My Universities
"I am a countryman of Korolenko's — I also come from the Volynic — and I am a descendant of that bishop Koniszky, who — do you remember? — made that famous speech to Catherine the Second: 'Let us leave the sun,' etc...I am proud of it."
I politely inquired who roused greater pride in him, the ancestor or the countryman?
"Both, of course, both," he said. He drew the pupils of his eyes quite into his nose, but they shortened and then immediately went back to their place. Feeling ill and therefore angry, I remarked that the pride of a man with whose life the excessively polite
attention of policemen interfered so much was not clear to me.
Koniszky answered piously: "Every one of us acts on the will of the Almighty, every one of us! Now, let us continue. So you affirm, although we know it eames
We were sitting in a small room above the gate of the castle. The window was situated very high upon the wall under the ceiling, and through it, onto the table crowded with papers, fell a ray of warm sun, and among other things threw its light to my shame onto the slip of paper on which I had written out distinctly:
"Do not reproach the sturgeon when it is told: now, stir, John!" I looked at the confounded paper and wondered:
"What shall I answer to the officer when he asks me about the meaning of this sentence?"
For six years — from 1895-1901 — I did not meet Vladimir Galaktionovich, and only seldom corresponded with him.
In 1901 I came for the first time to Pee snare the town of straight lines and crooked-minded people. I was "the fashion"; "glory"? besieged me, interfering with my life. My popularity went very deep. I remember one night, as I was coming home by the Anidkoff bridge, I was overtaken by two men, evidently hair-dressers, and one of them, peering into my face, whispered in a frightened way to his friend:
"Look — that's Gorki."
The other one stopped, looked at me attentively
from head to foot and, letting me pass, murmured rapturously: "Hah, the old devil — walks about in rubber shoes!"
Among other pleasures, I had my photograph taken together with a group of the members of the editor's office of the review "Natchalo." Among them was the provocator and secret agent, M. Gurovich. Of course it was very pleasant to see the kind smiles of the women, the adoring glances of the young girls and, probably like all young people winged with glory, I resembled rather an Indian cock.
But in the nights, when I was alone, I suddenly felt myself like an escaped criminal surrounded by secret agents, judges and spies who all behave as though they considered the crime to be a misfortune, a "sad mistake" of youth, and only await that he should plead guilty; then they will all generously forgive him. But in the secret depths of their hearts they all have the invincible desire to catch the criminal en flagrant délit and shout out victoriously:
"Hah, we've got you!"
Often I had to stand as a schoolboy who is being examined in all matters of science.
"What do you believe in?" questioned the sectarians and the priests of the temples. Being of an amiable disposition, I allowed myself to be examined with a patience which amazed me, but after this torture of words I experienced the desire to poke the needle of the Admiralty through the Isaacs Cathedral or do something equally scandalous. Somewhere, behind a certain good nature, nearly always an affected one, Russians conceal something slightly resembling bounderism. This quality — or is it perhaps a means
of investigation? — expresses itself very variedly, chiefly though in an aspiration to visit the soul of your neighbour as one visits a fair, watch the conjuring tricks that are being exhibited in it, throw things about in it and trample them, sow trifles in a stranger's soul and sometimes overturn something in it. And, like the unbelieving Thomas, poke one's fingers in the wounds, presuming most probably that the scepticism of the Apostle is equal to the curiosity of monkeys.
V. G. Korolenko found even among the stone buildings of Petersburg a small old wooden house, with provincial cosiness in it, whitewashed ceilings and the tender aroma of antiquity. He had become grey in these years, the curls of hair on the temples were nearly white, wrinkles had appeared under the eyes and their look was absent-minded and weary. I felt immediately that his calmness, which had formerly so appealed to me, had given place to the extreme nervousness of a man who lives in a continual tension
of the soul.
_ Apparently, the Multon case had cost him a lot, as well as all the other things which he had dragged about like a bear in those hard years.
"I suffer with insomnia; it bores me terribly. And you see, in spite of consumption, smoke as much as ever. How are your lungs? I am going to the Black Sea; let's go together!"
He sat down at the table in front of me and, peeping from behind the kettle, spoke of my work.
324. MY UNIVERSITY DAYS
"Things like 'Varanka Olessova' you manage better than 'Thomas Cordeeff.' That novel is hard to read; it has a lot of material and no order, no smoothness."
