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diff --git a/78361-h/78361-h.htm b/78361-h/78361-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a963f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/78361-h/78361-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14413 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, V | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; +} + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2.nobreak, h3.nobreak { + page-break-before: avoid; +} + +h2,h3,h4,h5 { + font-weight: normal; + font-size: 1.2em; +} + +h2 .smcap, h3 .smcap, h4 .smcap { + font-size: 80%; +} + +img.w100 { + width: 100%; +} + +div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; + margin-top: 4em; +} + +p { + margin-top: 0.5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +p.dropcap { + text-indent: 0; +} + +p.dropcap:first-letter { + float: left; + margin: 0.1em 0.1em 0 0; + font-size: 250%; + line-height: 0.6em; + text-indent: 0; +} + +table { + margin: 1em auto 1em auto; + max-width: 40em; + border-collapse: collapse; +} + +td { + padding-left: 2.25em; + padding-right: 0.25em; + vertical-align: top; + text-indent: -2em; + text-align: justify; +} + +td.ch { + padding-left: 0.25em; + padding-right: 0.25em; + vertical-align: top; + text-indent: 1em; + text-align: justify; +} + +.in2 { + padding-left: 4.25em; +} + +.tdc { + text-align: center; + padding: 0.75em 0.25em 0.5em 0.25em; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.tdpg { + vertical-align: bottom; + text-align: right; + white-space: nowrap; +} + +blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 10%; +} + +.center { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.footnotes { + page-break-before: always; + margin-top: 4em; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.footnote { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 0.9em; +} + +.footnote .label { + position: absolute; + right: 84%; + text-align: right; +} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.hanging { + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -2em; + margin-top: 2em; +} + +.hanging2 { + padding-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; +} + +.larger { + font-size: 150%; +} + +.mt2 { + margin-top: 2em; +} + +.noindent { + text-indent: 0; +} + +.note1 { + text-align: center; + font-size: large; +} + +.note2 { + margin-left: 22.22%; + margin-right: 22.22%; + text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; +} + +.pagenum { + right: 1%; + font-size: x-small; + background-color: inherit; + color: silver; + text-indent: 0; + text-align: right; + position: absolute; + border: thin solid silver; + padding: 0.1em 0.2em; + font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; + font-weight: normal; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.poetry-container { + text-align: center; + font-size: 0.9em; +} + +.poetry { + display: inline-block; + text-align: left; +} + +.poetry .stanza { + margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; +} + +.poetry .verse { + padding-left: 3em; +} + +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} + +.right { + text-align: right; +} + +.smaller { + font-size: 80%; +} + +.smcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; +} + +.allsmcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: lowercase; +} + +.titlepage { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 3em; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.x-ebookmaker p.dropcap { + text-indent: 0; +} + +.x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker img { + max-width: 100%; + width: auto; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + display: block; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 5%; +} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp100 {width: 100%;} + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78361 ***</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p> + +<h1>THE MEMOIRS OF<br> +ALEXANDER<br> +HERZEN<br> +<br> +V</h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="note1">NOTE</p> + +</div> + +<p class="note2">This translation has been made +by arrangement from the sole +complete and copyright edition +of <i>My Past and Thoughts</i>, that +published in the original Russian +at Berlin, 1921.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage larger"><i>MY PAST AND THOUGHTS</i></p> + +</div> + +<p class="center larger">THE MEMOIRS OF<br> +ALEXANDER HERZEN</p> + +<p class="center"><i>THE AUTHORISED TRANSLATION<br> +TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN<br> +BY CONSTANCE GARNETT</i></p> + +<p class="titlepage">VOLUME V</p> + +<figure class="figcenter titlepage illowp100" style="max-width: 6.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/doggo.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br> +ALFRED A. KNOPF</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br> +T. & A. CONSTABLE LTD. EDINBURGH<br> +*<br> +ALL RIGHTS<br> +RESERVED</p> + +<p class="titlepage smaller">FIRST PUBLISHED 1926</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> + +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><i>SECTION FOUR</i> (continued)<br>LONDON + EXILES OF THE ’FIFTIES</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="ch">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</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chapter_6"><i>page 2</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>CAMICIA ROSSA</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CAMICIA_ROSSA"><i>page 33</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">1. <span class="smcap">At Brooke House</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading1"><i>page 35</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">2. <span class="smcap">At Stafford House</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading2"><i>page 51</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">3. <span class="smcap">At Home</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading3"><i>page 59</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">4. <span class="smcap">26 Prince’s Gate</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading4"><i>page 68</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>APOGEE AND PERIGEE</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#APOGEE_AND_PERIGEE"><i>page 81</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">BEHIND THE SCENES + (1863 to 1864)</span>—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2"><span class="smcap">V. I. Kelsiev</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading5"><i>page 101</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>THE COMMON FUND</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_COMMON_FUND"><i>page 117</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>BAKUNIN AND THE CAUSE OF POLAND</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BAKUNIN"><i>page 131</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2">APPENDIX—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">1. <span class="smcap">The Steamer ‘Ward Jackson’</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading6"><i>page 161</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">2. <span class="smcap">Colonel Lapinski and Aide-de-Camp Polles</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading7"><i>page 168</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">FRAGMENTS (1867 + to 1868)</span>—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">1. <span class="smcap">Swiss Views</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading8"><i>page 176</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">2. <span class="smcap">Chatter on the Road and + Fellow-Countrymen in the Buffet</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading9"><i>page 186</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">3. <span class="smcap">Beyond the Alps</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading10"><i>page 189</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">4. <span class="smcap">Zu Deutsch</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading11"><i>page 192</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">5. <span class="smcap">This World and the + Other</span>:—<span class="allsmcap">I.</span> + The Other World—<span class="allsmcap">II.</span> + This World—<span class="allsmcap">III.</span> + The Flowers of Minerva</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading12"><i>page 196</i></a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VENEZIA LA BELLA (February 1867)</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VENEZIA_LA_BELLA"><i>page 220</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2">LA BELLE FRANCE—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">1. <span class="smcap">Ante Portas</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading13"><i>page 240</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">2. <span class="smcap">Intra Muros</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading14"><i>page 246</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">3. <span class="smcap">Alpendrücken</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading15"><i>page 255</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">4. <span class="smcap">The Daniels</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading16"><i>page 263</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">5. <span class="smcap">Spots of Light</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading17"><i>page 270</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">6. <span class="smcap">After the Invasion</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading18"><i>page 272</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2">THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. AND V. N. KARAZIN—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">1. <span class="smcap">Don Carlos</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading19"><i>page 276</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">2. <span class="smcap">The Letter</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading20"><i>page 285</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">3. <span class="smcap">Marquis von Posa</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading21"><i>page 299</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">4. <span class="smcap">The Sins of the Fathers</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading22"><i>page 304</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">5. <span class="smcap">Faremo da se</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading23"><i>page 318</i></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="in2">6. <span class="smcap">On the Further Side</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading24"><i>page 325</i></a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SECTION_FOUR_continued"><i>SECTION FOUR</i> (continued)<br> +LONDON EXILES OF THE ’FIFTIES</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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.’⁠<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_6">Chapter 6<br> +<span class="smcap">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</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p class="right">(<i>Written in 1856 and 1857</i>)</p> + +<p class="dropcap">... From the <i>sulphurous gang</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>The Times</i> 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.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>adapted, and money from relations, which they will +never get.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> or a Don Juan, of whom he +knew nothing and knows nothing. There, side by side +with the Hungarian who describes how with five <i>honveds</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>Beside the revolutionary <i>émigrés</i> are the <i>conservative +émigrés</i>: the business man or the notary who has absconded +<i>sans adieux</i> from his fatherland, creditors and guarantors, +and who also reckons himself unjustly persecuted; the +<i>honest</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>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.</p> + +<p>To the <i>conservative</i> 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 <i>great misfortunes</i> in their native land and were +trying with all their might to pass off their <i>ordinary +misfortunes</i> for <i>political misfortunes</i>. This peculiar +nomenclature calls for explanation.</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>Have you not had misfortunes?</i>’</p> + +<p>‘I am a Pole and in exile, that is without country, +without rights, without property.’</p> + +<p>‘The last item is unfortunate, but excuse me, for what +reason did you leave your <i>belle patrie</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘By reason of the last rebellion.’ (This happened in +1848.)</p> + +<p>‘That is of no consequence. <i>Political misfortunes +we do not count</i>, they are rather to the good, <i>c’est une +attraction</i>. But allow me, can you assure me that you +have had no <i>other misfortunes</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘I should think I have had; why, my father and mother +are dead.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, no, no....’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span></p> + +<p>‘What then do you mean by the words, <i>other misfortunes</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘You see, you might have left your lovely fatherland +for <i>private</i> 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....’</p> + +<p>‘I understand, I understand,’ said my friend. ‘No, +I assure you I have not been tried either for theft or +forgery.’</p> + +<p>... In the year 1855 a Frenchman, <i>exilé de sa +patrie</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>Among others he approached with this request +Schoelcher, the most honest and rigid of mortals.</p> + +<p>‘Have you been in exile long?’ the champion of the +negroes asked him.</p> + +<p>‘Since 1847.’</p> + +<p>‘Since 1847? And you came here?’</p> + +<p>‘From Brest, from penal servitude.’</p> + +<p>‘What affair was that? I don’t remember it at all.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, well, the case was very famous at the time! +Of course, it was more of an individual case.’</p> + +<p>‘What was it, though?’ ... Schoelcher asked, +somewhat perturbed.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Ah, bah, si vous y tenez</i>, I protested in my own way +against the rights of property, <i>j’ai protesté à ma manière</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘And you ... you have been in Brest?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span></p> + +<p>‘<i>Parbleu oui</i>, seven years of penal servitude for +<i>burglary</i> (<i>vol avec effraction</i>),’ and Schoelcher, with the +voice of the chaste Susannah dismissing the indiscreet +old men, bade the independent protester leave him.</p> + +<p>The persons, whose misfortunes were fortunately +<i>general</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<i>le grand Julien</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>cafés chantants</i> with dancing, <i>cafés +chantants</i> 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 <i>redowa</i> 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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> but of that +another time....</p> + +<p>... And what did not the Germans do to win the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>favourable notice of the English, and all without +success?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I once happened in the presence of a German <i>émigré</i> +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!’</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>Cher docteur</i>, +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....’</p> + +<p>‘... 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; <i>der Kerl hat Pech +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>gehabt</i> in London, <i>es geht ihm zu ominös</i>.’ ‘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.’</p> + +<p>Now we will go back to our exiles dreaming of revolution, +of remittances from relations, and of earning without +working.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Sitzfleisch</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Here is a specimen of the advertisement published +by an old man of seventy, who, I fancy, belonged rather +to the class of <i>independent</i> than of <i>collective</i> protestors:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Monsieur N. N.</span><br> +Teaches the French Language<br> +on a new and easy System of rapid proficiency;<br> +has attended members of the British Parliament<br> +and many other persons of respectability,<br> +as vouchers certify; translates and interprets<br> +that universal continental language,<br> +and English,<br> +In a Masterly Manner.<br> +Terms Moderate:<br> +Namely, Three Lessons per week for Six Shillings.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>Vous être le</i> French teacher?’ B. admitted +it. ‘<i>Vous pas convenir a moa.</i>’ 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.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>calamité publique</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Another comrade in affliction who had once been a +provincial professor of literature had recourse to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Citoyen</i>,’ he wrote to me, ‘ask your brotherly heart +(<i>votre cœur fraternel</i>) 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.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Salut et fraternité!</i> P.S.—I have taken the liberty +of despatching you with this a few samples.’</p> + +<p>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 +(<i>Gr. vin et très rare!</i>), Côte Rôtie (<i>Comète</i>), +Pommard (1823!), Nuits (<i>provision Aguado!</i>).’</p> + +<p>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, <i>citoyen</i>,’ 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.</p> + +<p>The Germans and Hungarians applied themselves +to other branches of industry.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>to see me, that he was an Hungarian, <i>ajutante del +generale</i> (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.</p> + +<p>‘Why have you admitted him? How many thousand +times have I told you of it?’</p> + +<p>‘This is the third time he has called to-day.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, ask him into the drawing-room.’ I went +down like a raging lion, fortifying myself with a dose +of a sedative.</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘Please don’t trouble. I do not know any colonel. +Very glad that you were comfortable. Won’t you sit +down?’</p> + +<p>‘Very, very comfortable ... we used to play every +day with the officers <i>shtoss</i> and <i>bank</i> ... very fine +fellows and they can’t endure the Austrians. I even +remember a few words of Russian—<i>gleba</i>, <i>sheverdak</i>, +<i>une pièce de vingt-cinq sous</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘Allow me to inquire to what I am indebted...?’</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>old man himself</i> and from Count +Sandor—Sandor Téléki—and also from the Countess +Teresa Pulszky⁠<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> ... What a woman the Countess +Teresa!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p> + +<p>‘Quite so, <i>hors ligne</i>!’</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>‘Ye—es, and Sandor ... we were in the <i>honveds</i> +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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> the +revolting countenance of St.-Arnaud,⁠<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and Omer Pasha⁠<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +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?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Baron, I will be open with you. I am a soldier +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>and not one of Metternich’s diplomats. Having lost +my estates near Temesvar, I am temporarily in +straitened circumstances and am therefore selling <i>objets +d’art</i> 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, +<i>wie der Schiller sagt</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘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).</p> + +<p>‘Half a crown.’</p> + +<p>‘Then let us settle the matter like this: I will offer +you a whole crown if you will let me off buying the +portraits.’</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘Excuse me, Captain, I have such a headache that +I can hardly sit up.’</p> + +<p>‘Our governor (namely Kossuth), our old man, +often has a headache too,’ the <i>honved</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Among these pedlars of exile who offer profitable +purchases and the <i>émigrés</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>difficulties, often with prospects of growing wealthy in +the far future and always with an original taste in epistolary +composition.</p> + +<p>I have a portfolio of such letters. I will quote two +or three particularly characteristic.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Herr Graf!</i> 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> + +<p>‘<i>P.S.</i>—To-morrow at nine o’clock I will wait upon +your <i>courier</i>.’</p> + +<p>That is an example of the naïve style, but there are +letters that are classical both in language and in their +clear-cut incisiveness: ‘<i>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.</i></p> + +<p>‘<i>Mercuris dies 1859.</i>’</p> + +<p>Other letters neither laconic nor classical in form +are distinguished by a peculiar method of reckoning.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Citoyen</i>, 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 <i>round sum</i>.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then come business letters and oratorical letters, and +both kinds lose a great deal in translation.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Mon cher Monsieur!</i> No doubt you know of my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>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 <i>courir le cachet</i> 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 (<i>son opiniâtre insolence +bafoue mes projets</i>), 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 <i>embarquer votre confiance +en compagnie de mon esprit et la livrer au souffle peu +aventureux de mon destin</i>.’</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>I did not give the hundred and fifteen. The inventor +began to admit that there was something a little dubious +in my behaviour, ‘<i>il y a du louche</i>,’ and that it would +be as well to be on one’s guard with me.</p> + +<p>In conclusion here is a purely oratorical letter:—</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>citoyen</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>re-reading them), “The talent dies out without +money like a lamp without oil”——’ and so on.</p> + +<p>I need hardly say that I never did write such bosh, +and my fellow-citizen of the <i>république future et universelle</i> +had never once opened my works.</p> + +<p>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 <i>misfortunes</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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....’