GOLOVIN
It was a few days after I had been visited by the police and my papers
had been seized during the June struggle, that I was visited for the
first time by I. Golovin, until then only known to me from his dull
writings and from the exceedingly bad reputation he had made for himself
as an insolent and quarrelsome man. He had been at Lamoricière’s, had
without the slightest suggestion on my part fussed about my papers,
succeeded in doing nothing and came to me to reap the modest laurels
of gratitude and to take advantage of the opportunity to force his
acquaintance upon me.
‘I said to Lamoricière,’ he told me, ‘“General, it is a shame to worry
Russian republicans and to leave the agents of the Russian Government in
peace.”
‘“You know them, then?” Lamoricière asked me.
‘“Who does not know them!”
‘“_Nommez-les, nommez-les._”
‘“Well, Yakov Tolstoy and General Zhomini.”
‘“To-morrow I will order the police to visit them.”
‘“But is Zhomini a Russian agent?” I asked.
‘“Ha, ha, ha—that we shall see now.”’
There you have the man.
The Rubicon was crossed, and, do what I would to restrain Golovin’s
affection and above all his visits, everything was in vain. Twice a
week he would come to us, and the moral level of our home was at once
lowered—slander, quarrels, personalities arose. Five years later when
Golovin tried to provoke me to fight, he said that I was afraid of him;
when he said it, he did not suspect, of course, how many years I had been
afraid of him before the London quarrel.
Even in Russia I had heard of his indelicacy, his lack of ceremony in
money matters.
Shevyryov, returning from Paris, described to us the legal proceedings
in which Golovin figured with a footman, with whom he had fought, and
put this down to the discredit of us Westerners, among whom he reckoned
Golovin. I observed to Shevyryov that the West ought only to be blamed
for the fact that they fought, for in the East Golovin would simply have
given the footman a beating and no one would have said anything about it.
His now forgotten writings about Russia disposed me even less to make his
acquaintance. They were a hotch-potch of French rhetoric, the liberalism
of the Roteck School, anecdotes flung in pell-mell, platitudes and
continual personalities with no logic, no definite view, no coherence.
Pogodin wrote minced prose, but Golovin thought in minced ideas.
I avoided his acquaintance so far as it was possible. His quarrel with
Bakunin assisted me. Golovin sent an aristocratically liberal little
article to some paper in which he referred to him. Bakunin announced that
he had nothing in common either with the Russian aristocracy or with
Golovin.
We have seen that after the June days I failed to steer clear of his
undesirable acquaintance.
Every day showed me how right I had been to try to do so. In Golovin
was combined all that is hateful to us in a Russian officer and in a
Russian landowner, together with a mass of petty European defects, and
that without any eccentricity, any talent or humour. His exterior—vulgar,
aggressive and offensive—is like the characteristic label of a whole
class of people, who hang about with cards or without cards at Spas and
in great cities, invariably dining well, whom everybody knows, and about
whom everything is known, except two things—what they live on and what
they live for. Golovin was a Russian officer, a French _brouilleur,
hâbleur_, an English swindler, a German _Junker_, as well as our native
Nozdryov and Hlestakov _in partibus infidelium_.
Why had he left Russia? What was he doing in Europe, he so well placed
in the officers’ circle of his brothers described by himself? Uprooted
from his native soil, he could not recover his centre of gravity.
After completing his studies at Dorpat University Golovin got a job in
Nesselrode’s department. Nesselrode mentioned to him that his handwriting
was bad, Golovin took offence and went off to Paris.
When he was summoned to return, he answered that he could not do so yet,
as he had not finished his calligraphic studies. Then he published his
compilation, _La Russie sous Nicolas_, in which he offended Nicholas most
of all by saying that he made mistakes in spelling. He was commanded to
return to Russia. He did not go. His brothers[77] took advantage of the
fact to put him on short commons—they sent him much less money than was
his due. That is the whole story.
The man had not a particle of artistic feeling, of aesthetic taste, he
had no desire to learn, no serious occupation. His imagination was turned
on himself, he liked to pose, to preserve an _appearance_; he retained
the habits of an ill-bred landowner of the middling sort all his life;
they seemed easily compatible with the foraging nomadic life of the
semi-refugee and semi-Bohemian.
Once I found him in Turin at the gates of the Hotel Feder with a whip in
his hand ... before him stood a Savoyard, a half-naked barefoot boy of
twelve. Golovin was flinging him _sous_ and for every _sou_ lashed him on
the legs; the Savoyard hopped about, showing that it hurt a good deal,
and asked for more. Golovin went on laughing and throwing halfpence. I do
not suppose that he was whipping him very hard; still, he was whipping
him, and how could it amuse him?
After Paris we met first again in Geneva and afterwards in Nice. He, too,
had been turned out of France and found himself in a very unenviable
position.[78] He had absolutely nothing to live upon in spite of the
fabulous cheapness of everything in Nice at that time. How often and
ardently I desired that Golovin would come in for a legacy or marry an
heiress ... that would have freed my hands.
From Nice he went away to Belgium, whence he was turned out; he went
off to London, and there was naturalised, boldly adding to his surname
the title Prince Hovra, to which he had no right. He returned to Turin,
an English subject, and began publishing a paper. In it he annoyed the
Ministers to such a point that they turned him out of the country.
Golovin tried to obtain the protection of the English Embassy. The
ambassador refused it him and again he drifted away to London. Here in
the character of a knight of industry, in the department of revolution,
he unsuccessfully attempted to get into various political circles, made
the acquaintance of every one in the world and published inconceivable
trash.
Towards the end of November 1853, Worcell came to see me to invite me to
say something at the Polish anniversary. Golovin dropped in on us and,
catching the subject of discussion, at once attacked Worcell with the
question: ‘Might he make a speech?’
Worcell was annoyed. I was doubly so. Nevertheless he replied, ‘We are
inviting every one, and shall be very glad; but that the meeting may have
unity, we must know _à peu près_ what each person is going to say. We are
meeting on such a day, come to our discussion.’
Golovin, of course, accepted the invitation. Worcell, as he went away,
said to me, shaking his head, in the hall: ‘What ill wind brought him?’
With a heavy heart I went to the preliminary meeting. I foresaw that
it would not pass off without a scandal. We had not been there five
minutes before my presentiment was justified. After two or three
jerky generalisations, Golovin suddenly turned to Ledru-Rollin, first
reminded him that they had met somewhere, of which Ledru-Rollin had no
recollection, then, _à propos_ of nothing at all, fell to proving to him
that it was a blunder to be continually irritating Napoleon, that it
would be better policy to spare him for the sake of the Polish cause.
Ledru-Rollin changed countenance, but Golovin went on that Napoleon
alone could save Poland, and ‘that,’ he added, ‘is not only my personal
opinion, Mazzini and Kossuth see that now, and are doing their utmost to
approach Napoleon.’
‘How can you believe anything so absurd?’ said Ledru-Rollin, beside
himself with emotion.
‘I have heard it.’
‘From whom? From spies; an honest man could not have told you that.
Gentlemen—I do not know Kossuth personally—still, I am convinced that
this is not true; as for my friend Mazzini, I boldly take it upon myself
to answer for him that he has never dreamed of such a compromise, which
would be a terrible calamity, and at the same time false to his own
religion.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ people said on all sides. It was clear that
Golovin’s words had incensed every one. Ledru-Rollin turned to Worcell
and said:
‘You see my apprehensions were well founded; the composition of your
meeting is too varied to avoid the expression of opinions which I cannot
accept nor even listen to. Allow me to withdraw and decline the honour of
delivering a speech on the 29th.’
