Deep silence reigned in the house. Outdoors a dense St. Petersburg fog clung about the panes of the large windows.
Dusk was falling. The short winter day was imperceptibly turning into night. Pletniov remained sitting still in the armchair, either engrossed in thought or dozing after a sleepless night.
Suddenly the bronze clock on the mantelpiece struck four times. He sat upright, reached for the bell and rang it. A man servant entered the study noiselessly with a lighted candle.
“Light the candles!” Pletniov ordered. “Where is the lady?”
“The lady said to tell you that you should not await her for dinner. She was invited with the miss to General Lansky’s for dinner.”
While he reported, he lit three tall stearin candles standing under a dark-green lampshade of silk.
“Do you wish dinner to be served?”
“No. Where is the mail?”
The servant left the study just as noiselessly as he had entered it, but the next moment he was back, carrying a tray with several letters, newspapers, and the last issue of the Reader’s Library which still smelled of fresh printing ink.
Pletniov started listlessly breaking the seals, and after reading quickly through the letters, threw them aside on the desk. There was an invitation to an evening party, a letter from his old aunt at the manor, with the usual complaints about poor health, a bad crop and a humble petition for monetary help. One more invitation, a letter from a colleague from Dorpat, a prospectus of the latest Parisian magazines and journals, and an invitation to a meeting. Well, this one was not urgent at all. What else was there?
Among the mail there was a rough, cheap envelope with an address written by an unfamiliar, although intelligent and almost refined hand. Pletniov tore the envelope open. Orsk Fortress. He did not even know such a fortress existed in the world. Two pages of simple paper, and a signature: Shevchenko.
Pletniov raised his eyes for a moment, recalling. Could it be that talented Little-Russian poet whose book he had once reviewed? Certainly: a young natural painter, the former serf of the landowner Engelhardt. Then he got himself involved in a clandestine Slavic society together with Professor Kostomarov. Yes, yes, that was him! Where could he be now? What happened to him?
Pletniov put the candles closer to the letter and became absorbed in it. Terrible! The young man soldiering! He was forbidden to write and paint! And this was meted out to a poet and artist! It was tantamount to confining a living soul to a coffin! Life is anything but sweet for our writers! Pushkin was killed, Koltsov died of consumption, Bestuzhev was hanged, Rileyev too, Lermontov was killed, Odoievsky was forced into the army. There seemed to be no end to this list of martyrs.
Pletniov jumped to his feet and rushed over to the window. Then he poured himself a glassful of water and drained it at one gulp.
What has made me so overexcited, like a schoolboy? he wondered, sinking back into his deep armchair. Of course the man should be pitied, but it is too risky to interfere in this affair. Let others do it — say, the Vehement Vissarion [Belinsky] from the Otechestvenniye zapiski. It is enough that I have been scowled at for so long because of my friendship with Pushkin. Now if others were to get interested in Shevchenko’s fate, then…
Pletniov put the letter into the drawer of his desk and reached for the bell again, when another, muffled bell tinkled in the vestibule, and a moment later the servant entered with a visiting card on the tray.
“Alexei Philippovich Chernishov,” Pletniov read aloud. “I do not recall anyone by that name. What does he want?”
“He has called several times, sir, but you were out. He is on some very important business from Orenburg, so he says.”
“From Orenburg? All right, invite him in. Not to the sitting room, but here, into my study.”
“Let me introduce myself: artist Chernishov. I have just returned from Orenburg and bring your Excellency a letter from the poet Taras Shevchenko who has been a friend of mine from the days when we were students at the Academy of Fine Arts.”
“You mean the Shevchenko who was convicted because of his involvement in the Slavic society?”
“As a matter of fact, he was convicted not for that reason. The Third Department failed to prove his membership in the Society of Cyril and Methodius. But during the search at his quarters they found two dissident poems,” Chernishov replied, and looked Pletniov in the face.
“Oh, I see. But how come you know about it?” Pletniov asked with suspicion, thinking: Dear God, if I were searched they’d find a few things, too — Rileyev’s poems or Pushkin’s epigrams.
