WARNINGS—THE PROMOTION OFFICE—A MINISTER’S SECRETARIAT—THE THIRD
SECTION—THE STORY OF A SENTRY—GENERAL DUBBELT—COUNT BENCKENDORF—OLGA
ALEXANDROVNA ZHEREBTSOV—MY SECOND EXILE
Though we were so comfortable in Moscow, we had to move to Petersburg.
My father insisted upon it. Count Strogonov, Minister of Home Affairs,
commanded me to enter his secretariat, and we set off there at the end of
the summer of 1840.
I had, however, been in Petersburg for two or three weeks in December
1839.
It had happened in this way. When I was relieved from police supervision
and received the right to visit the ‘residence and the capital,’ as K.
Aksakov called Petersburg and Moscow respectively, my father definitely
preferred the ‘residence’ on the Neva to the ancient capital. Count
Strogonov, the director of the university, wrote to his brother and I had
to present myself to him. But that was not all. I had been recommended by
the governor of Vladimir for the grade of collegiate assessor; my father
wanted me to receive this grade as soon as possible. In the Promotion
Office the provinces take their turn; this turn comes with the pace of
a tortoise, unless special wires are pulled. They almost always are;
their cost is excessive because a whole province may be taken outside its
regular turn, but a single name must not. Therefore all have to be paid
for, ‘or else some would be getting an advantage for nothing.’ Usually
the officials to be promoted get up a subscription and send a delegate to
represent them; but on this occasion my father took all the expense upon
himself, and in that way several of the titular councillors of Vladimir
were indebted to him for becoming assessors eight months before the
proper time.
When he sent me off to Petersburg to attend to this business, my father
repeated once more, as he said good-bye to me, ‘For God’s sake, be
careful; be on your guard with every one, from the conductor of the
_diligence_ to the acquaintances to whom I am giving you letters. Do not
trust any one. Petersburg nowadays is not what it was in our time. There
is sure to be a spy or two in every company. _Tiens-toi pour averti._’
With this commentary on Petersburg life I got into a diligence of the
earliest pattern, _i.e._ having all the defects gradually eliminated from
later ones, and drove off.
When I reached Petersburg at nine o’clock in the evening, I took a sledge
and drove to St. Isaac’s Square. I wanted that to be the place with which
I was to begin my acquaintance with Petersburg. Everything was covered
with deep snow, only Peter the Great on his horse, gloomy and menacing,
stood out sharply against the grey background and the darkness of the
night.
‘And looming black through mists of night
With stately poise and haughty mien,
Pointing afar with outstretched hand,
A warrior on a horse is seen,
A mighty figure, bold and free.
The steed is reined. It rears aloft
And paws the air imperiously,
So that its lord might further see....’[35]
Why was it the conflict of the 14th of December took place on that
Square? Why was it from that pedestal that the first cry of Russian
freedom rang out? Why did the revolting troops cling round Peter the
First? Was it his reward ... or his punishment? The 14th of December 1825
was the sequel of the work interrupted on the 21st of January 1725.[36]
Nicholas’s guns were turned upon the insurrection and upon the statue
alike; it is a pity that the grapeshot did not shoot down the bronze
Peter....
Returning to my hotel I found one of my cousins awaiting me, and after
talking to him of one thing and another, I touched, without thinking,
upon St. Isaac’s Square and the 14th of December.
‘How is uncle?’ asked my cousin. ‘How did you leave him?’
‘Thank God, just as usual; he sends you his greetings.’
My cousin, without changing his expression in the least, telegraphed
reproach, advice, warning with his eyes alone; the direction of his
eyes made me look round. A man was putting wood into the stove; when he
had lighted it up, himself performing the duty of bellows as he did so,
and making a pool on the floor from the snow that melted off his boots,
he took an oven fork, the length of a Cossack’s lance, and went out.
My cousin at once fell to scolding me for having touched upon such a
‘scabrous’ subject, and in Russian too, before the man. As he went away
he said to me in an undertone: ‘By the way, before I forget it, there is
a barber comes here to the hotel, he sells all sorts of rubbish, combs
and rotten pomatums, please be on your guard with him. I am certain that
he is connected with the police and talks all sorts of nonsense. While I
was staying here I bought some trifles from him just to get rid of him.’
‘To encourage him. Well, and is the laundress in the ranks of the
gendarmes too?’
‘You may laugh, you may laugh, you’ll come to grief before any one;
you’re only just back from exile, and they will put a dozen nurses to
keep watch on you.’
‘Though they say that seven are enough for the child to grow up with one
eye.’
Next day I went to see the official who used in old days to look after my
father’s affairs: he was a Ukrainian, who spoke Russian with an appalling
accent, never listened to what was said to him, and showed his surprise
at everything by shutting his eyes and holding up his fat little paws
in a way that reminded one of a mouse.... He could not restrain himself
either, and seeing that I had taken up my hat, led me aside to the
window, looked about him, and said to me: ‘You mustn’t be angry. Just for
the sake of my old acquaintance with the family of your father and his
late brothers, you must not say much about what has happened to you. Upon
my word, just think yourself, what use is it? Now it has all passed like
smoke. You said something before my cook; she is a Finnish woman. Who can
tell what she is, and I was a little ... more than a little in fact ...
frightened.’
A pleasant town, I thought, as I left the frightened clerk.... The soft
snow was falling in big flakes, the damp, cold wind penetrated to the
very bones, and lifted one’s hat and coat. My driver, who could scarcely
see a step before him, screwing up his eyes and bending his head before
the snow, shouted, ‘’Ware, ’ware!’ I remembered my father’s advice. I
thought of my cousin, of the clerk, and of the travelling sparrow in
George Sand’s fable who asked the half-frozen wolf in Lithuania why he
lived in such a horrid climate. ‘Freedom,’ answered the wolf, ‘makes one
forget the climate.’
The driver was right—beware, beware! and how I longed to make haste and
get away.
My stay was, in fact, brief on my first visit. In three weeks I had
finished all my business, and galloped back to Vladimir for the New Year.
The experience I had gained in Vyatka was extremely useful to me in
the Promotion Office. I knew already that the Promotion Office was
something after the style of old St. Giles’ in London, the den of a
gang of officially recognised thieves, which no inspection, no reform
could change. To clear St. Giles’, they took a pick, pulled down the
houses, and razed them to the ground. That is what should be done with
the Promotion Office. Moreover, it is utterly useless—a sort of parasitic
service, the office of official promotion, a Ministry of grades and
ranks, an archaeological society for the investigation of letters of
nobility, a secretariat of secretariats. It need hardly be said that the
abuses there were bound to be on a higher scale.
My father’s agent brought me a faded old man in a uniform, every button
of which was hanging by a thread; he was anything but clean, and had
already had a drop, though it was early in the day. This was the proof
corrector of the Senate Printing Press; after correcting grammatical
errors, he used to assist various secretaries in other errors behind
the scenes. Within half an hour I had come to terms with him, after
bargaining exactly as though we were discussing the purchase of a horse
or a piece of furniture. He could not, however, give me a positive answer
himself, but ran round to the Senate for instructions, and after getting
them at last, asked for a ‘deposit.’