He got up, but Worcell, stopping him, observed that the committee for
arranging the meeting had elected himself as their president, and in that
capacity he must beg Ledru-Rollin to remain, while he put the question to
their comrades whether after what had just been said they preferred to
let Golovin make a speech and lose the co-operation of Ledru-Rollin, or
the reverse.
Then Worcell turned to the members of the Central Committee. There could
be no doubt about the result. Golovin foresaw it very well and so,
without waiting for an answer, rose and disdainfully flung Ledru-Rollin
the words: ‘I yield place and honour to you, and refuse to speak on the
29th of November as I had intended.’ After which with a heavy and valiant
tread he walked out.
To put an end to the business at once, Worcell asked me to read them my
speech or tell them the gist of it.
Next day the meeting, one of the last of the brilliant Polish meetings,
took place. It was successful, there were masses of people. I arrived at
eight o’clock—every place was taken and I had difficulty in making my
way to the platform prepared for the speakers.
‘I have been looking for you everywhere,’ Dr. Darasz said to me;
‘Ledru-Rollin is waiting for you in our anteroom here and insists that he
must speak to you before the meeting.’
‘What has happened?’
‘Oh, it’s all that cad Golovin.’
I went in to Ledru-Rollin—he was violently angry and with good reason.
‘Look here,’ he said to me, ‘what a letter that wretch sent me a quarter
of an hour before I came here.’
‘I am not responsible for him,’ I said, opening the letter.
‘Of course not, but I want you to know the sort of man he is.’
The letter was rude and stupid. It was pure swagger on his part; he
wanted to cover his fiasco. He wrote to Ledru-Rollin that, if the latter
had none of the French courtesy, he must show at least that he was not
devoid of French courage.
‘I always knew he was a troublesome and impudent man,’ I said, giving
back the note, ‘but I certainly did not expect this. What do you intend
to do?’
‘Give him such a lesson as he will not forget for some time. Here before
the meeting I will tear the mask from this _aventurier_, I will describe
our conversation—I will call upon you as a witness and a _Russian_
too—and will read his letter—and then we shall see—I am not accustomed to
swallow such sugar-plums.’
‘It is a pleasant prospect,’ I thought; ‘Golovin with his suspicious
reputation will be faced with complete ruin. His one way of escape will
be a duel. Such a duel must not be permitted, because Ledru-Rollin is
perfectly right and has done nothing offensive. In his position he cannot
fight with every stray person he meets. And what a disgrace—at a Polish
meeting for one Russian exile to be plunged in the mud while another
assists.’
‘But can’t you put it off?’ I asked.
‘To lose this opportunity!’
I still tried to stop it, putting in a suggestion of a court, a jury
_d’honneur_—nothing had much effect....
Then we came out on to the platform—and were greeted with frantic
applause. Applause and the noise of the crowd are an intoxicating
influence, as we all know—I forgot about Golovin and thought about my own
speech. Of that speech I have spoken in another place. My very appearance
on the platform was greeted with the utmost warmth by Poles, Italians
and French. When I had finished, Worcell, president of the meeting, came
up to me and, as he embraced me, repeated, deeply moved: ‘Oh I thank
you, I thank you!’ The applause and hubbub was redoubled, and it was to
the sound of this uproar that I returned to my place.... At that moment
Golovin came into my head, and I was panic-stricken at the approach of
the moment when the tribune of 1848 would make mincemeat of that buffoon.
I took out a pencil and wrote on a scrap of paper: ‘For God’s sake,
manage so that the nasty Golovin affair should not spoil your meeting.’
The platform was in the shape of an amphitheatre; I handed the note to
Pianciani, who was sitting in front of me, that he might pass it to
Worcell. Worcell read it, scribbled something in pencil and passed it
in the other direction, that is, towards Ledru-Rollin, who was sitting
higher up. Ledru-Rollin reached over and put a hand on my shoulder and,
nodding good-humouredly, said: ‘For your speech and for your sake I will
put it off until to-morrow,’ and, more pleased than I can say, I went off
to supper with Ruge and Coppingham at the American Stores.
Before I had time to get up next day my rooms were filled with Poles.
They came to thank me, but probably they could have deferred their
gratitude to a later hour. A more important matter was their impatience
to settle the dispute, the Golovin business. Their fury found full
vent. They had drawn up a document, in which Golovin was reviled, and
an address to Ledru-Rollin, in which they declared that they absolutely
refused to allow him to fight the duel. A dozen men were ready to fight
Golovin. They had come to insist on my signing both the document and the
address.
I saw that one scandal would give rise to half a dozen and, taking
advantage of my success of the previous day, _i.e._ of the prestige it
had given me, said to them: ‘What is your object? Is it to settle the
business, so that Ledru-Rollin should be satisfied and the unfortunate
incident which all but ruined your meeting should be obliterated; or to
punish Golovin at all costs? In the latter case, gentlemen, I will have
no hand in it, and you may do what you think best.’
‘Of course, our chief object is to settle the matter.’
‘Good; have you confidence in me?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘I am going alone to Golovin ... and if I arrange things so that
Ledru-Rollin is satisfied, that shall be the end of it.’
‘Good; but if you don’t succeed in doing so?’
‘Then I will sign your protest and address.’
‘Right.’
I found Golovin gloomy and embarrassed, he was evidently expecting a
storm, and I doubt whether he was pleased that he had provoked it.
Our interview was brief. I told him that I had saved him from two
unpleasant experiences, and proffered my services to relieve him from the
third, that is, to reconcile him with Ledru-Rollin. He was longing to
end the trouble, but his conceit would not allow him to recognise that he
was in fault, still less to admit it.
‘It is only for your sake that I consent,’ he muttered at last.
Whether for my sake or any one else’s, the affair reached a settlement. I
went to Ledru-Rollin, waited a couple of hours in a cold room and caught
a chill; at last he arrived, courteous and good-humoured.
I told him the whole story from the arrival of the chivalrous sons
of Poland to the wrigglings of our matador, and Ledru-Rollin agreed,
laughing, to consign the matter to oblivion and receive the penitent
sinner. I went to fetch him.
Golovin was waiting in great agitation; learning that all had gone off
well, he flushed, and stuffing all the pockets of his greatcoat with
papers of some sort, drove off with me.
Ledru-Rollin received him like a true _gentleman_ and at once began
talking of other things.
‘I have come to you,’ said Golovin, ‘to say that I am very sorry....’
Ledru-Rollin interrupted him with the words, ‘_N’en parlons plus_
... here is your note, throw it in the fire,’ and without a pause
went on with the story he was telling.... When we rose to take leave,
Golovin drew a heap of pamphlets from his pockets and, handing them to
Ledru-Rollin, said that these were his latest brochures, and he begged
him to accept them as a sign of his particular respect. Ledru-Rollin,
overflowing with gratitude, put the heap down with careful respect, and
most likely never touched them again.
‘Here you have our literary age,’ I said to Golovin as we got into the
cab. ‘I have heard of clever people taking a corkscrew with them to a
duel, but to arm oneself with pamphlets is something new!’
