31 October–6 November 1853

Spent all day on the road. At Temkich, awaiting an “ occasion I heard how a soldier's wife feeling confused at having refused to trust the rich Jew, Tabun, with five kopeks’ worth of sunflower seeds, tried to prove to a Jewish lad that Tabun, “in our Russian way", was her uncle : “ So that your father was a Jew and his brother was Tabun, so it follows that he, Tabun, was his brother ”, and so on. A seventy- year-old Tartar beggar, who pushed me in fun and to whom I gave some bread and some vodka, was.so touched by my kindness that all the time I remained there he gazed at me with an expression of most touching gratitude and, like a boy, tried to guess my wishes and render me service. He assured us that he was only forty y^ars old. Among the Tartars, as among all tribes who are uneducated and live in continual want, old age is not a title to respect, but only a reason obliging them to sell their services cheap. Great was the moral development of the Spartans. As we were approaching Khasav-Urt, a dozen Tartars showed themselves at a distance of two gunshots, and our brave Kabardfns, 2 as is always the case, began bustling and funking. One soldier in the advance-guard said, “ Suppose some of them crop up from another direc- tion”. A real coward! He expressed his fear in a way to infect others. In the evening, as now always happens at Khasav-Urt, the officers (not knowing that I had been with the “ occasion ”) said in my presence that an attack had been made on the “ occasion ” to-day. Yesterday Zdev, showing off his society manners and refinement before Olifer, expressed the opinion that Alexeev’s trap is disgraceful, and so on. It is amazing how these people, who have grown up in the mud and under the stick, laugh at things without being ashamed of themselves. It is still stranger that people like Zuev, who are fond of civilisation, foreign words, literature, and music (of which they have the very ridiculous conceptions of an army-officer) inspire more confidence in others by their talk than really educated people do. However, this strangeness is a result of my living among these people of narrow views. They understand one another. To-day we were again called out by an alarm. Read The Captain's Daughter and, alas, I have to admit that Pushkin’s prose is already old-fashioned, not in its language but in the manner of its exposition. It is true that the new tendency is for interest in details of feeling to predominate over interest in the events themselves. Pushkin’s stories seem rather bare. These are the thoughts that have occurred to me these four days and which I have had time to jot down in my little book. j It is impossible to make one’s conduct conform to the judgements of one’s reasonable will as a simple result of expressing them. One must employ cunning against one- self and one’s passions. To do good is pleasant to everyone, but passions often make us see it in a perverse light ; and reason, acting directly, is powerless against the passions, it must try to oppose one to another. Therein lies wisdom. Schiller quite rightly considers that no genius can develop in solitude, and that external stimulation — good A famous short story by Piishkin. books and conversation, promotes thought more than years of solitary toil. Thoughts arise in company and their development and expression take place in solitude. Epfshka says that if a man as he goes along looks at his clothes, he is a pig. What a low degree of vanity ! How naive are its ways ! Two versts from Shelkov, in Ermdlov’s time and even before that, stood fort Ivanov, which Epfshka says was destroyed because, it seems, it was falsely reported that there were forty churches in it. Guyma is a carpet-covered kibftka in which N6gay (Tartar) women and girls live. One of the chief reasons of the errors made by our well-to-do class is that we are very slow in accustoming ourselves to the thought that we are grown up. Our whole life up to twenty-five years, and sometimes more, runs counter to that thought ; it is quite the contrary among the peasants, where at fifteen a lad gets married and becomes complete master of himself. I have often been struck by the independence and assur- ance of a peasant lad, who in our class even were he very clever would be but a cipher. It is strange that we all conceal the fact that one of the main springs of our life is money. As if that were shame- ful !* Take the novels, biographies, or stories — they all try to avoid questions of money, whereas in that lies the chief interest of life (or if not the chief, the most continual) and by it a man’s character is best shown. • There is a category of fine and honourable people (though for the most part not respected, and unfortunate in life) who seem to live waiting for an opportunity to sacrifice themselves for someone else, or for honour’s sake, and who really only live from the time when that sacrifice begins. I have often had occasion to be surprised at, and to envy, the sound and clear outlook of men who read but little. To look over work that has been completed in rough draft, striking out all that is superfluous and adding nothing — that is the first process. Reading a story by some English lady I was struck by the ease of her manner, which I do not possess, and to obtain which I must labour and observe. Shamil in 1846 advanced into Kabarda and fought an action, honourable to the Russians, with Nevkovich, who with six companies and two fortress guns came upon him on this side of the river T£rek, near Zmeyka, and having* withstood his attack retired after losing 120 men, without leaving a single corpse on the field. Self - confidence and aplomb depend, not on the brilliance of one’s position, but on success in the path one has chosen, however insignificant it may be. Suleiman-Effendi was sent, in 1846, by Shamil to his right flank to collect horsemen ; in 1847, during the building of Achknaya, he came over to the Russians. From Voronezh, where he was sent to live, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and on his return journey rejoined the enemy. The Karachay, a neutral tribe living at the foot of Mount Elbruz, are remarkable for their fidelity, their beauty, and their bravery. In 1848 orders were given for the arrest of the Karachay prince at Pyatigorsk. He had revenged himself on his enemy, the Kabardfn prince ; but the savage would not give himself up and was killed with four of his followers by a whole company of soldiers. There are people, such as myself and such as I try to depict in The Story of a Russian Landlord ,l who feel that they must appear proud, and the more they try to assume an expression of indifference, the more haughty they appear. I am frequently held up when writing by hackneyed expressions which are not quite correct, true, or poetic, but the fact that one meets them so frequently often makes me write them. These unconsidered, customary expres- sions, of the inadequacy of which one is aware but which one tolerates because they are so customary, will appear to Subsequently called A Landlord's Morning. posterity a proof of bad taste. To tolerate these expres- sions means to go with one’s age, to correct them means to go in advance of it.

