In Perm and Vyatka they harness the horses differently - either in single file, or one leader with two wheelers.
My heart beat fast with joy, to see the Russian fashion again.
'Now let us see how fast you can go I ' I said to the lad sitting with a professional air on the box of the sledge. He wore a sheepskin coat with the wool inside, and such stiff gloves that he could hardly bring two fingers together to clutch the coin I offered him.
'Very good, Sir. Gee up, my beauties I ' said the lad. Then he turned to me and said, 'Now, Sir, just you hold on ; there's a hill coming where I shall let the horses go.' The hill was a steep descent to the Volga, along which the track passed in winter.
He did indeed let the horses go. As they galloped down the hill, the sledge, instead of moving decently forwards, banged like a cracker from side to side of the road. The driver was intensely pleased ; and I confess that I, being a Russian, enjoyed it no less.
In this fashion I drove into the year 1838 - the best and brightest year of my life. Let me tell you how I saw the New Year in.
PR I S O N AND E X I L E
2
About eighty versts from Nizhny, my servant Matthew and I went into a post-house to warm ourselves. The frost was keen, and it was windy as well. The post-master, a thin and sickly creature who aroused my compassion, was writing out a way-bill, repeating each letter as he wrote it, and making mistakes all the same. I took off my fur coat and walked about the room in my long fur boots. Matthew warmed himself at the red-hot stove, the postmaster muttered to himself, and the wooden clock on the wall ticked with a feeble, jerky sound.
'Look at the clock, Sir,' Matthew said to me; 'it will strike twelve immediately, and the New Year will begin.' He glanced half-enquiringly at me and then added, 'I shall bring in some of the things they put on the sledge at Vyatka.' Without waiting for an answer, he hurried off in search of the bottles and a parcel.
Matthew, of whom I shall say more in future, was more than a servant - he was my friend, my younger brother. A native of Moscow, he had been handed over to our old friend Sonnenberg, to learn the art of bookbinding, about which Sonnenberg himself knew little enough ; later, he was transferred to my service.
I knew that I should have hurt Matthew by refusing, and I had really no objection myself to making merry in the posthouse. The New Year is itself a stage in life's journey.
He brought in a ham and champagne.
The wine was frozen hard, and the ham was frosted over with ice; we had to chop it with an axe, but a la guerre comme a la guerre.
'A Happy New Year,' we all cried. And I had cause for happiness. I was travelling back in the right direction, and every hour brought me nearer to Moscow - my heart was full of hope.
As our frozen champagne was not much to the taste of the post-master, I poured an equal quantity of rum into his glass ; and this new form of 'half and half' was a great success.
The driver, whom I invited to drink with us, was even more thoroughgoing in his methods : he poured pepper into the foaming wine, stirred it up with a spoon, and drank the glass at one gulp ; then he sighed and added with a sort of groan, 'That was fine and hot.'
The post-master himself helped me into the sledge, and was so
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zealous i n his attentions that h e dropped a lighted candle into the hay and failed to find it afterwards. He was in great spirits and kept repeating, 'A Happy New Year for me too, thanks to you.'
The 'heated' driver touched up the horses, and we started.
3
At eight on the following evening I arrived at Vladimir and stopped at an inn which is described with perfect accuracy in The Tarantas,1 with its queer menu in Russian-French and its vinegar for claret.
'Som�ne was asking for you this morning,' said the waiter, after reading the name on my passport ; 'perhaps he's waiting in the bar now.' The waiter's head displayed that dashing parting and noble curl over the ear which used to be the distinguishing marks of Russian waiters and are now peculiar to them and Prince Louis Napoleon.
I could not guess who this could be.
'But there he is,' added the waiter, standing aside. What I first saw was not a man at all but an immense tray piled high with all sorts of provisions - cake and biscuits, apples and oranges, eggs, almonds and raisins ; then behind the tray came into view the white beard and blue eyes belonging to the bailiff on my father's estate near Vladimir.
'Gavrilo Semenych I ' I cried out, and rushed into his arms. His was the first familiar face, the first link with the past, that I had met since the period of prison and exile began. I could not look long enough at the old man's intelligent face, I could not say enough to him. To me he represented nearness to Moscow, to my home and my friends : he had seen them all three days before and brought me greetings from them all. How could I feel that I was really far from them ?
4
The Governor of Vladimir was a man of the world who had lived long enough to attain a temper of cool indifference. He was a Greek and his name was Kuruta. He took my measure at once and abstained from the least attempt at severity. Office work was never even hinted at - the only duty he asked me to undertake 1. i.e., The Travelling Carriage, a novel by Count Sollogub.
P R I S O N A N D E X I L E
was that I should edit the Provincial Gazette in collaboration with the local schoolmaster.
I was familiar with this business, as I had started the unofficial part of the Gazette at Vyatka. By the way, one article which I published there nearly landed my successor in a scrape. In describing the festival on the Big River, I said that the mutton offered to St Nicholas used to be given away to the poor but was now sold. This enraged the Abbot, and the Governor had some difficulty in pacifying him.
s
Provincial Gazettes were first introduced in the year 1 837· It was Bludov, the Minister of the Interior, who conceived the idea of training in publicity the land of silence and dumbness. Bludov, known as the continuator of Karamzin's History - though he never added a line to it - and as the author of the Report on the Decembrist Revolution - which had better never have been written - was one of those doctrinaire statesmen who came to the front in the last years of Alexander's reign. They were able, educated, honest men ; they had belonged in their youth to the Literary Club of Arzamas ;2 they wrote Russian well, had patriotic feelings, and were so much interested in the history of their country that they had no leisure to bestow on contemporary events. They all worshipped the immortal memory of Karamzin, loved Zhukovsky, knew Krylov 3 by heart, and used to travel to Moscow on purpose to talk to Dmitriyev 4 in his house there. I too used to visit there in my student days ; but I was armed against the old poet by prejudices in favour of romanticism, by my acquaintance with N. Polevoy, and by a secret feeling of dissatisfaction that Dmitriyev, being a poet, should also be Minister of Justice. Though much was expected of them, they did nothing ; but that is the fate of doctrinaires in all countries. Perhaps they would have left more lasting traces behind them if Alexander had lived ; but Alexander died, and they never got beyond the mere wish to do the state some service.