From the very beginning our friendship was to take a serious tone. I do not remember that mischievous pranks \vere our foremost interest, particularly when we were alone. Of course we did not sit stilclass="underline" our age came into its own, and we laughed and played the fool, teased Sonnenberg and played with bows and arrows in our courtyard ; but at the bottom of it all there was something very different from idle companionship. Besides our bt>ing of the same age, besides our 'chemical affinity,' we were united by the faith that bound us. Nothing in the world so purifit>s and ennobles early youth, nothing keeps it so safe as a passionate interest in the whole of humanity. 'We respected our future in ourselves, we looked at each other as 'chosen vessels,'
predestined.
Nick and I often walked out into the country. vVe had our favourite places, the Sparrow Hills, the fields beyond the Dragomilovsky Gate. He would come with Sonnenberg to fetch me at six or seven in the morning, and if I were asleep would throw 1 Ryleye,·, Kondrati Fedorovich ( 1 i95-1 826) , one of the leaders of the Decembrists : he was hanged for his part in the conspiracy. (R.)
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sand and l ittle pebbles at my window. I would wake up smiling and hasten out to him.
These walks had been instituted by the indefatigable Karl Ivanovich.
In the old-fashioned patriarchal education of Ogarev, Sonnenberg plays the part of Biron.2 When he made his appearance the influence of the old male nurse who had looked after the boy was put aside; the discontented oligarchy of the hall were forced against the grain to silence, knowing that there was no overcoming the damned German who fed at the master's table. Sonnenberg made violent changes in the old order of things. The old man who had been nurse positively grew tearful when he learnt that the wretchPd German had taken the young master himself to buy ready-made boots at a shop ! Sonnenberg's revolution, like Peter I's, was distinguished by a military character even in the most peaceful matters. It does not follow from that that Karl Ivanovich's thin little shoulders had ever been adorned with epaulettes; but nature has so made the German that if he does not reach the slovenliness and sans-gene of a philologist or a theologian, he is inevitably of a military mind even though he be a civilian. By virtue of this peculiarity Karl Ivanovich liked tight-fitting clothes, buttoned up and cut with a waist; by virtue of it he was a strict observer of his own rules, and, if he proposed to get up at six o'clock in the morning, he would get Nick up at one minute to six, and in no case later than one minute past, and would go out into the open air with him.
The Sparrow Hills, at the foot of which Karl Ivanovich had been so nearly drowned, soon became our 'sacred hills.'
One day after dinner my father proposed to drive out into the country. Ogarev was with us and my father invited him and Sonnenberg to go too. These expeditions were not a joking ma tter. Before reaching the town gate we had to drive for an hour or more in a four-seated carriage 'built by Joachim,' which had not prevented it from becoming disgracefully shabby in its fifteen years of service, peaceful as they had been, and from being, as it a lways had been, heavier than a siege gun. The four horses of different sizes and colours which had grown fat and lazy in idleness were covered with sweat and foam within a quarter of an hour; the coachman Avdey was forbidden to let this happen, and so had no choice but to drive at a walk. The windows were usually up, however hot it might be ; and with all 2 Biron, favourite of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, was practically ruler of Russia during her reign and designated as successor by her. (Tr.)
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this we had the indifferently oppressive supervision of my father and the restlessly fussy and irritating supervision of Karl Ivanovich. But we gladly put up with everything for the sake of being together.
At Luzhniki we crossed the river Moskva in a boat at the very spot where the Cossack had pulled Karl Ivanovich out of the water. My father walked, bent and morose as a lways; beside him Karl Ivanovich tripped along, entertaining him with gossip and scandal. \Ve went on in front of them, and getting far ahead ran up to the Sparrow Hills at the spot where the first stone of Vitberg's t<>mple was laid.
Flushed and breathless, we stood there mopping our faces. The sun was setting, the cupolas glittered, beneath the hill the city extended farther than the eye could reach; a fresh breeze blew on our faces, we stood leaning against each other and, suddenly embracing, Yowed in sight of all Moscow to sacrifice our lives to the struggle we had chosen.
This scene may strike others as yery affected and theatrical, and yet twenty-six years afterwards I am moved to tears as I recall it; there was a sacred sincerity in it, and our whole life has proved this. But apparently a like destiny defeats all vows made on that spot ; Alexander was sincere, too, when he laid the first stone of that temple,3 which, as Joseph II4 said (although then mistakenly) at the laying of the first stone in some town in Novorossiya, was destined to be the last.
"'e did not know all the strength of the foe with whom we were entering into battle, but we took up the fight. That strength broke much in us, but it was not that strength that shattered us, and we did not surrender to it in spite of all its blovvs. The wounds received from it were honourable. Jacob's strained thigh \Vas the sign that he had wrestled in the night with God.
From that day the Sparrow Hills became a place of worship for us and once or twice a year we went there, and always by ourselves. There, five years later, Ogarev asked me timidly and shyly whether I believed in his poetic talent, and wrote to me afterwards ( 1 833) from his country house: 'I have come away and feel sad, as sad as I have never been before. And it's all the Sparrow Hills. For a long time I hid my enthusiasm in myself; 3 SP!' 'AIP.xander LauPn le,·ich \'itberg.' pp. 1 99-209. (R.) Alexander I laid thP founda tion stone on 1 2Lh October. 1 8 1 7. ( A.S.) 4 Joseph II of Austr·ia paid a famous visit to Catherine II of Russia in 1 780. ( Tr.)
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shyness or something else, I don't myself know what, prevented me from uttering it; but on the Sparrow Hills that enthusiasm was not burdened with solitude: you shared it with me and those moments have been unforgettable; like memories of past happiness they have followed me on my way, while round me I saw nothing but forest; it was all so blue, dark blue, and in my soul was darkness, darkness.
'Write then,' he concluded, 'how in this place' lthat is, on the Sparrow Hills) 'the story of our lives, yours and mine, began to unfold.'5