‘But they will keep their promise?’
‘Oh, excuse me, they are not people like that. It never happens that
after taking a gratuity they do not discharge a debt of honour,’ answered
the proof corrector in a tone of so much offence that I thought it
necessary to soften him with a slight additional gratuity.
‘There used,’ he observed, when I had thus propitiated him, ‘to be
a secretary in the Promotion Office who was a wonderful man. You’ve
maybe heard of him, he used to take bribes recklessly and never got
into trouble. Once a provincial official came to the office to talk
about his business, and as he said good-bye he gave him a grey note
on the sly, under cover of his hat. “But why do you make a secret of
it?” the secretary said to him—“upon my word, as though you were giving
me a love-letter. If it’s a grey one—all the better. Let the other
petitioners see it, it will encourage them when they know that I have
accepted two hundred roubles and settled your business for it.” And
smoothing out the note, he folded it up and put it in his waistcoat
pocket.’
The press corrector was right. The secretary discharged his debt of
honour.
I left Petersburg with a feeling not very far from hatred, and yet there
was no help for it. I had to move to that unattractive town.
I was not long in the service. I got out of my duties in every possible
way, and so I have not a great deal to tell about the service. The
secretariat of the Ministry of Home Affairs had the same relation to the
secretariat of the Vyatka government as boots that have been cleaned
have to those that have not; the leather is the same, the sole is the
same, but the one sort are muddy, while the others are polished. I did
not see clerks drunk in Petersburg. I did not see twenty kopecks taken
for looking up a reference, but yet I somehow fancied that under those
close-fitting dress-coats and carefully combed heads there was such a
nasty, black, envious, petty, and cowardly soul that the head-clerk
of my table in Vyatka seemed to me more of a man than any of them. As
I looked at my new colleagues, I recalled how, on one occasion, after
having a drop too much at the supper at the district surveyors, he played
a dance tune on the guitar, and at last could not resist leaping up with
his guitar and beginning to join in the dance; but these Petersburg
men were never carried away by anything. Their blood never boiled;
wine did not turn their heads. In some dancing class, in company with
German young ladies, they could walk through a French quadrille, pose
as disillusioned, repeat lines from Timofeyev[37] or Kukolnik[38] ...
they were diplomats, aristocrats, and Manfreds. It is only a pity that
Dashkov, the Minister, could not train these Childe Harolds not to stand
at attention and bow even at the theatre, at church, and everywhere.
The Petersburghers laugh at the costumes seen in Moscow; they are
outraged by the caps and Hungarian jackets, the long hair and civilian
moustaches. Moscow certainly is a non-military city, rather careless
and unaccustomed to discipline, but whether that is a good quality or a
defect is a matter of opinion. The harmony of uniformity, the absence
of variety, of what is personal and whimsical, a traditional obligatory
dress and external discipline are all found on the largest scale in the
most inhuman condition in which men live—in barracks. The uniform and a
complete absence of variety are passionately loved by despotism. Nowhere
are fashions followed so respectfully as in Petersburg, and that shows
the immaturity of our culture; our clothes are alien. In Europe people
dress, but we dress up, and so are terrified if a sleeve is too full,
or a collar too narrow. In Paris all that people are afraid of is being
dressed without taste; in London all that they are afraid of is catching
cold; in Italy every one dresses as he likes best. If one were to show
an Englishman the battalions of fops on the Nevsky Prospect, all wearing
exactly similar, tightly buttoned coats, he would take them for a squad
of ‘policemen.’
I had to do violence to my feelings every time I went to the Ministry.
The chief of the secretariat, K. K. von Paul, _Herrnhuter_,[39] and a
virtuous and lymphatic native of the Island of Dago, induced a kind
of pious boredom in all his surroundings. The heads of the sections
ran anxiously about with portfolios and were dissatisfied with the
head-clerks of the tables; the latter wrote and wrote and certainly were
overwhelmed with work, and had the prospect before them of dying at those
tables, or, at any rate, if not particularly fortunate, sitting there
for twenty years. In the Registration Office there was a clerk who had
for thirty-three years been keeping a record of the papers and printed
parcels that went out.
My ‘literary exercises’ were of some benefit to me here too; after
experience of my incapacity for anything else, the head of the section
entrusted me with the composition of a general report on the Ministry
from the various provincial secretariats. The foresight of the government
had led them to propound certain general deductions beforehand, not
leaving them to the chance risks of facts and figures. Thus, for
instance, in the sketch of the proposed report appeared the statement:
‘From the examination of the number and character of crimes’ (neither
their number nor their character was yet known) ‘your Majesty may be
graciously pleased to perceive the progress of national morality, and
the increased zeal of the officials for its improvement.’ Fate and Count
Benckendorf saved me from taking part in this faked report. It happened
in this way.
At nine o’clock one morning, early in December, Matvey told me that the
superintendent of the local police-station wished to see me. I could
not guess what had brought him to me, and bade Matvey show him in. The
superintendent showed me a scrap of paper on which was written that I
was summoned at ten o’clock in the morning to the Third Section of His
Majesty’s Own Secretariat.
‘Very well,’ I answered. ‘That is by Tsyepnoy Bridge, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ he answered. ‘I have a sledge downstairs. I
will go with you.’
It is a bad look-out, I thought, and with a pang at my heart I went into
the bedroom. My wife was sitting with the baby, who had only just begun
to recover after a long illness. ‘What does he want?’ she asked. ‘I don’t
know, some nonsense. I shall have to go with him.... Don’t be anxious.’
My wife looked at me and said nothing; she only turned pale as though a
dark cloud had passed over her, and handed me the child to say good-bye
to it.
I felt at that moment how much heavier every blow is for a man with wife
and children; the blow does not strike him alone, he suffers for all, and
unconsciously blames himself for their sufferings.
The feeling can be conquered, overcome, concealed, but one must recognise
what it costs. I went out of the house in black misery. Very different
was my mood when six years before I had set off with the police-master
Miller to the Pretchistensky police-station.
We drove over the Tsyepnoy Bridge and through the Summer Garden and
turned towards what had been Kotchubey’s house; in the lodge there, the
secular inquisition founded by Nicholas was installed: people who went in
at its back gates, before which we stopped, did not always come out of
them again, or, if they did, it was perhaps to be cast away in Siberia or
perish in the Alexeyevsky ravelin. We crossed all sorts of courtyards and
little squares, and came at last to the office. In spite of the presence
of the commissar, the gendarme did not admit us, but summoned an official
who, after reading the summons, left the police-superintendent in the
corridor and asked me to follow him. He took me to the director’s room.
At a big table near which stood several armchairs a thin, grey-headed old
man, with a sinister face, was sitting in complete solitude. To add to
his dignity, he went on reading a paper to the end, then got up and came
towards me. He had a star on his breast from which I concluded that he
was some sort of commanding officer in the army of spies.
‘Have you seen General Dubbelt?’
‘No.’
