My Past and Thoughts

Ogarev and I belonged to neither of these sets. We had grown too closely attached to other ideas to part with them readily. Our faith in revolution of the festive Bcranger stamp was shaken, but we looked for something else which we could find neither in the Chronicle of Nestor8 nor in the transcendental idealism of Schelling.

In the midst of this ferment, in the midst of surmises, of confused efforts to understand the doubts which frightened us, the pamphlets of Saint-Simon and his followers, their tracts and their trial came into our hands. They impressed us.

Critics, superficial and not superficial, have laughed enough at Father Enfantin9 and his apostles; the time has now come for some recognition of these forerunners of socialism.

These enthusiastic youths with their terry waistcoats and their budding beards made a triumphant and poetic appearance in the midst of the petit bourgeois world. They heralded a new faith; they had something to say; they had something in the name of which to summon the old order of things before their court of judgment, fain to judge them by the Code Napoleon10

and the religion of Orleans.11

On the one hand came the emancipation of woman, the call to her to join in common labour. the giving of her destiny into her own hands, alliance ,..-ith her as with an equal.

On the other hand the justification, the redemption of the flesh, rehabilitation de Ia chair!

Grand words, involving a whole world of new relations between human beings; a world of health, a world of spirit, a 8 This is the earliPst record of Russian history. It heg-ins with the Deluge and continues in leisurely fashion up to the year 1 1 1 0. Nestor, of whom nothing is really known, is assumed to have been a monk of the twelfth century. ( Tr.)

9 B. P. Enfantin ( 1 796-1 864), a French engineer, was one of the founders of Saint-Simonism. (Tr.)

IO The Saint-Simonists were tried in 1 832, under Article 291 of the Criminal Code, brought into effect in 1 8 1 1 , for an offence against public morals. Herzen is thinking- of the philistinism and hypocrisy of this bourgeois Criminal Code. and also of the Civil Code of 1 804, which was re-namPd in 1 807 the 'Code Napoleon_'

II Herzen's i rony. The period of the July (Orleans) Monarchy was marked hy the extreme moral dissolu teness of the governing finnncial aristocracy. Moreover the July authorities accused the Saint-Simonists, who WPre preaching- a 'new religion' and the equality of the sexes, of immorality and of advocating the 'community of women_'

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world of beauty, the world of natural morality, and therefore of moral purity. Many scoffed at the emancipated woman and at the recognition of the rights of the flesh, giving to those words a filthy and vulgar meaning; our monastically depraved imagination fears the flesh, fears woman. Sensible people grasped that the purifying baptism of the flesh is the death-knell of Christianity; the religion of life had come to replace the religion of death, the religion of beauty to replace the religion of flagellation and mortification by prayer and fasting. The crucified body had risen again in its turn and was no longer ashamed of itself; man attained a harmonious unity and divined that he was a whole being and not made up like a pendulum of two different metals restraining each other, that the enemy that had been welded to him had disappeared.

What courage was needed in France to proclaim in the hearing of all those words of deliverance from the spirituality which is so strong in the notions of the French and so completely absent from their conduct!

The old world, ridiculed by Voltaire, undermined by the Revolution, but strengthened, patched up and made secure by the petit bourgeois for their own personal convenience, had never experienced this before. It wanted to judge the apostates on the basis of its secret conspiracy of hypocrisy, but these young men unmasked it. They were accused of being backsliders from Christianity, and they pointed above their judge's head to the holy picture that had been veiled after the Revolution of 1830.

They were charged with justifying sensuality, and they asked their judge, was his life chaste?

The new world was pushing at the door, and our hearts and souls opened wide to meet it. Saint-Sirponism lay at the foundation of our convictions and remained so in its essentials unalterably.

Impressionable, genuinely youthful, we were easily caught up in its mighty current and passed early over that boundary at which whole crowds of people remain standing with their arms folded, go back or look to the side for a ford-to cross the ocean!

But not everyone ventured with us. Socialism and realism remain to this day the touchstones flung on the paths of revolution and science. Groups of swimmers, tossed up against these rocks by the current of events or by process of reasoning, immediately divide and make two everlasting parties which, in various disguises, cut across the whole of history, across all

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1 1 6

upheavals, across innumerable political parties and even circles of no more than a dozen youths. One stands for logic, the other for history; one for dialectics, the other for embryogeny. One i s more correct, the other more practical.

There can be no talk of choice; it is harder to bridle thought than any passion, it leads one on involunta rily; anyone who can check it by emotion, by a dream, by fear of consequences, will check it, but not all can. If thought gets the upper hand in any one. he does not inquire about its applicability, or whether it will make things easier or harder; he seeks the truth, and inexorably, impartially sets out his principles, as the Saint

Simonists did at om• time, as Proudhon does to this day.

Our circle drew in still closer. Even then, in 1 833, the Liberals looked at us a skance, as having strayed from the true path. Just before we went to prison Saint-Simonism set up a barrier between N. A. Polevoy and me. Polevoy was a man of an unusually ingenious and actin mind, which readily assimilated every kind of nutriment; he was born to be a journalist, a chronicler of successes, of discoveries, of political and learned controversies.

I made his acquaintance at the end of my time at the university-and was sometimes in his house and at his brother Ksenofont's. This was the time when his reputation was at its highest, the period just before the prohibition of the Telegraph.

This man who lived in the most recent discovery, in the question of the hour. in the latest novelty in theories and in events, and who changed like a chameleon, could not, for all the liveliness of his mind, understand Saint-Simonism. For us Saint

Simonism was a revelation, for him it was insanity, a vain Utopia, hindering social development. To all my rhetoric, my expositions and arguments, Polevoy was deaf; he lost his temper and grew splenetic. Opposition from a student was particularly annoying to him, for he greatly prized his influence on the young, and saw in this dispute that it was slipping away from him.

On one occasion, affronted by the absurdity of his objections, I observed that he was just as old-fashioned a Conservative as those against whom he had been fighting all his life. Polevoy was deeply offended by my \vords and, shaking his head, said to me:

'The time 'viii come wlwn you will be rewarded for a whole life-time of toil and effort by some young man's saying with a smile, "Be off, you are behind the times." '

I fel t sorry for him and ashamed of having hurt his feelings, but at the same time I felt that his sentence could be heard in

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1 1 7

his melancholy words. They were no longer those of a mighty champion, but of a superannuated gladiator who has served his time. I realised then that he would not advance, and would be incapable of standing still at the same point with a mind so active and on such unstable footing.

You know what happened to him afterwards: he set to work upon his Parasha, the Siberian.12

What luck a timely death is for a man \vho can neither leave the stage at the right moment nor move forward. I have thought that looking at Polevoy, looking at Pius IX, and at many others!

Appendix :

A. Polezlzct r

l/

et ,

To coMPLETE the gloomy record of that period, I ought to add a few details about A. Polezhayev.

As a student, Polezhayev was renowned for his excellent verses. Amongst other things he \\Tote a humorous parody of Onegin called Sashka in which, regardless of proprieties, he tilted at many things in a jesting tone, in very pleasant wrses.

In the autumn of 1826 1'\icholas, a fter hanging Peste!, Muravev, and their friends, celebrated his coronation in :Moscow. For other sovereigns these ceremonies are occasions for amnesties and pardons: Nicholas, after celebrating his apotheosis, proceeded again to 'strike do\vn the foes of the father-land,' like Robespierre after his Fctc-Dieu.

The secret police brought him Polezhayev's poem.

And so at three o'clock one night the Rector woke Polezhayev, told him to put on his uniform and go to the office. There the Director was a\vaiting him. After looking to see that all the necessary buttons \vere on his uniform and no unnecessary ones, he, invited Polezhayev without any explanation to get i�to his carriage and drove cff with him.

He conducted him to thP Minister of Public Instruction. The latter put Polezhayev imo his carriage and he too drove him off-but this time straight to the Tsar.

12 A translation of La Jeune Sibh-ienne ( 1 825 ) by Xavier de 1\Iaistre, who had known Parasha in St. Petersburg. ( R. from private information.)

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Prince Lieven1 left Polezhayev in the great room-where several courtiers and higher officials were already waiting although it was only between five and six in the morning-and went into the inner apartments. The courtiers imagined that the young man had distinguished himself in some way and at once entered into conversation with him. A senator suggested that he might give lessons to his son.

Polezhayev was summoned to the study. The Tsar was standing leaning on his desk and talking to Lieven. He flung an angry, searching glance at the newcomer; there was a manuscript-book in his hand.

'Did you write these verses?' he inquired.

'Yes,' answered Polezhayev.

'Here, prince,' the Tsar continued, 'I will give you a specimen of university education. I wi ll show you what young men learn there. Read the manuscript aloud,' he added, addressing Polezhayev again.

The agitation of Polezhayev was so great that he could not read. Nicholas's eyes were fixed immovably upon him. I know them and know nothing so terrifying, so hopeless, as those greyish, colourless, cold, pewtery eyes.

'I cannot,' said Polezhayev.

'Read ! ' shouted the imperial sergeant-major.

That shout restored Polezhayev's facultiPs; he opened the book. Never, he told us, had he seen Sashka so carefully copied and on such splendid paper.

At first it was hard for him to read; then as he got more and more into the spirit of the thing, he read the poem to the end in a loud and lively voice. At particularly cutting passages the Tsar made a sign with his hand to the Minister and the latter covered his Pyes with horror.

