The Memoirs Of Alexander Herzen - free ebook by Aleksandr Herzen

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The Memoirs Of Alexander Herzen

Aleksandr Herzen

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MEMOIRS OFALEXANDER HERZEN - Parts I and II

MEMOIRS OFALEXANDER HERZEN - Parts I and II

The present volume is the seventh work published by the Yale University Press on the Theodore L. Glasgow Memorial Publication Fund. This foundation was established September 17, 1918, by an anonymous gift to Yale University in memory of Flight Sub-Lieutenant Theodore L. Glasgow, R.N. He was born in Montreal, Canada, and was educated at the University of Toronto Schools and at the Royal Military College, Kingston. In August, 1916, he entered the Royal Naval Air Service and in July, 1917, went

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I

I

ALEXANDER HERZEN was born in Moscow on March 25, [1] 1812, six months before Napoleon arrived at the gates of the city with what was left of his Grand Army. He died in Paris on January 9, 1870. Down to his thirty-fifth year he lived in Russia, often in places selected for his residence by the Government; he left Russia, never to return, on January 10, 1847. 1 . The dates given here are those of the Russian calendar. He was the elder son of Iván Yákovlev, a Russian noble, and Luise Haag, a Germ

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II

II

The collected Russian edition of Herzen’s works—no edition was permitted by the censorship till 1905—extends to seven thick volumes. These are: one volume of fiction; one of letters addressed to his future wife; two of memoirs; and three of what may be called political journalism. About 1842 he began to publish articles on scientific and social subjects in magazines whose precarious activity was constantly interrupted or arrested by the censorship. His chief novel, Who Was To Blame? was written

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III

III

The Memoirs , called by Herzen himself Past and Thoughts , are divided into five Parts. This translation, made six years ago from the Petersburg edition of 1913, contains Parts I and II. These were written in London in 1852-1853, and printed in London, at 36 Regent’s Square, in the Russian journal called The Pole-Star . Part I has not, I believe, been translated into English before. A translation of Part II was published in London during the Crimean war; [3] but this was evidently taken from a G

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§1

§1

“OH, please, Nurse, tell me again how the French came to Moscow!” This was a constant petition of mine, as I stretched myself out in my crib with the cloth border to prevent my falling out, and nestled down under the warm quilt. My old nurse, Vyéra Artamónovna, was just as eager to repeat her favourite story as I was to hear it; but her regular reply was: “You’ve heard that old story ever so often before, and besides it’s time for you to go to sleep; you had better rise earlier to-morrow.” “Oh,

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§2

§2

But allow me to take the place of my old nurse and to continue her story. When my father had finished his duties as a fireman, he met a squadron of Italian cavalry near the Monastery of the Passion. He went up to the officer in command, spoke to him in Italian, and explained the plight of his family. When the Italian heard his native language— la sua dolce favella —he promised to speak to the Duc de Trévise, [6] and to post a sentinel at once, in order to prevent a repetition of the wild scenes

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§3

§3

My father was taken straight to Arakchéyev’s [8] house and detained there. When the Minister asked for the letter, my father said that he had given his word of honour to deliver it in person. The Minister then promised to consult the Tsar, and informed him next day in writing, that he himself was commissioned by the Tsar to receive the letter and present it at once. For the letter he gave a receipt, which also has been preserved. For about a month my father was under arrest in Arakchéyev’s house

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§4

§4

I still remember dimly the traces of the great fire, which were visible even in the early twenties—big houses with the roof gone and window-frames burnt out, heaps of fallen masonry, empty spaces fenced off from the street, remnants of stoves and chimneys sticking up out of them. Stories of the Great Fire, the battle of Borodino, the crossing of the Berezina, and the taking of Paris—these took the place of cradle-song and fairy-tale to me, they were my Iliad and Odyssey. My mother and our servan

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§5

§5

My father had lived twelve years abroad, and his brother still longer; and they tried to organise their household, to some extent, on a foreign plan; yet it was to retain all the conveniences of Russian life and not to cost much. This plan was not realised; perhaps their measures were unskilful, or perhaps the old traditions of Russian country life were too strong for habits acquired abroad. They shared their land in common and managed it jointly, and a swarm of servants inhabited the ground flo

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§6

§6

My father had another brother, the oldest of the three; but he was not even on speaking terms with his two juniors. In spite of this, they all took a share in the management of the family property, which really meant that they combined to ruin it. This triple management by owners at variance with one another was the height of absurdity. Two of them were always thwarting their senior’s plans, and he did the same for them. The head men of the villages and the serfs were utterly bamboozled: one lan

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§7

§7

My uncle was one of those monsters of eccentricity which only Russia and the conditions of Russian society can produce. A man of good natural parts, he spent his whole life in committing follies which often rose to the dignity of crimes. Though he was well educated after the French fashion and had read much, his time was spent in profligacy or mere idleness, and this went on till his death. In youth he served, like his brothers, in the Guards and was aide-de-camp in some capacity to Potemkin; [1

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§8

§8

Such was the alarming character of our expected visitor. From early morning all the inmates of our house were keenly excited. I had never seen the black sheep myself, though I was born in his house, which was occupied by my father on his return from foreign parts; I was very anxious to see him, and I was also afraid, though I don’t know what I was afraid of. Other visitors came before him—my father’s oldest nephew, two intimate friends, and a lawyer, a stout good-natured man who perspired freely

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§9

§9

My uncle was a kind-hearted man, who loved movement and excitement. His whole life was spent in an artificial world, a world of diplomats and lords-in-waiting, and he never guessed that there is a different world which comes nearer to the reality of things. And yet he was not merely a spectator of all that happened between 1789 and 1815, but was personally involved in that mighty drama. Count Vorontsov sent him to England, to learn from Lord Grenville what “General Buonaparte” was up to, after h

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§10

§10

It is impossible to conceive a greater contrast to all this than my father. My uncle was perpetually active and perpetually cheerful, an occasional visitor at his own house. But my father hardly ever went out-of-doors, hated all the world of official business, and was always hard to please and out of humour. We had our eight horses too, but our stable was a kind of hospital for cripples; my father kept them partly for the sake of appearance, and partly that the two coachmen and two postilions mi

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§1

§1

UNTIL I was ten, I noticed nothing strange or peculiar in my position. [15] To me it seemed simple and natural that I was living in my father’s house, where I had to be quiet in the rooms inhabited by him, though in my mother’s part of the house I could shout and make a noise to my heart’s content. The Senator gave me toys and spoilt me; Calot was my faithful slave; Vyéra Artamónovna bathed me, dressed me, and put me to bed; and Mme. Provo took me out for walks and spoke German to me. All went o

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§2

§2

Two or three years after this, two old brother-officers of my father’s were at our house one evening—General Essen, the Governor of Orenburg, and General Bakhmétyev, who lost a leg at Borodino and was later Lieutenant-Governor of Bessarabia. My room was next the drawing-room where they were sitting. My father happened to mention that he had been speaking to Prince Yusúpov with regard to my future; he wished me to enter the Civil Service. “There’s no time to lose,” he added; “as you know, he must

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§3

§3

This is a subject on which I must dwell for a little. I should say that I do not in general mean to avoid digressions and disquisitions; every conversation is full of them, and so is life itself. As a rule, children are attached to servants. Parents, especially Russian parents, forbid this intimacy, but the children do not obey orders, because they are bored in the drawing-room and happy in the pantry. In this case, as in a thousand others, parents don’t know what they are doing. I find it impos

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§4

§4

In former days there existed—it still exists in Turkey—a feudal bond of affection between the Russian landowner and his household servants. But the race of such servants, devoted to the family as a family, is now extinct with us. The reason of this is obvious. The landowner has ceased to believe in his own authority; he does not believe that he will answer, at the dreadful Day of Judgement, for his treatment of his people; and he abuses his power for his own advantage. The servant does not belie

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§5

§5

This seems an opportunity to give some general account of the treatment shown to servants in our household. Neither my father nor my uncle was specially tyrannical, at least in the way of corporal punishment. My uncle, being hot-tempered and impatient, was often rough and unjust to servants; but he thought so little about them and came in contact with them so seldom, that each side knew little of the other. My father wore them out by his fads: he could never pass over a look or a word or a movem

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§6

§6

Our old footman, Bakai, an exceedingly interesting character, was an instance of this kind. A tall man of athletic build, with large and dignified features, and an air of the profoundest reflexion, he lived to old age in the belief that a footman’s place is one of singular dignity. This respectable old man was constantly out of temper or half-drunk, or both together. He idealised the duties of his office and attributed to them a solemn importance. He could lower the steps of a carriage with a pe

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§7

§7

Such men as Bakai hugged their chains, but there were others: there passes through my memory a sad procession of hopeless sufferers and martyrs. My uncle had a cook of remarkable skill in his business, a hard-working and sober man who made his way upwards. The Tsar had a famous French chef at the time and my uncle contrived to secure for his servant admission to the imperial kitchens. After this instruction, the man was engaged by the English Club at Moscow, made money, married, and lived like a

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§8

§8

There was another victim of the system whom I cannot but recall together with Alexyéi. My uncle had a servant of thirty-five who acted as a clerk. My father’s oldest brother, who died in 1813, intending to start a cottage hospital, placed this man, Tolochanov, when he was a boy, with a doctor, in order to learn the business of a dresser. The doctor got permission for him to attend lectures at the College of Medicine; the young man showed ability, learned Latin and German, and practised with some

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§9

§9

I had one other distraction, as well as the servants’ hall, and in this I met at least with no opposition. I loved reading as much as I disliked my lessons. Indeed, my passion for desultory reading was one of the main difficulties in the way of serious study. For example, I detested, then as now, the theoretical study of languages; but I was very quick in making out the meaning more or less and acquiring the rudiments of conversation; and there I stopped, because that was all I needed. My father

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§10

§10

One of the queerest incidents of my early education was when a French actor, Dalès, was invited to give me lessons in elocution. “People pay no attention to it nowadays,” my father said to me, “but your brother Alexander practised le recit de Théramène [20] every evening for six months with Aufraine, the actor, and never reached the perfection which his teacher desired.” 20 . From Racine’s Phèdre . So I began to learn elocution. “I suppose, M. Dalès,” my father once said to him, “you could giv

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§11

§11

When I was twelve, I was transferred from the hands of women to those of men; and, about that time, my father made two unsuccessful attempts to put a German in charge of me. “A German in charge of children” is neither a tutor nor a dyádka [23] —it is quite a profession by itself. He does not teach or dress the children himself, but sees that they are dressed and taught; he watches over their health, takes them out for walks, and talks whatever nonsense he pleases, provided that it is in German.

