Krilof and His Fables/Memoir
Memoir.
Rather more than a hundred years ago,[1] a boy was born at Moscow, on whom Fortune seemed at first by no means disposed to smile, but who was destined to enjoy in after-life a singular amount of honour and success. His father, a captain in the infantry of the line, found his income scarcely sufficient for the support of even a small family, and had no reason for hoping that the future would bring him better times.
Soon after the birth of the little Ivan Andreëvich, the captain's family followed his regiment into the east of Russia; and, after a time, found themselves at Orenburg, in the midst of the troubles caused by the insurrection of Pugachef, the insurgent leader, who produced so great a disturbance by giving himself out to be the Emperor Peter III. That unfortunate monarch had in reality been assassinated several years before; but a story had got abroad that he had managed to escape from death, and was living somewhere in concealment; so the minds of many men were prepared to accept Pugachef's daring statement. Accordingly, the impostor soon raised a numerous army, and for some time set the imperial troops at defiance.
During the period of his success, he attacked the fortress in which the elder Krilof was stationed, and was so enraged at the obstinacy with which it was defended, that he declared he would hang that officer and all the members of his family. They all ultimately contrived to escape; but tradition states that they were often in great danger, and that on one occasion, when they were halting in a village post-house, the little Ivan was hidden out of harm's way in a large piece of earthenware which stood in the cottage.
From Orenburg, they went to Tver; and there the captain, finding that his expenses were becoming greater than his income, retired from the army, and obtained a post in the civil service. A few years later, he died, leaving very little to his son, now a lad of fourteen, beyond a large box of books, which had followed him in all his wanderings.
After a time, the boy obtained employment in the public service, but of so unremunerative a nature that his mother determined to go with him to St. Petersburg, in hopes of obtaining a pension there as an officer's widow. All that she did obtain was a post for her son, with the salary of two roubles (about six shillings) a month.[2] He remained in the public service till the year 1788, when he lost his mother. She has been described as "a simple-minded woman, who had received scarcely any education," but one of great worth and of considerable strength of character.
She had done her best to obtain a good education for her boy, reading Russian with him herself, and making him, when he was studying French, read all his translations aloud to her—although she did not understand a word of the language from which they were rendered. By means of little presents and rewards, she induced him to study hard, and he soon took very kindly to books. The old volumes which had formed his father's travelling library he read over and over again with delight, and, from the perusal of the histories which were among them, his mind became full of ideas about classic Greece and ancient Russia. Vague ideas concerning the stage next began to float through his head, and, after a time, they shaped themselves into a drama, called the "Cofeinitsa,"[3] which he wrote (if the date of his birth may be trusted) before he was sixteen years old. This he offered to a bookseller, who gave him sixty paper roubles for it (about as many francs), or rather, at Krilof's express desire, books to that amount. The works he chose were those of Racine, Boileau, and Moliere, preferring them to those of Voltaire and Crébillon. Years afterwards, when he had become famous, the bookseller gave him back the MS., which he had never published, and the poet re-read it with a pleasure not altogether free from regret.
The lad next turned his attention to tragedy, and produced a piece called "Cleopatra," which he showed to his friend, the celebrated actor, Dmitrievsky. The actor went carefully over it with him, and pointed out so many faults that Krilof gave it up in despair, and began another, under the title of "Philomela." This also, which was finished in 1786, and was printed nine years later in the collection of Russian dramas published by the Academy of Sciences, failed to meet with the actor's approval. So the young author gave up the drama for a time.
After the death of his mother, which took place when he was twenty years old, Krilof found himself entirely alone in the world, and free to occupy himself as he pleased. So he soon gave up his employment in the public service, and determined to devote himself to literature.