He paused. Then, frowning and knitting his brows, without looking me
in the face, he asked me in a sort of threadbare voice (the voice
reminded me of the nervous, hissing notes of Golitsyn junior at the
Moscow commission of inquiry): ‘I think that you have not very long had
permission to visit Petersburg or Moscow?’
‘I received it last year.’
The old man shook his head. ‘And you have made a bad use of the Tsar’s
graciousness. I believe you’ll have to go back again to Vyatka.’
I gazed at him in amazement.
‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘you’ve chosen a fine way to show your gratitude to
the government that permitted you to return.’
‘I don’t understand in the least,’ I said, lost in conjecture.
‘You don’t understand? That’s just what is bad, too! What connections!
What pursuits! Instead of showing your zeal from the first, effacing
the stains left from your youthful errors, turning your abilities to
service—no, indeed, it’s nothing but politics and criticisms, and all
to the detriment of the government. This is what your talk has brought
you to! How is it you’ve learnt nothing from experience? How do you know
that among those who talk to you there is not always some scoundrel[40]
who asks nothing better than to come _here_ a minute later to give
information.’
‘If you can explain to me what it all means, you will greatly oblige me.
I am racking my brains and cannot understand what your words are leading
up to, or at what they are hinting.’
‘What they are leading to? Hm.... Come, did you hear that a sentry at the
Blue Bridge killed and robbed a man at night?’
‘Yes, I did,’ I answered with great simplicity.
‘And perhaps you repeated it?’
‘I believe I did repeat it.’
‘With comments, I daresay?’
‘Very likely.’
‘With what sort of comments? There you see the disposition to attack the
government. I tell you openly, the one thing that does you credit is your
sincere avowal, it will certainly be taken into consideration by the
Count.’
‘Upon my word’ I said, ‘what is there to avow? All the town was talking
of the story; it was talked of in the secretariat, and in the Ministry
of Home Affairs and in the shops. What is there surprising in my having
spoken about the incident?’
‘The diffusion of false and mischievous rumours is a crime amenable to
the law.’
‘You seem to be charging me with having invented the story.’
‘In the note submitted to the Tsar it is merely stated that you assisted
in the propagation of this mischievous rumour, upon which the decision of
the Most High concerning your return to Vyatka has been taken.’
‘You are simply trying to frighten me,’ I answered. ‘How is it possible
to send a man with a wife and child a thousand miles away for such a
trivial matter, and, what’s more, to condemn and sentence him without
even inquiring whether it is true.’
‘You have admitted it yourself.’
‘But you say the report was submitted and the matter settled before you
spoke to me.’
‘Read for yourself.’ The old man went up to the table, fumbled among a
small heap of papers, coolly pulled out one and handed it to me. I read
it and could not believe my eyes; such complete absence of justice, such
insolent, shameless disregard of the law was amazing, even in Russia.
I did not speak. I fancy that the old man himself felt that it was a very
absurd and extremely silly business, as he did not think it necessary to
defend it further, but after a brief silence asked:
‘I believe you said you were married?’
‘I am married.’
‘It is a pity that we did not know that before. However, if anything can
be done, the Count will do it. I will repeat our conversation to him. _In
any case_ you will be banished from Petersburg.’
He looked at me. I did not speak, but felt that my face was burning.
Everything I could not utter, everything restrained within me could be
seen in my face.
The old man dropped his eyes, paused, and in an apathetic voice, with an
affectation of refined politeness, said to me: ‘I will not venture to
detain you further. I most sincerely hope—however, you will hear later.’
I rushed home. My heart was boiling with a consuming fury—that feeling of
impotence, of having no rights, the position of a caged beast at which a
scornful street boy mocks, knowing that all the tiger’s strength is not
enough to break the bars.
I found my wife in a fever; she was taken ill that day, and, having
another fright in the evening, was a few days later prematurely confined.
The baby only lived a day, and it was three or four years before she
fully recovered her strength.
They say that that tender paterfamilias, Nicholas Pavlovitch, shed tears
when his daughter died.... And what strange passion induces them to
raise a hubbub, gallop full-speed, make such a fuss and do everything
in tearing haste, as though the town were on fire, the throne were
tottering, or the dynasty in danger, and all that without the slightest
necessity! It is the sense of romance of the police, the dramatic efforts
of the detective, the spectacular setting for the display of loyal
zeal.... The janissaries, the swashbucklers, the bloodhounds!
On the evening of the day on which I had been to the Third Section, we
were sitting sorrowfully at a small table—the baby was playing with his
toys on it; we spoke little—and all at once some one pulled the bell so
violently that we could not help starting. Matvey rushed to open the
door, and a second later an officer of gendarmes, clashing his sabre and
jingling his spurs, darted into the room and began in choice language
apologising to my wife. He could not have imagined, he had had no
suspicion, no idea that there was a lady and children in the case. It was
extremely unfortunate.... Gendarmes are the very flower of courtesy; if
it were not for their duty, for the sacred obligations of the service,
they would never make secret reports, or even beat post-boys and drivers
at posting-stations. I know that from the Krutitsky Barracks where the
_désolé_ officer was so deeply distressed at being forced to feel in my
pockets. Paul Louis Courier[41] observed in his day that executioners and
prosecutors are the most courteous of men. ‘My dear executioner,’ writes
the prosecutor, ‘if it is not troubling you too much, you will do me the
greatest service if you will kindly undertake to chop off So-and-so’s
head to-morrow morning.’ And the executioner hastens to answer that he
esteems himself fortunate indeed that he can by so trifling a service do
something agreeable to the prosecutor and remains always his devoted and
obedient servant the executioner, and the other man, the third, remains
devoted without his head!
‘General Dubbelt summons you to his presence.’
‘When?’
‘Upon my word! now, at once, this minute.’
‘Matvey, give me my overcoat.’
I pressed my wife’s hand—her face was flushed, her hand was burning. Why
this hurry at ten o’clock in the evening? Had a plot been discovered? Had
some one run away? Was the precious life of Nicholas in danger? I really
was unfair to that sentry, I thought. There was nothing to be surprised
at in one of the agents of this government murdering two or three
passers-by; the sentries of the second and third degree are no better
than their comrade on the Blue Bridge. And what about the head sentry of
all?
Dubbelt had summoned me in order to tell me that Count Benckendorf
commanded my presence at eight o’clock next morning to inform me of the
decision of the Most High.
Dubbelt was an original person; he was probably more intelligent than
the whole of the Third Section—indeed, of all the three sections of
His Majesty’s Own Secretariat. His sunken face, shaded by long, fair
moustaches, his fatigued expression, particularly the furrows on his
cheeks and on his brow, unmistakably betrayed that his breast had been
the battlefield of many passions before the pale-blue uniform had
dominated, or rather hidden, everything within it. His features had
something wolfish and even foxy about them, _i.e._, they expressed the
subtle shrewdness of beasts of prey; there was at once evasiveness and
conceit in them. He was always courteous.
