Childhood, Youth and Exile

Superficial and unsuperfidal critics alike have had their laugh at Le Pere Enfantin 4 and his apostles ; but a time is coming when a different reception will be given to those forerunners of socialism.

Though these young enthusiasts wore long beards and high waistcoats, yet their appearance in a prosaic world was both romantic and serious. They proclaimed a new belief, they had something to say - a principle by virtue of which they summoned before their judgement-seat the old order of things, which wished to try them by the code Napoleon and the religion of the House

·

of Orleans.

3· The earliest piece of literature in Russian.

4- Barthelemy Enfantin (1796-1864) carried on the work of Saint

Simon in Paris.

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First, they proclaimed the emancipation o f women - summoning them to a common task, giving them control of their own destiny, and making an alliance with them on terms of equality.

Their second dogma was the restoration of the body to credit

Ia rehabilitation de: Ia chair.

These mighty watchwords comprise a whole world of new relations between human beings - a world of health and spirit and beauty, a world of natural and therefore pure morality. Many mocked at the 'freedom of women' and the 'recognition of the rights of the flesh', attributing a low and unclean meaning to these phrases ; for our minds, corrupted by monasticism, fear the flesh and fear women. A religion of life had come to replace the religion of death, a religion of beauty to replace the religion of penance and emaciation, of fasting and prayer. The crucified body had risen in its tum and was no longer abashed. Man had reached a harmonious unity : he had discovered that he is a single being, not made, like a pendulum, of two different metals that check each other ; he realised that the foe in his members had ceased to exist.

It required no little courage to preach such a message to all France, and to attack those beliefs which are so strongly held by all Frenchmen and so entirely powerless to influence their conduct.

To the old world, mocked by Voltaire and shattered by the Revolution, and then patched and cobbled for their own use by the middle classes, this was an entirely new experience. It tried to judge these dissenters, but its own hypocritical pretences were brought to light by them in open court. When the Saint-Simonians were charged with religious apostasy, they pointed to the crucifix in the court which had been veiled since the revolution of 183o; and when they were accused of justifying sensuality, they asked their judge if he himself led a chaste life.

A new world was knocking at the door, and our hearts and minds flew open to welcome it The socialism of Saint-Simon became the foundation of our beliefs and has remained an essential part of them.

With the impressibility and frankness of youth, we were easily caught up by the mighty stream and early passed across that Jordan, before which whole armies of mankind stop short, fold

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1 3 )

their arms, and either march backwards or hunt about for a ford ; but there is no ford over Jordan !

We do not all cross. Socialism and rationalism are to this day the touchstones of humanity, the rocks which lie in the course of revolution and science. Groups of swimmers, driven by reflection or the waves of circumstance against these rocks, break up at once into two camps, which, under different disguises, remain the same throughout all history, and may be distinguished either in a great political party or in a group of a dozen young men. One represents logic; the other, history : one stands for dialectics ; the other for evolution. Truth is the main object of the former, and feasibility of the latter. There is no question of choice between them : thought is harder to tame than any passion and pulls with irresistible force. Some may be able to put on the drag and stop themselves by means of feelings or dreams or fear of consequences ; but not all can do this. If thought once masters a man, he ceases to discuss whether the thing is practicable, and whether the enterprise is hard or easy : he seeks truth alone and carries out his principles with inexorable impartiality, as the Saint

Sirnonians did in their day and as Proudhon 5 does stilL

Our group grew smaller and smaller. As easily as 1833, the

'liberals' looked askance at us as backsliders. Just before we were imprisoned. Saint-Simonianism raised a barrier between me and Polevoy. He had an extraordinarily active and adroit mind, which could rapidly assimilate any food ; he was a born journalist, the very man to chronicle successes and discoveries and the battles of politicians or men of science. I made his acquaintance towards the end of my college course and saw a good deal of him and his brother, Xenophon. He was then at the height of his reputation; it was shortly before the suppression of his newspaper, the Telegraph.

To Polevoy the latest discovery, the freshest novelty either of incident or theory, was the breath of his nostrils, and he was changeable as a chameleon. Yet, for all his lively intelligence, he could never understand the Saint -Simonian doctrine. What was to us a revelation was to him insanity, a mere Utopia and a hindrance to social progress. I might declaim and expound and argue as much as I pleased - Polevoy was deaf, grew angry and even 5· Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-63), a French publicist and socialist.

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bitter. H e especially resented opposition o n the part o f a student; for he valued his influence over the young, and these disputes showed him that it was slipping out of his grasp.

One day I was hurt by the absurdity of his criticisms and told him that he was just as benighted as the foes against whom he had been fighting all his life. Stung to the quick by my taunt he said, 'Your time will come too, when, in recompense for a lifetime of labour and effort, some young man with a smile on his face will call you a back number and bid you get out of his way.' I felt sorry for him and ashamed of having hurt his feelings ; and yet I felt also that this complaint, more suitable to a worn-out gladiator than a tough fighter, contained his own condemnation. I was sure then that he would never go forward, and also that his active mind would prevent him from remaining where he was, in a position of unstable equilibrium.

His subsequent history is well known : he wrote Parasha, the Siberian Girl.

If a man cannot pass off the stage when his hour has struck and cannot adopt a new role, he had better die. That is what I felt when I looked at Polevoy, and at Pius the Ninth, and at how many others I

1 3

To complete my chronicle of that sad time, I should record here some details about Polezhayev.

Even at College he became known for his remarkable powers as a poet. One of his productions was a humorous poem called Sashka, a parody of Pushkin's Onegin ; he trod on many corns in the pretty and playful verse, and the poem, never intended for print, allowed itself the fullest liberty of expression.

When the Tsar Nicholas came to Moscow for his coronation in the autumn of 1826, the secret police furnished him with a copy of the poem.

So, at three one morning, Polezhayev was awakened by the Vice-Chancellor and told to put on his uniform and appear at the office. The Visitor of the University was waiting for him there : he looked to see that Polezhayev's uniform had no button missing and no button too many, and then carried him off in his own carriage, without offering any explanation.

They drove to the house of the Minister of Education. The

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1 37

Minister of Education also gave Polezhayev a seat in his carriage, and this time they drove to the Palace itself.

Prince Lieven proceeded to an inner room, leaving Polezhayev in a reception room, where, in spite of the early hour - it was 6 a.m.

- several courtiers and other high functionaries were waiting.

They supposed that the young man had distinguished himself in some way and began a conversation with him at once; one of them proposed to engage him as tutor to his son.

He was soon sent for. The Tsar was standing, leaning on a desk and talking to Lieven. He held a manuscript in his hand and darted an enquiring glance at Polezhayev as he entered the room. 'Did you write these verses ? • he asked.

'Yes,' said Polezhayev.

'Well, Prince,' the Tsar went on, 'I shall give you a specimen of University education ; I shall show you what the young men learn there.' Then he turned to Polezhayev and added, 'Read this manuscript aloud.'

Polezhayev's agitation was such that he could not read it; and he said so.

'Read it at once ! '

· The loud voice restored h is strength to Polezhayev, and he opened the manuscript. He said afterwards that he had never seen Sashka so well copied or on such fine paper.

At first he read with difficulty, but by degrees he took courage and read the poem to the end in a loud lively tone. At the most risky passages the Tsar waved his hand to the Minister and the Minister closed his eyes in horror.

'What do you say, Prince ? ' asked Nicholas, when the reading was over. 'I mean to put a stop to this profligacy. These are surviving relics of the old mischief,6 but I shall root them out. What character does he bear ?'

Of course the Minister knew nothing about his character ; but some humane instinct awoke in him, and he said, 'He bears an excellent character, Your Majesty.'

'You may be grateful for that testimony. But you must be punished as an example to others. Do you wish to enter the Army ?'

Polezhayev was silent.

'I offer you this means of purification. Will you take it ?'

6. i.e., the Decembrist conspiracy.

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' I must obey when you command,' said Polezhayev. The Tsar came close up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He said :

'Your fate depends upon yourself. If I forget about you, you may write to me.' Then he kissed Polezhayev on the forehead.

This last detail seemed to me so improbable that I made Polezhayev repeat it a dozen times ; he swore that it was true.

From the presence of the Tsar, Polezhayev was taken to Count Dibich, who had rooms in the Palace. Dibich was roused out of his sleep and came in yawning. He read through the document and asked the aide-de-camp, 'Is this the man ? ' 'Yes,' was the reply.

'Well, good luck to you in the service ! I was in it myself and worked my way up, as you see ; perhaps you will be a fieldmarshal yourself some day.' That was Dibich's kiss - a stupid, ill-timed, German joke. Polezhayev was taken to camp and made to serve with the colours.

When three years had passed, Polezhayev recalled what the Tsar had said and wrote him a letter. No answer came. After a few months he wrote again with the same result. Feeling sure that his letters were not delivered, he deserted, his object being to present a petition in person. But he behaved foolishly : he hunted up some college friends in Moscow and was entertained by them, and of course further secrecy was impossible. He was arrested at Tver and sent back to his regiment as a deserter ; he had to march all the way in fetters. A court-martial sentenced him to run the gauntlet, and the sentence was forwarded to the Tsar for confirmation.

Polezhayev determined to commit suicide before the time of his punishment. For long he searched in the prison for some sharp instrument, and at last he confided in an old soldier who was attached to him. The soldier understood and sympathised with his wish ; and when he heard that the reply had come, he brought a bayonet and said with tears in his eyes as he gave it to Polezhayev. 'I sharpened it with my own hands.'

But the Tsar ordered that Polezhayev should not be flogged.

It was at this time that he wrote that excellent poem which begins :

No consolation

Came when I fell:

In jubilation

Laughed fiends of Hell.

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He was sent to the Caucasus, where he distinguished himself and was promoted corporal. Years passed, and the tedium and hopelessness of his position were too much for him. For him it was impossible to become a poet at the service of the police, and that was the only way to get rid of the knapsack.

There was, indeed, one other way, and he preferred it : he drank, in order to forget. There is one terrible poem of his - To Whisky.

He got himself transferred to a regiment of carabineers quartered at Moscow. This was a material improvement in his circumstances, but cruel consumption had already fastened on his lungs.

It was at this time I made his acquaintance, about 1 8 3 3 . He dragged on for four years more and died in the military hospital.

When one of his friends went to ask for the body, to bury it, no one knew where it was. The military hospital carries on a trade in dead bodies, selling them to the University and medical schools, manufacturing skeletons, and so on. Polezhayev's body was found at last in a cellar ; there were other corpses on the top of it, and the rats had gnawed one of the feet.

His poems were published after his death, and it was intended to add a portrait of him in his private's uniform. But the censor objected to this, and the unhappy victim appears with the epaulettes of an officer - he was promoted while in the hospitaL

C.Y.E.--9

PART I I

PRISON AND E XILE

1834-1838

CHAPTER I

A Prophecy - Ogarev's Arrest - The Fires - A Moscow Liberal -

Mikhail Orlov - The Churchyard

1

O N E morning in the spring of 1834 I went to Vadim's house.

Though neither he nor any of his brothers or sisters were at home, I went upstairs to his little room, sat down, and began to write.

The door opened softly, and Vadim's mother came in. Her tread was scarcely audible ; looking tired and ill, she went to an armchair and sat down. 'Go on writing,' she said, 'I just looked in to see if Vadya had come home. The children have gone out for a walk, and the downstairs rooms are so empty and depressing that I felt sad and frightened. I sha.t.l sit here for a little. but don't let me interfere with what you are doing.'

She looked thoughtful, and her face showed more clearly than usual the shadow of past suffering, and that suspicious fear of the future and distrust of life which is the invariable result of great calamities when they last long and are often repeated.

We began to talk. She told me something of their life in Siberia.

'I have come through much already,' she said, shaking her head,

'and there is more to come : my heart forebodes evil.'

I remembered how, sometimes, when listening to our free talk on political subjects, she would tum pale and heave a gentle sigh ; and then she would go away to another room and remain silent for a long time.

'You and your friends,' she went on, 'are on the road that leads to certain ruin - ruin to V adya and yourself and all of you. You know I love you like a son' - and a tear rolled down her worn face.

I said nothing. She took my hand, tried to smile, and went on :

'Don't be vexed with me; my nerves are upset. I quite understand. You must go your own way; for you there is no other ; if there were, you would be different people. I know this, but l cannot conquer my fears ; I have borne so much misfortune that I have no strength for more. Please don't say a word of this to Vadya, or he will be vexed and argue with me. But here he is I' -

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and she hastily wiped away her tears and once more begged me by a look to keep her secret.

Unhappy mother ! Saint and heroine I Corneille's 'qu'il mourut' 1 was not a nobler utterance than yours.

Her prophecy was soon fulfilled. Though the storm passed harmless this time over the heads of her sons, yet the poor lady had much grief and fear to suffer.

2

'Arrested him ? ' I called out, springing out of bed, and pinching myself, to find out if I was asleep or awake.

'Two hours after you left our house, the police and a party of Cossacks carne and arrested my master and seized his papers.'

The speaker was Ogarev's valet. Of late all had been quiet, and I could not imagine what pretext the police had invented. Ogarev had only come to Moscow the day before. And why had they arrested him, and not me ?

To do nothing was impossible. I dressed and went out without any definite purpose. It was my first experience of misfortune. I felt wretched and furious at my own impotence.

I wandered about the streets till at last I thought of a friend whose social position made it possible for him to learn the state of the case, and, perhaps, to mend matters. But he was then living terribly far off, at a house in a distant suburb. I called the first cab I saw and hurried off at top speed. It was then seven o'clock in the morning.

3

Eighteen months before this time we had made the acquaintance of this man, who was a kind of celebrity in Moscow. Educated in Paris, he was rich, intelligent, well-informed, witty, and independent in his ideas. For complicity in the Decernbrist plot he had been imprisoned in a fortress till he and some others were released ; and though he had not been exiled, he wore a halo. He was in the public service and had great influence with Prince Drnitry Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, who liked people with independent views, especially if they could express them in good French ; for the Governor was not strong in Russian.

V. - as I shall call him - was ten years our senior and surprised 1. Said of his son by the father in Corneille's play, Horace.

