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+      The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, II | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78332 ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p>
+
+<h1>THE MEMOIRS OF<br>
+ALEXANDER<br>
+HERZEN<br>
+<br>
+II</h1>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="note1">NOTE</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="note2">This translation has been made
+by arrangement from the sole
+complete and copyright edition
+of <i>My Past and Thoughts</i>, that
+published in the original Russian
+at Berlin, 1921.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger"><i>MY PAST AND THOUGHTS</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center larger">THE MEMOIRS OF<br>
+ALEXANDER HERZEN</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>THE AUTHORISED TRANSLATION<br>
+TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN<br>
+BY CONSTANCE GARNETT</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">VOLUME II</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter titlepage illowp100" style="max-width: 6.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/doggo.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br>
+ALFRED A. KNOPF</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br>
+T. &amp; A. CONSTABLE LTD. EDINBURGH<br>
+*<br>
+ALL RIGHTS<br>
+RESERVED</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">FIRST PUBLISHED 1924</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">PART III<br>VLADIMIR ON THE
+    KLYAZMA<br>(1838-1839)</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XIX:—The Two Princesses</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_19"><i>page 1</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XX:—The Forlorn Child</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_20"><i>page 11</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXI:—Separation</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_21"><i>page 29</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXII:—In Moscow while I was away</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_22"><i>page 50</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXIII:—The Third of March and the Ninth of May 1838</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_23"><i>page 63</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXIV:—The Thirteenth of June 1839</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_24"><i>page 87</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">PART IV<br>MOSCOW, PETERSBURG, AND
+    NOVGOROD<br>(1840-1847)</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXV:—Dissonance—A New Circle—Desperate Hegelianism—V.
+    Byelinsky, M. Bakunin, and others—A Quarrel with Byelinsky and
+    Reconciliation—Argument with a Lady at Novgorod—Stankevitch’s
+    Circle</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_25"><i>page 104</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXVI:—Warnings—The Promotion Office—A Minister’s
+    Secretariat—The Third Section—The Story of a Sentry—General
+    Dubbelt—Count Benckendorf—Olga Alexandrovna Zherebtsov—My
+    Second Exile</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_26"><i>page 151</i></a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXVII:—The Provincial Government—I am under my own
+    Supervision—The Duhobors and Paul—The Paternal Rule of the
+    Landowners—Count Araktcheyev and the Military Settlements—A
+    Ferocious Investigation—Retirement</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_27"><i>page 188</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXVIII:—Grübelei—Moscow after Exile—Pokrovskoe—The
+    Death of Matvey—Father Ioann</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_28"><i>page 207</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXIX:—<span class="smcap">Our Friends</span>—The
+    Moscow Circle—Table Talk—The Westerners (Botkin, Ryedkin,
+    Kryukov, and Yevgeny Korsh)—On the Grave of a Friend</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_29"><i>page 227</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXX:—<span class="smcap">Our ‘Opponents’</span>—The
+    Slavophils and Panslavism—Homyakov—The Kireyevskys—K. S.
+    Aksakov—P. Y. Tchaadayev</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_30"><i>page 254</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXXI:—My Father’s Death—My Heritage—The Partition—Two
+    Nephews</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_31"><i>page 304</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXXII:—The Last Visit to Sokolovo—The Theoretical
+    Rupture—A Strained Position—Dahin! Dahin!</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_32"><i>page 340</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAPTER XXXIII:—A Police-Officer in the Part of a Valet—The
+    Police-Master Kokoshkin—‘Disorder in Order’—Dubbelt Once More—The
+    Passport</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_33"><i>page 353</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>APPENDIX (<span class="smcap">To Chapter 29</span>):—N. H.
+    Ketscher—Basil and Armance</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Appendix"><i>page 365</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_III">PART III<br>
+<span class="smcap">VLADIMIR ON THE KLYAZMA<br>
+(1838-1839)</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Do not expect from me long accounts of my inner life of that
+period.... Terrible events, troubles of all sorts, are more easily put
+upon paper than quite bright and cloudless memories.... Can happiness
+be described?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Fill in for yourselves what is lacking, divine it with the heart—while
+I will tell of the external side, of the setting, only rarely, rarely
+touching by hint or by word, on its holy secrets.</i></p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_19">Chapter 19<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Two Princesses</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">When I was five or six years old and was very
+naughty, Vera Artamonovna used to say: ‘Very
+well, very well, you wait a bit, I’ll tell the princess as
+soon as she comes.’ I was at once subdued by this
+threat and begged her not to complain.</p>
+
+<p>Princess Marya Alexeyevna Hovansky, my father’s
+sister, was a stern, forbidding old woman, stout and
+dignified, with a birth-mark on her cheek and false curls
+under her cap; she used to screw up her eyes as she spoke,
+and to the end of her days, that is to the age of eighty,
+rouged and powdered a little. Whenever I fell into her
+hands she worried me; there was no end to her lecturing
+and grumbling; she would scold me for anything, for a
+crumpled collar, or a stain on my jacket, would declare
+I had not gone up to kiss her hand properly, and make
+me go through the ceremony again. When she had
+finished lecturing me, she would sometimes say to my
+father, as with her finger-tips she took a pinch out of a
+tiny gold snuff-box: ‘My dear, you should send your
+spoilt child to me to be corrected; he would be as soft as
+silk when he had been a month in my hands.’ I knew
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>that they would not give me up to her, but I shivered
+with horror at those words.</p>
+
+<p>My terror of her passed off with the years, but I never
+liked the old princess’s house; I could not breathe freely
+in it, I was not myself there, but like a trapped hare
+looked uneasily from one side to the other to make my
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>The old princess’s household was not in the least like
+my father’s or the Senator’s. It was an old-fashioned,
+orthodox Russian household in which they kept the
+fasts, went to early matins, put a cross on the doors on
+the Eve of Epiphany, made marvellous pancakes on
+Shrove Tuesday, ate pork with horse-radish, dined
+exactly at two o’clock and supped at nine. The European
+influences which had infected her brothers and turned
+them somewhat out of their native rut had not touched
+the old princess’s existence; on the contrary, she
+disapproved of the way in which ‘Vanyusha and
+Lyovushka,’ as she called my father and uncle, had been
+corrupted by ‘that France.’</p>
+
+<p>Princess Marya Alexeyevna lived in the lodge of the
+house occupied by her aunt, Princess Anna Borissovna
+Meshtchersky, a maiden lady of eighty.</p>
+
+<p>This Princess Meshtchersky was the living and almost
+solitary link connecting all the seven ascending and
+descending branches of the family. At the chief holidays
+all the relations gathered about her. She reconciled
+those who were at variance and brought together those
+who had drifted apart. She was respected by all, and
+she deserved it. At her death family ties were loosened
+and lost their rallying-point, and the relations forgot
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>She had finished the education of my father and his
+brothers; after the death of their parents she looked
+after their property until they came of age. She put
+them into the Guards, and she made marriages for their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>sisters. I do not know how far she was satisfied with
+the results of her bringing up, which with the help of a
+French engineer, a kinsman of Voltaire, had turned
+them into landowners and <i>esprits forts</i>, but she knew
+how to retain their esteem, and her nephews, though not
+greatly disposed to feelings of obedience and reverence,
+respected their old aunt and often obeyed her to the end
+of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Princess Anna Borissovna’s house, by some miracle
+preserved at the time of the fire of 1812, had not been
+repaired nor redecorated for fifty years: the hangings
+that covered the walls were faded and blackened; the
+lustres on the chandeliers, discoloured by heat and turned
+into smoky topazes by time, shook and tinkled, shining
+dingily when any one walked across the room. The
+heavy, solid mahogany furniture, ornamented with
+carvings that had lost all their gilt, stood gloomily along
+the walls; chests of drawers with Chinese incrustations,
+tables with little copper trellis-work, rococo porcelain
+dolls—all recalled a different age and different manners.</p>
+
+<p>Grey-headed flunkeys sat in the vestibule, occupied
+with quiet dignity in various trifling tasks, or sometimes
+reading half aloud a prayer-book or a psalter, the pages
+of which were darker than its cover. Boys stood at the
+doors, but they were more like old dwarfs than children—they
+never laughed nor raised their voices.</p>
+
+<p>A deathly silence reigned in the inner apartments;
+only, from time to time, there was the mournful cry of
+a cockatoo, its luckless faltering effort to repeat a human
+word, the bony tap of its beak against its perch, covered
+with tin, and the disgusting whimper of a little old
+monkey, shrunken and consumptive, that lived in the
+big drawing-room, on a little shelf of the tiled stove.
+The monkey, dressed like a <i>débardeur</i>, in full, red trousers,
+gave to the whole room a peculiar and extremely unpleasant
+smell. In another big drawing-room hung a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>number of family portraits of all sizes, shapes, periods,
+ages, and costumes. These portraits had a peculiar
+interest for me, especially from the contrast between the
+originals and their semblances. The young man of
+twenty with a powdered head, dressed in a light-green
+embroidered, full-skirted coat, smiling courteously from
+the canvas, was my father. The little girl with
+dishevelled curls and a bouquet of roses, her face adorned
+with a patch, mercilessly tight-laced into the shape of a
+wine-glass, and thrust into an enormous crinoline, was
+the formidable old Princess Marya Alexeyevna.</p>
+
+<p>The stillness and the stiffness grew more marked as
+one approached the princess’s room. Old maidservants
+in white caps with wide frills moved to and fro with
+little teapots, so softly that their footsteps were inaudible;
+from time to time a grey-headed manservant in a long
+coat of stout dark-blue cloth appeared at the doors, but
+his footsteps too were as inaudible, and when he gave
+some message to the elder maidservant, his lips moved
+without making a sound.</p>
+
+<p>The little, withered, wrinkled, but by no means ugly,
+old lady, Princess Anna Borissovna, was usually sitting
+or reclining on the big clumsy sofa, propped up with
+cushions. One could scarcely distinguish her; everything
+was white, her dressing-jacket, her cap, the cushions,
+the covers on the sofa. Her waxen white face of lace-like
+fragility together with her faint voice and white dress
+gave her an air of something that had passed away and
+was scarcely breathing.</p>
+
+<p>The big English clock on the table with its loud-measured
+spondee—tick-tack, tick-tack—seemed marking
+off the last quarters of an hour of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Between twelve and one, Princess Marya Alexeyevna
+would enter and settle herself with dignity in a big easy-chair.
+She was dull in her empty apartments. She was
+a widow, and I still remember her husband, a little grey-headed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>old gentleman who drank liqueurs and home-made
+beverages on the sly; he never played an important
+part in the house, and was accustomed to obey his wife
+implicitly—though he sometimes rebelled against her in
+words, especially after his secret potations. The princess
+would be surprised at the great effect produced on her
+spouse by the minute glass of vodka which he drank
+officially before dinner, and she would leave him in peace
+to play the whole morning with his blackbirds, nightingales,
+and canaries, which trilled shrilly against each
+other; he trained some of them with a little organ,
+others by whistling to them himself; he used to drive
+off very early to the bird-market to exchange, sell, and
+buy birds; he took an artistic delight in succeeding, as
+he supposed, in cheating a dealer.... And so he spent
+his profitable existence, until one morning, after whistling
+to his canaries, he fell forward on his face and two hours
+afterwards died.</p>
+
+<p>His widow was left alone. She had had two daughters,
+both of whom married not for love but simply to escape
+from the maternal yoke. Both died in their first childbirth.
+The princess was really an unlucky woman, but
+her troubles rather warped her character than softened it.
+Her misfortunes made her not milder, not kinder, but
+harder and more forbidding.</p>
+
+<p>Now she had no one left but her brothers and her old
+maiden aunt. She had scarcely parted from the latter
+all her life, and after her husband’s death she took complete
+control of the old lady’s household, and ruled her
+with a rod of iron under the pretext of looking after her
+and caring for her wants.</p>
+
+<p>Old women of all sorts, either living with Princess
+Anna Borissovna or staying temporarily in her house,
+were always ranged along the walls or sitting in the
+various corners. Half saints and half vagrants, rather
+depraved and very devout, sickly and extremely unclean,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>these old women trailed from one old-fashioned house to
+another: in one they were fed, in another presented
+with an old shawl; from one place they were sent grain
+and fuel, from another linen and cabbage; and so they
+somehow made both ends meet. Everywhere they were
+regarded as a nuisance, everywhere they were passed over,
+everywhere put in the lowest seat, and everywhere
+received through dullness and emptiness and, most of all,
+through love of gossip. In the presence of other company
+these mournful figures were usually silent, looking
+with envious hatred at each other.... They sighed,
+shook their heads, made the sign of the cross, and muttered
+to themselves the number of their stitches, prayers, and
+perhaps even words of abuse. On the other hand, <i>tête
+à tête</i> with their benefactresses, they made up for their
+silence by the most treacherous gossip about all the other
+benefactresses who received them, fed them, and made
+them presents.</p>
+
+<p>They were continually begging from Princess Anna
+Borissovna, and in return for her presents, often made
+without the knowledge of Princess Marya Alexeyevna,
+who did not like indulging them, brought her holy bread,
+hard as a stone, and useless woollen and knitted articles
+of their own make, which the old lady afterwards sold
+for their benefit, regardless of the unwillingness of the
+purchasers.</p>
+
+<p>Besides birthdays, namedays, and other holidays, the
+most solemn gathering of kinsmen and friends in Princess
+Anna Borissovna’s house took place on New Year’s Eve.
+On that day she ‘elevated’ the Iversky Madonna. The
+holy ikon was carried through all the apartments by monks
+and priests, chanting. Princess Anna Borissovna, the
+first to kiss the cross, walked under it, and after her all
+the visitors, men and maid servants, old people and
+children. Then they all congratulated her on the New
+Year, and made her all sorts of trifling presents such as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>are given to children. She would play with them for
+a few days, then give them away.</p>
+
+<p>My father used to drag me off every year to this heathen
+ceremony; everything was repeated in exactly the same
+order, except that some old men and women were every
+year missing, and their names were intentionally avoided,
+until the old lady herself would say: ‘Our Ilya Vassilyevitch
+is no longer here, the Kingdom of Heaven be his!...
+Whom will the Lord summon this year?’ and she
+would shake her head dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>And the ticking of the English clock would go on
+marking off the days, the hours, the minutes, and at last
+it reached the fatal second. The old lady felt unwell
+on getting up one day; she walked about the rooms
+and was no better; her nose began bleeding, and very
+violently; she felt faint and exhausted, and lay down
+fully dressed on her sofa, fell quietly asleep ... and
+never woke again. She was over ninety.</p>
+
+<p>She left her house and the greater part of her property
+to her niece, the widowed princess, but did not hand
+on to her the inner significance of her life. Princess
+Marya Alexeyevna could not maintain the—in its own
+way—artistic rôle of head of the family, of the patriarchal
+link connecting many threads. With the death of
+Princess Anna Borissovna an aspect of gloom came over
+everything, as in mountainous places at sunset, long dark
+shadows lay upon all. Princess Marya Alexeyevna shut
+up her aunt’s house and remained living in the lodge;
+the big house was surrounded by weeds, the walls and
+frames grew blacker and blacker; the porch, in which
+ungainly yellow dogs were for ever asleep, fell out of the
+perpendicular.</p>
+
+<p>Friends and relations came less frequently, her house
+was deserted, she was distressed at it, but did not know
+how to improve things.</p>
+
+<p>The only survivor of the whole family, she began to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>be apprehensive for her own useless life, and mercilessly
+repulsed everything that could disturb her physical or
+moral equilibrium and cause her uneasiness or annoyance.
+Afraid of the past and of memories, she removed every
+object that had belonged to her daughters, even their
+portraits. It was the same with her aunt’s belongings—the
+cockatoo and the monkey were exiled to the servants’
+hall, and then turned out of the house. The monkey
+lived out its days in the coachman’s quarters at the
+Senator’s, choking with the smell of rank tobacco and
+amusing the stable-boys.</p>
+
+<p>The egoism of self-preservation has a fearfully hardening
+effect on the heart of the old. When her last surviving
+daughter’s condition was quite hopeless, the mother was
+persuaded to leave her and return home, <i>and she went</i>.
+At home she at once ordered spirits of various sorts and
+cabbage leaves for putting on her head to be got ready,
+that she might have everything necessary at hand when
+the <i>terrible news</i> should come. She did not take leave
+of her dead husband nor of her daughter, she did not see
+them after their death and was not at their funerals.
+When later on the Senator, her favourite brother, died,
+she guessed what had happened from a few words
+dropped by her nephew, and <i>begged him</i> not to tell her
+the melancholy news nor any details of the end. With
+these precautions against one’s own heart, and such an
+accommodating heart, one may well live to eighty or
+ninety in perfect health and with undisturbed digestion.</p>
+
+<p>However, in justification of Princess Marya Alexeyevna,
+I must say that this monstrous avoidance of everything
+melancholy was more in fashion with the spoilt
+aristocrats of last century than it is now. The celebrated
+Kaunitz&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in his old age sternly forbade any one’s death,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>or the smallpox, of which he was very much afraid, to be
+mentioned before him. When the Emperor Joseph <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>
+died, his secretary, not knowing how to announce the
+fact to Kaunitz, decided to say, ‘the Emperor now
+reigning, Leopold.’ Kaunitz understood and, turning
+pale, sank into an armchair, asking no questions. His
+gardener avoided the word ‘grafting’ (in Russian the
+same word as ‘inoculation’) for fear of reminding him
+of smallpox.</p>
+
+<p>He heard of the death of his own son by chance from
+the Spanish ambassador. And people laugh at ostriches
+who hide their heads under their wings to escape danger!</p>
+
+<p>To preserve her peace untroubled, the old princess
+established a special sort of police, and entrusted the
+supervision of her safety to skilled hands.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the old women dependents inherited from
+Princess Anna Borissovna, she had a permanent lady
+companion living with her. This post of honour
+was filled by the healthy, rosy-cheeked widow of a
+Zvenigorod government clerk, very proud of ‘being a
+lady’ and of her dead husband’s rank of assessor; a
+quarrelsome and irrepressible woman who could never
+forgive Napoleon the premature death of her Zvenigorod
+cow, who perished in the war of 1812. I remember
+how seriously troubled she was on the death of Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span>
+upon the question of the width of the crape weepers that
+would be appropriate to her rank.</p>
+
+<p>This woman played a very insignificant part in the
+household while Princess Anna Borissovna was alive, but
+afterwards she managed so adroitly to humour the
+widowed princess’s caprices and apprehensive anxiety
+about herself, that she obtained the same control over her
+as the princess herself had had over her aunt.</p>
+
+<p>Draped in her official weepers, this Marya Stepanovna
+bounced about the house like a ball from morning to
+night; she shouted and made an uproar, gave the servants
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>no peace, made complaints against them, investigated
+the misdeeds of the maids, slapped the boys and pulled
+them by the ears, raced off into the kitchen, raced off
+into the stable, brushed away the flies, rubbed the
+princess’s feet, and made her take her medicine. The
+members of the household no longer had access to their
+mistress; the woman was a regular Araktcheyev, a Biron,
+in fact, a Prime Minister. The widowed princess, a
+haughty and, in the old-fashioned style, well-bred
+woman, was often, especially at first, annoyed by the
+Zvenigorod widow, by her shrill voice and market-woman’s
+manners, but she gradually put more and more
+confidence in her, and saw with delight that Marya
+Stepanovna considerably decreased the household expenses,
+which had not been over-high before. For whom the
+princess was saving her money it is hard to say; she had
+no near relatives except her brothers, who were twice as
+wealthy as she was.</p>
+
+<p>For all that, the princess was really dull after the death
+of her husband and daughters, and was glad when an
+old Frenchwoman who had been her daughters’ governess,
+came to spend a fortnight with her, or when her niece
+from Kortcheva paid her a visit. But these were only
+passing and exceptional distractions, and the tedious
+society of her ‘lady companion’ did not fill the intervals
+satisfactorily.</p>
+
+<p>An occupation, a plaything, and an entertainment had
+been provided for her in a very natural way not long
+before her aunt’s death.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_20">Chapter 20<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Forlorn Child</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">In the middle of 1825 ‘the Chemist,’ who found his
+father’s affairs in great confusion, sent his brothers
+and sisters from Petersburg to the Shatskoye estate; he
+assigned them the house there and their keep, proposing
+to arrange for their education and their future later on.
+My aunt, Princess Marya Alexeyevna, drove over to
+have a look at them. A child of eight caught her attention
+by her mournfully pensive face; my aunt put her
+in the carriage, took her home and kept her.</p>
+
+<p>The mother was delighted, and went off with the other
+children to Tambov.</p>
+
+<p>The Chemist gave his consent—it did not matter to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>‘Remember all your life,’ Marya Stepanovna kept
+saying to the little girl when they had reached home,
+‘remember that the Princess is your <i>benefactress</i> and
+pray that her days may be long. What would you be
+without her?’</p>
+
+<p>And so into this lifeless house, gloomily oppressed by
+two irrepressible old women, one full of whims and
+caprices, the other her indefatigable spy, devoid of all
+trace of delicacy or tact, a child was brought, torn from
+everything familiar to her, strange to everything surrounding
+her, and adopted out of boredom as people take a
+puppy, or as my aunt’s husband used to keep canaries.</p>
+
+<p>The little girl with a pale face and blue shadows under
+her eyes was sitting at the window in a long woollen
+dress of deep mourning when my father brought me a
+few days later to visit my aunt the princess. She was
+sitting in silence, scared and bewildered, gazing out of
+the window, afraid to look at anything else.</p>
+
+<p>My aunt called her up and introduced her to my
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>father. Always frigid and ungracious, he patted her
+carelessly on the shoulder, observed that his late brother
+had not known what he was about, abused ‘the Chemist,’
+and began talking of something else.</p>
+
+<p>The little girl had tears in her eyes; she sat down
+again by the window and again fell to looking out.</p>
+
+<p>A hard life was beginning for her. Not one warm
+word, not one tender glance, not one caress; beside her,
+around her, strangers, wrinkled faces, yellow cheeks,
+decrepit creatures whose life was smouldering out.
+Princess Marya Alexeyevna was always stern, exacting,
+and impatient, and she kept the forlorn child at such a
+distance that it could never enter her head to take refuge
+with her, to find warmth or comfort in being near her,
+or to shed tears. Visitors took no notice of her. Marya
+Stepanovna put up with her as one of the princess’s
+whims, as something superfluous which she must not
+harm; she even made a show of protecting the child
+and making a fuss over her before the princess, especially
+if visitors were present.</p>
+
+<p>The child did not grow used to her surroundings, and
+a year later was as little at home as on the day of her
+arrival, and was even more depressed. Even Princess
+Marya Alexeyevna was surprised at her ‘seriousness,’
+and sometimes, seeing her sitting dejectedly for hours
+together at her little embroidery frame, would say to
+her: ‘How is it you don’t play and run about?’ The
+little girl would smile, flush, and thank her, but stay
+where she was.</p>
+
+<p>And the old lady left her in peace, in reality caring
+nothing about the child’s sadness and doing nothing to
+relieve it. Holidays came, other children were given
+playthings, other children talked of treats, of new clothes....
+No presents were given to the little orphan. The
+princess considered that she had done enough for her in
+giving her shelter; she had shoes, what did she want
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>with dolls? And in fact she did not need them—she
+did not know how to play; besides, she had no one to
+play with.</p>
+
+<p>Only one creature realised the forlorn child’s position;
+an old nurse had been put in charge of her, and she alone
+loved the child simply and naïvely. Often in the evening
+when she undressed her she would ask: ‘But why is it
+you are so sad, my little lady?’ The child would throw
+herself on her neck and weep bitterly, and the old woman
+would shed tears and shake her head as she went away
+with the candlestick in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>So the years passed. She did not complain, she did
+not murmur; only, at twelve she longed for death.</p>
+
+<p>‘It always seemed to me,’ she wrote, ‘that I had come
+by mistake into this life, and that soon I should go home
+again—but where was my home?... When we drove
+out of Petersburg I saw a great mound of snow over
+my father’s grave; when my mother left me in Moscow
+she vanished on the wide unending road.... I wept
+bitterly and prayed God to take me quickly home....
+My childhood was most mournful and bitter; how many
+tears I shed unseen, how many times before I understood
+what prayer meant I would get up secretly at night (not
+even daring to say my prayers except at the fixed time)
+and pray to God that some one might love me and pet
+me. I had no amusement nor plaything which could
+interest or comfort me, for, if anything were given me,
+it was invariably accompanied by the words: “You
+don’t deserve it.” Every rag I received from them I paid
+for with my tears: afterwards I got over that; I was
+overcome by a craving for knowledge, and envied other
+children for nothing more than for their lessons. Many
+praised me, thought I had abilities, and said compassionately:
+“If only that child had a chance.” “She would
+astonish the world,” I added inwardly, and my cheeks
+glowed; I hurried away with visions of my pictures, my
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>pupils, and meanwhile they would not give me a piece
+of paper nor a pencil.... The longing to get into
+another world grew stronger and stronger, and with it
+my scorn for my dark prison-house and its cruel sentinels;
+I was continually repeating the lines from “The Monk”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent8">“A mystery this; already I know</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">All the sorrow of life, in the spring of my days.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>‘Do you remember, we were once staying with you
+long ago in the other house and you asked me if I had
+read Kozlov and repeated just that passage from him?
+A shudder ran over me, I smiled, hardly able to keep
+from crying.’</p>
+
+<p>There was always a strain of deep melancholy in her
+heart; it was never quite absent, and only at times
+hushed at some radiant moment.</p>
+
+<p>Two months before her death, going back once more
+to her childhood, she wrote: ‘Around me all was old,
+bad, cold, dead, false; my education began with upbraidings
+and insults, and the result of this was estrangement
+from all, distrust of their kindness, aversion for their
+sympathy, and absorption in my own inner life....’</p>
+
+<p>But to be able to be absorbed in one’s own inner life
+one must have not only a terribly deep nature into which
+one can retreat at will, but a terrific strength of independence
+and self-sufficiency. Very few can live their
+own life in hostile and vulgar surroundings from the
+oppression of which there is no escape. Sometimes the
+spirit is broken by it, sometimes the health gives way.</p>
+
+<p>Loneliness and harsh treatment at the tenderest age
+left a dark trace on her soul, a wound which never fully
+healed.</p>
+
+<p>‘I do not remember,’ she writes in 1837, ‘any time
+when I could utter the word “mother” freely and spontaneously,
+any person on whose bosom I could lay my
+head in security, forgetting everything. I have been a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>stranger to all since I was eight years old; I love my
+mother ... but we do not know each other.’</p>
+
+<p>Looking at the pale face of the twelve-year-old girl,
+at her big eyes with rings round them, at her tired listlessness
+and everlasting depression, many thought she was
+one of the predestined victims of consumption, those
+victims marked out by the finger of death from childhood
+with a special imprint of beauty and premature thoughtfulness.
+‘Perhaps,’ she says, ‘I should not have survived
+this struggle if I had not been saved by our meeting.’</p>
+
+<p>And I was so slow to understand her and read her heart!</p>
+
+<p>Till 1834 I failed to appreciate the richly gifted nature
+that was unfolding beside me, although nine years had
+passed since the old princess had presented her to my
+father in her long woollen dress. It is easy to explain.
+She was shy, I was absorbed in my many interests; I was
+sorry for the child who sat so solitary and depressed in
+the window, but we did not see each other very often.
+It was only rarely and always unwillingly that I went to
+Princess Marya Alexeyevna’s; still more rarely did she
+bring her to see us. Besides, my aunt’s visits almost
+always left unpleasant impressions. She usually quarrelled
+with my father over trifles and, though they had not seen
+each other for two months, they said nasty things to each
+other, hiding them in affectionate phrases, just as nasty
+medicines are covered with a coat of sugar. ‘My dear
+boy,’ the princess would say; ‘My dear girl,’ my father
+would answer, and the quarrel would go on as before.
+We were always glad when the princess departed. Moreover,
+it must not be forgotten that at that time I was
+completely absorbed by my political dreams and my
+studies, and lived in the university and my comrades.</p>
+
+<p>But what had she to live in, besides her melancholy,
+during those long dark nine years, surrounded by silly
+fanatics, haughty relations, tedious monks, and fat priests’
+wives, hypocritically patronised by the ‘lady companion,’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>not allowed to go farther from the house than the gloomy
+courtyard overgrown with weeds and the little garden
+at the back?</p>
+
+<p>From the foregoing lines it may be seen that the
+princess was not particularly lavish in her expenditure
+on the education of her adopted child. Her moral
+training she undertook herself; it consisted in external
+observances and in the development of a complete system
+of hypocrisy. The child had from early morning to be
+laced in, stiffly erect, with her hair properly dressed:
+this might be admissible so far as it was not injurious to
+health; but the princess put her soul in stays as well as
+her waist, suppressing every open spontaneous feeling;
+she insisted on a smile and an air of gaiety when the child
+was sad, on amiable phrases when she wanted to cry,
+on an appearance of interest in everything indiscriminately—in
+fact, on continual duplicity.</p>
+
+<p>At first the poor girl was taught nothing on the pretext
+that learning early was useless; later on, that is <i>three or
+four years later</i>, wearied by the observations made by
+the Senator and even by outsiders, the princess made up
+her mind to arrange for her to be taught, keeping the
+strictest economy in view. For this purpose she took
+advantage of an old governess who considered herself
+under obligations to the princess and sometimes stood
+in need of her assistance. In this way the French language
+was brought down to the lowest price; on the other hand,
+it was taught <i>à bâtons rompus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But the Russian language, too, was equally cheapened;
+to teach it and all other subjects, the princess engaged
+the son of a priest’s widow, to whom she had been a
+benefactress—of course, at no special expense to herself;
+through her good offices with the Metropolitan the
+widow’s two sons had been made priests in the cathedral.
+The tutor was their elder brother, the deacon of a poor
+parish, burdened with a large family. He was in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>lowest depths of poverty, was glad of any payment, and
+dared not haggle over terms with his brothers’ benefactress.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could have been more pitiful, more insufficient
+than such an education, and yet all went well, it all brought
+forth marvellous fruits, so little is needed for development
+if only there is something to develop.</p>
+
+<p>The poor deacon, a tall, thin, bald man, was one of
+those enthusiasts whom neither years nor misfortunes
+can cure of their dreams; on the contrary, their troubles
+tend to keep them in a state of mystic contemplation.
+His faith, which approached fanaticism, was sincere and
+not without a shade of poetry. Between these two, the
+father of a hungry family and the forlorn child fed on
+the bread of charity, a good understanding sprang up
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>The deacon was received in the princess’s household
+as a poor man, defenceless, and at the same time mild-tempered,
+usually is received, with barely a nod, or barely
+a condescending word. Even the ‘lady companion’
+thought it necessary to show her disdain; while he
+scarcely noticed either them or their manners, taught
+his subjects with love, was touched by his pupil’s readiness
+of understanding, and could move her to tears. This
+the old princess could not understand; she scolded the
+child for being a cry-baby and was greatly displeased,
+declaring that the deacon was upsetting her nerves.
+‘This is really too much,’ she said, ‘it’s unchildlike!’</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the old man’s words were opening before
+the young creature another world, attractive in a very
+different way from that in which religion itself was
+turned into an affair of diet, reduced to keeping the fasts,
+and going to church at night, in which everything was
+limited, artificial, and conventional, and cramped the
+soul with its narrowness. The deacon put the Gospel
+into his pupil’s hands—and it was long before she let it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>go again. The Gospel was the first book she read, and
+she read it over and over again, with her one friend Sasha,
+her old nurse’s niece, now a young maid of the princess’s.</p>
+
+<p>Later on I knew Sasha very well. Where and how
+she had managed to develop her intelligence I never
+could understand, as she spent her childhood between
+the coachman’s quarters and the kitchen, and never left
+the maids’ room, but she was extraordinarily developed.
+She was one of those innocent victims who perish unnoticed
+in the servants’ quarters, and more often than
+we suppose, crushed by the conditions of serfdom. They
+perish not only without compensation, without commiseration,
+without an hour of brightness, without a
+joyful memory, but without knowing, without themselves
+suspecting, what is perishing in them and how much is
+dying with them. Their mistress says with vexation:
+‘The wretched girl was just beginning to be trained to
+her work when she took to her bed and died.’ ... The
+seventy-year-old housekeeper grumbles: ‘What are
+servants coming to nowadays? They are worse than
+any young lady,’ and goes to the funeral dinner. The
+mother weeps and weeps and begins to drink—and that
+is the end.</p>
+
+<p>And we pass hurriedly by, not seeing the terrible
+dramas enacted at our feet, thinking we have more
+important things to fill our time, and feeling that we have
+done our part with a few roubles and a kindly word.
+And then all at once astounded, we hear the heart-rending
+moan with which the crushed spirit reveals
+itself for all time, and, as though awakening from sleep,
+we ask ourselves whence came that spirit, that strength.</p>
+
+<p>Princess Marya Alexeyevna killed her maid, unintentionally
+and unconsciously, of course; she worried
+her to death over trifles, broke her heart, oppressed her
+whole life, wore her out with humiliations, with harshness
+and insensibility. For several years she forbade her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>marriage, and only allowed it when she could see consumption
+in her suffering face.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Sasha, poor victim of the loathsome, accursed
+Russian life defiled by serfdom, by death you escaped to
+freedom! And yet you were incomparably happier
+than others in the gloomy bondage of the princess’s house:
+you met a friend, and the affection of her whom you loved
+so immeasurably was with you to the grave. You cost
+her many tears; not long before her own death she still
+thought of you, and blessed your memory as the one
+bright image of her childhood!</p>
+
+<p>The two young girls (Sasha was a little the elder)
+used to get up early in the mornings when all the household
+was still asleep, read the Gospel and pray, going
+out into the courtyard under the open sky. They prayed
+for the princess and her lady-companion, besought God
+to soften their hearts; they invented ordeals for themselves,
+ate no meat for weeks together, dreamed of a
+nunnery and of the life beyond the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Such mysticism is in keeping with adolescence, with
+the age in which everything is still a secret, still a religious
+mystery, when the awakening thought is not yet shining
+clearly through the mists of early morning, and the mist
+is not yet dissipated by experience nor passion.</p>
+
+<p>At quiet and gentle moments, I loved in after years
+to hear of these childish prayers, with which one full life
+began and one unhappy existence ended. The image
+of the forlorn child outraged by coarse patronage, and
+of the slave girl outraged by her hopeless bondage, praying
+for their oppressors in the neglected courtyard, filled the
+heart with tenderness, and breathed a rare peace upon
+the spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The pure and gracious being, whom no one of those
+near her in the princess’s senseless household appreciated,
+won, besides the devotion of the deacon and Sasha, a
+warm response and homage from all the servants. These
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>simple people saw in her more than a kind and gracious
+young lady, they divined in her something higher for
+which they felt reverence, they had faith in her. The
+girls of the princess’s household, when they were going
+to their wedding, would beg her to pin some ribbon with
+her own hands. One young maidservant—I remember
+her name was Yelena—was suddenly taken very ill; it
+turned out to be acute pleurisy, there was no hope of
+saving her, the priest was sent for. The frightened girl
+kept asking her mother if she were dying; the mother,
+sobbing, told her that God would soon summon her.
+Then the sick girl besought her mother with bitter tears
+to fetch her young lady that she might come herself to
+bless her with the holy ikon for the other world. When
+she came the sick girl took her hand, laid it on her forehead,
+and repeated: ‘Pray for me, pray for me!’ The
+young girl, herself in tears, began praying in a low voice,
+and the sick girl died as she prayed. All in the room
+knelt round, crossing themselves; Natalie closed the dead
+girl’s eyes, kissed the cold forehead, and went away.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>Only cold and narrow natures know nothing of this
+romantic period; they are as much to be pitied as those
+frail and feeble beings in whom mysticism outlives youth
+and remains for ever. In our age this does not happen
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>with realistic natures; but how could the secular influences
+of the nineteenth century penetrate into the
+princess’s house, every crevice was so well padded?</p>
+
+<p>A crack was found, nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>My Kortcheva cousin used sometimes to come on a
+visit to the princess. She was fond of the ‘little cousin,’
+as one is fond of children, especially if they are unhappy,
+but she did not understand her. With amazement,
+almost with horror, she discovered later on her exceptional
+nature, and, impulsive in everything, at once determined
+to make up for her neglect. She begged from me Hugo,
+Balzac, or anything new I might have. ‘The little
+cousin,’ she said to me, ‘is a genius, we ought to do what
+we can for her!’</p>
+
+<p>The ‘big cousin’—and I cannot help smiling at this
+name for her, for she was a tiny creature—at once communicated
+to her protégée every stray thought in her
+own mind, Schiller’s ideas and the ideas of Rousseau,
+revolutionary ideas picked up from me and the dreams
+of a lovesick girl picked up from herself. Then she
+secretly lent her French novels, verses, poems; they
+were for the most part books that had appeared since
+1830. With all their defects, they stimulated thought,
+and stirred and fired youthful hearts. In the novels
+and stories, the poems and songs of that period, whether
+the author intended it or not, there was always a strong
+vein of social feeling: everywhere social sores were
+revealed and the moan of the hungry, innocent slaves of
+labour could be heard; even by that date their murmur
+and complaint was no longer feared as a crime.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly say that my cousin lent the books without
+any discrimination, without any explanations, and
+I imagine that there was no harm in that; there are
+natures which never need help, support, guidance from
+others, who always walk most safely where there is no fence.</p>
+
+<p>Another person who carried on the secular influence
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>of my Kortcheva cousin was soon added to the list.
+The princess at last made up her mind to take a governess,
+and to avoid expense engaged a young Russian girl who
+had only just left boarding-school.</p>
+
+<p>Russian governesses do not cost much, at any rate
+they did not in the ’thirties, yet for all their defects they
+were better than the majority of French girls from
+Switzerland, of retired courtesans and actresses who
+catch at teaching in despair as their last resource for
+earning their bread, a resource needing neither talent
+nor youth, nothing in fact but the ability to pronounce
+‘Hrrrra’ and the manners <i>d’une dame de comptoir</i>, which
+is often taken in the provinces for ‘good’ manners.
+Russian governesses come from boarding-schools, or
+educational establishments, and so have had some sort of
+regular education, and are free from the petty-bourgeois
+tone which the foreign women bring in with them.</p>
+
+<p>The French governesses of to-day must be distinguished
+from those who used to come to Russia before
+1812. In those days France was less bourgeois and
+the women who came to Russia belonged to quite a
+different social stratum. To some extent they were the
+daughters of <i>émigrés</i> and of ruined noblemen, or widows
+of officers, often their deserted wives. Napoleon used
+to marry off his warriors in the way that our landowners
+used to marry their serfs, without much regard for love
+or inclination. He wanted, by these marriages, to
+unite his new military aristocracy with the old nobility;
+he wanted to knock his Skalozubs&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> into shape by means
+of their wives. Accustomed to blind obedience, they
+married without protest, but soon abandoned their
+wives, finding them too stiff for the festivities of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>barracks and the bivouac. The poor women made their
+way to England, to Austria, to Russia. The old Frenchwoman
+who used to stay with the princess belonged to
+this class of old-fashioned governess. She spoke with a
+smile in choice language and never made use of a single
+strong expression. She was entirely made up of good
+manners and never forgot herself for a minute. I am
+convinced that even at night in her bed she was more
+preoccupied with the proper way of sleeping than with
+sleeping.</p>
+
+<p>The young governess was an intelligent, bright,
+energetic girl with a good share of boarding-school
+enthusiasm and an innate feeling for what is fine. Active
+and ardent, she brought more life and movement into
+the existence of her pupil and friend.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a tone of mourning, of melancholy in
+the sad and depressing friendship with the consumptive
+Sasha. Her company, together with the deacon’s
+teachings and the absence of every kind of diversion, was
+drawing the young girl away from the world, from men.
+This third person, young, full of life and gaiety, and at
+the same time sympathetic with everything dreamy and
+romantic, came in the nick of time: she drew her back
+to earth, to the basis of truth and reality.</p>
+
+<p>At first the pupil to some extent adopted her Amelia’s
+external manners; a smile was more often to be seen on
+her face, and her conversation grew livelier; but within
+a year the natures of the two girls defined their mutual
+attitude. The careless, charming Amelia gave way
+before the stronger nature and was completely dominated
+by her pupil, saw with her eyes, thought her thoughts,
+lived in her smile and in her affection.</p>
+
+<p>Before I had finished my studies at the university, I
+took to going more frequently to the princess’s house.
+The young girl seemed pleased when I came, and sometimes
+her cheeks glowed and her talk grew more animated,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>but she quickly withdrew into her usual dreamy stillness,
+recalling the cold beauty of sculpture or Schiller’s
+‘Mädchen aus der Fremde’ who checked all approach.</p>
+
+<p>It was not unsociability nor coldness, but an active
+inner life; not understood by others, she did not as yet
+even understand herself, and had rather a dim presentiment
+than a knowledge of what was in herself. In her
+lovely features there was still something incomplete, not
+fully expressed, they lacked a spark, a touch of the
+sculptor’s chisel which would decide whether she was
+destined to pine and fade away in a barren desert, knowing
+neither herself nor life, or to reflect the glow of passion,
+to be enfolded by it, and to live, perhaps to suffer—certainly,
+indeed, to suffer, but to live abundantly.</p>
+
+<p>I first saw the token of life coming out on her half-childish
+face on the eve of our long separation.</p>
+
+<p>Well I remember her eyes with quite a different light
+in them, and all her features with their significance transformed,
+as though penetrated by a new thought, a new
+fire ... as though the secret had been guessed and the
+inner mist dissipated. This was when I was in prison.
+A dozen times we said good-bye, and still we could not
+bear to part. At last my mother, who had come with
+Natalie&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> to the Krutitsky Barracks, resolutely got up to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>go. The young girl shuddered, turned pale, squeezed
+my hand with unnatural force, and repeated, turning away
+to hide her tears, ‘Alexandr, don’t forget your sister.’</p>
+
+<p>The gendarme saw them out and set to walking to and
+fro. I flung myself on my bed and long gazed at the
+door behind which that bright apparition had vanished.
+‘No, your brother will not forget you,’ I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Next day I was taken to Perm, but before I speak of
+our separation I will tell of something else that prevented
+me, before my prison days, from understanding Natalie
+better and growing more intimate with her. I was in
+love!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I was in love, and the memory of that pure youthful
+love is as dear to me as the memory of a spring day
+spent by the sea among flowers and singing. It was a
+dream, full of much that was lovely, that vanished as
+dreams usually do vanish!</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned already that there were very few
+women in our circle, especially of the sort with whom
+I could have been on intimate terms: my affection for
+my Kortcheva cousin, at first ardent, gradually became
+quieter in tone. After her marriage we saw each other
+less often, and then she went away. A vague yearning
+for a warmer, tenderer feeling than the affection of my
+men friends hovered about my heart. Everything was
+ready, all that was lacking was ‘she.’ In one of the
+families of our acquaintance there was a young girl with
+whom I quickly made friends. It was a strange chance
+that brought us together. She was betrothed, when all
+at once some dissension arose, her fiancé abandoned her
+and went off to the other end of Russia. She was in
+despair, overcome with distress and mortification. With
+deep and sincere sympathy I saw how she was being
+consumed by grief. Without daring to hint at the cause,
+I tried to comfort her and distract her mind, brought her
+novels, read them aloud to her, told her long stories, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>sometimes neglected to prepare for my lectures at the
+university in order to stay longer with the distressed girl.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually her tears fell less frequently, from time to
+time a smile glimmered through them; her despair
+passed into a languid melancholy; soon she began to
+feel alarmed for her past, she struggled with herself and
+defended it against the present, from a <i>point d’honneur</i>
+of the heart, as a soldier defends the flag, though he knows
+that the battle is lost. I saw these last clouds faintly
+lingering on the horizon and, myself carried away, with
+a beating heart, softly, softly drew the flag out of her hands,
+and by the time she had given it up I was in love. We
+believed in our love. She wrote verses to me, I wrote
+whole essays to her in prose, and then we dreamed
+together of the future, of exile, of prisons. She was
+ready for anything. The external side of life never
+took a very clear shape in our imaginations; dedicated
+to the conflict with a monstrous power, we felt success
+almost incredible. ‘Be my Gaetana,’ I said to her after
+reading Saintine’s&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> ‘The Mutilated Poet,’ and I used to
+fancy how she would follow me to the Siberian mines.</p>
+
+<p>‘The Mutilated Poet’ was the poet who wrote a
+lampoon upon Sixtus <span class="allsmcap">V.</span> and gave himself up when the
+Pope promised not to inflict the death penalty. Sixtus <span class="allsmcap">V.</span>
+ordered his tongue and hands to be cut off. The figure
+of the luckless victim, choked by the mass of ideas which
+swarmed in his brain and found no outlet, could not but
+attract us in those days. The martyr’s sad and exhausted
+eyes found peace when they rested with gratitude and
+some remnant of happiness on the girl who had loved
+him in old days and did not abandon him in misfortune.
+Her name was Gaetana.</p>
+
+<p>This first experience of love was soon over, but it was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>perfectly sincere. Perhaps, indeed, it was right for this
+love to pass, or it would have lost its finest, most fragrant
+quality, its innocent freshness, its nineteen-year-old
+charm. Lilies of the valley do not flower in winter.</p>
+
+<p>And can it be, my Gaetana, that you do not recall our
+meeting with the same serene smile, can it be that there
+is any bitterness mixed with your memory of me after
+twenty-two years? That would be very grievous to me.
+And where are you, and how have you spent your life?</p>
+
+<p>I have lived my life and now am going slowly downhill,
+broken, and morally ‘mutilated.’ I seek no
+Gaetana, I go over the memories of the past and meet
+your image joyfully.... Do you remember the window
+in the corner facing the little side street into which I had
+to turn, and how you always came to it to watch me pass,
+and how disappointed I was if you did not come to it, or
+moved away before I had time to turn?</p>
+
+<p>But I do not want to meet you in reality; in my
+imagination you have remained with your youthful face,
+your <i>blond cendré</i> curls: remain as you were. And you,
+too, if you think of me, will remember a slender lad with
+sparkling eyes and fiery words, and may you think of
+him like that and never know that the eyes have lost
+their lustre, that I have grown heavy, that my brow is
+furrowed, that long ago my face lost the radiant, eager
+look of old days which Ogaryov used to call ‘the look of
+hope.’ And, indeed, hope too is gone.</p>
+
+<p>We ought to be to each other as we were then ...
+neither Achilles nor Diana grow old.... I do not
+want to meet you as Larin met Princess Alina:&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Do you remember Grandison?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Cousin, how is Grandison?—</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Oh, Grandison! In Moscow living,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">On Christmas Eve he left his card,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">A son of his was married lately.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span></p>
+
+<p>The last glow of dying love lighted up for a moment
+the prison vault, warmed the heart with its old dreams,
+and then each took our separate paths. She went away
+to the Ukraine while I was going into exile. Since then
+I have had no tidings of her.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_21">Chapter 21<br>
+<span class="smcap">Separation</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Ah, people, wicked people,</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent0"><i>You separated their....</i>’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">So my first letter to Natalie ended, and it is note-worthy
+that, frightened by the word ‘hearts,’ I
+did not write it. And I signed the letter ‘your
+brother.’</p>
+
+<p>How dear ‘my sister’ was then to me and how continually
+in my thoughts is clear from the fact that I wrote
+to her from Nizhni, and from Perm on the very day
+after my arrival there. The word ‘sister’ expressed all
+that was recognised in our affection; I liked it immensely
+and I like it now, used not as the limit of the feelings but,
+on the contrary, as the mingling of them all; in it are
+united affection, love, the tie of kinship, a common
+devotion, the surroundings of childhood, and habitual
+association. I had called no one by that name before,
+and it was so precious to me that even in later years I
+often used it to Natalie.</p>
+
+<p>Before I fully understood our relations, and perhaps
+just because I did not understand them fully, a temptation
+awaited me which has not left so bright a memory as
+my episode with Gaetana; a temptation that humiliated
+me and cost me much regret and inner distress.</p>
+
+<p>Having very little experience of life, and being flung
+into a world completely strange to me, after nine months
+of prison, I lived at first carelessly without taking stock
+of what I saw; the new country, the new surroundings
+made me rather dizzy. My social position was transformed.
+In Perm and in Vyatka I was regarded very
+differently from in Moscow; there I had been a young
+man living in my father’s house, here in this stagnant
+waste I was independent, and was accepted as a government
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>official, although I was not exactly one. It was not
+hard for me to perceive that without much effort I might
+play the part of a man of the world in the drawing-rooms
+beyond the Volga and the Kama, and be a lion in Vyatka
+society.</p>
+
+<p>In Perm, before I had time to look about me, the landlady
+to whom I had gone to take lodgings asked me
+whether I wanted a kitchen garden and whether I was
+keeping a cow! It was a question by which I could,
+with horror, judge the depth of my descent from the
+academic heights of student life. But at Vyatka I made
+acquaintance with all the world, especially with the
+younger people of the merchant class, which is much
+better educated in these remote provinces than in those
+nearer the centre, though they are no less given to drink
+and debauchery. Distracted from my usual pursuits by
+office work, I led a restlessly idle life; owing to my
+peculiar impressionability, or perhaps mobility, of character
+and absence of experience, adventures of all sorts
+might well be expected.</p>
+
+<p>From a coquettish passion <i>de l’approbativité</i> I tried
+to please right and left indiscriminately, forced my
+sympathies, made friends over a dozen words, became
+far more intimate than I need, recognised my mistake a
+month or two later, said nothing from delicacy, and
+dragged a weary chain of false relations until it was
+broken by an absurd quarrel in which I was blamed for
+capricious impatience, ingratitude, and inconstancy.</p>
+
+<p>At first I did not live alone in Vyatka. A strange and
+comic figure, which from time to time appears at all the
+turning points of my life, at all its important events, the
+person who drowns to make me acquainted with Ogaryov,
+and waves a handkerchief from Russia when I cross the
+frontier at Taurogen—K. I. Sonnenberg—was living with
+me in Vyatka; I forgot to mention this when I described
+my exile.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span></p>
+
+<p>This was how it happened: at the moment when I
+was being sent to Perm, Sonnenberg was preparing
+to go to the Fair at Irbit. My father, who always
+liked to complicate everything simple, suggested to
+Sonnenberg that he should go to Perm and there <i>furnish
+my house</i>, in return undertaking to pay his travelling
+expenses.</p>
+
+<p>At Perm Sonnenberg zealously set to work, that is,
+to the purchase of unnecessary articles, all sorts of crockery,
+saucepans, bowls, glass, and provisions. He went himself
+to Obva to procure a Vyatka horse <i>ex ipso fonte</i>.
+When everything was complete I was transferred to
+Vyatka. We sold, half-price, the goods he had purchased
+and left Perm. Sonnenberg, conscientiously carrying
+out my father’s wishes, thought it his duty to go to
+Vyatka too to furnish my house. My father was so
+well pleased with his devotion and self-sacrifice that he
+offered him a salary of a hundred roubles a month so
+long as he would stay with me. This was more profitable
+and more secure than Irbit—and he was in no hurry to
+leave me.</p>
+
+<p>In Vyatka he bought not one but three horses, one
+of which belonged to himself, though it too was bought
+at my father’s expense. These horses raised us considerably
+in the esteem of Vyatka society. Karl Ivanovitch,
+as I have mentioned already, was, in spite of his fifty
+years and the rather glaring defects of his features, a
+great flirt, and entertained the agreeable conviction that
+every girl and woman who came near him risked the fate
+of the moth flying round a lighted candle. Karl Ivanovitch
+had no intention of wasting the effect produced by
+the horses, but tried to turn them to advantage on the
+erotic side. Moreover, all our circumstances were
+favourable to his designs; we had a verandah looking out
+into a courtyard beyond which there was a garden.
+From ten o’clock in the morning Sonnenberg, arrayed in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>Kazan morocco leather boots, a gold embroidered
+<i>tibiteyka</i>, and a Caucasian <i>beshmyet</i>, with an immense
+amber mouthpiece between his lips, would sit on watch,
+pretending to be reading. The <i>tibiteyka</i> and the amber
+mouthpiece were all aimed at three young ladies who
+lived in the next house. The young ladies for their part
+were interested in the new arrivals and gazed with
+curiosity at the oriental-looking doll smoking on the
+verandah. Karl Ivanovitch knew when and how they
+secretly lifted their blind, thought that things were going
+swimmingly—and tenderly blew a light coil of smoke in
+the direction of the objects of his devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the garden gave us the opportunity of making
+our neighbours’ acquaintance. Our landlord had three
+houses, and the garden was shared in common by them.
+In one of the houses we were living, together with the
+landlord and his stepmother, a fat, flabby widow who
+looked after him so masterfully and with such jealousy
+that it was only on the sly that he ventured to speak to
+the ladies of the garden. In the second house lived the
+young ladies and their parents, and the third house stood
+empty. Within a week Karl Ivanovitch was quite at
+home with the ladies of our garden. He would spend
+several hours a day swinging the young girls in the swing
+and running to fetch their capes and sunshades, in fact
+he was <i>aux petits soins</i>. The young ladies were more
+free in their behaviour with him than with anybody else,
+because he was more beyond suspicion than Caesar’s
+wife: a mere glance at him was enough to check the
+faintest breath of scandal.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I too used to walk into the garden,
+from that herd instinct which makes people do what
+others are doing, apart from any inclination. To the
+garden came, besides the lodgers, their acquaintances;
+the chief subject of talk and interest was flirtation and
+watching one another. Karl Ivanovitch devoted himself
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>to sentimental espionage with the vigilance of a Vidok,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+and always knew who walked oftenest with whom, and
+who looked significantly at whom. I was a terrible bone
+of contention for all the secret police of our garden; the
+ladies and the men wondered at my reserve, and for all
+their efforts could not discover on whom I was dancing
+attendance, and who particularly attracted me; and
+indeed it was not easy to do so, for I was not dancing
+attendance on any one and I did not find any of the young
+ladies particularly attractive. In the end they were
+vexed and offended by this, they began to consider me
+proud and sarcastic, and the young ladies’ friendliness
+grew perceptibly cooler—though every one of them
+tried her most killing glances upon me when we were
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>While things were like this, one morning Karl Ivanovitch
+informed me that the landlady’s cook had opened
+the shutters of the third house and was cleaning the
+windows. The house had been taken by a family who
+had arrived in the town.</p>
+
+<p>The garden was entirely absorbed in details concerning
+the new arrivals. The unknown lady, who was either
+tired from the journey or had not yet had time to unpack,
+as though to spite us, refused to show herself outside.
+Every one tried to see her at a window or in the porch,
+some succeeded, while others watched for days together
+in vain; those who saw her reported her pale and languid,
+interesting, in short, and good-looking. The young
+ladies said that she looked melancholy and ill. A young
+clerk in the governor’s office, a sprightly and quite
+intelligent fellow, was the only one who knew the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>strangers. He had once served in the same provincial town
+with them, and every one besieged him with questions.</p>
+
+<p>The sprightly clerk, pleased at knowing what other
+people did not know, held forth endlessly upon the charms
+of their new neighbour. He praised her to the skies,
+declared that you could see she was a lady from Petersburg
+or Moscow. ‘She is intelligent,’ he repeated,
+‘charming, cultured, but she won’t look at fellows like
+us. Ah, upon my soul,’ he added, suddenly turning to
+me, ‘there’s a happy thought; you must keep up the
+honour of Vyatka society and get up a flirtation with
+her.... Why, you are from Moscow, you know, and
+in exile; no doubt you write verses. She’s a heaven-sent
+find for you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What nonsense you do talk,’ I said, laughing, but I
+flushed crimson: I longed to see her.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later I met her in the garden and found
+that she really was a very charming blonde. The
+gentleman who had talked about her introduced me.
+I was agitated and was as little able to hide it as my
+companion his smile.</p>
+
+<p>The shyness due to vanity passed and I got to know her;
+she was very unhappy and, deceiving herself by assumed
+composure, was pining away and languishing in a sort of
+indolence of the heart.</p>
+
+<p>Madame R—— was one of those secretly passionate
+natures only to be met among women of a fair complexion.
+The ardour of their hearts is masked by the mildness and
+gentleness of their features; they turn pale with emotion,
+and their eyes do not flash but rather grow dim when
+feeling brims over. Her languid eyes looked exhausted
+with a vague craving, her yearning bosom heaved irregularly.
+There was something restless and electric in
+her whole being. Often when walking in the garden
+she would suddenly turn pale and, inwardly troubled
+or agitated, would answer absent-mindedly and hurry
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>into the house. It was just at those moments that I liked
+to look at her.</p>
+
+<p>I soon saw what was passing within her. She did not
+love her husband and could not love him; she was
+twenty-five, he was over fifty, yet that disparity she might
+have got over, but the difference of education, of interests,
+of temperament, was too great.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband scarcely ever came out of his room; he
+was a dry, harsh, old man, an official with pretensions to
+being a landowner, irritable like all invalids and like most
+people who have lost their fortune. She was sixteen
+when she was married to him and then he had some
+property, but afterwards he had lost everything at
+cards and was forced to go into the service for a living.
+Two years before he was transferred to Vyatka he began
+to fall into ill-health, a sore on his leg developed into
+disease of the bone. The old man became surly and ill-humoured,
+was afraid of his illness, and looked with
+helpless suspicion and uneasiness at his wife. She waited
+upon him with mournful self-sacrifice, but she did this
+only as her duty. Her children could not give all that
+her yearning heart craved.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, speaking of one thing and another, I
+said that I should very much like to send my cousin my
+portrait, but that I could not find a man in Vyatka who
+could hold a pencil.</p>
+
+<p>‘Let me try,’ said the lady. ‘I used to draw rather
+successful portraits in pencil.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I shall be delighted. When?’</p>
+
+<p>‘To-morrow before dinner, if you like.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course. I will come to-morrow at one o’clock.’</p>
+
+<p>All this was in her husband’s presence; he said not a
+word.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning I got a note from Madame R——. It
+was the first I had ever received from her. She very
+courteously and circumspectly informed me that her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>husband was not pleased at her having offered to draw
+my portrait, begged me not to judge harshly of the whims
+of an invalid, said that he must not be worried, and, in
+conclusion, offered to make the sketch some other day,
+saying nothing about it to her husband, that he might
+not be annoyed by it.</p>
+
+<p>I warmly, perhaps excessively warmly, thanked her.
+I did not accept her offer to draw the portrait in secret,
+but nevertheless these two notes made us much more
+intimate. Her attitude to her husband, upon which
+I could never have touched, was openly expressed; a
+secret understanding, a league against him, was unconsciously
+formed between us.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I went to see them—not a word was
+said about the portrait. If her husband had been
+cleverer he must have guessed what had happened; but
+he was not clever. I thanked her with my eyes, she
+answered with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Soon they moved into another part of the town. The
+first time I went to see them I found her alone in a barely
+furnished drawing-room; she was sitting at the piano,
+her eyes were tear-stained. I begged her to go on; but
+the music halted, she played false notes, her hands
+trembled, the colour left her face. ‘How stifling it is!’
+she said, getting up quickly from the piano.</p>
+
+<p>In silence I took her hand, a weak, feverish hand; her
+head, like a flower grown too heavy, as though passively
+obeying some external force, sank on my breast, she
+pressed her forehead against me and instantly fled.</p>
+
+<p>Next day I received a rather frightened note from her,
+trying to throw a sort of mist over what had passed; she
+wrote of the terribly nervous condition in which she had
+been when I came in, of scarcely remembering what had
+happened. She apologised for her behaviour—but the
+thin veil of her words could not conceal the passion that
+glowed through them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p>
+
+<p>I went to see them; that day her husband was a little
+better, though he had not risen from his bed since they
+had been in their new quarters. I was worked up by
+excitement, played the fool, fired off witty jokes, talked
+all sorts of nonsense, made the invalid almost die with
+laughter, and of course all that was to cover her embarrassment
+and my own. Moreover, I felt that the laughter
+was intoxicating her and drawing her on.</p>
+
+<p class="mt2">This orgy of love lasted for a month; then my heart
+was as it were tired, exhausted; I began to have moments
+of depression, I studiously concealed them, tried not to
+believe in them, wondered what was passing within me—while
+still love was cooling.</p>
+
+<p>I began to feel constrained by the presence of the old
+man. It was awkward and hateful for me in his company.
+Not that I felt myself in the wrong as regards the man who
+had the civil and ecclesiastical rights of property in a
+woman who could not love him and whom he was
+incapable of loving, but my double part struck me as
+humiliating; hypocrisy and duplicity are the vices most
+foreign to my nature. While growing passion was in
+the ascendant I thought of nothing, but as soon as it was
+somewhat cooler I began to have doubts.</p>
+
+<p>One morning Matvey came into my bedroom with
+the news that old R—— ‘had passed away.’ I was
+overcome by a strange feeling at this news, I turned on
+the other side and was in no hurry to dress. I did not
+want to see the dead man. Vitberg came in, quite ready
+to go out. ‘What!’ he said, ‘you’re still in bed!
+Haven’t you heard what’s happened? I expect poor
+Madame R—— is all alone, let us go and see, make
+haste and dress.’ I dressed—and we went.</p>
+
+<p>We found Madame R—— in a swoon or in a sort of
+nervous lethargy. There was no pretence about it:
+her husband’s death had recalled her helpless position;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>she was left alone with her children in a strange town,
+without money, without friends or relations. Besides,
+she had on previous occasions fallen into this cataleptic
+condition, which was brought on by some violent shock
+and lasted several hours. Pale as death, with her face
+cold and her eyes closed, she lay, from time to time
+giving a gasp, and breathless in the intervals.</p>
+
+<p>Not one woman came to help her, to show her sympathy,
+to look after the children or the house. Vitberg
+remained with her, the prophetic clerk and I undertook
+to see after things.</p>
+
+<p>The old man, looking black and sunken, lay in his
+uniform on the drawing-room table, frowning as though
+he were angry with me. We laid him in the coffin, and
+two days later lowered him into the grave. After the
+funeral we went back to the dead man’s house; the
+children in their black frocks with crape weepers huddled
+in the corner, more amazed and frightened than grieved:
+they whispered together and walked on tiptoe. Madame
+R—— sat with her head leaning on her hands, as though
+pondering, and did not say a single word.</p>
+
+<p>In that drawing-room, on that sofa I had waited for
+her, listened to the sick man moaning and the drunken
+servant swearing. Now everything was so black.... In
+the midst of funereal surroundings and the smell of
+incense, I was haunted by vague and gloomy recollections
+of words and minutes of which I still could not think
+without tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>Her grief gradually subsided and she looked more
+resolutely at her position; then, little by little, other
+thoughts began to light up her careworn and despondent
+face. Her eyes rested upon me with a sort of agitated
+inquiry, as though she were waiting for something ...
+a question ... an answer....</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing—and she, frightened, alarmed, began
+to feel doubts.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then I saw that her husband had in reality been an
+excuse for me in my own eyes—love had burnt itself out
+in me. It was not that I had no feeling for her, far from
+it, but the feeling was not what she wanted. I was now
+occupied by a different order of ideas, and that outburst
+of passion seemed to have possessed me simply to make
+another feeling clear to myself. Only one thing I can
+say in my defence—I was perfectly sincere in my infatuation.</p>
+
+<p>While I had lost my head and did not know what to
+do, while with cowardly weakness I was waiting for the
+chances of time and circumstance, time and circumstance
+complicated my position still further.</p>
+
+<p>Tyufyaev, seeing the helpless position of a young and
+beautiful widow left without any support in a remote
+town in which she was a stranger, like the true ‘father
+of the province,’ showed her the tenderest solicitude.
+At first we all thought that he felt real sympathy for her.
+But soon Madame R—— observed with horror that his
+attentions were by no means so simple. Two or three
+dissolute governors before him had kept Vyatka ladies
+as mistresses, and Tyufyaev, following their example,
+lost no time but at once began making declarations of
+love to her. Madame R—— of course responded with
+cold disdain and mockery to his elderly blandishments.
+Tyufyaev would not recognise himself rebuffed, but
+persisted in his insolent attentions. Seeing, however,
+that he was making little progress, he gave her to understand
+that her children’s future lay in his hands, that
+without his assistance she could not place them in schools
+at government expense, and that he on his side would
+not exert himself in her favour if she did not adopt a less
+chilly attitude to him. The insulted woman sprang up
+like a wild beast wounded. ‘Kindly leave my house
+and don’t dare to set foot in it again,’ she said, pointing
+to the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Ough, what a temper you have got!’ said Tyufyaev,
+trying to turn things off with a jest.</p>
+
+<p>‘Pyotr, Pyotr,’ she shouted in the entry, and the terrified
+Tyufyaev, fearing a public scandal, abashed and
+humiliated, fled to his carriage, gasping with fury.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening Madame R—— told Vitberg and me
+all that had happened. Vitberg at once realised that the
+Lovelace put to flight and insulted would not leave the
+poor woman in peace; Tyufyaev’s character was pretty
+well known to us all. Vitberg resolved at all costs to
+save her.</p>
+
+<p>Persecutions soon followed. The petition with regard
+to the children was presented in such a way that refusal
+was inevitable. The landlord and the shopkeepers
+demanded payment with remarkable insistence. God
+knows what might not be expected; the man who had
+done Petrovsky to death in a madhouse was not to be
+trifled with.</p>
+
+<p>Though burdened with an immense family and weighed
+down by poverty, Vitberg did not hesitate for one minute,
+but invited Madame R—— to move with her children
+into his house two or three days after his wife’s arrival in
+Vyatka. In his house Madame R—— was safe, so great
+was the moral power of this exile. His inflexible will,
+his noble appearance, his fearless words, his scornful
+smile were dreaded even by the Vyatka Shemyaka.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>I lived in a wing apart in the same house and dined at
+Vitberg’s table, and so here we were under the same roof,
+just when we ought to have been seas apart.</p>
+
+<p>In this close proximity she soon saw that there was no
+bringing back the past.</p>
+
+<p>Why had she met me, at that time so unstable? She
+might have been happy, she deserved to be happy. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>sorrowful past was over, a new life of love and harmony
+was so possible for her! Poor woman! Was it my
+fault that this storm-cloud of love which had swooped
+down upon me so irresistibly, so ardently, intoxicated me,
+drew me on, and then melted away?</p>
+
+<p>I lived in a state of anxious perturbation. Perplexed,
+foreseeing trouble, and dissatisfied with myself, again I
+turned to dissipation and sought distraction in noise, was
+vexed at finding it and vexed at not finding it, and awaited
+a few lines from Natalie as for a breath of pure air in the
+midst of sultry heat. The gentle image of the child on
+the verge of womanhood rose brighter and brighter above
+all this ferment of passion. My outburst of passion for
+Madame R—— made my own heart clear to me and
+revealed its secret.</p>
+
+<p>More and more absorbed by my feeling for my far-away
+cousin, I had not clearly analysed the sentiment
+that bound me to her. I was used to the feeling and did
+not watch closely to see whether it had changed or not.</p>
+
+<p>My letters became more and more troubled; on the
+one hand I felt deeply not only the wrong I had done
+Madame R——, but the fresh wrong I did her in the
+lying of which I was guilty by my silence. It seemed
+to me that I had fallen, that I was unworthy of any other
+love ... while my love was growing and growing.</p>
+
+<p>The name of <i>sister</i> began to fret me, affection now
+was not enough for me, that gentle feeling seemed cold.
+Her love was apparent in every line of her letters, but
+that did not satisfy me. I wanted not only love but the
+very word itself, and I wrote: ‘I am going to put a strange
+question to you. Do you believe that the feeling you have
+for me is only affection? Do you believe that the feeling
+I have for you is only affection? I don’t believe it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You seem somewhat troubled,’ she answered. ‘I
+knew your letter frightened you much more than it
+frightened me. Set your mind at rest, dear, it has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>changed absolutely nothing in me, it could not make me
+love you more, or less.’</p>
+
+<p>But the word had been uttered: ‘The mist has
+vanished,’ she writes, ‘all is clear and bright again.’</p>
+
+<p>With unclouded joy she gave herself up to the feeling
+that had been given its name; her letters are one youthful
+song of love rising from a childish whisper to lyrical
+heights.</p>
+
+<p>‘Perhaps at this moment,’ she writes, ‘you are sitting
+in your study, not writing, not reading, but pensively
+smoking a cigar, and your eyes are fixed on the vague
+distance and you have no answer for the greeting of any
+one who comes in. Where are your thoughts? What
+are you seeing? Do not answer, let them come to
+me....’</p>
+
+<p>‘Let us be childish, let us fix an hour for both of us
+to be in the open air, an hour in which we can both be
+sure that nothing separates us but distance. At eight
+o’clock in the evening you, too, are surely free? Or
+else I go out as just now upon the steps—and come back
+at once thinking that you are indoors.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Looking at your letters, at your portrait, thinking of
+my letters, of my bracelet, I wished I could skip a century
+and see what will be their fate. The things which have
+been for us holy relics, which have healed us, body and
+soul, with which we have talked and which have to some
+extent replaced us to each other in absence; all these
+weapons with which we have defended ourselves from
+others, from the blows of fate, from ourselves, what will
+they be when we are gone, will their virtue, their soul
+remain in them, will they awaken, will they warm some
+other heart, will they tell the story of us, of our sufferings,
+of our love, will they win one tear? How sad I feel
+when I imagine that your portrait will one day hang
+unknown in some one’s study, or a child perhaps will
+break the glass and efface the features.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p>
+
+<p>My letters were not like this&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>&#x2060;; in the midst of full,
+enthusiastic love there is a note of bitter vexation with
+myself and repentance; the dumb reproaches of Madame
+R—— were gnawing at my heart and troubling the clear
+radiance of my feeling; I seemed to myself a liar, and yet
+I had not been lying.</p>
+
+<p>How could I acknowledge the position? How was
+I to tell Madame R—— in January that I had made a
+mistake in August when I spoke of my love? How
+could she believe in the truth of my story—a new love
+would have been easier to understand, treachery would
+have been simpler. How the far-away image of the
+absent could enter into conflict with the present, how
+another love could have crossed that mountain barrier
+and become stronger and more recognised—that I did
+not understand myself, but I felt that it was all true.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Madame R—— herself with the elusive
+agility of a lizard slipped away from any serious explanation;
+she had an inkling of danger, was lost in conjecture,
+and at the same time was avoiding the truth. It was as
+though she had a foreboding that my words would reveal
+terrible facts, after knowing which all would be over, and
+she cut short all talk at the point where it was becoming
+dangerous.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p>
+
+<p>At first she was looking about her; for a few days she
+thought she had found her rival in a charming, lively
+young German girl whom I liked as a child, with whom
+I was at ease just because it had never entered her head
+to flirt with me, nor mine to flirt with her. A week
+later she perceived that Paulina was not at all dangerous.
+But I cannot go further without saying a word about the
+latter.</p>
+
+<p>In the government dispensary at Vyatka there was
+a German chemist, and there was nothing strange
+about that, but what is strange is that his assistant was
+Russian and was called Bolman. With this latter I
+became acquainted; he was married to the daughter of
+a Vyatka government clerk, a lady who had the longest,
+thickest, and most beautiful hair I have ever seen. The
+dispenser himself, Ferdinand Rulkovius, was at first
+absent, and Bolman and I used to drink together various
+‘fizzing drinks’ and artistic cordials compounded from
+the pharmacy. The dispenser was away in Reval, there
+he made the acquaintance of a young girl and offered her
+his hand; the girl, who hardly knew him, married him
+rashly, as a girl generally does, and a German girl in
+particular; she had no notion even into what wilds he
+was taking her. But when after the wedding she had
+to set off, she was overcome with terror and despair. To
+comfort his bride, the dispenser invited a young girl of
+seventeen, a distant relation of his wife, to go with them
+to Vyatka. She, even more rashly, with no idea of what
+was meant by Vyatka, consented. Neither of the
+German girls spoke a word of Russian, and in Vyatka
+there were not four men who spoke German. Even
+the teacher of that language in the high school did not
+know it, a fact which surprised me so much that I actually
+ventured to ask him how he managed to teach it.</p>
+
+<p>‘With the grammar,’ he answered, ‘and with dialogues.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p>
+
+<p>He further explained that he was really a teacher of
+mathematics, but that, as there was no post vacant, he
+was meanwhile teaching German, and that he received,
+however, only half the salary.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The Germans were
+dying of ennui, and seeing a man who, if he could not
+speak German well, could at least do so intelligently, were
+highly delighted, regaled me with coffee and some sort
+of ‘<i>Kalteschale</i>,’ told me all their secrets, their hopes and
+their wishes, and within two days called me their friend
+and still more hospitably treated me to sweet cakes and
+pastries flavoured with spices. Both were fairly well
+educated, that is, knew Schiller by heart, played the
+piano, and sang German songs. There the likeness
+between them ended. The dispenser’s wife was a tall,
+fair, lymphatic woman, very good-looking but sleepy and
+listless; she was extremely good-natured and, indeed,
+with her physique it would have been hard to be anything
+else. Being convinced once for all that her husband
+was her husband, she loved him quietly and steadily,
+looked after the kitchen and the linen, read novels in her
+leisure moments, and in due time successfully bore the
+chemist a daughter with white eyebrows and eyelashes
+and a scrofulous constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Her friend, a short, dark brunette, vigorously healthy,
+with big black eyes and an independent air, was a beauty
+of the sturdy peasant type; a great deal of energy was
+apparent in her words and movements, and when at times
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>the dispenser, a dull, close-fisted fellow, made somewhat
+discourteous observations to his wife, while she listened
+with a smile on her lips and a tear on her eyelash, Paulina
+would flush crimson and give the offending husband
+such a look that he would instantly subside, pretend to
+be very busy, and go off to his laboratory to pound and
+mix all sorts of nasty things for the preservation of the
+health of the Vyatka officials.</p>
+
+<p>I liked the simple-hearted girl who knew how to stand
+up for herself, and I do not know how it happened, but it
+was to her I first talked of my love and translated some
+of Natalie’s letters. Only one who has lived for long
+years with people who are completely alien know how
+precious are these confidences of the heart. I rarely talk
+of my feelings, but there are moments, even now, when
+the longing to express myself becomes insufferable, and
+at that time I was four-and-twenty, and I had only just
+realised my love. I could bear separation, I could have
+borne silence too, but, meeting with another child on
+the threshold of womanhood, in whom everything was
+so unaffectedly simple, I could not refrain from giving
+away my secret. And how grateful she was for my
+confidence, and how much good she did me!</p>
+
+<p>Vitberg’s always serious conversation sometimes
+wearied me; fretted by my difficult relations with
+Madame R——, I could not be at my ease with her.
+Often in the evening I used to go off to Paulina, read
+foolish stories aloud to her, listen to her ringing laugh
+and to her singing, especially for my benefit, ‘Das Mädchen
+aus der Fremde’—by which she and I understood another
+‘maiden from a strange land,’ and the clouds were dissipated,
+there was an unfeigned gaiety, an untroubled
+serenity in my heart, and I would go home in peace
+when the dispenser, after stirring his last mixture and
+preparing his last ointment, began boring me with absurd
+political inquiries—not, however, before I had drunk a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>‘draught’ of his mixing and eaten the herring salad
+mixed by the little white hands <i>der Frau Apothekerin</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="mt2">Madame R—— was wretched, while with pitiful
+weakness I waited for time to bring some chance solution
+and prolonged the half-deception. A thousand times I
+longed to go to Madame R——, to throw myself at her
+feet, to tell her everything, to face her wrath, her contempt
+... but it was not indignation that I feared—I should
+have been glad of it—I feared her tears. One must have
+endured many evil experiences to be able to bear a
+woman’s tears, to be able to feel doubts while they trickle
+still warm over the flushed cheek. Besides, her tears
+would have been sincere.</p>
+
+<p>A good deal of time passed like this. Rumours began
+to reach me that my exile might soon come to an end.
+The day no longer seemed so remote on which I should
+fling myself into a chaise and dash off to Moscow, familiar
+faces hovered before my imagination and among them,
+foremost of them, the cherished features; but scarcely
+did I abandon myself to these dreams when the pale,
+mournful figure of Madame R—— would rise up on
+the other side with tear-stained eyes, full of pain and
+reproach, and my joy was troubled: I felt sorry, terribly
+sorry for her.</p>
+
+<p>I could no longer remain in a false position, and plucking
+up all my courage I made up my mind to get out of
+it. I wrote her a full confession. Warmly, openly, I told
+her the whole truth. Next day she said she was ill and
+did not leave her room. All the sufferings of a criminal,
+the fears that he will be unmasked, I passed through on
+that day. She had another attack of her nervous stupor—I
+dared not visit her.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted my repentance to be complete. I shut myself
+up with Vitberg in his study and told him the whole
+story. At first he was astonished, then he listened to me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>not as a judge but as a friend, did not worry me with
+questions, did not preach to me with stale morality, but
+devoted himself to helping me find means for softening
+the blow—he alone could do that. His affection was
+very warm for those of whom he was fond. I had been
+afraid of his rigorous morals, but his affection for me and
+for Madame R—— completely outweighed that. Yes,
+in his hands I could leave the unhappy woman to whose
+hard lot I had given the finishing blow, in him she found
+strong moral support and authority. She respected him
+like a father.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Matvey gave me a note. I had
+scarcely slept all night. With a trembling hand I broke
+the seal. She wrote gently, in a noble and deeply mournful
+spirit; the flowers of my eloquence had not concealed
+the snake beneath them, in her words of resignation
+could be heard the stifled moan of a wounded heart, the
+cry of pain, repressed by a supreme effort. She blessed
+me on my way to my new life, wished me happiness,
+called Natalie a sister, and held out a pleading hand to us
+for forgetfulness of the past and friendship for the future—as
+though she had been to blame!</p>
+
+<p>Sobbing, I read her letter over and over again. <i>Qual
+cuor tradisti!</i></p>
+
+<p>Later on I met her. She gave me her hand affectionately,
+but we felt awkward; each of us had left something
+unsaid, each of us tried to avoid touching on something.</p>
+
+<p>A year ago I heard of her death.</p>
+
+<p>When I left Vyatka I was for a long time worried by
+the thought of Madame R——. As I regained my
+composure I set to work to write a story of which she was
+the heroine. I described a young nobleman of the period
+of Catherine who has abandoned the woman who loves
+him and married another. She pines away and dies.
+The news of her death is a heavy blow to him, he becomes
+gloomy and pensive, and at last goes out of his mind.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>His wife, an ideal of gentleness and self-sacrifice, after
+trying everything, leads him in one of his quieter moments
+to the Dyevitchy Convent and kneels down with him at
+the unhappy woman’s grave, begging her forgiveness and
+her intervention. From the windows of the convent the
+words of a prayer reach them, soft feminine voices sing
+of forgiveness—and the young man recovers. The story
+was a failure. At the time when I wrote it Madame
+R—— had no thought of coming to Moscow, and the
+only man who guessed that there was anything between
+us was the ‘ubiquitous German,’ K. I. Sonnenberg.
+After my mother’s death in 1851, we had no news from
+him. In 1860 a tourist, describing his acquaintance with
+Karl Ivanovitch, now a man of eighty, showed me a
+letter from him. In a postscript the old man told him
+of the death of Madame R—— and said that my brother
+had had her buried in the Novo Dyevitchy Convent!</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly say that neither of them knew anything
+about my story.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_22">Chapter 22<br>
+<span class="smcap">In Moscow while I was away</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">My peaceful life in Vladimir was soon troubled by
+news from Moscow which reached me now
+from all sides and deeply distressed me. To make this
+intelligible I must go back to 1834.</p>
+
+<p>The day after I was arrested in 1834 was the nameday
+of my aunt, the princess, and so when Natalie had
+parted from me in the graveyard she had said: ‘Until
+to-morrow’; she was expecting me, several members
+of the family had arrived, when suddenly my cousin
+made his appearance and told them the full details of my
+arrest. This news, utterly unexpected, gave her a shock;
+she got up to go into the other room, and after taking two
+steps fell unconscious on the floor. The princess saw
+it all and understood it all; she determined to oppose
+this love from the beginning by every means in her power.</p>
+
+<p>What for?</p>
+
+<p>I do not know: she had of late, that is after I had
+finished my studies, been very well disposed to me; but
+my arrest and rumours of our free-thinking attitude, of
+our giving up the Orthodox Church and entering the
+Saint Simon ‘sect,’ infuriated her; from that time
+forward she never spoke of me except as ‘that unhappy
+son of brother Ivan’s.’ The Senator had to use all his
+authority to induce her to allow Natalie to go to the
+Krutitsky Barracks to say good-bye to me.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately I was exiled and the princess had plenty
+of time before her.</p>
+
+<p>‘And where is this Perm or Vyatka? He’ll be sure to
+break his neck there, or have it broken for him; and in
+any case he’ll forget her there.’</p>
+
+<p>But as though to spite the princess, I had an excellent
+memory. Natalie’s correspondence with me, for a long
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>time concealed from the old lady, was at last discovered,
+and she sternly forbade the maids and menservants to
+receive letters for the young girl, or to take letters to the
+post.</p>
+
+<p>‘So I daresay some fine morning that unhappy son of
+my brother’s will open the door and walk in; it’s no use
+wasting time thinking about it, and putting things off—we’ll
+make a match for her and save her from the political
+criminal who has no religion or principles.’</p>
+
+<p>The princess, sighing, would talk of the poor, forlorn
+girl, saying that she had scarcely anything, that it would
+not do for her to pick and choose, that she would like to
+see her settled in her own lifetime. She had, as a fact,
+with the help of her dependents, settled, after a fashion,
+the fate of one distant cousin who had no dowry by marrying
+her off to an attorney of some sort. A nice, good-natured,
+and well-educated girl, she married to satisfy
+her mother; two years later she died, but the attorney
+was still living, and from gratitude was still looking after
+her Excellency’s affairs. In this case, however, the bride
+was not portionless, the princess was prepared to treat
+her like her own daughter, to give her a dowry of a
+hundred thousand roubles and to leave her something in
+her will besides. On such terms suitors are always to
+be found, not only in Moscow but everywhere else,
+especially when there is the title of princess as well as
+a ‘lady companion’ and numerous ‘old women’ in
+attendance.</p>
+
+<p>The whispering, the negotiations, rumours, and maidservants
+brought Princess Marya Alexeyevna’s intention
+to the ears of the unhappy victim of so much solicitude.
+She told the ‘lady companion’ that she would not accept
+any offer of marriage. Then followed an insulting and
+ruthless persecution without one trace of delicacy, a petty
+persecution pursuing her every minute and catching her
+at every step, at every word.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Imagine bad weather, terrible cold, wind, rain, an
+overcast, as it were, expressionless sky, a very horrid
+little room which looks as though a corpse had just been
+carried out of it, and these <i>children</i>, who have no aim, no
+pleasure even, making a noise, shouting, spoiling and
+defiling everything near them; and it would be bad
+enough if one had simply to look at them, but when one is
+forced to be in their company ...’ she writes in one letter
+from the country where the princess had gone for the
+summer; and she goes on: ‘there are three old women
+sitting here with us, and they are all three describing how
+their late husbands were paralysed and how they used to
+look after them; and it is chilly enough without that.’</p>
+
+<p>Now systematic persecution was added to these surroundings,
+and it was practised not only by the princess
+but also by the wretched old women, who were perpetually
+worrying Natalie, persuading her to be married
+and abusing me; as a rule, she said nothing in her letters
+of the continual annoyances she had to endure, but
+sometimes bitterness, humiliation and boredom were too
+much for her. ‘I don’t know,’ she writes, ‘whether
+they can invent anything more to oppress me. Can they
+possibly have wit enough for that? Do you know that
+I am actually forbidden to go into another room, even
+to move to another seat in the same room? It is a long
+while since I have played the piano; lights were brought
+and I went into the drawing-room, thinking they might
+be merciful, but no, they brought me back and set me
+knitting; perhaps, at least I might sit at another table—I
+can’t endure being beside them—might I do even that?
+No, I must sit just here beside the priest’s wife, listen,
+look, and talk, while they speak of nothing but Filaret
+or criticise you. For a moment I felt vexed, I flushed
+crimson, then all at once my heart was weighed down by
+a feeling of bitter sadness, not because I had to be their
+slave, no ... I felt horribly sorry for them.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p>
+
+<p>Matchmaking negotiations were formally beginning.</p>
+
+<p>‘A lady has been here who is fond of me, and whom
+I am not for that reason fond of.... She is doing her
+very utmost to settle things for me, and she made me so
+angry that I sang after her—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“I had rather be dressed in my winding-sheet</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Than the wedding veil without my sweet.”’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A few days later, 26th October 1837, she writes:
+‘What I have been through to-day, my dear, you can’t
+imagine. They dressed me up and dragged me off to
+Madame S——, who has been extremely gracious to me
+ever since I was a child; Colonel Z—— goes there every
+Tuesday to play cards. Imagine my position: on the
+one side the old ladies at the card-table, on the other all
+sorts of disgusting figures, and he.... The conversation,
+the company—everything was so alien to me, so strange
+and horrid, so lifeless and vulgar, I was more like a statue
+than a living creature. Everything that was going on
+seemed like an oppressive nightmare. I kept asking like
+a child to go home, they would not heed me. The
+attention of the host and of <i>the visitor</i> overwhelmed me;
+he got as far as writing half my monogram in chalk. Oh
+dear, I am not strong enough and I can look for support
+to no one of those who might be a help; I am all alone
+on the edge of a precipice, and a whole crowd of them
+are doing everything they can to push me over; sometimes
+I am weary, my strength fails me and you are not
+near and I cannot see you in the distance; but the mere
+thought of you—and my soul is stirred and ready to do
+battle again in the armour of love.’</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile every one liked the Colonel: the Senator
+was friendly to him, and my father gave it as his opinion
+that ‘a better match could not be expected and should
+not be desired.’ ‘Even his Excellency D. P. (Golohvastov)
+is pleased with him,’ wrote Natalie. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>princess said nothing directly to Natalie, but restricted
+her freedom even more severely and hurried things on.