When I went into his study, he was sitting in a uniform coat, without
epaulettes, and smoking a pipe as he wrote. He rose instantly, and
asking me to sit down facing him, began with the following surprising
sentence:
‘Count Alexandr Christophorovitch has given me this opportunity of making
your acquaintance. I believe you saw Sahtynsky this morning?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘I am very sorry that the occasion that has forced me to ask you to see
me is not quite an agreeable one for you. Your imprudence has again
brought his Majesty’s anger upon you.’
‘I will say to you, General, what I said to Mr. Sahtynsky, I cannot
imagine that I am being exiled simply for having repeated a street
rumour, which you, of course, heard before I did, and possibly spoke of
just as I did.’
‘Yes, I heard the rumour, and I spoke of it, and in that we are alike;
but this is where the difference comes in—in repeating the absurd story
I swore that there was nothing in it, while you made the rumour a ground
for attacking the whole police. It is this unfortunate passion _de
dénigrer le gouvernement_—a passion that has developed in all of you
gentlemen from the fatal example of the West. It is not with us as in
France, where the government is at daggers drawn with the parties—there
it is dragged into the mud. Our government is paternal—everything is
done as privately as possible.... We do our very utmost that everything
should go as quietly and smoothly as possible, and here men, who in spite
of painful experience persist in a fruitless opposition, alarm public
opinion by repeating verbally, and in writing, that the soldiers of the
police murder men in the streets. Isn’t that true? You have written about
it, haven’t you?’
‘I attach so little importance to the matter that I don’t think it
necessary to conceal that I have written about it, and I will add to
whom—to my father.’
‘Of course, it is not an important matter, but see what it has brought
upon you. His Majesty at once remembered your name, and that you had
been in Vyatka, and commanded that you should be sent back there, and so
the Count has commissioned me to inform you that you must come to him
to-morrow at eight o’clock and he will announce to you the decision of
the Most High.’
‘And so it is left that I am to go to Vyatka with a sick wife and a sick
child on account of something that you say is not important?...’
‘Why, are you in the service?’ Dubbelt asked me, looking intently at the
buttons of my uniform coat.
‘In the Ministry of Home Affairs.’
‘Have you been there long?’
‘Six months.’
‘And all the time in Petersburg?’
‘All the time.’
‘I had no idea of it.’
‘You see,’ I said, smiling, ‘how discreetly I have behaved.’
Sahtynsky did not know that I was married, Dubbelt did not know that I
was in the service, but both knew what I said in my own room, what I
thought, and what I wrote to my father.... What was really wrong was that
I was just beginning to be friendly with Petersburg literary men, and to
publish articles, and, worse still, had been transferred from Vladimir
to Petersburg by Count Strogonov without the secret police having been
consulted, and when I arrived in Petersburg had not presented myself
either to Dubbelt or to the Third Section, as worthy persons had hinted
that I should do.
‘To be sure,’ Dubbelt interrupted me, ‘all the evidence that has been
collected about you is to your credit. Only yesterday I was speaking to
Zhukovsky and should be thankful to hear my son spoken of as he spoke of
you.’
‘And yet I am to go to Vyatka?’
‘You see it is your misfortune that the secret report has been handed
in already, and that many circumstances had not been taken into
consideration. You will have to go, there is no altering that, but I
imagine that it might be another town instead of Vyatka. I will talk it
over with the Count, he is going to-night to the Palace. We will try and
do all that can be done to make things easier; the Count is a man of
angelic kindness.’
I got up, Dubbelt escorted me to the door of the study. At that point I
could not restrain myself, and stopping, I said to him:
‘I have one small favour to ask of you, General. If you want me, please
do not send constables or gendarmes. They are noisy and alarming,
especially in the evening. Why should my sick wife be more severely
punished than any one on account of the sentry business?’
‘Oh! good heavens, how unpleasant that is,’ replied Dubbelt, ‘how
tactless they all are! You may rest assured that I will not send a
policeman again. And so till to-morrow; don’t forget, eight o’clock at
the Count’s; we shall meet there.’
It was exactly as though we were agreeing to go to Smurov’s to eat
oysters together.
At eight o’clock next morning I was in Benckendorf’s reception room.
I found five or six petitioners waiting there; they stood gloomy and
anxious by the wall, started at every sound, and then timidly drew
themselves in again, and bowed to every adjutant that passed. Among their
number was a woman in deep mourning, with tear-stained eyes. She sat
with a paper rolled up in her hand, and the roll trembled like a leaf.
Three paces from her stood a tall, rather bent old man of seventy, bald
and sallow, in a dark-green overcoat, with a row of medals and crosses
on his breast. From time to time he sighed, shook his head and murmured
something to himself.
Some sort of ‘friend of the family,’ a flunkey, or a clerk on duty, sat
in the window, lolling at his ease. He got up when I went in, and looking
intently at his face I recognised him; that loathsome figure had been
pointed out to me at the theatre as one of the chief street detectives,
and his name, I remember, was Fabre. He asked me:
‘Have you come with a petition to the Count?’
‘I have come at his summons.’
‘Your surname?’
I mentioned it.
‘Ah,’ he said, changing his tone as though he had met an old
acquaintance, ‘won’t you be pleased to sit down? The Count will be here
in a quarter of an hour.’
It was horribly still and _unheimlich_ in the room, the daylight hardly
penetrated through the fog and frozen window-panes, no one said a word.
The adjutants ran quickly to and fro, and the gendarme standing at the
door sometimes jingled his accoutrements as he shifted from foot to foot.
Two more petitioners came in. The clerk on duty ran to ask each what
he had come about. One of the adjutants went up to him and began in a
half-whisper telling him some story, assuming a desperately roguish air
as he did so. No doubt it was something revolting, for they interspersed
their talk at frequent intervals with flunkeyish, noiseless laughter,
during which the worthy clerk, affecting to be quite helpless, and ready
to explode, repeated: ‘Do stop, for God’s sake stop, I can’t bear it.’
Five minutes later Dubbelt came in with his uniform unbuttoned as though
he were off duty, glanced casually at the petitioners, whereupon they all
bowed, and seeing me at the farther end said: ‘_Bonjour, Monsieur Herzen.
Votre affaire va parfaitement bien_ ... very well indeed.’
They would let me stay, perhaps! I was on the point of asking, but before
I had time to utter a word Dubbelt had disappeared. Next there walked
into the room a general, polished up and highly decorated, tightly laced
and stiffly erect, in white breeches, with a scarf across his breast.
I have never seen a finer general. If ever there is an exhibition of
generals in London as there now is a Baby Exhibition at Cincinnati, I
should advise his being sent from Petersburg. The general went up to the
door from which Benckendorf was to enter and became petrified in stiff
immobility; with great interest I scrutinised this sergeant’s ideal. A
lot of soldiers, I expect, he had flogged in his day for falling out of
step! Where do these people come from? He was born for rifle drill and
army discipline! He was attended by the most elegant cornet in the world,
probably his adjutant, a fair-haired youth, with incredibly long legs,
a tiny face like a squirrel’s, and that simple-hearted expression which
often persists in mamma’s darlings who have never studied anything, or,
at any rate, have never succeeded in learning anything. This eglantine in
uniform stood at a respectful distance from the model general.
