Novels, Tales, Journeys

I was frisky, lazy, and hot-tempered, but sentimental and ambitious, and one could get anything from me by kindness; unfortunately, everybody meddled in my education, but nobody knew the right way of dealing with me. I laughed at the teachers and pulled tricks; with Anna Petrovna I fought tooth for tooth; with Mishenka I had incessant quarrels and scuffles. With my father things often went as far as stormy exchanges, which ended with tears on both sides. Finally Anna Petrovna persuaded him to send me to one of the German universities…I was then fifteen.

CHAPTER TWO

My university life left me with pleasant memories, which, if you look into them, refer to insignificant, and sometimes unpleasant, events; but youth is a great sorcerer: I would pay dearly to sit again over a mug of beer in a cloud of tobacco smoke, with a cudgel in my hand and a greasy velvet cap on my head. I would pay dearly for my room, eternally filled with people, and God knows what people; for our Latin songs, student duels, and quarrels with the philistines!3

The freedom of university studies was of greater benefit to me than lessons at home, but in general the only things I learned properly were fencing and making punch. I received money from home at irregular intervals. That accustomed me to debts and insouciance. Three years went by, and I received an order from my father in Petersburg to leave the university and enter government service in Russia. A few words about disordered circumstances, extra expenses, a change of life seemed odd to me, but I did not pay much attention to them. On my departure I gave a farewell banquet, at which I swore to be eternally faithful to friendship and to mankind and never to take the job of censor, and the next day, with a headache and heartburn, I set out on my way.

We Were Spending the Evening at the Dacha

We were spending the evening at the dacha of Princess D.

The conversation somehow touched upon Mme de Staël.1 Baron D., in poor French, told very poorly a well-known joke: her question to Bonaparte about whom he considered the foremost woman in the world, and his amusing reply: “The one who has had the most children” (“Celle qui a fait le plus d’enfants”).

“What a fine epigram!” one of the guests observed.

“And it serves her right!” one lady said. “How could she fish so clumsily for a compliment?”

“But it seems to me,” said Sorokhtin, who was dozing in a Gambs armchair,2 “it seems to me that Mme de Staël was no more thinking of madrigals than Napoleon was of epigrams. She asked the question out of simple curiosity, quite understandably; and Napoleon literally expressed his own personal opinion. But you don’t believe in the artlessness of genius.”

The guests began to argue, and Sorokhtin dozed off again.

“Really, though,” said the hostess, “whom do you consider the foremost woman in the world?”

“Careful, now: you’re fishing for a compliment…”

“No, joking aside…”

Here a discussion set in: some named Mme de Staël, others the Maid of Orleans, still others Elizabeth, the queen of England, Mme de Maintenon, Mme Roland, and so on…3

A young man standing by the fireplace (because in Petersburg a fireplace is never superfluous) mixed into the conversation for the first time.

“For me,” he said, “the most astonishing woman is Cleopatra.”

“Cleopatra?” said the guests. “Yes, of course…Why, though?”

“There is a feature in her life which is so engraved in my imagination that I can hardly glance at any woman without thinking at once of Cleopatra.”

“What is this feature?” asked the hostess. “Tell us.”

“I can’t; it’s a tricky thing to tell.”

“Why so? Is it indecent?”

“Yes, like almost everything that vividly portrays the terrible morals of antiquity.”

“Ah, tell us, tell us!”

“Ah, no, don’t tell us,” interrupted Volskaya, a divorced woman, primly lowering her fiery eyes.

“Enough,” cried the hostess with impatience. “Qui est-ce donc que l’on trompe ici?^*1 Yesterday we saw Antony, and I have La Physiologie du mariage lying there on the mantelpiece.4 Indecent! Find something else to frighten us with! Stop addling our brains, Alexei Ivanych! You’re not a journalist. Tell us simply what you know about Cleopatra…though…keep it decent, if you can…”

Everybody laughed.

“By God,” said the young man, “I feel timid: I’ve become as bashful as our censorship. Well, so be it…You should know that among Latin historians there was a certain Aurelius Victor, whom you’ve probably never heard of.”

“Aurelius Victor?” interrupted Vershnev, who once studied with the Jesuits. “Aurelius Victor was a fourth-century writer. His works have been ascribed to Cornelius Nepos and even to Suetonius.5 He wrote the book De Viris Illustribus—about the famous men of the city of Rome, I know…”