He frowned and hurled away the package in disgust.
Really, the brazen impudence of this traitor!
And the last short note was from Nesselrode, who was arranging a meeting with him for tomorrow, before the ball. This note was the shortest.
And still his heart began to beat time like the copper pendulum on a grandfather clock. He suddenly buttoned up, recognizing that the time had come.
He opened the desk drawer like a thief and pulled out the package containing the project. He hacked the seals on his own project, like a spy, and stared fearfully at the blue sheets.
It would be too soon, as important things always were, but he could delay no more.
His project would be accepted. He would certainly outwit Nesselrode, and he understood the emperor well.
His project was immense, bigger than the Turkmenchai Peace Treaty. Everything had been calculated, and everything was irrefutable.
He wanted to be a king.
12
“Nowadays in Petersburg, one can make money pretty easily.”
“Ca-n one?”
“Nowadays, Petersburg is not like it was in the old days, there are many educated people here.”
“A-re there?”
“Nowadays, of course, your clothes and the way you dress are important.”
“A-re they?”
Sashka, who thought that Griboedov had left, was talking to the hotel servant in the adjoining room. In all that time, out of self-importance, Sashka would say only: “Can you?” or “Are they?” but then he was also coming out with “Re-ally?” out of genuine curiosity.
Griboedov sat with his coat on and listened. He had been just about to leave, but then returned quietly.
“These days, one needs to be on one’s toes. Important gentlemen are put up in this hotel.”
“A-re they?”
“Last year, they played cards in Room 10, and one of the gentlemen was clobbered on the noodle with a candlestick.”
“W-as he?”
This conversation calmed him down. It was impossible to go to Nesselrode right now and make grand speeches.
As soon as one starts to declaim, one’s case is lost.
He knew this from experience—no one was particularly interested in his declamatory poetry, in which he laid himself bare. That was how he had wanted to write his Woe initially, but then he spoiled it for the theater, put in some slapstick, and the public adored it. He should approach Nesselrode in the same way.
“ … And about two months ago, in Room 5, an American lady gave birth to a baby boy.”
“D-i-d she?”
13
A diplomat once said: all real evils are born out of fears of imaginary ones. And thus he defined his craft.
A secret brotherhood of diplomats had formed itself with a common sign—a smile. Brought together and cut off from ordinary people in extraterritorial palaces—that is, in plain words, residences far removed from their own countries—they had developed particular modes of behavior.
They pretended to be ordinary to spy out people’s weaknesses and to succeed in their machinations.
Everybody knew it: if Talleyrand was carousing wildly, giving one ball after another, with lots of ladies in attendance, it meant that France was just about to start its machinations. If Metternich was talking about retirement and how he was going to devote all his time to the philosophy of the law, Austria had machinations in mind.
Diplomats are extraterritorial, detached. That’s why every ordinary human action is turned into a particular ritual. A perfectly ordinary dinner attains the monstrous proportions of The Dinner.
Like the African aborigines who in the nineteenth century extracted the poison that they called “coca” and, intoxicated by it, walked in delirium along thin twigs that seemed to them like beams, so instead of port or madeira, diplomats raised in their glasses Prussia or Spain.
“Young man, a sad old age awaits you,” said Talleyrand to a young diplomat who was reluctant to play cards.
A short notice appeared in the Northern Bee on the very same day that Griboedov went to see Nesselrode:
Foreign News. France. Last Sunday, His Majesty played cards with Prince Leopold of Coburg and the Russian and Austrian envoys.
A pleasant old age awaited the young prince, and that night France was losing to Russia and Austria. That was an item of foreign—not high society—news. In that latter category, there was something completely different: “Gossip Column” signed F.B. That was about real card-playing and about a real dinner, and it had been attended by Faddei Bulgarin.
The short note from Nesselrode with the request to see him an hour before the ball was another machination.
Once in Nesselrode’s study, Griboedov assessed the terrain and the field and did not get down to military action right away.
The terrain was comfortable. Pale blue watercolors in slender frames hung on the walls like symmetrical lollipops. Informal portraits of emperors and diplomats at home, Nicholas’s little horse in a Gürner lithoprint, an engraving by Wright, where Nicholas was depicted on a plate with eagles, and Alexander, plump, with female flanks, against the backdrop of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Metternich’s chin was also visible.
The place was pleasant; the place was, innocent, snug.
It did not bode particularly well.
He preferred the massively spacious and almost empty office at the Ministry. He would have to talk about goods, factories, capital. It was impossible to imagine all these topics in this little room, in which the document would just be words on paper.
Nesselrode worshipped two words: “dispatch” and “memorandum.” An elegantly written memorandum could in many instances prevent war, blood, and brouhaha. Such was the influence of the office and the little watercolors. He kept making little jokes and raising his eyebrows, while seating Griboedov in a vastly oversized armchair.
Then.
Then came Rodofinikin, who had finally recovered from his ailment.