Dubbelt darted in again, this time looking dignified, with all his
buttons done up. He at once addressed the general, and asked him what
he had come about. The general, with the perfect correctness with which
privates speak when presenting themselves to their superior officers,
reported: ‘Yesterday I received through Prince Alexandr Ivanovitch the
command of the Most High to join the Army at the front at the Caucasus,
and esteemed it my duty to present myself to his Excellency before
leaving.’
Dubbelt listened with religious attention to this speech, and with a
slight bow as a sign of respect went out and returned a minute later.
‘The Count,’ he said to the general, ‘sincerely regrets that he has not
time to receive your Excellency. He thanks you and has commissioned me
to wish you a good journey.’ Whereupon Dubbelt flung wide his arms,
embraced the general, and twice touched his cheeks with his moustaches.
The general retreated at a solemn march, the youth with the face of a
squirrel and the legs of a crane strode after him. This scene made up to
me for a great deal of bitterness that day. The general’s attitude, the
farewell by proxy, and the sly face of _Reinecke Fuchs_ as he kissed the
brainless countenance of his Excellency was all so ludicrous that I could
scarcely contain myself. I fancied that Dubbelt noticed it and began to
respect me from that time.
At last both folds of the double door were flung open and Benckendorf
walked in. There was nothing unpleasant in the appearance of the chief
of the gendarmes; his exterior was rather typical of a nobleman of the
Baltic provinces, and, indeed, of the German aristocracy generally.
His face looked creased and tired, he had the delusively good-natured
expression which is so often found in evasive and apathetic people.
Possibly Benckendorf did not do all the harm he might have done, being
the head of that terrible police, standing outside the law and above the
law, having a right to meddle in everything. I am ready to believe it,
especially when I recall the insipid expression of his face. But he did
no good either, he had not enough will-power, energy, or heart for that.
To be timid of saying a word in defence of the oppressed is as bad as any
crime in the service of a man so cold and merciless as Nicholas.
How many innocent victims passed through Benckendorf’s hands, how many
perished through his lack of attention, through his frivolity, because
he was engrossed in flirtation perhaps—and how many gloomy images and
painful memories may have haunted his mind and tormented him when,
prematurely collapsing and growing senile, he sailed off to seek, in
betrayal of his own religion, the protection of the Catholic Church with
its all-forgiving indulgences....
‘It has reached the knowledge of his Imperial Majesty,’ he said to
me, ‘that you take part in the diffusion of rumours injurious to the
government. His Majesty, seeing how little you have reformed, graciously
commanded that you should be sent back to Vyatka; but at the request of
General Dubbelt, and relying upon information collected about you, I
have reported to his Majesty on the subject of your wife’s illness, and
his Majesty was graciously pleased to alter his decision. His Majesty
forbids you to visit Petersburg and Moscow, and you will be under police
supervision again, but it is left to the Ministry of Home Affairs to fix
the place where you are to reside.’
‘Allow me to tell you frankly that even at this moment I cannot believe
that there is no other cause for my exile. In 1835 I was exiled on
account of a supper-party at which I was not present! Now I am being
punished for a rumour about which the whole town was talking. It is a
strange fate!’
Benckendorf shrugged his shoulders, and turning out the palms of his
hands like a man who has exhausted all the resources of argument, cut
short my speech.
‘I make known to you the Imperial will, and you answer me with
criticisms. What profit will there be from all that you say to me, or
that I say to you? It is a waste of words. Nothing can be changed now.
What will be later partly depends on you, and since you have referred to
your first affair, I particularly recommend you not to let there be a
third. You will certainly not get off so easily a third time.’
Benckendorf gave me a gracious smile and turned towards the petitioners.
He said very little to them; he took their petition, glanced at it, then
handed it to Dubbelt, receiving the petitioners’ observations with the
same graciously condescending smile. These people had been for whole
months thinking about it, and preparing themselves for this interview,
upon which their honour, their fortune, their family depended; what
effort, what labour had been spent by them before they had succeeded in
getting an entrance, how many times they had knocked at the closed door
and been turned away by the gendarme or the porter. And how immense, how
poignant must the necessity have been that brought them to the head of
the secret police; no doubt all legal channels had been exhausted first.
And this man got rid of them with commonplaces, and probably some clerk
drew up some decision to pass the case on to some other department. And
what had he to preoccupy him? What need had he for haste?
When Benckendorf went up to the old man with the medals, the latter
dropped on his knees and articulated: ‘Your Excellency, enter into my
position.’
‘How degrading!’ cried the Count; ‘you are disgracing your medals,’ and
full of righteous indignation he passed by without taking his petition.
The old man slowly got up, his glassy eyes were full of horror and
bewilderment, his lower lip quivered, he muttered something.
How inhuman these people are when the whim takes them to be humane!
Dubbelt went up to the old man and said: ‘Whatever did you do that for?
Come, give me your petition. I’ll look through it.’
Benckendorf had gone off to see the Tsar.
‘What am I to do?’ I asked Dubbelt.
‘Settle on any town you choose with the Minister of Home Affairs; we
will not interfere. We will send the whole case on there to-morrow. I
congratulate you on its having been so satisfactorily settled.’
‘I am very much obliged to you.’
From Benckendorf I went to the Ministry. Our director, as I have
mentioned, belonged to that class of Germans who have something of the
lemur about them, lanky, slow, and long drawn out. Their brains work
slowly, they do not catch the point at once, and pass through a long
process to reach any sort of conclusion. My story unfortunately arrived
before the communication of the Third Section; he had not expected it
at all, and so was completely bewildered, uttered incoherent phrases,
perceived the fact himself, and to set himself right said to me:
‘_Erlauben Sie mir deutsch zu sprechen_.’ Possibly his remarks were
grammatically more correct in the German language, but they were no
clearer and more definite in meaning. I perceived distinctly two feelings
struggling in him: he grasped all the injustice of it, but thought it
his duty as director to justify the action of the government; at the
same time, he did not like to appear a barbarian in my eyes, nor could
he forget the hostility which invariably existed between the Ministry of
Home Affairs and the secret police. So the task of expressing all this
jumble was in itself not easy. He ended by declaring that he could say
nothing until he had seen the Minister, and going off to see him.
Count Strogonov sent for me, inquired into the matter, listened to the
story attentively, and said to me in conclusion: ‘It’s a police trick,
pure and simple—all right, I’ll pay them out for it.’
I actually imagined that he was going straight off to the Tsar to explain
the position to him; but ministers do not go so far.
‘I have received the command of the Most High concerning you,’ he went
on—‘here it is. You see that it is left to me to select the place of your
exile and a post in the service for you. Where would you like to go?’
‘To Tver or to Novgorod,’ I answered.
‘To be sure.... Well, since the choice of a place is left to me, and
it probably does not matter to you to which of those towns I send
you, I will give you the first councillor’s vacancy in the provincial
government. That is the highest position that you can receive in the
regular way of promotion, so order yourself a uniform with an embroidered
collar,’ he added jocosely.
So that was how I scored, though not on my own play.
