Chapter 18

THE BEGINNING OF MY LIFE AT VLADIMIR

When I went to get into my sledge at Kosmodemiansk it was harnessed in the Russian style, three horses abreast, and the shaft horse with the yoke over its head was gaily jingling the bells.

In Perm and Vyatka the horses are put in tandem, one before the other or two side by side and the third in front. So my heart throbbed with delight when I saw the familiar troika.

‘Come now, show us your mettle,’ I said to the young lad who sat smartly on the box in an unlined sheepskin and stiff gauntlets which barely allowed his fingers to close enough to take fifteen kopecks from my hand.

‘We’ll do our best, sir, we’ll do our best. Hey, darlings! Now, sir,’ he said, turning suddenly to me, ‘you only hold on, there is a hill yonder, so I will let them go.’

It was a steep descent to the Volga which was used as a road in the winter.

He certainly did let the horses go. The sledge bounded from right to left, from left to right, as the horses flew downhill; the driver was tremendously pleased, and indeed, sinful man that I am, so was I—it is the Russian temperament.

So I raced with posting horses into 1838—into the best, the brightest year of my life. I will describe how we saw the New Year in.

Eighty versts from Nizhni, we, _i.e._ Matvey, my valet, and I, went into the station superintendent’s to warm ourselves. There was a very sharp frost, and it was windy too. The superintendent, a thin, sickly, pitiful-looking man, made the inscription in my travelling permit, dictating every letter to himself and yet making mistakes. I took off my fur-lined coat and walked up and down the room in immense fur boots, Matvey was warming himself at the red-hot stove, the superintendent muttered, while a wooden clock ticked on a faint, cracked note.

‘I say,’ Matvey said to me, ‘it will soon be twelve o’clock, it’s the New Year, you know. I will bring something,’ he added, looking at me half-inquiringly, ‘from the stores they gave us at Vyatka.’ And without waiting for an answer he ran to fetch bottles and a parcel of food.

Matvey, of whom I shall have more to say later, was more than a servant, he was a friend, a younger brother to me. A Moscow artisan, apprenticed to Sonnenberg to learn the art of bookbinding, in which Sonnenberg, however, was not very proficient, he passed into my hands.

I knew that if I refused it would disappoint Matvey, besides I had nothing against celebrating the day at the posting-station.... The New Year is a station of a sort.

Matvey brought ham and champagne. The champagne turned out to be frozen solid; the ham could have been chopped with an axe, it was all glistening with ice; but _à la guerre comme à la guerre_. ‘May the New Year bring new happiness.’ Yes indeed, new happiness. Was I not on my homeward way? Every hour was bringing me nearer to Moscow—my heart was full of hope.

The frozen champagne did not exactly please the superintendent. I added half a glass of rum to his wine. This new ‘_half-and-half_’ had a great success.

The driver, whom I also invited to join us, was still more extreme in his views; he sprinkled pepper into the glass of foaming wine, stirred it with a spoon, drank it off at one gulp, uttered a painful sigh and almost with a moan added: ‘It did scorch fine!’

The superintendent himself tucked me into the sledge, and was so zealous in his attentions that he dropped the lighted candle into the hay and could not find it afterwards. He was in great spirits and kept repeating: ‘You’ve given me a New Year’s Eve, too!’

The scorched driver whipped up the horses.

At eight o’clock on the following evening I reached Vladimir and put up at the hotel, which is extremely accurately described in the _Tarantass_ with its fowls in rice, its dough-like pastry, and vinegar by way of Bordeaux.

‘A man was asking for you this morning, he’s waiting at the beer-shop,’ the waiter, who wore the rakish parting and killing lovelocks, which in old days were only affected by Russian waiters, but are now worn by Louis Napoleon also, told me after reading my name on my travel permit.

I could not conceive who this could be. ‘But here he is,’ added the waiter, moving aside.

What I saw first, however, was not a man but a tray of terrific size, on which were piles of all sorts of good things, a cake and cracknels, oranges and apples, eggs, almonds, raisins ... and behind the tray appeared the grey head and blue eyes of the village elder, from my father’s Vladimir estate.

‘Gavril Semyonitch,’ I cried, and rushed to hug him. This was the first of our own people, the first figure out of my former life whom I met after imprisonment and exile. I could not take my eyes off the intelligent old man, and felt as though I would never say all I had to say to him. He was the living proof of my nearness to Moscow, to my home, to my friends; only three days before, he had seen them all, he brought me greetings from all of them.... So it was not so far away after all!

