Chapter 23: 12

THE THIRD OF MARCH AND THE NINTH OF MAY 1838

In the morning I wrote letters; when I had finished we sat down to dinner. I could not eat, we said nothing, I felt unbearably oppressed—it was between four and five, at seven the horses were to come round. At the same time next day he would be in Moscow while I—and every minute my pulse beat faster.

‘I say,’ I said at last to my brother, looking at my plate, ‘will you take me with you to Moscow?’

He put down his fork and looked at me uncertain whether he had heard me aright.

‘Take me through the town gate as your servant, I want nothing more, do you agree?’

‘Yes if you like, only, you know, afterwards you’ll....’

It was too late, his ‘if you like’ was already in my blood, in my brain. The idea that had only flashed upon me a minute before had now taken deep root.

‘What is there to discuss, anything may happen—and so you’ll take me?’

‘Of course—I don’t mind—only....’

I jumped up from the table.

‘Are you going?’ asked Matvey, anxious to put in a word.

‘I am,’ I answered in such a tone that he said no more. ‘I’ll be back the day after to-morrow, if any one comes tell them I have a headache and am asleep, in the evening light the candles, and now get me my linen and my bag.’

The bells were tinkling in the yard.

‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes, and so good luck to us.’

By dinner-time next day the bells ceased tinkling, we were at Ketscher’s door. I bade them call him out. A week before, when he had left me in Vladimir, there had been no idea of my coming, and hence he was so surprised on seeing me that at first he did not say a word and then went off into a peal of laughter: but soon looked anxious and led me indoors. When we were in his room he first carefully locked the door and then asked me: ‘What has happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I couldn’t stay in Vladimir, I want to see Natalie—that’s all, and you must arrange it, and this very minute, because I must be back at home by to-morrow.’

Ketscher looked into my face and raised his eyebrows.

‘What folly, the devil knows what to call it, to come like this with no need and nothing prepared! Have you written, have you fixed a time?’

‘I have written nothing.’

‘Upon my word, my boy, but what are we to do with you? It’s beyond anything, it’s raving madness!’

‘That’s just the point, that you must think what to do without losing a minute.’

‘You’re a fool,’ said Ketscher with conviction, raising his eyebrows higher than ever. ‘I should be glad, very glad indeed, if it were a failure, it would be a lesson to you.’

‘And rather a long lesson if I am caught. Listen: as soon as it is dark we’ll go to the princess’s house, you shall call some one out into the road, one of the servants, I’ll tell you which—and then we’ll see what to do. What do you say to that?’

‘Well, there’s no help for it, we’ll go, we’ll go; but I should like you not to succeed in seeing her! Why on earth didn’t you write yesterday?’—and Ketscher, pulling his broad-brimmed hat over his brows with an air of dignity, threw on a black cloak lined with red.

‘Oh, you hateful grumbler!’ I said to him as we went out, and Ketscher, laughing heartily, repeated: ‘But really it’s enough to make a hen laugh, to come like this without sending a word; it’s beyond anything.’

I could not stay at Ketscher’s—he lived terribly far away, and his mother had visitors that day. He took me to an officer of hussars whom he knew to be an honourable man, and who, having never been mixed up with political affairs, was not under police supervision. The officer, a man with long moustaches, was sitting at dinner when we went in; Ketscher told him what we had come about. The officer in reply poured me out a glass of red wine and thanked us for the confidence we put in him; then he took me into his bedroom, which was adorned with saddles and saddle-cloths so that one might have supposed that he slept on horseback.

‘Here is a room for you,’ he said; ‘no one will disturb you here.’ Then he called his orderly, a hussar, and told him not to let any one go into that room on any pretext. I found myself again under the guardianship of a soldier, with this difference, that at the Krutitsky Barracks the gendarme had been keeping me from all the world, while here the hussar was keeping all the world from me.

When it was quite dark, Ketscher and I set off. My heart beat violently when I saw again the familiar streets and houses which I had not seen for nearly four year.... Kuznetsky Bridge, Tversky Boulevard ... and here was Ogaryov’s house; they had clapped an immense heraldic crest on it and it looked different. In the lower storey, where we spent such happy youthful days, a tailor was living.... Here was Povarsky Street—I held my breath: in the corner window of the little room there was a candle burning, that was her room, she was writing to me, she was thinking of me, the candle twinkled so gaily, it seemed twinkling _to me_.

