But his brave words and trenchant criticisms had no attractions for me on this occasion: I took my hat and departed.
§5
I found a general commotion going on at home. My father was angry with me because Ogaryóv had been arrested; my uncle, the Senator, was already on the scene, rummaging among my books and picking out those which he thought dangerous; he was very uneasy.
On my table I found an invitation to dine that day with Count Orlóv. Possibly he might be able to do something? Though I had learned a lesson by my first experiment, it could do no harm to try.
Mihail Orlóv was one of the founders of the famous Society of Welfare;[[64]] and if he missed Siberia, he was less to blame for that than his brother, who was the first to gallop up with his squadron of the Guards to the defence of the Winter Palace, on December 14, 1825. Orlóv was confined at first to his own estates, and allowed to settle in Moscow a few years later. During his solitary life in the country he studied political economy and chemistry. The first time I met him he spoke of a new method of naming chemical compounds. Able men who take up some science late in life often show a tendency to rearrange the furniture, so to speak, to suit their own ideas. Orlóv’s system was more complicated than the French system, which is generally accepted. As I wished to attract his attention, I argued in a friendly way that, though his system was good, it was not as good as the old one.
[64]. An imitation of the Tugenbund formed by German students in 1808. In Russia the society became identified with the Decembrists.
He contested the point, but ended by agreeing with me.
My little trick was successful, and we became intimate. He saw in me a rising possibility, and I saw in him a man who had fought for our ideals, an intimate friend of our heroes, and a shining light amid surrounding darkness.
Poor Orlóv was like a caged lion. He beat against the bars of his cage at every turn; nowhere could he find elbow-room or occupation, and he was devoured by a passion for activity.
More than once since the collapse of France[[65]] I have met men of this type, men to whom political activity was an absolute necessity, who never could find rest within the four walls of their study or in family life. To them solitude is intolerable: it makes them fanciful and unreasonable; they quarrel with their few remaining friends, and are constantly discovering plots against themselves, or else they make plots of their own, in order to unmask the imaginary schemes of their enemies.