. From that +time he took to coming to see us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Karl Ivanovitch Sonnenberg, that was his name, was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>at that time completing the German part of the education +of two young rascals; from them he went to a +landowner of Simbirsk, and from him to a distant +relative of my father’s. The boy, the care of whose +health and German accent had been entrusted to him +and whom Sonnenberg called Nick, attracted me. There +was something kind, gentle, and dreamy about him; he +was not at all like the other boys it had been my luck to +meet, but, nevertheless, we became close friends. He +was silent and dreamy; I was playful but afraid to tease +him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>About the time when my cousin went back to Kortcheva, +Nick’s grandmother died; his mother he had +lost in early childhood. There was a great upset in the +house, and Sonnenberg who really had nothing to do was +very busy too, and imagined that he was run off his +legs; he brought Nick in the morning and asked that +he might remain with us for the rest of the day. Nick +was sad and frightened; I suppose he had been fond +of his grandmother. He so poetically recalled her in +after years:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“When even’s golden beams are blent</div> + <div class='line'>With rosy vistas, radiant hued,</div> + <div class='line'>I call to mind how in our home</div> + <div class='line'>The ancient customs we pursued.</div> + <div class='line'>On every Sunday’s eve there came</div> + <div class='line'>Our grey and stately priest arrayed,</div> + <div class='line'>And, bowing to the holy shrine,</div> + <div class='line'>With his assistants knelt and prayed.</div> + <div class='line'>Our grandmamma, the honoured dame,</div> + <div class='line'>Would lean upon her spacious chair</div> + <div class='line'>And, fingering her rosary,</div> + <div class='line'>Would bend her head in whispered prayer.</div> + <div class='line'>And through the doorway we could see</div> + <div class='line'>The house-servants’ familiar faces,</div> + <div class='line'>As praying for a ripe old age</div> + <div class='line'>They knelt in their accustomed places.</div> + <div class='line'>Meantime, upon the window-panes</div> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>The evening glow would shine, reflected,</div> + <div class='line'>While incense floated through the hall</div> + <div class='line'>By censers, swinging wide, projected.</div> + <div class='line'>Amid the silence so profound</div> + <div class='line'>No sound was heard except the praying</div> + <div class='line'>Of mingled voices. On my heart</div> + <div class='line'>Some feeling undefined was weighing,</div> + <div class='line'>A wistful sadness, dim and vague,</div> + <div class='line'>Of fleeting, childish dreams begot.</div> + <div class='line'>Unknown to me my heart was full</div> + <div class='line'>Of yearning for I knew not what.”—</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>Ogaryov</span>: Humorous Verse.<a id='r47'></a><a href='#f47' class='c015'><sup>[47]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>... After we had been sitting still a little I suggested +reading Schiller. I was surprised at the similarity of our +tastes; he knew far more by heart than I did and knew +precisely the passages I liked best; we closed the book +and, so to speak, began sounding our mutual sympathies.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From Möros who went with a dagger in his sleeve ‘to +free the city from the tyrant,’ from Wilhelm Tell who +waited for Vogt on the narrow path to Küsznacht, the +transition to Nicholas and the Fourteenth of December +was easy. These thoughts and these comparisons were +not new to Nick; he, too, knew Pushkin’s and Ryleyev’s<a id='r48'></a><a href='#f48' class='c015'><sup>[48]</sup></a> +unpublished poems. The contrast between him and the +empty-headed boys I had occasionally met was striking.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Not long before, walking to the Pryesnensky Ponds, +full of my Bouchot terrorism, I had explained to a companion +of my own age the justice of the execution of +Louis <span class='fss'>XVI.</span> ‘Quite so,’ observed the youthful Prince O., +‘but you know he was God’s anointed!’ I looked at +him with compassion, ceased to care for him and never +asked to go and see him again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There were no such barriers with Nick, his heart +beat as mine did. He, too, had broken loose from the +grim conservative shore, and we had but to shove off +more vigorously together and almost from the first day +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>we resolved to work in the interests of the Tsarevitch +Constantine!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before that day we had had few long conversations. +Karl Ivanovitch pestered us like an autumn fly and spoilt +every conversation with his presence; he interfered in +everything without understanding, made observations, +straightened Nick’s shirt collar, was in a hurry to get +home, in fact, was detestable. A month later we could +not pass two days without seeing each other or writing +letters; with all the impulsiveness of my nature I +devoted myself more and more to Nick, while he had a +quiet and deep love for me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the very beginning our friendship took a serious +tone. I do not remember that mischievous pranks ever +took a foremost place with us, particularly when we were +alone. Of course we did not sit still, our boyish years +showed themselves in laughing and playing the fool, teasing +Sonnenberg and playing with bows and arrows in the yard; +but at the bottom of it all there was something very +different from idle companionship. Besides our being +of the same age, besides our ‘chemical affinity,’ we were +united by our common faith. Nothing in the world +so purifies and ennobles early youth, nothing keeps it +so safe as a keenly alert interest of a purely human character. +We respected our future in ourselves, we looked +at each other as ‘chosen vessels,’ predestined.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nick and I often walked out into the country. We +had our favourite places, the Sparrow Hills, the fields +beyond the Dragomilovsky Gate. He would come with +Sonnenberg to fetch me at six or seven in the morning, and +if I were asleep would throw sand and little pebbles at +my window. I would wake up smiling and hasten to +go out to him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The indefatigable Karl Ivanovitch had instituted these +walks.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the old-fashioned patriarchal education of Ogaryov +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>Sonnenberg plays the part of Biron.<a id='r49'></a><a href='#f49' class='c015'><sup>[49]</sup></a> When he made his +appearance the influence of the old peasant who had +looked after the boy was put aside; the discontented +oligarchy of the servants’ hall were forced against the +grain to silence, knowing that there was no overcoming +the damned German who fed at the master’s table. +Sonnenberg made violent changes in the old order of things. +The old man who had been nurse positively grew tearful +when he learned that the wretched German had taken +the young master <em>himself</em> to buy ready-made boots at a +shop! Sonnenberg’s revolution, like Peter the Great’s, +was distinguished by a military character even in the +most peaceful matters. It does not follow from that +that Karl Ivanovitch’s thin little shoulders had ever been +adorned with epaulettes. But nature has so made the +German, that if he does not reach the slovenliness and +<em>sans-gêne</em> of a philologist or a theologian, he is inevitably +of a military mind, even though he be a civilian. By +virtue of this peculiarity Karl Ivanovitch liked tight-fitting +clothes, buttoned up and cut with a waist, by +virtue of it he was a strict observer of his own rules, and +if he proposed to get up at six o’clock in the morning, +he would get Nick up at one minute before six, and in +no case later than one minute after six, and would go +out into the open air with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Karl Ivanovitch +had been so nearly drowned, soon became our ‘Holy +Mountain.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>One day after dinner my father proposed to drive out +into the country. Ogaryov was with us and my father +invited him and Sonnenberg to go too. These expeditions +were not a joking matter. Before reaching the town-gate +we had to drive for an hour or more in a four-seated +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>carriage, built by ‘Joachim,’ which had not saved it +from becoming disgracefully shabby in its fifteen years +of tranquil service and being heavier than a siege cannon. +The four horses of different sizes and colours who had +grown fat and lazy in idleness were covered with sweat +and foam within a quarter of an hour; the coachman +Avdey was forbidden to let them get into this condition, +and so had no choice but to let them walk. The windows +were usually closed, however hot it might be; and with +all this, we had the indifferently oppressive supervision +of my father and the restlessly fussy and irritating supervision +of Karl Ivanovitch. But we gladly put up with +everything for the sake of being together.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At Luzhniki we crossed the river Moskva in a boat at +the very spot where the Cossack had pulled Karl Ivanovitch +out of the water. My father walked, as always, +bent and morose; beside him Karl Ivanovitch tripped +along, entertaining him with gossip and scandal. We +went on in front of them, and getting far ahead ran up +to the Sparrow Hills at the spot where the first stone of +Vitberg’s temple was laid.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Flushed and breathless, we stood there mopping our +faces. The sun was setting, the cupolas glittered, the +city lay stretched further than the eye could reach; a +fresh breeze blew on our faces, we stood leaning against +each other and, suddenly embracing, vowed in sight of all +Moscow to sacrifice our lives to the struggle we had chosen.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This scene may strike others as very affected and very +theatrical, and yet twenty-six years afterwards I am moved +to tears recalling it; there was a sacred sincerity in it, and +that our whole life has proved. But apparently a like +destiny awaits all vows made on that spot; Alexander +was sincere, too, when he laid the first stone of that +temple, which, as Joseph <span class='fss'>II.</span><a id='r50'></a><a href='#f50' class='c015'><sup>[50]</sup></a> said (though then mistakenly) +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>when laying the first stone in some town in Novorossia, +was destined to be the last.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We did not know all the strength of the foe with whom +we were entering into battle, but we took up the fight. +That strength broke much in us, but it did not crush us, +and we did not surrender to it in spite of all its blows. +The wounds received from it were honourable. Jacob’s +strained thigh was the sign that he had wrestled in the +night with a God.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From that day the Sparrow Hills became a place of +worship for us and once or twice a year we went there, +and always by ourselves. There, five years later, Ogaryov +asked me timidly and shyly whether I believed in his +poetic talent, and wrote to me afterwards (1833) from +his country house: ‘I have come away and feel sad, sad, +as I have never been before. And it’s all the Sparrow +Hills. For a long time I hid my enthusiasm in myself; +shyness or something else, I don’t myself know what, +prevented me from uttering it, but on the Sparrow Hills +that enthusiasm was not weighed down by solitude. +You shared it with me and those were moments that I +shall never forget, like memories of past happiness they +have haunted me on my journey, while all around I saw +nothing but forest; it was all so dark blue and in my +soul was darkness, darkness.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Write,’ he concluded, ‘how on that spot (that is, on +the Sparrow Hills) the history of our lives, yours and +mine, developed.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Five more years passed. I was far from the Sparrow +Hills, but near me their Prometheus, A. L. Vitberg, stood, +austere and gloomy. In 1842 returning finally to Moscow, +again I visited the Sparrow Hills, once more we +stood on the site of the foundation stone and gazed +at the same view, two together, but the other was not +Nick.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From 1827 we were not parted. In every memory +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>of that time, general and particular, he with his boyish +features and his love for me was everywhere in the foreground. +Early could be seen in him that sign of grace, +which is vouchsafed to few, whether for woe or for bliss +I know not, but certainly for being apart from the +crowd. A large portrait of Ogaryov as he was at that +time (1827–8), painted in oils, remained for many years +afterwards in his father’s house. In later days I often +stood before it and gazed at him. He was painted with +a turned-down shirt collar; the painter had wonderfully +reproduced the luxuriant chestnut hair, the youthfully +soft beauty of his irregular features and his rather swarthy +colouring; there was a dreaminess in the portrait that +gave promise of intense thought, a vague melancholy +and extreme gentleness shone in his big grey eyes that +suggested the future greatness of a mighty spirit; such +indeed he grew to be. This portrait, presented to +me, was taken by a woman who was a stranger; perhaps +these lines will meet her eyes and she will send it +to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I do not know why the memories of first love are given +such precedence over the memories of youthful friendship. +The fragrance of first love lies in the fact that it forgets +the difference of sex, that it is passionate friendship. On +the other hand, friendship between the young has all the +ardour of love and all its character, the same delicate +fear of touching on its feelings with a word, the same +mistrust of self and boundless devotion, the same agony +at separation, and the same jealous desire for exclusive +affection.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I had long loved Nick and loved him passionately, but +did not venture to call him my friend, and when he was +spending the summer at Kuntsovo I wrote to him at the +end of a letter: ‘Whether your friend or not, I don’t +know yet.’ He first used the second person singular in +writing to me and used to call me his Agathon after +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>Karamzin,<a id='r51'></a><a href='#f51' class='c015'><sup>[51]</sup></a> while I called him my Raphael after +Schiller.<a id='r52'></a><a href='#f52' class='c015'><sup>[52]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>You may smile if you like, but let it be a mild, good-natured +smile, as men smile when they think of being +fifteen. Or would it not be better to muse over the +question, ‘Was I like that when I was developing?’ +and to bless your fate if you have had youth (merely +being young is not enough for it), to bless it doubly if +you had a friend then.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The language of that period seems affected and +bookish to us now, we have become unaccustomed to +its vague enthusiasm, its confused fervour that passes +suddenly into yearning tenderness or childish laughter. +It would be as absurd in a man of thirty as the celebrated +<em>Bettina will schlafen</em>,<a id='r53'></a><a href='#f53' class='c015'><sup>[53]</sup></a> but in its proper time this +language of youth, this <em>jargon de la puberté</em>, this change +of the psychological voice is very sincere, even the +bookish tone is natural to the age of theoretical +knowledge and practical ignorance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Schiller remained our favourite.<a id='r54'></a><a href='#f54' class='c015'><sup>[54]</sup></a> The characters of +his dramas were for us living persons; we analysed them, +loved and hated them, not as poetic creations but as living +men. Moreover we saw ourselves in them. I wrote +to Nick, somewhat troubled by his being too fond of +Fiesco, that behind every Fiesco stands his Verrina. My +ideal was Karl Moor, but I soon changed it in favour of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>the Marquis of Posa. I imagined in a hundred variations +how I would speak to Nicholas, and how afterwards he +would send me to the mines or the scaffold. It is a strange +thing that almost all our day-dreams ended in Siberia or +the scaffold and hardly ever in triumph; can this be +characteristic of the Russian imagination, or is it the +effect of Petersburg with its five gallows and its penal +servitude reflected on the young generation?</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so, Ogaryov, hand in hand we moved forward +into life! Fearlessly and proudly we advanced, lavishly +we responded to every appeal and sincerely we gave ourselves +up to every enthusiasm. The path we chose was +a thorny one, we have never left it for one moment, +wounded and broken we have gone forward and no one +has turned us aside. I have reached ... not the goal +but the spot where the road goes downhill, and involuntarily +I seek thy hand that we may go down together, +that I may press it and say smiling mournfully, ‘So this +is all!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Meanwhile in the dull leisure to which the events of +life have condemned me, finding in myself neither +strength nor freshness for new labours, I am writing down +our memories. Much of that which united us so closely +has taken shape in these pages. I present them to thee. +For thee they have a double value, the value of tombstones +on which we meet familiar names.<a id='r55'></a><a href='#f55' class='c015'><sup>[55]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>... And is it not strange to think that had Sonnenberg +known how to swim, or had he been drowned then in +the Moskva, had he been pulled out not by a Cossack of +the Urals but by some soldier of the Apsheronsky infantry, +I should not have met Nick or should have met him later, +differently, not in that room in our old house, where, +smoking cigars on the sly, we entered so deeply into each +other’s lives and drew strength from each other. He did +not forget our ‘old house.’</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>‘Old Home! My old friend! I have found thee,</div> + <div class='line'>Thy cold desolation I see;</div> + <div class='line'>The past is arising before me,</div> + <div class='line'>And sadly I gaze upon thee.</div> + <div class='line'>Unswept and untended the courtyard,</div> + <div class='line'>Neglected and fallen the well,</div> + <div class='line'>Green leaves that once whispered and murmured</div> + <div class='line'>Lie yellow and dead where they fell.</div> + <div class='line'>The house is dismantled and empty,</div> + <div class='line'>The plaster is spread on the grass,</div> + <div class='line'>The heavy grey clouds wander sadly</div> + <div class='line'>And weep for thy plight as they pass.</div> + <div class='line'>I entered. The rooms were familiar:</div> + <div class='line'>’Twas here—when we children were young—</div> + <div class='line'>The peevish old man sat and grumbled,</div> + <div class='line'>We feared his malevolent tongue.</div> + <div class='line'>And this room, my friend, oh! my comrade!</div> + <div class='line'>We shared, one in heart and in mind,</div> + <div class='line'>What bright golden thoughts were conceived here</div> + <div class='line'>In days that lie dimly behind!</div> + <div class='line'>A star shimmered faint through the window:</div> + <div class='line'>The words that are left on the wall</div> + <div class='line'>Were written when youth was triumphant,</div> + <div class='line'>Inspirer, dictator of all!</div> + <div class='line'>In this little room love and friendship</div> + <div class='line'>Were fostered. What joys did they bring!</div> + <div class='line'>But now, in its drear empty corners</div> + <div class='line'>The spiders’ webs broaden and cling.</div> + <div class='line'>And suddenly, smitten with terror,</div> + <div class='line'>Methought in the graveyard near by</div> + <div class='line'>I stood and I called on my loved ones,</div> + <div class='line'>The dead did not answer my cry....’</div> + <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>Ogaryov</span>: Humorous Verse.<a id='r56'></a><a href='#f56' class='c015'><sup>[56]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 5<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Details of Home Life—Eighteenth-Century People in Russia—A Day in our House—Visitors and <em>Habitués</em>—Sonnenberg—The Valet and Others</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>The insufferable dreariness of our house grew greater +every year. If my University time had not been +approaching, if it had not been for my new friendship, +my political enthusiasm and the liveliness of my disposition, +I should have run away or perished.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father was hardly ever in a good humour, he was +perpetually dissatisfied with everybody. A man of great +intelligence and great powers of observation, he had +seen, heard, and remembered an immense amount; an +accomplished man of the world, he could be extremely +polite and interesting, but he did not care to be and sank +more and more into ill-humoured unsociability.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is hard to say exactly what it was that put so much +bitterness and spleen into his blood. Periods of passion, +of great unhappiness, of mistakes and losses were completely +absent from his life. I could never fully understand +what was the origin of the spiteful mockery and +irritability that filled his soul, the mistrustful unsociability +and the vexation that consumed him. Did he +bear with him to the grave some memory which he +confided to no one, or was this simply the result of the +combination of two elements so absolutely opposed as +the eighteenth century and Russian life, with the assistance +of a third, terribly conducive to the development of +ill-humour, the idleness of the slave-owner?</p> + +<p class='c014'>Last century produced in the West, particularly in +France, a wonderful crop of men endowed with all the +weak points of the Regency and all the strong points of +Rome and Sparta. These mixtures of Faublas<a id='r57'></a><a href='#f57' class='c015'><sup>[57]</sup></a> and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>Regulus opened wide the doors of the Revolution and +were the first to rush in, crowding each other in their +haste to reach the ‘window’ of the guillotine. Our +age no longer produces these single-minded powerful +natures; the eighteenth century on the contrary called +them forth everywhere, even where they were not needed, +even where they could not develop except into something +grotesque. In Russia men exposed to the influence of +this mighty Western movement became original, but +not historical figures. Foreigners at home, foreigners +in other lands, idle spectators, spoilt for Russia by Western +prejudices and for the West by Russian habits, they +were a sort of intellectual superfluity and were lost in +artificial life, in sensual pleasure and in unbearable egoism.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To this class belonged the Tatar Prince, N. B. Yussupov, +a Russian grandee and a European <em>grand seigneur</em>, +a foremost figure in Moscow, conspicuous for his intelligence +and his wealth. About him gathered a perfect +galaxy of grey-headed gallants and <em>esprits forts</em>, all the +Masalskys and Santis and <em>tutti quanti</em>. They were all +rather cultured and well-educated people; having no +work in life they flung themselves upon pleasure, pampered +themselves, loved themselves, good-naturedly +forgave themselves all transgressions, exalted their +gastronomy to the level of a Platonic passion and reduced +love for women to a sort of voracious gourmandise.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The old sceptic and Epicurean Yussupov, a friend of +Voltaire and Beaumarchais,<a id='r58'></a><a href='#f58' class='c015'><sup>[58]</sup></a> of Diderot and Casti,<a id='r59'></a><a href='#f59' class='c015'><sup>[59]</sup></a> really +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>was gifted with artistic taste. To see this, one need but +go to Arhangelskoe and look at his galleries, that is, if they +have not yet been sold bit by bit by his heir. He was +magnificently fading out of life at eighty, surrounded by +marble, painted and living beauty. In his house near +Moscow Pushkin conversed with him and addressed +a wonderful epistle to him, and there, too, pictures were +painted by Gonzaga,<a id='r60'></a><a href='#f60' class='c015'><sup>[60]</sup></a> to whom Yussupov dedicated his +theatre.</p> + +<p class='c014'>By his education, by his service in the Guards, by +position and connections, my father belonged to this +circle, but neither his character nor his health permitted +him to lead a frivolous life to the age of seventy: and he +passed to the opposite extreme. He tried to lead a +solitary life and found in it a deadly dullness, the mare +because he tried to arrange it entirely <em>for himself</em>. His +strength of will changed into obstinate caprice, his unemployed +energies spoilt his character, making him +insufferable.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When he was being educated, European civilisation +was still so new in Russia that to be educated was equivalent +to being so much the less Russian. To the end +of his days he wrote more freshly and correctly in French +than in Russian. He had literally not read one single +book in Russian, not even the Bible. Though, indeed, +he had not read the Bible in other languages either; he +knew the subject-matter of the Holy Scriptures generally +from hearsay and from extracts, and had no curiosity to +look into it. He had, it is true, a respect for Derzhavin<a id='r61'></a><a href='#f61' class='c015'><sup>[61]</sup></a> +and Krylov<a id='r62'></a><a href='#f62' class='c015'><sup>[62]</sup></a>: Derzhavin because he had written an ode +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>on the death of his uncle, Prince Meshtchersky, Krylov +because he had been with him as second at N. N. Bahmetyev’s +duel. My father did once pick up Karamzin’s +<cite>History of the Russian Empire</cite>, having heard that the +Emperor Alexander was reading it, but he laid it aside, +saying contemptuously: ‘It is nothing but Izyaslavitches +and Olgovitches, to whom can it be of interest?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>For men he had an open, undisguised contempt—for +all. Never under any circumstances did he reckon upon +anybody, and I do not remember that he ever applied +to any one with any serious request. He himself did +nothing for any one. In his relations with outsiders he +demanded one thing only, the observance of the proprieties; +<em>les apparences, les convenances</em> made up the whole +of his moral religion. He was ready to forgive much, +or rather to overlook it, but breaches of good form and +good manners made him beside himself, and in such +cases he was without any tolerance, without the slightest +indulgence or compassion. I so long raged inwardly +against this injustice that at last I understood it. He +was convinced beforehand that every man is capable of +any evil act; and that, if he does not commit it, it is +either that he has no need to, or that the opportunity +does not present itself; in the disregard of formalities +he saw a personal affront, a disrespect to himself; or a +‘plebeian education,’ which in his opinion cut a man off +from all human society.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The soul of man,’ he used to say, ‘is darkness, and +who knows what is in any man’s soul? I have too much +business of my own to be interested in other people’s, +much less to judge and criticise their intentions; but I +cannot be in the same room with an ill-bred man, he +offends me, grates upon me; of course he may be the +best-hearted man in the world and for that he will have +a place in paradise, but I don’t want him. What is +most important in life is <em>esprit de conduite</em>, it is more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>important than the most lofty intellect or any kind of +learning. To know how to be at ease everywhere, to +put yourself forward nowhere, the utmost courtesy with +all and no familiarity with any one.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father disliked every sort of <em>abandon</em>, every sort of +openness; all that he called familiarity, just as he called +every feeling sentimentality. He persistently posed as +a man superior to all such petty trifles; for the sake of +what, with what object? What was the higher interest +to which the heart was sacrificed?—I do not know. +And for whom did this haughty old man, who despised +men so genuinely and knew them so well, play his part +of impartial judge?—For a woman whose will he had +broken although she sometimes contradicted him; for +an invalid who lay always at the mercy of the surgeon’s +knife; for a boy whose high spirits he had developed +into disobedience; for a dozen lackeys whom he did not +reckon as human beings!</p> + +<p class='c014'>And what patience was spent on it, what perseverance, +and how wonderfully well the part was played in spite +of age and illness. Truly the soul of man is darkness.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Later on when I was arrested, and afterwards when I +was sent into exile, I saw that the old man’s heart was more +open to love and even to tenderness than I had thought. +I never thanked him for it, not knowing how he would +take my gratitude.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of course he was not happy; always on his guard, +always dissatisfied, he saw with a pang the hostile feelings +he roused in all his household; he saw the smile pass +from the face and the words checked at his entrance; +he spoke of it with mockery, with vexation, but made +not a single concession and went his way with the utmost +persistence. Mockery, irony, cold, malignant and +scornful, was a weapon which he used like an artist; he +employed it equally against us and against the servants. +In early youth one can bear many things better than +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>sarcasm, and until I went to prison I was really estranged +from my father, and joined with the maids and men-servants +in leading a little war against him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Moreover, he had persuaded himself that he was +dangerously ill and was continually undergoing treatment; +besides our own household doctor, he was visited +by two or three others and had three or four consultations +a year at least. Visitors, seeing always his unfriendly +face and hearing nothing but complaints of his health, +which was far from being so bad as he thought, left off +coming. He was angry at this but never reproached a +single person nor invited one. A terrible dullness +reigned in the house, particularly on the endless winter +evenings—two lamps lighted a whole suite of rooms; +wearing felt or lamb’s-wool high boots, a velvet cap, and +a coat lined with white lambskin, bowed, with his hands +clasped behind his back, the old man walked up and +down, followed by two or three brown dogs, and never +uttering a word.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A carefulness spent on worthless objects grew with +his melancholy. He managed the estate badly for himself +and badly for his peasants. The village elders and +his <em>missi dominici</em> robbed their master and the peasants; +on the other hand, everything that met the eye was +subjected to redoubled supervision, candles were saved +and the thin <em>vin de Graves</em> was replaced by sour Crimean +wine at the very time when a whole forest was cut down +in one village, and in another his own oats were sold to +him. He had his privileged thieves; the peasant whom +he made collector of <em>obrok</em> (payment from a serf in lieu +of labour) in Moscow and whom he sent every summer +to supervise the village elder, the market, the garden, the +forest, and the field labours, saved enough in ten years +to buy a house in Moscow. From a child I hated this +minister without portfolio; on one occasion he beat an +old peasant in the yard in my presence. I was so furious +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>that I hung on to his beard and almost fainted. From +that time I could not look at him without dislike until +he died in 1845. I several times asked my father where +did Shkun get the money to buy a house.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s what sobriety does,’ the old man answered, +‘he never takes a drop of liquor.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Every year near the time of carnival, the peasants +from the Penza province used to bring from near Kerensk +<em>obrok</em> in kind. For a fortnight a trail of poor-looking +wagons were on the road, laden with pork, sucking +pigs, geese, fowls, grain, rye, eggs, butter, and linen. +The arrival of the Kerensk peasants was a holiday for all +the house-serfs; they robbed the peasants and fleeced +them at every step without the slightest right to do so. +The coachmen charged them for the water in the well, and +would not let their horses drink without payment. +The women made them pay for warmth in the house, +they had to pay homage to one aristocrat of the servants’ +hall with a sucking pig and a towel, to another with a +goose and butter. All the time they stayed in the yard +the servants kept up a feast, holiday dishes were made, +sucking pigs were roasted, and the hall was continually +full of the fumes of onion, burnt fat, and the drink which +had just been consumed. For the last two days of these +junketings Bakay did not go into the hall and did not +finish dressing, but sat in the outer kitchen with an old +livery coat thrown over his shoulders, without his waistcoat +and jacket. He was growing visibly thinner and +becoming darker and older. My father put up with +all this pretty calmly, knowing that it was inevitable and +could not be altered.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the dead provisions had been received, my +father—and the most remarkable point about it is that +the practice was repeated yearly—used to call the cook, +Spiridon, and send him to the poultry bazaar and the +Smolensky market to find out the prices; the cook +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>returned with fabulously small prices, less than half the +real ones. My father would tell him he was a fool and +send for Shkun or Slyepushkin. The latter had a fruit +stall at the Ilyinsky Gate. And both considered the +cook’s prices terribly low, made inquiries and brought +back prices rather higher. At last Slyepushkin offered +to take the whole lot, eggs and sucking pigs and butter +and rye ‘to save all disturbance to your health, sir.’ +He gave a price I need hardly say somewhat higher than +the cook’s. My father agreed. Slyepushkin would +bring him oranges and little cakes in honour of the +bargain, and brought the cook a note for two hundred +roubles.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This Slyepushkin was in great favour with my father +and often borrowed money from him; he showed his +originality in his thorough understanding of the old man’s +character.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He would ask for five hundred roubles for two months, +and a day before the two months were over would appear +in the hall with an Easter cake on a dish and the five +hundred roubles on the Easter cake. My father would +take the money, Slyepushkin would make a bow and ask +for his hand to kiss, which was never given. But three +days later Slyepushkin would come again to borrow +money and ask for fifteen hundred roubles. My father +would give it and Slyepushkin would again bring it by +the time fixed. My father used to hold him up as an +example, but a week later he would ask for a bigger sum, +and in that way enjoyed the use of an extra five thousand +roubles a year for his business, for the trifling interest +of two or three Easter cakes, a few pounds of figs and +Greek nuts and a hundred oranges and apples from the +Crimea.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In conclusion, I will mention how some hundreds of +acres of building timber were lost in Novoselye. In the +‘forties, M. F. Orlov who, I remember, had been commissioned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>by the Countess Anna Alexeyevna to purchase +an estate for her children, began treating for the Tver +estate which had come to my father from the Senator. +They agreed on the price and the business seemed to be +settled. Orlov went to look at the land and then wrote +to my father that on the map he had shown him a forest, +but that there was no such forest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s a clever man,’ said my father, ‘he took part +in the conspiracy and wrote a book on finance, but as +soon as it comes to business you can see what a silly fellow +he is. These Neckers! Well, I’ll ask Grigory Ivanovitch +to ride over, he’s not a conspirator, but he’s an +honest man and knows his work.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Grigory Ivanovitch, too, went over to Novoselye and +brought the news that there was no forest, but only a +semblance of one rigged up; so that neither from the +big house nor the high-road could the clearing catch the +eye. After the land was assigned to him the Senator +had been at least five times to Novoselye, and yet the +secret had never leaked out.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To give a full idea of our manner of life I will describe +a whole day from the morning; the monotony of the +days was precisely what was most deadly; our life went +like an English clock regulated to go slowly, quietly, +evenly, loudly recording each second.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At nine o’clock in the morning the valet who sat in +the room next the bedroom informed Vera Artamonovna, +my ex-nurse, that the master was getting up. She went +to prepare the coffee which he always drank alone in +his study. Everything in the house assumed a different +aspect, the servants began sweeping the rooms, or at any +rate made a show of doing something. The hall, until +then empty, filled up, and even the big Newfoundland +dog Macbeth sat before the stove and watched the fire +without blinking.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Over his coffee the old man read the <cite>Moscow News</cite> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>and the <cite>Journal de St. Pétersbourg</cite>. I may mention that +he had given orders for the <cite>Moscow News</cite> to be warmed, +that his hands might not be chilled by the dampness of +the paper, and that he read the political news in the French +text, finding the Russian obscure. At one time he used +to get a Hamburg newspaper, but could not reconcile +himself to the fact that the Germans printed in German +characters, and was always pointing out to me the difference +between the French print and the German, saying +that these grotesque Gothic letters with their little tails +were bad for the eyes. Afterwards he subscribed to the +<cite>Journal de Francfort</cite>, but in the end he confined himself +to the journals of his own country.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When he had finished reading he would observe that +Karl Ivanovitch Sonnenberg was in the room. When +Nick was fifteen Karl Ivanovitch had set up a shop, but +having neither goods nor customers, after wasting on this +profitable undertaking the money he had somehow scraped +up, he retired from it with the honourable title of +‘merchant of Reval.’ He was by then over forty, and +at that agreeable age he led the life of a bird of the air +or a boy of fourteen, that is, did not know where he would +sleep next day nor on what he would dine. He took +advantage of my father’s being somewhat well-disposed +towards him; we shall see at once what that meant.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In 1830 my father bought near our house another, +bigger, better, and with a garden. The house had +belonged to the Countess Rastoptchin, wife of the celebrated +governor of Moscow. We moved into it; after +that he bought a third house which was quite unnecessary, +but was next it. Both these houses stood empty; they +were not let for fear of fire (the houses were insured) and +disturbance from tenants. Moreover they were not kept +in repair, so they were on the sure road to ruin. In one +of them the homeless Karl Ivanovitch was permitted to +live on condition that he did not open the gates after +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>ten o’clock (not a difficult condition, since the gates were +never closed), and that he bought firewood and did not +get it from our household supplies (as a matter of fact he +bought it from our coachman), and that he waited upon +my father in the capacity of a clerk of special commissions, +<em>i.e.</em> came in the morning to inquire whether there were +any orders, turned up at dinner and, if there were no +one else dining with him, spent the evening entertaining +him with news and conversation.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Simple as Karl Ivanovitch’s duties might appear to +be, my father knew how to inject so much bitterness +into them that my poor merchant of Reval, accustomed +to all the calamities which can fall upon the head of a +man with no money, with no brains, of small stature, +pock-marked face and German nationality, could not +always endure it. At intervals of two years or a year +and a half, Karl Ivanovitch, deeply offended, would +declare that ‘this is utterly unbearable,’ would pack up, +buy or exchange various articles of suspicious value and +dubious quality, and set off for the Caucasus. Ill-luck +usually pursued him with ferocity. On one occasion his +wretched nag—he was driving with his own horse in +Tiflis and in the Redoubt Kali—fell down not far from +the region of the Don Cossacks; on another, half his +luggage was stolen from him; on another, his two-wheeled +gig upset and his French perfumes were spilt +over the broken wheel, unappreciated by any one, at +the foot of Elborus; then he would lose something, and +when he had nothing left to lose he lost his passport. +Ten months later Karl Ivanovitch, a little older, a little +more battered, a little poorer, with still fewer teeth and +less hair, would as a rule meekly present himself before +my father with a store of Persian insect powder, of faded +silks and rusty Circassian daggers, and would settle in the +empty house again on the condition of fulfilling the same +duties and heating his stove with his own firewood.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>Observing Karl Ivanovitch, my father would at once +begin a small attack upon him. Karl Ivanovitch would +inquire after his health, the old man would thank him +with a bow and then after a moment’s thought would +inquire, for instance: ‘Where do you buy your pomade?’ +I must here mention that Karl Ivanovitch, the ugliest +of mortals, was a terrible flirt, considered himself a Lovelace, +dressed with an effort at smartness and wore a curled +golden wig. All this, of course, had long ago been weighed +and taken account of by my father. ‘At Bouïs’s on +Kuznitsky Bridge,’ Karl Ivanovitch would answer +abruptly, somewhat piqued, and he would cross one leg +over the other like a man ready to defend himself.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What’s the scent called?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Nacht-Violette,’ answered Karl Ivanovitch.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘He cheats you, violet is a delicate scent.’ Then in +French, ‘<em>C’est un parfum</em>, but that’s something strong, +disgusting, they embalm bodies with something of that +sort! My nerves have grown so weak it makes me +positively sick; tell them to give me the eau-de-Cologne.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Karl Ivanovitch would himself dash for the flask.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh no, you must call some one else or you will come +still closer; I shall be ill, I shall faint.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Karl Ivanovitch, who was reckoning on the effect of +his pomade in the maids’ room, would be deeply offended.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After sprinkling the room with eau-de-Cologne my +father would invent commissions; to buy some French +snuff and some English magnesia, and to look at a carriage +advertised for sale in the papers (he would never buy it). +Karl Ivanovitch, bowing himself out agreeably and +inwardly relieved to get off, would go away till dinner.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After Karl Ivanovitch, the cook made his appearance; +whatever he bought or whatever he ordered, my father +thought it extremely expensive.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ough, ough, how expensive! Why, is it because +no supplies have come in?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>‘Just so, sir,’ answered the cook, ‘the roads are so +bad.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh very well, till they are in better condition we will +buy less.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After this he would sit down to his writing-table and +write reports and orders to the villages, make up his +accounts, between whiles scolding me, receiving the +doctors and above all quarrelling with his valet. The +latter was the greatest victim in the whole house. A +little, sanguine man, hasty and hot-tempered, he seemed +as though created expressly to irritate my father and +provoke his reprimands. The scenes that were repeated +between them every day might have filled a farce, but it +was all perfectly serious. My father knew very well +that the man was necessary to him and often put up +with rude answers from him, but never ceased trying to +train him, in spite of his efforts having been unsuccessful +for thirty-five years. The valet on his side would not +have put up with such a life if he had not had his own +recreations; he was as a rule rather tipsy by dinner-time. +My father noticed this, but confined himself to roundabout +allusions to it, advising him, for instance, to munch +a little black bread and salt that he might not smell of +vodka. Nikita Andreyevitch had the habit when he +was a little drunk of scraping with his feet in a peculiar +way when he handed the dishes. As soon as my father +noticed this, he would invent some commission for him, +would send him, for instance, to ask the barber Anton if +he had changed his address, adding to me in French, +‘I know that he has not moved, but the fellow is not +sober, he will drop the soup-tureen end smash it, spill +the soup on the cloth and frighten me. Let him go out +for an airing. <em>Le grand air</em> will do him good.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Usually on such occasions the valet made some answer; +but if he could find nothing to say he would go out, +muttering between his teeth. Then his master would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>call him and in the same calm voice ask him ‘what did +he say?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I didn’t address a word to you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To whom were you speaking, then? There is no +one but you and me in this room or the next.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To myself.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s very dangerous, that’s the way madness +begins.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The valet would depart in a rage and go to his room; +there he used to read the <cite>Moscow News</cite> and plait hair +for wigs for sale. Probably to relieve his anger he would +take snuff furiously; whether his snuff was particularly +strong or the nerves of his nose were weak I cannot say, +but this was almost always followed by his sneezing +violently five or six times.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The master rang the bell, the valet flung down his +handful of hair and went in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Was that you sneezing?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, sir.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I wanted to bless you.’ And he would make a +motion with his hand for the valet to withdraw.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the last day of carnival, all the servants would, +according to custom, come in the evening to beg the +master’s forgiveness: on these solemn occasions my +father used to go out into the great drawing-room, accompanied +by his valet. Then he would pretend not +to recognise some of them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Who is that venerable old man standing there in the +corner?’ he would ask the valet.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The coachman Danilo,’ the valet would answer +abruptly, knowing that all this was only a dramatic +performance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Good gracious! how he has changed. I really +believe that it is entirely from drink that men get old so +quickly; what does he do?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘He hauls the firewood in for the stoves.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>The old man assumed an expression of insufferable +pain.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘How is it you have not learned to talk in thirty years?... +Hauls—how can he haul the firewood in?—firewood +is carried in, not hauled in. Well, Danilo, thank +God, the Lord has been pleased to let me see you once +more. I forgive you all your sins for this year, all the +oats which you waste so immoderately, and for not +brushing the horses, and do you forgive me. Go on +hauling in firewood while you have the strength, but now +Lent is coming, so take less drink, it is bad for us at our +age, and besides it is a sin.’ He conducted the whole +inspection in this style.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We used to dine between three and four o’clock. The +dinner lasted a long time and was very boring. Spiridon +was an excellent cook, but my father’s economy on the +one hand, and his own on the other, rendered the dinner +somewhat meagre, in spite of the fact that there were a +great many dishes. Beside my father stood a red clay +bowl into which he himself put all sorts of pieces for the +dogs; moreover, he used to feed them with his own +fork, which was deeply resented by the servants and +consequently by me. Why, it is hard to say....</p> + +<p class='c014'>Visitors rarely called upon us and more rarely dined. +I remember out of all those who visited us one man whose +arrival to dinner would sometimes smooth the wrinkles +out of my father’s face, N. N. Bahmetyev. He was the +brother of the lame general of that name and was himself +a general also, though long on the retired list. My +father and he had been friends as long ago as the time +when both had been officers in the Izmailovsky regiment. +They had both been gay young rakes in the days of +Catherine, and in the reign of Paul had both been court-martialled, +Bahmetyev for having fought a duel with +some one and my father for having been his second; +then one of them had gone away to foreign lands as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>a tourist, while the other went to Ufa as Governor. +There was no likeness between them. Bahmetyev, a +stout, healthy and handsome old man, was fond of +having a good dinner and getting a little drunk after +it; was fond of lively conversation and many other +things. He used to boast that in his day he had eaten +as many as a hundred hearth-cakes, and he could when +about sixty devour up to a dozen buckwheat pancakes +drowned in a pool of butter with complete impunity. +I have been a witness of these achievements more +than once.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Bahmetyev had some shadowy influence over my father, +or at any rate did keep him in check. When Bahmetyev +noticed that my father’s ill-humour was beyond bounds, +he would put on his hat and say with a military scrape: +‘Good-bye—you are ill and stupid to-day; I meant +to stay to dinner but I cannot endure sour faces at table! +<em>Gehorsamer diener!</em>’ ... and my father by way of +explanation would say to me: ‘What a lively impresario. +N. N. still is! Thank God, he’s a healthy man and +cannot understand a suffering Job like me; there are +twenty degrees of frost, but he dashes here all the way +from Pokrovka in his sledge as though it were nothing ... while I thank the Creator every morning that I +wake up alive, that I am still breathing. Oh ... oh ... ough ...! it’s a true proverb; the well-fed +don’t understand the hungry!’ This was the utmost +condescension that could be expected from him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From time to time there were family dinners at which +the Senator, the Golohvastovs and others were present, +and these dinners were not casually given, nor for the +sake of any pleasure to be derived from them, but were +due to profound considerations of economy and diplomacy. +Thus on the 20th February, the Senator’s name-day, +we gave a dinner in his honour, while on the 24th June, +my father’s name-day, a dinner was given at the Senator’s, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>an arrangement which, besides setting a moral example +of brotherly love, saved each of them from giving a much +bigger dinner at home.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then there were various <em>habitués</em>; Sonnenberg would +appear <em>ex officio</em>, and having just before dinner swallowed +a glass of vodka and a Reval sardine at home he would +refuse a minute glass of some specially flavoured vodka; +sometimes my last French tutor, a miserly old fellow +with an insolent face, fond of talking scandal, would +come. Monsieur Thirié so often made mistakes, pouring +wine into his tumbler instead of beer and drinking it +off apologetically, that at last my father said to him, +‘The <em>vin de Graves</em> stands on your right side, so you +won’t make a mistake again,’ and Thirié, stuffing a huge +pinch of snuff into his broad nose that turned up on one +side, scattered the snuff on his plate.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Among these visitors one was an extremely funny +individual. A little bald old man, invariably dressed in +a short and narrow swallow-tail coat, and in a waistcoat +that ended precisely where the waistcoat now begins, and +carrying a thin little cane, he was in his whole figure the +embodiment of a period twenty years earlier, in 1830 of +1810 and in 1840 of 1820. Dmitri Ivanovitch Pimenov, +a civil councillor by grade, was one of the superintendents +of the Sheremetyevsky Almshouse, and was, moreover, +a literary man. Scantily endowed by nature and brought +up on the sentimentalism of Karamzin, on Marmontel<a id='r63'></a><a href='#f63' class='c015'><sup>[63]</sup></a> +and Marivaux,<a id='r64'></a><a href='#f64' class='c015'><sup>[64]</sup></a> Pimenov might be said to take a position +midway between Shalikov and V. Panaev.<a id='r65'></a><a href='#f65' class='c015'><sup>[65]</sup></a> The Voltaire +of this honourable phalanx was the head of the secret +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>police under Alexander, Yakov Ivanovitch de Sanglain; +its promising young man, Pimen Arapov.<a id='r66'></a><a href='#f66' class='c015'><sup>[66]</sup></a> They were all +in close relation with the universal patriarch Ivan Ivanovitch +Dmitriev;<a id='r67'></a><a href='#f67' class='c015'><sup>[67]</sup></a> he had no rivals, but there was Vassily +Lvovitch Pushkin.<a id='r68'></a><a href='#f68' class='c015'><sup>[68]</sup></a> Pimenov went every Thursday to +the ancient Dmitriev to discuss beauties of style and the +deterioration of the language of to-day in his house in +Sadovy Street. Pimenov himself had tried the slippery +career of Russian literature; at first he had edited the +<cite>Thoughts of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld</cite>, then he wrote +a treatise on feminine beauty and charm. Of this +treatise, which I have not taken in my hand since I was +sixteen, I remember only long comparisons in the style +in which Plutarch compares his heroes; of the fair with +the dark, ‘though a fair woman is this and that and the +other, on the other hand a dark woman is this and that +and the other....’ Pimenov’s chief peculiarity lay +not in his having edited books which no one ever read, +but in the fact that if he began laughing he could not +stop, and his mirth would grow into a regular fit of +hysterics with sudden outbursts and hollow peals of +laughter. He knew this, and so, when he saw something +laughable coming, began to take measures; brought out +a pocket-handkerchief, looked at his watch, buttoned up +his coat, hid his face in his hands, and when the crisis +came, stood up, turned to the wall, leaned against it and +writhed in agony for half an hour or more, then, crimson +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>and exhausted by the paroxysm, he would sit down +mopping the perspiration from his bald head, though the +fit would seize him again long afterwards. Of course +my father had not the faintest respect for him: he was +gentle, kind, awkward, a literary man and poor, and +therefore not worth considering on any ground: but he +was fully aware of his convulsive risibility. On the +strength of it he would make him laugh until every one +else in the room was, under his influence, also moved to +a sort of unnatural laughter. The instigator of our mirth +would look at us, smiling innocently, as a man looks at +a crowd of noisy puppies.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Sometimes my father played dreadful tricks on the +unfortunate amateur of feminine charm and beauty. +‘Colonel So-and-so,’ the servant would announce.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ask him in,’ my father would say, and turning to +Pimenov he would add: ‘Please be on your guard +when he is here, Dmitri Ivanovitch; he has an unfortunate +tic and when he talks he makes a strange sound as though +he had a chronic hiccup.’ Thereupon he would give +a perfect imitation of the Colonel. ‘I know you are +ready to laugh, please restrain yourself.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was enough. At the second word the Colonel +uttered, Pimenov would take out his handkerchief, make +a parasol of his hands, and at last jump up.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Colonel would look at him in amazement, while +my father would say to me with great composure: ‘What +is the matter with Dmitri Ivanovitch? <em>Il est malade</em>, he +has spasms; tell them to make haste and get him a glass +of cold water and give him eau-de-Cologne.’ On such +occasions Pimenov would snatch up his hat and go, +laughing, until he had reached the Arbatsky Gates, +halting at the cross-roads and leaning against lamp-posts.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For several years he came regularly every alternate +Sunday to dine with us, and his punctuality in coming +and his unpunctuality if he missed a Sunday angered my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>father equally and impelled him to worry Pimenov. +Yet the good-natured man went on coming, and coming +on foot from the Red Gate to old Konyushenny Street +till he died, and not at all funnily. After ailing for a +long time, the solitary old bachelor, as he lay dying, +saw his housekeeper carry off all his things, his clothes, +even the linen from his bed, leaving him entirely +uncared for.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But the real <em>souffre-douleur</em> at dinner were various old +women, the poor and casual dependents of Princess +Hovansky, my father’s sister. For the sake of a change, +and also partly to find out how everything was going on +in our house, whether there were quarrels in the family, +whether the cook had had a fight with his wife, and +whether the master had found out that Palashka or +Ulyasha were about to bring an addition to the household, +they would sometimes come on holidays to spend a whole +day. It must be noted that these widows had forty or +fifty years ago, before they were married, been attached +to the household of my father’s aunt, old Princess Meshtchersky, +and afterwards to that of her niece, and had +known my father since those days; that in this interval +between their dependence in their youth and their return +in old age, they had spent some twenty years quarrelling +with their husbands, keeping them from drink, looking +after them when they were paralysed, and escorting them +to the cemetery. Some had been trailing from one +place to another in Bessarabia with a garrison officer and +a crowd of children, others had spent years with a +criminal charge hanging over their husbands, and all +these experiences of life had left upon them the traces of +government offices and provincial towns; a dread of +the powerful of this earth, a cringing spirit and a sort of +dull-witted bigotry.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Amazing scenes took place with them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why is this, Anna Yakimovna; are you ill that you +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>don’t eat anything?’ my father would ask. Huddling +herself together the widow of some overseer in Kremenchug, +a wretched old woman with a worn and faded +face, who always smelt strongly of some plaster, would +answer with cringing eyes and deprecating fingers: +‘Forgive me, Ivan Alexeyevitch, sir, I am really ashamed, +but there, it is my old-fashioned ways, sir. Ha, ha, ha, +it’s the Fast of the Assumption now.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh, how tiresome! You are always so devout! +It’s not what goes into the mouth, my good woman, that +defiles, but what comes out of it; whether you eat one +thing or another, it all goes the same way; now what +comes out of the mouth, you must watch over ... your +judgments of your neighbours. Come, you had better +dine at home on such days, or we shall have a Turk +coming next asking for pilau; I don’t keep a restaurant +<i><span lang="fr">à la carte</span></i>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The frightened old woman, who had intended to ask +for some dish made of flour or cereals, would fall upon +the kvass and salad, making a great show of eating a great +deal.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But it is noteworthy that she, or any of the others, +had only to eat meat during a fast for my father, though +he never touched Lenten dishes himself, to say, shaking +his head mournfully: ‘I should not have thought it +was right for you, Anna Yakimovna, to forsake the habits +of your forefathers for the last few years of your life. I +sin and eat meat, owing to my many infirmities; but you, +thank God, have kept the fasts all your life and suddenly +at your age ... what an example for <em>them</em>,’ and he +motioned towards the servants. And the poor old woman +had to attack the kvass and the salad again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These scenes made me very indignant; sometimes I +was so bold as to intervene and remind him of the contrary +opinion he had expressed. Then my father would rise +from his seat, take off his velvet cap by the tassel, and, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>holding it in the air, thank me for the lesson and beg +pardon for his forgetfulness, and then would say to the +old lady: ‘It’s a terrible age! It’s no wonder you eat +meat in the fast, since children teach their parents! +What are we coming to? It’s dreadful to think of it! +Luckily you and I won’t live to see it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After dinner my father lay down to rest for an hour +and a half. The servants at once dispersed to beer-shops +and eating-houses. At seven o’clock tea was +served; then sometimes some one would come in, the +Senator more often than any one; it was a time of leisure +for all of us. The Senator usually brought various items +of news and told them eagerly. My father affected +complete inattention as he listened to him: he assumed +a serious face, when his brother had expected him to be +dying of laughter, and would cross-question him as though +he had not heard the point, when the Senator had been +describing something striking.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Senator came in for it in a very different way +when he contradicted or was not of the same opinion as +his younger brother (which rarely happened, however), +and sometimes, indeed, when he did not contradict, if +my father was particularly ill-humoured. In these +tragi-comic scenes, what was funniest was the Senator’s +genuine heat and my father’s affected artificial coolness.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, you are ill to-day,’ the Senator would say +impatiently, and he would snatch his hat and rush off. +Once in his vexation he could not open the door and +kicked it with all his might, saying ‘the confounded +door!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father went up, coolly opened the door inwards, +and in a perfectly composed voice observed: ‘The door +does its duty, it opens inwards, and you try to open it +outwards, and are cross with it.’ It may not be out of +place to mention that the Senator was two years older +than my father and addressed him in the second person +<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>singular, while the latter as the younger brother used the +plural form, ‘you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the Senator had gone, my father would retire +to his bedroom, would every day inquire whether the +gates were closed, would receive an answer in the affirmative, +would express doubts on the subject but do nothing +to make certain. Then began a lengthy routine of +washings, fomentations, and medicines; his valet made +ready on a little table by the bed a perfect arsenal of +different objects—medicine-bottles, night-lights, pill-boxes. +The old man as a rule read for an hour Bourienne’s +<cite>Mémorial de Sainte Helène</cite> and other memoirs; +then came the night.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Such was our household when I left it in 1834, so I +found it in 1840, and so it continued until his death in +1846.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At thirty when I returned from exile I realised that +my father had been right in many things, that he had +unhappily a distressingly good understanding of men. +But it was not my fault that he preached even what was +true in a way so revolting to a youthful heart. His +mind chilled by a long life in a circle of depraved men +put him on his guard against every one, and his callous +heart did not crave for reconciliation, and so he remained +in a hostile attitude to every one on earth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I found him in 1839, and still more markedly in 1842, +weak and really ill. The Senator was dead, the desolation +about him was greater than ever and he even had +a different valet; but he himself was just the same, only +his physical powers were changed, there was the same +spiteful intelligence, the same tenacious memory, he still +worried every one over trifles, and Sonnenberg, still unchanged, +camped out in the old house as before and +carried out commissions.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Only then I appreciated all the desolateness of his life; +I looked with an aching heart at the mournful significance +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>of this lonely abandoned existence, dying out in the arid, +barren, stony wilderness which he had created about +himself, but which it was not in his power to change; he +knew that, he saw death approaching, and, overcoming +weakness and infirmity, he jealously and obstinately +controlled himself. I was dreadfully sorry for the old +man, but I could do nothing, he was unapproachable.</p> + +<p class='c014'>... Sometimes I passed softly by his study where, +sitting in a rough, uncomfortable, deep armchair, surrounded +by his dogs, he would all alone play with my +three-year-old boy. It seemed as though the clenched +hands and stiffened nerves of the old man relaxed at the +sight of the child, and he found rest from the incessant +agitation, conflict, and vexation in which he had kept +himself, as his dying hand touched the cradle.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 6<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The Kremlin Department—Moscow University—Our Set—The Chemist—The Malov Affair—The Cholera—Filaret—V. Passek—General Lissovsky—The Sungurov Affair</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘<em>Oh, years of boundless ecstasies,</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Of visions bright and free!</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Where now your mirth untouched by spite,</em></div> + <div class='line'><em>Your hopeful toil and noisy glee?</em>’</div> + <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>Ogaryov</span>: Humorous Verse.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>In spite of the lame general’s sinister predictions my +father put my name down with N. B. Yussupov +for a berth in the Kremlin department. I signed a +paper and there the matter ended; I heard nothing more +of the service, except that three years later Yussupov +sent the Palace architect, who always shouted as though +he were standing on the scaffolding of the fifth storey +and there giving orders to workmen in the basement, to +announce that I had received the first grade in the service. +These amazing incidents were, I may remark in passing, +useless, for I rose above the grades received in the service +by taking my degree—it was not worth while taking so +much trouble for the sake of two or three years’ seniority. +And meanwhile this supposed post in the service almost +prevented me from entering the university. The +Council, seeing that I was reckoned as in the office of the +Kremlin department, refused me the right to go in for the +examination.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For those in the government service, there were +special after-dinner courses of study, extremely limited +in scope and only qualifying for entrance into the so-called +‘committee examinations.’ All the wealthy +idlers, the young snobs who had learnt nothing, all those +who did not want to serve in the army and were in a +hurry to get the grade of assessor went in for the ‘committee +examinations’; they were gold mines for the old +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>professors, who coached them privately for twenty roubles +the lesson.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To begin my life in these Caudine Forks of learning +was far from suiting my ideas. I told my father resolutely +that if he could not find some way out of it, I should +resign my post in the service.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father was angry, said that with my caprices I was +preventing him from making a career for me, and abused +the teachers who had put this nonsense into my head, but, +seeing that all this had very little effect upon me, he made +up his mind to go to Yussupov.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The latter settled the matter in a trice, after the +fashion of a great nobleman and a Tatar. He called +his secretary and told him to write me a leave of absence +for three years. The secretary hesitated and hesitated, +and at last, half in terror, submitted that leave of absence +for longer than four months could not be given without +the sanction of the Most High.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What nonsense, my man,’ the prince said to him. +‘Where is the difficulty? Well, if leave of absence is +impossible, write that I commission him to attend the +university courses for three years to perfect himself in +the sciences.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>His secretary wrote this and next day I was sitting +in the amphitheatre of the Physico-Mathematical auditorium.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The University of Moscow and the Lyceum of +Tsarskoe Syelo play a significant part in the history +of Russian education and in the life of the last two +generations.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Moscow University grew in importance together +with the city itself after 1812. Degraded by Peter the +Great from being the royal capital, Moscow was promoted +by Napoleon (partly intentionally, but still more unintentionally) +to being the capital of the Russian people. +The people realised their ties of blood with Moscow +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>from the pain felt at the news of its being taken by the +enemy. From that time a new epoch began for the +city. Its university became more and more the centre +of Russian culture. All the conditions necessary for +its development were combined—historical significance, +geographical position, and the absence of the Tsar.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The intensified mental activity of Petersburg after the +death of Paul came to a gloomy close on the Fourteenth +of December. Nicholas appeared with five gibbets, +with penal servitude, with the white strap and the light-blue +uniform of Benckendorf.<a id='r69'></a><a href='#f69' class='c015'><sup>[69]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>The tide turned, the blood rushed to the heart, the +activity that was outwardly concealed was surging inwardly. +Moscow University remained firm and was +the foremost to stand out in sharp relief against the general +darkness. The Tsar began to hate it from the time of +the Polezhaev affair.<a id='r70'></a><a href='#f70' class='c015'><sup>[70]</sup></a> He sent A. Pissarev, the major-general +of the ‘Kaluga Evenings,’ as director, commanded +the students to be dressed in uniform, commanded them +to wear a sword, then forbade them to wear a sword, +condemned Polezhaev to be a common soldier for his +verses and punished Kostenetsky and his comrades for +their prose, destroyed the Kritskys<a id='r71'></a><a href='#f71' class='c015'><sup>[71]</sup></a> for a bust, sentenced +us to exile for Saint-Simonism, then made Prince Sergey +Mihailovitch Golitsyn director, and then took no further +notice of that ‘hot-bed of vice,’ piously advising young +men who had finished their studies at the Lyceum or at +the School of Jurisprudence not to enter it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Golitsyn was a surprising person, it was long before +he could accustom himself to the irregularity of there +being no lecture when a professor was ill; he thought +<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>the next on the list ought to take his place, so that it sometimes +happened to Father Ternovsky to lecture in the +clinic on women’s diseases and the gynæcologist Richter +to discourse on the Immaculate Conception.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But in spite of that the university that had fallen into +disgrace grew in influence; the youthful strength of +Russia streamed to it from all sides, from all classes of +society, as into a common reservoir; in its halls they +were purified from the superstitions they had picked up +at the domestic hearth, reached a common level, became +like brothers and dispersed again to all parts of Russia +and among all classes of its people.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Until 1848 the organisation of our universities was +purely democratic. Its doors were open to every one +who could pass the examination, who was neither a serf, +a peasant, nor a man excluded from his commune. +Nicholas spoilt all this; he put restrictions on the admission +of students, increased the fees of those who paid +their own expenses, and permitted none to be relieved +of payment but poor <em>noblemen</em>. All these belonged to +the series of senseless measures which will disappear +with the last breath of that drag on the Russian wheel, +together with passports, religious intolerance and so on.<a id='r72'></a><a href='#f72' class='c015'><sup>[72]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>The young men of all sorts and conditions coming +from above and from below, from the south and from the +north, were quickly fused into a compact mass of comrades. +Social distinctions had not among us the distressing +influence which we find in English schools and +barracks; I am not speaking of the English universities. +They exist exclusively for the aristocracy and for the rich. +A student who thought fit to boast among us of his blue +blood or his wealth would have been sent to Coventry +and made the butt of his comrades.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The external distinctions—and they did not go very +deep—that divided the students arose from other causes. +Thus, for instance, the medical section which was on the +other side of the garden was not so closely united with us +as the other faculties; moreover, the majority of the +medical students consisted of seminarists and Germans. +The Germans kept a little apart and were deeply imbued +with the Western bourgeois spirit. All the education +of the luckless seminarists, all their ideas were utterly +different from ours, we spoke different languages; brought +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>up under the yoke of monastic despotism, weighed down +by rhetoric and theology, they envied us our ease and +freedom; we were vexed at their Christian meekness.<a id='r73'></a><a href='#f73' class='c015'><sup>[73]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>I entered in the section of physics and mathematics in +spite of the fact that I had never had a marked ability, +nor much liking for mathematics. Nick and I had been +taught mathematics together by a teacher whom we loved +for his anecdotes and stories; interesting as he was, he +could hardly have developed a passion for his subject. +His knowledge of mathematics extended only to conic +sections, <em>i.e.