While we were considering how best to call some one out into the street, one of the princess’s young footmen ran out towards us.

‘Arkady,’ I said as he reached us. He did not recognise me. ‘How is this,’ I said, ‘don’t you know your own people?’

‘Oh, is it you?’ he cried.

I put my finger on my lips and said: ‘If you would like to do me a friendly service, deliver this little note at once, as quickly as you can, through Sasha or Kostinka, do you understand? We will wait for the answer round the corner, and don’t breathe a word to any one of having seen me in Moscow.’

‘Don’t be uneasy, we’ll do it all instantly,’ answered Arkady, and he skipped back into the house.

We walked up and down the side-street for about half an hour before a little, thin, old woman came out, flustered and looking about her; this was that same brisk servant girl who in 1812 had begged the French soldiers for ‘_manger_’ for me; we had called her Kostinka ever since I was a child. The old woman took my face in both hands and showered kisses upon it.

‘So you’ve flown to see us,’ she said. ‘Ah, you headstrong boy, when will you learn sense, you foolish darling?—and you’ve given our young lady such a fright that she almost fainted.’

‘And have you a note for me?’

‘Yes, yes, he is impatient,’ and she gave me a scrap of paper.

A few words had been scribbled in pencil with a trembling hand: ‘My God, can it be true—you, here! To-morrow between five and six in the morning I will expect you. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it! surely it must be a dream!’

The hussar again put me into his orderly’s keeping. At half-past five next morning I stood leaning against a lamp-post, waiting for Ketscher, who had gone in at the side-gate of the princess’s house. I will not attempt to describe what was passing in me while I waited at the lamp-post; such moments remain one’s own secret because there are no words for them.

Ketscher beckoned to me. I went in at the little gate, a boy who had grown up since I left showed me in with a friendly smile, and here I was in the hall which at one time I used to enter yawning, though now I was ready to fall on my knees and kiss every plank on the floor. Arkady led me into the drawing-room and went out. I sank exhausted on the sofa, my heart throbbed so violently that it hurt me, and besides I was frightened. I linger over my story for the sake of spending longer over these memories, though I see that my words give a poor idea of them.

She came in all in white, dazzlingly lovely; three years of separation and the struggles she had been through had given the finishing touches to her features and her expression.

‘This is you,’ she said in her soft, gentle voice.

We sat down on the sofa and remained silent.

The expression of joy in her eyes almost approached suffering. I suppose when the feeling of happiness reaches its highest point it is mingled with an expression of pain, for she said to me: ‘How exhausted you look!’

I held her hand, she leaned her head on the other, and there was no need for us to talk ... a few brief phrases, two or three reminiscences, words from our letters, some idle remarks about Arkady, about the hussar, about Kostinka, that was all.

Then the old woman came in, saying that it was time for me to go, and I got up without protesting, and she did not try to keep me ... our hearts were so full, all thoughts of more or less, of shorter or longer, all vanished before the fullness of the present....

When we had passed the town gate, Ketscher asked: ‘Well, have you settled anything?’

‘Nothing.’

‘But you talked to her?’

‘Not a word about that.’

‘Does she consent?’

‘I didn’t ask, of course she consents.’

‘Well, upon my soul, you behave like a child, or a lunatic,’ observed Ketscher, raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders with indignation.

‘I’ll write to her and then to you, and now, good-bye. Now drive ahead full speed!’

It was thawing, the spongy snow was black in places, the endless white plain lay on both sides, little villages flashed by with their smoke, then the moon rose and shed a different light on everything; I was alone with the driver and kept looking out, yet all the while was there with her, and the road and the moon and the fields were somehow mixed up with the princess’s drawing-room. And, strange to say, I remembered every word uttered by the nurse, by Arkady, even by the maid who had led me out to the gate, but what I had said to her and what she had said to me I could not remember!

Two months were spent in making arrangements. I had to borrow money, and to get her baptismal certificate; it appeared that the princess had taken it. One of my friends—swearing, bribing, treating policemen and clerks—succeeded by all sorts of false statements in getting another from the Consistory.

