3. Geneva

The heart of Switzerland. – Geneva and a national celebration in it. – Sights of interest. – Two philosophers. – The Ferney patriarch and his palace. – A Russian church and Russian library. – The taming of the unruly. – What is freedom?

The next day I left Zurich and the train sped to Geneva, through the very heart of Switzerland. And it must be said that this little republic has a great and utterly stony heart. Colossal mountains pile one upon another and like gray-haired thousand-year-old giants with gleaming bald patches, silently and grimly gaze from behind the clouds at the train, which like a serpent winds among them, seeking gorges for passage. The clouds dare not rise to their peaks and secretly creep along the loins of the stone giants, and only Alpine eagles soar freely above the clouds and on the snow-white peaks make their kingly rest. Man ordinarily crawls humbly at the foot of mountains, but sometimes he too rises to a dizzying height, and there on narrow slopes of mountains his dwellings nestle like eagle’s nests. And the train keeps roaring and winding, and now rises into blue heights beneath which yawns an abyss, now rushes into the dark womb of mountains where momentary night dwells. But look—as if a new sky suddenly opened below the train; passengers in amazement rushed to the windows and—beheld before them the famous Lake Geneva. It is impossible to find colors to depict the truly wondrous beauty of this lake. For two hours the train races along its shore bordered with golden vineyards, and you cannot tear yourself away from the enchanting sight, which however is constantly interrupted by dark tunnels, seemingly deliberately calculated to heighten by the most extreme contrast the impression of beauty. Beyond the charming little town of Lausanne, nestling on a slope descending to the lake, Geneva appeared in the distance, and within a few minutes I was already in the very capital of the Geneva Republic.

Walking along the clean and straight streets of the city, I was struck by their emptiness and deadness. In the streets one saw not a soul, the shops were closed and curtained. I was already ready to pronounce an unfavorable judgment on the city concerning its lifelessness, but remembered that it was Sunday, and everything was immediately explained. It is evident that historical lessons are not lost and the stern preaching of the Swiss reformers was reflected in this respect for Sunday. Imperceptibly, however, I came out onto a square adjoining the lake embankment, and it was teeming with people. In the midst of the crowd rose a monument toward which the eyes of thousands of people were directed. Not understanding what was happening, I asked for an explanation, and one had to see the zeal with which the Genevan French began to introduce a foreigner to the subject of their celebration. It turned out that on this day the dedication of a monument to the Genevan patriot Duke Charles of Brunswick was taking place. “Yes, monsieur,” a Genevan said to me, “the Genevan people know how to honor their great men! Look what a beauty—this mausoleum! What grace and richness of forms,” and the Genevan, with gleaming eyes and voice trembling with patriotic flame, began to explain both the significance of the monument itself and especially the greatness of the “Genevan people.” I was interested not so much in the monument as in the speaking Genevan, who apparently embodied in himself all the patriotic fire of a tiny people. I had never encountered such burning patriotism among great peoples, and I saw an interesting confirmation of the historical truth that the strength of patriotism in a people is in inverse proportion to its numerical or spatial greatness. As for the merits of the hero of the celebration, it turned out that they consisted in the fact that the Duke, dying, bequeathed to the city his entire enormous fortune, worth up to twenty million francs. Obviously, with such merits it was not only fitting to erect him a good monument, but also—possible to do so.

Meanwhile evening came on, stars began to gleam in the sky and in the lake, and from beyond the gray banks of the shore the golden moon swam out. Masses of people moved smoothly and quietly along the magnificent embankment, on the dark background of the lake flickered enchanting lights of boats, and somewhere in the distance faintly heard was the sound of the strange bellowing of a pack beast. On the very shore a lover of nature’s beauties had set up a telescope and offered those wishing to admire both the surrounding mountains and the golden moon and Saturn’s ring. This was a wondrous sight and filled the soul with some indefinably sweet feeling rarely experienced.