The governor, who was a clever Greek called Kuruta, had a thorough knowledge of human nature, and had long ceased to have a strong preference for good or evil. He grasped my position at once and did not make the slightest attempt to worry me. Office work was not even referred to; he commissioned me and a master at the high school to edit the _Vladimir Provincial News_—that was my only duty.

The work was familiar to me; I had in Vyatka successfully edited the unofficial part of the _Provincial News_, and had published in it an article which almost got my successor into trouble. Describing the festival on the Great river, I said that the mutton sacrificed to St. Nicholas at Hlynov used in old days to be distributed to the poor, but now was sold. The bishop was incensed and the governor had difficulty in persuading him to let the matter drop.

These provincial newspapers were introduced in 1837. The very original idea of training the inhabitants of the land of silence and dumbness to express themselves in print occurred to Bludov the Minister of Home Affairs. The latter, famous for being chosen to continue Karamzin’s _History_, though he never actually added a line to it, and for being the author of the report of the committee of investigation into the affair of the 14th of December, which it would have been better not to write at all, belonged to the group of political doctrinaires who appeared on the scene at the end of the reign of Alexander. They were intelligent, cultured, old ‘Arzamass geese’[154] who had risen in the service. They could write Russian, were patriots, and were so zealously engaged in the history of their native land that they had no time to give serious attention to its present condition. They all cherished the never-to-be-forgotten memory of N. M. Karamzin, loved Zhukovsky, knew Krylov by heart, and used to go to Moscow to converse with I. I. Dmitriev in his house in Sadovy Street, where I too visited him as a student, armed with romantic prejudices, a personal acquaintance with N. Polevoy, and a concealed disapproval of the fact that Dmitriev, who was a poet, should be Minister of Justice. Great things were hoped of them, and like most doctrinaires of all countries they did nothing. Perhaps they might have succeeded in leaving more permanent traces under Alexander, but Alexander died and left them with nothing but their desire to do something worth doing.

At Monaco there is an inscription on the tombstone of one of the hereditary princes: ‘Here lies the body of Florestan So-and-so—he desired to do good to his subjects.’[155] Our doctrinaires also desired to do good, not to their own subjects but to the subjects of Nicholas, but they reckoned without their host. I do not know who hindered Florestan, but they were hindered by our Florestan. They were drawn into taking part in all the measures detrimental to Russia and had to restrict themselves to useless innovations, mere alterations of name and form. Every head of a department among us thinks it his duty to produce at intervals a project, an innovation, usually for the worse but sometimes simply neutral. They thought it necessary for instance to call the secretary in the governor’s office by a name of purely Russian origin, while they left the secretary of the provincial office untranslated into Russian. I remember that the Minister of Justice brought forward a plan for necessary changes in the uniforms of civil servants. This scheme opened in a majestic and solemn style: ‘taking into special consideration the lack of unity, of standard, in the make and pattern of certain uniforms in the civil department and adopting as a fundamental principle,’ and so on.

Possessed by the same mania for reform the Minister of Home Affairs replaced the rural assessors by police inspectors. The assessors lived in the towns and used to visit the villages. The police inspectors sometimes met together in the town but lived permanently in the country. In this way all the peasants were put under the supervision of the police and this was done with full knowledge of the predatory, rapacious, corrupt character of our police officials. Bludov initiated the policeman into the secrets of the peasants’ industry and wealth, into their family life, into the affairs of the commune, and in this way attacked the last stronghold of peasant life. Fortunately our villages are very many and there are only two police inspectors in a district.

Almost at the same time the same Bludov had the notion of establishing provincial newspapers. In Russia, although the government has no regard for popular education, it has literary pretensions, and while in England, for instance, there are no official organs, every one of our departments has its own magazine, and so have the universities and the academy. We have journals relating to mining, to dry-salting, to marine affairs, and to means of communication, some in Russian, others in French or German. All these are published at the government expense; contracts for literary articles are made with the department exactly as contracts for fuel and candles, but without competition; there are plenty of statistics, invented figures and fantastic inferences from them. After monopolising everything else, the government has now taken the monopoly of talk and, imposing silence on every one else, has begun chattering unceasingly. Continuing this system, Bludov commanded every provincial government to publish its own newspaper, which was to have an unofficial part for articles on historical, literary, and other subjects.