+Natalie tried to play the part of a complete imbecile in
+his presence, hoping to repel him, but not at all; he went
+on coming more and more frequently.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yesterday,’ she writes, ‘Amelia was here and this is
+what she said: “If I heard that you were dead I should
+cross myself with joy and thank God.” She is right in
+a great deal but not altogether; her soul living only in
+sorrow could fully grasp the sufferings of my spirit, but
+the bliss with which love fills it she could scarcely understand.’</p>
+
+<p>But the princess was not losing heart. ‘Wishing to
+have a clear conscience, the princess invited a priest who
+is a friend of Z—— and asked him whether it would not
+be a sin to marry me against my will. The priest said
+it would be actually a godly work to make so good a
+provision for an orphan. I am sending for my own
+priest,’ Natalie adds, ‘and shall tell him the whole
+story.’</p>
+
+<p>‘<i>October 30th.</i>—My clothes are here, my attire for
+to-morrow, and the ikon, the rings; all sorts of arrangements
+and preparations have been made, and not a word
+to me. The Nasakins and others have been invited.
+They are preparing a surprise for me and I am preparing
+a surprise for them.</p>
+
+<p>‘<i>Evening.</i>—Now a family council is going on. Lyov
+Alexeyevitch (the Senator) is here. You urge me to be
+strong—there is no need, my dear. I am equal to extricating
+myself from the awful, loathsome scenes into
+which they are dragging me on the chain. Your image
+is bright above me, there is no need to fear for me, and
+my very distress and sadness are so sacred and have taken
+so firm a hold on my soul that tearing them away would
+hurt even more, the wounds would re-open.’</p>
+
+<p>However, though they did their best to mask and cover
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>up the position, the Colonel could not avoid seeing the
+positive aversion of his proposed bride; he began to be
+less frequent in his visits, declared himself ill, and even
+hinted at some addition to the dowry; this greatly incensed
+the princess, but she got over even that humiliation
+and was ready to give her an estate near Moscow as well.
+This concession he had apparently not anticipated, for
+after it he disappeared altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Two months passed quietly. All at once the news
+came that I had been transferred to Vladimir. Then
+the princess made her last desperate effort to marry off
+her protégée. One of her acquaintances had a son, an
+officer, who had just returned from the Caucasus; he
+was young, cultivated, and a very decent fellow. The
+princess condescended so far as herself to suggest to his
+sister that she should ‘sound’ her brother and see whether
+he cared for the match. He yielded to his sister’s representations.
+The young girl did not care to play the same
+disgusting and tedious part a second time, so, seeing that
+the position was taking a serious turn, she wrote to the
+young man a letter, told him directly, openly, and simply
+that she loved another man, trusted herself to his honour
+and begged him not to add to her sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>The officer with great delicacy drew back. The
+princess was amazed and affronted and made up her mind
+to find out what had happened. The officer’s sister, to
+whom Natalie had spoken herself, and who had promised
+her brother to say nothing to the princess, told the whole
+story to the ‘lady companion’; the latter of course at
+once reported it to her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>The princess almost choked with indignation. Not
+knowing what to do, she ordered the young girl to go
+upstairs to her room and not to show herself; not content
+with that, she ordered her door to be locked and put
+two maids on guard; then she wrote notes to her two
+brothers and one of her nephews and asked them to come
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>and give her advice, saying that ‘she was so distressed and
+upset that she could not think what to do in the misfortune
+that had befallen her.’ My father refused,
+saying that he had plenty of worries of his own, that
+there was no need to attach such importance to what had
+happened, and that he was a poor judge in affairs of the
+heart. The Senator and D. P. Golohvastov appeared
+next evening in answer to her summons. They talked
+for a long time without reaching any conclusion and at
+last asked to see the prisoner. The young girl came in,
+but she was no longer the shy, silent, forlorn girl they had
+known. Unflinching firmness and stubborn determination
+were apparent in the calm and proud expression of
+her face; this was not a child but a woman who had come
+to defend her love—my love.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the prisoner on her trial confounded her
+judges. They were awkward; at last Dmitry Pavlovitch,
+<i>l’orateur de la famille</i>, expatiated at length on the
+cause of their coming together, the distress of the princess,
+her heartfelt desire to settle her protégée’s future, and the
+strange opposition on the part of her for whose benefit
+it was all being done. The Senator with a nod and a
+movement of his finger expressed his assent to his nephew’s
+words. The princess said nothing but sat with her head
+turned away, sniffing salts.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner on her trial heard all they had to say and
+asked with straightforward simplicity what they required
+of her.</p>
+
+<p>‘We have no thought of requiring anything from you,’
+observed the nephew. ‘We are here at Aunt’s desire to
+give you sincere advice. A match excellent in all
+respects is offered to you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I cannot accept it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What is your reason for that?’</p>
+
+<p>‘You know it.’</p>
+
+<p>The orator of the family coloured a little, took a pinch
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>of snuff, and screwing up his eyes went on: ‘There is a
+great deal to which objection might be urged. I would
+call your attention to the very small ground for your
+hopes. It is so long since you have seen our unfortunate
+Alexandr; he is so young and impetuous—are you
+certain of him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, and whatever his intentions may be, I cannot
+change mine.’</p>
+
+<p>The nephew had exhausted his eloquence; he got up
+saying: ‘God grant that you may not regret it! I feel
+very anxious about your future.’ The Senator scowled;
+the luckless girl now appealed to him. ‘You have
+always shown me sympathy,’ she said to him. ‘I implore
+you, save me, do what you like but take me out of this life.
+I have done no harm to any one, I ask for nothing, I am
+not trying to do anything, I am only refusing to deceive
+a man and ruin myself by marrying him. What I have
+to endure on account of it you cannot imagine; it pains
+me to have to say this in the presence of the princess, but
+to put up with the slights, the insulting words, the hints
+of her friends is too much for me. I cannot, I ought
+not to allow it, for insulting me is insulting....’ Her
+nerves gave way, the tears gushed from her eyes; the
+Senator leapt up and walked about the room in agitation.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the ‘lady companion,’ boiling over with
+fury, could not restrain herself and said, addressing the
+princess: ‘So that’s our nice, modest girl, there’s gratitude
+for you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Of whom is she speaking?’ shouted the Senator.
+‘How is it, sister, you allow that woman, devil knows what
+she is, to speak like that of your brother’s daughter in your
+presence? And if it comes to that, why is this drab here
+at all? Did you invite her to the family council too?
+Is she a relation or what?’</p>
+
+<p>‘My dear,’ answered the panic-stricken princess, ‘you
+know what she is to me and how she looks after me.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, yes, that’s all very nice, let her give you your
+medicine and what you like; that’s not what I am
+talking about. I ask you, <i>sœur</i>, why is she here when
+family affairs are being discussed, and how dare she put
+her word in? One might suppose it was all her doing,
+and then you complain—Hey, my carriage!’</p>
+
+<p>The ‘lady companion’ flushed, and ran out of the
+room in tears.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why do you spoil her like this?’ the Senator went
+on, carried away; ‘she fancies she is sitting in the tavern
+at Zvenigorod; how is it you aren’t disgusted by it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Leave off, my dear, please,’ the poor princess groaned,
+‘my nerves are so upset—oh! You can go upstairs and
+stay there,’ she added, addressing her niece.</p>
+
+<p>‘It’s time to be done with all this Bastille business.
+It’s all nonsense and leads to nothing,’ observed the
+Senator and took his hat.</p>
+
+<p>Before driving away, he went upstairs; Natalie, overcome
+by all that had passed, was sitting in an armchair
+with her face hidden, weeping bitterly. The old man
+patted her on the shoulder and said:</p>
+
+<p>‘Calm yourself, calm yourself, it will all come right.
+You must just try not to make sister angry with you; she
+is an invalid, you must humour her; after all, she only
+wishes for your good, you know; but, there, you shan’t
+be married against your will, I’ll answer for that.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Better a nunnery, a boarding-school, to go to Tambov
+to my brother, or to Petersburg, than to endure this life
+any longer,’ she answered.</p>
+
+<p>‘Come, come! try and soothe my sister, and as for
+that fool of a woman I’ll teach her not to be rude.’</p>
+
+<p>The Senator, as he crossed the drawing-room, met the
+‘lady companion’: ‘I’ll ask you not to forget yourself,’
+he shouted at her, holding up a menacing finger; she
+went sobbing into the bedroom where the princess lay on
+the bed while four maids rubbed her hands and feet,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>moistened her temples with vinegar, and poured Hoffman’s
+drops on lumps of sugar.</p>
+
+<p>So ended the family council.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear that the girl’s position was hardly likely to be
+improved by what had happened; the ‘lady companion’
+was more on her guard, but, cherishing now a personal
+hatred for Natalie, and desirous of avenging the affront to
+herself, she poisoned her existence by petty indirect
+means. I need hardly say that the princess acquiesced
+in this ignoble persecution of a defenceless girl.</p>
+
+<p>This had to be ended. I made up my mind to come
+forward, and wrote a long, calm, and sincere letter to my
+father. I told him of my love and, foreseeing his reply,
+added that I did not want to hurry him, that I should
+give him time to see whether it was a passing feeling or
+not, and that all that I begged of him was that the Senator
+and he would enter into the poor girl’s position and
+would remember that they had the same rights over her
+as the princess herself.</p>
+
+<p>My father answered that he could not endure
+meddling in other people’s affairs, that what the princess
+did in her own house was not his business; he advised
+me to abandon foolish ideas ‘induced by the idleness and
+ennui of exile,’ and added that I had much better prepare
+myself for travel in foreign lands. We had often talked
+in past years of a tour abroad, he knew how passionately
+I wished for it, but found endless difficulties and always
+ended by saying: ‘You must first close my eyes, then
+you’ll be free to go to the ends of the earth.’ In exile
+I had lost all hope of going abroad, I knew how hard it
+would be to get permission, and, besides, it would have
+seemed a lack of delicacy to insist on a voluntary separation
+after the involuntary one. I remembered the tears
+quivering on his old eyelids when I was setting off to
+Perm ... and now here was my father taking the
+initiative and suggesting I should go!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span></p>
+
+<p>I had been open, I had written sparing the old man,
+asking so little—and he had answered with irony and
+strategy.</p>
+
+<p>‘He doesn’t want to do anything for me,’ I said to
+myself, ‘like Guizot he advocates <i>la non-intervention</i>.
+Very well then, I’ll act myself, and now good-bye to concessions.’
+I had not once before thought about the
+ordering of the future; I believed, I knew that it was
+mine, that it was ours, and I left the details to chance;
+the consciousness of love was enough for us, our desires
+did not go beyond a momentary interview. My father’s
+letter forced me to take the future into my own hands.
+It was useless to wait—<i>cosa fata capo ha!</i> My father
+was not very sentimental, while as for the princess—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent4">‘Let her weep,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Her tears mean nought!’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Just at that time my brother and Ketscher came to stay
+in Vladimir. Ketscher and I spent whole nights together,
+talking, recalling the past, laughing through our tears,
+and laughing till we cried. He was the first of our set
+whom I had seen since we left Moscow. From him I
+heard the chronicles of our circle, what changes had taken
+place in it, and what questions were absorbing it, what
+fresh people had arrived, where those who had left
+Moscow were, and so on. When we had discussed
+everything I told him of my plans. After considering
+how I ought to act, Ketscher concluded with a proposition
+the absurdity of which I only appreciated afterwards.
+Desirous of trying every peaceful method, he offered to
+go to my father and to talk to him seriously. I agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher, of course, was better fitted for any good
+deed, and, in fact, for any evil deed, than for diplomatic
+negotiations, particularly with my father. He had in a
+marked degree all the characteristics that were calculated
+to ruin any chance of success. His very appearance was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>enough to make any conservative depressed and alarmed.
+A tall figure, with hair strangely dishevelled and arranged
+on no fixed principle, with a harsh countenance reminiscent
+of a number of the members of the Convention of
+1793, and especially of Marat, with the same big mouth,
+the same hard, disdainful lines about the lips, and the
+same expression of mournful and exasperated gloom; to
+this must be added spectacles, a wide-brimmed hat,
+extreme irritability, a loud voice, lack of all habit of self-control,
+and the power of arching his eyebrows higher and
+higher as he grew more indignant. Ketscher was like
+Laravigny in George Sand’s excellent novel, <i>Horace</i>,
+with an admixture of something of the Pathfinder and
+Robinson Crusoe, as well as an element purely Muscovite.
+His open, generous temperament had set him from childhood
+in direct conflict with the world surrounding him;
+he did not conceal his antagonism and was accustomed
+to it. A few years older than we, he was continually
+scolding us and was dissatisfied with every one. He used
+to quarrel and bring accusations against us and make up
+for it all by the simple good-nature of a child. His
+words were rough, but his feelings were tender and we
+forgave him much.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine him, this last of the Mohicans with the face
+of a Marat, this ‘friend of the people,’ setting off to advise
+my father! Many times afterwards I made Ketscher
+describe their interview; my imagination was unequal
+to picturing all the oddity of this diplomatic intervention.
+It took place so unexpectedly that for a moment my old
+father lost his bearings and began explaining the weighty
+reasons which led him to oppose my marriage; then,
+recovering himself, he changed his tone and asked
+Ketscher on what grounds he had come to discuss a matter
+which was none of his business. The conversation took
+a more bitter tone. The diplomatist, seeing that his
+position was not improving, tried to frighten the old
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>man about my health, but it was too late, and the interview
+ended, as might have been expected, in a series of
+malignant sarcasms from my father and rude rejoinders
+from Ketscher.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote to me: ‘Expect nothing from the old man.’
+That was all I wanted. But what was I to do? How
+was I to begin? While I was thinking over a dozen
+different plans a day and unable to decide between them,
+my brother was preparing to return to Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>That was on the first of March 1838.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_23">Chapter 23&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br>
+<span class="smcap">The Third of March and the Ninth of May 1838</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">In the morning I wrote letters; when I had finished
+we sat down to dinner. I could not eat, we said
+nothing, I felt unbearably oppressed—it was between
+four and five, at seven the horses were to come round.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>At the same time next day he would be in Moscow while
+I—and every minute my pulse beat faster.</p>
+
+<p>‘I say,’ I said at last to my brother, looking at my plate,
+‘will you take me with you to Moscow?’</p>
+
+<p>He put down his fork and looked at me uncertain
+whether he had heard me aright.</p>
+
+<p>‘Take me through the town gate as your servant, I
+want nothing more, do you agree?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes if you like, only, you know, afterwards
+you’ll....’</p>
+
+<p>It was too late, his ‘if you like’ was already in my
+blood, in my brain. The idea that had only flashed
+upon me a minute before had now taken deep root.</p>
+
+<p>‘What is there to discuss, anything may happen—and
+so you’ll take me?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Of course—I don’t mind—only....’</p>
+
+<p>I jumped up from the table.</p>
+
+<p>‘Are you going?’ asked Matvey, anxious to put in
+a word.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am,’ I answered in such a tone that he said no more.
+‘I’ll be back the day after to-morrow, if any one comes
+tell them I have a headache and am asleep, in the evening
+light the candles, and now get me my linen and my
+bag.’</p>
+
+<p>The bells were tinkling in the yard.</p>
+
+<p>‘Are you ready?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, and so good luck to us.’</p>
+
+<p>By dinner-time next day the bells ceased tinkling, we
+were at Ketscher’s door. I bade them call him out.
+A week before, when he had left me in Vladimir, there
+had been no idea of my coming, and hence he was so surprised
+on seeing me that at first he did not say a word and
+then went off into a peal of laughter: but soon looked
+anxious and led me indoors. When we were in his
+room he first carefully locked the door and then asked
+me: ‘What has happened?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Nothing.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Then why are you here?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I couldn’t stay in Vladimir, I want to see Natalie—that’s
+all, and you must arrange it, and this very minute,
+because I must be back at home by to-morrow.’</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher looked into my face and raised his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>‘What folly, the devil knows what to call it, to come
+like this with no need and nothing prepared! Have
+you written, have you fixed a time?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have written nothing.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Upon my word, my boy, but what are we to do with
+you? It’s beyond anything, it’s raving madness!’</p>
+
+<p>‘That’s just the point, that you must think what to
+do without losing a minute.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You’re a fool,’ said Ketscher with conviction, raising
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>his eyebrows higher than ever. ‘I should be glad, very
+glad indeed, if it were a failure, it would be a lesson to
+you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And rather a long lesson if I am caught. Listen: as
+soon as it is dark we’ll go to the princess’s house, you
+shall call some one out into the road, one of the servants,
+I’ll tell you which—and then we’ll see what to do.
+What do you say to that?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, there’s no help for it, we’ll go, we’ll go; but
+I should like you not to succeed in seeing her! Why
+on earth didn’t you write yesterday?’—and Ketscher,
+pulling his broad-brimmed hat over his brows with an
+air of dignity, threw on a black cloak lined with red.</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, you hateful grumbler!’ I said to him as we went
+out, and Ketscher, laughing heartily, repeated: ‘But
+really it’s enough to make a hen laugh, to come like this
+without sending a word; it’s beyond anything.’</p>
+
+<p>I could not stay at Ketscher’s—he lived terribly far
+away, and his mother had visitors that day. He took me
+to an officer of hussars whom he knew to be an honourable
+man, and who, having never been mixed up with
+political affairs, was not under police supervision. The
+officer, a man with long moustaches, was sitting at dinner
+when we went in; Ketscher told him what we had
+come about. The officer in reply poured me out a glass
+of red wine and thanked us for the confidence we put in
+him; then he took me into his bedroom, which was
+adorned with saddles and saddle-cloths so that one might
+have supposed that he slept on horseback.</p>
+
+<p>‘Here is a room for you,’ he said; ‘no one will disturb
+you here.’ Then he called his orderly, a hussar, and told
+him not to let any one go into that room on any pretext.
+I found myself again under the guardianship of a soldier,
+with this difference, that at the Krutitsky Barracks the
+gendarme had been keeping me from all the world, while
+here the hussar was keeping all the world from me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span></p>
+
+<p>When it was quite dark, Ketscher and I set off. My
+heart beat violently when I saw again the familiar streets
+and houses which I had not seen for nearly four year....
+Kuznetsky Bridge, Tversky Boulevard ... and
+here was Ogaryov’s house; they had clapped an immense
+heraldic crest on it and it looked different. In the lower
+storey, where we spent such happy youthful days, a tailor
+was living.... Here was Povarsky Street—I held my
+breath: in the corner window of the little room there
+was a candle burning, that was her room, she was writing
+to me, she was thinking of me, the candle twinkled so
+gaily, it seemed twinkling <i>to me</i>.</p>
+
+<p>While we were considering how best to call some one
+out into the street, one of the princess’s young footmen
+ran out towards us.</p>
+
+<p>‘Arkady,’ I said as he reached us. He did not
+recognise me. ‘How is this,’ I said, ‘don’t you know
+your own people?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, is it you?’ he cried.</p>
+
+<p>I put my finger on my lips and said: ‘If you would
+like to do me a friendly service, deliver this little note at
+once, as quickly as you can, through Sasha or Kostinka,
+do you understand? We will wait for the answer round
+the corner, and don’t breathe a word to any one of having
+seen me in Moscow.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Don’t be uneasy, we’ll do it all instantly,’ answered
+Arkady, and he skipped back into the house.</p>
+
+<p>We walked up and down the side-street for about half
+an hour before a little, thin, old woman came out, flustered
+and looking about her; this was that same brisk servant
+girl who in 1812 had begged the French soldiers for
+‘<i>manger</i>’ for me; we had called her Kostinka ever since
+I was a child. The old woman took my face in both
+hands and showered kisses upon it.</p>
+
+<p>‘So you’ve flown to see us,’ she said. ‘Ah, you
+headstrong boy, when will you learn sense, you foolish
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>darling?—and you’ve given our young lady such a fright
+that she almost fainted.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And have you a note for me?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, yes, he is impatient,’ and she gave me a scrap of
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>A few words had been scribbled in pencil with a
+trembling hand: ‘My God, can it be true—you, here!
+To-morrow between five and six in the morning I will
+expect you. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it! surely
+it must be a dream!’</p>
+
+<p>The hussar again put me into his orderly’s keeping.
+At half-past five next morning I stood leaning against a
+lamp-post, waiting for Ketscher, who had gone in at the
+side-gate of the princess’s house. I will not attempt to
+describe what was passing in me while I waited at the
+lamp-post; such moments remain one’s own secret
+because there are no words for them.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher beckoned to me. I went in at the little gate,
+a boy who had grown up since I left showed me in with
+a friendly smile, and here I was in the hall which at one
+time I used to enter yawning, though now I was ready
+to fall on my knees and kiss every plank on the floor.
+Arkady led me into the drawing-room and went out. I
+sank exhausted on the sofa, my heart throbbed so violently
+that it hurt me, and besides I was frightened. I linger
+over my story for the sake of spending longer over these
+memories, though I see that my words give a poor idea
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>She came in all in white, dazzlingly lovely; three years
+of separation and the struggles she had been through had
+given the finishing touches to her features and her
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>‘This is you,’ she said in her soft, gentle voice.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down on the sofa and remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>The expression of joy in her eyes almost approached
+suffering. I suppose when the feeling of happiness
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>reaches its highest point it is mingled with an expression
+of pain, for she said to me: ‘How exhausted you
+look!’</p>
+
+<p>I held her hand, she leaned her head on the other, and
+there was no need for us to talk ... a few brief phrases,
+two or three reminiscences, words from our letters, some
+idle remarks about Arkady, about the hussar, about
+Kostinka, that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old woman came in, saying that it was time
+for me to go, and I got up without protesting, and she did
+not try to keep me ... our hearts were so full, all
+thoughts of more or less, of shorter or longer, all vanished
+before the fullness of the present....</p>
+
+<p>When we had passed the town gate, Ketscher asked:
+‘Well, have you settled anything?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Nothing.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But you talked to her?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Not a word about that.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Does she consent?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I didn’t ask, of course she consents.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, upon my soul, you behave like a child, or a
+lunatic,’ observed Ketscher, raising his eyebrows and
+shrugging his shoulders with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>‘I’ll write to her and then to you, and now, good-bye.
+Now drive ahead full speed!’</p>
+
+<p>It was thawing, the spongy snow was black in places,
+the endless white plain lay on both sides, little villages
+flashed by with their smoke, then the moon rose and shed
+a different light on everything; I was alone with the
+driver and kept looking out, yet all the while was there
+with her, and the road and the moon and the fields were
+somehow mixed up with the princess’s drawing-room.
+And, strange to say, I remembered every word uttered
+by the nurse, by Arkady, even by the maid who had led
+me out to the gate, but what I had said to her and what
+she had said to me I could not remember!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p>
+
+<p>Two months were spent in making arrangements. I
+had to borrow money, and to get her baptismal certificate;
+it appeared that the princess had taken it. One of my
+friends—swearing, bribing, treating policemen and
+clerks—succeeded by all sorts of false statements in
+getting another from the Consistory.</p>
+
+<p>When everything was ready, we, that is Matvey and
+I, set off.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn on the eighth of May we were at the last
+posting-station before Moscow. The drivers had gone
+to get horses. The air was heavy, there were drops of
+rain, and it seemed as though a storm were coming on;
+I remained in the covered chaise and hurried on the
+driver. Some one spoke near me in a strange, high,
+sing-song voice. I turned round and saw a pale, thin
+girl of about sixteen, in rags and with her hair hanging
+about her; she was begging. I gave her some small silver
+coin, she laughed seeing it, but instead of going away
+clambered on to the box of the chaise, turned towards
+me and began muttering half-coherent sentences, looking
+straight into my face; her eyes were clouded and pitiful,
+wisps of hair fell over her face. Her sickly face, her unintelligible
+mutterings, together with the light of early
+morning, aroused a sort of nervous uneasiness in me.</p>
+
+<p>‘She’s crazy, you know, that is, she is simple,’ observed
+the driver. ‘And where are you poking yourself? I’ll
+give you a lash with the whip and then you’ll know!
+Upon my soul, I will, you shameless hussy!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why are you scolding, what have I done to you—here
+your master’s given me a silver bit, and what harm
+have I done you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, he’s given it to you, and so be off to your devils
+in the forest.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Take me with you,’ added the girl, looking piteously
+at me, ‘do, really, take me....’</p>
+
+<p>‘To put you in a show in Moscow as a freak, some
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>sea monster,’ observed the driver. ‘Come, get down,
+we’re just off.’</p>
+
+<p>The girl made no attempt to move, but kept looking
+pitifully at me. I begged the driver not to hurt her, he
+lifted her gently under his arm and set her on the ground.
+She burst out crying and I was ready to cry with her.</p>
+
+<p>Why had this creature crossed my path just on that
+day, just as I was driving into Moscow? I thought of
+Kozlov’s ‘Mad Girl,’ and she, too, had been met near
+Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>We drove off, the air was full of electricity, unpleasantly
+heavy and warm. A dark blue storm-cloud
+with grey streamers reaching to the earth was slowly
+trailing over the fields, and all at once a zig-zag of
+lightning ran slanting through it, there was a clap of
+thunder and the rain came down in torrents. We were
+nearly seven miles from the Rogozhsky Gate and after
+reaching Moscow had an hour’s drive to the Dyevitchy
+field. We reached A——’s, where Ketscher was to
+wait for me, literally without a dry thread on us.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher was not there. He was at the bedside of a
+dying woman, E. D. Levashev. This woman was one
+of those marvellous products of Russian life which
+reconcile one to it, one of those types whose whole existence
+is an heroic feat, unseen by any but a small circle of
+friends. How many tears she had wiped away, how much
+comfort she had brought to more than one broken heart,
+of how many young lives she had been the support, and
+how much she had suffered herself! ‘She spent herself
+in love,’ Tchaadayev, one of her closest friends, who
+dedicated his celebrated letter about Russia to her, said
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher could not leave her; he wrote that he would
+come about nine o’clock. I was alarmed by this news.
+A man absorbed by a great passion is a dreadful egoist;
+in Ketscher’s absence I could see nothing but an obstacle
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>in my path.... When it struck nine, when the bells
+began ringing for evening service and then another
+quarter of an hour passed, I was overcome by feverish
+anxiety and cowardly despair.... Half-past nine—no,
+he would not come, the sick woman was probably worse,
+what was I to do? I could not remain in Moscow, one
+incautious word from the maid or the old nurse in the
+princess’s house would give everything away. To go
+back was possible, but I felt I had not the strength to go
+back.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter to ten Ketscher appeared in a straw hat
+with the drowsy face of a man who has not slept all night.
+I rushed up to him and as I embraced him showered
+reproaches upon him. Ketscher, frowning, looked at
+me and asked: ‘Why, isn’t half an hour enough to get
+from A——’s to Povarsky Street? I might have been
+gossiping with you here for an hour, and I daresay it
+would have been very nice, but I could not bring myself
+to leave a dying friend sooner than I need for the sake
+of that. She sends you her greetings,’ he added, ‘she
+blessed me with her dying hand, hoping for the success
+of our enterprise, and gave me a warm shawl in case of
+need.’ The dying woman’s greetings were particularly
+precious to me. The warm shawl was very useful in
+the night, and I had no time to thank her nor to press her
+hand ... soon afterwards she died.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher and A—— set off. Ketscher was to drive
+out of the town with Natalie, while A—— was to come
+back and tell me whether everything had gone off successfully
+and what I was to do. I was left waiting with his
+charming and delightful wife; she had herself only
+lately been married, and, being an ardent, passionate
+nature, she took the warmest interest in our enterprise.
+She tried with feigned gaiety to assure me that everything
+was going splendidly, though she was herself so fretted
+by anxiety that her face was continually changing. We
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>sat together in the window and conversation did not flow
+easily; we were like children shut up in an empty room
+as a punishment. Two hours passed in this way.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing in the world more shattering, more
+unendurable than inactivity and suspense at such moments.
+Friends make a great mistake in taking the whole burden
+off the shoulders of the principal <i>patient</i>. They ought
+to invent duties for him if there are none, to overwhelm
+him with physical exertions, to distract his mind with
+work and arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>At last A—— came in, we rushed to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>‘Everything is going gloriously, I saw them gallop off,’
+he shouted to us from the yard. ‘You go at once out at
+the Rogozhsky Gate, there by the little bridge you will
+see the horses not far from Perov’s restaurant. Good
+luck to you! And change your cab half-way, so that
+your second cabman may not know where you have come
+from.’</p>
+
+<p>I flew like an arrow from the bow.... And here
+was the little bridge not far from Perov’s; there was no
+one there, and on the other side of the bridge, too, there
+was no one. I drove as far as the Izmailovsky Menagerie,
+there was no one. I dismissed the cabman and went
+forward on foot. Walking backwards and forwards, at
+last I saw on another road a carriage of some sort. A
+handsome young coachman was standing by it. ‘Has
+a tall gentleman in a straw hat driven by here,’ I asked
+him, ‘and not alone, with a young lady?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have seen no one,’ the coachman answered reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>‘With whom did you come here?’</p>
+
+<p>‘With gentlefolks.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What is their name?’</p>
+
+<p>‘What is that to you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘What a fellow you are really, if it was nothing to do
+with me, I should not be asking you.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span></p>
+
+<p>The coachman gave me a searching look and smiled—apparently
+my appearance disposed him more favourably
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>‘If you have business with them then you ought to
+know their names yourself.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You are a regular flint; well, I want a gentleman
+named Ketscher.’</p>
+
+<p>The coachman smiled again, and pointing towards the
+graveyard said: ‘There, do you see something black in
+the distance? That’s himself, and the young lady is with
+him; she did not bring her hat, so Mr. Ketscher gave her
+his, luckily it was a straw one.’</p>
+
+<p>Again this time we met in a graveyard!</p>
+
+<p>With a faint cry she flung herself on my neck.</p>
+
+<p>‘And it’s for ever!’ she cried.</p>
+
+<p>‘For ever,’ I repeated. Ketscher was touched, tears
+gleamed in his eyes, he took our hands and in a trembling
+voice said, ‘Friends, be happy!’ We embraced him.
+This was our real wedding!</p>
+
+<p>For over an hour we waited in the private dining-room
+of Perov’s restaurant, and still the carriage and Matvey
+did not come! Ketscher frowned. The possibility of
+trouble never entered our heads, we were so happy there,
+the three of us, and as much at home as though we had
+always been together. There was a wood in front of
+the windows, from the storey below came strains of
+music and a gypsy chorus; the weather was lovely after
+the storm.</p>
+
+<p>I was not, like Ketscher, afraid of the police being put
+on our track by the princess; I knew that she stood too
+much on her dignity to let a policeman be mixed up in our
+family affairs. Besides, she never took any step without
+consulting the Senator, nor the Senator without consulting
+my father; my father would never consent to the police
+stopping me in Moscow or near Moscow, which would
+mean my being sent to Bobruisk or to Siberia for disobedience
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>to the will of the Most High. The only possible
+danger was from the secret police, but it had all been done
+so quickly that it was hard for them to know it. Besides,
+if they had got an inkling of anything, it would never
+occur to any one that a man who had secretly returned
+from exile and was eloping with his bride would be
+quietly sitting in Perov’s restaurant where people were
+coming in and out from morning to night.</p>
+
+<p>At last Matvey appeared with the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>‘One more glass,’ commanded Ketscher.</p>
+
+<p>And we set off.</p>
+
+<p>And then we were alone, that is, the two of us, flying
+along the Vladimir road.</p>
+
+<p>At Bunkovo while they were changing horses we went
+into the inn. The old hostess came to ask us whether
+we would like anything; and, looking at us good-naturedly,
+said: ‘How young and pretty your good lady
+is, and the two of you, God bless you, make a pretty pair.’
+We blushed up to our ears and did not dare to look at
+each other, but asked for tea to cover our confusion.
+Between five and six next day we reached Vladimir.
+There was no time to be lost; leaving Natalie with the
+family of an old official, I rushed off to find whether
+everything was ready. But who was there to get things
+ready in Vladimir?</p>
+
+<p>There are good-natured people everywhere. A
+Siberian regiment of Uhlans was stationed at Vladimir
+at the time; I was only very slightly acquainted with the
+officers, but, meeting one of them rather often in the
+public library, I took to bowing to him; he was very
+polite and charming. A month later he admitted that
+he knew me and my story in 1834 and told me that he
+was himself a student of the Moscow University. When
+I was leaving Vladimir and looking about for some one
+in whose hands to leave various arrangements, I thought
+of this officer, and told him openly what I wanted.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>Genuinely touched by my confidence, he pressed my
+hand, promised to do everything, and kept his word.</p>
+
+<p>He was awaiting me in full dress uniform, with white
+facings, with his casque uncovered, with a cartridge-case
+across his shoulder, and all sorts of cords and trimmings.
+He told me that the bishop had given the priest permission
+to marry us, but had bidden him first show the baptismal
+certificate. I gave the officer the baptismal certificate,
+while I went off to another young man who had also
+been a Moscow student. He was serving his two
+provincial years in accordance with the new regulation,
+in the governor’s office, and was almost dying of boredom.</p>
+
+<p>‘Would you like to act as best man?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Whose best man?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Mine.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yours?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, yes, mine.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Delighted. When?’</p>
+
+<p>‘At once.’</p>
+
+<p>He thought that I was joking, but when I briefly told
+him how it was, he skipped with delight. To be best
+man at a clandestine wedding, to have to make arrangements,
+possibly to get into trouble, and all that in a little
+town absolutely without any diversions! He promised
+at once to get a carriage and four horses and ran to his
+chest of drawers to see whether he had a clean white
+waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove away from him, I met my Uhlan with a
+priest sitting on his knee. Imagine a smart, gaily attired
+officer in a little droshky with a stout priest, adorned with
+a huge, flowing beard, and arrayed in a silk cassock, which
+kept catching in all the Uhlan’s useless accoutrements.
+This sight might have attracted attention not only in the
+street that led from the Golden Gate of Vladimir, but
+in the Paris boulevards, or even in Regent Street. But
+the Uhlan did not think of that, and, indeed, I only
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>thought of it afterwards. The priest had been going
+from house to house holding services, as it was St.
+Nicholas’ Day, and my cavalry officer had captured him
+by force and requisitioned him. We drove off to the
+bishop’s.</p>
+
+<p>To explain the position I must describe how the
+bishop came to be involved in it. The day before I went
+away the priest who had agreed to marry us suddenly
+announced that he would not do so without the bishop’s
+sanction, that he had heard something and was afraid to
+do it. In spite of all my eloquence, as well as the Uhlan’s,
+the priest was obstinate and stuck to his point. The
+Uhlan suggested the priest of his regiment. The latter,
+a priest with a cropped head and shaven skin, wearing a
+long, full-skirted coat and trousers tucked into his high
+boots, and placidly smoking a soldier’s pipe, though
+affected by certain details of our proposition, yet refused
+to perform the ceremony, declaring, in a mixture of
+Polish and White Russian, that he was strictly forbidden
+to marry ‘civilians.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And we are still more strictly forbidden to be witnesses
+and best men at such marriages without permission,’
+observed the officer.</p>
+
+<p>‘That’s a different matter, as God’s above us, it’s a
+different matter.’</p>
+
+<p>‘God helps those who help themselves,’ I said to the
+Uhlan. ‘I’ll go straight to the bishop. And by the
+way, why don’t you ask permission?’</p>
+
+<p>‘That won’t do. The Colonel would tell his wife
+and she’d gossip about it all over the place. Besides,
+he’d very likely refuse it.’</p>
+
+<p>Bishop Parfeny of Vladimir was a clever, austere,
+rough old man; managing and self-willed, he might
+equally well have been a governor or a general, and,
+indeed, I think he would have been more in his right
+place as a general than as a monk; but it had turned out
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>otherwise, and he ruled his diocese as he would have
+ruled a division in the Caucasus. I noticed in him far
+more of the qualities of an administrator than of one dead
+to the things of this life. He was, however, rather
+harsh than ill-natured; like all business-like men, he
+grasped questions quickly and clearly and was furious
+when people talked nonsense to him or did not understand
+him. It is far easier to come to an understanding
+with men of that sort than with soft but weak or irresolute
+persons. In accordance with the custom of all provincial
+towns, on arriving in Vladimir I went once after mass to
+call on the bishop. He received me graciously, gave
+me his blessing, and regaled me with sturgeon; then
+invited me to come some evening and talk to him, saying
+that his eyes were failing and he could not read in the
+evening. I went two or three times; he talked about
+literature, knew all the new Russian books and read the
+magazines, and so we got on splendidly together. Nevertheless,
+it was with some alarm that I knocked at his
+episcopal door.</p>
+
+<p>It was a hot day. His Reverence the bishop received
+me in the garden. He was sitting under a big, shady
+lime tree, and had taken off his monk’s cap and let his
+grey locks flow in freedom. A bald, impressive-looking
+head-priest was standing before him, bareheaded, and
+right in the sun, reading some document aloud; his face
+was crimson and big drops of perspiration stood out on
+his forehead, he screwed up his eyes at the dazzling whiteness
+of the paper with the sunlight upon it, yet he did
+not dare to move nor did the bishop tell him to step out
+of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>‘Sit down,’ he said after blessing me, ‘we are just
+finishing, these are our little Consistory affairs. Read,’
+he added to the head-priest, and the latter, after mopping
+his face with a dark blue handkerchief and coughing aside,
+set to reading again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘What news have you to tell me?’ Parfeny asked me,
+handing the pen to the head-priest, who seized this
+excellent opportunity to kiss his hand.</p>
+
+<p>I told him of the priest’s refusal.</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you the necessary papers?’ I showed him
+the governor’s permission.</p>
+
+<p>‘Is that all?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes.’</p>
+
+<p>Parfeny smiled: ‘And on the lady’s side?’</p>
+
+<p>‘There is a baptismal certificate; it will be brought
+on the day of the wedding.’</p>
+
+<p>‘When is the wedding?’</p>
+
+<p>‘In two days.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you found a house?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Not yet.’</p>
+
+<p>‘There you see,’ Parfeny said to me, putting his finger
+on his lips and pulling his mouth towards his cheek, one
+of his favourite tricks; ‘you’re an intelligent and well-read
+man, but you won’t catch an old sparrow by putting
+salt on its tail. There is something shady about it, so,
+since you have come to me, you had much better tell me
+all about it truthfully. Then I’ll tell you straightforwardly
+what can be done and what can’t, and in any
+case my advice will do you no harm.’</p>
+
+<p>My case seemed to me so clear and so just that I told
+him the whole story, without, of course, going into unnecessary
+details. The old man listened attentively and
+often looked into my face. It appeared he was an old
+acquaintance of the princess’s, and therefore could to some
+extent judge for himself of the truth of my account.</p>
+
+<p>‘I understand, I understand,’ he said when I had
+finished. ‘Well, let me write a letter to the princess on
+my own account.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I assure you that no effort at peace will lead to anything,
+her ill-humour and exasperation have gone too far.
+I have told your Reverence all about it, as you desired, now
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>I will add that if you refuse to help me I shall be forced
+to do secretly, stealthily, by bribes, what I am doing now
+quietly, but straightforwardly and openly. I can assure
+you of one thing, neither prison nor a fresh term of exile
+will stop me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You see,’ said Parfeny, getting up and stretching,
+‘what a headstrong fellow you are. Perm has not been
+enough for you, you are not broken in yet. Am I saying
+that I forbid it? Get married if you like, there is nothing
+unlawful about it; but it would have been better peacefully
+with the consent of the family. Send me your
+priest, I’ll persuade him somehow; only remember one
+thing, without the proper certificate on the bride’s side
+don’t you attempt it. So it’s a case of “Neither prison
+nor exile”—upon my word, what are people coming
+to! Well, the Lord be with you! Good luck to you,
+only you’ll get me into trouble with the princess.’</p>
+
+<p>And so in addition to the Uhlan officer his Reverence
+Parfeny, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, came into our
+conspiracy.</p>
+
+<p>When as a preliminary measure I had asked the
+governor’s permission, I had not spoken of my marriage
+as though it were clandestine; silence about that was the
+surest means of avoiding talk about it, and nothing could
+be more natural than the arrival of my future bride in
+Vladimir, since I had not the right to leave it. It was
+also natural that under the circumstances we should wish
+the wedding to be as quiet as possible.</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived with the priest at the bishop’s on the
+ninth of May, his servitor told us that he had gone to his
+country house and would not be back until night. It
+was already between seven and eight in the evening,
+weddings cannot be celebrated after ten, and the next day
+was Saturday. What was to be done? The priest was
+scared. We went in to see the head-monk, the bishop’s
+chaplain; he was drinking tea with rum in it and was in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>the most affable frame of mind. I told him our difficulty,
+he poured me out a cup of tea and insisted on my
+adding rum to it; then he took out immense silver
+spectacles, read the baptismal certificate, turned it over,
+looked at the other side where there was nothing written,
+folded it up, and giving it back to the priest said: ‘It’s
+all perfectly regular.’</p>
+
+<p>The priest still hesitated. I told the chaplain that if
+I were not married to-day it would be terribly upsetting
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why put it off?’ he said. ‘I will tell his Reverence;
+marry them, Father Ioann, marry them—in the name of
+the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.’</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for the priest to say, he drove off
+to write out our names while I galloped off for Natalie.</p>
+
+<p>When we were driving out at the Golden Gate alone
+together, the sun, which had till then been hidden by the
+clouds, shed a dazzling light upon us with its last bright,
+red glow, and so triumphantly and joyously that we both
+said in one breath: ‘That’s to see us off!’ I remember
+her smile at the words and the pressure of her hand.</p>
+
+<p>The little church of the sledge-drivers’ quarter was
+empty, there were neither choristers nor lighted candelabra.
+Five or six common soldiers of the Uhlan regiment
+came in as they were passing, and went out again. The
+old deacon chanted in a soft, faint voice, Matvey looked at
+us with tears of joy, our young ‘best men’ stood behind
+us with the heavy crowns with which all the drivers of
+Vladimir were crowned. The deacon with a shaky
+hand passed us the silver bowl of union ... it grew
+dark in the church, only a few candles glowed here and
+there; all this was, or seemed to us, extremely picturesque
+just from its simplicity. The bishop drove by, and seeing
+the church doors open stopped and sent to inquire what
+was happening. The priest, turning a little pale, went
+out himself to him, and returning a minute later with a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>cheerful face, said to us: ‘His Reverence sends you his
+episcopal blessing and bade me tell you he is praying for
+you.’</p>
+
+<p>By the time we were driving home the news of our
+clandestine marriage was all over the town; ladies were
+waiting on the balconies and the windows were open.
+I let down the carriage windows and was a little vexed
+that the darkness prevented me from showing my ‘fair
+bride.’</p>
+
+<p>At home we drank two bottles of wine with Matvey
+and the ‘best men,’ the latter stayed twenty minutes with
+us, and then we were left alone, and again, as at Perov’s,
+that seemed so natural that we were not in the least
+surprised at it, though for months afterwards we could
+not get over the wonder of it.</p>
+
+<p>We had three rooms, we sat at a little table in the
+drawing-room, and forgetting the fatigue of the last few
+days we talked half the night.</p>
+
+<p>To have a crowd of outsiders at the wedding festivities
+has always seemed to me something coarse, unseemly,
+almost cynical; why this premature lifting of the veil
+from love, this initiation of indifferent casual spectators
+into the privacy of the family? How all these hackneyed
+greetings, commonplace vulgarities, stupid allusions, must
+wound the poor girl who is thrust into the public eye in
+the part of bride ... not one delicate feeling is spared,
+the luxury of the bridal chamber, the charm of the night
+attire displayed, not only for the visitors but for every
+idle gazer. And afterwards the first days of the new life
+that is beginning, in which every minute is precious,
+which ought to be spent far away in solitude, are, as though
+in mockery, passed in endless dinners and exhausting
+balls, amidst a crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning we found two rose-bushes and an
+immense nosegay awaiting us in the dining-room. Dear,
+kind Yulia Fyodorovna (the governor’s wife), who took
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>a warm interest in our romance, had sent them. I
+embraced and kissed her footman and then we went off
+to see her. As the bride’s trousseau consisted of two
+dresses, the one in which she had travelled and the other
+one in which she had been married, she put on the
+wedding dress.</p>
+
+<p>From Yulia Fyodorovna’s we drove to the bishop’s;
+the old man himself led us into the garden, with his own
+hands cut us a nosegay of flowers, told Natalie how I had
+tried to frighten him with the prospect of my own ruin,
+and in conclusion advised her to study housekeeping.
+‘Do you know how to salt cucumbers?’ he asked
+Natalie.</p>
+
+<p>‘I do,’ she answered, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, I don’t feel sure of it. And you know, it is
+essential!’</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I wrote a letter to my father. I begged
+him not to be angry at the accomplished fact, and, ‘since
+God had united us,’ to forgive me and add his blessing.
+My father as a rule wrote me a few lines once a week;
+he did not write one day earlier or later in reply, and
+even began his letter exactly as usual: ‘I received your
+letter of the 10th of May, at half-past five the day before
+yesterday, and from it learned, not without regret, that
+God had united you with Natasha. I do not repine
+against the will of God in anything, but submit blindly
+to the trials which He lays upon me. But since the
+money is mine and you have not thought it necessary to
+regard my wishes, I must inform you that I shall not add
+one kopeck to your present allowance of one thousand
+silver roubles a year.’</p>
+
+<p>How spontaneously we laughed at this distinction
+between the spiritual and temporal power.</p>
+
+<p>And yet how we needed something more! The
+money I had borrowed was all spent. We had nothing,
+absolutely nothing, no clothes, no linen, no crockery.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>We sat shut up in a little flat because we had nothing to
+go out in. Matvey with a view to economy made a
+desperate effort to transform himself into a cook, but
+except beefsteaks and collops he could cook nothing, and
+so for the most part confined himself to ready-cooked
+provisions, ham, salt fish, milk, eggs, cheese, and extremely
+hard cakes flavoured with mint and not in their first
+youth. Dinner was an endless source of amusement to
+us; sometimes we had milk first by way of soup, and
+sometimes last by way of dessert. Over this Spartan fare
+we used to recall, smiling, the long process of the sacred
+ritual of dinner at the princess’s and at my father’s, where
+half a dozen flunkeys ran about the room with bowls and
+dishes, cloaking under the magnificent <i>mise en scène</i> the
+really very unattractive fare.</p>
+
+<p>So we struggled along in poverty for a year. ‘The
+Chemist’ sent us ten thousand paper roubles; more than
+six thousand of this went to pay our debts, and what
+remained was a great help. At last even my father was
+tired of attacking us like a fortress by hunger, and without
+adding to my allowance he began sending us presents
+of money, though I never dropped a hint about money
+after his famous <i>distinguo</i>!</p>
+
+<p>I began looking for another lodging. A big, deserted
+manor-house with a garden was to let. It belonged to
+the widow of a prince who had ruined himself at cards,
+and it was being let very cheaply because it was far away
+and inconvenient, and, above all, because the princess
+bargained to keep part of it, in no way separated from
+the rest, for her son, a spoilt fellow of thirty, and for the
+servants. No one would agree to this partial possession;
+I at once accepted it, for I was fascinated by the loftiness
+of the rooms, the size of the windows, and the big, shady
+garden. But this very loftiness and spaciousness made a
+very amusing contrast with our complete lack of movable
+belongings and articles of the first necessity. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>princess’s housekeeper, a good-natured old woman, who
+was greatly attracted by Matvey, provided us at her own
+risk, first with a table-cloth, then with cups, then with
+sheets, then with knives and forks.</p>
+
+<p>What bright and untroubled days we spent in the
+little three-roomed flat at the Golden Gate and in the
+princess’s immense house!... There was a big,
+scarcely furnished drawing-room, in it we were sometimes
+taken by such childishness that we raced about it, jumped
+over the chairs, lighted candles in all the candelabra
+ensconced on the wall, and after illuminating the room
+<i>a giorno</i>, recited poetry. Matvey and our maid, a young
+Greek girl, took part in everything and ‘played the fool’
+as much as we did. Discipline was ‘not maintained’ in
+our household.</p>
+
+<p>And for all this childishness our life was full of a deep
+earnestness. Cast away in the quiet, peaceful little town,
+we were completely devoted to each other. From time
+to time came news of some one of our friends, a few words
+of warm sympathy, and then again we were alone, absolutely
+alone. But in this solitude our hearts were not
+closed by our happiness; on the contrary, they were
+more open to every interest than ever before; we led a
+full and many-sided life, we thought and read, gave ourselves
+up to every pursuit and again concentrated on our
+love; we compared our thoughts and dreams, and saw
+with amazement how endless was our sympathy, how in
+all the subtlest turns and twists of feeling and thought,
+taste and antipathy, all was kinship and harmony. The
+only difference was that Natalie brought into our union
+a gentle, mild, gracious element, the characteristics of a
+young girl with all the poesy of a loving woman, while
+I brought lively activity, my <i>semper in motu</i>, infinite love,
+and, moreover, a medley of earnest ideas, laughter,
+‘dangerous’ thoughts and Utopian projects.</p>
+
+<p>My desires had reached a standstill, I was satisfied, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>lived in the present, I expected nothing from the morrow,
+I carelessly trusted that it would take nothing from me.
+Personal life could give nothing more, it had reached the
+limit; any change could but diminish it, on one side or
+another.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring Ogaryov came from his exile for a few
+days. He was then in the very height of his powers;
+he was soon to pass through painful experiences; at
+moments he seemed to feel that trouble was near, but he
+could still turn round and look upon the lifted hand of
+destiny as a dream. I myself thought then that the
+storm-clouds would be dissipated; carelessness is
+characteristic of everything young and not devoid of
+strength, and in it is expressed a trust in life and oneself.
+The feeling of complete mastery over one’s fate lulls us
+asleep ... while dark clouds and black-hearted people
+draw us without a word to the edge of the precipice.</p>
+
+<p>And well it is that man either does not suspect, or can
+shut his eyes and forget. Where there is apprehension
+there can never be complete happiness; complete happiness
+is serene as the sea in the calm of summer. Apprehension
+gives its peculiar, feverish, morbid thrill which
+fascinates like the thrill of suspense at cards, but how far
+away it is from the feeling of harmonious infinite peace.
+And so, whether it be a dream or not, I deeply prize that
+trust in life, before life itself has refuted it and has
+awakened one.... The Chinese die for the coarse
+illusion of it given by opium.</p>
+
+<p>So I ended this chapter in 1853 and so I end it now.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_24">Chapter 24<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Thirteenth of June 1839</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">One long, winter evening towards the end of 1838
+we were sitting, as always, alone, reading and
+then not reading, talking and then being silent, and in
+silence continuing the talk. There was a hard frost
+outside, and even in the room it was not at all warm.
+Natasha did not feel well and was lying on the sofa,
+covered with a cloak. I was sitting on the floor near
+her; my reading did not get on, she was inattentive,
+thinking of something else and absorbed, and her face
+kept changing.</p>
+
+<p>‘Alexandr,’ she said, ‘I have a secret, come nearer
+and I will tell you in your ear, but guess it yourself.’</p>
+
+<p>I did guess, but insisted on her telling me. I longed
+to hear this news from her: she told me, we looked at
+each other in excitement and with tears in our eyes.</p>
+
+<p>How rich is the human heart in the capacity for
+happiness, for joy, if only people know how to give themselves
+up to it without being distracted by trifle. As a
+rule the present is spoilt by external worries, empty cares,
+irritable fussiness, all the rubbish which is brought upon
+us in the midday of life by the vanity of vanities, and the
+stupid ordering of our everyday life. We waste our
+best minutes, we let them slip through our fingers as
+though we had an endless store of them. We are
+usually thinking of to-morrow, of next year, when we
+ought with both hands to be clasping the brimming cup
+which life itself, unbidden, with her customary lavishness,
+holds out to us, and to drink and drink of it until the cup
+passes into other hands. Nature does not care to waste
+time offering it and pressing us.</p>
+
+<p>One would have thought nothing could have been
+added to our happiness, and yet the news of the coming
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>child opened new vistas of feeling, new raptures, hopes
+and apprehensions of which we had before known
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Love, a little scared and agitated, grows more tender,
+is more anxious in its solicitude, from the egoism of two
+it becomes not a mere egoism of three but the sacrifice
+of two for a third; family life begins with the child. A
+new element is entering into life, a mysterious person is
+knocking at its portals, a guest who is yet is not, but whose
+coming is essential, who is eagerly awaited. What will
+he be? No one knows, but whatever he may be like,
+he is a happy stranger, with what love he is met on the
+threshold of life!</p>
+
+<p>And then there is the agonising anxiety: would he be
+born alive or not? There are so many unhappy possibilities.
+The doctor smiles at the questions: ‘He knows
+nothing or will not say,’ one thinks; everything is still
+hidden from outsiders; there is no one to ask, besides
+one is shy.</p>
+
+<p>And then the child gives signs of life. I know no loftier
+and more religious feeling than that which fills the heart
+at feeling the first movements of the future being,
+struggling and stretching its immature muscles, that
+first touch with which the father blesses the newcomer
+and yields a place for him in his life.</p>
+
+<p>‘My wife,’ a French bourgeois said to me once, ‘my
+wife’—and seeing that there were neither ladies nor
+children present, added in an undertone—‘is pregnant.’</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the muddle of all our moral conceptions is
+such that pregnancy is looked upon as something improper.
+Though childbirth should claim unconditional respect
+for the mother, whoever she may be, the facts are kept
+secret not from a feeling of respect or spiritual delicacy,
+but from a regard for propriety. All that is the depravity
+of idealism, the corruption of monasticism, the accursed
+immolation of the flesh; it all comes from that unhappy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>dualism which draws us like Magdeburg hemispheres in
+opposite directions. Jeanne Deroin,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> in spite of her
+socialism, hints in her <i>Almanach des Femmes</i> that in time
+children will be born differently. How differently?—As
+the angels are born.—Well, that makes it clear.</p>
+
+<p>Honour and glory to our teacher, the old realist Goethe.
+He had the courage to set the woman with child beside
+the innocent maidens of romanticism, and did not fear to
+mould in his mighty verse the changing forms of the future
+mother, comparing them with the supple limbs of the
+future woman.</p>
+
+<p>Truly the woman who bears with the memory of past
+transports the whole cross of love, all its burden, sacrificing
+beauty and time, suffering, feeding from her own bosom,
+is one of the most beautiful and touching figures.</p>
+
+<p>In the Roman elegies, in the Weaver, in Gretchen and
+her despairing prayer, Goethe has expressed all the
+solemn beauty with which nature surrounds the ripening
+fruit and all the thorns with which society crowns that
+vessel of the future life.</p>
+
+<p>Poor mothers, who hide as though it were shame the
+traces of love, how brutally and mercilessly the world
+persecutes them, and persecutes them at the very time
+when the woman needs peace and kindness, savagely
+poisoning for her those priceless moments in which life
+droops fainting under the weight of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the secret is with horror discovered: the
+luckless mother at first tries to persuade herself that it is
+fancy, but soon doubt is impossible; with despair and
+tears she follows every movement of her babe, she would
+like to check the secret workings of its life, to turn it back,
+she hopes for some misfortune as a mercy, as pardon—while
+inexorable nature goes its way; she is young and
+healthy!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span></p>
+
+<p>To force a mother to desire the death of her own
+child, and sometimes even more, to drive her to be its
+murderess and then to punish her, or to cover her with
+shame if the mother’s heart is too strong for her—how
+intelligently and morally is society organised!</p>
+
+<p>And who has weighed, who has considered what passes
+in her heart while the mother crosses the terrible path
+from love to fear, from fear to despair, to crime, to madness,
+for infanticide is physiological abnormality. She
+too has had, of course, moments of forgetfulness, in which
+she has passionately loved her coming little one, only the
+more because his existence was a secret between them;
+there have been times when she has dreamed of his little
+feet, of his milky smile, has kissed him in his sleep, has
+found in him a likeness to one who has been so dear to
+her....</p>
+
+<p>‘But do they feel it? Of course there are unhappy
+victims ... but ... the others, but the average?’</p>
+
+<p>It would be hard, one fancies, to sink lower than those
+bats that flit about at night in the fog and slush of the
+London streets, those victims of ignorance, poverty, and
+want, with whom society guards its respectable women
+from the excesses of their admirers’ sensuality ... in
+them, of course, it would be hardest of all to assume
+traces of maternal feeling, would it not?</p>
+
+<p>Allow me to tell you of a little incident that occurred
+to me. Three years ago I met a young and beautiful
+girl. She belonged to the higher ranks of prostitution,
+that is, did not democratically walk the streets, but lived
+in bourgeois style, kept by a merchant. It was at a
+public ball; the friend who was with me knew her and
+invited her to drink a bottle of wine with us in the gallery,
+she, of course, accepted the invitation. She was a merry,
+careless creature, and probably like Laura in Pushkin’s
+<i>Don Juan</i> was never worried by the fact that far away in
+Paris it was cold while she heard the watchman in Madrid
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>cry ‘The sun is shining.’ ... After swallowing the last
+glass she rushed back to the ponderous whirl of the
+English dances and I lost sight of her.</p>
+
+<p>This winter, one wet evening I crossed the street to
+stand under the Arcade in Pall Mall to escape the streaming
+rain; a poorly dressed woman, shivering with cold,
+was standing under the lamp-post in the archway, probably
+on the watch for her prey. Her features struck me
+as familiar, she glanced at me, turned away and tried to
+shrink out of sight, but I had time to recognise her.
+‘What has happened to you?’ I asked her with sympathy.
+Her sunken cheeks were suffused with bright
+crimson, whether from shame or consumption I do not
+know, but it did not seem like rouge; those two years and
+a half had made her look ten years older.</p>
+
+<p>‘I was ill for a long time and was very unfortunate,’
+with a look of great distress she glanced towards her
+shabby clothes.</p>
+
+<p>‘But where is your friend?’</p>
+
+<p>‘He was killed in the Crimea.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, but he was a merchant, wasn’t he?’</p>
+
+<p>She was confused, and instead of answering, said:
+‘I am very ill even now, and besides I have no work at
+all. Why, have I changed so much?’ she asked, looking
+at me suddenly in embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>‘Very much: in those days you were like a little girl,
+and now I shouldn’t mind betting that you have children
+of your own.’</p>
+
+<p>She flushed crimson, and with a sort of terror asked:
+‘How did you know that?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you see, I do know. Now tell me, what really
+has been happening to you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Nothing, only you are right, I have got a little boy ...
+if only you knew,’ and at those words her face brightened,
+‘what a splendid, handsome little fellow he is, even the
+neighbours all admire him. But that man married a rich
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>girl and went away to the Continent. The baby was
+born afterwards. He is to blame for my position. At
+first I had money and used to buy him everything in the
+biggest shops, but now things have got worse and worse
+and I have taken everything to “my uncle.” I have been
+advised to put baby out in the country, it certainly would
+be better for him, but I can’t; I look at him, I just look
+at him and feel, no, we had better die together; I tried
+to find a situation, but they won’t take me with the baby.
+I went back to mother’s, she was all right, she’s got a
+kind heart, she forgave me, she is fond of the boy and
+makes a lot of him; but for five months now she has been
+bedridden—what with the doctor to pay and the medicine
+and then, as you know yourself, coal and bread and
+everything so dear this year, there was nothing but
+starvation before us there. So I——,’ she paused, ‘of
+course, it would be better to throw myself in the Thames
+than ... but there’s baby and I’m sorry for him, whom
+should I leave him to, and you know he’s such a darling!’</p>
+
+<p>I gave her something and in addition took out a shilling
+and said: ‘And spend that on something for your baby.’
+She took the coin joyfully, held it in her hand, and all
+at once, giving it back to me, added with a mournful smile:
+‘Since you are so kind, buy him something yourself in
+some shop here, a toy or something, for no one has ever
+given him a present, poor little darling, since he was born.’</p>
+
+<p>I looked with emotion at this <i>lost</i> woman and pressed
+her hand affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>The zealous champions of ladies with camellias and
+pearls would do better to leave velvet furniture and rococo
+boudoirs alone and look at the wretched, starved, and
+shivering prostitution close at hand, the fatal prostitution
+which forces its victims down the road to ruin and gives
+no chance for rallying nor repentance. Scavengers more
+often find precious stones in the gutter than amongst the
+tinsel of tawdry finery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span></p>
+
+<p>That reminded me of that clever translator of <i>Faust</i>,
+poor Gérard de Nerval, who shot himself last year. He
+had not been home for five or six days. It was discovered
+at last that he was spending his time in the lowest dens
+near the town gates, as Paul Niquet used to do, that
+there he had made friends with thieves, with low creatures
+of all sorts, was treating them to drink, playing cards with
+them, and sometimes sleeping under their protection.
+His old friends tried to persuade him to come away and
+to put him to shame. Nerval, defending himself good-naturedly,
+once said to them: ‘Let me tell you, my
+friends, you are fearfully conventional. I assure you
+that the society of these people is no worse than that of
+any others I have been among.’ He had been suspected
+of madness; after that saying I imagine the suspicion
+passed into conviction!</p>
+
+<p>The fatal day was approaching and everything became
+more and more dreadful. I looked at the doctor and
+the mysterious face of the midwife with slavish reverence.
+Neither Natasha nor I nor our young maid knew anything
+about it; luckily, at my father’s request, an elderly lady,
+an intelligent, practical, and capable woman called Praskovya
+Andreyevna, came from Moscow to stay with us.
+Seeing our helplessness she took the reins of management
+entirely into her own hands and I obeyed her like a nigger.</p>
+
+<p>One night I felt a hand touch me, I opened my eyes.
+Praskovya Andreyevna was standing before me in a
+nightcap and dressing-gown with a candle in her hand;
+she told me to send for the doctor and the midwife. I
+was petrified as though the news were something quite
+unexpected. I felt as though I should have liked to take a
+dose of opium, turn over on the other side and sleep through
+the danger ... but there was no help for it. I dressed
+with trembling hands and rushed to wake Matvey.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen times I ran out from the bedroom into the
+hall to listen for a carriage in the distance. Everything
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>was still but for the faint, faint rustle of the breeze of
+morning in the warm June air of the garden; the birds
+were beginning to sing, the crimson dawn threw a light
+flush over the leaves, and again I hurried back to the bedroom,
+pestered kind Praskovya Andreyevna with stupid
+questions, squeezed Natasha’s hands convulsively, did
+not know what to do, trembled and was in a fever ...
+but at last the chaise rattled on the bridge—thank God,
+it was in time!</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o’clock in the morning I started as from a
+violent electric shock when the loud scream of a new-born
+baby reached my ear. ‘A boy,’ Praskovya Andreyevna
+called to me as she went towards the cradle; I would
+have taken the baby from the pillow, but I could not, my
+hands trembled so violently. The thought of danger
+(which often indeed is only beginning at this stage) that
+had weighed upon me vanished at once, a wild joy took
+possession of my heart as though all the bells were pealing
+for a festival of festivals! Natasha smiled at me, smiled
+at the baby, wept and laughed, and only her broken
+breathing, her weary eyes, and deathly pallor reminded
+me of the struggle, the agony that she had just passed
+through.</p>
+
+<p>Then I left the room, I could bear no more. I went
+into my study and flung myself on the sofa, at the end of
+my strength, and lay for half an hour without definite
+thought, without definite feeling, in a sort of anguish of
+bliss.</p>
+
+<p>That face of exhausted ecstasy, that joy flitting on the
+brink of death upon the mother’s countenance, I recognised
+again in Vandyke’s Madonna in the Corsini Gallery
+at Rome. The baby has just been born, they are holding
+it up to the mother; exhausted, with not a drop of blood
+in her face, faint and weary, she smiles, while her tired
+eyes rest on the baby with a look of infinite love.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the Virgin Mother is quite
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>out of keeping with the celibate religion of Christianity.
+With her, life, love, gentleness cannot but break into the
+everlasting funeral, the dread day of judgment, and the
+other horrors of Church theology.</p>
+
+<p>That is why Protestantism has rejected the Virgin
+Mother <i>only</i> from its barn-like chapels, from its factories
+of God’s word. She really does interfere with Christian
+propriety, she cannot escape from her earthly nature, she
+warms the cold church, and in spite of everything remains
+a woman, a mother. She makes up for the supernatural
+conception by the natural birth, and snatches a blessing
+on her labour from the lips of monastic worshippers who
+curse everything bodily.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Angelo and Raphael grasped that in their
+painting.</p>
+
+<p>In ‘The Day of Judgment’ in the Sistine Chapel, in
+that massacre of St. Bartholomew in the other world, we
+see the Son of God going to preside over the executions;
+He has already lifted His hand.... He will give the
+signal, and tortures, agonies will follow, the last trump
+will sound, the universal <i>auto-da-fé</i> will begin crackling;
+but—the Mother, trembling and suffering for all, presses
+up to Him in horror, and is imploring Him on behalf of
+the sinners; looking at her He will perhaps be softened
+and forget His cruel ‘Woman, what hast thou to do with
+me?’ and will not give the signal.</p>
+
+<p>The Sistine Madonna is Mignon after the child’s birth,
+she is frightened at her incredible fate, helpless....</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Was hat man dir, du armes Kind, gethan?’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Her inner peace is shattered, she has been told that
+her son is the Son of God, that she is the Mother of God;
+she looks with a sort of nervous ecstasy, with mesmeric
+clairvoyance she seems to be saying: ‘Take Him, He
+is not mine.’ But at the same time she presses Him to
+herself as though, if she could, she would fly with Him
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>far away and would simply fondle and feed at her bosom
+not the Saviour of the world but her own babe. And
+all this is because she is a human mother and has no
+kinship with Isis and Rhea and all the other gods of the
+female sex.</p>
+
+<p>That is why it has been so easy for her to conquer the
+cold Aphrodite, that Ninon L’Enclos of Olympus, whose
+children no one troubles about. Mary with her babe
+in her arms, with her eyes always gently looking down
+upon Him, surrounded by the halo of womanliness and
+the holiness of motherhood, is nearer to our hearts than
+the golden-haired Aphrodite.</p>
+
+<p>To my thinking Pius <span class="allsmcap">IX.</span> and his Conclave were very
+consistent in proclaiming the unnatural or, in their
+language, immaculate conception of the Virgin. Mary,
+born naturally like you and me, would naturally stand
+up for men and sympathise with us: in her the living
+reconciliation of flesh and spirit would steal into religion.
+If even she was not humanly born, there is nothing in
+common between her and us, she will not feel for us, and
+the flesh is once more damned—and the Church more
+essential than ever for salvation.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity that the Pope is a thousand years too late.
+That, it seems, is Pius <span class="allsmcap">IX.</span>’s fate. <i>Troppo tardi, Santo
+Padre, siete sempre e sempre—troppo tardi!</i></p>
+
+<p class="mt2">When I wrote this part of my Memoirs I had not our
+old letters. I got them in 1856. After reading them
+over I had to correct two or three passages, not more.
+My memory had not betrayed me. I should have liked
+to add a few of Natalie’s letters, and at the same time I am
+restrained by a sort of dread and cannot decide the
+question whether I ought to lay bare our life any further,
+and whether those lines so dear to me might not meet with
+a cold smile.</p>
+
+<p>Among Natalie’s papers I found my own notes to her,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>written partly before prison and partly from the Krutitsky
+Barracks.... Some of them I append to this part.
+Perhaps they will not seem superfluous to those who are
+fond of tracing the sources of men’s destinies, perhaps such
+will read them with that nervous interest with which we
+look through the microscope at the development of the
+living organism.</p>
+
+<h4>I&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>&#x2060;</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><i>August 15th, 1832.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Natalya Alexandrovna</span>,—To-day is your birthday;
+I should very much have liked to wish you many
+happy returns in person, but there really is no possibility.
+I am sorry I have not been to see you for so long, but
+circumstances have quite prevented me from disposing of
+my time as I should have liked. I hope that you will
+forgive me, and wish you the full development of all your
+talents and all the treasures of happiness which fate
+bestows on the pure in heart.—Your devoted</p>
+
+<p class="right">A. H.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><i>July 5th or 6th, 1833.</i></p>
+
+<p>You are wrong, Natalya Alexandrovna. You are quite
+wrong in thinking that I should confine myself to one
+letter—here is another for you. It is extremely pleasant
+to write to persons with whom one is in sympathy, there
+are so few of them, so few that one wouldn’t use a quire
+of paper on them in a year.</p>
+
+<p>I am a graduate, that is true, but they did not give me
+the gold medal. I have a silver medal—<i>one of three</i>!</p>
+
+<p class="right">A. H.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>—To-day there was the prize-giving, but I didn’t
+go for I don’t care to be second.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span></p>
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right">(<i>At the beginning of 1834.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Natalie! we are expecting you impatiently. M——
+hopes that in spite of E—— I——’s threats yesterday
+Amelia Mihailovna will be sure to come too, and so,
+till we meet,—Wholly yours,</p>
+
+<p class="right">A. H.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Krutitsky Barracks</span>,<br>
+<i>December 10th, 1834</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have just written a letter to the colonel in which I
+have asked for a permit for you, there is no answer yet.
+It will be harder for you to arrange it, but I rely on
+Mother. You were in luck in regard to me, you were
+the last of my friends whom I saw before my arrest [we
+parted confidently hoping to see each other soon at nine
+o’clock, but at two I was already in the police-station], and
+you will be the first to see me again. Knowing you, I
+know that that will give you pleasure, let me assure you
+that it will me too. To me you are a sister.</p>
+
+<p>There is not much for me to say about myself. I have
+settled down and grown used to being a prisoner. The
+most dreadful thing for me is the separation from Ogaryov,
+he is essential to me. I have not seen him once—that is,
+not properly—though on one occasion I was sitting alone
+in a little lobby (at the committee), my examination was
+over; from my window the lighted porch could be seen;
+a chaise was brought round, I rushed instinctively to the
+window, opened the little pane and saw an adjutant get
+in together with Ogaryov. The chaise drove off and he
+had no chance to see me. Can we be fated to perish by
+a mute, inglorious death, of which no one will hear?
+Why then has nature given us spirits craving for activity,
+for glory? Can that be a mockery? But no, faith,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>strong and living, glows here in my heart, there is a
+providence watching over us! I am reading with delight
+<i>The Lives of the Saints</i>; there you have examples of self-sacrifice,
+there you have men!</p>
+
+<p>I have just received the answer, it is not cheering—they
+refuse the permit.</p>
+
+<p>Good-bye, remember and love your brother.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><i>December 31st, 1834.</i></p>
+
+<p>I will never take upon myself the responsibility which
+you lay upon me, never! You have a great deal that is
+<i>your own</i>, why then do you give yourself up to my will
+like this? I want you to make <i>of yourself whatever you
+can make of yourself</i>; for my part I undertake to assist that
+development, to remove obstacles.</p>
+
+<p>As for your position, it is not so bad for your development
+as you imagine. You have a great advantage over
+many; as soon as you began to understand yourself, you
+found yourself alone, alone in the whole world. Others
+have known a father’s love and a mother’s tenderness—you
+have not had them. No one has cared to look after
+you, you have been left to yourself. What can be better
+for development? Thank your fates that no one did
+look after you, they would have instilled something alien
+to you, they would have warped your childish soul—now
+it is too late.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Krutitsky Barracks</span>,<br>
+<i>February 1835</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I am told you have an idea of going into a nunnery;
+don’t expect me to smile at the idea, I understand it, but
+it needs to be very, very thoroughly weighed. Can it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>be that the thought of love has never stirred your bosom?
+A nunnery means despair, there are no nunneries now for
+prayer. Can you doubt that you will one day meet a
+man who will love you, whom you will love? How
+joyfully I shall press his hand and yours. He will be
+happy. If that <i>he</i> does not appear—then go into a
+nunnery, that is a million times better than a vulgar
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p>I understand <i>le ton d’exaltation</i> of your letters—<i>you
+are in love!</i> If you write to me that you are seriously
+in love I’ll say nothing—a brother’s authority stops at
+that. But I must have you say those words. Do you
+know what ordinary men are? They may of course
+make some people happy—but can they make you happy,
+Natasha? You think too little of yourself! Better
+into a nunnery than into the common herd. Remember
+one thing, that I say this because I am your brother,
+<i>because I am proud of you and for you</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have received another letter from Ogaryov; here is
+an extract from it: ‘L’autre jour donc je repassais dans
+ma mémoire toute ma vie. Un bonheur qui ne m’a
+jamais trahi, c’est ton amitié. De toutes mes passions,
+une seule qui est restée intacte c’est mon amitié pour toi,
+car mon amitié est une passion.’</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, one word more. What is so strange
+about it if he does love you? What would he be if he
+did not love you, seeing a shade of attention on your side?
+But I beseech you don’t tell him of your love—not for
+a long time.</p>
+
+<p>Farewell.—Your brother,</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Alexandr</span>.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What marvels happen in the world, Natalie! Before
+I got your last letter I had answered all your questions.
+I have heard that you are ill and melancholy. Take care
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>of yourself, drink resolutely the—not so much bitter as—loathsome
+cup which your <i>benefactors</i> fill for you.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>And after that on another sheet of paper follows:—</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Natasha, my dear, my sister, for God’s sake don’t lose
+heart, despise these abominable egoists, you make too
+much allowance for them, despise them all—they are
+wretches! It was an awful moment for me when I read
+your letter to Amelia. My God, what a position I am
+in! What can I do for you? I swear that no brother
+loves his sister more than I do you, but what can I do?</p>
+
+<p>I received your letter and am pleased with you. Forget
+him, if that is how it is; it was an experiment, and if it
+had really been love it would not have been expressed
+like that.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>VIII</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Krutitsky Barracks</span>,<br>
+<i>April 2nd</i>.</p>
+
+<p>My heart is torn to shreds, I have not been so crushed,
+so shattered, all the while I have been in prison as now.
+It is not exile that is the cause of it. What do I care
+whether it is Perm or Moscow, Moscow is no better than
+Perm. Let me tell you all about it.</p>
+
+<p>On the 31st of March we were summoned to hear our
+sentence. It was a glorious, magnificent day. Twenty
+fellows were gathered together, who were to be immediately
+scattered, some to the cells of the fortresses, others
+to distant towns, while all of them had spent nine months
+in captivity. They all sat, a noisy, merry company, in
+the big hall. When I went in, Sokolovsky, with a beard
+and a moustache, threw himself on my neck, and S——
+was there too. Ogaryov was brought in a good while
+after me, and all rushed to greet him; we embraced with
+tears and a smile. Everything rose up in my heart, I
+lived, I was a youth, I pressed every one’s hand, in fact
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I had
+not a gloomy thought. At last the sentence&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> was read
+out.</p>
+
+<p>All was well, but yesterday—damnation take it!—has
+shattered me in every nerve. Obolensky is being confined
+in the same place with me. When the sentence
+had been read us, I asked leave of Tsinsky for us to see
+each other and was given permission. On returning I
+went to see him, and meanwhile they had forgotten to tell
+the colonel about the permission. Next day that blackguard
+of an officer S—— reported the matter to the
+colonel, and in that way I got three of the very best officers
+into trouble who had shown me no end of kindness; they
+were all reprimanded and all punished, and now have to
+be on duty for three weeks (and it is Easter!) without
+being relieved. Vassilyev the gendarme has been flogged,
+and all through me. I bit my fingers, cried, raged, and
+the first thought that came into my head was revenge.
+I told things about the officer which may ruin him (he
+used to go off somewhere with a prisoner), and then
+remembered that he is a poor man and the father of seven
+children; but ought one to spare the sneak? Did he
+spare others?</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>IX</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><i>April 10th, 1835. Nine o’clock.</i></p>
+
+<p>A few hours before departure I am still writing, and
+writing to you—my last word as I go away shall be for
+you. Bitter is the feeling of separation, and involuntary
+separation, but such is the fate to which I have given
+myself up, it draws me on and I submit. When shall
+we see each other? Where? All that is dark, but
+bright is the thought of your affection, the exile will never
+forget his charming sister.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Perhaps</i> ... but I cannot finish, for they have come
+for me—and so farewell for long, but, on my word, not
+for ever, I cannot think that.</p>
+
+<p>All this is written in the presence of the gendarmes.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Traces of tears can be seen on this note and the word
+<i>perhaps</i> has been twice underlined by her. Natalie
+carried this note about with her for several months.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_IV">PART IV<br>
+<span class="smcap">MOSCOW, PETERSBURG, AND NOVGOROD<br>
+(1840-1847)</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_25">Chapter 25<br>
+<span class="smcap">Dissonance—A New Circle—Desperate Hegelianism—V.
+Byelinsky, M. Bakunin, and others—A Quarrel
+with Byelinsky and Reconciliation—Argument with
+a Lady at Novgorod—Stankevitch’s Circle.</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">At the beginning of 1840 we left Vladimir and the
+poor, narrow Klyazma. With anxiety and an
+aching heart I left the little town where we were married.
+I foresaw that the same simple, deep, spiritual life would
+not come again, and that we should have to take in our
+sails.</p>
+
+<p>Our long, solitary walks out of the town, where, lost
+among the meadows, we felt so keenly the spring in
+nature and the spring in our hearts, would never come
+again....</p>
+
+<p>The winter evenings when, sitting side by side, we
+closed the book and listened to the crunch of sledge-runners
+and the jingle of bells that reminded us of the
+3rd of March 1838 and our journey of the 9th of May
+would never come again....</p>
+
+<p>They will never come again!</p>
+
+<p>In how many keys and for how many ages men have
+known and repeated that ‘the May of life blossoms once
+and never again,’ and yet the June of mature age with its
+hard work, with its stony roads, catches a man unawares.
+Youth, all unheeding, floats along in a sort of algebra of
+ideas, feelings, and yearnings, is little interested in the
+concrete, little touched by it, and then comes love, the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>unknown quantity found; all is concentrated on one
+person, through whom everything passes, in whom the
+universal becomes precious, in whom the artistic becomes
+beautiful; then, too, the young are untouched by the
+external, they are devoted to each other, let the grass
+grow as it will!</p>
+
+<p>And it does grow, together with the nettles and the
+thistles, and sooner or later they begin to sting or prick.</p>
+
+<p>We knew that we could not take Vladimir with us, but
+still we thought that our May was not yet over. I even
+fancied that in going back to Moscow I was going back
+to my student days. All the surroundings helped to
+maintain the illusion. The same house, the same furniture—here
+was the room where Ogaryov and I, shut in
+together, used to conspire two paces away from the
+Senator and my father, and here was my father himself,
+grown older and more bent, but just as ready to scold
+me for coming home late. ‘Who is lecturing to-morrow?
+Where is the class? I am going from the university to
+Ogaryov’s....’ It was 1833 over again!</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov was actually there.</p>
+
+<p>He had received permission to go to Moscow a few
+months before me. Again his house became a centre
+where friends, old and new, met. And although the
+old unity was no more, every one was in sympathy with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov, as I have had occasion to observe already,
+was endowed with a peculiar magnetism, a feminine
+quality of attraction. For no apparent reason others
+are drawn to such people and cling to them; they warm,
+unite, and soothe them, they are like an open table at
+which every one sits down, renews his strength, rests,
+grows calmer and more stout-hearted, and goes away a
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>His acquaintances swallowed up a great deal of his
+time; he suffered at times from this, but still kept his doors
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>open, and met every one with his gentle smile. Many
+people thought it a great weakness. Yes, time was lost
+and wasted, but the love, not only of intimate friends, but
+of outsiders, of the weak, was won; that is worth as much
+as reading and other pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>I never can make out how people like Ogaryov can be
+accused of idleness. The standards of the factory and
+the workhouse do not apply in their case. I remember
+that in our student days Vadim and I were once sitting
+over a glass of wine when he suddenly became more and
+more gloomy, and all at once with tears in his eyes
+repeated the words of Don Carlos (who quoted them from
+Julius Caesar): ‘Twenty-three and nothing done for
+eternity!’ This so mortified him that with all his might
+he brought his open hand down upon the green wine-glass
+and cut it badly. All that is so, but neither Caesar
+nor Don Carlos and Posa, nor Vadim and I explained
+why we must do something for eternity. There is work
+and it has to be done, and is it to be done for the sake of
+the work, or for the sake of being remembered by mankind?</p>
+
+<p>All that is somewhat obscure: and what is work?</p>
+
+<p>Work, business.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> ... Officials recognise as such only
+civil and legal affairs, the merchant regards nothing but
+commerce as work, military men call it their work to
+strut about like cranes armed from head to toe in times
+of peace. To my thinking, to serve as the link, as the
+centre of a whole circle of people, is a very great work,
+especially in a society both disunited and fettered. No
+one has reproached me for idleness, and many people have
+liked some of the things I have done; but they do not
+know how much of all that I have done has been the
+reflection of our talks, our arguments, the nights we spent
+idly strolling about the streets and fields, or still more idly
+sitting over a glass of wine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p>
+
+<p>But soon a chilly air reminding us that spring was over
+penetrated even into these surroundings. When the joy
+of meeting had subsided and festivities were over, when
+we had said most of what we had to say, and had to go
+on our way again, we perceived that the careless, happy
+life which we sought from memories was no longer to be
+found in our circle, and especially not in Ogaryov’s house.
+Friends were noisy, arguments were lively, sometimes
+wine flowed, but it was not light-hearted, not as light-hearted
+as in old days. Every one had a hidden thought,
+something unspoken; there was a feeling of strain:
+Ogaryov looked melancholy and Ketscher raised his eyebrows
+fiercely. An intrusive note made a jangling discord
+in our harmony; all the warmth, all the friendliness of
+Ogaryov could not drown it.</p>
+
+<p>What I had dreaded a year before had come to pass,
+and it was even worse than I had thought.</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov had lost his father in 1838, and had married not
+long before his father’s death. The news of his marriage
+frightened me, it had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly.
+The rumours that had reached me about
+his wife were not altogether favourable to her, yet he
+wrote with enthusiasm and was happy; I put more faith
+in him, but still I was uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of 1839 they had come for a few days
+to Vladimir. It was our first meeting since the auditor
+Oransky read us our sentence. We were in no mood to
+be critical. I only remember that for the first few minutes
+her voice struck me unpleasantly; but that momentary
+impression passed in the radiance of our joy. Yes, those
+were the days of fullness and bliss, when a man all unsuspecting
+reaches the highest limit, the utmost boundary
+of personal happiness. There was not a shade of gloomy
+memory, not the faintest dark foreboding, it was all youth,
+friendship, love, exuberant strength, energy, health, and
+an endless road before us. Even the mood of mysticism
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>which had not yet passed quite away gave a festive
+solemnity to our meeting, like chiming bells, choristers,
+and burning incense.</p>
+
+<p>There was a small iron crucifix on a table in my room.
+‘On your knees!’ said Ogaryov, ‘and let us give thanks
+that we are all four here together.’ We knelt down
+beside him and embraced, wiping away our tears.</p>
+
+<p>But one of the four scarcely needed to wipe them away.
+Ogaryov’s wife looked at the proceedings with some
+astonishment. I thought at the time that this was
+<i>retenue</i>, but she told me herself afterwards that this scene
+had struck her as affected and childish. Of course it
+might strike one so looking on at it as an outsider, but
+why was she looking on at it as an outsider? Why was she
+so sober at that moment of intoxication, so middle-aged
+in the midst of our youthfulness?</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov went back to his estate, while she went to
+Petersburg to try and obtain permission for him to return
+to Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>A month later she passed through Vladimir again,
+alone. Petersburg and two or three aristocratic drawing-rooms
+had turned her head. She longed for external
+splendour, she was allured by wealth. Will she get over
+it, I wondered. Such opposite tastes may lead to many
+troubles. But wealth was something new to her and so
+were drawing-rooms and Petersburg, perhaps it was a
+momentary infatuation; she was intelligent and she loved
+Ogaryov—and I hoped.</p>
+
+<p>In Moscow they were more apprehensive that she
+would not get over it so easily. An artistic and literary
+circle rather flattered her vanity, but her chief efforts
+were not turned in that direction. She would have
+consented to have a place for artists and savants in her
+aristocratic drawing-room; she forcibly drew Ogaryov
+into frivolous society in which he was bored to death.
+His more intimate friends began to notice it, and Ketscher,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>who had long been scowling over it, angrily proclaimed
+his <i>veto</i>. Hot-tempered, vain, and unused to control
+herself, she wounded a vanity as sensitive as her own.
+Her angular, rather frigid manners and sarcasms, uttered
+in the voice which at our first meeting had so strangely
+jarred on me, provoked a violent opposition. After
+carrying on a feud for two months with Ketscher who,
+though he was right fundamentally, was continually in
+the wrong formally, and arousing the hostility of several
+persons who were, perhaps owing to their material
+position, too ready to take offence, she found herself
+brought face to face with me.</p>
+
+<p>She was afraid of me. In me she wanted to test
+herself and to discover once for all which was to take the
+upper hand, friendship or love, as though one or the other
+must take the upper hand. There was more in this than
+the desire to gain the day in a capricious quarrel, there
+was a consciousness that I opposed her views more
+strongly than any of them; there was envious jealousy
+and feminine love of power in it too. With Ketscher
+she disputed till she shed tears, and every day she
+quarrelled with him as angry children quarrel, but
+without exasperation; she could not look at me without
+turning pale and trembling with hatred. She reproached
+me for revolting pride, and for destroying her happiness
+through conceited claims to Ogaryov’s exclusive friendship.
