A Herzen Reader

The Bell, No. i, July i, i857. The French text of "Venerable Travelers" appeared in the London-based French newspaper Le Courier de l'Europe on June 27, 1857, with a sarcastic introduction by the editor, saying that it was a pity the Grand Duke Konstantin had not made it to London on his last European trip because he could have been shown some­thing really interesting, the Russian printing house. Herzen still lacked regular access to Russian periodicals, but he made up for it with the skillful and highly satirical use of news from European papers. For The Bell, this piece appeared in a section called "Mis­cellany," under an epigraph from Gogol: "Through visible laughter to invisible tears!" (Skvoz' vidimyi smekh—nevidimye slezy!). In a letter to Shchepkin's son Nikolay, Herzen recommended his "touching" little article (Eidel'man, Svobodnoe slovo Gertsena, 199). "Venerable Travelers" was the first of what Herzen intended to be a series of sketches about the Russian royalty abroad; the second installment was to cover the journey of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, but Turgenev and Ogarev convinced him to drop the plan, and the next part of the series was published only a decade later. (See Doc. 99.)

Venerable Travelers The Widowed Empress

[1857]

Since the death of Nicholas the embarrassing constraints on Russians' right to travel have been eliminated. Good deeds rarely happen without a reason; scarcely had Alexander II cut that rope binding us to his father when his own family made more use than anyone else of the newly granted right to movement. On all European roads—except English ones—grand dukes have appeared in their search for German brides, along with for­mer German brides converted into Russians with patronymics. Once more the widowed empress has given Europe the spectacle of an Asian waste of money and truly barbarian luxury. Her loyal subjects could note with pride that every trip the venerable invalid makes and every holiday celebrated is the equal in Russia of a failed harvest, overflowing rivers, and a couple of fires. Once again all sorts of German princes—who have read Liebig and Moleschott about the non-nutritious Russian potato—hung about in Nice with their wives and children, sponging off Russian bread.¹

Alexandra Fyodorovna, having been raised in the pious rules of evangelical-Potsdam absolutism and having flourished in the dogmas of Orthodox-Petersburg autocracy, could not immediately recover and was at a loss after the royal demise. It was painful for her to see the liberal tendency of the new emperor; she was bothered by the malicious idea of amnes­ties and the outrageous thought of the emancipation of the serfs. She saw with horror as the majestic supports on which the Nicholaevan dam rested (those German and Russian Kleinmikhels) grew unsteady. The specter that had haunted her for thirty years had risen once more from the moats of the Peter Paul Fortress, from beneath the Siberian snows, and it pointed an ac­cusing finger at the Phrygian cap.² In fact, how could she not tremble when terrorists like Lanskoy and Sukhozanet were taking the helm of the ship that had been run aground by her dear departed and could not be refloated without Anglo-French assistance?³ Foreseeing another 10th of August and 21st of January, mourning the loss of the Nicholaevan style of uniform and the comrades-in-arms of the "unforgettable one," the empress left the revo­lutionary palace and proceeded to Berlin.⁴

A new blow awaited her there from her nearest and dearest. Her brother the king, with a poor understanding of the roles of the sexes and befuddled by drink, suddenly awarded the empress—can you guess what?—the rank of colonel of the dragoons.⁵ And in her old age she had to "take off her black attire" and dress up in a costume of which the Prussian newspaper said: "it was half unreal, half dragoonish!" Thus she presented herself—as a venera­ble androgyne and a widow-dragoon—to the officer corps, who were moved to tears, which one might have expected from Germans.

What would happen if the empress on her side had named him, her af­fectionate and crowned brother, the venerable headmistress of the Smolny Monastery? Would we see him appear at the assembly in decollete with bare arms and riding breeches, or in the uniform of the former Kaiser- Nicolaus regiment, in a starched skirt with crinolines and. ornamental braid! Let him see for himself what it means to confuse the sexes.

This opened the eyes of the empress, and with every step in Europe she came more and more over to our side, and from an empress-colonel is be­coming a citizen-empress. [. . .]