No sooner said than done, and the officials in fifty provinces were tearing their hair over this unofficial part. Priests of seminary education, doctors of medicine, high-school teachers, all who could be suspected of a tinge of culture and ability to spell correctly were requisitioned. After much reflection and reading over of the _Library of Good Reading_ and the _Notes of the Fatherland_, with inward tremors and misgivings, they at last set to work to write articles.

The desire to see one’s name in print is one of the strongest artificial passions of this bookish age. Nevertheless it needs favourable circumstances to induce people to expose their efforts to public criticism. People who would never have dared to dream of sending their essays to the _Moscow News_ or to a Petersburg magazine, were ready to publish them at home. And, meanwhile, the fatal habit of the newspaper took root. And, indeed, it may not be amiss to have an instrument ready. The printing press, too, is an unruly member.

My colleague in the editorship was also a Moscow graduate and of the same faculty. I have not the heart to speak of him with a smile because of his sad death, and yet he was an absurd figure up to the end. Though far from being stupid, he was extraordinarily clumsy and awkward. It would be hard to find an ugliness not merely so complete but so great, that is, on so large a scale. His face was half as large again as ordinary and somehow rugged-looking; a huge fish-like mouth reached to his ears, white eyelashes did not shade but rather emphasised his pale grey eyes, his skull was scantily covered with bristling hair, and at the same time he was a head taller than I was, round-shouldered, and very untidy in his appearance.

Even his name was such that a sentry at Vladimir locked him up on account of it. Late one evening he was walking past the governor’s house, wrapped up in his overcoat, carrying a pocket telescope; he stood still and took aim with it at some planet. This perturbed the sentry who probably regarded stars as public property. ‘Who goes there?’ he shouted to the motionless stargazer. ‘Nebaba,’[156] answered my friend in a deep voice, without budging.

‘Don’t play the fool,’ answered the sentry, offended, ‘I am on duty.’

‘But I tell you I am Nebaba.’

This was too much for the sentry and he rang his bell; a sergeant appeared and the sentry handed over the astronomer to be taken to the guardroom. ‘There they’ll find out whether you are a woman or not.’ He would certainly have spent the night in custody had not the officer on duty recognised him.

One morning Nebaba came to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few days; he gave a sly, rather appealing smile as he told me this. ‘I shall not return alone,’ he said hesitatingly.

‘What, you mean...?’

‘Yes, I am actually getting married,’ he said shyly. I marvelled at the heroic courage of the woman who could bring herself to marry this good-hearted but monstrously ugly man. But when two or three weeks later I saw in his house a girl of eighteen, who was not exactly good-looking but rather prepossessing and with a lively expression in her eyes, I began to look upon him as a hero.

Six weeks later I began to notice that things were not going well with my Quasimodo. He was plunged in dejection, corrected his proofs badly, did not finish his article on migratory birds, and was gloomily preoccupied. It did not last long. One day as I was returning home through the Golden Gate I saw shopmen and boys running to the churchyard; policemen bustled about. I went with them.

Nebaba’s dead body was lying by the church wall and beside him a gun. He had shot himself just opposite the window of his house; the string with which he had pulled the trigger was still on his foot. The inspector of the medical board, in well-rounded sentences, assured the bystanders that the dead man had felt no pain; the police were preparing to take the body to the police station.

How savage nature is to some people! What were the feelings in the heart of the victim before he brought himself to stop with his bit of string the pendulum that measured for him nothing but humiliations and misfortunes? And why? Because his father was scrofulous and his mother lymphatic? That may all be so. But what right have we to expect justice, to call to account, to ask for reasons from—what? The whirling vortex of life?...

At that very time a new chapter in my life was opening, a chapter full of purity, serenity, youth, earnestness, secluded and bathed in love....

It belongs to another volume.

-----

Footnote 1:

Golohvastov, the husband of my father’s younger sister.

Footnote 2:

Governor of Moscow in 1812. Believed to have set fire to the city when the French entered. See Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 3:

Mortier, duc de Trévise, general under the Revolution and Napoleon. Killed, 1835, by the infernal machine of Fieschi.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 4:

Fain, François, Baron (1778–1837), French historian and secretary of Napoleon.

Footnote 5:

Commander-in-chief of the Russian army in 1812. See Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 6:

Minister of War and the most powerful and influential man of the reign of Alexander I., whose intimate friend he was, hated and dreaded for his cruelty.