</em> exactly as far as was necessary for preparing +High School boys for the university; a real philosopher, +he never had the curiosity to glance at the ‘university +grades’ of mathematics.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What was particularly remarkable was that he had +never read more than one book on the subject, and that +book, Francoeur’s Course, he studied over and over again +for ten years; but being continent by temperament and +disliking superfluous luxury, he never went beyond a +certain page.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I chose the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics +because the natural sciences were taught in that Faculty, +and just at that time I developed a great passion for +natural science.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A rather strange meeting had led me to those studies.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the famous division of the family property in +1822, which I have described, my father’s ‘elder brother’ +went to live in Petersburg. For a long time nothing +was heard of him, then suddenly a rumour came that he +was getting married. He was at that time over sixty, +and every one knew that he had a grown-up son besides +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>other children. He married the mother of his eldest +son; the bride, too, was over fifty. With this marriage +he legitimised his son. Why not all the children? It +would be hard to say why, if we had not known the chief +object of it all; his one desire was to deprive his brothers +of the inheritance, and this he completely attained by +legitimising the son.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the famous inundation of Petersburg in 1824 the +old man was drenched with water in his carriage. He +caught cold, took to his bed, and in the beginning of 1825 +he died.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of the son there were strange rumours. It was said +that he was unsociable, refused to make acquaintances, +sat alone for ever absorbed in chemistry, spent his life +at his microscope, read even at dinner and hated feminine +society. Of him it is said in <cite>Woe from Wit</cite>,<a id='r74'></a><a href='#f74' class='c015'><sup>[74]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘He is a chemist, he is a botanist,</div> + <div class='line'>Our nephew, Prince Fyodor,</div> + <div class='line'>He flies from women and even from me.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>His uncles, who transferred to him the grudge they had +against his father, never spoke of him except as ‘the +Chemist,’ using this word as a term of disparagement, +and assuming that chemistry was a subject that could +not be studied by a gentleman.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His father used to oppress him dreadfully, not merely +insulting him with the spectacle of grey-headed cynical +vice, but actually being jealous of him as a possible rival +in his seraglio. The Chemist on one occasion tried +to escape from this ignoble existence by taking laudanum. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>The comrade with whom he used to work at chemistry +by chance saved him. His father was thoroughly +frightened, and before his death had begun to treat his +son better.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After his father’s death the Chemist released the +luckless odalisques, halved the heavy <em>obrok</em> laid by his +father on the peasants, forgave all arrears and presented +them gratis with the army receipt for the full quota of +recruits, which the old man used to sell them after sending +his serfs as soldiers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A year and a half later he came to Moscow. I longed +to see him, for I liked him both for the way he treated +his peasants and on account of the undeserved dislike +his uncles felt for him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One morning a small man in gold spectacles, with a +big nose, with hair somewhat thin on the top, and with +hands burnt by chemical reagents, called upon my father. +My father met him coldly, sarcastically; his nephew +responded in the same coin and gave him quite as good +as he got: after taking each other’s measure, they began +speaking of extraneous matters with external indifference, +and parted politely but with concealed dislike. My +father saw that he was an opponent who would not give +in to him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>They did not become more intimate later. The +Chemist very rarely visited his uncles; the last time +he saw my father was after the Senator’s death, when +he came to ask him for a loan of thirty thousand roubles +for the purchase of land. My father would not lend it. +The Chemist was moved to anger and, rubbing his nose, +observed with a smile, ‘There is no risk whatever in it; +my estate is entailed; I am borrowing money for its +improvement. I have no children and we are each +other’s heirs.’ The old man of seventy-five never +forgave his nephew for this sally.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I took to visiting the Chemist from time to time. He +<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>lived in an extremely original way. In his big house +on the Tverskoy Boulevard he used one tiny room for +himself and one as a laboratory. His old mother occupied +another little room on the other side of the corridor, the +rest of the house was abandoned and remained exactly +as it had been when his father left it to go to Petersburg. +The blackened candelabra, the wonderful furniture +among which were rarities of all sorts, a grandfather +clock said to have been bought by Peter the Great in +Amsterdam, an armchair said to have come from the +house of Stanislav Leszcynski,<a id='r75'></a><a href='#f75' class='c015'><sup>[75]</sup></a> frames without pictures +in them, pictures turned to the wall, were all left anyhow, +filling up three big, unheated and unlighted drawing-rooms. +Servants were usually playing some musical +instrument and smoking in the hall, where in old days +they had scarcely dared to breathe nor say their prayers. +A man-servant would light a candle and escort one through +this museum of antiquities, observing every time that +there was no need to take my cloak off as it was very cold +in the drawing-rooms. Thick layers of dust covered the +horns and various curios, the reflections of which moved +together with the candle in the elaborately carved mirrors, +straw left from the packing lay undisturbed here and +there together with scraps of paper and bits of string.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At last we reached the door hung with a rug which +led to the terribly overheated study. In it the Chemist, +in a soiled dressing-gown lined with squirrel fur, was +invariably sitting, surrounded by books, phials, retorts, +crucibles, and other apparatus. In that study where +Chevalier’s microscope now reigned supreme and there +was always a smell of chlorine, and where a few years +before terrible infamous deeds were perpetrated—in +that study I was born. My father on his return from +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>foreign parts before his quarrel with his brother stayed +for some months in his house, and in the same house, too, +my wife was born in 1817. The Chemist sold the house +two years later, and it chanced that I was in the house +again at evening parties, at Sverbeyev’s, arguing there +about Pan-Slavism and getting angry with Homyakov, +who never lost his temper about anything. The rooms +had been done up, but the front entrance, the vestibule, +the stairs, the hall were all untouched, and so was the +little study.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Chemist’s housekeeping was even less complicated, +especially when his mother had gone away for the +summer to their estate near Moscow and with her the +cook. His valet used to appear at four o’clock with a +coffee-pot, pour into it a little strong broth and, taking +advantage of the chemical furnace, would set it there to +warm, together with various poisons. Then he would +bring bread and half a woodcock from the restaurant, +and that made up the whole dinner. When it was over +the valet would wash the coffee-pot and it would return +to its natural duties. In the evening, the valet would +appear again, take from the sofa a heap of books, and a +tiger-skin that had come down to the Chemist from his +father, bring sheets, pillows and bedclothes, and the +study was as easily transformed into a bedroom as it had +been into a kitchen and a dining-room.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the very beginning of our acquaintance the +Chemist saw that I was interested in earnest, and began +to persuade me to give up the ‘empty’ study of literature +and the ‘dangerous and quite useless pursuit of politics,’ +and take to natural science. He gave me Cuvier’s +speech on <cite>Geological Cataclysms</cite> and De Candolle’s +<cite>Plant Morphology</cite>. Seeing that these were not thrown +away upon me he offered me the use of his excellent +collection, apparatus, herbariums, and even his guidance. +He was very interesting on his own ground, extremely +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>learned, witty and even polite; but one could not go +beyond the monkeys with him; from stones to ourangoutangs, +everything interested him, but he did not care +to be drawn beyond them, particularly into philosophy, +which he regarded as twaddle. He was neither a conservative +nor a reactionary, he simply did not believe in +people, that is, believed that egoism is the sole source +of all action, and thought that it was restrained merely +by the senselessness of some and the ignorance of others.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was revolted by his materialism. The superficial, +timid, half-Voltairianism of our fathers was not in the +least like the Chemist’s materialism. His outlook was +calm, consistent, complete. He reminded me of the +celebrated answer made by Lalande<a id='r76'></a><a href='#f76' class='c015'><sup>[76]</sup></a> to Napoleon: +‘Kant accepts the hypothesis of God,’ Bonaparte said +to him. ‘Sire,’ replied the astronomer, ‘in my studies +I have never had occasion to make use of that hypothesis.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Chemist’s atheism went far beyond the sphere of +theology. He considered Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire<a id='r77'></a><a href='#f77' class='c015'><sup>[77]</sup></a> a +mystic and Oken<a id='r78'></a><a href='#f78' class='c015'><sup>[78]</sup></a> simply a degenerate. He closed the +works of the natural philosophers with the same contempt +with which my father had closed Karamzin’s <cite>History</cite>. +‘They have invented first causes, spiritual powers, and +then are surprised that they can neither find them nor +understand them,’ he said. This was a second edition +of my father, in a different age and differently educated.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His views on all the problems of life were still more +comfortless. He thought that there was as little responsibility +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>for good and evil in man as in the beasts; that it +was all a matter of organisation, circumstances, and the +general condition of the nervous system, of which he +said <em>more was expected than it was capable of giving</em>. He +did not like family life, spoke with horror of marriage, +and naïvely acknowledged that in the thirty years of his +life he had never loved one woman. However, one +warm spot in this frozen man still remained; it could be +seen in his attitude to his old mother; they had suffered +a great deal together at the hands of his father, and their +troubles had united them; he touchingly surrounded +her solitary and infirm old age with tranquillity and +attention, as far as he knew how.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He never advocated his theories, except those that +concerned chemistry; they came out casually or were +called for by me. He even showed reluctance in +answering my romantic and philosophic objections; his +answers were brief, and he made them with a smile and +with that delicacy with which a big old mastiff plays with +a puppy, allowing him to tease and only pushing him off +with a light pat of his paw. But it was just that which +provoked me most and I would return to the charge +without weariness, never gaining an inch of ground, +however. Later on, namely twelve years afterwards, +just as I recalled my father’s observations I frequently +recalled the Chemist’s. Of course, he had been right +in three-quarters of everything against which I argued, +but of course I was right too. There are truths (we have +spoken of this already) which like political rights are not +given to those under a certain age.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Chemist’s influence made me choose the Faculty +of Physics and Mathematics; perhaps I should have done +better to enter in the Medical Faculty, but there was +no great harm in my first acquiring some degree of knowledge +of the differential and integral calculus and then +completely forgetting it.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>Without the natural sciences there is no salvation for +the modern man. Without that wholesome food, without +that strict training of the mind by facts, without that +closeness to the life surrounding us, without humility +before its independence, the monastic cell remains hidden +in the soul, and in it the drop of mysticism which may +flood the whole understanding with its dark waters.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before I completed my studies the Chemist had gone +away to Petersburg, and I did not see him again until I +came back from Vyatka. Some months after my +marriage I went half secretly for a few days to the estate +near Moscow where my father was then living. The +object of my going was to effect a complete reconciliation +with him, for he was still angry with me for my +marriage.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the way I halted at Perhushkovo where we had +so many times broken our journey in old days. The +Chemist was expecting me there and had actually got a +dinner and two bottles of champagne ready for me. In +those four or five years he had not changed at all except +for being a little older. Before dinner he asked me quite +seriously: ‘Tell me, please, openly, how do you find +married life, is there anything good in it, or not much?’ +I laughed. ‘What boldness it is on your part,’ he went +on. ‘I wonder at you; in a normal condition a man can +never venture on such a terrible step. Two or three +very good matches have been proposed to me, but when +I imagine a woman taking up her abode in my room, +setting everything in order according to her ideas, perhaps +forbidding me to smoke my tobacco, making a fuss and +an upset, I am so panic-stricken that I prefer to die in +solitude.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Shall I stay the night with you or go on to Perhushkovo?’ +I asked him after dinner.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I have plenty of room here,’ he answered, ‘but for +you I think it would be better to go on, you will reach +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>your father at ten o’clock. You know, of course, that +he is still angry with you; well—in the evening before +going to bed old people’s nerves are usually exhausted +and feeble—he will probably receive you much better +this evening than to-morrow; in the morning you will +find him quite ready for battle.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ha, ha, ha! I recognise my teacher in physiology +and materialism,’ said I, laughing heartily, ‘how your +remark recalls those blissful days when I used to go +to you like Goethe’s <cite>Wagner</cite> to weary you with my +idealism and listen with some indignation to your chilling +opinions.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Since then,’ he answered, laughing too, ‘you have +lived enough to know that all men’s doings depend +simply on their nerves and their chemical composition.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Later on we had some sort of disagreement, probably +we were both to blame.... Nevertheless in 1846 he +wrote me a letter. I was then beginning to be the +fashion after the publication of the first part of <em>Who is to +Blame?</em> The Chemist wrote to me that he saw with +grief that I was wasting my talent on ‘idle pursuits!... +I forgive you everything for the sake of your letters on +the study of nature. In them I understood the German +philosophy (so far as it is possible for the mind of man to +do so)—why then instead of going on with serious work +are you writing tales?’ I sent him a few friendly lines +in reply, and with that our relations ended.</p> + +<p class='c014'>If the Chemist’s own eyes ever rest upon these lines, +I would beg him to read them just before going to +sleep at night when his nerves are exhausted, and then +I am sure he will forgive me this affectionate gossip, +especially as I keep a very warm and good memory of +him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so at last the seclusion of the parental home was +over. I was <em>au large</em>. Instead of solitude in our little +room, instead of quiet and half-concealed interviews with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>Ogaryov alone, I was surrounded by a noisy family, +seven hundred in number. I was more at home in it in +a fortnight than I had been in my father’s house from the +day of my birth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But the parental roof pursued me even to the university +in the shape of a footman whom my father ordered to +accompany me, particularly when I went on foot. For +a whole session I was trying to get rid of my escort and +only with difficulty succeeded in doing so officially. I +say ‘officially,’ because Pyotr Fyodorovitch, upon whom +the duty was laid, very quickly grasped, first, that I disliked +being accompanied, and, secondly, that it was a +great deal more pleasant for him in various places of +entertainment than in the hall of the Faculty of Physics +and Mathematics, where the only pleasures open to him +were conversation with the two porters and regaling +them and himself with snuff.</p> + +<p class='c014'>With what object was an escort sent with me? Could +Pyotr, who from his youth had been given to getting drunk +for several days at a time, have prevented me from doing +anything? I imagine that my father did not even +suppose so, but for his own peace of mind took steps, +which were insufficient but were still steps, like people +who do not believe but take the sacrament. It was part +of the old-fashioned education of landowners. Up to +seven years old, it was the rule that I should be led by +the hand up the staircase, which was rather steep; up to +eleven, I was washed in my bath by Vera Artamonovna; +therefore, very consistently, a servant was sent with me +when I was a student; until I was twenty-one, I was not +allowed to be out after half-past ten. I was inevitably +in freedom and on my own feet when in exile; had I +not been exiled, probably the same regime would have +continued up to twenty-five or even thirty-five.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Like the majority of lively boys brought up in solitude, +I flung myself on every one’s neck with such sincerity +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>and impulsiveness, made propaganda with such senseless +imprudence, and was so candidly fond of every one, that +I could not fail to call forth a warm response from lads +almost of the same age. (I was then in my seventeenth +year.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>The sage rule—to be courteous to all, intimate with +no one and to trust no one—did as much to promote +this readiness to make friends as the persistent thought +with which we entered the university, the thought that +here our dreams would be accomplished, that here we +should sow the seeds and lay the foundation of a league. +We were persuaded that out of this lecture-room would +come the company which would follow in the footsteps +of Pestel and Ryleyev, and that we should be in it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>They were a splendid set of young men in our year. +It was just at that time that theoretical tendencies were +becoming more and more marked among us. The +scholastic method of learning and aristocratic indolence +were alike disappearing, and not yet replaced by that +German utilitarianism which enriches men’s minds with +science, as the fields with manure, for the sake of an increased +crop. A considerable group of students no longer +regarded science as a necessary but wearisome short-cut +by which they would come to be collegiate assessors. +The problems that were arising amongst us had no reference +whatever to grades in the service.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the other hand, the interest in science had not yet +had time to degenerate into doctrinarianism; science +did not draw us away from the life and suffering around +us. Our sympathy with it raised the social morality of +the students, too, in an extraordinary way. We said +openly in the lecture-room everything that came into our +heads; manuscript copies of prohibited poems passed +from hand to hand, prohibited books were read with +commentaries, but for all that I do not remember a single +case of tale-bearing or treachery. There were timid +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>young men who turned away and held aloof, but they +too were silent.<a id='r79'></a><a href='#f79' class='c015'><sup>[79]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>One silly boy, questioned by his mother on the Malov +affair, under threat of the birch told her something. The +fond mother—an aristocrat and a princess—flew to the +rector and told him her son’s tale as proof of his penitence. +We heard of this and tormented him so that he could not +remain until the end of his session.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This affair, for which I too was imprisoned, deserves +to be described.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Malov was a stupid, coarse, and uncultured professor +in the political section. The students despised him and +laughed at him. ‘How many professors have you in +your section?’ asked the director of a student in the +political lecture-room. ‘Nine, not counting Malov,’ +answered the student.<a id='r80'></a><a href='#f80' class='c015'><sup>[80]</sup></a> Well, this professor, who had +to be left out of the reckoning when the others were +counted, began to be more and more insolent in his treatment +of the students; the latter made up their minds +to turn him out of the lecture-room. After deliberating +together they sent two delegates to our section to invite +me to come with an auxiliary force. I at once gave the +word to go out to battle with Malov, and several students +went with me; when we went into the lecture-room +Malov was on the spot and saw us come in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the faces of all the students could be seen the same +fear: that on that day he might say nothing rude to them. +This anxiety was soon over.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The overflowing lecture-room was restless and a vague +subdued hum rose from it. Malov made some observations; +there began a scraping of feet. ‘You express +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>your thoughts like horses, with your legs,’ observed Malov, +probably imagining that horses think with a trot and a +gallop, and a storm arose, whistling, hisses, shouts; ‘Out +with him, <em>pereat</em>!’ Malov, pale as a sheet, made a +desperate effort to control the uproar but could not; the +students jumped on to the benches, Malov quietly left +his chair and, shrinking together, began to make his way +to the door; the students went after him, saw him through +the university court into the street and flung his goloshes +after him. The last circumstance was important, for +the case at once assumed a very different character in the +street; but where in the world are there lads of seventeen +or eighteen who would consider that?</p> + +<p class='c014'>The University Council was alarmed and persuaded +the director to present the affair as completely closed, +and for that reason to put the ringleaders, or at least some +of them, in prison. This was prudent; it might otherwise +easily have happened that the Tsar would have sent an +aide-de-camp who, with a view to gaining a cross, would +have turned the affair into a plot, a conspiracy, a mutiny, +and would have suggested sending all the culprits to +penal servitude, which the Tsar would graciously have +commuted to service as common soldiers. Seeing that +vice was punished and virtue triumphant, the Tsar +confined himself to graciously confirming the students’ +wishes by authority of the Most High and dismissed the +professor. We had driven Malov out as far as the university +gates and he put him outside them. It was +<em>vae victis</em> with Nicholas, but on this occasion it was not +for us to complain.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so the affair went on merrily; after dinner next +day the porter from the head office, a grey-headed old +man, who conscientiously assumed <i><span lang="fr">à la lettre</span></i> that the +students’ tips were for vodka and therefore kept himself +continually in a condition approximating to drunkenness +rather than sobriety, came to me bringing in the cuff of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>his coat a note from the rector; I was instructed to +present myself before him at seven o’clock. After he +had gone, a pale and frightened student appeared, a +baron from the Baltic provinces, who had received a +similar invitation and was one of the luckless victims led +on by me. He began showering reproaches upon me and +then asked advice as to what he was to say.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Lie desperately, deny everything, except that there +was an uproar and that you were in the lecture-room.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But the rector will ask why I was in the political +lecture-room and not in my own.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What of it? Why, don’t you know that Rodion +Heiman did not come to give his lecture, so you, not +wishing to waste your time, went to hear another.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘He won’t believe it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, that’s his affair.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>As we were going into the university courtyard I +looked at my baron, his plump little cheeks were very +pale and altogether he was in a bad way.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you may be sure that the rector will +begin with me and not with you, so you say exactly the +same with variations. You did not do anything in +particular, as a matter of fact. Don’t forget one thing, +for making an uproar and for telling lies ever so many +of you will be put in prison, but if you go and tell tales +and mix anybody else up in it before me, I’ll tell the +others and we’ll poison your existence.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The baron promised and kept his word honestly.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The rector at that time was Dvigubsky, one of the +surviving specimens of the professors before the flood, or +to be more accurate, before the fire, that is, before 1812. +They are extinct now; with the directorship of Prince +Obolensky the patriarchal period of Moscow University +ended. In those days the government did not trouble +itself about the university; the professors lectured or did +not lecture, the students attended or did not attend, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>went about, not in uniform jackets <em>ad instar</em> of light-cavalry +officers, but in all sorts of outrageous and eccentric +garments, in tiny little caps that would scarcely keep on +their virginal locks. The professors consisted of two +groups or classes who placidly hated each other. One +group was composed exclusively of Germans, the other +of non-Germans. The Germans, among whom were +good-natured and learned men such as Loder, Fischer, +Hildebrand, and Heym himself, were as a rule distinguished +by their ignorance of the Russian language +and disinclination to learn it, their indifference to the +students, their spirit of Western exclusiveness, their immoderate +smoking of cigars and the immense quantity +of decorations which they invariably wore. The non-Germans +for their part knew not a single living language +except Russian, were servile in their patriotism, as uncouth +as seminarists, and, with the exception of Merzlyakov,<a id='r81'></a><a href='#f81' class='c015'><sup>[81]</sup></a> +were treated as of little account, and instead of +an immoderate consumption of cigars indulged in an +immoderate consumption of liquor. The Germans +for the most part hailed from Göttingen and the +non-Germans were sons of priests.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Dvigubsky was one of the non-Germans: his appearance +was so venerable that a student from a seminary, +who came in for a list of classes, went up to kiss his hand +and ask for his blessing, and always called him ‘The +Father Rector.’ At the same time he was wonderfully +like an owl with an Anna ribbon on its neck, in which +form another student, who had received a more worldly +education, drew his portrait. When he came into our +lecture-room either with the dean Tchumakov, or +with Kotelnitsky, who had charge of a cupboard inscribed +<em>Materia Medica</em>, kept for some unknown reason in the +mathematical lecture-room, or with Reiss, who was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>bespoken from Germany because his uncle was a very +good chemist, and who, when he read French, used +to call a lamp-wick a <em>bâton de coton</em>, and poison, <em>poisson</em>, +and so cruelly distorted the word ‘lightning’ that many +people supposed he was swearing—we looked at them +with round eyes as at a collection of antiquities, as at the +last of the Abencerrages,<a id='r82'></a><a href='#f82' class='c015'><sup>[82]</sup></a> representatives of a different +age not so near to us as to Tredyakovsky<a id='r83'></a><a href='#f83' class='c015'><sup>[83]</sup></a> and Kostrov<a id='r84'></a><a href='#f84' class='c015'><sup>[84]</sup></a>; +the times in which Heraskov<a id='r85'></a><a href='#f85' class='c015'><sup>[85]</sup></a> and Knyazhnin<a id='r86'></a><a href='#f86' class='c015'><sup>[86]</sup></a> were still +read, the times of the good-natured Professor Diltey, +who had two little dogs, one which always barked and +the other which never barked, for which reason he very +justly called one Bavardka and the other Prudentka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But Dvigubsky was not at all a good-natured professor; +he received us extremely curtly and was rude. I reeled +off a fearful rigmarole and was disrespectful; the baron +served up the same story. The rector, irritated, told us +to present ourselves next morning before the Council, +where in the course of half an hour they questioned, +condemned and sentenced us and sent the sentence to +Prince Golitsyn for ratification.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>I had scarcely had time to rehearse the trial and the +sentence of the University Senate to the students five or +six times in the lecture-room when all at once the inspector, +who was a major in the Russian army and a French +dancing-master, made his appearance with a non-commissioned +officer, bringing an order to seize me and +conduct me to prison. Some of the students went to +see me on my way, and in the courtyard there was already +a crowd of young men, so evidently I was not the first +taken; as we passed, they all waved their caps and their +hands; the university soldiers moved them back but +the students would not go.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the dirty cellar which served as a prison I found +two of the arrested men, Arapetov and Olov; Prince +Andrey Obolensky and Rozenheim had been put in +another room; in all, there were six of us punished for +the Malov affair. Orders were given that we should +be kept on bread and water; the rector sent some sort +of soup, which we refused, and it was well we did so. +As soon as it got dark and the lecture-rooms emptied, +our comrades brought us cheese, game, cigars, wine, and +liqueurs. The soldier in charge was angry and grumbled, +but accepted twenty kopecks and carried in the provisions. +After midnight he went further and let several visitors +come in to us; so we spent our time feasting by night +and sleeping by day.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On one occasion it somehow happened that the assistant-director +Panin, the brother of the Minister of Justice, +faithful to his Horse-Guard habits, took it into his head +to go the round of the Imperial prison in the university +cellars by night. We had only just lighted a candle +and put it under a chair so that the light could not be +seen from outside, and were beginning on our midnight +repast, when we heard a knock at the outer door; not +the sort of knock which weakly begs a soldier to open, +which is more afraid of being heard than of not being +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>heard; no, this was a peremptory knock, a knock of +authority. The soldier was petrified; we hid the +bottles and the students in a little cupboard, blew out the +candle and threw ourselves on our trestle-beds. Panin +entered. ‘I believe you are smoking?’ he said, so lost +in thick clouds of smoke that we could hardly distinguish +him and the inspector who was carrying a lantern. +‘Where do they get a light, do you give it them?’ The +soldier swore that he did not. We answered that we +had tinder with us. The inspector undertook to remove +it and to take away the cigars, and Panin withdrew without +observing that the number of caps in the room was +double the number of heads.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On Saturday evening the inspector made his appearance +and announced that I and another one might go +home, but that the rest would remain until Monday. +This distinction seemed to me insulting and I asked the +inspector whether I might remain; he drew back a +step, looked at me with the threateningly majestic air +with which tsars and heroes in a ballet depict anger in +a dance, and saying, ‘Stay by all means,’ walked away. +I got more into trouble at home for this last sally than for +the whole business.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so the first nights I slept away from home were +spent in prison. Not long afterwards it was my lot to +have experience of a very different prison, and there I +stayed not eight days but nine months, after which I +went not home but into exile. All that comes later, +however.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From that time forward I enjoyed the greatest popularity +in the lecture-room. From the first I had been +accepted as a good comrade. After the Malov affair, I +became, like Gogol’s famous lady, a comrade ‘agreeable +in all respects.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Did we learn anything with all this going on, could we +study? I imagine that we did. The teaching was more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>meagre and its scope narrower than in the ’forties. It is +not the function of a university, however, to give a complete +training in any branch of knowledge; its work is +to put a man in a position to continue study on his +own account; its work is to provoke inquiry, to teach +men to ask questions. And this was certainly done by +such professors as M. G. Pavlov, and on the other side, +by such as Katchenovsky.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But contact with other young men in the lecture-rooms +and the exchange of ideas and opinions did more +to develop the students than lectures and professors.... +The Moscow University did its work; the professors +whose lectures contributed to the development of Lermontov, +Byelinsky,<a id='r87'></a><a href='#f87' class='c015'><sup>[87]</sup></a> Turgenev, Kavelin,<a id='r88'></a><a href='#f88' class='c015'><sup>[88]</sup></a> and Pirogov<a id='r89'></a><a href='#f89' class='c015'><sup>[89]</sup></a> +may play their game of boston in tranquillity and still more +tranquilly lie under the earth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And what original figures, what marvels there were +among them—from Fyodor Ivanovitch Tchumakov, +who made formulas to fit in with those in the text-book +with the reckless freedom of the privileged landowner, +adding and removing letters, taking powers for roots and +<em>x</em> for the known quantity, to Gavril Myagkov, who +lectured on military tactics. From perpetually dealing +with heroic subjects, Myagkov’s very appearance had +acquired an air of drill and discipline; buttoned up to +the throat and wearing a cravat entirely free from curves, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>he delivered his lectures as though giving words of +command. ‘Gentlemen!’ he would shout; ‘in the +field—of artillery!’ This did not mean that cannons were +advancing into the field of battle, but simply that such +was the heading in the margin. What a pity Nicholas +avoided visiting the University! If he had seen Myagkov, +he would certainly have made him Director.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And Fyodor Fyodorovitch Reiss, who in his chemistry +lectures never went beyond the second person of the +chemical divinity, <em>i.e.</em> hydrogen! Reiss, who had +actually been made Professor of Chemistry because not +he, but his uncle, had at one time studied that science! +Towards the end of the reign of Catherine, the old uncle +had been invited to Russia; he did not want to come, so +sent his nephew instead....</p> + +<p class='c014'>Among the exceptional incidents of my course, which +lasted four years (for the University was closed for a whole +session during the cholera), were the cholera itself, the +arrival of Humboldt and the visit of Uvarov.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Humboldt was welcomed on his return to Moscow +from the Urals in a solemn assembly, held in the precincts +of the University by the Society of Scientific Research, +the members of which were various senators and +governors—people, in fact, who took no interest in +science, either natural or unnatural. The fame of +Humboldt, a privy councillor of his Prussian Majesty, on +whom the Tsar had graciously bestowed the Anna, and +to whom he had also commanded that equipment and +diploma should be presented free of charge, had reached +even them. They were determined not to disgrace +themselves before a man who had been to Mount +Chimborazo and had lived at Sans-Souci.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To this day we look upon Europeans and upon Europe +in the same way as provincials look upon those who live +in the capital, with deference and a feeling of our own +inferiority, flattering them and imitating them, taking +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>everything in which we are different for a defect, blushing +for our peculiarities and concealing them. The fact is +that we were intimidated by the jeers of Peter the Great, +by the insults of Biron, by the haughty superiority of +German officers and French tutors, and we have not +recovered from it. They talk in Western Europe of +our duplicity and wily cunning; they mistake the desire +to show off and swagger a bit for the desire to deceive. +Among us the same man is ready to be naïvely Liberal +with a Liberal or to play the Legitimist with a reactionary, +and this with no ulterior motive, simply from politeness +and a desire to please; the bump <em>de l’approbativité</em> is +strongly developed in our skulls.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Prince Dmitri Golitsyn,’ observed Lord Durham, +‘is a true Whig, a Whig in soul!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Prince D. V. Golitsyn is a respectable Russian gentleman, +but why he was a Whig and in what way he was a +Whig I don’t understand. You may be certain that in +his old age the prince wanted to please Durham and so +played the Whig.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The reception of Humboldt in Moscow and in the +University was no jesting matter. The Governor-General, +various military and civic chiefs, and the +members of the Senate, all turned up with ribbons across +their shoulders, in full uniform, and the professors wore +swords like warriors and carried three-cornered hats +under their arms. Humboldt, suspecting nothing, +came in a dark-blue coat with gold buttons, and, of course, +was overwhelmed with confusion. From the vestibule +to the hall of the Society of Scientific Research, ambushes +were prepared for him on all sides: here stood the rector, +there a dean, here a budding professor, there a veteran +whose career was over and who for that reason spoke +very slowly; every one welcomed him in Latin, in +German, in French, and all this took place in those +awful stone tubes, called corridors, in which one cannot +<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>stay for a minute without being laid up with a cold for +a month. Humboldt, hat in hand, listened to everybody +and answered everybody—I feel certain that all the +savages among whom he had been, red-skinned and +copper-coloured, caused him less trouble than his Moscow +reception.</p> + +<p class='c014'>As soon as he reached the hall and sat down, he had +to get up again. The Director, Pissarev, thought it +necessary, in brief but vigorous language, to lay down the +law in Russian concerning the services of his Excellency, +the celebrated traveller; after which Sergey Glinka,<a id='r90'></a><a href='#f90' class='c015'><sup>[90]</sup></a> +‘the officer,’ with a voice of the year 1812, deep and +hoarse, recited his poem which began:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘<em>Humboldt—Prométhée de nos jours!</em>’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Whilst Humboldt wanted to talk about his observations +on the magnetic needle and to compare his meteorological +records on the Urals with those of Moscow, the +rector came up to show him instead something plaited +of the imperial hair of Peter the Great ... and Ehrenberg +and Rosa had difficulty in finding a chance to tell +him something about their discoveries.<a id='r91'></a><a href='#f91' class='c015'><sup>[91]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Things are not much better among us in the nonofficial +world: ten years ago Liszt was received in +Moscow society in much the same way. Silly enough +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>things were done in his honour in Germany, but here +it took quite a different character. In Germany, it was +all old-maidish exaltation, sentimentality, all <em>Blumenstreuen</em>, +while with us it was all servility, homage paid +to power, rigid standing at attention, with us it was all +‘I have the honour to present myself to your Excellency.’ +And in that case, unfortunately, there was Liszt’s fame +as a celebrated Lovelace to add to it all. The ladies +flocked round him, as peasant-boys at the cross-roads flock +round a traveller while his horses are being harnessed, +inquisitively examining himself, his carriage, his cap.... +No one listened to anybody but Liszt, no one +spoke to anybody else, nor answered anybody else. I +remember that at one evening party, Homyakov,<a id='r92'></a><a href='#f92' class='c015'><sup>[92]</sup></a> blushing +for the honourable company, said to me, ‘Please let us +argue about something, that Liszt may see that there are +people in the room not exclusively occupied with him.’ +For the consolation of our ladies I can only say one thing, +that in just the same way Englishwomen dashed about, +crowded round, pestered and obstructed other celebrities +such as Kossuth and afterwards Garibaldi. But alas +for those who want to learn good manners from Englishwomen +and their husbands!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our second ‘famous’ visitor was also in a certain +sense ‘the Prometheus of our day,’ only he stole the light +not from Jupiter but from men. This Prometheus, +sung not by Glinka but by Pushkin himself, in his +‘Epistle to Lucullus,’ was the Minister of Public Instruction, +S. S. Uvarov. He amazed us by the multitude of +languages and the variety of subjects with which he was +acquainted; a veritable shopman in the stores of enlightenment, +he had committed to memory patterns of all the +sciences, samples or rather snippets of them. In the +reign of Alexander, he wrote Liberal brochures in French; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>later on, corresponded on Greek subjects with Goethe +in German. When he became Minister, he discoursed +upon Slavonic poetry of the fourth century, upon which +Katchenovsky observed to him that in those days our +forefathers had enough to do to fight the bears, let alone +singing ballads about the gods of Samothrace and the +mercy of tyrants. He used to carry in his pocket, by +way of a testimonial, a letter from Goethe, in which the +latter paid him an extremely odd compliment, saying: +‘There is no need for you to apologise for your style; +you have succeeded in what I never can succeed in doing—forgetting +the German grammar.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>So this actual civil Pic-de-la-Mirandole<a id='r93'></a><a href='#f93' class='c015'><sup>[93]</sup></a> introduced a +new kind of torture. He ordered that the best students +should be selected to deliver a lecture, each on his own +subject, instead of the professor. The deans, of course, +selected the liveliest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These lectures went on for a whole week. The +students had to prepare in all the subjects of their course, +and the deans picked out the student’s name and the +subject by lot. Uvarov invited all the distinguished +people of Moscow. Archimandrites and senators, the +Governor-General and Ivan Ivanovitch Dmitriev—all +were present.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I had to lecture on mineralogy in Lovetsky’s place—and +already he is dead!</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘Where’s our old comrade Langeron!</div> + <div class='line'>Where’s our old comrade Benigsen!</div> + <div class='line in2'>You, too, are nowhere to be seen,</div> + <div class='line in2'>And you, too, might have never been!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Alexey Leontyevitch Lovetsky was a tall, roughly-hewn, +heavily-moving man with a big mouth and a large face, +entirely devoid of expression. Removing in the corridor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>his pea-green overcoat adorned with a number of collars +of varying size, such as were worn during the First Consulate, +he would begin, before entering the lecture-room, +in an even, passionless voice (which was in perfect keeping +with his stony subject): ‘We concluded in the last lecture +all that is necessary concerning the Siliceous Rocks.’ Then +he would sit down and go on: ‘The Argillaceous Rocks....’ +He had created an invariable system for formulating +the qualities of each mineral, from which he never +departed; so that it sometimes happened that the +characteristics were entered in the negative:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Crystallisation—does not crystallise.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Employment—is not employed for any purpose.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Use—injurious to the organism....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>He did not, however, avoid poetry, nor moral reflections, +and every time he showed us artificial stones and +told us how they were made, he added: ‘Gentlemen, +it’s a fraud!’ In dealing with husbandry, he found +moral qualities in a good cock if he ‘crowed well and +was attentive to the hens,’ and a distinct virtue in an +aristocratic ram if he had ‘bald knees.’ He would also +tell us touching tales in which flies describe how on a +fine summer evening they walked about a tree and were +covered with resin which turned into amber, and he +always added: ‘That, gentlemen, is prosopopeia!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>When the dean summoned me, the audience was rather +exhausted; two mathematical lectures had reduced the +listeners, who did not understand a single word, to +apathy and depression. Uvarov asked for something a +little livelier and for a student with a ‘well-balanced +tongue.’ Shtchepkin pointed to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I mounted the platform. Lovetsky was sitting near, +motionless, with his arms on his knees like a Memnon or +Osiris, and was looking uneasy. I whispered to him, +‘What luck that I have to lecture in your room. I won’t +give you away.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>‘Don’t boast when you are going into action,’ the +worthy professor responded, scarcely moving his lips +and not looking at me. I almost burst out laughing; +but when I looked before me, there was a mist before +my eyes, I felt that I was turning pale and there was a +sort of dryness on my tongue. I had never spoken in +public before, the lecture-room was full of students—they +relied upon me; at the table below were the +‘mighty of this world’ and all the professors of our +section. I picked up the question and read in an unnatural +voice, ‘Crystallisation, its conditions, laws and +forms.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I was thinking how to begin, the happy thought +occurred to me that if I made a mistake, the professors +might notice it, but they would not say a word, while +the rest of the audience knew nothing about the subject +themselves, and the students would be satisfied so long +as I did not break down in the middle, because I was a +favourite. And so in the name of Haüy, Werner, and +Mitscherlich, I delivered my first lecture, concluding it +with philosophic reflections, and all the time addressing +myself to the students and not to the Minister. The +students and the professors shook hands with me and +thanked me. Uvarov led me off to be introduced to +Prince Golitsyn and the latter said something, of which +I could catch nothing but the vowel sounds. Uvarov +promised me a book in honour of the occasion, but never +sent it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The second and third occasions of my appearance in +public were very different. In 1836 I played the part +of ‘Ugar’ in the old Russian farce, while the wife of +the colonel of gendarmes was ‘Marfa,’ before all the +<em>beau-monde</em> of Vyatka, including Tyufyaev. We had +been rehearsing for a month, but yet my heart beat +violently and my hands trembled, when a deathly silence +followed the overture and the curtain began rising with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>a sort of horrid shudder; Marfa and I were waiting +behind the scenes. She was so sorry for me, or else so +afraid that I should spoil the performance, that she gave +me an immense glass of champagne, but even with that +I was half dead.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After making my début under the auspices of a Minister +of Education and a colonel of gendarmes, I appeared +without any nervousness or self-conscious shyness at a +Polish meeting in London and that was my third public +appearance. The place of the Minister Uvarov was on +that occasion filled by the ex-Minister, Ledru-Rollin.<a id='r94'></a><a href='#f94' class='c015'><sup>[94]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>But is not this enough of student reminiscences? I +am afraid it may be a sign of senility to linger so long +over them; I will only add a few details concerning the +cholera of 1831.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Cholera—the word so familiar now in Europe and so +thoroughly at home in Russia that a patriotic poet calls +the cholera the one faithful ally of Nicholas—was heard +then for the first time in the North. Every one trembled +before the terrible plague that was moving up the Volga +towards Moscow. Exaggerated rumours filled the +imagination with horror. The disease advanced capriciously, +halting, skipping over places, and it seemed to +have missed Moscow, when suddenly the terrible news, +‘The cholera is in Moscow!’ was all over the city.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the morning a student in the political section felt +ill, next day he died in the university hospital. We +rushed to look at his body. He was emaciated, as though +after a long illness, the eyes were sunk, the features were +distorted, beside him lay a porter, who had been taken +ill in the night.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We were informed that the university was to be closed. +This order was read to our section by the professor of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>technology, Denisov; he was melancholy, perhaps +frightened. Next morning he too died.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We assembled together from all sections in the big +university courtyard; there was something touching in +this crowd of young people bidden to disperse before the +plague. Their faces were pale and particularly full of +feeling; many were thinking of friends and relations. +We said good-bye to the government scholars, who had +been separated from us by quarantine measures, and were +being distributed in small numbers in different houses. +And at home we were all met by the stench of chloride +of lime, vinegar—and a diet such as might well have +laid a man up, apart from chloride and cholera.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Strange to say those gloomy days have remained as it +were a time of ceremonial solemnity in my memory.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Moscow assumed quite a different aspect. The +public activities, unknown at ordinary times, gave it a +new life. There were fewer carriages in the streets, +and gloomy crowds of people stood at the cross-roads +and talked about poisoners. The conveyances that were +taking the sick moved at a walking pace, escorted by +police; people drew aside from black hearses with the +dead. Bulletins concerning the disease were printed +twice a day. The town was surrounded by a cordon +as in time of war, and the soldiers shot a poor sacristan +who was making his way across the river. All this +absorbed men’s minds, terror of the plague ousted terror +of the authorities; the people murmured, and then there +came one piece of news upon another, that so-and-so +had been taken ill, that so-and-so had died....</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Metropolitan, Filaret, arranged a universal service +of prayer. On the same day and at the same hour, all +the priests made the round of their parishes in procession +with banners. The terrified inhabitants came out of +their houses and fell on their knees, as the procession +passed, praying with tears for the remission of sins. Even +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>the priests, accustomed to address God on intimate terms, +were grave and moved. Some of them went to the +Kremlin. There in the open air, surrounded by the higher +clergy, knelt the Metropolitan praying that this cup +might pass away. On the same spot six years before, +he had held a thanksgiving for the hanging of the +Decembrists.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Filaret was by way of being a high priest in opposition; +on behalf of what he was in opposition, I never could +make out. Perhaps on behalf of his own personality. +He was an intelligent and learned man, and a master of +the Russian language, successfully introducing Church +Slavonic into it; but all this gave him no ground for +opposition. The common people did not like him and +called him a freemason, because he was closely associated +with Prince A. N. Golitsyn and was preaching in Petersburg +in the palmy days of the Bible Society. The Synod +forbade his catechism being used in teaching. The +clergy under his sway went in terror of his despotism; +possibly it was as rivals that Nicholas and he hated each +other.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Filaret was very clever and ingenious in humiliating +the temporal power; in his sermons there was the light +of that vague Christian socialism for which Lacordaire +and other far-sighted Catholics were distinguished. +From his exalted ecclesiastical tribune, Filaret declared +that a man can never lawfully be the tool of another, that +there can be nothing between men but an exchange of +services, and this, he said, in a state in which half the +population were slaves.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He said to the fettered convicts in the forwarding prison +on the Sparrow Hills: ‘The civil law has condemned +you and drives you away, but the Church hastens after +you, longing to say one more word, one more prayer for +you and to give you her blessing on your journey.’ +Then comforting them, he added ‘that they, condemned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>convicts, had broken with their past, that a new life lay +before them, while among others (probably there were +no others except officials present) there were far greater +criminals,’ and he quoted the example of the robber at +Christ’s side.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Filaret’s sermon at the service on the occasion of the +cholera surpassed all his other efforts; he took as his text +how the angel offered David the choice of war, famine +or plague as a punishment; David chose plague. The +Tsar came to Moscow furious, sent the Court Minister, +Prince Volkonsky, to give Filaret a good ‘dressing down’ +and threatened to send him to be Metropolitan in Georgia. +The Metropolitan meekly submitted and sent a new +message to all the churches, in which he explained that +they would be wrong to look in the text of his first sermon +for an application to their beloved Emperor, that by +David was meant ourselves defiled by sin. Of course, +this made the first sermon intelligible even to those who +had not grasped its meaning at first.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was how the Metropolitan of Moscow played +at opposition.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The service had as little effect on the cholera as the +chloride of lime; the disease spread further and further.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was in Paris during the severest visitation of cholera +in 1849. The plague was terrible. The hot days of +June helped to spread it: the poor died like flies, the +tradespeople fled from Paris while others sat behind +locked doors. The government, exclusively occupied +with its struggles against the revolutionaries, did not think +of taking active measures. The scanty collections raised +for relief were insufficient for the emergency. The +poor working people were left abandoned to the caprice +of destiny, the hospitals had not beds enough, the police +had not coffins enough, and in the houses, packed to overflowing +with families, the bodies remained two or three +days in inner rooms. In Moscow it was not like that.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>Prince D. V. Golitsyn, at that time governor-general, +a weak but honourable man, cultured and much respected, +aroused the enthusiasm of Moscow society, and somehow +everything was arranged in a private way, that is, without +the special interference of government. A committee +was formed of citizens of standing—wealthy landowners +and merchants. Every member undertook one quarter +of Moscow. Within a few days twenty hospitals had +been opened; they did not cost the government a farthing, +everything was done by subscription. Shopkeepers gave +gratis everything needed for the hospitals, bedclothes, +linen, and warm clothing for the patients on recovery. +Young men volunteered as superintendents of the +hospitals to ensure that half of these contributions should +not be stolen by the attendants.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The university did its full share. The whole medical +faculty, students and doctors <em>en masse</em>, put themselves +at the disposal of the cholera committee; they were +assigned to the different hospitals and remained there +until the cholera was over. For three or four months +these admirable young men lived in the hospitals as +orderlies, assistants, nurses, secretaries, and all this without +any remuneration and at a time when there was such an +exaggerated fear of the infection. I remember one +student, a Little Russian, who at the very beginning of +the cholera had asked for leave of absence on account +of important family affairs. Leave is rarely given in +term-time, but at last he obtained it; just as he was +about to set off, the students went to the hospitals. The +Little Russian put his leave in his pocket and went with +them. When he came out of the hospital his leave was +long overdue and he was the first to laugh over his trip.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Moscow, apparently so drowsy and apathetic, so +absorbed in scandal and piety, weddings, and nothing +at all, always wakes up when it is necessary, and is equal +to the occasion when the storm breaks over Russia.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>In 1612 she was joined in blood-stained nuptials with +Russia, and their union was welded in fire in 1812.</p> + +<p class='c014'>She bowed her head before Peter because the future +of Russia lay in his brutal clutch. But with murmurs +and disdain Moscow received within her walls the woman +stained with her husband’s blood, that impenitent Lady +Macbeth, that Lucretia Borgia without her Italian blood, +the Russian Empress of German birth<a id='r95'></a><a href='#f95' class='c015'><sup>[95]</sup></a>—and scowling +and pouting, she quietly withdrew from Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Scowling and pouting, Napoleon waited for the keys +of Moscow at the Dragomilovsky Gate, impatiently +playing with his cigar-holder and tugging at his glove. +He was not accustomed to enter foreign towns unescorted.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But my Moscow came not forth,’ as Pushkin says; +but set fire to herself.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The cholera came and again the people’s city showed +itself full of heart and energy!</p> + +<p class='c014'>In August 1830, we went to Vassilyevskoe, stopped, +as we always did, at the Radcliffian<a id='r96'></a><a href='#f96' class='c015'><sup>[96]</sup></a> castle of Perhushkovo, +and, after feeding ourselves and our horses, were +preparing to continue our journey. Bakay, with a towel +round his waist like a belt, had already shouted: ‘Off!’ +when a man galloped up on horseback, signalling to us to +stop, and one of the Senator’s postillions, covered with dust +and sweat, leapt off his horse and handed my father an +envelope. In the envelope was the news of the Revolution +of July! There were two pages of the <cite>Journal +des Débats</cite> which he had brought with a letter; I read +them over a hundred times and got to know them by +heart, and for the first time I was bored in the country.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>It was a glorious time, events came quickly. Scarcely +had the meagre figure of Charles <span class='fss'>X.</span> had time to disappear +behind the mists of Holyrood, when Belgium flared up, +the throne of the Citizen King tottered, and a warm +revolutionary spirit began to be apparent in debates and +literature. Novels, plays, poems, all once more became +propaganda and conflict.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At that time we knew nothing of the artificial stage-setting +of the revolution in France, and we took it all +for the genuine thing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Any one who cares to see how strongly the news of +the revolution of July affected the younger generation +should read Heine’s description of how he heard in +Heligoland ‘that the great Pan of the Pagans is dead.’ +There was no sham ardour there, Heine at thirty was as +enthusiastic, as childishly excited, as we were at eighteen.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We followed step by step every word, every event, the +bold questions and abrupt answers, the doings of General +Lafayette, and the doings of General Lamarque; we +not only knew every detail concerning them but loved +all the leading men (the Radical ones, of course) and kept +their portraits, from Manuel<a id='r97'></a><a href='#f97' class='c015'><sup>[97]</sup></a> and Benjamin Constant +to Dupont de l’Eure<a id='r98'></a><a href='#f98' class='c015'><sup>[98]</sup></a> and Armand Carrel.<a id='r99'></a><a href='#f99' class='c015'><sup>[99]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>In the midst of this ferment all at once, like a bomb +exploding close by, the news of the rising in Warsaw +overwhelmed us. This was not far away, this was at +home, and we looked at each other with tears in our eyes, +repeating our favourite line:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘Nein! es sind keine leere Träume!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>We rejoiced at every defeat of Dibitch; refused to +believe in the failures of the Poles, and I at once added to +my shrine the portrait of Thaddeus Kosciuszko.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was just then that I saw Nicholas for the second +time and his face was still more strongly imprinted on +my memory. The nobles were giving a ball in his +honour. I was in the gallery of the Assembly Hall and +could stare at him to my heart’s content. He had not +yet begun to wear a moustache. His face was still young, +but the change in it since the time of the Coronation +struck me. He stood morosely by a column, staring +coldly and grimly before him, without looking at any one. +He had grown thinner. In those features, in those +pewtery eyes one could read the fate of Poland and indeed +of Russia also. He was shaken, frightened, he doubted<a id='r100'></a><a href='#f100' class='c015'><sup>[100]</sup></a> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>the security of his throne and was ready to revenge +himself for what he had suffered, for his fear and his +doubts.</p> + +<p class='c014'>With the pacification of Poland all the restrained +malignancy of the man was let loose. Soon we, too, +felt it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The network of espionage cast about the university +from the beginning of the reign began to be drawn +tighter. In 1832 a Pole who was a student in our +section was a victim. Sent to the university as a government +scholar, not at his own initiative, he had been put +in our course; we made friends with him; he was discreet +and melancholy in his behaviour, we never heard a rash +word from him, but we never heard a word of weakness +either. One morning he was missing from the lectures, +next day he was missing still. We began to make +inquiries; the government scholars told us in secret that +he had been fetched away at night, that he had been +summoned before the authorities, and then people had +come for his papers and belongings and had told them +not to speak of it. There the matter ended, <em>we never +heard anything of the fate of this luckless young man</em>.<a id='r102'></a><a href='#f102' class='c015'><sup>[102]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>A few months passed when suddenly there was a report +in the lecture-room that several students had been seized +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>in the night; among them were Kostenetsky, Kolreif, +Antonovitch and others; we knew them well, they were +all excellent fellows. Kolreif, the son of a Protestant +pastor, was an extremely gifted musician. A court martial +was appointed to try them; this meant in plain +language that they were doomed to perish. We were +all in a fever of suspense to know what would happen to +them, but from the first they too vanished without trace. +The storm that was crushing the rising blades of corn +was everywhere. We no longer had a foreboding of its +approach, we felt it, we saw it, and we huddled closer +and closer together.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The danger strung up our tense nerves, made our +hearts beat faster and made us love each other with +greater devotion. There were five of us at first and now +we met Vadim Passek.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Vadim there was a great deal that was new to us. +We had all with slight variations had a similar bringing +up, that is, we knew nothing but Moscow and our +country estates, we had all learned out of the same books, +had lessons from the same tutors, and been educated at +home or at a boarding-school preparatory for the university. +Vadim had been born in Siberia during his father’s +exile, in the midst of want and privation. His father +had been himself his teacher. He had grown up in a +large family of brothers and sisters, under a crushing +weight of poverty but in complete freedom. Siberia +had put its imprint on him, which was quite unlike our +provincial stamp; he was far from being so vulgar and +petty, he was distinguished by more sturdiness and a +tougher fibre. Vadim was a savage in comparison with +us. His daring was of another kind, unlike ours, more +that of the <em>bogatyr</em>, and sometimes conceited; the +aristocracy of misfortune had developed a peculiar self-respect +in him; but he knew how to love others too, +and gave himself to them without stint. He was bold—even +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>reckless to excess—a man born in Siberia, and in +an exiled family too, has an advantage over us in not +being afraid of Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vadim from family tradition hated the autocracy with +his whole soul, and he took us to his heart as soon as we +met. We made friends very quickly. Though, indeed, +at that time, there was neither ceremony nor reasonable +precaution, nothing like it, to be seen in our circle.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Would you like to make the acquaintance of Ketscher, +of whom you have heard so much?’ Vadim said to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I certainly should.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Come to-morrow, then, at seven o’clock; don’t be +late, he’ll be with me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I went—Vadim was not at home. A tall man with +an expressive face and a good-naturedly menacing look +behind his spectacles was waiting for him. I took up +a book, he took up a book. ‘But perhaps you,’ he said +as he opened it, ‘perhaps you are Herzen?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes; and you Ketscher?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>A conversation began and grew more and more +eager....</p> + +<p class='c014'>And from that minute (which may have been about +the end of 1831) we were inseparable friends; from +that minute the anger and sweetness, the laugh and shout +of Ketscher have resounded at all the stages, in all the +incidents of our life.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our meeting with Vadim introduced a new element +into our fraternity.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We met as before most frequently at Ogaryov’s. His +invalid father had gone to live on his estate in Penza. +Ogaryov lived alone on the lowest storey of their house +at the Nikitsky Gate. This was not far from the +University, and all were particularly attracted there. +Ogaryov had that magnetic attraction which forms the +first thread of crystallisation in every mass of casually +meeting atoms, if only they have some affinity. Wherever +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>such men are flung down, they imperceptibly become +the heart of the organism.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But besides his bright, cheerful room, furnished with +red and gold striped hangings, always haunted by the +smoke of cigars and the smell of punch and other—I was +going to say—edibles and beverages, but I stopped, +because there rarely were any edibles except cheese—well, +besides Ogaryov’s ultra-student-like abode where +we argued for nights together, and sometimes caroused +for nights also, another house, in which almost for the +first time we learnt to respect family life, became more +and more our favourite resort.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vadim often left our conversations and went off home; +he missed his mother and sisters if he did not see them +for long together. To us who lived heart and soul in +comradeship, it was strange that he could prefer his +family to our company.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He introduced us to it. In that family everything +bore traces of the Tsar’s <em>persecution</em>; only yesterday it +had come from Siberia, it was ruined, harassed, and at +the same time full of that dignity which misfortune lays, +not upon every sufferer, but on the faces of those who +have known how to bear it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Their father had been seized in the reign of Paul +in consequence of some political treachery, flung +into the Schlüsselburg and exiled to Siberia. Alexander +brought back thousands of those exiled by his insane +father, but Passek was forgotten. He was the nephew +of that Passek who took part in the murder of Peter <span class='fss'>III.</span>, +and who was afterwards governor-general in the Polish +provinces, and he might have claimed part of an inheritance +which had already passed into other hands, and it +was those ‘other hands’ which kept him in Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While in the Schlüsselburg Passek married the +daughter of one of the officers in the garrison there. +The young girl knew that things would go hard with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>her, but she was not deterred by fear of exile. At first +they struggled on somehow in Siberia, selling the last of +their belongings, but their poverty grew more and more +terrible, and the more rapidly so as their family increased. +Weighed down by privation, by hard work, deprived +of warm clothing and at times even of bread, they yet +succeeded in coming through and in bringing up a whole +family of young lions; the father transmitted to them +his proud, indomitable spirit and faith in himself, the +secret of fortitude in misfortune; he educated them by +his example, the mother by her self-sacrifice and bitter +tears. The sisters were in no way inferior to the brothers +in heroic fortitude. Yes—why be afraid of words—they +were a family of heroes. What they had all borne +for one another, what they had done for the family was +incredible, and always with head erect, not in the least +crushed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Siberia the three sisters had only one pair of shoes; +they used to keep them for going <a id='t160'></a>on walks, that strangers +might not see the extremity of their need.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the beginning of 1826 Passek received permission +to return to Russia. It was winter, and it was no easy +matter to move with such a family, without fur coats, +without money, from the province of Tobolsk, while +on the other hand the heart yearned for Russia: exile is +more than ever insufferable after it is over. Our martyrs +struggled back somehow; a peasant woman, who had +nursed one of the children during the mother’s illness, +brought her hard-earned savings to help them on the +way, asking only that they would take her too; the +drivers brought them to the Russian frontier for a trifle, +or for nothing; some of the family walked while others +were driven, and the young people took turns; so they +made the long winter journey from the Urals to Moscow. +Moscow was the dream of the young ones, their hope—and +there hunger awaited them.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>While forgiving Passek, the government never thought +of returning him some part of his property. Exhausted +by his efforts and privations, the old man took to his bed; +they knew not where to find bread for the morrow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At that moment Nicholas celebrated his coronation, +banquet followed upon banquet, Moscow was like a +heavily decorated ballroom, everywhere lights, shields, +and gay attire.... The two elder sisters, without +consulting any one, wrote a petition to Nicholas, describing +the position of the family, and begged him to inquire +into the case and restore their property. They left the +house secretly in the morning and went to the Kremlin, +squeezing their way to the front, and awaited the Tsar, +‘crowned and exalted on high.’ When Nicholas came +down the steps of the red staircase, the two girls quietly +stepped forward and offered the petition. He passed +by, pretending not to see them; an aide-de-camp took the +paper and the police led them away.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nicholas was about thirty at the time and already was +capable of such heartlessness. This coldness, this caution +is characteristic of little commonplace natures, cashiers, +and petty clerks. I have often noticed this unyielding +firmness of character in postal officials, salesmen of theatre +and railway tickets, and people who are continually +bothered and interrupted at every minute. They learn +not to see a man, though he is standing by. But how +did this autocratic clerk train himself not to see, and what +need had he not to be a minute late for a function?</p> + +<p class='c014'>The girls were kept in custody until evening. Frightened +and insulted, they besought the police superintendent +to let them go home, where their absence must have +upset the whole family. Nothing was done about the +petition.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The father could endure no more, his sufferings had +been too great; he died. The children were left with +their mother, struggling on from day to day. