had but one three-horse sledge with a high back; where
were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one
of the young men, inspired by classical reminiscences,
proposed tying Misha by his feet to the back of the
sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of Achilles!
The proposal met with approval ...
and jolting up and
down over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes,
with his legs torn and flayed, and his head rolling
in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his back for
the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and
hadn’t as much as a cough afterwards, hadn’t
turned a hair! Such heroic health had nature
bestowed upon him!
From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian
dress, a dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on
his head. This costume he retained to the end,
though he was no longer in the army, from which he
had been discharged for outstaying his leave.
He stayed with me, borrowed a little money ... and
forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his wanderings,
or, as he expressed it, ’his peregrinations from
pillar to post,’ then came the sudden disappearances
and returns, and the showers of beautifully written
letters addressed to people of every possible description,
from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives!
Then came calls upon persons known and unknown!
And this is worth noticing: when he made these
calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never
worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved
with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and
pleasant air, though the inveterate smell of spirits
accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume
gradually changed into rags. ’Give, and
God will reward you, though I don’t deserve
it,’ he would say, with a bright smile and a
candid blush; ’if you don’t give, you’ll
be perfectly right, and I shan’t blame you for
it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide!
And there are people poorer than I, and much more
deserving of help—plenty, plenty!’
Misha was particularly successful with women:
he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But
don’t suppose that he was or fancied himself
a Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest.
Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament
from his parents, or whether indeed this too is to
be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm—as,
according to his notions, relations with a woman meant
inevitably doing a woman harm—I won’t
undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour with
the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women
felt this, and were the more ready to sympathise with
him and help him, until at last he revolted them by
his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness
of which I have spoken already.... I can think
of no other word for it.