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>I could not resist that, and gave him another sixpence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I thought that Stremouhov had been for long ages +on the banks of the Victoria River when suddenly I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>read in <i>The Times</i> 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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘In which hospital have you been—St. George’s?’</p> + +<p>‘No, not here, in Southampton.’</p> + +<p>‘How was it you fell ill and did not let any one know, +and how was it you did not go?’</p> + +<p>‘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.”’</p> + +<p>‘And the money?’</p> + +<p>‘He left the money with the Reverend.’</p> + +<p>‘You took it, of course?’</p> + +<p>‘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!’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span></p> + +<p>‘How could I hear of it, lying between life and death? +I believe the rain is giving over. Good-bye.’</p> + +<p>‘You must be careful how you go out in the damp +or you will be getting into hospital again.’</p> + +<p>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, <i>aber was +macht es denn dem Herrn Baron von Brunow!</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>schlippers</i> as +he called them. I bought him tools and gave him +money, but he could not get work.</p> + +<p>It was just then that Garibaldi was sailing with his +ship, <i>The Commonwealth</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>The day after Garibaldi had left, the sailor came to +me, red in the face, drowsy and bloated-looking.</p> + +<p>‘What has happened?’ I asked him.</p> + +<p>‘A misfortune, your honour. I was too late for the +ship.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p> + +<p>‘How did you come to be late?’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘I will pray for your honour all my life long!’</p> + +<p>The friend who undertook to despatch him came to +me and reported that he had seen the sailor off.</p> + +<p>Imagine my amazement when three days later the +sailor appeared with a Pole.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘Who are you?’</p> + +<p>‘A Polish nobleman.’</p> + +<p>‘Every one is a nobleman in Poland. Why have +you come to me with this scoundrel?’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Where were you taken ill, then?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span></p> + +<p>‘On the way, that is, at the railway station.’</p> + +<p>‘Why didn’t you go by the next train?’</p> + +<p>‘I never thought of it, and besides, not knowing the +language....’</p> + +<p>‘Where is your ticket?’</p> + +<p>‘Why, I have no ticket.’</p> + +<p>‘How is that?’</p> + +<p>‘I gave it up to a man.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, now you can look out for other people; only +be sure of one thing, I will never help you in any case.’</p> + +<p>‘But excuse me,’ the nobleman interposed.</p> + +<p>‘Sir, I have nothing to say to you and desire to hear +nothing from you.’</p> + +<p>Swearing at me through his teeth, he went off with +his Telemachus, probably to the nearest public-house.</p> + +<p>Another step downward....</p> + +<p>Perhaps many people will ask me wonderingly what +further step downward there can be. But there <i>is</i> a +rather <i>great</i> one—only here things are obscure and one +must step warily. I had not the <i>pruderie</i> 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 <i>pour un vol avec effraction</i>. +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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>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.</p> + +<p>The French are great artists in this line. They are +capable of adroitly combining the externals of culture, +enthusiastic phrases, the <i>aplomb</i> of a man whose conscience +is clear and whose <i>point d’honneur</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The memoirs of Delahodde,⁠<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> of Chenu,⁠<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> + 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.’</p> + +<p>Delahodde is the Alcibiades of espionage.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>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 <i>in his flat</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> +and afterwards of Boichot’s,⁠<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> secret arrival in +France was so well known that they were seized at +Calais as soon as they stepped off the boat. At the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Jahrbücher</i>. This Engländer had been +imprisoned in Paris in connection with the case called +the ‘Case of the Correspondents.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>am</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>About that time Reihel brought my children to +London. He took great interest in N. I told him +what was said about the latter.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>‘You have something on your mind. <i>Heraus damit!</i>’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, you have guessed right ... but first give me +your word of honour that you will tell no one.’</p> + +<p>‘I daresay, but what nonsense! Leave it to my conscience.’</p> + +<p>‘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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>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 <i>au courant</i> +with news of the exiles. He sent me three hundred +francs and I have never written to him since.”’</p> + +<p>Reihel was almost weeping.</p> + +<p>‘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!’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>clubiste</i> and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>agitator, whose speech led the populace to hang Latour,⁠<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.’⁠<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>‘Gentlemen,’ I said suddenly in the midst of their +talk, ‘allow me to stop you for a moment.’</p> + +<p>They stopped.</p> + +<p>‘It seems to me that you are spoiling your case by +overheat; before abusing each other you ought to put +the question quite clearly——’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span></p> + +<p>‘Whether I am a spy or not?’ shouted N. ‘I will +allow no man on earth to put such a question to me.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Who is that person?’</p> + +<p>‘T.’</p> + +<p>‘He is a blackguard.’</p> + +<p>‘That is not the point. Have you received money +or not?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘No, it is not all,’ answered N. ‘You ought to know +that I have never compromised any one by a single +line.’</p> + +<p>‘That fact can only be confirmed by your correspondent +Pietri, and he is not an acquaintance of ours.’</p> + +<p>‘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: ‘<i>Nous sommes +aujourd’hui ce que nous avons été hier—déjeunons!</i>’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span></p> + +<p>‘You told Herzen that I received money from the +Prefect?’</p> + +<p>‘I did.’</p> + +<p>‘What for?’</p> + +<p>‘Because you have.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>one of the accusers</i>. 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 <i>strangeness</i> 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!’</p> + +<p><i>Sehr gut!</i></p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CAMICIA_ROSSA">CAMICIA ROSSA</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>honest</i> Iago. +The Iagos are all in miniature, but what a number there +are of them, and how honest they are!</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>with every day; the appearance in the street of the man +in the <i>red shirt</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>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....</p> + +<p>And are they not the friends of the people—more +than its friends, its guardians, its parents?</p> + +<p>... 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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3 id="heading1">1<br> +<span class="smcap">At Brooke House</span></h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I wanted to do so for many reasons: in the first place, +simply because I loved him and had not seen him for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>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 +<i>The Commonwealth</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In Southampton I did not find Garibaldi. He had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>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.</p> + +<p>It was now my turn to look at him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>drappello</i> 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 <i>bienveillance</i> (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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>has some ulterior motive, is in the pay of some Government, +or deliberately determined against it, he is bound +to love him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>consecration</i> +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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>which made so much talk at the time though it was +really of no importance.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Tell me, tell me—we are old friends.’</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> 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 <i>Standard</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span><i>par anticipation</i> if you do not act in accordance with +this hint.’</p> + +<p>‘I have heard something of this intrigue,’ said Garibaldi. +‘<i>Of course one of my first visits will be to Stansfeld.</i>’</p> + +<p>‘You know better than I what to do. I only wanted +to show you clearly the ugly outlines of this intrigue.’</p> + +<p>Garibaldi stood up. I thought that he meant to +put an end to the interview, and began taking leave.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>why then should he wear the uniform of a Monte Video +volunteer?</p> + +<p>And indeed, in what way is his dress a uniform?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>I said nothing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> + +<p>‘And Hungary too—you do not believe it?’</p> + +<p>‘No, it is not that. I simply do not know.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, may we expect any movement in Russia?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ said Garibaldi.</p> + +<p>‘I won’t steal you longer from England.’</p> + +<p>‘We shall meet in London, shan’t we?’</p> + +<p>‘I will certainly come to see you. Is it true that +you are staying at the Duke of Sutherland’s?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes,’ said Garibaldi, and added as though apologising, +‘I could not get out of it.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>The +Times</i>. At the first sentence I was dumbfoundered. +The seventy-year-old Abraham who had two months +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>au sérieux</i> this police farce of Greco +Trabucco and Company.</p> + +<p>This was Magenta.⁠<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>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 <i>The Times</i> 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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>à +l’Américain</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It seemed that he was well acquainted with the +sailor and had come to see him. After three or four +words he left off <i>speaking</i> and began <i>preaching</i>. ‘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.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One of the deputation, a stout, grey-headed old gentleman, +asked me to whom I was sending a letter in Brooke +House.</p> + +<p>‘To Guerzoni.’</p> + +<p>‘He is Garibaldi’s secretary, isn’t he?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes.’</p> + +<p>‘You need not trouble then. We are going there +directly. I shall be pleased to take the letter.’</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>The letter was delivered, and next morning I had an +answer in London.</p> + +<p>The editor of the foreign news column of the <i>Morning +Star</i> 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.</p> + +<p>‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘have you had a good stare at +those people?... That is jolly fine, Lord Shaftesbury +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>and Lord Lindsay going as deputies to invite Garibaldi. +What a farce! As though they knew what Garibaldi +is!’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>Alabama</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> ... 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.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>‘A room.’</p> + +<p>‘There is not one.’</p> + +<p>‘I engaged one myself at eleven o’clock.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Have you a room?’ I asked the man who kept it.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, but not a very nice one.’</p> + +<p>‘Show it me.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>me and asked whether I had time for a word with him +in private, as he had something of special importance +to tell me.</p> + +<p>‘Of course I have; let us go into the next room, there +is no one there.’</p> + +<p>The German sat down opposite me and began telling +me tragically how his <i>patron</i>, 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 <i>patron</i> had +not returned....</p> + +<p>‘But why did you trust him without any agreement?’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Weil ich ein dummer Deutscher bin.</i>’</p> + +<p>‘Well, that is another matter.’</p> + +<p>‘I want to close the establishment and go away.’</p> + +<p>‘You had better look out, he will bring an action +against you; do you know the law here?’</p> + +<p>The German shook his head.</p> + +<p>‘I should like to pay him out.... I suppose you +have been to see Garibaldi?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, how is he? <i>Ein famoser Kerl</i>—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?’</p> + +<p>‘I think it is all right.’</p> + +<p>‘The beast, he kept it all quiet and the last day says +“I have a partner already.” I am afraid I am boring +you?’</p> + +<p>‘Not at all, only I am a little tired and sleepy. I got +up at six and now it is a little past two.’</p> + +<p>‘But what am I to do? I was awfully pleased when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>you came in, <i>ich habe so bei mir gedacht, der wird +Rat schaffen</i>. So I am not to close the establishment?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Saperlot! das ist eine Idee—ausgezeichnet</i>, I will +go and write the letter.’</p> + +<p>‘And I will go to bed. <i>Gute Nacht!</i>’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Schlafen Sie wohl.</i>’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘What is it? It is a little late, but I am ready to +hear.’</p> + +<p>‘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—<i>Libérateur</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘That is so ... but you know one would rake in +a lot of money exhibiting the bust, and they will forget +about it afterwards....’</p> + +<p>‘Mind,’ I observed, resolutely getting up to go, ‘you +don’t tell any one. Some one will steal the original +idea from you.’</p> + +<p>‘Not a word, not a word to any one. What we have +said will remain, I hope, I beg, between us.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p> + +<p>‘Have no doubt about that,’ and I went off to his +dirty bedroom.</p> + +<p>Such was the sequel to my first interview with Garibaldi +in 1864.</p> + +<h3 id="heading2">2<br> +<span class="smcap">At Stafford House</span></h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>their</i> holiday, that +they were doing honour to one of <i>themselves</i>, 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<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> on the day of Garibaldi’s triumphal march, +though the police were far less numerous. What had +become of the pickpockets?</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 ‘<i>aventurier</i>,’ +a rebel, who would have been hanged if he had not +succeeded in freeing Sicily. ‘Why,’ <i>la France</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>and observers, were in and out continually. An Italian +was made police-master, master of the ceremonies, +major-domo, stage-manager, butler, <i>souffleur</i>. 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>On Saturday morning I went to Garibaldi, and not +finding him at home, remained with Saffi, Guerzoni +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>Capite</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>Guerzoni repeated to him that Garibaldi wanted to +go and was going.</p> + +<p>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; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>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 (<i>je n’insiste pas</i>) 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.</p> + +<p>‘What is the difficulty?’ asked Garibaldi.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘That is very simple,’ said Garibaldi, ‘I must start +at ten then instead of eleven. That is clear, isn’t it?’ +The impresario vanished.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘I shall be delighted. I will expect you.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>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 <i>courtisane</i> 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?’</p> + +<p>‘I think that you are right, and I hope that you have +nothing against my repeating our conversation to Garibaldi.’</p> + +<p>‘Quite the contrary.’</p> + +<p>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. +<i>Elle est débordée.</i> 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?’</p> + +<p>I did not contradict him, and we parted pleased with +each other.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>desperately expounding the utter impossibility of driving +to Teddington.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘There is no need, I have a carriage.’</p> + +<p>‘But what horses will bring him back? The same?’</p> + +<p>‘Don’t be anxious; if the horses are tired they can +put in fresh ones.’</p> + +<p>Guerzoni said to me with fury: ‘Where will it end? +This is slavery; every wretched little cur gives orders +and intrigues.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘That is just what we ask you to do.’</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>‘More than acquainted, we are friends. If you have +nothing against it, I will invite him too.’</p> + +<p>‘We will take him with us.’</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span></p> + +<p>‘If necessary, we will have another carriage—two....’</p> + +<p>‘But is there time to get them...?’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘Delighted; we will go at once,’ answered Saffi and +Mordini.</p> + +<p>‘Let us go too,’ said Garibaldi, getting up.</p> + +<p>We went out; a dense crowd had already gathered +before Stafford House, and a loud, prolonged ‘Hurrah!’ +greeted and accompanied our carriage.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>accidental</i> meeting with his sons. In this division the +lion’s share certainly was not the Queen’s.</p> + +<h3 id="heading3">3<br> +<span class="smcap">At Home</span></h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> ‘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.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>up Venice and the Quadrilateral?⁠<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> 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.’</p> + +<p>Among other things I repeated to Garibaldi my +conversation with Ledru-Rollin, and added that in my +opinion Ledru-Rollin was right.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>We were in the Wandsworth Road and Ledru-Rollin +was in St. John’s Wood, that is eight miles away. I +had <i>à l’imprésario</i> to tell him that it was utterly impossible.</p> + +<p>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....’</p> + +<p>All that, and precisely that, was fully understood by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Government</i> in England can +get up demonstrations ... you won’t take us in—<i>wir +wissen was wir wissen</i>—we have read Gneist ourselves!’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>had been bought by the party of Sicardi and the +ministry of Venosta!</p> + +<p>Though it is doubtful whether the journalistic Vidocqs,⁠<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +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 +<i>that</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The few words said by Mazzini and Garibaldi are +familiar to readers of the <i>Bell</i>, we do not think it necessary +to repeat them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span></p> + +<p>... All were so touched by Garibaldi’s words +about Mazzini, by the sincere voice in which they were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>uttered, the depth of feeling which resounded in them, +the impressiveness given them by the series of preceding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>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 <i>recueilli</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>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?’</p> + +<p>I had not one word of comfort to give him. I inwardly +shuddered at the question, What is to come, +what is before us?</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>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....</p> + +<h3 id="heading4">4<br> +<span class="smcap">26 Prince’s Gate</span></h3> + +<p>‘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 <span class="allsmcap">XXX</span>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>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 <span class="allsmcap">XXX</span> on his word of honour.</p> + +<p>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 <i>crétins</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> + +<p>That was all.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>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—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Estate and home and villa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A hundred thousand in pure silver.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">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 <i>nonsense</i> understand the emancipation of +Italy), we will entail the estate, we will let him enjoy +the interest.⁠<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>take advantage of it. The scandalous Stansfeld affair +was bad enough already.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> said—that is, he said nothing, +but if he had, he would have stammered:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘I was born near the Caucasus,⁠<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Civis Romanus sum.