+I felt this was unjust and became cruel and
+merciless in my turn. She herself confessed to me five
+years later that she had had thoughts of poisoning me—so
+violent was her hatred. She broke off all acquaintance
+with Natalie because of her love for me and the affection
+all our friends had for her.</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov suffered. No one spared him, neither she
+nor I nor the others. We chose his heart (as he himself
+expressed it in a letter) ‘for our field of battle,’ and did
+not consider that whichever gained the day he suffered
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>equally. He swore to reconcile us, he tried to soften
+the awkwardness of the position and we were reconciled;
+but wounded vanity cried aloud and smarting resentment
+flared into warfare at a word. Ogaryov saw with horror
+that everything he prized was falling to pieces, that his
+holy things were not sacred to the woman he loved, that
+she was a stranger—but he could not cease to love her.
+We were his own people—but he saw with grief that
+even we did not spare him one drop of the cup of bitterness
+fate forced upon him. He could not roughly sunder
+the ties of <i>Naturgewalt</i> that bound him to her, nor the
+strong ties of sympathy that bound him to us; in any
+case his heart could not but bleed, and, conscious of that,
+he tried to keep both her and us—gripped convulsively
+her hands and ours—while we savagely strained apart,
+tearing him to pieces like executioners!</p>
+
+<p>Man is cruel and only prolonged suffering softens him;
+the child is cruel in its ignorance, the young man is cruel
+in the pride of his purity, the priest is cruel in the pride
+of his holiness, and the doctrinaire in the pride of his
+learning—we are all merciless, and most of all merciless
+when we are in the right. The heart is usually melted
+and grows soft after severe wounds, after the wings have
+been burnt, after acknowledged downfalls, after the
+panic which makes a man cold all over when alone,
+without witnesses, he begins to suspect what a weak and
+worthless creature he is. His heart grows softer; as he
+wipes away the sweat of shame and horror, afraid of an
+eye-witness, he seeks excuses for <i>himself</i> and finds them
+for <i>others</i>. The part of judge, of executioner, from that
+moment excites his loathing.</p>
+
+<p>I was far from that stage in those days!</p>
+
+<p>The feud was carried on intermittently. The exasperated
+woman, pursued by our intolerance, got further
+and further entangled, could not go forward, struggled,
+fell—and did not change. Feeling that she could not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>be victorious, she burned with vexation and <i>dépit</i>, with
+jealousy in which there was no love. Her confused
+ideas, taken disconnectedly from George Sand’s novels
+and from our conversations, and never clearly thought
+out, carried her from one absurdity to another—to
+eccentricities, which she took for originality and independence,
+to that form of feminine emancipation in virtue
+of which women arbitrarily deny all that they dislike in
+the existing and accepted order, while they obstinately
+cling to all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The gulf was becoming impassable, but for a long time
+yet Ogaryov spared her, for a long time he still tried and
+hoped to save her. And whenever for a minute some
+tender feeling was awakened or poetic chord was touched
+in her, he was ready to forget the past for ever and begin
+a new life of harmony, peace, and love; but she could
+not restrain herself, she lost her balance and every time
+sank lower. Thread by thread their tie was painfully
+broken, till the last thread snapped without a sound—and
+they parted for ever.</p>
+
+<p>In all this one question presents itself that is not quite
+easily answered. How was it that the strong, sympathetic
+influence that Ogaryov exercised on all around
+him, which drew outsiders into higher spheres, into
+general interests, glided over that woman’s heart without
+leaving any fruitful trace upon it? And yet he loved her
+passionately and put more soul and effort into saving her
+than into all the rest; and she herself loved him at first,
+of that there is no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>I have thought a great deal about this. At first, of
+course, I put the blame on one side only, but afterwards
+I began to understand that this strange, monstrous fact
+has an explanation and that there is really no contradiction
+in it. To have an influence on a sympathetic
+circle is far easier than to have an influence on one woman.
+To preach from the pulpit, to sway men’s minds from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>the platform, to teach from the lecturer’s desk, is far easier
+than to educate one child. In the lecture-room, in the
+church, in the club, similarity of interests and aspirations
+takes the foremost place; men meet there for the sake of
+them, and all that is needed is to develop them farther.
+Ogaryov’s circle consisted of his old comrades of the
+university, young artists, literary or scientific men; they
+were united by a common religion, a common language,
+and still more by a common hatred. Those for whom
+this religion was not really a living question gradually
+dropped off, while others came to fill their places, and the
+circle itself, as well as its thinking, was the stronger for the
+free play of selection and the community of conviction
+that bound them together.</p>
+
+<p>Intimacy with a woman is a purely personal matter,
+based on some secret physiological affinity, unaccountable,
+resting on passion. We are first intimate, afterwards we
+become acquainted. Among people whose life is not
+marked out for them, not dominated by one idea, equilibrium
+is easily established; everything with them happens
+casually, he yields half and she half, and if they do not, it
+does not much matter. On the other hand, a man
+devoted to his idea discovers with horror that it is strange
+to the creature he has brought so close to him. He sets
+to work in haste to awaken her, but as a rule only frightens
+or muddles her. Torn away from the traditions from
+which she has not freed herself, and flung across a sort of
+abyss with nothing to fill it, she believes that she is
+emancipated—conceitedly, arrogantly rejects the old at
+random, accepts the new indiscriminately. There is
+disorder and chaos in her head and in her heart ... the
+reins are flung down, egoism is unbridled ... while
+we imagine that we have accomplished something and
+preach to her as in the lecture-room.</p>
+
+<p>The gift for education, the gift of patient love, of
+complete, of persevering devotion is more rarely met with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>than any other. No mother’s passionate love nor dialectical
+skill can replace it.</p>
+
+<p>Is not this the reason why people torment children and
+sometimes grown-up people too—that it is so hard to
+educate them and so easy to flog them? When we punish,
+are we not revenging ourselves for our own incapacity?</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov saw that even then; that was why all (and I
+among them) reproached him for being too gentle.</p>
+
+<p>The circle of young people that gathered round
+Ogaryov was not our old circle. Only two of his old
+friends, besides us, were in it. Tone, interests, pursuits,
+all were changed. Stankevitch’s friends took the lead
+in it; Bakunin and Byelinsky stood at their head, each
+with a volume of Hegel’s philosophy in his hand, an
+each filled with the youthful intolerance inseparable from
+deep and passionate convictions.</p>
+
+<p>German philosophy had been grafted on the Moscow
+University by M. G. Pavlov. The Chair of Philosophy
+had been abolished since 1826. Pavlov gave us an
+introduction to philosophy by way of physics and agricultural
+science. It would have been hard to learn
+physics at his lectures, impossible to learn agricultural
+science; but they were extremely profitable. Pavlov
+stood at the door of the section of Physics and Mathematics
+and stopped the student with the question: ‘You
+want to acquire knowledge of nature? but what is nature?
+what is knowledge?’</p>
+
+<p>This was extremely valuable: our young students
+enter the university entirely without philosophical preparation;
+only the divinity students had any conception
+of philosophy, and that an utterly distorted one.</p>
+
+<p>By way of answer to these questions, Pavlov expounded
+the doctrines of Schelling and of Oken with a conciseness
+and a clarity such as no teacher of natural philosophy had
+shown before. If he did not attain complete lucidity in
+anything it was not his fault, but was due to the cloudiness
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>of Schelling’s philosophy. Pavlov may more justly be
+blamed for stopping short at this Mahabharata of philosophy
+instead of passing on to the austere initiation into
+Hegelian logic. But even he went no farther than the
+introduction and general outline, or at any rate he led
+others no farther. Such a halt at the beginning, such
+incompleteness, houses without roofs, foundations without
+houses, and splendid vestibules leading to a humble
+dwelling, are quite in the spirit of the Russian people.
+Are we not perhaps satisfied with vestibules because our
+history is still knocking at the gate?</p>
+
+<p>What Pavlov did not do was done by one of his pupils—Stankevitch.</p>
+
+<p>Stankevitch, also one of the <i>idle</i> people who accomplish
+<i>nothing</i>, was the first disciple of Hegel in the Moscow
+circle. He had made a profound study of German
+philosophy, which appealed to his aesthetic sense: endowed
+with exceptional abilities, he drew a large circle
+of friends into his favourite pursuit. This circle was
+extremely remarkable, from it came a regular legion of
+savants, writers and professors, amongst whom were
+Byelinsky, Bakunin and Granovsky.</p>
+
+<p>Before our exile there had been no great sympathy
+between our circle and Stankevitch’s. They disliked our
+almost exclusively political tendency, while we disliked
+their almost exclusively theoretical interests. They
+considered us <i>Frondeurs</i> and French, we thought them
+sentimentalists and German. The first man who was
+acknowledged both by us and by them, who held out the
+hand of friendship to both and by his warm love for both
+and his conciliating character removed the last traces of
+mutual misunderstanding, was Granovsky; but when I
+arrived in Moscow he was still in Berlin, while poor
+Stankevitch at the age of twenty-seven was dying on the
+shore of the Lago di Como.</p>
+
+<p>Sickly in constitution and gentle in character, a poet
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>and a dreamer, Stankevitch was naturally bound to prefer
+contemplation and abstract thought to living and purely
+practical questions; his artistic idealism suited him, it
+was ‘the crown of victory’ on his pale, youthful brow
+that bore the imprint of death. The others had too
+much physical vigour and too little poetical feeling to
+remain long absorbed in speculative thought without
+passing on into life. Exclusive preoccupation with
+theory is utterly opposed to the Russian temperament,
+and we shall soon see how the Russian spirit transformed
+Hegel’s philosophy and how the vitality of our nature
+asserted itself in spite of all the tonsures of the philosophic
+monks. But at the beginning of 1840 the young people
+surrounding Ogaryov had as yet no thought of rebelling
+against the letter on behalf of the spirit, against the abstract
+on behalf of life.</p>
+
+<p>My new acquaintances received me as people do receive
+exiles and old champions, people who come out of prison
+or return out of captivity or banishment, that is, with
+respectful indulgence, with a readiness to receive us into
+their alliance, though at the same time refusing to yield
+a single point and hinting at the fact that they are ‘to-day’
+and we are already ‘yesterday,’ and exacting the unconditional
+acceptance of Hegel’s phenomenology and
+logic, and their interpretation of it, too.</p>
+
+<p>They discussed these subjects incessantly, there was
+not a paragraph in the three parts of the <i>Logic</i>, in the
+two of the <i>Aesthetic</i>, the <i>Encyclopaedia</i>, and so on, which
+had not been the subject of furious battles for several
+nights together. People who loved each other were
+parted for weeks at a time because they disagreed about
+the definition of ‘all-embracing spirit,’ or had taken as a
+personal insult an opinion on ‘the absolute personality
+and its existence in itself.’ Every insignificant treatise
+published in Berlin or other provincial or district towns
+of German philosophy was ordered and read into tatters,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>so that the leaves fell out in a few days, if only there were
+a mention of Hegel in it. Just as Francœur in Paris wept
+with delight when he heard that in Russia he was taken
+for a great mathematician and that all the youthful
+generation made use of the same letters as he did when
+they solved equations of various degrees, tears of delight
+might have been shed by all those forgotten Werders,
+Marheinekes, Michelets, Ottos, Vatkes, Schallers,
+Rosenkrantzes, and even Arnold Ruge,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> whom Heine so
+wonderfully well dubbed ‘the gate-keeper of the
+Hegelian philosophy,’ if they had known what pitched
+battles they were exciting in Moscow, how they were
+being read, and how they were being bought.</p>
+
+<p>Pavlov’s great value lay in the extraordinary clarity of
+his exposition, a clarity in which none of the depth of
+German thought was lost; the young philosophers, on
+the contrary, adopted a conventional language; they did
+not translate philosophical terms into Russian, but transferred
+them whole, even, to make things easier, leaving
+all the Latin words <i>in crudo</i>, giving them orthodox
+terminations and the endings of the Russian declensions.</p>
+
+<p>I have the right to say this because, carried away by
+the current of the time, I wrote myself exactly in the same
+way, and was actually surprised when Perevoshtchekov,
+the well-known astronomer, described my language as
+the ‘twittering of birds.’ No one in those days would
+have hesitated to write a phrase like this: ‘The concretion
+of abstract ideas in the sphere of plastics presents
+that phase of the self-seeking spirit in which, defining
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>itself for itself, it passes from the potentiality of natural
+immanence into the harmonious sphere of pictorial
+consciousness in beauty.’ It is remarkable that here
+Russian words, as in the celebrated dinner of the generals
+of which Yermolov spoke, sound even more foreign than
+Latin ones.</p>
+
+<p>German learning—and it is its chief defect—has
+become accustomed to an artificial, heavy, scholastic
+language, just because it has lived in academies, that is,
+in the monasteries of idealism. It is the language of the
+priests of learning, a language for the faithful, and no
+one of the uninitiated understood it. A key was needed
+for it, as for a cryptograph letter. The key is now no
+mystery; when they understood it, people were surprised
+that very sensible and very simple things were said in
+this strange jargon. Feuerbach was the first to begin
+using a more human language.</p>
+
+<p>The mechanical copying of the German learned
+jargon was the more unpardonable as the leading characteristic
+of our language is the extreme ease with which
+everything is expressed in it—abstract ideas, the lyrical
+sensations of the heart, ‘life’s mouse-like flitting,’ the
+cry of indignation, sparkling mischief, and overwhelming
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>Another mistake, far graver, went hand in hand with
+this distortion of language. Our young philosophers
+distorted not merely their phrases but their understanding;
+their attitude to life, to reality, became scholastic, bookish;
+it was that learned conception of simple things at which
+Goethe mocks with such genius in the conversation of
+Mephistopheles with the student. Everything in reality
+direct, every simple feeling, was lifted into abstract
+categories and came back from them without a drop of
+living blood, a pale, algebraic shadow. In all this there
+was a naïveté of a sort, because it was all perfectly sincere.
+The man who went for a walk in Sokolniky went in order
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>to give himself up to the pantheistic feeling of his unity
+with the cosmos; and if on the way he happened upon a
+drunken soldier or a peasant woman who got into conversation
+with him, the philosopher did not simply talk
+to them, but defined the essential substance of the people
+in its immediate and phenomenal manifestation. The
+very tear glistening on the eyelash was strictly referred
+to its proper classification, to <i>Gemüth</i> or ‘to the tragic in
+the heart.’</p>
+
+<p>It was the same thing in art. A knowledge of Goethe,
+especially of the second part of <i>Faust</i> (either because it
+was inferior to the first or because it was more difficult),
+was as obligatory as the wearing of clothes. The philosophy
+of music took a foremost position. Of course, no
+one ever spoke of Rossini; to Mozart they were indulgent,
+though they did think him childish and poor. On the
+other hand, they made philosophical investigations into
+every chord of Beethoven and greatly respected Schubert,
+not so much, I think, for his superb melodies as for the
+fact that he chose philosophical themes for them, such as
+‘the divine omnipotence’ and ‘Atlas.’ French literature,
+everything French in fact, and, incidentally, everything
+political also, shared the interdict laid on Italian
+music.</p>
+
+<p>From the above, it is easy to see on what field we were
+bound to meet and do battle. So long as we were arguing
+on the theme that Goethe was objective but that his
+objectivity was subjective, while Schiller as a poet was
+subjective but that his subjectivity was objective, and <i>vice
+versa</i>, everything went peaceably. Questions that aroused
+more passion were not slow to make their appearance.</p>
+
+<p>While Hegel was Professor in Berlin, partly from old
+age, but far more from satisfaction with his position and
+the respect he enjoyed, he purposely screwed his philosophy
+up above the earthly level and kept himself in an
+environment from which all contemporary interests and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>passions became somewhat indistinct, like buildings and
+villages seen from a balloon; he did not like to be
+entangled in these accursed practical questions with which
+it is difficult to deal and which must receive a positive
+answer. How revolting this artificial and disingenuous
+dualism was in a doctrine which set out from the elimination
+of dualism can readily be understood. The real
+Hegel was the modest Professor at Jena, the friend of
+Hoelderlin, who hid his <i>Phenomenology</i> under his coat
+when Napoleon entered the town; then his philosophy
+did not lead to Indian quietism nor to the justification of
+the existing forms of society, nor to Prussian Christianity;
+then he had not read his lectures on the Philosophy of
+Religion, but had written things of genius such as the
+article on the executioner and the death penalty, printed
+in Rosenkrantz’s biography.</p>
+
+<p>Hegel confined himself to the sphere of abstractions
+in order to avoid the necessity of touching upon empirical
+deductions and practical applications; the one domain
+which he, very adroitly, selected for the practical application
+of his theories was the calm, untroubled ocean of
+aesthetics. He rarely ventured into the light of day, and
+but for a minute, wrapped up like an invalid, and even
+then left behind in the dialectic maze just those questions
+most interesting to the modern man. The extremely
+feeble intellects (Gantz is the only exception) who
+surrounded him accepted the letter for the thing itself and
+were pleased by the empty play of dialectics. Probably
+the old man felt at times sore and ashamed at the sight
+of the limited outlook of his excessively complacent pupils.
+If the dialectic method is not the development of the reality
+itself, the lifting of it, so to speak, into thought, it becomes
+a purely external means of driving all sorts of things
+through a series of categories, an exercise in logical
+gymnastics, as it was with the Greek Sophists and the
+mediaeval scholastics after Abelard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
+
+<p>The philosophical phrase which did the greatest harm,
+and in virtue of which the German conservatives strove
+to reconcile philosophy with the political régime of Germany—‘all
+that is real is rational’—was the principle of
+sufficient reason and of the correspondence of logic and
+fact expressed in other words. Hegel’s phrase, wrongly
+understood, became what the words of the Christian
+Girondist Paul were at one time: ‘There is no power
+but from God.’ But if all powers are from God, and
+if the existing social order is justified by reason, the
+struggle against it, since it exists, is also justified. These
+two sentences accepted in their formal meaning are pure
+tautology; but whether tautology or not, Hegel’s phrase
+led straight to the recognition of the existing authorities,
+led to a man’s sitting with folded hands, and that was just
+what the Berlin Buddhists wanted. Though such a view
+is diametrically opposed to the Russian spirit, our Moscow
+Hegelians were genuinely misled and accepted it.</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky, the most active, impulsive, and dialectically
+passionate, fighting nature, was at that time preaching an
+Indian stillness of contemplation and theoretical study
+instead of conflict. He believed in that theory and did
+not flinch before any of its consequences, nor was he held
+back by considerations of moral propriety nor the opinion
+of others, which has such terrors for the weak and those
+who lack independence. He was free from timidity for
+he was strong and sincere; his conscience was clear.</p>
+
+<p>‘Do you know that from your standpoint,’ I said to
+him, thinking to impress him with my revolutionary
+ultimatum, ‘you can prove that the monstrous tyranny
+under which we live is rational and ought to exist?’</p>
+
+<p>‘There is no doubt about it,’ answered Byelinsky, and
+proceeded to recite to us Pushkin’s ‘Anniversary of
+Borodino.’</p>
+
+<p>That was more than I could stand and a desperate
+battle raged between us. Our feud reacted upon the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>others, the circle fell apart into two groups. Bakunin
+tried to reconcile, to explain, to persuade, but there was
+no real peace. Byelinsky, irritated and dissatisfied, went
+off to Petersburg, and from there fired off his last furious
+shot at us in an article which he called ‘The Anniversary
+of Borodino.’</p>
+
+<p>Then I broke off all relations with him. Though
+Bakunin argued hotly, he began to reconsider things, his
+revolutionary tact drove him in another direction.
+Byelinsky reproached him for weakness, for concessions,
+and went to such exaggerated extremes that he scared
+his own friends and followers. The chorus was on
+Byelinsky’s side, and looked down upon us, haughtily
+shrugged their shoulders and considered us behind the
+times.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this feud I saw the necessity <i>ex ipso
+fonte bibere</i> and began studying Hegel in earnest. I even
+think that a man who has not <i>lived through</i> Hegel’s
+phenomenology and Proudhon’s contradictions of political
+economy, who has not passed through that furnace and
+been tempered by it, is not complete, not modern.</p>
+
+<p>When I had grown used to Hegel’s language and
+mastered his method, I began to perceive that Hegel was
+much nearer to our standpoint than to the standpoint of
+his followers; he was so in his early works, he was so
+everywhere where his genius had got out of hand and
+had dashed forward forgetting the gates of Brandenburg.
+The philosophy of Hegel is the algebra of revolution, it
+emancipates a man in an extraordinary way and leaves
+not a stone standing of the Christian world, of the world
+of outlived tradition. But, perhaps with intention, it
+is badly formulated. Just as in mathematics—only there
+with more justification—men do not go back to the
+definition of space, movement, force, but continue the
+dialectical development of their laws and qualities, so
+in the formal understanding of philosophy, after once
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>becoming accustomed to the first principles, men go on
+merely drawing deductions. Any one new to the subject
+who has not stupefied himself by the method being turned
+into a habit is pulled up just by these traditions, by these
+dogmas which have been accepted as thoughts. To
+people who have long been studying the subject and are
+consequently not free from preconceptions, it seems
+astonishing that others should not understand things that
+are ‘perfectly clear.’ How can any one fail to understand
+such a simple idea as, for instance, ‘that the soul
+is immortal and that what perishes is only the personality,’
+a thought so successfully developed by the Michelet of
+Berlin; or the still more simple truth that the absolute
+spirit is a personality, conscious of itself through the world,
+and at the same time having its own self-consciousness?</p>
+
+<p>All these things seemed so easy to our friends, they
+smiled so condescendingly at ‘French’ objections, that
+I was for some time crushed by them and worked and
+worked to reach an exact understanding of their philosophic
+jargon.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately scholasticism is as little natural to me as
+mysticism, and I stretched its bow until the string snapped
+and the scales dropped from my eyes. Strange to say, it
+was an argument with a lady that brought me to it.</p>
+
+<p>I had the year before at Novgorod become acquainted
+with a general. I made his acquaintance just because
+no one could have been less like a general.</p>
+
+<p>There was a painful feeling in his house, there were
+tears in the air, it was obvious that death had passed
+through it. His hair was prematurely grey and his
+kindly, mournful smile was, even more than his wrinkles,
+expressive of suffering. He was about fifty. The traces
+of a fate that had cut off living branches was still more
+clearly imprinted on the pale, thin face of his wife. It
+was too quiet in their house. The general studied
+mechanics, while his wife spent her mornings giving
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>French lessons to some poor children; when they had
+gone she took up a book, and the only things that suggested
+a different, bright, fragrant life were the flowers, of which
+there were many, and the playthings in a cupboard—but
+no one ever played with them.</p>
+
+<p>They had had three children: two years before I knew
+them an exceptionally gifted boy of nine had died; a few
+months later another child died of scarlet fever; the
+mother hastened into the country to save the last child
+by change of air and came back a few days later with a
+little coffin in the carriage with her.</p>
+
+<p>Their life had lost its meaning, it was ended, and
+continued without object, without need. Their existence
+was maintained by the compassion of each for the
+other; the one comfort left them was the deep conviction
+that each was essential to enable the other to bear the
+cross. I have seen few more harmonious marriages,
+though, indeed, it was hardly a marriage, for it was not
+love that bound them together but a deep comradeship
+in misfortune; their fate held them tight and kept them
+together with the little cold hands of those three, and the
+hopeless emptiness around them and before them.</p>
+
+<p>The bereaved mother was completely given up to
+mysticism; she found relief from her misery in the world
+of mysterious reconciliations, she was deceived by the
+flattery that religion pays the human heart. For her,
+mysticism was no light thing, it was no mere dream, it
+meant having her children again, and she was defending
+them when she defended her religion. But, as she had
+an extremely active intelligence, she challenged discussion
+and knew her strength. I have met, both before and
+since, many mystics of various kinds, from Vitberg and
+the followers of Tovjanski,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> who acknowledged Napoleon
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>as the military incarnation of God and took off their caps
+when they passed the Vendôme Column, to the now-forgotten
+‘Ma-Pa,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> who told me himself of his interview
+with God which took place on the high-road between
+Montmorency and Paris. They were all hysterical
+people who worked on the nerves, impressed the fancy,
+or the heart, mixed up philosophical conceptions with an
+arbitrary symbolism, and did not care to come out into
+the open field of logic.</p>
+
+<p>But it was upon that field L—— D—— took a firm
+and fearless stand. Where and how she had succeeded
+in obtaining such artistic skill in argument I do not know.
+Altogether women’s development is a mystery; there is
+nothing: just dress and dances, mischievous back-biting
+and novel reading, making eyes and shedding tears—and
+all at once titanic will, mature thought, colossal intelligence
+make their appearance. The young girl carried
+away by her passions vanishes, and before you stands
+Théroigne de Méricourt,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> the beauty of the tribune,
+swaying multitudes of the people, or a Princess Dashkov,
+sword in hand, on horseback, at eighteen, in the midst of
+a turbulent crowd of soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>In L—— D—— everything was complete, she had
+no doubts, no wavering, no theoretical weakness; even
+the Jesuits or the Calvinists can hardly have been so
+harmoniously consistent in their doctrine as she.</p>
+
+<p>Deprived of her little ones, she had come, instead of
+hating death, to hating life. That is just what is needed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>for Christianity, that complete apotheosis of death: the
+contempt for earth, the contempt of the body has no
+other meaning. Hence the attack upon everything
+living and realistic, enjoyment, health, gaiety, the free
+joy of existence. And L—— D—— had reached the
+point of disliking both Goethe and Pushkin.</p>
+
+<p>Her attacks on my philosophy were original. She
+used ironically to declare that all our dialectical subtleties
+and elaborate constructions were just the beating of the
+drum, the noise with which cowards try to drown the
+terrors of their conscience.</p>
+
+<p>‘You will never,’ she used to say, ‘get to a personal
+god, nor to the immortality of the soul, by any philosophy,
+and none of you have the courage to be atheists and reject
+the life beyond the grave. You are too human not to be
+horrified by those conclusions, so you invent your logical
+miracles to throw dust in the eyes and to arrive at what
+is given by religion in a simple and childlike way.’</p>
+
+<p>I objected, I argued, but I was inwardly conscious
+that I had no complete proofs and that she had a firmer
+footing on her ground than I on mine.</p>
+
+<p>To complete my discomfiture, the inspector of the
+Medical Board must needs turn up to support me; he
+was good-natured man, but one of the most ridiculous
+Germans I have ever met. A devoted worshipper of
+Oken and Carus,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> he argued by means of quotations, had
+a ready-made answer for everything, never had doubts
+about anything, and imagined that he was completely
+in accord with me.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor lost his temper, grew furious the more
+readily as he could not hold his own by other means,
+looked upon L—— D——’s views as feminine caprice,
+took refuge in Schelling’s lectures on the academic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>doctrine, and read extracts from Burdach’s <i>Physiology</i> to
+prove that there is an eternal and spiritual element
+in man, and that some personal <i>Geist</i> is hidden in
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>L—— D——, who had long ago passed through these
+‘back premises’ of pantheism, confuted him, and, smiling,
+glanced from him to me. She was, of course, more in
+the right than he, and I was vexed and conscientiously
+racking my brains, while the good doctor was laughing
+triumphantly. These arguments interested me so much
+that I set to work upon Hegel with new zest. The
+worry of my uncertainty did not last long, the truth
+flashed before my eyes and began to grow clearer and
+clearer; I inclined to my opponent’s side, but not in the
+way she wished.</p>
+
+<p>‘You are perfectly right,’ I said to her, ‘and I am
+ashamed of having argued against you; of course there
+is no personal spirit, nor immortality of the soul, and that
+is why it has been so hard to prove that there is. See
+how simple and natural it all becomes without those
+gratuitous assumptions.’</p>
+
+<p>She was troubled by my words but quickly recovered
+herself and said: ‘I am sorry for you, but perhaps it
+is for the best, you will not long remain in that position,
+it is too empty and depressing, while,’ she added, smiling,
+‘our doctor is incurable, he has no fears, he is in such a
+fog that he does not see one step before him.’</p>
+
+<p>Her face was paler than usual, however.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three months later, Ogaryov passed through
+Novgorod. He brought me Feuerbach’s <i>Wesen des Christenthums</i>;
+after reading the first pages I leapt up with
+joy. Away with the trappings of masquerade, no more
+muddle and equivocations! We are free men and not
+the slaves of Xanthos, there is no need for us to wrap the
+truth in myth.</p>
+
+<p>In the heat of my philosophic ardour I began my series
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>of articles on ‘Dilettantism in Science,’ in which, among
+other things, I paid the doctor out.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us go back to Byelinsky.</p>
+
+<p>A few months after his departure to Petersburg in 1840
+we too arrived there. I did not go to see him. Ogaryov
+took my quarrel with Byelinsky very much to heart; he
+knew that Byelinsky’s absurd theory was a passing malady,
+and, indeed, I knew it too. But Ogaryov was kinder.
+At last by his letters he brought about a meeting. Our
+interview was at first cold, unpleasant, and strained, but
+neither Byelinsky nor I was very diplomatic and in the
+course of trivial conversation I mentioned the article on
+‘The Anniversary of Borodino.’ Byelinsky jumped up
+from his seat and, flushing crimson, said with great
+simplicity, ‘Well, thank God, we’ve come to it at last.
+I am so stupid I did not know how to begin.... You’ve
+won the day; three or four months in Petersburg have
+done more to convince me than all the arguments. Let
+us forget that nonsense. It is enough to say that the
+other day I was dining at a friend’s and there was an
+officer of the Engineers there; my friend asked him if he
+would like to make my acquaintance. “Is that the author
+of the article on ‘The Anniversary of Borodino’?” the
+officer asked him in his ear. “Yes.” “No, thank
+you very much,” he answered dryly. I heard it all
+and could not restrain myself. I pressed the officer’s
+hand warmly and said to him: “You’re an honourable
+man, I respect you....” What more would you
+have?’</p>
+
+<p>From that moment up to Byelinsky’s death we went
+hand in hand. Byelinsky, as was to be expected, fell
+upon his former theory with all the stinging vehemence
+of his language and all his furious energy. The position
+of many of his friends was not very much to be envied.
+<i>Plus royalistes que le roi</i>, with the courage of misfortune
+they tried to defend their theories, while not averse to an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>honourable truce. All those who had enough sense and
+vitality went over to Byelinsky’s side; only the obstinate
+formalists and pedants were left far behind. Some of
+them reached such a point of German suicide through
+dead and scholastic learning that they lost all living interest
+and were themselves lost, leaving no trace. Others
+became orthodox Slavophils. Strange as the combination
+of Hegel and Stefan Yavorsky&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> may appear, it is more
+possible than might be supposed; the Byzantine theology
+is just such a superficial casuistry and play with logical
+formulas as Hegel’s dialectics, formally understood.
+Some of the articles in the <i>Moskvityanin</i> are a magnificent
+instance of the extremes to which, with talent, the
+unnatural union of philosophy and religion can be
+brought.</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky by no means abandoned Hegel’s philosophy
+when he renounced his one-sided interpretation of it.
+Quite the contrary, it is from this point that his living,
+apt, original combination of philosophical with revolutionary
+ideas begins. I regard Byelinsky as one of the
+most remarkable figures of the period of Nicholas. After
+the liberalism which had somehow survived 1825 in
+Polevoy, after the gloomy article of Tchaadayev, Byelinsky
+appears on the scene with his caustic scepticism,
+won by suffering, and his passionate interest in every
+question. In a series of critical articles he touches in
+season and out of season upon everything, everywhere
+true to his hatred of authority and often rising to poetic
+inspiration. The book he reviewed usually served him
+as a starting-point, but he abandoned it half-way and threw
+himself into some question. The line ‘That’s what
+kindred are’ in <i>Onyegin</i> is enough for him to summon
+family life before the judgment seat and to pick family
+relations to pieces down to the last shred. Who does not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>remember his articles on ‘The Tarantass,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> on ‘Turgenev’s
+Parasha,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> on ‘Derzhavin,’ on ‘Motchalov,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>
+    and
+‘Hamlet’? What fidelity there is to his principles, what
+fearless consistency, what adroitness in navigating between
+the sandbanks of the censorship, what boldness in his
+attacks on the aristocracy of literature, on the writers of
+the first three grades, on the high officials of literature who
+are always ready to defeat an opponent if not by fair means
+by foul, if not by criticism then by information to the police.
+Byelinsky scourged them mercilessly, goading the petty
+vanity of the frigid mediocre writers of eclogues, lovers
+of culture, benevolence, and sentimentality; he turned
+into derision their precious ideas, the poetical dreams
+fostered by their elderly brains, their naïveté, hidden under
+an Anna ribbon.</p>
+
+<p>How they hated him for it!</p>
+
+<p>The Slavophils on their side began their official
+existence with the war upon Byelinsky; he drove them
+by his taunts to the <i>murmolka</i> and the <i>zipun</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>&#x2060;; one need
+only recall that Byelinsky had formerly written in <i>Notes
+of the Fatherland</i>, while Kireyevsky called his excellent
+journal <i>The European</i>; no better proof than these titles
+could be found to show that at first the difference was
+only between shades of opinion and not between parties.</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky’s articles were awaited with feverish expectation
+in Petersburg and Moscow from the 25th of
+every month. Half a dozen times the students would
+call in at the coffee-houses to ask whether the <i>Notes of the
+Fatherland</i> had been received; the heavy volume was
+snatched from hand to hand. ‘Is there an article of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>Byelinsky’s?’ ‘Yes,’ and it was devoured with feverish
+interest, with laughter, with argument ... and three
+or four cherished convictions and reputations were no
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Sokobelev, the governor of the Peter-Paul fortress,
+might well say in jest to Byelinsky when he met him on
+the Nevsky Prospect: ‘When are you coming to us? I
+have a nice warm little cell all ready that I am keeping
+for you.’</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken in another book of Byelinsky’s development
+and of his literary activity, here I will only say a
+few words about himself.</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky was very shy and quite lost his head in an
+unfamiliar or very numerous company; he knew this
+and did the most absurd things in trying to conceal it.
+Ketscher persuaded him to go to visit a lady; as they
+approached her house Byelinsky became more and more
+depressed, kept asking whether they could not go another
+day, and talked of having a headache. Ketscher, who
+knew him, would accept no excuse. When they arrived
+Byelinsky set off running as soon as they got out of the
+sledge, but Ketscher caught him by the overcoat and led
+him to be introduced to the lady.</p>
+
+<p>He sometimes put in an appearance at Prince Odoevsky’s
+literary diplomatic evenings. At these there were
+crowds of people who had nothing in common except a
+certain apprehension of and aversion for each other:
+clerks from the Embassies and Saharov&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> the archaeologist,
+painters and A. Meiendorf,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> several councillors
+of the cultured sort, Ioakinth Bitchurin&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> from Pekin,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>people who were half gendarmes and half literary men,
+others who were wholly gendarmes and not at all literary
+men. A—— K—— was so much in evidence there
+that generals took him for an authority. The hostess
+looked with inner grief upon her husband’s vulgar tastes,
+and gave way to them much as Louis-Philippe at the
+beginning of his reign indulged the tastes of his electors
+by inviting to the balls at the Tuileries whole <i>rez-de-chaussées</i>
+of brace-makers, grocers, shopkeepers, shoemakers,
+and other worthy citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky was utterly lost at these evenings, between
+some Saxon ambassador who did not understand a word
+of Russian and some officer of the secret police who
+understood even words that were not uttered. He was
+usually ailing for two or three days afterwards and cursed
+the man who had persuaded him to go.</p>
+
+<p>One Saturday, as it was New Year’s Eve, Odoevsky
+took it into his head to mix punch <i>en petit comité</i> when
+the principal guests had dispersed. Byelinsky would
+certainly have gone away, but he was prevented by a
+barricade of furniture; he was somehow stuck in a corner
+and a little table was set before him with wine and glasses
+on it; Zhukovsky in the white trousers of his uniform,
+with gold braid on them, was sitting sideways opposite him.
+Byelinsky bore it in patience a long time, but, seeing no
+chance of his lot improving, he began moving the table
+a little; the table yielded at first, then lurched over and
+fell with a bang on the floor, while the bottle of Bordeaux
+very deliberately began to empty itself over Zhukovsky.
+He jumped up while the red wine began to trickle down
+his trousers; there was a great fuss and to-do, one servant
+rushed up with a napkin to rub the wine into the other parts
+of the trousers, and another picked up the broken wine-glasses
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>... while this bustle was going on Byelinsky
+disappeared and, though it was not long before his end,
+ran home on foot.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Byelinsky! how angry and upset he was by such
+incidents long afterwards, with what horror he used to
+recall them, walking up and down the room and shaking
+his head without the trace of a smile.</p>
+
+<p>But in that shy man, that frail body, there dwelt a
+mighty spirit, the spirit of a gladiator! Yes, he was a
+powerful fighter! he could not preach or lecture, what
+he needed was disputation. If he met with no objection,
+if he was not stirred to irritation, he did not speak well,
+but when he felt stung, when his cherished convictions
+were touched upon, when the muscles of his cheeks began
+to quiver and his voice broke, then he was worth seeing;
+he pounced upon his opponent like a panther, he tore
+him to pieces, made him ridiculous, made him a piteous
+object, and incidentally developed his own thought,
+with extraordinary force, with extraordinary poetry.
+The discussion would often end in blood which flowed
+from the sick man’s throat; pale, gasping, with his eyes
+fixed on the man with whom he was speaking, he would
+lift his handkerchief to his mouth with shaking hand and
+stop, deeply mortified, crushed by his physical weakness.
+How I loved and how I pitied him at those moments!</p>
+
+<p>Worried by the financial sharks of literature, morally
+fettered by the censorship, surrounded in Petersburg by
+people little sympathetic to him, and consumed by a
+disease to which the Baltic climate was fatal, he became
+more and more irritable. He shunned outsiders, was
+savagely shy, and sometimes spent weeks together in
+gloomy inactivity. Then the publishers sent note after
+note demanding copy, and the enslaved writer, grinding
+his teeth, took up his pen and wrote the venomous
+articles quivering with indignation, the indictments
+which so impressed their readers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p>
+
+<p>Often, utterly exhausted, he would come to us to rest,
+and lie on the floor with our two-year-old child; he would
+play with him for hours together. While we were only
+the three of us things went swimmingly, but if there
+came a ring at the bell, a spasmodic grimace passed over
+his face and he would look about him uneasily, trying to
+find his hat; though with Slav weakness he often remained.
+Then a word, an observation uttered not to
+his liking would lead to the most original scenes and
+disputes....</p>
+
+<p>Once he went in Passion Week to dine with a literary
+man and Lenten dishes were served. ‘Is it long,’ he
+asked, ‘since you became so devout?’ ‘We eat Lenten
+fare,’ answered the literary gentleman, ‘simply for the
+sake of the servants.’ ‘For the sake of the servants,’
+said Byelinsky, and he turned pale. ‘For the sake of
+the servants,’ he repeated, and flung down his dinner
+napkin. ‘Where are your servants? I’ll tell them
+that they are deceived, any open vice is more humane
+than this contempt for the weak and uneducated, this
+hypocrisy in support of ignorance. And do you imagine
+that you are free people? You are in the same boat
+with all the tsars and priests and slaveowners. Good-bye,
+I don’t eat Lenten fare for the edification of others,
+I have no servants!’</p>
+
+<p>Among the Russians who might be classified as
+inveterate Germans, there was one graduate of our
+university who had lately arrived from Berlin; he
+was a good-natured man in blue spectacles, stiff and
+decorous; he had come to a standstill for ever after
+upsetting and enfeebling his brains with philosophy and
+philology. A doctrinaire and to some extent a pedant,
+he was fond of holding forth in edifying style. On one
+occasion at a literary evening in the house of the novelist
+who kept the fasts for the sake of his servants, this gentleman
+was preaching some sort of <i>honnéte et modéré</i> twaddle.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>Byelinsky was lying on a couch in the corner and as I
+passed him he took me by the lapel of my coat and said:
+‘Do you hear the rubbish that monster is talking? My
+tongue has been itching to answer him, but my chest
+hurts and there are a lot of people. Be a father to me,
+make a fool of him somehow, squash him, crush him with
+mockery, you can do it better—come, comfort me.’</p>
+
+<p>I laughed and told Byelinsky that he was setting me on
+like a bulldog at a rat. I scarcely knew the man and had
+hardly heard what he said.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the evening, the gentleman in blue
+spectacles, after abusing Koltsov for having abandoned
+the national costume, suddenly began talking of Tchaadayev’s
+famous letter and concluded his commonplace
+remarks, uttered in that didactic tone which of itself
+provokes derision, with the following words: ‘Be that
+as it may, I consider his action contemptible and revolting:
+I have no respect for such a man.’</p>
+
+<p>There was in the room only one man closely associated
+with Tchaadayev, and that was I. I shall have a great
+deal to say about Tchaadayev later on, I always liked and
+respected him and was liked by him; I thought it was
+unseemly to let this absurd remark pass. I asked him
+dryly whether he supposed that Tchaadayev had written
+his letter disingenuously or from interested motives.</p>
+
+<p>‘Not at all,’ answered the gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>An unpleasant conversation followed; I mentioned
+that the epithets ‘revolting and contemptible’ were
+themselves revolting and contemptible when applied to
+a man who had boldly expressed his opinion and had
+suffered for it. He talked to me of the people making
+up one whole, of the unity of the fatherland, of the crime
+of disturbing that unity, of sacred things that must not
+be touched.</p>
+
+<p>All at once Byelinsky cut short my words, he leapt up
+from his sofa, came up to me as white as a sheet and,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>slapping me on the shoulder, said: ‘Here you have them,
+they have spoken out—the inquisitors, the censors—keeping
+thought in leading-strings ...’ and so he went
+on and on. With savage inspiration he spoke, interspersing
+grave words with deadly sarcasms: ‘We are
+strangely sensitive: men are flogged and we don’t resent
+it, sent to Siberia and we don’t resent it, but here Tchaadayev,
+you see, has picked holes in the national honour, he
+mustn’t dare to speak; to talk is impudence, a flunkey
+must never speak! Why is it that in more civilised
+countries where one would expect national susceptibilities
+to be more developed than in Kostroma and Kaluga words
+are not resented?’</p>
+
+<p>‘In civilised countries,’ replied the gentleman in blue
+spectacles with inimitable self-complacency, ‘there are
+prisons in which they confine the senseless creatures who
+insult what the whole people respect ... and a good
+thing too.’</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky seemed to tower above us, he was terrible,
+great at that moment. Folding his arms over his sick
+chest, and looking straight at his opponent, he answered
+in a hollow voice: ‘And in still more civilised countries
+there is a guillotine for those who think that a good
+thing.’</p>
+
+<p>Saying this, he sank exhausted in an easy-chair and
+ceased speaking. At the word guillotine our host turned
+pale, the guests were uneasy and a pause followed. The
+blue-spectacled gentleman was annihilated, but it is just
+at such moments that human vanity gets out of hand.
+Turgenev advises that, when one has gone such lengths
+in argument that one begins to feel frightened, one should
+move one’s tongue ten times round the inside of one’s
+mouth before uttering a word.</p>
+
+<p>Our opponent, unaware of this homely advice, continued
+uttering feeble trivialities, addressing himself
+rather to the rest of the company than to Byelinsky. ‘In
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>spite of your intolerance,’ he said at last, ‘I am certain
+that you would agree with me....’</p>
+
+<p>‘No,’ answered Byelinsky, ‘whatever you might say I
+shouldn’t agree with anything!’</p>
+
+<p>Every one laughed and went in to supper. The
+gentleman in blue spectacles picked up his hat and went
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Suffering and privation soon completely undermined
+Byelinsky’s sickly constitution. His face, particularly
+the muscles about his lips, and the gloomily fixed look in
+his eyes testified equally to the intense workings of his
+spirit and the rapid dissolution of his body.</p>
+
+<p>I saw him for the last time in Paris in the autumn of
+1847; he was in a very bad way, afraid of speaking aloud,
+and only at moments his old energy revived and its ebbing
+fires glowed brightly. It was at such a moment that he
+wrote his letter&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> to Gogol.</p>
+
+<p>The news of the revolution of February found him
+still alive; he died taking its glow for the flush of the rising
+dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="mt2">So this chapter ended in 1854; since that time much
+has changed. I have been brought much closer to that
+period, nearer to the more remote past, through persons
+who are here, through the arrival of Ogaryov and two
+books, Annenkov’s <i>Biography of Stankevitch</i> and the two
+first parts of Byelinsky’s complete works. From the
+windows suddenly thrown open the fresh air of the fields,
+the young breath of spring has been wafted into the
+hospital wards....</p>
+
+<p>Stankevitch’s correspondence was unnoticed when it
+came out. It appeared at the wrong moment. At the
+end of 1857 Russia had not yet come to herself after the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>funeral of Nicholas, she was expectant and hopeful; that
+is the worst mood for receiving reminiscences ... but
+the book is not lost. It will remain one of the rare
+monuments from which any man who can read can find
+what was buried without a word in the wretched graveyard
+of those days. The dead years, from 1825 to 1855,
+will soon be utterly lost; the human tracks, swept away
+by the police, will have vanished, and future generations
+will come to a standstill in bewilderment before the
+smooth level waste, seeking the lost channels of thought
+which were really never interrupted. The current was
+apparently checked, Nicholas tied up the main artery—but
+the blood flowed along side-channels. And it is just
+these capillaries which have left their trace in the works
+of Byelinsky and the correspondence of Stankevitch.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years ago, the Russia of the future existed
+exclusively among a few boys, hardly more than children,
+so insignificant and unnoticed that there was room for
+them under the heels of the great boots of the autocracy—and
+in them was the heritage of the 14th of December,
+the heritage of a purely national Russia, as well as of the
+learning of all humanity. This new life struggled on
+like the grass that tries to grow at the mouth of the still
+smouldering crater.</p>
+
+<p>In the very jaws of the monster these children stand
+out unlike other children; they grow, develop, and begin
+to live a different life. Weak, insignificant, unsupported,
+on the contrary persecuted by all, they might easily have
+perished, leaving no trace, but they survive, or, if they
+die on their way, all does not die with them. They are
+the rudimentary germs, the embryos of history, barely
+perceptible, barely existing, like embryos in general.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, groups of them are formed. What is
+more nearly akin to them gathers round their centres;
+then the groups repel one another. This splitting up
+gives them width and many-sidedness in their development;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>after developing to the end, that is to the extreme,
+the branches unite again by whatever names they may be
+called—Stankevitch’s circle, the Slavophils, or our little
+circle.</p>
+
+<p>The leading characteristic of them all is a profound
+feeling of aversion for official Russia, for their environment,
+and at the same time the impulse to get out of it—and
+in some a vehement desire to get rid of it.</p>
+
+<p>The objection that these circles, unnoticed both from
+above and from below, form an exceptional, a casual, a disconnected
+phenomenon, that the education of the young
+people was for the most part exotic, alien, and that they
+rather express the translation of French and German
+ideas into Russian than anything of their own, seems to
+us quite groundless.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly at the end of last and the beginning of this
+century there was in the aristocracy a sprinkling of
+Russian foreigners who had sundered all ties with the
+national life; but they had neither living interests, nor
+circles based on convictions, nor a literature of their own.
+They died out without leaving fruit. Victims of the
+divorce from the people brought about by Peter the
+Great, they remained eccentric and whimsical, they
+were men not merely superfluous but undeserving of
+pity. The war of 1812 put an end to them—the old
+generation lived on, but none of the younger developed
+in that direction. To include among them men of the
+stamp of Tchaadayev would be the greatest mistake.</p>
+
+<p>Protest, denunciation, hatred for one’s country if you
+will has a completely different significance from indifferent
+aloofness. Byron, lashing at English life,
+fleeing from England as from the plague, remained a
+typical Englishman. Heine, trying through exasperation
+at the loathsome political state of Germany to turn French,
+remained a genuine German. The highest protest
+against Judaism—Christianity—is filled with the spirit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>of Judaism. The separation of the states of North
+America from England could lead to war and hatred,
+but it could not make the Americans un-English.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, it is with great difficulty that men abandon
+their physiological memories and the mould in which
+they are cast by heredity; to do so a man must either be
+peculiarly passionless and lacking in individual characteristics
+or must be absorbed in abstract pursuits. The
+impersonality of mathematics, the unhuman objectivity
+of nature do not call forth those sides of the soul and do
+not awaken them; but as soon as we touch upon questions
+of life, of art, of morals, in which a man is not only an
+observer and investigator, but at the same time himself
+an interested party, then we find a physiological limit—which
+it is very hard to cross with old blood and brains
+unless one could erase from them all traces of the songs
+of the cradle, of the fields and the hills of home, of the
+customs and whole setting of the past.</p>
+
+<p>The poet or the artist in his truest work is always
+national. Whatever he does, whatever aim and thought
+he may have in his work, he consciously or unconsciously
+expresses some elements of the national character and
+expresses them more deeply and more clearly than the
+very history of the people. Even when renouncing
+everything national, the artist does not lose the chief
+characteristics from which it can be recognised to what
+people he belongs. Both in the Greek ‘Iphigenia’ and
+in the Oriental ‘Divan’ Goethe was a German. Poets
+really are, as the Romans called them, prophets; only
+they do not foretell what is not and will be by chance,
+but put into words what is unrecognised, what exists in
+the dim consciousness of the masses, what is already
+slumbering in them.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that has existed from time immemorial in
+the soul of the Anglo-Saxon peoples is drawn together
+as in a ring by one personality; and every fibre, every
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>hint, every attempt, fermenting from generation to generation,
+unconscious of itself, has taken form and language.</p>
+
+<p>Probably no one supposes that the England of the
+Elizabethan times—the majority of the people anyway—had
+a clear understanding of Shakespeare; they have no
+distinct understanding of him even now—but then they
+have no distinct understanding of themselves either.
+But I do not doubt that when an Englishman goes to the
+theatre he understands Shakespeare instinctively, through
+sympathy. At the moment when he is listening to the
+play, something becomes clearer and more familiar to
+him. One would have thought that a people so capable
+of rapid comprehension as the French might have understood
+Shakespeare too. The character of Hamlet, for
+instance, is so universally human, especially in the stage
+of doubts and hesitation, in the consciousness of some
+black deeds being perpetrated about him, some betrayal
+of what is great for the sake of something that is mean
+and trivial, that it is hard to imagine that any people
+could fail to understand him, but in spite of every trial
+and effort, Hamlet remains alien to the Frenchman.</p>
+
+<p>If the aristocrats of the past century, who systematically
+despised everything Russian, remained in reality incredibly
+more Russian than the house-serfs remained peasants, it
+is even more impossible that the younger generation could
+have lost their Russian character because they studied
+science and philosophy and French and German books.
+A section of the Slavs at Moscow reached the point of
+ultra-Slavism with Hegel in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>The very circles of which I am speaking came into
+existence in natural response to a deep inner need of the
+Russian life of that period.</p>
+
+<p>We have spoken many times of the stagnation that
+followed the catastrophe of 1825. The moral level of
+society sank, development was interrupted, everything
+progressive and energetic was struck out of life. Those
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>who remained—frightened, weak, distracted—were petty
+and insignificant; the worthless creatures of the generation
+of Alexander occupied the foremost place; little by
+little they changed into cringing officials, lost the savage
+poetry of revelry and of the audacity of the privileged
+class together with every shadow of independent dignity;
+they served persistently, they served until they reached
+high positions, but they never became great personages.
+Their day was over.</p>
+
+<p>Under this great world of society, the great world of
+the people maintained an indifferent silence; nothing
+was changed for them—their plight was bad, but no worse
+than before, the new blows fell not on their scourged
+backs. Their time had not yet come. Between this
+roof and this foundation children were the first to raise
+their heads, perhaps because they did not suspect how
+dangerous it was; but, be that as it may, with these
+children Russia, stunned and stupefied, began to come
+to life again.</p>
+
+<p>What impressed them was the complete contradiction
+of the words they were taught with the facts of life around
+them. Their teachers, their books, their university
+spoke one language and that language was intelligible to
+heart and mind. Their father and mother, their relations,
+and all their surroundings spoke another with which
+neither mind nor heart was in agreement—but with
+which the dominant authorities and financial interests
+were in accord. This contradiction between education
+and ordinary life nowhere reached such proportions as
+among the nobility of Russia. The shaggy German
+student with his round cap covering a seventh part of his
+head, with his world-shaking sallies, is far nearer to the
+German <i>Spitzburger</i> than is supposed, while the French
+<i>collégien</i>, thin with vanity and emulation, is already <i>en
+herbe l’homme raisonnable qui exploite sa position</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The number of educated people amongst us has always
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>been extremely small; but those who were educated have
+always received an education, not perhaps very thorough,
+but fairly general and humane: it made men of all with
+whom it succeeded. But a man was just what was not
+wanted either for the hierarchical pyramid or for the
+successful maintenance of the landowning régime. The
+young man had either to dehumanise himself—and the
+greater number did so—or to stop short and ask himself:
+‘But is it absolutely essential to go into the service? Is
+it really a good thing to be a landowner?’ After that
+for some, the weaker and more impatient, there followed
+the idle existence of a cornet on the retired list, the sloth
+of the country, the dressing-gown, eccentricities, cards,
+wine; for others a time of trial and inner travail. They
+could not live in complete moral disharmony, nor could
+they be satisfied with a negative attitude of withdrawal;
+awakened thought demanded an outlet. The various
+solutions of these questions, all equally harassing for the
+young generation, determined their distribution into
+various circles.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, for instance, our little circle was formed in the
+university and found Sungurov’s circle there already.
+His, like ours, was concerned rather with politics than
+with learning. Stankevitch’s circle, which came into
+existence at the same time, was equally near both and
+equally remote from both. He went by another path,
+his interests were purely theoretical.</p>
+
+<p>Between 1830 and 1840 our convictions were too
+youthful, too ardent and passionate, not to be exclusive.
+We could feel a cold respect for Stankevitch’s circle, but
+we could not be intimate with its members. They
+traced philosophical systems, were absorbed in self-analysis,
+and found peace in a luxurious pantheism from
+which Christianity was not excluded. We were dreaming
+how to get up a new league in Russia on the pattern
+of the Decembrists and looked upon knowledge itself as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>merely a means. The government did its best to
+strengthen us in our revolutionary tendencies.</p>
+
+<p>In 1834 all Sungurov’s circle was sent into exile and—vanished.</p>
+
+<p>In 1835 we were exiled. Five years later we came
+back, hardened by our experience. The dreams of
+youth had become the irrevocable determination of
+maturity. This was the most brilliant period of Stankevitch’s
+circle. Stankevitch himself I did not find in
+Moscow—he was in Germany; but it was just at that
+moment that Byelinsky’s articles were beginning to
+attract the attention of every one.</p>
+
+<p>On our return we measured our strength with them.
+The battle was an unequal one; basis, weapons, and
+language—all were different. After fruitless skirmishes
+we saw that it was our turn now to undertake serious
+study and we too set to work upon Hegel and the German
+philosophy. When we had sufficiently assimilated that,
+it became evident that there was no ground for dispute
+between us and Stankevitch’s circle.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was inevitably bound to break up. It
+had done its work—and had done it most brilliantly;
+its influence on the whole of literature and academic
+teaching was immense—one need but recall the names of
+Byelinsky and Granovsky; Koltsov was formed in it,
+Botkin, Katkov, and others belonged to it. But it could
+not remain an exclusive circle without passing into
+German formalism—men who are alive and Russian are
+not capable of that.</p>
+
+<p>Besides Stankevitch’s circle, there was another circle,
+formed during our exile and in the same relation with
+them as we; its members were afterwards called Slavophils.
+The Slavophils approached from the opposite
+side the vital questions which occupied us, and were far
+more absorbed in living work and real conflict than
+Stankevitch’s circle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p>
+
+<p>It was natural that Stankevitch’s society should split
+up between them and us. The Aksakovs and Samarin
+joined the Slavophils, that is, Homyakov and the Kireyevskys.
+Byelinsky and Bakunin joined us. The closest
+friend of Stankevitch, the most nearly akin to him in his
+whole nature, Granovsky, was one of us from the day
+he came back from Germany.</p>
+
+<p>If Stankevitch had lived, his circle would still have
+broken up. He would himself have gone over to Homyakov
+or to us.</p>
+
+<p>By 1842 the sifting in accordance with natural affinity
+had long been complete, and our camp stood in battle
+array face to face with the Slavophils. Of that conflict
+we will speak in another place.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion I will add a few words concerning the
+elements of which Stankevitch’s circle was composed;
+that will throw a light on the strange underground
+currents which were silently undermining the strong
+crust of the Russo-German régime.</p>
+
+<p>Stankevitch was the son of a wealthy landowner of the
+province of Voronezh, and was at first brought up in all
+the ease and freedom of a landowner’s life in the country;
+then he was sent to the Ostrogozhsk school (and that was
+something quite original). For fine natures a wealthy
+and even aristocratic education is very good. Comfort
+gives unfettered freedom and space for growth and development
+of every sort, it saves the young mind from premature
+anxiety and apprehension of the future, and provides
+complete freedom to pursue the subjects to which it is
+drawn.</p>
+
+<p>Stankevitch’s development was broad and harmonious;
+his artistic, musical, and at the same time reflective and
+contemplative nature showed itself from the very
+beginning of his university career. Stankevitch’s special
+faculty, not only for deeply and warmly understanding,
+but also for reconciling, or as the Germans say ‘removing’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>contradictions, was due to his artistic temperament. The
+craving for harmony, proportion, and enjoyment makes
+such people indulgent as to the means; to avoid seeing
+the well they cover it over with canvas. The canvas
+will not stand a push, but the yawning gulf does not vex
+the eye. In this way the Germans reached pantheistic
+quietism and slumbered tranquilly upon it; but such a
+gifted Russian as Stankevitch could not remain ‘tranquil’
+for long.</p>
+
+<p>This is evident from the first question which involuntarily
+troubled Stankevitch immediately after he left the
+university.</p>
+
+<p>His university studies were finished, he was left to
+himself, he was no longer led by others, <i>but he did not
+know what he was to do</i>. There was nothing to go on
+with, there was no one and nothing around that appealed
+to a living man. A youth, taking stock of his surroundings
+and having had time to look about him after school,
+found himself in the Russia of those days in the position
+of a traveller awakening in the steppe; one might go
+where one would—there were traces, there were bones
+of those who had perished, there were wild beasts and
+the empty desert on all sides with its dull menace of
+danger, in which it is easy to perish and impossible to
+struggle. The one thing which could be pursued was
+study.</p>
+
+<p>And so Stankevitch persevered in the pursuit of
+learning. He imagined that it was his vocation to be
+an historian, and began studying Herodotus; it could
+be foreseen that nothing could come of that pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>He would have liked to be in Petersburg in which
+there was such a rush of activity of a sort and to which
+he was attracted by the theatre and by nearness to Europe;
+he would have liked to be an honorary superintendent of
+the school at Ostrogozhsk. He determined to be of use
+in that ‘modest career’—that was even less successful
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>than Herodotus. He was in reality drawn to Moscow,
+to Germany, to his own university circle, to his own
+interests. He could not exist without intimate friends
+(another proof that there were at hand no interests very
+near to his heart). The craving for sympathy was so
+strong in Stankevitch that he sometimes invented intellectual
+sympathy and talents and saw and admired
+in people qualities which were completely non-existent in
+them.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>But—and in this lay his personal power—he did not
+often need to have recourse to such fictions, at every step
+he met wonderful people, he had the faculty of meeting
+them, and every one to whom he opened his heart remained
+his passionate friend for life; and to every such
+friend Stankevitch’s influence was either an immense
+benefit or an alleviation of his burden.</p>
+
+<p>In Voronezh Stankevitch used sometimes to go to the
+one local library for books. There he met a poor young
+man of humble station, modest and melancholy. It
+turned out that he was the son of a cattle-dealer who had
+business with Stankevitch’s father over sales. Stankevitch
+befriended the young man; the cattle-dealer’s son was a
+great reader and fond of talking of books. Stankevitch
+got to know him well. Shyly and timidly the youth
+confessed that he had himself tried his hand at writing
+verses and, blushing, ventured to show them. Stankevitch
+was amazed at the immense talent not conscious nor
+confident of itself. From that minute he did not let
+him go until all Russia was reading Koltsov’s songs with
+enthusiasm. It is quite likely that the poor cattle-dealer,
+oppressed by his relations, unwarmed by sympathy or
+recognition, might have wasted his songs on the empty
+steppe beyond the Volga over which he drove his herds,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>and Russia would never have heard those exquisite, truly
+national songs, if Stankevitch had not crossed his path.</p>
+
+<p>When Bakunin finished his studies at the school of
+artillery, he received a commission as an officer in the
+Guards. It is said that his father was angry with him
+and himself asked that he should be transferred into the
+regular army. Cast away in some God-forsaken village
+of White Russia with his battery, he grew morose and unsociable,
+left off performing his duties, and would lie for
+whole days together on his bed wrapped in a sheepskin.
+The commander of his battery was sorry for him; he
+had, however, no alternative but to remind him that he
+must either do his duties or go on the retired list. Bakunin
+had no suspicion that he had a right to take the latter
+course and at once asked to be relieved of his commission.
+On receiving his discharge he came to Moscow, and from
+that date (about 1836) life began in earnest for him. He
+had studied nothing before, had read nothing, and scarcely
+knew German. With great dialectical abilities, with a
+gift for obstinate, persistent thinking, he had strayed
+without map or compass in a world of fantastic projects
+and efforts at self-education. Stankevitch perceived his
+talents and set him down to philosophy. Bakunin learnt
+German on Kant and Fichte and then set to work upon
+Hegel, whose method and logic he mastered to perfection,
+and to whom did he not preach it afterwards? To
+us and to Byelinsky, to ladies and to Proudhon.</p>
+
+<p>But Byelinsky drew as much from the same source;
+Stankevitch’s views on art, on poetry and its relation to
+life, grew in Byelinsky’s articles into that powerful
+modern criticism, into that new outlook upon the world
+and upon life which impressed all thinking Russia and
+made all the pedants and doctrinaires draw back from
+Byelinsky with horror. It was Stankevitch’s lot to
+initiate Byelinsky into the mysteries; but the passionate,
+merciless, fiercely intolerant talent that carried Byelinsky
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>beyond all bounds wounded the aesthetically harmonious
+temperament of Stankevitch.</p>
+
+<p>And at the same time it was Stankevitch who encouraged
+the gentle, loving, dreamy, and at that time
+melancholy Granovsky. Stankevitch was a support and
+an elder brother to him. His letters to Granovsky are full
+of charm and beauty—and how Granovsky loved him!</p>
+
+<p>‘I have not yet recovered from the first shock,’ wrote
+Granovsky soon after Stankevitch’s death, ‘real grief
+has not touched me yet; I am afraid of it in the future.
+Now I am still unable to believe that my loss is possible—only
+at times there is a stab at my heart. He has taken
+with him something essential to my life. To no one in
+the world was I so much indebted. His influence over
+us was always unbounded and always fruitful of good.’</p>
+
+<p>And how many could say that! Perhaps have said it!</p>
+
+<p>In Stankevitch’s circle only he and Botkin&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> were
+well-to-do and completely free from financial anxieties.
+The others made up a very mixed proletariat. Bakunin’s
+relations gave him nothing; Byelinsky, the son of a petty
+official of Tchembary, expelled from Moscow University
+for ‘lack of ability,’ lived on the scanty pay he got for
+his articles. Krassov,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> on taking his degree, went to a
+situation at a landowner’s in some province, but life with
+this patriarchal slaveowner so terrified him that he came
+back on foot to Moscow with a wallet on his back, in the
+winter, together with some peasants in charge of a train
+of wagons. Probably a father or mother of each one
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>of them when giving them their blessing had said—and
+who dare reproach them for it—‘Come, mind you work
+hard at your studies; and when you have taken your
+degree you must make your own way, there is nobody
+to leave you anything, we’ve nothing to give you either;
+you must make a career for yourself and think about us
+too.’ On the other hand, Stankevitch had probably
+been told that he could take a prominent position in
+society, that he was called by wealth and birth to play a
+great part—while in Botkin’s household every one, from
+his old father down to the clerks, urged upon him by
+word and example the necessity of making money, of
+piling up more and more.</p>
+
+<p>What was it touched these men? what inspiration
+re-created them? They had no thought, no care for their
+social position, for their personal advantage, for their
+security; their whole life, all their efforts were bent on
+the public good regardless of all personal interests; some
+forgot their wealth, others their poverty, and went
+forward, without looking back, to the solution of
+theoretical questions. The interests of truth, the interests
+of learning, the interests of art, <i>humanitas</i>, swallowed up
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>And note that the renunciation of this world was not
+confined to the time at the university and two or three
+years of youth. The best men of Stankevitch’s circle
+are dead; the others have remained what they were to
+this day. Byelinsky, worn out by work and suffering,
+fell a fighter and a beggar. Granovsky, delivering his
+message of learning and humanity, died as he mounted
+his platform. Botkin did not, in fact, become a merchant
+... not one of them ‘distinguished themselves’ in the
+government service.</p>
+
+<p>It was just the same in the two other circles, the
+Slavophils and ours. Where, in what corner of the
+Western world of to-day, do you find such groups of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>devotees of thought, of zealots of learning, of fanatics
+of conviction—whose hair turns grey but whose
+enthusiasms are for ever young?</p>
+
+<p>Where? Point to them. I boldly throw down the
+challenge—and I only except for the moment one country,
+Italy—and measure the paces for the conflict, <i>i.e.</i>, I will
+not let my opponent escape from statistics into history.</p>
+
+<p>We know how great was the interest in theory and the
+passion for truth and religion in the days of such martyrs
+for science and reason as Bruno, Galileo, and the rest;
+we know, too, what the France of the Encyclopaedists
+was in the second half of the eighteenth century; but
+later? Later <i>sta viator</i>!</p>
+
+<p>In the Europe of to-day there is no youth and there
+are no young men. The most brilliant representative
+of the France of the last years of the Restoration and of the
+July dynasty, Victor Hugo, has protested against my
+saying this. He speaks especially of the young France
+of the ’twenties, and I am ready to admit that I have been
+too sweeping&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>&#x2060;—but beyond that I will not yield one
+step even to him. I have their own admissions. Take
+<i>Les Mémoires d’un Enfant du Siècle</i>, and the poems of
+Alfred de Musset, recall the France depicted in George
+Sand’s letters, in the contemporary drama and novels, and
+in the cases in the law courts.</p>
+
+<p>But what does all that prove? A very great deal; and
+in the first place that the Chinese shoes of German
+manufacture in which Russia has hobbled for a hundred
+and fifty years, though they have caused many painful
+corns, have evidently not crippled her bones, since whenever
+she has had a chance of stretching her limbs, such
+fresh young energies have been apparent. That does not
+guarantee the future, but it does make it extremely <i>possible</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_26">Chapter 26<br>
+<span class="smcap">Warnings—The Promotion Office—A Minister’s
+Secretariat—The Third Section—The Story of a
+Sentry—General Dubbelt—Count Benckendorf—Olga
+Alexandrovna Zherebtsov—My Second Exile</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Though we were so comfortable in Moscow, we
+had to move to Petersburg. My father insisted
+upon it. Count Strogonov, Minister of Home Affairs,
+commanded me to enter his secretariat, and we set off
+there at the end of the summer of 1840.</p>
+
+<p>I had, however, been in Petersburg for two or three
+weeks in December 1839.</p>
+
+<p>It had happened in this way. When I was relieved
+from police supervision and received the right to visit the
+‘residence and the capital,’ as K. Aksakov called Petersburg
+and Moscow respectively, my father definitely
+preferred the ‘residence’ on the Neva to the ancient
+capital. Count Strogonov, the director of the university,
+wrote to his brother and I had to present myself to him.
+But that was not all. I had been recommended by the
+governor of Vladimir for the grade of collegiate assessor;
+my father wanted me to receive this grade as soon as
+possible. In the Promotion Office the provinces take
+their turn; this turn comes with the pace of a tortoise,
+unless special wires are pulled. They almost always are;
+their cost is excessive because a whole province may be
+taken outside its regular turn, but a single name must not.
+Therefore all have to be paid for, ‘or else some would
+be getting an advantage for nothing.’ Usually the
+officials to be promoted get up a subscription and send a
+delegate to represent them; but on this occasion my
+father took all the expense upon himself, and in that way
+several of the titular councillors of Vladimir were indebted
+to him for becoming assessors eight months before the
+proper time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span></p>
+
+<p>When he sent me off to Petersburg to attend to this
+business, my father repeated once more, as he said good-bye
+to me, ‘For God’s sake, be careful; be on your
+guard with every one, from the conductor of the <i>diligence</i>
+to the acquaintances to whom I am giving you letters.
+Do not trust any one. Petersburg nowadays is not what
+it was in our time. There is sure to be a spy or two
+in every company. <i>Tiens-toi pour averti.</i>’ With this
+commentary on Petersburg life I got into a diligence of
+the earliest pattern, <i>i.e.</i> having all the defects gradually
+eliminated from later ones, and drove off.</p>
+
+<p>When I reached Petersburg at nine o’clock in the
+evening, I took a sledge and drove to St. Isaac’s Square.
+I wanted that to be the place with which I was to begin
+my acquaintance with Petersburg. Everything was
+covered with deep snow, only Peter the Great on his
+horse, gloomy and menacing, stood out sharply against
+the grey background and the darkness of the night.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘And looming black through mists of night</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With stately poise and haughty mien,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Pointing afar with outstretched hand,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">A warrior on a horse is seen,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">A mighty figure, bold and free.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The steed is reined. It rears aloft</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And paws the air imperiously,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">So that its lord might further see....’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Why was it the conflict of the 14th of December took
+place on that Square? Why was it from that pedestal
+that the first cry of Russian freedom rang out? Why did
+the revolting troops cling round Peter the First? Was
+it his reward ... or his punishment? The 14th of
+December 1825 was the sequel of the work interrupted on
+the 21st of January 1725.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Nicholas’s guns were turned
+upon the insurrection and upon the statue alike; it is a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>pity that the grapeshot did not shoot down the bronze
+Peter....</p>
+
+<p>Returning to my hotel I found one of my cousins
+awaiting me, and after talking to him of one thing and
+another, I touched, without thinking, upon St. Isaac’s
+Square and the 14th of December.</p>
+
+<p>‘How is uncle?’ asked my cousin. ‘How did you
+leave him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Thank God, just as usual; he sends you his greetings.’</p>
+
+<p>My cousin, without changing his expression in the
+least, telegraphed reproach, advice, warning with his
+eyes alone; the direction of his eyes made me look round.
+A man was putting wood into the stove; when he had
+lighted it up, himself performing the duty of bellows
+as he did so, and making a pool on the floor from the snow
+that melted off his boots, he took an oven fork, the length
+of a Cossack’s lance, and went out. My cousin at once
+fell to scolding me for having touched upon such a
+‘scabrous’ subject, and in Russian too, before the man.
+As he went away he said to me in an undertone: ‘By
+the way, before I forget it, there is a barber comes here
+to the hotel, he sells all sorts of rubbish, combs and rotten
+pomatums, please be on your guard with him. I am
+certain that he is connected with the police and talks all
+sorts of nonsense. While I was staying here I bought
+some trifles from him just to get rid of him.’</p>
+
+<p>‘To encourage him. Well, and is the laundress in
+the ranks of the gendarmes too?’</p>
+
+<p>‘You may laugh, you may laugh, you’ll come to grief
+before any one; you’re only just back from exile, and
+they will put a dozen nurses to keep watch on you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Though they say that seven are enough for the child
+to grow up with one eye.’</p>
+
+<p>Next day I went to see the official who used in old days
+to look after my father’s affairs: he was a Ukrainian,
+who spoke Russian with an appalling accent, never
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>listened to what was said to him, and showed his surprise
+at everything by shutting his eyes and holding up his fat
+little paws in a way that reminded one of a mouse....
+He could not restrain himself either, and seeing that I
+had taken up my hat, led me aside to the window, looked
+about him, and said to me: ‘You mustn’t be angry.
+Just for the sake of my old acquaintance with the
+family of your father and his late brothers, you must not
+say much about what has happened to you. Upon my
+word, just think yourself, what use is it? Now it has all
+passed like smoke. You said something before my
+cook; she is a Finnish woman. Who can tell what she
+is, and I was a little ... more than a little in fact ...
+frightened.’</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant town, I thought, as I left the frightened clerk....
+The soft snow was falling in big flakes, the damp,
+cold wind penetrated to the very bones, and lifted one’s
+hat and coat. My driver, who could scarcely see a step
+before him, screwing up his eyes and bending his head
+before the snow, shouted, ‘’Ware, ’ware!’ I remembered
+my father’s advice. I thought of my cousin, of the clerk,
+and of the travelling sparrow in George Sand’s fable who
+asked the half-frozen wolf in Lithuania why he lived in
+such a horrid climate. ‘Freedom,’ answered the wolf,
+‘makes one forget the climate.’</p>
+
+<p>The driver was right—beware, beware! and how I
+longed to make haste and get away.</p>
+
+<p>My stay was, in fact, brief on my first visit. In three
+weeks I had finished all my business, and galloped back
+to Vladimir for the New Year.</p>
+
+<p>The experience I had gained in Vyatka was extremely
+useful to me in the Promotion Office. I knew already
+that the Promotion Office was something after the style
+of old St. Giles’ in London, the den of a gang of officially
+recognised thieves, which no inspection, no reform could
+change. To clear St. Giles’, they took a pick, pulled
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>down the houses, and razed them to the ground. That is
+what should be done with the Promotion Office. Moreover,
+it is utterly useless—a sort of parasitic service, the
+office of official promotion, a Ministry of grades and ranks,
+an archaeological society for the investigation of letters
+of nobility, a secretariat of secretariats. It need hardly
+be said that the abuses there were bound to be on a
+higher scale.</p>
+
+<p>My father’s agent brought me a faded old man in a
+uniform, every button of which was hanging by a thread;
+he was anything but clean, and had already had a drop,
+though it was early in the day. This was the proof
+corrector of the Senate Printing Press; after correcting
+grammatical errors, he used to assist various secretaries in
+other errors behind the scenes. Within half an hour I
+had come to terms with him, after bargaining exactly as
+though we were discussing the purchase of a horse or a
+piece of furniture. He could not, however, give me a
+positive answer himself, but ran round to the Senate for
+instructions, and after getting them at last, asked for a
+‘deposit.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But they will keep their promise?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, excuse me, they are not people like that. It never
+happens that after taking a gratuity they do not discharge
+a debt of honour,’ answered the proof corrector in a tone
+of so much offence that I thought it necessary to soften
+him with a slight additional gratuity.</p>
+
+<p>‘There used,’ he observed, when I had thus propitiated
+him, ‘to be a secretary in the Promotion Office who was
+a wonderful man. You’ve maybe heard of him, he
+used to take bribes recklessly and never got into trouble.
+Once a provincial official came to the office to talk about
+his business, and as he said good-bye he gave him a grey
+note on the sly, under cover of his hat. “But why do
+you make a secret of it?” the secretary said to him—“upon
+my word, as though you were giving me a love-letter. If
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>it’s a grey one—all the better. Let the other petitioners
+see it, it will encourage them when they know that I have
+accepted two hundred roubles and settled your business
+for it.” And smoothing out the note, he folded it up
+and put it in his waistcoat pocket.’</p>
+
+<p>The press corrector was right. The secretary discharged
+his debt of honour.</p>
+
+<p>I left Petersburg with a feeling not very far from hatred,
+and yet there was no help for it. I had to move to that
+unattractive town.</p>
+
+<p>I was not long in the service. I got out of my duties
+in every possible way, and so I have not a great deal to
+tell about the service. The secretariat of the Ministry
+of Home Affairs had the same relation to the secretariat
+of the Vyatka government as boots that have been cleaned
+have to those that have not; the leather is the same, the
+sole is the same, but the one sort are muddy, while the
+others are polished. I did not see clerks drunk in Petersburg.
+I did not see twenty kopecks taken for looking
+up a reference, but yet I somehow fancied that under
+those close-fitting dress-coats and carefully combed heads
+there was such a nasty, black, envious, petty, and cowardly
+soul that the head-clerk of my table in Vyatka seemed to
+me more of a man than any of them. As I looked at my
+new colleagues, I recalled how, on one occasion, after
+having a drop too much at the supper at the district
+surveyors, he played a dance tune on the guitar, and at
+last could not resist leaping up with his guitar and beginning
+to join in the dance; but these Petersburg men were
+never carried away by anything. Their blood never
+boiled; wine did not turn their heads. In some dancing
+class, in company with German young ladies, they could
+walk through a French quadrille, pose as disillusioned,
+repeat lines from Timofeyev&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> or Kukolnik&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>
+    ... they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>were diplomats, aristocrats, and Manfreds. It is only a
+pity that Dashkov, the Minister, could not train these
+Childe Harolds not to stand at attention and bow even
+at the theatre, at church, and everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The Petersburghers laugh at the costumes seen in
+Moscow; they are outraged by the caps and Hungarian
+jackets, the long hair and civilian moustaches. Moscow
+certainly is a non-military city, rather careless and unaccustomed
+to discipline, but whether that is a good
+quality or a defect is a matter of opinion. The harmony
+of uniformity, the absence of variety, of what is personal
+and whimsical, a traditional obligatory dress and external
+discipline are all found on the largest scale in the most
+inhuman condition in which men live—in barracks.
+The uniform and a complete absence of variety are
+passionately loved by despotism. Nowhere are fashions
+followed so respectfully as in Petersburg, and that shows
+the immaturity of our culture; our clothes are alien. In
+Europe people dress, but we dress up, and so are terrified
+if a sleeve is too full, or a collar too narrow. In Paris
+all that people are afraid of is being dressed without taste;
+in London all that they are afraid of is catching cold; in
+Italy every one dresses as he likes best. If one were
+to show an Englishman the battalions of fops on the
+Nevsky Prospect, all wearing exactly similar, tightly
+buttoned coats, he would take them for a squad of
+‘policemen.’</p>
+
+<p>I had to do violence to my feelings every time I went
+to the Ministry. The chief of the secretariat, K. K. von
+Paul, <i>Herrnhuter</i>,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and a virtuous and lymphatic native
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>of the Island of Dago, induced a kind of pious boredom
+in all his surroundings. The heads of the sections ran
+anxiously about with portfolios and were dissatisfied with
+the head-clerks of the tables; the latter wrote and wrote
+and certainly were overwhelmed with work, and had the
+prospect before them of dying at those tables, or, at any
+rate, if not particularly fortunate, sitting there for twenty
+years. In the Registration Office there was a clerk who
+had for thirty-three years been keeping a record of the
+papers and printed parcels that went out.</p>
+
+<p>My ‘literary exercises’ were of some benefit to me
+here too; after experience of my incapacity for anything
+else, the head of the section entrusted me with the composition
+of a general report on the Ministry from the
+various provincial secretariats. The foresight of the
+government had led them to propound certain general
+deductions beforehand, not leaving them to the chance
+risks of facts and figures. Thus, for instance, in the
+sketch of the proposed report appeared the statement:
+‘From the examination of the number and character of
+crimes’ (neither their number nor their character was
+yet known) ‘your Majesty may be graciously pleased to
+perceive the progress of national morality, and the increased
+zeal of the officials for its improvement.’ Fate
+and Count Benckendorf saved me from taking part in
+this faked report. It happened in this way.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o’clock one morning, early in December,
+Matvey told me that the superintendent of the local
+police-station wished to see me. I could not guess what
+had brought him to me, and bade Matvey show him in.
+The superintendent showed me a scrap of paper on which
+was written that I was summoned at ten o’clock in the
+morning to the Third Section of His Majesty’s Own
+Secretariat.</p>
+
+<p>‘Very well,’ I answered. ‘That is by Tsyepnoy
+Bridge, isn’t it?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ he answered. ‘I have a
+sledge downstairs. I will go with you.’</p>
+
+<p>It is a bad look-out, I thought, and with a pang at my
+heart I went into the bedroom. My wife was sitting
+with the baby, who had only just begun to recover after
+a long illness. ‘What does he want?’ she asked. ‘I
+don’t know, some nonsense. I shall have to go with him....
+Don’t be anxious.’</p>
+
+<p>My wife looked at me and said nothing; she only
+turned pale as though a dark cloud had passed over her,
+and handed me the child to say good-bye to it.</p>
+
+<p>I felt at that moment how much heavier every blow is
+for a man with wife and children; the blow does not
+strike him alone, he suffers for all, and unconsciously
+blames himself for their sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>The feeling can be conquered, overcome, concealed,
+but one must recognise what it costs. I went out of the
+house in black misery. Very different was my mood
+when six years before I had set off with the police-master
+Miller to the Pretchistensky police-station.</p>
+
+<p>We drove over the Tsyepnoy Bridge and through the
+Summer Garden and turned towards what had been
+Kotchubey’s house; in the lodge there, the secular
+inquisition founded by Nicholas was installed: people
+who went in at its back gates, before which we stopped,
+did not always come out of them again, or, if they did, it
+was perhaps to be cast away in Siberia or perish in the
+Alexeyevsky ravelin. We crossed all sorts of courtyards
+and little squares, and came at last to the office. In spite
+of the presence of the commissar, the gendarme did not
+admit us, but summoned an official who, after reading
+the summons, left the police-superintendent in the corridor
+and asked me to follow him. He took me to the director’s
+room. At a big table near which stood several armchairs
+a thin, grey-headed old man, with a sinister face,
+was sitting in complete solitude. To add to his dignity,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>he went on reading a paper to the end, then got up and
+came towards me. He had a star on his breast from which
+I concluded that he was some sort of commanding officer
+in the army of spies.</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you seen General Dubbelt?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No.’</p>
+
+<p>He paused. Then, frowning and knitting his brows,
+without looking me in the face, he asked me in a sort of
+threadbare voice (the voice reminded me of the nervous,
+hissing notes of Golitsyn junior at the Moscow commission
+of inquiry): ‘I think that you have not very long
+had permission to visit Petersburg or Moscow?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I received it last year.’</p>
+
+<p>The old man shook his head. ‘And you have made a
+bad use of the Tsar’s graciousness. I believe you’ll have
+to go back again to Vyatka.’</p>
+
+<p>I gazed at him in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘you’ve chosen a fine way to show
+your gratitude to the government that permitted you
+to return.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I don’t understand in the least,’ I said, lost in conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>‘You don’t understand? That’s just what is bad,
+too! What connections! What pursuits! Instead of
+showing your zeal from the first, effacing the stains left
+from your youthful errors, turning your abilities to service—no,
+indeed, it’s nothing but politics and criticisms, and
+all to the detriment of the government. This is what
+your talk has brought you to! How is it you’ve learnt
+nothing from experience? How do you know that among
+those who talk to you there is not always some scoundrel&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>
+who asks nothing better than to come <i>here</i> a minute later
+to give information.’</p>
+
+<p>‘If you can explain to me what it all means, you will
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>greatly oblige me. I am racking my brains and cannot
+understand what your words are leading up to, or at what
+they are hinting.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What they are leading to? Hm.... Come, did
+you hear that a sentry at the Blue Bridge killed and robbed
+a man at night?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, I did,’ I answered with great simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>‘And perhaps you repeated it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I believe I did repeat it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘With comments, I daresay?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Very likely.’</p>
+
+<p>‘With what sort of comments? There you see the
+disposition to attack the government. I tell you openly,
+the one thing that does you credit is your sincere avowal,
+it will certainly be taken into consideration by the Count.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Upon my word’ I said, ‘what is there to avow?
+All the town was talking of the story; it was talked of in
+the secretariat, and in the Ministry of Home Affairs
+and in the shops. What is there surprising in my having
+spoken about the incident?’</p>
+
+<p>‘The diffusion of false and mischievous rumours is a
+crime amenable to the law.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You seem to be charging me with having invented
+the story.’</p>
+
+<p>‘In the note submitted to the Tsar it is merely stated
+that you assisted in the propagation of this mischievous
+rumour, upon which the decision of the Most High
+concerning your return to Vyatka has been taken.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You are simply trying to frighten me,’ I answered.
+‘How is it possible to send a man with a wife and child
+a thousand miles away for such a trivial matter, and, what’s
+more, to condemn and sentence him without even inquiring
+whether it is true.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You have admitted it yourself.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But you say the report was submitted and the matter
+settled before you spoke to me.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Read for yourself.’ The old man went up to the
+table, fumbled among a small heap of papers, coolly pulled
+out one and handed it to me. I read it and could not
+believe my eyes; such complete absence of justice, such
+insolent, shameless disregard of the law was amazing,
+even in Russia.</p>
+
+<p>I did not speak. I fancy that the old man himself felt
+that it was a very absurd and extremely silly business, as
+he did not think it necessary to defend it further, but after
+a brief silence asked:</p>
+
+<p>‘I believe you said you were married?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I am married.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It is a pity that we did not know that before. However,
+if anything can be done, the Count will do it. I
+will repeat our conversation to him. <i>In any case</i> you
+will be banished from Petersburg.’</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me. I did not speak, but felt that my
+face was burning. Everything I could not utter, everything
+restrained within me could be seen in my face.</p>
+
+<p>The old man dropped his eyes, paused, and in an
+apathetic voice, with an affectation of refined politeness,
+said to me: ‘I will not venture to detain you further.