He straightened himself out so that his spine cracked, and asked:
"Well, have you become a Marxist?"
When I told him that I was very near it he smiled sadly and remarked: "I can't understand it. Socialism without idealism — lI cannot conceive. And I do not think that one can build ethics on the consciousness of mutual material interests — and we cannot do without ethics."
And, sipping his tea, he asked: "Well, and how do you like Petersburg?"
"The town is far more interesting than the people."
The=people here .4) 7
He lifted his eyebrows and rubbed hard his tired eyes.
"The people here are more European than in Moscow or on our Volga. They say that Moscow has more character — I don't know. To my opinion her peculiar character is a clumsy one — it is tough and conservative. The spirit of the Slavophiles, Katnoff and the others, and their spirit reigns there — here — the Dekabrists, the Petrashevsky people, Chernishieveky . <7
"Pobedonoszeff," I put in. "Marxists," added V. G., with a laugh. 'And altogether every kind of thought sharpened by progress, which means revolution. And Pobedonoszeff is gifted, you may say what you like. Have you read his 'Moscow Review'? You notice that it is a Muscovite one, all the same!"
He got nervously animated and began speaking with
humour of the struggle of literary circles, of the discussions between the "narodniki" and the Marxists.
I knew something of it already. On the next day after my arrival in Petersburg I had been involved in an "affair" which even now I recall with displeasure. I had come to V. G. to talk with him, among other things, on this matter.
The affair was such: the editor of the "'Jisu" (Life), V. A. Posse, had organised a literary evening in honour and in memory of M. G. Chernishevsky and had invited V. G. Korolenko, N. K. Michailovsky, P. F. Menshin, P. B. Struve, M. I. Zugan-Baranovsky and several other Marxists and "'narodniki' to take part in it. The literary men had consented. The police had allowed it.
On the next day, on my arrival at Petersburg two smart students together with a coquettish young lady, came to see me and declared that they could not allow Posse to take part in a feast in honour of Chernishevsky, for "Posse is not accepted by the studying youth, he exploits the editors of the review 'Jisu.'" I knew Posse for about a year, considered him a man of original talent, but not to the point of being able to exploit the editors. I knew his relations with them to be very friendly; he worked like a drayman's horse and, being very poorly paid, lived with his large family a life of starvation. When I told all this to the young people they began to speak of the vague political position of Posse between the "narodniki" and the Marxists, but I remarked to them that he was aware of this vagueness himself and therefore signed his articles by the pseudonym Wilde. The guardians of morality and orthodoxy got angry with me and went away, say-
ing that they would go pleading before all the participators in the evening, imploring them to refuse to appear at it. 'It came out, later on, that the incident in its substance" was to be regarded not like a personal action against Posse, but like "one of the acts of struggle between two directions of political thought." The young Marxists found that it was not suitable that their representatives should appear before the public next to the representatives of the "narodnichestno," the "languishing" and "extenuated." All this wisdom was stated to me in a letter, detailed like an official report and written in such a language that I felt myself a foreigner as I read it. Together with that letter that came from people of whom I had no idea, I received a note from P. B. Struve. He informed me that he refused to appear at the evening, and a few hours later, again in a note, declared that he took his refusal back. But the next day it was M. I. Zugan-Baranovsky who refused to take part in the evening, and Struve sent a third note with a final refusal, and, as in the previous ones, without giving the motives on the strength of which he was acting like that.
V. G., smiling, listened to my story about all this rubbish and said, with a sad kind of humour:
"There, you see — one can be invited to read something and then as soon as you get to the stage you'll be seized, your trousers will be pulled off and you'll get a jolly licking!" Walking up and down the room, his hands behind his back, he continued, speaking low and thoughtfully: "What hard times! Something strange and corrupting is developing among us. I cannot understand the state of mind of the youth. I
think that a certain nihilism reigns again among them and that there exists a category of socialists of career. Autocracy is undermining Russia. But a power that would take its place is not to be seen."
It was the first time that I saw Korolenko looking so preoccupied and weary. That filled me with sadness.
Some Zemstvo people from the provinces came to see him and I went away. A day or two later he left the town to go and have a rest somewhere, and I do not remember having come together with him again after this meeting.
THE END