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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-04-04 14:29:01 -0700 |
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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-04-04 14:29:01 -0700 |
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diff --git a/78361-0.txt b/78361-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e24eabf --- /dev/null +++ b/78361-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11391 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78361 *** + + + + +THE MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDER HERZEN + +V + + + + +NOTE + + +This translation has been made by arrangement from the sole complete +and copyright edition of _My Past and Thoughts_, that published in the +original Russian at Berlin, 1921. + + + + + _MY PAST AND THOUGHTS_ + + THE MEMOIRS OF + ALEXANDER HERZEN + + _THE AUTHORISED TRANSLATION + TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN + BY CONSTANCE GARNETT_ + + VOLUME V + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + ALFRED A. KNOPF + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + T. & A. CONSTABLE LTD. EDINBURGH + * + ALL RIGHTS + RESERVED + + FIRST PUBLISHED 1926 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + _SECTION FOUR_ (continued) + LONDON EXILES OF THE ’FIFTIES + + CHAPTER VI:—Ordinary Misfortunes and Political + Misfortunes—Teachers and Commissionaires—Agents and + Salesmen—Orators and Letter-writers—Do-nothing Factotums + and ever-busy Drones—Russians—Thieves—Spies _page 2_ + + CAMICIA ROSSA _page 33_ + + 1. AT BROOKE HOUSE _page 35_ + + 2. AT STAFFORD HOUSE _page 51_ + + 3. AT HOME _page 59_ + + 4. 26 PRINCE’S GATE _page 68_ + + APOGEE AND PERIGEE _page 81_ + + BEHIND THE SCENES (1863 TO 1864)— + + V. I. KELSIEV _page 101_ + + THE COMMON FUND _page 117_ + + BAKUNIN AND THE CAUSE OF POLAND _page 131_ + + APPENDIX— + + 1. THE STEAMER ‘WARD JACKSON’ _page 161_ + + 2. COLONEL LAPINSKI AND AIDE-DE-CAMP POLLES _page 168_ + + FRAGMENTS (1867 TO 1868)— + + 1. SWISS VIEWS _page 176_ + + 2. CHATTER ON THE ROAD AND FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN IN THE BUFFET _page 186_ + + 3. BEYOND THE ALPS _page 189_ + + 4. ZU DEUTSCH _page 192_ + + 5. THIS WORLD AND THE OTHER:—I. The Other World—II. This + World—III. The Flowers of Minerva _page 196_ + + VENEZIA LA BELLA (February 1867) _page 220_ + + LA BELLE FRANCE— + + 1. ANTE PORTAS _page 240_ + + 2. INTRA MUROS _page 246_ + + 3. ALPENDRÜCKEN _page 255_ + + 4. THE DANIELS _page 263_ + + 5. SPOTS OF LIGHT _page 270_ + + 6. AFTER THE INVASION _page 272_ + + THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. AND V. N. KARAZIN— + + 1. DON CARLOS _page 276_ + + 2. THE LETTER _page 285_ + + 3. MARQUIS VON POSA _page 299_ + + 4. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS _page 304_ + + 5. FAREMO DA SE _page 318_ + + 6. ON THE FURTHER SIDE _page 325_ + + + + +_SECTION FOUR_ (continued) + +LONDON EXILES OF THE ’FIFTIES + + +This fragment follows upon the description of the ‘Mountain Heights of +the Exile World’—from their eternally red crags down to their lowest +bogs and ‘sulphur mines.’[1] I beg the reader not to forget that in this +chapter we are plunging with him below the level of the sea and are +concerned exclusively with its slimy bottom, as it was after the tempest +of February. + +Almost everything here described has changed and vanished; the political +dregs of the ’fifties are overlaid by fresh sand and fresh mud. This +underworld of agitations and oppressions has ebbed, subsided, died away; +all that is left of it is covered by fresh formations. Its surviving +figures are becoming a rarity, and now I like to meet them. + +Some of the specimens I want to preserve are mournfully grotesque, +mournfully ludicrous, but they are all drawn from nature—and they ought +not to vanish without a trace. + + + + +Chapter 6 + +ORDINARY MISFORTUNES AND POLITICAL MISFORTUNES—TEACHERS AND +COMMISSIONAIRES—AGENTS AND SALESMEN—ORATORS AND LETTER-WRITERS—DO-NOTHING +FACTOTUMS AND EVER-BUSY DRONES—RUSSIANS—THIEVES—SPIES + + + (_Written in 1856 and 1857_) + +... From the _sulphurous gang_, as the Germans themselves called the +Marxists, it is an easy and natural transition to the muddy slime, to the +lowest dregs which drift from continental shocks and commotions to the +shores of Britain, and most of all to London. + +It may well be imagined what incongruous elements are caught up from +the Continent and deposited in England by those ebbs and flows of +revolution and reaction which exhaust the constitution of Europe like +an intermittent fever; and what amazing types of people are cast down +by these waves and stray about in the damp swamps of London. What must +be the chaos of ideas and theories in these specimens of every kind of +moral formation and reformation, of every protest, every Utopia, every +disillusionment, and every hope, who meet in the alleys, eating-houses +and beer-shops of Leicester Square and the adjoining back streets? +‘There,’ as _The Times_ puts it, ‘lives a wretched population of +foreigners wearing hats such as no one wears, and hair where none should +be, a miserable, poverty-stricken, harassed population who set all the +powerful monarchs of Europe trembling except the Queen of England.’ + +Yes indeed, there in the public-houses and beer-shops sit these foreign +visitors over their gin with hot or cold water or without water at all, +or with a mug of bitter porter, and still bitterer words on their lips, +waiting for a revolution, for which they are no longer adapted, and +money from relations, which they will never get. + +What original, what odd figures I have studied among them! Here, side by +side with the Communist of the old faith, hating every man of property in +the name of universal brotherhood, is the old Carlist who had shot at his +own brothers in the name of patriotism from devotion to a Montemolin[2] +or a Don Juan, of whom he knew nothing and knows nothing. There, side +by side with the Hungarian who describes how with five _honveds_[3] he +sent a squadron of Austrian cavalry flying, and to make himself look +more martial buttons his Hungarian coat up to the throat, though its +proportions betray that its youth belonged to another wearer, sit the +German who gives lessons in music, Latin, every literature and every +art, for his daily beer; the cosmopolitan and atheist who despises every +nationality except Kur-Hesse or Hesse-Cassel, according to which of the +Hessen he happens to have been born in; the Pole of the old-fashioned +pattern who loves independence as a Catholic may; and the Italian for +whom independence means hatred of Catholicism. + +Beside the revolutionary _émigrés_ are the _conservative émigrés_: the +business man or the notary who has absconded _sans adieux_ from his +fatherland, creditors and guarantors, and who also reckons himself +unjustly persecuted; the _honest_ bankrupt convinced that he will soon +clear his character and obtain fresh credit and capital; just as his +neighbour on the right knows for certain that in a day or two ‘La +Rouge’ will be proclaimed by ‘Marianne’ in person; while his neighbour +on the left is equally certain that the Orleans family is packing up +in Claremont and the princesses are ordering splendid dresses for a +triumphal entry into Paris. + +To the _conservative_ group of the ‘guilty but not convicted through +absence of the accused’ belong also more thorough-going persons than +bankrupts or notaries of too ardent imagination; these were persons who +had had _great misfortunes_ in their native land and were trying with +all their might to pass off their _ordinary misfortunes_ for _political +misfortunes_. This peculiar nomenclature calls for explanation. + +One of our friends went as a joke to a matrimonial agency. He was asked +for ten francs and questioned as to what kind of bride he desired, +whether fair or dark, how much dowry she must have, and so on. The sleek +little old man, after noting down his answers, began with apologies and +circumlocutions to question him about his origin and was greatly rejoiced +on learning that he was of noble rank; then, redoubling his apologies and +observing that the silence of the grave was their rule, asked him: ‘_Have +you not had misfortunes?_’ + +‘I am a Pole and in exile, that is without country, without rights, +without property.’ + +‘The last item is unfortunate, but excuse me, for what reason did you +leave your _belle patrie_?’ + +‘By reason of the last rebellion.’ (This happened in 1848.) + +‘That is of no consequence. _Political misfortunes we do not count_, they +are rather to the good, _c’est une attraction_. But allow me, can you +assure me that you have had no _other misfortunes_?’ + +‘I should think I have had; why, my father and mother are dead.’ + +‘Oh, no, no....’ + +‘What then do you mean by the words, _other misfortunes_?’ + +‘You see, you might have left your lovely fatherland for _private_ +reasons and not for political ones. Sometimes in youth imprudence, bad +example, the temptations of great cities—you know how it is.... An +I.O.U. thoughtlessly given, a sum of money not your own spent somewhat +irregularly—a signature or something....’ + +‘I understand, I understand,’ said my friend. ‘No, I assure you I have +not been tried either for theft or forgery.’ + +... In the year 1855 a Frenchman, _exilé de sa patrie_, went from one to +another of his comrades in misfortune, proposing they should assist him +to publish a poem after the style of Balzac’s ‘Comédie du Diable,’ which +he had written in prose and verse with new orthography and newly invented +syntax. Among the characters in the poem were Louis-Philippe, Jesus +Christ, Robespierre, Maréchal Bugeaud, and God Himself. + +Among others he approached with this request Schoelcher, the most honest +and rigid of mortals. + +‘Have you been in exile long?’ the champion of the negroes asked him. + +‘Since 1847.’ + +‘Since 1847? And you came here?’ + +‘From Brest, from penal servitude.’ + +‘What affair was that? I don’t remember it at all.’ + +‘Oh, well, the case was very famous at the time! Of course, it was more +of an individual case.’ + +‘What was it, though?’ ... Schoelcher asked, somewhat perturbed. + +‘_Ah, bah, si vous y tenez_, I protested in my own way against the rights +of property, _j’ai protesté à ma manière_.’ + +‘And you ... you have been in Brest?’ + +‘_Parbleu oui_, seven years of penal servitude for _burglary_ (_vol avec +effraction_),’ and Schoelcher, with the voice of the chaste Susannah +dismissing the indiscreet old men, bade the independent protester leave +him. + +The persons, whose misfortunes were fortunately _general_ and whose +protests were collective, whom we have left in grimy public-houses and +black cook-shops at unpainted tables with gin or porter before them, had +their fill of suffering, and, what was most distressing, without the +faintest idea what they suffered for. + +Time passed with terrible leisureliness, but it passed; revolution was +nowhere in sight, except in their imaginations, while poverty, actual and +merciless, mowed closer and closer the pastures on which they grazed, and +all this mass of people, for the most part good people, went hungrier +and hungrier. They had no habit of work; their thoughts, bent on the +political arena, could not concentrate on the practical; they caught at +anything, but with exasperation, with annoyance, with impatience, without +perseverance, and everything slipped through their fingers; those who had +the strength and manliness for work were gradually detached and swam up +out of the bog, but the others! + +And what an endless number there were of those others! Since those days +the French amnesty and the amnesty of death has carried off many, but in +the early ’fifties I came upon the great tide. + +The German refugees, especially those not of the working class, were very +poor, not less so than the French. They were rarely successful. Doctors +who had studied medicine thoroughly, and in any case knew their work a +hundred times better than the English sawbones who were called surgeons, +could hardly get together a meagre practice. Painters and sculptors, +with pure and platonic dreams of art and its sacred service, but without +productive talent, without intensity and persistence, without unerring +instinct, perished in the crowd of competing rivals. In the simple +conditions of their little native town, on the cheap German food, they +might have led long and tranquil lives, preserving their virginal worship +of their ideals and their faith in their sacred vocation. There they +would have lived and died, suspected of talent. Torn up from their little +native gardens by the French upheaval, they were lost in the forest +jungles of London life. + +If one is not to be crushed and stifled in London, one must do a great +deal of work, and do it smartly, at once, and do what comes first, +what is in demand. One must fix the distracted attention of the blasé +crowd by intensity, impudence, mass or variety. Ornaments, patterns +for embroidery, arabesques, models, sketches, portraits, frames, +water-colours, cameos, flowers—anything, so long as it is done quickly, +so long as it is done in the nick of time and in immense quantity. +Twenty-four hours after the news of Havelock’s victory in India, Julien, +_le grand Julien_,[4] had composed a musical performance with the cries +of African birds and the tramp of elephants, with Indian chants and +firing of cannon, so that London read the news in the newspapers and +listened to its presentation at the concert simultaneously. He made +immense sums out of this composition, which ran for a month. Meanwhile +the dreamers from beyond the Rhine fell by the roadside in this inhuman +race for money and success; exhausted, they folded their hands in +despair, or worse still, raised them against themselves to put an end to +the unequal and humiliating struggle. + +Apropos of concerts, those of the Germans who were musical were better +off altogether; the number of such employed every day by London and its +suburbs is colossal. Theatres and private lessons, modest working-class +balls and immodest ones at the Argyle Rooms, at Cremorne and the Casino, +_cafés chantants_ with dancing, _cafés chantants_ with living pictures +in tights, Her Majesty’s, Covent Garden, Exeter Hall, the Crystal +Palace, St. James’s at the top and the corners of all the main streets +at the bottom occupy and maintain the whole population of two or three +German duchies. A poor fellow will dream of the Music of the Future +and of Rossini doing homage to Wagner, will read Tannhäuser at home +from the score with no instrument, and then, sitting behind a retired +tambour-major and a mummer with an ivory stick, play some Mary Anne polka +or Flower and Butterfly _redowa_ for four hours in succession and be +given two shillings to four-and-sixpence for his evening. Then he will go +out into the dark night, through the rain to an underground beer-shop, +chiefly frequented by Germans, and there find my old friends Kraut and +Müller: Kraut, who has been working for six years at a bust, which keeps +growing worse and worse; and Müller, who has been for twenty-six years +writing a tragedy called ‘Eric,’ which he read to me ten years ago and +again five years ago, and would be reading to me again now if we had not +quarrelled. And we quarrelled about General Urban,[5] but of that another +time.... + +... And what did not the Germans do to win the favourable notice of the +English, and all without success? + +Germans, who all their lives have smoked in every corner of their +dwellings, at dinner and at tea, in bed and at their work, do not in +London smoke in their smutty, smoke-begrimed drawing-room, and will not +allow their guests to do so. Men who have always in their own country +been in the habit of going to a tavern to drink and sit over a pipe in +good company will pass the London public-houses without looking at them, +and send a maid there for beer with a mug or a milk-jug. + +I once happened in the presence of a German _émigré_ to fold up a +letter addressed to an Englishwoman. ‘What are you about?’ he cried in +excitement. I started, and involuntarily dropped the letter, supposing +that there was a scorpion in it at least. ‘In England,’ he said, ‘a +letter is always folded in three and not in four, and you writing to a +lady too! and such a lady!’ + +On my first arrival in London I went to look up a German doctor of my +acquaintance. I did not find him at home, and wrote on a sheet of paper +that was lying on the table something of this kind: ‘_Cher docteur_, I +am in London and should very much like to see you. Won’t you come this +evening to such-and-such a tavern to have a bottle of wine as in old +days, and to have a good talk?’ The doctor did not come, and next day +I received a note from him to this effect: ‘M. Herzen, I am very sorry +that I could not take advantage of your kind invitation. My duties do not +leave me much leisure. I will try, however, to visit you in a day or two, +etc....’ + +‘... Why, it seems the doctor has got a practice then?’ I inquired of +the German patriot to whom I was indebted for the information that the +English fold their letters in three. ‘Not at all; _der Kerl hat Pech +gehabt_ in London, _es geht ihm zu ominös_.’ ‘Then what is he doing?’ +and I handed my friend the note. He smiled, but observed that I should +not have left on any doctor’s table an open letter in which I invited him +to have a bottle of wine: ‘And besides, why ask him to such a tavern, +where there is always a crowd? Here people drink at home.’ ‘It is a +pity,’ I observed, ‘that knowledge always comes too late; now I know how +to invite the doctor and where to bid him come, but I certainly shall not +ask him.’ + +Now we will go back to our exiles dreaming of revolution, of remittances +from relations, and of earning without working. + +For a man who has not been a workman to begin working is not so easy as +it seems; many people imagine that if need has arisen, if there is work, +if there are tools, the workman too is ready. Work requires not only its +special education and training but also self-sacrifice. The exiles, for +the most part, came from second-rate drawing-rooms and literary circles, +and were journalistic hacks or budding lawyers. They could not live in +England by the work they were accustomed to, and any other was unnatural +to them; moreover, they felt it not worth while to begin anything new, +they were always listening for the bugle-call: ten years passed, fifteen +years passed, no call to battle came. + +In despair, in vexation, without clothes, without a secure prospect for +the morrow, surrounded by growing families, they shut their eyes and +fling themselves headlong into schemes and speculations. Their schemes do +not succeed, their speculations come to grief, both because the schemes +they hatch are nonsensical and because instead of capital all they bring +to them is a sort of helpless clumsiness, an excessive irritability, an +incapacity to find their bearings in the simplest position, and again an +incapacity for sustained labour and for enduring the first thorny steps. +When they fail they find their solace in blaming their poverty: ‘With two +or three hundred pounds everything would have gone splendidly!’ The lack +of capital really is of course a drawback, but that is the common lot of +working people. There is no scheme too wild for them, from a joint-stock +society for procuring eggs from Havre to the invention of special inks +for trade-marks and of some sort of essences by which the vilest spirits +can be transformed into excellent liqueurs. But while the societies are +being formed and capital is being collected for all these marvels, they +must have food to eat and some sort of clothing to shield them from the +north-east wind and the modest eyes of the daughters of Albion. + +Two palliative measures were undertaken with this view: one very tiresome +and very unprofitable, the other also unprofitable, but attended with +more entertainment. Quiet people with _Sitzfleisch_ took to giving +lessons in spite of the fact that they had not only given no lessons +before, but had very probably never received any. The fees were terribly +lowered by competition. + +Here is a specimen of the advertisement published by an old man of +seventy, who, I fancy, belonged rather to the class of _independent_ than +of _collective_ protestors:— + + MONSIEUR N. N. + Teaches the French Language + on a new and easy System of rapid proficiency; + has attended members of the British Parliament + and many other persons of respectability, + as vouchers certify; translates and interprets + that universal continental language, + and English, + In a Masterly Manner. + Terms Moderate: + Namely, Three Lessons per week for Six Shillings. + +Giving lessons to English people is not a particularly pleasant task; an +Englishman does not stand upon ceremony with any one whom he employs for +payment. + +One of my old friends received a letter from an Englishman asking him to +give French lessons to his daughter. My friend went at the hour fixed +to arrange terms. The father was having an after-dinner nap, but the +daughter greeted him rather civilly; then the old man came out, looked +B. up and down and asked: ‘_Vous être le_ French teacher?’ B. admitted +it. ‘_Vous pas convenir a moa._’ With this the British ass pointed to +his visitor’s moustache and beard. ‘Why didn’t you give him a punch?’ I +asked B. ‘Well, I thought of it, but when the bull had turned away, the +daughter with tears in her eyes mutely begged my forgiveness.’ + +Another resource is simpler and not so tedious; it consists in a +spasmodic and artistic selling of things on commission, pressing all +sorts of goods on people regardless of whether they want them. The French +for the most part dealt in wines and spirits. One Legitimist used to +offer his acquaintances and co-religionists brandy which he obtained in +an exceptional way through connections, of which in the present state +of France he could not and ought not to speak, and, moreover, through a +ship’s captain whom it would be a _calamité publique_ to compromise. The +brandy was nothing special and cost sixpence more than at the shops. The +Legitimist, accustomed to plead ‘with declamation,’ would add insult to +his insistence: he would take a wine-glass in two fingers by the foot, +would slowly describe circles with it, splash a few drops, sniff them in +the air and invariably be astonished at the extraordinarily fine aroma of +the brandy. + +Another comrade in affliction who had once been a provincial professor of +literature had recourse to the seductions of wine. He obtained his wine +straight from the Côte d’Or, from Burgundy, from his old pupils, and was +extraordinarily successful in his choice of it. + +‘_Citoyen_,’ he wrote to me, ‘ask your brotherly heart (_votre cœur +fraternel_) and it will tell you that you ought to grant me the agreeable +privilege of furnishing you with French wine. And in so doing your heart +will be at one with taste and with economy. While you drink excellent +wine at the very lowest price you will have the happiness of thinking +that in purchasing it you are alleviating the lot of a man who has +sacrificed all to the cause of his country and of freedom. + +‘_Salut et fraternité!_ P.S.—I have taken the liberty of despatching you +with this a few samples.’ + +These samples were in half-bottles on which he had with his own hand +inscribed not only the name of the wine but various incidents from its +biography: ‘Chambertin (_Gr. vin et très rare!_), Côte Rôtie (_Comète_), +Pommard (1823!), Nuits (_provision Aguado!_).’ + +Two or three weeks later the professor of literature would send a fresh +set of samples. A day or two after sending them he would usually appear +himself and sit on for two or three hours until I had consented to keep +almost all the samples and paid for them. As he was relentless and +this was repeated several times, I used in the end to praise some of +the samples, pay him for them, and give him back the rest as soon as +he opened the door. ‘I do not want to encroach on your valuable time, +_citoyen_,’ he would say to me, and spare me for a fortnight from the +sour Burgundy born under the comet and the sugary Côte Rôtie from the +cellars of Aguado. + +The Germans and Hungarians applied themselves to other branches of +industry. + +One day at Richmond I was lying down with a terrible attack of headache. +François came up with a visiting-card saying that a gentleman urgently +desired to see me, that he was an Hungarian, _ajutante del generale_ +(all the Hungarian exiles who had no honest calling dubbed themselves +Kossuth’s adjutants). I glanced at the card—it was an absolutely unknown +name adorned with the title of captain. + +‘Why have you admitted him? How many thousand times have I told you of +it?’ + +‘This is the third time he has called to-day.’ + +‘Well, ask him into the drawing-room.’ I went down like a raging lion, +fortifying myself with a dose of a sedative. + +‘Allow me to introduce myself, Captain So-and-so. I was for a long time +a prisoner of the Russians with Rüdiger after Vilagosz. The Russians +treated us extremely well. I was particularly favoured by General +Glazenap and Colonel ... What was it...? Russian surnames are very +difficult ... itch ... itch....’ + +‘Please don’t trouble. I do not know any colonel. Very glad that you were +comfortable. Won’t you sit down?’ + +‘Very, very comfortable ... we used to play every day with the officers +_shtoss_ and _bank_ ... very fine fellows and they can’t endure the +Austrians. I even remember a few words of Russian—_gleba_, _sheverdak_, +_une pièce de vingt-cinq sous_.’ + +‘Allow me to inquire to what I am indebted...?’ + +‘You must excuse me, baron ... I was taking a walk in Richmond ... +lovely weather, only it’s a pity it has come on to rain. I have heard so +much about you from the _old man himself_ and from Count Sandor—Sandor +Téléki—and also from the Countess Teresa Pulszky[6] ... What a woman the +Countess Teresa!’ + +‘Quite so, _hors ligne_!’ + +Silence. + +‘Ye—es, and Sandor ... we were in the _honveds_ together.... I +particularly wanted to show you ...’ and he drew out from under his chair +a portfolio, untied it, and took out portraits of the armless Raglan,[7] +the revolting countenance of St.-Arnaud,[8] and Omer Pasha[9] in a fez. +‘A remarkable likeness, baron. I have been in Turkey myself. I was at +Kutais in 1849,’ he added, as though to guarantee the likeness in spite +of the fact that neither Raglan nor St.-Arnaud were there in 1849. ‘Have +you seen this collection before?’ + +‘Of course I have,’ I answered, moistening my head with lotion. ‘These +portraits are hung up everywhere in Cheapside, along the Strand, and in +the West End.’ + +‘Yes, you are right, but I have the whole collection, and those are not +on Chinese paper. In the shops you would pay a guinea for them, and I can +let you have them for fifteen shillings.’ + +‘I am really very much obliged to you, but tell me, captain, what do I +want with the portraits of St.-Arnaud and all this crew?’ + +‘Baron, I will be open with you. I am a soldier and not one of +Metternich’s diplomats. Having lost my estates near Temesvar, I am +temporarily in straitened circumstances and am therefore selling _objets +d’art_ on commission (and also cigars—Havanna cigars and Turkish +tobacco—Russians and we Hungarians know what is good in that line!), and +so I make the poor halfpence with which to buy the bitter bread of exile, +_wie der Schiller sagt_.’ + +‘Captain, be completely open and tell me what will you make off each +collection?’ I asked (though I doubt whether Schiller did utter that line +of Dante). + +‘Half a crown.’ + +‘Then let us settle the matter like this: I will offer you a whole crown +if you will let me off buying the portraits.’ + +‘Really, baron, I am ashamed, but my position ... but you know it all, +you feel it all.... I have so long cherished a respect for you ... the +Countess Pulszky ... and the Count Sandor, Sandor Téléki....’ + +‘Excuse me, Captain, I have such a headache that I can hardly sit up.’ + +‘Our governor (namely Kossuth), our old man, often has a headache too,’ +the _honved_ observed by way of encouragement and consolation; then +he hurriedly tied up his portfolio, and together with the striking +likenesses of Raglan and company carried off a fairly good portrait of +Queen Victoria on a coin. + +Among these pedlars of exile who offer profitable purchases and the +_émigrés_ who have been for the last ten years stopping every man wearing +a beard in the streets and squares, begging for two shillings to make +up their fare to America or sixpence to pay for the coffin of a baby +who has died of scarlet fever, there are the exiles who write letters, +sometimes on the grounds of acquaintance, sometimes of non-acquaintance, +expatiating on extreme straits of all kinds and temporary money +difficulties, often with prospects of growing wealthy in the far future +and always with an original taste in epistolary composition. + +I have a portfolio of such letters. I will quote two or three +particularly characteristic. + +‘_Herr Graf!_ I was a lieutenant in the Austrian army, but fought for +the freedom of the Magyars, was forced to flee, and have worn out all +my clothes; if you have any old trousers to spare, you will confer an +unspeakable obligation on me. + +‘_P.S._—To-morrow at nine o’clock I will wait upon your _courier_.’ + +That is an example of the naïve style, but there are letters that are +classical both in language and in their clear-cut incisiveness: ‘_Domine, +ego sum Gallus, ex patriâ meâ profugus pro causâ libertatis populi. Nihil +habeo ad manducandum, si aliquod pro me facere potes, gaudeo, gaudebit +cor meum._ + +‘_Mercuris dies 1859._’ + +Other letters neither laconic nor classical in form are distinguished by +a peculiar method of reckoning. + +‘_Citoyen_, you were so kind as to send me three pounds last February +(you may not remember it, but I remember it). For a long time past I have +been meaning to repay you, but have received no money at all from my +relations; I am expecting a rather considerable sum in a few days. If I +were not ashamed, I would ask you to send me another two pounds, and then +I could repay you the five pounds in a _round sum_.’ + +I preferred the sum to remain triangular. The gentleman who was so set +upon round sums began to spread it abroad that I was in touch with the +Russian Embassy. + +Then come business letters and oratorical letters, and both kinds lose a +great deal in translation. + +‘_Mon cher Monsieur!_ No doubt you know of my discovery. It should bring +glory to our century and a crust of bread to me. And this discovery +remains buried in obscurity because I have not the credit for a paltry +two hundred pounds, and instead of working at it am obliged to _courir le +cachet_ for wretched pay. Every time that permanent and profitable work +presents itself an ironical destiny breathes upon it (I am translating +word for word), it flies away—I pursue it, its obstinate insolence +baffles my projects (_son opiniâtre insolence bafoue mes projets_), again +my hopes are raised and I fly after it—after it. I am flying after it +now. Shall I catch it? I almost believe so—if you have confidence in my +talent, are willing to _embarquer votre confiance en compagnie de mon +esprit et la livrer au souffle peu aventureux de mon destin_.’ + +Further on he explains that he has eighty pounds, even eighty-five pounds +in prospect; the remaining hundred and fifteen pounds the inventor seeks +to borrow, promising thirteen or at least eleven per cent. in case of +success. ‘Could capital be better, more safely invested in our day when +the finances of the whole world are unstable and states are tottering, +propped on the bayonets of our foes?’ + +I did not give the hundred and fifteen. The inventor began to admit +that there was something a little dubious in my behaviour, ‘_il y a du +louche_,’ and that it would be as well to be on one’s guard with me. + +In conclusion here is a purely oratorical letter:— + +‘Generous fellow-citizen of the future republic of the world! How many +times have you and your distinguished friend Louis Blanc assisted me, +and again I am writing to you and to _citoyen_ Blanc to beg for a few +shillings. My heart-rending position has not changed for the better, +far from my Lares and Penates, on the inhospitable island of egoism +and greed. With what profound truth have you said in your works (I am +continually re-reading them), “The talent dies out without money like a +lamp without oil”——’ and so on. + +I need hardly say that I never did write such bosh, and my fellow-citizen +of the _république future et universelle_ had never once opened my works. + +After the orators by letter come the orators by word of mouth who ‘work +the pavement and the street corner.’ For the most part they only pretend +to be exiles, but are in reality foreign workmen who have sunk from +drink or men who have had _misfortunes_ at home. Taking advantage of the +immense size of London, they work thoroughly through one quarter after +another and then return to the Via Sacra—that is to Regent Street, with +the Haymarket and Leicester Square. + +Five years ago a young man rather neatly dressed and of a sentimental +appearance approached me on several occasions in the dusk with a +question in French spoken with a German accent: ‘Could you tell me where +such-and-such a part is?’ and he handed me an address half a dozen miles +from the West End, somewhere in Holloway or Hackney. Everybody tried, +as I did, to explain where it was. He was overwhelmed with horror. ‘It +is nine o’clock in the evening already. I have had nothing to eat yet +... when shall I get there?... Not a penny for an omnibus.... I did not +expect this. I do not like to ask you, but if you could lend me ... one +shilling would be enough....’ + +I met him twice more. At last he disappeared, and not without +satisfaction I came upon him some months later in his old pitch with a +different beard and wearing a different cap. Raising the latter with +feeling, he asked me: ‘No doubt you know French?’ ‘I do,’ I answered, +‘but I know also that you have an address, that you have to go a long +distance, that the hour is late, that you have had nothing to eat, that +you have no money for an omnibus and that you need a shilling ... but +this time I will give you sixpence because I have told you all that +instead of your telling me.’ + +‘I can’t help it,’ he answered, smiling, without the slightest +resentment, ‘of course you won’t believe me again, but I am going to +America. You might add something for my fare.’ + +I could not resist that, and gave him another sixpence. + +There were Russians, too, among these gentry—for instance, Stremouhov, a +former officer from the Caucasus who had been begging in Paris as long +ago as 1847, telling a very plausible tale of some duel, an escape, and +so on, and carrying off to the intense exasperation of the servants +everything he could get: old clothes and slippers, winter vests in summer +and cotton trousers in the winter, children’s clothes, ladies’ frippery. +The Russians got up a subscription for him and sent him off to the +Foreign Legion in Algiers. He served there for five years, brought away a +testimonial and again went begging from house to house, telling about the +duel and the escape and adding various Arab adventures. Stremouhov was +growing old and people were both sorry for him and terribly sick of him. +The Russian priest attached to the London Embassy got up a subscription +to send him to Australia. He was given introductions in Melbourne, and he +himself and, what was more important, his fare were put in the captain’s +special care. Stremouhov came to say good-bye to us. We gave him a +complete outfit. I provided him with a warm overcoat, Haug with shirts +and so on. Stremouhov shed tears at parting and said: ‘Say what you like, +gentlemen, but it is no easy thing to go so far away. To break with all +one’s habits, but it must be ...’ and he kissed us and thanked us most +warmly. + +I thought that Stremouhov had been for long ages on the banks of the +Victoria River when suddenly I read in _The Times_ that a Russian +officer called Stremouhov had been sentenced to three months’ +imprisonment for disorderly behaviour and fighting some one in a tavern +after mutual accusations of theft and so on. Four months after that I was +walking along Oxford Street when it began to rain heavily, and as I had +no umbrella I stood under a gateway. At the very moment when I stopped, +a lanky figure under a wreck of an umbrella whisked hurriedly under +another gateway. I recognised Stremouhov. ‘What, have you come back from +Australia?’ I asked him, looking him straight in the face. + +‘Ah, it’s you, and I didn’t recognise you,’ he answered in a faint and +sinking voice, ‘no, not from Australia, but from the hospital where I +have been lying for three months between life and death ... and I don’t +know why I recovered.’ + +‘In which hospital have you been—St. George’s?’ + +‘No, not here, in Southampton.’ + +‘How was it you fell ill and did not let any one know, and how was it you +did not go?’ + +‘I missed the first train. I went by the next, but the steamer had left. +I stood on the quay. I stood there and almost threw myself into the briny +depths; I went to the Reverend to whom our priest had recommended me. +“The captain,” he said, “has gone; he would not wait an hour.”’ + +‘And the money?’ + +‘He left the money with the Reverend.’ + +‘You took it, of course?’ + +‘I did, but I got no good out of it. While I was ill they stole +everything from under my pillow, wretches that they are. If only you can +help me!’ + +‘And here in your absence another Stremouhov has been clapped into +prison, and for three months too, for fighting with a courier. Didn’t you +hear of it?’ + +‘How could I hear of it, lying between life and death? I believe the rain +is giving over. Good-bye.’ + +‘You must be careful how you go out in the damp or you will be getting +into hospital again.’ + +After the Crimean War several prisoners of war, both sailors and +soldiers, were left in London, though they could not themselves say why. +For the most part given to drink, it was some time before they realised +their position. Some of them asked the Embassy to intercede for them, to +take up their cause, _aber was macht es denn dem Herrn Baron von Brunow!_ + +They were an extremely melancholy spectacle, tattered and emaciated; they +would sometimes cringingly, sometimes with insolence (rather unpleasant +in a narrow street after ten o’clock at night), ask for money. + +In 1853 several sailors ran away from a man-of-war at Portsmouth. Some of +them were brought back in accordance with the absurd law which applies +exclusively to sailors. Several of them escaped and walked on foot from +Portsmouth to London. One of them, a young man of two-and-twenty with a +good-natured and open face, was a shoemaker and could make _schlippers_ +as he called them. I bought him tools and gave him money, but he could +not get work. + +It was just then that Garibaldi was sailing with his ship, _The +Commonwealth_, to Genoa, and I asked him to take the young man with +him. Garibaldi engaged him at a wage of £1 a month, promising to raise +it to £2 a month in a year’s time if he should behave well. The sailor +of course agreed, took £2 in advance from Garibaldi and brought his +belongings on to the ship. + +The day after Garibaldi had left, the sailor came to me, red in the face, +drowsy and bloated-looking. + +‘What has happened?’ I asked him. + +‘A misfortune, your honour. I was too late for the ship.’ + +‘How did you come to be late?’ + +The sailor fell on his knees and whimpered unnaturally. The position +was not hopeless. The boat had gone to Newcastle-on-Tyne for coal. ‘I +will send you there by rail,’ I said to him, ‘but if you are too late +again this time, remember that I will do nothing for you even if you are +starving. And as the fare to Newcastle is over £1, and I would not trust +you with a shilling, I shall send for a friend and ask him to take charge +of you all night and put you into the train.’ + +‘I will pray for your honour all my life long!’ + +The friend who undertook to despatch him came to me and reported that he +had seen the sailor off. + +Imagine my amazement when three days later the sailor appeared with a +Pole. + +‘What is the meaning of this?’ I shouted at him, shaking with genuine +fury. But before the sailor could open his lips, his companion proceeded +to defend him in broken Russian, bathing his words in an atmosphere of +tobacco, wine and spirits. + +‘Who are you?’ + +‘A Polish nobleman.’ + +‘Every one is a nobleman in Poland. Why have you come to me with this +scoundrel?’ + +The nobleman was cheeky. I observed dryly that I was not acquainted with +him, and that his presence in my room was so strange that I might call a +policeman and have him removed. + +I looked at the sailor. Three days of the aristocratic company of a +nobleman had greatly advanced his education. He was not crying, but was +looking at me with drunken insolence. + +‘I was taken very ill, your honour, I thought I should give up my soul to +God, but I got a little better when the train had gone.’ + +‘Where were you taken ill, then?’ + +‘On the way, that is, at the railway station.’ + +‘Why didn’t you go by the next train?’ + +‘I never thought of it, and besides, not knowing the language....’ + +‘Where is your ticket?’ + +‘Why, I have no ticket.’ + +‘How is that?’ + +‘I gave it up to a man.’ + +‘Well, now you can look out for other people; only be sure of one thing, +I will never help you in any case.’ + +‘But excuse me,’ the nobleman interposed. + +‘Sir, I have nothing to say to you and desire to hear nothing from you.’ + +Swearing at me through his teeth, he went off with his Telemachus, +probably to the nearest public-house. + +Another step downward.... + +Perhaps many people will ask me wonderingly what further step downward +there can be. But there _is_ a rather _great_ one—only here things are +obscure and one must step warily. I had not the _pruderie_ of Schoelcher, +and the author of the poem in which Christ converses with Marshal Bugeaud +seemed to me even more amusing after his heroic sufferings _pour un +vol avec effraction_. Even if he did steal something and break a lock, +goodness knows what he had suffered for it, and then he had toiled for +some years, perhaps with a cannon-ball chained to his legs. He had ranged +against him not only the man he had robbed but the whole State and +society, the church, the army, the police, the law, all honest men who do +not need to rob, as well as all dishonest ones who have not been caught +and tried. There are thieves of another kind, rewarded by the Government, +cherished by the authorities, blessed by the Church, protected by the +army, and not persecuted by the police, because they themselves belong +to it; these men do not filch handkerchiefs, but conversations, letters, +glances. Exile-spies are doubly spies.... With them the utmost limit of +vice and depravity is reached; below them, as below Dante’s ‘Lucifer,’ +there is nothing, every step from that lowest depth is upward. + +The French are great artists in this line. They are capable of adroitly +combining the externals of culture, enthusiastic phrases, the _aplomb_ of +a man whose conscience is clear and whose _point d’honneur_ is sensitive, +with the duties of a spy. Begin to suspect him, and he will challenge you +to a duel; he will fight, and fight bravely too. + +The memoirs of Delahodde,[10] of Chenu,[11] and of Schnepf are a +treasure-house for the study of the filth to which civilisation leads its +vicious children. Delahodde naïvely prints that in betraying his friends +he was obliged to be as artful with them ‘as a sportsman is with game.’ + +Delahodde is the Alcibiades of espionage. + +A young man of literary education and radical views, he came from the +provinces to Paris, poor as Job, and asked for work at the offices of +La Réforme. He was given work of some sort and did it well; little by +little he got on to friendly terms with the staff. He obtained an entry +into political circles, learnt a great deal of what was being done in the +Republican party, and continued working for several years, still on the +most friendly terms with his colleagues. + +When, after the revolution of February, Caussidière went through the +papers at the Prefecture, he found that Delahodde had all this time with +the greatest accuracy furnished reports to the police of what was being +done at the office of La Réforme. Caussidière sent for Delahodde to come +to Albert’s; there witnesses awaited him. Delahodde came, suspecting +nothing, tried to defend himself, but then, seeing the impossibility, +admitted that he had written letters to the Prefect. The question arose +what was to be done with him. Some thought, and they were perfectly +right, that he should be shot on the spot like a dog. Albert opposed this +more than any one, and did not want to have a man killed _in his flat_. +Caussidière offered him a loaded pistol to shoot himself. Delahodde +refused. Some one asked him whether he would like poison. Poison, too, +he refused, but on his way to prison, like a sensible person, asked for +a mug of beer. This is a fact told me by the deputy-mayor of the twelfth +arrondissement, who accompanied him. + +When the reaction began to get the upper hand and Delahodde was let out +of prison, he went away to England, but when the reaction was completely +triumphant he returned to Paris, and was a prominent figure at the +theatre and at public gatherings as a lion of a peculiar species; after +that, he published his memoirs. + +Spies are invariably to be found in all groups of exiles; they are +recognised, discovered, beaten, but they do their job with complete +success. In Paris the police know all the secrets of London; the day +of Delescluze’s,[12] and afterwards of Boichot’s,[13] secret arrival +in France was so well known that they were seized at Calais as soon as +they stepped off the boat. At the trial of the Communists at Cologne, +documents and letters were read that had been ‘bought in London,’ as the +Prussian commissioner of police naïvely admitted at the trial. + +In 1849 I made the acquaintance of an exiled Austrian journalist called +Engländer. He was very clever and very sarcastic, and later on published +a series of lively articles on the historical development of Socialism in +Kolatchek’s _Jahrbücher_. This Engländer had been imprisoned in Paris in +connection with the case called the ‘Case of the Correspondents.’ + +All sorts of rumours were current about him; at last he turned up himself +in London. Here another Austrian exile, Dr. Hefner, who was greatly +respected by his fellow-countrymen, said that Engländer had been in the +pay of the Prefect in Paris, and that he had been put in prison for +infidelity to the French police, who were jealous of the Austrian embassy +in whose service he was also employed. Engländer led a dissipated life, +which needs plenty of money, and the Prefect alone apparently did not +provide enough. + +The German exiles discussed it and discussed it, and sent for Engländer +to answer these charges. Engländer tried to turn it off with a joke, but +Hefner was relentless. Then the unfaithful consort of the two polices +leapt up with a flushed face and tears in his eyes, and said: ‘Well, +then, I _am_ guilty to a great extent, but it is not for him to accuse +me’; and he flung on the table a letter from the Prefect which made it +clear that Hefner, too, was receiving payment from him. + +There was living in Paris a certain N., also an Austrian refugee. I made +his acquaintance at the end of 1848. His comrades used to describe an +extraordinarily valiant action performed by him during the revolution in +Vienna. The insurgents were short of gunpowder. N. undertook to bring +it by rail, and brought it. A married man with children, he was in +great poverty in Paris. In 1853 I found him in London in great straits; +he was living with his family in two small rooms in one of the poorest +back-streets of Soho. Nothing succeeded that he undertook. He set up a +laundry in which his wife and another exile washed the linen, while N. +delivered it; but the comrade went away to America and the laundry failed. + +He wanted to get a job in a commercial office, and being a very +intelligent fellow and well educated, he might have earned a good salary +but for references; without references you cannot take a step in England. + +I gave him my name as one: and in connection with this introduction a +German refugee, O., observed to me that it was a mistake on my part to do +so, that the man did not enjoy a good reputation and was supposed to be +in relations with the French police. + +About that time Reihel brought my children to London. He took great +interest in N. I told him what was said about the latter. + +Reihel laughed heartily; he was ready to answer for N. as for himself, +and pointed to his poverty as the best refutation of the charge. This +last consideration to some extent convinced me, too. In the evening +Reihel went out for a walk and came back late, looking pale and upset. He +came in to me for a minute, and complaining of a violent sick headache +was about to go to bed. I looked at him and said:— + +‘You have something on your mind. _Heraus damit!_’ + +‘Yes, you have guessed right ... but first give me your word of honour +that you will tell no one.’ + +‘I daresay, but what nonsense! Leave it to my conscience.’ + +‘I could not rest after hearing from you about N., and in spite of the +promise I had given to you I made up my mind to question him, and have +been to see him. His wife is going to be confined in a day or two, their +poverty is awful.... What it cost me to begin to speak! I called him out +into the street, and at last, plucking up all my courage, said to him: +“Do you know that Herzen was warned of this and that? I am convinced that +it is a calumny. Do let me clear up the business.” “I thank you,” he +answered me gloomily, “but that is not necessary; I know where the story +comes from. In a moment of despair, starving, I offered the Prefect in +Paris my services to keep him _au courant_ with news of the exiles. He +sent me three hundred francs and I have never written to him since.”’ + +Reihel was almost weeping. + +‘Listen,’ I said: ‘until his wife has been confined and is recovered, +I give you my word not to speak. Let him get a job in an office and +leave political circles, but if I hear fresh evidence and he is still in +relations with the exiles I will show him up. Damn the fellow!’ + +Reihel went away. Ten days later at dinner-time N. came in to see me, +pale and in distress. ‘You can imagine,’ he said, ‘how hard it is for +me to take this step; but look where I will, I can see no hope of help +except from you. My wife will be brought to bed within a few hours, we +have neither coal nor tea nor a cup of milk in the house, not a farthing, +nor one woman who will help, nor means to send for a doctor.’ Utterly +exhausted, he sank on to a chair, and hiding his face in his hands said: +‘The only thing left for me is to blow out my brains, anyway I shall not +see this misery.’ + +I sent at once to kind-hearted Paul Darasz, gave N. some money, and +soothed him as far as I could. Next day Darasz came to tell me that the +birth had gone off well. + +Meanwhile the rumour, which had probably originated in personal enmity, +of N.’s connections with the French police was more and more widely +circulated, and at last T., a well-known Vienna _clubiste_ and agitator, +whose speech led the populace to hang Latour,[14] asserted right and +left that he had himself read a letter from the Prefect accompanying a +despatch of money. Evidently N.’s exposure was of great moment to T. He +came himself to me to confirm N.’s guilt. + +My position was becoming difficult. Haug was living with me; hitherto I +had said no word to him, but now this reticence was becoming indelicate +and dangerous. I told him about it, making no mention of Reihel, as I +did not want to mix him up in the drama, which seemed to offer every +possibility of a fifth act in a police court or at the Old Bailey. What +I had dreaded beforehand was just what happened, ‘the Bouillon boiled +over.’[15] I could scarcely pacify Haug and restrain him from marching +off to N.’s garret. I knew that N. must come to us with some manuscripts +he had been copying, and advised him to await his arrival. Haug agreed, +and one morning ran in to me, pale with fury, and announced that N. was +below. I made haste to throw my papers into the table drawer and go down. +Haug was shouting and N. was shouting. The interchange was already rather +violent. The strength of the bad language was increasing and increasing. +The expression of N.’s face, contorted by resentment and shame, was +sinister. Haug was intensely excited and confused. As things were going, +it was far easier to come to splitting skulls than reaching the truth. + +‘Gentlemen,’ I said suddenly in the midst of their talk, ‘allow me to +stop you for a moment.’ + +They stopped. + +‘It seems to me that you are spoiling your case by overheat; before +abusing each other you ought to put the question quite clearly——’ + +‘Whether I am a spy or not?’ shouted N. ‘I will allow no man on earth to +put such a question to me.’ + +‘No, that is not the question I meant; you are accused by a certain +person, and not by him alone, of having received money from the Prefect +of Police at Paris.’ + +‘Who is that person?’ + +‘T.’ + +‘He is a blackguard.’ + +‘That is not the point. Have you received money or not?’ + +‘I have,’ said N. with strained composure, looking Haug and me in the +face. Haug made a convulsive grimace and uttered a sort of moan of +impatience to begin reviling N. again. I took Haug by the hand and said: +‘Well, that is all we want.’ + +‘No, it is not all,’ answered N. ‘You ought to know that I have never +compromised any one by a single line.’ + +‘That fact can only be confirmed by your correspondent Pietri, and he is +not an acquaintance of ours.’ + +‘Well, am I a criminal and you my judges or what? What makes you imagine +that I am bound to justify myself to you? I think too highly of my own +dignity to let it depend on the opinion of any one like Haug or you. +I will never set my foot again within this house,’ added N., proudly +putting on his hat and opening the door. ‘You may be perfectly sure of +that,’ I said after him. He slammed the door and went out. Haug was +for plunging after him, but, laughing, I held him back and paraphrased +the words of Siéyès: ‘_Nous sommes aujourd’hui ce que nous avons été +hier—déjeunons!_’ + +N. went straight off to T. The bulky, shiny Silenus of whom Mazzini once +said, ‘I always think that he has been fried in olive oil and not wiped +afterwards,’ had not yet left his bed. The door opened, and before him +stood N. with drowsy and puffy eyes. + +‘You told Herzen that I received money from the Prefect?’ + +‘I did.’ + +‘What for?’ + +‘Because you have.’ + +‘Though you knew that I have sent no report. Take that for it.’ With +these words N. spat into T.’s face and walked out.... The infuriated +Silenus, determined to be quits with him, leapt from his bed, snatched +up the chamber-pot, and seizing his chance as N. descended the stairs, +emptied the contents on his head, saying as he did so: ‘And you take +that.’ This epilogue diverted me unspeakably. + +‘You see how well I did,’ I said to Haug, ‘to stop you. Why, what could +you have done to the head of the luckless correspondent of Pietri equal +to that? He won’t be dry till the Second Coming.’ + +One would have thought the thing must have ended with this German +vendetta, but there is still a little sequel to this epilogue. An old +gentleman called V., I am told a kind and honest man, undertook to defend +N. He called together a committee of Germans, and invited me as _one of +the accusers_. I wrote to him that I should not come to the committee, +that all I knew about it was limited to the fact that N. in my presence +had confessed to Haug that he had received money from the Prefect. V. +was not satisfied with this; he wrote to me that N. was guilty in fact, +but morally blameless, and enclosed a letter of N.’s to him. N., among +other things, drew his attention to the _strangeness_ of my behaviour. +‘Herzen,’ he said, ‘knew about that money long before from Mr. Reihel, +and not only said nothing till T. made his accusation, but even gave me +two pounds after that, and when my wife was ill, sent the doctor at his +own expense!’ + +_Sehr gut!_ + + + + +CAMICIA ROSSA + + +Shakespeare’s Day has been transformed into Garibaldi’s day. This is one +of the far-fetched coincidences of history, which alone is successful in +achieving such improbabilities. + +The people who gathered together on Primrose Hill to plant a tree +in memory of the Shakespeare Tricentenary remained there to talk of +Garibaldi’s sudden departure. The police dispersed the crowd. Fifty +thousand men (according to the police report) obeyed the orders of thirty +policemen and, from profound respect for the law, half-destroyed the +grand right of open-air meeting, or, at any rate, helped to support the +illegal intervention of the authorities. + +Truly, something like a Shakespearian fantasy had passed before our +eyes against the grey background of England with a truly Shakespearian +juxtaposition of the grand and the revolting, of the heart-rending and +the jarring: the holy simplicity of the man, the naïve simplicity of the +masses, and the secret conclaves behind the scenes, the intrigues and the +lies. Familiar shades seemed to flit before our eyes in other forms—from +Hamlet to King Lear, from Goneril and Cordelia to _honest_ Iago. The +Iagos are all in miniature, but what a number there are of them, and how +honest they are! + +Prologue: Alarums and excursions. The idol of the masses, the one +grand popular figure that has appeared since 1848, enters in all the +brilliance of its glory. Everything bows down before it, everything +celebrates its triumph; this is Carlyle’s hero-worship in real life. +Cannon-shots, bells ringing, streamers on the boats, and no music only +because England’s hero has arrived on a Sunday, and Sunday here is kept +as a day of mortification.... London stands for seven hours on its feet +awaiting its guest; the triumphant ovations increase with every day; +the appearance in the street of the man in the _red shirt_ calls forth +an outburst of enthusiasm, crowds escort him at one o’clock in the night +from the opera. Workmen and clerks, lords and sempstresses, bankers +and High-church clergymen; the feudal wreck, Lord Derby, and the relic +of the February revolution, the republican of 1848; Queen Victoria’s +eldest son and the barefoot swiper born without father or mother, vie +with one another in trying to capture a hand-shake, a glance, a word. +Scotland, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow, Manchester are tremulous with +expectation—while he vanishes into the impenetrable fog, into the blue of +the ocean. + +Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the guest stepped upon some +ministerial trap-door and vanished. Where was he? He was in such a place +a moment since, but now he is not.... All that is left is a point, a sail +just floating out of sight. + +The English people were bewildered—‘the great foolish people,’ as the +poet said of them. John Bull is good-natured, powerful, stubborn, but +heavy, slow and unresourceful, and one is sorry for him while one +laughs! A bull with the gestures of a lion, he was just shaking his +mane and preening himself to greet a guest as he had never greeted +any monarch—still on duty or dismissed from service—and his guest was +snatched from him. The lion-bull stamps with his cleft hoof, tears at +the ground in his rage ... but his guards know all the subtle mechanism +of the locks and screws of freedom in which he is confined, babble +some nonsense to him and keep the key in their pocket, while the point +vanishes on the ocean. + +Poor lion-bull, go back to your hard labour, follow the plough, wield +the hammer! Have not three ministers and one non-minister, one duke, one +professor of medicine, and one pious lord testified to the public in +the House of Peers and in the Lower House, in the journals and in the +drawing-rooms, that the strong man whom you saw yesterday is sick, and +so sick that he must be sent the length of the Atlantic and across the +Mediterranean...? ‘Whom do you prefer to believe, my ass or myself?’ said +the offended miller in the old fable to his sceptical friend who doubted +whether the ass was out when he heard him braying.... + +And are they not the friends of the people—more than its friends, its +guardians, its parents? + +... The newspapers are full of detailed descriptions of fêtes and +banquets, speeches and swords, addresses and concerts, Chiswick and +Guildhall. Ballets and spectacles, pantomimes and harlequinades, +depicting this ‘Midspring Night’s Dream,’ have been described enough. I +do not intend to enter into competition with them, but simply want to +give a few of the snapshots I have taken with my little camera from the +modest corner from which I looked on. In them, as is always the case in +photographs, much that is accidental is seized and retained, awkward +draperies, awkward poses, over-prominent details, with the lines of +events left untouched and lines of faces unsoftened.... + +This is my gift to you, my absent children (it is partly for you that it +is written), and once more I deeply, deeply regret that you were not here +with us on April the 17th. + + +1 + +AT BROOKE HOUSE + +Garibaldi arrived at Southampton on the evening of the 3rd of April. I +wanted to see him before he was caught up, whirled off, and exhausted. + +I wanted to do so for many reasons: in the first place, simply because I +loved him and had not seen him for about ten years. I had followed his +great career step by step since 1848; by 1854 he had become in my eyes +a character taken straight out of Cornelius Nepos or Plutarch ... since +then he had outstripped half those characters, had become the Uncrowned +King of the Peoples, their enthusiastic hope, their living legend, their +holy man—and this from the Ukraine and Serbia to Andalusia and Scotland, +from South America to the northern of the United States. Since then with +a handful of men he had conquered an army, set free a whole country, and +been dismissed from it as a cabman is dismissed when he has driven you to +the station. Since then he had been deceived and defeated; and just as he +had gained nothing for himself by victory, he had lost nothing by defeat, +but his power among the people had been doubled. The wound dealt him by +his own countrymen had cemented him with blood to the common people. To +the greatness of the hero was added the crown of a martyr. I longed to +see whether he was still the same simple-hearted sailor who had brought +_The Commonwealth_ from Boston to the India Docks, dreaming of a floating +brotherhood of exiles that should sail over the ocean, and regaling me +with Nice Bellet brought from America. + +In the second place, I wanted to tell him a little about the intrigues +and absurdities here, about the good people who with one hand were +setting up a pedestal for him and with the other putting Mazzini in +the pillory. I wanted to tell him about the harrying of Stansfeld, and +about the Liberals of mean understanding who joined in the baying of +the reactionary packs without seeing that the latter had at least an +object—to trip up the piebald and characterless Ministry over Stansfeld, +and to replace them, together with their gout, their musty relics and +their faded heraldic rags. + +In Southampton I did not find Garibaldi. He had just gone off to +the Isle of Wight. In the streets there were still signs left of his +triumphal reception—flags, groups of people, crowds of foreigners.... + +Without stopping at Southampton, I set off for Cowes. On the steamer +and in the hotels every one was talking of Garibaldi, of his reception. +Anecdotes were told: how he had come out on deck leaning on the arm of +the Duke of Sutherland; how, when going from the steamer into Cowes, +Garibaldi had been on the point of bowing to the sailors, but had +suddenly stopped, stepped up to them and shaken each by the hand instead +of giving tips. + +I reached Cowes at nine o’clock in the evening; I learnt that Brooke +House was a long way off, ordered a carriage for the next day, and +walked along the sea-front. It was the first warm evening of 1864. The +sea was perfectly calm, dancing in languid ripples; here and there a +phosphorescent light gleamed and vanished; I drank in with delight the +moist salt smell of the sea, which I love like the fragrance of hay. +In the distance was the sound of dance-music from some club or casino, +everything was bright and festive. + +But next morning when I opened my window at six o’clock England was +herself again; instead of sea and sky, earth and distance, there was one +thick mass in tints of grey from which a fine steady rain was falling +with that British persistence which tells one plainly: ‘If you imagine +that I am going to stop, you are wrong. I am not.’ At seven o’clock I +drove off to Brooke House in this shower-bath. Wishing to avoid long +explanations with English servants, who are slow-witted and lacking in +courtesy, I sent in a note to Garibaldi’s secretary, Guerzoni. Guerzoni +led me into his room and went to tell Garibaldi. Then I heard the tapping +of a stick, and a voice saying, ‘Where is he, where is he?’ I went out +into the corridor. Garibaldi stood before me, looking me straight in the +face with his candid, gentle expression; then he held out both hands to +me, and saying, ‘Very, very glad, you are full of strength and health; +you will do more work yet,’ embraced me. ‘Where would you like to be? +This is Guerzoni’s room; would you rather come to mine or rather stay +here?’ he asked, and sat down. + +It was now my turn to look at him. + +He was dressed as you know him from innumerable photographs, pictures +and statuettes; he had a red woollen shirt, and over it a cloak buttoned +in a peculiar way over the chest; he had a kerchief, not on his neck but +on his shoulders, as sailors wear it, tied in a knot over the chest. All +this suited him marvellously, especially his cloak. + +He had changed much less in those ten years than I had expected. None of +the portraits or photographs of him are good enough, all of them make +him look older, darker, and, above all, fail to give the expression of +his face. And it is just in the expression that the whole secret is +revealed, not only of his face but of himself, of his power—of that +magnetic and generous force by means of which he invariably dominated +the circle around him whatever it might be, great or small: a handful +of fishermen at Nice, a crew of sailors on the ocean, a _drappello_ of +guerillas at Monte Video, an army of volunteers in Italy, the masses +of the people of all lands, whole quarters of the terrestrial globe. +Every feature of his face, which is very irregular and more suggestive +of the Slavonic type than the Italian, is full of life and of boundless +good-nature, loving-kindness, and what is called _bienveillance_ (I use +the French word because our benevolence has been so cheapened in our +Government offices and antechambers that its meaning is distorted and +vulgarised). There is the same quality in his glance, the same quality +in his voice, and it is all so simple, so straight from the heart, that +unless a man has some ulterior motive, is in the pay of some Government, +or deliberately determined against it, he is bound to love him. + +But neither his character nor the expression of his face is made up +of goodness alone; side by side with his kindness and attractiveness +one feels the presence of unflinching moral firmness and a sort of +return upon himself, reflective and mournful. I had not observed this +melancholy, gloomy characteristic in him before. + +At moments the conversation broke off: thoughts flitted over his face +like clouds over the sea. Was it horror at the destinies that rested on +his shoulders, at his _consecration_ by the people—which he could not now +refuse? Was it doubt aroused by all the downfalls, all the treacheries, +all the weaknesses of men that he had seen? Was it the temptation of +greatness? That last I do not think; his personality had long ago passed +into his work.... + +I am certain that similar traces of anguish at their vocation were to +be seen in the face of the Maid of Orleans, in the face of John of +Leyden. They belonged to the people, and the elemental feelings or rather +presentiments extinct in us are stronger in the common people. There was +fatalism in their faith, and fatalism in itself is infinitely sad. ‘Thy +will be done,’ says the Sistine Madonna in every feature of her face. +‘Thy will be done,’ says her Son, the Man of the people and the Saviour, +as He sorrowfully prays on the Mount of Olives. + +Garibaldi recalled various details of his visit to London in 1854, how he +had spent the night with me when he had been too late to return to the +India Docks; I reminded him how he had gone for a walk with my son and +had his photograph taken for me at Caldesi’s, how we had dined at the +American Consul’s with Buchanan,[16] which made so much talk at the time +though it was really of no importance. + +‘I must confess that I have not hastened to see you without an object,’ +I said at last; ‘I was afraid that the atmosphere with which you are +surrounded would be too English, that is, too foggy for you to see +clearly the strings behind the scenes working the drama which is being +successfully played out now in Parliament ... the further you go the +thicker the fog will be. Do you want to hear me?’ + +‘Tell me, tell me—we are old friends.’ + +I told him of the debates, of the wailing in the newspapers, of the +grotesqueness of the manœuvres against Mazzini, the ordeal to which +Stansfeld[17] was being subjected. ‘Observe,’ I added, ‘that in Stansfeld +the Tories and their supporters are persecuting not only the revolution +which they mix up with Mazzini, not only the Ministry of Palmerston, +but, in addition to all that, a man who by his personal qualities, his +industry and his intelligence, has obtained at a comparatively early age +the post of a Lord of the Admiralty, a man of no family or connections +in the aristocracy. They will not dare to attack you directly at this +moment, but just see how unceremoniously they are treating you. I bought +the latest _Standard_ yesterday at Cowes; I have read it driving here; +just look at this: “We are convinced that Garibaldi will understand the +obligations laid upon him by the hospitality of England, that he will +have nothing to do with his former comrade, but will have too much tact +to visit at 35 Thurloe Square.” Then follows the sentence passed upon you +_par anticipation_ if you do not act in accordance with this hint.’ + +‘I have heard something of this intrigue,’ said Garibaldi. ‘_Of course +one of my first visits will be to Stansfeld._’ + +‘You know better than I what to do. I only wanted to show you clearly the +ugly outlines of this intrigue.’ + +Garibaldi stood up. I thought that he meant to put an end to the +interview, and began taking leave. + +‘No, no, let us go to my room now,’ he said, and he went off. He limps +badly, but his constitution has emerged triumphantly from every sort of +injury and operation, moral or surgical. + +His dress, I say once more, is wonderfully becoming to him and +wonderfully elegant; there is nothing suggestive of the professional +soldier, nothing bourgeois about it, it is very simple and very +convenient. The ease, the absence of all affectation with which he wears +it, checks the tattle and sly mockery of the drawing-rooms; there can +hardly be another European who could wear the red shirt successfully in +the halls and palaces of England. + +Moreover, his dress is of the greatest significance; in the red shirt the +common people recognise one of themselves, and their man. The aristocracy +imagine that, having clutched his horse by the bridle, they may lead him +where they like, and above all, away from the people; but the people look +at the red shirt and are delighted that dukes, marquises and lords have +turned stable-boys and grooms to the revolutionary leader, have taken on +the duties of major-domos, pages and couriers to the great plebeian in +his plebeian dress. + +Conservative newspapers saw what was wrong, and, to soften the immorality +and unseemliness of Garibaldi’s dress, invented the tale that he was +wearing the uniform of a Monte Video volunteer. But since those days the +rank of general had been bestowed on Garibaldi by the king upon whom he +had bestowed two kingdoms; why then should he wear the uniform of a +Monte Video volunteer? + +And indeed, in what way is his dress a uniform? + +With the uniform is associated some deadly weapon, some symbol of +authority or of bloody remembrance. Garibaldi goes about unarmed, he +fears no one and seeks to be feared by no one; there is as little of the +military man about Garibaldi as there is of the aristocrat or the petty +bourgeois. + +‘I am not a soldier,’ he said at the Crystal Palace to the Italians who +presented him with a sword, ‘and I do not like the soldier’s trade. I saw +my father’s house filled with robbers and snatched up a weapon to drive +them out.’ ‘I am a workman, I have come from working people, and I am +proud of it,’ he said in another place. + +With that it must be noted that Garibaldi has not one grain of plebeian +roughness or affectation of democracy. His manner is soft as a woman’s. +A man and an Italian, he stands at the pinnacle of the civilised world, +not only as a son of the people faithful to his origin but as an Italian +faithful to the aesthetic instinct of his race. + +His cloak, buttoned over the chest, is not so much a military cape as the +robe of the martial high priest, the prophet. When he lifts his hand one +expects words of greeting and blessing, not words of military command. + +Garibaldi began talking of the Polish position. He wondered at the daring +of the Poles. ‘With no organisation, no arms, no men, no open frontier, +no support of any kind—to stand up against a strong military autocracy +and to hold their ground for over a year—there has never been anything +like it in history; it would be well if other nations would imitate them. +Such heroism must not, cannot perish in vain. I suppose that Galicia is +on the point of rising?’ + +I said nothing. + +‘And Hungary too—you do not believe it?’ + +‘No, it is not that. I simply do not know.’ + +‘Well, may we expect any movement in Russia?’ + +‘None whatever. Nothing has changed since I wrote to you in November. The +Government, conscious of public support for all their crimes in Poland, +goes its headlong way, caring not a straw for Europe, while the educated +class sinks lower and lower. The people are dumb. The Polish question +is not their question; we have one common enemy, but the question is +differently presented. Besides, we have plenty of time before us while +they have none.’ + +So the conversation continued for a few minutes longer, when typically +English countenances began to appear at the door, there was a rustle of +ladies’ dresses. I stood up. + +‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ said Garibaldi. + +‘I won’t steal you longer from England.’ + +‘We shall meet in London, shan’t we?’ + +‘I will certainly come to see you. Is it true that you are staying at the +Duke of Sutherland’s?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Garibaldi, and added as though apologising, ‘I could not get +out of it.’ + +‘Then I shall come to see you with my head powdered so that the flunkeys +at Stafford House may think you have a powdered servant.’ + +At that moment the poet-laureate, Tennyson, appeared with his wife. This +was too many laurels for me, and through the same unceasing downpour I +returned to Cowes. + +The scene was changed, but the same play continued. The steamer from +Cowes to Southampton had just left, but another set off three hours +later, so I went to a restaurant hard by, ordered dinner and took up _The +Times_. At the first sentence I was dumbfoundered. The seventy-year-old +Abraham who had two months before been condemned for intrigues with a +new Hagar had finally sacrificed his Isaac from Halifax. Stansfeld’s +resignation had been accepted. And this at the very minute when Garibaldi +was beginning his triumphal progress through England! I had no idea of +this when speaking with Garibaldi. + +That Stansfeld should for a second time have sent in his resignation, +seeing that the attacks upon him persisted, was perfectly natural. He +ought from the very first to have taken his own stand and to have flung +up his post in the Admiralty. Stansfeld had done what he ought, but +what were Palmerston and his colleagues doing? And what was Palmerston +babbling in his speech afterwards?... With what cringing flattery he +spoke of their magnanimous ally, of their fervent desire for his long +life and continual blessings upon him. As though any one took _au +sérieux_ this police farce of Greco Trabucco and Company. + +This was Magenta.[18] + +I asked for paper and wrote a letter to Guerzoni. I wrote it in all +the first flush of my annoyance and begged him to read _The Times_ to +Garibaldi; I wrote of the ugliness of this apotheosis of Garibaldi side +by side with the insults paid to Mazzini. ‘I am fifty-two,’ I wrote, ‘but +I must own that tears come into my eyes at the thought of this injustice.’ + +A few days before my visit to Garibaldi I had been to see Mazzini. The +man has endured much and can endure much; he is an old fighter who cannot +be cast down nor worn out; but this time I found him bitterly mortified +just because he had been chosen as the means by which his friend was +to be brought low. As I was writing the letter to Guerzoni the noble +emaciated figure of the old man with his flashing eyes rose before me. + +When I had finished and the waiter had brought my dinner, I noticed +that I was not alone—a short, fair-haired young man with moustaches, +wearing the dark blue reefer-coat of a sailor, was sitting by the fire +_à l’Américain_, his legs skilfully raised to the level of his ears. +His rapid manner of speech and provincial accent, which made his words +incomprehensible to me, convinced me that this was some seaman carousing +on shore. I left off paying attention to him—he was not speaking to me +but to the waiter. Our acquaintance was limited to my passing him the +salt and his shaking his head in response. + +Soon he was joined by a dark elderly gentleman all in black and buttoned +to the chin, with that peculiar air of insanity people acquire from a +close acquaintance with heaven and an affected religious exaltation which +has become natural from long perseverance. + +It seemed that he was well acquainted with the sailor and had come to +see him. After three or four words he left off _speaking_ and began +_preaching_. ‘I have seen,’ he said, ‘Maccabeus ... Gideon ... the weapon +in the hands of Providence, His sword, His sling ... and the more I gazed +upon him the more deeply was I moved and with tears I repeated “The sword +of the Lord! the sword of the Lord!” He hath chosen the weak David to +vanquish Goliath. Wherefore the English people, the chosen people, go +forth to greet him as to the bride of Lebanon ... the heart of the people +is in the hands of the Lord, it tells them that this is the sword of the +Lord, the weapon of Providence—Gideon.’ + +The doors were flung wide open and there walked in not the bride +of Lebanon but a dozen important-looking Britons, among them Lord +Shaftesbury and Lord Lindsay. They all sat down to the table and asked +for something to eat, announcing that they were going on at once +to Brooke House. It was the official deputation from London with an +invitation to Garibaldi. The preacher subsided, but the sailor rose in my +esteem; he looked with such unmistakable aversion at the deputation that +it struck me, remembering his friend’s sermon, that he might be taking +these people, if not for the swords and bucklers of Satan, at least for +his pen-knives and lancets. + +I asked him how I ought to address a letter to Brooke House, whether it +was sufficient to put the name of the house or whether I ought to add +that of the nearest town. He told me there was no need to add anything. + +One of the deputation, a stout, grey-headed old gentleman, asked me to +whom I was sending a letter in Brooke House. + +‘To Guerzoni.’ + +‘He is Garibaldi’s secretary, isn’t he?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘You need not trouble then. We are going there directly. I shall be +pleased to take the letter.’ + +I took out my card and handed it him with the letter. Could anything like +that have happened on the Continent? Imagine in France any one asking +you in a hotel to whom you were writing, and, on learning that it was to +Garibaldi’s secretary, undertaking to give him the letter! + +The letter was delivered, and next morning I had an answer in London. + +The editor of the foreign news column of the _Morning Star_ recognised +me; inquiries followed as to how I had found Garibaldi, how he was. After +talking to him for a few minutes I went off into the smoking-room. There +my fair-haired sailor and his swarthy theological friend were sitting +over pale ale and pipes. + +‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘have you had a good stare at those people?... +That is jolly fine, Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Lindsay going as deputies +to invite Garibaldi. What a farce! As though they knew what Garibaldi is!’ + +‘The weapon of Providence, a sword in the hands of the Lord, His buckler +... to that end He hath raised him up and hath kept him in his holy +simplicity.’ + +‘That is all very fine, but what have these gentry come for? I’d like to +ask every one of them how much money they have in the _Alabama_[19] ... +let Garibaldi come to Newcastle-on-Tyne or Glasgow, there he will see the +people closer, there he won’t be hindered by lords and dukes.’ + +He was not a seaman, but a shipwright. He had lived for some years in +America, had a thorough knowledge of the relations of South and North, +and spoke of the hopelessness of the war there, to which the consolatory +theologian observed: ‘If the Lord hath divided that people and set +brother against brother, He hath His own designs, and if we comprehend +them not, we must submit to His Providence even when it chastises us.’ + +It was under these circumstances and in this form that I heard for the +last time a commentary on the celebrated Hegelian motto: ‘All that is +real is rational.’ Shaking hands in a friendly way with the sailor and +his chaplain, I departed for Southampton. + +On the steamer I met the Radical journalist Holyoake; he had seen +Garibaldi a little later than I had. Garibaldi had sent through him an +invitation to Mazzini, and had already telegraphed to the latter to come +to Southampton, where Holyoake intended to wait for him with Menotti +Garibaldi and his brother. Holyoake very much wanted to get two letters +to London by that evening (they could not reach by post before the +morning). I offered my services. + +I arrived in London at eleven o’clock in the evening, ordered a room at +the York Hotel near Waterloo Station, and drove off with the letters, +surprised to find that the rain had not yet managed to stop. At one +o’clock or a little later I reached the hotel again. It was locked +up. I knocked and knocked.... A drunken individual who was finishing +his festive evening near the railing of a tavern said: ‘Don’t knock +there, there is a night-bell round the corner.’ I went to look for the +night-bell, found it and set to ringing. A sleepy-looking head was poked +out of some basement and the porter asked me rudely without opening the +door: ‘What do you want?’ + +‘A room.’ + +‘There is not one.’ + +‘I engaged one myself at eleven o’clock.’ + +‘I tell you there is not one,’ and he slammed the door of the netherworld +without even waiting for me to swear at him, which I did indeed to no +purpose, since he could not hear me. + +It was an unpleasant position; to find a room in London at two o’clock at +night, especially in that quarter of the town, is not easy. I remembered +a little French restaurant and made my way there. + +‘Have you a room?’ I asked the man who kept it. + +‘Yes, but not a very nice one.’ + +‘Show it me.’ + +He had told the truth indeed. The room was more than not very nice, it +was very nasty. But I had no choice. I opened the window and went down +to the bar for a minute. There were still Frenchmen drinking, shouting, +playing cards and dominoes there. A German of colossal height whom I had +seen before came up to me and asked whether I had time for a word with +him in private, as he had something of special importance to tell me. + +‘Of course I have; let us go into the next room, there is no one there.’ + +The German sat down opposite me and began telling me tragically how his +_patron_, a Frenchman, had cheated him, how he had been exploiting him +for three years past, making him do the work of three and beguiling him +with the hope that he would take him into partnership, and now, all of a +sudden, without saying a disagreeable word, he had gone off to Paris and +there taken a partner. On the strength of this, the German had told him +that he should leave the place, but the _patron_ had not returned.... + +‘But why did you trust him without any agreement?’ + +‘_Weil ich ein dummer Deutscher bin._’ + +‘Well, that is another matter.’ + +‘I want to close the establishment and go away.’ + +‘You had better look out, he will bring an action against you; do you +know the law here?’ + +The German shook his head. + +‘I should like to pay him out.... I suppose you have been to see +Garibaldi?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, how is he? _Ein famoser Kerl_—but you know, if he had not promised +it me for the last three years I should have been doing something else. I +could not expect it, I could not ... and how is his wound?’ + +‘I think it is all right.’ + +‘The beast, he kept it all quiet and the last day says “I have a partner +already.” I am afraid I am boring you?’ + +‘Not at all, only I am a little tired and sleepy. I got up at six and now +it is a little past two.’ + +‘But what am I to do? I was awfully pleased when you came in, _ich habe +so bei mir gedacht, der wird Rat schaffen_. So I am not to close the +establishment?’ + +‘No. But as he is so in love with Paris, you write to him to-morrow: “I +have shut up the place. When will you be pleased to come and take charge +of it?” You will see the effect; he will leave his wife and his gambling +on the Bourse, come here post-haste and see that it is not shut up.’ + +‘_Saperlot! das ist eine Idee—ausgezeichnet_, I will go and write the +letter.’ + +‘And I will go to bed. _Gute Nacht!_’ + +‘_Schlafen Sie wohl._’ + +I asked for a candle. The restaurant-keeper brought it with his own hand +and announced that he wanted a word with me. It was as though I had +turned father confessor. + +‘What is it? It is a little late, but I am ready to hear.’ + +‘Only a word or two. I wanted to ask you: What do you think if I were +to put up a bust of Garibaldi to-morrow—you know, with flowers and a +laurel wreath; wouldn’t it be very nice? I have been wondering about an +inscription in letters of three colours: Garibaldi—_Libérateur_?’ + +‘To be sure you might! Only the French embassy will forbid the French to +come to your restaurant, and they are here from morning till night.’ + +‘That is so ... but you know one would rake in a lot of money exhibiting +the bust, and they will forget about it afterwards....’ + +‘Mind,’ I observed, resolutely getting up to go, ‘you don’t tell any one. +Some one will steal the original idea from you.’ + +‘Not a word, not a word to any one. What we have said will remain, I +hope, I beg, between us.’ + +‘Have no doubt about that,’ and I went off to his dirty bedroom. + +Such was the sequel to my first interview with Garibaldi in 1864. + + +2 + +AT STAFFORD HOUSE + +On the day of Garibaldi’s arrival in London I did not see him, but I +saw the sea of people, the streams of people, the streets flooded with +them for several miles, the crowded squares; everywhere where there was +a coping, a balcony, a window, people were perched, and they were all +waiting, in some places waiting for six hours. Garibaldi arrived at +the station of Nine Elms at half-past two, and only at half-past eight +reached Stafford House, where the Duke of Sutherland and his wife were +awaiting him on the steps. + +The English crowd is coarse; no large gatherings take place without +fights, without drunken men, without all sorts of revolting scenes, and +without thieving organised on a vast scale. On this occasion the order +was wonderful; the people understood that this was _their_ holiday, that +they were doing honour to one of _themselves_, that they were more than +spectators. And only look in the police columns of the papers at the +number of thefts on the day of the arrival of the Prince of Wales’ bride +and the number[20] on the day of Garibaldi’s triumphal march, though the +police were far less numerous. What had become of the pickpockets? + +At Westminster Bridge near the Houses of Parliament the people were so +closely packed that the carriage, moving at a walking pace, stopped, +and the procession, three-quarters of a mile long, moved on with its +standards, its band and so on. With shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ the people clung +to the carriage, all who could push forward shook hands, kissed the edge +of Garibaldi’s cloak, shouted ‘Welcome!’ Adoring the great plebeian with +delirious enthusiasm, the people wanted to unharness horses and to draw +the carriage themselves, but they were dissuaded. No one noticed the +dukes and lords who surrounded him; they had dropped into the modest +position of grooms and attendants. This ovation lasted about an hour, he +was passed from one living wave to the next while the carriage moved on a +step or two and stood still again. + +The resentment and exasperation of the continental Conservatives was +perfectly natural. Garibaldi’s reception was not only an insult to the +system of grades and ranks, to the livery of flunkeys, but was extremely +dangerous as a precedent. And the fury of the personages who had been +in the service of three emperors and one ‘imperial’ reaction surpassed +all bounds, the bounds of courtesy to begin with. They felt faint and +dizzy; the England of palaces, the England of coffers, forgetful of +all decorum, was going hand in hand with the England of the workshops +to greet an ‘_aventurier_,’ a rebel, who would have been hanged if he +had not succeeded in freeing Sicily. ‘Why,’ _la France_ asked naïvely, +‘why has England never so welcomed Marshal Pélissier, whose fame is so +untarnished?’ In spite of the fact, she forgot to add, that he had burnt +hundreds of Arabs with their wives and children, just as we burn out +black-beetles. + +It is a pity that Garibaldi accepted the hospitality of the Duke of +Sutherland. The small consequence and the political insignificance of +the fireman duke made Stafford House to a certain extent Garibaldi’s +hotel; still, the surroundings were inappropriate and the intrigue +hatched before his arrival in London found a propitious background in +the palace. Its object was to keep Garibaldi away from the people, that +is, away from the working classes, and to cut him off from those of his +friends and acquaintances who had remained true to the old flag, most +of all, of course, from Mazzini. A good half of these barriers were +blown down by the nobility and simplicity of Garibaldi’s character, but +the other half—to wit, the impossibility of speaking to him except in +the presence of witnesses—remained. If Garibaldi had not got up at five +and received visitors at six, it would have completely succeeded; but +luckily the zeal of the intriguers could not get them up before half-past +eight in the morning; only on the day of his departure ladies began the +invasion of his bedroom an hour earlier. On one occasion Mordini, who had +not succeeded in getting in a word with Garibaldi in the course of an +hour, said to me, laughing: ‘No man in the world could be easier to see +than Garibaldi, but no one could be more difficult to speak to.’ + +The duke’s hospitality was entirely lacking in that liberality which at +one time reconciled men to aristocratic luxury. He only assigned one room +to Garibaldi and one to the young man who bandaged his foot, but would +have hired rooms for the others, namely Garibaldi’s sons, Guerzoni, and +Basilio. They, of course, refused to accept this, and lodged at their own +expense in the Bath Hotel. To appreciate the oddity of this, one must +understand what sort of place Stafford House is. One could easily without +inconveniencing the owners have lodged in it all the peasant families +turned homeless into the world by the duke’s father—and there are very +many of them. + +The English are poor actors, and that does them the greatest credit. +The first time I went to see Garibaldi in Stafford House I saw at once +the intrigue going on around him. Figaros and factotums of all sorts, +servants and observers, were in and out continually. An Italian was +made police-master, master of the ceremonies, major-domo, stage-manager, +butler, _souffleur_. And, indeed, who would not take such a job for the +honour of sitting with dukes and lords, and with them taking steps to +prevent and circumvent all intercourse between the people and Garibaldi, +and assisting duchesses in weaving the spider’s web to catch the Italian +leader, though the lame general broke it every day without seeing it? + +Garibaldi, for instance, had gone to see Mazzini. What was to be done? +How was it to be concealed? At once stage-managers and factotums were on +the scene, a means was found. Next morning all London read: ‘Yesterday at +such an hour Garibaldi visited John France in Onslow Terrace.’ You will +think that this was an invented name; no, it was the name of the landlord +of Mazzini’s lodging. + +Garibaldi had no thought of breaking with Mazzini, but he might easily +have left this vortex without meeting him before witnesses and without +proclaiming it publicly. Mazzini refused to visit Garibaldi while he was +at Stafford House. They might have met on a few occasions, but no one +took the initiative. After considering this, I wrote a note to Mazzini +and asked him whether Garibaldi would accept an invitation to go as far +as Teddington; that if he would not, I would not invite him and that +would be an end of the matter; if he would come, I should be very glad to +invite them both. Mazzini wrote to me next day that Garibaldi would be +delighted, and that, if nothing prevented him, they would come on Sunday +at one o’clock. Mazzini added in conclusion that Garibaldi would be very +glad to see Ledru-Rollin at my house. + +On Saturday morning I went to Garibaldi, and not finding him at home, +remained with Saffi, Guerzoni and the others to wait for him. When he +returned, the crowd of visitors waiting for him in the anteroom and +corridor fell upon him; one dauntless Briton snatched the stick out +of his hand and thrust another in it, repeating in a sort of frenzy, +‘General, it is a better one, take it, allow me, it is a better one.’ +‘But what for?’ asked Garibaldi, smiling. ‘I am used to my own stick.’ +But, seeing the Englishman would not relinquish the stick without a +struggle, he gave a faint shrug of his shoulders and walked on. + +In the drawing-room a weighty conversation was taking place behind my +back. I should have paid no attention to it if I had not caught the words +loudly repeated: ‘_Capite_, Teddington is only two or three steps from +Hampton Court. Upon my word, but it is impossible.... Two or three steps +from Hampton Court! It is sixteen to eighteen miles.’ I turned round, and +seeing a man who was a complete stranger to me taking the distance from +London to Teddington so much to heart, I said to him: ‘Twelve or thirteen +miles.’ + +The argumentative gentleman turned at once to me: ‘Even thirteen miles is +a terrible distance. The General has to be in London at three o’clock.... +Teddington must be postponed in any case.’ + +Guerzoni repeated to him that Garibaldi wanted to go and was going. + +The Italian guardian was joined by an Englishman, who felt that to +accept an invitation to such a distance would be a fatal precedent.... +Wishing to suggest to them the indelicacy of debating the question in +my presence, I observed: ‘Gentlemen, allow me to put an end to your +discussion,’ and going up to Garibaldi on the spot said to him: ‘A visit +from you is infinitely precious to me, and now more than ever, at an +epoch so black for Russia, your visit will have a special significance; +your visit will be not to me alone but to our friends, fettered in +prison and banished to penal servitude. Knowing your many engagements, +I was afraid to invite you. But at a word from a common friend you sent +word to me that you would come. That is even more precious to me. I +believe that you want to come, but I do not insist (_je n’insiste pas_) +if there are such insuperable obstacles in the way as this gentleman, +with whom I am unacquainted, tells me.’ I indicated him with my finger. + +‘What is the difficulty?’ asked Garibaldi. + +The impresario ran up and hurriedly laid before him all the +considerations which made driving at eleven o’clock the next day to +Teddington and returning by three out of the question. + +‘That is very simple,’ said Garibaldi, ‘I must start at ten then instead +of eleven. That is clear, isn’t it?’ The impresario vanished. + +‘In that case,’ I said, ‘to avoid loss of time, worries or fresh +difficulties, allow me to come and fetch you between nine and ten and we +will go together.’ + +‘I shall be delighted. I will expect you.’ + +From Garibaldi I went off to see Ledru-Rollin. I had not seen him for two +years. It was not because there had been any misunderstanding between +us but because we had very little in common. Moreover, London, and +especially suburban life, makes people drift apart imperceptibly. He had +of late years led a quiet and solitary existence, though he believed +with the same intensity as he had done on the 14th of June 1849 in the +approaching revolution in France. I had disbelieved in it almost as long, +and I too was unshaken in my conviction. + +With the greatest courtesy to me Ledru-Rollin refused my invitation. He +said that he would have been truly glad to meet Garibaldi again, and +would of course have been pleased to come and see me, but that, as the +representative of the French Republic, as one who had suffered for Rome +(on 13th of June 1849), he could not see Garibaldi for the first time +anywhere but in his own house. ‘If,’ he said, ‘Garibaldi’s political +views do not permit him to show officially his sympathy for the French +Republic—whether in my person, in the person of Louis Blanc, or of +some other one of us I do not care—I shall not complain. But I should +decline an interview with him wherever that might be. As a private man +I should like to see him, though I have no particular reason for doing +so; the French Republic is not a _courtisane_ to give assignations half +in secret. Forget for a moment that you are inviting me, and tell me +candidly, do you not agree with my contention?’ + +‘I think that you are right, and I hope that you have nothing against my +repeating our conversation to Garibaldi.’ + +‘Quite the contrary.’ + +With that we changed the subject. The revolution of February and the year +1848 rose again from the tomb and stood before me once more in the same +figure of the tribune of that day with a few wrinkles and a few more grey +hairs. Language, thoughts, turns of phrase, and above all hopes, were +the same. ‘Things are going magnificently. The Empire does not know what +to do. _Elle est débordée._ Only to-day I have had news of an incredible +advance in public opinion. And indeed it is high time; who could have +supposed that so grotesque a state of things could have lasted till 1864?’ + +I did not contradict him, and we parted pleased with each other. + +On reaching London next day I began by hiring a carriage with a pair +of sturdy horses and driving to Stafford House. When I went up to +Garibaldi’s room he was not in it, but the zealous Italian was already +desperately expounding the utter impossibility of driving to Teddington. + +‘Can you suppose,’ he was saying to Guerzoni, ‘that the duke’s horses can +take him for twelve or thirteen miles there and then back again? Why, +they simply would not let him have them for such a journey.’ + +‘There is no need, I have a carriage.’ + +‘But what horses will bring him back? The same?’ + +‘Don’t be anxious; if the horses are tired they can put in fresh ones.’ + +Guerzoni said to me with fury: ‘Where will it end? This is slavery; every +wretched little cur gives orders and intrigues.’ + +‘I don’t know whether you are referring to me,’ the Italian shouted, pale +with rage, ‘I sir, will not allow myself to be treated like a flunkey,’ +and he snatched up a pencil on the table, broke it and threw it away. ‘If +that is how it is, I will give it all up and will leave you at once.’ + +‘That is just what we ask you to do.’ + +The zealous Italian strode rapidly towards the door, but Garibaldi +appeared in the doorway, looked calmly at them and at me, and then said: +‘Isn’t it time to start? I am at your disposal, only please bring me back +to London by half-past two or three o’clock; and now, allow me to receive +an old friend who has only just arrived. Perhaps you are acquainted with +him—Mordini?’ + +‘More than acquainted, we are friends. If you have nothing against it, I +will invite him too.’ + +‘We will take him with us.’ + +Mordini came up; I moved away to the window with Saffi. All at once the +factotum, changing his mind, ran up to me and boldly asked me: ‘Excuse +me, I don’t understand. You have a carriage and your party is—reckon up: +the General, you, Menotti, Guerzoni, Saffi and Mordini.... How will you +sit?’ + +‘If necessary, we will have another carriage—two....’ + +‘But is there time to get them...?’ + +I looked at him, and turning to Mordini said to him: ‘Mordini, I want to +ask Saffi and you to do something. Take a hansom and drive at once to +Waterloo Station. You will catch the train there, for this gentleman is +afraid that there won’t be room for us all and that there is no time to +send for another carriage. Had I known yesterday that there would have +been these difficulties I would have asked Garibaldi to come by train, +but now that won’t do, because I can’t answer for our finding a cab or a +carriage at Teddington Station. And I don’t want to make him walk to my +house.’ + +‘Delighted; we will go at once,’ answered Saffi and Mordini. + +‘Let us go too,’ said Garibaldi, getting up. + +We went out; a dense crowd had already gathered before Stafford House, +and a loud, prolonged ‘Hurrah!’ greeted and accompanied our carriage. + +Menotti could not come with us, he was going with his brother to Windsor. +I was told that the Queen, who was longing to see Garibaldi, but who +alone in all Great Britain had not the right to do so, desired an +_accidental_ meeting with his sons. In this division the lion’s share +certainly was not the Queen’s. + + +3 + +AT HOME + +That day was wonderfully successful and was one of the brightest, +loveliest and most cloudless days of the last fifteen years. There was +a wonderful serenity and fulness about it, an aesthetic proportion and +completeness such as very rarely comes. One day later, and our festive +day would not have had that character. One more—not an Italian—of our +party, and the tone would have been different; at any rate, there would +have been an uneasy fear that it would be spoilt. Such days stand out +like mountain-tops ... as with notes fully sung, as with flowers fully +opened; there is nothing further, nothing higher, nothing beyond. + +From the moment when the steps of Stafford House with the Duke of +Sutherland’s lackeys, factotums and porter had vanished and the crowd +received Garibaldi with its ‘Hurrah,’ our hearts grew light, everything +was attuned to a free human key and so remained till the moment when +Garibaldi, pressed and crowded by the people again, kissed on his +shoulder and on the hem of his coat, got into the carriage and drove back +to London. + +On the way we talked of different things. Garibaldi wondered that the +Germans did not understand that it was not their freedom, not their +unity, that was victorious in Denmark, but the two armies of two despotic +states which they would not be able to control later.[21] ‘If Denmark +had been supported in her struggle,’ he said, ‘the forces of Austria and +Prussia would have been diverted and a line of action on the opposite +coast would have been thrown open to us.’ + +I observed that the Germans were terrible nationalists, that they were +labelled as cosmopolitan because they were only known from books. They +were just as patriotic as the French, but the French were calmer in +their patriotism, knowing that they were feared. The Germans knew the +poor opinion in which they were held by other peoples and strained +themselves to the utmost to keep up their reputation. ‘Do you imagine,’ +I added, ‘that there are Germans who want to give up Venice and the +Quadrilateral?[22] Perhaps Venice they would: that question is too +conspicuous, the injustice of that is obvious, the aristocratic name has +an effect on them; but you should just talk to them about Trieste, which +they need for trade, or Galicia or Posen, which they need in order to +civilise them.’ + +Among other things I repeated to Garibaldi my conversation with +Ledru-Rollin, and added that in my opinion Ledru-Rollin was right. + +‘Undoubtedly,’ said Garibaldi, ‘perfectly right. I had not thought of it. +To-morrow I will go to him and to Louis Blanc. Couldn’t we go now?’ he +added. + +We were in the Wandsworth Road and Ledru-Rollin was in St. John’s Wood, +that is eight miles away. I had _à l’imprésario_ to tell him that it was +utterly impossible. + +And again at moments Garibaldi sank into thought and was silent, and +again his face expressed that great sadness of which I have spoken. He +looked away into the distance as though seeking something on the horizon. +I did not interrupt him, but gazed and thought: ‘Whether he is a sword +in the hands of Providence or not, he is certainly not a military leader +by profession, he is not a general. He told the holy truth when he said +he was not a soldier but simply a man who had taken up arms to defend +his outraged hearth, an apostle-warrior ready to preach a crusade and go +at the head of it, ready to lay down his soul and his children’s for his +people, to give and receive terrible blows, to shake the life out of his +enemy, to scatter his ashes to the winds ... and then, forgetting his +victory, to fling his blood-stained sword together with its sheath into +the depths of the sea....’ + +All that, and precisely that, was fully understood by the people, by +the masses, by the ignorant mob, with that clearness of vision, that +insight with which in other days the slaves of Rome understood the +incomprehensible mystery of the coming of Christ and crowds of the weary +and heavy-laden, women and old men, prayed at the cross of the crucified. +For them understanding meant believing, believing meant worship, prayer. + +That was why all the poorer classes of Teddington had crowded round the +railings of our house waiting from early morning for Garibaldi. When we +drove up, the crowd rushed to greet him in a sort of ecstasy, pressed +his hands, shouted ‘God bless you, Garibaldi!’ Women caught at his hand +and kissed it, kissed the hem of his cloak—I saw with my own eyes—lifted +their children up to him, shed tears.... He, smiling as though among his +own family, shook their hands, bowed, and could scarcely make his way to +the door. When he had gone in the shouts were redoubled; Garibaldi came +out again, and laying both hands on his breast bowed in all directions. +The people grew quieter, but they remained standing there all the time +till Garibaldi went away. + +It is hard for people who have seen nothing like it, men who have grown +up in offices, barracks and the anterooms of courts, to understand such +manifestations—‘a filibuster,’ the son of a sailor from Nice, a seaman, +a rebel ... and this royal reception! What had he done for the English +people?... And worthy men rack their brains for an explanation and look +for some secret wires by which it was worked: ‘It is wonderful with what +astuteness the _Government_ in England can get up demonstrations ... +you won’t take us in—_wir wissen was wir wissen_—we have read Gneist +ourselves!’ + +I daresay, and perhaps the Neapolitan boatman who used to declare that +the medallion of Garibaldi, like the medallion of the Madonna, was a +charm against ship-wreck had been bought by the party of Sicardi and the +ministry of Venosta! + +Though it is doubtful whether the journalistic Vidocqs,[23] particularly +our Moscow ones, could detect the play of such masters as Palmerston, +Gladstone and Company so clearly, yet they would through the sympathy +of the tiny spider for the immense tarantula understand it more readily +than the secret of Garibaldi’s reception. And that is a good thing for +them—if they did understand _that_ secret there would be nothing left for +them but to hang themselves on the nearest aspen-tree. Bugs can only live +happily so long as they have no suspicion of their smell. Woe to the bug +who develops a human sense of smell! + +Mazzini arrived immediately after Garibaldi; we all went out to meet him +at the gate. The crowd, hearing who it was, gave him a loud welcome; +the common people have nothing against him. The old-womanish terror of +a conspirator is only to be found at the level of shopkeepers, small +property-owners and so on. + +The few words said by Mazzini and Garibaldi are familiar to readers of +the _Bell_, we do not think it necessary to repeat them.[24] + +... All were so touched by Garibaldi’s words about Mazzini, by the +sincere voice in which they were uttered, the depth of feeling which +resounded in them, the impressiveness given them by the series of +preceding incidents, that no one answered, only Mazzini held out his +hand and twice repeated: ‘It is too much.’ I did not see one face, even +among the servants, which did not wear a _recueilli_ look and was not +stirred by the sense that grand words had just been uttered and that +the moment was passing into history.... I went up to Garibaldi with my +glass when he spoke of Russia and told him that his words would reach our +friends in the fortresses and mines, that I thanked him in their name. + +We went into the other room. Various persons had gathered in the +corridor; all at once an old Italian, an exile of days long gone by, a +poor fellow who sold ice-cream, caught Garibaldi by the skirt of his +coat, stopped him, and bursting into tears said: ‘Well, now I can die. I +have seen him, I have seen him!’ Garibaldi embraced and kissed the old +man. Then in stumbling and halting phrases, with the terrible rapidity of +a peasant’s Italian, the old man began telling Garibaldi his adventures, +and wound up his speech with an amazing flower of Southern eloquence: +‘Now I shall die content, but you—God bless you—live long, live for our +country, live for us, live till I rise again from the dead!’ He clutched +his hand, covered it with kisses, and went out sobbing. + +Accustomed as Garibaldi must have been to all this, he was obviously +agitated as he sat down on a little sofa. The ladies surrounded him; I +stood near the sofa. A cloud of painful thoughts seemed to swoop down +upon him—and this time he could not refrain from saying: ‘It sometimes +seems dreadful and so overwhelming that I am afraid of losing my head +... it is too much happiness. I remember when I came back an exile from +America to Nice—when I saw my father’s house again, found my family, my +relations, found the old familiar places, the people I knew—I was crushed +with happiness.... You know,’ he added, turning to me, ‘what happened +afterwards, what a succession of calamities it was. The welcome of the +English people has surpassed my expectation.... What is to come? What is +before us?’ + +I had not one word of comfort to give him. I inwardly shuddered at the +question, What is to come, what is before us? + +It was time for him to go. Garibaldi got up, warmly embraced me, took +a friendly leave of us all—and again there were shouts, again hurrahs, +again two stout policemen together with us, smiling and pleading, made +our way through the crowd, again cries of ‘God bless you!’ ‘Garibaldi +for ever!’ and the carriage rolled away. We all remained in an exalted, +quietly solemn state of mind, as after a festival service, after a +christening or the departure of the bride; our hearts were full, and we +were inwardly going over every detail and brooding upon that sinister +unanswered ‘What is to come?’ + +Prince P. V. Dolgoruky was the first to take up a sheet of paper and +write down both the speeches. He wrote them down faithfully while others +supplied details. We showed the result to Mazzini and the rest, and so +made up the text (with slight and insignificant alterations) which flew +like an electric shock over Europe, evoking a shout of enthusiasm and +a howl of indignation. Then Mazzini went away; the other visitors went +too. We were left alone with two or three intimate friends, and twilight +slowly fell. How deeply and truly sorry I was, children, that you were +not with me on that day! It is good to remember such days for long years; +they refresh the soul and reconcile it to the seamy side of life. They +are very few.... + + +4 + +26 PRINCE’S GATE + +‘What is to come?’ ... The immediate future did not keep us long waiting. +As in the old epic poems while the hero is calmly resting on his laurels, +feasting or sleeping, Malice, Vengeance and Envy assemble in their gala +dress on storm-clouds of some sort; Vengeance and Envy brew a poison and +temper daggers, while Malice blows the bellows and whets the blades: so +it happened now in a form decorously adapted to our mild and peaceful +manners. In our day all this is done simply by men and not by allegorical +figures; they meet together in brightly lighted drawing-rooms instead of +in ‘the darkness of night,’ and are attended by powdered flunkeys instead +of by dishevelled Furies; the horrors and scenery of classical poems +and children’s pantomimes are replaced by simple peaceful playing with +marked cards, and magic is superseded by the everyday tricks of commerce +with which the honest shopkeeper selling some black-currant juice mixed +with spirits swears that it is port, and old port XXX, too, knowing that +though no one believes him, no one will take proceedings, or if any one +does, he will only fare the worse for it. + +At the very time when Garibaldi called Mazzini his friend and teacher, +called him the first sower who had stood alone on the field when all were +sleeping about him, who, pointing out the way, had shown it to the young +warrior yearning to do battle for his country, and had become the leader +of the Italian people; at the very time when, surrounded by friends, +he looked at the weeping old Italian exile who repeated his ‘Lord, now +lettest Thou Thy servant ...’ and himself almost wept with him; at the +time when he confided to us his secret dread of the future, conspirators +were resolving at all costs to get rid of the awkward guest; and although +men grown old in diplomacy and intrigue, grey and decrepit in subterfuge +and hypocrisy, took part in the conspiracy, they played their game no +worse than the shopkeeper who sells his black-currant juice for old port +XXX on his word of honour. + +The English Government never had invited nor sent for Garibaldi; that +is all nonsense invented by the ingenious journalists on the Continent. +The Englishmen who invited Garibaldi had nothing in common with the +Ministry; the assumption of a Government plan is as absurd as the subtle +observation of our _crétins_ that Palmerston gave Stansfeld a post in the +Admiralty just because the latter was a friend of Mazzini. Note that in +the most furious onslaughts upon Stansfeld and Palmerston there was no +word suggesting this in Parliament or in the English newspapers. + +Such silliness would have provoked as much mirth as Urquhart’s accusation +that Palmerston was in receipt of pay from Russia. Chambers and the +others asked Palmerston whether Garibaldi’s visit would be disagreeable +to the Government. Palmerston answered, as was fitting for him to answer: +that it could not be disagreeable to the Government for General Garibaldi +to visit England, that the Government neither forbade his visit nor +invited it. + +Garibaldi agreed to come with the object of raising the Italian question +in England once more and collecting enough money to begin a campaign in +the Adriatic and to win Victor Emmanuel by the accomplished fact. + +That was all. + +That Garibaldi would be received with ovations was very well known to +those who visited him and to all who desired him to come. But the aspect +it assumed among the common people was not expected. + +At the news that the man ‘in the red shirt,’ the hero wounded by an +Italian bullet, was coming to visit them, the English people stirred +and fluttered their wings, unaccustomed to flight and stiff with heavy +and incessant toil. There was not only joy and love in this, there was +complaint, a murmur, a moan; the apotheosis of one was the condemnation +of others. + +Remember my meeting with the shipwright from Newcastle. Remember that the +working men of London were the first who in their address intentionally +put the name of Mazzini side by side with that of Garibaldi. + +At the present time the English aristocracy have nothing to fear from +their powerful down-trodden and undeveloped working class; moreover, +their vulnerable point is not in the direction of the European +revolution. But yet the character which the reception was taking was +extremely displeasing to them. What made the shepherds of the people most +wince at the working men’s peaceful agitation was that it was drawing +them out of the fitting order, was distracting them from the excellent, +moral, and, moreover, never-ending preoccupation with their daily bread, +from the lifelong hard labour to which not they, the masters, had doomed +them but our common Manufacturer, our Maker—the God of Shaftesbury, the +God of Derby, the God of the Sutherlands and the Devonshires—in His +incomprehensible wisdom and infinite mercy. + +It never, of course, entered the heads of the real English aristocracy +to turn Garibaldi out; on the contrary, they tried to draw him away to +themselves, to hide him from the people in a cloud of gold, as ox-eyed +Hera was hidden whenever she sported with Zeus. They proposed to show him +kindness, to overwhelm him with food and drink, not to let him come to +himself nor to recover his senses nor to be one moment alone. Garibaldi +wants money: could those condemned by the mercy of our ‘Maker,’ the Maker +of Shaftesbury, Derby and Devonshire, to obscure and blessed poverty +collect much for him? We, they said, will throw him half a million—a +million—francs, half the betting on a horse at Epsom races, we will buy +him— + + ‘Estate and home and villa, + A hundred thousand in pure silver.’ + +We will buy him the rest of Caprera, we will buy him a wonderful yacht, +he is so fond of sailing about over the sea; and that he may not waste +his money on nonsense (by _nonsense_ understand the emancipation +of Italy), we will entail the estate, we will let him enjoy the +interest.[25] All these plans were carried out with the most brilliant +scenery and setting, but had little success. Garibaldi, like the moon on +a dull night, however the clouds were moved forward, hastened or changed, +shone out clear and bright and shed light on us below. + +The aristocracy began to be a little embarrassed. The business men came +to their aid. Their interests were too immediate for them to think about +the moral consequences of the agitation; they wanted to control the +moment; they fancied one Caesar had frowned, the other looked sulky and +feared the Tories would take advantage of it. The scandalous Stansfeld +affair was bad enough already. + +Fortunately, just at that time Clarendon had to make a pilgrimage to +the Tuileries! His business was of no great importance, he returned +immediately. Napoleon talked with him about Garibaldi and expressed +his satisfaction that the English people honours great men. Dronyn de +Lhuys[26] said—that is, he said nothing, but if he had, he would have +stammered:— + + ‘I was born near the Caucasus,[27] + Civis Romanus sum.’ + +The Austrian Ambassador did not even rejoice at the reception of the +_Umweltzungs_ General. Everything was arranged satisfactorily. But there +was an uneasy gnawing in some hearts. + +The Ministers could not sleep at nights. The first whispered to the +second, the second to a friend of Garibaldi’s, a friend of Garibaldi’s to +a kinsman of Palmerston’s, to Lord Shaftesbury, and to a still greater +friend of his, Seeley; Seeley whispered to the surgeon Fergusson; +Fergusson, who cared nothing for his neighbour, was alarmed and wrote +letter after letter about Garibaldi’s illness. After reading them, +Gladstone was even more alarmed than the surgeon. Who could have imagined +that so much love and sympathy lies sometimes hidden under the portfolio +of the Ministry of Finance?... + +The day after our festivity I went to London. At the railway station I +picked up the evening paper and read in large letters ‘Illness of General +Garibaldi,’ then the announcement that he was going in a day or two to +Caprera _without visiting a single other city_. Not being so nervously +sensitive as Shaftesbury, nor so anxious over the health of my friends +as Gladstone, I was not in the least troubled by the announcement in +the newspaper of the illness of a man whom I had seen the day before +perfectly well. Of course there are illnesses that run a very rapid +course—the Emperor Paul, for instance, was not long ill—but Garibaldi was +a long way from an _apoplectic stroke_, and if anything had happened to +him, one of our common friends would have let me know, and so it was easy +to guess that it was a deliberate plan, _un coup monté_. + +It was too late to go to Garibaldi. I went to Mazzini’s and did not find +him in, then to the house of a lady from whom I learnt the chief facts +concerning the ministerial sympathy for the great man’s illness. While +I was there Mazzini arrived in a state such as I had never seen him in +before; there were tears in his eyes and in his voice. + +From the speech uttered at the second meeting on Primrose Hill by Shaen +one can tell _en gros_ how it was done. The ‘conspirators’ were named +by him, and the circumstances described fairly accurately. Shaftesbury +went to take counsel with Seeley; Seeley as a practical man at once said +that they must have a letter from Fergusson; Fergusson was too polite a +man to refuse the letter. Armed with it, the conspirators went on Sunday +evening, the 17th of April, to Stafford House and deliberated what to do, +close to the room where Garibaldi was quietly sitting, eating grapes, +unaware that he was so ill, or that he was departing. At last the valiant +Gladstone undertook the difficult task, and, accompanied by Shaftesbury +and Seeley, went to Garibaldi’s room. Gladstone used to talk over whole +Parliaments, universities, corporations, deputations; it was easy for +him to talk over Garibaldi. Moreover, he carried on the conversation +in Italian, and did well, as in that way he talked without witnesses, +though there were four in the room. Garibaldi answered first that he +was quite well, but the Minister of Finance could not accept the chance +fact of his good health as an answer, and pointed out that according to +Fergusson he was ill, and confirmed this by the document in his hand. +At last Garibaldi, perceiving that something else was hidden under this +tender sympathy, asked Gladstone, Did all this mean that they wanted him +to go? Gladstone did not conceal from him that his presence added to the +complications of their already difficult position. ‘In that case I will +go,’ said Garibaldi. + +Gladstone, softened, was alarmed at a too _conspicuous_ success and +suggested he should visit two or three towns and then depart for Caprera. + +‘I cannot choose between the towns,’ answered Garibaldi, wounded, ‘and I +give you my word that within two days I shall be gone.’ + +On Monday there was a question asked in Parliament. The feather-headed +old Palmerston in one House and the fleet-footed pilgrim Clarendon in +the other explained everything with perfect candour. Clarendon assured +the peers that Napoleon had not asked for Garibaldi to be turned out. +Palmerston for his part was not at all desirous for his departure. He +was only anxious about his health ... and thereupon he entered into +all the details which a loving wife, or a doctor sent by an insurance +society, goes into—the hours of sleep and of dinner, the consequences of +his wound, his diet, the effects of excitement, his age. The sitting of +the House of Commons was turned into a consultation of physicians. The +Minister had recourse not to Chatham and Campbell but to therapeutics and +Fergusson, who had been so helpful in this difficult operation. + +The legislative assembly decided that Garibaldi was ill. Towns and +villages, counties and banks are left entirely to self-government +in England. The Government, which jealously guards itself from every +suspicion of interference, which allows men to die of hunger every day +through fear of limiting the self-government of workhouses, which permits +whole populations to be worked to death and turned into _crétins_, was +suddenly transformed into a hospital-nurse. These statesmen abandoned the +helm of the great ship and babbled in hushed voices of the health of a +man who had not asked for their sympathy, and, uninvited, prescribed for +him the Atlantic Ocean and Sutherland’s Undine; the Minister of Finance +forgot his budget, his income-tax, his debit and credit, and turned +consulting physician. The Prime Minister laid this pathological case +before Parliament. But is self-government in the case of a man’s legs and +stomach less sacred than the freedom of charitable establishments whose +task is to lead men to the graveyard? + +Not long before this Stansfeld had had to pay for not thinking himself +bound to quarrel with Mazzini because he was serving the Queen. And now +were not the most securely placed Ministers writing, not addresses, but +prescriptions and worrying themselves to prolong the days of another +revolutionary like Mazzini? + +Garibaldi _ought_ to have been suspicious of the desire of the Government +expressed to him by over-ardent friends and to have remained. Could any +one have doubted the truth of the words of the Prime Minister, uttered to +the representatives of England? All his friends advised him to remain. +‘Palmerston’s words cannot relieve me of my promise,’ answered Garibaldi, +and told them to pack up. + +This was Solferino.[28] + +Byelinsky observed long ago that the secret of the success of +diplomatists lies in the fact that they treat us as though we were +diplomatists, while we treat diplomatists as though they were men. + +Now you understand why our festive gathering and Garibaldi’s speech, his +words about Mazzini, would have had a different character had they come +one day later. + +Next day I went to Stafford House and learnt that Garibaldi had moved to +Seeley’s, 26 Prince’s Gate, near Kensington Gardens. I went to Prince’s +Gate; there was no possibility of talking to Garibaldi, he was not +allowed out of sight; some twenty visitors were walking about, sitting +silent, or talking in the drawing-room and the study. + +‘You are going?’ I said, and took him by the hand. Garibaldi pressed my +hand and answered in a mournful voice: ‘I bow to the necessities (_je me +plie aux nécessités_).’ + +He was going off somewhere. I left him and went downstairs; there I found +Saffi, Guerzoni, Mordini and Richardson; all were beside themselves +with anger at Garibaldi’s departure. Mrs. Seeley came in, followed by a +thin, elderly, lively Frenchwoman who addressed herself with excessive +eloquence to the lady of the house, speaking of her happiness in making +the acquaintance of such a _personne distinguée_. Mrs. Seeley turned to +Stansfeld, asking him to translate. The Frenchwoman went on: ‘Ah my God, +how delighted I am! Of course that is your son, allow me to introduce +myself.’ Stansfeld disabused the Frenchwoman, who had not observed that +Mrs. Seeley was about his age, and asked her to tell him what it was she +wanted. She flung a glance at me (Saffi and the others had gone out) and +said: ‘We are not alone.’ Stansfeld mentioned my name. She immediately +turned and harangued me, begging me to remain, but I preferred to +leave her to a _tête-à-tête_ with Stansfeld and went upstairs again. +A minute later Stansfeld came up with some sort of hook or rivet. The +Frenchwoman’s husband had invented it and she wanted Garibaldi’s approval. + +The last two days were full of confusion and gloom. Garibaldi avoided +talking about his departure and said not a word about his health.... +In all his friends he met a look of sorrowful reproach. He was sick at +heart, but he said nothing. + +At two o’clock on the day before his departure I was sitting with +him when they came to tell him that there was already a crowd in the +reception-room. On that day the members of Parliament with their families +and all sorts of nobility and gentry, numbering two thousand people +according to _The Times_, were presented to him. It was a _grand lever_, +a regal reception, but such a one as no king of Würtemberg or even of +Prussia could ever have attracted without calling in professors and lower +ranks of officers. + +Garibaldi got up and asked: ‘Is it really time?’ Stansfeld, who happened +to be there, looked at his watch and said: ‘There is still five minutes +before the time fixed.’ Garibaldi heaved a sigh of relief and sat down +cheerfully. But then a factotum ran in and began arranging where the sofa +was to stand, by which door people were to come in, by which to go out. + +‘I am going,’ I said to Garibaldi. + +‘Why? Do stay.’ + +‘What am I going to do?’ + +‘Surely,’ he said, smiling, ‘I can keep one man I know, since I am +receiving so many I don’t.’ + +The doors were opened; in the doorway stood an improvised master of the +ceremonies with a sheet of paper in his hand from which he began reading +aloud as from a directory: the Right Honourable So-and-so—the Honourable +So-and-so—Esquire—Lady—Esquire—Lordship—Mrs.—Esquire—M.P., M.P., without +end. At every name there burst in at the doorway and sailed into the room +old and young crinolines, grey heads and bald heads, tiny little old men +and stout sturdy little old men, and thin giraffes with no hind legs, who +drew themselves up to such a height that it looked as though the upper +part of their head was propped on huge yellow teeth, and tried to draw +themselves higher still. Each one of them had three, four or five ladies, +and this was very fortunate, since they occupied the space of fifty men, +and in that way saved us from a crush. They all came up to Garibaldi in +turn. The men shook his hand with the vigour with which a man shakes his +own when he has put his finger in boiling water; some said something +as they did so, the majority grunted, remained dumb and bowed as they +turned away. The ladies too were mute, but they gazed so long and so +passionately at Garibaldi that there will certainly be a crop of children +born this year in London with his features; and as the children even now +are going about in red shirts like his, there will be nothing left to +imitate but his cloak. + +Those who had paid their respects sailed towards the opposite door, which +opened into the drawing-room, and descended the stairs; the bolder among +them were in no haste to go, but tried to remain in the room. + +At first Garibaldi stood up, then he kept sitting down and getting up +again, finally he simply remained sitting; his leg did not allow him to +remain standing for long. The end of the reception was beyond hoping for: +carriages kept driving up, the master of the ceremonies kept reading out +titles. + +The band of the Horse Guards struck up. I stood about and stood about, +and at last went out into the drawing-room, and there, with a stream of +surging crinolines, reached the cascade, and with it was carried to the +doors of the room where Saffi and Mordini usually sat. There was no one +in it. I had a feeling of confusion and disgust in my heart; what a farce +it all was, this gilded dismissal, and with it this comedy of a royal +reception! Tired out, I threw myself on the sofa; the band was playing +from ‘Lucrezia,’ and playing very well. I listened.—Yes, yes, ‘_Non +curiamo l’incerto domani_.’ + +From the window could be seen rows of carriages; these had not yet driven +up; here one moved up, after it a second and a third, again there was +a pause; and I fancied how Garibaldi with his bruised hand was sitting +tired and gloomy, how that dark cloud was coming over his face and no +one noticing it, while still the crinolines float up and still the Right +Honourables come—grey-headed, bald, broad-faced, giraffes.... + +The band played on, the carriages drove up. I don’t know how it happened, +but I fell asleep. Some one opened the door and woke me.... The music +was still playing, the carriages still driving up. There was no end in +sight.... They really will kill him! + +I went home. + +Next day, that is on the day of his departure, I went to see Garibaldi +at seven o’clock in the morning, and slept the night before in London on +purpose to do so. He was gloomy and abrupt. For the first time one could +see that he was accustomed to command, that he was an iron leader on the +field of battle and on the sea. + +He was caught by some gentleman who had brought with him a bootmaker, +the inventor of a boot with an iron contrivance for Garibaldi. With +self-sacrificing resignation Garibaldi sat down in a low chair; the +shoemaker in the sweat of his brow forced his irons on him, then made him +stamp and walk a step; it seemed all right. ‘What must we pay him?’ asked +Garibaldi. ‘Upon my soul!’ answered the gentleman; ‘why, you will make +him happy if you accept it.’ They withdrew. + +‘It will be put up over his shop in a day or two,’ some one observed, +while Garibaldi said with a supplicating expression to the young man who +waited upon him: ‘For God’s sake get this contrivance off me; I can’t +stand it, it hurts.’ It was frightfully funny. + +Then the aristocratic ladies made their appearance; those of less +consequence were waiting in a crowd in the drawing-room. + +Ogaryov and I went up to him. ‘Good-bye,’ I said. ‘Good-bye till we meet +in Caprera.’ He embraced me, sat down, stretched out both hands to us, +and, in a voice which cut us to the heart, said: ‘Forgive me, forgive me, +my head is going round. Come to Caprera,’ and once more he embraced us. + +After the reception Garibaldi had to go for an interview with the Prince +of Wales at Stafford House. + +We went out of the gate and separated. Ogaryov went to Mazzini, I went +to Rothschild. There was no one yet at Rothschild’s bank. I went to +St. Paul’s tavern, and there was no one there either. I asked for a +rump-steak, and, sitting down quite alone, went over the details of this +Midspring Night’s Dream. + +Go, great child, great force, great fanatic and great simplicity! Go to +your rock, peasant in the red shirt! Go, King Lear! Goneril drives you +out; leave her, you have poor Cordelia. She will not cease to love you, +and she will not die! + +The fourth act was over! + +What is to come in the fifth? + + _May 15, 1864._ + + + + +APOGEE AND PERIGEE + + +Our acquaintances, and the Russian ones especially, used to meet at +our house on Sunday evenings. In 1862 the number of the latter greatly +increased: merchants and tourists, journalists and officials of all the +departments, and of the Third Section[29] in particular, were arriving +for the Exhibition. It was impossible to make a strict selection; we +warned our more intimate friends to come on another day. The respectable +boredom of a London Sunday was too much for their discretion, and these +Sundays did to some extent lead to disaster. But before I tell the story +of that, I must describe two or three samples of our native fauna who +made their appearance in the modest drawing-room of Orsett House. Our +gallery of living curiosities from Russia was, beyond all doubt, more +interesting than the Russian Section at the Great Exhibition. + +In 1860 I received from a hotel in the Haymarket a Russian letter in +which some unknown persons informed me that they were Russians and were +in the service of Prince Yury Nikolayevitch Golitsyn, who had secretly +left Russia: ‘The prince himself has gone to Constantinople, but has sent +us by another route. The prince bade us wait for him and gave us money +enough for a few days. More than a fortnight has passed; there is no news +of the prince; our money is spent, the hotel-keeper is angry. We don’t +know what to do. Not one of us speaks English.’ Finding themselves in +this helpless position, they asked me to get them out of it. I went to +them and arranged things. The hotel-keeper knew me, and consented to wait +another week. + +Five days later a sumptuous carriage with a pair of dapple-grey horses +drove up to my front-door. However often I explained to my servants that +no one was to be admitted in the morning—even though he should arrive in +a four-in-hand and should be called a duke—I could never overcome their +respect for an aristocratic turn-out and title. + +On this occasion both these temptations to transgression were present, +and so a moment later an immense man, stout and with the handsome face of +an Assyrian bull-god, was embracing me and thanking me for my visit to +his servants. + +This was Prince Yury Nikolayevitch Golitsyn. It was a long time since I +had seen so solid and characteristic a specimen of old Russia, so choice +a flower of our fatherland. + +He at once began telling me some incredible story, which afterwards +turned out to be true, of how he had given a Cantonist an article from +the _Kolokol_ to copy, and how he had parted from his wife; how the +Cantonist had given the police information against him, and how his +wife did not send him money; how the Tsar had sent him into perpetual +banishment to Kozlov, in consequence of which he had made up his mind to +escape abroad, and had carried off with him over the Moldavian frontier +some young lady, a governess, a steward, a ‘regent’ and a maid-servant. + +At Galatz he had picked up also a valet who spoke five languages after a +fashion, and seemed to him to be a spy. Then he explained to me that he +was an enthusiastic musician and was going to give concerts in London; +and that therefore he wanted to make the acquaintance of Ogaryov. + +‘They d-do make you p-pay here in England at the C-customs,’ he said with +a slight stammer, as he completed his course of universal history. + +‘For goods, perhaps, they do,’ I observed, ‘but the Customs-house is very +lenient to travellers.’ + +‘I should not say so. I paid fifteen shillings for a crocodile.’ + +‘Why, what do you mean?’ + +‘What do I mean? Why, simply a crocodile.’ + +I opened my eyes wide and asked him: ‘But what is the meaning of this, +prince? Do you take a crocodile about with you instead of a passport to +frighten the police on the frontier?’ + +‘It happened like this. I was taking a walk in Alexandria, and I saw a +little Arab selling a crocodile. I liked it, so I bought it.’ + +‘Oh, did you buy the little Arab too?’ + +‘Ha-ha!—no.’ + +A week later the prince was already installed in Porchester Terrace, that +is, in a large house in a very expensive part of the town. He began by +ordering his gates to be for ever wide open, which is not the English +custom, and a pair of dapple-grey horses to be for ever waiting in +readiness at the door. He lived in London as though he were in Kozlov or +in Tambov. + +He had, of course, no money, that is, he had a few thousand francs, +enough to pay for the advertisement and title-page of a London life; they +were spent at once; but he made a sensation, and succeeded for a few +months in living free from care, thanks to the stupid trustfulness of the +English, of which the foreigners from all parts of the Continent have not +yet been able to cure them. + +But the prince did have his fling. The concerts began. London was +impressed by the prince’s title on the placards, and at the second +concert the room (St. James’s Hall, Piccadilly) was full. The concert +was magnificent. How Golitsyn had succeeded in training the chorus and +the orchestra is only known to himself, but the concert was absolutely +first-rate. Russian songs and prayers, the Kamarinsky and the Mass, +fragments from Glinka’s opera and from the Gospel (Our Father)—it was all +splendid. The ladies could not sufficiently admire the colossal fleshy +contours of the handsome Assyrian god, so majestically and gracefully +wielding his ivory sceptre; the old ladies recalled the athletic figure +of the Emperor Nicholas, who had conquered the hearts of the London fair +most of all by the tight doeskin _collants_, white as the Russian snows, +of his Horse Guard uniform. + +Golitsyn found the means of making this success his ruin. Intoxicated by +the applause, he sent at the end of the first half of the concert for a +basket of bouquets (remember the London prices), and before the beginning +of the second part of the programme he appeared on the platform; two +liveried servants carried the basket, and the prince, thanking the +singers and chorus, presented each with a bouquet. The audience received +this act of gallantry on the part of the aristocratic conductor with a +storm of applause. My prince, towering to his full height and beaming all +over, invited all the musicians to supper at the end of the concert. + +At this point not only London prices but also London habits must be +considered. Without sending previous notice in the morning, there is no +place where one can give a supper to fifty persons at eleven o’clock at +night. The Assyrian chief walked valiantly along Regent Street at the +head of his musical army, knocking at the doors of various restaurants; +and at last he knocked successfully. A restaurant-keeper, grasping the +situation, rose to the occasion—cold meats and ardent beverages. + +Then followed a series of concerts with every possible variation, even +with political tendencies. At each of them the orchestra struck up Herzen +waltzes, an Ogaryov quadrille, and then the Emancipation Symphony ... +compositions with which the prince is very likely even now enchanting +Moscow audiences, and which have probably lost nothing in moving from +Albion, except their names; they could easily be altered to Potapoff +waltzes, Mina waltzes, and Komissaroff’s _Partitur_. + +With all this glory there was no money, he had nothing to pay with. +His purveyors began to murmur. And little by little there was actually +something like the slave revolt of Spartacus.... + +One morning the prince’s factotum, that is, his steward who styled +himself his secretary, together with the ‘regent,’ that is, not the +father of Philippe of Orleans, but a fair-haired, curly-headed Russian +lad of two-and-twenty who led the singers, came to me. + +‘We have come to see you, Alexandr Ivanovitch, sir.’ + +‘What has happened?’ + +‘Why, Yury Nikolayevitch is treating us very badly. We want to go back to +Russia, and we ask him to settle our account—do not fail in your gracious +kindness, defend us.’ + +I felt myself instantly surrounded by the atmosphere of ‘Home,’ which +seemed to rise up like steam in a bath-house. + +‘Why do you come to me with this complaint? If you have serious grounds +for complaining of the prince, there is a Court of Justice here for every +one, which will not turn aside in favour of any prince or any count.’ + +‘We have heard of that indeed, but _why go to law_? You had much better +go into it.’ + +‘What good will it be to you if I do go into it? The prince will tell me +to mind my own business; I shall look like a fool. If you do not want to +go to law, go to the ambassador; the Russians in London are in his care, +not in mine....’ + +‘But where should we be then? As soon as Russian gentlemen sit together, +what chance can there be of settling with the prince? But you see, you +are on the side of the people; so that is why we have come to you. Do be +gracious, and take up our cause.’ + +‘What fellows you are! But the prince won’t accept my decision; what will +you gain by it?’ + +‘Allow me to lay before you,’ the secretary retorted eagerly, ‘he will +not venture on that, sir, as he has a very great respect for you; +besides, he would be afraid. He would not be pleased to get into the +_Kolokol_—he is ambitious.’ + +‘Well, listen, to waste no more time; here is my decision. If the prince +will consent to accept my mediation, I will undertake the matter; if not, +you must go to law; and as you know neither the language nor the mode of +proceeding here, if the prince really is treating you unfairly, I will +send you a man who knows English and English ways and speaks Russian.’ + +‘Allow me,’ the secretary was beginning. + +‘No, I won’t allow you, my dear fellow. Good-bye.’ + +I will say a word about them too. + +The ‘regent’ was in no way distinguished except by his musical abilities; +he was a well-fed, soft, stupidly handsome, rosy servant-boy; his manner +of speaking with a slight burr and his rather sleepy eyes called up +before me a whole series, as when you see one reflection behind another +in the looking-glass, of Sashkas, Senkas, Alyoshkas, and Miroshkas. + +The secretary, too, was a purely Russian product, but a more striking +specimen of his type. He was a man over forty, with an unshaven chin +and battered face, in a greasy coat, unclean and soiled inwardly and +outwardly, with small crafty eyes and that peculiar smell of Russian +drunkards, made up of the ever-persistent aroma of vodka fumes mixed with +a flavour of onion and cloves to conceal it. Every feature of his face +approved and abetted every evil suggestion; it would doubtless have found +response and appreciation in his heart, and would if profitable have +received his aid. He was the prototype of the Russian petty official, +the Russian shark, the Russian sharper. When I asked him whether he was +pleased at the approaching emancipation of the peasants, he answered: ‘To +be sure—most certainly,’ and added with a sigh: ‘Good Lord, the lawsuits +and the cases there will be! And the prince has brought me here as though +to spite me at a time like this.’ + +Before Golitsyn arrived, this man had said to me with a show of genuine +feeling: ‘Don’t you believe what people will tell you about the prince +oppressing the peasants, or how he meant to set them free for a big +redemption money without any land. That is all a story spread by his +enemies. It is true he is hasty-tempered and extravagant, but he has a +good heart and has been a father to his peasants.’ + +As soon as he had quarrelled with the prince he cursed his lot and +lamented that he had trusted such a swindler. ‘Why, he has done nothing +all his life but squander money in debauchery and ruin his peasants; you +know he is just keeping up a pretence before you now—but he is really a +beast, a robber....’ + +‘When were you telling lies: now, or when you praised him?’ I asked him, +smiling. + +The secretary was overcome with confusion. I turned on my heel and went +away. Had this man not been born in the servants’ hall of the Prince +Golitsyn, had he not been the son of some village constable, he would +long ago, with his abilities, have been a minister—a Valuev, or I don’t +know what. + +An hour later the ‘regent’ and his mentor appeared with a note from +Golitsyn. He asked me, with apologies, whether I could go and see him to +put an end to these wretched difficulties. The prince promised beforehand +to accept my decision without dispute. + +There was no getting out of it; I went. + +Everything in the house betrayed an extraordinary excitement; the French +servant Picot hurriedly opened the door to me, and, with the solemn +fussiness with which doctors are conducted to a consultation at the +bedside of a dying man, led me into the drawing-room. There I found +Golitsyn’s second wife, flustered and irritated. Golitsyn himself, with +no cravat, his heroic chest bare, was pacing up and down the room with +huge strides. He was furious, and so stammered twice as much as usual; +his whole face betrayed his suffering from the blows, kicks and punches +that were surging inwardly but could have no outlet in the actual world, +though they would have been his answer to the insurgents in the Tambov +province. + +‘For G-G-God’s sake, forgive me for t-t-troubling you about these +b-b-blackguards.’ + +‘What is the matter?’ + +‘P-p-please ask them yourself; I will merely listen.’ + +He summoned the ‘regent,’ and the following conversation took place +between us:— + +‘Are you dissatisfied in any way?’ + +‘Yes, very much dissatisfied; that is why I want to go to Russia.’ + +The prince, who had a voice as strong as Lablache’s, emitted a leonine +moan: another five blows in the face had to be stifled within him. + +‘The prince cannot keep you; so tell us what it is you are dissatisfied +with.’ + +‘Everything, Alexandr Ivanovitch.’ + +‘Well, do speak more definitely.’ + +‘What can I say? Ever since I came away from Russia I have been run off +my legs with work, and had only two pounds of pay, and what the prince +gave me the third time, in the evening, was more by way of a present.’ + +‘And how much ought you to have received?’ + +‘That I can’t say, sir....’ + +‘Have you a definite agreement?’ + +‘No indeed, sir. The prince, when he was graciously pleased to run away’ +(this was said without the slightest malicious intention), ‘said to me: +“If you like to come with me, I’ll make your future,” says he, “and if +I have luck, I’ll give you a good salary; but if not, then you must be +satisfied with a little”; so I took, and came.’ + +He had come from Tambov to London on such terms. Oh, Russia! + +‘Well, and what do you think? has the prince been lucky or not?’ + +‘Lucky? no, indeed! Though to be sure, he might....’ + +‘That is a different question. If he is not lucky, then you ought to be +satisfied with a small salary.’ + +‘But the prince himself has told me that for my duties and my abilities, +according to the rate of pay here, I ought not to get less than four +pounds a month.’ + +‘Prince, are you willing to pay him four pounds a month?’ + +‘I shall be d-d-delighted.’ + +‘That is capital; what more?’ + +‘The prince promised that if I wanted to go back he would pay my return +fare to Petersburg.’ + +The prince nodded and added: ‘Yes, but only if I were pleased with him!’ + +‘Are you displeased with him?’ + +Then the pent-up torrent burst out; the prince leapt up. In a tragic +bass, which gained weight from the quiver on some vowels and the little +pauses before some of the consonants, he delivered the following speech: +‘Could I be p-p-pleased with that m-milksop, that p-p-pup? What enrages +me is the foul ingratitude of the beggar. I took him into my service +from the very poorest family of peasants, barefoot, devoured by lice; +I trained the rascal. I have made a m-m-man of him, a m-musician, a +“regent”; I have trained the scoundrel’s voice so that he could get a +hundred roubles a month in Russia in the season.’ + +‘That is all very true, Yury Nikolayevitch, but I don’t share your view +of it. Neither he nor his family asked you to make a Ronconi of him; so +you can’t expect any special gratitude on his part. You have trained him +as one trains a nightingale, and you have done a good thing, but that is +the end of it. Besides, that is not the point.’ + +‘You are right; but I meant to say, see what I have to put up with, see +what I have done for the rascal....’ + +‘So you consent to pay his fare?’ + +‘The devil take him. For your sake, simply, for your sake, I will....’ + +‘Well, the matter is settled, then: and do you know what the fare is?’ + +‘I am told it is twenty pounds.’ + +‘No, that is too much. A hundred roubles from here to Petersburg is +enough. Will you give that?’ + +‘Yes, I will.’ + +I worked out the sum on paper and handed it to Golitsyn; the latter +glanced at the total ... it amounted, if I remember rightly, to just over +thirty pounds. He handed me the money on the spot. + +‘You can read and write, of course?’ I asked the young man. + +‘Of course, sir.’ + +I wrote out a receipt for him in some such form as this: I have received +from Prince Yury Nikolayevitch Golitsyn thirty odd pounds (so much in +Russian money), being salary owing to me and my fare from London to +Petersburg. With that I am satisfied, and have no other claims against +him. + +‘Read it for yourself, and sign it.’ + +The young man read it, and made no movement to sign it. + +‘What is the matter?’ + +‘I can’t, sir.’ + +‘Why can’t you?’ + +‘I am not satisfied.’ + +A restrained leonine roar—and, indeed, I was on the point of crying out +myself. + +‘What the devil is the matter? You said yourself what you claimed. +The prince has paid you everything to the last farthing. Why are you +dissatisfied?’ + +‘Why, upon my word, sir, and the straits I have been put to ever since I +have been here.’ + +It was clear that the ease with which he had obtained the money had +whetted his appetite. + +‘For instance, sir, I ought to have something more for copying music.’ + +‘You liar!’ Golitsyn boomed, as Lablache can never have boomed; the piano +responded with a timid echo; Picot’s pale face appeared at the crack of +the door and vanished with the speed of a frightened lizard.... ‘Wasn’t +copying music a part of your definite duty? Why, what else had you to do +all the time when there were no concerts?’ + +The prince was right, though he need not have frightened Picot by his +_contrabombardo_ voice. + +The ‘regent,’ being accustomed to notes of all sorts, did not give +way, but, dropping the music-copying, turned to me with the following +absurdity: ‘And then, too, there is something for clothes. I am quite +threadbare.’ + +‘But do you mean to tell me that Yury Nikolayevitch undertook to clothe +you, as well as to give you about fifty pounds a year salary?’ + +‘No, sir; but in old days the prince did sometimes give me things, but +now, I am ashamed to say so, I have come to going about without socks.’ + +‘I am going about without s-s-socks myself,’ roared the prince, and, +folding his arms across his chest, he looked haughtily and contemptuously +across at the ‘regent.’ This outburst I had not expected, and I looked +into his face with surprise; but, seeing that he was about to continue, I +said very gravely to the precious singer: ‘You came to me this morning to +ask for my mediation: so you trusted me?’ + +‘We know you very well, we have no doubt of you at all, you will not let +us be wronged.’ + +‘Very good. Well, this is how I settle the matter: sign the receipt at +once or give me back the money, and I will give it back to the prince and +decline to meddle any further.’ + +The ‘regent’ had no inclination to hand the money to the prince; he +signed the receipt and thanked me. I will spare you the description of +his reckoning it in roubles. I could not din into him that the rouble was +not the same in the exchange as it was when he left Russia. + +‘If you imagine that I am trying to cheat you of thirty shillings, this +is what you had better do: go to our priest and ask him to reckon it for +you.’ He agreed to do so. + +It seemed as though all were over, and Golitsyn’s breast no longer heaved +with such stormy menace; but as fate would have it, the sequel recalled +our fatherland as the beginning had. + +The ‘regent’ hesitated and hesitated, and suddenly, as though nothing +had happened between them, turned to Golitsyn with the words: ‘Your +Excellency, as the steamer does not go from Hull for five days, be so +gracious—allow me to remain with you for the while.’ My Lablache will +give it him, I thought, devotedly preparing myself for the shock of the +sound. + +‘Of course you can stay. Where the devil would you go?’ + +The ‘regent’ thanked the prince and went away. + +Golitsyn by way of explanation said to me: ‘You see he is a very good +fellow; it is that b-b-blackguard, that thief, that unclean Yuss leads +him astray.’ + +Let Savigny and Mittermeyer do their best to formulate and classify the +ideas of justice developed in our orthodox fatherland between the stable +where they flog the house-serfs and the master’s study where they fleece +the peasants. + +The second _cause célèbre_, that is, the one with the aforesaid Yuss, was +not so successful. Golitsyn came in, and he suddenly shouted so loud, and +the secretary shouted so loud that there was nothing left but to come to +blows with each other, and then the prince of course would have smashed +the mangy sharper. But as everything in that household followed the laws +of a peculiar logic, it was not the prince who fought with the secretary, +but the secretary who fought with the door. Brimming over with spite and +invigorated by an extra glass of gin, he aimed a blow with his fist at +the big glass window in the door, and broke it to bits. + +‘Police!’ roared Golitsyn. ‘Burglary! Police!’ and going into the +drawing-room he fell exhausted on the sofa. When he had recovered +a little, he explained to me among other things how great was the +ingratitude of the secretary. The man had been his brother’s trusted +agent and had swindled him—I do not remember how—and was on the point +of being brought to trial. Golitsyn was sorry for him; he entered so +thoroughly into his position that he pawned his only watch to buy him +off. And so having the fullest proof that he was a rogue, he took him +into his service as a steward! + +There could be no doubt whatever that he had cheated Golitsyn at every +turn. + +I went away. A man who could smash a glass door with his fist could find +justice and protection for himself. Moreover, he told me afterwards +himself when he asked me to get him a passport to return to Russia, that +he had proudly offered Golitsyn a pistol and suggested casting lots which +should fire. + +If this was so, the pistol was certainly not loaded. + +The prince spent his last penny in pacifying the Servile Revolt, and none +the less ended, as might have been expected, by being imprisoned for +debt. Any one else would have been clapped in prison, and that would have +been the end of it; but even that could not happen to Golitsyn simply in +the common way. + +A policeman used to conduct him between seven and eight o’clock every +evening to Cremona Gardens; there he used to conduct a concert for +the edification of the _lorettes_ of all London, and with the last +wave of his ivory sceptre a policeman, till then unobserved, would +spring up as though out of the earth and escort the prince to the cab +which took the captive in the black swallow-tail and white gloves to +prison. There were tears in his eyes as he said ‘Good-bye’ to me in the +Gardens. Poor prince! Another man might have laughed at it, but he took +his captivity to heart. His relations redeemed him at last; then the +Government permitted him to return to Russia, and banished him at first +to Yaroslavl, where he could conduct religious concerts together with +Felinski, the Bishop of Warsaw. The Government was kinder to him than his +father; as free a liver as his son, he advised the latter to go into a +monastery. The father knew the son well; and yet he was himself so good a +musician that Beethoven dedicated a symphony to him. + +Following the exuberant figure of the Assyrian god, of the fleshy +ox-Apollo, a series of other Russian curiosities must not be forgotten. + +I am not speaking of flitting shades like the ‘colonel russe,’ but of +those who, stranded by fate and various adventures, have remained a long +time in London; such as the clerk in the War Office who, having got +into a mess with his accounts and debts, threw himself into the Neva, +was drowned ... and popped up in London, an _exile_, in a fur cap and a +fur-lined coat, which he never abandoned, regardless of the muggy warmth +of a London winter. + +Or such as my friend Ivan Ivanovitch S., who, with antecedents and +future and all, with raw skin on his head where there should have been +hair, clamours for a place in my gallery of curiosities. A retired +officer of the bodyguard of the Pavlov regiment, he lived in comfort in +foreign parts, and so continued up to the revolution of February. Then +he took fright, and began to look on himself as a criminal. Not that +his conscience troubled him; what troubled him was the thought of the +gendarmes who would meet him at the frontier, the thought of dungeons, +of a troika, of the snow, and he resolved to postpone his return. All +at once the news reached him that his brother had been arrested in +connection with Shevtchenko’s case. There really was some risk for him, +and he at once resolved to return. It was at that time that I made his +acquaintance at Nice. S. was setting off, having bought a minute phial of +poison for the journey, which he intended as he crossed the frontier to +insert in a hollow tooth and to swallow if he were arrested. + +As he approached his native land his panic grew greater and greater, and +by the time he arrived at Berlin it had become a suffocating anguish. +However, S. mastered himself and took his seat in the train. He remained +there for the first five stations; further than that he could not bear +it. The engine stopped to take in water; on a different pretext he +left the train. The engine whistled, the train moved off without S.; +and that was just what he wanted. Leaving his trunk to the caprice of +destiny, by the first train going in the opposite direction he returned +to Berlin. Thence he sent a telegram concerning his luggage, and went +to get a _visa_ for his passport to Hamburg. ‘Yesterday you were going +to Russia, and to-day you are going to Hamburg,’ remarked the policeman, +without refusing the _visa_. The panic-stricken S. said: ‘Letters—I +have had letters,’ and probably his expression as he said it was such +that the Prussian official ought to be dismissed the service for not +arresting him. Thereupon S., like Louis-Philippe, escaping though +pursued by no one, arrived in London. In London a hard life began for +him, as for thousands of others; for years he maintained an honest and +resolute struggle with poverty. But for him, too, destiny provided a +comic trimming to all his tragic adventures. He made up his mind to give +lessons in mathematics, drawing and even French (for English people). +After consulting various advisers, he saw that it could not be done +without an advertisement or cards. ‘But the trouble is this: how will the +Russian Government look at it? I thought and thought about it, and I have +had anonymous cards printed.’ + +It was a long time before I could get over my delight at this grand +invention: it had never occurred to me that it was possible to have a +visiting-card without a name on it. With the help of his anonymous cards, +and with great perseverance (he used to live for days together on nothing +but bread and potatoes), he succeeded in getting afloat, was employed in +selling things on commission, and his fortunes began to mend. + +And this was precisely at the date when the fortunes of another officer +of the Pavlov bodyguard failed completely; defeated, robbed, deceived, +cheated, and deluded, the commander-in-chief of the Pavlov regiment +departed into eternity. Pardons, amnesties, followed; S. too wished to +take advantage of the Imperial mercies, and so he writes a letter to +Brunov and asks whether he comes under the amnesty. + +A month later S. was summoned to the Embassy. ‘My case is not so simple,’ +he thought; ‘they have been thinking it over for a month.’ + +‘We have received an answer,’ the senior secretary said to him; ‘you have +inadvertently put the Ministry in a difficult position; they have nothing +against you. They have applied to the Ministry of Home Affairs, and they +can find nothing relating to you either. Tell us plainly what it was; it +could not have been anything of great consequence?’ + +‘Why, in 1849 my brother was arrested and afterwards exiled.’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘That was all.’ + +‘No,’ thought the official, ‘he is joking’; and he told S. if that was +the case the Ministry would make further inquiries. + +Two months passed. I can imagine what went on during these two months +in Petersburg: references, reports, confidential inquiries, secret +questions passed from the Ministry to the Third Section, from the Third +Section to the Ministry, the report of X. ... of the Governor-General ... +reprimands, observations ... but S.’s case could not be found. + +The Ministry reported to that effect to London. + +Brunov himself sent for S. ‘Here,’ he said—‘look—is the answer: there is +nothing anywhere concerning you.—Tell me, what case was it you were mixed +up in?’ + +‘My brother....’ + +‘I have heard all that, but with what case were you yourself connected?’ + +‘There was nothing else.’ + +Brunov, who had never been surprised at anything from his birth up, was +surprised. + +‘Then why do you ask for a pardon since you have done nothing?’ + +‘I thought that it was better, anyway.’ + +‘So the fact is you don’t need a pardon, but a passport,’ and Brunov +ordered a passport to be given him. + +In high delight S. dashed off to us. + +After describing in detail the whole story of how he had obtained a +pardon, he took Ogaryov by the arm and led him away into the garden. +‘For God’s sake, give me advice,’ he said to him, ‘Alexandr Ivanovitch +always laughs at me—that is his way; but you have a kind heart. Tell me +candidly: do you think I can safely go through Vienna?’ Ogaryov did not +justify this good opinion; he burst out laughing. But not only Ogaryov—I +can imagine how the faces of Brunov and his secretary for two minutes +lost the wrinkles traced by weighty affairs of State and grinned when S., +amnestied, walked out of their office. + +But with all his eccentricities, S. was an honest man. + +The other Russians who rose to the surface, God knows whence, strayed +for a month or two about London, called on us with their own letters of +introduction and vanished God knows whither, were by no means so harmless. + +The melancholy case which I am going to describe took place in the summer +of 1862. The reaction was at that time in its incubation stage, and the +internal hidden rottenness had not yet shown itself externally. No one +was afraid to come and see us; no one was afraid to take copies of the +_Kolokol_ and our other publications away with him; many people boasted +of the clever way they conveyed them over the frontier. When we advised +them to be careful they laughed at us. We hardly ever wrote letters +to Russia: we had nothing to say to our old friends, we were drifting +further and further away from them; with our new unknown friends we +corresponded through the _Kolokol_. + +In the spring Kelsiev returned from Moscow and Petersburg. His journey +is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable episodes of that period. The +man who had slipped under the noses of the police, scarcely concealing +himself, who had been present at conversations of raskolniks and drinking +parties of comrades, with an absurd Turkish passport in his pocket, and +had returned safe and sound to London, had grown reckless. + +He took it into his head to get up a subscription-supper in our honour on +the fifth anniversary of the _Kolokol_ at a restaurant. I begged him to +put off the celebration to another happier time. He would not. The supper +was not a success, there was no _entrain_ about it, and there could not +be. There were too many outsiders taking part in it. + +Talking of one thing and the other between toasts and anecdotes, it was +mentioned as the simplest thing in the world that Vyetoshnikov, Kelsiev’s +friend, was going to Petersburg and was ready to take anything with him. +The party broke up late. Many people said that they would be with us on +Sunday. There was indeed a regular crowd among whom were people whom we +knew very little, and unfortunately Vyetoshnikov himself; he came up to +me and said that he was going next morning, and asked me whether I had +any letters or commissions. Bakunin had already given him two or three +letters. Ogaryov went downstairs to his own room and wrote a few words of +friendly greeting to Nikolay Serno-Solovyevitch; to them I added a word +of greeting and asked the latter to call the attention of Tchernyshevsky +(to whom I had never written) to our proposal in the _Kolokol_ to print +the _Sovremennik_ in London at our expense. + +The party began to break up about twelve o’clock. Two or three guests +remained. Vyetoshnikov came into my study and took the letter. It is very +possible that even that might have remained unnoticed. But this is what +happened. By way of thanking those who had taken part in the supper, I +asked them to choose any one of our publications or a big photograph of +myself as a souvenir from me. Lyev Vyetoshnikov took the photograph; I +advised him to cut off the margin and roll it up; he would not, but said +he should put it at the bottom of his trunk, and so wrapped it in a sheet +of _The Times_ and went off. That could not escape notice. + +Saying good-bye to him, the last of the party, I quietly went off to +bed—so great is one’s blindness at times—and of course never dreamed how +dearly that minute would cost me and what sleepless nights it would bring +me. It was all stupid and careless in the extreme. We might have delayed +Vyetoshnikov until Tuesday, he might have been sent off on Saturday; why +had he not come in the morning? ... and indeed why had he come himself at +all? ... and, indeed, why did we write the letters? + +We were told that one of our guests telegraphed at once to Petersburg. + +Vyetoshnikov was arrested on the steamer; the rest is well known. + +To conclude this gloomy narrative, I will speak of a man whom I have +casually mentioned and whom I must not pass over. I mean Kelsiev. + + + + +BEHIND THE SCENES (1863 TO 1864) + + +We were left alone without faith listening to the far-away thunder of +cannon, the far-away moan of the wounded. Early in April the news came +that Potyebnya had been killed in battle at the Pyeskov Rock. In May +Padlewski was shot at Plotsk, and so it went on and on. + +It was a hard, unbearably hard, time! And, to add to all the gloom, one +was the involuntary spectator of the stupidity, the senselessness of men, +the cursed recklessness destroying every force about one. + + +V. I. KELSIEV + +The name of V. Kelsiev has gained a mournful notoriety of late: the +rapidity of his inward and the haste of his outward transformation, the +success of his penitence, the urgent craving for a public confession and +its strange scantiness, the tactlessness of his story, its inappropriate +jocosity together with the easy levity so unseemly in the penitent and +forgiven—all this, among people so unaccustomed as we are to abrupt +and public conversions, set the better part of our journalists in arms +against him. Kelsiev wanted at all costs to occupy the public attention; +he made himself a target at which every one flings a stone without +sparing. I am far from condemning the intolerance displayed in that case +by our slumbering journalism. This indignation proves that there is still +much that is uncorrupted and vigorous left among us, in spite of the +black period of moral sloppiness and immoral talk. The indignation poured +upon Kelsiev was the same as that which was unsparing of Pushkin for +one or two poems and turned against Gogol for his ‘Correspondence with +Friends.’ + +To cast a stone at Kelsiev is superfluous; a whole pavement has been +thrown at him already. I want to tell others and to remind him what he +was like when he came to us in London, and what he was like when for the +second time he went away to Turkey. + +Let him compare the bitterest moments of his life then with the sweetest +of his present career. + +These pages were written before his penitence and conversion, before +his metempsychosis and metamorphosis. I have changed nothing and added +nothing but extracts from letters. In my hasty sketch Kelsiev is +presented as he remained in my memory until his arrival on a boat at the +Skulyany[30] Customs in the character of prohibited goods asking to be +confiscated and to be treated according to the law. + +In 1859 I received the first letter from him. + +The letter came from Plymouth. Kelsiev had arrived there on the steamer +of a North American company, and was going on to a job in the Aleutian +Islands. After spending a little time in Plymouth he gave up the idea of +going to the Aleutian Islands, and wrote to me asking whether he could +gain a livelihood in London. He had already succeeded in making the +acquaintance of some theological gentlemen in Plymouth, and told me that +they had called his attention to remarkable interpretations of prophecy. +I warned him off the English clergymen, and invited him to London ‘if he +really wanted to work.’ A fortnight later he made his appearance. + +A rather tall, thin, sickly-looking young man with a rectangular skull +and a thick crop of hair on his head, he reminded me—not by his hair +(for the other was bald) but by his whole character—of Engelson, and he +really was like him in very many ways. From the first glance one could +discern in him much that was inharmonious and unstable, but nothing +that was vulgar. It was evident that he had escaped from every form of +bondage and authority but had not yet enrolled himself in the service of +any cause or party: he had no definite object. He was much younger than +Engelson, but yet he did belong to the latest section of the Petrashev +group, and had some of their virtues and all of their defects, had +studied everything in the world and learnt nothing thoroughly, read +everything of every sort, and worried his brains rather uselessly over +it all. Through continual criticism of every accepted idea, Kelsiev +had shaken all his moral conceptions without discovering any guiding +principle of conduct. + +What was particularly original about Kelsiev was that in all his +sceptical questioning there remained an element of fantastic mysticism: +he was a Nihilist with the ways and manners of the religious, a Nihilist +in the robes of a deacon. The flavour of the Church, its manner of +speech and imagery, were retained in his deportment, his language, his +style,[31] and gave his whole life a peculiar character, a peculiar +unity, made by the welding together of opposing metals. + +Kelsiev was passing through that stage of revaluation so familiar to us +which almost every truly awakened Russian accomplishes within himself, +and of which the Western European through practical preoccupations and +lack of leisure never dreams at all, drawn as he is by his specialised +knowledge into other tasks. Our elder brothers never verify their +elementary assumptions, and that is how it is that their generations +succeed each other, building and destroying, rewarding and punishing, +bestowing crowns and fetters, always firmly convinced that it is the +right thing and that they are doing their job. Kelsiev, on the contrary, +doubted everything and refused to accept on hearsay that good was good or +that evil was evil. This haughty spirit that denies all previous morality +and accepted truths was particularly strong in the _mi-carême_ of our +Lent under Nicholas, and found striking expression as soon as the yoke +that weighed on our brains was lifted one inch. This analysis, so full +of life and vigour, was fiercely attacked by the conservative literary +movement—conserving God knows what—and after it by the Government. + +At the time of our awakening in the din of the Sevastopol cannon, many of +our clever fellows kept repeating the words they had heard from others, +that Western European conservatism was the right thing for us, that we +had been hurriedly thrust into European culture, not that we might share +their hereditary diseases and out-of-date prejudices, but that we might +compare ourselves with our elder brothers, so that it might be possible +to advance in step with them. But as soon as in actual fact we see that +in awakening thought, that in mature speech there is no firm principle, +‘nothing sacred,’ nothing but questions and problems, that thought is +seeking, that speech is denying, that the most certain good is tottering +together with what is bad, and that the spirit of doubt and experiment +is dragging everything indiscriminately into an abyss, from which all +safeguards have been removed—then a cry of consternation and horror +bursts from the lips, and the first-class passengers close their eyes +that they may not see the train leaving the rails while the drivers try +to put on the brakes and stop the engine. + +In reality there was no cause to be afraid: the rising force was too +weak to change the course of sixty millions materially. But it had a +programme, perhaps a prophecy. + +Kelsiev had developed under the first influence of the period of which +we are speaking. He was far from having attained clarity or reached any +equilibrium; his moral property was in complete liquidation. All that was +old he denied, all that was solid he had dissolved, he had shoved off +from the shore and was drifting recklessly into the open sea; with equal +suspicion and mistrustfulness he regarded belief and disbelief, Russian +methods and the methods of Western Europe. The one thing that had sent +deep roots into his heart was a passionate and profound recognition of +the economic injustice of the present political order, a hatred for it +and an intense but vague passion for the social theories in which he saw +a solution. + +Apart from all understanding of it, he had an undeniable right to this +sense of injustice and this hatred of it. + +In London he settled in one of the remotest parts of the town, in a blind +alley of Fulham, inhabited by pale, smutty Irish and emaciated workmen +of all sorts. In these damp, stony, unroofed corridors, it is fearfully +still, there is almost no sound nor light nor colour: people, flower-pots +and houses, all are faded and shrunk. Smoke and soot have wrapped all +outlines in a shroud of mourning. No tradesmen’s carts rattle down them +with provisions, no cabmen drive that way, no hawkers cry their wares, no +dogs bark (there is absolutely nothing to feed the latter on); only from +time to time a thin, dishevelled-looking, smutty cat emerges, clambers on +to the roof and goes up to the chimney to get warm, arching her spine and +betraying unmistakably how chilled she has been indoors. + +The first time I visited Kelsiev I did not find him at home. A very +young, very plain woman—thin, lymphatic, with tear-stained eyes—was +sitting on the floor by a mattress, on which a baby of a year or a year +and a half was tossing in a high fever, suffering and dying. + +I looked at its face, and thought of the face of another baby on the +point of death: it was the same expression. A few days later it died, and +another was born. + +No poverty could have been more complete. The young frail woman, or +rather married child, endured it heroically and with extraordinary +simplicity. + +No one looking at her sickly, scrofulous, feeble appearance could have +imagined what energy, what force of devotion, resided in that frail body. +She might have served as a bitter lesson for our popular novelists. She +was, or rather wanted to be, what was afterwards called a _Nihilist_: +did her hair queerly, was careless in her dress, smoked a great deal, +and was not afraid either of bold thoughts or bold words; she was not +enthusiastic over the domestic virtues, did not talk of the sacredness +of duty and the sweetness of the sacrifice she made daily, or of the +lightness of the burden that weighed on her young shoulders. There was +no pose or affectation about her struggle with poverty; and she did +everything—sewed, washed, suckled her baby, cooked the meat and scrubbed +the room. She was a resolute comrade to her husband, and like a great +martyr laid down her life in the distant East, following her husband’s +restless, wandering flight and losing her two last children in succession. + +At first I struggled with Kelsiev, trying to persuade him not to cut +himself off from the path of return before he knew what the life of an +exile was like. + +I had told him that he ought first to learn what poverty in a strange +land meant, poverty in England, particularly in London; I told him that +every vigorous man was precious now in Russia. + +‘What are you going to do here?’ I asked him. Kelsiev proposed to study +everything and to write about everything; most of all, he wanted to write +about the Woman Question and the reorganisation of the family. + +‘Write first,’ I told him, ‘about the necessity that the peasants should +have the land when they are emancipated. That is the first question that +confronts us.’ + +But Kelsiev was not attracted in that direction. He did, as a fact, bring +me an article on the Woman Question. It was incredibly poor. Kelsiev was +angry with me for not publishing it, though he thanked me for it two +years later. + +He did not want to go back. Work had to be found for him at all costs. +We did our best to find it. His theological eccentricities assisted us +in doing so. We obtained for him the job of correcting the proofs of the +Russian edition of the Scriptures published by the London Bible Society, +and then handed over to him a heap of papers we had received at various +times relating to the Old Believers. Kelsiev undertook the task of +arranging and editing them with enthusiasm. What he had been groping for +and dreaming of lay revealed before him: he discovered in the dissenters +a coarsely naïve socialism in a gospel setting. This was the best period +in Kelsiev’s life. He worked passionately, and used to run in to see me +in the evening to tell me of some socialistic idea of the Duhobors or +the Molokans, or some communistic doctrine of the Fedoseyevtsy. He was +delighted with their wanderings in the forests, and found an ideal for +his life in wandering among them and becoming the founder of a socialist +Christian sect in Belaya-Krinitsa,[32] or Russia. + +And indeed Kelsiev was a ‘vagrant’ soul, a vagrant morally and in +practice: he was tormented by unstable thoughts, by depression. He could +not remain in one spot. He had found work, occupation, a livelihood free +from want, but he did not find work which would completely absorb his +restless temperament; he was ready to go anywhere to seek it, even to +become a monk, to accept the holy calling without faith in it. + +A typical Russian, Kelsiev made a new programme of work every month, +thought of new schemes and took up a new task without finishing the old +one. He worked by bouts, and by bouts did nothing. He grasped things +easily, but was at once satisfied and cloyed; he plucked at once all the +essence out of a thing, to the last deduction, sometimes even more than +was in it. + +The book about the raskolniks came off successfully; he published six +parts, which were quickly distributed. The Government, seeing this, +allowed the publication of the facts concerning the Old Believers. The +same thing happened with the translation of the Bible. The translation +from the Hebrew was not successful. Kelsiev tried to perform a _tour de +force_ and to translate it word for word, regardless of the fact that the +grammatical forms of the Semitic tongues do not correspond with those of +the Slavonic. Nevertheless, the books that were issued were instantly +sold, and the Holy Synod, alarmed at the success of the foreign edition, +gave its blessing to the publication of the Old Testament in Russian. +These back-handed victories were never put down to the credit of our +press by any one. + +At the end of 1862 Kelsiev went to Moscow with the object of establishing +permanent relations with the raskolniks. This expedition he ought one day +to describe himself. It was incredible, impossible, but it actually took +place. The daring of this trip borders on insanity; its recklessness was +almost criminal; but of course it is not for me to blame him for that. +Incautious chatter at the frontier might have done a great deal of harm, +but that is not the point, and has nothing to do with the estimate of the +expedition itself. + +On his return to London he undertook the suggestion of Trübner to compile +a Russian grammar for Englishmen, and to translate some financial book. +He did not complete either of these tasks: his travels had ruined +his _Sitzfleisch_. He was bored by work, sank into hypochondria and +depression, while work was necessary, for again they had not a penny. +Moreover, a new craze began to fret him. The success of this expedition, +the daring he had incontestably displayed, the mysterious negotiations, +the triumph over dangers—all this fanned the flame of vanity that was +already strong in his heart; unlike Caesar, Don Carlos, and Vadim Passek, +Kelsiev, passing his hands through his thick hair, would say, shaking +his head mournfully: ‘Not yet thirty, and such immense responsibilities +undertaken!’ From all this it might readily be deduced that he would +not finish the grammar but would go away. And he did go. He went to +Turkey with the firm intention of there getting into closer touch with +the raskolniks, forming new ties and if possible remaining there, and +beginning to preach the free church and communistic life. I wrote him a +long letter, trying to persuade him not to go, but to stick to his work. +The passion for wandering, the desire to do great deeds and to have a +grand destiny, which haunted him, were too strong, and he went. He and +Martyanov disappeared almost at the same time—one, after passing through +a series of trials and misfortunes, to bury his dear ones and be lost +between Jassy and Galatz, the other to bury himself in penal servitude, +to which he was sent by the incredible stupidity of the Tsar and the +incredible spite of the revengeful land-owning senators. + +After them men of a different stamp appear upon the scene. Our social +metamorphosis, having no great depth and affecting only a thin layer, +rapidly wears out and changes its forms and colours. + +A whole stratum lay between Engelson and Kelsiev, just as between +us and Engelson. Engelson was a man injured and broken by his whole +environment; the foul atmosphere which he had breathed from childhood had +distorted him. A ray of light gleamed upon him and warmed him for three +years before his death, but by then the sickness that was consuming him +could not be arrested. Kelsiev, who was also damaged and injured by his +environment, was yet free from despair and fatigue; he was not merely +seeking peace abroad, but had simply run away from oppression; without +looking behind him, he was going _somewhere_. Where? That he did not know +(and therein lay the most prominent characteristic of his group), he had +no definite aim; he was seeking it, and meanwhile looking about him and +setting in order, and maybe in disorder, a whole mass of ideas caught up +at school from books and from life. Within him that destructive process +of which we have spoken was going on, and it was for him the essential +question in which he lived, while waiting either for a cause which should +absorb him or a thought to which he could devote himself. + +After making his way to Turkey, Kelsiev decided to settle in Tulcea; +there he meant to form a centre for his propaganda among the raskolniks, +to found a school for Cossack children and to make the experiment of a +communal life, in which profit and loss was to fall equally upon all, and +the work, skilled or unskilled, light or heavy, should be divided among +all. The cheapness of dwelling and of food made the experiment possible. +He made the acquaintance of Gonchar, the old ataman of the Nekrassovtsys, +and at first praised him up to the skies. + +In the summer of 1863 his younger brother Ivan, a fine and gifted youth, +joined him. He had been exiled from Moscow to Perm in connection with +the students’ rising; there he came into collision with a wretch of a +governor, who oppressed him. Then he was sent again to Moscow on account +of some investigation; he was in danger of being exiled to some place +more remote than Perm. He escaped from custody and made his way through +Constantinople to Tulcea. His elder brother was extremely glad to see +him. He was looking for comrades, and in the end sent for his wife, who +was eager to go to him, and had been living under our protection in +Teddington. While we were fitting her out, Gonchar himself arrived in +London. + +The crafty old man, who scented the approach of war and disturbance, had +come out of his hole to sniff what was in the air and to see what he had +to expect, and from which quarter; that is, with whom and against whom +to ally himself. Knowing no single word of any language but Turkish and +Russian, he set off for Marseilles, and from there reached Paris. In +Paris he saw Czartorysczki and Zamoisky; I was even told that he had been +taken to Napoleon, but I did not hear that from himself. His negotiations +led to nothing, and the old Cossack, shaking his grizzled head and +screwing up his cunning eyes, wrote in the scrawl of the seventeenth +century, and, addressing me as Count, asked if he could come and see us +and how he could reach us. We were then living in Teddington; it was not +easy to find us without a word of English, and I went to London to meet +him at the station. An old Russian peasant of the more prosperous sort, +rather thin, but sturdy, muscular, fairly tall and sunburnt, with a big +Russian beard, stepped out of the carriage, wearing a grey kaftan and +carrying a bundle tied up in a coloured handkerchief. + +‘You are Osip Semyonovitch?’ I asked him. + +‘I am, my good sir, I am’; he gave me his hand. His kaftan flew open and +I saw on his jerkin a big star—of course a Turkish one; Russian stars are +not given to peasants. The jerkin was dark blue and was bordered with a +wide coloured braid; I had not seen one like it in Russia. + +‘I am Alexandr Ivanovitch Herzen. I have come to meet you and to take you +to us.’ + +‘What did you put yourself out for, Your Excellency?... Why ... you might +have sent some one or something....’ + +‘Evidently because I am not an Excellency. What put it into your head, +Osip Semyonovitch, to call me Count?’ + +‘Well, Christ only knows how to address you; surely you are the head-man +in your line. Well, I am an ignorant man, you see, so, says I, he is a +Count, that is an Excellency, that is the chief.’ Not only Gonchar’s +turn of speech, but even his accent was that of a Great Russian peasant. +How have these men preserved their language so splendidly in the wilds, +surrounded by natives of another race? It would be hard to explain it +apart from the compact solidarity of the Old Believers. Their sect has +divided them off so strictly that no foreign influence has crossed its +barrier. + +Gonchar spent three days with us. For the first two days he ate nothing +but dry bread which he had brought with him and he drank nothing but +water. The third day was Sunday, and he allowed himself a glass of milk, +some boiled fish and, if I am not mistaken, a glass of sherry. Russian +circumspection, Oriental cunning, the caution of a hunter, the reserve of +a man accustomed from childhood to being entirely without rights and in +close contact with powerful enemies, a long life spent in struggle, in +unceasing toil among dangers—all this was apparent behind the seemingly +simple features and simple words of the grey-headed Cossack. He was +continually qualifying what he said, using evasive phrases, quoting +texts from Scripture; he assumed a modest air while he very consciously +described his successes, and if he was sometimes carried away in his +stories of the past and said a good deal, he certainly never let drop a +word concerning anything of which he meant to be silent. + +This stamp of man scarcely exists in Western Europe. It is not needed +there, as Damascus steel is not needed for the blade of a penknife. + +In Europe everything is done wholesale, in the mass; the individual man +does not need so much strength and caution. + +He had no faith now in the success of the Polish rebellion, and spoke of +his interviews in Paris, shaking his head. ‘It is not for us, of course, +to judge: we are little, ignorant people, while they, look you, are grand +gentlemen as is only right; but there, they are a bit light in their +ways. “Don’t you doubt, Gonchar,” they say. “This is how we’ll manage, we +will do this and that for you.... Do you understand?... It will all be +satisfactory.” ... To be sure, they are good-natured gentlemen, but look +you here, when will they manage it ... with politics like that...?’ He +wanted to find out what connections we had with the raskolniks and what +support in his country; he wanted to make certain whether there could be +any practical benefit for the Old Believers in connection with us. In +reality, it was all one to him; he would as readily have allied himself +with Poland or with Austria, with us or with the Greeks, with Russia +or with Turkey, if only it had been profitable for his Nekrassovtsy. +He shook his head as he left us, too. He wrote two or three letters +afterwards, in which, among other things, he complained of Kelsiev and, +contrary to our advice, sent an appeal to the Tsar. + +At the beginning of 1864 two Russian officers, both exiles, +Krasnopyevtsev and V., went to Tulcea. At first the little colony set to +work zealously. They taught the children and salted cucumbers, patched +their clothes and dug in the kitchen-garden. Kelsiev’s wife cooked the +dinner and made their clothes. Kelsiev was pleased with the beginning, +pleased with the Cossacks and with the raskolniks, pleased with his +comrades and with the Turks.[33] + +Kelsiev was still writing us his humorous descriptions of their +installation, but the dark hand of destiny was already menacing the +little band of Tulcea Communists. In June 1864, just a year after his +arrival, Ivan Kelsiev died of malignant typhus in his brother’s arms. He +was only three-and-twenty. His death was a fearful blow for his brother; +the latter fell ill himself, but somehow survived. His letters of that +period are terrible reading. The spirit which had sustained the recluses +drooped, they were overcome by gloomy depression; crimes and quarrels +followed. Gonchar wrote that Kelsiev was drinking heavily. Krasnopyevtsev +shot himself. V. went away. Kelsiev, too, could stand it no longer; he +took his wife and his children (he had another by then), and without +means or aim set off first for Constantinople, then for the Balkan +States. Completely cut off from every one, for the time even cut off from +us, it was then that he broke off all relations with the Polish exiles +in Turkey. In vain he tried to earn a crust of bread, with despair he +looked at the wan faces of his poor wife and children. The money we sent +him now and then could not be sufficient. ‘It happened at times that we +had no bread at all,’ his wife wrote not long before her death. At last, +after long efforts, Kelsiev obtained in Galatz a job as ‘overseer of work +on the high-roads.’ He was consumed, devoured by boredom. He could not +but blame himself for the position of his family. The ignorance of the +barbarous Eastern world oppressed him. He pined in it and longed to get +away. He had lost his faith in the raskolniks; he had lost his faith in +Poland; his faith in men, in science, in revolution, was growing more and +more unsteady, and it was easy to predict when it too would collapse. He +dreamt of nothing but at all costs struggling back again into the world +and coming to us, and saw with horror that he could not leave his family. +‘If I were alone,’ he wrote several times, ‘I would set off at hazard +with a daguerrotype machine, or a barrel-organ, and, wandering over the +world, would reach Geneva on foot.’ + +Help was at hand. + +Malusha (so they called the elder girl) went to bed quite well, but woke +up in the night ill. Towards morning she died of cholera. A few days +later the younger child died; the mother was taken to the hospital, she +was found to be suffering from galloping consumption. + +‘Do you remember,’ she said to him, ‘you promised once to tell me when I +was going to die, that it was death? Is this death?’ + +‘It is death, my dear, it is.’ + +And she smiled once more, sank into forgetfulness and died. + + +_Extract from a Letter_ + + They write to us in Petersburg that the other day the official + in charge of the Skulyany Customs House received a letter + signed V. Kelsiev informing him that the passenger who would + have to present himself at that Customs House with a regular + Turkish passport bearing the name of Ivan Zheludkov was no + other than himself, Kelsiev, and that, wishing to give himself + up to the Russian Government, he begged the said official to + arrest him and send him to Petersburg. + + + + +THE COMMON FUND + + +Kelsiev had hardly passed out of our door when fresh people, driven out +by the chill blasts of 1863, were knocking at it. These came not from the +training-schools of the coming upheaval but from the devastated stage +on which they had already played their parts. They were taking refuge +from the storm without and seeking nothing within; all they needed was +a temporary haven until the weather improved, until a chance presented +itself to return to the fray. These men, while still very young, had done +with ideas, with culture; theoretical questions did not interest them, +partly because they had not yet arisen among them, partly because they +were concerned with putting them into practice. Though they had been +defeated, they had given proofs of their reckless daring. They had furled +their flag, and their task was to preserve its honour. Hence their dry, +_cassant_, _raide_, abrupt and rather elevated tone. Hence their martial, +impatient aversion for prolonged deliberation, for criticism, their +somewhat elaborate contempt for all intellectual superfluities, among +which they put Art in the foreground. What need of music? What need of +poetry? ‘The fatherland is in danger, _aux armes, citoyens_!’ In certain +cases they were theoretically right, but they did not take into account +the complex, intricate process of balancing the ideal with the actual, +and, I need hardly say, assumed that their views and theories were the +views and theories of all Russia. To blame our young pilots of the coming +storm for this would be unjust. It is the common characteristic of youth; +a year ago a Frenchman, a follower of Comte, assured me that Catholicism +no longer existed in France, that it had _complètement perdu le terrain_, +and pointed to the medical profession, to the professors and students who +were not merely not Catholics but not even Deists. ‘Well, but that part +of France,’ I observed, ‘which neither gives nor hears medical lectures?’ + +‘It, of course, keeps to religion and its rites—but more from habit and +ignorance.’ + +‘Very true, but what will you do with it?’ + +‘What did they do in 1792?’ + +‘A little: at first the Revolution closed the churches, but afterwards +opened them again. Do you remember Augereau’s answer to Napoleon when +they were celebrating the Concordat? “Do you like the ceremony?” the +consul asked as they came out of Notre-Dame. The Jacobin general +answered: “Very much. I am only sorry that the two hundred thousand +men who have gone to their graves to abolish such ceremonies are not +present!”’ + +‘_Ah bah_, we have grown wiser, and we shall not open the church doors—or +rather we shall not close them at all, but shall turn the temples of +idolatry into schools.’ + +‘_L’infâme sera écrasée_,’ I wound up, laughing. + +‘Yes, no doubt of it; that is certain!’ + +‘But that you and I will not see it—that is even more certain.’ + +It is to this looking at the surrounding world through a prism coloured +by personal sympathies that half the revolutionary failures are due. The +life of young people, spent as a rule in a noisy and limited seclusion +of a sort, remote from the everyday and wholesale struggle for personal +interests, though it grasps universal truths clearly, is almost always +doomed to a false understanding of their application to the needs of the +day. + +At first our new visitors cheered us with accounts of the movement in +Petersburg, of the wild pranks of the full-fledged reaction, of the +trials and persecutions, of university and literary parties. Then, +when all this had been told with the rapidity with which in such cases +men hasten to tell all they know, a pause, a hiatus would follow; our +conversations became dull and monotonous. + +‘Can this really be,’ I thought, ‘old age divorcing two generations? Is +it the chill induced by years, by weariness, by experience?’ + +Whatever it might be due to, I felt that our horizon was not widened, but +narrowed, by the arrival of these new men. The scope of our conversations +was more limited. Sometimes we had nothing to say to one another. They +were occupied with the details of their circles, beyond which nothing +interested them. Having once related everything of interest about them, +there was nothing to do but to repeat it, and they did repeat it. They +took little interest in learning or in public affairs; they even read +little, and did not follow the newspapers regularly. Absorbed in memories +and anticipations, they did not care to step forth into other spheres; +while we had not air to breathe in that exhausted atmosphere. We, spoiled +by wider horizons, were stifled. + +Moreover, even if they did know a certain section of Petersburg, they +did not know Russia at all, and, though sincerely desirous of coming +into contact with the people, they only approached them bookishly and +theoretically. + +What we had in common was too general. Advance together, _serve_, as +the French say, take action together we might, but it was hard to stand +still with hands folded and live together. It was useless to dream of a +serious influence on them. A morbid and very unceremonious vanity had +long ago got the upper hand.[34] Sometimes, it is true, they did ask for +a programme, for guidance, but for all their sincerity there was no +reality about that. They expected us to formulate their own opinions, and +only assented when what we said did not contradict them in the least. +They looked upon us as respectable veterans, as something past and over, +and were naïvely surprised that we were not yet so very much behind +themselves. + +I have always and in everything dreaded ‘above all sorrows’ +_mésalliances_; I have always endured them, partly through humanity, +partly through carelessness, and have always suffered from them. + +It was not hard to foresee that our new connections would not last long, +that sooner or later they would be broken, and that, considering the +churlish character of our new friends, this rupture would not come off +without disagreeable consequences. + +The subject upon which our unstable relations came to grief was that old +subject upon which acquaintances tacked together with rotten threads +usually come to grief. I mean money. Knowing absolutely nothing of my +resources nor of my sacrifices, they made demands upon me which I did not +think it right to satisfy. That I had been able through bad times without +the slightest assistance to maintain the Russian propaganda for fifteen +years was only because I had put a careful limit to my other expenses. +My new acquaintances considered that all I was doing was not enough, and +looked with indignation at a man who pretended to be a Socialist and did +not distribute his property in equal shares among people who wanted money +without working. Obviously they had not advanced beyond the impractical +point of view of Christian charity and voluntary poverty, and mistook +that for practical Socialism. + +The efforts to collect a ‘Common Fund’ yielded no results of importance. +Russians are not fond of giving money to any common cause, unless it +includes the building of a church, and a banquet, a drinking-party, and +the approval of the higher authorities. + +When the impecuniosity of the exiles was at its height, a rumour +circulated among them that I had a sum of money entrusted to me for +purposes of propaganda. + +It seemed perfectly right to the young people to relieve me of it. + +To make the position clear, I must describe a strange incident that +occurred in the year 1858. One morning I received a very brief note from +an unknown Russian; he wrote to me that he ‘urgently desired to see me,’ +and asked me to fix an hour. + +I happened to be going to London at the time, and so instead of answering +I went myself to the Sablonnière Hotel and inquired for him. He was at +home. He was a young man who looked like a cadet, shy, very depressed, +and with the peculiar rather rough-hewn appearance of the seventh or +eighth son of a Steppe landowner. Very uncommunicative, he was almost +completely silent; it was evident that he had something on his mind, but +he could not come to the point of putting it into words. + +I went away, inviting him to dinner two or three days later. Before that +date I met him in the street. ‘May I walk with you?’ he asked. + +‘Of course; there is no risk for me in being seen with you, though there +is for you in being seen with me. But London is a big place.’ + +‘I am not afraid’—and then all at once, taking the bit between his teeth, +he hurriedly burst out: ‘I shall never go back to Russia—no, no, I shall +certainly never go back to Russia....’ + +‘Upon my word, and you so young?’ + +‘I love Russia—I love her dearly; but there the people ... I cannot live +there. I want to found a colony on completely socialistic principles; I +have thought it all over, and now I am going straight there.’ + +‘Straight where?’ + +‘To the Marquesas Islands.’ + +I looked at him in dumb amazement. + +‘Yes, yes; it is all settled. I am sailing by the next steamer, and so I +am very glad that I have met you to-day—may I put an indiscreet question +to you?’ + +‘As many as you like.’ + +‘Do you make any profit out of your publications?’ + +‘Profit! I am glad to say that now the press pays its way.’ + +‘Well, but what if it should not?’ + +‘I shall make it up.’ + +‘So that no sort of commercial aim enters into your propaganda?’ said the +young man. + +I laughed heartily. + +‘Well, but how are you going to pay all the expenses alone? And your +propaganda is essential. You must forgive me, I am not asking out of +curiosity: when I left Russia for ever, I had the thought in my mind of +doing something useful for her, and I made up my mind to leave a small +sum of money with you. Should your printing-press need it, or the Russian +propaganda generally, then you must make use of it.’ + +Again I could do nothing but look at him with amazement. + +‘Neither the printing-press nor Russian propaganda nor I are in need of +money; on the contrary, things are going swimmingly. Why should I take +your money? But though I refuse to take it, allow me to thank you from +the bottom of my heart for your kind intention.’ + +‘No, it is all settled. I have fifty thousand francs. I shall take thirty +thousand with me to the Islands, and I shall leave twenty with you for +propaganda.’ + +‘What am I to do with it?’ + +‘Well, if you don’t need the money you can give it back to me if I +return; but if I don’t return within ten years, or if I die—use it +for the benefit of your propaganda. Only,’ he added, after a moment’s +thought, ‘do anything you like ... but don’t give anything to my heirs. +Are you free to-morrow morning?’ + +‘Certainly, if you like.’ + +‘Do me the favour to take me to the bank and to Rothschild; I know +nothing about it, I can’t speak English, and speak French very badly. I +want to make haste to get rid of the twenty thousand and be off.’ + +‘Very well, I will take the money—but on these conditions: I will give +you a receipt.’ + +‘I don’t want a receipt.’ + +‘No, but I want to give you one—I won’t take your money without it. +Listen. In the first place, it shall be stated in the receipt that your +money is entrusted not to me alone, but to me and to Ogaryov. In the +second, since you may get sick of the Marquesas Islands and begin to pine +for your native country ...’ (he shook his head). ‘How can one tell of +what one does not know?... There is no need to specify the object with +which you give us the capital, we will only say that the money is put at +the complete disposal of Ogaryov and myself; should we make no other use +of it, we will invest the whole sum for you in securities at five per +cent. or thereabouts, guaranteed by the English Government. Then I give +you my word that we will not touch your money except in case of extreme +necessity for propaganda purposes; you may reckon upon it in any case, +except that of bankruptcy in England.’ + +‘If you insist on taking so much trouble, do so. And let us go to-morrow +for the money!’ + +The following day was an extremely amusing and busy one. It began with +the bank and with Rothschild. The money was paid in notes. B. at first +announced the guileless intention of changing them into Spanish gold +or silver. Rothschild’s clerks looked at him in amazement, but when, as +though suddenly awakening, he said in broken Franco-Russian: ‘Well, then, +a _lettre de crédit_ to the _Île Marquise_,’ Kessner, the manager, bent +an alarmed and anxious look upon me, which said better than any words: +‘He is not dangerous, is he?’ Never before in Rothschild’s bank had any +one asked for a letter of credit to the Marquesas Islands. + +We decided to take thirty thousand francs in gold and go home; on the way +we went into a café. I wrote the receipt; B. for his part wrote for me +that he put eight hundred pounds at the complete disposal of myself and +Ogaryov; then he went home to get something and I went off to a bookshop +to wait for him there; a quarter of an hour later he came in, pale as a +sheet, and announced that of his thirty thousand francs two hundred and +fifty, that is ten pounds, were missing. + +He was utterly overwhelmed. How the loss of two hundred and fifty francs +could so upset a man who had just given away twenty thousand without any +secure guarantee is again a psychological riddle of human nature. + +‘Had not you a note too much?’ he asked me. + +‘I have none of the money with me, I gave it to Rothschild, and here +is the receipt, precisely eight hundred.’ B., who had changed his +French notes into pounds with no necessity to do so, scattered them on +Tchorszewski’s counter; he counted them and counted them over again; +ten pounds were missing, and that was all about it. Seeing his despair, +I said to Tchorszewski: ‘I’ll somehow take that damned ten pounds on +myself; here he has done a good deed and is punished for it.’ + +‘It is no use grieving and discussing it,’ I said to him. ‘I propose +going straight to Rothschild’s.’ + +We drove there. It was by now after four and the bank was closed. I went +in with B., who was overwhelmed with confusion. Kessner looked at him, +and, smiling, took a ten-pound note from the table and handed it to me. +‘How did it happen?’ ‘Your friend when he changed the money gave me two +ten-pound notes instead of two five-pound ones, and at first I did not +notice it.’ B. stared and stared at it, and commented: ‘How stupid it is +that ten-pound notes and five-pound notes are the same colour; who would +notice the difference? You see what a good thing it is that I changed the +money into gold.’ + +Comforted, he came to dine with me, and I promised to go and say good-bye +to him next day. He was quite ready to start. A little shabby, battered +trunk such as cadets or students carry, a greatcoat tied up in a strap, +and ... and ... thirty thousand francs in gold tied up in a thick +pocket-handkerchief, as people tie up a pound of gooseberries or nuts! + +This was how the man was setting off for the Marquesas Islands. + +‘Upon my soul!’ I said to him; ‘why, you will be robbed and murdered +before you are afloat, you had better put your money in your trunk.’ + +‘It is full.’ + +‘I will get you a bag.’ + +‘No, I would not think of it.’ + +And so he went off. + +At first I supposed that he would be killed for a certainty and I should +incur the suspicion of having sent some one to kill him. + +From that day no sign nor sound of him again.... I put his money in +Consols with the firm intention of not touching it except in the case of +the printing-press or propaganda being in the utmost straits. + +For a long time no one in Russia knew of this incident; then there were +vague rumours, for which we were indebted to two or three of our friends +who had promised to say nothing about it. At last it was discovered that +the money really existed and was in my keeping. + +This news served as an apple of discord, as a chronic irritant and +ferment. It appeared that every one needed the money—while I did not give +it to them. They could not forgive me for not having lost the whole of +my own property—and here I had a deposit given me for the propaganda; +and who were ‘the propaganda’ if not they? The sum quickly grew from +modest francs to silver roubles, and was still more tantalising for +those who desired to consume it privately for the public benefit. They +were indignant with B. for having entrusted the money to me and not to +some one else; the boldest among them declared that it was an error on +his part; that he really meant to give it not to me but to a Petersburg +political circle, and that, not knowing how to do this, he had given it +to me in London. The audacity of these opinions was the more remarkable +since no one knew B.’s surname or had heard of his existence, and since +he had not spoken to any one of his intention before his departure, nor +had any one spoken with him since then. + +One man needed the money to send emissaries; another for establishing +centres on the Volga; a third for the publication of a journal. They +were dissatisfied with the _Kolokol_, and did not readily respond to our +invitation to work on it. + +I resolutely refused to give the money; and let those who demanded it +tell me what would have become of it if I had. + +‘B. may return without a farthing,’ I said; ‘it is not easy to make a +fortune by founding a socialist colony in the Marquesas Islands.’ + +‘He is sure to be dead.’ + +‘But what if to spite you he is living?’ + +‘Well, but he gave you the money for the propaganda.’ + +‘So far I do not need it.’ + +‘But we do.’ + +‘What for precisely?’ + +‘We must send some one to the Volga and some one to Odessa....’ + +‘I don’t think that is very necessary.’ + +‘So you don’t believe in the urgency of sending them?’ + +‘I do not.’ + +‘He is growing old and getting miserly,’ the most determined and +ferocious said about me in different variations. + +‘But why mind him? Just take the money from him and have done with it,’ +the still more resolute and ferocious added, ‘and if he resists, we will +show him up in the papers and teach him to keep other people’s money.’ + +I did not give them the money. + +They did not show me up in the papers. I was abused in the press much +later, and that was about money too.... + +These more ferocious ones of whom I have spoken were the extreme +examples, the angular and uncouth representatives of the ‘New +Generation,’ who may be called the Sobakevitches and Nozdryovs of +Nihilism. + +However superfluous it may be to make a reservation, yet I will do so, +knowing the logic and the manners of our opponents. I have not the +slightest desire in what I am saying to fling a stone at the younger +generation or at Nihilism. Of the latter I have written many times. +Our Sobakevitches of Nihilism are not its fullest expression, but only +represent its exaggerated extremes.[35] + +Who would judge of Christianity from the Flagellants, or of the +Revolution from the September butchers, or the _tricoteuses_ of +Robespierre? + +The conceited lads of whom I am speaking are worth studying, because +they are the expression of a temporary type, very definitely marked and +very frequently repeated, a transitional form of the sickness of our +development from our old stagnation. + +For the most part, they were lacking in the polish given by breeding, +and the persistence given by scientific studies. In the first heat of +emancipation they were in a hurry to cast off all the conventional forms +and to push away all the rubber buffers which avert rough collisions. +This made the simplest relations with them difficult. + +Flinging off everything to the last rag, our _enfants terribles_ proudly +appeared as their mothers bore them, and their mothers had not borne +them well, not as simple comely lads but as heirs of the evil and +unhealthy life of our lower classes in Petersburg. Instead of athletic +muscles and youthful nakedness, they displayed the melancholy traces of +hereditary anaemia, the traces of old scars and fetters and manacles of +all sorts. There were few among them who had come up from the people. The +servants’ hall, the barrack-room, the seminary, the petty proprietor’s +farm survived in their blood and their brains, and lost none of their +characteristic features though twisted in an opposite direction. So far +as I know, this fact has attracted no serious attention. + +On the one hand, the reaction against the old narrow oppressive world +was bound to throw the younger generation into antagonism and opposition +to their hostile surroundings; it was useless to expect moderation or +justice in them. On the contrary, everything was done in defiance, +everything was done in resentment. You have been hypocrites, we will be +cynics; you have been moral in words, we will be wicked in words; you +have been polite to your superiors and rude to your inferiors, we will +be rude to every one; you have bowed down to those you did not respect, +we will shove others aside without apologising; your feeling of personal +dignity consisted in nothing but decorum and external honour, we make it +our point of honour to trample on every decorum and to scorn every _point +d’honneur_. + +But on the other hand, though disowning all the ordinary forms of +social life, their character was full of its own hereditary failings +and deformities. Casting off, as we have said, all veils, the most +desperate played the dandy in the costume of Gogol’s Pyetuh[36] and did +not preserve the pose of the Venus of Medici. Their nakedness did not +conceal, but revealed, what they were. It revealed that their systematic +roughness, their rude and insolent talk, had nothing in common with +the inoffensive and simple-hearted coarseness of the peasant, but a +great deal in common with the manners of the low-class pettifogger, the +shop-boy and the flunkey. The peasants no more considered such a Nihilist +as one of themselves than they did a Slavophil in a _murmolka_. To the +peasantry these men remain strangers, the lowest class of the enemies’ +camp, inferior young masters, scribblers out of a job, Germans among +Russians. + +To be completely free, one must forget one’s freedom and that from which +one has been set free, and cast off the habits of the environment one has +outgrown. Until men have done this we cannot help being conscious of the +servants’ hall, the barrack-room, the government-office or the seminary +in every gesture they make and every word they utter. + +To hit a man in the face at the first objection he advances—if not with a +fist with a word of abuse—to call Stuart Mill a sneak, forgetting all the +service he has done, is not that the same as the Russian master’s way +of ‘punching old Gavrilo in the face for a crumpled cravat’? In this and +similar rudeness, do we not recognise the policeman, the police officer, +the village constable dragging the peasant by his grey beard? Do we not, +in the insolent arrogance of their manners and answers, clearly recognise +the insolence of the officers of the days of Nicholas? Do we not see +in men who talk haughtily and disdainfully of Shakespeare and Pushkin, +grandsons of Skalozub, reared in the house of their grandsire who wanted +‘to make a Voltaire of his corporal’? + +The very curse of bribery has survived in the extortion of money by +violence, by intimidation and threats on the pretext of a common cause, +in the efforts to be kept at the expense of the service and to revenge a +refusal by slanders and libels. + +All this will be transformed and come right with time. But there is no +blinking the fact that a strange subsoil has been prepared by the Tsar’s +paternal Government and Imperial civilisation in our kingdom of darkness. +It is a soil on which seedlings that promised much have grown, on the one +hand, into the followers of the Muravyovs and the Katkovs, and, on the +other, into the bullies of Nihilism and the lawless gang of Bazarovs. + +Our black earth needs a good deal of drainage! + + + + +BAKUNIN AND THE CAUSE OF POLAND + + +At the end of November we received from Bakunin the following letter:— + + ‘SAN FRANCISCO, _October 15, 1861_. + + ‘FRIENDS,—I have succeeded in escaping from Siberia, and after + long wanderings on the Amur, on the shores of the sea of + Tartary and across Japan, I am to-day in San Francisco. + + ‘Friends, I long to come to you with my whole heart, and as + soon as I arrive I will set to work, I will take a job under + you on the Polish Slavonic cause, which has been my _idée fixe_ + since 1846 and was in practice my speciality in 1848 and 1849. + + ‘The destruction, the complete destruction, of the Austrian + empire will be my last word; I don’t say deed—that would be too + ambitious; to promote it, I am ready to become a drummer-boy or + even a rascal, and if I should succeed in advancing it by one + hair’s-breadth I shall be satisfied. And after that will come + the glorious free Slav federation, the one way out for Russia, + the Ukraine, Poland, and the Slavonic peoples generally.’ + +We had known of his intention of escaping from Siberia some months +before. By the New Year Bakunin in his own exuberant person was clasped +in our arms. + +A new element, or rather an old element, the shadow of the ’forties, and +most of all of 1848, risen up from the dead, came into our work, into our +league that consisted of two. Bakunin was just the same; he had grown +older in body only, his spirit was as young and enthusiastic as in the +days of the all-night arguments with Homyakov in Moscow. He was just as +devoted to one idea, just as capable of being carried away by it, and of +seeing in everything the fulfilment of his desires and ideals, and even +more ready for every effort, every sacrifice, feeling that he had not so +much life before him, and consequently he must make haste and not let +slip a single chance. He fretted against prolonged study, the weighing +of pros and cons, and, as confident and theoretical as ever, longed for +any action if only it were in the midst of the turmoil of revolution, in +the midst of upheavals and menacing danger. Now, too, as in the articles +signed Jules Elizard,[37] he repeated: ‘_Die Lust der Zerstörung ist eine +schaffende Lust._’ The fantasies and ideals with which he was imprisoned +in Königstein in 1849 he had preserved complete and carried across Japan +and California in 1861. Even his language recalled the finer articles +of _La Réforme_ and _La vraie République_, the striking speeches of _La +Constituante_ and Blanqui’s Club. The spirit of the parties of that +period, their exclusiveness, their personal sympathies and antipathies, +above all, their faith in the second coming of the revolution—it was all +there. + +Strong characters, if not at once ruined by prison and exile, are +preserved in an extraordinary way by it; they come out of it as though +from out of a swoon and go on with what they were about when they lost +consciousness. The Decembrists came back from being buried in the snows +of Siberia more youthful than the crushed and trampled young people +who met them. While two generations of Frenchmen changed backwards and +forwards several times, turned red and turned white, advancing with the +flow and borne back by the ebb tide, Barbès and Blanqui remained steady +beacons, recalling from behind prison bars and distant foreign lands the +old ideals in all their purity. + +‘The Polish Slavonic cause ... the destruction of the Austrian empire +... the glorious free Slav Federation ...’ and all this is to happen +straight off as soon as he arrives in London! And he writes from San +Francisco with one foot on the ship! + +The European reaction did not exist for Bakunin, the bitter years from +1848 to 1858 did not exist for him either; of them he had but a brief, +far-away, faint knowledge. He _read through_ them, read through them in +Siberia, just as he had read in Kaidanov’s history of the Punic Wars and +of the Fall of the Roman Empire. Like a man who has returned after a +plague, he heard of those who were dead and heaved a sigh for them; but +he had not sat by the bedside of the dying, had not hoped to save them, +had not followed them to the grave. The events of 1848, on the contrary, +were all about him, near to his heart; detailed and eager conversations +with Caussidière, the speeches of the Slavs at the Prague Conference, +discussions with Arago or Ruge—all these were affairs of yesterday to +Bakunin; they were all still ringing in his ears and hovering before his +eyes. + +Though, indeed, it is no wonder that it was so, even apart from prison. + +The first days after the February revolution were the happiest days +in the life of Bakunin. Returning from Belgium, to which he had been +driven by Guizot for his speech on the Polish anniversary of the 29th +of November 1847, he plunged, head over ears, into all the depths and +shallows of the revolutionary sea. He never left the barracks of the +Montagnards, slept with them, ate with them and preached, preached +continually, communism and _l’égalité du salaire_, levelling-down in the +name of equality, the emancipation of all the Slavs, the destruction of +all the Austrias, the revolution _en permanence_, war to the extinction +of the last foe. Caussidière, the prefect from the barricades engaged in +bringing ‘order into chaos,’ did not know how to get rid of the precious +orator, and plotted with Flocon to send him off to the Slavs in earnest, +with a brotherly _accolade_ and a conviction that there he would break +his neck and be no more trouble. ‘_Quel homme! quel homme!_’ Caussidière +used to say of Bakunin: ‘On the first day of the revolution he is simply +a treasure, but on the day after he ought to be shot!’[38] + +When I arrived in Paris from Rome at the beginning of May 1848, Bakunin +was already holding forth in Bohemia, surrounded by Old-believing +monks, Czechs, Croats and democrats, and he continued haranguing them +until Prince Windischgrätz put an end to his eloquence with cannon (and +seized the opportunity to shoot his own wife by accident). Disappearing +from Prague, Bakunin appeared again as military commander of Dresden; +the former artillery officer taught the art of war to the professors, +musicians and chemists who had taken up arms, and advised them to hang +Raphael’s Madonna and Murillo’s pictures on the city walls and so guard +them from the Prussians, who were _zu Klassisch gebildet_ to dare to fire +on Raphael. + +Artillery was always his stumbling-block. On the way from Paris to +Prague he came somewhere in Germany upon a revolt of peasants; they were +shouting and making an uproar before the castle, not knowing what to do. +Bakunin got out of his conveyance, and, without wasting time on finding +out what was the subject of dispute, formed the peasants into ranks and +so skilfully instructed them that by the time he resumed his seat to +continue his journey the castle was burning on all four sides. + +Bakunin will some day conquer his sloth and keep his promise; some day +he will tell the long tale of the martyrdom that began for him after +the taking of Dresden. I recall here only the chief points. Bakunin +was sentenced to the scaffold. The Saxon king commuted the axe to +imprisonment for life; and afterwards, with no ground for doing so, +handed him over to Austria. The Austrian police thought they would find +out from him something concerning the plans of the Slavs. They imprisoned +Bakunin in Gratchin, and getting nothing out of him they sent him to +Olmütz. Bakunin was taken in fetters with a strong escort of dragoons; +the officer who got into the conveyance with him loaded his pistol. + +‘What is that for?’ asked Bakunin. ‘Surely you don’t imagine that I can +escape under these conditions?’ + +‘No, but your friends may try to rescue you; the Government has heard +rumours to that effect, and in that case....’ + +‘What then?’ + +‘I have orders to put a bullet through your brains....’ + +And the party galloped off. + +In Olmütz Bakunin was chained to the wall, and in that position he spent +six months. At last Austria got tired of keeping a foreign criminal for +nothing; she offered to give him up to Russia. Nicholas did not want +Bakunin at all, but he had not the strength of mind to refuse. On the +Russian frontier Bakunin’s fetters were removed. Of that act of mercy I +have heard many times; the fetters were indeed taken off, but those who +tell the tale forget to add that others much heavier were put on. The +Austrian officer who handed over the convict insisted on the return of +the fetters as Crown property. + +Nicholas commended Bakunin’s valiant conduct at Dresden, and clapped +him into the Alexeyevsky Ravelin. There he sent Orlov to him with +orders to tell him that he (Nicholas) desired from him an account of +the German and Slav movement (the monarch was not aware that every +detail of the same had been published in the newspapers). This account +he asked for not as his Tsar, but as his spiritual father. Bakunin +asked Orlov in what sense the Tsar understood the words ‘spiritual +father’: did it imply that everything told in confession was bound to +be kept a holy secret? Orlov did not know what to say: these people are +more accustomed to ask questions than to answer them. Bakunin wrote a +newspaper ‘leading article.’ Nicholas was satisfied with that. ‘He is +a good and intelligent fellow, but a dangerous man; he must be kept +shut up,’ and for _three whole years_ after this approval from the Most +High, Bakunin was buried in the Alexeyevsky Ravelin. The treatment must +have been thorough, too, since even that giant was brought so low that +he tried to take his own life. In 1854 Bakunin was transferred to the +Schlüsselburg. Nicholas was afraid that Sir Charles Napier would rescue +him; but Sir Charles Napier and company did not rescue Bakunin from the +Ravelin, but Russia from Nicholas. Alexander II., in spite of his fit +of mercy and magnanimity, left Bakunin in confinement till 1857, then +sent him to live in Eastern Siberia. In Irkutsk he found himself free +after nine years of imprisonment. Fortunately for him, the governor of +that region was an original person—a democrat and a Tatar, a liberal +and a despot, a relative of Mihail Bakunin’s and of Mihail Muravyov’s, +himself a Muravyov, not yet nicknamed ‘of the Amur.’ He let Bakunin +have a respite, the chance of living like a human being, of reading the +newspapers and magazines, and even shared his dreams of future upheavals +and wars. In gratitude to Muravyov, Bakunin in his own mind appointed him +Commander-in-Chief of the future citizen army, with which he proposed to +annihilate Austria and found the Slav league. + +In 1860 Bakunin’s mother petitioned the Tsar for her son’s return to +Russia; the monarch replied that Bakunin would never be brought back from +Siberia in his lifetime, but, that she might not be denied all comfort +and royal mercy, he permitted her son to enter the Government service +as a copying clerk. Then Bakunin, taking into consideration that the +Tsar was only forty and that his cheeks were ruddy with health, made +up his mind to escape; I completely approve of this decision. The last +years have shown better than anything else could have done that he had +nothing to expect in Siberia. Nine years of imprisonment and several +years of exile were enough. The political exiles were not, as was said, +the worse off because of his escape, but because times had grown worse, +men had grown worse. What influence had Bakunin’s escape on the infamous +persecution and death of Mihailov? And as for the reprimand of a man +like Korsakov—that is not worth talking about. It is a pity he incurred +nothing worse. + +Bakunin’s escape is remarkable owing to the space covered; it is the very +longest escape in a geographical sense. After making his way to the Amur, +on the pretext of commercial business, he succeeded in persuading an +American skipper to take him to the shores of Japan. At Hako-date another +American captain undertook to convey him to San Francisco. Bakunin went +on board his ship and found the sea-captain busily preparing for a +dinner; he was expecting some honoured guest, and invited Bakunin to join +them. Bakunin accepted the invitation, and only when the visitor arrived, +discovered that it was the Russian Consul. + +It was too late, too absurd to conceal himself: he entered at once +into conversation with him and said that he had obtained leave for a +pleasure-trip. A small Russian squadron under the command, if I remember +right, of Admiral Popov was riding at anchor about to sail for Nikolayev: +‘You are not returning with our men?’ inquired the Consul. ‘I have only +just arrived,’ said Bakunin, ‘and I want to see a little more of the +country.’ After dining together they parted _en bons amis_. Next day he +passed the Russian squadron in the American steamer: there were no more +dangers to be feared, apart from those of the ocean. As soon as Bakunin +had looked about him and settled down in London, that is, had made the +acquaintance of all the Poles and Russians there, he set to work. To +a passion for propaganda, for agitation, for demagogy, to incessant +activity in founding, organising plots and conspiracies, and establishing +relations, to a belief in their immense significance, Bakunin added a +readiness to be the first to carry out his ideas, a readiness to risk his +life, and reckless daring in facing all the consequences. + +His was an heroic nature, deprived of complete achievement by the course +of events. He sometimes wasted his strength on what was useless, as a +lion wastes his strength pacing up and down in the cage, always imagining +that he will escape from it. But Bakunin was not a mere rhetorician, +afraid to act upon his own words, or trying to evade carrying his +theories into practice.... + +Bakunin had many weak points. But his weak points were small while his +strong qualities were great.... Is it not in itself a sign of greatness +that wherever he was flung by destiny, as soon as he had grasped two or +three characteristics of his surroundings, he discerned the revolutionary +forces and at once set to work to carry them on further, to fan the fire, +to make of it the burning question of life? + +It is said that Turgenev meant to draw Bakunin’s portrait in Rudin; but +Rudin barely suggests certain features of Bakunin. Turgenev, following +the biblical example of the Almighty, created Rudin in his own image +and semblance: though Turgenev’s Rudin, saturated in the jargon of +philosophy, is like Bakunin in his youth. + +In London he first of all set to revolutionising the _Kolokol_, and +in 1862 advanced against us almost all that in 1847 he had advanced +against Byelinsky. Propaganda was not enough; there ought to be immediate +action, centres and committees ought to be organised; to have people +closely and remotely associated with us was not enough, we ought to +have ‘initiated and half-initiated brethren,’ organisations on the +spot—Slavonic organisations, Polish organisations. Bakunin thought us +too moderate, unable to take advantage of the position at the moment, +and not sufficiently inclined to resolute measures. He did not lose +heart, however, but was convinced that in a short time he would set us +on the right path. While awaiting our conversion, Bakunin gathered about +him a regular circle of Slavs. Among them there were Czechs, from the +writer Fritsch to a musician who was called Naperstok[39]; Serbs who were +simply called after their father’s names Ivanovic, Danilovic, Petrovic; +there were Wallachians who did duty for Slavs, with the everlasting +‘esko’ at the end of their names; there was actually a Bulgarian who +had been an officer in the Turkish army, and there were Poles of every +shade—Bonapartist, Miroslavist, Czartorysczkist: democrats free from +socialistic ideas but of a military tinge; socialists, catholics, +anarchists, aristocrats, and men who were simply soldiers, ready to fight +anywhere in the northern or in the southern states of America, but by +preference in Poland. + +With them Bakunin made up for his nine years’ silence and solitude. He +argued, lectured, made arrangements, shouted, gave orders, and decided +questions, organised and encouraged all day long, all night long, for +days and nights together. In the brief minutes he had left, he rushed +to his writing-table, cleared a little space from cigarette-ash, and +set to work to write five, ten, fifteen letters to Semipalatinsk and +Arad, to Belgrade and to Constantinople, to Bessarabia, Moldavia and +Byelaya-Krinitsa. In the middle of a letter he would fling aside the pen +and bring up to date the views of some old-fashioned Dalmatian, then, +without finishing his exhortations, snatch up the pen and go on writing. +This, however, was made easier for him by the fact that he was writing +and talking about one and the same thing. His activity, his laziness, +his appetite, his titanic stature and the everlasting perspiration he +was in, everything about him, in fact, was on a superhuman scale. He +was a giant himself with his leonine head and the mane that stood up +round it. At fifty he was exactly the same vagrant student, the same +homeless _Bohémien_ from the _rue de Bourgogne_, with no thought for the +morrow, careless of money, flinging it away when he had it, borrowing it +indiscriminately, right and left, when he had not, as simply as children +take from their parents, careless of repayment; as simply as he himself +would give his last shilling to any one, only keeping what he needed +for cigarettes and tea. This manner of life did not worry him; he was +born to be a great vagrant, a great nomad. If any one had asked him +point-blank what he thought of the rights of property, he might have +answered as Lalande answered Napoleon about God: ‘Sire, in my pursuits I +have not come upon any necessity for these rights!’ There was something +childlike, simple and free from malice about him, and this gave him an +extraordinary charm and attracted both the weak and the strong, repelling +none but stiff petty-bourgeois. His striking personality, the eccentric +and powerful appearance he made everywhere, in the circle of the young of +Moscow, in the lecture-room of the Berlin University, among Weitling’s +Communists and Caussidière’s Montagnards, his speeches in Prague, his +leadership in Dresden, his trial, imprisonment, sentence to death, +tortures in Austria and surrender to Russia—where he vanished behind +the terrible walls of the Alexeyevsky Ravelin—make of him one of those +original figures which neither the contemporary world nor history can +pass by. + +When carried away in argument, Bakunin poured on his opponent’s head a +noisy storm of abuse for which no one else would have been forgiven; +every one forgave Bakunin, and I among the first. Martyanov would +sometimes say: ‘He is only a grown-up Lisa,[40] Alexandr Ivanovitch, a +child; you can’t be angry with him!’ + +That he ever came to get married, I can only put down to the boredom +of Siberia. He preserved intact all the habits and customs of his +fatherland, that is of student-life in Moscow; heaps of tobacco lay on +his table like stores of forage, cigar-ash covered his papers, together +with half-finished glasses of tea; from morning onwards, clouds of +smoke hung about the room from a regular chorus of smokers, who smoked +as though against time, hurriedly blowing it out and drawing it in—as +only Russians and Slavs do smoke, in fact. Many a time I enjoyed the +amazement, accompanied by a certain horror and embarrassment, of the +landlady’s servant, Grace, when at dead of night she brought boiling +water and a fifth basin of sugar into this hotbed of Slav emancipation. + +Long after Bakunin had left London, tales were told at No. 10 Paddington +Green of the way he went on, which upset all the accepted notions and +religiously observed forms and habits of English middle-class life. Note +at the same time that both the maid and the landlady were passionately +devoted to him. + +‘Yesterday,’ one of his friends told Bakunin, ‘So-and-so arrived from +Russia; he is a very fine man, formerly an officer.’ + +‘I have heard about him; he is very well spoken of.’ + +‘May I bring him?’ + +‘Certainly; but why bring him, where is he? I’ll go and see him. I’ll go +at once.’ + +‘He seems to be rather a constitutionalist.’ + +‘Perhaps, but....’ + +‘But I know he is a courageous and noble man.’ + +‘And trustworthy?’ + +‘He is much respected at Orsett House.’ + +‘Let us go to him.’ + +‘Why? He meant to come to you, that was what we agreed. I will bring him.’ + +Bakunin rushes to his writing; he writes and blots out something, copies +it out, and seals up something addressed to Jassy; in suspense, he begins +walking about the room with a tread which sets the whole house—No. 10 +Paddington Green—moving with him. + +The officer quietly and modestly makes his appearance. Bakunin _le met à +l’aise_, talks like a comrade, like a young man, fascinates him, scolds +him for his constitutionalism, and suddenly asks: ‘I am sure you won’t +refuse to do something for the common cause.’ + +‘Of course not.’ + +‘There is nothing that detains you here?’ + +‘Nothing; I have only just arrived, I....’ + +‘Can you go to-morrow or next day with this letter to Jassy?’ + +Such a thing had not occurred to the officer either at the front in +time of war or on the General’s staff. However, accustomed to military +obedience, he says, after a pause, in a voice that does not sound quite +natural, ‘Oh yes!’ + +‘I knew you would. Here is the letter perfectly ready.’ + +‘I am ready to set off at once ...’ (the officer is overcome with +confusion). ‘I had not at all reckoned on such a journey.’ + +‘What? No money? Well, you should say so; that’s of no consequence. I’ll +borrow it for you from Herzen, you can pay it back later on. Why, what is +it? Some twenty pounds or so. I’ll write to him at once. You will find +money at Jassy. From there you can make your way to the Caucasus. We +particularly need a trustworthy man there.’ + +The officer, amazed, dumbfoundered, and his companion equally so, took +their leave. A little girl whom Bakunin employed on great diplomatic +occasions ran to me through the rain and sleet with a note. I used to +keep chocolates expressly for her benefit, to comfort her for the climate +and the country she lived in, and so I gave her a big handful and added: +‘Tell the tall gentleman that I will talk it over with him personally.’ +The correspondence did in fact turn out to be superfluous. Bakunin +arrived to dinner, that is an hour later. + +‘Why twenty pounds for X.?’ + +‘Not for him, for the cause; and, I say, brother, isn’t X. a splendid +fellow?’ + +‘I have known him for some years. He has stayed in London before.’ + +‘It is such a chance, it would be a sin to let it slip. I am sending him +to Jassy, and then he can have a look round in the Caucasus.’ + +‘To Jassy? And from there to the Caucasus?’ + +‘I see you are going to be funny,’ said Bakunin. ‘You won’t prove +anything by jokes.’ + +‘But you know you don’t want anything in Jassy.’ + +‘How do you know?’ + +‘I know, in the first place, because nobody wants anything in Jassy; and +in the second place, if anything were wanted, you would have been telling +me about it incessantly for the last week. You have simply come upon a +shy young man who wants to prove his devotion, and so you have taken it +into your head to send him to Jassy. He wants to see the Exhibition and +you will show him Moldavia. Come, tell me what for?’ + +‘What inquisitiveness! You never go into these things with me; what right +have you to ask?’ + +‘That is true: in fact, I imagine that it is a secret you will keep from +all; anyway, I have not the slightest intention of giving money for +messengers to Jassy and Bucharest.’ + +‘But he will pay you back, he will have money.’ + +‘Then let him make a wiser use of it; that is enough, you can send the +letter by some Petresko-Manon-Lescaut; and now let’s go and eat.’ + +And Bakunin, laughing himself, and shaking his head, which was always a +little too heavy for him, set steadily and zealously to work upon dinner, +after which he always said: ‘Now comes the happy moment,’ and lighted a +cigarette. + +He used to receive every one, at all times, everywhere. Often he would +be asleep like Onyegin, or tossing on his bed, which creaked under him, +while two or three Slavs would be in his bedroom smoking with desperate +haste; he would get up heavily, souse himself with water, and at the same +moment proceed to instruct them; he was never bored, never tired of them; +he could talk without weariness, with the same freshness of mind, to the +cleverest or the stupidest man. + +This lack of discrimination sometimes led to very funny incidents. + +Bakunin used to get up late; he could hardly have done otherwise, since +he spent the night talking and drinking tea. + +One morning at eleven o’clock he heard some one stirring in his room. His +bed stood curtained off in a large alcove. + +‘Who’s there?’ shouted Bakunin, waking. + +‘A Russian.’ + +‘What is your name?’ + +‘So-and-so.’ + +‘Delighted to see you.’ + +‘Why is it you get up so late and you a democrat?’ + +Silence: the sounds of splashing water, cascades. + +‘Mihail Alexandrovitch!’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘I wanted to ask you, were you married in church?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘You did wrong. What an example of inconsistency; and here is T. having +his daughter legally married. You old men ought to set us an example.’ + +‘What nonsense are you talking?’ + +‘But tell me, did you marry for love?’ + +‘What has that to do with you?’ + +‘There was a rumour going about that you married because your bride was +rich!’[41] + +‘Have you come here to cross-examine me? Go to the devil!’ + +‘Well now, here you are angry, and I really meant no harm. Good-bye. But +I shall come and see you again all the same.’ + +‘All right, all right. Only be more sensible next time.’ + +Meanwhile the Polish storm was drawing nearer and nearer. In the +autumn of 1862 Potyebnya arrived in London for a few days. Mournful, +pure-hearted, completely devoted to the rebellion, he came to talk to +us for himself and his comrades, meaning in any case to go his own way. +Poles began to arrive more and more frequently; their language was bolder +and more definite. They were moving directly and consciously towards the +outbreak. I felt with horror that they were going to inevitable ruin. ‘I +am terribly sorry for Potyebnya and his comrades,’ I said to Bakunin, +‘and the more so that I doubt whether their aims are the same as those of +the Poles.’ + +‘Oh yes they are, yes they are,’ Bakunin retorted. ‘We can’t sit for ever +with our hands folded, reflecting; we must take events as they come, or +else one will always be too far behind or too far in front.’ + +Bakunin grew younger, he was in his element: he loved not only the +uproar of the revolt and the noise of the club, the market-place and the +barricade; he loved the preparatory agitation, also, the excited and at +the same time restrained life, spent among conspiracies, consultations, +sleepless nights, conferences, agreements, rectifications, invisible inks +and cryptic signs. Any one who has taken part in rehearsals for private +theatricals or in preparing a Christmas tree knows that the preparation +is one of the nicest, most delightful parts of the entertainment. But +though he was carried away by the preparations for the Christmas tree, +I had a gnawing at my heart; I was continually arguing with him and +reluctantly doing what I did not want to do. + +Here I must stop to ask a sorrowful question. How, whence did I come +by this readiness to give way with a murmur, this weak yielding after +opposition and a protest? I had at the same time a conviction that +I ought to act in one way and a readiness to act in quite another. +This instability, this disharmony, _dieses Zögernde_ has done me no +end of harm in my life, and has not even left me the faint comfort of +recognising that my mistake was involuntary, unconscious; I have made +blunders _à contre-cœur_; I had all the arguments on the other side +before my eyes. I have described already in one of my earlier chapters +the part I took in the 13th of June 1849. That is typical of what I am +describing. I did not for one instant believe in the success of the +13th of June; I saw the absurdity of the movement and its impotence, +the indifference of the people, the ferocity of the reaction, and the +pettiness of the revolutionaries. (I had written about it already, and +yet I went out into the square, though I laughed at the people who went.) + +How many misfortunes, how many blows I should have been spared in my +life, if at all the important crises in it I had had the strength to +listen to myself alone. I have been reproached for being easily carried +away; I have been carried away, too, but that is not what matters most. +Though I might be carried away by my impressionable temper, I pulled +myself up at once; thought, reflection and observation almost always +gained the day in theory, but not in practice. That is just what is hard +to explain: why I let myself be led _nolens volens_.... + +My speedy surrender to persuasion was due to false shame, though +sometimes to the better influences of love, friendship and indulgence; +but why was all that too strong for my reason? + +After the funeral of Worcell on the 5th of February 1857, when all the +mourners had dispersed to their homes and I, returning to my room, sat +down sadly to my writing-table, a melancholy question came into my mind. +Were not all our relations with the Polish exiles buried in the grave +with that saint? + +The gentle character of the old man, which was a conciliating element in +the misunderstandings that were constantly arising, had gone for ever, +but the misunderstandings remained. Privately, personally, we might +love one or another among the Poles and be friendly with them, but there +was little common understanding between us in general, and that made our +relations strained and conscientiously reserved; we made concessions to +one another, that is, weakened ourselves and decreased in each other what +was almost the best and strongest in us. It was impossible to come to a +common understanding by open talk. We started from different points, and +our paths simply intersected in our common hatred for the autocracy of +Petersburg. The ideal of the Poles was behind them, they strove towards +their past, from which they had been cut off by violence and which was +the only starting-point from which they could advance again. They had +masses of holy relics, while we had empty cradles. In all their actions +and in all their poetry there is as much of despair as there is of living +faith. + +They look for the resurrection of their dead, we long to bury ours as +soon as possible. Our lines of thought, our forms of inspiration are +different; our whole genius, our whole constitution has nothing in +common with theirs. Our association with them seemed to them alternately +a _mésalliance_ and a marriage of prudence. On our side there was +more sincerity, but not more depth: we were conscious of our indirect +responsibility, we liked their reckless daring and respected their +indomitable protest. What could they like, what could they respect in us? +They did violence to themselves in making friends with us; they made an +honourable exception for a few Russians. + +In the dark prison-house of Nicholas’s reign, sitting in bondage with +our fellow-captives, we had more sympathy for each other than knowledge +of each other. But as soon as the window was opened a little space, +we divined that we were led by different paths and that we should go +in different directions. After the Crimean War we heaved a sigh of +relief, and our joy was an offence to them: the new atmosphere in Russia +suggested to them not hopes but losses. For us the new times began with +ambitious claims, we rushed forward ready to smash everything; with them +it began with requiems and services for the dead. But for a second time +the Government welded us together. At the sound of firing at priests and +children, at crucifixes and women, the sound of firing above the chanting +of hymns and prayers, all questions were silenced, all differences were +wiped out. With tears and lamentations, I wrote then a series of articles +which deeply touched the Poles. + +From his deathbed, old Adam Czartorysczki sent me by his son a warm word +of greeting; a deputation of Poles in Paris presented me with an address +signed by four hundred exiles, to which signatures were sent from all +parts of the world, even from Polish refugees living in Algiers and in +America. It seemed as though in so much we were united; but one step +further, and the difference, the vast difference, could not be overlooked. + +One day Branicki, Hoetsky and one or two other Poles were sitting with +me; they were all on a brief visit to London, and had come to shake hands +with me for my articles. The talk fell on the shot fired at Constantine. + +‘That shot,’ I said, ‘will do you terrible damage. The Government might +have made some concessions; now it will yield nothing, but will be twice +as savage.’ + +‘But that is just what we want!’ one of the party observed with heat; +‘there could be no worse misfortune for us than concessions. We want a +breach, an open conflict.’ + +‘I hope most earnestly that you may not regret it.’ + +He smiled ironically, and no one added a word. That was in the summer of +1861. And a year and a half later Padlewski said the same thing when he +was on his way to Poland _via_ Petersburg. + +The die was cast!... + +Bakunin believed in the possibility of a rising of the peasants and the +army in Russia, and to some extent we believed in it too; and indeed +the Government itself believed in it, as was shown later on by a series +of measures, of officially inspired articles, and of punishments by +special decree. That men’s minds were working and in a ferment was beyond +dispute, and no one saw at the time that the popular excitement would be +turned to brutal patriotism. + +Bakunin, not too much given to weighing every circumstance, looked only +towards the ultimate goal, and took the second month of pregnancy for the +ninth. He carried us away not by arguments but by his hopes. He longed to +believe, and he believed, that Zhmud[42] and the regions of the Volga, +the Don and the Ukraine would rise as one man when they heard of Warsaw; +he believed that the Old Believers would take advantage of the Catholic +movement to obtain a legal standing for dissent. + +That the league among the officers of the troops stationed in Poland +and Lithuania—the league to which Potyebnya belonged—was growing and +gathering strength was beyond all doubt; but it was very far from +possessing the strength which the Poles through design and Bakunin +through simplicity ascribed to it. + +One day towards the end of September Bakunin came to me, looking +particularly preoccupied and somewhat solemn. + +‘The Warsaw Central Committee,’ he said, ‘have sent two members to +negotiate with us. One of them you know—Padlewski; the other is G., a +veteran warrior; he was sent from Poland in fetters to the mines, and as +soon as he was back he set to work again. This evening I will bring them +to see you, and to-morrow we will meet in my room. We want to _define our +relations once for all_.’ + +My answer to the officers was being printed at that time. + +‘My programme is ready, I will read aloud my letter.’ + +‘I agree with your letter, you know that; but I don’t know whether they +will altogether like it; in any case, I imagine that it won’t be enough +for them.’ + +In the evening Bakunin arrived with three visitors instead of two. I read +my letter aloud. While we were talking and while I was reading, Bakunin +sat looking anxious, as relations are at an examination, or as lawyers +are when they tremble lest their client should make a slip and spoil the +whole game of the defence that has been so well played, if not strictly +in accordance with the whole truth, anyway to a successful finish. + +I saw from their faces that Bakunin had guessed right, and that they were +not particularly pleased by what I read them. ‘First of all,’ observed +G., ‘we will read the letter to you from the Central Committee.’ M. read +it; the document, with which readers of the _Kolokol_ are familiar, was +written _in Russian_, not quite correctly, but clearly. It has been said +that I translated it from the French and altered the sense. That is _not +true_. All three spoke Russian well. + +The drift of the document was to tell the Russians through us that the +provisional Polish Government agreed with us and adopted as its basis: +‘_The recognition of the right of the peasantry to the land tilled by +them, and the complete independence of every people in the determination +of its destiny._’ + +This manifesto, M. said, bound me to soften the interrogative and +hesitating form of my letter. I agreed to some changes, and suggested to +them that they might accentuate and define more clearly the idea of the +self-determination of provinces; they agreed. This dispute over words +showed that our attitude towards the same questions was not identical. + +Next day Bakunin was with me in the morning. He was displeased with me, +thought I had been too cold, as though I did not trust them. + +‘Whatever more do you want? The Poles have never made such concessions. +They express themselves in other words which are accepted among them as +an article of faith; they can’t possibly at the first step, as they hoist +the national flag, wound the sensitive popular feeling.’ + +‘I fancy, all the same, that they really care very little about the land +for the peasants and far too much about the provinces.’ + +‘My dear fellow, you will have a document in your hands corrected by you +and signed in the presence of all of us; whatever more do you want?’ + +‘I do want something else though!’ + +‘How difficult every step is to you! You are not a practical man at all.’ + +‘Sazonov used to say that before you said it.’ + +Bakunin waved his hand in despair and went off to Ogaryov’s room. I +looked mournfully after him. I saw that he was in the middle of his +revolutionary debauch, and that there would be no bringing him to reason +now. With his seven-league boots he was striding over seas and mountains, +over years and generations. Beyond the insurrection in Warsaw he was +already seeing his ‘Glorious and Slav Federation’[43] of which the Poles +spoke with something between horror and repulsion; he already saw the +red flag of ‘Land and Freedom’ waving on the Urals and the Volga, in +the Ukraine and the Caucasus, possibly on the Winter Palace and the +Peter-Paul fortress, and was in haste to smooth away all difficulties +somehow, to blot out contradictions, not to fill up ravines but to fling +a skeleton bridge across them. + +‘_There is no freedom without land._’ + +‘You are like a diplomat at the Congress of Vienna,’ Bakunin repeated +to me with vexation, when we were talking afterwards with the +representatives of the Polish Committee in his room. ‘You keep picking +holes in words and expressions. This is not an article for a newspaper, +it is not literature.’ + +‘For my part,’ observed G., ‘I am not going to quarrel about words; +change them as you like, so long as the main drift remains the same.’ + +‘Bravo, G.,’ cried Bakunin, gleefully. + +‘Well, that fellow,’ I thought, ‘has come prepared for every emergency; +he will not yield an inch in fact, and that is why he so readily yields +in words.’ + +The manifesto was corrected, the members of the Committee signed it. I +sent it off to the printing-press. + +G. and his companions were fully persuaded that we represented the centre +of a whole organisation in Russia which depended upon us and would at our +command join them or not join them. For them what was essential lay not +in words nor in theoretical agreements; they could always tone down their +_profession de foi_ by interpretations which would dim its vivid colours +and change them. + +That the first nucleus of an organisation was being formed in Russia +there could be no doubt. The first threads could be discerned with the +naked eye; from these threads, these knots, a web on a vast scale might +be woven, given time and tranquillity. All that was true, but it was not +there yet, and every violent shock threatened to ruin the work for a +whole generation and to tear asunder the first lacework of the spider’s +web. + +That is just what, after sending the Committee’s letter to the press, +I said to G. and his companions, telling them of the prematureness of +their rising. Padlewski knew Petersburg too well to be surprised by my +words—though he did assure me that the vigour and number of branches of +the League of Land and Freedom went much further than we imagined; but +G. grew thoughtful. ‘You thought,’ I said to him, smiling, ‘that we were +stronger? You were right. We have great power and influence, but that +power rests entirely on public opinion, that is, it may evaporate all in +a minute; we are strong through the sympathy with us, through our harmony +with our own people. There is no organisation to which we could say, +“Turn to the right or turn to the left.”’ + +‘But, my dear fellow, all the same ...’ Bakunin was beginning, walking +about the room in excitement. + +‘Why, _is_ there?’ I asked him. + +‘Well, that is as you like to call it; of course if you go by the +external form, it is not at all in the Russian character, but you see....’ + +‘Allow me to finish; I want to explain to G. why I have been so insistent +about words. If people in Russia do not see on your standard “Land for +the Peasants” and “Freedom for the Provinces,” then our sympathy _will +do you no good at all but will ruin us_; because all our strength rests +on their hearts beating in unison with ours. Our hearts may beat more +strongly and so be one second ahead of our friends; but they are bound to +us by sympathy and not by duty!’ + +‘You will be satisfied with us,’ said G. and Padlewski. + +Next day two of them went off to Warsaw, while the third went off to +Paris. + +The calm before the storm followed. It was a hard and gloomy time, in +which it kept seeming as though the storm would pass over, while it drew +nearer and nearer. Then came the decree tampering with the levying of +recruits; this was the last straw; men who were still hesitating to +take the final and irrevocable step dashed into the fray. Now even the +_Whites_ began to go over to the side of the rebellion. + +Padlewski came again; the decree was not withdrawn. Padlewski went off to +Poland. + +Bakunin was going to Stockholm quite independently of Lapinski’s +expedition, of which no one dreamed at the time. Potyebnya turned up +for a brief moment. A plenipotentiary from ‘Land and Freedom’ came from +Petersburg _via_ Warsaw at the same time as Potyebnya; he described +with indignation how the Poles who had summoned him to Warsaw had done +nothing. He was the first Russian who had seen the beginning of the +rebellion; he told us about the murder of the soldiers, about the wounded +officer who was a member of the society. The soldiers thought that this +was treachery and began furiously beating the Poles. Padlewski, who was +the chief leader in Kovno, tore his hair, but was afraid to act openly in +opposition to his followers. + +The plenipotentiary was full of the importance of his mission and invited +us to become the _agents_ of the League of Land and Freedom. I declined +this, to the extreme surprise not only of Bakunin but even of Ogaryov. I +said that I did not like this hackneyed French term. The plenipotentiary +treated us as the Commissaires of the Convention of 1793 treated the +generals in the distant armies. I did not like that either. + +‘And are there many of you?’ I asked him. + +‘That is hard to say: some hundreds in Petersburg and three thousand in +the provinces.’ + +‘Do you believe it?’ I asked Ogaryov afterwards. He did not answer. ‘Do +you believe it?’ I asked Bakunin. + +‘Of course; but,’ he added, ‘_well, if there are not as many now there +soon will be_!’ and he burst into a roar of laughter. + +‘That is another matter.’ + +‘The whole point is to give support to what is beginning; if they +were strong they would not need us,’ observed Ogaryov, who was always +displeased with my scepticism on these occasions. + +‘Then they ought to come to us frankly admitting their weakness and +asking for friendly help instead of proposing the silly position of +agents.’ + +‘That is youth,’ Bakunin commented, and he went off to Sweden. And after +him Potyebnya went off too. With heartfelt sorrow I said good-bye to him. +I did not doubt for one second that he was going straight to his death. + +A few days before Bakunin’s departure Martyanov came in, paler than +usual, gloomier than usual; he sat down in a corner and said nothing. He +was pining for Russia and brooding over the thought of returning home. +A discussion of the Polish rebellion sprang up. Martyanov listened in +silence, then got up, preparing to go, and suddenly standing still, +facing me, said gloomily:— + +‘You must not be angry with me, Alexandr Ivanovitch; that may be so or +it may not, but anyway you have done for the _Kolokol_. What business +had you to meddle in Polish affairs? The Poles may be in the right, but +their cause is for their gentry, not for you. You have not spared us. God +forgive you, Alexandr Ivanovitch; you will remember what I say. I shall +not see it myself, I am going home. There is nothing for me to do here.’ + +‘You are not going to Russia, and the _Kolokol_ is not ruined,’ I +answered him. + +He went out without another word, leaving me heavily weighed down by this +second prediction and by a dim consciousness that a blunder had been made. + +Martyanov did as he had said; he returned home in the spring of 1863 and +went to die in penal servitude, exiled by his Liberal Tsar for his love +for Russia and his trust in him. + +Towards the end of 1863 the circulation of the _Kolokol_ dropped from two +thousand or two thousand five hundred to five hundred, and never again +rose above one thousand copies. The Charlotte Corday from Orlov and the +Daniel from the peasants had been right. + + _Written at Montreux and Lausanne at the end of 1865._ + + +LETTERS FROM OGARYOV AND BAKUNIN TO THE RUSSIAN OFFICERS WHO TOOK PART IN +THE POLISH REBELLION. + + ‘FRIENDS,—With deep love and deep sorrow we bid farewell to + this comrade as he sets off to join you; only the secret hope + that this rebellion will be postponed brings us some comfort + as regards your future and the fate of the whole cause. We + understand that you cannot but join the Polish rebellion + whatever form it may take; you give yourselves as atonement + for the sins of the Russian Tsardom; moreover, to leave Poland + to be beaten without any protest from the Russian militant + party would have the fatal appearance of Russia taking a dumbly + submissive, immoral part in the butchering for which Petersburg + alone is responsible. Nevertheless, your position is hopeless + and tragic. We see no chance of success. Even if Warsaw were + free for one month, it would only mean that you had paid a debt + by your share in the movement of _national independence_, but + to raise the Russian socialist banner of “Land and Freedom” is + not vouchsafed to Poland; while you are too few. + + ‘This premature rebellion will obviously mean the ruin of + Poland, while the Russian cause will be drowned for years to + come in the flood of national hatred which goes hand in hand + with devotion to the Tsar, and it will only rise again later, + long years later, when your heroic deed will have become the + same sort of tradition as that of the 14th of December and will + stir the hearts of a generation not yet begotten. The moral of + this is clear: put off the rebellion till a better time, when + forces are united; put it off by your influence on the Polish + Committee and by your influence on the Government itself, which + may yet be alarmed into removing the unhappy decree; put it off + by every means within your power. + + ‘If your efforts are fruitless there is nothing else for + you but to submit to your fate and accept your inevitable + martyrdom, even though its consequence will be ten years’ + stagnation for Russia. Anyway, as far as possible be sparing + of men and of strength, that elements may be left from this + unhappy defeated struggle for victory in the distant future. + But if you succeed and the rebellion is deferred, then you + ought to adopt a firm line of conduct and not to depart from it. + + ‘Then you ought to keep one object in view: to make the + Russian cause a general one and not exclusively Polish, to + create a complete unbroken chain of secret alliance between + all the militant forces in the name of “Land and Freedom” and + of the National Assembly, as you say in your letter to the + Russian officers. For that, it is essential that the Russian + Officers’ Committee should be independent, and therefore its + centre should be outside Poland. You ought to organise a + centre outside yourselves to which you will owe allegiance, + then you will be in a commanding position and at the head of + a well-organised force which will take part in the rebellion, + not in the name of Polish nationality exclusively, but in the + name of “Land and Freedom,” and will take part in it not in + accordance with the needs of the moment, but at the time when + all forces have been reckoned and success is assured. + + ‘To us this plan seems so clear that you too cannot but + recognise what must be done. Accomplish it whatever labour it + may cost. + + ‘N. OGARYOV.’ + + ‘FRIENDS AND BROTHERS,—The lines written by our friend + Nikolay Platonovitch Ogaryov are full of true and boundless + devotion to the great cause of our national and indeed Panslav + emancipation. One cannot but agree with him that the premature + and partial rising of Poland threatens to interrupt the general + steady advance of the Slav, and especially of the Russian, + progressive movement. It must be owned that in the present + temper of Russia and of all Europe there is too little hope + of success for such a rebellion, and that the defeat of the + progressive party in Poland will inevitably be followed by the + temporary triumph of the Tsarist despotism in Russia. But on + the other hand, the position of the Poles is so insufferable + that they can hardly be patient for long. + + ‘The Government itself by its infamous measures of cruel + and systematic oppression is provoking them, it seems, to a + rebellion, the postponement of which would be for that very + reason as good for Poland as it is essential for Russia. To + defer it till a much later date would undoubtedly be the + salvation of them as well as of us. You ought to devote all + your efforts to bring this about, without, however, failing + to respect their sacred rights and their national dignity. + Persuade them so far as you can and so far as circumstances + permit, but yet lose no time, be active in propaganda and + organisation, that you may be ready for the decisive moment; + and when, driven beyond the utmost limit of possible patience, + our unhappy Polish brothers rise, do you rise too, not against + them but for them; rise up in the name of Russian honour, in + the name of Slav duty, in the name of the Russian people, with + the battle-cry, “Land and Freedom”; and if you are doomed to + perish, your death will serve the common cause ... and God + knows! Perhaps in opposition to every calculation of cold + prudence your heroic deed may unexpectedly be crowned with + success.... + + ‘As for myself, whatever may await you, success or death, I + hope that it may be my lot to share your fate. + + ‘Good-bye—and perhaps till we meet again soon. + + ‘M. BAKUNIN.’ + + + + +APPENDIX + + +1 + +THE STEAMER ‘WARD JACKSON’ + +This is what happened two months before the Polish rebellion: a Pole, +one Joseph Cwerczakiewicz, who had come for a brief visit from Paris to +London, was on his return to Paris seized and arrested, together with +C. and M., the latter of whom I have mentioned in connection with the +interview with members of the Polish Committee. + +There was a good deal that was strange about the whole arrest. C. had +arrived between 9 and 10 in the evening; he knew no one in Paris and +went straight to M.’s lodging. About 11 o’clock the police made their +appearance and asked for his passport. + +‘Here it is,’ and C. gave the police officer a passport with another name +on it and a perfectly regular _visa_. + +‘To be sure, to be sure,’ said the man, ‘I knew you were travelling under +that name. Now your portfolio,’ he asked Cwerczakiewicz. It was lying on +the table. The policeman took out the papers, looked through them, and +handing his companion a brief letter addressed E. A., said: ‘Here it is.’ + +All three were arrested, and their papers taken from them; afterwards +they were released. C. was kept longer than the rest. For the sake of +the prestige of the police they wanted him to tell his name. He would +not give them this gratification. He, too, was released a week later. +When, a year or more afterwards, the Prussian Government initiated the +very absurd Posen Trial, the prosecutor presented among the incriminating +documents papers sent him by the Russian police which had belonged to +Cwerczakiewicz. When the question how these papers had found their +way to Russia was raised, the prosecutor calmly explained that when +Cwerczakiewicz was under arrest, some of his papers had been handed over +by the French police to the Russian Embassy. + +The released Poles were ordered to leave France; they came to London. In +London they themselves told me all the details of their arrest, and were +very justly most surprised at the police officer’s knowing that they had +a letter addressed to E. A. Mazzini had given this letter with his own +hands to Cwerczakiewicz, asking him to hand it to Étienne Arago. + +‘Did you tell any one about the letter?’ I asked him. + +‘No one, absolutely no one,’ answered Cwerczakiewicz. + +‘There is some sorcery about it; no suspicion can fall on you or on +Mazzini. Think a little.’ + +Cwerczakiewicz mused. ‘I know one thing,’ he observed. ‘I did go out for +a short time, and I remember I left the portfolio in an unlocked drawer.’ + +‘A clue! A clue! Now, allow me, where were you living?’ + +‘In So-and-so Street in furnished apartments.’ + +‘Was the landlord an Englishman?’ + +‘No, a Pole.’ + +‘Better still. And his name?’ + +‘Tur; he is a specialist in agriculture.’ + +‘And in many other things, since he lets furnished rooms. I know a little +of that Tur. Did you ever hear a story about a fellow called Michalowski?’ + +‘I have heard it alluded to.’ + +‘Well, I will tell you the story. In the autumn of 1857 I received a +letter from Petersburg _via_ Brussels. An unknown person informed me +with the fullest details that a shopman at Trübner’s called Michalowski +had offered his services to the Third Section for spying on us, asking +for two hundred pounds for his trouble; that, in proof of his merit and +capacity, he had presented a list of the persons who had been at our +house of late, and promised to furnish specimens of manuscripts from the +printing-press. Before I had properly considered what to do, I received a +second letter to the same effect through Rothschild’s. + +‘I had not the slightest doubt of the truth of the information. +Michalowski, a cringing, repulsive, drunken, nimble Pole from Galicia, +speaking four languages, had every qualification for the calling of a spy +and was only waiting the opportunity _pour se faire valoir_. + +‘I made up my mind to go with Ogaryov to Trübner’s to unmask Michalowski +and make him commit himself, and in any case to get him dismissed from +Trübner’s. To add to the impressiveness of our visit, I invited Pianciani +and two Poles to go with me. Michalowski was insolent, loathsome, and +denied the charge; he declared that Napoleon Szestacowski, who lived in +the same lodging with him, was a spy. I was quite prepared to believe +that half of what he said was true, that is, that his friend was also a +spy. I told Trübner that I asked for his immediate dismissal from the +bookshop. The wretch contradicted himself and could not bring forward +anything worth considering in his defence. “It is all envy,” he said. +“As soon as one of us has a good coat to wear, the others begin shouting +‘Spy!’” “Why is it then,” Zeno Swentoslawski asked him, “that though you +have never had a good coat you have always been looked upon as a spy?” +Every one laughed. “You don’t seem to resent it,” said Czenecki. “It is +not the first time,” answered the philosopher, “that I have had to do +with crazy fellows like you.” “You are used to it,” observed Czenecki. + +‘The scoundrel walked away. + +‘All the decent Poles abandoned him, with the exception of gamblers who +were complete drunkards and drunkards who were completely ruined at +cards. Only one decent person has remained on friendly terms with this +Michalowski, and that man is your landlord, Tur.’ + +‘Yes, that is suspicious. I will go at once....’ + +‘Why at once? You can’t set things right now, but keep an eye on the man. +What proofs have you?’ + +Soon after this, Cwerczakiewicz was appointed by the Polish Committee +their diplomatic agent in London. He was allowed to visit Paris; it was +just at that time that Napoleon felt that ardent sympathy with the fate +of Poland which cost her one whole generation and may perhaps cost her +the whole of the next one. + +Bakunin was already in Sweden, making friends with every one, opening +ways for ‘Land and Freedom’ across Finland, arranging for the despatch of +the _Kolokol_ and of books, and interviewing representatives of all the +Polish parties. Received by the Ministers and the brother of the King, +he assured every one of the approaching insurrection of the peasants and +the state of intense mental ferment in Russia. He assured them the more +readily as he himself _sincerely believed_, if not in the actual strength +of these movements, at least in their growing power. No one dreamed +at that time of Lapinski’s expedition. Bakunin’s intention was, after +arranging everything in Sweden, to make his way into Poland and Lithuania. + +Cwerczakiewicz came back from Paris with Demontowicz. In Paris he and his +friends formed a design of fitting out an expedition to the shores of +the Baltic. They wanted to find a steamer and wanted to find a capable +leader; and with that end in view came to London. This is how they +conducted secret negotiations. + +One day I received a little note from Cwerczakiewicz: he asked me to go +to see him for a minute, said it was a matter of urgent necessity and +that he had caught a chill and was lying in bed with an acute migraine. +I went. I did in fact find him ill and in bed. S. Tchorszewski was +sitting in the next room, knowing that Cwerczakiewicz had written to me +and that he had business with me. Tchorszewski would have gone out, but +Cwerczakiewicz stopped him, and I am very glad that there is a living +witness of our conversation. + +Cwerczakiewicz asked me, laying aside all personal feelings and +considerations, to tell him quite sincerely, and of course in dead +secret, about a Polish exile in whom he had not complete confidence, +though he had been introduced to him by Mazzini and Bakunin. ‘You don’t +much care for him, I know, but now, where it is a matter of the utmost +importance, I expect from you the truth, and the whole truth.’ + +‘You are speaking of L. B.?’ I asked. + +‘Yes.’ + +I hesitated. I felt that I might injure a man of whom, anyway, I knew +nothing particularly bad; on the other hand, I knew what harm I might be +doing to the common cause by arguing against Cwerczakiewicz’s perfectly +sound instinct of antipathy. + +‘Very well, I will speak openly and tell you everything. As regards +Mazzini’s and Bakunin’s recommendation, I disregard that completely. You +know how I love Mazzini; but he is so accustomed to carve his agents out +of every sort of wood and mould them out of any sort of clay, and knows +so well how to keep them in hand in the Italian party, that it is hard +to rely on his opinion. Besides, though he makes use of everything he +can get, Mazzini knows to what degree and with what business to trust +each. Bakunin’s recommendation is even worse: he is a great child—“a big +Liza,” as Martyanov used to call him—he likes every one. A fisher of +men, he is so delighted when he comes upon a “Red,” especially if he is +a Slav, that he goes no further. You referred to my personal relations +with L. B. I ought to speak of that too. Z. and L. B. tried to exploit +me: it was not he but Z. who took the initiative. They did not succeed +in that, they were very angry, and I should long ago have forgotten it; +but they came between Worcell and me, and that I have not forgiven. I +loved Worcell very much, but, being frail in health, he gave way to them +and only realised his mistake (or acknowledged that he realised it) the +day before his death. As he lay dying, he pressed my hand and whispered +in my ear: “Yes, you were right.” (But there were none to hear, and it +is easy to appeal to the witness of the dead.) But here is my opinion: +taking everything into account, I cannot find a single action, or a +single rumour even, which would compel one to suspect the political +honesty of L. B., but I should not let him into any important secret. +To my thinking, he is a spoilt _poseur_, filled with French phrases and +immensely conceited; anxious to play a part at all costs, he would do +everything to spoil the performance if it had not a part for him.’ + +Cwerczakiewicz got up; he was pale and troubled. + +‘Yes, you have taken a weight off my heart; I will do all I can, if it +is not too late already.’ Cwerczakiewicz began pacing about the room in +perturbation. Soon after I went away with Tchorszewski. + +‘Did you hear the whole conversation?’ I asked him as we were going. + +‘Yes, I did.’ + +‘I am very glad of it; don’t forget it; perhaps the day may come when I +shall appeal to you ... and do you know, it strikes me that he has told +him everything already, and only thought to investigate the grounds of +his antipathy afterwards....’ + +‘Not a doubt of it.’ + +And we almost burst out laughing, although we were anything but mirthful +at heart. + + +_Moral_ + +A fortnight later Cwerczakiewicz entered into negotiations with +Blackwood’s Steam Company concerning the hiring of a steamer to make an +expedition to the Baltic. + +‘Why,’ we said, ‘did you apply to the very company which for years +past has carried out all the shipping commissions for the Petersburg +Admiralty?’ + +‘I don’t like it myself, but the company knows the Baltic Sea so well. +Besides, it is against its interests to betray us; and it is not in the +English character either.’ + +‘All very true, but what made you think of applying to them?’ + +‘It was done by our agent.’ + +‘That is?’ + +‘Tur.’ + +‘What, _that_ Tur?’ + +‘Oh, you can set your mind at rest about him. He was most highly +recommended to us by L. B.’ + +For a minute all the blood rushed to my head. I was overwhelmed with +the feeling of fury, indignation, resentment—yes, yes, personal +resentment—while the delegate of Poland, observing nothing, went on: ‘He +has a splendid knowledge of English.’ + +‘Both of the language and of the laws.’ + +‘I have no doubt of it.’ + +‘Tur has been in prison in London for some rather shady affair; and he +was employed as an official interpreter in the law courts.’ + +‘How was that?’ + +‘You must ask L. B. or Michalowski; don’t you know him?’ + +‘No.’ + +Tur was indeed a fellow! He had been a specialist in agriculture, but +here he was a specialist in marine affairs. But now all eyes were turned +on the head of the expedition, Colonel Lapinski, who arrived upon the +scene. + + +2 + +COLONEL LAPINSKI AND AIDE-DE-CAMP POLLES + +At the beginning of 1863 I received a letter written in a tiny, +extraordinarily fine handwriting, and headed with the text: _Licite +Venire Parvulos_. In the most elaborately flattering and cringing +expressions the _parvulus_, whose name was Polles, asked permission +to call upon me. I did not like the letter at all. The man himself I +liked even less. A cringing, subdued, furtive man, with a shaven chin +and a pomaded head, he told me that he had been at a dramatic school in +Petersburg and had received some sort of pension there. He almost overdid +the patriotic Pole, and after sitting a quarter of an hour with me, +confided that he came from France, that he had been miserable in Paris, +and that the centre of everything there was Napoleon. + +‘Do you know, it has often struck me, and I am more and more convinced +that I am right: the thing to do is to kill Napoleon.’ + +‘What prevents you then?’ + +‘What do you think about it?’ Parvulus asked, somewhat embarrassed. + +‘I don’t think about it at all. Why, it is you who are thinking about +it.’ And I immediately told him the story which I always make use of when +people rave about bloody deeds and ask advice concerning them. + +‘No doubt you know that when Charles V. was in Rome a page took him over +the Pantheon. On returning home, the boy told his father that the idea +had occurred to him to push the emperor down from the top gallery. The +father flew into a rage: “You” (here I vary the term of abuse to suit the +character of the would-be Tsaricide[44]) “wretch, scoundrel, fool, and +so on. How can such criminal ideas occur to you? If they can, they are +sometimes acted upon, but never spoken of.”’ + +When Polles had gone, I made up my mind not to be at home to him again. +A week later he met me near my house; he told me that he had called +twice and had not found me in, talked some sort of nonsense, and added: +‘I called to see you partly to tell you of an invention I have made +for sending anything secretly by post, to Russia for instance. You are +probably often in need of communicating something in secret?’ + +‘Quite the contrary, never. I never write to any one in secret. Good +morning.’ + +‘Good-bye. Remember, if ever you or Ogaryov would like a little music, my +violoncello and I are at your service.’ + +‘Very much obliged to you.’ + +And I lost sight of him in the full conviction that he was a spy—whether +a Russian or a French one, I don’t know; perhaps international, as the +paper _Le Nord_ is international. + +He never turned up among the real Polish exiles, and not one of them knew +him. + +After a prolonged search, Demontowicz and his Parisian friends had +pitched on Colonel Lapinski as the most capable military leader for the +expedition. He had fought for a long time in the Caucasus on the side of +the Circassians, and understood mountain warfare so thoroughly that there +could be no doubt of his skill on the sea. It could not be called a bad +choice. Lapinski was in the fullest sense of the word a condottiere. He +had no settled political convictions. He could have fought on the side +of the White or the Red, the clean or the dirty; belonging by birth to +the Galician gentry, by education to the Austrian army, he was strongly +inclined towards Vienna. Russia and everything Russian he hated with a +savage, irrational and incorrigible hatred. He probably knew his trade, +he had spent years in active warfare and had written a remarkable book +about the Caucasus. + +‘This is what happened to me once in the Caucasus,’ Lapinski used to +tell. ‘A Russian major, living with a whole household not far from us, +seized some of our people, I don’t know how or why. I heard about it and +said to my men, “Look here, it is a sin and a shame; are you stolen like +women? Go to his place, take everything you find and bring it here.” They +are mountaineers, you know; you don’t need to say much to them. A day +or two afterwards they brought me the whole family—servants, wife and +children—but they did not find the major himself at home. I sent word to +him that if he released our people and paid a ransom, we would give him +back our prisoners at once. Of course they sent our men, paid the fine, +and we released our Moscow visitors. The next day a Circassian came to +me: “Look here,” he said, “what’s happened; when we let the Russians go +yesterday,” he said, “a boy of four was forgotten; he was asleep, so he +was forgotten; what is to be done?” + +‘“Ah, you dogs, you can’t do anything properly; where’s the child?” + +‘“With me. He screamed and screamed—well, I was sorry for him and took +him home.” + +‘“Allah has sent you luck, it seems; I won’t hinder it. Let them know +that they have forgotten the child and you have found him, and ask for +a ransom.” My Circassian’s eyes fairly sparkled. Of course the father +and mother were in a fluster, they gave anything he liked to ask. It was +funny.’ + +‘Very.’ + +Here is another trait showing the character of the future hero of Polish +independence. + +Before he set off, Lapinski came to see me. He arrived not alone, and +somewhat disconcerted by the expression on my face, made haste to say: +‘Allow me to introduce my adjutant.’ + +‘I have had the pleasure of meeting him already.’ + +It was Polles. + +‘Do you know him well?’ Ogaryov asked Lapinski when they were alone. + +‘I met him in the boarding-house in which I am staying now. He seems a +nice fellow and very obliging.’ + +‘But do you trust him?’ + +‘Of course. Besides, he plays the violoncello charmingly and will +entertain us on the voyage.’ + +It was said that the colonel found him entertaining in other ways. + +We told Demontowicz later on that to our thinking Polles was a very +suspicious character. Demontowicz observed: ‘Yes, I don’t trust either of +them much, but they won’t play us any tricks’; and he took his revolver +out of his pocket. + +The preparations proceeded slowly; rumours of the expedition spread +more and more widely. At first the company furnished a steamer which on +being inspected by an experienced sailor, Count S., turned out to be +good for nothing. All the cargo had to be shifted. When everything was +ready and a good part of London knew all about it, the following incident +occurred: Cwerczakiewicz and Demontowicz informed all who were taking +part in the expedition that they were to assemble at ten o’clock on such +and such a railway platform to go to Hull by a special train provided by +the railway company. And so at ten o’clock the future warriors began to +assemble. Among them were Italians and a few Frenchmen; poor, reckless +men, sick of a life spent in homeless wandering, and men who were true +lovers of Poland. And ten o’clock came and eleven o’clock, but still no +train appeared. Little by little, rumours of this long journey reached +the homes from which our heroes had mysteriously vanished, and by twelve +o’clock the future warriors were joined in the station waiting-rooms by a +troop of women, inconsolable Didos deserted by their fierce adorers, and +ferocious landladies who had not been paid, probably for fear they should +spread the news abroad. In violent excitement they raised a furious +uproar, and wanted to complain to the police; some of them had children; +all the latter screamed and all the mothers screamed. The English stood +round, staring in astonishment at the picture of ‘The Exodus.’ In vain +some of the elders of the party inquired whether the special train would +soon come in, and showed their tickets. The railway officials had never +heard of any such train. The scene was becoming more and more uproarious +... when suddenly a messenger from the leaders galloped up to tell the +waiting warriors that they had all gone mad, that the train was at ten +o’clock in the evening, not in the morning, and that they had thought +this so evident that they had not even written it. The poor warriors +returned with their bags and their wallets to their deserted Didos and +softened landladies. + +At ten o’clock in the evening they went off. The English gave them three +cheers. + +Next morning a marine officer whom I knew came to me from one of the +Russian steamers. + +The steamer had received an order the previous evening to set off full +steam next morning and follow the _Ward Jackson_. + +Meanwhile the _Ward Jackson_ had stopped at Copenhagen for water, had +spent some hours at Malmö waiting for Bakunin, who was intending to go +with them to incite the peasants in Lithuania to rise, and had been +seized by the orders of the Swedish Government. + +The details of this affair and of Lapinski’s second attempt have been +described by himself in the papers. I will only add that even in +Copenhagen the captain had said he would not take the steamer to the +coast of Russia, as he did not want to expose it and himself to danger; +that even before they reached Malmö things had come to such a pass that +Demontowicz threatened not Lapinski but the captain with his revolver. +He did, however, quarrel with Lapinski too, and sworn foes they went to +Stockholm, leaving their luckless followers at Malmö. + +‘Do you know,’ Cwerczakiewicz or some of his associates said to me, ‘the +person who is most suspected of being chiefly responsible for the vessel +being stopped at Malmö is Tugenbold?’ + +‘I don’t know him at all. Who is he?’ + +‘Oh yes, you do, you have seen him with us: a young fellow without a +beard—Lapinski brought him to see you once.’ + +‘Then you are speaking of Polles?’ + +‘That is his pseudonym, his real name is Tugenbold.’ + +‘What are you saying?’ and I rushed to my writing-table. Among letters +I had put aside as of special importance I found one sent me two months +previously. This letter was from Petersburg; it warned me that a certain +Dr. Tugenbold was in relations with the Third Section, that he had +returned, but had left his younger brother as his agent, and that the +younger brother was to come to London. + +That Polles and he were one and the same person there could be no doubt. +I let my hands fall in despair. + +‘Did you know before the expedition started that Polles was Tugenbold?’ + +‘Yes I knew. It was said he had changed his name because his brother was +known in the country for a spy.’ + +‘Why didn’t you say a word to me?’ + +‘Oh, it just didn’t come up.’ + +And Tchitchikov’s Selifan[45] knew that the chaise was broken and did not +say a word. + +We had to telegraph to Malmö after the arrest. Even then neither +Demontowicz nor Bakunin[46] could do anything effective; they quarrelled. +Polles was thrown into prison over some diamonds collected from Swedish +ladies for the Polish cause and spent by him on riotous living. + +At the same time that a crowd of armed Poles, a large quantity of +expensive ammunition, and the _Ward Jackson_ remained honourable +prisoners on the coast of Sweden, another expedition was being got up by +the Whites; it was to go by way of the Straits of Gibraltar. At the head +of it was Count Sbyszewski, brother of the man who wrote the remarkable +pamphlet, _La Pologne et la Cause de l’Ordre_. He was a first-rate naval +officer in the Russian service, but he abandoned it when the insurrection +broke out, and now took a steamer, which had been secretly equipped, +to the Black Sea. He had been to Turin for a secret interview with the +leaders of the opposition there, among others with Mordini. + +‘The day after my interview with Sbyszewski,’ Mordini himself told me, +‘the Minister of Internal Affairs drew me aside in the evening and said: +“Do please be more careful; you were visited yesterday by a Polish +emissary who wants to take a steamer through the Straits of Gibraltar; be +that as it may, why do they chatter about it beforehand?”’ + +The steamer, however, did not reach the shores of Italy: it was seized at +Cadiz by the Spanish Government. When they no longer needed them, both +the Governments allowed the Poles to sell their arms and let the steamers +go. + +Disappointed and incensed, Lapinski arrived in London. ‘The only thing +left to do,’ he said, ‘is to form a society of assassins and kill the +greater number of all the rulers and their advisers, or to go back again +to the East, to Turkey.’ + +Disappointed and incensed, Sbyszewski arrived. + +‘Well, are you going off to kill kings, like Lapinski?’ + +‘No, I am going to America.... I am going to fight for the Republic. By +the way,’ he asked Tchorszewski, ‘where can one enlist here? I have a few +comrades with me, and all without bread to eat.’ + +‘Simply, at the Consul’s.’ + +‘No, we want to go on to the South; they are short of men now, and they +offer more favourable conditions.’ + +‘Impossible; you could not go to the South!’ + +... Fortunately Tchorszewski guessed right; they did not go to the South. + + _May 3, 1869._ + + + + +FRAGMENTS (1867 TO 1868) + + +1 + +SWISS VIEWS + +Ten years ago, as I was going through the Haymarket late one cold +damp winter evening, I came upon a negro, a lad of seventeen; he was +barefooted and without a shirt, and in fact rather undressed for the +tropics than dressed for London. Shivering all over, with his teeth +chattering, he begged from me. Two days later I met him again, and then +again and again. At last I got into conversation with him. He spoke a +broken English-Spanish, but it was not hard to understand the meaning of +his words. + +‘You are young and strong,’ I said to him, ‘why don’t you get work?’ + +‘No one will give it me.’ + +‘Why is that?’ + +‘I know no one here who would give me a character.’ + +‘Where do you come from?’ + +‘From a ship.’ + +‘What sort of ship?’ + +‘A Spanish one; the captain beat me very much, so I went away.’ + +‘What did you do on board ship?’ + +‘Everything: brushed the clothes, washed up, did the cabins.’ + +‘What do you mean to do?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘But you will die of cold and hunger, you know, or anyway you will +certainly get a bad cold.’ + +‘What am I to do?’ said the negro in despair, looking at me and shivering +all over with cold. + +‘Well,’ I thought, ‘here goes. It is not the first silly thing I have +done in my life.’ + +‘Come with me. I’ll give you clothes and a corner to sleep in; you shall +scrub my rooms, light the fires and stay as long as you like, if you +behave quietly and properly. _Si no—no._’ + +The negro jumped with joy. + +Within a week he was fatter, and gaily did the work of four. So he spent +six months with us; then one evening he made his appearance at my door, +stood a little while in silence, and then said to me:— + +‘I have come to say good-bye to you.’ + +‘How’s that?’ + +‘For now it is enough, I am going.’ + +‘Has anybody been nasty to you?’ + +‘No, indeed, I am content with all.’ + +‘Then where are you going now?’ + +‘To some ship.’ + +‘What for?’ + +‘I am dreadfully sick of it, I can’t stand it, I shall do a mischief if I +stay. I want the sea. I will go away and come back again, but for now it +is enough.’ + +I made an effort to keep him; he stayed on for three days, and then +announced for the second time it was more than he could stand, that he +must go away, that ‘for now it is enough.’ + +That was in the spring. + +In the autumn he turned up again, tropically divested, and again I +clothed him; but he soon began playing various nasty tricks, and even +threatened to kill me, and I was obliged to turn him away. + +These last facts are irrelevant, but the point is that I completely +share the negro’s outlook. After staying a long time in the same place +and sticking in the same rut, I feel that for a time _it is enough_, +that I must refresh myself with other horizons and other faces ... and +at the same time must retire into myself, strange as that sounds. The +superficial distractions of the journey do not prevent it. + +There are people who prefer to get away _inwardly_, some with the help +of a powerful imagination and faculty of abstracting themselves from +their surroundings (a peculiar gift bordering on genius and insanity is +necessary for this), some with the help of opium or alcohol. Russians, +for instance, will have a drinking-bout for a week or two, and then go +back to their duties. I prefer shifting my whole body to shifting my +brain, and going round the world to letting my head go round. + +Perhaps it is because I have a bad time after too much wine. + +So I meditated on the 4th of October 1866 in a little room of a wretched +hotel on the Lac de Neufchâtel where I felt as much at home as though I +had lived in it all my life. The craving for solitude, and still more +for tranquillity, develops strangely with years.... It was rather a warm +night; I opened my window.... Everything was plunged in deep sleep: the +town and the lake and the boat which was moored to the bank and faintly +heaving, as I could hear from a slight creaking and see from the swinging +of the mast which shifted first to the right then to the left.... + +To know that no one is expecting you, no one will come in to you, that +you can do what you like, die perhaps, and no one will hinder you ... no +one will care ... is at once dreadful and good. I am certainly beginning +to be unsociable, and sometimes regret that I have not the strength to +become a secular hermit. + +Only in solitude can a man work to the utmost of his power. The free +disposal of one’s time and the absence of inevitable interruptions is a +great thing. If a man begins to feel dull and tired, he can take his hat +and go himself in search of his fellows and rest with them. He has but +to go out into the street; the everlasting stream of faces floats by, +unending, changing and unchanged, with its flashing rainbow hues and grey +froth, its uproar and din. You look at this river of life as an artist, +you look at it as at an exhibition, just because you have nothing to do +with it. It is all apart from you, and you need nothing from any one. + +Next day I got up early, and by eleven o’clock was so hungry that I went +for _déjeuner_ to a big hotel which could not take me the evening before +for lack of room. In the dining-room there was an Englishman with his +wife, from whom he concealed himself with a sheet of _The Times_, and a +Frenchman of about thirty, one of the new types which have come up of +late: stout, flabby, white, fair-haired, and softly fat, he looked as +though he were on the point of melting like jelly in a warm room, but +his ample overcoat and trousers of springy material fortunately held +him together. No doubt he was the son of some prince of the Bourse or +aristocrat of the democratic empire. Listlessly, in a spirit of mistrust +and investigation, he was proceeding through his lunch. One could see +that he had been engaged upon it for a long time already and was tired of +it. + +This type, which scarcely existed in old days in France, began to appear +in the time of Louis-Philippe and has reached its full blossoming during +the last fifteen years. It is very repulsive, and that is perhaps a +compliment to the French. The life of an epicure of the _cuisine_ and +of wines does not so distort an Englishman or a Russian as it does a +Frenchman. The Foxes and the Sheridans drank and ate more than enough, +but they remained Foxes and Sheridans. The Frenchman is with impunity +devoted only to _literary_ gastronomy, consisting in an elaborate +_knowledge_ of dainties and in the ordering of dishes. No other nation +_talks_ as much about dinner, about sauces and culinary refinements, +as the Frenchman, but that is all a form of flourish and rhetoric. Real +gluttony and drunkenness destroy a Frenchman, swallow him up ... his +nerves are not fit for that. A Frenchman remains sound and uninjured only +when he spends his time flirting with every aspect of life; that is his +national passion and favourite weakness—in it he is strong. + +‘Will you take dessert?’ asked the waiter, who evidently had more +respect for the Frenchman than for us. The young gentleman was at the +moment engaged in digestion, and therefore, slowly lifting his weary and +lustreless eyes to the waiter, he said: ‘I don’t know yet,’ thought a +little, and then added: ‘_Une poire!_’ + +The Englishman, who had all this time been eating in silence behind the +screen of his paper, stirred and said: ‘_Et à moa aussi!_’ + +The waiter brought two pears on two plates and handed one to the +Englishman; but the latter vigorously and emphatically protested: ‘No, +no! _aucune chose pour poire!_’ He simply wanted something to drink. He +got his drink and stood up; I only then observed that he was wearing a +child’s jacket, or spencer, of a light brown colour, and tight-fitting +light trousers terribly creased above his boots. The lady too got up; she +rose higher and higher still, and at last, terrifically tall, took the +arm of her squat husband and went out. + +I followed them out with an involuntary smile, completely free from +malice; they seemed to me to have ten times as much human dignity as my +neighbour, who was unbuttoning the third button of his waistcoat as the +lady withdrew. + + BASLE. + +The Rhine is a natural frontier, not shutting off anything, but +dividing Basle into two parts, which does not prevent both sides from +being inexpressibly dull. Everything here is oppressed by a threefold +dullness: German, commercial and Swiss. It is no wonder that the only +artistic work that originated in Basle took the form of a dance of the +dying with Death[47]; none but the dead rejoice here, though the German +inhabitants are extremely fond of music—of a very grave and elevated +character, however. The town is a place of transit; every one passes +through it, but nobody stays here except commissioners and carriers of +the higher order. + +No one could live in Basle apart from a passion for money. Though, +indeed, life is dull in Swiss towns as a rule, and not only in Swiss +towns, but in all little towns. ‘Florence is a wonderful town,’ said +Bakunin, ‘like a delicious sweetmeat ... you are delighted while you +eat it, but in a week you are deadly sick of everything sweet.’ That is +perfectly true, and nothing need be said about Swiss towns after that. In +old days it was quiet and pleasant on the shores of Lake Leman; but since +villas have been built all the way from Vevey and whole families of the +Russian nobility, impoverished by the calamities of the 19th of February +1861, have taken up their abode in them, it is no place for such as us. + + LAUSANNE. + +I am passing through Lausanne. Every one passes through Lausanne except +the aborigines. + +Outsiders do not live in Lausanne, in spite of the marvellous scenery +round it and of the fact that the English three times discovered it: once +after the death of Cromwell, once in the time of Gibbon, and now when +they are building houses and villas in it. Tourists stay only in Geneva. + +The thought of that town is in my mind inseparable from the thought +of the coldest and driest of great men and the coldest and driest of +winds—of Calvin and of the _bise_; I can’t endure either of them. And +certainly in every native of Geneva there is something left of the +_bise_ and of Calvin, both of which have blown upon him physically and +spiritually from the day of his conception and even before, one from the +mountains, the other from the prayer-book. + +Those two chilling influences, checked and diversified by different +currents from Savoy, from Valais, most of all from France, make up the +fundamental character of the citizens of Geneva—an excellent character, +but not a particularly agreeable one. + +However, I am now writing my _impressions de voyage_ while I am _living_ +in Geneva. Of that town I will write when I have retreated to an artistic +distance.... + +I reached Freiburg at ten o’clock in the evening and went straight to +the Zöhringhof. The same landlord in a black velvet cap who met me in +1851, with the same regular features and condescendingly polite face of +a Russian master of the ceremonies, or an English porter, came up to the +omnibus and congratulated us on our arrival. + +And the dining-room is the same, the same rectangular folding little +sofas upholstered in red velvet. Fourteen years have passed over Freiburg +like fourteen days! There is the same pride in the cathedral-organ, the +same pride in their hanging bridge. + +The breath of the new restless spirit, continually shifting and casting +down barriers, that was raised by the equinoctial gales of 1848, scarcely +touched towns which morally and physically stand apart, such as the +Jesuitical Freiburg and the pietistic Neufchâtel. These towns, too, have +advanced, though at the pace of a tortoise; they have improved, though +they seem to us out of date in their old-fashioned stony garb.... And of +course much in the life of old days was not bad; it was more comfortable, +more durable; it was better fitted for the small number of the elect, +and so it does not do for the vast number of the newly invited, who are +far from being spoiled or difficult to please. + +Of course, in the present state of technical development, with the +discoveries that are being made every day, with the improvement of the +resources at our disposal, it is possible to organise modern life on a +free and ample scale. But the Western European, as soon as he has a place +of his own, is satisfied with little. As a rule, he has been falsely +charged, or rather he has charged himself, with the passion for comfort +and that love of luxury of which people talk. All that, like everything +else in him, is rhetoric and flourish. They have had free institutions +without freedom, why not have a brilliant setting for a narrow and clumsy +life? There are exceptions. One may find all sorts of things among +English aristocrats and French Camélias and the Jewish princes of this +world.... All that is personal and temporary; the lords and bankers have +no future and the Camélias have no heirs. We are talking about the whole +world, about the golden mean, about the chorus and the _corps de ballet_, +which now is on the stage, leaving aside the father of Lord Stanley, who +has twenty thousand francs a day, and the father of that child of twelve +who flung himself into the Thames the other day to relieve his parents of +the task of feeding him. + +The old tradesman who has grown rich loves to talk of the comforts +of life. For him it is a novelty that he is a gentleman _qu’il a ses +aises_, ‘that he has the means to do this, and that doing that will not +ruin him.’ He glories in money and knows its value and how quickly it +flies, while his predecessors in fortune believed neither in its value +nor that it could be exhausted, and so have been ruined. But they ruined +themselves with good taste. The bourgeois has little notion of making +full use of his accumulated riches. The habits of the old narrow, +niggardly life he has inherited from his forbears remain. He may indeed +spend a great deal of money, but he does not spend it on the right things. + +A generation which has come from behind the counter has absorbed +standards and ambitions of no wide horizon and cannot get away from +them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they +naturally aim at the greatest possible profit, gain and good bargain. +The _propriétaire_ instinctively diminishes the size of his rooms and +increases their number, not knowing why he makes the windows small and +the ceilings low; he takes advantage of every corner to snatch it from +his lodger or from his own family. That corner is of no use to him, but +in case he may need it, he will take it from somebody. With peculiar +satisfaction he builds two uncomfortable kitchens instead of one good +one, puts up a garret for his maid in which she can neither work nor +move, but succeeds in making it damp. To compensate for this economy of +light and space, he paints the front of the house, loads the drawing-room +with furniture, and lays out before the house a flower-bed with a +fountain in it, which is a source of tribulation to children, nurses, +dogs and workmen. What is not spoilt by miserliness is ruined by lack +of intelligence. Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of +daily life without mingling with it, flings its wealth to right and left, +but the boatmen do not know how to catch it. All the profit goes to the +wholesale dealers and filters in scanty drops to others; the wholesale +dealers are changing the face of the earth, while private life trails +along beside their steam-engines in its old lumbering waggon with its +broken-down nags.... + +The fire which does not smoke is a dream. A landlord in Geneva said to me +soothingly: ‘This fire _only_ smokes in the _bise_.’ That is only just +when one most wants a fire; and he says this as though the _bise_ were +something casual or newly invented, as though it had not been blowing +since before the birth of Calvin and would not blow after the death of +Fazy. In all Europe, not excepting Spain or Italy, one must make one’s +will at the approach of winter, as men used to do when they set off on a +journey from Paris to Marseilles, and must have a thanksgiving service +sung to the Iversky Madonna at mid-April. + +Let these people tell me that they are not occupied with such vanities, +that they have many other things to do, and I would forgive them their +smoky chimneys, and the locks which at once open the door and bleed you, +and the stench in the passage, and so on; but I ask, what other work +have they, what are their higher interests? They have _none_.... They +only make a display of them to cover the inconceivable emptiness and +senselessness of their lives. + +In the Middle Ages men lived in the very nastiest way and wasted their +efforts on utterly useless edifices which did not add to their comfort. +But the Middle Ages did not talk about their passion for comfort; on the +contrary, the more comfortless their life, the more nearly it approached +their ideal; their luxury took the form of the magnificence of the House +of God and of their assembly-hall, and there they were not niggardly, +they grudged nothing. The knight in those days built a fortress, not +a palace, and did not select for a site the most convenient road, +but an inaccessible precipice. Now there is no one to defend oneself +against, and nobody believes in saving his soul by adorning the church; +the peaceful and orderly citizen has dropped out of the forum and the +_Rathhaus_, out of the opposition and the club; passions and fanaticisms, +religions and heroisms, have all given way to material prosperity: _and +that has not been successfully organised_. + +For me there is something melancholy, tragic, in all this, as though +the world were living anyhow, in expectation of the earth’s giving way +under its feet, and were seeking not reconstruction but forgetfulness. +I see this not only in the careworn, wrinkled faces, but also in the +fear of any serious thinking, in the turning away from any analysis of +the position, in the nervous thirst to be busy, to fill up the time with +external distractions. The old are ready to play with toys, ‘if only to +keep from thinking.’ The fashionable mustard-plaster is an International +Exhibition. The remedy and the disease form a sort of intermittent fever +centred first in one part and then in another. All are moving, rushing, +flying, spending money, striving, staring and growing weary, living even +more uncomfortably in order to keep up with _progress_—in what? Why, just +progress. As though in three or four years there can be much progress +in anything, as though, when we have railways to travel by, there were +any necessity to drag from place to place things like houses, machines, +stables, cannon, even perhaps parks and kitchen-gardens. + +And when they are sick of exhibitions they will take to war and find +distraction in the sheaves of dead—anything to avoid seeing certain +_black spots_ on the horizon. + + +2 + +CHATTER ON THE ROAD AND FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN IN THE BUFFET + +‘Is there a seat free for Andermatt?’ + +‘Most likely there will be.’ + +‘In the _cabriolet_?’ + +‘Perhaps; you must come at half-past ten....’ + +I look at my watch, it is a quarter to three ... and with a feeling of +fury I sit down on a seat in front of the café. Noise, shouting, trunks +dragged about, horses led, horses needlessly stamping on the stones, +waiters from the restaurants fighting over travellers, ladies rummaging +among the portmanteaus.... Clack, clack, our diligence has galloped +off; clack, clack, another has galloped after it.... The square grows +empty, everything has gone away.... The heat is deadly, the sunlight is +hideously bright, the stones grow whiter; a dog lies down in the middle +of the square, but suddenly leaps up with indignation and runs into +the shade. The fat landlord sits in his shirt-sleeves before the café, +continually dropping asleep. A peasant-woman comes along with fish. ‘How +much are the fish?’ the landlord asks with an expression of intense +anger. The woman tells the price. ‘_Carrogna!_’ shouts the landlord. +‘_Ladro!_’ shouts the woman. ‘Go along with you, old she-devil.’ ‘Will +you take it, you robber?’ ‘Well, let me have it for _tre venti_ the +pound.’ ‘May you die unshriven!’ The landlord takes the fish, the woman +takes the money, and their parting is friendly. All their abusive +epithets are just an accepted etiquette, like the forms of politeness +employed by us. + +The dog goes on sleeping, the landlord has taken in the fish and is +dozing again, the sun is baking. I can’t sit there any longer. I go +into the café, take up a sheet of paper and begin writing, not knowing +in the least what I am going to write: a description of the mountains +and precipices, of the flowering meadows and bare granite rocks—all +that is in the guide ... better talk gossip.... Gossip is the repose of +conversation, its dessert, its sauce; only idealists and theoretical +people do not like gossip.... But about whom? Why, of course about the +subject nearest to our patriotic heart, our charming fellow-countrymen. +There are plenty of them everywhere, especially in good hotels. + +It is still just as easy to recognise Russians as it always has been. +The zoological features noted long ago have not been effaced, though +the number of travellers has been so greatly increased. Russians speak +in a loud voice where others speak in a low voice, and do not speak at +all where others speak loud. They laugh aloud and tell funny stories in +a whisper, they quickly make friends with the waiters and slowly with +their neighbours. They eat with their knives. The military people look +like Germans, but are distinguished from them by the peculiar insolence +of the back of their heads and their original bristling hair; the ladies +attract attention by their dress in railway trains and steamers, just as +Englishwomen do at _table d’hôte_, and so on. + +The lake of Thun has become a tank about which our tourists of the +higher sort have settled. The _Fremden List_ might have been copied out +of a reference book; ministers and grandees, generals of every branch +of the service, even of the secret police, are recorded in it. In the +hotel-gardens the great _mit Weib und Kind_ enjoy nature, and in the +hotel dining-room her gifts. + +‘Did you come by Gemmi or Grimsel?’ an Englishwoman will ask her +fellow-countrywoman. + +‘Are you staying at the Jungfraublick or at the Victoria?’ a Russian +woman will ask her fellow-countrywoman. + +‘There is the Jungfrau!’ says an Englishwoman. + +‘There is Reytern, the Minister of Finance!’ says a Russian. + + * * * * * + +‘_Intcinq minutes d’arrêt_....’ + +‘_Intcinq minutes d’arrêt_....’ + +And every one in the railway carriages hurries into the restaurant and +rushes to a table in haste to devour dinner in some twenty minutes, from +which the railway authorities will inevitably steal five or six, besides +scaring away the appetite with a terrifying bell and shout of ‘_En +voiture!_’ + +A tall lady in black walked in, together with her husband in +light-coloured clothes, and with them two children.... A poorly dressed +girl with her arms full of bags and parcels walked in with a shy awkward +air. She stood a little, then went into a corner and sat down almost +beside me. The sharp eye of the waiter detected her; after flying past +her with a plate on which lay a slice of roast beef he pounced like a +hawk on the poor girl and asked her what she wished to order. ‘Nothing,’ +she answered, and the waiter, summoned by an English clergyman, ran off +to him ... but a minute later he flew down upon her again, and waving his +napkin asked her: ‘What was it you ordered?’ + +The girl muttered something, flushed crimson and stood up. It sent a pang +to my heart. I longed to offer her something, but I did not dare. + +Before I had made up my mind what to do, the lady in black turned her +dark eyes about the room, and seeing the girl, beckoned to her with her +finger. She went up, the lady pointed her to the soup that the children +had not finished, and she, standing among rows of sitting and astonished +travellers, confused and helpless, ate two spoonfuls and put down the +plate. + +‘_Essieurs les voyageurs pour Ucinnungen onction, et tontuyx-en voiture!_’ + +All rushed with unnecessary haste to their carriages. + +I could not refrain from saying to the waiter (not the hawk, another +one): ‘Did you see?’ + +‘To be sure I did—they are Russians.’ + + +3 + +BEYOND THE ALPS + +The architectural monumental character of the Italian towns together with +their neglected condition palls on one at last. In them a modern man +feels not at home, but as though in an uncomfortable box at the theatre, +with magnificent scenery on the stage. + +Life in them has not found its own level, is not simple, and is not +convenient. The tone is elevated; in everything there is declamation, +and Italian declamation (any one who has heard Dante read aloud knows +what it is like). In everything there is the strained intensity which +used to be the fashion among Moscow philosophers and German learned +artists; everything is looked at from the highest standpoint, vom _höhern +Standpunkt_. This artificial strain excludes all _abandon_, and is for +ever prepared for controversy and exposition in set phrases. Chronic +enthusiasm is exhausting and irritating. + +Man does not want to be always admiring, always spiritually elevated; he +does not want to have the _Tugenden_ always in evidence; he does not want +to be touched and carried mentally far back into the past; while Italy +will never let him drop below a certain high pitch, but is incessantly +reminding him that her street is not simply a street but also a monument, +that he may not merely walk through her squares but ought to be studying +them. + +At the same time everything in Italy, particularly what is beautiful +and grand (possibly it is the same everywhere), borders upon insanity +and absurdity—or at least is suggestive of childishness.... The Piazza +Signoria is the nursery of the Florentine people; granddad Buonarroti +and uncle Cellini presented it with marble and bronze playthings, and it +has strewn them about at random in the square where blood has so often +been shed and its fate has been decided—without the slightest connection +with David or Perseus.... There is a town in the water so that pike +and perch can wander through the streets ... there is a town built of +stone crevices such as would suit centipedes or lizards to creep and run +through—between precipices made up of palaces ... and then a primaeval +wilderness of marble. What brain dared create the outlines of that stone +forest called Milan Cathedral, that mountain of stalactites? What brain +had the hardihood to carry out that mad architect’s dream?... And who +gave the money for it, the incredible immense sums of money? + +People only make sacrifices for what is unnecessary. Their fantastic +aims are always the most precious to them, more precious than daily +bread, more precious than self-interest. To develop egoism a man must be +trained, just as for humane culture. But imagination will carry him away +without training, will fill him with enthusiasm without reflection. The +ages of faith were the ages of miracles. + +A town which is more modern but less historical and decorative is Turin. + +‘It simply overwhelms one with its prose.’ + +Yes, but it is easier to live in, just because it is simply a town, a +town that exists not only for its own memories but for everyday life, +for the present; its streets are not archaeological museums, and do +not remind us at every step: _memento mori_; but glance at its working +population, at their aspect, keen as the Alpine air, and you will see +that they are a sturdier stamp of men than the Florentines or the +Venetians, and have perhaps even more staying power than the Genoese. + +The latter, however, I do not know. It is very difficult to get a view of +them, they are always flitting before one’s eyes, bustling and running +to and fro in a hurry. There are swarms of people in the lanes leading +to the sea, but those who are standing still are not Genoese; they are +sailors of every land and ocean—skippers, captains. A bell rings here, a +bell rings there: _Partenza!—Partenza!_—and part of the ant-heap begins +scurrying about, some loading, others unloading. + + +4 + +ZU DEUTSCH + +It has been raining continuously for three days. I cannot go out and I am +not inclined to work.... In the bookshop window there are two volumes of +Heine’s _Correspondence_; here is salvation. I take them and proceed to +read them till the sky clears again. + +Much water has flowed away since Heine was writing to Moser, Immermann, +Varnhagen. + +It is a strange thing: since 1848 we have all faltered and stepped +back, we have thrown everything overboard and shrunk into ourselves, +and yet something has been done and everything has gradually changed. +We are nearer to the earth, we stand on a lower, that is a firmer, +level, the plough cuts more deeply, our work is not so attractive, +it is rougher—perhaps because it really is work. The Don Quixotes of +the reaction have burst many of our balloons, the smoky gases have +evaporated, the aeronauts have come down, and we no longer float like the +spirit of God over the waters with chants and prophetic songs, but catch +at the trees, the roofs, and damp Mother Earth. + +Where are those days when ‘Young Germany’ in its spiritual heights +theoretically set the Fatherland free, and in the spheres of Pure +Reason and Art made an end of the world of tradition and superstition? +Heine hated the highly enlightened frosty heights upon which Goethe +majestically slumbered in his old age, dreaming the clever but not quite +coherent phantasies of the second part of _Faust_. But even Heine never +sank below the level of the bookshop, even with him it was still the +academic precinct, the literary circle, the journalistic clique with +its gossip and its babble, with its bookish Shylocks in the form of +Cotta,[48] Hoffmann,[49] and Campe,[50] with its Göttingen high priests +of philology and its bishops of jurisprudence in Halle or Bonn. Neither +Heine nor his circle knew the people, and the people did not know them. +The sorrows and the joys of the lowly plains did not rise up to those +heights; to understand the moan of humanity in the bogs of to-day they +had to translate it into Latin and to arrive at their thoughts through +the Gracchi and the proletariate of Rome. + +The graduates of a _sublimated_ world, they sometimes emerged into life, +beginning like Faust with the beer-shop and always, like him, with a +spirit of scholastic scepticism, which with its reflections hindered +them as it did Faust from simply looking and seeing. That is why they +immediately hastened back from living sources to the sources of history; +there they felt more at home. Their pursuits, it is particularly worth +noting, were not only not _work_, but were not _science_ either, but, so +to speak, erudition, and above all, literature. + +Heine at times revolted against the scholastic atmosphere and the +passion for analysis, he wanted something different, but his letters +are typically German letters of that period, on the first page of which +stands Bettina the child and on the last Rahel the Jewess. We breathe +more freely when we meet in his letters passionate outbursts of Judaism, +then Heine is genuinely carried away; but he quickly lost his warmth and +turned cold to Judaism, and was angry with it for his own by no means +disinterested faithlessness. + +The revolution of 1830 and Heine’s moving afterwards to Paris did much +for his progress. _Der Pan ist gestorben!_ he says with enthusiasm, and +hastens to the city to which I once hastened with the same feverish +eagerness—to Paris; he wanted to see the ‘great people’ and ‘grey-headed +Lafayette’ riding about on his grey horse. But literature soon gets the +upper hand again; his letters are filled in and out with literary gossip, +personalities, interspersed with complaints of destiny, of health, of +nerves, of depressed spirits, through which an immense revolting vanity +is apparent. And then Heine takes a false note. His coldly inflated +rhetorical Buonapartism grows as detestable as the squeamish horror of +the well-washed Hamburg Jew at the tribunes of the people when he meets +them not in books but in real life. He could not stomach the fact that +the workmen’s meetings were not staged in the frigidly decorous setting +of the study and salon of Varnhagen, ‘the fine-china’ Varnhagen von Ense, +as he himself calls him. + +His feeling of personal dignity, however, did not go beyond having clean +hands and being free from the smell of tobacco. It is hard to blame him +for that. That feeling is not a German nor a Jewish one, and unhappily +not a Russian one either. + +Heine coquettes with the Prussian Government, seeks its favour through +the ambassador and through Varnhagen, and then abuses it.[51] He +coquetted with the King of Bavaria and pelted him with sarcasms; he more +than coquetted with the German Diet, and tried to atone for his abject +behaviour with biting taunts. + +Does not all this explain why the scholastically revolutionary flare-up +in Germany so quickly came to grief in 1848? It too was merely a literary +effort, and it vanished like a rocket: its leaders were professors and +its generals came from the Faculty of Philology; its rank and file in +high boots and _bérets_ were students who deserted the revolutionary +cause as soon as it passed from metaphysical audacity and literary +recklessness into the market-place. Apart from a few stray workmen, the +people did not follow these pale _Führer_, they simply held aloof from +them. + +‘How can you put up with all Bismarck’s insults?’ I asked a year before +the war of a deputy of the Left from Berlin at the time when the former +was practising violent methods, and more successfully than Grabow and +Company. + +‘We have done everything we could, _innerhalb_ the constitution.’ + +‘Well, then, you should follow the example of the Government and try +_ausserhalb_.’ + +‘How do you mean? Make an appeal to the people, stop paying taxes?... +That’s a dream.... Not a single man would follow us or would make a move +to support us.... And we should only provide a fresh triumph for Bismarck +by ourselves proving our weakness.’ + +‘Well, then, I can only say like your President at every fresh blow: +“Shout three times _Es lebe der König_ and go home peaceably!”’ + + +5 + +THIS WORLD AND THE OTHER + + +I + +THE OTHER WORLD + +... Villa Adolphina.... Adolphina?... Villa Adolphina, _grands et petits +appartements, jardin, vue sur la mer_.... + +I go in. Everything is clean and nice; there are trees and flowers in +the garden, and English children, fat, soft and rosy, who make you hope +from the bottom of your heart that they will never meet with cannibals. +An old woman comes out, and after asking what I have come for, begins +a conversation by telling me that she is not a servant, but ‘more like +a friend,’ that Madame Adolphine has gone to a hospital, or almshouse, +of which she is a patroness. Then she takes me to see ‘an exceptionally +convenient apartment’ which this season for the first time is unoccupied, +and which two Americans and a Russian princess had been only that morning +to look at—for which reason the old woman who was ‘more a friend than a +servant’ sincerely advised me not to lose time. Thanking her for this +sudden sympathy and solicitude on my behalf, I asked her the question: +‘_Sie sind eine Deutsche?_’ + +‘_Zu Diensten, und der gnädige Herr?_’ + +‘_Ein Russe._’ + +‘_Das freut mich zu sehr. Ich wohnte so lange, so lange_ in Petersburg. I +must say I believe there is no other town like it and never will be.’ + +‘It is very pleasant to hear that. Is it long since you left Petersburg?’ + +‘Yes, it is not yesterday; why, we have been living here twenty years. I +have been a friend of Madame Adolphine from my childhood, and so I never +wanted to leave her. She does not care much for housekeeping; everything +is at sixes and sevens in her house with no one to look after it. When +_meine Gönnerin_ bought this little _Paradise_ she sent for me at once +from _Braunschweig_.’ + +‘And where did you live in Petersburg?’ I asked. + +‘Oh, we lived in the very best part of the town, where the _Laute +Herrschaften und Generäle_ live. How many times I have seen the late Tsar +driving by in a carriage or a one-horse sledge _so ernst_.... He was a +real potentate, one may say.’ + +‘Did you live on the Nevsky or in Morsky Street?’ + +‘Yes; that is, not quite on the Nevsky, but close by, at the +_Polizei-brücke_.’ + +‘Enough ... enough, I might have known,’ I thought, and I asked the old +woman to say that I would come to discuss terms with Madame Adolphine +herself. I could never without a peculiar tenderness meet the relics of +old days, the half-ruined monuments from the temple of Vesta or some +other god, it does not matter.... The old woman who was ‘more like a +friend’ escorted me across the garden to the gate. + +‘Here is our neighbour, he too lived for years in Petersburg....’ She +pointed to a big, smartly decorated house, inscribed this time in +English: ‘Large and small Apartments, Furnished or Unfurnished....’ +‘No doubt you remember Floriani? He was the _coiffeur de la cour_ near +Millionnaya Street; he was mixed up in a very unpleasant affair ... he +was prosecuted and almost sent to Siberia ... you know, for being too +indulgent, there were such severe measures.’ + +‘Well,’ I thought, ‘she will certainly exalt Floriani into being my +“comrade in misfortune”!’ + +‘Yes, yes, now I vaguely remember the story; the Procurator of the Holy +Synod and other divines and officers in the Guards had a hand in it....’ + +‘Here he comes.’ + +A little dried-up, toothless old man in a small straw hat like a sailor’s +or a child’s, with a blue ribbon round the crown, a short, light +pea-green overcoat and striped breeches, came out to the gate. He raised +his dull, lifeless eyes, and munching with his thin lips, nodded to the +old lady. + +‘Would you like me to call him?’ + +‘No, thank you very much.... I am not in that line—you see, I don’t shave +my beard.... Good-bye. And tell me, please, am I mistaken or not, has M. +Floriani a red ribbon?’ + +‘Yes, yes, he has subscribed largely to charities!’ + +‘A very good heart, no doubt.’ + +In classical times writers were fond of bringing back into this world +the shades of the dead, that they might have a chat about this and that. +In our realistic age everything is on the earth, and even part of the +other world is in _this_ world. The Champs-Élysées extend to the shores +and strands of Elysium, and are scattered here and there by warm or +sulphurous springs at the foot of mountains or the borders of lakes; they +are sold in acres or laid out into vineyards.... Part of a man who has +died to the life of excitement and agitation is here passing through the +first course of the transmigration of souls and the preparatory class of +Purgatory. + +Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even +two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new +scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of times long +dead appear more frequently on his way, calling up series of shadows and +pictures kept somewhere in readiness in the endless catacombs of the +memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.... + +Those who like Faust want to see ‘the mothers,’ and even ‘the fathers,’ +need no Mephistopheles; it is enough to take a railway ticket and travel +to the South. By the time Cannes and Grasse are reached, shades of days +long fled stray about, warming themselves in the sun; quietly huddled up, +close to the sea, they wait for Charon and their turn. + +On the way to this _Città_, which is not so very _dolente_, the tall, +bent and majestic figure of Lord Brougham stands as keeper of the gate. +After a long and honourable life spent in useless toil, he seems, with +one grey eyebrow lower than the other, like the living embodiment of part +of Dante’s inscription: ‘_Voi che ’ntrate_,’ with the idea of correcting +old-standing historical evils by amateurish means, ‘_lasciate ogni +speranza_.’ Old Brougham, the best of the ancients, the defender of the +luckless Queen Caroline, the friend of Robert Owen, the contemporary of +Canning and Byron, the last unwritten volume of Macaulay, built his villa +between Grasse and Cannes, and he did well to do so. Who, if not he, +should be put as a conciliatory signboard at the portal of the temporary +purgatory to avoid scaring away the living? + +Here we are _en plein_ in the world of the tenors, now silent, that set +our bosoms quivering at eighteen—thirty years ago; of the feet which set +our hearts and the hearts of the whole parterre melting and thrilling, +feet now ending their career in down-trodden, home-knitted slippers, that +go flopping after the servant-girl from aimless jealousy or from very +justifiable niggardliness. + +And all this, with a few intervals, goes on right up to the Adriatic, to +the shores of Lake Como, and even to some German watering-places. Here is +the Villa Taglioni, there is the Palazzo Rubini, there the Campagne Fanny +Elsner and others ... _du prétérit-défini et du plus-que-parfait_. + +Beside the actors retired from the small stage of the theatre, the actors +of the greatest stages of the world, whose names have long ago been +cut out of the playbills and forgotten, live out their days in peace as +followers of Cincinnatus and philosophers against their will. Side by +side with artists who have once magnificently played the parts of kings +are met kings who have played their parts very poorly. Like the dead in +India who take their wives to the other world with them, these kings +have carried off two or three devoted ministers who zealously helped to +bring about their downfall and have themselves come to grief with them. +Among them are crowned heads who were hissed at their début and are still +expecting that the public will return to a juster sense of values and +call them on again. There are others whom the impresarios of the theatre +of history have not permitted even to make their début—the stillborn who +have a yesterday but no to-day; their biography ended on their appearance +in the world; the Aztecs of a long-abolished law of royal inheritance, +they remain the moving monuments of extinguished dynasties. + +Then come the generals, famous for the victories they have lost; subtle +diplomats, who have wrecked their countries; gamblers who have wrecked +their fortunes; and grey-headed, wrinkled old women who in their day +wrecked the hearts of these diplomats and gamblers. Political fossils, +still taking their pinch of snuff, as once they took it at Pozzo di +Borgo’s,[52] Lord Aberdeen’s, and Princess Esterhazy’s, discuss with +extinct beauties of the days of Madame Récamier reminiscences of the +salon of Princess Lieven, the youth of Lablache, the débuts of Malibran, +and wonder that Patti dare sing after them ... and at the same time +gentlemen of the green cloth, hobbling and limping, half-crippled with +paralysis, half-drowned in dropsy, talk with other old ladies of other +salons and other celebrities, of reckless stakes, of Countess Kisselyov, +of roulette at Homburg and at Baden, of the late Suhozanet’s[53] play, of +the patriarchal days when the hereditary princes of the German Spas were +partners with the keepers of the gambling-halls and exchanged the risky +mediaeval plundering of travellers for the peaceful practice of the bank +and _rouge et noir_. + +And all this world is still breathing, still moving; some lie crippled +in a bath-chair or a carriage under a fur rug, others lean on a servant +by way of a crutch, or sometimes on a crutch for lack of a servant. +The visitors’ lists are like old-fashioned directories or bits of torn +newspapers ‘of the days of Navarino and the Conquest of Algiers.’ + +Besides the smouldering stars of the three first magnitudes there are +other comets and luminaries with which thirty years ago idle and greedy +curiosity was very busy, thanks to the peculiar bloodthirsty lust which +prompts men to watch the trials that lead from the murdered victim to the +guillotine, and from heaps of gold to hard labour. Among them there are +all manner of criminals acquitted for lack of proof, poisoners, coiners, +as well as men who have completed their course of moral regeneration in +some central prison or penal colony, ‘_contumaces_’ and so on. + +The shades least often met with in these warm purgatories are those of +survivors from the revolutionary storms and unsuccessful rebellions. +The gloomy and embittered Montagnards of the Jacobin heights prefer the +austere _bise_, or like stern Spartans hide in the fogs of London.... + + +II + +THIS WORLD + + +A. _Living Flowers—The Last of the Mohicans_ + +‘Let us go to the _Bal de l’Opéra_; now is just the right time, half-past +one,’ I said, getting up from the table in a little room of the Café +Anglais, to a Russian artist who was always coughing and never quite +sober. I had a longing for the open air and bustle. And besides, I +dreaded a long _tête-à-tête_ with my Claude Lorraine from the Neva. + +‘Let us go,’ he said, and poured out another glass of brandy. + +This was at the beginning of 1849, at that moment of delusive +convalescence between two bouts of sickness when one still sometimes +thought that one wanted to play the fool and be merry. + +Strolling about the opera-hall, we stopped before a particularly pretty +quadrille of powdered _débardeurs_ and pierrots with chalked faces. +All the four girls were very young, eighteen or nineteen, charming and +graceful, dancing and enjoying themselves with all their hearts, and +unconsciously passing from the quadrille to the _cancan_. We had hardly +admired it enough when suddenly the quadrille was disturbed ‘owing to +circumstances in no way connected with the dancers,’ as our journalists +used to express it in the happy days of the censorship. One of the +dancing girls, and alas! the handsomest, so skilfully, or so unskilfully, +dropped her shoulder that her shift slipped down, displaying half +her bosom and part of her back—a little more than is done by elderly +Englishwomen (who have nothing with which they can attract except their +shoulders) at the most decorous receptions and in the most conspicuous +boxes at Covent Garden. (So that it is absolutely impossible in the +second tier to listen to _Casta Diva_ or _Sul Salice_ with befitting +modesty.) I had scarcely had time to say to the chilled artist: ‘If only +Michael Angelo or Titian were here! Seize your brush or she will pull it +up again,’ when an immense black hand, not that of Michael Angelo nor +Titian, but of a _gardien de Paris_, seized her by the collar, tore her +away from the quadrille, and dragged her off. The girl would not go, +and struggled as children do when they are to be washed in cold water, +but order and human justice gained the upper hand and were satisfied. +The other girls and their pierrots exchanged glances, found a fresh +_débardeur_, and began again kicking above their heads and darting apart +from each other in order to rush together with the more fury, taking +scarcely any notice of the rape of Proserpine. ‘Let us go and see what +the policeman does to her,’ I said to my companion. I noticed the door +through which he had led her. + +We went down by a side-staircase. Any one who has seen and remembers a +certain dog in bronze looking attentively and with some excitement at a +tortoise can easily picture the scene which we came upon. The luckless +girl in her light attire was sitting on a stone step in the piercing wind +in floods of tears; facing her stood a dry, tall _municipal_ in full +uniform with a predatory and earnestly stupid expression, with a comma of +hair on his chin and half-grey moustaches. + +He was standing in a dignified attitude with folded arms, looking +intently for the end of these tears and urging: ‘_Allons, allons_.’ + +To complete the effect, the girl, whimpering, was saying through her +tears: ‘_... Et ... et on dit ... on dit que ... que ... nous sommes en +République ... et ... on ne peut danser comme l’on veut!..._’ + +All this was so absurd, and in reality so pathetic, that I resolved to +go to the rescue of the captive and to the restoration in her eyes of the +republican form of government. + +‘_Mon brave_,’ I said with calculated and insinuating courtesy to the +policeman, ‘what will you do with mademoiselle?’ + +‘I shall put her _au violon_ till to-morrow,’ he answered grimly. The +wails were redoubled. ‘To teach her to take off her shift,’ added the +guardian of order and of public morality. + +‘It was an accident, _brigadier_, you should pardon her.’ + +‘I can’t. _La consigne_....’ + +‘After all, at a fête....’ + +‘But what is it to do with you? _Êtes-vous son réciproque?_’ + +‘It is the first time I have seen her in my life, _parole d’honneur_. +I don’t know her name, ask her yourself. We are foreigners, and are +surprised to see you in Paris so stern with a weak girl, _avec un être +frêle_. We always thought the police here were so kind.... How is it +that they are allowed to dance the _cancan_, for if they are allowed, +_monsieur le brigadier_, sometimes without meaning it a foot will be +kicked too high or a blouse will slip too low.’ + +‘That may be so,’ the _municipal_ observed, impressed by my eloquence, +and still more stung by my observation that foreigners have such a +flattering opinion of the Parisian police. + +‘Besides,’ I said, ‘look what you are doing. You are giving her a +cold—how can you bring the child, half-naked, out of the heated room and +sit her down in the biting wind?’ + +‘It is her own fault, she won’t come. But there, I’ll tell you what: if +you will give me your word of honour that she shan’t go back into the +dancing-room to-night, I’ll let her off.’ + +‘Bravo! Though, indeed, I expected no less of you, _monsieur le +brigadier_, I thank you with all my heart.’ + +I had now to enter into negotiations with the rescued victim. ‘Excuse +me for interfering on your behalf without having the pleasure of being +personally acquainted with you.’ She held out a warm, moist little hand +to me and looked at me with still moister and warmer eyes. ‘You heard +what was said? I can’t answer for you if you won’t give me your word, or +better still if you won’t come away at once. It is not a great sacrifice +really; I expect it is half-past three by now.’ + +‘I am ready. I’ll go and get my cloak.’ + +‘No,’ said the implacable guardian of order, ‘not a step from here.’ + +‘Where is your cloak and hat?’ ‘In _loge_ so-and-so, row so-and-so.’ The +artist was rushing off, but he stopped to ask: ‘But will they give them +to me?’ + +‘Only tell them what has happened and that you come from “Little +Leontine.” ... Here’s a ball!’ she added with the expression with which +people say in a graveyard: ‘Sleep in peace.’ + +‘Would you like me to take a _fiacre_?’ + +‘I am not alone.’ + +‘With whom then?’ + +‘With a friend.’ + +The artist returned, his cold worse than ever, with a hat and cloak, and +a young shopman or _commis-voyageur_. + +‘Very much obliged,’ he said to me, touching his hat, then to her: +‘Always making scandals!’ He seized her by the arm almost as roughly as +the policeman had by the collar, and vanished into the big vestibule of +the Opéra.... Poor girl ... she will catch it ... and what taste ... she +... and he! + +I felt positively vexed. I suggested to the artist a drink. He did not +refuse. + +A month passed. Six of us, the Vienna agitator Tauzenau, General Haug, +Müller, S., and another, agreed to go once more to a ball. Neither Haug +nor Müller had ever been to one. We stood together in a group. All at +once a masked figure pressed forward through the crowd straight up to me, +almost threw herself on my neck, and said to me: ‘I had not time to thank +you then.’ + +‘Ah, Mademoiselle Leontine ... delighted to meet you. I can see before +me now your tear-stained face, your pouting lips—you were awfully +charming—that does not mean that you are not charming now.’ The sly +little rogue looked at me, smiling, knowing quite well that that was true. + +‘Didn’t you catch cold then?’ + +‘Not a bit.’ + +‘In memory of your captivity, you ought, if you would be very, very +kind....’ + +‘Well what? _Soyez bref._’ + +‘You might have supper with us.’ + +‘With pleasure, _ma parole_, only not now.’ + +‘Where shall I find you then?’ + +‘Don’t trouble. I’ll come and find you myself at four o’clock; but I say, +I am not alone here....’ + +‘With your friend again...?’ and a shiver ran down my back. + +She burst out laughing. ‘Not a very dangerous one,’ and she led up to me +a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl of seventeen. ‘This is my friend.’ + +I invited her too. + +At four o’clock Leontine ran up, gave me her hand, and we set off to the +Café Riche. Though that is not far from the Opera House, yet Haug had +time on the way to fall in love with the Madonna of Andrea del Sarto, +that is, the fair girl. And at the first course, after long and curious +sentences concerning the Tintoretto charm of her hair and eyes, Haug +began discoursing on the aesthetic sin of dancing the _cancan_ with the +face of a madonna and the expression of an angel of purity. ‘_Armes, +holdes Kind!_’ he added, addressing us all. + +‘Why is it your friend talks such boring _fatras_?’ Leontine whispered in +my ear, ‘and why does he go to fancy-dress balls at all—he’d better go to +the Madeleine?’ + +‘He is a German, they all suffer from that complaint,’ I whispered to her. + +‘_Mais c’est qu’il est ennuyeux, votre ami avec son mal de sermon. Mon +petit saint, finiras-tu donc bientôt?_’ + +And while waiting for the sermon to end, Leontine, tired out, flung +herself on the sofa. Facing her was a big looking-glass; she kept looking +in it, and at last could not refrain from pointing to herself and saying +to me: ‘Why, with my hair so untidy and in this crumpled dress and this +position, I really don’t look bad.’ + +When she had said it, she suddenly dropped her eyes and blushed—blushed +openly up to her ears. To cover her confusion she began humming the +well-known song which Heine has distorted in his translation, and which +is terrible in its artless simplicity:— + + ‘Et je mourrai dans mon hôtel, + Ou à l’Hôtel-Dieu.’ + +A strange creature, elusive, full of life; the ‘Lacerta’ of Goethe’s +Elegies, a child in a sort of unconscious delirium. Like a lizard, she +could not sit still for a single instant, and she could not keep silent +either. When she had nothing to say, she was singing, making grimaces +before the looking-glass, and all with the unconstraint of a child and +the grace of a woman. Her _frivolité_ was naïve. Carried away by chance, +she was still whirling round, still floating.... The shock which would +have stopped her on the edge or finally thrust her over the precipice +had not yet come. She had gone a good bit of the road but could still +turn back. Her clear intelligence and innate grace were still strong +enough to save her. + +Her type, her circle, her surroundings, exist no longer. She was ‘_la +petite femme_’ of the student of old days, the _grisette_ who passed +from the Latin Quartier to this side of the Seine without sinking to +the level of the street-walker nor rising to the secure social position +of the Camélia. That type has passed away, just as conversations by the +fireside, reading aloud at a round table, chatting over tea have gone. +There are other forms, other notes, other people, other words.... This +too has its own scale, its own _crescendo_. The mischievous, rather +abandoned element of the ’thirties—_du lest_, _de l’espièglerie_—passed +into _chic_; there was cayenne pepper in it, but it still retained a +careless exuberant grace, it still retained wit and cleverness. As +things began to be done on a larger scale, commerce cast off everything +superfluous, and sacrificed everything spiritual to the shop-front, the +_étalage_. The type of Leontine, the lively Parisian _gamine_, mobile, +clever, spoilt, sparkling, free, and on occasion proud, is not wanted, +and chic has passed into _chienne_. What the Lovelace of the boulevards +wants is the woman-_chienne_, and above all, one who has her master. +It is more economical and disinterested: with another man running the +show, he can get his sport by simply paying the extras. ‘_Parbleu_,’ an +old man whose best years had been at the beginning of Louis-Philippe’s +reign said to me, ‘_je ne me retrouve plus—où est le fion,[54] le chic, +où est l’esprit?... Tout cela est beau, well-bred, mais ... c’est de la +charcuterie ... c’est du Rubens._’ + +That reminds me how in the ’fifties dear good Talandier, with the +vexation of a man in love with his France, explained to me with a musical +illustration its downfall. ‘When,’ he said to me, ‘we were great, in +the early days after the revolution of February, nothing was heard but +the Marseillaise—in the cafés, in the street-processions, always the +Marseillaise. Every theatre had its Marseillaise, here with cannon, +there with Rachel. When things grew duller and quieter, the monotonous +sounds of _Mourir pour la Patrie_ took its place. That was no harm yet, +but we sank lower.... _Un sous-lieutenant accablé de besogne ... drin, +drin, din, din, din_ ... the whole city, the capital of the world, the +whole of France was singing that silly thing. That is not the end; after +that, we began playing and singing _Partant pour la Syrie_ at the top and +_Qu’aime donc Margot ... Margot_ at the bottom: that is, senselessness +and indecency. One can sink no lower.’ + +One can! Talandier did not foresee either _Je suis la femme à barbe_ or +_The Sapper_; he stopped short at chic and never reached the _chienne_ +stage. Hurried carnal corruption superseded all embellishments. The body +conquered the spirit, and, as I said ten years ago, _Margot, la fille +de marbre_, crowded out Béranger’s Lisette and all the Leontines in +the world. The latter had their humanity, their poetry, their ideas of +honour. They loved uproar and spectacles better than wine and supper, +and they loved their supper more for the sake of the surroundings, the +candles, the sweets, the flowers. They could not exist without dancing +and balls, without laughter and chatter. In the most luxurious harem +they would have been stifled, would have pined away in a year. Their +finest representative was Déjazet—both on the great stage of the world +and the little one of the _Théâtre des Variétés_. She was the living +embodiment of a song of Béranger, a saying of Voltaire, and was young +at forty—Déjazet, who changed her adorers like a guard of honour, +capriciously flung away gold by the handful, and gave herself to the +first-comer to get a friend out of trouble. + +Nowadays it is all simplified, curtailed. One gets there sooner, as +old-fashioned country gentlemen used to say who preferred vodka to wine. +The woman of _fion_ intrigued and interested, the woman of _chic_ stung +and amused, and both, apart from money, took up time. The _chienne_ +pounces straight away upon her victim, bites with her beauty, and pulls +him by the coat _sans phrase_; in this there is no preface, in this the +epilogue comes at the beginning. Thanks to a paternal Government and the +medical faculty, even the two dangers of the past are gone; police and +medicine have made great advances of late years. + +And what will come after the _chienne_? Hugo’s _pieuvre_ has completely +failed, perhaps because it is too much like a _pleutre_. And yet we +cannot stop at the _chienne_. + +However, let us leave prophesying. The designs of providence are +unfathomable. + +What interests me is something else. + +Which of the two prophecies of Cassandra will come true for Leontine? Is +her once graceful little head resting on a lace-trimmed pillow in _her +own hotel_, or has it been laid on the rough hospital-bolster to fall +asleep for ever, or awaken to poverty and sorrow? Though maybe neither +the one fate nor the other is hers, and she is busy getting her daughter +married or saving money to buy a recruit to replace her son in the army. +She is no longer young now, and must be long past the ’thirties. + + +B. _Garden Flowers_ + +In _our Russian Europe_ everything done in _European Europe_ has been +repeated on a smaller scale as to quantity and on a greater or distorted +scale as to quality. + +We have had our Orthodox ultra-catholics, our titled liberal-bourgeois, +our imperial Royalists, our democrat-officials, our Preobrazhensky +Buonapartist horseguards and lifeguards. It is no wonder that among the +ladies too we have not escaped our _chic_ and _chienne_ types: with this +difference, that our _demi-monde_ was a whole world and a little over. + +Our Traviatas and Camélias, for the most part titular, that is honorary +ones, grow on quite a different soil and flourish in different spheres +from their Parisian prototypes. They must be sought, not in the valley +but on the heights; they do not rise up like mist, but drop like dew +from above. The Princess Camélia or the Traviata with an estate in the +province of Tambov or Voronezh is a purely Russian phenomenon, and I +think there is a good deal to be said for it. + +As for our non-European Russia, its morals have been to a great extent +saved by serfdom, which is now so much maligned. Love was a melancholy +thing in the village; it called its sweetheart ‘my heart’s yearning,’ as +though feeling that it was stolen from the master, who might at any time +miss his property and take it back. The village furnished the master’s +house with wood, hay, sheep, and its daughters, as part of its duties. +It was a consecrated duty, the Crown service which could not be refused +without a crime against morality and religion, which would provoke +the landowner’s rod and the knout of the whole empire. Here it was no +question of _chic_, but sometimes of the axe, more often of the river, in +which a Palashka or Lushka perished unnoticed. + +What has happened since the Emancipation we hardly know, and therefore +we cling the more to our ladies. They certainly do in masterly style and +with extraordinary rapidity and adroitness assimilate abroad all the +ways, all the _habitus_ of the _lorettes_. It is only on careful scrutiny +that it can be discerned that something is lacking. And what is lacking +is the very simplest thing—being a _lorette_. It is just like Peter the +Great working with hammer and mallet at Saardam, fancying he was doing +real work. From cleverness and idleness, from superfluity and boredom, +our ladies _play_ at the trade, as their husbands play with a carpenter’s +lathe. + +This absence of necessity, this character of artificiality, changes +the whole thing. On the Russian side there is the feeling of a superb +_mise-en-scène_; on the French, of reality and inevitability. Hence the +vast differences. One is often genuinely sorry for the Traviata _tout +de bon_, for the _dame aux perles_ hardly ever; over the first one +sometimes wants to weep, at the other always to laugh. A woman who has +inherited two or three thousand souls of peasants, at first perpetually +but now only temporarily ruined, can do a great deal—intrigue at the +gambling Spas, dress eccentrically, loll in a carriage, whistle and +make a row, get up scenes in restaurants, make men blush, change her +lovers, go with them to _parties fines_ and to all sorts of ‘calisthenic +exercises and conversations,’ drink champagne, smoke Havana cigars, and +stake pots of gold on the _rouge et noir_.... She can be a Messalina and +a Catherine—but, as we have said already, she cannot be a _lorette_, +although _lorettes_ are not, like poets, born, but made. Every _lorette_ +has her story, her initiation induced by circumstances. As a rule, the +poor girl drifts, not knowing whither, and is brought low by coarse +deception, coarse ill-treatment. From outraged love, from outraged shame, +she develops _dépit_, resentment, a sort of thirst of vengeance and +at the same time a craving for excitement, for gaiety, for dress—with +poverty all about her and money only to be gained in _one_ way, and +so _vogue la galère_. The deceived child with no training steps into +the fray; her triumphs spoil her, spur her on (of those who have had +no triumphs we know nothing, they are lost and never heard of); she +remembers her Marengo and her Arcole; the habit of domination and of +luxury is absorbed into her blood; she owes everything to herself alone. +Beginning with nothing but her body, she too acquires ‘souls,’ and she +too ruins the rich men who are temporarily devoted to her, as our great +ladies ruin their poor peasants. + +But in that also lies the whole impassable gulf between the _lorette_ +by profession and the amateur Camélia. That gulf and that opposition +are vividly expressed in the fact that the _lorette_, supping in some +stuffy room of the Maison d’Or, dreams of her future drawing-room, while +the Russian lady, sitting in her sumptuous drawing-room, dreams of the +restaurant. + +The serious side of the question is to determine what has given rise in +our ladies to this craving for dissipation and debauchery, this need +to brag of their emancipation, to trample insolently, capriciously, on +public opinion, and to fling off every veil and mask, while the chaste +and patriarchal mothers and grandmothers of our lionesses blushed +till they were forty at an indiscreet word, and with stealthy modesty +contented themselves with a lover like the one in Turgenev’s _The Bread +of Others_, or, lacking him, a coachman or a butler. + +Note that our aristocratic Camélias go no further back than the beginning +of the ’forties. + +And all the modern movement, all the stirring of thought, the groping, +the dissatisfaction, the discontent, date from the same period. + +Therein lies revealed the human, the historical aspect of our +aristocratic ladies’ debauchery. It is a half-conscious protest of a +sort against the old-fashioned family that weighed upon them like lead, +against the brutal debauchery of the men. The oppressed woman, the woman +deserted at home, had leisure for reading, and as soon as she felt that +the family maxims were incongruous with George Sand, and had heard too +many enthusiastic descriptions of Blanches and Célestines, her patience +broke down, and she took the bit between her teeth. Her protest was +savage, but her position too was savage. + +Her opposition was not clearly formulated, but was vague and instinctive; +she felt outraged, she was conscious of being humiliated, of being +oppressed, but had no conception of independent freedom apart from +debauchery and dissipation. She protested by her behaviour: her revolt +was full of self-indulgence and bad manners, of caprice, of sloppiness, +of coquetry, sometimes of injustice; she was unbridled without becoming +free. She retained a secret fear and diffidence, but longed to show her +resentment and to try _that other_ life. Against the narrow self-will of +the oppressors she set the narrow self-will of patience strained till it +snapped, with no firm guiding idea but the conceited bravado of youth. +Like a rocket she flared up, went off into sparks and fell with a splash, +but not very deep. There you have the history of our titled Camélias, our +Traviatas in pearls. + +Of course, in this case too we may recall the bilious Rastoptchin, who +on his deathbed said of the tragedy of the Fourteenth of December: +‘Everything is inside out with us: in France _la roture_ tried to climb +into the nobility—well, that one can understand; our nobility tried to +become _canaille_, and that’s silly!’ + +But it is just that side of it which to us does not seem silly at all. +It follows very consistently from two primary facts: the alien character +of the culture which is for us not inevitable, and the fundamental note +of another social order to which consciously or unconsciously we are +striving. + +However, that forms part of our catechism, and I am afraid of being drawn +into repetition. + +In the history of our development our Traviatas will not disappear +without a trace; they have their value and significance, and form the +bold and reckless legion of the advance guard, the volunteers and +singers, who, whistling and striking their tambourines, dancing and +showing off, go first to face the fire, screening the more serious +phalanx who have no lack of thought nor daring nor of sharpened weapons. + + +III + +THE FLOWERS OF MINERVA + +This phalanx is the revolution in person, austere at seventeen ... +the fire of her eyes subdued by spectacles that the light of the +mind may shine more brightly; _sans-crinolines_ advancing to replace +_sans-culottes_. + +The girl-student and the young-lady-_bursche_ have nothing in common with +the Traviata ladies. The Bacchantes have grown grey or bald, have grown +old and retired, while the students have taken their place before they +are out of their teens. The Camélias and the Traviatas of the salons +belonged to the Nicholas period. They were like the parade-generals of +the same period, the dandy martinets whose victories were won over their +own soldiers, who knew every detail of military _toilette_, all the +glitter of the parade, and never soiled their uniforms with the blood +of an enemy. The courtesan-generals, jauntily ‘street-walking’ on the +Nevsky, were crushed at once by the Crimean War; while ‘the intoxicating +glamour of the ball,’ the love-making of the boudoir, and the noisy +orgies of the generals’ ladies, were abruptly replaced by the academic +hall and the dissecting-room, where the cropped student in spectacles +studied the mysteries of nature. Then all the camélias and magnolias +had to be forgotten, it had to be forgotten that there were two sexes. +Before the truths of science, _im Reiche der Wahrheit_, distinctions of +sex are effaced. + +Our Camélias stood for the Gironde, that is why there is such a flavour +of Faublas about them. + +Our student-girls are the Jacobins, Saint-Just in a +riding-habit—everything sharp-cut, pure, ruthless. Our Camélia wore a +_masque_, a _loup_ from warm Venice. + +Our students wear a mask too, but it is a mask of Neva ice. The first may +stick on, but the second will certainly melt away; that, however, is in +the future. + +This is a real, conscious protest, a protest and dividing line. _Ce n’est +pas une émeute, c’est une révolution._ Dissipation, luxury, persiflage +and dress are shoved aside. Love, passion, are in the far background. +Aphrodite with her naked archer sulks and withdraws, Pallas Athene +takes her place with her spear and her owl. The Camélias were impelled +by vague emotion, indignation, unsatisfied voluptuous desire ... and +they went on till they reached satiety. In this case they are impelled +by an idea in which they believe, by the declaration of ‘the rights of +woman,’ and they are fulfilling a duty laid upon them by their faith. +Some abandon themselves on principle, others are unfaithful from a sense +of duty. Sometimes these students go too far, but they always remain +children—disobedient, conceited, but children. The gravity of their +radicalism shows that it is a matter of the head, not of the heart. +They are passionate in relation to what is universal, and show no more +‘pathos’ (as they used to call it in old days) in individual encounters +than any Leontine. Perhaps less. The Leontines played, they played with +fire, and very often, ablaze from head to foot, saved themselves in the +Seine; seduced by life before they had developed any prudence, it was +sometimes hard for them to conquer their hearts. Our students begin with +criticism, with analysis; a great deal may happen to them too, but there +will be no surprises, no downfalls; they fall with a parachute of theory +in their hands. They fling themselves into the stream with a handbook on +swimming, and intentionally swim against the current. Whether they will +swim long _à livre ouvert_ I do not know, but they will certainly take +their place in history, and will deserve to do so. + +The most short-sighted people in the world have guessed as much. + +Our old gentlemen, senators and ministers, the fathers and grandfathers +of their country, looked with a smile of indulgence and even +encouragement at the aristocratic Camélias (so long as they were not +their sons’ wives).... But they did not like the students ... so utterly +different from the ‘charming rogues’ with whom they had at one time liked +to warm in words their old hearts. + +For a long time the old gentlemen were angry with the austere Nihilist +girls and sought an opportunity of dealing with them as they deserved. + +And then, as though of design, Karakozov fired his pistol-shot.... ‘There +it is, your Majesty,’ they began to whisper, ‘that is what dressing not +according to set rule ... these spectacles and shock-heads, come to.’ +‘What? not according to set rule?’ says the Tsar. ‘We must take sterner +measures.’ ‘Slackness, slackness, your Majesty! We have only been waiting +for your gracious permission to save the sacred person of your Majesty.’ + +It was no jesting matter; all set to work in earnest. The Privy Council, +the Senate, the Synod, the ministers, the bishops, the military +commanders, the police-captains and gendarmes of all sorts, took counsel +together, talked and deliberated, and decided in the first place to +turn students of the female sex out of the universities altogether. +Meanwhile, one of the bishops, fearing deception, recalled how in the +time of the false Catholic Church a Pope Anna had been elected to the +papacy, and offered his monks as inspectors ... since there is no +bodily shame before the eyes of the dead. The living did not accept his +suggestion: the generals for their part supposed that such expert’s +duties could only be entrusted to an official of the highest rank placed +beyond temptation by his rank and his monarch’s confidence; the military +department wanted to offer the post to Adlerberg the Elder; while the +civilians preferred Butkov. But this did not take place—it is said +because the Grand Dukes were anxious to secure the job. + +Then the Privy Council, the Synod and the Senate ordered that within +twenty-four hours the girls were to grow their cropped hair, to remove +their spectacles, and to be forced to have good sight and to wear +crinolines. And in spite of the fact that in the Book of Heavenly Wisdom +there is nothing said about ‘distension of skirts’ or widening of +petticoats, while the plaiting of hair is positively forbidden in it, the +clergy assented. For the first time the Tsar’s life seemed secure till +he reached the Elysian Fields. It was not their fault that in Paris also +there were Champs-Élysées, and with an accent on them too. + +These extreme measures were of enormous benefit, and this I say without +the slightest irony, but to whom? To our Nihilist girls. + +The one thing that they lacked was to fling off their uniform, their +formalism, and to develop in that broad freedom to which they have the +fullest claim. It is terribly hard for one used to a uniform to cast +it off of himself. The garment grows to the wearer. A high priest in a +dress-coat would give over blessing and intoning. + +Our girl-students and _Burschen_ would have been a long time getting +rid of their spectacles and emblems. They were stripped of them at +the expense of the Government, which added to them the aureole of a +_toilette_ martyrdom. + +After that, all they have to do is to swim _au large_. + +_P.S._—Some are already coming back with the brilliant diploma of Doctor +of Medicine, and all glory to them! + + NICE, _Summer 1867_. + + + + +VENEZIA LA BELLA (_February 1867_) + + +There is no more magnificent absurdity than Venice. To build a city where +it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself; but to build there +one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius. +The water, the sea, their sparkle and glimmer, call for a peculiar +sumptuousness. Moluscs adorn their shells with mother-of-pearl and pearls. + +A single superficial glance at Venice will show one that it is a city of +strong character, of vigorous mind, republican, trading, oligarchical; +that it is the knot tying something together over the waters—a warehouse +for merchandise under a military flag, a city of noisy popular assemblies +and a silent city of secret councils and measures; in its squares the +whole population is jostling from morning till night, while the rivers of +its streets flow silently to the sea. While the crowd surges and clamours +in Saint Mark’s Square, the boat glides by and vanishes unobserved. Who +knows what is under its black awning? The very place to drown people, +within hail of lovers’ trysts. + +The men who felt at home in the Palazzo Ducale must have been of a +special caste of their own. They did not stick at anything. There is +no earth, there are no trees, what does it matter? Give us more carved +stones, more ornaments, gold, mosaics, sculptures, pictures, frescoes. +Here there is an empty corner left; put a thin, wet sea-god with a beard +in the corner! Here is a porch; get in another lion with wings, and a +gospel of Saint Mark! There it is bare and empty; put a carpet of marble +and mosaic! and here, lacework of porphyry! Is there a victory over the +Turks or over Genoa? does the Pope seek the friendship of the city? then +more marble. A whole wall is covered with a curtain of carving, and above +all, more pictures. Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian must mount the +scaffold with their brushes: every step of the triumphal progress of the +Beauty of the Sea must be depicted for posterity in paint or sculpture. +And so full of life was the spirit that dwelt in these stones that new +routes and new seaports, Columbus and Vasco da Gama, were not enough to +crush it. For its destruction the ‘One and Indivisible’ republic had +to rise up on the ruins of the French throne, and on the ruins of that +republic the soldier who in Corsican fashion stabbed the lion with a +stiletto poisoned by Austria. But Venice survived the poison and is alive +again after half a century. + +But is she alive? It is hard to say what has survived except the grand +shell, and whether there is another future for Venice.... And, indeed, +what future can there be for Italy at all? For Venice, perhaps, it lies +in Constantinople, in the free federation of the rising Slav-Hellenic +nationalities, which begins to stand out in vague outlines from the mists +of the East. + +And Italy?... Of that later. Just now there is the carnival in Venice, +the first carnival in freedom after seventy years’ captivity. The Square +has been transformed into the hall of the Parisian Opera. Old Saint Mark +gladly takes his part in the fête with his pictures of saints and his +gilt, with his patriotic flags and his pagan horses. Only the doves who +come at two o’clock every day to the Square to be fed are shy and flutter +from cornice to cornice to convince themselves that this really is their +dining-room in such disorder. + +The crowd keeps growing, _le peuple s’amuse_, plays the fool heartily +with all its might, with great comic talent in declamation and language, +in action and gesticulation, without the spiciness of the Parisian +pierrots, without the vulgar jokes of the German, without our native +filth. The absence of everything indecent surprises one, though the +significance of it is clear. This is the recreation, the diversion, the +playfulness of a whole people, and not the dress-parade of the brothels, +of their _succursales_, whose inmates, while they strip off so much else, +put on a mask, like Bismarck’s needle on a gun, to intensify and make +sure their aim. Here they would be out of place; here the people are +amusing themselves; here their sister, wife and daughter are diverting +themselves, and woe to him who insults a mask. For the time of carnival +the mask is for the woman what the Stanislav ribbon in his buttonhole +used to be for a stationmaster.[55] + +At first the carnival left me in peace, but it kept growing, and with its +elemental force was bound to draw every one in. + +Nothing is too nonsensical to happen when Saint Vitus’ Dance takes hold +of a whole population in fancy dress. Hundreds, perhaps more, of mauve +dominoes were sitting in the big hall of a restaurant; they had sailed +across the Square in a gilt ship drawn by bulls (everything that walks +on dry land and with four legs is a luxury and rarity in Venice), now +they were eating and drinking. One of the guests suggested a curiosity to +entertain them, and undertook to obtain it; that curiosity was myself. + +The gentleman, who scarcely knew me, ran to me at the Albergo Danieli, +and begged and besought me to go with him for a minute to the +masqueraders. It was silly to go, it was silly to make a fuss. I went, I +was greeted with ‘_Evviva!_’ and full glasses. I bowed in all directions +and talked nonsense, the ‘_Evvivas_’ were more hearty than ever; some +shouted: ‘_Evviva el amico de Garibaldi_,’ others drank to the _poeta +Russo_! Afraid that the mauve masks would drink to me as the _pittore +Slavo scultore i maestro_, I beat a retreat to the Piazza San Marco. + +In the Square there was a thick wall of people. I leaned against a +pilaster, proud of the title of poet; beside me stood my conductor who +had carried out the dominoes’ _mandat d’amener_. ‘My God, how lovely she +is!’ broke from my lips as a very young lady made her way through the +crowd. My guide without a word seized me and at once set me before her. +‘This is that Russian,’ my Polish count began. ‘Will you give me your +hand after that word?’ I interrupted. Smiling, she held out her hand and +said in Russian that she had long wanted to see me, and glanced at me so +sympathetically that I pressed her hand once more and followed her with +my eyes so long as she was in sight. + +‘A blossom, torn by the hurricane, carried by the tide of blood from her +Lithuanian fields!’ I thought, looking after her. ‘Your beauty shines for +strangers now.’ + +I left the Square and went to meet Garibaldi. On the water everything +was still ... the noise of the carnival came in discordant snatches. +The stern, frowning blocks of the houses pressed closer and closer upon +the boat, peeped at it with their lanterns; at an entry the rudder +splashes, the steel hook gleams, the gondolier shouts: ‘_Apri—sia +stati_’ ... and again the water flows quietly in a side-street, and all +at once the houses move apart, we are in the Grand Canal.... ‘_Ferrovia +Signore_,’ says the gondolier, lisping, as all the town does. Garibaldi +had not arrived, he was still at Bologna. The engine that was going to +Florence moaned, awaiting the whistle. ‘I had better go too,’ I thought; +‘to-morrow I shall be tired of the masks. To-morrow I shall not see my +Slav beauty.’ + +The city gave Garibaldi a brilliant reception. The Grand Canal was almost +transformed into a single bridge; to get into our boat we had to step +across dozens of others. The Government and its retainers did everything +possible to show that they were sulky with Garibaldi. If Prince Amadeus +had been commanded by his father to show all those petty indelicacies, +all that vulgar resentment, how was it the Italian boy’s heart did not +speak, how was it that he did not for the moment reconcile the city with +the king and the king’s son with his conscience? Why, Garibaldi had +bestowed the crowns of the two Sicilies upon them. + +I found Garibaldi neither ill nor any older since our meeting in London +in 1864. But he was depressed, worried, and not ready to talk with the +Venetians who were presented to him next day. The masses of the common +people were his real followers; he grew more lively in Chioggia, where +boatmen and fishermen were waiting for him. Mingling with the crowd, he +said to those poor and simple people: ‘How happy and at home I am with +you, how deeply I feel that I was born a working man and have been a +working man; the misfortunes of our country tore me away from peaceful +work. I too grew up on the sea-coast and know all about your work....’ +A murmur of delight drowned the former boatman’s words, the people +surged about him. ‘Give a name to my new-born child,’ cried a woman. +‘Bless mine.’ ‘And mine,’ shouted the others. You valiant general, La +Marmora,[56] and you inconsolable widower, Ricasoli,[57] with all your +Cialdinis[58] and Depretises,[59] you may as well give up your efforts to +destroy that bond; it is tied by peasant working hands, and with a cord +which you can never break with the help of all the Tuscan and Sardinian +hirelings, of all your halfpenny Machiavellis. + +Let us return to the question: what then lies before Italy, what future +awaits her now that she is renewed, united, independent? Is it the future +preached by Mazzini, or that to which Garibaldi is leading her, or +perhaps that which Cavour has created? + +This question at once leads us far away, into all the difficulties of the +most painful and most disputed subjects. It touches directly upon those +inner convictions which lie at the foundations of our life, and upon that +conflict which so often divides us from our friends and sometimes sets us +on the same side as our opponents. + +I doubt of the _future of the Latin peoples_. I doubt their fertility +in the future; they like the process of revolutions, but are bored by +progress when they have attained it. They love to move headlong towards +it without reaching it. + +The ideal of Italian emancipation is poor. On the one hand, it lacks the +essential element that makes for life, and unhappily, on the other hand, +retains the old dying and dead element that makes for decay. The Italian +revolution has been hitherto the struggle for independence. + +Of course, if the terrestrial globe does not crack, if a comet does not +come too close and overheat our atmosphere, Italy in the future too +will be Italy, the land of the blue sky and the blue sea, of graceful +outlines, of a lovely, attractive race of people, musical and artistic +by nature. Of course, the changes in military and civilian government, +and victory and defeat, and fallen frontiers, and rising assemblies will +all be reflected in her life; she will change (and is changing) from +clerical despotism to bourgeois parliamentarianism, from a cheap mode of +living to an expensive one, from discomfort to comfort, and so on, and so +on. But that is not much, and it does not take one far. There is another +fine country whose shores are washed by the same blue sea, a fine race, +valiant and stern, living beyond the Pyrenees; it has no internal enemy, +it has an assembly, it has external unity ... but with all that, what is +Spain? + +Nations are of strong vitality; they can lie fallow for ages, and again +under favourable circumstances show themselves full of sap and vigour. +But do they rise up the same as they were? + +How many centuries, I had almost said thousands of years, was the Greek +people wiped off the face of the earth as a nation, and still it remained +alive, and at the moment when the whole of Europe was stifling in the +fumes of Reaction, Greece awoke and stirred the whole world. But were the +Greeks of Capo d’Istrias[60] like the Greeks of Pericles or the Greeks +of Byzantium? All that was left of them was the name and a remote memory. +Italy too may be renewed, but then she will have to begin a new history. +Her emancipation is no more than her right to existence. + +The example of Greece is very apt; it is so far away from us that +it awakens less passion. The Greece of Athens, of Macedon, deprived +of independence by Rome, appears again politically independent in +the Byzantine period. What does she create in it? Nothing, or worse +than nothing: theological controversy, seraglio revolutions _par +anticipation_. The Turks come to the help of backward nature and give +the glow of conflagration to her death by violence. Ancient Greece _had +lived out her life_ when the Roman empire covered and preserved her as +the lava and ashes of the volcano preserved Pompeii and Herculaneum. The +Byzantine period only lifted the coffin-lid, and the dead remained dead, +controlled by popes and monks as every tomb is, ordered about by eunuchs +who were quite in place as types of barrenness. Who does not know the +tales of crusaders in Byzantium? Incomparably inferior in culture, in +refinement of manners, these savage warriors, these rude swashbucklers, +were yet full of strength, daring, force; they were advancing, the _god +of history_ was with them. To him, men are precious, not for their good +qualities but for their sturdy vigour and for their coming upon the stage +_à propos_. That is why as we read the tedious chronicles we rejoice when +the Varangians sweep down from their northern snows, or the Slavs float +down in cockle-shells and brand with their shields the proud walls of +Byzantium. As a schoolboy, I was overjoyed at the savage in his shirt[61] +paddling his canoe and going with a gold earring in his ear to an +interview with the effeminate, luxurious, scholastic Emperor,[62] John +Zimisces. + +Think a little about Byzantium. Until our Slavophils have brought out +another new chronicle adorned with old ikon paintings, and until it has +received the sanction of Government, Byzantium will explain a great deal +of what it is hard to put into words. + +Byzantium could _live_, but there was nothing for her to _do_; and +nations in general only take a place in history while they are on the +stage, that is while they are doing something. + +I remember I have mentioned already the answer Thomas Carlyle gave to me +when I spoke to him of the severities of the Parisian censorship. ‘But +why are you so angry with it?’ he said. ‘In compelling the French to keep +quiet, Napoleon has done them the greatest service. They have nothing to +say, but they want to talk.... Napoleon has given them a justification +in their own eyes....’ I do not say how far I agree with Carlyle, but I +do ask myself: Will the Italians have anything to say and do on the day +after the taking of Rome? + +And sometimes, without finding an answer, I begin to hope that Rome may +remain a long time their living desideratum. + +Till Rome is taken, everything will go fairly well; there will be energy +and strength enough, if only there is money enough.... Till then, +Italy will put up with a great deal: taxes and the yoke of Piedmont +and the pillaging administration and the quarrelsome and vexatious +bureaucracy; while waiting for Rome, everything seems unimportant. To +gain it, her people may be cramped, they must stand together. Rome is the +boundary-line, the flag; it is always before their eyes, it prevents +their sleeping, it prevents their attending to business, it keeps up the +fever. In Rome all will be changed, everything will snap.... There, they +fancy, is the end, the crown; not at all ... there is the beginning. + +Nations that are redeeming their independence never know (and it is a +very good thing too) that independence of itself gives them nothing +except the rights of mature age, except a place among their peers, except +the recognition of their rights as citizens to act for themselves, and +that is all. + +What acts will be announced to us from the heights of the Capitol and the +Quirinal? What will be proclaimed to the world from the forum or from the +balcony, where for ages the Pope has blessed the ‘Universe and the City’? + +To proclaim ‘independence’ _sans phrase_ is not enough. But there is +nothing else.... And at times it seems to me that on the day when +Garibaldi flings aside his sword, no longer needed, and puts the _toga +virilis_ on the shoulders of Italy, there will be nothing left for him +to do but publicly to embrace his _maestro_ Mazzini on the banks of the +Tiber and to repeat with him: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart +in peace!’ + +I say this for them and not against them. + +Their future is secured, their two names will stand high and radiant +throughout all Italy, from Fiume to Messina, and will be more and more +exalted throughout all gloomy Europe as her people grow pettier and the +general level sinks. + +But I doubt whether Italy will follow the programme of the great +_carbonaro_ and the great warrior. Their religion has worked miracles; it +has awakened thought, it has lifted the sword, it has been the trumpet +awakening the sleepers, the standard under which Italy has conquered +herself.... Half of Mazzini’s ideal has been accomplished, precisely +because the other half lay far beyond the possible. That Mazzini now +has grown weaker shows his success and greatness; he is the poorer for +that part of his ideal which has passed into reality, it is the weakness +after giving birth. In sight of the shore Columbus had but to float, and +had no need to use all the might of his invincible spirit. We have had +experiences something like it in our circle.... Where now is the force +given to our words in the past by our struggle against serfdom, against +the lack of all justice, of all freedom of speech? + +Rome is Mazzini’s America ... there are no more elements strong enough to +survive in his programme, it has been based on the struggle for unity and +for Rome. + +‘And the democratic republic?’ + +That is the great reward beyond the grave, with the hope of which men +have advanced into action and achievement, and in which the prophets and +martyrs have fervently and earnestly believed. + +Even now it is the goal of a handful of resolute old men, the veteran +followers of Mazzini, the undaunted, unyielding, incorruptible, untiring +masons who have laid the foundations of the new Italy and when they had +not cement enough gave their blood for it. But are there many of them? +And who will follow them? + +While the threefold yoke of the German, the Bourbon and the Pope weighed +on the neck of Italy, these vigorous soldier-monks of the Order of Saint +Mazzini found sympathy everywhere. _Principessi_ and students, jewellers +and doctors, actors and priests, artists and lawyers, the more educated +of the petty bourgeois, the more awakened of the workmen, officers +and soldiers—all, secretly or openly, were with them and working for +them. A republic was the aim of few, independence and unity the aim of +all; independence they have gained, unity after the French fashion is +detestable to them, they do not want a republic. The present _régime_ is +in many ways just what fits the Italians; they have a longing to present +‘a strong and majestic figure’ in the councils of European states, and +finding this _bella e grande figura_ in Victor Emmanuel they cling to +him.[63] + +The representative system in its continental development really answers +best of all when there is nothing clear in the mind and nothing possible +in action. It is a great stop-gap, which rubs corners and extremes off +both sides and gains time. Part of Europe has passed through this mill, +the other parts will pass through it, and we sinners among them. What +about Egypt? Why, that too has ridden on camels into the representative +mill, urged on by the whip. + +I do not blame the majority, ill-prepared, weary and cowardly, still less +the masses, so long left to the teaching of priests; I do not blame the +Government even—and indeed, how can it be blamed for its stupidity, its +ignorance, its lack of impulse, of poetry, of tact? It was born in the +Carignano Palace[64] among rusty Gothic swords, old-fashioned powdered +wigs, and the starched etiquette of little courts with vast pretensions. + +It has not inspired love—quite the contrary; but it is none the weaker +for that. I was surprised in 1863 to see the general dislike of the +Government in Naples. In 1867, in Venice, I saw without the slightest +surprise that three months after their deliverance the people could not +endure the Government, but at the same time I saw even more clearly that +it had nothing to be afraid of unless it committed a series of colossal +blunders, though it gets over these, too, with extraordinary ease. There +is an example before my eyes. I will describe it in a few lines. + +To the various jests with which Governments sometimes deign to throw +dust in their people’s eyes, such as the ‘_Prisonniers de la paix_’ +of Louis-Philippe, and ‘Empire is Peace’ of Louis Napoleon, Ricasoli +added one of his own, calling the law which secured the greater part of +the property of the clergy the law of ‘the freedom of the Church in a +Free State.’ All the immature followers of liberalism, all the people +who read no further than a title, rejoiced. The Ministry, concealing a +smile, triumphed in their victory; the trick was obviously profitable to +the clergy. The Belgian publican and sinner[65] behind whom the Jesuit +fathers hid themselves turned up. He brought with him piles of gold, the +colour of which had not been seen for a long time in Italy, and offered +the Government a large sum to secure for the clergy the lawful possession +of the estates wrung out in the confessional, gained from dying sinners +and from the poor in spirit generally. + +The Government saw only one thing—the money; the fools saw something +else—_American_ freedom of the Church in a Free state. It is the fashion +nowadays to measure European institutions by the American standard. The +Duc de Persigny finds a striking similarity between the Second Empire and +the First Republic of our day. + +However artful Ricasoli and Cialdini were, the Chamber of Deputies, +though very mixed and mediocre in its composition, began to grasp that +the dice were loaded, and loaded without their assistance. The banker +played the _impresario_ and tried to buy Italian voices, but it was +February and the Chamber was hoarse. In Naples there were murmurs, in +Venice a meeting was called in the Malibran Theatre to protest. Ricasoli +ordered the theatre to be closed and put sentries to guard it. There +is no doubt that of all possible blunders nothing more foolish could +have been thought of. Venice, which had only just been set free, wanted +to enjoy its right of opposition and was handicapped by the police. +To assemble in order to fête the King and offer bouquets _al gran +comandatore La Marmora_ means nothing. If the Venetians had wanted to +assemble in honour of the Austrian archdukes, they would, of course, +have been permitted. There was absolutely no danger in a meeting in the +Malibran Theatre. + +The Chamber woke up and asked for an explanation. Ricasoli gave a haughty +and arrogant answer, as was befitting to the last representative of Raoul +Barbe-Bleue, a mediaeval Count and feudal Lord. The Chamber, convinced +that the Ministry did not desire to limit the ‘right of public meeting,’ +would have passed on to the order of the day. Barbe-Bleue, already +enraged that his law of the freedom of the Church, of which he had been +certain, was beginning to be curtailed in committees, announced that he +could not accept the _ordre du jour motivé_. The offended Chamber voted +against him. For such insolence he suspended the Chamber on the next +day, on the third dissolved it, and on the fourth was thinking of still +harsher measures, but, I was told, Cialdini informed the King that he +could not rely upon the troops. + +There have been instances of blundering Governments seeking a sensible +pretext for doing something nasty or for covering it, but these worthies +sought the most absurd pretext to prove their own defeat. If the +Government goes further and more conspicuously along this road, it may +break its neck. One can foresee and reckon upon only what is to some +extent subject to reason. There is no limit to what senselessness may do, +though there is almost always some Cialdini at hand to pour cold water on +the heated head. + +And if Italy puts up with this _régime_ and grows inured to it, she will +not endure it with impunity. It is hard for a people _less experienced_ +than the French to digest such a fantastic world of lies and empty words, +of phrases without meaning. In France nothing exists in reality, but +everything is for appearance and show; like an old man sunk into second +childhood, she is taken up with playthings; at times she guesses that her +horses are only wooden ones, but she wants to deceive herself. + +Italy will not be able to deal with these shadows of a Chinese lantern: +with this moonlight independence that is illuminated on three of its +four sides by the sun of the Tuileries; with a despised and hated +Church, waited upon like an aged grandmother in expectation of her +speedy demise. The potato-yeast of parliamentarianism and the rhetoric +of the Chambers will not provide wholesome food for an Italian. He will +be stunned and driven out of his mind by this pretence of nourishment +and unreal struggle. And there is nothing else being prepared for him. +What is to be done? Where is the solution? I do not know. Perhaps, after +proclaiming the unity of Italy in Rome, her dissolution into independent +self-governing parts, loosely connected together, may be proclaimed, and +that may be the solution. More development might be possible (if there is +anything to develop) in a dozen living units, and the solution would be +quite in the spirit of Italy. + +In the midst of these reflections I happened to come across Quinet’s +pamphlet, _France and Germany_. I was immensely pleased with it—not that +I specially rely upon the judgments of the celebrated historical thinker, +though I have a great respect for him personally, but I rejoiced not on +my own account. + +In old days in Petersburg a friend noted for his humour, finding on my +table a book of the Berlin Michelet, _On the Immortality of the Soul_, +left me a note as follows: ‘Dear friend, when you have read the book, do +be so good as to tell me briefly whether the soul is immortal or not. +It does not matter for me, but I should like to know for the comfort of +relations.’ + +Well, it is for the sake of relations that I am glad I have come upon +Quinet. In spite of the conceited attitude many of them have taken up in +regard to European authorities, our friends still pay more attention to +them than to any of their own kin. That is why I try when I can to put my +own thought in the charge of a European nurse. Clinging to Proudhon, I +said that not Catiline but death was at the doors of France; hanging on +to the skirts of Stuart Mill, I repeated what he said about the Chinese +character of the English; and I am very glad that I can take Quinet by +the hand and say: ‘Here my honoured friend Quinet says in 1867 about +Latin Europe what I said about it in 1847 and all the following years.’ + +Quinet sees with horror and sadness the degradation of France, the +softening of her brain, her growing pettiness. He does not understand the +cause; he seeks it in her estrangement from the principles of 1789 and in +the loss of political liberty, and so through his grief there is a gleam +in his words of the hidden hope of recovery by a return to a genuine +parliamentary _régime_, to the great principles of the Revolution. + +Quinet does not observe that the great principles of which he speaks, +and the political ideas of the Latin world generally, have lost their +virtue, their spring has been overstrained and has almost snapped. _Les +principes du 1789_ were not mere words, but now they have become mere +words, like the liturgy and the prayers. Their service has been immense: +by them, through them, France has accomplished her revolution, she has +drawn up the curtain of the future and has sprung back in horror. + +A dilemma has arisen. + +Either free institutions will again touch the sacred curtain, or there +will be government control, external order and internal slavery. + +If in the life of the peoples of Europe there had been a single aim, a +single tendency, one solution or the other would have gained the upper +hand long ago. But as the history of Western Europe is constituted, it +leads to everlasting struggle. The underlying fundamental fact that its +culture is of twofold nature forms the organic obstacle to consistent +development. To live in two civilisations, on two levels, in two worlds, +at two stages of development, to live not with a whole organism but with +one part of it, while employing the other for the hewing of wood and the +drawing of water, and to keep talking about liberty and equality, is +becoming more and more difficult. + +Attempts to reach a more harmonious, better-balanced system have not +been successful. But if they have failed in any given place, that +rather proves the unsuitability of the place than the faultiness of the +principle. + +The whole gist of the matter lies in that. + +The States of North America with their unity of civilisation will easily +outstrip Europe; their position is simpler. The standard of their +civilisation is lower than that of Western Europe, but they have _one_ +standard and all reach it: that is their tremendous strength. + +Twenty years ago France burst like a Titan into another life, struggling +in the dark without plan or understanding and with no knowledge except of +her insufferable agony. She has been beaten ‘by order and civilisation,’ +but it was the victor who retreated. The bourgeoisie have had to pay for +their melancholy victory with all they had gained by ages of effort, of +sacrifice, of wars and revolutions, with the best fruits of their culture. + +The centres of force, the paths of development—all have changed; the +hidden activity and suppressed work of social reconstruction have passed +to other lands beyond the borders of France. + +As soon as the Germans were convinced that the French tide had ebbed, +that its terrible revolutionary ideas were old and feeble, that there was +no need to fear her, the Prussian helmet appeared behind the walls of the +fortresses on the Rhine. + +France still drew back, the helmets became more and more conspicuous. +Bismarck has never thought much of his own people, he has kept his ears +cocked towards France, he has sniffed the air coming that way, and, +convinced of the permanent degradation of that country, he saw that +Prussia’s day was at hand. He ordered Moltke to make a plan, he ordered +the munition factories to make needles for the guns, and systematically, +with German unceremonious coarseness, gathered the ripe German pears and +threw them into the apron of the ridiculous Friedrich Wilhelm, assuring +him that he was a hero by the especial grace of the Lutheran god. + +I do not believe that the destinies of the world will remain for long +in the hands of the Germans and the Hohenzollerns. It is impossible, it +is contrary to the good sense of humanity, contrary to the aesthetics +of history. I say, as Kent to Lear, only the other way about: ‘In you, +oh Prussia, there is nothing of that I could call a king.’ But all the +same, Prussia has thrust France into the background and herself taken +the front seat. But all the same, painting the parti-coloured rags of the +German fatherland all one colour, she will lay down the law to Europe +so long as her laws are laid down by the bayonet and carried out by +grapeshot, for the very simple reason that she has more bayonets and more +grapeshot. + +Behind the Prussian wave there will arise another that will not trouble +itself much whether the old men with their classical principles like it +or not. England craftily preserves the appearance of strength, standing +on one side, as though proud of her apparent aloofness.... She has felt +deep within her the same social sore that she healed so easily in 1848 +with policemen’s staves, but the pains of birth are growing stronger ... +and she is drawing in her far-reaching tentacles to meet the conflict at +home. + +France, amazed, embarrassed by the change of her position, threatens +to fight not Prussia but Italy, if the latter touches the temporal +possessions of the eternal father, and she collects money for a monument +to Voltaire. + +Will the ear-splitting Prussian trumpet of the _last_ judgment by battle +rouse Latin Europe? Will the approach of the learned barbarians awaken +her? + +_Chi lo sa._ + +I reached Genoa with some Americans who had only just crossed the +ocean. They were impressed by Genoa. Everything they had read about +the Old World in books they saw now face to face, and they were never +tired of gazing at the precipitous, narrow, black, mediaeval streets, +the extraordinary height of the houses, the half-broken arches, the +fortresses, and so on. + +We went into the hall of a palace. A cry of delight broke from one of +the Americans: ‘How these people did live! How they did live! What +proportions, what elegance! No, you will find nothing like it among +us.’ And he was ready to blush for his America. We glanced inside an +immense drawing-room. The portraits of former owners, the pictures, the +faded walls, the old furniture, the old heraldic crests, the stagnant +atmosphere, the emptiness, and the old custodian in a black knitted +cap and a threadbare black coat carrying a bunch of keys ... all said +as plainly as words that this was not a house but a curiosity, a +sarcophagus, a sumptuous relic of past life. + +‘Yes,’ I said to the Americans as we went out, ‘you are perfectly right, +these people _did_ live well.’ + + _March 1867._ + + + + +LA BELLE FRANCE + + ‘_Ah! que j’ai douce souvenance_ + _De ce beau pays de France!_’ + + +1 + +ANTE PORTAS + +France was closed to me. A year after my arrival in Nice, in the summer +of 1851, I wrote a letter to Léon Faucher, then Minister of the Interior, +and asked his permission to visit Paris for a few days. ‘I have a house +in Paris and I must look after it,’ I said. A genuine economist could not +but yield to this argument, and I received permission to stay in Paris +‘for a very brief time.’ + +In 1852 I asked for the privilege of travelling through France to +England: it was refused. In 1856 I wanted to return from England to +Switzerland, and again asked for a _visa_; it was refused. I wrote to the +Freiburg _Conseil d’État_ that I was cut off from Switzerland, and should +have to travel by stealth, or come through the Straits of Gibraltar, +or across Germany, which would most likely land me in the Peter-Paul +Fortress and not in Freiburg. On which grounds I begged the _Conseil +d’État_ to apply to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and ask for +leave for me to pass through France. The Consul answered me on the 19th +of October 1856 with the following letter:— + + ‘DEAR SIR,—In accordance with your desire, we charged the Swiss + Minister in Paris to take the necessary steps to obtain for + you an authorisation to pass through France on your way back + to Switzerland. We forward you a copy of the answer received + by the Swiss Minister: “M. Walewski has been obliged upon this + subject to consult his colleague, the Minister of the Interior; + considerations of _special importance_, so the Minister of the + Interior has informed him, compelled the latter to refuse M. + Herzen the right of passing through France last August, and he + cannot revise his decision, etc., etc.”’ + +I had nothing in common with the French exiles except simple +acquaintanceship; I had not taken part in any conspiracy or any society, +and was at the time exclusively engaged in Russian propaganda. All this +the French police—the one omniscient, the one national, and therefore the +one infinitely powerful police—knew perfectly. They were angry with me +for my articles and my connections. + +Of this anger it cannot but be said that it went beyond all bounds. In +1859 I went for a few days to Brussels with my son. Neither at Ostend +nor at Brussels was my passport asked for on arrival. Six days later, +when I came back in the evening to the hotel, the waiter as he handed me +a candle said to me that they had sent from the police for my passport. +‘They have thought of it in time,’ I observed. The man went with me to +my room and took the passport. I had no sooner got into bed, between +twelve and one, when there was a knock at the door; the same waiter +appeared again with a big envelope. ‘The Minister of Justice begs that M. +Herzen will present himself at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning at the +_Département de la Sûreté Publique_.’ + +‘And you come and wake people up at night for that?’ + +‘They are waiting for an answer.’ + +‘Who?’ + +‘Some one from the police.’ + +‘Well, say that I will come, but say, too, that it is stupid to bring +invitations after midnight.’ + +Then like Nulin[66] I put out my candle. + +At eight o’clock next morning a knock at the door again. It was not +difficult to guess that this was all the foolery of Belgian justice. +‘_Entrez!_’ + +In walked a gentleman, excessively spick and span, in a very new hat and +a fresh-looking black coat, with a long watch-chain, thick and apparently +gold, and so on. + +Not fully dressed—indeed, only partially clad—I presented the strangest +contrast to a man who was obliged to be dressed so scrupulously from +seven o’clock in the morning that he might be mistaken for an honest man. +The advantage was certainly on his side. + +‘I have the honour to be speaking _avec M. Herzen père_?’ + +‘_C’est selon_; as you look at it. On the one hand I am a father, on the +other I am a son.’ + +That greatly diverted the spy. + +‘I have come to you....’ + +‘Excuse me—to tell me that the Minister of Justice summons me at eleven +o’clock to his department?’ + +‘Just so.’ + +‘Why does the Minister trouble you, and so early in the morning too? +Is not it enough for him to disturb me so late at night, sending that +envelope?’ + +‘So you will be there?’ + +‘Without fail.’ + +‘You know the way?’ + +‘Why? Have you been told to accompany me?’ + +‘Upon my word, _quelle idée_!’ + +‘And so....’ + +‘I wish you good day.’ + +‘Good morning.’ + +At eleven o’clock I was sitting with the head of the Belgian Public +Security Department. + +He was holding some sort of a manuscript book and my passport. + +‘You must excuse me for our having troubled you, but you see there are +two little circumstances here: in the first place, your passport is +Swiss, while ...’ with police penetration, to test me, he fixed his eyes +upon me. + +‘While I am a Russian,’ I added. + +‘Yes. I must confess that has struck us as strange.’ + +‘Why? Have you no law of naturalisation in Belgium?’ + +‘And you...?’ + +‘I was naturalised ten years ago at Morat of the Canton of Freiburg in +the village of Châtel.’ + +‘Of course, _if that is so_, in that case I do not venture to doubt ... +we will pass to the second difficulty. Three years ago you asked for +permission to visit Brussels and received a refusal....’ + +‘_Mille pardons_, that did not happen and could not have happened. What +should I have thought of _free_ Belgium, if, though never banished from +her, I could doubt my right to visit Brussels?’ + +The head of the Department of Public Security was a little embarrassed. + +‘However, here it is ...’ and he opened the manuscript book. + +‘It seems that not everything in it is correct. Here you did not know, +for instance, that I was naturalised in Switzerland.’ + +‘To be sure. The Consul, M. Delpierre....’ + +‘Don’t disturb yourself, I will tell you the rest. I asked your Consul in +London whether I could move the Russian printing-press to Brussels—that +is, whether the press would be left alone if I did not interfere in +Belgian affairs, which I had no inclination whatever to do, _as you +will readily believe_. M. Delpierre asked the Minister. The Minister +asked him to dissuade me from my plan of moving the printing-press. Your +Consul was ashamed to communicate the Minister’s answer by letter, and +he asked Louis Blanc, as an acquaintance of both of us, to give me this +message. Thanking Louis Blanc, I asked him to reassure M. Delpierre +and to tell him that I had with great fortitude received the news that +my printing-press would not be allowed to enter Brussels, but “if,” +I added, “the Consul had had to inform me of the opposite—that is, +that my printing-press and I would never to all eternity be allowed to +leave Brussels—I might not have had the courage to bear it.” You see, I +remember all the circumstances very well.’ + +The guardian of public security cleared his throat a little, and reading +the manuscript book observed: ‘It really is so; I had not noticed the +mention of the printing-press. However, I imagine that you must in any +case obtain permission from the Minister; otherwise, much as we shall +regret it, we shall be forced to ask you....’ + +‘I am going to-morrow.’ + +‘Oh dear no, no one insists on such haste; you may remain a week, a +fortnight. We are speaking of permanent residence.... I am almost certain +that the Minister will sanction it.’ + +‘I may ask his sanction for some future occasion, but now I have not the +slightest desire to remain longer in Brussels.’ + +There the affair ended. ‘I forgot one thing in the confusion of our +explanation,’ the apprehensive guardian of public security said to me, +‘we are a small people, we are a small people, that’s our trouble, _il y +a des égards_....’ He was ashamed. + +Two years later my younger daughter, who was living in Paris, was taken +ill. Again I asked for a _visa_, and again Persigny refused it. Just at +that time Count Branicki was in London. Dining with him, I told him of +the refusal. ‘Write a letter to Prince Napoleon,’ said Branicki, ‘I’ll +see that he gets it.’ + +‘I have no grounds for writing to the Prince.’ + +‘That is true. Write to the Emperor. To-morrow I am going, and the day +after to-morrow your letter shall be in his hands.’ + +‘That is very soon, let me consider it.’ + +On reaching home I wrote the following letter:— + + ‘SIRE,—More than ten years ago I was compelled to leave + France by ministerial order. Since then I have twice received + permission to visit Paris.[67] + + ‘Of late I have been steadily refused the privilege of visiting + France, though one of my daughters is being educated in Paris + and I own a house there. I venture to apply directly to your + Imperial Majesty with a request for permission to visit France + and to remain in Paris for the time necessary for my business, + and I shall await your decision with confidence and respect. + + ‘In any case, Sire, I give you my word that my desire to + visit France has no political motive.—I remain, with profound + respect, Your Majesty’s obedient servant, + + ‘ALEXANDER HERZEN. + + ‘ORSETT HOUSE, WESTBOURNE TERRACE, LONDON.’ + +Branicki thought the letter was curt and would therefore probably not +attain its object. I told him that I should not write another letter, and +that if he cared to do me a service he might deliver it, but that if on +reflection he had changed his mind he could throw it in the fire. This +conversation took place at the railway station; he went off. + +Four days later I received the following letter from the French Embassy:— + + ‘PARIS, _June 3, 1861_, OFFICE OF + PREFECT OF POLICE, BUREAU ONE. + + ‘DEAR SIR,—By command of the Emperor I have the honour to + inform you that His Imperial Majesty sanctions your visit to + France and your sojourn in Paris on every occasion when your + business requires it, as you have requested in your letter of + May 31st. + + ‘You can consequently travel freely throughout the Empire, + observing the accepted formalities.—Receive sir, etc., Prefect + of Police.’ + +Then a signature written eccentrically slanting, impossible to decipher, +and like anything rather than the name Boitelle. + +The same day came a letter from Branicki. Prince Napoleon sent him the +following letter from the Emperor:— + + ‘DEAR NAPOLEON,—This is to inform you that I have just + sanctioned the entrance of Monsieur[68] Herzen into France and + have ordered him to be given a passport.’ + +After this ‘Lift up!’ the _Schlagbaum_, which had been down for eleven +years, was raised, and a month later I set off for Paris. + + +2 + +INTRA MUROS + +‘Ma-ame Erstin!’ a gloomy gendarme with enormous moustaches shouted at +Calais at the barrier through which travellers who have only just landed +from the Dover steamer and been driven by the Customs House and other +overseers into the stone-built barn have to pass one by one into France. +The travellers went up, the gendarme served out the passports, the police +commissioner questioned with his eyes and, where necessary, with his +tongue, and the traveller, approved and found innocuous to the Empire, +vanished behind the barrier. + +This time no traveller moved forward at the gendarme’s shout. + +‘Ma-ame Ogly Erstin!’ the gendarme shouted, raising his voice and waving +a passport. + +No one answered. + +‘Why, is there no one of the name?’ shouted the gendarme, and looking at +the passport, added: ‘Mam’zelle Ogly Erstin.’ + +Only then a little girl of ten, namely my daughter Olga, conjectured +that the guardian of order was calling her with this ferocity. ‘_Avancez +donc, prenez vos papiers!_’ the gendarme commanded savagely. Olga took +her passport, and huddling up to Malwide von Meysenbug, asked her in a +whisper: ‘_Est-ce que c’est l’Empereur?_’ + +That happened to her in 1860, but something worse happened to me a +year later, and not at the barrier at Calais, which no longer exists, +but everywhere: in a railway carriage, in the street, in Paris, in the +provinces, in my home, in my dreams, in waking life, everywhere I saw +before me the Emperor, with long moustaches waxed to a thread, with +eyes that did not see and a mouth that did not speak. Not only the +gendarmes, who are to a certain extent emperors from their position, but +the soldiers, the shop-boys, the waiters, and especially the conductors +on trains and omnibuses, looked to me like Napoleons. It was only here +in Paris in 1861, before the Hôtel de Ville, before which I had stood +in respect in 1847, before Notre Dame, the Champs-Élysées and the +Boulevards, that I grasped the meaning of the psalm in which King David +with flattering despair complains to Jehovah that he cannot get away +from Him, cannot escape Him: ‘I go into the water,’ he says, ‘thou art +there; into the earth, thou art there; into the sky, and of course thou +art there also.’ If I went to dine at the Maison d’Or, Napoleon in one of +his incarnations was dining the other side of the table and asking for +truffles _à la serviette_; if I went to the theatre, one would be sitting +in the same row and one would walk on to the stage. If I ran away from +him out of town, he followed on my heels beyond the Bois de Boulogne in a +closely buttoned coat and moustaches with stiffly waxed points. Where was +he not? At the ball in Mabille? At mass in the Madeleine? He was sure to +be at both. + +_La révolution s’est faite homme._ ‘The revolution is embodied in a man,’ +was one of the favourite phrases of the doctrinaire jargon of the days +of Thiers and the liberal historians of the Louis-Philippe period; but +this is rather more cunning: the revolution and the reaction, order and +disorder, the van and the rear, are incarnate in one man, and that man in +his turn is reincarnated in the whole administration, from the ministers +to the rural constables, from the senators to the village mayors, is +scattered in the infantry and afloat in the navy. + +This man is not a prophet, not a poet, not a conqueror, not an +eccentricity, not a genius, not a man of talent; but a cold, silent, +surly, plain, prudent, persistent, prosaic ‘middle-aged gentleman, +neither fat nor thin’[69]—_le bourgeois_ of bourgeois France, _l’homme +du destin, le neveu du grand homme_, the plebeian. He obliterates, he +concentrates in himself, all the prominent aspects of the national +character, all the tendencies of the people, as the topmost peak of a +mountain or a pyramid ends in nothing. + +In 1849 and in 1850 I had not grasped the significance of Napoleon +III. Carried away by democratic rhetoric, I did not appreciate him. +The year 1861 was one of the very best for the Empire, everything was +going well. Everything had reached equilibrium, was reconciled with and +submissive to the new _régime_. There was precisely enough opposition +and daring thought to give shadow and some spiciness to the mixture. +Laboulaye[70] very cleverly praised New York to the disadvantage of +Paris, Prévost-Paradol[71] Austria to the disadvantage of France. +Anonymous hints were made with regard to the Mirès case.[72] People were +quietly allowed to abuse the Pope and show some slight sympathy for the +Polish movement. There were circles who met together to display their +_frondeur_ spirit, as we used to meet in the ’forties in Moscow at the +house of some old friend. They even had their dissatisfied celebrities, +rather after the fashion of our Yermolov, but turned civilian, such +as Guizot. All the rest had been beaten flat by the storm. And no one +complained, they even liked the repose of it, as people like the first +week of Lent with its horse-radish and cabbage after the seven days of +feasting and drinking in Carnival. Those who did not like lenten fare +were hard to find; they had vanished for shorter or longer periods, and +would come back with taste corrected from Lambessa or from the Mazas +prison. The police, _la grande police_ which had replaced _la grande +armée_, was everywhere at all times. Literary style was all at a dead +level—wretched boatmen floating calmly in wretched boats over the once +stormy sea. The inanity of the plays produced on every stage induced +heavy sleep at night, which was maintained in the morning by the futility +of the newspapers. Journalism in the former sense of the word did not +exist. The leading papers stood not for views but for commercial firms. +After the leading articles of London papers, written in condensed, +sensible language, with ‘nerve,’ as the French say, and ‘muscles,’ one +simply cannot read the Paris _premiers_. Rhetorical flourishes, faded +and frayed, and the same old, high-flown phrases, made more than absurd, +disgusting, through their obvious contrast with facts, took the place of +subject-matter. Oppressed nationalities were continually being invited +as before to rely upon France; she still remained ‘at the head of the +great movement,’ and was still bringing the world-revolution freedom +and the great principles of 1789. Opposition took its stand under the +banner of Buonapartism. These are nuances of precisely the same colour, +and they might all be indicated as sailors indicate the intermediate +winds, N.N.W., N.W.N., N.W.W., W.N.W.... Buonapartism desperate, +furious, moderate; Buonapartism monarchical; Buonapartism republican, +democratic, socialistic; Buonapartism peaceful, military, revolutionary, +conservative; and finally, Buonapartism of the Palais Royal and the +Tuileries.... Late in the evening certain gentlemen run to the newspaper +offices to set the weather-cock of the paper straight, if it should have +turned a little too far to the east or west of the north. They check the +time by the chronometer of the Prefecture, erase and add, and hasten to +bring out the next edition. + +Reading in a café an evening paper which stated that Mirès’ lawyer had +refused to disclose how certain sums had been employed, saying that +‘very highly placed persons’ were involved, I said to a man I knew: ‘But +how is it the prosecutor does not compel him to tell, and how is it the +newspapers do not insist upon it?’ My acquaintance gave a tug to my coat, +cast a glance round, and signalled with his eyes, his hands and his +cane. I had not lived in Petersburg for nothing. I understood him, and +began discussing absinthe and seltzer-water. + +As I came out of the café, I saw a minute man running towards me with +minute arms outspread to embrace me. As he approached I recognised +Darimon. ‘How happy you must be,’ said the deputy of the Left, ‘to be +back in Paris! _Ah, je m’imagine._’ + +‘Not particularly so!’ + +Darimon was petrified. + +‘Well, how are Madame Darimon and your little son, who must be by now +your big son, especially if he does not take after his father?’ + +‘_Toujours le même, ha-ha-ha, très bien_’—and we parted. + +I felt oppressed in Paris, and I only breathed freely when a month later, +through the rain and fog, I saw again the dirty white chalky cliffs of +England. Everything that pinched like narrow shoes under Louis-Philippe +pinched now like fetters on the legs. I had not seen the intermediate +processes by which the new _régime_ had been built up and made secure, +but found it after ten years absolutely complete and established.... +Moreover, I did not recognise Paris; its rebuilt streets, unfinished +palaces, and, worst of all, the people I met were strange to me. This was +not the Paris I had loved and hated, not the city I had longed to reach +from childhood, not the city I had left with a curse on my lips. This was +a Paris that had lost its individuality, had grown indifferent, and was +no longer boiling. A strong hand oppressed it everywhere and was at every +minute ready to tug at the reins—but that was not necessary; Paris had +accepted the Second Empire _tout de bon_, it barely retained the external +habits of older days. The ‘discontented’ had nothing serious and strong +to set up against the Empire. The memories of the republicans of Tacitus +and the vague ideas of the Socialists could not shake the throne of the +Caesars. The _police de surveillance_ did not combat these ‘fantasies’ +seriously, they resented them not as a danger, but as disorderly and +improper. They were more annoyed at the ‘memories’ than at the ‘hopes,’ +they kept a stricter hand over the Orleanists. From time to time the +autocratic police unexpectedly dealt some unjust and brutal blow as a +menacing reminder of its power; it purposely aroused terror over two +quarters of the city for two months, and then retreated again into the +crevices of the Prefecture and the corridors of the Government Offices. + +In reality, all was still. The two most violent protests were not +French. The attempts of Pianori and Orsini were the revenge of Italy, +the revenge of Rome. The Orsini affair, which terrified Napoleon, was +taken as a sufficient excuse for dealing the last blow, the _coup de +grâce_. It succeeded. A country which puts up with Espinasse’s[73] laws +concerning suspected persons has given its pledge. It was necessary to +frighten people, to show that the police would not stick at anything; it +was necessary to destroy all conceptions of human rights and dignity, +to crush men’s minds by injustice, to accustom them to it, and to prove +the power of the authorities by it. When he cleared Paris of suspected +persons, Espinasse ordered the prefects to discover a conspiracy in +_each_ department, to involve in it not less than ten persons known to be +hostile to the Empire, to arrest them and to put them at the disposition +of the Minister. The Minister had the right to send them to Cayenne or +Lambessa without legal proceedings, without rendering account or being +held responsible. The man so exiled was lost, there could be no defence, +no protest; he was not tried, and his only hope lay in the special mercy +of the Emperor. ‘I received these orders,’ the prefect N. said to our +poet Fyodor Tyutchev[74]—‘what was I to do? I racked my brains.... The +position was difficult and unpleasant. At last a happy thought struck me +how to get out of it. I sent for the commissaire of police and said to +him: “Can you at very short notice find me a dozen desperate rascals, +unconvicted thieves and so on?” The commissaire said that nothing would +be easier. “Well then, make up a list; we will arrest them to-night and +send them to the Minister as revolutionaries.”’ + +‘Well, what then?’ asked Tyutchev. + +‘We collected them, and the Minister sent them off to Cayenne, and the +whole department was delighted and thanked me for getting rid of the +rascals so easily,’ added the worthy prefect, laughing. + +The Government tired of the methods of terrorism and violence before +the people and public opinion did. Times of peace, of tranquillity, _de +la sécurité_, followed very shortly. Little by little the lines of care +were smoothed out of the faces of the police; the insolent, provocative +glance of the spy, the ferocious air of the _sergeant de ville_ softened; +the Emperor dreamed of various mild and clever forms of freedom and +decentralisation. Ministers of incorruptible zeal restrained his liberal +ardour. + +From 1861 onwards the doors were open, and I passed several times through +Paris. At first I was in haste to leave it; afterwards that feeling +too died away, and I grew accustomed to a new Paris. I was less angry +with it. It was a different town, huge, unfamiliar. Learning and the +intellectual movement, thrust back beyond the Seine, were not to be seen, +political life was not to be heard. Napoleon had granted his ‘broadened +liberties’; the toothless opposition lifted its bald head and intoned +the old phraseology of the ’forties; the working classes put no faith +in them, kept silent and feebly tried co-operation and association. +Paris was becoming more and more the general European market, in which +everything in the world was crowding and jostling: merchants, singers, +bankers, diplomats, aristocrats, artists of all countries, and masses of +Germans unseen in old days. Taste, tone, expressions—all were changed. A +glittering, oppressive luxury, metallic, golden, costly, succeeded the +aesthetic feeling of old days: in dress and in trifles it was not choice +nor taste that was the boast, but costliness, the power to waste, and +people talked incessantly of profit, of gambling, of posts, of the funds. +The _lorettes_ set the tone for the ladies. The education of women sank +to the level of Italy in the past. + +_L’Empire, l’Empire_ ... that is the evil, that is the trouble.... No, +the cause lies deeper. ‘_Sire, vous avez un cancer rentré_,’ said the +physician. ‘_Un Waterloo rentré_,’ answered Napoleon. And here we have +two or three revolutions _rentrées, avortées_, stillborn. + +Did France not bring them to the birth because she had too hurriedly, +too prematurely conceived them, and wanted to be rid of her interesting +position by a Caesarean operation? Was it because she had spirit enough +for cutting off heads, but not enough for stamping out ideas? Was it +because the Revolution was turned into an army and the rights of man were +sprinkled with holy water? Was it because the masses were plunged in +darkness, and the Revolution was made not for the peasants? + + +3 + +ALPENDRÜCKEN + + ‘_Hail to Light!_ + _Hail to Reason!_’[75] + +Russians who have no mountains near simply say that the _domovoy_ +choked them. It is perhaps a truer description. It certainly seems as +though some one were choking you; your dream is not clear, but is very +terrible; it is hard to breathe, yet one wants to draw deep breaths, the +pulse is quicker, the heart throbs fast and painfully.... You are being +hunted; creatures, not men, not visions, are just on your heels, you +have glimpses of forgotten images that recall other years and an earlier +age.... There are precipices, abysses, your foot slips, there is no +escape, you fly into the void of darkness, a scream breaks unconsciously +from your breast and you wake up. You wake up in a fever, drops of sweat +on your brow; choking for breath, you hasten to the window.... Outside +there is a fresh bright dawn, the breeze is carrying away the mist, there +is the scent of grass and the forest, there are sounds and calls ... +everything that is ours and earthly.... And, comforted, you drink in deep +draughts of the morning air. + +The other day I had such a nightmare, and not in my sleep, but awake, +not in bed but in a book, and when I tore myself from it to the light, I +almost cried aloud: ‘Hail to Reason! our simple earthly Reason!’ + +Old Pierre Leroux, whom I have been used to loving and respecting for +thirty years, brought me his last work and begged me to be sure to read +it, ‘the text at least; the commentary will do afterwards, any time.’ + +‘The Book of Job, a Tragedy in Five Acts, composed by Isaiah and +translated by Pierre Leroux.’ And not merely translated but applied to +contemporary questions. + +I read the whole text, and, overwhelmed with sadness and horror, made for +the window. + +What was the meaning of it? + +What antecedents could have produced such a brain and such a book? What +land gave birth to such a man, and what is its destiny? Such madness +can only be that of a great mind; it is the last stage of a long and +frustrated development. + +The book is the delirium of a poet-lunatic, whose memory still retains +facts and order, hopes and images, though no meaning is left; who has +kept memories, feelings, forms, but not kept reason; or, if reason has +survived, it is only to regress, to dissolve into its elements, to pass +from thoughts into fancy, from truths into mysteries, from deductions +into myths, from knowledge into revelation. + +There is no going beyond it; the next stage is catalepsy, the stupor of +the Pythian prophetess, of a Shaman, the frenzy of a dancing-dervish, the +frenzy of twirling tables.... + +Revolution and miracle-working, socialism and the Talmud, Job and +George Sand, Isaiah and Saint-Simon, 1789 B.C. and A.D. 1789, all flung +pell-mell into a cabalistic furnace—what could come out of these strained +antagonistic combinations? The man has fallen ill with this undigested +food, he has lost the healthy feeling for truth, the love and respect for +reason. What is it that has driven him so far from his true course in his +old age—a man who once stood among the leaders of the social movement, +full of love and energy, whose words of indignation and sympathy for +his poorer brethren moved our hearts? I remember those days. ‘Peter the +Red’ (so we used to call him in the ’forties) ‘is becoming my Christ,’ +Byelinsky, always carried to extremes, wrote to me. And here this +teacher, this living, rousing voice, after fifteen years of seclusion +in Jersey, appears with the Grève de Samarez and with the Book of Job, +preaches some sort of transmigration of souls, seeks the solution in the +other world, has no more faith in this one. France and the Revolution +have deceived him; he pitches his tabernacle in the other world, in which +there is no deception, and, indeed, nothing else, so that there is the +more room for fantasy. + +Perhaps it is an individual illness, an idiosyncrasy? Newton had his Book +of Job, Auguste Comte his special madness. + +Perhaps ... but what is one to say when one picks up a second, a third +French book, and always it is a book of Job, clouding the mind and +weighing upon the heart? All set one seeking light and air, all bear the +traces of spiritual turmoil and sickness, of something lost and gone +astray; we can hardly put much of it down to individual insanity. On the +contrary, we have to look for the explanation of the individual case in +the general aberration; it is just in those who most fully represent the +French genius that I see these traces of sickness. + +These giants are lost, plunged in a heavy sleep, in long, feverish +suspense, worn out with the woes of the day and burning impatience; they +rave, as it were, half-asleep, and try to persuade us and themselves that +their visions are reality and that real life is a bad dream, which will +soon pass, particularly for France. + +The inexhaustible wealth of their long years of civilisation, the +vast stores of words and images, glimmer in their brains like the +phosphorescence of the sea that lights up nothing. The whirlwind that +comes before an approaching cataclysm has swept up and floated into these +gigantic memories the fragments of two or three worlds, without cement, +without connection, without science. The process by which their thought +is developed is unintelligible to us; they pass from word to word, from +antinomy to antinomy, from antithesis to synthesis, without solving them; +the symbol is taken for the reality, the desire for the fact. There +are vast yearnings with no practical means, no clear aims, unfinished +outlines, thoughts half worked out, hints, approximations, prophecies, +ornaments, frescoes, arabesques.... They have none of the clear coherence +of which France boasted of old, they are not seeking the truth, it is so +terrible in real life that they turn aside from it. False and strained +romanticism, swollen and over-exuberant rhetoric have spoilt their taste +for everything simple and sane. Proportion is lost, the perspective is +false. + +And it is not so bad as long as it is a matter of souls journeying +about the planets, of the angelic settlements of Jean Reynaud,[76] of +Job talking to Proudhon, and Proudhon to a dead woman; it is not so bad +as long as a fairy-tale is made out of the Thousand and One Nights of +humanity, and Shakespeare from love and respect is buried under pyramids +and obelisks, Olympus and the Bible, Assyria and Nineveh. But what are we +to say to it when, on the very brink of shame and ruin, this rigmarole +breaks into real life, throwing dust in the eyes and shuffling the +cards in order to prophesy with them ‘the nearness of happiness and the +fulfilment of desire’? What is to be said when putrefying wounds are +plastered over with the glittering rags of past glory, and syphilitic +spots on the flabby cheeks are passed off for the flush of youth? + +The old poet humbles himself in the dust before fallen Paris at the +least pitiful moment of her degradation, when, pleased at the wealthy +livery and lavishness of her alien masters, she carouses in the market +of the world. He greets Paris as the guiding-star of humanity, the heart +of the world, the brain of history; he assures her that the bazaar on +the Champs-de-Mars is the beginning of the brotherhood of nations and +universal peace. + +To intoxicate with praise a generation that has grown shallow, +insignificant, complacent and conceited, pleased with flattery and +self-indulgent, to maintain the pride of futile and degenerate sons and +grandsons, veiling their paltry, senseless existence with the approval of +genius, is a great sin. + +To make of contemporary Paris the saviour and deliverer of the world, +to assure her that she is great in her downfall, that she is not really +fallen, is like the apotheosis of the divine Nero or the divine Caligula +or Caracalla. + +The difference is that the Senecas and the Ulpians were strong and +powerful, while Victor Hugo is an exile. + +Together with the flattery, one is struck by the vagueness of the +conception, the confusion of the tendencies and the immaturity of +the ideals. Men who walked in the van leading others are left behind +in the twilight with no poignant yearning for the dawn. Talk of the +transformation of humanity, the transmutation of all that exists ... but +of what and into what? + +That is equally obscure in the other world of Pierre Leroux and in this +world of Victor Hugo:— + +‘In the twentieth century she will be a marvellous land, she will be +great, and that will not hinder her from being free. She will be famous, +rich, profound in thought, peaceable, friendly to all the rest of +mankind. She will possess the mild ascendancy of an elder sister. + +‘This central land which gives light to all, this model farm of humanity, +on the pattern of which all the rest is moulded, has its heart, its +brain, whose name is Paris. + +‘This city has one disadvantage: the world belongs to him who rules +her. Humanity follows her lead. Paris toils for the commonwealth of the +earth. Whoever thou mayest be, Paris is thy master ... she sometimes +goes astray, she has her optical illusions, her errors of taste ... and +it is the worse for the sense of all the world: the compass is lost, and +progress gropes its way. + +‘But the true Paris, I think, is different. I do not believe in that +Paris—it is a phantom, and, moreover, a passing shadow is as nought in +face of the vast radiance of the dawn. + +‘None but savages fear for the sun in an eclipse. Paris is a lighted +torch; the lighted torch has will.... Paris will purge herself of all +impurity; she has abolished the death penalty, so far as that lay in her +power, and has transferred the guillotine to La Roquette. Men are hanged +in London, in Paris they can no more be guillotined; if the guillotine +were set up again before the Hôtel de Ville, the very stones would rise +up. To kill in these surroundings is impossible. It remains but to cast +out of the law what has already been cast out of the city! + +‘1866 has been the year of the clash of nations, 1867 will be the year +of their concord. The Exhibition in Paris is the great peace congress; +all obstacles, all drags, all brakes on the wheels of progress will be +shattered and fly into atoms.... War is impossible.... Why are dreadful +cannons and other weapons of war exhibited?... Do we not know that war +is dead? It died on the day on which Jesus said: “Love one another!” and +has only lingered on like a ghost; Voltaire and the revolutionists slew +it once more. We do not believe in war. All the nations have fraternised +at the Exhibition, all the nations, flocking to Paris, have been France +(_ils viennent être France_); they have learned that there is a city that +is the sun of the world ... and are bound to love her, to desire her, to +submit to her rule!’ + +And, moved to devotional tenderness before the nation which is +evaporating in brotherhood, whose freedom is the testimony to the +maturity of the human race, Hugo exclaims: ‘Oh France! farewell! thou +art too grand to be my fatherland! One must part from a mother who has +become a goddess. Another step and thou wilt vanish transformed; thou +art so great that soon thou wilt not be. Thou wilt not be France, thou +wilt be humanity; thou wilt not be a land, thou wilt be universality. +Thou art destined to pass out in light.... Boldly take up the burden of +thy infinity, and, as Athens became Greece, Rome became Christianity, be +thou, oh France, the World!’ + +As I was reading these lines there was a newspaper lying before me, and +in it a simple-hearted correspondent had written as follows:— + +‘What is taking place now in Paris is extraordinarily interesting, not +only for contemporaries, but for succeeding generations. The crowds +that have gathered for the Exhibition are carousing.... All bounds are +overstepped: there are orgies going on everywhere, in restaurants and +private houses, most of all at the Exhibition itself. The arrival of the +monarchs has finally intoxicated every one. Paris presents the spectacle +of a colossal _Descente de la Courtille_. Yesterday (June 10) this +intoxication reached its climax. When the crowned heads were feasting in +the palace, which has seen so much in its day, the crowds thronged the +surrounding streets and squares. Along the embankment in the rue Rivoli, +rue Castiglione and rue St.-Honoré, as many as three hundred thousand +people were feasting after their own fashion. From the Madeleine to +the Théâtre des Variétés a most disorderly and unceremonious orgy was +going on; big, open waggonettes, improvised omnibuses and chars-à-bancs, +drawn by exhausted broken-down nags, moved at a snail’s pace along +the boulevards through the dense masses of heads. These vehicles were +packed to overflowing: in them men and women with bottles in their +hands were standing, sitting, and most often lying at full length in +every conceivable attitude; laughing and singing, they talked with the +crowds on foot; uproar and shouts met them from the crowds in cafés +and restaurants, which were full to overflowing; sometimes the songs +and bawling were interspersed with the savage oaths of a cabman or the +friendly wrangle of drunkards.... Men were lying at the street-corners +and in the back-alleys, dead drunk; the police themselves seemed to have +retreated before the impossibility of doing anything. “Never,” writes the +correspondent, “have I seen anything like it in Paris, and I have lived +there for twenty years.” + +‘This was in the street, “in the gutter,” as the French express it, but +what was being done within the palaces, illuminated by more than ten +thousand lights ... what was done at the banquets on which millions of +francs were squandered? + +‘The sovereigns left the ball given by the city at the Hôtel de Ville +about two o’clock’—the official chronicler of the Emperor’s festivities +records. ‘The carriages could not reach the building in time, nor drive +home the eight thousand visitors. Hour after hour passed; the guests were +weary, ladies sat down on the stairs, others simply lay down in the halls +on the rugs, and fell asleep at the feet of the lackeys and _huissiers_, +while gentlemen stepped over them, catching their spurs in their lace and +flounces. When by degrees the rooms were cleared, the carpets could not +be seen; they were all covered with faded flowers, broken beads, rags of +blonde and lace, of tulle and muslin, torn from the ladies’ dresses by +the swords, hilts and stiff gold lace of the men.’ + +And behind the scenes the spies were catching men who shouted: ‘_Vive +la Pologne_,’ beating them with their fists and passing them off for +thieves, and in two instances the court condemned the latter to prison +for _hindering_ the spies from lawlessly, informally, arresting them with +blows. + +I purposely mention only trifles: microscopical dissection gives a better +idea of the decay of the tissue than a big piece cut off a corpse. + + +4 + +THE DANIELS + +In the days of July 1848, after the first terror and stupefaction of +victors and vanquished, a thin, austere old man stepped forward as the +embodiment of their stings of conscience. With gloomy words he cursed +and branded the men of ‘order’ who had shot hundreds without even asking +their names, had banished thousands untried, and had held Paris in a +state of siege. When he had ended his anathema, he turned to the people +and said: ‘And you, be silent, you are too poor to have the right to +speak.’ + +This was Lamennais. They were on the point of seizing him, but were awed +by his grey hair, his wrinkles, his eyes, in which the tears of old age +were quivering, and which would soon be closed for ever. + +Lamennais’ words passed, leaving no trace. + +Twenty years later, other austere old men appeared with their stern +words; and their voice too was lost in the wilderness. + +They had no faith in the force of their words, but their hearts would not +let them keep silent. Isolated in their banishment and their remoteness, +these judges of the court of Vehm, these Daniels, pronounced their +sentence, knowing that it would not be carried out. + +They to their sorrow saw that this ‘trifling cloud obscuring the +grand dawn’ was not so trifling; that this historical migraine, this +drunkenness after revolution, would not pass off so quickly: and they +said so. + +‘In the worst days of the ancient Caesarism,’ said Edgar Quinet at the +Congress in Geneva, ‘when every one was dumb except the sovereign, there +were men who left their refuge in the wilderness to utter a few words +of truth in the face of the fallen peoples. For sixteen years I have +been living in the wilderness, and I in my turn should like to break the +deathly silence to which our age has grown accustomed.’ + +What news did he bring from his mountains, and in the name of what did +he lift up his voice? He lifted it up to tell his fellow-countrymen +(whatever a Frenchman may be talking about, he always speaks of France): +‘You have no conscience ... it is dead, crushed under the heel of the +mighty, it has disowned itself. For sixteen years I have been seeking +traces of it and have not found it. + +‘It was the same under the Caesars in the ancient world. The soul of +man had vanished. The peoples aided their own enslavement, applauded +it, showing neither regret nor remorse. As the conscience of mankind +vanished, it left an emptiness which was felt in everything as it is now, +and to fill it a new god was needed. + +‘Who will in our day fill the abyss opened by modern Caesarism? + +‘In place of the worn-out, abolished conscience has come night; we wander +in the darkness not knowing whence to seek aid, to whom to turn. All have +helped to bring about our fall: church and law-court, the nations and +society.... Deaf is the earth, deaf conscience, deaf the peoples; right +has perished with conscience; only might rules.... + +‘What have you come for, what are you seeking in these ruins of ruins? +You answer that you are seeking peace. Whence do you seek it? You are +lost among the broken ruins of the fallen edifice of justice. You seek +peace, you are mistaken, it is not here. Here is war. In this night +without a dawn, nations and races are doomed to combat and destroy each +other at hazard in obedience to the will of the rulers who have fettered +their hands and their minds in bondage. + +‘The nations will rise again only when they are conscious of the depth of +their fall!’ + +To diminish the horror of the picture the old man flung a few flowers for +the children. His listeners applauded him. Even then they did not know +what they had done. A few days later they went back on their applause. + +Two months before these gloomy words rang out at the Geneva Congress, in +another Swiss town another exile of old days wrote the following words:— + +‘I have no more faith in France. If ever she rises again to a new life +and recovers from her terror of herself, it will be a miracle; no sick +nation has risen up again from so deep a fall. I do not expect miracles. +Forgotten institutions may be born again—but the spirit of the people, +once quenched, will not revive. An _unjust_ providence has not given me +even that consolation which it so liberally deals out to make up for +poverty to all exiles: perpetual hope and faith in their dreams. Nothing +is left me from all I have passed through but the lessons of experience, +bitter disillusionment, and an incurable weariness (_énervement_). There +is ice in my heart, I have no more faith in right or human justice or +common sense. I have turned away from it into indifference as into the +tomb.’ + +The Girondist Mercier, with one foot in the grave, said at the time of +the fall of the First Empire: ‘I live only to see how it will end!’ ‘I +cannot say even that,’ added Marc Dufraisse. ‘I have no special curiosity +to know how the epic of the emperors will end.’ + +And the old man turned to the past, and with profound melancholy held +it up to its degenerate successors. The present was strange, alien, +revolting to him. From his cell rises the breath of the tomb, his words +send a shiver through the listener. + +Sayings of one, writings of another—all slid off, leaving no trace. +Hearing them, reading them, the French had no ‘ice in their heart.’ Many +were openly indignant: ‘These men rob us of our strength and drive us to +despair.... What salvation, what comfort is there in their words?’ + +It is not a judge’s duty to comfort; he must unmask, must convict of +sin, where there is no consciousness and no penitence. It is his work +to stir the conscience. He is a judge and not a prophet, he has no +Messiah in reserve for comfort in the future. He, like those he judges, +belongs to the old religion. The judge stands for the pure and ideal side +of it, while the masses represent its practical, evasive, attenuated +application. While he condemns, the judge is practically forced to attack +the ideal; while defending it, he proves its one-sidedness. + +Neither Edgar Quinet nor Marc Dufraisse really knows of a solution, and +they call us back to the past. It is no wonder that they do not see it; +they stand with their back to it. They belong to the past. Revolted by +the dishonourable end of their world, they seize their crutch, appear, +uninvited guests, at the orgy of the haughty, complacent people, and tell +them: ‘You have lost all, you have sold all, nothing insults you but the +truth. You have neither your old sense nor your old dignity, you have no +conscience, you have fallen to the lowest depth, and, far from feeling +your slavery, you insolently claim to be the deliverer of nations and +nationalities. Decked with the laurels of war, you want to wear the +olive-branches of peace. Take thought and repent, if you can. We, the +dying, have come to call you to repentance, and if you do not, to break +our rod upon you.’ + +They see their army retreating, deserting its flag, and with the scourge +of their words try to drive it back to its old position, and cannot. A +new banner is needed to rally them, and they have it not. Like heathen +high priests they tear their garments, defending their fallen shrine. Not +they, but the persecuted Nazarenes, bring tidings of a new birth and the +life of the world to come. + +Quinet and Marc Dufraisse sorrow over the defilement of their temple, the +temple of representative government. They sorrow not only for the loss +in France of freedom and human dignity, they grieve at the loss of the +foremost place, they cannot resign themselves to the fact that the Empire +did not prevent the unity of Germany, they are horrified that France has +sunk into the background. + +The question why France, in whom they do not themselves believe, should +have the first place never once presents itself to their minds. + +Marc Dufraisse with exasperated humility says that he does not understand +the _new problems_, namely, the economic ones; while Quinet seeks a god +to come and fill the emptiness left by the loss of conscience.... He has +passed by them, they did not know him and let him be crucified. + + * * * * * + +_Postscript._—As a commentary on our sketch there comes Renan’s strange +book on ‘Contemporary Questions.’ He too is frightened by the present. +He sees that things are going badly. But what pitiful remedies! He +sees a sick man, rotting with syphilis, and advises him to study well, +especially the classics. He sees the inner indifference to everything +except material profit, and weaves out of his rationalism some sort of +religion—catholicism without a real Christ and without a pope, but with +mortification of the flesh. He sets up disciplinary, or rather hygienic, +fences for the mind. + +Perhaps the most important and boldest thing in his book is his saying +about the Revolution: ‘The French Revolution was a grand experiment, but +it was an experiment that has failed.’ + +And then he presents the picture of the destruction of all the old +institutions, which, though oppressive on the one side, did serve as a +means of resistance against an all-devouring centralisation, and in their +place man left weak and defenceless before an oppressive, all-powerful +State and a Church that survived intact. + +One cannot help thinking with horror of the union of this State and +Church which is being accomplished before our eyes, and which goes so far +that the Church is restricting medicine, taking doctors’ diplomas from +materialists, and trying to decide questions of reason and revelation by +decision of the Senate, to decree _libre arbitre_, as Robespierre decreed +_l’Être Suprême_. + +To-morrow, if not to-day, the Church will capture education—and what then? + +The French who have survived the reaction see that, and their position +in regard to foreigners becomes more and more disadvantageous. They have +never put up with so much as now, and from whom? From the Germans in +particular. Not long ago an argument between a German _ex-refugié_ and +a distinguished French _littérateur_ took place before me. The German +was ruthless. In old days the Germans had a sort of tacit agreement of +tolerance for English people, who were always allowed to say absurd +things, out of respect and the conviction that they were a little +crazy, and for Frenchmen, from affection for them and gratitude for +the Revolution. These amenities have only survived for the English; +Frenchmen find themselves in the position of elderly beauties who have +lost their looks and have for years failed to observe that their charms +have diminished, and that they have nothing more to expect from the +fascinations of their beauty. + +In old days their ignorance of everything that lay outside the frontiers +of France, their use of hackneyed phrases, their tawdry tinsel, their +tearful sentimentality, their aggressive domineering tone and _les grands +mots_, were all allowed to pass—but now all this indulgence is over. + +The German, setting his spectacles straight, slapped the Frenchman on the +shoulder, saying: ‘_Mais, mon cher et très cher ami_, these are stock +phrases that take the place of criticism, of attention, of understanding; +we know them by heart; you have been repeating them for thirty years; +they prevent you from seeing clearly the real position of affairs.’ + +‘But anyway,’ said the literary gentleman, obviously desirous of +finishing the conversation, ‘you, my dear philosopher, have all bowed +your heads under the yoke of Prussian despotism. I quite understand that +you look upon it as a means, that the Prussian domination is a step....’ + +‘That is just where we differ from you,’ the German interrupted him, +‘that we take that bitter path, hating it and submitting to necessity, +with an object before our eyes, while you have reached that position as +though it were a haven of refuge; for you it is not a step towards the +goal, but the goal itself—and besides, the majority likes it.’ + +‘_C’est une impasse, une impasse_,’ observed the Frenchman gloomily, and +changed the conversation. + +Unluckily he began speaking of Jules Favre’s speech in the Academy; then +another German turned grumpy and said: ‘Upon my soul, can that empty +rhetoric, that verbosity, hypocrisy, please you? It is hypocritical, +and false to everything; how can a man deliver a panegyric for two +hours on that pale Cousin? And what business had he to defend orthodox +spiritualism? And do you suppose that such opposition will save you? They +are rhetoricians and sophists. And how absurd is the whole procedure +of speech and answer, of having to praise one’s predecessor, all this +mediaeval battle of words!’ + +‘_Ah bah! Vous oubliez les traditions, les coutumes._’ + +I felt sorry for the Frenchman.... + + +5 + +SPOTS OF LIGHT + +But beyond the Daniels there are spots of light to be seen—faint, far +away, and in Paris, too. I am speaking of the Quartier Latin, of that +Aventine Hill to which the students and their teachers retreated, that +is, those of them who remained faithful to the great tradition of 1789, +to the encyclopaedists, to the Montagne, to the Socialist movement. There +the gospel of the first revolution is preserved; there the acts of its +apostles and the epistles of the holy fathers of the eighteenth century +are read; there the great problems of which Marc Dufraisse knows nothing +are familiar subjects; there men dream of the future Kingdom of Man just +as the monks of the first centuries dreamed of the Kingdom of God. + +From the side-streets of this Latium, from the fourth storey of its +sombre houses, champions and missionaries continually go forth to +combat and preach and perish—for the most part morally, but sometimes +physically—_in partibus infidelium_, that is, on the other side of the +Seine. + +Objective truth is on their side, every sort of justice and real +understanding is on their side, but that is all. ‘Sooner or later truth +is always triumphant.’ But we imagine that it is very much later, and +very rarely even then. From time immemorial reason has been unattainable +or detestable to the majority. That reason might be attractive, +Anacharsis Cloots had to dress it up as a pretty actress and to strip her +naked. One can only work upon men by seeing their dreams more clearly +than they see them themselves, and not by proving one’s thoughts to them +as geometrical theorems are proved. + +The Quartier Latin recalls the mediaeval Carthusians or Camaldoli,[77] +who turned aside from the noise of the crowd with their faith in +brotherhood, mercy, and, above all, the speedy coming of the Kingdom +of God. And this at the very time when outside their walls knights and +_ritters_ were burning and slaying, shedding blood, plundering the +villeins and outraging their daughters.... Then followed other times, +also without brotherhood and the Second Coming—but the Camaldoli and the +Carthusians still clung to their faith. Manners have grown softer still, +the fashion of plundering has changed, women are outraged now for pay, +men are robbed in accordance with accepted rules. The Kingdom of God has +not come, but was inevitably coming (so it seemed to the Carthusians), +the tokens were growing clearer, more direct than ever; faith saved the +recluses from despair. + +At every blow which sends the last fragments of freedom flying into dust, +at every downward step of society, at every insolent step backwards, +the Quartier Latin lifts up its head, _mezza voce_ at home sings the +Marseillaise, and, setting its cap straight, says: ‘That is as it should +be. They will reach the limit; the sooner the better.’ The Quartier +Latin believes in its course and boldly draws the plan of its ‘kingdom of +truth,’ running directly counter to the ‘kingdom of reality.’ + +And Pierre Leroux believes in Job! + +And Victor Hugo in the Exhibition of universal brotherhood! + + +6 + +AFTER THE INVASION + + ‘_Holy Father, it is your task now!_’ + + ‘DON CARLOS’ + (Philip II. to the Grand Inquisitor). + +I keep wanting to repeat these words to Bismarck. The pear is ripe +and the thing cannot be done without His Excellency. Do not stand on +ceremony, Count! + +I do not marvel at what is being done, and I have no right to marvel—I +have long been crying out, Beware, beware!... I simply say farewell, and +that is hard. There is neither contradiction nor weakness in it. A man +may know very well that if his gout gets worse it will hurt him very +much: what is more, he may have a presentiment that it will get worse, +and that there is no way of stopping it: nevertheless, it will hurt him +just as much when it does come on. + +I am sorry for individual persons whom I love. + +I am sorry for the country, whose first awakening I saw with my own eyes +and which now I see outraged and dishonoured. I am sorry for the Mazeppa, +who was untied from the tail of one empire to be tied to the tail of +another. + +I am sorry that I am right. I am, as it were, connected with the fact +from having in outline foreseen it. I am angry with myself as a child is +angry with the barometer that predicts a storm and spoils his picnic. + +Italy is like a family in which some black crime has lately been +committed, some horrible calamity that has betrayed ugly secrets has +come to pass; a family which has been touched by the hangman’s hand, or +from which some one has been carried off to the galleys..... All are +exasperated, the innocent are ashamed and ready for insolent defiance. +All are tortured by an impotent desire of revenge, poisoned, weakened by +a passive hatred. + +Perhaps there are means of escape close at hand, but they cannot be found +by reason; they lie in chance happenings, in external circumstances, they +lie outside the frontiers. Italy’s fate is not in her own hands, that is +in itself one of the most insufferable humiliations; it so rudely recalls +her recent captivity and the feeling of her own weakness and instability +which had begun to be effaced. + +And only twenty years! + +Twenty years ago at the end of December I finished in Rome the first +article of my _From the Other Side_ and was faithless to it, carried away +by the year ’forty-eight. I was then in the heyday of my powers, and I +watched with eagerness the unfolding of events. In my life there had not +yet been one misfortune which had left one deep, aching scar, not one +reproach of conscience inwardly, not one insulting word outwardly. With +unreasoning light-heartedness, with boundless self-confidence, I floated +lightly dancing on the waves with all sails set, and I have had to take +them in one after another! + + * * * * * + +I was in Paris at the time of Garibaldi’s first arrest. The French +did not believe in the invasion by their troops.[78] I happened to +meet with people of very different classes in society. The inveterate +reactionaries and clericals desired intervention, clamoured for it, but +yet doubted. At the railway station a distinguished French savant as he +took leave of me said: ‘Your imagination, my dear northern Hamlet, is +so constructed that you see nothing but what is black; that’s why the +impossibility of war with Italy is not obvious to you. The Government +knows too well that war for the Pope would set all thinking people +against it; after all, you know, we are the France of 1789.’ + +The first news, not that I read but that I saw, was the fleet setting +off from Toulon to Cività. ‘It is only a military manœuvre,’ another +Frenchman said to me. ‘_On ne viendra jamais aux mains_, and besides +there is no need for us to soil our hands in Italian blood.’ + +It turned out that there _was need_. A few lads from ‘Latium’ protested; +they were clapped in the lock-up, and with that everything ended as far +as France was concerned. Italy, blood-stained and taken unawares, thanks +to the irresolution of the King and the trickery of the Ministers, made +every concession. But the French, rendered savage, intoxicated by every +victory, could not be stopped: to blood, to action, they had to add words +of abuse. + +And on these words of abuse being uttered and greeted with the applause +of the Empire, its fiercest foes—the Legitimists in the form of the old +attorney of the Bourbons, Berryer and the Orleanists in the form of the +old Figaro of the days of Louis-Philippe, Thiers—shook hands with it. + +I look upon Rouher’s words as an historical revelation. Any one who did +not understand France after that must have been born blind. + +Count Bismarck, it is your task now! + +And you, Mazzini, Garibaldi, last of the saints, last of the Mohicans, +fold your hands and take your rest. You are not needed now. You have +done your part. Make room now for madness, for the frenzy of blood in +which either Europe will slay herself or the Reaction will. What will +you do with your hundred republicans and your volunteers with two or +three cases of contraband guns? Now there are a million from here and +a million from there with needle-guns and other artifices. Now there +will be lakes of blood, seas of blood, mountains of corpses.... And then +plague, famine, fire and devastation. _Ah, messieurs les conservateurs_, +you would not have even so pale a republic as that of February, you would +not have the mawkish democracy laid at your feet by the confectioner +Lamartine, you would not have Mazzini the Stoic or Garibaldi the hero. +You wanted order. + +For that you will have a Seven Years’ war, a Thirty Years’ war.... + +You were afraid of social reforms, so now you have the Fenians with their +barrel of gunpowder and their lighted match. + +Who is the fool? + + GENOA, _December 31, 1867_. + + + + +THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. AND V. N. KARAZIN[79] + + _To you, N. A., our latest Marquis von Posa, with all my heart + I dedicate this sketch._ + + +1 + +DON CARLOS + +During the first years of the reign of Alexander I., that is, when the +lessons of Laharpe[80] were still fresh in his memory and the lesson +given to all the monarchs in Paris and to the Russian autocrats in +particular in the Mihailovsky Palace[81] had not been forgotten, the +Emperor Alexander I. used to have literary soirées, and some of the +persons of the Tsar’s circle, well known as capable of reading and +writing, used to be invited to them. + +At one of these evenings there was a reading which lasted a long time; +they read aloud a new tragedy of Schiller’s. + +The reader finished and stopped. + +The Tsar sat silent with downcast eyes. Perhaps he was thinking of his +own fate, which had so closely resembled the fate of Don Carlos, perhaps +the fate of his Philip. A complete silence lasted for some minutes. The +first to break it was Prince Alexandr Nikolayevitch Golitsyn; bending +down to the ear of Count Victor Pavlovitch Kotchubey, he said to him in +an under-tone, but so that every one could hear it: ‘We have our Marquis +Posa!’ Kotchubey smiled and nodded. The eyes of all the company turned to +a man of thirty who was sitting a little way off. + +The Tsar started, looked at the circle about him, cast a distrustful, +searching glance upon the man who had become the object of general +attention, frowned, stood up, gloomy and displeased, took leave of his +guests and went out. + +Prince Alexandr Nikolayevitch, the future Minister of Education and +Religion, the inquisitor and the freemason, the protector of Magnitsky +and Runitch, the President of the Bible Society and the Post Office +Department, the friend of the Emperor Alexander, who mercilessly +sacrificed him to Araktcheyev, the friend of the Emperor Nicholas, who +never gave him any commission of importance, smiled; he was satisfied. +Knowing Alexander’s suspicious character, he was certain that his words +had gone home—and he was not mistaken. Why he had injured the man he +could not have said: that lay hidden in his courtier’s nature; it is +never amiss to thrust aside a superfluous person. + +There is no doubt that, at that moment, of all the company present only +two had a sincere and ardent desire for the good of Russia—the Tsar and +V. N. Karazin, who had been called the Marquis Posa. + +These two personages—one ‘crowned and exalted’ in the Uspensky Cathedral +by the Metropolitan Platon, the man who had crushed Napoleon and was +himself crushed under the burden of glory and of helpless, hopeless +autocracy; and the other, the inexhaustible worker for the common weal +who undertook everything with extraordinary energy, pushing at every door +and meeting everywhere opposition, hindrances, and the impossibility +of doing anything real in those surroundings—these two personages cast +two melancholy gleams of light on the frozen wastes of Russia, in which +energy and character, talents and powers, were sunk, and are still sunk, +lost, unrecorded, in the swampy bogs, like the piles on which Petersburg +is built. + +The character of the Emperor Alexander I. has never been fully explained. +Our historians could not write of him, foreigners neither could nor +can understand his tragic significance. This is not due either to his +rank as Tsar or to his personal misfortunes; on the contrary, he was +exceptionally fortunate as a Tsar, fortunate even after his death. No +ruler could stand out in greater relief than he does. To succeed Paul +was enough, apart from being succeeded by Nicholas. Between the tiger of +Gatchina butchered like a wild beast and the boa-constrictor buttoned up +to the chin who stifled Russia for thirty years, the stooping figure of +the Emperor Alexander is strikingly humane and mild, now lighted up by +the fire of Moscow, now by the illumination of Paris, now restraining +the princely German thieves, now checking the wild vengeance of the +conquerors when they had burst into their enemies’ capital. + +And this figure of an Agamemnon, reconciling Europe, at the height of its +grandeur grows dimmer, visibly fades, and is obliterated behind the awful +shadow of Araktcheyev. It is lost in solitude on the shores of the Black +Sea, giving the hand of belated reconciliation to the woman whose whole +life, veiled in the Imperial purple, had been one humiliation, and who, +kneeling a lonely figure before the dying man, closed his eyes.[82] + +Every inch[83] a heart-rending tragedy. + +No need to seek the solution in the death of Paul; that may have added +another thread of gloom to his life, but the background is broader, +wider, deeper. Some implacable fatal element hovers over it and enfolds +it far and wide. In the surroundings there is a feeling of an ominous +breath, the presence of crime—not crime committed, not past, but crime +persisting and inevitable; it is in the blood, the walls are saturated +with it. Before birth, the blood has been poisoned in the veins. The air +which people breathe here is full of corruption; every one who steps into +it, whether he will or no, is sucked into a gulf of ineptitude, ruin, +sin. The path to every evil is wide open. Good is impossible. Woe to the +man who stops and thinks, who asks himself what he is doing, what people +are doing about him: he will go mad; woe to the man who within these +walls suffers a human feeling to enter his heart: he will be broken in +the struggle. + +Well, the Emperor Alexander I. was among the Russian crowned heads the +first after Peter who did so stop and think. That is why he is the only +one of all the Romanovs who has been punished, punished humanly, by inner +struggle, punished before he was guilty, though he reached that guilt in +the end. + +Compare his fate with the fate of Peter III., of Paul, of Nicholas, if +you like, and you will understand why that man, called the blessed, who +died in his bed and was never conquered, was a far more tragic figure +than all his predecessors. What is there tragic in the drunken idiot[84] +being killed and robbed by a dissolute woman? That is happening all the +time in the grimy houses of the dark London by-streets. Or what is there +tragic in the fact that a man defending himself from a madman[85] brought +a snuff-box down on the latter’s head and others finished him off? Those +were not tragic catastrophes, but acts of the criminal court and houses +of correction. + +The tragic element is not given by pain nor bruises nor blows, but by +those spiritual conflicts that are independent of the will and run +counter to the reason, with which a man struggles but which he can never +overcome; on the contrary, he almost always yields to them, crushed +against the granite rocks of apparently insoluble contradictions. To +be shattered in that way needs a certain degree of humane culture, +needs a special grace of a sort. There are natures so commonplace, +so conventional, so narrow and mediocre, that their happiness and +unhappiness is trivial, or at any rate not interesting. The cold eyes, +the deadly prose, of the drill and discipline of Nicholas’ despotism, +his limited outlook continually fixed upon trifles and details, his +subaltern’s precision and partiality for straight lines, for geometrical +figures, exclude everything poetical. It is vain to try to make something +majestically gloomy out of his latter days. The man never stopped at +anything, never doubted of anything; he might hesitate, but he could not +repent; he had no ideals, he knew that he reigned by the will of God, +that the post of Emperor was a military officer’s, and he was completely +satisfied with himself. He did not suspect that the moral life of the +State was being degraded by him, that, shut in and robbed right and left, +he was leaving Russia on the edge of the abyss. When he did discover this +last fact, he saw with vexation that he was not equal to coping with his +first failure, and at once died of impotent fury. That was a lesson, an +example, a warning, but not a tragedy. If that is not so, one may make +a tragic type not only of every robber who is punished, but even of the +splenetic coward, Araktcheyev,[86] dying at Gruzino, hated and abandoned +by all, beside the foul grave soaked with the blood of a whole household +of servants. + +The Emperor Alexander was very different. The Empress Catherine, who +concentrated upon him all the dynastic interest and the motherly feeling +she had never had for her own son, gave him a very humane education and, +as is common with old sinners, brought him up in ignorance of what was +going on around him. Alexander was a dreamer, a youth of romantic ideas, +with the vague philanthropy which was then in fashion, and which was a +sort of Aurora Borealis or cold glimmering reflection of that other, +warmer philanthropy preached in those days in Paris. But for all that, +his education ended early, and with Laharpe’s teaching in his head he +appears on the royal stage, surrounded by the grey-headed, putrefying +corruption of the last years of the reign of Catherine. + +‘I am greatly dissatisfied with my position,’ he writes as Grand Duke to +Kotchubey on May 18, 1796, that is, when he was eighteen. ‘I am extremely +glad that the subject has come up of itself, or I should have found it +very hard to begin upon it. Yes, dear friend, I repeat: my position does +not satisfy me at all. It is too conspicuous for my character, which +finds pleasure exclusively in quietness and tranquillity. Court life is +not made for me. I suffer every time I have to appear on the stage of the +Court, and I am out of humour at the sight of the mean things done by +others at every step for the sake of gaining external distinctions, in my +eyes not worth a farthing. I feel unhappy in the company of such people, +whom I should not care to have as lackeys; and yet here they fill the +highest posts, as for instance, Z., P., B., both the S. M., and numbers +of others not worth mentioning, who are haughty with their inferiors +but cringe before those they are afraid of. In short, my dear friend, I +am conscious that I was not born for the high position which I endure +now, and still less for that destined for me in the future, which I have +inwardly vowed to renounce in one way or another. + +‘This, dear friend, is a grave secret which I have long meant to tell +you. I think it unnecessary to beg you not to speak of it to any one, for +you will understand of yourself how dearly I might have to pay for it. +I have asked G. Garrick to burn this letter if he should not succeed in +handing it to you in person, and not to give it to any one else to pass +on to you. + +‘I have considered the subject from every point of view. I must tell you +that the first idea of it had arisen in my mind even before I came to +know you, and that I was not long in reaching my present decision. + +‘The disorder prevailing in our affairs is incredible; there is robbery +on every side, all departments are badly governed; order seems to have +been banished from everywhere—and in spite of that, all the energies of +the Empire are devoted to nothing but widening its frontiers. When that +is the position of things, it is scarcely possible for one man to govern +the State, even less so to reform the deeply rooted abuses existing in +it.... The task is beyond the powers not only of a man endowed like me +with ordinary abilities, but even of a genius, and I have always clung +to the principle that it is better not to undertake a task at all than +to perform it badly. It is in accordance with that principle that I have +taken the resolution I have mentioned to you above. My plan is, after +renouncing this difficult career (I cannot yet with certainty fix the +date of this renunciation), to settle with my wife on the banks of the +Rhine, where I shall live quietly as a private man, finding my happiness +in the society of my friends and in the study of nature. + +‘You are at liberty to laugh at me and say that this design is +impracticable; but wait till it has been carried out and then pronounce +judgment. I know that you will blame me, but I can do nothing else, for I +make the peace of my conscience my first rule, and it can not be at rest +if I undertake a task beyond my strength. This, my dear friend, is what +I have long wished to tell you. Now when it has all been uttered, there +is nothing left for me, but to assure you that wherever I may be, whether +happy or unhappy, rich or poor, your affection for me will always be one +of my greatest comforts; mine for you, believe me, will end only with my +life.’ + +Catherine died. Paul dragged the body of Peter III. into the Peter-Paul +Fortress in a hard frost to bury it beside his dead mother, and made +Count A. Orlov[87] and Baryatinsky carry the former Tsar’s crown. +Alexander was moved one step nearer to that pinnacle surrounded by +the clouds of corruption of which he wrote. Everything was already +transformed by one death, everything grew even viler, though in a +different way. It was his lot to regret the courtiers ‘whom he would not +have cared to have for his lackeys.’ The spoilt and sated household of +the old mistress was filled with the army captains and _kammerdieners_ +of her successor, who brought the atmosphere of the barracks and +servants’ hall into the palace. In place of the haughty palace robbers +there were thieves who were police spies; in place of the lackeys +there were hangmen. The palace was transformed from a brothel into a +torture-chamber. The orgy of sensuality was followed by an orgy of +ferocity and cruelty. + +Overwhelmed with horror, the Tsarevitch stood in alarm and distress at +the foot of the savage throne; powerless to help and unable to get away, +Alexander wandered like Hamlet through the palace-halls, unable to decide +on anything; others decided for him. + +With the same alarm and distress, and with a black stain, moreover, +on his conscience, he mounted to the dreadful pinnacle from which the +mutilated corpse of his slain father had just been thrown down. He wanted +the good of Russia and he was trusted. Men gazed on his mild and youthful +features with ardent hope; he too hoped that he would make a paradise of +Russia; he would give her his best years, his utmost strength, the people +should bless him; he would expiate the sin of his share in the bloody +deed, and then, like Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, he would do what he had +written to Kotchubey and retire to his vineyards on the banks of the +Rhine.[88] + +Alexander was sincere in these dreams; he believed in them, and not he +alone, all Russia believed in them, that is, the Russia of decent people, +the Russia recognised as human. The _dark_ masses of Russia, the Russia +of the poor, had nothing to do with it. As at all celebrations and +holidays, they were excluded from the general rejoicing, and, indeed, +made no effort to take part in it, remembering their Little Mother, the +Empress, and seeming instinctively to divine that the new reign would +only pay for the blood of every twelfth man among them with the gift of +Araktcheyev’s military settlements. + +It was easy to begin a new epoch supported by such love, such faith, such +joy at the death of the miscreant.... + + ‘Now give me a man, O Creator.... + Thou hast given me much: a true man + Is all that I ask Thee for now.... + I pray for a friend; I am not such + As Thou the All-Knowing. The servants + Thou hast sent me, Thou knowest + Their hearts what they are, + For money alone do they serve me + Truth and faith is all that I ask.’[89] + +Ten days had passed after the death of Paul. There was a great reception +in the palace; people with joyous faces, clothed in deep mourning, +came and went, bowing low, repeating slavish phrases. Alexander, shy, +unaccustomed to this job and to playing the part of a god, before whom +every one falls down, upon whom every one rests his hopes, went after the +reception exhausted to his study, and sank into an easy-chair before his +writing-table. On his table in his study, which no one dared to enter, +there lay a thick letter, sealed and addressed to him. + +He broke the seal and opened the letter; as he read it, his eyes +filled with tears, his cheeks burned. He put down the letter, and big +tears still rolled down his cheeks. They were seen by Count Pahlen and +Troshtchinsky. ‘Gentlemen,’ the Tsar said to them, ‘some one unknown has +put this letter on my table; there is no signature; you must find out for +me who wrote it.’ + + +2 + +THE LETTER + +Here is what the Emperor read:— + +‘With what a lovely day has Thy reign begun! It seemed as though Nature +herself were greeting Thee with rapture![90] Alexander, beloved of our +hearts! For ten days now the spring sun has been shining on Thy subjects, +who are full of hopes, and day by day, hour by hour, Thou hast done more +to justify those hopes. What a joyful future awaits us! + +‘At this time of universal rejoicing, who would spare his life for Thy +defence? But Thou hast no need of it.... Forgive me, then, if I, remote +from Thy Court and all dreams of reward, an obscure Russian, seeking +to bring Thee an offering, trace certain truths with audacious hand. +Forgive, forgive me for this unworthy offering, an offering from the +heart; accept it as a testimony of trust in Thy virtues, as a sign of the +true love of Thy subjects. Doubtless all that I could say to Thee is more +or less clearly printed already on Thy noble heart, or is well known in +the counsels of the wise men with whom Thou surroundest Thyself. But this +thought could not keep me from offering my widow’s mite to the treasury, +even as the most dazzling conception of Thy glory will never keep me from +zealously proclaiming it wherever I may go. + +‘My Sovereign! Thou reignest over forty million men, from of old +accustomed to pay boundless homage to authority, apart from which they +cannot picture their weal. A mere glance from their Tsar is often enough +to diffuse universal joy, and of course, a mere command is enough to give +the greatest happiness man can enjoy on earth.... + +‘The Empire which will call Thee its own is not an ordinary State. There +is no other like it either in the Europe of to-day or in the other parts +of the earth, nor perhaps in the chronicles of past ages. It includes +ten climates, and is inhabited by a people for the most part of one +language and of one religion. From north to south and from west to +east it abounds in innumerable riches of all kinds supplementing each +other; and this gives it the possibility of complete independence in its +relations with foreign countries. It has spacious lands for producing the +materials peculiar to it, and the trusty hands of its sons for working +upon them. Hence its wealth, resting on no chance foundations but on +Nature herself, is bound to increase with time. It may be compared to a +mine that has only been opened on the surface, the wealth of which is +gradually revealed as it is sunk deeper. It abounds in rivers which, +flowing from its centre into five seas, await only the protecting hand of +government to unite them in order to carry the products of Europe to Asia +and the products of Asia to Europe by the shortest ways. It is bounded +for the most part by the Arctic Ocean or by lands as unapproachable; on +its other frontiers it has neighbours accustomed to respect the might of +Russia. What new thing can I say to Thee, Sire, of the civic virtues of +Thy people, which even in the period of coarsest ignorance had already +given evidence of its power; of the people, which in the present state +of the moral world is perhaps less corrupted than any other nation?... +I will only recall one of these virtues, which secures the stability +of the Fatherland. The sacrifice of life for one’s country has at all +times and in all places been deemed worthy of everlasting praise; but +this sacrifice with no prospect of the glory which comforts dying +heroes, this great devotion, is characteristic only of rare souls, and +the Russian soldier is more capable of it than any warrior of ancient +or modern times. The heroic leader goes to his death: I respect him; +but I see that the glory which beyond the grave will strew its laurels +on him fills his mind with the admiration of his fellow-countrymen +and of posterity, and that glory softens the horrors of death. He is +intoxicated by ambition, the desire of winning the highest distinction. +The very necessity of acting in accordance with the traditions of the +class to which he belongs leads him on. But the humble soldier who does +not dream of laurels, who has none of the conventional ideas of noble +birth that compel a man to distinguish himself, expects no reward; the +soldier, whose lot is unchanged after twenty battles won, and who, with +no thought of eye-witnesses, of posterity, of history, dies _altogether_, +for whom his sacred duty is the one impelling force, is to my mind a +great hero indeed! Such is the Russian soldier; and of such Thou hast +hundreds of thousands. Time has developed the wisdom of man; time, which +perfects all things, is making it possible for the lawgiver to be the +benefactor of all mankind. If Catherine, if Marcus Aurelius himself had +lived in the Iron Age of the reign of Ivan Vassilyevitch when all Europe +was still shrouded in the darkness of superstition and oppressed by +the tyranny of feudalism, could they have done much for the benefit of +their subjects? Even assuming that they had evolved laws from their own +benevolent hearts, from their own all-embracing wisdom, assuming that +they could have found the possibility of vigorous action and of deep +reflection, could, without any preliminary study, have fully understood +the organisation of society and the hearts of the people, where could +they have found men worthy to carry out their plans? Neither the men nor +the means for public education had yet been evolved. In our day, Sire, +legislation, together with other branches of learning and the progress +of reason which has inevitably advanced in the course of ages, offers +Thee in the works of the greatest minds a thousand new ideas. These +ideas, embraced by Thy beneficent spirit, and tested by Thy religious +ardour as gold by fire, may be the foundation of the happiness of the +Russians. Great is the service of the sage who laboriously discovers the +truth; but he who uses the power given him by Heaven to apply that truth +to real life is deserving of an altar! He is like God Who gathers the +mists that float profitless in the air into the fructifying rain that +brings fertility to the plains and water to the rivers irrigating them. +If earthly rulers may be likened to the Great Inconceivable Being Who has +created millions of worlds, it can only be when they imitate Him in their +beneficence.... + +‘Look at the present state of Europe; can there ever have been a time +fitter for the raising of Thy “Russia to the pinnacle of glory and +happiness” in accordance with Thy promise? The pretensions and aims of +all the Powers are so different, so opposed to one another, that Thou +canst never be forced to take up arms if Thou hast Thyself peaceful +intentions, if the vain praises of idle minds (the so-called glory of +conquerors) are never by Thee held worthy to be weighed beside the +blessings of thousands and thousands of men whose fate depends on Thee. +The French Revolution, so fatal in itself, so menacing to the stability +of many Governments, far from doing harm to Russia, into which its +principles could never penetrate, has brought it palpable advantage: in +the first place, by turning away the envious attention of the Powers at +the moment most critical for Russia, and then, by the new grouping of +their alliances, freeing our Court from the necessity of adhering to +one or the other party, both of whom now, regarding our alliance as the +determining factor, are bound to compete for our goodwill. Through this +unexpected concatenation of circumstances Russia has emerged from the +state of concealed warfare with all the European Powers which has always +existed since the days of Peter the Great. The very youth of Russia, +which would hardly have been forgotten for another whole century, has +been for ever effaced from the memory of man by the Revolution. + +‘In this position of affairs, the internal and external debts of Thy +Empire are not so great in comparison with the still unexhausted sources +of Thy revenues that the Treasury could not be extricated from every +difficulty in a few months by simply cancelling some proposed expenses. + +‘Such are the means, Sire, which Thou hast at Thy disposal for becoming a +great and happy monarch in the midst of the happiest people on earth.... + +‘At night as I passed by Thy palace I drew this picture of Thy blessed +political position and pondered on what would be Thy ways. + +‘Can it be, I said to myself, can it be that He will wantonly destroy +the rare harmony of heaven and earth in His favour, and will leave +uncompleted the blessed work that has been prepared by the last +half-century? Can it be that for the pleasure—created for common souls—of +despotic power He will coldly sacrifice the people’s hopes, the immortal +glory and the reward which in the Land of Bliss awaits virtuous monarchs +after a long untroubled life filled with domestic joys? + +‘_No! He will open the great book of our destiny and the destiny of our +descendants to which Catherine only pointed with her finger. He will +give us inviolable laws. He will confirm these laws for generations on +generations with the oath of allegiance of his numerous subjects. He will +say to Russia: “This is the limit of my autocratic power and that of +my descendants, and is immutable for ever....” And Russia will at last +become one of the monarchical powers; and the iron sceptre of arbitrary +tyranny shall not be able to break the Tables of her Covenant._ + +‘Towards this goal He will move slowly, as Nature moves in the mysterious +ways made ready for her by the Creator. He will call to His aid the +Eternal Reason that can shed light on His soul; guided by that, He will +examine the whole code of laws hitherto existing, that He may not without +need or through mere love of novelty destroy what has been confirmed and +justified by time. In the name of the Fatherland He will require advice +from the wise men happily placed by destiny at His side, and from others +whose voice from the remotest borders of His Empire may make the truth +known to Him. _Under vow of strictest discretion_ He will question them; +with the light of His own pure conscience He will go through the works +of the lawgivers of the world, ancient and modern, and will compare +them with the circumstances of His people, with their manners, customs +and religion, with their local conditions, with the true enlightenment +promised us by the coming age after the cruel trials of the past.... He +will compile in secret, but publish in the face of an attentive world, an +Imperial Code, the basis of laws which may of themselves imperceptibly +pave the way for the diffusion of its underlying principles. He will +command throughout the expanse of Russia the election of elders, worthy +of the unlimited confidence of their fellow-citizens; and, putting them +beyond the sphere of ambition and fear, bestow upon them the excess +of His authority—that they may preserve the Holy of Holies of the +Fatherland.... He will take other measures too, drawn from the experience +of ages, to confirm the rights of his subjects. He will be the first to +use autocracy for the bridling of despotic power; He will be the first +who from the purest impulse of the heart will sacrifice His own interests +for humanity! And humanity, sobbing with joy, will raise His image higher +than the images of other rulers, and multitudes of foreign people will +flock to kiss its pedestal and to enjoy happiness in our midst! + +‘Doubtless, our Alexander, the Friend of Humanity, knows that nothing but +confidence in the Government, resting on the certainty of its immutable +principles, begets mutual confidence among the citizens, that it alone +is the life of commerce, the mother of public virtue and the source of +social prosperity.... + +‘Beside confidence in the Government, and on a level with it, He will set +faith in the justice of law. Without these two principles, the honoured +words “Citizen” and “Fatherland” are empty sounds in our language!... + +‘He will despise these new false politicians who maintain that private +wrongs do no harm to society, that it makes no difference to the State +“how property passes from hand to hand.” Leaving all the administration +of justice to the elected of the people, He will remove the judges from +temptation, not by laws, inevitably ineffectual, but by providing them +with an abundant maintenance, commensurate with their disinterestedness +and their zeal for the public service. To the same end He will subject +the judges to the influence of public opinion. It has always been more +impartial, more implacable than the higher authorities, which were not +rarely moved by the same motives as their subordinates, to the still +greater discredit of the laws! A court with open doors, the right for +the litigants to publish the decisions, will be one of the most reliable +guarantees of justice. + +‘He will lay the State property on a firm basis once for all: He will +reckon out the wealth of His spacious dominions; He will determine +the powers and liabilities of His subjects upon an immovable scale, +unaffected by the rise and fall of the currency, and will say: “Such +are the dues of one class to another; such are the dues to the public +Treasury; such are the means at the personal disposal of the Tsar.” Then +only extraordinary needs of State that cannot be foreseen by any human +wisdom will remain undetermined: but to meet these there will be the +national—so to speak—natural riches of the country, which in a state of +peace increase indefinitely. + +‘He will not command steps to be taken for laying on new taxes in order +to increase the nominal revenue indefinitely, but with goodwill will take +steps tending to diminish expenditure. And by this surest of means He +will, accompanied by the blessings of the citizens who toil in the sweat +of their brow, secure a continual surplus in the Treasury of which no +single Power can yet boast. + +‘He will restrict particularly the expenditure which does not serve the +welfare of His Empire, nor really exalt the glory of His crown. He will +diminish His Court; He will dismiss from it the crowds of servitors +and flatterers who shamelessly imagine that the property of the Empire +belongs to them, and that they have a pre-eminent right to the Tsar’s +favour, simply because chance has placed them in proximity to His person. + +‘He will restrict vain display—the desire to adorn the streets and +squares of the capitals while all the rest of the Empire presents +the spectacle of roofless huts. He will not call art to His aid to +provide monuments for Himself, but will find them in the wisdom of His +institutions and the love of His people. These memorials will not perish +with time, and will awaken not the wonder of idle curiosity but the +reverence of all ages and all peoples! + +‘He will not merely protect the arts capriciously and only in His own +palace, on condition that they pay Him homage, but will truly encourage +them, increasing the general welfare and setting free intellects and +talents. In general, He will prize the toil, the bloody sweat of His +subjects, that is devoted to the public benefit; and moral beauty will +be His first care. He will not deign to occupy Himself with details, +and waste on trifles the precious time which will barely, very barely, +suffice for the all-embracing cares of the Ruler of the greatest Empire +in the world. His glance will embrace whole masses. He will give the +right direction to the chief wheels of the political machine, and all the +rest will run their course rightly! As even the most perfect laws will +remain useless to a corrupt people and will lack meaning for an ignorant +people, He will doubtless turn all His attention to the education of +His subjects in accordance with the local and personal needs of each. +He will entrust the higher supervision of this to the class of the +guardians of the law, and they will act through the men who have the most +moral influence over the people. The clergy will be employed for the +enlightenment of the people, and will first themselves be enlightened to +that end; schools will be founded for the latter, free from the tedious +principles of scholasticism; and distinctions will be given not to those +preachers of the Word of God who with poetic enthusiasm glorify the Tsar +in town churches, but to those who show in practice the good influence +they have had on the morals of their flocks; to those who, founding +schools, will faithfully preach in them the pure teaching of Christ and +by their example will exhort the man and the citizen to his duties. In +this way not the sword, wielded, day and night, by power, will compel the +fulfilment of the law, but far more effectively the personal conviction +of each man of his usefulness. In this way law will be preserved by +morals and morals by law. + +‘On the other hand, He will do something, too, for the moral improvement +of those who are called the lowest. He will secure to the landowners’ +serfs the rights of man; He will give them the rights of property; He +will set limits to their dependence. And this not by a law which might +dangerously shake the stability of the present bonds of society, but +by the gradual influence of custom, which would strengthen them the +more. To the simple peasants He will give the means of tasting at times +the sweetness of life in reward for their toil, without resorting to +wantonness, to beverages that deaden the sense, to other temptations of +depravity, sometimes of despair, and of hopeless slavery.... + +‘Agriculture will flourish under His gentle rule. Little by little He +will cover the wide steppes of Russia with settlements, not moving whole +families by force over thousands of versts to lands terrible from being +unknown and deadly from extreme contrast of climate, but by attracting +them from adjacent over-populated parts and encouraging them with rewards +and privileges. + +‘The waterless but fertile mountain-ranges of favourable climates He will +make habitable and will turn to blossoming gardens, cutting canals from +neighbouring rivers, turning spacious lakes to advantage, or gradually +clothing the slopes of mountains with forest. Is it only enlightened +capital cities that have claims on government expenditure? Is it not +bound to prepare dwellings for future generations and ... a refuge for +those who will probably come one day from the West to seek a home among +us? + +‘He will not set crowds of greedy officials to take charge of the +forests, those ornaments of the land and treasure-stores of water, but +by judiciously distributing them as private property will preserve +them for the country. Only the wild steppes and impassable forests +should be the estate of the Government; they must become the property +of private persons as soon as they are made fit for husbandry. Woe to +the Governments whose institutions serve only as a source of temptation +without eradicating the evil in its very foundation! + +‘He will assign solemn rewards for peasants distinguished either by rare +virtues or by industry or by the invention or introduction of anything +new in agriculture or manufactures. He will not leave the decision of +this and the like in the hands of local authorities swayed by partiality +or narrow political considerations, but will organise occasional +expeditions about the Empire of persons qualified by special knowledge in +the department investigated and worthy to represent His Imperial Eye. He +will Himself not infrequently abandon the monotony of Court life in order +to see and hear in person; He will not confine the rule of the lovely and +spacious realm entrusted Him by God within the narrow limits of work at +the papers laid before Him. He will encourage handicrafts, not by sudden +and arbitrary prohibition of the importation of foreign produce (it is +possible to combine the welfare of the Fatherland with peace and goodwill +towards foreign countries), but by privileges given to manufacturers +and factories, and especially by the removal of oppressive taxes which +discourage new enterprise. Russia can, however, without the slightest +disadvantage to herself, generously yield many branches of industry and +manufacture to nations more scantily provided with land. Is it for her, +so lavishly endowed with essential riches, greedily to appropriate all +the sources of existence? Is it for her to desire to make everything for +herself, when she can incomparably more cheaply employ _hired_ labour +outside her frontiers? How long are we going to measure ourselves by +foreign standards and to imitate like children? + +‘Internal trade, strengthened by the progress of agriculture and +handicrafts, will of itself in the course of a few years, with no +artificial encouragement, increase our foreign trade to our advantage. +Morality and love for everything belonging to one’s own country, +encouraged by examples in high places, will also tend to diminish the +demand for foreign produce. The price of essential Russian goods, and at +the same time also the rate of exchange, will rise inevitably. + +‘For the sake of internal and external trade, for the sake of completing +the great work of legislative reform, He will, of course, strive to +keep the peace with the Powers. To this end, He will employ the happy +means furnished Him now by Providence, which is unmistakably extending +to Russia a blessing hand. It will doubtless be His task to outline a +bold plan of permanent policy appropriate to the Russian Government and +peculiar to it. Has He not the most hopeful resources for keeping all +the Courts respectful to Him, without swerving from one side or the +other? Will He, in the present position of His Empire, with its unbroken +frontiers and its strength, find the slightest reason for entering into +their disputes? Is the population of Russia, still in its flower, such +as to justify the sacrifice of men without the utmost necessity?... Oh, +what a destiny, to draw upon oneself the grateful love and respect of +all peoples! To have unlimited power and to do good.... If the Almighty +loathes murder and the other abominable results of war, if it is pleasing +to Him that there should ever be a truly Christian Power, it is most of +all likely in Russia and in the reign of Alexander. + +‘In that happy time the armed forces will not remain useless. On the +contrary, then they will fulfil their true purpose, the preservation of +public tranquillity. While waiting till some frantic foe really attacks, +means will be found, without forcing them to shed blood in foreign +lands and affairs that do not concern them, to occupy the millions of +strong, healthy hands which cost annually more than a third of the +Imperial revenues.... First of all, He will fence the western frontier +of His Empire with a double shield of fortresses: and they will seem +to neighbouring peoples like the terrible rows of teeth of a lion in +repose. Then, after the example of the Romans, who, though they esteemed +the trade of arms above all others, did not hesitate to employ soldiers +on public works, building their splendid aqueducts and roads; after +the example of some European sovereigns who in more modern times have +undertaken similar experiments, and among them of the founder of this +capital, who secured its welfare by the Ladoga Canal, He will employ part +of our sturdy soldiers, accustomed from their youth to obedience and +labour, on the tasks of the State. Some addition to their ordinary pay +will stimulate their energy; and how many really profitable works there +will be to show for it in the course of a few years! On all sides means +of communication by water and by land will be opened. Rivers will be +made navigable, marshes will be turned to fertile valleys.... Meanwhile +the frontiers of the Empire will not remain undefended, and the force of +Russia will be seen and understood by enemies. + +‘He will unite the warrior with the peasant, and the peasant with other +classes, by bonds of mutual profit, the feeling of which, together with +brotherly love and allegiance to the Sovereign, will be the same feeling +under three different aspects. + +‘He ... but can I fathom the designs of God? Can I picture, can I +enumerate, all the activities of which the seed lies in the humane heart +of Alexander?... + +‘Nations will always be what it pleases the Government they should be: +the Tsar, Ivan Vassilyevitch, wanted to have submissive slaves—abject +with him, brutal among themselves; he had them. Peter wanted to see us +imitating foreigners; unhappily we have done so to excess. The wise +Catherine began to educate the Russian. Alexander will complete that +great work. Rejoicing in the fruits of His youth, He will be the most +blessed of mortals. His glory, resting securely on the love of His +subjects, passing down from generation to generation, based on the +universal esteem of all races of the earth, will be the envy of the +greatest monarchs! + +‘I have heard that our young Ruler receives with indifference the +hackneyed phrases of poets who shamelessly apply them to all monarchs, +assuring each one that he is better than his predecessor: I have made +bold to outline these thoughts.... + +‘O Thou whom my heart adores, do not reject this gift of it, offered Thee +in simplicity and with disinterested feelings.... + +‘Sire! In my soul I throw myself at Thy feet, I water them with tears +of the purest everlasting devotion.... Beneficent Genius of my beloved +Fatherland!’ + + +3 + +MARQUIS VON POSA + +Next day Troshtchinsky announced to the Tsar that he had brought the +author of the letter, that he was a clerk in one of the offices of his +department, called Vassily Nazarovitch Karazin. The Tsar, dismissing +Troshtchinsky, invited Karazin into his study, and as soon as he was +alone with him asked:— + +‘You wrote that letter to me?’ + +‘Pardon, my Sovereign,’ answered Karazin. + +‘Let me embrace you for it, I thank you; I should be glad if I had more +subjects like you. Continue always to speak as frankly to me, continue +always to tell me the truth!’ + +The Tsar pressed him to his heart, and Karazin, sobbing like a child, +flung himself at his feet with the words: ‘I swear that I will always +tell you the truth.’ + +Alexander made him sit down, had a long conversation with him, bade him +write directly to him, the doors of his study were to be open to him.... + + ‘Als der Marquis weggegangen, empfing ich den Befehl ihn + künftighin unangemeldet vorzulassen.’ + +Our Marquis von Posa had begun his political career two years before. +At five-and-twenty he had left the army. Well educated, of an unusually +many-sided culture, he said good-bye to the Semyonovsky Regiment in order +to study Russia and devote himself to the exact sciences. This was at +the time when the frenzy of Paul’s reign was at its height. When the +young man had looked into the position of luckless Russia, scourged at +random by her torturer, he was overcome by such horror, such loathing, +such despair, that he made up his mind at all costs to go away to another +country. Foreign passports were forbidden. Karazin could not obtain +permission to go. He determined to get over the frontier without a +passport. As he was crossing the Niemen, he was caught by the dragoons +and brought to Kovno. Karazin’s fate seemed inevitable. He clutched at +the most risky and incredible means of saving himself, and it saved him. +Before the official report had been despatched, he sent on the 14th of +August 1798, by express messenger, the following letter to Paul:— + + ‘SIRE,—A luckless criminal makes bold to write to Thee, a + criminal against Thy commands, O Sovereign Ruler of Russia, + not against honour, conscience, religion, or the laws of his + country. Deign to listen before condemning. And may one ray of + Thy clear vision be shed upon me before the lightnings of Thy + wrath consume me! + + ‘I have tried to leave my country, the great land of Thy + sovereign rule; I have transgressed Thy Will, doubly expressed, + that is, for the whole people and for me personally. On the + night of the third of this month, while crossing the Niemen to + Kovno, I was seized by a patrol of the Ekaterininsky Grenadier + Regiment; the official report will reach Thee shortly. + + ‘No doubt information will be collected about me in St. + Petersburg, where I have spent a short time, and in the + province of Ukraine, where I was born and have my estates. I + make bold to assure Thee beforehand that they will in no wise + prove me guilty. I had no need to take refuge in flight. It + will be the only weapon for my prosecutors. + + ‘Receive my confession: I wanted to escape from Thy rule, + dreading its cruelty. Many examples, carried by rumour over the + expanse of Thy Empire, in all likelihood exaggerated tenfold by + rumour, terrified my thoughts and my imagination day and night. + I knew of no guilt in myself. In the solitude of my country + life I could have neither opportunity nor occasion to offend + Thee. But even the free turn of my thoughts might be a crime.... + + ‘Now it is in Thy power to punish me—and justify my fears—or + to forgive and make me shed tears of repentance that I have + cherished thoughts so false of a great and merciful Sovereign.’ + +It was not often Paul’s lot to read such letters. The horror of +his despotism, which had compelled the young man to flee, and the +simple-hearted confession of it, took Paul by surprise. Standing in the +third position of dancing, and leaning with intentional awkwardness on +his cane, Paul said in his husky voice to the _criminal_ who was brought +before him: ‘I will show you, young man, that you are mistaken, that +service in Russia under my rule may not be so bad; in whose department +would you like to serve?’ Though Karazin’s design to escape over the +frontier was no proof of a very strong desire to test the charms of +service under Paul, there was no discussing the question. Karazin +mentioned Troshtchinsky. Paul commanded that he should be given a post +and left in peace. + +For Alexander such a man was a treasure, and it seemed as though +he understood that. Karazin’s inexhaustible energy and his broad +scientific education were striking. He was an astronomer and a chemist, +a statistician, a scientific agriculturalist, not a rhetorician like +Karamzin, nor a pedant like Speransky, but a living man, who brought into +every question a quite new point of view and advised exactly what was +needed. + +At first the Emperor was continually sending for him and writing notes +to him with his own hand.[91] The intoxication of success increased +Karazin’s energy tenfold; he drew up programmes of reform, among others +the plan of a Ministry of Education, sent in a note concerning the +_eradication of slavery_ (that is, of serfdom), in which he says plainly +that after the nobles had been set free by special decree[92] it was the +peasants’ turn; at the same time, he wrote about elementary schools, +himself composed two catechisms, one secular, one religious, and all at +once, in the very heyday of his favour, asked for leave and was lost in +his native district in Little Russia. It must not be imagined that he +went for a rest to gather fresh energy; such men are never tired. No, he +returned to Petersburg a few weeks later with six hundred and eighteen +thousand roubles which he had wrung by tears and entreaties from the +nobles and merchants of Harkov and Poltava for founding a university +in Harkov. The Tsar wanted to reward him for it, but Karazin refused. +‘I have been on my knees, Sire, before the nobles and the merchants, I +entreated the money from them with tears, and I will not have it said +that I did all that hoping to gain a reward.’ Alexander was pleased with +him and everything went well, but already a hostile force could be +discerned which at times rolled a log under the wheel, at times put on +the brake.... + +The plan for a Ministry of Education was ratified, but by now it was +not the same; the scheme of the Harkov university was ratified too, +but Karazin’s colossal plans were narrowed down to the commonplace +proportions of a German provincial _Hochschule_. Karazin was dreaming +of a great educational centre, not only for all Little Russia, but also +for the south-eastern Slavs and even the Greeks. He wanted to attract +to it the greatest celebrities of the world of learning. Laplace and +Fichte agreed to go at his invitation, but the Government found them too +expensive. + +Scarcely noticing the failure of his success, Karazin summoned from +foreign lands to Harkov at his own expense thirty-two families of +printers, bookbinders and other workmen, visited the palace of the +widowed Empress, wrote for her treatises concerning female education, +articles on pedagogy, and so on. This did not in the least distract +him from carrying out other commissions of Alexander’s and persisting +with other labours he had undertaken. In a little more than two years +he had, in addition to all we have mentioned, already succeeded in +writing constitutions for an academy, for universities and for various +educational institutions, collecting materials for the history of finance +and for the history of medicine in Russia, superintending the collecting +of the first statistical information, and bringing the State archives +into order. + +In 1804 Karazin returned from an inquiry which he had been conducting, in +combination with Derzhavin, into the doings of the Governor Lopuhin. The +misdeeds of this man, who was under powerful protection, were laid bare. +Lopuhin was put on his trial. All that remained to do was to reward the +investigators; but by now the rope that had been allowed Marquis von +Posa was almost at its end. + +Unaware of anything, he presented himself before the Tsar. The Tsar +received him with knitted brows. Karazin stood as though struck by a +thunderbolt. + +‘You brag of my letters?’ + +‘Sire....’ But the Tsar would not let him answer. + +‘Other people know what I have written to you alone and have shown to no +one. You can go.’ + +Karazin withdrew, and all was over between them. Karazin asked to be +relieved of his duties; the Tsar accepted his request. + +And so in 1804 the Emperor did not know that the contents of letters +become known through the Post Office. + +One cannot help recalling the melancholy anecdote that used to be told by +N. I. Turgenev, that at some congress Alexander, receiving the petition +of a peasant who had been sold by his owner, asked Turgenev: ‘Surely the +law does not permit the sale of men apart from land, and the sale of +serfs individually?’ Turgenev, who knew the chaotic state of the law on +that subject, tried to take advantage of the question to abolish such +sale of serfs, and of course did not succeed. After the sitting of the +Council at which Turgenev spoke heatedly on the subject, V. P. Kotchubey +went up to him, and, smiling bitterly, said: ‘And do you imagine that +anything will come of this?... What you should rather be surprised at is +that after reigning twenty years the Tsar does not even know that serfs +are sold individually in Russia!’ + + +4 + +THE SINS OF THE FATHERS + +The Russian Government since the days of Peter the Great has been +exceptionally free. It has views, interests, relations, but no sort of +_moral obligations_. + +When it freed itself from the stagnant traditions of the parental home, +it simultaneously severed all ties of blood, without assuming any others; +it handed over its own mother into bondage to a stranger, but did not +submit to him either. + +The complex elements of Western life, derived from various different +sources, were selected to suit its purposes. Of a whole phrase in +which the very discords softened its one-sidedness, took the edge off +its extremes and made a harmony of a sort, a few notes were retained, +destroying the concord and the significance. All that exaggerated +authority and all that oppressed the individual was adopted; every +defence of personal liberty was laid aside; the casuistry of the +inquisition was enriched by Tatar torture, German discipline, Byzantine +servility. + +Even speech, absolutely oppressed and despised, gained the power of fatal +menace, of inflicting boundless misfortune, the power of action, only +when ‘word and deed’[93] meant denunciation! + +There has never in history been such a Government, relieved from all +moral principles, from every duty undertaken by authority except that of +self-preservation and maintaining the frontiers. The Russian Government +of this period is the most monstrous abstraction to which the German +metaphysics _eines Polizeistaates_ could rise. The Government exists +for the sake of the Government, the people for the sake of the State: +a complete disregard for history, for religion, for tradition, for the +heart of man; material force in place of an ideal, material power in +place of authority. + +Had Russia been conquered by Poland, let us suppose, there would have +been a struggle. The Polish nobility would have brought in their +tradition of aristocratic freedom; it would, as in Little Russia, as +in the time of the Pretenders, have called forth from outraged national +feeling Lyapunovs,[94] Minins,[95] Pozharskys and Hmyelnitskys.