Chapter XV: St. Petersburg and John P. Hasfeld

BORROW travelled by way of Hamburg and Lübeck to Travemünde, whence he went by sea to St. Petersburg, now called Petrograd, where he arrived on the twentieth of August, 1833. He was back in London in September, 1835, and thus it will be seen that he spent two years in Russia. After the hard life he had led, everything was now rose-coloured. “Petersburg is the finest city in the world,” he wrote to Mr. Jowett; “neither London nor Paris nor any other European capital which I have visited has sufficient pretensions to enter into comparison with it in respect to beauty and grandeur.” But the striking thing about Borrow in these early years was his capacity for making friends. He had not been a week in St. Petersburg before he had gained the regard of one William Glen, who, in 1825, had been engaged by the Bible Society to translate the Old Testament into Persian. The clever Scot, of whom Borrow was informed by a competent judge that he was “a Persian scholar of the first water,” was probably too heretical for the Society, which recalled him, much to his chagrin. “He is a very learned man, but of very simple and unassuming manners,” wrote Borrow to Jowett. His version of the _Psalms_ appeared in 1830, and of _Proverbs_ in 1831. Thus he was going home in despair, but seems to have had “good talk” on the way with Borrow in St. Petersburg. In 1845 his complete Old Testament in Persian appeared in Edinburgh. This William Glen has been confused with another William Glen, a law student, who taught Carlyle Greek, but they had nothing in common. Borrow and Carlyle could not possibly have had friends in common. Borrow was drawn towards this William Glen by his enthusiasm for the Persian language. But Glen departed out of his life very quickly. Hasfeld, who entered it about the same time, was to stay longer. Hasfeld was a Dane, now thirty-three years of age, who, after a period in the Foreign Office at Copenhagen, had come to St. Petersburg as an interpreter to the Danish Legation, but made quite a good income as a professor of European languages in cadet schools and elsewhere. The English language and literature would seem to have been his favourite topic. His friendship for Borrow was a great factor in Borrow’s life in Russia and elsewhere. If Borrow’s letters to Hasfeld should ever come to light, they will prove the best that he wrote. Hasfeld’s letters to Borrow were preserved by him. Three of them are in my possession. Others were secured by Dr. Knapp, who made far too little use of them. They are all written in Danish on foreign notepaper: flowery, grandiloquent productions we may admit, but if we may judge a man by his correspondents, we have a revelation of a more human Borrow than the correspondence with the friends at Earl Street reveals:

ST. PETERSBURG, 6/18 _November_, 1836.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—Much water has run through the Neva since I last
wrote to you, my last letter was dated 5/17th April; the last letter
I received from you was dated Madrid, 23rd May, and I now see with
regret that it is still unanswered; it is, however, a good thing that
I have not written as often to you as I have thought about you, for
otherwise you would have received a couple of letters daily, because
the sun never sets without you, my lean friend, entering into my
imagination. I received the Spanish letter a day or two before I
left for Stockholm, and it made the journey with me, for it was in my
mind to send you an epistle from Svea’s capital, but there were so
many petty hindrances that I was nearly forgetting myself, let alone
correspondence. I lived in Stockholm as if each day were to be my
last, swam in champagne, or rested in girls’ embraces. You doubtless
blush for me; you may do so, but don’t think that that conviction
will murder my almost shameless candour, the only virtue which I
possess, in a superfluous degree. In Sweden I tried to be lovable,
and succeeded, to the astonishment of myself and everybody else. I
reaped the reward on the most beautiful lips, which only too often
had to complain that the fascinating Dane was faithless like the foam
of the sea and the ice of spring. Every wrinkle which seriousness
had impressed on my face vanished in joy and smiles; my frozen heart
melted and pulsed with the rapid beat of gladness; in short, I was
not recognisable. Now I have come back to my old wrinkles, and make
sacrifice again on the altar of friendship, and when the incense,
this letter, reaches you, then prove to me your pleasure, wherever
you may be, and let an echo of friendship’s voice resound from
Granada’s Alhambra or Sahara’s deserts. But I know that you, good
soul, will write and give me great pleasure by informing me that you
are happy and well; when I get a letter from you my heart rejoices,
and I feel as if I were happy, and that is what happiness consists
of. Therefore let your soldierlike letters march promptly to their
place of arms—paper—and move in close columns to St. Petersburg,
where they will find warm winter quarters. I have received a letter
from my correspondent in London, Mr. Edward Thomas Allan, No. 11
North Audley St.; he informs me that my manuscript has been
promenading about, calling on publishers without having been well
received; some of them would not even look at it, because it smelt of
Russian leather; others kept it for three or six weeks and sent it
back with “Thanks for the loan.” They probably used it to get rid of
the moth out of their old clothes. It first went to Longman and
Co.’s, Paternoster Row; Bull of Hollis St.; Saunders and Otley,
Conduit St.; John Murray of Albemarle St., who kept it for three
weeks; and finally it went to Bentley of New Burlington St., who kept
it for SIX weeks and returned it; now it is to pay a visit to a Mr.
Colburn, and if he won’t have the abandoned child, I will myself care
for it. If this finds you in London, which is quite possible, see
whether you can do anything for me in this matter. Thank God, I
shall not buy bread with the shillings I perhaps may get for a work
which has cost me seventy nights, for I cannot work during the day.
In _The Athenæum_, No. 436, issued on the 3rd March this year, you
will find an article which I wrote, and in which you are referred to;
in the same paper you will also find an extract from my translation.
I hope that article will meet with your approbation. Ivan
Semionewitch sends his kind regards to you. I dare not write any
more, for then I should make the letter a double one, and it may
perhaps go after you to the continent; if it reaches you in England,
write AT ONCE to your sincere friend,

J. P. HASFELD.

My address is, Stieglitz and Co., St. Petersburg.