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>greater the need, the harder the sons worked; all three +finished their university course brilliantly and took their +degrees. The two elder ones went off to Petersburg; +there, being excellent mathematicians, they gave lessons +in addition to their work in the service (one in the +Admiralty and the other in the Engineers) and, denying +themselves everything, sent the money they earned home +to the family.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I vividly remember the old mother in her dark gown +and white cap; her thin, pale face was covered with +wrinkles, she looked far older than she was, only her +eyes retained something of her youth; so much gentleness, +love, anxiety, and so many past tears could be seen +in them. She adored her children; she was rich, famous, +young in them; with deep and devout feeling she spoke +of them in her weak voice, which sometimes broke and +quivered with suppressed tears.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When they were all gathered together in Moscow and +sitting round their simple repast, the old woman was +beside herself with joy; she walked round the table, +looked after their wants, and, suddenly stopping, would +gaze at all her young people with such pride, with such +happiness, and then lift her eyes to me as though asking: +‘They really are fine, aren’t they?’ At such times I +longed to throw myself on her neck and kiss her hands; +and, moreover, they really were all of them very handsome, +too.</p> + +<p class='c014'>She was happy then, why did she not die at one of those +dinners?...</p> + +<p class='c014'>In two years, she had lost the three elder sons. One +died, gloriously, his heroism acknowledged by his enemies +in the midst of victory and glory, though it was not for +his own cause he sacrificed his life. He was the young +general killed by the Circassians at Dargo. Laurels do +not heal a mother’s grief.... The others did not have +so happy an end; the hardness of Russian life weighed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>upon them, weighed upon them till it crushed them. +Poor mother! and poor Russia!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vadim died in February 1843. I was with him at +the end, and for the first time looked upon the death of a +man dear to me, and at the same time death in its full +horror, in all its meaningless fortuitousness, in all its blind, +immoral injustice.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Ten years before his death Vadim married my cousin<a id='r103'></a><a href='#f103' class='c015'><sup>[103]</sup></a> +and I was best man at his wedding. Married life and +the change in his habits parted us somewhat. He was +happy in his private life, but unfortunate in his outward +circumstances, and unsuccessful in his undertakings. +Not long before our arrest, he went to Harkov, where he +had been promised a lecturer’s chair at the university. +His going there saved him indeed from prison, but his +name was not forgotten by the police. Vadim was +refused the post. The assistant-director admitted to +him that they had received a document by which they +were forbidden to give him the chair, on account of +connections with evilly-disposed persons of which the +government had obtained knowledge.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vadim was left without a post, that is, without bread—that +was his Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We were exiled. Relations with us were dangerous. +Black years of poverty followed for him; in seven years +of struggle to get a bare living, in mortifying contact +with coarse and heartless people, far from friends and +from all possibility of corresponding with them, his +health gave way.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Once we had spent all our money to the last farthing,’ +his wife told me afterwards; ‘on the previous evening +I had tried to get hold of ten roubles somehow, but had +not succeeded. I had already borrowed from every one +from whom it was possible to borrow a little. In the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>shops they refused to give us provisions except for cash, +we thought of nothing but what would the children have +to eat next day. Vadim sat gloomily by the window, +then he got up, took his hat and said he would like a +walk. I saw that he was very much depressed; I felt +frightened, but still I was glad that he should distract his +mind a little. When he was gone I flung myself on the +bed and wept very bitterly, then I began thinking what +to do—everything we had of the slightest value, our +rings and our spoons, had long ago been pawned; I saw +no resource left but to apply to my people and beg their +bitter, cold assistance. Meanwhile Vadim wandered +aimlessly about the streets and so reached Petrovsky +Boulevard. As he passed by Shiryaev’s shop it occurred +to him to inquire whether the bookseller had sold even +one copy of his book; he had been in the shop five days +before, but had found nothing for him; he walked +despondently into the shop.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Very glad to see you,’ Shiryaev said to him, ‘there +is a letter from our Petersburg agent, he has sold three +hundred roubles’ worth of your book; would you like +to have the money?’ And Shiryaev counted him out +fifteen gold roubles. Vadim lost his head in his delight, +rushed into the first restaurant for provisions, bought a +bottle of wine and fruit and dashed home in a cab in +triumph. At the moment I was watering the remainder +of some broth for the children, and was meaning to put +a little aside for him and to assure him that I had already +had some, when he suddenly came in with the parcel and +the bottle, gay and joyous.’ And she sobbed and could +not utter another word.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After my exile I met him casually in Petersburg and +found him very much changed. He kept his convictions, +but he kept them like a warrior who will not let the sword +drop out of his hand, though he feels that he is wounded +to death. He was by then exhausted and looked coldly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>into the future. So, too, I found him in Moscow in +1842, his circumstances had somewhat improved, his +work had begun to be appreciated; but all this came +too late—it was like the epaulettes of Polezhaev or the +release of Kolreif—granted not by the Russian Tsar but +by Russian life.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vadim was wasting away; in the autumn of 1842 +tuberculosis was discovered, that terrible disease which +I was destined to see once again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A month before his death I began to notice with horror +that his mental faculties were growing dimmer and +weaker, like candles smouldering out and leaving the room +darker and gloomier. Soon it was with difficulty and +effort that he could find the words for incoherent speech, +then he scarcely spoke at all and only inquired anxiously +for his medicines and whether it was not time to take them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At three o’clock one night in February, Vadim’s wife +sent for me; the sick man was very bad, he had asked for +me. I went in to him and gently took his hand, his wife +mentioned my name; he gazed long and wearily at me +but did not recognise me and closed his eyes. The +children were brought in; he looked at them but I think +did not recognise them either. His moaning became +more painful, he would subside for minutes and then +suddenly give a prolonged sigh and groan; then a bell +pealed in a neighbouring church, Vadim listened and +said, ‘That’s matins,’ after that he did not utter another +word.... His wife knelt sobbing by the dead man’s +bedside; a good, kind lad, one of their university comrades, +who had been looking after him of late, bustled +about, moving back the medicine table, raising the +curtains.... I went away—it was bright and frosty, +the rising sun shone brilliantly on the snow as though +something good had happened; I went to order the +coffin.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When I went back a deathlike stillness reigned in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>little house, the dead man in accordance with Russian +custom lay on a table in the drawing-room, at a little +distance from it sat his friend, the artist Rabus, making +a pencil sketch of him through his tears; beside the dead +man stood a tall woman with silently folded arms and an +expression of infinite sorrow; no artist could have +moulded a nobler and finer figure of grief. The woman +was not young, but retained traces of a stern, majestic +beauty; she stood motionless, wrapped in a long black +velvet cloak lined with ermine fur.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I stopped in the doorway.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Two or three minutes passed in the same stillness, +when all at once she bent down, warmly kissed the dead +man on the forehead, and said, ‘Farewell! farewell, +friend Vadim,’ and with resolute steps walked into the +inner rooms. Rabus went on drawing, he nodded to +me, we had no inclination to speak. I sat down by the +window in silence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>That woman was Madame E. Tchertkov, the sister +of Count Zahar Tchernyshev, exiled for the Fourteenth +of December.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Simonovsky archimandrite, Melhisedek, of his +own accord offered a grave within the precincts of his +monastery. Melhisedek had once been a humble carpenter +and a desperate dissenter, had afterwards gone +back to orthodoxy, become a monk, been made Father +Superior and afterwards archimandrite. With all that, +he remained a carpenter, that is, he kept his heart and his +broad shoulders and his red, healthy face. He knew +Vadim and respected him for his historical researches +concerning Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When the dead man’s body arrived before the monastery +gates, they were opened and Melhisedek came out +with all the monks to meet the martyr’s poor coffin with +soft, mournful chanting, and to follow it to the grave. +Not far from Vadim’s grave lie the ashes of another dear +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>friend, Venevitinov,<a id='r104'></a><a href='#f104' class='c015'><sup>[104]</sup></a> with the inscription ‘How well +he knew life, how little he lived!’ How well Vadim, +too, knew life!</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was not enough for fate. Why did the old +mother live so long? She had seen the end of their +exile, had seen her children in all the beauty of their +youth, in all the brilliance of their talent, what more +had she to live for! Who prizes happiness should seek +an early death. Happiness that lasts is no more to be +found than ice which never melts.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vadim’s eldest brother died a few months after the +second, Diomid, had been killed; he caught cold, +neglected his illness, and his undermined organism +succumbed. He was barely forty and he was the +eldest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These three graves of three friends cast long dark +shadows over the past; the last months of my youth +are seen through funeral crape and the smoke of +incense....</p> + +<p class='c014'>A year passed, the trial of my university comrades was +over. They were found guilty (just as we were later on, +and later still the Petrashevsky group<a id='r105'></a><a href='#f105' class='c015'><sup>[105]</sup></a>) of a design to +form a secret society, and of criminal conversations; for +this they were sent as common soldiers to Orenburg. +Nicholas made an exception of one of them, Sungurov. +He had completed his studies and was in the service, +married and had children. He was condemned to +deprivation of rights of property and exile to Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What could a handful of young students do, they +ruined themselves for nothing!’ All that is very +sensible, and people who argue in that way ought to be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>gratified at the <em>good sense</em> of the young generation that +followed us. After our affair which followed that of +Sungurov, fifteen years passed in tranquillity before the +Petrashevsky affair, and it was those fifteen years from +which Russia is only just beginning to recover and by +which two generations were ruined, the elder lost in +debauchery, and the younger, poisoned from childhood, +whose sickly representatives we are seeing to-day.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the Decembrists, all attempts to form societies +were, indeed, unsuccessful; the scantiness of our forces +and the vagueness of our aims pointed to the necessity +for another kind of work—preparatory, spiritual. All +that is true.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But what would young men be made of who could +wait for solutions to theoretical problems while calmly +looking on at what was being done around them, at the +hundreds of Poles clanking their fetters on the Vladimir +Road, at serfdom, at the soldiers flogged in the Hodynsky +Field by some General Lashkevitch, at fellow-students lost +and never heard of again? For the moral purification +of the generation, as a pledge of the future, they were +bound to be so indignant as to be senseless in their +attempts and disdainful of danger. The savage punishments +inflicted on boys of sixteen or seventeen served +as a terrible lesson and in a way a hardening process; +the cruel blows aimed at every one of us by a heartless +monster dispelled for good all rosy hopes of indulgence +for youth. It was dangerous to jest with Liberalism, +and no one could dream of playing at conspiracy. For +one carelessly concealed tear over Poland, for one boldly +uttered word, there were years of exile, of the white +strap,<a id='r106'></a><a href='#f106' class='c015'><sup>[106]</sup></a> and sometimes even of the fortress; that was why +it was important that those words were uttered and that +those tears were shed. Young people perished sometimes, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>but they perished without checking the mental +activity that was solving the sphinx riddle of Russian +life, indeed they even justified its hope.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our turn came now. Our names were already on +the list of the secret police. The first play of the light-blue +cat with the mouse began as follows.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When our condemned comrades were being sent off +to Orenburg by étape, on foot without sufficient warm +clothing, Ogaryov in our circle, I. Kireyevsky in his, got +up subscriptions. All the condemned men were without +money. Kireyevsky brought the money collected to +the commander, Staal, a good-natured old man of whom +I shall have more to say later. Staal promised to give +the money and asked Kireyevsky, ‘But what are these +lists for?’ ‘The names of those who subscribed,’ +answered Kireyevsky, ‘and the amounts.’ ‘You do +believe that I will give them the money?’ asked the old +man. ‘Of course.’ ‘And I imagine that those who +have given it to you trust you. And so what is the use +of our keeping their names?’ With these words Staal +threw the lists into the fire, and, of course, he did very +well.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Ogaryov himself took the money to the barracks, and +this went off without a hitch, but the prisoners took it +into their heads to send their thanks from Orenburg to +their comrades, and, as a government official was going +to Moscow, they seized the opportunity and asked him to +take a letter, which they were afraid to trust to the post. +The official did not fail to take advantage of this rare +chance for proving all the ardour of his loyal sentiments +and presented the letter to the general of gendarmes in +Moscow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The general of gendarmes at this time was Lissovsky, +who was appointed to the post when A. A. Volkov went +out of his mind imagining that the Poles wanted to offer +him the crown of Poland (an ironical trick of destiny to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>send a general of gendarmes mad over the crown of the +Jagellons!<a id='r107'></a><a href='#f107' class='c015'><sup>[107]</sup></a>).</p> + +<p class='c014'>Lissovsky, himself a Pole, was neither spiteful nor ill-disposed: +having wasted his property over cards and a +French actress, he philosophically preferred the place +of general of gendarmes in Moscow to a place in the +debtors’ prison of the same city.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Lissovsky summoned Ogaryov, Ketscher, S. Vadim, +I. Obolensky and others, and charged them with being +in relations with political criminals. On Ogaryov’s +observing that he had not written to any one, and that +if any one had written to him he could not be responsible +for it, and that, moreover, no letter had reached him, +Lissovsky answered: ‘You got up a subscription for +them, <em>that’s still worse</em>. As it is the first offence the +Sovereign is <em>so merciful</em> as to <em>pardon</em> you; only I warn +you, gentlemen, a strict supervision will be kept over +you; be careful.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Lissovsky looked round at all with a significant glance, +and his eyes resting upon Ketscher, who was taller and a +little older than the rest and who raised his eyebrows so +fiercely, he added: ‘You, my good sir, ought to be +ashamed in your position.’ It might have been supposed +that Ketscher was vice-chancellor of the Russian Heraldry +Office, while as a matter of fact he was only a humble +district doctor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was not sent for, probably my name was not in the letter.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This threat was like a promotion, a consecration, a +winning of our spurs. Lissovsky’s advice threw oil on +the fire, and as though to make their future task easier +for the police we put on velvet <i><span lang="fr">bérets à la</span></i> Karl Sand<a id='r108'></a><a href='#f108' class='c015'><sup>[108]</sup></a> +and tied tricolor scarves round our necks.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Colonel Shubensky, who was quietly and softly with +velvet steps creeping into Lissovsky’s place, pounced +upon his weakness with us; we were to serve him for +a step in his promotion—and we did so serve him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But first I will add a few words concerning the fate +of Sungurov and his companions. Nicholas let Kolreif +return ten years later from Orenburg, where his regiment +was stationed. He pardoned him on the ground of his +being in consumption, just as, because he was in consumption, +Polezhaev was promoted to be an officer, and +because he was dead Bestuzhev was given a cross. +Kolreif returned to Moscow and died in the arms of his +old, grief-stricken father.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Kostenetsky distinguished himself in the Caucasus +and was promoted to the rank of an officer. It was the +same with Antonovitch. The fate of the luckless Sungurov +was incomparably more dreadful. On reaching +the first étape on the Sparrow Hills, Sungurov asked +leave from the officer in charge to go out into the fresh +air, as the hut, packed to overflowing with exiles, was +suffocating. The officer, a young man of twenty, went +out himself into the road with him. Sungurov, choosing +a favourable moment, turned off the road and disappeared. +Probably he knew the locality well. He succeeded in +getting away from the officer, but next day the gendarmes +got on his track. When Sungurov saw that it was impossible +to escape, he cut his throat. The gendarmes +took him to Moscow unconscious and losing blood.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The unfortunate officer was degraded to the ranks.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Sungurov did not die. He was tried again, this time +not as a political prisoner, but as a runaway convict: +half his head was shaved: it is an original method +(probably inherited from the Tatars) in use for preventing +escapes and it shows even more than corporal punishment +the complete contempt for human dignity of the +Russian legislature. To this external disgrace the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>sentence added one stroke of the lash within the walls +of the prison. Whether this sentence was carried out +I do not know. After that, Sungurov was sent to +Nertchinsk to the mines.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I heard his name pronounced once more and then it +vanished for ever.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Vyatka I once met in the street a young doctor, a +fellow-student at the university, who was on his way to +some post in a factory. We talked of old days and +common acquaintances.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘My God!’ said the doctor, ‘do you know whom I +saw on my way here in the Nizhni-Novgorod Province? +I was sitting in the posting-station waiting for horses. +It was very nasty weather. An étape officer, in charge +of a party of convicts, came in to get warm. We got +into conversation; hearing that I was a doctor, he asked +me to go to the étape to look at one of the convicts +and see whether he were shamming or really were +seriously ill. I went, of course, with the intention of +declaring in any case that the convict was ill. In the +small étape there were eighty men in chains, shaven and +unshaven, women and children; they all moved apart +as the officer went up, and we saw, lying on straw in a +corner on the dirty floor, a figure wrapped in a convict’s +greatcoat.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“This is the invalid,” said the officer.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I had no need to lie, the poor wretch was in a high +fever; emaciated and exhausted by prison and the +journey, with half his head shaven and his beard uncut, +he looked terrible as he stared about aimlessly, and +continually asked for water.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, brother, are you very bad?” I said to the +sick man, and added to the officer: “it is impossible for +him to go on.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The sick man fixed his eyes upon me and muttered +“Is that you?”—he mentioned my name. “You don’t +<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>know me?” he added in a voice which went to my +heart like a knife.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Forgive me,” I said, taking his dry and burning +hand, “I can’t recall you.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“I am Sungurov,” he answered.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Poor Sungurov!’ repeated the doctor, shaking his +head.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, did they leave him?’ I asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No, but they got a cart for him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After I had written this I learned that Sungurov died +at Nertchinsk. His property which consisted of two +hundred and fifty souls in the Bronnitsky district near +Moscow, and four hundred souls in the Arzamas district +of the Nizhni-Novgorod Province, <em>went to pay for the +keep of him and his comrades in prison while awaiting +trial</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His family was ruined; the first care of the authorities, +however, was to diminish it. <em>Sungurov’s wife was seized +with her two children, and spent six months</em> in the +Pretchistensky prison, and her baby died there. May +the rule of Nicholas be damned for ever and ever! +Amen!</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 7<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The End of my Studies—The Schiller Period—Early Youth and Bohemianism—Saint-Simonism and N. Polevoy</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>Before the storm had broken over our heads my +time at the university was coming to an end. +The ordinary anxieties, the nights without sleep spent +in trying to learn useless things by heart, the superficial +study in a hurry and the thought of the examination +stifling all interest in science—all that was as it always is. +I wrote a dissertation on astronomy for the gold medal, +but only got the silver one. I am certain that I am incapable +of understanding now what I wrote then, and +that it was worth its weight—in silver.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It sometimes happens to me to dream that I am a +student going in for an examination—I think with horror +how much I have forgotten and feel that I shall be +plucked,—and I wake up rejoicing from the bottom of +my heart that the sea and passports, and years and crimes +cut me off from the university, that no one is going to +torture me, and no one dare give me a disgusting minimum. +And, indeed, the professors would be surprised that I +should have gone so far back in so few years. One did, +indeed, express this to me.<a id='r109'></a><a href='#f109' class='c015'><sup>[109]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>After the final examination the professors shut themselves +up to reckon the marks, while we, excited by hopes +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>and doubts, hung about the corridors and entrance in +little groups. Sometimes some one would come out of +the council-room. We rushed to learn our fate, but for +a long time it was not settled. At last Heiman came out. +‘I congratulate you,’ he said to me, ‘you are a graduate.’ +‘Who else, who else?’ ‘So-and-so, and So-and-so.’ +I felt at once sad and gay; as I went out at the university +gates I thought that I should not go out at them again +as I had yesterday and every day; I was shut out of the +university, of that common home where I had spent +four years, so youthfully and so well; on the other hand +I was comforted by the feeling of being accepted as +completely grown-up, and, why not admit it? by the +title of graduate I had gained all at once.<a id='r110'></a><a href='#f110' class='c015'><sup>[110]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Alma Mater! I am so greatly indebted to the university, +and lived in its life and with it so long after I had +finished my studies, that I cannot think of it without love +and respect. It cannot charge me with ingratitude, +though in relation with the university gratitude is easy, +it is inseparable from the love and bright memories of +youth ... and I send it my blessing from this far-off +foreign land!</p> + +<p class='c014'>The year we spent after taking our degrees made a +glorious end to early youth. It was one prolonged feast +<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>of friendship, exchange of ideas, inspiration, carousing....</p> + +<p class='c014'>A little group of university friends who had succeeded +in surviving did not part, but went on living in their +common sympathies and fancies, and no one thought of +his material prospects or future career. I should not +think well of this in men of mature age, but I prize it in +the young. Youth when it has not been sapped by the +moral corruption of petty-bourgeois ideas is everywhere +impractical, and is especially bound to be so in a young +country which is full of such great strivings and has +attained so little. Moreover, to be impractical need not +imply anything false, everything turned toward the +future is bound to have a share of idealism. If it +were not for the impractical characters, all the practical +people would remain at the same dull stage of perpetual +repetition.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Some enthusiasm preserves a man from real degradation +far more than all the moral admonitions in the world. +I remember youthful orgies, moments of revelry that +sometimes went beyond bounds, but I do not remember +one really immoral affair in our circle, nothing of which +a man would have to feel seriously ashamed, which he +would try to forget and conceal. Everything was done +openly, and what is bad is rarely done openly. Half, +more than half, of the heart was turned away from idle +sensuality and morbid egoism, which concentrate on +impure thoughts and accentuate vice.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I consider it a great misfortune for a nation when their +young generation has no youth; we have already observed +that being young is not enough. The most +grotesque period of German student life is a hundred +times better than the petty-bourgeois maturity of young +men in France and England. To my mind the elderly +Americans of fifteen are simply disgusting.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In France there was at one time a brilliant aristocratic +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>youth, and later on a brilliant revolutionary youth. +All the St. Justs<a id='r111'></a><a href='#f111' class='c015'><sup>[111]</sup></a> and Hoches,<a id='r112'></a><a href='#f112' class='c015'><sup>[112]</sup></a> Marceaux and Desmoulins,<a id='r113'></a><a href='#f113' class='c015'><sup>[113]</sup></a> +the heroic children who grew up on the gloomy +poetry of Jean-Jacques, were real youth. The Revolution +was the work of young men, neither Danton nor +Robespierre nor Louis <span class='fss'>XVI.</span> himself outlived their thirty-fifth +year. With Napoleon the young men were turned +into orderlies, with the Restoration, ‘the revival of old +age,’—youth was utterly incompatible—everything +became mature, businesslike, that is, petty-bourgeois.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The last youths of France were the Saint-Simonists and +the Fourierists. The few exceptions cannot alter the +prosaically dull character of French youth. Escousse +and Lebras<a id='r114'></a><a href='#f114' class='c015'><sup>[114]</sup></a> shot themselves because they were young +in a society of old men. Others struggled like fish +thrown out of the water on to the muddy bank, till +some fell at the barricades, others were caught in the +Jesuit snares.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But since youth asserts its rights, the greater number +of young Frenchmen work off their youth in a Bohemian +period, that is, if they have no money, live in little cafés +with little grisettes in the Quartier Latin, and in grand +cafés with grand lorettes, if they have money. Instead +of a Schiller period, they have a Paul de Kock period; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>in it, strength, energy, everything young is rapidly and +rather wretchedly wasted and the man is ready—for a +<em>commis</em> in a commercial house. The Bohemian period +leaves at the bottom of the soul one passion only—the +thirst for money, and the whole future is sacrificed to +it, there are no other interests; these practical people +laugh at theoretical questions and despise women (the +result of numerous conquests over those whose trade it +is to be conquered). As a rule, the Bohemian period is +passed under the guidance of some worn-out sinner, of +some faded celebrity, <em>d’un vieux prostitué</em>, living at some +one else’s expense, an actor who has lost his voice, or a +painter whose hands tremble, and he is the model who +is imitated in accent, in dress, and above all in a haughty +view of human affairs and a profound understanding of +good fare.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In England the Bohemian period is replaced +by a paroxysm of charming originalities and amiable +eccentricities. For instance, senseless tricks, absurd +squandering of money, ponderous practical jokes, heavy, +but carefully concealed vice, profitless trips to Calabria +or Quito, to the North and to the South—with horses, +dogs, races, and stuffy dinners by the way, then a wife +and an enormous number of fat and rosy babies; business +transactions, the <cite>Times</cite>, Parliament, and the old port +which weighs them to the earth.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We played pranks too and we caroused, but the fundamental +tone was not the same, the diapason was too +elevated. Mischief and dissipation never became our +goal. Our goal was faith in our vocation; supposing +that we were mistaken, still, believing it as a fact, we +respected in ourselves and in each other the instruments +of the common cause. And in what did our feasts and +orgies consist? Suddenly it would occur to us that in +another two days it would be the sixth of December, +St. Nikolay’s day. The supply of Nikolays was terrific, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>Nikolay Ogaryov, Nikolay S——, Nikolay Ketscher, +Nikolay Sazonov....</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I say, who is going to celebrate the name-day?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I! I!...’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I will next day then.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s all nonsense, what’s the good of next day? +We will keep it in common, by subscription! And what +a feast it will be!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes! yes! at whose rooms are we to assemble?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘S—— is ill, so it’s clear it must be at his.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so plans and calculations are made, and it is incredibly +absorbing for the future guests and hosts. One +Nikolay drives off to Yar’s to order supper, another to +Materne’s for cheese and salami. Wine, of course, is +bought in Petrovka from Depré’s, on whose price-list +Ogaryov wrote the epigram:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘De près ou de loin,</div> + <div class='line'>Mais je fournis toujours.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Our inexperienced taste went no further than champagne, +and was so young that we sometimes even preferred +<em>Rivesaltes mousseux</em> to champagne. I once saw the +name on a wine-list in Paris, remembered 1833 and +tried a bottle, but, alas, even my memories did not help +me to drink more than a glass.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before the festive day, the wines would be tried, and +so it would be necessary to send a messenger for more, +as it appeared they were liked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While we are on the subject, I cannot refrain from +describing what happened to Sokolovsky. He was +perpetually without money and immediately spent +everything he received. A year before his arrest, he +arrived in Moscow and stayed with S——. He had, I +remember, succeeded in selling the manuscript of <cite>Heveri</cite>, +and so resolved to give a feast not only for us but also +<em>pour les gros bonnets</em>, <em>i.e.</em> invited Polevoy, Maximovitch, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>and others. On the morning of the previous day, +he set out with Polezhaev, who was at that time in +Moscow with his regiment, to make purchases, bought +cups and even a samovar and all sorts of unnecessary +things and finally wines and eatables, that is, pasties, +stuffed turkeys, and soon. In the evening we arrived at +S——’s. Sokolovsky suggested uncorking one bottle, +and then another, and by the end of the evening, it appeared +that there was no more wine and no more money. +Sokolovsky had spent everything he had left over after +paying some small debts. Sokolovsky was mortified, +but controlled his feeling; he thought and thought, then +wrote to the <em>gros bonnets</em> that he had been taken seriously +ill and was putting off the feast.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For the celebration of the four name-days, I wrote out +a complete programme, which was deemed worthy of +the special attention of the inquisitor Golitsyn, who +asked me at the committee whether the programme had +really been carried out.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘<i><span lang="fr">À la lettre</span></i>,’ I replied. He shrugged his shoulders +as though he had spent his whole life in the Smolny +Convent or keeping Good Friday.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After supper as a rule a vital question, a question that +aroused controversy arose, <em>i.e.</em> how to prepare the punch. +Other things were usually eaten and drunk in good faith, +like the voting in Parliament, without dispute, but in +this every one must have a hand and, moreover, it was +after supper.... ‘Light it—don’t light it yet—light it +how?—put it out with champagne or Sauterne?—put +the fruit and pineapple in while it is burning or +afterwards?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Evidently when it is burning, and then the whole +aroma will go into punch.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But, I say, the pineapple will swim, the edges will +be scorched, it is simply a waste.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s all nonsense,’ Ketscher would shout louder +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>than all, ‘but what’s not nonsense is that you must put +out the candles.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The candles were put out; all the faces looked blue, +and the features seemed to quiver with the movement +of the flame. And meantime the temperature in the +little room was becoming tropical. Every one was +thirsty and the punch was not ready. But Joseph the +Frenchman sent from Yar’s was ready; he had prepared +something, the antithesis of punch, an iced beverage of +various wines <i><span lang="fr">à la base de cognac</span></i>. A genuine son of the +‘<em>grand peuple</em>,’ he explained to us, as he put in the +French wine, that it was so good because it had twice +passed the Equator. ‘<em>Oui, oui, messieurs, deux fois +l’équateur, messieurs!</em>’</p> + +<p class='c014'>When the beverage remarkable for its arctic iciness +had been finished and in fact there was no need of more +drink, Ketscher shouted, stirring the fiery lake in the +soup-tureen and making the last lumps of sugar melt +with a hiss and a wail, ‘It’s time to put it out! time to +put it out!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The flame turns red with the champagne, and races +over the surface of the punch with a look of despair and +foreboding.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then comes a voice of despair, ‘But I say, old man, +you’re mad, the wax is melting right into the punch.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, you try holding the bottle yourself in such heat +so that the wax does not melt.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, something ought to have been wrapped round +it first,’ the distressed voice continues.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Cups, cups, have you enough? How many are there +of us? Nine, ten, fourteen, yes, yes!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Where’s one to find fourteen cups?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well any one who hasn’t got a cup must take a glass.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The glasses will crack.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Never, never, you’ve only to put a spoon in +them.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>Candles are brought, the last flicker of flame runs +across the middle, makes a pirouette and vanishes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The punch is a success!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It is a great success!’ is said on all sides.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Next day my head aches—I feel sick. That’s evidently +from the punch, too mixed! And on the spot I make a +sincere resolution never to drink punch for the future; +it is a poison.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Pyotr Fyodorovitch comes in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You came home in somebody else’s hat, our hat is a +much better one.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The devil take it entirely.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Should I run to Nikolay Mihailovitch’s Kuzma?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why, do you imagine some one went home without +a hat?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It would be just as well anyway.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At this point I guess that the hat is only a pretext, and +that Kuzma has invited Pyotr Fyodorovitch to the field +of battle.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You go and see Kuzma; only first ask the cook to let +me have some sour cabbage.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So, Alexandr Ivanitch, the gentlemen kept their +name-days in fine style?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, indeed, there hasn’t been such a supper in our +time.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So we shan’t be going to the university to-day?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My conscience pricks me and I make no answer.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Your papa was asking me, “How is it,” says he, “he +is not up yet?” Without thinking, I said, “His +honour’s head aches; he complained of it from early +morning, so I did not even pull up the blinds.” “Well,” +said he, “you did right there.”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But do let me go to sleep, for Christ’s sake. You +want to go and see Kuzma, so go.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘This minute, this minute, sir; first I’ll run for the +cabbage.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>A heavy sleep closes my eyes again; two or three hours +later I wake up much better. What are they doing +there? I wonder. Ketscher and Ogaryov stayed the +night. It’s vexatious that punch has such an effect on +the head, for it must be owned it’s very nice. It is a +mistake to drink punch by the glassful; henceforth and for +ever I will certainly drink no more than a small cupful.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Meantime my father has already finished interviewing +the cook and reading the newspapers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You have a headache to-day?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, a bad one.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Perhaps you have been working too hard?’ And as +he asks the question I can see that he has his doubts +already.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I forgot though, I believe you spent the evening with +Nikolasha<a id='r115'></a><a href='#f115' class='c015'><sup>[115]</sup></a> and Ogaryov.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Of course.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Did they regale you with anything ... for the +name-day? Madeira in the soup again? Ah, I don’t +like all that. Nikolasha is too fond of wine I know, and +where he gets that weakness from I don’t understand. +Poor Pavel Ivanovitch ... why, on the twenty-ninth +of June, his name-day, he would invite all the relations +and have a dinner in the regular way, quiet and proper. +But the fashion nowadays, champagne and sardines in +oil, it’s a disgusting sight. As for that luckless young +Ogaryov, I say nothing about him, he is alone and +abandoned! Moscow ... with plenty of money, his +coachman Eremey “goes to fetch wine.” The coachman’s +glad to, he gets ten kopecks at the shop for it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, I lunched with Nikolay Pavlovitch. But I +don’t think that that’s why my head aches. I will go +for a little walk; that always does me good.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>‘By all means; you will dine at home, I hope.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Of course, I am only going out for a little.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>To explain the Madeira in the soup, it must be said +that about a year before the famous celebration of the +four name-days, Ogaryov and I had gone off for a spree +in Easter-week and, to get out of dining at home, I had +said that I had been invited to dinner by Ogaryov’s +father.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My father disliked my friends as a rule; he used to +call them by the wrong surnames, invariably making the +same mistake, thus he never failed to call S—— Sakeny +and Sazonov, Snaziny. He liked Ogaryov least of all, +both because he wore his hair long and because he +smoked without asking his leave. On the other hand, +he regarded him as a distant cousin and so could not +distort the name of a relation. Moreover, his father, +Platon Bogdanovitch, belonged both by family and +by fortune to the little circle of persons recognised by +my father, and he liked my being intimate with the +family. He would have liked it better still, if Platon +Bogdanovitch had had no son.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so to refuse the invitation was considered impossible.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Instead of settling ourselves in Platon Bogdanovitch’s +respectable dining-room, we set off first to the Prices’ +booth (I was delighted later on to meet this family of +acrobats in Geneva and in London). There was a little +girl there, over whom we raved and whom we had +named Mignon.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After gazing at Mignon and resolving to see her again +in the evening, we set off to dine at Yar’s. I had a gold +piece and Ogaryov about the same. We were at that +time complete novices and so, after long consultation, +we ordered fish soup with champagne in it, a bottle of +Rhine-wine, and some tiny bird, so that when we got up +from the dinner, which was frightfully expensive, we +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>were quite hungry and so went off to look at Mignon +again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When my father said good-night to me, he observed +that he thought I smelt of wine.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That must be because there was Madeira in the soup.’ +‘<em>Au madère</em>—that must be Platon Bogdanovitch’s son-in-law’s +idea; <em>cela sent les casernes de la garde</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>From that time forth, if my father fancied that I had +been drinking, or that my face was red, he would be sure +to say to me, ‘I suppose you have had Madeira in your +soup to-day!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so I hastened off to S——’s.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Ogaryov and Ketscher were, of course, on the spot. +Ketscher, looking tousled, was displeased with some +arrangements that were being made and was criticising +them severely. Ogaryov, on the homeopathic system +of driving out one nail with another, was drinking up +what was left, not merely after the supper but after the +foraging of Pyotr Fyodorovitch, who was already singing, +whistling, and playing a tattoo in S——’s kitchen.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Recalling the days of our youth, of all our circle, I +do not remember a single incident which would weigh +on the conscience, which one would be ashamed to +think of. And that applies to all our friends without +exception.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There were, of course, Platonic dreamers and disillusioned +youths of seventeen among us. Vadim even +wrote a drama in which he tried to depict ‘the terrible +ordeal of his spent heart.’ The drama began like this: +‘A garden—house in distance—windows lighted—storm +raging—no one in sight—garden gate not fastened, +it flaps to and fro and creaks.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Are there any characters in the drama besides the +gate in the garden?’ I asked Vadim.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And Vadim, rather nettled, said, ‘You’re always +playing the fool! It’s not a jest, it’s the record of my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>heart; if you go on like that I won’t read it’—and +proceeded to read it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There were follies, too, that were not at all Platonic; +even some that ended not in writing plays but in the +chemist’s shop. But there were no vulgar intrigues +ruining a woman or humiliating a man, there were no +kept mistresses (indeed the vulgar word for them did not +exist among us). Tranquil, secure, prosaic, petty-bourgeois +vice, vice by contract, passed our circle by.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Then you do admit the worse form of vice, prostitution?’ +I shall be asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Not I, but you do! that is, not you individually, but +all of you. It is so firmly established in the social structure +that it asks for no sanction from me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Social enthusiasm, general theories, were our salvation; +and not they alone but also a high development of scientific +and artistic interest. Like fumigating paper, they +burnt out the grease spots. I have preserved some of +Ogaryov’s letters of that period, and the background of +our lives can be easily judged from them. On June 7, +1833, Ogaryov, for instance, wrote to me:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I believe we know each other, I believe we can be +open. You will not show my letters to any one else. +And so tell me—for some time past I have been so absolutely +brimming over, I may say, suffocated with +sensations and thoughts, that I fancy, it’s more than fancy, +the idea sticks in my head, that it is my vocation to be a +poet, a creative artist or a musician, <em>alles eins</em>, but I feel +that I must live in that thought, for I have a feeling in +myself that I am a poet;—granted that I have written +rubbish so far, yet the fire in my soul, the exuberance of +my feelings, gives me the hope that I shall write decently +(excuse the vulgar expression). Tell me, friend, am I +to believe in my vocation? You know me, maybe, +better than I know myself, and will not make a mistake.’—<em>June +7, 1833.</em></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>‘You write: but you are a poet, a real poet! Friend, +can you conceive all that those words do for me? And +so all that I feel, to which I strive, in which I live is not +an illusion! It is not an illusion! Are you telling the +truth? It is not the delirium of fever—that I feel. +You know me better than any one, don’t you? I certainly +feel that you do. No, this exalted life is not the delirium +of fever, not the illusion of imagination, it is too exalted +for deception, it is real, I live in it, I cannot imagine +myself with any other life. Why don’t I understand +music, what a symphony would rise out of my soul now! +One can catch the stately <em>adagio</em>, but I have no power to +express myself; I want to say more than has been said, +<em>presto, presto</em>, I want a tempestuous, irrepressible <em>presto</em>. +<em>Adagio</em> and <em>presto</em>, the two extremes. Away with these +compromises, <em>andante</em>, <em>allegro</em>, <em>moderato</em>, faltering or +feeble-minded, they can neither speak strongly nor feel +strongly.’—<span class='sc'>Tchertkovo</span>, <em>Aug. 18, 1833</em>.</p> + +<p class='c018'>We have grown out of the habit of this enthusiastic +bubble of youth and it is strange to us, but in these lines, +written by a youth under twenty, it can clearly be seen +that he is insured against vulgar vice and vulgar virtue, +and that even if he is not saved from the mire, he will +come out of it unsullied.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is not lack of self-confidence, it is the hesitation of +faith, it is the passionate desire for confirmation, for the +superfluous word of love, so precious to us. Yes, it is +the uneasiness of creative conception, it is the anxious +searchings of a soul in travail.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I cannot yet,’ he writes in the same letter, ‘catch the +notes which are resounding in my soul, physical incapacity +limits the imagination. But, hang it all! I am a poet, +poetry whispers the truth to me where I could not have +grasped it with cold reason.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>So ends the first part of our youth; the second begins +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>in prison. But before we go on to it, I must say something +of the tendencies, of the ideas, with which it +found us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The period that followed the suppression of the Polish +insurrection educated us rapidly. We were not merely +troubled that Nicholas had grown to his full stature and +was firmly established in severity; we began with inward +horror to discover that in Europe, too, and especially in +France, to which we looked for our political watchword +and battle-cry, things were not going well; we began +to look upon our theories with suspicion.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The childish liberalism of 1826, which gradually passed +into the French political theory expounded by the +Lafayettes and Benjamin Constant and sung by Béranger, +lost its magic power over us after the ruin of Poland.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then one section of the young people, and among +them Vadim, threw themselves into a close and earnest +study of Russian history.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Another set took to the study of German philosophy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Ogaryov and I belonged to neither of these sets. We +had grown too closely attached to certain ideas to part +with them readily.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our faith in revolution of the festive Béranger stamp +was shaken, but we looked for something which we could +find neither in the <cite>Chronicle</cite> of Nestor<a id='r116'></a><a href='#f116' class='c015'><sup>[116]</sup></a> nor in the +transcendental idealism of Schelling.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the midst of this ferment, in the midst of surmises, +of confused efforts to understand the doubts which +frightened us, the pamphlets of Saint Simon and his +followers, their tracts and their trial came into our hands. +They impressed us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Critics, superficial and not superficial, have laughed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>enough at Father Enfantin<a id='r117'></a><a href='#f117' class='c015'><sup>[117]</sup></a> and his apostles; the time +has now come for some recognition of these forerunners +of socialism.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These enthusiastic youths with their strange waistcoats +and their budding beards made a magnificent and +poetic appearance in the midst of the petty-bourgeois +world. They heralded a new faith, they had something +to say, they had something in the name of which to judge +the old order of things, fain to judge them by the Code +Napoleon and the religion of Orleans.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the one hand came the emancipation of woman, +the call to her to join in common labour, the giving of +her destiny into her own hands, alliance with her as with +an equal.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the other hand the justification, the <em>redemption</em> of +the flesh, <em>Réhabilitation de la chair</em>!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Grand words, involving a whole world of new relations +between human beings; a world of health, a world of +spirit, a world of beauty, the world of natural morality, +and therefore of moral purity. Many have scoffed at +emancipation of women and at the recognition of the +rights of the flesh, giving to those words a filthy and +vulgar meaning; our monastically depraved imagination +fears the flesh, fears woman. Simple-hearted people +grasped that the purifying sanctification of the flesh is +the death knell of Christianity; the religion of life had +come to replace the religion of death, the religion of +beauty to replace the religion of castigation and mortification +by prayer and fasting. The crucified body had +risen again in its turn and was no longer ashamed; man +attained a harmonious unity and divined that he was a +whole being and not made up like a pendulum of two +different metals restraining each other, that the enemy +bound up with him had disappeared.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>What courage was needed in France to proclaim in +the hearing of all those words of deliverance from the +spiritual ideas which are so strong in the minds of the +French and so completely absent from their conduct!</p> + +<p class='c014'>The old world, ridiculed by Voltaire, undermined by +the Revolution, but fortified, patched up and made +secure by the petty-bourgeois for their own personal +convenience, had never experienced this before. It +tried to judge the heretics on the basis of its secret conspiracy +of hypocrisy, but these young men unmasked it. +They were accused of being apostates from Christianity, +and they pointed above their judge’s head to the holy +picture that had been covered with a curtain after the +Revolution of 1830. They were charged with justifying +sensuality, and they asked their judge, was his life chaste?</p> + +<p class='c014'>The new world was pushing at the door, and our +hearts opened wide to meet it. Saint-Simonism lay at +the foundation of our convictions and remained so in its +essentials unalterably.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Impressionable, genuinely youthful, we were easily +caught up in its mighty current and passed early over +that boundary at which whole crowds of people remain +standing with their hands folded, go back or seek from +side to side a ford—to cross the ocean!</p> + +<p class='c014'>But not all ventured with us. Socialism and Realism +remain to this day the touchstones flung on the paths of +revolution and science. Groups of travellers, tossed +up against these rocks by the current of events, or by +process of reasoning, immediately divide and make two +everlasting parties which, in various disguises, cut across +the whole of history, across all upheavals, across innumerable +political parties and even circles of no more than a +dozen youths. One stands for logic, the other for +history; one for dialectics, the other for embryology. +One is more correct, the other more practical.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There can be no talk of choice; it is harder to bridle +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>thought than any passion, it leads one on unconsciously; +any one who can chain it by feeling, by dreams, by dread +of consequences, will chain it, but not all can. If thought +gets the upper hand in any one, he does not inquire +about its practicability, or whether it will make things +easier or harder; he seeks the truth, and inflexibly, impartially +lays down his principles, as the Saint-Simonists +did at one time, as Proudhon does to this day.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our circle drew in closer. Even then, in 1833, the +Liberals looked at us askance, as having strayed from the +true path. Just before we went to prison, Saint-Simonism +became a barrier between N. A. Polevoy and me. Polevoy +was a man of extraordinarily ingenious and active +mind, which readily absorbed every kind of nutriment; +he was born to be a journalist, a chronicler of successes, +of discoveries, of political and learned controversies. I +made his acquaintance at the end of my time at the +university—and was sometimes in his house and at his +brother Ksenofont’s. This was the time when his +reputation was at its highest, the period just before the +prohibition of the <cite>Telegraph</cite>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This man who lived in the latest discovery, in the +question of the hour, in the last novelty, in theories and +in events, and who changed like a chameleon, could not, +for all the liveliness of his mind, understand Saint-Simonism. +For us Saint-Simonism was a revelation, for him +it was insanity, a silly Utopia, hindering social development. +To all my rhetoric, my expositions and arguments, +Polevoy was deaf; he lost his temper and grew vindictive. +Opposition from a student was particularly annoying to +him, for he greatly prized his influence on the young, +and saw in this dispute that it was slipping away from +him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On one occasion, offended by the absurdity of his +objections, I observed that he was just as old-fashioned +a Conservative as those against whom he had been +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>fighting all his life. Polevoy was deeply offended by +my words and, shaking his head, said to me: ‘The time +will come when you will be rewarded for a whole lifetime +of toil and effort by some young man’s saying with a +smile, “Be off, you are behind the times.”’ I felt sorry +for him and ashamed of having hurt his feelings, but at +the same time I felt that his sentence could be heard in +his melancholy words. They were not those of a mighty +champion, but of an exhausted and aged gladiator. I +realised then that he would not advance, and was incapable +of standing still at the same point with a mind +so active and a basis so insecure.</p> + +<p class='c014'>You know what happened to him afterwards: he set +to work upon his <cite>Parasha, the Siberian</cite>.<a id='r118'></a><a href='#f118' class='c015'><sup>[118]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>What luck a timely death is for a man who can at the +right moment neither leave the stage nor move forward! +I have thought that looking at Polevoy, looking at Pius <span class='fss'>IX.</span>, +and at many others!</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Appendix<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>A. Polezhaev</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>To complete the gloomy record of that period, I +ought to add a few details about A. Polezhaev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>As a student, Polezhaev was renowned for his excellent +verses. Amongst other things he wrote a humorous +parody of ‘<cite>Onyegin</cite>,’ called ‘<cite>Sashka</cite>,’ in which, regardless +of proprieties, he attacked many things in a jesting +tone, in very charming verses.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the autumn of 1826, Nicholas, after hanging Pestel, +Muravyov, and their friends, celebrated his coronation in +Moscow. For other sovereigns these ceremonies are +occasions for amnesties and pardons: Nicholas, after +celebrating his apotheosis, proceeded again to ‘strike +down the foes of the father-land,’ like Robespierre after +his ‘Fête-Dieu.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The secret police brought him Polezhaev’s poem.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so at three o’clock one night, the rector woke +Polezhaev, told him to put on his uniform and go to the +office. There the director was awaiting him. After +looking to see that all the necessary buttons were on his +uniform and no unnecessary ones, he invited Polezhaev +without any explanation to get into his carriage and drove +off with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He conducted him to the Minister of Public Instruction. +The latter put Polezhaev into his carriage and he +too drove him off—but this time straight to the Tsar.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Prince Lieven left Polezhaev in the drawing-room—where +several courtiers and higher officials were already +waiting although it was only six o’clock in the morning—and +went into the inner apartments. The courtiers +imagined that the young man had distinguished himself in +some way and at once entered into conversation with him. +A senator suggested that he might give lessons to his son.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Polezhaev was summoned to the study. The Tsar +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>was standing leaning on the bureau and talking to Lieven. +He flung a searching and malignant glance at the newcomer; +there was a manuscript in his hand.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Did you write these verses?’ he inquired.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes,’ answered Polezhaev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Here, prince,’ the Tsar continued, ‘I will give you +a specimen of university education, I will show you what +young men learn there. Read the manuscript aloud,’ +he added, addressing Polezhaev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The agitation of the latter was so great that he could +not read. Nicholas’s eyes were fixed immovably upon +him. I know them and know nothing so terrible, so +hopeless, as those colourless, cold, pewtery eyes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I cannot,’ said Polezhaev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Read!’ shouted the imperial drum-major.</p> + +<p class='c014'>That shout restored Polezhaev’s faculties; he opened +the manuscript. Never, he told us, had he seen ‘<cite>Sashka</cite>’ +so carefully copied and on such splendid paper.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At first it was hard for him to read; then as he got more +and more into the spirit of the thing, he read the poem +in a loud and lively voice. At particularly startling +passages, the Tsar made a sign with his hand to the +Minister and the latter covered his eyes with horror.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What do you say to that?’ Nicholas inquired at the +end of the reading. ‘I will put a stop to this corruption; +these are the <em>last traces, the last remnants</em>; I will root +them out. What is his record?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The minister, of course, knew nothing of his record, +but some human feeling must have stirred in him, for +he said: ‘He has an excellent record, your Majesty.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That record has saved you, but you must be punished, +as an example to others. Would you like to go into the +army?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Polezhaev was silent.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I give you a chance of clearing your name in the +army. Well?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>‘I must obey,’ answered Polezhaev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tsar went up to him, laid his hand on his shoulder +and, saying to him, ‘Your fate is in your own hands, if I +forget you you can <em>write</em> to me,’ <em>kissed him on the forehead</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I made Polezhaev repeat the story of the kiss a dozen times, +it seemed to me so incredible. He swore that it was true.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the Tsar, he was led off to Dibitch, who lived +on the spot in the palace. Dibitch was asleep; he was +awakened, came out yawning, and, after reading the +paper handed to him, asked the aide-de-camp: ‘Is this +he?’—‘Yes, your Excellency.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well! it’s a capital thing; you will serve in the army. +I have always been in the army, and you see what I’ve +risen to, and maybe you’ll be made a field-marshal.’ +This stupid, inappropriate, German joke was Dibitch’s +equivalent to a kiss. Polezhaev was led off to the camp +and handed over to the soldiers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Three years passed. Polezhaev remembered the +Tsar’s words and wrote him a letter. No answer came. +A few months later he wrote a second; again there was +no answer. Convinced that his letters did not reach +the Tsar, he ran away, and ran away in order to present +a petition in person. He behaved carelessly, saw his +old friends in Moscow and was entertained by them; +of course, that could not be kept secret. In Tver he +was seized and sent back to his regiment, as a runaway +soldier, on foot and in chains. The court martial +condemned him to run the gauntlet; the sentence was +despatched to the Tsar for ratification.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Polezhaev wanted to kill himself before the punishment. +After searching in vain in his prison for a sharp +instrument, he confided in an old soldier who liked him. +The soldier understood him and respected his wishes. +When the old man learned that the answer had come, +he brought him a bayonet and, as he gave him it, said +through his tears: ‘I have sharpened it myself.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>The Tsar did not confirm Polezhaev’s sentence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then it was that he wrote the fine poem beginning:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘I perished lonely,</div> + <div class='line'>No help was nigh.</div> + <div class='line'>My evil genius</div> + <div class='line'>Passed mocking by.’<a id='r119'></a><a href='#f119' class='c015'><sup>[119]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Polezhaev was sent to the Caucasus. There for distinguished +service he was promoted to be a non-commissioned +officer. Years and years passed; his hopeless, +dreary position broke him down; become a police poet +and sing the glories of Nicholas he could not, and that was +the only way of escape from the army.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was, however, another means of escape, and +he preferred it; he drank to win forgetfulness. There +is a terrible poem of his, ‘To Vodka.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>He succeeded in getting transferred to a regiment of +the Carabineers stationed in Moscow. This was a +considerable alleviation of his lot, but malignant consumption +had already laid its grip upon him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was at this period that I made his acquaintance, +about 1833. He struggled on another four years and +died in the military hospital.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When one of his friends went to ask for the body for +burial, no one knew where it was; the military hospital +did a trade in corpses; they sold them to the university +and to the Medical Academy, made them into skeletons, +and so on. At last he found poor Polezhaev’s body in +a cellar; he was lying under a heap of others and the rats +had gnawed off one foot.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After his death, his poems were published, and his +portrait in a soldier’s uniform was to have been included +in the edition. The censor thought this unseemly, and +the poor martyr was portrayed with the epaulettes of an +officer—he had been promoted in the hospital.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span> + <h2 class='c006'>PART II<br> <span class='c011'>PRISON & EXILE<br> (1834–1838)</span></h2> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>Chapter 8<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>A Prediction—Ogaryov’s Arrest—A Fire—A Moscow Liberal—M. F. Orlov—The Graveyard</span></span></h3> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>One day in the spring of 1834, I arrived at Vadim’s +in the morning and found neither him nor any +of his brothers and sisters at home. I went upstairs to +his little room and sat down to write.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The door softly opened and Vadim’s mother came in; +her footsteps were barely audible; looking weary and ill +she went up to an armchair and said to me, as she sat +down: ‘Go on writing, go on writing, I came to see +whether Vadya had come in; the children have gone for +a walk and downstairs it is so empty, I felt sad and +frightened. I’ll stay here a little, I won’t hinder you, +go on with your work.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Her face was pensive and I could see in it even more +clearly than usual the imprint of what she had suffered +in the past and of that suspicious apprehensiveness in +regard to the future, that distrust of life, which is always +left after great and prolonged misfortunes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We began to talk. She told me something about +Siberia: ‘I have had very many troubles to bear and I +have more to see yet,’ she added, shaking her head, ‘my +heart bodes nothing good.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I thought how sometimes, after hearing our bold talk +and demagogic conversation, she would turn pale, sigh +softly, go out of the room and for a long time not utter +a word.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You and your friends,’ she went on, ‘you are going +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>the sure road to ruin. You will ruin Vadya, yourself, +and all of them; I love you, too, you know, like a son.’ +A tear ran down her wasted cheek.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I did not speak. She took my hand and, trying to +smile, added: ‘Don’t be angry, my nerves are overwrought; +I understand it all, you go your path, there is +no other for you, and, if there were, you would none of +you be the same. I know that, but I cannot get over my +alarm; I have been through so many troubles that I have +no strength to face fresh ones. Mind you don’t say a +word to Vadya about this, he would be distressed, he +would talk to me.... Here he is,’ she added, hurriedly +wiping away her tears and once more asking me with her +eyes to say nothing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Poor mother! Noble, great-hearted woman! It is +as fine as Corneille’s ‘qu’il mourût!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Her prediction was soon fulfilled; happily this time +the storm passed over the heads of her family, but it +brought the poor woman much sorrow and alarm.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Taken? What do you mean?’ I asked, jumping out +of bed and feeling my head to make sure that I was awake.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The police-master came in the night with the district +policeman and Cossacks, about two hours after you left, +seized all the papers and took Nikolay Platonovitch.’ +It was Ogaryov’s valet speaking. I could not imagine +what pretext the police had invented; of late everything +had been quiet. Ogaryov had only arrived a day or two +before ... and why had they taken him and not me?</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was impossible to remain doing nothing; I dressed and +went out of the house with no definite aim. It was the +first trouble that had befallen me. I felt sick, I was +tortured by my impotence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>As I wandered about the streets, I thought, at last, of +a friend V—— whose social position made it possible +for him to find out what was the matter and, perhaps, +to help. He lived a terrible distance away in a summer +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>villa beyond the Vorontsov Field; I got into the first +cab I came across and galloped off to him. It was before +seven in the morning.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I had made the acquaintance of V—— about a year +and a half before; he was in his way a lion in Moscow. +He had been educated in Paris, was wealthy, intelligent, +cultured, witty, free-thinking, had been clapped into the +Peter-Paul fortress over the affair of the Fourteenth of +December and was among those afterwards acquitted; +he had had no experience of exile, but the glory of the +affair clung to him. He was in the government service +and had great influence with the governor-general, Prince +Golitsyn, who was fond of men of a free way of thinking, +particularly if they expressed their views fluently in +French. The prince was not strong in Russian.</p> + +<p class='c014'>V—— was ten years older than we, and surprised us +by his practical remarks, his knowledge of political +affairs, his French eloquence and the ardour of his +Liberalism. He knew so much and in such detail, talked +so charmingly and so easily; his opinions were so clearly +defined; he had answers, good advice, explanations for +everything. He had read everything, all the new novels, +treatises, magazines, and poetry, was moreover a devoted +student of zoology, wrote out schemes of reform for +Prince Golitsyn and drew out plans for children’s books. +His Liberalism was of the purest, trebly-distilled essence, +of the left wing between that of Mauguin and of General +Lamarque.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His study was hung with portraits of all the revolutionary +celebrities from Hampden and Bailly<a id='r120'></a><a href='#f120' class='c015'><sup>[120]</sup></a> to Fieschi<a id='r121'></a><a href='#f121' class='c015'><sup>[121]</sup></a> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>and Armand Carrel. A whole library of prohibited +books was to be found under this revolutionary shrine.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A skeleton, a few stuffed birds, some dried amphibians, +and insides of animals preserved in spirit, gave a serious +tone of study and reflection to the over-impetuous +character of the room.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We used to look with envy at his experience and knowledge +of men; his refined ironical manner of arguing +had a great influence on us. We looked upon him as a +capable revolutionary, as a statesman <em>in spe</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I did not find V—— at home, he had gone to town +overnight for an interview with Prince Golitsyn. His +valet told me he would certainly be home within an hour +and a half. I waited.</p> + +<p class='c014'>V——’s summer villa was a splendid one. The +study in which I sat waiting was a lofty, spacious room, +and an immense door led to the verandah and into the +garden. It was a hot day, the fragrance of trees and +flowers came in from the garden, children were playing +in front of the house with ringing laughter. Wealth, +abundance, space, sunshine and shadow, flowers and +greenery ... while in prison it is cramped, stifling, +dark. I do not know how long I had been sitting there +absorbed in bitter thoughts, when suddenly the valet +called me from the verandah with a peculiar animation.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What is it?’ I inquired.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh, come here and look.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I went out to the verandah, not to wound him by +refusal, and stood petrified. A whole semi-circle of +houses were blazing away, as though they had been set +fire to at the same moment. The fire was spreading +with incredible rapidity.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I remained on the verandah; the valet gazed with a +sort of nervous pleasure at the fire, saying: ‘It’s going +finely—look, that house on the right is beginning to burn, +it’s certainly beginning to burn.