The applications will never end. It is a penance. Only the prideful ask for happiness every few moments.

But there are Russians! I could not bring myself to read more Dostoevsky quite yet. It seemed a betrayal to the brilliance of the last book. Happily, after a dodgy introduction that confused essentialisms and nonessentialisms, Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes satisfies the part that cannot completely abandon a mystic civilization. Things I want to remember about l'histoire russe:

Three Dates and You're Gold, for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries at least:

1. 1703 Peter (emphatically not Pyotr) the Great founds Petersburg in the middle of a swampy river: "Here shall be a town." For the rest of the eighteenth century, more or less, the Russian aristocracy strives to be more like the European aristocracy, adopting wigs, parlours, manners for everything, and, yes, French. Petersburg is treated with suspicion and awe by artists: it has no roots in the ground, you see.
2. 1812 Napoleon invades. This puts a damper on the French, mostly. The Russian aristocracy tries to be more "Russian." (The serfs continue to work). The rich develop several ways of going about imagining an identity: "The time has come to stop running after others; we must take a fresh and frank look at ourselves; we must understand ourselves as we really are; we must stop lying and find the truth" (Chaadaev, First Letter). Indeed.
a. The Slavophiles: Very broadly, Russia is fifteenth century Muscovitism . Look thee to the peasants and the Orthodox church, to sacrifice and humility. There will ye find the mother country. And patriarchy and sometimes monarchism.
b. The Decembrists: After fighting with the peasants in France, a few nobles discover that serfs are people too. Like the Slavophiles, they decide that Russia belongs to the peasants, but in a sort of liberal European Enlightenment sort of way. Which brings us to....
3.1825 In what has to be one of the most botched attempts at a coup d'etat in history, the Decembrists rather politely try to overthrow Tsar Alexander, who did warn them. ('Pay more attention to your troops and a little less to my government, which, I am sorry to say, my dear prince, is none of your business'). A few technically illegal hangings and lots of hard labour in Sibera were meeted out. Which, in its turn, brings us to....

The Love Stories.

Sergei Voldonsky was perhaps the Decembrist who was closest to the court, coming from one of Russia's pre-eminent families. When sentenced to twenty years in the hinterland, his wife, Maria nee Raevsky, decided to drop everything (which was a considerable amount) and follow him. Princess Maria was beautiful and charming; Pushkin, who was not really in the habit of falling in love, got pretty close with her:

How I envied the waves--
Those rushing tides in tumult tumbling
To fall about her feet like slaves!
I longed to join the waves in pressing
Upon those feet these lips...caressing. (Eugene Onegin)

Maria had been married to Sergei for all of a year and most of that time he had been busy conspiring. She could have easily applied for annulment. Here, then, is sacrifice and humility for you. To Siberia she went. Sergei became an eccentric muddy farmer and they eventually stopped speaking.

Speaking...of sacrifice...Love Story Number Two. If there was a family greater than the Volkonskys, it was the Sheremetevs. Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, a notorious womanizer, did a lot for opera in the eighteenth century. (Remember, Russia was Europeanizing). He also fell in love with an opera star, Prakovya. Alas, she was a serf. He sacrificed everything and married her. (Well, he hedged for a few years during which time she caught tuberculosis. But really, he finally did, in 1805). Abandoned by society! Disowned by family! All for the dear, moral soparano who died very quickly. Nikolai devoted the rest of his life to good deeds:

"My taste and passion for rare things was a form of vanity, like my desire to charm and surprise people's feelings with things they had never seen or heard...It did not leave the remotest impression on my soul. What is all this splendour for?"

For my next trick, I will bring cookies as an offering of love to a strong woman with strong opinions.