+I most sincerely hope—however, you will hear later.’</p>
+
+<p>I rushed home. My heart was boiling with a consuming
+fury—that feeling of impotence, of having no
+rights, the position of a caged beast at which a scornful
+street boy mocks, knowing that all the tiger’s strength is
+not enough to break the bars.</p>
+
+<p>I found my wife in a fever; she was taken ill that day,
+and, having another fright in the evening, was a few days
+later prematurely confined. The baby only lived a day,
+and it was three or four years before she fully recovered
+her strength.</p>
+
+<p>They say that that tender paterfamilias, Nicholas
+Pavlovitch, shed tears when his daughter died....
+And what strange passion induces them to raise a hubbub,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>gallop full-speed, make such a fuss and do everything in
+tearing haste, as though the town were on fire, the throne
+were tottering, or the dynasty in danger, and all that
+without the slightest necessity! It is the sense of romance
+of the police, the dramatic efforts of the detective, the
+spectacular setting for the display of loyal zeal.... The
+janissaries, the swashbucklers, the bloodhounds!</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the day on which I had been to the
+Third Section, we were sitting sorrowfully at a small
+table—the baby was playing with his toys on it; we spoke
+little—and all at once some one pulled the bell so violently
+that we could not help starting. Matvey rushed to open
+the door, and a second later an officer of gendarmes,
+clashing his sabre and jingling his spurs, darted into the
+room and began in choice language apologising to my
+wife. He could not have imagined, he had had no
+suspicion, no idea that there was a lady and children in
+the case. It was extremely unfortunate.... Gendarmes
+are the very flower of courtesy; if it were not for
+their duty, for the sacred obligations of the service, they
+would never make secret reports, or even beat post-boys
+and drivers at posting-stations. I know that from the
+Krutitsky Barracks where the <i>désolé</i> officer was so deeply
+distressed at being forced to feel in my pockets. Paul
+Louis Courier&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> observed in his day that executioners and
+prosecutors are the most courteous of men. ‘My dear
+executioner,’ writes the prosecutor, ‘if it is not troubling
+you too much, you will do me the greatest service if you
+will kindly undertake to chop off So-and-so’s head to-morrow
+morning.’ And the executioner hastens to
+answer that he esteems himself fortunate indeed that he
+can by so trifling a service do something agreeable to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>the prosecutor and remains always his devoted and
+obedient servant the executioner, and the other man, the
+third, remains devoted without his head!</p>
+
+<p>‘General Dubbelt summons you to his presence.’</p>
+
+<p>‘When?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Upon my word! now, at once, this minute.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Matvey, give me my overcoat.’</p>
+
+<p>I pressed my wife’s hand—her face was flushed, her
+hand was burning. Why this hurry at ten o’clock in the
+evening? Had a plot been discovered? Had some one
+run away? Was the precious life of Nicholas in danger?
+I really was unfair to that sentry, I thought. There was
+nothing to be surprised at in one of the agents of this
+government murdering two or three passers-by; the
+sentries of the second and third degree are no better than
+their comrade on the Blue Bridge. And what about the
+head sentry of all?</p>
+
+<p>Dubbelt had summoned me in order to tell me that
+Count Benckendorf commanded my presence at eight
+o’clock next morning to inform me of the decision of the
+Most High.</p>
+
+<p>Dubbelt was an original person; he was probably
+more intelligent than the whole of the Third Section—indeed,
+of all the three sections of His Majesty’s Own
+Secretariat. His sunken face, shaded by long, fair
+moustaches, his fatigued expression, particularly the
+furrows on his cheeks and on his brow, unmistakably
+betrayed that his breast had been the battlefield of many
+passions before the pale-blue uniform had dominated, or
+rather hidden, everything within it. His features had
+something wolfish and even foxy about them, <i>i.e.</i>, they
+expressed the subtle shrewdness of beasts of prey; there
+was at once evasiveness and conceit in them. He was
+always courteous.</p>
+
+<p>When I went into his study, he was sitting in a uniform
+coat, without epaulettes, and smoking a pipe as he wrote.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>He rose instantly, and asking me to sit down facing him,
+began with the following surprising sentence:</p>
+
+<p>‘Count Alexandr Christophorovitch has given me this
+opportunity of making your acquaintance. I believe
+you saw Sahtynsky this morning?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, I did.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I am very sorry that the occasion that has forced me to
+ask you to see me is not quite an agreeable one for you.
+Your imprudence has again brought his Majesty’s anger
+upon you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I will say to you, General, what I said to Mr. Sahtynsky,
+I cannot imagine that I am being exiled simply for
+having repeated a street rumour, which you, of course,
+heard before I did, and possibly spoke of just as I did.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, I heard the rumour, and I spoke of it, and in
+that we are alike; but this is where the difference comes
+in—in repeating the absurd story I swore that there was
+nothing in it, while you made the rumour a ground for
+attacking the whole police. It is this unfortunate passion
+<i>de dénigrer le gouvernement</i>—a passion that has developed
+in all of you gentlemen from the fatal example of the
+West. It is not with us as in France, where the government
+is at daggers drawn with the parties—there it is
+dragged into the mud. Our government is paternal—everything
+is done as privately as possible.... We do
+our very utmost that everything should go as quietly and
+smoothly as possible, and here men, who in spite of
+painful experience persist in a fruitless opposition, alarm
+public opinion by repeating verbally, and in writing, that
+the soldiers of the police murder men in the streets.
+Isn’t that true? You have written about it, haven’t you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I attach so little importance to the matter that I don’t
+think it necessary to conceal that I have written about it,
+and I will add to whom—to my father.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course, it is not an important matter, but see what
+it has brought upon you. His Majesty at once remembered
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>your name, and that you had been in Vyatka, and
+commanded that you should be sent back there, and so
+the Count has commissioned me to inform you that you
+must come to him to-morrow at eight o’clock and he will
+announce to you the decision of the Most High.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And so it is left that I am to go to Vyatka with a sick
+wife and a sick child on account of something that you
+say is not important?...’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, are you in the service?’ Dubbelt asked me,
+looking intently at the buttons of my uniform coat.</p>
+
+<p>‘In the Ministry of Home Affairs.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you been there long?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Six months.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And all the time in Petersburg?’</p>
+
+<p>‘All the time.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I had no idea of it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You see,’ I said, smiling, ‘how discreetly I have
+behaved.’</p>
+
+<p>Sahtynsky did not know that I was married, Dubbelt
+did not know that I was in the service, but both knew
+what I said in my own room, what I thought, and what
+I wrote to my father.... What was really wrong was
+that I was just beginning to be friendly with Petersburg
+literary men, and to publish articles, and, worse still, had
+been transferred from Vladimir to Petersburg by Count
+Strogonov without the secret police having been consulted,
+and when I arrived in Petersburg had not presented
+myself either to Dubbelt or to the Third Section, as
+worthy persons had hinted that I should do.</p>
+
+<p>‘To be sure,’ Dubbelt interrupted me, ‘all the
+evidence that has been collected about you is to your
+credit. Only yesterday I was speaking to Zhukovsky
+and should be thankful to hear my son spoken of as he
+spoke of you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And yet I am to go to Vyatka?’</p>
+
+<p>‘You see it is your misfortune that the secret report
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>has been handed in already, and that many circumstances
+had not been taken into consideration. You will have
+to go, there is no altering that, but I imagine that it might
+be another town instead of Vyatka. I will talk it over
+with the Count, he is going to-night to the Palace. We
+will try and do all that can be done to make things easier;
+the Count is a man of angelic kindness.’</p>
+
+<p>I got up, Dubbelt escorted me to the door of the study.
+At that point I could not restrain myself, and stopping,
+I said to him:</p>
+
+<p>‘I have one small favour to ask of you, General. If
+you want me, please do not send constables or gendarmes.
+They are noisy and alarming, especially in the evening.
+Why should my sick wife be more severely punished than
+any one on account of the sentry business?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh! good heavens, how unpleasant that is,’ replied
+Dubbelt, ‘how tactless they all are! You may rest
+assured that I will not send a policeman again. And so
+till to-morrow; don’t forget, eight o’clock at the Count’s;
+we shall meet there.’</p>
+
+<p>It was exactly as though we were agreeing to go to
+Smurov’s to eat oysters together.</p>
+
+<p>At eight o’clock next morning I was in Benckendorf’s
+reception room. I found five or six petitioners waiting
+there; they stood gloomy and anxious by the wall,
+started at every sound, and then timidly drew themselves
+in again, and bowed to every adjutant that passed.
+Among their number was a woman in deep mourning,
+with tear-stained eyes. She sat with a paper rolled up
+in her hand, and the roll trembled like a leaf. Three
+paces from her stood a tall, rather bent old man of seventy,
+bald and sallow, in a dark-green overcoat, with a row of
+medals and crosses on his breast. From time to time he
+sighed, shook his head and murmured something to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Some sort of ‘friend of the family,’ a flunkey, or a clerk
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>on duty, sat in the window, lolling at his ease. He got
+up when I went in, and looking intently at his face I
+recognised him; that loathsome figure had been pointed
+out to me at the theatre as one of the chief street detectives,
+and his name, I remember, was Fabre. He asked
+me:</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you come with a petition to the Count?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have come at his summons.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Your surname?’</p>
+
+<p>I mentioned it.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah,’ he said, changing his tone as though he had met
+an old acquaintance, ‘won’t you be pleased to sit down?
+The Count will be here in a quarter of an hour.’</p>
+
+<p>It was horribly still and <i>unheimlich</i> in the room, the
+daylight hardly penetrated through the fog and frozen
+window-panes, no one said a word. The adjutants ran
+quickly to and fro, and the gendarme standing at the door
+sometimes jingled his accoutrements as he shifted from
+foot to foot. Two more petitioners came in. The clerk
+on duty ran to ask each what he had come about. One
+of the adjutants went up to him and began in a half-whisper
+telling him some story, assuming a desperately
+roguish air as he did so. No doubt it was something
+revolting, for they interspersed their talk at frequent
+intervals with flunkeyish, noiseless laughter, during which
+the worthy clerk, affecting to be quite helpless, and ready
+to explode, repeated: ‘Do stop, for God’s sake stop, I
+can’t bear it.’</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Dubbelt came in with his uniform
+unbuttoned as though he were off duty, glanced casually
+at the petitioners, whereupon they all bowed, and seeing
+me at the farther end said: ‘<i>Bonjour, Monsieur Herzen.
+Votre affaire va parfaitement bien</i> ... very well indeed.’</p>
+
+<p>They would let me stay, perhaps! I was on the point
+of asking, but before I had time to utter a word Dubbelt
+had disappeared. Next there walked into the room a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>general, polished up and highly decorated, tightly laced
+and stiffly erect, in white breeches, with a scarf across
+his breast. I have never seen a finer general. If ever
+there is an exhibition of generals in London as there now
+is a Baby Exhibition at Cincinnati, I should advise his
+being sent from Petersburg. The general went up to
+the door from which Benckendorf was to enter and
+became petrified in stiff immobility; with great interest
+I scrutinised this sergeant’s ideal. A lot of soldiers, I
+expect, he had flogged in his day for falling out of step!
+Where do these people come from? He was born for
+rifle drill and army discipline! He was attended by
+the most elegant cornet in the world, probably his
+adjutant, a fair-haired youth, with incredibly long legs,
+a tiny face like a squirrel’s, and that simple-hearted expression
+which often persists in mamma’s darlings who
+have never studied anything, or, at any rate, have
+never succeeded in learning anything. This eglantine
+in uniform stood at a respectful distance from the model
+general.</p>
+
+<p>Dubbelt darted in again, this time looking dignified,
+with all his buttons done up. He at once addressed the
+general, and asked him what he had come about. The
+general, with the perfect correctness with which privates
+speak when presenting themselves to their superior
+officers, reported: ‘Yesterday I received through Prince
+Alexandr Ivanovitch the command of the Most High to
+join the Army at the front at the Caucasus, and esteemed
+it my duty to present myself to his Excellency before
+leaving.’</p>
+
+<p>Dubbelt listened with religious attention to this speech,
+and with a slight bow as a sign of respect went out and
+returned a minute later.</p>
+
+<p>‘The Count,’ he said to the general, ‘sincerely regrets
+that he has not time to receive your Excellency. He
+thanks you and has commissioned me to wish you a good
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>journey.’ Whereupon Dubbelt flung wide his arms,
+embraced the general, and twice touched his cheeks with
+his moustaches.</p>
+
+<p>The general retreated at a solemn march, the youth
+with the face of a squirrel and the legs of a crane strode
+after him. This scene made up to me for a great deal
+of bitterness that day. The general’s attitude, the
+farewell by proxy, and the sly face of <i>Reinecke Fuchs</i> as
+he kissed the brainless countenance of his Excellency was
+all so ludicrous that I could scarcely contain myself. I
+fancied that Dubbelt noticed it and began to respect me
+from that time.</p>
+
+<p>At last both folds of the double door were flung open
+and Benckendorf walked in. There was nothing unpleasant
+in the appearance of the chief of the gendarmes;
+his exterior was rather typical of a nobleman of the Baltic
+provinces, and, indeed, of the German aristocracy
+generally. His face looked creased and tired, he had the
+delusively good-natured expression which is so often
+found in evasive and apathetic people.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly Benckendorf did not do all the harm he might
+have done, being the head of that terrible police, standing
+outside the law and above the law, having a right to meddle
+in everything. I am ready to believe it, especially when
+I recall the insipid expression of his face. But he did
+no good either, he had not enough will-power, energy, or
+heart for that. To be timid of saying a word in defence
+of the oppressed is as bad as any crime in the service of
+a man so cold and merciless as Nicholas.</p>
+
+<p>How many innocent victims passed through Benckendorf’s
+hands, how many perished through his lack of
+attention, through his frivolity, because he was engrossed
+in flirtation perhaps—and how many gloomy images
+and painful memories may have haunted his mind and
+tormented him when, prematurely collapsing and growing
+senile, he sailed off to seek, in betrayal of his own religion,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>the protection of the Catholic Church with its all-forgiving
+indulgences....</p>
+
+<p>‘It has reached the knowledge of his Imperial Majesty,’
+he said to me, ‘that you take part in the diffusion of
+rumours injurious to the government. His Majesty,
+seeing how little you have reformed, graciously commanded
+that you should be sent back to Vyatka; but at
+the request of General Dubbelt, and relying upon information
+collected about you, I have reported to his
+Majesty on the subject of your wife’s illness, and his
+Majesty was graciously pleased to alter his decision.
+His Majesty forbids you to visit Petersburg and Moscow,
+and you will be under police supervision again, but it is
+left to the Ministry of Home Affairs to fix the place
+where you are to reside.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Allow me to tell you frankly that even at this moment
+I cannot believe that there is no other cause for my exile.
+In 1835 I was exiled on account of a supper-party at
+which I was not present! Now I am being punished
+for a rumour about which the whole town was talking.
+It is a strange fate!’</p>
+
+<p>Benckendorf shrugged his shoulders, and turning out
+the palms of his hands like a man who has exhausted all
+the resources of argument, cut short my speech.</p>
+
+<p>‘I make known to you the Imperial will, and you
+answer me with criticisms. What profit will there be
+from all that you say to me, or that I say to you? It is
+a waste of words. Nothing can be changed now. What
+will be later partly depends on you, and since you have
+referred to your first affair, I particularly recommend you
+not to let there be a third. You will certainly not get
+off so easily a third time.’</p>
+
+<p>Benckendorf gave me a gracious smile and turned
+towards the petitioners. He said very little to them;
+he took their petition, glanced at it, then handed it to
+Dubbelt, receiving the petitioners’ observations with the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>same graciously condescending smile. These people
+had been for whole months thinking about it, and preparing
+themselves for this interview, upon which their
+honour, their fortune, their family depended; what
+effort, what labour had been spent by them before they
+had succeeded in getting an entrance, how many times
+they had knocked at the closed door and been turned
+away by the gendarme or the porter. And how immense,
+how poignant must the necessity have been that
+brought them to the head of the secret police; no doubt
+all legal channels had been exhausted first. And this
+man got rid of them with commonplaces, and probably
+some clerk drew up some decision to pass the case on to
+some other department. And what had he to preoccupy
+him? What need had he for haste?</p>
+
+<p>When Benckendorf went up to the old man with the
+medals, the latter dropped on his knees and articulated:
+‘Your Excellency, enter into my position.’</p>
+
+<p>‘How degrading!’ cried the Count; ‘you are disgracing
+your medals,’ and full of righteous indignation
+he passed by without taking his petition. The old man
+slowly got up, his glassy eyes were full of horror and
+bewilderment, his lower lip quivered, he muttered something.</p>
+
+<p>How inhuman these people are when the whim takes
+them to be humane!</p>
+
+<p>Dubbelt went up to the old man and said: ‘Whatever
+did you do that for? Come, give me your petition. I’ll
+look through it.’</p>
+
+<p>Benckendorf had gone off to see the Tsar.</p>
+
+<p>‘What am I to do?’ I asked Dubbelt.</p>
+
+<p>‘Settle on any town you choose with the Minister of
+Home Affairs; we will not interfere. We will send
+the whole case on there to-morrow. I congratulate you
+on its having been so satisfactorily settled.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I am very much obliged to you.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span></p>
+
+<p>From Benckendorf I went to the Ministry. Our
+director, as I have mentioned, belonged to that class of
+Germans who have something of the lemur about them,
+lanky, slow, and long drawn out. Their brains work
+slowly, they do not catch the point at once, and pass
+through a long process to reach any sort of conclusion.
+My story unfortunately arrived before the communication
+of the Third Section; he had not expected it at all,
+and so was completely bewildered, uttered incoherent
+phrases, perceived the fact himself, and to set himself
+right said to me: ‘<i>Erlauben Sie mir deutsch zu sprechen</i>.’
+Possibly his remarks were grammatically more correct
+in the German language, but they were no clearer and
+more definite in meaning. I perceived distinctly two
+feelings struggling in him: he grasped all the injustice
+of it, but thought it his duty as director to justify the
+action of the government; at the same time, he did not
+like to appear a barbarian in my eyes, nor could he
+forget the hostility which invariably existed between
+the Ministry of Home Affairs and the secret police. So
+the task of expressing all this jumble was in itself not easy.
+He ended by declaring that he could say nothing until
+he had seen the Minister, and going off to see him.</p>
+
+<p>Count Strogonov sent for me, inquired into the
+matter, listened to the story attentively, and said to me
+in conclusion: ‘It’s a police trick, pure and simple—all
+right, I’ll pay them out for it.’</p>
+
+<p>I actually imagined that he was going straight off to
+the Tsar to explain the position to him; but ministers
+do not go so far.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have received the command of the Most High
+concerning you,’ he went on—‘here it is. You see that
+it is left to me to select the place of your exile and a post
+in the service for you. Where would you like to go?’</p>
+
+<p>‘To Tver or to Novgorod,’ I answered.</p>
+
+<p>‘To be sure.... Well, since the choice of a place is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>left to me, and it probably does not matter to you to which
+of those towns I send you, I will give you the first councillor’s
+vacancy in the provincial government. That is
+the highest position that you can receive in the regular
+way of promotion, so order yourself a uniform with an
+embroidered collar,’ he added jocosely.</p>
+
+<p>So that was how I scored, though not on my own play.</p>
+
+<p>A week later Strogonov recommended me to the Senate
+for an appointment as councillor at Novgorod.</p>
+
+<p>It really is funny to think how many secretaries, assessors,
+district and provincial officials had been scheming
+passionately, persistently, for years to get that post;
+bribes had been given, the most solemn promises had been
+received, and here, all at once, a Minister, to carry out
+the commands of the Most High and at the same time
+to have a slap at the secret police, <i>punished</i> me with this
+promotion and, by way of gilding the pill, flung this
+post, the object of ardent desires and ambitious dreams,
+at the feet of a man who accepted it with the firm intention
+of throwing it up at the first opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>From Strogonov I went to see a lady; I must say a few
+words about this acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Among the letters of introduction given me by my
+father when I first went to Petersburg was one which I
+had picked up a dozen times, turned over and thrust back
+again into the table drawer, putting off my visit until
+another day. The letter was addressed to a lady of
+seventy, of high rank and great wealth, whose friendship
+with my father dated from time immemorial; he had
+first made her acquaintance when she was at the Court
+of Catherine II.; then they had met in Paris, had travelled
+here and there together, and at last both had come to
+rest at home some thirty years before.</p>
+
+<p>I disliked persons of consequence as a rule, particularly
+when they were women, and even more so when they
+were seventy; but my father had inquired for the second
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>time whether I had called upon Olga Alexandrovna
+Zherebtsov, so at last I resolved to swallow the bitter pill.
+A footman led me into a rather gloomy drawing-room,
+poorly decorated, and looking as though it were darkened
+and faded; the furniture, the hangings, all had lost their
+colour, and all had evidently been standing for ages in
+the same place. I was reminded of the atmosphere of
+Princess Meshtchersky’s house; old age, no less than
+youth, puts its imprint on all around it. I waited with
+resignation for the lady to make her appearance, preparing
+myself for tedious questions, for deafness, for a
+cough, for attacks on the younger generation, and perhaps
+moral exhortations.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later a tall old woman, with a stern face
+that bore traces of great beauty, walked in with a firm
+step; an unswerving will, a strong character, and a
+strong intellect were apparent in her deportment, in her
+movements and her gestures. She scanned me from
+head to foot with a penetrating gaze, went up to the sofa,
+with one movement of her arm pushed back the table,
+and said to me: ‘Sit in this armchair here, nearer to me.
+I am a great friend of your father’s, you know, and I love
+him.’ She opened the letter, and handed it to me, saying:
+‘Please read it to me; my eyes are bad.’</p>
+
+<p>The letter was written in French and full of all sorts
+of compliments, reminiscences, and allusions. She
+listened, smiling, and when I had finished said: ‘His
+mind shows no signs of age, he is just the same as ever;
+he was very charming and very caustic. And now, I
+suppose, he keeps his room, wears his dressing-gown, and
+plays the invalid? Two years ago I was passing through
+Moscow and then I went to see your father. “I can
+hardly see any one,” he said. “I am breaking up,” and
+then he got into talk and forgot his ailments. It’s all
+nonsense, he is not much older than I am, two or three
+years at the most, though I doubt if he is that, and I am
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>a woman, yet I still keep on my legs. Yes, yes, much
+water has flowed by since those days your father talks of.
+Why, only fancy, he and I were among the leading
+dancers. The English dances were the fashion in those
+days; Ivan Alexeyevitch and I used to dance at the late
+Empress’s. Can you imagine your father in a full-skirted
+light blue French coat, wearing powder, and me
+in a hoop and <i>décolletée</i>? It was very pleasant to dance
+with him, <i>il était bel homme</i>, he was finer looking than
+you—let me have a good look at you—yes, he really was
+finer.... Don’t be angry, at my age I may tell the
+truth. Besides, I believe you don’t care about that—of
+course, you are literary and learned. Ah, my goodness,
+by the way, do tell me please what was all that business
+with you? Your father wrote to me when you were
+sent to Vyatka. I did try to speak to Bludov, but he did
+not do anything. They won’t say what they exiled you
+for. They keep that a <i>secret d’état</i>.’</p>
+
+<p>There was so much simplicity and genuineness in her
+manner that, contrary to my expectation, I was at ease
+and unconstrained with her. I answered between jest
+and earnest and told her all about our case.</p>
+
+<p>‘He makes war on students,’ she observed; ‘he has
+nothing in his head but conspiracies, and, to be sure, they
+are pleased to oblige him; they think of nothing but
+nonsense. They are such wretched little creatures about
+him! Where did he get hold of them—no rank and no
+family. Well, <i>mon cher conspirateur</i>, how old were you
+then?—sixteen, I expect.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Just one and twenty,’ I answered, laughing genuinely
+at her utter contempt for our political activities, both
+mine and Nicholas’s, ‘but then I was the eldest.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Four or five students scared <i>tout le gouvernement</i>, you
+see—what a disgrace!’</p>
+
+<p>After talking in this style for half an hour, I got up
+to go.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Stay a little,’ said Olga Alexandrovna in a still more
+friendly tone. ‘I have not finished my catechism; how
+was it you carried off your bride?’</p>
+
+<p>‘How do you know?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, my dear, the world is full of rumour—youth, <i>des
+passions</i>. I talked to your father at the time. He was
+still angry with you, but, there, he is a sensible man, he
+understood.... Thank God you live happily. What
+more does he want? “Well,” he said to me, “the boy
+came to Moscow contrary to the Imperial decree. If
+he had been caught he would have been sent to the
+fortress.” “But you see he wasn’t caught,” I said, “so
+you ought to be thankful for that, and what is the use of
+talking nonsense and imagining what might have been?”
+“Oh, you were always fearless,” he told me, “and lived
+recklessly.” “Well, my dear sir, I am ending my days
+no worse than other people,” I answered him—“and
+what’s the sense of your leaving the young people without
+money? That’s beyond anything.” “Well,” he said,
+“I’ll send them some. I’ll send them some. Don’t
+be angry.” You’ll bring your wife to see me, won’t
+you?’</p>
+
+<p>I thanked her, and said that I had not brought her with
+me to Petersburg yet.</p>
+
+<p>‘Where are you staying?’</p>
+
+<p>‘At Demouthe’s.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And do you dine there?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Sometimes there; sometimes at Dumais.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why restaurants—it’s expensive, and besides it’s
+not nice for a married man. If it won’t bore you to
+dine with an old woman, come here. I am really very
+glad to have made your acquaintance. I must thank
+your father for having sent you to me; you are a very
+interesting young man, and have a good understanding
+of things though you are young,—so you and I will have
+a talk about one thing and another, for you know I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>am bored with these courtiers; they can talk of nothing
+but the court, and who has received a decoration; it is all
+so silly.’</p>
+
+<p>In one volume of Thiers’ <i>History of the Consulate</i>
+he gives a rather detailed and rather correct account
+of the murder of Paul. There are two references in
+his story to a woman, the sister of Count Zubov, who
+was the last of Catherine’s favourites. The beautiful
+young widow of a general (killed, I believe, during the
+war), a passionate and vigorous character, spoilt by
+success, endowed with exceptional intellect and masculine
+strength of will, she became the centre round which the
+discontented rallied during the savage and senseless reign
+of Paul. The conspirators met at her house; she
+incited them, their relations with the English Embassy
+were carried on through her. Paul’s police suspected her
+at last, and, warned in time, perhaps by Pahlen himself,
+she went abroad before it was too late. The plot was by
+then matured, and while dancing at a ball at the court of
+the Prussian king she received the news that Paul had been
+killed. Not concealing her joy, she rapturously announced
+the news to every one in the ball-room. This so scandalised
+the Prussian king that he ordered her to be banished
+from Berlin within twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>She went to England. Brilliant, spoilt by court life,
+and devoured by a consuming passion for a great career,
+she made her appearance as a lioness of the first magnitude
+in London, and played an important part in the reserved
+and exclusive society of the English aristocracy. The
+Prince of Wales, <i>i.e.</i>, the future King George <span class="allsmcap">IV.</span>, was her
+devoted adorer, and soon more than that.... The
+years of her life abroad were spent amidst noisy magnificence,
+but they passed, and glory after glory faded.
+With old age came emptiness, misfortunes, loneliness,
+and the melancholy life of memory. Her son was
+killed at Borodino; her daughter died leaving her a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>grandchild, now Countess Orlov. Every August the
+old woman went from Petersburg to Mozhaisk to visit
+her son’s grave. Loneliness and misfortune had not
+broken her strong character, but only made it more
+austere and angular. Like a tree in winter, she retained
+the outline of her branches, the leaves had dropped, and
+the bare twigs were cold and stiff as dry bones, but the
+gigantic stature and bold proportions were but the more
+distinctly visible, and the trunk, silvered with hoar-frost,
+stood proud and gloomy, and no wind, no storm could
+bend it.</p>
+
+<p>Her long life, so full of movement, the immense wealth
+of meetings, of contrasts in it, had formed her disdainful
+view of the world, which had its share of mournful truth.
+She had her own philosophy, resting upon a profound
+contempt for her fellow-creatures, though, owing to
+her active disposition, she could not abandon them altogether.</p>
+
+<p>‘You don’t know them yet,’ she would say to me,
+nodding her head towards the retreating figures of various
+stout and thin senators and generals. ‘I have seen
+enough of them. It is not so easy to take me in as they
+imagine; before I was twenty my brother was in the
+highest favour, and the Empress was very kind to me, and
+very fond of me. So then, would you believe it, old men,
+beribboned and decorated, who could scarcely drag one
+leg after the other, were falling over one another to reach
+the vestibule and hand me my pelisse and my warm
+shoes. The Empress died, and next day my house was
+deserted. They ran from me as from the plague, in the
+madman’s days, you know, and those the very same
+persons. I went my way, I had no need of any one, I
+crossed the sea. After my return the Lord visited me with
+great misfortunes, but I met with sympathy from no one.
+There were two or three old friends who did not desert
+me, though. Well, then, your reign has come. Orlov,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>you see, has influence, though indeed I don’t know how
+far that is true ... they imagine it is, anyway. They
+know that he is my heir and that my granddaughter loves
+me; so now they are such friends again—again they are
+ready to hand me my cloak and my goloshes! Ugh!
+I know them, but one is sometimes tired of sitting alone;
+my eyes are bad, it is hard to read, besides one does not
+always care to, so I let them come, they babble all sorts
+of nonsense; it amuses me, and serves to pass an hour
+or two....’</p>
+
+<p>She was a strange, original relic of another age, surrounded
+by degenerate successors that had sprung up on
+the mean and barren soil of Petersburg court life. She
+felt superior to it, and she was right. If she had shared
+the Saturnalia of Catherine and the orgies of George <span class="allsmcap">IV.</span>,
+she had also shared the dangers of the conspirators of
+Paul’s reign.</p>
+
+<p>Her mistake lay not in her contempt for these worthless
+people, but in her taking this produce of the court
+kitchen-garden for the whole of our generation. In the
+reign of Catherine, the court and the Guards really did
+include all that was cultured in Russia; and this persisted,
+more or less, until 1812. Since then Russian society
+has taken immense strides; the war led to an awakening,
+and that awakening to the Fourteenth of December.
+Society was divided in two from within: the worst part
+remained on the side of the court; executions and savage
+punishments drove away some, while the new tone
+prevailing drove away others. Alexander carried on the
+traditions of culture of the reign of Catherine. Under
+Nicholas the worldly aristocratic tone was replaced by
+one of frigid formality and ferocious despotism on the one
+hand and boundless servility on the other—a blend of
+the abrupt and rude Napoleonic manner with the callousness
+of bureaucracy. A new society, the centre of which
+was in Moscow, rapidly developed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is a wonderful book which one cannot help
+recalling when one speaks of Olga Alexandrovna—I
+mean the <i>Memoirs of Princess Dashkov</i>, published twenty
+years ago in London. To the book are appended the
+memoirs of the two sisters Wilmot who lived with Princess
+Dashkov between 1805 and 1810. They were highly
+cultured Irishwomen, with a great gift of observation.
+I should very much like their letters and memoirs to be
+known in Russia.</p>
+
+<p>When I compare Moscow society before 1812 with
+that which I left in 1847 my heart throbs with joy.
+We have made tremendous strides forward. In those
+days there was a society of the discontented—that is, of
+those who had been left out, dismissed, or laid on the
+shelf; now there is a society of independent people.
+The lions of those days were capricious oligarchs, such
+as Count A. G. Orlov and Ostermann, ‘a society of
+shadows’ as Miss Wilmot says, a society of political men
+who had died fifteen years before in Petersburg, but went
+on powdering their heads, putting on their ribbons, and
+appearing at dinners and festivities in Moscow, sulking,
+giving themselves airs of consequence, and having neither
+influence nor significance. After 1825 the lions of
+Moscow were Pushkin, M. Orlov, Tchaadayev, Yermolov.
+In the earlier days society had flocked with
+cringing servility to the house of Count Orlov, ladies ‘in
+other people’s diamonds,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> gentlemen who dared not
+sit down without permission; the Count’s serfs danced
+before them in masquerade attire. Forty years later I
+saw the same society crowding about the platform of one
+of the lecture-rooms of the Moscow University; the
+daughters of those ladies in other people’s jewels, the
+sons of the men who had not dared to sit down, were,
+with passionate sympathy, following the profound,
+vigorous words of Granovsky, greeting with outbursts of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>applause sentences that went straight to the heart from
+their boldness and nobility.</p>
+
+<p>It was just the society that gathered from all parts of
+Moscow and crowded about the platform on which the
+young champion of learning delivered his earnest message
+and deciphered the future from the past—it was just this
+society of the existence of which Madame Zherebtsov
+had no suspicion. She was particularly kind and
+attentive to me because I was the first example of a world
+unknown to her; she was surprised at my language and
+at my ideas. She welcomed in me the coming of another
+Russia, not that Russia whose only light filtered through
+the frozen windows of the Winter Palace. Thanks to
+her for that!</p>
+
+<p>I could fill a whole volume with the anecdotes I heard
+from Olga Alexandrovna; with whom had she not been
+on friendly terms, from Comte d’Artois&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> and the Comte
+de Ségur&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> to Canning and Lord Granville, and she
+looked at all of them independently, from her own point
+of view, and a very original one. I will confine myself
+to one small incident which I will try to repeat in her own
+words.</p>
+
+<p>She lived in the Morskaya. A regiment of soldiers
+happened one day to pass along the street with a band.
+Olga Alexandrovna went to the window and looking at
+the soldiers said to me: ‘I have a summer villa not far
+from Gatchina. I sometimes go there for a rest in the
+summer. I ordered a big lawn to be made there before
+the house, in the English style, you know, covered with
+turf. Last year I went down there; only fancy: at six
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>o’clock in the morning I hear a dreadful beating of drums.
+I lie in bed more dead than alive; it keeps coming closer
+and closer. I ring the bell, my Kalmyk girl runs in.
+“What has happened, my good girl?” I ask; “what is this
+noise?” “Oh, that,” says she, “Mihail Pavlovitch&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> is
+pleased to be drilling his soldiers.” “Where is that?”
+“On our lawn.” He liked our lawn, it was so smooth
+and green. Only fancy, with a lady living there, old and
+ill, he came with the drums at six o’clock in the morning.
+Well, I thought, that won’t do. “Call the steward,” I
+said. The steward came and I said to him: “Have the
+cart got out at once, drive into Petersburg, hire as many
+White Russians as you can find, and let them begin
+digging a pond to-morrow.” Well, I thought, I hope
+they won’t hold a Naval Review before my windows.
+They are all such ill-bred creatures!’</p>
+
+<p>It was natural that I should go straight from Strogonov
+to Olga Alexandrovna and tell her all that had happened.</p>
+
+<p>‘Good heavens! What folly; they go from bad to
+worse,’ she observed when she heard my story. ‘How
+can a man with a family be dragged off to exile for such
+nonsense? Let me talk to Orlov. I hardly ever ask
+him to do anything, they all dislike it; but there, once
+in a way he may do something for me. Come and see
+me in a couple of days, and I’ll tell you his answer.’</p>
+
+<p>Two days later she sent for me. I found several
+visitors with her. She had a white batiste kerchief
+round her head instead of a cap; this was usually a sign
+that she was out of spirits; she screwed up her eyes and
+hardly took any notice of the privy councillors and generals
+who had come to pay their respects to her.</p>
+
+<p>One of the visitors with a very complacent air took a
+document out of his pocket and, handing it to Olga
+Alexandrovna, said: ‘I have brought you yesterday’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>Imperial letter to Prince Pyotr Mihailovitch. Perhaps
+you have not yet read it.’</p>
+
+<p>Whether she had heard him or not I do not know, but
+she took the paper, opened it, put on her spectacles and,
+frowning, read with great effort: ‘Pri—nce Pyo—tr
+Mi—hailo—vitch!’</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s this you have given me? It’s not for me,
+is it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I told you it’s an Imperial letter.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Good heavens, my eyes are bad, I can’t always read
+the letters addressed to me, and you make me read other
+people’s letters.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Allow me, I’ll read it ... I didn’t think.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You needn’t; why trouble yourself for nothing?
+What have I to do with their correspondence? I am
+getting through my last days somehow, and my head is
+full of something very different.’</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman smiled as people smile when they have
+made a blunder, and put the Imperial letter into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that Olga Alexandrovna was in a bad humour,
+in a very warlike one, indeed, the visitors one after another
+took leave. When we were left alone she said to me: ‘I
+asked you to come here to tell you that I have made a fool
+of myself in my old age. I gave you a promise, and I
+have done nothing; you know the peasants’ proverb:
+“Don’t step into the water till you know how deep it is.”
+I spoke to Orlov about your case yesterday and you’ve
+nothing to expect....’</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a footman announced that Countess
+Orlov had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, never mind, one of ourselves. I’ll tell you the
+rest directly.’</p>
+
+<p>The Countess, a beautiful woman, still in the bloom
+of her age, went up to kiss her hand and inquire how she
+was, to which Olga Alexandrovna answered that she felt
+very poorly, then mentioning my name, added, ‘Come,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>sit down, sit down, my dear. How are the children—quite
+well?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Quite well.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, thank God—excuse me, I am just talking about
+what happened yesterday. Well, you see, I told her
+husband to speak to the Tsar about you, and ask what
+they are about with this nonsense. Not a bit of it! He
+wouldn’t move hand or foot: “That’s Benckendorf’s
+affair,” he told me. “I’ll talk to him if you like, but
+as for reporting on it to the Tsar, I can’t, he doesn’t like
+it—besides, it isn’t done!” “What is there,” I said, “in
+talking to Benckendorf? I can do that myself. Besides,
+he is in his dotage; he doesn’t know what he is doing;
+his head is full of actresses, though I should have thought
+his flirting days were over; some wretched little secretary
+gives him all sorts of secret reports and he hands them on.
+What would he do? No!” I said, “you had better not
+demean yourself asking favours of Benckendorf, the whole
+nasty business is his doing.” “It is the rule with us,” he
+said to me, and began telling me all about it.... Well,
+I saw that he was simply afraid to go to the Tsar....
+“Whatever is he—a wild beast, or what, that you are
+afraid to approach him, though you see him half a dozen
+times a day?” I said, and turned away in disgust; it is no
+use talking to them. Look,’ she added, pointing to
+Orlov’s portrait. ‘What a conquering hero he is there;
+yet he is afraid to say a word!’</p>
+
+<p>I could not resist looking at Countess Orlov instead of
+at the portrait; her position was not very agreeable.
+She sat smiling, and sometimes glanced at me as though
+to say: ‘Age has its privileges, the old lady is irritated,’
+but meeting my eyes, which did not assent, she pretended
+not to notice me. She did not enter into the conversation,
+and that was very wise of her. It would not have
+been easy to suppress Olga Alexandrovna, the old woman’s
+cheeks were flushed, she would have given back more
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>than she got. There was nothing for it but to lie low
+and wait for the storm to pass over one’s head.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, I suppose down there where you’ve been, in
+that Vologda, the clerks imagine Count Orlov is a man
+in favour, that he has power.... That’s all nonsense.
+I’ll be bound it is his subordinates who spread that
+rumour. None of them have any influence, they don’t
+behave so as to have influence, and they are not on that
+footing.... You must forgive me for meddling in
+what isn’t my business. Do you know what I advise
+you? What do you want to go to Novgorod for? You
+had better go to Odessa; it is farther away from them
+and almost like a foreign town, besides, if Vorontsov isn’t
+corrupted, he is a man of a different stamp.’</p>
+
+<p>Olga Alexandrovna’s confidence in Vorontsov, who
+was at that time in Petersburg and came to see her every
+day, was not fully justified. He was willing to take
+me with him to Odessa <i>if</i> Benckendorf would give his
+consent.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the months passed, the winter was over,
+no one reminded me about going away. I was forgotten
+and I gave up being <i>sur le qui-vive</i>, particularly after the
+following meeting. Bolgovsky, the military governor of
+Vologda, was at that time in Petersburg; being a very
+intimate friend of my father, he was rather fond of me,
+and I was sometimes at his house. He had taken part in
+the killing of Paul, as a young officer in the Semyonovsky
+Regiment, and was afterwards mixed up in the obscure
+and unexplained Speransky affair in 1812. He was at
+that time a colonel in the army at the front. He was
+suddenly arrested, brought to Petersburg, and then sent
+to Siberia. Before he had time to reach his place of
+exile Alexander pardoned him, and he returned to his
+regiment.</p>
+
+<p>One day in the spring I went to see him; a general
+was sitting in a big easy-chair with his back towards the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>door so that I could not see his face, but only one silver
+epaulette.</p>
+
+<p>‘Let me introduce you,’ said Bolgovsky, and then I
+recognised Dubbelt.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have long enjoyed the pleasure of Leonty Vassilyevitch’s
+attention,’ I said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>‘When are you going to Novgorod?’ he asked me.</p>
+
+<p>‘I thought I ought to ask you that.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh! not at all! I had no idea of reminding you.
+I simply asked the question. We have handed you over
+to Count Strogonov, and we are not trying to hurry you,
+as you see. Besides, with such a legitimate reason as your
+wife’s illness....’</p>
+
+<p>He really was the politest of men!</p>
+
+<p>At last, at the beginning of June, I received the Senate’s
+decree, confirming my appointment as councillor in the
+Novgorod Provincial Government. Count Strogonov
+thought it was time for me to set off, and about the 1st
+of July I arrived in the ‘City in the keeping of God and
+of Saint Sophia’—Novgorod—and settled on the bank of
+the Volhov, opposite the very barrow from which the
+Voltaireans of the twelfth century threw the wonder-working
+statue of Perun&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> into the river.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_27">Chapter 27<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Provincial Government—I am under my own
+Supervision—The Duhobors and Paul—The Paternal
+Rule of the Landowners—Count Araktcheyev and
+the Military Settlements—A Ferocious
+Investigation—Retirement</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Before I went away Count Strogonov told me that
+the military governor of Novgorod, Elpidifor
+Antihovitch Zurov was in Petersburg, that he had spoken
+to him about my appointment, and advised me to call
+upon him. I found him a rather friendly and good-natured
+general, short, middle-aged, and of very military
+appearance. We talked for half an hour, he graciously
+escorted me to the door, and there we parted.</p>
+
+<p>When I arrived in Novgorod I went to see him and the
+change of scene was amazing. In Petersburg the governor
+had been a visitor, here he was at home; he actually
+seemed to me to be taller in Novgorod. Without any
+provocation on my part, he thought fit to inform me that
+he would not permit councillors to give their opinions
+and put their views in writing, that it delayed business,
+and that, if anything were not right, they could talk it
+over, but that if it came to giving opinions, one or the
+other would have to take his discharge. I observed,
+smiling, that it was hard to frighten me with that prospect,
+since the sole object of my service was to get my discharge
+from it, and added that while bitter necessity forced me
+to serve in Novgorod I should probably have no occasion
+for giving my opinion.</p>
+
+<p>This conversation was quite enough for both of us.
+As I went away I made up my mind to avoid getting into
+closer contact with him. So far as I could observe, the
+impression I made on the governor was much the same as
+that which he made upon me, <i>i.e.</i>, we disliked each other
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>as much as we possibly could on so brief and superficial
+an acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked a little into the work of the provincial
+government I saw that my position was not only extremely
+disagreeable but very risky. Every councillor
+was responsible for his section and shared the responsibility
+for all the rest. To read the papers in all the
+sections was absolutely impossible, one had to sign them
+on trust. The governor, in accordance with his theory
+that a councillor should never give counsel, put his
+signature, contrary to the law and good sense, next after
+that of the councillor in whose section the case was. This
+was excellent for me personally; in this signature I found
+some guarantee, as he shared the responsibility, and
+because he often with a peculiar expression talked of his
+lofty honesty and Robespierre-like incorruptibility. As
+for the signatures of the other councillors they were very
+little comfort to me. They were hardened old clerks
+who by dozens of years of service had worked their way
+up to being councillors, and lived only by the service,
+that is, by bribes. It is useless to blame them for that;
+a councillor, I remember, received twelve thousand paper
+roubles a year; a man with a family could not possibly
+exist in comfort on that. When they perceived that I
+was not going to share with them in dividing the booty,
+nor going to plunder on my own account, they began to
+look upon me as an uninvited guest and dangerous witness.
+They did not become very intimate with me, especially
+when they had discovered that between the governor and
+me there existed an affection of a very lukewarm character.
+They stood by one another and watched over one another’s
+interests, but they did not care what became of me.
+Moreover, my worthy colleagues were not afraid of getting
+into trouble, or of being fined or of having to refund even
+large sums of money, because they had nothing. They
+could risk it, and the more readily the more important
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>the case was; whether the deficit was of five hundred
+roubles or of five hundred thousand did not matter to
+them. In case of a deficit, a fraction of their salary went
+to the reimbursement of the Treasury, and the repayment
+could be spread over two or three hundred years if the
+official lasted so long. Usually either the official died
+or the Tsar did, and then in the rejoicings at his accession
+the heir forgave the debts. Manifestoes remitting such
+debts were also published on occasions such as a Royal
+birth or coming of age; the officials reckoned upon them.
+In my case, on the contrary, they would have taken my
+money and the part of the family estate which my father
+had assigned to me.</p>
+
+<p>If I could have relied on my own head-clerks, things
+would have been easier. I did a great deal to gain their
+attachment, treated them politely and helped them with
+money, but my efforts only resulted in their ceasing to
+obey me—they only stood in awe of the councillors who
+treated them as though they were schoolboys—and they
+took to coming to the office half-drunk. They were
+very poor men with no education and with no expectations.
+All the imaginative side of their lives was confined
+to wretched little taverns and strong drink. So I had
+to be on my guard in my own section too.</p>
+
+<p>At first the governor gave me Section Four, in which
+all business dealing with contracts and money matters
+took place. I asked him to make a change, he would
+not, saying that he had no right to make a change without
+the consent of the other councillor. In the governor’s
+presence I asked the councillor in charge of Section Two,
+he consented and we exchanged. The new section was
+less alluring; its work was concerned with passports,
+circulars of all sorts, cases of the abuse of power by landowners,
+of dissenters, forgers of counterfeit coin, and
+people under the supervision of the police.</p>
+
+<p>Anything sillier and more absurd cannot be imagined;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>I am certain that three-fourths of the people who read
+this will not believe it,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> and yet it is the bare truth that I,
+as councillor of the provincial government, in control of
+the Second Section, every three months signed the report
+of the police-master upon myself as a man under police
+supervision. The police-master from politeness made
+no entry under the heading ‘behaviour,’ and under that
+of ‘occupation’ wrote: ‘Engaged in the government
+service.’ Such are the prodigies of absurdity that can
+be reached by having two or three police departments
+antagonistic to each other, official formalities instead of
+laws, and a field corporal’s conception of discipline in
+place of a governing intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>This absurdity reminds me of an incident that occurred
+at Tobolsk some years ago. The civil governor was on
+bad terms with the vice-governor, a quarrel was carried
+on on paper, they wrote each other all sorts of biting and
+sarcastic things in official form. The vice-governor was
+a ponderous pedant, a formalist, a good-natured specimen
+of the divinity student; he composed his malignant answers
+himself with immense labour and, of course, made this
+feat the object of his life. It happened that the governor
+went away to Petersburg for a time. The vice-governor
+took over his duties and in the character of governor
+received an impudent document from himself sent the
+day before; without hesitation he ordered the secretary
+to answer it, signed the answer and, receiving it as vice-governor,
+set to work again, racking his brains and
+scribbling an insulting letter to himself. He regarded
+this as a proof of his disinterested honesty.</p>
+
+<p>For six months I was in harness in the provincial
+government. It was disagreeable and extremely tedious.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>Every morning at eleven o’clock I put on my uniform,
+buckled on my civilian sword, and went to the office. At
+twelve o’clock the military governor arrived; taking no
+notice of the councillors, he walked straight to the corner
+and put down his sabre there. Then, looking out of
+the window and straightening his hair, he went towards
+his easy-chair and bowed to those present. Scarcely had
+the sergeant with fierce, grey moustaches that stood up
+at right angles to his lips solemnly opened the door and
+the clank of the sabre become audible in the office, when
+the councillors got up and remained standing with backs
+bent until the governor had bowed to them. One of my
+first actions, by way of protest, was taking no part in this
+collective rising and reverential expectation, but sitting
+quietly and only bowing when he bowed to us.</p>
+
+<p>There were no great discussions or heated arguments;
+it rarely happened that a councillor asked the governor’s
+opinion, still more rarely that the governor put some
+business question to the councillors. Before every one
+lay a heap of papers and every one signed his name, it was
+a signature factory.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering Talleyrand’s celebrated injunction, I
+did not try to distinguish myself by my zeal and attended
+to business only so far as was necessary to escape reprimand
+or avoid getting into trouble. But there were two classes
+of work in my section towards which I considered I had
+no right to take so superficial an attitude; these were
+matters relating to the dissenters and to the abuse of power
+by the landowners.</p>
+
+<p>Dissenters are not consistently persecuted in Russia,
+but something comes over the Synod, or the Ministry of
+Home Affairs, all of a sudden, and they make a raid on
+some dissenting convent, or some community, plunder it,
+and then subside again. The dissenters usually have
+intelligent agents in Petersburg who warn them of coming
+danger; the others at once collect money, hide their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>books and their ikons, stand drink to the orthodox priests,
+and stand drink to the orthodox police-captain and buy
+themselves off; with that, the matter rests for ten years
+or so.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Catherine there were a great many
+Duhobors&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> in the Novgorod Province. Their leader,
+the old head of the posting drivers, in Zaitsevo, I think it
+was, enjoyed immense respect.</p>
+
+<p>When Paul was on his way to his coronation at Moscow
+he ordered the old man to be summoned before him,
+probably with the idea of converting him. The Duhobors,
+like the Quakers, do not take off their caps, and the
+grey-headed old man went up to the Emperor of Gatchina
+with head covered. This was more than the Tsar could
+put up with. A petty and meticulous readiness to take
+offence was a particularly striking characteristic of Paul
+and is, indeed, of all his sons except Alexander; having a
+monstrous power in their hands, they have not even the
+wild beast’s sense of power which keeps the big dog from
+attacking the little one.</p>
+
+<p>‘Before whom are you standing in your cap?’ shouted
+Paul, puffing and showing every sign of frenzied rage:
+‘do you know me?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I do,’ answered the dissenter calmly, ‘you are Pavel
+Petrovitch.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Put him in chains: to penal servitude with him! to
+the mines!’ the chivalrous Paul exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>The old man was seized and the Tsar ordered the
+village to be set fire to on four sides and the inhabitants
+to be sent to exile in Siberia. At the next station some
+one in attendance on the Tsar threw himself at his feet
+and said that he had ventured to delay the carrying out of
+the will of the Most High, and was waiting for him to
+repeat it. Paul was somewhat more sober and perceived
+that setting fire to villages and sending men to the mines
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>without a trial was a queer way of recommending himself
+to the people. He commanded the Synod to investigate
+the peasants’ case and ordered the old man to be incarcerated
+for life in the Spasso-Yefimyevsky Monastery; he
+thought that the orthodox monks would torment him
+worse than penal servitude; but he forgot that our
+monks are not merely good orthodox Christians but also
+men who are very fond of money and vodka; while the
+dissenters drink no vodka and are not sparing of their
+money.</p>
+
+<p>The old man had the reputation of a saint among the
+Duhobors. They came from all parts of Russia to do
+homage to him and paid with gold for admission to see
+him. The old man sat in his cell, dressed all in white,
+and his friends draped the walls and the ceiling with
+linen. After his death they gained permission to bury
+his body with his kindred and carried him in triumph
+upon their shoulders from Vladimir to the province of
+Novgorod. Only the Duhobors know where he is
+buried. They are persuaded that he had the gift of
+working miracles in his lifetime and that his body is untouched
+by decay.</p>
+
+<p>I heard all this partly from the governor of Vladimir,
+I. E. Kuruta, partly from the post-drivers in Novgorod,
+and partly from a lay-brother in the Spasso-Yefimyevsky
+Monastery. Now there are no more political prisoners
+in the monastery, though the prison is full of priests and
+church servants of all kinds, disobedient sons of whom
+their parents have complained, and so on. The archimandrite,
+a tall, broad-shouldered man in a fur cap,
+showed us the prison yard. When he went in, a non-commissioned
+officer with a gun went up to him and
+reported: ‘I have the honour to report to your Reverence
+that all is well in the prison and that the prisoners are so
+many.’ The archimandrite in answer gave him his
+blessing—what a mix-up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span></p>
+
+<p>The business relating to the dissenters was of such a
+nature that it was best not to raise the subject again. I
+looked through the documents referring to them and left
+them in peace.... On the other hand, those relating
+to the abuse of the landowners’ power needed a thorough
+overhauling. I did all I could and scored a few victories
+in that boggy path; set one young girl free from persecution
+and put one naval officer under arrest. These I
+believe were the only things I can boast of in my official
+career.</p>
+
+<p>A certain lady was keeping a servant-girl in her house
+without any documentary evidence of ownership; the
+girl petitioned that her claims to freedom should be
+inquired into. My predecessor had very sagaciously
+thought fit to leave her until her case was decided in
+complete bondage with the lady who claimed her. I
+had to sign the documents; I turned to the governor and
+observed that the girl would not be in a very enviable
+position in her mistress’s house after lodging this petition.</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s to be done with her?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Keep her in the police-station.’</p>
+
+<p>‘At whose expense?’</p>
+
+<p>‘At the expense of the lady, if the case is decided
+against her.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And if it is not?’</p>
+
+<p>Luckily at that moment the provincial prosecutor
+came in. A prosecutor from his social position, from his
+official relations, from the very buttons on his uniform, is
+bound to be an enemy of the governor, or at least to thwart
+him in everything. I purposely continued the conversation
+in his presence. The governor began to get angry
+and said that the whole question was not worth wasting
+a couple of words on. The prosecutor cared not a straw
+what became of the girl or how she was treated, but he
+immediately took my side and advanced a dozen different
+points from the code of laws in support of it. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>governor, who in reality cared as little, said to me, smiling
+ironically, that it was much the same whether she went
+to her mistress or to the prison.</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course she will be better off in prison,’ I
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>‘It will be more consistent with the intention expressed
+in the code,’ observed the prosecutor.</p>
+
+<p>‘Let it be as you like,’ the governor said, laughing
+more than ever. ‘You’ve done a service to your protégée:
+when she has been in prison for a few months she will
+thank you for it.’</p>
+
+<p>I did not continue the argument, my object was to
+save the girl from domestic persecution; I remember
+that two months later she was released and received her
+legal freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Among the unsettled questions in my department there
+was a complicated correspondence lasting over several
+years, concerning the acts of violence of a retired naval
+officer called Strugovshtchikov and his various misdeeds
+in the management of his estate. The question was
+raised on the petition of his mother, afterwards the
+peasants made complaints. He had come to some
+arrangement with his mother, and himself charged the
+peasants with intending to kill him, without, however,
+adducing any serious proofs. Meanwhile it was clear
+from the evidence of his mother and his house-serfs that
+the man was guilty of all sorts of lawless violence. The
+business had been sleeping the sleep of the just for more
+than a year; it is always possible to drag a case out with
+inquiries and unnecessary correspondence and then,
+recording it settled, to file it on the archives of the office.
+A recommendation had to be made to the Senate that he
+should be put under restraint, but for this purpose the
+assent of the Marshal of Nobility was necessary. As a
+rule, the Marshal of Nobility evades giving it, being disinclined
+to lose a vote. It rested entirely with me whether
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>the case was pushed forward, but a <i>coup de grâce</i> from the
+marshal was essential.</p>
+
+<p>The marshal of the Novgorod Province, a nobleman
+with a Vladimir medal who had served in the militia in
+1812, tried to show that he was a well-read man when
+he met me, by talking in the bookish language of the
+period before Karamzin; on one occasion, pointing to a
+monument which the nobility of Novgorod had raised
+<i>to itself</i> in recognition of its patriotism in 1812, he alluded
+with feeling to the severe and sacred character of a
+marshal’s duties, and the flattering honour of so weighty
+a trust.</p>
+
+<p>All that was to the good. The marshal came to the
+office in connection with certifying the insanity of some
+church servitor; after all the presidents of all the courts
+had exhausted their whole store of foolish questions, from
+which the lunatic might well have concluded that they
+too were a little deranged, and had finally certified him
+as insane, I drew the marshal aside and described the
+case to him. The marshal shrugged his shoulders,
+assumed an air of horror and indignation, and ended by
+referring to the naval officer as an arrant scoundrel ‘who
+cast a black shadow on the stainless reputation of the
+nobility of Novgorod.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You would, of course,’ said I, ‘give us the same
+answer in writing, if we appealed to you?’</p>
+
+<p>The marshal, caught unawares, promised to answer
+conscientiously, adding that ‘honour and uprightness
+were the invariable attributes of the nobility of
+Russia.’</p>
+
+<p>Though I had some doubts of the invariability of those
+attributes, I pushed the case forward and the marshal
+kept his word. The case was brought before the Senate,
+and I well remember the sweet moment when the decree
+of the Senate reached my section, appointing trustees to
+superintend the naval officer’s estate and putting him
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>under the supervision of the police. The naval officer
+was persuaded that the case had been shelved, and,
+thunderstruck at the decree, came to Novgorod. He was
+at once told how it had happened; the infuriated officer
+threatened to fall upon me from behind a corner, to
+engage ruffians and lie in wait, but, being unaccustomed
+to strategy on land, quietly disappeared from sight in
+some distant town.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately the ‘attributes’ of brutality, debauchery,
+and violence with house-serfs and peasants
+appear to be more ‘invariable’ than those of ‘honour
+and uprightness’ among the nobility of Russia. Of
+course there is a small group of cultured landowners who
+are not knocking their servants about from morning to
+night, are not thrashing them every day, but even among
+them there are ‘Pyenotchkins’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>&#x2060;; the rest have not yet
+advanced beyond the stage of ‘Saltytchiha’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> and the
+American planters.</p>
+
+<p>Rummaging about, I found the correspondence of the
+provincial government of Pskov concerning a certain
+Madame Yaryzhkin. She flogged two of her maids to
+death, was tried on account of a third, and was almost
+completely acquitted by the Criminal Court, who based
+their verdict among other things on the fact that the third
+one did not die. This woman invented the most surprising
+punishments, beating with a flat iron, with gnarled
+sticks, or with a washing bat.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know what the girl in question had done, but
+her mistress surpassed herself. She made the girl kneel
+down on some boards into which nails had been driven;
+in this position she beat her about the back and the head
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>with a washing bat, and when she was exhausted, called
+the coachman to take her place; luckily he was not at
+hand and she went out to find him, while the girl, half
+frantic with pain and covered with blood, rushed out into
+the street with nothing on but her smock and ran to the
+police-station. The police-inspector took her evidence
+and the case went its regular course. The police and the
+department of justice were busy over it for a year; finally
+the court, obviously bribed, very sagaciously decided to
+call the lady’s husband and to admonish him to restrain
+his wife from such punishments, while, leaving her under
+suspicion of having brought about the death of two
+servants, they forced her to sign an undertaking not to
+punish the maids for the future. On this understanding
+the unfortunate girl, who had been kept somewhere else
+while the case was going on, was handed over to her
+mistress again.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, in terror of the future, began writing one
+petition after another; the matter reached the ears of
+the Tsar; he ordered it to be investigated, and sent an
+official from Petersburg. Probably the Yaryzhkins’
+means were not equal to bribing the Petersburg gendarmes
+and officials from the various Ministries, and the case took
+a different turn. The lady was exiled to Siberia, her
+husband was put under restraint. All the members of
+the Criminal Court were sent for trial; how their trial
+ended I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p>In another place&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> I have told the story of the man
+flogged to death by Prince Trubetskoy and of the <i>Kammerherr</i>
+Bazilevsky who was thrashed by his own servants.
+I will add one more story of a lady.</p>
+
+<p>A serf-girl in the family of a colonel of gendarmes at
+Penza was carrying a kettle full of boiling water. Her
+mistress’s child ran against the servant, who spilt the
+boiling water, and the child was scalded. The mistress
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>to suit the punishment to the offence ordered the servant’s
+child to be brought and scalded its hand from the samovar....</p>
+
+<p>Pantchulidzev, the governor, hearing of this monstrous
+incident, expressed his heartfelt regret that he was in
+somewhat strained relations with the colonel of the
+gendarmes and consequently felt it improper to take
+proceedings which might seem to be instigated by personal
+motives!</p>
+
+<p>And then sensitive hearts wonder at the peasants
+murdering their landowners with their whole families,
+or at the soldiers of the military settlement of Staraya
+Russa massacring all the Russian Germans and all the
+German Russians.</p>
+
+<p>In the servants’ quarters and in the maids’ rooms, in
+the villages and the police-cells, perfect martyrologies of
+terrible crimes lie buried; the memory of them haunts
+the soul and in course of generations matures into bloody
+and merciless vengeance <i>which it is easy to prevent</i> now,
+but it will hardly be possible to stop when it has begun.</p>
+
+<p>Staraya Russa, the military settlements! Terrible
+words! Can it be that history (bought beforehand by
+Araktcheyev’s bribe&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>&#x2060;) will never pull away the shroud
+under which the government has concealed the series
+of crimes coldly and systematically perpetrated in
+establishing the military settlements. There have been
+plenty of horrors everywhere, but in that case they were
+marked by the peculiar imprint of Petersburg and
+Gatchina, of German and Tatar influence. The beating
+with sticks and scourging with lashes for the insubordinate
+went on for months together ... the blood was never
+dry on the floors of the rural offices ... every crime
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>that may be committed by the people against their
+torturers on that tract of land is justified beforehand.</p>
+
+<p>The Mongolian side of the Moscow period which
+distorted the Slav character of the Russians, the inhumanity
+of army discipline which distorted the
+Petersburg period, are embodied in the full perfection
+of their hideousness in Count Araktcheyev. Araktcheyev
+was undoubtedly one of the most loathsome figures that
+rose to the surface of the Russian government after Peter
+the Great. That ‘flunkey of a crowned soldier,’ as Pushkin
+said of him, was the model of an ideal corporal as seen
+in the dreams of the father of Frederick the Second; he
+was made up of inhuman devotion, mechanical accuracy,
+the exactitude of a chronometer, routine and energy, a
+complete lack of feeling, as much intelligence as was
+necessary to carry out orders, and enough ambition, spite,
+and envy to prefer power to money. Such men are a
+real treasure to Tsars. Only the petty resentment of
+Nicholas can explain the fact that he made no use of
+Araktcheyev, but only employed his underlings.</p>
+
+<p>Paul discovered Araktcheyev through sympathy. So
+long as Alexander’s sense of shame lasted he kept him at
+some distance; but, carried away by the family passion
+for discipline and drill, he entrusted him with the secretariat
+of the army. Of the victories of this general of
+artillery we have heard little&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>&#x2060;; for the most part he
+performed civilian duties in the military service, his
+battles were fought on the soldiers’ backs, his enemies
+were brought him in chains, they were already conquered.
+In the latter years of Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> Araktcheyev governed
+all Russia. He interfered in everything, he had a blank
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>cheque giving him a right to everything. As Alexander
+grew feebler and sank into gloomy melancholy, he
+hesitated a little between Prince A. N. Golitsyn and
+Araktcheyev and in the end naturally inclined towards
+the latter.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of Alexander’s Taganrog visit the house-serfs
+on Araktcheyev’s estate in Gruzino killed the Count’s
+mistress; this murder gave rise to the investigation of
+which to this day, <i>i.e.</i>, seventeen years later, the officials
+and inhabitants of Novgorod speak with horror. The
+mistress of Araktcheyev, an old man of sixty, was one of
+his serf-girls; she oppressed the servants, quarrelled and
+told tales, while the Count thrashed them according to
+the stories she brought him. When their patience was
+completely exhausted, the cook killed her. The crime
+was so cleverly carried out that no clue to the guilty party
+could be found.</p>
+
+<p>But a guilty party was essential for the vengeance of
+the doting old man; he laid aside the affairs of the Empire
+and galloped off to Gruzino. In the midst of tortures
+and blood, in the midst of groans and dying shrieks,
+Araktcheyev, with the blood-stained kerchief which had
+been taken from his mistress’s body tied round him,
+wrote touching letters to Alexander, and Alexander
+replied: ‘Come and find rest from your unhappiness in
+the bosom of your friend.’ Alexander’s doctor must
+have been right when he declared that the Emperor had
+water on the brain before his death.</p>
+
+<p>But the guilty parties were not discovered. The
+Russian has a wonderful power of holding his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Then, utterly infuriated, Araktcheyev made his
+appearance in Novgorod, where a crowd of victims was
+brought. With his face yellow and livid, with frenzied
+eyes, and still wearing the blood-stained kerchief, he
+began a new investigation and the affair began to assume
+monstrous proportions. Eighty persons were seized
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>again, people were arrested in the town on the strength
+of one word, on the slightest suspicion, for a remote
+rumour. Persons passing through the town were seized
+and flung into prison. Merchants and clerks were kept
+waiting for weeks to be questioned.... The inhabitants
+hid in their houses and were afraid to go out into
+the streets; no one dared to refer to the case.</p>
+
+<p>Kleinmihel, who served under Araktcheyev, took part
+in this investigation....</p>
+
+<p>The governor transformed his house into a torture
+chamber; people were tortured near his study from
+morning till night. The police-captain of Staraya Russa,
+a man accustomed to horrors, broke down at last, and when
+he was ordered to question under the rods a young woman
+who was several months gone with child he was not equal
+to the task. He went in to the governor (it took place
+before old Popov, who told me about it) and told him
+that the woman could not be flogged, that it was directly
+contrary to the law; the governor leapt up from his seat
+and, mad with fury, rushed to the police-captain brandishing
+his fist: ‘I order you to be arrested at once, I will
+have you brought to trial, you are a traitor.’ The police-captain
+was arrested and resigned his commission; I am
+truly sorry I do not know his surname, but may his previous
+sins be forgiven him for the sake of that minute—I
+say it in all seriousness—of heroism; in dealing with these
+ruffians it was no trifling matter to show human feeling.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was put to the torture, she knew nothing
+about the crime ... but she died.</p>
+
+<p>And Alexander ‘of blessed memory’ died too. Not
+knowing what was coming, these monsters made one
+last effort, and succeeded in finding the guilty party;
+he, of course, was condemned to the knout. In the
+midst of this judicial triumph came a command from
+Nicholas putting them all under arrest and stopping the
+whole case.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span></p>
+
+<p>Orders were given that the governor&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> should be tried
+by the Senate ... even by them he could not be
+acquitted. Nicholas issued a gracious manifesto remitting
+sentences after his coronation. The friends of Pestel and
+Muravyov were not included under it, but this scoundrel
+was. Two or three years later, he was condemned at
+Tambov for the abuse of power on his own property.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the year 1842 I was hopelessly
+weary of provincial government and was trying to invent
+an excuse to get out of it. While I was hesitating between
+one means and another, a quite external chance decided
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>One cold, winter morning as I reached the office I
+found a peasant woman about thirty standing in the
+vestibule; seeing me in uniform, she fell on her knees
+before me and bursting into tears besought my protection.
+Her master, Mussin-Pushkin, was sending her with her
+husband to a settlement, while their son, a boy of ten,
+was to remain behind; she implored permission to take
+the child with her. While she was telling me this, the
+military governor came in; I motioned her towards him
+and repeated her petition. The governor explained to
+her that children of ten or over may be kept by the landowners.
+The mother, not understanding the stupid law,
+went on entreating him; he was bored, while the woman,
+sobbing, clutched at his legs, and, roughly pushing her
+away, he said: ‘What a fool you are, don’t I tell you in
+plain Russian that I can do nothing? Why do you
+persist?’ After that he went with a firm and resolute
+step to the corner, where he put down his sabre.</p>
+
+<p>And I went too.... I had had enough.... Did
+not that woman take me for one of <i>them</i>? It was high
+time to end the farce.</p>
+
+<p>‘Are you unwell?’ asked a councillor called Hlopin,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>who had been transferred from Siberia for some shortcoming
+or other.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am ill,’ I answered, and I got up, made my bows
+and went out. The same day I sent in a declaration that
+I was ill, and never set foot again in the office of the provincial
+government. Then I asked for my discharge on
+the ground ‘of illness.’ The Senate gave me my discharge
+accompanying it with promotion to the grade of
+Court Councillor; but Benckendorf at the same time
+informed the governor that I was forbidden to visit
+Petersburg or Moscow and required to live in Novgorod.</p>
+
+<p>When Ogaryov returned from his first tour abroad,
+he did his utmost in Petersburg to procure permission
+for us to return to Moscow. I had little faith in the
+success of such a patron and was fearfully bored in the
+wretched little town with the great historical name.
+Meanwhile Ogaryov managed our business for us. On
+the 1st of July 1842 the Empress, on the occasion of
+some family festivity, besought the Tsar’s permission for
+me to live in Moscow in consideration of my wife’s illness
+and her desire to return there. Nicholas gave his consent,
+and three days later my wife received from Benckendorf
+a letter in which he informed her that I was permitted
+to accompany her to Moscow in consequence of the
+Tsarina’s intervention. He concluded the letter with
+the agreeable announcement that I should remain under
+police supervision there also.</p>
+
+<p>I felt no regret at leaving Novgorod and made haste to
+get away as soon as possible. Before I left it, however,
+almost the only agreeable incident of my sojourn there
+occurred.</p>
+
+<p>I had no money! I did not want to wait for a remittance
+from Moscow and so I commissioned Matvey
+to try and borrow fifteen hundred roubles for me. Within
+an hour Matvey returned with an innkeeper called Gibin,
+whom I knew, and at whose hotel I had stayed for a week.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>Gibin, a stout merchant with a good-natured expression,
+handed me a roll of notes with a bow.</p>
+
+<p>‘What rate of interest do you ask?’ I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you see,’ answered Gibin, ‘I am not a money-lender
+and I won’t take interest, but since I heard from
+Matvey Savelyevitch that you are in want of money for
+a month or two, and we are very much pleased with you,
+and thank God have the money to spare, I have brought
+it along.’</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him and asked him if he would like a simple
+receipt for the money or an I O U, but to this, too,
+Gibin answered: ‘That is quite unnecessary, I trust
+your word more than a piece of stamped paper.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Upon my word, but I may die you know.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well then, in my distress at your decease I shouldn’t
+worry much about the loss of the money.’</p>
+
+<p>I was touched and pressed his hand warmly instead of
+giving him a receipt. Gibin embraced me in the Russian
+fashion and said: ‘We see it all of course, we know you
+were not serving of your own will and didn’t behave
+yourself like the others, God forgive them, but stood up
+for us and for the ignorant people, so I am glad of a chance
+to do you a good turn too.’</p>
+
+<p>As we were driving out of the town late in the evening
+our driver pulled up the horses at the inn and Gibin gave
+me a cake the size of a cart-wheel as provision for the
+journey....</p>
+
+<p>That was my ‘medal for good service.’</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_28">Chapter 28<br>
+<span class="smcap">Grübelei—Moscow after Exile—Pokrovskoe—The
+Death of Matvey—Father Ioann</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Our life in Novgorod had not been a happy one. I
+had gone there not in a spirit of self-sacrifice and
+determination, but with my heart full of annoyance and
+exasperation. This second exile, with the vulgarity of
+its attendant circumstances, irritated more than it distressed
+me; it was not enough of a calamity to rouse the
+spirit, but was merely a worry, without the interest of
+novelty or the stimulus of danger. The mere sight of
+the provincial government office with its Elpidifor
+Antihovitch Zurov, its councillor Hlopin, and its vice-governor
+Pimen Arapov, was enough to poison my
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>I was ill-humoured; Natalie sank into melancholy.
+Her sensitive nature, accustomed from childhood to tears
+and sadness, gave way again to brooding depression. She
+dwelt on painful ideas and readily let slip everything
+bright and joyful. Life was becoming more complex;
+there were more chords in it and with them more anxiety.
+After Sasha’s illness had come the shock of the secret
+police, her premature confinement, and the loss of the
+baby. The death of a baby is scarcely felt by the father,
+anxiety over the mother makes him almost forget the
+little creature that has flitted away almost before it had
+time to cry and take the breast. But to the mother the
+new-born child is something close and familiar already;
+for months she has been <i>feeling</i> him; there has been a
+physical, chemical, nervous connection between them;
+moreover, the baby makes up to the mother for the burden
+of pregnancy, for the sufferings of childbirth; without
+him her agonies are motiveless and resented, without him
+the unwanted milk affects the brain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span></p>
+
+<p>After Natalie’s death I found among her papers a note
+which I had quite forgotten. It consisted of a few lines
+I had written an hour or two before Sasha’s birth. It was
+a prayer, a blessing, a dedication of the unborn creature
+to ‘the service of humanity,’ his ‘consecration to the path
+of hardship.’</p>
+
+<p>On the other side was written in Natalie’s hand:
+‘<i>January 1, 1841</i>.—Yesterday Alexandr gave me this;
+he could not have made me a better present, those lines
+at once called up the whole picture of our three years of
+unbroken, boundless happiness, resting on love alone.
+So we have passed into a new year; whatever awaits us
+in it, I bow my head and say for both of us, Thy Will be
+done! We welcomed the New Year at home, in solitude,
+only A. L. Vitberg was with us. Little Alexandr was
+missing from our party, he was so sound asleep, neither
+past nor future exists for him yet. Sleep, my angel, free
+from care, I pray for you—and for you too, my child
+unborn, whom I love with all a mother’s love. Your
+movements, your tremors mean so much to my heart,
+and may your coming into the world be glad and
+blessed!’</p>
+
+<p>But the mother’s hope was not fulfilled: the babe was
+sentenced by Nicholas. The deadly hand of the Russian
+autocrat intervened here also—and here also destroyed
+a life!</p>
+
+<p>The baby’s death left its mark upon her soul.</p>
+
+<p>With sadness and rankling resentment we went to
+Novgorod.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>truth</i> of that period, as it was seen at the time,
+without the artificial perspective given by distance,
+without the cooling effect of years, and the different light
+thrown on it by a series of other events is preserved in a
+diary of the period. I had meant to keep a diary, had
+begun it many times, but had never kept it up. On my
+birthday in Novgorod Natalie gave me a white book in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>which I sometimes wrote down what was in my heart,
+or my head.</p>
+
+<p>This book has been preserved. On the first page
+Natalie wrote: ‘May all the pages of this book, and of
+all your life be bright and joyous!’</p>
+
+<p>Three years later she added on the last page: ‘In
+1842 I hoped that all the pages of your diary might
+be bright and untroubled; three years have passed since
+then, and looking back I do not regret that my hope has
+not been fulfilled; both joy and suffering are essential
+for a full life, and you will find peace in my love, in the
+love with which my whole being, my whole life is filled.
+Peace to the past and a blessing for the future! March
+25th, 1845, Moscow.’</p>
+
+<p>This was what was written on the 4th of April 1842:</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh Lord, what unbearable misery! Is it weakness
+or have I a right to feel it? Must I reckon my life
+finished? Is all my readiness for work, all my craving
+for self-expression to be crushed, till my yearnings are
+stifled and I am ready for a life of emptiness? It might
+be possible to exist with no object but one’s own inner
+development, but the same awful depression comes over
+me in the midst of study. I must express myself—perhaps
+from the same necessity as the grasshopper churrs ...
+and for years to come I have to drag this weight.’</p>
+
+<p>And as though frightened at my own words, I followed
+this with Goethe’s lines:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Gut verloren—etwas verloren,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Ehre verloren—viel verloren,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Musst Ruhm gewinnen,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Da werden die Leute sich anders besinnen.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Mut verloren—alles verloren,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Da wäre es besser nicht geboren’;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and later:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘My shoulders are breaking but still they will bear!’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Will those who come after us understand, will they
+appreciate all the horror, all the tragic side of our existence?
+And meanwhile our sufferings are the soil from
+which their happiness will develop; will they understand
+what makes us slothful, makes us seek all sorts of pleasure,
+drink and so on? Why do we not lift our hands to great
+tasks, why at the moment of rapture do we not forget our
+despondency? Let them stop with musing and sadness
+before the stones under which we slumber: we have
+deserved their mournful thoughts!</p>
+
+<p>‘I cannot go on for long in my position, I shall be
+stifled—and I don’t care how I get out of it, if only I get
+out of it. I have written to Dubbelt (I asked him to try
+and get leave for me to return to Moscow). Writing
+that letter made me ill, <i>on se sent flétri</i>. I expect it is what
+prostitutes feel when first they begin selling themselves.’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>And it was just this vexation, this impatient cry of
+revolt, this fretting for free activity, this feeling of fetters
+on the limbs that Natalie misunderstood.</p>
+
+<p>Often I found her with tear-stained eyes by Sasha’s cot;
+she assured me that it was nothing but nerves, that I had
+better not notice it, not question her.... I believed her.</p>
+
+<p>One evening I returned home late; she was in bed
+when I went in, I was feeling sick at heart. F—— had
+asked me to go and see him in order to tell me that he
+suspected that one of our common acquaintances was in
+relations with the police. That sort of thing usually
+sends a pang to the heart, not so much from the possible
+danger as from the feeling of moral repulsion.</p>
+
+<p>I walked up and down the room in silence, turning
+over what I had just heard, when all at once I fancied
+that Natalie was weeping; I took her handkerchief, it
+was soaked with tears.</p>
+
+<p>‘What is it?’ I asked, alarmed and distressed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p>
+
+<p>She took my hand and in a voice full of tears said:</p>
+
+<p>‘My dear, I will tell you the truth; perhaps it is self-love,
+egoism, madness, but I feel, I see, that I cannot
+distract your mind, you are bored,—I understand it, I
+don’t blame you, but it hurts me, it hurts me, and I cry.
+I know that you love me, that you are sorry for me, but
+you don’t know what makes you depressed, what gives
+you that feeling of emptiness, you feel the poverty of
+your life—and, indeed, what can I do for you?’</p>
+
+<p>I was like a man suddenly roused in the middle of the
+night and told something terrible before he is quite
+awake: he is frightened and trembling, though he doesn’t
+yet understand what is wrong. I was so completely at
+peace, so sure of our deep, perfect love, that I never spoke
+about it; it was the great assumption upon which all our
+life rested; a serene consciousness, a boundless conviction
+of it excluding doubt, even distrust of myself, was the
+fundamental basis of my happiness. Peace, tranquillity,
+the aesthetic side of life, all that—as before our meeting in
+the graveyard on the 9th of May 1838, as at the beginning
+of our life in Vladimir—rested on her, on her, on her!</p>
+
+<p>My deep distress and my astonishment at first dissipated
+these clouds, but in a month or two they began to return.
+I soothed and comforted her; she smiled herself at the
+dark phantoms, and again the sunshine brightened our
+corner; but as soon as I had forgotten them they raised
+their heads again for no reason whatever, and when they
+had passed I began to be afraid of their return.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of mind in which in July 1842 we
+moved to Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>Moscow life, at first too full of distractions, could have
+no beneficial nor soothing effect. Far from helping her
+at that time I gave only too much cause for her <i>Grübelei</i>
+to grow deeper and more intense.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p>
+
+<p class="mt2">Natalie became absorbed in melancholy, more and more
+her faith in me wavered, her idol was shattered. It was
+a crisis, the painful transition from youth to maturity.
+She could not get over the thoughts that fretted her heart,
+she was ill, and grew thin—while terrified and reproaching
+myself I stood beside her and saw that I had no longer
+the boundless power with which I had once been able
+to exorcise the spirits of gloom. It wounded me to see it,
+and I was immensely sorry for her.</p>
+
+<p>They say that children grow in illness; in this spiritual
+illness which brought her to the verge of consumption
+she made colossal strides in growth. From the slanting
+rays and glow of dawn she passed by this sorrowful path
+into the clear bright light of midday. Her health was
+equal to the strain and that was all that mattered. Without
+losing one iota of her womanliness she developed
+intellectually with extraordinary boldness and depth.
+Gently and with a smile of self-sacrifice she left behind
+what was lost beyond recall, without sentimental repining,
+without a sense of personal grievance, and on the other
+hand without conceited satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>It was not in a book, nor through a book, that she found
+her freedom, but through living and clearness of vision.
+Unimportant incidents, bitter experiences, which for
+many would have passed without a trace, left a deep
+imprint on her soul and were enough to arouse her mind
+to immense activity. A slight hint was sufficient for her
+to pass from one deduction to another, till she reached
+that fearless grasp of the truth which is a heavy burden
+even for a man to bear. Mournfully she parted from
+her shrine in which had stood so many holy things, bathed
+in tears of grief and joy; she left them without blushing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>as big girls blush at the sight of their doll of yesterday.
+She did not turn away from them, she let them go with
+anguish, knowing that she would be the poorer, the more
+defenceless for the loss, that the soft light of the glimmering
+ikon lamp would be followed by the grey dawn, that she
+must make friends with harsh, callous forces, deaf to the
+murmur of prayer, deaf to the hopes of immortality. She
+gently put them from her bosom like a dead child, and
+gently laid them in the grave, respecting in them her past
+life, their poetry and the comfort they had given at some
+moments. Even later she disliked touching them coldly,
+just as we avoid wantonly stepping on a grave.</p>
+
+<p>With this intense mental activity, with this shattering
+and rebuilding of all her convictions, she naturally needed
+rest and solitude.</p>
+
+<p>We went away to my father’s estate near Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>And as soon as we found ourselves alone surrounded by
+trees and fields, we breathed freely and looked clearly at
+life again. We stayed in the country until late autumn.
+From time to time we had visitors from Moscow.
+Ketscher stayed a month with us, all our friends arrived
+for the 26th of August, Natalie’s nameday; then again
+peace and stillness and the woods and the fields—and
+no one but ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Pokrovskoe, standing solitary, surrounded by immense
+forest estates, was of quite a different and much more
+serious character than Vassilyevskoe, lying so sunnily
+with its villages on the bank of the Moskva. This
+difference was even noticeable in the peasants. The
+Pokrovskoe peasants, hemmed in by woods, were less like
+people living within reach of Moscow than those of
+Vassilyevskoe, although as a fact they were fifteen miles
+nearer the city. They were quieter, more unsophisticated,
+and hung together very closely. My father moved
+a wealthy family of peasants from Vassilyevskoe to
+Pokrovskoe, but the peasants of the latter place never
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>considered the family as belonging to their village, but
+always called them ‘the settlers.’</p>
+
+<p>With Pokrovskoe, too, I had been closely connected
+throughout my childhood; I used to stay there when I
+was too young to remember, and from the year 1821 we
+used to spend a few days there almost every summer on
+our way to and from Vassilyevskoe. There lived old
+Kashentsov, paralysed and in disgrace since 1813, who
+dreamed of seeing his master, the Senator, in all his
+finery and regalia; there lived—and later in the cholera
+of 1831 died—the venerable grey-headed corpulent
+village elder, Vassily Yakovlyev, whom I remembered at
+all his stages with his beard first dark brown and afterwards
+quite grey; there lived my foster-brother Nikifor,
+who prided himself on the fact that he had for my
+benefit been robbed of the milk of his mother, who died
+later on in a madhouse....</p>
+
+<p>The little village of some twenty or twenty-five homesteads
+stood at some distance from our rather large house.
+On one side lay a semicircular meadow that had been
+cleared and fenced in, on the other there was a view of
+the river, dammed up for the sake of a mill which they
+had intended to build fifteen years before, and of an
+ancient wooden church all on the slant, which my uncle
+the Senator and my father, who owned the estate in
+common, had also been intending to repair for the last
+fifteen years.</p>
+
+<p>The house which had been built by the Senator was
+a very good one; there were lofty rooms, big windows,
+and on both sides porches that were like verandahs. It
+was built of choice thick logs, not covered with anything
+either outside or in, but with the crevices stuffed up with
+tow and moss. The walls smelt of resin, which oozed
+out here and there like drops of amber. Before the house
+there was a small field and beyond that began a dark
+forest of large trees, through which ran a track to Zvenigorod;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>in the other direction a side-path ran like a thin,
+dusty ribbon by the village and was lost in the rye, coming
+out through the Maikovsky factory and going on to the
+Mozhaisk road. There was the forest stillness and the
+forest sound, the incessant buzzing of flies, bees, and
+insects, ... and the fragrance ... that fragrance of
+grass and forest, made up of the scents of plants, of leaves,
+but not of flowers ... which I have so eagerly sought in
+Italy and in England, both in spring and in hot summer,
+but scarcely ever found. Sometimes one gets a whiff
+of it in the hay-field, or when the sirocco is blowing, or
+before a storm ... and it brings back the little place
+before the house, on which, to the great distress of the
+village elder and the house-serfs, I would not have the
+grass clipped close; on the grass a boy of three, rolling
+in the clover and the dandelions among the grasshoppers
+and ladybirds, and we ourselves and youth and friendship!</p>
+
+<p>The sun has set, it is still very warm, we don’t want to
+go home, we still sit on the grass. Ketscher sorts out the
+mushrooms and scolds me for no reason. Can that be
+the tinkle of a bell? Is it something for us? Perhaps—it
+is Saturday. ‘It must be the police-captain going off
+somewhere,’ says Ketscher, suspecting that it is not. The
+troika rattles through the village, rumbles over the bridge,
+disappears behind a knoll, and the only road is towards
+us. While we run to meet it, it drives up to the house;
+Shtchepkin has already rolled off it like an avalanche,
+smiling, kissing his hand, and roaring with laughter, while
+Byelinsky, cursing the distance from Pokrovskoe and the
+way that Russian carts and Russian roads are made, is
+still alighting and stretching himself, and already Ketscher
+is scolding them: ‘What devil has brought you at eight
+o’clock in the evening, couldn’t you have come sooner,
+it is all that perverse Byelinsky, he can’t get up early,
+what were you thinking about?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Why, he is more of a savage than ever,’ says Byelinsky,
+‘and what a head of hair he has grown! You would
+do for the moving forest in <i>Macbeth</i>, Ketscher. Wait
+a bit, don’t exhaust all your abuse, there are villains
+coming later still.’</p>
+
+<p>Another troika is already turning into the yard, Granovsky
+and Yevgeny Korsh.</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you come to stay long?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Two days.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Splendid!’ and Ketscher himself is so pleased that
+he greets them almost as Tarass Bulba greeted his sons.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, that was one of the happy periods of our life. Of
+past storms nothing remained but a trace of vanishing
+cloud; at home among our friends there was perfect
+harmony.</p>
+
+<p>But a senseless fatality very nearly spoilt it all.</p>
+
+<p>One evening Matvey, showing Sasha something on the
+dam where we too were standing, slipped and fell into
+the water on the shallow side. Sasha was terrified, he
+rushed up to him as he got out, held him tight in his little
+arms and repeated tearfully: ‘Don’t go there, you’ll be
+drowned!’ No one imagined that the child’s embrace
+was the last Matvey would receive and that Sasha’s words
+were indeed a terrible prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>Drenched and covered with mud, Matvey went to bed
+and we never saw him again.</p>
+
+<p>At seven o’clock next morning I was standing on the
+verandah when I heard voices growing louder and louder,
+confused screams, and then peasants came into sight
+running at full speed. ‘What has happened?’ ‘Oh,
+something dreadful,’ they answered, ‘your man is
+drowning ... they pulled one out in time but they
+can’t get the other.’ I rushed to the river, the village
+elder was there with his boots off and his breeches tucked
+up; two peasants were throwing a net from a canoe.