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>A fire has something revolutionary about it; it laughs +at property and levels fortunes. The valet understood that +instinctively.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Half an hour later half the horizon was covered with +smoke, red behind and greyish-black above. That day +Lefortovo was burned down. It was the first of a series +of cases of incendiarism, which went on for five months, +and we shall speak of them again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At last V—— arrived. He was at his best, charming +and cordial; he told me about the fire by which he had +driven and about the general belief that it was a case of +arson, and added, half in jest: ‘It’s Pugatchovism. +You’ll see, we shan’t escape, they will put us on a +stake.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Before they put us on a stake,’ I answered, ‘I am +afraid they will put us on a chain. Do you know that +last night the police seized Ogaryov?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The police—what are you saying?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s what I have come to you about. Something +must be done; go to Prince Golitsyn, find out what’s +the matter and ask permission for me to see him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Receiving no answer, I glanced at V——, but where +he had been, it seemed as though an elder brother were +sitting with a livid face and sunken features; he was +moaning and moving uneasily.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What’s the matter?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘There, I told you; I always said what it would lead +to.... Yes, yes, we might have expected it. Oh dear, +oh dear!... I am not to blame in thought nor in act, +but very likely they will put me in prison too, and that +is no joking matter; I know what the fortress is like.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Will you go to the prince?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Upon my word, whatever for? I advise you as a +friend, don’t even speak of Ogaryov; keep as quiet as +you can, or it will be bad for you. You don’t know how +dangerous these things are; my sincere advice is, keep +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>out of it, do your utmost and you won’t help Ogaryov, +but you will ruin yourself. That’s what autocracy +means—no rights, no defence; are the lawyers and judges +any use?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>On this occasion I was not disposed to listen to his bold +opinions and startling criticisms. I took my hat and +went away.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At home I found everything in agitation. Already +my father was angry with me on account of Ogaryov’s +arrest. Already the Senator was on the spot, rummaging +among my books, taking away what he thought dangerous, +and in a very bad humour.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the table I found a note from M. F. Orlov inviting +me to dinner. Could he not do something for us? I +was beginning to be discouraged by experience: still +there was no harm in trying.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Mihail Fyodorovitch Orlov was one of the founders +of the celebrated League of Welfare,<a id='r122'></a><a href='#f122' class='c015'><sup>[122]</sup></a> and that he had not +reached Siberia was not his own fault, but was due to +his brother, who enjoyed the special favour of Nicholas +and had been the first to gallop with his Horse Guards +to the defence of the Winter Palace on December the +Fourteenth. Orlov was sent to his estate in the country, +and a few years later was allowed to live in Moscow. +During his solitary life in the country he studied political +economy and chemistry. The first time I met him he +talked of his new system of nomenclature in chemistry. +All energetic people who begin studying a subject late +<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>in life show an inclination to move the furniture about +and rearrange it to suit themselves. His nomenclature +was more complicated than the received French system. +I wanted to attract his attention, and by way of gaining +his favour began proving to him that his system was good, +but the old one was better.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Orlov contested the point and then agreed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My effort to please succeeded: from that time we were +on intimate terms. He saw in me a rising possibility; +I saw in him a veteran of our views, a friend of our heroes, +a noble figure in our lives.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Poor Orlov was like a lion in a cage. Everywhere he +knocked himself against the bars, he had neither space +to move nor work to do and was consumed by a thirst +for activity.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the fall of France, I more than once met people +of the same sort, people who were disintegrated by the +craving for public activity and incapable of occupying +themselves within the four walls of their study or in home +life. They do not know how to be alone; in solitude +they are attacked with ennui, they become whimsical, +quarrel with their last friends, see intrigues against them +on all hands, and themselves intrigue to find out all these +non-existent plots.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A stage and spectators are as necessary to them as the +air they breathe; in the public view they really are +heroes and will endure the unendurable. They must +have noise, clamour, applause, they want to make speeches, +to hear their enemies’ replies, they crave the stimulus of +struggle, the fever of danger, and without these tonics +they are miserable, they pine, let themselves go and +grow heavy, break out and make mistakes. Such is +Ledru-Rollin, who, by the way, has a look of Orlov in +the face, particularly since he has grown moustaches.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Orlov was very handsome; his tall figure, fine carriage, +handsome, manly features and completely bare skull, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>altogether gave an indescribable attractiveness to his +appearance. His bust would make a good contrast to +the bust of A. P. Yermolov, whose frowning, quadrangular +brow, thick thatch of grey hair, and eyes piercing +the distance gave him that beauty of the warrior chieftain, +grown old in battles, which won Maria Kotcheby’s heart +in Mazeppa.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Orlov was so bored that he did not know what to begin +upon. He tried founding a glass factory, in which +mediæval stained glass was made, costing him more than +he sold it for; and began writing a book ‘on credit’—no, +that was not the way his heart yearned to go, and +yet it was the only way open to him. The lion was +condemned to wander idly between Arbat and Basmanny +Street, not even daring to let his tongue move freely.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was terribly pitiful to see Orlov trying to become a +learned man, a theorist. His intelligence was clear and +brilliant, but not at all speculative, and he got entangled +at once among newly invented systems in long-familiar +subjects—like his chemical nomenclature for instance. +He was a complete failure in everything abstract, but +with intense exasperation applied himself to metaphysics.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Careless and incontinent of speech, he was continually +making mistakes; carried away by his first impression, +which was always chivalrously lofty, he would suddenly +remember his position and turn back half way. He was +an even greater failure in these diplomatic countermarches +than in metaphysics and nomenclature; and, +having got into one difficulty, he would get into two or +three more in trying to right himself. He was blamed +for this; people are so superficial and inattentive that +they look more to words than to acts, and attach more +weight to separate mistakes than to the drift of the whole +character. What is the use of blaming a man from the +point of view of Roman virtue, one must blame the +melancholy surroundings in which any noble feeling +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>must be communicated by contraband, underground, and +behind locked doors; and, if one says a word aloud, one +is wondering all day how soon the police will come....</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was a large party at the dinner. I happened +to sit beside General Raevsky, the brother of Orlov’s +wife. He too had been under a ban since the Fourteenth +of December; the son of the celebrated N. N. Raevsky, +he had as a boy of fourteen been with his brother at +Borodino by his father’s side; later on, he died of wounds +in the Caucasus. I told him about Ogaryov, and asked +him whether Orlov could do anything and whether he +would care to do it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A cloud came over Raevsky’s face, but it was not the +look of tearful cowardice which I had seen in the morning, +but a mixture of bitter memories and repulsion.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘There is no question of caring or not caring,’ he +answered, ‘only I doubt whether Orlov can do much; +after dinner go to the study and I will bring him to you. +So then,’ he added after a pause, ‘your turn has come; +all are dragged down to that black pit.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After questioning me, Orlov wrote a letter to Prince +Golitsyn asking for an interview.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The prince,’ he told me, ‘is a very decent man; if +he won’t do anything, he will at least tell us the truth.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Next day I went for an answer. Prince Golitsyn said +that Ogaryov had been arrested by order of the Tsar, that +a committee of inquiry had been appointed, and that the +material evidence was some supper on the 24th June, +at which seditious songs had been sung. I could make +nothing of it. That day was my father’s name-day; +I had spent the whole day at home and Ogaryov had been +with us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was with a heavy heart that I left Orlov; he, too, +was troubled; when I gave him my hand he stood up, +embraced me, pressed me warmly to his broad chest and +kissed me.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>It was as though he felt that we were parting for long +years.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I only saw him once afterwards, six years later. He +was smouldering out. The look of illness on his face, +the melancholy and a sort of new angularity in it struck +me; he was gloomy, was conscious that he was breaking +up, knew things were all going wrong—and saw no way +of salvation. Two months later, he died, the blood +curdled in his veins.</p> + +<p class='c014'>... There is a wonderful monument in Lucerne; +carved by Thorwaldsen in natural rock. A dying lion +is lying in a hollow; he is wounded to death, the blood +is streaming from a wound, in which the fragment of an +arrow is sticking; he has laid his gallant head upon his +paw, he is moaning, there is a look in his eyes of unbearable +pain; around there is a wilderness, with a pond +below, all shut in by mountains, trees, and greenery; +people pass by without seeing that here a royal beast is +dying.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Once after sitting some time on the seat facing the +stone agony, I was suddenly reminded of my last visit to +Orlov.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Driving home from Orlov, I passed the house of the +chief police-master, and the idea occurred to me to ask +him openly for permission to see Ogaryov.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I had never in my life been in the house of a police +official. I was kept waiting a long time; at last the +head police-master came out. My request surprised him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What grounds have you for asking this permission?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ogaryov is my cousin.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Your cousin?’ he asked, looking straight into my +face. I did not answer, but I, too, looked straight into +his Excellency’s face.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I cannot give you permission,’ he said; ‘your cousin +is <em>au secret</em>. I am very sorry!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Uncertainty and inactivity were killing me. I had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>hardly a friend in town, I could find out absolutely +nothing. It seemed as though the police had forgotten +or overlooked me. It was very, very dreary. But just +when the whole sky was overcast with grey storm-clouds +and the long night of exile and prison was approaching, +a ray of light came to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few words of deep sympathy uttered by a girl of +seventeen whom I had looked upon as a child raised me +up again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For the first time in my story a woman’s figure appears ... and precisely one woman’s figure appears throughout +all my life.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The passing fancies of youth and spring that had +stirred my soul paled and vanished before it, like pictures +in the mist; and no fresh ones came.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We met in a graveyard. She stood leaning against +a tombstone and spoke of Ogaryov, and my grief was +comforted.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Till to-morrow,’ she said and gave me her hand, +smiling through her tears.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Till to-morrow,’ I answered ... and stood a long +time looking after her retreating figure.</p> + +<p class='c014'>That was on the nineteenth of July 1834.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 9<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Arrest—An Impartial Witness—The Office of the Pretchistensky Police Station—A Patriarchal Judge</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>‘Till to-morrow,’ I repeated, as I fell asleep.... +I felt extraordinarily light-hearted and +happy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Between one and two in the night, my father’s valet +woke me; he was not dressed and was panic-stricken.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘An officer is asking for you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What officer?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I don’t know.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, I do,’ I told him and flung on my dressing-gown.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the doorway of the drawing-room, a figure was +standing wrapped in a military greatcoat; by the +window I saw a white plume, behind there were other +persons,—I distinguished the cap of a Cossack.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was the police-master, Miller.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He told me that by an order of the military governor-general, +which he held in his hand, he must look through +my papers. Candles were brought. The police-master +took my keys; the district police superintendent and his +lieutenant began rummaging among my books and my +linen. The police-master busied himself among my +papers; everything seemed to him suspicious, he laid +them all on one side and all at once turned to me and +said: ‘I must ask you to dress meanwhile; you’ll come +along with me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Where?’ I asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To the Pretchistensky police station,’ answered the +police-master in a soothing voice.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And then?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘There is nothing more in the governor-general’s +instructions.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I began to dress.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>Meanwhile the panic-stricken servants had awakened +my mother. She rushed out of her bedroom and was +coming to my room, but was stopped by a Cossack at the +drawing-room door. She uttered a shriek, I shuddered +and ran to her. The police-master left the papers and +came with me to the drawing-room. He apologised to +my mother, let her pass, swore at the Cossack, who was +not to blame, and went back to the papers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then my father came up. He was pale but tried to +maintain his studied indifference. The scene was +becoming painful. My mother sat in the corner, weeping. +My old father spoke of irrelevant matters with the +police-master, but his voice shook. I was afraid that I +could not stand this for long and did not want to +afford the local police superintendent the satisfaction of +seeing me in tears.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I pulled the police-master by the sleeve, ‘Let +us go!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Let us go,’ he said with relief. My father went out +of the room and returned a minute later. He brought +a little ikon and put it round my neck, saying that his +father had given it to him with his blessing on his deathbed. +I was touched: this <em>religious</em> gift showed me the +degree of terror and distress in the old man’s heart. I +knelt down while he was putting it on; he helped me +up, embraced me and blessed me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The ikon was a picture in enamel of the head of John +the Baptist on a charger. What this was—example, +advice, or prophecy?—I don’t know, but the significance +of the ikon struck me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My mother was almost unconscious.</p> + +<p class='c014'>All the servants accompanied me down the staircase +weeping and rushing to kiss me or my hand. I felt as +though I were present at my own funeral. The police-master +scowled and hurried on.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When we went out at the gate he collected his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>company; he had with him four Cossacks, two police +superintendents and two ordinary policemen.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Allow me to go home,’ a man with a beard who was +sitting in front of the gate asked the police-master.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You can go,’ said Miller.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What man is that?’ I asked, getting into the +droshky.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The impartial witness; you know that without an +impartial witness the police cannot enter a house.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Then why did you leave him at the gate?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It’s a mere form! It’s simply keeping the man out +of bed for nothing,’ observed Miller</p> + +<p class='c014'>We drove accompanied by two Cossacks on horseback.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was no special room for me in the police station. +The police-master directed that I should be put in the +office until the morning. He himself took me there; +he flung himself in an easy chair and, yawning wearily, +muttered: ‘It’s a damnable service. I’ve been at the +races since three o’clock in the afternoon, and here I’ll +be busy with you till morning. I bet it’s past three +already and to-morrow I must go with the report at nine.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Good-bye,’ he added a minute later, and went out. +A non-commissioned officer locked me in, observing that +if I wanted anything I could knock at the door.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I opened the window. The day was already beginning +and the wind of morning was rising; I asked the non-commissioned +officer for water and drank off a whole +jugful. There was no thinking of sleep. Besides there +was nowhere to lie down; apart from the dirty leather +chair and one easy chair, there was nothing in the office +but a big table heaped up with papers and in the corner +a little table still more heaped up with papers. The dim +night-light hardly lighted the room, but made a flickering +patch of light on the ceiling that grew paler and paler +with the dawn.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I sat down in the place of the police superintendent +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>and took up the first paper that was lying on the table, +a document relating to the funeral of a serf of Prince +Gagarin’s and a medical certificate that he had died +according to all the rules of medical science. I picked +up another—it was a set of police regulations. I ran +through it and found a paragraph which stated that +‘Every arrested man has the right within three days after +his arrest to know the ground of his arrest or to be released.’ +I noted this paragraph for my own benefit.</p> + +<p class='c014'>An hour later I saw through the window our butler +bringing me a pillow, bedclothes, and a greatcoat. He +asked something of the non-commissioned officer, probably +permission to come in to me; he was a grey-headed +old man, to two or three of whose children I had stood +godfather as a small boy. The non-commissioned +officer gave him a rough and abrupt refusal; one of our +coachmen was standing near. I shouted to them from +the window. The non-commissioned officer fussed +about and told them to be off. The old man bowed to +me and shed tears; the coachman, as he lashed the horses, +took off his hat and wiped his eyes, the droshky rattled +away and my tears fell in streams, my heart was brimming +over; they were the first and last tears I shed while I +was in prison.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Towards morning the office began to fill up, the clerk +arrived still drunk from the evening before, a consumptive-looking +individual with red hair, a look of brutal +vice on his pimpled face. He wore a very dirty, badly-cut +and shiny coat of a brick colour. After him another +extremely free-and-easy individual in the greatcoat of a +non-commissioned officer arrived. He at once addressed +me with the question:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Were you taken at the theatre or what?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I was arrested at home.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Did Fyodor Ivanovitch himself arrest you?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Who’s Fyodor Ivanovitch?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>‘Colonel Miller.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I understand.’ He winked to the red-haired man +who showed no interest whatever. The free-and-easy +individual did not continue the conversation—he saw +that I had been taken neither for disorderly conduct nor +drunkenness, so lost all interest in me, or perhaps was +afraid to enter into conversation with a dangerous +prisoner.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Not long afterwards various sleepy-looking police +officials made their appearance and then came people +with grievances and legal complaints.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The keeper of a brothel brought a complaint against +the owner of a beer-shop, that he had publicly insulted +her in his shop in such language, as, being a woman, she +could not bring herself to utter before the police. The +shopkeeper swore that he had not used such language. +The woman swore that he had uttered the words more +than once and very loudly, and added that he had raised +his hand against her and that, if she had not ducked, he +would have cut her face open. The shopkeeper declared +that, in the first place, she had not paid what she owed +him, and, in the second, had insulted him in his own shop +and, what’s more, threatened that he should be thrashed +within an inch of his life by her followers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The brothel-keeper, a tall, untidy woman with puffy +eyes, screamed in a loud shrill voice and was extremely +talkative. The man made more use of mimicry and +gesture than of words.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The police Solomon, instead of judging between them, +scolded them both vigorously.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The dogs are too well fed, that’s why they run mad,’ +he said; ‘the beasts should sit quiet at home and be thankful +we say nothing and leave them in peace. An important +matter, indeed! They quarrel and run at once +to trouble the police. And you’re a fine lady! as though +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>it were the first time—what’s one to call you if not a bad +word with the trade you follow?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The shopkeeper shook his head and shrugged his +shoulders to express his profound gratification. The +police officer at once pounced upon him and said, ‘What +do you go barking behind your counter for, you dog? +Do you want to go to the lock-up? You’re a foul-tongued +brute, and lifting your ugly paw too—do you +want a taste of the birch, eh?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>For me this scene had all the charm of novelty and it +remained imprinted on my memory for ever, it was the +first case of patriarchal Russian justice I had seen.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The brothel-keeper and the police continued shouting +until the police superintendent came in. Without +inquiring why these people were there or what they +wanted, he shouted in a still more savage voice: ‘Get +out, be off, this isn’t a public bath-house or a pot-house!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Having driven ‘the scum’ out he turned to the police, +‘You ought to be ashamed to allow such disorder! +How many times I have said to you the place won’t +be held in proper respect, low creatures like that will +turn it into a perfect Bedlam, you are too easy-going with +these scoundrels. What man is this?’ he asked about +me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘A prisoner brought in by Fyodor Ivanovitch, here is +the document concerning him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The superintendent ran through the document, looked +at me, met with disapproval the direct and unflinching +gaze which I fixed upon him, prepared at the first word +to give as good as I got, and said ‘Excuse me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The affair of the brothel-keeper and the beer-shop man +began again. She insisted on making a deposition on +oath. A priest arrived. I believe they both made sworn +statements; I did not see the end of it. I was taken away +to the head police-master’s. I do not know why; no one +said a word to me; then again I was brought back to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>the police station, where a room had been prepared for +me under the watch tower. The non-commissioned +officer observed that if I wanted anything to eat, I had +better send out to buy it, that the government ration +had not been fixed yet and that it would not be for another +two days; moreover, that it consisted of two or three +kopecks of silver and that the better-class prisoners did +not claim it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was a dirty sofa standing by the wall; it was past +midday, I felt fearfully tired, flung myself on the sofa +and slept like the dead. When I woke up, all was quiet +and serene in my heart. I had been worn out of late +by uncertainty about Ogaryov, now my turn too had +come, the danger was no longer far off, but was all about +me, the storm-cloud was overhead. This first persecution +was to be our consecration.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 10<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Under the Watch Tower—The Lisbon Policeman—The Incendiaries</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>A man soon becomes used to prison, if he only has +some inner resources. One quickly becomes used +to the peace and complete freedom in one’s cage—no +anxieties, no distractions.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At first, books were not allowed; the superintendent +assured me that it was forbidden to take books from my +home. I asked him to buy me some. ‘Something +instructive, a grammar now, I might get, perhaps, but +for anything more you must ask the general.’ The +suggestion that I should wile away the time by reading +a grammar was extremely funny, nevertheless I caught +at it eagerly, and asked the superintendent to buy me an +Italian grammar and lexicon. I had two red notes with +me, I gave him one; he at once sent an officer for the +books and gave him a letter to the chief police-master in +which, on the strength of the paragraph I had read, I +asked him to let me know the cause of my arrest or to +release me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The local superintendent, in whose presence I wrote +the letter, tried to persuade me not to send it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It’s a mistake, sir, upon my soul, it’s a mistake +to trouble the general; he’ll say “they are restless +people,” it will do you harm and be no use whatever.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the evening the policeman appeared and told me +that the head police-master had bidden him tell me that +I should know the cause of my arrest in due time. Then +he pulled out of his pocket a greasy Italian grammar, and +added, smiling, ‘it luckily happened that there was a +dictionary in it so there was no need to buy one.’ Not +a word was said about the change. I was on the point +of writing to the chief police-master again, but the rôle +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>of a miniature Hampden at the Pretchistensky police +station struck me as too funny.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Ten days after my arrest a little swarthy, pock-marked +policeman appeared at ten o’clock in the evening with +an order for me to dress and set off to the committee of +inquiry.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I was dressing the following ludicrously vexatious +incident occurred. My dinner was sent me from +home, a servant gave it to the non-commissioned officer +below and he sent it up to me by a soldier. They were +allowed to send me from home about a bottle of wine a +day. N. Sazonov took advantage of this permission to +send me a bottle of excellent Johannisberg. The soldier +and I ingeniously uncorked the bottle with two nails, +the wine had a delicate fragrance that was apparent at +a distance. I looked forward to enjoying it for the next +three or four days.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One must be in prison to know how much childishness +remains in a man and what comfort can be found in +trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick at the expense of +one’s guard.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The pock-marked policeman sniffed out my bottle +and turning to me asked permission to taste a little. I +was vexed; however, I said that I should be delighted. +I had no wine-glass. The monster took a tumbler, filled +it incredibly full and drank it without taking breath; +this way of imbibing spirits and wine only exists among +Russians and Poles; I have seen no other people in all +Europe who could empty a tumbler at a gulp or even +toss off a wine-glassful. To make the loss of the wine +still more bitter, the pock-marked policeman wiped his +lips with a snuffy blue handkerchief, adding ‘First-class +Madeira.’ I looked at him with hatred and spitefully +rejoiced that he had not been vaccinated and nature had +not spared him the smallpox.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This connoisseur of wines conducted me to the chief +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>police-master’s house in Tverskoy Boulevard, showed me +into a side-room and left me alone there. Half an hour +later, a stout man with a lazy, good-natured air came into +the room from the inner apartments; he threw a portfolio +of papers on the table and sent the gendarme standing at +the door away on some errand.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I suppose,’ he said to me, ‘you are concerned with +the case of Ogaryov and the other young men who have +lately been arrested?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I said I was.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I happened to hear about it,’ he went on, ‘it’s a +strange case, I don’t understand it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I’ve been a fortnight in prison in connection with the +case and I don’t understand it, and, what’s more, I +simply know nothing about it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘A good thing, too,’ he said, looking intently at me; +‘and mind you don’t know anything about it. You +must forgive me, if I give you a bit of advice; you’re +young, your blood is still hot, you long to speak out, +that’s the trouble, don’t forget that you know nothing +about it, that’s the only safe line.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I looked at him in surprise, his face expressed nothing +evil; he guessed what I felt and with a smile said, ‘I was +a Moscow student myself twelve years ago.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>A clerk of some sort came in; the stout man addressed +him and, after giving him his orders, went out with a +friendly nod to me, putting his finger on his lips. I never +met the gentleman afterwards and I do not know who he +was, but I found out the value of his advice.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then a police-master came in, not Miller, but another +called Tsinsky, and summoned me to the committee. +In a large rather handsome room, five men were sitting at +a table, all in military uniform, with the exception of one +decrepit old man. They were smoking cigars and gaily +talking together, lolling in easy chairs, with their uniforms +unbuttoned. The chief police-master was presiding.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>When I went in, he turned to a figure sitting meekly +in a corner, and said, ‘If you please, father.’ Only then +I noticed that there was sitting in a corner an old priest +with a grey beard and a reddish-blue face. The priest +was half-asleep and yawning with his hand over his mouth; +his mind was far away and he was longing to get home. +In a drawling, somewhat chanting voice he began +exhorting me, talking of the sin of concealing the truth +before the persons appointed by the Tsar, and of the +uselessness of such duplicity considering the all-hearing +ear of God; he did not even forget to refer to the everlasting +texts, to the effect that all power is from God and +that we must render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s. +In conclusion, he said that I must put my lips to the +Gospel and the Holy Cross in confirmation of the oath +(which, however, I had not given, and he did not insist on +my taking) to reveal the whole truth sincerely and openly.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When he had finished he began hurriedly wrapping +up the Gospel and the Cross. Tsinsky, barely rising +from his seat, told him that he could go. After this he +turned to me and translated the spiritual advice into +secular language: ‘I will only add one thing to the priest’s +words—it’s useless for you to deny the truth, even if +you wish to do so.’ He pointed to the heaps of papers, +letters, and portraits which were intentionally scattered +about the table. ‘Only an open confession can mitigate +your lot; to be at liberty or in Bobruisk in the Caucasus +depends on yourself.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The questions were put to me in writing: the naïveté +of some of them was amazing: ‘Do you know of the +existence of any secret society? Do you belong to any +secret society, literary or otherwise? Who are its +members? Where do they meet?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>To all these it was extremely easy to answer by the +single word: ‘No.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I see you know nothing,’ said Tsinsky after looking +<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>through the answers. ‘I have warned you, you are +making your position more difficult.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>With that the first examination ended.</p> + +<p class='c014'>... Eight years later, in a different part of the very +house in which this took place, there was living the sister +of the new chief police-master, a woman who had once +been very handsome, and whose daughter was a beauty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I used to visit there; and every time I passed through +the room in which Tsinsky and Co. had tried and examined +us; then and afterwards, there hung in it the portrait +of Paul, whether as a reminder of the depths of degradation +to which a man may be brought by unbridled passion +and the misuse of power, or as an incitement of the police +to every sort of brutality, I do not know, but there he +was, cane in hand, snub-nosed and scowling. I stopped +every time before that portrait, in old days as a prisoner, +later on as a visitor. The little drawing-room close by, +full of the fragrance of beauty and femininity, seemed +somehow out of place in this stern house of strict discipline +and police examinations; I felt unable to be myself +there, and somehow regretful that the blossom that was +unfolding so beautifully should flower against the gloomy +brick wall of a police office. The things that we said +and that were said by the little circle of friends that +gathered round them sounded so ironical, so surprising +to the ear, within those walls accustomed to hear interrogations, +secret information, and reports of wholesale +police raids, within those walls which alone separated us +from the whisper of policemen, the sighs of prisoners, +the clank of gendarmes’ spurs and Cossacks’ sabres....</p> + +<p class='c014'>A week or two later, the little pock-marked policeman +came and took me to Tsinsky again. In the vestibule +several men in fetters, surrounded by soldiers with guns, +were sitting or lying down; in the lobby also there were +several men of different classes, unchained but strictly +guarded. The little policeman told me that they were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>all incendiaries. Tsinsky was out at the fire and we had +to await his return; we had arrived between nine and +ten in the evening; no one had asked for me by one +o’clock in the night, and I was still sitting very quietly +in the lobby with the incendiaries. First one and then +another of them was sent for, the police ran backwards +and forwards, chains clanked, and the soldiers were so +bored that they rattled their guns and did drill exercises. +About one o’clock Tsinsky arrived, sooty and grimy, and +hurried straight to his study without stopping. Half +an hour passed, my policeman was sent for; he came back +looking pale and upset, with his face twitching convulsively. +Tsinsky poked his head out of the door after +him and said: ‘The whole committee has been waiting +for you all the evening, Monsieur Herzen; this blockhead +brought you here when you were wanted at Prince +Golitsyn’s. I am very sorry you have had to wait here +so long, but it is not my fault. What is one to do with +such men? I believe he has been fifty years in the +service and he is still an idiot. Come, be off home now,’ +he added, changing to a much ruder tone as he addressed +the policeman.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The little man repeated all the way home: ‘O Lord, +what a misfortune! a man has no thought, no notion +what is happening to him, he will be the death of me now, +he would take no notice if you had not been kept waiting +there, but of course it is a disgrace to him. O Lord, +how unlucky!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I forgave him my wine, particularly when he told me +that he had not been nearly so frightened when he had +been almost drowned near Lisbon. This last remark +was so unexpected that I was overcome with senseless +laughter: ‘Dear me, how very strange! However +did you get to Lisbon?’ The old man had been +for over twenty-five years a naval officer. One cannot +but agree with the minister who assured Captain +<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>Kopeykin<a id='r123'></a><a href='#f123' class='c015'><sup>[123]</sup></a> that: ‘It has never happened yet among us +in Russia that a man who has deserved well of his country +should be left without recognition.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Fate had saved him at Lisbon only to be abused by +Tsinsky like a boy, after forty years’ service.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He was scarcely to blame.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The committee of inquiry formed by the governor-general +did not please the Tsar; he appointed a new one +presided over by Prince Sergey Mihailovitch Golitsyn. +The members of this committee were the Moscow +Commandant, Staal, the other Prince Golitsyn, the +colonel of gendarmes, Shubensky, and Oransky, the ex-auditor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the instructions from the chief police-master +nothing was said about the committee having been +changed; it was very natural that the hero of Lisbon +should have taken me to Tsinsky.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was great excitement at the police station +also; three fires had taken place that evening—and the +committee had sent twice to inquire what had become +of me and whether I had escaped. Anything that +Tsinsky had left unsaid in his abuse the police station +superintendent made up now to the hero of Lisbon; +which, indeed, was only to be expected, since the superintendent +was himself partly to blame, not having +inquired where I was to be sent. In a corner in the +office, some one was lying on the chairs, moaning; I +looked, it was a young man of handsome appearance, +neatly dressed, he was spitting blood and moaning; the +police doctor advised his being taken to the hospital as +early as possible in the morning.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When the non-commissioned officer took me to my +room, I extracted from him the story of the wounded +man. He was an ex-officer of the Guards, he had an +intrigue with some maid-servant and had been with her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>when a lodge of the house caught fire. This was the +time of the greatest panic in regard to arson; indeed, +not a day passed without my hearing the bell ring the +alarm three or four times; from my window I saw the +glare of two or three fires every night. To avoid compromising +the girl, the officer climbed over the fence as +soon as the alarm was sounded, and hid in the stable of +the next house, waiting for an opportunity to get off. +A little girl who was in the yard saw him and told the +first policeman who galloped up that he was hidden in +the stable; they rushed in with a crowd of people and +dragged the officer out in triumph. He was so badly +beaten that he died next morning.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The people who had been captured were sorted out; +about half were released, the others were detained on +suspicion. The police-master, Bryantchaninov, used to +ride over every morning and cross-examine them for +three or four hours. Sometimes the victims were +thrashed or beaten, then their wailing, screams and +entreaties, and the moaning of the women reached me, +together with the harsh voice of the police-master and +the monotonous reading of the clerk. It was awful, +intolerable. At night I dreamed of those sounds and +woke in a frenzy at the thought that the victims were +lying on straw only a few paces from me, in chains, with +lacerated wounds on their backs, and in all probability +quite innocent.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To know what the Russian prisons, the Russian law-courts +and the Russian police are like, one must be a +peasant, a house-serf, a workman, or an artisan.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Political prisoners, who for the most part belong to +the nobility, are kept in close custody and punished +savagely, but their fate cannot be compared with the fate +of the poor. With them the police do not stand on ceremony. +To whom can the peasant or the workman go +afterwards to complain, where can he find justice?</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>So terrible is the disorder, the brutality, the arbitrariness +and the corruption of Russian justice and of the +Russian police that a man of the humbler class who falls +into the hands of the law is more afraid of the process of +law itself than of any punishment. He looks forward +with impatience to the time when he will be sent to +Siberia; his martyrdom ends with the beginning of his +punishment. And let us remember that three-quarters +of the people taken up by the police on suspicion are +released on trial, and that they have passed through the +same agonies as the guilty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Peter <span class='fss'>III.</span> abolished torture and the Secret Chamber.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span> abolished torture.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span> abolished it once more.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Answers given ‘under intimidation’ are not recognised +by law. The officer who tortures the accused man +renders himself liable to severe punishment.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And yet all over Russia, from the Behring Straits to +Taurogen, men are tortured; where it is dangerous to +torture by flogging, they are tortured by insufferable +heat, thirst, and salted food. In Moscow the police put +an accused prisoner with bare feet on a metal floor in a +temperature of ten degrees of frost; he died in the +hospital which was under the supervision of Prince +Meshtchersky, who told the story with indignation. +The government knows all this, the governors conceal it, +the Senate connives at it, the ministers say nothing, the +Tsar, and the synod, the landowners and the priests all +agree with Selifan<a id='r124'></a><a href='#f124' class='c015'><sup>[124]</sup></a> that ‘there must be thrashing for the +peasants are too fond of their ease, order must be kept up.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The committee appointed to investigate the cases of +incendiarism was investigating, that is, thrashing, for +six months and had thrashed out nothing in the end. +The Tsar was incensed and ordered that the thing was +to be finished in three days. The thing was finished in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>three days. Culprits were found and condemned to +punishment by the knout, by branding, and by exile to +penal servitude. The porters from all the houses +gathered together to look at the terrible punishment of +‘the incendiaries.’ By then it was winter and I was +at that time in the Krutitsky Barracks. The captain +of gendarmes, a good-natured old man who had been +present at the punishment, told me the details. The +first man condemned to the knout told the crowd in a +loud voice that he swore he was innocent, that he did not +know himself what he had answered under torture, then +taking off his shirt he turned his back to the crowd and +said: ‘Look, good Christians!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>A moan of horror ran through the crowd, his back +was a dark-blue striped wound, and on that wound he +was to be beaten with the knout. The murmurs and +gloomy aspect of the crowd made the police hurry. +The executioners dealt the legal number of blows, while +others did the branding and others riveted fetters, and +the business seemed to be finished. But this scene +impressed the inhabitants; in every circle in Moscow +people were talking about it. The governor-general +reported upon it to the Tsar. The Tsar ordered a new +trial to be held, and the case of the incendiary who +had protested before the punishment to be particularly +inquired into.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Several months afterwards, I read in the papers that +the Tsar, wishing to compensate two who had been +punished by the knout, though innocent, ordered them to +be given two hundred roubles a lash, and to be provided +with a special passport testifying to their innocence in +spite of the branding. These two were the man who had +spoken to the crowd and one of his companions.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The story of the fires in Moscow in 1834, cases +similar to which occurred ten years later in various +provinces, remains a mystery. That the fires were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>caused by arson there is no doubt; fire, ‘the red cock,’ +is in general a very national means of revenge among +us. One is continually hearing of the burning by +peasants of their owners’ houses, cornstacks, and granaries, +but what was the cause of the incendiarism in Moscow +in 1834 no one knows, and, least of all, the members of +the committee of inquiry.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before 22nd August, Coronation Day, some practical +jokers dropped letters in various places in which they +informed the inhabitants that they need not bother about +an illumination, that there would be a fine flare-up.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The cowardly Moscow authorities were in a great +fluster. The police station was filled with soldiers from +early morning and a squadron of Uhlans were stationed +in the yard. In the evening patrols on horse and on +foot were incessantly moving about the streets. Artillery +was kept in readiness. Police-masters galloped up and +down with Cossacks and gendarmes. Prince Golitsyn +himself rode about the town with his aides-de-camp. +The military appearance of modest Moscow was strange +and affected the nerves. Till late at night I lay in the +window under my watch tower and looked into the yard.... +The Uhlans who had been hurried to the place +were sitting in groups, near their horses, some were +mounted on their horses. Officers were walking about; +looking disdainfully at the police, aides-de-camp with +yellow collars arrived continually, looking anxious and, +after doing nothing, went away again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There were no fires.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After this the Tsar himself came to Moscow. He +was displeased with the inquiry into our case which was +only beginning, was displeased that we were left in +the hands of the ordinary police, was displeased that +the incendiaries had not been found—in fact, he was +displeased with everything and with every one.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We soon felt the presence of the Most High.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 11<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Krutitsky Barracks—Gendarmes’ Tales—Officers</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>Three days after the Tsar’s arrival, late in the +evening—all these things are done in darkness +to avoid disturbing the public—a police officer came to +me with instructions to collect my belongings and set +off with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Where are we going?’ I asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You will see,’ was the policeman’s intelligent and +polite reply. After this, of course, I collected my things +and set off without continuing the conversation.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We drove on and on for an hour and a half, at last +we passed the Simonov Monastery and stopped at a +heavy stone gate, before which two gendarmes with +carbines were pacing up and down. This was the +Krutitsky Monastery, converted into a barracks of +gendarmes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was led into a little office. The clerks, the adjutants, +the officers were all in light blue. The officer on duty, +in a casque and full uniform, asked me to wait a little +and even suggested that I should light the pipe I held +in my hand. After this he proceeded to write an acknowledgment +of having received a prisoner; giving it to +the policeman, he went away and returned with another +officer. ‘Your room is ready,’ said the latter, ‘come +along.’ A gendarme held a candle for us, we went down +the stairs and took a few steps across the courtyard into a +long corridor lighted by a single lantern; on both sides +were little doors, one of them the officer on duty opened; +it led into a tiny guardroom behind which was a small, +dark, cold room that smelt like a cellar. The officer +who conducted me then turned to me, saying in French +that he was ‘<em>désolé d’être dans la nécessité</em>’ of searching +my pockets, but military service, duty, his instructions.... +After this eloquent introduction, he very simply +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>turned to the policeman and indicated me with his eyes. +The policeman on the spot thrust an incredibly large and +hairy hand into my pockets. I observed to the police +officer that this was quite unnecessary, that I would +myself, if he liked, turn my pockets inside out without +such violent measures; moreover, what could I have +after six weeks imprisonment?</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘We know,’ said the polite officer with a smile of inimitable +self-complacency, ‘how things are done in the +police station.’ The officer on duty also smiled sarcastically. +However, they told the policeman he need only +look. I pulled out everything I had.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Scatter all your tobacco on the table,’ said the officer +who was <em>désolé</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In my tobacco pouch I had a penknife and a pencil +wrapped up in paper; from the very beginning I had +been thinking about them and, as I talked to the officer, +I played with the tobacco pouch, until I got the penknife +into my hand. I held it through the material of the +pouch, and boldly shook the tobacco out on the table. +The policeman poured it in again. The penknife and +pencil had been saved; so there was a lesson for the +officer for his proud disdain of the ordinary police.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This incident put me in the best of humours and I +began gaily scrutinising my new domain.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Some of the monks’ cells, built three hundred years +ago and sunk into the earth, had been turned into secular +cells for political prisoners.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In my room there was a bedstead without a mattress, +a little table, on it a jug of water, and beside it a chair, a +thin tallow candle was burning in a big copper candlestick. +The damp and cold pierced to one’s bones; the officer +ordered the stove to be lighted, and then they all went +away. A soldier promised to bring some hay; meanwhile, +putting my greatcoat under my head, I lay down on the +bare bedstead and lit my pipe.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>A minute later I noticed that the ceiling was covered +with ‘Prussian’ beetles. They had seen no light for a +long time and were running towards it from all directions, +crowding together, hurrying, falling on to the +table, and then racing headlong, backwards and forwards, +along the edge of the table.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I disliked black beetles, as I did every sort of uninvited +guest; my neighbours seemed to me horribly disgusting, +but there was nothing to be done, I could not begin by +complaining about the black beetles and my nerves had +to submit. Two or three days later, however, all the +‘Prussians’ moved next door to the soldier’s room, where +it was warmer; only occasionally a stray beetle would +run in, prick up his whiskers and scurry back to get +warm.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Though I continually asked the gendarme, he still +kept the stove closed. I began to feel unwell and giddy, +I tried to get up and knock to the soldier; I did actually +get up, but with that all I remember ended....</p> + +<p class='c014'>When I came to myself I was lying on the floor with +a splitting headache. A tall gendarme was standing with +his hands folded, staring at me blankly, as in the well-known +bronze statuettes a dog stares at a tortoise.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You have been finely suffocated, your honour,’ he +said, seeing that I had recovered consciousness. ‘I’ve +brought you horse-radish with salt and kvass; I have +already made you sniff it, now you must drink it up.’ +I drank it, he lifted me up and laid me on the bed; I +felt very faint, there were double windows and no pane +that opened in them; the soldier went to the office to +ask permission for me to go into the yard; the officer +on duty told him to say that neither the colonel nor the +adjutant were there, and that he could not take the +responsibility. I had to remain in the room full of +charcoal fumes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I got used even to the Krutitsky Barracks, conjugating +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>the Italian verbs and reading some wretched little books. +At first my confinement was rather strict; at nine o’clock +in the evening, at the last note of the bugle, a soldier came +into my room, put out the candle and locked the door. +From nine o’clock in the evening until eight next morning +I had to sit in darkness. I have never been a great +sleeper, and in prison where I had no exercise, four hours’ +sleep was quite enough for me; and not to have candles +was a real affliction. Moreover, the sentry uttered every +quarter of an hour from both sides of the corridor a loud, +prolonged shout.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few weeks later Colonel Semyonov (brother of the +celebrated actress, afterwards Princess Gagarin) allowed +them to leave me a candle, forbade anything to be hung +over the window, which was below the level of the +courtyard, so that the sentry could see everything that +was being done in the cell, and gave instructions that the +sentries should not shout in the corridor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then the commanding officer gave us permission to +have ink and to walk in the courtyard. Paper was given +in a fixed amount on condition that none of the leaves +were torn. I was allowed once in twenty-four hours +to go, accompanied by a soldier and the officer on +duty, into the yard, which was enclosed by a fence and +surrounded by a cordon of sentries.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Life passed quietly and monotonously, the military +punctuality gave it a mechanical regularity like the +cæsura in verse. In the morning, with the assistance +of the gendarme, I prepared coffee on the stove; at +nine o’clock the officer on duty, in gloves, enormous +gauntlets, in a casque and a greatcoat, appeared, clanking +his sabre and bringing in with him several +cubic feet of frost. At one, the gendarme brought a +dirty napkin and a bowl of soup, which he always held +by the edge, so that his two middle fingers were perceptibly +cleaner than the others. We were fed fairly decently, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>but it must not be forgotten that we were charged two +roubles a day for our keep, which in the course of nine +months’ imprisonment ran up to a considerable sum for +persons of no means. The father of one prisoner said +quite simply that he had not the money; he received the +cool reply that it would be stopped out of his salary. If +he had not been receiving a salary, it is extremely probable +that he would have been put in prison.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In conclusion, I ought to observe that a rouble and a +half was sent to Colonel Semyonov at the barracks for +our board from the ordnance house. There was almost +a fuss about this; but the adjutant, who got the benefit +of it, presented the gendarmes’ division with boxes for +first performances or benefit nights, and with that the +matter ended.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After sunset there followed a complete stillness, which +was not disturbed by the footsteps of the soldiers crunching +over the snow before the window, nor the far-away +calls of the sentries. As a rule I read until one o’clock +and then put out my candle. Sleep carried me into +freedom, sometimes it seemed as though I woke up +feeling—ough, what a horrible dream I have had—prison +and gendarmes—and I would rejoice that it was all a +dream; and then, all at once, there would be the clank +of a sabre in the corridor, or the officer on duty would +open the door, accompanied by a soldier with a lantern, +or the sentry would shout inhumanly, ‘Who goes there?’ +or a bugle under my very window would outrage the +morning air with its shrill reveille....</p> + +<p class='c014'>In moments of dullness when I was disinclined to read, +I would talk with the gendarmes who guarded me, +particularly with the old fellow who had looked after me +when I was overcome by the charcoal fumes. The +colonel used, as a sign of favour, to free his old soldiers +from regular discipline, and set them to the easy duty +of guarding a prisoner; a corporal, who was a spy and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>a rogue, was set over them. Five or six gendarmes made +up the whole staff.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The old man, of whom I am speaking, was a simple, +good-hearted creature, given to all sorts of kind actions, +for which he had probably had to pay a good deal in his +life. He had passed through the campaign of 1812, his +chest was covered with medals, he had served his full +time and remained in the army of his own free will, not +knowing where to go. ‘Twice,’ he told me, ‘I wrote +to my home in the Mogilev province, but I got no answer, +so it seems as though there were none of my people left: +and so I feel a little uneasy to go home, one would stay +there a bit and then wander off like a lost spirit, going +hither and thither to beg one’s bread.’ How barbarously +and mercilessly the army is organised in Russia with its +monstrous term of service! A man’s private life is +everywhere sacrificed without the slightest scruple and +with no compensation.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Old Filimonov had pretensions to a knowledge of +German which he had studied in winter quarters after +the taking of Paris. He very felicitously adapted +German words to the Russian spirit, calling a horse, <em>fert</em>, +eggs, <em>yery</em>, fish, <em>pish</em>, oats, <em>ober</em>, pancakes, <em>pankutie</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was a naïveté about his stories which made me +sad and thoughtful. In Moldavia during the Turkish +campaign of 1805 he was in the company of a captain, +the most good-natured man in the world, who looked +after every soldier as though he were his own son and +was always foremost in action. ‘A Moldavian girl had +captivated him and then we saw our captain was in +trouble, for, do you know, he noticed that the girl was +making up to another officer. So one day he called me +and a comrade—a splendid soldier, he had both his legs +blown off afterwards at Maly-Yaroslavets—and began +telling us how the Moldavian girl had treated him and +asked would we care to help him and give her a lesson. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>“To be sure, sir,” we said, “we are always glad to do our +best for your honour.” He thanked us and pointed out +the house in which the officer lived, saying, “You wait +on the bridge at night; she will certainly go to him, you +seize her without any noise and drop her in the river.” +“That is easily done, your honour,” we said, and my +comrade and I got a sack ready. We were sitting there +when towards midnight the Moldavian girl runs up. +“Why, you are in a hurry, madam,” said we, and gave her +one on the head. She never uttered a squeal, poor dear, +and we popped her into the sack and over into the river; +and next day the captain went to the officer and said: +“Don’t you be angry with your Moldavian girl, we +detained her a little, and now she is in the river, and I +am ready for a little fun with you with the sabre or with +pistols, which you like.” So they hacked at each other. +The officer gave our captain a bad cut on the chest, the +poor, dear man pined away and a few months later gave +up his soul to God.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And the Moldavian girl was drowned, then?’ I +asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, she was drowned,’ answered the soldier.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I looked with surprise at the childish carelessness with +which the old gendarme told me this story. And he, +as though guessing what I felt or thinking of it for the +first time, added, to soothe me and pacify his conscience: +‘A heathen woman, sir, as good as not christened, that +sort of people.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>On every Imperial holiday the gendarmes are given +a glass of vodka. The sergeant allowed Filimonov to +refuse his share for five or six times and to receive them +all at once. Filimonov scored on a wooden tally-stick +how many glasses he had missed, and on the most important +holiday would go for them. He would pour +this vodka into a bowl, would crumble bread into it and +eat it with a spoon. After this meal he would light a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>big pipe with a tiny mouthpiece, filled with tobacco of +incredible strength which he used to cut up himself, and +therefore rather wittily call ‘Self-Cut.’ As he smoked +he would fold himself up in a little window, bent double—there +were no chairs in the soldiers’ rooms—and sing +this song:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘The maids come out into the meadow</div> + <div class='line'>Where was an anthill and a flower.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>As he got more drunk the words would become more +inarticulate until he fell asleep. Imagine the health of +a man who had been twice wounded and at over sixty +could still survive such feasts!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before I leave these Flemish barrack scenes <i><span lang="fr">à la</span></i> +Wouverman<a id='r125'></a><a href='#f125' class='c015'><sup>[125]</sup></a> and <i><span lang="fr">à la</span></i> Callot,<a id='r126'></a><a href='#f126' class='c015'><sup>[126]</sup></a> and this prison gossip, +which is like the reminiscences of all prisoners, I will say +a few words about the officers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The greater number among them were rather good-natured +men, by no means spies, but men who had by +chance come into the gendarmes’ division. Young +noblemen with little or no education and no fortune, +who did not know where to lay their heads, they were +gendarmes because they had found no other job. They +performed their duties with military exactitude, but I +never observed a trace of zeal in any of them, except the +adjutant, but then he, of course, was an adjutant.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When the officers had made my acquaintance, they did +all sorts of little things to alleviate my lot, and it would +be a sin to complain of them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One young officer told me that in 1831 he was sent +to find and arrest a Polish landowner, who was in hiding +somewhere in the neighbourhood of his estate. He +was charged with being in relations with revolutionary +<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>emissaries. From evidence that the officer collected, +he found out where the landowner must be hidden, went +there with his company, put a cordon round the house +and entered it with two gendarmes. The house was +empty—they walked through the rooms, peeping into +everything and found no one anywhere, but yet some +traces showed clearly that there had been persons in the +house lately. Leaving the gendarmes below, the young +man went a second time up to the attic; looking round +attentively he saw a little door which led to a loft or some +little cupboard; the door was fastened on the inside, he +pushed it with his foot, it opened, and a tall, handsome +woman stood facing him. She pointed in silence to a +man who held in his arms a girl of about twelve, who was +almost unconscious. This was the Pole with his wife +and child. The officer was embarrassed. The tall +woman noticed this and asked him: ‘And will you have +the cruelty to ruin them?’ The officer apologised, +saying the usual commonplaces about the inviolability of +his military oath, and his duty, and, at last, in despair, +seeing that his words had no effect, ended with the +question: ‘What am I to do?’ The woman looked +proudly at him and said, pointing to the door: ‘Go down +and say there is no one here.’ ‘Upon my word, I don’t +know how it happened and what was the matter with me, +but I went down from the attic and told the corporal to +collect the men. A couple of hours later we were looking +vigorously in another part, while he was making his way +over the frontier. Well, woman! I admit it!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nothing in the world can be more narrow-minded +and more inhuman than wholesale condemnation of +entire classes in accordance with the label, the moral +catalogue, the leading characteristics of the class. Names +are dreadful things. Jean Paul Richter says with absolute +truth: ‘If a child tells a lie, frighten him with his +bad conduct, tell him he has told a lie, but don’t tell him +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>he is a liar. You destroy his moral confidence in himself +by defining him as a liar. “That is a murderer,” we are +told, and at once we fancy a hidden dagger, a brutal +expression, evil designs, as though murder were a permanent +employment, the trade of the man who has +happened once in his life to kill some one. One cannot +be a spy or trade in the vice of others and remain an +honest man, but one may be a police officer without +losing all human dignity; just as one may conceivably +find women of a tender heart and even nobility of character +in the unhappy victims of “public incontinence.”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I have an aversion for people who cannot, or will not, +take the trouble to go beyond the name, to step across +the barrier of crime, of a complicated false position, but +either chastely turn aside, or harshly thrust it all away +from them. This is usually done by cold, abstract +natures, egoistic and revolting in their purity, or base, +vulgar natures who have not yet happened, or have not +needed, to show themselves in practice. They are +through sympathy at home in the dirty depths into which +others have sunk.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 12<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The Investigation—Golitsyn Senior—Golitsyn Junior—General Staal—Sokolovsky—Sentence</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>But with all this what of our case, what of the +investigation and the trial?</p> + +<p class='c014'>They were no more successful in the new committee +than in the old. The police had been on our track for +a long time, but in their zeal and impatience could not +wait to find anything adequate, and did something silly. +They had sent a retired officer called Skaryatka to lead +us on and catch us; he made acquaintance with almost +all of our circle, but we very soon guessed what he was +and held aloof from him. Other young men, for the +most part students, had not been so cautious, but these +others had no serious connection with us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One student, on completing his studies, gave a supper +to his friends on 24th June 1834. Not one of us was at +the festivity, indeed not one of us had been invited. The +young men drank too much, played the fool, danced the +mazurka, and among other things sang Sokolovsky’s +well-known song on the accession of Nicholas:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘The Emperor of Russia</div> + <div class='line'>Has gone to realms above,</div> + <div class='line'>The operating surgeon</div> + <div class='line'>Slit his belly open.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘The Government is weeping</div> + <div class='line'>And all the people weep;</div> + <div class='line'>There’s coming to rule over us</div> + <div class='line'>Constantine the freak.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘But to the King of Heaven,</div> + <div class='line'>Almighty God above,</div> + <div class='line'>Our Tsar of blessed memory</div> + <div class='line'>Has handed a petition.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>‘When He read the paper,</div> + <div class='line'>Moved to pity, God</div> + <div class='line'>Gave us Nicholas instead,</div> + <div class='line'>The blackguard, the....’<a id='r127'></a><a href='#f127' class='c015'><sup>[127]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>In the evening Skaryatka suddenly remembered +that it was his name-day, told a tale of how advantageously +he had sold a horse, and invited the students to his +quarters, promising them a dozen of champagne. They +all went, the champagne appeared, and the host, staggering, +proposed that they should once more sing Sokolovsky’s +song. In the middle of the singing the door opened +and Tsinsky with the police walked in. All this was +crude, stupid, clumsy, and at the same time unsuccessful.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The police wanted to catch us; they were looking for +external evidence to involve in the case some five or six +men whom they had already marked, and only succeeded +in catching twenty innocent persons.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is not easy, however, to disconcert the Russian +police. Within a fortnight they arrested us as implicated +in the supper case. In Sokolovsky’s possession they +found letters from S——, in S——’s possession letters +from Ogaryov, and in Ogaryov’s possession my letters. +Nevertheless, nothing was discovered. The first investigation +failed. To ensure the success of the second, the +Tsar sent from Petersburg the choicest of the inquisitors, +A. F. Golitsyn.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This kind of person is rare in Russia. It is represented +among us by Mordvinov, the famous head of the +Third Section, Pelikan, the rector of Vilna, and a few +accommodating Letts and degraded Poles.<a id='r128'></a><a href='#f128' class='c015'><sup>[128]</sup></a> But unluckily +for the inquisition, Staal, the Commandant of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>Moscow, was appointed the first member. Staal, a +straightforward military man, a gallant old general, went +into the case and found that it consisted of two circumstances +that had no connection with each other: the affair +of the supper party, for which the police ought to be +punished, and the arrest for no apparent reason of persons +whose only guilt, so far as could be seen, lay in certain +half-expressed opinions, for which it would be both +difficult and absurd to try them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Staal’s opinion did not please Golitsyn junior. The +dispute between them took a bitter character; the old +warrior flared up, wrathfully struck the floor with his +sabre and said: ‘Instead of ruining people, you had +better draw up a report on the advisability of closing all +the schools and universities; that would warn other unfortunate +youths; however, you can do what you like, +but you must do it without me. I won’t set foot in the +committee again.’ With these words the old man +hurriedly left the room.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tsar was informed of this the same day.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the morning when the commandant appeared with +his report, the Tsar asked him why he would not attend +the committee; Staal told him why.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What nonsense!’ replied the Tsar, ‘to quarrel with +Golitsyn, for shame! I trust you will attend the committee +as before.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Sire,’ answered Staal, ‘spare my grey hairs. I have +lived to reach them without the slightest stain on my +honour. My zeal is known to your Majesty, my blood, +the remnant of my days are yours, but this is a question +of my honour—my conscience revolts against what is +being done in the committee.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tsar frowned. Staal bowed himself out, and +was not once in the committee afterwards.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This anecdote, the accuracy of which is not open to +the slightest doubt, throws great light on the character +<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>of Nicholas. How was it that it did not enter his head +that if a man whom he could not but respect, a brave +warrior, an old man who had won his position, so obstinately +besought him to spare his honour, the case could +not be quite clean? He could not have done less than +insist on Staal’s explaining the matter in the presence of +Golitsyn. He did not do this, but gave orders that we +should be confined more strictly.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When he had gone there were only enemies of the +accused in the committee, presided over by a simple-hearted +old man, Prince S. M. Golitsyn, who knew as +little about the case nine months after it had begun +as he did nine months before it began. He preserved +a dignified silence, very rarely put in a word, and at the +end of an examination invariably asked: ‘May we let +him go?’ ‘We may,’ Golitsyn junior would answer, +and the senior would say with dignity to the prisoner, +‘You may go.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My first examination lasted four hours.