In partnership with a retired officer of literary tastes, who had a printing establishment of his own, he founded a journal, or rather a monthly satirical magazine, called the "Spirit-Post;"[4] but, cleverly as it was written, it was not a commercial success, and, after a year, it stopped. By this time, Krilof had become the sole proprietor of the printing-press, which occupied a room in the house which then stood where the Oldenburg Palace stands now, close to the Summer Garden. Then he began to print a new journal, called the "Spectator,"[5] which lasted eleven months. Those were bad days for journalists in Russia, and the circulation of the "Spectator" did not exceed 170 copies.[6] As soon as it had run its brief course, Krilof started a third journal, under the title of the "St. Petersburg Mercury;" but, after a year's existence, this also came to a close, never having secured more than 150 subscribers. After its demise, Krilof discontinued his own publications, but he continued to print for others.
By this time, he had become well known in the world of letters, and, as he was also a good musician and an agreeable companion, he was much sought after in society. Most of his biographers relate that he led a jovial and careless life until 1801, when the Empress Maria Fedorovna obtained a post for him at Riga, under Prince Sergius Galitsin.[7] But M. Grot, of the Academy of Sciences, points out that this is a mistake. Krilof had, long before that time, become intimate with the Prince, in whose house he lived for a while at Moscow, and whom he accompanied first into Lithuania, and then to his country house in the province of Saratof, in South-east Russia. There he remained till the year 1801.
This was an important period in his life, for it enabled him to study the country well, and the ways of the country people. When at Tver, in his boyish days, he was always fond of associating with the common folk, the "black people," as they are called in Russia; and he would spend whole hours in wandering about the bazaars or the places where the moujiks were amusing themselves, or in sitting on the banks of the Volga, listening to the conversation of the washerwomen who congregated there, and gossiped over their work. While at Prince Galitsin's he had again an opportunity of mixing among the peasantry, and of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the joys and sorrows of village life. There he could see for himself how hard was too often the peasant's lot, how heavy was the pressure under which he had to groan. It was there, in all probability, that he stored up those impressions of the country to which he afterwards so often gave form and colour in his fables. There, too, he was able to study the curious scene presented by a rich noble's country house; for Prince Galitsin lived in great state, keeping up a band of forty musicians to play to him, and employing altogether as many as six hundred retainers in his household. The Prince and all his family were very kind to the young poet, who used to teach the children of the house, and get up little musical and theatrical entertainments for the amusement of his hosts. The only things he had to complain of were the gnats and flies, which are certainly very trying in Russia, and particularly in the neighbourhood of the Volga, and which he used to try to avoid by mounting to the top of the village belfry, where he was one day found, fast asleep among the bells.
When the Emperor Alexander I. mounted the throne, in 1801, he recalled Prince Galitsin from his retirement in the country, and made him military governor of Livonia. Krilof went with him as a secretary, but did not long act in that capacity; for it soon turned out that he had no great talent for business, and, besides that, he began to devote himself to gambling with what seemed likely to be a fatal passion. But he stayed with the Prince, as a friend and companion, till 1804, when his patron gave up his appointment, and then he returned to St. Petersburg. According to the usual accounts, it was then that he went to the Prince's estates in the province of Saratof; but it seems more likely that he took to leading a wandering life at that time, and continued it for some years, going from one Russian city to another, as fancy He is said to have won a very large sum of money led him. at cards during his residence in Riga, so that he could well afford to be idle and extravagant for a time.
What is certain is, that towards the end of the year 1805 lie spent some time in Moscow, and became intimate with the literary celebrities of that capital. To one of these, the celebrated poet and fabulist Dmitrief, Krilof one day showed some fables which he had adapted from La Fontaine. Struck by their spirit and animation, Dmitrief inserted them in the "Moscow Spectator," where they obtained a decided success, and strongly recommended their author to cultivate this style of writing. epoch. Krilof's fame may be said to date from that He was nearly forty years old before he found out in what his strength lay.
