Trlrscopr was takPn h�fon• \'igl'l's delation. Pushkin's epigram begins
'Curs<•d town of Kishiner.' ( A .S.)
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interviewed him and made a report, that is, gave out over their signature fifty-two false statements by the command of His Majesty-an intelligent and moral proceeding. It was they of course who were punished. Chaadayev looked with profound contempt on these tricks of the truly insane arbitrariness of power. Neither the doctor nor the politsmeyster ever hinted at what they had come for.
I had seen Chaadayev once before my exile. It was on the very day of Ogarev's arrest. I have mentioned already that on that day there was a dinner party at M. F. Orlov's. All the guests were assembled when a man, bowing coldly, walked into the room. His unusual appearance, handsome, with a striking air of independence, was bound to attract everyone's attention. Orlov took me by the hand and introduced me: it was Chaadayev. I remember little of that first meeting; I had no thoughts to spare for him ; he was as always cold, grave, clever, and malicious.
After dinner Madame Rayevsky, Orlov's mother-in-law, said to me:
'How is it you are so sad? Oh you young people! I don't know what has come over you in these days.'
'Then you do think,' said Chaadayev, 'that there still are young people in these days?'
That is all that has remained in my memory.
On my return to Moscow I made friends with him and from the time until I went away we were on the best of terms.
Chaadayev's melancholy and peculiar figure stood out sharply like a mournful reproach against the faded and dreary background of Moscow 'high life. ' 1 6 I liked looking at him among the tawdry aristocracy, feather-brained Senators, grey-headed scapegraces, and venerable nonentities. However dense the crowd, the eye found him at once. The years did not mar his graceful figure; he was very scrupulous in his dress, his pale, delicate face was completely motionless v�<·hen he was silent, as though made of wax or of marble-'a forehead like a bare skull,'1i -his greyblue eyes were melancholy and at the same time there was something kindly in them, though his thin lips smiled ironically.
For ten years he stood with folded arms, by a column, by a tree on the boulevard, in drawing-rooms and theatres, at the club and, an embodied veto, a living protest, gazed at the vortex of faces senselessly whirling round him. He became whimsical and 16 In English. (R.)
l i From Pushkin"s Polkovodets. (A.S.)
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eccentric, held himself aloof from society, yet could not leaYe it a ltogether, then uttered his message, which he had quietly concealed, just as in his features he concealed passion under a skin of ice. Then he was silent again, again showed himself whimsical, dissatisfied, irritated ; again he was an oppressive influence in Moscow society, and again he could not leave it. Old and young alike were awkward and ill at ease with him; they were abashed, God knows why, by his immobile face, his direct gaze, his mournful mockery, his malignant condescension. VVhat made them receive him, invite him . . . still more, visit him? It is a very difficult question.
Chaadayev was not wealthy, particularly in his later years; he was not eminent-a retired captain of cavalry with the iron Kulm crossl8 on his breast. It is true, as Pushkin writes, that he would
In Rome have been a Brutus,
In Athens Pericles,
But here, under the roke of Tsars,
Was only Captain of Hussars.19
Acquaintance with him could only compromise a man in the eyes of the ruling police. To what did he owe his influence? Why did the 'swells' of the English Club, and the patricians of Tverskoy Boulevard flock on Mondays to his modest little study in Old Basmannaya Street? VVhy did fashionable ladies gaze at the cell of the morose thinker? Why did generals who knew nothing about civilian affairs feel obliged to call upon the old man, to pretend awkwardly to be people of culture, and brag afterwards, garbling some phrase of Chaadayev's uttered at their expense? Why did I meet at Chaadayev's the savage Tolstoy 'the American,' and the savage Adjutant-General Shipov who destroyed culture in Poland?
Chaadayev not only made no compromise with them, but worried them and made them feel very clearly the difference between himself and them.2° Of course these people went to see I A It was not this decoration that Chaadayev received after thL• battle of Kulm, but the order of St Anna, fourth class. ( A .S. ) 19 A misquotation from Pushkin's lines 'To a Portrait of Chaadaye,·.'
( A .S. )
20 Chaadayev was often at the English Club. On one occasion Menshikov, Minister of 1\:aval Affairs, went up to him with the words: 'How is it, Petr Yakovlevich. you don't recognise your old acquaintances?' 'Oh, it is you.' answered Chaadayev. 'I really had not recognised you. But how is
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him and invited him to their gatherings from vanity, but that is not what matters; what is important is the involuntary recognition that thought had become a power, that it had its honoured place in spite of His Majesty's command. In so far as the authority of the 'insane' Captain Chaadayev was recognized, the 'insane' power of Nicholas Pavlovich was diminished.
Chaadayev had his eccentricities, his weaknesses: he was embittered and spoilt. I know no society less indulgent, or more exclusive than that of Moscow; it is just that which gives i t. a provincial flavour and reminds one that its culture is of recent growth. How could a solitary man of fifty who had been deprived of almost all his friends, who had lost his property, who lived a great deal in thought, and had suffered many mortifications, fail to have his whims and habits?
Chaadayev had been Vasilchikov's adjutant at the time of the celebrated Semenovsky affair.21 The Tsar was at the time, if I remember right, at Verona or Aachen for a congress. Vasilchikov sent Chaadayev to him with a report and he was somehow or other an hour or two behind time, and arrived later than a courier sent by the Austrian ambassador Lebzeltern. The Tsar, annoyed at the news, and at that time completely influenced towards reaction by Metternich, who was delighted at the news of the Semenovsky affair, received Chaadayev very harshly, reprimanded him, lost his temper and then, recovering himself, directed that he should be offered the post of an Imperial adjutant ; Chaadayev declined the honour and asked only one favour-his discharge. Of course this was not liked, but he received his discharge.
Chaadayev was in no haste to return to Russia; on relinquishing his gold-laced uniform he devoted himsl"lf to study. Alexander died-the Fourteenth of December came-Chaadayev's it you are wearing a black collar? I fancy that you used to wear a rt'd one.' '\\'hy, don't you know I am Minister of Naval Affairs?" 'You! why.
I imagine you have never steert'd a boa t.' 'You don't net'd much wit to bake a pot, you know,' answered l\IenshikO\·, a little bit displt'ased. 'Oh, well, if it is on that principle . . . .' answert'd Chaadaye,·.
A Senator was complaining vehemently of being \·cry busy. '\Yith what?' asked Chaadaye\'. 'Upon my soul. the m(•re reading of papers and files!' and the Senator made a gesture indicating a pile a yard from the floor. 'But you don't read them?' 'Oh yes, son)('tinH'S I do. quite a lot; and besides, it is often necessary to gin• my opinion on them.'