[118]. Herzen himself was a very tall, large man.
His very name was such that it once caused him to be arrested. Late one evening, wrapped up in his overcoat, he was walking past the Governor’s residence, with a field-glass in his hand. He stopped and aimed the glass at the heavens. This astonished the sentry, who probably reckoned the stars as Government property: he challenged the rapt star-gazer—“Who goes there?” “Nebába,”[[119]] answered my colleague in a deep bass voice, and gazed as before.
[119]. The word means in Russian “Not a woman.”
“Don’t play the fool with me—I’m on duty,” said the sentry.
“I tell you that I am Nebába!”
The soldier’s patience was exhausted: he rang the bell, a serjeant appeared, the sentry handed the astronomer over to him, to be taken to the guard-room. “They’ll find out there,” as he said, “whether you’re a woman or not.” And there he would certainly have stayed till the morning, had not the officer of the day recognised him.
§8
One morning Nebába came to my room to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then he added, with some confusion, “I shall not return alone.” “Do you mean that ...?” “Yes, I am going to be married,” he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen and, if no beauty, pretty enough, with lively eyes; and then I thought him the hero.
Six weeks had not passed before I saw that things were going badly with my poor Orson. He was terribly depressed, corrected his proofs carelessly, never finished his article on “The Migration of Birds,” and could not fix his attention on anything; at times it seemed to me that his eyes were red and swollen. This state of things did not last long. One day as I was going home, I noticed a crowd of boys and shopkeepers running towards the churchyard. I walked after them.
Nebába’s body was lying near the church wall, and a rifle lay beside him. He had shot himself opposite the windows of his own house; the string with which he had pulled the trigger was still attached to his foot. The police-surgeon blandly assured the crowd that the deceased had suffered no pain; and the police prepared to carry his body to the station.