Why did I save the man from public disgrace? Really, I don’t know and
I simply regret it. Every time we show forbearance, spare, whitewash
or rescue a man, we have to pay for it, in accordance with the great
principle laid down by Byelinsky, that ‘The strength of scoundrels lies
in the fact that they treat honest men as though they were scoundrels,
while honest men treat them as though they were honest.’ The bandits of
the journalistic and political world are dangerous and unpleasant, owing
to their senseless and difficult position. They have nothing to lose and
everything to gain. When you save such men you only restore them to their
former[79]....
There is not one word of exaggeration in my story. Imagine then what
was my astonishment when ten years later Golovin published in Germany a
statement that Ledru-Rollin had _apologised to him_ ... though he knew
that both Ledru-Rollin and I, thank God, were alive and well.... Was not
that a stroke of genius?
The meeting had taken place on the 29th of November, 1853. In March 1854
I published a brief appeal to the Russian soldiers in Poland, in the name
of the ‘Russian Free Commune’ in London. Golovin was offended at this and
brought me the following protest to be printed:—
‘I have read your “announcement” on Annunciation Day. It is
headed “The Free Russian Commune in London,” and yet the words
occur: “_I_ do not remember in which province.”
‘Consequently it is a mystery to me whether this Commune
consists of you and Engelson or you alone.
‘This is not the place to discuss the contents of the appeal,
which was not shown me in manuscript. To refer to one thing
only, I should not have signed a promise not to refrain from
advising people who do not ask my advice. Neither modesty nor
conscience would allow me to say that I have reconciled the
name of the Russian people to the peoples of the West.
‘Therefore I feel bound to ask you to announce at the earliest
opportunity that I have hitherto had nothing to do with any
appeals printed by your press in Russian.
‘Hoping that you will not compel me to resort to any other form
of publicity,—I remain your servant,
‘IVAN GOLOVIN.
‘LONDON, _March 25, 1854_.
‘_To_ M. HERZEN (Iskander).
‘_P.S._—I leave it to your discretion to publish my letter in
its present form or a summary of its contents.’
I was unspeakably delighted at this protest. I saw in it the beginning of
a breach with this insufferably tiresome man, and a public announcement
of the difference of our views. Europe and the Poles themselves have such
a superficial view of Russia—especially in the intervals when she is not
beating her neighbours or annexing whole kingdoms in Asia—that I had
had to work for ten years to escape being mixed up with the famous Ivan
Golovin.
Golovin followed up his protest by sending me a long incoherent letter,
which wound up with the words: ‘It is possible that apart we may be
yet more useful to the common cause if we do not waste our strength on
conflict with each other.’
To this I answered:—
‘_March 30, Thursday._
‘It is my duty to thank you for your letter received yesterday,
of which the good intention—that of softening your published
announcement—I fully appreciated.
‘I entirely agree with you that we shall be of more use apart.
As for the conflict of which you write, it has never entered
my head. I shall take no initiative in it, having nothing
against you, especially if each of us goes his own way.
Remember how long ago and how often I have told you in private
what you now say in public. Our manners, opinions, likes and
dislikes are all different. Permit me to remain on terms of
civility with you, but accept our separation for a _fait
accompli_, and both you and I will feel more free.
‘My letter is an answer. There are no questions in it. I beg
you not to prolong this correspondence, and I rely upon your
delicacy that our final parting shall not be accompanied either
by rude language or by hostile action. With all good wishes.’
That Golovin did not in the least wish to break off relations with me
was obvious; what he wanted was to vent his anger over our publishing an
appeal without him and then to be reconciled, but I did not want to let
slip this ardently desired opportunity.
Two or three weeks after my letter, I received a parcel from him; I
opened it, a sheet of black-edged paper.... I looked; it was half of the
invitation to the funeral sent out on the 18th of May, 1852. In answer
to his letter from Turin I had sent it him, adding: ‘Your letter touched
me, I have never doubted the kindness of your heart....’ Upon this
letter, he wrote that he begged me to see him, gave me a new address,
and added: ‘_il ne s’agit pas d’argent_.’ I answered that I could not go
and see him, because it was not I who had business with him but he with
me, because he and not I had begun the breach between us, and, finally,
because he had brought that to the knowledge of outsiders. But that I was
prepared to receive him when he liked to call.
He appeared next morning, meek and soft as silk. I answered him again
and again that no hostile step would be taken on my side, but that our
opinions and manners were so utterly dissimilar that it was useless for
us to meet.
‘But how is it you did not notice that before...?’
I did not answer.
We parted coldly but civilly.
One would have thought it was all over. No! Next day Golovin treated me
to the following letter:[80]—
‘_Ad Usum Proprium._
‘After to-day’s conversation I cannot refuse you the
satisfaction of having a Commune—have it! I have no intention
of beginning an attack upon you, so consequently be sure to
avoid anything that could give grounds for it.
‘When your new friends fail you, you will find in me one always
devoted to you.
‘My advice is to write to the _Morning Advertiser_ that you are
not taking proceedings against them only because you despise
the ignorance which cannot distinguish a patriot and a friend
of freedom from a spy, which commends Brunov and slanders
Bakunin.
‘I will not come and see you, as I shall be occupied with more
important affairs than seeking sympathy.
‘When you care to visit me I shall always be glad to see you,
especially as, having something in common, we shall always have
something to talk over.
‘GOLOVIN.
‘_April 26, 1854._’
At the approach of summer I moved to Richmond, and for some time heard
nothing of Golovin. All at once I had a letter from him. Mentioning no
names, he wrote that it had reached his ears that ‘I had jeered at him’
in my own house, and asked (as though I had been his mistress) that I
should send back his portrait which he had presented to me in Nice. In
vain I rummaged about and hunted among my papers, I could not find the
portrait.
It was annoying ... but I had to tell him that I had lost the portrait. I
asked Savitch, a common acquaintance, to tell him that I had looked for
it in vain, and to repeat that I wished him no harm whatever, and begged
him to leave me alone.
In answer to this came the following letter:—
‘HONOURED ALEXANDR IVANOVITCH,—You told Savitch that if I wrote
you a letter you would send back ten pounds. My intention was
to send you twenty pounds—all that I had—and you wrote yourself
that of the hundred pounds you would take only twenty. I had
hoped to be out of my difficulties soon, but it has turned out
otherwise. However, in a week or at most a fortnight, I could
return you the ten pounds. You say that you are not my enemy,
and I ask you to do this, not as a favour to a friend but as an
act of justice. If you think otherwise, refuse, without buzzing
it about among your admirers.
‘I. GOLOVIN.
‘_August 16._’
To this letter I made no answer. I need hardly say that I had given
Savitch no message whatever about money. Golovin had purposely muddled
things up, in order to give an appearance of a transaction to what was
simply asking a favour. Of Savitch himself—one of the most amusing wild
flowers of our native soil flung into a foreign land—we will speak some
other time.
Following upon this came a second letter. He grasped that the absence of
reply meant a refusal and, of course, appreciated the imprudence of the
line he had taken.
Scared, he determined to attack the position by storm—he wrote to me that
I was a German or a Jew,[81] and sent me back my letter B, writing upon
it ‘You are a coward.’ Then came two letters in a disguised handwriting
filled with abuse after the style of C.[82] I regret that some of them
are lost; however, the tone is the same in all.
He expected that the letter in which he spoke of cowardice would be
followed by my sending him seconds. My conceptions of honour were indeed
strange and did not coincide with his. What fun would there be in killing
a candidate for Bicêtre or a house of correction, or being killed or
maimed by him? And certainly being tried for doing so, giving up one’s
work—and all this to prove that I am not afraid of him ... as though
mad dogs were the only creatures whose privilege it is to arouse terror
without detriment to the honour of the terror-stricken.