Geneva is in appearance an elegant and pretty city. It is said to be—a little Paris. It is rich in sights of every kind, but what interested me most were its two main sights—the philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire. The shadow of these giants of the past century still lives even now in Geneva, where they principally created their transformative and destructive theories. There one can see monuments to them both. The monument to Rousseau stands over the lake, at the place where its blue waters rush noisily toward its outlet into the Rhone. The remarkable philosopher, who saw all evil in mankind in its deviation from the natural primitive order of nature, and in all his writings proclaimed his invariable motto—Return to nature!—sits thoughtfully over a manuscript, and around him swans swim and splash in an enclosure. The setting is apt and fully corresponds to the spirit of the philosopher, who loved nature and strove for it from the deadening chains of artificial life. I have always been and am struck by the profound inner truth of the ideal of the Genevan philosopher. One can disagree with his particulars and external elaborations and interpretations, but his general spirit is the spirit of all mankind. In it is heard the longing of the human spirit for the lost primitive state of Paradise, where man lived with nature and was blissful in harmonious unity with her. For truly all the miseries afflicting mankind trace their lineage from that moment when man by his disobedience violated the law given to him and broke his bond with nature, and when sounded the divine voice of justice: cursed is the earth because of your deeds!

Of a different nature is the other philosophical sight—the Ferney patriarch Voltaire. He is called a friend of Rousseau. This is an error: there were no psychological grounds for friendship between them. They were simply acquaintances in the ordinary sense of the word. Voltaire’s monument stands not in Geneva itself but in its suburb Ferney, about three versts from the city, on the French border. Mankind loves great men, even if they only wittily mocked its stupidity, as Voltaire did, and therefore the road to Ferney is trodden by thousands of travelers considering it their bounden duty to visit the intellectual giant. I mechanically followed the example of others and drove by cab to the residence of the destructive genius. Ferney is a small settlement founded by Voltaire and located beyond the line of the Swiss border.

The Genevans, as is known, exiled Voltaire from their city for his blasphemy and restless nature. To spite his persecutors, the philosopher established his residence beyond the Swiss border, three versts from the city, and from there began to torment the Genevans with his poisonous witticisms. Mocking among other things the tiny size of the city, Voltaire said that it was enough for him to shake his wig in order to cover all Geneva with a cloud of dust. This witticism, in my opinion, is very significant. The venerable philosopher indeed had much dust not only in his shaggy wig but in his very head, and it was with this dust, which he so skillfully knew how to throw in people’s eyes, that he principally became famous. Take his seventy-eight volumes of writings—how much dust there is, and woe to him who reads them without the protective spectacles of criticism and reason. Meanwhile the Genevan cab driver, clicking his whip and urging the horse with strange interjections—du! du!—had already driven up to Ferney itself, and there at the first inn shone a sign of the great philosopher. “Voltaire’s Inn”—read the sign. Following the inn were other establishments, and the name of the great philosopher could be seen above the doors of a small tavern. But this was not the principal temple of the priest of unbelief. Voltaire had his own palace, where he received the homage of his numerous servants and from where he sent his destructive thunderbolts to the world. A solemn silence reigned around when I drove up to this palace; only the light whisper of the ancient chestnuts surrounding it was heard, and a fountain in the courtyard cast forth babbling jets. Majestic nature poured peace and bliss into the soul; but amid this enchanting and caressing nature like a demonic phantom looked the sarcastically-Mephistophelian features of the master of the palace himself. I have many times seen statues and portraits of the philosopher, but nowhere does he so markedly express the entire essence of his spirit. “I shall destroy the world and only mock the deeds of my destruction,”—clearly and loudly speaks this physiognomy. Meanwhile several more travelers had arrived, and an old servant led us through the palace and its sights. “Here is the study where Voltaire wrote … here is the bedroom where he slept… here is the cane with which he walked, and here are the shoes he put on in the mornings,”—the servant droned in mechanical recitative, and all the travelers with trembling emotion examined both the cane and the shoes, while the sarcastic physiognomy of the master of these things gazed from the various walls of the palace with a piercing look and invariably repeated: “O, men, men! how pitiful and stupid you are!” Beyond the palace fence rises a small church with a rooster instead of a cross, and the inscription on the pediment reads: Deo erexit Voltaire—“To God Voltaire erected it.” In moments of good humor Voltaire liked to blaspheme, and in one such moment he decided to build a church—in order to create a lasting monument to perpetuate his blasphemy. And what can be more blasphemous than the inscription with which he decorated this church? This is the satanic pride of those who wish to be like gods… In its day, however, this shrine served as the parish church for the villagers and Catholic divine service was performed in it, but now it serves only as an object of wonder for idle tourists.

