MY PAST AND THOUGHTS

ON THE SECOND PART

I.

A small decorative floral divider ornament.

I must speak of K. Nikolai Khristianovich Ketcher again, and this time in much greater detail. Having returned from exile, I found him in Moscow, just as he had been before. Indeed, he had grown so accustomed to Moscow, and so deeply embedded in its life, that I cannot imagine Moscow without him, or him in any other city. Once, he tried to move to St. Petersburg, but he could not endure it for six months; he abandoned his post and reappeared on the banks of the Neglinnaya River, in Bazhanov’s café, preaching free thinking to officers playing billiards, teaching actors the dramatic arts, translating Shakespeare, and loving his old friends to the point of suffocation. True, he now had a new circle—the circle of Belinsky and Bakunin—but although he lectured them day and night, in his heart and soul he remained attached to us.

He was nearing forty at the time, but he remained, decisively, an eternal student. How did this come to pass? That is precisely what must be traced.