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us by his sensible comments on current events, his knowledge of political affairs, his eloquent French, and the ardour of his liberalism. He knew so much and so thoroughly ; he was so pleasant and easy in conversation ; his views were so clearly defined ; he had a reply to every question and a solution of every problem.

He read everything - new novels, pamphlets, newspapers, poetry, and was working seriously at zoology as well ; he drew up reports for the Governor and was organising a series of school-books.

His liberalism was of the purest tricolour hue, the liberalism of the Left, midway between Mauguin and General Lamarque.2

The walls of his study in Moscow were covered with portraits of famous revolutionaries, from John Hampden and Bailly to Fieschi and Armand Carrel,3 and a whole library of prohibited books was ranged beneath these patron saints. A skeleton, with a few stuffed birds and scientific preparations, gave an air of study and concentration to the room and toned down its revolutionary appearance.

We envied his experience and knowledge of the world ; his subtle irony in argument impressed us greatly. We thought of him as a practical reformer and rising statesman.

4

V. was not at home. He had gone to Moscow the evening before, for an interview with the Governor ; his valet said that he would certainly return within two hours. I waited for him.

The country-house which he occupied was charming. The study where I waited was a high spacious room on the groundfloor, with a large door leading to a terrace and garden. It was a hot day ; the scent of trees and flowers came from the garden ; and some children were playing in front of the house and laughing loudly. Wealth, ease, space, sun and shade, flowers and verdure - what a contrast to the confinement and close air and darkness of a prison ! I don't know how long I sat there, absorbed in bitter thoughts ; but suddenly the valet who was on the terrace called out to me with an odd kind of excitement.

1. French politicians prominent about 1830.

3. Bailly, Mayor of Paris, was guillotined in 1 793· Fieschi was executed in 1836 for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe. Armand Carrel was a French publicist and journalist who fell in a duel in 1836. See also p. 1 1 1 .

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'What i s it ? ' I asked.

'Please come here and look.'

Not wishing to annoy the man, I walked out to the terrace, and stood still in horror. All round a number of houses were burning ; it seemed as if they had all caught fire at once. The fire was spreading with incredible speed.

I stayed on the terrace. The man watched the fire with a kind of uneasy satisfaction, and he said, 'It's spreading grandly ; that house on the right is certain to be burnt.'

There is something revolutionary about a fire : fire mocks at property and equalises fortunes. The valet felt this instinctively.

Within half an hour, a whole quarter of the sky was covered with smoke, red below and greyish black above. It was the beginning of those fires which went on for five months, and of which we shall hear more in the sequel.

At last V. arrived. He was in good spirits, very cordial and friendly, talking of the fires past which he had come and of the common report that they were due to arson. Then he added, half in jest : 'It's Pugachev4 over again. Just look out, or you and I will be caught by the rebels and impaled.'

'I am more afraid that the authorities will lay us by the heels,'

I answered. 'Do you know that Ogarev was arrested last night by the police ? '

The police ! Good heavens I'

'That is why I came. Something must b e done. You must g o to the Governor and find out what the charge is ; and you must ask leave for me to see him.'

No answer came, and I looked at V. I saw a face that might have belonged to his elder brother - the pleasant colour and features were changed; he groaned aloud and was obviously disturbed.

'What's the matter ? ' I asked.

'Y au know I told you, I always told you, how it would end.

Yes, yes, it was bound to happen. It's likely enough they will shut me up too, though I am perfectly innocent. I know what the inside of a fortress is like, and it's no joke, I can tell you.'

'Will you go to the Governor ?'

'My dear fellow, what good would it do ? Let me give you a 4· The leader of a famous rebellion in Catherine's reign. Many nobles were murdered with brutal cruelty.

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piece of friendly advice : don't say a word about Ogarev ; keep as quiet as you can, or harm will come of it. You don't know how dangerous affairs like this are. I frankly advise you to keep out of it. Make what stir you like, you will do Ogarev no good and you will get caught yourself. That is what autocracy means - Russian subjects have no rights and no means of defence, no advocates and no judges.'

But his brave words and trenchant criticisms had no attractions for me on this occasion : I took my hat and departed.

5

I found a general commotion going on at home. My father was angry with me because Ogarev had been arrested ; my uncle, the Senator, was already on the scene, runimaging among my books and picking out those which he thought dangerous; he was very uneasy.

On my table I found an invitation to dine that day with Count Orlov. Possibly he might be able to do something ? Though I had learned a lesson by my first experiment, it could do no harm to try.

Mikhail Orlov was one of the founders of the famous Society of Welfare ;5 and if he missed Siberia, he was less to blame for that than his brother, who was the first to gallop up with his squadron of the Guards to the defence of the Winter Palace, on 14 December 1825. Orlov was confined at first to his own estates, and allowed to settle in Moscow a few years later. During his solitary life in the country he studied political economy and chemistry.

The first time I met hini he spoke of a new method of naming chemical compounds. Able men who take up some science late in life often show a tendency to rearrange the furniture, so to speak, to suit their own ideas. Orlov's system was more complicated than the French system, which is generally accepted. As I wished to attract his attention, I argued in a friendly way that, though his system was good, it was not as good as the old one.

He contested the point, but ended by agreeing with me.

My little trick was successful, and we became intimate. He saw in me a rising possibility, and I saw in him a man who had fought 5· An imitation of the Tuge:nbund formed by German students in 1808. In Russia the society became identified with the Decembrists.

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for our ideals, a n intimate friend o f our heroes, and a shining light amid surrounding darkness.

Poor Orlov was like a caged lion. He beat against the bars of his cage at every tum ; nowhere could he find elbow-room or occupation, and he was devoured by a passion for activity.

More than once since the collapse of France 6 I have met men of this type, men to whom political activity was an absolute necessity, who never could find rest within the four walls of their study or in family life. To them solitude is intolerable : it makes them fanciful and unreasonable ; they quarrel with their few remaining friends, and are constantly discovering plots against themselves, or else they make plots of their own, in order to unmask the imaginary schemes of their enemies.

A theatre of action and spectators are as vital to these men as the air they breathe, and they are capable of real heroism under such conditions. Noise and publicity are essential to them ; they must be making speeches and hearing the objections of their opponents ; they love the excitement of contest and the fever of danger, and, if deprived of these stimulants, they grow depressed and spiritless, run to seed, lose their heads, and make mistakes.

Ledru-Rollin 7 is a man of this type ; and he, by the way, especially since he has grown a beard, has a personal resemblance to Orlov.

Orlov was a very fine-looking man. His tall figure, dignified bearing, handsome manly features, and entirely bald scalp seemed to suit one another perfectly, and lent an irresistible attraction to his outward appearance. His head would make a good contrast with the head of General Yermolov, that tough old warrior, whose square frowning forehead, peniliouse of grey hair, and penetrating glance gave him the kind of beauty which fascinated Maria Kochubey in the poem.8

Orlov was at his wits' end for occupation. He started a factory for stained-glass windows of medieval patterns and spent more in 6. i.e., after 2 December 1 8 5 1 .

7· Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (1807-'74), a French liberal politician and advocate of universal suffrage. See also p. 106.

8. See Pushkin's Poltuva. Maria, who was young and beautiful. fell in love with Mazeppa, who was old and war-worn and her father's enemy.

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producing them than he got by selling them. Then he tried to write a book On Credit, but that proved uncongenial, though it was his only outlet. The lion was condemned to saunter about Moscow with nothing to do, and not daring even to use his tongue freely.

Orlov's struggles to tum hinlseli into a philosopher and man of science were most painful to watch. His intellect, though clear and showy, was not at all suited to abstract thought, and he confused himself over the application of newly devised methods to familiar subjects, as in the case of chemistry. Though speculation was decidedly not his forte, he studied metaphysics with immense perseverance.

Being imprudent and careless in his talk, he was constantly making slips ; he was carried away by his instincts, which were always chivalrous and generous, and then he suddenly remembered his position and checked hinlself in mid-course. In these diplomatic withdrawals he was even less successful than in metaphysics or scientific terminology : in trying to clear himself of one indiscretion, he often slipped into two or three more. He got blamed for this ; people are so superficial and unobservant that they think more of words than actions, and attach more importance to particular mistakes than to a man's general character. It was unfair to expect of him a high standard of consistency ; he was less to blame than the sphere in which he lived, where every honourable feeling had to be hidden, like smuggled goods, up your sleeve, and uttered behind closed doors. If you spoke above your breath, you would spend the whole day in wondering wheilier the police would soon be down upon you.

6

It was a large dinner. I happened to sit next General Rayevsky, Orlov's brother-in-law. Rayevsky also had been in disgrace since the famous fourteenth of December. As a boy of fourteen he had served under his distinguished father at the battle of Borodino ; and he died eventually of wounds received in the Caucasus. I told him about Ogarev and asked whether Orlov would be able and willing to take any steps.

Rayevsky's face clouded over, but it did not express that

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querulous anxiety for personal safety which I had seen earlier in the day ; he evidently felt disgust mixed with bitter memories.

'Of willingness there can be no question in such a case,' he said ; 'but I doubt if Orlov has the power to do much. Pass through to the study after dinner, and I will bring him to you there.' He was silent for a moment and then added, 'So your turn has come too ; those depths will drown you all.'

Orlov questioned me and then wrote to the Governor, asking for an interview. 'The Prince is a gentleman,' he said ; 'if he does nothing, at least he will tell us the truth.'

I went next day to hear the answer. Prince Dmitry Golitsyn had replied that Ogarev had been arrested by order of the Tsar, that a commission of enquiry had been appointed, and that the charge turned chiefly on a dinner given on 24 June, at which seditious songs had been sung. I was utterly puzzled. That day was my father's birthday ; I had spent the whole day at home, and Ogarev was there too.

My heart was heavy when I left Orlov. He too was unhappy : when I held out my hand at parting, he got up and embraced me, pressed me tight to his broad chest and kissed me. It was just as if he felt that we should not soon meet again.

7

I only saw him once more, just six years later. He was then near death ; I was struck by the signs of illness and depression on his face, and the marked angularity of his features was a shock to me. He felt that he was breaking up, and knew that his affairs were in hopeless disorder. Two months later he died, of a clot of blood in the arteries.

At Lucerne there is a wonderful monument carved by Thorwaldsen ·in the natural rock - a niche containing the figure of a dying lion. The great beast is mortally wounded ; blood is pouring from the wound, and a broken arrow sticks up out of it. The grand head rests on the paw ; the animal moans and his look expresses agony. That is all; the place is shut off by hills and trees and bushes ; passers-by would never guess that the king of beasts lies there dying.

I sat there one day for a long time and looked at this image of suffering, and all at once I remembered my last visit to Orlov.

P R I S O N A N D E X I L E

8

As I drove home from Orlov's house, I passed the office of General Tsynsky, chief of the police ; and it occurred to me to make a direct application to him for leave to see Ogarev.

Never in my life had I paid a visit to any person connected with the police. I had to wait a long time ; but at last the Chief Commissioner appeared. My request surprised him.

'What reason have you for asking this permission ?'

'Ogarev and I are cousins.'

'Cousins ? ' he asked, looking me straight in the face.

I said nothing, but returned His Excellency's look exactly.

'I can't give you leave,' he said, 'your kinsman is in solitary confinement. I am very sorry.'

My ignorance and helplessness were torture to me. Hardly any of my intimate friends were in Moscow ; it was quite impossible to find out anything. The police seemed to have forgotten me or to ignore me. I was utterly weary and wretched. But when all the sky was covered with gloomy clouds and the long night of exile and prison was coming close, just then a radiant sunbeam fell upon me.

9

A few words of deep sympathy, spoken by a girl 9 of sixteen, whom I regarded as a child, put new life in me.

This is the first time that a woman figures in my narrative; and it is practically true that only one woman figures in my life.

My young heart had been set beating before by fleeting fancies of youth ; but these vanished like the shapes of cloudland before this figure, and no new fandes ever came.

Our meeting was in a churchyard. She leant on a gravestone and spoke of Ogarev, till my sorrow grew calm.

'We shall meet tomorrow,' she said, and gave me her hand, smiling through her tears.

'Tomorrow,' I repeated, and looked long after her retreating figure.

The date was 19 July 1834.

9· This was Natalya Zakharin, Herzen's cousin, who afterwards became his wife.

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CHAPTER I I

Arrest - The Independent Witness - A Police-Station - Patriarchal Justice

1

WE shall meet to-morrow,' I repeated to myself as I was falling asleep, and my heart felt unusually light and happy.

At two in the morning I was wakened by my father's valet; he was only half-dressed and looked frightened.

'An officer is asking for you.'

What officer ? '

'I don't know.'

'Well, I do,' I said, as I threw on my dressing-gown. A figure wrapped in a military cloak was standing at the drawing-room door ; I could see a white plume from my window, and there were some people behind it - I could make out a Cossack helmet Our visitor was Miller, an officer of police. He told me that he bore a warrant from the military Governor of Moscow to examine my papers. Candles were brought Miller took my keys, and while his subordinates rummaged among my books and shirts, attended to the papers himself. He put them all aside as suspicious ; then he turned suddenly to me and said :

'I beg you will dress meanwhile; you will have to go with me.'

Where to ? ' I asked.

'To the police-station of the district,' he said, in a reassuring voice.

'And then ?'

'There are no further orders in the Governor's warrant.'

I began to dress.

Meanwhile my mother had been awakened by the terrified servants, and came in haste from her bedroom to see me. When she was stopped half-way by a Cossack, she screamed ; I started at the sound and ran to her. The officer came with us, leaving the papers behind him. He apologised to my mother and let her pass ; then he scolded the Cossack, who was not really to blame, and went back to the papers.

My father now appeared on the scene. He was pale but tried to keep up his air of indifference. The scene became trying : while

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my mother wept in a corner, my father talked to the officer on ordinary topics, but his voice shook. I feared that if this went on it would prove too much for me, and I did not wish that the understrappers of the police should have the satisfaction of seeing me shed tears.

I twitched the officer's sleeve and said we had better be off.