A week later Strogonov recommended me to the Senate for an appointment as
councillor at Novgorod.
It really is funny to think how many secretaries, assessors, district and
provincial officials had been scheming passionately, persistently, for
years to get that post; bribes had been given, the most solemn promises
had been received, and here, all at once, a Minister, to carry out the
commands of the Most High and at the same time to have a slap at the
secret police, _punished_ me with this promotion and, by way of gilding
the pill, flung this post, the object of ardent desires and ambitious
dreams, at the feet of a man who accepted it with the firm intention of
throwing it up at the first opportunity.
From Strogonov I went to see a lady; I must say a few words about this
acquaintance.
Among the letters of introduction given me by my father when I first
went to Petersburg was one which I had picked up a dozen times, turned
over and thrust back again into the table drawer, putting off my visit
until another day. The letter was addressed to a lady of seventy, of
high rank and great wealth, whose friendship with my father dated from
time immemorial; he had first made her acquaintance when she was at the
Court of Catherine II.; then they had met in Paris, had travelled here
and there together, and at last both had come to rest at home some thirty
years before.
I disliked persons of consequence as a rule, particularly when they
were women, and even more so when they were seventy; but my father had
inquired for the second time whether I had called upon Olga Alexandrovna
Zherebtsov, so at last I resolved to swallow the bitter pill. A footman
led me into a rather gloomy drawing-room, poorly decorated, and looking
as though it were darkened and faded; the furniture, the hangings,
all had lost their colour, and all had evidently been standing for
ages in the same place. I was reminded of the atmosphere of Princess
Meshtchersky’s house; old age, no less than youth, puts its imprint
on all around it. I waited with resignation for the lady to make her
appearance, preparing myself for tedious questions, for deafness, for
a cough, for attacks on the younger generation, and perhaps moral
exhortations.
Five minutes later a tall old woman, with a stern face that bore traces
of great beauty, walked in with a firm step; an unswerving will, a strong
character, and a strong intellect were apparent in her deportment, in
her movements and her gestures. She scanned me from head to foot with
a penetrating gaze, went up to the sofa, with one movement of her arm
pushed back the table, and said to me: ‘Sit in this armchair here, nearer
to me. I am a great friend of your father’s, you know, and I love him.’
She opened the letter, and handed it to me, saying: ‘Please read it to
me; my eyes are bad.’
The letter was written in French and full of all sorts of compliments,
reminiscences, and allusions. She listened, smiling, and when I had
finished said: ‘His mind shows no signs of age, he is just the same as
ever; he was very charming and very caustic. And now, I suppose, he keeps
his room, wears his dressing-gown, and plays the invalid? Two years ago
I was passing through Moscow and then I went to see your father. “I can
hardly see any one,” he said. “I am breaking up,” and then he got into
talk and forgot his ailments. It’s all nonsense, he is not much older
than I am, two or three years at the most, though I doubt if he is that,
and I am a woman, yet I still keep on my legs. Yes, yes, much water has
flowed by since those days your father talks of. Why, only fancy, he and
I were among the leading dancers. The English dances were the fashion in
those days; Ivan Alexeyevitch and I used to dance at the late Empress’s.
Can you imagine your father in a full-skirted light blue French coat,
wearing powder, and me in a hoop and _décolletée_? It was very pleasant
to dance with him, _il était bel homme_, he was finer looking than
you—let me have a good look at you—yes, he really was finer.... Don’t
be angry, at my age I may tell the truth. Besides, I believe you don’t
care about that—of course, you are literary and learned. Ah, my goodness,
by the way, do tell me please what was all that business with you? Your
father wrote to me when you were sent to Vyatka. I did try to speak to
Bludov, but he did not do anything. They won’t say what they exiled you
for. They keep that a _secret d’état_.’
There was so much simplicity and genuineness in her manner that, contrary
to my expectation, I was at ease and unconstrained with her. I answered
between jest and earnest and told her all about our case.
‘He makes war on students,’ she observed; ‘he has nothing in his head but
conspiracies, and, to be sure, they are pleased to oblige him; they think
of nothing but nonsense. They are such wretched little creatures about
him! Where did he get hold of them—no rank and no family. Well, _mon cher
conspirateur_, how old were you then?—sixteen, I expect.’
‘Just one and twenty,’ I answered, laughing genuinely at her utter
contempt for our political activities, both mine and Nicholas’s, ‘but
then I was the eldest.’
‘Four or five students scared _tout le gouvernement_, you see—what a
disgrace!’
After talking in this style for half an hour, I got up to go.
‘Stay a little,’ said Olga Alexandrovna in a still more friendly tone. ‘I
have not finished my catechism; how was it you carried off your bride?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Oh, my dear, the world is full of rumour—youth, _des passions_. I talked
to your father at the time. He was still angry with you, but, there,
he is a sensible man, he understood.... Thank God you live happily.
What more does he want? “Well,” he said to me, “the boy came to Moscow
contrary to the Imperial decree. If he had been caught he would have been
sent to the fortress.” “But you see he wasn’t caught,” I said, “so you
ought to be thankful for that, and what is the use of talking nonsense
and imagining what might have been?” “Oh, you were always fearless,” he
told me, “and lived recklessly.” “Well, my dear sir, I am ending my days
no worse than other people,” I answered him—“and what’s the sense of your
leaving the young people without money? That’s beyond anything.” “Well,”
he said, “I’ll send them some. I’ll send them some. Don’t be angry.”
You’ll bring your wife to see me, won’t you?’
I thanked her, and said that I had not brought her with me to Petersburg
yet.
‘Where are you staying?’
‘At Demouthe’s.’
‘And do you dine there?’
‘Sometimes there; sometimes at Dumais.’
‘Why restaurants—it’s expensive, and besides it’s not nice for a married
man. If it won’t bore you to dine with an old woman, come here. I am
really very glad to have made your acquaintance. I must thank your father
for having sent you to me; you are a very interesting young man, and have
a good understanding of things though you are young,—so you and I will
have a talk about one thing and another, for you know I am bored with
these courtiers; they can talk of nothing but the court, and who has
received a decoration; it is all so silly.’
In one volume of Thiers’ _History of the Consulate_ he gives a rather
detailed and rather correct account of the murder of Paul. There are
two references in his story to a woman, the sister of Count Zubov, who
was the last of Catherine’s favourites. The beautiful young widow of a
general (killed, I believe, during the war), a passionate and vigorous
character, spoilt by success, endowed with exceptional intellect and
masculine strength of will, she became the centre round which the
discontented rallied during the savage and senseless reign of Paul. The
conspirators met at her house; she incited them, their relations with the
English Embassy were carried on through her. Paul’s police suspected her
at last, and, warned in time, perhaps by Pahlen himself, she went abroad
before it was too late. The plot was by then matured, and while dancing
at a ball at the court of the Prussian king she received the news that
Paul had been killed. Not concealing her joy, she rapturously announced
the news to every one in the ball-room. This so scandalised the Prussian
king that he ordered her to be banished from Berlin within twenty-four
hours.