“On his way to the place of exile, that is, to the army, he stopped in Orenburg for several days,” Chernishov explained. “There he came across some decent and influential people who took care of him, and he was permitted to live outside the barracks and go freely around the town in civilian clothes. I met him by chance on the street and invited him to my home. On learning that I was leaving for St. Petersburg, he asked that I pass on his letters to you, Brüllow, Dahl, Count Vielgorsky and some other persons. I have seen them, and they all gave their word of honor to help him by all possible means,” Chernishov added, slightly exaggerating the real state of affairs.
“Oh, I see,” Pletniov said, animated. “Well, with joint efforts we might achieve something in the end.”
“Exactly,’ Chernishov said. “Can you imagine the poor man finding himself at Orsk, the farthest fortress from Orenburg? The commandant of Orsk, General Isaiev, died not so long ago, and now there is a certain Meshkov, a primitive man who rose to his present position from the rank of noncom. The company commander is of the same type. For six hours a day they are forcing the man, tormented by rheumatism and scurvy, to march around the parade ground. A clerk from the border commission was there recently and he was shocked by the state of Shevchenko. The man is perishing, and so is his talent. I have come to you as to a cultural figure, as to a friend of the great Pushkin and to a decent man, and I know and believe that you will add your prestigious voice to the voices of those who want to save him.”
The idea was stated so bluntly that Pletniov could not refuse, but venturing to do something definite right away was also impossible. He kept silent for a minute and then produced the letter he had just received.
“He has written to me already. Here is his letter. Read it! I thought something should be done for him, but I did not know in what direction to act, since he has not told me what he was accused of.”
While Chernishov was reading the first letter, Pletniov opened the envelope his guest had brought him, and became absorbed in the second letter. It did not jar on his nerves that much. There was nothing about the accusation and trial in it, but it carried such an implication of contempt for the fainthearted and the petty egotism of “cultured philistines” that color flooded Pletniov’s face as if he had been slapped.
What power and will to live the man possessed, he thought, and reproving his own cowardice, he said:
“Here, too, he does not say what he was accused of. But can you, young man, confirm by your word of honor that apart from writing those poems, he was not involved in anything else?”
“Yes! Upon my word of honor, I swear by the art I serve like a deity.”
“Well then, I will try to help. I will have a talk with Orlov and Dubelt.”
Chernishov knew that Pletniov was a man of his word. He thanked the professor heartily and was about to leave vhen the bell tinkled again in the vestibule.
“Lieutenant Butakov,” the servant announced, pushing aside the heavy portiere.
“Invite him in, please.” Pletniov regained his animation.
The servant stepped aside, and a swarthy naval officer of medium height, with a round face, dense dark hair and clever black eyes, entered the study.
“I’ve come to say farewell to you,” Butakov said in a loud and merry voice. “You can congratulate me: I got what I went after in the end. The expedition has been aut
horized, the funds allotted, and I am leaving for Orenburg.”
“Congratulations!” Pletniov said joyously and shook Butakov’s hand. “It seems to me that you are not acquainted, are you? This is the artist Chernishov, recently from Orenburg. Lieutenant Butakov, our famous mariner. Let us go o the fireplace,” he said, suddenly turning from an amiable aristocrat to a hospitable host. “Tell me everything in detail: what kind of an expedition will it be, how long will it take, and what is your mission all about?”
“The mission is not too complex,” Butakov said. “For a long time now I’ve lost sleep over the white blot on the geographic map to the east of the Caspian Sea. Neither Herodotus nor Pliny ever mentioned a sea existing in the desert there. But on the map from the times of Boris Goduov and on another one of 1627 there is a mysterious Blue Sea. Now we know that the Kirghiz call it the Aral Sea. So I must trek through the desert and steppe, locate the mouth of the Syr Darya, and explore that sea in detail on a schooner, put it on the map for future mariners, describe the islands, sound the depths, reveal currents, reefs, sand banks — in short, collect as much information about it as possible.”