Footnote 7:

Secretary of State under Alexander I.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 8:

One of the generals of the campaign of 1812. Military governor-general of Petersburg at the accession of Nicholas in 1825, and killed in the rising of December 14th. See Merezhkovsky’s novel, _December the Fourteenth_.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 9:

Gmelin, Johann Georg (1709–1755), a learned German who travelled in the East.

Footnote 10:

Pallas, Peter Simon (1741–1811), German traveller and naturalist who explored the Urals, Kirghiz Steppes, Altai mountains, and parts of Siberia.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 11:

My father had, besides me, another son ten years older. I was always fond of him, but he could not be a companion to me. From his twelfth to his thirtieth year he was always in the hands of the surgeons. After a series of tortures, endured with extreme fortitude and rendering his whole existence one intermittent operation, the doctors declared his disease incurable. His health was shattered; circumstances and character contributed to the complete ruin of his life. The pages in which I speak of his lonely and melancholy existence have been omitted. I do not care to print them without his consent.

Footnote 12:

There were originally four brothers: Pyotr, the grandfather of ‘the cousin from Kortcheva’ mentioned in Chapter 3; Alexander, the elder brother here described, who is believed to have been the model from whom Dostoevsky drew the character of Fyodor Pavlovitch in _The Brothers Karamazov_; Lyov, always referred to as ‘the Senator,’ and Ivan, Herzen’s father. Of the sisters one was Elizaveta Alexeyevna Golohvastov and one was Marya Alexeyevna Hovansky. The family of the Yakovlyevs was one of the oldest and most aristocratic in Russia.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 13:

British Foreign Secretary in 1791, and Prime Minister, 1806 and 1807, when the Act for the abolition of the slave trade was passed.

Footnote 14:

_I.e._, of Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813. ‘At the court of King Jeremiah’ is a popular phrase equivalent to ‘in the days of Methuselah.’—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 15:

Kleinmihel, Minister of Means of Communication under Nicholas I.

Footnote 16:

Benckendorf, Chief of Gendarmes, and favourite of Nicholas. See Merezhkovsky’s _December the Fourteenth_ for character-study.

Footnote 17:

Perekusihin, Darya Savishna, favourite of Catherine II.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 18:

Father Matthew (1790–1856), Irish priest, who had remarkable success in a great temperance campaign based on the religious appeal.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 19:

Senkovsky, Joseph Ivanovitch (1800–1878), of Polish origin, was a whimsical critic on the reactionary side who placed a miserable poetaster, Timofeyev, above Pushkin and preferred Le Sage to Fielding. Under the pseudonym Baron Brambàeus, he wrote sensational and bombastic novels. He edited a serial publication the _Library of Good Reading_, employing poor young men of talent to write for it.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 20:

Payment in money or kind by a serf in lieu of labour for his master.—(_Translater’s Note._)

Footnote 21:

_I.e._, clubs or guilds for messing or working together.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 22:

_Le Mariage de Figaro_, a satirical comedy by Beaumarchais (_né_ Caron, 1732–1799), a watchmaker’s son, who rose to wealth and influence, and by his writings helped to bring about the Revolution. This play and an earlier one, _Le Barbier de Séville_, became popular all over Europe, but are now chiefly remembered through their adaptation to operas by Mozart and Rossini.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 23:

The famous passage in Racine’s _Phèdre_.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 24:

Mlle. George (1787–1867), French actress famous for her performances in classical tragedy.

Footnote 25:

Mlle. Mars (1779–1847), French actress famous for her acting in comedies of Molière.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 26:

The organist and music-teacher, I. I. Eck, spoken of in the _Memoirs of a Young Man_, did nothing but give music-lessons and had no other influence.

Footnote 27:

The English speak French worse than the Germans, but they only distort the language, while the Germans degrade it.

Footnote 28:

The story is told that on one occasion in his own household, in the presence, that is, of two or three heads of the secret police, two or three maids of honour and generals in waiting, he tried his Medusa glance on his daughter Marya Nikolayevna. She is like her father, and her eyes really do recall the terrible look in his. The daughter boldly confronted her father’s stare. The Tsar turned pale, his cheeks twitched, and his eyes grew still more ferocious; his daughter met him with the same look in hers. Every one turned pale and trembled; the maids of honour and the generals in waiting dared not breathe, so panic-stricken were they at this cannibalistic imperial duel with the eyes, in the style of that described by Byron in ‘Don Juan.’ Nicholas got up, he felt that he had met his match.

