§22
Our special group consisted of five to begin with, and then we fell in with a sixth, Vadim Passek.
There was much that was new to us in Vadim. We five had all been brought up in very much the same way: we knew no places but Moscow and the surrounding country; we had read the same books and taken lessons from the same teachers; we had been educated either at home or in the boarding-school connected with the University. But Vadim was born in Siberia, during his father’s exile, and had suffered poverty and privation. His father was his teacher, and he was one of a large family, who grew up familiar with want but free from all other restraints. Siberia has a stamp of its own, quite unlike the stamp of provincial Russia; those who bear it have more health and more elasticity. Compared to Vadim we were tame. His courage was of a different kind, heroic and at times overbearing; the high distinction of suffering had developed in him a special kind of pride, but he had also a generous warmth of heart. He was bold, and even imprudent to excess; but a man born in Siberia and belonging to a family of exiles has this advantage over others, that Siberia has for him no terrors.
As soon as we met, Vadim rushed into our arms. Very soon we became intimate. It should be said that there was nothing of the nature of ceremony or prudent precaution in our little coterie of those days.
“Would you like to know Ketcher, of whom you have heard so much?” Vadim once asked me.
“Of course I should.”
“Well, come at seven to-morrow evening, and don’t be late; he will be at our house.”
When I arrived, Vadim was out. A tall man with an expressive face was waiting for him and shot a glance, half good-natured and half formidable, at me from under his spectacles. I took up a book, and he followed my example.
“I say,” he began, as he opened the book, “are you Herzen?”
And so conversation began and soon grew fast and furious. Ketcher soon interrupted me with no ceremony: “Excuse me! I should be obliged if you would address me as ‘thou.’”