In 1806 he returned to St. Petersburg, and soon afterwards obtained a Government appointment, which he held for some years. In 1807 he produced two comedies, which obtained considerable success on the stage. The one was called "The Fashions-Shop,"[8] and the other "A Lesson for Daughters,"[9] and both of them were levelled against that taste for everything French, which was always so excessively distasteful to Krilof. With their appearance his dramatic career came to a close, and thenceforward he was content to base his reputation on his fables, of which the first collection, twenty-three in number, was published in the year 1809; and the second, containing twenty-one more, in 1811. In 1812 he was appointed to a very congenial post in the Imperial Public Library, which had just been reorganized and placed under the direction of his intimate friend, Olenine. The officers to whom the various departments were entrusted were all men of learning and literary tastes, and the section of Russian Literature was confided to Sopikof, a very learned authority on Krilof entered the Library as his Slavonic bibliography. assistant, and, six years later, succeeded him in his post and in his official quarters. That position he continued to hold till the year 1841, when he definitively retired from the public service. Long before that time his fables had made him the most popular writer in Russia.
The years he spent in the Public Library, almost thirty in number, glided peacefully away. He was a man of but few wants, and such as he had he could easily satisfy. Besides his salary, he had a pension of at first about sixty pounds a year, and afterwards of twice that amount; so he was sufficiently well off. His position in the literary and scientific world was a very pleasant one. His fame as a popular author was continually increasing, his presence was greatly prized and sought after in society, and he was treated with almost affectionate kindness by the imperial family. He might, if he had liked, have revolved in the most distinguished circles; but his tastes were very simple, and he had little sympathy with gilded magnificence. His quarters in the Public Library suited him admirably, and so did his post, in which he had little to disturb him. The rooms which he had inherited from his predecessor, Sopikof, were on the second floor of the building, their windows looking out on the Gostinnoi-Dvor, the principal bazaar of St. Petersburg—a huge collection of shops, the arcades surrounding which are enlivened all day by the presence of crowds of loungers or intending purchasers. From his rooms Krilof could look down at his ease on the busy scene below, and could listen contentedly to the conversations which were constantly going on there between the merchants and their customers, or among the peasants and the droshky-drivers, who are accustomed to loiter in picturesque groups about the street which divides the Library from the bazaar. After his official labours were over for the day, he used to go to the English Club, so called because it was originally founded by an Englishman, and there he would dine heartily, and then enjoy a doze. For some time after his death, a certain stain, due to the pressure of his head during the nap which was his "usual custom of an afternoon," was carefully preserved upon the walls of the club. When his doze was over, he would sometimes go to the theatre; but more frequently he stayed where he was, playing cards till it was time to go home. As he grew older and more unwieldy, he went out more rarely into society; but there were a few houses which he always loved to frequent, especially that of the Olenines, by whom he was treated as if he had been a member of the family. In the literary, artistic, and scientific circles of St. Petersburg it has always been possible to enjoy the pleasures of society without encountering its drawbacks. The idea of giving parties "out of revenge" has never been able to naturalize itself there; and men of narrow means have not thought it necessary to hamper their mutual intercourse by restrictions borrowed from the code of opulent festivity. Consequently, Krilof was able to spend a sociable evening with his friends, whenever the idea occurred to him, without being compelled to submit to such changes of dress as would have sorely vexed him. fault in his costume. For he was careless to a At home, he generally wore an old and tattered dressing-gown, and he had a strong objection to renewing his wardrobe. When his old clothes were worn out, his friends used sometimes to get him invested in new ones by dint of stratagem; but it was impossible to instil into him the reverence with which such objects are generally regarded by well-regulated minds. Gloves he never would condescend to wear, even in the depth of winter. "I always lose them," he used to plead, "and my hands never get cold." And, indeed, his circulation was singularly vigorous. When he lived near the Summer Garden, he used to bathe every day in the adjacent canal, and he continued this practice even when the water was covered by a thin coat of ice. So great was his contempt for clothes that, in hot weather, he would sometimes dispense with all but his shirt; and on one occasion, when, thus simply clad, he was playing the violin, he was so carried away by the tide of musical feeling, that he spent some time tranquilly performing at his open window—quite unaware that he was presenting a singular spectacle to the world of fashion then promenading in the Summer Garden. He had an eccentric habit of appropriating any stray napkin or towel, or the like, that might be lying about a room, and of afterwards producing it from his pocket, under the impression that it was his handkerchief, and waving it before the eyes of the astonished company. Perhaps the strangest story told on good authority of his absence of mind in things sartorial is that of his going to court on one occasion in a new uniform. His friend Olenine, just before entering the presence-chamber, thought it as well to scrutinize Krilof's costume, and discovered that he had got on so new a coat, that its buttons were still enveloped in the silver paper which the tailor had carefully wrapped round them.