He welcomed the suggestion. My father then left the room, but returned immediately ; he was carrying a little sacred picture, which he placed round my neck, saying that his father on his deathbed had blessed him with it. I was touched : the nature of this gift proved to me how great was the fear and anxiety that filled the old man's heart. I knelt down for him to put it on ; he raised me to my feet, embraced me, and gave me his blessing.

It was a representation on enamel of the head of John the Baptist on the charger. Whether it was meant for an example, a warning, or a prophecy, I don't know, but it struck me as somehow significant.

My mother was almost fainting.

I was escorted down the stairs by all the household servants, weeping and struggling to kiss my face and hands ; it might have been my own funeral with me to watch it. The officer frowned and hurried on the proceedings.

Once outside the gate, he collected his forces - four Cossacks and four policemen.

There was a bearded man sitting outside tlie gate, who asked the officer if he might now go home.

'Be off I ' said Miller.

'Who is that ? ' I asked, as I took my seat in the cab.

'He is a witness : you know that the police must take a witness with them when they make an entrance into a private house.'

'Is that why you left him outside ?'

'A mere formality,' said Miller; 'it's only keeping tlie man out of his bed for nothing.'

Our cab started, escorted by two mounted Cossacks.

2

There was no private room for me at the police-station, and the officer directed tliat I should spend the rest of the night in the office. He took me there himself; dropping into an armchair and yawning wearily, he said : 'It's a dog's life. I've been up since

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three, and now your business h as kept m e till near four in the morning, and at nine I have to present my report.'

'Goodbye,' he said a moment later and left the room. A corporal locked me in, and said that I might knock at the door if I needed anything.

I opened the window : day was beginning and the morning breeze was stirring. I asked the corporal for water and drank a whole jugful. Of sleep I never even thought. For one thing, there was no place to lie down ; the room contained no furniture except some dirty leather-covered chairs, one armchair, and two tables of different sizes, both covered with a litter of papers. There was a nightlight, too feeble to light up the room, which threw a flickering white patch on the ceiling ; and I watched the patch grow paler and paler as the dawn came on.

I sat down in the magistrate's seat and took up the paper nearest me on the table - a permit to bury a servant of Prince Gagarin's and a medical certificate to prove that the man had died according to all the rules of the medical art. I picked up another

- some police regulations. I ran through it and found an article to this effect : 'Every prisoner has a right to learn the cause of his arrest or to be discharged within three days.' I made a mental note of this item.

An hour later I saw from the window the arrival of our butler with a cushion, coverlet, and cloak for me. He made some request to the corporal, probably for leave to visit me ; he was a greyhaired old man, to several of whose children I had stood godfather while a child myself; the corporal gave a rough and sharp refusal. One of our coachmen was there too, and I hailed them from the window. The soldier, in a fuss, ordered them to be off.

The old man bowed low to me and shed tears; and the coachman, as he whipped up his horse, took off his hat and rubbed his eyes.

When the carriage started, I could bear it no more : the tears came in a flood, and they were the first and last tears I shed during my imprisonment.

3

Towards morning the office began to fill up. The first to appear was a clerk, who had evidently been drunk the night before and was not sober yet. He had red hair and a pimpled face, a consumptive look, and an expression of brutish sensuality; he wore a

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1 )5

long, brick-coloured coat, ill-made, ill-brushed, and shiny with age. The next comer was a free-and-easy gentleman, wearing the cloak of a non-commissioned officer. He turned to me at once and asked :

'They got you up at the theatre, I suppose ?'

'No ; I was arrested at home.'

'By Fedor Ivanovich ?'

'Who is Fedor Ivanovich ?'

'Why, Colonel Miller.'

'Yes, it was he.'

'Ah, I understand, Sir' - and he winked to the red-haired man.

who showed not the slightest interest. The other did not continue the conversation ; seeing that I was not charged as drunk and disorderly, he thought me unworthy of further attention ; or perhaps he was afraid to converse with a political prisoner.

A little later, several policemen appeared, rubbing their eyes and only half awake; and finally the petitioners and suitors.

A woman who kept a disorderly house made a complaint against a publican. He had abused her publicly in his shop, using language which she, as a woman, could not venture to repeat before a magistrate. The publican swore he had never used such language ; the woman swore that he had used it repeatedly and very loudly, and she added that he had raised his hand against her and would have laid her face open, had she not ducked her head.

The shopman said, first, that she owed him money, and, secondly, that she had insulted him in his own shop, nay more, had threatened to kill him by the hands of her bullies.

She was a tall, slatternly woman with swollen eyes ; her voice was piercingly loud and high, and she had an extraordinary flow of language. The shopman relied more on gesture and pantomime than on his eloquence.

In the absence of the judge, one of the policemen proved to be a second Solomon. He abused both parties in fine style. 'You're too well off,' he said ; 'that's what's the matter with you; why can't you stop at home and keep the peace, and be thankful for us letting you alone ? What fools you are ! Because you have had a few words you must run at once before His Worship and trouble him ! How dare you give yourself airs, my good woman, as if you had never been abused before ? Why your very trade can't be named in decent language ! ' Here the shop man showed the

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heartiest approval by his gestures ; but his tum came next. 'And you, how dare you stand there in your shop and bark like an angry dog ? Do you want to be locked up ? You use foul language, and raise your fist as well ; it's a sound thrashing you want.'

This scene had the charm of novelty for me; it was the first specimen I had seen of patriarchal justice as administered in Russia, and I have never forgotten it.

The pair went on shouting till the magistrate came in. Without even asking their business, he shouted them down at once. 'Get out of this ! Do you take this place for a bad house or a gin-shop ?'

When he had driven out the offenders, he turned on the policeman : 'I wonder you are not ashamed to permit such disorder. I have told you again and again. People lose all respect for the place ; it will soon be a regular bear-garden for the mob ; you are too easy with them.' Then he looked at me and said :

'Who is that ?'

'A prisoner whom Fedor Ivanovich brought in,' answered the policeman ; 'there is a paper about him somewhere, Sir.'

The magistrate ran through the paper and then glanced at me.

As I kept my eyes fixed on him, ready to retort the instant he spoke, he was put out and said, 'I beg your pardon.'

But now the business began again between the publican and his enemy. The woman wished to take an oath, and a priest was summoned ; I believe both parties-were sworn, and there was no prospect of a conclusion. At this point I was taken in a carriage to the Chief Commissioner's office - I am sure I don't know why, for no one spoke a word to me there - and then brought back to the police-station, where a room right under the belfry was prepared for my occupation. The corporal observed that if I wanted food I must send out for it : the prison ration would not be issued for a day or two ; and besides, as it only amounted to three or four kopecks a day, a gentleman 'under a cloud' did not usually take it.

Along the wall of my room there was a sofa with a dirty cover.

It was past midday and I was terribly weary. I threw myself on the sofa and fell fast asleep. When I woke, I felt quite easy and cheerful. Of late I had been tormented by my ignorance of Ogarev's fate; now, my own tum had come, the black cloud was right overhead, I was in the thick of the danger, instead of watching it in the distance. I felt that this first prosecution would serve us as a consecration for our mission.

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CHAPTER I I I

Under the Belfry - A Travelled Policeman - The Incendiaries 1

A MAN soon gets used to prison, if he has any interior life at all.

One quickly gets accustomed to the silence and complete freedom of one's cage - there are no cares and no distractions.

They refused me books at fust, and the police-magistrate declared that it was against the rules for me to get books from home.

I then proposed to buy some. 'I suppose you mean some serious book - a grammar of some kind, I dare say ? Well, I should not object to that ; for other books, higher authority must be obtained.' Though the suggestion that I should study grammar to relieve boredom was exceedingly comic, yet I caught at it eagerly and asked him to buy me an Italian grammar and dictionary. I had two ten-rouble notes on me, and I gave him one. He sent at once to buy the books, and despatched by the same messenger a letter to the Chief Commissioner, in which, taking my stand on the article I had read, I asked him to explain the cause of my arrest or to release me.

The magistrate, in whose presence I wrote the letter, urged me not to send it. 'It's no good, I swear it's no good your bothering His Excellency. They don't like people who give them trouble. It can't result in anything, and it may hurt you.'

A policeman turned up in the evening with a reply : His Excellency sent me a verbal message, to the effect that I should learn in good time why I was arrested. The messenger then produced a greasy Italian grammar from his pocket, and added with a smile,

'By good luck it happens that there is a vocabulary here ; so you need not buy one.' The question of change out of my note was not alluded to. I was inclined to write again to His Excellency; but to play the part of a little Hampden seemed to me rather too absurd in my present quarters.

2

I had been in prison ten days, when a short policeman with a swarthy, pock-marked face came to my room at ten in the even-

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ing, bringing an order that I was t o dress and present myself before the Commission of Enquiry.

While I was dressing, a serio-comic incident occurred. My dinner was sent me every day from home ; our servant delivered it to the corporal on duty, and he sent a private upstairs with it. A bottle of wine from outside was allowed daily, and a friend had taken advantage of this permission to send me a bottle of excellent bock. The private and I contrived to uncork the bottle with a couple of nails ; the bouquet of the wine was perceptible at a distance, and I looked forward to the pleasure of drinking it for some days to come.

There is nothing like prison life for revealing the childishness in a grown man and the consolation he finds in trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick played on a tum-key.

Well, the pock-marked policeman found out my bottle, and, turning to me, asked if he might have a taste. Though I was vexed, I said I should be very glad. I had no glass. The wretch took a cup, filled it to the very brim, and emptied it into himself without drawing breath. No one but a Russian or a Pole can pour down strong drink in this fashion : I have never in any part of Europe seen a glass or cup off spirits disposed of with equal rapidity. To add to my sorrow at the loss of this cupful, my friend wiped his lips with a blue tobacco-stained handkerchief, and said as he thanked me, 'Something like Madeira, that is ! ' I hated the sight of him and felt a cruel joy that his parents had not vaccinated him and nature had not spared him the small-pox.

3

This judge of wine went with me to the Chief Commissioner's house on the Tver Boulevard, where he took me to a side room and left me alone. Half an hour later, a fat man with a lazy, goodnatured expression came in, carrying papers in a wallet ; he threw the wallet on a chair and sent the policeman who was standing at the door off on some errand.

'I suppose,' he said to me, 'you are mixed up in the affair of Ogarev and the other young men who were lately arrested.' I admitted it.

'I've heard about it casually,' he went on; 'a queer business I I can't understand it at all.'

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'Well, I've been in prison a fortnight because of it, and not only do I not understand it, but I know nothing about it.'

'That's right ! ' said the man, looking at me attentively. 'Continue to know nothing about it ! Excuse me, if I give you a piece of advice. Y au are young, and your blood is still hot, and you want to be talking ; but it's a mistake. Just you remember that you know nothing about it. Nothing else can save you.'

I looked at him in surprise; but his expression did not suggest anything base. He guessed my thoughts and said with a smile :

'I was a student at Moscow University myself twelve years ago.'

A clerk of some kind now came in. The fat man, who was evidently his superior, gave him some directions and then left the room, after pressing a finger to his lips with a friendly nod to me.

I never met him again and don't know now who he was ; but experience proved to me that his advice was well meant.

4

My next visitor was a police-officer, not Colonel Miller this time.

He summoned me to a large, rather :fine room where five men were sitting at a table, all wearing military uniform except one who was old and decrepit. They were smoking cigars and carrying on a lively conversation, lying back in their chairs with their jackets unbuttoned. The Chief Commissioner, Tsynsky, was in the chair.

When I came in, he turned to a figure sitting modestly in a corner of the room and said, 'May I trouble Your Reverence ? '

Then I made out that the figure in the comer was an old priest with a white beard and a mottled face. The old man was drowsy and wanted to go home; he was thinking of something else and yawning with his hand before his face. In a slow and rather singsong voice he began to admonish me : he said it was sinful to conceal the truth from persons appointed by the Tsar, and useless, because the ear of God hears the unspoken word; he did not fail to quote the inevitable texts - that all power is from God, and that we must render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Finally, he bade me kiss the Holy Gospel and the True Cross in confirmation of a vow (which however I did not take and he did not ask) to reveal the whole truth frankly and openly.

When he had done, he began hastily to wrap up the Gospel C.Y.E.-10

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and the Cross ; and the President, barely rising in his seat, told him he might go. Then he turned to me and translated the priest's address into the language of this world. 'One thing I shall add to what the priest has said - it is impossible for you to conceal the truth even if you wish to.' He pointed to piles of papers, letters, and portraits, scattered on purpose over the table : 'Frank confession alone can improve your position; it depends on yourself, whether you go free or are sent to the Caucasus.'

Questions were then submitted in writing, some of them amusingly simple - 'Do you know of the existence of any secret society ? Do you belong to any society, learned or otherwise ?

Who are its members ? Where do they meet ? '

T o all this i t was perfectly simple t o answer 'No' an d nothing else.

'I see you know nothing,' said the President, reading over the answers ; 'I warned you beforehand that you will complicate your situation.'

And that was the end of the first examination.

s

Eight years later a lady, who had once been beautiful, and her beautiful daughter, were living in a different part of this very house where the Commission sat ; she was the sister of a later Chief Commissioner.

I used to visit there and always had to pass through the room where Tsynsky and Company used to sit on us. There was a portrait of the Emperor Paul on the wall, and I used to stop in front of it every time I passed, either as a prisoner or as a visitor.

Near it was a little drawing-room where all breathed of beauty and femininity ; and it seemed somehow out of place beside frowning Justice and criniinal trials. I felt uneasy there, and sorry that so fair a bud had found such an uncongenial spot to open in as the dismal brick walls of a police-{)ffice. Our talk, and that of a number of friends who met there, sounded ironical and strange to the ear within those walls, so familiar with examinations, informations, and reports of domiciliary visits - within those walls which parted us from the mutter of policemen, the sighs of prisoners, the jingling spurs of officers, and the clanking swords of Cossacks.

