CHAPTER I

My Nurse and theGrande Armée—Moscow in Flames—My Father and Napoleon—General Ilovaiski—A Journey with French Prisoners—Patriotism—Calot—Property Managed in Common—The Division—The Senator.

“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, but please tell me just a little—how you heard the news, and how it all began.”

“Well, it began this way. You know how your papa puts off always. The packing went on and on till at last it was done. Everyone said it was high time to be off; there was nothing to keep us and hardly a soul left in Moscow. But no! He was always discussing with youruncle Paul[5]about travelling together, and they were never both ready on the same day. But at last our things were packed, the carriage was ready, and the travellers had just sat down to lunch, when the head cook came into the dining-room as white as a sheet and reported that the enemy had entered the city at the Dragomirovsky Gate. Our hearts went down into our boots, and we prayed that the power of the Cross might be on our side. All was confusion, and, while we were bustling to and fro and crying out, suddenly we saw a regiment of dragoons galloping down the street; they wore strange helmets with horses’ tails tied on behind. They had closed all the city gates; so there was your papa in a pretty mess, and you with him! You were still with your foster-mother, Darya; you were very small and weak then.”

5.Paul Ivanovitch Golochvastov, who had married my father’s youngest sister.

And I smiled, with pride and pleasure at the thought that I had taken a part in the Great War.

“At first, all went reasonably well, during the first days at least. From time to time two or three soldiers would come into the house and ask for something to drink; of course we gave them a glass apiece, and then they would go away and salute quite politely as well. But then, you see, when the fires began and got worse and worse, there was terrible disorder, and pillage began and every sort of horror. We were living in a wing of the Princess’s house, and the house caught fire. Then your uncle Paul invited us to move to his house, which was built of stone and very strong and stood far back in a court-yard. So we all set off, masters and servants together—there was no thought of distinctions at such a time. When we gotinto the boulevard, the trees on each side were beginning to burn. At last we reached your uncle’s house, and it was actually blazing, with the fire spouting out of every window. Your uncle could not believe his eyes; he stood rooted to the ground.

“Behind the house, as you know, there is a big garden, and we went there, hoping to be safe. We sat down sadly enough on some benches there were there, when suddenly a band of drunken soldiers came in and one of them began to strip your uncle of a fur coat he had put on for the journey. But the old gentleman resisted, and the soldier pulled out his dirk and struck him in the face; and your uncle kept the scar to his dying day. The other soldiers set upon us, and one of them snatched you from the arms of your foster-mother, and undid your clothes, to see if there were any notes or jewels hidden there; when he found nothing, the mean fellow tore the clothes on purpose and then left you alone.

“As soon as they had gone, a great misfortune happened. You remember our servant Platon, who was sent to serve in the Army? He was always fond of the bottle and had had too much to drink that day. He had got hold of a sword and was walking about with it tied round his waist. The day before the enemy came, Count Rostopchín distributed arms of all kinds to the people at the Arsenal, and Platon had provided himself with a sword. Towards evening, a dragoon rode into the court-yard and tried to take a horse that was standing near the stable; but Platon flew at him, caught hold of the bridle, and said: ‘The horse is ours; you shan’t have it.’ The dragoon pointed a pistol at him, but it can’t have been loaded. Your father saw what was happening and called out:‘Leave that horse alone, Platon! Don’t you interfere.’ But it was no good: Platon pulled out his sword and struck the soldier over the head; the man reeled under the blow, and Platon struck him again and again. We thought we were doomed now; for, if his comrades saw him, they would soon kill us. When the dragoon fell off, Platon caught hold of his legs and threw him into a lime-pit, though the poor wretch was still breathing; the man’s horse never moved but beat the ground with its hoof, as if it understood; our people shut it up in the stable, and it must have been burnt to death there.

