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I still remember dimly the traces of the great fire, which were visible even in the early 20s - big houses with the roof gone and window-frames burnt out, heaps of fallen masonry, empty spaces fenced off from the street, remnants of stoves and chimneys sticking up out of them.
Stories of the Great Fire, the battle of Borodino, the crossing of the Berezina, and the taking of Paris - these took the place of cradle-song and fairy-tale to me, they were my Iliad and Odyssey.
My mother and our servants, my father and my old nurse, were never tired of going back to that terrible time, which was still so recent and had been brought home to them so painfully. Later, our officers began to return from foreign service to Moscow. Men who had served in former days with my father in the Guards and had taken a glorious part in the fierce contest of the immediate past,
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were often a t our house ; and t o them i t was a relief from their toils and dangers to tell them over again. That was indeed the most brilliant epoch in the history of Petersburg : the consciousness of power breathed new life into Russia ; business and care were, so to speak, put off till the sober morrow, and all the world was determined to make merry today and celebrate the victory.
At this time I heard even more than my old nurse could tell me about the war. I liked especially to listen to the stories of Count Miloradovich ;5 I often lay at his back on the long sofa, while he described and acted scenes of the campaign, and his lively narrative and loud laugh were very attractive to me. More than once I fell asleep in that position.
These surroundings naturally developed my patriotic feelings to an extreme degree, and I was resolved to enter the Army. But an exclusive feeling of nationality is never productive of good, and it landed me in the following scrape. One of our guests was Count Quinsonas, a French emigre and a general in the Russian army.
An out-and-out royalist, he had been present at the famous dinner where the King�s Bodyguards trampled on the national cockade and Marie Antoinette drank confusion to the Revolution.6 He was now a grey-haired old man, tall and slight, a perfect gentleman and the pink of politeness. A peerage was awaiting him at Paris ; he had been there already to congratulate Louis XVIII on his accession, and had returned to Russia to sell his estates. As ill luck would have it, I was present when this politest of generals in the Russian service began to speak about the war.
'But you, surely, were fighting against us,' I said very innocently.
'Non, mon petit, non ! J'etais dans l'armee russe.'
'What ! ' said I, 'you a Frenchman and fighting on our side I That's impossible.'
My father gave me a reproving look and tried to talk of something else. But the Frenchman saved the situation nobly : he turned to my father and said, 'I like to see s�ach patriotic feeling.'
But my father did not like to see it, and scolded me severely when our guest had gone. 'You see what comes of rushing into things which you don't and can't understand : the Count served our
;. Mikhail Miloradovich (177o-182;), a famous commander who lost his life in suppressing the Decembrist revolution, December 182;.
6. This dinner took place at Versailles, on 1 October 1789.
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Emperor out o f loyalty to his own sovereign.' That was, as my father said, beyond my powers of comprehension.
s
My father had lived twelve years abroad, and his brother still longer ; and they tried to organise their household, to some extent, on a foreign plan; yet it was to retain all the conveniences of Russian life and not to cost much. This plan was not realised ; pErhaps their measures were unskilful, or perhaps the old traditions of Russian country life were too strong for habits acquired abroad.
They shared their land in common and managed it jointly, and a swarm of servants inhabited the ground floor of their house in town; in fact, all the elements of disorder were present.
I was under the charge of two nurses, one Russian and the other German. Vera Artamonovna and Mme Proveau were two very good-natured women, but I got weary of watching them all day, as they knitted stockings and wrangled together. So, whenever I could, I escaped to the part of the house occupied by the Senator my uncle, the former ambassador, was now a Senator' and was generally called by this title - and there I found my only friend, my uncle's valet, Calot.
I have seldom met so kind and gentle a creature as this man.
Utterly solitary in Russia, separated from all his own belongings, and hardly able to speak our language, he had a woman's tenderness for me. I spent whole hours in his room, and, though I was often mischievous and troublesome, he bore it all with a goodnatured smile. He cut out all kinds of marvels for me in cardboard, and carved me many toys of wood ; and how I loved him in return I In the evenings he used to take picture-books from the library and bring them up to my nursery - The Travels of Gmelin and Pallas, and another thick book called The World in Pictures, which I liked so much and looked at so long, that the leather binding got worn out : for two hours together Calot would show me the same pictures and repeat the same explanations for the thousandth time.
Before my birthday party, Calot shut himself up in his room, and I could hear mysterious sounds of a hammer and other tools 7· The Senate was not a deliberate body hut a Supreme Court of Justice.
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issuing from it. He often walked quickly through the passage, carrying a glue-pot or something wrapped up in paper, but each tinte he left his room locked. I knew he was preparing some surprise for me, and my curiosity may be imagined. I sent the servant's children to act as spies, but Calot was not to be caught napping. We even managed to make a small hole in the staircase, through which we could look down into the room ; but we could see nothing but the top of the window and the portrait of Frederick the Great, with his long nose and a large star on his breast, looking like a sick vulture. At last the noises stopped, and the room was unlocked - but it looked just as before, except for snippings of gilt and coloured paper on the floor. I was devoured by curiosity ; but Calot wore a pretence of solemnity on his features and never touched the ticklish subject.
I was still suffering agonies of impatience when the great day arrived. I awoke at six, to wonder what Calot had in store for me ; at eight Calot himself appeared, wearing a white tie and white waistcoat under his blue livery, but his hands were empty ! I wondered how it would all end, and whether he had spoilt what he was making. The day went on, and the usual presents were forthcoming : my aunt's footman had brought me an expensive toy wrapped up in a napkin, and my uncle, the Senator, had been generous also, but I was too restless, in expectation of the surprise, to enjoy my happiness.
Then, when I was not thinking of it, after dinner or perhaps after tea, my nurse said to me : 'Go downstairs for a moment, there is someone there asking for you.' 'At last ! ' I thought, and down the bannisters I slid on my arms. The drawing-room door flew open ; I heard music and saw a transparency representing my initials ; then some little boys, disguised as Turks, offered me sweets ; and this was followed by a puppet-show and parlour fireworks. Calot was very hot and very busy ; he kept everything going and was quite as excited as I was myself.