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§12

§12

I was about fifteen when my father summoned a priest to the house to teach me as much Divinity as was required for entrance at the University. I had read Voltaire before I ever opened the Catechism. In the business of education, religion is less obtrusive in Russia than in any other country; and this is, of course, a very good thing. A priest is always paid half the usual fee for lessons in Divinity; and, if the same priest also teaches Latin, he actually gets more for a Latin lesson than for in

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§1

§1

ONE winter evening my uncle came to our house at an unusual hour. He looked anxious and walked with a quick step to my father’s study, after signing to me to stay in the drawing-room. Fortunately, I was not obliged to puzzle my head long over the mystery. The door of the servants’ hall opened a little way, and a red face, half hidden by the wolf-fur of a livery coat, invited me to approach; it was my uncle’s footman, and I hastened to the door. “Have you not heard?” he asked. “Heard what?” “The

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§2

§2

In the ancient family of the Ivashevs a French girl was living as a governess. The only son of the house wished to marry her. All his relations were driven wild by the idea; there was a great commotion, tears, and entreaties. They succeeded in inducing the girl to leave Petersburg and the young man to delay his intention for a season. Young Ivashev was one of the most active conspirators, and was condemned to penal servitude for life. For this was a form of mésalliance from which his relations d

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§3

§3

I was strongly impressed by stories of the rebels and I their fate, and by the horror which reigned in Moscow. These events revealed to me a new world, which became more and more the centre of my whole inner life; I don’t know how it came to pass; but, though I understood very dimly what it was all about, I felt that the side that possessed the cannons and held the upper hand was not my side. The execution of Pestel [29] and his companions finally awakened me from the dreams of childhood. 29 .

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§4

§4

To this encouragement and approval from my teachers there was soon added a still warmer sympathy which had a profound influence upon me. In a little town of the Government of Tver lived a granddaughter of my father’s eldest brother. Her name was Tatyana Kuchin. I had known her from childhood, but we seldom met: once a year, at Christmas or Shrovetide, she came to pay a visit to her aunt at Moscow. But we had become close friends. Though five years my senior, she was short for her age and looked

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§5

§5

Most people speak of their early youth, its joys and sorrows, with a slightly condescending smile, as if they wished to say, like the affected lady in Griboyédov’s play, “How childish!” Children, when a few years are past, are ashamed of their toys, and this is right enough: they want to be men and women, they grow so fast and change so much, as they see by their jackets and the pages of their lesson-books. But adults might surely realise that childhood and the two or three years of youth are th

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§6

§6

My cousin’s life was no bed of roses. She lost her mother in childhood; her father was a passionate gambler, who, like all men who have gambling in their blood, was constantly rich and poor by turns and ended by ruining himself. What was left of his fortune he devoted to his stud, which now became the object of all his thoughts and desires. His only son, a good-natured cavalry officer, was taking the shortest road to ruin: at the age of nineteen, he was a more desperate gambler than his father.

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§7

§7

The day after her arrival, my cousin turned my usual routine, with the exception of my lessons, upside down. With a high hand she fixed hours for us to read together, advised me to stop reading novels, and recommended Ségur’s General History and The Travels of Anacharsis . [32] From the ascetic point of view she opposed my strong inclination to smoke on the sly—cigarettes were then unknown, and I rolled the tobacco in paper myself: in general, she liked to preach to me, and I listened meekly to

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§8

§8

I had a passionate love for the country, and our visits there gave me new life. Forests, fields, and perfect freedom—all this was a complete change to me, who had grown up wrapped in cotton-wool, behind stone walls, never daring to leave the house on any pretext without asking leave, or without the escort of a footman. From spring onwards, I was always much exercised by one question—shall we go to the country this year or not? Every year my father said that he wished to see the leaves open and w

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§9

§9

We stopped half-way, to dine and feed the horses, at a large village, whose name of Perkhushkov may be found in Napoleon’s bulletins. It belonged to a son of the uncle, of whom I spoke in describing the division of the property. The neglected manor-house stood near the high road, which had dull flat fields on each side of it; but to me even this dusty landscape was delightful after the confinement of a town. The floors of the house were uneven, and the steps of the staircase shook; our tread sou

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§10

§10

I have seen few more charming spots than this estate of Vasílevskoë. On one side, where the ground slopes, there is a large village with a church and an old manor-house; on the other side, where there is a hill and a smaller village, was a new house built by my father. From our windows there was a view for many miles: the endless corn-fields spread like lakes, ruffled by the breeze; manor-houses and villages with white churches were visible here and there; forests of varying hues made a semicirc

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§11

§11

We never went back to Vasílevskoë after 1832, and my father sold it during my banishment. In 1843 we were staying in the country within twenty versts of the old home and I could not resist paying it a visit. We drove along the familiar road, past the pine-wood and the hill covered with nut bushes, till we came to the ford which had given me such delight twenty years ago—I remembered the splashing water, the crunching sound of the pebbles, the coachmen shouting at the jibbing horses. At last we r

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§1

§1

SOME time in the year 1824 I was walking one day with my father along the Moscow River, on the far side of the Sparrow Hills; and there we met a French tutor whom we knew. He had nothing on but his shirt, was obviously in great alarm, and was calling out, “Help! Help!” Before our friend had time to pull off his shirt or pull on his trousers, a Cossack ran down from the Sparrow Hills, hurled himself into the water, and disappeared. In another moment he reappeared, grasping a miserable little obje

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§2

§2

The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Sonnenberg had been so nearly drowned, soon became to us a Holy Place. One day after dinner, my father proposed to take a drive into the country, and, as Niko was in the house, invited him and Sonnenberg to join us. These drives were no joke. Though the carriage was made by Iochim, most famous of coachmakers, it had been used, if not severely, for fifteen years till it had become old and ugly, and it weighed more than a siege mortar, so that we took an hou

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§3

§3

After 1827 we two were inseparable. In every recollection of that time, whether detailed or general, he is always prominent, with the face of opening manhood, with his love for me. He was early marked with that sign of consecration which is given to few, and which, for weal or for woe, separates a man from the crowd. A large oil-painting of Ogaryóv was made about that time and long remained in his father’s house. I often stopped in front of it and looked long at it. He was painted with a loose o

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§4

§4

Thus it was that Ogaryóv and I entered upon life hand in hand. We walked in confidence and pride; without counting the cost, we answered every summons and surrendered ourselves sincerely to each generous impulse. The path we chose was not easy; but we never once left it; wounded and broken, we still went on, and no one out-stripped us on the way. I have reached, not our goal but the place where the road turns downhill, and I seek instinctively for your arm, my friend, that I may press it and say

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§1

§1

THE dulness and monotony of our house became more intolerable with every year. But for the prospect of University life, my new friendship, my interest in politics, and my lively turn of character, I must either have run away or died of the life. My father was seldom cheerful; as a rule he was dissatisfied with everyone and everything. He was a man of unusual intelligence and powers of observation, who had seen and heard a great deal and remembered it; he was a finished man of the world and could

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§2

§2

In Europe, especially in France, the eighteenth century produced an extraordinary type of man, which combined all the weaknesses of the Regency with all the strength of Spartans or Romans. Half like Faublas and half like Regulus, these men opened wide the doors of revolution and were the first to rush into it, jostling one another in their haste to pass out by the “window” of the guillotine. Our age has ceased to produce those strong, complete natures; but last century evoked them everywhere, ev

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§3

§3

By his education and service in the Guards, by his birth and connexions, my father belonged to the same circle; but neither temperament nor health allowed him to lead a life of dissipation to the age of seventy, and he went to the opposite extreme. He determined to secure a life of solitude, and found it intensely tedious—all the more tedious because he had sought it merely for his own sake. A strong will was degraded into stubborn wilfulness, and unused powers spoilt his temper and made it diff

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§4

§4

For the rest, he had convinced himself that he was dangerously ill, and was constantly under treatment. He had a doctor resident in the house and was visited by two or three other physicians; and at least three consultations took place each year. His sour looks and constant complaints of his health (which was not really so bad) soon reduced the number of our visitors. He resented this; yet he never remonstrated or invited any friend to the house. An air of terrible boredom reigned in our house,

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§5

§5

Every year about Shrovetide our peasants from the Government of Penza brought their payments in kind to Moscow. It was a fortnight’s journey for the carts, laden with carcasses of pork, sucking-pigs, geese, chickens, rye, eggs, butter, and even linen. The arrival of the peasants was a regular field-day for all our servants, who robbed and cheated the visitors right and left, without any right to do so. The coachman charged for the water their horses drank, and the women charged for a warm place

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§6

§6

I shall end this subject by relating how my father lost nearly a thousand acres of valuable timber on one of the estates which had come to him from his brother, the Senator. In the forties Count Orlóv, wishing to buy land for his sons, offered a price for this estate, which was in the Government of Tver. The parties came to terms, and it seemed that the transaction was complete. But when the Count went to examine his purchase, he wrote to my father that a forest marked upon the plan of the estat

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§7

§7

That our way of life may be thoroughly understood, I shall describe a whole day from the beginning. They were all alike, and this very monotony was the most killing part of it all. Our life went on like an English clock with the regulator put back—with a slow and steady movement and a loud tick for each second. At ten in the morning, the valet who sat in the room next the bedroom, informed Vyéra Artamónovna, formerly my nurse, that the master was getting up; and she went off to prepare coffee, w

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§8

§8

In 1840 my father bought the house next to ours, a larger and better house, with a garden, which had belonged to Countess Rostopchín, wife of the famous governor of Moscow. We moved into it. Then he bought a third house, for no reason except that it was adjacent. Two of these houses stood empty; they were never let because tenants would give trouble and might cause fires—both houses were insured, by the way—and they were never repaired, so that both were in a fair way to fall down. Sonnenberg wa

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§9

§9

As soon as he noticed Sonnenberg, my father began a little campaign at once. He acknowledged by a bow enquiries as to his health; then he thought a little, and asked (this just as an example of his methods), “Where do you buy your hair-oil?” I should say that Sonnenberg, though the plainest of men, thought himself a regular Don Juan: he was careful about his clothes and wore a curling wig of a golden-yellow colour. “I buy it of Buis, on the Kuznetsky Bridge,” he answered abruptly, rather nettled

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§10

§10

The next to appear on the scene was the cook. Whatever he had bought or put on the slate, my father always objected to the price. “Dear, dear! how high prices are! Is nothing coming in from the country?” “No, indeed, Sir,” answered the cook; “the roads are very bad just now.” “Well, you and I must buy less, until they’re mended.” Next he sat down at his writing table, where he wrote orders for his bailiff or examined his accounts, and scolded me in the intervals of business. He consulted his doc

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§11

§11

On the eve of each Ash Wednesday all the servants came, according to the old custom, to ask pardon of their master for offences; and on these solemn occasions my father came into the drawing-room accompanied by his valet. He always pretended that he could not recognise some of the people. “Who is that decent old man, standing in that corner?” he would ask the valet. “Danilo, the coachman,” was the impatient answer; for Nikita knew this was all play-acting. “Dear, dear! how changed he is! I reall

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§12

§12

We dined at four: the dinner lasted a long time and was very tiresome. Spiridon was an excellent cook; but his parsimony as well as my father’s made the meal rather unsatisfying, though there were a number of courses. My father used to put bits for the dogs in a red jar that stood beside his place; he also fed them off his fork, a proceeding which was deeply resented by the servants and therefore by myself also; but I do not know why. Visitors, rare in general, were especially rare at dinner. I

