Tyeglev's suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told
you already that, according to their ideas, as a "fatal" man he was
bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not
expected that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in
the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev removed from the
list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his
cash-box there would be found more than sufficient money to pay his
debts,--and, secondly, to forward to the important personage at that
time commanding the whole corps of guards, an unsealed letter which
was in the same envelope. This second letter, of course, we all read;
some of us took a copy of it. Tyeglev had evidently taken pains over
the composition of this letter.
"You know, Your Excellency" (so I remember the letter began), "you are
so stern and severe over the slightest negligence in uniform when a
pale, trembling officer presents himself before you; and here am I now
going to meet our universal, righteous, incorruptible Judge, the
Supreme Being, the Being of infinitely greater consequence even than
Your Excellency, and I am going to meet him in undress, in my
great-coat, and even without a cravat round my neck."
Oh, what a painful and unpleasant impression that phrase made upon me,
with every word, every letter of it, carefully written in the dead
man's childish handwriting! Was it worth while, I asked myself, to
invent such rubbish at such a moment? But Tyeglev had evidently been
pleased with the phrase: he had made use in it of the accumulation of
epithets and amplifications _à la_ Marlinsky, at that time in
fashion. Further on he had alluded to destiny, to persecution, to his
vocation which had remained unfulfilled, to a mystery which he would
bear with him to the grave, to people who had not cared to understand
him; he had even quoted lines from some poet who had said of the crowd
that it wore life "like a dog-collar" and clung to vice "like a
burdock"--and it was not free from mistakes in spelling. To tell the
truth, this last letter of poor Tyeglev was somewhat vulgar; and I can
fancy the contemptuous surprise of the great personage to whom it was
addressed--I can imagine the tone in which he would pronounce "a
worthless officer! ill weeds are cleared out of the field!"
Only at the very end of the letter there was a sincere note from
Tyeglev's heart. "Ah, Your Excellency," he concluded his epistle, "I
am an orphan, I had no one to love me as a child--and all held aloof
from me ... and I myself destroyed the only heart that gave itself to
me!"
Semyon found in the pocket of Tyeglev's great-coat a little album from
which his master was never separated. But almost all the pages had
been torn out; only one was left on which there was the following
calculation:
Napoleon was born Ilya Tyeglev was born
on August 15th, 1769. on January 7th, 1811.
1769 1811
15 7
8* 1+
----- -----
Total 1792 Total 1819
* August--the 8th month + January--the 1st month
of the year. of the year.
1 1
7 8
9 1
2 9
--- ---
Total 19! Total 19!
Napoleon died on May Ilya Tyeglev died on
5th, 1825. April 21st, 1834.
1825 1834
5 21
5* 7+
----- -----
Total 1835 Total 1862
* May--the 5th month + July--the 7th month
of the year. of the year.
1 1
8 8
3 6
5 23
-- --
Total 17! Total 17!
Poor fellow! Was not this perhaps why he became an artillery officer?
As a suicide he was buried outside the cemetery--and he was
immediately forgotten.