This could be either good or bad.
Rodofinikin was a wise, hard-bitten old bird. His hard, silver-haired little head was not accustomed to far-reaching thinking, but was used to sudden turnabouts. He had served since the time of Catherine the Great. Then, under Emperor Paul, he was the Secretary of the Chapter House of Orders, where he studied the human whirlwind that was politics. He had visited Austerlitz and even stayed there for two days. When he came across the words “the sun of Austerlitz,” he remembered the varnished floors at the castle, and if the day of Austerlitz was mentioned, he remembered the morning, the suitcases, the wagons, the market square; the day he fled Austerlitz, a small, horrible little hole. And for a long time afterward, he had traveled on official assignments all over Asia, was in Constantinople, got used to military affairs and sudden commotions that later turned out to be known as victories or defeats. But under Alexander, he had been in the shade, when Asian affairs were not in fashion, and now his time had finally come: there was this Asian brouhaha, and Nesselrode couldn’t do without him. Just as before, he had no far-reaching aspirations except for a secret one: to become a born and bred Russian nobleman, so that everyone would forget his Greek-sounding family name. He also wanted to increase his estate and be elected as a marshal of the nobility, albeit in a provincial town.
The times were uncertain; the balance of power had gone overboard. The East could and would be conquered. The project might succeed.
As soon as he sank into the armchair, the dwarf and the bandy-legged one proffered him some documents from both sides.
Nesselrode gave a little laugh.
Griboedov nodded to one man and then the other and skimmed the papers, which turned out to be Nesselrode’s and Rodofinikin’s letters to Paskevich. He feigned interest. The letters were about himself.
Nesselrode’s letter:
“Mr. Griboedov’s arrival and the evidence he brought of the peace concluded and the treaty signed, delighted everyone …”
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Nesselrode preferred the sound of the word “evidence” to “peace.”
“Praise be to our Almighty God, praise be to His Majesty the Emperor, who has arranged everything so wisely … gratitude of the fatherland to our victorious troops …”
Get on with it!
“I have to tell Your Excellency with all forthrightness …”
Aha!
“… that the news of the peace has been received here at a most opportune moment. It will undoubtedly have a satisfactory effect on our external relations …”
Meaning: why was it delayed?
“Griboedov has been honored according to his merits, and I am confident that he will continue to be valuable in our Persian affairs …”
Not good at all.
He smiled, made a bow, and skimmed the second sheet, written by the Greek:
“I am struggling to find the right words to convey to Your Excellency the general delight which has seized the Petersburg public on the arrival of the most gracious Griboedov …”
A deep bow to the bandy-legged one.
“The tears of the enemy will also be copious … I am myself seized by illness … Heartfelt congratulations on the latest laurels … Griboedov was greeted by the emperor, and the following day, Karl Vasilyevich brought a decree from the palace confirming the decoration and the four thousand chervontsy, in accordance with your recommendation.”
Very good.
“… as soon as the business is finished, another assignment must be arranged …”
What assignment? That very assignment? Not good.
This is how he was showered with kindnesses.
Nesselrode looked at him, with his eyebrows raised, expecting gratitude. At last, he saw through him: this courier knew his worth and was demanding a greater remuneration. Nesselrode was not greedy. Griboedov was related to Paskevich—that had to be taken into account. Besides, he knew the Persian language and mores, while Nesselrode confused the rivers Aras and Arpa.
All three of them sat like this, smiling at one another.
Nesselrode began:
“Dear Mr. Griboedov, you look very well; you must have had a chance to rest.”
“Oh yes—after all your labors, you needed rest.”
They were raising his price themselves!
“And so Mr. Rodofinikin and I have been thinking,” the senior one said, “about an appointment worthy of your talents. I have to confess that so far we haven’t found one.”
You haven’t? That suits me fine!
“Does the location of my next appointment matter, dear Count? I have been honored beyond all measure. It is not this that preoccupies me. I am concerned, in the same way as you gentlemen are, with the question of our future. I would like to talk not of myself, but of the East.”
Griboedov pulled out his project. The blue package hit the diplomats in the eye.
The assault began. The diplomats quieted down. The package commanded their respect.
The Turkmenchai Treaty—memorandum—the Bucharest Treaty—package—Nesselrode took a guess: the package was the size of a memorandum with appendices. He indicated that Griboedov should begin reading and sank into the armchair: a fish gone into deep water.
Griboedov spoke quietly, courteously, and distinctly. He glanced in turn at Nesselrode and the Greek.
14
Sashka spent his days in a state of oblivion.
He treated Griboedov as an unavoidable evil (when he was at home), and he was pleased when his master went out in his carriage. Sashka enjoyed rocking on the coach box.
He had a remarkable propensity to sleep.
