I
We all settled down in a circle and our good friend Alexandr
Vassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to the
marrow of his bones) began as follows:
I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened to
me in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will be
brief--and don't you interrupt me.
I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only just left the
University. My brother was a lieutenant in the horse-guard artillery.
His battery was stationed at Krasnoe Selo--it was summer time. My
brother lodged not at Krasnoe Selo itself but in one of the
neighbouring villages; I stayed with him more than once and made the
acquaintance of all his comrades. He was living in a fairly decent
cottage, together with another officer of his battery, whose name was
Ilya Stepanitch Tyeglev. I became particularly friendly with him.
Marlinsky is out of date now--no one reads him--and even his name is
jeered at; but in the 'thirties his fame was above everyone's--and in
the opinion of the young people of the day Pushkin could not hold
candle to him. He not only enjoyed the reputation of being the
foremost Russian writer; but--something much more difficult and more
rarely met with--he did to some extent leave his mark on his
generation. One came across heroes _à la_ Marlinsky everywhere,
especially in the provinces and especially among infantry and
artillery men; they talked and corresponded in his language; behaved
with gloomy reserve in society--"with tempest in the soul and flame in
the blood" like Lieutenant Byelosov in the "_Frigate Hope_."
Women's hearts were "devoured" by them. The adjective applied to them
in those days was "fatal." The type, as we all know, survived for many
years, to the days of Petchorin. [Footnote: The leading character in
Lermontov's _A Hero of Our Time_.--_Translator's Note_.] All
sorts of elements were mingled in that type. Byronism, romanticism,
reminiscences of the French Revolution, of the Dekabrists--and the
worship of Napoleon; faith in destiny, in one's star, in strength of
will; pose and fine phrases--and a miserable sense of the emptiness of
life; uneasy pangs of petty vanity--and genuine strength and daring;
generous impulses--and defective education, ignorance; aristocratic
airs--and delight in trivial foppery.... But enough of these general
reflections. I promised to tell you the story.