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6

Within a week or a fortnight the pock-marked policeman came again and went with me again to Tsynsky's house. Inside the door some men in chains were sitting or lying, surrounded by soldiers with rifles ; and in the front room there were others, of various ranks in society, not chained but strictly guarded. My policeman told me that these were incendiaries. As Tsynsky himself had gone to the scene of the fires, we had to wait for his return. We arrived at nine in the evening ; and at one in the morning no one had asked for me, and I was still sitting very peacefully in the front hall with the incendiaries. One or other of them was summoned from time to time; the police ran backward and forward, the chains clinked, and the soldiers, for want of occupation, rattled their rifles and went through the manual exercise. Tsynsky arrived about one, black with smoke and grime, and hurried on to his study without stopping. Half an hour later my policeman was summoned ; when he came back, he looked pale and upset and his face twitched convulsively. Tsynsky followed him, put his head in at the door, and said : 'Why, the members of the Commission were waiting for you, M. Herzen, the whole evening. This fool brought you here at the hour when you were summoned to Prince Golitsyn's house instead. I am very sorry you have had to wait so long, but I am not to blame. What can one do, with such subordinates ? I suppose he has been fifty years in the service, and is as great a blockhead as ever. Well,' he added, turning to the policeman and addressing him in a much less polite style, 'be off now and go back.'

All the way home the man kept repeating : 'Lord, what bad luck ! A man never knows what's going to happen to him. He will do for me now. He wouldn't matter so much ; but the Prince will be angry, and the Commissioner will catch it for your not being there. Oh, what a misfortune ! '

I forgave him the hock, especially when he declared that, though he was once nearly drowned at Lisbon, he was less scared then than now. This adventure surprised me so much that I roared with laughter. 'How utterly absurd ! What on earth took you to Lisbon ? ' I asked. It turned out that he had served in the Fleet twenty-five years before. The statesman in Gogel's novel, who declares that every servant of the State in Russia meets with

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his reward sooner or later,1 certainly spoke the truth. For death spared my friend at lisbon, in order that he might be scolded like a naughty boy by Tsynsky, after forty years' service.

Besides, he was hardly at all to blame in the matter. The Tsar was dissatisfied with the original Commission of Enquiry, and had appointed another, with Prince Sergey Golitsyn as chairman; the other members were Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, another Prince Golitsyn, Shubinsky, a colonel of police, and Oransky, formerly paymaster-generaL As my lisbon friend had received no notice that the new Commission would sit at a different place, it was very natural that he should take me to Tsynsky's house.

7

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

In a comer of the office there was a man lying on two chairs and groaning, who attracted my attention. He was young, handsome, and well-dressed. The police-surgeon advised that he should be sent to the hospital early next morning, as he was spitting blood and in great suffering. I got the details of this affair from the corporal who took me to my room. The man was a retired officer of the Guards, who was carrying on a love affair with a maidservant and was with her when a fire broke out in the house. The panic caused by incendiarism was then at its height; and, in fact, never a day passed without my hearing the tocsin ring repeatedly, while at night I could always see the glow of several fires from my window. As soon as the excitement began, the officer, wishing to save the girl's reputation, climbed over a fence and hid himself in an outbuilding of the next house, intending to come out when the coast was clear. But a little girl had seen him in the court-yard, and told the first policeman who came on the scene that an incendiary was hiding in the shed. The police made for the place, accompanied by a mob, dragged the officer out in 1. Gogol, Dead Souls, part I, chapter 10.

PRISON AND E XILE

triumph, and dealt with him so vigorously that he died next morning.

The police now began to sift the men arrested for arson. Half of them were let go, but the rest were detained on suspicion. A magistrate came every morning and spent three or four hours in examining the charges. Some were flogged during this process; and then their yells and cries and entreaties, the shrieks of women, the harsh voice of the magistrate, and the drone of the clerk's reading - all this came to my ears. It was horrible beyond endurance. I dreamed of these sounds at night, and woke up in horror at the thought of these poor wretches, lying on straw a few feet away, in chains, with flayed and bleeding backs, and, in all probability, quite innocent.

8

In order to know what Russian prisons and Russian police and justice really are, one must be a peasant, a servant or workman or shopkeeper. The political prisoners, who are mostly of noble birth, are strictly guarded and vindictively punished ; but they suffer infinitely less than the unfortunate 'men with beards'.

With them the police stand on no ceremony. In what quarter can a peasant or workman seek redress ? Where will he find justice ?

The Russian system of justice and police is so haphazard, so inhuman, so arbitrary and corrupt, that a poor malefactor has more reason to fear his trial than his sentence. He is impatient for the time when he will be sent to Siberia ; for his martyrdom comes to an end when his punishment begins. Well, then, let it be remembered that three-quarters of those arrested on suspicion by the police are acquitted by the court, and that all these have gone through the same ordeal as the guilty.

Peter ill abolished the torture-<:hamber, and the Russian star-chamber.

Catherine II abolished torture.

Alexander I abolished it over again.

Evidence given under torture is legally inadmissible, and any magistrate applying torture is himself liable to prosecution and severe punishment.

That is so : and all over Russia, from Bering Straits to the Crimea, men suffer torture. Where flogging is unsafe, other means

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are used - intolerable heat, thirst, salt food ; in Moscow the police made a prisoner stand barefooted on an iron floor, at a time of intense frost ; the man died in a hospital, of which Prince Meshchersky was president, and he told the story afterwards with horror. All this is known to the authorities; but they all agree with Selifan 2 in Gogol's novel - 'Why not flog the peasants ?

The peasants need a flogging from time to time.'

9

The board appointed to investigate the fires sat, or, in other words, flogged, for six months continuously, but they were no wiser at the end of the flogging. The Tsar grew angry : he ordered that the business should be completed in three days. And so it was : guilty persons were discovered and sentenced to flogging, branding, and penal servitude. All the hall·porters in Moscow were brought together to witness the infliction of the punishment. It was winter by then, and I had been moved to the Krutitsky Barracks ; but a captain of police, a kind-hearted old man, who was present at the scene, told me the details I here rf"

cord. The man who was brought out first for flogging addressed the spectators in a loud voice : he swore that he was innocent, and that he did not know what evidence he had given under torture; then he pulled off his shirt and turned his back to the people, asking them to look at it.

A groan of horror ran through the crowd : his whole back was raw and bleeding, and that livid surface was now to be flogged over again. The protesting cries and sullen looks of the crowd made the police hurry on with the business : the executioners dealt out the legal number of lashes, the branding and fettering took place, and the affair seemed at an end. But the scene had made an impression and was the subject of conversation all through the city. The Governor reported this to the Tsar, and the Tsar appointed a new board, which was to give special attention to the case of the man who had addressed the crowd.

Some months later I read in the newspapers that the Tsar, wishing to compensate two men who had been flogged for crimes of which they were innocent, ordered that they should receive 2. Gogol, Dead Souls, part I, chapter 3· Selifan, a coachman, is a peasant himseH.

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z oo roubles for each lash, and also a special passport, t o prove that though branded they were not guilty. These two were the man who had addressed the crowd. and one of his companions.

10

The cause of these incendiary fires which alarmed Moscow in 1834 and were repeated ten years later in different parts of the country, still remains a mystery. That it was not all accidental is certain : fire as a means of revenge - 'the red cock', as it is called

- is characteristic of the nation. One is constantly hearing of a gentleman's house or com-kiln or granary being set on fire by his enemies. But what was the motive for the fires at Moscow in 1834, nobody knows, and tile members of tile Board of Enquiry least of all.

The twenty-second of August was the Coronation Day ; and some practical jokers dropped papers in different parts of the city, informing the inhabitants they need not trouble about illuminating, because there would be plenty of light otilerwise provided.

The authorities of the city were in great alarm. From early morning my police-station was full of troops, and a squadron of dragoons was stationed in the courtyard. In the evening bodies of cavalry and infantry patrolled the streets; cannon were ready in the arsenal. Police-officers, with constables and Cossacks, galloped to and fro ; the Governor himself rode through the city with his aides-de-amp. It was strange and disquieting to see peaceful Moscow turned into a military camp. I watched the courtyard from my lofty window till late at night. Dismounted dragoons were sitting in groups near their horses, while others remained in the saddle ; their officers walked about, looking with some contempt at their comrades of tile police; staff-officers, with anxious faces and yellow collars on tileir jackets, rode up, did nothing, and rode away again.

There were no fires.

Immediately afterwards the Tsar himself came to Moscow. He was dissatisfied with the investigation of our affair, which was just beginning, dissatisfied because we had not been handed over to the secret police, dissatisfied because the incendiaries had not been discovered

in

-

short, he was dissatisfied with everything and everybody.

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CHAPTER IV

The Krutitsky Barracks - A Policeman's Story - The Officers 1

THREE days after the Tsar came to Moscow, a police-officer called on me late in the evening - all these things are done in the dark, to spare the nerves of the public - bringing an order for me to pack up and start off with him.

'Where to ? ' I asked.

'You will see shortly,' he answered with equal wit and politeness. That was enough : I asked no more questions, but packed up my things and started.

We drove on and on for an hour and a half, passed St Peter's Monastery, and stopped at a massive stone gateway, before which two constables were pacing, armed with carbines. This building was the Kruititsky Monastery, which had been converted into a police-barracks.

I was taken to a smallish office, where everyone was dressed in blue, officers and clerks alike. The orderly officer, wearing full uniform and a helmet, asked me to wait and even proposed that I should light my pipe which I was holding. Having written out an acknowledgement that a fresh prisoner had been received, and handed it to my escort, he left the room and returned with another officer, who told me that my quarters were ready and asked me to go there. A constable carried a light, and we descended a staircase, passed through a small yard, and entered by a low door a long passage lighted by a single lantern. On both sides of the passage there were low doors; and the orderly officer opened one of these, which led into a tiny guard-room and thence into a room of moderate size, damp, cold, and smelling like a cellar. The officer who was escorting me now addressed me in French : he said that he was disole d'etre dans la necessite of rummaging in my pockets, but that discipline and his duty required it. After this noble exordium he turned without more ado to the gaoler and winked in my direction; and the man instantly inserted into my pocket an incredibly large and hairy paw. I pointed out to the polite officer that this was quite unnecessary : I would empty out all my pockets myself, without any forcible

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measures being used. And I asked what I could possibly have on me after six weeks in prison.

'Oh, we know what they are capable of at police-stations,' said the polite officer, with an inimitable smile of superiority, and the orderly officer also smiled sarcastically ; but they told the turn-key merely to look on while I emptied my pockets.

'Shake out any tobacco you have on the table,' said the polite officer.

I had in my tobacco-pouch a pencil and a penknife wrapped up in paper. I remembered about them at once, and, while talking to the officer, I fiddled with the pouch till the knife came out in my hand ; then I gripped it behind the pouch, while boldly pouring out the tobacco on the table. The turnkey gathered it together again. I had saved my knife and my pencil, and I had also paid out my polite friend for his contempt of my former gaolers.

This little incident put me in excellent humour, and I began cheerfully to survey my new possessions.

2.

The monks' cells, built 300 years ago, had sunk deep into the ground, and were now put to a secular use for political prisoners.

My room contained a bedstead without a mattress, a small table with a jug of water on it, and a chair; a thin tallow candle was burning in a large copper candlestick. The damp and cold struck into the marrow of my bones ; the officer ordered the stove to be lighted, and then I was left alone. A turn-key promised to bring some straw; meanwhile I used my overcoat as a pillow, lay down on the bare bedstead, and lit a pipe. I very soon noticed that the ceiling was covered with black beetles. Not having seen a light for a long time, the black beetles hurried to the lighted patch in great excitement, jostling one another, dropping on the table, and then running wildly about along the edge of it.

I don't like black beetles, nor uninvited guests in general. My neighbours seemed to me horribly repulsive, but there was nothing to be done : I could not begin by complaining of black beetles, and I suppressed my dislike of them. Besides, after a few days all the insects migrated to the next room. where the turn-key kept up a higher temperature ; only an occasional specimen would look in on me, twitch his whiskers, and then hurry back to the warmth.

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3

In spite of my entreaties, the turn-key insisted on closing the stove after he had lighted it. l soon felt uncomfortable and giddy, and I decided to get up and knock on the wall. I did get up, but I remember no more.

When I came to myself I was lying on the floor and my head was aching fiercely. A tall, grey-haired turn-key was standing over me with his arms folded, and watching me with a steady, expressionless stare, such as may be seen in the eyes of the dog watching the tortoise, in a well-known bronze group.

Seeing that I was conscious, he began : 'Your Honour had a near shave of suffocation. But I put some pickled horse-radish to your nose, and now you can drink some kvass.' 1 When I had drunk, he lifted me up and laid me on my bed. I felt very faint, and the window, which was double, could not be opened. The tum-key went to the office to ask that I might go out into the court ; but the orderly officer sent a message that he could not undertake the responsibility in the absence of the colonel and adjutant. I had to put up with the foul atmosphere.

4

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

every quarter of an hour.

After a few weeks, however, the colonel allowed me to have a light. My window was beneath the level of the court, so that the sentry could watch all my movements ; and no blind or curtain to the window was allowed. He also stopped the sentries from calling out in the passage. Later, we were permitted to have ink and a fixed number of sheets of paper, on condition that none 1. A sort of beer.

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were tom up ; and we were allowed to walk in the yard once in twenty-four hours, accompanied by a sentry and the officer of the day, while outside the yard there was a fence and a chain of sentries.

The life was monotonous and peaceful; military precision gave it a kind of mechanical regularity like the caesura in verse. In the morning I made coffee over the stove with the help of the turnkey; at ten the officer of the day made his appearance, bringing in with him several cubic feet of frost, and clattering with his sword; he wore clo::k and helmet and gloves up to his elbows ; at one the turn-key brought me a dirty napkin and a bowl of soup, which he held by the rim in such a way that his two thumbs were noticeably cleaner than the other fingers. The food was tolerable ; but it must be remembered that we were charged two roubles a day for it, which mounts up to a considerable sum for a poor man in the course of nine months. The father of one prisoner said frankly that he could not pay, whereupon he was told it would be stopped out of his salary ; had he not been drawing Government pay, he would probably have been put in prison himself. There was also a Government allowance for our keep ; but the quarter-masters put this in their pockets and stopped the mouths of the officers with orders for the theatres on first nights and benefits.