The state of his apartments was in keeping with that of his dress. Neither order nor cleanliness had charms for his eyes. Nothing was ever cleaned or put to rights in his rooms: his books lay about anywhere; undisturbed dust accumulated upon everything. He was very fond of birds; and, twice a day, he used to strew his floor with oats, on which the pigeons, which haunted the adjacent bazaar—sacred birds to Russian eyes—would descend in flocks, finding easy access through the open window.
During one brief period, the rooms wore a totally different appearance; but the change did not last long. Krilof had sold a new edition of his fables for a large sum of money, and did not know what to do with it. At first, he thought of spending it in travelling abroad; but he soon gave up that idea. Then he determined to expend it upon the embellishment of his apartments. Upholsterers were called in; sumptuous furniture was freely bought. The floors were covered with costly carpets; silken hangings adorned the walls and windows. Choice pictures were hung up on all sides, flanked by mirrors in gleaming frames; and, wherever an inch of standing-room could be found, there was placed a crystal vase, or a delicate statuette, or some fragile form of beauty in glass. The whole abode seemed transformed as by the wave of a fairy's wand, and the owner might well be excused if he felt proud of the change he had produced, when the newly decorated rooms were lighted up on the occasion of the feast to which he invited his bosom friends in honour of his apartments' metamorphosis.
But he soon grew tired of all this unwonted splendour. A few days after the inaugural banquet, one of his friends happened to call upon him, and found that he had returned to his old ways. The rich carpets were strewn with oats, on which a greedy flock of pigeons was feeding. Every time the door opened, away flew the birds in a hurry, upsetting the crystals, overthrowing the statuettes, shivering the glass into fragments. A very short time sufficed to reduce the room to its normal state of dirt and disorder, from which it never recovered as long as Krilof occupied it. Only, before the ruin took place, a sketch of this sumptuous study was taken for the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, which still preserves the memory of the fabulist’s short-lived magnificence.
As may well be supposed, his servants were none of the best. An old woman, assisted by her daughter, waited upon him, and took care not to trouble him by any excess of housewifely zeal. Nothing was ever cleaned; not a book was ever known to be dusted. If a visitor arrived, he did not know where to deposit his hat in safety, nor where to find a seat from which he could rise un soiled. Krilof never troubled himself about such superfluities as a writing-desk or a cabinet. Even such necessaries as pens and ink arid paper were seldom to be discovered without painful research.
One of his friends, in describing a visit which he paid the poet, states that he found him smoking a cigar, which kept going out. Each time it went out, he called the servant-girl in to give him a light; so at last she brought a candle without a candlestick, dropped a little melted tallow on the table, and stuck the candle in it for her master’s convenience. He was greatly addicted to tobacco, we may take this opportunity of observing, and would often smoke, says Lobanof, "from thirty-five to fifty cigars a day." It is to be hoped that they were cigarettes or papirosses.
It was dangerous, as might be imagined, to lend Krilof a book of any value. On one occasion, he was sitting at breakfast, reading a large and valuable volume he had borrowed from his friend and patron, Olenine, when suddenly he overbalanced himself, and, in trying to avoid a fall, he upset the coffee-pot over the book. Rushing wildly into the kitchen, he carried off a bucket of water, and began to pour its contents over the book as it lay on the ground. Seeing this, his scared servant-maid burst into the rooms of his colleague, Gnedich, and horrified him by the news that her master had gone out of his mind.