“We all cleared out of the court as soon as we could; the fires everywhere grew worse and worse. Tired and hungry, we went into a house that had not caught fire, and threw ourselves down to rest; but, before an hour had passed, our servants in the street were calling out: ‘Come out! come out! Fire, fire!’ I took a piece of oil-cloth off the billiard table, to wrap you up from the night air. We got as far as the Tversky Square, and the Frenchmen were putting out the fires there, because one of their great generals was living in the Governor’s house in the square; we sat down as we were on the street; there were sentries moving all about and other soldiers on horseback. You were crying terribly; your foster-mother had no more milk, and none of us had even a piece of bread. But Natálya Konstantínovna was with us then, and she was afraid of nothing. She saw some soldiers eating in a corner; she took you in her arms and went straight off, and showed you to them. ‘The baby wantsmanger,’ she said. At first they looked angrily at her and said, ‘Allez, allez!’ Then she called them every bad name she could think of; and they did not understand a word, but theylaughed heartily and gave her some bread soaked in water for you and a crust for herself. Early next morning an officer came and collected all the men, and your father too, and took them off to put out the fires round about; he left the women only, and your uncle who had been wounded. We stayed there alone till evening; we just sat there and cried. But at dark your father came back, and an officer with him.”

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 which had taken place in my uncle’s garden. He gave orders to this effect to an officer, and sent him off with my father. When he heard that none of the party had eaten any food for two days, the officer took us all off to a grocer’s shop; it had been wrecked and the floor was covered with choice tea and coffee, and heaps of dates, raisins, and almonds; our servants filled their pockets, and of dessert at least we had abundance. The sentinel proved to be of no little service: again and again, bands of soldiers were inclined to give trouble to the wretched party of women and servants,camping in a corner of the square; but an order from our protector made them pass on at once.

6.Mortier (1768-1835), one of Napoleon’s marshals, bore this title.

Mortier, who remembered having met my father in Paris, reported the facts to Napoleon, and Napoleon ordered him to be presented the next day. And so my father, a great stickler for propriety and the rules of etiquette, presented himself, at the Emperor’s summons, in the throne-room of the Kremlin, wearing an old blue shooting-jacket with brass buttons, no wig, boots which had not been cleaned for several days, grimy linen, and a beard of two days’ growth.

Their conversation—how often I heard it repeated!—is reproduced accurately enough in the French history of Baron Fain and the Russian history of Danilevski.

Napoleon began with those customary phrases, abrupt remarks, and laconic aphorisms to which it was the custom for thirty-five years to attribute some profound significance, until it was discovered that they generally meant very little. He then abused Rostopchín for the fires, and said it was mere vandalism; he declared, as always, that he loved peace above all things and that he was fighting England, not Russia; he claimed credit for having placed a guard over the Foundling Hospital and the Uspenski Cathedral; and he complained of the Emperor Alexander. “My desire for peace is kept from His Majesty by the people round him,” he said.

My father remarked that it was rather the business of the conqueror to make proposals of peace.

“I have done my best. I have sent messages to Kutúzov,[7]but he will hear of no discussions whatever and does not acquaint his master with my proposals. Iam not to blame—if they want war they shall have it!”

7.The Russian commander-in-chief.

When this play-acting was done, my father asked for a safe-conduct to leave Moscow.

“I have ordered that no passes be given. Why do you want to go? What are you afraid of? I have ordered the markets to be opened.”

Apparently the Emperor did not realise that, though open markets are a convenience, so is a shut house, and that to live in the open street among French soldiers was not an attractive prospect for a Russian gentleman and his family.

When my father pointed this out, Napoleon thought for a little and then asked abruptly:

“Will you undertake to hand to the Tsar a letter from me? On that condition, I will order a pass to be made out for you and all your family.”

“I would accept Your Majesty’s proposal,” said my father, “but it is difficult for me to guarantee success.”

“Will you give me your word of honour, that you will use all possible means to deliver my letter with your own hands?”

“I pledge you my honour, Sir.”

“That is enough. I shall send for you. Is there anything you need?”

“Nothing, except a roof to shelter my family till we leave.”

“The Duc de Trévise will do what he can.” Mortier did in fact provide a room in the Governor’s palace, and ordered that we should be supplied with provisions; and hismaître d’hôtelsent us wine as well. After several days Mortier summoned my father at four in the morning, and sent him off to the Kremlin.