Footnote 29:

The President of the Academy proposed Araktcheyev as an honorary member. Labzin asked in what the Count’s services to the arts consisted. The President was at a loss and answered that Araktcheyev was the man who stood nearest to the Tsar. ‘If that is a sufficient reason, then I propose his coachman, Ilya Baykov,’ observed the secretary, ‘he not only stands near the Tsar, but sits in front of him.’ Labzin was a mystic and the editor of the _Messenger of Zion_; Alexander himself was a mystic of the same sort, but with the fall of Golitsyn’s ministry he handed over his former ‘brethren of Christ and of the inner man’ to Araktcheyev to do with as he pleased. Labzin was banished to Simbirsk.

Footnote 30:

Victor Joseph Étienne de Jouy, a popular French writer (1764–1846).—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 31:

The officer, if I am not mistaken, Count Samoylov, had left the army and was living quietly in Moscow. Nicholas recognised him at the theatre; fancied that he was dressed with rather elaborate originality, and expressed the royal desire that such costumes should be ridiculed on the stage. The theatre director and patriot, Zagoskin, commissioned one of his actors to represent Samoylov in some vaudeville. The rumour of this was soon all over the town. When the performance was over, the real Samoylov went into the director’s box and asked permission to say a few words to his double. The director was frightened, but, afraid of a scene, summoned the actor. ‘You have acted me very well,’ the Count said to him, ‘and the only thing wanting to complete the likeness is this diamond which I always wear; allow me to hand it over to you; you will wear it next time you are ordered to represent me.’ After this Samoylov calmly returned to his seat. The stupid jest at his expense fell as flat as the proclamation that Tchaadayev was mad and other august freaks.

Footnote 32:

Wife of Camille Desmoulins, who at his execution appealed to the crowd, was arrested and also executed in 1794.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 33:

Alibaud attempted to assassinate Louis-Philippe in 1836.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 34:

Line from Pushkin’s poem, ‘The Tsar Nikita.’—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 35:

People, who knew the Ivashevs well, have since told me that they doubt this story of the robber, and that, in speaking of the return of the children and of the brother’s sympathy, I must not omit to mention the noble conduct of Ivashev’s sisters. I heard the details from one of them, Mme. Yazykov, who visited her brother in Siberia. But whether she told me about the robber, I don’t remember. Has not Mme. Ivashev been mixed up with Princess Trubetskoy, who sent letters and money to Prince Obolensky through an unknown sectary? Have Ivashev’s letters been preserved? It seems to us that we ought to have access to them.

Footnote 36:

_I.e._, the secret police.

Footnote 37:

‘Cantonists’ were soldiers’ sons educated at the government expense and afterwards sent into the army.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 38:

Pestel, leader of the officers in the Southern Army who supported the attempt to overthrow the autocracy and establish constitutional government. The other four who were hanged were Ryleyev, Kahovsky, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, and Muravyov-Apóstol. See Merezhkovsky’s novel, _December the Fourteenth_, which adheres very closely to the historical facts.

Footnote 39:

Mirovitch in 1762 tried to rescue from the Schlüsselburg the legitimate heir to the Russian throne, known as Ivan VI., who perished in the attempt. It is said that Catherine had given orders that he was to be murdered if any attempt were made to release him. Mirovitch was beheaded.

Footnote 40:

Pugatchov, the Cossack leader of the great rising of the serfs in 1775.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 41:

Nicholas’s victory over the Five was celebrated by a religious service in Moscow. In the midst of the Kremlin the Metropolitan Filaret thanked God for the murders. The whole of the Royal Family took part in the service, near them the Senate and the ministers, and in the immense space around packed masses of the Guards knelt bareheaded, and also took part in the prayers; cannon thundered from the heights of the Kremlin. Never have the gallows been celebrated with such pomp; Nicholas knew the importance of the victory!

I was present at that service, a boy of fourteen lost in the crowd, and on the spot, before that altar defiled by bloody rites. I swore to avenge the murdered men, and dedicated myself to the struggle with that throne, with that altar, with those cannons. I have not avenged them, the Guards and the throne, the altar and the cannon all remain, but for thirty years I have stood under that flag and have never once deserted it.—(_Polar Star_, 1855.)