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The questions were of two kinds. The object of the +first was to discover a manner of thinking, ‘in opposition +to the spirit of government, revolutionary opinions, +imbued with the pernicious doctrines of Saint Simon,’ +as Golitsyn junior and the auditor Oransky expressed it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These questions were easy, but they were hardly +questions. In the papers and letters that had been +seized, the opinions were fairly simply expressed; the +questions could in reality only relate to the substantial +fact of whether a man had or had not written the words +in question. The committee thought it necessary to +add to every written phrase, ‘How do you explain the +following passage in your letter?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of course it was useless to explain; I wrote evasive and +empty phrases in reply. In one letter the auditor +discovered the phrase: ‘All constitutional parties lead +to nothing, they are contracts between a master and his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>slaves; the problem is not to make things better for the +slaves, but to put an end to their being slaves.’ When +I had to explain this phrase I observed that I saw +no obligation to defend constitutional government, and +that, if I had defended it, it would have been charged +against me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘A constitutional form of government may be attacked +from two sides,’ Golitsyn junior observed in his nervous +hissing voice; ‘you do not attack it from the point of +view of monarchy, or you would not talk about slaves.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘In that I err in company with the Empress +Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>, who ordered that her subjects should +not be called slaves.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Golitsyn, breathless with anger at this ironical reply, +said: ‘You seem to imagine that we are assembled here +to conduct scholastic arguments, that you are defending +a thesis in the university.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘With what object, then, do you ask for explanations?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You appear not to understand what is wanted of you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I don’t understand.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What obstinacy there is in all of them,’ Golitsyn +senior, the president, added, shrugging his shoulders and +glancing at Shubensky, the colonel of gendarmes. I +smiled. ‘Just like Ogaryov,’ the simple-hearted president +observed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A pause followed, the committee was assembled in +Golitsyn senior’s library; I turned to the bookshelves and +began examining the books. Among other things there +was an edition in many volumes of the works of Saint +Simon. ‘Here,’ I said, turning to the president, ‘is it +not unjust? I am being tried on account of Saint-Simonism, +while you, prince, have twenty volumes of +his works.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>As the good-natured old man had never read anything +in his life, he could not think what to answer. But +Golitsyn junior looked at me with the eyes of a viper and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>asked: ‘Don’t you see that those are the memoirs of the +Duc de Saint Simon of the time of Louis <span class='fss'>XIV.</span>?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The president with a smile gave me a nod that signified, +‘Well, my boy, you put your foot in it, didn’t you?’ +and said, ‘You can go.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I was in the doorway the president asked: ‘Is +he the one who wrote about Peter the Great, that thing +you were showing me?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes,’ answered Shubensky.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I stopped.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘<em>Il a des moyens</em>,’ observed the president.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So much the worse. Poison in clever hands is all +the more dangerous,’ added the inquisitor; ‘a very +pernicious and quite incorrigible young man.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>My sentence lay in those words.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Apropos of Saint Simon. When the police-master +seized Ogaryov’s books and papers, he laid aside a volume +of Thiers’ <cite>History of the French Revolution</cite>, then found a +second volume, a third, up to an eighth. At last he could +bear it no longer, and said: ‘Good Lord, what a number +of revolutionary books ... and here is another,’ he +added, giving the policeman Cuvier’s <em>Discours sur les +Révolutions du Globe Terrestre</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The second kind of question was more complicated. +In them all sorts of police traps and inquisitional tricks +were made use of to confuse, entangle, and involve +one in contradictions. Hints of evidence given by +others and all sorts of moral tests were employed. It is +not worth while to repeat them, it is enough to say that +all their devices did not draw any of the four of us into +conflicting statements.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After I had received my last question, I was sitting +alone in the little room in which we wrote. All at once +the door opened and Golitsyn junior walked in with +a gloomy and anxious face. ‘I have come,’ he said, +‘to have a few words with you before your evidence is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>completed. My late father’s long connection with yours +makes me take a special interest in you. You are young +and may still make a career; to do so you must clear +yourself of this affair ... and fortunately it depends +on yourself. Your father has taken your arrest deeply +to heart and is living now in the hope that you will be +released: Prince Sergey Mihailovitch and I have just +been speaking about it and we are genuinely ready to do +all we can; give us the means of assisting you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I saw the drift of his words, the blood rushed to my +head, I gnawed my pen with vexation. He went on: +‘You are going straight under the white strap, or to the +fortress, on the way you will kill your father; he will not +survive the day when he sees you in the grey overcoat +of a soldier.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I tried to say something but he interrupted me:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I know what you want to say. Have a little +patience! That you had designs against the government +is evident. To merit the mercy of the Most High you must +give proofs of your penitence. You are obstinate, you give +evasive answers and from a false sense of honour you +spare men of whom we know more than you do and <em>who +have not been so discreet as you</em><a id='r129'></a><a href='#f129' class='c015'><sup>[129]</sup></a>; you will not help them, +and they will drag you down with them to ruin. Write +a letter to the committee, simply, frankly, say that you +feel your guilt, that you were led away by your youth, +name the unfortunate, misguided men who have led you +astray.... Are you willing at this easy price to purchase +your future and your father’s life?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I know nothing and have not a word to add to my +evidence,’ I replied.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Golitsyn got up and said coldly: ‘As you please, it +is not our fault!’ With that the examination ended.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the January or February of 1835 I was before the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>committee for the last time. I was summoned to read +through my answers, to add to them if I wished, and to +sign them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Only Shubensky was present. When I had finished +reading them over I said to him: ‘I should like to know +what charge can be made against a man upon these +questions and upon these answers? Under what article +of the Code do you bring me?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The Imperial Code is drawn up for criminals of a +different kind,’ observed the light-blue colonel.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s a different point. After reading over all +these literary exercises, I cannot believe that that makes +up the whole charge on account of which I have been in +prison over six months.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But do you really imagine,’ replied Shubensky, ‘that +we believe you that you have not formed a secret society?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Where is the society?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It is your luck that no traces have been found, that +you have not succeeded in doing anything. We stopped +you in time, that is, to speak plainly, we have saved you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was the story of the locksmith’s wife and her husband +in Gogol’s <cite>Inspector General</cite> over again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When I had signed, Shubensky rang the bell and told +them to summon the priest. The priest came up and +wrote below my signature that all the evidence had been +given by me voluntarily and without any compulsion. +I need hardly say that he had not been present at the +examination, and that he had not even the decency to +ask me how it had been. (It was my impartial witness +outside the gate again!)</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the end of the investigation, prison conditions were +somewhat relaxed. Members of our families could +obtain permits for interviews. So passed another two +months.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the middle of March our sentence was ratified. No +one knew what it was; some said we were being sent to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>the Caucasus, others that we should be taken to Bobruisk, +others again hoped that we should all be released (this +was the sentence which was proposed by Staal and +sent separately by him to the Tsar; he advised that +our imprisonment should be taken as equivalent to +punishment).</p> + +<p class='c014'>At last, on 20th March, we were all assembled at Prince +Golitsyn’s to hear our sentence. This was a gala day for +us. We saw each other for the first time after our arrest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Noisily, gaily embracing and shaking hands, we stood +surrounded by a cordon of gendarmes and garrison officers. +This meeting cheered us all up; there was no end to the +questions and the anecdotes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Sokolovsky was present, pale and somewhat thinner, +but as brilliantly amusing as ever.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The author of <cite>The Fabric of the World</cite> and of +<cite>Heveri</cite> and other rather good poems, had naturally +great poetic talent, but was not wildly original enough +to dispense with culture, nor sufficiently well-educated +to develop his talent. A charming rake, a poet in life, +he was not in the least a political man. He was amusing, +charming, a merry companion in merry moments, a ‘bon +vivant,’ fond of having a good time, as we all were, +perhaps a little too much so.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Having dropped accidentally from a carousal into +prison, Sokolovsky behaved extremely well, he grew up +in confinement. The auditor of the committee, a pedant, +a pietist, a detective, who had grown thin and grey-headed +in envy and slander, not daring from religion and +devotion to the throne to understand the last two verses +of his poem in their grammatical sense, asked Sokolovsky +‘to whom do those rude words at the end of the song +refer?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Rest assured,’ said Sokolovsky, ‘not to the Tsar, +and I would particularly draw your attention to that +extenuating circumstance.’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>The auditor shrugged his shoulders, turned up his +eyes to the ceiling and after gazing a long time in silence +at Sokolovsky took a pinch of snuff.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Sokolovsky was arrested in Petersburg and sent to +Moscow without being told where he was being taken. +The police often perpetrate these jests among us, and quite +unnecessarily. It is the form their creative fancy takes. +There is no occupation in the world so prosaic, so revolting +that it has not its artistic yearnings, its craving for decoration +and adornment. Sokolovsky was taken straight +to prison and put into a dark cell. Why was he put in +prison while we were kept in barracks?</p> + +<p class='c014'>He had two or three shirts with him and nothing else +at all. In England every one on being brought into +prison is at once put into a bath, but with us they take +every precaution against cleanliness.</p> + +<p class='c014'>If Dr. Haas had not sent Sokolovsky a bundle of his +own linen he would have been crusted with dirt.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Dr. Haas was a very original eccentric person. The +memory of this ‘crazy and fanatical’ man ought not to +be lost in the rubbish heap of official necrologies describing +the virtues of persons of the first two grades which +no one ever heard of before their death.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A thin little, waxen-looking old man, in a black, +swallow-tail coat, short trousers, black silk stockings and +shoes with buckles, he looked as though he had just come +out of some drama of the eighteenth century. In this +<em>grand gala</em> of funerals and weddings, and in the agreeable +climate of the northern latitude of fifty-nine degrees, +Haas used every week to drive to the étape on the Sparrow +Hills when a batch of convicts were being sent off. In +the capacity of prison doctor he had access to them, he +used to go to inspect them and always brought with him +a basket full of all manner of things, provisions and +dainties of all sorts—walnuts, cakes, oranges, and apples, +for the women. This aroused the wrath and indignation +<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>of the benevolent ladies who were afraid of giving pleasure +by philanthropy, and afraid of being more charitable +than was necessary to save the convicts from dying of +hunger and cold.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But Haas was not easy to move, and after listening +mildly to reproaches for his ‘foolish spoiling of the female +convicts,’ would rub his hands and say: ‘Be so kind to +see, gracious madam, a bit of bread, a copper every one +will give them, but a sweet or an orange for long they +will see not, no one gives them, that I can from your +words deduce; I do them this pleasure for that it will not +a long time be repeated.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Haas lived in the hospital. A patient came before +dinner to consult him. Haas examined him and went +into his study to write some prescription. On his return +he found neither the patient nor the silver forks and spoons +which had been lying on the table. Haas called the +porter and asked him if any one had come in besides the +patient. The porter grasped the position, rushed out +and returned a minute later with the spoons and the +patient, whom he had stopped with the help of another +hospital porter. The rascal fell at the doctor’s feet and +besought mercy. Haas was overcome with confusion.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Go for the police,’ he said to one of the porters, and +to the other, ‘and you send the secretary here at once.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The porters, pleased at the capture and at their share +in the business altogether, ran off, and Haas, taking +advantage of their absence, said to the thief, ‘You are +a false man, you have deceived and tried to rob me. God +will judge you ... and now run quickly to the back +gates before the porters come back ... but stay, +perhaps you have no money, here is half a rouble, but +try to reform your soul; from God you will not escape +as from the policeman.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At this even the members of his own household protested. +But the incorrigible doctor maintained his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>point: ‘Theft is a great vice; but I know the police, +I know how they torment them—they will question him, +they will flog him; to give up one’s neighbour to the +lash is a far worse vice; besides, who can tell, perhaps +what I have done may touch his heart!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>His friends shook their heads and said, ‘<em>Er hat einen +raptus</em>’; the benevolent ladies said, ‘<i><span lang="fr">C’est un brave +homme mais ce n’est pas tout à fait en règle, cela</span></i>,’ and +tapped their foreheads. And Haas rubbed his hands +and went his own way.</p> + +<p class='c014'>... Sokolovsky had hardly finished his anecdotes, +when several others speaking at once began to tell theirs; +it was as though we had all returned from a long journey—there +was no end to the questions, jokes, and witticisms.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Physically, S—— had suffered more than the rest; +he was thin and had lost part of his hair. He had been +at his mother’s in the country in the Tambov province +when he heard that we had been arrested, and at once +set off for Moscow, for fear that his mother should be +alarmed by a visit of the gendarmes, but he caught cold +on the way and reached home in a high fever. The +police found him in bed, and it was impossible to move +him to the police station. He was placed under arrest +at home, a soldier of the police station was put on guard +in the bedroom and the local police superintendent was +told off to act as brother-of-mercy by the patient’s bedside, +so that on recovering consciousness after delirium +he met the attentive glance of the one, or the battered +countenance of the other.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the beginning of the winter he was moved to the +Lefortovsky Hospital; it appeared there was not a +single empty private room for a prisoner, but such trifles +were not deemed worth considering; a corner screened +off apart, with no stove, was found, the sick man was put +in this southern verandah and a sentry told off to watch +him. What the temperature in this hole was in winter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>may be judged from the fact that the sentry was so +benumbed with cold at night that he would go into the +corridor to warm himself at the stove, begging S—— not +to tell of it. The hospital authorities themselves saw +that such tropical quarters were impossible in a latitude +so near the pole, and moved S—— to a room near the +one in which frost-bitten patients were rubbed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before we had time to describe and listen to half our +adventures, the adjutants began suddenly bustling about, +the gendarmes’ officers drew themselves up, and the police +set themselves to rights: the door opened solemnly and +little Prince Sergey Mihailovitch Golitsyn walked in +<em>en grande tenue</em> with a ribbon across his shoulder; +Tsinsky was in a uniform of the suite, even the auditor, +Oransky, put on some sort of pale-green civil-military +uniform for the joyful occasion. The commandant, of +course, had not come.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Meanwhile the noise and laughter had risen to such +a pitch that the auditor came fiercely into the room and +observed that loud conversation and, above all, laughter +seemed a flagrant disrespect to the will of the Most High, +which we were about to hear.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The doors were opened. Officers divided us into +three groups: in the first was Sokolovsky, the painter +Utkin, and an officer called Ibaev; we were in the +second; in the third, <em>tutti frutti</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The sentence regarding the first category was read +aloud. It was terrible; condemned for high treason, +they were sent to the Schlüsselburg for an indefinite +period. When Oransky, drawling to give himself +dignity, read with emphasis that for ‘insulting the +Majesty and Most August Family, <em>et cetera</em>,’ Sokolovsky +observed: ‘Well, I never insulted the family.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Among his papers besides this poem were found some +resolutions written in jest as though by the Grand +Duke Michael Pavlovitch, with intentional mistakes in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>spelling, and those orthographical errors helped to convict +him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tsinsky, to show that he could be free and easy and +affable, said to Sokolovsky after the sentence: ‘Hey, +have you ever been in Schlüsselburg before?’ ‘Last +year,’ Sokolovsky answered promptly, ‘as though I knew +what was coming, I drank a bottle of Madeira there.’ +Two years later Utkin died in the fortress. Sokolovsky, +half dead, was released and sent to the Caucasus; he +died at Pyatigorsk. Some remnant of shame and +conscience led the government after the death of two +to transfer the third to Perm. Ibaev only died in the +spiritual sense: he became a mystic.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Utkin, ‘a free artist confined in prison,’ as he described +himself at the examinations, was a man of forty; he had +never taken part in any kind of political affair, but, being +of a generous and impulsive temperament, he gave free +rein to his tongue in the committee and was abrupt and +rude in his answers. For this he was done to death in +a damp cell, in which the water trickled down the walls.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Ibaev’s greater guilt lay in his epaulettes. Had he +not been an officer, he would never have been so punished. +The man had happened to be present at some supper +party, had probably drunk too much and sung like all the +rest, but certainly neither more nor louder than the +others.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our turn came. Oransky wiped his spectacles, +cleared his throat, and began reverently announcing the +will of the Most High. The Tsar, after examining the +report of the committee and taking into special consideration +the youth of the criminals, <em>commanded that we +should not be brought to trial</em>, and informed us that by law +we ought, as men guilty of high treason by singing +seditious songs, to lose our lives or, alternatively, to be +sentenced to penal servitude for life. Instead of this, +the Tsar in his infinite mercy forgave the greater number +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>of the guilty, leaving them in their present abode under +the supervision of the police. The more guilty among +them he commanded to be put under reformatory treatment, +which consisted in being sent to civilian duty for +an indefinite period to remote provinces, to live under the +superintendence of the local police authorities.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It appeared that there were six of the ‘more guilty’: +Ogaryov, S——, Lahtin, Obolensky, Sorokin, and I. +I was to be sent to Perm. Among those condemned was +Lahtin, who had not been arrested at all. When he was +summoned to the committee to hear the sentence, he +supposed that it was as a warning, to be punished by +hearing how others were punished. The story was that +some one of Prince Golitsyn’s circle, being angry with +Lahtin’s wife, had prepared this agreeable surprise for +him. A man of delicate health, he died three years +later in exile.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When Oransky had finished reading, Colonel Shubensky +stepped forward. In choice language and in the +style of Lomonossov he informed us that it was due to +the good offices of the noble gentleman who had presided +at the committee that the Tsar had been so merciful.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Shubensky waited for all of us to thank Prince Golitsyn, +but this did not come off.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Some of those who were pardoned nodded, stealing +a stealthy glance at us as they did so.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We stood with folded arms, making not the slightest +sign that our hearts were touched by the Imperial and +princely mercy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then Shubensky thought of another dodge and, +addressing Ogaryov, said: ‘You are going to Penza; do +you imagine that that is by chance? Your father is +lying paralysed at Penza and the prince besought the Tsar +to fix that town, that your being near might to some +extent alleviate the blow of your exile for him. Do you +not think you have reason to thank the prince?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>There was no help for it, Ogaryov made a slight bow. +This was what they were trying to get.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The good-natured old man was pleased at this, and +next, I don’t know why, he summoned me. I stepped +forward with the devout intention of not thanking him +whatever he or Shubensky might say; besides, I was +being sent farther away than any and to the nastiest town.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You are going to Perm,’ said Prince Golitsyn. I +said nothing. He was disconcerted and, to say something, +added, ‘I have an estate there.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Would you care to send some commission through me +to your steward?’ I asked with a smile.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I do not give commissions to people like you—Carbonari,’ +added the resourceful old man.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Then what do you wish of me?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Nothing.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I thought you called me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You can go,’ Shubensky interposed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Allow me,’ I replied, ‘since I am here to remind you +that you told me, Colonel, last time I was before the +committee, that no one accused me of being connected +with the supper-party affair. Yet in the sentence it is +stated that I was one of those guilty in connection with +that affair. There is some mistake here.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Do you wish to protest against the decision of the +Most High?’ observed Shubensky. ‘You had better +take care that Perm is not changed to something worse. +I shall order your words to be taken down.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I meant to ask you to do so. In the sentence the words +occur “on the report of the committee.” I am protesting +against your report and not against the will of +the Most High. I appeal to the prince: there was no +question in my case of a supper party or of songs, was +there?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘As though you do not know,’ said Shubensky, beginning +to turn pale with wrath, ‘that you are ten times +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>more guilty than those who were at the supper party. +He now’—he pointed to one of those who had been +pardoned—‘in a state of intoxication sang some filthy +song, but afterwards he begged forgiveness on his knees +with tears. But you are still far from a sign of penitence.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The gentleman at whom the colonel pointed said +nothing, but hung his head and flushed crimson....</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was a good lesson, much good his meanness did +him!...</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Excuse me, it is not the point whether my guilt is +greater or not,’ I went on, ‘but, if I am a murderer, I +don’t want to be considered a thief. I don’t want it +to be said of me, even in justification, that I did something +in a “state of intoxication,” as you expressed it +just now.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘If I had a son who showed such stubbornness I would +myself beg the Tsar to send him to Siberia.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At this point the chief police-master interposed some +incoherent nonsense. It is a pity that Golitsyn junior +was not present, it would have been an opportunity for +his eloquence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It all ended, of course, in nothing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Lahtin went up to Prince Golitsyn and begged that +his departure might be deferred. ‘My wife is with child,’ +he said.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I am not responsible for that,’ answered Golitsyn.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A wild beast, a mad dog when it bites, looks grave and +sticks up its tail, but this crazy aristocrat, though he had +the reputation of a good-natured man, was not ashamed +to make this vulgar joke.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We were left once more for a quarter of an hour in +the room, and, in spite of the zealous upbraidings of the +gendarmes and police officers, warmly embraced one +another and took a long farewell. Except Obolensky I +saw none of them again until I came back from Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Departure was before us.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>Prison had been a continuation of our past; but our +departure into the wilds was a complete break with it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our youthful existence in our circle of friends was +over.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our exile would probably last several years. Where +and how should we meet, and should we ever meet?...</p> + +<p class='c014'>I regretted my old life, and I had to leave it so abruptly ... without saying good-bye. I had no hope of seeing +Ogaryov. Two of my friends had succeeded in seeing +me during the last few days, but that was not enough +for me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>If I could but once again see my youthful comforter +and press her hand, as I had pressed it in the graveyard.... +I longed both to take leave of my past and to greet +my future in her person....</p> + +<p class='c014'>We did see each other for a few minutes on the 9th +of April 1835, on the day before I was sent off into exile.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For years I kept that day sacred in my memory; it was +one of the happiest moments in my life.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Why must the thought of that day and of all the bright +days of my past bring back so much that is terrible?... +The grave, the wreath of dark-red roses, two children +holding my hand—torches, crowds of exiles, the moon, +the warm sea under the mountain-side, the words that +I did not understand and that wrung my heart....</p> + +<p class='c014'>All is over!</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 13<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Exile—The Mayor at Pokrovo—The Volga—Perm</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>On the morning of the 10th of April an officer of +gendarmes took me to the house of the governor-general. +There, in the private part of the building, +my relatives were allowed to come and say good-bye +to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of course it was all awkward and wrung the heart; +the prying spies and clerks, the reading of the instructions +to the gendarme who was to take me, the impossibility +of saying anything without witnesses: in fact, more distressing +and painful surroundings could not be imagined.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I heaved a sigh of relief when at last the carriage rolled +off along Vladimirka.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘Per me si va nella città dolente,</div> + <div class='line'>Per me si va nel eterno dolore——’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>At a station somewhere I wrote those two lines, which +apply equally well to the portals of Hell and the Siberian +high-road.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Seven versts from Moscow there is a restaurant called +‘Perov’s’; there one of my most intimate friends had +promised to wait for me. I suggested to the gendarme +a drink of vodka. It was a long way from the town. +We went in, but my friend was not there. I tried every +device to linger in the tavern; at last the gendarme would +stay no longer and the driver was starting the horses—when +suddenly a troika dashed up straight to the +restaurant. I flew to the door ... two strangers, +merchants’ sons, out for a spree, noisily dismounted from +the chaise. I looked into the distance—not one moving +point, not one man could be seen on the road to Moscow ... it was bitter to get in and drive off. I gave the +driver twenty kopecks, and we flew like an arrow +from the bow.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>We drove without stopping; the gendarme had been +ordered to do not less than two hundred versts in the +twenty-four hours. This would have been quite endurable +at any time but the beginning of April. In +places the road was covered with ice, in places with mud +and water; moreover, as we drove towards Siberia it +got worse and worse at every station.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The first incident of my journey was at Pokrovo.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We had lost several hours owing to the ice which was +floating down the river and cutting off all communication +with the opposite bank. The gendarme was in a nervous +fidget; all at once the superintendent of the posting-station +at Pokrovo announced that there were no horses. +The gendarme pointed out that in the permit he was +instructed to give them couriers’ horses if there were no +post horses. The superintendent replied that those +horses had been taken by the Deputy Minister of Home +Affairs. I need hardly say that the gendarme began to +quarrel and made a row. The superintendent ran to try +and get private horses and the gendarme went with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I got tired of waiting for them in the superintendent’s +dirty room. I went out at the gate and began walking +in front of the house. It was my first walk unescorted +by a soldier after nine months’ imprisonment.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I had walked up and down for half an hour when +suddenly I was met by a man wearing a uniform with +epaulettes and a blue <em>pour le mérite</em> on his neck. He +looked at me with marked persistence, passed me, and +at once turning back asked me with a fierce air: ‘Is it +you who are being taken by a gendarme to Perm?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes,’ I answered without stopping.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Excuse me, excuse me, but how dare he?...’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘With whom have I the honour to speak?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I am the mayor,’ answered the stranger in a voice +which betrayed a profound sense of the dignity of that +public position. ‘Upon my soul! I am expecting the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>Deputy Minister from hour to hour, and here there are +political prisoners walking about the streets. What an +ass your gendarme is!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Will you please address yourself to the gendarme in +person.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It is not a matter of addressing myself, I’ll arrest him. +I’ll order him a hundred strokes and send you on with a +policeman.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I nodded without waiting for him to finish his speech +and strode rapidly back into the station.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the window I could hear him fuming at the +gendarme and threatening all sorts of things. The +gendarme apologised but did not seem much frightened. +Three minutes later they both came in. I was sitting +turned toward the window and did not look at them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the mayor’s questions to the gendarme, I saw +that he was consumed by the desire to find out for what +offence, how and why, I was being sent into exile. I +remained obstinately silent. The mayor began addressing +me and the gendarme indiscriminately: ‘No one +cares to enter into our position. Do you suppose it is +pleasant for me to have to swear at a soldier and cause +unpleasantness to a man whom I have never seen in my +life? It is the responsibility! The mayor is in charge +of the town. Whatever happens, I have to answer for +it; if government funds are stolen, it is my fault; if the +church is burnt down, it is my fault; if there are a great +many men drunk in the street, it is my fault; if there is +not enough liquor drunk, it is my fault too’ (the last +phrase pleased him very much and he went on in a more +cheerful tone). ‘It’s a good thing you met me, but if +you had met the Minister and you walking up and down, +he would have asked, how is this, a political prisoner out +for a walk? Put the mayor under arrest....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At last I was weary of his eloquence and, turning to +him, I said: ‘Do what your duty requires, but I beg you +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>to spare me your admonitions. I see from what you say +that you expect me to bow to you; it is not my habit to +bow to strangers.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The mayor was confused.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It is always like that among us,’ A—— A—— used to +say; ‘whichever is first to begin scolding and shouting +always gets the best of it. If you allow an official to +raise his voice, you are lost; hearing himself yelling, he +becomes a wild beast. If at his first rude word you begin +shouting, he is invariably scared and gives way, thinking +you are a determined person and that such persons had +better not be irritated too much.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The mayor sent the gendarme to inquire about horses +and, turning to me, observed by way of apology: ‘I +have acted like this for the sake of the soldier; you don’t +know what our soldiers are like—one must not allow the +slightest slackness, but, believe me, I can discriminate—allow +me to ask you what unlucky chance....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘At the conclusion of our trial we were forbidden to +speak of it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘In that case.... Of course.... I do not venture ...’ and the mayor’s eyes expressed agonies of curiosity. +He paused.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I had a distant relative, he was a year in the Peter-Paul +fortress. You see, I, too—excuse me, it worries me. +I believe you are still angry? I am a military man, +stern, accustomed to the service; I went into the regiment +at seventeen. I have a hasty temper, but it is all over +in a minute. I won’t touch your gendarme, the devil +take him entirely....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The gendarme came in with the reply that the horses +could not be driven in from the grazing-ground in less +than an hour.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The mayor informed him that he forgave him on my +intercession. Then turning to me he added:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And to show that you are not angry, you will not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>refuse my request. I live only two doors away; allow +me to ask you to take pot-luck at lunch with me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was so funny after our encounter that I went to +the mayor’s and ate his dried sturgeon and caviare and +drank his vodka and Madeira.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He became so affable that he told me all his domestic +affairs, even describing his wife’s illness which had lasted +seven years. After luncheon he took with proud satisfaction +a letter from a vase standing on the table and gave +me to read ‘a poem’ by his son, deemed worthy of being +read in public at the examination for the Cadet School. +After obliging me with such marks of complete confidence, +he adroitly passed to an indirect question about my case. +This time I partly gratified his curiosity.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This mayor reminded me of the secretary of the +district court of whom our friend Shtchepkin used to +tell: ‘Nine police-captains came and went, but the +secretary remained unchanged, and went on managing +the district as before. “How is it you get on with all +of them?” Shtchepkin asked him. “Oh, it’s nothing; +with God’s help we get round them somehow. Some +certainly were hot-tempered at first, would stamp with +their forelegs and their hindlegs, shout, swear for all they +were worth, say they’d kick me out, and they’d report +me to the governor—well, as you see, I know my place, +one holds one’s tongue and thinks; give him time, he’ll +be broken in! This is just first being in harness! And, +as a matter of fact, they can be driven all right!”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>When we reached Kazan the Volga was in all the glory +of the spring floods. The whole distance from Uslon +to Kazan we had to float on a punt, the river had overflowed +for fifteen versts or more. It was a cloudy day. +The ferry had broken down, a number of carts and +conveyances of all sorts were waiting on the bank. The +gendarme went to the station superintendent and asked +for a punt. The man gave it reluctantly, saying that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>it would be better to wait, that it was not safe to cross. +The gendarme was in a hurry because he was drunk and +because he wanted to show his power.</p> + +<p class='c014'>They put my carriage on a little punt and we floated +off. The weather seemed calmer. Half an hour later +the Tatar put up a sail, when suddenly the storm began +to rage again. We were carried along with such violence +that, running upon a log, we crashed against it so that the +wretched punt was broken and the water poured over +the deck. The position was disagreeable; however, the +Tatar succeeded in getting the punt on to a sandbank. +A merchant’s barge came into sight. We shouted to it +and asked them to send a boat; the bargemen heard us +and floated by without doing anything.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A peasant came up with his wife in a little canoe made +out of a tree-trunk, asked us what was the matter, and, +remarking ‘Well, what of it? Stop up the hole and +go your way rejoicing. What’s there to mope about? +It’s because you are a Tatar, I suppose, you can’t do +anything,’ climbed on to the punt.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tatar certainly was very much alarmed. First, +when the water had poured over the sleeping gendarme, +the latter had leapt up and at once began beating the +Tatar. Secondly, the boat was government property, +and the Tatar kept repeating: ‘Here it will go to the +bottom, what will become of me! what will become +of me!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I comforted him by saying that if it went to the bottom +he would go with it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It is all right, master, if I drown, but how if I +don’t?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The peasant and the others stopped up the hole with +all sorts of things. The peasant struck it with his axe +and knocked in some little plank; then, up to his waist +in the water, helped to drag the punt off the sandbank +and we were soon floating off into the channel of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Volga. The river rushed us along savagely. The wind +and the sleet cut the face, the cold penetrated to the bone, +but soon the monument of Ivan the Terrible began to +stand out from the fog and the floods of water. It +seemed as though the danger were over, when suddenly +the Tatar shouted in a plaintive voice, ‘A leak, a leak!’ +and the water began pouring vigorously in at the hole +that had been stuffed up. We were in the very centre +of the river, the punt moved more and more slowly, one +could foresee that it would soon sink altogether. The +Tatar took off his cap and prayed. My valet, overcome +with terror, wept and said: ‘Farewell, mother, I shall +not see you again.’ The gendarme swore and vowed +to thrash them all as soon as they got to the bank.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At first I too was frightened; besides, the wind and the +rain added confusion and uproar. But the thought that +it was absurd that I should perish without having <em>done +anything</em>, that youthful ‘<em>Quid timeas, Caesarem vehis!</em>’ +got the upper hand and I calmly awaited the end, convinced +that I could not perish between Uslon and Kazan. +Later on, life breaks us of this proud confidence and +punishes us for it; that is why youth is bold and full of +heroism, while with the years a man grows cautious and +is rarely carried away.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A quarter of an hour later, we were ashore near the +walls of the Kazan Kremlin, drenched and shivering. I +went into the nearest tavern, drank off a glass of foaming +wine, ate a fried egg, and set off to the post-office.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In villages and little towns there is a room at the +posting-station for travellers, in big towns every one puts +up at hotels and there is nothing at the posting-stations +for travellers. I was taken to the posting-station. The +superintendent of the station showed me his room; there +were women and children in it and a sick and bedridden +old man; there was absolutely not a corner where I could +change my clothes. I wrote a letter to the general of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>gendarmes and asked him to assign a room to me somewhere +that I might get warm and dry my clothes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>An hour later the gendarme returned and said that +Count Apraxin had ordered that a room should be given +me. I waited a couple of hours; no one came and I +sent the gendarme off again. He came back with the +answer that Colonel Pol, to whom the General had given +the order to find me a room, was playing cards at the +Nobles’ Club and that a room could not be found me till +next day.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was barbarous; and I wrote a second letter to +Count Apraxin asking him to send me on immediately, +saying that I might find shelter at the next posting-station. +The Count was graciously pleased to be in bed, +and the letter was left until the morning. There was +nothing for it. I took off my wet clothes and lay down +on the table of the post-office wrapped in the greatcoat +of the ‘elder’; for a pillow I took a thick book and laid +some linen upon it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the morning I sent out for some breakfast. The +post-office officials were by now assembling. The clerk +in charge submitted to me that it really was not the right +thing to have breakfast in a public office, that it did not +matter to him personally, but that the postmaster might +not like it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I answered him jocosely that a man cannot be turned +out who has no right to go, and if he has no right +to go he is obliged to eat and drink where he is +detained....</p> + +<p class='c014'>Next day Count Apraxin gave me permission to remain +three days in Kazan and to put up at the hotel.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I spent those three days wandering about the town +with the gendarme. The Tatar women with their +covered faces, their broad-cheeked husbands, mosques +of the true faith side by side with orthodox churches, +all was suggestive of Asia and the East. In Vladimir, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>in Nizhni there is a feeling of nearness to Moscow, here +of remoteness from her.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Perm I was taken straight to the governor. He was +holding a great reception; his daughter was being married +that day to an officer. He insisted on my going in, and +I had to present myself to the whole society of Perm in +a dirty travelling coat, covered with mud and dust. The +governor, after talking all sorts of nonsense, forbade me +to make acquaintance with the Polish exiles and ordered +me to come to him in a few days, saying that then he +would find me work in the office.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This governor was a Little Russian; he did not oppress +the exiles, and altogether was a harmless person. He +was improving his position somehow on the sly, like +a mole working unseen underground; he was adding +grain to grain and laying by a little hourly for a rainy +day.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From some inexplicable idea of discipline, he used +to order all the exiles who lived in Perm to appear before +him at ten o’clock in the morning on Saturdays. He +would come out with his pipe and a list, verify whether +we were all present, and, if any one was not, send a +policeman to find out the reason and, after saying scarcely +anything to any one, would dismiss us. In this way in +his reception-room I became acquainted with all the +Polish exiles, whose acquaintance he had warned me I +must not make.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The day after my arrival the gendarme went away, +and for the first time since my arrest I found myself in +freedom.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In freedom ... in a little town on the Siberian +frontier, with no experience, with no conception of the +surroundings in which I had to live.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the nursery I had passed into the lecture-room, +from the lecture-room to a circle of friends—it had all +been theories, dreams, my own people, no practical +<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>responsibilities. Then prison to let it all settle. Practical +contact with life was beginning here near the Ural +Mountains.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It began at once; the day after my arrival, I went +with a porter from the governor’s office to look for a +lodging and he took me to a big house of one storey. In +spite of my protesting that I was looking for a very little +house or, still better, part of a house, he obstinately +insisted on my going in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The landlady made me sit down on her sofa and, learning +that I came from Moscow, asked if I had seen Mr. +Kabrit in Moscow. I told her that I had never even +heard the name.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘How is that?’ observed the old woman; ‘I mean +Kabrit,’ and she mentioned his Christian name and his +father’s name. ‘Upon my word, sir, why, he was our +vice-governor!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But I have been nine months in prison, perhaps that +is why I have not heard of him,’ I said, smiling.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Maybe that is it. So you will take the house, my +good sir?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It is too big, much too big; I told the man so.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You can’t have too much of a good thing,’ she said.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That is so, but you will want more rent for so much +of a good thing.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ah, my good sir, but who has talked to you about +my price? I have not said a word about it yet.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But I know that such a house cannot be cheap.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘How much will you give?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>To get rid of her, I said that I would not give more +than three hundred and fifty roubles.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, I would be thankful for that. Bid the man +bring your bits of trunks, darling, and take a little glass +of Teneriffe.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Her price seemed to me fabulously low. I took the +house, and, just as I was on the point of going, she stopped +<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>me. ‘I forgot to ask you, are you going to keep your own +cow?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Good Heavens, no!’ I answered, almost appalled +by her question.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, then, I will let you have cream.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I went away thinking with horror where I was and +what I was that I could be considered capable of keeping +my own cow. But before I had time to look round, the +governor informed me that I was transferred to Vyatka +because another exile who had been allotted to Vyatka +had asked to be transferred to Perm, where he had +relations. The governor wanted me to leave the next +day. This was impossible; thinking to remain some +time in Perm, I had bought all sorts of things and I had +to sell them even at half-price. After various evasive +answers, the governor gave me permission to remain +forty-eight hours, exacting a promise that I would not +seek an opportunity of seeing the other exiles.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was preparing to sell my horse and all sorts of rubbish +the next day when suddenly the police-master appeared +with an order to leave within twenty-four hours. I +explained to him that the governor had given me an +extension of time. The police-master showed me the +instructions, in which he certainly was directed to see +me off within twenty-four hours. The document had +been signed that very day and, consequently, after the +conversation with me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ah,’ said the police-master, ‘<em>I</em> understand, I understand; +our fine gentleman wants to throw the responsibility +on me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Let us go and confront him with it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Let us!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The governor said that he had forgotten the permission +he had given me. The police-master asked slyly whether +he wished him to make a fresh copy of the instructions.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Is it worth while?’ the governor remarked simply.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>‘We have caught him,’ said the police-master, gleefully +rubbing his hands, ‘the scribbling soul!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Perm police-master belonged to a special type of +military men turned into officials. They are men who +have had the luck in the army to come in contact with +a bayonet or to be hit by a bullet, and so to be given such +posts as that of local police-master or executive clerk.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the regiment they have acquired certain airs of +frankness, have learnt by heart various phrases about the +inviolability of honour and the noble feelings, and also +sarcastic jeers at the ‘scribbling gentry.’ The younger +among them have read Marlinsky<a id='r130'></a><a href='#f130' class='c015'><sup>[130]</sup></a> and Zagoskin,<a id='r131'></a><a href='#f131' class='c015'><sup>[131]</sup></a> know +the beginning of the <cite>Prisoner of the Caucasus</cite> and <cite>Voynarovsky</cite>, +and often repeat verses. Some, for instance, +will say every time they see a man smoking:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘The amber smoked between his lips.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>They are all without exception deeply and volubly conscious +that their position is far inferior to their merits, +that only poverty keeps them in this ‘world of ink,’ that +if it were not for their wounds and lack of means, they +would be commanding army corps or have the rank of +adjutant-generals. Every one of them will quote a +striking instance of some old comrade and say: ‘Why, +Kreits, or Ridiger, was made a cornet with me. We +lodged together. Called each other Petrusha and +Alyosha—but there, I’m not a German, you see, and I +had no backing—so I can stay a policeman. Do you +imagine it’s easy for an honourable man with our ideas +to do police work?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>Their wives are even louder in their complaints, and +with heavy hearts go to Moscow every year to put +money into the bank, on the pretext that a mother or +aunt is ill and wants to see them for the last time.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so they live in comfort for fifteen years. The +husband, railing against his destiny, thrashes the police, +beats the workpeople, cringes to the governor, screens +thieves, steals legal documents, and repeats verses from +the <cite>Fountain of Bahtchisaray</cite>.<a id='r132'></a><a href='#f132' class='c015'><sup>[132]</sup></a> The wife, complaining +of destiny and provincial life, grabs everything she can +get, takes tribute from petitioners and shops, and raves +over moonlight nights.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I have made this digression because at first I was taken +in by these gentry and believed they really were rather +better than the rest, which is far from being the case....</p> + +<p class='c014'>I brought away from Perm one personal memory +which is dear to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At one of the governor’s inspections of the exiles a +Polish priest invited me to go and see him. I found +several Poles there. One of them sat in silence pensively +smoking a little pipe; misery, hopeless misery, was apparent +on every feature of his face. He was round-shouldered, +even crooked, his face was of the irregular +Polish-Lithuanian type which at first surprises and then +attracts. The greatest of the Poles, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, +had just such features. The clothes of the Pole, whose +name was Tsihanovitch, gave evidence of terrible poverty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few days later I was walking along the deserted +boulevard with which Perm is bounded on one side; it +was in the second half of May, the young leaves were +opening, the birches were in flower (I remember the whole +avenue was of birches), and there was no one anywhere. +Our provincials are not fond of <em>platonic</em> walks. After +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>strolling for some time, I saw at last on the other side of +the boulevard, that is, where the open country began, a +man botanising or perhaps simply gathering the scanty +and monotonous flowers of that region. When he raised +his head I recognised Tsihanovitch and went up to him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Later on I saw a good deal of the victims of the Polish +insurrection; their record is particularly rich in martyrs—Tsihanovitch +was the first. When he told me how +he had been persecuted by executioners in the uniform +of adjutant-generals—those tools with which the brutality +of the savage despot of the Winter Palace fights—then +our discomforts, our prison, and our trial seemed to me +paltry.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At that time in Vilna the commanding officer <em>on the +side of the victorious enemy</em> was the celebrated renegade +Muravyov, who immortalised himself by the historic +declaration, ‘that he belonged to the Muravyovs who +hanged and not the Muravyovs who are hanged.’ For +Nicholas’ narrow, vindictive outlook, men of feverish +ambition and coarse callousness were always the best +fitted or, at any rate, the most sympathetic.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The generals who sat in the torture chamber and +tormented the emissaries, their friends or the friends of +their friends, behaved to the prisoners like blackguards, +with no breeding, no feeling of delicacy, and at the same +time were very well aware that all their doings were +covered by the military coat of Nicholas, soaked in the +blood of the Polish martyrs and the tears of Polish +mothers.... This Passion Week of a whole people +still awaits its Luke or its Matthew.... But let them +know: one torturer after another will be shamed at the +bar of history and leave his name there. That will be +the portrait gallery of the period of Nicholas by way of +pendant to the gallery of the generals of 1812.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Muravyov spoke to the prisoners as though they were +of a lower class, and swore at them in the language of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>market. Once he was so carried away by fury that he +went up to Tsihanovitch and would have taken him by +the shoulder and perhaps have struck him, but met the +fettered prisoner’s eyes, was abashed, and went on in a +different tone.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I guessed what those eyes must have looked like; +when he told me the story three years after the event, +his eyes glowed, the veins stood out on his forehead and +on his bowed neck.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What could you have done in chains?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I could have torn him to pieces with my teeth, I could +have beaten him to death with my skull, with my chains,’ +he said, trembling.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tsihanovitch was sent at first to Verhoturye, one of +the remotest towns of the province of Perm, lost in the +Ural Mountains, buried in snow and so far from every +road that in winter there was scarcely any means of communication. +I need hardly say that living in Verhoturye +was worse than in Omsk or Krasnoyarsk. Being in +complete solitude, Tsihanovitch occupied himself with +the study of natural science, collected the scanty flora +of the Ural Mountains, and at last received permission +to move to Perm; and this was a great amelioration of +his lot. Again he heard the sound of his own language +and met with comrades in misfortune. His wife, who +had remained in Lithuania, wrote that she was setting +off to <em>walk</em> to him from the province of Vilna.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When I was transferred so unexpectedly to Vyatka, +I went to say good-bye to Tsihanovitch. The little +room in which he lived was almost completely empty. +A small, old trunk stood beside the meagre bed, a wooden +table and a chair made up the rest of the furniture. It +reminded me of my cell in the Krutitsky Barracks.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The news of my departure grieved him, but he was +so used to disappointments that a minute later he said to +me with a smile that was almost bright: ‘That’s just +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>what I love nature for; wherever a man may be, she +cannot be taken from him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I wanted to leave him something as a souvenir. I took +a little stud out of my shirt and asked him to accept it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It won’t suit my shirt, but I shall keep your stud to +the end of my days and I will wear it at my funeral.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then he sank into thought and all at once began rapidly +rummaging in his trunk. He found a little bag, from +it drew out an iron chain made in a peculiar way, and, +tearing several links off, gave them to me with the words: +‘That chain is very precious to me, the most sacred +memories of a certain time are connected with it. I do +not give you all, but take these links. I never thought +that I, an exile from Lithuania, would present them to +a Russian exile.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I embraced him and said good-bye.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘When are you going?’ he asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To-morrow morning, but I will not invite you; a +gendarme is always sitting in my lodging.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And so a good journey to you; may you be happier +than I.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At nine o’clock next morning the police-master turned +up at my lodgings and began hurrying me off. The +Perm gendarme, a far more manageable person than the +Krutitsky one, was busy getting the carriage ready, not +concealing his joy at the hope of being able to be drunk +for three hundred and fifty versts. Everything was +ready. I glanced casually into the street; Tsihanovitch +was passing, I rushed to the window.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, thank God,’ he said, ‘this is the fourth time I +have walked past to say good-bye to you, if only from a +distance, and still you did not see me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>With eyes full of tears I thanked him. This tender, +womanly attention deeply touched me; but for this +meeting I should have had nothing to regret in Perm!</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the day after we left Perm there was a heavy, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>unceasing downpour of rain from dawn, such as is +common in forest districts; at two o’clock we reached +a very poor village in the province of Vyatka. There +was no house at the posting-station. Votyaks<a id='r133'></a><a href='#f133' class='c015'><sup>[133]</sup></a> (who +could not read or write) performed the duties of overseer, +looked through the permit for horses, saw whether there +were two seals or one, shouted ‘Aïda, aïda!’ and +harnessed the horses, I need hardly say, twice as quickly +as it would have been done had there been a superintendent. +I wanted to get dry and warm and to have +something to eat. Before we reached the village, the +Perm gendarme agreed to my suggestion that we should +rest for a couple of hours. When I went into the +stifling hut, without a chimney, and found that it was +absolutely impossible to get anything, that there was not +even a pot-house for five versts, I regretted our decision +and was on the point of asking for horses.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I was thinking whether to go on or not to go +on, a soldier came in and reported that the officer at the +étape had sent to invite me to a cup of tea.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘With the greatest pleasure. Where is your officer?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘In the hut near by, your honour,’ and the soldier +made the familiar left-about-turn. I followed him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A short, elderly officer with a face that bore traces of +many anxieties, petty cares, and fear of his superiors, +met me with all the genial hospitality of deadly boredom. +He was one of those unintelligent, good-natured soldiers +who work in the service for twenty-five years without +promotion and without reasoning about it, as old horses +serve, who probably suppose that it is their duty at dawn +to put on their harness and drag something.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Whom are you taking, and where?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh, don’t ask, for it is heart-rending. Well, I suppose +my superiors know all about it; it is our duty to carry +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>out orders and we are not responsible, but, looking at +it as a man, it is an ugly business.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why, what is it?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You see, they have collected a crowd of cursed little +Jew boys of eight or nine years old. Whether they are +taking them for the navy or what, I can’t say. At first +<em>the orders were to drive them to Perm, then there was a +change and we are driving them to Kazan</em>. I have taken +them over a hundred versts. The officer who handed +them over said it was dreadful, and that’s all about it; +a third were left on the way’ (and the officer pointed to +the earth). ‘Not half will reach their destination,’ he +added.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Have there been epidemics, or what?’ I asked, +deeply moved.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No, not epidemics, but they just die off like flies. +A Jew boy, you know, is such a frail, weakly creature, +like a skinned cat; he is not used to tramping in the mud +for ten hours a day and eating dried bread—then again, +being among strangers, no father nor mother nor petting; +well, they cough and cough until they cough themselves +into their graves. And I ask you, what use is it to them? +What can they do with little boys?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I made no answer.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘When do you set off?’ I asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, we ought to have gone long ago, but it has +been raining so heavily.... Hey, you there! tell the +small fry to form up.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>They brought the children and formed them into +regular ranks: it was one of the most awful sights I have +ever seen, those poor, poor children! Boys of twelve +or thirteen might somehow have survived it, but little +fellows of eight and ten.... No painting could reproduce +the horror of that scene.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Pale, exhausted, with frightened faces, they stood in +thick, clumsy, soldiers’ overcoats, with stand-up collars, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>fixing helpless, pitiful eyes on the garrison soldiers who +were roughly getting them into ranks. The white lips, +the blue rings under their eyes looked like fever or chill. +And these sick children, without care or kindness, exposed +to the icy wind that blows straight from the Arctic Ocean, +were going to their graves.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And note that they were being taken by a kind-hearted +officer who was obviously sorry for the children. What +if they had been taken by a military political economist?</p> + +<p class='c014'>I took the officer’s hand and, saying ‘Take care of +them,’ rushed to my carriage. I wanted to sob and felt +that I could not control myself.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What monstrous crimes are secretly buried in the +archives of the infamous reign of Nicholas! We are +used to them, they are committed every day, committed +as though nothing were wrong, unnoticed, lost in the +terrible distance, noiselessly sunk in the silent bogs of +officialdom or shrouded by the censorship of the police.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Have we not seen with our own eyes seven hungry +peasants from Pskov, who were being forcibly removed +to the province of Tobolsk and were pitched without +food or night’s lodging in the Tverskoy Square in Moscow +until Prince D. V. Golitsyn ordered them to be cared +for at his own expense?</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 14<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Vyatka—The Office and Dining-room of His Excellency—K. Y. Tyufyaev</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>The Governor of Vyatka did not receive me, but +sent word that I was to present myself next +morning at ten.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I found in the room next morning the district police-captain, +the police-master, and two officials: they were +all standing talking in whispers and looking uneasily at +the door. The door opened and there walked in a short, +broad-shouldered old man with a head set on his shoulders +like a bull-dog’s, and with big jaws, which completed +his resemblance to that animal and, moreover, wore a +perpetual grin; the elderly and at the same time satyr-like +expression of his face, the quick little grey eyes, +and the sparse, stiff hair made an incredibly disgusting +impression.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To begin with, he gave the district police-captain a +good dressing down for the state of the roads on which +he had driven the day before. The district police-captain +stood with his head somewhat bowed in token of respect +and submission, and replied to everything as servants +used to do in old days, ‘I obey, your Excellency.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>When he had done with the district police-captain, he +turned to me. He looked at me insolently and asked:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Did you finish your studies at the Moscow University?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I took my degree.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And then served?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘In the Kremlin department.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Ha, ha, ha! a fine sort of service! Of course, you +had plenty of time there for supper parties and singing +songs. Alenitsyn!’ he shouted.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A scrofulous-looking young man walked in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Here, my boy, here is a graduate of the Moscow +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>University. I expect he knows everything except his +duties in the service; it is His Majesty’s pleasure that +he should learn them with us. Take him into your +office and send me a special report on him. To-morrow +you will come to the office at nine o’clock, and now you +can go. But stay, I forgot to ask how you write.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I did not understand for the moment.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Come, your handwriting.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I have nothing with me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Bring paper and pen,’ and Alenitsyn handed me a pen.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What am I to write?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What you like,’ observed the secretary. ‘Write, “On +inquiry it appears——”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, you won’t be corresponding with the Tsar,’ +the governor remarked, laughing ironically.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before I left Perm I had heard a great deal about +Tyufyaev, but he far surpassed all my expectations.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What does not Russian life produce!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev was born at Tobolsk. His father was +possibly a convict and belonged to the poorest class of +artisan. At thirteen, young Tyufyaev joined a troupe +of travelling acrobats who wandered from fair to fair, +dancing on the tight-rope, turning somersaults, and so +on. With these he travelled from Tobolsk to the Polish +provinces, entertaining the good Russian people. There, +I do not know why, he was arrested, and as he had no +passport he was treated as a vagrant, and sent on foot +with a party of convicts back to Tobolsk. His mother +was by then a widow and was living in great poverty. +The son rebuilt the stove with his own hands when it was +broken: he had to find some calling; the boy had learned +to read and write, and he was engaged as a copying clerk +in the local court.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Being naturally of a free-and-easy character and having +developed his abilities by a many-sided education in the +troupe of acrobats and the party of convicts with whom +<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>he had passed from one end of Russia to the other, he +became an energetic and practical man.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the beginning of the reign of Alexander some sort +of inspector came to Tobolsk. He needed capable +clerks, and some one recommended Tyufyaev. The +inspector was so well pleased with him that he proposed +taking him along to Petersburg. Then Tyufyaev, whose +ambition, to use his own words, had never risen above +the post of secretary in a district court, formed a higher +opinion of himself, and with iron will resolved to make +his career.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And he did make it. Ten years later we find him the +indefatigable secretary of Kankrin, who was at that time +a general in the commissariat. A year later he was +superintending a department in Araktcheyev’s secretariat +which superintended all Russia. He was with Araktcheyev +in Paris at the time when it was occupied by the +allied troops. Tyufyaev spent the whole time sitting +in the secretariat of the expeditionary army and literally +did not see one street in Paris. He sat day and night +collating and copying papers with his worthy colleague, +Kleinmihel.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Araktcheyev’s secretariat was like those copper mines +into which men are only sent to work for a few months, +because if they remain longer they die. Even Tyufyaev +was tired at last in that factory of orders and decrees, of +regulations and commands, and began asking for a quieter +post. Araktcheyev could not fail to like a man like +Tyufyaev, a man free from higher pretensions, from all +interests and opinions, formally honest, devoured by +ambition, and regarding obedience as the foremost +human virtue. Araktcheyev rewarded Tyufyaev with +the post of deputy governor. A few years later he made +him governor of the Perm Province. The province, +through which Tyufyaev had once walked on a rope +and once tied to a rope, lay at his feet.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>A governor’s power increases in direct ratio to his +distance from Petersburg, but it increases in geometrical +progression in the provinces where there are no nobility, +as in Perm, Vyatka, and Siberia. Such a region was just +what Tyufyaev wanted.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He was an Oriental satrap, only an active, restless one, +meddling in everything and for ever busy. Tyufyaev +would have been a ferocious Commissaire of the Convention +in 1794, a Carrier.<a id='r134'></a><a href='#f134' class='c015'><sup>[134]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Dissolute in his life, coarse in nature, intolerant of +the slightest contradiction, his influence was extremely +pernicious. He did not take bribes, though he did make +his fortune, as it appeared after his death. He was +severe to his subordinates, he punished without mercy +those who were detected in wrongdoing, yet his officials +were more dishonest than anywhere. He carried the +abuse of influence to an incredible point; for instance, +when he sent an official to an inquiry he would (that is, +if he were interested in the case) tell him that probably +this or that would be discovered, and woe to the official +if something else were discovered.