When everything was ready, we, that is Matvey and I, set off.

At dawn on the eighth of May we were at the last posting-station before Moscow. The drivers had gone to get horses. The air was heavy, there were drops of rain, and it seemed as though a storm were coming on; I remained in the covered chaise and hurried on the driver. Some one spoke near me in a strange, high, sing-song voice. I turned round and saw a pale, thin girl of about sixteen, in rags and with her hair hanging about her; she was begging. I gave her some small silver coin, she laughed seeing it, but instead of going away clambered on to the box of the chaise, turned towards me and began muttering half-coherent sentences, looking straight into my face; her eyes were clouded and pitiful, wisps of hair fell over her face. Her sickly face, her unintelligible mutterings, together with the light of early morning, aroused a sort of nervous uneasiness in me.

‘She’s crazy, you know, that is, she is simple,’ observed the driver. ‘And where are you poking yourself? I’ll give you a lash with the whip and then you’ll know! Upon my soul, I will, you shameless hussy!’

‘Why are you scolding, what have I done to you—here your master’s given me a silver bit, and what harm have I done you?’

‘Well, he’s given it to you, and so be off to your devils in the forest.’

‘Take me with you,’ added the girl, looking piteously at me, ‘do, really, take me....’

‘To put you in a show in Moscow as a freak, some sea monster,’ observed the driver. ‘Come, get down, we’re just off.’

The girl made no attempt to move, but kept looking pitifully at me. I begged the driver not to hurt her, he lifted her gently under his arm and set her on the ground. She burst out crying and I was ready to cry with her.

Why had this creature crossed my path just on that day, just as I was driving into Moscow? I thought of Kozlov’s ‘Mad Girl,’ and she, too, had been met near Moscow.

We drove off, the air was full of electricity, unpleasantly heavy and warm. A dark blue storm-cloud with grey streamers reaching to the earth was slowly trailing over the fields, and all at once a zig-zag of lightning ran slanting through it, there was a clap of thunder and the rain came down in torrents. We were nearly seven miles from the Rogozhsky Gate and after reaching Moscow had an hour’s drive to the Dyevitchy field. We reached A——’s, where Ketscher was to wait for me, literally without a dry thread on us.

Ketscher was not there. He was at the bedside of a dying woman, E. D. Levashev. This woman was one of those marvellous products of Russian life which reconcile one to it, one of those types whose whole existence is an heroic feat, unseen by any but a small circle of friends. How many tears she had wiped away, how much comfort she had brought to more than one broken heart, of how many young lives she had been the support, and how much she had suffered herself! ‘She spent herself in love,’ Tchaadayev, one of her closest friends, who dedicated his celebrated letter about Russia to her, said to me.

Ketscher could not leave her; he wrote that he would come about nine o’clock. I was alarmed by this news. A man absorbed by a great passion is a dreadful egoist; in Ketscher’s absence I could see nothing but an obstacle in my path.... When it struck nine, when the bells began ringing for evening service and then another quarter of an hour passed, I was overcome by feverish anxiety and cowardly despair.... Half-past nine—no, he would not come, the sick woman was probably worse, what was I to do? I could not remain in Moscow, one incautious word from the maid or the old nurse in the princess’s house would give everything away. To go back was possible, but I felt I had not the strength to go back.

At a quarter to ten Ketscher appeared in a straw hat with the drowsy face of a man who has not slept all night. I rushed up to him and as I embraced him showered reproaches upon him. Ketscher, frowning, looked at me and asked: ‘Why, isn’t half an hour enough to get from A——’s to Povarsky Street? I might have been gossiping with you here for an hour, and I daresay it would have been very nice, but I could not bring myself to leave a dying friend sooner than I need for the sake of that. She sends you her greetings,’ he added, ‘she blessed me with her dying hand, hoping for the success of our enterprise, and gave me a warm shawl in case of need.’ The dying woman’s greetings were particularly precious to me. The warm shawl was very useful in the night, and I had no time to thank her nor to press her hand ... soon afterwards she died.