After sunset complete silence set in, only interrupted by the distant calls of the sentries, or the steps of a soldier crunching over the snow right in front of my window. I generally read till one, before I put out my candle. In my dreams I was free once more. Sometimes I woke up thinking : 'What a horrid nightmare of prison and gaolers I How glad I am it's not true ! ' - and suddenly a sword rattled in the passage, or the officer of the day came in with his lantern-bearer, or a sentry called out 'Who goes there ?' in his mechanical voice, or a bugle, close to the window, split the morning air with reveille.

s

When I was bored and not inclined to read, I talked to my gaolers, especially to the old fellow who had treated me for my fainting fit. The colonel, as a mark of favour, excused some of the old soldiers from parade and gave them the light work of guarding a prisoner; they were in charge of a corporal - a spy and

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a scoundrel. Five or six o f these veterans did all the work of the prison.

The old soldier I am speaking of was a simple creature, kindhearted himself and grateful for any kindness that was shown him, and it is likely that not much had been shown him in the course of his life. He had served through the campaign of 1812

and his breast was covered with medals. His terms of service had expired, but he stayed on as a volunteer, having no place to go.

'I wrote twice', he used to say, 'to my relations in the Government of Mogilev, but I got no answer; so I suppose that all my people are dead. I don't care to go home, only to beg my bread in old age.' How barbarous is the system of military service in Russia, which detains a man for twenty years with the colours !

But in every sphere of life we sacrifice the individual without mercy and without reward.

Old Filimonov professed to know German ; he had learned it in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. In fact, he knew some German words, to which he attached Russian temlinations with much ingenuity.

6

In his stories of the past there was a kind of artlessness which made me sad. I shall record one of them.

He served in Moldavia, in the Turkish campaign of 1805 ; and the commander of his company was the kindest of men, caring like a father for each soldier and always foremost in battle. 'Our captain was in love with a Moldavian woman, and we saw he was in bad spirits ; the reason was that she was often visiting another officer. One day he sent for me and a friend of mine - a fine soldier he was and lost both legs in battle afterwards - and said to us that the woman had jilted him ; and he asked if we were willing to help him and teach her a lesson. "Surely, Your Honour," said we; "we are at yout service at any time.'' He thanked us and pointed out the house where the officer lived.

Then he said, "Take your stand tonight on the bridge which she must cross to get to his house; catch hold of her quietly, and into the river with her ! " "Very good, Your Honour," said we. So I and my chum got hold of a sack and went to the bridge ; there we sat, and near midnight the girl came running past. "What are you hurrying for ? " we asked. Then we gave her one over the

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head ; not a sound did she make, bless her ; we put her in the sack and threw it into the river. Next day our captain went to the other officer and said : "You must not be angry with the girl : we detained her; in fact, she is now at the bottom of the river. But I am quite prepared to take a little walk with you, with swords or pistols, as you prefer." Well, they fought, and our captain was badly wounded in the chest; he wasted away, poor fellow, and after three months gave back his soul to God.'

'But was the woman really drowned ?' I asked.

'Oh, yes, Sir,' said the soldier.

I was horrified by the childlike indifference with which the old man told me this story. He appeared to guess my feelings or to give a thought for the first tinle to his victini ; for he added, to reassure me and make it up with his own conscience :

'You know, Sir, she was only a benighted heathen, not like a Christian at all.'

7

It is the custom to serve out a glass of brandy to the gaolers on saints' days and royal birthdays ; and Filimonov was allowed to decline this ration till five or six were due to him, and then to draw it all at once. He marked on a tally the number of glasses he did not drink, and applied for the lot on one of the great festivals. He poured all the brandy into a soup-tureen, crumbled bread into it, and then supped it with a spoon. When this repast was over, he smoked a large pipe with a tiny mouthpiece ; his tobacco, which he cut up himself, was strong beyond belief. As there was no seat in his room, he curled himself up on the narrow space of the window-sill ; and there he smoked and sang a song about grass and flowers, pronouncing the words worse and worse as the liquor gained power over him. But what a constitution the man had ! He was over sixty and had been twice wounded, and yet he could stand such a meal as I have described.

8

Before I end these Wouverman-Callot 2 sketches of barrack-life and this prison-gossip which only repeats the recollections of all captives like myself, I shall say something also of the officers.

Most of them were not spies at all, but good enough people, 2. Wouverman (161g-{;8), a Dutch

Callot (1 592-163 5), a

French painter; both painted outdoor soldiers, beggars, etc.

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who had drifted b y chance into the constabulary. Young nobles, with little or no education, without fortune or any settled prospects, they had taken to this life, because they had nothing else to do. They performed their duties with military precision, but without a scrap of enthusiasm, as far as I could see; I must except the adjutant, indeed; but then that was just why he was adjutant. When I got to know the officers, they granted me all the small indulgences that were in their power, and it would be a sin for me to complain of them.

One of the young officers told me a story of the year 183 1, when he was sent to hunt down and arrest a Polish gentleman who was in hiding somewhere near his own estate. He was accused of having relations with agitators. The officer started on his mission. made enquiries, and discovered the Pole's hiding place. He led his men there, surrounded the house, and entered it with two constables. The house was empty : they went through all the rooins and hunted about, but no one was to be seen ; and yet some trifling signs proved that the house had been occupied not long before. Leaving his men below, the young officer went up to the attics a second tinie ; after a careful search, he found a small door leading to a garret or secret chamber of some kind ; the door was locked on the inside, but flew open at a kick. Behind it stood a tall and beautiful woman; she pointed without a word to a man who held in his arms a fainting girl of twelve. It was the Pole and his family. The officer was taken aback. The tall woman perceived this and said, 'Can you be barbarous enough to destroy them ? ' The officer apologised : he urged the stock excuse, that a soldier is bound to implicit obedience ; but at last, in despair, as he saw that his words had not the slightest effect, he ended by asking what he was to do. The woman looked haughtily at him.

pointed to the door, and said, 'Go down at once and say that there is no one here.' 'I swear I cannot explain it,' the officer said, 'but down I went and ordered the sergeant to collect the party. Two hours later we were beating every bush on another estate, while our man was slipping across the frontier. Strange, what things

·

women make one do I'

9

Nothing in the world can be more stupid and more unfair than to judge a whole class of men in the lump, merely by the name they

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bear and the predominating characteristics of their profession. A label is a terrible thing. Jean-Paul Richter 3 says with perfect truth : 'If a child tells a lie, make him afraid of doing wrong and tell him that he has told a lie, but don't call him a liar. If you define him as a liar, you break down his confidence in his own character.' We are told that a man is a murderer, and we instantly imagine a hidden dagger, a savage expression, and dark designs, as if murder were the regular occupation, the trade, of anyone who has once in his life without design killed a man. A spy, or a man who makes money by the profligacy of others, cannot be honest; but it is possible to be an officer of police and yet to retain some manly worth, just as a tender and womanly heart and even delicacy of feeling may constantly be found in the victims of what is called 'social incontinence'.

I have an aversion for people who, because they are too stupid or will not take the trouble, never get beyond a mere label, who are brought up short by a single bad action or a false position, either chastely shutting their eyes to it or pushing it roughly from them. People who act thus are generally either bloodless and self-satisfied theorists, repulsive in their purity, or mean, low natures who have not yet had the chance or the necessity to display themselves in their true colours ; they are by nature at home in the mire, into which others have fallen by misfortune.

CHAPTER V

The Enquiry - Golitsyn Senior - Golitsyn Junior - General Staal -

The Sentence - Sokolovsky

1

BUT meanwhile what about the charge against us ? and what about the Commission of Enquiry ?

The new Commission made just as great a mess of it as its predecessor. The police had been on our track for a long time, but their zeal and impatience prevented them from waiting for a decent pretext, and they did a silly thing. They employed a retired officer called Skaryatka to draw us on till we were committed; and he made acquaintance with nearly all of our set. But we very 3· The German humorist (1763-1825).

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soon made out what h e was and kept him a t a distance. Some other young men, chiefly students, were less cautious, but these others had no relations of any importance with us.

One· of the latter, on taking his degree, entertained his friends on 24 June 1834. Not one of us was present at the entertainment; not one of us was even invited. The students drank toasts, and danced and played the fool ; and one thing they did was to sing in chorus Sokolovsky's well-known song abusing the Tsar.

Skaryatka was present and suddenly remembered that the day was his birthday. He told a story of selling a horse at a profit and invited the whole party to supper at his rooms, promising a dozen of champagne. They all accepted. The champagne duly appeared, and their host, who had begun to stagger, proposed that Sokolovsky's song should be sung over again. In the middle of the song the door opened, and Tsynsky appeared with his myrmidons.

It was a stupid and clumsy proceeding, and a failure as well.

The police wanted to catch us and were looking out for some tangible pretext, in order to trap the five or six victims whom they had marked down ; what they actually did was to arrest a score of innocent persons.

2

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

The breed to which he belonged is rare with us ; it included Mordvinov, the notorious chief of the Third Section, Pelikan, the Rector of Vilna University, with a few officials from the Baltic provinces and renegade Poles.

3

But it was unfortunate for the Inquisition that Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, was the first member appointed to it. Staal was a brave old soldier and an honest man ; he looked into the matter, and found that two quite distinct incidents were involved : the first was the students' party, which the police were

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bound to punish; the second was the mysterious arrest of some men, whose whole visible fault was limited to some half-expressed opinions, and whom it would be difficult and absurd to try on that charge alone.

Prince A. F. Golitsyn disapproved of Staal's view, and their dispute took a heated tum. The old soldier grew furiously angry ; he dashed his sword on the floor and said : 'Instead of destroying these young men, you would do better to have all the schools and universities dosed, and that would be a warning to other unfortunates. Do as you please, only I shall take no part in it : I shall not set foot again in this place.' Having spoken thus, the old man left the room at once.

This was reported to the Tsar that very day; and when the Commandant presented his report next morning, the Tsar asked why he refused to attend the Commission, and Staal told him the reason.

'What nonsense I ' said Nicholas; 'I wonder you are not ashamed to quarrel with Golitsyn, and I hope you will continue to attend.'

'Sir,' replied Staal, 'sp�re my grey hairs I I have lived till now without the smallest stain on my honour. My loyalty is known to Your Majesty; my life, what remains of it, is at your service.

But this matter touches my honour, and my conscience protests against the proceedings of that Commission.'

The Tsar frowned; Staal bowed himself out and never afterwards attended a single meeting.

4

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

'You may go.'

5

My first examination lasted four hours. The questions asked were of two kinds. The object of the first was to discover a trend of

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thought 'opposed to the spirit of the Russian government, and ideas that were either revolutionary or impregnated with the pestilent doctrine of Saint-Simonianism' - this is a quotation from Golitsyn junior and Oransky, the paymaster.

Such questions were simple, but they were not really questions at all. The confiscated papers and letters were clear enough evidence of opinions; the questions could only tum on the essential fact, whether the letters were or were not written by the accused; but the Commissioners thought it necessary to add to each expression they had copied out, 'In what sense do you explain the following passage in your letter ?'

Of course there was nothing to explain, and I wrote meaningless and evasive answers to all the questions. Oransky discovered the following statement in one of my letters : 'No written constitution leads to anything : they are all mere contracts between a master and his slaves ; the problem is not to improve the condition of the slaves but to eliminate them altogether.' When called upon to explain this statement, I remarked that I saw no necessity to defend constitutional government, and that, if I had done so, I might have been prosecuted.

'There are two sides from which constitutional government can be attacked,' said Golitsyn junior, in his excitable, sibilant voice,

'and you don't attack it from the point of view of autocracy, or else you would not have spoken of "slaves".'

'In that respect I am as guilty as the Empress Catherine, who forbade her subjects to call themselves slaves.'

Golitsyn junior was furious at my sarcasm.

'Do you suppose', he said, 'that we meet here to carry on academic discussion, and that you are defending a thesis in the lecture-room ?'

'Why then do you ask for explanations ?'

'Do you pretend not to understand what is wanted of you ? '

' I don't understand,' I said.

'How obstinate they are, every one of them I ' said the chairman, Golitsyn senior, as he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Colonel Shubinsky, of the police. I smiled. 'Ogarev over again,'

sighed the worthy old gentleman, letting the cat quite out of the bag.

A pause followed this indiscretion. The meetings were all held in the Prince's library, and I turned towards the shelves and

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examined the books; they included an edition in many volumes of the Memoirs of the Due de Saint-Simon.1

I turned to the chairman. 'There ! ' I said, 'what an injustice I You are trying me for Saint-Simonianism, and you, Prince, have on your shelves twenty volumes of his works.'

The worthy man had never read a book in his life, and was at loss for a reply. But Golitsyn junior darted a furious glance at me and asked, 'Don't you see that these are the works of the Due de Saint-Simon who lived in the reign of Louis XN ? '

The chairman smiled and conveyed t o me b y a nod his impression that I had made a slip this time; then he said, 'You may go.'

When I had reached the door, the chairman asked, 'Was it he who wrote the article about Peter the Great which you showed me ? '

'Yes,' answered Shubinsky.

I stopped short.

'He has ability,' remarked the chairman.

'So much the worse : poison is more dangerous in skilful hands,' added the Inquisitor ; 'a very dangerous young man and quite incorrigible.'

These words contained my condemnation.

Here is a parallel to the Saint-Simon incident When the policeofficer was going through books and papers at Ogarev's pouse, he put aside a volume of Thiers's History of the French Revolution ; when he found a second volume, a third, an eighth, he lost patience. 'What a collection of revolutionary works ! And here's another I ' he added, handing to his subordinate Cuvier's speech Sur les revolutions du globe tem:stre I 6

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

1. The author of the famous Memoirs (1675-1755) was an ancestor of the preacher of socialism (t76o-t825).

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When the last question had been handed out t o me, I was sitting alone in the small room where we wrote our replies. Suddenly the door opened, and Golitsyn junior came in, wearing a pained and anxious expression.

'I have come', he said, 'to have a talk with you before the end of your replies to our questions. The long friendship between my late father and yours makes me feel a special interest in you. You are young and may have a distinguished career yet; but you must first clear yourself of this business, and that fortunately depends on yourself alone. Your father has taken your arrest very much to heart ; his one hope now is that you will be released. The President and I were discussing it just now, and we are sincerely ready to make large concessions ; but you must make it possible for us to help you.'

