§3
By his education and service in the Guards, by his birth and connexions, my father belonged to the same circle; but neither temperament nor health allowed him to lead a life of dissipation to the age of seventy, and he went to the opposite extreme. He determined to secure a life of solitude, and found it intensely tedious—all the more tedious because he had sought it merely for his own sake. A strong will was degraded into stubborn wilfulness, and unused powers spoilt his temper and made it difficult.
At the time of his education European civilisation was so new in Russia that a man of culture necessarily became less of a Russian. To the end of his life he wrote French with more ease and correctness than Russian, and he literally never read a Russian book, not even the Bible. The Bible, indeed, he did not read even in other languages; he knew, by hearsay and from extracts, the matter of Holy Scripture in general, and felt no curiosity to examine further. He did respect Derzhávin and Krylóv, the first because he had written an ode on the death of his uncle, Prince Meshcherski, and the latter, because they had acted together as seconds in a duel. When my father heard that the Emperor Alexander was reading Karamzín’s History of the Russian Empire, he tried it himself but soon laid it aside: “Nothing but old Slavonic names! Who can take an interest in all that?”—such was his disparaging criticism.
His contempt for mankind was unconcealed and without exceptions. Never, under any circumstances, did he rely on anyone, and I don’t remember that he ever preferred a considerable request in any quarter; and he never did anything to oblige other people. All he asked of others was to maintain appearances: les apparences, les convenances—his moral code consisted of these alone. He excused much, or rather shut his eyes to much: but any breach of decent forms enraged him to such a degree that he became incapable of the least indulgence or sympathy. I puzzled so long over this unfairness that I ended by understanding it: he was convinced beforehand that any man is capable of any bad action, and refrains from it only because it does not pay, or for want of opportunity; but in any breach of politeness he found personal offence, and disrespect to himself, or “middle-class breeding,” which, in his opinion, excluded a man from all decent society.
“The heart of man,” he used to say, “is hidden, and nobody knows what another man feels. I have too much business of my own to attend to other people, let alone judging their motives. But I cannot live in the same room with an ill-bred man: he offends me, il me froisse. Otherwise he may be the best man in the world; if so, he will go to Heaven; but I have no use for him. The most important thing in life, more important than soaring intellect or erudition, is savoir vivre, to do the right thing always, never to thrust yourself forward, to be perfectly polite to everyone and familiar with nobody.”
All impulsiveness and frankness my father disliked and called familiarity; and all display of feeling passed with him for sentimentality. He regularly represented himself as superior to all such trivialities; but what that higher object was, for the sake of which he sacrificed his feelings, I have no idea. And when this proud old man, with his clear understanding and sincere contempt of mankind, played this part of a passionless judge, whom did he mean to impress by the performance? A woman whose will he had broken, though she never tried to oppose him; a boy whom his own treatment drove from mere naughtiness to positive disobedience; and a score of footmen whom he did not reckon as human beings!
And how much strength and endurance was spent for this object, how much persistence! How surprising the consistency with which the part was played to the very end, in spite of old age and disease! The heart of man is indeed hidden.
At the time of my arrest, and later when I was going into exile, I saw that the old man’s heart was much more open than I supposed to love and even to tenderness. But I never thanked him for this; for I did not know how he would have taken my thanks.
As a matter of course, he was not happy. Always on his guard, discontented with everyone, he suffered when he saw the feelings he inspired in every member of the household. Smiles died away and talk stopped whenever he came into the room. He spoke of this with mockery and resented it; but he made no concession whatever and went his own way with steady perseverance. Stinging mockery and cool contemptuous irony were the weapons which he could wield with the skill of an artist, and he used them equally against us and against the servants. There are few things that a growing boy resents more; and, in fact, up to the time of my imprisonment I was on bad terms with my father and carried on a petty warfare against him, with the men and maids for my allies.