By this time the conflagration had spread to a frightful extent; the atmosphere, heated red-hot and darkened by smoke, was intolerable. Napoleon was dressed already and walking about the room, angry and uneasy; he was beginning to realise that his withered laurels would soon be frozen, and that a jest would not serve, as it had in Egypt, to get him out of this embarrassment. His plan of campaign was ill-conceived, and all except Napoleon knew it—Ney, Narbonne, Berthier, and even officers of no mark or position; to all criticisms his reply was the magic word “Moscow”; and, when he reached Moscow, he too discovered the truth.

When my father entered the room, Napoleon took a sealed letter from a table, gave it to him, and said by way of dismissal, “I rely upon your word of honour.” The address on the envelope ran thus:À mon frère l’empereur Alexandre.

The safe-conduct given to my father is preserved to this day; it is signed by the Duc de Trévise and counter-signed below by Lesseps, chief of police at Moscow. Some strangers, hearing of our good fortune, begged my father to take them with him, under the pretext that they were servants or relations; and they joined our party. An open carriage was provided for my mother and nurse, and for my wounded uncle; the rest walked. A party of cavalry escorted us; when the rear of the Russian Army came in sight, they wished us good fortune and galloped back again to Moscow. The strange party of refugees was surrounded a moment later by Cossacks, who took us to head-quarters. The generals in command were Wintzengerode and Ilovaiski.

When the former was told of the letter, he told myfather that he would send him at once, with two dragoons, to see the Tsar at Petersburg.

“What is to become of your party?” asked the Cossack general, Ilovaiski; “They can’t possibly stay here, within rifle-shot of the troops; there may be some hot fighting any day.” My father asked that we might be sent, if possible, to his Yaroslavl estate; and he added that he was absolutely penniless at the time.

“That does not matter: we can settle accounts later,” said the General; “and don’t be uneasy: I give you my promise that they shall be sent.”

While my father was sent off to Petersburg on a courier’s cart, Ilovaiski procured an old rattle-trap of a carriage for us, and sent us and a party of French prisoners to the next town, under an escort of Cossacks; he provided us with money for posting as far as Yaroslavl, and, in general, did all that he could for us in a time of war and confusion.

This was my first long journey in Russia; my second was not attended by either French cavalry or Ural Cossacks or prisoners of war; the whole party consisted of myself and a drunk police-officer sitting beside me in the carriage.

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 inwriting, that he himself was commissioned by the Tsar to receive the letter and present it at once. For the letter he gave a receipt, which also has been preserved. For about a month my father was under arrest in Arakchéyev’s house; no friend might see him, and his only visitor was S. Shishkóv, whom the Tsar sent to ask for details about the burning of Moscow, the entry of the French, and the interview with Napoleon. No eye-witness of these events had reached Petersburg except my father. At last he was told that the Tsar ordered him to be set at liberty; he was excused, on the ground of necessity, for having accepted a safe-conduct from the French authorities; but he was ordered to leave Petersburg at once, without having communication with anyone, except that he was allowed to say good-bye to his elder brother.

8.This minister was the real ruler of Russia till the death of Alexander in 1825.

When he reached at nightfall the little village where we were, my father found us in a peasant’s cottage; there was no manor-house on that estate. I was sleeping on a settle near the window; the window would not shut tight, and the snow, drifting through the crack, had covered part of a stool, and lay, without melting, on the window-sill.

All were in great distress and confusion, and especially my mother. One morning, some days before my father arrived, the head man of the village came hurriedly into the cottage where she was living, and made signs to her that she was to follow him. My mother could not speak a word of Russian at that time; she could only make out that the man was speaking of my uncle Paul; she did not know what to think; it came into her head that the people had murdered him or wished to murder first him and then her. She took me in her arms and followed thehead man, more dead than alive, and shaking all over. She entered the cottage occupied by my uncle; he was actually dead, and his body lay near a table at which he had begun to shave; a stroke of paralysis had killed him instantly.