Again a pause. Golovin ceased to show himself in our _parages_, caroused
at some one else’s expense, said insulting things to some one else and
borrowed money from some one else. Meanwhile, he was losing the last
shreds of his reputation, old acquaintances were cutting him, new ones
were avoiding him. Louis Blanc apologised to friends who met him with
Golovin in Regent Street; Milner Gibson’s house was definitely closed to
him, and even remote English simpletons—the stupidest people in the whole
world—began to suspect that he was not a prince and not a statesman,
in fact not a man at all; none but Germans who know men only from the
bookseller’s catalogues regarded him as something ‘_berühmt_.’
In February 1855 a meeting was being prepared at St. Martin’s Hall;
an impressive but unsuccessful attempt to unite the Socialists of all
parties with the Chartists. I have described in detail elsewhere the
results of this meeting, and the Marx intrigues against my election. Here
I am dealing with Golovin.
I did not want to make a speech, and went to the sitting of the Committee
to thank them for the honour and to refuse it. It was held in the
evening, and as I was going out I met a Chartist on the stairs who asked
me if I had read Golovin’s letter in the _Morning Advertiser_. I had not.
Below the hall was a café, a public-house. The _Morning Advertiser_ is
in all the taverns—so I went in and he showed me the letter, in which
Golovin wrote that it had come to his knowledge that the International
Committee had elected me a member and asked me as a Russian to make a
speech at the meeting, and therefore, _with no motive but love of the
truth_, he warned them that I was not a Russian but a German Jew born in
Russia, ‘a race under the special patronage of Nicholas.’
After reading this mischievous sally I went back to the Committee and
said to the Secretary, E. Jones, that I took back my refusal. At the
same time I showed him and other members of the Committee the _Morning
Advertiser_, and added that Golovin very well knew my family history, and
‘was lying from love of the truth. Though indeed Jewish extraction could
hardly have been an obstacle,’ I added, ‘since the first exiles after the
creation of the world were Jews, _i.e._ Adam and Eve.’
The Committee laughed and accepted my new decision with applause led by
the President.
‘As for your electing me a member—it is my duty to thank you for it, but
to defend the choice is your affair.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I heard shouted on all sides.
Next day Jones printed a few lines in his paper _The People_, and sent a
letter to the _Daily News_:[83]—
‘ALEXANDER HERZEN, THE RUSSIAN EXILE
‘Some sham democrat has written in the _Morning Advertiser_ a
libel with reference to M. Herzen, with design to damage, if
possible, the approaching demonstration in St. Martin’s Hall.
The effort is puerile, because that demonstration is one of
peoples and principles, and does not in any way depend on the
personality of any individuals. But in justice to M. Herzen, we
are bound to say that the ridiculous statement about his not
being a Russian and an exile is a downright falsehood, and that
the statement that he belongs to the same race as Joshua and
Josephus is utterly without foundation; not that it is not just
as honourable to belong to that once mighty and ever consistent
people, as to any other. He was five years a captive in the
Ural mountains, and liberated thence only to be banished from
Russia, his native clime.
‘M. Herzen is at the head of Russian democratic literature,
and the most distinguished exile of his country; as such, the
representative of its proletarian millions. He will be at
the demonstration in St. Martin’s Hall, and will, we trust,
receive a welcome that will show the world that the English can
sympathise with the Russian people, while they desire to strike
at the Russian tyrant.’
‘M. HERZEN.
‘_To the Editor of the “Daily News.”_
‘SIR,—A letter inserted in one of your contemporaries
denies M. Herzen, the well-known Russian exile, the right
of representing, in the International Committee, Russian
democracy, and even the Russian birthright.
‘M. Herzen already has disposed of the second allegation. Allow
us, on behalf of the International Committee, to add to M.
Herzen’s reply a few facts respecting the first one, which very
likely his modesty has prevented him from alluding to.
‘At twenty years of age, condemned for a conspiracy against the
despotism of the Tsar, he was sent to the frontier of Siberia,
where he remained an exile for a period of seven years.
‘Pardoned a first time, he knew very soon how to deserve a
second condemnation. In the meantime, political pamphlets,
philosophical writings and novels secured him one of the most
distinguished places in Russian literature.
‘However, for the literary and political part played by M.
Herzen in this our country, we can do no better than to refer
to an article published on the 6th inst. in the _Athenaeum_, of
which nobody will suspect the impartiality.
‘Arrived in Europe in 1847, M. Herzen occupied an important
rank amongst the distinguished men who attached their names to
the great revolutionary movement of 1848. Since that time he
has started in London the first Russian free press, wherein he
prosecutes against the Tsar Nicholas and Russian despotism a
deadly and most useful war.
‘In consequence of these facts, anxious as we were to unite the
whole democracy in a common manifestation, we neither hoped
nor wished to find in England or in Europe a nobler and truer
representative of the revolutionary party in Russia.—Yours, etc.
‘(Signed on behalf of the International Committee)
THE PRESIDENT.
_Secretaries_—ROBERT CHAPMAN,
CONRAD DOMBROWSKI,
ALFRED TALANDIER.’
Golovin remained mute and went away to America.
‘At last,’ I thought, ‘we are rid of him. He is lost in that ocean of
swindlers, fortune-hunters and adventurers of all sorts, will there
become a pioneer or a digger, a card-sharper or a slave-holder, and
whether he grows rich there or is hung by lynch law does not matter so
long as he does not come back.’ Not a bit of it—a year later my Golovin
popped up in London again and, happening in the street to meet Ogaryov,
who did not bow to him, went up to the latter and asked him, ‘Why, have
you been told not to bow to me, eh?’ and walked off. Ogaryov overtook him
and saying, ‘No, it is to please myself that I cut you,’ went on his way.
I need hardly say that this immediately produced the following note to
Ogaryov:—
‘As I am about to edit _The Whip_, I do not seek to be on good
terms with my enemies, but I do not wish them to imagine all
sorts of nonsense about me.
‘In a couple of words I will tell you what passed between me
and Herzen. I went to his house and begged him not to quarrel.
“I cannot agree to that,” he said; “I do not sympathise with
you, let us start a controversy.” I did not do so, but when he
sent me back my letter unopened, then I called him a German. It
was like Briscorn, who called Dolgoruky a German to make the
soldiers laugh. But Herzen was pleased to answer, to give his
version, and then to be furious not with himself but with me.
But there was nothing offensive in this affair. Admitting that
my treatment of him was bad and yours of me good, though you
are not twins, still there was nothing to get wild over nor to
fight about.
‘GOLOVIN.
‘_Jan. 12, 1857._’
We determined to remain absolutely silent: no punishment is so annoying
to blusterers and _hâbleurs_ as silence, as mute cold contempt. Twice
more Golovin tried writing to Ogaryov biting and would-be witty notes,
after the style of the following second missive, by now absolutely
meaningless and suggestive of real insanity:—
‘BERLIN, _Aug. 20_.
‘I have seen
‘The God of the Russian censorship
‘And held not my peace.
‘Buchberg and I were wrangling for two hours; he sobbed like a
calf.
‘“_Vous voulez la guerre, vous l’aurez._”
‘Herzen and I have been enemies for two or three years. What
has come of it? No good to any one! Does he want to shoot at
me? I have an arrow ready, but for the common good it would be
better to shake hands!’