This, by the way, was not the only occasion on which his eccentric demeanour savoured of madness to vulgar understandings. Once, it is said, when he was very young, he was stopping in the country with Count Tatischef, when his host was suddenly called away to town. The Count, whose whole family was to go with him, allowed Krilof, at his own request, to remain where he was. As soon as the young poet found himself alone, he began to carry out an idea he had long cherished, and to lead a life as similar as was possible to that led by man in unsophisticated times. With that view, he gave up devoting any time to his toilette, discontinued shaving, and allowed his hair and nails to grow as they liked. Books, however, he did not discard; but, instead of reading them at home, he spent the entire day over them in the garden. One day, as he was strolling there, presenting a strange and hermit-like appearance, the sound of wheels was suddenly heard, and, before he could escape into the house, the Count and all his family, returning unexpectedly, drove past the very spot where he was. Their surprise may be well conceived. His confusion was probably as great then as it was on the occasion of another misadventure which happened to him in early youth. When he was first at St. Petersburg, he used to spend a good deal of time at the house of his friend, the actor Dmitrievsky. It happened that at one time his visits were discontinued for a while, and during that interval Dmitrievsky changed his quarters. One day, Dmitrievsky met his young friend, and invited him to dinner. At the appointed hour Krilof, who knew nothing about the change of address, appeared at the wonted door. It was opened by a servant, who told him that her master was out. "I'll come in and wait for him," said Krilof, making his way into what had been his friend's bed-room, and there unceremoniously going to sleep on the bed. Now it happened that the rooms were then occupied by a Chinovnik and his wife. Presently they returned home, and the lady went straight to her room without having learned that a visitor had arrived during her absence. Her astonishment may be imagined when she discovered an utterly unknown young man tranquilly slumbering on the bed. The shriek which she naturally uttered on seeing the sleeping stranger called her husband to her side, and awoke the involuntary trespasser, who at first had some difficulty in accounting for his totally unexpected appearance there. It was certainly an awkward position to retire from gracefully.
To his next-door neighbour, Gnedich, he was greatly attached, heartily enjoying his society. Gnedich had translated the "Iliad," and was fond of holding forth on the subjects of Homer's merits and those of Greek writers in general. One day, Krilof, who was then fifty years old, talked about learning Greek. Gnedich told him he was too old, that no one could learn a new language after such and such an age, and added various other similar remarks of equal value. Krilof made no reply; but, the next day, he began to study Greek, making use of a New Testament in which the original was accompanied by a Slavonic translation, and being thus saved the trouble of consulting a dictionary. For two years he continued his studies in secret. At the end of that time, he happened to be present one day when Gnedich was complaining that he could not understand a certain passage in Homer. "I should read it this way," said Krilof, favouring him with an impromptu translation. At first, Gnedich thought he was being cheated; but when his companion had proved that he now knew Greek, translating several passages taken from Homer at random, he did not know how to express his wonder and admiration in sufficiently strong terms. Afterwards, he induced Krilof to commence a translation of the "Odyssey," but it never went very far. Krilof soon began to neglect his classical studies, and the large collection of Greek works he had bought was shoved under his bed. Sometimes he would stretch out an arm in search of an Æsop, but all the others were forgotten; and, at last, his housekeeper, seeing no use in such musty volumes, used them up, one after another, to heat the stove. A somewhat similar fate once befell a fable of his own. He had read it aloud at a party, and forgotten to take away the manuscript with him. The next day he sent for it, but learned that the servants, having found a very shabby roll of paper, had used it to wrap up candles in.