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Austrian Ambassador did not even rejoice at +the reception of the <i>Umweltzungs</i> General. Everything +was arranged satisfactorily. But there was an uneasy +gnawing in some hearts.</p> + +<p>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?...</p> + +<p>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 <i>without visiting a single other city</i>. Not being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>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 <i>apoplectic stroke</i>, 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, <i>un coup monté</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>From the speech uttered at the second meeting on +Primrose Hill by Shaen one can tell <i>en gros</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>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.</p> + +<p>Gladstone, softened, was alarmed at a too <i>conspicuous</i> +success and suggested he should visit two or three towns +and then depart for Caprera.</p> + +<p>‘I cannot choose between the towns,’ answered Garibaldi, +wounded, ‘and I give you my word that within +two days I shall be gone.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The legislative assembly decided that Garibaldi was +ill. Towns and villages, counties and banks are left +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>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 <i>crétins</i>, 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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Garibaldi <i>ought</i> 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.</p> + +<p>This was Solferino.⁠<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Byelinsky observed long ago that the secret of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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 (<i>je me plie aux nécessités</i>).’</p> + +<p>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 <i>personne distinguée</i>. 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 <i>tête-à-tête</i> with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>The Times</i>, were presented to him. +It was a <i>grand lever</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘I am going,’ I said to Garibaldi.</p> + +<p>‘Why? Do stay.’</p> + +<p>‘What am I going to do?’</p> + +<p>‘Surely,’ he said, smiling, ‘I can keep one man I know, +since I am receiving so many I don’t.’</p> + +<p>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., +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>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, ‘<i>Non curiamo l’incerto +domani</i>.’</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>I went home.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>‘Upon my soul!’ answered the gentleman; ‘why, you +will make him happy if you accept it.’ They withdrew.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>Then the aristocratic ladies made their appearance; +those of less consequence were waiting in a crowd in +the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>After the reception Garibaldi had to go for an interview +with the Prince of Wales at Stafford House.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>The fourth act was over!</p> + +<p>What is to come in the fifth?</p> + +<p class="right"><i>May 15, 1864.</i></p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="APOGEE_AND_PERIGEE">APOGEE AND PERIGEE</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Kolokol</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘For goods, perhaps, they do,’ I observed, ‘but the +Customs-house is very lenient to travellers.’</p> + +<p>‘I should not say so. I paid fifteen shillings for a +crocodile.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span></p> + +<p>‘Why, what do you mean?’</p> + +<p>‘What do I mean? Why, simply a crocodile.’</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, did you buy the little Arab too?’</p> + +<p>‘Ha-ha!—no.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>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 <i>collants</i>, white as the Russian snows, of +his Horse Guard uniform.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>to Potapoff waltzes, Mina waltzes, and Komissaroff’s +<i>Partitur</i>.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘We have come to see you, Alexandr Ivanovitch, sir.’</p> + +<p>‘What has happened?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>I felt myself instantly surrounded by the atmosphere +of ‘Home,’ which seemed to rise up like steam in a +bath-house.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘We have heard of that indeed, but <i>why go to law</i>? +You had much better go into it.’</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p> + +<p>‘What fellows you are! But the prince won’t accept +my decision; what will you gain by it?’</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>Kolokol</i>—he +is ambitious.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Allow me,’ the secretary was beginning.</p> + +<p>‘No, I won’t allow you, my dear fellow. Good-bye.’</p> + +<p>I will say a word about them too.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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....’</p> + +<p>‘When were you telling lies: now, or when you +praised him?’ I asked him, smiling.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was no getting out of it; I went.</p> + +<p>Everything in the house betrayed an extraordinary +excitement; the French servant Picot hurriedly opened +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘For G-G-God’s sake, forgive me for t-t-troubling +you about these b-b-blackguards.’</p> + +<p>‘What is the matter?’</p> + +<p>‘P-p-please ask them yourself; I will merely listen.’</p> + +<p>He summoned the ‘regent,’ and the following conversation +took place between us:—</p> + +<p>‘Are you dissatisfied in any way?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, very much dissatisfied; that is why I want to +go to Russia.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘The prince cannot keep you; so tell us what it is +you are dissatisfied with.’</p> + +<p>‘Everything, Alexandr Ivanovitch.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, do speak more definitely.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘And how much ought you to have received?’</p> + +<p>‘That I can’t say, sir....’</p> + +<p>‘Have you a definite agreement?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span></p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>He had come from Tambov to London on such +terms. Oh, Russia!</p> + +<p>‘Well, and what do you think? has the prince been +lucky or not?’</p> + +<p>‘Lucky? no, indeed! Though to be sure, he +might....’</p> + +<p>‘That is a different question. If he is not lucky, +then you ought to be satisfied with a small salary.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Prince, are you willing to pay him four pounds a +month?’</p> + +<p>‘I shall be d-d-delighted.’</p> + +<p>‘That is capital; what more?’</p> + +<p>‘The prince promised that if I wanted to go back he +would pay my return fare to Petersburg.’</p> + +<p>The prince nodded and added: ‘Yes, but only if +I were pleased with him!’</p> + +<p>‘Are you displeased with him?’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>voice so that he could get a hundred roubles a month +in Russia in the season.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘You are right; but I meant to say, see what I have +to put up with, see what I have done for the rascal....’</p> + +<p>‘So you consent to pay his fare?’</p> + +<p>‘The devil take him. For your sake, simply, for your +sake, I will....’</p> + +<p>‘Well, the matter is settled, then: and do you know +what the fare is?’</p> + +<p>‘I am told it is twenty pounds.’</p> + +<p>‘No, that is too much. A hundred roubles from +here to Petersburg is enough. Will you give that?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, I will.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘You can read and write, of course?’ I asked the +young man.</p> + +<p>‘Of course, sir.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Read it for yourself, and sign it.’</p> + +<p>The young man read it, and made no movement to +sign it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p> + +<p>‘What is the matter?’</p> + +<p>‘I can’t, sir.’</p> + +<p>‘Why can’t you?’</p> + +<p>‘I am not satisfied.’</p> + +<p>A restrained leonine roar—and, indeed, I was on the +point of crying out myself.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Why, upon my word, sir, and the straits I have been +put to ever since I have been here.’</p> + +<p>It was clear that the ease with which he had obtained +the money had whetted his appetite.</p> + +<p>‘For instance, sir, I ought to have something more +for copying music.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>The prince was right, though he need not have +frightened Picot by his <i>contrabombardo</i> voice.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘I am going about without s-s-socks myself,’ roared +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>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?’</p> + +<p>‘We know you very well, we have no doubt of you +at all, you will not let us be wronged.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Of course you can stay. Where the devil would +you go?’</p> + +<p>The ‘regent’ thanked the prince and went away.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span></p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The second <i>cause célèbre</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p>There could be no doubt whatever that he had +cheated Golitsyn at every turn.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>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.</p> + +<p>If this was so, the pistol was certainly not loaded.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>lorettes</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Following the exuberant figure of the Assyrian god, +of the fleshy ox-Apollo, a series of other Russian curiosities +must not be forgotten.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>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 <i>exile</i>, in +a fur cap and a fur-lined coat, which he never abandoned, +regardless of the muggy warmth of a London winter.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>telegram concerning his luggage, and went to get a <i>visa</i> +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 <i>visa</i>. +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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Why, in 1849 my brother was arrested and afterwards +exiled.’</p> + +<p>‘Well?’</p> + +<p>‘That was all.’</p> + +<p>‘No,’ thought the official, ‘he is joking’; and he told +S. if that was the case the Ministry would make further +inquiries.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Ministry reported to that effect to London.</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>‘My brother....’</p> + +<p>‘I have heard all that, but with what case were you +yourself connected?’</p> + +<p>‘There was nothing else.’</p> + +<p>Brunov, who had never been surprised at anything +from his birth up, was surprised.</p> + +<p>‘Then why do you ask for a pardon since you have +done nothing?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span></p> + +<p>‘I thought that it was better, anyway.’</p> + +<p>‘So the fact is you don’t need a pardon, but a passport,’ +and Brunov ordered a passport to be given him.</p> + +<p>In high delight S. dashed off to us.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But with all his eccentricities, S. was an honest man.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Kolokol</i> 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 <i>Kolokol</i>.</p> + +<p>In the spring Kelsiev returned from Moscow and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>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.</p> + +<p>He took it into his head to get up a subscription-supper +in our honour on the fifth anniversary of the +<i>Kolokol</i> 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 <i>entrain</i> +about it, and there could not be. There were too many +outsiders taking part in it.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Kolokol</i> to print the <i>Sovremennik</i> +in London at our expense.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>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 <i>The Times</i> and went off. That could not escape +notice.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>We were told that one of our guests telegraphed at +once to Petersburg.</p> + +<p>Vyetoshnikov was arrested on the steamer; the rest +is well known.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="BEHIND_THE_SCENES">BEHIND THE SCENES<br> +<span class="smaller">(1863 TO 1864)</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3 id="heading5"><span class="smcap">V. I. Kelsiev</span></h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>turned against Gogol for his ‘Correspondence with +Friends.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Let him compare the bitterest moments of his life +then with the sweetest of his present career.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Customs in the +character of prohibited goods asking to be confiscated +and to be treated according to the law.</p> + +<p>In 1859 I received the first letter from him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and gave his whole life a peculiar +character, a peculiar unity, made by the welding together +of opposing metals.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>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 <i>mi-carême</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In reality there was no cause to be afraid: the +rising force was too weak to change the course of sixty +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>millions materially. But it had a programme, perhaps a +prophecy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Apart from all understanding of it, he had an undeniable +right to this sense of injustice and this hatred of it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No poverty could have been more complete. The +young frail woman, or rather married child, endured +it heroically and with extraordinary simplicity.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Nihilist</i>: 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘What are you going to do here?’ I asked him. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> +or Russia.</p> + +<p>And indeed Kelsiev was a ‘vagrant’ soul, a vagrant +morally and in practice: he was tormented by unstable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tour de force</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>great deal of harm, but that is not the point, and +has nothing to do with the estimate of the expedition +itself.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Sitzfleisch</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>After them men of a different stamp appear upon the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>scene. Our social metamorphosis, having no great +depth and affecting only a thin layer, rapidly wears out +and changes its forms and colours.</p> + +<p>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 <i>somewhere</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span></p> + +<p>‘You are Osip Semyonovitch?’ I asked him.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘I am Alexandr Ivanovitch Herzen. I have come to +meet you and to take you to us.’</p> + +<p>‘What did you put yourself out for, Your Excellency?... +Why ... you might have sent some one or +something....’</p> + +<p>‘Evidently because I am not an Excellency. What +put it into your head, Osip Semyonovitch, to call me +Count?’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In Europe everything is done wholesale, in the mass; +the individual man does not need so much strength and +caution.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>of Kelsiev and, contrary to our advice, sent an +appeal to the Tsar.</p> + +<p>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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>Help was at hand.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘It is death, my dear, it is.’</p> + +<p>And she smiled once more, sank into forgetfulness and +died.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Extract from a Letter</i></p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>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.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_COMMON_FUND">THE COMMON FUND</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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, +<i>cassant</i>, <i>raide</i>, 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, <i>aux +armes, citoyens</i>!’ 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 <i>complètement perdu le terrain</i>, and pointed +to the medical profession, to the professors and students +who were not merely not Catholics but not even +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>Deists. ‘Well, but that part of France,’ I observed, +‘which neither gives nor hears medical lectures?’</p> + +<p>‘It, of course, keeps to religion and its rites—but +more from habit and ignorance.’</p> + +<p>‘Very true, but what will you do with it?’</p> + +<p>‘What did they do in 1792?’</p> + +<p>‘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!”’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Ah bah</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>‘<i>L’infâme sera écrasée</i>,’ I wound up, laughing.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, no doubt of it; that is certain!’</p> + +<p>‘But that you and I will not see it—that is even more +certain.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span></p> + +<p>‘Can this really be,’ I thought, ‘old age divorcing +two generations? Is it the chill induced by years, by +weariness, by experience?’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What we had in common was too general. Advance +together, <i>serve</i>, 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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +Sometimes, it is true, they did ask for a programme, for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>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.</p> + +<p>I have always and in everything dreaded ‘above all +sorrows’ <i>mésalliances</i>; I have always endured them, +partly through humanity, partly through carelessness, +and have always suffered from them.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The efforts to collect a ‘Common Fund’ yielded no +results of importance. Russians are not fond of giving +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It seemed perfectly right to the young people to relieve +me of it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘Upon my word, and you so young?’</p> + +<p>‘I love Russia—I love her dearly; but there the +people ... I cannot live there. I want to found a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>colony on completely socialistic principles; I have +thought it all over, and now I am going straight there.’</p> + +<p>‘Straight where?’</p> + +<p>‘To the Marquesas Islands.’</p> + +<p>I looked at him in dumb amazement.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘As many as you like.’</p> + +<p>‘Do you make any profit out of your publications?’</p> + +<p>‘Profit! I am glad to say that now the press pays +its way.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, but what if it should not?’</p> + +<p>‘I shall make it up.’</p> + +<p>‘So that no sort of commercial aim enters into your +propaganda?’ said the young man.</p> + +<p>I laughed heartily.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>Again I could do nothing but look at him with amazement.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘What am I to do with it?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span></p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Certainly, if you like.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Very well, I will take the money—but on these +conditions: I will give you a receipt.’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t want a receipt.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘If you insist on taking so much trouble, do so. And +let us go to-morrow for the money!’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>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 <i>lettre +de crédit</i> to the <i>Île Marquise</i>,’ 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Had not you a note too much?’ he asked me.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘It is no use grieving and discussing it,’ I said to +him. ‘I propose going straight to Rothschild’s.’</p> + +<p>We drove there. It was by now after four and the +bank was closed. I went in with B., who was overwhelmed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>This was how the man was setting off for the Marquesas +Islands.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘It is full.’</p> + +<p>‘I will get you a bag.’</p> + +<p>‘No, I would not think of it.’</p> + +<p>And so he went off.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>to say nothing about it. At last it was discovered that +the money really existed and was in my keeping.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Kolokol</i>, and did not readily respond to +our invitation to work on it.</p> + +<p>I resolutely refused to give the money; and let those +who demanded it tell me what would have become of +it if I had.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘He is sure to be dead.’</p> + +<p>‘But what if to spite you he is living?’</p> + +<p>‘Well, but he gave you the money for the propaganda.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span></p> + +<p>‘So far I do not need it.’</p> + +<p>‘But we do.’</p> + +<p>‘What for precisely?’</p> + +<p>‘We must send some one to the Volga and some one +to Odessa....’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t think that is very necessary.’</p> + +<p>‘So you don’t believe in the urgency of sending them?’</p> + +<p>‘I do not.’</p> + +<p>‘He is growing old and getting miserly,’ the most +determined and ferocious said about me in different +variations.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>I did not give them the money.</p> + +<p>They did not show me up in the papers. I was +abused in the press much later, and that was about +money too....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span></p> + +<p>Who would judge of Christianity from the Flagellants, +or of the Revolution from the September butchers, or +the <i>tricoteuses</i> of Robespierre?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Flinging off everything to the last rag, our <i>enfants +terribles</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>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 <i>point d’honneur</i>.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> 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 <i>murmolka</i>. +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>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’?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Our black earth needs a good deal of drainage!