‘VICTORIA HOTEL.
‘You are publishing your complete works: do they smell of a
corpse as in Denmark?...’
Not a word of answer followed.
And, indeed, he had enough to drive him mad. Little by little all his
resources, moral and material, had dried up. The literary enterprises
that had maintained his credit were no more, he was undertaking jobs
semi-decent, semi-dirty, of all sorts; everything brought him disaster or
slipped out of his hands. He was not squeamish as to the means he used.
One fine morning—most likely not knowing at whose expense he could have
a good dinner—and he was very fond of a good dinner—Golovin wrote to
Palmerston and offered his services—it was towards the end of the Crimean
War—as a secret agent to the English Government, undertaking to be very
useful, owing to his former connections in Petersburg and his excellent
knowledge of Russia. Palmerston was disgusted and told his secretary to
answer that the Viscount thanks M. Golovin for his offer, but does not
require his services at present. For a long while Golovin used to carry
this letter with Palmerston’s seal on the envelope, and _show it to
people_.
After the death of Nicholas he inserted in some paper an abusive article
attacking the new Empress, and signed it with a pseudonym; next day he
sent a reply to his own attack to the same paper. Our friend Kauffmann,
who edited a lithographed sheet, unmasked this proceeding, and there
was an outcry about it in dozens of papers. Then he offered the Russian
Embassy in London to edit a _Government_ Gazette, but Brunov, like
Palmerston, had no immediate need of his services.
Then he simply petitioned the Russian Government for pardon, and
received it on condition of entering the service. He took alarm, began
haggling over the place of his service, begging that Suvorov, then
Governor-General of the Baltic provinces, should take him into his.
Suvorov consented. Golovin did not go, but wrote a letter to Prince
Gortchakov about a dream he had had. He dreamed that the Tsar had invited
him to his council, and that he had zealously advised him to undertake
good deeds.
Dreams do not always come true, and instead of a place in the Tsar’s
councils, our now grey-headed rascal almost got into the house of
correction. Meeting with a commercial factotum called Stern, Golovin
went in for all sorts of speculations without a halfpenny in his pocket,
forgetting that as long ago as 1848 his name had been exposed at the
Bourse in Paris as a fraudulent speculator. He tried to cheat Stern,
but Stern cheated him, and Golovin had recourse to his own method: he
sent an article to the papers concerning Stern in which he touched upon
his domestic life. Stern was furious and brought an action against him.
Golovin went, terrified and distracted, to a solicitor. He was afraid
of prison, of a heavy fine, of publicity. The solicitor proposed that
he should sign a document to settle it, completely taking back what
he had said. The solicitor prevailed, and Stern, after lithographing
the document and the signature, sent them to all his and Golovin’s
acquaintances. I received a copy:—
‘4 EGREMONT PLACE, LONDON, _May 29, 1857_.
‘DEAR SIR,—You having commenced an action for libel against
me in respect of certain statements I have made both verbally
and in writing, reflecting upon your character, and you having
through the intervention of mutual friends consented to forgo
further proceedings therein upon my paying the costs thereof
and retracting such statements and also expressing my regret at
having made use of them, I thus gladly avail myself of these
terms, and beg to assure you, that if anything I may have
written or said has tended in the most remote degree to injure
you, I can only say that such was not my intention, and that I
am very sorry for having adopted the course I did, which shall
never be repeated by
‘Yours truly,
‘GOLOVIN.
‘E. STERN, Esq.
‘_Witness_—H. Empson, Solicitor, 61 Moorgate Street, London.’
After that London was absolutely impossible for him.... Golovin left
it, taking with him a regular portfolio of unpaid bills from tailors,
shoemakers, restaurant-keepers, landladies.... He went off to Germany
and all of a sudden got married. The news of this remarkable event he
telegraphed the same day to the Emperor Alexander II.
Two years later, having drunk up his wife’s dowry, he published a sketch
in some journal of the misery of a man of genius married to a simple
woman who cannot understand him.
After that I heard nothing more of him for over five years.
At the beginning of the Polish rebellion there was a new attempt at
reconciliation; ‘Our Polish and Russian friends expect it and insist upon
it!’ I said nothing.
At the beginning of 1865 I met in Paris a bent old man with a sunken
face, in a shabby hat and a threadbare overcoat ... it was windy and very
cold.... I was going to a recitation at Alexandre Dumas’; which was also
windy and vapid. The old man was buried in his coat collar; as he passed,
he muttered without looking at me: ‘Used and done for!’ and went on. I
stopped ... Golovin walked on with the same heavy tread without turning—I
went on, too. I stopped because on two occasions he had met me in the
London streets. Once he had muttered: ‘What spite!’ On the second, he
had mumbled something to himself, probably abusive, but I did not hear;
he had not addressed me, and I had no inclination to get up a street row
with him. He afterwards told Savitch and Savashkevitch that he had met me
and sworn at me, but I had said nothing.
‘What is Golovin doing here?’ I asked the same Golynsky to whom I have
referred.
‘He is in a bad way; he has turned _brocanteur_ and money-changer, he
buys up bad pictures, cheats fools with them, but is more often cheated
himself.... He is growing old and peevish, he sometimes writes articles
which nobody accepts, he cannot forgive you your success and swears at
you for all he is worth.’
There was no intercourse between us from that time forth. But every year
or so when one least expects it comes a letter ... sometimes with an
offer of reconciliation at the request of some Poles, sometimes simply
with abuse. Not a word in reply from us.
I made up my mind, however dull it might be, to record our adventures,
and for that purpose looked up letters of his that had been preserved.
At the very moment that I had taken up my pen and written the first
lines, I was handed a letter in Golovin’s writing. Here it is as a worthy
epilogue:—
‘ALEXANDR IVANOVITCH,—I rarely remind you of my existence, but
a rumour has reached me that you “are washing your hands” and
retiring from the belfry.
‘To my thinking if you put your hand to the plough you should
not turn back, your resources would allow you to publish _The
Bell_ even at a loss. If possible insert the letter herewith
enclosed.
‘GOLOVIN.’
‘_To Mr. Katkov, Editor of the “Moscow News.”_
‘DEAR SIR,—Pardon me for knowing you neither by your own
name nor your father’s. I know you only from your blind
hatred of the Poles, whom you do not recognise as human
beings nor Slavs; I know you also from your ignorance of
European questions.
‘I am told that in your paper the sentence occurred:
The Dorpat pen commiserates Russia and drowns in
insignificance, or something of the sort. I do commiserate
Russia, I commiserate the _janissaries_ and the disorder,
I commiserate the nobles who are forced to make forged
banknotes and forged lottery tickets, so that at the
present moment three winning tickets for the hundred
thousand rouble prize have been presented, and no one
can distinguish which is the real one. I commiserate the
drunken peasants, the thieving officials, and the priests
who jabber nonsense; but I know that life in Russia is not
a bed of roses.
‘His Majesty was pleased not to command me to write in
my passport the stupid grade I got in the University,
and I have written in His dossier the title of
“Well-Intentioned,” which will remain in it, since what is
written with the pen cannot be chopped away with the axe.
‘My fatherland was stolen from me for the sake of
political economy; I remembered I was a man before I was a
Russian—and I serve humanity, a career far grander than the
Imperial service which was laid upon me as a duty.