There are few proper temples in Geneva and they are all of simple type, presenting nothing special. As in Zurich, the preaching of the Swiss reformers apparently fell on good soil here too and bore fruit in the form of a neglectful attitude toward external church appearance. But all the more distinctly stands out among them the Russian church. Located on a spacious platform, forming one of the steps of a great terrace, with its five golden domes on a Byzantine body, it constitutes a true ornament of the city. The Genevans are fully conscious of this and therefore eagerly place it among the city’s sights in their photographic albums and even on letter paper as a decorating vignette. It is small in size, but this only adds more lightness and beauty to it. The dense curly acacias surrounding it complete the charm of the picture, from which wafts a sweet greeting of home.

I did not have the opportunity to be inside the church, nor to learn about the size and composition of the Russian colony here. But that it is quite numerous could be judged by the signs that struck the eye when examining the city. In Geneva more than in the two previous cities I had seen there were objects indicating the presence of Russian elements. Thus Russian inscriptions frequently appeared on signs, and one sign proclaimed in golden letters “Russian Paskhas and Kulichs.” But most of all Russian inscriptions were seen above various book shops announcing the sale of Russian books. Finally in one place I joyfully read a large sign announcing a whole “Russian Library”; but having only approached the mirrored shop window and looked at the rows of books displayed there, I understood that the sign proclaimed a warring lie. This was not at all a Russian library and was immeasurably less Russian than any French or German library. True, Russian letters and words are visible on the books—but their spirit, the spirit—alas—is nihilistic, and therefore of course not Russian. And what is not there, O God of justice! A good half of the books, as treasures offered for sale, represent old and filthy rags. But apparently there are clever buyers even for them.

Incidentally, I encountered the spirit of nihilism not only in dead books but in a living body. On the very day of arrival in Geneva, walking in the evening along the lake embankment and admiring both the quiet splash of blue waves and the surrounding quietness of Sunday, I was suddenly struck by a dull roar bursting from some closed place. Scarcely had I turned my attention to this noise when from around a corner emerged a young worker, and with a raucous voice roared in Russian: “Forward then, forward…” As joyful as it is to meet a countryman abroad, but in view of the fact that the countryman was too zealously writing down Russian thought, I only observed him from a distance and was an unwilling witness to the impossible tyranny of the republican police. The fellow countryman had scarcely sung the first verse of his hymn when a police sergeant, having unexpectedly emerged from nowhere, angrily yanked him by the shoulder and sternly said: “Monsieur, I beg you to be silent, otherwise I shall arrest you for disturbing public order.” The free son of freedom shuddered and stopped his hymn in the middle of a word. Having recovered somewhat and looking at the sergeant with bleary eyes, the worker in a French-Nizhny Novgorod idiom was either apologizing to the sergeant or reproaching him for restricting freedom; but in any case he tamed his nature. Swaying, he shambled along, and only with a thin and pitiful voice did he hum to himself: forward then, forward… With that he disappeared into some slums. And I remained to enjoy the newly restored silence of the Genevan Sunday, and involuntarily thought: what is freedom?..

The police sergeant, obviously thought he was defending freedom by taming my countryman, while my countryman, on the contrary, thought the sergeant was restricting his freedom. Yes, “the accursed question,” Heine would say.