I saw what he was driving at. The blood rushed to my head, and I bit my pen with rage.

He went on : 'You are on the road that leads straight to service in the ranks or imprisonment, and on the way you will kill your father : he will not survive the day when he sees you in the grey overcoat of a private soldier.'

I tried to speak, but he stopped me. 'I know what you want to say. Have patience a moment. That you had designs against the Government is perfectly clear; and we must have proofs of your repentance, if you are to be an object of the Tsar's clemency.

You deny everything ; you give evasive answers; from a false feeling of honour you protect people of whom we know more than you do ; and who are by no means as scrupulous as you are; you won't help them, but they will drag you over the precipice in their fall. Now write a letter to the Board ; say simply and frankly that you are conscious of your guilt, and that you were led away by the thoughtlessness of youth ; and name the persons whose unhappy errors led you astray. Are you willing to pay this small price, in order to redeem your whole future and to save your father's life ?'

'I know nothing, and will add nothing to my previous disclosures,' I replied.

Golitsyn got up and said in a dry voice : 'Very well ! As you refuse, we are not to blame.' That was the end of my examination.

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1

I made my last appearance before the Commission in January or February of 1835. I was summoned there to read through my answers, make any additions I wished, and sign my name. Shubinsky was the only Commissioner present. When I had done reading, I said :

'I should like to know what charge can be based on these questions and these answers. Which article of the code applies to my case ? '

'The code of law is intended for crimes o f a different kind,'

answered the colonel in blue.

'That is another matter. But when I read over all these literary exercises, I cannot believe that the charge, on which I have spent six months in prison, is really contained there.'

'Do you really imagine,' returned Shubinsky, 'that we accepted your statement that you were not fomling a secret society ?'

'Where is it, then ? ' I asked.

'It is lucky for you that we could not find the proofs, and that you were cut short. We stopped you in time; indeed, it may be said that we saved you.'

Gogol's story, in fact, over again, of the carpenter Poshlepkin and his wife, in The Revizor.2

After I had signed my name, Shubinsky rang and ordered the priest to be summoned. The priest appeared and added his signature, testifying that all my admissions had been made voluntarily and without compulsion of any kind. Of course, he had never been present while I was examined ; and he had not the assurance to ask my account of the proceedings. I thought of the unprejudiced witness who stopped outside our house while the police arrested me.

8

When the enquiry was over, the conditions of my imprisonment were relaxed to some extent, and near relations could obtain permission for interviews. In this way two more months passed by.

In the middle of March our sentence was confirmed. What it 2. Gogol, The Revizor, Act IV, Scene ii.

C.Y.E.-I I

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was nobody knew : some said we should be banished t o the Caucasus, while others hoped we should all be released. The latter was Staal's proposal,· which he submitted separately to the Tsar; he held that we had been sufficiently punished by our imprisonment.

At last, on the twentieth of March, we were all brought to Prince Golitsyn's house, to hear our sentence. It was a very great occasion : for we had never met since we were arrested.

A cordon of police and officers of the garrison stood round us, while we embraced and shook hands with one another. The sight of friends gave life to all of us, and we made plenty of noise; we asked questions and told our adventures indefatigably.

Sokolovsky was present, railier pale and thin, but as humorous as ever.

9

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

When suddenly tom from this life and thrown into prison, he bore himself nobly : imprisonment strengthened his character.

He was arrested in Petersburg and then conveyed to Moscow, without being told where he was going. Useless tricks of this kind are constantly played by the Russian police ; in fact, it is the poetry of their lives ; iliere is no calling in tile world, however prosaic and repulsive, that does not possess its own artistic refinements and mere superfluous adornments. Sokolovsky was taken straight to prison and lodged in a kind of dark store-room. Why should he be confined in prison and we in barracks ?

He took nothing there with him but a couple of shirts. In England, every convict is forced to take a baili as soon as he enters prison ; in Russia, precautionary measures are taken against cleanliness.

Sokolovsky would have been in a horrible state had not Dr Haas sent him a parcel of his own linen.

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10

This D r Haas, who was often called a fool and a lunatic, was a very remarkable man. His memory ought not to be buried in the jungle of official obituaries - that record of virtues that never showed themselves until their possessors were mouldering in the grave.

He was a little old man with a face like wax ; in his black tailcoat, knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and shoes with buckles, he looked as if he had just stepped out of some play of the eighteenth century. In this costume, suitable for a wedding or a funeral, and in the agreeable climate of the 59th degree of north latitude, he used to drive once a week to the Sparrow Hills when the convicts were starting for the first stage of their long march.

He had access to them in his capacity of a prison-doctor, and went there to pass them in review ; and he always took with him a basketful of odds and ends - eatables and dainties of different kinds for the women, such as walnuts, gingerbread, apples, and oranges. This generosity excited the wrath and displeasure of the 'charitable' ladies, who were afraid of giving pleasure by their charity, and afraid of being more charitable than was absolutely necessary to save the convicts from being starved or frozen.

But Haas was obstinate. When reproached for the foolish indulgence he showed to the woman, he would listen meekly, rub his hands, and reply : 'Please observe, my dear lady ; they can get a crust of bread from anyone, but they won't see sweets or oranges again for a long time, because no one gives them such things - your own words prove that. And therefore I give them this little pleasure, because they won't get it soon again.'

Haas lived in a hospital. One morning a patient came to consult him. Haas examined him and went to his study to write a prescription. When he returned, the invalid had disappeared, and so had the silver off the dinner-table. Haas called a porter and asked whether anyone else had entered the building. The porter realised the situation : he rushed out and returned immediately with the spoons and the patient, whom he had detained with the help of a sentry. The thief fell on his knees and begged for mercy.

Haans was perplexed.

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'Fetch a policeman,' h e said t o one o f the porters. 'And you summon a clerk here at once.'

The two porters, pleased with their part in detecting the criminal, rushed from the room; and Haas took advantage of their absence to address the thief. 'You are a dishonest . man : you deceived me and tried to rob me ; God will judge you for it. But now run out at the back gate as fast as you can, before the sentries come back. And wait a moment - very likely you haven't a penny; here is half a rouble for you. But you must try to mend your ways : you can't escape God as easily as the policeman.'

His family told Haas he had gone too far this time. But the incorrigible doctor stated his view thus : 'Theft is a serious vice; but I know the police, and how they flog people; it is a much worse vice to deliver up your neighbour to their tender mercies.

And besides, who knows ? My treatment may soften his heart.'

His family shook their heads and protested : and the charitable ladies said, 'An excellent man but not quite all right there,' pointing to their foreheads ; but Haas only rubbed his hands and went his own way.

1 1

Sokolovsky had hardly got to an end of his narrative before others began to tell their story, several speaking at the same time.

It was as if we had returned from a long journey - there was a running fire of questions and friendly chaff.

Satin had suffered more in body than the rest of us : he looked thin and had lost some of his hair. He was on his mother's estate in the Government of Tambov when he heard of our arrest, and started at once for Moscow, that his mother might not be terrified by a visit from the police. But he caught cold on the journey and was seriously ill when he reached Moscow. The police found him there in his bed. It being impossible to remove him, he was put under arrest in his own house : a sentry was posted inside his bedroom, and a male sister of mercy, in the shape of a policeman, sat by his pillow ; hence, when he recovered from delirium, his eyes rested on the scrutinising looks of one attendant or the sodden face of the other.

When winter began he was transferred to a hospital. It turned out that there was no unoccupied room suitable for a prisoner ; but that was a trifle which caused no difficulty. A secluded

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comer without a stove was discovered in the building, and here he was placed with a sentry to guard him. Nothing like a balcony on the Riviera for an invalid ! What the temperature in that stone box was like in winter, may be guessed : the sentry suffered so much that he used at night to go into the passage and warm himself at the stove, begging his prisoner not to tell the officer of the day.

But even the authorities of the hospital could not continue this open-air treatment in such close proximity to the North Pole, and they moved Satin to a room next to that in which people who were brought in frozen were rubbed till they regained consciousness.

12

Before we had nearly done telling our own experiences and listening to those of our friends, the adjutants began to bustle about, the garrison officers stood up straight, and the policeman came to attention ; then the door opened solemnly, and little Prince Golitsyn entered· en grande tenue with his ribbon across his shoulder ; Tsynsky was in Household uniform ; and even Oransky had put on something special for the joyful occasion - a light green costume, between uniform and mufti. Staal, of course, was not

·

there.

The officers now divided us into three groups. Sokolovsky, an artist called Utkin, and lbayev formed the first group ; I and my friends came next, and then a miscellaneous assortment.

The first three, who were charged with treason, were sentenced to confinement at Schliisselburg 3 for an unlimited term.

In order to show his easy, pleasant manners, Tsynsky asked Sokolovsky, after the sentence was read, 'I think you have been at Schliisselburg before ? ' 'Yes, last year,' was the immediate answer; 'I suppose I knew what was coming, for I drank a bottle of Madeira there.'

13

Two years later Utkin died in the fortress. Sokolovsky was released more dead than alive and sent to the Caucasus, where he died at Pyatigorsk. Of lbayev it may be said in one sense that he died too ; for he became a mystic.

3· A prison-fortress on an island in the Neva, forty miles from Petersburg.

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U tkin, ' a free artist confined in prison', a s h e signed himself in replying to the questions put to him, was a man of forty ; he never took part in political intrigue of any kind, but his nature was proud and vehement, and he was uncontrolled in his language and disrespectful to the members of the Commission. For this they did him to death in a damp dungeon where the water trickled down the walls.

But for his officer's uniform, lbayev would never have been punished so severely. He happened to be present at a party where he probably drank too much and sang, but he certainly drank no more and sang no louder than the rest.

14

And now our turn came. Oransky rubbed his spectacles, cleared his throat, and gave utterance to the imperial edict. It was here set forth that the Tsar, having considered the report of the Commission and taking special account of the youth of the criminals, ordered that they should not be brought before a court of j ustice.

On the contrary, the Tsar in his infinite clemency pardoned the majority of the offenders and allowed them to live at home under police supervision. But the ringleaders were to undergo corrective discipline, in the shape of banishment to distant Governments for an unlimited term ; they were to serve in the administration, under the supervision of the local authorities.

This last class contained six names - Ogarev, Satin, Lakhtin.

Sorokin, Obolensky, and myself. My destination was Perm. Lakhtin had never been arrested at all ; when he was summoned to the Commission to hear the sentence, he supposed it was intended merely to give him a fright, that he might take thought when he saw the punishment of others. It was said that this little surprise was managed by a relation of Prince Golitsyn's who was angry with Lakhtin's wife. He had weak health and died after three years in exile.

When Oransky had done reading, Colonel Shubinsky stepped forward. He explained to us in picked phrases and the style of Lomonosov,4 that for the Tsar's clemency we were obliged to the good offices of the distinguished noblemen who presided at the 4· i.e. an old-fashioned pompous style. Lomonosov (171 1-{;5) was the originator of Russian literature and Russian science.

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Commission. He expected that w e should all express at once our gratitude to the great man, but he was disappointed.

Some of those who had been pardoned made a sign With their heads, but even they stole a glance at us as they did so.

Shubinsky then turned to Ogarev and said : 'You are going to Penza. Do you suppose that is a mere accident ? Your father is lying paralysed at Penza ; and the Prince asked the Emperor that you might be sent there, that your presence might to some extent lighten the blow he must suffer in your banishment. Do you too think you have no cause for gratitude ?'

Ogarev bowed ; and that was all they got for their pains.

But that good old gentleman, the President, was pleased, and for some reason called me up next. I stepped forward : whatever he or Shubinsky might say, I vowed by all the gods that I would not thank them. Besides, my place of exile was the most distant and most disgusting of all.

'So you're going to Perm,' said the Prince.

I said nothing. The Prince was taken aback, but, in order to say something, he added, 'I have an estate there.'

'Can I take any message to your bailiff ?' I asked, smiling.

'I send no messages by people like you - mere carbonari,' said the Prince, by a sudden inspiration.

'What do you want of me then ?' I asked.

'Nothing.'

'Well, I thought you called me forward.'

'You may go,' interrupted Shubinsky.

'Permit me,' I said, 'as I am here, to remind you that you, Colonel, said to me on my last appearence before the Commission, that no one charged me with complicity in the students'

party ; but now the sentence says that I am one of those punished on that account. There is some mistake here.'

'Do you mean to protest against the imperial decision ?' cried out Shubinsky. 'If you are not careful, young man, something worse may be substituted for Perm. I shall order your words to be taken down.'

'Just what I meant to ask. The sentence says "according to the report of the Commission" : well, my protest is not against the imperial edict but against your report. I call the Prince to witness, that I was never even questioned about the party or the songs sung there.'

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Shubinsky turned pale with rage. 'You pretend not t o know,'

he said, 'that your guilt is ten times greater than that of those who attended the party.' He pointed to one of the pardoned men :

'There is a man who sang an objectionable song under the influence of drink ; but he afterwards begged forgiveness on his knees with tears. You are still far enough from any repentance.'

'Excuse me,' I went on ; 'the depth of my guilt is not the question. But if I am a murderer, I don't want to pass for a thief. I don't want people to say, even by way of defence, that I did soand-so under the influence of drink.'

'If my son, my own son, were as brazen as you, I should myself ask the Tsar to banish him to Siberia.'

At this point the Commissioner of Police struck in with some incoherent nonsense. It is a pity that Golitsyn junior was not present ; he would have had a chance to air his rhetoric.

All this, as a matter of course, led to nothing.

We stayed in the room for another quarter of an hour, and spent the time, undeterred by the earnest representations of the police-officers, in warm embraces and a long farewell. I never saw any of them again, except Obolensky, before my return from Vyatka.

1 )

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

16

I wished to see once more the girl who had cheered me before and to press her hand as I had pressed it in the churchyard nine months earlier. At that interview I intended to part with the past and greet the future.

We did meet for a few minutes on 9 April 183), the day before my departure into exile.

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long did I keep that day sacred in memory ; i t is one o f the red-letter days of my life.