+Five minutes later they shouted: ‘We have got him, we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>have got him!’ and dragged Matvey’s dead body to the
+bank. The young man, so blooming, handsome, and
+rosy-cheeked, lay with wide-open eyes in which there
+was no trace of life, and already the lower part of his face
+was beginning to swell. The village elder laid the body
+on the bank, sternly bade the peasants not to touch it,
+threw a coat over it, set a man to watch it, and sent for
+the rural police....</p>
+
+<p>When I returned home I met Natalie; she knew
+already what had happened and ran to me sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>We were sorry, very sorry to lose Matvey. He had
+played so intimate a part in our little family, he was so
+closely bound up with all the chief events of its last five
+years, and he loved us so truly that we could not easily
+get over his loss.</p>
+
+<p>‘Perhaps,’ I wrote at the time, ‘death may have been
+a blessing for him, life had terrible blows in store for him
+and he had no way of avoiding them. But it is dreadful
+to witness such a way of escape from the future. He
+had developed under my influence, but in too great a
+hurry; his development was a worry to him through its
+one-sidedness.’</p>
+
+<p>The melancholy side of Matvey’s life lay precisely in
+the gulf which the haphazard character of his education
+had brought with it, and in his incapacity for filling it up,
+his lack of strength of will for overcoming it. In him
+generous feelings and a tender heart were stronger than
+intellect or character. Rapidly, like a woman, he
+assimilated a great deal, especially of our outlook on life;
+but he was incapable of going humbly back to the first
+elements, to the ABC, and filling in the blanks and
+empty places by study. He did not like his calling and,
+indeed, he could not like it. Social inequality is nowhere
+apparent in so degrading and humiliating a form as in the
+relations between master and servant. Rothschild in
+the street is far more on an equality with the beggar who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>stands with a broom and sweeps away the mud before him
+than with his valet in silk stockings and white gloves.</p>
+
+<p>The complaints made of servants, which we hear
+every day, are quite as just as the servants’ complaints
+against their masters, and that not because either class
+has grown worse than it was, but because they are growing
+more and more conscious of their mutual relation. It is
+oppressive to the servant and corrupting to the master.</p>
+
+<p>We are so accustomed to our aristocratic attitude to
+servants that we do not notice it at all. How many good-natured
+and sensitive young ladies there are in the world,
+ready to weep over a frozen puppy and to give their last
+farthing to a beggar, who will yet drive through severe
+frost to a fancy dress ball for the benefit of the destitute
+in Syria, or a concert given for burnt-out villagers in
+Abyssinia, and will ask their mother to stay for one more
+quadrille without a thought of the little postillion boy on
+horseback with the blood freezing in his veins in the night
+frost.</p>
+
+<p>The attitude of masters to their servants is loathsome.
+The workman at any rate knows what his job is; he does
+something; he can do it more quickly and then be free,
+besides he can dream of becoming his own master. The
+servant can never finish his work, he is like a squirrel in
+a wheel; life makes dirt, it makes dirt incessantly, and the
+servant is incessantly cleaning up after it. He is obliged
+to take upon himself all the petty discomforts of life, all
+its dirty and tedious aspects. He is put into a livery to
+show he is not his own man but some one else’s. He
+waits upon a man who is twice as strong and healthy as
+himself, he must step into the mud that the other may go
+dry-shod, he must be cold that the other may be warm.</p>
+
+<p>Rothschild does not make the starving Irishman look
+on at his feasts of Lucullus, he does not send him to pour
+out Clos-de-Vougeot for twenty persons, with the unspoken
+understanding that if he pours out a glass for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>himself he will be turned away as a thief. The Irish
+peasant is luckier too than the indoor slave because he
+does not know what soft beds and fragrant wines are like.</p>
+
+<p>Matvey was fifteen when he came to me from Sonnenberg,
+with him I lived in exile and with him in Vladimir;
+he was our servant at the time when we were without
+money. He looked after Sasha like a nurse, and had a
+boundless faith in me and a blind devotion to me, which
+came from his understanding that I was not really a
+master. His relation to me was more like that which
+existed in old days between the pupils of the Italian
+artists and their <i>maestri</i>. I was often vexed with him,
+but not in the least as a servant.... I felt worried about
+his future; oppressed by his position and unhappy about
+it, he did nothing to escape from it. At his age if he had
+cared to work he might have begun a new life; but to
+do so needed persevering hard work, often tiresome and
+often childish. His reading was confined to novels and
+poetry. His understanding and appreciation of them
+was sometimes very correct, but serious reading wearied
+him. He was slow and inaccurate in reckoning, and his
+writing was bad and illegible. How often have I insisted
+on his working at arithmetic and handwriting, but never
+could get him to do it: instead of Russian grammar, he
+would at one time take up the French alphabet, at another
+German dialogues; of course, that was waste of time
+and only discouraged him. I used to scold him vigorously
+for it; he would be mortified, sometimes shed tears and
+say that he was an unlucky man and that it was too late
+to study; sometimes he would come to such depths of
+despair as to wish for death, would fling up all his pursuits
+and would spend weeks, even months in idleness and
+boredom.</p>
+
+<p>With modest abilities and not too wide an aim, all
+might yet have been well. But unhappily in those
+spiritually sensitive but soft characters the energy is mostly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>wasted on rushing ahead in spurts, and there is no energy
+left for going forward steadily. From the distance they
+have a vision of education and culture on their poetical
+side, they would like to grasp them, forgetting their lack
+of technical equipment, of the fingering without which
+no instrument is mastered.</p>
+
+<p>I often asked myself whether his half-education was
+not a poisoned gift; what awaited him in the future?</p>
+
+<p>Fate cut the Gordian knot.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Matvey! Even his funeral was surrounded with
+all the gloomy oppressiveness and horrible accompaniments
+which were yet typically Russian. At midday the
+police-sergeant arrived together with his clerk and our
+village priest, a very old man and a great drunkard. They
+saw the body, asked questions and sat down to write the
+answers. The priest, who was neither writing nor
+reading, put on a big pair of silver-rimmed spectacles and
+sat in silence sighing, yawning, and making the sign of
+the cross over his mouth, then suddenly turned to the
+village elder and making a movement as though he had
+an insufferable pain in his back, asked him: ‘I say, Savely
+Gavrilovitch, will there be a little bit of lunch?’</p>
+
+<p>The village elder, a dignified peasant, promoted to his
+position by the Senator and my father, because he was a
+good carpenter, did not belong to the village (consequently
+he knew nothing of what went on in it). He was
+very handsome in spite of being sixty. He stroked his
+beard, which was combed out like a fan, and as though
+he had nothing whatever to do with the matter, answered
+in a deep bass, looking at me from under his brow:
+‘About that we can give no information!’</p>
+
+<p>‘There will,’ I answered, and called a servant.</p>
+
+<p>‘Thanks be to Thee, O Lord! and indeed it is high
+time; I get up early, Alexandr Ivanovitch, and I am sick
+with hunger.’</p>
+
+<p>The police-sergeant laid down his pen and, rubbing his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>hands, said, preening himself: ‘I fancy Father Ioann is
+hungry; a good thing too, if our host doesn’t mind, we
+might have a snack.’</p>
+
+<p>The servant brought a cold lunch with sweet vodka,
+home-made liqueurs, and sherry.</p>
+
+<p>‘Say a blessing, Father, since you are shepherd; set
+the example and we sinners will follow you,’ observed the
+police-sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>With great haste and with an extremely condensed
+grace, the priest took a wine-glass of sweet vodka, put a
+bit of crumb of bread into his mouth, munched it, and at
+the same time drank off another glassful, and then quietly
+and persistently set to work on the ham.</p>
+
+<p>The police-sergeant, too—and this is vividly impressed
+on my memory—was particularly pleased with the sweet
+vodka, and after taking a second glass, he turned to me
+with the air of a connoisseur and observed: ‘I expect
+your <i>Doppelkümmel</i> came from widow Rouget’s?’</p>
+
+<p>I had no idea where the vodka had been bought, and
+told them to bring the bottle; the vodka really had come
+from widow Rouget’s. What practice a man must have
+had to be able to tell the name of the maker from the
+bouquet of a vodka!</p>
+
+<p>When they had finished, the village elder put a bundle
+of oats and a sack of potatoes in the police-sergeant’s cart;
+the clerk, who had had a good deal to drink in the kitchen,
+got on the box, and he and the police-sergeant drove away.
+With unsteady footsteps the priest set off homewards, picking
+his teeth with a shaving. I was giving orders to the
+servants about the funeral when suddenly Father Ioann
+stopped and began waving his hands: the village elder
+ran up to him and then back to me.</p>
+
+<p>‘What has happened?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, the Father bade me ask your honour,’ answered
+the elder, not concealing a smile, ‘“Who,” says he, “will
+arrange a memorial feast for the dead man?”’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘What did you tell him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I told him not to be anxious; there will be pancakes
+all right, I said.’</p>
+
+<p>Matvey was buried, pancakes and vodka were given
+to the priest, and it all left a long, dark shadow behind it.
+I still had a terrible task before me—telling his mother.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot part from this worthy priest of the Church of
+the Veil of Our Lady in the village of Pokrovskoe without
+saying a little more about him.</p>
+
+<p>Father Ioann was not a fashionable priest from the
+seminary; he did not know the Greek declensions nor the
+Latin syntax. He was over seventy, and he had spent
+half his life as a deacon in a big village belonging to
+Elizaveta Alexeyevna Golohvastov, who induced the
+Metropolitan to ordain him priest and appoint him to a
+vacancy in my father’s village. Though he had tried
+all his life to accustom himself to taking an immense
+quantity of strong drink, he could never get over its effect,
+and hence was invariably drunk after midday. He drank
+to such an extent that often after a wedding or a christening
+in neighbouring villages, which formed part of his
+parish, the peasants would carry him out dead-drunk, lay
+him like a sheaf of corn on his cart, tie the reins to the bar
+in front and send him off under the sole supervision of
+his horse. The nag, who knew the road well, brought
+him home without fail. His wife, too, got drunk every
+time the Lord sent her the means. But what is more
+remarkable is that his daughter at fourteen could toss off
+a whole teacupful of vodka without turning a hair.</p>
+
+<p>The peasants despised him and all his family; on one
+occasion, they even complained against him to the Senator
+and to my father, who asked the Metropolitan to inquire
+into the matter. The peasants charged him with being
+very extortionate in asking for money, with refusing for
+over three days to bury a man without payment beforehand,
+and declining to perform weddings altogether
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>until he had been paid. The Metropolitan or the Consistory
+found the peasants’ complaint a just one and sent
+Father Ioann for two or three months to humbler duties.
+The priest returned from this correction not only twice
+as drunken, but a thief as well.</p>
+
+<p>Our servants used to tell us that on the dedication day
+of the church an old peasant, drinking with the priest
+when both were drunk, said: ‘You are such a disgrace
+we had to bring it before his Reverence! You wouldn’t
+mend your ways so they clipped your wings for you.’
+The offended priest is said to have replied: ‘Well, I pay
+you out, you rascals, for whether I marry you or whether
+I bury you, it is the very worst prayers I say for you.’</p>
+
+<p>A year later, that is in 1844, we were again spending
+the summer in Pokrovskoe. The grey-headed, thin, old
+priest was still drinking in the same way, and still as unable
+to resist the effect of vodka. He got into the habit of
+coming after service on Sundays to see me, drinking too
+much vodka and sitting for two hours or more. I got
+sick of this. I told them to tell him I was not at home,
+and actually hid in the wood to escape from him. But even
+this did not settle him. ‘The master not at home?’ he
+said, ‘but the vodka is at home, surely? I’ll be bound
+he did not take it with him?’ My servant brought him
+out into the vestibule a large glass of sweet vodka, and
+the priest, after drinking it and having a snack of caviare,
+meekly went his way.</p>
+
+<p>At last our acquaintance was broken off completely.</p>
+
+<p>One morning the sacristan, a tall, lanky fellow with his
+hair done like a woman’s, arrived to see me, together with
+his freckled young wife; they were both in great excitement,
+both talked at once, both shed tears simultaneously
+and wiped them away at the same moment.</p>
+
+<p>The sacristan in a sort of flat falsetto, his wife with a
+terrible lisp, vied with each other in telling me that their
+watch had been stolen a few days before and also a box
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>in which there were fifty roubles, that the sacristan’s wife
+had found the ‘fief’ and that this ‘fief’ was no other than
+our worthy pastor and Father in Christ, Ioann.</p>
+
+<p>The proofs were conclusive; the sacristan’s wife had
+found a piece of the lid of the stolen box amongst the
+rubbish swept out of the priest’s house. They came to
+beg me to take their part. Although I explained to them
+several times over the distribution of authority between
+the spiritual and the secular powers, the sacristan still
+persisted and his wife still wept; I did not know what to
+do. I felt sorry for them; they valued their loss at ninety
+roubles. After thinking a little I ordered the cart to
+be got ready and sent the village elder with a letter to
+the police-captain; I asked him for the advice which the
+sacristan hoped to get from me. Towards evening the
+village elder returned, the police-captain had told him to
+give me a verbal message: ‘Drop the thing or the Consistory
+will intervene and make a bobbery. Tell your
+master not to interfere with the long-haired gentry if he
+does not want his hands to stink.’ This answer, and the
+last observation particularly, Savely Gavrilovitch delivered
+with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>‘But that the Father stole the box,’ he added, ‘that is
+as sure as that I am standing here.’</p>
+
+<p>I regretfully repeated to the sacristan the answer of
+the secular authority. The elder, on the contrary, said
+to him reassuringly: ‘Come, why are you so down-hearted
+already? Wait a bit, we’ll be even with him
+yet. Are you an old woman or a sacristan?’</p>
+
+<p>And the elder with the help of others did get even
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Savely Gavrilovitch was a dissenter or not I
+do not know for certain, but the peasants of the family
+brought from Vassilyevskoe when my father sold it were
+all Old Believers. Sober, shrewd, and hard-working
+people, they all hated the priest. One of them whom
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>the peasants called the corn-chandler had his own shop
+in Neglinny Street in Moscow. The story of the stolen
+watch reached him at once; making inquiries, the corn-chandler
+discovered that a deacon out of a place, a son-in-law
+of the Pokrovskoe priest, had offered to sell or
+pawn a watch, and that this watch was at the money-changer’s;
+the corn-chandler knew the sacristan’s watch,
+he went to the money-changer’s and at once saw that it
+was the very watch. Not sparing his horses in his delight,
+he arrived himself in Pokrovskoe with the news.</p>
+
+<p>Then with the complete proofs in his hand, the
+sacristan went to the head-priest of the district. Three
+days later I heard that the priest had paid the sacristan a
+hundred roubles and they were reconciled.</p>
+
+<p>‘How was that?’ I asked the sacristan.</p>
+
+<p>‘The head-priest, as your honour heard, graciously
+sent for our Herod. He kept him a long time and what
+passed I don’t know. Only afterwards he was pleased
+to summon me and said to me sternly: “What is this
+silly quarrel? For shame, young man, anything may
+happen in drink. The old man, as you see, is old, he might
+be your father. He will give you a hundred roubles to
+make it right. Are you satisfied?” “I am satisfied,
+your Reverence.” “Well, if you are satisfied, then keep
+your jaw shut, there is no need to set the bells ringing, he
+is over seventy, anyway; if you don’t, mind I’ll make you
+smart too.”’</p>
+
+<p>And this drunken thief, unmasked by the corn-chandler,
+came back to perform his sacred duties before the same
+village elder who had so confidently told me that he had
+stolen the box; within the choir the same sacristan in
+whose pocket the celebrated watch was now for ever and
+ever marking the fleeting hours; and—before the very
+same peasants!</p>
+
+<p>That happened in 1844, about thirty-five miles from
+Moscow, and I was an eye-witness of it all!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span></p>
+
+<p>It would be no wonder if at the summons of Father
+Ioann the Holy Ghost, as in Beranger’s ballad, refused
+to come down.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Non, dit l’esprit saint, je ne descends pas.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>How was it they did not dismiss him?</p>
+
+<p>A minister of the Church, our sages of Orthodoxy will
+tell us, can like Caesar’s wife never be suspected.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_29">Chapter 29<br>
+<span class="smcap">OUR FRIENDS<br>
+The Moscow Circle—Table Talk—The Westerners
+(Botkin, Ryedkin, Kryukov, and Yevgeny Korsh)—On
+the Grave of a Friend</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p class="dropcap">With our visit to Pokrovskoe and the quiet summer
+we spent there begins the harmonious, mature,
+and active part of our Moscow life, which lasted till my
+father’s death and perhaps until we went abroad.</p>
+
+<p>Our nerves, overstrained in Petersburg and Novgorod,
+had recovered, our spiritual storms had subsided. The
+agonising analysis of ourselves and of each other, the
+useless reopening of recent wounds, the incessant going
+back to the same painful subjects was over; and our
+shaken faith in our own infallibility gave a truer and more
+earnest character to our lives. My article <i>On a Drama</i>
+was the last word of the sickness we had passed through.</p>
+
+<p>On the external side, the only restriction we suffered
+from was police supervision; I cannot say it was very
+oppressive, but the unpleasant feeling of a Damocles’
+cane wielded by the local police-constable was very distasteful.</p>
+
+<p>Our new friends received us warmly, far more warmly
+than two years before. Foremost among them stood
+Granovsky, he took the leading place in those five years.
+Ogaryov was almost all the time abroad. Granovsky
+filled his place for us. To him we are indebted for the
+happiest moments of that period. There was a wonderful
+power of love in his nature. With many I was more in
+agreement in opinion, but to him I was nearer—deep
+down, somewhere in the soul.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky and all of us were very busy, all hard at
+work, one lecturing in the university, another contributing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>to reviews and magazines, another studying Russian
+history; the first beginnings of all that was done afterwards
+date from this period.</p>
+
+<p>By now we were far from being children; in 1842 I
+was thirty; we knew only too well where our work was
+leading us, but we went on. We went along our chosen
+path, no longer rashly but deliberately, with the calm, even
+step to which experience and family life had trained us.
+This did not mean that we had grown old, no, we were
+still young, and that is how it was that some coming from
+the university lecture-room, others publishing articles or
+editing newspapers were every day in danger of being
+attested, dismissed, exiled.</p>
+
+<p>Such a circle of talented, cultured, many-sided, and
+pure-hearted people I have met nowhere since, neither
+in the highest ranks of the political nor on the summits
+of the literary and aristocratic world. Yet I have travelled
+a great deal, I have lived everywhere and with all sorts
+of people. I have been brought by the revolution into
+contact with all that was foremost in culture, and I am
+honestly bound to say the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>The finished, self-contained personality of the Western
+European, which surprises us at first by its specialisation,
+surprises us later by its one-sidedness. He is always
+satisfied with himself, his self-sufficiency offends us. He
+never forgets his personal views, his position is altogether
+cramped and his morals only appropriate to paltry surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>I do not imagine that men were always like this here;
+the Western European is not in a normal condition, <i>he
+is moulting</i>. Unsuccessful revolutions have turned
+inwards, none of them have transformed him, but each
+has left its trace and confused his ideas, while the natural
+historical process has left in the foreground the slimy
+stratum of the petty-bourgeois, under which the fossilised
+aristocratic classes are buried and the rising masses
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>submerged. Petty-bourgeoisdom is incompatible with
+the Russian character—and thank God for it!</p>
+
+<p>Whether it is due to our carelessness, or our lack of
+moral stability and of definite work, or our youth in the
+matter of culture, or the aristocratic character of our
+bringing-up, any way we are on the one hand far more
+artists in life, and on the other far simpler than Western
+Europeans; we have not their specialised knowledge, but
+on the other hand we are far more many-sided than they.
+Persons of culture are not common amongst us, but their
+culture is richer, wider in its scope, free from hedges and
+barriers. It is quite different in Western Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Talking to the nicest people here&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> you immediately
+reach contradictions where there is nothing in common,
+and it is quite impossible to convince. In this stubborn
+obstinacy and instinctive lack of comprehension you seem
+to be knocking your head against the limits of a completed
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Our theoretical differences, on the contrary, brought
+more living interest into our lives, more craving for active
+exchange of opinions, kept our minds more vigorous
+and helped us to progress; we grew in this friction
+against each other, and in reality were the stronger for
+this co-operation which Proudhon has so superbly described
+in the sphere of mechanical labour.</p>
+
+<p>I love to dwell on that time of work in unison, of a full,
+throbbing pulse, of harmonious order and manly struggle,
+on those years in which we were young for the last
+time!...</p>
+
+<p>Our little circle met frequently, sometimes at the house
+of one, sometimes of another, most often at mine.
+Together with chat, jests, supper, and wine, there was
+the most active, the most rapid exchange of ideas, of news,
+and of knowledge; every one handed on what he had
+read or learned. Views came out in argument and what
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>had been worked out by each became the property of all.
+There was nothing of significance in any sphere of
+knowledge, in any literature, or in any art, which did not
+come under the notice of some one of us, and was not at
+once communicated to all.</p>
+
+<p>It was just this character in our gatherings that dull
+pedants and tedious scholars failed to understand. They
+saw the meat and the bottles, but they saw nothing else.
+Feasting goes with fullness of life, ascetic people are usually
+dry, egoistic people, we were not monks, we lived on all
+sides, and, sitting round the table, gained more in culture
+and did no less than those fasting toilers who grub in the
+backyards of science.</p>
+
+<p>I will not have anything said against you, my
+friends, nor against that bright, splendid time; I think
+of it with more than love, almost with envy. We were
+not like the emaciated monks of Zurbaran,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> we did not
+weep over the sins of the world, we only sympathised
+with its sufferings, and were ready with a smile for anything,
+and not depressed with forebodings of our sacrifices
+in the future. Ascetics who are for ever austere have
+always excited my suspicion; if they are not pretending,
+either their mind or their stomach is out of order.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘You’re right, my friend, you’re right....’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yes, you were right, Botkin—and far more so than
+Plato—when you sometimes taught us, not in gardens and
+porticos (it is too cold in Russia without a roof on) but
+round the friendly dinner-table, that a man may find
+‘pantheistic enjoyment’ alike in contemplating the dance
+of the sea-waves and of Spanish maidens, in listening to
+the songs of Schubert and in sniffing the fragrance of
+turkey stuffed with truffles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span></p>
+
+<p>Listening to your sage words, I appreciated for the
+first time the democratic spirit of our language which
+talks of ‘hearing an odour,’ putting smell on a level with
+sound.</p>
+
+<p>It was not for nothing that you left your lodging in
+Moroseika and learned in Paris to respect the culinary art,
+and from the banks of the Guadalquivir the religion not
+only of feet, but of calves, supreme and sovereign, <i>soberana
+pantorrilla</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Yet Ryedkin was in Spain—but what good did he get
+from it? He went to that land of historical lawlessness
+for the sake of making juridical commentaries on Puchta&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>
+and Savigny.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> Instead of looking at the fandango and the
+bolero, he looked at the rising in Barcelona (which ended
+exactly in the same way as every <i>cachucha</i>—that is in
+nothing) and talked so much about it afterwards that the
+curator Strogonov shook his head and began looking at
+Ryedkin’s lame leg and muttering something about
+barricades, as though doubtful whether the radical jurist
+had really hurt his leg falling out of the diligence on to
+the pavement in loyal Dresden.</p>
+
+<p>‘What disrespect for learning! You know I don’t
+like such jokes,’ says Ryedkin severely, not in the least
+vexed.</p>
+
+<p>‘That m—m—m—ay be so,’ observes Korsh,
+stammering, ‘but why is it you so identify yourself with
+learning that one can’t make fun of you without insulting
+it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Come now, there will be no end to it,’ says Ryedkin,
+and with the determination of a man who has read the
+whole of Roteck&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> attacks the soup, pelted lightly with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>Kryukov’s jests—elegantly modelled on an antique
+pattern.</p>
+
+<p>But the attention of all has already abandoned them;
+it is bent upon the sturgeon, which is expounded by
+Schtchepkin himself, who has studied the flesh of contemporary
+fish more thoroughly than Agassiz did the
+bones of antediluvian ones. Botkin glances at the
+sturgeon, screws up his eyes and gently shakes his head,
+not from side to side but backwards and forwards; only
+Ketscher, indifferent on principle to the splendours of
+this world, lights his pipe and speaks of something else.
+Do not be angry with these lines of nonsense; I will not
+go on with them, they dropped almost unconsciously
+from my pen when I thought of our Moscow dinners;
+for a minute I forgot both the impossibility of repeating
+jokes and the fact that these sketches are living only for
+me, and for few, very few, survivors. I feel terrified
+when I think how short a time ago the path seemed so
+long, so very long before us all!...</p>
+
+<p>And now those who have gone rise up before my eyes,
+not with the cloud of death about them, but young, full
+of strength. One of them, like Stankevitch, died far away
+from home—I mean E. P. Galahov.</p>
+
+<p>How we used to laugh at his stories! It was not merry
+laughter, though, but more like that which Gogol sometimes
+excites. Jests and witticisms flashed from Kryukov
+and from Yevgeny Korsh like sparkling wine, from their
+exuberance. There was nothing bright in Galahov’s
+humour, it was the humour of a man out of harmony
+with himself and with his surroundings, thirsting for peace
+and serenity, but with no great hope of finding them.</p>
+
+<p>Having been brought up in the aristocratic fashion,
+Galahov very early got into the Izmailovsky Regiment and
+also left it very early, and then set to work to educate
+himself in earnest. With a vigorous, but more impulsive
+and passionate than dialectic mind, he tried with petulant
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>impatience to wring out the truth, and the practical
+truth too, immediately applicable to life. He did not
+notice, as the greater number of Frenchmen do not, that
+truth can only be reached by method and remains inseparable
+from it; truth as a result is but a truism, a
+commonplace. Galahov sought not with modest self-abasement
+what was to be found, but sought for a truth
+that was to be comforting, and it is no wonder that it
+eluded his capricious pursuit. He was vexed and angry.
+People of that type cannot live in negation, in analysis;
+dissection is hateful to them, they seek for something
+ready-made, complete, creative. What could our age,
+and in the reign of Nicholas too, give Galahov?</p>
+
+<p>He rushed hither and thither, knocking at every door,
+even at the Catholic Church, but his living soul was
+revolted by the gloomy twilight, the damp, grave-like,
+prison atmosphere of her comfortless crypts. Leaving
+the old Catholicism of the Jesuits and the new of Buchez,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a>
+he was beginning to approach philosophy, but her cold,
+inhospitable portals repelled him, and for several years
+he found rest in Fourierism.</p>
+
+<p>The ready-made organisation, the obligatory regulations
+and almost barrack-like discipline of the phalanstery,
+though the critical may find little to like in it, has undoubtedly
+great attractions for those tired people who
+beg almost with tears for Truth to take them in her arms
+and lull them to sleep. Fourierism offers a definite aim—work,
+and work in common. Men are very often
+ready to give up their own will for the sake of being rid
+of hesitation and uncertainty. This occurs over and over
+again in the most ordinary daily affairs. ‘Would you
+like to go to the theatre to-day, or drive out of town?’
+‘As you like,’ answers the other; they don’t know what
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>to do and wait with impatience for some circumstance to
+decide for them. This was the groundwork upon which
+Cabet’s&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> settlement, the communistic convent, the
+Stauropigalian and Icarian communities were formed in
+America. The restless French workmen, educated by
+two revolutions and two reactions, began at last to be
+exhausted and to be assailed by doubts, frightened by
+them; they were glad of something new, renounced their
+aimless freedom, and submitted in Icaria to a strict
+discipline and subordination which was certainly no less
+severe than the monastic rule of the Benedictines.</p>
+
+<p>Galahov was too cultured and independent to be completely
+lost in Fourierism, but for some years it attracted
+him. When I met him in Paris in 1847 the feeling he
+cherished for the phalanstery was more like the tenderness
+we feel for the school at which we have studied, for the
+house in which we have spent some peaceful years, than
+that which believers have for their church.</p>
+
+<p>In Paris Galahov was even more charming and original
+than in Moscow. His aristocratic character, his generous,
+chivalrous ideas were wounded at every step; he looked at
+the petty-bourgeois world surrounding him there with the
+disgust with which fastidious people look at something
+dirty. Neither the French nor the Germans impressed him,
+and he rather looked down on many of the heroes of the
+day—with extreme simplicity pointing out their petty
+triviality, mercenary views, and insolent conceit. In his
+disdain for these people he even displayed a national
+haughtiness, really quite foreign to him. Speaking, for
+instance, of a man whom he greatly disliked, he would by
+his expression, by his smile and the screwing up of his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>eyes, compress into the one word ‘German’ a whole
+biography, a whole physiology, a regular series of the
+petty, coarse, clumsy failings especially characteristic of
+the German race.</p>
+
+<p>Like all nervous people Galahov was very variable;
+he was sometimes silent and dreamy, but <i>par saccades</i>
+would talk freely and with heat, would carry his listeners
+away by serious subjects on which he had felt deeply, and
+sometimes made them roar with laughter at the unexpected
+freakishness of phrase or startling aptness of the
+pictures he sketched in two or three strokes.</p>
+
+<p>To repeat the things he said is almost impossible. I
+will recall as best I can one of his stories, and that in a brief
+extract. In Paris conversation somehow turned on the
+unpleasant feeling with which we cross our frontier.
+Galahov began describing how he had travelled for the
+last time to his estate; it was a <i>chef-d’œuvre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>‘I drive up to the frontier; rain, sleet, a log painted
+black and white lying across the road; we wait, they
+won’t let us through. I look out: a Cossack with a pike
+on horseback comes riding down upon us. “Your passport,
+please.” I give it to him and say, “I’ll come to
+the guard-house with you, brother, it is very wet here.”
+“You can’t go there, sir.” “Why so?” “Kindly
+wait.” I turned towards the Austrian guard-house, but
+that was no good either: another Cossack with the face
+of a Chinaman seemed to spring out of the earth. “You
+can’t go there, sir!” What had happened? “Kindly
+wait!” And the rain was pouring and pouring....
+All at once a sergeant shouts from the guard-house: “Lift
+it up!” There is a clanking of chains and the striped
+guillotine begins rising; we drive under it, the chains
+clank again and the beam descends. There, I thought,
+I am caught. In the guard-house a military clerk is
+copying out my passport: “Is this yourself?” he asks.
+I promptly give him a <i>zwanziger</i>. Then the sergeant
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>comes in; he says nothing, but I make haste and give him
+a <i>zwanziger</i>. “Everything is correct, you can go on to
+the Customs.” I get in, drive off ... only I still fancy
+they are pursuing me. I look round—a Cossack with a
+pike—trot, trot, after me.... “What is it, brother?”
+“I am escorting your honour to the Customs.” At
+the Customs a clerk in spectacles looks through my books.
+I give him a <i>thaler</i> and say, “You needn’t trouble, the
+books are all scientific, medical!” “To be sure they
+are: hey! porter, lock up the box again!” Again a
+<i>zwanziger</i>.</p>
+
+<p>‘They let me go at last. I take a <i>troika</i>, we drive past
+endless fields; suddenly there is a glow in the distance,
+it grows redder and redder ... a fire. “Look,” I say
+to the driver, “how dreadful!” “It is no matter,” he
+answers, “it must be a cottage or a barn burning. Come,
+come, look alive, get on!” Two hours later the sky is
+red on the other side; this time I do not even ask, comforted
+by the reflection that it is a hut or a barn on fire.</p>
+
+<p>‘I came to Moscow from the country in Lent. The
+snow had almost melted, the sledge-runners grated on the
+cobbles, the street lamps were dimly reflected in the dark
+pools, and the trace-horse flung up the frozen mud in
+large clods straight into one’s face. And what is very
+queer, as soon as the spring comes and there are four or
+five fine days, clouds of dust appear instead of the mud;
+the police-master coughs, and standing anxiously on his
+droshky points with dissatisfaction at it, while the policemen
+bustle about and scatter powdered brick by way
+of laying the dust!’</p>
+
+<p>Galahov was extremely absent-minded, and in him
+absent-mindedness was as charming a defect as stuttering
+was in Yevgeny Korsh; sometimes he was a little vexed,
+but as a rule he laughed himself at the extraordinary
+mistakes into which he was continually falling.</p>
+
+<p>Madame H—— once invited him to an evening party.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>Galahov went with us to hear ‘Linda di Chamonix’;
+after the opera he went to Chevalier’s, and after spending
+an hour and a half there drove home, changed his clothes,
+and went off to Madame H——’s. There was a candle
+burning in the vestibule and some baggage was lying
+about. He went into the dining-room—there was no
+one there; he went into the drawing-room, there he
+found Madame H——’s husband, who had just come
+from Penza and was still in his travelling clothes. He
+looked with surprise at Galahov, who inquired what sort
+of a journey he had had and quietly sat down in an armchair.
+He said that the roads were very bad and that he
+was very tired. ‘And where is Marya Dimitryevna?’
+asked Galahov. ‘She has been asleep for hours.’
+‘Asleep? Why, is it so late?’ he asked, beginning to
+suspect the truth. ‘Four o’clock,’ answered H——.
+‘Four o’clock!’ repeated Galahov. ‘Excuse me, I only
+wanted to congratulate you on your safe arrival.’</p>
+
+<p>Another time he came to an evening party at the same
+house; all the men were in swallow-tails and the ladies
+in evening dress. Galahov either had not received an
+invitation or had forgotten it, anyway he entered the
+drawing-room in his overcoat; he sat down, took a
+candle, lighted a cigar, and began talking without observing
+the visitors or their costumes. Two hours later he asked
+me: ‘Are you going anywhere?’ ‘No.’ ‘But you
+are in evening dress?’ I burst out laughing. ‘Ough,
+how absurd!’ muttered Galahov, snatched up his hat
+and went away.</p>
+
+<p>When my son was five years old, Galahov brought him
+for the Christmas tree a wax doll as tall as the child himself.
+Galahov sat the doll at the table and awaited the
+effect of the surprise. When the Christmas tree was
+ready and the doors were opened, Sasha, breathless with
+joy, moved slowly about, casting fascinated eyes on the
+tinsel and candles, but suddenly he stopped—stood stock
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>still, flushed crimson, and with a roar rushed back.
+‘What’s the matter, what’s the matter?’ we all asked;
+bathed in bitter tears he only repeated: ‘There is a strange
+boy there, I don’t want him, I don’t want him.’ He
+saw in Galahov’s doll a rival, an <i>alter ego</i>, and was deeply
+mortified at it, but Galahov was even more deeply
+mortified; he caught up the unlucky doll, went home, and
+for a long time disliked speaking about it.</p>
+
+<p>The last time I met him was in the autumn of 1847 in
+Nice. The Italian movement was working up just then:
+he was carried away by it. In spite of his ironical attitude
+he kept romantic hopes and still eagerly ran after convictions.
+Our long conversations, our arguments led me
+to think of recording them. <i>From the Other Shore</i>
+begins with one of our conversations. I read the beginning
+of it to Galahov; he was then very ill, visibly wasting
+away and on the brink of the grave. Not long before
+his death he sent me in Paris a long letter full of interest.
+It is a pity that I have not got it, I would have published
+extracts from it.</p>
+
+<p>From his grave I pass to another, fresher and even
+more dear.</p>
+
+<h4>II<br>
+<span class="smcap">On the Grave of a Friend</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Generous and pure in spirit with a heart</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent0"><i>Tender as a caress.... And friendship with him</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lives in my memory like a fairy tale.</i>’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>... In 1840 when I was passing through Moscow I
+met Granovsky&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> for the first time. He had only just
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>come back from foreign parts and been appointed to the
+Chair of History in the university. He attracted me
+by his noble, thoughtful appearance, his melancholy eyes
+under overhanging brows, and mournfully good-natured
+smile; in those days his hair was long, and he was wearing
+a dark blue Berlin overcoat of a peculiar cut, with velvet
+revers and cloth fastenings. His features, dress, dark
+hair—all gave so much grace and elegance to his figure
+as he stood at the dividing line between youth and a
+richly developing manhood, that even a man not easily
+enthusiastic could not have remained indifferent to him.
+I have always respected beauty, and looked upon it as a
+talent and a strength.</p>
+
+<p>I had but a passing glimpse of him then, and carried
+away with me to Vladimir a noble image, and a conviction,
+perhaps founded on it, that he would one day be
+my friend. My presentiment did not deceive me. Two
+years later, after I had been in Petersburg and, at the end
+of my second exile, returned to live in Moscow, a close
+and deep friendship was formed between us.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky was gifted with an amazing tact of the
+heart. His whole nature was so remote from the irritability
+of diffidence, from pretentiousness, so clear, so
+candid, that he was extraordinarily easy to get on with.
+He did not oppress me with his friendship, and his love
+was deep and equally free from jealous exactingness and
+unconcerned indifference. I do not remember that
+Granovsky ever touched roughly or awkwardly upon
+those delicate ‘capillary tissues’ that shrink from light
+and noise and exist in every man who has really lived.
+That was why one was not afraid to speak to him of the
+things of which it is hard to speak even with those most
+near and dear, whom one trusts completely though some
+scarcely audible chords in them are not tuned to the same
+pitch.</p>
+
+<p>In contact with his loving, serene, and indulgent spirit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>all the angular discords vanished, the voice of over-sensitive
+vanity was almost mute. He was a uniting link
+for many things and many people among us, and often
+brought together in their sympathy with him whole
+circles mutually hostile, and friends on the brink of
+separation. Granovsky and Byelinsky, completely unlike
+each other, were among the noblest and most remarkable
+figures of our circle.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the oppressive period from which
+Russia is now emerging, when everything was crushed to
+the earth, when only the voice of official infamy dared
+make itself heard, when literature had been brought to
+a standstill, and instead of humane learning a theory of
+slavery was taught, when the censorship shook its head
+over the parables of Christ and blotted out Krylov’s
+<i>Fables</i>—in those days, if one saw Granovsky on the lecture
+platform one’s spirit was comforted. ‘All is not lost yet
+if he still goes on speaking,’ every one thought, and
+breathed more freely.</p>
+
+<p>And yet Granovsky was not a fighter like Byelinsky,
+nor a dialectician like Bakunin. His strength lay not in
+keen polemic nor in bold denunciation, but just in positive
+moral influence, in the absolute confidence which he
+inspired, in the artistic completeness of his nature, the
+calm serenity of his spirit, the purity of his character, and
+in his constant and profound protest against the existing
+order in Russia. Not only his words were effective but
+also his silence; his thought, denied free utterance, came
+out to plainly in his face that it was hard not to read it,
+especially in a land in which a narrow despotism has
+trained us all to guess and to divine the hidden word.
+In the gloomy years of persecution from 1848 down to
+the death of Nicholas, Granovsky succeeded, not only in
+keeping his chair in the university, but also his independent
+views—and that because a feminine delicacy, a
+softness of expression, and the reconciling power of which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>we have spoken were harmoniously combined with
+chivalrous courage and the complete devotion of passionate
+conviction.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky reminds me of a number of the reflectively
+calm preachers and revolutionaries of the reformation—not
+those fierce, turbulent spirits who ‘feel their life fully
+in their wroth’ like Luther, but the serene, mild reformers
+who put the crown of glory on their heads as simply as
+the crown of thorns. Their gentleness nothing can
+ruffle, they go forward with firm step but with no loud
+tramping of feet; judges fear these men, they are ill at
+ease with them; their smile of reconciliation leaves a
+sting in their torturer’s conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Coligny himself, such were the best of the
+Girondists; and certainly Granovsky in all the harmonious
+moulding of his soul, in his romantic bent, in
+his dislike of extremes, might more readily have been a
+Huguenot or a Girondist than an Anabaptist or a follower
+of the Montagnards.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky’s influence on the university, and on the
+whole of the younger generation, was immense, and outlived
+him; he left a long streak of light behind him. I
+look with peculiar tenderness at the books dedicated to
+his memory by his former students, at the warm, enthusiastic
+lines about him in their prefaces and in magazine
+articles, at the good, youthful desire to connect their new
+work with the spirit of that friend, to touch gently on his
+grave as they begin, to claim their intellectual pedigree
+from him.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky’s development had been different from ours.
+Educated in Oryol, he went to the Petersburg University.
+As he received but little money from his father he was
+obliged from a very early age to write ‘to order’ for the
+papers. He and his friend Yevgeny Korsh, whom he
+met in his university days and with whom he maintained
+the closest friendship up to his death, used to work for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>Senkovsky, who needed fresh energies and inexperienced
+lads in order to transform their conscientious work into
+the effervescing wine of ‘The Library of Good Reading.’</p>
+
+<p>There was no tempestuous period of passion and
+dissipation in his life. When he had taken his degree
+the Institute of Pedagogy sent him to Germany.</p>
+
+<p>In Berlin Granovsky met Stankevitch, and that was the
+most important event of his youth.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who knew them both would understand how
+immediately Granovsky and Stankevitch must have rushed
+at each other. There was in them so much that was
+similar, in character, in tendency, in age ... and each
+bore within him the fatal seed of premature death.
+But mere resemblance is not enough to give men this
+close intimacy, this enduring sense of kinship. Only that
+love is deep and lasting in which each completes the other:
+for active love difference is as necessary as resemblance;
+without it the feeling is lifeless and passive and passes
+into a mere habit.</p>
+
+<p>There was a vast difference in the abilities of the two
+young men and in the direction of their energies. Stankevitch,
+from early years trained by the Hegelian dialectic,
+had a conspicuous talent for speculative thought, and if
+he brought the aesthetic element into his thinking, he
+certainly brought philosophy as much into aesthetics.
+Granovsky, who had deep sympathy with the intellectual
+tendencies of the day, had neither love nor talent for
+abstract thought. His choice of history as his chief
+pursuit showed a clear understanding of his own vocation.
+He would never have made either a metaphysician or a
+remarkable naturalist. He could never have endured
+the passionless impartiality of logic, nor the passionless
+objectivity of nature; he could not have renounced
+everything for the sake of thought, nor have renounced
+himself for the sake of observation; the doings of men,
+on the contrary, interested him keenly. And, indeed, is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>not history the same thought and the same nature
+expressed in a different form? Granovsky thought in
+history, learned from history, and later on made propaganda
+through history, while Stankevitch in a natural
+and poetic way communicated to him, not only the theory
+of contemporary learning but also its method.</p>
+
+<p>Pedants who estimate the value of thought by the sweat
+and labour it has cost will doubt this.... But, we would
+ask them, what about Proudhon and Byelinsky? Had
+not they a better grasp even of Hegel’s method than all
+the scholastics who studied it until they went bald and
+wrinkled? And yet neither of them knew German,
+neither of them had read one of Hegel’s works, nor one
+of the dissertations of his followers of the left or right
+wing, but had only talked sometimes about his method
+with his disciples.... Granovsky’s life in Berlin with
+Stankevitch was, to judge from the stories of the one and
+the letters of the other, one of the most radiant periods
+of his existence, in which the exuberance of youth, of
+energy, of the first passionate impulses, of fun and irony
+without malice, went hand in hand with earnest intellectual
+work, all warmed and fostered by a deep, ardent
+friendship such as is only found in youth.</p>
+
+<p>Two years later they were separated. Granovsky
+went to Moscow to take the Chair of History at the
+university; Stankevitch went to Italy for his health and
+died of consumption. The death of Stankevitch was a
+great shock to Granovsky. Long afterwards in my
+presence he received a medallion of his dead friend; I
+have rarely seen such quiet, speechless, overwhelming
+sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>It happened soon after his marriage. The harmony
+that surrounded his new life with peace and calm was
+overcast with mourning. It was long before the traces
+of it passed away—indeed, I do not know whether they
+ever passed entirely.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span></p>
+
+<p>His wife was very young and hardly yet formed; she
+retained that peculiar element of youthful awkwardness,
+even of the apathy which is not infrequently met with
+in young girls with flaxen hair, especially if they are
+of German descent. These natures, often gifted and
+strong, cannot readily come to full consciousness when
+they awaken. The shock that had awakened the young
+girl had been so tender and so free from pain and conflict,
+had come so early that she had scarcely noticed it. Her
+blood still flowed slowly and serenely.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky’s love for her was a quiet, gentle affection,
+rather deep and tender than passionate. There was
+something serene and touchingly calm in the atmosphere
+of their youthful household. It did the heart good to
+see at times beside Granovsky engrossed in his work the
+tall, willowy figure of his silent companion, deeply in love
+and happy. Looking at them, I used to think of the
+serene chaste families of the early Protestants who fearlessly
+sang forbidden psalms, ready to go hand in hand,
+calmly and firmly, to face the inquisitor.</p>
+
+<p>They seemed to me like brother and sister, the more so
+as they had no children.</p>
+
+<p>We quickly became friends and saw each other almost
+every day; we sat through the nights until dawn talking
+of one thing and another.... It is in those wasted
+hours and through them that people grow together inseparably
+and irrevocably.</p>
+
+<p>It is dreadful and painful to me to think that later on
+Granovsky and I were for a long time at variance over
+theoretical convictions. To us they were not something
+extraneous but the real foundation of our lives. But I
+hasten to add that if time proved that we could think
+differently, could fail to understand and could wound
+each other, time has also proved with redoubled force
+later on that we could neither part nor cease to be friends,
+that even death could not divide us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is true that, much later, a streak of bitterness was
+added to a theoretical difference between Granovsky and
+Ogaryov, who loved each other ardently and deeply, but
+we shall see that it too was, though late, completely
+effaced.</p>
+
+<p>As for our disputes Granovsky himself put an end to
+them; he concluded a letter from Moscow to me in
+Geneva on August 25th, 1849, with the following words.
+With pride and reverence I repeat them: ‘What was
+best and strongest in my soul has gone into my affection
+for you two (that is Ogaryov and me). There is in it
+something of passion which set me weeping in 1846 and
+blaming myself for being unable to break a tie which
+apparently could not last. Almost with despair I discovered
+that you were bound fast to my soul with threads
+which I could not cut without tearing away the living
+flesh. This interval has not been profitless to me. I
+have come out of it victorious over the <i>worse side</i> of
+myself. <i>Of the romanticism for which you blamed me not
+a trace is left.</i> On the other hand, all that was romantic
+in my very nature has gone into my personal attachments.
+Do you remember my letter about your <i>Krupov</i>? It
+was written on a night that I well remember. A black
+shroud dropped off my soul, your image rose up before
+me in all its brightness, and I stretched out my hand to
+you in Paris as lightly and lovingly as I held it out in the
+happy holy minutes of our life in Moscow. It is not
+your talent only that had so great an effect on me. That
+play brought all of you back to me with a rush. Once
+you wounded me by saying: “Don’t build anything on
+the personal, believe only in the universal,” while I always
+laid so much stress on the personal. But for me personal
+and universal are blended in you, that is why I love you
+so warmly and completely.’</p>
+
+<p>Let these lines be remembered when my account of
+our difference is read....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span></p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1843 I published my articles on ‘Dilettantism
+in Learning.’ Their success was a source of
+childlike pleasure to Granovsky. He used to go from
+house to house with <i>Notes of the Fatherland</i>, used to
+read them aloud himself with comments, and was seriously
+vexed if anybody did not like them. After that it was
+my lot to see Granovsky’s success, and a success of a very
+different order. I am speaking of his first public lectures
+on the ‘Mediaeval History of France and England.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Granovsky’s lectures,’ Tchaadayev said to me as we
+came away from the third or fourth, out of a lecture-hall
+packed to overflowing with ladies and all the aristocratic
+society of Moscow, ‘are of historical significance.’ I
+entirely agreed with him. Granovsky turned the lecture-hall
+into a drawing-room, a place for meeting, for social
+intercourse of the <i>beau monde</i>. To do this he did not
+deck out history in lace and gauze, quite the contrary;
+his language was severe, extremely grave, full of force,
+daring, and poetry, which roused his hearers and had a
+powerful effect on them. His boldness passed without
+provoking interference, not from any compromises he
+made but from the mildness of expression which was
+natural to him, from the absence of sentences <i>à la
+française</i>, putting big dots on tiny i’s like the moral after
+a fable. As he laid the events of history before his
+audience, grouping them artistically, he spoke <i>in them</i> so
+that the thought unuttered, but perfectly clear, was the
+more readily assimilated by his hearers that it seemed to
+be their own thought.</p>
+
+<p>The end of the first lecture was the scene of a regular
+ovation, a thing unheard of in Moscow University.
+When at the end, deeply moved, he thanked the audience,
+every one leapt up in a sort of delirium, ladies waved
+their handkerchiefs, others rushed to the platform,
+pressed his hands, asked for his portrait. I myself saw
+young men with flushed cheeks shouting through their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>tears: ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ There was no possibility of
+getting out. Granovsky, pale as a sheet, stood with his
+arms folded and his head a little bent; he wanted to say
+a few words more but could not. The applause, the
+shouting, the fury of approbation was redoubled, the
+students ranged themselves on each side of the stairs and
+left the general public to make a noise in the lecture-room.
+Granovsky made his way, exhausted, to the council-room;
+a few minutes later he was seen leaving it, and again there
+was endless applause; he turned with a deprecating
+gesture, and, ready to drop with emotion, went into the
+office. There I flung myself on his neck and we wept in
+silence....</p>
+
+<p>Tears as happy flowed down my cheeks when the
+hero Ciceruacchio,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> in the Coliseum, glorified by the last
+rays of the setting sun, dedicated his youthful son to the
+Roman people, who had risen in armed insurrection, a
+few months before they both fell shot without trial by the
+armed assassins of the graceless youth&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> who wore the
+crown!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, those were precious tears; the first, born of my
+faith in Russia, the second, of my faith in the Revolution!</p>
+
+<p>Where is that Revolution? Where is Granovsky?
+Gone together with the boy with the black curls, and
+the broad-shouldered <i>popolano</i>, and the others who were
+so near and dear. Faith in Russia is still left. Surely
+it will not be my lot to lose that also?</p>
+
+<p>And why did a blind chance carry off Granovsky, that
+noble worker, that deeply suffering spirit, on the very
+threshold of a new age for Russia, as yet obscure but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>different, anyway? Why did not fate let him breathe
+that fresh air of which we have a breath and which does
+not smell so strongly of the torture-chamber and the
+barracks?</p>
+
+<p>The news of his death was a terrible blow to me. I
+was on my way to the railway station at Richmond when
+the letter was given me. I read it as I walked along and
+literally did not at first understand it. I got into the
+railway carriage. I did not want to read the letter again,
+I was afraid of it. Strangers with stupid, ugly faces kept
+coming in and going out, the engine whistled, I looked at
+it all and thought: ‘But it is absurd! What? That
+man in all the flower of his age, he whose smile, whose
+glance is before my eyes now—he no more?...’ I
+was overcome by a heavy torpor and I felt horribly cold.
+In London I met A. Talandier; after greeting him I said
+I had a letter with bad news, and as though I had only
+just heard it, I could not restrain my tears.</p>
+
+<p>We had had little intercourse in later days, but I
+needed to know that there, far away in our native land,
+that man was living!</p>
+
+<p>Without him Moscow was empty, another tie was
+snapped!... Shall I alone, far away from all, ever be
+able to visit his grave—it has hidden as much strength,
+as much of the future, as many thoughts, as much love
+and life, as another, not quite unknown to him, which I
+have visited!</p>
+
+<p>Here I add some lines of mournful reconciliation which
+are so precious to me that I have begged them as a gift
+for our memoirs.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="center">TO A DEAD FRIEND</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Amid the burial urns and stones</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Upon that gloomy Autumn day,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Uneven, damp, and freshly strewn</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The new-made grave before me lay.</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>      <div class="verse indent0">The gifts of love, the gifts of grief,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Placed by thy pupils’ hands were seen:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Fresh wreaths bestowed with tender care</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of fragrant flowers and foliage green,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Above it, stretching, dark and grim,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Reflecting the Autumnal mood,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The ancient guardians of the graves,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The pine-trees, cold, indifferent, stood.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The river, lapping at the banks</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With trackless waves went, flowing, by,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Without a pause, without an end,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">On, on,—into eternity.</div>
+      <div class="center">...</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thy tenderness was lost to me:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">For years our lives were spent apart,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And the last greeting from thy lips</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I did not hear, to rend my heart.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Our angry silence kept so long</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Perchance was bitter grief to thee,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And I was powerless to forget</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thy deep, unmeant offence to me.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">My error I could not confess,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">We each were sure that we were wronged,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And when I hastened to thy side,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">To bare my heart before thee, longed,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">That my repentance thou should’st learn</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And grant me pardon in return,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">It was too late....</div>
+      <div class="verse indent20">Upon that day</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">In gloomy Autumn did I grieve</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Beside thy new-made grave alone,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And could not make myself believe....</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And shall I see my friend no more?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And shall thine eyes be closed for aye?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thy voice be hushed in sorrow’s hour?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Shall no word speed me on my way,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">No fond embrace, when I depart?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And will thy loving heart not learn</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The true devotion of my heart?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">’Tis over now, for ever gone—</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The fearful truth I cannot flee,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Some words distracted, vague and wild</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Fall from my lips, unmeaningly,</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>      <div class="verse indent0">My body trembles like a leaf,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Some words of sad reproach I hear,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With bitter sobs my breast is rent,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">My heart is numb with grief and fear,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The blood is freezing in my veins,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Oh, let me breathe! Oh, give me light!</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">What fearful dream oppresses me?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">What frenzied vision haunts my sight?</div>
+      <div class="center">...</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But I survived. Mid work and leisure</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">From day to day my life I spend,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But in my heart the grief still lingers,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And tears with laughter closely blend.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">One souvenir alone is left me:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His picture as he lay at rest,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I gaze upon it: Oh, my brother,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thine image lives within my breast!</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And suddenly the thought arrests me:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">’Tis but a passing dream, this pain,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">He does but sleep, serenely smiling,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow he will wake again.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His noble voice, upraised, will newly</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The sacred gifts to youth impart,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The spirit free, the faith undaunted,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">To stir the mind and fire the heart.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But once again, that sad remembrance ...</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The funeral urns, thy new-made bed,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The flowers and foliage strewn upon it,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The grim custodians at its head ...</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The river lapping at the banks</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With trackless waves, that passes by,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Without a pause, without an end,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">On, on—into eternity....’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Granovsky was not persecuted; the lawless cruelty of
+Nicholas’s agents halted before his glance of mournful
+reproach. He died surrounded by the love of the younger
+generation, the sympathy of all cultivated Russia, recognised
+even by his enemies. Nevertheless I adhere to my
+expression, yes, he knew great suffering. Not chains of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>iron alone wear life away; in the one letter Tchaadayev
+wrote to me abroad (July 1851), he speaks of the way
+he is perishing, growing feeble and with rapid steps
+approaching the end—‘not from the oppression against
+which men revolt, but from that which they endure with
+a touching resignation, and which for that very reason is
+even more fatal.’</p>
+
+<p>Before me lie three or four letters which I received
+from Granovsky in later years; what a consuming deadly
+sadness there is in every line!</p>
+
+<p>‘Our position,’ he writes in 1850, ‘grows more insufferable
+every day. Every progressive movement in
+Western Europe is followed by some repressive measure
+here. People are being denounced by thousands. They
+have twice been getting up a case against me during the
+last three months. But what does personal danger
+matter in comparison with the universal oppression and
+suffering? It has been proposed to shut the universities,
+but for the present they have confined themselves to the
+following measures: they have raised the students’ fees,
+and diminished their number by a law according to which
+no more than three hundred must be attending a university.
+In Moscow there are fourteen hundred university
+students, so we must expel twelve hundred to have the
+right to admit a hundred new ones. The Institute of
+Nobility is closed; many institutions are threatened with
+the same fate, the Lyceum for instance. Despotism is
+crying aloud that it cannot make terms with enlightenment.
+New programmes have been drawn up for the
+Cadet Schools. The Jesuits might envy the military
+pedagogue who drew up the programme. The priest is
+instructed to instil into the cadets that the greatness of
+Christ lies pre-eminently in submission to authority. He
+is depicted as a model of submission and discipline. The
+teacher of history is to unmask the trumpery virtues of
+the ancient republics and to bring out the grandeur—not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>yet grasped by historians—of the Roman Empire,
+which lacked but one thing, the hereditary character!...</p>
+
+<p>‘It is enough to drive one mad. It is a blessing for
+Byelinsky that he died in time. Many decent people
+have sunk into despair and look with blank apathy at
+what is being done—when will this world fall to pieces?</p>
+
+<p>‘I have made up my mind not to resign, but to wait at
+my post what the fates bring me. I can do a little; let
+them turn me out themselves.</p>
+
+<p>‘... Yesterday the news came of Galahov’s death,
+and the other day there was a rumour that you were dead
+too. When they told me that I almost burst out laughing.
+Though after all why shouldn’t you die? It would be
+no more stupid than the rest.’</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1853 he writes:</p>
+
+<p>‘My heart aches at the thought of what we were in
+old days’ (<i>i.e.</i>, when I was there) ‘and what we have
+become now. We drink our wine from old habit, but
+there is no gladness in our hearts; only at the thought of
+you my spirit renews its youth. My best, most comforting
+dream now is to see you once again—and even that
+is not likely to come true.’</p>
+
+<p>He ends one of his last letters like this: ‘On all sides
+a low vague murmur can be heard, but where is there
+strength? where is there resistance? It is bitter, brother,—and
+there is no escape in this life.’</p>
+
+<p>In our North the savage autocracy wears men out
+quickly. With a pang of dread I look back—it is like a
+battlefield, there lie the dead and the maimed....</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky was not alone, he was one of a group of
+young professors who came back from Germany while
+we were in exile. They did a great deal for the advancement
+of the Moscow University. History will not
+forget them. Men of conscientious erudition, they were
+pupils of Hegel, Gantz, Ritter, and others, just at the
+period when the dry bones of dialectic began to be clothed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>with flesh, when learning ceased to consider itself antagonistic
+to life, when Gantz used to come to his lectures not
+with an ancient folio in his hand, but with the latest
+number of a review from Paris or London. They were
+trying at that time to solve historical questions of the day
+by the dialectic method; it was an impossible task, but
+it put the facts in a clearer light.</p>
+
+<p>Our professors brought with them their cherished
+dreams, their ardent faith in learning, and in men; they
+preserved all the fire of youth, and the lecturer’s chair was
+for them a sacred lectern from which they were called to
+preach the truth. They took their stand in the lecture-room
+not as mere professional savants, but as missionaries
+of the religion of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>And what has become of that Pleiades of young professors,
+including the best of them, Granovsky? Dear
+Kryukov, brilliant, intelligent, learned, died at thirty-five.
+Petcherin, the Hellenistic scholar, struggled and
+struggled in the terrible conditions of Russian life, till,
+unable to endure it, he went away without aim, without
+means, ill and shattered, to foreign lands, wandered homeless
+and forlorn, became a Jesuit priest and is burning
+Protestant Bibles in Ireland. Ryedkin became a secular
+monk, serves in the Ministry of Home Affairs, and writes
+divinely inspired articles, interspersed with texts. Krylov—but
+enough. <i>La toile! La toile!</i></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_30">Chapter 30<br>
+<span class="smcap">OUR ‘OPPONENTS’<br>
+The Slavophils and Panslavism—Homyakov—The
+Kireyevskys—K. S. Aksakov—P. Y. Tchaadayev</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>‘<i>Yes, we were their opponents, but very strange ones. We had the
+same love, but not the same way of loving—and like Janus or the two-headed
+eagle we looked in opposite directions, though the heart that beat
+within us was but one.</i>’—‘<i>The Bell</i>,’ p. 90. (<i>On the death of
+K. S. Aksakov.</i>)</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Beside our circle were our opponents, <i>nos amis
+les ennemis</i>, or more correctly, <i>les ennemis nos amis</i>—the
+Moscow Slavophils.</p>
+
+<p>The conflict between us ended long ago and we have
+held out our hands to each other; but in the early ’forties
+we could not but be antagonistic—without being so we
+could not have been true to our principles. We might
+not have quarrelled with them over their childish homage
+to the childhood of our history; but accepting their
+orthodoxy as meant in earnest, seeing their ecclesiastical
+intolerance on both sides—in relation to learning and in
+relation to sectarianism—we were bound to take up a
+hostile attitude to them. We saw in their doctrines
+fresh oil for anointing the Tsar, new chains laid upon
+thought, new subordination of conscience to the slavish
+Byzantine Church.</p>
+
+<p>The Slavophils are to blame for our having so long
+failed to understand the Russian people and its history;
+their ikon-painter’s ideals and incense smoke hindered us
+from seeing the realities of the people’s existence and the
+foundations of village life.</p>
+
+<p>The orthodoxy of the Slavophils, their historical
+patriotism and over-sensitive, exaggerated feeling of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>nationality were called forth by the extremes on the other
+side. The importance of their outlook, what was true
+and essential in it, lay not in orthodoxy, and not in
+exclusive nationalism, but in those elements of Russian
+life which they unearthed from under the manure of
+civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>The ides of nationality is in itself a conservative idea—the
+demarcation of one’s rights, the opposition of self to
+another; it includes both the Judaic conception of
+superiority of race, and the aristocratic claim to purity
+of blood, and right to ascendancy. Nationalism as a
+standard, as a war-cry, is only surrounded with the halo
+of revolution when a people is fighting for its independence,
+when it is throwing off a foreign yoke. That
+is why national feeling with all its exaggerations is full
+of poetry in Italy and in Poland, while it is vulgar in
+Germany.</p>
+
+<p>For us to display our nationalism would be even more
+absurd than it is for the Germans; even those who abuse
+us do not doubt it; they hate us from fear, but they do
+not refuse to recognise us, as Metternich did Italy. We
+have had to set up our nationalism against the Germanised
+government and its renegades. This domestic struggle
+could not be raised to the epic level. The appearance of
+Slavophilism as a school, and as a special doctrine, was
+quite in place; but if the Slavophils had found no other
+standard than the banner of the church, no other ideal
+than the <i>Domostroy</i>,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> and the very Russian but cumbrously
+tedious life before Peter the Great, they would
+have passed away as an eccentric party of changelings and
+cranks belonging to another age. The strength and
+future of the Slavophils lay elsewhere. Their treasure
+may have been hidden in church vessels of old-fashioned
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>workmanship, but its value lay not in its form, though at
+first they did not separate what was precious from what
+was external.</p>
+
+<p>To their own historical traditions were added the
+traditions of all the Slav peoples. Our Slavophils took
+sympathy with the western Panslavists for identity of
+cause and policy, forgetting that their exclusive nationalism
+was at the same time the cry of a people oppressed
+by a foreign yoke. Western Panslavism on its first
+appearance was taken by the Austrian government itself
+for a conservative movement. It developed at the
+melancholy epoch of the Congress of Vienna. It was
+a period of restorations and resurrections of all sorts, a
+period when every kind of Lazarus, fresh and decayed,
+rose up from the dead. Together with Teutschthum,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>
+which looked for the renaissance of the <i>happy days</i> of
+Barbarossa and the Hohenstaufens, Czech Panslavism
+made its appearance. The governments were pleased
+with this movement and at first encouraged the development
+of international hatreds; the masses rallied again
+round the idea of racial kinship, the bond of which was
+drawn tighter, and were again turned aside from general
+demands for the improvement of their lot. Frontiers
+became more impassable, ties and sympathies between
+peoples were broken. It need hardly be said that only
+among apathetic and feeble peoples was nationalism
+allowed to develop, and only so long as it confined itself
+to archaeological and linguistic disputes. In Milan and
+in Poland where nationalism was not confined to grammar,
+a tight rein was kept upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The Czech Panslavism provoked Slavonic sympathies
+in Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Slavism, or Russianism, not as a theory, not as a doctrine,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>but as a wounded national feeling, as an obscure tradition
+and a true instinct, as antagonism to an exclusively foreign
+influence, has existed ever since Peter the Great cut off
+the first Russian beard.</p>
+
+<p>There has never been any interval in the resistance to
+the Petersburg forcible imposition of culture; it reappears
+in the form of the mutinous Stryeltsi, punished,
+quartered, hanged on the walls of the Kremlin and
+there shot by Menshikov and other favourites of the
+Tsar, in the form of the Tsarevitch Alexis poisoned in
+the dungeon of the Petersburg fortress, as the party of
+the Dolgorukys in the reign of Peter <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>, as the hatred for
+the Germans in the time of Biron, as Pugatchov in the
+time of Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>, as Catherine herself, the Orthodox
+German in the reign of the Russian Holsteiner Peter <span class="allsmcap">III.</span>,
+as Elizabeth who ascended the throne through the support
+of the Slavophils of those days (the people in Moscow
+expected all the Germans to be massacred at her coronation.)</p>
+
+<p>All the dissenters are Slavophils.</p>
+
+<p>All the clergy, both white and black, are Slavophils of
+another sort.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers who demanded the removal of Barclay de
+Tolly&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> on account of his German name were the precursors
+of Homyakov and his friends. The war of 1812
+greatly developed the national consciousness and love for
+the Fatherland. But there was nothing of the Old
+Believers’ Slavonic character in the patriotism of 1812
+which we see in Karamzin and Pushkin, and in the
+Emperor Alexander himself. Practically it was the
+expression of that instinct of strength which all powerful
+nations feel when they are attacked by others; afterwards
+it was the triumphant feeling of victory, the proud sense
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>of successful resistance. But it was weak on the theoretical
+side; to show their love of Russian history the patriots
+adapted it to European manners; they translated Greek
+and Roman patriotism from French into Russian and did
+not go beyond the line ‘<i>Pour un cœur bien né que la
+patrie est chère!</i>’ Shishkov&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> was raving even then, it
+is true, about the restoration of archaic forms of language,
+but his influence was limited. As for the real speech of
+the people, the only person who showed a knowledge of
+it was the Frenchified Count Rostoptchin in his proclamations
+and manifestoes.</p>
+
+<p>As the war was forgotten, this patriotism subsided and
+finally degenerated on the one hand into the mean cynical
+flattery of the <i>Northern Bee</i>, on the other into the vulgar
+patriotism of Zagoskin’s calling Shuya Manchester, and
+Shebuev&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> Raphael, and boasting of the bayonets and the
+spears from the ices of Torneo to the mountains of the
+Crimea.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Nicholas patriotism became something
+associated with the knout, with the police, especially in
+Petersburg, where the savage government ended, in
+harmony with the cosmopolitan character of the town, by
+the invention of a national hymn after Sebastian Bach&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>
+and in Prokopy Lyapunov&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>&#x2060;—after
+    Schiller!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>To cut himself off from Europe, from enlightenment,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>from the revolution of which he had been terrified since
+the Fourteenth of December, Nicholas on his side raised
+the banner of orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationalism,
+remodelled after the fashion of the Prussian standard and
+supported by anything that came to hand—the barbaric
+romances of Zagoskin, barbaric ikon-painting, barbaric
+architecture, by Uvarov, by the persecution of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>Uniats&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> and by ‘The Hand of the Most High saved the
+Fatherland.’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>The existence of the Petersburg Slavophilism of
+Nicholas was very unfortunate for the Moscow Slavophils.
+Nicholas was simply flying to nationalism and
+orthodoxy to escape from revolutionary ideas. The
+Slavophils had nothing in common with him but words.
+Their extremes and absurdities were disinterestedly
+absurd, and had no connection with the secret police,
+or the Committee of Security, which of course did
+not prevent their absurdities from being excessively
+absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, for instance, there was staying in Moscow
+towards the end of the ’thirties the Panslavist Gaj
+who afterwards played an ambiguous part as a Croatian
+agitator and was at the same time closely connected
+with the Ban of Croatia, Jellachich.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Moscow people
+as a rule put implicit trust in a foreigner; Gaj was
+more than a foreigner, more than one of themselves; he
+was both at once. He had no difficulty in touching the
+hearts of our Slavophils with the fate of their suffering and
+orthodox brothers in Dalmatia and Croatia; an immense
+subscription was raised in a few days, and moreover Gaj
+was given a banquet in honour of all Serbian and Ruthenian
+sympathies. At the banquet one of the mildest (both
+in voice and pursuits) of the Slavophils, a man of the
+<i>reddest</i> orthodoxy, probably a little elevated by the toasts
+to the Montenegrin Bishop and to all sorts of great
+Bosnians, Czechs and Slovaks, improvised a poem in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>which the following not quite Christian expression
+occurred:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘I will feast on the blood of the Magyar and German.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>All who were not a little deranged heard this phrase
+with horror. Fortunately the witty statistician Androssov
+rescued the bloodthirsty poet; he jumped up from his
+chair, clutched a dessert knife, and said: ‘Excuse me,
+gentlemen, I’ll leave you for a moment: it occurs to me
+that my landlord Dietz, an old piano-tuner, is a German.
+I’ll just run and cut his throat and be back directly.’</p>
+
+<p>A roar of laughter drowned the indignation.</p>
+
+<p>It was while I was in exile and living in Petersburg and
+Novgorod that the Moscow Slavophils formed themselves
+into this party so bloodthirsty in its toasts.</p>
+
+<p>Their passionate and polemical character was particularly
+marked after the appearance of Byelinsky’s critical
+articles; though even before that they had to close their
+ranks and take a definite stand on the appearance of
+Tchaadayev’s letter and the commotion it caused.</p>
+
+<p>That letter was in a sense the last word, the dividing
+point. It was a shot that rang out in the dark night;
+whether it was something perishing that proclaimed its
+end, whether it was a signal or a cry for help, whether it
+heralded the dawn or foretold that it would never be—anyway,
+it forced all to awake.</p>
+
+<p>What, one may wonder, is the significance of two or
+three pages published in a monthly review? And yet
+such is the strength of utterance, such is the power of
+the spoken word in a land of silence, unaccustomed to
+free speech, that Tchaadayev’s letter shook all thinking
+Russia. And well it might. There had been nothing
+written since <i>Woe from Wit</i> which made so powerful
+an impression. Between that play and the letter there
+had been ten years of silence, the Fourteenth of December,
+the gallows, penal servitude, Nicholas. It was the first
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>break in the national development since the period of
+Peter the Great. The empty place left by the strong
+men who had been exiled to Siberia was not filled up.
+Thought languished, men’s minds were working, but
+nothing was reached. To speak was dangerous, and
+indeed there was nothing to say; all at once a mournful
+figure quietly rose and asked for a hearing in order calmly
+to utter his <i>lasciate ogni speranza</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1836 I was calmly sitting at my
+writing table in Vyatka when the postman brought me
+the latest number of the <i>Telescope</i>. One must have
+lived in exile and in the wilds to appreciate a new book.
+I abandoned everything, of course, and set to work to cut
+the <i>Telescope</i>. I saw ‘Philosophical Letters Written
+to a Lady,’ unsigned. In a footnote it was stated that
+these letters had been written by a Russian in French, that
+is, that it was a translation. This rather put me against
+them, and I proceeded to read the criticisms and other
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>At last the turn came for the letters; from the second
+or third page I was struck by the mournfully earnest tone.
+Every word breathed of prolonged suffering, by now
+grown calm, but still bitter. It was written as only men
+write who have been thinking for years, who have thought
+much and learned much from life and not from theory....
+I read further, the letter grew and developed, it
+turned into a gloomy denunciation of Russia, the protest
+of one who for all he has endured longs to utter some part
+of what is accumulated in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Twice I stopped to take breath and collect my thoughts
+and feelings, and then again I read on and on. And this
+was published in Russian by an unknown author....
+I was afraid I had gone out of my mind. Then I read
+the letter to Vitberg, then to S——, a young teacher in
+the Vyatka High School, then read it again to myself.</p>
+
+<p>It is very likely that exactly the same thing was happening
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>in all sorts of provincial and distant towns, in Moscow
+and Petersburg and in country gentlemen’s houses. I
+learned the author’s name a few months later.</p>
+
+<p>Long cut off from the people, part of Russia had been
+suffering in silence under the most stupid and prosaic
+yoke, which gave them nothing in return. Every one
+felt the oppression of it, every one had something weighing
+on his heart, and yet all were silent; at last a man had
+come who in his own way told them what it was. He
+spoke only of pain, there was no ray of light in his words,
+nor indeed in his view. Tchaadayev’s letter was a
+merciless cry of reproach and bitterness against Russia;
+it deserved the indictment; had it shown pity or mercy
+to the author or any one else? Of course such an utterance
+was bound to call forth opposition, or Tchaadayev
+would have been perfectly right in saying that Russia’s
+past was empty, its present insufferable, and that there
+was no future for it at all, that it was a blank sheet, a
+terrible lesson given to the nations of the plight to which
+a people can be brought by isolation and slavery. This
+was both penitence and accusation; to know beforehand
+the path of reconciliation is not the task of penitence, nor
+the task of protest—or consciousness of guilt becomes a
+jest, and expiation insincere.</p>
+
+<p>But it did not pass unnoticed; for a minute all, even
+the drowsy and the crushed, were roused, alarmed by
+this menacing voice. All were astounded, most were
+offended, a dozen men loudly and warmly applauded
+its author. Talk in the drawing-rooms anticipated
+government measures, provoked them. The Russian
+patriot of German origin Vigel (well known from Pushkin’s
+unflattering epigram) set them going.</p>
+
+<p>The review was at once prohibited; Boldyrev, the
+censor, an old man, and the Rector of the Moscow University,
+was dismissed; Nadyezhdin the editor was sent to
+Ust-Sysolsk; Nicholas ordered Tchaadayev himself to be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>declared insane, and made to sign an undertaking to write
+nothing. Every Saturday he was visited by the doctor
+and the police-master; they interviewed him and made
+a report, that is, gave out over his signature fifty-two false
+statements in accordance with the command of the Most
+High—an intelligent and moral proceeding. It was they
+of course who were punished. Tchaadayev looked with
+profound contempt on these tricks of the truly insane
+caprice of power. Neither the doctor nor the police-master
+ever hinted what they had come for.</p>
+
+<p>I had seen Tchaadayev once before my exile. It was
+on the very day of Ogaryov’s arrest. I have mentioned
+already that on that day there was a dinner party at
+M. F. Orlov’s. All the visitors were gathered together
+when a man, bowing coldly, walked into the room. His
+original appearance, handsome with a striking air of
+independence, was bound to attract every one’s attention.
+Orlov took me by the hand and introduced me, it was
+Tchaadayev. I remember little of that first meeting, I
+had no thoughts to spare for him; he was as always, cold,
+grave, clever, and malicious. After dinner Madame
+Rayevsky, Orlov’s mother-in-law, said to me: ‘How is
+it you are so melancholy? Oh you young people! I
+don’t know what has come over you!’ ‘Then you do
+think,’ said Tchaadayev, ‘that there still are young
+people?’—that is all that has remained in my memory.</p>
+
+<p>On my return to Moscow I made friends with him and
+from that time until I went away we were on the best of
+terms.</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev’s melancholy and original figure stood
+out sharply like a mournful reproach against the faded
+and dreary background of Moscow ‘high life.’ I liked
+looking at him among the tawdry aristocracy, flighty
+Senators, grey-headed rascals, and venerable nonentities.
+However dense the crowd, the eye found him at once.
+The years did not mar his graceful figure; he was very
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>scrupulous in his dress, his pale delicate face was completely
+motionless when he was silent, as though made of
+wax or of marble,—‘a head like a bare skull,’—his grey-blue
+eyes were melancholy and at the same time there
+was something kindly in them, though his thin lips
+smiled ironically. For ten years he stood with folded
+arms, by some column, by some tree on the boulevard,
+in drawing-rooms and theatres, at the club and, an embodied
+veto, a living protest, gazed at the vortex of faces
+senselessly twisting and turning about him. He became
+whimsical and eccentric, held himself aloof from society,
+yet could not leave it altogether, then uttered his message,
+quietly concealing it, just as in his features he concealed
+passion under a layer of ice. Then he was silent again,
+again showed himself whimsical, dissatisfied, irritated;
+again he was an oppressive influence in Moscow society,
+and again he could not leave it. Old and young alike
+were awkward and ill at ease with him; they, God knows
+why, were abashed by his immobile face, his direct glance,
+his gloomy mockery, his malignant condescension. What
+compelled them to invite him ... still more to visit
+him? It is a very difficult question.</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev was not wealthy, particularly in later
+years; he was not of high rank—a retired captain with
+the iron Kulm cross on his breast. It is true, as Pushkin
+writes, that he would</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘In Rome have been a Brutus,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">In Athens Pericles,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But here, under the yolk of Tsars,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Was only Captain of Hussars.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Acquaintance with him could only compromise a man
+in the eyes of the police. To what did he owe his
+influence? Why did the ‘swells’ of the English Club,
+and the patricians of the Tversky Boulevard flock on
+Mondays to his modest little study in Old Basmanny
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>Street? Why did fashionable ladies peep into the cell
+of the morose thinker? Why did generals who knew
+nothing about civilian affairs feel obliged to call upon the
+old man, to pretend awkwardly to be people of culture,
+and brag afterwards, distorting some phrase of Tchaadayev’s,
+uttered at their expense? Why did I meet at
+Tchaadayev’s the savage Tolstoy, ‘the American,’ and
+the savage Adjutant-General Shipov who destroyed
+culture in Poland?</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev not only made no compromise with them,
+but worried them and made them feel very clearly the
+difference between him and them.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Of course these
+people went to see him and invited him to their gatherings
+from vanity, but that is not what matters; what is
+important is the involuntary recognition that thought
+had become a power, that it had its honoured place in
+direct opposition to the authority of the Most High. In so
+far as the authority of the ‘insane captain’ Tchaadayev
+was recognised, the ‘insane’ power of Nicholas was
+diminished.</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev had his eccentricities, his weaknesses, he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>was embittered and spoilt. I know no society less
+indulgent, or more exclusive than that of Moscow; it is
+just that which gives it a provincial flavour and reminds
+one that its culture is of recent growth. How could a
+solitary man of fifty who had been deprived of almost all
+his friends, who had lost his property, who lived a great
+deal in thought, and had suffered many mortifications,
+fail to have his whims and habits?</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev had been Vassiltchikov’s adjutant at the
+time of the celebrated Semyonovsky affair. The Tsar
+was at the time, if I remember right, at Verona or Aachen
+for a Congress. Vassiltchikov sent Tchaadayev to him
+with a report and he was somehow or other an hour
+behind time, and arrived later than a courier sent by the
+Austrian ambassador Lebzeltern. The Tsar, annoyed
+at the news, and at that time completely influenced
+towards reaction by Metternich, who was delighted at
+the news of the Semyonovsky affair, received Tchaadayev
+very harshly, reprimanded him, lost his temper, and then
+recovering himself, directed that he should be offered
+the post of an Imperial adjutant; Tchaadayev declined
+the honour and asked only one favour—his discharge.
+Of course this was not liked, but he received his discharge.</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev was in no haste to return to Russia; on
+relinquishing his gold lace uniform he devoted himself
+to study. Alexander died—the Fourteenth of December
+came—Tchaadayev’s absence saved him from almost
+certain persecution&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>&#x2060;—about 1830 he returned.</p>
+
+<p>In Germany Tchaadayev made friends with Schelling;
+the acquaintance probably did a great deal to turn him
+towards mysticism. In his case it developed into
+revolutionary Catholicism to which he remained faithful
+all his life. In his letter he attributes half the calamities
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>of Russia to the Greek Church, to its severance from the
+all-embracing unity of the West.</p>
+
+<p>Strange as such a view is to us, we must not forget that
+Catholicism has great power of attraction. Lacordaire
+preached Catholic Socialism while remaining a Dominican
+monk; he was supported by Chevé,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> while remaining
+a contributor to the <i>Voix du Peuple</i>. In reality neo-Catholicism
+is not worse than rhetorical deism, that
+rationalised theology of the cultured bourgeois which is
+neither religion nor science, but atheism surrounded
+by the institutions of religion.</p>
+
+<p>If Ronge&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> and the followers of Buchez were still
+possible after 1848, after Feuerbach and Proudhon and
+Pius <span class="allsmcap">IX.</span> and Lamennais; if one of the most energetic
+parties in the movement set a mystic formula on its banner;
+if to this day there are men like Mickiewicz,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>
+    like Krasinski,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>
+who continue Messianists, there is no cause for
+wonder in Tchaadayev’s bringing a similar doctrine from
+the Europe of the ’twenties. We have a little forgotten
+what it was like: one has but to recall the affair of
+Volabella, the Letters of Lady Morgan,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> the memoirs of
+Andryane,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> of Byron, and of Leopardi, to realise that it
+was one of the most oppressive periods in history. The
+revolution had turned out a failure, crude monarchy
+boasted cynically of its power, while crafty monarchy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>chastely hid itself behind the parties; at most and at
+rare intervals one heard the songs of the Greeks fighting
+for their liberty or a vigorous speech from Canning or
+Royer-Collard.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>In Protestant Germany a Catholic party was being
+formed at that time. Schlegel&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> and Leo&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>
+    changed their
+faith at that time, old Jahn&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> and others were raving of a
+popular and democratic Catholicism. People took refuge
+from the present in the Middle Ages, in mysticism, read
+Eckartshausen, studied magnetism and the miracles of
+Prince Hohenlohe&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>&#x2060;; Hugo, the enemy of Catholicism,
+did as much to assist its revival as did Lamennais at that
+period, when he was horrified at the soulless indifference
+of his time.</p>
+
+<p>On the Russian such Catholicism was bound to have
+an even stronger effect. It formally contained all that
+was lacking in Russian life, left to itself, oppressed only
+by the material power, and seeking a way out by
+instinct alone. The stern discipline and proud independence
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>of the Western Church, its finished definiteness,
+its practical applications, its unassailable confidence and
+supposed removal of all contradictions by its higher unity,
+its eternal <i>fata Morgana</i>, its <i>urbi et orbi</i>, its contempt for
+the temporal power, might easily dominate an ardent mind
+which only began its education after reaching maturity.</p>
+
+<p>When Tchaadayev returned to Russia he found there
+a different society and a different tone. Young as I was,
+I remember how conspicuously aristocratic society
+deteriorated and became baser and more servile with the
+accession of Nicholas. The brilliance and recklessness
+of the officers of the Guards, the aristocratic independence
+of the reign of Alexander, had all vanished from 1826
+onwards. There were germs of a new life springing up,
+young creatures, not yet conscious of themselves, still wearing
+a lay-down collar <i>à l’enfant</i>, at boarding schools, or
+in Lyceums. There were young literary men beginning
+to try their strength and their pen, but all that was still
+hidden, and not in the world in which Tchaadayev lived.</p>
+
+<p>His friends were in penal servitude; at first he was the
+only one left in Moscow, then he was joined by Pushkin,
+and later on by Orlov too. Often after the death of
+both these friends Tchaadayev used to show two small
+patches on the wall above the sofa-back where they used
+to lay their heads!</p>
+
+<p>It is infinitely sad to set side by side Pushkin’s two
+epistles to Tchaadayev, separated not only by their life
+but by a whole epoch, the life of a generation, racing
+hopefully forward and coarsely flung back again. Pushkin
+as a youth writes to his friend:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Comrade, have faith. That dawn will break</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of deep intoxicating joy;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Russia will spring from out her sleep</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And on the fragments of a fallen tyranny</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Our names will be recorded,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">but the dawn did not rise; instead Nicholas rose to the
+throne, and Pushkin writes:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Tchaadayev, dost thou call to mind</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">How in the past, by youthful ardour prompted,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I dreamt to add that fatal name</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Unto the rest of those that lie in ruins?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">... But now within my heart by tempests chastened</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Silence and lassitude prevail, unchallenged,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And with a glow of tender inspiration</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Upon the stone by friendship sanctified</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I write our names....’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nothing in the world could be more opposed to the
+Slavophils than the hopeless pessimism which was Tchaadayev’s
+vengeance on Russian life, the deliberate curse
+wrung out of him by suffering, with which he summed up
+his melancholy existence through a whole period of
+Russian history. He could not but awaken intense
+opposition in them; with bitterness and weary malice he
+insulted all that was precious to them, from Moscow
+downwards.</p>
+
+<p>‘In Moscow,’ Tchaadayev used to say, ‘every foreigner
+is taken to look at the great cannon and the great bell—the
+cannon which can never be fired and the bell which
+fell down before it was rung. It is a strange town in
+which the objects of interest are distinguished by their
+absurdity; or perhaps that great bell without a tongue
+is a hieroglyph symbolic of that immense dumb land,
+inhabited by a race calling themselves Slavs&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> as though
+surprised at the possession of human speech.’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev and the Slavophils alike stood facing the
+unsolved Sphinx of Russian life, the Sphinx sleeping under
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>the overcoat of the soldier and the watchful eye of the
+Tsar; they alike were asking: ‘What will come of it?
