"When once I had left Petersburg I could not come back again; corresponding with these gentry is a difficult business. I communicated some of my doubts to Dubelt; he began frowning, that is, grinning more than ever with his lips and screwing up his eyes.
'General,' I said in conclusion, 'I do not know, but the fact is I do not even feel certain that Strogonov's representation reached the Tsar.'
Dubelt rang the bell and ordered the file about me to be brought. 'Vhile waiting for it he said to me goodnaturedly: The Count and I are suggesting to you the course of proceeding by which we think you most likely to get your passport; if you have more certain mt>ans at your disposal, make use of them; you may be sure that we shall not hinder you.'
'Leonty Vasilevich is perfectly right,' observed a sepulchral voice. I turned round; beside me, looking older and more greyheaded than ever, stood Sakhtynsky, who had received me five years before at the same Third Division. 'I advise you to be guided by his opinion if you want to go.'
I thanked him.
'And here's the file,' said Dubelt, taking a thick writing-book from the hands of a clerk (\\·hat would I not have given to read the whole of it! In 1 R50 I saw my dossier in Carlier's office in Paris; it would have been interesting to compare them ) . After rummaging in it he handed it to me open ; there was Benckendorf's report after Strogonov's letter petitioning for permission for me to go for six months to a watering-place in Germany. In the margin was written in big letters in penciclass="underline" 'Too soon.' The pencil marks were glazed over with varnish, and below was written in ink: ' "Too soon" written by the hand of his Imperial Majesty.-Count A. Benckendorf.'�
2 Benchndorf"s report to the Tsar of i April 1 843. contained the solicila·
tion of S. G. StrogonO\·. then \\"arden of :\Ioscow University, that H.
might he permitted. in consequence of his wife's illness, to go to Italy for some months. The report is endorsed in the hand of Nicholas I :
'prregororim'-'Let us talk i t on•r'. and there i s a postscript by Bencken-
Moscow, Petersburg and Novgorod
31 1
'Do you believe me now?' asked Dubelt.
'Yes, I do,' I answered, 'and I am so sure of your words that I shall go to Moscow to-morrow.'
'Well, you can stay and amuse yourself here a little; the police will not worry you now, and before you go away look in, and I'll tell them to show you the letter to Shcherbatov. Good-bye. Bon voyage, if we don't meet again.'
'A pleasant journey,' added Sakhtynsky.
We parted, as you see, on friendly terms.
On reaching home I found an invitation, from the superintendent of the Second Admiralty Police Station I believe it was. He asked me when I was going.
'To-morrow evening.'
'Upon my word, but I believe, I thought . . . the general said to-day. His Excellency will put it off, of course. But will you allow me to make certain of it?'
'Oh yes, oh yes; by the way, give me a permit.'
'I will write it in the police station and send it to you in two hours' time. By what convenience are you thinking of going?'
'The Serapinsky, if I can get a seat.'
'Very good, and if you do not succeed in getting a seat kindly let us know.'
'With pleasure.'
In the evening a policeman turned up again; the superintendent sent to tell me that he could not give me the permit, and that I must go at eight o'clock next morning to the oberpolitsmcyster's.
What a plague and what a bore ! I did not go at eight o'clock, but in the course of the morning I looked in at the office of the oberpolitsmeyster. The police station superintendent was there; he said to me:
'You cannot go away: there is a paper from the Third Division.'
'What has happened?'
'I don't know. The general gave orders you were not to be given a permit.'
'Does the director know?'
'Of course he knows,' and he pointed out to me a colonel in uniform and wearing a sword sitting at a big table in another room; I asked him what was the matter.
'To be sure,' he said, 'there was a paper, and here it is.' He dorf: 'ne po::volyayet'-'He does not gl\ e leave'; the document was countersigned by Dubelt on 9 April 1 843. (A.S.)
M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S
3 1 2
read i t through and handed it t o me. Dubelt wrote that I had a perfect right to come to Petersburg and could remain as long as I liked.
'And is that why you \von't let me go? Excuse me, I can't help laughing; yesterday the oberpolitsmerster was chasing me away against my will, to-day he is keeping me against my will, and all this on the ground that the document gives me leave to remain as long as / like.'
The absurdity \Vas so evident that even the colonel-secretary laughed.
'But why should I throw money away, paying for a place in the diligence t\vice over? Please tell them to write me a permit.'
'I cannot, but I will go and inform the general.'
Kokoshkin ordered them to write me a permit, and as he walked through the office said to me reproachfully: 'It's beyond anything. First you want to stay, then you want to go ; why, you have bePn told that you can stay.'
I made no answer.
V\·hen we had driven out of the city gates in the evening and I sa\v once more the endless plain stretching away towards the Four Hands,3 I looked at the sky and vowed with all my heart never to return to that city of the despotism of blue, green, and variegated police, of official muddle, of flunkeyish insolence, of gendarme romance, in which the only civil man was Dubelt, and he chief of the Third Division.
Shcherbatov ans\vered Orlov reluctantly. He had at that time a secretary who was not a colonel but a pietist, who because of my articles hated me as an 'atheist and Hegt>lian.' I went myself to deal with him. The pious secn•tan•. in an oily voice and \Vith Christian unction, told me that the Governor-General knew nothing about nw, that h(' did not doubt my lofty moral qualities, but that he would have to make inquiries of the oberpolitsmcntcr. He want('d to drag the business out; moreover, this gentleman did not take bribes. In the Russian servicp disintereste(l men are the most frightful of all; the only ones who do not take' bribes in all simplicity an• Germans; if a Russian does not take mmwy hP will takP it out in something else. and from such villains God spare us. FortunatPly obcrpolitsmcntcr Luzhin gave mP a good charact(•r.
On rPturuing home ten days later I bumped into a g('ndarme 3 ThP name of the first stagP·post on the way from PetPrsburg to !\loscow. A sign-post stood at the cross-roads indicating the directions of
;\1oscow. Tsarskoye SP!o. Peterhof and PPtersburg. ( A .S. )
Moscow, Petersburg and Novgorod
31 3
at my door. The appearance of a police-officer in Russia is as bad as a tile falling on one's head, and therefore it was not without a particularly unpleasant feeling that I waited to hear what he had to say to me; he handed me an envelope. Count Orlov informed me of his Imperial Majesty's command that I should be relieved from police supervision. Together with this I received the right to a foreign passport.
Rejoice with me, for I am free at last!