</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="BAKUNIN">BAKUNIN +AND THE CAUSE OF POLAND</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">At the end of November we received from Bakunin +the following letter:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">San Francisco</span>, <i>October 15, 1861</i>.</p> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Friends</span>,—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.</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>idée fixe</i> since 1846 and was in +practice my speciality in 1848 and 1849.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> he repeated: ‘<i>Die Lust der Zerstörung +ist eine schaffende Lust.</i>’ 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 <i>La Réforme</i> and <i>La vraie République</i>, +the striking speeches of <i>La Constituante</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘The Polish Slavonic cause ... the destruction of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>read through</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Though, indeed, it is no wonder that it was so, even +apart from prison.</p> + +<p>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 <i>l’égalité du salaire</i>, levelling-down in +the name of equality, the emancipation of all the Slavs, +the destruction of all the Austrias, the revolution <i>en +permanence</i>, 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>rid of the precious orator, and plotted with Flocon to +send him off to the Slavs in earnest, with a brotherly +<i>accolade</i> and a conviction that there he would break +his neck and be no more trouble. ‘<i>Quel homme! quel +homme!</i>’ 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!’⁠<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>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 <i>zu Klassisch +gebildet</i> to dare to fire on Raphael.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘What is that for?’ asked Bakunin. ‘Surely you +don’t imagine that I can escape under these conditions?’</p> + +<p>‘No, but your friends may try to rescue you; the +Government has heard rumours to that effect, and in +that case....’</p> + +<p>‘What then?’</p> + +<p>‘I have orders to put a bullet through your brains....’</p> + +<p>And the party galloped off.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Nicholas commended Bakunin’s valiant conduct at +Dresden, and clapped him into the Alexeyevsky Ravelin. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>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 +<i>three whole years</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>citizen army, with which he proposed to annihilate +Austria and found the Slav league.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>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 +<i>en bons amis</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>It is said that Turgenev meant to draw Bakunin’s +portrait in Rudin; but Rudin barely suggests certain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>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.</p> + +<p>In London he first of all set to revolutionising the +<i>Kolokol</i>, 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<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>⁠; 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.</p> + +<p>With them Bakunin made up for his nine years’ +silence and solitude. He argued, lectured, made +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>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 <i>Bohémien</i> from the <i>rue de Bourgogne</i>, +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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> Alexandr +Ivanovitch, a child; you can’t be angry with him!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘Yesterday,’ one of his friends told Bakunin, ‘So-and-so +arrived from Russia; he is a very fine man, formerly +an officer.’</p> + +<p>‘I have heard about him; he is very well spoken of.’</p> + +<p>‘May I bring him?’</p> + +<p>‘Certainly; but why bring him, where is he? I’ll +go and see him. I’ll go at once.’</p> + +<p>‘He seems to be rather a constitutionalist.’</p> + +<p>‘Perhaps, but....’</p> + +<p>‘But I know he is a courageous and noble man.’</p> + +<p>‘And trustworthy?’</p> + +<p>‘He is much respected at Orsett House.’</p> + +<p>‘Let us go to him.’</p> + +<p>‘Why? He meant to come to you, that was what we +agreed. I will bring him.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The officer quietly and modestly makes his appearance. +Bakunin <i>le met à l’aise</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>‘Of course not.’</p> + +<p>‘There is nothing that detains you here?’</p> + +<p>‘Nothing; I have only just arrived, I....’</p> + +<p>‘Can you go to-morrow or next day with this letter +to Jassy?’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>a pause, in a voice that does not sound quite natural, +‘Oh yes!’</p> + +<p>‘I knew you would. Here is the letter perfectly +ready.’</p> + +<p>‘I am ready to set off at once ...’ (the officer is +overcome with confusion). ‘I had not at all reckoned +on such a journey.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Why twenty pounds for X.?’</p> + +<p>‘Not for him, for the cause; and, I say, brother, +isn’t X. a splendid fellow?’</p> + +<p>‘I have known him for some years. He has stayed +in London before.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘To Jassy? And from there to the Caucasus?’</p> + +<p>‘I see you are going to be funny,’ said Bakunin. +‘You won’t prove anything by jokes.’</p> + +<p>‘But you know you don’t want anything in Jassy.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p> + +<p>‘How do you know?’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘What inquisitiveness! You never go into these +things with me; what right have you to ask?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘But he will pay you back, he will have money.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This lack of discrimination sometimes led to very +funny incidents.</p> + +<p>Bakunin used to get up late; he could hardly have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>done otherwise, since he spent the night talking and +drinking tea.</p> + +<p>One morning at eleven o’clock he heard some one +stirring in his room. His bed stood curtained off in +a large alcove.</p> + +<p>‘Who’s there?’ shouted Bakunin, waking.</p> + +<p>‘A Russian.’</p> + +<p>‘What is your name?’</p> + +<p>‘So-and-so.’</p> + +<p>‘Delighted to see you.’</p> + +<p>‘Why is it you get up so late and you a democrat?’</p> + +<p>Silence: the sounds of splashing water, cascades.</p> + +<p>‘Mihail Alexandrovitch!’</p> + +<p>‘Well?’</p> + +<p>‘I wanted to ask you, were you married in church?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘What nonsense are you talking?’</p> + +<p>‘But tell me, did you marry for love?’</p> + +<p>‘What has that to do with you?’</p> + +<p>‘There was a rumour going about that you married +because your bride was rich!’⁠<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>‘Have you come here to cross-examine me? Go to +the devil!’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘All right, all right. Only be more sensible next +time.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>dieses +Zögernde</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>made blunders <i>à contre-cœur</i>; 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.)</p> + +<p>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 +<i>nolens volens</i>....</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mésalliance</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘I hope most earnestly that you may not regret it.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>via</i> Petersburg.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p> + +<p>The die was cast!...</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One day towards the end of September Bakunin +came to me, looking particularly preoccupied and somewhat +solemn.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>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 <i>define our +relations once for all</i>.’</p> + +<p>My answer to the officers was being printed at that time.</p> + +<p>‘My programme is ready, I will read aloud my letter.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Kolokol</i> are familiar, was written <i>in Russian</i>, not quite +correctly, but clearly. It has been said that I translated +it from the French and altered the sense. That is <i>not +true</i>. All three spoke Russian well.</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>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.</i>’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘I fancy, all the same, that they really care very little +about the land for the peasants and far too much about +the provinces.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘I do want something else though!’</p> + +<p>‘How difficult every step is to you! You are not a +practical man at all.’</p> + +<p>‘Sazonov used to say that before you said it.’</p> + +<p>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’⁠<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘<i>There is no freedom without land.</i>’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Bravo, G.,’ cried Bakunin, gleefully.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>The manifesto was corrected, the members of the +Committee signed it. I sent it off to the printing-press.</p> + +<p>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 <i>profession de foi</i> by interpretations +which would dim its vivid colours and change +them.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span></p> + +<p>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.”’</p> + +<p>‘But, my dear fellow, all the same ...’ Bakunin was +beginning, walking about the room in excitement.</p> + +<p>‘Why, <i>is</i> there?’ I asked him.</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>will do +you no good at all but will ruin us</i>; 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!’</p> + +<p>‘You will be satisfied with us,’ said G. and Padlewski.</p> + +<p>Next day two of them went off to Warsaw, while the +third went off to Paris.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>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 <i>Whites</i> began to go over +to the side of the rebellion.</p> + +<p>Padlewski came again; the decree was not withdrawn. +Padlewski went off to Poland.</p> + +<p>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 <i>via</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The plenipotentiary was full of the importance of +his mission and invited us to become the <i>agents</i> 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.</p> + +<p>‘And are there many of you?’ I asked him.</p> + +<p>‘That is hard to say: some hundreds in Petersburg +and three thousand in the provinces.’</p> + +<p>‘Do you believe it?’ I asked Ogaryov afterwards. He +did not answer. ‘Do you believe it?’ I asked Bakunin.</p> + +<p>‘Of course; but,’ he added, ‘<i>well, if there are not +as many now there soon will be</i>!’ and he burst into a roar +of laughter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span></p> + +<p>‘That is another matter.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘Then they ought to come to us frankly admitting +their weakness and asking for friendly help instead of +proposing the silly position of agents.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>‘You must not be angry with me, Alexandr Ivanovitch; +that may be so or it may not, but anyway you +have done for the <i>Kolokol</i>. 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.’</p> + +<p>‘You are not going to Russia, and the <i>Kolokol</i> is not +ruined,’ I answered him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Martyanov did as he had said; he returned home +in the spring of 1863 and went to die in penal servitude, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>exiled by his Liberal Tsar for his love for Russia and +his trust in him.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of 1863 the circulation of the +<i>Kolokol</i> 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.</p> + +<p class="right"><i>Written at Montreux and Lausanne at the end of 1865.</i></p> + +<h3 id="Letters"><span class="smcap">Letters from Ogaryov and Bakunin to the Russian<br> +Officers who took part in the Polish Rebellion.</span></h3> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Friends</span>,—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 <i>national independence</i>, +but to raise the Russian socialist banner of +“Land and Freedom” is not vouchsafed to Poland; while +you are too few.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘To us this plan seems so clear that you too cannot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>but recognise what must be done. Accomplish it whatever +labour it may cost.</p> + +<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">N. Ogaryov.</span>’</p> + +<p class="mt2">‘<span class="smcap">Friends and Brothers</span>,—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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>the common cause ... and God knows! Perhaps in +opposition to every calculation of cold prudence your +heroic deed may unexpectedly be crowned with +success....</p> + +<p>‘As for myself, whatever may await you, success or +death, I hope that it may be my lot to share your fate.</p> + +<p>‘Good-bye—and perhaps till we meet again soon.</p> + +<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">M. Bakunin.</span>’</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 id="heading6">1<br> +<span class="smcap">The Steamer ‘Ward Jackson’</span></h3> + +<p class="dropcap">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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Here it is,’ and C. gave the police officer a passport +with another name on it and a perfectly regular <i>visa</i>.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Did you tell any one about the letter?’ I asked him.</p> + +<p>‘No one, absolutely no one,’ answered Cwerczakiewicz.</p> + +<p>‘There is some sorcery about it; no suspicion can +fall on you or on Mazzini. Think a little.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘A clue! A clue! Now, allow me, where were +you living?’</p> + +<p>‘In So-and-so Street in furnished apartments.’</p> + +<p>‘Was the landlord an Englishman?’</p> + +<p>‘No, a Pole.’</p> + +<p>‘Better still. And his name?’</p> + +<p>‘Tur; he is a specialist in agriculture.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘I have heard it alluded to.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, I will tell you the story. In the autumn of +1857 I received a letter from Petersburg <i>via</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>pour se faire valoir</i>.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘The scoundrel walked away.</p> + +<p>‘All the decent Poles abandoned him, with the exception +of gamblers who were complete drunkards and +drunkards who were completely ruined at cards. Only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>one decent person has remained on friendly terms with +this Michalowski, and that man is your landlord, Tur.’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, that is suspicious. I will go at once....’</p> + +<p>‘Why at once? You can’t set things right now, +but keep an eye on the man. What proofs have you?’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Bakunin was already in Sweden, making friends with +every one, opening ways for ‘Land and Freedom’ across +Finland, arranging for the despatch of the <i>Kolokol</i> 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 <i>sincerely believed</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘You are speaking of L. B.?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘Yes.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>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 <i>poseur</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>Cwerczakiewicz got up; he was pale and troubled.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘Did you hear the whole conversation?’ I asked +him as we were going.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, I did.’</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘Not a doubt of it.’</p> + +<p>And we almost burst out laughing, although we were +anything but mirthful at heart.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Moral</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘All very true, but what made you think of applying +to them?’</p> + +<p>‘It was done by our agent.’</p> + +<p>‘That is?’</p> + +<p>‘Tur.’</p> + +<p>‘What, <i>that</i> Tur?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, you can set your mind at rest about him. He was +most highly recommended to us by L. B.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘Both of the language and of the laws.’</p> + +<p>‘I have no doubt of it.’</p> + +<p>‘Tur has been in prison in London for some rather +shady affair; and he was employed as an official interpreter +in the law courts.’</p> + +<p>‘How was that?’</p> + +<p>‘You must ask L. B. or Michalowski; don’t you +know him?’</p> + +<p>‘No.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span></p> + +<h3 id="heading7">2<br> +<span class="smcap">Colonel Lapinski and Aide-de-Camp Polles</span></h3> + +<p>At the beginning of 1863 I received a letter written +in a tiny, extraordinarily fine handwriting, and headed +with the text: <i>Licite Venire Parvulos</i>. In the most +elaborately flattering and cringing expressions the +<i>parvulus</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘What prevents you then?’</p> + +<p>‘What do you think about it?’ Parvulus asked, +somewhat embarrassed.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘No doubt you know that when Charles <span class="allsmcap">V.</span> 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<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a>⁠) “wretch, scoundrel, fool, and so on. How +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>can such criminal ideas occur to you? If they can, +they are sometimes acted upon, but never spoken of.”’</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>‘Quite the contrary, never. I never write to any +one in secret. Good morning.’</p> + +<p>‘Good-bye. Remember, if ever you or Ogaryov would +like a little music, my violoncello and I are at your service.’</p> + +<p>‘Very much obliged to you.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>Le Nord</i> is +international.</p> + +<p>He never turned up among the real Polish exiles, and +not one of them knew him.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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?”</p> + +<p>‘“Ah, you dogs, you can’t do anything properly; +where’s the child?”</p> + +<p>‘“With me. He screamed and screamed—well, I was +sorry for him and took him home.”</p> + +<p>‘“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.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span></p> + +<p>‘Very.’</p> + +<p>Here is another trait showing the character of the +future hero of Polish independence.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘I have had the pleasure of meeting him already.’</p> + +<p>It was Polles.</p> + +<p>‘Do you know him well?’ Ogaryov asked Lapinski +when they were alone.</p> + +<p>‘I met him in the boarding-house in which I am +staying now. He seems a nice fellow and very obliging.’</p> + +<p>‘But do you trust him?’</p> + +<p>‘Of course. Besides, he plays the violoncello charmingly +and will entertain us on the voyage.’</p> + +<p>It was said that the colonel found him entertaining in +other ways.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>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.</p> + +<p>At ten o’clock in the evening they went off. The +English gave them three cheers.</p> + +<p>Next morning a marine officer whom I knew came to +me from one of the Russian steamers.</p> + +<p>The steamer had received an order the previous +evening to set off full steam next morning and follow +the <i>Ward Jackson</i>.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the <i>Ward Jackson</i> had stopped at Copenhagen +for water, had spent some hours at Malmö waiting +for Bakunin, who was intending to go with them to incite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>the peasants in Lithuania to rise, and had been seized +by the orders of the Swedish Government.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know him at all. Who is he?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh yes, you do, you have seen him with us: a +young fellow without a beard—Lapinski brought him +to see you once.’</p> + +<p>‘Then you are speaking of Polles?’</p> + +<p>‘That is his pseudonym, his real name is Tugenbold.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>That Polles and he were one and the same person +there could be no doubt. I let my hands fall in despair.</p> + +<p>‘Did you know before the expedition started that +Polles was Tugenbold?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes I knew. It was said he had changed his name +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>because his brother was known in the country for +a spy.’</p> + +<p>‘Why didn’t you say a word to me?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, it just didn’t come up.’</p> + +<p>And Tchitchikov’s Selifan⁠<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> knew that the chaise was +broken and did not say a word.</p> + +<p>We had to telegraph to Malmö after the arrest. Even +then neither Demontowicz nor Bakunin⁠<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>At the same time that a crowd of armed Poles, a large +quantity of expensive ammunition, and the <i>Ward +Jackson</i> 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, <i>La Pologne +et la Cause de l’Ordre</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>‘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?”’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>Disappointed and incensed, Sbyszewski arrived.</p> + +<p>‘Well, are you going off to kill kings, like Lapinski?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Simply, at the Consul’s.’</p> + +<p>‘No, we want to go on to the South; they are short +of men now, and they offer more favourable conditions.’</p> + +<p>‘Impossible; you could not go to the South!’</p> + +<p>... Fortunately Tchorszewski guessed right; they +did not go to the South.</p> + +<p class="right"><i>May 3, 1869.</i></p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FRAGMENTS">FRAGMENTS<br> +<span class="smaller">(1867 TO 1868)</span></h2> + +</div> + +<h3 id="heading8">1<br> +<span class="smcap">Swiss Views</span></h3> + +<p class="dropcap">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.</p> + +<p>‘You are young and strong,’ I said to him, ‘why don’t +you get work?’</p> + +<p>‘No one will give it me.’</p> + +<p>‘Why is that?’</p> + +<p>‘I know no one here who would give me a character.’</p> + +<p>‘Where do you come from?’</p> + +<p>‘From a ship.’</p> + +<p>‘What sort of ship?’</p> + +<p>‘A Spanish one; the captain beat me very much, so +I went away.’</p> + +<p>‘What did you do on board ship?’</p> + +<p>‘Everything: brushed the clothes, washed up, did +the cabins.’</p> + +<p>‘What do you mean to do?’