So Vadim remained without employment, i.e. without bread to eat. That was his form of punishment.
We were banished. Relations with us were dangerous. Black years of want began for him; for seven years he struggled to earn a bare living, suffering from contact with rough manners and hard hearts, and unable to exchange messages with his friends in their distant place of exile; and the struggle proved too hard even for his powerful frame.
“One day we had spent all our money to the last penny;”—his wife told me this story later—“I had tried to borrow ten roubles the day before, but I failed, because I had borrowed already in every possible quarter. The shops refused to give us any further credit, and our one thought was—what will the children get to eat to-morrow? Vadim sat in sorrow near the window; then he got up, took his hat, and said he meant to take a walk. I saw that he was very low, and I felt frightened; and yet I was glad that he should have something to divert his thoughts. When he went out, I threw myself upon the bed and wept bitter tears, and then I began to think what was to be done. Everything of any value, rings and spoons, had been pawned long ago. I could see no resource but one—to go to our relations and beg their cold charity, their bitter alms. Meanwhile Vadim was walking aimlessly about the streets till he came to the Petrovsky Boulevard. As he passed a bookseller’s shop there, it occurred to him to ask whether a single copy of his book had been sold. Five days earlier he had enquired, with no result; and he was full of apprehension when he entered the shop. ‘Very glad to see you,’ said the man; ‘I have heard from my Petersburg agent that he has sold 300 roubles’ worth of your books. Would you like payment now?’ And the man there and then counted out fifteen gold pieces. Vadim’s joy was so great that he was bewildered. He hurried to the nearest eating-house, bought food, fruit, and a bottle of wine, hired a cab, and drove home in triumph. I was adding water to some remnants of soup, to feed the children, and I meant to give him a little, pretending that I had eaten something already; and then suddenly he came in, carrying his parcel and the bottle of wine, and looking as happy and cheerful as in times past.”
Then she burst out sobbing and could not utter another word.
After my return from banishment I saw him occasionally in Petersburg and found him much changed. He kept his old convictions, but he kept them as a warrior, feeling that he is mortally wounded, still grasps his sword. He was exhausted and depressed, and looked forward without hope. And such I found him in Moscow in 1842; his circumstances were improved to some extent, and his works were appreciated, but all this came too late.
Then consumption—that terrible disease which I was fated to watch once again[[52]]—declared itself in the autumn of 1842, and Vadim wasted away.
[52]. Herzen’s wife died of consumption at Nice in 1852.
A month before he died, I noticed with horror that his powers of mind were failing and growing dim like a flickering candle; the atmosphere of the sick-room grew darker steadily. Soon it cost him a laborious effort to find words for incoherent speech, and he confused words of similar sound; at last, he hardly spoke except to express anxiety about his medicines and the hours for taking them.
At three o’clock one February morning, his wife sent for me. The sick man was in distress and asking for me. I went up to his bed and touched his hand; his wife named me, and he looked long and wearily at me but failed to recognise me and shut his eyes again. Then the children were brought, and he looked at them, but I do not think he recognised them either. His breathing became more difficult; there were intervals of quiet followed by long gasps. Just then the bells of a neighbouring church rang out; Vadim listened and then said, “That’s for early Mass,” and those were his last words. His wife sobbed on her knees beside the body; a young college friend, who had shown them much kindness during the last illness, moved about the room, pushing away the table with the medicine-bottles and drawing up the blinds. I left the house; it was frosty and bright out of doors, and the rising sun glittered on the snow, just as if all was right with the world. My errand was to order a coffin.
When I returned, the silence of death reigned in the little house. In accordance with Russian custom, the dead man was lying on the table in the drawing-room, and an artist-friend, seated at a little distance, was drawing, through his tears, a portrait of the lifeless features. Near the body stood a tall female figure, with folded arms and an expression of infinite sorrow; she stood silent, and no sculptor could have carved a nobler or more impressive embodiment of grief. She was not young, but still retained the traces of a severe and stately beauty; wrapped up in a long mantle of black velvet trimmed with ermine, she stood there like a statue.