+To live like this is impossible: the oppressiveness and
+absurdity of the present position is obvious and unendurable—where
+is the way out?’</p>
+
+<p>‘There is none,’ answered the man of the Petersburg
+period of exclusively Western civilisation, who, in
+Alexander’s reign, had believed in the European future
+of Russia. He mournfully pointed out to what the
+efforts of a whole age had led. Culture had only given
+new methods of oppression, the church had become a
+mere shadow under which the police lay hidden; the
+people bore all, endured all, the government crushed all,
+oppressed all. ‘The history of other nations is the story of
+their emancipation. Russian history is the development
+of serfdom and autocracy.’ Peter the Great’s upheaval
+had made us into the worst that men can be made into—enlightened
+slaves. We had suffered enough, in this
+oppressive, troubled moral state, misunderstood by the
+people, struck down by the government—it was time to
+find rest, time to find peace for the soul, to find support
+in something ... this almost meant ‘time to die,’ and
+Tchaadayev thought to find in the Catholic Church the
+peace promised to all who are weary and heavy-laden.</p>
+
+<p>From the point of view of Western civilisation in the
+form in which it found expression at the time of the
+restoration, from the point of view of the Russia of the
+Petersburg period, this attitude was completely justified.</p>
+
+<p>The Slavophils solved the question in a different way.</p>
+
+<p>Their solution implied a true recognition of the living
+soul in the people; their instinct was more penetrating
+than their reasoning. They saw that the existing condition
+of Russia, however oppressive, was not a moral
+disease. And while Tchaadayev had a faint glimmer of
+the possibility of saving individuals but not the people,
+the Slavophils had a clear perception of the ruin of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>individuals in the grip of the existing order and faith in
+the salvation of the people.</p>
+
+<p>‘The way out is with us,’ said the Slavophils, ‘the
+way out lies in renouncing the Petersburg period, in going
+back to the people from whom we have been cut off by
+foreign education and foreign government; let us return
+to the old ways!’</p>
+
+<p>But history does not turn back; life is rich in materials,
+it has no need to remake old clothes. All renaissances,
+all restorations have been masqueraders. We have seen
+two; the Legitimists did not go back to the days of
+Louis <span class="allsmcap">XIV.</span> nor the Republicans to the 8th of Thermidor.
+What has once happened is stronger than anything
+written; no axe can hew it away.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, we have nothing to which to go back.
+The political life of Russia before Peter the Great was
+grotesque, poor, savage, yet it was to this that the Slavophils
+wanted to return, though they did not admit the
+fact; how else are we to explain all their antiquarian
+revivals, their worship of the manners and customs of
+old days, and their attempts to return, not to the existing
+(and excellent) dress of the peasants but to the old-fashioned
+and clumsy costumes?</p>
+
+<p>In all Russia no one wears the <i>murmolka</i> but the
+Slavophils. K. S. Aksakov wore a dress so national that
+the peasants in the street took him for a Persian, as
+Tchaadayev used to tell as a joke.</p>
+
+<p>They took the going back to the people in a very crude
+sense too, as the majority of Western democrats did also,
+accepting the people as something complete and finished.
+They imagined that to share the superstitions of the people
+meant being at one with them, that it was a great act of
+humility to sacrifice one’s reason instead of developing
+reason in the people. This led to an affectation of
+devoutness, the observance of rites which are touching
+when there is a naïve faith in them and insulting where
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>an ulterior motive can be discerned. The best proof of
+the lack of reality in the Slavophils’ return to the people
+lies in the fact that they did not arouse the slightest
+sympathy in the people. Neither the Byzantine Church
+nor the Granovitaya Palata&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> will do anything more for
+the future development of the Slav world. To go back
+to the village, to the workmen’s guild, to the meeting of
+the mir, to the Cossack system is a different matter; but
+we must return to them not in order to strengthen them
+in immovable Asiatic crystallisations but to develop and
+set free the elements on which they were founded, to
+purify them from all that is extraneous and distorting,
+from the rank growths with which they are overgrown—that,
+of course, is what we are called to do. But we
+must make no mistake, all this lies outside the sphere of
+the State: the Moscow period is of as little use here as
+the Petersburg, indeed it was at no time better. The
+Novgorod&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> bell which used to call the citizens to their
+ancient mote was merely melted into a cannon by Peter,
+but had been taken down from the belfry by Ivan <span class="allsmcap">III.</span>;
+serfdom was only confirmed by the census under Peter
+but was introduced by Boris Godunov; in the <i>Ulozhenie</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>
+there is no mention of sworn witnesses, and the knout,
+the rods, and the lash made their appearance long before
+the day of <i>Spitzruten</i> and <i>Fuchteln</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The mistake of the Slavophils lies in their imagining
+that Russia once had an individual culture, obscured by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>various events and finally by the Petersburg period.
+Russia never had this culture, never could have had it.
+That which is only now reaching our consciousness, that
+of which we are beginning to have a presentiment, a
+glimmer in our thoughts, that which existed unconsciously
+in the peasants’ hut and in the open country, is
+only now beginning to grow in the fields of history, enriched
+by the blood, the tears, the sweat of twenty
+generations.</p>
+
+<p>The foundations of our life are not memories, they are
+the living elements, existing not in chronicles but in the
+actual present; but they have merely survived under the
+hard historical process of building up a single state and
+under the yoke of the state they have only been preserved
+not developed. I doubt, indeed, whether the inner
+strength for their development would have been found
+without the Petersburg period, without the period of
+European culture.</p>
+
+<p>The primitive foundations of our life are insufficient.
+In India there has existed for ages and exists to this day
+a village commune very like our own and founded on a
+division of fields; yet the people of India have not gone
+very far, even with it.</p>
+
+<p>Only the mighty thought of the West to which all its
+long history has led up is able to fertilise the seeds slumbering
+in the patriarchal mode of life of the Slavs. The
+workmen’s guild and the village commune, the sharing
+of profits and the division of fields, the mir meeting and
+the union of villages into self-governing <i>volosts</i>, are all the
+corner-stones on which the temple of our future, freely
+communal existence will be built. But these corner-stones
+are only stones ... and without the thought of
+the West our future cathedral will not rise above its
+foundations.</p>
+
+<p>This is what happens with everything truly <i>social</i>, it
+inevitably draws the nations into mutual interdependence....
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>Holding themselves aloof, cutting themselves off,
+some remain at the barbaric stage of the commune, others
+get no further than the abstract idea of communism, which,
+like the Christian soul, hovers over the decaying body.</p>
+
+<p>The receptive character of the Slavs, their femininity,
+their lack of initiative, and their great capacity for assimilation
+and adaptation, make them pre-eminently a people
+that stands in need of the other peoples; they are not
+fully self-sufficing. Left to themselves the Slavs readily
+‘lull themselves to sleep with their own songs’ as a
+Byzantine chronicler observed. Awakened by others
+they go to the furthest consequences; there is no people
+which could more deeply and completely absorb the
+thoughts of other peoples while remaining true to itself.
+The persistent misunderstanding which exists to-day, as
+it has for a thousand years, between the Germanic and
+the French peoples does not exist between them and the
+Slavs. The craving to give itself up and be carried away
+is innate in their sympathetic, readily assimilative, receptive
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>To be formed into a princedom, Russia needed the
+Varangians&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a>&#x2060;; to be formed into a kingdom, the Mongols.</p>
+
+<p>Contact with Europe developed the kingdom of
+Muscovy into the colossal empire ruled from Petersburg.</p>
+
+<p>‘But for all their receptiveness, have not the Slavs
+shown everywhere a complete incapacity for developing
+a modern European political order without continually
+falling into the most absolute despotism, or hopeless disorganisation?’</p>
+
+<p>This incapacity and this incompleteness are great
+<i>talents</i> in our eyes.</p>
+
+<p>All Europe has now reached the inevitability of
+despotism in order to preserve the existing political order
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>against the pressure of social ideas striving to create a new
+order, towards which Western Europe, for all its terror
+and resistance, is being carried with incredible force.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when the half-free West looked
+proudly at Russia crushed under the throne of the Tsars,
+and cultivated Russia, sighing, gazed at the happiness of
+its elder brothers. That time has passed. The equality
+of slavery prevails.</p>
+
+<p>We are present now at an amazing spectacle; even
+those lands in which free institutions have survived are
+striving for despotism. Humanity has seen nothing like
+it since the days of Constantine when free Romans sought
+to become slaves to escape civic burdens.</p>
+
+<p>Despotism or socialism—there is no other alternative.
+Meanwhile, Europe has shown a surprising incapacity
+for social revolution.</p>
+
+<p>We believe that Russia is not so incapable of it, and in
+this we are at one with the Slavophils. On this our
+faith in its future is founded, it is the faith which I have
+been preaching since the end of 1848.</p>
+
+<p>Europe has chosen despotism, has preferred Imperialism.
+Despotism means military discipline, Empires
+mean war, the Emperor is the commander-in-chief.
+Every one is under arms, there will be war, but where is
+the real enemy? At home—down below in the depths—and
+yonder beyond the Niemen.</p>
+
+<p>The war now beginning&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> may have intervals of truce
+but will not end before the beginning of the general
+revolution which will shuffle all the cards and begin a
+new game. It is impossible that the two great historical
+powers, the two veteran champions of all West European
+history, representatives of two worlds, two traditions, two
+principles—of state and of personal freedom—should not
+crush the third, which, dumb, nameless, and bannerless,
+comes forward so opportunely with the rope of slavery
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>on its neck and rudely knocks at the doors of Europe and
+the doors of history, with an insolent claim to Constantinople,
+with one foot on Germany and the other on the
+Pacific Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Whether these three will try their strength and crush
+each other in the trying; whether Russia breaks up into
+pieces or Europe, enfeebled, sinks into Byzantine decay;
+whether they are reconciled and go hand in hand forward
+into a new life or slaughter each other endlessly—one
+thing we have discovered for certain and it will not be
+rooted out of the consciousness of the coming generations;
+that is: that the <i>free and rational development
+of Russian national existence is at one with the ideas
+of Western Socialism</i>.</p>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>On my return from Novgorod to Moscow I found
+both parties at the barrier. The Slavophils were in full
+fighting formation, with their light cavalry under the
+leadership of Homyakov and extremely heavy infantry
+under that of Shevyryov&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> and Pogodin, with their sharpshooters,
+chasseurs, ultra-Jacobins who renounced everything
+later than the Kieff period, and moderate Girondists
+who renounced nothing but the Petersburg period;
+they had their chairs in the university and their monthly
+review, which was always two months late in appearing
+but still did appear. The main body was reinforced by
+orthodox Hegelians, Byzantine theologians, mystic poets,
+a great number of women, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Our warfare greatly interested the literary drawing-rooms
+of Moscow, which was at that time just entering
+the period of enthusiasm over intellectual subjects when,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>political questions being impossible, literary ones become
+the problems of life. The appearance of a remarkable
+book, for instance, <i>Dead Souls</i>, was an event. Criticisms
+favourable and unfavourable were read and commented
+upon with the attention with which parliamentary
+debates used to be followed in England or France. The
+suppression of all other spheres of human activity threw
+the cultured section of society into the world of books,
+and only in it was heard in muffled undertones the protest
+against the yoke of Nicholas, the protest which we heard
+more loudly and openly the day after his death.</p>
+
+<p>In the person of Granovsky Moscow society welcomed
+Western thought breaking its way to freedom, the idea
+of intellectual independence and struggle for it. In
+the persons of the Slavophils it protested against the outrage
+done to its feelings of nationalism by the Biron-like
+arrogance of the Petersburg government.</p>
+
+<p>Here I must make a digression.</p>
+
+<p>I knew two circles in Moscow, the two opposite poles
+of its social life, and can only speak of them. At first I
+was lost in the society of old people, officers of the Guards
+of the time of Catherine, comrades of my father, and
+other old gentlemen who had found a quiet haven in that
+almshouse, the Senate, comrades of his brother. Afterwards
+I knew only the young literary and social Moscow
+and I speak only of it. I knew nothing and cared to know
+nothing of what lived or vegetated between the veterans
+of the pen and the sword who were awaiting their funerals
+in order of rank, and their sons and grandsons who sought
+no rank and cared only for books and ideas. That world
+that stood between them, the real Russia of Nicholas, was
+colourless and vulgar, without the originality of the times
+of Catherine, without the dash and daring of the men of
+1812, without our strivings and interests. It was a pitiful,
+crushed generation in which a few martyrs struggled, were
+suffocated, and perished. When I speak of the Moscow
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, I speak of those in
+which Pushkin once reigned supreme; in which up to
+our own day the Decembrists set the tone; in which
+Griboyedov laughed; in which M. F. Orlov and A. P.
+Yermolov met a friendly welcome because they were
+under the ban; in which Homyakov argued from nine in
+the evening until four o’clock in the morning; in which
+K. S. Aksakov&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> with a <i>murmolka</i> in his hand fiercely
+defended Moscow though no one had attacked it, and
+never took a glass of champagne in his hand without
+secretly repeating a prayer and a toast which every one
+knew; in which Ryedkin logically deduced a personal
+God <i>ad majorem gloriam Hegelii</i>; in which Granovsky
+appeared with his firm and gentle speech; in which every
+one remembered Bakunin and Stankevitch; in which
+Tchaadayev with his delicate wax-like face, scrupulously
+dressed, enraged the nonplussed aristocrats and orthodox
+Slavophils by biting sarcasms, always cast in original form
+and carefully iced; in which A. I. Turgenev,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> young
+in spite of his age, gossiped charmingly about all the
+celebrities of Europe, from Chateaubriand and Récamier
+to Schelling and Rahel Varnhagen; in which Botkin
+and Kryukov <i>pantheistically</i> enjoyed M. S. Shtchepkin’s
+stories; and into which Byelinsky sometimes fell like
+Congreve’s rocket, setting fire to everything he touched.</p>
+
+<p>Life in Moscow is more like life in the country than
+in the town, the only difference is that the houses are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>nearer each other. Everything in it is not on the same
+pattern, but specimens of different ages, cultures, social
+strata, of the length and breadth of Russia, live after their
+own fashion. In it the Larins&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> and the Famussovs
+calmly live out their days; and not only they but Vladimir
+Lensky and our eccentric Tchatsky, and indeed there are
+even too many Onyegins. With little to do they all live
+without haste, without special anxieties, without pulling
+up their sleeves. The easy-going ways of the Russian
+country gentleman are, we must own, dear to our hearts;
+there is a breadth about them which we do not find in
+the petty-bourgeois life of the West. The servile
+dependence on the rich and powerful, of which Miss
+Wilmot speaks in the <i>Memoirs of Princess Dashkhov</i>, and
+which I myself remember, did not exist in the circles of
+which I am speaking. The rank and file of this society was
+composed of landowners not in the service, or serving not
+on their own account but to pacify their relations, of
+young literary men and professors. This society had the
+freedom and fluidity of relations and habits that had not
+been reduced to a rigid tradition, a freedom which is not
+found in the old European life, and at the same time it
+retained the traditions of Western politeness instilled into
+us by education and now vanishing in the West; this
+courtesy, blended with the Slav <i>laisser aller</i>, and at times
+with riotous merriment, made up the special Russian
+character of Moscow society, to its great regret, because
+it was desperately anxious to be Parisian and probably
+still is so.</p>
+
+<p>We still only know of Europe as it was in the past; we
+are still haunted by the days when Voltaire reigned
+supreme over the Parisian salons and people were invited
+to hear Diderot arguing, as to partake of a sturgeon; when
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>the arrival of David Hume in Paris was an epoch and all
+the countesses and viscountesses hung about him and
+flirted with him till another spoilt darling, Grimm, sulked
+and thought it quite out of place. We still think of the
+soirées of Baron d’Holbach&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> and the first performance of
+<i>Figaro</i>, when all the aristocracy of Paris stood in a queue
+for whole days, and fashionable ladies missed their dinner
+and ate dry buns to get a seat and see the revolutionary
+play, which was to be performed a month later at
+Versailles with the Count de Provence, <i>i.e.</i>, the future
+Louis <span class="allsmcap">XVIII.</span>, in the part of Figaro and Marie Antoinette
+in the part of Suzanne!</p>
+
+<p><i>Tempi passati</i> ... past are not only the salons of the
+eighteenth century, those marvellous salons in which
+under powder and lace aristocrats dandled and fed on
+aristocratic milk the young lion from whom sprang a titanic
+revolution. There are not even such salons as those, for
+instance, of Madame de Staël or Récamier, in which all
+the celebrities of aristocracy, literature, and politics
+gathered. Literature is feared, and indeed there is none,
+while the parties have drifted so far apart that people of
+different shades of opinion cannot meet with civility under
+the same roof.</p>
+
+<p>One of the last attempts at a salon, in the old sense of
+the word, failed and flickered out together with its
+hostess. Delphine Gay&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> exhausted all her talents and
+brilliant intelligence in the attempt to preserve a decorous
+peace between guests who suspected and hated each other.
+Can there be any pleasure in a strained, uneasy state of
+truce, in which the host as soon as he is alone throws
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>himself exhausted on the sofa and thanks heaven that the
+evening has passed off without unpleasantness?</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, Western Europe (and particularly France)
+has no thought to spare for literary gossip, for <i>bon ton</i> and
+elegant manners. Covering the terrible gulf with the
+bee-embroidered Imperial mantle, bourgeois generals,
+bourgeois bankers, bourgeois ministers are carousing,
+piling up millions, losing millions, while they await the
+Nemesis of liquidation.... They need not light
+<i>causerie</i> but heavy orgies and colourless wealth, in which,
+as in the first Empire, art is driven out by gold, the lady
+by the <i>lorette</i>, the literary man by the stock-exchange
+gambler.</p>
+
+<p>This dissolution of society was not confined to Paris.
+George Sand was the living centre of all her neighbourhood
+at Nohant. Acquaintances of all sorts visited her
+with no great ceremony whenever they liked, and spent
+the evening extremely elegantly. There would be music,
+reading, and dramatic improvisations, and above all there
+was George Sand herself. From the year 1852 the tone
+began to change, the good-natured neighbours no longer
+came to rest and laugh, but with malice in their eyes,
+brimming over with spite, attacked one another openly
+and secretly; some displayed their new livery, while others
+dreaded being denounced to the government; the lack
+of restraint which had made jest and gaiety light and
+charming had vanished. The continual effort to appease,
+to soften and to part the combatants, so harassed and
+wearied George Sand that she made up her mind to give
+up her evenings at Nohant and reduced her circle to two
+or three old friends....</p>
+
+<p>They say that Moscow—young Moscow—has grown
+old, has not survived Nicholas, that even the university
+has become petty, and that the landowning temper has
+come out in too strong relief in face of the question of
+emancipation; that its English club has become less
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>English than ever, that in it Sobakevitches&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> are clamouring
+against emancipation and Nozdryovs noisily maintaining
+the natural and inalienable rights of the nobility.
+Perhaps!... But the Moscow of the ’forties was not
+like that, and it was that Moscow that took active sides
+for and against the <i>murmolka</i>; girls and ladies read very
+boring essays, listened to very long arguments, and
+argued themselves in defence of K. S. Aksakov or Granovsky,
+only regretting that Aksakov was too Slavophil and
+Granovsky not sufficiently patriotic.</p>
+
+<p>The arguments were renewed at every literary and
+non-literary evening at which we met, and that was two
+or three times a week. On Monday we assembled at
+Tchaadayev’s, on Tuesday at Sverbeyev’s, on Sundays at
+Madame A. P. Yelagin’s.... Besides those who took
+part in the arguments, besides the people who had
+opinions, men and even women would come to these
+evenings and sit until two o’clock in the morning to see
+which of the matadors would dispatch the other, and how
+he would be dispatched himself; they came as in old
+days people used to go to prize fights, and to the amphitheatre
+behind the Rogozhsky Gate.</p>
+
+<p>The champion who impressed all on the side of orthodoxy
+and Slavophilism was Alexey Stepanovitch Homyakov,
+‘Gorgias the immemorial questioner of the world,’
+to use the expression of the half-crazy Moroshkin. Gifted
+with a powerful and mobile intelligence, a good memory,
+and power of rapid reflection, rich in resources and indiscriminate
+in the use of them, he spent his whole life
+in heated and inexhaustible argument. An unwearying
+and unresting fighter, he dealt blows and thrusts, attacked
+and pursued, pelted with witticisms and quotations,
+terrified and drove into a maze from which there was no
+escape without prayer—in short, if he attacked a conviction
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>the conviction was lost, if he attacked a man’s
+logic his logic was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Homyakov really was a dangerous opponent; a
+hardened old duellist of dialectics, he took advantage of
+the slightest inadvertence, the slightest concession. An
+extraordinarily gifted man, with formidable stores of
+erudition at his disposal, he was like the mediaeval knights
+who guarded the Madonna and slept fully armed. At
+any hour of the day or the night he was ready for the most
+intricate argument, and to secure the triumph of his
+Slavophil views turned everything in the world to use,
+from the casuistry of Byzantine theologians to the
+subtleties of a tricky lawyer. His refutations, often
+only apparent, always dazzled and confounded his
+opponent.</p>
+
+<p>Homyakov was very well aware of his strength, and
+played with it; he pelted people with words, intimidated
+them by his learning, mocked everything, made a man
+laugh at his own theories and convictions, leaving him in
+doubt whether he really had anything left which was
+sacred. In masterly fashion he caught those who had
+halted half-way and roasted them on the dialectical grid-iron,
+terrified the timid, reduced the dilettante to despair,
+and, with all that, laughed, <i>as it seemed</i>, simply and
+candidly. I say ‘as it seemed,’ because there was in
+his somewhat Oriental features a look as of something
+concealed and a sort of simple-hearted Asiatic cunning
+together with the Russian canniness. As a rule he rather
+confused his opponent than convinced him.</p>
+
+<p>His philosophical contentions rested on rejecting the
+possibility of attaining truth by reason; he attributed to
+reason a formal faculty only, the faculty of developing
+rudiments received in other ways and relatively complete
+(<i>i.e.</i>, imparted by revelation or accepted through faith).
+If reason is left to itself, then, wandering in empty space,
+and building category after category, it may throw light
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>on its own laws, but will never reach the conception of
+the spirit, nor the conception of immortality—and so on.
+On this basis Homyakov confuted people who halted
+between religion and science. However they struggled
+in the fetters of the Hegelian method, whatever deductions
+they made, Homyakov went with them step by step
+and in the end blew down the house of cards built of
+logical formulas or gave them a kick and sent them falling
+into ‘materialism’ which they shamefacedly renounced,
+or into ‘atheism’ of which they were simply afraid.
+Homyakov triumphed!</p>
+
+<p>As I had several times been present while he was
+arguing, I noticed this device, and the first time that it
+was my lot to try my strength with him I myself drew
+him to these deductions. Homyakov screwed up his
+slanting eyes, shook his pitch-black curls, and smiled in
+anticipation. ‘Do you know,’ he said suddenly, as
+though surprised by a new idea, ‘it is not merely impossible
+by reason alone to arrive at a rational spirit
+developing nature, but by reason alone you can reach no
+other interpretation of nature than that of a simple, uninterrupted
+ferment which has no aim and may either go
+on or come to a stop? And if that is so, you cannot even
+prove that history will not be cut short to-morrow, will
+not perish together with the human race, together with
+the planet.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I didn’t say,’ I answered, ‘that I undertook to prove
+it. I know very well that it is impossible.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What?’ said Homyakov, somewhat surprised, ‘you
+can accept these terrible results of the theory of immanence
+pushed to this ferocious extreme and nothing in your soul
+is revolted?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I can, because the deductions of reason are independent
+of whether I desire them or not.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you at any rate are consistent. But what
+violence a man must do to his soul to resign himself to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>these gloomy deductions of your science, and to accustom
+himself to them.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Prove that your non-science is more true, and I will
+accept it as frankly and fearlessly, whatever it may lead
+me to, even to the Iversky Madonna.’</p>
+
+<p>‘For that you must have faith.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But, Alexey Stepanovitch, you know the saying: “If
+you haven’t got a thing, it’s not your fault.”’</p>
+
+<p>Many people thought—indeed I sometimes did myself—that
+Homyakov argued from an artistic pleasure in
+argument, that he had no deep convictions; and his
+manner, his everlasting laugh, and the superficiality of his
+critics were responsible for that idea. I don’t think that
+any one of the Slavophils did more to gain acceptance for
+their theories than Homyakov. His whole life—and he
+was a very wealthy man and not in the service—was
+devoted to propaganda. Whether he laughed or wept
+was a question of his nerves, of the cast of his mind, of the
+way he had been formed by his environment and had
+reflected it; it had nothing to do with depth of conviction.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps in continual preoccupation with the trivial
+activity of discussion and the busy idleness of polemic
+Homyakov stifled the feeling of emptiness which, on the
+other hand, stifled everything joyous in his comrades and
+nearest friends, the Kireyevskys.</p>
+
+<p>That these people were crushed and crippled by the
+age of Nicholas was unmistakable. In the heat of
+argument one might sometimes forget it—to do so now
+would be weak and pitiful.</p>
+
+<p>The two Kireyevsky brothers stand like melancholy
+shades at the dividing line of the national renaissance;
+not recognised by the living, not sharing their interests,
+they never dropped the shroud.</p>
+
+<p>The prematurely aged face of Ivan Kireyevsky bore
+unmistakable traces of the suffering and conflict which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>had been followed by the gloomy calm of the sea rippling
+above a foundered ship. His life was a failure. He
+threw himself with ardour—in 1833, if I remember
+right—into a monthly review, <i>The European</i>. The two
+numbers that appeared were excellent, but on the publication
+of the second <i>The European</i> was prohibited. He
+inserted an article upon Novikov&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> in the <i>Dennitsa</i>. The
+<i>Dennitsa</i> was seized and the censor, Glinka, was put
+under arrest. Kireyevsky, who had lost a great deal of
+his fortune over <i>The European</i>, retired despondently into
+the wilderness of Moscow life: there was nothing for
+him to do there; he could not endure it, and went away
+to the country, burying in his heart profound unhappiness
+and a painful yearning for activity. This man, too,
+firm and true as steel, was consumed by the rust of
+that terrible period. Ten years later he went back to
+Moscow from his seclusion, a mystic and a believer in the
+church.</p>
+
+<p>His position in Moscow was a hard one. He found
+no complete intimacy or sympathy either in his friends
+or in us. Between him and us stood the barrier of the
+church. A worshipper of liberty and of the great age
+of the French Revolution, he could not share the disdain
+of the new ‘Old Believers’ for everything European.
+He once said with intense sadness to Granovsky: ‘In
+heart I am closer to you, but I do not share many of your
+convictions; I am nearer in belief to our party, but just
+as far from them on the other side.’ And he really was
+fading out of life, lonely in his own family.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> Beside him
+stood his brother and friend, Pyotr. Both the brothers
+took part in conversations sadly, as though their tears were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>not yet dried, as though misfortune had visited them the
+day before. I looked at Ivan Kireyevsky as at a widow,
+as at a mother who had lost her son; life had cheated him,
+all was emptiness in the future and the only consolation:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent6">‘Wait a little,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thou too shalt rest!’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>One was sorry to disturb his mysticism. I used to feel
+the same scruple in the old days with Vitberg. The
+mysticism of both was aesthetic; it was as though the
+truth had not disappeared altogether behind it, but was
+hidden in fantastic outlines and monastic cassocks. One
+only feels a ruthless desire to shake a man out of his
+theories when his madness takes a polemical form or
+when he is so near one that any dissonance rends the heart
+and gives one no peace.</p>
+
+<p>And what argument could one use to a man who said
+things like this: ‘I once stood at a shrine and gazed at a
+wonder-working ikon of the Mother of God, thinking of
+the childlike faith of the people praying before it; some
+women and infirm old men knelt, crossing themselves
+and bowing down to the earth. With ardent hope I
+gazed at the holy features, and little by little the secret of
+their marvellous power began to grow clear to me. Yes,
+this was not simply a painted board ... for whole ages
+it had absorbed these streams of passionate aspiration, the
+prayers of the afflicted and unhappy; it must have been
+filled with power which emanates from it, is reflected
+from it, upon the believing. It had become a living
+organism, a meeting-place between the Creator and men.
+Thinking of this, I looked once more at the old men, at
+the women and children prostrate in the dust, and at the
+holy ikon—then I myself saw the features of the Mother
+of God suffused with life, she looked with love and mercy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>at these simple folk ... and I sank on my knees and
+meekly prayed to her.’</p>
+
+<p>Pyotr Kireyevsky was even more incorrigible and went
+to even greater lengths in orthodox Slavophilism; his
+was perhaps a less gifted nature, but he was single-minded
+and strictly consistent. He did not, like his brother Ivan
+or the Slavophil Hegelians, try to reconcile religion with
+science, and the Western civilisation with nationalism;
+on the contrary he rejected all compromises. Firmly and
+independently he stood his ground, neither seeking
+arguments nor avoiding them. He had nothing to fear:
+he was so entirely devoted to his idea and so bound up
+with it in sorrowful sympathy for the Russia of his day
+that his position was easy. It was as impossible to agree
+with him as with his brother; but it was easier to understand
+him, as it is easier to understand every ruthless
+extreme. He had discerned (and this I only realised
+long afterwards) some part of the bitter, crushing truths
+concerning the social condition of Western Europe which
+we only came to see after the upheavals of 1848. He
+perceived them with melancholy clear-sightedness, divined
+them through hatred and resentment for the evil wrought
+by Peter the Great in the name of Western civilisation.
+That is why Pyotr Kireyevsky had not, as his brother had,
+together with his orthodoxy and Slavophilism, yearnings
+towards some humane and religious philosophy in which
+his lack of faith in the present would be resolved. No,
+his austere nationalism involved complete, final estrangement
+from all that was Western.</p>
+
+<p>It was their common misfortune that they had been
+born either too early or too late; the Fourteenth of
+December found us children, but them young men. That
+made a great difference. At that time we were at our
+lessons, knowing nothing at all of what was really being
+done in the practical world. We were full of theoretical
+dreams, we were Gracchi and Rienzi in the nursery;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>afterwards confined to a small circle we spent our academic
+years together; as we passed out of the gates of the
+university we entered the gates of prison. Prison and
+exile in youth, in the grey and stifling days of persecution,
+are extremely beneficial; they are a hardening process;
+only feeble organisms are subdued by prison, those in
+whom resistance was the passing impulse of youth and
+not a talent, not a spiritual necessity. To be the object
+of open persecution strengthens the desire for resistance,
+increased danger trains to endurance and moulds conduct.
+All this provides an interest, a distraction, and excites
+irritation and anger; with the prisoner or the exile
+moments of fury are more frequent than the exhausting
+hours of listless, impotent despair of men in freedom but
+helpless in vulgar and oppressive surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>When we came back from exile a new spirit was
+already stirring in the university, in literature, in society
+itself. Those were the days of Gogol and Lermontov,
+of Byelinsky’s articles, the lectures of Granovsky and the
+young professors.</p>
+
+<p>It was very different with our predecessors; they were
+coming of age when the bell tolled for the execution of
+Pestel and pealed for the coronation of Nicholas; they
+were too young to take part in the conspiracy of December
+the Fourteenth, and not young enough to be at school
+after it. They were faced with the ten years which ended
+in Tchaadayev’s gloomy letter. Of course they could not
+grow old in those ten years, but they were crushed and
+stifled, surrounded by a society with no living interests,
+paltry, cowardly, cringing. And those were the first ten
+years of manhood! Inevitably a man was driven, like
+Onyegin, to envy the paralysis of the Tula assessor, to
+go to Persia like Lermontov’s Petchorin, to become a
+Catholic like the real Petchorin, or to throw himself into
+desperate orthodoxy or violent Slavophilism, if he had no
+desire to get drunk, to flog peasants, or to play cards.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span></p>
+
+<p>When first Homyakov was conscious of this emptiness
+he went for a tour in Europe, during the dull and sluggish
+reign of Charles <span class="allsmcap">X.</span>; after finishing in Paris his forgotten
+tragedy, <i>Yermak</i>, and talking to various Czechs and
+Dalmatians on the way home, he returned. Everything
+was dull! Fortunately the Turkish war broke out; he,
+quite superfluously, quite aimlessly, joined a regiment and
+went to Turkey. The war ended, and another forgotten
+tragedy, <i>Dmitri the Pretender</i>, was finished. Dullness
+again!</p>
+
+<p>In this boredom, in this depression, in the midst of
+terrible environment and terrible emptiness a new
+thought flashed upon him: it was greeted with derision
+as soon as it was uttered; that only made Homyakov
+fly the more furiously to defend it, and made it enter
+the more deeply into the very flesh and blood of the
+Kireyevskys.</p>
+
+<p>The seed was scattered; their energies all went into
+the sowing and the guarding of the young crops. Men
+were needed of another generation, not warped and distorted,
+by whom their thought could be accepted and
+inherited, not come to by suffering and sickness as they
+themselves had reached it. Young men responded to
+their summons, men of Stankevitch’s circle joined them,
+and among them were such powerful personalities as
+K. Aksakov and Yury Samarin.</p>
+
+<p>Konstantin Aksakov did not laugh like Homyakov and
+was not engrossed in hopeless grieving like the Kireyevskys.
+He threw himself with energy into the work, as
+a youth on the threshold of manhood. There was no
+uncertain testing of his ground, no melancholy sense of
+being a voice crying in the wilderness, no gloomy sighing,
+no faint hope about him, but a fanatical faith, intolerant,
+narrow, one-sided, that faith which paves the way to
+victory. Aksakov was one-sided like every fighter; a
+calmly balanced eclecticism is no equipment for battle.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>He was surrounded by hostile elements, powerful
+elements, that had great advantages over him, he had to
+fight his way through a succession of all sorts of enemies,
+and to hoist his flag. How could he be tolerant!</p>
+
+<p>His whole life was an uncompromising protest against
+the Russia of officialdom, against the Petersburg period,
+in the name of the unrecognised, oppressed Russian
+people. His dialectical powers were inferior to those of
+Homyakov, and he was not a poet and thinker like Ivan
+Kireyevsky, but he was ready to go out into the market-place
+for his faith; he would have gone to the stake, and
+when that is felt behind a man’s words they become
+terribly convincing. Early in the ’forties he was preaching
+the village commune, the mir, and the workmen’s
+guild. He taught Haxthausen&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> to understand them,
+and, consistent to the point of childishness, was the first
+to put his trousers inside his high boots, and to wear a
+shirt with a collar fastened at the side. ‘Moscow is the
+capital of the Russian people,’ he used to say, ‘while
+Petersburg is only the residence of the Emperor.’ ‘And
+observe,’ I answered, ‘to what lengths the distinction
+goes—in Moscow they invariably put you in the lock-up,
+while in Petersburg they take you to the <i>Hauptwacht</i>.’</p>
+
+<p>To the end of his days Aksakov remained an everlastingly
+enthusiastic and boundlessly generous youth; he
+carried away and was carried away, but was always
+perfectly single-hearted. In 1844 when our differences
+had reached such a point that neither the Slavophils nor
+we cared to go on meeting, I was walking along the street
+when I saw K. Aksakov in a sledge. I bowed to him in
+a friendly way. He was on the point of driving by, but
+he suddenly stopped the coachman, got out of his sledge,
+and came towards me. ‘It hurts me too much,’ he said,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>‘to pass you and not say good-bye. You understand that
+after all that has happened between your friends and
+mine I am not coming to see you; I am sorry, very sorry,
+but there is no help for it.’ He went rapidly towards his
+sledge, but suddenly turned round. I was standing still;
+I was sad; he rushed up to me, threw his arms round me
+and kissed me warmly. I had tears in my eyes. How
+I loved him at that moment of strife!</p>
+
+<p>The quarrel in question was the result of the discussions
+of which I have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky and I still managed to get on with them
+somehow, without giving up our principles; we did not
+make a personal question of our difference of opinion.
+Byelinsky, passionate in his intolerance, went further and
+bitterly reproached us. ‘I am a Jew by nature,’ he wrote
+to me from Petersburg, ‘and cannot eat at the same table
+with the Philistines.... Granovsky wants to know
+whether I have read his article in the <i>Moskvityanin</i>. No,
+and I am not going to read it; tell him I am not fond of
+meeting my friends in improper places, and I don’t make
+appointments with them there.’</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the Slavophils were ruthless in their
+treatment of him. The <i>Moskvityanin</i>, irritated by Byelinsky,
+by the success of the <i>Notes of the Fatherland</i> and of
+Granovsky’s lectures, used any weapon that came to hand
+in self-defence, and spared Byelinsky least of all, speaking
+of him in so many words as a dangerous man who thirsted
+for destruction and rejoiced at the sight of the conflagration.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Moskvityanin</i>, however, was pre-eminently the
+organ of the university doctrinaire section of the Slavophils.
+This section might be described not merely as the
+university, but to some extent as the government party.
+That such a party should find expression was a great
+novelty in Russian literature. Among us servility either
+keeps quiet, takes bribes, and can barely read or write, or,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>disdainful of prose, strikes chords on the lyre of loyalty
+and patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>Bulgarin and Gretch&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> are in no way typical, no one
+was deceived by them, no one mistook the cockade of
+their livery for the badge of any shade of opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Pogodin and Shevyryov, the editors of the <i>Moskvityanin</i>,
+were on the contrary conscientiously servile:
+Pogodin from hatred of the aristocracy, Shevyryov I do
+not know why, possibly influenced by the example of his
+ancestor, who, in the midst of the tortures and agonies of
+the reign of Ivan the Terrible, sang psalms and almost
+prayed for the ferocious old man’s days to be prolonged.</p>
+
+<p>There are periods at which thinkers are on the side of
+authority, but that is only when authority is progressive,
+as in the days of Peter the Great, is defending the country
+as in 1812, or is healing its wounds and letting it rest as
+in the reign of Henry <span class="allsmcap">IV.</span> of France and perhaps of
+Alexander ii. But to select the most arid and narrow
+epoch of Russian autocracy and, leaning upon the Little
+Father the Tsar, take up arms against the individual
+misdeeds of the aristocracy, which is developed and supported
+by the power of that same Tsar, is absurd and
+harmful.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be told that under the aegis of devotion to the
+Imperial power the truth can be spoken more boldly.
+Why then did they not speak it?</p>
+
+<p>Pogodin was a useful professor who appeared, with
+energy that was new and a Guerin that was not, on the
+débris of Russian history, which had been whittled away
+and turned to smoke and ashes by Katchenovsky.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> But as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>a writer he was of little importance in spite of the fact
+that he wrote everything, even <i>Götz von Berlichingen</i>,
+in Russian. His unswept and unpolished style, coarse
+manner of throwing out gnawed and ragged remarks and
+undigested thoughts, inspired me in old days, and I wrote
+a parody of him, a little fragment of <i>Vedrin’s Notes of
+Travel</i>. Strogonov (the Director of Moscow University),
+after reading it, said: ‘Pogodin will certainly
+imagine that he wrote it himself.’</p>
+
+<p>It is doubtful whether Shevyryov did anything at all
+as a professor. As for his literary articles, I do not
+remember a single original idea or a single independent
+opinion in anything he wrote. His style was quite the
+opposite of Pogodin’s, being windy, spongy, rather like
+too limp a blancmange in which the almond flavouring
+has been forgotten, although under his treacle a vast
+amount of jaundiced, conceited irritability was masked.
+As one reads Pogodin one feels as though he were
+swearing and looking round to see whether there are
+ladies in the room. Reading Shevyryov one slumbers
+and keeps dreaming of something quite different.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of the style of these Siamese twins of Moscow
+journalism inevitably reminds one of George Foster the
+celebrated companion of Captain Cook in the Sandwich
+Islands and of Robespierre in the Convention of the one
+and indivisible Republic. Being professor of botany in
+Vilna and listening to Polish so rich in consonants, he
+remembered his friends in Otaheite who spoke almost
+entirely in vowel sounds and observed: ‘If those two
+languages were mixed what a smooth and sonorous tongue
+it would make!’</p>
+
+<p>However, badly as they wrote, the co-editors of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span><i>Moskvityanin</i> began attacking not only Byelinsky but also
+Granovsky for his lectures, and always with the same
+unhappy lack of tact which set all decent people against
+them. They accused Granovsky of partiality for
+Western culture, for a certain ‘order of ideas’ for which
+Nicholas from ‘an idea of order’ clapped men in fetters
+and sent them to Nertchinsk.</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky took up their challenge, and his bold and
+noble reply put them to shame. He asked his accusers
+publicly from the lecturer’s platform why he ought to
+hate Western Europe, and if he did hate Western culture
+what inducement would he have to lecture on its history.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am accused,’ said Granovsky, ‘of using history
+merely as a means of expressing my own views. That is
+partly true; I have convictions and I bring them forward
+in my lectures. If I had none I should not appear before
+you in public simply in order, more or less interestingly,
+to describe a succession of events.’</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky’s answers were so simple and manly, and
+his lectures so attractive, that the Slavophil doctrinaires
+subsided, while the young people applauded no less
+than we. At the end of the course an effort was even
+made at reconciliation. We gave Granovsky a dinner
+after his final lecture. The Slavophils wanted to join us
+in it, and Yury Samarin was chosen by them (as I was
+by our side) as steward.</p>
+
+<p>The banquet was a success; at the end of it, after many
+toasts, not only unanimous but drunk with zest, we
+embraced the Slavophils and kissed them in the Russian
+style. Ivan Kireyevsky only begged me one thing, that
+I would alter the spelling of my name, and by changing
+the <i>e</i> into a Slavonic vowel make it more Russian to the
+ear. But Shevyryov did not even insist on that, on the
+contrary as he embraced me he repeated in his soprano:
+‘He is a good man even with an <i>e</i>, he is a Russian even
+with an <i>e</i>.’ On both sides the reconciliation was genuine
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>and without reservations, which, of course, did not prevent
+us from disagreeing more than ever a week later.</p>
+
+<p>Reconciliations as a rule are only possible when they
+are unnecessary, <i>i.e.</i> when personal exasperation is over,
+or when opinions have approximated and when people
+see themselves that they have nothing to quarrel about.
+Otherwise every reconciliation involves weakening on
+both sides, they both fade, that is, lose their distinctive
+colouring. The efforts of our peace conference very
+soon turned out to be impracticable, and the conflict
+raged with fresh exasperation. On our side it was
+impossible to rope in Byelinsky; he sent us threatening
+letters from Petersburg, excommunicated and anathematised
+us, and wrote more angrily than ever in the
+<i>Notes of the Fatherland</i>. At last he pointed a triumphant
+finger at the ‘dodges’ of Slavophilism and repeated
+reproachfully, ‘there you have them,’ while we hung our
+heads in contrition. Byelinsky was right!</p>
+
+<p>A poet,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> at one time a favourite, who became a Slavophil
+through family connections and a sanctimonious
+bigot through illness, tried with his dying hand to have
+a lash at us; but unluckily the police whip was again the
+means chosen for the purpose. In a play entitled <i>Our
+Opponents</i>, he called Tchaadayev a renegade from
+orthodoxy, Granovsky a false teacher corrupting the
+young, me a footman wearing the gorgeous livery of
+Western culture, and all three of us traitors to our
+country. Of course, he did not mention our names;
+those were put in by the readers who enthusiastically
+carried this spy’s report in verse from drawing-room to
+drawing-room. K. Aksakov indignantly answered him
+also in verse, branding with emphatic disapproval his
+spiteful attacks, and saying that their real opponents were
+the Slavophils who played the gendarmes in the name
+of Christ.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span></p>
+
+<p>This incident added much bitterness to our relations.
+The poet’s name, the name of the man who recited the
+poem, the circle in which he lived, the circle which was
+enthusiastic over it—all helped to increase the irritation
+caused by it.</p>
+
+<p>Our dissensions very nearly led to a terrible calamity,
+to the ruin of the two purest and best representatives of
+the two parties. All the efforts of their friends were
+needed to patch up the quarrel between Granovsky and
+Pyotr Kireyevsky which very nearly came to a duel.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these circumstances Shevyryov, who
+could never resign himself to the colossal success of
+Granovsky’s lectures, had the happy thought of trying to
+beat him in his own field, and announced a course of
+public lectures. He lectured on Dante, on Nationalism
+in Art, on Orthodoxy and Culture, and so on; his
+audience was numerous, but it remained cold. He displayed
+boldness at times and this was very much appreciated,
+but the general effect was negligible. One lecture
+has remained in my memory, the one in which he talked
+of Michelet’s <i>Le Peuple</i> and George Sand’s story <i>La Mare
+au Diable</i>, because in it he touched vividly on a living
+and contemporary interest. It was difficult to arouse
+sympathy when talking of the charms of the ecclesiastical
+writers of the Eastern Church and lauding the Greco-Russian
+Church. Only Fyodor Glinka&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> and his wife
+Yevdokia, who wrote of ‘the milk of the Holy Virgin,’
+usually sat side by side in the front row, modestly casting
+down their eyes when Shevyryov was immoderate in his
+praises of the Orthodox Church.</p>
+
+<p>Shevyryov spoilt his lectures, just as he spoilt his
+articles, by sallies against ideas, books, and persons, whom
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>one could hardly have defended without being clapped in
+prison.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, ‘in spite of all the devices invented to
+make a success’ of the <i>Moskvityanin</i>, it was definitely a
+failure. To make a polemical journal living one must
+have the instinct of modernity, one must have that
+delicate sensitiveness of the nerves which is at once
+stimulated by all that stimulates society. The editors of
+the <i>Moskvityanin</i> were entirely destitute of this intuitive
+vision and, however they turned and twisted poor Nestor
+and poor Dante, they were at last themselves convinced
+that in our depraved age you could have no success,
+either with the roughly chopped phrases of Pogodin or
+the sing-song suavity of Shevyryov’s eloquence. After
+much consideration they determined to offer the editorship
+to Ivan Kireyevsky. The choice of Kireyevsky was
+a particularly happy one, not only because of his intelligence
+and talents, but also on the financial side. There is
+no one in the world with whom I should so much like to
+transact business as with Kireyevsky.</p>
+
+<p>To give an idea of his commercial philosophy I will
+relate the following anecdote. He had a stud-farm from
+which horses were brought to Moscow, valued, and sold.
+On one occasion a young officer came to buy a horse to
+which he had taken a great fancy; the coachman, seeing
+this, put up the price. After some bargaining the officer
+agreed to his terms and went to Kireyevsky. The latter
+after receiving the money looked in the list and observed
+to the officer that the horse was priced at eight hundred
+roubles, not at a thousand, and that the coachman must
+have made a mistake. This so dumbfoundered the officer
+that he asked permission to look at the horse again, and
+after examining it refused to buy it, saying: ‘It must be
+a nice sort of horse, if the owner is ashamed to take the
+price agreed on for it....’ Where could one find a
+better editor?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span></p>
+
+<p>He set to work zealously, wasted a great deal of time
+and moved to Moscow on account of it, but for all his
+talent he could do nothing with the magazine. The
+<i>Moskvityanin</i> did not respond to any living widely diffused
+demand, and therefore could not have any circulation
+except in its own coterie. Its failure must have been a
+great disappointment to Kireyevsky.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Moskvityanin</i> did not recover after its second
+breakdown, and the Slavophils themselves perceived that
+they could not make much headway on that boat. They
+began to think of another magazine.</p>
+
+<p>This time it was not they who came off victorious.
+Public opinion clamorously decided in our favour. In
+the dark night when the <i>Moskvityanin</i> was sinking
+and the <i>Lighthouse</i> was no longer lighting it up from
+Petersburg, Byelinsky, who had fed the <i>Notes of the
+Fatherland</i> with his own blood, set their illegitimate
+offspring on its feet and gave them both such a shove that
+they were able for some years to keep on their way with
+no staff but proof-correctors, printers, and the publicans
+and sinners of literature. Byelinsky’s name was enough
+to make the fortune of two shops and to concentrate all
+that was best in Russian literature in the publications in
+which he took part, while Kireyevsky’s talent and Homyakov’s
+contributions could bring neither circulation nor
+readers to the <i>Moskvityanin</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the field of battle when I left it and went
+away from Russia. Both sides expressed themselves
+fully once more,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> and all the questions have been thrown
+into a new light by the great events of 1848.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas is dead; a new life has drawn the Slavophils
+and us beyond the limits of our feud. We have stretched
+out our hands to them, but where are they? Gone!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>And K. Aksakov is gone, and those ‘opponents’ who were
+dearer to us than many of our own side are no more.</p>
+
+<p>It was a hard life that burnt men away like a candle set
+in the wind of autumn.</p>
+
+<p>They were all living when I wrote this chapter the
+first time. This time let it end with the following lines
+spoken on the death of Aksakov:</p>
+
+<p>‘The Kireyevskys, Homyakov, and Aksakov have done
+their work; whether their lives were short or long, they
+could, as they closed their eyes, say to themselves with full
+conviction that they had done what they meant to do,
+and, though they could not stop the express troika which
+Peter the Great had sent flying on its way and in which
+Biron sat urging the driver with blows to drive over
+cornfields and crush the people, they did bring public
+opinion to a halt and made all earnest people reconsider
+their position.</p>
+
+<p>‘With them a new era of Russian thought begins and,
+when we say that, it seems impossible to suspect us of
+partiality.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, we were their opponents, but very strange ones.
+We had the same love, but not the same way of loving.</p>
+
+<p>‘Both they and we had been from earliest years possessed
+by one unaccountable, physiological, passionate feeling,
+which they took as memory and we as prophecy—a
+feeling of boundless, absorbing love for the Russian people,
+Russian manner of life, Russian mode of thought. And
+like Janus, or the two-headed eagle, we looked in different
+directions while one heart throbbed within us.</p>
+
+<p>‘They laid all their love, all their tenderness at the feet
+of their oppressed mother. In us, brought up away from
+home, the tie was weaker. We had been in the charge
+of a French governess, and only learned later on that not
+she was our mother but a downtrodden peasant woman,
+and we ourselves divined it from the likeness in our
+features and because her songs were dearer to us than the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>vaudevilles. We loved her dearly, but her life was too
+narrow. We were stifled in her narrow dwelling with
+everywhere tarnished faces behind the silver setting,
+where she lived terrified by priests and church servitors,
+and bullied by soldiers and clerks. Even her everlasting
+wailing for her lost happiness rent our hearts, we knew
+she had no bright memories, we knew something else too,
+that her happiness lay in the future, that the new life was
+stirring under her heart, our younger brother, to whom
+without the mess of pottage we would yield our heritage.
+And meanwhile:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Mutter, Mutter, lass mich gehen</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Shweifen auf die wilden Höhen!”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>‘Such were our family dissensions fifteen years ago.
+Much water has flowed away since then, and we have
+met the <i>mountain spirit</i> that has checked our flight, while
+they have stumbled out of a world of relics on to living
+Russian problems. It would be strange for us to adjust
+accounts, we have no monopoly of understanding; time,
+history, and experience have brought us nearer, not
+because we have drawn them to us, nor they us to them,
+but because both they and we are nearer to a true outlook
+now than we were then, when we attacked each other
+unsparingly in magazine articles, though even then I do
+not remember that we ever doubted the warmth of their
+love for Russia, nor they ours.</p>
+
+<p>‘This faith in one another, this common love gives us,
+too, the right to do homage at their tombs and to throw
+our handful of earth upon their dead, in the sacred hope
+that on their graves and ours, young Russia may blossom
+into light and power.’</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_31">Chapter 31<br>
+<span class="smcap">My Father’s Death—My Heritage—The
+Partition—Two Nephews</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">From the end of the year 1845, my father’s strength
+grew steadily less; he changed unmistakably after
+the loss of the Senator, whose death was completely in
+keeping with his whole life, taking place casually and
+almost in his carriage. In 1839 he spent one evening as
+usual with my father; he had come from some School of
+Agriculture, brought with him a model of some agricultural
+machine, the use of which I imagine could have
+very little interest for him, and at eleven o’clock in the
+evening he went home.</p>
+
+<p>It was his habit to take a very light repast and to drink
+a glass of red wine on reaching home; that evening he
+declined to take anything and told my old friend Calot
+that he was rather tired and would go to bed. Calot
+helped him undress, put a candle by his bedside and went
+out; he had scarcely reached his room and taken off his
+coat when the Senator rang the bell; Calot ran, the old
+man was lying dead on the floor by the bed. This was
+a great shock to my father and very much alarmed him.
+His solitude was even more complete, his own turn was
+terribly near, his three elder brothers were in their graves;
+he was gloomier, and though, as his habit was, he concealed
+his feelings and maintained his frigid pose, yet his muscles
+failed him; I say muscles intentionally, for his brain and
+his nerves remained unchanged to the very end.</p>
+
+<p>In April 1845, the old man’s face looked as though he
+were near his death, his eyes had lost their lustre; he was
+by now so thin that sometimes, showing me his hands,
+he would say:</p>
+
+<p>‘The skeleton is quite ready, you have only to take off
+the skin.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span></p>
+
+<p>His voice was weaker, he spoke more slowly; but his
+mind, his memory, and his will were the same as ever,
+there was the same irony, the same continual dissatisfaction
+with every one.</p>
+
+<p>‘Do you remember,’ one of his old friends asked ten
+days before his death, ‘who was our <i>chargé d’affaires</i> in
+Turin after the war? You used to know him abroad.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Syeverin,’ answered the old man after thinking a few
+seconds.</p>
+
+<p>On the 3rd of May I found him in bed, his cheeks
+were flushed with fever, which had scarcely ever happened
+to him before; he was restless and said that he could not
+get up; then he ordered leeches to be applied and, as he
+lay in bed, continued his biting remarks during that
+operation.</p>
+
+<p>‘So you are here,’ he said, as though I had only just
+come in; ‘you had much better go off somewhere and
+amuse yourself, my dear fellow, it is a very melancholy
+spectacle to watch a man’s dissolution, <i>cela donne des
+pensées noires</i>, but first give the lad ten kopecks for
+vodka.’</p>
+
+<p>I fumbled in my pocket and found nothing less than a
+twenty-five-kopeck piece and would have given it, but the
+sick man saw it and said: ‘How tiresome you are, I said
+ten kopecks.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I haven’t got it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Give me my purse out of the bureau,’ and after a long
+search he found a ten-kopeck piece.</p>
+
+<p>Golohvastov, my father’s nephew, came in; the old
+man did not speak. In order to say something, Golohvastov
+observed that he had just come from the governor-general’s;
+at that word my father put his finger to his
+black velvet skull-cap, like a soldier saluting. I had
+studied all his gestures so thoroughly that I knew at once
+what was wrong; Golohvastov ought to have said:
+‘From Shtcherbatov’s.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Only fancy, how strange,’ the latter went on, ‘it turns
+out that he has gallstones.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why is it strange that the governor-general should
+have gallstones?’ the invalid asked slowly.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, <i>mon oncle</i>, he is over seventy, and it is the first
+time he has suffered in that way.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, but here am I, though I am not governor-general,
+still it is just as strange; I am seventy-six and it is
+the first time I am dying.’</p>
+
+<p>He was fully aware of his position and that gave his
+irony a <i>macabre</i> character, which made one smile while
+petrified with horror. His valet, who always reported
+on small domestic matters to him in the evenings, told
+him that the bridle was in a very bad condition and that
+they would have to buy a new one.</p>
+
+<p>‘What a queer fellow you are,’ my father answered;
+‘a man is passing away and you talk to him about a bridle.
+Wait a day or two till you have put me on the drawing-room
+table, then tell him (pointing to me), he’ll bid you
+buy a saddle and reins as well, though they are not
+wanted.’</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of May his temperature was higher, his
+features were more sunken and began to look black, the
+old man was visibly wasting away from the burning fever.
+He spoke little but with perfect collectedness. In the
+morning he asked for coffee and for broth, and frequently
+drank some sort of tisane. In the dusk, he called me to
+him and said: ‘It is over,’ passing his hand over the
+quilt like a sword or a scythe as he spoke. I pressed his
+hand to my lips, it was burning. He tried to say something,
+was beginning ... and, without having said anything,
+ended: ‘But there, you know.’ And he turned
+to G—— I—— who was standing on the other side of
+the bed: ‘Very bad,’ he said to him and rested his weary
+eyes upon him.</p>
+
+<p>G—— I——, an extremely honest man who at that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>time was managing my father’s business affairs and was
+more trusted by him than any one, bent down to him and
+said: ‘All the measures you have tried hitherto have been
+useless, allow me to advise you to resort to another
+remedy.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What remedy?’ asked the sick man.</p>
+
+<p>‘Won’t you send for the priest?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh,’ said my father, turning to me, ‘I thought
+G—— I—— really had some remedy to advise.’</p>
+
+<p>Soon afterwards he fell into a sleep which lasted till
+next morning; I suppose it must have been a state of unconsciousness.
+His illness made fearful progress during
+the night; the end was near, at nine o’clock I sent a horse
+messenger for Golohvastov.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past ten my father asked to be dressed. He
+could not stand up nor hold anything securely in his hand,
+but he noticed at once that the silver buckle with which
+his trousers were fastened was missing and asked for it.
+When he was dressed he moved, supported by us, into
+his study. There was a big Voltairian armchair and a
+hard, narrow couch in the room; he bade us lay him
+down on the latter and at once uttered a few unintelligible
+and incoherent words, but five minutes later opened his
+eyes, and meeting Golohvastov’s gaze asked him: ‘Why
+have you come so early?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I happened to be close by, uncle,’ answered Golohvastov,
+‘so I looked in to ask how you are.’</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled as though he would say, ‘You
+don’t take me in, my dear fellow!’ Then he asked for
+his snuff-box. I handed it him and opened it, but, though
+he made great efforts, he could not control his fingers
+sufficiently to take a pinch; this seemed to strike him, he
+looked gloomily around him, and again his brain seemed
+clouded, he uttered a few inarticulate words, then asked:
+‘What do you call those pipes that are smoked through
+water?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Hookahs,’ observed Golohvastov.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, yes ... my hookah’—and that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Golohvastov outside the door was getting
+the priest ready with the sacrament. He asked the sick
+man in a loud voice whether he would receive him; my
+father opened his eyes and nodded. K—— opened the
+door and the priest walked in ... my father was unconscious
+again, but a few words intoned by the priest
+and still more the smell of the incense aroused him, and
+he crossed himself; the priest went up to him; we moved
+away.</p>
+
+<p>After the ceremony my father saw Dr. Levental zealously
+writing a prescription.</p>
+
+<p>‘What are you writing?’ he asked.</p>
+
+<p>‘A prescription for you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What prescription, musk or something? You ought
+to be ashamed, you had better prescribe opium to help
+me off peacefully.... Lift me up, I want to sit in the
+armchair ...’ he added, turning to us. Those were
+almost the last coherent words he uttered. We lifted up
+the dying man and sat him in the chair. ‘Push me up
+to the table.’ We did so. He looked feebly at all. ‘Who’s
+that?’ he asked, indicating M—— K——. I mentioned
+his name.</p>
+
+<p>He wanted to rest his head on his hand, but his arm
+gave way and fell as though lifeless on the table; I put
+mine in its place. Twice he bent a weary sick glance on
+me as though asking for help, a more and more peaceful
+and serene expression came into his face ... there was
+a sigh—another sigh, and the head that was so heavy on
+my arm began to grow stiff.... Everything in the
+room preserved for some minutes a deathly silence.</p>
+
+<p>This was on the 6th of May 1846, about three o’clock
+in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>He was buried in the Dyevitchy Monastery with great
+pomp and ceremony; two families of peasants who had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>been set free by him came from Pokrovskoe to bear the
+coffin. We followed them, with torches, choristers,
+priests, archimandrites, bishops ... and the heart-rending
+‘With thy Saints give rest,’ and then the grave and the
+heavy falling of the earth on the coffin lid, and with that
+was ended the long life of the old man who had so
+obstinately and powerfully maintained his authority over
+his household, who had so weighed on all who surrounded
+him; and now all at once his authority had vanished, his
+power was removed, he was gone, utterly gone!</p>
+
+<p>Earth was scattered on the grave, the priests and monks
+were taken off to dinner. I did not join them, but went
+home. The carriages drove away, the beggars pressed
+round the monastery gates, the peasants stood in a group,
+wiping the sweat from their faces; I knew them all well,
+said good-bye to them, thanked them and drove away.</p>
+
+<p>Before my father’s death we had almost entirely moved
+out of the little house into the big one in which he was
+living; and so it was natural that in the bustle of the first
+few days I had not had time to look round. But what I
+saw now on returning from the funeral sent a strange pang
+to my heart; in the courtyard and in the porch I was met
+by the servants, men and women, begging my favour and
+protection (why, I will explain at once). There was a
+smell of incense in the drawing-room. I went into the
+room in which my father’s bed used to stand, it had been
+carried out; the door, which had for so many years been
+approached with cautious steps, not only by the servants
+but even by myself, was wide open, and the maid was
+setting a small table in the corner. Every one turned to
+me for orders. My new position was detestable, revolting
+to me—this house and everything in it belonged to
+me because some one was dead, and that some one was
+my father. It seemed to me that in this coarse taking
+possession there was something unclean, as though I were
+robbing the dead man.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is something profoundly immoral in inheritance;
+it distorts the legitimate grief at the loss of one near to us
+by entering into possession of his belongings. Fortunately
+we avoided other revolting consequences—the savage
+recriminations and hideous quarrelling of those who share
+the booty. The division of all the property was complete
+in a couple of hours, during which no one raised his voice
+or uttered a single cold word, and after which all present
+separated with increased respect for one another. This
+fact, the chief credit for which is due to Golohvastov,
+deserves a few words of explanation.</p>
+
+<p>During the lifetime of the Senator, he and my father
+made wills bequeathing the ancestral estate to each other,
+on condition that the survivor would leave it to their
+nephew Golohvastov. Part of his own estate my father
+sold and assigned the sum he received from it to us.
+Afterwards he gave me a little estate in the province of
+Kostroma, doing so because Olga Alexandra Zherebtsov
+insisted upon it. The government sequestered this
+estate contrary to the law before any inquiry was made of
+me whether I intended to return. My father sold, after
+the Senator’s death, the latter’s Tver estate. So long as
+my father’s own estates covered what he sold of the property
+belonging to his brother, Golohvastov said nothing.
+But when the idea occurred to the old man to give me the
+estate in the Moscow province on condition that I should,
+in accordance with his instructions, pay a sum of money
+for it, partly to my brother and partly to other persons,
+then Golohvastov observed that this was inconsistent
+with the wishes of the Senator who had intended the
+estate to pass to him. The old man, who could not
+endure the slightest opposition, especially in plans
+which he had long cherished and therefore considered
+beyond all criticism, heaped sarcasms upon his nephew.
+Golohvastov refused to have anything to do with
+his affairs, above all to act as his executor. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>misunderstanding was at first so acute that they broke off all
+relations.</p>
+
+<p>This was a serious blow to my father. There were
+few people in the world that he really liked and Golohvastov
+was one of them. He had grown up before his
+eyes, the whole family was proud of him. My father put
+great trust in him, and always held him up to me as a
+model, and now, all of a sudden, ‘Mitya, sister Lizaveta’s
+son,’ was on bad terms with him, was refusing to carry
+out his arrangements, was putting his veto on his plans,
+and already he could see behind him the ironical eyes of
+‘the Chemist,’ as with a smile he rubbed his nose with
+fingers burnt with acid.</p>
+
+<p>As his habit was, my father showed not the faintest
+sign of his mortification; he avoided talking about
+Golohvastov, but became perceptibly more morose and
+uneasy and talked more often of ‘this awful age in which
+all ties of relationship have grown lax, and age no longer
+meets with the respect with which it was surrounded in
+happier days,’ I suppose when Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> was the
+representative of all the domestic virtues!</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the quarrel I was at Sokolovo and
+scarcely heard of it, but the day after my return to
+Moscow Golohvastov called upon me early in the
+morning. Being an extremely pedantic and formal
+person, he told me all about it at very great length and
+in fine and correct language, adding that he had made
+haste to come to me expressly to warn me what was
+wrong before I should hear anything of the quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>‘I may well be called Alexander,’ I said jocosely, ‘I
+will cut the Gordian knot for you at once. Whatever
+happens, you must be reconciled, and, to remove all
+subject of dispute, I tell you plainly and directly that I
+refuse to accept Pokrovskoe; and the forest there alone
+will be enough to cover the loss of the Tver estate.’</p>
+
+<p>Golohvastov was a little embarrassed and therefore
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span>proceeded to prove to me even more circumstantially all
+that I had thoroughly grasped from his first few words.
+We parted on the best of terms.</p>
+
+<p>One evening a few days later my father began of his
+own accord speaking of Golohvastov. As his way was,
+when he was displeased with any one, he did not leave
+him a leg to stand on. The ideal which he had held up
+to me since I was ten years old, the model son, the
+exemplary brother, the best of nephews, and the man
+who dressed so well that the knot of his cravat was never
+too large or too small, appeared now, as though in some
+photographic negative, with all the hollow places
+prominent and all the white spots black.</p>
+
+<p>The change to simple abuse would have been too
+abrupt and conspicuous without all sorts of fine shades,
+transitions, and connections. My father was too clever
+to be so inconsequent.</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, tell me, by the way, I keep forgetting to ask you,
+have you seen Dmitry Pavlovitch’ (he had always called
+him ‘Mitya’) ‘since you came back?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, once.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, how is his Excellency?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, he is quite well.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It’s quite right that you should see him; one ought
+to stick to such people. I like him and have always liked
+him and, indeed, he deserves to be liked. Of course he,
+too, has many absurd failings.... But God alone is
+without sin. Making his career so rapidly has turned
+his head.... Well, he is young for the Anna ribbon;
+besides he has such duties; he as curator goes to scold the
+schoolboys and so he has got into the way of talking to
+people as though they were inferiors ... he lectures
+and the pupils stand at attention and listen to him ...
+he imagines that he can talk in that tone to every one.
+I don’t know whether you have noticed it, but his voice
+even is different. I remember under the late Empress,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span>Prince Prozorovsky used to give commands to his
+orderlies in just that harsh voice. Ridiculous as it seems,
+he came here to give me a lecture. I listened to him and
+thought, “What if my sister Lizaveta could have seen it!”
+I gave her away to Pavel Ivanovitch on their wedding day,
+and here was her son shouting: “Well, uncle, if that is
+how it is, you had better apply to Alexey Alexandrovitch,
+but I beg you to excuse me.” I have one foot in the grave,
+as you know, and no end of worries and infirmities; I am
+a long-suffering Job, in fact. And he shouts at me and
+gets crimson in the face.... <i>Quel siècle!</i> I know that
+he is accustomed to <i>décastères</i>. Why, he never goes anywhere,
+but likes to sit at home giving orders to his elders
+and stable-boys, and then those wretched little clerks
+with “your Excellency this,” and “your Excellency
+that!” Why, it has turned his brain....’</p>
+
+<p>In short, just as by slightly changing the features in the
+portrait of Louis Philippe you can finally get from a fine-looking
+old man to a rotten pear, so the model Mitya
+passed point by point into a Cartouche&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> or a Shemyaka.</p>
+
+<p>When the last touches had been put in, I told him
+all my conversation with Golohvastov. The old man
+listened attentively, scowled, and then, after deliberately,
+carefully, methodically taking pinches of snuff, said to
+me:</p>
+
+<p>‘Pray don’t imagine, my dear fellow, that you are
+troubling me by refusing Pokrovskoe.... I am not
+bowing down and begging any one to take my estate, and
+I am not going to beg you to. There are plenty who
+would be glad of it. Every one thwarts my plans; I am
+sick of it; I will give everything to a hospital—the
+patients will be glad to have it. As though Mitya were
+not enough, here are you teaching me what to do with my
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>property, and it is only the other day that Vera was
+washing you in a tub. No, I am tired of it, it is time I was
+out of the way; I had better go to the hospital myself.’</p>
+
+<p>So the conversation ended.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o’clock next morning my father sent his
+valet for me. This happened very rarely; as a rule, I
+went in to see him before dinner or, if I were not dining
+with him, went round to tea.</p>
+
+<p>I found the old man at his writing-table with his
+spectacles on and some papers in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>‘Come here and, if you can spare me an hour, help me
+to put some of these papers in order. I know you are
+busy, you are for ever writing your articles, you are a
+literary man.... I saw your article in the <i>Post of the
+Fatherland</i>, I couldn’t make anything of it. It is full of
+such learned expressions. I don’t know what literature
+is coming to.... In old days Derzhavin and Dmitriev
+used to write, but nowadays it is you ... and our
+cousin Ogaryov. Though, after all, it is better to stay
+at home and write nonsense than to be always driving
+about, going to Yar’s and drinking champagne.’</p>
+
+<p>I listened and could not imagine what this <i>captatio
+benevolentiae</i> was leading up to.</p>
+
+<p>‘Sit down here, read this document and tell me your
+opinion.’</p>
+
+<p>It was his will and a few codicils added to it. From
+his point of view this was the greatest mark of confidence
+he could have shown me.</p>
+
+<p>A strange psychological fact. From what I read and
+from what he said I drew two conclusions: first, that he
+was longing to be reconciled to Golohvastov, and secondly,
+that he greatly appreciated my refusing to take the estate;
+and, indeed, from that time, that is, from October 1845
+up to the time of his death, he not only put confidence in
+me in every case, but sometimes asked my advice and on
+two occasions even acted upon it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span></p>
+
+<p>Yet what would a man have thought who had overheard
+our conversation the day before? I have not
+altered one word of my father’s answer about Pokrovskoe,
+I remember it well.</p>
+
+<p>The will in itself was clear and simple; he left all his
+real property to Golohvastov, all his personal belongings,
+money, and houses to my mother, my brother, and me, to
+be divided equally among us. On the other hand, the
+codicils, written on all sorts of scraps of paper and undated,
+were far from being simple. The responsibility
+he laid upon us, and especially upon Golohvastov, was
+extremely unpleasant. These codicils contradicted each
+other and had that character of indefiniteness which
+commonly leads to ugly quarrels and recriminations.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, the following words occurred in one: ‘I
+set free all the house-serfs who have served me well and
+zealously and I charge you to give them rewards and
+money according to their deserts.’</p>
+
+<p>In one the old brick house was left to G—— I——.
+In another the house was disposed of differently, and
+money was left to G—— I——, but it was nowhere
+stated that this money was to be instead of the house. In
+one codicil my father left a certain sum of ten thousand
+silver roubles to a cousin, while in another he left this
+cousin’s sister a small estate on condition that she paid her
+brother out of it this ten thousand roubles.</p>
+
+<p>I must observe that I had heard beforehand from him
+of half of these arrangements, and not I alone. The old
+man had, for instance, spoken several times before me of
+leaving the house to G—— I——, and had even advised
+him to move into it.</p>
+
+<p>I suggested to my father that he should invite Golohvastov
+and commission him and G—— I—— to put all
+these notes together into one codicil.</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course,’ he said, ‘Mitya might be of use, but then
+he is very busy. You know these political gentlemen....
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>What does he care about his dying uncle? He is
+always inspecting seminaries.’</p>
+
+<p>‘He’ll be sure to come,’ I observed, ‘it’s a matter of
+so much consequence for him.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I am always glad to see him. Only my head is not
+always strong enough to talk business. Mitya, <i>il est très
+verbeux</i>—talks my head off, and my thoughts will be in
+a whirl directly; you had better take him all these papers
+and let him first make his comments on the margin.’</p>
+
+<p>Two or three days later Golohvastov came himself;
+being extremely methodical, he was more alarmed by the
+confused state of the will than I was, and being a classical
+scholar he expressed his feelings thus: ‘<i>Mais, mon cher,
+c’est le testament d’Alexandre le Grand</i>.’</p>
+
+<p>My father, as he always did in such circumstances,
+affected to be twice as ill as usual, aimed indirect shafts of
+sarcasm at Golohvastov, then embraced him, touched his
+cheek with his own, and the family Campo Formio&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> was
+concluded.</p>
+
+<p>So far as we could, we persuaded the old man to revise
+his supplementary notes and to turn them into a single
+codicil. He meant to write this himself, and in six months
+had not finished it.</p>
+
+<p>After the division of the property, the question naturally
+arose who were to receive their freedom and who not.
+As for the money gratuities, I had persuaded my father to
+fix a definite sum; after long discussions he had fixed
+three thousand silver roubles. Golohvastov told the
+servants that, not knowing which of them had served in
+the house and how they had served, he left the selection
+to me. I began by putting on the list all who were
+serving in the house. But when news of my list spread
+abroad, a perfect stream of serfs of past generations burst
+upon me from all parts—old men with grey unshaven
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>chins and bald heads, clad in rags, with that tremulous
+shaking of the head and hands which is the fruit of twenty
+or thirty years of drunkenness; wrinkled old women
+wearing caps and huge flounces; and children to whom
+I had stood godfather by proxy though I had no conception
+of their existence. Some of these people I had never
+seen at all, others I remembered faintly as in a dream;
+finally some turned up who had, I knew for a fact, never
+served in our house, but had always lived away with a
+passport, and others who had once lived not in our house
+but in the Senator’s, or had spent all their days in the
+country. If these hobbling old men and old women,
+shrunken and blackened with age, had wanted freedom
+for themselves, they would have been no great loss; but
+on the contrary they were quite ready to end their days
+in the service of Dmitry Pavlovitch, but each of them
+had sons, daughters, grandchildren. I pondered and
+pondered, and in the end put down all their names.
+Golohvastov was perfectly aware that half of these
+strangers had never been in our service, but, seeing my
+list, he gave orders that deeds of freedom should be drawn
+up for all of them; as we signed them, he passed his finger
+through his hair and said to me, smiling: ‘I fancy we
+have set free several serfs belonging to other people.’</p>
+
+<p>Golohvastov too was an original person in his own
+way, like all my father’s family.</p>
+
+<p>My father’s younger sister had been married to Pavel
+Ivanovitch Golohvastov, an old, old-fashioned, and very
+wealthy Russian gentleman of ancient lineage. There
+are glimpses of Golohvastovs here and there in Russian
+history from the days of Ivan the Terrible; their names
+are met with in the days of the False Dmitri and in the
+Time of Trouble. Avraamy Palitsyn&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> brought upon
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>himself first the anger of Dmitry Pavlovitch and
+afterwards a very long critical article through having
+incautiously referred to one of the latter’s ancestors
+in his account of the Siege of the Troitse-Sergievsky
+Monastery.</p>
+
+<p>Pavel Ivanovitch was a morose and niggardly but
+extremely honest and business-like man. I have described
+already how he hindered my father from getting out of
+Moscow in 1812 and how he died afterwards in the
+country from a stroke.</p>
+
+<p>He left two sons and a daughter. They lived with
+their mother in the very same big house on the Tversky
+Boulevard the fire in which had so astonished their old
+father. The rather strict, niggardly, and oppressive tone
+characteristic of the old father survived him.</p>
+
+<p>An elaborate, solemn dullness and affectation of
+courteousness and benevolence always reigned in their
+house, together with a sense of their own dignity which,
+<i>à la longue</i>, was excessively boring. The spacious and
+well-kept rooms were too empty and silent. The
+daughter would sit in silence at her work; the mother,
+who preserved traces of great beauty and was still a
+youngish woman, forty-five or thereabouts, was in failing
+health and usually lay on the sofa; both spoke in a
+drawling, rather sing-song tone, as Moscow ladies generally
+did in those days. Dmitry Pavlovitch at eighteen
+was like a man of forty. The younger brother was
+livelier, but then he scarcely ever put in an appearance....</p>
+
+<p>And all that has passed away ... while I still
+remember Dmitry Pavlovitch’s mother making a solemn
+presentation to him of a horse and droshky for his exclusive
+use. Their former tutor, Marshal, an excellent man,
+who served me as the model for Joseph in <i>Who is to
+Blame?</i> used to give me lessons after Bouchôt left us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span></p>
+
+<p>However one may try to evade or disguise them,
+however cleverly one may settle these agitating questions
+of life and death and destiny, there is still no escaping
+them with their funeral crosses and with that smile on the
+grinning jaws of the dead face that seems so inappropriate!</p>
+
+<p>Though indeed, on second thoughts, one sees that there
+is nothing for it but to smile. Take the fate of those two
+brothers, for instance—thinking about them leads one to
+strange reflections!</p>
+
+<p>The difference between my father and the Senator
+pales before the sharp contrast between the Golohvastovs,
+though they grew up in the same room, had the same
+tutor, the same teachers, the same surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>The elder brother had fair hair with a British shade of
+red in it, light grey eyes which he was fond of screwing
+up and which were suggestive of the steely imperturbability
+of his soul. With advancing years his figure became
+more and more expressive of a feeling of complete respect
+for himself and of a comfortable digestion in a spiritual
+sense. By that time he had begun not merely to screw
+up his eyes, but also his nostrils, which were of a peculiar,
+rather attractive cut. As he talked, he used to pass the
+third finger of his left hand through the hair on his
+temples, which was always curled and carefully arranged,
+while he kept his lips perpetually curved in a benevolent
+smile; the latter trick he inherited from his mother and
+from Lampi’s&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> portrait of Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> His regular
+features together with his graceful and rather tall figure,
+his carefully rounded movements, and his neckerchief,
+the knot of which ‘was never too big nor too small,’ gave
+him the somewhat majestic comeliness of the man who
+gives the bride away at a wedding, of an honourable
+witness, of a man who has to distribute prizes to the best
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span>schoolboys, or at the very least of a man who has come to
+congratulate, to wish one a happy Christmas or New
+Year. But for the daily round, for workaday life, he was
+too elegant.</p>
+
+<p>His whole life was a series of rewards for success and
+morality. He fully deserved them. Marshal, whose
+hair had been turned white by his younger brother, could
+not find words strong enough for Dmitry Pavlovitch’s
+merits and had absolute confidence in the impeccability
+of his French syntax. He did in fact speak French with
+that inapproachable correctness with which Frenchmen
+never speak the language (probably because the sense of
+the immense importance of knowing the French grammar
+is not so highly developed in them). At fourteen he not
+only took part in the management of the estate, but
+translated the whole of Heraskov’s <i>Rossiad</i> into French
+prose by way of an exercise in style. Most likely his old
+father in the other world was more delighted at hearing
+of this than the ‘Swan on the waters of the Meander.’
+But Golohvastov did not merely speak French and
+German correctly and know Latin well, he knew Russian
+and spoke it well and correctly.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Marshal considered him his best pupil, so his
+mother considered him her best son, his uncles thought
+him their best nephew, and Prince Dmitry Vladimirovitch
+Golitsyn, whose department he entered, esteemed
+him the best of his subordinates. And what is still more
+important, all this really was true. Yet, strange to say
+... one felt the absence of something in him. He was
+an intelligent, competent man, he had read and remembered
+a great deal—what more, one may say, could one
+ask?</p>
+
+<p>I have since more than once met these characters, these
+‘level’ minds, these brains so clearly comprehending—in
+a certain sphere and to a certain depth. They are so
+intelligent in their judgments, never deviating from their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>data; they are still more intelligent in their conduct,
+never stepping aside from the beaten track; they are the
+true contemporaries of their age, of their circle. Everything
+they say is true, but they might say something
+different; everything they do is good, but they might do
+something else. They are usually moral, but the evil
+spirit whispers in one’s ear: ‘But are they capable of
+being immoral?’ The Germans would call such people
+‘reasonable’; you find them among the Whigs in
+England, of whom the genius and highest representative
+now is Macaulay and in old days was Sir Walter Scott,
+among the followers of the practical philosophy of the
+‘hermit <i>de la Chausseé d’Antin</i>’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> and of the philosophical
+disquisitions of Weiss.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> Everything in these
+gentlemen is correct, decorous, distinguished, in place;
+they very properly love virtue and avoid vice; everything
+about them has the charm of a grey summer day—free
+from rain and sun; but something is lacking, a trifle, a
+nothing, as with the daughters of Tsar Nikita ... but</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘That was just what was missing,’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and without it all the rest is no use.</p>
+
+<p>Golohvastov’s younger brother was born a cripple;
+this circumstance alone deprived him of the possibility of
+attaining the antique pose and Versailles deportment of
+his elder brother. Moreover he had black hair and big
+black eyes which he never screwed up. This vigorous
+and handsome exterior was all there was; within, rather
+unbalanced passions and confused ideas strayed at random.
+My father, who thought nothing of him, would say when
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>he was particularly displeased with him: ‘<i>Quel jeu
+intéressant de la nature</i> to see on Nikolasha’s shoulders’—and
+the old man shrugged his own—‘the head of the
+Shah of Persia!’</p>
+
+<p>While his elder brother could never find a minute’s
+leisure and was continually doing something, Nikolay
+Pavlovitch did absolutely nothing all his life. In his
+youth he did not study; at twenty-three he was married,
+and in a very amusing fashion. He eloped with himself.
+Having fallen in love with a poor girl of no rank, who was
+like an extremely charming Greuze head or elegant Sèvres
+china doll, he asked permission to marry her, and at that
+I am not surprised. His mother, who was filled with
+aristocratic prejudices and imagined that no one less than
+a Rumyantsov or an Orlov would be a fitting bride for one
+of her sons—and even such a bride would have had to
+bring a whole population of the province of Voronezh or
+Ryazan as a dowry—of course refused her consent. But in
+spite of his brother’s persuasions and his uncles’ and aunts’
+admonitions, the young girl’s bright eyes gained the upper
+hand. Our Werther, seeing that he could not alter
+the decision of his relations, one night let down from
+his bedroom-window a box, some linen, and his valet
+Alexandr, then let himself down, leaving his door locked
+on the inner side. By the time the door was opened at
+the dinner hour next day he was already married. His
+mother was so distressed at the secret marriage that she
+took to her bed and died, laying her life as a sacrifice on
+the altar of etiquette and decorum.</p>
+
+<p>A deaf and grumbling old lady with a little moustache,
+the widow of an officer who had been in command of the
+fortress of Orsk in the time of the plague and of Pugatchov,
+lived in their house. She often used to tell me afterwards
+about the terrific incident of the elopement, and every
+time added: ‘My good sir, ever since he was a little boy
+I have seen that Nikolay Pavlovitch would never come to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>any good and would never be a comfort to Elizaveta
+Alexeyevna. He was twelve years old, you know, when
+he came running to me—I shall never forget it—laughing
+till the tears came into his eyes, and saying, “Nadyeshda
+Ivanovna, Nadyeshda Ivanovna, make haste, look out of
+the window and see what has happened to our cow!” I
+ran to the window and fairly groaned. Why, only fancy,
+sir, the dogs, I suppose it was, had torn her tail off, anyway
+the poor darling was left without a tail.... It was a
+Tyrolese cow.... I couldn’t help saying, “So this is
+how you laugh at your mamma’s cow, and your own
+property! Well, you will come to no good!” And I gave
+up all hope of him from that day.’</p>
+
+<p>The prediction so strangely based upon a cow’s tail not
+being in its proper place was quickly fulfilled. The
+brothers divided the property and the younger one
+proceeded to waste his in riotous living.</p>
+
+<p>Every one knows the series of sketches in which
+Hogarth represents side by side the lives of the industrious
+man and the idler. The industrious man yawns in
+church while the idler is playing knuckle-bones; the
+industrious man reads an edifying book in the family
+circle while the idler is drinking gin, and so on. Except
+for the difference in social position, the parallel was true
+of the two brothers. One of Hogarth’s heroes begins
+by stealing and ends on the gallows, while the other spends
+his whole life in dullness and lectures his friends to death.
+Thieving was a <i>hors-d’œuvre</i>, it was not the thief’s fault
+that his mother did not leave him two thousand souls in
+the Kaluga province and half a million of money, as
+Elizaveta Alexeyevna did her son. He would hardly in
+that case have put himself to so much trouble and effort,
+for thieving is far from a recreation, it is a very unpleasant
+and extremely risky pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>On dividing the property, both brothers set zealously
+to work, one to improve his estate, the other to ruin his;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>I do not know whether Dmitry Pavlovitch added a
+hundred roubles to his fortune by his unflagging efforts,
+but within ten years Nikolay Pavlovitch had debts of more
+than a million.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his mother’s death Dmitry Pavlovitch, after
+establishing his sister, that is, marrying her off, went to
+Paris and London to see Europe; while Nikolay Pavlovitch
+set about showing himself to Moscow: balls,
+dinners, entertainments followed one another; his house
+was packed from morning to night with gourmands fond
+of a good dinner, connoisseurs of good wine, young
+people fond of dancing, interesting Frenchmen, officers
+of the Guards—wine flowed, bands played, and he even
+sometimes fêted local divinities of the first magnitude,
+such as Prince D. V. Golitsyn and Prince Yussupov.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Dmitry Pavlovitch, still unmarried, after
+duly inspecting Europe and learning English, returned,
+furnished with plans of Devonshire farms and Cornwall
+stud-stables and accompanied by an English groom and
+two immense thoroughbred Newfoundland dogs of
+incredible stupidity with long hair and shaggy paws.