She went to England. Brilliant, spoilt by court life, and devoured by
a consuming passion for a great career, she made her appearance as a
lioness of the first magnitude in London, and played an important part in
the reserved and exclusive society of the English aristocracy. The Prince
of Wales, _i.e._, the future King George IV., was her devoted adorer, and
soon more than that.... The years of her life abroad were spent amidst
noisy magnificence, but they passed, and glory after glory faded. With
old age came emptiness, misfortunes, loneliness, and the melancholy life
of memory. Her son was killed at Borodino; her daughter died leaving
her a grandchild, now Countess Orlov. Every August the old woman went
from Petersburg to Mozhaisk to visit her son’s grave. Loneliness and
misfortune had not broken her strong character, but only made it more
austere and angular. Like a tree in winter, she retained the outline of
her branches, the leaves had dropped, and the bare twigs were cold and
stiff as dry bones, but the gigantic stature and bold proportions were
but the more distinctly visible, and the trunk, silvered with hoar-frost,
stood proud and gloomy, and no wind, no storm could bend it.
Her long life, so full of movement, the immense wealth of meetings, of
contrasts in it, had formed her disdainful view of the world, which had
its share of mournful truth. She had her own philosophy, resting upon a
profound contempt for her fellow-creatures, though, owing to her active
disposition, she could not abandon them altogether.
‘You don’t know them yet,’ she would say to me, nodding her head towards
the retreating figures of various stout and thin senators and generals.
‘I have seen enough of them. It is not so easy to take me in as they
imagine; before I was twenty my brother was in the highest favour, and
the Empress was very kind to me, and very fond of me. So then, would
you believe it, old men, beribboned and decorated, who could scarcely
drag one leg after the other, were falling over one another to reach the
vestibule and hand me my pelisse and my warm shoes. The Empress died,
and next day my house was deserted. They ran from me as from the plague,
in the madman’s days, you know, and those the very same persons. I went
my way, I had no need of any one, I crossed the sea. After my return the
Lord visited me with great misfortunes, but I met with sympathy from no
one. There were two or three old friends who did not desert me, though.
Well, then, your reign has come. Orlov, you see, has influence, though
indeed I don’t know how far that is true ... they imagine it is, anyway.
They know that he is my heir and that my granddaughter loves me; so now
they are such friends again—again they are ready to hand me my cloak and
my goloshes! Ugh! I know them, but one is sometimes tired of sitting
alone; my eyes are bad, it is hard to read, besides one does not always
care to, so I let them come, they babble all sorts of nonsense; it amuses
me, and serves to pass an hour or two....’
She was a strange, original relic of another age, surrounded by
degenerate successors that had sprung up on the mean and barren soil of
Petersburg court life. She felt superior to it, and she was right. If she
had shared the Saturnalia of Catherine and the orgies of George IV., she
had also shared the dangers of the conspirators of Paul’s reign.
Her mistake lay not in her contempt for these worthless people, but in
her taking this produce of the court kitchen-garden for the whole of our
generation. In the reign of Catherine, the court and the Guards really
did include all that was cultured in Russia; and this persisted, more or
less, until 1812. Since then Russian society has taken immense strides;
the war led to an awakening, and that awakening to the Fourteenth of
December. Society was divided in two from within: the worst part remained
on the side of the court; executions and savage punishments drove away
some, while the new tone prevailing drove away others. Alexander carried
on the traditions of culture of the reign of Catherine. Under Nicholas
the worldly aristocratic tone was replaced by one of frigid formality
and ferocious despotism on the one hand and boundless servility on
the other—a blend of the abrupt and rude Napoleonic manner with the
callousness of bureaucracy. A new society, the centre of which was in
Moscow, rapidly developed.
There is a wonderful book which one cannot help recalling when one speaks
of Olga Alexandrovna—I mean the _Memoirs of Princess Dashkov_, published
twenty years ago in London. To the book are appended the memoirs of the
two sisters Wilmot who lived with Princess Dashkov between 1805 and 1810.
They were highly cultured Irishwomen, with a great gift of observation. I
should very much like their letters and memoirs to be known in Russia.
When I compare Moscow society before 1812 with that which I left in 1847
my heart throbs with joy. We have made tremendous strides forward. In
those days there was a society of the discontented—that is, of those
who had been left out, dismissed, or laid on the shelf; now there is a
society of independent people. The lions of those days were capricious
oligarchs, such as Count A. G. Orlov and Ostermann, ‘a society of
shadows’ as Miss Wilmot says, a society of political men who had died
fifteen years before in Petersburg, but went on powdering their heads,
putting on their ribbons, and appearing at dinners and festivities in
Moscow, sulking, giving themselves airs of consequence, and having
neither influence nor significance. After 1825 the lions of Moscow were
Pushkin, M. Orlov, Tchaadayev, Yermolov. In the earlier days society had
flocked with cringing servility to the house of Count Orlov, ladies ‘in
other people’s diamonds,’[42] gentlemen who dared not sit down without
permission; the Count’s serfs danced before them in masquerade attire.
Forty years later I saw the same society crowding about the platform of
one of the lecture-rooms of the Moscow University; the daughters of those
ladies in other people’s jewels, the sons of the men who had not dared
to sit down, were, with passionate sympathy, following the profound,
vigorous words of Granovsky, greeting with outbursts of applause
sentences that went straight to the heart from their boldness and
nobility.
It was just the society that gathered from all parts of Moscow and
crowded about the platform on which the young champion of learning
delivered his earnest message and deciphered the future from the past—it
was just this society of the existence of which Madame Zherebtsov had
no suspicion. She was particularly kind and attentive to me because I
was the first example of a world unknown to her; she was surprised at
my language and at my ideas. She welcomed in me the coming of another
Russia, not that Russia whose only light filtered through the frozen
windows of the Winter Palace. Thanks to her for that!
I could fill a whole volume with the anecdotes I heard from Olga
Alexandrovna; with whom had she not been on friendly terms, from Comte
d’Artois[43] and the Comte de Ségur[44] to Canning and Lord Granville,
and she looked at all of them independently, from her own point of view,
and a very original one. I will confine myself to one small incident
which I will try to repeat in her own words.
She lived in the Morskaya. A regiment of soldiers happened one day to
pass along the street with a band. Olga Alexandrovna went to the window
and looking at the soldiers said to me: ‘I have a summer villa not far
from Gatchina. I sometimes go there for a rest in the summer. I ordered
a big lawn to be made there before the house, in the English style, you
know, covered with turf. Last year I went down there; only fancy: at six
o’clock in the morning I hear a dreadful beating of drums. I lie in bed
more dead than alive; it keeps coming closer and closer. I ring the bell,
my Kalmyk girl runs in. “What has happened, my good girl?” I ask; “what
is this noise?” “Oh, that,” says she, “Mihail Pavlovitch[45] is pleased
to be drilling his soldiers.” “Where is that?” “On our lawn.” He liked
our lawn, it was so smooth and green. Only fancy, with a lady living
there, old and ill, he came with the drums at six o’clock in the morning.