Ketscher and A—— set off. Ketscher was to drive out of the town with Natalie, while A—— was to come back and tell me whether everything had gone off successfully and what I was to do. I was left waiting with his charming and delightful wife; she had herself only lately been married, and, being an ardent, passionate nature, she took the warmest interest in our enterprise. She tried with feigned gaiety to assure me that everything was going splendidly, though she was herself so fretted by anxiety that her face was continually changing. We sat together in the window and conversation did not flow easily; we were like children shut up in an empty room as a punishment. Two hours passed in this way.

There is nothing in the world more shattering, more unendurable than inactivity and suspense at such moments. Friends make a great mistake in taking the whole burden off the shoulders of the principal _patient_. They ought to invent duties for him if there are none, to overwhelm him with physical exertions, to distract his mind with work and arrangements.

At last A—— came in, we rushed to meet him.

‘Everything is going gloriously, I saw them gallop off,’ he shouted to us from the yard. ‘You go at once out at the Rogozhsky Gate, there by the little bridge you will see the horses not far from Perov’s restaurant. Good luck to you! And change your cab half-way, so that your second cabman may not know where you have come from.’

I flew like an arrow from the bow.... And here was the little bridge not far from Perov’s; there was no one there, and on the other side of the bridge, too, there was no one. I drove as far as the Izmailovsky Menagerie, there was no one. I dismissed the cabman and went forward on foot. Walking backwards and forwards, at last I saw on another road a carriage of some sort. A handsome young coachman was standing by it. ‘Has a tall gentleman in a straw hat driven by here,’ I asked him, ‘and not alone, with a young lady?’

‘I have seen no one,’ the coachman answered reluctantly.

‘With whom did you come here?’

‘With gentlefolks.’

‘What is their name?’

‘What is that to you?’

‘What a fellow you are really, if it was nothing to do with me, I should not be asking you.’

The coachman gave me a searching look and smiled—apparently my appearance disposed him more favourably to me.

‘If you have business with them then you ought to know their names yourself.’

‘You are a regular flint; well, I want a gentleman named Ketscher.’

The coachman smiled again, and pointing towards the graveyard said: ‘There, do you see something black in the distance? That’s himself, and the young lady is with him; she did not bring her hat, so Mr. Ketscher gave her his, luckily it was a straw one.’

Again this time we met in a graveyard!

With a faint cry she flung herself on my neck.

‘And it’s for ever!’ she cried.

‘For ever,’ I repeated. Ketscher was touched, tears gleamed in his eyes, he took our hands and in a trembling voice said, ‘Friends, be happy!’ We embraced him. This was our real wedding!

For over an hour we waited in the private dining-room of Perov’s restaurant, and still the carriage and Matvey did not come! Ketscher frowned. The possibility of trouble never entered our heads, we were so happy there, the three of us, and as much at home as though we had always been together. There was a wood in front of the windows, from the storey below came strains of music and a gypsy chorus; the weather was lovely after the storm.

I was not, like Ketscher, afraid of the police being put on our track by the princess; I knew that she stood too much on her dignity to let a policeman be mixed up in our family affairs. Besides, she never took any step without consulting the Senator, nor the Senator without consulting my father; my father would never consent to the police stopping me in Moscow or near Moscow, which would mean my being sent to Bobruisk or to Siberia for disobedience to the will of the Most High. The only possible danger was from the secret police, but it had all been done so quickly that it was hard for them to know it. Besides, if they had got an inkling of anything, it would never occur to any one that a man who had secretly returned from exile and was eloping with his bride would be quietly sitting in Perov’s restaurant where people were coming in and out from morning to night.

At last Matvey appeared with the carriage.

‘One more glass,’ commanded Ketscher.

And we set off.

And then we were alone, that is, the two of us, flying along the Vladimir road.

At Bunkovo while they were changing horses we went into the inn. The old hostess came to ask us whether we would like anything; and, looking at us good-naturedly, said: ‘How young and pretty your good lady is, and the two of you, God bless you, make a pretty pair.’ We blushed up to our ears and did not dare to look at each other, but asked for tea to cover our confusion. Between five and six next day we reached Vladimir. There was no time to be lost; leaving Natalie with the family of an old official, I rushed off to find whether everything was ready. But who was there to get things ready in Vladimir?