'What do you say to that?' Nicholas inquired at the end of the reading. 'I shall put a stop to this corruption ; these are the last traces, the last remnants; I shall root them out. \'Vhat has his conduct been? '

The Minister, o f course, knew nothing o f his conduct, but somP human fPeling must ha vp stirred in him, for he said:

'His conduct has bPPn Pxcel lent, your :Ylajesty.'

'That testimonial has sawd you, but you must be punished, as an example to otlwrs. \Vould you likP to go into the army?'

1 Th,• :\IinistPr of Public I nstnu lion n t this time was not K . A. LiPven hut A. S. Shishkov. (/I.S. )

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1 1 9

Polezhayev was silent.

'I give you a means of purging yourself by sernce m the army. Well?'

'I must obey,' answered Polezhayev.

The Tsar went up to him, laid his hand on his shoulder, and saying to him,

'Your fate is in your own hands; if I forget you you may write to me,' kissed him on the forehead.

I made Polezhayev repeat the story of the kiss a dozen times, it seemed to me so incredible. He swore that it was true.

From the Tsar he was led off to Dibich, ,.,·ho lived on the spot in the palace. Dibich was asleep; he was awakened, came out yawning, and, after reading the paper, asked the aide-de-camp:

'Is this he?'

'Yes, your Excellency.'

'Well! it's a capital thing; you will serve in the army. I have ah.,·ays been in the army, and you see what I've risen to, and maybe you'll be a field-marshal.'

This misplaced, feeble, German joke was Dibich's equivalent of a kiss. Polezhayev was led off to the camp and enlisted.

Three years passed. Polezhayev remembered the Tsar's words and wrote him a letter. No answer came. A few months later he wrote a second; again there was no answer. Convinced that his letters did not reach the Tsar, he ran away, and ran away in order to present his petition in person. He behaved carelessly, his old friends in Moscow and was entertained by them ; of course, that could not be kept secret. In Tver he was seized and sent back to his regiment as a deserter, on foot and in chains.

The court-martial condemned him to run the gauntlet ; the sentence was despatched to the Tsar for confirmation.

Polezhayev wanted to kill himself before the punishment.

After searching in vain in his prison for a sharp instrument, he confided in an old soldier who liked him. The soldier understood him and respected his wishes. When the old man learned that the answer had come, he brought him a bayonet and, as he gave him it, said through his tears:

'I have sharpened it myself.'

The Tsar ordered Polezhayev not to be punished.

Then it was that he wrote his fine poem beginning: I perished lonely,

No help was nigh.

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My evil genius

Passed mocking by.2

Polezhayev was sent to the Caucasus. There for distinguished service he was promoted to be a non-commissioned officer. Years and years passed ; his inescapable, dreary situation broke him down; become a police poet and sing the glories of Nicholas he could not, and that was the only way of getting rid of the knapsack.

There was, however, another means of escape, and he preferred it; he drank to win forgetfulness. There is a frightening poem of his, 'To John Barleycorn.'

He succeeded in getting transferred to a regiment of the Carabineers stationed in Moscow. This was a considerable alleviation of his lot, but a malignant consumption was already eating away his chest. It was at this period that I made his acquaintance, about 1 833. He languished for another four years and died in a military hospital.

When one of his friends appeared to ask for the body for burial, no one knew where it was; a military hospital traffics in corpses-sells them to the university and to the Medical Academv, boils them down to skeletons, and so on. At last he found po�r Polezhayev's body in a cellar; it was lying under a heap of others and the rats had gnawed off one foot.

After his death his poems were published, and his portrait in a private's uniform was to have been included in the edition. The censor thought this unseemly, and the poor martyr was portrayed with the epaulettes of an officer-he had been promoted in the hospital.

2 Translated by Juliet Soskice.

P R I S O N

A N D

E X I L E

( 1 8 3 4 - 1 8 3 8 )

Ogaret,,'s Arrest

'Taken? What do you mean?' I asked, jumping out of bed and feeling my head to make sure that I was awake.

'The politsmeyster came in the night with the district policeman and Cossacks, about two hours after you left, seized all the papers and took Nikolay Platonovich away.'

It was Ogarev's valet speaking. I could not imagine what pretext the police had invented : of late everything had been quiet. Ogarev had arrived only a day or two before . . . and why had they taken him and not me?

It was impossible to fold my arms and do nothing; I dressed and went out of the house with no definite purpose. This -.,vas the first misfortune that had befallen me. I felt dreadful: I was tortured by my impotence.

As I wandered about the streets I thought, at last, of one friend whose social position made it possible for him to find out what was the matter and, perhaps, to help. He l ived terribly far away, in a summer villa beyond the Vorontsov Field; I got into the first cab I came across and galloped off to him. It was before seven in the morning.

I had made the acquaintance of --1 about eighteen months before; in his way he was a lion in Moscow. He had been educated in Paris, was wealthy, intelligent, cultured, witty, freethinking, had been in the Peter-Paul fortress over the affair of the Fourteenth of December and was among those set free; he had had no experience of exile, but the glory of the affair clung to him. He was in the government service and had great influence with the Governor-General, Prince Golitsyn, who was fond of men of a liberal way of thinking, particularly if they expressed their views fluently in French. The prince was not strong in Russian.

V-- was ten years older than we "\Vere, and surprised us by his practical remarks, his knowledge of political affairs, his French eloquence and the ardour of his Liberalism. He knew so much and in such detail, talked so pleasantly and so easily; his opinions were so firmly traced ; he had answers, good advice, I V. P. Zubkov. (A.S.)

1 25

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1 26

solutions for everything. He read everything, new novds, treatises, magazines, and poetry, was moreover a devoted student of zoology, wrote out schemes of reform for Prince Golitsyn and drew up plans for children's books.

His Liberalism was of the purest, trebly-distilled essence, of the left wing.

His study \vas hung \vith portraits of all the revolutionary celebrities. A whole library of prohibited books was to be found under this revolutionary ikonostasis. A skeleton, a few stuffed birds, some dried amphibians and entrails preser-ved in spirit, gave a serious tone of study and reflection to the too inflammatory character of the room.

We used to regard with envy his experience and knowledge of men; his delicate, ironical manner of arguing had a great influence on us. We looked upon him as a capable revolutionary, as a statesman in spe.

I did not find V-- at home: he had gone to to\vn overnight for an interview with Prince Golitsyn. His valet told me he would certainly be home within an hour and a half. I waited.

V--'s summer villa was a splendid one. The study in \vhich I sat waiting was a lofty, spacious room on the ground floor, and an immense door led to the verandah and into the garden. It was a hot day; the fragrance of trees and flowers came in from the garden and children were playing in front of the house with ringing laughter. vVealth, abundance, space, sunshine and shadO\v, flowers and greenery . . . while in prison it is cramped, stifling, dark. I do not know how long I had been sitting there absorbed in bitter thoughts, when suddenly the valet called me from the verandah with a peculiar animation.

'What is it?' I inquired.

'Oh, please, come here and look.'

I went out to the verandah, not to wound him by a refusal, and stood petrified. A \vhole semi-circle of houses were blazing, as though they had caught fire at the same moment. The fire was spreading with incredible rapidity.

I remained on the verandah; the valet gazed with a sort of nervous pleasure at the fire, saying:

'It's going splendidly. Look, that house on the right will catch fire ' l t will certainly catch ! '

A fire has some-thing revolutionary about i t ; i t laughs at property and levels ranks. The valet understood that instinctively.

Half an hour later half the horizon was covered with smoke,

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red below and greyish-black above. That day Lefortovo vo:as burned down. This was the beginning of a series of cases of incendiarism, which went on for five months; we shall speak of them again.

At last V-- arrived. He was in high spirits, pleasant and cordial; he told me about the fire by which he had driven and about the general belief that it was a case of arson, and added, half in jest:

'It's Pugachevshchina. You look: you and I won't escape; they'll stick us on a stake.'

'Before they put us on a stake,' I answered, 'I am afraid they will put us on a chain. Do you know that last night the police arrested Ogarev?'

'The police-what are you saying?'

'That's what I have come to you about. Something must be done; go to Prince Golitsyn, find out what it's about and ask permission for me to see him.'

Receiving no answer, I glanced at V.--, but where he had been it seemed as though an elder brother of his were sitting with a yellowish face and sunken features; he was groaning and greatly alarmed.

'What's the matter?'

'There, I told you ; I always said what it would lead to . . . .

Yes, yes, we ought to have expected it. There it is. I am not to blame in thought or in act but very likely they will put me in prison too, and that is no joking rna tter; I know what a fortress is like.'

'Will you go to the prince?'

'Goodness gracious me, whatever for? I advise you as a friend, don't even speak of Ogarev; keep as quiet as you can, or it will be the worse for you. You don't know how dangerous these things are ; my sincere advice is, keep out of it; do your utmost and you won't help Ogarev, but you will ruin yourself. That's what autocracy means-no rights, no defence; are the lawyers and judges any use?'

On this occasion I was not disposed to listen to his bold opinions and cutting criticisms. I took my hat and went away.

At home I found everything in a turmoil. Already my father was angry with me on account of Ogarev's arrest. Already the Senator was on the spot, rummaging among my books, taking away what he thought dangerous, and in a very bad humour.

On the table I found a note from M. F. Orlov inviting me to dinner. Could he not do something ior us? I was beginning to be

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discouraged by experience: still, there was no harm in trying and the worst I could get was a refusal.