* * * * *

ST. PETERSBURG, 9_th_/21_st_ _July_, 1842.

DEAR FRIEND,—I do not know how I shall begin, for you have been a
long time without any news from me, and the fault is mine, for the
last letter was from you; as a matter of fact, I did produce a long
letter for you last year in September, but you did not get it,
because it was too long to send by post and I had no other
opportunity, so that, as I am almost tired of the letter, you shall,
nevertheless, get it one day, for perhaps you will find something
interesting in it; I cannot do so, for I never like to read over my
own letters. Six days ago I commenced my old hermit life; my sisters
left me on the 3rd/15th July, and are now, with God’s help, in
Denmark. They left with the French steamer _Amsterdam_, and had two
Russian ladies with them, who are to spend a few months with us and
visit the sea watering-places. These ladies are the Misses Koladkin,
and have learnt English from me, and became my sisters’ friends as
soon as they could understand each other. My sisters have also made
such good progress in your language that they would be able to arouse
your astonishment. They read and understand everything in English,
and, thank you, very much for the pleasure you gave them with your
“Targum”; they know how to appreciate “King Christian stood by the
high mast,” and everything which you have translated of languages
with which they are acquainted. They have not had more than sixty
real lessons in English. After they had taken ten lessons, I began,
to their great despair, to speak English, and only gave them a Danish
translation when it was absolutely necessary. The result was that
they became so accustomed to English that it scarcely ever occurs to
them to speak Danish together; when one cannot get away from me one
must learn from me. The brothers and sisters remaining behind are
now also to go to school when they get home, for they have recognised
how pleasant it is to speak a language which servants and those
around one do not understand. During all the winter my dearest
thought was how, this summer, I was going to visit my long, good
friend, who was previously lean and who is now fat, and how I should
let him fatten me a little, so as to be able to withstand better the
long winter in Russia; I would then in the autumn, like the bears, go
into my winter lair fat and sleek, and of all these romantic thoughts
none has materialised, but I have always had the joy of thinking them
and of continuing them; I can feel that I smile when such ideas run
through my mind. I am convinced that if I had nothing else to do
than to employ my mind with pleasant thoughts, I should become fat on
thoughts alone. The principal reason why this real pleasure journey
had to be postponed, was that my eldest sister, Hanna, became ill
about Easter, and it was not until the end of June that she was well
enough to travel. I will not speak about the confusion which a sick
lady can cause in a bachelor’s house, occasionally I almost lost my
patience. For the amount of roubles which that illness cost I could
very well have travelled to America and back again to St. Petersburg;
I have, however, the consolation in my reasonable trouble that the
money which the doctor and chemist have received was well spent. The
lady got about again after she had caused me and Augusta just as much
pain, if not more, than she herself suffered. Perhaps you know how
amiable people are when they suffer from liver trouble; I hope you
may never get it. I am not anxious to have it either, for you may do
what the devil you like for such persons, and even then they are not
satisfied. We have had great festivals here by reason of the
Emperor’s marriage; I did not move a step to see the pageantry;
moreover, it is difficult to find anything fresh in it which would
afford me enjoyment; I have seen illuminations and fireworks, the
only attractive thing there was must have been the King of Prussia;
but as I do not know that good man, I have not very great interest in
him either; nor, so I am told, did he ask for me, and he went away
without troubling himself in the slightest about me; it was a good
thing that I did not bother him.

J. P. H.

* * * * *

ST. PETERSBURG, 26_th_ _April_/8_th_ _May_, 1858.

DEAR FRIEND,—I thank you for your friendly letter of the 12th April,
and also for the invitation to visit you. I am thinking of leaving
Russia soon, perhaps permanently, for twenty-seven years are enough
of this climate. It is as yet undecided when I leave, for it depends
on business matters which must be settled, but I hope it will be
soon. What I shall do I do not yet know either, but I shall have
enough to live on; perhaps I shall settle down in Denmark. It is
very probable that I shall come to London in the summer, and then I
shall soon be at Yarmouth with you, my old true friend. It was a
good thing that you at last wrote, for it would have been too bad to
extend your disinclination to write letters even to me. The last
period one stays in a country is strange, and I have many persons
whom I have to separate from. If you want anything done in Russia,
let me know promptly; when I am in movement I will write, so that you
may know where I am and what has become of me. I have been ill
nearly all the winter, but now feel daily better, and when I get on
the water I shall soon be well. We have already had hot and thundery
weather, but it has now become cool again. I have already sold the
greater part of my furniture, and am living in furnished apartments
which cost me seventy roubles per month; I shall soon be tired of
that. I am expecting a letter from Denmark which will settle
matters, and then I can get ready and spread my wings to get out into
the world, for this is not the world, but Russia. I see you have
changed houses, for last year you lived at No. 37. With kindest
regards to your dear ones, I am, dear friend, yours sincerely,

JOHN P. HASFELD.