CHAPTER XI

The Beginning of my Life at Vladímir.

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 sledge. He wore a sheepskin coat with the wool inside, and such stiff gloves that he could hardly bring two fingers together to clutch the coin I offered him.

“Very good, Sir. Gee up, my beauties!” said the lad. Then he turned to me and said, “Now, Sir, just you hold on; there’s a hill coming where I shall let the horses go.” The hill was a steep descent to the Volga, along which the track passed in winter.

He did indeed let the horses go. As they galloped down the hill, the sledge, instead of moving decently forwards, banged like a cracker from side to side of the road. The driver was intensely pleased; and I confess that I, being a Russian, enjoyed it no less.

In this fashion I drove into the year 1838—the best and brightest year of my life. Let me tell you how I saw the New Year in.

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

“Look at the clock, Sir,” Matthew said to me; “it will strike twelve immediately, and the New Year will begin.” He glanced half-enquiringly at me and then added, “I shall bring in some of the things they put on the sledge at Vyatka.” Without waiting for an answer, he hurried off in search of the bottles and a parcel.

Matthew, of whom I shall say more in future, was more than a servant—he was my friend, my younger brother. A native of Moscow, he had been handed over to our old friend Sonnenberg, to learn the art of bookbinding, about which Sonnenberg himself knew little enough; later, he was transferred to my service.

I knew that I should have hurt Matthew by refusing, and I had really no objection myself to making merry in the post-house. The New Year is itself a stage in life’s journey.

He brought in a ham and champagne.

The wine was frozen hard, and the ham was frosted over with ice; we had to chop it with an axe, butà la guerre comme à la guerre.

“A Happy New Year,” we all cried. And I had cause for happiness. I was travelling back in the right direction, and every hour brought me nearer to Moscow—my heart was full of hope.

As our frozen champagne was not much to the taste of the post-master, I poured an equal quantity of rum into his glass; and this new form of “half and half” was a great success.

The driver, whom I invited to drink with us, was even more thoroughgoing in his methods: he poured pepper into the foaming wine, stirred it up with a spoon, and drank the glass at one gulp; then he sighed and added with a sort of groan, “That was fine and hot.”

The post-master himself helped me into the sledge, and was so zealous in his attentions that he dropped a lighted candle into the hay and failed to find it afterwards. He was in great spirits and kept repeating, “A Happy New Year for me too, thanks to you.”

The “heated” driver touched up the horses, and we started.

At eight on the following evening I arrived at Vladímir and stopped at an inn which is described with perfectaccuracy inThe 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 used to be the distinguishing marks of Russian waiters and are now peculiar to them and Prince Louis Napoleon.

I could not guess who this could be.

“But there he is,” added the waiter, standing aside. What I first saw was not a man at all but an immense tray piled high with all sorts of provisions—cake and biscuits, apples and oranges, eggs, almonds and raisins; then behind the tray came into view the white beard and blue eyes belonging to the bailiff on my father’s estate near Vladimir.

“Gavrilo Semyónitch!” I cried out, and rushed into his arms. His was the first familiar face, the first link with the past, that I had met since the period of prison and exile began. I could not look long enough at the old man’s intelligent face, I could not say enough to him. To me he represented nearness to Moscow, to my home and my friends: he had seen them all three days before and brought me greetings from them all. How could I feel that I was really far from them?

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 attemptat 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 the way, one article which I published there nearly landed my successor in a scrape. In describing the festival on the Big River, I said that the mutton offered to St. Nicholas used to be given away to the poor but was now sold. This enraged the Abbot, and the Governor had some difficulty in pacifying him.

Provincial Gazettes were first introduced in the year 1837. It was Bludov, the Minister of the Interior, who conceived the idea of training in publicity the land of silence and dumbness. Bludov, known as the continuator of Karamzín’s History—though he never added a line to it—and as the author of the Report on the Decembrist Revolution—which had better never have been written—was one of those doctrinaire statesmen who came to the front in the last years of Alexander’s reign. They were able, educated, honest men; they had belonged in their youth to the Literary Club of Arzamas;[114]they wrote Russian well, had patriotic feelings, and were so much interested in the history of their country that they had no leisure to bestow on contemporary events. They all worshipped the immortal memory of Karamzín, loved Zhukovski,knew Krylóv[115]by heart, and used to travel to Moscow on purpose to talk to Dmítriev[116]in his house there. I too used to visit there in my student days; but I was armed against the old poet by prejudices in favour of romanticism, by my acquaintance with N. Polevói, and by a secret feeling of dissatisfaction that Dmítriev, being a poet, should also be Minister of Justice. Though much was expected of them, they did nothing; but that is the fate of doctrinaires in all countries. Perhaps they would have left more lasting traces behind them if Alexander had lived; but Alexander died, and they never got beyond the mere wish to do the state some service.

114.Zhukovski and Púshkin both belonged to this club. It carried on a campaign against Shishkóv and other opponents of the new developments in Russian style.

115.Krylóv (1768-1844), the famous writer of fables.

116.Dmítriev, a poet once famous, who lived long enough to welcome Púshkin.