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Perm was still full of the fame of Tyufyaev; there was +a party of his adherents there, hostile to the new governor, +who, of course, had surrounded himself with his own +partisans.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the other hand, there were people who hated him. +One of them, a rather original product of the warping +influences of Russian life, particularly warned me what +Tyufyaev was like. I am speaking of a doctor in one +of the factories. This doctor, whose name was Tchebotarev, +an intelligent and very nervous man, had made +an unfortunate marriage soon after he had completed +his studies, then he was transferred to Ekaterinburg and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>without any experience plunged into the bog of provincial +life. Though placed in a fairly independent position +in these surroundings, he yet was mastered by them; all +his resistance took the form of sarcasms at the expense +of the officials. He laughed at them to their faces, he +said the most insulting things with grimaces and affectation. +Since no one was spared, no one particularly resented +the doctor’s spiteful tongue. He made himself a social +position by his attacks and forced a flabby set of people +to put up with the lash with which he chastised them +incessantly. I was warned that he was a good doctor, +but crazy and extremely impertinent.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His gossip and jokes were neither coarse nor pointless; +quite the contrary, they were full of humour and concentrated +bitterness; it was his poetry, his revenge, his +outcry of anger and, to some extent, perhaps, of despair. +He had studied the circle of officials as an artist and as +a doctor, and, encouraged by their cowardice and lack +of resource, took any liberty he liked with them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At every word he would add, ‘It won’t make a ha’p’orth +of difference to you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Once in joke I remarked upon his repeating this.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why are you surprised?’ the doctor replied. ‘The +object of everything that is said is to convince. I am in +haste to add the strongest argument that exists. Convince +a man that to kill his own father will not make a +ha’p’orth of difference and he will kill him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tchebotarev never refused to lend small sums of a +hundred or two hundred roubles. When any one asked +him for a loan, he would take out his notebook and +inquire the exact date when the borrower would return +the money.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Now,’ he would say, ‘allow me to make a bet of a +silver rouble that you won’t repay it then.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Upon my soul,’ the other would object, ‘what do +you take me for?’</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>‘It makes not a ha’p’orth of difference what I take you +for,’ the doctor would answer, ‘but the fact is I have +been keeping a record for six years, and not one person +has paid me up to time yet, and hardly any one has repaid +me later either.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The day fixed would pass and the doctor would very +gravely ask for the silver rouble he had won.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A spirit-tax contractor at Perm was selling a travelling +coach. The doctor presented himself before him and +made the following speech: ‘You have a coach to sell, +I need it; you are a wealthy man, you are a millionaire, +every one respects you for it and I have therefore come +to pay you my respects also; as you are a wealthy man, +it makes not a ha’p’orth of difference to you whether you +sell the coach or not, while I need it very much and have +very little money. You want to squeeze me, to take +advantage of my necessity and ask fifteen hundred for +the coach. I offer you seven hundred roubles. I shall +be coming every day to bargain with you and in a week +you will let me have it for seven-fifty or eight hundred; +wouldn’t it be better to begin with that? I am ready to +give it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Much better,’ answered the astonished spirit-tax +contractor, and he let him have the coach.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tchebotarev’s anecdotes and mischievous tricks were +endless. I will add two more.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Do you believe in magnetism?’ a rather intelligent +and cultured lady asked him in my presence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What do you mean by magnetism?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The lady talked some vague nonsense in reply.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘It makes not a ha’p’orth of difference to you whether +I believe in magnetism or not, but if you like I will tell +you what I have seen in that way.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Please do.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Only listen attentively.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>After this he described in a very lively and interesting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>way the experiments of a Harkov doctor, an acquaintance +of his.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the middle of the conversation, a servant brought +some lunch in on a tray. As he was going out, the lady +said to him, ‘You have forgotten to bring the mustard.’ +Tchebotarev stopped. ‘Go on, go on,’ said the lady, a +little scared already, ‘I am listening.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Has he brought the salt?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So you are angry already,’ said the lady, turning +crimson.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Not in the least. I assure you I know that you were +listening attentively. Besides, I know that, however +intelligent a woman is and whatever is being talked about, +she can never rise above the kitchen—so how could I +dare to be angry with you personally?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At Countess Polier’s factory he asked a lad, one of his +patients there, to enter his service. The boy was willing, +but the foreman said that he could not let him go without +permission from the countess. Tchebotarev wrote to +the lady. She told the foreman to let the lad have his +passport on condition that the doctor paid five years’ +<em>obrok</em> in advance. The doctor promptly wrote to the +countess that he agreed to her terms, but asked her as a +preliminary to decide one point that troubled him, <em>i.e.</em> +from whom could he recover the money if Encke’s Comet +should, intersecting the earth’s orbit, turn it out of its +course—which might occur a year and a half before +the term fixed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On the day of my departure for Vyatka the doctor +appeared early in the morning and began with the following +foolishness: ‘Like Horace, once you sang, and to +this day you are translated.’<a id='r135'></a><a href='#f135' class='c015'><sup>[135]</sup></a> Then he took out his notebook +and asked if I would not like some money for the +journey. I thanked him and refused.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>‘Why won’t you take any? It won’t make a ha’p’orth +of difference to you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I have money.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s bad,’ he said; ‘the end of the world must +be at hand.’ He opened his notebook and wrote down: +‘After fifteen years of practice I have for the first time +met a man who won’t borrow, even though he is going +away.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Having finished playing the fool, he sat down on my +bed and said gravely: ‘You are going to a terrible man. +Be on your guard against him and keep as far away from +him as you can. If he likes you it will be a poor recommendation; +if he dislikes you, he will ruin you by +slander, by calumny, and I don’t know what, but he will +ruin you, and it won’t make a ha’p’orth of difference +to him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>With this he told me an incident the truth of which +I had an opportunity of verifying afterwards from +documents in the secretariat of the Minister of Home +Affairs.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev carried on an open intrigue with the sister +of a poor government clerk. The brother was made a +laughing-stock and he tried to break off the liaison, +threatened to report it to the authorities, tried to write +to Petersburg—in fact, made such a to-do that on +one occasion the police seized him and brought him +before the provincial authorities to be certified as a +lunatic.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The provincial authorities, the president of the court, +and the inspector of the medical board, an old German +who was very much liked by the working people and +whom I knew personally, all found that Petrovsky, as +the man was called, was mad.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Our doctor knew Petrovsky, who was a patient of his. +He was asked as a matter of form. He told the inspector +that Petrovsky was not mad at all, and that he proposed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>that they should make a fresh inquiry into the case, +otherwise he would have to pursue the matter further. +The local authorities were not at all opposed to this, but +unluckily Petrovsky died in the madhouse before the +day fixed for the second inquiry, although he was a +sturdy young fellow.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The report of the case reached Petersburg. Petrovsky’s +sister was arrested (why not Tyufyaev?) and a secret +investigation began. Tyufyaev dictated the answers; +he surpassed himself on this occasion. To hush it up +at once and to ward off the danger of a second involuntary +journey to Siberia, Tyufyaev instructed the girl to say +that her brother had been on bad terms with her ever +since, carried away by youth and inexperience, she had +been seduced by the Emperor Alexander on his visit to +Perm, for which she had received five thousand roubles +through General Solomka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Alexander’s habits were such that there was nothing +incredible in the story. To find out whether it was true +was not easy, and in any case would have created a great +deal of scandal. To Count Benckendorf’s inquiry, +General Solomka answered that so much money had +passed through his hands that he could not remember +the five thousand.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘<i><span lang="it">La regina ne aveva molto!</span></i>’ says the Improvisatore +in Pushkin’s <cite>Egyptian Nights</cite>....</p> + +<p class='c014'>So this estimable pupil of Araktcheyev’s and worthy +comrade of Kleinmihel’s, acrobat, vagrant, copying clerk, +secretary, and governor, this tender heart, and disinterested +man who put the sane into a madhouse and +did them to death there, the man who slandered the +Emperor Alexander to divert the attention of the +Emperor Nicholas, was now undertaking to train me in +the service.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was almost completely dependent upon him. He +had only to write some nonsense to the minister and I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>should have been sent off to some place in Irkutsk. No +need to write, indeed he had the right to send me to any +outlandish town, Kay or Tsarevo-Santchursk, without +any discussion, without any formalities. Tyufyaev +dispatched a young Pole to Glazov because the ladies +preferred dancing the mazurka with him to dancing it +with his Excellency.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In this way Prince Dolgoruky was transferred from +Perm to Verhoturye. The latter place, lost in the +mountains and the snows, is reckoned in the province +of Perm, though it is as bad as Beryozov for climate and +worse for desolation.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Prince Dolgoruky was one of the aristocratic scamps +of the wrong sort such as are rarely met with in our day. +He played all sorts of pranks in Petersburg, pranks in +Moscow, and pranks in Paris.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His life was spent in this. He was an Izmailov on a +small scale, a Prince E. Gruzinsky without his band of +runaways at Lyskovo, that is, a spoilt, insolent, repulsive +jester, a great gentleman and a great buffoon at once. +When his doings went beyond all bounds, he was ordered +to live in Perm.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He arrived in two carriages; in one he travelled with +his dog, in the other, his French cook with his parrots. +The people of Perm were delighted at the arrival of a +wealthy visitor, and soon all the town was crowding into +his dining-room. Dolgoruky got up an affair with a +young lady at Perm; the latter, suspecting some infidelity, +appeared unexpectedly at the prince’s house one +morning and found him with his housemaid. This led +to a scene which ended in the faithless lover taking his +riding-whip from the wall; the lady, seeing his intention, +took to flight, he followed her, scantily attired +in a dressing-gown; overtaking her in the little square +in which the battalion were usually drilled, he gave +the jealous lady three or four lashes with the whip +<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>and calmly returned home as though he had done his +duty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Such charming pranks brought down upon him the +censure of his Perm friends, and the authorities decided +to send this mischievous urchin of forty to Verhoturye. +On the eve of departure he gave a splendid dinner, and in +spite of their differences the officials came to it. Dolgoruky +promised to give them some wonderful pie for +dinner.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The pie certainly was excellent and vanished with +incredible rapidity. When nothing but scraps were +left, Dolgoruky turned pathetically to his guests and said: +‘Never let it be said that I grudged you anything at +parting. I ordered my Gardi to be killed yesterday for +the pie.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The officials looked at one another in horror, and looked +round them for the big Dane they knew so well; he was +not to be seen. The prince saw what they felt and bade +the servant bring the rejected remnants of Gardi and his +skin; the rest of him was in the stomachs of the Perm +officials. Half the town was ill with horror.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Meanwhile Dolgoruky, pleased at having had a joke +at the expense of his friends, drove in triumph to Verhoturye. +A third conveyance carried a whole poultry +yard, a poultry yard travelling with post horses! On the +way he carried off the ledgers from several posting-stations, +mixed them up, altered the entries and almost drove the +posting superintendents out of their minds, for even with +their books they did not find it easy to make their accounts +balance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The stifling emptiness and numbness of Russian life, +strangely combined with the liveliness and even turbulence +of the Russian character, develops every sort of +eccentricity among us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Suvorov’s habit of crowing like a cock, just as in +Prince Dolgoruky’s dog-pie, in the savage deeds of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>Izmailov,<a id='r136'></a><a href='#f136' class='c015'><sup>[136]</sup></a> in the half-voluntary madness of Mamonov,<a id='r137'></a><a href='#f137' class='c015'><sup>[137]</sup></a> +in the violent crimes of Tolstoy ‘the American,’ I detect +a kindred note, familiar to us all, though weakened in +us by education, or directed to some other end.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I knew Tolstoy personally and just at the date when +he lost his daughter Sarra, an exceptional girl with marked +poetic gifts. One glance at the old man’s exterior, at +his forehead covered with grey curls, at his sparkling +eyes and athletic frame revealed how much energy and +vigour nature had bestowed on him. He had developed +only turbulent passions and evil propensities, and that is +not surprising; everything vicious is allowed among +us to develop for a long time without hindrance, while +for humane passions a man is sent to a garrison or Siberia +at the first step.... He rioted, gambled, fought, +mutilated people and ruined families for twenty years +on end, till at last he was sent to Siberia, from which +he ‘returned an Aleutian’ as Griboyedov says, that is, +he made his way through Kamtchatka to America, and +thence obtained permission to return to Russia. Alexander +pardoned him, and from the day after his arrival he +carried on the same life as before. Married to a gypsy +girl belonging to the Moscow camp and famous for her +voice, he turned his house into a gambling den, spent all +his time in orgies, all his nights at cards, and wild scenes +of greed and drunkenness took place beside the cradle of +the little Sarra. The story goes that on one occasion, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>to prove the nicety of his aim, he made his wife stand on +the table and shot through the heel of her shoe.</p> + +<p class='c014'>His last prank almost sent him to Siberia again. He +had long been angry with an artisan; he seized him in +his house, bound him hand and foot, and pulled out one +of his teeth. Will it be believed that this incident took +place only ten or twelve years ago? The injured man +lodged a complaint. Tolstoy bribed the police and the +judge, and the man was put in prison for making a false +accusation. At that time a well-known Russian literary +tan, N. F. Pavlov, was serving on the prison commission. +The artisan told him his story, the inexperienced official +took it up, Tolstoy was scared in earnest, the case was +obviously going to end in his condemnation; but great +is the God of Russia. Count Orlov wrote to Prince +Shtcherbatov a secret report, in which he advised him +to hush up the case, so as not to allow the <em>open triumph +of a man of inferior rank over a member of the higher +classes</em>. To Pavlov, Count Orlov gave the advice to +resign his post.... This is almost more incredible than +the extraction of the tooth. I was in Moscow at the +time and knew the imprudent official well. But let us +return to Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The government office was incomparably worse than +prison. Not that the actual work was great, but the +stifling atmosphere, as of the Cave of Dogs, of that scene +of corruption, and the terrible, stupid waste of time +made the office insufferable. Alenitsyn did not worry +me, he was, indeed, more polite than I expected; he had +been at the Kazan High School and consequently had +a respect for a graduate of the Moscow University.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There were some twenty clerks in the office. For +the most part they were persons of no education and +no moral conceptions; sons of clerks and secretaries, +accustomed from their cradle to regard the service as a +source of profit, and the peasants as soil that yielded +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>revenue, they sold their services, took twenty kopecks +and quarter-roubles, cheated for a glass of wine, demeaned +themselves and did all sorts of shabby things. +My valet gave up going to the ‘billiard room,’ saying +that the officials cheated there worse than anybody, and +one could not give them a lesson because they were +‘officers.’ So with these people, whom my servant did +not beat only on account of their rank, I had to sit every +day from nine in the morning until two, and from five +to eight in the evening.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Besides Alenitsyn, who was the head of the office, +there was a head-clerk of the table at which I was put, +who was also not a spiteful creature, though drunken and +illiterate. At the same table sat four clerks. I had +to talk to and become acquainted with these, and, indeed, +with all the others, too. Apart from the fact that these +people would have paid me out sooner or later for being +‘proud’ if I had not, it is simply impossible to spend +several hours of every day with the same people without +making their acquaintance. Moreover, it must not be +forgotten that provincials make up to any one from +outside and particularly to any one who comes from +the capital, especially if there is some interesting story +connected with him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After spending the whole day in this bondage, I would +sometimes come home with all my faculties in a state of +stupefaction and fling myself on the sofa, worn out, +humiliated, and incapable of any work or occupation. I +heartily regretted my Krutitsky cell with its charcoal +fumes and black beetles, with a gendarme on guard and +a lock on the door. There I had freedom, I did what +I liked and no one interfered with me; instead of these +vulgar sayings, dirty people, mean ideas and coarse +feelings, there had been the stillness of death and unbroken +leisure. And when I remembered that after dinner I +had to go again, and again to-morrow, I was at times +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>overcome by fury and despair and tried to find comfort +in drinking wine and vodka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And then, to make things worse, one of my fellow-clerks +would look in ‘on his way’ and relieve his boredom by +staying on talking until it was time to go back to the +office.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Within a few months, however, the position became +somewhat easier.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Prolonged steady persecution is not in the Russian +character unless a personal or mercenary element comes +in; and that is not because the government does not want +to stifle and crush a man, but is due to the Russian carelessness, +to our <em>laissez-aller</em>. Russians in authority are +as a rule ill-bred, coarse, and insolent; it is easy to provoke +them to rudeness, but persistent oppression is not in their +line, they have not enough patience for it, perhaps +because it yields them no profit.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the first heat to display, on the one hand, their zeal, +on the other, their power, they do all sorts of stupid and +unnecessary things, then, little by little, they leave a man +in peace.</p> + +<p class='c014'>So it was with the office. The Ministry of Home +Affairs had at that time a craze for statistics: it had given +orders for committees to be formed everywhere, and had +issued programmes which could hardly have been carried +out even in Belgium or Switzerland; at the same time, +all sorts of elaborate tables with maxima and minima, +with averages and various deductions from the totals for +periods of ten years (made up on evidence which had not +been collected even a year beforehand!), with moral +remarks and meteorological observations. Not a farthing +was assigned for the expenses of the committees and the +collection of evidence; all this was to be done from love +for statistics through the rural police and put into proper +shape in the government office. The clerks, overwhelmed +with work, and the rural police, who hate all peaceful and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>theoretical tasks, looked upon a statistics committee as +a useless luxury, as a caprice of the ministry; however, +the reports had to be sent in with tabulated results and +deductions.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This business seemed overwhelmingly difficult to the +whole office; it was simply impossible; but no one +troubled about that, all they worried about was that +there should be no occasion for reprimands. I promised +Alenitsyn to prepare a preface and introduction, and to +draw up summaries of the tables with eloquent remarks +introducing foreign words, quotations, and striking +deductions, if he would allow me to undertake this very +severe work not at the office but at home. Alenitsyn, +after parleying with Tyufyaev, agreed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The introduction to my record of the work of the +committee, in which I discussed their hopes and their +plans, for in reality nothing had been done at all, touched +Alenitsyn to the depths of his soul. Tyufyaev himself +thought it was written in masterly style. With that my +labours in the statistical line ended, but they put the +committee under my supervision. They no longer +forced the hard labour of copying upon me, and the +drunken head-clerk who had been my chief became +almost my subordinate. Alenitsyn only insisted, from +some consideration of propriety, that I should go every +day for a short time to the office.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To show the complete impossibility of real statistics, +I will quote the facts sent from the town of Kay. There, +among various absurdities, were for instance the entries: +Drowned—2. Causes of drowning not known—2, +and in the column of totals these two figures were added +together and the figure 4 was entered. Under the +heading of extraordinary incidents occurred the following +tragic anecdote: So-and-so, artisan, having deranged his +intelligence by stimulating beverages, hanged himself. +Under the heading of morality of the town’s inhabitants +<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>was the entry: ‘There are no Jews in the town of Kay.’ +To the inquiry whether sums had been allotted for the +building of a church, a stock exchange, or an almshouse, +the answer ran thus: ‘For the building of a stock +exchange was assigned—nothing.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The statistics that saved me from work at the office +had the unfortunate consequence of bringing me into +personal relations with Tyufyaev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There was a time when I hated that man; that time +is long past and the man himself is past. He died on +his Kazan estates about 1845. Now I think of him +without anger, as of a peculiar wild beast met in a forest +which ought to have been tamed, but with which one +could not be angry for being a beast. At the time I +could not help coming into conflict with him; that was +inevitable for any decent man. Chance helped me or +he would have done me great injury; to owe him a +grudge for the harm he did not do me would be absurd +and paltry.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev lived alone. His wife was separated from +him. The governor’s favourite, the wife of a cook who +for no fault but being married to her had been sent away +to the country, was, with an awkwardness which almost +seemed intentional, kept out of sight in the back rooms +of his house. She did not make her appearance officially, +but officials who were particularly devoted to the governor—that +is, particularly afraid of not being so—formed a +sort of court about the cook’s wife ‘who was in favour.’ +Their wives and daughters paid her stealthy visits in the +evening and did not boast of doing so. This lady was +possessed of the same sort of tact as distinguished one of +her brilliant predecessors—Potyomkin; knowing the +old man’s disposition and afraid of being replaced, she +herself sought out for him rivals that were not a danger +to her. The grateful old man repaid this indulgent love +with his devotion and they got on well together.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>All the morning Tyufyaev worked and was in the +office of the secretariat. The poetry of life only began +at three o’clock. Dinner was for him no jesting +matter. He liked a good dinner and he liked to eat it +in company. Preparations were always made in his +kitchen for twelve at table; if the guests were less than +half that number he was mortified; if there were no +more than two visitors he was wretched; if there was +no one at all, he would go off on the verge of despair to +dine in his Dulcinea’s apartments. To procure people +in order to feed them to repletion is not a difficult task, +but his official position and the terror he inspired in his +subordinates did not permit them freely to enjoy his +hospitality, nor him to turn his house into a tavern. He +had to confine himself to councillors, presidents (but +with half of these he was on bad terms), rich merchants, +spirit-tax contractors, and the few visitors to the town +and ‘oddities,’ who were something in the style of the +<em>capacités</em> whom Louis-Philippe wanted to introduce +into elections. Of course I was an oddity of the first +magnitude in Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Persons exiled ‘for their opinions’ to remote towns +are somewhat feared, but are never confounded with +ordinary mortals. ‘Dangerous people’ have for provincials +the same attraction that notorious Lovelaces have +for women and courtesans for men. ‘Dangerous people’ +are far more shunned by Petersburg officials and wealthy +Moscow people than by provincials and especially by +Siberians.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Those who were exiled in connection with the Fourteenth +of December were looked upon with immense +respect. The first visit on New Year’s Day was paid by +officials to the widow of Yushnevsky. The senator +Tolstoy when taking a census of Siberia was guided by +evidence received from the exiled Decembrists in checking +the facts furnished by the officials.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>Minih<a id='r138'></a><a href='#f138' class='c015'><sup>[138]</sup></a> from his tower in Pelymo superintended the +affairs of the Tobolsk Province. Governors used to go +to consult him about matters of importance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The working people are still less hostile to exiles: +they are always on the side of those who are punished. +The word ‘convict’ disappears near the Siberian frontier +and is replaced by the word ‘unfortunate.’ In the eyes +of the Russian peasant legal sentence is no disgrace to +a man. The peasants of the Perm Province, living along +the main road to Tobolsk, often put out kvass, milk, and +bread in a little window in case an ‘unfortunate’ should +be secretly passing that way from Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c014'>By the way, speaking of exiles, Polish exiles begin +to be met beyond Nizhni and their number rapidly +increases after Kazan. In Perm there were forty, +in Vyatka not less; there were besides several in every +district town.</p> + +<p class='c014'>They lived quite apart from the Russians and avoided +all contact with the inhabitants. There was great unity +among them, and the rich shared with the poor like +brothers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I never saw signs of either hatred or special goodwill +towards them on the part of the inhabitants. They +looked upon them as outsiders—the more so, as scarcely +a single Pole knew Russian.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One tough old Sarmatian, who had been an officer in +the Uhlans under Poniatowski and had taken part in +Napoleon’s campaigns, received permission in 1837 to +return to his Lithuanian domains. On the eve of his +departure he invited me and several Poles to dinner. +After dinner my cavalry officer came up to me, glass in +hand, embraced me, and with a warrior’s simplicity +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>whispered in my ear, ‘Oh, why are you a Russian!’ +I did not answer a word, but this observation sank deeply +into my heart. I realised that <em>this</em> generation could +never set Poland free.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the time of Konarski,<a id='r139'></a><a href='#f139' class='c015'><sup>[139]</sup></a> the Poles have come to +look quite differently upon the Russians.</p> + +<p class='c014'>As a rule Polish exiles are not oppressed, but the +position is awful for those who have no private means. +The government gives those who have nothing <em>fifteen +roubles a month</em>; with that they must pay for lodging, +food, clothes, and fuel. In the bigger towns, in Kazan +and Tobolsk, it is possible to earn something by giving +lessons or concerts, playing at balls, drawing portraits +and teaching dancing. In Perm and Vyatka they had +no such resources. And in spite of that they would ask +nothing from Russians.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev’s invitations to his rich Siberian dinners +were a real infliction to me. His dining-room was the +same thing as the office only in another form, less dirty +but more vulgar, because it had the appearance of free +will and not of compulsion.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev knew his guests through and through, +despised them, showed them his claws at times, and +altogether treated them as a master treats his dogs, at one +time with excessive familiarity, at another with a rudeness +which was beyond all bounds—and yet he invited +them to his dinners and they came to them in trembling +and in joy, demeaning themselves, talking scandal, +listening, trying to please, smiling, bowing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I blushed for them and felt ashamed.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>Our friendship did not last long. Tyufyaev soon +perceived that I was not fit for ‘aristocratic’ Vyatka +society.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few months later he was displeased with me, a few +months later still he hated me, and I not only went no +more to his dinners but even gave up going to him at all. +The visit of the Tsarevitch saved me from his persecution, +as we shall see later on.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I must note that I had done absolutely nothing to +deserve first his attentions and invitations, and afterwards +his anger and disapproval. He could not endure to see +in me a man who behaved independently, though not +in the least insolently; I was always <i><span lang="fr">en règle</span></i> with him, +and he demanded obsequiousness. He loved his power +jealously. He had earned it and he exacted not only +obedience but an appearance of absolute subordination. +In this, unhappily, he was typically national.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A landowner says to his servant, ‘Hold your tongue; +I won’t put up with your answering me!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The head of a department observes, turning pale with +anger, to a clerk who has made some criticism, ‘You +forget yourself; do you know to whom you are speaking?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tsar sends men to Siberia ‘for opinions,’ buries +them in dungeons for a poem—and all three of them are +readier to forgive stealing and bribe-taking, murder and +robbery, than the impudence of human dignity and the +insolence of an independent word.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev was a true servant of the Tsar. He was thought +highly of, but not highly enough. Byzantine servility +was in him wonderfully combined with official discipline. +Obliteration of self, renunciation of will and thought +before authority went hand in hand with savage oppression +of subordinates. He might have been a civilian +Kleinmihel, his ‘zeal’ might in the same way have +conquered everything, and he might in the same way +have plastered the walls with the dead bodies of men, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>have dried the palace with human lungs, and have thrashed +the young men of the engineering corps even more +severely for not being informers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tyufyaev had an intense secret hatred for everything +aristocratic; he had gained it from bitter experience. The +hard labour of Araktcheyev’s secretariat had been his first +refuge, his first deliverance. Till then his superiors +had never offered him a chair, but had employed him +on menial errands. When he served in the commissariat, +the officers had persecuted him in military fashion and +one colonel had horsewhipped him in the street in Vilna.... +All this had entered into the copying clerk’s soul +and rankled there; now he was governor and it was his +turn to oppress, to keep men standing, to address them +familiarly, to shout at them, and sometimes to bring nobles +of ancient lineage to trial.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From Perm, Tyufyaev had been transferred to Tver. +The nobles of that province could not, for all their +submissiveness and servility, put up with him. They +petitioned the minister Bludov to remove him. Bludov +transferred him to Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There he was quite at home again. Officials and +contractors, factory-owners and government clerks, a +free hand with no one to interfere.... Every one +trembled before him, every one remained standing in his +presence, every one offered him drink and gave him +dinners, every one waited on his slightest wish; at +weddings and name-day parties, the first toast was ‘To +the health of his Excellency!’</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 15<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Officials—Siberian Governors-General—A Rapacious Police-Master—An Accommodating Judge—A Roasted Police-Captain—A Tatar Missionary—A Boy of the Female Sex—The Potato Terror, etc.</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>One of the most melancholy results of the revolutionising +of Russia by Peter the Great was the +development of the official class. An artificial, hungry, +and uncultivated class, capable of doing nothing but +‘serving,’ knowing nothing but official forms, it constitutes +a kind of civilian clergy, officiating in the courts +and the police forces, and sucking the blood of the people +with thousands of greedy and unclean mouths.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Gogol lifted one corner of the curtain and showed us +Russian officialdom in all its ugliness; but Gogol cannot +help conciliating by his laughter; his immense comic +talent gets the upper hand of his indignation. Moreover, +in the fetters of the Russian censorship, he could scarcely +touch upon the melancholy side of that foul underworld, +in which the destinies of the unhappy Russian people +are forged.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There, somewhere in grimy offices, from which we +make haste to get away, shabby men write and write +on grey paper, and copy on to stamped paper—and +persons, families, whole villages are outraged, terrified, +ruined. A father is sent into exile, a mother to prison, +a son for a soldier, and all this breaks like a thunderclap +upon them, unexpected, for the most part undeserved. +And for the sake of what? For the sake of money. +A tribute must be paid ... or an inquiry will be held +concerning some dead drunkard, burnt up by spirits +and frozen to death. And the head-man collects and +the village elder collects, the peasants bring their last +kopeck. The police-inspector must live; the police-captain +must live and keep his wife too; the councillor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>must live and educate his children, the councillor is an +exemplary father.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Officialdom reigns supreme in the north-east provinces +of Russia and in Siberia. There it flourishes unhindered, +unsupervised ... it is so terribly far off, every one +shares in the profits, stealing becomes <em>res publica</em>. Even +the cannon-shots of the Imperial power cannot destroy +these foul, boggy trenches hidden under the snow. All +the measures of government are weakened, all its intentions +are distorted; it is deceived, fooled, betrayed, +sold, and all under cover of loyal servility and with the +observance of all the official forms.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Speransky<a id='r140'></a><a href='#f140' class='c015'><sup>[140]</sup></a> tried to ameliorate the lot of the Siberian +people. He introduced everywhere the collegiate +principle, as though it made any difference whether the +officials stole individually or in gangs. He discharged +the old rogues by hundreds and engaged new ones by +hundreds. At first he inspired such terror in the rural +police that they actually bribed the peasants not to make +complaints against them. Three years later the officials +were making their fortunes by the new forms as well as +they had done by the old.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Another eccentric individual was General Velyaminov. +For two years he struggled at Tobolsk trying to check +abuses, but, seeing the hopelessness of it, threw it all up +and quite gave up attending to business.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Others, more judicious, did not make the attempt, +but got rich themselves and let others get rich.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I will abolish bribe-taking,’ said Senyavin, the +Governor of Moscow, to a grey-headed peasant who had +lodged a complaint against some obvious injustice. The +old man smiled.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>‘What are you laughing at?’ asked Senyavin.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why, you must forgive me, sir,’ answered the peasant; +‘it put me in mind of one fine young fellow who boasted +he would lift a cannon, and he really did try, but he did +not lift it for all that.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Senyavin, who told the story himself, belonged to +that class of unpractical men in the Russian service who +imagine that rhetorical sallies on the subject of honesty +and despotic persecution of two or three rogues can remedy +so universal a disease as Russian bribe-taking, which grows +freely under the shadow of the censorship.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There are only two remedies for it, publicity, and an +entirely different organisation of the whole machinery, +the introduction again of the popular elements of the +arbitration courts, verbal proceedings, sworn witnesses, +and all that the Petersburg administration detests.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Pestel, the Governor-General of Western Siberia, +father of the celebrated Pestel put to death by Nicholas, +was a real Roman proconsul and one of the most violent. +He carried on an open system of plunder in the whole +region which was cut off by his spies from Russia. Not +a single letter crossed the border without the seal being +broken, and woe to the man who should dare to write +anything about his rule. He kept merchants of the first +guild for a year at a time in prison in chains; he tortured +them. He sent officials to the borders of Eastern +Siberia and left them there for two or three years.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For a long time the people bore it; at last an artisan +of Tobolsk made up his mind to bring the position of +affairs to the knowledge of the Tsar. Afraid of the +ordinary routes, he went to Kyahta and from there made +his way with a caravan of tea across the Siberian frontier. +He found an opportunity at Tsarskoe Syelo of giving +Alexander his petition, beseeching him to read it. +Alexander was amazed and impressed by the terrible +things he read in it. He sent for the man, and after a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>long talk with him was convinced of the melancholy +truth of his report. Mortified and somewhat embarrassed, +he said to him: ‘You can go home now, my +friend; the thing shall be inquired into.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Your Majesty,’ answered the man, ‘I will not go +home now. Better command me to be put in prison. +My conversation with your Majesty will not remain a +secret and I shall be killed.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Alexander shuddered and said, turning to Miloradovitch, +who was at that time Governor-General in Petersburg:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You will answer to me for him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘In that case,’ observed Miloradovitch, ‘allow me +to take him into my own house.’ And the man actually +remained there until the case was ended.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Pestel almost always lived in Petersburg. You may +remember that the proconsuls as a rule lived in Rome. +By means of his presence and connections, and still more +by the division of the spoils, he avoided all sorts of +unpleasant rumours and scandals.<a id='r141'></a><a href='#f141' class='c015'><sup>[141]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>The Imperial Council took advantage of Alexander’s +temporary absence at Verona or Aachen to come to the +intelligent and just decision that since the matter related +to Siberia the case should be handed to Pestel to deal +with, as he was on the spot. Miloradovitch, Mordvinov, +and two others were opposed to this decision, and the +case was brought before the Senate.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Senate, with that outrageous injustice with which +it continually judges cases relating to the higher officials, +exonerated Pestel but exiled Treskin, the civilian +governor of Tobolsk, and deprived him of his grade and +rank. Pestel was only relieved of his duty.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>After Pestel, Kaptsevitch, a man of the school of +Araktcheyev, was sent to Tobolsk. Thin, bilious, a +tyrant by nature and a tyrant because he had spent his +whole life in the army, a man of restless activity, he +brought external discipline and order into everything, +fixed maximum prices for goods, but left everyday affairs +in the hands of robbers. In 1824 the Tsar wanted to +visit Tobolsk. Through the Perm provinces runs an +excellent broad high-road, which has been in use for ages +and is probably good owing to the nature of the soil. +Kaptsevitch made a similar road to Tobolsk in a few +months. In the spring, in the time of alternate thaw +and frost, he forced thousands of workmen to make the +road by levies from villages near and far; epidemics +broke out among them, half the workmen died, but ‘zeal +can accomplish everything’—the road was made.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Eastern Siberia is still more slackly governed. It is +so far away that news scarcely reaches Petersburg. +Bronevsky, the Governor-General in Irkutsk, was fond +of firing cannon-balls into the town when ‘he was +merry.’ And another high official used when he was +drunk to perform a service in his house in full vestments +and in the presence of the chief priest. Anyway the +noisiness of the one and the devoutness of the other were +not so pernicious as Pestel’s blockade and Kaptsevitch’s +ceaseless activity.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is a pity that Siberia is so badly governed. The +choice of its governors-general has been particularly +unfortunate. I do not know what Muravyov is like; he +is celebrated for his intelligence and ability; the others +were good for nothing. Siberia has a great future; it +is looked upon merely as a cellar, in which there are great +stores of gold, of fur, and other goods, but which is cold, +buried in snow, poor in the means of life, without roads +or population. That is not true.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The dead hand of the Russian government, that does +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>everything by violence, everything with the stick, cannot +give the living impetus which would carry Siberia +forward with American rapidity. We shall see what +will happen when the mouths of the Amur are opened +for navigation and America meets Siberia near China.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I said long ago that the <em>Pacific Ocean is the Mediterranean +of the future</em>.<a id='r142'></a><a href='#f142' class='c015'><sup>[142]</sup></a> In that future the part played by +Siberia, the land that lies between the ocean, Southern +Asia, and Russia, will be extremely important. Of course +Siberia is bound to extend to the Chinese frontier. +People cannot freeze and shiver in Beryozov and Yakutsk +when there are Krasnoyarsk, Minusinsk, and other such +places.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Even the Russian immigration into Siberia has elements +in its nature that suggest a different development. +Generally speaking, the Siberian race is healthy, well-grown, +intelligent, and extremely practical. The +Siberian children of settlers know nothing of the landowners’ +power. There is no noble class in Siberia and +at the same time there is no aristocracy in the towns; +the officials and the officers, who are the representatives +of authority, are more like a hostile garrison stationed +there by a victorious enemy than an aristocracy. The +immense distances save the peasants from frequent +contact with them; money saves the merchants, who in +Siberia despise the officials and, though outwardly giving +way to them, take them for what they are—their clerks +employed in civil affairs.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The habit of using firearms, inevitable for a Siberian, +is universal. The dangers and emergencies of his daily +life have made the Siberian peasant more warlike, more +resourceful, readier to offer resistance than the Great +Russian. The remoteness of churches leaves his mind +freer from superstition than in Russia, he is cold to religion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>and most often a dissenter. There are remote villages +which the priest visits only three or four times a year and +then christens, buries, marries, and hears confessions +wholesale.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On this side of the Ural Mountains things are done +more discreetly, and yet I could fill volumes with anecdotes +of the abuse of power and the roguery of the +officials, heard in the course of my service in the office and +dining-room of the governor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, he was a master at it, my predecessor,’ the police-master +of Vyatka said to me in a moment of confidential +conversation. ‘Well, of course, that’s the way to get +on, only you have got to be born to it; he was a regular +Seslavin,<a id='r143'></a><a href='#f143' class='c015'><sup>[143]</sup></a> a Figner in his own way, I may say,’ and the +eyes of the lame major, promoted to be a police-master +for his wounds, sparkled at the memory of his glorious +predecessor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘A gang of robbers turned up not far from the town, +and once or twice news reached the authorities of +merchants’ goods being stolen, or money being seized +from a contractor’s steward. The governor was in a +great taking and wrote off one order after another. Well, +you know the rural police are cowards; they are equal +to binding a wretched little thief and bringing him to +justice—but this was a gang and maybe with guns. The +rural police did nothing. The governor sends for the +police-master and says: “I know that it is not your duty, +but your efficiency makes me turn to you.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The police-master had information about the business +beforehand. “General,” said he, “I will set off in an +hour, the robbers must be at this place and that place; +I’ll take soldiers with me, I shall find them at this place +and that place, and within a few days I shall bring them +in chains to the prison.” Why, it was like Suvorov with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>the Austrian Emperor! And indeed, no sooner said +than done—he fairly pounced on them with the soldiers, +they had no time to hide their money, the police-master +took it all and brought the robbers to the town.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The police inquiry began. The police-master asked +them: “Where is your money?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Why, we gave it to you, sir, into your very hands,” +answered two of the robbers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Gave it to me?” says the police-master in amazement.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Yes, to you, to you,” shout the robbers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“What insolence!” says the police-master to the +inspector, turning pale with indignation. “Why, you +scoundrels, you’ll be saying next, I suppose, that I stole +it with you. I’ll teach you to insult my uniform; I’m +a cornet of Uhlans and won’t allow a slur on my honour!”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘He has them flogged, saying “Confess where you have +hidden the money.” At first they stick to their story, only +when he gives the order for them to have a second pipeful, +the ringleader shouts: “We are guilty, we spent the +money.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“You should have said so long ago,” said the police-master, +“instead of talking such nonsense; you won’t +take me in, my man.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, to be sure, we ought to come to your honour +for a lesson and not you to us. We couldn’t teach +you anything!” muttered the old robber, looking with +admiration at the police-master.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And do you know he got the Vladimir ribbon for +that business.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Excuse me,’ I asked, interrupting the praises of the +great police-master, ‘what is the meaning of “a second +pipeful”?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s just a saying among us. It’s a dreary business +you know, flogging, so as you order it to begin, you +light your pipe and it is usually over by the time you have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>smoked it—but in exceptional cases we sometimes order +our friends to be treated to two pipefuls. The police +are used to it, they know pretty well how much to give.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of the Figner above mentioned, there were regular +legends current in Vyatka. He performed miracles. +Once, I do not remember the occasion, some general-adjutant +or minister arrived, and the police-master +wanted to show that he did not wear the Uhlan cross +for nothing and that he could spur his horse as smartly +as any one. To this end he applied to one of the Mashkovtsevs, +rich merchants of that region, asking him to +give him his valuable grey saddle-horse. Mashkovtsev +would not give it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Very good,’ said Figner, ‘you won’t do such a trifle +for me of your own accord, so I’ll take the horse without +your permission.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, we shall see about that,’ said Gold.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, we shall see,’ said Steel.<a id='r144'></a><a href='#f144' class='c015'><sup>[144]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Mashkovtsev locked up the horse and put two men +on guard, and on that occasion the police-master was +unsuccessful.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But in the night, as though of design, an empty barn +belonging to spirit-tax contractors, and adjoining the +Mihailovitch house, took fire. The police-master and +the police did their work admirably; to save Mashkovtsev’s +house, they even pulled down the wall of his stable +and carried off the horse in dispute without a hair of his +tail or of his mane singed. Two hours later, the police-master, +parading on a white stallion, went to receive the +thanks of the highest authority for his exemplary management +of the fire. After this no one doubted that the +police-master could do anything.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The governor Ryhlevsky was driving from an assembly; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>at the moment when his carriage was starting, the driver +of a small sledge carelessly got between the traces of the +back pair and the front pair of horses; this led to a minute’s +confusion, which did not, however, prevent Ryhlevsky +from reaching home perfectly comfortably. Next day +the governor asked the police-master if he knew whose +coachman it was who had driven into his traces, and said +that he ought to be reprimanded.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That coachman, your Excellency, will never drive +into your traces again; I gave him a good lesson,’ the +police-master answered, smiling.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But whose man is he?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Councillor Kulakov’s, your Excellency.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>At that moment the old councillor, whom I found and +left councillor of the provincial government, walked into +the governor’s.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You must forgive us,’ said the governor to him, ‘for +having given your coachman a lesson.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The astonished councillor looked at him inquiringly, +unable to understand.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You see he drove into my traces yesterday. You see +if he is allowed to....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But, your Excellency, I was at home all day yesterday, +and my wife too, and the coachman was at home.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What’s the meaning of this?’ asked the governor.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I am very sorry, your Excellency. I was so busy +yesterday, my head was in a whirl, I quite forgot about +the coachman, and I confess I did not dare to report +that to your Excellency. I meant to see about him at +once.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, you are a regular police-master, there is no +doubt about it!’ observed Ryhlevsky.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Side by side with this rapacious official, I will describe +another of the opposite breed—a tame, soft, sympathetic +official.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Among my acquaintances was one venerable old man, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>a police-captain dismissed from his position by a Committee +of Inquiry instituted by the Senators’ revision. He +spent his time drawing up petitions and getting up cases, +which was just what he was forbidden to do. This man, +who had been in the service immemorial ages, had stolen, +doctored official documents, and collected false evidence +in three provinces, twice been tried, and so on. This +veteran of the rural police liked to tell amazing anecdotes +about himself and his colleagues, not concealing his +contempt for the degenerate officials of the younger +generation.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘They’re giddy-pates,’ he said; ‘of course they take +what they can get, there is no living without it, but it is +no use looking for cleverness or knowledge of the law in +them. I’ll tell you, for instance, about one friend of +mine. He was a judge for twenty years and only died +last year. He was a man of brains! And the peasants don’t +remember evil against him, though he has left his family +a bit of bread. He had quite a special way of his own. +If a peasant came along with a petition, the judge would +admit him at once and be as friendly and pleasant as you +please.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“What is your name, uncle, and what was your +father’s?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant would bow and say, “Yermolay, sir, +and my father was called Grigory.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, good health to you, Yermolay Grigoryevitch, +from what parts is the Lord bringing you here?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“We are from Dubilovo.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“I know, I know. You have a mill, I fancy, on the +right from the track.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Yes sir, the mill of our commune.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“A well-to-do village; the land is good, black soil.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“We don’t complain against God, kind sir.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, that is as it should be. I’ll be bound you +have a good-sized family, Yermolay Grigoryevitch?”</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>‘“Three sons and two daughters, and I have married +the elder to a young fellow who has been with us five +years.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“I daresay you have grandchildren by now?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Yes, there are little ones, your honour.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“And thank God for it! increase and multiply. +Well, Yermolay Grigoryevitch, it is a long way you have +come, let us have a glass of birch wine.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant makes a show of refusing. The judge +fills a glass for him, saying, “Nonsense, nonsense, my +man, the holy Fathers have nothing against wine and oil +to-day.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“It’s true there is nothing against it, but wine brings +a man to every trouble.” Then he crosses himself, bows, +and drinks the birch wine.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“With such a family, Grigoryevitch, I’ll be bound +life is hard? To feed and clothe every one of them you +can’t manage with one wretched nag or cow; there would +not be milk enough.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Upon my word, sir, what could I do with only one +horse? I have three, I did have a fourth, a roan, but it +was bewitched about St. Peter’s fast; the carpenter in +our village, Dorofey, may God be his judge, hates to see +another man well off and has an evil eye.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“It does happen, it does happen. And you have +big grazing lands, of course; I’ll be bound you keep +sheep?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“To be sure, we have sheep too.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Ah, I’ve been too long talking with you. It’s +the Tsar’s service, Yermolay Grigoryevitch, it is time +I was in the Court. Had you come about some little +business or what?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Yes, your honour.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, what is it? some quarrel? Make haste and +tell me, old man! it is time I was going.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, kind sir, trouble has come upon me in my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>old age. Just at Assumption, we were in the tavern and +came to high words with a peasant of a neighbouring +village, such a mischievous man, he is always stealing our +wood. We had hardly said a word before he swung +his fist and gave me a punch in the chest. ‘Keep your +blows for your own village,’ I said to him, and just to +make an example, I would have given him a push, but, +being drunk perhaps, or else it was the devil in it, hit +him in the eye—and, well, I spoilt his eye, and he is +gone with the church elder straight to the inspector—wants +to have me up to be tried in the court.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘While he tells this story, the judge—our Petersburg +actors are nothing to him—grows graver and graver, +makes his eyes look dreadful, and does not say a word.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant sees and turns pale, lays his hat at his +feet and takes out a towel to mop his face. The judge +still sits silent and turns over the leaves of a book.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“So I have come here to you, kind sir,” says the +peasant in a changed tone.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“What can I do in the matter? What a position! +And what did you hit him in the eye for?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“That’s true indeed, sir, what for.... The evil +one confounded me.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“It’s a pity! a great pity! to think that a household +must be ruined! Why, what will become of the family +without you, all young people and little grandchildren, +and I am sorry for your old woman, too.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant’s legs begin to tremble.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Well, kind sir, what have I brought on myself?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Look here, Yermolay Grigoryevitch, read for +yourself ... or perhaps you are no great reader? +Well, here is the article on maiming and mutilation ... +to be punished by flogging and exile to Siberia.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Don’t let a man be ruined! Don’t destroy a +Christian! Cannot something be done?...”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“What a fellow! Can we go against the law? +<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>Of course, it is all in human hands. Well, instead of +thirty strokes we might give five.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“But about Siberia?...”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“That’s not in our power to decide, my good man.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant pulls out of his bosom a little bag, takes +out of the bag a bit of paper, out of the paper two and then +three gold pieces, and with a low bow lays them on the +table.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“What’s this, Yermolay Grigoryevitch?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Save me, kind sir.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Nonsense, nonsense, what do you mean? Sinful +man that I am, I do sometimes accept a token of gratitude. +My salary is small, so one is forced to, but if one accepts +it, it must be for something! How can I help you? +It would be a different thing if it were a rib or a tooth, +but a blow on the eye! Take your money back.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant is crushed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“I’ll tell you what; shall I talk to my colleagues +and write to the governor’s office? Very likely the case +will come into the courts of justice, there I have friends, +they can do anything, only they are a different sort of +people, you won’t get off for three gold pieces there.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The peasant begins to recover his faculties.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“You needn’t give me anything. I am sorry for your +family, but it is no use your offering them less than two +grey notes.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“But, kind sir, as God is above, I don’t know where +I am to turn to get such a mint of money—four hundred +roubles—these are hard times.”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘“Yes, I expect it is difficult. We could diminish +the punishment in view of your penitence, and taking +into consideration that you were not sober ... and, there, +you know people get on all right in Siberia. There is +no telling how far you may have to go.... Of course, +if you were to sell a couple of horses and one of the cows, +and the sheep, you might make it up. But it would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>take you a time to make up that money again! On the +other hand, if you do keep the horses, you’ll have to go +off yourself to the ends of the earth. Think it over, +Grigoryevitch; there is no hurry, we can wait till to-morrow, +but it is time I was going,” adds the judge, and +puts the gold pieces he had refused into his pocket, +saying, “This is quite unnecessary. I only take it not +to offend you.”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Next morning you may be sure the old screw brings +three hundred and fifty roubles in all sorts of old-fashioned +coins to the judge.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The judge promises to look after his interests: the +peasant is tried and tried and properly scared and then +let off with some light punishment, or with a warning +to be careful in future, or with a note that he is to be kept +under police supervision, and he remembers the judge +in his prayers for the rest of his life.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘That’s how they used to do in old days,’ the discharged +police-inspector told me; ‘they did things +properly.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The peasants of Vyatka are, generally speaking, not +very long-suffering, and for that reason the officials consider +them fractious and troublesome. The rural police +find their real gold mine in the Votyaks, the Mordvahs, +and the Tchuvashes; they are pitiful, timid, dull-witted +people. Police inspectors pay double to the governor +for appointments in districts populated by these Finnish +tribes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The police and the officials do incredible things with +these poor creatures.</p> + +<p class='c014'>If a land-surveyor crosses a Votyak village on some +commission, he invariably halts in it, takes an astrolabe +out of his cart, sticks a post into the ground and stretches +a chain. Within an hour the whole village is in a +turmoil. ‘The surveyors, the surveyors!’ the peasants +say with the horror with which in 1812 they used to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>say, ‘The French, the French!’ The village elder +comes with the commune to do homage. And the +surveyor measures everything and writes it down. The +elder entreats him not to measure, not to do them injury. +The surveyor demands twenty or thirty roubles. The +Votyaks are greatly relieved, they collect the money—and +the surveyor goes on to the next Votyak village.</p> + +<p class='c014'>If a dead body comes into the hands of the police, they +take it about with them for a fortnight, if it is frosty +weather, from one Votyak village to another, and in +each one declare that they have just picked it up, and +that an inquest and inquiry will be held in their village. +The Votyaks buy them off.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few years before I came to the district, a police-inspector +who had acquired a taste for taking bribes +brought a dead body into a big Russian village and +demanded, I remember, two hundred roubles. The +village elder called the commune together. The commune +refused to give more than a hundred. The police +official would not give way. The peasants lost their +tempers and shut him with his two clerks in the hut +which serves as the parish office, and in their turn +threatened to burn them. The police-inspector did +not believe in the threat. The peasants surrounded the +hut with straw and, as an ultimatum, passed a hundred-rouble +note in at the window on a stake. The heroic +police-inspector still insisted on another hundred. Then +the peasants set fire to the straw all round the hut and +the three Mucius Scaevolas of the rural police were burnt +to death. This affair was afterwards brought before +the senate.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Votyak villages are as a rule much poorer than the +Russian ones.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘You live poorly, brother,’ I said to a Votyak while I +was waiting for horses in a stuffy, smoky little hut all on +the slant with its windows looking into the back-yard.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>‘Can’t be helped, master! We are poor, we save money +for bad times.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, it would be hard for times to be worse, old +man,’ I said to him, pouring out a glass of rum. ‘Drink, +and forget your troubles.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘We do not drink,’ answered the Votyak, looking +eagerly at the glass and suspiciously at me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Nonsense! come, take it.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Drink yourself first.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I drank and then the Votyak drank.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘And what are you?’ he asked. ‘From the government +on business?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No,’ I answered, ‘on a journey; I am going to Vyatka.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This considerably reassured him and, looking round +carefully, he added by way of explanation, ‘it is a black +day when the police-inspector and the priest come to us.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I should like to add something concerning the latter. +Our priests are being more and more transformed into +clerical police, as might indeed be expected from the +Byzantine meekness of our Church and the spiritual +supremacy of the Tsar.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Finnish tribes were partly christened before the +time of Peter the Great and partly in the reign of Elizabeth, +while a section of them have remained heathen. +The greater number of those christened in the reign of +Elizabeth secretly adhere to their savage, gloomy +religion.<a id='r145'></a><a href='#f145' class='c015'><sup>[145]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>Every two or three years the police-inspector or the +rural police superintendent go through the villages +accompanied by a priest, to discover which of the Votyaks +have confessed and been absolved, and which have not +and why not. They are oppressed, thrown into prison, +flogged, and made to pay fines; and, above all, the priest +and the police-inspector search for any proof that they +have not given up their old rites. Then the spiritual +spy and the police missionary raise a storm, exact an +immense bribe, give them a ‘black day,’ and so depart +leaving everything as before, to repeat their procession +with cross and rods a year or two later.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In 1835 the Most Holy Synod thought it fitting to +do apostolic work in the Vyatka Province and convert +the Tcheremiss heathen to orthodoxy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This conversion is a type of all the great reforms +carried out by the Russian government, a façade, scene-painting, +<em>blague</em>, deception, a magnificent report, while +somebody steals and some one else is flogged.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Metropolitan, Filaret, sent an energetic priest as +a missionary. His name was Kurbanovsky. Consumed +by the Russian disease of ambition, Kurbanovsky threw +himself warmly into the work. He determined at all +costs to force the grace of God upon the Tcheremisses. +At first he tried preaching, but he soon got tired of that. +And, indeed, does one make much way by that old +method?</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tcheremisses, seeing the position of affairs, sent +to him their priests, wild, fanatical and adroit. After +a prolonged parleying, they said to Kurbanovsky: ‘In +the forest are white birch-trees, tall pines and firs, there +is also the little juniper. God suffers them all and bids +not the juniper be a pine-tree. And so are we among +<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>ourselves, like the forest. Be ye the white birch, we +will remain the juniper; we will not trouble you, <em>we will +pray for the Tsar</em>, will pay the taxes and send recruits, +but we will not change our holy things.’<a id='r146'></a><a href='#f146' class='c015'><sup>[146]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Kurbanovsky saw that there was no making them hear +reason, and that the success of Cyril and Methodius<a id='r147'></a><a href='#f147' class='c015'><sup>[147]</sup></a> +would not be vouchsafed him, and he appealed to the +local police-captain. The latter was highly delighted. +He had long been eager to display his devotion to the +Church. He was an unbaptized Tatar, <em>i.e.</em> a Mahommedan +of the true faith, by name Devlet-Kildeyev.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The police-captain took a band of soldiers and set off +to attack the Tcheremisses with the Word of God. +Several villages were duly christened. The apostle +Kurbanovsky performed the thanksgiving service and +went meekly off to receive his reward. To the Tatar +apostle the government sent the Vladimir Cross for the +propagation of Christianity!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Unfortunately, the Tatar missionary was not on good +terms with the mullah at Malmyzho. The mullah was +not at all pleased that a son of the true faith of the Koran +should preach the Gospel so successfully. In Ramadan, +the police-captain, heedlessly affixing the cross to his +button, appeared at the mosque and of course took up +his stand before all the rest. The mullah had only just +begun reading the Koran through his nose, when all at +once he stopped, and said that he dare not continue in +the presence of a Mussulman who had come into the +mosque wearing a Christian emblem.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>The Tatars raised a murmur, the police-captain was +overcome with confusion and either withdrew or removed +the cross.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I afterwards read in the <cite>Journal of the Ministry of +Home Affairs</cite> about the brilliant conversion of the +Tcheremisses. The article referred to the zealous co-operation +of Devlet-Kildeyev. Unluckily they forgot +to add that his zeal for the Church was the more disinterested +as his faith in Islam was so firm.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before the end of my time at Vyatka, the Department +of Crown Property was stealing so impudently that a +commission of inquiry was appointed, which sent +inspectors about the province. With that began the +introduction of new regulations concerning Crown +peasants.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Governor Kornilov had the appointment of the +officials for this inspection in his hands. I was one of +those appointed. What things it was my lot to read! +Melancholy, and amusing, and disgusting. The very +headings of the cases moved me to amazement.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Relating to the disappearance of the house of the +Parish Council, no one knows where, and of the gnawing +of the plan of it by mice.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Relating to the loss of twenty-two government quit-rent +articles, <em>i.e.