There are good-natured people everywhere. A Siberian regiment of Uhlans was stationed at Vladimir at the time; I was only very slightly acquainted with the officers, but, meeting one of them rather often in the public library, I took to bowing to him; he was very polite and charming. A month later he admitted that he knew me and my story in 1834 and told me that he was himself a student of the Moscow University. When I was leaving Vladimir and looking about for some one in whose hands to leave various arrangements, I thought of this officer, and told him openly what I wanted. Genuinely touched by my confidence, he pressed my hand, promised to do everything, and kept his word.

He was awaiting me in full dress uniform, with white facings, with his casque uncovered, with a cartridge-case across his shoulder, and all sorts of cords and trimmings. He told me that the bishop had given the priest permission to marry us, but had bidden him first show the baptismal certificate. I gave the officer the baptismal certificate, while I went off to another young man who had also been a Moscow student. He was serving his two provincial years in accordance with the new regulation, in the governor’s office, and was almost dying of boredom.

‘Would you like to act as best man?’

‘Whose best man?’

‘Mine.’

‘Yours?’

‘Yes, yes, mine.’

‘Delighted. When?’

‘At once.’

He thought that I was joking, but when I briefly told him how it was, he skipped with delight. To be best man at a clandestine wedding, to have to make arrangements, possibly to get into trouble, and all that in a little town absolutely without any diversions! He promised at once to get a carriage and four horses and ran to his chest of drawers to see whether he had a clean white waistcoat.

As I drove away from him, I met my Uhlan with a priest sitting on his knee. Imagine a smart, gaily attired officer in a little droshky with a stout priest, adorned with a huge, flowing beard, and arrayed in a silk cassock, which kept catching in all the Uhlan’s useless accoutrements. This sight might have attracted attention not only in the street that led from the Golden Gate of Vladimir, but in the Paris boulevards, or even in Regent Street. But the Uhlan did not think of that, and, indeed, I only thought of it afterwards. The priest had been going from house to house holding services, as it was St. Nicholas’ Day, and my cavalry officer had captured him by force and requisitioned him. We drove off to the bishop’s.

To explain the position I must describe how the bishop came to be involved in it. The day before I went away the priest who had agreed to marry us suddenly announced that he would not do so without the bishop’s sanction, that he had heard something and was afraid to do it. In spite of all my eloquence, as well as the Uhlan’s, the priest was obstinate and stuck to his point. The Uhlan suggested the priest of his regiment. The latter, a priest with a cropped head and shaven skin, wearing a long, full-skirted coat and trousers tucked into his high boots, and placidly smoking a soldier’s pipe, though affected by certain details of our proposition, yet refused to perform the ceremony, declaring, in a mixture of Polish and White Russian, that he was strictly forbidden to marry ‘civilians.’

‘And we are still more strictly forbidden to be witnesses and best men at such marriages without permission,’ observed the officer.

‘That’s a different matter, as God’s above us, it’s a different matter.’

‘God helps those who help themselves,’ I said to the Uhlan. ‘I’ll go straight to the bishop. And by the way, why don’t you ask permission?’

‘That won’t do. The Colonel would tell his wife and she’d gossip about it all over the place. Besides, he’d very likely refuse it.’

Bishop Parfeny of Vladimir was a clever, austere, rough old man; managing and self-willed, he might equally well have been a governor or a general, and, indeed, I think he would have been more in his right place as a general than as a monk; but it had turned out otherwise, and he ruled his diocese as he would have ruled a division in the Caucasus. I noticed in him far more of the qualities of an administrator than of one dead to the things of this life. He was, however, rather harsh than ill-natured; like all business-like men, he grasped questions quickly and clearly and was furious when people talked nonsense to him or did not understand him. It is far easier to come to an understanding with men of that sort than with soft but weak or irresolute persons. In accordance with the custom of all provincial towns, on arriving in Vladimir I went once after mass to call on the bishop. He received me graciously, gave me his blessing, and regaled me with sturgeon; then invited me to come some evening and talk to him, saying that his eyes were failing and he could not read in the evening. I went two or three times; he talked about literature, knew all the new Russian books and read the magazines, and so we got on splendidly together. Nevertheless, it was with some alarm that I knocked at his episcopal door.

