The speaker was Ogaryóv’s valet. Of late all had been quiet, and I could not imagine what pretext the police had invented. Ogaryóv had only come to Moscow the day before. And why had they arrested him, and not me?
To do nothing was impossible. I dressed and went out without any definite purpose. It was my first experience of misfortune. I felt wretched and furious at my own impotence.
I wandered about the streets till at last I thought of a friend whose social position made it possible for him to learn the state of the case, and, perhaps, to mend matters. But he was then living terribly far off, at a house in a distant suburb. I called the first cab I saw and hurried off at top speed. It was then seven o’clock in the morning.
§3
Eighteen months before this time we had made the acquaintance of this man, who was a kind of a celebrity in Moscow. Educated in Paris, he was rich, intelligent, well-informed, witty, and independent in his ideas. For complicity in the Decembrist plot he had been imprisoned in a fortress till he and some others were released; and though he had not been exiled, he wore a halo. He was in the public service and had great influence with Prince Dmitri Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, who liked people with independent views, especially if they could express them in good French; for the Governor was not strong in Russian.
V.—as I shall call him—was ten years our senior and surprised us by his sensible comments on current events, his knowledge of political affairs, his eloquent French, and the ardour of his liberalism. He knew so much and so thoroughly; he was so pleasant and easy in conversation; his views were so clearly defined; he had a reply to every question and a solution of every problem. He read everything—new novels, pamphlets, newspapers, poetry, and was working seriously at zoology as well; he drew up reports for the Governor and was organising a series of school-books.
His liberalism was of the purest tricolour hue, the liberalism of the Left, midway between Mauguin and General Lamarque.[[61]]
[61]. French politicians prominent about 1830.
The walls of his study in Moscow were covered with portraits of famous revolutionaries, from John Hampden and Bailly to Fieschi and Armand Carrel,[[62]] and a whole library of prohibited books was ranged beneath these patron saints. A skeleton, with a few stuffed birds and scientific preparations, gave an air of study and concentration to the room and toned down its revolutionary appearance.
[62]. Bailly, Mayor of Paris, was guillotined in 1793. Fieschi was executed in 1836 for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe. Armand Carrel was a French publicist and journalist who fell in a duel in 1836.