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§13

§13

One of these visitors was an exceedingly comic figure, a short, bald old man, who always wore a short, tight tail-coat, and a waistcoat which ended where a modern waistcoat begins. His name was Dmitri Pimyónov, and he always looked twenty years out of date, reminding you of 1810 in 1830, and of 1820 in 1840. He was interested in literature, but his natural capacity was small, and he had been brought up on the sentimental phrases of Karamzín, or Marmontel and Marivaux. Dmítriev was his master in

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§14

§14

But the real martyrs of our dinner-table were certain old and feeble ladies, who held a humble and uncertain position in the household of Princess Khovanski, my father’s sister. For the sake of change, or to get information about our domestic affairs—whether the heads of the family had quarrelled, whether the cook had beaten his wife and been detected by his master, whether a maid had slipped from the path of virtue—these old people sometimes came on a saint’s day to spend the day. I ought to me

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§15

§15

After dinner my father generally lay down for an hour and a half, and the servants at once made off to the taverns and tea-shops. Tea was served at seven, and we sometimes had a visitor at that hour, especially my uncle, the Senator. This was a respite for us; for he generally brought a budget of news with him and produced it with much vivacity. Meanwhile my father put on an air of absolute indifference, keeping perfectly grave over the most comic stories, and questioning the narrator, as if he

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§16

§16

Such was the life I left in 1834, and such I found it in 1840, and such it remained down to my father’s death in 1846. When I returned from exile at the age of thirty, I realised that my father was right in many respects, and that he, to his misfortune, knew the world only too well. But did I deserve that he should preach even the truth in a manner so repulsive to the heart of youth? His intelligence, chilled by a long life spent in a corrupt society, made him suspicious of all the world; his fe

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§1

§1

IN spite of the ominous prognostications of the one-legged general, my father entered my name for service at the Government offices in the Kremlin, under Prince Yusúpov. I signed some document, and there the matter ended. I never heard anything more about my office, except once, three years later, when a man was sent to our house by Yusúpov, to inform me that I had gained the first step of official promotion; this messenger was the court architect, and he always shouted as if he were standing on

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§2

§2

After the year 1812, Moscow University and Moscow itself rose in importance. Degraded from her position as an imperial capital by Peter the Great, the city was promoted by Napoleon, partly by his wish but mainly against it, to be the capital of the Russian nation. The people discovered the ties of blood that bound them to Moscow by the pain they felt on hearing of her capture by the enemy. For her it was the beginning of a new epoch; and her University became more and more the centre of Russian

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§3

§3

I have described already the remarkable division of the family property in 1822. When it was over, my oldest uncle went to live in Petersburg, and nothing was heard of him for a long time. At last a report got abroad that he intended to marry. He was then over sixty, and it was well known that he had other children as well as a grown-up son. He did, in fact, marry the mother of his eldest son and so made the son legitimate. He might as well have legitimised the other children; but the chief obje

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§4

§4

I began to visit him from time to time. His was a singular existence. He had a large house on the Tver Boulevard, where he lived in one very small room and used another as a laboratory. His old mother occupied another small room at the end of the passage; and the rest of the house was unused, and left exactly as it was when his father migrated to Petersburg. Tarnished chandeliers, valuable furniture, rarities of all kinds, grandfather’s clocks supposed to have been bought by Peter the Great in A

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§5

§5

At the very beginning of our acquaintance, The Chemist perceived that I was no mere idler; and he urged me to give up literature and politics—the former was mere trifling and the latter not only fruitless but dangerous—and take to natural science. He gave me Cuvier’s Essay on Geological Changes and Candolle’s Botanical Geography , and, seeing that I profited by the reading, he placed at my disposal his own excellent collections and preparations, and even offered to direct my studies himself. On

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§6

§6

It was The Chemist’s influence that made me choose the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics. Perhaps I should have done better to take up medicine; but it did me no great harm to acquire a partial knowledge of differential and integral equations, and then to lose it absolutely. Without a knowledge of natural science, there is no salvation for the modern man. This wholesome food, this strict training of the mind by facts, this proximity to the life that surrounds ours, and this acknowledgement of i

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§7

§7

And so, at last, the doors of my prison were opened, and I was free. The solitude of my smallish room and the quiet half-secret interviews with my one friend, Ogaryóv, were now exchanged for a noisy family of six hundred members. In a fortnight, I was more at home there than I had ever been, from the day I was born, in my father’s house. But even here my father’s house pursued me, in the shape of a footman whom my father sent with me to the University, especially when I walked there. I spent a w

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§8

§8

Like most energetic boys who have been brought up alone, I rushed into the arms of my companions with such frank eagerness, made proselytes with such sublime confidence, and was myself so fond of everyone, that I could not but kindle a corresponding warmth in my hearers, who were mostly of the same age as myself. I was then seventeen. The process of making friends was hastened partly by the advice which worldly wisdom gave me—to be polite to all and intimate with none, to confide in nobody; and

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§9

§9

Málov, though a professor in the University, was a stupid, rude, ill-educated man, an object of contempt and derision to the students. One of them, when asked by a Visitor, how many professors there were in their department, replied that there were nine, not counting Málov. [46] And this man, who could be spoken of in this way, began to treat his class with more and more rudeness, till they determined to turn him out of the lecture-room. When their plan was made, they sent two spokesmen to our d

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§10

§10

The Rector at that time was Dvigubski, a survival and a typical specimen of the antediluvian professor—but, for flood I should substitute fire, the Great Fire of 1812. They are extinct now: the patriarchal epoch of Moscow University ends with the appointment of Prince Obolenski as Visitor. In those days the Government left the University alone: the professors lectured or not, the students attended or not, just as they pleased, and the latter, instead of the kind of cavalry uniform they have now,

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§11

§11

But Dvigubski was by no means a good-natured professor: his reception of us was exceedingly abrupt and discourteous; I talked terrible nonsense and was rude, and the baron played second fiddle to me. Dvigubski was provoked and ordered us to appear before the Council next morning. The Council settled our business in half an hour: they questioned, condemned, and sentenced us, and referred the sentence, for confirmation, to Prince Golitsyn. I had hardly had time to give half a dozen performances in

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§12

§12

But did we learn anything, meanwhile, and was study possible under such circumstances? I think we did. The instruction was more limited in quantity and scope than in the forties. But a university is not bound to complete scientific education: its business is rather to put a man in a position to walk by himself; it should raise problems and teach a man to ask questions. And this is exactly what was done by such professors as Pávlov and Kachenovsky, each in his own way. But the collision of young

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§13

§13

When Humboldt [48] was on his way back from the Ural Mountains, he was welcomed to Moscow at a formal meeting of the Society for the Pursuit of Natural Science, most of whose members were state functionaries of some kind, not at all interested in science, either natural or unnatural. But the glory of Humboldt—a Privy Councillor of the Prussian King, a man on whom the Tsar had graciously conferred the Order of St. Anne, with instructions that the recipient was to be put to no expense in the matte

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§14

§14

Our attitude towards Europe and Europeans is still that of provincials towards the dwellers in a capital: we are servile and apologetic, take every difference for a defect, blush for our peculiarities and try to hide them, and confess our inferiority by imitation. The fact is that we are intimidated: we have never got over the sneers of Peter the Great and his coadjutors, or the superior airs of French tutors and Germans in our Civil Service. Western nations talk of our duplicity and cunning; th

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§15

§15

Humboldt’s reception in Moscow and at the University was a tremendous affair. Everyone came to meet him—the Governor of the city, functionaries military and civil, and the judges of the Supreme Court; and the professors were there wearing full uniform and their Orders, looking most martial with swords and three-cornered hats tucked under their arms. Unaware of all this, Humboldt arrived in a blue coat with gilt buttons and was naturally taken aback. His way was barricaded at every point between

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§16

§16

Our other distinguished visitor was also “a Prometheus of our time” in a certain sense; only, instead of stealing fire from Zeus, he stole it from mankind. This Prometheus, whose fame was sung, not by Glinka but by Púshkin himself in his Epistle to Lucullus , was Uvárov, the Minister of Education. [51] He astonished us by the number of languages he spoke and by the amount of his miscellaneous knowledge; he was a real shopman behind the counter of learning and kept samples of all the sciences, th

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§17

§17

It fell to me to lecture on a mineralogical subject. Our professor, Lovetski,—he is now dead,—was a tall man with a clumsy figure and awkward gait, a large mouth and a large and entirely expressionless face. He wore a pea-green overcoat, adorned in the fashion of the First Consulate with a variety of capes; and while taking off this garment in the passage outside the lecture-room, he always began in an even and wooden voice which seemed to suit his subject, “In our last lecture we dealt fully wi

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§18

§18

But perhaps I have dwelt long enough on College memories. I fear it may be a sign of senility to linger so long over them; and I shall only add a few details on the cholera of 1831. The word “cholera,” so familiar now in Europe and especially in Russia, was heard in the North for the first time in 1831. The dread contagion caused general terror, as it spread up the course of the Volga towards Moscow. Exaggerated rumours filled men’s minds with horror. The epidemic took a capricious course, somet

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§19

§19

Philaret carried on a kind of opposition to Government, but why he did so I never could understand, unless it was to assert his own personality. He was an able and learned man, and a perfect master of the Russian language, which he spoke with a happy flavouring of Church-Slavonic; but all this gave him no right to be in opposition. The people disliked him and called him a freemason, because he was intimate with Prince A. N. Golitsyn and preached in Petersburg just when the Bible Society was in v

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§20

§20

I witnessed the whole course of the frightful epidemic of cholera at Paris in 1849. The violence of the disease was increased by the hot June weather; the poor died like flies; of the middle classes some fled to the country, and the rest locked themselves up in their houses. The Government, exclusively occupied by the struggle against the revolutionists, never thought of taking any active steps. Large private subscriptions failed to meet the requirements of the situation. The working class were

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§21

§21

In August of 1830 we went to stay at Vasílevskoë, and broke our journey as usual at Perkhushkov, where our house looked like a castle in a novel of Mrs. Radcliffe’s. After taking a meal and feeding the horses, we were preparing to resume our journey, and Bakai, with a towel round his waist, was just calling out to the coachman, “All right!” when a mounted messenger signed to us to stop. This was a groom belonging to my uncle, the Senator. Covered with dust and sweat, he jumped off his horse and

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§22

§22

Our special group consisted of five to begin with, and then we fell in with a sixth, Vadim Passek. There was much that was new to us in Vadim. We five had all been brought up in very much the same way: we knew no places but Moscow and the surrounding country; we had read the same books and taken lessons from the same teachers; we had been educated either at home or in the boarding-school connected with the University. But Vadim was born in Siberia, during his father’s exile, and had suffered pov

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§23

§23

Their father was arrested in Paul’s reign, having been informed against for revolutionary designs. He was thrown into prison at Schlüsselburg and then banished to Siberia. When Alexander restored thousands of his father’s exiles, Passek was forgotten . He was a nephew of the Passek who became Governor of Poland, and might have claimed a share of the fortune which had now passed into other hands. While detained at Schlüsselburg, Passek had married the daughter of an officer of the garrison. The y