Well, I thought, that won’t do. “Call the steward,” I said. The steward
came and I said to him: “Have the cart got out at once, drive into
Petersburg, hire as many White Russians as you can find, and let them
begin digging a pond to-morrow.” Well, I thought, I hope they won’t hold
a Naval Review before my windows. They are all such ill-bred creatures!’
It was natural that I should go straight from Strogonov to Olga
Alexandrovna and tell her all that had happened.
‘Good heavens! What folly; they go from bad to worse,’ she observed
when she heard my story. ‘How can a man with a family be dragged off to
exile for such nonsense? Let me talk to Orlov. I hardly ever ask him to
do anything, they all dislike it; but there, once in a way he may do
something for me. Come and see me in a couple of days, and I’ll tell you
his answer.’
Two days later she sent for me. I found several visitors with her. She
had a white batiste kerchief round her head instead of a cap; this was
usually a sign that she was out of spirits; she screwed up her eyes and
hardly took any notice of the privy councillors and generals who had come
to pay their respects to her.
One of the visitors with a very complacent air took a document out of his
pocket and, handing it to Olga Alexandrovna, said: ‘I have brought you
yesterday’s Imperial letter to Prince Pyotr Mihailovitch. Perhaps you
have not yet read it.’
Whether she had heard him or not I do not know, but she took the paper,
opened it, put on her spectacles and, frowning, read with great effort:
‘Pri—nce Pyo—tr Mi—hailo—vitch!’
‘What’s this you have given me? It’s not for me, is it?’
‘I told you it’s an Imperial letter.’
‘Good heavens, my eyes are bad, I can’t always read the letters addressed
to me, and you make me read other people’s letters.’
‘Allow me, I’ll read it ... I didn’t think.’
‘You needn’t; why trouble yourself for nothing? What have I to do with
their correspondence? I am getting through my last days somehow, and my
head is full of something very different.’
The gentleman smiled as people smile when they have made a blunder, and
put the Imperial letter into his pocket.
Seeing that Olga Alexandrovna was in a bad humour, in a very warlike one,
indeed, the visitors one after another took leave. When we were left
alone she said to me: ‘I asked you to come here to tell you that I have
made a fool of myself in my old age. I gave you a promise, and I have
done nothing; you know the peasants’ proverb: “Don’t step into the water
till you know how deep it is.” I spoke to Orlov about your case yesterday
and you’ve nothing to expect....’
At that moment a footman announced that Countess Orlov had arrived.
‘Well, never mind, one of ourselves. I’ll tell you the rest directly.’
The Countess, a beautiful woman, still in the bloom of her age, went up
to kiss her hand and inquire how she was, to which Olga Alexandrovna
answered that she felt very poorly, then mentioning my name, added,
‘Come, sit down, sit down, my dear. How are the children—quite well?’
‘Quite well.’
‘Well, thank God—excuse me, I am just talking about what happened
yesterday. Well, you see, I told her husband to speak to the Tsar about
you, and ask what they are about with this nonsense. Not a bit of it! He
wouldn’t move hand or foot: “That’s Benckendorf’s affair,” he told me.
“I’ll talk to him if you like, but as for reporting on it to the Tsar,
I can’t, he doesn’t like it—besides, it isn’t done!” “What is there,”
I said, “in talking to Benckendorf? I can do that myself. Besides, he
is in his dotage; he doesn’t know what he is doing; his head is full of
actresses, though I should have thought his flirting days were over; some
wretched little secretary gives him all sorts of secret reports and he
hands them on. What would he do? No!” I said, “you had better not demean
yourself asking favours of Benckendorf, the whole nasty business is his
doing.” “It is the rule with us,” he said to me, and began telling me all
about it.... Well, I saw that he was simply afraid to go to the Tsar....
“Whatever is he—a wild beast, or what, that you are afraid to approach
him, though you see him half a dozen times a day?” I said, and turned
away in disgust; it is no use talking to them. Look,’ she added, pointing
to Orlov’s portrait. ‘What a conquering hero he is there; yet he is
afraid to say a word!’
I could not resist looking at Countess Orlov instead of at the portrait;
her position was not very agreeable. She sat smiling, and sometimes
glanced at me as though to say: ‘Age has its privileges, the old lady is
irritated,’ but meeting my eyes, which did not assent, she pretended not
to notice me. She did not enter into the conversation, and that was very
wise of her. It would not have been easy to suppress Olga Alexandrovna,
the old woman’s cheeks were flushed, she would have given back more than
she got. There was nothing for it but to lie low and wait for the storm
to pass over one’s head.
‘Why, I suppose down there where you’ve been, in that Vologda, the
clerks imagine Count Orlov is a man in favour, that he has power....
That’s all nonsense. I’ll be bound it is his subordinates who spread
that rumour. None of them have any influence, they don’t behave so as to
have influence, and they are not on that footing.... You must forgive me
for meddling in what isn’t my business. Do you know what I advise you?
What do you want to go to Novgorod for? You had better go to Odessa; it
is farther away from them and almost like a foreign town, besides, if
Vorontsov isn’t corrupted, he is a man of a different stamp.’
Olga Alexandrovna’s confidence in Vorontsov, who was at that time in
Petersburg and came to see her every day, was not fully justified. He was
willing to take me with him to Odessa _if_ Benckendorf would give his
consent.
Meanwhile the months passed, the winter was over, no one reminded
me about going away. I was forgotten and I gave up being _sur le
qui-vive_, particularly after the following meeting. Bolgovsky, the
military governor of Vologda, was at that time in Petersburg; being a
very intimate friend of my father, he was rather fond of me, and I was
sometimes at his house. He had taken part in the killing of Paul, as a
young officer in the Semyonovsky Regiment, and was afterwards mixed up in
the obscure and unexplained Speransky affair in 1812. He was at that time
a colonel in the army at the front. He was suddenly arrested, brought to
Petersburg, and then sent to Siberia. Before he had time to reach his
place of exile Alexander pardoned him, and he returned to his regiment.
One day in the spring I went to see him; a general was sitting in a big
easy-chair with his back towards the door so that I could not see his
face, but only one silver epaulette.
‘Let me introduce you,’ said Bolgovsky, and then I recognised Dubbelt.
‘I have long enjoyed the pleasure of Leonty Vassilyevitch’s attention,’ I
said, smiling.
‘When are you going to Novgorod?’ he asked me.
‘I thought I ought to ask you that.’
‘Oh! not at all! I had no idea of reminding you. I simply asked the
question. We have handed you over to Count Strogonov, and we are not
trying to hurry you, as you see. Besides, with such a legitimate reason
as your wife’s illness....’
He really was the politest of men!
At last, at the beginning of June, I received the Senate’s decree,
confirming my appointment as councillor in the Novgorod Provincial
Government. Count Strogonov thought it was time for me to set off, and
about the 1st of July I arrived in the ‘City in the keeping of God and of
Saint Sophia’—Novgorod—and settled on the bank of the Volhov, opposite
the very barrow from which the Voltaireans of the twelfth century threw
the wonder-working statue of Perun[46] into the river.