</em> of fifteen versts of land.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Relating to the re-enumeration of the peasant +boy Vassily among the feminine sex.’ This last was +so strange that I at once read the case from cover to +cover.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The father of this supposed Vassily wrote in his +petition to the governor that fifteen years ago he had a +daughter born, whom he had wanted to call Vassilisa, +but that the priest, being ‘in liquor,’ christened the girl +Vassily and so entered it on the register. The circumstance +apparently troubled the peasant very little. But +when he realised that it would soon come to his family +<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>to furnish a recruit and pay the poll tax, he reported on +the matter to the mayor and the rural police superintendent. +The case seemed very suspicious to the police. +They had previously refused to listen to the peasant, +saying that he had let ten years pass. The peasant went +to the governor, the latter arranged a solemn examination +of the boy of the feminine sex by a doctor and a midwife.... +At this point a correspondence suddenly sprang +up with the Consistory, and the priest, the successor of +the one who, when ‘in liquor,’ had failed to note this +trifling difference, appeared on the scene, and the case +went on for years and the girl was left under suspicion of +being a man until the end.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Do not imagine that this is an absurd figment of my +fancy; not at all, it is quite in harmony with the spirit +of the Russian autocracy.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the reign of Paul some colonel of the Guards in his +monthly report entered an officer as dead who was dying +in the hospital. Paul struck him off the list as dead. +Unluckily the officer did not die, but recovered. The +colonel persuaded him to withdraw to his country estate +for a year or two, hoping to find an opportunity to rectify +the error. The officer agreed, but unfortunately for +the colonel the heirs who had read of their kinsman’s +death in the <cite>Army Gazette</cite> refused on any consideration +to acknowledge that he was living, and, inconsolable at +their loss, insisted on bringing the matter before the +authorities. When the living corpse saw that he was +likely to die a second time, not merely on paper but from +hunger, he went to Petersburg and sent in a petition to +Paul. The Tsar wrote with his own hand on the +petition: ‘Forasmuch as a decree of the Most High has +been promulgated concerning this gentleman, the +petition must be refused.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This is even better than my Vassilisa-Vassily. Of +what consequence was the crude fact of life beside the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>decree of the Most High? Paul was the poet and +dialectician of autocracy!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Foul and loathsome as this morass of officialdom is, I +must add a few words more about it. To bring it into +the light of day is the least poor tribute one can pay to +those who have suffered and perished, unknown and +uncomforted.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The government readily gives the higher officials waste +lands by way of reward. There is no great harm in that, +though it would be more sensible to keep these reserves +to provide for the increase of population. The regulations +that govern the fixing of the boundaries of these +lands are fairly detailed; forests containing building +timber, the banks of navigable rivers, indeed the banks of +any river, must not be given away, nor under any circumstances +may lands be so assigned that are being cultivated +by peasants, even though the peasants have no right to +the land except that of long usage.<a id='r148'></a><a href='#f148' class='c015'><sup>[148]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>All these restrictions of course are only on paper. In +reality the assignment of land to private owners is a +terrible source of plunder and oppression of the peasants. +Great noblemen in receipt of rents used either to sell +their rights to merchants, or try through the provincial +authorities to gain some special privilege contrary to the +regulations. Even Count Orlov himself was <em>by chance</em> +assigned a main road and the pasture lands on which +cattle droves are pastured in the Province of Saratov.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is therefore no wonder that one fine morning the +peasants of the Darovsky parish in Kotelnitchesky district +had their lands cut off right up to their barns and houses +<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>and given as private property to some merchants who +had bought the lease of them from a kinsman of Count +Kankrin. The merchants fixed a rent for the land. +This led to a lawsuit. The Court of Justice, bribed by +the merchants and afraid of Kankrin’s kinsman, confused +the issues of the case. But the peasants were determined +to persist with it. They elected two hard-headed +peasants from amongst themselves and sent them to +Petersburg. The case was brought before the Senate. +The land-surveying department perceived that the +peasants were in the right and consulted Kankrin. The +latter simply admitted that the land had been irregularly +apportioned, but urged that it would be difficult to +restore it, because it <em>might</em> have changed hands since then, +and that its present owners <em>might</em> have made various +improvements. And therefore his Excellency proposed +that, considering the vast amount of Crown property +available, the peasants should be assigned a full equivalent +in a different part. This satisfied every one except the +peasants. In the first place, it is no light matter to bring +fresh land under cultivation, and, in the second, the fresh +land turned out to be swampy and unsuitable. As the +peasants were more interested in growing corn than in +shooting grouse and woodcock, they sent another petition.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Then the Court of Justice and the Ministry of Finance +made a new case out of the old one, and finding a law +which authorised them, if the land that was assigned +turned out to be unsuitable, to add as much as another +half of the amount to it, ordered the peasants to be given +another half swamp in addition to the swamp they already +had.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The peasants sent another petition to the Senate, but, +before their case had come up for investigation, the land-surveying +department sent them plans of their new land, +with the boundaries marked and coloured, with stars +for the points of the compass and appropriate explanations +<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>for the lozenges, marked R.R.Z., and the lozenges marked +Z.Z.R., and, what was of more consequence, a demand +for so much rent per acre. The peasants, seeing that +far from giving them land, they were trying to squeeze +money out of them for the bog, refused point-blank to +pay. The police-captain reported it to Tyufyaev, who +sent a punitory expedition under the command of the +Vyatka police-master. The latter arrived, seized a few +persons, flogged them, restored order in the district, +took the money, handed over the <em>guilty parties</em> to the +Criminal Court, and was hoarse for a week afterwards +from shouting. Several men were punished with the +lash and sent into exile.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Two years later the Tsarevitch passed through the +district, the peasants handed him a petition; he ordered +the case to be investigated. It was upon this that I had +to draw up a report. Whether any good came of this +re-investigation I do not know. I have heard that the +exiles were brought back, but whether the land was +restored I cannot say.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In conclusion, I must mention the celebrated story of +the potato mutiny and how Nicholas tried to bring the +blessings of Petersburg civilisation to the nomad gypsies.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Like the peasantry of all Europe at one time, the +Russian peasants were not very ready to plant potatoes, +as though an instinct told the people that this was a poor +kind of food which would give them neither health nor +strength. However, on the estates of decent landowners +and in many crown villages, ‘earth apples’ had been +planted long before the Potato Terror. But anything +that is done of itself is distasteful to the Russian Government. +Everything must be done under terror of the +stick and the drill-sergeant, to the beating of drums.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The peasants of the Kazan and of part of the Vyatka +province planted potatoes in their fields. When the +potatoes were lifted, the idea occurred to the Ministry to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>set up a central potato-pit in each <em>volost</em>. Potato-pits +were ratified, potato-pits were prescribed, potato-pits were +dug; and at the beginning of winter the peasants, much +against their will, took the potatoes to the central pit. +But when the following spring the authorities tried to +make them plant frozen potatoes, they refused. There +cannot, indeed, be a more flagrant insult to labour than +a command to do something obviously absurd. This +refusal was represented as a mutiny. The Minister +Kisselyov sent an official from Petersburg; he, being +an intelligent and practical man, exacted a rouble apiece +from the peasants of the first <em>volost</em> and allowed them +not to plant frozen potatoes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He repeated this proceeding in the second <em>volost</em> and +the third, but in the fourth, the elder told him point-blank +that he would neither plant the potatoes nor pay +him anything. ‘You have let off these and those,’ he +told the official; ‘it’s clear you must let us off too.’ The +official would have concluded the business with threats +and thrashings, but the peasants snatched up stakes and +drove away the police; the military governor sent +Cossacks. The neighbouring <em>volosts</em> took the peasants’ +part.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is enough to say that it came to using grape-shot and +bullets. The peasants left their homes and dispersed +into the woods; the Cossacks drove them out of the +bushes like game; then they were caught, put into irons, +and sent to be court-martialled at Kosmodemiansk.</p> + +<p class='c014'>By a strange accident the old major in charge there was +an honest, good-natured man; in the simplicity of his +heart, he said that the official sent from Petersburg was +solely to blame. Every one pounced upon him, his voice +was hushed up, he was suppressed; he was intimidated +and even put to shame for ‘trying to ruin an innocent +man.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And the inquiry followed the usual Russian routine: +<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>the peasants were flogged during the examination, flogged +as a punishment, flogged as an example, flogged to extort +money, and a whole crowd of them sent to Siberia.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is worth noting that Kisselyov passed through +Kosmodemiansk during the inquiry. He might, it may +be thought, have looked in at the court martial or have +sent for the major.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He did not do so!</p> + +<p class='c014'>The famous Turgot, seeing the hatred of the peasants +for the potatoes, distributed seed-potatoes among contractors, +purveyors, and other persons under government +control, sternly forbidding them to give them to the +peasants. At the same time he gave them secret orders +not to prevent the peasants from stealing them. In a +few years a large part of France was under potatoes.</p> + +<p class='c014'><em>Tout bien pris</em>, is not that better than grape-shot, Pavel +Dmitrievitch?</p> + +<p class='c014'>In 1836 a gypsy camp came to Vyatka and settled in +a field. These gypsies had wandered as far as Tobolsk +and Irbit and had invariably, accompanied by their +trained bear and entirely untrained children, led their +free nomadic existence from time immemorial, engaged +in horse-doctoring, fortune-telling, and petty pilfering. +They peacefully sang songs and robbed hen-roosts, but +all at once the governor received instructions from the +Most High that if gypsies were found without passports +(not a single gypsy had ever had a passport, and that +Nicholas and his men knew perfectly well) they were to +be given a fixed time within which they were to inscribe +themselves as citizens of the village or town where they +happened to be at the date of the decree.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the expiration of the time limit, it was ordained that +those fit for military service should be taken for soldiers +and the rest sent into exile, all but the children of the +male sex.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This senseless decree, which recalled biblical accounts +<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>of the persecution and punishment of whole races and the +slaughter of all the males among them, disconcerted even +Tyufyaev. He communicated the absurd decree to the +gypsies and wrote to Petersburg that it could not be +carried out. To inscribe themselves as citizens they +would need both money for the officials and the consent +of the town or village, which would also have been unwilling +to accept the gypsies for nothing. It was necessary, +too, that the gypsies should themselves have been +desirous of settling on the spot. Taking all this into +consideration, Tyufyaev—and one must give him credit +for it—asked the Ministry to grant postponements and +exemptions.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Ministry answered by instructions that at the +expiration of the time limit this Nebuchadnezzar-like +decree should be carried out. Most unwillingly Tyufyaev +sent a company of soldiers with orders to surround +the gypsy camp; as soon as this was done, the police +arrived with the garrison battalion, and what happened, +I am told, was beyond all imagination. Women with +streaming hair ran about in a frenzy, screaming and +weeping, and falling at the feet of the police; grey-headed +old mothers clung to their sons. But order +triumphed and the police-master took the boys and +took the recruits—while the rest were sent by étape +somewhere into exile.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But when the children had been taken, the question +arose what was to be done with them and at whose expense +they were to be kept.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In old days there were foundling hospitals in connection +with the Department of Public Charity which cost +the government nothing. But the Prussian chastity of +Nicholas abolished them as detrimental to morals. +Tyufyaev advanced money of his own and asked the +Minister for instructions. Ministers never stick at +anything. They ordered that the boys, until further +<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>instructions, were to be put into the charge of the old +men and women maintained in the almshouses.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Think of placing little children in charge of moribund +old men and women, making them breathe the atmosphere +of death—forcing old people who need peace and +quiet to look after children for nothing!</p> + +<p class='c014'>What imagination!</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I am on the subject I must describe what +happened some eighteen months later to the elder of +my father’s village in the province of Vladimir. He +was a peasant of intelligence and experience who carried +on the trade of a carrier, had several teams of three horses +each, and had been for twenty years the elder of a little +village that paid <em>obrok</em> to my father.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Some time during the year I spent in Vladimir, the +neighbouring peasants asked him to deliver a recruit for +them. Bringing the future defender of his country on +a rope, he arrived in the town with great self-confidence +as a man proficient in the business.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘This,’ said he, combing with his fingers the fair, +grizzled beard that framed his face, ‘is all the work of +men’s hands, sir. Last year we pitched on our lad, such +a wretched sickly fellow he was—the peasants were much +afraid he wouldn’t do. “And how much, good Christians, +will you go to? A wheel will not turn without being +greased.” We talked it over and the <em>mir</em> decided to give +twenty-five gold pieces. I went to the town and after +talking in the government office I went straight to the +president—he was a sensible man, sir, and had known +me a long time. He told them to take me into his study +and he had something the matter with his leg, so he was +lying on the sofa. I put it all before him and he +answered me with a laugh, “that’s all right, that’s all +right, you tell me how many <em>of them</em> you have brought—you +are a skinflint, I know you.” I put ten gold pieces +on the table and made him a low bow—he took the money +<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>in his hand and kept playing with it. “But I say,” he +said, “I am not the only one whom you will have to pay, +what more have you brought?” “Another ten,” I told +him. “Well,” he said, “you can reckon yourself what +you must do with it. Two to the doctor, two to the +army receiver, then the clerk, and all sorts of other little +tips won’t come to more than three—so you had better +leave the rest with me and I will try to arrange it all.”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, did you give it to him?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To be sure I did—and they took the boy all right.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Accustomed to such reckonings and calculations and +also, perhaps, to the five gold pieces of which he had +given no account, the elder was confident of success. +But there may be many mishaps between the bribe and +the hand that takes it. Count Essen, one of the Imperial +adjutants, was sent to Vladimir for the levy of recruits. +The elder approached him with his gold pieces. Unfortunately +the Count had, like the heroine of Pushkin’s +<cite>Nulin</cite>, been reared ‘not in the traditions of his fathers,’ +but in the school of the Baltic aristocracy, which instils +German devotion to the Russian Tsar. Essen was +angered, shouted at him and, what was worse, rang the +bell; the clerk ran in and gendarmes made their appearance. +The elder, who had never suspected the existence +of men in uniform who would not take bribes, lost his +head so completely that he did not deny the charge, did +not vow and swear that he had never offered money, did +not protest, might God strike him blind and might +another drop never pass between his lips, if he had thought +of such a thing! He let himself be caught like a sheep +and led off to the police station, probably regretting that +he had offered the general too little and so offended +him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But Essen, not satisfied with the purity of his own +conscience, nor the terror of the luckless peasant, and +probably wishing to eradicate bribery <em>in Russland</em>, to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>punish vice and set a salutary example, wrote to the +police, wrote to the governor, wrote to the recruiting +office of the elder’s criminal attempt. The peasant was +put in prison and committed for trial. Thanks to the +stupid and grotesque law which metes out the same +punishment to the honest man who gives a bribe to an +official and to the official himself who takes the bribe, +things looked black for him and the elder had to be saved +at all costs.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I rushed to the governor; he refused to intervene in +the matter; the president and councillors of the Criminal +Court shook their heads, panic-stricken at the interference +of the Imperial adjutant. The latter himself, relenting, +was the first to declare that he ‘wished the man no harm, +that he only wanted to give him a lesson, that he ought +<em>to be tried and then let off</em>.’ When I told this to the police-master, +he observed: ‘The fact is, none of these gentry +know how things are done, he should have simply sent +him to me. I would have given the fool a good drubbing—to +teach him to mind what he is about—and would +have sent him about his business. Every one would +have been satisfied, and now you are in a nice mess with +the Criminal Court.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>These two comments express the Russian conception +of law so neatly and strikingly that I cannot forget them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Between these pillars of Hercules of the national jurisprudence, +the elder had fallen into the deepest gulf, that +is, into the Criminal Court. A few months later the +verdict was prepared that the elder after being punished +with the lash should be exiled to Siberia. His son and +all his family came to me, imploring me to save their +father, the head of the family. I myself felt fearfully +sorry for the peasant, ruined though perfectly innocent. +I went again to the president and the councillors, pointing +out to them that they were doing themselves harm by +punishing the elder so severely; that they knew themselves +<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>very well that no business was ever done without +bribes; that, in fact, they would have nothing to eat if +they did not, like true Christians, consider that every gift +is perfect and every giving is a blessing. Entreating, +bowing, and sending the elder’s son to bow still lower, I +succeeded in gaining half of my object. The elder was +condemned to a few strokes of the lash within prison +walls, was allowed to remain in his home, but was +forbidden to act as an agent for the other peasants.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I sighed with relief when I saw that the governor and +the prosecutor had agreed to this, and went to the police +to ask for some mitigation of the severity of the flogging; +the police, partly because they were flattered at my +coming myself to ask them a favour, partly through +compassion for a man who was suffering for something +that concerned them all so intimately, promised me to +make it a pure formality.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few days later the elder appeared, thinner and greyer +than before. I saw that for all his delight he was sad +about something and weighed down by some oppressive +thought.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What are you worrying about?’ I asked him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, I wish they’d settle it once for all.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I don’t understand.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I mean, when will they punish me?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why, haven’t they punished you?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Then how is it they have let you go? You are going +home, aren’t you?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Home, yes; but I fancy the secretary read something +about punishment.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>I could really make nothing of it, and at last asked him +whether they had given him any sort of paper. He gave +it me. The whole verdict was written in it, and at the +end it was stated that, having received the punishment +of the lash within the prison walls in accordance with the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>sentence of the Criminal Court, he was given his certificate +and let out of prison.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I laughed.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, you have been flogged already, then!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘No, sir, I haven’t.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, if you are dissatisfied, go back and ask them to +punish you; perhaps the police will enter into your +position.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Seeing that I was laughing, the old man smiled too, +shaking his head dubiously and adding: ‘Well, well, +strange doings!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘How irregular!’ many people will say; but they +must remember that it is only through such irregularity +that life is possible in Russia.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 16<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>Alexander Lavrentyevitch Vitberg</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>Among the grotesque and dirty, petty and loathsome +scenes and figures, affairs and cases, in this +setting of official routine and red-tape, I recall the noble +and melancholy features of an artist, who was crushed +by the government with cold and callous cruelty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The leaden hand of the Tsar did not merely strangle +a work of genius in its infancy, did not merely destroy +the very creation of the artist, entangling him in judicial +snares and police traps, but tried to snatch from him his +honourable name together with his last crust of bread +and to brand him as a taker of bribes and a pilferer of +government funds.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After ruining and disgracing A. L. Vitberg, Nicholas +exiled him to Vyatka. It was there that we met.</p> + +<p class='c014'>For two years and a half I lived with the great artist +and saw the strong man, who had fallen a victim to the +autocracy of red-tape officialdom and barrack-discipline, +which measures everything in the world by the footrule +of the recruiting officer and the copying clerk, breaking +down under the weight of persecution and misery.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It cannot be said that he succumbed easily; he +struggled desperately for full ten years. He came into +exile still hoping to confound his enemies and justify +himself, he came in fact still ready for conflict, bringing +plans and projects. But he soon discerned that all was +over.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Perhaps even this discovery would not have overwhelmed +him, but he had at his side a wife and children +and ahead of him years of exile, poverty, and privation; +and Vitberg was turning grey, growing old, growing +old not by days but by hours. When I left him in Vyatka +at the end of two years he was quite ten years older.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Here is the story of this long martyrdom.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>The Emperor Alexander did not believe in his victory +over Napoleon, he was oppressed by the fame of it and +genuinely gave the glory to God. Always disposed to +mysticism and melancholy, in which many people saw +the fretting of conscience, he gave way to it particularly +after the series of victories over Napoleon.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When ‘the last soldier of the enemy had crossed the +frontier,’ Alexander issued a proclamation in which he +vowed to raise in Moscow an immense temple to the +Saviour. Plans for such a temple were invited, and an +immense competition began.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg was at that time a young artist who had just +completed his studies and gained the gold medal for +painting. A Swede by origin, he was born in Russia +and at first was educated in the Engineers’ Cadet Corps. +The artist was enthusiastic, eccentric, and given to +mysticism: he read the proclamation, read the appeal +for plans, and flung aside all other pursuits. For days +and nights he wandered about the streets of Petersburg, +tortured by a persistent idea; it was too strong for him, +he locked himself up in his own room, took a pencil and +set to work.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To no one in the world did the artist confide his design. +After some months of work, he went to Moscow to study +the city and the surrounding country and set to work +again, shutting himself up for months together and keeping +his design a secret.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The date of the competition arrived. The plans were +numerous, there were designs from Italy and from +Germany and our Academicians sent in theirs. And +the unknown youth sent in his among the rest. Weeks +passed before the Emperor examined the plans. These +were the forty days in the wilderness, days of temptation, +doubt, and agonising suspense.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg’s colossal design, filled with religious poetry, +impressed Alexander. He came to a stop before it, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>it was the first of which he inquired the authorship. +They broke open the sealed envelope and found the +unknown name of an Academy pupil.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Alexander wanted to see Vitberg. He had a long talk +with the artist. His bold and fervent language, his +genuine inspiration and the mystic tinge of his convictions +impressed the Emperor. ‘You speak in stones,’ he +observed, examining Vitberg’s design again.</p> + +<p class='c014'>That very day his design was accepted and Vitberg +was chosen to be the architect and the director of the +building committee. Alexander did not know that +with the laurel wreath he was putting a crown of thorns +on the artist’s head.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture; +abstract, geometrical, mutely musical, passionless, +it lives in symbol, in emblem, in suggestion. Simple +lines, their harmonious combination, rhythm, numerical +relations, make up something mysterious and at the same +time incomplete. The building, the temple, is not its +own object, as is a statue or a picture, a poem, or a symphony; +a building requires an inmate; it is a place +mapped and cleared for habitation, an environment, the +shield of the tortoise, the shell of the mollusc; and the +whole point of it is that the receptacle should correspond +with its spirit, its object, its inmate, as the shell does +with the tortoise. The walls of the temple, its vaults +and columns, its portal and façade, its foundations and +its cupola must bear the imprint of the divinity that +dwells within it, just as the convolutions of the brain +are imprinted on the bone of the skull.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Egyptian temples were their holy books. The +obelisks were sermons on the high-road. Solomon’s +temple was the Bible turned into architecture; just as +St. Peter’s at Rome is the architectural symbol of the +escape from Catholicism, of the beginning of the lay +world, of the beginning of the secularisation of mankind.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>The very building of temples was so invariably accompanied +by mystic rites, symbolical utterances, mysterious +consecrations that the mediæval builders looked upon +themselves as something apart, a kind of priesthood, the +heirs of the builders of Solomon’s temple, and made up +secret guilds of stonemasons, which afterwards passed +into Freemasonry.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From the time of the Renaissance architecture loses +its peculiar mystic character. The Christian faith is +struggling with philosophic doubt, the Gothic arch with +the Greek pediment, spiritual holiness with worldly +beauty. What gives St. Peter’s its lofty significance is +that in its colossal proportions Christianity struggles +towards life, the church becomes pagan and on the walls +of the Sistine Chapel Michael Angelo paints Jesus Christ +as a broad-shouldered athlete, a Hercules in the flower +of his age and strength.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After St. Peter’s, church architecture deteriorated +completely and was reduced at last to simple repetition, +on a larger or smaller scale, of the ancient Greek +peripteras and of St. Peter’s.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One Parthenon is called St. Madeleine’s in Paris; the +other is the Exchange in New York.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Without faith and without special circumstances, it +was hard to create anything living: there is something +of artificiality, of hypocrisy, of anachronism, about all +new churches, such as the five-domed cruet-stands with +onions instead of corks in them in the Indo-Byzantine +manner, which Nicholas builds, with Ton for architect, +or the angular Gothic churches offensive to the aristocratic +eye, with which the English decorate their towns.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But the circumstances under which Vitberg created +his design, his personality, and the state of mind of the +Emperor were all exceptional.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The war of 1812 had caused a violent upheaval in +men’s minds in Russia; it was long after the deliverance +<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>of Moscow before the ferment of thought and nervous +irritation could subside. Events outside Russia, the +taking of Paris, the story of the Hundred Days, the +suspense, the rumours, Waterloo, Napoleon sailing over +the ocean, the mourning for fallen kinsmen, the apprehension +over the living, the returning troops, the soldiers +going home, all produced a great effect even on the +coarsest natures. Imagine a youthful artist, a mystic, +gifted with creative force and at the same time a fanatic, +under the influence of all that had happened, under the +influence of the Tsar’s appeal and his own genius.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Near Moscow, between the Mozhaisk and Kaluga +roads, there is a slight eminence which rises above the +whole city. These are the Sparrow Hills of which I +have spoken in my first reminiscences of childhood. The +city lies stretched at their foot, and one of the most +picturesque views of Moscow is from their top. Here +Ivan the Terrible, at that time a young profligate, stood +weeping and watching his capital burn; here the priest +Sylvester appeared before him and with stern words +transformed that monster of genius for twenty years.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Napoleon with his army skirted this hill, here his +strength was broken, it was at the foot of the Sparrow +Hills that his retreat began.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Could a better spot be found for a temple to commemorate +the year 1812 than the furthest point which +the enemy reached?</p> + +<p class='c014'>But this was not enough, the hill itself was to be +turned into the lower part of the temple; the open +ground down to the river was to be encircled by a colonnade, +and on this base, built on three sides by nature +itself, a second and a third temple were to be raised, +making up a marvellous whole.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg’s temple, like the chief dogma of Christianity, +was threefold and indivisible.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The lower temple carved out of the hill had the form +<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>of a parallelogram, a coffin, a body, it was a heavy portico +supported by almost Egyptian columns, it merged into +the hill, into rough, unhewn nature. This temple was +lighted up by lamps in tall Etrurian candelabra, and +the daylight filtered sparsely into it through the second +temple, passing through a transparent picture of the +Nativity. In this crypt all the heroes who had fallen +in 1812 were to be laid at rest. An eternal requiem +was to be sung for those slain on the field of battle, the +names of all of them from the generals to the private +soldiers were to be carved upon the walls.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Upon this tomb, upon this graveyard, the second +temple—the temple of outstretched hands, of life, of +suffering, of labour, was laid out in the form of a Greek +cross with the four ends equal. The colonnade leading +to it was decorated with statues from figures of the Old +Testament. At the entrance stood the prophets, they +stood outside the temple pointing the way which they +were not destined to tread. The whole story of the +Gospels and of the Acts of the Apostles was depicted +within this temple.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Above it, crowning it and completing it, was a third +temple in the form of a dome. This temple, brightly +lighted, was the temple of the spirit of untroubled peace, +of eternity, expressed in its circular plan. Here there +were neither pictures nor sculpture, only on the outside +it was encircled by a ring of archangels and was covered +by a colossal cupola.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I am now giving from memory Vitberg’s leading idea. +He had it worked out to the minutest detail and everywhere +perfectly in harmony with Christian theology and +architectural beauty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The marvellous man spent his whole life over his +design. During the ten years that he was on his trial +he was occupied with nothing else and, though harassed +by poverty and privation in exile, he devoted several hours +<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>every day to his temple. He lived in it, he did not +believe that it would never be built; memories, consolations, +glory, all were in the artist’s portfolio.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Perhaps one day some other artist, after the martyr’s +death, will shake the dust off those sheets and with +reverence publish that record of martyrdom, in which +was spent and wasted a life full of strength, for a moment +gladdened by the radiance of glory, then worn out and +crushed between a drill-sergeant Tsar, serf-senators, and +pettifogging ministers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The design was a work of genius, terrifying, staggering; +that was why Alexander chose it, that was why it ought +to have been carried out. It was said that the hill could +not have borne the weight of the temple. I find that +incredible in face of all the new resources of the American +and English engineers, the tunnels which a train takes +eight minutes to pass through, the hanging bridges, and +so on.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Miloradovitch advised Vitberg to make the thick +columns of the lower temple of single blocks of granite. +On this some one observed that it would be very +expensive to bring the granite blocks from Finland. ‘That +is just why we ought to get them,’ answered Miloradovitch, +‘if there were a quarry in the river Moskva there +would be nothing wonderful in having them.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Miloradovitch was a warrior poet and he understood +poetry in general. Grand things are done by grand +means.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Only nature does great things for nothing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Even those who have no doubt of Vitberg’s honesty +find great fault with him for having undertaken the duty +of directing operations, though he was an inexperienced +young artist who knew nothing of official business. He +ought to have confined himself to the part of architect. +That is true.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But it is easy to make such criticisms sitting at home +<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>in one’s study. He undertook it just because he was +young, inexperienced, and an artist; he undertook it +because after his design had been accepted, everything +seemed easy to him; he undertook it because the Tsar +himself had proposed it to him, encouraged him, supported +him. Is there any man whose head would not +have been turned?... Are there any so prudent, so +sober, so self-restrained? Well, if there are, they do +not design colossal temples nor do they make ‘stones +speak’!</p> + +<p class='c014'>It need hardly be said that Vitberg was surrounded +by a crowd of rogues, men who look on Russia as a field +for plunder, on the service as a profitable line of business, +on a public post as a lucky chance to make a fortune. It +was easy to understand that they would dig a pit under +Vitberg’s feet. But that, after falling into it, he should +be unable to get out again, was due also to the envy of +some and the wounded vanity of others.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg’s colleagues on the committee were the metropolitan +Filaret, the Governor-General of Moscow, and +the Senator Kushnikov; they were all offended to begin +with by being associated with a young upstart, especially +as he gave his opinion boldly and objected if he did not +agree.</p> + +<p class='c014'>They helped to get him into trouble, they helped to +slander him and with cold-blooded indifference completed +his ruin afterwards.</p> + +<p class='c014'>They were helped in this by the fall of the mystically-minded +minister Prince A. N. Golitsyn, and afterwards +by the death of Alexander. Together with the fall of +Golitsyn came the collapse of Freemasonry, of the Bible +societies, of Lutheran pietism, which in the persons of +Magnitsky at Kazan and of Runitch in Petersburg ran +to grotesque extremes, to savage persecutions, to hysterical +antics, to complete dementia and goodness knows what +strange doings.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>Savage, coarse, ignorant orthodoxy was supreme. +It was preached by Fotiy the archimandrite of Novgorod, +who lived on intimate (not physically, of course) terms +with Countess Orlov. The daughter of the celebrated +Alexey Grigoryevitch who strangled Peter <span class='fss'>III.</span>, she +hoped to win the redemption of her father’s soul by +devoting herself to frenzied fanaticism, by giving up to +Fotiy and his monks the greater part of her enormous +estates, which had been forcibly snatched from the +monasteries by Catherine.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But the one thing in which the Petersburg government +is persistent, the one thing in which it does not +change, however its principles and religions may change, +is its unjust oppression and persecution. The violence +of the Runitches and the Magnitskys was turned against +the Runitches and the Magnitskys. The Bible Society, +only yesterday patronised and approved—the prop of +morality and religion, was to-day closed and sealed, and +its members put almost on the level with counterfeit +coiners; the <cite>Messenger of Zion</cite>, only yesterday +recommended to all fathers of families, was more severely +prohibited than Voltaire and Diderot, and its editor, +Labzin, was exiled to Vologda.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Prince A. N. Golitsyn’s fall involved Vitberg; everyone +fell upon him, the committee complained of him, +the metropolitan was offended and the governor-general +was displeased. His answers were ‘insolent’ (‘insolence’ +is one of the principal charges in the indictment of +him); his subordinates were thieves—as though there +were any one in the government service who was not a +thief. Though indeed it is likely that there was more +thieving among Vitberg’s subordinates than among +others; he had had no practice in superintending houses +of correction and official thieves.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Alexander commanded Araktcheyev to investigate the +case. He was sorry for Vitberg; he let him know +<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>through one of his attendants that he believed in his +rectitude.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But Alexander died and Araktcheyev fell. Under +Nicholas, Vitberg’s case at once took a turn for the worse. +It was dragged on for ten years with terrible absurdities. +On the points on which he was found guilty by the +Criminal Court he was acquitted by the Senate. On +those on which he was acquitted by the Court he was +found guilty by the Senate. The committee of ministers +found him guilty on all the charges. The Tsar, taking +advantage of the ‘most precious privilege of monarchs +to show mercy and remit punishment,’ added exile to +Vyatka to his sentence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And so Vitberg was sent into exile, dismissed from +the service ‘for abuse of the confidence of the Emperor +Alexander and causing loss to the treasury.’ He was +fined, I believe, a million roubles, all his property was +seized and sold by public auction, and a rumour was +circulated that he had transferred countless millions to +America.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I lived in the same house with Vitberg for two years +and remained on intimate terms with him up to the time +I left Vyatka. He had not saved the barest crust of +bread; his family lived in the most awful poverty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To give an idea of this case and of all similar ones in +Russia, I will quote two little details which have remained +in my memory.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg bought for timber for the temple a copse from +a merchant called Lobanov; before the trees were +felled Vitberg saw another wood, also Lobanov’s, nearer +to the river and asked him to exchange the one he had +sold for the second one. The merchant consented. +The trees were felled and the timber floated down the +river. Later on more timber was needed, and Vitberg +bought the first wood again. This was the celebrated +accusation of having twice over bought the same +<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>copse. Poor Lobanov was put in prison for it and died +there.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The second instance came before my own eyes. +Vitberg bought an estate for the temple. His idea was +that the peasants bought with the land for the temple +should be bound to furnish a certain number of workmen +for it, and by this means should obtain complete freedom +for themselves and their villages. It is amusing that our +serf-owning senators found a suggestion of slavery in this +measure!</p> + +<p class='c014'>Among other things, Vitberg wanted to buy my father’s +estate in the Ruzsky district on the bank of the Moskva. +Marble had been found on it, and Vitberg asked permission +to make a geological survey to discover what +amount of it there was. My father gave permission. +Vitberg went off to Petersburg.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Three months later my father learnt that quarrying +was going forward on an immense scale, that the peasants’ +cornfields were heaped up with marble. He protested; +no notice was taken. A protracted lawsuit began. At +first they tried to throw all the blame on Vitberg, but +unluckily it appeared that he had given no orders, and that +it all had been done by the committee in his absence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The case was taken before the Senate. To the general +surprise the Senate’s decision was not very far from +common-sense. The marble quarried was to remain the +property of the landowner as compensation for the ruined +cornfields. The government money spent on quarrying +and labour, mounting to a hundred thousand roubles, +was to be made good by those who signed the contract +for the work. Those who signed were Prince Golitsyn, +Filaret, and Kushnikov. There was of course a great +clamour and outcry. The case was taken before the +Tsar. He had his system of justice. He directed that +the offenders should be excused payment because—he +wrote it with his own hand, as is printed in the minutes +<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>of the Senate—‘The members of the committee did not +know what they were signing.’ Even if we admit that +the metropolitan was professionally bound to show a +meek spirit, what are we to think of the other two grand +gentlemen who accepted the Imperial favour on grounds +so courteously and graciously explained?</p> + +<p class='c014'>But from whom was the hundred thousand to be taken? +Government property, they say, is not burnt in the fire +nor drowned in the water. It is only stolen, we might +add. No need to hesitate, an adjutant-general was sent +off post-haste to Moscow to investigate the question.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Strekalov investigated everything, set everything +straight, arranged and settled it all in a few days: the +marble was to be taken from the landowner to make +good the sum paid for the quarrying; if, however, the +landowner wished to retain the marble he was required +to pay the hundred thousand. The landowner needed +no compensation, because the value of his property was +increased by the discovery of a new form of wealth upon +it (this was the <em>chef-d’œuvre</em>!), but for the damaged fields +of the peasants so many kopecks per dessyatin were to be +allotted in accordance with the law of flooded meadows +and ruined hayfields passed by Peter <span class='fss'>I.</span></p> + +<p class='c014'>The person really punished in this case was my father. +There is no need to add that the quarrying of this +marble was nevertheless brought up against Vitberg in +his indictment.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Two years after Vitberg’s exile the merchants of +Vyatka formed a project of building a new church.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nicholas, desirous of killing all spirit of independence, +of individuality, of imagination, and of freedom, everywhere +and in everything, published a whole volume of +designs for churches sanctioned by the Most High. If +any one wanted to build a church he was absolutely +obliged to select one of the approved plans. He is said +to have forbidden the writing of Russian operas, considering +<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>that even those written by the adjutant Lvov, +in the very office of the secret police, were good for +nothing. But that was not enough: he ought to have +published a collection of musical airs sanctioned by the +Most High!</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Vyatka merchants after turning over the approved +plans had the boldness to differ from the Tsar’s taste. +The design they sent in astonished Nicholas; he sanctioned +it and sent instructions to the provincial authorities to +see that the architect’s ideas were faithfully carried out.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Who made this design?’ he asked the secretary.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Vitberg, your Majesty.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What, the same Vitberg?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The same, your Majesty.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And behold, like a bolt from the blue, comes permission +for Vitberg to return to Moscow or Petersburg. The +man had asked leave to clear his character and it had been +refused; he made a successful design, and the Tsar +bade him return—as though any one had ever doubted +his artistic ability....</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Petersburg, almost perishing of want, he made one +last effort to defend his honour. It was utterly unsuccessful. +Vitberg asked the assistance of A. N. Golitsyn, +but the latter thought it impossible to raise the case again, +and advised Vitberg to write a very touching letter to +the Tsarevitch begging for financial assistance. He +undertook to do his best for him with the assistance of +Zhukovsky,<a id='r149'></a><a href='#f149' class='c015'><sup>[149]</sup></a> and promised to get him a thousand silver +roubles.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg refused.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was in Petersburg for the last time in the beginning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>of the winter of 1846 and there saw Vitberg. He was +completely crushed. Even his old wrath against his +enemies which I had liked so much had begun to die +down; he had no more hope, he did nothing to escape +from his position, blank despair was bringing him to +his end, his life was shattered, he was waiting for death. +If this was what Nicholas wanted he may be satisfied.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Whether the victim is still living I do not know, but +I doubt it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘If it were not for my family, my children,’ he said +at parting, ‘I would escape from Russia and go begging +alms about the world. With the Vladimir cross on my +neck I would calmly hold out to passers-by the hand +pressed by the Emperor Alexander and tell them of my +design and the fate of an artist in Russia!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘They shall hear in Europe of your fate, poor martyr,’ +I thought; ‘I will answer for that.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The society of Vitberg was a great solace to me in +Vyatka. A grave serenity and a sort of solemnity gave +something priestly to his manner. He was a man of +very pure morals and in general more disposed to asceticism +than indulgence; but his severity did not detract +from the wealth and luxuriance of his artistic nature. +He could give to his mysticism so plastic a form and so +artistic a colouring that criticism died away on one’s lips; +one was sorry to analyse, to dissect the shining images +and misty pictures of his imagination.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg’s mysticism was partly due to his Scandinavian +blood, it was the same coldly-thought-out dreaminess +which we see in Swedenborg, and which is like the fiery +reflection of sunbeams in the icy mountains and snows +of Norway.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Vitberg’s influence made me waver, but my realistic +temperament nevertheless gained the upper hand. I +was not destined to rise into the third heaven, I was born +a quite earthly creature. No tables turn at the touch +<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>of my hands nor do rings shake at my glance. The +daylight of thought is more akin to me than the moonlight +of phantasy. But I was more disposed to mysticism +at the period when I was living with Vitberg than at any +other time. Separation, exile, the religious exaltation of +the letters I received, the love which was filling my soul +more and more intensely, and at the same time the +oppressive feeling of remorse, all reinforced Vitberg’s +influence.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And for two years afterwards I was under the influence +of ideas of a mystical socialist tinge, drawn from the +Gospel and Jean-Jacques, after the style of French thinkers +like Pierre Leroux.<a id='r150'></a><a href='#f150' class='c015'><sup>[150]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Ogaryov plunged into the sea of mysticism even before +I did. In 1833 he was beginning to write the words +for Gebel’s<a id='r151'></a><a href='#f151' class='c015'><sup>[151]</sup></a> oratorio, <cite>The Lost Paradise</cite>. In the +idea of a “Lost Paradise,” Ogaryov wrote to me, ‘there +is the whole history of humanity’; so at that time, he +too mistook the paradise of the ideal that we are seeking +for a paradise we have lost.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In 1838 I wrote historical scenes in the religious +socialist spirit, and at the time took them for dramas. +In some I pictured the conflict of the pagan world with +Christianity. In them Paul going to Rome raised a +dead youth to new life. In others I described the conflict +of the official Church with the Quakers and the departure +of William Penn to America to the new world.<a id='r152'></a><a href='#f152' class='c015'><sup>[152]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>The mysticism of the gospel was soon replaced in me +by the mysticism of science; fortunately I rid myself +of the second also.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But to return to our modest little town of Hlynov, +the name of which was, I don’t know why, perhaps from +Finnish patriotism, changed by Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span> to Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the desolation of my Vyatka exile, in the filthy +atmosphere of government clerks, in that gloomy remote +place, separated from all who were dear to me and put +defenceless in the power of the governor, I spent many +exquisite sacred moments, and met many warm hearts +and friendly hands.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Where are you? What has happened to you, my +friends of that snowy region? It is twenty years since +we met. I dare say you have grown old as I have, you +are marrying your daughters, you don’t now drink +champagne by the bottle and liqueur by the little glass. +Which of you has grown rich, which of you has come +to ruin, who is high up in the service, who is paralysed? +Above all, is the memory of our old talks still living in +you, are those chords which vibrated so eagerly with +love and indignation still vibrating within you?</p> + +<p class='c014'>I have remained the same, that you know; I dare say +<span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>news of me reaches you even from the banks of the +Thames. Sometimes I think of you, always with love; +I have some letters of that time, some of them are +exceedingly dear to me and I like reading them over.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I am not ashamed to own to you that I am passing +through a very bitter time,’ a young man wrote to me +on the 26th of January 1838. ‘Help me for the sake +of that life to which you called me, help me with your +advice. I want to study, tell me of books, tell me anything +you like, I will do all I can, give me a chance; +it will be too bad of you if you don’t help me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I bless you,’ another wrote to me after I had gone +away, ‘as the husbandman blesses the rain that has made +fruitful his arid soil.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is not from vanity that I have quoted these lines, but +because they are very precious to me. For the sake of +those youthful appeals and youthful love, for the sake of +the yearnings aroused in those hearts, one could well +resign oneself to nine months’ imprisonment and three +years’ exile to Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>And then twice a week the post from Moscow came in; +with what excitement I waited by the post-office while the +letters were sorted, with what a tremor I broke the seal and +looked in the letter from home for a tiny note on thin +paper written in a wonderfully fine and elegant hand.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I never read it in the post-office, but walked quietly +home, deferring the minute of reading it, happy in the +mere thought that there was a letter.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Those letters were all kept. I left them in Moscow. +I long to read them over again and dread to touch +them....</p> + +<p class='c014'>Letters are more than memories, the very essence of +events still lives in them; they are the very past just as +it was, preserved and unfaded.</p> + +<p class='c014'>... Should one know it, see it all again? Should one +touch with wrinkled hands one’s wedding garment?</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 17<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The Tsarevitch at Vyatka—The Fall of Tyufyaev—I am transferred to Vladimir—The Police-Captain at the Posting-Station</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>The Tsarevitch will visit Vyatka! The Tsarevitch +is travelling about Russia to show himself and +look at the country! This news interested all, but the +governor, of course, more than any one. He was +worried and did a number of incredibly stupid things: +ordered the peasants along the high-road to be dressed +in holiday attire, ordered the fences to be painted and +the sidewalks to be repaired in the towns. At Orlov +a poor widow who owned a small house told the mayor +that she had no money to repair the sidewalk and he +reported this to the governor. The latter ordered that +the planks should be taken from her floors (the sidewalks +there are made of wood), and that, should they +not be sufficient, the repairs should be made at the +government expense and the money recovered from her +afterwards, even if it were necessary to sell her house +by public auction. The sale did not take place, but the +widow’s floors were broken up.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Fifty versts from Vyatka there was the spot in which +the wonder-working ikon of St. Nicholas of Hlynov +appeared to the people of Novgorod. When emigrants +from Novgorod settled at Hlynov (now Vyatka) they +brought the ikon, but it disappeared and turned up again +on the Great river fifty versts from Vyatka. They +fetched it back again, and at the same time took a vow +that if the ikon would stay they would carry it every +year in a solemn procession to the Great river. This was +the chief summer holiday in the Vyatka province; I +believe it was on the 23rd of May. For twenty-four +hours the ikon was travelling down the river in a magnificent +boat with the bishop and all the clergy in full +<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>vestments accompanying it. Hundreds of boats and +craft of all sorts filled with peasants, men and women, +Votyaks, and artisans, made up a bright-coloured procession +following the sailing image, and foremost of all was +the governor’s decked boat covered with red cloth. This +barbaric ceremony was a very fine show. Tens of +thousands of people from districts near and far were +awaiting the image on the banks of the Great river. +They were all camping in noisy crowds about a small +village, and what was most strange, crowds of heathen +Votyaks, Tcheremisses, and even Tatars came to pray +to the image, and, indeed, the festival is a thoroughly +pagan ceremony. Outside the monastery-wall Votyaks +and Russians bring sheep and calves to be sacrificed; they +are killed on the spot, a monk reads a service over them, +blesses and consecrates the meat, which is sold at a special +window within the precincts. The meat is distributed +in pieces to the people; in old days it used to be given for +nothing, now the monks charge a few kopecks for every +piece. So that a peasant who has presented a whole +calf has to pay something for a piece for his own consumption. +In the monastery-yard sit whole crowds of +beggars, the halt, the blind, and the lame, who raise a +lamentation in chorus. Lads—priests’ sons or boys from +the town—sit on the tombstones near the church with +inkpots and cry: ‘Who wants to be prayed for?’ +Peasant girls and women surround them, mentioning +names, and the lads, saucily scratching with their pens, +repeat: ‘Marya, Marya, Akulina Stepanida, Father +Ioann, Matryona.... Well, Auntie, you have got +a lot; you’ve shelled out two kopecks, we can’t take less +than five; such a family—Ioann, Vassilisa, Iona, Marya, +Yevpraxyea, Baby Katerina....’</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the church there is a great crush and strange preferences +are shown; one peasant woman will hand her +neighbour a candle with exact instructions to put it up +<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>‘for our visitor,’ another for ‘our host.’ The Vyatka +monks and deacons are continually drunk during the whole +time of this procession. They stop at the bigger villages +on the way, and the peasants regale them enough to kill +them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>So this popular holiday, to which the peasants had +been accustomed for ages, the governor proposed to change +to an earlier date, wishing to entertain the Tsarevitch +who was to arrive on the 19th of May; he thought there +would be no harm in St. Nicholas going on his visit three +days earlier. The consent of the bishop was of course +necessary; fortunately the bishop was an amenable +person, and found nothing to protest against in the +governor’s intention of changing the festival of the 23rd +of May to the 19th.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The governor sent a list of his ingenious plans for the +reception of the Tsarevitch to the Tsar—as though to +say, see how we fête your son. On reading this document +the Tsar flew into a rage, and said to the Minister of Home +Affairs: ‘The governor and the bishop are fools, leave +the holiday as it was.’ The Minister gave the governor +a good scolding, the Synod did the same to the bishop, +and St. Nicholas went on his visit according to his old +habits.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Among various instructions from Petersburg, orders +came that in every provincial town an exhibition should +be held of the various natural products and handicrafts +of the district, and that the things exhibited should be +arranged according to the three natural kingdoms. This +division into animal, vegetable, and mineral greatly +worried the officials, and Tyufyaev himself to some +extent. That he might not make a mistake he made up +his mind in spite of his dislike to summon me to give +advice. ‘Now, for instance, honey,’ he said, ‘where would +you put honey? or a gilt frame—how are you to decide +where it is to go?’ Seeing from my answers that I had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>wonderfully precise information concerning the three +natural kingdoms, he offered me the task of arranging the +exhibition.</p> + +<p class='c014'>While I was busy placing wooden vessels and Votyak +dresses, honey and iron sieves, and Tyufyaev went on +taking the most ferocious measures for the entertainment +of his Imperial Highness at Vyatka, the Highness in +question was graciously pleased to stay at Orlov, and the +news of the arrest of the Orlov mayor burst like a clap +of thunder on the town. Tyufyaev turned yellow, and +there was an uncertainty apparent in his gait.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Five days before the Tsarevitch arrived in Orlov, the +mayor wrote to Tyufyaev that the widow whose floor +had been broken up to make the sidewalk was making +a fuss, and that So-and-so, a wealthy merchant and a +prominent person in the town, was boasting that he +would tell the Tsarevitch everything. Tyufyaev disposed +of the latter very adroitly; he told the mayor to +have doubts of his sanity (the precedent of Petrovsky +pleased him), and to send him to Vyatka to be examined +by the doctors; this business could be delayed till the +Tsarevitch had left the province of Vyatka, and that +would be the end of it. The mayor did as he was bid, +the merchant was put in the hospital at Vyatka.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At last the Tsarevitch arrived. He gave Tyufyaev +a frigid bow, did not invite him to visit him, but at once +sent for the doctor, Dr. Enohin, to inquire concerning +the arrested merchant. He knew all about it. The +Orlov widow had given him her petition, the other +merchants and artisans told him all that was going on. +Tyufyaev’s face was more awry than ever. Things looked +black for him. The mayor said straight out that he had +written instructions from the governor for everything.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Dr. Enohin declared that the merchant was perfectly +sane. Tyufyaev was lost.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Between seven and eight in the evening the Tsarevitch +<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>visited the exhibition with his suite. Tyufyaev conducted +him, explaining things incoherently, getting into +a muddle and speaking of the ancient Siberian prince +Tohtamysh as though he were a tsar. Zhukovsky and +Arsenyev, seeing that things were not going well, asked +me to show them the exhibition. I led them round.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Tsarevitch’s expression had none of that narrow +severity, that cold merciless cruelty which was characteristic +of his father; his features were more suggestive of +good nature and listlessness. He was about twenty, but +was already beginning to grow stout.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The few words he said to me were friendly and very +different from the hoarse, abrupt tones of his uncle +Constantine and the menacing intonations of his father, +which made the listener almost faint with terror.</p> + +<p class='c014'>When he had gone away, Zhukovsky and Arsenyev +began asking me how I had come to Vyatka. They +were surprised to hear a Vyatka official speak like a +gentleman. They at once offered to speak of my +position to the Tsarevitch, and did in fact do all that they +could for me. The Tsarevitch approached the Tsar +for permission for me to return to Petersburg. The +Tsar replied that that would be unfair to the other exiles, +but, in consideration of the Tsarevitch’s representations, +he ordered me to be transferred to Vladimir, which was +geographically an improvement, being seven hundred +versts nearer home. But of that later.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the evening there was a ball. The musicians who +had been sent for expressly from one of the factories +arrived dead drunk; the governor arranged that they +should be locked up for twenty-four hours before the +ball, escorted straight from the police station to their +seats in the orchestra and not allowed to leave them till +the ball was over.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The ball was a stupid, awkward, extremely poor and +extremely gaudy affair, as balls always are in little towns +<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>on exceptional occasions. Police officers fussed about, +government clerks in uniform huddled against the walls, +ladies flocked round the Tsarevitch as savages do round +travellers.... Apropos of the ladies, in one little town +a <em>goûter</em> was arranged after the exhibition. The +Tsarevitch took nothing but one peach, the stone of which +he threw on the window-sill. All at once a tall figure +saturated with spirits stepped out from the crowd of +officials; it was the district assessor, notoriously a desperate +character, who with measured steps approached the +window, picked up the stone and put it in his pocket.</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the ball or the <em>goûter</em>, he approached one of +the ladies of most consequence and offered her the stone +gnawed by royalty; the lady accepted it with enthusiasm. +Then he approached a second, then a third, all were in +ecstasies.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The assessor had bought five peaches, cut out the stones, +and made six ladies happy. Which had the real one? +Each was suspicious of the genuineness of her own +stone....</p> + +<p class='c014'>After the departure of the Tsarevitch, Tyufyaev with +a weight on his heart prepared to exchange his autocratic +power for the chair of a senator; but worse than that +happened.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Three weeks later the post brought from Petersburg +papers addressed to the governor of the province. Everything +was turned upside down in the secretariat; the +registrar ran to say that they had received a decree; the +office manager rushed to Tyufyaev, the latter gave out +that he was ill and would not go to the office. Within +an hour we learned that he had been dismissed <em>sans +phrase</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The whole town was delighted at the fall of the +governor; there was something stifling, unclean, about +his rule, a fetid odour of red tape, but for all that it was +disgusting to look at the rejoicings of the officials.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>Yes, every ass gave a parting kick to this wounded +boar. The meanness of men was just as apparent as +at the fall of Napoleon, though the catastrophe was on +a different scale. Of late I had been on terms of open +hostility with him, and he would have certainly sent me +off to some obscure little town, if he had not been sent +away himself. I had held aloof from him, and I had no +reason to change my behaviour in regard to him. But +the others, who only the day before had been cap in hand +at the sight of his carriage, eagerly anticipating his wishes, +fawning on his dog and offering snuff to his valet, now +barely greeted him and made an outcry all over the town +against the irregularities, the guilt of which they shared +with him. This is nothing new, it has been repeated +so continually in every age and every place that we must +accept this meanness as a common trait of humanity and +at any rate feel no surprise at it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The new governor, Kornilov, arrived. He was a +man of quite a different type: a tall, stout, lymphatic +man about fifty with a pleasantly smiling face and +cultured manner. He expressed himself with extraordinary +grammatical correctness at great length with a +precision and clarity calculated by its very excess to +obscure the simplest subject. He had been at the +Lyceum of Tsarskoe Syelo, had been a schoolfellow of +Pushkin’s, had served in the Guards, bought the new +French books, liked talking of important subjects, and +gave me De Tocqueville’s book on <cite>Democracy in America</cite> +on the day after his arrival.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The change was very great. The same rooms, the +same furniture, but instead of a Tatar <em>baskak</em>, with the +exterior of a Tunguz and the habits of a Siberian—a +<em>doctrinaire</em>, rather a pedant, but at the same time quite +a decent man. The new governor was intelligent, but +his intelligence seemed somehow to shed light without +giving warmth, like a bright, winter day which is pleasant +<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>though one does not look for fruits from it. Moreover, +he was a terrible formalist—not in a pettifogging way, +but ... how shall I express it?... it was formalism +of a higher sort, but just as tiresome as any other.</p> + +<p class='c014'>As the new governor was really married, the house +lost its ultra-bachelor and polygamous character. Of +course this brought all the councillors back to their +lawful spouses; bald old men no longer boasted of their +conquests among the fair, but, on the contrary, alluded +tenderly to their faded, angularly-bony, or monstrously +fat wives.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Kornilov had some years before coming to Vyatka +been promoted to be civil governor somewhere, straight +from being a colonel in the Semyonovsky or Izmailovsky +regiment. He went to his province knowing nothing +of his duties. To begin with, like all novices he set to +work to read everything. One day a document came to +him from another province which he could make nothing +of, though he read it two or three times. He called the +secretary and gave it him to read. The secretary could +not explain the business clearly either.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What will you do with that document,’ Kornilov +asked him, ‘if I pass it on to the office?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I shall hand it in to the third table, it’s in their section.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Then the head-clerk of the third table knows what +to do?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘To be sure he does, your Excellency, he has been in +charge of that table for seven years.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Send him to me.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The head-clerk came in. Kornilov handing him the +paper asked what was to be done. The head-clerk +glanced through the document and informed him that +they ought to make an inquiry in the palace of justice +and send a notification to the police-captain.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But notify what?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The head-clerk was nonplussed, and at last admitted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>that it was difficult to express it in words, but that it was +easy to write it.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Here is a chair, I beg you to write your answer.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The head-clerk took up the pen and without hesitation +briskly scribbled off two documents.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The governor took them, read them once, read them +twice, but could make nothing of it. ‘I saw,’ he told +me, smiling, ‘that it really was an answer to the document, +and crossing myself I signed it. Nothing more was heard +of the business—the answer was completely satisfactory.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The news of my transfer to Vladimir came just before +Christmas; I was soon ready and set off.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My parting with Vyatka society was very warm. In +that remote town I had made two or three friends among +the young merchants. Every one wanted to show sympathy +and kindness to the exile. Several sledges accompanied +me as far as the first posting-station, and in spite of all +my efforts to prevent it my sledge was filled up with a +perfect load of all sorts of provisions and wine. Next +day I reached Yaransk.</p> + +<p class='c014'>From Yaransk the road goes through endless pine +forests. It was moonlight and very frosty at night. The +little sledge flew along the narrow road. I have never +seen such forests since, they go on in that way unbroken +as far as Archangel, and sometimes reindeer come through +them to the Vyatka province. The forest was for the +most part of large trees; the pines, of remarkable straightness, +ran past the sledge like soldiers, tall and covered +with snow from under which their black needles stuck +out like bristles; one would drop asleep and wake up +again and still the regiments of pines would be marching +rapidly by, sometimes shaking off the snow. The +horses were changed at little clearings; there was a tiny +house lost among the trees, the horses were tied up to a +trunk, the bells would begin tinkling, two or three +Tcheremiss boys in embroidered shirts would run out, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>looking sleepy. The Votyak driver would swear at his +companion in a husky alto, shout ‘Aïda,’ begin singing +a song on two notes, and again pines and snow, snow and +pines.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Just as I drove out of the Vyatka province it was my +lot to take my last farewell of the official world, and it +showed itself in all its glory <em>pour la clôture</em>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>We stopped at a posting-station, the driver began +unharnessing the horses, when a tall peasant appeared +in the porch and asked:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Who has arrived?