Have spent two days in a fog. Con- tinual visitors at Olifer’s and disquietude about my illness (which seems to waver between better and worse) have not diverted me from observations on myself, on others, and on my work. I have decided to undergo a cure, though the doctor inspires me with very little confidence. Yesterday a dispute arose between myself and some of the officers about the value of granting titles ; on which occasion Zfiev, quite irrelevantly, showed envy of my title. At that moment, the thought that he considered me conceited about my title hurt my vanity ; but now I am very glad that he showed his own weakness in that respect. How dangerous it is to trust to thoughts that arise in the heat of argument. Always to live alone is another rule I will try to adhere to. Almost every lime I meet a new man I experience a painful feeling of disappointment. I imagine him to be like myself, and study him, applying that standard. Once for all I must become accustomed to the thought that I am an exception and ahead of my age, or am one of those incompatible, unadaptable natures that never are satisfied. I must set a different standard (lower than my own) and measure people by it. Shall less often be mistaken. I Ibng deceived myself imagining I had friends who under- stood me. Nonsense ! I have not yet met a single man who was morally as good as I, and who believed that I do not remember an instance in my life when I was not attracted by what is good and was not ready to sacrifice everything for it. That is how it happens that I do not know a society in which I feel at ease. I always feel that the expression of my most intimate thoughts will be regarded as false, and that people cannot sympathise with my interests. Yesterday moved into lodgings. If I have to spend a month here, am convinced I shall use it profitably. Yester- day evening I already felt a disposition to truth and useful- ness such as that I felt at Tiflfs and at Pyatigorsk. There is no evil without its good. Yesterday, at the thought that my nose might fall in, I imagined what an immense and beneficial impulse that would give me in the direction of moral development. I so vividly imagined to myself how worthy I should be, how devoted to the common good, and how useful to it, that I almost wished to experience what I had considered a calamity justifying suicide. However, the idea of suicide from shame of dis- figurement is a base thought which I had heard Islavin utter well and expressively and which I repeated without conviction, as it often happens that one lightly repeats things merely because one has heard them well expressed. Do not repeat anything you hear, however much it may have struck you, without having quietly thought it over and having, in tranquillity, made it agree with your own trend.

Yesterday spent the whole day without doing anything. Chatted with visitors and looked through an old number of the Contemporary. . . . Do not value an opinion you do not respect. I wished to say : “ Do not value the opinion of people you do* not respect ”, but that would have been inaccurate, for even those whom you despise may in certain cases be sound judges. The mistake I want to avoid is simply that of trying (as is often done by vain people) to be like someon‘6 you would not respect. Yesterday after playing cards, Stasulevich, who seems to be a man of very good abilities, told me the story of his misfortune. In the Met^khov prison, three soldiers of the line were in confinement for murder and for robbing the post. The Georgian princes, Amelekhvarov and £restov, with some Imerftians, were mixed up in the affair. The soldiers, who had means of communication with Amelekhvarov, told him they had 25,000 rubles hidden in the town, which they undertook to deliver if they were let out. Amelekh- varov addressed himself to the guard-officer Zdgobel, promising to send some of his own Imerftians (known for fidelity to their word) with the soldiers, to bring them back alive or dead. Zagobel agreed. Six criminals were let out at night, who robbed and murdered some travellers and brought back 5500 rubles, which they divided between Amelekhvarov and Zagobel, saying that they had been unable to get the whole of the hidden money. Zagobel let them out a second time the same day that Stasuldvich came on guard. “ I had only just got married,” he told me, “and it was two months since I had been on guard.” When I came up to Zagobel and asked him to hand the guard over to me (I was always very accurate about the service) I was surprised to see how pale and upset he wSs — which he explained by saying that he was feverish, though as I afterwards learnt the real reason was quite another one. At 5 o’clock in the morning when I arrived, the prisoners who had been let out had not yet returned, and were only admitted by the back gates just as I was about to hold the inspection. On examining the prisoners I found two drunk, and ordered them to be searched. Files, vodka, bottles, etc. wer£ found on them. I took over the guard. Prince Amelekhvarov addressed himself to the non-commissioned officer Semenov, asking him to let the prisoners again go out for the night and to go with them ; but as I did not £leep all night and sent for him just when he was about to let them out by the back gate (of which he had the key) — their intention could not be carried out that first night. Next night, while I was asleep, the prisoners were let out dressed