Mikhail Fedorovich Orlov \vas one of the founders of the celebrated League of Welfare,2 and that he had not found himself in Siberia was not his own fault, but was due to his brother, who enjoyed the special friendship of Nicholas and had been the first to gallop with his Horse Guards to the defence of the Winter Palace on December the Fourteenth. Orlov was sent to his estate in the country, and a few years later was allowed to live in Moscow. During his solitary life in the country he studied political economy and chemistry. The first time I met him he talked of his new system of nomenclature on chemistry. All energetic people who begin studying a science late in life show an inclination to move the furniture about and rearrange it to suit themselves. His nomenclature was more complicated than the generally accepted French system. I wanted to attract his attention, and by way of captatio bcncvolentiae began to try to prove to him that his system was good, but the old one was better.

Orlov contested the point and then agreed.

My effort to please succeeded: from that time we were on intimate terms. He saw in me a rising possibility; I saw in him a veteran of our views, a friend of our heroes, a noble figure in our life.

Poor Orlov was like a lion in a cage. Everywhere he knocked himself against the bars; he had neither space to move nor work to do and was consumed by a thirst for actiYity.

After the fall of France I more than once met people of the same sort, people who were disintegrated by the craving for public activity and incapable of finding their true selves within the four walls of their study or in home life. They do not know how to be alone; in solitude they are attacked by the spleen, they 2 The Leag-ue of Public \\'elfare was formed in the reign of Alexander I to support philan thropic undertakings and education. to impro\'e the aclministriltion of justice. and to promote the economic welfare of the country. The best men in Russia belonged to it. At first approved by Alexander, it was afterwards repressed, and it split into the 'Union of the North.' which aimed at establ ishing constitutional go\'ernment, and the

' Union of the South' led hy Peste!, which aimed at republicanism. The two Unions combined in the at tempt of Decemb!'r the Fourteenth, 1 825.

( Tr.)

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1 29

become capricious, quarrel with their last friends, see intrigues against them on all hands, and themselves intrigue to reveal all these non-existent plots.

A stage and spectators are as necessary to them as the air they breathe; in the public view they really are heroes and will endure the unendurable. They have to be surrounded by noise, clamour and clash, they \vant to make speeches, to hear their enemies' replies, they crave the stimulus of struggle, the fever of danger, and without these tonics they are miserable, they pine, let themselves go and grow heavy, have an urge to break out, and make mistakes. Ledru-Rollin is one such, who, by the way, has a look of Orlov, particularly since he has grown moustaches.

Orlov was very handsome; his tall figure, fine carriage, handsome, manly features and completely bare skull, altogether gave an irresistible attractiveness to his a ppearance. The upper half of his body \vas a match to that of A. P. Yermolov, whose frowning, quadrangular brow, thick thatch of grey hair, and eyes piercing the distance gave him that beauty of the warrior chieftain, grown old in battles, which won Maria Kochubey's heart i n Mazeppa.

Orlov was so bored that he did not know what to begin upon.

He tried founding a glass factory, in which medireval stained glass was made, costing him more than he sold it for; and began writing a book 'On Credit'-no, that was not the way his heart yearned to go, and yet it was the only way open to him. The lion was condemned to \Vander idly between the Arhat and Basmannaya Street, not even daring to let his tongue run freely.

It was a mortal pity to see Orlov endeavouring to become a learned man, a theorist. His intelligence was clear and brilliant, but not at all speculative, and he got confused among newly invented systems for long-familiar subjects-like his chemical nomenclature. He was a complete failure in everything abstract, but went in for metaphysics with intense obstinacy.

Careless and incontin!'nt of speech, he was continually making mistakes; carried away by his first impression, which was always chivalrously lofty, he would suddenly remember his position and turn back half way. He was an even greater failure in these diplomatic count!'rmarches than in metaphysics and nomenclature ; and, having got his legs tangled in the traces once, he would do it t\vo or three times more in trying to get clear. He was blamed for this; people are so superficial and inattentive that they look more to words than to actions, and attach more weight to separate mistakes than to the combination

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1 30

of the whole character. What is the use of blaming, from the rigorous viewpoint of a Regulus, a man? One must blame the sorry environment in which any noble feeling must be communicated, like contraband, under ground and behind locked doors ; and, if one says a word aloud, one is wondering all day how soon the police will come . . . .

There was a large party at the dinner. I happened to sit beside General Rayevsky, the brother of Orlov's wife. He too had been in disgrace since the Fourteenth of December; the son of the celebrated N. N. Rayevsky, he had as a boy of fourteen been with his brother at Borodino by his father's side; later on he died of wounds in the Caucasus. I told him about Ogarev, and asked him whether Orlov could do anything and whether he would care to.

A cloud came over Rayevsky's face: it was not the look of tearful self-preservation ,...-hich I had seen in the morning, but a mixture of bitter memories and repulsion.

'There is no question here of caring or not caring,' he answered, 'only I doubt whether Orlov can do much ; after dinner go to the study and I will bring him to you. So then,' he added after a pause, 'your turn has come, too; everyone will be dragged down into that slough.'

After questioning me, Orlov ''Tote a letter to Prince Golitsyn asking for an interview.

'The prince,' he told me, 'is a very decent man ; if he doesn't do anything, he will at least tell us the truth.'

Next day I went for an answer. Prince Golitsyn said that Ogarev had been arrested by order of the Tsar, that a committee of inquiry had been appointed, and that the material occasion had been some supper on the 24th June at \vhich seditious songs had been sung. I could make nothing of it. That day was my father's name-day; I had spent the whole day at home and Ogarev had been with us.

It was with a heavy heart that I left Orlov; he, too, was troubled; when I gave him my hand he stood up, embraced me, pressed me warmly to his broad chest and kissed me.

It was as though he felt that we were parting for long years.

I only saw him once afterwards, eight years later. His light was flickering out. The look of illness on his face, the melancholy and a sort of new angularity in it struck me; he was gloomy, was conscious that he was breaking up, knew things were all going wrong-and saw no way out. Two months later he died-the blood congealed in his veins.

Prison and Exile

1 3 1

. . . There i s a wonderful monument3 a t Lucerne ; carved by Thorwaldsen in the living rock. A dying lion is lying in a hollow: he is wounded to death; the blood is streaming from a wound in which the fragment of an arrow is sticking; he has laid his gallant head upon his paw, he is moaning, there is a look in his eyes of unbearable pain; all round it is empty, with a pond below, all this shut in by mountains, trees, and greenery; people pass by without seeing that here a royal beast is dying.

Once after sitting some time on a sPat facing the stone agony, I was suddenly reminded of my last visit to Orlov . . . .

Driving home from Orlov's, I passed the house of the oberpolitsmcpter,4 and the idea occurred to me of asking him openly for permission to see Ogarev.

I had never in my life been in the house of a police official.

I was kept waiting a long time; at last the oberpolitsmeyster came In.

My request surprised him.

'What grounds have you for asking this permission?'

'Ogarev is my kinsman.'

'Your kinsman?' he asked, looking straight into my face.

I did not answer, but I, too, looked straight into his Excellency's face.

'I cannot give you permission,' he said; 'your kinsman is au secret. Very sorry!'

UncE-rtainty and inactivity were killing me. Hardly any of my friends WE're in town ; I could find out absolutely nothing. It seemed as though the police had forgotten or overlooked me. It was very, very drE-ary. But just when the whole sky was overcast with grey storm-clouds and the long night of exile and prison was approaching, a ray of light shont: down on me.

A few words of deep sympathy, uttered by a girl of st:venteen whom I had looked upon as a child, brought me to life again.

For the first time in my story a woman's figure5 appears . . .

and properly one single woman's figure appears throughout my life.

The passing fancies of youth and spring that had troubled my soul 'paled and vanished before it, like pictures in the mist; and no fresh ones came.

3 The monument was raised in 1 82 1 to the nH'mory of the Swiss Guards who fell in the defence of the Tuileries in l i92. (A.S. ) 4 Oberpolits(ey) meptN (Oberpoli::eimcistrr) , the senior police-officer in Petersburg or Moscow. ( R.)

5 Natalya AlexandrO\·na Zakharin. Herzen's first cousin and wife. (R.)

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\Ve met in a graveyard. She stood leaning against a tombstune and spoke of Ogarcv, and my grief was put away.

'Till to-morrow,' she said and gave me her hand, smiling through her tears.

'Till to-morrow,' I answered . . . and stood a long time looking after her disappearing figure.

That \vas the nineteenth of July 1834.

J11r·

l/

Arrest

'TILL TO-i'IORRow,' I repeated, as J fell asleep . . . . I felt uncommonly light-hearted and happy.

Between one and two in the morning1 my father's valet woke me; he was not dressed and \vas frightened.

'An officer is asking for you.'

'\Vhat officer?'

'I don't kno\v.'

'\V£>ll, I do,' I told him and threw on my dressing-gown.

In the doorway of the great hall a figure was standing wrapped in a military greatcoat; by the window I saw a \Yhite plume, and th£>re were other persons behind-1 made out the cap of a Cossack.

It was the politsmentcr, Miller.

He told me tha t by an order of the military Governor-General, which he held in his hand, he must look through my papers.

Candles were brought. The politsmcyster took my keys; the district police superintendent and his lieutenant began rummaging among my books and my linen. Th� politsmeyster busied hims£>lf among my papers; everything s£>emed suspicious to him ; he laid everything on one side and suddenly turned to me and said:

'I must ask you to dress meanwhile ; you'll come along with me.'

'\\'h£>re to?' I asked.

'To tlw Prechi�tenskv police station,' answered the politsmcyster in a soothing voice.