Footnote 42:

Paul’s mistress, the daughter of Lopuhin, the chief of the Moscow Police, better known under her married name as Princess Gagarin.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 43:

The date when the Polish rebellion broke out.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 44:

Tatyana Kutchin, known in Russian literature under her married name, Passek. She wrote _Memoirs_, which throw interesting sidelights on Herzen’s narrative.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 45:

Originally a convent, this was a famous girls’ school founded by Catherine II.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 46:

Heinrich Zschokke (1771–1848), wrote in German _Tales of Swiss Life_, in five vols., and also dramas—as well as a religious work _Stunden der Andacht_, in eight vols., which was widely read up to the middle of the nineteenth century and attacked for ascribing more importance to religious feeling than to orthodox belief.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 47:

Translated by Juliet Soskice.

Footnote 48:

One of the leaders of the Decembrists.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 49:

Biron, favourite of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, was by her made practically ruler of Russia during her reign and designated as successor by her.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 50:

Joseph II. of Austria paid a famous visit to Catherine II. of Russia in 1780.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 51:

Karamzin (1766–1826), author of a great _History of the Russian State_, and also of novels in the sentimental romantic style of his period.

Footnote 52:

In the _Philosophische Briefe_.

Footnote 53:

See the _Tagebuch_ of Bettina von Arnim for the account of her famous first interview with Goethe.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 54:

Schiller’s poetry has not lost its influence on me. A few months ago I read _Wallenstein_, that titanic work, aloud to my son. The man who has lost his taste for Schiller has grown old or pedantic, has grown hard or forgotten himself. What is one to say of these precocious _altkluge Burschen_ who know his defects so well at seventeen?

Footnote 55:

Written in 1853.

Footnote 56:

Translated by Juliet Soskice.

Footnote 57:

The hero of _La Vie du Chevalier de Faublas_ (1787), by Louvet de Couvray, is the type of the effeminate rake and fashionable exquisite of the period.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 58:

Beaumarchais, author of _Le Barbier de Séville_ and _Le Mariage de Figaro_.

Footnote 59:

Casti (1721–1803), an Italian poet, ‘attached by habit and taste to the polished and frivolous society of the _ancien regime_, his sympathies were nevertheless liberal,’ satirised Catherine II. and, when exiled on that account from Vienna, had the spirit to resign his Austrian pension. The _Talking Animals_, a satire on the predominance of the foreigner in political life, is his best work. The influence of his poems on Byron is apparent in ‘Don Juan.’—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 60:

Gonzaga was a Venetian painter who came to Petersburg in 1792 to paint scenery for the Court Theatre. He planned the celebrated park at Pavlovsk.

Footnote 61:

Derzhavin, Gavril Romanovitch (1743–1816), was poet-laureate to Catherine II., and wrote numerous patriotic and a few other odes.

Footnote 62:

Krylov, Ivan Andreyevitch (1768–1844), was a very popular writer of fables in verse.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 63:

Marmontel (1723–1799), author of the _Contes Moraux_ and other stories.

Footnote 64:

Marivaux (1688–1763), author of numerous plays and a novel called _Marianne_—all distinguished by an excessive refinement of sentiment and language.

Footnote 65:

Shalikov and V. Panaev were insignificant writers of the early part of the eighteenth century.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 66:

Arapov (1796–1861) wrote some twenty plays, but is chiefly remembered for the _Chronicle of the Russian Theatre_ (published after his death), a chronological record of everything performed on the Russian stage up to 1825.

Footnote 67:

I. I. Dmitriev (1760–1837) wrote a number of fables and songs, of which ‘The Little Dove’ is the best known. He was a great patron of young literary men, and in 1810 was made Minister of Justice.

Footnote 68:

Vassily Lvovitch Pushkin, a minor poet, uncle of the famous Pushkin.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 69:

The uniform of the secret police of which Benckendorf was head was light blue with a white strap.

Footnote 70:

See later, Appendix to Chapter 7 for a full account of this.

Footnote 71:

The Kritsky brothers were said to have broken a bust of the Tsar at a drinking party.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 72:

By the way, here is another of the fatherly measures of the ‘never to be forgotten’ Nicholas. Foundling hospitals and the regulations for their public inspection are among the best monuments of the reign of Catherine. The very idea of maintaining hospitals, almshouses, and orphan asylums on part of the percentage made by the loan banks from the investment of their capital is remarkably intelligent.

