:l Among the papers sent me from Moscow I found a note in which I informed my cousin who \vas then in the country with the princess that I had taken my d!'grP!'. 'The !'xamination is oYer, and I am a graduate!
You cannot imagine the sweet feeling of freedom after four years of
"·ork. Did you think of me on Thursday? It was a stining day, and the torture lasted from nine in the morning till nine in th!' PYcning.' (26th 1 mw, 1 8B.) I fane�· I adclt•d two hours for effect or to round off the sentrnc!'. But for all my satisfMtion my ,·anity was stung by another studPnt's ( AlexandPr DrashusoY ) winning the gold medal. In a second lettPr of the 6th July. I find : 'To-day was the prizegiYing, but I was not there. I did not care to be the second to receiYe a medal.'
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Some enthusiasm preserves a man from real spills far more than any moral admonitions. I remember youthful orgies, moments of rcvclrv that sometimes went beyond bounds, but I do not remember o"nc really immoral a ffair i;; our circle, nothing of which a man would have to feel seriously ashamed, which he would try to forget and conceal. Everything was done openly, and what is bad is rarely done openly. Half, more than half, of the heart was turned awav from idle sensuality and morbid egoism, which concentrate "on impure thoughts �nd accen tuate vices.
I consider it a great misfortune for a nation when their young generation has no youth ; we have already observed that for this being young is not enough by itself. The most grotesque period of German student life is a hundred times better than the petit bourgeois maturity of young men in France and England. To my mind the elderly Americans of fifteen arc simply repulsive.
In France there was at one time a brilliant aristocratic youth, and latc>r on a revolutionary youth. All the Saint-Justs4 and HochPs,5 Marceaux" and Dc>smoulins," t}w heroic children who grew up on the> gloomy poetry of Jean-Jacques, were real youths.
The Rc>volution was the work of young men: neither Danton nor Robespi<>rre nor Louis XIV himsPlf outliw'd his thirty-fifth year. vVith Napoleon the young men were turnPd into orderlies ;
\vith the Restoration. 'the revival of old age'-youth was utterly incompatible-everything became mature, businesslike, that is, petit bourgeois.
The last vouth of France \YPre the Saint-Simonists and the Fouricrists. The few exceptions cannot alter the prosaically dull character of French youth. Escousse and Lebras7 shot themsPlvcs because they were young in a socictv of old mPn. Others 4 Louis de Saint-Just ( 1 767-94) was a mC'mhPr of thP ConvPntion and the Committee of Public Safety. a follower of nohPspierre and beheaded with him at the age of twenty-se,·en. ( Tr.) 5 Lazare Hoch<> ( 1 768-97) and Franc;ois-Se,·erin ;\larceau ( 1 769-96) , were generals of the FrPnch Revolutionary Army. Both wen' engagC'd in the pacification of La Vendee. Both pcrished before reaching the age of thiPtv. ( Tr.)
6 Ca�ille Desmoulins ( 1 760-9·�) was one of the earlv leaders of thC'
French Revolution. and IH•aded the a ttack on thP Bastifle; he was afterwards accused of bC'ing a 1\todcrnte and beheaded together with Danton at the age of thirty-four. (Tr.)
7 Victor Escousse (b. 1 8 1 3 ) and Auguste Lcbras (h. 1 8 1 6) were poets who wrote in collaboration a successful play. Farruck lc Maurc. followed by an unsuccessful one caller! Ra)·mond. On the failur£' of the latter they committed suicide in 1 832. Beranger wrote a poem on them. (Tr. )
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struggled like fish thrown out of the water on to the muddy bank, till some were caught on the barricades and others on the hooks of the Jesuits.
But, since youth asserts its rights, the greater number of young Frenchmen work off their youth in a Bohemian period ; that is, if they have no money, they live in little cafes with little grisettes in the Quartier Latin, and in grand cafes with grand lorettes, if they have money. Instead of a Schiller period, they have a Paul de Kock period; in this strength, energy, evclass="underline" !rything young is rJ.pidly and rather wretchedly wasted and the man is ready-for a commis in a commercial house. The Bohemian period leaves at the bottom of the soul one passion only-the thirst for money, and the whole future is sacrificed to it-there are no other interests ; these practical people laugh at theoretical questions and despise women (the result of numerous conquests over those whose trade it is to be conquered) . As a rule the Bohemian period is passed under the guidance of some worn-out sinner, a faded celebrity, d'un vieux prostituc, lh·ing at someone else's expense, an actor who has lost his voice, or a painter whose hands tremble, and he is the model who is imitated in accent, in dress, and above all in a haughty view of human affairs and a profound understanding of good fare.
In England the Bohemian period is replan•d by a paroxysm of pleasing originalities and amiable eccentricities. For instance, senseless tricks, absurd squandering of money, ponderous practical jokes, heavy. but carefully concealed vice, profitlE'ss trips to Calabria or Quito, to the north and to the south-with horses, dogs, races, and stuffy dinners by the way. and then a wife and an incredible number of fat, rosy babies ; business transactions, The Times, Parliament, and the old port which weighs them to the earth.
We played prank,, too. and we carou,ed, but thP funrlamPntal tone was not the same, the diapason was too elevated. Mischief and dissipation never became our goal. Our goal was faith in our vocation; supposing that we were mistaken, still, believing it as a fact, \Ve respected in ourselves and in each other the instruments of the common cause.
And in ,vhat did our feasts and orgies consist/ Suddenly it
\vould occur to us that in anotlwr two dnys it would he the sixth of December, St. Nicholas's day. Tlw supply of Nikolays was t<>rrific Nikolay Ogari_;v, N i kolay Satin, N ikolay Kctscher, i\' i kolav Sa zonov . . . .
'Gentlemen, who is going to celebrate the name-day?'
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'I ! I ! . . .'
'I shall the next day then.'
'That's all nonsense, what's the good of the next day? We will keep it in common-club together! And what a feast it will be! '
'Yes! yes! A t whose rooms are w e to meet?'
'Satin is ill, so obviously it must be at his.'
And so plans and calculations are made, and it is incredibly absorbing for the future guests and hosts. One N ikolay drives ·off to the Yar to order supper, another to Materne's for cheese and salami. Wine, of course, is bought in the Petrovka from Depre's, on whose price-list Ogarev wrote the epigram:
De pres ou de loin,
Mais je fournis toujours.
Our inexperienced taste went no further than champagne, and was so young that we sometimes even exchanged Rivesaltes mousseux for champagne. I once saw the name on a wine-list in Paris, remembered 1 833 and ordered a bottle, but, alas, even my memories did not help me to drink more than one glass.