As we drove home, I saw the head man, the same as in our time, standing in a field some way off. He did not recognise me at first ; but when we were past, he made out who I was, took off his C.Y.E.-5
6o
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hat, and bowed low. A little further on, I turned round, and Grigory Gorsky - that was the head man's name - was standing on the same spot and watching our carriage. That tall bearded figure, bowing in the harvest field, was a link with the past ; but V asilevskoye had ceased to be ours.
CHAPTER IV
My Friend Nick and the Sparrow Hills
1
S O M E time in the year 1824 I was walking one day with my father along the Moscow River, on the far side of the Sparrow Hills ; and there we met a French tutor whom we knew. He had nothing on but his shirt, was obviously in great alarm, and was calling out, 'Help ! Help ! • Before our friend had time to pull off his shirt or pull on his trousers, a Cossack ran down from the Sparrow Hills, hurled himself into the water, and disappeared. In another moment he reappeared, grasping a miserable little object, whose head and hands shook like clothes hung out to dry ; he placed this burden on the bank and said, 'A shaking will soon bring him round.'
The bystanders collected fifty roubles for the rescuer. The Cossack made no pretences but said very honestly, 'It's a sin to take money for a thing like that; for he gave me no trouble, no more than a cat, to pull h� out. But,' he added, 'though I don't ask for money, if I'm offered it, l may as well take it. I'm a poor man. So thank you kindly.' Then he tied up the money in his hanakerchief and went back to his horses grazing on the hill.
My father asked the man's name and wrote next day to tell his commanding officer of his gallantry; and the Cossack was promoted to be a corporal. A few months later the Cossack appeared at our house and brought a companion, a German with a · fair curling wig, pockmarked, and scented. This was the drowning man, who had come to return thanks on behalf of the Cossack; and he visited us afterwards from time to time.
Karl Sonnenberg had taught boys German in several families, and was now employed by a distant relation of my father's, who
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had confided to him the bodily health and German pronunciation of his son. This boy, Nikolay Ogarev, whom Sonnenberg always called Nick, attracted me. There was something kind, gentle, and thoughtful about him ; he was quite unlike the other boys whom I was in the way of seeing. Yet our intimacy ripened slowly : he was silent and thoughtful, I was lively and feared to trouble him by my liveliness.
Nick had lost his mother in infancy, and his grandmother died about the time when my cousin Tatyana left us and went home.
Their household was in confusion, and Sonnenberg, who had really nothing to do, made out that he was terribly busy ; so he brought the boy to our house in the morning and asked if we would keep him for the whole day. Nick was frightened and sad; I suppose he loved his grandmother.
After sitting together for some time, I proposed that we should read Schiller. I was soon astonished by the similarity of our tastes : he knew by heart much more than I did, and my favourite passages were those he knew best; we soon shut the book, and each began to explore the other's mind for common interests.
He too was familiar with the unprinted poems of Pushkin and Ryleyev;1 the difference from the empty-headed boys whom I sometimes met was surprising. His heart beat to the same tune as mine; he too had cut the painter that bound him to the sullen old shore of conservatism ; our business was to push off with a will ; and we decided, perhaps on that very first day, to act in support of the Crown Prince Constantine I
This was our first long conversation. Sonnenberg was always in our way, persistent as a fly in autumn and spoiling all our talk by his presence. He was constantly interfering, criticising without understanding, putting the collar of Nick's shirt to rights, or in a hurry to go home; in short, he was thoroughly objectionable.
But, before a month was over, it was impossible for my friend and me to pass two days without meeting or writing ; I who was naturally impulsive, became more and more attached to Nick, and he had a less demonstrative but deep love for me.
From the very first, our friendship was bound to take a serious tum. I cannot remember that we thought much of amusement, 1. One of the five Decembrists who were hanged when the revolt was suppressed. See also p. 48.
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especially when w e were alone. I don't mean that w e sat still always ; after all, we were boys, and we laughed and played the fool and teased Sonnenberg and shot with a bow in our courtyard. But our friendship was not founded on mere idle companionship : we were united, not only by equality of age and
'chemical' affinity, but by a common religion. Nothing in the world has more power to purify and elevate that time of life, nothing preserves it better, than a strong interest in humanity at large. We respected, in ourselves, our own future; we regarded one another as chosen vessels, with a fixed task before us.
We often took walks into the country ; our favourite haunts were the Sparrow Hills, and the fields outside the Dragomilovsky Gate. Accompanied by Sonnenberg, he used to come for me at six or seven in the morning ; and if I was still asleep, he used to throw sand or pebbles at my window. I woke up joyfully and hastened to join him.
These morning walks had been started by the activity of Sonnenberg. My friend had been brought up under a dyadka,2 in the manner traditional in noble Russian families, till Sonnenberg came. The influence of the dyadka waned at once, and the oligarchy of the servants' hall had to grin and bear it : they realised that they were no match for the 'accursed German' who was permitted to dine with the family. Sonnenberg's reforms were radical : the dyadka even wept when the German took his young master in person to a shop to buy ready-made boots. Just like the reforms of Peter the Great, Sonnenberg's reforms bore a military character even in matters of the least warlike nature. It does not follow from this that Sonnenberg's narrow shoulders were ever covered by epaulettes, plain or laced - nature has constructed the German on such a plan, that, unless he is a philosopher or theologian and therefore utterly indifferent to personal neatness, he is invariably military, whatever civilian sphere he may adorn.
Hence Sonnenberg liked tight clothes, closely buttoned and belted in at the waist ; and hence he was a strict observer of rules approved by himself. He had made it a rule to get up at six in the morning ; therefore he made his pupil get up one minute before six or, at latest, one minute after it, and took him out into the fresh air every morning.
2. See note to p. 39·
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2
The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Sonnenberg had been so nearly drowned, soon became to us a Holy Place.