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know.’</p> + +<p>‘But you will die of cold and hunger, you know, or +anyway you will certainly get a bad cold.’</p> + +<p>‘What am I to do?’ said the negro in despair, looking +at me and shivering all over with cold.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p> + +<p>‘Well,’ I thought, ‘here goes. It is not the first silly +thing I have done in my life.’</p> + +<p>‘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. <i>Si no—no.</i>’</p> + +<p>The negro jumped with joy.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>‘I have come to say good-bye to you.’</p> + +<p>‘How’s that?’</p> + +<p>‘For now it is enough, I am going.’</p> + +<p>‘Has anybody been nasty to you?’</p> + +<p>‘No, indeed, I am content with all.’</p> + +<p>‘Then where are you going now?’</p> + +<p>‘To some ship.’</p> + +<p>‘What for?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>That was in the spring.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>it is enough</i>, that I must refresh +myself with other horizons and other faces ... and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>at the same time must retire into myself, strange as +that sounds. The superficial distractions of the journey +do not prevent it.</p> + +<p>There are people who prefer to get away <i>inwardly</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is because I have a bad time after too much +wine.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>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.</p> + +<p>Next day I got up early, and by eleven o’clock was +so hungry that I went for <i>déjeuner</i> 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 +<i>The Times</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cuisine</i> +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 <i>literary</i> gastronomy, +consisting in an elaborate <i>knowledge</i> of dainties and in +the ordering of dishes. No other nation <i>talks</i> as much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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: ‘<i>Une poire!</i>’</p> + +<p>The Englishman, who had all this time been eating +in silence behind the screen of his paper, stirred and +said: ‘<i>Et à moa aussi!</i>’</p> + +<p>The waiter brought two pears on two plates and +handed one to the Englishman; but the latter vigorously +and emphatically protested: ‘No, no! <i>aucune chose +pour poire!</i>’ 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Basle.</span></p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>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<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>⁠; 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lausanne.</span></p> + +<p>I am passing through Lausanne. Every one passes +through Lausanne except the aborigines.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The thought of that town is in my mind inseparable +from the thought of the coldest and driest of great men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>and the coldest and driest of winds—of Calvin and of +the <i>bise</i>; I can’t endure either of them. And certainly +in every native of Geneva there is something left of the +<i>bise</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>However, I am now writing my <i>impressions de voyage</i> +while I am <i>living</i> in Geneva. Of that town I will +write when I have retreated to an artistic distance....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>corps de ballet</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>qu’il a ses aises</i>, ‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>propriétaire</i> 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....</p> + +<p>The fire which does not smoke is a dream. A landlord +in Geneva said to me soothingly: ‘This fire <i>only</i> smokes +in the <i>bise</i>.’ That is only just when one most wants +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>a fire; and he says this as though the <i>bise</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>none</i>.... They only make a +display of them to cover the inconceivable emptiness and +senselessness of their lives.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Rathhaus</i>, out of the opposition and the +club; passions and fanaticisms, religions and heroisms, +have all given way to material prosperity: <i>and that has +not been successfully organised</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p> + +<p>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 +<i>progress</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>black spots</i> on the horizon.</p> + +<h3 id="heading9">2<br> +<span class="smcap">Chatter on the Road and Fellow-Countrymen +in the Buffet</span></h3> + +<p>‘Is there a seat free for Andermatt?’</p> + +<p>‘Most likely there will be.’</p> + +<p>‘In the <i>cabriolet</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘Perhaps; you must come at half-past ten....’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>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. ‘<i>Carrogna!</i>’ shouts the landlord. ‘<i>Ladro!</i>’ +shouts the woman. ‘Go along with you, old she-devil.’ +‘Will you take it, you robber?’ ‘Well, let me have +it for <i>tre venti</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is still just as easy to recognise Russians as it always +has been. The zoological features noted long ago have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>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 <i>table d’hôte</i>, and so on.</p> + +<p>The lake of Thun has become a tank about which +our tourists of the higher sort have settled. The <i>Fremden +List</i> 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 <i>mit Weib und Kind</i> enjoy +nature, and in the hotel dining-room her gifts.</p> + +<p>‘Did you come by Gemmi or Grimsel?’ an Englishwoman +will ask her fellow-countrywoman.</p> + +<p>‘Are you staying at the Jungfraublick or at the +Victoria?’ a Russian woman will ask her fellow-countrywoman.</p> + +<p>‘There is the Jungfrau!’ says an Englishwoman.</p> + +<p>‘There is Reytern, the Minister of Finance!’ says +a Russian.</p> + +<p class="mt2">‘<i>Intcinq minutes d’arrêt</i>....’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Intcinq minutes d’arrêt</i>....’</p> + +<p>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 +‘<i>En voiture!</i>’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Essieurs les voyageurs pour Ucinnungen onction, et +tontuyx-en voiture!</i>’</p> + +<p>All rushed with unnecessary haste to their carriages.</p> + +<p>I could not refrain from saying to the waiter (not the +hawk, another one): ‘Did you see?’</p> + +<p>‘To be sure I did—they are Russians.’</p> + +<h3 id="heading10">3<br> +<span class="smcap">Beyond the Alps</span></h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>at home, but as though in an uncomfortable box at the +theatre, with magnificent scenery on the stage.</p> + +<p>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 <i>höhern Standpunkt</i>. This +artificial strain excludes all <i>abandon</i>, and is for ever +prepared for controversy and exposition in set phrases. +Chronic enthusiasm is exhausting and irritating.</p> + +<p>Man does not want to be always admiring, always +spiritually elevated; he does not want to have the +<i>Tugenden</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A town which is more modern but less historical and +decorative is Turin.</p> + +<p>‘It simply overwhelms one with its prose.’</p> + +<p>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: <i>memento mori</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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: +<i>Partenza!—Partenza!</i>—and part of the ant-heap begins +scurrying about, some loading, others unloading.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + +<h3 id="heading11">4<br> +<span class="smcap">Zu Deutsch</span></h3> + +<p>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 +<i>Correspondence</i>; here is salvation. I take them and +proceed to read them till the sky clears again.</p> + +<p>Much water has flowed away since Heine was writing +to Moser, Immermann, Varnhagen.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Faust</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>Shylocks in the form of Cotta,⁠<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> + Hoffmann,⁠<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> and Campe,⁠<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>The graduates of a <i>sublimated</i> 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 <i>work</i>, but were not <i>science</i> either, but, so to +speak, erudition, and above all, literature.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>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.</p> + +<p>The revolution of 1830 and Heine’s moving afterwards +to Paris did much for his progress. <i>Der Pan ist +gestorben!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Heine coquettes with the Prussian Government, seeks +its favour through the ambassador and through Varnhagen, +and then abuses it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> He coquetted with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bérets</i> 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 <i>Führer</i>, they simply +held aloof from them.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘We have done everything we could, <i>innerhalb</i> the +constitution.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, then, you should follow the example of the +Government and try <i>ausserhalb</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, then, I can only say like your President at +every fresh blow: “Shout three times <i>Es lebe der König</i> +and go home peaceably!”’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span></p> + +<h3 id="heading12">5<br> +<span class="smcap">This World and the Other</span></h3> + +<h4>I<br> +<span class="smaller">THE OTHER WORLD</span></h4> + +<p>... Villa Adolphina.... Adolphina?... Villa +Adolphina, <i>grands et petits appartements, jardin, vue +sur la mer</i>....</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>Sie +sind eine Deutsche?</i>’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Zu Diensten, und der gnädige Herr?</i>’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Ein Russe.</i>’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Das freut mich zu sehr. Ich wohnte so lange, so +lange</i> in Petersburg. I must say I believe there is no +other town like it and never will be.’</p> + +<p>‘It is very pleasant to hear that. Is it long since you +left Petersburg?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, it is not yesterday; why, we have been living +here twenty years. I have been a friend of Madame +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>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 <i>meine Gönnerin</i> bought this +little <i>Paradise</i> she sent for me at once from <i>Braunschweig</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘And where did you live in Petersburg?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, we lived in the very best part of the town, where +the <i>Laute Herrschaften und Generäle</i> live. How many +times I have seen the late Tsar driving by in a carriage +or a one-horse sledge <i>so ernst</i>.... He was a real +potentate, one may say.’</p> + +<p>‘Did you live on the Nevsky or in Morsky Street?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes; that is, not quite on the Nevsky, but close by, +at the <i>Polizei-brücke</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>coiffeur +de la cour</i> 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.’</p> + +<p>‘Well,’ I thought, ‘she will certainly exalt Floriani +into being my “comrade in misfortune”!’</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p> + +<p>‘Here he comes.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘Would you like me to call him?’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, yes, he has subscribed largely to charities!’</p> + +<p>‘A very good heart, no doubt.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>this</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>Those who like Faust want to see ‘the mothers,’ and +even ‘the fathers,’ need no Mephistopheles; it is enough +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>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.</p> + +<p>On the way to this <i>Città</i>, which is not so very <i>dolente</i>, +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: ‘<i>Voi che ’ntrate</i>,’ with the idea +of correcting old-standing historical evils by amateurish +means, ‘<i>lasciate ogni speranza</i>.’ 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?</p> + +<p>Here we are <i>en plein</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 ... <i>du prétérit-défini et +du plus-que-parfait</i>.</p> + +<p>Beside the actors retired from the small stage of the +theatre, the actors of the greatest stages of the world, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>other salons and other celebrities, of reckless stakes, of +Countess Kisselyov, of roulette at Homburg and at +Baden, of the late Suhozanet’s⁠<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> 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 <i>rouge et noir</i>.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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, +‘<i>contumaces</i>’ and so on.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bise</i>, or like stern Spartans hide in the fogs +of London....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span></p> + +<h4>II<br> +<span class="smaller">THIS WORLD</span></h4> + +<h5>A. <i>Living Flowers—The Last of the Mohicans</i></h5> + +<p>‘Let us go to the <i>Bal de l’Opéra</i>; 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 <i>tête-à-tête</i> with my Claude Lorraine from +the Neva.</p> + +<p>‘Let us go,’ he said, and poured out another glass +of brandy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Strolling about the opera-hall, we stopped before a +particularly pretty quadrille of powdered <i>débardeurs</i> +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 +<i>cancan</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>boxes at Covent Garden. (So that it is absolutely +impossible in the second tier to listen to <i>Casta Diva</i> or +<i>Sul Salice</i> 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 <i>gardien de Paris</i>, +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 <i>débardeur</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>municipal</i> in full uniform with a predatory +and earnestly stupid expression, with a comma of hair +on his chin and half-grey moustaches.</p> + +<p>He was standing in a dignified attitude with folded +arms, looking intently for the end of these tears and +urging: ‘<i>Allons, allons</i>.’</p> + +<p>To complete the effect, the girl, whimpering, was +saying through her tears: ‘<i>... Et ... et on dit ... +on dit que ... que ... nous sommes en République +... et ... on ne peut danser comme l’on veut!...</i>’</p> + +<p>All this was so absurd, and in reality so pathetic, that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>I resolved to go to the rescue of the captive and to the +restoration in her eyes of the republican form of government.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Mon brave</i>,’ I said with calculated and insinuating +courtesy to the policeman, ‘what will you do with +mademoiselle?’</p> + +<p>‘I shall put her <i>au violon</i> 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.</p> + +<p>‘It was an accident, <i>brigadier</i>, you should pardon her.’</p> + +<p>‘I can’t. <i>La consigne</i>....’</p> + +<p>‘After all, at a fête....’</p> + +<p>‘But what is it to do with you? <i>Êtes-vous son +réciproque?</i>’</p> + +<p>‘It is the first time I have seen her in my life, <i>parole +d’honneur</i>. 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, <i>avec un être frêle</i>. We always +thought the police here were so kind.... How is it +that they are allowed to dance the <i>cancan</i>, for if they +are allowed, <i>monsieur le brigadier</i>, sometimes without +meaning it a foot will be kicked too high or a blouse +will slip too low.’</p> + +<p>‘That may be so,’ the <i>municipal</i> observed, impressed +by my eloquence, and still more stung by my observation +that foreigners have such a flattering opinion of the +Parisian police.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span></p> + +<p>‘Bravo! Though, indeed, I expected no less of you, +<i>monsieur le brigadier</i>, I thank you with all my heart.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘I am ready. I’ll go and get my cloak.’</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said the implacable guardian of order, ‘not a +step from here.’</p> + +<p>‘Where is your cloak and hat?’ ‘In <i>loge</i> so-and-so, +row so-and-so.’ The artist was rushing off, but he stopped +to ask: ‘But will they give them to me?’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Would you like me to take a <i>fiacre</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘I am not alone.’</p> + +<p>‘With whom then?’</p> + +<p>‘With a friend.’</p> + +<p>The artist returned, his cold worse than ever, with +a hat and cloak, and a young shopman or <i>commis-voyageur</i>.</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p>I felt positively vexed. I suggested to the artist a +drink. He did not refuse.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span></p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘Didn’t you catch cold then?’</p> + +<p>‘Not a bit.’</p> + +<p>‘In memory of your captivity, you ought, if you +would be very, very kind....’</p> + +<p>‘Well what? <i>Soyez bref.</i>’</p> + +<p>‘You might have supper with us.’</p> + +<p>‘With pleasure, <i>ma parole</i>, only not now.’</p> + +<p>‘Where shall I find you then?’</p> + +<p>‘Don’t trouble. I’ll come and find you myself at four +o’clock; but I say, I am not alone here....’</p> + +<p>‘With your friend again...?’ and a shiver ran +down my back.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>I invited her too.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>charm of her hair and eyes, Haug began discoursing +on the aesthetic sin of dancing the <i>cancan</i> with the face +of a madonna and the expression of an angel of purity. +‘<i>Armes, holdes Kind!</i>’ he added, addressing us all.</p> + +<p>‘Why is it your friend talks such boring <i>fatras</i>?’ +Leontine whispered in my ear, ‘and why does he go +to fancy-dress balls at all—he’d better go to the Madeleine?’</p> + +<p>‘He is a German, they all suffer from that complaint,’ +I whispered to her.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Mais c’est qu’il est ennuyeux, votre ami avec son mal +de sermon. Mon petit saint, finiras-tu donc bientôt?</i>’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Et je mourrai dans mon hôtel,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou à l’Hôtel-Dieu.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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 <i>frivolité</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>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.</p> + +<p>Her type, her circle, her surroundings, exist no longer. +She was ‘<i>la petite femme</i>’ of the student of old days, +the <i>grisette</i> 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 <i>crescendo</i>. The mischievous, +rather abandoned element of the ’thirties—<i>du lest</i>, <i>de +l’espièglerie</i>—passed into <i>chic</i>; 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 <i>étalage</i>. The type of Leontine, the +lively Parisian <i>gamine</i>, mobile, clever, spoilt, sparkling, +free, and on occasion proud, is not wanted, and chic +has passed into <i>chienne</i>. What the Lovelace of the +boulevards wants is the woman-<i>chienne</i>, 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. ‘<i>Parbleu</i>,’ +an old man whose best years had been at the +beginning of Louis-Philippe’s reign said to me, ‘<i>je ne +me retrouve plus—où est le fion,⁠<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> le chic, où est l’esprit?... +Tout cela est beau, well-bred, mais ... c’est de +la charcuterie ... c’est du Rubens.</i>’</p> + +<p>That reminds me how in the ’fifties dear good Talandier, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>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 <i>Mourir pour la Patrie</i> took its +place. That was no harm yet, but we sank lower.... +<i>Un sous-lieutenant accablé de besogne ... drin, drin, +din, din, din</i> ... 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 <i>Partant pour la Syrie</i> at the top and <i>Qu’aime +donc Margot ... Margot</i> at the bottom: that is, senselessness +and indecency. One can sink no lower.’</p> + +<p>One can! Talandier did not foresee either <i>Je suis +la femme à barbe</i> or <i>The Sapper</i>; he stopped short at +chic and never reached the <i>chienne</i> stage. Hurried +carnal corruption superseded all embellishments. The +body conquered the spirit, and, as I said ten years ago, +<i>Margot, la fille de marbre</i>, 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 <i>Théâtre des Variétés</i>. She was the living embodiment +of a song of Béranger, a saying of Voltaire, and +was young at forty—Déjazet, who changed her adorers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>fion</i> intrigued and interested, the woman of <i>chic</i> stung +and amused, and both, apart from money, took up time. +The <i>chienne</i> pounces straight away upon her victim, bites +with her beauty, and pulls him by the coat <i>sans phrase</i>; +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.</p> + +<p>And what will come after the <i>chienne</i>? Hugo’s <i>pieuvre</i> +has completely failed, perhaps because it is too much like +a <i>pleutre</i>. And yet we cannot stop at the <i>chienne</i>.</p> + +<p>However, let us leave prophesying. The designs of +providence are unfathomable.</p> + +<p>What interests me is something else.</p> + +<p>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 <i>her own hotel</i>, 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.</p> + +<h5>B. <i>Garden Flowers</i></h5> + +<p>In <i>our Russian Europe</i> everything done in <i>European +Europe</i> has been repeated on a smaller scale as to +quantity and on a greater or distorted scale as to quality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>chic</i> and <i>chienne</i> types: +with this difference, that our <i>demi-monde</i> was a whole +world and a little over.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>chic</i>, but sometimes of the axe, more often +of the river, in which a Palashka or Lushka perished +unnoticed.</p> + +<p>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 <i>habitus</i> of the <i>lorettes</i>. It is only on careful scrutiny +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>that it can be discerned that something is lacking. And +what is lacking is the very simplest thing—being a <i>lorette</i>. +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 <i>play</i> at the trade, as their husbands +play with a carpenter’s lathe.