It was a hot day. His Reverence the bishop received me in the garden. He was sitting under a big, shady lime tree, and had taken off his monk’s cap and let his grey locks flow in freedom. A bald, impressive-looking head-priest was standing before him, bareheaded, and right in the sun, reading some document aloud; his face was crimson and big drops of perspiration stood out on his forehead, he screwed up his eyes at the dazzling whiteness of the paper with the sunlight upon it, yet he did not dare to move nor did the bishop tell him to step out of the sun.

‘Sit down,’ he said after blessing me, ‘we are just finishing, these are our little Consistory affairs. Read,’ he added to the head-priest, and the latter, after mopping his face with a dark blue handkerchief and coughing aside, set to reading again.

‘What news have you to tell me?’ Parfeny asked me, handing the pen to the head-priest, who seized this excellent opportunity to kiss his hand.

I told him of the priest’s refusal.

‘Have you the necessary papers?’ I showed him the governor’s permission.

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

Parfeny smiled: ‘And on the lady’s side?’

‘There is a baptismal certificate; it will be brought on the day of the wedding.’

‘When is the wedding?’

‘In two days.’

‘Have you found a house?’

‘Not yet.’

‘There you see,’ Parfeny said to me, putting his finger on his lips and pulling his mouth towards his cheek, one of his favourite tricks; ‘you’re an intelligent and well-read man, but you won’t catch an old sparrow by putting salt on its tail. There is something shady about it, so, since you have come to me, you had much better tell me all about it truthfully. Then I’ll tell you straightforwardly what can be done and what can’t, and in any case my advice will do you no harm.’

My case seemed to me so clear and so just that I told him the whole story, without, of course, going into unnecessary details. The old man listened attentively and often looked into my face. It appeared he was an old acquaintance of the princess’s, and therefore could to some extent judge for himself of the truth of my account.

‘I understand, I understand,’ he said when I had finished. ‘Well, let me write a letter to the princess on my own account.’

‘I assure you that no effort at peace will lead to anything, her ill-humour and exasperation have gone too far. I have told your Reverence all about it, as you desired, now I will add that if you refuse to help me I shall be forced to do secretly, stealthily, by bribes, what I am doing now quietly, but straightforwardly and openly. I can assure you of one thing, neither prison nor a fresh term of exile will stop me.’

‘You see,’ said Parfeny, getting up and stretching, ‘what a headstrong fellow you are. Perm has not been enough for you, you are not broken in yet. Am I saying that I forbid it? Get married if you like, there is nothing unlawful about it; but it would have been better peacefully with the consent of the family. Send me your priest, I’ll persuade him somehow; only remember one thing, without the proper certificate on the bride’s side don’t you attempt it. So it’s a case of “Neither prison nor exile”—upon my word, what are people coming to! Well, the Lord be with you! Good luck to you, only you’ll get me into trouble with the princess.’

And so in addition to the Uhlan officer his Reverence Parfeny, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, came into our conspiracy.

When as a preliminary measure I had asked the governor’s permission, I had not spoken of my marriage as though it were clandestine; silence about that was the surest means of avoiding talk about it, and nothing could be more natural than the arrival of my future bride in Vladimir, since I had not the right to leave it. It was also natural that under the circumstances we should wish the wedding to be as quiet as possible.

When we arrived with the priest at the bishop’s on the ninth of May, his servitor told us that he had gone to his country house and would not be back until night. It was already between seven and eight in the evening, weddings cannot be celebrated after ten, and the next day was Saturday. What was to be done? The priest was scared. We went in to see the head-monk, the bishop’s chaplain; he was drinking tea with rum in it and was in the most affable frame of mind. I told him our difficulty, he poured me out a cup of tea and insisted on my adding rum to it; then he took out immense silver spectacles, read the baptismal certificate, turned it over, looked at the other side where there was nothing written, folded it up, and giving it back to the priest said: ‘It’s all perfectly regular.’

The priest still hesitated. I told the chaplain that if I were not married to-day it would be terribly upsetting for me.

‘Why put it off?’ he said. ‘I will tell his Reverence; marry them, Father Ioann, marry them—in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.’

There was nothing for the priest to say, he drove off to write out our names while I galloped off for Natalie.

