§5

My first examination lasted four hours. The questions asked were of two kinds. The object of the first was to discover a trend of thought “opposed to the spirit of the Russian government, and ideas that were either revolutionary or impregnated with the pestilent doctrine of Saint-Simonianism”—this is a quotation from Golitsyn junior and Oranski, the paymaster.

Such questions were simple, but they were not really questions at all. The confiscated papers and letters were clear enough evidence of opinions; the questions could only turn on the essential fact, whether the letters were or were not written by the accused; but the Commissioners thought it necessary to add to each expression they had copied out, “In what sense do you explain the following passage in your letter?”

Of course there was nothing to explain, and I wrote meaningless and evasive answers to all the questions. Oranski discovered the following statement in one of my letters: “No written constitution leads to anything: they are all mere contracts between a master and his slaves; the problem is not to improve the condition of the slaves but to eliminate them altogether.” When called upon to explain this statement, I remarked that I saw no necessity to defend constitutional government, and that, if I had done so, I might have been prosecuted.

“There are two sides from which constitutional government can be attacked,” said Golitsyn junior, in his excitable, sibilant voice, “and you don’t attack it from the point of view of autocracy, or else you would not have spoken of ‘slaves.’”

“In that respect I am as guilty as the Empress Catherine, who forbade her subjects to call themselves slaves.”

Golitsyn junior was furious at my sarcasm.

“Do you suppose,” he said, “that we meet here to carry on academic discussion, and that you are defending a thesis in the lecture-room?”

“Why then do you ask for explanations?”

“Do you pretend not to understand what is wanted of you?”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“How obstinate they are, every one of them!” said the chairman, Golitsyn senior, as he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Colonel Shubenski, of the police. I smiled. “Ogaryóv over again,” sighed the worthy old gentleman, letting the cat quite out of the bag.

A pause followed this indiscretion. The meetings were all held in the Prince’s library, and I turned towards the shelves and examined the books; they included an edition in many volumes of the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon.[[74]]

[74]. The author of the famous Memoirs (1675-1755) was an ancestor of the preacher of socialism (1760-1825).

I turned to the chairman. “There!” I said, “what an injustice! You are trying me for Saint-Simonianism, and you, Prince, have on your shelves twenty volumes of his works.”

The worthy man had never read a book in his life, and was at loss for a reply. But Golitsyn junior darted a furious glance at me and asked, “Don’t you see that these are the works of the Duc de Saint-Simon who lived in the reign of Louis XIV?”

The chairman smiled and conveyed to me by a nod his impression that I had made a slip this time; then he said, “You may go.”

When I had reached the door, the chairman asked, “Was it he who wrote the article about Peter the Great which you showed me?”

“Yes,” answered Shubenski.

I stopped short.

“He has ability,” remarked the chairman.

“So much the worse: poison is more dangerous in skilful hands,” added the Inquisitor; “a very dangerous young man and quite incorrigible.”

These words contained my condemnation.

Here is a parallel to the Saint-Simon incident. When the police-officer was going through books and papers at Ogaryóv’s house, he put aside a volume of Thiers’s History of the French Revolution; when he found a second volume, a third, an eighth, he lost patience. “What a collection of revolutionary works! And here’s another!” he added, handing to his subordinate Cuvier’s speech Sur les révolutions du globe terrestre!