in Georgian clothes (one had a soldier’s cap and a regimental-sack which was stamped) and went to Karzd- nov’s in order to steal, with the aid of his orderly who had been bribed, the money he had received the day before for the soldiers’ pay. The robbery did not succeed, they were discovered, and in the hurry of their flight the cap and sack were left on the scene of the crime. “ I knew nothing about it, but only noticed, when handing over the guard to my successor, that the prisoners I had noticed the day before, were again drunk. “ Next day I was arrested. Owing to the sack that had been found, inquiries were made in the company, and it appeared that the sack belonged to the sentry- platoon. The non-commissioned officer Semenov, when examined, said that the prisoners had been let out with my consent. I was kept two months in the house of the regimental commander, under secret arrest. “ I was handed over for trial, but demanded a special commission. The Commission found me guilty of neg- lecting guard-duties, but could neither convict nor acquit me of letting the prisoners out, as the prisoners would say nothing, the soldiers said they received the order to let the prisoners out through the non-commissioned officer in my name but not directly from me, while Semenov continued to put the blame on me. I was sentenced to be degraded to the ranks till I earned promotion, but without deprivation of my rank as a member of the nobility, and I agreed to the sentence. The Viceroy considered that General Wolf, who was performing the Viceroy’s duties in his absence, and the Commandant, were most to blame for the disorders discovered in connection with ‘ this affair ’, namely, the neglect of duty by the company-commander and the officer on patrol duty, for whom we ourselves used generally to sign ; and confirming the sentence of the Commission he sent it up for the Emperor’s confirm ation.*' “ Just then the priest, to whom as a last resource the duty had been entrusted of exhorting the criminals to confess the truth, learnt that Zagobel had let them out before. Zigobel confessed at once and was arrested, and a new inquiry was appointed. I asked to have my affair kept separate from Zagobel’s and to be reinstated. The Viceroy consented and sent me back.” Is he guilty or not ? Heaven knows, but when he was telling me (he speaks admirably) of his own and his wife’s grief, I could hardly restrain my tears. On reaching the regiment after the raid of August 11, for which Wolf refused to grant him a Cross, he learnt that in the Order of the Day issued to the corps, he was accused of having let the prisoners out, and that he was deprived of the rank of nobility. Meanwhile Zagobel’s affair was dropped and he was merely transferred to a line-battalion. The Order by which the Viceroy found General Wolf, who had been acting in his place, guilty, would have involved the Viceroy himself in Zagobel’s affair, for the first release of prisoners took place when the Prince himself was there. That was why Zagobel’s affair was hushed up. ” I handed in a petition ”, said Stasulevich, “ to have my case retried, since the assent I gave, and my abstention from submitting a petition to the Emperor, were based on a different sentence. I was told that I had no right to hand in such a petition, but that my company-commander must write a report from what I should tell him. But my company-commander, Goryanfnov, is so afraid of any conflict with the Staff and is such a limited man, that six months have already passed without his having written anything.” There are some faces, especially such as have shining eye:? and wide, perspiring, dark faces, which when ani- mated continually change their expression to such a degree that it is difficult to recognise them. Abkhaziya lies on the farther side of the mountain, almost opposite Elbruz. It has 30,000 inhabitants. Its chief fortified places are Sukhum- Kale and Bambory. Its ruler’s residence is Suuk-Su. The Abkhazians are Christians. My teeth ached this morning so that I could not sleep and got up early. Began to revise Boyhood , but except for erasures did nothing. Wrote a letter to Moor, chatted with various visitors, read Arago, and played cards till everybody ran away and left me on account of a raid. In the evening Akrsh^vski, whom I had invited in order to give him Boyhood to copy out, brought me his melo- drama — a remarkably senseless and wretched thing. He also told me his story, but very confusedly. One thing is that he seems too pitiful a fellow to be a political criminal. At moments when one feels depressed without cause one must think of those who are really unhappy. Am perfectly convinced that I ought to acquire fame ; this even makes me take so little pains : I am convinced that all I need is to wish to work up the materials which I feel within me. Several times in succession I have had a dream of a Tartar attack. It seems to me that that is a presentiment of something. The position of the Russians in the mountains is of three kinds : (i) Prisoners in slavery to private owners; (2) fugitives in what is called the “ command ” at Vedeno, who are employed as artisans ; and (3) renegades, who live apart.

My health is quite good, but on the other hand I have deteriorated morally. All day have not had one thought or made one observation, though I have read Arago and corrected Boyhood , which Akrshevski is copying out. The others have returned from an abortive raid.