My mother was only seventeen then, and her feelings may be imagined. She was surrounded by half-savage bearded men, dressed in sheepskins and speaking a language to her utterly incomprehensible; she was living in a small, smoke-grimed peasant’s cottage; and it was the month of November in the terrible winter of 1812. My uncle had been her one support, and she spent days and nights in tears for his loss. But those “savages” pitied her with all their heart; their simple kindness never failed her, and their head man sent his son again and again to the town, to fetch raisins and gingerbread, apples and biscuits, to tempt her to eat.

Fifteen years later, this man was still living and sometimes paid us a visit at Moscow. The little hair he had left was then white as snow. My mother used to give him tea and talk over that winter of 1812; she reminded him how frightened she was of him, and how the pair of them, entirely unintelligible to one another, made the arrangements about my uncle’s funeral. The old man continued to call my mother Yulíza Ivánovna (her name was Luise); and he always boasted that I was quite willing to go to him and not in the least afraid of his long beard.

We travelled by stages to Tver and finally to Moscow, which we reached after about a year. At the same time, a brother of my father’s returned from Sweden and settled down in the same house with us. Formerly ambassadorin Westphalia, he had been sent on some mission to the court of Bernadotte.

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 servants, my father and my old nurse, were never tired of going back to that terrible time, which was still so recent and had been brought home to them so painfully. Later, our officers began to return from foreign service to Moscow. Men who had served in former days with my father in the Guards and had taken a glorious part in the fierce contest of the immediate past, were often at our house; and to them it was a relief from their toils and dangers to tell them over again. That was indeed the most brilliant epoch in the history of Petersburg: the consciousness of power breathed new life into Russia; business and care were, so to speak, put off till the sober morrow, and all the world was determined to make merry to-day and celebrate the victory.

At this time I heard even more than my old nurse could tell me about the war. I liked especially to listen to the stories of Count Milorádovitch;[9]I often lay at his backon the long sofa, while he described and acted scenes of the campaign, and his lively narrative and loud laugh were very attractive to me. More than once I fell asleep in that position.

9.Michael Milorádovitch (1770-1825), a famous commander who lost his life in suppressing the Decembrist revolution, December, 1825.

These surroundings naturally developed my patriotic feeling to an extreme degree, and I was resolved to enter the Army. But an exclusive feeling of nationality is never productive of good, and it landed me in the following scrape. One of our guests was Count Quinsonet, a Frenchémigréand a general in the Russian army. An out-and-out royalist, he had been present at the famous dinner where the King’s Body-Guards trampled on the national cockade and Marie Antoinette drank confusion to the Revolution.[10]He was now a grey-haired old man, tall and slight, a perfect gentleman and the pink of politeness. A peerage was awaiting him at Paris; he had been there already to congratulate Louis XVIII on his accession, and had returned to Russia to sell his estates. As ill luck would have it, I was present when this politest of generals in the Russian service began to speak about the war.

10.This dinner took place at Versailles, on October 1, 1789.

“But you, surely, were fighting against us,” I said very innocently.

“Non, mon petit, non! J’étais dans l’armée russe.”

“What!” said I, “you a Frenchman and fighting on our side! That’s impossible.”

My father gave me a reproving look and tried to talk of something else. But the Frenchman saved the situation nobly: he turned to my father and said, “I like to see such patriotic feeling.” But my father did not like to see it, and scolded me severely when our guest had gone. “You see what comes of rushing into things which youdon’t and can’t understand: the Count servedourEmperor out of loyalty tohis ownsovereign.” That was, as my father said, beyond my powers of comprehension.

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

I was under the charge of two nurses, one Russian and the other German. Vyéra Artamónovna and Mme. Provo were two very good-natured women, but I got weary of watching them all day, as they knitted stockings and wrangled together. So, whenever I could, I escaped to the part of the house occupied by the Senator—my uncle, the former ambassador, was now a Senator[11]and was generally called by this title—and there I found my only friend, my uncle’s valet, Calot.

