She was wedded to Russia in blood in 1612, and she was welded to Russia in the fire of 1 8 1 2.
She bent her head before Peter, because he was the wild beast whose paw contained the whole future of Russia.
Frowning and pouting out his lips, Napoleon sat outside the gates, waiting for the keys of Moscow ; impatiently he pulled at his bridle and twitched his glove. He was not accustomed to be alone when he entered foreign capitals.
'But other thoughts had Moscow mine,' as Pushkin wrote, and she set fire to herself.
The cholera appeared, and once again the people's capital showed itself full of feeling and power I ·
21
In August of 1830 we went to stay at Vasilevskoye, and broke our journey as usual at Perkhushkovo, where our house looked like a castle in a novel of Mrs Radcliffe's. After taking a meal and feeding the horses, we were preparing to resume our journey, and Bakay, with a towel round his waist, was just calling out to the coachman, 'All right ! ' when a mounted messenger signed to us to stop. This was a groom belonging to my uncle, the Senator.
Covered with dust and sweat, he jumped off his horse and delivered a packet to my father. The packet contained the Revolution of July ! Two pages of the Journal de:s Debats, which he brought with him as well as a letter, I read over a hundred times till I knew them by heart ; and for the first time I found the country tiresome.
It was a glorious time and events moved quickly. The spare figure of Charles X had hardly disappeared into the fogs of Holyrood, when Belgium burst into flame and the throne of the citizen-king began to totter. The revolutionary spirit began to work in men's mouths and in literature : novels, plays, and poetry entered the arena and preached the good cause.
We knew nothing then of the theatrical element which is part of all revolutionary movements in France, and we believed sincerely in all we heard.
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If anyone wishes to know how powerfully the news of the July revolution worked on the rising generation, let him read what Heine wrote, when he heard in Heligoland that 'the great Pan, the pagan god, was dead'. There is no sham enthusiasm there : Heine at thirty was just as much carried away, just as childishly excited, as we were at eighteen.
We followed every word and every incident with close attention - bold questions and sharp replies, General Lafayette and General Lamarque. Not only did we know all about the chief actors - on the radical side, of course - but we were warmly attached to them, and cherished their portraits, from Manuel and Benjamin Constant to Dupont de l'Eure and Armand Carrel.
22
Our special group consisted of five to begin with, and then we fell in with a sixth, Vadim Passek.
There was much that was new to us in Vadim. We five had all been brought up in very much the same way : we knew no places but Moscow and the surrounding country ; we had read the same books and taken lessons from the same teachers ; we had been educated either at home or in the boarding-school connected with the University. But Vadim was born in Siberia, during his father's exile, and had suffered poverty and privation. His father was his teacher, and he was one of a large family, who grew up familiar with want but free from all other restraints. Siberia has a stamp of its own, quite unlike the stamp of provincial Russia ; those who bear i t have more health and more elasticity. Compared to Vadim we were tame. His courage was of a different kind, heroic and at times overbearing ; the high distinction of suffering had developed in him a special kind of pride, but he had also a generous warmth of heart. He was bold, and even imprudent to excess ; but a man born in Siberia and belonging to a family of exiles has this advantage over others, that Siberia has for him no terrors.
As soon as we met, Vadim rushed into our arms. Very soon we became intimate. It should be said that there was nothing of the nature of ceremony or prudent precaution in our little coterie of those days.
'Would you like to know Ketscher, of whom you have heard so much ? ' V adim once asked me.
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'Of course I should.'
'Well, come at seven tomorrow evening, and don't be late ; he will be at our house.'
When I arrived, Vadim was out. A tall man with an expressive face was waiting for him and shot a glance, half good-natured and half formidable, at me from under his spectacles. I took up a book, and he followed my example.
'I say,' he began, as he opened the book, 'are you Herzen ?'
And so conversation began and soon grew fast and furious.
Ketscher soon interrupted me with no ceremony : 'Excuse me I I should be obliged if you would address me as "thou".'
'By all means ! ' said I. And from that minute - perhaps it was the beginning of 183 1 - we were inseparable friends ; and from that minute Ketscher's friendly laugh or fierce shout became a part of my life at all its stages.
The acquaintance with Vadim brought a new and gentler element into our camp.
As before, our chief meeting-place was Ogarev's house. His invalid father had gone to live in the country, and he lived alone on the ground-floor of their Moscow house, which was near the University and had a great attraction for us all. Ogarev had that magnetic power which forms the first point of crystallisation in any medley of disordered atoms, provided the necessary affinity exists. Though scattered in all directions, they become imperceptibly the heart of an organism. In his bright cheerful room with its red and gold wall-paper, amid the perpetual smell of tobacco and punch and other - I was going to say, eatables and drinkables, but now I remember that there was seldom anything to eat but cheese - we often spent the time from dark till dawn in heated argument and sometimes in noisy merriment. But, side by side with that hospitable students' room, there grew more and more dear to us another house, in which we learned - I might say, for the first time - respect for family life.
Vadim often deserted our discussions and went off home : when
· he had not seen his mother and sisters for some time, he became restless. To us our little club was the centre of the world, and we thought it strange that he should prefer the society of his family; were not we a family too ?
Then he introduced us to his family. They had lately returned from Siberia; they were ruined, yet they bore that stamp of
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dignity which calamity engraves, not on every sufferer, but on those who have borne misfortune with courage.
23
Their father was arrested in Paul's reign, having been informed against for revolutionary designs. He was thrown into prison at Schliisselburg and then banished to Siberia. When Alexander restored thousands of his father's exiles, Passek was forgotten.
He was a nephew of the Passek who became Governor of Poland, and might have claimed a share of the fortune which had now passed into other hands.
While detained at Schliisselburg, Passek had married the daughter of an officer of the garrison. The young girl knew that exile would be his fate, but she was not deterred by that prospec-t. In Siberia they made a shift at first to get on, by selling their last belongings, but the pressure of poverty grew steadily worse and worse, and the process was hastened by their increasing family.