As he grew older and more corpulent, his natural laziness increased, and it became difficult to induce him to exert himself. He used to lie in bed late, and, when he got up, he would invest himself in a dressing-gown and a pair of slippers, and often sit in his rooms till evening, dressed in little more than that simple garb. When he was on duty in the Library, and therefore confined within its walls for twenty-four hours, he never grumbled at his lot, as Gnedich used to do, but would lie on a sofa and read novels all day. He read all sorts of trash, merely to kill time, and sometimes thought so little about what he was reading that, when he had got to the end of a story, he would begin it over again without recognising it. The only occurrence which could rouse him to active exertion was that of a fire. The moment he heard of one, he would jump out of bed, and set off for the scene of the disaster, willing to remain intently gazing at it as long as it lasted. He seldom grew so excited in conversation about any other subject as he was when he described the various great fires which he had seen, especially that which took place on the north side of the Neva, when the "camels" for the ships were destroyed. Conflagrations are numerous and extensive in Russia, and in winter, when everything is white with snow, the effects produced by a large mass of flame at night are very fine, and the more lasting inasmuch as it is difficult to obtain water in any other shape than that of rock ice.
Towards the end of Krilof's stay in the Library, he was recommended by the doctors to take more exercise; so, in fine weather, he used to go for long walks, and when it rained he paced the galleries round the upper floor of the Gostinnoi-Dvor. At first, the shopkeepers used, according to their wont, to pester him with invitations to purchase; and, one day, the occupants of a certain stall made a rush at him, and led him in triumph to their counter. Feigning acquiescence, he turned over all they showed him; but always demanded still more costly goods, until he had made them fairly turn all their stock upside down. Then, with many thanks for the interesting exhibition they had offered him, he made, his escape. same scene was repeated. A little farther on, the Then the shopkeepers grew wiser: those who had been victimized indulged in that little laugh at their own expense, for which a Russian's sense of humour makes him almost always ready; and the rest still more fully appreciated the joke.
Some of Krilof's biographers have spoken as if his personal appearance had been well known to all his fellow-citizens; but this is evidently a mere figure of speech. One of them tells a story of how the fabulist was lunching off oysters one day—he was very fond of them, and it is said that he could dispose of eight dozen, "washed down with English porter"—when he discovered that he had left his purse behind. So he had to ask the proprietor of the establishment, whom he did not know, to give him credit. "Certainly, Ivan Andreëvich," answered the landlord. "What, you know me, then?" asked Krilof. "Of course," was the flattering reply; "every one in the city knows you, Ivan Andreëvich."
So far, so well; but another narrator adds that, as Krilof was on his way home, he stopped to buy some paper at a shop in the Gostinnoi-Dvor, just opposite his own rooms. When the parcel was handed to him, he said to the shopkeeper, "I am Krilof; I live up there. for the money." Please send up But the tradesman, with the unseemly materialism of his class, merely remarked, "How can one know all the people in the world? There's lots of them hereabouts;" and refused to part with the paper until it was paid for.
But, in spite of this tradesman-like ignorance, it is certain that Krilof was well known by sight as well as by reputation; and people used to point him out to each other, and especially to their children, as he walked along the streets. His fables were eagerly sought after by the editors of journals and magazines, and the collected editions of them which he published from time to time met with a large and steadily increasing sale. Between the years 1830 and 1840, the publisher Smirdine printed 40,000 copies of them in various forms, which found their way into all parts of the empire, and made Krilof by for the most popular author of the day. There was scarcely a child belonging to the educated classes who was not familiar with his stories; and they were written in so simple a style, and in such idiomatic language, that they were, for the most part, perfectly intelligible even to the totally uneducated peasant. His sketches of village life, for instance, and his shrewd little illustrations of popular thought and feeling would be as thoroughly appreciated by the rude inhabitants of a hamlet in the interior, supposing that they had an opportunity of hearing them read or recited, as by the literary men whom Krilof used to meet at Jukovsky's pleasant Saturday-evening gatherings, or by his learned colleagues of the Academy of Sciences or the "Society of the Lovers of Russian Literature."