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§24

§24

Vadim died in February of 1843. I was present at his death; it was the first time I had witnessed the death of one dear to me, and I realised the unrelieved horror, the senseless irrationality, and the stupid injustice of the tragedy. Ten years earlier Vadim had married my cousin Tatyana, and I was best man at the wedding. Family life and change of conditions parted us to some extent. He was happy in his quiet life, but outward circumstances were unfavourable and his enterprises were unsuccessfu

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§25

§25

After dragging on for a year, the affair of Sungurov and our other friends who had been arrested came to an end. The charge, as in our case and in that of Petrashev’s group, was that they intended to form a secret society and had held treasonable conversations. Their punishment was to be sent to Orenburg, to join the colours. And now our turn came. Our names were already entered on the black list of the secret police. The cat dealt her first playful blow at the mouse in the following way. When o

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§26

§26

But first I shall add a few words about the fate of Sungurov and his companions. Kolreif returned to Moscow, where he died in the arms of his grief-stricken father. Kostenetski and Antonovitch both distinguished themselves as private soldiers in the Caucasus and received commissions. The fate of the unhappy Sungurov was far more tragic. On reaching the first stage of their journey from Moscow, he asked permission of the officer, a young man of twenty, to leave the stifling cottage crammed with c

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§1

§1

THE storm had not yet burst over our heads when my college course came to an end. My experience of the final stage of education was exactly like that of everyone else—constant worry and sleepless nights for the sake of a painful and useless test of the memory, superficial cramming, and all real interest in learning crowded out by the nightmare of examination. I wrote an astronomical dissertation for the gold medal, and the silver medal was awarded me. I am sure that I should not be able now to u

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§2

§2

The year which we spent after leaving College formed a triumphant conclusion to the first period of our youth. It was one long festival of friendship, of high spirits, of inspiration and exchange of ideas. We were a small group of college friends who kept together after our course was over, and continued to share the same views and the same ideals. Not one of us thought of his future career or financial position. I should not praise this attitude in grown-up people, but I value it highly in a yo

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§3

§3

I have a sincere pity for any nation where old heads grow on young shoulders; youth is a matter, not only of years, but of temperament. The German student, in the height of his eccentricity, is a hundred times better than the young Frenchman or Englishman with his dull grown-up airs; as to American boys who are men at fifteen—I find them simply repulsive. In old France the young nobles were really young and fine; and later, such men as Saint Just and Hoche, Marceau and Desmoulins, heroic childre

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§4

§4

But what were these revels of ours like? It would suddenly occur to one of us that this was the fourth of December and that the sixth was St. Nicholas’ Day. Many of us were named after the Saint, Ogaryóv himself and at least three more. “Well, who shall give a dinner on the day?” “I will—I will.” “I’ll give one on the seventh.” “Pooh! what’s the seventh? We must contribute and all give it together; and that will be a grand feed.” “All right. Where shall we meet?” “So-and-so is ill. Clearly we mu

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§5

§5

In this connexion I cannot refrain from recording something that happened to our friend Sokolovski. He could never keep money and spent at once whatever he got. A year before his arrest, he paid a visit to Moscow. As he had been successful in selling the manuscript of a poem, he determined to give a dinner and to ask not only us but such bigwigs as Polevói, Maximovitch, and others. On the day before, he went out with Polezháev, who was in Moscow with his regiment, to make his purchases; he bough

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§6

§6

For our “feast of the four birthdays” I wrote out a regular programme, which was honoured by the special attention of Golitsyn, one of the Commissioners at our trial, who asked me if the programme had been carried out exactly. “ À la lettre! ” I replied. He shrugged his shoulders, as if his own life had been a succession of Good Fridays spent in a monastery. Our suppers were generally followed by a lively discussion over a question of the first importance, which was this—how ought the punch to b

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§7

§7

Next day I awake with a headache, clearly due to the punch. That comes of mixing liquors. Punch is poison; I vow never to touch it in future. My servant, Peter, comes in. “You came in last night, Sir, wearing someone else’s hat, not so good a hat as your own.” “The deuce take my hat!” “Perhaps I had better go where you dined last night and enquire?” “Do you suppose, my good man, that one of the party went home bare-headed?” “It can do no harm—just in case.” Now it dawns upon me that the hat is a

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§8

§8

But I must explain the allusion to Madeira in the soup. A year or more before the grand birthday party, I went out for a walk with Ogaryóv one day in Easter week, and, in order to escape dinner at home, I said that I had been invited to dine at their house by Ogaryóv’s father. My father did not care for my friends in general and used to call them by wrong names, though he always made the same mistake in addressing any of them; and Ogaryóv was less of a favourite than any, both because he wore hi

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§9

§9

On the present occasion, I hurried off to the scene of our revelry and found Ogaryóv and Ketcher still there. The latter looked rather the worse for wear; he was finding fault with some of last night’s arrangements and was severely critical. Ogaryóv was trying a hair of the dog that bit him, though there was little left to drink after the party, and that little was now diminished by the descent of my man Peter, who was by this time in full glory, singing a song and drumming on the kitchen table

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§10

§10

When I recall those days, I cannot remember a single incident among our set such as might weigh upon a man’s conscience and cause shame in recollection; and this is true of every one of the group without a single exception. Of course, there were Platonic lovers among us, and disenchanted youths of sixteen. Vadim even wrote a play, in order to set forth the “terrible experience of a broken heart.” The play began thus— A garden, with a house in the distance; there are lights in the windows. The st

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§11

§11

The period that followed the suppression of the Polish revolt in 1830 was a period of rapid enlightenment. We soon perceived with inward horror that things were going badly in Europe and especially in France—France to which we looked for a political creed and a banner; and we began to distrust our own theories. The simple liberalism of 1826, which by degrees took, in France, the form sung by Béranger and preached by men like La Fayette and Benjamin Constant, lost its magic power over us after th

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§12

§12

During this period of ferment and surmise and endeavour to understand the doubts that frightened us, there came into our hands the pamphlets and sermons of the Saint-Simonians, and the report of their trial. We were much impressed by them. Superficial and unsuperficial critics alike have had their laugh at Le Père Enfantin [57] and his apostles; but a time is coming when a different reception will be given to those forerunners of socialism. 57 . Barthèlemy Enfantin (1796-1864) carried on the w

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§13

§13

To complete my chronicle of that sad time, I should record here some details about Polezháev. Even at College he became known for his remarkable powers as a poet. One of his productions was a humorous poem called Sashka , a parody of Púshkin’s Onégin ; he trod on many corns in the pretty and playful verse, and the poem, never intended for print, allowed itself the fullest liberty of expression. When the Tsar Nicholas came to Moscow for his coronation in the autumn of 1826, the secret police furn

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§1

§1

ONE morning in the spring of 1834 I went to Vadim’s house. Though neither he nor any of his brothers or sisters were at home, I went upstairs to his little room, sat down, and began to write. The door opened softly, and Vadim’s mother came in. Her tread was scarcely audible; looking tired and ill, she went to an armchair and sat down. “Go on writing,” she said; “I just looked in to see if Vadya had come home. The children have gone out for a walk, and the downstairs rooms are so empty and depres

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§2

§2

“Arrested him?” I called out, springing out of bed, and pinching myself, to find out if I was asleep or awake. “Two hours after you left our house, the police and a party of Cossacks came and arrested my master and seized his papers.” The speaker was Ogaryóv’s valet. Of late all had been quiet, and I could not imagine what pretext the police had invented. Ogaryóv had only come to Moscow the day before. And why had they arrested him, and not me? To do nothing was impossible. I dressed and went ou

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§3

§3

Eighteen months before this time we had made the acquaintance of this man, who was a kind of a celebrity in Moscow. Educated in Paris, he was rich, intelligent, well-informed, witty, and independent in his ideas. For complicity in the Decembrist plot he had been imprisoned in a fortress till he and some others were released; and though he had not been exiled, he wore a halo. He was in the public service and had great influence with Prince Dmitri Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, who liked people

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§4

§4

V. was not at home. He had gone to Moscow the evening before, for an interview with the Governor; his valet said that he would certainly return within two hours. I waited for him. The country-house which he occupied was charming. The study where I waited was a high spacious room on the ground-floor, with a large door leading to a terrace and garden. It was a hot day; the scent of trees and flowers came from the garden; and some children were playing in front of the house and laughing loudly. Wea

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§5

§5

I found a general commotion going on at home. My father was angry with me because Ogaryóv had been arrested; my uncle, the Senator, was already on the scene, rummaging among my books and picking out those which he thought dangerous; he was very uneasy. On my table I found an invitation to dine that day with Count Orlóv. Possibly he might be able to do something? Though I had learned a lesson by my first experiment, it could do no harm to try. Mihail Orlóv was one of the founders of the famous So

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§6

§6

It was a large dinner. I happened to sit next General Raevski, Orlóv’s brother-in-law. Raevski also had been in disgrace since the famous fourteenth of December. As a boy of fourteen he had served under his distinguished father at the battle of Borodino; and he died eventually of wounds received in the Caucasus. I told him about Ogaryóv and asked whether Orlóv would be able and willing to take any steps. Raevski’s face clouded over, but it did not express that querulous anxiety for personal safe

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§7

§7

I only saw him once more, just six years later. He was then near death; I was struck by the signs of illness and depression on his face, and the marked angularity of his features was a shock to me. He felt that he was breaking up, and knew that his affairs were in hopeless disorder. Two months later he died, of a clot of blood in the arteries. At Lucerne there is a wonderful monument carved by Thorwaldsen in the natural rock—a niche containing the figure of a dying lion. The great beast is morta

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§8

§8

As I drove home from Orlóv’s house, I passed the office of General Tsinski, chief of the police; and it occurred to me to make a direct application to him for leave to see Ogaryóv. Never in my life had I paid a visit to any person connected with the police. I had to wait a long time; but at last the Chief Commissioner appeared. My request surprised him. “What reason have you for asking this permission?” “Ogaryóv and I are cousins.” “Cousins?” he asked, looking me straight in the face. I said not

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§9

§9

A few words of deep sympathy, spoken by a girl [68] of sixteen, whom I regarded as a child, put new life in me. 68 . This was Natálya Zakhárin, Herzen’s cousin, who afterwards became his wife. This is the first time that a woman figures in my narrative; and it is practically true that only one woman figures in my life. My young heart had been set beating before by fleeting fancies of youth; but these vanished like the shapes of cloudland before this figure, and no new fancies ever came. Our me

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§1

§1

“WE shall meet to-morrow,” I repeated to myself as I was falling asleep, and my heart felt unusually light and happy. At two in the morning I was wakened by my father’s valet; he was only half-dressed and looked frightened. “An officer is asking for you.” “What officer?” “I don’t know.” “Well, I do,” I said, as I threw on my dressing-gown. A figure wrapped in a military cloak was standing at the drawing-room door; I could see a white plume from my window, and there were some people behind it—I c