</p> + +<p>This absence of necessity, this character of artificiality, +changes the whole thing. On the Russian side there +is the feeling of a superb <i>mise-en-scène</i>; on the French, of +reality and inevitability. Hence the vast differences. +One is often genuinely sorry for the Traviata <i>tout de +bon</i>, for the <i>dame aux perles</i> 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 +<i>parties fines</i> and to all sorts of ‘calisthenic exercises and +conversations,’ drink champagne, smoke Havana cigars, +and stake pots of gold on the <i>rouge et noir</i>.... She +can be a Messalina and a Catherine—but, as we have +said already, she cannot be a <i>lorette</i>, although <i>lorettes</i> +are not, like poets, born, but made. Every <i>lorette</i> 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 +<i>dépit</i>, 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 <i>one</i> way, and so <i>vogue la galère</i>. The +deceived child with no training steps into the fray; her +triumphs spoil her, spur her on (of those who have had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>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.</p> + +<p>But in that also lies the whole impassable gulf between +the <i>lorette</i> by profession and the amateur Camélia. +That gulf and that opposition are vividly expressed in +the fact that the <i>lorette</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>The Bread of Others</i>, or, +lacking him, a coachman or a butler.</p> + +<p>Note that our aristocratic Camélias go no further back +than the beginning of the ’forties.</p> + +<p>And all the modern movement, all the stirring of +thought, the groping, the dissatisfaction, the discontent, +date from the same period.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>that other</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>la roture</i> tried to climb into the +nobility—well, that one can understand; our nobility +tried to become <i>canaille</i>, and that’s silly!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>However, that forms part of our catechism, and I am +afraid of being drawn into repetition.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h4>III<br> +<span class="smaller">THE FLOWERS OF MINERVA</span></h4> + +<p>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; <i>sans-crinolines</i> advancing to replace <i>sans-culottes</i>.</p> + +<p>The girl-student and the young-lady-<i>bursche</i> 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 <i>toilette</i>, 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>to be forgotten that there were two sexes. Before the +truths of science, <i>im Reiche der Wahrheit</i>, distinctions +of sex are effaced.</p> + +<p>Our Camélias stood for the Gironde, that is why there +is such a flavour of Faublas about them.</p> + +<p>Our student-girls are the Jacobins, Saint-Just in a +riding-habit—everything sharp-cut, pure, ruthless. Our +Camélia wore a <i>masque</i>, a <i>loup</i> from warm Venice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This is a real, conscious protest, a protest and dividing +line. <i>Ce n’est pas une émeute, c’est une révolution.</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>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 <i>à livre ouvert</i> I do not know, but +they will certainly take their place in history, and will +deserve to do so.</p> + +<p>The most short-sighted people in the world have +guessed as much.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>These extreme measures were of enormous benefit, +and this I say without the slightest irony, but to whom? +To our Nihilist girls.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Our girl-students and <i>Burschen</i> would have been a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>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 <i>toilette</i> +martyrdom.</p> + +<p>After that, all they have to do is to swim <i>au large</i>.</p> + +<p><i>P.S.</i>—Some are already coming back with the +brilliant diploma of Doctor of Medicine, and all glory +to them!</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Nice</span>, <i>Summer 1867</i>.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VENEZIA_LA_BELLA">VENEZIA LA BELLA<br> +<span class="smaller">(<i>February 1867</i>)</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The crowd keeps growing, <i>le peuple s’amuse</i>, 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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>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 +<i>succursales</i>, 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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>At first the carnival left me in peace, but it kept growing, +and with its elemental force was bound to draw every +one in.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>silly to go, it was silly to make a fuss. I went, I was +greeted with ‘<i>Evviva!</i>’ and full glasses. I bowed in +all directions and talked nonsense, the ‘<i>Evvivas</i>’ were +more hearty than ever; some shouted: ‘<i>Evviva el +amico de Garibaldi</i>,’ others drank to the <i>poeta Russo</i>! +Afraid that the mauve masks would drink to me as the +<i>pittore Slavo scultore i maestro</i>, I beat a retreat to the +Piazza San Marco.</p> + +<p>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’ <i>mandat d’amener</i>. ‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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: ‘<i>Apri—sia stati</i>’ ... and again +the water flows quietly in a side-street, and all at once +the houses move apart, we are in the Grand Canal.... +‘<i>Ferrovia Signore</i>,’ says the gondolier, lisping, as all the +town does. Garibaldi had not arrived, he was still at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> and you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>inconsolable widower, Ricasoli,⁠<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> + with all your Cialdinis⁠<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> +and Depretises,⁠<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I doubt of the <i>future of the Latin peoples</i>. 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> like the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>par anticipation</i>. The Turks come to the +help of backward nature and give the glow of conflagration +to her death by violence. Ancient Greece <i>had lived +out her life</i> 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 <i>god of history</i> 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 <i>à propos</i>. 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<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> paddling his canoe and +going with a gold earring in his ear to an interview +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>with the effeminate, luxurious, scholastic Emperor,⁠<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> John +Zimisces.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Byzantium could <i>live</i>, but there was nothing for her +to <i>do</i>; and nations in general only take a place in history +while they are on the stage, that is while they are doing +something.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>And sometimes, without finding an answer, I begin +to hope that Rome may remain a long time their living +desideratum.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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’?</p> + +<p>To proclaim ‘independence’ <i>sans phrase</i> 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 <i>toga virilis</i> on +the shoulders of Italy, there will be nothing left for him +to do but publicly to embrace his <i>maestro</i> Mazzini on +the banks of the Tiber and to repeat with him: ‘Lord, +now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!’</p> + +<p>I say this for them and not against them.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But I doubt whether Italy will follow the programme +of the great <i>carbonaro</i> 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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘And the democratic republic?’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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. <i>Principessi</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>do not want a republic. The present <i>régime</i> 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 <i>bella e grande figura</i> +in Victor Emmanuel they cling to him.⁠<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> among rusty +Gothic swords, old-fashioned powdered wigs, and the +starched etiquette of little courts with vast pretensions.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To the various jests with which Governments sometimes +deign to throw dust in their people’s eyes, such +as the ‘<i>Prisonniers de la paix</i>’ 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<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>The Government saw only one thing—the money; +the fools saw something else—<i>American</i> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>impresario</i> 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 <i>al gran comandatore La Marmora</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ordre du jour +motivé</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>There have been instances of blundering Governments +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>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.</p> + +<p>And if Italy puts up with this <i>régime</i> and grows +inured to it, she will not endure it with impunity. It +is hard for a people <i>less experienced</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p> + +<p>In the midst of these reflections I happened to come +across Quinet’s pamphlet, <i>France and Germany</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>In old days in Petersburg a friend noted for his +humour, finding on my table a book of the Berlin Michelet, +<i>On the Immortality of the Soul</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>régime</i>, +to the great principles of the Revolution.</p> + +<p>Quinet does not observe that the great principles of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>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. <i>Les principes du +1789</i> 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.</p> + +<p>A dilemma has arisen.</p> + +<p>Either free institutions will again touch the sacred +curtain, or there will be government control, external +order and internal slavery.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The whole gist of the matter lies in that.</p> + +<p>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 <i>one</i> standard +and all reach it: that is their tremendous strength.</p> + +<p>Twenty years ago France burst like a Titan into +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Will the ear-splitting Prussian trumpet of the <i>last</i> +judgment by battle rouse Latin Europe? Will the +approach of the learned barbarians awaken her?</p> + +<p><i>Chi lo sa.</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘Yes,’ I said to the Americans as we went out, ‘you +are perfectly right, these people <i>did</i> live well.’</p> + +<p class="right"><i>March 1867.</i></p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LA_BELLE_FRANCE">LA BELLE FRANCE</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Ah! que j’ai douce souvenance</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>De ce beau pays de France!</i>’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<h3 id="heading13">1<br> +<span class="smcap">Ante Portas</span></h3> + +<p class="dropcap">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.’</p> + +<p>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 <i>visa</i>; it was refused. I wrote to the Freiburg +<i>Conseil d’État</i> 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 <i>Conseil +d’État</i> 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:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—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; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>considerations of <i>special importance</i>, 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.”’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Département de la Sûreté Publique</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘And you come and wake people up at night for that?’</p> + +<p>‘They are waiting for an answer.’</p> + +<p>‘Who?’</p> + +<p>‘Some one from the police.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, say that I will come, but say, too, that it is +stupid to bring invitations after midnight.’</p> + +<p>Then like Nulin⁠<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> I put out my candle.</p> + +<p>At eight o’clock next morning a knock at the door +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>again. It was not difficult to guess that this was all the +foolery of Belgian justice. ‘<i>Entrez!</i>’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘I have the honour to be speaking <i>avec M. Herzen +père</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘<i>C’est selon</i>; as you look at it. On the one hand I +am a father, on the other I am a son.’</p> + +<p>That greatly diverted the spy.</p> + +<p>‘I have come to you....’</p> + +<p>‘Excuse me—to tell me that the Minister of Justice +summons me at eleven o’clock to his department?’</p> + +<p>‘Just so.’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘So you will be there?’</p> + +<p>‘Without fail.’</p> + +<p>‘You know the way?’</p> + +<p>‘Why? Have you been told to accompany me?’</p> + +<p>‘Upon my word, <i>quelle idée</i>!’</p> + +<p>‘And so....’</p> + +<p>‘I wish you good day.’</p> + +<p>‘Good morning.’</p> + +<p>At eleven o’clock I was sitting with the head of the +Belgian Public Security Department.</p> + +<p>He was holding some sort of a manuscript book and +my passport.</p> + +<p>‘You must excuse me for our having troubled you, +but you see there are two little circumstances here: in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>the first place, your passport is Swiss, while ...’ with +police penetration, to test me, he fixed his eyes upon me.</p> + +<p>‘While I am a Russian,’ I added.</p> + +<p>‘Yes. I must confess that has struck us as strange.’</p> + +<p>‘Why? Have you no law of naturalisation in +Belgium?’</p> + +<p>‘And you...?’</p> + +<p>‘I was naturalised ten years ago at Morat of the Canton +of Freiburg in the village of Châtel.’</p> + +<p>‘Of course, <i>if that is so</i>, 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....’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Mille pardons</i>, that did not happen and could not +have happened. What should I have thought of <i>free</i> +Belgium, if, though never banished from her, I could +doubt my right to visit Brussels?’</p> + +<p>The head of the Department of Public Security was +a little embarrassed.</p> + +<p>‘However, here it is ...’ and he opened the manuscript +book.</p> + +<p>‘It seems that not everything in it is correct. Here +you did not know, for instance, that I was naturalised +in Switzerland.’</p> + +<p>‘To be sure. The Consul, M. Delpierre....’</p> + +<p>‘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, <i>as you will readily believe</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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....’</p> + +<p>‘I am going to-morrow.’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘I may ask his sanction for some future occasion, but +now I have not the slightest desire to remain longer +in Brussels.’</p> + +<p>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, <i>il y a des +égards</i>....’ He was ashamed.</p> + +<p>Two years later my younger daughter, who was living +in Paris, was taken ill. Again I asked for a <i>visa</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>‘I have no grounds for writing to the Prince.’</p> + +<p>‘That is true. Write to the Emperor. To-morrow +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>I am going, and the day after to-morrow your letter shall +be in his hands.’</p> + +<p>‘That is very soon, let me consider it.’</p> + +<p>On reaching home I wrote the following letter:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Sire</span>,—More than ten years ago I was compelled +to leave France by ministerial order. Since then I have +twice received permission to visit Paris.⁠<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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,</p> + +<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">Alexander Herzen</span>.</p> + +<p class="hanging">‘<span class="smcap">Orsett House,<br> +Westbourne Terrace, London.</span>’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Four days later I received the following letter from +the French Embassy:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>June 3, 1861</i>,<br> +<span class="smcap">Office of Prefect of Police,<br> +Bureau One</span>.</p> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—By command of the Emperor I have +the honour to inform you that His Imperial Majesty +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘You can consequently travel freely throughout the +Empire, observing the accepted formalities.—Receive +sir, etc., Prefect of Police.’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Then a signature written eccentrically slanting, impossible +to decipher, and like anything rather than the +name Boitelle.</p> + +<p>The same day came a letter from Branicki. Prince +Napoleon sent him the following letter from the +Emperor:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear Napoleon</span>,—This is to inform you that I have +just sanctioned the entrance of Monsieur⁠<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Herzen into +France and have ordered him to be given a passport.’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>After this ‘Lift up!’ the <i>Schlagbaum</i>, which had +been down for eleven years, was raised, and a month +later I set off for Paris.</p> + +<h3 id="heading14">2<br> +<span class="smcap">Intra Muros</span></h3> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>questioned with his eyes and, where necessary, +with his tongue, and the traveller, approved and found +innocuous to the Empire, vanished behind the barrier.</p> + +<p>This time no traveller moved forward at the gendarme’s +shout.</p> + +<p>‘Ma-ame Ogly Erstin!’ the gendarme shouted, +raising his voice and waving a passport.</p> + +<p>No one answered.</p> + +<p>‘Why, is there no one of the name?’ shouted the +gendarme, and looking at the passport, added: ‘Mam’zelle +Ogly Erstin.’</p> + +<p>Only then a little girl of ten, namely my daughter +Olga, conjectured that the guardian of order was calling +her with this ferocity. ‘<i>Avancez donc, prenez vos +papiers!</i>’ the gendarme commanded savagely. Olga +took her passport, and huddling up to Malwide von +Meysenbug, asked her in a whisper: ‘<i>Est-ce que c’est +l’Empereur?</i>’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>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 <i>à la serviette</i>; 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.</p> + +<p><i>La révolution s’est faite homme.</i> ‘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.</p> + +<p>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’⁠<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>⁠—<i>le +bourgeois</i> of bourgeois France, <i>l’homme du destin, le +neveu du grand homme</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>In 1849 and in 1850 I had not grasped the significance +of Napoleon <span class="allsmcap">III.</span> Carried away by democratic rhetoric, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>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 <i>régime</i>. There +was precisely enough opposition and daring thought +to give shadow and some spiciness to the mixture. +Laboulaye⁠<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> very cleverly praised New York to the disadvantage +of Paris, Prévost-Paradol⁠<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Austria to the +disadvantage of France. Anonymous hints were made +with regard to the Mirès case.⁠<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> 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 <i>frondeur</i> 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, <i>la grande police</i> which had +replaced <i>la grande armée</i>, 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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>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 <i>premiers</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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! <i>Ah, je m’imagine.</i>’</p> + +<p>‘Not particularly so!’</p> + +<p>Darimon was petrified.</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Toujours le même, ha-ha-ha, très bien</i>’—and we +parted.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>régime</i> 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 <i>tout de bon</i>, it barely retained the external habits +of older days. The ‘discontented’ had nothing serious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>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 <i>police de surveillance</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>coup de grâce</i>. It succeeded. A country which +puts up with Espinasse’s⁠<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> 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 <i>each</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>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<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>⁠—‘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.”’</p> + +<p>‘Well, what then?’ asked Tyutchev.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>The Government tired of the methods of terrorism +and violence before the people and public opinion did. +Times of peace, of tranquillity, <i>de la sécurité</i>, 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 +<i>sergeant de ville</i> softened; the Emperor dreamed of +various mild and clever forms of freedom and decentralisation. +Ministers of incorruptible zeal restrained his +liberal ardour.</p> + +<p>From 1861 onwards the doors were open, and I +passed several times through Paris. At first I was in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>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 <i>lorettes</i> set the tone for the +ladies. The education of women sank to the level of +Italy in the past.</p> + +<p><i>L’Empire, l’Empire</i> ... that is the evil, that is the +trouble.... No, the cause lies deeper. ‘<i>Sire, vous +avez un cancer rentré</i>,’ said the physician. ‘<i>Un Waterloo +rentré</i>,’ answered Napoleon. And here we have two or +three revolutions <i>rentrées, avortées</i>, stillborn.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>darkness, and the Revolution was made not for the +peasants?</p> + +<h3 id="heading15">3<br> +<span class="smcap">Alpendrücken</span></h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Hail to Light!</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hail to Reason!</i>’⁠<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Russians who have no mountains near simply say that +the <i>domovoy</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span></p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>I read the whole text, and, overwhelmed with sadness +and horror, made for the window.</p> + +<p>What was the meaning of it?