'And then? '

1 O f 2 1 s t July. 1 83+. ( A .S.)

Prison and Exile

1 33

'There is nothing more in the Governor-General's order.'

I began to dress.

Meanwhile the frightened servants had woken my mother. She rushed out of her bedroom and was coming to my room, but was stopped by a Cossack at the doors between the drawing-room and the salon. She uttered a shriek: I shuddered and ran to her.

The politsmeyster left the papers and came with me to the salon.

He apologised to my mother, let her pass, swore at the Cossack, who was not to blame, and went back to the papers.

Then my father came up. He was pale but tried to maintain his studied indifference. The scene was becoming painful. My mother sat in the corner, weeping. My old father spoke of indifferent matters with the politsmeyster, but his voice shook. I was afraid that I could not stand this for long and did not want to afford the local police superintendent the satisfaction of seeing me in tears.

I pulled the politsmeyster by the sleeve,

'Let us go!'

'Let us go,' he said gladly.

My father went out of the room and returned a minute later.

He brought a l ittle ikon and put it round my neck, saying that his father had given it to him with his blessing on his deathbed.

I was touched: this religious gift showed me the degree of fear and shock in the old man's heart. I knelt down while he was putting it on; he helped me up, embraced me and blessed me.

The ikon was a picture in enamel of the head of John the Baptist on a charger. What this was-example, advice, or prophecy?-! do not know, but the significance of the ikon struck me.

My mother was almost unconscious.

All the servants accompanied me down the staircase weeping and rushing to kiss my cheek or my hands. I felt as though I were present at my own funeral. The politsmeyster scowled and hurried me on.

When we went out at the gate he collected his detachment; he had with him four Cossacks, two police superintendents and two ordinary policemen.

'Allov; me to go home,' a man with a beard who was sitting in front of the gate asked the politsmcyster.

'You can go,' said Miller.

'What man is that?' I asked, getting into the drozhki.

'The impartial witness; you know that without an impartial witness the police cannot enter a houso.'

M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S

1 34

'Then why did you leave him outside the gate?'

'It's a mere form ! It's simply keeping the man out of bed for nothing,' observed Miller.

vVe drove off accompanied by two Cossacks on horseback.

There was no special room for me in the police station. The politsmepter directed that I should be put in the office until morning. He took me there himself; he flung himself in an easychair and, yawning vvearily, muttered:

'It's a damnable service. I've been on the jump since three o'clock in the afternoon, and here I've been bothered with you till morning. I bet i t's past three already and to-morrow I must go with the report at nine.

'Good-bye,' he added a minute later, and \Vent out.

A non-commissioned officer locked me in, observing that if I needed anything I could knock a t the door.

I opened the \vindow. The day was already beginning and the morning wind was rising; I asked the non-commissioned officer for water and drank off a whole jugful. There was no thinking of sleep. Besides, there was nowhere to lie down; apart from the dirty leather chairs and one easy-chair, thPre was nothing in the office but a big table heaped up with papers and in the corner a little table with still more heaped up on it. A poor nightlight did not light the room, but made a flickering patch of light on the ceiling that grew paler and paler with the dawn.

I sat down in the place of the police superintendent and took up the first paper that was lying on the table, a document relating to the funeral of a serf of Prince Gagarin's and a medical certificate that he had died according to all the rules of science. I picked up another-it was a set of police regulations. I ran through it and found a paragraph which stated that 'Every arrested man has the right within three days after his arrest to know the reason for it or to be released.' I noted this paragraph for my own benefit.

An hour later I saw through the window our major domo bringing me a pillow, bedclothes, and a greatcoat. He asked the non-commissioned officer something, probably permission to come in to me; he was a grey-headed old man, to two or three of whose children I had stood godfather as a small boy. The noncommissioned officer gave him a rough and abrupt refusal; one of our coachmen was standing ncar; I shouted to them from the window. The non-commissioned officer fussed about and told them to take themselves off. The old man bowed to the waist to me and shed tears; the coachman, as he whipped up the horse,

Prison and Exile

1 35

took off his hat and wiped his eyes, the drozhki rattled away and my tears fell in streams. My heart was brimming over; these were the first and last tears I shed while I was in prison.

Towards morning the office began to fill up; the clerk arrived still drunk from the day before, a consumptive-looking individual with red hair, a look of brutal vice on his pimply face. He wore a very dirty, badly-cut, shiny, brick-red dress-coat. After him another extremely free-and-easy individual arrived, in a non-commissioned officer's greatcoat. He at once addressed me with the question:

'Were you taken at the theatre, sir, or what?'

'I was arrested at home.'

'Did Fedor Ivanovich himself arrest you?'

'Who's Fedor I vanovich?'

'Colonel Miller.'

'Yes.'

'I understand, sir.' He winked to the red-haired man who showed no interest whatever. He did not continue the conversation-he saw that I had been taken neither for disorderly conduct nor drunkenness, and so lost all interest in me; or perhaps was afraid to enter into conversation with a dangerous prisoner.

Not long afterwards various sleepy-looking police officials made their appearance and then came petitioners and litigants.

The keeper of a brothel brought a complaint against the owner of a beer-shop, that he had publicly abused her in his shop in such language as, being a woman, she could not bring herself to utter before the police. The shopkeeper swore that he had never used such language. The madam swore that he had uttered the words more than once and very loudly, and added that he had raised his hand against her and that, if she had not ducked, he would have laid her whole face open. The shopkeeper declared that, in the first place, she had not paid what she owed him, and, in the second, had insulted him in his o"vn shop and, what was more, threatened that he should be thrashed within an inch of his life by her followers.

The brothel-keeper, a tall, untidy woman with puffy eyes, screamed in a loud, piercing voice and was extremely garrulous.

The man made more use of mimicry and gesture than of words.

The police Solomon, instead of judging between them, cursed them both like a trooper.

'The dogs are too well fed, that's why they run mad,' he said ;

'they should sit quiet at home, the beasts, seeing we say nothing

M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S

1 36

and leave them in peace. \\·hat an opinion they have of themselves! They quarrel and run at once to trouble the police. And you're a fine lady! as though it WPre the first time-what's one to call you if not a bad word, with the trade you follow?'

The shopkeeper shook his head and shrugged his shoulders to express his profound gratification. The police officer at once pounced upon him and said :

'V\.hat do you go barking from behind your counter for, you dog? Do you want to go to the lock-up? You're a foul-tongued brute! Raise your paw any more-do you want a taste of the birch, eh?'

For me this scene had all the charm of novelty and it remained imprinted on my memory for ever; it was the first case of patriarchal Russian justice I had seen.

The brothel-keeper and the police officpr continued shouting until the police superintrndent came in. \Vithout inquiring why these people \vere there or \vhat they ,..,·anted, he shouted in a still more savage voice:

'Get out, be off! This isn't a public bath or a pot-house! '

Having driven 'the scum' out h e turned to the police officer:

'You ought to be ashamed to allow such a disturbance! How many timPs I havp told you ? Respect for the place is being lost.

After this rvery sort of riff-raff will turn it into a perfect Sodom.

You nre too easy-going with these scoundrrls. \Vhat man is this?'

he n sked about me.

'A prisoner brought in by FPdor Ivanovich. sir. Here is the document.'

The suprrintendent rnn through the document, looked nt me, met with disa pproval thr direct and unflinching gaze which I fiXf'd upon him. prepared at the first word to give as good as I got. and said 'Excuse me.'

The affair of the brothel-keeper and the be<>r-shop man began again. She insistPrl on mnking a deposition on oath. A priest arrived. I believe the:· both made sworn statements; I did not see the end of it. I was tak<>n awav to tlw ohrrpolitsmcntcr's. I do not know why : no one said a word to me ; then I \vas brought back again to the pol ice station. wherP a room had bePn prepared for m!' unrl<>r the watch towPr. The non-commissioned officer observc>d that if I want<>d am·thing to c>at I must sPnd out to buy it, that mv governmPnt ration had not he<>n allottPd yet and that it would not hP for another two days or so; moreover, that it consisted of thrPP or four kopPcks of silver and that the bcttcrrlass priwrwrs did not claim it.

TherP was a dirty sofa standing by the wall; it \vas past

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1 3 7

midday: I felt fearfully tired, flung myself on the sofa and slept like the dead. When I woke up, all was quiet and serene in my heart. I had been \vorn out recently by uncertainty about Ogarev; now my turn too had come. The danger was no longer far off, but was all about me; the storm-cloud was overhead. This first persecution was to be our consecration.

I mprison1nent

A MAN soon becomes used to prison, if onlv he has some inner resources. One quickly becomes used to the peace and complete freedom in one's cage-no anxieties, no distractions.

At first, I was not allo,wcl any books; the superintendent assured me that it \Vas forbidden to get books from home. I asked him to buy me some. 'Something instructive, a grammar now, I might get, perhaps, but for anything else you must ask the general.' The suggestion that I should while away the time by reading a grammar was immensely funny, nevertheless I seized it with both hands, and asked the superintendent to buy me an Italian grammar and lexicon. I had two reel twenty-five rouble notes with me, and I gave him one ; he at once sent an officer for the books and gave him a letter to the obcrpolitsmeystcr in

\vhich, on the strength of the paragraph I had read, I asked him to let me know the reason for my arrest or to release me.

The local superintendent, in whose presence I wrote the letter, tried to persuade me not to send it.

'It's a mistake, sir, upon my soul, it's a mistake to trouble the general ; he'll say "they arc restless people," it will do you harm and be no use whatever.'

