volume v. pp. 169-175, and was stranded in Sweden.

“Bakunin went to Stockholm to complain of the captain’s treachery. He heard that the King’s brother was a very cultured and liberal man, and hoped with his support to force the captain to continue the voyage. But Bakunin’s hopes were not realised. There was a highly cultured society in Stockholm and great sympathy for every liberal movement. He was throughout his stay well received by the King of Sweden’s brother, and fêted by Stockholm society as the Russian agitator of 1848. Dinners and evening parties were given in his honour, his health was drunk, and people were delighted to get the chance of seeing him, but he received no help as regards the captain. The other _émigrés_ determined on bold action; they hired boats and attempted to continue on their way. But a terrible storm blew up, and all those luckless and foolhardy men perished....

While Bakunin remained in Sweden hoping that another expedition would be arranged, his wife arrived in London from Siberia. I was not at home at the time; I had, on the advice of our doctor, gone to Osborne for the sake of the children....

One day Herzen was sitting at his writing-table when Jules announced that a very young and pretty woman was asking to see him.

‘Ask her name, Jules, I am always telling you,’ said Herzen, with some impatience.

Jules went out, and at once came back with a look of astonishment on his face.

‘Eh bien?’ said Herzen.

‘Madame Bakunin! comment, monsieur, est-ce possible?’ said Jules incoherently, as he probably compared husband and wife in his mind. Herzen had heard that Bakunin had married the daughter of a Polish clerk in Siberia. ‘Surely she has not turned up?’ he thought. Making himself a little tidier, he went into the drawing-room, where he saw a fair, very young and handsome woman in deep mourning.

‘I am Bakunin’s wife; where is he?’ she said. ‘And you are Herzen?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Your husband is not in London.’

‘Where is he?’ she repeated.

‘I have no right to tell you that.’

‘What, not me, his wife!’ she said in a tone of offence, and she turned crimson.

‘We had better talk about the Bakunins. When did you leave his brothers and sisters? What on earth is the name of their place? You have stayed in the country with them—what are the names of his brothers and sisters? I have forgotten and mixed them all up....’

Madame Bakunin gave the name of the country place, and answered all the questions correctly. The Bakunins had helped her to obtain a passport and had provided the money for her journey....

At last Herzen was convinced that she really was Bakunin’s wife, and suggested that she should stay in our house and for the time occupy my room. Calling my maid, Herzen told her to look after Madame Bakunin, which was rather difficult, simply because the latter did not know one word of English.

But all the same Herzen did not tell her where Bakunin was, which offended her very much, and left a shade of dislike for him in her heart.

By the time I came back from Osborne she had moved into lodgings, where she remained till she left London. We were very good friends, but she got on best of all with Varvara Timofyevna Kelsiev.[11] She told the latter a great deal about her life and her marriage. ‘I liked a young doctor much better,’ she said, ‘and I believe he was attracted by me, but I preferred to marry Bakunin because he is a hero and has always been for Poland. Though I was born and grew up in Siberia, I love my fatherland; I wear mourning for it and always shall.’

There was a great deal that was childish and naïve in her, but at the same time much that was sweet and sincere. Then a telegram came from Bakunin addressed to me: ‘Natalya Alexyevna, I commend my wife to you, take care of her.’ Soon afterwards, however, he sent for her to Sweden, and a great many of us went to the station with her to see her off to Dover. Before she left London, Madame Bakunin invited us all to dinner and regaled us with Polish dainties, which were very nice and greatly delighted our Polish friends, Czernecki and Tchorszewski. The latter, however, was such an admirer of female beauty that, however bad the dinner, he would have been in raptures if the hostess were handsome.”

“One summer we spent at Torquay. Malwide von Meysenbug came from Italy with Olga, and I went down from London with Natasha and my baby, Liza. Ogaryov and Herzen could only come for visits, for they had to be in London to look after the Russian Free Press, and to receive the Russians who used to come to interview the editors of the _Bell_, bringing a great deal of material for publication. That summer Tatyana Petrovna Passek decided to visit Herzen. She arrived in London and telegraphed to him; he hurried back from Torquay and met her at the station. We were all delighted to see her; she had the gift of winning people by her gentleness and typically Russian good-nature. Unluckily, she only paid us a brief visit. Soon Malwide went back to Italy with both Herzen’s daughters; on the way they visited Nice, where the girls’ mother was buried....

In 1862, or 1863, we decided to leave London, as Herzen thought it would be cheaper and more comfortable to live in a suburb. There was, only fifteen minutes by rail from London, a little place called Teddington, consisting of a long street with country houses in large luxuriant gardens, and several smaller houses, with little shops of various sorts.... There Herzen found a fairly roomy house with a big garden, and we all moved into it, taking with us Varvara Timofyevna Kelsiev and her little girl, Marusya. The printing-press was moved to a little house not ten minutes’ walk from us. There Czernecki was installed with the companion of his life, Marianna; they had no children.

Our new house had only one drawback: behind it there was a factory from which often came a smell of burnt tallow. But the doctor assured us that this would do the children no harm, and so we meekly put up with the unpleasantness of it. The only one of our intimate circle left in London was Tchorszewski, and he came to Teddington at least once a week, partly on business, and partly from affection for the family, of which he was like an indispensable member. His devotion to Herzen and all of us was beyond all bounds, and he proved it indeed after Herzen’s death.”

[At Elmfield House, Teddington, they were visited, as described in volume v. p. 111, etc., by Gonchar, who took Madame Kelsiev and her little girl Marusya with him to Tulcea, the colony of Russian raskolniks to which Kelsiev had previously gone, and there the mother and child died. (See