‘In my own eyes I have not sunk lower, but I have risen. I
have heard that if I came to Russia I should be shut up in
a lunatic asylum; but they would have to let a great deal
of blood to weaken my brain—a well-known operation in fifty
degrees north latitude, performed on people who have a mind
to go out of.
‘I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
‘IVAN GOLOVIN.
‘PARIS, _Feb. 1, 1866_.’
FOOTNOTES
[1] This is the section of which Turgenev wrote: ‘It is written in tears
and blood.’—(_Translator’s Note._)
[2] _Letters from France and Italy_, ix.
[3] All this was written to Natalya Alexeyevna Tutchkov, who married
Ogaryov in 1850.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[4] Natalie (afterwards wife of Ogaryov) and Yelena (afterwards wife of
Satin, one of the Herzens’ circle), with their parents.
[5] A great friend of the Herzens, sister of Yevgeny Korsh.
[6] A literary critic, intimate friend of Turgenev, editor of
Pushkin.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[7] Couture, Thomas (1815-79), historical painter, and author of the
_Romains de la Décadence_.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[8] Natalya Alexeyevna Tutchkov, to whom the preceding letters were
addressed.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[9] The first line of the _Divine Comedy_.—(_Author’s Note._)
[10] Written in 1857.—(_Author’s Note._)
[11] Flocon, Ferdinand (1800-1866), was secretary of the Provisional
Government of February 1848.
[12] Caussidière, Marc (1808-1861), a French politician and
revolutionist.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[13] Hecker, F. K. F. (1811-1881), one of the leaders of the democratic
and Socialist party of Germany, attempted on the outbreak of the German
revolution to convert the preliminary convention (_Das Vorparlament_)
into a permanent assembly. At the head of a band of revolutionists he
invaded Baden, was defeated and fled to Switzerland and from there to
America, where he took to farming. In the Civil War he raised a regiment
of Germans and commanded a brigade.
[14] See page 256.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[15] Simon, Ludwig (1810-1872), was a lawyer of Trèves, elected in 1848
to the German National Assembly, as member for the extreme Left. In July
1849 he escaped to Switzerland; in his absence was sentenced to death
at Trèves. He published in 1855 a book, _Aus dem Exil_.—(_Translator’s
Note._)
[16] Aleko, the hero of Pushkin’s poem, ‘The Gypsies.’—(_Translator’s
Note._)
[17] Guyot, Antoine Patrice (b. 1787), a genre painter, well known in his
day.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[18] _Letters from France and Italy._
[19] Pushkin was killed in a duel by G. C. Dantès, a man who began his
career as a page of the Duchesse de Berry, was by her recommended to
Nicholas I., and was adopted by the Dutch ambassador to Russia. After
killing Pushkin he was expelled from Russia. Later on he became a
chamberlain of Napoleon III.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[20] Rumours of what had happened had reached her, and I imagine that
this was not accidental. There was a hint in reference to his letter in a
letter from Marya Kasparovna Reihel, who had heard it all in Paris from
N. Melgunov.—(_Author’s Note._)
[21] Natalie Kutchkov-Ogaryov is meant.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[22] He did actually send one.—(_Author’s Note._)
[23] The French painter.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[24] With Ogaryov is meant.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[25] Originally written in French. Wagner’s letter to Herzen has not been
preserved.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[26] The leading figure in _L’Auberge des Adrets_, by Frédéric Lemaître,
is the typical French version of the highwayman.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[27] Originally written in French.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[28] Engelson is meant.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[29] Reihel’s son by his first wife.—(_Note to Russian edition._)
[30] In Vol. III. this name has been transliterated as Hoetsky, on the
assumption that it was Russian. Apparently it is Polish, and should
be Choecki, but I retain the approximately phonetic spelling to avoid
confusion.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[31] Lola Montes was born in 1818 at Montrose in Scotland, of an officer
called Gilbert and a creole, and died in New York in 1861. An adventuress
whose audacity has rarely been equalled, she was the mistress of the King
of Bavaria (and of many other men). Her life, which was spent in roaming
over the world as an actress, was a series of scandalous adventures. Her
skill in wielding a horse-whip was never contested by those with whom she
quarrelled.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[32] There were two Neapolitan brothers of this name, both military men;
probably Girolamo (1810-1880), an artillery general who published several
works on military science, is the one to whom Herzen is referring here.
[33] There were two Neapolitan brothers, Italian generals, of this
name—Florestano (1780-1851), and Guglielmo (1782-1855), of whom the
latter is the more famous. He defeated the Austrians in 1821, fled from
Naples, was sentenced to death in his absence, returned in 1848, and was
a prominent military leader in the war of independence, assisting Manin,
defending Venice, etc. He wrote Memoirs, and a _Histoire des Révolutions
et Guerres d’Italie en 1847-1848_.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[34] This conversation took place in the year 1852.—(_Author’s Note._)
[35] The diminutive of Giuseppe.—(_Author’s Note._)
[36] Ramorino, Girolamo, a Genoese, was one of the leaders in the Polish
rising of 1831. In 1849 he was in command of a division of Lombard
fugitives.
[37] Bem, Joseph (1795-1850), a Polish leader of the Hungarian revolt
against Austria, took an active part in the Polish rebellion against
Russia in 1830. In 1848 he took command of an Hungarian army and defeated
the famous Ban Jellachich, a victory he announced in the three words,
‘Bem Ban Bum’ (Bem has beaten the Ban). He was defeated later on by
greatly superior forces at Schässburg and again at Temesvar, and made
his escape into Turkey, where he became a Mahomedan and a general in the
Turkish army. He died at Aleppo, after suppressing a rising of the Arabs
against the Christians there.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[38] The peasants of remote parts of France loved _le duc_ Rollin, and
only regretted that he was influenced by the woman with whom he was
connected, La Martine, saying that she led _le duc_ astray, though he
himself was _bon pour le populaire_.—(_Author’s Note._)
[39] The reference is to the famous war in Paris between the admirers of
Glück and his rival, an Italian composer called Piccini.—(_Translator’s
Note._)
[40] Lambessa, an old Roman town of North Africa, and Cayenne, the
capital of French Guiana, were used as penal settlements from 1852
onward. The climate of the latter was particularly unhealthy, and numbers
of the exiles perished there.
[41] Libényi was a Hungarian who attempted to assassinate the late
Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria in 1853.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[42] An extract from the _Polar Star_, vol. vi., 1861.
[43] A quotation from a poem of Pushkin’s on General Barclay de
Tolly.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[44] Procida (Giovanni da), one of the chief instigators of the massacre
on Easter Monday, 1282, of the French army of occupation in Sicily, known
as the Sicilian Vespers.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[45] To illustrate the feeling which prompted my ‘Red’ friend to make
use of the word _Monsieur_ in his conversation with the policeman, to
avoid abusing the word _citoyen_, I must describe the following incident.
In one of the poor, dark, and dirty streets that lie between Soho and
Leicester Square, where a considerable proportion of the poorer exiles
are usually encamped, a ‘Red’ _liquoriste_ opened a little chemist’s
shop. As I happened to be passing I went into it for a sedative drink.
He was sitting behind the counter himself: tall, with coarse features,
thick, overhanging brows, a big nose and a mouth rather on one side—a
typical provincial terrorist of 1794 with a shaven chin into the bargain.
‘Sixpennyworth of Raspail water, _Monsieur_,’ said I. He weighed out some
sort of herb, which a little girl had come to fetch, taking no notice of
my inquiry; I could observe this Collot d’Herbois at my leisure, till
he had at last sealed up the corners of the paper packet and written
an inscription on it. Then he turned somewhat severely to me with
‘_Plaît-il?_’ ‘Sixpennyworth of Raspail water, _Monsieur_,’ I repeated.
