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.
§4
For the rest, he had convinced himself that he was dangerously ill, and was constantly under treatment. He had a doctor resident in the house and was visited by two or three other physicians; and at least three consultations took place each year. His sour looks and constant complaints of his health (which was not really so bad) soon reduced the number of our visitors. He resented this; yet he never remonstrated or invited any friend to the house. An air of terrible boredom reigned in our house, especially in the endless winter evenings. The whole suite of drawing-rooms was lit up by a single pair of lamps; and there the old man walked up and down, a stooping figure with his hands behind his back; he wore cloth boots, a velvet skull-cap, and a warm jacket of white lamb-skin; he never spoke a word, and three or four brown dogs walked up and down with him.
As melancholy grew on him, so did his wish to save, but it was entirely misapplied. His management of his land was not beneficial either to himself or to his serfs. The head man and his underlings robbed both their master and the peasants. In certain matters there was strict economy: candle-ends were saved and light French wine was replaced by sour wine from the Crimea; on the other hand, a whole forest was felled without his knowledge on one estate, and he paid the market price for his own oats on another. There were men whom he permitted to steal; thus a peasant, whom he made collector of the obrók at Moscow, and who was sent every summer to the country, to report on the head man and the farm-work, the garden and the timber, grew rich enough to buy a house in Moscow after ten years’ service. From childhood I hated this factotum: I was present once when he thrashed an old peasant in our court-yard; in my fury I caught him by the beard and nearly fainted myself. From that time I could never bear the sight of him. He died in 1845. Several times I asked my father where this man got the money to buy a house.
“The result of sober habits,” he said; “that man never took a drop in his life.”