I could not guess who this could be.
“But there he is,” added the waiter, standing aside. What I first saw was not a man at all but an immense tray piled high with all sorts of provisions—cake and biscuits, apples and oranges, eggs, almonds and raisins; then behind the tray came into view the white beard and blue eyes belonging to the bailiff on my father’s estate near Vladimir.
“Gavrilo Semyónitch!” I cried out, and rushed into his arms. His was the first familiar face, the first link with the past, that I had met since the period of prison and exile began. I could not look long enough at the old man’s intelligent face, I could not say enough to him. To me he represented nearness to Moscow, to my home and my friends: he had seen them all three days before and brought me greetings from them all. How could I feel that I was really far from them?
§4
The Governor of Vladimir was a man of the world who had lived long enough to attain a temper of cool indifference. He was a Greek and his name was Kuruta. He took my measure at once and abstained from the least attempt at severity. Office work was never even hinted at—the only duty he asked me to undertake was that I should edit the Provincial Gazette in collaboration with the local schoolmaster.
I was familiar with this business, as I had started the unofficial part of the Gazette at Vyatka. By the way, one article which I published there nearly landed my successor in a scrape. In describing the festival on the Big River, I said that the mutton offered to St. Nicholas used to be given away to the poor but was now sold. This enraged the Abbot, and the Governor had some difficulty in pacifying him.
§5
Provincial Gazettes were first introduced in the year 1837. It was Bludov, the Minister of the Interior, who conceived the idea of training in publicity the land of silence and dumbness. Bludov, known as the continuator of Karamzín’s History—though he never added a line to it—and as the author of the Report on the Decembrist Revolution—which had better never have been written—was one of those doctrinaire statesmen who came to the front in the last years of Alexander’s reign. They were able, educated, honest men; they had belonged in their youth to the Literary Club of Arzamas;[[114]] they wrote Russian well, had patriotic feelings, and were so much interested in the history of their country that they had no leisure to bestow on contemporary events. They all worshipped the immortal memory of Karamzín, loved Zhukovski, knew Krylóv[[115]] by heart, and used to travel to Moscow on purpose to talk to Dmítriev[[116]] in his house there. I too used to visit there in my student days; but I was armed against the old poet by prejudices in favour of romanticism, by my acquaintance with N. Polevói, and by a secret feeling of dissatisfaction that Dmítriev, being a poet, should also be Minister of Justice. Though much was expected of them, they did nothing; but that is the fate of doctrinaires in all countries. Perhaps they would have left more lasting traces behind them if Alexander had lived; but Alexander died, and they never got beyond the mere wish to do the state some service.
[114]. Zhukovski and Púshkin both belonged to this club. It carried on a campaign against Shishkóv and other opponents of the new developments in Russian style.
[115]. Krylóv (1768-1844), the famous writer of fables.