§3
I was strongly impressed by stories of the rebels and I their fate, and by the horror which reigned in Moscow. These events revealed to me a new world, which became more and more the centre of my whole inner life; I don’t know how it came to pass; but, though I understood very dimly what it was all about, I felt that the side that possessed the cannons and held the upper hand was not my side. The execution of Pestel[[29]] and his companions finally awakened me from the dreams of childhood.
[29]. One of the Decembrists.
Though political ideas occupied my mind day and night, my notions on the subject were not very enlightened: indeed they were so wide of the mark that I believed one of the objects of the Petersburg insurrection to consist in placing Constantine on the throne as a constitutional monarch.
It will easily be understood that solitude was a greater burden to me than ever: I needed someone, in order to impart to him my thoughts and ideals, to verify them, and to hear them confirmed. Proud of my own “disaffection,” I was unwilling either to conceal it or to speak of it to people in general.
My choice fell first on Iván Protopópov, my Russian tutor.
This man was full of that respectable indefinite liberalism, which, though it often disappears with the first grey hair, marriage, and professional success, does nevertheless raise a man’s character. He was touched by what I said, and embraced me on leaving the house. “Heaven grant,” he said, “that those feelings of your youth may ripen and grow strong!” His sympathy was a great comfort to me. After this time he began to bring me manuscript copies, in very small writing and very much frayed, of Púshkin’s poems—Ode to Freedom, The Dagger, and of Ryléev’s Thoughts. These I used to copy out in secret; and now I print them as openly as I please!
As a matter of course, my reading also changed. Politics for me in future, and, above all, the history of the French Revolution, which I knew only as described by Mme. Provo. Among the books in our cellar I unearthed a history of the period, written by a royalist; it was so unfair that, even at fourteen, I could not believe it. I had chanced to hear old Bouchot say that he was in Paris during the Revolution; and I was very anxious to question him. But Bouchot was a surly, taciturn man, with spectacles over a large nose; he never indulged in any needless conversation with me: he conjugated French verbs, dictated examples, scolded me, and then took his departure, leaning on his thick knotted stick.
The old man did not like me: he thought me a mere idler, because I prepared my lessons badly; and he often said, “You will come to no good.” But when he discovered my sympathy with his political views, he softened down entirely, pardoned my mistakes, and told me stories of the year ’93, and of his departure from France when “profligates and cheats” got the upper hand. He never smiled; he ended our lesson with the same dignity as before, but now he said indulgently, “I really thought you would come to no good, but your feelings do you credit, and they will save you.”