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§2

§2

There was no private room for me at the police-station, and the officer directed that I should spend the rest of the night in the office. He took me there himself; dropping into an armchair and yawning wearily, he said: “It’s a dog’s life. I’ve been up since three, and now your business has kept me till near four in the morning, and at nine I have to present my report.” “Good-bye,” he said a moment later and left the room. A corporal locked me in, and said that I might knock at the door if I nee

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§3

§3

Towards morning the office began to fill up. The first to appear was a clerk, who had evidently been drunk the night before and was not sober yet. He had red hair and a pimpled face, a consumptive look, and an expression of brutish sensuality; he wore a long, brick-coloured coat, ill-made, ill-brushed, and shiny with age. The next comer was a free-and-easy gentleman, wearing the cloak of a non-commissioned officer. He turned to me at once and asked: “They got you at the theatre, I suppose?” “No;

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§1

§1

A MAN soon gets used to prison, if he has any interior life at all. One quickly gets accustomed to the silence and complete freedom of one’s cage—there are no cares and no distractions. They refused me books at first, and the police-magistrate declared that it was against the rules for me to get books from home. I then proposed to buy some. “I suppose you mean some serious book—a grammar of some kind, I dare say? Well, I should not object to that; for other books, higher authority must be obtain

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§2

§2

I had been in prison ten days, when a short policeman with a swarthy, pock-marked face came to my room at ten in the evening, bringing an order that I was to dress and present myself before the Commission of Enquiry. While I was dressing, a serio-comic incident occurred. My dinner was sent me every day from home; our servant delivered it to the corporal on duty, and he sent a private upstairs with it. A bottle of wine from outside was allowed daily, and a friend had taken advantage of this permi

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§3

§3

This judge of wine went with me to the Chief Commissioner’s house on the Tver Boulevard, where he took me to a side room and left me alone. Half an hour later, a fat man with a lazy, good-natured expression came in, carrying papers in a wallet; he threw the wallet on a chair and sent the policeman who was standing at the door off on some errand. “I suppose,” he said to me, “you are mixed up in the affair of Ogaryóv and the other young men who were lately arrested.” I admitted it. “I’ve heard abo

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§4

§4

My next visitor was a police-officer, not Colonel Miller this time. He summoned me to a large, rather fine room where five men were sitting at a table, all wearing military uniform except one who was old and decrepit. They were smoking cigars and carrying on a lively conversation, lying back in their chairs with their jackets unbuttoned. The Chief Commissioner, Tsinski, was in the chair. When I came in, he turned to a figure sitting modestly in a corner of the room and said, “May I trouble Your

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§5

§5

Eight years later a lady, who had once been beautiful, and her beautiful daughter, were living in a different part of this very house where the Commission sat; she was the sister of a later Chief Commissioner. I used to visit there and always had to pass through the room where Tsinski and Company used to sit on us. There was a portrait of the Emperor Paul on the wall, and I used to stop in front of it every time I passed, either as a prisoner or as a visitor. Near it was a little drawing-room wh

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§6

§6

Within a week or a fortnight the pock-marked policeman came again and went with me again to Tsinski’s house. Inside the door some men in chains were sitting or lying, surrounded by soldiers with rifles; and in the front room there were others, of various ranks in society, not chained but strictly guarded. My policeman told me that these were incendiaries. As Tsinski himself had gone to the scene of the fires, we had to wait for his return. We arrived at nine in the evening; and at one in the mor

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§7

§7

When we got back, we found great excitement there too: three fires had broken out during the evening, and the Commissioners had sent twice to ask what had become of me and whether I had run away. If Tsinski had not abused my escort sufficiently, the police-magistrate fully made up for any deficiencies; and this was natural, because he himself was partly to blame for not asking where exactly I was to be sent. In a corner of the office there was a man lying on two chairs and groaning, who attracte

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§8

§8

In order to know what Russian prisons and Russian police and justice really are, one must be a peasant, a servant or workman or shopkeeper. The political prisoners, who are mostly of noble birth, are strictly guarded and vindictively punished; but they suffer infinitely less than the unfortunate “men with beards.” With them the police stand on no ceremony. In what quarter can a peasant or workman seek redress? Where will he find justice? The Russian system of justice and police is so haphazard,

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§9

§9

The board appointed to investigate the fires sat, or, in other words, flogged, for six months continuously, but they were no wiser at the end of the flogging. The Tsar grew angry: he ordered that the business should be completed in three days. And so it was: guilty persons were discovered and sentenced to flogging, branding, and penal servitude. All the hall-porters in Moscow were brought together to witness the infliction of the punishment. It was winter by then, and I had been moved to the Kru

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§10

§10

The cause of these incendiary fires which alarmed Moscow in 1834 and were repeated ten years later in different parts of the country, still remains a mystery. That it was not all accidental is certain: fire as a means of revenge—“The red cock,” as it is called—is characteristic of the nation. One is constantly hearing of a gentleman’s house or corn-kiln or granary being set on fire by his enemies. But what was the motive for the fires at Moscow in 1834, nobody knows, and the members of the Board

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§1

§1

THREE days after the Tsar came to Moscow, a police-officer called on me late in the evening—all these things are done in the dark, to spare the nerves of the public—bringing an order for me to pack up and start off with him. “Where to?” I asked. “You will see shortly,” he answered with equal wit and politeness. That was enough: I asked no more questions, but packed up my things and started. We drove on and on for an hour and a half, passed St. Peter’s Monastery, and stopped at a massive stone ga

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§2

§2

The monks’ cells, built 300 years ago, had sunk deep into the ground, and were now put to a secular use for political prisoners. My room contained a bedstead without a mattress, a small table with a jug of water on it, and a chair; a thin tallow candle was burning in a large copper candlestick. The damp and cold struck into the marrow of my bones; the officer ordered the stove to be lighted, and then I was left alone. A turnkey promised to bring some straw; meanwhile I used my overcoat as a pill

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§3

§3

In spite of my entreaties, the turnkey insisted on closing the stove after he had lighted it. I soon felt uncomfortable and giddy, and I decided to get up and knock on the wall. I did get up, but I remember no more. When I came to myself I was lying on the floor and my head was aching fiercely. A tall, grey-haired turnkey was standing over me with his arms folded, and watching me with a steady, expressionless stare, such as may be seen in the eyes of the dog watching the tortoise, in a well-know

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§4

§4

But I became accustomed even to these quarters, and conjugated Italian verbs and read any books I could get. At first, the rules were fairly strict: when the bugle sounded for the last time at nine in the evening, a turnkey came in, blew out my candle, and locked me up for the night. I had to sit in darkness till eight next morning. I was never a great sleeper, and the want of exercise made four hours’ sleep ample for me in prison; hence the want of a light was a serious deprivation. Besides thi

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§5

§5

When I was bored and not inclined to read, I talked to my gaolers, especially to the old fellow who had treated me for my fainting fit. The colonel, as a mark of favour, excused some of the old soldiers from parade and gave them the light work of guarding a prisoner; they were in charge of a corporal—a spy and a scoundrel. Five or six of these veterans did all the work of the prison. The old soldier I am speaking of was a simple creature, kind-hearted himself and grateful for any kindness that w

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§6

§6

In his stories of the past there was a kind of artlessness which made me sad. I shall record one of them. He served in Moldavia, in the Turkish campaign of 1805; and the commander of his company was the kindest of men, caring like a father for each soldier and always foremost in battle. “Our captain was in love with a Moldavian woman, and we saw that he was in bad spirits; the reason was that she was often visiting another officer. One day he sent for me and a friend of mine—a fine soldier he wa

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§7

§7

It is the custom to serve out a glass of brandy to the gaolers on saints’ days and royal birthdays; and Philimonov was allowed to decline this ration till five or six were due to him, and then to draw it all at once. He marked on a tally the number of glasses he did not drink, and applied for the lot on one of the great festivals. He poured all the brandy into a soup-tureen, crumbled bread into it, and then supped it with a spoon. When this repast was over, he smoked a large pipe with a tiny mou

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§8

§8

Before I end these Wouverman-Callot [72] sketches of barrack-life and this prison-gossip which only repeats the recollections of all captives like myself, I shall say something also of the officers. 72 . Wouverman (1619-1668), a Dutch painter; Callot (1592-1635), a French painter; both painted outdoor life, soldiers, beggars, etc. Most of them were not spies at all, but good enough people, who had drifted by chance into the constabulary. Young nobles, with little or no education, without fortu

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§9

§9

Nothing in the world can be more stupid and more unfair than to judge a whole class of men in the lump, merely by the name they bear and the predominating characteristics of their profession. A label is a terrible thing. Jean Paul Richter [73] says with perfect truth: “If a child tells a lie, make him afraid of doing wrong and tell him that he has told a lie, but don’t call him a liar. If you define him as a liar, you break down his confidence in his own character.” We are told that a man is a m

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§1

§1

BUT meanwhile what about the charge against us? and what about the Commission of Enquiry? The new Commission made just as great a mess of it as its predecessor. The police had been on our track for a long time, but their zeal and impatience prevented them from waiting for a decent pretext, and they did a silly thing. They employed a retired officer called Skaryatka to draw us on till we were committed; and he made acquaintance with nearly all of our set. But we very soon made out what he was and

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§2

§2

But the police are not easily abashed, and they arrested us a fortnight later, as concerned in the affair of the students’ party. They found a number of letters—letters of Satin’s at Sokolovski’s rooms, of Ogaryóv’s at Satin’s, and of mine at Ogaryóv’s; but nothing of importance was discovered. The first Commission of Enquiry was a failure; and in order that the second might succeed better, the Tsar sent from Petersburg the Grand Inquisitor, Prince A. F. Golitsyn. The breed to which he belonged

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§3

§3

But it was unfortunate for the Inquisition that Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, was the first member appointed to it. Staal was a brave old soldier and an honest man; he looked into the matter, and found that two quite distinct incidents were involved: the first was the students’ party, which the police were bound to punish; the second was the mysterious arrest of some men, whose whole visible fault was limited to some half-expressed opinions, and whom it would be difficult and absurd to try on

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§4

§4

The Commission now consisted of foes only. The President was Prince S. M. Golitsyn, a simple old gentleman, who, after sitting for nine months, knew just as little about the business as he did nine months before he took the chair. He preserved a dignified silence and seldom spoke; whenever an examination was finished, he asked, “May he be dismissed?” “Yes,” said Golitsyn junior, and then Golitsyn senior signified in a stately manner to the accused, “You may go.”...