11.The Senate was not a deliberative body but a Supreme Court of Justice.

I have seldom met so kind and gentle a creature as this man. Utterly solitary in Russia, separated from all his own belongings, and hardly able to speak our language, he had a woman’s tenderness for me. I spent whole hours in his room, and, though I was often mischievousand troublesome, he bore it all with a good-natured smile. He cut out all kinds of marvels for me in cardboard, and carved me many toys of wood; and how I loved him in return! In the evenings he used to take picture-books from the library and bring them up to my nursery—The Travelsof Gmelin and Pallas, and another thick book calledThe World in Pictures, which I liked so much and looked at so long, that the leather binding got worn out: for two hours together Calot would show me the same pictures and repeat the same explanations for the thousandth time.

Before my birthday party, Calot shut himself up in his room, and I could hear mysterious sounds of a hammer and other tools issuing from it. He often walked quickly through the passage, carrying a glue-pot or something wrapped up in paper, but each time he left his room locked. I knew he was preparing some surprise for me, and my curiosity may be imagined. I sent the servants’ children to act as spies, but Calot was not to be caught napping. We even managed to make a small hole in the staircase, through which we could look down into the room; but we could see nothing but the top of the window and the portrait of Frederick the Great, with his long nose and a large star on his breast, looking like a sick vulture. At last the noises stopped, and the room was unlocked—but it looked just as before, except for snippings of gilt and coloured paper on the floor. I was devoured by curiosity; but Calot wore a pretence of solemnity on his features and never touched the ticklish subject.

I was still suffering agonies of impatience when the great day arrived. I awoke at six, to wonder what Calothad in store for me; at eight Calot himself appeared, wearing a white tie and white waistcoat under his blue livery, but his hands were empty! I wondered how it would all end, and whether he had spoilt what he was making. The day went on, and the usual presents were forthcoming: my aunt’s footman had brought me an expensive toy wrapped up in a napkin, and my uncle, the Senator, had been generous also, but I was too restless, in expectation of the surprise, to enjoy my happiness.

Then, when I was not thinking of it, after dinner or perhaps after tea, my nurse said to me: “Go downstairs for a moment, there is someone there asking for you.” “At last!” I thought, and down the bannisters I slid on my arms. The drawing-room door flew open; I heard music and saw a transparency representing my initials; then some little boys, disguised as Turks, offered me sweets; and this was followed by a puppet-show and parlour fireworks. Calot was very hot and very busy; he kept everything going and was quite as excited as I was myself.

No presents could rank with this entertainment. I never cared much forthings; the bump of acquisitiveness was never, at any age, highly developed in me. The satisfaction of my curiosity, the abundance of candles, the silver paper, the smell of gunpowder—nothing was wanting but a companion of my own age. But I spent all my childhood in solitude and consequently was not exacting on that score.

My father had another brother, the oldest of the three; but he was not even on speaking terms with his twojuniors. In spite of this, they all took a share in the management of the family property, which really meant that they combined to ruin it. This triple management by owners at variance with one another was the height of absurdity. Two of them were always thwarting their senior’s plans, and he did the same for them. The head men of the villages and the serfs were utterly bamboozled: one landlord required carts to convey his household, the second demanded hay, and the third, fire-wood; each of the three issued orders, and sent his man of business to see that they were carried out. If the eldest brother appointed a bailiff, the other two dismissed the man in a month on some absurd pretext, and appointed another, who was promptly disowned by their senior. As a natural result, there were spies and favourites, to carry slanders and false reports, while, at the bottom of this system, the wretched serfs, finding neither justice nor protection and harassed by a diversity of masters, were worked twice as hard and found it impossible to satisfy such unreasonable demands.