[96] The +two elements would have measured their strength. The conqueror would +have seen what the conquered was, what were his peculiarities, where +his national characteristics lay. But the conquest of Russia by the +Government of Petersburg, without an enemy of a different race, without +a hostile flag, without an open battle, took the whole country unawares. +The people only grasped that it was conquered by the time that all the +strong places were in the hands of the enemy; for the conquerors the +vanquished people had not even the interest of novelty, of the unknown; +on the contrary, the estranged oppressor despised the ignorant Russian +people, was convinced that it knew them and felt that it was the same +flesh and blood, but purified by civilisation and called to rule the +ignorant masses. + +About Peter the Great there gathered a crowd of destitute nobles who +forgot their birth, of foreigners who forgot their native land, of +orderlies and sergeants, interspersed with the old Boyar aristocrats and +the everlasting intriguers who crawl at the feet of any one in power +and take advantage of any one’s favour. This circle grew and multiplied +rapidly, sending out its parasitic branches in all directions. Little by +little this blight spread all over Russia, it trailed through the mud +and the snow carrying an officer’s commission, an appointment from the +senate, or a deed of sale, hungry and greedy, ferocious with the common +people and abject with the higher officials. + +It formed a sort of net, maintained by soldiers, joined together at +the top in the knot of the Winter Palace, and holding tight peasants +and townsmen in every mesh below. This was a sort of fortuitous state +made up of nobles and government functionaries, with a flavour of army +discipline and serfdom. In it everything was shaved off: beard, regional +independence, individuality. It wore German dress and tried to speak +French. The people looked with horror and repulsion on the traitors, but +power was on the side of the latter, and however the people moaned, and +however they revolted, the census and the recruiting, the forced labour +and pay in lieu of labour, knout and rods went on unchecked. The people +murmured, made frequent efforts to revolt; joining with the Cossacks +and the Tatars, a whole countryside rose in insurrection—but there were +troops and troops of soldiers ... and order was restored by the knout. +Stunned with pain, crushed by despair, the people were felled to the +earth and lay stupefied for nearly a hundred years. It is only from that +time that Russia has become that dead, dumb sea which no hurricane will +stir. + +Up to the ’seventies of last century the Petersburg orderlies and +sergeants had not fallen into step. These people of haughty insolence +and no feeling of honour, drunk with wine and blood, accustomed to the +executioner’s axe and the moan of the tortured, after tasting the sweets +of power and being beaten with the stick, remembered well how easy it is +in a state without a people to put any worthless creature on the throne +or turn it off again. + +They knew that they too had their share in the Imperial ‘We.’ ... The +far-sighted among them wanted to limit the power of the autocracy +for their own benefit, but the true sergeants preferred simply to +strangle Tsars and put their mistresses in their place. The insolent +courtiers were dangerous, exacting. It was not enough for Prince +Grigory Grigoryevitch Orlov to have Catherine, he wanted the title of +her husband. Knowing how light are the chains of matrimony, Catherine +consented, but the other orderlies and sergeants would not dream of +allowing it. The name of Ivan Antonovitch[97] was pronounced: she +bade them kill him like a cat; the name of Princess Tarakanov[98] was +recalled: she bade them steal her as puppies are stolen. + +All this was done from terror. Feverish, irresistible terror took +possession of every one who sat on Peter’s blood-stained throne. It was +hard to rely on such faithful subjects as the orderlies and sergeants, +as the German adventurers; still more so to rely on the people, on +the voiceless people, trampled in the mud, handed over as a gift to +the nobility: they did not exist. Those who wore the crown kept up +appearances, tried to forget themselves, but panic got the upper hand, +and suddenly they would be overcome by the terror of the rope-walker: +below, a black mass of downcast heads that never look up, no voice can +reach it; near at hand ... it would be better if there were no one +... near at hand, sergeants, orderlies, and no one akin.... They were +terrified by their own infertility, and sent seeking everywhere among +German _landgrafs_ and archbishops a drop of Peter’s blood in the fourth +or fifth generation, or hurriedly ordered children, as Elizabeth did from +Catherine, and kept looking about them, afraid that a drunken orderly +would come ... with the ribbon of Saint Andrew on his breast and a rope +in his hand. + +_Another figure_ appeared on the scene, and everything was changed. +The storm-clouds had parted, men could see clear again. A picture of +the greatest family happiness was displayed to the world: the god-like +Felitsa,[99] ‘the mother of her country,’ stood serenely at the pinnacle +of power and authority, graciously smiling on her kneeling orderlies +and sergeants, senators and cavaliers; every one worshipped her, every +one did homage to her. Radiant with paste gems, after the manner of the +_encyclopaedic_ diamonds, she sparkled with the wisdom of Beccaria[100] +and the profound thought of Montesquieu, delivered classical speeches to +the landowners of the steppes, put Roman helmets on her _balafrés_ ... +sent for legislators who took her will for law.... Her generals brought +her victory on land and on sea, Derzhavin sang her praises in heavy +verse, Voltaire exalted her in light prose, and she, drunken with power, +weighed down with love, gave everything to _her own_ people, everything: +her body, the souls of the free Cossacks, the estates of the monasteries. +‘Glory, glory to you, Catherine!’ + +Who had performed this miracle, who had roped in the Russia of the +renegades and the Germans? Who wedded the mutinous orderlies and +blood-stained sergeants to Felitsa? + +An unknown old lady, a landowner of the steppes after the style of +Korobotchka,[101] had bewitched them. What happened, it was said, was +this. + +Pugatchov came to her farm; the old woman was frightened and went out to +offer His Majesty bread and salt. + +‘Well, what sort of a mistress has she been to you, good Christians?’ the +Tsar-Cossack asked the peasants. + +‘We will not take a sin on our souls, Your Majesty; we have always been +satisfied with our mistress, she has been a mother to us.’ + +‘Good! I will come to you, old lady, and drink your vodka, since the +people praise you.’ + +The old lady regaled him as best she could. Pugatchov took leave of her +and went to his sledge. The peasants stood waiting for him; their faces +were dissatisfied. + +‘If you have some favour to ask, speak boldly.’ + +‘Well, Your Royal Majesty, how is it left then for us?’ + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Why, here, you see, Sire, you were at such a place and there you hanged +the master and his children too, and at the other village, too ... and +how about us?’ + +‘Why, you say yourselves your old woman is a very good one.’ + +‘That is so, Your Majesty, she is a good woman, but still, perhaps it +would be better to do for her.’ + +‘Well, brothers, if you want to—as you like, we can do for her.’ + +‘It is a pity, it is a pity, but there is no help for it,’ said the +peasants, going to fetch the old lady, who was calmly clearing away the +plates and dishes, delighted at having been spared by the Tsar, and to +her great surprise they hanged her from the crossbeam. It was she, they +said, who cast a spell over the mutinous orderlies and sergeants of the +Government. + +They pondered, seeing such impartial justice. ‘Is that how we did for +them? I say, but you know, might not this happen to any one of us? No, +enough of mutiny; what could we do without the help of the Tsar?’ + +And the family feud was ended. + +From that time forward the Government dared not hold out a hand to the +peasants in any way. The nobles lost all sense of civic courage in face +of the Government, and all feeling of moral shame in regard to the +peasants. The two Russias completely ceased to recognise each other as +human beings. There was no human tie, neither compassion nor justice +between them. Their morality was different, what they held sacred was +different. The terrified peasant crouched in his village, afraid of +the landowner, afraid of the police-captain, afraid of the town where +every one could beat him, where his full coat and jerkin were looked +on with contempt, where he saw a beard only on the images of Christ. +The landowner, who shed genuine tears over the novels of Marmontel, +flogged the peasant in his stable for arrears with perfect equanimity; +the peasant with untroubled conscience deceived the landowner and the +judge. ‘Are you a gentleman?’ an old woman would say in the coach-house +to Mitka or Kuzka, ‘that you eat meat in Lent? As for the master, it’s +not expected of him, but why don’t you keep the law of God?’ The division +could be no wider. + +The people were broken. Without murmur, without revolt, without hope, +they passed with clenched teeth _through the next thousand blows_,[102] +sank exhausted, died; their children were driven the same way, and so one +generation followed another. Tranquillity prevailed, the masters’ tribute +was paid, the forced labour was performed, the horn sounded for the hunt +with hounds, the serfs’ band played, the motherly heart of the Empress +rejoiced. + +The Petersburg throne was made secure. It was supported on the graduated +table of ranks, made fast to the earth with bayonets and butt-ends of +guns; it was supported by the provincial nobility, who battened upon the +peasants. The light from the West shed its pale, cold beams on the top +of the pyramid, lighting up one side of it only; on the other, behind +its shadow, nothing could be discerned—and, indeed, there was no need to +look: there lay a scourged body covered with sacking, waiting for _some +one_ to come and decide whether it was dead or not. It seemed as though +the conquest was complete. + +But the revolution made by Peter the Great introduced a double-edged +element into the life of the Russian nobility. Peter liked the material +side of civilisation, practical science. The rich resources it provided +increased the power of government tenfold. But he did not know what +thorns lie hid in these West European roses, and, maybe, had too +much contempt for his own people to dream that they could assimilate +something else as well as constructing fortifications, building ships +and establishing official routine. Science is as bad as any wood-worm +which gnaws day and night until somewhere it comes forth into the light, +struggles into consciousness. And some thought, like the gnawing of +conscience, begins to ferment, until the whole dough rises. + +In 1789 the following incident took place. A young man[103] of no +importance, after supping with his friends in Petersburg, drove in +a postchaise to Moscow. He slept through the first station. At the +second, Sofya, he was detained a long time before he could get horses, +and consequently, it may be supposed, was so thoroughly awakened that +when the fresh team carried him off with the bells ringing, instead of +sleeping he listened to the driver’s song in the fresh morning air. +Strange ideas came into the mind of the young man of no importance. Here +are his words:— + +‘My driver sang a song, as usual a mournful one. Any one who knows +the airs of the Russian peasants’ songs will recognise that there +is something suggestive of spiritual sadness. Almost every tune of +these songs is in a minor key. The Government should be based on this +peculiarity of the peasants’ musical taste. In it you will find the +character of our people’s soul. _Look at the Russian and you will find +him melancholy._ If he wants to shake off his dreariness, or, as he +himself says, if he wants to enjoy himself, he goes to the pot-house.... +The barge-hauler going with hanging head to the pot-house and coming back +red with blood from blows in the face may provide the solution of much +that has hitherto been enigmatic in the history of Russia.’ + +The driver went on wailing his song: the traveller went on thinking his +thoughts, and before he had reached Tchudovo suddenly recalled how he had +once in Petersburg struck his Petrushka for being drunk. And he burst out +crying like a child, and, without blushing for his honour as a nobleman, +had the shamelessness to write: ‘Oh, if only, drunk as he was, he had +plucked up spirit enough to answer me in the same way!’ + +This song, these tears, these words, cast at hazard on the posting-road +between two stations, must be regarded as one of the first signs of the +turning tide. The seed always germinates in silence, and at the beginning +there is no trace of it. + +The Empress Catherine saw the point of it, and was graciously pleased +‘with warmth and feeling’ to say to Hrapovitsky: ‘Radishtchev is a rebel +worse than Pugatchov!’ + +To wonder that she sent him in chains to Ilimsky Prison is absurd. It is +much more wonderful that Paul brought him back, but he did that to spite +his dead mother, he had no other object in it. + +Thenceforward, from time to time, stray gleams of light flash on the +horizon with no clap of thunder. Men appear on the stage who embody in +themselves the historical gnawings of conscience, helpless and guiltless +victims expiating the sins of their fathers. Many of them are ready to +give up everything, sacrifice everything, but there is no altar, no one +to accept their sacrifice. Some knocked at the palace doors, and on their +knees besought their rulers to take heed to their ways; their words +seemed to trouble the rulers, but nothing came of it. Others knocked +at the hut but could say nothing to the peasant, since they spoke a +different language. The peasant looked with sullen distrust at these +‘Greeks bearing gifts,’ and the conscience-stricken turned away bitterly, +feeling that they had no fatherland. + +Bereaved of all through thought, bereaved of all through love, foreigners +at home, cut off from communication with each other, the five or six best +men in Russia perished in idleness, surrounded by hatred, indifference, +misunderstanding. Novikov[104] was in the fortress, Radishtchev in +Ilimsk. A fine place Russia must have seemed to them when Paul released +them! + +There is no wonder that all men looked with ecstatic hope to Alexander. + +Young, handsome, with a mild and pensive expression, shy and extremely +gracious, he might well fascinate them. Was he not suffering for the ills +of Russia as they were? Was he not trying to heal them as they were? And, +moreover, he _could_ do it—so at least they fancied. + +And Radishtchev, who had paid so dearly for his pity of the dark masses +of Russia, went with the same faith as Karazin to offer his services +to the young Emperor, and he too was accepted. Zealously Radishtchev +plunged into work and drew up a series of legislative projects for the +abolition of serfdom and corporal punishment. But all at once, after a +short discussion, not with the sledge-driver but with Count Zavadovsky, +he stopped short, hesitated, was overcome by doubt and dread, pondered, +poured himself out a glass of sulphuric acid and drank it. Alexander +sent his own doctor, Villiers, but it was too late. Villiers only said, +looking at his features as he lay in agony: ‘This man must have been very +unhappy!’ + +He must have been! + +This was in the autumn of 1802. Karazin was then in power. He knew +Radishtchev very well, and indeed on one occasion lost the manuscript +of his proposed reforms—but his alarming example had no effect on him. +Dismissed from the palace, Karazin came back five years later, ten years +later, twenty years later, thirty years later, with his plan for the +emancipation of the serfs and a representative assembly of the nobles, +his programme for a revolution from above. Not even observing that +Nicholas was reigning, he knocked at his door too, and urged upon that +dull-witted martinet that ‘storms were rising, there would be trouble; +that to save the throne concessions must be made,’ and could not imagine +why, in 1820, Alexander had ordered him to be put in the fortress, and +the head gendarme Benckendorf ordered the gendarmes to turn him out of +Nicholas’ anteroom. He should have asked Speransky how the ‘steep hills +break the spirited steed’ even in flat Petersburg, and make of him a +respectable harnessed nag, gravely jogging along in blinkers. + +But how was it these people could be so deceived, or was it Alexander +who deceived them? But that was not the case at all. We have not, at +any rate before 1806 or 1807, the slightest right to doubt his genuine +desire to alleviate the lot of his subjects: to protect his peasants from +maltreatment by their owners, from maltreatment by officials, from the +veniality of the law-courts and the injustice of the mighty. Alexander +did not set before himself as the exclusive aim of his reign the futile +preservation and increase of his power, as Nicholas did. It was not his +desire that his word should have the effect of strychnine; he strove +not only to be feared but to be loved. In his most passionate moments +he could not only listen to another man’s opinion, but even accept it. +When he had decided to shoot Speransky in 1812, he commuted the senseless +sentence after talking to the academician, Parrot. All that is so, but he +_could not_ do anything real for the Russian people. That was just the +tragedy of his position. + +And who can tell whether he did not rush into foreign wars because +he had begun to discern the magic circle which grew wider every time +that he ordered a levy or increased the taxes on the peasants, and at +once contracted when he undertook anything for the peasants? He became +irresolute, he was oppressed by mistrust of others, lack of confidence +in himself; his hesitation grew with defeat and grew with victory. From +Paris he returned a gloomy mystic: he no longer wanted to transform +or to improve; he brought back Speransky, but his projects of reform +were pigeonholed in the archives. To Engelhart, who said something to +him about bringing order into the civilian side of the Government, he +answered gloomily: ‘There is no one to undertake it!’ + +He was accustomed to power, he had glory enough, all he wanted now was +peace, and among all his ministers and grandees, among the generals +covered with glory and courtiers about his person, he chose the heartless +torturer, Araktcheyev, and handed Russia over to him, and, what is more, +arranged that even after his death it should pass into the hands of +another Araktcheyev. + +He did not trust the nobles, the peasants he did not know—and that is +no matter for wonder, since about him stood men like Speransky and his +rival Karamzin; like Shishkov, the forerunner of Slavophilism, who might +have known the peasants but did not know them; since the most intelligent +statesmen, like Mordvinov, talked of the nobility as the one prop of the +throne; since honest senators, like Lopuhin, were indignant at the idea +of the emancipation of the serfs. + +It is a pity that Alexander was rather deaf and did not drive about in a +chaise alone on the high-roads. He too might have been awakened at dawn +by the song of the sledge-driver and might have sought the key to the +mysteries of the people in that instead of in Eckhartshausen. + +To understand the Russian people it was not enough for Alexander to kill +his father. He would have had to renounce his wise grandmother, to +renounce Peter the Great, to renounce his whole family and kindred. He +would have had—horrible to say—to renounce even Laharpe, who had made a +man of him, but who could never have grasped that one could learn more +of Russian history from the barge-hauler who goes gloomily into the +pot-house and comes out of it covered with blood than from the records of +Governments. + + +5 + +FAREMO DA SE + +When the doors of the Tsar’s study had been shut upon Karazin he still +made an effort to write to the Tsar, taking advantage of the privilege +that had been accorded him. But the Marquis von Posa had no further +interest for the crowned Don Carlos; moreover, Alexander was now +engrossed and absorbed by questions of far different importance, European +questions; he was measuring himself against Napoleon, and blundering into +the war which was to end in our defeat at Austerlitz. + +Karazin, too, began to be engrossed with other tasks; like a rejected +lover, he flung himself _par dépit amoureux_ into amazingly many-sided +activities. His ardent, restless brain was filled with ideas floating +by in rapid succession—political plans, agricultural projects, learned +theories, machines, observation, apparatuses, new and improved methods of +distillery and of leather tanning, horticultural experiments with foreign +seeds, easy ways of drying and preserving fruit, and so on. War broke +out: Karazin wrote on the methods of increasing the output of saltpetre, +he preserved meat, and at the same time was engaged in founding stations +for meteorological observations in Russia. He absolutely clearly +formulated in 1808 the scientific needs of that department, which have +not been satisfied to this day, investigated the possibility of utilising +the electricity in the atmosphere, founded a technological society in +Ukraine, looked after his Harkov university, and so on. + +But his chief thought, his chief anxiety, the leading note of his life, +lay not in these things. While he was improving distilleries and trying +to utilise the electricity of the atmosphere, Karazin was passionately +watching other events and seeking other means of averting the storm. And +meanwhile time was passing and passing. + +Alexander had been reigning now for twenty years; all sorts of things +had happened since, with tears in his eyes, he had read Karazin’s letter +... Tilsit and 1812 ... Moscow and Paris, the Congress of Vienna and St. +Helena. Public opinion, stirred by so many shots and shocks, had moved +forward while the Government had fallen back. Alexander had not carried +out his promises. Dissatisfaction was growing. The people, who had given +so much blood and received in return a manifesto written in Shishkov’s +prose, murmured against the new levy of recruits, the more as there was +talk of a senseless war in support of the Austrian yoke in Italy, of a +repetition of the futile campaign of Suvorov. + +The younger men of energy and education looked on sullenly. Karazin saw +it all, but still believed that Alexander could and would prevent the +gathering storm. + +At the beginning of 1820 the Tsar forgave Karazin’s father-in-law some +government debt. Karazin asked permission to offer his thanks in person, +but was refused. He wrote a letter to the Tsar, in which among other +things he said:— + +‘I am not going to write anything special, but I only beg you, gracious +Sovereign, ask Count Viktor Pavlovitch[105] for the note of some pages +I wrote for him on the 31st of March, apropos of a conversation with +him, and also Prince Vyazemsky for the letter written to him from his +Masalsky estate by the merchant Rogov on the 1st of April, which he +read to me the other day. One cannot without horror see the striking +similarity of the thoughts of a man (so far removed from me in every +respect) with my thoughts and with all that has been filling my soul +continually since the year 1817, when I had the audacity to reveal +the same in my letter from Ukraine to Your Majesty. One cannot help +remembering that just in the same way warnings from the well-disposed +resounded from various parts of France before the coming of the fatal +revolution, and that in just the same way they were neglected! “_Il est +singulier que dans ce siècle de lumières, les souverains ne voient venir +l’orage que quand il éclate_,” Napoleon said to Las Cases[106] on the +Island of St. Helena. Such striking agreement in the views of different +minds that have nothing in common between them deserves attention. There +_must_ be something true in them; and the more so as similar feelings +have been for some time past apparent in private conversations in both +Petersburg and Moscow! It is quite enough if there are grounds for one +half, for a fraction of what is thought!’ + +‘... Time,’ he says in a note given at the Tsar’s command to V. P. +Kotchubey—‘time will strengthen the weakened framework of our State; time +will replace the _religious_ reverence for the Throne by another founded +on the laws.... + +‘Of course it may linger on a year or two, perhaps more, but it is +just for that reason I am writing now, it is for that reason that I am +disregarding myself entirely. My fate is bound to be either exile beyond +Lake Baikal, while there is still power to exile, or death with a weapon +in my hand defending to the last the entrance to the Tsar’s apartments. +Only then I shall write no more.’ + +Karazin beseeches the Tsar not to believe the sayings with which the +governors meet him that ‘All is well, all is as before....’ + +‘A great change,’ he says, ‘has taken place and is daily taking place in +men’s minds....’ + +In the Semyonovsky mutiny, in which he justifies the soldiers and admires +them, he sees distinctly ‘the first step of the ladder which the spirit +of the age is raising for us.’ + +But what were his means of averting the storm? Here they are:— + +‘The gradual emancipation of the peasants and the summoning of elected +persons from the whole of the nobility as representatives of public +opinion to the private councils of the Government.’ By this Duma Karazin +supposes ‘all will be saved and without detriment to the power of the +Monarch, if only the time has not passed. O my Country, unique in Thy +character, Thou mayest even on the threshold of Thy greatest catastrophe +be saved by a sincere, warm union of Thy Tsar with His nobility! But +God’s Will be done in this as in all! + +‘... And, indeed, what can the Autocracy lose from trusting the class +whose fate is so closely bound up with it?... All the measures of the +police and ecclesiastical censorship are insufficient to check the growth +of opinion. Excessive severity only revolts men’s hearts. All at once +the strained cord will snap. Among the many freed serfs and men of no +definite class I foresee the miscreants who will surpass Robespierre. +There are noblemen, too, who have squandered their estates and been +reared in debauchery and evil principles, who are dissatisfied with their +lot and are consequently ready to join the ignorant mob. The times of +Pugatchov, of the Moscow mutiny in the time of Yeropkin,[107] and the +outbreaks of lawlessness at the invasion in 1812 in various parts of the +Moscow and Kaluga provinces have shown us already what our mob can be +when it has had too much to drink! Alas for us! the Throne will drown in +the blood of the nobility!’ + +In answer to this cry of horror and warning, the Emperor Alexander bade +V. P. Kotchubey demand from Karazin ‘details, proofs, names’—in other +words a denunciation. The ‘Trajan and Marcus Aurelius’ had developed in +the twenty years of his reign! + +Karazin refused to give them. The Tsar ordered him to be thrown into the +fortress and afterwards to be banished to his estate in Little Russia. + +What for? + +For having meddled in what was not his business, but that Karazin was +quite unable to understand. + +‘How long has the welfare of the country in which I live,’ he says, +‘in which my children and grandchildren will live, ceased to be my own +business?[108] From what Asiatic system is this idea borrowed? _Teaching_ +the _Government_ is an expression purposely invented to mortify the +vanity of the persons who make up the Government. But must not the +authors of books on the best systems of legislation, of finance and so +on, be called even more guilty? We all teach and are taught up to the +day of our death. The Government is a centre, to which every thought +concerning the commonweal must flow. Woe to us if we begin passing +judgment in the market-place as other nations do!... And are there so +many of us now in Russia desirous and capable of saying something to the +Government and daring enough to do so? There is no need to be uneasy on +that score: there will not be enough to become wearisome!’ + +However that may be, Karazin was in the fortress and was able at his +leisure to ponder on the question whether there was more danger in saving +the mighty of this world, or in thrusting them into the abyss. + +While Karazin in those sleepless nights was writing his political +rhapsodies to Kotchubey, there were other men, too, who could not +sleep: in the barracks of the Guards, in the staff of the Second army, +in old-fashioned signorial Moscow houses, there were men who did not +sleep. They grasped the fact that Alexander would not go beyond two or +three Liberal phrases, that there was no place in the Winter Palace +for a Marquis von Posa nor Struensee[109]; they knew that no salvation +for the people could come from the same source from which the military +settlements had come. They expected nothing from the Government and +tried to act independently of it; they brought all that was enlightened +lower down in the social pyramid; its summit had grown dim in the mist. +Culture, intelligence, the thirst for freedom, all now was to be found in +a different region, in different surroundings, away from the Palace! In +these were to be found youth, daring, breadth, poetry, Pushkin, the scars +of 1812, fresh laurels, and white crosses. Between 1812 and 1825 there +appeared a perfect galaxy of brilliant talent, independent character and +chivalrous valour (a combination quite new in Russia). These men had +absorbed everything of Western culture, the introduction of which had +been forbidden. The period of Petersburg Government produced nothing +better. They were its latest blossoms, and in spite of the fatal scythe +that mowed them down at once, their influence can be traced flowing far +into the gloomy Russia of Nicholas, like the Volga into the sea. + +The story of the Decembrists becomes a more and more solemn prologue, +from which we all date our lives, our heroic genealogy. What Titans, +what giants, and what poetical, what sympathetic characters! Their glory +nothing could diminish or distort, neither the gibbet nor the prison, nor +the treachery of Bludov, nor the memorial words of Korf.... + +Yes, they were men! + +When, thirty years afterwards, a few of the old ones who survived +Nicholas came back, bent and leaning on crutches, from their long, weary +exile—the generation of broken-spirited, splenetic, disillusioned men who +had lived under Nicholas looked at these _youthful_ figures, who, at the +fortresses, at the mines, in Siberia, had kept the old warmth of heart, +young enthusiasm, unconquerable will, unflinching convictions, at these +young figures with their silver hair that still bore traces of the crown +of thorns which had lain for more than a quarter of a century on their +heads. It was not they who sought support and comfort at the hearth that +had grown chill—no—they consoled the weak, they gave a hand to the sick +children, cheering them on, supporting their strength and their hopes! + +As Faust, wearied, turned for peace and rest to the eternally beautiful +types of motherhood, so our younger generation turn for new energy and +strengthening example to these Fathers. + +The Petersburg period was purified by the holy company of Decembrists; +the nobles could go no further without going out to the people, without +tearing up their patent of nobility. + +It was their Isaac sacrificed for reconciliation with the people. The +crowned Abraham did not hear the voice of God and drew the noose.... + +The people did not weep for them. + +The tragic element of the Petersburg period attained its furthest, most +heart-rending expression—further it could not go. + +The sacrifice was complete, and the last touch to its completeness was +given by the indifference of the people. + +Only now a way of escape and reconciliation became possible. The +separation from the people was truly expiated by so much love and +strength, purity and penitence, so much self-denial and devotion to +others. The readiness of this group of aristocrats and noblemen not only +to give up their unjust heritage, _se faire roturiers de gentilshommes_, +as Count Rostoptchin expressed it, but to face death, to go to penal +servitude, wipes out the sins of the fathers! + + +6 + +ON THE FURTHER SIDE + +When in 1826 Yakubovitch saw Prince Obolensky with a beard and wearing +the greatcoat of a soldier, he could not help exclaiming: ‘Well, +Obolensky, if I am like Stenka Razin, you certainly must be like Vanka +Kain!...[110]’ Then the officer came up, the convicts were put in fetters +and sent to Siberia to penal servitude. + +The common people did not recognise the likeness, and dense crowds of +them looked on indifferently in Nizhni-Novgorod as the fettered prisoners +were driven by at the time of the fair. Perhaps they were thinking: ‘Our +poor dears go there _on foot_, but here the gentry are driven by the +gendarmes!’ + +But on the other side of the Ural Mountains lies a mournful equality +in face of penal servitude and in face of hopeless misery. Everything +is changed. The petty official whom we knew here as a heartless, dirty +bribe-taker, at Irkutsk, in a voice trembling with tears, begs the +exiles to accept a gift of money from him; the rude Cossacks who escort +them leave them in peace and freedom so far as they can; the merchants +entertain them on their way. On the further side of Lake Baikal some of +them stopped at the ford at Verhno-Udinsk; the inhabitants learnt who +they were, and an old man at once sent them by his grandson a basket of +white rolls, while he hobbled out himself to talk to them of the region +beyond the Baikal and to question them about the wide world. + +While Prince Obolensky was still at the Usolsky Works, he went out early +in the morning to the place where he had been told to chop down trees. +While he was at work, a man appeared out of the forest, looked at him +intently with a friendly air, and then went on his way. In the evening, +as he was going home, Obolensky met him again; he made signs to him and +pointed to the forest. Next morning he came out from the bushes again +and signed to Obolensky to follow him. Obolensky went. Leading him away +into the forest, he stopped and said to him solemnly: ‘We have long known +of your coming. We have been told of you in the prophecy of Ezekiel. We +have been expecting you, there are many of us here, rely upon us, we will +not betray you!’ It was an exiled Duhobor. + +Obolensky had for a long time been fretted by the desire for news of +his own people through Princess Trubetskoy who had come to Irkutsk. He +had no means of forwarding a letter to her. Obolensky asked the help of +the Duhobor. The latter did not waste time in deliberation. ‘At dusk +to-morrow,’ he said, ‘I will be at a certain spot. Bring me the letter, +it shall be taken....’ Obolensky gave him the letter, and the same night +the man set off for Irkutsk; two days later the answer was in Obolensky’s +hands. + +What would have happened if he had been caught? + +Among comrades one does not count the risk. + +The Duhobor paid the people’s debt for Radishtchev. + +And so in the forests and mines of Siberia the Russia of Petersburg, of +the landowners, of the officials, of the officers, and the Russia of the +ignorant peasants of the village, both exiled and fettered, both with an +axe in the belt, both leaning on the spade, both wiping away the sweat, +looked each other for the first time in the face, and recognised the +long-forgotten traits of kinship. + +It is time that this should take place in the light of day, aloud, +openly, everywhere. + +It is time that the nobility, artificially raised into a different +channel by the German engineers, should mingle with the surrounding sea. +Fountains are no marvel now, and Samson’s spout of water from the lion’s +mouth is no wonder beside the infinity of the rippling sea. + +The Peterhof fête is over, the court masque in fancy dress is played +out, the lamps are smoking and going out, the fountains have almost run +dry—let us go home. + +‘All that is so, but ... but ... would it not be better to raise the +people?’ Perhaps; only it is as well to grasp that the one sure method +of doing so is the method of torture, the method of Peter the Great, of +Biron, of Araktcheyev. That is why the Emperor Alexander accomplished +nothing with the Karazins and the Speranskys—but when he got to +Araktcheyey, he did not give him up again. + +There are too many of the common people for it to be really possible to +raise them all to the fourteenth grade,[111] and indeed every people +has a strongly defined physiological character which even foreign +conquest rarely changes. So long as we take the common people as clay +and ourselves as sculptors, and from our sublime height mould it into a +statue _à l’antique_, in the French style, in the English manner, or on +the German model, we shall find nothing in the people except stubborn +indifference or mortifyingly passive obedience. + +The pedagogic method of our civilising reformers is a bad one. It starts +from the fundamental principle that we know everything and the peasantry +knows nothing: as though we had taught the peasant his right to the land, +communal ownership, organisation, the artel and the mir. + +It goes without saying that we can teach the peasantry a great deal, but +there is a great deal that we have to learn from it and to study in it. +We have theories, absorbed by us and representing the worked-out results +of European culture. To determine which to apply, and how to fit them +to our national existence, it is not enough to translate word for word; +the lexicon is not enough. One must try in the first place to do with it +what social thinkers are trying to do in Western Europe—to make their +institutions comprehensible to them. + +The common people cling obstinately to their habits—they believe in them; +but we cling as obstinately to our theories and we believe in them, and, +what is more, imagine that we know them to be true, that the reality +is so. Passing on after a fashion what we have learnt out of books in +conventional language, we see with despair that the common people do not +understand us, and we bewail the stupidity of the people, just as the +schoolboy will blush for poor relations, because they do not know when +to put ‘i’ and when ‘y,’ but never troubles to wonder why two different +letters should be used for the same sound. + +Genuinely desirous of the good of the people, we look for remedies for +their ailments in foreign pharmacopœias; there the herbs are foreign, but +it is easier to find them in a book than in the fields. We easily and +consistently become liberals, constitutionalists, democrats, Jacobins, +but not Russians, believers in the common people. All these political +shades one can acquire from books: all that is understood, explained and +written, printed, bound.... But here one must go without a track.... +The life of Russia is like the forest in which Dante lost his way, and +the wild beasts that are in it are worse than the Florentine ones, but +there is no Virgil to show the way; there were some Moscow Susanins,[112] +but even those led one to the graveyard instead of to the peasants’ +cottage.... + +Without knowing the people we may oppress the people, we may enslave +them, we may conquer them, but we cannot set them free. + +Without the help of the people they will be freed neither by the Tsar +with his clerks, nor the nobility with the Tsar, nor the nobility without +the Tsar. + +What is happening now in Russia ought to open the eyes of the blind. +The peasantry have borne the terrible burden of serfdom without ever +acknowledging its lawfulness; seeing the force opposed to them they have +remained dumb. But as soon as others attempted in their own way to set +them free, they passed from murmuring, from passive resistance, almost to +open mutiny, and yet they are obviously better off now. What new signs do +the reformers wait for? + +Only the man who when called to action understands the life of the +people while keeping what science has given him; only one who voices its +strivings and founds on the realisation of them his work for the common +cause, will be the bridegroom that is to come. + +This lesson is repeated to us alike by the mournful figure of Alexander +with his crown; by Radishtchev with his glass of poison; by Karazin +flying through the Winter Palace like a burning meteor; by Speransky who +shone for years together with a glimmer like moonshine, with no warmth, +no colour; and by our holy martyrs of the Fourteenth of December. + +Who will be the predestined saviour? + +Will it be an emperor who, renouncing all the traditions of the +Petersburg Government, combines in himself Tsar and Stenka Razin? Will +it be another Pestel? Or another Emelyan Pugatchov, Cossack, Tsar and +heretic? Or will it be a prophet and a peasant, like Antony Bezdninsky? + +It is hard to tell: these are details, _des détails_ as the French say. +Who ever it may be, it is our task to meet him with warm welcome! + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] _Die Schwefelbande._—(_Author’s Note._) + +[2] Don Carlos, born 1818, usually called Count of Montemolin to +distinguish him from the better known Don Carlos, his father. Both were +unsuccessful pretenders to the throne of Queen Isabella of Spain. Don +Juan was the brother of the Count of Montemolin, and at the latter’s +death succeeded to his claims. + +[3] _Honveds_ (‘Land-defenders’), the name given to the old national +heroes of Hungary, was in 1848 adopted by the revolutionary +armies.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[4] Sir George Grove in his _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_ says of +Jullien (originally Julien): ‘No one at all in the same category has +occupied anything like the same position in public favour. His name +was a household word and his face and figure household shapes during a +period of nearly twenty years.’ ‘To Jullien is attributed the immense +improvements made in our orchestras during these twenty years.’ Among +other works he composed The Allied Armies Quadrille (Crimean War, 1854), +The Indian Quadrille and Havelock’s March (Indian Mutiny, 1857), The +English Quadrille, and The French Quadrille.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[5] The Austrian Field-Marshal Urban defeated Garibaldi’s volunteers and +took Varese, but was obliged to abandon it (June 1859).—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[6] This lady was the wife of the Count F. A. Pulszky, who was a friend +of Kossuth and associated with him in the efforts to throw off the +yoke of the Austrian Government. He wrote several books describing his +adventures, and his wife wrote her memoirs, known in English as _Memoirs +of an Hungarian Lady_ (published in London, 1850), and other books, such +as _Tales and Traditions of Hungary_ (1851). + +[7] The famous Lord Raglan, who distinguished himself in the campaigns +against Napoleon and still more so in the Crimean War, lost his right arm +at Waterloo and is said to have practised writing with his left hand the +very next day. The ‘Raglan sleeve’ is doubtless so named in his honour. + +[8] St.-Arnaud, Jacques Leroy de (1801-1854), one of the leading +organisers of the Coup d’État of December 2, defeated the Russians at +Alma. + +[9] Omer Pasha, Turkish General in the Crimean War.—(_Translator’s +Notes._) + +[10] Delahodde (or De Lahode), Lucien, wrote _Histoire des Sociétés +Secrètes de 1830 à 1848_, and _La Naissance de la République_. + +[11] Chenu, J. A., wrote _Les Conspirateurs_, which called forth +a reply, _Réponse aux deux libelles de Chenu et Delahodde_, by J. +Miot.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[12] Delescluze, Charles (1809-1871), a French journalist and politician, +was a member of the Commune in 1871 and killed at the barricades. + +[13] Boichot, Jean Baptiste (born 1820), elected a Representative of +the People, appeared in uniform at the demonstration of June 13, 1849, +escaped to Switzerland and afterwards to London, where he wrote books +in conjunction with Félix Pyat and was head of the society called ‘La +Commune Révolutionnaire.’ He returned to Paris in 1854, was captured and +imprisoned.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[14] Latour was Austrian War Minister, murdered by an infuriated crowd on +October 6, 1848. + +[15] An unconscious pun which occurs in an old Russian poem on the +Crusades.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[16] Probably James Buchanan, then President of the United States, is +meant.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[17] Stansfeld, The Rt. Hon. James, born 1820, was, 1859, returned to +Parliament for Halifax as an advanced Liberal. He was a Lord of the +Admiralty from 1863 to 1864, when he resigned. In 1886 he was President +of the Local Government Board, with a seat in the Cabinet. He was a close +friend of Mazzini.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[18] A village in the province of Milan where the French defeated the +Austrians in 1859.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[19] The _Alabama_ was a vessel built by a British firm in a British port +for the Southern States in the American Civil War. It did great damage to +the shipping of the Northern States, capturing sixty-five ships. Feeling +on the subject ran so high that at one time there seemed a danger of +England’s taking part in the war on the side of the South.—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[20] I remember one case of a stolen watch and two or three of fights +with Irishmen.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[21] Is it not strange that Garibaldi was at one with Karl Vogt in his +estimate of the Schleswig-Holstein question?—(_Author’s Note._) + +[22] The region including the four towns of Verona, Legnago, Peschiera +and Mantua is meant.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[23] Chief agent of the French police before 1827 and author of famous +Memoirs. The name has been wrongly transliterated as ‘Vidok’ in Volume +II.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[24] This refers to the following passage, which appeared in the _Bell_, +Number 184, May 1, 1864:— + + _April 17, 1864._ + +‘To _young_ Russia suffering and struggling for the _new_ Russia which, +when once it has vanquished the Russian Tsardom, will undoubtedly in its +development have immense significance for the destinies of the world!’ + + _From the health proposed by Garibaldi._ + +‘Your words will reach our friends, they will reach into the fortresses +and mines....’ + + _From the reply to it._ + +We promised an article describing Garibaldi’s visit to England; now +that it has so _unexpectedly_ come to an end we are convinced of its +historical significance, but that article is to come. For the moment we +would only give our friends some details concerning Garibaldi’s visit +to us, and those details, indeed, will consist of the brief speeches of +Mazzini and Garibaldi. The English newspapers have been so overloaded +with descriptions of receptions, welcomes, dishes, garlands, and so on, +that we are as little anxious to enter into competition with them as we +are capable of equalling the aristocratic Balthazar feasts in honour of +the revolutionary leader. + +Our banquet was a modest one, there were not twenty invited guests to it +(among them, not counting Garibaldi and Mazzini, there were several of +their nearest friends: Saffi, who was one of the Triumvirate in Rome, +Mordini, the Dictator of Sicily, Guerzoni, et cetera. Mrs. Stansfeld was +among the ladies). In the _Daily News_, in the _Morning Star_, in Prince +Dolgoruky’s _Listok_, there have been descriptions of the crowds of +people before the garden railings, the shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ (as Garibaldi +walked in he was almost carried off his feet, the ladies kissed his hands +and the hem of his cloak) and so on—as it has been at every house which +the uncrowned king has visited. + +At lunch Mazzini stood up, and raising his glass spoke as follows:— + +‘In the toast proposed by me I unite all that we love, all for which we +are struggling— + + To the freedom of the Peoples; + + To the union of the Peoples; + + To the man who in our day stands as the living incarnation of + these great ideas, + + To Giuseppe Garibaldi; + + To unhappy, holy, heroic Poland, whose sons for more than a + year have been fighting in silence and dying for freedom; + + To young Russia, which under the standard of Zemlya i Volya + (Land and Freedom) will soon hold out the hand of brotherhood + to Poland, will recognise her equality, her independence, and + efface the memory of imperial Russia; + + To those Russians who following our friend Herzen are working + their utmost for the development of that Russia; + + To the religion of duty which gives us the strength to struggle + and die for these ideas!’ + +Then Garibaldi got up, and with a glass of Marsala in his hand said:— + +‘I want to-day to do a duty which I ought to have done long ago. Among us +here is a man who has performed the greatest services both to my native +land and to freedom in general. When I was a lad and was full of vague +longings I sought a man to be my guide, the counsellor of my youth, I +sought him as a thirsty man seeks water.... I found him. He alone was +awake when all around were slumbering, he became my friend and has +remained my friend for ever; in him the holy fire of love for fatherland +and freedom has never dimmed; that man is Giuseppe Mazzini—I drink to +him, to my friend, to my teacher!’ + +In the voice, in the expression of face with which these words were +uttered, there was so much that gripped and thrilled the heart that they +were received not with applause but with tears. + +After a momentary silence Garibaldi continued with the words:— + +‘Mazzini has said a few words of unhappy Poland with which I am in +complete sympathy. + +‘To Poland the home of martyrs, to Poland facing death for independence +and setting a grand example to the peoples! + +‘Now let us drink to young Russia, who is suffering and struggling as we +are, and like us will be victorious; to the new people which, vanquishing +the Russian Tsardom and winning its freedom, is evidently destined to +play a great part in the future of Europe. + +‘And finally to England, the land of freedom and independence, the land +which for its hospitality and sympathy with the persecuted deserves +our fullest gratitude; to England, which gives us the possibility of a +friendly gathering like this....’ + +After Garibaldi’s departure I wrote him the following letter:— + +‘I was so excited yesterday that I did not say all I wanted, but confined +myself to a mere expression of gratitude in the name of _coming_ Russia, +no less persecuted than Poland; in the name of the Russia that is dying +in the fortresses and mines and living in the consciousness of the +awakening people with their ideal of the indissoluble connection of Land +and Freedom, and in the minority that is persecuted for having given +expression to this instinct of the people. + +‘Our far-away friends will hear with joy your words of sympathy; they +need them; rarely are garlands flung upon their agonies; the shadow of +the crimes that are being committed in Poland falls upon us all. + +‘In reality I do not regret that I added nothing to my words of +gratitude. What could I add? A toast to Italy? But was not our whole +gathering in honour of Italy? What I was feeling could hardly have been +put into such a speech. I looked at you both, listened to you with a +youthful feeling of devotion no longer appropriate to my age, and seeing +how you, the two great leaders of the peoples, greeted the rise of +dawning Russia, I blessed you under our modest roof. + +‘I owe to you the best day of my winter, a day of untroubled serenity, +and for that I embrace you once more with ardent gratitude, with deep +love, and boundless respect. + + ‘_April 18, 1864_, ELMFIELD HOUSE, TEDDINGTON.’ + +[25] As though Garibaldi had asked for money for himself! I need hardly +say he refused the dowry given by the English aristocracy on such absurd +conditions, to the extreme mortification of the police newspapers which +had been reckoning up the shillings and pence he would be carrying away +to Caprera.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[26] French Minister for foreign affairs under Napoleon the Third. + +[27] In Pushkin’s poem ‘The Fountain of Bahtchisaray’ the lines occur:— + + ‘I know how to use a dagger, + I was born near the Caucasus.’—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[28] An Italian village where in 1859 the Austrians were defeated by the +French and Piedmontese.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[29] That is, of the Secret Police.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[30] A Russian town on the Roumanian frontier.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[31] Extremely hard-working young men often end by becoming followers of +Petrashev; they might be described as the top class of our historical +development in education.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[32] A district in Bukovina settled by Russian raskolniks.—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[33] And this was the awful Tulcea agency with connections with the +revolution all over the world, inciting the villages with money from +Mazzini’s funds, a menacing danger two years after it had ceased to +exist, and even now flourishing in the literature of the detectives and +of Katkov’s Police News!—(_Author’s Note._) + +[34] Their vanity was not so great as it was touchy and irritable, +and above all, unrestrained in words. They could conceal neither +their envy nor a special kind of irritable insistence on respectful +recognition of the position they ascribed to themselves, at the same +time that they looked down on everything and were perpetually jeering +at one another—which was why their friendships never lasted more than a +month.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[35] At that very time in Petersburg and Moscow, and even in Kazan and +Harkov, there were circles being formed among the university youth who +devoted themselves in earnest to the study of science, especially among +the medical students. They worked honestly and conscientiously, but, cut +off from active participation in the questions of the day, they were not +forced to leave Russia and we scarcely knew anything of them.—(_Author’s +Note._) + +[36] A character in Gogol’s _Dead Souls_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[37] Under this pseudonym Bakunin published articles on the Reaction in +Germany in the _Jahrbücher_ of 1842, which were brought out under the +editorship of Ruge.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[38] ‘Tell Caussidière,’ I said in jest to his friends, ‘that the +difference between Bakunin and him is that Caussidière, too, is a +splendid fellow, but it would be better to shoot him the day before +the revolution.’ Later on in London, in the year 1854, I reminded him +of this. The prefect in exile merely smote with his huge fist upon his +mighty chest with the force with which piles are driven into the earth, +and said: ‘I carry Bakunin’s image here, here.’—(_Author’s Note._) + +[39] The word means ‘thimble’ in Russian.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[40] Herzen’s daughter by Madame Tutchkov-Ogaryov, born +1858.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[41] Bakunin received no dowry with his wife.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[42] The country between the lower Niemen and the Windau, the inhabitants +of which are closely related to the Lithuanians, and from the fourteenth +century were included in Lithuania.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[43] ‘Slava’ is the Russian for ‘glory.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[44] ‘I have come to ask your advice,’ a youthful Georgian, who looked +like a young tiger, said to me one day, ‘I want to give Skaryatin a +thrashing.’ + +‘No doubt you know that when Charles V. was in Rome, et cetera....’ ‘I +know, I know; for God’s sake don’t tell me!’ + +And the tiger with milk in his veins departed.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[45] Characters in Gogol’s _Dead Souls_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[46] Demontowicz, after prolonged arguments with Bakunin, said: ‘I +tell you what, gentlemen, hard as it may be for us with the Russian +Government, anyway our position under it is better than what these +Socialist fanatics are preparing for us.’—(_Author’s Note._) + +[47] The ‘Dance of Death’ on the cloister walls of a convent in Basle, +attributed to Holbein.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[48] One of the members of the great German publishing firm of Cotta, +which brought out the works of Schiller, Goethe, Herder, Fichte, +Schelling, the Humboldts, etc., is meant. One of them was responsible for +the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, which first appeared in 1798, and he was also +the first Würtemberg landowner to abolish serfdom on his estates. + +[49] Hoffmann, A. H. (commonly called Hoffmann von Fallersleben), the +poet and author of many philological and antiquarian works, is no doubt +referred to here, not the better-known musical composer and story-writer +of that name. + +[50] Campe, J. H., was the author of works on education, a German +dictionary, and numerous stories for children, of which _Robinson der +Jüngere_ was the most popular.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[51] Did not the _kept_ genius of the Prussian King do the same? His +double personality drew down a biting sarcasm. After 1848 the Hanoverian +King, an ultra-conservative and feudalist, arrived in Potsdam. On the +palace staircase he met various courtiers, and among them Humboldt +in a livery dress-coat. The malicious king stopped and said to him, +smiling: ‘_Immer derselbe, immer Republikaner und immer im Vorzimmer des +Palastes._’—(_Author’s Note._) + +[52] Pozzo di Borgo, C. A. (1764-1842), a Corsican, was a diplomat in the +Russian service and a privy councillor of Alexander I.—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[53] Suhozanet, a Russian general under Alexander I. and Nicholas. He +took a prominent part in the suppression of the Fourteenth of December +1825.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[54] ‘Fion’ is a colloquial word about equivalent to +‘esprit.’—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[55] A year ago I saw the carnival in Nice. There is a fearful +difference; to say nothing of the soldiers fully armed and the gendarmes +and the commissaires of police with their scarves ... the conduct of the +people themselves, not of the tourists, amazed me. Drunken masqueraders +were swearing and fighting with people standing at their gates, white +pierrots were violently knocked down into the mud.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[56] La Marmora, Alfonso Ferrero, Marquis of, was Italian Minister of War +in 1849, Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1861, and Prime Minister in +1864.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[57] Ricasoli, Baron Bettino, an Italian authority on agriculture, wrote +on the cultivation of the olive, the vine and the mulberry, and took +a leading part in the work of draining the Tuscan Maremma. In 1859 he +was dictator of Tuscany. He worked for the unity of Italy, and on the +accession of Victor Emmanuel was appointed governor-general of Tuscany. + +[58] Cialdini, Enrico, took part in the insurrection of 1831, and escaped +to France; fought in Spain, first against the Miguelists and then against +the Carlists; fought in Italy in 1848, and fell wounded into the hands +of the Austrians. In the Crimean War he commanded a Sardinian division. +In the war of 1859 he gained the victory of Palestro. He was for a few +months governor of Naples, and it was there in 1862 that he acted against +Garibaldi in the second Sicilian expedition. + +[59] Depretis, Agostino (1813-1887), an Italian politician, took +a leading part in promoting the adhesion of Italy to the Triple +Alliance.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[60] Capo d’Istrias, Ioannos Antonios, Count of, was president of the +Greek Republic from 1828 to 1831, when he was assassinated.—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[61] Svyatoslav, prince of Kiev, is meant.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[62] John Zimisces became Emperor in 969 by marriage with Theophania, +widow of Romanus II., and reigned till 976. He was, as a fact, victorious +over the Russians.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[63] A very charming Hungarian, Count Sandor Téléki, who afterwards +served as a colonel of cavalry in Italy, said to me once, laughing at +the tawdry luxury of the Florentine dandies: ‘Do you remember a race or +a festival in Moscow?... It is silly, but it has character. The coachman +is primed with liquor, his cap is on one side, the horses are worth some +thousands of roubles, and the master lolls in bliss and in sables. Here +our gaunt Count So-and-so hires lean nags with rheumatic legs and nodding +heads, and the same thin, clumsy-looking Giacopo who is his cook and +gardener sits on the box, dressed in a livery not made for him, and tugs +at the reins, while the Count entreats him: “Giacopo, Giacopo, _fate una +grande e bella figura_.”’ I asked leave of Count Téléki to borrow this +expression.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[64] The Dukes of Savoy were also Princes of Carignano, a little town of +Piedmont. Charles Albert of Savoy came to the throne of Piedmont in 1831, +and his son, Victor Emmanuel II., became in 1860 the first king of united +Italy.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[65] Leopold II., uncle of the present King of the Belgians, is +meant.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[66] Nulin is the hero of a poem by Pushkin.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[67] The second time was in 1853 on the occasion of the illness of Marya +Kasparovna Reihel. I received this permit at the request of Rothschild. +Marya Kasparovna recovered, and I did not make use of it. Two years later +I was informed at the French Consulate that since I had not made use of +it at the time, the permit was no longer valid. + +[68] I have noted the word _Monsieur_ because when I was banished the +Prefecture invariably wrote _Sieur_, while Napoleon wrote _Monsieur_ with +his own hand in full.—(_Author’s Notes._) + +[69] A phrase used by Gogol to describe the hero of _Dead +Souls_—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[70] Laboulaye, E. R. de (1811-1883), was a French lawyer and journalist. + +[71] Prévost-Paradol, L. A. (1829-1870), was a French critic and +journalist, author of _Études sur les Moralistes Français_. + +[72] Mirès was a leading figure in the financial world, whose ruin +through speculation led to a famous trial.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[73] Espinasse, Charles, a French general, supported Louis Napoleon at +the Coup d’État of the 2nd of December, was Minister of the Interior in +1858, and killed at Magenta in 1859.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[74] Tyutchev, Fyodor (1803-1873), a minor poet, described as belonging +to the ‘Art for Art’s sake’ school, though of somewhat patriotic and +Slavophil tendency, wrote lyrics marked by a deep feeling for nature and +fine taste.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[75] Quoted from a poem of Pushkin’s.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[76] Reynaud, Jean (1806-1863), was a Utopian writer and follower of +Saint-Simon.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[77] A Benedictine order founded by St. Romuald at Camaldoli in Italy in +1009.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[78] Napoleon sent troops to Italy in 1861 to support the Pope, whose +temporal power was maintained by a French garrison in Rome from that date +to 1870.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[79] In my early youth I saw Vassily Nazarovitch Karazin two or three +times. I remember that my father used to talk of his letter to Alexander +I., of his close association with the Tsar, and of his rapid fall. In +1860 I read a remarkable life of the man in the _Northern Bee_. In the +impetuous, enterprising career of Karazin everything arrests attention, +most of all what was not in the _Northern Bee_, that is, what was left on +the other side of the censor’s shears. I happened to get hold of a letter +of Karazin’s to the Emperor (it was published in the _Russian Messenger_ +in 1810) and some other documents. At first I only thought of publishing +the letter to complete the above-mentioned article. Then I felt inclined +to make a few general observations regarding Alexander I.’s attitude to +Karazin, and this I have done. The biography of V. N. Karazin is far from +being covered by the article in the _Northern Bee_ and these notes; they +are only materials for it. I have hardly touched upon Karazin’s life, I +have only tried to sketch the surroundings and block in the background +against which his figure stands out. This article was published in _The +Polar Star_, vol. vii. page 7.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[80] Laharpe, F. C. de (1754-1838), a Swiss politician, was the tutor of +Alexander I. + +[81] Where Paul I. was murdered.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[82] The Empress Elizabeth is meant. + +[83] English in the original.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[84] Peter III., who was murdered, possibly with the connivance of +Catherine II., is meant. + +[85] Paul I. and his assassination is meant.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[86] See Vol. II. page 202.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[87] Count Alexey Orlov was the murderer of Peter III.—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[88] He dreamed of abdication up to the time of his death.—(_Author’s +Note._) + +[89] Quotation from Schiller’s tragedy, _Don Carlos_.—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +[90] It happened that the 11th of March 1801 was a most unpleasant wintry +day in Petersburg; on the 12th the weather turned mild, warm and bright, +as though the spring had suddenly come.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[91] How glad we should be to see these notes. Such historical materials +should not be kept under lock and key.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[92] A decree of Peter III. relieved the nobles from the obligations to +serve the State introduced by Peter the Great.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[93] The reference is to the phrase ‘word and deed,’ which was the +accepted form of denunciation to the police, introduced by Peter the +Great.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[94] Lyapunov was one of the national heroes who fought against the +Poles in 1610. The Rurik dynasty became extinct on the death of Fyodor, +son of Ivan the Terrible, and Boris Godunov was elected Tsar by the +people of Moscow. At his death, after a reign of eight years, a time of +anarchy followed, when many pretenders claimed the throne. The Poles +took advantage of this ‘Time of Trouble,’ as it is called by Russian +historians, to attempt to annex Russia. + +[95] Minin was a meat-merchant of Nizhni-Novgorod who roused the people +to form a national army, deliver Russia from the Poles and elect a Tsar. +At his suggestion the command of the army, to which men flocked from +all parts of Russia, was entrusted to Pozharsky, a nobleman of good +reputation and great military ability. Under his command the Russians +succeeded in driving the Poles out of Moscow, and eventually out of +Russia. A _zemsky sobor_ was summoned which elected Michael Romanov as +Tsar. + +[96] Hmyelnitsky was a Hetman of Little Russia who, seeing the only +chance of peace and safety lay in union with Russia, secured the +allegiance of the Little Russians to the Tsar Alexey (father of Peter the +Great) in 1654.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[97] Ivan the Sixth was in 1740 proclaimed Tsar as a baby, and after a +reign of six months was incarcerated in the Schlüsselburg till, in 1764, +Mirovitch attempted to release him and he was shot by his guards. + +[98] Princess Tarakanov, the morganatic daughter of the Empress +Elizabeth, was living abroad when Count Orlov, at Catherine’s +instigation, succeeded in decoying her to Russia, where she was put in +prison and there died.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[99] The name given to Catherine II. by the court poet, Derzhavin. + +[100] Beccaria, Cesare de (1738-1794), an Italian philosopher, was the +author of a celebrated work on criminal law.—(_Translator’s Notes._) + +[101] A character in Gogol’s _Dead Souls_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[102] The reference is to the punishment known as the ‘Green Street,’ +in which the condemned man walked between two rows of soldiers, each of +whom dealt him a blow. It was the favourite form of torture of Nicholas +I. (hence nicknamed ‘the Stick’), and numbers of men died under it in his +reign.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[103] Radishtchev, author of the famous _Journey from Petersburg to +Moscow_, is meant.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[104] Novikov, one of the most learned and cultured men of Catherine’s +reign, published satirical sketches and then historical researches, +and did much for the promotion of education. He was a freemason and a +mystic. Catherine, towards the end of her reign—frightened by the French +Revolution—imprisoned him in the Schlüsselburg because he was opposed to +serfdom. Paul released him.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[105] _I.e._ Kotchubey.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[106] Las Cases, Emmanuel, Comte de (1766-1842), a French historian +who went with Napoleon to St. Helena and published the _Mémorial de +Sainte-Hélène_.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[107] Yeropkin was a general who put down the mutiny in Moscow during +the plague in 1776, when the people rose in revolt against the sanitary +measures imposed by the Government. Catherine rewarded him with the +ribbon of Saint Andrew and four thousand peasants. He accepted the ribbon +but refused the peasants.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[108] Nicholas in his simplicity did not share Karazin’s opinion. This +is how the Governor of Harkov informed the latter on November 24, 1826, +of the Most High’s permission to leave his estate: ‘His Excellency, the +commanding officer of the Chief Staff, has informed me that His Majesty +the Emperor graciously grants you full right to live where you choose, +with sanction to stay even in Moscow, saving, however, Saint Petersburg, +until further commands, and with the condition that you refrain from +every sort of opinion not concerning you!’—What a jargon and what a +brain!—(_Author’s Note._) + +[109] Struensee, Johann Friedrich, Count, was court physician to +Christian VII. of Denmark and gained complete ascendancy over that +monarch and his wife Caroline, sister of George III. of England. He used +his power for the advancement of liberty and enlightenment and succeeded +to some extent in abolishing serfdom (1771). Offending the nobility and +clergy by his liberalism, he was accused of adultery with the Queen, and +in 1772 he was beheaded.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[110] Vanka Kain (equivalent to Jack Cain—from Cain of the Bible) +is a slang term of abuse for a desperate fellow, ready for +anything.—(_Translator’s Note._) + +[111] The Old Believers of the English school, bound by their creed to +preserve all the historical gains of the ages, even indeed when they are +pernicious, do not agree with this. They think that every sort of right, +however wrongly obtained, must be preserved and others grafted on to it. +For instance, instead of depriving the nobles of the right of flogging +and beating the peasants, the same right should be given to the peasants. +In old days they used to say it would be a good thing to promote all the +common people into the fourteenth[*] grade so that they should not be +beaten; would it not be better to promote them straight away to being +captains in the guards or hereditary noblemen, since heredity among us is +reckoned in opposite direction?[†] Yet the Ukrainians in the seventeenth +century did not reason like that when there was a plan of ennobling them, +and a plan not suggested by bookish scholars, but by the brilliant, +gorgeous, exuberant nobility of Poland. They thought it better to remain +Cossacks. There is something like that Cossack principle in organic +development generally (which our doctrinaires are very fond of taking as +an example). One side of the organism can under certain circumstances +develop specially and get the upper hand, always to the detriment of all +the rest. In itself the organ may be well developed, but it becomes a +deformity which one cannot get rid of in the organism by artificially +developing the remaining parts to the point of grotesqueness. + +This reminds us of a remarkable instance from the religious-surgical +practice of Prince Hohenlohe. Prince Hohenlohe was one of the last +mortals endowed with miraculous powers. This was in those blessed days +of our century when everything feudal and clerical was rising up again +with powder and incense on the ruins of the French Revolution. The +Prince was summoned to an invalid, one of whose legs was too short; his +relations had failed to grasp that in fact the other leg was too long. +The miracle-working Prince set to work praying ... the leg grew, but the +Prince did not know where to stop and prayed too excessively—the short +leg overdid it—how annoying; he began praying for the other and then that +outdid the other—he went back to the first ... and it ended in the Prince +leaving his patient still with legs of unequal length and both of them as +long as living stilts.—(_Author’s Note._) + +[*] The fourteenth is the lowest grade in the government table of ranks. + +[†] In Russia an ‘hereditary nobleman’ (so-called) is one who has not +inherited his noble rank, but whose heirs will inherit it. (_Translator’s +Notes._) + +[112] Susanin, a peasant, saved the elected Tsar Michael Romanov from the +Poles who sought to assassinate him. Susanin undertook to lead them to +the monastery in which the Tsar was concealed, but led them instead into +the forest, where they killed him but were themselves frozen to death. +It is the subject of Glinka’s opera, ‘Life for the Tsar.’—(_Translator’s +Note._) + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78361 *** |