The Adolescent

“Serfdom? You think I was yearning for serfdom? Couldn’t bear the emancipation of the people? Oh, no, my friend, it was we who were the emancipators. I emigrated without any spite. I had just been an arbiter of the peace and had struggled with all my might; I had struggled disinterestedly, and didn’t even leave because I had gotten too little reward for my liberalism. None of us got anything then—that is, again, the ones like me. I left rather in pride than in repentance, and, believe me, quite far from thinking it was time to end my life as a humble bootmaker. Je suis gentilhomme avant tout et je mourrai gentilhomme! ⁹⁴ But even so I felt sad. There are maybe about a thousand men of our sort in Russia; maybe no more, in fact, but that’s quite enough for an idea not to die. We are the bearers of an idea, my dear! . . . My friend, I’m talking in some strange hope that you’ll understand all this gibberish. I invited you on a whim of my heart: I’ve long been dreaming of how I might say something to you . . . to you, precisely to you! But, anyhow . . . anyhow . . .”

“No, speak,” I cried, “I see sincerity in your face again . . . So what, did Europe resurrect you then? And what was your ‘nobleman’s yearning’? Forgive me, dear heart, I still don’t understand.”

“Did Europe resurrect me? But I myself was going then to bury her!”

“To bury her?” I repeated in surprise.

He smiled.

“Arkady, my friend, my soul has waxed tender now, and my spirit is stirred. I’ll never forget my first moments in Europe that time. I had lived in Europe before, but that was a special time, and I had never arrived there with such inconsolable sadness and . . . such love as at that time. I’ll tell you one of my first impressions then, one of the dreams I had then, an actual dream. It was still in Germany. I had just left Dresden and, in my absentmindedness, had missed the station at which I should have changed direction and wound up on another branch line. They got me off at once; it was past two in the afternoon, a bright day. It was a little German town. They directed me to a hotel. I had to wait: the next train came through at eleven o’clock at night. I was even pleased to have an adventure, because I was in no particular hurry. I was wandering, my dear, just wandering. The hotel turned out to be wretched and small, but it was all covered in greenery and surrounded with beds of flowers, as always there. I was given a little room and, as I had spent the whole night on the road, I fell asleep after dinner, at four o’clock in the afternoon.

“I dreamed a dream that was completely unexpected for me, because I had never had one like it. In Dresden, in the gallery, there’s a painting by Claude Lorrain—Acis and Galatea³² according to the catalog, but I’ve always called it The Golden Age, I don’t know why myself. I had seen it before, and then, some three days earlier, I had noticed it once again in passing. I saw this painting in my dream, but not as a painting, but as if it were something happening. However, I don’t know precisely what I dreamed; it was exactly as in the painting—a corner of the Greek archipelago, and time, too, seemed to have shifted back three thousand years; gentle blue waves, islands and rocks, a flowering coast, a magic panorama in the distance, the inviting, setting sun—words can’t express it. Here European mankind remembered its cradle, and the thought of it seemed to fill my soul with a kindred love. This was the earthly paradise of mankind: the gods came down from heaven and were united with people . . . Oh, beautiful people lived here! They woke up and fell asleep happy and innocent; the meadows and groves were filled with their songs and merry shouts; a great surplus of untouched forces went into love and simplehearted joy. The sun poured down warmth and light on them, rejoicing over its beautiful children . . . A wonderful reverie, a lofty delusion of mankind! The golden age—the most incredible dream of all that have ever been, but for which people have given all their lives and all their strength, for which prophets have died and been slain, without which the peoples do not want to live and cannot even die! And it was as if I lived through this whole feeling in my dream; the cliffs and the sea and the slanting rays of the setting sun—it was as if I could still see it all when I woke up and opened my eyes, literally wet with tears. I remember that I was glad. A feeling of happiness unknown to me before went through my heart, even to the point of pain; this was an all-human love. It was already full evening; a sheaf of slanting rays came in the window of my little room, breaking through the greenery of the plants on the windowsill, pouring its light over me. And then, my friend, and then—this setting sun of the first day of European mankind, which I had seen in my dream, turned for me as soon as I woke up, in reality, into the setting sun of the last day of European mankind! At that time especially it was as if a death knell could be heard over Europe. I’m not just speaking of the war, or of the Tuileries;³³ I knew even without that that it would all pass away, the whole countenance of the old European world—sooner or later; but as a Russian European I couldn’t accept it. Yes, they had just burned the Tuileries then . . . Oh, don’t worry, I know it was ‘logical,’ and I understand only too well the irresistibility of the current idea, but as a bearer of the highest Russian cultural thought I couldn’t accept it, because the highest Russian thought is the all-reconciliation of ideas. And who in the whole world could understand such a thought then? I wandered alone. I’m not talking about myself personally—I’m talking about Russian thought. There, there was strife and logic; there the Frenchman was only a Frenchman, and the German only a German, and that with a greater intensity than at any time in their entire history; meaning that a Frenchman never did more harm to France, or a German to his Germany, than at that time! In the whole of Europe then there wasn’t a single European! I alone among all those petroleurs³⁴ could tell them to their faces that their Tuileries was a mistake, and I alone among all the avenging conservatives could tell the avengers that the Tuileries, though a crime, still had its logic. And that was so, my boy, because I alone, as a Russian, was then the only European in Europe. I’m not talking about myself—I’m talking about all of Russian thought. I wandered, my friend, I wandered and knew firmly that I had to keep silent and wander. But still I felt sad. My boy, I cannot help respecting my nobility. It seems you’re laughing?”

“No, I’m not laughing,” I said in a deeply moved voice, “I’m not laughing at all. You’ve shaken my heart with your vision of the golden age, and be assured that I’m beginning to understand you. But most of all I’m glad that you respect yourself so much. I hasten to tell you so. That’s something I never expected of you!”

“I’ve already told you that I like your exclamations, my dear,” he smiled again at my naive exclamation and, getting up from his armchair, began pacing the room without noticing it. I also got up. He went on speaking in his strange language, but with deeply penetrating thought.

III

“YES, MY BOY, I repeat to you that I can’t help respecting my nobility. Over the centuries we have developed a high cultural type never seen before, which does not exist anywhere else in the world—the type of universal suffering for all. It’s a Russian type, but since it’s taken from the highest cultural stratum of the Russian people, that means I have the honor of belonging to it. It preserves in itself the future of Russia. There are perhaps only a thousand of us—maybe more, maybe less—but the whole of Russia has lived up to now only to produce this thousand. Too few, they’ll say, indignant that so many centuries and so many millions of people have been spent for a thousand men. In my opinion, it’s not too few.”

I listened with strained attention. A conviction was emerging, the tendency of a whole lifetime. This “thousand men” betrayed him in such high relief! I felt that his expansiveness with me came from some external shock. He made all these ardent speeches while loving me; but the reason why he suddenly began speaking, and why he wished to speak this way precisely with me, still remained unknown to me.

“I emigrated,” he went on, “and I didn’t regret anything I left behind. I had served Russia then with all that was in my power, while I lived there; having left, I also continued to serve her, but only expanded the idea. But serving her in that way, I served her far more than if I had been merely a Russian, as a Frenchman then was merely a Frenchman, and a German a German. In Europe that has not yet been understood. Europe created noble types of the Frenchman, the Englishman, the German, but of her future man she still knows almost nothing. And it seems