A Herzen Reader

The prematurely aged and sickly Stanislav Worcell was roused by the news of a Russian printing house, and he helped me with the orders, counted the number of letters, and set up the press in the Polish printing house.⁵ I remember how he picked up from my desk the first proof sheets, looked at them for a long time, and, deeply moved, said to me: "Oh my God! Oh my God! I've lived to see a free Russian printing press in London! How many terrible recollections from the recent past have been washed away from my soul by this scrap of paper, smeared with ash from the stove!"

As he faded away, the saintly old man saw the printing house's success and, before his death, blessed our work once more with his dying hand.

That first article that we were talking about was addressed to "the Rus­sian nobility," and reminded them that it was time to free the serfs, and, moreover, with land, or there would be trouble.

The second article was about Poland.

The peasant issue and the Polish question were the very basis of Russian propaganda.

And since that time, dear Czarnecki, for ten years together with you we have printed without weariness or rest, and our press already has a consid­erable biography and a considerable pile of books.⁶

[. . .] Our beginning was slow and meager. For three years we were print­ing, not only without selling a single copy, but almost without the possibil­ity of sending a single copy to Russia, except for the first leaflets, which were dispatched by Worcell and his friends to Warsaw. We still had every­thing we printed on our hands or in the basement storerooms of the pious Paternoster Row.⁷

We did not get depressed. and kept on printing and printing.

A bookseller on Berner Street once sent for ten copies of "Baptized Prop­erty" and I took that for success. I gave the young boy a shilling tip and with a certain bourgeois joy I found a special place for that first half sovereign earned by the Russian printing press.

Sales in the propaganda business are just as important as in any other. Even simple material labor is impossible to carry out with love knowing that it is done in vain. You can place the best actors in the world in an empty hall—they will perform very badly. The church authorities, whose rank re­quires them to know the subtleties of moral torture, sentence priests for theft, drunkenness, and other earthly weaknesses to mill the wind.

¹⁸

But we did not mill the wind after all, my dear Czarnecki—our day fi­nally came.

It began solemnly.

On the morning of March 4, I went as usual into my study at eight o'clock and opened The Times.

I read, and read ten times more, and did not understand, did not dare to understand the grammatical meaning of the words placed at the head of the news received by telegraph: "The death of the emperor of Russia."

Beside myself, I rushed with The Times to the dining room, looking for the children and the servants, to announce this important news, and with tears of true joy in my eyes I handed them the paper. I felt years younger. It was impossible to remain at home. At that time Engelson⁹ was living in Richmond, and I quickly dressed to go see him, but he had anticipated me and was already in the front hall. We heartily embraced each other and could not say anything except the words: "Finally, he is dead!"

As was his habit, Engelson pranced about, kissed everyone in the house, sang and danced. We had not had time to calm down when a carriage sud­denly stopped at my front door and someone rang the bell in a frenzied manner; it was three Poles who, not waiting for the train, had galloped from London to Twickenham to congratulate me.

I ordered champagne to be served, and no one considered the fact that it was still only eleven in the morning, or even earlier. And then, for no reason at all, we went to London. On the streets, at the stock exchange, in the eating houses all talk was about the death of Nicholas, and I did not encounter a single person who did not breathe more easily knowing that this thorn had been removed from the flesh of humankind, and was not overjoyed that this oppressive tyrant in Hessian boots was a matter for the embalmers.

On Sunday, from the morning onwards, my house was full: French peo­ple, Polish refugees, Germans, Italians, and even English acquaintances came and went with radiant faces. The day was clear and warm and after dinner we went out into the garden.