He looked at me with a ferocious expression and, scanning me from head
to foot, said in a deep and dignified voice, ‘_Citoyen, s’il vous
plaît_.’—(_Author’s Note._)
[46] Soulouque, a negro general and president of the republic of Haiti,
in 1849 proclaimed the island an empire and took the title of Emperor
Faustin I.
[47] Louis Blanc.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[48] Mazas, a Paris prison, built between 1845 and 1850 in the
Boulevard Mazas, now the Boulevard Diderot. It was demolished in
1900.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[49] The assassins of Paul I.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[50] Male nurses or doctors’ assistants.
[51] Dissecting demonstrators.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[52] Schurz, Carl (b. 1829), fought in the revolutionary movement of
1848. In 1852 he went to the United States, where he lectured, took part
in politics and fought in the Civil War, as major-general of volunteers.
In 1869 he was elected to the Senate, and in 1877 appointed Secretary of
the Interior. He edited a paper, and wrote lives of Henry Clay and of
Lincoln.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[53] I was in Nice at the time of the rising in Var and Draguignan.
Two peasants who had been mixed up in the rebellion made their way to
the river Var, which was the boundary. There they were overtaken by a
gendarme. The latter shot at one and wounded him in the leg—he fell,
while the other set off running. The gendarme tried to tie the wounded
man to his horse, but afraid of letting the other get off he shot the
first man in the head _à bout portant_; feeling certain that he had
killed him, he galloped after the other. The terribly disfigured peasant
survived.—(_Author’s Note._)
[54] _Letters from the Avenue Marigny._ ‘Why did you spoil your
_Chiffonnier_ by sticking on a happy ending which spoils the moral of
the play as well as its artistic unity?’ I once asked Pyat. ‘Because,’
he answered, ‘if I had distressed the Parisians by the gloomy fate
of the old man and the girl, nobody would have come to a second
performance.’—(_Author’s Note._)
[55] Marianne, a secret society, socialistic and democratic, founded in
France after the Restoration. The name was taken from Marie-Anne—the
symbolic figure of the woman of the people who incited the fighting,
tended the wounded, etc., in June 1848.
[56] Walewski, Count Alexandre (1810-1868), an illegitimate son of
Napoleon I., was a minister under Napoleon III.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[57] Dumas writing in 1859 says: ‘Il y a quelque chose comme seize ans
que je connais Sander Téléki. Il m’a été présenté vers la fin de 1842
par Liszt.... Il a fait la guerre d’Hongroie sous Bem ... échappait par
miracle à la pendaison, car les Autrichiens ont cela de charmant qu’ils
ne se contentent pas de tuer, ils pendent.... Il est accouru en Italie
dès qu’il a su qu’on allait s’y battre et comme il a pensé que c’était à
côté de Garibaldi que les coups pleuvraient plus rudes et plus serrés,
c’est avec Garibaldi qu’il a fait la guerre.’—(_Translator’s Note._)
[58] All this, except a few additions and corrections, was written
ten years ago. I must confess that later events have led me to revise
my opinion of Louis Blanc to some extent. He really has taken a step
forward—and as might have been anticipated, away from the old Believers
of Jacobinism. It has cost him something. ‘What’s to be done?’ Louis
Blanc said to me when the Mexican War was at its height, ‘the honour
of our flag is compromised.’ A purely French and absolutely anti-human
opinion. Evidently it deeply distressed Louis Blanc. A year later at a
banquet given in honour of Victor Hugo at Brussels, after the publication
of _Les Misérables_, Louis Blanc said in his speech: ‘Woe to the people
whose conception of honour in general does not correspond with their
conception of military honour.’ This was a complete _volte-face_, it
showed itself unmistakably at the beginning of the late war. Louis
Blanc’s vigorous, apt and deeply true articles published in _Le Temps_
had raised a storm in _Le Siècle_ and the _Opinion Nationale_: they had
almost proved Louis Blanc to be an Austrian agent, and would have done so
altogether, but for his well-deserved reputation for honesty.
When I came to know Louis Blanc more intimately, I was struck by his
untroubled inner serenity. Everything was settled and in order in his
understanding; no questions except subsidiary ones arose in it. He had
settled his accounts with himself: _er war im Klaren mit sich_: he was
morally free as a man is who knows that he is right. He good-naturedly
recognised his personal mistakes and the blunders of his friends, but he
had no theoretical qualms of conscience. He was as pleased with himself
after the breakdown of the Republic in 1848 as the Mosaic God after the
creation of the world. His mind, alert in details and daily affairs,
was of a Japanese immobility on theoretical subjects. This unfaltering
confidence in principles accepted once for all, though lightly played
upon by the cold breath of reason, rested firmly on moral foundations
the strength of which he never tested because he had faith in them. A
religious brain and an absence of sceptical misgivings encircled him
with a Chinese Wall, over which not one new idea, one doubt could be
flung.—(_Author’s Note._)
[59] The pitch reached by the ferocity of the guardians of order on that
day may be judged by the fact that the National Guard seized Louis Blanc
in the boulevard, though he ought not to have been arrested at all, and
the police at once ordered him to be released. On receiving this order
the National Guard who held him seized him by the finger, thrusting his
nails into it, and twisted the last joint backwards.—(_Author’s Note._)
[60] Dr. P. Darasz told me the following incident which occurred to
him. He took part in the rising of 1831, when he was a medical student.
After the taking of Warsaw, the company in which he served crossed the
frontier, and in small groups were making their way to France. Everywhere
on their way people came out on to the road, to invite the exiles to
their houses, offering them their rooms, often their beds. In one little
town the woman in whose house he was sheltered noticed that his tobacco
pouch, I think it was, was torn and took it to mend. Next day on the road
Darasz, feeling in the pouch something unusual, found two gold pieces
sewn up in it. Darasz, who had not a farthing, rushed back to restore
the money. At first the woman denied it, declaring that she knew nothing
about it; then she began to cry and to beg Darasz to keep the money. One
must remember what _two gold pieces_ mean to a woman of humble means in a
little German town: they probably represented the fruits of putting away
in the _Sparbüchse_ of various kreutzers and pfennigs, _good and bad_
farthings, over many years.... Good-bye to all dreams of a silk dress, of
a coloured mantilla, of a brilliant shawl! I kneel in homage before such
sacrifices.—(_Author’s Note._)
[61] Consisting of Mazzini, Kossuth, Ledru-Rollin, Arnold Ruge, Bratiano
and Worcell.—(_Author’s Note._)
[62] The reference is to Molière’s _Femmes Savantes_.—(_Translator’s
Note._)
[63] The Italian exiles were above all suspicion. There was one very
amusing incident among the French refugees. B., who is mentioned in
the account of Barthélemy’s duel, collected some money on instructions
from Ledru-Rollin and spent it. His desire to return to London was
greatly diminished thereby, and he began to ask permission to remain at
Marseilles. Billier replied that B. was so harmless in a political sense
that he might have remained, but that his dishonesty in connection with
his own party showed that he was an undesirable person, for which reason
he refused him permission.