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>What’s that to do with you?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why, the police-captain told me to inquire, and I +am the messenger of the rural court.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well then, go into the station hut, my travelling +permit is there.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The peasant went away and came back a minute later, +saying to the driver, ‘He is not to have horses.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was too much. I jumped out of the sledge and +went into the hut. A half-tipsy police-captain was +sitting on a bench, dictating to a half-tipsy clerk. A man +with fetters on his hands and feet was sitting or rather +lying on another bench in the corner. Several bottles, +glasses, tobacco ash, and bundles of papers were scattered +about.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Where is the police-captain?’ I asked in a loud voice +as I went in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The police-captain’s here,’ answered the half-tipsy +man whom I recognised as Lazarev, a man I had seen in +Vyatka. As he spoke he fixed a rude and impudent +stare upon me, and all at once rushed at me with open +arms.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I must explain that after Tyufyaev’s downfall the +officials, seeing that I was on rather good terms with the +governor, had began making up to me.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I stopped him with my hand and asked him very +<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>gravely, ‘How could you give orders that I shouldn’t +have horses. What nonsense is this, stopping travellers +on the high-road?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Why, I was joking; upon my soul, aren’t you ashamed +to be angry! Here, horses, order the horses! Why are +you standing there, you rascal?’ he shouted to the +messenger. ‘Please have a cup of tea with rum.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Thank you.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But haven’t we any champagne....’ He hurried to +the bottles, they were all empty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What are you doing here?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘An inquiry, this fine fellow here has killed his father +and sister with an axe, in a quarrel, through jealousy.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘So that’s why you are drinking together?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The police-captain was disconcerted. I glanced at +the Tcheremiss; he was a young fellow of twenty, with +nothing ferocious about his face, which was typically +oriental, with shining, narrow eyes and black hair.</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was all so disgusting that I went out into the yard +again. The police-captain ran out after me with a glass +in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other, and pressed +me to have a drink.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To get rid of him I drank some; he caught hold of +my hand and said: ‘I am sorry, there, I am sorry! there +it is, but I hope you won’t speak of it to his Excellency, +don’t ruin an honourable man!’ With that the police-captain +<em>seized my hand and kissed it</em>, repeating a dozen +times over: ‘For God’s sake don’t ruin an honourable +man.’ I pulled away my hand in disgust and said to +him:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Oh get away, as though I were likely to tell him.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But how can I be of service to you?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘See they make haste and harness the horses.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Look alive,’ he shouted, ‘Aïda, aïda!’ and he himself +began dragging at the straps and harness.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This incident is vividly imprinted on my memory. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>In 1841, when I was for the last time in Petersburg, I +had to go to the secretariat of the Minister of Home +Affairs to try and get a passport. While I was talking +to the head-clerk of the table, a gentleman passed ... +shaking hands familiarly with the magnates of the secretariat +and bowing condescendingly to the head-clerks of +the tables. ‘Bah, hang it all,’ I thought, ‘surely that is +he! Who is that?’ I asked.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Lazarev, a clerk of special commissions and a great +authority in the ministry.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Was he once a police-captain in the Vyatka province?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Well, I congratulate you, gentlemen, nine years ago +he kissed my hand.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Perovsky was a master in the choice of men.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span> + <h3 class='c004'>Chapter 18<br> <span class='c011'><span class='sc'>The Beginning of my Life at Vladimir</span></span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c007'>When I went to get into my sledge at Kosmodemiansk +it was harnessed in the Russian style, +three horses abreast, and the shaft horse with the yoke +over its head was gaily jingling the bells.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In Perm and Vyatka the horses are put in tandem, one +before the other or two side by side and the third in +front. So my heart throbbed with delight when I saw +the familiar troika.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Come now, show us your mettle,’ I said to the young +lad who sat smartly on the box in an unlined sheepskin +and stiff gauntlets which barely allowed his fingers to +close enough to take fifteen kopecks from my hand.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘We’ll do our best, sir, we’ll do our best. Hey, +darlings! Now, sir,’ he said, turning suddenly to me, +‘you only hold on, there is a hill yonder, so I will let +them go.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>It was a steep descent to the Volga which was used as +a road in the winter.</p> + +<p class='c014'>He certainly did let the horses go. The sledge +bounded from right to left, from left to right, as the horses +flew downhill; the driver was tremendously pleased, +and indeed, sinful man that I am, so was I—it is the +Russian temperament.</p> + +<p class='c014'>So I raced with posting horses into 1838—into the +best, the brightest year of my life. I will describe how +we saw the New Year in.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Eighty versts from Nizhni, we, <em>i.e.</em> Matvey, my valet, +and I, went into the station superintendent’s to warm +ourselves. There was a very sharp frost, and it was +windy too. The superintendent, a thin, sickly, pitiful-looking +man, made the inscription in my travelling permit, +dictating every letter to himself and yet making mistakes. +I took off my fur-lined coat and walked up and down +<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>the room in immense fur boots, Matvey was warming +himself at the red-hot stove, the superintendent muttered, +while a wooden clock ticked on a faint, cracked note.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘I say,’ Matvey said to me, ‘it will soon be twelve +o’clock, it’s the New Year, you know. I will bring +something,’ he added, looking at me half-inquiringly, +‘from the stores they gave us at Vyatka.’ And without +waiting for an answer he ran to fetch bottles and a parcel +of food.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Matvey, of whom I shall have more to say later, was +more than a servant, he was a friend, a younger brother +to me. A Moscow artisan, apprenticed to Sonnenberg +to learn the art of bookbinding, in which Sonnenberg, +however, was not very proficient, he passed into my +hands.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I knew that if I refused it would disappoint Matvey, +besides I had nothing against celebrating the day at the +posting-station.... The New Year is a station of a sort.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Matvey brought ham and champagne. The champagne +turned out to be frozen solid; the ham could +have been chopped with an axe, it was all glistening with +ice; but <i><span lang="fr">à la guerre comme à la guerre</span></i>. ‘May the New +Year bring new happiness.’ Yes indeed, new happiness. +Was I not on my homeward way? Every hour was +bringing me nearer to Moscow—my heart was full of +hope.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The frozen champagne did not exactly please the +superintendent. I added half a glass of rum to his wine. +This new ‘<em>half-and-half</em>’ had a great success.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The driver, whom I also invited to join us, was still +more extreme in his views; he sprinkled pepper into the +glass of foaming wine, stirred it with a spoon, drank it +off at one gulp, uttered a painful sigh and almost with a +moan added: ‘It did scorch fine!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The superintendent himself tucked me into the sledge, +and was so zealous in his attentions that he dropped the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>lighted candle into the hay and could not find it afterwards. +He was in great spirits and kept repeating: +‘You’ve given me a New Year’s Eve, too!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The scorched driver whipped up the horses.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At eight o’clock on the following evening I reached +Vladimir and put up at the hotel, which is extremely +accurately described in the <cite>Tarantass</cite> with its fowls +in rice, its dough-like pastry, and vinegar by way of +Bordeaux.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘A man was asking for you this morning, he’s waiting +at the beer-shop,’ the waiter, who wore the rakish parting +and killing lovelocks, which in old days were only affected +by Russian waiters, but are now worn by Louis Napoleon +also, told me after reading my name on my travel permit.</p> + +<p class='c014'>I could not conceive who this could be. ‘But here +he is,’ added the waiter, moving aside.</p> + +<p class='c014'>What I saw first, however, was not a man but a tray +of terrific size, on which were piles of all sorts of good +things, a cake and cracknels, oranges and apples, eggs, +almonds, raisins ... and behind the tray appeared +the grey head and blue eyes of the village elder, from my +father’s Vladimir estate.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Gavril Semyonitch,’ I cried, and rushed to hug him. +This was the first of our own people, the first figure out +of my former life whom I met after imprisonment and +exile. I could not take my eyes off the intelligent old +man, and felt as though I would never say all I had to +say to him. He was the living proof of my nearness to +Moscow, to my home, to my friends; only three days +before, he had seen them all, he brought me greetings +from all of them.... So it was not so far away after +all!</p> + +<p class='c014'>The governor, who was a clever Greek called Kuruta, +had a thorough knowledge of human nature, and had +long ceased to have a strong preference for good or evil. +He grasped my position at once and did not make the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>slightest attempt to worry me. Office work was not even +referred to; he commissioned me and a master at the +high school to edit the <cite>Vladimir Provincial News</cite>—that +was my only duty.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The work was familiar to me; I had in Vyatka successfully +edited the unofficial part of the <cite>Provincial News</cite>, and +had published in it an article which almost got my successor +into trouble. Describing the festival on the Great +river, I said that the mutton sacrificed to St. Nicholas at +Hlynov used in old days to be distributed to the poor, but +now was sold. The bishop was incensed and the governor +had difficulty in persuading him to let the matter drop.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These provincial newspapers were introduced in 1837. +The very original idea of training the inhabitants of the +land of silence and dumbness to express themselves in +print occurred to Bludov the Minister of Home Affairs. +The latter, famous for being chosen to continue Karamzin’s +<cite>History</cite>, though he never actually added a line to it, +and for being the author of the report of the committee +of investigation into the affair of the 14th of December, +which it would have been better not to write at all, +belonged to the group of political doctrinaires who +appeared on the scene at the end of the reign of Alexander. +They were intelligent, cultured, old ‘Arzamass geese’<a id='r154'></a><a href='#f154' class='c015'><sup>[154]</sup></a> +who had risen in the service. They could write Russian, +were patriots, and were so zealously engaged in the history +of their native land that they had no time to give serious +attention to its present condition. They all cherished the +never-to-be-forgotten memory of N. M. Karamzin, loved +Zhukovsky, knew Krylov by heart, and used to go to +Moscow to converse with I. I. Dmitriev in his house in +Sadovy Street, where I too visited him as a student, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span>armed with romantic prejudices, a personal acquaintance +with N. Polevoy, and a concealed disapproval of the +fact that Dmitriev, who was a poet, should be Minister +of Justice. Great things were hoped of them, and like +most doctrinaires of all countries they did nothing. +Perhaps they might have succeeded in leaving more +permanent traces under Alexander, but Alexander died +and left them with nothing but their desire to do something +worth doing.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At Monaco there is an inscription on the tombstone +of one of the hereditary princes: ‘Here lies the body +of Florestan So-and-so—he desired to do good to his +subjects.’<a id='r155'></a><a href='#f155' class='c015'><sup>[155]</sup></a> Our doctrinaires also desired to do good, +not to their own subjects but to the subjects of Nicholas, +but they reckoned without their host. I do not know +who hindered Florestan, but they were hindered by our +Florestan. They were drawn into taking part in all +the measures detrimental to Russia and had to restrict +themselves to useless innovations, mere alterations of +name and form. Every head of a department among +us thinks it his duty to produce at intervals a project, an +innovation, usually for the worse but sometimes simply +neutral. They thought it necessary for instance to call +the secretary in the governor’s office by a name of purely +Russian origin, while they left the secretary of the provincial +office untranslated into Russian. I remember +that the Minister of Justice brought forward a plan for +necessary changes in the uniforms of civil servants. +This scheme opened in a majestic and solemn style: +‘taking into special consideration the lack of unity, of +standard, in the make and pattern of certain uniforms in +the civil department and adopting as a fundamental +principle,’ and so on.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Possessed by the same mania for reform the Minister +of Home Affairs replaced the rural assessors by police +<span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>inspectors. The assessors lived in the towns and used +to visit the villages. The police inspectors sometimes +met together in the town but lived permanently in the +country. In this way all the peasants were put under +the supervision of the police and this was done with full +knowledge of the predatory, rapacious, corrupt character +of our police officials. Bludov initiated the policeman +into the secrets of the peasants’ industry and wealth, into +their family life, into the affairs of the commune, and in +this way attacked the last stronghold of peasant life. +Fortunately our villages are very many and there are +only two police inspectors in a district.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Almost at the same time the same Bludov had the +notion of establishing provincial newspapers. In Russia, +although the government has no regard for popular +education, it has literary pretensions, and while in England, +for instance, there are no official organs, every one of our +departments has its own magazine, and so have the +universities and the academy. We have journals relating +to mining, to dry-salting, to marine affairs, and to means +of communication, some in Russian, others in French or +German. All these are published at the government +expense; contracts for literary articles are made with +the department exactly as contracts for fuel and candles, +but without competition; there are plenty of statistics, +invented figures and fantastic inferences from them. +After monopolising everything else, the government has +now taken the monopoly of talk and, imposing silence on +every one else, has begun chattering unceasingly. Continuing +this system, Bludov commanded every provincial +government to publish its own newspaper, which was +to have an unofficial part for articles on historical, literary, +and other subjects.</p> + +<p class='c014'>No sooner said than done, and the officials in fifty +provinces were tearing their hair over this unofficial +part. Priests of seminary education, doctors of medicine, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>high-school teachers, all who could be suspected of a +tinge of culture and ability to spell correctly were +requisitioned. After much reflection and reading over +of the <cite>Library of Good Reading</cite> and the <cite>Notes of the Fatherland</cite>, +with inward tremors and misgivings, they at last +set to work to write articles.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The desire to see one’s name in print is one of the +strongest artificial passions of this bookish age. Nevertheless +it needs favourable circumstances to induce people +to expose their efforts to public criticism. People who +would never have dared to dream of sending their essays +to the <cite>Moscow News</cite> or to a Petersburg magazine, were +ready to publish them at home. And, meanwhile, the +fatal habit of the newspaper took root. And, indeed, it +may not be amiss to have an instrument ready. The +printing press, too, is an unruly member.</p> + +<p class='c014'>My colleague in the editorship was also a Moscow +graduate and of the same faculty. I have not the heart +to speak of him with a smile because of his sad death, +and yet he was an absurd figure up to the end. Though +far from being stupid, he was extraordinarily clumsy and +awkward. It would be hard to find an ugliness not +merely so complete but so great, that is, on so large a +scale. His face was half as large again as ordinary and +somehow rugged-looking; a huge fish-like mouth +reached to his ears, white eyelashes did not shade but +rather emphasised his pale grey eyes, his skull was scantily +covered with bristling hair, and at the same time he was +a head taller than I was, round-shouldered, and very +untidy in his appearance.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Even his name was such that a sentry at Vladimir +locked him up on account of it. Late one evening he +was walking past the governor’s house, wrapped up in his +overcoat, carrying a pocket telescope; he stood still and +took aim with it at some planet. This perturbed the +sentry who probably regarded stars as public property. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span>‘Who goes there?’ he shouted to the motionless stargazer. +‘Nebaba,’<a id='r156'></a><a href='#f156' class='c015'><sup>[156]</sup></a> answered my friend in a deep voice, +without budging.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Don’t play the fool,’ answered the sentry, offended, +‘I am on duty.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But I tell you I am Nebaba.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>This was too much for the sentry and he rang his bell; +a sergeant appeared and the sentry handed over the +astronomer to be taken to the guardroom. ‘There they’ll +find out whether you are a woman or not.’ He would +certainly have spent the night in custody had not the +officer on duty recognised him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>One morning Nebaba came to tell me that he was +going to Moscow for a few days; he gave a sly, rather +appealing smile as he told me this. ‘I shall not return +alone,’ he said hesitatingly.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘What, you mean...?’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Yes, I am actually getting married,’ he said shyly. +I marvelled at the heroic courage of the woman who +could bring herself to marry this good-hearted but +monstrously ugly man. But when two or three weeks +later I saw in his house a girl of eighteen, who was not +exactly good-looking but rather prepossessing and with +a lively expression in her eyes, I began to look upon him +as a hero.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Six weeks later I began to notice that things were not +going well with my Quasimodo. He was plunged in +dejection, corrected his proofs badly, did not finish his +article on migratory birds, and was gloomily preoccupied. +It did not last long. One day as I was returning home +through the Golden Gate I saw shopmen and boys +running to the churchyard; policemen bustled about. +I went with them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nebaba’s dead body was lying by the church wall and +beside him a gun. He had shot himself just opposite +<span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>the window of his house; the string with which he had +pulled the trigger was still on his foot. The inspector +of the medical board, in well-rounded sentences, assured +the bystanders that the dead man had felt no pain; the +police were preparing to take the body to the police +station.</p> + +<p class='c014'>How savage nature is to some people! What were +the feelings in the heart of the victim before he brought +himself to stop with his bit of string the pendulum that +measured for him nothing but humiliations and misfortunes? +And why? Because his father was scrofulous +and his mother lymphatic? That may all be so. But +what right have we to expect justice, to call to account, +to ask for reasons from—what? The whirling vortex +of life?...</p> + +<p class='c014'>At that very time a new chapter in my life was opening, +a chapter full of purity, serenity, youth, earnestness, +secluded and bathed in love....</p> + +<p class='c014'>It belongs to another volume.</p> + +<hr class='c020'> +<div class='footnote' id='f1'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Golohvastov, the husband of my father’s younger sister.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f2'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. Governor of Moscow in 1812. Believed to have set fire to the +city when the French entered. See Tolstoy’s <cite>War and Peace</cite>.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f3'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. Mortier, duc de Trévise, general under the Revolution and +Napoleon. Killed, 1835, by the infernal machine of Fieschi.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f4'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. Fain, François, Baron (1778–1837), French historian and +secretary of Napoleon.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f5'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. Commander-in-chief of the Russian army in 1812. See +Tolstoy’s <cite>War and Peace</cite>.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f6'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. Minister of War and the most powerful and influential man +of the reign of Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span>, whose intimate friend he was, hated +and dreaded for his cruelty.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f7'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. Secretary of State under Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span>—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f8'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. One of the generals of the campaign of 1812. Military +governor-general of Petersburg at the accession of Nicholas in +1825, and killed in the rising of December 14th. See Merezhkovsky’s +novel, <cite>December the Fourteenth</cite>.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f9'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. Gmelin, Johann Georg (1709–1755), a learned German who +travelled in the East.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f10'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. Pallas, Peter Simon (1741–1811), German traveller and +naturalist who explored the Urals, Kirghiz Steppes, Altai mountains, +and parts of Siberia.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f11'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. My father had, besides me, another son ten years older. I was +always fond of him, but he could not be a companion to me. From +his twelfth to his thirtieth year he was always in the hands of +the surgeons. After a series of tortures, endured with extreme +fortitude and rendering his whole existence one intermittent +operation, the doctors declared his disease incurable. His health +was shattered; circumstances and character contributed to the +complete ruin of his life. The pages in which I speak of his lonely +and melancholy existence have been omitted. I do not care to +print them without his consent.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f12'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. There were originally four brothers: Pyotr, the grandfather of +‘the cousin from Kortcheva’ mentioned in Chapter 3; Alexander, +the elder brother here described, who is believed to have been the +model from whom Dostoevsky drew the character of Fyodor Pavlovitch +in <cite>The Brothers Karamazov</cite>; Lyov, always referred to as ‘the +Senator,’ and Ivan, Herzen’s father. Of the sisters one was Elizaveta +Alexeyevna Golohvastov and one was Marya Alexeyevna +Hovansky. The family of the Yakovlyevs was one of the oldest +and most aristocratic in Russia.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f13'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. British Foreign Secretary in 1791, and Prime Minister, 1806 +and 1807, when the Act for the abolition of the slave trade was +passed.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f14'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. <em>I.e.</em>, of Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813. +‘At the court of King Jeremiah’ is a popular phrase equivalent to +‘in the days of Methuselah.’—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f15'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. Kleinmihel, Minister of Means of Communication under +Nicholas <span class='fss'>I.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f16'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Benckendorf, Chief of Gendarmes, and favourite of Nicholas. +See Merezhkovsky’s <cite>December the Fourteenth</cite> for character-study.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f17'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. Perekusihin, Darya Savishna, favourite of Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>—(<em>Translator’s +Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f18'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. Father Matthew (1790–1856), Irish priest, who had remarkable +success in a great temperance campaign based on the religious +appeal.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f19'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. Senkovsky, Joseph Ivanovitch (1800–1878), of Polish origin, +was a whimsical critic on the reactionary side who placed a miserable +poetaster, Timofeyev, above Pushkin and preferred Le Sage to +Fielding. Under the pseudonym Baron Brambàeus, he wrote sensational +and bombastic novels. He edited a serial publication the +<cite>Library of Good Reading</cite>, employing poor young men of talent to +write for it.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f20'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. Payment in money or kind by a serf in lieu of labour for his +master.—(<em>Translater’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f21'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. <em>I.e.</em>, clubs or guilds for messing or working together.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f22'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. <cite>Le Mariage de Figaro</cite>, a satirical comedy by Beaumarchais +(<i><span lang="fr">né</span></i> Caron, 1732–1799), a watchmaker’s son, who rose to wealth +and influence, and by his writings helped to bring about the +Revolution. This play and an earlier one, <cite>Le Barbier de Séville</cite>, +became popular all over Europe, but are now chiefly remembered +through their adaptation to operas by Mozart and Rossini.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f23'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. The famous passage in Racine’s <cite>Phèdre</cite>.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f24'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. Mlle. George (1787–1867), French actress famous for her +performances in classical tragedy.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f25'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. Mlle. Mars (1779–1847), French actress famous for her acting +in comedies of Molière.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f26'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. The organist and music-teacher, I. I. Eck, spoken of in the +<cite>Memoirs of a Young Man</cite>, did nothing but give music-lessons and had +no other influence.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f27'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. The English speak French worse than the Germans, but they +only distort the language, while the Germans degrade it.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f28'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. The story is told that on one occasion in his own household, in +the presence, that is, of two or three heads of the secret police, two +or three maids of honour and generals in waiting, he tried his +Medusa glance on his daughter Marya Nikolayevna. She is like +her father, and her eyes really do recall the terrible look in his. The +daughter boldly confronted her father’s stare. The Tsar turned pale, +his cheeks twitched, and his eyes grew still more ferocious; his +daughter met him with the same look in hers. Every one turned +pale and trembled; the maids of honour and the generals in waiting +dared not breathe, so panic-stricken were they at this cannibalistic +imperial duel with the eyes, in the style of that described by Byron +in ‘Don Juan.’ Nicholas got up, he felt that he had met his +match.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f29'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. The President of the Academy proposed Araktcheyev as an +honorary member. Labzin asked in what the Count’s services to the +arts consisted. The President was at a loss and answered that +Araktcheyev was the man who stood nearest to the Tsar. ‘If that +is a sufficient reason, then I propose his coachman, Ilya Baykov,’ +observed the secretary, ‘he not only stands near the Tsar, but sits in +front of him.’ Labzin was a mystic and the editor of the +<cite>Messenger of Zion</cite>; Alexander himself was a mystic of the same +sort, but with the fall of Golitsyn’s ministry he handed over his +former ‘brethren of Christ and of the inner man’ to Araktcheyev to +do with as he pleased. Labzin was banished to Simbirsk.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f30'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. Victor Joseph Étienne de Jouy, a popular French writer (1764–1846).—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f31'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. The officer, if I am not mistaken, Count Samoylov, had left +the army and was living quietly in Moscow. Nicholas recognised +him at the theatre; fancied that he was dressed with rather elaborate +originality, and expressed the royal desire that such costumes should +be ridiculed on the stage. The theatre director and patriot, Zagoskin, +commissioned one of his actors to represent Samoylov in some +vaudeville. The rumour of this was soon all over the town. When +the performance was over, the real Samoylov went into the director’s +box and asked permission to say a few words to his double. The +director was frightened, but, afraid of a scene, summoned the actor. +‘You have acted me very well,’ the Count said to him, ‘and the +only thing wanting to complete the likeness is this diamond which +I always wear; allow me to hand it over to you; you will wear it +next time you are ordered to represent me.’ After this Samoylov +calmly returned to his seat. The stupid jest at his expense fell as +flat as the proclamation that Tchaadayev was mad and other august +freaks.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f32'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. Wife of Camille Desmoulins, who at his execution appealed to +the crowd, was arrested and also executed in 1794.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f33'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. Alibaud attempted to assassinate Louis-Philippe in 1836.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f34'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. Line from Pushkin’s poem, ‘The Tsar Nikita.’—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f35'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. People, who knew the Ivashevs well, have since told me that +they doubt this story of the robber, and that, in speaking of the +return of the children and of the brother’s sympathy, I must not +omit to mention the noble conduct of Ivashev’s sisters. I heard the +details from one of them, Mme. Yazykov, who visited her brother +in Siberia. But whether she told me about the robber, I don’t +remember. Has not Mme. Ivashev been mixed up with Princess +Trubetskoy, who sent letters and money to Prince Obolensky +through an unknown sectary? Have Ivashev’s letters been preserved? +It seems to us that we ought to have access to them.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f36'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. <em>I.e.</em>, the secret police.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f37'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. ‘Cantonists’ were soldiers’ sons educated at the government +expense and afterwards sent into the army.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f38'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. Pestel, leader of the officers in the Southern Army who +supported the attempt to overthrow the autocracy and establish +constitutional government. The other four who were hanged were +Ryleyev, Kahovsky, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, and Muravyov-Apóstol. +See Merezhkovsky’s novel, <cite>December the Fourteenth</cite>, which adheres +very closely to the historical facts.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f39'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. Mirovitch in 1762 tried to rescue from the Schlüsselburg the +legitimate heir to the Russian throne, known as Ivan <span class='fss'>VI.</span>, who +perished in the attempt. It is said that Catherine had given +orders that he was to be murdered if any attempt were made to +release him. Mirovitch was beheaded.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f40'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. Pugatchov, the Cossack leader of the great rising of the serfs +in 1775.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f41'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. Nicholas’s victory over the Five was celebrated by a religious +service in Moscow. In the midst of the Kremlin the Metropolitan +Filaret thanked God for the murders. The whole of the Royal +Family took part in the service, near them the Senate and the +ministers, and in the immense space around packed masses of +the Guards knelt bareheaded, and also took part in the prayers; +cannon thundered from the heights of the Kremlin. Never have +the gallows been celebrated with such pomp; Nicholas knew the +importance of the victory!</p> + +<p class='c014'>I was present at that service, a boy of fourteen lost in the crowd, +and on the spot, before that altar defiled by bloody rites. I swore to +avenge the murdered men, and dedicated myself to the struggle +with that throne, with that altar, with those cannons. I have not +avenged them, the Guards and the throne, the altar and the cannon +all remain, but for thirty years I have stood under that flag and +have never once deserted it.—(<cite>Polar Star</cite>, 1855.)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f42'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. Paul’s mistress, the daughter of Lopuhin, the chief of the +Moscow Police, better known under her married name as Princess +Gagarin.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f43'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. The date when the Polish rebellion broke out.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f44'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. Tatyana Kutchin, known in Russian literature under her +married name, Passek. She wrote <cite>Memoirs</cite>, which throw interesting +sidelights on Herzen’s narrative.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f45'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. Originally a convent, this was a famous girls’ school founded +by Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f46'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. Heinrich Zschokke (1771–1848), wrote in German <cite>Tales of +Swiss Life</cite>, in five vols., and also dramas—as well as a religious work +<cite>Stunden der Andacht</cite>, in eight vols., which was widely read up to the +middle of the nineteenth century and attacked for ascribing more +importance to religious feeling than to orthodox belief.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f47'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. Translated by Juliet Soskice.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f48'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. One of the leaders of the Decembrists.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f49'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. Biron, favourite of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, was by her +made practically ruler of Russia during her reign and designated as +successor by her.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f50'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. Joseph <span class='fss'>II.</span> of Austria paid a famous visit to Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span> of +Russia in 1780.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f51'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. Karamzin (1766–1826), author of a great <cite>History of the Russian +State</cite>, and also of novels in the sentimental romantic style of his +period.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f52'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. In the <cite>Philosophische Briefe</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f53'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. See the <cite>Tagebuch</cite> of Bettina von Arnim for the account of her +famous first interview with Goethe.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f54'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. Schiller’s poetry has not lost its influence on me. A few +months ago I read <cite>Wallenstein</cite>, that titanic work, aloud to my son. +The man who has lost his taste for Schiller has grown old or +pedantic, has grown hard or forgotten himself. What is one to +say of these precocious <em>altkluge Burschen</em> who know his defects so +well at seventeen?</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f55'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. Written in 1853.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f56'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. Translated by Juliet Soskice.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f57'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. The hero of <cite>La Vie du Chevalier de Faublas</cite> (1787), by Louvet +de Couvray, is the type of the effeminate rake and fashionable +exquisite of the period.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f58'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. Beaumarchais, author of <cite>Le Barbier de Séville</cite> and <cite>Le Mariage +de Figaro</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f59'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. Casti (1721–1803), an Italian poet, ‘attached by habit and +taste to the polished and frivolous society of the <em>ancien regime</em>, his +sympathies were nevertheless liberal,’ satirised Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span> and, +when exiled on that account from Vienna, had the spirit to resign +his Austrian pension. The <cite>Talking Animals</cite>, a satire on the predominance +of the foreigner in political life, is his best work. The +influence of his poems on Byron is apparent in ‘Don Juan.’—(<em>Translator’s +Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f60'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. Gonzaga was a Venetian painter who came to Petersburg in +1792 to paint scenery for the Court Theatre. He planned the +celebrated park at Pavlovsk.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f61'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. Derzhavin, Gavril Romanovitch (1743–1816), was poet-laureate +to Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>, and wrote numerous patriotic and a few other odes.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f62'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. Krylov, Ivan Andreyevitch (1768–1844), was a very popular +writer of fables in verse.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f63'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. Marmontel (1723–1799), author of the <cite>Contes Moraux</cite> and +other stories.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f64'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. Marivaux (1688–1763), author of numerous plays and a novel +called <cite>Marianne</cite>—all distinguished by an excessive refinement of +sentiment and language.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f65'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. Shalikov and V. Panaev were insignificant writers of the early +part of the eighteenth century.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f66'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. Arapov (1796–1861) wrote some twenty plays, but is chiefly +remembered for the <cite>Chronicle of the Russian Theatre</cite> (published after +his death), a chronological record of everything performed on the +Russian stage up to 1825.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f67'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. I. I. Dmitriev (1760–1837) wrote a number of fables and songs, +of which ‘The Little Dove’ is the best known. He was a great +patron of young literary men, and in 1810 was made Minister of +Justice.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f68'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. Vassily Lvovitch Pushkin, a minor poet, uncle of the famous +Pushkin.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f69'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. The uniform of the secret police of which Benckendorf was +head was light blue with a white strap.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f70'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. See later, Appendix to Chapter 7 for a full account of this.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f71'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. The Kritsky brothers were said to have broken a bust of the +Tsar at a drinking party.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f72'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. By the way, here is another of the fatherly measures of the +‘never to be forgotten’ Nicholas. Foundling hospitals and the +regulations for their public inspection are among the best monuments +of the reign of Catherine. The very idea of maintaining +hospitals, almshouses, and orphan asylums on part of the percentage +made by the loan banks from the investment of their capital is +remarkably intelligent.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These institutions were accepted, the banks and the regulations +enriched them, the foundling hospitals and almshouses flourished +so far as the universal thievishness of officials permitted them. Of +the children brought into the Foundling Hospital some remained +in it, while others were put out to be brought up by peasant-women +in the country; the latter remained peasants, while the former were +brought up in the institution itself. The more gifted among them +were picked out to continue the high-school course, while the less +promising were taught trades or sent to the Institute of Technology. +It was the same with the girls. Some were trained in +handicrafts, others as children’s nurses, while the cleverest became +schoolmistresses and governesses. But Nicholas dealt a terrible +blow to this institution, too. It is said that the Empress on one +occasion, meeting in the house of one of her friends the children’s +governess, entered into conversation with her and, being very much +pleased with her, inquired where she had been brought up, to which +the young woman answered, the Foundling Hospital. Any one +would suppose that the Empress would be grateful to the government +for it. No—it gave her occasion to reflect on the <em>impropriety</em> +of giving such an education to abandoned children.</p> + +<p class='c014'>A few months later Nicholas transferred the higher classes of the +Foundling Hospital to the Officers’ Institute, <em>i.e.</em> commanded that +the foundlings should no longer be put in these classes, but replaced +them with the children of officers. He even thought of a more +radical measure, he forbade the provincial institutions in their +regulations to accept new-born infants. The best commentary on +this intelligent measure is to be found in the records of the +Minister of Justice under the heading ‘Infanticide.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f73'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. Immense progress has been made in this respect. All that I +have heard of late of the theological Academies, and even of the +Seminaries confirms it. I need hardly say that it is not the ecclesiastical +authorities but the spirit of the pupils that is responsible +for this improvement.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f74'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. Griboyedov’s famous comedy, which appeared and had a large +circulation in manuscript copies in 1824, its performance and +publication being prevented by the Censorship. When performed +later it was in a very mutilated form. It was a lively satire on +Moscow society and full of references to well-known persons, such +as Izmailov and Tolstoy ‘the American.’ Griboyedov was imprisoned +in 1825 in connection with the Fourteenth of December.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f75'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. Stanislav Leszcynski, king of Poland from 1702 to 1709. His +daughter Maria was married to Louis <span class='fss'>XV.</span> of France.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f76'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. Lalande (1732–1807), a French astronomer connected with the +theory of the planets of Mercury.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f77'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), French naturalist and author +of many books on zoology and biology—in which, in opposition to +Cuvier, he advanced the theory of the variation of species under the +influence of environment.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f78'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. Oken, German naturalist, who aimed at deducing a system of +natural philosophy from <i><span lang="fr">à priori</span></i> propositions, and incidentally threw +off some valuable and suggestive ideas.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f79'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. At that time there were none of the inspectors and subinspectors +who played the part of my Pyotr Fyodorovitch in the +lecture-room.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f80'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. A pun on the name—the phrase meaning also ‘Nine all but a +little.’—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f81'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. Merzlyakov, a critic and translator of some merit.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f82'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. Abencerrages, a Moorish family, on the legend of whose tragic +fate in Granada, Chateaubriand founded his romance <cite>Les Aventures +du Dernier des Abencérages</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f83'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. Tredyakovsky (1703–1769), son of a priest at Astrakhan, is said, +like Lomonossov, to have walked to Moscow in pursuit of learning. +He was the author of inferior poems, but did great service to Russian +culture by his numerous translations. He was the first to write in +Russian as spoken.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f84'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. Kostrov (1750–1796), a peasant’s son and a seminarist, wrote +in imitation of Derzhavin, but is better known for his translations +of the Iliad, Apuleius and Ossian.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f85'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. Heraskov (1733–1807), author of an immense number of poems +in pseudo-classic style. Wiener says ‘they now appal us with their +inane voluminousness.’ But readers of Turgenev will remember +how greatly they were admired by Punin. The best known of his +epics is the Rossiad, dealing with Ivan the Terrible.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f86'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. Knyazhnin (1742–1791) wrote numerous tragedies and comedies, +chiefly adaptations from the French or Italian, and of no literary +merit.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f87'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. Byelinsky, Vissarion Grigoryevitch (1810–1848), was the greatest +of Russian critics. See later, Chapter 25, Vol. <span class='fss'>II.</span>, for an account of him.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f88'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. Kavelin (1818–1855), a writer of brilliant articles on political +and economical questions. Friend of Turgenev.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f89'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. Pirogov (1810–1881), the great surgeon and medical authority, +was the first in Russia to investigate disease by experiments on +animals, and to use anæsthetics for operations. He took an active +part in education and the reforms of the early years of Alexander <span class='fss'>II.</span>’s +reign, and published many treatises on medical subjects. To his +genius and influence as Professor of Medicine in Petersburg University +is largely due the very high standard of medical training in +Russia.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f90'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. Glinka, author of patriotic verses of no merit. Referred to as +‘the officer’ by Pushkin in a poem.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f91'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. How diversely Humboldt’s travels were understood in Russia +may be gathered from the account of an Ural Cossack who served +in the office of the Governor of Perm; he liked to describe how he +had escorted the mad Prussian Prince, Gumplot. What did he do? +‘Just the same silly things, collecting grasses, looking at the sand; +at Solontchaki he said to me, through the interpreter, ‘Go into the +water and get what’s at the bottom’; well, I got just what is +usually at the bottom, and he asks, ‘Is the water very cold at the +bottom?’ ‘No, my lad,’ I thought, ‘you won’t catch me.’ So I +drew myself up at attention, and answered, ‘When it’s our duty, +your Highness, it’s of no consequence, we are glad to do our best.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f92'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. Homyakov. See later, Chapter 30, for Herzen’s account of this +leader of the Slavophil movement.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f93'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r93'>93</a>. Pic-de-la-Mirandole (1463–1494), a learned Italian who was the +most famous of all infant prodigies, a mediæval ‘Admirable Crichton.’—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f94'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r94'>94</a>. Ledru-Rollin (1808–1874), member of the French Provisional +Government of 1848, and one of the earliest advocates of universal +adult suffrage.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f95'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r95'>95</a>. Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>, born a German princess, rose to be Empress of +Russia through the murder—by her orders or with her connivance—of +her husband, Peter <span class='fss'>III.</span>, to the great advantage of the country.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f96'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r96'>96</a>. Mrs. Radcliffe (1764–1823) wrote many stories, <cite>The Mysteries +of Udolpho</cite> and <cite>The Italians</cite> being the best known. All largely turn +on mysterious haunted castles, and had great vogue in their day.—(<em>Translator’s +Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f97'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r97'>97</a>. Manuel (J. A.), a man of great independence and honesty, was +expelled from the Chambre des Députés for his opposition to the +war with Spain in 1823.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f98'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r98'>98</a>. Dupont de l’Eure (J. C.), a leader in the revolution of 1830, was +afterwards president of the Provisional Government in 1848.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f99'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r99'>99</a>. Armand Carrel (1800–1836), as editor of <cite>Le National</cite>, offered +spirited opposition to Charles <span class='fss'>X.</span>, as well as to aggressive acts of the +government of Louis-Philippe.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f100'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r100'>100</a>. Here is what Denis Davydov<a id='r101'></a><a href='#f101' class='c015'><sup>[101]</sup></a> tells in his Memoirs:</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘The Tsar said one day to A. P. Yermolov: “I was once in a +very terrible position during the Polish War. My wife was expecting +her confinement, the mutiny had broken out in Novgorod, +I had only two squadrons of Horse Guards left me; the news from +the army only reached me through Königsberg. I was forced to +surround myself with soldiers discharged from hospital.”’</p> + +<p class='c014'>The Memoirs of this general of partisans leave no room for +doubt that Nicholas, like Araktcheyev, like all cold-hearted, cruel +and revengeful people, was a coward. Here is what General +Tchetchensky told Davydov: ‘You know that I can appreciate +manliness and so you will believe my words. I was near the Tsar +on the 14th December, and I watched him all the time. I can +assure you on my honour that the Tsar, who was very pale all the +time, had his heart in his boots.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>And again Davydov himself tells us: ‘During the riot in the +Haymarket, the Tsar only visited the capital on the second day +when order was restored. The Tsar was at Peterhof, and himself +observed casually, “I was standing all day with Volkonsky on a +mound in the garden, listening for the sound of cannon-shot from +the direction of Petersburg.” Instead of anxiously listening in the +garden, and continually sending couriers to Petersburg,’ added +Davydov, ‘he ought to have hastened there himself; any one of the +least manliness would have done so. On the following day (when +everything was quiet) the Tsar rode in his carriage into the crowd, +which filled the square, and shouted to it, “On your knees!” and +the crowd hurriedly obeyed the order. The Tsar, seeing several +people dressed in parti-coloured clothes (among those following the +carriage), imagined that they were suspicious characters, and ordered +the poor wretches to be taken to the lock-up and, turning to the +people, began shouting: “They are all wretched Poles, they have +egged you on.” Such an ill-timed sally completely ruined the +effect in my opinion.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>A strange sort of bird was this Nicholas!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f101'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r101'>101</a>. Davydov (see Tolstoy’s <cite>War and Peace</cite>) and Yermolov were +both leaders of the partisan or guerilla warfare against the French +in 1812.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f102'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r102'>102</a>. And where are the Kritskys? What had they done? Who +tried them? For what were they condemned?</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f103'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r103'>103</a>. <em>I.e.</em>, Tatyana Kutchin, the ‘cousin from Kortcheva,’ mentioned +in Chapter 3.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f104'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r104'>104</a>. Venevitinov, a young poet whose few poems showed the greatest +promise. He died at the age of seventeen.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f105'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r105'>105</a>. The members of the Petrashevsky group, of whom Dostoevsky +was one, were condemned to death, and led out to the scaffold. At +the last moment their sentence was transmuted to penal servitude +in Siberia.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f106'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r106'>106</a>. <em>I.e.</em>, of supervision by the secret police, whose light-blue +uniform was worn with a white strap.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f107'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r107'>107</a>. The dynasty of kings of Poland from 1386 to 1572.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f108'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r108'>108</a>. Karl Sand, a student of Jena University, who in 1819 assassinated +the German dramatist Kotzebue, because he threw ridicule on +the Burschenschaft movement.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f109'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r109'>109</a>. In 1844, I met Perevoshtchikov at Shtchepkin’s and sat beside +him at dinner. Towards the end he could not resist saying: ‘It is +a pity, a very great pity, that circumstances prevented you from +taking up work, you had excellent abilities.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘But you know it’s not for every one to follow you up to heaven. +We are busy here on earth at work of some sort.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘Upon my word, to be sure that may be work of a sort. Hegelian +philosophy perhaps. I have read your articles, there is no understanding +them; bird’s language, that’s queer sort of work. No, +indeed!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>For a long while I was amused at this verdict, that is, for a long +while I could not understand that our language really was poor; +if it were a bird’s, it must have been the bird that was Minerva’s +favourite.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f110'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r110'>110</a>. Among the papers sent me from Moscow, I found a note in +which I informed my cousin who was in the country that I had +taken my degree. ‘The examination is over, and I am a graduate! +You cannot imagine the sweet feeling of freedom after four years of +work. Did you think of me on Thursday? It was a stifling day, +and the torture lasted from nine in the morning till nine in the +evening.’ (26th June 1833.) I fancy I added two hours for +effect or to round off the sentence. But for all my pleasure, my +vanity was stung by another student’s winning the gold medal. +In a second letter of the 6th July, I find: ‘To-day was the prizegiving, +but I was not there. I did not care to be second at the +giving of the medals.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f111'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r111'>111</a>. St. Just was a member of the Convention and the Committee +of Public Safety, a follower of Robespierre and beheaded with him +at the age of twenty-seven.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f112'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r112'>112</a>. Hoche and Marceau were generals of the French Revolutionary +Army. Both were engaged in the pacification of La Vendée. +Both perished before reaching the age of thirty.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f113'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r113'>113</a>. Desmoulins was one of the early leaders of the French Revolution, +and headed the attack on the Bastille; afterwards accused of +being a Moderate and beheaded together with Danton at the age +of thirty-four.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f114'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r114'>114</a>. Escousse (b. 1813) and Lebras (b. 1816) were poets who wrote +in collaboration a successful play, <cite>Farruck le Maure</cite>, followed by +an unsuccessful one called <cite>Raymond</cite>. On the failure of the latter +they committed suicide in 1832. Béranger wrote a poem on +them.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f115'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r115'>115</a>. <em>I.e.</em>, Nikolay Pavlovitch Golohvastov, the younger of the two +sons of a sister of Herzen’s father. These two sons are fully described +in Vol. <span class='fss'>II.</span> Chapter 31.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f116'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r116'>116</a>. This is the earliest record of Russian history. It begins with +the Deluge and continues in leisurely fashion up to the year 1110. +Nestor, of whom nothing is really known, is assumed to have been +a monk of the twelfth century.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f117'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r117'>117</a>. Enfantin, a French engineer, was one of the founders of Saint-Simonism.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f118'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r118'>118</a>. Familiar to all English school-girls of the last generation in the +French as <cite>La Jeune Sibérienne</cite> by Xavier de Maistre. I cannot +discover whether the Russian version is the original and the French +the translation or vice versa.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f119'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r119'>119</a>. Translated by Juliet Soskice.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f120'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r120'>120</a>. J. S. Bailly (1736–1793), one of the early leaders of the French +revolution, and an astronomer and literary man of some distinction, +was Mayor of Paris after the taking of the Bastille, and executed +in 1793.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f121'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r121'>121</a>. Fieschi, the celebrated conspirator, executed in 1836 for the +attempt with an ‘infernal machine’ on the life of Louis-Philippe.—(<em>Translator’s +Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f122'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r122'>122</a>. The League of Public Welfare was formed in the reign of +Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span> to support philanthropic undertakings and education, to +improve the administration of justice, and to promote the economical +welfare of the country. The best men in Russia belonged to it. At +first approved by Alexander, it was afterwards repressed, and it split +into the ‘Union of the North,’ which aimed at establishing constitutional +government, and the ‘Union of the South’ led by Pestel, +which aimed at republicanism. The two Unions combined in the +attempt of December the Fourteenth.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f123'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r123'>123</a>. See Gogol’s <cite>Dead Souls</cite>.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f124'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r124'>124</a>. A character in Gogol’s <cite>Dead Souls</cite>.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f125'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r125'>125</a>. Philip Wouverman (1619–1668), a Dutch master who excelled +in drinking and hunting scenes.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f126'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r126'>126</a>. Jacques Callot (1592–1635), a French painter and engraver.—(<em>Translator’s +Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f127'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r127'>127</a>. The epithet in the last line is left to the imagination in Russian +also.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f128'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r128'>128</a>. Among those who have distinguished themselves in this line +of late years is the notorious Liprandi, who drew up a scheme for +founding an Academy of Espionage (1858).</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f129'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r129'>129</a>. I need not say that this was a barefaced lie, a shameful police +trap.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f130'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r130'>130</a>. Marlinsky (pseudonym for Bestuzhev) (1795–1837), author of +numerous tales, extremely romantic in style and subject. Readers +of Turgenev will remember that he was the favourite author of the +hero of <cite>Knock, Knock, Knock</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f131'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r131'>131</a>. Zagoskin (1789–1852), author of popular historical novels, +sentimental and patriotic.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f132'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r132'>132</a>. The <cite>Prisoner of the Caucasus</cite>, <cite>Voynarovsky</cite>, and the <cite>Fountain +of Bahtchisaray</cite> are poems of Pushkin’s. The line quoted is from +the last of the three.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f133'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r133'>133</a>. The Votyaks are a Mongolian tribe, found in Siberia and +Eastern Russia.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f134'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r134'>134</a>. Jean-Baptiste Carrier (1756–1794) was responsible for the +<em>noyades</em> and massacre of 1600 people at Nantes, while suppressing +the counter-revolutionary rising of La Vendée.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f135'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r135'>135</a>. Pun on the Russian word for ‘translate,’ which also means +‘transfer from place to place.’—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f136'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r136'>136</a>. In 1802, Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span> ordered a report to be sent him concerning +the management by Major-General Izmailov of the latter’s +estates in Tula, where serfs were tortured and imprisoned by their +owner on the slightest provocation. By the connivance of the local +authorities, Izmailov was able to retain control and persist in his +brutal practices till 1830. Even then he was only punished by +being deprived of the management of his estates and interned +in a small town. Both Izmailov and Tolstoy ‘the American’ +are referred to in Griboyedov’s famous play, <cite>Woe from Wit</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f137'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r137'>137</a>. Mamonov was one of the lovers of Catherine <span class='fss'>II.</span>, declared +insane for having married against her wishes.—(<em>Translator’s Notes.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f138'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r138'>138</a>. Minih was a minister and general prominent under Peter the +Great and Anna. On the latter’s death he brought about the downfall +of Biron, was exiled by Elizabeth, and finally brought back from +Siberia by Catherine.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f139'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r139'>139</a>. Simon Konarski, a Polish revolutionary, also active in the +‘Young Europe’ (afterwards ‘Young Italy’) movement, lived in +disguise and with a false passport in Poland, founding a printing +press and carrying on active propaganda till he was caught and shot +at Vilna in 1839. His admirers cut the post to which he was tied +into bits which they preserved as relics of a saint.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f140'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r140'>140</a>. Speransky, a leading statesman of the early period of the reign +of Alexander <span class='fss'>I.</span>, banished in 1812 on a trumped-up charge of +treason, recalled by Nicholas. He was responsible for the codification +of Russian laws. See Tolstoy’s <cite>War and Peace</cite> for sketch of +him.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f141'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r141'>141</a>. This gave Count Rastoptchin occasion for a biting jest at Pestel’s +expense. They were both dining with the Tsar. The Tsar, who +was standing at the window, asked: ‘What’s that on the church, +the black thing on the cross?’ ‘I can’t distinguish,’ observed +Count Rastoptchin. ‘You must ask Boris Ivanovitch, he has +wonderful eyes, he sees from here what is being done in Siberia.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f142'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r142'>142</a>. I see with great pleasure that the New York papers have several +times repeated this.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f143'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r143'>143</a>. Seslavin was a famous leader of the guerilla warfare against +Napoleon in 1812.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f144'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r144'>144</a>. An epigram of Pushkin’s contains the two lines:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘“I’ll buy all,” said Gold.</div> + <div class='line'>“I’ll take all,” said Steel.’—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f145'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r145'>145</a>. All their prayers may be reduced to a petition for the continuance +of their race, for their crops, and the preservation of their +herds.</p> + +<p class='c014'>‘May Yumala grant that from one sheep may be born two, from +one grain may come five, that my children may have children.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>There is something miserable and gloomy, the survival from ancient +times of oppression, in this lack of confidence in life on earth, and +daily bread. The devil (Shaitan) is regarded as equal to God. I +saw a terrible fire in a village, in which the inhabitants were mixed +Russian and Votyak. The Russians were hard at work shouting +and dragging out their things, the tavern-keeper was particularly +conspicuous among them. It was impossible to check the fire, but +it was easy at first to save things. The Votyaks were huddled +together on a little hill, weeping copiously and doing nothing.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f146'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r146'>146</a>. A similar reply (if Kurbanovsky did not invent this one) was +made by peasants in Germany when refusing to be converted to +Catholicism.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f147'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r147'>147</a>. Cyril and Methodius were brothers who in the ninth century +evangelised in Thrace, Moesia and Moravia, invented the Slav +alphabet, and made a Slav translation of the Bible. They are +saints of both the Greek and the Catholic Churches.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f148'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r148'>148</a>. In the Province of Vyatka the peasants are particularly fond +of forming new settlements. Very often three or four clearings +are suddenly discovered in the forest. The immense waste lands +and forests (now half cut down) tempt the peasants to take this +<em>res nullius</em> which is left unused. The Minister of Finance has +several times been obliged to confirm these squatters in possession +of the land.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f149'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r149'>149</a>. Zhukovsky (1786–1852), the well-known poet, was tutor to +the Tsarevitch, afterwards Alexander <span class='fss'>II.</span> He was a man of fine and +generous character. His original work is not of the first order, but +as a translator from the European and classical languages he was +of invaluable service in the development of Russian culture.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f150'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r150'>150</a>. Leroux, a follower of Saint Simon, of the first half of the +nineteenth century.—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f151'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r151'>151</a>. Gebel, a well-known musical composer of the period.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f152'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r152'>152</a>. I thought fit, I don’t understand why, to write these scenes in +verse. Probably I thought that anybody could write unrhymed +five-foot iambics, since even Pogodin<a id='r153'></a><a href='#f153' class='c015'><sup>[153]</sup></a> wrote them. In 1839 or +1840, I gave both the manuscripts to Byelinsky to read and calmly +awaited his eulogies. But next day Byelinsky sent them back to +me with a note in which he said: ‘Do please have them copied +to run on without being divided into lines, then I will read them +with pleasure, as it is I am bothered all the time by the idea of their +being in verse.’</p> + +<p class='c014'>Byelinsky killed both my dramatic efforts. It is always +pleasant to pay one’s debts. In 1841, Byelinsky published a long +dialogue upon literature in the <cite>Notes of the Fatherland</cite>. ‘How +do you like my last article?’ he asked me, as we were dining together +<em>en petit comité</em> at Dusseau’s. ‘Very much,’ I answered, ‘all +that you say is excellent, but tell me, please, how could you go on +struggling for two hours to talk to that man without seeing at the +first word that he was a fool?’ ‘That’s perfectly true,’ said +Byelinsky, bursting into laughter. ‘Well, my boy, that is crushing! +Why, he is a perfect fool!’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f153'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r153'>153</a>. Pogodin, chiefly known as an historian of a peculiar Slavophil +tinge, was co-editor with Shevyryov of the <cite>Moskvityanin</cite>, a +reactionary journal, and wrote historical novels of little merit.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f154'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r154'>154</a>. The reference is to the ‘Arzamass,’ a literary club of which +Karamzin, Batyushkov, Uvarov, this Bludov and some others were +members. The town Arzamass is noted for its geese.—(<em>Translator’s +Note.</em>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f155'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r155'>155</a>. <em>Il a voulu le bien de ses sujets.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f156'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r156'>156</a>. The name means ‘not a woman.’—(<em>Translator’s Note.</em>)</p> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c002'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr> + <th class='c021'>Page</th> + <th class='c021'>Changed from</th> + <th class='c022'>Changed to</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c023'><a href='#t160'>160</a></td> + <td class='c009'>they used to keep them for going walks, that strangers</td> + <td class='c024'>they used to keep them for going on walks, that strangers</td> + </tr> +</table> + + <ul class='ul_1'> + <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + + </li> + <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76599 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2025-07-10 15:19:32 GMT --> +</html> + diff --git a/76599-h/images/cover.jpg b/76599-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9012ce5 --- /dev/null +++ b/76599-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/76599-h/images/i_title.jpg b/76599-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4957ecd --- /dev/null +++ b/76599-h/images/i_title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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