Sleep enveloped his entire being, caught him unawares on a chair, on a couch, in the carriage, and, less often, in bed. Then he yawned frightfully, as if deliberately. He opened his jaws, tensed his shoulders, and for a long time couldn’t manage to produce a successful yawn to its full extent. Then, relieved by his yawning, he would feel hazy throughout his entire body, as if he had been steamed at a sauna and his back and belly had been well rubbed with soapy foam.
Mirrors were his passion.
He looked into them for a long time, fixedly.
He also loved changing clothes, and in order to give himself an excuse for it, would begin to lay out and shake out his master’s wardrobe.
After Griboedov had left and the hotel servant had said everything he had to say, Sashka walked around in the rooms. He opened the wardrobe and took a piece of fluff off his master’s uniform. Then his fingers poked right inside the wardrobe and felt an article of clothing that he had long fancied. He took a Georgian chekmen12 out of the wardrobe and brushed it over.
Then, lazily, as if obliging somebody, he put it on. Griboedov was taller than Sashka, so the waistline was below his waist.
He began to admire himself in the mirror.
He didn’t like the fact that the chekmen had no gazyr13 and had a smooth chest. For some strange reason, Griboedov particularly treasured this piece of clothing and never allowed Sashka to clean it.
Here, by the mirror, a monstrous yawn took hold of Sashka.
Shaking his head and nodding, he sank onto the sofa and fell asleep, still wearing the chekmen.
In his sleep, he dreamed of ribbed bandoliers and an American lady; the lady was shouting at the hotel servant that he had lost her baby boy, whom she had borne in Room 5 and put in the chest of drawers. The servant was blaming Sashka.
15
Before the ball, one had to stick to the cozily familial style, to jolly Nesselrode along with a joke and to drop a casual business remark to the Greek.
Griboedov began with a comparison.
“I am an author, and Your Excellency will forgive me the following digression, which may be rather remote from and foreign to the world of important affairs.”
Good. Nesselrode was uneasy about dealing with the package before the ball.
“During my time in Persia, I pursued the following policy: I was polite with the firewood merchants, sweet with the confectioners, but stern with the fruit sellers.”
Being an experienced jokester, Nesselrode raised his eyebrows and prepared himself to hear something amusing.
Surrounded by the little watercolors, Griboedov had had to start with sweet talk.
“… because firewood in Tabriz is precious, it is worth its weight in gold and is sold by the pound, fruit is available in abundance, and I am fond of sweets.”
“What fruit do they have?” Nesselrode asked inquisitively.
Griboedov shouldn’t have mentioned the fruit. Nesselrode was too interested in it.
“Long-shaped, seedless grapes called tebrizi, a superb variety, and a special sort of lemon.”
Nesselrode’s lips drew in. He could really picture that lemon.
The collegiate councillor glanced at him.
“But they are sugar-sweet and called limu, and there are also Pomeranian oranges.”
And, looking apprehensively at his sensitive superior, he added softly:
“Sour ones.”
He teased his superiors so cleverly, like a crafty but well-behaved boy, that the dwarf was quite entertained. Was it rudeness? Cunning? He was a splendid chap!
“And I came to the conclusion that my domestic policies were right and reflected our principles.”
“Our principles”—how cocky was that. This must have been a joke.
“I am joking,” the collegiate councillor said, “and ask you to indulge me in advance. I observed the East very carefully and did my best to follow closely Your Excellency’s judicious policies.”
Yes, he knew his place. An earnest and respectful man; facetiousness was not much of a vice in a young man, though, it went without saying—only to a certain degree.
“… because it is not only the fighting spirit which is vital for a state.”
And that too was true. Nesselrode nodded approvingly. This relative of Paskevich was … un peu idéologue, but he seemed to know his business and did not give himself air
s.
“It is crucial for any state to know how to provide itself with food, to guarantee its revenue, and how to increase it as demands grow for the comforts and pleasures of life.”
Nesselrode was getting worried:
“Ah, the revenue! I’ve spoken to the finance minister, and he said that in the last few years, Russia has experienced a significant increase in territory and growth of population.”
Griboedov smiled courteously.
“I’m afraid that there is a certain partiality to the excess of material things and the means of their production. For some time now, we’ve been growing wheat in abundance—in this respect His Excellency the Minister of Finance is right—but we gain nothing from it.”
Nesselrode looked puzzled. These were financial matters. He was about to tell the collegiate councillor that he would, in essence, have to speak about his project to the financiers when Griboedov looked at him deferentially and all of a sudden stopped.
“Be under no impression, Your Excellency, that my intention is to bore you with these financial matters. This is directly related to Your Excellency’s enlightened policies.”
Nesselrode raised his eyebrows meaningfully. His domain was an abstract one, and when it turned out that it touched on finance, it was both pleasant and unsettling. The collegiate councillor continued:
“Education, manufacturing, and trade are already developed in the northern and central parts of our state.”
All was certainly well? A minor unpleasantness concerning wheat was of no consequence.
“We are no longer dependent on importing any produce from foreign countries with arctic and temperate zones.”
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 12