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>Revolution and miracle-working, socialism and the +Talmud, Job and George Sand, Isaiah and Saint-Simon, +1789 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> and <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 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) +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>‘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.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is an individual illness, an idiosyncrasy? +Newton had his Book of Job, Auguste Comte his special +madness.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> 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?</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The difference is that the Senecas and the Ulpians were +strong and powerful, while Victor Hugo is an exile.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>That is equally obscure in the other world of Pierre +Leroux and in this world of Victor Hugo:—</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘This city has one disadvantage: the world belongs +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p>‘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 +(<i>ils viennent être France</i>); 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!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span></p> + +<p>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!’</p> + +<p>As I was reading these lines there was a newspaper +lying before me, and in it a simple-hearted correspondent +had written as follows:—</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>Descente de la Courtille</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>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.”</p> + +<p>‘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?</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>huissiers</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>And behind the scenes the spies were catching men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>who shouted: ‘<i>Vive la Pologne</i>,’ beating them with +their fists and passing them off for thieves, and in two +instances the court condemned the latter to prison for +<i>hindering</i> the spies from lawlessly, informally, arresting +them with blows.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3 id="heading16">4<br> +<span class="smcap">The Daniels</span></h3> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Lamennais’ words passed, leaving no trace.</p> + +<p>Twenty years later, other austere old men appeared +with their stern words; and their voice too was lost +in the wilderness.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘Who will in our day fill the abyss opened by modern +Caesarism?</p> + +<p>‘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....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span></p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘The nations will rise again only when they are +conscious of the depth of their fall!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>‘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 +<i>unjust</i> 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 (<i>énervement</i>). 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.’</p> + +<p>The Girondist Mercier, with one foot in the grave, +said at the time of the fall of the First Empire: ‘I live +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The question why France, in whom they do not +themselves believe, should have the first place never +once presents itself to their minds.</p> + +<p>Marc Dufraisse with exasperated humility says that +he does not understand the <i>new problems</i>, 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.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><i>Postscript.</i>—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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>libre +arbitre</i>, as Robespierre decreed <i>l’Être Suprême</i>.</p> + +<p>To-morrow, if not to-day, the Church will capture +education—and what then?</p> + +<p>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 <i>ex-refugié</i> and a distinguished French +<i>littérateur</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>les grands mots</i>, +were all allowed to pass—but now all this indulgence +is over.</p> + +<p>The German, setting his spectacles straight, slapped +the Frenchman on the shoulder, saying: ‘<i>Mais, mon +cher et très cher ami</i>, 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.’</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘<i>C’est une impasse, une impasse</i>,’ observed the Frenchman +gloomily, and changed the conversation.</p> + +<p>Unluckily he began speaking of Jules Favre’s speech +in the Academy; then another German turned grumpy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>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!’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Ah bah! Vous oubliez les traditions, les coutumes.</i>’</p> + +<p>I felt sorry for the Frenchman....</p> + +<h3 id="heading17">5<br> +<span class="smcap">Spots of Light</span></h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>in +partibus infidelium</i>, that is, on the other side of the Seine.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Quartier Latin recalls the mediaeval Carthusians +or Camaldoli,⁠<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> 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 <i>ritters</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>mezza voce</i> at home sings the +Marseillaise, and, setting its cap straight, says: ‘That +is as it should be. They will reach the limit; the sooner +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>And Pierre Leroux believes in Job!</p> + +<p>And Victor Hugo in the Exhibition of universal +brotherhood!</p> + +<h3 id="heading18">6<br> +<span class="smcap">After the Invasion</span></h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Holy Father, it is your task now!</i>’</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">‘<span class="smcap">Don Carlos</span>’</div> + <div class="verse right smaller">(Philip <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> + to the Grand Inquisitor).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I am sorry for individual persons whom I love.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Italy is like a family in which some black crime has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And only twenty years!</p> + +<p>Twenty years ago at the end of December I finished +in Rome the first article of my <i>From the Other Side</i> 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!</p> + +<p class="mt2">I was in Paris at the time of Garibaldi’s first arrest. +The French did not believe in the invasion by their +troops.⁠<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> I happened to meet with people of very +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>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. +‘<i>On ne viendra jamais aux mains</i>, and besides there is +no need for us to soil our hands in Italian blood.’</p> + +<p>It turned out that there <i>was need</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I look upon Rouher’s words as an historical revelation. +Any one who did not understand France after that must +have been born blind.</p> + +<p>Count Bismarck, it is your task now!</p> + +<p>And you, Mazzini, Garibaldi, last of the saints, last +of the Mohicans, fold your hands and take your rest. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>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. +<i>Ah, messieurs les conservateurs</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>For that you will have a Seven Years’ war, a Thirty +Years’ war....</p> + +<p>You were afraid of social reforms, so now you have +the Fenians with their barrel of gunpowder and their +lighted match.</p> + +<p>Who is the fool?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Genoa</span>, <i>December 31, 1867</i>.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_EMPEROR_ALEXANDER_I_AND_V_N_KARAZIN">THE +EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. AND V. N. KARAZIN⁠<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></h2> + +</div> + +<blockquote> + +<p><i>To you, N. A., our latest Marquis von Posa, +with all my heart I dedicate this sketch.</i></p> + +</blockquote> + +<h3 id="heading19">1<br> +<span class="smcap">Don Carlos</span></h3> + +<p class="dropcap">During the first years of the reign of Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span>, +that is, when the lessons of Laharpe⁠<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> 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<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> had not been forgotten, +the Emperor Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span></p> + +<p>At one of these evenings there was a reading which lasted +a long time; they read aloud a new tragedy of Schiller’s.</p> + +<p>The reader finished and stopped.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The character of the Emperor Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Every inch⁠<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> a heart-rending tragedy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Well, the Emperor Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> 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.</p> + +<p>Compare his fate with the fate of Peter <span class="allsmcap">III.</span>, 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>idiot⁠<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> 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<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> dying at Gruzino, hated and +abandoned by all, beside the foul grave soaked with the +blood of a whole household of servants.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>Catherine died. Paul dragged the body of Peter <span class="allsmcap">III.</span> +into the Peter-Paul Fortress in a hard frost to bury it +beside his dead mother, and made Count A. Orlov⁠<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> 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 <i>kammerdieners</i> 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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>The orgy of sensuality was followed by an orgy of +ferocity and cruelty.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.⁠<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>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 <i>dark</i> 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.</p> + +<p>It was easy to begin a new epoch supported by such +love, such faith, such joy at the death of the miscreant....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Now give me a man, O Creator....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast given me much: a true man</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is all that I ask Thee for now....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I pray for a friend; I am not such</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As Thou the All-Knowing. The servants</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast sent me, Thou knowest</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Their hearts what they are,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For money alone do they serve me</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Truth and faith is all that I ask.’⁠<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<h3 id="heading20">2<br> +<span class="smcap">The Letter</span></h3> + +<p>Here is what the Emperor read:—</p> + +<p>‘With what a lovely day has Thy reign begun! It +seemed as though Nature herself were greeting Thee +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>with rapture!⁠<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> 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!</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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....</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>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 <i>altogether</i>, 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>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....</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>been forgotten for another whole century, has been for +ever effaced from the memory of man by the Revolution.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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....</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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?</p> + +<p>‘<i>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.</i></p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>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. <i>Under vow of strictest discretion</i> 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!</p> + +<p>‘Doubtless, our Alexander, the Friend of Humanity, +knows that nothing but confidence in the Government, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>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....</p> + +<p>‘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!...</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>meet these there will be the national—so to speak—natural +riches of the country, which in a state of peace +increase indefinitely.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>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....</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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?</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>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 <i>hired</i> labour outside her frontiers? +How long are we going to measure ourselves by foreign +standards and to imitate like children?</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span></p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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?...</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span></p> + +<p>‘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....</p> + +<p>‘O Thou whom my heart adores, do not reject this +gift of it, offered Thee in simplicity and with disinterested +feelings....</p> + +<p>‘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!’</p> + +<h3 id="heading21">3<br> +<span class="smcap">Marquis von Posa</span></h3> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>‘You wrote that letter to me?’</p> + +<p>‘Pardon, my Sovereign,’ answered Karazin.</p> + +<p>‘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!’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>‘Als der Marquis weggegangen, empfing ich den +Befehl ihn künftighin unangemeldet vorzulassen.’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span></p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Sire</span>,—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!</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘No doubt information will be collected about me +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>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.</p> + +<p>‘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....</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>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 <i>criminal</i> +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.</p> + +<p>For Alexander such a man was a treasure, and it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>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.</p> + +<p>At first the Emperor was continually sending for him +and writing notes to him with his own hand.⁠<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> 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 <i>eradication of slavery</i> (that is, of serfdom), +in which he says plainly that after the nobles had been +set free by special decree⁠<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>well, but already a hostile force could be discerned which +at times rolled a log under the wheel, at times put on +the brake....</p> + +<p>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 <i>Hochschule</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>but by now the rope that had been allowed Marquis +von Posa was almost at its end.</p> + +<p>Unaware of anything, he presented himself before the +Tsar. The Tsar received him with knitted brows. +Karazin stood as though struck by a thunderbolt.</p> + +<p>‘You brag of my letters?’</p> + +<p>‘Sire....’ But the Tsar would not let him answer.</p> + +<p>‘Other people know what I have written to you +alone and have shown to no one. You can go.’</p> + +<p>Karazin withdrew, and all was over between them. +Karazin asked to be relieved of his duties; the Tsar +accepted his request.</p> + +<p>And so in 1804 the Emperor did not know that the contents +of letters become known through the Post Office.</p> + +<p>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!’</p> + +<h3 id="heading22">4<br> +<span class="smcap">The Sins of the Fathers</span></h3> + +<p>The Russian Government since the days of Peter the +Great has been exceptionally free. It has views, interests, +relations, but no sort of <i>moral obligations</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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’⁠<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> meant denunciation!</p> + +<p>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 <i>eines Polizeistaates</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>freedom; it would, as in Little Russia, as in the time of +the Pretenders, have called forth from outraged national +feeling Lyapunovs,⁠<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> Minins,⁠<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> + Pozharskys and Hmyelnitskys.⁠<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>About Peter the Great there gathered a crowd of +destitute nobles who forgot their birth, of foreigners who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> +was pronounced: she bade them kill him like a +cat; the name of Princess Tarakanov⁠<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> was recalled: +she bade them steal her as puppies are stolen.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>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 <i>landgrafs</i> 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.</p> + +<p><i>Another figure</i> 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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> ‘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 <i>encyclopaedic</i> diamonds, she sparkled +with the wisdom of Beccaria⁠<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> and the profound thought +of Montesquieu, delivered classical speeches to the +landowners of the steppes, put Roman helmets on her +<i>balafrés</i> ... 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 <i>her own</i> people, everything: her body, the souls of +the free Cossacks, the estates of the monasteries. ‘Glory, +glory to you, Catherine!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>An unknown old lady, a landowner of the steppes +after the style of Korobotchka,⁠<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> had bewitched them. +What happened, it was said, was this.</p> + +<p>Pugatchov came to her farm; the old woman was +frightened and went out to offer His Majesty bread and +salt.</p> + +<p>‘Well, what sort of a mistress has she been to you, +good Christians?’ the Tsar-Cossack asked the peasants.</p> + +<p>‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘Good! I will come to you, old lady, and drink your +vodka, since the people praise you.’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>‘If you have some favour to ask, speak boldly.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, Your Royal Majesty, how is it left then for +us?’</p> + +<p>‘What do you mean?’</p> + +<p>‘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?’</p> + +<p>‘Why, you say yourselves your old woman is a very +good one.’</p> + +<p>‘That is so, Your Majesty, she is a good woman, but +still, perhaps it would be better to do for her.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, brothers, if you want to—as you like, we can +do for her.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span></p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>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?’</p> + +<p>And the family feud was ended.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The people were broken. Without murmur, without +revolt, without hope, they passed with clenched teeth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span><i>through the next thousand blows</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>some one</i> to come and decide whether it was +dead or not. It seemed as though the conquest was +complete.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span>consciousness. And some thought, like the gnawing +of conscience, begins to ferment, until the whole dough +rises.</p> + +<p>In 1789 the following incident took place. A young +man⁠<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> 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:—</p> + +<p>‘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. <i>Look +at the Russian and you will find him melancholy.</i> 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.’</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>write: ‘Oh, if only, drunk as he was, he had plucked +up spirit enough to answer me in the same way!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> was in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>fortress, Radishtchev in Ilimsk. A fine place Russia +must have seemed to them when Paul released them!</p> + +<p>There is no wonder that all men looked with ecstatic +hope to Alexander.</p> + +<p>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 <i>could</i> do it—so at least they +fancied.</p> + +<p>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!’</p> + +<p>He must have been!</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>could not</i> do +anything real for the Russian people. That was just +the tragedy of his position.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>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!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To understand the Russian people it was not enough +for Alexander to kill his father. He would have had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>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.</p> + +<h3 id="heading23">5<br> +<span class="smcap">Faremo da se</span></h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Karazin, too, began to be engrossed with other tasks; +like a rejected lover, he flung himself <i>par dépit amoureux</i> +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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>‘I am not going to write anything special, but I only +beg you, gracious Sovereign, ask Count Viktor Pavlovitch⁠<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> +for the note of some pages I wrote for him on +the 31st of March, apropos of a conversation with him, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span>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! “<i>Il est singulier que dans ce +siècle de lumières, les souverains ne voient venir l’orage +que quand il éclate</i>,” Napoleon said to Las Cases⁠<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> 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 <i>must</i> 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!’