In this matter too the Germans carry off the palm. They gathered by
collections in America and Manchester, I remember, twenty thousand
francs. This sum, destined for the purposes of agitation and propaganda,
legal expenses and so on, they put into one of the London banks and
elected as trustees Kinkel, Ruge and Count Oscar Reichenbach, three
irreconcilable enemies. They had at once grasped what a rich source of
unpleasantness for one another had been put into their hands, and so
hastened to make it a condition that the bank should give no payment
without all three signatures. One or two of them had only to sign a
cheque for the third to refuse to do so. Whatever the German refugee
society might do, one signature was not sufficient. So the sum lies
untouched in the bank to this day, probably destined for the future
Teutonic republic.—(_Author’s Note._)
[64] Schœlcher, Victor (1804-1893), was a French politician and writer,
author of _Histoire des Crimes de 2 décembre_, etc.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[65] Pardigan was seized during the June days and flung into one of the
cellars of the Tuileries; there were as many as five thousand men in
them. Among them there were the wounded, the cholera-stricken and the
dying. When the Government sent Cormenin to investigate their condition,
he and the doctors sprang back at the stifling pestilential stench.
The prisoners had been forbidden to approach the tiny windows of the
_soupirail_. Pardigan, almost swooning for want of air, stretched up his
head to breathe at one of them; a sentinel of the National Guard noticed
this and told him to move away or he would shoot him. Pardigan did not do
so at once, and the worthy bourgeois let fly a shot at him; the bullet
tore his lower jaw and part of his cheek away, and he fell. In the
evening, some of the prisoners were taken to the forts; among them they
lifted up the wounded man, bound his hands and led him away.
On their way the famous panic in the Place du Carrousel occurred, in
which the National Guards fired at one another in terror; the wounded
Pardigan dropped, exhausted; he was flung on the floor in the police
guard-house and remained with his hands bound, lying on his back,
swallowing the blood from his wound. So he was found by a Polytechnic
student, who swore at the cannibals and made them carry the sick man to
the hospital. I have described this incident in my _Letters from France
and Italy_ ... but there is no harm in repeating it, that men may not
forget what the cultured Parisian bourgeoisie was like.—(_Author’s Note._)
[66] The murdered men were called George Moore and Charles Collard,
and were shot at 73 Warren Street, near Fitzroy Square, on December 8,
1854.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[67] Barthélemy’s last words are said to have been: ‘Now I shall know
the secret,’ alluding to a future life in which, of course, he did not
believe. His case has become famous, because it is often quoted as an
argument in favour of capital punishment. Obviously, had he suffered the
death penalty for the murder of the gendarme in Paris, three other men
would have escaped being killed by him.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[68] Paoli, Pasquale de (1726-1807), the Corsican patriot, was in
1755 elected chief of the island, which he governed with wisdom and
prudence, and almost delivered from the rule of the Genoese. But in
1768 the Genoese sold Corsica to the French, and a year later Paoli was
overpowered by a French army and forced to escape to England. Here he
became an intimate friend of Dr. Johnson, who described him as having
‘the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen.’
At the French Revolution Paoli returned to Corsica, but after an
unsuccessful attempt to restore its independence, came back in 1796 to
England.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[69] A quotation from one of Turgenev’s _Sportsman’s Sketches_, ‘The
Peasant-Proprietor Ovsyanikov.’
[70] Priestnitz, Vincenz (1790-1851), was a famous doctor, who first
introduced the water cure.—(_Translator’s Notes._)
[71] Dr. Simon Bernard was tried on the charge of being an accessory
before the fact to the murder of two persons who were among the victims
of Orsini’s attempt to assassinate Napoleon III. He was tried in April
1858 at the Central Criminal Court, before the Lord Chief Justice and
other judges, and the trial lasted six days. Bernard’s solicitor was
William Shaen.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[72] The head of the Metropolitan Police.
[73] I believe that was the name.—(_Author’s Notes._)
[74] From a poem of Ogaryov’s.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[75] The lines:
‘Oh Lord, what a task it is
To be the father of a grown-up daughter!’
occur in Griboyedov’s famous comedy, _Woe from Wit_.—(_Translator’s
Note._)
[76] Zaid was the favourite slave and one of the first disciples of
Mahomed.—(_Translator’s Note._)
[77] _A propos_ of his brothers, one of them, a general in the
cavalry, who was particularly in favour with Nicholas, because he had
distinguished himself on the 14th of December, went to Dubbelt with the
following question:
‘My dying mother,’ he said, ‘has written a few words of farewell to her
son Ivan ... that unfortunate fellow; here is a letter ... I really don’t
know what I ought to do with it.’ ‘Take it to the post ...’ said Dubbelt,
smiling amiably.—(_Author’s Note._)
[78] The French police could not forgive him one prank. At the beginning
of 1849 there was a small demonstration. The president, _i.e._ Napoleon
III., made the rounds of the boulevards on horseback. All at once Golovin
made his way up to him and shouted ‘_Vive la République!_’ and ‘_A bas
les Ministres!_’ ‘_Vive la République!_’ muttered Napoleon. ‘_Et les
Ministres?_’ ‘_On les changera!_’ Golovin held out his hand to him. Five
days passed, the ministers remained and Golovin published an account of
his interview in _La Réforme_, adding that since the president had not
carried out his promise, ‘_il retire sa poignée de main_.’ The police
said nothing, and only turned him out some months later on the pretext of
the 13th of July.—(_Author’s Note._)
[79] The following word is undecipherable in the MS.—(_Note to the
Russian edition._)
[80] The _Morning Advertiser_, at that time in the hands of Karl Blind
and German democrats of the Marx persuasion, published a very stupid
article seeking to prove that my views were identical with those of the
Russian Government. Golovin who gave such good advice resorted himself to
the same means of attack, and in the same _Morning Advertiser_.
[81] Here between the sheets of Herzen’s MS. are gummed copies of two of
his letters to Golovin:—
‘_Aug. 22, 1854_, RICHMOND.
‘DEAR SIR,—You wrote to me that you wished to efface all memory
of our acquaintanceship, a few days later you ask me to lend
you ten pounds.
‘To your first letter I answered with courtesy and sincerity,
regardless of the tone of your letter. To the second I made no
answer. Correspondence between us is impossible. I return your
letter and will not receive any in the future. Fully persuaded
that I have done nothing unfair in regard to you, I shall
remain obstinately silent so long as that is possible, relying
on the common sense of every impartial person.
‘A. HERZEN.’
B.
‘_Aug. 23, 1854._
‘You are trying to make me fight you as boys are made to fight.
It is a matter of complete indifference to me whether you
consider me a coward or a brave man, a thief or a counterfeit
coiner.
‘Do you want to fight me because you are ashamed of having
asked for ten pounds from a man with whom you had rudely cut
off all relations? If I had given you the money you would have
felt no _reconnaissance_.
‘I am not going to fight you, because it is stupid, because I
have done nothing for which I owe you reparation, and because
finally I stand independently on my own feet and am not going
to give way to another man’s will or insulting language,
dictated by some insanity.
‘Do not imagine that I am making any secret of this letter. You
can read it or not. In fact, do as you please, only don’t write
to me.
‘For my part, I am not going to write or even speak of it, I am
so sick of it.
‘A. HERZEN.’
[82] C.—‘To send back a letter without reading it is an act of insolence
worthy of brave men. To send back a letter on the supposition that it
contains a request for money though there is nothing of the sort in
it, one must be a Jew. To send back a letter without knowing whether
it contains something affecting one’s honour, one must have a strange
conception of honour.’
[83] English in the original.—(_Translator’s Note._)