+Sowing and winnowing machines, extraordinary ploughs,
+and models of all sorts of agricultural devices were brought
+by sea.</p>
+
+<p>While Dmitry Pavlovitch was studiously introducing
+the four-field system of husbandry, which does not suit
+our soil, and sowing our orthodox meadows with clover,
+while he was giving English training to colts of Russian
+parentage and studying Thiers, Nikolay Pavlovitch—and
+this I consider the worst and silliest part of his conduct—managed
+to get tired of his wife and, as though he
+thought balls and dinner-parties not a sufficiently rapid
+means for reaching ruin, took as a mistress a stage-dancer
+who was certainly not worthy to tie his wife’s stay-lace.
+From that moment everything went like wildfire; an
+inventory was made of the estate, his wife pined and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>grieved over the fate of her children and herself, caught
+a cold and died after a few days’ illness—the family was
+ruined.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing this, Dmitry Pavlovitch took vigorous measures
+to prevent his estate, too, going to his brother’s creditors—he
+made up his mind to get married. He carefully
+selected a sensible and careful wife, his marriage was not
+the fruit of unbridled passion; from dynastic considerations
+he desired direct heirs in order to secure the property
+of his ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>His brother’s marriage bitterly chagrined Nikolay
+Pavlovitch. He had not expected such a surprise from
+him; they were destined, it seemed, to astonish each other
+by their matrimonial alliances. To console himself he
+was wilder than ever in his debauchery. Slow as such
+processes are with us, at last the day came when his estate
+was to be sold by auction. I do not imagine that Dmitry
+Pavlovitch would have been greatly concerned over his
+brother’s fate, but here again dynastic considerations came
+in and led him, with the assistance of his uncles, to attempt
+to save his brother. They began buying up all sorts of
+bills, paying forty kopecks in the rouble, that is practically
+threw a large sum of money into the fire, and only saw
+afterwards that it was quite useless, for the bills were so
+many. One episode in this story has remained in my
+memory. At the division of the family property Nikolay
+Pavlovitch had received his mother’s diamonds, and these
+too he had in the end pawned. To see the diamonds that
+had once decked the majestic form of Elizaveta Alexeyevna
+sold to some merchant’s wife was more than Dmitry
+Pavlovitch could stand; he represented to his brother
+all the iniquity of his conduct; the latter wept and swore
+that he was penitent; Dmitry Pavlovitch gave him an
+I O U and sent him to the pawnbroker’s to redeem the
+diamonds. Nikolay Pavlovitch asked his permission to
+bring the diamonds to him that he might keep them in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>safety as the sole heritage of his daughters. He did
+redeem the diamonds and was taking them to his brother,
+but probably changed his mind on the way; for instead
+of taking them to his brother, he went to another pawnbroker
+and pawned them again. The reader must
+imagine the amazement of the Senator, the annoyance of
+Dmitry Pavlovitch, and my father’s abundant reflections
+on the subject to understand how heartily I laughed over
+this extremely comic incident.</p>
+
+<p>When all his resources were completely exhausted,
+when the estate was sold and the house was for sale, the
+servants scattered in all directions, and the diamonds not
+redeemed a second time, when Nikolay Pavlovitch had
+actually given orders for his garden to be cut down for
+firewood to heat his stove, the same kindly fate that had
+spoiled him all his life came to his help again. He drove
+over to his cousin’s summer villa and there went out for
+a walk, stopped in the middle of a conversation, put his
+hand to his head, fell down and died.</p>
+
+<p>In those latter years the <i>diligent</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> Dmitry Pavlovitch
+had left his plough like Cincinnatus and was administering
+the republic of learning in Moscow. This is how
+it came to pass. The Emperor Nicholas, assuming that
+Major-General Pissarev had cropped the students’ hair
+sufficiently and trained them to button up their uniforms,
+wished to replace the military rule of the university by
+civilian control. On the road between Moscow and
+Petersburg he appointed Prince Sergiey Mihailovitch
+Golitsyn director of the university—on what grounds
+it would be difficult to say, probably he could not have
+explained even to himself why he did it. Possibly he
+appointed him in order to prove that the post of director
+was altogether superfluous. Golitsyn, whom the Tsar
+had taken with him, half-dead already at being driven at
+break-neck speed, was so terrified at his new appointment
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>that he tried to refuse it. But in these cases it was impossible
+to argue with Nicholas; his obstinacy was like
+the morbid persistence of pregnant women when they
+have a craving for something.</p>
+
+<p>When Vrontchenko was made Minister of Finance
+he flung himself at the Tsar’s feet protesting his incapacity
+for the position. Nicholas made him the profound
+answer: ‘That’s all nonsense; I never governed an
+empire before, but here you see I have learned and you
+will learn too.’ And Vrontchenko willy-nilly remained
+Minister to the great delight of all the ‘protected
+females’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> of Myestchansky Street, who illuminated their
+windows, saying, ‘Our Vassily Fyodorovitch has become
+a Minister!’</p>
+
+<p>After galloping another hundred versts Golitsyn, still
+more crushed, determined to enter upon negotiations and
+announced that he would only accept the post if he should
+have a trustworthy colleague who could help him to
+shepherd the university flock. Fifty versts farther on the
+Tsar told him to find a colleague for himself; so they
+reached Petersburg without disaster.</p>
+
+<p>After taking a month’s rest to recover from the journey,
+Golitsyn drove slowly to Moscow and set to work to find
+a colleague. He had an assistant in the university, Count
+A. Panin, the most exalted of mortals next to his own
+brother and the drum-major of the Preobrazhensky
+Regiment; but he was really too exalted for the little old
+gentleman to select him. After looking about him in
+Moscow, Golitsyn’s eye fell upon Dmitry Pavlovitch.
+From his own point of view he could have made no better
+choice. Dmitry Pavlovitch had all the qualities which
+those in power seek in a man of our day without the
+defects for which they persecute him—education, good
+family, wealth, knowledge of scientific agriculture, and
+a complete absence, not merely of ‘unsound ideas’ but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span>any sort of incident in his life. Golohvastov had had
+no single love intrigue, had never fought a duel, had never
+played a game of cards in his life, and had never once
+been drunk, while on the other hand he frequently went
+to mass on Sundays—and not to mass just anywhere, but
+to mass in Prince Golitsyn’s private chapel. To this
+distinction must be added a masterly knowledge of the
+French language, polished manners, and only one passion,
+a perfectly innocent one—a passion for horses. No sooner
+had Golitsyn thought of him than Nicholas raced headlong
+to Moscow again. There Golitsyn caught him before
+he sped on to Tula and presented to him Dmitry Pavlovitch.
+The latter left the Tsar’s presence assistant
+director.</p>
+
+<p>From that day Dmitry Pavlovitch began to grow
+perceptibly fatter, his deportment was still more expressive
+of dignity. He took to speaking through his nose
+more than ever and began to wear a more ample dress-coat,
+with no star as yet but with an unmistakable anticipation
+of one.</p>
+
+<p>Until his university appointment we were as intimate
+as the difference of our years permitted (he was sixteen
+years older than I). At this point I almost quarrelled
+with him, at least for ten years we looked on each other
+with chilly hostility.</p>
+
+<p>There was no private reason for this. His behaviour
+to me was always full of delicacy, equally free from
+unnecessary intimacy and mortifying aloofness. This
+deserves to be noted, since my father in his efforts to bring
+us together did everything that was calculated to make us
+dislike each other.</p>
+
+<p>He was continually impressing upon me that the
+Senator and Dmitry Pavlovitch were my <i>natural protectors</i>,
+that I ought to <i>cling</i> to them, that I ought to appreciate
+the kindness they showed me as relations. To this he
+would add that of course all their attentions were really
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>for his sake and not for mine. As regards the old Senator,
+to whom I was almost as much used as to my father, with
+the difference that I was not afraid of him as of my father,
+these words had no effect upon me, but they did tend to
+make me avoid Golohvastov, and that they did not succeed
+in doing so was thanks to the tact with which Golohvastov
+always behaved.</p>
+
+<p>My father used to say these things to me not in moments
+of vexation but when he was in his very best humour, and
+he said them because in the days of Catherine patronage
+was the regular thing; subordinates dared not resent
+familiarity from a superior, and every one in the world
+openly sought patrons and protectors.</p>
+
+<p>When Dmitry Pavlovitch received his university
+appointment I thought, like Golitsyn, that it would be
+a very good thing for the university; it turned out quite
+the other way. If Golohvastov had become a governor
+or a chief prosecutor it may be presumed that he would
+have been better than many governors or many chief
+prosecutors. The post in the university was not at all
+the right one for him; his frigid formalism, his pedantry
+led him into making petty regulations and treating
+the students like schoolboys; there had not been so much
+interference in the life of the lecture-room and so much
+discontent even under Pissarev. And what made it
+worse was that Golohvastov was on the moral side what
+Panin and Pissarev had been only in regard to hair and
+buttons.</p>
+
+<p>Till then, in spite of all his Toryism of the Russian
+provincial stamp, there had always been something
+cultured and liberal about him—a love for legality, an
+indignant resentment of arbitrary tyranny and official
+plundering. When he received his university post he
+ranged himself <i>ex officio</i> on the side of every oppressive
+measure; he considered this inevitable in his position.
+My time as a student was the period of the greatest
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span>political enthusiasm; could I remain on good terms with
+so zealous a servant of Nicholas?</p>
+
+<p>His pedantry and the everlasting ceremonial solemnity,
+the <i>mise en scène</i> of himself, sometimes brought him into
+the most amusing situations from which, everlastingly
+occupied with keeping up his dignity and invariably self-satisfied,
+he could never extricate himself adroitly.</p>
+
+<p>As president of the Moscow censorship committee he
+was, of course, an oppressive burden upon it and was the
+cause of books and articles being sent for censorship to
+Petersburg. There was an old fellow in Moscow called
+Myasnov, a great amateur of horseflesh, who had compiled
+some sort of genealogy of pedigree horses, and anxious to
+gain time asked leave to send to the censor the proofs
+instead of the manuscript, in which he wanted probably
+to make corrections. Golohvastov made difficulties,
+delivered a long speech in which he very verbosely expounded
+the arguments for and against granting permission,
+and ended by saying that he might, however,
+sanction the proofs being sent for censorship if the author
+would guarantee that there was nothing in his book
+opposed to the government, religion, or morality.</p>
+
+<p>Myasnov, a choleric and irritable old man, got up and
+said with a grave face: ‘Since the responsibility rests
+upon me, I think it is essential to explain that there is of
+course not one word opposed to the government in my
+book, nor opposed to morality, but as regards religion I
+am not so certain.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You don’t say so?’ said Golohvastov, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you see, there is a text in the Book of Moral
+Precepts that says: “They that swear over earthen pots,
+they that plait their hair and that go to the coursing of
+steeds shall be accursed”; and since I say a very great
+deal in my book about the coursing of steeds, I really don’t
+know——’</p>
+
+<p>‘That can be no obstacle,’ observed Golohvastov.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘I humbly thank you for setting my mind at rest,’ said
+the sarcastic old man, bowing himself out.</p>
+
+<p>When I came back from my second exile Golohvastov’s
+position in the university was not the same. The post that
+had been filled by Prince <i>Sergiey</i> Mihailovitch Golitsyn
+was by then held by Count <i>Sergeyey</i> Grigoryevitch
+Strogonov. Strogonov’s ideas, though confused and not
+clear, were still incomparably more cultured. He wanted
+to raise the significance of the university in the eyes of
+the Tsar, he defended its rights, protected the students
+from police raids, and was liberal so far as it was possible
+to be liberal while wearing the epaulettes of an adjutant-general
+on his shoulders and being the humble possessor
+of the Strogonov estates. In such cases one must not
+forget <i>la difficulté vaincue</i>.</p>
+
+<p>‘What a terrible story that is of Gogol’s, <i>The Overcoat</i>,’
+Strogonov said once to Yevgeny Korsh. ‘That ghost on
+the bridge, you know, simply pulls the greatcoat off the
+shoulders of nearly every one of us. Put yourself in my
+place and then look at that story.’</p>
+
+<p>‘That’s v—very d—difficult for me,’ answered
+Yevgeny Korsh. ‘I am not used to looking at things
+from the point of view of a man who has thirty
+thousand souls.’</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, with two such blind spots in the eye as the
+estates and the adjutant-general’s epaulettes it is hard to
+look clearly at the light of day, and Count Strogonov did
+sometimes step over the traces and behave like a regular
+adjutant-general, that is, with stupid coarseness, particularly
+when his liver was out of order; but he could not
+keep up the deportment of a general, and in that again the
+good side of his nature was apparent. To explain what
+I mean I will quote an example.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion a student from among those educated
+at government expense who had finished his studies very
+successfully and had afterwards received a post as a senior
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span>master in a provincial high school, hearing that there was
+a vacancy in one of the Moscow high schools for a junior
+master in his subject, came to beg the Count to transfer
+him. The young man’s object was to continue his
+studies, for which he had not the means in the provincial
+town; but unluckily Strogonov came out of his room as
+yellow as a church candle.</p>
+
+<p>‘What right have you to this post?’ he asked.</p>
+
+<p>‘I ask for the post, Count, because there is a
+vacancy.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, and there is another vacancy,’ the Count interrupted,
+‘that of the Russian ambassador to Constantinople.
+Wouldn’t you like that?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I did not know that it was in your Excellency’s gift,’
+answered the young man. ‘I will accept the post of
+ambassador with genuine gratitude.’</p>
+
+<p>The Count looked more jaundiced than ever but asked
+him civilly into his study.</p>
+
+<p>My personal relations with him were very curious;
+our very first interview was not without the peculiar
+flavour typically Russian.</p>
+
+<p>One evening in Vladimir I was sitting at home; all
+at once the German teacher at the high school, a doctor
+of the Jena University called Delitch, called upon me,
+wearing his uniform. He informed me that the director
+of the university, Count Strogonov, had arrived from
+Petersburg that morning, and had sent him to invite me
+to call upon him at ten o’clock next day.</p>
+
+<p>‘It’s impossible; I don’t know him at all and you
+must have made a mistake.’</p>
+
+<p>‘That is not possible. <i>Der Herr Graf geruhten aufs
+freundlichste sich bei mir zu beurkunden über ihre Lage
+hier.</i> You will go?’</p>
+
+<p>Being a Russian, I went on arguing with Delitch,
+convinced myself still more thoroughly that it was quite
+unnecessary to go, and went next morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span></p>
+
+<p>Alfieri, not being a Russian, acted differently when the
+French marshal who had taken Florence, and to whom
+he was a stranger, invited him. He wrote to him that
+if this was simply a private invitation he was very much
+obliged for it but begged to be excused, as he never
+visited persons with whom he was unacquainted; but
+if it were a command, then knowing the military position
+of the town he <i>se constituera prisonnier</i> at eight o’clock in
+the evening without fail.</p>
+
+<p>Strogonov invited me as a curiosity connected in the
+past with the university, as a reprobate graduate. He
+simply wanted to see me, and, moreover, such is the weakness
+of the heart of man even under the finery of a general,
+to boast to me of his reforms in the university.</p>
+
+<p>He gave me a very good reception. He paid me a lot
+of compliments and quickly reached the point desired:
+‘It is a pity you can’t be in Moscow, you would not
+recognise the university now; from the buildings and
+the lecture-rooms to the professors and the curriculum,
+everything is changed,’ and so on, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>To show that I was listening attentively and that I was
+not a vulgar fool I very modestly observed that I supposed
+the curriculum was so changed because many new
+professors had returned from foreign parts.</p>
+
+<p>‘No doubt,’ answered the Count, ‘but besides that,
+there is the spirit of the administration, the unity, you
+know, the moral unity....’</p>
+
+<p>To give him his due, however, he did more good to
+the university with his ‘moral unity’ than Zemlyanika&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a>
+to his hospital by ‘honesty and discipline.’ The university
+was very much indebted to him, but still one cannot
+but smile at the thought that he boasted of it to a man
+who was under police supervision for political offences.
+It is just as absurd that a man exiled for political offences
+should have gone with no sort of necessity at the summons
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span>of an adjutant-general. Oh, Russia!... It is no
+wonder that foreigners can make nothing of us!</p>
+
+<p>I saw him for the second time in Petersburg, just at
+the moment when I was being exiled to Novgorod.
+Sergeyey Grigoryevitch was staying with his brother, the
+Minister of Home Affairs. I went into the drawing-room
+just as he was going out. He was in white breeches
+and in all his court finery, with a ribbon across his shoulder;
+he was going to the palace. Seeing me, he stopped and
+drawing me aside began questioning me about my case.
+His brother and he were revolted at the iniquity of my
+exile.</p>
+
+<p>This was at the time of my wife’s illness, a few days
+after the birth of a baby who died. I suppose great
+indignation or irritability was apparent in my eyes and
+my words, for he suddenly began persuading me to bear
+my trials with Christian meekness.</p>
+
+<p>‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it falls to the lot of every man
+to bear a cross.’</p>
+
+<p>‘A good many sometimes indeed,’ I thought, looking
+at the crosses of all sorts and sizes that covered his breast,
+and I could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>He divined my thought and flushed crimson.</p>
+
+<p>‘I daresay you think,’ said he, ‘that it is very well for
+me to preach. Believe me that <i>tout est compensé</i>.’</p>
+
+<p>Besides preaching to me he joined Zhukovsky in
+actively exerting himself on my behalf, but the jaws of
+the bulldog that had me in its grip would not readily loose
+their hold.</p>
+
+<p>When I settled in Moscow in 1842 I visited Strogonov
+from time to time. He was well disposed to me but was
+sometimes sulky. I very much liked these ebbs and flows
+in him. When he was in a liberal frame of mind he used
+to talk of books and magazines, extol the university, and
+was continually comparing its present state with the
+pitiful condition in which it had been in my day. When
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span>he was in a conservative mood he reproached me for not
+being in the service and for having no religion, abused my
+articles, saying that I was corrupting the students, abused
+the young professors and declared that they were more and
+more set on forcing him to be false to his oath or to close
+their lecture-rooms.</p>
+
+<p>‘I know what an outcry that would excite; you will
+be the first to call me a vandal.’</p>
+
+<p>I bowed my head in assent and added: ‘You will
+never do that, and so I can thank you most sincerely for
+your good opinion of me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I certainly shall,’ muttered Strogonov, pulling his
+moustaches and turning yellower. ‘You will see.’</p>
+
+<p>We all knew that he would never do anything of the
+sort and so could let him threaten it periodically, especially
+when we remembered his enormous estates, his rank, and
+his liver.</p>
+
+<p>Once he was so carried away in talking to me that,
+abusing everything revolutionary, he told me how on
+the Fourteenth of December Trubetskoy left the square,
+ran distracted to his father’s house and, not knowing what
+to do, went to the windows and began drumming on the
+panes; and so spent some time. ‘A Frenchwoman who
+was governess in their family could not refrain from
+saying to him aloud, “For shame! Is this your place when
+the blood of your friends is flowing in the square? Is
+this how you understand your duty?” He snatched up
+his hat and went—where do you think?—to hide in the
+Austrian embassy.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course he ought to have gone to the police and
+given information,’ I said.</p>
+
+<p>‘What!’ cried Strogonov amazed, and he almost
+drew back in horror.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, do you think like the Frenchwoman,’ I said,
+‘that it was his duty to go to the square and shoot at
+Nicholas?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘You see,’ observed Strogonov, shrugging his shoulders
+and looking instinctively towards the door, ‘what an
+unfortunate turn of mind you have.... I am only
+saying that with these people ... when there are no
+true moral principles based on faith, when they leave the
+straight path ... everything is in a tangle. You will
+see all that as you get older.’</p>
+
+<p>That age I have not yet reached, but this lack of
+readiness in Strogonov at which Tchaadayev used often
+to mock maliciously is to my mind greatly to his
+credit.</p>
+
+<p>They say that during the time when the spirit of our
+Saul of the Neva was completely darkened, after the
+February revolution, Strogonov too was carried away.
+He is said to have insisted in the new censorship committee
+on prohibiting everything written by me. I take
+that as a genuine sign of his goodwill to me; when I heard
+of it I set up a Russian printing press. But our Saul went
+much further. The reaction overtook and outstripped
+the Count, he would not take part in strangling the
+university and resigned his position as director. But
+that is not all. Two or three months after Strogonov’s
+resignation Golohvastov too resigned, horrified by a
+series of senseless measures dictated to him from
+Petersburg.</p>
+
+<p>So ended the public career of Dmitry Pavlovitch, and
+having cast off the burden of state affairs he settled down
+to dignified repose like a true Muscovite, busying himself
+with looking after his land and surrounded by his family,
+his trotting horses, and his well-bound books.</p>
+
+<p>In his private life all had gone well during the period
+of his curatorship, that is, children had come into the
+world in due season and had cut their teeth in due season.
+His estate was provided with lawful heirs. Moreover,
+the last ten years of his life were soothed and delighted by
+another personage. I mean Bytchok the trotter, who for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span>speed, beauty, muscles, and hoofs was the champion not
+only of Moscow but of all Russia. Bytchok furnished
+the poetic side of Dmitry Pavlovitch’s serious existence.
+Several portraits of Bytchok in oils and in water-colours
+hung in his study. Just as Napoleon is represented first
+as a thin consul with long, damp locks; then as a fat
+emperor with a tuft of hair on his forehead and little
+short legs, sitting astride on a chair; then as an emperor
+retired from business, standing, his hands folded behind
+his back, on a rock in the midst of the splashing ocean—so
+Bytchok was represented at the various moments of
+his brilliant career: in the stall in which he spent his
+youth; in the fields, free, with only a little bridle on; and
+finally in light hardly visible harness with a minute box
+on runners and beside him a coachman in a velvet cap and
+a blue, full coat, with a beard combed as regularly as an
+Assyrian bull god—the very coachman who had won upon
+him I do not know how many goblets of Sazin workmanship
+which stood under glass cases in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>One would have thought that, free from the tedious
+cares of his university work, with an immense estate and
+an immense income, Dmitry Pavlovitch might well have
+lived and lived long. Fate decreed otherwise; soon
+after his retirement he, a strong, healthy man, a little over
+fifty, began to ail, got worse and worse, developed consumption
+of the throat, and after a painful illness died in
+1849.</p>
+
+<p>And here I cannot help pausing to reflect over those
+two graves, and the series of strange questions to which I
+have referred already rise up in my mind again.</p>
+
+<p>Death brought the two unlike brothers to the same level.
+Which of them made the best use of his interval between
+the two mute and blank abysses? One wasted both
+himself and his property, but he had his brief time of
+honey of the best lime-flower flavour. Let us admit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span>that he was a useless man, but he did no intentional harm
+to any one. He left his children in poverty; that was bad,
+but still they received an education and were bound to
+get something from their uncle. And how many men
+who have worked hard all their lives breathe their last
+with bitter tears in their eyes, looking at their children for
+whom they could secure neither education nor provision.
+Carlyle, to comfort people who are too much touched at
+the fate of the luckless son of Louis <span class="allsmcap">XV.</span>, tells them: ‘It is
+true that he was trained as a shoemaker, that is, he
+received the poor education which millions of children
+of poor villagers and workmen have received and are
+receiving now.’</p>
+
+<p>The other brother did not live at all, he ‘served’ life
+just as priests serve the mass, that is, with extraordinary
+dignity performed an accustomed ritual, more ceremonial
+than profitable. He no more paused to consider why
+he was performing it than his brother. If from Dmitry
+Pavlovitch’s life two or three things, such as Bytchok,
+races, the goblets, and two or three entrances and exits—for
+instance when he entered the university with
+consciousness that he was in control of it, when he went
+out of the room for the first time wearing his star, when
+he was presented to his Imperial Majesty and when he
+led his Imperial Majesty through the lecture-rooms—all
+that is left is prose: nothing but a stiff and constrained
+official business morning. No doubt the thought of the
+importance of his share in the affairs of state afforded him
+satisfaction: etiquette is a poetry of a sort, an artistic
+gymnastic of a sort like parades and dances; but what a
+poor sort of poetry compared with the sumptuous feasts
+in which his brother spent his life after secretly marrying
+a pretty girl with enchanting eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And to complete it all, Dmitry Pavlovitch’s regular
+life, his exemplary behaviour in the moral, the official,
+and the hygienic sphere, did not even win him health or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>length of years and he died as suddenly as his brother,
+only with far greater suffering.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p>Well, and <i>all right</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> too!</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_32">Chapter 32<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Last Visit to Sokolovo—The Theoretical
+Rupture—A Strained Position—Dahin! Dahin!</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">After the reconciliation with Byelinsky in 1840
+our little group of friends went on without any
+important disagreement: there were shades of opinion,
+personal views, but what was of most importance and
+common to all was based on the same principles. I do not
+think it could have gone on like that for ever. We were
+bound to reach a line, a limit at which some would halt
+while others would pass over it.</p>
+
+<p>Three or four years later I began with profound regret
+to notice that though we started from the same first
+principles we were reaching different conclusions—and
+not because we interpreted them differently but
+because not all of us <i>liked</i> them. At first these disputes
+were half in jest. We used to laugh, for instance, at
+the Little Russian obstinacy with which Ryedkin tried to
+deduce a logical proof of a personal soul. I remember
+one of the last jests of dear, kind-hearted Kryukov about
+it. He was very ill and Ryedkin and I were sitting by
+his bedside. It had been a dull, cloudy day, and all at
+once there was a flash of lightning followed by a loud clap
+of thunder. Ryedkin went to the window and let down
+the blind. ‘Will that do any good?’ I asked him.
+‘Why,’ Kryukov answered for him, ‘Ryedkin believes
+in <i>die Persönlichkeit des absoluten Geistes</i>, and so covers
+the window that He may not see where to aim if He
+should think fit to shoot at us.’</p>
+
+<p>But it may well be imagined that such an essential
+difference in outlook would not long remain a jesting
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>I find in a diary of that period the following sentence
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span>written with evident <i>arrière-pensée</i>: ‘Personal relations
+are very bad for straightforward thinking. Through
+respect for the excellent qualities of individuals we sacrifice
+the sharp clarity of thought for their sakes. It needed
+great strength to weep and yet be able to sign the death-warrant
+of Camille Desmoulins.’</p>
+
+<p>The germs of the angry dissensions of 1846 were
+already latent in this envy of Robespierre’s strength.</p>
+
+<p>The questions upon which we came in collision were
+not casual ones; like fate, there was no escaping them.
+They are the stumbling-blocks on the road of knowledge
+which have been the same in all ages, terrifying men and
+alluring them. And just as liberalism carried out consistently
+inevitably brings a man face to face with the
+social question, so philosophy—if only a man trusts himself
+to it without anchorage—inevitably beats him with
+its waves upon the grey rocks upon which all who have
+had the temerity to think—from the seven wise men of
+Greece up to Kant and Hegel—have been cast. Instead
+of simple explanations almost all have tried to get round
+them and have only covered them with fresh layers of
+symbols and allegories, and that is how it is that even now
+they stand as menacingly, while navigators are afraid to
+make straight for them and to convince themselves that
+they are not rocks at all but only fog seen in a fantastic
+light.</p>
+
+<p>This step is not easy, but I believed both in the strength
+and in the will of our friends; they had not to seek anew
+the way out as Byelinsky and I had. He and I had spent
+weary hours struggling in the squirrel’s wheel of dialectic
+repetition and had leapt out of it in the end at our own
+risk. They had our example before their eyes and
+Feuerbach in their hands. For a long time I could not
+believe it, but at last I reached the conviction that though
+our friends did not share Ryedkin’s method of proof they
+were yet in reality more in agreement with him than with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>me, and that, for all the independence of their minds, there
+were still truths of which they were frightened. I
+differed from all except Byelinsky, even from Granovsky
+and Yevgeny Korsh.</p>
+
+<p>This discovery filled me with deep regret; the limit
+at which they hesitated, once recognised in words, could
+no longer be ignored. Discussions arose from the inner
+need to reach the same standard again; to do so we had,
+so to speak, to call to each other to find out where each
+one stood.</p>
+
+<p>Before we ourselves brought our theoretical split into
+the light of day it had been noticed by the younger
+generation, who stood much nearer to my standpoint.
+Not only in the university and the Lyceum but even in
+the clerical schools young people were eagerly reading
+my articles on ‘Dilettantism in Philosophy’ and my
+letters on the ‘Study of Nature.’ This last fact I learned
+from Count S. Strogonov to whom Filaret complained
+of it, threatening to take precautionary measures against
+such pernicious spiritual fare.</p>
+
+<p>About the same time I learned of their success among
+seminarists from a different source. This incident gives
+me so much pleasure that I cannot pass it over.</p>
+
+<p>The son of a priest of our acquaintance living in the
+Moscow province, a young man of seventeen, came
+several times to me for the <i>Notes of the Fatherland</i>. He
+was shy, scarcely spoke, blushed, was confused, and in
+haste to get away. His open and intelligent face was
+eloquent in his favour, and at last I overcame his youthful
+diffidence and began talking to him about the <i>Notes of the
+Fatherland</i>. It was the philosophical articles that he
+read with great attention and assiduity. He told me
+how eagerly the seminary students in the higher course
+read my historical exposition of the philosophical systems
+and how it astonished them after the philosophic manuals
+of Burmeister and Wolf.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span></p>
+
+<p>The young man took to coming to see me sometimes,
+and I had ample opportunity for gauging his ability and
+capacity for work.</p>
+
+<p>‘What do you intend doing when you have finished
+your studies?’ I asked on one occasion.</p>
+
+<p>‘Enter the priesthood,’ he answered, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you thought seriously of the life that awaits you
+if you go into the priesthood?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have no choice, my father definitely objects to my
+taking up any secular calling. I shall have leisure enough
+for my studies.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You must not be angry with me,’ I replied, ‘but I
+cannot help telling you my opinion openly. Your
+conversation, your way of thinking, which you have not
+concealed from me, and the liking you have for my work—all
+that, and besides the sincere interest I take in your
+future together with my age, gives me the right to speak.
+Think again a hundred times before you put on the
+cassock. It will be far more difficult to take it off afterwards,
+and perhaps it will be hard for you to breathe in it.
+I will ask you one very simple question: Tell me, is there
+in your soul faith in any one dogma of the theology you
+are being taught?’</p>
+
+<p>The young man, dropping his eyes, said after a pause:
+‘I am not going to lie to you—no!’</p>
+
+<p>‘I knew that. Only think now of your future position.
+You will have every day for the whole of your life to lie
+aloud in the face of the people, to be false to truth; why,
+that is the sin against the Holy Spirit, conscious, premeditated
+sin. Will you be able to face such duplicity?
+Your whole social position will be a falsehood. How will
+you look into the eyes of one who is praying in earnest;
+how will you comfort the dying with heaven and eternal
+life; how will you absolve men’s sins. And you will be
+forced to convert heretics too, and to condemn them for
+their heresy.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘That is awful! awful!’ said the young man, and he
+went away perturbed and agitated.</p>
+
+<p>He came back the next evening.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have come to tell you,’ said he, ‘that I have thought
+a great deal about what you said. You are perfectly
+right, the priestly calling is out of the question for me and
+I assure you that I would sooner go for a soldier than
+allow myself to be made a priest.’</p>
+
+<p>I pressed his hand warmly and promised that when the
+time came I would do my utmost to persuade his father
+to agree to his wishes.</p>
+
+<p>So I in my time have saved a soul alive or have at least
+assisted in its salvation.</p>
+
+<p>I was able to get a nearer view of the bent of the
+students for philosophy. Through the whole academic
+year of 1845 I attended the lectures on comparative
+anatomy. In the lecture-room and the dissecting theatre
+I became acquainted with a new generation of young
+people. Their prevailing tendency was absolutely
+realistic, <i>i.e.</i>, that of positive science. It is remarkable
+that this was the tendency of almost all the students who
+came from the Tsarskoe-Syelo Lyceum. The Lyceum,
+turned by the suspicious and petrifying despotism of
+Nicholas out of its beautiful park, was still the same great
+nursery of talent; Pushkin’s bequest, the poet’s blessing,
+survives the coarse blows of ignorant force.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a>&#x2060;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span></p>
+
+<p>With joy I welcomed a new, vigorous generation in
+these Moscow students from the Lyceum.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it was these young university students, devoted
+with all the impatience and fire of youth, with all the flush
+of health, to the world of realism that was opening before
+them, who discerned, as I have said, the point of difference
+between us and Granovsky. Passionately as they loved
+him, they were beginning to revolt against his ‘romanticism.’
+They urgently desired that I should bring him
+over to our side, regarding Byelinsky and me as the representatives
+of their philosophical opinions.</p>
+
+<p>This was the position in 1846. Granovsky was
+beginning a new course of public lectures. Again all
+Moscow gathered round his platform, again his plastic,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span>dreamy eloquence set all hearts quivering; but the
+completeness, the enthusiasm there had been in his first
+course was lacking, as though he were tired or as though
+some idea with which he could not cope were absorbing
+and hindering him. That was just how it was, as we
+shall see later.</p>
+
+<p>At one of these lectures in March one of our common
+acquaintances ran in headlong to tell us that Ogaryov
+and S—— had arrived from foreign parts.</p>
+
+<p>We had not met for several years and very rarely
+corresponded.... What would they be like?...
+How would they stand?... With beating hearts
+Granovsky and I dashed off to Yar’s where they were staying.
+And here they were at last—and how changed, and
+what a beard—and we had not seen each other for some
+years; we fell to looking at trifles and talking of trifles
+though we felt that we wanted to talk of something else.</p>
+
+<p>At last our little circle was almost all assembled—now
+we would have a life!</p>
+
+<p>We had spent the summer of 1845 at a villa in Sokolovo.
+It is a beautiful corner of the Moscow district, some
+fifteen miles from the town on the Tver road. There
+we took a little country house standing almost in the park
+which sloped away downhill to a little river. On the
+one side stretched our Great Russian ocean of cornfields;
+on the other there was a wide view into the distance, for
+which reason the owner of the house had not failed to
+call the arbour placed there ‘Belle Vue.’</p>
+
+<p>Sokolovo belonged at one time to the Rumyantsovs.
+The wealthy landowners and aristocrats of the
+eighteenth century with all their faults were possessed
+of a breadth of taste which they have not transmitted to
+their heirs. The old-fashioned villages and homesteads
+on the banks of the river Moskva are exceptionally
+fine, especially those in which the last two generations
+have made no reforms and no changes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span></p>
+
+<p>We had spent our time happily there. No serious cloud
+darkened the summer sky; we lived in our park, working
+hard and going for long walks. Ketscher grumbled less,
+though he did sometimes lift his eyebrows very high and
+utter weighty sayings with vivid mimicry. Granovsky
+and E—— used to come for the night almost every
+Saturday and sometimes used to stay till Monday.
+Shtchepkin had taken another villa a little way off.
+He often walked over, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and
+a white coat like Napoleon at Longwood, with a basket
+of gathered mushrooms; he made jokes, sang Little
+Russian songs, and was almost the death of us with his
+stories, which I do believe would have made Ioann the
+Sorrowful, who spent his life weeping over the sins of this
+world, shed tears of laughter....</p>
+
+<p>Sitting in a friendly group in a corner of the park
+under a big lime tree, we used to regret nothing but
+Ogaryov’s absence. Well, here he was, and in 1846 we
+went again to Sokolovo and he with us; Granovsky took
+a little lodge for the whole summer, and Ogaryov was
+installed in the entresol over the steward, a naval officer
+who had lost one ear.</p>
+
+<p>And for all that, two or three weeks later an undefined
+feeling was whispering to me that our <i>villeggiatura</i>
+would not be a success and that there was no help for
+it. Who has not had the experience of preparing some
+festivity, rejoicing at the coming gaiety of his friends, and
+when they arrive everything goes well, there is nothing
+amiss, yet the expected gaiety does not come off. Life
+only passes well and briskly when one does not feel the
+blood circulating in one’s veins and does not think how
+the lungs rise and fall. If every shock is felt, you may be
+sure there will be pain, a disharmony which one cannot
+always overcome.</p>
+
+<p>The first days after our friends’ arrival were spent in
+the enthusiasm and cordiality of festivities; before they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span>were over my father was taken ill. His death and all
+the worries and business that followed distracted us from
+theoretical questions. In the peace of our life at Sokolovo
+our divergencies were bound to come to the surface.</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov, who had not seen me for four years, was
+absolutely of the same tendency as I was. We had
+moved over the same ground by different paths and found
+ourselves together. Natalie, too, was with us. Our
+serious and at first sight overwhelming deductions did not
+alarm her; she gave a special poetical turn to them.</p>
+
+<p>Arguments became more frequent and came back in a
+thousand variations. One day we were dining in the
+garden. Granovsky was reading in the <i>Notes of the
+Fatherland</i> one of my letters on the study of nature (it
+was the one on the Encyclopaedists, I remember) and
+was delighted with it.</p>
+
+<p>‘But what is it you like?’ I asked him. ‘Can it be
+only the method of exposition? You cannot possibly
+agree with the underlying implications of it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Your opinions,’ answered Granovsky, ‘are just as
+much an historical moment in the study of thought as
+the writings of the Encyclopaedists themselves. I like in
+your articles just what I like in Voltaire or Diderot; they
+stir vividly and sharply questions which rouse a man and
+urge him forward, and as for the one-sidedness of your
+views I don’t want to go into that. Does any one talk of
+Voltaire’s theories nowadays?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Do you mean to say that there is no standard of truth
+and that we rouse men only to talk nonsense to them?’</p>
+
+<p>The conversation continued for some time on these
+lines. At last I observed that the development of science,
+its contemporary condition, <i>obliges us</i> to accept certain
+truths apart from whether we like them or not; that,
+once recognised, they cease to be historical problems and
+become simply irrefutable facts of knowledge like the
+theories of Euclid, like the laws of Kepler, like the connection
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span>of cause and effect and the indivisibility of spirit
+and matter.</p>
+
+<p>‘All that is so far from being obligatory,’ answered
+Granovsky with a slight change in his face, ‘that I never
+shall accept your dry, cold idea of the unity of soul and
+body; with it the immortality of the soul disappears.
+You may not need it, but I have buried too much to give
+up that belief. Personal immortality is essential for me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Life would be a splendid affair,’ I said, ‘if anything
+any one wants were always true at once as in fairy tales.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Only think, Granovsky,’ added Ogaryov, ‘why, it’s
+a sort of running away from unhappiness.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Listen,’ answered Granovsky, turning pale and
+assuming the air of a disinterested outsider, ‘you will
+greatly oblige me if you will never speak to me again on
+these subjects; there are plenty of interesting things of
+which we can talk with far more profit and pleasure.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Certainly, I shall be delighted,’ I said, feeling a cold
+chill on my face. Ogaryov said nothing, we all glanced
+at one another and that glance was quite enough; we
+all loved one another too much not to gauge to the full
+what had happened. Not a word more was said. The
+discussion was not resumed. Natalie tried to cover up
+the incident and set things right. We came to her help.
+Children, who always come to the rescue in such cases,
+served as a subject of conversation, and the dinner ended
+so peacefully that no outsider coming in would have
+noticed anything wrong....</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Ogaryov jumped on his horse Kortik
+while I mounted the gendarme’s discarded nag and we
+rode out into the open country. We were as sad as
+though some one near and dear were dead; for till then
+Ogaryov and I had expected that we should come to an
+agreement, that our friendship would blow away our
+differences like dust, but the tone and meaning of Granovsky’s
+last words had revealed a distance between us such
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span>as we had never imagined. So here was the boundary
+line, the limit, and with it the censorship. Neither he
+nor I spoke all the way. As we came home, we shook
+our heads sadly and both said with one voice: ‘And so
+it seems we are alone again.’</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov took a chaise and three horses and drove to
+Moscow; on the way he composed a little poem from
+which I extract the following lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘... For neither grief nor tedium can exhaust me,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The truth I’ve spoken fearlessly in gatherings of my friends,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And friends have fled from me in childish terror.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">He too has gone, whom like a brother</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Or like a sister, haply, I fondly loved and cherished....</div>
+      <div class="center">...</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Once more we will set out alone upon our cheerless journey,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Speaking of truth, unwearied and undaunted,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And let the dreams and people pass us by.’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I met Granovsky the next day as though nothing had
+happened, a bad sign on both sides. The pain was still
+so keen that it could find no words; and dumb pain that
+has no outlet like a mouse in the stillness gnaws away
+thread after thread....</p>
+
+<p>Two days later I was in Moscow. Ogaryov and I
+went to see Korsh. He was as solicitously gracious
+and mournfully sweet with us as though he were sorry
+for us, but, hang it all, had we committed some crime?
+I asked Korsh straight out, had he heard of our discussion.
+He had; he said that we had all been too hot
+over abstract subjects; pointed out that the perfect
+identity between people and between opinions of which
+we dreamed did not exist, that people’s sympathies, like
+chemical affinity, have their limit of saturation which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span>could not be exceeded without stumbling upon aspects
+on which men were strangers again. He jested at our
+being so young when over thirty, and he said all this with
+friendliness and delicacy, one could see that he did not
+find it easy.</p>
+
+<p>We parted peacefully. Blushing a little I thought of
+my ‘naïveté,’ and afterwards when I was left alone I felt
+as I lay in bed that another bit of my heart had been torn
+away—skilfully, painlessly, but it was gone!</p>
+
+<p>Nothing further happened ... only everything
+seemed clouded over with something dark and colourless;
+the freedom from constraint, the complete <i>abandon</i> had
+vanished from our circle. We became more careful, we
+edged round certain questions, that is, we really did
+retire at ‘the limit of chemical affinity’—and all this
+gave us the more pain and bitterness because we had
+great and genuine love for one another.</p>
+
+<p>I may have been too intolerant, may have argued
+conceitedly and answered sarcastically ... perhaps so
+... but in reality I am convinced even now that for
+really intimate relations it is essential to have the same
+religion, to be at one in the theoretical convictions that
+really matter. Of course theoretical agreement alone is
+not enough for intimacy between men; I was nearer in
+sympathy, for instance, to Ivan Kireyevsky than to many
+of my own set. What is more, one may be a good
+and faithful ally agreeing in some definite cause and
+differing in opinions. I was on such terms with men for
+whom I had the greatest respect, though I differed from
+them on many subjects—for instance, with Mazzini and
+with Worcell. I did not try to convince them nor they
+me, we had enough in common to go the same way
+together without quarrelling. But between us brothers
+of one family, who had been so near and had lived one
+life together, it was impossible to differ so deeply.</p>
+
+<p>If only we had had some inevitable work which would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span>have absorbed us completely; but as it was, all our
+activity lay precisely in the sphere of thought and the
+propaganda of our convictions ... how was compromise
+possible in that realm?...</p>
+
+<p>The little rift in one of the walls of our temple of
+friendship grew wider, as is always the case, through
+trifles, misunderstandings, unnecessary openness where
+it would have been better to be silent and harmful silence
+where it was essential to speak; these things are decided
+only by the tact of the heart, there are no rules to guide
+one.</p>
+
+<p>Soon afterwards everything was at sixes and sevens
+among the ladies too....</p>
+
+<p>There was no help for it at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>To go away, far away, for years, only to go! But it
+was not easy to go. The fetters of police supervision
+were on my legs, and without permission from Nicholas
+a foreign passport could not be got.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_33">Chapter 33<br>
+<span class="smcap">A Police-Officer in the Part of a Valet—The Police-master
+Kokoshkin—‘Disorder in Order’—Dubbelt
+Once More—The Passport</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">A few months before my father’s death Count
+Orlov was appointed to succeed Benckendorf.
+I wrote at the time to Olga Alexandrovna to ask whether
+she could procure me a passport for abroad or permission
+on some pretext or other to visit Petersburg in order to
+get one for myself. My old friend answered that the
+latter was easier to manage, and a few days later I received
+from Orlov the ‘Most High’ permission to visit Petersburg
+for a short time to arrange my affairs. My father’s
+illness, his death, arranging my affairs in reality, and some
+months spent in the country delayed me till winter. At
+the end of November I set off for Petersburg, having first
+sent a petition for a passport to the governor-general.
+I knew that he could not grant it because I was still under
+<i>strict</i> police supervision, all I wanted was that he should
+send on the petition to Petersburg.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of my departure I sent in the morning to
+get a permit from the police, but instead of a permit a
+policeman came to say that there were certain difficulties
+and that the local police-superintendent himself would
+come to me. He did come, and asking me to see him
+alone he mysteriously informed me that five years ago I
+had been forbidden to visit Petersburg and without the
+‘Most High’ orders he could not sign the permit.</p>
+
+<p>‘That won’t stand in our way,’ I said, laughing, and
+took the letter out of my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The police-superintendent, greatly astonished, read it,
+asked permission to show it to the police-master, and two
+hours later sent me my permit and the letter.</p>
+
+<p>I must mention that my police-superintendent carried
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span>on half the conversation in extraordinarily polished
+French. How mischievous it is for a police-superintendent,
+or indeed any Russian policeman, to know
+French, he had learnt by very bitter experience.</p>
+
+<p>Some years previously a French traveller, the legitimist
+Chevalier Preaux, arrived in Moscow from the Caucasus.
+He had been in Persia and in Georgia, had seen a great
+deal, and was so incautious as to criticise severely the
+military operations in the Caucasus, and still more
+severely the administration of government there. Afraid
+that Preaux would say the same thing in Petersburg, the
+governor-general of the Caucasus prudently wrote to
+the Minister of War that Preaux was a very dangerous
+military agent of the French government. Preaux was
+living quite happily in Moscow and was very well
+received by Prince D. V. Golitsyn, when suddenly the
+latter received orders to send the Frenchman from
+Moscow to the frontier accompanied by a police-officer.
+To do anything so stupid and so rude is always more
+difficult to an acquaintance, and so Golitsyn after two days
+of hesitation invited Preaux to his house, and beginning
+with an eloquent introduction told him at last that reports
+of some sort about him, probably from the Caucasus, had
+reached the Tsar, who had ordered that he should leave
+Russia, that they would, however, give him an escort....</p>
+
+<p>Preaux, incensed, observed to Golitsyn that, seeing
+that the government had the right to eject him, he was
+prepared to go, but that he would not accept an escort,
+since he did not consider himself a criminal who needed
+to be guarded.</p>
+
+<p>Next day when the police-master came to Preaux the
+latter met him with a pistol in his hand and told him
+point-blank that he would not permit a police-officer to
+enter his room or his carriage, and that he would send the
+bullet through his head if he attempted to enter by
+force.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span></p>
+
+<p>Golitsyn was a very decent man, which made it the
+more difficult for him; he sent for Veiller, the French
+consul, to ask his advice. The latter found a way out
+of the difficulty; he asked for a police-officer who spoke
+French well and promised to present him to Preaux as a
+traveller who begged Preaux for a place in his carriage
+on condition of paying half the travelling expenses.</p>
+
+<p>From the consul’s first words Preaux guessed what it
+meant.</p>
+
+<p>‘I don’t sell seats in my carriage,’ he said to the consul.</p>
+
+<p>‘The man will be in despair.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Very well,’ said Preaux, ‘I will take him for nothing,
+but he must undertake a few little services in return;
+he’s not an ill-humoured fellow I suppose, if he is I will
+leave him on the road.’</p>
+
+<p>‘The most obliging man in the world; he will be
+entirely at your disposition. I thank you on his behalf.’
+And the consul galloped off to Prince Golitsyn to
+announce his success.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening Preaux and the <i>bona fide</i> traveller set
+off. Preaux did not speak all the way; at the first
+station he went indoors and lay down on the sofa. ‘Hey,’
+he shouted to his companion, ‘come here and take off my
+boots.’ ‘Upon my word, what next?’ ‘I tell you,
+take off my boots, or I will turn you out on the road; I am
+not going to keep you.’ The police-officer took off the
+boots. ‘Brush them and polish them!’ ‘That’s really
+too much!’ ‘Very well, you can stay here.’ The
+officer polished the boots.</p>
+
+<p>At the next station there was the same story with his
+clothes, and so Preaux went on tormenting him till they
+reached the frontier. To console this martyr of the
+secret service, the Sovereign’s special attention was drawn
+to him and in the end he was made a police-superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>The third day after my arrival in Petersburg the house
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span>porter came to ask me from the local police: ‘With what
+papers had I come to Petersburg?’ The only paper I
+had, the decree concerning my retirement from the
+service, I had sent to the governor-general with my
+petition for a passport. I gave the house-porter my
+permit, but he came back with the remark that it was
+valid for leaving Moscow but not for entering Petersburg.
+Then a police-officer arrived with a summons to the police-master’s
+office. I went to Kokoshkin’s office, which was
+lighted by lamps though it was daytime, and within an
+hour he arrived. Kokoshkin more than other persons
+of the same order was a servant of the Tsar, a man in
+favour, ready to do any dirty job, with no distinct aims,
+no conscience, no reflection. He served and made his
+pile as naturally as birds sing.</p>
+
+<p>Pokrovsky told Nicholas that Kokoshkin was a terrible
+bribe-taker. ‘Yes,’ answered Nicholas, ‘but I sleep
+soundly at night knowing that he is police-master in
+Petersburg.’</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him while he was talking to other people....
+What a battered old decrepitly dissolute face he
+had; he was wearing a curled wig which was glaringly
+incongruous with his sunken features and wrinkles.</p>
+
+<p>After conversing with some German women in German
+and with a familiarity showing that they were old acquaintances,
+which was evident, too, from the way the
+women laughed and whispered, Kokoshkin came up to
+me, and looking down asked in a rather gruff voice:
+‘Why, are not you forbidden to enter Petersburg by the
+“Most High”?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, but I have a permit.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Where is it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have it here.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Show it. How’s this? You are using the same
+permit twice.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Twice?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘I remember that you came before.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I didn’t.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And what is your business here?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have business with Count Orlov.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you been to the Count, then?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No, but I have been to the secret police.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you seen Dubbelt?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, I saw Orlov himself yesterday and he told me
+that he had sent you no permit.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You have it in your hand.’</p>
+
+<p>‘God knows when that was written, and the time has
+passed.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It would be strange on my part to come without
+permission and begin with a visit to General Dubbelt.’</p>
+
+<p>‘If you don’t want to get into trouble you will kindly
+go back, and no later than within the next twenty-four
+hours.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I was not proposing to remain here long ... but
+I must wait for Count Orlov’s answer.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I cannot give you leave to do so, besides Count Orlov
+is much displeased at your coming without permission.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Kindly give me my permit and I will go at once to the
+Count.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It must remain with me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But it is a letter to me, addressed to me personally,
+the only document on the strength of which I am here.’</p>
+
+<p>‘The document will remain with me as a proof that
+you have been in Petersburg. I seriously advise you to go
+to-morrow that nothing worse may befall you.’</p>
+
+<p>He nodded and went out. Much good it is talking
+to them!</p>
+
+<p>The old General Tutchkov had a lawsuit with the
+Treasury. His village elder undertook some government
+contract, he did something dishonest and made away
+with the money entrusted to him. The court ordered
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span>that the money should be paid by the landowner who
+had given the village elder the authorisation. But no
+authorisation in regard to the undertaking ever had been
+given and Tutchkov stated this in his answer. The case
+was brought before the Senate, and the Senate again
+decided:</p>
+
+<p>‘Inasmuch as retired Lieutenant-General Tutchkov
+gave an authorisation ...’ and so on. To which
+Tutchkov again answered: ‘Inasmuch as retired
+Lieutenant-General Tutchkov gave no authorisation
+...’ and so on. A year passed, again the police
+appeared with a stern repetition: ‘Inasmuch as retired
+Lieutenant-General, etc.,’ and again the old man wrote
+the same answer. I don’t know how this interesting case
+ended. I left Russia without waiting for the conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>All that is not at all exceptional but quite the normal
+thing. Kokoshkin holds in his hands a document of the
+genuineness of which he has no doubt, on which there is
+a number and date so that it can be easily verified, in
+which it is written that I am permitted to visit Petersburg,
+and says: ‘Since you have come without permission you
+must go back,’ and puts the document in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Tchaadayev was right indeed when he said of these
+gentry: ‘What rogues they all are!’</p>
+
+<p>I went to the Third Section and told Dubbelt what had
+happened. He roared with laughter. ‘What a muddle
+they always make of everything! Kokoshkin told the
+Count you had come without permission and the Count
+said you were to be sent away, but I explained the position
+to him afterwards; you can stay as long as you like. I’ll
+have the police written to at once. But now about your
+petition; the Count does not think it would be of any
+use to ask permission for you to go abroad. The Tsar
+has refused you twice, the last time it was Count Strogonov
+who interceded for you; if he refuses a third time, you
+won’t get to the waters during this reign, for certain.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘What am I to do?’ I asked in horror, for the idea of
+travel and freedom had taken deep root in my heart.</p>
+
+<p>‘Go to Moscow: the Count will write a private letter
+to the governor-general telling him that you want to go
+abroad for the sake of your wife’s health, assuring him
+that he knows nothing but what is good of you, and asking
+him whether he thinks it would be possible to relieve you
+from police supervision. He can make no answer but
+“yes” to such a question. We will report to the Tsar the
+removal of police supervision, and then you take a passport
+for yourself like anybody else, and you can go to any
+watering-place you like, and good luck to you.’</p>
+
+<p>All this seemed to me extremely complicated, and
+indeed I fancied it was a device simply to get rid of me.
+They could not refuse me point-blank, it would have
+brought down upon them the wrath of Olga Alexandrovna,
+whom I visited every day. When once I
+had left Petersburg I could not come back again; corresponding
+with these gentry is a difficult business. I
+communicated some part of what I was feeling to Dubbelt;
+he began frowning, that is, grinning more than ever with
+his lips and screwing up his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>‘General,’ I said in conclusion, ‘I do not know, but
+the fact is I do not feel certain that Strogonov’s representation
+reached the Tsar.’</p>
+
+<p>Dubbelt rang the bell and ordered the papers relating
+to my case to be brought, and while waiting for them said
+to me good-naturedly: ‘The Count and I are suggesting
+to you the course of proceeding by which we think you
+most likely to get your passport; if you have better means
+at your disposal, make use of them, you may be sure that
+we will not hinder you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Leonty Vassilyevitch is perfectly right,’ observed a
+sepulchral voice. I turned round; beside me, looking
+older and more grey-headed than ever, stood Sahtynsky,
+who had received me five years before in the same Third
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span>Section. ‘I advise you to be guided by his opinion if
+you want to go.’ I thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>‘And here’s the case,’ said Dubbelt, taking a thick
+manuscript from the hands of a clerk (what would I not
+have given to read the whole of it! In 1850 I saw my
+‘dossier’ in Carlier’s office in Paris; it would have been
+interesting to compare them). Turning the pages, he
+handed it to me open; there was Benckendorf’s entry
+after Strogonov’s letter petitioning for permission for me
+to go for six months to a watering-place in Germany.
+On the margin was written in big letters in pencil: ‘Too
+soon.’ The pencil marks were glazed over with varnish,
+and below was written in ink: ‘“Too soon,” written by
+the hand of his Imperial Majesty.—Count A. Benckendorf.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Do you believe now?’ asked Dubbelt.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, I do,’ I answered, ‘and I believe in your advice
+so fully that I will go to-morrow to Moscow.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you can stay and amuse yourself here a little,
+the police will not worry you now, and before you go
+away, look in and I will tell them to show you the letter
+to Shtcherbatov. Good-bye. <i>Bon voyage</i>, if we don’t
+meet again.’</p>
+
+<p>‘A pleasant journey,’ added Sahtynsky.</p>
+
+<p>We parted, as you see, on friendly terms.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching home I found a summons from the
+superintendent of the Second Admiralty Police-Station
+I believe it was. He asked me when I was going.</p>
+
+<p>‘To-morrow evening.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Upon my word, but I believe, I thought ... the
+general said to-day. His Excellency will put it off, of
+course. But will you allow me to make certain of it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh yes, oh yes; by the way, give me a permit.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I will write it in the police-station and send it to you
+in two hours’ time. By what diligence are you thinking
+of going?’</p>
+
+<p>‘The Serapinsky, if I can get a seat.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Very good, and if you do not succeed in getting a seat
+kindly let us know.’</p>
+
+<p>‘With pleasure.’</p>
+
+<p>In the evening the policeman turned up again; the
+superintendent sent to tell me that he could not give me
+the permit, and that I must go at eight o’clock next
+morning to the chief police-master’s.</p>
+
+<p>What a plague and what a bore! I did not go at
+eight o’clock, but in the course of the morning I looked
+in at the office of the chief police-master. The police-station
+superintendent was there; he said to me: ‘You
+cannot go away, there is an order from the Third Section.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What has happened?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I don’t know. The general gave orders you were
+not to be given a permit.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Does the office-manager know?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course he knows,’ and he pointed out to me a
+colonel in a uniform and wearing a sword sitting at a big
+table in another room; I asked him what was the matter.</p>
+
+<p>‘To be sure,’ he said, ‘there was an order concerning
+you, and here it is.’ He read it through and handed it
+to me. Dubbelt wrote that I had a perfect right to come
+to Petersburg and could remain as long as I liked.</p>
+
+<p>‘And is that why you won’t let me go? Excuse me,
+I can’t help laughing; yesterday the chief police-master
+was sending me away against my will, to-day he is keeping
+me against my will, and all this on the ground that the
+document gives me leave to remain as long as I like.’</p>
+
+<p>The absurdity was so evident that even the colonel-manager
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>‘But why should I pay for a place in the diligence
+twice over? Please tell them to write me a permit.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I cannot, but I will go and inform the general.’</p>
+
+<p>Kokoshkin told them to write me a permit, and as he
+walked through the office said to me reproachfully:
+‘It’s beyond anything. First you want to stay, then
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span>you want to go; why, you have been told that you can
+stay.’</p>
+
+<p>I made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>When we had driven out of the city gates in the
+evening and I saw once more the endless plain stretching
+in all directions, I looked at the sky and vowed with all
+my heart never to return to that city of the despotism of
+blue, green, and variegated police, of official muddle, of
+flunkeyish insolence, of gendarme romance, in which the
+only civil man was Dubbelt, and he a chief of the secret
+police.</p>
+
+<p>Shtcherbatov answered Orlov somewhat reluctantly.
+He had at that time a secretary who was not a colonel but
+a pietist, who hated me for my articles as an ‘atheist and
+Hegelian.’ I went myself to talk to him. The pious
+secretary, in an oily voice and with Christian unction,
+told me that the governor-general knew nothing about
+me, that he did not doubt my lofty moral qualities, but
+that he would have to make inquiries of the head police-master.
+He wanted to drag the business out; moreover,
+this gentleman did not take bribes. In the Russian
+service disinterested men are the most terrible of all; the
+only ones who do not take bribes in all simplicity are
+Germans; if a Russian does not take money he will take
+it out in something else and be a villain and a terror into
+the bargain. Fortunately the head police-master Luzhin
+gave me a good character.</p>
+
+<p>Ten days later on returning home I stumbled upon a
+gendarme at my door. The appearance of a police-officer
+in Russia is as bad as a tile falling upon one’s head, and
+therefore it was not without a particularly unpleasant
+feeling that I waited to hear what he had to say to me;
+he handed me an envelope. Count Orlov informed me
+that his Imperial Majesty commanded that I should be
+relieved from police supervision. With that I received
+the right to a foreign passport.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Rejoice with me, for I am free at last!</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Free to set forth to foreign lands at will!</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But is it not a dream, deceiving me?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Not so! To-morrow come the post-horses,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And then “vom Ort zu Ort” I’ll gallop on,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Paying for passports what the price may be....</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Well, I’ll set forth! And then—what shall I find?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I know not! I have faith! And yet—and yet—</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">God knows alone what still may be my fate....</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With fear and doubt I stand before the gate</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of Europe. And my heart is full</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of hope, of troubled shadowy dreams....</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I am in doubt, my friend, you see,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I shake my head despondingly....’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Ogaryov</span>: Humorous Verse.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Six or seven sledges accompanied us as far as Tchorny
+Gryaz. There for the last time we clinked glasses and
+parted, sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>It was evening, the covered sledge crunched through
+the snow ... you looked mournfully after us but did
+not guess that it meant a funeral and eternal separation.
+All were there, only one was missing, the nearest of the
+near: he was ill, and by his absence, as it were, washed his
+hands of my departure.</p>
+
+<p>It was the 21st of January 1847....</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant gave me back our passports: a small, old
+soldier in a clumsy casque covered with American leather,
+carrying a gun of disproportionate size and weight, lifted
+the barrier; an Ural Cossack with narrow little eyes and
+broad cheek-bones, holding the reins of his little, shaggy,
+dishevelled nag, which was covered all over with little
+icicles, came up to wish me a happy journey; the pale,
+thin, dirty little Jewish driver with rags twisted four
+times round his neck clambered on the box.</p>
+
+<p>‘Good-bye! Good-bye!’ said our old acquaintance,
+Karl Ivanovitch, who was seeing us as far as Taurogen,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span>while Tata’s wet nurse, a handsome peasant woman,
+dissolved in tears as she said farewell.</p>
+
+<p>The little Jew whipped up his horses, the sledges
+moved off. I looked back, the barrier had been lowered,
+the wind swept the snow from Russia: on to the road and
+blew the tail and mane of the Cossack’s horse to one side.</p>
+
+<p>The nurse in a sarafan and a sleeveless jacket was
+still looking after us and weeping; Sonnenberg, that
+symbol of the parental home, that comic figure from the
+days of childhood, waved his silk handkerchief—all
+around was the endless plain of snow.</p>
+
+<p>‘Good-bye, Tatyana! Good-bye, Karl Ivanovitch!’</p>
+
+<p>Here was a milestone and on it, covered with snow, a
+thin and single-headed eagle with outspread wings ...
+and it is so much to the good that it is one head less.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="Appendix">Appendix<br>
+<span class="smaller">(To Chapter 29)</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<h4>I<br>
+<span class="smcap">N. H. Ketscher (1842-1847)</span></h4>
+
+<p class="dropcap">I must speak of Ketscher again, and this time in far
+more detail. On my return from exile I found
+him as before in Moscow—though, indeed, he had
+become so rooted in Moscow and so much a part of the
+life there that I cannot imagine Moscow without him, or
+him in any other city. He did try moving to Petersburg,
+he could not stand six months of it, threw up his position
+and reappeared on the banks of the Neglinny in Bazhanov’s
+café to preach free-thought to officers as they played
+billiards, to teach actors dramatic art, to translate Shakespeare,
+and to love and worry his old friends. It is true
+that he had now a new circle, <i>i.e.</i>, the circle of Byelinsky
+and Bakunin; but though he lectured them day and
+night, he was still heart and soul with us.</p>
+
+<p>He was then going on for forty, but he remained
+absolutely an old student. How did that happen? It is
+just that that we must investigate.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher is a perfect example of the class of strange
+personalities that were developed in the stagnant swamp
+of the Russia of the Petersburg period, especially after
+1812, who were the consequence of it, the victims of
+it, and indirectly the stepping-stones from it to other
+things. These people broke away from the wearisome
+and ignoble common track and never found one of their
+own, spent their lives in seeking it and got no farther
+than the search. The characteristics of these victims are
+very varied; they are not all like Onyegin or Petchorin
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span>they are not all idle and superfluous people; there are
+people who work hard and yet accomplish nothing, people
+who are failures: I have been tempted a thousand times to
+describe a whole series of original figures, to draw striking
+portraits taken from life, but I have stopped short, overwhelmed
+by my material. There is nothing of the herd,
+of the rank and file about them; they are of all shapes
+and figures, but one common feature or rather one <i>common
+misfortune</i> connects them all. Looking into the dark
+grey background, they see soldiers under the stick, serfs
+under the lash, faces that betray a stifled moan, carts on
+their way to Siberia, prisoners trudging in the same
+direction, shaven heads, branded faces, helmets, epaulettes,
+plumes ... in short, the Russia of Petersburg. It is
+that that torments them; they have neither the strength
+to accept it nor to tear themselves away nor to alter things.
+They try to escape from that background and cannot—they
+have no ground under their feet; they try to cry
+out against it—they have no voice, nor are there ears to
+hear them.</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder that with this loss of balance there are
+among them more original and eccentric than practically
+useful and perseveringly industrious people, that there
+is as much that is inharmonious and senseless in their
+lives as there is good and humane.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher’s father was a scientific instrument-maker.
+He was famed for his surgical instruments and extreme
+honesty. He died early, leaving his widow a large family
+to bring up and business affairs in confusion. Consequently
+there could be in Ketscher’s case no question of real
+contact, that is, of direct contact with the simple people
+such as is, even in a wealthy household, absorbed with
+one’s foster-mother’s milk, with one’s earliest games.
+The foreign manufacturers and traders, craftsmen and
+their employers, make up a narrow circle, cut off by
+habits, interests, and everything else both from the lower
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span>and the upper classes of Russia. Often in those circles
+the family life is pure and moral in comparison with the
+savage tyranny and hidden vice of our merchants, with
+the sad and dreary drunkenness of our workmen, and
+with the narrow, filthy life of our government clerks
+which rests entirely on thieving. It is, nevertheless,
+entirely alien to the world surrounding it, it is foreign,
+and from the very first gives a different <i>pli</i> and different
+fundamental principles.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher’s mother was a Russian, and I imagine that
+it was owing to that fact that Ketscher did not grow up
+a foreigner. I do not think she took any part in the
+children’s education, but what was of the greatest consequence
+was that they were baptized into the Orthodox
+Church, which meant that they had no religion whatever.
+Had they been Lutherans or Catholics they would have
+been drawn in the German direction. They would
+have gone to one or other <i>Kirche</i>, and would insensibly
+have passed into its <i>Gemeinde</i>, with its alienating and
+isolating influence, with its rival coteries and its parochial
+interests. No one sent Ketscher to the Russian Church,
+of course; besides, even if he had been in the habit of
+going to it sometimes as a child, it has not the spider-like
+character of its sister churches, especially with
+foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that the period of which I am
+speaking knew nothing of hysterical orthodoxy. The
+Church, like the State, did not fly to any weapon for its
+defence and was not jealous of its rights, perhaps because
+no one was attacking them. Every one knew what these
+two beasts were like and no one put a finger in the jaws
+of either. They, for their part, did not snatch at the
+strangers within their gates, being doubtful of their
+orthodoxy or of their loyalty. When the Chair of
+Theology was founded in the Moscow University, old
+Professor Heym, famous for his lexicons, said with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span>horror in the university hall: ‘<i>Es ist ein Ende mit der
+grossen Hochschule Ruthenias</i>.’ Even Magnitsky’s and
+Runitch’s savage epidemic of bigotry, senseless, flagrant
+as it was, and (as always with us) carried out by spies and
+policemen, passed over like a malignant storm-cloud,
+broke over the people who happened to be on the
+road, and vanished in the shape of diverse Fotys and
+countesses.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> In the high schools and boarding-schools the
+catechism was taught as a form and for the examinations,
+which always began with ‘Scripture.’</p>
+
+<p>In due time Ketscher entered the Academy of Medicine
+and Surgery. That was also a purely foreign institution
+and also not particularly orthodox. One of the lecturers
+there was Just Christian Loder, the friend of Goethe and
+the teacher of Humboldt, one of the pleiades of free and
+vigorous thinkers who have raised Germany to a height
+of which she never dreamed. For these men science
+was still a religion and propaganda a warfare; freedom
+from the fetters of theology was new for them; they still
+remembered the struggle for it, they had faith in their
+conquest of it and were proud of it. Loder would never
+have consented to teach anatomy according to the catechism
+of Filaret. Beside him stood Fischer of Waldheim
+and the surgeon Hildebrandt, of whom I have spoken in
+another place. There was never one word of Russian
+nor one Russian face in the Academy, but there were
+various other German laboratory assistants, demonstrators,
+and chemists: everything Russian was thrust into the
+background. There is only one exception that we
+remember, <i>i.e.</i>, Detkovsky. Ketscher cherished his
+memory, and he probably had a good influence on the
+students. The medical students, however, made up of
+two species, Germans and seminarists, did not even in
+later days take part in the common life of the universities,
+but confined themselves to their own affairs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span></p>
+
+<p>Those affairs seemed of little account to Ketscher,
+which is the best proof of his not being a genuine German
+and not putting his profession before everything.</p>
+
+<p>His own family circle could have no special attraction
+for him, and from early years he had preferred to live
+apart. The rest of his surroundings could only repel
+and jar upon him. He set to reading and re-reading
+Schiller.</p>
+
+<p>In later years Ketscher translated the whole of Shakespeare,
+but Schiller left indelible traces upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Schiller was exactly the right author for our students.
+Posa and Max, Karl Moor and Ferdinand were students,
+robber-students: it is all the protest of the first dawn, of
+the first revolt. More swayed by his heart than his
+intellect, Ketscher understood and absorbed the poetical
+theorising of Schiller, the revolutionary philosophy in
+his dialogue, and there he stopped. He was satisfied:
+criticism and scepticism were utterly alien to him.</p>
+
+<p>A few years after his first reading of Schiller he came
+upon another gospel and his moral life was determined
+for ever. Everything else interested him little and
+passed without leaving a trace. The revolution of the
+’nineties, that vast, colossal tragedy in the style of Schiller,
+with its bloodshed and its side issues, with its gloomy
+virtues and its bright ideals, with the same character of
+dawn and protest, absorbed him entirely. In this, too,
+Ketscher did not attempt to analyse. He accepted the
+French Revolution as though it were a biblical legend,
+he believed in it, he loved its leading figures, he had his
+personal preferences and dislikes among them; nothing
+drew him behind the scenes.</p>
+
+<p>Such he was when I met him at Passek’s in 1831, and
+such he was when I parted from him in 1847 on the
+high road at Tchorny Gryaz.</p>
+
+<p>This—not romantic, but so to speak ethico-political—dreamer
+could hardly have found the surroundings he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span>was seeking in the Academy of Medicine and Surgery of
+those days. A worm was gnawing at his heart and
+medical science could not stifle it. Withdrawing from
+the persons surrounding him, he took to living more and
+more in one of the characters with which his imagination
+was filled. Continually coming into contact with very
+different interests and petty people, he began to shun
+society, got into the way of scowling, telling bitter truths
+that were uncalled for, and truths that every one knew,
+and tried to live like La Fontaine’s ‘Sonderling,’ or
+‘Robinson Crusoe’ in Sokolniky. In the little garden
+of their house there was an arbour, and here ‘the apothecary
+Ketscher took refuge to translate the apothecary
+Schiller’ as N. A. Polevoy used to jest in those days.
+The door of the arbour had no lock and there was hardly
+room to turn round in it, but that was just right for him.
+In the morning he used to dig in the garden, plant and
+transplant flowers and shrubs, treat the poor of his district
+gratis, correct the proofs of ‘The Robbers’ and of
+‘Fiesco,’ and instead of evening prayers would recite
+speeches of Marat and of Robespierre. In fact, if he
+had worked less with books and more with his spade, he
+would have been just what Rousseau wished every man
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher made our acquaintance through Vadim in
+1831. In our circle, which consisted in those days of
+Sazonov, the elder Passeks, and two or three other
+students, besides Ogaryov and me, he saw the first
+promise of the accomplishment of his cherished dreams,
+the first signs of new growth on the fields that had been
+mown so thoroughly in 1826, and so he attached himself
+to us. Being older than we, he soon acquired ‘the rights
+of censorship’ and would not let us take a step without
+comments and sometimes reproofs. He believed that he
+was a practical man and more experienced than we;
+moreover, we liked him, liked him very much in fact.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span>If any one fell ill, Ketscher was like a sister of mercy, and
+never left the invalid till he recovered. When Kolreif,
+Antonovitch and the others were arrested, Ketscher was
+the first to get into the barracks to see them, did his best
+to entertain them, lectured them, and went so far that
+Lissovsky, the general of the gendarmes, sent for him
+and impressed upon him that he must be more careful and
+must remember his position (he was an army doctor).
+When Nadyezhdin, who was theoretically in love, wanted
+to be secretly married to a young lady whose parents
+forbade her to think of him, Ketscher undertook to assist
+him and arrange a romantic elopement, and, wrapped in
+his celebrated black cloak lined with red, sat on a seat in
+the Rozhdestvensky Boulevard with Nadyezhdin waiting
+for a secret signal. For a long time they waited in vain;
+Nadyezhdin grew weary and disheartened. Ketscher
+stoically consoled him; despair and his consolations had
+a singular effect on Nadyezhdin, he fell asleep. Ketscher
+scowled and strode gloomily up and down the boulevard.
+‘She isn’t coming,’ said Nadyezhdin, half asleep, ‘let us
+go home to bed.’ Ketscher scowled more than ever,
+shook his head gloomily, and led the sleepy Nadyezhdin
+home. When they had gone, the girl came out into the
+porch of her house and the signal agreed upon was
+repeated not once but a dozen times, and she waited an
+hour or two; all was quiet and she more quietly still
+returned to her room, probably shedding tears but
+completely cured of her love for Nadyezhdin. It was a
+long time before Ketscher could forgive Nadyezhdin his
+sleepiness; he would shake his head, while his lower lip
+quivered, and say: ‘He did not love her.’</p>
+
+<p>The sympathy Ketscher showed at the time of our
+imprisonment and at the time of my marriage has been
+described already. For the five years from 1834 to 1840,
+in which he was almost the only one of our circle left in
+Moscow, he represented it with pride and glory, preserving
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span>our tradition, and not changing it in a single
+detail. So we found him, some of us in 1840 and some
+of us in 1842. In us exile, contact with a different
+world, reading, and work had made many changes.
+Ketscher, our irremovable representative, remained the
+same as ever. Only instead of Schiller he was translating
+Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first things which Ketscher, who was
+extremely delighted at having his old friends gathered
+together again in Moscow, did was to renew his censorship
+<i>morum</i>—and this was the occasion of the first signs of
+friction, which for a long time he failed to notice. His
+scolding sometimes angered us, which had never happened
+in old days, and sometimes bored us. In the past we
+had lived at such high pressure and so much in common
+that no one had paid attention to little stumbling-blocks
+in the pathway. Time, as I have said, had made many
+changes; character had developed in different directions—and
+the part of a kind but fault-finding uncle was often
+worse than absurd. Every one tried to turn it into a jest,
+to cloak his superfluous candour and critical love under
+his friendliness and good intentions, and they made a
+great mistake. Yes, what was amiss was that it was
+necessary to cloak, to explain away, to practise restraint.
+If he had been checked from the very first, those unhappy
+misunderstandings with which our Moscow life ended
+at the beginning of 1847 would never have arisen.</p>
+
+<p>Our new friends, however, were not quite so indulgent
+as we were, and even Byelinsky, as intolerant of injustice
+as Ketscher himself, would sometimes lose all patience
+and, though he was very fond of him, would give him
+severe lessons, refusing to argue with him for months
+together. Cold or indifferent Ketscher never was. He
+was invariably either violently aggressive or ardently
+affectionate, passing rapidly from being the warmest of
+friends into being the sternest of judges; this, of course,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span>made coldness and silence harder for him to bear than
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after a quarrel or a series of violent
+attacks Ketscher’s attention was distracted, his anger
+passed without leaving a trace, probably he was inwardly
+dissatisfied with himself, but he never admitted it; on
+the contrary, he tried to turn everything into a joke and
+again overstepped the limit beyond which a joke ceases
+to be amusing. It was the everlasting repetition of the
+famous ‘gander’ in the reconciliation of Ivan Ivanovitch
+with Ivan Nikiforovitch.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> Every one must have
+seen children who once they have yielded to temptation
+are nervously unable to stop short of any naughtiness, the
+conviction that they will be punished seems to intensify
+the temptation. Feeling that he had again succeeded
+in irritating some one into cold and biting replies, he
+returned to an utterly gloomy frame of mind, raised his
+eyebrows, strode about the room, became a tragic figure
+from some play of Schiller’s, a juryman from the court of
+Fouquier-Tinville,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> in a ferocious voice brought out a
+series of accusations against all of us, accusations for which
+there was not the slightest foundation, convinced himself
+in the end of their truth, and, overwhelmed with grief
+that his friends were such scoundrels, went morosely
+home, leaving us dumbfoundered and furious, until wrath
+gave way to mercy and we laughed like lunatics.</p>
+
+<p>Early next morning, Ketscher, mild and mournful,
+was pacing up and down his room, savagely smoking his
+pipe, waiting for one of us to come to scold him and be
+reconciled. He would make it up, always, of course,
+preserving his dignity as of an old, though exacting, uncle.
+If no one appeared, Ketscher, concealing a mortal dread
+in his heart, would go mournfully to a café in Neglinny
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span>Street, or to the bright, peaceful haven in which he
+was always met by a good-natured laugh and a friendly
+greeting, <i>i.e.</i>, to M. S. Shtchepkin’s, and there stay till the
+storm he had raised abated. He complained of us, of
+course, to Schtchepkin. The kind-hearted old man gave
+him a good scolding, told him that he talked nonsense,
+that we were not such miscreants as he made out, and
+offered to take him at once to see us. We knew that
+Ketscher was miserable after his outbursts, and understood,
+or rather forgave, the feeling which prevented him from
+saying simply and directly that he was wrong and so
+effacing at the first word all traces of discord. The
+ladies, who almost always took his part, were foremost
+in making approaches to him. They liked his open
+simplicity, which went as far as rudeness (he never spared
+them), and regarded it as eccentricity. Their support
+convinced Ketscher that that was the way to behave, that
+it was charming and was, moreover, his duty.</p>
+
+<p>Our quarrels and disputes at Pokrovskoe were sometimes
+full of absurdity, and at the same time whole days
+were overshadowed by them.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why is the coffee not nice?’ I asked Matvey.</p>
+
+<p>‘It has not been properly made,’ answered Ketscher,
+and suggested that his method should be tried. The
+coffee so made was just the same.</p>
+
+<p>‘Bring the spirit-lamp and coffee here. I will make it
+myself,’ said Ketscher, and set to work. The coffee was
+no better, as I observed to Ketscher. He tried it and,
+fixing his eyes upon me from under his spectacles, asked
+in a voice already a little bit excited: ‘So in your opinion
+this coffee is no better?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, it is really amazing that even in such a trifle you
+refuse to change your opinion.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It is not I, but the coffee.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Really it is beyond anything, this miserable vanity.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Upon my word, I didn’t make the coffee and I didn’t
+make the coffee-pot....’</p>
+
+<p>‘I know you, anything to prove your point; what
+pettiness over the beastly coffee—it’s hellish vanity!’
+He could say no more; heartbroken at my despotism and
+vanity in matters of taste, he thrust his cap down on his
+head, snatched up a bark basket and went off into the
+woods. He came back towards evening, having walked
+fifteen miles; a successful search for edible fungi had dispelled
+his gloomy mood. I, of course, made no reference
+to coffee, but paid various civilities to the fungi.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he tried to raise the coffee question
+again, but I declined to take up the challenge.</p>
+
+<p>One of the chief subjects of our disputes was the
+education of my son. Education shares the fate of
+medicine and philosophy: on those subjects every one
+in the world has positive and sharply defined opinions,
+except the few who have devoted a long and serious study
+to them. Ask about the building of a bridge or draining
+of a swamp, and a man will tell you frankly that he is
+not an engineer or an agricultural expert. Begin talking
+about dropsy or consumption, he will suggest a remedy,
+one that he remembers, has heard spoken of, or that has
+benefited his uncle. But in questions of education he goes
+farther still. ‘That is my principle’ he tells you, ‘and
+I never depart from it; I don’t like trifling in matters of
+education, it is a subject I feel too keenly about.’</p>
+
+<p>What ideas Ketscher was bound to have about education
+may be gathered to the minutest detail in the sketch
+we have given of his character. In this he was consistent,
+which is more than can be said of people who discourse
+on education as a rule. Ketscher’s ideas were those of
+Rousseau’s ‘Émile,’ and he firmly believed that the
+negation of everything which is done with children now
+would of itself be excellent education. He wanted to
+wrest the child from artificial life and consciously restore
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span>him to a savage condition, to that primitive independence
+in which equality is carried so far as to wipe out the
+distinction between man and the monkey.</p>
+
+<p>We were ourselves not so very far removed from this
+view, but in him, like everything that he had once assimilated,
+it was a fanatical creed which admitted neither of
+doubt nor argument. A very real and genuine need is
+felt for something very different from the old-fashioned
+theological, scholastic, aristocratic education in which
+dogmatism, formalism, strained pedantic classicism, and
+external discipline are considered of more importance
+than moral development. Unluckily, in education as
+in everything else, the violent and revolutionary method,
+while breaking down the old, has given us nothing to
+replace it. The wild assumption of the ‘normal man,’
+which the followers of Jean Jacques adopted, cut the child
+off from his historical surroundings, made him a foreigner
+in them, as though education were not the development
+of the life of the race in the individual.</p>
+
+<p>The arguments about education were rarely confined
+to the theoretical field, the application was too near at
+hand. My son, at that time seven or eight years old, was
+a delicate child, very liable to attacks of fever and
+dysentery. This weakness lasted until our visit to Naples,
+or rather till we met at Sorrento a doctor of whom we
+knew nothing, who altered the whole system of diet and
+treatment. Ketscher wanted to harden him all at once
+like tempered steel. I would not allow it, and he was
+furious: ‘You are a conservative,’ he shouted angrily,
+‘you are ruining the unfortunate child, you are turning
+him into an effeminate little gentleman and at the same
+time a slave.’</p>
+
+<p>The child was naughty and shouted when his mother
+was ill. I checked him: apart from the plain necessity of
+doing so, it seemed to me perfectly right to make him
+restrain himself for the sake of somebody else, for the sake
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span>of his mother who loved him beyond measure; but
+Ketscher said to me gloomily:</p>
+
+<p>‘What right have you to check his shouting? He ought
+to shout, it is no life at all. The accursed authority of
+parents!’</p>
+
+<p>These discussions, however lightly I took them, made
+our relations difficult and threatened a serious estrangement
+between Ketscher and his friends. If this had
+come about, he would have been more severely punished
+than any one, both because he was very much devoted
+to us all and because he did not know how to live alone.
+His character was eminently expansive and not at all self-centred.
+Some one was necessary to him. His very
+work was a continual conversation with some one else,
+that some one else was Shakespeare. After working the
+whole morning he felt dull. In the summer he could
+walk in the country or work in his garden; but in winter
+there was nothing left for him but to put on his famous
+cloak or his rough, camel-coloured overcoat and go from
+near Sokolniky to us, to Arbat, or to Nikitsky Street.</p>
+
+<p>His captious intolerance was due to the fact that he
+never had the intellectual exercise of verifying, analysing,
+and making problems clear: for him there were no
+problems; all was settled and he went straight forward
+without looking back. Perhaps if he had been engaged
+in practical work this might have been a good thing, but
+he had none. Active participation in active affairs was
+impossible, only the three uppermost grades in the
+service take part in them in Russia. And he transferred
+his thirst for activity to the private life of his friends.
+We were spared by theoretical work from the emptiness
+which gnawed at his heart. Ketscher settled all questions
+summarily, straight off, in one way or another—which
+did not matter; having once settled them, he
+went on without hesitating at anything, remaining
+obstinately faithful to his conviction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span></p>
+
+<p>For all that there was no serious estrangement between
+us till 1846. Natalie was very fond of Ketscher, he was
+inseparably connected with the memory of the 9th of
+May 1838. She knew that a tender affection lay hid
+under his hedgehog-like prickles and was unwilling to see
+that the prickles were growing and sending their roots
+farther and farther down.</p>
+
+<p>A quarrel with Ketscher seemed to her something
+sinister; she fancied that if time could file away, and with
+such a tiny file, one of the links that had held so firmly
+throughout our youth, it would next attack another, and
+the whole chain would be broken. In the midst of
+sullen words and harsh answers I used to see her turn
+pale and entreat me with her eyes to stop, she would
+shake off her momentary vexation and hold out her hand.
+Sometimes this touched Ketscher, but he made tremendous
+efforts to show that he did not really care, that he was
+ready to make it up, but that he would perhaps go on
+quarrelling.</p>
+
+<p>The dreadful fluctuating relation of bullying affection
+and yielding affection might have been prolonged at this
+stage for years. But new circumstances which complicated
+Ketscher’s life brought things to a head.</p>
+
+<p>He had a love affair, as queer as everything else in his
+life, which made him settle down quickly in rather
+clammy domesticity. Ketscher’s life, which was based
+on the utmost simplicity, on the elementary requirements
+of a student’s Bohemian existence among his comrades,
+was suddenly transformed. A woman appeared in his
+home, or to be more correct a home appeared because in
+it there was a woman. Till then no one had conceived
+of Ketscher as a domestic character, for in his <i>chez soi</i> he
+liked to be irregular in everything, to walk about as he
+lunched, to smoke between the soup and the beef, to sleep
+in any bed but his own, so that Konstantin Aksakov
+observed jestingly ‘that Ketscher was distinguished
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span>from the human species by the fact that men dine while
+Ketscher feeds.’ All at once he had a dwelling, a
+domestic hearth, a roof of his own!</p>
+
+<p>This was how it happened.</p>
+
+<p>A few years before, Ketscher, as he walked every day
+between Sokolniky and Basmanny Street, used to meet a
+poor, almost destitute little girl. She used to return that
+way, tired out and depressed, from some workshop. She
+was plain, shy, scared, and pathetic. No one noticed her
+existence, no one pitied her. Without parents or
+relations she had been taken for the sake of Christian
+charity into some dissenting community, there grew
+up, and left it to go to hard work with no defence or
+support, alone in the world. Ketscher got into conversation
+with her and taught her not to be afraid of him,
+questioning her about her sorrowful childhood and
+wretched existence. He was the first person in whom
+she found sympathy and warmth, and she attached herself
+to him body and soul. His life was lonely and cheerless;
+behind all the noise of suppers with his friends, of first
+nights at the Moscow theatres, and of the Bozhanovsky
+coffee-house, there was an emptiness in his heart which
+he would, of course, not have admitted to himself, but
+which made itself felt. The poor, colourless flower fell
+of itself on his bosom—and he accepted it, not thinking
+much about the consequence and probably not attaching
+special importance to the incident.</p>
+
+<p>In the best and most progressive men there still exists
+something akin to the property qualification for the
+franchise in their attitude to women, and there are
+classes below it which are regarded as naturally destined
+to be victims. We have all treated them as of no account,
+so there is hardly any one who can dare to throw a stone.</p>
+
+<p>The orphan was passionately devoted to Ketscher.
