About the son there were strange reports: it was said that he was unsociable and had no friends; he was interested in chemistry and spent his life over the microscope; he read even at meals and disliked women’s society.

His uncles transferred to him the grievance they had felt against his father. They always called him “The Chemist,” using this as a term of contempt, and giving it to be understood that chemistry was a quite impossible occupation for a gentleman.

He had suffered horrible treatment from his father, who kept a harem in the house and not only insulted him by the spectacle of shameless senile profligacy but was actually jealous of his son’s rivalry. From this dishonourable existence The Chemist tried to escape by means of laudanum; but a friend who worked at chemistry with him saved his life by a mere chance. This frightened the father, and he treated his son better afterwards.

When his father died, The Chemist set free the fair captives of the harem, reduced by half the heavy dues levied by his father on the peasants, forgave all arrears, and gave away for nothing the exemptions which his father used to sell, excusing household servants from service in the Army.

When he came to Moscow eighteen months later, I was anxious to see him; for I was inclined to like him for his treatment of his peasants, and also for the dislike which his uncles unjustly felt for him.

He called on my father one morning—a shortish man, with a large nose and half his hair gone; he wore gold spectacles, and his fingers were stained with chemicals. My father’s reception was cold and cutting, but the nephew gave just as good as he got; when they had taken each other’s measure, they talked on casual topics with a show of indifference and parted politely, but a strong feeling of dislike was concealed on both sides. My father saw that his antagonist would never give way.

They never came closer afterwards. The Chemist very rarely visited his uncles; the last time he and my father met was after the Senator’s death—he came to ask a loan of 30,000 roubles, in order to buy land. My father refused to lend it; The Chemist was angry, but he rubbed his nose and said with a smile: “What possible risk is there? My estate is entailed, and I want the money for improvements. I have no children, so that you are the heir to my land as I am to yours.”[[42]] My father, who was then seventy-five, never forgave his nephew this sally.

[42]. Herzen himself was excluded from succession by his birth.

§4

I began to visit him from time to time. His was a singular existence. He had a large house on the Tver Boulevard, where he lived in one very small room and used another as a laboratory. His old mother occupied another small room at the end of the passage; and the rest of the house was unused, and left exactly as it was when his father migrated to Petersburg. Tarnished chandeliers, valuable furniture, rarities of all kinds, grandfather’s clocks supposed to have been bought by Peter the Great in Amsterdam, armchairs supposed to have belonged to Stanislas Leshchinski,[[43]] empty frames, and pictures turned to the wall—all these, in complete disorder, filled three large drawing-rooms which were neither heated nor lighted. In the outer hall the servants were generally playing the banjo and smoking—in the very room where formerly they hardly dared to breathe or say their prayers. One of them lit a candle and escorted me through the long museum; and he never failed to advise me to keep on my overcoat, because it was very cold in the drawing-rooms. Thick layers of dust covered all the projections of the furniture, and the contents of the rooms were reflected in the carved mirrors and seemed to move with the candle; straw, left over from packing, lay comfortably here and there, together with scraps of paper and bits of string.