At Monaco there is a monument to one of their Princes with this inscription. “Here rests Prince Florestan”—I forget his number—“who wished to make his subjects happy.” Our doctrinaires also wished to make Russia happy, but they reckoned without their host. I don’t know who prevented Florestan; but it was our Florestan[117]who prevented them. They were forced to take a part in the steady deterioration of Russia, and all the reforms they could introduce were useless, mere alterations of forms and names. Every Russian in authority considers it his highest duty to rack his brains for some novelty of this kind; the change is generally for the worse and sometimes leaves things exactly as they were. Thus the name of ‘secretary’ has given place to a Russian equivalent in the public offices of the provinces, but the duties are not changed. I remember how the Minister of Justice put forwarda proposal for necessary changes in the uniform of civilian officials. It began with great pomp and circumstance—“Having taken special notice of the lack of uniformity in the cut and fashion of certain uniforms worn by the civilian department, and having adopted as a principle ...,” etc.

117.I.e., the Emperor Nicholas.

Beset by this itch for novelty the Minister of the Interior made changes with regard to the officers who administer justice in the rural districts. The old judges lived in the towns and paid occasional visits to the country; their successors have their regular residence in the country and pay occasional visits to the towns. By this reform all the peasants came under the immediate scrutiny of the police. The police penetrated into the secrets of the peasant’s commerce and wealth, his family life, and all the business of his community; and the village community had been hitherto the last refuge of the people’s life. The only redeeming feature is this—there are many villages and only two judges to a district.

About the same time the same Minister excogitated the Provincial Gazettes. Our Government, while utterly contemptuous of education, makes pretensions to be literary; and whereas, in England, for example, there are no Government newspapers at all, every public department in Russia publishes its own organ, and so does the Academy, and so do the Universities. We have papers to represent the mining interest and the pickled-herring interest, the interests of Frenchmen and Germans, the marine interest and the land-carriage interest, all published at the expense of Government. The different departments contract forarticles, just as they contract for fire-wood and candles, the only difference being that in the former case there is no competition; there is no lack of general surveys, invented statistics, and fanciful conclusions based on the statistics. Together with a monopoly in everything else, the Government has assumed a monopoly of nonsense; ordering everyone to be silent, it chatters itself without ceasing. In continuation of this system, Bludov ordered that each provincial Government should publish its own Gazette, and that each Gazette should include, as well as the official news, a department for history, literature and the like.

No sooner said than done. In fifty provincial Governments they were soon tearing their hair over this unofficial part. Priests from the theological seminaries, doctors of medicine, schoolmasters, anyone who was suspected of being able to spell correctly—all these were pressed into the service. These recruits reflected, read up the leading newspapers and magazines, felt nervous, took the plunge, and finally produced their little articles.

To see oneself in print is one of the strongest artificial passions of an age corrupted by books. But it requires courage, nevertheless, except in special circumstances, to venture on a public exhibition of one’s productions. People who would not have dreamed of publishing their articles in theMoscow Gazetteor the Petersburg newspapers, now began to print their writings in the privacy of their own houses. Thus the dangerous habit of possessing an organ of one’s own took root, and men became accustomed to publicity. And indeed it is not a bad thing to have a weapon which is always ready for use. A printing press, like the human tongue, has no bones.

§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 a codfish which spread from ear to ear; his light-grey eyes were lightened rather than shaded by colourless eye-lashes; his scalp had a meagre covering of bristly hair; he was moreover taller by a head than myself,[118]with a slouching figure and very slovenly habits.

118.Herzen himself was a very tall, large man.

His very name was such that it once caused him to be arrested. Late one evening, wrapped up in his overcoat, he was walking past the Governor’s residence, with a field-glass in his hand. He stopped and aimed the glass at the heavens. This astonished the sentry, who probably reckoned the stars as Government property: he challenged the rapt star-gazer—“Who goes there?” “Nebába,”[119]answered my colleague in a deep bass voice, and gazed as before.

119.The word means in Russian “Not a woman.”

“Don’t play the fool with me—I’m on duty,” said the sentry.

“I tell you that I am Nebába!”

The soldier’s patience was exhausted: he rang the bell, a serjeant appeared, the sentry handed the astronomerover to him, to be taken to the guard-room. “They’ll find out there,” as he said, “whether you’re a woman or not.” And there he would certainly have stayed till the morning, had not the officer of the day recognised him.

One morning Nebába came to my room to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then he added, with some confusion, “I shall not return alone.” “Do you mean that ...?” “Yes, I am going to be married,” he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen and, if no beauty, pretty enough, with lively eyes; and then I thought him the hero.

Six weeks had not passed before I saw that things were going badly with my poor Orson. He was terribly depressed, corrected his proofs carelessly, never finished his article on “The Migration of Birds,” and could not fix his attention on anything; at times it seemed to me that his eyes were red and swollen. This state of things did not last long. One day as I was going home, I noticed a crowd of boys and shopkeepers running towards the churchyard. I walked after them.

Nebába’s body was lying near the church wall, and a rifle lay beside him. He had shot himself opposite the windows of his own house; the string with which he had pulled the trigger was still attached to his foot. The police-surgeon blandly assured the crowd that the deceased hadsuffered no pain; and the police prepared to carry his body to the station.

Nature is cruel to the individual. What dark forebodings filled the breast of this poor sufferer, before he made up his mind to use his piece of string and stop the pendulum which measured out nothing to him but insult and suffering? And why was it so? Because his father was consumptive or his mother dropsical? Likely enough. But what right have we to ask for reasons or for justice? What is it that we seek to call to account? Will the whirling hurricane of life answer our questions?

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.

Transcriber’s Notes:Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.Typographical errors were silently corrected.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.

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