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§5

§5

My first examination lasted four hours. The questions asked were of two kinds. The object of the first was to discover a trend of thought “opposed to the spirit of the Russian government, and ideas that were either revolutionary or impregnated with the pestilent doctrine of Saint-Simonianism”—this is a quotation from Golitsyn junior and Oranski, the paymaster. Such questions were simple, but they were not really questions at all. The confiscated papers and letters were clear enough evidence of o

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§6

§6

There were other questions of a more complicated kind, in which various traps and tricks, familiar to the police and boards of enquiry, were made use of, in order to confuse me and involve me in contradictions. Hints that others had confessed, and moral torture of various kinds, came into play here. They are not worth repeating; it is enough to say that the tricks all failed to make me or my three friends betray one another. When the last question had been handed out to me, I was sitting alone i

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§7

§7

I made my last appearance before the Commission in January or February of 1835. I was summoned there to read through my answers, make any additions I wished, and sign my name. Shubenski was the only Commissioner present. When I had done reading, I said: “I should like to know what charge can be based on these questions and these answers. Which article of the code applies to my case?” “The code of law is intended for crimes of a different kind,” answered the colonel in blue. “That is another matt

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§8

§8

When the enquiry was over, the conditions of my imprisonment were relaxed to some extent, and near relations could obtain permission for interviews. In this way two more months passed by. In the middle of March our sentence was confirmed. What it was nobody knew: some said we should be banished to the Caucasus, while others hoped we should all be released. The latter was Staal’s proposal, which he submitted separately to the Tsar; he held that we had been sufficiently punished by our imprisonmen

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§9

§9

Sokolovski, the author of Creation and other meritorious poems, had a strong natural gift for poetry; but this gift was neither improved by cultivation nor original enough to dispense with it. He was not a politician at all, he lived the life of a poet. He was very amusing and amiable, a cheerful companion in cheerful hours, a bon-vivant , who enjoyed a gay party as well as the rest of us, and perhaps a little better. He was now over thirty. When suddenly torn from this life and thrown into pris

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§10

§10

This Dr. Haas, who was often called a fool and a lunatic, was a very remarkable man. His memory ought not to be buried in the jungle of official obituaries—that record of virtues that never showed themselves until their possessors were mouldering in the grave. He was a little old man with a face like wax; in his black tail-coat, knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and shoes with buckles, he looked as if he had just stepped out of some play of the eighteenth century. In this costume, suitable fo

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§11

§11

Sokolovski had hardly got to an end of his narrative before others began to tell their story, several speaking at the same time. It was as if we had returned from a long journey—there was a running fire of questions and friendly chaff. Satin had suffered more in body that the rest of us: he looked thin and had lost some of his hair. He was on his mother’s estate in the Government of Tambóv when he heard of our arrest, and started at once for Moscow, that his mother might not be terrified by a vi

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§12

§12

Before we had nearly done telling our own experiences and listening to those of our friends, the adjutants began to bustle about, the garrison officers stood up straight, and the policemen came to attention; then the door opened solemnly, and little Prince Golitsyn entered en grande tenue with his ribbon across his shoulder; Tsinski was in Household uniform; and even Oranski had put on something special for the joyful occasion—a light green costume, between uniform and mufti. Staal, of course, w

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§13

§13

Two years later Ootkin died in the fortress. Sokolovski was released more dead than alive and sent to the Caucasus, where he died at Pyatigorsk. Of Ibayev it may be said in one sense that he died too; for he became a mystic. Ootkin, “a free artist confined in prison,” as he signed himself in replying to the questions put to him, was a man of forty; he never took part in political intrigue of any kind, but his nature was proud and vehement, and he was uncontrolled in his language and disrespectfu

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§14

§14

And now our turn came. Oranski rubbed his spectacles, cleared his throat, and gave utterance to the imperial edict. It was here set forth that the Tsar, having considered the report of the Commission and taking special account of the youth of the criminals, ordered that they should not be brought before a court of justice. On the contrary, the Tsar in his infinite clemency pardoned the majority of the offenders and allowed them to live at home under police supervision. But the ringleaders were t

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§15

§15

We had to face our departure. Prison was in a sense a continuation of our former life; but with our departure for the wilds, it broke off short. Our little band of youthful friends was parting asunder. Our exile was sure to last for several years. Where and how, if ever, should we meet again? One felt regret for that past life—one had been forced to leave it so suddenly, without saying good-bye. Of a meeting with Ogaryóv I had no hope. Two of my intimate friends secured an interview with me towa

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§16

§16

I wished to see once more the girl who had cheered me before and to press her hand as I had pressed it in the churchyard nine months earlier. At that interview I intended to part with the past and greet the future. We did meet for a few minutes on April 9, 1835, the day before my departure into exile. Long did I keep that day sacred in memory; it is one of the red-letter days of my life. But why does the recollection of that day and all the bright and happy days of my past life recall so much th

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§1

§1

ON the morning of April 10, 1835, a police-officer conducted me to the Governor’s palace, where my parents were allowed to take leave of me in the private part of the office. This was bound to be an uncomfortable and painful scene. Spies and clerks swarmed round us; we listened while his instructions were read aloud to the police-agent who was to go with me; it was impossible to exchange a word unwatched—in short, more painful and galling surroundings cannot be imagined. It was a relief when the

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§2

§2

My first adventure happened at Pokróv. We had lost some hours owing to the ice on the river, which cut off all communication with the other side. My guardian was eager to get on, when the post-master at Pokróv suddenly declared that there were no fresh horses. My keeper produced his passport, which stated that horses must be forthcoming all along the road; he was told that the horses were engaged for the Under-Secretary of the Home Office. He began, of course, to wrangle and make a noise; and th

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§3

§3

On getting near Kazán, we found the Volga in full flood. The river spread fifteen versts or more beyond its banks, and we had to travel by water for the whole of the last stage. It was bad weather, and a number of carts and other vehicles were detained on the bank, as the ferries had stopped working. My keeper went to the man in charge and demanded a raft for our use. The man gave it unwillingly; he said that it was dangerous and we had better wait. But my keeper was in haste, partly because he

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§4

§4

In villages and small towns, the post-master keeps a room for the accommodation of travellers; but in the large towns, where everybody goes to the hotels, there is no such provision. I was taken into the office, and the post-master showed me his own room. It was occupied by women and children and an old bedridden man; there was positively not a corner where I could change my clothes. I wrote a letter to the officer in command of the Kazán police, asking him to arrange that I should have some pla

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§5

§5

When I reached Perm, I was taken straight to the Governor’s house. There was a great gathering there; for it was his daughter’s wedding-day; the bridegroom was an officer in the Army. The Governor insisted that I should come in. So I made my bow to the beau monde of Perm, covered with mud and dust, and wearing a shabby, stained coat. The Governor talked a great deal of nonsense; he told me to keep clear of the Polish exiles in the town and to call again in the course of a few days, when he would

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§6

§6

From some dim idea of keeping a check over us, he ordered that all the exiles residing at Perm should report themselves at his house, at ten every Saturday morning. He came in smoking his pipe and ascertained, by means of a list which he carried, whether all were present; if anyone was missing, he sent to enquire the reason; he hardly ever spoke to anyone before dismissing us. Thus I made the acquaintance in his drawing-room of all the Poles whom he had told me I was to avoid. The day after I re

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§7

§7

Before I had time to look about me, the Governor informed me that I was transferred to Vyatka: another exile who was destined for Vyatka had asked to be transferred to Perm, where some of his relations lived. The Governor wished me to start next day. But that was impossible; as I expected to stay some time at Perm, I had bought a quantity of things and must sell them, even at a loss of 50 per cent. After several evasive answers, the Governor allowed me to stay for forty-eight hours longer, but h

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§8

§8

This inspector belonged to a distinct class of officials, who are half soldiers and half civilians. They are men who, while serving in the Army, have been lucky enough to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and have therefore been rewarded with positions in the police service. Military life has given them an air of frankness; they have learned some phrases about the point of honour and some terms of ridicule for humble civilians. The youngest of them have read Marlinski and Zagóskin, [83] and c

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§9

§9

I took with me from Perm one personal recollection which I value. At one of the Governor’s Saturday reviews of the exiles, a Roman Catholic priest invited me to his house. I went there and found several Poles. One of them sat there, smoking a short pipe and never speaking; misery, hopeless misery, was visible in every feature. His figure was clumsy and even crooked; his face was of that irregular Polish-Lithuanian type which surprises you at first and becomes attractive later: the greatest of al

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§10

§10

On the second day of our journey, heavy rain began at dawn and went on all day without stopping, as it often does in wooded country; at two o’clock we came to a miserable village of natives. There was no post-house; the native Votyaks, who could neither read nor write, opened my passport and ascertained whether there were two seals or one, shouted out “All right!” and harnessed the fresh horses. A Russian post-master would have kept us twice as long. On getting near this village, I had proposed

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§1

§1

WHEN I called on the Governor of Vyatka, he sent a message that I was to call again at ten next morning. When I returned, I found four men in the drawing-room, the inspectors of the town and country police, and two office clerks. They were all standing up, talking in whispers, and looking uneasily at the door. The door opened, and an elderly man of middle height and broad-shouldered entered the room. The set of his head was like that of a bulldog, and the large jaws with a kind of carnivorous gr

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§2

§2

While I was still at Perm, I had heard much about Tufáyev, but the reality far surpassed all my expectations. There is no person or thing too monstrous for the conditions of Russian life to produce. He was born at Tobolsk. His father was, I believe, an exile and belonged to the lowest and poorest class of free Russians. At thirteen he joined a band of strolling players, who wandered from fair to fair, dancing on the tight rope, turning somersaults, and so on. With them he went all the way from T

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§3

§3

But on the other hand, there were people at Perm who hated him. One of these was Chebotarev, a doctor employed at one of the factories and a remarkable product of Russian life. He warned me specially against Tufáyev. He was a clever and very excitable man, who had made an unfortunate marriage soon after taking his degree; then he had drifted to Ekaterinburg [90] and sank with no experience into the slough of provincial life. Though his position here was fairly independent, his career was wrecked

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§4

§4

I was present once when a lady, a rather clever and cultivated woman, asked him if he believed in mesmerism. “What do you mean by mesmerism?” he asked. The lady talked the usual nonsense in reply. “It does not matter twopence to you,” he said, “to know whether I believe in mesmerism or not; but if you like, I will tell you what I have seen in that way.” “Please do.” “Yes; but you must listen attentively,” and then he began to describe some experiments made by a friend of his, a doctor at Khárkov

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§5

§5

On the day I left for Vyatka, the doctor turned up at my house early in the morning. He began with this witticism. “You are like Horace: he sang once and people have been translating him ever since, and so you are translated [91] from place to place for that song you sang.” Then he pulled out his purse and asked if I needed money for the journey. I thanked him and declined his offer. “Why don’t you take it? It won’t cost you twopence.” “I have money.” “A bad sign,” he said; “the end of the world

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§6

§6

Tufáyev had a mistress at Perm, the sister of a humble official named Petrovski. The fact was notorious, and the brother was laughed at. Wishing therefore to break off this connexion, he threatened to write to Petersburg and lay information, and, in short, made such a noise and commotion that the police arrested him one day as insane and brought him up to be examined before the administration of the province. The judges and the inspector of public health—he was an old German, much beloved by the

