2. Zhukovsky and Pushkin both belonged to this dub. It carried on a campaign against Shishkov and other opponents of the new developments in Russian style.
3· Krylov (1768-1844), the famous writer of fables.
4· Dmitriyev, a poet once famous, who lived long enough to welcome Pushkin.
268
C H I L DH O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
At Monaco there is a monument to one of their Princes with this inscription. 'Here rests Prince Florestan' - I forget his number
- 'who wished to make his subjects happy.' Our doctrinaires also wished to make Russia happy, but they reckoned without their host. I don't know who prevented Florestan ; but it was our Florestan 5 who prevented them. They were forced to take a part in the steady deterioration of Russia, and all the reforms they could introduce were useless, mere alterations of forms and names.
Every Russian in authority considers it his highest duty to rack his brains for some novelty of this kind ; the change is generally for the worse and sometimes leaves things exactly as they were.
Thus the name of 'secretary' has given place to a Russian equivalent in the public offices of the provinces, but the duties are not changed. I remember how the Minister of Justice put forward a proposal for necessary changes in the uniform of civilian officials.
It began with great pomp and circumstance - 'Having taken special notice of the lack of uniformity in the cut and fashion of certain uniforms worn by the civilian department, and having adopted as a principle . . . ', etc.
Beset by this itch for novelty the Minister of the Interior made changes with regard to the officers who administer justice in the rural districts. The old judges lived in the towns and paid occasional visits to the country ; their successors have their regular residence in the country and pay occasional visits to the towns. By this reform all the peasants came under the immediate scrutiny of the police. The police penetrated into the secrets of the peasant's commerce and wealth, his family life, and all the business of his community ; and the village community had been hitherto the last refuge of the people's life. The only redeeming feature is this - there are many villages and only two judges to a district.
6
About the same time the same Minister excogitated the Provincial Gazettes. Our Government, while utterly contemptuous of education, makes pretensions to be literary; and whereas, in England, for example, there are no Government newspapers at all, every public department in Russia publishes its own organ, and so does the Academy, and so do the Universities. We have papers to rep-5· i.e., the Emperor Nicholas.
P R I S O N A N D E X I L E
z6g
resent the mining interest and the pickled-herring interest, the interests of Frenchmen and Germans, the marine interest and the land-carriage interest, all published at the expense of Government.
The different departments contract for articles, just as they contract for fire-wood and candles, the only difference being that in the former case there is no competition ; there is no lack of general surveys, invented statistics, and fanciful conclusions based on the statistics. Together with a monopoly in everything else, the Government has assumed a monopoly of nonsense ; ordering everyone to be silent, it chatters itself without ceasing. In continuation of this system, Bludov ordered that each provincial Government should publish its own Gazette, and that each Gazette should include, as well as the official news, a department for history, literature and the like.
No sooner said than done. In fifty provincial Governments they were soon tearing their hair over this unofficial part. Priests from the theological seminaries, doctors of medicine, schoolmasters, anyone who was suspected of being able to spell correctly - all these were pressed into the service. These recruits reflected, read up the leading newspapers and magazines, felt nervous, took the plunge, and finally produced their little articles.
To see oneself in print is one of the strongest artificial passions of an age corrupted by books. But it requires courage, nevertheless, except in special circumsances, to venture on a public exhibition of one's productions. People who would not have dreamed of publishing their articles in the Moscow Gazette or the Petersburg newspapers, now began to print their writings in the privacy of their own houses. Thus the dangerous habit of possessing an organ of one's own took root, and men became accustomed to publicity. And indeed it is not a bad thing to have a weapon which is always ready for use. A printing press, like the human tongue, has no bones.
7
My colleague in the editorship had taken his degree at Moscow University and in the same faculty as myself. The end of his life was too tragical for me to speak of him with a smile ; but, down to the day of his death, he was an exceedingly absurd figure. By no means stupid, he was excessively clumsy and awkward. His exceptional ugliness had no redeeming feature, and there was an
270
C H I L D H O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
abnormal amount o f it. His face was nearly twice as large a s most people's and marked by small-pox ; he had the mouth of a codfish which spread from ear to ear ; his light-grey eyes were lightened rather than shaded by colourless eye-lashes ; his scalp had a meagre covering of bristly hair ; he was moreover taller by a head than mysel£,6 with a slouching figure and very slovenly habits.
His very name was such that it once caused him to be arrested.
Late one evening, wrapped up in his overcoat, he was walking past the Governor's residence, with a field-glass in his hand. He stopped and aimed the glass at the heavens. This astonished the sentry, who probably reckoned the stars as Government property : he challenged the rapt star-gazer - 'Who goes there ?'
'Nebaba,' 7 answered my colleague in a deep bass voice, and gazed as before.
'Don't play the fool with me - I'm on duty,' said the sentry.
'I tell you that I am Nebaba ! '
The soldier's patience was exhausted : he rang the bell, a sergeant appeared, the sentry handed the astronomer over to him, to be taken to the guard-room. 'They'll find out there,' as he said,
'whether you're a woman or not.' And there he would certainly have stayed till the morning, had not the officer of the day recognised him.
8
One morning Nebaba came to my room to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then he added, with some confusion, 'I shall not return alone.' 'Do you mean that . . . ? '
'Yes, I am going to be married,' he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen and, if no beauty, pretty enough, with lively eyes ; and then I thought him the hero.