As a consequence of this quarrel between brothers, they lost a great lawsuit in which the law was on their side. Though their interests were identical, they could never settle on a common course of procedure, and their opponents naturally took advantage of this state of affairs. They lost a large and valuable property in this way; and the Court also condemned each brother to pay damages to the amount of 30,000roubles. This lesson opened their eyes for the first time, and they determined to divide the family estates between them. Preliminary discussions went on for nearly a year; the land was divided into three fairly even parts, and chance was to decide to whom eachshould fall. My father and the Senator paid a visit to their brother, whom they had not seen for several years, in order to talk things over and be reconciled; and then it was noised abroad that he would return the visit and the business would be finally settled on that occasion. The report of this visit spread uneasiness and dismay throughout our household.

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 wasaide-de-campin some capacity to Potemkin;[12]next, he served on a diplomatic mission, and, on his return to Petersburg, was appointed to a post in the Ecclesiastical Court. But no association either with diplomatists or priests could tame that wild character. He was dismissed from his post, for quarrelling with the Bishops; and he was forbidden to reside in Petersburg, because he gave, or tried to give, a box on the ear to a guest at an official dinner given by the Governor of the city. He retired to his estate at Tambóv; and there he was nearly murdered by his serfs for interference with their daughters and for acts of cruelty; he owed his life to his coachman and the speed of his horses.

12.Grigóri Potemkin (pronounce Pat-yóm-kin), b. 1736, d. 1791; minister and favourite of the Empress Catherine.

After this experience he settled in Moscow. Disowned by his relations and by people in general, he lived quite alone in a large house on the Tver Boulevard, bullying his servants in town and ruining his serfs in the country. He collected a large library and a whole harem of country girls, and kept both these departments under lock and key. Totally unoccupied and inordinately vain, he sought distraction in collecting things for which he had no use, and in litigation, which proved even more expensive. He carried on his lawsuits with passionate eagerness. One of these suits was about an Amati fiddle; it lasted thirty years, and he won it in the end. He won another case for the possession of a party-wall between two houses: it cost him extraordinary exertions, and he gained nothing by owning the wall. After his retirement, he used to follow in the Gazette the promotions of his contemporaries in the public service; and, whenever one of them received an Order, he bought the star and placed it on his table, as a painful reminder of the distinctions he might have gained.

His brothers and sisters feared him and had no intercourse with him of any kind; our servants would not walk past his house, for fear of meeting him, and turned pale at the sight of him; the women dreaded his insolent persecution, and the domestic servants had prayer offered in church that they might never serve him.

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 occupiedby 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. For two hours they all sat in silent expectation, till at last the butler came in, and, with a voice that seemed somehow unnatural, announced the arrival of our kinsman. “Bring him in,” said the Senator, in obvious agitation; my father began to take snuff, the nephew straightened his tie, and the lawyer turned to one side and cleared his throat. I was told to go upstairs, but I remained in the next room, shaking all over.

The uncle advanced at a slow and dignified pace, and my father and the Senator went to meet him. He was carrying anikon[13]with both arms stretched out before him, in the way thatikonsare carried at weddings and funerals; he turned towards his brothers and in a nasal drawl addressed them as follows:

13.A sacred picture.

“This is theikonwith which our father blessed me on his deathbed, and he then charged me and my late brother, Peter, to take his place and care for you two. If our father could know how you have behaved to your elder brother....”

“Come,mon cher frère,” said my father, in his voice of studied indifference, “you have little to boast about on that score yourself. These references to the past are painful for you and for us, and we had better drop them.”

“What do you mean? Did you invite me here for this?” shouted the pious brother, and he dashed theikondownwith such violence that the silver frame rang loudly on the floor. Now the Senator began, and he shouted still louder; but at this point I rushed upstairs, just waiting long enough to see the nephew and the lawyer, as much alarmed as I was, beating a retreat to the balcony.

What then took place, I cannot tell. The servants had all hid for safety and could give no information; and neither my father nor the Senator ever alluded to the scene in my presence. The noise grew less by degrees, and the division of the land was carried out, but whether then or later, I do not know.

What fell to my father was Vasílevskoë, a large estate near Moscow. We spent all the following summer there; and during that time the Senator bought a house for himself in the Arbat quarter of Moscow, so that, when we returned alone to our big house, we found it empty and dead. Soon after, my father also bought a new house in Moscow.