Nor was it merely in his own country that Krilof's name was known. Various translators had given specimens of his writings to their respective countrymen; and, in the year 1824, a sumptuous edition of his fables was edited in Paris by Count Gregory Orlof. A number of distinguished French and Italian poets co-operated in this work, rendering into their best verse the literal prose translations which were laid before them. Many a version which pretends to be "from the Russian" has been really produced after a similar fashion, and the result has generally been as disappointing as that of Count Orlof's enterprise, "whose book," says M. Charles Parfait, "was one in which Russia could not recognise a single characteristic of her national poet." Still it served to gain Krilof a reputation in France of which many of his contemporaries would have been very proud. He does not seem to have cared much about it himself; and on one occasion, when the proofs of a memoir of his life, which was about to be inserted in a French biographical dictionary, were sent to him for correction, he at first refused to trouble himself about them at all, saying, "Let them write what they like," and ultimately consented only to make a few slight alterations in them. For he was singularly free from that eager thirst after fame which so many really distinguished writers have felt. He always spoke most modestly about what he had done. "I am like a sailor," he said, on one occasion, "who has not met with any disasters, simply because he has never ventured far from shore." His early works he called the follies of his youth; and even of his fables, after they had gained the general applause of the public, he was wont to say very little. Many of them alluded to persons and to events about which many people must have been curious to know; but he scarcely ever told even his most intimate friends what were the particular objects of his satire; and, in most cases, the secret went with him into the grave. he was utterly careless. Of his manuscripts Before a fable was printed, he took the greatest pains with it, going, perhaps, as many as ten times over it, and never ceasing to revise it as long as there was a word in it he could improve or correct. But, after the printers had finished with his copy, he took no more interest in it. Of the collection of his manuscripts now in the Public Library at St. Petersburg, a great part consists of a number of rough drafts found by his friend Lobanof among tire litter of a garret.
In February, 1838, Krilof's seventieth birthday was celebrated by his friends in a manner which could not fail to touch him deeply. A grand banquet was organized in the Nobles' Hall, at which three hundred of the most distinguished members of the cultivated society of St. Petersburg assisted. In front of his seat was placed his bust, crowned with flowers, and, at the end of the feast, flowers were showered down upon him by the ladies who occupied the galleries, and who were eager to do honour to their own and their children's friend. A laurel crown had been presented to him, and, as he was going away, a number of the students of the University crowded round him, asking for a leaf as a relic.
From that time forward, he may almost be said to have written no more. About a couple of years after the festival, he resigned his office, and moved from the Public Library to the other side of the river. There he lived for some time in the Vassily Ostrof, leading a very retired life, and gradually dropping more and more out of society. It was while he was there that a fire broke out, one night, next door. Every one else was naturally much alarmed; but Krilof took everything so quietly, that he would not even dress and go out until he had finished his tea and a cigar, nor would he give any orders about saving his books and memoranda.
After some time, he again changed his abode, and went to the extremity of the city, where he fitted up some rooms, from the windows of which a solendid view might be enjoyed. There he proposed to lead a still more retired life than before. It would, perhaps, have been more lonely than he would have liked; for he had outlived most of the friends of his younger days, and he does not seem to have had a single At one period of relation with whom he was acquainted. his life, when he was young and poor, and, comparatively speaking, unknown, he had formed a strong attachment for a young girl, whom he hoped to be allowed to marry. But her parents objected to his poverty, and his hopes remained unfulfilled. Among his poems are to be found a number of lyrics addressed to Annette. They form the only trace that is left of the fruitless passion of his youth. In his old age, he adopted the children of his servant's daughter, Saveleva; but it is very likely that, in his declining years, he missed those little attentions by which a loved hand can do so much to make smooth the end of the journey of life.
His last illness was one of but short duration. He retained the full use of his faculties to the end; and his last words were, "Lord, forgive me my trespasses!" With them ended a life which was very dear to his countrymen. He died on November , 1844, at the age of 76.