But why does the recollection of that day and all the bright and happy days of my past life recall so much that is terrible ? I see a grave, a wreath of dark-red roses, two children whom I am leading by the hand, torch-light, a band of exiles, the moon, a warm sea beneath a mountain ; I hear words spoken which I cannot understand, and yet they tear my heart.5

All, all, has passed away 1

CHAPTER VI

Exile - A Chief Constable - The Volga - Perm 1

O N the morning of 10 April 183 5, a police-officer conducted me to the Governor's palace, where my parents were allowed to take leave of me in the private part of the office.

This was bound to be an uncomfortable and painful scene.

Spies and clerks swarmed round us ; we listened while his instructions were read aloud to the police-agent who was to go with me; it was impossible to exchange a word unwatched - in short, more painful and galling surroundings cannot be imagined. It was a relief when the carriage started at last along the Vladimirka River.

Per me si va nella citta dolente,

Per me si va nell' eterno dolore.l

I wrote this couplet on the wall of one of the post-houses ; it suits the vestibule of Hell and the road to Siberia equally well.

One of my intimate friends had promised to meet me at an inn seven versts from Moscow.

I proposed to the police-agent that he should have a glass of brandy there; we were at a safe distance from Moscow, and he accepted. We went in, but my friend was not there. I put off our start by every means in my power; but at last my companion was 5· Herzen's wife,

died at Nice in 1852 and was buried there under the circumstances

described.

1. Dante, Infe:rno, Canto III.

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unwilling t o wait longer, and the driver was touching up the horses, when suddenly a troika 2 came galloping straight up to the door. I rushed out - and met two strangers ; they were merchants' sons out for a spree and made some noise as they got off their vehicle. All along the road to Moscow I could not see a single moving spot, nor a single human being. I felt it bitter to get into the carriage and start. But I gave the driver a quarterrouble, and off we flew like an arrow from the bow.

We put up nowhere : the orders were that not less than 200

versts were to be covered every twenty-four hours. That would have been tolerable, at any other season ; but it was the beginning of April, and the road was covered with ice in some places, and with water and mud in others ; and it got worse and worse with each stage of our advance towards Siberia.

2

My first adventure happened at Pokrov.

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

Getting tired of waiting for their return in the post-master's dirty room, I went out at the gate and began to walk about in front of the house. It was nine months since I had taken a walk without the presence of a sentry.

I had been walking half an hour when a man came up to me; he was wearing uniform without epaulettes and a blue medalribbon. He stared very hard at me, walked past, turned round at once, and asked me in an insolent manner :

'Is it you who are going to Perm with a police-officer ?'

'Yes,' I answered, still walking.

'Excuse me ! excuse me I How does the man dare • • • ?'

'Whom have I the honour of speaking to ? '

'I a m the chief constable o f this town,' replied the stranger, and 2. Three horses harnessed abreast form a troika.

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his voice showed how deeply he felt his own social importance.

'The Under-Secretary may arrive at any moment, and here, if you please, there are political prisoners walking about the streets I What an idiot that policeman is I '

'May I trouble you to address your observations to the man himself ?'

'Address him ? I shall arrest him and order him a hundred lashes, and send you on in charge of someone else.'

Without waiting for the end of his speech, I nodded and walked back quickly to the post-house. Sitting by the window, I could hear his loud angry voice as he threatened my keeper, who excused himself but did not seem seriously alarmed. Presently they came into the room together I I did :not turn round but went on looking out of the window.

From their conversation I saw at once that the chief constable was dying to know all about the circumstances of my banishment. As I kept up a stubborn silence, the official began an impersonal address, intended equally for me and my keeper.

We get no sympathy. What pleasure is it to me, pray, to quarrel with a· policeman or to inconvenience a gentleman whom I never set eyes on before in my life ? But I have a great responsibility, in my position here. Whatever happens, I get the blame.

If public funds are stolen, they attack me; if the church catches fire, they attack me: if there are too many drunk men in the streets, I suffer for it; if too little whisky is drunk,3 I suffer for that too.' He was pleased with his last remark and went on more cheerfully : 'It is lucky you met me, but you might have met the Secretary; and if you had walked past him, he would have said :

"A political prisoner walking about I Arrest the chief con

- stable ! " '

I got weary at last of his eloquence. I turned to him and said :

'Do your duty by all means, but please spare me your sermons.

From what you say I see that you expected me to bow to you ; but I am not in the habit of bowing to strangers.'

My friend was flabbergasted.

That is the rule all over Russia, as a friend of mine used to say : whoever gets rude and angry first, always wins. If you ever allow a Jack in office to raise his voice, you are lost : when he 3· A great revenue was derived by Government from the sale of spirits.

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hears himself shouting, h e turns into a wild beast. But if you begin shouting at his first rude word, he is certain to be cowed; for he thinks that you mean business and are the sort of person whom it is unsafe to irritate.

The chief constable sent my keeper to enquire about the horses ; then he turned to me and remarked by way of apology :

'I acted in that way chiefly because of the man. You don't know what our underlings are like - it is impossible to pass over the smallest breach of discipline. But I assure you I know a gentleman when I see him. Might I ask you what unfortunate incident it was that brings you . . .'

'We were bound to secrecy at the end of the trial.'

'Oh, in that case . . . of course . . • I should not venture . . .' -

and his eyes expressed the torments of curiosity. He held his tongue, but not for long.

'I had a distant cousin, who was imprisoned for about a year in the fortress of Peter and Paul ; he was mixed up with • . . you understand. Excuse me, but I think you are still angry, and I take it to heart. I am used to army discipline; I began serving when I was seventeen. I have a hot temper, but it all passes in a moment.

I won't trouble your man any further, deuce take him I'

My keeper now came in and reported that i t would take an hour to drive in the horses from the fields.

The chief constable told him that he was pardoned at my intercession; then he turned to me and added :

'To show that you are not angry, I do hope you will come and take pot-luck with me - I live two doors away; please don't refuse.'

This turn to our interview seemed to me so amusing that I went to his house, where I ate his pickled sturgeon and caviare and drank his brandy and Madeira.

He grew so friendly that he told me all his private affairs, including the details of an illness from which his wife had suffered for seven years. After our meal. with pride and satisfaction he took a letter from a jar on the table and let me read a 'poem'

which his son had written at school and recited on Speech-day.

After these flattering proofs of confidence, he neatly changed the conversation and enquired indirectly about my offence; and this time I gratified his CUiiosity to some extent.

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191

This man reminded me of a justice's clerk whom my friend S.

used to speak about. Though his chief had been changed a dozen times, the clerk never lost his place and was the real ruler of the district.

'How do you manage to get on with them all ?' my friend asked.

'All right, thank you ; one manages to rub on somehow. You do sometimes get a gentleman who is very awkward at first, kicks with fore and hind legs, shouts abuse at you, and threatens to complain at headquarters and get you turned out. Well, you know, the likes of us have to put up with that. One holds one's tongue and thinks - "Oh, he'll wear himself out in time ; he's only just getting into harness." And so it turns out : once started, he goes along first-rate.'

3

On getting near Kazan, we found the Volga in full flood. The river spread fifteen versts or more beyond its banks, and we had to travel by water for the whole of the last stage. It was bad weather, and a number of carts and other vehicles were detained on the bank, as the ferries had stopped-working.

My keeper went to the man in charge and demanded a raft for our use. The man gave it unwillingly ; he said that it was dangerous and we had better wait. But my keeper was in haste, partly because he was drunk and partly because he wished to show his power.

My carriage was placed upon a moderate-sized raft and we started. The weather appeared to improve; and after half an hour the boatman, who was a Tatar, hoisted a sail. But suddenly the storm came on again with fresh violence, and we were carried rapidly downstream. We caught up some floating timber and struck it so hard that our rickety raft was nearly wrecked and the water came over the decking. It was an awkward situation; but the Tatar managed to steer us into a sandbank.

A barge now hove in sight. We called out to them to send us their boat, but the bargemen, though they heard us, went past and gave us no assistance.

A peasant, who had his wife with him in a small boat, rowed up to us and asked what was the matter. 'What of that ? ' he said.

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'Stop the leak, say a prayer, and start off. There's nothing to worry about ; but you're a Tatar, and that's why you're so helpless.' Then he waded over to our raft.

The Tatar was really very much alarmed. In the first place, my keeper, who was asleep when the water came on board and wet him, sprang to his feet and began to beat the Tatar. In the second place, the raft was Government property and the Tatar kept saying, 'If it goes to the bottom, I shall catch it I' I tried to comfort him by saying that in that case he would go to the bottom too.

'But, if I'm not drowned, batyushka, what then ? ' was his reply.

The peasant and some labourers stuffed up the leak in the raft and nailed a board over it with their axe-heads ; then, up to the waist in the water, they dragged the raft off the sandbank, and we soon reached the channel of the Volga. The current ran furiously.

Wind, rain, and snow lashed our faces, and the cold pierced to our bones ; but soon the statue of Ivan the Terrible began to loom out from behind the fog and torrents of rain. It seemed that the danger was past ; but suddenly the Tatar called out in a piteous voice, 'It's leaking, it's leaking I' - and the water did in fact come rushing in at the old leak. We were right in the centre of the stream, but the raft began to move slower and slower, and the time seemed at hand when it would sink altogether. The Tatar took off his cap and began to pray ; my servant shed tears and said a final goodbye to his mother at home ; but my keeper used bad language and vowed he would beat them both when we landed.

I too felt uneasy at first, partly owing to the wind and rain, which added an element of confusion and disorder to the danger.

But then it seemed to me absurd that I should meet my death before I had done anything ; the spirit of the conqueror's question - quid timeas? Caesarem vehisl - asserted itsel£;4 and I waited calmly for the end, convinced that I should not end my life there, between Uslon and Kazan. Later life saps such proud confidence and makes a man suffer for it ; and that is why youth is bold and heroic, while a man in years is cautious and seldom carried away.

A quarter of an hour later we landed, drenched and frozen, 4· The story of Caesar's rebuke to the boatman is told by Plutarch in his Life of Caesar, chapter 38.

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193

near the walls of the Kremlin of Kazan. At the nearest publichouse I got a glass of spirits and a hard-boiled egg, and then went off to the post-house.

4

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

My messenger returned in an hour's time and reported that Count Apraxin would grant my request. I waited two hours more, but no one came, and I despatched my messenger again. He brought this answer - that the colonel who had received Apraxin's order was playing whist at the club, and that nothing could be done for me till next day.

This was positive cruelty, and I wrote a second letter to Apraxin. I asked him to send me on at once and said I hoped to find better quarters after the next stage of my journey. But my letter was not delivered, because the Count had gone to bed. I could do no more. I took off my wet clothes in the office; then I wrapped myself up in a soldier's overcoat and lay down on the table ; a thick book, covered with some of my linen, served me as a pillow.

I sent out for some breakfast in the morning. By that time the clerks were arriving, and the door-keeper pointed out to me that a public office was an unsuitable place to breakfast in ; it made no difference to him personally, but the post-master might disapprove of my proceedings.

I laughed and said that a captive was secure against eviction and was bound to eat and drink in his place of confinement,

- wherever it might be.

Next morning Count Apraxin gave me leave to stay three days at Kazan and to put up at a hotel.

For those three days I wandered about the city, attended everywhere by my keeper. The veiled faces of the Tatar women, the high cheekbones of their husbands, the mosques of true believers

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standing side b y side with the churches of the Orthodox faith - it all reminds one of Asia and the East. At Vladimir or Nizhny the neighbourhood of Moscow is felt ; but one feels far from Moscow at Kazan.

'5

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

The Governor of Perm was a Little Russian ; he was not hard upon the exiles and behaved reasonably in other respects. Like a mole which adds grain to grain in some underground repository, so he kept putting by a trifle for a rainy day, without anyone being the wiser.

6

From some dim idea of keeping a check over us, he ordered that all the exiles residing at Perm should report themselves at his house, at ten every Saturday morning. He came in smoking his pipe and ascertained, by means of a list which he carried, whether all were present ; if anyone was missing, he sent to enquire the reason; he hardly ever spoke to anyone before dismissing us.

Thus I made the acquaintance in his drawing-room of all the Poles whom he had told me I was to avoid.

The day after I reached Perm, my keeper departed, and I was at liberty for the first time since my arrest - at liberty, in a little town on the Siberian frontier, with no experience of life and no comprehension of the sphere in which I was now forced to live.

From the nursery I had passed straight to the lecture-room, and from the lecture-room to a small circle of friends, an intimate world of theories and dreams, without contact with practical life ; then came prison, with its opportunities for reflection ; and contact with life was only beginning now and here, by the ridge of the Ural Mountains.

Practical life made itself felt at once : the day after my arrival

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195

I went to look for lodgings with the porter at the Governor's office ; he took me to a large one-storeyed house ; and, though I explained that I wanted a small house, or, better still, part of a house, he insisted that I should go in.

The lady who owned the house made me sit on the sofa. Hearing that I came from Moscow, she asked if I had seen M. Kabrit there. I replied that I had never in my life heard a name like it.

'Come, come ! ' said the old lady; 'I mean M. Kabrit,' and she gave his Christian name and patronymic. 'You don't say, batyushka, that you don't know him ! He is our Vice-Governor ! '

'Well, I spent nine months in prison,' I said smiling, 'and perhaps that accounts for my not hearing of him.'

'It may be so. And so you want to hire the little house, batyushka ?'

'It's a big house, much too big ; I said so to the man who brought me.'

'Too much of this world's goods are no burden to the back.'

'True ; but you will ask a large rent for your large house.'

'Who told you, young man, about my prices ? I've not opened my mouth yet.'

'Yes, but I know you can't ask little for a house like this.'

'How much do you offer ?'

In order to have done with her, I said that I would not pay more than 3 50 roubles.

'A nd glad I am to get it, my lad ! Just drink a glass of Canary, and go and have your boxes moved in here.' .

The rent seemed to me fabulously low, and I took the house. I was just going when she stopped me.

'I forgot to ask you one thing - do you mean to keep a cow ?'

'Good heavens I No I ' I answered, deeply insulted by such a question.

'Very well; then I will supply you with cream.'