In the evening the policeman appeared and told me that the obcrpolitsmcyster had bidden him tell me verbally that I should kno\v the reason for my arrest in clue time. Then he pulled out of his pocket a greasy Italian grammar, and added, smiling, 'It luckily happem•d that there was a voo.bulary in it so there was no need to buy a lexicon.' Not a word was said about the change.

I should havP liked to write to the oberpolitsme,rstcr aga in, but the role of a miniature Hampden at the Prechistensky police station struck me as too funny.

Ten days after my arrest a little s\varthy, pock-marked police-

M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S

1 38

man appeared some time after nine in the evening with an order for me to dress and set off to the commission of inquiry.

While I was dressing the following ludicrously vexatious incident occurred. My dinner was being sent me from home. A servant gave it to the non-commissioned officer on duty below and he sent it up to me by a soldier. It was permitted to let in for me from home half a bottle to a whole bottle of wine a day.

N. Sazonov took advantage of this permission to send me a bottle of excellent Johannisberg. The soldier and I ingeniously uncorked the bottle with two nails; one could smell the bouquet some distance away. I looked forward to enjoying it for the next three or four days.

One must be in prison to know how much childishness remains in a man and what comfort can be found in trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick at the expense of one's guard.

The pock-marked policeman sniffed out my bottle and turning to me asked permission to taste a little. I was vexed ; however, I said that I should be delighted. I had no wine-glass. The monster took a tumbler, filled it incredibly full and drank it down without taking breath; this way of pouring down spirits and wine only exists among Russians and Poles; in the whole of Europe I have seen no other people empty a tumbler at a gulp, or who could toss off a wine-glassful. To make the loss of the wine still more bitter, the pock-marked policeman wiped his lips with a snuffy blue handkerchief, adding 'First-class Madeira.' I looked at him with hatred and spitefully rejoiced that he had not been vaccinated and nature had not spared him the smallpox.

This connoisseur of wines conducted me to the oberpolitsmeyster's house in Tverskoy Boulevard, showed me into a sideroom and left me there alone. Half an hour later a stout man with a lazy, good-natured air came into the room from the inner apartments; he threw a portfolio of papers on to a chair and sent the gendarme standing at the door away on some errand.

'I suppose,' he said to me, 'you are concerned with the case of Ogarev and the other young men who have lately been arrested?'

I said I was.

'I happened to hear about it,' he went on ; 'it's an odd business: I don't understand it at all.'

'I've been a fortnight in prison in connection with the affair and I don't understand it at all, and, what's more, I simply know nothing about it.'

'A good thing, too,' he said, looking intently at me; 'and mind you don't know anything about it. You must forgive me if I give

Prison and Exile

1 39

you a bit of advice; you're young, your blood is still hot, you long to speak out: that's the trouble. Don't forget that you know nothing about it: that's the only way to safety.'

I looked at him in surprise: his face expressed nothing evil ; he guessed what I felt and said with a smile,

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

A clerk of some sort came in; the stout man addressed him and, after giving him his orders, went out with a friendly nod to me, putting his finger on his lips. I never met the gentleman afterwards and I do not know who he was, but I found out the genuineness of his advice.

Then a politsmeyster came in, not Miller, but another, called Tsynsky, and summoned me to the commission. In a large, rather handsome room five men were sitting at a table, all in military uniform, with the exception of one decrepit old man.

They were smoking cigars and gaily talking together, lolling in easy chairs, with their uniforms unbuttoned. The oberpolitsmcystcr presided.

When I \vent in, he turned to a figure sitting meekly in a corner, and said,

'If you please, Father.'

Only then I noticed that there was sitting in a corner an old priest with a grey beard and a reddish-blue face. The priest was half-asleep and yawning with his hand over his mouth; his mind was far away and he was longing to get home. In a drawling, somewhat chanting voice he began admonishing me, talking of the sin of concealing the truth before the persons appointed by the Tsar, and of the uselessness of such dissimulation considering the all-hearing ear of God; he did not even forget to refer to the eternal texts, that 'there is no power but of God' and 'to Cresar the things that arc Cresar's.' In conclusion he said that I must put my lips to the Gospel and the honourable Cross in confirmation of the oath (which, however, I had not given, and he did not require ) sincerely and candidly to reveal the whole truth.

When he had finished he began hurriedly wrapping up the Gospel and the Cross. Tsynsky, barely rising from his seat, told him that he could go. After this he turned to me and translated the s-piritual speech into secular language:

'I will add only one thing to the priest's words-it is impossible for you to deny the charge, even if you wanted to.'

He pointed to the heaps of papers, letters, and portraits which were intentionally sca ttered about the table.

'Only a frank admission can mitign�e your lot; to be at liberty, or Bobruysk, or in the Caucasus, depends on yourself.'

M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S

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The questions were put to me in writing: the naivete of seme of them was striking: 'Do you not know of the existence of some secret society? Do you not hPlong to any society, literary or other? \Yho arc its members? V\'here do they meet?'

To all this it was extremely easy to answer by the single word: 'No.'

'I see you know nothing,' said Tsynsky after looking through tlw answer·s. 'I have warned you, you are making your position more cou: plicated.'

\\'ith that the first examination ended.

A wet>k or two lat(•r the pock-marked pol icPman came and took me to Tsynsky again. In the lobby several mt>n in fetters were sitting or lying down, SUJToundt>d by soldiers with rifles; i n the an te-room also tht>n• were several men of different classes, not chaint>d but strictly guanled. The polict>men told me that they were all ince>nd iaries. Tsvnsky was out at the fire and we had to await his return. \Vp ha-d ar�iwd hetwePn nine> and ten in the P\'Pninp;: no onP had askPd for me by onP o'clock in tlw morning.

and I was still sitting verv quietly in thP ante>-room with the incPndiariPs. First one and then anotlwr of them was sent for.

thP policP ran backwards and forwards, chains clanked. and tlw sold iPrs wPre so hore>d that tlwy rattl ed their rifle>s and did armsdrill. About orw o'clock Tsynsky arl"ived, sooty and grimy, and lmrriPd stra ight through to his study without stopping. Half an hour pa ss!'d and my poli ce>man was sent for: he> came> hack looking palP and out of countenancP, with his face twitching convuls i n•lv. Tsvnsky poked his head out of the door after him and said:

'Tiw whole commission has been waiting for you all the Pwning, l\lonsieur HPrzen ; this blockhead brought you her£'

wlwn you wPre wnnted at Prince Goli tsyn's. I am very sorry you haw had to wait lwre so long. but it is not my fault. Wha t is one to do \vi th surh subord inates? I bPliPw hr has been fifty years in the sPrvice nnd lw is still an id iot. Come. lw off home now.' he addP(L changing to a much ruder tonP as he addre>ssed the pol icPman.

Tiw l i ttle man rPp(•atPd all the way:

'0 Lord. what n ralnmin· 1 a man hns no thought, no notion what \viii ha ppPII to him. l iP will he the dPath of me now. He wouldn't ra rl' a hit if vou had not bN•n expPCtPd tlwrP. hu t sinrP

vou \\'PrP of roursP it is a disgrace to him. 0 Lord. how unluck y ! '

I forgave him m y wine. pnrtiwlarly wlwn h e told mP thnt hP

llild not !wen nParly so frightPnPd when lw had hePn almost

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drowned ncar Lisbon as he was now. This last circumstance was so unexpected that I was overcome with senseless laughter.

'Good lord, how very strange! Hov...-ever did you get to Lisbon?'

The old man had been a ship's officer for twenty-five years or so. One cannot but agree with the minister who assured Captain Kopeykin1 that: 'It has never happened yet among us in Russia that a man \vho has deserved well of his country should be left a reward of some sort.' Fate had saved him a t Lisbon only to be abused by Tsynsky like a boy, after forty years' service.

He was scarcely to blame, either.

The commission of inquiry formed by the Governor-General did not please the Tsar; he appointed a new one presided over by Prince Sergey Mikhaylovich Golitsyn. The members of this commission were Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, the other Prince Golitsyn, Shubinsky, a colonel of gendarmes, and Oransky, an ex-auditor.

In the instructions from the oberpolitsmc!-sicr nothing was said about the commission's having been changed ; it was very natural that the policeman from Lisbon took me to Tsynsky . . . .

There \vas great alarm at the police station, too; there had bePn thrPe fires in one eHning-and the commission had sent twice to inquire what had become of me, and whether I had not escaped. Anything that Tsynsky hnd left unsnid in his abuse the police station superintendent mnde up now to the man from Lisbon; which, indeed, wns only to be expcctPd, since the superintendent \YilS himsdf pnrtly to blame, not having inquired where I was to lw sent. In a corner of the office someone was lying on somP chairs, gronning; I lookPd: it was a young man of hnndsome nppPnrnncc, Il<'atly dressed, who was spitting blood and sighing. The police doctor advised his being taken to the hospital as early as possiblP in the morning.

'Vhen the non-commissioned offic<'r took me to my room, I

<'Xtracted from him thP story of th<' wounded man. He was an exofficer of thP Guards, who had an intrigue with some '"!laidservant nne! had been with her when a wing of the house caught fire. This was the time of the greatest fright over arson; indeed, not a dny passed without my hef!ring the bell ring the alarm three or four times : from m:• windo·w I saw the glare of two or thrf'e fires <'Very nip;ht. Th<' police and the residents sought for the incendinries with great persistence. To avoid compromising the girl the officer climbed over the fence as soon ns the alarm I See Gogol's Dead Souls. ( Tr.)