When we were driving out at the Golden Gate alone together, the sun, which had till then been hidden by the clouds, shed a dazzling light upon us with its last bright, red glow, and so triumphantly and joyously that we both said in one breath: ‘That’s to see us off!’ I remember her smile at the words and the pressure of her hand.

The little church of the sledge-drivers’ quarter was empty, there were neither choristers nor lighted candelabra. Five or six common soldiers of the Uhlan regiment came in as they were passing, and went out again. The old deacon chanted in a soft, faint voice, Matvey looked at us with tears of joy, our young ‘best men’ stood behind us with the heavy crowns with which all the drivers of Vladimir were crowned. The deacon with a shaky hand passed us the silver bowl of union ... it grew dark in the church, only a few candles glowed here and there; all this was, or seemed to us, extremely picturesque just from its simplicity. The bishop drove by, and seeing the church doors open stopped and sent to inquire what was happening. The priest, turning a little pale, went out himself to him, and returning a minute later with a cheerful face, said to us: ‘His Reverence sends you his episcopal blessing and bade me tell you he is praying for you.’

By the time we were driving home the news of our clandestine marriage was all over the town; ladies were waiting on the balconies and the windows were open. I let down the carriage windows and was a little vexed that the darkness prevented me from showing my ‘fair bride.’

At home we drank two bottles of wine with Matvey and the ‘best men,’ the latter stayed twenty minutes with us, and then we were left alone, and again, as at Perov’s, that seemed so natural that we were not in the least surprised at it, though for months afterwards we could not get over the wonder of it.

We had three rooms, we sat at a little table in the drawing-room, and forgetting the fatigue of the last few days we talked half the night.

To have a crowd of outsiders at the wedding festivities has always seemed to me something coarse, unseemly, almost cynical; why this premature lifting of the veil from love, this initiation of indifferent casual spectators into the privacy of the family? How all these hackneyed greetings, commonplace vulgarities, stupid allusions, must wound the poor girl who is thrust into the public eye in the part of bride ... not one delicate feeling is spared, the luxury of the bridal chamber, the charm of the night attire displayed, not only for the visitors but for every idle gazer. And afterwards the first days of the new life that is beginning, in which every minute is precious, which ought to be spent far away in solitude, are, as though in mockery, passed in endless dinners and exhausting balls, amidst a crowd.

Next morning we found two rose-bushes and an immense nosegay awaiting us in the dining-room. Dear, kind Yulia Fyodorovna (the governor’s wife), who took a warm interest in our romance, had sent them. I embraced and kissed her footman and then we went off to see her. As the bride’s trousseau consisted of two dresses, the one in which she had travelled and the other one in which she had been married, she put on the wedding dress.

From Yulia Fyodorovna’s we drove to the bishop’s; the old man himself led us into the garden, with his own hands cut us a nosegay of flowers, told Natalie how I had tried to frighten him with the prospect of my own ruin, and in conclusion advised her to study housekeeping. ‘Do you know how to salt cucumbers?’ he asked Natalie.

‘I do,’ she answered, laughing.

‘Oh, I don’t feel sure of it. And you know, it is essential!’

In the evening I wrote a letter to my father. I begged him not to be angry at the accomplished fact, and, ‘since God had united us,’ to forgive me and add his blessing. My father as a rule wrote me a few lines once a week; he did not write one day earlier or later in reply, and even began his letter exactly as usual: ‘I received your letter of the 10th of May, at half-past five the day before yesterday, and from it learned, not without regret, that God had united you with Natasha. I do not repine against the will of God in anything, but submit blindly to the trials which He lays upon me. But since the money is mine and you have not thought it necessary to regard my wishes, I must inform you that I shall not add one kopeck to your present allowance of one thousand silver roubles a year.’

How spontaneously we laughed at this distinction between the spiritual and temporal power.