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§7

§7

Such was the man who now undertook to teach me the business of administration, a worthy pupil of Arakchéyev, acrobat, tramp, clerk, secretary, Governor, a tender-hearted, unselfish being, who shut up sane men in mad-houses and made away with them there. I was entirely at his mercy. He had only to write some nonsense to the Minister at Petersburg, and I should be packed off to Irkutsk. Indeed, writing was unnecessary; he had the right to transfer me to some savage place like Kai or Tsarevo-Sanchu

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§8

§8

Prince Dolgorúkov belonged to a type which is becoming rarer with us; he was a sprig of nobility, of the wrong sort, whose escapades were notorious at Petersburg, Moscow, and Paris. His whole life was spent in folly; he was a spoilt, insolent, offensive practical joker, a mixture of buffoon and fine gentleman. When his pranks exceeded all bounds, he was banished to Perm. He arrived there with two carriages; the first was occupied by himself and his dog, a Great Dane, the second by his French coo

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§9

§9

The oppressive emptiness and dumbness of Russian life, when misallied to a strong and even violent temperament, are apt to produce monstrosities of all kinds. Not only in Dolgorúkov’s pie, but in Suvórov’s crowing like a cock, in the savage outbursts of Ismailov, in the semi-voluntary insanity of Mamonov, [93] and in the wild extravagances of Tolstoi, nicknamed “The American,” everywhere I catch a national note which is familiar to us all, though in most of us it is weakened by education or turn

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§10

§10

The office there was incomparably worse than my prison. The actual work was not hard; but the mephitic atmosphere—the place was like a second Grotto del Cane [94] —and the monstrous and absurd waste of time made the life unbearable. Alenitsin did not treat me badly. He was even more polite than I expected; having been educated at the grammar school of Kazán, he had some respect for a graduate of Moscow University. 94 . The grotto near Naples where dogs were held over the sulphurous vapour till

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§11

§11

After a few months, however, the office life became somewhat less oppressive. It is not in the Russian character to keep up a steady system of persecution, unless where personal or avaricious motives are involved; and this fact is due to our Russian carelessness and indifference. Those in authority in Russia are generally unlicked and insolent, and it is very easy, when dealing with them, to come in for the rough side of their tongue; but a war of pin-pricks is not in their way—they have not the

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§12

§12

Statistics saved me from office work, but they had one bad result—they brought me into personal relations with the Governor. There was a time when I hated this man, but that time has long passed away, and the man has passed away himself—he died about 1845 near Kazán, where he had an estate. I think of him now without anger; I regard him as a strange beast encountered in some primeval forest, which deserves study, but, just because it is a beast, cannot excite anger. But then it was impossible no

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§13

§13

People banished for their opinions to remote parts of Russia are a little feared but by no means confounded with ordinary mortals. For the provincial mind “dangerous people” have that kind of attraction which notorious Don Juans have for women, and notorious courtesans for men. The officials of Petersburg and grandees of Moscow are much more shy of “dangerous” people than the dwellers in the provinces and especially in Siberia. The exiled Decembrists were immensely respected. Yushnevski’s widow

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§14

§14

In this place I may say something about the Polish exiles. There are some as far west as Nizhni, and after Kazán the number rapidly increases; there were forty of them at Perm and at least as many at Vyatka; and each of the smaller towns contained a few. They kept entirely apart and avoided all communication with the Russian inhabitants; among themselves they lived like brothers, and the rich shared their wealth with the poor. I never noticed any special hatred or any liking for them on the part

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§15

§15

The Governor’s invitations to dine on the luxuries of Siberia were a real infliction to me. His dining-room was merely the office over again, in a different shape, cleaner indeed, but more objectionable, because there was not the same appearance of compulsion about it. He knew his guests thoroughly and despised them. Sometimes he showed his claws, but he generally treated them as a man treats his dogs, either with excessive familiarity or with a roughness beyond all bounds. But all the same he c

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§1

§1

ONE of the saddest consequences of the revolution effected by Peter the Great is the development of the official class in Russia. These chinóvniks are an artificial, ill-educated, and hungry class, incapable of anything except office-work, and ignorant of everything except official papers. They form a kind of lay clergy, officiating in the law-courts and police-offices, and sucking the blood of the nation with thousands of dirty, greedy mouths. Gógol raised one side of the curtain and showed us

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§2

§2

Pestel, one of the Governors of Western Siberia, was like a Roman proconsul, and was outdone by none of them. He carried on a system of open and systematic robbery throughout the country, which he had entirely detached from Russia by means of his spies. Not a letter crossed the frontier unopened, and woe to the writer who dared to say a word about his rule. He kept the merchants of the First Guild in prison for a whole year, where they were chained and tortured. Officials he punished by sending

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§3

§3

It is a pity that Siberia is so badly governed. The choice of Governors has been peculiarly unfortunate. I do not know how Muravyóv acquits himself there—his intelligence and capacity are well known; but all the rest have been failures. Siberia has a great future before it. It is generally regarded as a kind of cellar, full of gold and furs and other natural wealth, but cold, buried in snow, and ill provided with comforts and roads and population. But this is a false view. The Russian Government

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§4

§4

On this side of the Ural ridge, the ways of governors are less eccentric. But yet I could fill whole volumes with stories which I heard either in the office or at the Governor’s dinner-table—stories which throw light on the malpractices and dishonesty of the officials....

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§5

§5

“Yes, Sir, he was indeed a marvel, my predecessor was”—thus the inspector of police at Vyatka used to address me in his confidential moments. “Well, of course, we get along fairly, but men like him are born, not made. He was, in his way, I might say, a Caesar, a Napoleon”—and the eyes of my lame friend, the Major, who had got his place as recompense for a wound, shone as he recalled his glorious predecessor. “There was a gang of robbers, not far from the town. Complaints came again and again to

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§6

§6

Ever so many stories about this hero were in circulation at Vyatka. His exploits were miraculous. For some reason or another—perhaps a Staff-general or Minister was expected—he wished to show that he had not worn cavalry uniform for nothing, but could put spurs to a charger in fine style. With this object in view, he requisitioned a horse from a rich merchant of the district; it was a grey stallion, and a very valuable animal. The merchant refused it. “All right,” said the inspector; “if you don

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§7

§7

The Governor was once leaving a party; and, just as his carriage started, a careless driver, in charge of a small sledge, drove into him, striking the traces between the wheelers and leaders. There was a block for a moment, but the Governor was not prevented from driving home in perfect comfort. Next day he said to the inspector: “Do you know whose coachman ran into me last night? He must be taught better.” “That coachman will not do it again, Your Excellency,” answered the inspector with a smil

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§8

§8

Side by side with this bird of prey I shall place the portrait of a very different kind of official—a mild and sympathetic creature, a real sucking dove. Among my acquaintance at Vyatka was an old gentleman who had been dismissed from the service as inspector of rural police. He now drew up petitions and managed lawsuits for other people—a profession which he had been expressly forbidden to adopt. He had entered the service in the year one, had robbed and squeezed and blackmailed in three provin

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§9

§9

In Vyatka the Russian tillers of the soil are fairly independent, and get a bad name in consequence from the officials, as unruly and discontented. But the Finnish natives, poor, timid, stupid people, are a regular gold-mine to the rural police. The inspectors pay the governors twice the usual sum when they are appointed to districts where the Finns live. The tricks which the authorities play on these poor wretches are beyond belief. If the land-surveyor is travelling on business and passes a na

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§10

§10

Of the Finnish population some accepted Christianity before Peter’s reign, others were baptised in the time of Elizabeth, [101] and others have remained heathen. Most of those who changed their religion under Elizabeth are still secretly attached to their own dismal and savage faith. 101 . Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, reigned from 1741 to 1762. Every two or three years the police-inspector and the priest make a tour of the villages, to find out which of the natives have not fasted i

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§11

§11

Before I left Vyatka, the Department of Imperial Domains was committing such impudent thefts that a commission of enquiry was appointed; and this commission sent out inspectors into all the provinces. A new system of control over the Crown tenants was introduced after that time. Our Governor at that time was Kornilov; he had to nominate two subordinates to assist the inspectors, and I was one of the two. I had to read a multitude of documents, sometimes with pain, sometimes with amusement, somet

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§12

§12

It is a miry slough, this account of our provincial administration; yet I shall add a few words more. This publicity is the last paltry compensation to those who suffered unheard and unpitied. Government is very ready to reward high officials with grants of unoccupied land. There is no great harm in that, though it might be wiser to keep it for the needs of an increasing population. The rules governing such allotments of land are rather detailed; it is illegal to grant the banks of a navigable r

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§13

§13

In the next place I shall refer to the famous episode of the “potato-rebellion.” In Russia, as formerly throughout Europe, the peasants were unwilling to grow potatoes, from an instinctive feeling that potatoes are poor food and not productive of health and strength. Model landlords, however, and many Crown settlements used to grow these tubers long before the “potato revolt.” In the Government of Kazán and part of Vyatka, the people had grown a crop of potatoes. When the tubers were taken up, i

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§14

§14

In the year 1836 a strolling tribe of gipsies came to Vyatka and encamped there. These people wandered at times as far as Tobolsk and Irbit, carrying on from time immemorial their roving life of freedom, accompanied of course by a bear that had been taught to dance and children that had been taught nothing; they lived by doctoring horses, telling fortunes, and petty theft. At Vyatka they went on singing their songs and stealing chickens, till the Governor suddenly received instructions, that, if

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§15

§15

While I am on this subject, I shall tell here the story of what happened eighteen months later to a bailiff of my father’s. Though a peasant, he was a man of intelligence and experience; he had several teams of his own which he hired out, and he served for twenty years as bailiff of a small detached village. In the year which I spent at Vladímir, he was asked by the people of a neighbouring village to supply a substitute as a recruit for the Army; and he turned up in the town with the future def

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§1

§1

IN the midst of all this ugliness and squalor, these petty and repulsive persons and scenes, in this world of chicanery and red tape, I recall the sad and noble figure of a great artist. I lived at his side for two years and a half and saw this strong man breaking up under the pressure of persecution and misfortune. Nor can it be said that he succumbed without a protest; for ten long years he struggled desperately. When he went into exile, he still hoped to conquer his enemies and right himself;

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§2

§2

The Emperor Alexander could not believe in his victory over Napoleon. Glory was a burden to him, and he quite sincerely gave it to God’s name instead. Always inclined to mysticism and despondency, he was more than ever haunted by these feelings after his repeated victories over Napoleon. When the last soldier of the French army had retreated over the frontier, Alexander published a manifesto, in which he took a vow to erect a great cathedral at Moscow, dedicated to the Saviour. Plans for this ch

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§3

§3

There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture. Abstract, geometrical, musical and yet dumb, passionless, it depends entirely upon symbolism, form, suggestion. Simple lines, and the harmonious combination and numerical relations between these, present something mysterious and at the same time incomplete. A building, a temple, does not comprise its object within itself; it differs in this respect from a statue or a picture, a poem or a symphony. The building needs an inhabitant; in itse