M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S

1 42

was sounded, and hid in the stable of the next house, waiting for an opportunity to get away. A little girl who was in the yard saw him and told the first policeman who galloped up tha t the incendiary had hidden in the stable; they rushed in with a crowd of people and dragged the officer out in triumph. He was so thoroughly knocked about that he died next morning.

The people who had been captured began to be sorted out; a bout half were released, the others detained on suspicion. The politsmc;-stcr, Bryanchaninov, used to come over every morning and cross-examine them for three or four hours. Sometimes the victims were thrashed or beaten; then their wailing, screams, entreaties and howls, and the moaning of women reached me, together with the harsh voice of the politsmcystcr and the monotonous reading of the clerk. It was awful, intolerable. At night I dreamed of those sounds and woke in a frenzy at the thought that the victims were lying on straw only a few paces from me, in chains, with lacerated >Votmds on their backs, and in a ll probability quite innocent.

To know what the Russian prisons, the Russian lawcourts and the Russian police are like, one must be a peasant, a house-serf, an artisan or a town workman. Political prisoners, who for the most part belong to the upper class, are kept in close custody and punished savagely, but their fate bears no comparison with the fate of the poor. \\'ith them the police do not stand on ceremony.

To \Yhom can the peasant or the workman go afterwards to complainJ Where can he find justice?

So terrible is the confusion, the brutality, the arbitrariness and the corruption of Russian justice and of the Russian police tha t a man of the humbler class who falls into the hands of the law is more afraid of the process of law itself than of any legal punishment. He looks forward with impatience to the time when he will be sent to Siberi a ; his martyrdom ends with the beginning of his punishment. And now let us remember that three-quarters of the people taken up by the police on suspicion are released by the courts, and that they have passed through the same tortures as the guilty.

Peter III abolish(•cl torture and the Secret Chamber.

Catherine II abolished torture.

AlPxancler I abolistwd it agairz.

Answers given 'under intimidation' are not recognised by law.

Th e official who tortun•s an accused man renders himself liable to trial and severe punishment.

And yet all over Russia, from the Bering Straits to Taurogen,

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men are tortured ; where it is dangerous to torture by flogging, they are tortured by insufferable heat, thirst, and salted food. In Moscow the police put an accused prisoner with bare feet on a metal floor at a temperature of ten degrees of frost; he sickened, and died in a hospital which was under the supervision of Prince Meshchersky, who told the story with indignation. The government knows all this, the governors conceal it, the Senate connives at it, the ministers say nothing; the Tsar, and the synod, the landowners and the police all agree with Selifan:2 'Why riot thrash a peasant? A peasant sometimes needs a thrashing!'

The committee appointed to investigate the cases of incendiarism was investigating, that is, thrashing, for six months in a row, and had thrashed out nothing in the end. The Tsar was annoyed and ordered that the thing was to be finished in three days. The thing was finished in three days. Culprits were found and condemned to punishment by the knout, by branding, and by exile to penal servitude. The porters from all the houses were assembled to watch the terrible punishment of 'the incendiaries.'

By then it was winter and at that time I was being held at the Krutitsky Barracks. The captain of gendarmes, a good-natured old man who had been present at the punishment, told me the details, which I pass on. The first man condemned to the knout told the crowd in a loud voice that he swore he was innocent, that he did not know himself what the pain had forced him to answer; then taking off his shirt he turned his back to the crowd and said: 'Look, good Christians!'

A groan of horror ran through the crowd : his back was a darkblue striped wound, and on that wound he was to be beaten with the knout. The murmurs and gloomy aspect of the assembled people made the police hurry. The executioners dealt the legal number of blows, while others did the branding and others riveted fetters, and the business seemed to be finished. But thi s scene had impressed the inhabitants; in every circle in Moscow people were talking about it. The Governor-General reported upon it to the Tsar. The Tsar ordered a new trial to be held, and the case of the incendiary who had protested before his punishment to be particularly inquired into.

Several months aftenvards, I read in the papers that the Tsar, wishing to compensate two men

had been punished by the

knout, though innocent, ordered them to be given two hundred roubles a lash, and to be provided with a special passport testify-2 A character in Gogol's Dead Souls. ( Tr.)

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ing to their i nnocence in spi te of the branding. These two were the incendiary who had spoken to the crowd and one of his companions.

The affair of the fires in Moscovv in 1 8H, cases similar to

\vhich occurred ten years later in various provinces, remains a mystery. That the fires were caused by arson there i s no doubt; fi re, 'the red cock,' is in general a very national means of revenge among us. One is continually hearing of the burning by peasants of their owners· houses, barns, and granaries. but what· was the cause of the incendiarism in :\Iosco\v in 1 834 no one knows, and least of all the members of the commission of inquiry.

Before 22nd August, Coronation Day, some practical jokers dropped letters in various places in which they informed the inhabitants that they need not bother about illuminations, that the place would be lit up.

The cowardly lVIoscow authorities \vere in a great fluster. The polic(' station was filled with soldi('rs from early morning and a squadron of Uhlans \Wre stationed in the yard. In the evening patrols on horsPback anrl on foot were incessantly moving about the streets. Artillery was kept in r('arliness in the drill-shed.

Politsmcntcrs gal loped up and down with Cossacks and gendarmes. Prince Golitsvn himself rode about the town with his aidPs-de-camp. This �ilitar:v look of modest :\1oscow was odd, and affected the n('rws. Till late at night J lay by the window under mv

-

\Vatch- tower and look('d into thP vanl.

.

. . . ThP

Uhlans who hud bl•('n hurri('(] to the place were sitting in groups, near th('ir horses. and oth!'rs were mounting. Officers W!'re \valking about, looking disdainfull�· at the police; aides-decamp wi th yellow collars arrived continually. looking anxious and, a fter doing nothing, rode away aga in .

There were n o fires.

After this the Tsar himself came to l\1oscow. He was displeased with thP inquiry i n to our case which was only beginning. \vas displeas('d that we \Wre l('ft in the hands of the ordinar�· pol ic<', \vas displ('ased that the incendiaries had not be!'n found-in a word, h(' \Vas displeased with everything and ev<'rvone.

\\'p soon [('It His ;\lajesty's proximity.

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/{J ·zttitskJ· B{ll 'l '{tcks

TniiEE DAYS after the Tsar's arrival, late in the evening-all these things are done in darkness to avoid disturbing the publ ic-a polic!' offic!'r came to me with ordPrs to collect my belongings and go with him.

'Where to? ' I asked.

'You will see,' \vas th<' policeman's witty and polite reply.

After this, of cours!', I did not continue the conversation, but collPCt<'d my things and set off.

vVP drov<' on and on for an hour and a half. and at kngth we passed tht> Simonov l\1onastpry and stopped at a heavy stone gate, bdorp which two gendarnws \vith carbines were pacing up and down. This was the Krutitsky l\Ionastery, converted into a barracks for gendarmes.

I was led into a small office. Th<' clerks, th<' adjutants, the officprs \Yer!' all in light blue. The officer on duty, in a helmet and full uniform, asked me to wait a little and even suggested that I should l ight the pip<' I held in my hand. After this he proceeded to \\Tite a recPipt of having received a prisoner; gh·ing it to the policeman he \Wilt away and returned \vith another officer.

'Your room is rrady,' said th<' lattrr, 'let us go.'

A grndarme held a candl0 for us, and WC' \Writ down some sta irs and took a few stPps across th0 courtyard and passed through a small door into a long corridor lit by a single lantern; on both sides w0r0 littlP doors, one of which th0 officer on duty opPnrd; it l0d into a tiny guardroom b('y"ond which was a small, damp, cold room that sm<'l t like a cellar. The officer ·,vith an aiguill('ttC' who had conducted m<' then turnrd to me, saying in French that he was 'dcsolc d'arc dans Ia ncccssitr' of s('arching my pockets, but military· S('n·ic(', duty, obedience . . . . After this 0loqu('nt introduction. hr very simply turnrd to the grndarmr and indicated me with his eyes. The gendarme at onc('

thrust an incredibly large and hairy hand into my pocket. I obsrrvrd to thr court0ous officer that this was quite unnecessary, and that I would myself, if he liked, turn my pockets inside out without such violrnt measures; moreover, what could I have after six w('eks' imprisonment?

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'We know,' said the polite officer with an aiguillette, with a smile of inimitable self-complacency, 'how things are done at police stations.'

The officer on duty also smiled sarcastically. However, they told the gendarme he need only look. I pulled out everything I had.

'Pour your tobacco out on the table,' said the officer who was desole.

In my tobacco pouch I had a penknife and a pencil wrapped up in paper; from the very beginning I had been thinking about them and, as I talked to the officer, I played with the tobacco pouch, until I got the pPnkife into my hand. I hPld it through the material of the pouch, and boldly shook the tobacco out on the table. The gendarme poured it in again. The penknife and pencil wert' savPd ; so there was a lesson for the gendarme with the aiguillette for his proud disdain of the ordinary police.

This incident put me in the best of humours and I began gaily scrutinising my new domain.

Some of the monks' cells, built three hundred years before and sunk into the earth, had been turned into secular cells for political prisoners.

In my room there was a bedstead without a mattress, and a little table, with a jug of water on it, and a chair beside it. A thin tallow candle was burning in a big copper candlestick. The damp and cold pierced to one's bones; the officer ordered the stove to bf' lit, and then they all went away. A soldier promised to bring some hay; meanwhile, putting my greatcoat under my head, I lay down on the bare bedstead and lit my pipe.