I went home, thinking with horror that I had reached a place where I was thought capable of keeping a cow I 7

Before I had time to look about me, the Governor informed me that I was transferred to Vyatka : another exile who was destined for Vyatka had asked to be transferred to Perm, where some of his

C H I L DH O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E

relations lived. The Governor wished m e t o start next day. But that was impossible ; as I expected to stay some time at Perm, I had bought a quantity of things and must sell them, even at a loss of 50 per cent. After several evasive answers, the Governor allowed me to stay for forty-eight hours longer, but he made me promise not to seek an opportunity of meeting the exile from Vyatka.

I was preparing to sell my horse and a variety of rubbish, when the inspector of police appeared with an order that I was to leave in twenty-four hours. I explained to him that the Governor had granted me an extension, but he actually produced a written order, requiring him to see me off within twenty-four hours ; and this order had been signed by the Governor after his conversation with me.

'I can explain it,' said the inspector; 'the great man wishes to shuffle off the responsibility on me.'

'Let us go and confront him with his signature,' I said.

'By all means,' said the inspector.

The Governor said that he had forgotten his promise to me, and the inspector shyly asked if the order had not better be rewritten. 'Is it worth the trouble ? ' asked the Governor, with an air of indifference.

'We had him there,' said the inspector to me, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 'What a mean shabby fellow he is I '

8

This inspector belonged to a district class of officials, who are half soldiers and half civilians. They are men who, while serving in the Army, have been lucky enough to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and have therefore been rewarded with positions in the police service. Military life has given them an air of frankness ; they have learned some phrases about the point of honour and some terms of ridicule for humble civilians. The youngest of them have read Marlinsky and Zagoskin,5 and can repeat the beginning of The Prisoner of the Caucasus,6 and they like to quote the verses they know. For instance, whenever they find a friend smoking, they invariably say :

5· Popular novelists of the 'patriotic' school, now forgotten.

6. A poem by Pushkin.

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The amber smoked between his teeth.7

They are one and all deeply convinced, and let you know their conviction with emphasis, that their position is far below their merits, and that poverty alone keeps them down ; but for their wounds and want of money, they would have been generals-inwaiting or commanders of army-corps. Each of them can point to some comrade-in-arms who has risen to the top of the tree. 'You see what Kreyz is now,' he says ; 'well, we two were gazetted together on the same day and lived in barracks like brothers, on the most familiar terms. But I'm not a German, and I had no kind of interest ; so here I sit, a mere policeman. But you understand that such a position is distasteful to anyone with the feelings of a gentleman.'

Their wives are even more discontented. These poor sufferers travel to Moscow once a year, where their real business is to deposit their little savings in the bank, though they pretend that a sick mother or aunt wishes to see them for the last time.

And so this life goes on for fifteen years. The husband, railing at fortune, flogs his men and uses his fists to the shopkeepers, curries favour with the Governor, helps thieves to get qff, steals State papers, and repeats verses from The Fountain of Bakhchisaray.8

The wife, railing at fortune and provincial life, takes all she can lay her hands on, robs petitioners, cheats tradesmen, and has a sentimental weakness for moonlight nights.

I have described this type at length, because I was taken in by these good people at first, and really thought them superior to others of their class ; but I was quite wrong.

9

I took with me from Perm one personal recollection which I value.

At one of the Governor's Saturday reviews of the exiles, a Roman Catholic priest invited me to his house. I went there and

' found several Poles. One of them sat there, smoking a short pipe and never speaking ; misery, hopeless misery, was visible in every feature. His figure was clumsy and even crooked; his face was of that irregular Polish-Lithuanian type which surprises you at first 7· The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, line 2.

8. Another of Pushkin's early works.

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and becomes attractive later : the greatest o f all Poles, Thaddeus Kosciuszko,9 had that kind of face. The man's name was Tsekhanovich, and his dress showed that he was terribly poor.

Some days later, I was walking along the avenue which bounds Perm in one direction. It was late in May ; the young leaves of the trees were opening, and the birches were in flower - there were no trees but birches, I think, on both sides of the avenue - but not a soul was to be seen. People in the provinces have no taste for Platonic perambulations. After strolling about for a long time, at last I saw a figure in a field by the side of the avenue : he was botanising, or simply picking flowers, which are not abundant or varied in that part of the world. When he raised his head, I recognised Tsekhanovich and went up to him.

He had originally been banished to V erkhoturye, one of the remotest towns in the Government of Perm, hidden away in the Ural Mountains, buried in snow, and so far from all roads that communication with it was almost impossible in winter. Life there is certainly worse than at Omsk or Krasnoyarsk. In his complete solitude there, Tsekhanovich took to botany and collected the meagre flora of the Ural Mountains. He got permission later to move to Perm, and to him this was a change for the better : he could hear once more his own language spoken and meet his companions in misfortune. His- wife, who had remained behind in Lithuania, wrote that she intended to join him, walking from the Government of Vilna. He was expecting her.

When I was transferred so suddenly to Vyatka, I went to say goodbye to Tsekhanovich. The small room in which he lived was almost bare - there was a table and one chair, and a little old portmanteau standing on end near the meagre bed ; and that was all the furniture. My cell in the Krutitsky barracks carne back to me at once.

He was sorry to hear of my departure, but he was so accustomed to privations that he soon smiled almost brightly as he said, 'That's why I love Nature ; of her you can never be deprived, wherever you are.'

Wishing to leave him some token of remembrance, I took off a small sleeve-link and asked him to accept it.

'Your sleeve-link is too fine for my shirt,' he said; 'but I shall keep it as long as I live and wear it in my coffin.'

g. The famous Polish general and patriot (1746-t817).

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After a little thought, he began to rummage hastily in his portmanteau. He took from a small bag a wrought-iron chain with a peculiar pattern, wrenched off some of the links, and gave them to me.

'I have a great value for this chain,' he said ; 'it is connected with the most sacred recollections of my life, and I won't give it all to you ; but take these links. I little thought that I should ever give them to a Russian, an exile like myself.'

I embraced him and said goodbye.

'When do you start ? ' he asked.

'Tomorrow morning ; but don't come : when I go back, I shall find a policeman at my lodging, who will never leave me for a moment.'

'Very well. I wish you a good journey and better fortune than mine.'

By nine o'clock next morning the inspector appeared at my house, to hasten my departure. My new keeper, a much tamer creature than his predecessor, and openly rejoicing at the prospect of drinking freely during the 3 50 versts of our journey, was doing something to the carriage. All was ready. I happened to look into the street and saw Tsekhanovich walking past. I ran to the window.

'Thank God I ' he said : 'This is the fourth time I have walked past, hoping to hail you, if only from a distance; but you never saw me.'

My eyes were full of tears as I thanked him : I was deeply touched by this proof of tender womanly attachment. But this was the only reason why I was so sorry to leave Perm.

10

O n the second day o f our journey, heavy rain began a t dawn and went on all day without stopping, as it often does in wooded country; at two o'clock we came to a miserable village of natives.

There was no post-house; the native Votyaks, who could neither read nor write, opened my passport and ascertained whether there were two seals or one, shouted out 'All right I ' and harnessed the fresh horses. A Russian post-master would have kept us twice as long. On getting near this village, I had proposed to my keeper that we should rest there two hours : I wished to get dry and warm and have something to eat. But when I entered the smoky,

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stifling hut and found that n o food was procurable, and that there was not even a public-house within five versts, I repented of my purpose and intended to go on.

While I was still hesitating, a soldier came in and brought me an invitation to drink a cup of tea from an officer on detachment.

'With all my heart. Where is your officer ? '

'In a hut close by, Your Honour' - and the soldier made a left turn and disappeared. I followed him.

CHAPTER VII

Vyatka - The Office and Dinner-table of His Excellency - Tyufyayev 1

WHEN I called on the Governor of Vyatka, he sent a message that I was to call again at ten next morning.

When I returned, I found four men in the drawing-room, the inspectors of the town and country police, and two office clerks.

They were all standing up, talking in whispers, and looking uneasily at the door. The door opened, and an elderly man of middle height and broad-shouldered entered the room. The set of his head was like that of a bulldog, and the large jaws with a kind of carnivorous grin increased the canine resemblance; the senile and yet animal expression of the features, the small, restless grey eyes, and thin lank hair made an impression which was repulsive beyond belief.

He began by roughly reproving the country inspector for the state of a road by which His Excellency had travelled on the previous day. The inspector stood with his head bent, in sign of respect and submission, and said from time to time, like servants in former days, 'Very good, Your Excellency.'

Having done with the inspector he turned to me. With an insolent look he said :

'I think you have taken your degree at Moscow University ?'

'I have.'

'Did you enter the public service afterwards ?'

'I was employed in the Kremlin offices.'

'Ha I Ha ! Much they do there ! Not too busy there to attend parties and sing songs, eh ?' Then he called out, 'Alenitsyn I '

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20 1

A young man of consumptive appearance carhe in. 'Hark ye, my friend. Here is a graduate of Moscow University who probably knows everything except the business of administration, and His Majesty desires that we should teach it to him. Give him occupation in your office, and let me have special reports about him. You, Sir, will come to the office at nine tomorrow morning.'

You can go now. By the way, I forgot to ask how you write.'

I was puzzled at first. 'I mean your handwriting,' he added.

I said I had none of my own writing on me.

'Bring paper and a pen,' and Alenitsyn handed me a pen.

'What shall I write ?'

'What you please,' said the clerk; 'write, "Upon investigation it turned out".'

The Governor looked at the writing and said with a sarcastic smile. 'Well, we shan't ask you to correspond with the Tsar.'

2

While I was still at Perm, I had heard much about Tyufyayev, but the reality far surpassed all my expectations.

There is no person or thing too monstrous for the conditions of Russian life to produce.

He was born at Tobolsk. His father was, I believe, an exile and belonged to the lowest and poorest class of free Russians. At thirteen he joined a band of strolling players, who wandered from fair to fair, dancing on the tight rope, turning somersaults, and so on. With them he went all the way from Tobolsk to the Polish provinces, making mirth for the lieges.• He was arrested there on some charge unknown to me, and then, because he had no passport, sent back on foot to Tobolsk as a vagabond, together with a gang of convicts. His mother was now a widow and living in extreme poverty ; he rebuilt the stove in her house with his own hands, when it came to pieces. He had to seek a trade of some kind ; the boy learned to read and write and got employment as a clerk in the town office. Naturally quick-witted, he had profited by the variety of his experience ; he had learned much from the troupe of acrobats, and as much from the gang of convicts in whose company he had tramped from one end of Russia to the other. He soon became a sharp man of business.

At the beginning of Alexander's reign a Government Inspector was sent to Tobolsk, and Tyufyayev was recommended to him as a

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competent clerk. H e did his work s o well that the Inspector offered to take him back to Petersburg. Hitherto, as he said himself, his ambition had not aspired beyond a clerkship in some provincial court ; but now he set a different value on himself, and resolved with an iron strength of will to climb to the top of the tree.

And he did. Ten years later we find him acting as secretary to the Controller of the Navy, and then chief of a department in the office of Count Arakcheyev,l which governed the whole Empire.

When Paris was occupied by the Allied Armies in 1815, the Count took his secretary there with him. During the whole time of the occupation, Tyufyayev literally never saw a single street in Paris ; he sat all day and all night in the office, drawing up or copying documents.

Arakcheyev's office was like those copper-mines where the workmen are kept only for a few months, because, if they stay longer, they die. In this manufactory of edicts and ordinances, mandates and instructions, even Tyufyayev grew tired at last and asked for an easier place. He was, of course, a man after Arakcheyev's own heart - a man without pretensions or distractions or opinions of his own, conventionally honest, eaten up by ambition, and ranking obedience as the highest of human virtues.

Arakcheyev rewarded him with the place of a Vice-Governor, and a few years later made him Governor of Perm. The province, which Tyufyayev had passed through as acrobat and convict, first dancing on a rope and then bound by a rope, now lay at his feet.

A Governor's power increases by arithmetical progression with the distance from Petersburg, but increases by geometrical progression in provinces like Perm or Vyatka or Siberia, where there is no resident nobility. That was just the kind of province that Tyufyayev needed.

He was a Persian satrap, with this difference - that he was active, restless, always busy and interfering in everything. He would have been a savage agent of the French Convention in 1794, something in the way of Carrier.2

1. Arakcheyev (1769-1835) was Minister and favourite of Emperor Alexander I : he has been called 'the assassin of the Russian people'.

2. Infamous for his noyades at Nantes ; guillotined in 1 794·

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Profligate in his life, naturally coarse, impatient of all opposition, his influence was extremely harmful. He did not take bribes ; and yet, as appeared after his death, he amassed a considerable fortune. He was strict with his subordinates and punished severly those whom he detected in dishonesty ; but they stole more under his rule than ever before or since. He carried the misuse of influence to an extraordinary pitch ; for instance, when despatching an official to hold an enquiry, he would say, if he had a personal interest in the matter, 'You will probably find out so-and-so to be the case,' and woe to the official if he did not find out what the Governor foretold.

Perm, when I was there, was still full of Tyufyayev's glory, and his partisans were hostile to his successor, who, as a matter of course, surrounded himself with supporters of his own.

3

But on the other hand, there were people at Perm who hated him.

One of these was Chebotarev, a doctor employed at one of the factories and a remarkable product of Russian life. He warned me specially against Tyufyayev. He was a clever and very excitable man, who had made an unfortunate marriage soon after taking his degree ; then he had drifted to Yekaterinburg 3 and �ank with no experience into the slough of provincial life. Though his position here was fairly independent, his career was wrecked, and his chief employment was to mock at the Government officials. He jeered at them in their presence and said the most insulting things to their faces. But, as he spared nobody, nobody felt particular resentment at his flouts and jeers. His bitter tongue assured him a certain ascendancy over a society where fixed principles were rare, and he forced them to submit to the lash which he was never weary of applying.

I was told beforehand that, though he was a good doctor, he was crack-brained and excessively rude.

But his way of talking and jesting seemed to me neither offensive, nor trivial ; on the contrary, it was full of humour and concentrated bile. This was the poetry of his life, his revenge, his cry of resentment and, perhaps, in part, of despair also. Both as a 3· A town in the Ural district, now polluted by a horrible crime.

C.Y.E.-12