When I found that the Governor and state-attorney had confirmed this remission, I went off to beg the police that the flogging might be lightened ; and they, partly flattered by this personal appeal, and partly pitying a martyr in a cause so near to their own hearts, and also because they knew the man was well-to-do, promised me that the punishment should be merely nominal.
A few days later the bailiff came to my house one morning ; he looked thin, and there was more grey in his beard. For all his j oy, I soon perceived that he had something on his mind.
'What's troubling you ? ' I asked.
'Well, I wish I could get it all over at once.'
'I don't understand you.'
'What I mean is - when will the flogging be ? '
'But haven't you been flogged ?'
'No.'
'But they've let you out, and I suppose you're going home.'
'Home ? Yes, I'm going home, but I keep thinking about the flogging ; the secretary spoke of it, I am sure I heard him.'
I was really quite puzzled. At last I asked him if he had a written discharge of any kind. He handed it to me. I read there the original sentence at full length, and then a postscript, that he was to be flogged within the prison walls by sentence of the court and then to be discharged, in possession of this certificate.
I burst out laughing. 'You see, you've been flogged already.'
'No, batyushka, I've not.'
'Well, if you're not content, go back and ask them to flog you ; perhaps the police will take pity upon you.'
Seeing me laugh, he too smiled, but he shook his head doubt·
fully and said, 'It's a very queer business.'
A very irregular business, many will say ; but let them reflect that it is this kind of irregularity alone which makes life possible in Russia.
g. There is a reference to the Epistle of James, i. 17.
C H I L D H O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
C H A P T E R IX
Alexander Vitberg
1
I N the midst of all this ugliness and squalor, these petty and repulsive persons and scenes, in this world of chicanery and red tape, I recall the sad and noble figure of a great artist.
I lived at his side for two years and a half and saw this strong man breaking up under the pressure of persecution and misfortune.
Nor can it be said that he succumbed without a protest ; for ten long years he struggled desperately. When he went into exile, he still hoped to conquer his enemies and right himself; in fact, he was still eager for the conflict, still full of projects and expedients.
But at Vyatka he saw that all was over.
He might have accepted this discovery but for the wife and children at his side, and the prospect of long years of exile, poverty, and privation ; he grew greyer and older, not day by day, but hour by hour. I was two years at Vyatka, and when I left, he was ten years older than when I carne.
Let me tell you the story of this long martyrdom.
2
The Emperor Alexander could not believe in his victory over Napoleon. Glory was a burden to him, and he quite sincerely gave it to God's name instead. Always inclined to mysticism and despondency, he was more than ever haunted by these feelings after his repeated victories over Napoleon.
When the last soldier of the French army had retreated over the frontier, Alexander published a manifesto, in which he took a vow to erect a great cathedral at Moscow, dedicated to the Saviour.
Plans for this church were invited from all quarters, and there was a great cornpeti tion of artists.
Alexander Vitberg was then a young man ; he had been trained in the art schools at Petersburg and had gained the gold medal for
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painting. Of Swedish descent, he was born in Russia and received his early education in the School of Mines. He was a passionate lover of art, with a tendency to eccentricity and mysticism. He read the Emperor's manifesto and the invitation for designs, and at once gave up all his former occupations. Day and night he wandered about the streets of Petersburg, tormented by a fixed idea which he was powerless to banish. He shut himself up in his room, took his pencil, and began to work.
The artist took no one into his confidence. After working for several months, he travelled to Moscow, where he studied the city and its surroundings. Then he set to work again, hiding himself from all eyes for months at a time, and hiding his drawings also.
The time came for the competition. Many plans were sent in, plans from Italy and from Germany, and our own academicians sent in theirs. The design of this unknown youth took its place among the rest. Some weeks passed before the Emperor examined the plans, and these weeks were the Forty Days in the Wilderness, days of temptation and doubt and painful anxiety.
The Emperor was struck by Vitberg's design, which was on a colossal scale and remarkable for religious and artistic feeling.
He stopped first in front of it and asked who had sent it in. The envelope was opened ; the name inside was that of an unknown student of the Academy.
Alexander sent for Vitberg and had a long conversation with him. He was impressed by the artist's confident and animated speech, the real inspiration which filled him, and the mystical turn of his convictions. 'You speak in stone,' the Emperor said, as he looked through the plans again.
The plans were approved that very day ; Vitberg was appointed architect of the cathedral and president of the building committee. Alexander was not aware that there were thorns beneath the crown of laurels which he placed on the artist's head.
3
There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture. Abstract, geometrical, musical and yet dumb, passionless, it depends entirely upon symbolism, form, suggestion. Simple lines, and the harmonious combination and numerical relations between these, present something mysterious and at the same time incomplete.
C H I L D H O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
A building, a temple, does not comprise its object within itself; i t differs i n this respect from a statue or a picture, a poem o r a symphony. The building needs an inhabitant ; in itself it is a prepared space, a setting, like the shell of a tortoise or marine creature ; and the essential thing is just this, that the outer case should fit the spirit and the inhabitant, as closely as the shell fits the tortoise. The walls of the temple, its vaults and pillars, its main entrance, its foundations and cupola, should all reflect the deity that dwells within, just as the bones of the skull correspond exactly to the convolutions of the brain.
To the Egyptians their temples were sacred books, their obelisks were sermons by the high road.
Solomon's temple is the Bible in stone ; and so St Peter's at Rome is the transition, in stone, from Catholicism to a kingdom of this world, the first stage of our liberation from monastic fetters.
The mere construction of temples was at all times accompanied Jy so many mystical rites, allegoric ceremonies, and solemn con
"ecrations, that the medieval builders ranked themselves as a kind of religious order, as successors to the builders of Solomon's Temple ; and they formed themselves into secret companies, of 1hich freemasonry was a later development.