These institutions were accepted, the banks and the regulations enriched them, the foundling hospitals and almshouses flourished so far as the universal thievishness of officials permitted them. Of the children brought into the Foundling Hospital some remained in it, while others were put out to be brought up by peasant-women in the country; the latter remained peasants, while the former were brought up in the institution itself. The more gifted among them were picked out to continue the high-school course, while the less promising were taught trades or sent to the Institute of Technology. It was the same with the girls. Some were trained in handicrafts, others as children’s nurses, while the cleverest became schoolmistresses and governesses. But Nicholas dealt a terrible blow to this institution, too. It is said that the Empress on one occasion, meeting in the house of one of her friends the children’s governess, entered into conversation with her and, being very much pleased with her, inquired where she had been brought up, to which the young woman answered, the Foundling Hospital. Any one would suppose that the Empress would be grateful to the government for it. No—it gave her occasion to reflect on the _impropriety_ of giving such an education to abandoned children.

A few months later Nicholas transferred the higher classes of the Foundling Hospital to the Officers’ Institute, _i.e._ commanded that the foundlings should no longer be put in these classes, but replaced them with the children of officers. He even thought of a more radical measure, he forbade the provincial institutions in their regulations to accept new-born infants. The best commentary on this intelligent measure is to be found in the records of the Minister of Justice under the heading ‘Infanticide.’

Footnote 73:

Immense progress has been made in this respect. All that I have heard of late of the theological Academies, and even of the Seminaries confirms it. I need hardly say that it is not the ecclesiastical authorities but the spirit of the pupils that is responsible for this improvement.

Footnote 74:

Griboyedov’s famous comedy, which appeared and had a large circulation in manuscript copies in 1824, its performance and publication being prevented by the Censorship. When performed later it was in a very mutilated form. It was a lively satire on Moscow society and full of references to well-known persons, such as Izmailov and Tolstoy ‘the American.’ Griboyedov was imprisoned in 1825 in connection with the Fourteenth of December.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 75:

Stanislav Leszcynski, king of Poland from 1702 to 1709. His daughter Maria was married to Louis XV. of France.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 76:

Lalande (1732–1807), a French astronomer connected with the theory of the planets of Mercury.

Footnote 77:

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), French naturalist and author of many books on zoology and biology—in which, in opposition to Cuvier, he advanced the theory of the variation of species under the influence of environment.

Footnote 78:

Oken, German naturalist, who aimed at deducing a system of natural philosophy from _à priori_ propositions, and incidentally threw off some valuable and suggestive ideas.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 79:

At that time there were none of the inspectors and subinspectors who played the part of my Pyotr Fyodorovitch in the lecture-room.

Footnote 80:

A pun on the name—the phrase meaning also ‘Nine all but a little.’—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 81:

Merzlyakov, a critic and translator of some merit.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 82:

Abencerrages, a Moorish family, on the legend of whose tragic fate in Granada, Chateaubriand founded his romance _Les Aventures du Dernier des Abencérages_.

Footnote 83:

Tredyakovsky (1703–1769), son of a priest at Astrakhan, is said, like Lomonossov, to have walked to Moscow in pursuit of learning. He was the author of inferior poems, but did great service to Russian culture by his numerous translations. He was the first to write in Russian as spoken.

Footnote 84:

Kostrov (1750–1796), a peasant’s son and a seminarist, wrote in imitation of Derzhavin, but is better known for his translations of the Iliad, Apuleius and Ossian.

Footnote 85:

Heraskov (1733–1807), author of an immense number of poems in pseudo-classic style. Wiener says ‘they now appal us with their inane voluminousness.’ But readers of Turgenev will remember how greatly they were admired by Punin. The best known of his epics is the Rossiad, dealing with Ivan the Terrible.

Footnote 86:

Knyazhnin (1742–1791) wrote numerous tragedies and comedies, chiefly adaptations from the French or Italian, and of no literary merit.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 87:

Byelinsky, Vissarion Grigoryevitch (1810–1848), was the greatest of Russian critics. See later, Chapter 25, Vol. II., for an account of him.

Footnote 88:

Kavelin (1818–1855), a writer of brilliant articles on political and economical questions. Friend of Turgenev.