+Being brought up in a dissenting community had left its
+traces on her: she had gained from it a capacity for blind
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span>faith, for idol-worship, a capacity for persistent, concentrated
+fanaticism and boundless devotion. Everything
+that she had loved and worshipped, everything she
+had feared, everything she had obeyed, Christ and the
+Mother of God, the holy saints and the wonder-working
+ikon—all that she found now in Ketscher, the man who
+was the first to pity her, the first to be kind to her. And all
+this was half-hidden, half-buried, dared not express itself.</p>
+
+<p>She had a child; she was very ill, the baby died....
+The bond which should have strengthened the tie
+between them broke it. Ketscher grew colder to S——,
+went to see her less often, and then abandoned her altogether.
+That this child of nature would not ‘cease to
+love him easily’ might have been confidently predicted.
+What had she left in all the wide world but her love?
+There was nothing else but to throw herself in the river
+Moskva. The poor girl used to go out when her day’s
+work was done, scantily clothed in her poor garments,
+regardless of rain or cold, along the road leading to Basmanny
+Street, and would wait for hours together to meet
+him, to watch him pass, and then to weep, to weep the
+whole night through; as a rule she hid herself, but sometimes
+she bowed and spoke. If he answered kindly,
+S—— was happy and ran home in good spirits. Of her
+‘misfortune,’ of her love she dared not speak, she was
+ashamed. Two years or more passed like this. In
+silence, without repining, she endured her fate. In 1845
+Ketscher moved to Petersburg. This was too much for
+her. Not to see him even in the street, not to observe
+him from a distance and watch him pass, to know that he
+was hundreds of miles away among strangers and not to
+know whether he was well or whether any trouble had
+befallen him—this she could not bear. Entirely without
+means and without assistance, S—— began saving
+up her kopecks, devoted all her efforts to this one object,
+worked for months, then vanished and made her way
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span>somehow or other to Petersburg. There, tired, thin,
+and hungry, she went to Ketscher, imploring him not to
+spurn her but to take her, telling him that she wanted
+nothing, that she would find a corner for herself, would
+find work and live on bread and water, if only she could
+stay in the city where he was and might sometimes see
+him. Only then Ketscher fully understood what a heart
+beat in her bosom. He was shattered, overwhelmed.
+Pity, remorse, the consciousness of being so loved changed
+his attitude: now she should remain there with him, this
+should be her home, he would be her husband, her friend,
+her protector. Her dreams had come true; forgotten
+were the cold autumn nights, forgotten the terrible
+journey and the tears of jealousy and bitter sobs: she was
+with him and would certainly never be parted from him
+living. Before Ketscher came back to Moscow no
+one knew all this story except Mihail Semyonovitch
+Shtchepkin, now it was neither possible nor necessary to
+conceal it; we two and all our circle received with open
+arms this child of nature who had performed so heroic a
+feat. And this girl, full of love for him as she was, did
+Ketscher an infinite amount of harm with her absolute
+devotion and submission. On her lay all the blessing
+and all the curse that lies upon the proletariat, especially
+upon ours.</p>
+
+<p>We in our turn did her almost as much harm as she
+did Ketscher.</p>
+
+<p>And in both cases it was done in complete ignorance
+and with the purest intentions. She completely ruined
+Ketscher’s life as a child may ruin a fine engraving with
+his paint-brush, supposing that he is adorning it. Between
+Ketscher and S——, between S—— and our circle, lay
+a vast, terrible chasm, steep and precipitous, and with no
+bridge, no pass to cross it. We and she belonged to
+different ages of mankind, to different geological formations,
+to different volumes in the history of the world.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span>We were the children of New Russia fresh from the
+university and the academy, we were fascinated by the
+political splendour of the West and religiously cherished
+our infidelity, openly denying the Church, while she had
+been brought up in a dissenting community, in a Russia
+of the days before Peter, in all the bigotry of sectarianism,
+with all the superstitions of a hidden religion, with all the
+legendary marvels of old-world Russian life.</p>
+
+<p>Having by an extraordinary effort of will fastened the
+severed ties again, she kept tight hold of the knot.
+Ketscher could not escape now. But indeed he did not
+wish to. Blaming himself for the past, he strove sincerely
+to efface it; S——’s stupendous effort had won him.
+Yielding before it, he knew that he too was making a
+sacrifice, but, being an extremely pure and generous
+nature, he was glad to make it as an atonement. But he
+knew only the material side of the sacrifice: the practical
+restriction of his freedom. The incongruity of an old
+student with Schilleresque dreams living with a woman
+for whom not merely the world of Schiller but even the
+world of reading and writing, of all secular education, did
+not exist, never entered his head.</p>
+
+<p>People may say what they like, but the saying <i>inter
+pares amicitia</i> is perfectly true and every <i>mésalliance</i> is
+foredoomed to unhappiness. A great deal that is stupid,
+supercilious, and bourgeois is implied in the saying, but
+in essence it is true. In the worst of all forms of inequality,
+the inequality of culture, there is one salvation: the
+education of one person by the other; but for that two
+rare gifts are needed: one must know how to educate
+and the other must know how to be educated; one must
+be able to lead, the other to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Far more often the companionship of an undeveloped
+personality, confined to the pettiness of personal life with
+no other interests to engross the heart, weighs the other
+down, induces foolishness and fatigue; imperceptibly he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span>grows petty and narrow, and though he feels ill at ease, yet,
+entangled in nets and meshes, he reconciles himself to it.
+Sometimes it happens that neither of them yields, and then
+the marriage turns into a permanent war, an everlasting
+duel in which they grow set and remain for ever in fruitless
+efforts on the one side to lift up, on the other to drag
+down: that is, both trying to defend their several positions.
+When their strength is equal, this conflict swallows up
+their whole life and the strongest natures are exhausted
+and sink helpless by the way. The more cultured nature
+is the first to succumb, the aesthetic feelings are deeply
+wounded by the difference of level. The best moments,
+which should be bright and musical, are poisoned by it:
+expansive natures passionately desire that all who are near
+and dear to them should be near to their thoughts, to their
+religion; this is taken for intolerance. For them the
+proselytism of the home is the continuation of their
+apostolic work, their propaganda; their happiness is
+limited where they are not understood ... and most
+often there is no wish to understand them.</p>
+
+<p>To educate a mature woman is a very difficult task;
+it is especially difficult in those marriages which are the
+consequence and not the commencement of intimate
+relations. Ties that have been lightly, frivolously begun
+rarely rise above the level of the bedroom and the kitchen.
+The common roof comes too late for education under it
+to be possible; only now and then some misfortune will
+rouse a soul that sleeps but is capable of awakening. For
+the most part <i>la petite femme</i> never becomes a full-sized
+one, never becomes wife and sister together; she either
+remains mistress and courtesan, or becomes cook and
+mistress.</p>
+
+<p>Living under the same roof is in itself a terrible thing
+over which half the marriages come to ruin. Living
+cramped up together, people come too close to each other,
+see each other too minutely, too much in deshabille, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span>gradually petal by petal tear away all the flowers of the
+wreath that crowned each with grace and poetry. But
+similarity of culture goes a long way to smooth things
+over. If it is absent and there is idle leisure, one
+cannot be for ever babbling nonsense, talking of housekeeping
+or paying compliments; and what is to be done
+with a woman when she is something between an odalisque
+and a servant, a creature bodily near and intellectually
+remote. She is not wanted by day and she is for
+ever on the spot; a man cannot share his interests with
+her and she cannot share her gossip with him.</p>
+
+<p>Every uneducated woman living with an educated
+husband reminds me of Delilah and Samson, she cuts off
+his strength and there is no guarding oneself from her.
+Between dinner, even if it is late, and bed, even if one
+goes to it at ten o’clock, there is an endless period in which
+one does not want to go on working and yet is not ready
+for sleep, when the linen has been counted and expenses
+reckoned up. It is in those hours that the wife drags the
+husband down into the narrow circle of her trivialities,
+into the world of irritable resentments, tittle-tattle, and
+spiteful insinuations. This is bound to leave its traces.
+Relations of cohabitation between a man and a woman
+without equality of culture are sometimes enduring when
+they rest on convenience, on common housekeeping, I
+had almost said on hygiene. Sometimes these working
+associations are a mutual help combined with mutual
+satisfaction; for the most part a wife is taken as a nurse,
+as a good housewife <i>pour avoir un bon pot-au-feu</i> as
+Proudhon said to me. The formula of the old jurisprudence
+is very clever, <i>a mensa et toro</i>; destroy the
+common bed and common board and they will separate
+with untroubled conscience.</p>
+
+<p>These business-like marriages are scarcely better.
+The husband is continually at his work, professional or
+commercial, at his office, his counting-house, or his shop.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span>His wife is continually busy with the linen and the stores.
+The husband returns tired; everything is ready for him,
+and everything goes with the same little even trot, to the
+gates of the cemetery to which their parents have preceded
+them. This is a purely town phenomenon and it
+is more often met with in England than anywhere; this
+is the petty-bourgeois happiness preached by the moralists
+of the French stage and dreamt of by the Germans&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a>&#x2060;;
+different stages of culture can live together more easily
+within a year after the man leaves the university; there
+is a division of work and precedence given to the man.
+The husband, particularly if he has money, becomes what
+the popular sense calls him, <i>mon bourgeois</i> of his wife.
+By this path and, thanks to the laws of inheritance, it is
+a path that never gets overgrown with grass, every woman
+remains perpetually a <i>kept woman</i>, her husband’s if not
+some other man’s. She knows this.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Dessen Brot man isst,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Dessen Lied man singt.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But these marriages have a moral unity of their own,
+they have a similarity of outlook, a similarity of object.
+Ketscher himself had no object and was incapable of
+being either the ‘bourgeois’ or the tutor. He could
+not even struggle with S——, she always gave way. He
+frightened her with his loud voice and his grumbling
+temper. Though her heart was developed she had a
+heavy, stubborn intelligence, that stagnancy of brain which
+we often meet with in those who are quite unaccustomed
+to abstract thought, and which is one of the distinguishing
+traits of the period before Peter the Great. United to
+the man she loved so intensely, so devotedly, she desired
+nothing and feared nothing. And indeed what had she
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span>to fear? Poverty? but had she not been poor all her
+life, had she not suffered destitution, that humiliating
+poverty. Work? but she had toiled from morning till
+night in a workroom for a few coppers. Quarrelling,
+separation? Yes, that last had terrors, and great terrors
+too; but she so utterly abandoned all personal will that
+it was really difficult to quarrel with her, and ill-humour
+she would put up with, maybe she would have put up
+with blows even, so long as she were satisfied that he loved
+her a little and did not want to part with her. And that
+he did not want, and there was a fresh reason for not
+wanting it on the top of everything else. With the
+instinct of love S—— understood it very well. Dimly
+aware that she could not fully satisfy Ketscher, she took
+to making up for what she lacked by continual waiting
+upon him and solicitude for him.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher was over forty. He had not been spoilt in
+regard to domestic comfort. He had spent all his life
+at home as the Kirghiz in his cart, with no property and
+no desire to possess it, with no conveniences of any sort
+and no craving for them. By degrees everything was
+changed; he was surrounded by a network of attention
+and services, he saw a childish delight when he
+was pleased with anything, alarm and tears when he
+raised his eyebrows, and this went on every day from
+morning till night. Ketscher took to staying at home
+more often; he was sorry to leave her continually alone.
+Besides, it was hard for him not to be struck by the
+difference of her absolute submission and our growing
+opposition. S—— endured his most unjust outbursts
+with the gentleness of a daughter who, concealing her
+tears, smiles to her father and waits <i>sans rancune</i> till the
+storm is over. S——, submissive, slavishly meek,
+trembling, ready to weep and kiss his hand, had an
+immense influence on Ketscher. Intolerance is fostered
+by giving way to it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span></p>
+
+<p>Did not Rousseau’s Thérèse, poor, stupid Thérèse,
+turn the prophet of equality into a petty vulgarian,
+perpetually absorbed in preserving his own dignity?</p>
+
+<p>S——’s influence on Ketscher showed itself in the
+way Diderot describes when he complains of Thérèse.
+Rousseau was suspicious; Thérèse developed his suspiciousness
+into a petty readiness to take offence, and
+with no intention of doing so estranged him from his
+best friends. Remember that Thérèse could not read
+properly and could never be taught to read the time on
+the clock—which did not prevent her from fostering
+Rousseau’s hypochondria till it passed into gloomy
+madness. In the morning Rousseau would go to see
+Baron d’Holbach. A servant would bring in lunch and
+set places for three—Holbach, his wife, and Grimm;
+engaged in conversation, no one would notice it but Jean
+Jacques. He would pick up his hat. ‘But you must
+stay to lunch,’ Madame d’Holbach would say and order
+another place to be laid; but by then it was too late to
+set things right. Rousseau, livid with vexation and
+gloomily cursing the whole human race, would run home
+to Thérèse and tell her that no plate was set for him as
+a hint for him to go. Such tales were just to her taste,
+she could take warm interest in them, they put her on a
+level with him and indeed a little above him, and she herself
+began talking scandal, sometimes against Madame
+d’Houdetot, sometimes against David Hume, sometimes
+against Diderot. Rousseau would rudely break off all
+relations, would write senseless and insulting letters,
+sometimes calling forth terrible replies (for instance, from
+Hume), and withdrew to Montmorency abandoned by
+every one, and for lack of human beings cursing the
+sparrows and the swallows to whom he threw grain.</p>
+
+<p>Once more:—without equality there can be no real
+marriage. The wife who is excluded from all the
+interests that occupy her husband, who is apart from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span>them and does not share them, may be a concubine, a
+housekeeper, a nurse, but not a wife in the full, honourable
+sense of the word. Heine said of his ‘Thérèse’ that
+she ‘does not know and never will find out what he
+wrote about.’ This was thought charming, amusing,
+and it never occurred to any one to ask: ‘Why, then,
+was she his wife?’ Molière, who read his comedies
+aloud to his cook, was a hundred times more humane, but
+Madame Heine quite unintentionally paid her husband
+back. During the last years of his martyred existence
+she surrounded him with her own friends, faded <i>dames
+aux camellias</i> of a past season, grown moral as they grew
+wrinkled, and their washed-out, grey-headed adorers.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean to say that a wife must necessarily do
+and like what her husband does and likes. The wife
+may prefer music and the husband painting, that does not
+disturb their equality. I have always thought that the
+official trailing of husband and wife about together was
+dreadful, absurd, and senseless, and the higher placed
+they are the more ludicrous it is. Why should the Empress
+Eugénie appear at cavalry drill, and why should Victoria
+draw her husband to the opening of parliament with
+which he had nothing to do? Heine did well not to
+take his better-half to the receptions at the Court functions
+of Weimar. The prose of their marriage did not lie in
+that, but in the absence of any common ground, any common
+interest to unite them apart from sexual attraction.</p>
+
+<p>I will pass to the harm which we did to poor S——.
+The mistake we made was again the mistake of all
+Utopias and idealisms. When one side of a question
+is correctly grasped, no attention is commonly paid to
+that to which that side adheres and whether it can be
+separated from it, no attention to the vast network of
+veins connecting the raw flesh with the whole organism.
+We still think like Christians that we have but to say to
+the lame man: ‘Take up thy bed and walk.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span></p>
+
+<p>At one stroke we flung the solitary and half-savage
+S——, who had seen no one, from her loneliness into our
+circle. We liked her originality, we wanted to preserve
+it, and we destroyed the last chance of her developing by
+removing all desire for improvement, assuring her that she
+was all right as she was. But she did not herself care to
+remain simply as she was. What was the result? We—revolutionaries,
+socialists, champions of the emancipation
+of women—turned a naïve, devoted, simple-hearted
+creature into a Moscow petty-bourgeoise!</p>
+
+<p>Did not the Convention, the Jacobins, and the Commune
+itself turn France into a petty-bourgeoise, turn
+Paris into an <i>épicier</i>?</p>
+
+<p>The first house that was opened with love and warm-heartedness
+to S—— was ours. Natalie went to see her
+and forcibly brought her to us. For a year S——
+behaved quietly and was shy of strangers; timid and
+reserved as before, she was full of the poetical charm of
+the peasant in a way. There was not the faintest desire
+to attract attention by her strangeness; on the contrary
+there was the desire to be unnoticed. Like a child or a
+weak little wild animal she took refuge under Natalie’s
+wing; her devotion in those days knew no bounds. She
+loved playing with Sasha for hours together and used to
+tell him and us details of her childhood, her life among the
+<i>raskolniks</i>, her suffering as an apprentice, <i>i.e.</i>, in the
+workroom.</p>
+
+<p>She became the plaything of our circle; that, of course,
+she liked; she saw that her position, that she herself was
+original, and from that time she was lost; no one could
+have saved her. Natalie alone thought seriously of her
+education. S—— did not belong to the common herd;
+she had escaped a number of mean defects; she was not
+fond of fine clothes, did not care for luxury, for expensive
+things, nor for money—so long as Ketscher was satisfied
+and found nothing wanting she did not mind about anything
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span>else. At first S—— loved to have long, long talks
+with Natalie and trusted her, meekly listened to her
+advice, and tried to follow it.... But after she had
+looked about her and was at home in our circle, perhaps
+worked up by others who were amused at her oddities,
+she began to display a sort of injured antagonism and
+would answer any criticism very far from naïvely: ‘Oh,
+I am such a poor creature, how could I change or improve?
+It seems I must go down to my grave just as silly and
+foolish.’ In these words there was a note of wounded
+vanity, conscious or not conscious. She ceased to feel
+free with us and came less and less often to see us.
+‘Natalya Alexandrovna, God bless her,’ she would say,
+‘no longer likes poor me.’ It was not natural to Natalie
+to be hail-fellow-well-met with everybody or to be
+effusive like a schoolgirl; an element of deep serenity
+and great aesthetic feeling was always predominant in
+her. S—— did not understand the value of the difference
+between Natalie’s attitude to her and that of others,
+and forgot who had been the first to hold out a hand to
+her and warmly welcome her; with her Ketscher too
+drew away from us and grew more and more morose
+and irritable.</p>
+
+<p>His suspiciousness greatly increased. In every careless
+word he saw an intention, a spiteful motive, a desire to
+wound, and not to wound him only but also S——. She
+for her part wept, complained of her lot, resented slights
+to Ketscher, and by the law of moral reverberation his
+own suspicions returned to him multiplied tenfold. His
+scolding affection began to change into a desire to find
+us in fault, into a supervision, a continual espionage, and
+the petty faults of his friends came more and more to
+eclipse all their other qualities in his eyes. Our pure,
+lofty, mature circle began to be invaded by the tittle-tattle
+of servant girls and the bickerings of provincial
+government clerks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span></p>
+
+<p>Ketscher’s irritability became infectious; continual
+accusations, explanations, reconciliations, poisoned our
+gatherings. This corrosive dust settled in every crevice
+and by degrees dissolved the cement that united so firmly
+our relations with our friends. We all succumbed to the
+influence of gossip. Even Granovsky grew ill-humoured
+and irritable, took Ketscher’s part unfairly, and lost his
+temper. Ketscher used to go to Granovsky with his
+accusations against Ogaryov and me. Granovsky did not
+believe them, but pitying Ketscher, ‘who is ill, wounded
+and yet so fond of you,’ took his side emphatically and was
+angry with me for want of tolerance. ‘Why, you know
+what he is like; it’s an illness. The influence of S——,
+who is good-natured but uneducated and tiresome, is driving
+him farther and farther in that unfortunate direction.’</p>
+
+<p>To end this melancholy tale I will quote two instances....
+They show vividly how far we had got from the
+theory of making coffee at Pokrovskoe.</p>
+
+<p>One evening in the spring of 1846 we had five intimate
+friends with us, and among them Mihail Semyonovitch
+Shtchepkin. ‘Have you taken the house at Sokolovo
+this year?’ he asked. ‘Not yet,’ I answered, ‘I haven’t
+the money and one has to pay the rent in advance.’
+‘Surely you are not going to stay all the summer in
+Moscow?’ ‘I shall wait a little, then we shall see.’
+That was all. No one took any notice of this conversation,
+and other subjects followed peacefully a second afterwards.
+We were intending to go next day after dinner to Kuntsovo,
+which we had loved from childhood. Ketscher,
+Korsh, and Granovsky went with us. The excursion
+took place, and everything went well except that Ketscher
+raised his eyebrows more gloomily than ever. But in
+the end we all came in for a storm.</p>
+
+<p>It was a spring evening, warm but not scorchingly hot;
+the trees had only just come out into leaf. We sat in the
+garden jesting and talking. All at once Ketscher, who had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span>been silent for half an hour, got up and stood facing me.
+With the face of a prosecutor of the Vehme,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> and with
+his lips quivering with indignation, he said: ‘I must
+say that you were clever in the way you reminded Mihail
+Semyonovitch yesterday that he hadn’t paid you the nine
+hundred roubles he borrowed from you.’</p>
+
+<p>I really did not understand; especially as I certainly
+had not thought of Shtchepkin’s debt for the last four
+months.</p>
+
+<p>‘It was delicate I must say: the old man has no
+money now and he is just going to the Crimea with his
+immense family, and here you tell him in the presence of
+five persons: “I haven’t the money to take a summer
+villa.” Ough, how disgusting!’</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov took my part. Ketscher flew at him and
+there was no end to the absurd accusations he brought
+against him; Granovsky tried to soothe him but could
+not and went away together with Korsh before the rest
+of us. I felt incensed and humiliated and answered
+very harshly. Ketscher looked at me from under his
+brows and without saying a word went back to Moscow
+on foot. We were left alone and in a state of something
+like pitiful irritability drove home. I wanted this
+time to give Ketscher a good lesson and to drop relations
+with him for a time, if I did not break them off altogether.
+He was penitent and shed tears: Granovsky insisted
+on our making peace, talked to Natalie, and was deeply
+distressed. I made it up, but not light-heartedly,
+and said to Granovsky: ‘You see, it will last for three
+days.’</p>
+
+<p>That was one pleasure excursion, here is another.</p>
+
+<p>Two months later we were at Sokolovo. Ketscher
+and S—— were going back to Moscow in the evening.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span>Ogaryov rode part of the way with them on his Circassian
+horse, Kortik. There was no shadow of misunderstanding
+or ill-humour.</p>
+
+<p>Ogaryov came back two or three hours later; we
+laughed together at the day having passed off so peacefully,
+and separated for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Granovsky, who had been in Moscow overnight,
+met me in our park; he was thoughtful and more
+melancholy than usual, and at last he told me he had
+something on his mind and wanted to talk to me. We
+went by the long avenue and sat down on the seat, the
+view of which is familiar to every one who has been at
+Sokolovo.</p>
+
+<p>‘Herzen,’ Granovsky said to me, ‘if only you knew
+how difficult, how painful it is to me ... how I love you
+all in spite of everything, and I see with horror that
+everything is dropping to pieces. And now, as though in
+mockery, these petty mistakes, damnable carelessness, lack
+of delicacy....’</p>
+
+<p>‘But tell me please what has happened,’ I asked,
+genuinely alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, Ketscher is furious with Ogaryov, and indeed,
+to tell the truth, it would be hard not to be; I try, I do
+what I can, but I haven’t the strength, particularly when
+people don’t care to do anything themselves.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But what is the matter?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, this: yesterday Ogaryov rode part of the way
+with Ketscher and S——.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It was arranged in my presence, and indeed I saw
+Ogaryov in the evening afterwards and he did not say a
+word.’</p>
+
+<p>‘On the bridge Kortik shied and began rearing, and
+Ogaryov pulling him up was so vexed that he swore
+before S—— and she heard and Ketscher heard too. I
+dare say he didn’t think, but Ketscher asks why he
+never happens to be so careless in the presence of your
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span>wife and mine. What is one to say to that?... And
+besides, for all her simplicity S—— is very sentimental,
+which is quite natural in her position.’</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing. This was beyond all bounds.</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s to be done?’</p>
+
+<p>‘It’s very simple,’ I said. ‘We must break off all
+acquaintance with scoundrels who are capable of intentionally
+forgetting themselves before a woman. To be
+the intimate friend of such people is contemptible....’</p>
+
+<p>‘But he doesn’t say that Ogaryov did it intentionally.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Then what’s the talk about? And you, Granovsky,
+Ogaryov’s friend, repeat the ravings of a madman who
+ought to be put in an asylum. For shame!’</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky was disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>‘My God!’ he said, ‘is it possible that our little
+group of friends—the one place where I found hope,
+repose, and love, where I took refuge from our oppressive
+environment—will break up in hatred and anger?’</p>
+
+<p>He covered his eyes with his hand. I took the other
+hand; my heart was very heavy.</p>
+
+<p>‘Granovsky,’ I said to him, ‘Ketscher is right: we
+have all come too close to each other, we are too cramped
+and we have stepped over each other’s traces....
+<i>Gemach!</i> my friend, <i>gemach!</i> We need airing,
+refreshing. Ogaryov is going to the country in the
+autumn. I am soon going abroad—we will part without
+hatred and anger; what was true in our friendship will
+be set right, will be purified by absence.’</p>
+
+<p>Granovsky wept. With Ketscher I had no explanation
+on that subject. Ogaryov did, as a fact, go to the
+country in the autumn, and afterwards we too went
+away.</p>
+
+<p>News of our Moscow friends reached us more and
+more rarely. Frightened by the terror that followed
+1848, they waited for a safe opportunity to send letters.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span>These opportunities were rare, passports were hardly
+ever given. From Ketscher we had not a word for years
+together; he was never fond of writing, however.</p>
+
+<p>The first living news was brought me in 1855 after I
+had moved to London. Ketscher, I heard, was in his
+element, conspicuous at banquets in honour of the heroes
+of Sebastopol, embracing Pogodin and Kokorev, embracing
+the sailors from the Black Sea, making an uproar,
+scolding, admonishing. Ogaryov, who had come straight
+from the graveside of Granovsky, told me little; what he
+did tell was gloomy.</p>
+
+<p>Another year and a half passed. During that time I
+had finished this chapter, and to whom first of outsiders
+was it read?</p>
+
+<p>Yes—<i>habeant sua fata libelli</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1857, Tchitcherin came to London;
+we were expecting him with impatience: once one of
+Granovsky’s favourite pupils and a friend of Korsh and
+Ketscher, he seemed to us one of our intimate circle. We
+had heard of his rudeness, his conservative leanings, his
+boundless vanity, and his <i>doctrinaire</i> attitude, but he was
+still young ... many angles are rubbed down by the
+passage of time.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have long hesitated whether I should come and see
+you or not; so many Russians visit you now that one
+needs more courage not to come than to come; I, as you
+know, though fully respecting you, do not agree with you
+in everything.’</p>
+
+<p>That was how Tchitcherin began.</p>
+
+<p>He made his approach not simply, not in the spirit of
+youth; he had stones hidden in his bosom, the light in his
+eyes was cold, there was a challenge and a dreadful,
+repellent conceit in the tones of his voice. From the first
+words I saw that this was not an opponent but an enemy;
+but I stifled the instinctive warning and we got into
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[396]</span></p>
+
+<p>Our talk soon passed to reminiscences and to questions
+from me. He described the last months of the life of
+Granovsky, and when he went away I felt better pleased
+with him than at first.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner next day conversation turned on Ketscher.
+Tchitcherin spoke of him as a man whom he liked,
+laughing without malice at his sallies; from the details he
+told me I learned that his affection for his friends was still
+as denunciatory, that S——’s influence had reached such
+a point that many of his friends were up in arms against
+her, avoided their society, and so on. Carried away by
+the stories he told me and my own recollections, I offered
+to read Tchitcherin my unpublished chapter about Ketscher
+and read aloud the whole of it. I have many times
+repented doing this, not because he made a bad use of
+what I read, but because I was vexed and pained that at
+forty-five I was capable of exposing our past before a
+coarse man who afterwards jeered with such merciless
+impudence at what he called my ‘temperament.’</p>
+
+<p>The wide differences that separated our views and our
+temperaments were soon made plain.</p>
+
+<p>From the first days an argument sprang up from which
+it was clear that we differed in everything. He was a
+disciple of the French democratic order and had a dislike
+for English freedom, not reduced to any logical order.
+He saw in the empire the education of the people, and
+advocated a powerful state and the abasement of the
+individual before it. It will be readily understood what
+these ideas became when applied to Russia. He was a
+governmentalist, looked upon the government as far
+superior to society and its movements, and took the
+Empress Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> for almost the ideal of what Russia
+needed. All this theory came from a regular edifice of
+dogma from which he could always and at once deduce
+his theosophy of bureaucracy.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why do you want to be a professor,’ I asked him,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[397]</span>‘and try to get a lecturer’s chair? You ought to be a
+Minister and try to get a portfolio.’</p>
+
+<p>Arguing with him, we saw him off at the railway
+station and parted agreeing about nothing but our mutual
+respect.</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight later he wrote to me from France with
+enthusiasm about the working classes, about the institutions.
+‘You have found what you were looking for,’
+I answered, ‘and very quickly; that comes of going there
+with ready-made views.’ Then I suggested that we
+should begin a correspondence in print and wrote the
+beginning of a long letter.</p>
+
+<p>He did not care to do so and said that he had no time
+and that such an argument would do harm....</p>
+
+<p>A remark made in the <i>Bell</i> concerning doctrinaires in
+general he took as aimed at himself; his <i>amour-propre</i> was
+stung, and he sent me his ‘denunciation,’ which made a
+great talk at the time.</p>
+
+<p>Tchitcherin got the worst of the campaign, of that I
+have no doubt. The outburst of indignation invoked by
+his letter printed in the <i>Bell</i> was universal in the younger
+generation and in literary circles. I received dozens of
+articles and letters, one of which was published. We
+were still mounting an uphill path in those days, and
+had no need of Katkov’s&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> drags to hold us back. The
+coldly offensive, insolently smooth tone, more perhaps
+than was actually said, incensed the public and me alike;
+it was something new in those days. On the other hand,
+those who took Tchitcherin’s side were: Elena Pavlovna,
+the Iphigenia of the Winter Palace; Timashov, the head
+of the Third Section; and N. H. Ketscher.</p>
+
+<p>Ketscher remained true to the reaction, not because
+he ‘preferred Grandison to Lovelace’ but because
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[398]</span>carried without a guiding compass <i>à la remorque</i> of a
+circle he remained true to it without noticing that it was
+sailing in the opposite direction. The man of a coterie,
+for him questions followed the banner of personalities and
+not the other way about.</p>
+
+<p>Never having worked through to a single clear understanding
+or to a single clear conviction, he advanced with
+noble aspirations and bandaged eyes, and was continually
+beating his enemies, not noticing that the positions were
+changed and that in their game of blind-man’s buff he
+beat us, beat others, is even now beating some one, even
+now imagining that he is accomplishing something.</p>
+
+<p>I append the letter I wrote to Tchitcherin as the
+beginning of a friendly discussion which was prevented by
+his attacking me like a prosecutor:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>‘<span class="smcap">My Learned Friend</span>,—It is impossible for me to
+argue with you; you know so much, you know it so well,
+everything in your brain is fresh and new, and what
+matters most is that you are convinced you do know it, and
+so, untroubled, you resolutely await the rational development
+of events in accordance with the programme
+revealed by science. You cannot be in disharmony
+with the present; you know if the past was this and that,
+the present is bound to be this and that, and is bound to
+lead to this and that in the future; you are able to reconcile
+yourself to it through your ideas and your interpretation
+of it. Yours is the happy lot of a priest, comforting the
+sorrowful with the eternal truths of your theory and with
+your faith in them. All these advantages you derive
+from your dogmatic belief, because dogma excludes
+doubt. Doubt means that a question is open; dogma,
+that the question is closed, settled. And so every dogma
+is exclusive and uncompromising, while doubt can never
+attain so sharp a finality; it is the very essence of doubt
+to be ready to agree with the speaker or conscientiously
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[399]</span>to seek significance in his words, even to the extent of
+losing precious time needed for finding objections.
+Dogma sees truth from a definite angle, accepted as
+the sole stronghold of salvation, while doubt strives to
+escape from all angles, looks all round, returns on its
+tracks, and often paralyses all action by its humility before
+truth. You, my learned friend, know definitely in what
+direction to go, how to lead; I do not know. And so I
+feel that it is for us to observe and study, and for you to
+teach others. It is true that we can say what ought not
+to be done, we can unite men to act, rouse thought, set
+it free from chains, dispel the phantoms of church and
+police-station, of academy and criminal court—that is
+all; but you can say what ought to be done.</p>
+
+<p>‘The attitude of dogma to its object is the religious attitude,
+that is the attitude from the point of view of eternity;
+the temporary, the transitory, persons, events, generations
+scarcely enter into the <i>Campo Santo</i> of philosophy, or, if
+they enter, it is only when purified from real life in the
+form of an herbarium of logical shadows. Dogma as a
+whole lives really in all times, and lives in its own period
+as though it were the past, not spoiling its theoretical
+attitude by too passionate an interest in it. Knowing the
+necessity of suffering, dogma keeps itself as a Simeon
+Stylites on a pedestal, sacrificing everything temporary to
+the eternal, the living particulars to general ideas. In
+short, the dogmatists are first of all historians, while we,
+together with the crowd, are your substratum; you stand
+for history <i>für sich</i>, we—for history <i>an sich</i>. You explain
+to us where our disease lies, but are we diseased? You
+bury us, reward us, or punish us after our death, you are
+our doctors and priests; but are we sick or dying?</p>
+
+<p>‘This antagonism is nothing new and it is of great
+value for progress, for development. If all mankind
+could believe you, it might be rational, but would die
+of universal boredom. The late Filiminov put as an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[400]</span>inscription on his “fool’s cap”: <i>Si la raison dominait le
+monde, il ne s’y passerait rien</i>.</p>
+
+<p>‘The geometrical dryness of dogma, the algebraic
+impersonality of it, gives it the widest power of generalisation;
+it must shun sensations and, like Augustus, command
+Cleopatra to be veiled. But for active intervention
+passion is more essential than dogma, and man has no
+algebraic passions. The general he can understand, but
+it is the particular that he loves or hates. Spinoza with
+all the outspoken vigour of his genius maintained the
+necessity of reckoning as essential only the incorruptible,
+the eternal, the unchanging substance, and not resting one’s
+hopes on the fortuitous, the relative, the personal. Every
+one understands this in theory, but man attaches himself
+only to the particular, the personal, to the accomplished
+fact; in the reconciling of these extremes, in their
+harmonious combination, lies the highest wisdom of life.</p>
+
+<p>‘If from this general definition of our opposite points of
+view we pass to particular examples we shall find that
+though our goal is the same, there is no less antagonism
+between us; even in those instances in which we start
+from agreement. An example will make this clear.
+We are completely agreed in our attitude to religion;
+but this only goes so far as the denial of supernatural
+religion, but as soon as we come into contact with <i>sublunary</i>
+religion the distance between us is immense.
+You have moved from the dark, incense-laden walls of
+a cathedral to a well-lighted government office, from
+Guelph you have turned Ghibelline, you have replaced
+the hierarchies of heaven by grades in the service, the
+absorption of the individual soul in God by its absorption
+in the State, God is replaced by centralisation, the priest
+by the police-inspector.</p>
+
+<p>‘You see in this change an advance, a triumph, we see
+new chains. We want to be neither Guelphs nor Ghibellines.
+Your secular, civic, and legal religion is the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[401]</span>more terrible for being deprived of all that is poetical,
+fantastic, of all that is childlike in character; in place of
+which you have the red-tape of officialdom, the idol of the
+State with the Tsar at the top and the hangman at the
+bottom. You want man set free from the church to
+hang about for a couple of centuries in the hall of a government
+office, while the caste of high-priest officials and
+monks of dogma decide in what way and to what degree
+he is to be free, like our committees for the emancipation
+of the peasants. And all that repels us; we can accept
+a great deal, make concessions, sacrifice something to
+circumstance; but for you it is not a sacrifice. Of course
+in that too you are happier than we. Losing your
+religious faith you are not left without any support; and
+finding that faith in the State may take the place of Christianity
+for mankind, you have accepted it, and you have
+done very well for your moral hygiene, for your peace
+of mind. But this remedy sticks in our throat and we
+hate your government offices, your centralisation, quite
+as much as the Inquisition, the Consistory, the Book of
+Precepts.</p>
+
+<p>‘Do you grasp the difference? You, as a teacher, want
+to teach, to direct, to herd your flock. We, like a flock
+that is becoming conscious, do not want to be herded, but
+want to have our own village courts, our own representatives,
+our own delegates, to whom we can entrust the
+management of our affairs. That is why the authority
+of the government is an insult to us at every step, while
+you applaud it as your predecessors the priests applauded
+the temporal power. You may even differ from it as the
+clergy has sometimes differed from it or like people
+quarrelling on board ship: however great the distance
+between you may be, you are still in the same boat, and
+for us, laymen, you are still on the side of the government.</p>
+
+<p>‘Civic religion—the apotheosis of the State—is a purely
+Roman idea and in the modern world, principally French.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[402]</span>It is consistent with a strong state, but is incompatible
+with a free people; through it you may get splendid
+soldiers, but you cannot have independent citizens. The
+United States, on the contrary, have, so far as it is possible,
+abolished the religious character of the police and the
+administration.’</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Epilogue</span></p>
+
+<p>On re-reading the chapter about Ketscher I cannot
+help reflecting on the original, eccentric characters who
+live or have lived in Russia. What whimsical personalities
+occur again and again in the history of our culture!
+In what countries, under what degrees of latitude and
+longitude could a figure be found as angular, as rugged,
+as captious and erratic, as good-natured and ill-natured,
+as noisy and unmanageable as Ketscher’s except in
+Moscow?</p>
+
+<p>And how many of these original figures have I watched
+‘in all their varied kinds,’ from my father to Turgenev’s
+‘Children.’ ‘This is how the Russian oven turns them
+out,’ Pogodin said to me. And indeed, what marvels it
+does turn out, especially when the head is made on the
+German pattern ... from Russian buns and bread-rings
+to Orthodox loaves flavoured with Hegel, and French rolls
+<i>à la quatre-vingt-treize</i>! It would be a pity if all these
+original products should be lost and leave no trace. We
+usually dwell only upon the leading figures.</p>
+
+<p>But in them the effect of the Russian oven is less
+obvious; in them its peculiarities are corrected and
+redeemed; they are examples of the Russian type of
+intelligence rather than of the influence of their environment.
+These are followed by all sorts of unattached
+individuals who have lost their way; the eccentric
+figures among them are beyond all reckoning. The tiny
+connecting links that make up the chain of historical
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[403]</span>movements, the particles of yeast which are lost in the
+dough, they have raised it, not for their own benefit.
+Men who awoke early in the dark night and groped
+feeling their way to work, stumbling against everything
+in their road, they awakened others to quite different
+labours.</p>
+
+<p>... I will try some day to save two or three more
+profiles from complete oblivion. They are almost lost
+already in the grey fog from which only the mountain
+tops and high crags stand out.</p>
+
+<h4>II<br>
+<span class="smcap">Basil and Armance</span><br>
+<span class="smaller">(<i>An episode of the year 1844.</i>)</span></h4>
+
+<p>A very characteristic episode is connected with our
+second <i>villeggiatura</i>; it would really be a pity not
+to put it in, although Natalie and I had very little to do
+with it. This episode might be called: ‘Armance and
+Basil, or the philosopher from civility, the Christian from
+courtesy, and George Sand’s “Jacques” turned into the
+Jacques of Destiny.’ It began at a French fancy dress
+ball.</p>
+
+<p>In the winter of 1843 I went to a fancy dress ball.
+There were a mass of people there, five thousand if I
+remember right, and scarcely any one I knew. Basil
+was whirling round with a masked lady, he had no
+thoughts to spare for me. He was slightly shaking his
+head and screwing up his eyelashes, as connoisseurs
+do when they find the wine excellent and the grouse
+marvellous.</p>
+
+<p>The ball took place in the hall of a reputable society.
+I walked about and sat down a little, looking at Russian
+aristocrats dressed up as pierrots of all sorts, zealously
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[404]</span>doing their best to look like Parisian shopmen and
+desperate dancers of the <i>cancan</i>, and went upstairs to
+supper; there Basil sought me out. He was in an
+utterly abnormal state, and in the first glow of the acute
+period of love; it was more acute as Basil was about that
+time forty and his hair was beginning to be thin on his
+lofty brow. He talked to me incoherently of some
+French ‘Mignon,’ with all the simplicity of a Klärchen
+and all the playful charm of a Parisian <i>grisette</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At first I imagined that this was one of those romances
+in one chapter in which there is a conquest on the first
+page and a bill to pay on the last. But I became convinced
+that this was not the case. Basil saw his Parisian girl a
+second or third time and followed circumvolutionary
+tactics without making a direct attack. He introduced
+me to her. Armance really was a lively, charming child
+of Paris, who took after her parent. From her language
+to her manners and the special shade of independence and
+boldness—everything about her was characteristic of the
+respectable working-class of the great city, she was still
+a work-girl not a petty-bourgeoise. This type has never
+existed among us. The careless gaiety, the easy manners,
+freedom, mischief, were all combined with the instinct
+of self-preservation, the instinctive feeling of danger and
+honour. Flung as children sometimes from ten years
+old into the battle of poverty and temptation, defenceless,
+surrounded by the pestilential infection of Paris and
+snares of all sorts, they become their own providence and
+protection. Such girls may readily give themselves, but
+it is hard to take them by surprise, unawares. Those of
+them who might be bought never get into this class of
+working girls; they are bought before they reach that
+stage, are whirled off and engulfed in another type, sometimes
+for ever, sometimes to reappear six or seven years
+later in their carriage in Longchamps or in the box at the
+opera—<i>mit Perlen und Diamanten</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[405]</span></p>
+
+<p>Basil was over head and ears in love. A theorist in
+music and a philosopher in painting, he was one of the
+most complete representatives of the ultra-Hegelians.
+He spent his whole life soaring in an aesthetic heavens
+among philosophical and critical niceties. He looked
+upon life as he did upon Shakespeare, reducing everything
+in life to its philosophical significance, making everything
+lively boring and everything fresh stale; in fact,
+leaving no emotion of the heart in its directness and
+simplicity. This attitude, however, was characteristic in
+varying degrees of almost every circle of that period; some
+broke loose from it by talent, others from liveliness, but
+traces of it persisted for a long time with all—some kept
+the jargon, others the philosophy itself.</p>
+
+<p>‘Let us go’ Bakunin said to T—— in Berlin at the
+beginning of the ’forties, ‘and plunge into the gulf of real
+life, let us fling ourselves into the waves’; and they went
+to ask Varnhagen von Ense to dip them like a dexterous
+bathing man into the gulf of practical life and to present
+them to a pretty actress. It will be readily understood
+that with such preparations there is no reaching a plunge
+into the passions that ‘devour the secret sources of our
+spirit,’ nor indeed to any action whatever. The Germans
+too do not get to action; but then Germans do not seek
+action, but simply tranquillity. Our temperament on the
+other hand cannot endure this attitude—<i>des theoretischen
+Schweigens</i>—gets entangled, stumbles, and trips up more
+funnily than seriously. And so our philosopher in love
+at forty began, screwing up his eyes, to collate all the
+speculative theories on the demonic power of love which
+drew Hercules and the frail youth alike to the feet of
+Omphale, began to explain to himself and others the
+moral idea of the family, the foundations of marriage
+(Hegel’s <i>Philosophy of Law</i>, Chapter <i>Sittlichkeit</i>).
+There was no impediment on the side of Hegel. But
+the phenomenal world of fortuity and appearances—the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[406]</span>world of the spirit not yet freed from tradition—was not
+so accommodating. Basil had a father, Pyotr Konytch,
+a wealthy man who had himself been married three times
+in succession and had had three children by each marriage.
+On learning that his son, and the eldest one too, wanted
+to marry a Catholic, a poor girl, and a French one, coming
+moreover from Kuznetsky Bridge, he resolutely refused
+his blessing. Basil, who had adopted the <i>chic</i> and manners
+of scepticism, might have perhaps dispensed with the
+parental blessing; but the old man associated with the
+blessing not only consequences <i>jenseits</i> (in the other
+world), but also <i>diesseits</i> (in this world), to wit, his
+inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>The old man’s opposition hurried things on, as is always
+the case, and Basil began to think of hastening the <i>dénouement</i>.
+The only thing left to do was to get married
+without wasting words, and later on to make the old man
+accept <i>un fait accompli</i>, or to conceal the marriage from
+him in the expectation that before long he would neither
+bless nor curse nor dispose of his fortune.</p>
+
+<p>But the unenlightened world of tradition had to be
+reckoned with even then. To be married on the quiet
+in Moscow was not easy and was extremely expensive, and
+the wedding would have reached his father’s ears at once
+through deacons, sacristans, church servitors, match-makers,
+clerks, shopboys, and gossips of all sorts. It was proposed
+to sound our Father Ioann in the village of Pokrovskoe,
+known to my readers from the scandal of his stealing when
+inebriated a silver watch and box from the sacristan.</p>
+
+<p>Father Ioann, on learning that the disobedient son was
+about forty, that the bride was not Russian and that her
+parents were not here, that, besides me, a university
+professor would sign as a witness, began thanking me for
+this kind service, probably supposing that I was trying to
+marry Basil in order to secure him a two-hundred rouble
+note. He was so touched that he shouted to the next
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[407]</span>room: ‘Wife, wife, bring out two or three eggs,’ and
+a bottle wrapt in paper out of the cupboard, in order to
+regale me.</p>
+
+<p>Everything went well.</p>
+
+<p>The day of the wedding and other details were not
+fixed: Armance was to come to Pokrovskoe to stay with
+us. Basil who meant to accompany her was to return to
+Moscow and, after making the final arrangements, to come
+from his father’s curse to receive the drunken blessing of
+Father Ioann.</p>
+
+<p>In expectation of <i>i promessi sposi</i> we ordered supper to
+be got ready and sat down to wait for them. We waited
+and waited: it struck twelve o’clock at night. No one
+came.... One o’clock—still no one. The ladies went
+to bed. A—— and Ketscher and I set to upon the
+supper. <i>Le ore suonan al quadriano, e una e due e tre</i> ...
+but ... still no sign of them.</p>
+
+<p>At last the tinkle of a bell came nearer and nearer, there
+was the rumble of wheels over the bridge. We rushed
+into the porch. A coach drawn by three horses drove
+rapidly into the yard and stopped, Basil came out. I
+went up to give my hand to Armance; she seized my
+hand at once, but with such force that I almost cried out—and
+then flung herself on my neck repeating with a
+giggle, ‘Monsieur Herstin’ ... it was no other than
+Vissarion Grigoryevitch Byelinsky in <i>propria persona</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one in the coach but Byelinsky who was
+laughing till he coughed and Basil who was crying till he
+had a cold in his nose. We looked at one another in
+amazement. I must observe that, to add to the effect,
+there had been no trace of Byelinsky in Moscow till two
+days before. ‘Give me something to eat,’ Byelinsky
+said at last, ‘I’ll tell you then what marvels have been
+happening among us; I must defend poor Basil, who is
+more afraid of you than of Armance.’</p>
+
+<p>This is what had happened. Seeing that things were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[408]</span>moving rapidly to a climax Basil took fright; he began
+to reflect and was utterly overwhelmed as he pondered
+on the mercilessly fatal character of marriage, its indissolubility
+according to the code of Russian law and the
+code of Hegel; he locked himself up, a victim to the spirit
+of agonising investigation and ruthless analysis. His
+terror grew from hour to hour, the more so as the way of
+retreat was not easy either, and to decide to take it needed
+almost as much character as the marriage itself. This
+terror grew till Byelinsky, who on arriving from Petersburg
+went straight to see him, knocked at his door.
+Basil described to him all the horror with which he was
+going to meet his happiness, and all the aversion with
+which he was entering upon marriage with love—and
+asked his advice and help.</p>
+
+<p>Byelinsky answered that he must be mad after this—consciously
+and knowing beforehand what it would be—to
+take such fetters upon himself. ‘Herzen now,’ he
+said, ‘got married and eloped with his wife, and came
+from exile to get her; but ask him: he never once
+reflected whether he ought to do so or not and what the
+consequence would be. I am sure it seemed to him that
+he could do nothing else. Well! But you want to do
+the same, analysing and reflecting.’</p>
+
+<p>This was all Basil wanted; he wrote to Armance that
+very night, a dissertation upon marriage, upon his luckless
+theorisings, upon the impossibility of simple happiness,
+from an analytic spirit, he laid before her all the disadvantages
+and dangers of their union and asked her advice—what
+they should do now.</p>
+
+<p>He brought her answer with him.</p>
+
+<p>In Byelinsky’s account and in Armance’s letter their
+two natures, hers and Basil’s, came out vividly. A marriage
+between persons of such opposite temperaments would
+certainly have been strange. Armance wrote sorrowfully:
+she was surprised, wounded, did not understand
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[409]</span>his reflections, and saw in them a pretext and a sign of
+cooling love. She said that, since it was so, there must be
+no talk of marriage, gave him back his promise, and concluded
+by saying that after what had happened they had
+better not meet. ‘I shall remember you with gratitude,’
+she wrote, ‘and do not blame you in the least. I know
+that you are exceedingly good, but even more exceedingly
+weak! Good-bye, and may you be happy.’</p>
+
+<p>Such a letter could not have been altogether agreeable
+to receive. In every word there was strength, vigour,
+and haughtiness. The child of splendid plebeian
+stock, Armance was worthy of her origin. Had she been
+an Englishwoman, what a tight hold she would have
+kept of Basil’s letter, how by the lips of her virtuous
+solicitor she would have described with indignation and
+shamefaced modesty his first pressure of her hand, his
+first kiss, and how her lawyer with tears in his eyes and
+chalk on his wig would have exhorted the jury to compensate
+injured innocence with a couple of thousand
+pounds.</p>
+
+<p>The French woman, the poor sewing girl never thought
+of that.</p>
+
+<p>The two or three days they spent at Pokrovskoe were
+depressing for the ex-bridegroom. He was like a school-boy
+who has disgraced himself in class, and is afraid both
+of the teacher and his comrades. He wrote me a letter
+which showed confusion and dissatisfaction with himself
+and asked me to come and say good-bye. At the
+beginning of August I went from Pokrovskoe to Moscow;
+while I was away Natalie received at Pokrovskoe a new
+dissertation from him. I went to Basil’s and came
+straight in upon a farewell banquet. They were drinking
+champagne, and in the toasts and good wishes there were
+strange hints. ‘Of course you don’t know,’ Basil
+murmured into my ear: ‘You see I ... er ...’ and
+he added in a whisper: ‘you see Armance is going with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[410]</span>me. What a girl; only now I have learned to know her,’
+and he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>This was as great a surprise as Byelinsky’s unexpected
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>In the letter to Natalie he explained to her at great
+length that thought and reflection upon marriage had
+brought him to hesitation and despair; he doubted both
+of his love for Armance and his suitability for family life;
+that in that way he had come to the agonising feeling that
+he ought to break off everything and flee to Paris, that in
+that state of mind he had come, pitiful and ridiculous, to
+Pokrovskoe. After he had reached this decision he had
+read the letter of Armance over again and made a fresh
+discovery, to wit, that he loved Armance very much, and
+he had therefore asked her to see him and had again
+offered her his hand. He had thought again of the priest
+at Pokrovskoe, but the proximity of Mamonov’s factory
+frightened him. He was intending to be married in
+Petersburg and at once to set off for France. ‘Armance
+is as happy as a child!’</p>
+
+<p>In Petersburg Basil thought fit to be married in the
+Kazan cathedral. That philosophy and learning might
+not be forgotten, he asked the chief priest Sidonsky, the
+learned author of the <i>Introduction to the Study of Philosophy</i>,
+to perform the ceremony. Sidonsky had long
+known Basil from his learned articles as a free and
+worldly thinker and a disciple of the German philosophy.
+After all the strange things that had happened
+to Armance, she had the honour rarely vouchsafed to
+any of serving as the occasion for one of the most comic
+meetings of two sworn foes, learning and religion.</p>
+
+<p>To show off his worldly culture Sidonsky began before
+the wedding talking of the latest philosophic <i>brochures</i>,
+and when everything was ready and the sacristan held
+up the epitrahil which, stooping, he began to put on, he
+said to Basil, dropping his eyes: ‘Pardon me, it is a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[411]</span>ceremony; I know very well that the Christian ritual has
+outlived its time, that....’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, no, no,’ Basil interrupted in a voice full of sympathy
+and compassion: ‘Christianity is eternal; its
+essence, its substance, cannot pass away.’</p>
+
+<p>Sidonsky, with a chaste glance, thanked his ‘chivalrous’
+antagonist, turned to the choir and chanted: ‘Blessed be
+the name of the Lord, now and for ever and ever!’
+‘Amen,’ boomed the choir, and the ceremony went on
+in due order, and Sidonsky led Basil in a crown and
+Armance in a crown round the lectern ... making
+Isaiah rejoice.</p>
+
+<p>From the cathedral Basil took Armance home and
+leaving her there spent a literary soirée at Krayevsky’s.
+Ten days later Byelinsky saw the happy pair into the
+steamer. At this point it will be supposed that the story
+is certainly ended.</p>
+
+<p>Not a bit of it.</p>
+
+<p>Things went very well as far as the Cattegat; but at
+that point George Sand’s accursed novel <i>Jacques</i> turned
+up.</p>
+
+<p>‘What do you think of <i>Jacques</i>?’ Basil asked Armance
+as she was finishing the novel.</p>
+
+<p>Armance told him her opinion of it, Basil informed
+her that it was quite mistaken, that her criticism wounded
+his spirit on its deepest side, and that his philosophy of
+life had nothing in common with hers.</p>
+
+<p>The sanguine Armance was unwilling to change her
+philosophy of life, so they both crossed the Belt.</p>
+
+<p>When they came out into the German Ocean Basil
+felt more at home, and made another attempt to persuade
+Armance to take a different view of <i>Jacques</i> and to change
+her philosophy of life.</p>
+
+<p>Almost dying of sea-sickness, Armance with a last
+effort declared that she would not change her opinion of
+<i>Jacques</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[412]</span></p>
+
+<p>‘What have we in common after that?’ observed
+Basil, flying into a rage.</p>
+
+<p>‘Nothing,’ answered Armance, ‘and <i>si vous me cherchez,
+querelle</i>, then let us simply part as soon as we touch land.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You have decided,’ said Basil, very high and
+mighty; ‘you prefer....’</p>
+
+<p>‘Anything in the world to living with you; you are
+an insufferable man, weak and tyrannical.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Madame!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Monsieur!’</p>
+
+<p>She went to the cabin, he remained on deck. Armance
+kept her word. From Havre she went to her father, and
+a year later returned to Russia and indeed went on to
+Siberia.</p>
+
+<p>This time I believe the story of this intermittent
+marriage is ended.</p>
+
+<p>Though indeed Barère&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> has said:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Only the dead do not return.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="hanging"><i>Written 1857</i>,<br>
+<span class="smcap">Laurel House, Putney</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Kaunitz (1711-1794) was for over forty years the leading statesman
+of Austria under Maria Theresa and Joseph <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>, and one of the
+most prominent figures in European politics.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Among my papers are several letters of Sasha’s written between
+1835 and 1836. Sasha was left behind in Moscow while her friend
+was in the country with the princess. I cannot read this simple and
+passionate whisper of the heart without deep feeling. ‘Can it be
+true,’ she writes, ‘that you are coming? Ah, if you really did
+come, I don’t know what would happen to me. You would not
+believe how often I am thinking of you, almost all my desires, all
+my thoughts, all, all, all are with you.... Ah, Natalya Alexandrovna,
+how splendid you are, how sweet, how noble!—but I cannot
+express it. Truly, these are not studied words, they are straight
+from the heart....’</p>
+
+<p>In another letter she thanks Natalie for writing so often. ‘It
+is really too good, but there, that’s you, you,’ and she ends the
+letter with the words: ‘They keep interrupting me, I embrace you,
+my angel, with true immeasurable love. Give me your blessing!’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Skalozub, a character in Griboyedov’s celebrated play, ‘Woe
+from Wit’ (or perhaps better, ‘Sorrow comes from having Sense’),
+is the typical coarse, ignorant, blustering military bully.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> I know very well how affected the French translation of
+names sounds, but a name is a traditional thing and how is one
+to change it? Besides, all unslavonic names are with us, as it were,
+shortened and less musical; we, educated to some extent, ‘not in
+the law of our fathers,’ in our youth ‘romanticised’ names, while
+the powers in authority ‘Slavonised’ them. As a man is promoted
+and attains to influence at court, the letters in his name are changed—thus,
+for instance, Count Strogonov remained to the end of his
+days Sergeyey Grigoryevitch, but Prince Golitsyn was always called
+Sergiey Mihailovitch. The last example of such a transformation
+we saw in General Rostovtsov, celebrated in connection with the
+Fourteenth of December; throughout the reign of Nicholas he
+was Yakov, as was Yakov Dolgoruky, but with the accession of
+Alexander <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> he became Iakov, the same as the brother of our
+Lord!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Xavier Saintine (1798-1865), a French writer of whose many
+plays and stories only <i>Picciola, or the Prisoner’s Flower</i> is still well
+known.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> From Pushkin’s <i>Yevgeny Onyegin</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> The reference is probably to Bulgarin, a journalist in close
+relations with Benckendorf (Chief of the Secret Police). This
+Bulgarin made many petty personal attacks on Pushkin, who in a
+well-known poem addresses him by the name Vidok-Figlyarin.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Shemyaka was a prince of ancient Russia, whose injustice is
+still remembered in the proverbial expression, a ‘Shemyaka’s
+judgment.’—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> The difference between the style of Natalie’s letters and mine
+is very great, especially in the early part of our correspondence;
+afterwards it was less unequal and in the end becomes similar. In
+my letters, together with genuine feeling there are affected expressions,
+far-fetched high-flown phrases, the influence of the school
+of Hugo and the new French novelists is apparent. There is
+nothing of the sort in her letters, her language is simple, poetic,
+and sincere, the only influence that can be discerned in it is the
+influence of the Gospel. At that time I was still trying to write
+in the grand style and wrote badly, because it was not my own
+language. A life in spheres cut off from practical experience, and
+too much reading prevents a young man for years from speaking
+and writing naturally and simply. Intellectual maturity only
+begins when the style is established and has taken its final form.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> On the other hand, the enlightened government appointed as
+French master in the same Vyatka high school the celebrated
+Orientalist Vernikovsky, who was a colleague of Kovalevsky’s and
+Mickiewicz’s, and was exiled in connection with the Philarets’
+case.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>&#x2060;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> The Philarets or ‘lovers of virtue’ were a students’ society of
+the Vilna University in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
+Their object was to promote learning, to help the poor, and to preach
+ideals of goodness and justice. Tovjanski and Mickiewicz were
+members of it.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> A fragment of this chapter was published in the <i>Polar Star</i>,
+vol. i. page 79, together with the following note:</p>
+
+<p>Who is entitled to write his reminiscences?</p>
+
+<p>Every one.</p>
+
+<p>Because no one is obliged to read them.</p>
+
+<p>In order to write one’s reminiscences it is not at all necessary to
+be a great man, nor a notorious criminal, nor a celebrated artist,
+nor a statesman—it is quite enough to be simply a human being,
+to have something to tell, and not merely to desire to tell it but at
+least some little ability to do so.</p>
+
+<p>Every life is interesting; if not the personality, then the environment,
+the country are interesting, life itself is interesting. Man
+likes to enter into another existence, he likes to touch the subtlest
+fibres of another’s heart, and to listen to its beating ... he compares,
+he checks it by his own, he seeks in himself confirmation,
+justification, sympathy....</p>
+
+<p>But may not memoirs be tedious, may not the life described be
+colourless and commonplace?</p>
+
+<p>Then we shall not read it—there is no worse punishment for a
+book than that.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, that is no drawback to the writing of memoirs.
+Benvenuto Cellini’s <i>Diary</i> is not interesting because he was an
+excellent worker in gold but because it is in itself as interesting as
+any novel.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that the very word ‘entitled’ to this or that form
+of composition does not belong to our epoch, but dates from an
+era of intellectual immaturity, from an era of poet-laureates,
+doctors’ caps, peddling savants, certificated philosophers, diplomaed
+metaphysicians and other Pharisees of the Christian world. Then
+the act of writing was regarded as something sacred, a man writing
+for the public used a high-flown unnatural choice language, he
+‘expounded’ or ‘sang.’</p>
+
+<p>We simply talk; for us writing is the same sort of secular pursuit,
+the same sort of work or amusement as any other. In this connection
+it is difficult to dispute ‘the right to work.’ Whether the
+work will win recognition and approval is quite a different
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>A year ago I published in Russia part of my memoirs under the
+title of <i>Prison and Exile</i>. I published it in London at the beginning
+of the war. I did not reckon upon readers nor upon any attention
+outside Russia. The success of that book exceeded all expectations:
+the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, the most chaste and rigid of journals,
+published half the book in a French translation; the clever and
+learned <i>Athenaeum</i> printed extracts in English; the whole book
+has appeared in German and is being published in England.</p>
+
+<p>That is why I have ventured to print extracts from other parts.</p>
+
+<p>In another place I speak of the immense importance my memoirs
+have for me personally, and the object with which I began writing
+them. I confine myself now to the general remark that the
+publication of contemporary memoirs is particularly useful for us
+Russians. Thanks to the censorship, we are not accustomed to
+anything being made public, and the slightest publicity frightens,
+checks, and surprises us. In England any man who appears on any
+public stage, whether as a huckster of letters or a guardian of the
+press, is liable to the same hisses and applause as the actor in the
+lowest theatre in Islington or Paddington. Neither the Queen nor
+her husband are excluded. It is a mighty curb!</p>
+
+<p>Let our Imperial Actors of the secret and open police, who have
+been so well protected from publicity by the censorship and paternal
+punishments, know that sooner or later their deeds will come into
+the light of day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Jeanne Deroin was a disciple of Saint Simon who published
+an <i>Almanach des Femmes</i> in 1851.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> These little notes were kept by Natalie, and on many of them
+she wrote a few words in pencil. I could not preserve any of the
+letters she wrote to me in prison. I was obliged to destroy them
+all at once.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> I omit it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> English in the original.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Arnold Ruge (1802-1880) began his political career with six
+years’ imprisonment in connection with the <i>Burschenschaft</i>
+movement, founded the <i>Deutsche Jahrbücher</i>, the journal of the Young
+Hegelian School, and some ten years later <i>Die Reform</i>, a more
+definitely political paper. From 1849 he lived in England,
+advocated a universal democratic state, and wrote many books,
+of which his autobiography is now of most interest.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Tovjanski was a Pole, and at one time a member of the
+Society of Philarets. He held that there were many Messiahs, of
+whom Napoleon was one and himself another.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> His real name was Gaunot, and he was an adventurer well
+known in Paris between 1830 and 1850. He went in for being
+a god and called his religion <i>evadisme</i> (from Eve and Adam), and
+himself Mapah from <i>mater</i> and <i>pater</i>. He suggested to Dumas
+that the latter should become his chief disciple.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> Théroigne de Méricourt, called ‘l’Amazone de la liberté,’
+assisted at the taking of the Bastille and became a popular heroine.
+Later on she was publicly whipped by a crowd of women, and lost
+her reason in consequence of this outrage.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Carus, K. G. (1789-1869), a distinguished German physiologist,
+author of numerous works on anatomy, physiology, and allied
+subjects.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Stefan Yavorsky was a famous monk and theologian of the
+eighteenth century.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> ‘The Tarantass,’ a story by Count Sologub, author of various
+comedies and novels satirising the official class.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> Parasha, an early poem of Turgenev’s.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> Motchalov, the great Russian actor, was particularly famous
+for his playing of Hamlet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Murmolka</i>, a peasant cap, and <i>zipun</i> a long homespun peasant
+coat.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> Saharov, Ivan Petrovitch (1807-1863), a well-known archaeologist
+and ethnographist, was a doctor of medicine and lecturer on
+palaeology. His discoveries are now regarded somewhat sceptically,
+but he did much for Russian antiquarian study.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Meiendorf, Alexander Kazimirovitch (1788-1865), a writer
+on historical and geographical subjects.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> Ioakinth Bitchurin (1777-1853), a monk and at one time an
+archimandrite, head of the Orthodox Mission to Pekin, and later on
+a translator from the Chinese in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was
+an authority on Chinese language and history.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> The reference is to the open letter in which Byelinsky expressed
+his passionate indignation at the <i>Correspondence with Friends</i>,
+published by Gogol.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> Klyutchnikov vividly expressed this in the following image:
+‘Stankevitch is a silver rouble that envies the size of a copper
+piece.’—Annenkov, <i>Biography of Stankevitch</i>, p. 133.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> Botkin, Vassily Petrovitch (1810-1865), the self-taught son
+of a merchant, was a fine critic and authority on art and literature.
+His criticism was greatly valued by his friends, and his writings
+(chiefly articles in magazines) give no idea of his real importance
+in the history of Russian culture. His brother was the great
+physician.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> Krassov, Vassily Ivanovitch (1810-1855), a poet, at one time
+professor of literature in Kiev. His brother Ivan was a teacher
+of history in the Petersburg secondary schools.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> Victor Hugo, after reading <i>My Past and Thoughts</i>, in the
+French translation, wrote me a letter in defence of the youth of
+France at the period of the Restoration.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> Translated by Juliet M. Soskice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Date of Peter the Great’s death.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> Timofeyev, a sixth-rate writer of forgotten poems.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> Kukolnik, Nestor (1805-1868), was a schoolfellow of Gogol’s,
+and a very popular writer of stories and dramas in the most
+extreme romantic style—fearfully bombastic and unreal, and hyper-patriotic.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> The Moravian Brethren, called <i>Herrnhuter</i> from the little town
+of Herrnhut in Saxony, where they settled in 1722, are a Protestant
+sect who abjure military service, the taking of oaths, and all distinctions
+of rank.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> I declare, on my word of honour, that the word ‘scoundrel’ was
+used by this worthy old person.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Paul Louis Courier (1772-1825), a learned and brilliant writer
+of political pamphlets and letters, who discovered a complete manuscript
+of Longus’s <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i>, of which he published a French
+translation.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> Miss Wilmot’s words.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> The Comte d’Artois—afterwards Charles <span class="allsmcap">X.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> The Comte de Ségur (1753-1830) was French ambassador in
+Petersburg and a favourite of Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> He was a man of
+action as well as a spirited writer, served in the American War
+of Independence, welcomed every movement on the side of liberty,
+and wrote a charming account of his times in his <i>Galerie Morale et
+Politique</i>, and his <i>Mémoires</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> The Grand Duke, brother of Nicholas <span class="allsmcap">I.</span>, is meant.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Perun was the God of sky and of thunder, the chief God of
+the ancient Slavs.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> This is so true that a German who has abused me a dozen
+times in the <i>Morning Advertiser</i> adduced as proof that I had
+never been exiled the fact that I had the post of councillor in the
+provincial government.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> I am not certain whether these dissenters were Duhobors.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> The landowner in ‘The Agent,’ one of Turgenev’s ‘Sportsman’s
+Sketches.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Saltytchiha was a lady notorious in the reign of Catherine for
+her cruelty to her serfs. She was eventually brought to justice.—(<i>Translator’s
+Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> <i>Property in Serfs.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> Araktcheyev left, I believe, a hundred thousand roubles to be
+paid a hundred years later, together with the accumulated interest,
+to the man who should write the best history of the reign of
+Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Araktcheyev was a pitiful coward, as Count Toll tells us in
+his memoirs, and the Secretary of State Martchenko in a little story
+of the Fourteenth of December published in the <i>Polar Star</i>. I
+have heard that he was in hiding during the Staraya Russa rising,
+and was in deadly terror of Reihel the general of Engineers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> I am extremely sorry that I have forgotten the Christian name
+of the worthy gentleman. I remember his surname was Zherebtsov.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> These extracts are inserted here by the author in a slightly
+altered form.—<i>Note to Russian edition.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Here Herzen describes how, returning late one evening after a
+festive supper party with his friends, he was tempted by a maidservant,
+who, half undressed, opened the door to him. This
+transgression came to the knowledge of Natalya Alexandrovna.—<i>Note
+to Russian edition.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> Written in England.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> Zurbaran, a Spanish painter of religious subjects. A well-known
+picture of his is of a monk castigating himself before an
+effigy of the Madonna.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Puchta, a German professor and authority on Roman law.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> Savigny, a German university teacher, of French origin, and
+an authority on modern jurisprudence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> Roteck, a German university teacher and authority on Roman
+law.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> Buchez, Philippe (1796-1865), a French philosopher and
+political writer; at first a follower of Saint Simon, afterwards an
+advocate of what he called Christian Socialism.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> Cabet, Étienne (1788-1856), was a French communist, one of
+the leaders of the Carbonari, and author of a philosophical and
+social romance <i>Voyage en Icarie</i>, describing a Communist Utopia.
+In 1848 a band of French workmen went out to found an ‘Icarian
+colony’ in Texas.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Readers of <i>The Possessed</i> may be interested to know that
+Dostoevsky is supposed (I cannot say whether on sufficient evidence)
+to have modelled the character of Stepan Trofimovitch in the earlier
+chapters of that novel on Granovsky.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> Ciceruacchio, a popular leader (his real name was Angelo
+Brunetti) in Rome, who had great influence from 1847, supporting
+the reforms of Pius <span class="allsmcap">IX.</span>, and active in bringing about the proclamation
+of a republic in February 1849. He was captured and shot
+with his sons the following July.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> The late Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph.—(<i>Translator’s
+Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Translated by Juliet M. Soskice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> The <i>Domostroy</i> was a sixteenth-century book of moral precepts
+and practical advice written by the priest Sylvester, the adviser of
+Ivan the Terrible.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Deutschthum was the nationalist movement in Germany. It
+was considered more patriotic to spell it Teutschthum.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> Barclay de Tolly was one of the ablest of the Russian generals
+of 1812. He was, as a matter of fact, of Scottish not of German
+descent.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Shishkov, born 1754, began his career as a naval officer and
+attained the rank of vice-admiral, but, disapproving of the reforms
+of the early years of Alexander’s reign, left the navy. From 1812
+he became prominent as a writer and president of the Academy,
+and from 1824 to 1828 was Minister of Public Instruction. Intensely
+conservative and patriotic, he bitterly opposed every new
+movement in literature and politics.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> Shebuev (1776-1855) was a well-known painter of historical
+pictures in the pseudo-classical style.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> At first the national hymn was very naïvely sung to the tune
+of ‘God save the King,’ and indeed it was scarcely ever sung. It
+was among the innovations of Nicholas. From the time of the
+Polish War the national hymn composed by Colonel Lvov of the
+<i>Corps of gendarmes</i> was, by Imperial command, sung at all the royal
+festivities and at large concerts.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Alexander was too well educated to like crude
+flattery; he listened with disgust in Paris to the Academicians’
+despicable speeches grovelling at the feet of the Conqueror. On
+one occasion meeting Chateaubriand in his vestibule he showed him
+the last number of the <i>Journal des Débats</i>, and added: ‘I assure you
+I have never once seen such dull abjectness in any Russian paper.’
+But in the time of Nicholas there were literary men who fully
+justified his Imperial confidence, and outdid all the journalists of
+1814 and even some of the prefects of 1852. Bulgarin wrote in
+the <i>Northern Bee</i> that among the other advantages of the railway
+between Moscow and Petersburg, he could not think without
+emotion that the same man would be able to hear a service for the
+health of his Imperial Majesty in the morning in the Kazan
+Cathedral, and in the evening in the Kremlin! One would have
+thought it difficult to excel this awful absurdity, but there was
+found a literary man in Moscow who surpassed its author. On
+one of Nicholas’s visits to Moscow a learned professor wrote an
+article in which, speaking of the immense mass of the people
+crowding before the palace, he added that the Tsar had but to
+express the faintest desire—and those thousands rushing to carry
+it out would gladly fling themselves into the river Moskva. The
+sentence was erased by S. G. Strogonov, who told me this charming
+anecdote.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> Lyapunov, a national hero who fought the Poles in the ‘Time
+of Trouble.’ Several plays were written about him—one by
+Gedeonov, on which Turgenev wrote a criticism. Kukolnik’s
+play is meant here.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> I was at the first performance of Lyapunov in Moscow and
+saw the hero tuck up his sleeves and say something like, ‘I’ll wash
+my hands in Polish blood.’ A hollow moan of repulsion broke
+from the whole body of the theatre; even the gendarmes, policemen,
+and people in stalls, the numbers on whose seats had somehow
+been rubbed off, could not summon up the pluck to applaud.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> The Uniats are members of the Greek Church who accept
+the supremacy of the Pope.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> ‘The Hand of the Most High saved the Fatherland’ is the
+title of a play by Kukolnik.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> Baron Joseph Jellachich, an Austrian general, who was also a
+poet and politician. In 1848 he was appointed Ban of Croatia,
+and took part in suppressing the revolt of the Hungarians.—(<i>Translator’s
+Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> Tchaadayev was often at the English Club. On one occasion
+Menshikov, Minister of Naval Affairs, went up to him with the
+words: ‘How is it, Pyotr Yakovlevitch, you don’t recognise your
+old acquaintances?’ ‘Oh, it is you,’ answered Tchaadayev, who
+really had not recognised him, ‘but how is it you are wearing a
+black collar? I fancy that you used to wear a red one.’ ‘Why,
+don’t you know I am Minister of Naval Affairs?’ ‘You! why, I
+imagine you have never steered a boat.’ ‘You don’t need much
+wit to bake a pot, you know,’ answered Menshikov, a little bit
+displeased. ‘Oh well, if it is on that principle ...’ answered
+Tchaadayev.</p>
+
+<p>A Senator was making great complaints of being very busy.
+‘With what?’ asked Tchaadayev. ‘Upon my soul, the mere
+reading of the notes and papers!’ and the Senator made a gesture
+indicating a pile a yard from the floor. ‘But you don’t read
+them?’ ‘Oh yes, sometimes I do, and besides, it is often necessary
+to give my opinion on them.’ ‘Well, I don’t see the necessity,’
+answered Tchaadayev.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> We now know for certain from Yakushkin’s <i>Diary</i> that
+Tchaadayev was a member of the Decembrist society.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> Charles François Chevé (1813-1875) was a political writer, at
+one time a follower of Proudhon, but afterwards a Catholic.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> Ronge was the founder of a school of Liberal Catholicism.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> Mickiewicz (1798-1855), the great Polish poet, author of
+<i>Pan Tadeusz</i>, spent some time in Russia and was a friend of
+Pushkin and his circle.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> Sigismund Krasinski (1812-1859), a Polish poet, author of
+<i>Nieboska Komedeja</i>, the <i>Undivine Comedy</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> Lady Morgan (<i>née</i> Sydney Owenson) (1789-1859), a lively
+Irish authoress (and something of an adventuress), published many
+novels as well as entertaining memoirs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> <i>Mémoires d’un Prisonnier d’État au Spitzberg</i>, by Alexandre
+Andryane, is probably the work here referred to.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> Royer-Collard, Pierre Paul (1763-1845), was in 1811
+Professor of Philosophy in Paris, opposed materialism, supported
+the Scottish School of Reid and Stewart, and originated the
+‘Doctrinaire’ School of which Jouffroy and Cousin were afterwards
+representative.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> Friedrich Schlegel, German critic, author of <i>Lectures on the
+Philosophy of History</i>, and <i>History of Literature</i>, joined the Roman
+Catholic Church.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> Heinrich Leo (1799-1878), originally a Radical, went over to
+the reactionary side on hearing of the murder of Kotzebue. He
+was much influenced by Herder, and was suspected of leanings
+towards Catholicism.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), commonly called ‘Vater
+Jahn,’ is chiefly known for his advocacy of gymnastic clubs. He
+was also connected with the formation of the <i>Burschenschaft</i>, a
+students’ association persecuted by the government authorities. He
+was in prison from 1819 to 1825.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Prince Hohenlohe, nicknamed the ‘miracle-worker,’ was
+brought up by Jesuits, became a priest, preached in Munich and
+other towns, and set out to heal diseases. He was checked in his
+activities both by the Pope and the police.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> Translated by Juliet Soskice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> Translated by Juliet Soskice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> The name <i>Slav</i> is derived from <i>Slovo</i>, <i>word</i>, <i>language</i>.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> ‘Moreover,’ he said to me in the presence of Homyakov,
+‘they boast of speech, but in the whole race Homyakov is the only
+one who speaks.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Granovitaya Palata, the hall in the Kremlin in which the
+Tsar and his councillors used to meet before the time of Peter
+the Great.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> Novgorod, the most famous city in the earliest period of
+Russian history, was to some extent a republic under the rule
+of its princes from Rurik upwards. It was almost destroyed and
+was deprived of its liberties by Ivan <span class="allsmcap">III.</span> in 1471.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> The Ulozhenie is the code of laws of Tsar Alexis Mihailovitch
+(father of Peter the Great), compiled in the seventeenth century.—(<i>Translator’s
+Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> The Varangians were Scandinavian and Norman tribes, whose
+rulers were, according to tradition, summoned in 862 by the
+Northern Slavs to rule over them.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> Written at the time of the Crimean War.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> Shevyryov, professor of literature in Moscow University and
+author of a <i>History of Poetry</i>, in which he advances many fantastic
+theories. Pogodin was professor of history, and they were co-editors
+of the <i>Moskvityanin</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov were the sons of Sergey Timofeyevitch
+Aksakov (1791-1859), a writer of the first rank, some
+of whose charming pictures of the country and old-fashioned
+Russian life are now accessible in excellent translations by
+J. D. Duff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> Alexandr Ivanovitch Turgenev, a distinguished person in his
+own day, now chiefly remembered for having been a very good
+friend to Pushkin, was one of the Turgenevs of Simbirsk, and
+not related to the famous Turgenev, who has left among his
+critical articles an obituary notice of this Alexandr Ivanovitch.—(<i>Translator’s
+Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> The Larins and Lensky are characters in Pushkin’s <i>Yevgeny
+Onyegin</i>. Tchatsky is the hero of Griboyedov’s <i>Woe from Wit</i>, and
+Famussov is a character in the same play.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789), of German origin, one of the
+French encyclopaedists, was the social centre round which all the
+leading literary and philosophic celebrities of Paris gathered. He
+was a passionate atheist, and an extremely good-hearted man, giving
+shelter to his worst enemies, the Jesuits, when they were persecuted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Delphine Gay (Mme. de Girardin) wrote witty verses, novels,
+and plays.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Sobakevitch and Nozdryov are characters in Gogol’s <i>Dead
+Souls</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> Novikov, a man of letters and mystic of the time of Catherine,
+was imprisoned and exiled for advocating the emancipation of the
+serfs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> The Kireyevskys’ mother did not share their views. This is
+the only explanation I can discover for his being described as
+‘lonely in his own family.’—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> From Lermontov’s translation of Goethe’s poem.—(<i>Translator’s
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> Baron Haxthausen was a learned German who after a visit to
+Russia at this period wrote an account of the Russian system of
+land tenure.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Both were authors of a very low order; Gretch, a trifle more
+stupid and less unscrupulous than Bulgarin, who was scurrilous in
+his attacks on Pushkin, and commonly believed to be in the pay of
+the police.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> Katchenovsky, Mihail Trofimovitch (1775-1842), of humble
+origin and largely self-educated, became editor of the <i>Vyestnik
+Yevropi</i>, and professor of Fine Arts, of Literature, and later on
+of History in Moscow University. His sceptical attitude on
+historical subjects gave offence, and he was superseded in the
+Chair of History by Pogodin.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> Yazykov, a friend of Pushkin’s.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> This Glinka, one of the founders of the League of Public
+Welfare, out of which the Decembrist movement developed, was
+exiled in 1826, but allowed to return later. He was a literary
+character of the mild and pious type.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> K. Kavélin’s article, and Yury Samarin’s reply to it. They
+are dealt with in the <i>Développement des Idées Révolutionnaires en
+Russie</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> The famous chief of a band of robbers whose feats have passed
+into a legend. He flourished in France during the early part of the
+eighteenth century.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> The peace between France and Austria in 1797 was concluded
+at Campo Formio, a village in Italy.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> In the Time of Trouble at the beginning of the seventeenth
+century the famous Troitse-Sergievsky Monastery made an heroic
+resistance against the Poles. Avraamy Palitsyn, the Father Superintendent,
+together with the Abbot, issued manifestoes calling on the
+people to drive out the Poles and elect a Tsar.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> Lampi, J. B., was an Austrian painter who came to Petersburg
+in 1792, and painted portraits of Catherine, Potyomkin, and various
+distinguished persons.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> The popular writer Victor Joseph Étienne de Jouy (1754-1846)
+was known as the ‘hermit of the Chausseé d’Antin,’ the name of
+his most widely read prose work.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> Weiss, Bernhard (1827-1892), a learned German, who became
+adviser to the government in spiritual concerns, and author of
+many theological works.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> English in the original.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> English in the original.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> A character in Gogol’s <i>Inspector General</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> I think while I am speaking of Dmitry Pavlovitch I ought
+not to omit to mention his last action in regard to me. After my
+father’s death he was left owing me forty thousand silver roubles.
+I went abroad without claiming this money. When he died, he
+directed his executors that I should be the first of his debtors to
+be paid, because I could officially claim nothing. I received the
+money by the next post after that by which I heard of his death.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> English in the original.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> The story of how one of the students got into the university is
+so full of the native flavour of the Nicholas period that I cannot resist
+telling it. The anniversary day with which we are all familiar
+from Pushkin’s superb verses was celebrated annually in the
+Lyceum. As a rule, on this day of parting from companions and
+seeing again former schoolfellows the young people were allowed
+to make merry. On one of these anniversaries a youth who had
+not yet finished his studies in a light-hearted moment flung a bottle
+at the wall; unluckily, the bottle struck a marble slab on which
+was inscribed in gold letters: ‘His Imperial Majesty the Emperor
+graciously deigned to visit us on such and such a date ...’ and
+broke a piece off it. A superintendent ran up, fell upon the culprit
+with terrible abuse, and tried to remove him. The youth, insulted
+before his comrades and exhilarated by the wine, tore the cane out
+of his hand and struck him with it. The superintendent promptly
+reported the incident; the youth was arrested and kept in detention
+on the terrible charge not merely of striking a superintendent but
+also of sacrilegious disrespect for a slab on which the sacred name
+of the monarch was inscribed.</p>
+
+<p>He might very easily have been sent for a soldier had not
+another calamity saved him. At that very time his elder brother
+died. His mother, overwhelmed with grief, wrote to him that he
+was now her only hope and support, and urged him to make haste
+and finish his studies and come to her. The principal of the
+Lyceum, General Bronevsky I believe it was, was touched on
+reading this letter and resolved to save the youth without bringing
+it to the knowledge of Nicholas. He told the Grand Duke Michael
+of the incident, and the latter directed that he should be expelled
+from the Lyceum privately, and that that should end the matter.
+The youth left the Lyceum with a certificate on which he could
+not enter any educational institution, that is, almost every career
+was barred to him for he was not at all wealthy, and all this for
+damaging a slab adorned with the Imperial name! And even this
+was only thanks to the peculiar favour of Providence which killed
+his brother at the right moment, to a tenderness unheard of among
+generals, and an indulgence almost incredible in a grand duke!
+Being a young man of exceptional talent, he succeeded long afterwards
+in obtaining the right to attend lectures in the Moscow
+University.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> Translated by Juliet M. Soskice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> Translated by Juliet M. Soskice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/76599/76599-h/76599-h.htm#Page_335">See p. 335, Vol. I.</a>—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> One of Gogol’s Mirgorod stories.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> Public prosecutor of the revolutionary tribunal under the
+Terror.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> There is no difference of culture between husband and wife
+among the proletariat or the peasants, but there is a terrible equality
+of slavery and terrible inequality of power between the husband and
+the wife.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> The <i>Vehme</i> or <i>Vehmgerichte</i> were mediaeval German tribunals
+which tried capital charges and were greatly dreaded for their
+severity.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> Katkov, one of Stankevitch’s circle, afterwards became a
+Slavophil of the most reactionary type and editor of the <i>Moscow
+Gazette</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> Barère de Vieuzac (1753-1841), a member of the Committee
+of Public Safety, nicknamed the Anacreon of the Guillotine.—(<i>Translator's
+Note.</i>)</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78332 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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author	www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org>	2026-03-31 12:52:07 -0700
committer	www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org>	2026-03-31 12:52:07 -0700
commit	c22192fa4a0059dfe94f8115bb09122d2867e09e (patch)
tree	0abd46fca5dd1343922ae3481f4ee4deb19fc69f /78332-h