And yet how we needed something more! The money I had borrowed was all spent. We had nothing, absolutely nothing, no clothes, no linen, no crockery. We sat shut up in a little flat because we had nothing to go out in. Matvey with a view to economy made a desperate effort to transform himself into a cook, but except beefsteaks and collops he could cook nothing, and so for the most part confined himself to ready-cooked provisions, ham, salt fish, milk, eggs, cheese, and extremely hard cakes flavoured with mint and not in their first youth. Dinner was an endless source of amusement to us; sometimes we had milk first by way of soup, and sometimes last by way of dessert. Over this Spartan fare we used to recall, smiling, the long process of the sacred ritual of dinner at the princess’s and at my father’s, where half a dozen flunkeys ran about the room with bowls and dishes, cloaking under the magnificent _mise en scène_ the really very unattractive fare.

So we struggled along in poverty for a year. ‘The Chemist’ sent us ten thousand paper roubles; more than six thousand of this went to pay our debts, and what remained was a great help. At last even my father was tired of attacking us like a fortress by hunger, and without adding to my allowance he began sending us presents of money, though I never dropped a hint about money after his famous _distinguo_!

I began looking for another lodging. A big, deserted manor-house with a garden was to let. It belonged to the widow of a prince who had ruined himself at cards, and it was being let very cheaply because it was far away and inconvenient, and, above all, because the princess bargained to keep part of it, in no way separated from the rest, for her son, a spoilt fellow of thirty, and for the servants. No one would agree to this partial possession; I at once accepted it, for I was fascinated by the loftiness of the rooms, the size of the windows, and the big, shady garden. But this very loftiness and spaciousness made a very amusing contrast with our complete lack of movable belongings and articles of the first necessity. The princess’s housekeeper, a good-natured old woman, who was greatly attracted by Matvey, provided us at her own risk, first with a table-cloth, then with cups, then with sheets, then with knives and forks.

What bright and untroubled days we spent in the little three-roomed flat at the Golden Gate and in the princess’s immense house!... There was a big, scarcely furnished drawing-room, in it we were sometimes taken by such childishness that we raced about it, jumped over the chairs, lighted candles in all the candelabra ensconced on the wall, and after illuminating the room _a giorno_, recited poetry. Matvey and our maid, a young Greek girl, took part in everything and ‘played the fool’ as much as we did. Discipline was ‘not maintained’ in our household.

And for all this childishness our life was full of a deep earnestness. Cast away in the quiet, peaceful little town, we were completely devoted to each other. From time to time came news of some one of our friends, a few words of warm sympathy, and then again we were alone, absolutely alone. But in this solitude our hearts were not closed by our happiness; on the contrary, they were more open to every interest than ever before; we led a full and many-sided life, we thought and read, gave ourselves up to every pursuit and again concentrated on our love; we compared our thoughts and dreams, and saw with amazement how endless was our sympathy, how in all the subtlest turns and twists of feeling and thought, taste and antipathy, all was kinship and harmony. The only difference was that Natalie brought into our union a gentle, mild, gracious element, the characteristics of a young girl with all the poesy of a loving woman, while I brought lively activity, my _semper in motu_, infinite love, and, moreover, a medley of earnest ideas, laughter, ‘dangerous’ thoughts and Utopian projects.

My desires had reached a standstill, I was satisfied, I lived in the present, I expected nothing from the morrow, I carelessly trusted that it would take nothing from me. Personal life could give nothing more, it had reached the limit; any change could but diminish it, on one side or another.

In the spring Ogaryov came from his exile for a few days. He was then in the very height of his powers; he was soon to pass through painful experiences; at moments he seemed to feel that trouble was near, but he could still turn round and look upon the lifted hand of destiny as a dream. I myself thought then that the storm-clouds would be dissipated; carelessness is characteristic of everything young and not devoid of strength, and in it is expressed a trust in life and oneself. The feeling of complete mastery over one’s fate lulls us asleep ... while dark clouds and black-hearted people draw us without a word to the edge of the precipice.

And well it is that man either does not suspect, or can shut his eyes and forget. Where there is apprehension there can never be complete happiness; complete happiness is serene as the sea in the calm of summer. Apprehension gives its peculiar, feverish, morbid thrill which fascinates like the thrill of suspense at cards, but how far away it is from the feeling of harmonious infinite peace. And so, whether it be a dream or not, I deeply prize that trust in life, before life itself has refuted it and has awakened one.... The Chinese die for the coarse illusion of it given by opium.

So I ended this chapter in 1853 and so I end it now.