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§4

§4

But the circumstances in which Vitberg drew his plans, his own personality, and the Emperor’s temperament, all these were quite exceptional. The war of 1812 had a profound effect upon men’s minds in Russia, and it was long after the liberation of Moscow before the general emotion and excitement subsided. Then foreign events, the taking of Paris, the history of the Hundred Days, expectations and rumours, Waterloo, Napoleon on board the Bellerophon , mourning for the dead and anxiety for the livin

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§5

§5

As a matter of course, Vitberg was soon surrounded by a swarm of rascals, men who look on state employment merely as a lucky chance to line their own pockets. It is easy to understand that such men would undermine Vitberg and set traps for him; yet he might have climbed out of these but for something else—had not envy in some quarters, and injured dignity in others, been added to general dishonesty. There were three other members of the commission as well as Vitberg—the Archbishop Philaret, the

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§6

§6

In order to throw light on this trial and all similar trials in Russia, I shall add two trifling details. Vitberg bought a forest for building material from a merchant named Lobanov, but, before the trees were felled, offered to take another forest instead which was nearer the river and belonged to the same owner. Lobanov agreed; the trees were felled and the timber floated down the river. More timber was needed at a later date, and Vitberg bought the first forest over again. Hence arose the fam

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§7

§7

Of the second affair I was myself an eye-witness. Vitberg bought up land with a view to his cathedral. His idea was that the serfs, when transferred with the land he had bought, should bind themselves to supply a fixed number of workmen to be employed on the cathedral; in this way they acquired complete freedom from all other burdens for themselves and their community. It is amusing to note that our judges, being also landowners, objected to this measure as a form of slavery! One estate which Vi

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§8

§8

Vitberg had been living in exile at Vyatka for two years when the merchants of the town determined to build a new church. Their plans surprised the Tsar Nicholas when they were submitted to him. He confirmed them and gave orders to the local authorities that the builders were not to mar the architect’s design. “Who made these plans?” he asked of the minister. “Vitberg, Your Majesty.” “Do you mean the same Vitberg?” “The same man, Your Majesty.” And so it happened that Vitberg, most unexpectedly,

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§9

§9

My intimacy with Vitberg was a great relief to me at Vyatka. His serious simplicity and a certain solemnity of manner suggested the churchman to some extent. Strict in his principles, he tended in general to austerity rather than enjoyment; but this strictness took nothing from the luxuriance and richness of his artistic fancy. He could invest his mystical views with such lively forms and such beautiful colouring that objections died on your lips, and you felt reluctant to examine and pull to pi

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§10

§10

But now I must go back to the modest little town which was called Chlynov until Catherine II changed its name to Vyatka; what her motive was, I do not know, unless it was her Finnish patriotism. In that dreary distant backwater of exile, separated from all I loved, surrounded by the unclean horde of officials, and exposed without defence to the tyranny of the Governor, I met nevertheless with many warm hearts and friendly hands, and there I spent many happy hours which are sacred in recollection

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§11

§11

There is one thing more. Twice a week the post from Moscow came to Vyatka. With what excitement I waited near the post-office while the letters were sorted! How my heart beat as I broke the seal of my letter from home and searched inside for a little enclosure, written on thin paper in a wonderfully small and beautiful hand! I did not read that in the post-office. I walked slowly home, putting off the happy moment and feasting on the thought that the letter was there. These letters have all been

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§1

§1

THE Crown Prince [110] is coming to Vyatka! The Crown Prince is travelling through Russia, to see the country and to be seen himself! This news was of interest to everyone and of special interest, of course, to the Governor. In his haste and confusion, he issued a number of ridiculous and absurd orders—for instance, that the peasants along the road should wear their holiday kaftáns , and that all boardings in the towns should be repainted and all sidewalks mended. A poor widow who owned a smalli

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§2

§2

Fifty versts from Vyatka is the spot where the wonder-working ikon of St. Nicholas was revealed to the people of Novgorod. When they moved to Vyatka, they took the ikon with them; but it disappeared and turned up again by the Big River, fifty versts away. The people removed it again; but they took a vow that, if the ikon would stay with them, they would carry it in solemn procession once a year—on the twenty-third of May, I think,—to the Big River. This is the chief summer holiday in the Governm

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§3

§3

Instructions of various kinds came from Petersburg; for instance, it was ordered that each provincial capital should organise an exhibition of the local products and manufactures; and the animal, vegetable, and mineral products were to be kept separate. This division into kingdoms perplexed our office not a little, and puzzled even the Governor himself. Wishing not to make mistakes, he decided, in spite of the bad relations between us, to seek my advice. “Now, honey, for example,” he said, “wher

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§4

§4

I was still putting in order wooden spoons and native costumes, honey and iron trellis-work, when an awful rumour spread through the town that the Mayor of Orlóv had been arrested. The Governor’s face turned yellow, and he even seemed unsteady in his gait. A week before the Prince arrived, the Mayor of Orlóv wrote to the Governor that the widow whose floors had been torn up was making a disturbance, and that a rich and well-known merchant of the town declared his intention of telling the whole s

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§5

§5

In the evening there was a ball at the assembly-rooms. The musicians, who had been summoned for the occasion from one of the factories of the province, arrived in the town helplessly drunk. The Governor rose to the emergency: the performers were all shut up in prison twenty-four hours before the ball, marched straight from prison to the orchestra, and kept there till the ball was over. The ball was a dull, ill-arranged affair, both mean and motley, as balls always are in small towns on great occ

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§6

§6

When the Prince had gone, the Governor prepared with a heavy heart to exchange his satrapy for a place on the bench of the Supreme Court at home; but he was not so fortunate as that. Three weeks later the post brought documents from Petersburg addressed to “The Acting Governor of the Province.” Our office was a scene of confusion; officials came and went; we heard that an edict had been received, but the Governor pretended illness and kept his house. An hour later we heard that Tufáyev had been

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§7

§7

His successor, Kornilov, soon made his appearance. He was a very different sort of person—a man of about fifty, tall and stout, rather flabby in appearance, but with an agreeable smile and gentlemanly manners. He formed all his sentences with strict grammatical accuracy and used a great number of words; in fact, he spoke with a clearness which was capable, by its copiousness, of obscuring the simplest topic. He had been at school with Púshkin and had served in the Guards; he bought all the new F

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§8

§8

Some years before he came to us, Kornilov, being then a colonel in the Guards, was appointed Civil Governor of a provincial town, and entered at once upon business of which he knew nothing. Like all new brooms, he began by reading every official paper that was submitted to him. He came across a certain document from another Government which he could not understand, though he read it through several times. He rang for his secretary and gave it to him to read. But the secretary also was unable to

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§9

§9

The announcement of my transference to Vladímir arrived before Christmas. My preparations were quickly made, and I started off. I said a cordial good-bye to society at Vyatka; in that distant town I had made two or three real friends among the young merchants. They vied with one another in showing sympathy and friendship for the outcast. Several sledges accompanied me to the first stopping-place, and, in spite of my protests, a whole cargo of eatables and drinkables was placed on my conveyance.

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§10

§10

Just as I got out of the Government of Vyatka, I came in contact for the last time with the officials, and this final appearance was quite in their best manner. We stopped at a post-house, and the driver began to unharness the horses. A tall peasant appeared at the door and asked who I was. “What business is that of yours?” “I am the inspector’s messenger, and he told me to ask.” “Very well: go to the office and you will find my passport there.” The peasant disappeared but returned in a moment a

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§11

§11

I never forgot this incident. Nine years later I was in Petersburg for the last time; I had to visit the Home Office to arrange about a passport. While I was talking to the secretary in charge, a gentleman walked through the room, distributing friendly handshakes to the magnates of the office and condescending bows to the lesser lights. “Hang it! it can’t surely be him!” I thought. “Who is that?” I asked. “His name is Lazarev; he is specially employed by the Minister and is a great man here.” “D

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§1

§1

WHEN we had reached Kosmodemyansk and I came out to take my seat in the sledge, I saw that the horses were harnessed three abreast in Russian fashion; and the bells jingled cheerfully on the yoke worn by the wheeler. In Perm and Vyatka they harness the horses differently—either in single file, or one leader with two wheelers. My heart beat fast with joy, to see the Russian fashion again. “Now let us see how fast you can go!” I said to the lad sitting with a professional air on the box of the sle

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§2

§2

About eighty versts from Nizhni, my servant Matthew and I went into a post-house to warm ourselves. The frost was keen, and it was windy as well. The post-master, a thin and sickly creature who aroused my compassion, was writing out a way-bill, repeating each letter as he wrote it, and making mistakes all the same. I took off my fur coat and walked about the room in my long fur boots. Matthew warmed himself at the red-hot stove, the post-master muttered to himself, and the wooden clock on the wa

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§3

§3

At eight on the following evening I arrived at Vladímir and stopped at an inn which is described with perfect accuracy in The Tarantas , [113] with its queer menu in Russian-French and its vinegar for claret. 113 . I.e. , The Travelling Carriage , a novel by Count Sologub. “Someone was asking for you this morning,” said the waiter, after reading the name on my passport; “perhaps he’s waiting in the bar now.” The waiter’s head displayed that dashing parting and noble curl over the ear which use

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§4

§4

The Governor of Vladimir was a man of the world who had lived long enough to attain a temper of cool indifference. He was a Greek and his name was Kuruta. He took my measure at once and abstained from the least attempt at severity. Office work was never even hinted at—the only duty he asked me to undertake was that I should edit the Provincial Gazette in collaboration with the local schoolmaster. I was familiar with this business, as I had started the unofficial part of the Gazette at Vyatka. By

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§5

§5

Provincial Gazettes were first introduced in the year 1837. It was Bludov, the Minister of the Interior, who conceived the idea of training in publicity the land of silence and dumbness. Bludov, known as the continuator of Karamzín’s History—though he never added a line to it—and as the author of the Report on the Decembrist Revolution—which had better never have been written—was one of those doctrinaire statesmen who came to the front in the last years of Alexander’s reign. They were able, educ

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§6

§6

About the same time the same Minister excogitated the Provincial Gazettes. Our Government, while utterly contemptuous of education, makes pretensions to be literary; and whereas, in England, for example, there are no Government newspapers at all, every public department in Russia publishes its own organ, and so does the Academy, and so do the Universities. We have papers to represent the mining interest and the pickled-herring interest, the interests of Frenchmen and Germans, the marine interest

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§7

§7

My colleague in the editorship had taken his degree at Moscow University and in the same faculty as myself. The end of his life was too tragical for me to speak of him with a smile; but, down to the day of his death, he was an exceedingly absurd figure. By no means stupid, he was excessively clumsy and awkward. His exceptional ugliness had no redeeming feature, and there was an abnormal amount of it. His face was nearly twice as large as most people’s and marked by small-pox; he had the mouth of

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§8

§8

One morning Nebába came to my room to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then he added, with some confusion, “I shall not return alone.” “Do you mean that ...?” “Yes, I am going to be married,” he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen and, if

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§9

§9

At the same time there began for me a new epoch in my life—pure and bright, youthful but earnest; it was the life of a hermit, but a hermit thoroughly in love. But this belongs to another part of my narrative. ...

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