“Will you be staying there long?”
“For about two years. Now I am fitting out the expedition with topographers, navigators, hydrologists and geoloists — the whole crew. I want to bring together a well-organized body of men so I won’t have to deal with our naval bureaucrats, embezzlers and eye-washers. It seems to me I have chosen some good men. But so far I have failed to find an artist. The famous ones from the capital have turned down my invitation, and I don’t need any inept ones. Are you returning to those parts again by any chance?” he asked Chernishov suddenly. “What if you join us?”
“No, I have just come from Orenburg, but … if a diploma of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts is all right with you, I can recommend you a real artist who will thank God and fate if you snatch him out of the place he is in now.”
Butakov raised his brows in surprise. “Oh! Who is he?”
“You yourself, Alexei Ivanovich, are something of a literateur,” Pletniov intervened. “The artist our young friend has in mind is not only an artist, but an extraordinarily talented poet. He is Taras Shevchenko, the author of a collection of Little-Russian poetry entitled Kobzar. I think it was published in eighteen forty, and a year later there was a second edition of the book.”
“Kobzar? Shevchenko? Oh yes, I remember! But how did he find himself in Orenburg?”
“Not in Orenburg, but in Orsk Fortress,” Chernishov specified. “Last year he was arrested and sent to serve in a line battalion of the Orenburg Military District.”
“You can save him from the horrors of soldiery, drill, the officers’ fisticuffs and caning,” Pletniov added.
Butakov took out a notebook.
“Wait a minute, gentlemen. I have to put down his name, all of his particulars, and then find out who to deal with — the war minister or the Orenburg Military District authorities. I hope I may wrest at least one talented man from the Third Department.”
“Here are his letters. Read them, Alexei Ivanovich,” Pletniov said, taking both letters out the drawer. “Read them and you will see what formidable power this man has to live, create, write, paint, and struggle.”
“And to struggle not for himself but for his people,” Butakov said reflectively, handing back to Pletniov the letters after he had read them. “It could be that we have read the letters of one of the most famous of our contemporaries. Who knows…”
“Well, that is a bit far-fetched,” the professor said with a smile. “He is simply a talented man from the people. You could not really compare with with, say Baratinsky or Zhukovsky, could you? Or the more so with Pushkin in whose verse the Russian language has been elevated to the level of one of the first languages in the world? Nobody will be able to outmatch Pushkin even in five hundred years from now.”
And Pletniov started to air his lengthy, wise and dull reflections he was so fond of.
But not all of Shevchenko’s acquaintances were equally responsive to his pleas for help. The only thing Karl Brüllow did when approached by Chernishov and Lazarevsky was shrug his shoulders.
Lazarevsky could not restrain himself at such a reaction, and said:
“I should say you are lapsing into sin, Karl Pavlovich, by being so indifferent to one of your best students! Why then did you have to keep him in your home and feed him for several years, and then renounce him at a time when he is perishing?”
“Who gave you the right to judge my actions in such a manner?!” Brüllow flared up. “If the emperor himself is angry with Shevchenko, nobody’s pleas will make him change his mind, but, on the contrary, they might only worsen the fate of the unfortunate Shevchenko. The emperor regards him as a person who dared offend the imperial family. In this case you have to do only one thing: keep quiet. Let the emperor forget about Shevchenko, and in about two years, at a suitable moment, he’ll be given a pardon to sign. For the time being any reminder about Shevchenko will only prolong his exile.”
“But he will perish by that time!” Chernishov exclaimed. “He is at the end of his tether.”
“Talk with Orlov and Dubelt then, if you don’t believe me,” Brüllow cut him short angrily and left the room.
Chernishov and Lazarevsky went out into the street in a downcast and sorrowful mood, not knowing what to do next. Brüllow had been their greatest hope.
After saying goodbye to Lazarevsky, Chernishov stood at the corner in indecision for some time, then he hailed a carriage and went to Vasilevsky Island to Dahl.