A minute later I noticrd that the ceiling was covered with

'Prussian' beetlrs. They had seen no candle for a long time and were running from all directions to where the light fell, bustling about, jostling each other, falling on to the table, and then racing headlong, backwards and forwards, along the edge of it.

I dislikrd black beetles, as I did every sort of uninvited guest; my neighbours seemed to me horribly nasty, but there was nothing to be done: I could not begin by complaining about the black beetles and my nC'rves had to submit. Two or three days later, however, all the 'Prussians' had moved beyond the partition to the soldier's room, where it was warmer; only occasionally a stray beetle would sometimes run in, prick up his whiskers and scurry back to get warm.

Though I continually asked the gendarme, he still kept the stove closed. I began to feel unwell and giddy; I tried to get up

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and knock for the soldier; I did actually get up, but with this all that I remember comes to an end . . . .

When I came to myself I was lying on the floor with a splitting head ache. A tall grey-haired gendarme was standing with his arms folded, staring at me blankly, as in the well known bronze statuettes a dog stares at a tortoise.

'You have been finely suffocated, your honour,' he said, seeing that I had recovered consciousness. 'I've brought you horseradish with salt and kvas; I have already made you sniff it, now you must drink it up.'

I drank it, he lifted me up and laid me on the bed. I felt very ill ; there \vere double \vindo,,.,·s and no pane in them that opened; the soldier went to the office to ask permission for me to go into the yard ; the officer on duty told him to say that neither the colonel nor the adjutant was there, and that he could not take the responsibility. I had to remain in the room full of charcoal fumes.

I got used even to the Krutitsky Barracks, conjugating the Italian verbs and reading some wretched little books. At first my confinement was rather strict: at nine o'clock in the evening, at the last note of the bugle, a soldier came into my room, put out the candle and locked the door. From nine o'clock in the evening until eight next morning I had to remain in darkness. I have never been a great sleeper, and in prison, where I had no exercise, four hours' sleep was quite enough for me; and not to have a candle was a real punishment. Moreover, every quarter of an hour from each end of the corridor the sentries uttered a loud, prolonged shout, to show that they were awake.

A few weeks latt•r Colonel Semenov (brother of the celebrated actress, afterwards Princess Gagarin) allowed them to leave me a candle, forbade anything to be hung over the window, which was below the levd of the courtyard, so that the sentry could see everything that was being done in the cell, and gave orders that the sentries should not shout in the corridor.

Then the commandant gave us permission to have ink and to walk in the courtyard. Paper was given in a fixed amount on condition that none of the leaves should be torn. I was allowed once in twenty-four hours to walk, accompanied by a soldier and the officer on duty, in the yard, ,..-hich was enclosed by a fence and surrounded by a cordon of sentries.

Life passed quietly and monotonously; the military punctuality gave it a mechanical regularity like the ccesura in verse. I n the morning, with the assistance o f the gendarme, I prepared

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coffee on the stove; about ten o'clock the officer on duty appea!"ed in gauntlets with enormous cuffs, in a helmet and a greatcoat, clanking his sabre and bringing in \Vith him several cubic feet of frost. At one the gendarme brought a dirty napkin and a bowl of soup, 'vhich he always heid by the edge, so that his two thumbs were perceptibly cleaner than his fingers. vVe were tolerably well fed, but it must not bP forgotten that we \vere charged two paper roubles a day for our keep, which in the course of nine months' imprisonment ran up to a considerable sum for persons of no means. The father of one prisoner said quite simply that he had no money: he received the cool reply that it would be stopped out of his salary. If he had not been receiving a salary, it is extremely probable that he \vould have been put in prison.

I ought to add that a rouble and a half was sent to Colonel Semi.;nov at the barracks for our board from the commandant's office. There was almost a row about this; but the adjutants, who got the berwfit of it, presented the gendarmes' division with boxes for first performances and benefit nights, and with that the matter ended.

After sunset there followed a complete stillness, which was not disturbed at all by the footsteps of the soldier crunching over the snow just outside the window, nor by the far-away calls of the sentries. As a rule I read until one o'clock and then put out my candle. Sleep carried me into freedom; sometimes it seemed as though I woke up feeling-ough, what horrible dreams I have had-prison and gendarmes-and I would rejoice that it was all a dream; and then there would suddenly be the clank of a sabre in the corridor, or the officer on duty would open the door, accompaniHI by a soldier with a lantern, or the sentry would shout in a voice that did not sound human, '\\'ho goes there?' or a bugle under my very window would rend the morning air with its shrill reveille . . . .

In moments of dullness, when I was disinclined to read, I would talk with the p;endarmes who guarded me, particularly with the old fellow who had looked after me when I was overcome by the charcoal fumes. The colonel used. as a sign of favour, to free his old soldiers from regular discipline, and detach them for the easy duty of guarding a prisoner; a corporal, who was a spy and a rogue, was set o,·er them. Five or six gPmlarmes mnde up the whole staff.

The old man, of \vhom I am speaking, was a simple, goodhearted creature, devotedly grateful for any kind action, of which he had probably not had many in his life. He had been in the campaign of 1 8 1 2 and his clwst was con•rPd \vith medals; he

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had served his full time and remained in the army of his own free will, not knowing where to go.

'Twice,' he told me, 'I \vrote to my home in Mogilev province, but I got no answer, so it seems as though there were none of my people left: and so it would be painful to go home; one would stay there a bit and then wander off like a lost soul, following one's nose to beg one's bread.'

How barbarously and mercilessly the army is organised in Russia with its monstrous term of service ! ! A man's personality is everywhere sacrificed V\'ithout the slightest mercy and with no reward.

Old Filimonov had pretensions to a knowledge of German which he had studied in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. He very felicitously adapted German words to the Russian spirit, calling a horse, fert, eggs, rerr, fish, pish, oats, ober, pancakes, pankukhi.

There was a naivete about his stories which made me sad and thoughtful. In Moldavia during the Turkish campaign of 1 805

he had been in the company of a captain, the most good-natured man in the world, who looked after every soldier as though he were his own son and was always foremost in action.

'A Moldavian girl captivated him and then we saw our captain was worried, for, do you knO\v, he noticed that the girl was making up to another officer. So one day he called me and a comrade-a splendid soldier, he had both his legs blown off afterwards at Maly-Yaroslavets-and began telling us how the Moldavian girl had wronged him and asked would we care to help him and give her a lesson. "To be sure, sir," we said, "we are always glad to do our best for your honour." He thanked us and pointed out the house in which the officer lived, and he says,

"You wait on the bridge at night; she will certainly go to him.

You seize her without any noise and drop her in the river." "We can do that, your honour," we tell him, and my comrade and I got a sack ready. We were sitting there, when towards midnight thl'r<''s the Moldavian girl running up. "Why, are you in a hurry, madam)" we say, and Wl' givP }]('r onl' on th<' head. She llPH'r uttered a squl'al, poor dea1·, and W<' popped lwr into the sack and over into the river: and next day our captain goes to I St>n·ice in the Russian army at this time, for those who were not officers, was for twenty-fiw yPars. a"nd soldiers with bad records might be made to serve for life. Conscription was not general. and exemption could be bought. Under Alexander II, in 1 874, the term was reduced to seven yPars; conscription became genPral and �xemption could not be pur·

chaser!. All recruits had to start in the ranks. (R.)

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the other officer and says: "Don't you be angry with your Moldavian girl : we detained her a little, and now she is in the river, and I am ready to take a turn with you," he says, "with the sabre or with pistols, which you like." So they hacked at each other. The officer gave our captain a great stab in the chest, and the poor, dear man wasted away and a fe\V months later gave up his soul to God.'

'And the Moldavian girl was drowned, then? ' I asked.

'Yes, sir, she was drowned,' answered the soldier.

I looked with surprise at the child ish unconcern with which the old gendarme told me this story. And he, as though guessing what I felt, or thinking about it for the first time, added, to soothe me

'A heathen woman, sir, as good as not christened, that sort of people.'

On every Imperial holiday the gendarmes are given a glass of vodka. The scrgPant allowPd Filimonov to refusp his share for five or six times and to receive them all at once. Filimonov scored on a wooden tally-stick how many glasses he had miss('d, and on th(' most important holidays h(' would go for them. He would pour this vodka into a bowl, crumble bread into it and eat it with a spoon. Aft('r this dish lw would light a big pipe with a tiny mouthpiece, filled with tobacco of incredible strength which he used to cut up himself, and therefore rather wittily called

'sans-cracher.' As he smoked he \\·ould fold himself up on a little window-scat, bent double-there were no chairs in the soldiers'

rooms-and sing his song:

The maids came out into the meadow.

�Vhere ll/as an anthill and a (lowrr.

As he got mon• drunk the words would become more inarticulate until he fell asleep. Imagine the health of a man who had been twice \Votmded and at over sixty could still survive such carousals!

Before I leave these Flt>mish barrack scenes a Ia Wouverman and (i Ia Callot, and this prison gossip, which is like the reminiscences of all prisoners, I shall say a few more words about the oiJiC<'rS.

The greater number among them were quite decent men, by no nwans spi('s, hut m<'n who had come hy chance into the gPndarnws' d ivision. Young g('ntl<>nwn with little or no education and no fortllnc, who did not know where to lay their heads, tlwy were gendarmps because they had found no other job. They

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performed their duties with military exactitude, but I never observed a shadow of zeal in any of them, except the adjutant, but that, of course, is why he was the adjutant.