Footnote 89:

Pirogov (1810–1881), the great surgeon and medical authority, was the first in Russia to investigate disease by experiments on animals, and to use anæsthetics for operations. He took an active part in education and the reforms of the early years of Alexander II.’s reign, and published many treatises on medical subjects. To his genius and influence as Professor of Medicine in Petersburg University is largely due the very high standard of medical training in Russia.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 90:

Glinka, author of patriotic verses of no merit. Referred to as ‘the officer’ by Pushkin in a poem.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 91:

How diversely Humboldt’s travels were understood in Russia may be gathered from the account of an Ural Cossack who served in the office of the Governor of Perm; he liked to describe how he had escorted the mad Prussian Prince, Gumplot. What did he do? ‘Just the same silly things, collecting grasses, looking at the sand; at Solontchaki he said to me, through the interpreter, ‘Go into the water and get what’s at the bottom’; well, I got just what is usually at the bottom, and he asks, ‘Is the water very cold at the bottom?’ ‘No, my lad,’ I thought, ‘you won’t catch me.’ So I drew myself up at attention, and answered, ‘When it’s our duty, your Highness, it’s of no consequence, we are glad to do our best.’

Footnote 92:

Homyakov. See later, Chapter 30, for Herzen’s account of this leader of the Slavophil movement.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 93:

Pic-de-la-Mirandole (1463–1494), a learned Italian who was the most famous of all infant prodigies, a mediæval ‘Admirable Crichton.’—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 94:

Ledru-Rollin (1808–1874), member of the French Provisional Government of 1848, and one of the earliest advocates of universal adult suffrage.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 95:

Catherine II., born a German princess, rose to be Empress of Russia through the murder—by her orders or with her connivance—of her husband, Peter III., to the great advantage of the country.

Footnote 96:

Mrs. Radcliffe (1764–1823) wrote many stories, _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ and _The Italians_ being the best known. All largely turn on mysterious haunted castles, and had great vogue in their day.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 97:

Manuel (J. A.), a man of great independence and honesty, was expelled from the Chambre des Députés for his opposition to the war with Spain in 1823.

Footnote 98:

Dupont de l’Eure (J. C.), a leader in the revolution of 1830, was afterwards president of the Provisional Government in 1848.

Footnote 99:

Armand Carrel (1800–1836), as editor of _Le National_, offered spirited opposition to Charles X., as well as to aggressive acts of the government of Louis-Philippe.—(_Translator’s Notes._)

Footnote 100:

Here is what Denis Davydov[101] tells in his Memoirs:

‘The Tsar said one day to A. P. Yermolov: “I was once in a very terrible position during the Polish War. My wife was expecting her confinement, the mutiny had broken out in Novgorod, I had only two squadrons of Horse Guards left me; the news from the army only reached me through Königsberg. I was forced to surround myself with soldiers discharged from hospital.”’

The Memoirs of this general of partisans leave no room for doubt that Nicholas, like Araktcheyev, like all cold-hearted, cruel and revengeful people, was a coward. Here is what General Tchetchensky told Davydov: ‘You know that I can appreciate manliness and so you will believe my words. I was near the Tsar on the 14th December, and I watched him all the time. I can assure you on my honour that the Tsar, who was very pale all the time, had his heart in his boots.’

And again Davydov himself tells us: ‘During the riot in the Haymarket, the Tsar only visited the capital on the second day when order was restored. The Tsar was at Peterhof, and himself observed casually, “I was standing all day with Volkonsky on a mound in the garden, listening for the sound of cannon-shot from the direction of Petersburg.” Instead of anxiously listening in the garden, and continually sending couriers to Petersburg,’ added Davydov, ‘he ought to have hastened there himself; any one of the least manliness would have done so. On the following day (when everything was quiet) the Tsar rode in his carriage into the crowd, which filled the square, and shouted to it, “On your knees!” and the crowd hurriedly obeyed the order. The Tsar, seeing several people dressed in parti-coloured clothes (among those following the carriage), imagined that they were suspicious characters, and ordered the poor wretches to be taken to the lock-up and, turning to the people, began shouting: “They are all wretched Poles, they have egged you on.” Such an ill-timed sally completely ruined the effect in my opinion.’

A strange sort of bird was this Nicholas!

Footnote 101:

Davydov (see Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_) and Yermolov were both leaders of the partisan or guerilla warfare against the French in 1812.—(_Translator’s Note._)

Footnote 102:

And where are the Kritskys? What had they done? Who tried them? For what were they condemned?

Footnote 103:

_I.e._, Tatyana Kutchin, the ‘cousin from Kortcheva,’ mentioned in