When the Senator left us, he took with him, in the first place, my friend Calot, and, in the second place, all that gave life in our establishment. He alone could check my father’s tendency to morbid depression, which now had room to develop and assert itself fully. Our new house was not cheerful: it reminded one of a prison or hospital. The ground-floor rooms were vaulted; the thick walls made the windows look like the embrasures of a fortress; and the house was surrounded on all sides by a uselessly large court-yard.

The real wonder was, not that the Senator left us, but that he was able to stay so long under one roof with my father. I have seldom seen two men more unlike in character.

§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 he left the army of Egypt. He was in Paris at the time of Napoleon’s coronation. In 1811 Napoleon ordered him to be detained and arrested at Cassel, where he was minister at the court of King Jérôme[14]—“Emperor Jérôme,” as my father used to say when he was annoyed. In fact, he witnessed each scene of that tremendous spectacle; but, somehow, it seemed not to impress him in the right way.

14.Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860) was King of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813.

When captain in the Guards, he was sent on a mission to London. Paul, who was then Tsar, noticed this when he read the roster, and ordered that he should report himself at once in Petersburg. The attaché sailed by the first ship and appeared on parade.

“Do you want to stay in London?” Paul asked in his hoarse voice.

“If Your Majesty is graciously pleased to allow it,” answered the captain.

“Go back at once!” the hoarse voice replied; and the young officer sailed, without even seeing his family in Moscow.

While he served as ambassador, diplomatic questionswere settled by bayonets and cannon-balls; and his diplomatic career came to an end at the Congress of Vienna, that great field-day for all the diplomats of Europe. On his return to Russia, he was created a lord-in-waiting at Moscow—a capital which has no Court. Then he was elected to the Senate, though he knew nothing of law or Russian judicial procedure; he served on the Widows’ and Orphans’ Board, and was a governor of hospitals and other public institutions. All these duties he performed with a zeal that was probably superfluous, a love of his own way that was certainly harmful, and an integrity that passed wholly unnoticed.

He was never to be found at home. He tired out a team of four strong horses every morning, and another in the afternoon. He never missed a meeting of the Senate; twice a week he attended the Widows’ Board; and there were also his hospitals and schools. Besides all this, he was never absent from the theatre when a French play was given, and he was driven to the English Club on three days of every week. He had no time to be bored—always busy with one of his many occupations, perpetually on the way to some engagement, and his life rolled along on easy springs in a world of files and official envelopes.

To the age of seventy, he kept the health of youth. He was always to be seen at every great ball or dinner; he figured at speech-days and meetings of public bodies; whatever their objects might be—agriculture or medicine, fire insurance or natural science—it was all one to him; and, besides all this (perhaps because of this), he kept to old age some measure of humanity and warmth of heart.

§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 might have some other occupation, as well as going to fetch newspapers and arranging cock-fights, which last amusement they carried on with much success in the space between the coach-house and the neighbours’ yard.

My father did not remain long in the public service. Brought up by a French tutor in the house of a pious aunt, he entered the Guards as a serjeant at sixteen and retired as a captain when Paul became Tsar. In 1801 he went abroad and wandered about from one foreign country to another till the end of 1811. He returned to Russia with my mother three months before I was born; the year after the burning of Moscow he spent in the Government of Tver, and then settled down permanently in Moscow, where he led by choice a solitary and monotonous life. His brother’s lively temperament was distasteful to him.

After the Senator had left it, the whole house assumed a more and more gloomy aspect. The walls, the furniture, the servants—every thing and person had a furtive and dissatisfied appearance; and of course my father himself was more dissatisfied than anyone else. The artificial stillness, the hushed voices and noiseless steps of the servants,were no sign of devotion, but of repression and fear. Nothing was ever moved in the rooms: the same books lay on the same tables, with the same markers in them, for five or six years together. In my father’s bedroom and study the furniture was never shifted and the windows never opened, not once in a twelvemonth. When he went to the country, he regularly took the key of his rooms in his pocket, lest the servants should take it into their heads to scour the floors or to clean the walls in his absence.

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