When the officers had got to know me, they did all such little things as they could to alleviate my lot, and it would be a sin to complain of them.

One young officer told me that in 1 83 1 he had been sent to find and arrest a Polish landowner, who was in hiding some>vhere in the neighbourhood of his estate. He was charged with having relations with emissaries.2 From evidence that the officer collected he found out where the landowner must be hidden, went there with his company, put a cordon round the house and entered it with two gendarmes. The house was empty-they walked through the rooms, peeping into everything and found no one anywhere, but yet a few trifles showed clearly that there had recently been people in the house. Leaving the gendarmes below, the young man went a second time up to the attic; looking round attentively he saw a little door which led to a closet or some small room ; the door was fastened on the inside ; he pushed it with his foot, it opened, and a tall, handsome woman stood before it. She pointed in silence to a man who held in his arms a girl of about twelve, who was almost unconscious. This was the Pole and his wife and child. The officer was embarrassed. The tall woman noticed this and asked him:

'And will you have the cruelty to destroy them?'

The officer apologised, saying the usual commonplaces about the inviolability of his military oath, and his duty, and, at last, in despair, seeing that his words had no effect, ended with the question:

'What am I to do?'

The \voman looked proudly at him and said, pointing to the door:

'Go down and say there is no one here.'

'Upon my v•;ord, I don't know how it happened,' said the officer, 'or \Vhat was the matter with me, but I vo.-cnt down from the attic and told the corporal to collect the men. A couple of hour!f later we were diligently looking for him on another estate, while he was making his way over the frontier. "Well-woman ! I admit it!'

Nothing in the world can be more narrow-minded and more inhuman than wholesale condemnation of whole classes of 2 Of the Polish government formed at the time of the rising of 1 830-1.

(A.S.)

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people by a label, by a moral card-index, by the leading characteristics of their trade. Names are dreadful things. Jean-Paul Richter says with extraordinary certainty: 'If a child tells a lie, frighten him with his bad conduct, tell him he has told a lie, but don't tell him he is a liar. You destroy his moral confidence in himself by defining him as a liar. "That is a murderer," we are told, and at once we fancy a hidden dagger, a brutal expression, black designs, as though murder were a permanent employment, the trade of the man who has happened once in his life to kill someone. One cannot be a spy or trade in the vice of others and remain an honest man, but one may be an officer in the gendarmes without losing all human dignity; just as one may very often find womanliness, a tender heart and even nobility of character in the unhappy victims of "public incontinence." '

I have an aversion for people who cannot, or will not, or do not take the trouble to go beyond the name, to step over the barrier of crime, over n confused, false position, but either modestly turn aside, or harshly thrust it all mvay from them.

This is �sually done by dry, ab�tract natures, egoistic and revolting in their purity, or base, vulgar natures who hnve not yet managed, or have not needed, to exhibit themselves in practice.

In sympathy they are at home in the dirty depths into 'vhich others have sunk.

I nt'esti�·{ttioJt

{Lnd SeJtlence

Bl.:T WITH ALL THIS 'vhat of our case. what of the investigation and the trinl?

They were no more successful in thP new commission than in the old. ThP police had hPf'n on our track for a long time, but in their zeal and impatience could not wnit to find n sensible occasion, and did something silly. They had sent a retired officer callf'd Skaryatka to lPad us on and Pxposp us; he made ncquaintance with almost nil of our circle, but Wf' vpry soon guesse1l wha t hl' was and held nloof from him. Other young men, for the most part students, had not been so cautious, hut these others had no sf'rious connection with us.

One stll!lf'nt, on completing his studies, had given a lunch-

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party to his friends on Z4th June, 1 834. Not one of us was at the festivity: indeed none of us had been invited. The young men drank too much, played the fool, danced the mazurka, and among other things sang Sokolovsky's1 well-known song on the accession of Nicholas:

The Emperor of Russia

Has gone to realms above,

The operating surgeon

Slit his belly open.

The Government is weeping

And all the people weep;

There's coming to rule over us

Constantine the freak.

But to the King of Heaven,

Almighty God above,

Our Tsar of blessed memory

Has handed a petition.

When He read the paper,

Moved to pity, God

Gave us Nicholas instead,

The blackguard, the . . . 2

In the evening Skaryatka suddenlr remembered that it was his name-day, told a talc of how he had made a profit on the side of a horse, and invited the students to his quarters, promising them a dozen of champagne. They all went; the champagn<' app<'ared, and the host, staggering, proposed that they should once more sing Sokolovsky's song. In the middle of the singing the door opened and Tsynsky with the police walk!'d in. All this was crude, stupid, clumsy, and at the same time unsuccessful.

The police wanted to catch us; they were looking for external evidence to involve in the case some five or six men whom thcv had already marked, and only succeeded in catching twent�

innocent persons.

It is not easy, however, to disconcert the Russian police.

"Within a fortnight they arrested us as implicated in the supper case. In Sokolovsky's possession they found letters from Satin, in 1 It is probable that A. I. Polezhaye\" was the author of this song. ( A .S.) 2 The epithet in the last line is left to the imagination in Russian also.

( Tr.) The word is probably svoloch ('off-scourings,' 'scum· ; the Russian word is most opprobrious). (R.)

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Satin's possession letters from Ogarcv, and in Ogarev's posses�ion my letters. Nevertheless, nothing was discovered. The first investigation failed. For the greater success of the second commission, the Tsar sent from Petersburg the choicest of the inquisitors, A. F. Golitsyn.

This breed of person is rare in Russia. It is represented among us by Mordvinov, the famous head of the Third Division, Pelikan, the rector of Vilna, and a few accommodating Baltic Germans and Poles3 who have ratted.

But unluckily for the inquisition Staal, the Commandant of Moscow, was appointed the first member. Staal, a straightfor

\vard military man, a gallant old general, went into the case and found that it consisted of two circumstances that had no connection with each other: the affair of the supper party, which ought to have been punished by law, and the arrest, God knew why, of persons whose only guilt, so far as could be seen, lay in certain half-expressed opinions, for which it \vould be both difficult and absurd to try them.

Staal's opinion did not please Golitsyn junior. The dispute between them became caustic; the old \varrior flared up, struck the floor with his sabre and said:

'Instead of ruining people, you had better draw up a report on the advisability of closing all the schools and universities; that would warn other unfortunates; however, you can do what you like, but you must do it without me. I shan't set foot in the commission again.'

·with these words the old gentleman hastened out of the room.

The Tsar \vas informed of this the same day.

In the morning when the commandant appeared with his report, the Tsar asked him why he would not attend the commission ; Staal told him why.

'What nonsense! ' replied the Tsar, 'to quarrel with Golitsyn, for shame! I trust you will attend the commission as before.'

'Sire,' answered Staal, 'spare my grey hairs. I have lived to reach them without the slightest stain on my honour. My zeal is known to Your Majesty, my blood, the remnant of my days are yours, but this is a question of my honour-my conscience revolts against what is being done in the commission.'

The Tsar frowned. Staal bowed himself out, and from that time was not once present in the commission.

3 Among those who have distinguished themselves in this line of late years is the famous Liprandi, who drew up a scheme for founding an Academy of Espionage ( 1 858) .

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This anecdote, the truth of which is not open to the slightest doubt, throws great light on the character of Nicholas. How was it that it did not enter his head that if a man whom he could not but respect, a brave warrior, an old man full of merit, so obstinately besought him to spare his honour, the business could not be quite clean? He should have done no less than require Golitsyn to present himself and insist on Staal's explaining the matter before him. He did not do this, but gave orders that we should be confined more strictly.

When Staal had gone there were only enemies of the accused in the committee, presided over by a simple-hearted old man, Prince S. M. Golitsyn, who after nine months knew as little about the case as he had nine months before it began. He preserved a dignified silence, very rarely put in a word, and at the end of an examination invariably asked:

'May we let him go?'

'We may,' Golitsyn junior would answer, and the senior would say with dignity to the prisoner,

'You may go.'

My first examination lasted four hours.

The questions were of two kinds. The object of the first \vas to discover a manner of thinking 'not akin to the spirit of the government, revolutionary opinions, imbued with the pernicious doctrines of Saint-Simon,' as Golitsyn junior and the auditor Oransky expressed it.

These questions were easy, but they were hardly questions. I n the papers and letters that had been seized the opinions were fairly simply expressed ; the questions could properly only relate to the material fact of whether a man had or had not written the words in question. The committee thought it necessary to add to every written phrase, 'How do you explain the following passage in your letter?'

Of course it was useless to explain; I wrote evasive and empty phrases in reply. In one letter the auditor discovered the phrase:

'All constitutional charters lead to nothing: they are contracts between a master and his slaves; the task is not to make things better for the slaves, but that there should be no slaves.' When I had to explai n this phrase I observed that I saw no obligation to defend constitutional government, and that, if I had defended it, it would have been charged against me.

'A constitutional form of government may be attacked from two sides,' Golitsyn junior observed in his nervous, hissing voice ;

'you do not attack it from the monarchical point of view, or you would not talk about slaves.'

:\I Y

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'In that I Nr in company with the' Empress Catherine II, who onl!"red that her subjPcts should not be called slaves.'

Golitsyn, brPathll'ss with anger at this ironical rl'ply, said:

'You seem to imaginE" that we arC' assemblt>d here to conduct scholastic arguments, that you are defending a thesis in the university.'

'\Vith what object, then, do you ask for explanations?'

'You appPar not to understand what is \vanted of you.'

'I do not understand.'