His funeral was celebrated at the public expense, and was attended by such crowds that the great church of St. Isaac could not hold those who wished to assist at the service of the dead. The whole of the Nevsky Prospect was thronged by masses of sympathizing lookers-on, thousands of whom followed the coffin, which, surrounded by the students of the University, passed slowly up the long street, and under the windows of the rooms in which Krilof had spent so many peaceful years, till it reached the cemetery attached to the Convent of St. Alexander Nevsky. There the remains of Krilof were deposited, by the side of the tomb of his friend Gnedich, and within sight of that of Karamzine. Beside him in the coffin his friends had placed the laurel crown which had been conferred upon him at the time of his jubilee banquet, and, in accordance with an urgent request which he expressed before his death, a bouquet which had many years previously been presented to him by the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. Soon afterwards a public subscription was opened for the purpose of erecting a monument to his memory, and the children of Russia, of all ages and classes, united in contributing to it. With its proceeds an excellent statue of the poet was set up in the Summer Garden, within sight of the windows of the palace which now occupies the place of the house in which his printing-press used to work. There he sits in bronze, just as he used to sit in the flesh, clad in his well-loved dressing-gown, an open book in his hand. The pedestal of the monument is adorned with bronze figures representing the various animals about which he wrote; and a couple of bas-reliefs illustrate two of his most popular fables—"Demian's Fish Soup" and "Fortune and the Beggar." Around the monument, which stands in a circular open space, a number of children are always at play, dressed in the picturesque garb which juvenile Russia affects, and on them the poet seems to smile benignly as he looks down from his easy chair above. It is a thoroughly national monument—a somewhat rare object in Russia, where previous statues have for the most part greatly puzzled the natives, who call them bolvani—idols. That of Lomonossof, for instance, which stands at Archangel bareheaded and classically undressed, is a subject of great wonder to the peasants, who find it of a chilly and depressing appearance, as seen among the snows of an Arctic winter. But Krilof's statue is of an altogether different kind, having the merits of being characteristic and intelligible. It is a worthy memorial to a man who had, to a singular degree, gained the affection of his contemporaries, and who will probably retain that of their descendants. For many a score of years to come his memory is likely to be kept green in the minds of the children and the children's children of those little people who now play around his statue, in what is one of the most picturesque spots of St. Petersburg, when the sun is bright and the sky is blue overhead, and the trees of the Summer Garden are clothed in foliage that offers a pleasant shelter from the heat. At such a time it is very pleasant for any one who has read Krilof's fables, and who is not unduly depressed by the thought that the tide of aristocratic life has ebbed from the summer-smitten city, to sit in the grateful shade, and, as he lazily watches the gleam of palace walls through the openings in the hanging curtain of green leaves, to call up before his mental vision the varied scenes which the poet has depicted, and the quaint animal life with which he has peopled them. If it be a Russian who is thus indulging in day-dreams, the chances are that they will be crossed by some shadow of regret for old days gone by, and perhaps haunted by what seem to be echoes of a voice that is still.
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Krilof's statue in the Summer Garden.
- ↑ On February , 1768, according to general report; but some writers think he was born a few years earlier.
- ↑ Money went further then, of course, than it will now. For instance, the wages paid to the servant kept by Madame Krilof were two roubles a year only. Still the little household must have been often reduced to great straits.
- ↑ A "Cofeinitsa" is a fortune-teller who looks for auguries in coffee-grounds.
- ↑ Pochta Dukhof.
- ↑ Zritel.
- ↑ At that time, Karamzin's "Moscow Journal," the periodical which then had the largest circulation, could boast of only 300 subscribers.
- ↑ There are many princes of this name in Russia; so many, that tradition relates how a nobleman who, one day, attempted to pass over a river in a ferry-boat without payment, claiming exemption on the ground that he was a Prince Galitsin, was indignantly addressed by the ferryman with the words, "Am not I a Prince Galitsin too?" And so he really was.
- ↑ Modnaya Lavka.
- ↑ Urok Dochkam.