The famous ethnographer and collector of folk songs, riddles and sayings did not receive him immediately. He was ill, and Chernishov had to wait for a long time in his study piled with papers, thick notebooks, files and file boxes. The sight of this seeming disorder, which actually had a system of its own, evoked bitter thoughts in Chernishov. He doubted whether he would be able to elicit sympathy for Shevchenko’s fate.
“Excuse me for having made you wait so long,” he suddenly heard the voice of Dahl.
Dahl entered in a dressing gown and with a hot compress on his neck.
“Be seated, please. I have been taken extremely ill because of our city’s permanent dampness,” Dahl said. “What can I do for you?”
“I have brought you a letter from Taras Shevchenko. He has been exiled, or rather forced into a line battalion in the Orenburg Military District. He is ill and pleads for help. Here is his letter.”
Dahl read the letter lengthily and attentively, then he folded it neatly and put it back into the envelope.
“You must have already seen some of his acquaintances, I suppose?” Dahl looked searchingly at the artist.
“I have,” Chernishov replied. “Brüllow said it was too early to intercede. But Shevchenko might perish in the meantime.”
Dahl slowly paced the room, then he sat down opposite Chernishov, and took a snuff box out of his pocket.
“Tell me please everything about Shevchenko’s case and everything you have heard from Brüllow and the others. Then I’ll think what can be done.”
Chernishov told in detail about his meeting with the poet in Orenburg, as well as his conversation with Pletniov and Brüllow. Dahl listened so attentively that he even forgot to open his snuff box.
“Brüllow is right,” he said after Chernishov had finished the story. “It is too early yet to talk about pardon, but to intercede for Shevchenko to have his fate alleviated is something which can and must be done. Try to be granted an audience with Dubelt or Orlov. Ask them to help the sick man. In the meantime, I will write him a letter promptly and send some money and books. Money makes even a soldier’s life easier: for half a bottle of vodka any noncom can excuse him from fatigue. Unfortunately, I cannot give much now, but here is my little share,” he concluded, taking twenty-five rubles out of an old secretaire.
The other of the poet’s acquaintances, apart from sincere sympathy and a little mo
ney, could not offer anything else, and that same day Lazarevsky and Chernishov sent Shevchenko the seventy-five rubles they had thus collected and a parcel with warm underwear, medicines and books. They wanted to send oil paints as well, but then decided against it, since it would be fraught with trouble for Shevchenko.
Officially Alexandriysky was not a medical officer, but since Orsk had no other doctor available, he was invited to treat the gravely ill officers and men and sat on the military medical commissions. For this effort he received a meager fee.
He treated Shevchenko, considering it his public duty. He liked the poet for his talent, inquisitive mind and extraordinary honesty. He delighted in talking with Shevchenko and deeply sympathized with his fate. Almost every day Alexandriysky visited him, occasionally bringing him last year’s magazines, and tried by all possible means to entertain him and dispel his sullen mood.
Shevchenko slept his fill in the pleasantly warm hospital, and rested from the battue which had worried his nerves considerably. But, on the other hand, there was much more time for his sullen moods.
Alexandriysky understood everything without any explanations, and it was with a particular feeling of joy that he brought him a total of three letters the poet had been waiting for so anxiously from Repnina, Lizohub, and Mikhailo Lazarevsky. On the morning of the next day he received a parcel from Ukraine, and then another one and money from St. Petersburg.
Shevchenko felt as if a stream of sunlight and warmth had flushed his sore heart, he read and reread the letters that were replete with warm sympathy, taking in their every word like healing balm, and with tears of gratitude he now and again took up the paints, albums, books, pencils, brushes, note paper, and warm underwear out of the caskets, and then put them back again accurately and carefully. He had been sent everything he had written and asked for: two volumes of Lermontov’s poetry, Shakespeare, Koltsov, Gogol, and The Papers of the Moscow Archeographic Society. Only the Odyssey in Zhukovsky’s translation was lacking, because it had not appeared in print yet.
The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko Page 22