</p> + +<p>‘... 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 <i>religious</i> reverence for the Throne by another +founded on the laws....</p> + +<p>‘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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>in my hand defending to the last the entrance to the +Tsar’s apartments. Only then I shall write no more.’</p> + +<p>Karazin beseeches the Tsar not to believe the sayings +with which the governors meet him that ‘All is well, +all is as before....’</p> + +<p>‘A great change,’ he says, ‘has taken place and is +daily taking place in men’s minds....’</p> + +<p>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.’</p> + +<p>But what were his means of averting the storm? +Here they are:—</p> + +<p>‘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!</p> + +<p>‘... 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>of Pugatchov, of the Moscow mutiny in the time of +Yeropkin,⁠<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> 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!’</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What for?</p> + +<p>For having meddled in what was not his business, +but that Karazin was quite unable to understand.</p> + +<p>‘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?⁠<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> +From what Asiatic system is this idea borrowed? +<i>Teaching</i> the <i>Government</i> is an expression purposely +invented to mortify the vanity of the persons who make +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>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!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a>⁠; 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>Yes, they were men!</p> + +<p>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 <i>youthful</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>consoled the weak, they gave a hand to the +sick children, cheering them on, supporting their strength +and their hopes!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was their Isaac sacrificed for reconciliation with +the people. The crowned Abraham did not hear the +voice of God and drew the noose....</p> + +<p>The people did not weep for them.</p> + +<p>The tragic element of the Petersburg period attained +its furthest, most heart-rending expression—further it +could not go.</p> + +<p>The sacrifice was complete, and the last touch +to its completeness was given by the indifference of the +people.</p> + +<p>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, <i>se faire roturiers +de gentilshommes</i>, as Count Rostoptchin expressed it, but +to face death, to go to penal servitude, wipes out the sins +of the fathers!</p> + +<h3 id="heading24">6<br> +<span class="smcap">On the Further Side</span></h3> + +<p>When in 1826 Yakubovitch saw Prince Obolensky +with a beard and wearing the greatcoat of a soldier, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>could not help exclaiming: ‘Well, Obolensky, if I am +like Stenka Razin, you certainly must be like Vanka +Kain!...⁠<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>⁠’ Then the officer came up, the convicts +were put in fetters and sent to Siberia to penal servitude.</p> + +<p>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 <i>on foot</i>, but here the gentry +are driven by the gendarmes!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What would have happened if he had been caught?</p> + +<p>Among comrades one does not count the risk.</p> + +<p>The Duhobor paid the people’s debt for Radishtchev.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is time that this should take place in the light of +day, aloud, openly, everywhere.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Peterhof fête is over, the court masque in fancy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span>dress is played out, the lamps are smoking and going out, +the fountains have almost run dry—let us go home.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>There are too many of the common people for it +to be really possible to raise them all to the fourteenth +grade,⁠<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> and indeed every people has a strongly defined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>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 <i>à l’antique</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> but even +those led one to the graveyard instead of to the peasants’ +cottage....</p> + +<p>Without knowing the people we may oppress the +people, we may enslave them, we may conquer them, +but we cannot set them free.</p> + +<p>Without the help of the people they will be freed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>neither by the Tsar with his clerks, nor the nobility with +the Tsar, nor the nobility without the Tsar.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Who will be the predestined saviour?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>It is hard to tell: these are details, <i>des détails</i> as the +French say. Who ever it may be, it is our task to meet +him with warm welcome!</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Die Schwefelbande.</i>—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> <i>Honveds</i> (‘Land-defenders’), the name given to the old +national heroes of Hungary, was in 1848 adopted by the revolutionary +armies.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Sir George Grove in his <i>Dictionary of Music and Musicians</i> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> The Austrian Field-Marshal Urban defeated Garibaldi’s +volunteers and took Varese, but was obliged to abandon it (June +1859).—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> 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 <i>Memoirs of an Hungarian Lady</i> (published in London, +1850), and other books, such as <i>Tales and Traditions of Hungary</i> +(1851).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> Omer Pasha, Turkish General in the Crimean War.—(<i>Translator’s +Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Delahodde (or De Lahode), Lucien, wrote <i>Histoire des Sociétés +Secrètes de 1830 à 1848</i>, and <i>La Naissance de la République</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Chenu, J. A., wrote <i>Les Conspirateurs</i>, which called forth a +reply, <i>Réponse aux deux libelles de Chenu et Delahodde</i>, by J. Miot.—(<i>Translator’s +Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Delescluze, Charles (1809-1871), a French journalist and +politician, was a member of the Commune in 1871 and killed at the +barricades.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Latour was Austrian War Minister, murdered by an infuriated +crowd on October 6, 1848.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> An unconscious pun which occurs in an old Russian poem on +the Crusades.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> Probably James Buchanan, then President of the United States, +is meant.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> A village in the province of Milan where the French defeated +the Austrians in 1859.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> The <i>Alabama</i> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> I remember one case of a stolen watch and two or three of fights +with Irishmen.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Is it not strange that Garibaldi was at one with Karl Vogt in +his estimate of the Schleswig-Holstein question?—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> The region including the four towns of Verona, Legnago, +Peschiera and Mantua is meant.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Chief agent of the French police before 1827 and author of +famous Memoirs. The name has been wrongly transliterated as +‘Vidok’ in Volume II.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> This refers to the following passage, which appeared in the <i>Bell</i>, +Number 184, May 1, 1864:—</p> + +<p class="center"><i>April 17, 1864.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="hanging2">‘To <i>young</i> Russia suffering and struggling for the <i>new</i> Russia +which, when once it has vanquished the Russian Tsardom, +will undoubtedly in its development have immense significance +for the destinies of the world!’</p> + +<p class="right"><i>From the health proposed by Garibaldi.</i></p> + +<p class="hanging2">‘Your words will reach our friends, they will reach into the +fortresses and mines....’</p> + +<p class="right"><i>From the reply to it.</i></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We promised an article describing Garibaldi’s visit to England; +now that it has so <i>unexpectedly</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Daily +News</i>, in the <i>Morning Star</i>, in Prince Dolgoruky’s <i>Listok</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>At lunch Mazzini stood up, and raising his glass spoke as follows:—</p> + +<p>‘In the toast proposed by me I unite all that we love, all for which +we are struggling—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="hanging2">To the freedom of the Peoples;</p> + +<p class="hanging2">To the union of the Peoples;</p> + +<p class="hanging2">To the man who in our day stands as the living incarnation +of these great ideas,</p> + +<p class="hanging2">To Giuseppe Garibaldi;</p> + +<p class="hanging2">To unhappy, holy, heroic Poland, whose sons for more than +a year have been fighting in silence and dying for freedom;</p> + +<p class="hanging2">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;</p> + +<p class="hanging2">To those Russians who following our friend Herzen are +working their utmost for the development of that Russia;</p> + +<p class="hanging2">To the religion of duty which gives us the strength to struggle +and die for these ideas!’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Then Garibaldi got up, and with a glass of Marsala in his hand +said:—</p> + +<p>‘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!’</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>After a momentary silence Garibaldi continued with the words:—</p> + +<p>‘Mazzini has said a few words of unhappy Poland with which I +am in complete sympathy.</p> + +<p>‘To Poland the home of martyrs, to Poland facing death for independence +and setting a grand example to the peoples!</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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....’</p> + +<p>After Garibaldi’s departure I wrote him the following letter:—</p> + +<p>‘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 <i>coming</i> +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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p>‘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.</p> + +<p class="hanging">‘<i>April 18, 1864</i>,<br> +<span class="smcap">Elmfield House, Teddington</span>.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> 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.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> French Minister for foreign affairs under Napoleon the Third.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> In Pushkin’s poem ‘The Fountain of Bahtchisaray’ the lines +occur:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘I know how to use a dagger,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I was born near the Caucasus.’—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> An Italian village where in 1859 the Austrians were defeated +by the French and Piedmontese.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> That is, of the Secret Police.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> A Russian town on the Roumanian frontier.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> 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.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> A district in Bukovina settled by Russian raskolniks.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> 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!—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> 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.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> 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.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> A character in Gogol’s <i>Dead Souls</i>.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> Under this pseudonym Bakunin published articles on the +Reaction in Germany in the <i>Jahrbücher</i> of 1842, which were brought +out under the editorship of Ruge.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> ‘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.’—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> The word means ‘thimble’ in Russian.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> Herzen’s daughter by Madame Tutchkov-Ogaryov, born 1858.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Bakunin received no dowry with his wife.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> ‘Slava’ is the Russian for ‘glory.’—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> ‘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.’</p> + +<p>‘No doubt you know that when Charles <span class="allsmcap">V.</span> was in Rome, et +cetera....’ ‘I know, I know; for God’s sake don’t tell me!’</p> + +<p>And the tiger with milk in his veins departed.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> Characters in Gogol’s <i>Dead Souls</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> 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.’—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> The ‘Dance of Death’ on the cloister walls of a convent in +Basle, attributed to Holbein.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> 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 <i>Allgemeine Zeitung</i>, which first appeared in 1798, +and he was also the first Würtemberg landowner to abolish serfdom +on his estates.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Campe, J. H., was the author of works on education, a German +dictionary, and numerous stories for children, of which <i>Robinson +der Jüngere</i> was the most popular.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> Did not the <i>kept</i> 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: ‘<i>Immer derselbe, immer Republikaner +und immer im Vorzimmer des Palastes.</i>’—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> Pozzo di Borgo, C. A. (1764-1842), a Corsican, was a diplomat +in the Russian service and a privy councillor of Alexander I.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Suhozanet, a Russian general under Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> and Nicholas. +He took a prominent part in the suppression of the Fourteenth of +December 1825.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> ‘Fion’ is a colloquial word about equivalent to ‘esprit.’—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> 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.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Depretis, Agostino (1813-1887), an Italian politician, took a +leading part in promoting the adhesion of Italy to the Triple Alliance.—(<i>Translator’s +Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> Capo d’Istrias, Ioannos Antonios, Count of, was president of +the Greek Republic from 1828 to 1831, when he was assassinated.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> Svyatoslav, prince of Kiev, is meant.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> 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, <i>fate una grande e bella +figura</i>.”’ I asked leave of Count Téléki to borrow this expression.—(<i>Author’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> 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 <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>, became in 1860 the +first king of united Italy.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> Leopold <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>, + uncle of the present King of the Belgians, is meant.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> Nulin is the hero of a poem by Pushkin.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> I have noted the word <i>Monsieur</i> because when I was banished +the Prefecture invariably wrote <i>Sieur</i>, while Napoleon wrote <i>Monsieur</i> +with his own hand in full.—(<i>Author’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> A phrase used by Gogol to describe the hero of <i>Dead Souls</i>—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> Laboulaye, E. R. de (1811-1883), was a French lawyer and +journalist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Prévost-Paradol, L. A. (1829-1870), was a French critic and +journalist, author of <i>Études sur les Moralistes Français</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> Mirès was a leading figure in the financial world, whose ruin +through speculation led to a famous trial.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> Quoted from a poem of Pushkin’s.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> Reynaud, Jean (1806-1863), was a Utopian writer and follower +of Saint-Simon.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> A Benedictine order founded by St. Romuald at Camaldoli in +Italy in 1009.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> 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 <span class="allsmcap">I.</span>, of his close association with the Tsar, and of his +rapid fall. In 1860 I read a remarkable life of the man in the +<i>Northern Bee</i>. In the impetuous, enterprising career of Karazin +everything arrests attention, most of all what was not in the <i>Northern +Bee</i>, 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 <i>Russian Messenger</i> 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 <span class="allsmcap">I.</span>’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 <i>Northern Bee</i> 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 <i>The Polar Star</i>, vol. vii. page 7.—(<i>Author’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Laharpe, F. C. de (1754-1838), a Swiss politician, was the tutor +of Alexander <span class="allsmcap">I.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> Where Paul <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> was murdered.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> The Empress Elizabeth is meant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> English in the original.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> Peter <span class="allsmcap">III.</span>, who was murdered, possibly with the connivance of +Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span>, is meant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> Paul <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> + and his assassination is meant.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/78332/78332-h/78332-h.htm#Page_202">See Vol. II. page 202.</a>—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> Count Alexey Orlov was the murderer of Peter <span class="allsmcap">III.</span>—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> He dreamed of abdication up to the time of his death.—(<i>Author’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> Quotation from Schiller’s tragedy, <i>Don Carlos</i>.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> 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.—(<i>Author’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> How glad we should be to see these notes. Such historical +materials should not be kept under lock and key.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> A decree of Peter <span class="allsmcap">III.</span> relieved the nobles from the obligations +to serve the State introduced by Peter the Great.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> The reference is to the phrase ‘word and deed,’ which was the +accepted form of denunciation to the police, introduced by Peter +the Great.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> 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 <i>zemsky sobor</i> was +summoned which elected Michael Romanov as Tsar.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> The name given to Catherine <span class="allsmcap">II.</span> by the court poet, Derzhavin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> Beccaria, Cesare de (1738-1794), an Italian philosopher, was the +author of a celebrated work on criminal law.—(<i>Translator’s Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> A character in Gogol’s <i>Dead Souls</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> 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 <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> (hence nicknamed ‘the Stick’), and numbers +of men died under it in his reign.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> Radishtchev, author of the famous <i>Journey from Petersburg +to Moscow</i>, is meant.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> <i>I.e.</i> Kotchubey.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Las Cases, Emmanuel, Comte de (1766-1842), a French historian +who went with Napoleon to St. Helena and published the <i>Mémorial +de Sainte-Hélène</i>.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> 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!—(<i>Author’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> Struensee, Johann Friedrich, Count, was court physician to +Christian <span class="allsmcap">VII.</span> of Denmark and gained complete ascendancy over that +monarch and his wife Caroline, sister of George <span class="allsmcap">III.</span> 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.—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> Vanka Kain (equivalent to Jack Cain—from Cain of the Bible) +is a slang term of abuse for a desperate fellow, ready for anything.—(<i>Translator’s +Note.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> 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<a id="FNanchor_A" href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[*]</a> 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?⁠<a id="FNanchor_B" href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[†]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.—(<i>Author’s Note.</i>)</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_A" href="#FNanchor_A">[*]</a> The fourteenth is the lowest grade in the government table +of ranks.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_B" href="#FNanchor_B">[†]</a> In Russia an ‘hereditary nobleman’ (so-called) is one who has +not inherited his noble rank, but whose heirs will inherit it. (<i>Translator’s +Notes.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> 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.’—(<i>Translator’s Note.</i>)</p></div> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78361 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78361-h/images/cover.jpg b/78361-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf618ca --- /dev/null +++ b/78361-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78361-h/images/doggo.jpg b/78361-h/images/doggo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..270034f --- /dev/null +++ b/78361-h/images/doggo.jpg |
